Kriz ya da iç savaş değil, bir yabancı saldırı: Rusya neden 2014'te Ukrayna'ya saldırdı?

18 Mart 2014'te Rusya Federasyonu Başkanı Vladimir Putin muzaffer bir şekilde Kırım'ın Rusya ile “yeniden birleşmesini” ilan etti. Ancak bu, yolun son noktası değildi, büyük sanayi merkezleri ve çoğunlukla Rusça konuşan nüfusuyla beraber tüm Güneydoğu Ukrayna'yı ilhak etmeyi amaçlayan aşırı hırslı planların sadece bir başlangıcıydı. Rusya’nın gizli birliklerinin küçük grupları ve ücretli “siyasi turistler”, Güneydoğu Ukrayna'nın birçok şehrinde bir dizi ayrılıkçı Rus yanlısı toplantı düzenlemeye çalıştı. Ukrayna toplumu, Rusya’nın finanse ettiği, silahladığı ve doğrudan komuta ettiği “madenciler ve traktör sürücüleri”nin Kıyiv'deki “faşist anti-demokratik cuntaya” karşı “iç savaşı” olarak kamufle edilmiş, sistematik olarak planlanmış bir dış saldırıyla karşı karşıya kaldı. Kremlin'in dilinde “yeniden birleşme” ve “iç savaş” olarak adlandırılan bu olaylar, dünyanın geri kalanı tarafından uluslararası hukukun açık bir ihlali olarak nitelendirildi ve 1974'te Birleşmiş Milletler Genel Kurulunca kabul edilen uluslararası saldırı tanımına uymaktadır. Bu şekilde cevaplanması gereken en temel soru, Sovyet sonrası coğrafyasında yeni bir uzun süreli silahlı çatışmayı başlatanın kim olduğu değil, bu çatışmanın arkasında yatan nedenlerdir. Makalede, Ukrayna'ya karşı gerçekleştirilen Rus saldırısının arkasındaki itici güçlerin ne olabileceğini incelemeye çalışılacaktır.

Not a crisis nor civil war, but a foreign aggression: Why did Russia attack Ukraine in 2014?

On 18 March 2014 Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation triumphantly declared the “reunification of the Crimea” with Russia. However, this was not the end, but just the beginning of overambitious plans to annex the whole South-Eastern Ukraine with its large industrial centers and mainly Russian-speaking population. The small groups of the Russian secret forces and paid “political tourists” tried to orchestrate a series of separatist pro-Russian meetings in a number of cities in the South-Eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian society faced with systematically planned foreign aggression, camouflaged as a “civil war” of Russian-financed, Russian-armed and directly Russian-led “miners and tractor-drivers” against a “fascist anti-democratic junta” in Kyiv. What in Kremlin’s language came as a “reunification” and “civil war”, for the rest of the world became a blatant violation of international law and meets the definition of international aggression adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1974. Thus, the most fundamental question remains not who initiated yet another protracted armed conflict in the post-Soviet space, but reasons lying behind it. The article attempts to look into what might be the driving force of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

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