PUTINISM ROUNDUP
Ukraine crisis: Militants, army
face off in east amid soaring tensions – CNN
Ukraine crisis: combat vehicles
with pro-Russian troops enter town – CBC
Ukraine’s crisis deepens.
Ukraine
declared Crimea a ‘temporarily occupied territory’ as it suffered an ‘armoured’
propaganda in the Ukrainian town of Slovyansk.
According to the reports, armoured
personnel carriers and armed militants, in combat fatigue, marched to the central
square of Slovyansk, an Eastern Ukrainian city, in
apparent defiance to the Ukrainian decision to militarily confront the
pro-Russian militants. Reports say quoting the Defence Ministry of Ukraine that
these vehicles belonged to the Ukrainian troops and were seized by the militants.
Reports from the global news
carriers termed the development with words like ‘soaring tension’, ‘defecting
Ukrainian soldiers’, ‘setback to Ukraine’, ‘Russia’s attempt to create an
atmosphere that sounds like expression of pro-Russia sentiments from across
Ukraine’, and ‘NATO bolstering its presence on the Eastern borders of Belgium’.
Are these words a trend-setting
exercise? Well, they exactly sound that way only – like an elaborate imperialist
plot of some dictator.
An ‘armoured’ propaganda coup and
attacks on police stations and security installations with pro-Russian
sentiments – these incidents cannot happen in Ukraine without the active Russian
involvement.
Putinism in Ukraine is gearing up to speed up the implementation
of the post-Crimean coup elements in Ukraine,
a country strategically and economically important for energy export dependent
economy of Russia.
The narrow view of economic growth
in Russia that depends heavily on the energy exports makes Ukraine, a neighbour
country that is like a gateway for the Russian exports to the European markets,
a case where Russian would like to hold an iron grip on like it has had it in
the past, until the protests threw President Viktor Yanukovych out, to asylum
in Moscow.
And Putinism, after tasting the
favourable waters in Crimea, is cruising ahead deeper in Ukraine (and possibly in other regions of the former Soviet Union) Moldova’s separatist
region Transnistria is already following the Crimean path.