{"id":1744,"date":"2021-04-09T18:43:23","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T19:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2021-04-15T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T19:58:20","slug":"a-ukrainian-fandango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/2021\/04\/09\/a-ukrainian-fandango\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ukrainian fandango [Updated at end]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fandango:<\/strong> Def. \u2013 1) a Spanish dance, or 2) tomfoolery (a foolish activity)<\/span><\/p>\n

Most readers will have heard by now about increasing Russian aggression and troop movements in far eastern Ukraine. That\u2019s the story we get \u2013 \u201cRussian aggression\u201d. Ukrainian forces, egged on by certain NATO partners, have chosen to forego talks with Lavrov over the increasing tensions in Ukraine. As a result, and reading from the 1st<\/sup> two parts of this series of posts, we hold the thought there will be no \u2018conversation\u2019 between the Ukrainian armed forces and Shoigu about the Donbass or Crimea. But the situation there is looking increasingly to be the case. Rumor has it that there may be a full assault on the Donbass by mid-April \u2013 the 15th<\/sup> to be exact \u2013 the date for the region to turn hot, or sometime in May at the latest. We need to have a look at this rapidly evolving situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of fandangos, CNN is reporting \u201cPutin is playing with fire<\/a><\/span>\u201d, referring here to CNN\u2019s reporting on Russian troop movements. The story is actually quite different<\/a><\/span>. There are reports in the past weeks of Ukrainian forces, complete with Nazi flags<\/a><\/span>, shelling villages in the Donbass, populated by civilians, even killing a 4\u00bd year-old boy by a drone and a pensioner by sniper. There is no military objective there, no military installation. This appears to be nothing but a move to provoke a Russian response. It is also a war crime. But, the resistance in the Donbass is giving as good as it is getting. There are losses on both sides. So we see fire back and forth between Ukrainian and Donbass forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have a kind of timeline on action, if there is to be any, with two American warships entering the Black Sea<\/a><\/span>, one on the 14th<\/sup> and the other the day after, staying until the 8th<\/sup> of May. Keep that timeline in mind as we go along. There has been a flurry of diplomatic action in recent days<\/a><\/span>. France and Germany are sitting on their hands. Ukrainian President Zelensky has tried to fast-track NATO membership by appealing the Canada, Jen Stoltenberg and the UK, which is a red line for Russia. He was essentially brushed off. NATO demands reforms be enacted and carried through before membership will be allowed. Zelensky is desperate and has painted himself into a corner.<\/span><\/p>\n

The economic and pandemic situation in Ukraine worsens by the day. Ukraine is bogged down in negotiations with the IMF for further loans. Ukraine has been dependent on the IMF for its survival since the 2014 coup. Zelensky\u2019s attempts at reforms to try to rein in the oligarchs have met increasing resistance from them, with increasing calls for him to be impeached. His position is impossible, and he is trapped, by his own actions and by Western demands. It seems fairly obvious to observers that he will have to back down or face disaster. In either case, his political fortunes are quickly coming to an end. That is the situation within Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n

It has been a dream for years in the halls of power in the West to have Ukraine as a NATO member, complete with Western military bases and missiles on Russia\u2019s border. This has especially been the goal in the Beltway, which sees Ukraine as the linchpin to Russian encirclement<\/a><\/span>. If they cannot have Ukraine as a NATO member, then the aim is to draw Russia into conflict<\/a><\/span>, which the Beltway hopes would cow the EU into submission, out of fear of a Russian attack, thus keeping the EU within the American orbit and tied to it financially. There is currently a battle of wills in the EU about where to turn \u2013 retain European sovereignty, reconstitute ties and NATO alliances with the US, or explore domains East. It is clear which way Europe should choose to the outside observer if the EU wants to prosper. NATO needs to dissolve, thus freeing Europe. The EU is at a crucial turning point in its history, to be addressed in a future post.<\/span><\/p>\n

But to present matters, Ukraine is a fractious state<\/a><\/span>, and the memory of when\u00a0 far western regions of Ukraine were parts of four other nations are still alive in the elderly of Ukraine and those four other states \u2013 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. The Soviets annexed those territories from the four aforementioned states during WWII. There are also strong memories across Eastern Europe of Soviet occupation post-WWII. Hence we see some of the roots of the anti-Russian sentiments in those states and across western Ukraine in general. We note also Crimea was Russian territory then. The map below<\/a><\/span> shows the details:<\/span><\/p>\n

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The EU and the US have played on those anti-Russian sentiments since the collapse of the Soviet Union as a means to pull Ukraine into the Western orbit, with very mixed results. The post-Soviet Ukraine, when it gained its independence, retained the territory gained in WWII, but also gained the Ukrainian oligarchy, which has gone on to plunder the country<\/a><\/span> (The linked video contains an interview with Bill Browder, wanted in Russia for the very things he is describing<\/a><\/span>.), stashing their ill-gotten gains in offshore accounts and shell companies, with many of those oligarchs having settled in London and the US, with still a few having fled to Russia post-Maidan, since 2014. Lukashenko was one of the latter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation for the public in the Ukraine is thus dire, given the corruption and lawlessness, aided by Western banks and financial interests, much as what we saw in Russia in the \u201890s, which only goes toward fracturing the state even further. Something has to give, and the middle of this month may well see the break point. But not everyone is so certain that will be the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

Commentary by people who know Russia and Ukraine know very well what would happen if the government in Kiev decided to throw caution to the wind and invade the Donbass or Crimea. Such a move would be crushed in a matter of days, if not hours. From Ukraine\u2019s astrology, which we examined in Part 2 of this series, we see there is no wider war indicated, nor a collapse of the regime in Kiev. But the possibility for a conflict is there nonetheless, shown by a transit of Mars square Ukraine\u2019s Mars, and bolstered by a few other factors. The current transits for Ukraine are below (bigger<\/a><\/span>):<\/span><\/p>\n

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The entire setup speaks to overconfidence, betrayal, agitation by opposition forces and defeat. We have the following:<\/span><\/p>\n