Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, more than 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Boris Johnson
The United Kingdom’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, engaged in fiery rhetoric of the kind that I’d like to see more of from the Western world’s largely spineless collection of leaders, who let the likes of Vladimir Putin, Mohammad bin Salman, and Bashar al-Assad get their way.
Johnson on June 24 said that Russia will not dictate to Great Britain whether it can sail its Royal Navy through international and Ukrainian waters near the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally seized after a military invasion in 2014. Russia not only lays claim to the peninsula but also the surrounding waters of the Black Sea as its territory.
No chance, said Johnson. The Royal Navy’s HMS Defender warship was passing through the Black Sea about 12 miles from the Crimean city of Sevastopol as part of an exercise after leaving the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, according to the Daily Mail. Ben Wallace, Britain’s secretary of state for defense, said that the ship traveled in an internationally recognized transit corridor during a routine operation, according to the Washington Post.
Moscow said it fired warning shots. London said nothing of the kind happened – that Russia engaged in military drills.
Russia also promised to bomb any foreign ship that comes into “its” Crimean Black Sea waters without permission.
“We don’t recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea. It was illegal. These are Ukrainian waters and it was entirely right (for the Royal Navy) to use them to go from A to B,” Johnson shot back, as quoted by the Daily Mail. He said it’s important for the West to stick up for its values. “That includes democracy, human rights, equalities, but also the rule of law and freedom of navigation.”
The conflict was bound to happen and it’s a good one to have. Crimea belongs to Ukraine and so do the territorial waters around it. Russia has already turned the Azov Sea into a Russian lake and is trying to do the same to the Black Sea. This cannot be allowed to happen. This is why nations in the West spend hundreds of billions of dollars on militaries – to uphold international law, including the free passage of ships in international waters and the recognized boundaries of nations.
The Washington Post noted that the dispute occurred as Russia steps up pressure on NATO to cancel the Sea Breeze military exercises that are due to begin in the Black Sea region on June 28. A record 32 nations are scheduled to ¬participate, according to the U.S. 6th Fleet public affairs office.
Send more ships, Boris! Where are yours, NATO, Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron?
Antony Blinken
It’s the amateur hour again in U.S. foreign policy. Under U.S. President Joe Biden, I thought a seasoned team of experts would take over. No chance, judging from their early blunders. And no, I don’t want Donald Trump or the Republicans back in charge.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pitiful performance in Germany shows that Ukraine and the Western world have a lot to fear with these leaders of the free world – and that autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Mohammed Bin Salman, and Bashar al-Assad have nothing to fear from the West.
“I think it’s fair to say that the United States has no better partner, no better friend in the world than Germany,” Blinken gushed like a smitten schoolboy while standing next to Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on July 23.
Really? There is no question that Germany is an ally of Ukraine and the West. But best friend? No way.
Germany has sabotaged any chances of meaningful Western sanctions against Russia by pushing through Vladimir Putin’s pet project, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, at a cost of $11 billion, possibly imperiling Ukraine’s future as an independent nation. And then it’s been playing tiddlywinks, along with France, in the fruitless “Normandy Four” talks with Russia and Ukraine.
Emboldened by Biden’s bad idea of a summit with Putin, Germany, and France want their own summit with the murderous Kremlin dictator.
I am sure that the Biden-Putin Geneva summit was something that Blinken supported. He repeats ad nauseam that the U.S. wants a stable and predictable relationship with Russia. News bulletin to Blinken: Putin wants an unstable and unpredictable relationship. Without the West as an adversary, he’s nothing. Since you’ve made it abundantly clear already that you will appease him, he’ll get what he wants.
The bottom line with Germany: Its extensive business ties to Russia and unwillingness to defend human rights and international law with strong sanctions against Russia make it an ally that the U.S. should work with, but be wary of. By no means does it make Berlin the best friend of America. Explain that one to Great Britain, Canada and others who could make a strong claim.
Blinken is heading down the path of ex-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, about whom self-exiled Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov once quipped: He’s the master of making unilateral concessions while getting nothing in return. It looks like a third Barack Obama term in the making, foreign-policy wise. Look out, Ukraine.
