One of the sharpest knives in the British Embassy in Moscow in the early 1990s was Christopher Granville. He was the first-ever UK diplomat to resign from the FCO to set up a new financial business in Russia.

After various adventures he now is a leading member of the team at Trusted Sources, a group giving invaluable insights into the goings-on in emerging markets including Russia. His impressive bio is here. Analytical talent runs deep in this family: see also Brigitte Granville.

Chris has written a piece at Project Syndicate about the Ukraine crisis albeit with the unfortunate title Neutralizing Ukraine:

All that is needed is to introduce into the Ukrainian constitution a provision that significantly impedes membership in any military alliance, whether NATO or the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization of the Commonwealth of Independent States. For example, the decision to join such an alliance – or even to implement an agreement that allows a foreign country to base its troops on Ukrainian soil – could require the approval of a qualified majority of, say, two-thirds of voters or regional legislatures.

Introducing such a requirement would amount to granting veto power to Ukraine’s two camps – that is, the country’s more Russia-aligned east and its NATO-leaning west. The practical result – Ukraine remaining unaligned in military and security terms – would reflect the will of the Ukrainian population as a whole.

This approach would be consistent with the principle, which US President Barack Obama highlighted when announcing the latest round of sanctions against Russia last month, that Ukraine must be permitted to “chart its own path.” Above all, it would help the people of Ukraine – divided between inherently antagonistic identities – to live together peacefully.

Of course, Ukraine’s position may change in the future, with cultural, demographic, and economic shifts producing the needed consensus to abandon neutrality. What is important is that the constitution requires a super-majority – rather than, say, the easily reversible “non-bloc” resolution that the Ukrainian parliament adopted in 2010 – to join a military alliance. In such a deeply divided country, joining NATO by a simple majority vote would merely exacerbate unrest, regardless of Russia’s involvement.

I have posted a comment:

Fair enough. The best result now is (probably) that Ukraine remains formally eligible to join whatever international grouping it likes, but in fact takes a more or less ‘neutral’ position for the foreseeable future. This idea helps achieve that with no real loss of face for any side. Classic diplomatic sleight of hand.

The main problem with this idea is that it misses one key benefit of a former communist country’s moving towards NATO membership, namely the reforms needed to abolish the hard-core military intelligence structures inherited from the Soviet Union. The GRU tendency would still be corrupting Poland to major ruinous effect if it had not been weeded out in the NATO accession process

That said, one result of this Ukraine episode might be a new resolve of Kiev to engage in the tough-love reforms needed to break the corrupt links with Russia that have wrecked the country’s prospects, and scaling back GRU influence with NATO’s active support and radical transparency initiatives should be a big priority in that.

Here is another fine article (HT The Browser) looking in meticulous detail at the way corruption has plundered Ukraine since it became independent. Read the whole thing.

This is the heart of the problem. So many influential people in both Russia and Kiev (but NB not only there) want this colossal racketeering to continue. War and ruin in eastern Ukraine are a small price to pay to make that happen, and these mega-gangsters won’t pay that price anyway.