Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire
- Thread starter Pellegrino
- Start date
Just had to shoe horn in "Jedi mind meld".
And..... President John Engler!How in the Hell did the Dems screw up 2004 and/or how did Engler actually manage to pull off his Hail Mary pass?!?
Lol, yeah maybe I could have been a little more subtle on the mind meld.
As for Engler winning in 2004, we will get into that soon, but a small hint...
We know Bush is reviled for teaming up with Zhirinovsky in 2001, and he loses to Engler in 2004 in the primaries. But what do we know happened in 2003 that will change everything in regards to the UIS? (Hint, based on the preview, when is Zhirinovsky ousted). So the 2004 election will look similar to OTL's 1992 election. Bush has baggage, but he is not in the race, which works in Engler's favor since the 04 election will not focus nearly as much on the UIS as all of the previous elections.
We know The Bosnian war starts up again in 1997 and we have some war crimes that occur and lead to Zhirinovsky's facing charges in The Hague. We also have some hints in the prelude that Croatia has a brief conflict with Lebed's UIS, so I think a 3rd Balkan war is a possibility
I was hoping for one involving the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and maybe Turkey.
Whatever you do, it will be good as always. When is the next update anyway?
I was hoping for one involving the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and maybe Turkey.
Whatever you do, it will be good as always. When is the next update anyway?
Hope to get it done tomorrow.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
I was thinking that maybe Bulgaria could be a wild card though. It can piss off both NATO and the UIS with its own ambitions, plus there might be some elements within the Bulgarian nationalist movement that may want to get Yugoslav Macedonia back. Perhaps a similar scenario to the Romania-Moldova situation, but with Bulgaria and Macedonia in the mix. Zhirinovsky IOTL had once said that Yugoslavia should hand over Macedonia to Bulgaria, so maybe he can pit the two rival Balkan states against each other.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Not Red Dawn though, but Blue Dawn. (Blue and Gold are the two official colors of the LDPR, but the term Golden Dawn is taken by the Greek far right)
Ups
Well, maybe Bulgaria will be more willing to deal with Lebeds Russia. I have some idea about Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, UIS and maybe finladizaded Romania forming in late 2000's/early 10's "Euroasian Union" .
Will Azebraijan will come soon into play? I think US backed insurency there might get Russians big headache. Furthemore, I think is possible to see USA-Iran relations bettering significantly in 90's. Think about three issues:
1. Azerbaijan- Iranians wont be happy seeing their religious brothers being victims of Russian genocide. Also, easiest way to send there weapon is via Iran and think about refugee camps in Iran turn into bases of Azeri "Mujahideens". So for me Azerbaijan might become ground for American-Iran cooperation.
2. Belochistan- many Belochs living in eastern Iran, so Independent Belochistan is equal with possible Beloch iredentism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Major_ethnic_groups_of_Pakistan_in_1980.jpg
3. OTL Z said something about Russian soldiers washing boots in Indian Ocean....
What you folks think about it?
The question is possible such scenario, where such political forces seize power in Bulgaria? My knowlege about modern Bulgarians politics is very limited.
Also, I have some idea about future uptades. I guess there will be huge celebrations throughout UIS on 9th May 1995 and so maybe Batlic veterans will also take part in official celebrations? Maybe Vaulin, hero of Battle off Gorky Park and Estonian War, like other vets will be decoreted that day?
Orville_third
Banned
This could be interesting. The 90's era of good guy Russians wouldn't exist.
One wonders if this would affect the revival of Doctor Who in 1997.
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
Some new names in this update:
The "grey passports" which ITTL we see is adopted in Lithuania:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
UIS Presidential Candidate Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC on August 1, 2011.
Discussing the Helsinki Peace Accord that ended the Estonian Civil War.
BBC: Ever since the 1995 Helsinki Peace Accord was signed on March 23, 1995 there has been repeated claims from the United States that the UIS showed they were never serious about a lasting peace. Former American Secretary of State Warren Christopher claimed that the UIS seemed more interested in using Estonia to try and pry a loophole in international sanctions than actually ending the war. Would you care to comment?
Putin: We wanted the war to end. We watched as 41,000 Russians were killed in less than four years! Of course we wanted the war to end! We knew that whatever was happening in Estonia could not continue. Our plan was to either force a peace deal or invade Estonia and send in UIS peacekeepers. You think the Russian Republic of the Baltic was happy with the deal that was signed?! You think they wanted to give back the occupied parts of Tallinn? Of course not! But they knew that it was either sign the peace accord or the UIS would march in and do to Pamyat what we had done to the communists.
BBC: Why were sanctions constantly being brought up during the negotiations then?
Putin: Because we wanted them lifted! We were doing our part to end this war and we even conceded almost everything in regards to Latvia and Lithuania! It was not unreasonable to expect the sanctions to be at least discussed considering how much we were willing to put up on the table.
BBC: Warren Christopher famously said in his book that the UIS threatened to sink any American ship that tried to land in an Estonian port.
Putin: What is your question?
BBC: That hardly looks like the actions of a reasonable partner working towards peace.
Putin: Well, when the United States allows a Russian military ship to dock in Los Angeles then maybe we will reconsider that.
MSNBC interview with Walter Mondale, Former U.S. Secretary of State
July 16, 2008
MSNBC: Almost everyone in the Kerrey administration has gone on record to say that the UIS was never serious about peace in Estonia. Do you think that it a fair assessment?
Mondale: Perhaps they were in 1994, but by 1995 they were angry and bitter at the United States and they began changing their strategy. They recognized that the sanctions were almost certainly not going anywhere, and then there were apparent reports that they realized that the Powell Doctrine had been authorized by President Kerrey himself, that the plan was part of a concerted effort to destroy the UIS. Prior to that the UIS knew we were sending weapons to Turkey, which in turn would end up in Georgia and Chechnya. But they didn’t realize the level of our involvement in Chechnya and Georgia. They assumed this was more of a tit-for-tat situation, not a concerted effort to plant the seeds for the destruction of the UIS. Before I resigned I was told that many of our spies working in Moscow were reporting that Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze sold us out and told the Russians just how much we were sending to Georgia and Chechnya. This changed everything for the Russians, and even the most moderate Russian politician wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be seen as being reasonable with us. They became paranoid about everything we did. They were convinced we were plotting their destruction and that Estonia was just another piece of the puzzle in that nefarious plot. I honestly think that the Kosovo Missile Crisis started in Estonia. I really feel that those years between 1995 and 1997 were the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Things were getting so bad in the UIS, and everything that went wrong was blamed on us regardless of what it was.
MSNBC: What do you mean?
Mondale: One example comes to mind. In 1996 a Russian news report indicated that alcoholism was rising in Russia. After that report came out there was a debate in the Duma as to if the United States had caused the rise of alcoholism in Russia as part of the Powell Doctrine! They even called on Russians who were suffering from alcoholism to seek assistance from state health care agencies since it was clear that they had been targeted by the Americans and that was proof that they were important citizens of the UIS. They said that true Russian patriots would step forward and seek help. It almost seemed comical, except people were buying into it! The sanctions gave Vladimir Zhirinovsky the perfect scapegoat for everything he did wrong, and almost everything he did was wrong.
MSNBC: Do you think the United States should have reconsidered sanctions?
Mondale (long pause): It is hard to say. I was always a strong proponent of sanctions, but in hindsight…they tend to hurt the wrong people and give regimes an easy excuse for all their mistakes. The regimes in Cuba and North Korea look stronger because of sanctions so a part of me says yes, America needs to reconsider sanctions. But Vladimir Zhirinovsky was voted out in Russia in 1996, so there is an argument that they do work as well. The question we have to ask is at what cost.
“My Russia- An Autobiography by former Russian Prime Minister Gennady Burbulis”
Published by Interbook, © 1998
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT
As soon as I sat down at the table I could feel the tension. Everyone was ready to go at each others throats. I wanted to leave, to abandon this charade. The Americans were not interested in peace, and the Russian Republic of the Baltic was literally drunk with power. They wanted to move on the rest of Tallinn and crush the remaining troops that were surrounded. But I knew that would be a massacre. The Estonians were still armed to the teeth, and a siege could literally last a decade or even longer. And in the interim a hundred thousand Estonians and Russians could be killed. I didn’t want to go through with the charade anymore. I wanted to send in UIS peacekeepers and impose a ceasefire line and stop the killing. But UIS President Luzhkov wanted to keep pushing for a negotiated settlement. He honestly wanted to believe that perhaps sanctions would be lifted. But after those Russian thugs killed those Estonian POWs in a school there was no chance of that. We had lost our very small window once Vitali Vaulin started killing every Estonian male of fighting age he could get his hands on. We had to start planning our next step. We had to start considering plan B: how to keep the UIS afloat until the next round of elections in 1996.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” American Secretary of State Christopher said curtly as soon as I sat down, “how nice of you to join us today.”
The Americans were angry at having been kept waiting, but we had met with the Lithuanian delegation in private before arriving. I was able to get some concessions on Kaliningrad, which was all we really were hoping to accomplish here. They would agree not to take part in sanctions, and to not only give the Russians living in Kaliningrad free access through Lithuania but to give them special Lithuanian passports. They would be grey in color and would allow at least some of our countrymen a means of getting out from under the crippling sanctions. Since the grey passports would not disclose the origin country of the holder we knew this would allow the citizens of Kaliningrad a means to survive. It would give them the means to get around the sanctions. The Lithuanians were frightened that these concessions could mean that UIS sanctions could soon include them, but after watching what happened in Estonia in the last three months they were willing to negotiation. I couldn’t blame them.
“I apologize for being tardy President Ahtisaari,” I said to our host while not acknowledging American Secretary of State Christopher, “but I believe we reached an agreement with the Lithuanian delegation. We plan to recognize the independence of Lithuania by the end of the day. We felt that such a development was too important to ignore, and we simply pushed ahead with it.”
“What sort of agreement?!” Secretary Christopher demanded, “what were the terms of this agreement?!”
“To be quite honest it is none of your business,” UIS delegate Konstantin Lubenchenko said sarcastically. “We’ve reached an agreement. However, I am sure it could fall apart if 4,856 Dragons were to somehow find their way into the hand of terrorists in Lithuania. So to be quite frank, we don’t feel it is in the best interest of either Lithuania or the UIS to disclose the terms to you.”
I could see the color drain out of Secretary Christopher’s face. He now understood that we knew every detail of the Powell Doctrine. We knew what they had done in Georgia and Chechnya. They could try and dispute it, but we had the facts to sink them and embarrass them in the international community. If the Chinese knew what the Americans were doing they would be in an uproar. And of course we made sure that the Chinese knew.
“I don’t think any of us are upset over a delay if it means that we are that much closer to reaching a peace accord,” Finnish President Ahtisaari said nervously as he eyed the American delegates, “and I applaud the UIS delegation for working towards a lasting peace in the Baltic republics.”
The Estonian delegation rolled their eyes and threw their arms up in the air. The gesture prompted the delegates from the Russian Republic of the Baltic to jump out of their chairs and start screaming at their Estonian counterparts.
“You are Nazis and war criminals!” Dmitri Vasilyev screamed at the Estonian delegation, “and we won’t give up an inch of Russian land to you!”
“Sit down and shut up!” I said firmly to Vasilyev.
“Hell of a show,” Secretary Christopher said with a chuckle. “In America we call it good cop, bad cop. I guess the Russian version is good fascist, bad fascist.”
I must admit, the insult hit me harder than it should have. This was never my intention when I first sided with Boris Yeltsin back in 1989. When I first sided with the reformist in the Duma and pushed for real reforms in the Soviet Union. Now here I was, defending a fascist in Vladimir Zhirinovsky because, well, at least he wasn’t as bad as Vasilyev.
“I think we are done here,” Konstantin Lubenchenko said with a hint of disappointment in his voice, “we don’t need to sit here and be berated.”
“Fine,” Secretary Christopher said, “but if you leave I have already been authorized to recognize the independence of Estonia and for the United States to lift the arms embargo on Estonia. Considering the Russians already are ignoring that arms embargo we figured we should even the playing field.”
“I assure you if we had ignored the UN arms embargo there would not be so many dead Russians,” Lubenchenko said angrily, “and there also wouldn’t be an Estonia.”
“Well, if you thought the Dragons were a nightmare wait till you get a load of the Abrams,” Christopher said sarcastically. “Those will really keep you up at night.”
There was a long silence in the room, even the Russians from Estonia looked terrified.
“Mr. Christopher,” Lubenchenko said softly. “I want you to listen to what I am about to say very carefully, and make sure your President understands it as well. If so much as one American ship tries to dock in an Estonian port we will treat this as a declaration of war and we will respond accordingly. Such an act will be nothing short of an invasion and we will not hesitate to use every weapon at our disposal to repel an invasion.”
Secretary of Christopher didn’t blink as he looked at Lubenchenko with a smirk on his face.
“You know, threatening World War III will only get you so far,” he said, “you have to ask yourself one question. Are you willing to die for Estonia?”
“You already know the answer to that question Mr. Secretary,” Lubenchenko said firmly. “Estonia is our Cuba. The real question is ‘are you willing to die for Estonia?’”
I looked over at the Finnish President. His was literally trembling as he stared at both Lubenchenko and Secretary Christopher with his mouth agape. The Finns had just hosted a standoff at the O.K. Corral (as my American counterpart would famously say years later) and both sides were pushing the world closer to nuclear war than it had ever been before. Neither side was ready to blink; neither side could be seen as backing down.
Lubenchenko started to stand up but I leaned over and put my hand on his shoulder. I suddenly knew that we had to stay and figure out a way to make this peace accord work. We owed it to ourselves. We owed it to the world at this point. As much as I hated to see Vasilyev and Pamyat remain free in the Russian Republic of the Baltic, we couldn’t be the kind of country that just invaded our neighbors. I knew that the idea of “peacekeepers” was just an excuse for a man like Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He could never be trusted to do the right thing if we invaded Estonia and sent in peacekeepers. And if the Americans sent weapons to Estonia we were looking at a nuclear war before summer.
“What are you doing,” Lubenchenko whispered to me as I gently pushed him back into his chair, “I thought you wanted to leave once we signed the accord with the Lithuanians? We did our part, we can tell President Luzhkov that we tried and then we can go in and round up Pamyat and be rid of them before they turn Estonia into a fascist version of Belarus.”
“No,” I whispered back, “we need to make this work. I’m done with wars and invasions. We can’t just invade our way into a safe world. We have to find a way to make peace work.”
“We will look like cowards if we don’t leave now,” he replied. “Let’s just call their bluff and be done with this.”
“No,” I replied, “I don’t care how it looks or how long it takes. We will figure out a way to make this work.”
UIS to recognize independence of Estonia as peace agreement reached in Helsinki
By Jeff Coleman
The Detroit Free Press
March 24, 1995
After eight straight days of negotiations, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari announces a peace agreement has been reached, ending the Estonian Civil War.
(HELSINKI, FINLAND) – Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari announced that all parties have reached a tentative peace agreement in the Estonian Civil War. The UIS announced that they will be recognizing the independence of the Republic of Estonia, hereby ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
“We appreciate the efforts of all parties;” Ahtisaari said at a press conference announcing the terms of the agreement, “at times over the previous eight days the negotiations were tense, but we thank all parties for working through the difficult times to bring this terrible, terrible conflict to an end.”
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
Some new names in this update:
The "grey passports" which ITTL we see is adopted in Lithuania:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport
PART SIXTY ONE: OUR CUBA
UIS Presidential Candidate Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC on August 1, 2011.
Discussing the Helsinki Peace Accord that ended the Estonian Civil War.
BBC: Ever since the 1995 Helsinki Peace Accord was signed on March 23, 1995 there has been repeated claims from the United States that the UIS showed they were never serious about a lasting peace. Former American Secretary of State Warren Christopher claimed that the UIS seemed more interested in using Estonia to try and pry a loophole in international sanctions than actually ending the war. Would you care to comment?
Putin: We wanted the war to end. We watched as 41,000 Russians were killed in less than four years! Of course we wanted the war to end! We knew that whatever was happening in Estonia could not continue. Our plan was to either force a peace deal or invade Estonia and send in UIS peacekeepers. You think the Russian Republic of the Baltic was happy with the deal that was signed?! You think they wanted to give back the occupied parts of Tallinn? Of course not! But they knew that it was either sign the peace accord or the UIS would march in and do to Pamyat what we had done to the communists.
BBC: Why were sanctions constantly being brought up during the negotiations then?
Putin: Because we wanted them lifted! We were doing our part to end this war and we even conceded almost everything in regards to Latvia and Lithuania! It was not unreasonable to expect the sanctions to be at least discussed considering how much we were willing to put up on the table.
BBC: Warren Christopher famously said in his book that the UIS threatened to sink any American ship that tried to land in an Estonian port.
Putin: What is your question?
BBC: That hardly looks like the actions of a reasonable partner working towards peace.
Putin: Well, when the United States allows a Russian military ship to dock in Los Angeles then maybe we will reconsider that.
MSNBC interview with Walter Mondale, Former U.S. Secretary of State
July 16, 2008
MSNBC: Almost everyone in the Kerrey administration has gone on record to say that the UIS was never serious about peace in Estonia. Do you think that it a fair assessment?
Mondale: Perhaps they were in 1994, but by 1995 they were angry and bitter at the United States and they began changing their strategy. They recognized that the sanctions were almost certainly not going anywhere, and then there were apparent reports that they realized that the Powell Doctrine had been authorized by President Kerrey himself, that the plan was part of a concerted effort to destroy the UIS. Prior to that the UIS knew we were sending weapons to Turkey, which in turn would end up in Georgia and Chechnya. But they didn’t realize the level of our involvement in Chechnya and Georgia. They assumed this was more of a tit-for-tat situation, not a concerted effort to plant the seeds for the destruction of the UIS. Before I resigned I was told that many of our spies working in Moscow were reporting that Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze sold us out and told the Russians just how much we were sending to Georgia and Chechnya. This changed everything for the Russians, and even the most moderate Russian politician wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be seen as being reasonable with us. They became paranoid about everything we did. They were convinced we were plotting their destruction and that Estonia was just another piece of the puzzle in that nefarious plot. I honestly think that the Kosovo Missile Crisis started in Estonia. I really feel that those years between 1995 and 1997 were the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Things were getting so bad in the UIS, and everything that went wrong was blamed on us regardless of what it was.
MSNBC: What do you mean?
Mondale: One example comes to mind. In 1996 a Russian news report indicated that alcoholism was rising in Russia. After that report came out there was a debate in the Duma as to if the United States had caused the rise of alcoholism in Russia as part of the Powell Doctrine! They even called on Russians who were suffering from alcoholism to seek assistance from state health care agencies since it was clear that they had been targeted by the Americans and that was proof that they were important citizens of the UIS. They said that true Russian patriots would step forward and seek help. It almost seemed comical, except people were buying into it! The sanctions gave Vladimir Zhirinovsky the perfect scapegoat for everything he did wrong, and almost everything he did was wrong.
MSNBC: Do you think the United States should have reconsidered sanctions?
Mondale (long pause): It is hard to say. I was always a strong proponent of sanctions, but in hindsight…they tend to hurt the wrong people and give regimes an easy excuse for all their mistakes. The regimes in Cuba and North Korea look stronger because of sanctions so a part of me says yes, America needs to reconsider sanctions. But Vladimir Zhirinovsky was voted out in Russia in 1996, so there is an argument that they do work as well. The question we have to ask is at what cost.
“My Russia- An Autobiography by former Russian Prime Minister Gennady Burbulis”
Published by Interbook, © 1998
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT
As soon as I sat down at the table I could feel the tension. Everyone was ready to go at each others throats. I wanted to leave, to abandon this charade. The Americans were not interested in peace, and the Russian Republic of the Baltic was literally drunk with power. They wanted to move on the rest of Tallinn and crush the remaining troops that were surrounded. But I knew that would be a massacre. The Estonians were still armed to the teeth, and a siege could literally last a decade or even longer. And in the interim a hundred thousand Estonians and Russians could be killed. I didn’t want to go through with the charade anymore. I wanted to send in UIS peacekeepers and impose a ceasefire line and stop the killing. But UIS President Luzhkov wanted to keep pushing for a negotiated settlement. He honestly wanted to believe that perhaps sanctions would be lifted. But after those Russian thugs killed those Estonian POWs in a school there was no chance of that. We had lost our very small window once Vitali Vaulin started killing every Estonian male of fighting age he could get his hands on. We had to start planning our next step. We had to start considering plan B: how to keep the UIS afloat until the next round of elections in 1996.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” American Secretary of State Christopher said curtly as soon as I sat down, “how nice of you to join us today.”
The Americans were angry at having been kept waiting, but we had met with the Lithuanian delegation in private before arriving. I was able to get some concessions on Kaliningrad, which was all we really were hoping to accomplish here. They would agree not to take part in sanctions, and to not only give the Russians living in Kaliningrad free access through Lithuania but to give them special Lithuanian passports. They would be grey in color and would allow at least some of our countrymen a means of getting out from under the crippling sanctions. Since the grey passports would not disclose the origin country of the holder we knew this would allow the citizens of Kaliningrad a means to survive. It would give them the means to get around the sanctions. The Lithuanians were frightened that these concessions could mean that UIS sanctions could soon include them, but after watching what happened in Estonia in the last three months they were willing to negotiation. I couldn’t blame them.
“I apologize for being tardy President Ahtisaari,” I said to our host while not acknowledging American Secretary of State Christopher, “but I believe we reached an agreement with the Lithuanian delegation. We plan to recognize the independence of Lithuania by the end of the day. We felt that such a development was too important to ignore, and we simply pushed ahead with it.”
“What sort of agreement?!” Secretary Christopher demanded, “what were the terms of this agreement?!”
“To be quite honest it is none of your business,” UIS delegate Konstantin Lubenchenko said sarcastically. “We’ve reached an agreement. However, I am sure it could fall apart if 4,856 Dragons were to somehow find their way into the hand of terrorists in Lithuania. So to be quite frank, we don’t feel it is in the best interest of either Lithuania or the UIS to disclose the terms to you.”
I could see the color drain out of Secretary Christopher’s face. He now understood that we knew every detail of the Powell Doctrine. We knew what they had done in Georgia and Chechnya. They could try and dispute it, but we had the facts to sink them and embarrass them in the international community. If the Chinese knew what the Americans were doing they would be in an uproar. And of course we made sure that the Chinese knew.
“I don’t think any of us are upset over a delay if it means that we are that much closer to reaching a peace accord,” Finnish President Ahtisaari said nervously as he eyed the American delegates, “and I applaud the UIS delegation for working towards a lasting peace in the Baltic republics.”
The Estonian delegation rolled their eyes and threw their arms up in the air. The gesture prompted the delegates from the Russian Republic of the Baltic to jump out of their chairs and start screaming at their Estonian counterparts.
“You are Nazis and war criminals!” Dmitri Vasilyev screamed at the Estonian delegation, “and we won’t give up an inch of Russian land to you!”
“Sit down and shut up!” I said firmly to Vasilyev.
“Hell of a show,” Secretary Christopher said with a chuckle. “In America we call it good cop, bad cop. I guess the Russian version is good fascist, bad fascist.”
I must admit, the insult hit me harder than it should have. This was never my intention when I first sided with Boris Yeltsin back in 1989. When I first sided with the reformist in the Duma and pushed for real reforms in the Soviet Union. Now here I was, defending a fascist in Vladimir Zhirinovsky because, well, at least he wasn’t as bad as Vasilyev.
“I think we are done here,” Konstantin Lubenchenko said with a hint of disappointment in his voice, “we don’t need to sit here and be berated.”
“Fine,” Secretary Christopher said, “but if you leave I have already been authorized to recognize the independence of Estonia and for the United States to lift the arms embargo on Estonia. Considering the Russians already are ignoring that arms embargo we figured we should even the playing field.”
“I assure you if we had ignored the UN arms embargo there would not be so many dead Russians,” Lubenchenko said angrily, “and there also wouldn’t be an Estonia.”
“Well, if you thought the Dragons were a nightmare wait till you get a load of the Abrams,” Christopher said sarcastically. “Those will really keep you up at night.”
There was a long silence in the room, even the Russians from Estonia looked terrified.
“Mr. Christopher,” Lubenchenko said softly. “I want you to listen to what I am about to say very carefully, and make sure your President understands it as well. If so much as one American ship tries to dock in an Estonian port we will treat this as a declaration of war and we will respond accordingly. Such an act will be nothing short of an invasion and we will not hesitate to use every weapon at our disposal to repel an invasion.”
Secretary of Christopher didn’t blink as he looked at Lubenchenko with a smirk on his face.
“You know, threatening World War III will only get you so far,” he said, “you have to ask yourself one question. Are you willing to die for Estonia?”
“You already know the answer to that question Mr. Secretary,” Lubenchenko said firmly. “Estonia is our Cuba. The real question is ‘are you willing to die for Estonia?’”
I looked over at the Finnish President. His was literally trembling as he stared at both Lubenchenko and Secretary Christopher with his mouth agape. The Finns had just hosted a standoff at the O.K. Corral (as my American counterpart would famously say years later) and both sides were pushing the world closer to nuclear war than it had ever been before. Neither side was ready to blink; neither side could be seen as backing down.
Lubenchenko started to stand up but I leaned over and put my hand on his shoulder. I suddenly knew that we had to stay and figure out a way to make this peace accord work. We owed it to ourselves. We owed it to the world at this point. As much as I hated to see Vasilyev and Pamyat remain free in the Russian Republic of the Baltic, we couldn’t be the kind of country that just invaded our neighbors. I knew that the idea of “peacekeepers” was just an excuse for a man like Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He could never be trusted to do the right thing if we invaded Estonia and sent in peacekeepers. And if the Americans sent weapons to Estonia we were looking at a nuclear war before summer.
“What are you doing,” Lubenchenko whispered to me as I gently pushed him back into his chair, “I thought you wanted to leave once we signed the accord with the Lithuanians? We did our part, we can tell President Luzhkov that we tried and then we can go in and round up Pamyat and be rid of them before they turn Estonia into a fascist version of Belarus.”
“No,” I whispered back, “we need to make this work. I’m done with wars and invasions. We can’t just invade our way into a safe world. We have to find a way to make peace work.”
“We will look like cowards if we don’t leave now,” he replied. “Let’s just call their bluff and be done with this.”
“No,” I replied, “I don’t care how it looks or how long it takes. We will figure out a way to make this work.”
UIS to recognize independence of Estonia as peace agreement reached in Helsinki
By Jeff Coleman
The Detroit Free Press
March 24, 1995
After eight straight days of negotiations, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari announces a peace agreement has been reached, ending the Estonian Civil War.
(HELSINKI, FINLAND) – Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari announced that all parties have reached a tentative peace agreement in the Estonian Civil War. The UIS announced that they will be recognizing the independence of the Republic of Estonia, hereby ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
“We appreciate the efforts of all parties;” Ahtisaari said at a press conference announcing the terms of the agreement, “at times over the previous eight days the negotiations were tense, but we thank all parties for working through the difficult times to bring this terrible, terrible conflict to an end.”
Last edited:
That is a really great idea! I like a "Bulgarian wildcard" factor!
Lol, I could see that. Plus the Bond movies would have a much different feel for much of the 1990s
Thanks for that Drakon! I will do some research and look at making a correction on that here shortly
I think it plays into the Dr. Who revival quite well, sort of an unexpected controversy that convinces the BBC to bring it back (even though we know in OTL they come back anyways)
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
The thing is, Bulgaria has a nationalist movement called the IMRO - Bulgarian National Movement that arose in 1989, though that is way before the PoD. However, there is a current Bulgarian far-right party called Ataka that was formed in 2005. I'm not sure how a Bulgarian Zhirinovsky will emerge, but I guess that he will be on the same level as Funar of Romania, or even Milosevic in Yugoslavia. Also, if we could come up with a situation in Macedonia that will force the Macedonians to come closer to Bulgaria (ie: the naming dispute between Macedonia and Greece), then the Bulgarian wild card can really twist things up. Zhirinovsky should be aware that Greece and Turkey share a border in this case, so by supporting Bulgaria from behind the scenes (or we can make Greater Bulgaria Lebed's project since he will be less likely to screw up) Zhirinovsky can widen the gap between Greece and Turkey, just like how Azerbaijan and the latter were far apart as a result of an enlarged Armenia.