CIUS Round table Thursday, 3 April 2014, “Russia’s Annexation of Crimea and the Future of Ukraine” featuring the institute’s two leading specialists on the subject, David R. Marples and Taras Kuzio.
The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies continues to monitor and assess the situation in Ukraine, thereby providing important academic and community services.
Dr. Olexiy Haran is professor of comparative politics at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine. He says that the Euromaidan was a place of multi-ethnic national solidarity in the face of repression – Putin only seeks to justify his aggression.
From his article “Don’t believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s ‘fascist’ protesters”:
The Kremlin uses many kinds of falsifications to justify its aggression against Ukraine and plans to annex Crimean peninsula. One of which is that the mass protests of Ukrainians against the corrupt and bloody regime of Viktor Yanukovych, called the Euromaidan, was a gathering of far-right extremists intent on imposing nationalist rule over all other ethnic groups in Ukraine.
Andrei Zubov, a Russian historian and political scientist, was fired from his post as professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs following the publication of his article “We have seen this before” (Ėto uzhe bylo) in the daily Vedomosti.ru on March 1. In his article, Zubov compares Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to occupy the Crimea to Hitler’s decisions to annex Austria, Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, and Lithuania’s Memel in 1938–39. Addressing his fellow countrymen, Zubov warns: “We are on the brink of the complete destruction of the system of international treaties, economic chaos, and political dictatorship.” Further, he appeals: “Friends! We need to come to our senses and stop. Our politicians are dragging our people into a terrible, horrifying misadventure. Historical experience tells us that nothing good will come of this. We should not act as the Germans did in their day, lured by the promises of Goebbels and Hitler.” Read more
The economic impact on Russia is already staggering. When markets opened on Monday morning, investors got their first chance to react to the Russian intervention in Ukraine over the weekend, and as a result, the key Russian stock indexes tanked by more than 10%. That amounts to almost $60 billion in stock value wiped out in the course of a day, more than Russia spent preparing for last month’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The state-controlled natural-gas monopoly Gazprom, which accounts for roughly a quarter of Russian tax revenue, lost $15 billion in market value in one day — incidentally the same amount of money Russia promised to the teetering regime in Ukraine in December and then revoked in January as the revolution took hold. (Schuster)
Shuster, Simon. “4 Reasons Putin Is Already Losing in Ukraine.” TIME. 3 Mar. 2014. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.
To the Guarantor Countries, Signatories of the Budapest Memorandum,
Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council
The Command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation has issued an ultimatum to units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Crimea.
It specifies that they are to surrender by 5:00 a.m. local time on 4 March 2014.
If this is not done, a warning has been given that these units will be stormed, with the use of all types of weapons.
Armed forces of the Russian Federation are also concentrated along the eastern borders of Ukraine, which means that an attack from the east is being prepared. Read more