Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia, according to former U.S. Defense Department spokesman Jeffrey D. Gordon.
Jeffrey D. Gordon, who worked as spokesman for the Western Hemisphere in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2009, said that eastern Ukraine may become a part of Russia and "what we were going to see would be similar to what happened in Crimea."
Crimea in a referendum held on March 16 voted to secede from Ukraine in favor of union with Russia. Putin finalized the process on March 21 when he signed a bill into law officially annexing Crimea. The move has been widely condemned by the international community.
Now pro-Russian separatists have seized over a dozen buildings in the country’s eastern region, including in the regional capital Donetsk.
- "Moscow is trying to crack Kiev like a walnut. The region may become Crimea-2,” said Gordon, “I don’t know if that’s going to be tomorrow, next month, next year, but I think eventually Russian speakers will be under Russia’s control.”
The local Russian speaking population will gravitate towards Moscow and Vladimir Putin will provide incentives for them to do that, according to Gordon.
“He [Putin] is trying to bring Kiev to its’ knees; he will have more pretext when there is violence and chaos; he will have more pretext to send in troops to actually protect Russians.”
Yet an attack by the Ukrainian government may not be the best way out of the conflict for the volatile country as “it is a risk,”
“The key question now is how much force Ukraine will put on pro-Russian elements to retake the government buildings in ten different towns and cities that border Russia, some even 100 miles away from Russia,” stated Gordon.
Ukraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchynov and his government have come under increasing criticism from the general public for its inaction in eastern Ukraine and its failure to mount a resistance to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Turchynov announced Tuesday the start of the operational phase of an anti-terror campaign in the country’s eastern region.
If Ukraine is able to take back the cities and towns pro-Russians have seized and break up the protests, then Ukraine’s territorial integrity could be safe for now, said the former U.S. Defense Department spokesman.
- Putin as a "Russian savior"
According to Gordon, President Putin’s actions are to due to his fear as “by 2050 under current demographic trends Russia could be a Muslim majority” and by that Putin wants to be seen as a “Russian savior”.
“He wants to save Russia, he wants to make a Russian empire again, because he feels he can and he must - due to demographic challenges,” said Gordon.
And then there is the U.S.-led NATO and the European Union, which are “pushing into eastern Europe” and have became a threat to Moscow.
- U.S. sanction options
The U.S. in order to successfully sanction Russia should increase sanctions on its banking and defense sectors, do more military exercises – especially with the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and export its own energy to Europe.
Currently the U.S. cannot export liquid natural gas and oil to other countries if there is no free trade agreement with the importing country and the Congress has been wanting to keep the energy in the country because of its low price, according to Gordon.
Though if the U.S. would be able to export its natural gas to Europe it would decrease the European countries’ dependence of Russia.
As for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all three have not insubstantial ethnic populations of Russian-speaking people and they do not want Russia inciting revolts in their territories using the excuse that it is protecting the rights of Russian compatriots.
“He [Putin] is definitely going to keep stirring unrest in eastern Ukraine,” stated Jeffrey Gordon. “NATO countries are a lot harder entity [to attack]. They are members of NATO and under article 5 an attack on one country is an attack on all of them.”
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