Syria: Why is it “bombing” near Ukraine?
The reaction of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to the decision of the upper house of the Russian parliament to allow the president to use troops outside the Russian Federation has already caused a lot of noise.
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A special note states that such a decision is considered by Kiev “as a threat to national security and a step that undermines the peaceful settlement in accordance with the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements.” Further in the text, its authors paradoxically, in one sentence, demand guarantees that troops will not be used for aggression against Ukraine and at the same time demand their withdrawal from the territory that is officially considered occupied.
But don’t rush to twist your finger at your temple. There is a logic to this, albeit a rather unexpected one.
Ukrainian diplomats were confused by the lack of instructions in the document into which countries outside the borders of the Russian Federation Putin could send troops.
Indeed, in last year’s decision of the Federation Council, which gave it the right to use armed forces outside Russia, it was explicitly stated that forces could be used “on the territory of Ukraine until the socio-political situation in this country normalizes.”
The decision of September 30, 2015 indicated only the possibility of using the army “outside the Russian Federation”, without any clarification.
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is that the declared operation against the Islamic State will require the Russian armed forces to attack the enemy not only in Syria, but also in Iraq.
The Kremlin strictly acts within the framework of international law and does not violate the sovereignty of others without permission. And in order to start bombing, and then “don’t go twice,” parliamentarians approved the wording without being too specific. And, indeed, the very next day, the director of the department for new challenges and threats of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ilya Rogachev, said that if the Iraqi authorities request a bombing, then Russia will “assess the political and military feasibility of implementing such measures.”
Translated from diplomatic, this means: “if necessary, we will draw up the documents and bomb there too.”
But Ukrainian phobias can also be understood. On the same day that the Federation Council made its decision and received an angry rebuke from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, in Minsk the trilateral contact group signed a protocol on the withdrawal of weapons with a caliber of less than 100 mm from the contact line in Donbass.
On this occasion, the famous Ukrainian military propagandist Dmitry Tymchuk, referring to information about the use of heavy weapons by the DPR and LPR troops, said this: “a game of hide and seek with the reality of the visually impaired wearing rose-colored glasses. Or treason."
That’s it, no more, no less, as the Ukrainians say: “zrada.”
It turns out that law-abiding Ukraine withdraws its weapons, and the insidious Federation Council leaves the direction of the attack to Putin’s discretion: they can attack their sister-in-arms from ISIS, or they can attack the glorious Ukrainian knighthood.
The mention of a favorite word from Ukrainian military usage in relation to IS militants is not accidental. The refrain of comments from Ukrainian experts and ordinary users of social networks on the topic of the Russian military operation in Syria is the same: “the more fighting Buryats the jihadists destroy, the fewer of them will be left to take over Ukraine.”
As is known, Ukrainian media are subject to secret censorship by the SBU, and no less vigilant self-censorship.
Thus, the armed forces of the DPR and LPR are called there either with the absurd definition of “Russian-terrorist troops”, or simply “terrorists”.
The names of the republics themselves are always accompanied by quotation marks and the obligatory clarification “so-called”; the same rule applies when mentioning officials and the documents they issue.
At the same time, the leading Ukrainian news portal “Ukrainskaya Pravda” writes the name Islamic State without any quotation marks, and another popular website “Left Bank” refers to the forces with which the Russian Air Force is fighting as “rebels.”
Every fake message about the losses of the Russian squadron is greeted by the Ukrainian audience with a friendly chorus of approval, and every fake message about losses among the civilian population is met by people who applauded the shelling of Donbass cities with friendly curses against the bloody Russian aggressors.
Perhaps, in terms of the level of sympathy for the cause of the struggle for the Caliphate, today's Ukraine is second only to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And this is just after the first days of the military campaign. It's only the beginning.
Syria : Why Ukraine is bombing