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I think it was an act of panic on his part. He's popular in Russia because he's a strong man and he makes Russians feel powerful. Yanukovych was Putin's boy in
by jordanb 13y ago
I think it was an act of panic on his part. He's popular in Russia because he's a strong man and he makes Russians feel powerful.
Yanukovych was Putin's boy in Ukraine and they kicked him out on the ass he rode in on. If Putin can't even keep his puppets in power in former SSRs then what kind of strongman is he?
Now Putin needs to 1) make this look like a victory without 2) too many negative international consequences. Given that he controls Europe's natural gas he actually has a lot of leverage to get a decent deal, so my bet is that he'll be able to get some sort of change in political status for Crimea.
That may seem kinda pointless given Crimea lacks any sort of strategic importance but remember that Putin's goal is not to gain a better strategic or political position for Russia but rather, to not look impotent to his domestic audience.
- iwwr 13y agoBy "they" who kicked him out, who do you mean?
- higherpurpose 13y agoExactly the problem with dictatorships. You can't have the ruler "look bad" even for trivial stuff, and he'd rather send thousands or tens of thousands of people to their death, than be embarrassed himself. We can argue whether Russia is a dictatorship or not, but I'd say it's a lot closer to one than to democracy, especially when opposition leaders and protesters are arrested, and everyone else in the Parliament votes for whatever Putin says, out of fear for their lives, and elections are being robbed like there's no tomorrow, while Putin gets to interpret the Constitution as he's being allowed to rule virtually forever in Russia. If Russia had a functioning democracy and Parliament, it wouldn't matter that Putin was "embarrassed" and made to look like a fool (which I don't think anyone thought that, at least not from outside of Russia, but it seems to be more of a thing in his mind).
- Mikeb85 13y agoI think you underestimate Putin's popularity. I have a lot of Russian friends, all of them are various degrees of pro-Putin...
- skylan_q 13y agoAnd most of those who don't like Putin are supporters of all the other parties which are much less likely to get along with the West in any capacity.
- huxley 13y agoIf you think this is a problem that only applies to dictatorships, I encourage you to read The Melian Dialogue by Thucydides http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian_dialogue http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian_dialogue All Great Powers fear losing face, democracies are not immune, as a glance at television news or newspaper opinion pages would show.
- nmeofthestate 13y ago"Crimea lacks any sort of strategic importance" I am no military strategist, but isn't Crimea kind of important to Russia's navy?
- IgorPartola 13y agoIt is extremely important, yes.
- jbooth 13y agoIf you think Crimea lacks strategic importance, I'd suggest you read up on Russia's actions regarding the black sea for the last.. 200 years or so.
- jordanb 13y agoPithy response but what's your point? What's the strategic significance of Crimea to anybody? I think if anything you're confusing strategic significance with symbolic significance. This invasion is about symbolism, not strategy.
- jbooth 13y agoIt has a lot of strategic significance to the Russian Navy, significantly less to anyone else.