In an interview with theTrumpet.com, Ukrainian activist Taras Revunets says, ‘We should have kept some of our nukes as a deterrent.’

Ukrainians are voting today in a presidential election which many hope will be a step toward resolving the nation’s crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will “respect the choice of Ukrainian people,” but in light of his recent track record, and since pro-Russian separatists in the east are threatening to block the vote, many Ukrainians remain pessimistic.

“We’re voting for the lesser of two evils,” said Kiev-based political activist Taras Revunets in a May 24 interview with theTrumpet.com. The “two” he refers to are the presidential frontrunners, former Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Both are wealthy veterans of the Ukrainian political scene, and Revunets says the majority of Ukrainians are uninspired by either choice.

“Most Ukrainians see both as old-school politicians,” he said. “Both evoke memories of backstage politics, rivalry, and lost opportunities since the Orange Revolution a decade ago. While only cautiously optimistic about Poroshenko, many of us simply want Tymoshenko to retire from politics.”

Revunets runs the acclaimed Ukrainian Updates microblog, from which he helps keep the world apprised of developments in the ongoing Ukraine crisis, which began some six months ago when the outbreak of protests led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and to civil conflict among Ukrainians, with Russia covertly stoking the flames.

Revunets was among the activists who stormed the presidential palace after Yanukovych fled, and says that Poroshenko deserves recognition for his participation in those protests. “I personally saw him at the Maidan here in Kyiv the night of February 18, when a few dozen protesters died,” he said.

He posted this photo a few days after that violence and Yanukovych’s ouster, to show the corruption of the pro-Russia regime:

Petro Poroshenko owns one of Ukraine’s major confectionery/chocolate firms, which Revunets says “sweetens his credentials” in the eyes of many voters. Tymoshenko, on the other hand amassed much of her wealth while running a natural-gas trading firm. “Whoever wins, Gas Princess or Chocolate Prince,” Revunets said, “it’s up to us the little guys to hold their royal egos in check.”

But inflated Ukrainian egos are not the most menacing of the nation’s problems.

With Russian troops still massed on Ukraine’s border and with pro-Moscow insurgents controlling great swaths of the nation’s East, the Russian threat looms large. It casts dark shadows over the election now underway.

Is it just the fate of one faraway country that’s on the line? Not if you look at the big picture. And if you do, you’ll see a potential global security crisis. Taras Revunets

Revunets believes Western powers should provide more help in Ukraine’s drive to counter Russian aggression, partly because the threat extends far beyond Ukraine’s borders. “The West should know what’s at stake here,” he said. “Is it just the fate of one faraway country that’s on the line? Not if you look at the big picture. And if you do, you’ll see a potential global security crisis. In today’s interdependent and interconnected world, we’re one big neighborhood.”

Like many analysts, Revunets says the United States should be doing more to actively prevent Russia from destabilizing Ukraine (and from propping up a new pro-Russia regime to replace Yanukovych), for two main reasons: First, the Budapest Memorandum, and, second, to keep aggressor nations from thinking they can now redraw borders without consequence.

Budapest Memorandum

“Twenty years ago, Ukraine lost the world’s third nuclear arsenal,” Revunets said. “Two months ago, we lost a part of our country.”

It is true that not long ago, Ukraine had one of the most advance nuclear arsenals in the world. With some 5,000 weapons, it was—as Revunets said—outsized only by the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. But all that changed in 1994 when the leaders of the U.S., UK, Ireland and Russia signed an agreement with Ukraine, which basically said that if Kyiv would give up its nuclear weapons then they would promise to uphold its territorial integrity.

Article one of the Memorandum says, “The United States of America, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine … to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

As Churchill put it, ‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.’ Hope I’m wrong on this.

Those “existing borders” included Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. By annexing Crimea, and working to destabilize the other two regions, Russia has failed to live up to its end of the deal. And Revunets says that, so far, the U.S. and other signatories “have failed to hold Russia to account.”

“We should have kept some of our nukes as a deterrent,” he said, explaining that in possession of such an arsenal, Ukraine would have been more inclined to wage war with Russia over Crimea instead of quietly surrendering it. “As Churchill put it, ‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.’ Hope I’m wrong on this,” he said.

Encouragement for Potential Aggressors

“So far, Western sanctions have been spineless,” Revunets says. He believes that the West’s flaccid response to Russian aggression will encourage other potential aggressor nations to take what they want without fear of retaliation.

“The world is watching and weighing its options,” he said. “Will key U.S. allies that have big aggressive neighbors continue relying on U.S. security assurances? Or will they go nuclear themselves? What about countries like India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea? Will they follow Ukraine’s example of being disarmed, disowned and dismembered?”

Indeed, China seems to have been inspired by America’s “spineless” retaliation against Russia, and has recently ratcheted up its belligerent behavior against neighboring nations such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. If Revunets is right, then we can expect belligerence from nations like Russia and China to increase, and for no other nation to surrender its nuclear weapons as Ukraine did in 1994.

In this Twitter post, Mr. Revunets displays a photo of anti-Russia Ukrainians taking down a statue of Soviet ruler Vladimir Lenin:

Troubled Elections

Revunets also believes that the referendums earlier this month, in which voters in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions allegedly voted to separate from Ukraine, were not valid because of Russian pressure. “Would any referendum be considered legitimate if run by well-trained masked gunmen? Armed with grenade launchers and portable anti-aircraft missiles? In a country other than their own? Under the flags of their country, not the host country? As if it’s some sort of Olympics and they’re one of the biathlon teams? A referendum in which one can vote four times? Using ballots printed on copiers?”

On May 11, the day of the referendum, Mr. Revunets posted this photo showing a voter place multiple ballots into the receptacle, instead of the lawful single ballot:

Partitioning of #Ukraine. Part II. Now we know for sure how good our new govt is. Or where its loyalties lie. pic.twitter.com/SCB0XOpYqM — Ukrainian Updates (@Ukroblogger) May 11, 2014

Because of irregularities in the referendums in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, some question whether attempts may be made to manipulate the presidential vote underway today.

A big part of the tension in the East, according to Revunets, is Russian propaganda. “Russian media reign supreme in Eastern Ukraine, the Russified part of the country,” he said. “So the new government, as imperfect as it is in trying to fix things, gets blamed for everything that’s wrong with Ukraine these days. The Kremlin-controlled media rely on clichés like junta, fascists, self-proclaimed authorities, etc. to fan the flames of separatism in the East.”

Russia’s end game, Revunets says, is to “[c]apitalize on the protest vote to tear Ukraine apart, one referendum at a time, and to create so-called New Russia, in Ukraine’s Black Sea belt.”

“If Ukraine doesn’t resist,” he says, Russia will “move on to the next target.” But “if Ukraine does resist, if there’s a ‘civil war’ in Ukraine, why not send regular troops, or ‘peacekeepers,’ as [the Russians] call them? Who said arsonists can’t be firefighters?”

The Ukrainian situation remains tense, and its difficult to say whether the vote underway today will be the step toward stability that many hope for or a step in the other direction. Indications are that the billionaire chocolate magnate Poroshenko will be elected, and Vladimir Putin has already expressed willingness to work with him. Revunets says it is hard to say whether Poroshenko’s leadership would be beneficial to Ukraine, or if he would become another minion for Putin. He said: “Poroshenko’s ‘Live Life Anew’ campaign seduces voters into giving him the benefit of the doubt. But, as Forrest Gump put it, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”

To understand more about the ongoing Ukraine turmoil, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s analysis “The Crimean Crisis Is Reshaping Europe.”