Ukraine & Russia: Sanctions in our time!

IT has been said that rats when they find a carcass, take watchful bites at its extremities; then prudently withdraw to see whether any ill consequences ensue before starting to chew at the main course.  It is clear that President Putin and his Russian henchmen are applying a similar foreign policy strategy in Crimea and very likely in eastern Ukraine. What may now be devoured up with impunity in Crimea may later be relished elsewhere at leisure without as to repercussions.  It is a process that was used by Putin elsewhere, and one used by other statesmen in the last century:  a frontier incident at Wal Wal in the 1930s provided the excuse for the Italian government under Mussolini to demand territorial and other concessions from Abyssinia. 

Last week, Russia deployed more troops on its eastern border with the Ukraine ready, we are told, 'to intervene in Ukraine at any time'.   Today the Crimean referendum was confirmed to be as expected in favour of its amalgamation with Russia.  At the time of the Italian-Abyssinian conflict the League of Nations (an unfortunate forerunner to the UN) pondered and investigated; Anthony Eden even promising that, if necessary, they would trace its origins back to the Flood:  the world was told that no effort would be neglected that offered hope of a peaceful settlement.  Mr. Eden then, like Mr. Hague now, threw himself into his labours and while he and the League laboured in their efforts to find a settlement, Mussolini and the Italian army proceeded with their military preparations:  on the 2nd, October 1935, a telegram was dispatched by by Hailé Selassié declaring that Italian troops had crossed the Abyssinian frontier.  Then with Mussolini, as now with Putin in Crimea, the international policy makers declared that the aggressor had breach its obligations with regard to international law. 

Now Mr. Putin, the Russian President has signed a decree recognising Crimea as a sovereign state, paving the way for it to be absorbed into Russia.  This decree says has taken into account Sunday's referendum in Crimea, in which officials said 97% of voters backed breaking away from Ukraine.  The EU and United States say the referendum is illegal and is imposing sanctions on 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine.

Crimea, which has been part of Ukraine since 1954, was apparently taken over by pro-Russian gunmen in late February.  Most of its population is ethnic Russian.  The official position of the Kremlin is to deny that the gunmen are Russian soldiers, but concedes that MPs authorised Mr Putin to use force after a formal plea for help from Mr Yanukovych, the ousted former President of the Ukraine.  

The US sanctions target 11 people, including several Russian officials and Viktor Yanukovych 'by far the most comprehensive sanctions applied to Russia since the cold war'. 

Meanwhile, an editorial in the Financial Times yesterday declared:   'Nobody should assume that these sanctions will be enough to curb the Kremlin.  It is far from clear that Mr. Putin's thirst to revenge the toppling of his ally in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, has been sated.'

In the case of Abyssinia, the League of Nations avoided ill-consequences by leaving Hailé Selassié with a fragmented kingdom connected to the sea by a slim desert strip, and giving Mussolini the effective control of most of the country.  With this historical example in mind one must fear for the territorial integrity of the Ukraine.  Malcolm Muggeridge, commenting later on the Italian-Abyssinian conflict in his book 'The Thirties' on the idea that a 'spirited David with his accurately aimed pebble sanctions' may lay low the 'Goliath of  ruthless, overbearing force'  was to write:  'Sanctions, which had already been in operation... had prove somewhat disappointing' and that 'in the public mind' they represented 'a means of engaging in warfare innocuously, a play-way or substitute war; enough war to cover a sixpence'. 

I fear it will be the same in the Ukraine in the time of Putin, as it was in Abyssinia in the time of Mussolini;  Sanctions in our time, oh Lord!