<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; ">Mr. Piontkovsky is a Moscow-based political analyst.</span><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.themontenegrotimes.com/mnt/20080707752/Society/Russias-Ukrainian-Path-to-the-Future.html">http://www.themontenegrotimes.com/mnt/20080707752/Society/Russias-Ukrainian-Path-to-the-Future.html</a><div><br></div><div>Some excerpts:<br><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "><<Ukraine does, indeed, present a threat, but not to Russia’s security, as Kremlin propagandists claim. The real threat is to the Putin model of a corporate, authoritarian state, unfriendly to the West. For the Kremlin’s occupants, it is a matter of life and death that countries that were once part of the Soviet Union but chose a different model of development – Ukraine being the chief example – should never become attractive to ordinary Russians.>></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">[...] </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "><<Ukraine’s success will mark the political death of Putinism, that squalid philosophy of “KGB Capitalists.” If Ukraine succeeds in its European choice, if it is able to make it work, it can settle the question that has bedeviled Russian culture for centuries – Russia or the West? So the best way to help Russia today is to support Ukraine’s claim that it belongs to Europe and its institutions. This will influence Russia's political mentality more than anything else.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">For if Russia’s anti-Western paranoia continues and the Kremlin’s Eurasian fantasy of allying with China lasts another 10-15 years, Russia will end up seeing China swallowing its Far East and Siberia. Indeed, the weakened Russia that will be Putin’s legacy will then also lose the Northern Caucasus and the Volga region to their growing Muslim populations.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">The remaining Russian lands would then have no other choice but to attach themselves to Ukraine, which should by then have become a successful member of the European Union. After 1,000 years, Russia will have come full circle, returning to Kievan Rus after wandering on the roads of the Mongol hordes, empire, communism, and farcical Putinism.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">So Russia now has a choice: Ukrainian plan A or Ukrainian plan B. >></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; "> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">Regards,</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; ">Natalia Pylypiuk</p></span><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>University of Alberta</div><div><br></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></div></div></div></body></html>