[Salon] Concerns about the Ukraine conflict addressed

FM: John Whitbeck

Last night, I received the following email from an old friend:

"John, Do I understand that you think Putin's invasion of Ukraine was justified by Russia's security concerns? Similarly that the takeover of Crimea and sending troops into Georgia, Moldavia and Eastern Ukraine was justified because many of the residents preferred to be independent or part of Russia? Did the West really provoke all of this? I am truly puzzled and troubled by what you are saying. All best, _____."

Since some of my other distinguished recipients may have similar concerns, I am transmitting below my response to him.

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Dear _____,

The break-up of the Soviet Union left a lot of messy loose ends, with millions of former Soviet citizens suddenly finding themselves members of minorities in new countries in which they were unhappy to find themselves.

I believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been illegal, unjustified and tragically unnecessary.

I also believe that it was provoked by the U.S./NATO, which clearly preferred a Russian invasion, which has predictably revitalized NATO, to being perceived to make any meaningful concessions to Russia's mutual security concerns, many of which were reasonable and could and should have been the subject of serious win-win negotiations toward an improved European security structure in which all countries could feel reasonably secure.

The reintegration into the Russian Federation of Crimea, where, by treaty, more Russian troops than Ukrainian troops were already stationed in 2014, so that no "invasion" was necessary, was accomplished bloodlessly in a careful, five-step process, involving a popular referendum and legislative actions in Crimea and Russia, and, in light of the decision of the International Court of Justice in the Kosovo case, did not violate international law. Crimea's separation from Ukraine, like Kosovo's separation from Serbia after 77 days of NATO bombing of Serbia in flagrant violation of international law, was clearly in accordance with the wishes of most of the people living there. It would not have happened without the 2014 anti-Russian coup, which made it inevitable, since Russia's only warm-water naval base is located there and could scarcely continue to exist on the territory of a country allied with or a member of a military alliance whose raison d'être is hostility toward Russia. That should have been obvious to the U.S. government.

The Russian separatists in the Donbass were provoked to revolt by the coup and the immediate suppression of Russian as a national language by the post-coup regime. Russia permitted or encouraged Russian soldiers to take leave, out of uniform, to support the secessionists but did not formally send in its armed forces -- perhaps with a view to not violating, at least in form, international law.

In 2008, Georgia's mentally unbalanced president Saakashvili (currently imprisoned) sent his troops into South Ossetia, which had seceded from Georgia and been effectively independent since a Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1992. Russian troops responded by driving them out, proceeded briefly into Georgia proper and then withdrew. Subsequently, Russia recognized both South Ossetia and Abkhazia (the other separatist region of Georgia) as independent states, which it had not previously done. The situation there has been basically stable ever since.

Russian troops have been stationed in Transnistria, the secessionist, non-Moldovan-speaking eastern strip of Moldova, since 1992 as peacekeepers pursuant to the ceasefire agreement between Moldova and Transnistria. I have visited both Moldova proper and Transnistria. The situation appears to be stable, and no one there seems particularly bothered by it. Sherif Tiraspol, perpetual champions of the Moldovan football league, are the home team of the Transnistrian capital of Tiraspol -- and reached the final 32 knock-out round of the Champions League this year. Russia has not recognized Transnistria as an independent state.

I believe that Russia acted very responsibly and constructively in forcing Azerbaijan to accept a new ceasefire after its recent attempt to reconquer its ethnic-Armenian separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had seceded from Azerbaijan and been effectively independent since a Russian-mediated ceasefire in 1994 and which I have also visited, and in basing Russian peacekeepers there to keep the peace ever since. Russia has not recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state.

You may recall that Russia's primary demands with respect to Ukraine prior to its invasion were for Ukraine to accept the status of neutrality and to implement its obligations under the Minsk II Agreement and UN Security Council Resolution 2202, which called for negotiating a high degree of autonomy for the Donbass region under Ukrainian sovereignty. Whatever terms are negotiated or new reality is imposed when this war ends (the sooner the better) will be substantially less advantageous territorially to Ukraine. The West has done the Ukrainian people no favor by leading them down the primrose path as a pawn to be sacrificed in furtherance of the West's own geopolitical rivalry with Russia.

Personally, I preferred the bipolar world in which we grew up, in which the Soviet Union and the United States deterred each other from doing really stupid things, like waging major wars of aggression against other sovereign states.

As I have recently written (https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/24/the-territorial-integrity-of-states-vs-the-self-determination-of-peoples/), there is a perpetual tension between the inconsistent principles of the territorial integrity of states and the self-determination of peoples. Nowhere is this tension more acute than in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. These situations are not black and white. They are complicated and difficult.

I hope that I have been responsive to your concerns.

All best wishes to you and ____,
John