Russia and Ukraine

[Wild Bill]

The EU doesn't need to invade anything, just find their energy somewhere else.

But facts are obstinate things.
Tha facts still Ukraine refused, and EU change government there.

BTW, and not all EU countries are prosperous :)

[nafod]

Wild Bill, I heard Crimea is kind of the retirement place for lots of Russians. Like our Florida. Is this true? Where's the best place to visit? Have you been there?

[Wild Bill]

Wild Bill, I heard Crimea is kind of the retirement place for lots of Russians. Like our Florida. Is this true? Where's the best place to visit? Have you been there?

No. Honestly as i heard it is mostly desert. Turkey, Thailand and Egypt most popular places.

In true noone needs that stupid Crimea :)))

[Wild Bill]

I heard talk of this from Chinese born colleagues, who claim at least some of the Russian Far East was "once Chinese land", taken from China in the "unequal treaties".

Strange that Mongolia keep silence. They could claim Russia and China both :) just to start.

[Wild Bill]

or at least big part of Russia

[Sangoma]

And already everyone lost interest.

[Fat Cat]

And already everyone lost interest.

You must understand, we Americans don't give a nigger fuck about Ukraine

[Wild Bill]

And already everyone lost interest.

Really interesting things will start after referendum.

Right now just some riots against new government in Eastern Ukraine.
Lider of nazis D.Yarosh demanded that military arsenals should be opened for them, and he promise to stop that protests :))

Life is funny thing... now it is them who demamds to stop protests, and even with use of military forse against protesters :)
BTW there was posted interview of new prime-minister Yatsen­yuk about Kosovo. Also funny to read his thoughts that Kosovo should be independent. Now it seems his beliefs are changed.

[Wild Bill]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists present a need for U.S. caution

When the new Ukrainian prime minister visits the White House this week, President Obama should offer continued support — but also ask pointedly why several far-right ultra-nationalists have such prominent roles in Ukraine’s new government.

I don’t know of any reason to doubt Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsen­yuk’s commitment to democracy and pluralism. The same cannot be said for other members of the provisional regime that is trying to reverse Russia’s grab of the Crimean Peninsula.

Oleksandr Sych, one of three vice prime ministers, is a member of the controversial All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” party, whose leader charged that Ukraine was being controlled by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” before last month’s revolution. Members of Svoboda also run the agriculture and environment ministries. Last year, the World Jewish Congress called on the European Union to consider banning what it considered neo-Nazi parties, including Svoboda.

The head of the National Security and Defense Council, in charge of the armed forces, is Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine, an openly neo-fascist precursor to Svoboda. Parubiy’s deputy is Dmitro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a far-right paramilitary group that clashed violently with the security forces of deposed leader Viktor Yanu­kovych.

All of this is to say that the situation in Ukraine is not as simple as it might seem.

It’s not fair to say that the new government is dominated by the far right. But the front-and-center presence of these unsavory characters should be enough to warn policymakers in Washington that Ukraine’s new leaders will have to be pressed to respect the rights of all citizens, including supporters of the ousted regime.

I tend to agree with the assessment by former defense secretary Robert Gates, who told “Fox News Sunday,” “I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia’s hand.” Russian troops essentially control the peninsula and, from all reports, have substantial popular support. Unless a planned referendum on retrocession to Russia produces a surprise result — and Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t like surprises — it is hard to see how the Ukrainian government can wrest Crimea back.

The other Russian-speaking parts of eastern Ukraine are a different story — potentially. Putin would face much more determined international opposition if he were to send troops to capture more of the country — unless the new government gives him an excuse.

The far-right parties have long championed Ukrainian-only laws that ban the use of the Russian language in official business. They have ideas about rewriting history books and celebrating Ukrainian — as opposed to Russian or Jewish — ethnic heritage. Svoboda’s platform, for example, calls for Ukrainian passports to specify the bearer’s ethnicity.

Sorting all of this out will require the government to reassure Russian speakers in the east that they do not need protection from Moscow, as Putin claims. But Russian media are playing up an incident Saturday in which armed, masked assailants broke up a pro-Russia rally in the eastern city of Kharkiv .

Was the incident perhaps a provocation, staged by Putin? Could be. But Ukraine’s Russian speakers would be less likely to give credence to the notion that they are under threat of persecution if the new government did not include far-right leaders whose rhetoric has been ethnocentric and, at times, violent.

What does this mean for the Obama administration? Proceed with caution.

The president should pay no attention to the loudmouths who claim he somehow “lost” Crimea, presumably just as George W. Bush “lost” parts of Georgia when Russia invaded that country. No amount of rhetorical bluster — or, for that matter, U.S. defense spending — would have dissuaded Russia from occupying a strategic plot of land where it has had a major military presence for more than two centuries.

Yanu­kovych was a thief and a lout; Ukraine is better off with him gone. But Obama should insist that the provisional government organize new elections that are free and fair and that prove to Russian speakers that they, too, have a voice in the new Ukraine. This means making clear that anti-Semitism and ethnic chauvinism are unacceptable.

Obama should anticipate that if far-right figures shape the policies of the new government, tensions between the eastern and western parts of the country will get worse, not better. Public opinion in cities such as Kharkiv and Donetsk, where people are nervous but don’t want to become Russians again, may begin to shift Putin’s way.

The upheaval in Ukraine, I’m afraid, is anything but simple — and anything but over.

[Wild Bill]

Advertising of referendum

[Fat Cat]

Stay classy, Russia.

[Wild Bill]

black and red, its flag of ukrainean nazis.
BTW it already became oficial in some regions with new government :)

[Fat Cat]

Thank God there are no nationalists or anti-Semites in Russia.

[Wild Bill]

:) they are didn't seize power in Russia.
And it is crime in Russia. Their liders are mostly sitting in jails.

[Bobby]

And that Putin is so big on democracy.....

[Wild Bill]

And that Putin is so big on democracy.....

true :)

[Batboy2/75]

I find the whole Crimea situation interesting. Interesting, because it is very apparent that Western government leaders (those in power and opposition parties) have no concept of (or choose to ignore) not only 900 years of Russian History, but the also recent history of the former USSR, it's break up, and the aftermath.

The West is lead by and large by a bunch of careerist weasels. While Russian politics is dominated by nationalist weasels of the pre WWI mold. This doesn't make Putin right or the west wrong etc. However, it does mean the West is unprepared to deal with a leader like Putin, i.e. not willing to sell out his nation. The western leaders believe that Putin can be bought off, reasoned with etc. Because that is how they deal with one another. The moment Putin couldn't be reasoned with or bought off, they accused him of being another Hitler with plans of mass invasion of Europe etc.

The fact is Putin and the elites of Russia want Russia restored to it's former status as a Super Power. They don't want to occupy Europe. They don't even want to reoccupy all of the former USSR Republics that broke away. They want the EU, the US and NATO to stay out of what they believe to be their sphere of influence. The more the West, via the EU and NATO, try to push into the former USSR the more the Russians are going to push back.

When it comes to the Ukraine, they consider (1) Crimea as Russian soil (2) Kiev as the cradle of the Russian State (3) The Ukrainians as part of the greater Russian people. This means they will fight tooth and nail to keep the EU/NATO out of the Ukraine and they want the Crimea back. This seems to have escaped the attention of the West and even the Ukrainians. It's time to stop talking tough, salvage the best settlement as possible and start playing the long game with Russia.

The answer to Russia is the long game. Like all petrol-nations, they depend on high petrol prices. If you want to weaken Putin, drive the price of natural gas and oil into the toilet. This also goes for the rest of the turd nations of the world. We should be trying to bankrupt the camel fucking Arabs, the Iranians and the Russians. Kind of hard to cause trouble when you don't have any money.

Putin will at a minimum end up with Crimea and a negotiated settlement on the Ukraine. If the West keeps fucking up, he'll end up with all of eastern Ukraine and de facto control of an Ukrainian rump state.

As for the Ukrainians? They've had 20 years to prepare for this moment and what did they do? Not a damn thing. If the Ukraine had prepared themselves militarily, instead of taking turns looting the public treasury, they probably could have persuaded Russia that it wasn't worth the fight. To put this into perspective, Finland was able to hold off and humiliate the USSR 20 years after gaining their independence. Finland was prepared and the Ukrainians were not.

[Batboy2/75]

Mother fucker, right on cue.

Kerry threatens Russia with double secret probation

[Wild Bill]

Interesting guys works in US government :)
When nazis throw legitimate government away and seaze power, it is ok.
When people makes refrendum about secede, it is not ok :)

In any case it is too late for threats.

[Wild Bill]

Donetsk.
Nazis made raid on buses there to stop protests against new government.
Police tried to protect those buses with nationalists.

First raid unsuccessfull. Next will be with guns i think

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNqcwSwnybU[/youtube]

[Wild Bill]

Those nationalists started civil war.
But may it was the real goal of EU

[Batboy2/75]

Bill make no mistake, if I had my wish Ukrainian regulars and militia would be slaughtering and stacking Ivans like wood. Problem is the Ukrainians have almost no capacity to put up an effective resistance.

[Wild Bill]

... if I had my wish Ukrainian regulars and militia would be slaughtering and stacking Ivans like wood...

I'd never doubted this :)

[Sangoma]

You must understand, we Americans don't give a nigger fuck about Ukraine

[/quote]

Honestly and without sarcasm, this is the best attitude to this problem. Even Russians and Ukranians don't understand what is really happening there.

[Wild Bill]

It is started. Nazis with automatic rifles came to Kharkov. Right now there shooting.