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2. U.S. Complicity in the 2014 Coup in Kiev as a Violation of International Law
- Author:
- A. Vyleghanin and K. Kritsky
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- FIVE YEARS AGO, a coup d’état took place in Kiev. Following demon- strations and arson attacks, a mob seized several government institutions, including the administration building and residence of the constitutional- ly elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich. Some members of the Ukrainian president’s security detail who were protecting his residence from illegal seizure were wounded and killed.1 Alexander Turchinov, one of the coup leaders, began serving as the president of Ukraine even though no Ukrainian presidential election had been held. The coup in Kiev led primarily to the U.S. assuming a leading role in Ukraine’s governance – something it had neither during the period of the Russian Empire nor the Soviet era. The February 2014 overthrow of the president in Kiev that took place without elections and in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution de facto divided the country into regions that recognized the new authorities in Kiev and those that opposed the coup (primarily the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine). This occurred not only because the Ukrainian presi- dent was unconstitutionally removed from power but primarily because the “installation” of the putschist government was accompanied by vio- lence, and ethnic and linguistic persecution. In March 2014, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea left the new, “post-coup” Ukraine in accordance with the provision of the UN Charter on the right of peoples to self-determination. Subsequently, following a referendum in Crimea, a treaty on Crimea’s reunification with Russia was signed. A confrontation between the new regime in Kiev* and residents of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions turned into a protracted armed conflict. The forcible replacement in Kiev of a constitutionally elected head of state (Yanukovich) with an unconstitutional leader (Turchinov) directly impacted Russia’s national interests. Russians and Ukrainians lived together within a single state, the Russian Empire, from the 17th century until 1917. During the Soviet period, the border between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic did not have international legal significance. It was an administrative bor- der. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent UN member states (Russia and Ukraine) that replaced them continued to maintain close economic and other ties. Their continued integration, including through joint participation in the Customs Union, objectively met the strategic interests of Ukraine and Russia. A friendly Ukraine is also important to Russia from a national securi- ty standpoint, considering NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s borders that began in the early 1990s – i.e., NATO’s absorption of all former member states of the Warsaw Pact, including Poland and even the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Russia’s leadership has repeatedly stressed the inadmissibility of dragging Ukraine into NATO. Words about “fraternal” relations between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine are no exaggeration: Millions of family members (both Russians and Ukrainians) live on opposite sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border,2 and at least one-third of Ukraine’s population speaks Russian as a native language. In this context, it is not surprising that Moscow considered the U.S.- orchestrated seizure of power from the head of state in Kiev an event affecting its vital interests. Something else is remarkable: The U.S. administration said that the events in Ukraine, far away from the American mainland, “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”4 Westerners promulgated a very different assessment of the forced ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. The U.S. called it a “people’s rev- olution” and said that the mob action organized in part by the U.S. ambas- sador in Kiev (including the killing of Berkut fighters, the state guard of the Ukrainian president) was a legitimate way of expressing the will of the “Ukrainian people.”
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, International Law, Military Strategy, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Middle East, South America, Syria, Venezuela, North America, and United States of America
3. The Crimean Crisis and the Issue of Security Guarantees for Ukraine
- Author:
- V. Orlov
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- Twenty years ago, the issue of nuclear weapons on the territory of Ukraine and, accordingly, of security assurances to Ukraine in the case of its achieving a non-nuclear status was the focus of attention for policymakers, diplomats and the international expert community. It was also then that it was seemingly resolved once and for all – first through the Trilateral statement by the presidents of Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine (Moscow, January 14, 1994), then through a Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (Budapest, December 5, 1994), signed by the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, Treaties and Agreements, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Ukraine
4. Maidan: A Lesson to Be Learned
- Author:
- V. Surguladze
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- In Ukraine, the West demonstrated once more the efficiency of its organizational weapon and its skill in pushing states into military operations of low intensity. there is still hope that unlike Serbia, Iraq, Libya, etc. Ukraine will not degenerate into another textbook study-case and a tick in the appropriate box in the list of successes of Western political technologists and experts in political coups and “protection of democracy.” While watching what is going on in Ukraine we should demonstrate the strength of spirit and a morally healthy social atmosphere so that to stand opposed to Western ideological attacks and to develop our state, rationally and consistently. Without this, it is impossible to survive in the world where certain countries have mastered the skills of disguising their destructive foreign policy aims with high-sounding phrases about common good and “human values and freedoms” which they distort beyond recognition.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Politics, War, and Democracy
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, and Serbia
5. "Color Revolutions": Uniformity in Diversity
- Author:
- Yu. Sharkov
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- A wave of so-called "color revolutions" has swept the world, including the post-Soviet space, over recent decades. They followed the same scenario although they had different names ("the Rose Revolution" in Georgia, "the Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, "the Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan or "the Potato Revolution" in Belarus).
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Belarus
6. Understanding Common History Ideas for Discussion
- Author:
- Petr Stegniy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- The evolution of the independent states that emerged following the disintegration of the Soviet Union has predictably prioritized the issue of the national-political identification of the former Union republics. However, the trend toward building national history concepts by radically revising the common experience at the expense of the former "big brother," which has been gaining momentum in a number of post-Soviet states, was less predictable - taking into account the proactive role played by Russia under Boris Yeltsin in dissolving the Soviet Empire, as well as the pledges that were made in 1991 in Belovezhskaia Pushcha.
- Topic:
- Cold War and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Ukraine, Soviet Union, and Georgia
7. We Favor Setting up an Open Collective Security System
- Author:
- S. Lavrov
- Publication Date:
- 06-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- East View Information Services
- Abstract:
- The annual Disarmament Conference is on from January 21 to September 12, 2008 in the UN Office at Geneva. The Conference was convened for negotiating arms race limitation treaties and agreements. It is concerned with designing effective methods of arms and disarmament control acceptable to all states. The Disarmament Conference brings together 65 nations, including Belarus and Ukraine, as well as the five nuclear powers.
- Political Geography:
- Geneva and Ukraine