Daily Times

Cold war jitters are with us again after several years of peace and cooperation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the US President, after many years of a cool relationship, are now ‘one on one’. The body language of both implies that neither is fond of the other. Russia’s intention to formal occupy Crimea — a ragged peninsula that juts into the Black Sea narrowly attached to the Ukranian mainland and almost connecting to Russia to the east — last Tuesday triggered talk of whether we are about to witness a revival of that period between 1945 and 1991, a period in modern history defined by a confrontation between two ideologies. Russian politician Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War, gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. Officially, Crimea was ceded to Ukraine to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s merger with the Russian Empire. Here, it is worth mentioning that Crimea became part of Russia in the 18th century. The question arises: why did Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev give Crimea to Ukraine as a gift? What made him give it to Ukraine and why the generosity?

Russian President Vladimir Putin summoned the entirety of the Russian elite to Saint George’s Hall of the Kremlin to announce that Russia would ‘welcome back’ rugged Peninsula-Crimea. Some have seen Putin’s actions in the context of the post-imperial complex and a leader looking to reconstitute some form of the collapsed Soviet Union by gathering up lost territories. There may be a sputter of truth in this but the reality is more complex and difficult to understand. Even as an independent part of Ukraine, Crimea retained strong emotional, cultural and historical ties with Russia. The years Crimea and the port of Sevastopol was home to the Russian formerly Soviet Black Sea naval fleet was to Russian intellectuals, novelists and artists what Paris was to their counterparts in the west. It is also noteworthy that indeed 19th century Russian literature is full of scenes set in Sevastopol and other parts of Crimea. There are today three Russians in Crimea for each Ukrainian.

Before it came under the influence of the Romanov Tzars and later communist commissars, Crimea had been the homeland of the Turkic-speaking Sunni Muslim Tartars, who had lived there since 1214. Stalin forced them to leave Crimea, having been accused of collaborating with the Nazis who had occupied the peninsula during World War II, due to which they moved to different parts of Russia and the deserts of Central Asia. Nearly half of the population that migrated to Russia and the deserts of Central Asia died due to hunger and cold; the survivors were not allowed to return till the 1980s. An Arab writer in his article noted that today’s Tartars in Crimea number 300,000, roughly 12 percent of the population. He further mentioned that from Stalin’s perspective, it was business as usual. Uprooting ethnic nationalities from their historic homelands was never considered an event of great consequence. All in a day’s work, as it were. In the opinion of the writer, a part of the Crimea issue came from what the Russian president sees as a dangerously chaotic situation in Ukraine and Russia’s complete loss in the decision making process in Kiev. President Putin, on several occasions, has suggested that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century, often cited as evidence of his longing to revive a comparable structure, but there is little evidence that he views this as a realistic proposition. Nor is his nostalgia for the USSR an aberration — a Gallup poll last December across 11 former Soviet republics found 51 percent of respondents thought the breakup of the Soviet Union was more harmful than beneficial to their country.

In culmination, it is submitted that the west and Russia have different arguments over the Crimea issue but nothing is impossible. I further argue that Russia and the west may settle the Crimea issue through negotiations. Russia wants full fledged control over Ukraine. I think it is not possible to have political control over Ukraine. Russia and the west have different sets of interests that exist in different universes, meaning reconciliation will not occur overnight. In the end, I conclude there is no likelihood of any Cold War II.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court. He can be reached at greenlaw123@hotmail.com