Revised piece: A final nail in the USSR coffin? Thank you from NATO, Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Life and a Coffin

Russian president (for life?) Vladimir Putin, perhaps unknowingly, is putting a final nail in the coffin of the performer (artist is too strong a word) formerly known as the Soviet Union.

1. By acquiring a waterless economic basket case, Crimea -- and perhaps planning to annex, in one form or another -- economically depressed/inefficient areas of eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Vladimirovich, child of the Cold War, is putting additional stress on an unproductive Russian economy that has not yet recovered from 50 years of Communism. All this after billions of dollars wasted for Sochi.

2. Arguably, the Russian president (leading a now regional country), has made the leadership circles of former Soviet republics even more cautious than ever about joining Putin's efforts to "remake" the USSR under a more "CCCP klean" form. Basically, these intolerant, corrupt hacks fear they would lose their power/kickbacks, just as Yanukovych did. So, in trying to go

back to the KGB USSR -- when Order (on the surface) reigned -- Putin is unwillingly contributing to its final dissolution.

3. Western investors in Ukraine -- who today, I speculate, have no choice but to consider the country as unitary in order to deal with its government which, no matter how corrupt, they must cooperate with (bribe) to get things done -- would quickly lose interest in Russian-held places like Donetsk and Kharkov, Detroits of the former Soviet Empire.

Savvy profit-oriented Poles and Scandinavians -- who, unlike the EU chinovniki, have "real" economic/historical interests (rather than bureaucratic ones) -- in an entity so close to their borders.

Several Oblasts can be referred to as "Eastern Ukraine":

  Red - always included

  Orange - sometimes included

They'd put their money in western Ukraine, which is more adaptable to the 21st-century economy than an eastern economic rust belt under Russian influence. So eastern Ukraine would, economically, lose out, as no way the Russian state has the resources significantly to invest in that part of its "space."

Fragility

In 2005 I wrote a widely ignored  -- doubtless, rightly ignored -- piece suggesting that the redrawing of the map in areas designated as Ukraine should not be considered an abyss (if I may paraphrase Nietzche) into which involved parties dare not gaze, for fear it would (perhaps) gaze back at them (which it is doing right now).

This article was based on my down-to-earth experiences in Ukraine in 93-95 as a U.S. diplomat (granted, in a frivolous State Department "cone," public diplomacy), when I was struck by the political and territorial fragility of the country, essentially at that time a geographical expression created over a few decades by the Soviets (think of "Ukrainian" Crimea as an extreme example).

Indeed, I thought that, had it not been for the bloodbath in the Balkans in the 90s -- an experience neither the Ukrainian nor Russian governments wanted to follow -- the country could have been torn asunder by regional/intra-regional conflict. I served in Belgrade (95-97) after Kiev. (My favorite graffito from a Belgrade wall: "Separatists of the World, Unite").

In the above-mentioned article I noted the peaceful Czechoslovak divorce sympathetically (I served in Prague 83-85). However, I understand that now, from accounts of Ukraine 20 years after I had the privilege to serve there, younger people in that part of Europe/Eurasia feel "Ukrainian."

Better Future

But is Ukraine as currently configured a way to the population of this geographical space's better future? I still ask the question, because -- I know it sounds corny -- I respect the intelligence, toughness, creativity, and humor in adversity, of the exceptional people in that part of the world. Who has not heard of that great Ukrainian-born writer, Gogol, who belongs in the pantheon of world literature?

I'll never forget the bitter joke I heard in Ukraine by the mid-90s, in reference to Western (U.S.) aid, still applicable today (some 15 billion EU dollars from will not "save" Ukraine; I thought peanuts were only produced by the United States):

In Ukraine, we got shock but not therapy.

хитрый 

Consider this: Even from a strictly "amoral" realpolitik NATO perspective, if "Russian" Ukraine were to be "liberated" by Russia sooner, rather than later, ordinary citizens in these closer-to-Asia areas, like East Germany during the Cold War, would see how much better life has become in western Ukraine (as it is, already, arguably, now).

Such a "the West is best" situation would be caused, in part, by "real" investments from Poland and Scandinavia not hampered by a central Ukrainian "government" (let's not forget that "under Varangian [Viking] rule, the city [Kiev] became a capital of the Kievan Rus', the first East Slavic state.")

In other words, even from the most cynical Cold-War, money-is-money, dog-eat-dog capitalism-is-capitalism perspective, a redrawn Ukraine would be far in more in the West's, rather than strictly "Russian," "ethnic" interest. 

Funny how a khitri (clever?) ("For me personally, the Russian word I find hardest to translate is хитрый (khitri") ex-KGB officer, a child of the Cold War who spied in East Germany, can't seem to figure that out.

Top image from; following image from; lowest image from; thank you PG for your valuable comment about nails.