Africa-Press – Mauritius. There is no saying how long the Russo-Ukraine crisis and its human or material casualties will continue nor what will be the probable outcome that would guarantee some form of a durable settlement in that area.
Both countries share a complex and intimate century-old proximity, reinforced under the Soviet Republics era, where the Ukraine’s eastern provinces and Crimea were peopled by Russian or Russophone populations.
With the break-up of the Soviet superstructure, both countries, steeped in residual soviet processes and structures, emerged with probably the worst record of corrupt and kleptocratic leaderships around the globe.
In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations from 43 surveyed — alongside Colombia and Brazil, while in 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe”.
Clearly, according to EU proclaimed democratic norms and standards, not the sort of country that could remotely be considered as of European stock and value-systems and that could gain acceptance to EU membership without a stringent, verifiable transformation that could take 20 years or more.
It was rather cringing to hear President Zelensky, who had been led up the garden path by NATO in a war his country could never win, but could only drag out the war of attrition with the trickle of Western financial and weapon assistance, cry urbi et orbi that he was somehow defending Europe against the nasty Russian bear.
It was at first sight even more of a surprise when following the recent visit of three European leaders, French president Emmanuel Macron, and his counterparts, German president Olaf Scholz and Italian president Mario Draghi, the EU announced that Ukraine would be granted “candidate status” to EU membership.
The paradox of EU member countries chasing Russian oligarchs and their assets, while welcoming Ukrainian oligarchs, who have with equal ease plundered their country’s assets, would not have escaped international analysts.
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