I love Ukraine. It is like my second homeland. I studied in Ukraine, got married in Ukraine, and have invested in Ukraine. Sometimes however, I wonder if there are two or even three Ukraines. It is not unusual with all the confusion and instability with the Ukrainian government that you can find yourself among friends or family having dinner and drinking Ukrainian horilka (vodka) and find yourself taking one of two or even the third side to political arguments.
After the recent war in the south Caucuses where Russia crushed the US backed Georgian army, I again was caught between the differing views in in Ukraine. My friend Andrey who is from Crimea said his fellow Crimeans were next. He warned that Russia is passing out passports and will soon use the same argument as an excuse to invade and conquer Ukraine. I then mentioned that many if not the majority of Crimean citizens claim they are ethnic Russian and mostly speak Russian so what is the big deal?
He replied with an analogy: "What if the U.S. decided to hand out passports to some Canadians just because they look and speak like Americans."
After thinking about this I could not help but tell him that if some Americans in Washington had their way, Canada may become part of the United States. One might ask, how can this be?
It is the so called North America Treaty or proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The proposal would diminish much of Canadian sovereignty if it was ever implemented. It would definitely make Canada less sovereign than Ukraine should Russia make a move on its fellow Slavic neighbor. So I told my friend that if he wishes to use the US-Canadian analogy in regards to Ukraine, then he should keep in mind that Canada and the US have very close military cooperation in addition to sharing membership in NATO. Because they are predominately English speaking, and they are closer to each other than US is with Mexico. It is only natural relationship and therefore would be also natural for Russia and Ukraine to have close ties on many spheres as well.
So I instead decided to counter with a better analogy: "Now imagine if Canada opted to join the Shanghai Group with Russia. And now lets say that Russian military forces were allowed to enter into Canadian airspace with Russian jet fighterpatrolling the skies along the US-Canadian border. Then lets imagine they deploy missile sites and bases," I replied. We all know this would sound alarm bells in Washington. If Ukraine wasn't striving to join NATO, a military alliance that attacked the sovereignty of Serbia, and which has become increasingly belligerent towards Russia, I don't think the Crimea issue would even be relevant....
After the recent war in the south Caucuses where Russia crushed the US backed Georgian army, I again was caught between the differing views in in Ukraine. My friend Andrey who is from Crimea said his fellow Crimeans were next. He warned that Russia is passing out passports and will soon use the same argument as an excuse to invade and conquer Ukraine. I then mentioned that many if not the majority of Crimean citizens claim they are ethnic Russian and mostly speak Russian so what is the big deal?
He replied with an analogy: "What if the U.S. decided to hand out passports to some Canadians just because they look and speak like Americans."
After thinking about this I could not help but tell him that if some Americans in Washington had their way, Canada may become part of the United States. One might ask, how can this be?
It is the so called North America Treaty or proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The proposal would diminish much of Canadian sovereignty if it was ever implemented. It would definitely make Canada less sovereign than Ukraine should Russia make a move on its fellow Slavic neighbor. So I told my friend that if he wishes to use the US-Canadian analogy in regards to Ukraine, then he should keep in mind that Canada and the US have very close military cooperation in addition to sharing membership in NATO. Because they are predominately English speaking, and they are closer to each other than US is with Mexico. It is only natural relationship and therefore would be also natural for Russia and Ukraine to have close ties on many spheres as well.
So I instead decided to counter with a better analogy: "Now imagine if Canada opted to join the Shanghai Group with Russia. And now lets say that Russian military forces were allowed to enter into Canadian airspace with Russian jet fighterpatrolling the skies along the US-Canadian border. Then lets imagine they deploy missile sites and bases," I replied. We all know this would sound alarm bells in Washington. If Ukraine wasn't striving to join NATO, a military alliance that attacked the sovereignty of Serbia, and which has become increasingly belligerent towards Russia, I don't think the Crimea issue would even be relevant....
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