Fuck The Europeans!

European countries gave up their sovereignty after World War II. Germany first because it was defeated. Up until now, seventy-six years after the end of the war, the United States military is still present in its territory. The rest of the Europeans preferred il dolce far niente, or being somewhat lazy, and ignored their own defense, an essential requirement to have their own voice when the going gets tough.

In the current crisis in Ukraine, it has become clear who are the real players: The United States and Russia. Biden's recent call to Putin about Ukraine left them alone at the negotiating table for they are the ones who have more than something to say and who back their sayings with military force. The irruption of the United States through Biden that pushed Germany and Angela Merkel aside, repeated a nod the United States made seven years ago, when it pushed aside Germany, France and Poland, to intervene directly in the political crisis of Ukraine. America's rallying cry on that occasion was "Fuck the Europeans." Victoria Nuland, a senior US diplomatic official, exclaimed it when instructing her Ambassador to Ukraine in February 2014.

To understand the current chapter of the drama in Ukraine, it is necessary to return to 2014 to observe which are the international forces that acted in that country and their motivations, which today, in a somewhat kind of second act, again face the same characters on the same stage, (the protagonists for The United States and Russia have not changed) and for identical reasons.

Who rules in Ukraine?

Victoria Nuland, who today serves as the third in the hierarchy of Joe Biden's State Department, was head of the United States Diplomacy in Europe, in 2014, during the Obama Administration. In February of that year, an anonymous source made public the recording of a telephone conversation of hers with the United States Ambassador to Ukraine (Who recorded it? It’s a mystery. It was supposed to be Russian Intelligence). In the conversation, Nuland instructs the Ambassador to appoint Arseni Yatsenyuk, one of the leaders of the opposition to President Yanukovych, as the new head of the Government of Ukraine. As simple as that! Ukraine at that time had its political institutions riding a pretty rough go of things but there it was, with a President, a Ministry and a Congress in office. So, Mrs. Nuland made it clear in the telephone conversation that the United States was getting ready neither more nor less, than to carry out a coup d'état to appoint its candidate as head of the administration of Ukraine.

Victoria Nuland

Did the coup d’état exist?

Yes, it existed. Two weeks after the phone call, the President of Ukraine fled his country in terror and Yatsenyuk was left in charge of the new government as Prime Minister, as stated by Mrs. Nuland.

In the telephone conversation that was made public, Mrs. Nuland very diplomatic and politely exclaimed "Fuck the European Union." Soon enough she had a chance to put her "good wishes" into practice.

Ukraine's decision

How did Victoria Nuland do it? Ukraine in those days was struggling in a political crisis that exposed the artificial character of the country, the work of Soviet bureaucrats who believed they could combine water with oil.

The breakdowns in Ukrainian society reappeared as a result of very poor fiscal and monetary policies since its Independence in 1991, which forced the Government of President Yanukovych to seek financial support from both Russia and the European Union. Aware of the strategic value of his country (because of its proximity to Russia) and knowing that the financing would lead Ukraine to commit to one of the two "generous" lenders, Yanukovych started an auction in which Ukraine was offered to the highest bidder. The European Union, highly valuing Ukraine's access to a club as select as its own, made a nominal financial offer, as if to say that it complied with the auction rules: 500 million dollars, which of course did not solve the Ukrainian liquidity problems. Russia instead offered US $ 15 billion aiming at the immediate solution of Ukraine's financial needs. Obviously, the Russian club was far from having the attractiveness and brilliance of the European Union; however, the Yanukovych government, knowing that its cash problem was immediate, opted for the alternative offered by Russia. "The need has the face of a heretic.". So, the Government of Ukraine at the time of the big decisions, embraced Russia.

The Rebellion of Western Ukraine

But this immediately enhanced the population of Western Ukraine whose history with the rest of Ukraine was troubled to say the least. Since 1919 up to 1939, it was a part of Poland, having been for a very long-time part of the Austrian Empire in which its capital, Lvov, was the third most important city after Vienna and Prague. Western Ukraine was the only part of the Western world that Hitler's Germany granted to Stalin's USSR in 1939 in the Von Ribbentrop Molotov Pact.

In dark green the Western Ukraine that until 1939 lived on the fringes of Ukraine. Note the Russian territory that the Soviets transferred after the Civil War to Ukraine in 1922 (in pink) and later in 1954, the transfer of Crimea (in light purple). They explain today the importance of the Russian population in those territories.

In 1941, Western Ukraine welcomed Hitler's German troops with open arms at the time of the invasion of the USSR. For them it was the return to the West. However, this lasted only three and a half years. The defeat of Germany and its allies returned Western Ukraine to the hated Soviet Union. 

Western Ukraine appears covered by the shield and its eventual national colors.

The End of the Soviet Union

Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Western Ukraine was integrated into the new Ukraine. The Ukrainians of the West were not happy after the decision of President Yanukovych with the idea that their country would become the satellite of Russia in 2014, the continuation of the hated USSR for them. At the same time, a good part of the public opinion of the Center of Ukraine, hypnotized by the West, preferred that year the European Union to Russia (Who could convince them that they did not have the resources to join a rich man's club?)

Maidan Square

And, as a result of such discontent, the Protest of the Maidan Square was born in 2013. The occupation of the square lasted for months and there, Mrs. Victoria Nuland appeared with the United States Ambassador to distribute cookies! to the protesters who did not move from the Plaza as long as Yanukovych did not change his decision.

Victoria Nuland's Generosity in Maidan Square

Mrs. Nuland surely thought that she had only made a humanitarian gesture by feeding the protesters. Shall it have occurred to her that her act was an impertinence, an open interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country? If she thought about it, she shouldn't have cared much because who, in its right mind, would dare to hold accountable a high official of the nation that calls itself as an "Exceptional Nation.”? It was to be expected that with a support as important as that of the United States that was present through Mrs. Nuland, the occupation of Maidan Square would continue as it actually did. In February 2014, Germany and France, alarmed by this political fire in the "backyard" of Western Europe, intervened and called the parties in dispute to a conciliation, for which on February 21, 2014, President Yanukovych signed with the leaders of the Opposition and the ministers of Foreign Affairs of France, Germany and Poland a program that would move the elections forward and allow the change of political authorities in a civilized way. Russia participated as an observer in this Agreement. And what about Mrs. Victoria Nuland? Didn't anybody remember the generous woman who handed out cookies in Maidan Square? No one invited her! To her, the representative of power in the Unipolar World, a power interested in "guiding" Ukraine to complete the siege that already surrounded Russia from Estonia to Turkey, the resurrection of the old siege that Hitler's Germany -another country that at its time also felt as an Exceptional Nation- built around the Soviet Union. Mrs. Nuland would soon be present to spoil the feast of European benefactors. She didn't need an invitation!

Belarus, Ukraine and the Black Sea separate NATO countries from Russia

Maidan Square in Kiev on February 21, 2020

Madame Nuland must have cared little for the Europeans' contempt for she was preparing her own Coup d'état. The agreement endorsed by France, Germany and Poland at the end of the Maidan Square protest, precipitated the events. For Madame Victoria the next day on February 22, it was her turn. Inexplicably that day President Yanukovych disappeared from the scene (he later appeared as a refugee in Russia), his Ministry was disbanded and the Armed and Security Forces took refuge in his barracks.

What underground maneuvers to change the regime caused the disbandment of the constitutional authorities of Ukraine?

On February 22, there were good and tragic arguments for the stampede by the authorities: in the days before the "24-hour Agreement", snipers indiscriminately killed protesters and police (more than 100 people were killed). Any threat that February 22 was credible because a mysterious party, the snipers, had been in charge of showing that the dialectic was written in blood.

Anyway, Mrs. Victoria Nuland achieved her goal: on February 26, 2014 Arseni Yatsenyuk became Prime Minister of Ukraine. Madame Victoria could then properly exclaim "Fuck the Europeans", "Fuck the European Union"!

Yatsenyuk and Obama

Epilogue

The coup in Ukraine promoted by the United States that enshrined Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister, had its tail blows. It was clear to Russia that the United States was putting down roots not only to its district, but also to the neighborhood. Too close for Russia was its adversary and peer in atomic weaponries, too close to its most important cities and having Ukraine's ports on the Black Sea with the consequent threat to the naval base under lease from Russia in Crimea, a region of Ukraine until 2014.

 What did Russia do? He got straight to the point in Crimea: it simply took over the entire Region militarily and, after a plebiscite, incorporated it into his territory. Ukraine was almost terminally ill and after the US-controlled coup, it sought to weaken it even more; for this it stimulated the uprising of part of the Donbass, a concentration area for a large part of the Russian population living in Ukraine. It was enough for Ukraine to remain until today in a State of War and therefore under circumstances that scare away potential foreign investors who could lift up Ukraine from the economic swamp in which it is debated.

On the United States' side, the coup in Ukraine made it clear to European countries that important negotiations and agreements, even if they deal with Europe's "backyard", go through Washington, even more so if they have the virtue of affecting Russia.

An indirect effect of Ukraine transformed into a conflictive region between Russia and the United States was to make visible the problems of the Russian populations that at the time of the division of the Soviet Union were left outside Russia: twenty million Russians who speak Russian who, in religious matters, are faithful to the Orthodox Church and culturally related to the Russian world. A problem similar to the one which arose with the German populations at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and which was a very important cause of World War II. In 2001 Ukraine had at least eight million Russians living in its territory, almost 20% of the population of that country.

Russian is their native language. It is observed that in 40% of the Ukraine area the Russian language is very important. At least 25% of the population speaks it as their native language. (red and dark red colors)

The fact that the United States came to dictate Ukraine's policy is not minor. The proximity to Russia is evident and  Transforms Ukraine in the Main Security Problem for Russians. An area of ​​confrontation where Russia seeks to escape from the fence that the United States has laid around it, and it tries to carry out the Wolfowitz_Doctrine (or its later sweetened formulations for consumption by United States citizens who were impressed and rejected such an aggressive text. It is named after the United States Under Secretary of Defense in 1991):

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union, or elsewhere, that may pose a threat on the order of that formerly postured by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.

After all of the above, is there any doubt that the current crisis in Ukraine has the United States and Russia as the main actors? Trump's four years were a relatively peaceful period for this country. With the return of the United States-led international affairs negotiating table and headed by the same team that ruled them in the Obama administration, the conflict has resumed the intensity of 2014-15; something not encouraging for world peace. The new Biden government appears to be "in search of lost time." It's the resurrection of Wolfowitz!