After a solid week of US officials berating them, Russian officials came to the table with Ukraine’s interim government, offering a proposal of “mediation.”
The proposal included calls for dramatic revisions to the Ukrainian constitution, something US officials had also endorsed yesterday. Despite this, Ukrainian officials reacted with outrage, and condemned the proposal as “unacceptable.”
The Russian proposal sought the constitutional revision to grant broad levels of autonomy to individual provinces within the country, and also to cement the nation as permanently neutral militarily.
Ukrainian officials are more interested in railing at the Crimean referendum yesterday, though that seems to be a done deal, with an overwhelming majority backing accession into the Russian Federation and Russia formally recognizing their independence.
How long before the coup-installed collection of mismatched ideologies implode? A coalition with such disparate goals cannot stand long and so soon the strongest – or boldest – will climb over the bodies of their "partners" and take control..the meek should not apply.
The interim government only has to last until the 25 May elections are held. At that point, the various factions will find out what kind of strength they have in the electorate and the elected government will reflect those strengths. If, for any rason, the election doesn'tt take place, then we would know that the neocons are deliberately trying to provoke nuclear war.
Then you won't be surprised when the elections are cancelled because of "unrest" in the provinces. I don't expect the ruling coalition to allow itself to be "voted" out so soon – they've had so little time to line their pockets and overseas bank accounts.
The Ukrainians will probably have to accept this. I would imagine that the US will give them little choice. For the EU, this is sweet music indeed. Ukraine was NATO's Munich and NATO cut and ran. Gone is any idea that NATO will defend Europe. That is Putin's (and the EU's!) greatest triumph. The American attempt to assimilate the EU and NATO has blown completely apart. The European members of NATO have never had any intention of allowing Ukraine to join NATO unless Russia was allowed to join at the same time. That is the obvious solution to all the problems: a purely European defence arrangement with Russia a full member of it.
Russia is offering the Ukraine a chance to keep its eastern provinces. Ukraine should be jumping at that chance. Because the other alternative is that those eastern provinces will follow the Crimea to Russia. And, if later on this escalates some more, remember which country was trying to offer a compromise and willing to give up the annexation of eastern Ukraine, and which country said no.
Mediation is the answer. There are layers and layers of complexity and not-yet-thought-of "real interests" to be explored. The rough outlines of a deal seem within sight, probably including letting Crimea go; some kind of "compromise" re the economic-alignment issues, perhaps a promise of neutrality, and no more incursions into eastern Ukraine. But I'm no expert. The main point is that negotiation and mediation are the answers.