Tag Archives: Turchynov

Why Europe Hasn’t Joined Our Ukraine Crusade

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It typically costs $100 to fill a 12-gallon tank in Italy today. The country imports much of its oil from Russia. Which is why its government is reluctant to sign on to President Obama's anti-Putin campaign. [Credit: NWA online]

It typ­i­cal­ly costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank in Italy today. The coun­try imports much of its oil from Rus­sia. Which is why its gov­ern­ment is reluc­tant to sign on to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s anti-Putin cam­paign. [Cred­it: NWA online]

A gal­lon of unlead­ed gas costs near­ly $9 here in Todi, a tran­quil Ital­ian town whose roots stretch back mil­len­nia to pre-Etr­uscan times.  Diesel is a bit cheap­er at $8.50 per gal­lon, mean­ing that it costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank.

Which may help explain why Pres­i­dent Obama’s cru­sade to impose sys­tem­at­ic eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Rus­sia has so far fiz­zled.  Euro­peans are unwill­ing to pay the costs that dis­rup­tions in trade with Rus­sia would impose on them.

One can hard­ly blame them. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Ukraine Economic Woes Could Hold Key To Peace

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Uniformed troops believed to be Russian stand guard outside a Ukrainian military base in Crimea. Is there a peaceful resolution to this crisis? [Credit: Business Insider]

Uni­formed troops believed to be Russ­ian stand guard out­side a Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary base in Crimea. Is there a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this cri­sis? [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

Ukraine’s inter­im gov­ern­ment, whose part the Admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en in the Crimea cri­sis, includes a promi­nent polit­i­cal leader who has in the past urged his coun­try­men to fight the “Mus­covite-Jew­ish mafia” and called on his gov­ern­ment to halt the “crim­i­nal activ­i­ties” of “orga­nized Jewry.”

The author of this calum­ny, Oleh Tyah­ny­bok, is a leader of Ukraine’s Svo­bo­da (“free­dom”) par­ty, who in Decem­ber 2012 was named Per­son of the Year by read­ers of the coun­try’s lead­ing news mag­a­zine, Kor­re­spon­dent.

Such are the com­plex­i­ties that lurk not far beneath the sur­face in the ongo­ing cri­sis over Russia’s incur­sion into Crimea. Con­tin­ue read­ing →