How the West Enabled the Rise of Russian Nationalism
Russian nationalism would not have become as influential without the Ukrainian revolution and the Western support for it.
Andrei P. Tsygankov
The West has rejected the scheduled Crimea referendum as illegitimate and demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin give up its support for the peninsula. This pressure is not likely to succeed and, if anything, will only strengthen Putins drive to recognize Crimea either as an independent state or a part of Russia. The attempts to explain Putins intervention in Crimea by Russias economic weakness and fear of democracy are not credible and ignore the genuine roots of Putins actionnationalism and the Wests own role in its rise.
Although Russias internal problems are serious, Putins approval ratings were high before the intervention and he hardly needed it to improve his domestic standing. By fall 2013, the Kremlin gained a new political confidence largely by locating what experts identified as Putins conservative majority. By studying Russian reactions to the Anti-Magnitsky Act, the trial over Pussy Riot and restrictions on the activities of protesters and NGOs, Putins regime concluded that it had a sufficiently strong social base to avert destabilization. In December of the same year, Putin pardoned 20,000 prisoners, including members of Pussy Riot and his longtime critic, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Many of those charged for disturbances during protests in the early 2012 were either released or received sentences lighter than expected.
The true motives of Putins intervention in Ukraine have nothing to do with diversionary domestic politics, just as his true intentions have nothing to do with trying to recreate the USSR. Instead, the support for Crimea is a reflective nationalist reaction to what the Kremlin views as unjust treatment by the West. Putin can no longer ignore those inside Russia who have been worried for years about protecting the countrys security and values from what they view as a dangerous encroachment by Western nations.
http://www.thenation.com/article/178826/how-west-enabled-rise-russian-nationalism
Igel
(35,197 posts)Whatever it is, somehow the progressives' enemies in the West are responsible for it.
Some lucky few nations and peoples in the world are wanderers, not always on the same path but certainly still held in the West's orbits and unable to break free or have any control over their destiny. They have no will. No ability to affect things. They may act, but purely in reaction to the one true center. Russia. China.
All the world's minor nations and peoples are points on a celestial sphere that revolves around those Western structures and organizations.They don't even act in reaction. They are carried along, passive, pointlike in the distance.
Somebody is seriously in need of a Copernican revolution in their thinking.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)once was part of the largest geographical country on the planet. Must be difficult for Ukraine and countries like it to be reduced to minor nation status. Just sayin'.......
BeyondGeography
(39,284 posts)until their evil masters come along.
Poor Putin. First Georgia, now Ukraine. When will we leave him in peace?