Gorbachev and Ukraine

During the celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov 9 2014) , Gorbachev gave a speech at the German Allianz Forum which, amidst all its New World Order propaganda, seems to have been written by Putin himself.

Firstly, he stated that the war in Ukraine is nothing more than a 'fratricidal' conflict in the family of Ukraine, NOT an invasion by Putin's army or his use of his criminal proxies in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Secondly like Merkel, Mogherini, and many members of the EU, he called for Putin's Trojan Minsk Agreement to be the pivot around which the war raging in eastern Ukraine should be resolved, as well as the lifting of the sanctions against Russia.

Thirdly, he glossed over Putin's ranting diatribe against the US and Ukraine in particular at his Valdai Conference, and actually stated that  Putin's speech outlined the basis for a new partnership (New World Order?) between the US, the EU, and Ukraine (minus, of course, the criminally annexed Crimea and the rebel-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine).

                                     

Perhaps most disturbing of all is Gorbachev's assertion that there can be NO SECURITY in Europe without a strong Russian-German partnership.

Here we should all be reminded of Putin's recent remarks regarding the pact between Hitler and Stalin.

 As Tom Parfitt  informed us from Moscow as recently as Nov 6 2014,

"Vladimir Putin says there was nothing wrong with [the] Soviet Union's pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany" (my emphasis)

Hitler                                                    Putin        

We might now say that Merkel could equally pronounce that,

"There is nothing wrong with Germany fully supporting Putin's Trojan Minsk Agreement so that the strong economic relations between a Putin-favoured Germany and Russia can be re-instated as soon as possible."

Putin with Angela Merkel and former German Chancellor Gehard Schroeder

Now if this relationship between Putin and Merkel was not enough,  Aljazeera reported on Nov. 8, 2014 that,

" ....Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry agree at talks in Beijing to exchange information about [the]  situation on Russia-Ukraine border."

Furthermore, that

"Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has welcomed US involvement in resolving the Ukraine crisis, saying it would be a "step in the right direction," in comments that appear to reflect a toning down in bilateral tension that has been at its worst since the end of the Cold War."

Kerry and Lavrov

Is Obama, through Secretary of State Kerry, trying to present the new Republican Senate and House of Representatives, specifically Senator McCain,  the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with a fait accompli regarding his strategy towards Putin and the situation in Ukraine? 

Senator McCain

McCain has stated that,

“Burr and Corker and I will be working closely together on everything,” [he] said. “For example, arms for Ukraine’s [government], examination of our strategy in the Middle East, our assets with regard to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in the region, China’s continued encroachment in the South China Sea.” (Nov 5 2014 [my emphasis]) 

Was Putin's build-up of Russian troops and equipment in the rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine a pre-emptive strike against the outcome of the recent American elections? And why was Gorbachev so deafeningly silent about this invasion of Ukraine by Putin's army?

Mikhail Gorbachev

Maybe it is, as David Blair (Nov 9 2014) so perceptively points out,

"When crowds surged through the Brandenburg Gate, presaging the birth of a new Europe, did America and its allies then bungle the moment and behave in a way that made today’s confrontation with Russia all but inevitable? Put bluntly, did they cheat and humiliate Russia at its moment of weakness, thereby sowing the seeds of President Vladimir Putin’s revanchism? That is certainly the view of Mikhail Gorbachev."

 

In other words, according to Gorbachev, the west is entirely to blame for Putin's war against Ukraine. It all hinges on the expansion of NATO i.e. enlarging its membership to include six previous members of the Warsaw Pact and three former Soviet republics.  Apparently, according to Gorbachev, a unified Germany joining NATO was okay, but all those 'other' former members of the Warsaw Pact should have been denied NATO membership.

NATO

As David Blair points out,

"Six nations broke away from the Warsaw Pact; the Soviet Union, meanwhile, dissolved into 15 successor states. The essence of the revolution in Moscow’s thinking that Mr Gorbachev presided over was his acceptance that each of these countries had every right to go its own way and choose its own path."

Furthermore,

"If Mr Gorbachev really thinks that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia should have been granted a veto over Nato membership for its former satellite states then that is an example of the very Cold War mentality he was supposed to reject. Today, however, that is effectively what Mr Putin seeks. He will not tolerate Ukraine turning West and seeking eventual membership of the European Union, even if that is what most of its people want."

It would now seem that to Putin, Merkel, and Mogherini, we have to add Gorbachev, a member of the Club de Madrid. (Dear readers, may I suggest that if you click on this link you leave it so that you can see the moving scroll of who the ex-prime ministers and ex-president members are.)

(to be continued)