On the brink of war? The Ukraine-Russia Conflict is heating up.
April 25, 2014
John O’Laughlin
A CU-Boulder geography professor who studies the politics of the
post-Soviet Union, says the crisis between Russia and Ukraine is all part of a
plan by Russian President Vladimir Putin to destabilize Ukraine in the hopes it
will not have a presidential election on May 25.
According to John O’Laughlin, Putin has made it very clear that if he
can’t have Ukraine under his sphere of control then he wants it to be a
neutral state without Western influence.
CUT 1 “If the election goes off well, if the Ukrainians have an undisputed
winner and if Ukraine continues its pro-Western path then Putin will have
seen this as a defeat. (:13) I think what is going on in the east right now is an
attempt to essentially destabilize the situation and make sure that the
Ukrainian election of May 25 is not held. (:24) He wants Ukraine as a neutral
state between the West and Russia if he can’t have the Ukraine as part of the
Russian geopolitical block.” (:34)
Following ramped up operations this week by Ukraine to remove proRussian insurgents from occupied buildings in the east, today Russia began
new military exercises involving air and ground forces near its border with
Ukraine, prompting the Ukrainian prime minister to declare that Moscow
“wants to start World War III.”
Although he doesn’t think Russia wants to go to war, O’Laughlin is very
concerned Putin wouldn’t hesitate to order troops into eastern Ukraine if he
feels Russian interests there are attacked.
CUT 2 “I am actually way more pessimistic now than I was two months ago
because I think if violence comes in the east and lets say the Ukrainian
government tries to control these places that the protestors now control then
my guess is that Russia will intervene militarily and that could be very bloody.”
(:20)
Pro-Russian protesters in the city of Donetsk have called for a
referendum on independence to create a new Donetsk republic. But
O’Laughlin says they would most likely lose.
CUT 3 “The protesters in Donetsk say they want a referendum on
independence to set up a new Donetsk republic and break away from the
Ukraine. (609) But actually in any fair referendum in Donetsk they would lose
overwhelmingly because the biggest block of people in the east are ethnic
Ukrainians who speak Russian. And every public opinion poll I’ve seen, and
they are quit reliable, shows there is no majority support for joining Russia or
for even a separate entity in eastern Ukraine.” (:28)
If Russia did invade eastern Ukraine O’Laughlin doesn’t think the U.S. or
NATO allies would have the public support for military intervention. He says
most likely what would happen is they would supply the Ukrainian army with
arms and equipment, similar to the U.S. supplying arms to Afghan resistance
fighters during the Russian occupation of that country in the 1980s.
-CU-