Showing posts with label sanctions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanctions. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Don't be right; Be smart !





I must confess I don't feel comfortable with USA's initiative of imposing sanctions on Russia. For one thing, it could escalate to something very bad for the world.

After all, Russia is not just another country; she's a superpower. It's  insulting to act as if Russia's some kind of naughty child who has to be punished.   Moreover, there was no obvious reason for sanctions,  as there was practically no invasion of Crimea, and no bloodshed. 

All the mistakes, all the wrong moves, including human casualties, were done by Ukrainean nationalists.
The latter have almost asked for trouble. They started to talk  about covering Ukraine's territory with Nato bases. Yes, Nato on the russian doorstep!.  And of course, there were  demonstrations  which brought about the overthrow of president Victor Yanukovich.

All this took place, while Russia was subsidising the gas she was selling to Ukraine and transferring a lot of cash to help its failing economy.

The strategic Crimean peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea,  with its historically significant  cities of Sevastopol and Yalta, was not originally part of Ukraine; it was given to her as a symbolic present in 1954. 
Its inhabitants are mostly russians. There was no need for Putin's soldiers to invade the peninsula,  as its residents  widely opened the borders and the doors to them.

Anyway, it's a regional conflict involving Russia and Ukraine over control of the Crimean Peninsula;  that is, it was - regional , until the americans decided they want some kind of "russian spring" after the so-called arab spring.

Maybe the americans and their western  followers thought they were right with imposing  sanctions.  I hardly think they were smart.