Discrimination Against Russians

When I see a "talking head" (blessedly few nowadays as I have "cut the cable") pontificating about the lack of discrimination against Russians in the Ukraine I have to wonder if they are ignorant of the recent history of the area or just want to continue to receive their salaries. 

We have the example of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic now independent. 

The civil war that broke out in the country after 1992 has meant a massive departure of some 400,000 Russians – and some Uzbeks – so that today the former constitute less than 3 per cent of the population. Russian is not an official language, but a language of ‘inter-ethnic communication’ under the Constitution. Despite constitutional provisions that initially appear to guarantee the use of minority languages, and despite the large percentage of minorities in the country, in particular Uzbeks, minorities are largely excluded from employment in public service.

If you are Russian you will not be employed by any business, so those that remain are informal workers or drive taxi or other such employment. We may read through the 400,000 people who had to leave suddenly. They were mostly Russians. Each of them would have owned their own apartment. They had to leave quickly so what they received was a fraction of the value of their apartment and they arrived back in Russia destitute. The same thing happened and is happening in Uzbekistan. My wife knows of people to whom this happened. 

No persecution of Russians you say? Tell that to the refugees. But you might say, "But those are Moslem countries."  

Yes, but the same thing occurs in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and especially Estonia. The New Republic tells us: 

In Estonia, things are far worse. Ethnic Russians are somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of the population. And yet, after Estonian independence in 1991, they were not given citizenship, even if they were born there. Russians who weren't living in Estonia before Soviet times are given a gray passport connoting their official status as "aliens." They can't vote in national elections and have trouble finding work. To get citizenship, they have to pass an Estonian language exam. (Estonian, which is not an Indo-European language but an Ugro-Finnic one, is notoriously difficult, with 14 cases.) The Language Inspectorate, which Russia Today derisively labeled "the language police," performs spot checks on bureaucrats and teachers to make sure they know Estonian. If they fail the test, they lose their jobs. 

The New Republic points out that Estonia is a member of NATO. So if the Russian Federation attacked, all of NATO would respond. It needs to be noted that this expansion of NATO was in direct violation of a signed letter of understanding between the US and Russia signed in 1990—no expansion of NATO to former Soviet republics. Clinton ignored this letter, as has every president since. Can you blame Russia for a reluctance to trust anything any American president says, especially if the "bad blood" rumored to exist between Putin and Obama is real. 

Putin was willing to give a huge amount of money as aid to Ukraine to avoid this whole mess, 15 billion in fact. This was far superior to the offer from the EU that president Yanukovych did not sign. He did not reject an EU agreement, he asked for more money from the EU, as was his responsibility. Yanukovych was leaning toward accepting the better offer from Russia. Note that the proposed EU agreement included cooperation with the EU military, a back door membership in NATO. 

This image is extremely popular in Russia. It shows Obama with the curls of the likely future president of Ukraine showing who really is in charge. Any agreement with Russia was unacceptable to many, including those outside the country in the West. This possibility led to the riots in Kiyv. These riots were instigated by, and to a degree controlled by, the US. Police were burned alive and captives tortured. The president fled. A parliament, surrounded by armed revolu-tionaries who told the parliament how to vote, voted to make Russian a language not usable for official business. This was rescinded quickly, but it clearly shows the intent to follow the example of the Baltic states and discriminate against Russians. Many are leaving Ukraine now for these very reasons. 

So put yourself in Putin's shoes. The US through its EU proxy is trying to continue to violate the letter of understanding that forbids the expansion of NATO. Putin's nation stands to lose a large part of its navel bases in the Crimea region when this happens and the lease on their major warm water ports expires. The Ukrainians signal that they intend to persecute Russians. Russians in the Crimea, where a large part of the Russian navy is based, ask for help. 

What would Putin do? 

My father-in-law is Ukrainian so my wife has friends, relatives, and relatives of friends all on different sides. So I will conclude with a story from a friend of my wife's and her relatives in Ukraine. At a school evaluation meeting by regional authorities at the local grade school their son was asked his name, "Dmitry" he said. The visiting school officials were not pleased. That name was too Russian. It needed to be changed to its more Ukrainian equivalent. I am sure many Ukrainians would be shocked by the boorishness of the officials, but it tells us "which way the wind is blowing."

What should Putin do?