Polish PM Donald Tusk, today.
From the Moscow Times:
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday it was essential to prevent Russia’s seizure of Crimea expanding into a wider regional conflict."We should be able to stop Russia in its aggressive moves precisely in order to avoid a conflict," Tusk told reporters on Sunday after an extraordinary meeting with party leaders. But he said doing nothing was also not an option."History shows — although I do not want to use too many historical comparisons — that those who appease all the time in order to preserve peace usually only buy a little bit of time." Poland shares a border with Ukraine and large parts of the western part of the country were Polish before World War II. Warsaw’s foreign policy is driven by a fear of its former overlord Russia pushing west into Ukraine and threatening Poland’s own borders. Poland played an important role in brokering the deal that ended violent conflicts between pro-Europe protesters and the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian ally, and that led eventually Yanukovych’s ouster.
There are also reports out there now of the Poles moving troops and equipment east - TOWARDS UKRAINE
July 1914 anyone?
Failure of the USA to lead and have an effective response, and an effective forthright, unequivocal policy could see other actors drive this situation OUT OF CONTROL.
WSJ STREAM TODAY:
The U.S. has tracked “thousands more” Russian troops flowing into Crimea to reinforce Russian positions there, a senior U.S. official said.
WASHINGTON–The U.S. has tracked “thousands more” Russian troops flowing into Crimea on Sunday to reinforce Russian positions there, a senior U.S. official said.
The official also said there has been no violence involving the Russian troops, and no evidence of shots fired. Few other details of the troop movements were available. Russia has thousands of members of its armed forces already stationed in Crimea.
Officials are watching closely to see if Russians are taking positions in other parts of eastern Ukraine, but so far they haven’t. The senior official said that any expansion of Russian forces to other parts of Ukraine would be a “grave further escalation.”
The senior U.S. official added that Russia’s military exercises on its northeastern border with Ukraine appear to be wrapping up. The exercises themselves didn’t involve any further provocations and the forces involved did not encroach on Ukrainian territory, the official said.
Write to Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com
Asked on Sunday if the U.S. had military options on the table to address the crisis, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS television that President Barack Obama “has all options on the table.”
Bob Schieffer then spit his coffee all over the desk.
Nobody, from Obama down, seems to have the vaguest idea of what Crimea is all about. Crimea is part of Ukraine because in he good old days when all of Russia was one big family Russia transferred Crimea to Ukraine mainly because it was easier to administer from there. The only other connection between Ukraine and Crimea was 300 years of the then Muslim Crimeans raiding Ukraine and Russia for slaves. 3 million is the estimate, but since they were white it does not count. In 1850 Russia fought the Ottomans and conquered Crimea. This can be considered another chapter in the Muslim saga because the Muslims of the Crimea are the only ones who want to be part of the Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteIt's BIGGER than that now. It's about force of arms and resistance or not of UKR forces on the spot. It's about the other nations formerly of the USSR like the baltic states and Poland who are LEGITIMATELY scared and what they might do TOGETHER that changes the situation.
ReplyDelete