Ukrainian parliament votes for integration into NATO. And this is only an illustration of the price to pay for one's own illusions, writes Pavel Kazarin in a column on "Crimea. Realities ".
It is easy to judge the past from the present. In addition, this occupation is senseless and ungrateful - in the past we are not present, and there is no one to lay that straw, which then will not allow bruising. It is easy to say from 2017 that European integration and rapprochement with NATO should have occurred immediately after the collapse of the USSR. But all this became possible only after the occupation of the Crimea.
I remember how colleagues from Poland told us about the difference between the Polish and Ukrainian pre-war attitude towards Russia. They said that it was all about understanding the norm. In the view of the Poles, Russia of the 1991-2013 sample was deviant in relation to itself. That her post-perestroika relative peace was perceived in Warsaw as an exception, as a window of opportunity for reform and entry into the North Atlantic alliance. Polish colleagues said that they did not have any illusions and understood that sooner or later Moscow would return to the idea of ??imperial revenge, and therefore it is necessary to make the most of that time while it is in a state of "groggy".
And Ukraine was convinced that this new Russia would always. That deviance is her imperial past, which has sunk into oblivion. And that's why Kiev did not have a feeling that the first post-perestroika decade looks like a sand of opportunities that flows through the fingers. A blessed illusion that the ceiling of the Kremlin's claims is a bidding on the price of gas.
For this illusion Ukraine had to pay a high price. Actually, we still continue to pay it - day after day: the lives of soldiers in the Donbass and the fate of political prisoners who are imprisoned in the Crimea.
The Ukrainian illusions of the 1990s are in some ways similar to those that overcome modern Belarus. The one that still lives in the 1989 format only "with forty varieties of sausage" in stores. Belarus still does not have its "nineties" when the state monopoly gives a crack. This country has frozen in the historical timelessness, continuing to be unaware of where the borders of its national sovereignty end and whether it needs these borders in general.
She, too, does not have a picture of the desired future. Instead, it has a desire to maximize the conservation of the present. But the fact is that the entire current paradigm of the existence of Minsk is possible only at the expense of the Russian budget. As soon as the resources are exhausted, the same thing that happened three years ago with Kiev.
Because the history can not be deceived: conservation of inefficiency is possible only at someone's expense. When the resources for deceiving the historical logic run low - there comes a period of sobering up. Which is necessarily accompanied by the search for alternatives. And the only alternative for Belarus may be in the change of geopolitical orbit, which Moscow will try to prevent at any cost.
No one knows the limits of the determination with which the current Kremlin will defend what it considers to be a zone of its strategic interests. The Ukrainian experience only hardened Moscow - and there is no reason to think that Russia will be loyal to the state, which perceives as a set of its western regions. It may well be that Belarus will have to pay double the tariff for its emancipation.
The history has a sense of humor and it is difficult to call it good. Moscow likes to repeat that the seizure of the peninsula saved Sevastopol from mooring the ships of NATO. But the fact is that without the annexation of the Crimea, Kiev would not have dared to integrate the North Atlantic integration. He would try to keep the practice of sitting on two chairs - as well as economic ties with the Russian Federation. Moreover, according to the degree of mutual integration, the economies of the two countries resembled Siamese twins. The operation for their division Kiev decided only after the invasion of the Russian Federation.
And every new step in the process of changing Ukraine's orbit - from the Association with the EU to visa-free travel - is the result of annexation. And if NATO ships really get to the berths of Sevastopol someday - this will also be just one more result of the whole flagship operation that Moscow started in February 2014.
"Coincidence? I do not think so".
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Join also the TSN group. Blogs on facebook and follow the updates of the section!.