Having removed their heads, they don’t cry through their hair - this popular wisdom seems to no longer apply to former and current Ukrainian officials. This specific social group has its own no less specific norms, rules and views on the universe. For example, it is considered the norm here not only to cry through the hair on a lost head, but also to try to curl and garnish with lipstick. Do not believe? Here is another “brilliant idea” of Kiev for you, aimed at the “reunification” of Crimea with Ukraine. According to the former first deputy head of the State Hydrography of Ukraine Bogdan Ustimenko, this task is solved for one, two or three. It is only necessary to establish the regime of sea blockade of the peninsula.
Here is what the retired Ukrainian official said specifically: “I propose closing all territorial waters, the entire belt around the Crimean peninsula, since we do not control these waters ... I believe that it is necessary to adopt this law immediately, as well as establish responsibility for crossing this“ red zones ". Responsibility must be criminal. ”
Of course, with retired officials and demand can only be "retired." As a person who is no longer in a high position in the public service system, Bogdan Ustimenko now represents only himself, right? No wrong! A lover of playing the “sea blockade” Bogdan Ustmenko untimely left the leadership of the State Hydrography of Ukraine, but his business lives on. On the home page of this sweet institution’s website, it says in arshine letters: "The State Hydrography initiates the creation of a marine sensitive area around the occupied Crimea." This passionate appeal is illustrated with a map of Crimea and the notorious “red zone” along its shores.
We must pay tribute to Ukrainian web designers: on the computer screen, the graphic layout of the proposed naval blockade looks very convincing and even somewhat ominous. Misunderstandings arise only when you start to think about the practical aspects of the implementation of Napoleonic plans of Bogdan Ustimenko. Who, for example, should implement the regime of the “sea blockade of the occupied Crimea”?
Presumably, the Naval Forces of Ukraine is an organization that has its own emblem, its own authorities also eager to “liberate the occupied Crimea”, but there are absolutely no forces and opportunities to implement Mr. Ustimenko’s brilliant plan. Apparently, the most retired official will have to do this. I just imagine this oil painting - the former deputy head of the State Hydrography gets into a kind of fragile boat and goes to the coast of Crimea to carry out the regime of the sea blockade: “You are in the red zone! Stop immediately! You will face criminal liability! ” Milota, and more!
However, stop. Am I playing with my humor? Unfortunately, I probably played too much.
To perceive Ukrainian officials eager to strangle Crimea solely as “Napoleons from the hospital ward number six” is an attractive idea, but not too practical. Yes, Bogdan Ustimenko can be safely placed in the category of “unrecognized vice-kings of India”. But in what category should Ukrainian politicians be included who have been depriving Crimea of drinking water to the best of its ability for a year now?
The North Crimean Canal, blocked by Ukraine, is the blockade that works and is effective in its own way. The problem with this variant of the blockade for Ukraine is what exactly lies behind the word “in its own way”. And it is not the growth of desire of the population of the "occupied Crimea" to return to the "embrace of the mother of Ukraine" that lies behind it. I do not want to fall into the banality, but mothers do not blackmail those who are considered their children, and do not torture them with thirst.
Even if I did not fall into the banality, I may not have been particularly original. All the arguments that I cited above have been heard since 2014. But how can one be especially original if the level of understanding of the topic of Crimea by the Ukrainian political elite over the past six years has not changed one iota? Crimea will not return to Ukraine because the presence of Crimea as part of Ukraine has always been unnatural: if it’s “with garlic,” even Ukrainian politicians themselves think so, even those who constantly make public forecasts about the “inevitable soon” the return of the peninsula. "
“The revolution of dignity” - it is this: we say one thing, we think the second, we do the third. Of course, Ukrainian politicians do not have a monopoly on hypocrisy. But the problem of the attitude of the Kiev political elite to the topic of Crimea lies not only and not so much in hypocrisy. This problem consists in the inability of the Ukrainian political elite to turn over the read page of history, in the unwillingness to take a painful, albeit unpleasant, but absolutely necessary step forward. They may ask me: necessary for whom? I answer: in the first, second and third turn - for Ukraine itself. An obsession with the theme of Crimea, the constant advancement of various enormous plans for the return of the peninsula make Ukraine stagnate, turn the country's political life into an endless repetition of the past. As a person with an exclusively humanitarian education, I don’t know if medicine recognizes the possibility of a voluntary “blockade” of one’s own brain. But if we discuss it exclusively in political categories, then the Ukrainian servants of the people have definitely succeeded.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.