Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 7 – Stanisław
Karczewski, the Marshal of the Senate of the Republic of Poland, has announced
plans to convene a conference of representatives of Estonia, Georgia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Slovakia and Ukraine to discuss how to collectively respond to the
decision to restore Russia to full membership in the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe.
“This readiness for joint actions
yet again demonstrates,” Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov says, “that
against the collaborationism of ‘the collective West,’ it is both possible and
necessary to struggle,” something many in Kyiv including Vladimir Zelensky do
not recognize (ru.espreso.tv/article/2019/07/01/vytalyy_portnykov_ukrayne_vnov_nuzhny_advokaty).
As Portnikov says, “the forces which
want to normalize relations with Russia at the expense of Ukraine and
international law have been trying to achieve this already for more than a
year.” And often they have been prevented from doing so when their efforts are exposed
in the media by those in Central and Eastern Europe who understand “the Russian
threat.”
I had thought, the Ukrainian
commentator continues, that after the Maidan, Ukraine didn’t need “advocates”
anymore but rather “partners in opposing aggression.” But it turns out,
Portnikov concedes, that his optimism on this point was premature.
“The political inexperience of the new
Ukrainian president, the absence in his team of a genuine interest in foreign
policy, and the irrational fear of the Kremlin,” he says, “makes precisely such
an advocate a necessity even now.” Such advocates can better defend the
interests of Ukraine in the international arena than the current Kyiv
leadership.
This initiative from the marshal of the
Polish Senate is thus “a very good signal.”
It recalls the time when Warsaw “more effectively defended the interests
of Ukraine than did Yanukkovich himself who in general was not concerned about
the interests of our country,” Portnikov says.
“In the present situation, the
presidents of Poland or Lithuania also could more effectively defend the interests
of Ukraine to the West, at least as long as the new president of Ukraine does not
recognize the importance of such a defense and does not learn how to
effectively do it.”
Ukraine today, Portnikov concludes, “simply
can’t get by without [such] advocates.”
The countries between the Baltic and
the Black Sea and between Russia and Germany are sometimes called the
Intermarium and have a tradition of cooperating with one another. (On that see Marek
Chodakiewicz’s Intermarium: The Land between
the Black and Baltic Seas (Transaction Publishers, 2012) and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/intermarium-idea-whose-time-is-coming.html).
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