Epress.am News from Armenia
It is obvious that Putin’s final objective is to hook Ukraine, exactly as it did earlier with Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani site, Minval.az, spoke to political expert Zardusht Alizadeh about Russia’s role in the region and the Ukrainian crisis.
According to Alizadeh, the Ukrainian political elite were found to be just as foolish, greedy, and short-sighted as were the elites in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the beginning of the 90’s. “Although, more than twenty years have passed, they haven’t learned any lessons. They repeated the same mistakes that our political elites had made. They let Ukraine get hooked by Russia.”
The political expert thinks, that Ukrainians have unequivocally lost Crimea, “because as long as there is Russia, Crimea will belong to it. While Donetsk has turned into a new Karabakh, which is the result of the Ukrainian elite’s greed and stupidity, and Russia did what it could and wanted to do.”
After what the West did with Kosovo, in regards to Serbia, no one has the right to call Russia an aggressor, according to Alizadeh. “Russia hasn’t bombed Ukraine. NATO bombed Belgrade, bombed wedding ceremonies, radio and TV stations. Russia never bombed, but instead did it in a more covert way what NATO did with Yugoslavia to defend its geoeconomic and geopolitical interests. Yes, Russia has violated international norms and the Ukrainian people's interests, but the Ukrainian state’s interests were, first and foremost, violated by the Ukrainian political elite; Yanukovich, the Maidan leaders, and Poroshenko. For the sake of power, they betrayed the state’s interests. The same has happenned in front of my eyes in Azerbaijan, when a group of government officials betrayed Azerbaijan for the sake of power. I’ve seen the same in Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova.”
When asked about the escape plan under the current situation, Alizadeh answered that the noted countries should put their hopes on Russia’s collapse.