How the West Caused the Ukraine Crisis | Foreign Affairs

En længere artikel om situationen i Ukraine

_slettet_bruger_14060 Ikke angivet,

29/08/2014

En længere artikel om situationen i Ukraine. Forfatteren bebrejder de vestlige ledere for et unødvendigt og fejlagtigt forsøg på yderligere at presse Rusland, hvilket ikke gav Putin andre muligheder for at reagere end han har gjort.

Hitler-sammenligningerne manes også i jorden:

For some in this camp, Putin represents a modern-day Adolf Hitler, and striking any kind of deal with him would repeat the mistake of Munich. Thus, NATO must admit Georgia and Ukraine to contain Russia before it dominates its neighbors and threatens western Europe. 

This argument falls apart on close inspection. If Putin were committed to creating a greater Russia, signs of his intentions would almost certainly have arisen before February 22. But there is virtually no evidence that he was bent on taking Crimea, much less any other territory in Ukraine, before that date. Even Western leaders who supported NATO expansion were not doing so out of a fear that Russia was about to use military force. Putin’s actions in Crimea took them by complete surprise and appear to have been a spontaneous reaction to Yanukovych’s ouster. Right afterward, even Putin said he opposed Crimean secession, before quickly changing his mind.