Poking the Russian Bear

I have been to Russia and I have worked with many Russian people and some of them are now my friends. I have had many conversations about Russian politics and the relationship of Russia with the West.

Russian people want to be treated with respect and to be treated as equals; they expect nothing more or nothing less. The have an ingrained fear of war. They lost 20 million people in the second world war. They also have a fear of extreme right wing politicians.

The siege of St Petersburgh, or  Leningrad as it was called in the the second world war, and the battle of Volograd, formerly Stalingrad, proved that the Russian people would tolerate the most extreme privation to defend their Motherland. During the second world war the Russian people were also prepared to support a tyrant, Stalin, to defend their nation.

The battles of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943)  and Kursk in July1943  saw the complete defeat of Hitler's armies in Russia. They were the turning point of the war in Europe. Without Russia's defeat of Germany in these battles the outcome of the war could have been completely different.

Of course, we should not denigrate the war efforts of the Western nations  to create second fronts in both Italy and France. But we should understand why the Russian people expect to be treated with respect by its former allies. We should also understand that the Russians are a formidable enemy and in a war  it would better to have them on our side than against us. Roosevelt, Churchill and De Gaulle understood the "realpolitik"  of this and were prepared to respect Stalin as a result.

Against this back drop, Western politicians should think again about what is happening in the Ukraine as they have badly miscalculated. They will not admit to this in public but behind the scenes they are probably looking for a way out.

The new government in the Ukraine is really not up to the task of handling the crisis that they have created for themselves with Western help. It looks as though the people of  Western Ukraine have no more stomach for a fight with Russia than the people of Britain, France and Germany or the US for that matter. If the Russians wanted to they could invade the whole of the Ukraine and takeover almost unopposed.

The quicker a negotiated solution is concluded the better. It looks as though Eastern Ukraine is lost to the West just like the Crimea. Why not try a confederation like Denmark and Greenland. Denmark is in the EU but Greenland, which is officially part of Denmark, is not. The people of Greenland have  political autonomy but they are happy, in the main, with their confederal relationship with Denmark.

The rest of the Ukraine does not have to be broken up after the secession of the Crimea but the Russians in Eastern Ukraine will need to be given cast iron guarantees for the security of their budding new "nations". This looks like the best that Western diplomacy can now achieve as there is no military option available and economic sanctions are considered to be an irritation rather than a deterrent.

It might be better to deal with a happy bear than to poke it with sticks which will be useless for defence if it decides to fight back.