Putin's South Ossetia and Abkhazia ploy towards Ukraine

Why is the German Government of Angela Merkel almost pathologically,

" ... alarmed by President Petro Poroshenko’s plan to hold a referendum on Ukraine joining NATO, seeing it as a dead end that would only inflame tensions with Russia."? (Patrick Donahue, Arne Delfs and Ilya Arkhipov: Bloomberg News:26 Nov., 2014)

And not only the government of Angela Merkel. Even the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has recently said on France Inter radio (Nov. 25, 2014) that,

“In recent days there have been a number of statements from the Ukraine side that have not helped,”  (ibid Donahue, Delfs, and Arkhipov) Not helped what?

M. Laurent Fabius, French Minister of Foreign Affairs

The article does not quite say why there are these 'alarms', but one can almost guess that underlying all these 'alarms' on the part of the Germans and the French is their fear about the almost totally unpredictable nature of Putin in this current critical situation between the armies of Russia and Ukraine.    

At the 20th NATO Summit in Bucharest (2008), 

NATO said [that] Russia will have no veto on membership for the two ex-Soviet allies, but many members are loathe to provoke a further row with Moscow on top of a dispute over US plans to place missile defence equipment in the Czech Republic and Poland. (Staff Writers: Berlin (AFP) March 10, 2008)

At this Summit,

"Merkel helped block a U.S. push to put Ukraine on a path to eventual NATO membership in 2008. Last week, [Nov. 17, 2014]  she said she hadn’t changed her mind because beckoning Ukraine into the military alliance [NATO] is “qualitatively different” from bringing the former Soviet republic closer to the European Union" (ibid Donahue, Delfs, and Arkhipov)

Merkel in 2008

Putin in 2008

"Russian President Putin was pleased [in 2008] about the alliance (Merkel?) deciding not to invite Georgia and Ukraine to the Membership Action Plan at least for the time being." (Wikipedia) This was just before Medvedev was elected president of Russia in March of 2008.

Then in August 2008, Russia under President Medvedev invades Georgia, ostensibly to protect the pro-Russian separatist entities of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who were claiming independence from Georgia. (Wikipedia)

    Dmitriy Medvedev                                           Georgian war

Is this past invasion of Georgia by Russia in 2008 now haunting the Germans and the French? They gave in to Putin in 2008, and now that he's back in the presidential 'saddle' 6 years later, their fears of him are practically bubbling over. Because what is now happening in eastern Ukraine, especially in light of  Poroshenko's current plan to hold a referendum on Ukraine joining NATO, is a total repetition of what Medvedev (or was the puppet-master Putin pulling his strings) did to Georgia in 2008. What is now happening in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Crimea, is a taste of things to come in the rebel-held territories of eastern Ukraine lest Putin is stopped.

Now Putin is expanding the Russian military presence in South Ossetia. As reported in the Daily Sabah ( Nov. 28, 2014),

"A new integration treaty is set to be signed between Russia and South Ossetia in order to develop bilateral relations, primarily extending Russian military assistance to the breakaway territory .....thus deepening ties between the separatist enclave and the Moscow government."

Putin in South Ossetia

In  Abkhazia things have moved much further down the line of absorbing it into Putin's Russia. 

In a treaty recently signed between Vladimir Putin and Abkhazian President Raul Khajimba,

"Russia is to fund a 3-year modernization of the Abkhazian army and establish a joint Russian-Abkhazian force. It will also erect defenses along Abkhazia’s border with Georgia to discourage aggression in the future."  (RT: November 25, 2014)

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meets Abkhazian President Raul Khajimba on November 24, 2014

Furthermore,

"Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhum, will work to harmonize its local legislation with the norms of the Eurasian Economic Union, an early EU-like integration project that currently includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia. Kyrgyzstan is considering joining the union."(ibid RT)

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili has claimed that the signed document brings the talks between Russia and Georgia to a deadlock. (Mushvig Mehdiyev: Azernews: 28 November 2014) 

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili

"The treaty, in fact, annexes Georgia's territory to Russia's military, political, social and economic space and turns Abkhazia into part of the Russia territory. That agreement grossly violates the international law," Margvelashvili said. (ibid Mushvig Mehdiyev)

Meanwhile, inside Crimea,

"MailOnline found the desperate region - formerly a bustling tourist resort - preparing for a winter of food shortages, soaring prices, and power cuts. But much more chillingly we found evidence of people being killed for speaking Ukrainian, hounded for being Muslim Tatars and fear even among the residents who support Putin." (Will Stewart And Tanya Sokolova In Crimea For Mailonline: 27 November 2014)

Hounded in the street: MailOnline witnessed firsthand the crackdown in Crimea as this woman was stopped and searched by police who are accused of harassing anyone who opposes Putin (ibid Will Stewart And Tanya Sokolova)

Even Gerard Depardieu, a famous ally of Vladimir Putin, who was asked to become deputy agriculture minister of Crimea, the invaded and annexed region of  Ukrainian , did not accept because of the problems there. (ibid Will Stewart And Tanya Sokolova)

Gerard Depardieu and Vladimir Putin,

As in the case of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Putin is also frantically militarizing Crimea.

“We are very concerned with the militarization of Crimea. We are concerned that the capabilities in Crimea that are being installed will bring an effect on almost the entire Black Sea” (Christof Lehmann  quoting Major Breedlove: NSNBC : Thu, Nov 27th, 2014)

U.S. General Philip Breedlove, NATO Supreme Allied Commander (Kyiv, Nov. 26, 2014)

Are all these militaristic actions of Putin in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, and the rebel-held territories of eastern Ukraine, part of his greater scheme of restoring Russia to its former Soviet Union status in the world? Or is it, as stated in a recent blog entry, that Putin is truly suffering from a 'god-complex', and that this is how it is expressing itself.

Putin addressing Religious Leaders

If so, then it should come as no surprise to anyone that,

"[he] is accused of stealing wine from Crimea's world famous Massandra wine cellars for the best vintages after his victorious occupation in February", and that he wanted the vintner, or wine-maker, Gerard Depardieu, to become deputy agriculture minister of the invaded and annexed region of  Ukrainian Crimea. (ibid Will Stewart And Tanya Sokolova)

Crimea's world famous Massandra wine cellars

Is it, therefore, as Ian Birrell suggests, that,

"The response of western leaders is to pose as tough guys on the public stage while preparing to impose a few minor sanctions on separatists and some Putin cronies. They hope that pressure on Russia’s economy will prevent further escalation, although this might make Putin even more unpredictable. Meanwhile, Moscow continues to ramp up military spending, just as it has done from the moment that Putin, this former KGB apparatchik with Tsarist ambitions, took office – while the Baltic states (members of Nato, remember) grow ever more anxious."? (The Guardian, Thursday 27 November 2014) (my emphasis)

Ian Birrell

One cannot but agree with Ian Birrell's rather succinct analysis of the behaviour of the likes of Merkel and the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, towards Putin's dangerous escalating of the military confrontation between the Ukrainian and Russian armies in eastern Ukraine.

(to be continued)