Joe Biden, who completed an eight-year term as Vice-Barack Obama, for the last official visit chose Ukraine. In the three years that have passed since Pro-European revolution in the former Soviet Republic, Joe Biden visited Ukraine at least five times. He kept in constant telephone communication with President Petro Poroshenko, who succeeded fleeing to Russia, Viktor Yanukovych. At first glance, this should have been a visit of farewell to the regime, raised by Washington, as well as method one more time to taunt Russia. But the visit also contained a direct appeal to the new President of the United States Donald Trump.
During the election campaign and after winning the election, Donald trump set out a vision of foreign policy. His position is inconsistent and contradictory, but, in any case, Kiev does not portend anything good. It started when a presidential candidate from the Republican party reacted to the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula as a natural step. “I think that the population of Crimea prefers the Russian government, and it should be considered”, — he explained in an interview in July 2016. As usual, trump is not explained, on what bases his opinion, but perhaps he agreed with the statements of the Kremlin on this issue, and the results are very fast and very unfree referendum held in Crimea a few weeks after Russian troops seized the Peninsula without encountering any resistance from the Ukrainian army.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country’s Crimea has the same significance of what the Temple mount has for Jews and Muslims, and promised to treat the Peninsula, respectively, once and for all. But Western countries did not accept this historical truth, and the United States, the European Union and Canada have imposed sanctions against senior Russian officials and against the economic and military structures, to make clear to Putin the mismatch the seizure of foreign territories the rules of international law in the twenty-first century.
Someone took diplomatic and economic response of Barack Obama, as a weakness, but they seem to have forgotten or ignored a similar situation that occurred in 2008 in Georgia. Republican President George Bush held in Iraq, tens of thousands of American soldiers, but has limited itself to condemning when another former Soviet Republic was defeated in five days of fighting. As happened then in Ukraine, at the time, Russia “bitten” by a neighboring state — the separatist region of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — though in a less formal way.
Despite the criticism of Obama from Republicans and Democrats, the White house reaction to the annexation of Crimea and the war waged by Pro-Russian separatists in the East of Ukraine, was logical and effective. Russia’s economy suffered greatly as a result of measures taken by Western countries to isolate Moscow, but on the battlefield well-equipped and armed separatists stopped at the front line, installed in February 2015 Minsk agreements. The agreement significantly reduced the level of violence. However, trump shows little interest in the annexation of Crimea and disparagingly refers to NATO, which the fragile confidence of Kiev again shaken.
It is difficult to prove a direct connection between the two events, but in recent weeks has increased the intensity of the fighting between the Ukrainian army, begs US about the new weapons, but received only the most basic equipment and instructors, and separatists, armed with Russian weapons. Moscow keeps denying that helps the separatists and sends its troops, despite satellite imagery and a clear position of NATO. Ukraine can be considered the birthplace of false news that spread around the world, including the United States.
Putin has turned the denial of reality in art, even in those cases where the facts are set out in black and white, and who knows that better than trump. The two leaders, who will Friday together to control the world, agree on many things, first and foremost, the reluctance to accept the view of U.S. intelligence on Russia’s help a Republican candidate.
Against this background, it is difficult to try to calm the fears of Kiev to the future. Russia calls Western neighbor paranoid, but Ukraine still considers a full-scale Russian invasion is quite likely. And when the US go in an unknown direction, because, unlike trump, Ministers in his government at a hearing in Congress called Russia a threat and noted the importance of NATO to US security, thereby continuing the line of the previous administration with a minor Republican amendments, Ukraine appealed to international organizations to pursue Russia.
Ukraine this week filed in the Hague lawsuit against Russia, accusing it of supporting terrorism by aiding the separatists. The suit is designed to tighten pressure on Moscow. Experience shows that usually such actions have on Putin the opposite effect, and he can test the waters with a new offensive by the separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk regions or new hacker attacks. Last month’s cyber attack led to a failure in the supply of Kiev.
Soon Ukraine will mark the third anniversary of the Maidan revolution, which was to reconcile it with the European Union and the West. The country was at an important crossroads. The EU is busy with their own problems, including the exit of Britain and the rise of nationalist parties sympathetic to Russia, and the accession to the EU mired in corruption in Ukraine, with its centralization of power is not on the agenda. In addition, many EU member States are beginning to doubt the effectiveness of sanctions, which are detrimental to themselves.
After the last meeting with Biden, Poroshenko warned that Ukraine may lose the credibility of the EU. Frustrated by the reluctance of Brussels to integrate Ukraine is quite understandable against the background of thousands of dead and hit the country split, although it is unclear what the alternative would be for Kiev. Most of all will win the hated Eastern neighbour, with pleasure watching the collapse of world order that was established 25 years ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
