David Miliband steps into a minefield

In lecturing the Russians about Ukrainian sovereignty, the British foreign secretary appears not to know what he's talking about.

It will be a cold winter in parts of the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, and that prediction has nothing to do with the weather forecast. The ripples of Russia's war with Georgia are spreading far and wide, and neither Russia nor the west is showing any moderation in their desire to limit the damage. The latest to engage in dangerous and irresponsible grandstanding is David Miliband. Is he a student of even recent Ukrainian history? I very much doubt it, but there he stood in Kiev today lecturing the Russians about the need to respect Ukrainian sovereignty.

Which bit of sovereign Ukraine was he talking about, the pro-Russian enclave of Crimea or the majority of the east and central Ukraine that, when asked, is against joining Nato? Does Miliband not realise that Ukraine as a nation has historically been torn between east and west, and what does he think would happen to old wounds if he, among others, starts to tug a little bit harder?

The history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is at least as tangled and interwoven, culturally, politically and religiously, as that between England and Scotland. You only have to take a closer look at what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a hero of the west, said about Ukraine to realise that our zero-sum calculations do not stack up. He called for a slavic revival based on Russian orthodoxy. Solzhenitsyn fought both the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence – and what's interesting about Solzhenitsyn is that he has Ukrainian parentage.

Miliband appears to be blissfully unaware of this. He went on to claim that Russia was not reconciled to "the new map" of the region. Is this a map which includes, as it did yesterday, the spectacle of the US and Russia sending rival warships to rival Black Sea ports? The history of the division of the former Soviet Union's Black Sea Fleet and its bases was long and bitter. It aroused passions on both sides, but it forced both Ukraine and Russia to make what each side regarded as painful military and territorial concessions. The dispute is still not over, because doubts over the future of Russia's main base at Sevastopol continues to rumble on. More

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