Not 'Putinism' but simply 'fascism'

Peter Leonard informs us that,

  "Ukraine's president [Poroshenko (left)] said at a high-level

   summit with European Union officials Monday that his

   country will be able to meet conditions to apply for EU

   membership within five years." (AP: Yahoo News: 28 

   April, 2015) (my emphasis)

  Poroshenko's statement indicates not only the determination  of Ukraine to completely break with its Soviet past but, more importantly, its determination to completely overhaul its political and economic structures to conform to the stringent requirements of EU membership.

It is precisely these stringent EU political and economic requirements that is angering Putin, since it will throw into sharp relief the corrupt nature of Russian state and business investments in Ukraine since Ukraine became an independent nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

AP (US News) reports that,

"Russian investigators have opened a new corruption case against subcontractors building a space center where workers have gone unpaid for months and have appealed directly to President Vladimir Putin for help.....

.......

The Interior Ministry on Wednesday said its investigators had uncovered embezzlement of 50.5 million rubles (nearly $1 million) by one of the subcontractors, in addition to embezzlement by a separate contractor uncovered earlier." (AP (US News) : April 22, 2015) (my emphasis)

Even more disconcerting,

  "Prosecutors have called for ex-businesswoman Yevgeniya

  Vasilyeva (left) to be given a suspended sentence for her part

  in fraud schemes that  cost the state 3 billion rubles ($59

  million) after earlier demanding  an eight-year prison

  sentence, a news  report said." (Moscow Times : Apr.  24

   2015) (my emphasis)

This is but the tip of an iceberg of corruption in Russia, and it is a practice of corruption that Russia has exported to Ukraine since it became independent on 24 August 1991, until Euro-Maidan in 2014, and which Poroshenko is now tackling in Ukraine head-on.

As Armine Sahakyan (right) has reported,

" Russia has long exported the mentality that corruption is not only fine but is the way of doing things. Transparency International recently gave Russia a corruption rating of 136 out of the 177 countries it follows—placing Russia at the top 25 percent of countries that are the most corrupt." (Diplomatic Courier : Mar 30, 2015) (my emphasis)

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Ukraine that changing national legislation to prepare for the [EU-Ukraine trade] agreement would trigger "an immediate response from Moscow." (Rikard Jozwiak ) (my emphasis)

To which, quite rightly, Poroshenko has stated that,

  " ..... Russia is not a party to the Association

    Agreement and has no right to interfere."(ibid

  Rikard Jozwiak) (my emphasis)

  With this in mind, is it any wonder

   that  Putin and his kleptocratic

  'clan' are more than worried now that Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arsenii Yatseniuk (right), has categoricaly stated that,

"There is no doubt that effective Jan. 1, 2016 the agreement on free trade zone between Ukraine and the EU will commence work." (Censor.net : 27.04.15)

Ukraine will therefore have to institute all the necessary EU rules and regulations governing its trade with both EU and non-EU countries. 

Russian corruption simply cannot conform to the rules and regulations that Ukraine will have to adopt once it fully implements its free trade Association Agreement with the EU.

  This throws into rather sharp relief just why the

  "Putinversteher" Walter Steinmeier (left),

 

  "...called for a resumption of three-way talks between

  the EU, Ukraine, and Russia in order to identify

  "practical solutions"(ibid Rikard Jozwiak) to the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which has correctly been rejected by Poroshenko.

The potential loss of trade between Ukraine and Russia will, for Ukraine, be more than offset by its trade with the EU that the Association Agreement will set in motion. 

Putin's Russia, however, will have to find new trade outlets to compensate for its loss of trade with Ukraine. This will have to be done by Putin against a backdrop of Russia experiencing ever growing economic problems.

As Stratfor Global Intelligence explains,

"With Russia entering its second recession in six years, the country's economic and financial hardships are starting to weigh on the Russian people and regional governments. In times of severe economic crisis, such as those in 1905 and 1998, the Russian populace and regional authorities traditionally react against federal authority, fragmenting the country. Those in power in Moscow understand this and are taking measures to ensure that they counter and prevent any social or regional backlash and dissent." (Stratfor Global Intelligence : April 3, 2015)

Stratfor Global Intelligence reveals the following:

• massive capital flight of $160 billion in 2014 and an estimated $80 billion in 2015, a volatile ruble ...... and a likely federal budget deficit of approximately $45 billion in 2015
• The Russian people are starting to feel the pain. In March, inflation skyrocketed from just under 7 percent the previous month to nearly 17 percent
• Another area of dissatisfaction among the Russian people is the closure of medical facilities in some regions, such as Moscow, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok
• Sporadic minor protests have also taken place across Russia during the past month. Communist Party members in Stavropol got in coffins to protest their regional government's low pension payouts. In Novosibirsk, farmers dumped manure in front of state-run Sberbank with signs saying, "Bankers are enemies of the people," and, "Down with credit slavery."
• The Kremlin is concerned that the worsening economic situation could force some of the regional leaders to break with some of the federal government's strategies, such as how to handle protests, or how to allocate funds or pay taxes

  Levada released a poll on March 31 that indicated 45

  percent of Russians think the crackdowns that Soviet

  leader Josef  Stalin conducted during economic 

  hardships were justified — a sharp rise from just 25

  percent in 2013

Alexander J. Motyl  (right) writes that,

"A growing number of Russian analysts, in Russia and abroad, have taken to calling Vladimir Putin's regime "fascist." And they don't use the term casually or as a form of opprobrium. They mean that Putin's Russia genuinely resembles Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany." (Atlantic Council : April 23, 201) (my emphasis)

Without being framed within the Soviet ideology that governed Stalin's crackdowns, Putin's ideological 'frame' within which his 'crackdowns' are framed 'mirrors' the ideological frame of the actions of Hitler and Mussolini.

(to be continued)