What BRICS countries can do for Ukrainian territorial integrity?
Безумовно, нам потрібна підтримка не тільки Заходу, а й Китаю, Індії, мусульманських країн – усього світу. Отже, пропоную Вашій увазі ідею Маркіяна Білинського спробувати використати партнерів Росії по BRICS:
Markian Bilynskyj
Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy
Ukraine has quite rightly appealed to the traditional multinational organisations and institutions – such at the EU, NATO, the OSCE, the IMF, and EBRD as well as individual countries such as the US – to safeguard its territorial integrity and provide financial assistance for reviving its ravaged economy.
However as a member of many of these entities Moscow – whether on behalf of the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation – has shown itself very adept at unilaterally defending a position in which it is in a minority of one. In fact, its respect for these institutions currently borders on contempt. (How many OSCE conditions has the Kremlin already violated in Crimea? Let's not even mention the Budapest memorandum...) Where, for example, was the Kremlin's official concern for the way the UN Secretary General's Envoy was treated in Crimea or over the obstacles being placed before the OSCE fact finding mission there?
In view of this, it is remarkable that given the countless roundtables and conferences in Kyiv examining new trends in international politics that the new Ukrainian government has not made a high-profile, very public attempt to enlist on a bi-lateral level the support of new, powerful global actors – namely Russia's partners in BRICS.
It is no secret that Putin sees the Eurasian Union as an equal actor in a BRICS that is supposed to supplant the 'traditional' US and Western European dominated international institutions.
China has supported Ukraine's territorial integrity in the UN and through official pronouncements from Beijing; India surely is not interested in legitimising the use of force to alter existing legally sanctioned national boundaries; while Brazil – which is about to host the World Cup cannot but be interested in further projecting a positive image as an emerging and responsible actor in the global community.
Ukraine must press Russia's BRICS partners to exert any influence they have with the delusional Putin otherwise a BRICS in which such a blatantly expansionist Russia participates will be discredited even before it becomes fully operational.
Moreover, Ukraine has the resources to engage these countries in a full dialogue with a view to its financial needs and – most significantly if the worst comes to the worst – to invite Russia's BRICS partners to act as peacekeepers in Crimea. And who could argue that the presence of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian troops acting under the aegis of the UN in Crimea wouldn't be less provocative that having representatives of traditional western powers and more effective than having those of smaller countries performing that role?
Moreover, if handled properly as a propaganda opportunity such a move might even get many Russians and Crimeans to ask why it's not just the usual 'western' – historically often a pejorative term among even thinking Russians – powers and institutions that are concerned over Putin's behaviour. The BRICS countries might want to shape history; but they surely now understand that Putin is simply interested in repeating it.
Блог автора – матеріал, який відображає винятково точку зору автора. Текст блогу не претендує на об'єктивність та всебічність висвітлення теми, яка у ньому піднімається. Редакція "Української правди" не відповідає за достовірність та тлумачення наведеної інформації і виконує винятково роль носія. Точка зору редакції УП може не збігатися з точкою зору автора блогу.
