So Russian forces have taken Slavynsk and Doneskt... anyone who said not past Crimea?

[Jhhnn]

Shilling for Putin. Sad.

The Russians learned their lessons well watching (and helping) the Serbs when they were carving up Bosnia.

Same shit, different toilet.

Denial & duh-version, apparently taking cues & argumentative style from our right wing tards.

You're apparently deeply emotionally involved in this particular discussion, something that inhibits your cognition. At this point, Ukraine is teetering on the verge of being a failed State because of internal divisions, and we helped make it that way.

We did much the same in Georgia, remember? Not that the ethnic Ukrainian Right Wing noticed, apparently.

 

[senseamp]

we are way past this.

yes the BLACKSEA FLEET IS THERE AND HAS BEEN THERE.

we're talking about russian special ops forces, who have been there for one year, with a plan to do exactly what they just did.... destabilize Crimea, and then the east.. which will allow putin to move in with an "anti terrorist" action............. that he created...

they took a play right from the United states playbook didn't they.

I don't remember the Russian regime calling Crimea an "anti-terrorist" action. The Kiev regime is calling it's actions "anti-terrorist" operations (ATO) though.
Crimea was a peaceful transition, only one person from each side died as far as I recall. If Russia didn't make Crimea annexation a fait accompli when it did, there would be a war there that would make Slavyansk look like a cake walk. Crimeans are far more pro Russian than even eastern Ukraine, and there are tonnes of former military and disgruntled special forces, and Russian bases to supply them.

 

[unokitty]

"Riot police make an appearance, immediately surrounded and start to retreat:"

Howard Amos Live Tweeting from the Ukraine

Howard Amos ‏@howardamos May 2

From what I saw, violence in #odessa today was mainly a hardcore of well-prepared but amateur extremists. On both sides.

Looks like what happened in Odessa was that the Riot Police withdrew. Let both sides have at it... Both sides throwing Molotov cocktails ... And whatever else... Both sides reporting KIAs...

Bad scene...

Uno

 

[Victorian Gray]

Denial & duh-version, apparently taking cues & argumentative style from our right wing tards.

You're apparently deeply emotionally involved in this particular discussion, something that inhibits your cognition. At this point, Ukraine is teetering on the verge of being a failed State because of internal divisions, and we helped make it that way.

We did much the same in Georgia, remember? Not that the ethnic Ukrainian Right Wing noticed, apparently.

Shill.

 

[TROLLERCAUST]

^ This post is still important. Thus far no one has brought us evidence, or even claims, that "Russian forces" have advanced forward past Crimea. Still waiting for the OP to back up the topic title.

They're Russian "volunteers" and _definitely_ not paid by the Russian government. That's what they say anyway. :awe:

Some time ago anti-Maidan and pro-Maidan folk united in Odessa to set up roadblocks to keep Russians out of the city. They feared Russians were coming from Transnistria to cause trouble. Then this mass brawl happens in Odessa and 40 people die in the fire. Ukrainian interior ministry says that of those 172 detained in Odessa most are from Russia or Transnistria. 20 of those identified who died in the fire are Russian or Transnistrian. 8 are local. The numbers might not be accurate and might change but it seems they were right about Russians coming in to cause trouble.

This is the Western spin on things but it must be false because Putin and RT say otherwise. There are no Russians in Ukraine. It's all a local popular uprising.

 

[Jhhnn]

Shill.

Just because we disagree doesn't make me a shill. I have my pov, and I've laid it out as best I can. Ukraine as a Soviet administrative area worked fine, as an independent Country they haven't done well, haven't come together as a People & are deeply divided. There are legitimate & illegitimate concerns on all sides- there are no Angels, either. The only people who want to kill each other are the radicals on both sides- that's obvious from the whole Crimean episode.

For Russian speakers, they apparently see a lot of good reasons to want to rejoin Mother Russia, which is probably where they figure they belonged all the time. Ukrainian Nationalists in the other half of the country see it differently, I'm sure.

They've all enjoyed lousy government after independence in no small part because they don't really belong together in a state that isn't the USSR.

Putin? He didn't deal this hand, but he got the best cards. He's played them well, & I doubt that'll change.

 

[zanejohnson]

lol well now that this has completely blown out of proportion..

we have fbi/cia intelligence busted in ukraine... german undercover intelligence busted........


shit really got out of hand at this point.

 

[zanejohnson]

Just because we disagree doesn't make me a shill. I have my pov, and I've laid it out as best I can. Ukraine as a Soviet administrative area worked fine, as an independent Country they haven't done well, haven't come together as a People & are deeply divided. There are legitimate & illegitimate concerns on all sides- there are no Angels, either. The only people who want to kill each other are the radicals on both sides- that's obvious from the whole Crimean episode.

For Russian speakers, they apparently see a lot of good reasons to want to rejoin Mother Russia, which is probably where they figure they belonged all the time. Ukrainian Nationalists in the other half of the country see it differently, I'm sure.

They've all enjoyed lousy government after independence in no small part because they don't really belong together in a state that isn't the USSR.

Putin? He didn't deal this hand, but he got the best cards. He's played them well, & I doubt that'll change.

im convinced that you dont have good sources for news...

 

[Capt Caveman]

Misleading title.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/04/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

 

[Victorian Gray]

Just because we disagree doesn't make me a shill. I have my pov, and I've laid it out as best I can. Ukraine as a Soviet administrative area worked fine, as an independent Country they haven't done well, haven't come together as a People & are deeply divided. There are legitimate & illegitimate concerns on all sides- there are no Angels, either. The only people who want to kill each other are the radicals on both sides- that's obvious from the whole Crimean episode.

For Russian speakers, they apparently see a lot of good reasons to want to rejoin Mother Russia, which is probably where they figure they belonged all the time. Ukrainian Nationalists in the other half of the country see it differently, I'm sure.

They've all enjoyed lousy government after independence in no small part because they don't really belong together in a state that isn't the USSR.

Putin? He didn't deal this hand, but he got the best cards. He's played them well, & I doubt that'll change.

Country 1 trying to figure out how to rule itself and country 2 carving off chunks of country 1 for the personal reasons (power, glory, money, you know, the usual reasons) of a leader that is a dictator in all but name.

And you support the 2nd country.

Good for you.

 

[Stewox]

I'm unaware of any credible source that believes Russian troops were not present in Crimea from very early on in the crisis. You've just swallowed Russian propaganda on this issue.

What's strange is that after being fooled once in Crimea why the same trick would work again in eastern Ukraine.

Aren't you sure you aren't swallowing globalist propaganda all the time?

Ofcourse they will eventually protect ethnic russians if NATO comes in there to bomb the whole place without a chance of peaceful negotiations. Who wouldn't.

Would the US military be looking at baseball on TV while communist chinese would construct ICBMs on ?

Why do they call it a Cuban Missile Crisis, because the Soviet Union deployed their nukes on Cuba. But the US deployed theirs in Turkey first.

 

[TROLLERCAUST]

Rebels are on the retreat! Brilliant news. :thumbsup:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27280814

Ukraine crisis: Rebels 'retreating' in Sloviansk

Pro-Russian militants just outside Sloviansk have retreated amid attacks by Ukrainian troops, reports say. Government forces took control of a TV tower in the suburbs and rebels were pulled back deeper into the city, the Russian Interfax news agency said.

Russia warned on Monday that failure to halt the escalating unrest would threaten peace across Europe.
Moscow called on Ukraine and the international community to step up "joint efforts" to end "racism, xenophobia, ethnic intolerance, (and) the glorification of the Nazis" - a reference to extremists Russia claims are committing "mass" rights violations in Ukraine.
"The alternative is fraught with such destructive consequences for Europe's peace, stability and democratic development that it is absolutely necessary to prevent it," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ahahaha! It's like I'm reading the Onion.

 

[Jhhnn]

im convinced that you dont have good sources for news...

And I'm convinced that you'll avoid the meat of the whole thing at any cost in your quest to demonize Putin.

The Ukrainians tossed this opportunity right in his lap. They know him. They understand him better than we do. They know he's a ruthless & devious SOB who will pursue what he sees as Russia's interests any way he can. But they did it anyway, part of the rationale being the sunshine that the West has been pumping up their skirts all along.

If the Ukrainian govt can't get their shit together, they'll end up with half the country they have now, in no small part because many residents of eastern Ukraine see Mother Russia as a better alternative, just like the residents of Crimea.

When your govt, your police, your military somehow can't maintain civil society, when they depend on thuggish fascist militias to maintain what little of it there is, it's not hard to be convinced that your old govt is better, particularly when they'll take you back enthusiastically.

What sort of appeal does the ethnic ultra-nationalist rhetoric coming out of western Ukraine have for Russian speakers in east Ukraine? What's in it for them? Can they identify with it at all, or does it scare the shit out of them?

Did they ever really think of themselves as Ukrainians, or as Russians?

Demonizing Putin just hinders us from looking deeper, from looking at that, ourselves & our own govt's purposes. Does our govt care about the people caught in the middle of this episode, or do we just care about putting a NATO ally & EU member on Russia's southern border?

If our Govt actually gave a damn about the Ukrainians, any of them, we'd have done things differently. We only care about that when our Team is losing, not when we're gambling with their welfare, helping them set themselves up to fail.

Prior to independence, Ukraine had basically been part of the Russian Empire & the Soviet Union for ~200 years, 10x as long as they've been independent. And, of course, nobody asked the people in various parts of that ethnically diverse administrative area what they wanted- "You're all Ukrainians now!" covered the subject entirely. It worked well enough, apparently, at least prior to the rise of right wing ultra nationalist militias in the western part- you know, groups characterized in the western press as "protesters".

 

[fskimospy]

And I'm convinced that you'll avoid the meat of the whole thing at any cost in your quest to demonize Putin.

The Ukrainians tossed this opportunity right in his lap. They know him. They understand him better than we do. They know he's a ruthless & devious SOB who will pursue what he sees as Russia's interests any way he can. But they did it anyway, part of the rationale being the sunshine that the West has been pumping up their skirts all along.

If the Ukrainian govt can't get their shit together, they'll end up with half the country they have now, in no small part because many residents of eastern Ukraine see Mother Russia as a better alternative, just like the residents of Crimea.

When your govt, your police, your military somehow can't maintain civil society, when they depend on thuggish fascist militias to maintain what little of it there is, it's not hard to be convinced that your old govt is better, particularly when they'll take you back enthusiastically.

What sort of appeal does the ethnic ultra-nationalist rhetoric coming out of western Ukraine have for Russian speakers in east Ukraine? What's in it for them? Can they identify with it at all, or does it scare the shit out of them?

Did they ever really think of themselves as Ukrainians, or as Russians?

Demonizing Putin just hinders us from looking deeper, from looking at that, ourselves & our own govt's purposes. Does our govt care about the people caught in the middle of this episode, or do we just care about putting a NATO ally & EU member on Russia's southern border?

If our Govt actually gave a damn about the Ukrainians, any of them, we'd have done things differently. We only care about that when our Team is losing, not when we're gambling with their welfare, helping them set themselves up to fail.

Prior to independence, Ukraine had basically been part of the Russian Empire & the Soviet Union for ~200 years, 10x as long as they've been independent. And, of course, nobody asked the people in various parts of that ethnically diverse administrative area what they wanted- "You're all Ukrainians now!" covered the subject entirely. It worked well enough, apparently, at least prior to the rise of right wing ultra nationalist militias in the western part- you know, groups characterized in the western press as "protesters".

I strongly suggest you check your history AND the polling in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion. It is not kind to your interpretation.

It is important to evaluate what's going on objectively, and the objective measure is not simply the midpoint between the two positions. You are being lied to.

 

[cubby1223]

Demonizing Putin just hinders us from looking deeper, from looking at that, ourselves & our own govt's purposes. Does our govt care about the people caught in the middle of this episode, or do we just care about putting a NATO ally & EU member on Russia's southern border?

I'm just going to snip this paragraph out and comment on it...

You really think this is about boosting the ego of "the west"?

What does NATO in Ukraine mean? It means that Russia is unable to send their troops across the border and fight the Ukrainian people.

Wow, that's such a horrible fucking thing that we don't care about the people of Ukraine, that we would aid if they decided they want protection from Russian aggression - something that we can clearly see is very real.

No, it's all about ego. It's all a game and these border countries are pawns in the grand U.S. versus Russia chessmatch of stupidity.

Are you seriously that fucking stupid?


It's the fucking ego of Russia that believes this is all about them, that everything revolves around Russia. And their propaganda that perpetuates this bullshit in the minds of people of Eastern Ukraine, in the minds of people like you.

 

[Jhhnn]

I strongly suggest you check your history AND the polling in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion. It is not kind to your interpretation.

It is important to evaluate what's going on objectively, and the objective measure is not simply the midpoint between the two positions. You are being lied to.

We're all being lied to. I think it's working better on you-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...dfd92a-a890-11e3-8d62-419db477a0e6_story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/world/europe/ukraine-right-wing/

Or Google "ultra nationalists Ukraine". Be sure to click on "images", as well, follow to the stories.

Think what you want, but there's plenty there for concern, and plenty of rationales for Putin & eastern Ukrainian secessionists.

In many respects, the over-arching Soviet system was one of ethnic federalism, obviously imperfect. It did, however, serve to tamp down some ethnic rivalries & insularism that have since become a lot more pronounced as the former Soviet Republics went their own ways. It was hard to stir up those old rivalries when the rest of the USSR would pound you down for trying. Not anymore, or at least not as effectively. Nagorno-Karabach, Abkhasia & Transnistria all exist in grey zones created in the power vacuum of Soviet collapse. There are ongoing border disputes, as well. What served Soviet interests doesn't necessarily serve the independent republics or the people in differing regions at all, particularly wrt borders, but nobody's giving up anything unless they have to do so.

The rules of unintended consequences loom large in all of this. What looked like the best choice 20 years ago hasn't worked out as planned, leading to a whole lot of turmoil & reconsideration all around, including Russia.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

A pretty excellent write up on how this administration and the EU have bungled their responses to Putin in Ukraine via the A-typical "Economic sanctions" route and why sanctions are not working and will not work in the long term with Russia.

http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2014/05/01/why-the-russian-sanctions-dont-work/

TL;DR - We should not have chosen sides in this internal conflict in Ukraine. Instead we should of pushed to have both sides to come to the negotiation table in order to negotiate what is an obvious border and sovereignty issue. Thus negating the Us versus Them scenario we are being drawn into as this starts to escalate even as we economic sanctions that are meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Genx87]

A pretty excellent write up on how this administration and the EU have bungled their responses to Putin in Ukraine via the A-typical "Economic sanctions" route and why sanctions are not working and will not work in the long term with Russia.

http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2014/05/01/why-the-russian-sanctions-dont-work/

TL;DR - We should not have chosen sides in this internal conflict in Ukraine. Instead we should of pushed to have both sides to come to the negotiation table in order to negotiate what is an obvious border and sovereignty issue. Thus negating the Us versus Them scenario we are being drawn into as this starts to escalate even as we economic sanctions that are meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

I havent had time to read this article. But what response should we have made? Economic sanctions shed the least amount of blood and put pressure on Russia. And how have we picked any side in the internal conflict? Our goal is to keep an external participant(Russia) from invading Ukraine.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...lection-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

In other news, next Russian elections there will be a turnout of 100%, and every single voter (including the opposition members that haven't yet been arrested, killed or deported) will vote in favor of keeping Putin and his puppets in power!

 

[Genx87]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...lection-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

In other news, next Russian elections there will be a turnout of 100%, and every single voter (including the opposition members that haven't yet been arrested, killed or deported) will vote in favor of keeping Putin and his puppets in power!

The only thing surprising about this report is they even bothered to verify the results for themselves. Otherwise I am surprised even 30% showed up to vote. Nothing says democracy like soldiers at the polling booths, cell phones turned off, and opposition media silenced.

 

[fskimospy]

The only thing surprising about this report is they even bothered to verify the results for themselves. Otherwise I am surprised even 30% showed up to vote. Nothing says democracy like soldiers at the polling booths, cell phones turned off, and opposition media silenced.

Remember how all the dupes said we hated democracy for calling it a sham?

 

[K1052]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...lection-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

In other news, next Russian elections there will be a turnout of 100%, and every single voter (including the opposition members that haven't yet been arrested, killed or deported) will vote in favor of keeping Putin and his puppets in power!

The only people buying what Putin is selling are either so biased they can't see straight or Russian.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Hi!!

//waves

I still don't give a fuck.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm just going to snip this paragraph out and comment on it...

You really think this is about boosting the ego of "the west"?

What does NATO in Ukraine mean? It means that Russia is unable to send their troops across the border and fight the Ukrainian people.

Wow, that's such a horrible fucking thing that we don't care about the people of Ukraine, that we would aid if they decided they want protection from Russian aggression - something that we can clearly see is very real.

No, it's all about ego. It's all a game and these border countries are pawns in the grand U.S. versus Russia chessmatch of stupidity.

Are you seriously that fucking stupid?


It's the fucking ego of Russia that believes this is all about them, that everything revolves around Russia. And their propaganda that perpetuates this bullshit in the minds of people of Eastern Ukraine, in the minds of people like you.

Of course you're just going to snip that bit out to serve your own purposes, make a case against supposed Russian aggression that certainly wasn't occurring prior to the rise of the Ukrainian right wing. It's important to maintain a proper timeline, and it's important to remember that "leasing" bases to Russia is incompatible with NATO membership. Seeing the opportunity to make that basing permanent, both Crimeans & Russians exploited it. It's what they wanted, and something like that may well be what other regions of Ukraine may find attractive as well given the changed sentiment among their western countrymen. It's important to remember that there wouldn't be any opening for Putin w/o internal Ukrainian dissension & inept govt.

 

[fleshconsumed]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...lection-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

In other news, next Russian elections there will be a turnout of 100%, and every single voter (including the opposition members that haven't yet been arrested, killed or deported) will vote in favor of keeping Putin and his puppets in power!

If true that would definitely put a whole new light on the Crimean annexation.

However, I would wait until we have more confirmations. I've googled to see if any other news sites reported the same story, but so far Forbes OP-ED piece is the only source, and everything else on the web references that piece. So far I'm a little skeptical that this is true, otherwise we'd be seeing every news agency talking about it.