Courtesy of The Automatic Earth.
Dorothea Lange Technocracy, Josephine County, Oregon August 1939
Well, at least these times are not dull. Normally, we would be looking with wary eyes at record unemployment in Italy, deflation in Spain and plummeting French consumer spending. Or at big, smart, institutional money leaving the US housing market. None of these are small matters by themselves, but they are dwarfed by the groups of as yet mysterious militia, mercenaries, whatever they may be, I used the term guerrillas yesterday, that would do, who have taken hold of, first, yesterday, government buildings in the Crimea and then, today, airports.
Yanukovych is due to do a press op today, and I doubt he will address why he ordered his elite troops to shoot and kill dozens of his own people last week, or why and how he was living in the kind of luxury that was found in his not so humble abodes. Which is too bad, because those are precisely the two issues that are giving Putin a headache about siding with him. Yanukovych and his PR crew seem to live in some old forgotten century (pick one), and Putin is not.
And while there can’t be much doubt that the heavily armed mystery men are at least where they are with Putin’s consent (Moskou denies they’re Russian, calls them local defencemen and claims they’ve already left), for him they simply represent the ‘possession is 9/10 of the law’ principle, useful while he decides what to do with Yanukovych. Who perhaps more than anything has become a nuisance, but may still serve a purpose. Putin doesn’t seem likely to answer favorably to Ukraine’s extradition request for Yanukovych – for now he denies even knowing where he is – , though it would be a great publicity coup for him in the eyes of the west.
Thing is, Putin is worried more about how he looks in his own part of the world, comprised of large amounts of tribes, peoples, regions, nations. Divide and rule is by far the best way to go for him. Maybe he’s busy finding or setting up a replacement for Yanukovych, and will then drop him. The one major point for Putin is the pipelines that flow through Ukraine (well, that and his Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol). He will never accept any interference with the rights to the pipelines, nor the revenue Russia derives from them. And of course he can’t be seen leaving Russians alone who live in Ukraine or other countries. Still, one look at the map of the Black Sea and Crimea region says it all, and Putin knows it: nobody will get sole control.
A lot of Europe, including EU members, a lot of Russia and former Soviet republics, and Asia at the doorstep of the door that is secular Turkey. With the Bosporus as the only passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and from there the world. So many parties with so many different interests, it’ll always be a delicate balance, but one for now that works for all. Shift or even poke the balance and who knows what you get?
Yanukovych just did his press op, only 5 minutes or so, with an hour of Q&A. “I intend to continue the fight for Ukraine”, “I’m the legit president”, all the others are thugs, I did not flee, I was never impeached, Putin should come and help me, and why hasn’t he? He wants to return to his elected post. Looks like a man out of his time and zone trying to appear in control. Anyway, he’s brought his country to the brink of default, and blaming, among others, the US for that (which he does) serves little purpose other than domestic ones.
There are a lot of people in Kiev who want to put him on trial for ordering the deaths of dozens of protesters, and who want to know where the billions came from that built his palaces. He won’t be able to just sweep those things aside. Switzerland and Austria have started up proceedings to invest his money trails in their countries, including accusations of money laundering, he’ll have to answer to those things too (denies having any possessions outside of Ukraine). Blaming the US and other western countries for the violence in Kiev is not going to help his case either.
Putin for now is closer to for instance Merkel than to this guy. Civil war in Ukraine means disruption of oil and gas delivery. So no civil war unless he has no other way out. For whatever he gives on Ukraine to the west, he wants something back. Ukraine can maybe apply for EU membership, but they can’t get it for many years into the future. And if the negotiated conditions are good enough for him, Putin will then set up a Ukraine bailout together with the west.
At the present time, Yanukovych, somewhat surprisingly, after accusing the west of instigating his ouster, seems to be chiding Putin for leaving him alone, not sending support, and refusing to meet with him. That makes him a lonely man indeed. And frightened.
