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| Protesters explore ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s residence near Kiev. (Courtesy: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA; The Guardian). |
Somehow it seems appropriate that in the
twelve hours that I found myself all but entirely disconnected from headline
news that the story of the week would break without me. As I had last heard of
late Friday night, tensions in Ukraine were looking as though they might
finally start to simmer down following the latest “truce” between the President and the various opposition leaders; then, when I finally checked in again last
night, The Wall Street Journal homepage headed off with “Ukraine President Driven From Power.” Well that sure escalated
quickly: months of unending protest were finally a proper revolution.
I’m by no means disappointed, just
shocked that it took this long. For most of the past week, since the Euromaidan
protest movement really started to capture major media attention, I had
wondered where this was all going; of course I knew what the crowd wanted (the
ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and closer ties with the EU), and that they
weren’t exactly planning on going home without it, but as time went on I felt
like they were dragging their feet when they could have gotten busy seizing the
Presidential Palace earlier. Of course I’m not a man on the ground, so I only
know so much.
I’m also a surprised by President
Yanukovych himself. I have no interest in defending him, as the Russian puppet
that he turned out to be, but I can’t help but wonder: why stay until the
bloody end? There seems to me little logic in that; he had long since lost his
authority by the time he signed on to the last truce with Vitali Klitschko and
all the rest (with a Kremlin man in the room even!), and was at that point
finally all but formally signing away his power. Now, I’m not Viktor
Yanukovych, and I forever thank God for that, but if I were forced into an
indefensible and ultimately hopeless situation by Putin, I’d like to that that
I would have the good sense to flee the country before I lost the ability to do
even that much.
This is, after all, Putin’s situation,
whether he likes it or not; the Kremlin brought this upon itself when they
pressured poor dumb Mr. Yanukovych into backing out of that trade deal with the
EU, and know they ought to have to clean up after themselves. Alas, Mr.
Yanukovych has sadly proven incapable of even this much forward thought, and he
now suffers for it as Parliament has formally stripped him of his power,
sending him (literally) running for the wilderness.
And speaking of Vlad, I can’t help but
wonder how he’s feeling as this wild weekend finally draws to a close. Between
Syria and Ed Snowden, 2013 was a banner year for Putin in reasserting Russia’s
position in the geopolitical position (remember back in 2012 when it was cool
for President Obama to shrug off Mitt Romney for daring to even suggest the possibility); 2014 has been a more lukewarm follow-up.
On one hand, the Sochi games managed to
get past something of a rough start and become something of a spectacle, with
Team Russia outperforming expectations to lead the final medal count with five
more than the United States. On the other, in the words of the WSJ, this weekend also found “Russia Stung by Ally’s Defeat in Ukraine.”
I assume he must be in an odd mood, at
once celebrating both a successful and a failed showing of “new” Russian
dominance. There is a unique upside in it for him: going forward, with a broken
Ukraine now in the hands of anti-Russian opposition, all eyes now turn to the
West for the situation to be stabilized; Putin’s Finance Minister has even gone as far as to suggest the IMF as the source for a badly needed bailout for the Ukrainians.
If the West succeeds in stabilizing the
deeply divided nation, it surely would be of no benefit to Putin. But such
thing may prove easier said than done, and if they fail, it’s their burden. For
now, Putin can wash his hands of the situation and watch from the shadows.
Given the circumstances as a whole, he could do much worse.
-Mitch
Carter is an Illinois State Scholar and an Associate Member of the Kendall
County Young Republicans.
carterscornerpr@gmail.com
Twitter @CartersCornerPR
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