Ukraine
crisis: Order breaks down ahead of Crimea vote
– BBC
Ukraine
leaders vow not to cede land; Russia
tightens grip on Crimea – Los Angeles
Times
Is Vladimir Putin acting like
Hitler? – The Washington
Post
Ukraine
crisis: Merkel, US
warn Putin of Crimea annexation – CBC News
Russian Forces Gain in Ukraine as
Separatist Vote Looms – Bloomberg
Ukraine crisis: Chinese
president Xi Jinping urges US to show restraint – The Guardian
The latest headlines on the
crisis in Ukraine or on
Russian act of aggression in Ukraine
or the Crimean crisis – a crisis the fate of which looks increasingly settled
down in favour of the aggressor
Imperialist expansionism (and the
efforts thus – though thwarted) was never dead in global geopolitics. Border
controversies and territorial claims have continued unabated. But such
orchestrations by a dictator who is one of the most powerful persons in the
world and who exercises absolute control over one of the mightiest security
establishments with a nuclear arsenal that can wipe out the humanity multiple
times from the face of the Earth!!
Scary, isn't it?
Are we going to go back to the
days of realignments of national allegiances and redrawing of nations’ boundaries
as happened in the aftermaths of first and second World Wars or during the Cold
War?
Yes, writing that is premature
and certainly in a globalized world that runs on the borderless world of global
economy, the conditions are not conducive for Mr. Putin (and the dictators like
him) to practice expansionism as a policy tool.
But it is also equally true that
nothing can stop the dictators on thinking and dreaming on such lines.
And when an incident like a
hostile aggression of a sovereign nation’s territory ignoring the global
outrage against it, like the case of Crimea is going to be, happens so easily,
almost like a bloodless (or even if it goes violent – something that doesn't
look like even a distant possibility) coup (yes, it is a coup), it gives dictators wings to go to the
next step of their expansionist dreams, irrespective of the ‘geopolitical
feasibility’ of that next step.
Crimea is certainly in for Russia. How is
it going to shape the Vladimir Putin of the future?
Finding answer to it becomes all
the more important by his increasingly visible pro-tyranny, anti-democracy and
ant-humanity stand as Russians are experiencing it, as the dying Syrians are witnessing
it.