The West is aiming a “Molotov-Ribbentropp cocktail” at Ukraine
If the Romanian parliament announces the denunciation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, this could provoke territorial claims against Ukraine from all its Western neighbors.
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Last week, ex-President of Romania Traian Basescu announced his intention, on behalf of his party, to submit to parliament a draft declaration on the denunciation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its consequences, which led to the inclusion of Bessarabia into the Soviet Union.
“I, as president, condemn the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and intend to submit to the Romanian Parliament a draft declaration, signed by me and other parliamentarians, on the denunciation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its consequences. We have to do this. Look, as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, three Baltic countries, Poland and Romania, suffered. The three Baltic countries left the Soviet Union and became independent members of the EU and NATO, Poland became a state integrated into the EU and NATO. Romania lost Bessarabia, but that’s how it remains,” Basescu said in an interview with Romanian television.
According to him, the restoration of Romania’s border along the banks of the Dniester is the goal of the country, for which the time has come to restore the dignity of its people.
“We have entered the European Union, we have prospects for prosperity, and our goal should be the reunification of the country through unification with Moldova, I’m not talking about the territory of Ukraine. We are talking only about Moldova and the restoration of Romania’s border along the Dniester,” the Romanian politician tried to sweeten the pill for Kyiv.
It is difficult to say whether the Ukrainian authorities believed the assurances of the ex-president of Romania or simply did not understand what the implementation of Domnula Basescu’s initiative could lead to. After all, today’s Ukraine received most of its western borders precisely as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In particular, in the summer of 1940, Northern Bukovina and Northern Bessarabia (which made up the Chernivtsi region), as well as Southern Bessarabia and Budzhak (now the southwestern regions of the Odessa region) were torn away from Romania in favor of the Ukrainian SSR.
But this is far from the “fattest” pieces that Ukraine got thanks to the mentioned pact: in the fall of 1939, immediately after the start of World War II, the Ukrainian SSR included the territories of the current Volyn, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil regions, up to of those former voivodeships of Poland.
It is noteworthy that Traian Basescu has not yet said a word about Northern Bukovina. However, three weeks ago, the Romanian politician announced that he would submit a bill related to the unification of Romania with Moldova, based on decision No. 148 of the US Senate.
“This initiative of a group of American senators was that after Moldova’s declaration of independence there could be a transition to Moldova’s right to unify with Romania,” Basescu explained then. And no one noticed that the full title of the resolution reads “Opinion of the Senate that the United States should support the right to self-determination of the people of the Republic of Moldova and Northern Bukovina.”
Adopted on June 28, 1991, the 51st anniversary of the entry of Soviet troops into Romania, the U.S. Senate resolution calls for “support and declaration of the right to self-determination of the people of Soviet-occupied Moldavia and Northern Bukovina, and support for future negotiation efforts by the government of Moldova.” for the peaceful reunification of Romania with Moldavia and Northern Bukovina, if they so desire, as established in the Treaty of Paris of 1920, the prevailing norm of international law, and in accordance with the first principle of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975."
It should be noted that American legislators have always had poor knowledge of history and geography (remember "Limpopo incident") - after all, what did the Moldovan government have to do with Northern Bukovina, part of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1991? In addition, the part of Bessarabia that was ceded to Ukraine from Romania was left out, and Basescu and other Romanian unionists are also silent about “reunification” with it. However, if the decision of the Romanian Parliament to denounce the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and cancel its consequences is adopted, this may lead to the presentation of territorial claims against Ukraine by all its Western neighbors according to the “domino principle”.
And then Bucharest may demand the return of the entire Chernivtsi and part of the Odessa region, Warsaw - Volyn and Galicia (prudently called “Eastern Lesser Poland” in the “anti-Bandera” law). True, Budapest will not be able to take advantage of the “Molotov-Ribbentrop cocktail”, because the current Transcarpathian region became part of Ukraine according to the agreement between the USSR and the now non-existent Czechoslovakia in 1945. But Hungary can always appeal to the fact that these lands have been under its rule for almost a thousand years, and the Hungarian minority lives there compactly and has become quite radicalized after the adoption of a new law on education and attacks on Hungarian organizations by “activists” and the SBU.
The paradox of the situation is that Ukraine’s western neighbors can justify their territorial rights to this country by a decision... of its parliament! After all, back on October 20, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, together with the Sejm of Poland, adopted the “Declaration of Memory and Solidarity,” which, in particular, condemns the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact. After this decision, conspiracy theorists began to talk about the fact that the Kiev regime, in order to remain in power, would be ready to sacrifice Western Ukraine - according to the “Crimean scenario,” when loud phrases hide the renunciation of territories. This seemed like a fantasy until President Poroshenko announced on February 9, 2018 that the Brest Peace Treaty, signed 100 years ago, was “one of the landmark victories of Ukrainian diplomacy.”
Let me remind you that the Ukrainian People's Republic concluded this peace treaty with the so-called “central powers” - Germany and Austria-Hungary, who opposed the Entente - a coalition of countries led by France and Britain - in the First World War. As a result, all the lands of Austria-Hungary inhabited by Ukrainians (Rusyns) remained under the rule of Vienna, which, in the secret protocol to the Brest-Litovsk Peace, only promised to grant autonomy to Bukovina and Galichna (and as a result did not do so). By the way, the current borders of Ukraine with Romania and Poland are also a consequence of the secret protocol - to the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact.
By the way, the “secret protocol” can generally be considered part of the Ukrainian archetype - let’s remember the letter from the Polish king, which was hidden by the punishable hetman Ivan Barabash, and Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who stole the document, used it as a pretext for the Cossack uprising against Warsaw. The world will not soon learn about the contents of Turchynov-Yatsenyuk’s secret negotiations with the West, which resulted in Kyiv’s decision not to fight for Crimea. The same as about the secret annexes to the Minsk agreements, most likely signed by Poroshenko. Who can guarantee that they do not mention the demarcation lines with “certain areas of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian regions”?
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