Crimea: A potential flashpoint in Russia-West relations

Russia’s emergence as an economic and military superpower since the collapse of the Soviet Union has rattled many a feather in the western bloc, none more so than the United States and her European allies that regard Moscow’s aggressive international politics a gateway to a new cold war era. Kremlin’s overwhelming military victory over a hapless west leaning Georgia last August bears the hallmark of a dominant Russia that is ready to roll back the years of a ruthless Soviet legacy that constantly rubbed shoulders with its arch ideological rival, the United States of America.

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Concerned about Russia’s bullying tactics against small former Soviet republics that are striving to join the affluent European Union bloc and its military wing NATO, western analysts are keeping a close watch on Moscow’s intentions in and around Eastern Europe that could easily lead to Russia-West flash points. One such potential conflict zone is the Crimea(the red mark in the map represents the region)off Ukraine’s Black sea coast. Centre of Russia’s mighty Black sea naval fleet, many pro-western Ukrainians want the Russian navy to leave Crimea.

Although last October the Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov had promised that Russia would leave the Black sea peninsula if Kiev does not renew the Russian navy’s lease of the Crimean port of Sevastopol in 2017, not many Ukrainians are counting on that word from the deputy PM. Ukrainian leaders in Kiev are not in favour of extending the lease beyond 2017 yet many in the west believe that the Kremlin would find ways to bully or blackmail Ukraine in order to get an extension of the lease.

The Crimea is too strategic a place for the Russians to let go in an instant after having it as their Black sea fleet base for the last 225 years or so. With most of the former Soviet states inclined to join the EU and NATO, the base in Crimea offers Russian military and civilian intelligence agencies to keep a close watch on the political affairs in the Ukraine and its neighbouring states like Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, etc.

The politics over the status of Crimea is very complex at the moment that has taken somewhat strategic turn with the presence of a large ethnic Russian population within the peninsula that form a majority of the Crimea’s two million inhabitants. Some of the local Russian residents have more faith on the government in Kremlin than in Kiev.

So, one can believe that any forceful decision making on the part of Kiev’s politicians to get rid of the Russian military would be heavily opposed by the Russians in Crimea. This could take an ugly turn if the Ukraine follows Georgia’s policy of attacking South Ossetia that drew a stern retaliation from Moscow and within moments the Caucasus was burning under severe Russian bombardment of Georgian cities and towns.

Western fears about a Russian-Ukrainian face off over the Crimea cannot be ruled out at the moment if one goes by what happened in South Ossetia between Moscow and Tbilisi. The Ukraine, with American and NATO support, would vehemently oppose any Russian intention of keeping the Crimea under Moscow’s full control with the help of the mighty Russian navy. Many Ukrainian and western analysts have revealed that ethnic Russians in the region are possessing dual Russian and Ukrainian passports and this is where things get a bit too complicated.

The Georgians, during their short but brutal war with Russia, have accused the leadership in Moscow of illegally distributing Russian passports and identity cards to the ethnic Russian population in the Georgian region of South Ossetia in a bid to prove Russia’s involvement in the war perfectly legitimate. With most of the Crimean Russians carrying Russian passports, any tension over the Black sea between Russia and the Ukraine could be extremely dangerous. With most of the local Crimeans pledging their loyalty to Moscow, Russia can exploit the situation very efficiently, both militarily and politically.

Furthermore, there are divisions within the Ukrainian society about the presence of Russian naval facilities in the region. Ukraine receives around 100 million dollars a year from Moscow for leasing the naval facilities in Sevastopol. For a poor nation like Ukraine, many think that with the Russians gone from the Crimea, the country would be deprived of a large chunk of monetary security in these hard global economic times. Well, there is every bit to believe that the Kremlin has enough room to manoeuvre to turn aggressive politics into a full scale military and economic blackmailing.

Many in Eastern Europe do not trust President Dmitry Medvedev’s government in Moscow. Infact many see the academic politician and the former chairman of oil and natural gas major Gazprom as a puppet to the Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin. Mr.Putin is regarded as a Russian hero who is the brainchild of Russia’s revival from the tumultuous days of President Boris Yeltsin and the man who subdued the Chechen conflict and brought back respect for the Russian nation in front of the world by overlooking the vast country’s amazing economic and military resurgence. No one now can deny that Moscow has any role to play in the current economic and political turmoil that has gripped the planet.

Washington heavily depends on Moscow in bringing Iran and North Korea to the negotiating table and Russian help is immensely important in tackling the economic crisis. The Barack Obama presidency has promised of a new era of US-Russian relationship yet issues such as Georgia and Crimea could play spoilsport to the assurances that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have provided to the American people and the allies in Eastern and Western Europe.

The Ukrainians were certainly unhappy when Russian naval warships set sail from Sevastopol to create a blockade on Georgian ports during the seven-day war last August. Kiev felt that by using its own legal territory to fuel a war in a friendly nation, Russia has directly challenged Ukrainian territorial sovereignty and security. Well, this situation luckily did not spiral out of proportions but it certainly reflected the tense nature of the geopolitical game that is being played all around the Black Sea and the Caucasian region.

The Crimea is on edge and there is every reason to believe that we are not far from a new cold war until and unless common sense prevails in the upper echelons of the political leadership in Moscow, Kiev, Washington and Brussels.