Elsewhere in cyberspace a heated debate amongst the Ukrainian Expat community and some English football fans is engaged, fueled by media coverage in the UK of Ukrainian and Polish supporters football violence and racist actions and chants.
Now there is no denying that there is a racist element amongst certain fans and in particular those associated to certain football clubs in Ukraine.
There is also one Ukrainian football club whose supporters are associated with anti-fascism (not that such a thing would be reported in the UK media).
However, this heated debate between the Ukrainian Expat community and traveling English fans has now centred over the word “nigger/negro” (негр).
It is time to be crystal clear. In Ukraine and Russia there is no racial derogatory slur attached to the word “nigger/negro”. It is not an insult here and neither is it meant to be insulting!
Despite the negativity attached to the word in the UK and other nations, historically and currently, the word nigger has no such undercurrent in Ukraine or Russia. It is not a word that Ukrainians or Russians would use to insult a black person.
In Ukraine and Russia, the word nigger/negro simply means a black person and nothing more. It is politically correct here.
If a Ukrainian or Russian wanted to racially insult a black person, nigger is most definitely not the word they would use to do it.
They would use words like chernomazy (черномазый) or several others I won’t bother to list that have the same distasteful connotations as those attached to the word nigger in the UK. Anyway, you get my point.
So, if you are in Ukraine for the football (or Russia or Ukraine for any other reason) and hear the word “nigger/negro” – it is not the insult you will automatically associate it with if you are an English football fan or western tourist. It is a politically correct word with no insulting undertone whatsoever!
Do please remember not all words have the same insinuations or inferences in all cultures and languages. Taking a drunken swing at somebody you hear using the word nigger here will land you (and not them) with a robust response from the police as they have said nothing wrong – in fact they have been politically correct.
Cultural, linguistic and historical awareness is a necessity if you are looking for an excuse to call racism over words like nigger in Ukraine. Wonder if the BBC or UK media will actually highlight this, or whether they will simply be so ignorant as to see it as a racial insult – that it isn’t?
Well what can you say. New Russian president, old Russian tactics.
Since Mr Putin has reinstalled himself in the Kremlin, and I have nothing against that per se, he probably was the most popular politician even if it is not necessarily a good thing for Russia, several interesting events have occurred in relation to Ukraine.
Russia ended its “cheese war” with Ukraine just prior to his inauguration which was seen as a generally positive move. Ukrainian cheese can now be imported into in Russia again. A welcoming carrot from the new Russian President prior to taking office it seemed. Now however, maybe it was a goodbye carrot offered by the out-going Mr Medevedev.
Why do I say that? Well since Mr Putin’s taking office (again), the only Ukrainian oil rig currently being moved around the Black Sea, was banned from Russian waters, despite in doing so it meant a far more hazardous route via Turkish waters. Not an especially nice gesture from the “new” Kremlin administration.
Ah – It’s energy politics and just Russia showing its displeasure at Ukraine finding its own (and alternative) sources of oil and gas, I hear you say. Well yes maybe so.
Only a few days ago, President Yanukovych was invited to an “informal” meeting of the CIS nations by Mr Putin. Once again the Ukrainian president pooh-poohed the idea of any form of consortium involving the Ukrainian gas transport system that did not involve the EU as well. In effect if there is to be foreign involvement and investment in the Ukrainian GTS, it is going to involve producer (Russia), transporter (Ukraine) and end user (EU). To be fair to President Yanukovych, that has been his position since taking office and it has not altered despite intense Russian pressure.
Once again at this “informal” meeting, President Yanukovych repeated the Ukrainian position, reaffirming it had not changed. Neither had Ukraine’s position relating to an EU rather than Eurasia Union direction changed either. To be quite honest, without Ukraine I fail to see just how Mr Putin’s Eurasian Union will actually become a reality in anything other than name.
So, having met with the “new” Russian President and stated once again (and it is a record that the Russians must be tired of hearing by now), the Ukrainian position on various subjects, President Yanukovych returned to Kyiv having given very little good news to Mr Putin over his major projects and ideas when it came to Ukrainian inclusion.
Rather unsurprisingly then, on Friday 18th May, Russia’s Supreme Court decided to ban all Ukrainian Associations, (a Ukrainian NGO in Russia) from lawfully existing. Now there is one month to appeal this ruling, or should I say there is one month for Ukraine to submit to Mr Putin’s will, or Ukrainian NGOs in Russia will suffer.
This puts Kyiv in a difficult position. It cannot simply allow Russia to close a Ukrainian NGO like the Ukrainian Association. To do so will upset a lot of voters (who probably wouldn’t vote for the current majority anyway, but you never know) in the run up to the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in October. The nationalists and opposition parties simply won’t allow it to go unnoticed that Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian NGOs are under severe pressure in Russia and the current government are doing nothing about it.
Also the current government do not want to appear weak. However they also do not want to appear to bend to Mr Putin’s will. The question Kyiv now faces is how to pacify Mr Putin without compromising Ukrainian interests abroad, in particular in a neighbouring nation. If the price to pacify Mr Putin is simply too great, then Ukraine will have to take some retaliatory action. Simply doing nothing is not an option given an election on the horizon.
Retaliation however, may (or may not) upset a large number of the Russian speaking Ukrainians in the East who generally vote for the current government and not the opposition.
A difficult position for Kyiv given both the domestic politics here and Ukrainian/Russian relations already mired with gas problems on numerous fronts.
This issue could well turn into a bellwether for bilateral relations in the next month. If the Russian Supreme Court changes its decision, we have to ask why? If it doesn’t, we have to see how Ukraine reacts and what the consequences of that retaliatory action will be.
Will Ukraine/Belarus relations suddenly take a turn for the worse when Mr Putin makes Belarus his first official visit abroad as President of Russia? For sure Belarus has nothing left to sell/give to Russia by way of State owned infrastructure, but it does have a border and does trade with Ukraine.
Keep an eye on this story as it has the potential to be far more important that it initially seems!
You will remember back in early March I mentioned a cunning plan from the government of Ukraine to buy gas from RWE in Germany and reverse the flow of sections of the transport system in order to import it, thus reducing the amount of contractually very expensive Russian gas?
Now then, what are the chances of Turkish LNG being shipped Bulgaria and reversing the flow back to Ukraine (another option) until the Odessa LNG terminal is build?
Bold political and energy moves indeed, as it will certainly annoy the newly installed Mr Putin and Gazprom who have happily been milking Ukraine for the last few years.
Let’s see what the Russian response will be!
* * * * *
As an aside, if you read yesterday’s post and are wondering what the outcome of the EU-Ukraine summit was,here is the official press release. No surprises in it just as it was no surprise the EU Euro 2012 boycott failed to take off.
What should be clear to the EU by now is that the current government is quite happy to, and indeed is doing quite well at, creating the legislative norms that run parallel to those of the EU and as such the DCFTA side of the EU/Ukraine negotiated agreement will continue to progress fairly well. The political AA side of the agreement will not progress much at all. All such signs are documented by the EU itself in its ENP Country Progress Report – Ukraine!
Quite a contrast to the previous government where the political integration was far more achievable, but it was also a government completely unable to to draft and pass anything like legislation meeting EU norms.
Given both sides will continue to have the same strengths and weaknesses, it would seem a reasonable tactic to encourage the current government along the legislative reformation path as much as possible, and then hope for a change of government who are legislatively incompetent but will politically meet the grade.
Failing that, sooner or later the EU will realise that financial investigations and the seizure of nefariously acquired or hidden assets held within the EU territory relating to all Ukrainian politicians, from all parties, will be the most feared stick they have in their bag that may force Ukrainian politicians to go along the EU’s preferred path regardless of their strengths or weaknesses. – Now there’s a bold policy step!
(Alternatively, the EU can just let Ukraine drift back to Russia and watch it help make the Eurasian Union become a workable model.)
In a democracy or anything claiming to be a democracy, should there be a limit on free speech?
In this article, Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, and probably the best leader of Ms Tymoshenko’s party it will unfortunately never have, takes a very robust swipe at Art TV for fueling “ethnic hatred” and is attempting to take the matter to court. I have a lot of time for Mykola Tomenko. He is a capable politician who does not engage in the personality mud-slinging typical of Ukrainian politics.
Art TV is a pro-Russian orientated television station which broadcasts locally in Odessa. It has always been that way during the entire decade I have lived in Odessa. The owner of this television station is the leader of the political party, Party Rodina, Igor Markov, which is a pro-Russia party. Mr Markov is an elected local politician and has also held that elected political position for the decade I have lived in Odessa serving in various roles on City Hall committees under various Mayors of differing political persuasion. He is also a very, very rich man with very diverse business interests in the Odessa region.
Now before I go any further I must make a full disclosure. I know Igor Markov. I live next door to one of his homes. We talk. We are friendly but not friends (yet anyway). We get along well enough though. Occasionally, but not regularly, I will watch his Art TV channel. With 80+ television channels, I am hardly likely to restrict myself to his television station. Art TV is also not the only local television station so it is not the only source of local televised news. No such monopoly exists. Art TV has only regional coverage and does not broadcast nationally.
OK – background and disclosures provided, let’s return to my opening question. Should there be a limit on free speech in a democracy, and following on from that, should a high-ranking official from “the democratic opposition” be calling for a curb on the free speech of Art TV, even if he considered it to be fueling ethnic (by being pro-Russian) tensions?
Having seen and listened too, both in person and on national television, Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader or the ultra right Svoboda party, who have a very strong political presence in Lviv and within the Lviv regional administration, I have to be honest and state that Mr Tyahnybok has made statements far in excess of anything I have ever seen on Art TV and to a far bigger audience – on a very frequent basis. Yet Mykola Tomenko has not chastised him or his party for what have been on occasion very thinly veiled ethnically inciting statements.
With both Art TV and whenever Mt Tyahnybok or his party are on national television, I have the choice to change channels or turn off the television completely if what I hear and see disturbs or upsets me. I am an adult and I do not need the State or Mykola Tomenko to make my choices for me when it comes to politics or the propaganda I should be allowed to consume. As long as there is no incitement for violence towards another to which I may be mentally retarded enough to adhere to, in a democracy, should I be prevented from listening to elected politicians whatever their position?
As Igor Markov is consistently elected on a pro-Russia platform, and Oleh Tyanhnybok on an anti-Russia/anti-EU ultra fascist platform, then they represent enough of society to get elected and I should, in a democracy, be able to hear their views and the views of those who voted for them. They are after all, part of the same society that I live within.
There is a similar debate in Greece now with the ultra-right Golden Dawn party who have just managed to get some of their members elected. I recall the outcry when Nick Griffin of the BNP was allowed to air his views on the BBC. The issue is, however, no matter how repugnant any views of elected politicians maybe, in a democracy to get elected they represent enough people to hold that position and to stifle democratically mandated debate can hardly be democratic can it?
If that is the case, how can a very senior member of the Ukrainian “democratic opposition” want to stifle democratic debate and freedom of speech?
All of that said, there needs to be a line which should not be crossed. But where is that line?
Let’s turn to the European Court of Human Rights as see what they have to say:
“… tolerance and respect for the equal dignity of all human beings constitute the foundations of a democratic, pluralistic society. That being so, as a matter of principle it may be considered necessary in certain democratic societies to sanction or even prevent all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance…” (Chamber judgment Erbakan v. Turkey, no. 59405/00, § 56, 6.07.2006)
So Art TV (possibly) and Oleh Tyanhybok, Svoboda have crossed the line? No so fast.
The ECfHR goes on to say, ”the Court is also careful to make a distinction in its findings between, on the one hand, genuine and serious incitement to extremism and, on the other hand, the right of individuals (including journalists and politicians) to express their views freely and to “offend, shock or disturb” others.”
Oh dear – What seemed like a clear line drawn in the sand has now become much less clear!
Both Mr Markov, his journalists at Art TV, Mr Tyanhybok and the Svoboda Party, have the right to freely express their views and can offend, shock or disturb others, on the proviso that they do not make a genuine and serious attempt to incite extremism. The issue then is whether anything said or done is deemed as a serious attempt at incitement or whether anything said or done in the public realm is actually simply the right to express views freely.
Democracy these days is generally defined as freedom of expression, freedom of association, rule of law, a free media and a shared belief in basic and fundamental human rights and a pluralistic society etc. Somewhere within that list of political catchphrases, as a sub-header, must come tolerance, as for all people to have such rights we must be prepared to hear views we do not agree with or indeed find abhorrent.
Ergo, despite the fact I have some respect for Mykola Tomenko, giving due weight to my acquaintance with Mr Markov, and never having had any personal interaction with Mr Tyanhybok or Svoboda (other than listening in person at rallies and on national television to what they have to say), I have not seen or heard enough from either (or their associated entities that they control) that crosses the line from the free expression of views, to one of a serious incitement to extremism.
Regardless of whether I agree with what they say or not, when considering the above ECfHR ruling, they simply do not go far enough to fall foul this legal interpretation.
As much as I normally agree with some or most of what Mr Tomenko has to say, this time I have to side with those who are saying things he doesn’t particularly like for the sake of freedom of speech.
OK. I thought about the final paragraphs of yesterday’s blog entry and I would like to ponder them a little more.
Specifically of the questions at the end, which were posed to nobody in particular, let’s think about the organised actors involved and what they are involved in. This post would be far too lengthy to mull over some broad, rather than specific, strategies to help address the situation, so I won’t. At least not today.
Before doing so, it is necessary for me to point out that I have had no involvement in being on “The Crown” side of the efforts with serious and organised crime, paramilitaries or groups legally recongised as “terrorists” for what is almost 20 years. Time change. Structures change on both sides. Tactics and strategies change.
In fact what I once knew as cutting edge will now mostly be obsolete, with the possible exception of human intelligence gathering, informants (and informant protocols). handlers, controllers etc and the models of collecting, collating, verifying and classifying of any intelligence gathered for operational or profiling reasons. All of that experience comes from the UK mainland and only occasionally did it involve other nations (such as Eire for obviously reasons at the time, and Turkey when I stumbled across unexpected PKK involvement in something, leading to months and months of ad hoc liaison with Special Branch, Regional Crime Squads et al).
Suffice to say, what experience I have, is probably now comparable to caveman etchings on a dank and wet wall verses a modern day Picasso. There was a beauty and a skill involved at the time, but not a patch on how things are done today I suspect.
So having made a declaration that I probably no longer know what I am writing about, I will continue regardless, otherwise this post would be pointless.
I have no intention of going into street crime or domestic policing abilities in Ukraine. That would be a different post should I venture down that very uneven road. I will stick to the organised criminality, be it genuinely organised crime for the sake of personal/group gain, or groups with other ideologies who involve themselves in organised crime to fund other activities, as was the case when I stumbled upon the PKK issue in the UK back in the mid 1990s.
One of the first things we must recognise is that there are certain actors within Ukrainian agencies who are easily bought off to either turn a blind eye or possibly take a more active role. Passive or active involvement are obviously debilitating factors when the State makes any attempts to fight the good fight.
Now there will be some readers who will say that combating drug trafficking is a pointless exercise and we, globally, would be better off legalising drugs, taxing them, subjecting them to quality controls etc. There is a good argument for that, certainly economically, but organised crime is not just about drug trafficking. Who would want their government to ignore the abhorrent issue of human trafficking for example? What of money laundering or illicit domestic sex and gambling trades? There is more than one good fight to be had with serious and organised crime. A wide lens is required when looking at this phenomenon.
So, what of organised crime in Odessa and Ukraine? Firstly it is important to recognise just how fluid it is. I know only two players in what can genuinely be identified as the “Odessa mafia”. We will call them Mr A and Mr V. Ignoring their foot soldiers and the numerous black shinning BMW X5′s and X6′s they tend to drive around in convoy everywhere, their nefarious activities and profiles are otherwise very low key to the likes of you and me. Minnows are never much interest to sharks and even though sharks are interesting to minnows, they are not always easily identified as being a shark and often it is too late if you do. How I know these two individuals is really rather irrelevant, it is enough you know that I do.
Mr A in particular, spends more time doing “things” in Crimea, Kyiv, Donetsk and Moscow than Odessa. Mr V is much more homely when it comes to time spent in Odessa. Both are very shrewd, occasionally they work together or recommend each other for different “issues” but for the most part, they act completely independently of each other. Yet they are both part of the same very fluid band of like-minded people.
The days of the family Don or the 1990s mafia boss in the post Soviet space are not as clear cut and identifiable today as they once were. Whilst they may exist, the structure is much more fluid and entrepreneurial for those involved unless there is a need to rally around a cause.
It may seem concerning from a rule of law perspective that both Messers A and V are very well known to all branches of law enforcement and are on good terms with them. That is not as unusual as we may like to think and is not exclusively a “Ukrainian thing”. Many a career criminal in the UK was/is on cordial terms with “the law”. Familiarity when it comes to who you meet regularly in your profession and all that. Such things are never always black and white until circumstances force them to be so, particularly as you climb the tree on either side of the line.
So aside from the Odessa mafia, which other recognisable criminal elements with regional reach are to be found here. Well, last year there was a major shoot-out between some Russian criminals and the police.
Russian and Moldavian criminals (be they of the organised type or of the street) regularly decide on Odessa as a place to go to let the matters calm down in their home nations. Part of the city known as Moldovanka is notorious for accommodating such people.
More recently we have the alleged plotters relating to assassination attempts on Mr Putin basing themselves in Odessa. Irrespective of whether Mr Putin was the target or whether what happened here was spun to his advantage during his electioneering, one Russian and two Chechen’s did manage to blow up an apartment in Odessa with a home made IED.
The PKK are in Odessa and do shake down the resident Turks to fund the PKK back in Turkey.
Organised criminality from China is now apparent at 7KM market. Particularly so with massive illegal currency exchange at a market that works strictly with cash, turns over $millions in a day. It is not in your face, you do need to know who’s who and what’s what, but it is there and it is Chinese run (at least at the coal face) and we are talking about a lot of money.
There is also a small but solid organised criminal fraternity amongst the Georgians, the Albanians and the Armenians in Odessa. One would expect that similar activities amongst the same and other groups exist all over Ukraine. Kherson, for example, has an up and coming reputation for a Korean criminal enterprise from what I have been told.
None of this includes the fluid Slavic brotherhood with Bulgarians, Romanians etc regularly making “arrangements” in Odessa.
Leaving the nationalities aside, there is the small but powerful Jewish community in Odessa who can always find “solutions” for their fellow Jew regardless of the issue posed. My good lady is a Ukrainian Jew. I know.
This is before we consider what is in some cases the organised criminality amongst the agencies of the State. Odessa is home to three very active ports. Odessa, Illychovsk and Yushni. It is not easy to simply wander into any of these docks. Security is fairly tight and is everywhere. The bureaucracy involved to open a container that has legitimately been sent to you containing completely legal contents is immense. And yet……
To put this into perspective however, we are not talking about the issues on a scale that Latin America or the US face. Every nationality of organised criminal I have thus far mentioned and more will be present in the US and operating. The physical human insecurity of massive numbers of murders, kidnappings and carnage that can be seen across Latin America and the Caribbean fortunately does not happen in Ukraine.
As I wrote in yesterday’s post, Ukraine is much more of a transitory logistical hub than the end market for much of the organised criminality that occurs in Ukraine, particularly for external actors and to a lesser extent, of what the internal actors do as well.
However, there is still what is possibly an intangible cost when it comes to human security even if there are not the heaps of bodies associated with trafficking in Mexico or Latin America more generally. There is the social and economic marginalisation of these minority groups who are shaken down to fund the PKK or who are expected to provide a roof over a trafficked human before these unfortunates are moved on again etc. There are the unfortunate women duped into traveling to the EU who end up in the sex industry there. (Yes some are volunteers in the industry and that is a personal choice, but there are those who are not which is the issue.)
Keeping such secrets and automatically reverting to a minority language whenever the law is in sight or could hear, creates a disconnect from integration and an economy and rule of law within the national economy and national rule of law (such as it is). That can only be a strategic weakness when attempts are made to combat serious and organised crime, whatever the ideology for involvement in it.
Ukraine cannot effectively address its own massive every day domestic illicit black economy, so it has a very long way to go before it takes the time and effort to look at that of international/regional serious and organised crime without the robust encouragement of external law enforcement agencies.
To be fair, when that encouragement is there and the intelligence is solid and can be moved upon, Ukraine does actually act competently and aggressively. Whenever an external law enforcement actor assists in one way, shape or form, Ukraine can be relied upon to act. Unfortunately, unless that mountain will come to Mohamed, Mohamed rarely goes to the mountain for want of a better analogy, and little if anything is actually done that relates to actual decisive results otherwise.
It was therefore pleasing to write yesterday’s post and the proactive stance by Ukraine towards Afghanistan post 2014. Unfortunately I am not convinced that domestic action will be as robust or overt as the announcement of Ukrainian continued participation in Afghanistan relating to trafficking.
It is a fairly safe bet more, rather than less, Afghan heroin will be transited through Ukraine heading West come 2014 and beyond, and I doubt there will be an adequate plan or resources within Ukraine to meet that challenge. This is something our UK SOCA man sat behind the ramparts of HM Embassy Kyiv will no doubt have on his future threat assessments.
So, in a nation where North Africa (via a few hours in a boat from Turkey), Central Asia, Russia and the EU all meet, trade and use as a logistical hub, it is unsurprising that serious and organised crime is here and is likely to remain. How Ukraine and the region should address it are thoughts for another day and yet another exceedingly long post.
Over the last week, President Yanukovych signed the now almost ritual event of a cooperation agreement with NATO which among other things allows for the unpopular annual Sea Breeze exercises with the US.
Quite why it is so unpopular is really something of an enigma. Ukraine is non-aliened. Its military trains and exercises with all of its neighbours both East and West (NATO and CSTO) alike. It is very active in supplying UN personnel and equipment globally. There is no real reason for the anti-NATO stance by so much of the public given the non-aliened status of Ukraine . Russia also cooperates with NATO regularly despite their disagreements.
It would be more understandable should Ukraine decide to join NATO as that is definitely against the wishes of the vast majority of Ukrainians currently. Equally there is not great desire to join the CSTO either.
Anyway, aside from signing the annual NATO cooperation agreement, Ukraine also committed itself further into the future with regards to its presence in Afghanistan. This time however, rather than bomb disposal teams that have been in Afghanistan for what seems like forever, Ukraine has pledged anti drug trafficking expertise and personnel. It has also offered to transit logistical support to Afghanistan for NATO with effect from 2014. Needless to say, there will still be a massive presence in Afghanistan long past the official troop withdrawals. In fact a large presence is being muted until 2024 in some diplomatic circles.
Now some may mock the idea of Ukraine offering anti-drug personnel and training and wonder what it knows about such matters, however in the past 6 months it has carried out 3 very successful drugs operations at Odessa docks alone, seizing vast quantities from African and South American ships. As a natural transit hub between North Africa, Russia and Eurasia as well as the EU, it is naturally extensively targeted for nefarious purposes by serious and organised crime just as it is for legitimate cargoes. Ukraine is far more switched on to such matters than most would assume and give it credit for.
So, I have briefly mentioned, Ukraine, NATO and Afghanistan. What about the $2.1 trillion?
Well, for the first time ever, the UN in conjunction with the World Bank have given an official estimate of the size of the global criminal GDP. Yuri Fedotov, head of the UN Drugs and Crime Office (UNODC) stated that organised crime from which Odessa is certainly not immune, and Afghan heroin trade, which Ukraine will send personnel to attempt to manage, accounts for $2.1 trillion.
$2.1 trillion is 3% of global GDP. If it was a country, it would be in the top 20 economies on the planet.
It is the first ever official UN global guesstimate regarding the serious and organised crime economics. The figures are based on 2009 statistics.
Within this truly massive figure, $40 billion is spirited away corruptly in developing nations. It is a figure to which Ukraine is certainly one such contributing culprit. The truly abhorrent practice of human trafficking accounts for $32 billion each year which Ukraine as an obvious transit country, from East to West and also MENA to West, is not immune either.
Just what figure the UN puts on the Afghan heroin trade now it has for the first time ever compiled such an all encompassing criminal GDP estimate, who knows? How much Afghan heroin moves through Russia and then into Ukraine, some of it onwards to the EU, again who knows?
Whatever, it is surely in Ukrainian interests to cooperate with NATO over the Afghan heroin issue just as Russia has said it will do. No matter how unpopular this decision may be with large numbers of the Ukrainian public, it is the right decision.
That said, most Ukrainians have domestic priorities and this decision will only draw demonstrations during the week the US Navy carries out exercise Sea Breeze in Ukrainian waters with the Ukrainian Navy. Those protests are likely to come from Odessa and Crimea as they do every year, and seem more ritual and obligatory than passionately reasoned.
How Ukraine tackles its share of the $2.1 trillion organised (rather than street) criminal economy is something to ponder. Who are the organised actors? What are they involved in? What strategies and tactics will work most effectively? Who does Ukraine partner with when it comes to international agencies over international crime?
Well it;s Easter Sunday here today and family is the priority dear readers.
Back to normal tomorrow. Several subjects to choose between and no decision made as to which I will mutter about yet. Indecision not normally something I suffer from!
The official land demarcation of the sovereign nations of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus has eventually begun.
The first post hammered into the ground at Sinkovsky village in the Ukrainian Oblast of Chernihiv at the exact spot where Ukraine, Russia and Belarus all meet.
And?
Well, and having official marked Ukrainian borders with Moldova, and the EU nations the same now must take place with its other neighbours to the north and east.
Why?
Because if Ukraine and Russia eventually want to turn Visa free dialogue (Russia not withstanding Kaliningrad which already has Visa-free with Poland), road maps and readmissions (Ukraine) with the EU into actual Visa-free travel, then obviously there needs to be clearly agreed borders between both nations and recognised by the EU as one side of any arbitrary line being one nation and the other, another.
I had feared that this would drag on with little interest from Russia, simply to put a spanner in the EU/Ukrainian road-map works, however of late both Russia and the EU (in particular Germany, Poland and France – Weimar Triangle) have been pushing the Visa-free issue with Russia forwards rather than backwards.
It is now in Russian interests (as well as Ukrainian interests) to officially complete a territorial demarcation process of just what belongs to whom and officially recognising that between themselves.
The problem I suspect will not be over any land border demarcation negotiations, but more specifically over the sea boarders, in particular the Kersh Strait and the little island of Tuzla Spit which sits within.
Who will cede over this strategic little spot will be quite interesting to discover. Traditionally it has been administered by Crimea, however Crimea was not part of Ukraine until 1956 and both were part of the now defunct USSR with Russia.
Enough wiggle room for Russia to put up a convincing argument in negotiations? Unlikely the EU will care. They will simply be looking for a formal conclusion to demarcation in the process, however a likely stumbling block ahead between Ukraine and Russia.
RT @CorrodaDynamite: Support to #EU accession in #Turkey drops: only 47,2% of the youth (-26,8pts since 2005), 44,3% of the adults (18,7 ... 4 days ago
