This may surprise many of you but I think the best thing to do in regard to the present situation in Ukraine is to see the Crimea return to Russia.
It was Russian territory until transferred to the Ukraine in 1954 by then Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
It provides Russia with its only year round Port.
70% of its population is Russian.
With the growing influence of Europe / NATO, Russia is understandably worried about western influence encroaching on its ever reduced sphere of influence.
The fact is, I feel a bit sorry for the once proud Bear…not though for its current henchman leader Vlad Putin.
Was Russia right in the way it invaded the Crimea?
No.
Is the Crimea worth the expenditure of the West’s treasure and blood?
No.
But what we need to focus on is the balance of the Ukraine – the real Ukraine.
Europe needs to bring Ukraine into the EU as soon as possible, as does NATO.
Russia needs to be told that if it has expansionist ideas, they end with the return of Crimea any further attempt at unilateral expansion needs to be stomped on. Full Stop.
And Obama needs to proceed immediately with the missile shield it had originally planned for the protection of the former States of the USSR.
Having said the above, I know that there are many parallels with Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and I can see much clearer now why the folks back then strove for peace in the face of Churchill’s demand for military action.
There is no doubt in my mind that Churchill was correct then, but those striving for peace were not so very wrong either and in the case of Crimea today, some 65 years later, the facts do not add up to drawing a line in the sand over it.
Let Crimea Go.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
