Putin sends clear message: no intention to invade Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin has proposed that the upper house call off the March 1 resolution allowing the head of state to use the armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. And while the media is speculating what lies behind the move, which comes ahead of leaving on official visit to Vienna, Radio VR's political analyst Dmitry Babich says it certainly does not mean a change in Russia's policy, but a clear message to the world that Russia has no intentions of occupying Ukraine./

Dmitry Babich stressed that there is a civil war going on in Ukraine, but the West does not view it as such. It is clear even from the recent conversation President Putin had with his American counterpart.

"If we look at the words that Obama used – stop supporting the separatists, stop the violence – Obama, just like the majority of the Western leaders, believes that there is no civil war in Ukraine, there is just Russian intrusion, there are some Russian agents who are making life hard for Ukrainians living in the east of Ukraine, most of whom speak Russian as their native language," he said. "And this is not true. But the problem is that the Western correspondents have left the region, Western media is losing interest in it and this wrong stereotype which the Western media had ingrained in the mass conscience in the West is still working. A lot of people view the situation in a simplified way: it is like Ukraine wants to become European and democratic and Russia intruded from the East to stop it on these good ways." So, Dmitry Babich is convinced that Putin's move is aimed to show that Russia does not want to invade Ukraine. "We are even removing a legal possibility for the use of military force in Ukraine," he said, But Dmitry Babich, however, noted that Crimea was a special case, and by no means it could be referred to as invasion. "Crimea became formally a part of Ukraine just in 1954 for purely political and technical reasons," he explained. "It has never been Ukrainian region before. This area is populated by ethnic Russians, by Crimean Tatars. Ukrainians had never considered Crimea as their ethnic turf. So, Crimea was a special case". "And Donetsk and Lugansk are different things. First, these are huge regions with population about 11 million people unlike Crimea, which has less than 2 million. And Russia has absolutely no desire to annex them or to make them some sort of a grey zone between Russia and Kiev," he said.

What comes to the local residents of the above regions, there is a whole array of opinions and desires. But huge majority does not want to live under the government which is now ruling Ukraine from Kiev. The majority of these people do not like the Ukrainian nationalists from the West of Ukraine who dominate in the current government, Dmitry Babich explained "Another issue is how these regions are going to develop: some people want to join Russia, some people just want more autonomy from Kiev," he said, "I think the majority wants to elect their own governors. Unfortunately, Poroshenko's new peace plan does not give them such an opportunity, the candidates are still to be approved by Kiev." But the political analyst says, it is 99 per cent an inner Ukrainian problem – how do they live together with each other. And Russia has just shown that an intrusion is not an option. Russia is not going to militarily occupy Ukraine even if a lot of people, the majority of people in Donetsk and Lugansk would like Russia to come and help them to defeat the troops sent by Kiev to subdue them.

He then reiterated once again that Crimea was a different story.

"There the share of the Russian population is huge and mentally it had never become a part of Ukraine," he said. "Under the Soviet Union it basically had no importance whether you were a part of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or Russian Soviet Socialist Republic – it was purely an administrative problem. And people living in Crimea did not feel any inconvenience of being formerly a part of Soviet Ukraine."

"But after 1991 it became a huge nuisance for them. And until Ukraine was a democratic country, Crimea was needed by Moscow because it was a sort of an anchor that held Ukraine away from joining NATO, from going 100 per cent West." When this coup d'etat happened in Kiev, he explained, it destabilized the balance in the Ukrainian society. And Ukraine can exist as a unified state only balancing between East and West. If Ukraine goes 100 per cent West, the East becomes restive. If Ukraine goes to Russia, the West and even Kiev are going to react negatively. So, when it became clear that Ukraine stopped to be a democratic country, elections do not matter there, power is in the hands of the violent group, then Russia decided to take Crimea back. But it does not mean that Russia wants to tear up Ukraine. It is a problem for Ukrainians to solve - to restore some kind of balance. Even Poland had inner problems when it joined the EU and NATO as an active member. Not all the Poles are happy with this state of affairs. And in Ukraine there is a very big part of the population which is not ready to go to the EU and to bid farewell to Russia forever.

But the longer the war continues, the more difficult it is to find the balance.

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_24/Putin-sends-clear-message-no-intention-to-invade-Ukraine-political-analyst-9678/