War in Ukraine. A quick reference guide for 2015 – part two

What is Novorossiya, who fired on Lugansk, what really happened during the annexation of Crimea and why war in Ukraine is so close. Here there is the second part of my quick reference guide to sort out what really happened, and imagine what will be next in 2015.

(read here the part one)

Lugansk. Yet another a dark page of the story. On June 2, when the so-called anti-terrorist operation was still in its infancy and the bombs had not yet begun to fall on Donetsk, a few sudden and mysterious explosions in the center of Lugansk killed eight people. They were five women and three men, all civilians, who were passing by Heroes of the Great Patriotic War square on a sunny spring day. In the following minutes, the two warring sides were ready to blame each other. According to the first Ukrainian version, separatists had fired a shrapnel hitting the regional administration building to blame the Ukrainian army. But already a few hours later, numerous evidence indicated an Ukrainian military aircraft as responsible. I myself made an analysis of the facts reported by other media.
The authorities in Kiev have immediately denied the airstrike, but after a few days they had to admit that the air force was operating on the outskirts of the city. It would have been a human error, as confirmed by the radio communication between the pilot and the command. I have written many times of the disinformation provided by Russian media, but this is an example of the opposite. The explanations given by pro-European websites, bloggers and media were biased and did not help to find out the truth. Moreover, the silence of Western media is to blame.

Crimea. It’s the equivalent of a geopolitical bag-snatch. The arguments in favor are basically three: Putin had every reason to take back Crimea (it has always been Russian and was given to Ukraine in a night of booze by Khrushchev, it is home of the fleet on the Black Sea, etc.); there was a wave of Russophobe hatred and imminent Nazi danger; the people have freely decided by referendum. But those arguments do not hold water. Let’s see them one by one.
Having a good reason for doing something – in international politics as among ordinary citizens – is not a license to break the rules. If you steal my money, I have every reason to steal your wallet. But any court will condemn me for theft. This is what the international community has done with Russia.
It is difficult to say how imaginary is a threat repeated every day on TV. It can eventually become true. The Russian media have spread news of people living in terror in a lawless Kiev and neo-Nazis prepared to put Crimea on fire. Russians to the south and east of Ukraine were told that their lives were in danger and that in the rest of the country bloodthirsty extremists were in power. Although people from Crimea with whom I spoke told me that they never felt in danger, many have hailed as saviors the mysterious self-defense army soldiers, who jumped out of nowhere.
The referendum was a caricature of democracy. Starting with the questions on the ballots. The two options were: 1. “Are you in favor of unifying Crimea with Russia as part of the Russian Federation?” 2. “Are you in favor of the restoration of the 1992 constitution and the status of Crimea as part of Ukraine?”. The second question was a bit difficult: the constitution of 1992 was adopted after the collapse of the USSR and immediately canceled by Kiev because it gave to Crimea the status of an independent entity.
People who wanted to express the desire to remain part of Ukraine could only choose between becoming part of Russia now or a little further.

Novorossija. It’s what came after Crimea. The other lost piece of Ukraine. Novorossija was founded May 23 with the intention of creating a traditionalist and orthodox state, and one day reunite with the great Mother Russia. The representatives of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, who met in a conference hall of the Shakhtar Plaza, revealed the goald of the new state. It is a real ideological manifesto: land collectivization, nationalization of industries, and cultural unity with the Russian world. The ultimate goal of Novorossija would be to join the Eurasian Union as wanted by Moscow and meet one day a great Russian putative motherland.
In addition to the then self-appointed local leaders, a number of unique members of Russian intelligentsia  took part in the conference. There was Alexander Dugin, founder of National Bolshevik Party Russian with Edvard Limonov, who not secretly admires Nazism and has advocated the occupation of Crimea since long time. There was Alexander Prokhanov, a writer famous for his Stalinist and anti-Semitic stance. And there was Valery Korovin, a member of Eurasia, the Russian far-right political party that campaigns to reinforce Russia’s strategic and geopolitical unity, along with an Eurasian federalism. No coincidence that the last three men are members of the Izborsky club, a Moscow based think-tank with a certain influence on the Kremlin, which advocates “the idea of a Eurasian empire, bringing together people and cultures of the Great Russia into a single strategic space“.
According to its manifesto, with a mix of autocracy, orthodoxy and nationalism, Novorossija takes a direction antithetical to Kiev’s openly pro-European and western oriented approach.

The war in Europe. The war in Ukraine is an European matter. And not just because, as someone likes to remind, Ukraine is in Europe, but mainly because it has also created a deep rift between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainians everywhere else abroad. There is no way to get them to talk. Neither of dialogue in an impartial and peaceful. There is no middle. When I wrote that the ultranationalist component of the Euromaidan was marginal and that the neo-Nazi danger has been crafted by Russian media, I was accused of being a fascist. When I wrote that there are strong indications that Kiev government has committed war crimes using the Air Force on the city of Lugansk and cluster bombs on Donetsk, I was accused of being in the pay of Putin. When I wrote that the annexation caused a compression of rights for the Crimeans, I was accused of being anti-Russian and in the pay of the CIA. And when I told what was going on in the Donbass somebody accused me of writing from home for fear of going on the spot, not knowing that I was writing from Donetsk.
The war fuels divisions, divisions fuel the war.

 (to be continued)

 @daniloeliatweet