Thursday - August 14, 2008

Ukraine imposes restrictions on Russian navy.

Ukraine imposed new restrictions on Russian naval vessels based at Sevastopol on the Black Sea as former Soviet bloc states lined up to show support for Georgia in its fight with Russia.

By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi
Last Updated: 4:51PM BST 14 Aug 2008

President Victor Yushchenko raised the prospect of revoking an agreement that allows Russia to use the Crimean port until 2017 if Russian commanders defy the new restrictions. The presidential decree requires vessels blockading Georgia to ask Kiev’s permission to return to the treaty port.
Reasserting control over its near neighbours is at the heart of Russia’s foreign policy. It has ruthlessly cut winter energy supplies to secure compliance from Eastern Europe and used Russian-speaking minorities from the Baltics to Central Asia as leverage against states courting the West.

Mr Yushchenko joined the leaders of Poland and the Baltic states on a solidarity mission by a self-described group of “captive nations” of the USSR, to Tbilisi on Tuesday.
Even before yesterday’s decree, Mr Yushchenko had faced domestic criticism for adopting positions that inevitably antagonise Moscow. Ukrainian political analyst James Hydzik said the president had put the country in Moscow’s crosshairs. He said: “Protestations of neutrality from the Ukrainian government are not helped by the visit [to Tbilisi], at least from the Russian standpoint.”

Russia has used a mixture of bluster and threats to resist efforts by Georgia and Ukraine to join Nato. But even states that are members of the EU are not immune from Kremlin intimidation. “In the Baltic states and Ukraine, independence is still seen as something fragile and not necessarily built to last,” said Bartosz Cichocki, an expert at the Polish Institute for International Affairs. “So if it’s not defended actively, it can’t last.”

In the aftermath of the Russian assault on Georgia, many former Soviet citizens doubt that the West can restrain Moscow. Even confidence in Nato’s charter guarantee that all states will aid any member attacked from abroad has been shaken. “People are certainly afraid that Russia could attack Lithuania just like Georgia,” said Lithuanian political scientist Kestutis Girnius. “And you see that kind of view among politicians,” The legacy of Soviet domination still haunts Russia’s relations with its former allies. “We came to fight since our old neighbour thinks that it can fight us,” Polish President Lech Kaczynski said in Tbilisi. “This country thinks that old times will come back, but that time is over. Everyone knows that the next one could be Ukraine, then Poland.”

Poland and the three Baltic countries yesterday raised objections to a French ceasefire plan, criticising it for not explicitly guaranteeing Georgia territorial integrity.
Not all ex-Soviet states are anti-Kremlin democracies. But even pliable Belarus, a Soviet-style dictatorship with a mutual support pact with Moscow, was admonished by the Kremlin for not offering enough support.

Moscow has challenged world opinion before, most notoriously its agents used radioactive material to poison defector Andrei Litvinenko in a London hotel. But the Russian operation in Georgia has raised calls to isolate Russia to the forefront of international politics.
Both candidates in the US presidential election have condemned Moscow’s aggression. Senator John McCain had already signalled he would toughen policy towards Russia if elected by securing its expulsion from the G8.

Guided by the foreign policy specialist Robert Kagan, Sen McCain hopes to establish a league of democracies to contain authoritarian states, principally Russia and China.

http://tinyurl.com/6lmuta

Posted by Drew458     on 08/14/2008 at 01:25 PM   
Filed Under: • War-Stories •  
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