By Masha Lipman
The New Yorker - March 2, 2014
What is happening in the Crimean peninsula is not a war, exactly—or
not if bloodshed is the standard for war. It is an ominous, creeping
occupation (for now) of a region of sovereign Ukraine by the Russian
armed forces at the order of the Kremlin. So far there have been no
casualties, almost no shooting. In the predominantly pro-Russian Crimea,
the Russian servicemen are generally welcomed by the local inhabitants.
As Russian troops encircle and block Ukrainian military units in
Crimea, the Ukrainian government in Kiev, the capital, is preparing for
resistance. What will come next—full-blown war, negotiations, or a
prolonged standoff—is anyone’s guess.
The one moment of promising news Sunday came when Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would accept her proposal
to establish an international fact-finding “contact group” to discuss
the crisis in Ukraine. Putin, in his conversation with Merkel, however,
insisted that his actions were justified by an “unrelenting threat of
violence” to Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. Merkel, for her part,
called the invasion a contravention of international law.
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