The West and the Ukraine misadventure

The new and fidgety Ukrainian government in Kiev, realising that it had unleashed the dragon on itself,  had asked for the West to live up to its diplomatic obligations of defending it against Russia.  But what can the West really do? In 2008, Russian President Putin had allegedly declared that if Ukraine were to join […]

The new and fidgety Ukrainian government in Kiev, realising that it had unleashed the dragon on itself,  had asked for the West to live up to its diplomatic obligations of defending it against Russia.  But what can the West really do? In 2008, Russian President Putin had allegedly declared that if Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia could contend to annex the Ukrainian East and Crimea. Prophetically, Putin has just accomplished his threat.
Russia genuinely believes that fellow Russians in Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea are under threat from Neo-Nazi fascists actively embedded in the new Ukrainian administration in Kiev. Western argument to the contrary cannot satisfy Russia, especially after the reappraisal killings that took place in Libya and Egypt under the watch of the West. Western sabre -rattling can neither save Ukraine not really deter Russia from its existential obligations to defend itself and fellow Russians across the border. Talks of isolating Russia, imposing economic sanctions or other threats being bandied about by Western diplomats are as hollow as they sound.
Western predicament about events in Ukraine is a bi-product of Western failure to come to terms with the dynamics of Russo-Ukrainian history   and the introduction by the West of a new culture of Western imperialism based on democratic gangsterism. This dangerous trend where the West finances and gives diplomatic cover to anarchists to occupy capitals of nations in a bid to oust democratically elected governments, had been seen at play in Egypt, Libya, Iran and now Ukraine. Well, it seems that Western rascality has met its match in Ukraine.
 Historically, Ukraine share with Russia cultural, economic and political ties in a way it can never do with the Western Europe. More than half of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians while the remaining have more in common with Russians than they have with Western Europe. Geographically domiciled in the Russian orbit, Ukraine was part of the Kievan Rus State, the predecessor of both Russia and Ukraine. Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is indeed often referred to as the mother of Russia cities or a cradle of the Russian civilization. After limbo in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukraine was again reunited with Russian state by the Treaty of Pereyslab in 1654. By the late 18th Century Ukrainian was completely absorbed into the Russian Empire. In 1922 Ukraine and Russia were two of the founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and were the signatories to the treaty that ended the union in December 1991.
Though relations between the two nations have been difficult since the collapse of the USSR, largely due to Western cold war mentality, Russia had continued to bankroll Ukraine, supplying her with cheap energy and loans. The west on the other hand had consistently engaged in ideological brinkmanship that seeks to polarize western and eastern Ukraine while openly preaching the gospel of a united Ukraine. Its strategy had been the dangling of the carrot of economic prosperity before Ukraine and promises of a watertight guarantee against perceived Russian aggression. As in all such Western overtures, they come with a high potential costs for Ukraine. The so called EU Ukrainian pact that Yunukovych reneged on for instance, would have fallen apart on its own because of the stringent and self destructive reforms Ukraine must make to bring it to futility.
The other reason for Western helplessness is the rise of gangster democracy where thugs financed and supported by Western governments use anarchy to oust legitimate governments considered to be in the bad books of the West. By this dangerous trend, Western democracy had come full circle. Despite claims that it is the best system of governance known to mankind, democracy in the West has returned to its barbaric origin. It had finally come to terms with its inherent capacity for anarchy. For years, even in the most democratic nations of the world, what had passed for democracy had nothing to do with the will of the people, but mass anarchy where a simple majority no matter how acquired became a licence for dictatorship in the hands of a few. In other parts of the world where the West act as merchants of democracy, the situation is even more obnoxious. In one country after another, we have witnessed instances where otherwise stable countries were infested with the virus of democratic anarchy to cause their destruction.
In Libya, under the pretext of the so called Arab Spring, Gaddafi was killed and his country destroyed, perhaps forever. Today Libya has exchanged a dictator that provided food, shelter and security for gun-wielding anarchists without a clue. A similar scenario is at play in Syria where Western sponsored rejects masquerading as gun for hire Islamist jihadists are engaged in a bloody and senseless war against the people of Syria. But the West might argue that Gaddafi and Assad are dictators who have no place in the modern world. But what about Morsi in Egypt and Yunukovych in Ukraine? The two leaders were democratically elected by their people. (Observers of global diplomatic trends have always known that it’s a matter of time before the West became victim of its own creation when t it makes the mistake of taking its antics to the Russian orbit. The West had thought to do in Ukraine what it got away with in Egypt. Now it knows better.
The clear victim of the Ukrainian crisis however is the United Nations. Whereas the rest of the world sees the ouster of Yanukovych as a coup sponsed by the West against a democratically elected government, Ban Ki-Moon has chosen to play the Ostrich. He has again as he had done repeatedly brought the integrity of the Word body to disrepute, leaving no in doubt that he is a Western stooge.

Yelwa wrote from Abuja