Tre måter som Putins strategi i Ukraina har slått tilbake
Three ways that Putin's
Ukraine strategy has backfired
In 2013
President Putin had a close ally
in Ukrainian President Yanukovych.
Ukraine was weakened
by rampant corruption
and its armed forces were
an untested and unknown quantity.
But by the end of 2014,
due to Ukraine's reaction
to Russia's interference in its country,
all of these areas look better
for Ukraine and worse for Russia.
1. Creating Ukrainian unity
Thanks to Vladimir Putin,
Ukrainians have discovered
an identity, a sense of solidarity,
and a sense of patriotism that they
have never had in the last 25 years,
arguably have never had at all
in the last number of decades.
People are finally willing
to make sacrifices for the country.
This was never the case in the past,
maybe during the Orange Revolution.
But now they are and we see them
most obviously in the large number
of volunteers who joined
our self-defence forces and various...
The National Guard and other units.
They are participating in the fighting.
Many of them have lost their lives.
And there's a specific target.
People understand
that the source of these problems
is no longer Yanukovych.
That was the target of their fears
and their angers in the past.
It's now Russia.
2. Improving Ukraine’s armed forces
Thanks to Putin and his aggression
in Eastern Ukraine,
not so much the Crimean adventure,
Ukraine's army must act as an army
and the military as the military.
That's obviously not sufficient,
but it's very important
in creating something
like an esprit de corps,
in creating a certain kind of a sense
of identity, in creating a mission.
These individuals were
not expected to fight.
I think the general consensus in
Ukraine as well as in the West was:
Who knows? These guys are
all incompetent, they won't fight
or re-establish law and order.
We were wrong on all three accounts.
3. Increasing
the fight against corruption
Corruption has penetrated
the entire society and the entire state.
It's not so much
a question of resistance,
it's become
part and parcel of everyday life.
So, it's a question
of getting 45 million people,
not just the bureaucrats,
but 45 million people,
to start thinking in non-corrupt terms.
Because people have
to stop being willing to pay bribes,
as much as the officials have
to stop being willing to accept bribes
and so there's a quid pro quo here.
They seem to be going
in the direction of slimming the state
and at the same time raising salaries,
so thereby improving
or at least reducing the incentives
to get engaged in corruption.
