NEWSLINK: Is Putin pushing for a crackdown in Ukraine? The Kremlin has said that it will not intervene in Ukraine, but the escalating violence in Kiev may force their hand

[“Is Putin pushing for a crackdown in Ukraine? The Kremlin has said that it will not intervene in Ukraine, but the escalating violence in Kiev may force their hand.” – Christian Science Monitor – Fred Weir, Correspondent – Moscow – February 19, 2014 – csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0219/Is-Putin-pushing-for-a-crackdown-in-Ukraine]

The Christian Science Monitor and Fred Weir examine whether Russia is prodding the Ukrainian regime to crack down with force on protests:

Russian leaders Wednesday repeated previous assurances that they will not intervene in Ukraine. But experts say the Kremlin is using all its leverage behind the scenes to convince Ukrainian authorities to forcibly restore order, and may be rethinking its options if beleaguered President Viktor Yanukovych loses power to his outspokenly anti-Russian opponents amid an increasingly violent standoff in downtown Kiev.

Experts say a late-night telephone conversation Tuesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Yanukovych presumably focused on the deteriorating situation and that Mr. Putin’s advice isn’t hard to guess at.

If the pro-EU Ukrainian opposition succeeds in taking power, Russia might tap into pro-Russian separatist influences in the Crimea:

If Ukraine’s opposition emerges on top, Russia could play the Crimea card. The Crimean peninsula, which was part of Russia for 200 years until it was “gifted” to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, has an almost two-thirds ethnic Russian population whose pro-Moscow sympathies are overwhelming. Though part of Ukraine now, Crimea is an autonomous republic with its own parliament and constitution.

In recent weeks, Crimea’s parliament has asked Moscow “for protection” and separatist movements are reportedly coming out into the open. Illaryonov says that Russia could effectively dismember Ukraine by annexing or granting “independence” to Crimea, much as it did with two breakaway territories of Georgia, Akhazia and South Ossetia, following the 2008 Russo-Georgian war.

Some other possibilities might include full Ukrainian participation in the EU, or the “Finlandization” of a largely neutral Ukraine.

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