REALPOLITIK AND TOKENISM

President Putin has clearly flouted the

international rule of law by annexing the Ukraine.

He is putting in place a strategy of real politik for

rebuilding Russia's former empire.This could well

be through the evential annexation of the twelve

countries where Russian is the main secondary

language and the insistence that the 'human

rights' of its speakers must be protected. The
similarities with Hitler's policy over sudetenland
in 1936 are stark.
 

The Russian President is assisted in planning his

aggressive domino effect by impotence and

indecision:policy paralysis caused by the

increasing dependency of the EU's major

economies on Russian trade and, of course,its

growing stranglehold on energy supplies.

 

At the same time, the inevitable schism that will

open up between the EU and the US on what to

do about the invasion of a sovereign country plays

into Putin's hands.

 

The Ukraine is the first piece in the jigsaw and the

question is not if, but when, others will follow in

Russian expansion, facilicitated by vacuous talk

and empty threats.