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Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands
There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a central government in a finlandized Ukraine. Putin had offered this "off-ramp" from the escalation and Obama has taken it.
The Russian announcement:
Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in Ukraine: Russian ministry
(Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on Sunday to seek a solution to crisis in Ukraine by pushing for constitutional reforms there, the Russian foreign ministry said.
It did not go into details on the kind of reforms needed except to say they should come "in a generally acceptable form and while taking into the account the interests of all regions of Ukraine".
…
"Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to continue work to find a resolution on Ukraine through a speedy launch of constitutional reform with the support of international community," the ministry said in a statement.
The idea of "constitutional reform" and the "interests of all regions" is from the Russians as documented in this Russian" non-paper".
The non-paper describes the process of getting to a new Ukrainian constitution and sets some parameters for it. Russian will be again official language next to Ukraine, the regions will have high autonomy, there will be no interferences in church affairs and the Ukraine will stay politically and militarily neutral. Any autonomy decision by the Crimea would be accepted. This all would be guaranteed by a "Support Group for Ukraine" consisting of the US, EU and Russia and would be cemented in an UN Security Council resolution.
It seems that Kerry and Obama have largely accepted these parameters. They are now, of course, selling this solution as their own which is, as the "non-paper" proves, inconsistent with the reality.
Here is Kerry now suddenly "urging Russia" to accept the conditions Russia had demanded and which Kerry never mentioned before:
Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to return its troops in Crimea to their bases, pull back forces from the Ukraine border, halt incitement in eastern Ukraine and support the political reforms in Ukraine that would protect ethnic Russians, Russian speakers and others in the former Soviet Republic that Russia says it is concerned about.
In a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, their second since unsuccessful face-to-face talks on Friday in London, Kerry urged Russia "to support efforts by Ukrainians across the spectrum to address power sharing and decentralization through a constitutional reform process that is broadly inclusive and protects the rights of minorities," the State Department said.
Obama has given up. His empty threats had now worked and he now has largely accepted the Russian conditions for the way out of the crisis.
The U.S. plot to snatch the Ukraine from Russia and to integrate it into NATO and the EU seems to have failed. Russia taking Crimea and having 93% of the voters there agree to join Russia has made the main objective of the U.S. plans, to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol and thereby out of the Middle East, impossible.
The Russian (non public) threat to also immediately take the eastern and southern provinces from the Ukraine has pushed the U.S. into agreeing to the Russian conditions mentioned above. The only alternative to that would be a military confrontation which the U.S. and Europeans are not willing to risk. Despite the anti-Russian campaign in the media a majority of U.S. people as well as EU folks are against any such confrontation. In the end the U.S. never held the cards it needed to win this game.
Should all go well and a new Ukrainian constitution fit the Russian conditions the "west" may in the future well be allowed to pay for the monthly bills Gazprom will keep sending to Kiev.
It will take some time to implement all of this. What dirty tricks will the neocons in Washington now try to prevent this peaceful outcome?
I’m still careful.
Sure, a 85%+ turnout and a 95%+ vote is a clear success for Crimea.
But as I said, that doesn’t mean Crimea is Russian as per next weak. According to first (positive and hopeful) statements (by Crimea) it will take about a year to implement it.
I personally consider the current situation as premature and quite open. After all, what has *really* and realiter been achieved is hardly more than an expected anyway Crimea ref. result and the impression of a certain reluctance on zusas side to stupidly go ahead on a path that has shown multiple times fruitless.
There are stll major stones to move and more or less acute problems. To name some:
– Currently, nobody seems to (be able to) control the de facto power of the nazis. I do not think it’s as simple as saying zusa payed them, zusa stops them. In fact, I think that one major factor in zusas recent reluctance is exactly that; they unleashed those dogs but they by no means control them. Actually the problems starts with the “them”. There is no “them”, they are factioned groups without a central leadership.
– both zusa and zeu had very big snouts and will certainly not simply change to constructive and friendly mode, if alone to not look as foolish and the losers they actually are. One can’t threaten with sanctions and then suddenly drop that line.
One important question will be whether – and if so, which – ways zusa and zeu find to tone their screaming down and to create some sanctions that can save their face somewhat yet dont seriously piss off Russia.
– Someone will have to clean up ukraine and pay the bill. I’m expecting *no* party to be eager taking that job. Actually I think that major parts of the “neutral observers” ideas floating around are actually polit-lingo for ukraines regime not having any real power and nobody wanting to clean up. From Russias side it looks simple; “neutral observers” means weztern forces dressed in a neutral groups uniform and Russian observers observing those weztern “neutral observers”.
Whoever does what, in the end the current ukraine is not a viable state capable to even survive. So some parties must take care of that and Russia certainly won’t pay for zusas/zeus shit operations.
– ukraine being neutral politically (forget it) and militarily.
Funny, that, exactly that (not to happen), was the very fucking reason for the whole mess to be ignited by zusa/zeu. Even funnier, there *already exist* agreements that ukraine must stay neutral and not become a zato member. Well, Russia certainly learned about the worth of a zusa signature.
Yet Russia demands it again. Sure, Putin isn’t stupidly believing in the power of a second worthless signature.
So, why does he demand it? Interesting question with lots of TNT trouble for the wezt in it.
– sanctions, vol. 2. Before anything whatsoever moves Russia will have a very close look at how zusa/zeu solve the sanctions problems they blurringly created. Every fucking $ of damage created in or against Russia will be found to be a nice little grenade under zusas/zeus asses.
– Military. zato has “excercises” coming up with ukraine. Will zusa bow and cancel those? If not there is no table for Russia to negotiate at.
– autonomy. What Putin actually means is something similar to what Crimea had but for every southern/eastern region. Of course, looking from the wezt that means no less than give Russia the keys to half of ukraine and the means to take those regions away whenever it so pleases Russia. Even more it also means that kiev and the central government will be basically degraded to a service station without much power.
On the other hand, that probably looks still more attractive to zusa/zeu than losing the economic core of ukraine (along with acess to the sea) right away.
Plus some “nice” little bombs floating around such as a no-hostilities until march 21. agreement with ukraine which already broke it and still brakes it by moving heavy mil. equipment around toward the Russian border.
I think Putins position is pretty clear. It basically comes down to “You started the mess and you pay it and clean it up. Additionally shift your fucking sanctions up your ass and you find a way to convince me that ukraine will never be nato and that your guarantee has any worth. If you don’t like that, I’ll break free the complete sounthern/eastern ukraine and leave you idiots with the worthless rest. And now, fuck off and begin working on a solution, or else …”
For the weztern side it’s not that easy. For one, sure enough zusa and zeu will try to shift as much of the shit packet to each other. Furthermore the understanding of what’s the right way to go, what’s worth how much and who’s interested most and in what is, I guess, very different between zusa and zeu and even within zeu.
The only real common interest is to not look even worse and to not create even more damage for themselves.
merkel is in a particularly bad position. After all, Germany being Russias favourite partner – and certainly very much in need of Russian gas and business orders placed – Putin quite justifiably is extremely pissed off by merkel having had her hands at the match that lit up ukraine and still and up to the last minute showing her ugly, perfidious, criminal face and attitude. Internally merkel has pretty much every industry and business against herself who did not at all like her to risk Germanies business future.
Does any of that mean that Putin lied to or played with Crimea? Certainly not. Crimea will either become part of Russia or – preferably – the core of a new state with the southern/eastern region around itself, and a state, one might add, that would basically be part of Russia in all but formal name.
Or, if one needs a hint, a state (“country” for zamericans) that is an eastern version of Puerto Rico, albeit with a humane, positive, and constructive attitude by the large partner (Russia) rather than merely being a colony to be used and abused at will (zusa).
Oh and btw.: That whole thingy might explode right into yaz, merkels and obamas face if another ethnic Russian is killed by the ukrainian thugs.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 17 2014 8:44 utc | 75
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