Putin and International Law 248


By sending troops into the Ukraine, (others than those stationed there by agreement) Putin has broken international law.  That does not depend on the Budapest Memorandum.  It would be a breach of international law whether the Budapest Memorandum existed or not.  The effect of the Budapest Memorandum is rather to oblige the US and the UK to do something about it.

The existence of civil disturbance in a country does not justify outside military intervention.  That it does is, of course, the Blair doctrine that I have been campaigning against for 15 years, inside and outside government.  Putin of course opposes such interventions by the West, in Iraq, Syria or Libya, but supports such interventions when he does them, as in Georgia and Ukraine.  That is hypocrisy.  There are elements on the British left who also oppose such interventions when the West does them, but support when Putin does them.  You can see their arguments on the last comments thread: fascinatingly none of them have addressed my point about Putin’s distinct lack of interest in the principle of self-determination when it comes to Chechnya or Dagestan.

The overwhelming need now is to de-escalate the crisis.  People rushing about in tanks and helicopters very often leads to violence, and here Putin is at fault.  There was no imminent physical threat to Russians in the Crimea, and there is no need for all this military activity.  Ukraine should file a case against Russia at the International Court of Justice; the UK and US, as guarantor states, can ask to be attached as guarantor states with an interest in the Budapest Memorandum .  That will fulfil their guarantor obligations without moving a soldier.

The West is not going to provide the kind of massive financial package needed to rescue the Ukraine’s moribund economy and relieve its debts.  It would be great if it did, but with western economies struggling, no western politician is in a position to announce many billions in aid to the Ukraine.  The chances of Ukraine escaping from Russian political and economic domination in the near future are non-existent – the Ukrainians are tied by debt.  That was the hard reality that scuppered the EU/Ukraine agreement.  That hard reality still exists.  The Association Agreement is a very long path to EU membership.

Both Putin and the West are reacting to events which unfolded within Ukraine.  Action by the West was not a significant factor in the toppling by Yanukovich – that was a nationalist reaction to an abrupt change of political direction which seemed to be moving Ukraine decisively into the Russian orbit.  Ukrainians are not stupid and they can see the standard of living in former Soviet Bloc countries which have joined the European Union is now much higher .  Anybody who denies that is deluded.  Of course western governments had programmes to encourage pro-western tendencies in Ukraine, including secret operations. It would be naïve to expect otherwise.  Anybody who thinks Russia was not doing exactly the same is deluded.  But it is a huge mistake to lay too much weight on these efforts – both the West and Russia were taken aback by the strength and speed of the political convulsions in Ukraine, and everybody is still paying catch-up.

Which is why we now need a period of calm, and an end to dangerous military adventurism – which undeniably is coming primarily from Russia.  Political dialogue needs to be resumed.  It is interesting that even the pro-Russian assembly of Crimea region has only called a referendum on more devolved powers, not on union with Russia or independence.  However I still maintain the best way forward is agreement on internationally supervised referenda to settle the position.  The principle of self-determination should be the most important one here.  If any of the regions of Ukraine wish to secede, the goal should be a peaceful and orderly transition.  Effective military annexation by Putin, and insistence by the West that national boundaries cannot be changed, are both unproductive stances.

 

 

 


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

248 thoughts on “Putin and International Law

1 5 6 7 8 9
  • angrysoba

    This is, in fact, nothing more than a Neo-Con/Neo-Nazi propaganda site, which is no doubt why the long absent (thankfully) AngrySobarbarian of the Crass Sunstein school of blogging has returned to give support at a difficult time.

    I feel so proud! Although not as proud as when I first looked and assumed you had adjectivized my name, in a similar manner to how Robert Fisk’s name got verbed. Speaking of which, it turns out that the Stop the War Coalition have remarkably decided not to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but rather to explain to us plebs why Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country is very, very different to an American invasion.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/03/britain-and-ukraine

    Lindsey German seems to be railing at the lizard men who are my actual employers, rather than Cass Susstein, who I have never met, not even once, and who has never paid me any money, not one shekel.

    And, of course, she is parroting the Kremlin line throughout. It would be just as easy to accuse her of being on Putin’s payroll but as I have no evidence for that I won’t make such an accusation. I’ll just assume the most likely interpretation which is that she’s ideologically blinkered.

    However, here’s an interesting petition which was written by actual experts on Ukraine’s far-right in which they argue:

    “An increasing number of lay assessments of the Ukrainian protest movement, to one degree or another, misrepresents the role, salience and impact of Ukraine’s far right within the protest movement. Numerous reports allege that the pro-European movement is being infiltrated, driven or taken over by radically ethnocentrist groups of the lunatic fringe. Some presentations create the misleading impression that ultra-nationalist actors and ideas are at the core or helm of the Ukrainian protests. Graphic pictures, juicy quotes, sweeping comparisons and dark historical references are in high demand. They are combined with a disproportionate consideration of one particularly visible, yet politically minor segment within the confusing mosaic that is formed by the hundreds of thousands of protesters with their different motivations, backgrounds and aims.

    Both the violent and non-violent resistance in Kyiv includes representatives from all political camps as well as non-ideological persons who may have problems locating themselves politically. Not only the peaceful protesters, but also those using sticks, stones and even Molotov Cocktails, in their physical confrontation with police special units and government-directed thugs, constitute a broad movement that is not centralized. Most protesters only turned violent in response to increasing police ferocity and the radicalization of Yanukovych’s regime. The demonstrators include liberals and conservatives, socialists and libertarians, nationalists and cosmopolitans, Christians, non-Christians and atheists.”

    https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/to-journalists-commentators-and-analysts-writing-on-the-ukrainian-protest-movement-euromaidan-kyiv-s-euromaidan-is-a-liberationist-and-not-extremist-mass-action-of-civic-disobedience

  • angrysoba

    Oddie, who the Hell is Emerique Chopard and why should anyone consider his opinion to be worth anything? However, it is pretty obvious that Russian news agencies are going to repeat any opinion that sounds good to them.

  • angrysoba

    Yes, I certainly have little idea who Gilles d’Aymery, although I looked him up on Google.

    I fail to see the relevance of his piece when it comes to Putin’s deployment of troops to Ukraine. In fact, the arguments in favour of Putin’s actions have tended to avoid any relevant facts whatsoever. Is there any reason for that?

    (In a area of the World with long historical memories, a Russian might argue that which was annexed TO can also be annexed FROM !)

    And they would be wrong, if they assumed that such annexing would be legal. Of course, you could still be correct. A military invasion and conquest of territory is always possible, but I would have thought you would be against that type of thing. What is it about Mother Russia that makes her imperialism so appealing?

  • CanSpeccy

    This may yet turn into the worst nightmare for the US/Nato/Nazis: Russia has agreed to Merkel’s proposal for a Ukraine ‘fact-finding’ mission.

    But, hey, we don’t want no facts, we just regime change, IMF loans, austerity and an unobstructed entry of international capital to exploit Ukraine’s resources and cheap labor.

    But if Germany and Russia can sort out the problem in Ukraine between themselves, what need is there for NATO, the UN and the New World Ordure?

    Germany’s been occupied for 69 years now, but with a good working relationship with Russia, what’s the US gonna do when Germany asks them to go fuck themselves, I mean, leave?

    May be the Brits would like an end to American occupation too — in fact wouldn’t all of Europe?

  • angrysoba

    CanSpeccy, when people have disagreements over a football game you often hear someone say, “I don’t know which game you were watching.” In this case, I am not sure what world you are living in, but in this one, Germany and the UK are not occupied.

    Also, from your own link:

    “The chancellor called upon [Putin] again to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” deputy government spokesperson Georg Streiter said in a statement following the phone call between the two leaders.

    Now, do you agree with Merkel that Putin should have and should now respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity?

  • POCC mo thóin

    So it falls to lugubrious horse-faced gigolo John Kerry to fulminate in comical impotence. Eastern Ukraine is going to pull a Slovenia and secede at their leisure (they’ve already pulled off the Slovenes’ amazing disappearing-military trick, with ОМРП and вы́мпел all over em like a cheap suit, just in case.) The EU winds up with the giant mutant hedgehogs of the exclusion zone plus blonde Africa with the Springtime-for-Hitler kulak babies in charge.

    The FSB guys are cryin laffin.

  • Clarence

    Very sad to have to say this since I have been an admirer for some time. But poor Craig appears to have lost his former powers of critical reasoning. I know that he has had medical problems that were heart-related, but while the loss of such capacity can come about due to oxygen deficiency, it is more commonly associated with specific brain tumours. If I were a close friend I would encourage him to undergo a CATscan quite soon. Wishing him all the best but no longer listening to his current nonsense.

  • Black jelly

    Coming back to more mundane matters, I saw GOD make a max 147 break in winning the Welsh Open Snooker last night, with His Left Hand no less!! And Ronnie Sullivan doesnt look one bit like the “chosen” deluded khazars, who routinely risk papilloma to snare beautiful rare bits of Welsh shikse!

  • angrysoba

    Clarence: Very sad to have to say this since I have been an admirer for some time. But poor Craig appears to have lost his former powers of critical reasoning. I know that he has had medical problems that were heart-related, but while the loss of such capacity can come about due to oxygen deficiency, it is more commonly associated with specific brain tumours. If I were a close friend I would encourage him to undergo a CATscan quite soon. Wishing him all the best but no longer listening to his current nonsense.

    Wow! So, the only possible reason for somebody disagreeing with Putin is that they must have a problem with their brain? That’s a pretty chilling throwback to the old Soviet days when dissidents were actually sent to mental hospitals:

    In the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place[1] and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem.[2]
    During the leadership of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used as a tool to eliminate political opponents (“dissidents”) who openly expressed beliefs that contradicted official dogma.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

  • Resident Dissident

    Why if Russia has done no wrong in Russia do its troops their hide their insignia? It is the little things that give your own guilt away.

  • wikispooks

    CanSpeccy 3.05am hits the nail on the head. Germany is probably the only European country with insight and nascent power in the US-UK-NATO block sufficient to scupper its immediate designs. The intro to the ‘Price Obama is about to pay’ article I linked to a day or two ago makes the point well.

    The bickering over trivia in this thread really is depressing – but of course that is exactly what Cass Sunstein and the latest revelations from GCHQ advocate as the best means of dealing with internet dissent – something for the genuine truth-seekers here to ponder.

    With a few notable exceptions, nobody seems to think the big picture has any relevance whatsoever. Whereas the context is that of a relentlessly expansionist US-UK-NATO block pressurunf and constantly demonising Russia and using any and all means to expand Eastwards, trashing any agreements that get in the way of that project on the way – most notably the ABM Treaty and assurances to Gorbachev and his successors about incorporation of ex-Soviet Republics into NATO.

    A really am gob-smacked that CM appears oblivious to what is going on here. Has he been made an offer (subliminally even) he can’t refuse?

  • Clarence

    Angrysoba,

    And what, precisely, does the old Soviet regime have to do with today’s propoganda-inspired nonsense, or poor Craig’s loss of touch? Also, anyone who quotes Wikipedia as a source surely has problems of their own.

  • angrysoba

    Clarence has a riddle for us:

    “what, precisely, does the old Soviet regime have to do with today’s propoganda-inspired nonsense”

    Because it emerges, cobwebbed and dusty, from the Kremlin, and has the support of all kinds of western “intellectuals” of the “pacifist” persuasion?

  • Clarlence

    Wikispooks,

    Your analysis of CM’s conversion may be correct, but I doubt it. He seems an honourable man. But whether his conversion is the result of nature or of some CIA-inspired (Castro-like) manipulation is not beyond conjecture.

  • Black jelly

    @Angrysoba

    Sorry either you are with the Ghouta gassing false flag (Kohn,Obama,Rifkind,Hague,Fabius,ec) crowd or you are with us (Putin,Assad,Lavrov,etc). One side has to be the devil and the other the good guys. If you are a dershowitz we completely understand but remember there will be no hiding behind the gharkad then.

  • angrysoba

    Black Jelly,

    You seem to be posting some weird and (not so-)cryptic anti-semitic remarks (if I understand your references to “dershowitz”, “gharkad” and “khazars” correctly). Suffice to say, that is quite enough to thoroughly put me off your “side”.

  • Black jelly

    @Angrysoba – Oh so bibi satanyahu gave us a “thoroughly” false 8200 intercept about the 400 gassed Alawite kids at Ghouta, with that hellerstein logic you must be a dershowitz then ! And on his side.

  • Mary

    The MSM have moved on so no worries. Today it’s all about the Oscars and what the dresses looked like, and the Pistorius trial.

    There was one banner saying that two oligarchs have been appointed as governors by the so called ‘interim government’ in Kiev. A reports showing Hague wandering around the Maidan barricades. He laid some flowers.

  • Clarence

    Angrysoba,

    Ah. So now I understand your perspecive (at long last). We are now supporting “sides”. Please grow up and remove yourself from this discussion among adult people.

  • angrysoba

    Clarence:

    “So now I understand your perspecive (at long last). We are now supporting “sides”.”

    I was responding to Black Jelly’s post here:

    “Sorry either you are with the Ghouta gassing false flag (Kohn,Obama,Rifkind,Hague,Fabius,ec) crowd or you are with us (Putin,Assad,Lavrov,etc). One side has to be the devil and the other the good guys.”

    So any problem you have with invoking “sides” can be brought up with Black Jelly, if it is the principle that you object to.

  • Mary

    John Kerry – Ukraine – Meet The Press. John Kerry Denounces Russian ….
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otTj6Droz9I#t=25

    11mins if you can stick it.

    Published on 2 Mar 2014

    john kerry ukraine russia meet the press mtp. John Kerry denounced the Russian movement of troops into Ukraine Sunday as “an act of aggression” and accused President Vladimir Putin of “possibly trying to annex Crimea.”

    “He’s going to lose on the international stage, Russia is going to lose, the Russian people are going to lose, and he’s going to lose all of the glow that came out of the Olympics, his $60 billion extravaganza,” Kerry said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

    He warned that Russia will suffer a loss of trade and investment if Putin does not reverse course.

    Russia has “major investment and trade needs” which are bound to suffer if Russian troops don’t leave Ukraine, he said. “There’s a unified view by all of the foreign ministers I talked with yesterday — all of the G-8 and more — that they’re simply going to isolate Russia; that they’re not going to engage with Russia in a normal business-as-usual manner…. The ruble is already going down and feeling the impact of this,” he said.

  • nevermind

    I find myself agreeing with canspeccy and wikispooks, this is not a NATO affair, for more than one reason, NATO failed to have more than one plan, its always war. This is because NATO has become a coffeeshop for weapons manufactuirers trying out their new toys about to be sold to all that can pay.

    Germany has been involved in Russia and eastern Europe from the word go, meaning after the cold war ended they were giving ample credits to help Russia and other states, they keep a rapport at all times good and bad.

    I had to hold on to my muesli this morning on hearing Hague this morning talking about the values of sovereignty, what a wretching experience, I had to switch the radio off, does he really think that his waffle has any relevance?

    Not a single bullet fired in the Crimea makes me feel as if there is a start for negotiations and if Germany is prepared to do the talking, so be it.
    enjoy your day as I will enjoy todays showers in Gorleston.

  • OldMark

    Angrysoba @8.00am

    For once I agree with you; anyone who can insert this onto a thread ostensibly about the Ukraine crisis has a very warped worldview-

    ‘Ronnie Sullivan doesnt look one bit like the “chosen” deluded khazars, who routinely risk papilloma to snare beautiful rare bits of Welsh shikse!’

  • wikispooks

    @Clarence 7:48 – all

    For the avoidance of doubt and to clarify. I fully accept that CM is a honourable
    man and did not mean to imply otherwise. I accept that my ‘Godfather’ allusion about ‘being made an offer that cannot be refused’ is too open to the wrong interpretation and thus perhaps inappropriate for a post on its target’s own blog. However, what I mean – and tried to emphasise with the ‘subliminal’ qualification – is that there are lines that NONE of us can cross; either because of a crass overt threat per the ‘Godfather’, but more often as a function of the cognitive dissonance that doing so would generate. I believe that Craig’s former exalted position in the Establishment hierarchy renders him peculiarly susceptible to the syndrome in matters impinging on ‘patriotism’, that’s all. The irony is that his experience also gives his opinions a unique and seductive authority.

    All of that renders him more susceptible than most to certain kinds of ever-so-subtle and destructive pressure – of the kind for example that our illustrious Tavistock Institute is master.

  • Clarence

    Wikispooks,

    Sound thoughts. I agree. But whether the stress of such conflicts has caused him to revert or whether it has induced a stress-induced dementia or even a more demonsrable physical disease has yet to be seen. Whatever, it is very sad for such a brave man.

1 5 6 7 8 9

Comments are closed.