UKRAINE AND THE EU: PUTIN CLEARS THE AIR

In March 1939 Hitler summoned President Hacha, head of the much reduced though still democratic and independent Czech state, to Berlin. In the thirty or so minutes of the meeting between the two men Hitler made it clear who was boss. He then went on to extend the generous hand of friendship to the Czech people offering them the status of autonomy within the framework of the Greater German Reich. The rest as they say is history.
Ukraine in the EU? I don't think so Angela 

On the 9th of November 2013 President Vladimir Putin summoned the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to St Petersburg.[1] In a meeting, the duration of which we do not know, Putin made it clear who was boss. Concerned by the prospect of Ukraine moving into the embrace of the European Union he made it clear that such a move was not possible without Russian consent. That consent, he informed President Yanukovych was not forthcoming. No doubt he also extended the generous hand of friendship to the Ukrainian people. The rest, as they say, will be history.

One subtext to this affair has been the degree to which the bullying and intimidation applied by the Russian state has been mirrored by the cack-handed bullying of the International Monetary Fund which, in demanding increases in heating and hot water rates, and an end to farming subsidies, as the price of an IMF loan, greatly strengthened Putin’s hand.



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