Kerry speaks in Kiev
It is unclear what flexibility Secretary of State John Kerry had today with his remarks in a speech in Kiev today. He praised the brave protestors who risked everything to overthrow the corrupt and Russian owned Yanukovych. He discussed the merits of an orderly democratic process and the elections now scheduled for May 25. He offered loan guarantees of $1 billion, a drop in the bucket but an urgently needed first step before the IMF and the European Union can come up with an aid plan. All of this seemed to be as expected.
He did choose to go further than this in ways that may not prove to be constructive. As one could guess and had been expected, he attacked Russia for its invasion of Crimea and detailed Russian "lies". Why go into the "lies" portion of his presentation. Providing a graceful way out of this would not have changed anything Putin is doing but it may have softened the rhetoric for the ethnic Russian residents of Ukraine, more than one third of all residents of eastern Ukraine and 58% of those in Crimea.
The other part of his speech that really stood out was his comment that the U.S. would "stand by" Ukraine. We really don't have good insight into this current interim unelected government, at least that is not clear from the media and from informed commentators from academia or with related foreign service experience. Kerry's statement could be misinterpreted by some as suggesting that a military confrontation or provocation would attract some support from the U.S. and western Europe. It will not because that would be imprudent and practically speaking is impossible.
Encouraging Putin to "de-escalate"(is this one of those made up words) the situation is only a stopgap approach but the thought seemed to be right. Putin will not react to these words and he has said that he won't budge on his actions in Crimea(in fact he denies any action by Russia in Crimea) but has no immediate plans to get involved in other parts of eastern Ukraine or Ukraine as a whole. His caveat is that the situation was subject to changes in the situation, not a comment to hang one's hat on.
He did choose to go further than this in ways that may not prove to be constructive. As one could guess and had been expected, he attacked Russia for its invasion of Crimea and detailed Russian "lies". Why go into the "lies" portion of his presentation. Providing a graceful way out of this would not have changed anything Putin is doing but it may have softened the rhetoric for the ethnic Russian residents of Ukraine, more than one third of all residents of eastern Ukraine and 58% of those in Crimea.
The other part of his speech that really stood out was his comment that the U.S. would "stand by" Ukraine. We really don't have good insight into this current interim unelected government, at least that is not clear from the media and from informed commentators from academia or with related foreign service experience. Kerry's statement could be misinterpreted by some as suggesting that a military confrontation or provocation would attract some support from the U.S. and western Europe. It will not because that would be imprudent and practically speaking is impossible.
Encouraging Putin to "de-escalate"(is this one of those made up words) the situation is only a stopgap approach but the thought seemed to be right. Putin will not react to these words and he has said that he won't budge on his actions in Crimea(in fact he denies any action by Russia in Crimea) but has no immediate plans to get involved in other parts of eastern Ukraine or Ukraine as a whole. His caveat is that the situation was subject to changes in the situation, not a comment to hang one's hat on.
posted by John Borden at 5:14 PM
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