I’m back in Crimea for a few days. A scenic paradise and the current epicentre of the growing war between east and west. As Ukraine, or should we read NATO… up their attacks on the peninsula, what do people living in Crimea want?
I’ve spent many weeks here over the last 18 months. If you ask people in Donbass where they’re from they will generally say, “Donbass.” If you ask people in Crimea, they will generally shrug and simply say, “I’m Russian.”
The fact that the vast majority want to be part of russia is not up for debate. Mainstream journalists, politicians and policy makers know it full well. It’s an inconvenient truth that is swept under the carpet. Except by the NBC reporter who came last year and broadcast a report admitting as much.
Whilst a minority, there are many pro Ukrainians here as well. Just as there are in the “four regions” that Russia now claims. But there are also many pro Russians in Ukrainian territory. Particularly in Kharkiv and Odessa. It’s too dangerous for them to speak out. It has been increasingly so since 2014. The silent predicament of those unfortunates on both sides is little reported on.
The leader of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev handed Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. It is widely seen as a historic mistake. On the elegant streets of Sevastopol an old lady jokingly snapped at me, “I would like to kill that bastard Khrushchev.
“He gave it up because he was Ukrainian.” A young couple shrugged.
And strategically, it is folly to pretend otherwise.
Ukraine is militarily incapable of taking back Crimea. Even with the countless billions in NATO support. This was clear before the disastrous Ukrainian counter offensive. It is doubly so now. NATO policy makers know it. How many more Ukrainians will be slaughtered for a fantasy of foreign policy?
NATO politicians and internet trolls alike blithely tweeting “Crimea is Ukraine,” isn’t going to make it so. Nor will it arise the hundreds of thousands of dead from their graves. The scale of human loss in this war deeply depresses the soul for the relatively few who take a moment to really think about it.
And if by chance NATO did find a way of threatening Crimea’s future within Russia, then we can start talking about an escalation that could be apocalyptic. Crimea is of such strategic importance to Russia, they would see it as an existential threat. If the world goes to war, none of us will be free.
Anglo American attempts to destabilise Russia by ‘edging’ nuclear war are part of the same self defeating policies that led us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Only now, the stakes are much greater. It is being led by the same brand of crazies in the US state department too. NATO’s disastrous policies and overreach are only bringing destruction to those around them and ruin to themselves.
We’re living in the middle of history. Not the end. To secure peace and prosperity, borders will once again have to be redrawn in Europe. It won’t be the end of the world. And will likely lead to a more prosperous European future.
Few in western civil society have the courage to speak out in fear of being labelled a Kremlin asset. But one way or another, reality has a way of catching up with us.