BALTIMORE, Maryland April 18, 2014 - Could it be that President Obama is getting to know the real world of foreign policy? Immediately after the "breakthrough" agreement reached yesterday in Geneva between the Russians, the Ukrainians, the EU and the United States, the President told a reporter that he was taking a wait and see attitude toward whether the crisis has, in fact, been solved. Instead of jumping on board his secretary of State's bandwagon and praising the Geneva agreement as the inevitable outcome of good faith negotiations, he reminded the public of Russian Strong Man Vladimir Putin's penchant for saying something convenient and then not following through on it.
"I don't think we can be sure of anything at this point. There is ... the prospect that diplomacy may de-escalate the situation and that we may be able to move toward what has always been our goal, which is to allow Ukrainians to make decisions about their own lives," Obama was quoted as saying by London's The Guardian. "We're not going to know whether in fact there's follow-through on these statements for several days. My hope is that we do see follow... I don't think given past performance that we can count on that."
Obama was also quoted as saying this about Russia and about Putin: "My hope is that we do see follow... I don't think given past performance that we can count on that." Later, when Obama spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkle, the two agreed that they had to be prepared to move forward quickly with ramped up sanctions if Russia did not uphold its end of the signed agreement. The White House has emphasized several times that Russia actually signed the agreement. According to reports, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put his signature on the Joint Statement.
Events quickly showed the wisdom of Obama's words and of the cautionary stand taken by him and Ms. Mwrkle's cautionary attitude. Separatists in Donetsk, the reputed "Capital" of eastern Ukraine, have out-and-out refused to hand over the buildings they have occupied. One even said he wouldn't leave his building until the new Government in Kiev left theirs.
There was similar belligerance in Donetsk, which is the center of belligerance by ethnic Russians. Until yesterday, that belligerance had the stamp of approval and active encouragement of Putin. In fact, it had Russian manpower in its ranks and running its show in many instances. Reporters documented how uniformed and heavily armed soldiers would storm a building in a manner that gave irrefutible proof that they were trained and drilled to perfection long before taking on the task at hand. Yesterday in Russia, Putin freely admitted for the first time that exactly similar soldiers in Crimea were Russian. The only news about his statement was that he was making it for the first time, the question about who these troops belonged to had not been a mystery for many weeks.
Reporters yesterday in Donetsk interviewed Denis Pushilin, who says he is the leader of the People's Republic of Donetsk. He brashly told those listening, according to the International Business Times, that the Geneva Agreement did not bind his people to anything. Speaking specifically of Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, Pushlin said Lavrov "did not sign anything for us. He signed on behalf of the Russian Federation." According to IBT, Pushlin said his people would not capitulate and would not surrender weapons unless the Kiev government agreed to a Crimea-style referendum on whether the Donetsk region would remain a part of Ukraine or join the Russian Federation.
It was the same Denis Pushlin who yesterday admitted it was his people who distributed the leaflets in Donetsk that instructed all Jewish people older than 16 to register with the government and pay a $50 fee. This particular activity has been criticized all around the world. It reminded many of the runup to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
In the city of Slaviansk, another leader of the Separatists, who told Reuters his name was "Alexi," admitted that the Geneva agreement definetly changed things. It left the Separatists feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under them. They had no inkling that such an agreement was possible going into those talks. "It turns out Vova doesn't love us as much as we thought," he said, using a diminutive term for Putin, who is viewed by many of the separatist militias as their champion and protector.
Or maybe Putin is just biding his time, making it appear as if there were peace. What then is to be made of Thursday's appearance by Putin on Russian TV, where he was anything but a peace maker. It was an extraordinary event for Russians to watch their leader sit and talk to them for over four straight hours. The New York Times has an outstanding summary of the event that is well worth reading in its entirety. But in brief, the Times said this: "Even as the world’s top diplomats were gingerly drafting a tentative accord to “de-escalate tensions” in Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin was on national television here, brashly declaring Russia’s historical claims over Ukrainian territory, reiterating a threat to use military force and generally sounding a defiant, even mocking, tone toward the United States.
Mr. Putin, appearing cool and confident during a four-hour question-and-answer show, referred repeatedly to southeast Ukraine as “New Russia” — a historical term for the area north of the Black Sea that the Russian Empire conquered in the 1700s. And, he said, only “God knows” why the region became part of Ukraine in the 1920s, signaling that he would gladly correct that error." The web site for the entire Times piece is: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/europe/russia-ukraine.html?_r=0
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