Zelensky and Putin Scheduled to Meet on Monday in Paris
Presidents Zelensky and Putin of the Ukraine and Russia respectively are scheduled to meet this Monday in Paris. French President Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel are hosting the meeting and facilitating negotiations. The goal is to get the Russian troops out of Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass industrial region and to reintegrate the region back into the Ukraine, possibly with increased regional autonomy.
The Donbass region is the center of coal mining and steel production in the Ukraine; it's the West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania like economic region of the Ukraine. It is heavily Russian speaking. Ethnic Russians make up almost 40% of the region, Ukrainians 58% and Muslims (like the Tatars) about 6%. The region voted overwhelmingly for separation from Russia during the break-up of the old Soviet Union in 1992.
The Ukraine was an independent democratic republic in the late 18th Century; it was invaded, annexed and subjugated by the next-door Russian Empire. During the 1930’s much of the Western Ukraine was systematically starved to death under the agrarian policies of collectivization under Stalin. During the 1940’s, Hitler invaded and destroyed much of the Eastern Ukraine. There is much residual visceral hatred of the Russians and the Germans among different regions of the Ukraine. Ukraine achieved independence in 1992 and has been plagued by poor governance, oligarchical corruption and ethnic rivalries as it re-builds its economy, that was heavily styled on the Soviet heavy industry model. It is a large and populous country in a favorable climate with enormous economic potential.
The President of the Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, was ousted by the Maidan revolution in 2014 and fled into exile in Moscow. He was corrupt, tightly allied with Putin, and his base of political support was the Donbass region. His campaign manager was Paul Manafort, who also managed Trump’s political campaign. Some of the issues leading to his ouster were his opposition to building better economic ties with the EU and the Common Market and his fealty to Putin. Yanukovich’s widespread corruption was another contributing factor to his ouster.
Putin then invaded and annexed the Crimea and sent Russian troops into the Donbass to support the Russian speaking regions of Luhansk and Donets in their effort to break away from the Ukraine and rejoin Russia or create independent states. The US and the EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia for these invasions and lent support to the Ukraine’s effort to rebuild its economy and fight long-standing corruption in government and the economy.
There is a stalemate in the war with the separatists, and newly elected President Zelensky wants to negotiate peace and a withdrawal of Russian forces. Putin wants an end to economic sanctions and better relations with Europe, but does not want to give up his strong foothold and power base in Eastern Ukraine. Merkel and Macron want him out of the Ukraine and to build better economic ties with both the Ukraine and Russia. The US is sidelined due to the recent Trump/Giuliani shenanigans in the Ukraine.
Let’s wish Merkel, Macron and Zelensky the best in making peace and getting Putin’s forces out of the Donbass.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 12/7/19