Ukraine has a new darling. After the leader of the revolution that brought freedom to Ukraine was christened Darling of the Orange Revolution, yesterday it was Nadiya Savchenko who became a darling of a country fighting Russian hegemony. And the Orange Revolution leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, was there to receive Savchenko who landed in Kiev from Russia.
About two years of incarceration in a hostile country didn’t break the spirit of the military pilot. And it was visible in the way she blasted Moscow’s nefarious designs. Savchenko, behind bars or free, embodies the intransigent spirit of a country that has been battered and bruised in a fight with a disproportionately powerful neighbour. In saying that she is ready to once again go to the battlefield for her country, the 35-year-old servicewoman has defied not only fear, but the designs of a marauding enemy out to distort history.
Yesterday’s prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine is reminiscent of spy exchanges during the Cold War. So, have fears of a new Cold War come true?
The Cold War was a product of two superpowers fighting for supremacy. They had competing strengths which led to the proliferation of powerful weapons including nuclear armaments. It was in this milieu that the Cold War took birth. Ukraine is a relatively weak state grappling with a new political order and low economic indicators. Poverty compounded by war, misery and corruption have made life hard for the average Ukrainian. It is Western powers standing behind Kiev that has invited suggestions of a West-Russia conflict.
The eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has been a point of contention between the trans-Atlantic military alliance and Russia. Tensions between Kiev and Moscow ratcheted up when the Kremlin annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the move saying that not only Crimea, but the Ukrainian nation belongs to Russia.
The two prisoners exchanged for Savchenko yesterday were purportedly Russian soldiers participating in the Moscow-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin denies the claims. Russia’s allegation that Savchenko was complicit in the war-time killing of two Russian journalists has been rejected by the pilot who claims she was arrested even before the scribes were killed.
Savchenko was freed due to a pardon granted by Putin in a swap mediated by some western powers. The prisoner swap has come as a temporary salve in ties between Kiev and Moscow. But it is unlikely it will lead to better relations in the long run.
Ukraine has a new darling. After the leader of the revolution that brought freedom to Ukraine was christened Darling of the Orange Revolution, yesterday it was Nadiya Savchenko who became a darling of a country fighting Russian hegemony. And the Orange Revolution leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, was there to receive Savchenko who landed in Kiev from Russia.
About two years of incarceration in a hostile country didn’t break the spirit of the military pilot. And it was visible in the way she blasted Moscow’s nefarious designs. Savchenko, behind bars or free, embodies the intransigent spirit of a country that has been battered and bruised in a fight with a disproportionately powerful neighbour. In saying that she is ready to once again go to the battlefield for her country, the 35-year-old servicewoman has defied not only fear, but the designs of a marauding enemy out to distort history.
Yesterday’s prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine is reminiscent of spy exchanges during the Cold War. So, have fears of a new Cold War come true?
The Cold War was a product of two superpowers fighting for supremacy. They had competing strengths which led to the proliferation of powerful weapons including nuclear armaments. It was in this milieu that the Cold War took birth. Ukraine is a relatively weak state grappling with a new political order and low economic indicators. Poverty compounded by war, misery and corruption have made life hard for the average Ukrainian. It is Western powers standing behind Kiev that has invited suggestions of a West-Russia conflict.
The eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has been a point of contention between the trans-Atlantic military alliance and Russia. Tensions between Kiev and Moscow ratcheted up when the Kremlin annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the move saying that not only Crimea, but the Ukrainian nation belongs to Russia.
The two prisoners exchanged for Savchenko yesterday were purportedly Russian soldiers participating in the Moscow-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin denies the claims. Russia’s allegation that Savchenko was complicit in the war-time killing of two Russian journalists has been rejected by the pilot who claims she was arrested even before the scribes were killed.
Savchenko was freed due to a pardon granted by Putin in a swap mediated by some western powers. The prisoner swap has come as a temporary salve in ties between Kiev and Moscow. But it is unlikely it will lead to better relations in the long run.
