The strain of Ukraine

Home Opinion The strain of Ukraine

Ukraine is caught between a rock and a hard place.

In this case, the rock is Russia, and the hard place, Germany. According to her spokesman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin that “Ukraine must quickly get a government capable of acting and its territorial integrity must be preserved.”

Translation: Putin and Merkel want Ukraine to have a government that can be influenced, bought, or bullied in the aftermath of its current instability. They would like it to have the same territory, population, and natural resources that it does now.

Merkel’s Germany is the most powerful player in the European Union. Many of the protests that precipitated what can now perhaps be called a Ukrainian revolution called for Ukraine’s enrollment in the EU.

Putin and Russia’s allies are beginning to take the EU seriously. In opposition to it, Russian political theorists have proposed a “Eurasian Union.” This hegemony would stand against the EU as an institution tied together by power, not economic dependency.

The Eurasian Union is not a joke. Belarus and Kazakhstan have already joined. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are candidates for membership. Putin wants this new economic Warsaw Pact to create a “powerful, supra-national union” to rival the EU’s influence in Asia, a prosperous China, and the United States as a world player. In short, Russia wants the Bolshevik band to get back together — under the guise of free trade and mutual support.

So Merkel and Putin want to keep the Ukrainian status quo not because they respect the sovereignty or dignity of Ukraine. Rather, it comes from a mutual desire for something to fight over. Ukraine as a member of the EU becomes a further buffer to expansion of the Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine as a part of the proposed Eurasian Union becomes simply another step toward putting the USSR back together again.

America, and Ukraine’s interim leadership, have pledged to support the “European choice.” Probably, Ukraine will become a part of the EU in the near future. The obvious question is: What will Putin’s countermeasure be?

That is not, however, the only question that requires answering. The world ought to wonder: Will Ukrainians be better off if Ukraine’s ‘territorial integrity’ is preserved?

The predominantly Russian-speaking territories in Ukraine border the Russian Federation. The name Ukraine means “borderland,” and it is just that to those with designs for it — a hinterland possessing the second largest military in Europe, surpassed only by Russia. The Ukrainian ties to Russia cannot be underestimated. In the past few days, violence between the pro-European protesters who triggered this unrest and pro-Russian groups has erupted. The populist movement in Kiev is not necessarily the populist movement of Ukraine.

Should Ukraine then remain a unified state? Clearly, neither Merkel nor Putin want a curtain dividing Ukraine. They both want it all. But perhaps those Ukrainians who desire a government representing their interests would be best served in a Western, European, divided Ukraine, and those Ukrainians who remember with fondness being a satellite in the orbit of a superpower should look east to a Eurasian Union. The borderland would still be there, though the border would be more sharply drawn.