Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 5 – One of the
characteristics of Vladimir Putin’s behavior just as has been the case with other
dictators in the past is that he has often signaled what he intends to do by
blaming those he intends to attack for something they have not done and have no
intention of doing -- or even describing their motivations and calculations in
terms that better fit himself.
That makes an article that appeared
yesterday on the often aggressively Russian nationalist portal, IARex.ru, a
matter of concern because in it, that agency’s Modest Kolerov says that “Kyiv
is preparing a provocation in Transdniestria,” the breakaway portion of Moldova
that is aligned with Moscow (iarex.ru/news/51062.html).
If Putin remains true to form, that
suggests Moscow may be setting the stage for launching an attack on Ukraine
from that base – or at the very least, that the Kremlin leader wants to remind
the Ukrainian authorities that he has the capacity to do so and thus force them
to keep their forces divided against his attacks.
According to Yevgeny Shevchuk, the
president of the self-proclaimed Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic, Ukraine is
already “blocking the transit of supplies for the Rsusian peacekeeping
contingent” located in his breakaway republic. IARex’s Kolerov commented on
this declaration yesterday.
According to Kolerov, “Ukraine is
hardly a newcomer to the imposition of blockade actions against Transdniestria
in which it together with Moldova has been taking part since 2006. Over this
period … the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic, a third of whose population by
the way consists of Ukrainians has suffered significant economic losses.”
“After the coming to power in Kyiv
of a new government, the economic blockade of the TMR by Ukraine was
supplemented by a military-political one because the Kyiv regime began to
consider Transdniestria as part of the Russian Federation,” Kolerov said.
And now, he continued, that campaign
has reached its “culmination” with the blockade now being directed against Russian
forces there and “in particular against the peacekeeping contingent of Russia.” That action “will not remain without a reaction
by Russia,” he suggests, possibly by the establishment of “an ‘air bridge’”
between Russia and the TMR.
Because Kyiv considers that it is now in a state of war
with Russia, Kolerov went on to say, “one must not exclude the possibility of
provocations from its side,” including possible attacks on this air
bridge. “More than that, there is reason
to suppose” that Ukrainian forces are already preparing to do so.
But the Russian commentator
continued, the Ukrainian authorities must recognize the consequences that they
would bring on themselves by “an attempt at blockading Russian forces. And if
they do understand those but go ahead anyway, they are counting on a completely
defined result.”
That they should
do so now, according to Kolerov, reflects the fact that there has been “a
partial stabilization” in eastern Ukraine “to a large extent thanks to the
efforts of Russia.” He says that the American backers of Ukraine aren’t pleased
about that and that it is likely that “namely they have ordered the junta to
exacerbate the situation around Transdniestria.”
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