Comment du Jour

The Crimean War

United Nations Meets on Ukraine Crisis


Less than a week after the spectacular closing ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics,  the Russians violated the sovereignty of neighboring Ukraine.  Taking advantage of Ukraine's civil and political unrest which had toppled the ruling pro-Russian regime in Kiev, allegedly causing anxiety among Russian ethnic minorities in parts of the vast land, President Vladimir Putin decided to settle the conflict the old fashioned way--with military intervention.

Russian forces, operating from pre- existing and legally sanctioned naval and air bases in Crimea, decided to expand their spheres of influence in the strategic southern peninsula. Crimea it is noted, has a majority ethnic Russian population.

A visibly shaken Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN briefed the Security Council and later correspondents to warn of the rapidly deteriorating situation in which he described illegal overflights of Ukrainian territory by Russian transport planes and attack helicopters as well as the seizure of Crimean airports by armed elements.  He decried Russian aggression.

Ambassador  Yuriy Sergeyev  warned that the Russians may be trying to break off Crimean from Ukrainian sovereignty as Moscow did in the Georgia War in 2008 in which two "Russian ethnic" enclaves were seized from Georgia and set up as "independent republics."  The Ambassador called for the international community to provide "moral and political support"to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

Ukraine which was part of the former Soviet Union, gained its independence in 1991 after the fall of the communist regime.  In late 2013, the Ukrainian majority rallied in favor of closer economic integration with the European Union; the ruling pro-Russian regime tilted closer to Moscow, thus setting off the initial crisis.

The United States as well as key European allies such as France, Germany and Poland have attempted to broker a peaceful solution to the crisis before the Russian military intervention.  The issue now becomes how to keep Moscow from advancing beyond the Crimea.