The Putin Doctrine’s Ten Steps
August 26, 2008 – 5:23 pmThe Russian parliaments recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia’s independence, and President Medvedev’s endorsement of this step, changes everything. In effect, we now have a new Putin Doctrine just as had a Brezhnev doctrine in the Soviet era.
The Putin Doctrine could be applied to any region of the former USSR, including especially the Crimea and Sevastopol to which Russian politicians have long supported imperialist pretensions.
Ukraine’s population has always massively supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Similarly during the Kravchuk and Kuchma era’s Eastern as well as Western Ukrainian politicians and parties in Ukraine’s parliament has always supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
This has now changed. The Party of Regions has supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and called into question its patriotism and commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The Party of Regions will only lose popular support by supporting separatism, whether in November 2004 or today http://www.partyofregions.org.ua/pr-east-west/48b3f96ddbab9/
The Putin’s Doctrine’s ten steps could be easily applied to the Crimea and eastern Ukraine:
1. Provoke inter-ethnic clashes;
2. Undertake ethnic cleansing;
3. Introduce Russian troops as “peacekeepers”;
4. Freeze the conflict;
5. Distribute Russian passports;
6. Arm the separatists;
7. Provoke conflict with the republic within which the separatist regions are internationally recognized;
8. Militarily intervene in “defense of Russian citizens”;
9. Encourage the separatists to support “declarations of independence”;
10. Russian parliament and president recognize the separatist regions.