The only lesson of history ... is that it doesn't seem to teach us anything.

In the eyes of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the Ukraine is not an independent nation.

 During a private meeting with President Bush at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April of 2008, Putin said that the “Ukraine is not even a nation! What is Ukraine? Part of her territory is Eastern Europe, and part, a considerable part, was given by us!”



The fate of Ukraine and Georgia was sealed by Germany and France at the Bucharest meeting of NATO in April of 2008. Merkel and Sarkozy blocked their applications to be included in the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), sending Putin the message that the West is eager to repeat the Munich accord of 1938 for the sake of good relations with him.


Putin picked Georgia as the first victim, placing the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia under his protectorate — with the silent approval of the West. Now Putin uses the phony Ukrainian “threat” to gas supplies as a pretext to initiate a process of incorporation of the Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine and Crimea into Russia, possibly by force. With the help of European politicians, he has prepared public opinion in the West to sell out the Ukrainians by way of Georgia’s betrayal.

I am not going to discuss the technicalities of the Russian sabotage of gas supplies to Eastern and Western Europe – it was a trivial KGB job. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller is an alumnus of the same KGB as Putin and most other members of his government; the only exemption is Putin’s press secretary “president” Medvedev whose life expectancy can drop drastically with the new “constitutional” arrangements stamped by Putin’s “parliament” a.k.a Duma, providing Medvedev’s successor (make a wild guess who that would be!) with powers unknown to the czars.


President Putin, a son and grandson of Stalin's admirers (his grandfather was one of Stalin's cooks), whose professional life revolved around the infamous KGB where he was a career spy, has definitely made the restoration of Russia’s superpower status a priority, as he has stated on several occasions.

Under President Putin’s leadership, any hopes for freedom and prosperity in Russia are being betrayed as he has effectively wiped out all voices of dissent, and established authoritarian rule in all spheres. He has raised toasts to Stalin, and in his Statement to the Federal Council he referred to the collapse of the USSR “as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

Putin is a typical problem profiteer – he thrives on problems whether real, imaginary, or fabricated. His attacks on the West and its allies in Eastern Europe provide him with an excuse to crack down on the freedom of speech, unleash unprecedented campaigns of racism and xenophobia, intimidate his political opponents, and increase the power of the state, as well as his own.

Putin has taken advantage of the Western preoccupation with the war on terror, Iraq, and Afghanistan to distract world public opinion from the burning issue of freedom in Russia. 

Putin declared the West "colonialist" for its criticism of his autocracy. For Putin and his power structure based on the infamous KGB/FSB, it is more important to keep the monopoly on power rather than to improve relations with the West. When NATO and the EU opened their membership to former Soviet satellites, Moscow's ruling elite was scared that Russians would follow the path of the “colored revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. Thus, an ongoing intimidation campaign by the Kremlin controlled media opinion against Georgians, Ukrainians, Baltic nations, and Poles. 

Russian foreign policy remains anti-Western and anti-American. Putin sold advanced missiles to Syria, provides weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, and military aircraft to Sudan, Myanmar, and Venezuela, while continuing to fuel the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Russian experts are servicing the largest Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran. Russian policy in the Middle East is based on weapons supplies and have spurred terrorism and armed conflicts. The amount and intensity of hatred by the Russian ruling elite toward individualism associated with the West is comparable only to that of the Islamic fundamentalists. Thus, it is not surprising to learn that Russian espionage activities in Western Europe and the United States tripled under Putin.
 
Economic disaster facing Russia today is due to the absence of free, open and transparent markets, rather than falling oil prices which Putin & Co. are trying to jack up by heightening international tension. Return of government control over mass media and information is fundamentally at odds with the transparency that efficient markets require. Political and economic freedoms are two sides of one coin — you cannot have one without the other. 

It is clear that President Bush's efforts at personal diplomacy with Putin have not produced any visible results and have only been followed by further cynical curtailment of human rights in Russia and the policy of open thuggery and intimidation in the post-Soviet space. How willing will be President Obama to deal effectively with Putin’s threat to Ukraine, Baltic States, and Poland, and his mischief in the Middle East and almost everywhere else? 

Yuri Maltsev is professor of economics at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Before coming to the United States, Dr. Maltsev was a member of a senior team of Soviet economists that worked on President Gorbachev's reforms package of perestroika. Professor Maltsev has taught at the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, Moscow State University, Russia, Lithuania International University in Klaipeda and Baltic Management Institute in Vilnius, Lithuania, University of Caen in Cherbourg, France and University of San Diego, California. He is on the advisory boards of Foundation for Economic Education in New York; Heartland Institute in Chicago; and the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

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PatriotPreacher said:

	Very good article This was a very good article and very needed. It was well written, with one exception. Ukraine is not "the Ukraine" but simply "Ukraine."
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January 20, 2009
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Peter Steele said:

RE: Natalya - a Christian Uknrainian nurse I know While trying to get well at my kidney dialysis center in Norwalk, I met a very nice Ukrainian woman named Natalya. I told her that my late father and I wanted no part of the nuclear accident in the Ukraine in 1986 and that my second cousin's company Lederle Laboratories sent critical anti-cancer and other medicines to the stricken area. I told her that I went to a Ukrainian church in Stratford, CT to calm down a congregation there as I told her. She reads the Bible as I do and I told her that my dad and I were Baptists and Birchers. I told her that a deacon and I sent bibles to a Ukrainian Baptist seminary, a Soviet Baptist Seminary in Moscow and St. Petersburg, South Vietnamese Baptists, and Chinese Christians. I had known a Russian Christian named Erjan Kurbanov as I told Natalya. I told her that Stalin systematically murdered her people in 1829 and 1930 and that the Democrat President FDR was a buddy of that killer based on Walter Duranty and the New York Times. I told her about Jimmy Carter's nuclear war scenario "The Day After" which shortened my Christian father's life to 71 after speaking to the Daughters of the American Revolution. I was the one who said "God and Freedom" for Goldwater and Reagan on Navy Day - 27 October 1964 - for the Republicans during Vietnam as I was there years ago blaming the Democrat Party and the Communist Party, USA for it and the Carter film! I do not mince words and out goes the Soviet installed United Nations, Communist Party, USA and the New World Order Socialist Party, USA!

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January 20, 2009
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Eduard said:

Mr. Russia's markets are open, free and transparent. The USA has a fraudulent Ponzi scheme financial system and economy for that matter. The crisis is much less serious in Russia than the USA. Russia is a surplus nation, the USA is a debtor nation. Russia will emerge from this crisis stronger than ever. Crimea and Eastern Ukraine will unite with Russia because that is what they want - the very definition of freedom and self determination.

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January 20, 2009
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pravoslav said:

	Wow What a bunch of nonsensical tripe. 'Im not going to get into'. Media speak for 'Im not going to bother citing facts and haven't looked at any'.
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January 20, 2009
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Adam Kowalczuk said:

	... A very good article but you will lose readers just for the error of calling Ukraine 'the Ukraine'.
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January 21, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

Four Stages of Communism I think to defeat Moslem terrorism we must neutralize the leftist establishment. The leftists are using Moslem terrorists to advance the cause of Communism. They will use anything to fight God's established order. Permit me to share the following with you. Four Stages of Communism, or four Steps to World-wide Equality, Slavery and Starvation: First stage: when communism is trying to gain control of a nation. Deterioration is noticed in arts and entertainment, political, educational and religious thought of a nation. Racial strife, a breakdown of the family unit, lawlessness and political correctness, and judges writing new laws: in brief, apostasy. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) Second stage: when communism has gained control of a nation. This stage is exemplified through the years from Vladimer Ilyich Lenin to Mikhail Gorbachev. During this phase big land holders and the middle class are brought to financial ruin by a planned demolishing of the economy or financial infrastructure. Third stage: where nations of the old Soviet Union are now. The Soviet Union that was is now known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Communist land barons control the military and the government and the masses are too poor to overthrow them. (Communism is basically a land grab.) The large circle of bureaucrats or pampered fat cats of the second stage, have lost their status in government. They will not be allowed to regain their former status, although they will try. Fourth stage: the fourth stage is when all nations are members of a "Commonwealth of States." From this vantage point the world would be governed from Moscow through subservient representatives by a United Nations. Not a pretty picture, is it? CLOSING THOUGHT: Great wrongs are righted by the few, because the majority find something else to do.

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January 21, 2009 | url
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