Apart from the obvious, if sometimes overlooked, benefit of the Ukraine lending itself to the abbreviation UK, what’s not to like about such a halftime substitution? Just think about it:
1) Britain would be better off economically, politically and socially.
2) The Ukraine would cock a snook at the Russians.
3) Putin’s imperial ambitions would be given a reality check.
4) Moving from the Scylla of Russia’s tender care to the Charybdis of the EU’s largesse, the Ukraine wouldn’t be better off. But neither would she be worse off, for the simple reason that she’s already at rock bottom.
5) Finally, the EU would be saddled with another sponger compared to which Greece would look like a self-sufficient economic giant. It’s doubtful that this abominable concoction could add the extra weight of 45 million impoverished inhabitants without its knees finally buckling. That would be wonderful news to those who agree with Point 1.
Ukrainians seem to feel the same way, which is why 500,000 of them staged a rally in Kiev, outscoring every other similar action in the country’s history. What drove them out to the barricades they instantly erected was President Yanukovych’s decision to push the country eastwards, towards Russia, rather than westwards, towards the EU.
Proffesor [sic] Yanukovych looked out of the window at the sea of fur hats filling the capital’s streets and heaved a sigh of wistful nostalgia for his romantic youth. His spelling might not have been any better in those days, but he made a comfortable living by ripping just such hats off the heads of men doing their business in public lavatories.
Oh to be young again. Life was so simple then, everything clear-cut, no room for equivocation. Grab the hat and run, secure in the knowledge that the victim’s trousers around his ankles would give the future proffesor [sic] a safe head start.
No such safety now – damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Yanukovych sighed again and declared that his heart and soul went to the protesters.
He then ordered his police, spearheaded by their special troops Berkut (golden eagle to you), to disperse the demonstrators using truncheons, tear gas, stun grenades and whatever else came in handy.
The idea was to turn Kiev into a battlefield, thus giving the good proffesor [sic] grounds for introducing a state of emergency and possibly seeking Russia’s help. And in case the protesters wouldn’t come out and play, Yanukovych produced a masterstroke.
The man has clearly added subtlety to his youthful directness. To prove this, the proffesor [sic] implanted a core of agents provocateur (titushki in Ukrainian) among the demonstrators. Armed with iron rods, rubber truncheons and Molotov cocktails, the titushki added the needed frisson to the proceedings.
So far the score is about even: 160 or so policemen have ended up in hospital, along with roughly the same number of demonstrators, including 30 journalists.
To keep things fair, Berkut thugs have been discouraging out-of-towners from joining the fun. They blocked several roads with their lorries, thus keeping at bay Kiev-bound motorcades from the west.
Not to discriminate, they also prevented a large group of Europhiles from boarding the train at Dnepropetrovsk, southeast of Kiev. About 200 people were savagely beaten up at the station, others got the message.
The proffesor [sic] knew another declaration was in order. “I deeply condemn those who caused the clashes leading to human suffering,” he said in a bout of self-criticism.
This self-deprecation failed to win the hearts of West Ukrainians who tend to feel about the Russians the way a tree feels about dogs, and for pretty much the same reasons. Their capital Lviv (formerly Lvov, formerly Lemberg) is today paralysed by a general strike.
At the same time a group of Sebastopol councilmen sent a tearful petition to Putin, begging him to send Russian troops to the Ukraine. To be fair, Sebastopol’s link with the Ukraine is tenuous, owing more to Khrushchev’s gerrymandering than to any historical or cultural commonality. But officially it is in the Ukraine, which gives Putin a legal reason at least to consider the heart-rending plea.
The petitioners see Russian troops as the only possible defence “of the country, the Crimea’s Russian population and other regions of the Ukraine… from the US army and NATO aggressors.” Clearly they know something we don’t about US military strategy.
EU diplomats have reacted to the situation with somewhat less forceful threats, specifically those centred around trade sanctions against the Ukraine. Such actions wouldn’t unduly inconvenience Europeans, what with the unidirectional nature of this trade: the EU gives money to the Ukraine, the latter smiles seductively and promises to surrender her body to the EU’s passionate embrace.
If the EU project were about the economy, Jose Manuel and Rumpy-Pumpy would be ecstatic about averting an economic coup de grâce. But it isn’t: the project has been purely ideological from the very start.
This being the case, they grieve while still harbouring hopes that the situation in the Ukraine will become so messy that Putin will decide the mess isn’t worth the candle. “You want the Ukraine, you have her, see if I care,” they hope he’ll hiss.
My sentiments exactly, for reasons 1-5 above. However, one fears that even if the Ukraine is allowed to join the EU, the UK won’t be allowed to leave it. In that case the Ukrainian mess will become ours.