German Chancellor Schroeder, who is known to have a good personal relation to Russian President Putin, and who, according to news reports”, had told the German Bundestag earlier today that he remains “firmly convinced, firstly that the Russian president wants to develop a democracy [in Russia?!], and wants to do so out of inner conviction”, talked to President Putin on the phone this afternoon. Now, Thomas Steg, deputy press secretary of the German government announced with reference to said conversation “that both Chancellor Schr?der and President Putin agreed that the conflict regarding the outcome of the Ukrainian Presidential elections must be solved legally and that all must be done to avoid any outbreak of violence. It is now of utmost importance for all parties to arrive at a peaceful solution through political negotiations.”
Clearly, given Russia’s general attitude and earlier uncertainty aobut Russian special forces having mobilised in Kiev, the important keywords from President Putin are “peaceful” and “negotiations”.
“the Ukrainian Presidential elections must be solved legally and that all must be done to avoid any outbreak of violence”.
Actually this text may depend on how you read it (doesn’t any says Derrida, but this one more than most). It’s clear what Schroder and you (Tobias) saw in the statement, but other eyes from another time might think that ensuring the legality of things, and avoiding violence would be just why you needed those Russian special forces.
Naturally I think more to the point would be what Schroder conveyed to Putin which wasn’t in the press secretary’s report (and equally what Putin said to Schroder).
Putin isn’t going to give up on Ukraine easily, but OTOH if Schroder wasn’t in Chamberlain mode and strong enough consequences were spelled out to make him think at least twice, then he may have to accept the inevitable.
Our dependence on oil, and (as I posted) our current ’embarrasment of riches’ with the euro won’t be helping us to stand too firm in my mind.
There is also the tricky little question that once you have the pro EU people in power, accession fast-track may come onto the agenda. Nothing in life is easy.
Oh, and btw, for those who think that at least this will draw some attention to the Ukraine plight, whatever happened to Serbia?
From the sounds of reports, any involvement of Russian troops is going to coalesce forces around Yushchenko…