Putschists Admit Defeat in Donbass

One of the great Descendents songs from the 1980s is "Coolidge," which includes the line "You can only be a victim if you admit defeat."

Bear that in mind as you read today's story by Alison Smale and Andrew Roth, "Ukraine Says That Militants Won the East":

It is by now a well-established pattern. Armed, masked men in their 20s to 40s storm a public building of high symbolic value in a city somewhere in eastern Ukraine, evict anyone still there, seize weapons and ammunition, throw up barricades and proclaim themselves the rulers of a “people’s republic.” It is not clear who is in charge or how the militias are organized. 

Through such tactics, a few thousand pro-Russian militants have seized buildings in about a dozen cities, effectively establishing control over much of an industrial region of about 6.5 million nestled against the Russian border. 

Day by day, in the areas surrounding the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, pro-Russian forces have defied all efforts by the central government to re-establish its authority, and on Wednesday, Ukraine’s acting president conceded what had long been obvious: The government’s police and security officials had lost control.

“Inactivity, helplessness and even criminal betrayal” plague the security forces, the acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, told a meeting of regional governors in Kiev. “It is hard to accept but it’s the truth. The majority of law enforcers in the east are incapable of performing their duties.”

With Mr. Turchynov’s acknowledgment that a significant chunk of the country had slipped from the government’s grasp, the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to enter a new and more dangerous phase. Whether that amounts to the lasting dismemberment of Ukraine or hands control of the east to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, were among the many questions left unanswered after Mr. Turchynov delivered his stark assessment.

Note the red highlights I added to the copy above. The feckless conduct of the putsch government is going to be papered over in the West with heaping column inches of anti-Putinism. The prestige press and USG could boast no spectacular achievements of propaganda when it came to bestowing legitimacy on the putschist cabal in Kiev. So now that defeat is being openly acknowledged no effort will be spared to lay blame on the "evil Putin." Here is a sample from the same Smale and Roth story:

But so far that has not been necessary. Through stealth and misdirection, and in defiance of Western sanctions, Russia has managed to achieve its immediate goal of what Western and Ukrainian officials believe is rendering Ukraine so chaotic that it cannot guarantee order, mend its teetering economy or elect new leaders to replace Mr. Turchynov and the acting government installed after the pro-Russian president, Victor F. Yanukovych, fled in February.

Nothing sensible like the conclusion that coming to power by means of a coup does not lead to stability and full support from the citizenry. No, the poor patriots in Kiev were destabilized by the adroit wirepulling of Russia's new Rasputin.

But make no mistake. The putschists are in trouble, and it is of their and the West's own making. Yanukovych and the EU had a deal back in February that would have transitioned Ukraine to the kind of democratic gains the western part of the country wanted. But that was torpedoed by U.S. support of the Right Sector spearheaded putsch. You get what you get when you go with violence, something that U.S. policymakers cannot seem to grasp, ever.

As a side note, over at the Moon of Alabama, the blog announced the end is near for the putsch. Moon of Alabama has an excellent track record on declaring victory -- when Obama's missile strike was foiled at the end of last summer, when earlier this year Syria turned the corner on its foreign-funded jihadis, and now in Ukraine.