Saturday 16 August 2014

Guest post: the big win for Ukraine – beyondbrics - Blogs - FT.com

Guest post: the big win for Ukraine – beyondbrics - Blogs - FT.com:



"There are so many moving parts involved in Ukraine that it is hard to gauge the situation with any certainty. But without doubt the most interesting event of the past 24 hours was the Russian military convoy crossing the border, witnessed and photographed by western and Russian media outlets. More remarkable has been the muted reaction from the west and indeed from the western media. If this had happened four or five weeks ago, the White House PR machine would have gone into overdrive and warned of new sanctions unless Russia “de-escalated”. Thus far we have seen next to nothing.



Officially, the Russian defence ministry has denied the convoy exists or crossed the border. But the evidence is as conclusive as it could be, with tweets/snaps from the Guardian, the Telegraph and Novy Vremya. I sense the denial was tongue in cheek. What is more important, I think the Russians wanted everyone to see this convoy crossing the border. Journalists were guided to it by the convoy of Russian white humanitarian trucks – and then the military convoy just appeared, turned right and crossed the border in front of the journalists. Russia wanted everyone to see that it has the capacity to cross the border into Ukraine at will – even with full Russian military regalia.



It would seem that Russia is goading or testing the west."



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