Ukraine and the Crimea

[Downs]

I originally read the Ukraine had 150,000 active troops. (cia.gov) I couldnt understand if Russia was denying having their own troops in Crimea why the Ukraine didnt just call their bluff and take back their bases etc. It was made clear recently when it was revealed that Ukraine only had 6,000 combat ready troops. This is astonishing. What should be done by the west? What could be the fallout of having a nation denuclearize with guarantees of safety just to be left to this? Why would Iran or NK Denuclearize if another nation can do what Russia is doing to the Ukraine with immunity? If Ukraine still had their nukes would this be happening?

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

Its kind of tough for Ukraine's forces to do anything with their armouries mostly seized and bases taken so swiftly by the Russians. Putin planned this thoroughly and probably performed the idea of Blitzkrieg far better than the Germans ever did, his forces took over so fast Ukraine had no time to react at all.

As for guarantees of safety, its one thing to say that, and another for the people to actually want it. More than a few Americans are unwilling to get involved in another war, not to mention global opinion of the U.S. getting involved trying to be the world's police officer isn't exactly in their favour.

Besides, the US, nor any other nuclear-armed state has never had a history of actually fighting against states with nukes despite any rhetoric or sanctions they may spew out. They allowed China to basically have free reign in its African possessions, and have allowed Russia to take Georgia, Chechnya, and now probably Crimea. It just goes to show why some nations might want nukes in order to get in on this big club.

[K. Lloyd]

The vote has passed but it still remains an illegal balot.

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

I don't think with it's illegal ballot or not that the actual Protesters want anything to do with Russia themselves.

"Its kind of tough for Ukraine's forces to do anything with their armouries mostly seized and bases taken so swiftly by the Russians. Putin planned this thoroughly and probably performed the idea of Blitzkrieg far better than the Germans ever did, his forces took over so fast Ukraine had no time to react at all."

Is really key to helping to explain everything. Not to mention we will not enter another war with our current president. He made that very apparent with his decision to not go into Syria. Russia is another matter entirely. It may choose to envelop Crimea but if Georgia has taught us anything about that, is, they will not put up with bullshit.

[K. Lloyd]

I don't think with it's illegal ballot or not that the actual Protesters want anything to do with Russia themselves.

"Its kind of tough for Ukraine's forces to do anything with their armouries mostly seized and bases taken so swiftly by the Russians. Putin planned this thoroughly and probably performed the idea of Blitzkrieg far better than the Germans ever did, his forces took over so fast Ukraine had no time to react at all."

Is really key to helping to explain everything. Not to mention we will not enter another war with our current president. He made that very apparent with his decision to not go into Syria. Russia is another matter entirely. It may choose to envelop Crimea but if Georgia has taught us anything about that, is, they will not put up with bullshit.

But Georgia got well and truely smashed. You can be defiant as you like but you wouldn't wobble your junk in front of an angry hungry Rottweiler.

[Ultranator BAR]

http://loiter.co/v/watch-as-1000years-of-e...oarders-change/

Check out this video of 100 years of European borders.

There's a lot of changes all the time.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Ultranator BAR

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

I don't think with it's illegal ballot or not that the actual Protesters want anything to do with Russia themselves.

"Its kind of tough for Ukraine's forces to do anything with their armouries mostly seized and bases taken so swiftly by the Russians. Putin planned this thoroughly and probably performed the idea of Blitzkrieg far better than the Germans ever did, his forces took over so fast Ukraine had no time to react at all."

Is really key to helping to explain everything. Not to mention we will not enter another war with our current president. He made that very apparent with his decision to not go into Syria. Russia is another matter entirely. It may choose to envelop Crimea but if Georgia has taught us anything about that, is, they will not put up with bullshit.

But Georgia got well and truely smashed. You can be defiant as you like but you wouldn't wobble your junk in front of an angry hungry Rottweiler.

[Heresy 1st MRB]

http://loiter.co/v/watch-as-1000years-of-e...oarders-change/

Check out this video of 100 years of European borders.

There's a lot of changes all the time.

That was pretty cool to see and amazing with all the changes that have occurred.

[Beglar 1st MRB]

common guys this land is Russian from way back, it was called Kievan Rus'

begins with the rule (882–912) of Prince Oleg, who extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley in order to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east[3] and moved his capital to the more strategic Kiev. Sviatoslav I (died 972) achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus' territorial control. Vladimir the Great (980–1015) introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, that of all the inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav I (1019–1054); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Rus' Justice, shortly after his death.

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

common guys this land is Russian from way back, it was called Kievan Rus'

begins with the rule (882–912) of Prince Oleg, who extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley in order to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east[3] and moved his capital to the more strategic Kiev. Sviatoslav I (died 972) achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus' territorial control. Vladimir the Great (980–1015) introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, that of all the inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav I (1019–1054); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Rus' Justice, shortly after his death.

I think you have to look at current things as much as past. I think The United States are being pig-headed for not recognizing it as being part of Russia and furthermore need to leave the Russians the fuck alone. I can't stand people who blindly use the term Commie or Ruskie, I had a lot of family affected by the McCarthy period directly after experiencing the affects of WW2.

[Beglar 1st MRB]

I think it is a huge chess game and we will see lots of crazy things!

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

I think it is a huge chess game and we will see lots of crazy things!

Yeah definitely. Hopefully it doesn't end in another American led war.

[Zorbanos 1st MRB]

It won't. The reality of the situation is: who gives a shit about Crimea? It's historically and ethnically a Russian territory. Russia has a MAJOR stake in holding on to the peninsula, and if the Ukranian gov. wants to lean towards the west thats fine, but the Russians wont allow major military installations to be held by a western leaning nation, especially when those installations are in an area that is markedly pro-russian (if you believe the status quo the news is reporting). The whole nuclear power thing is irrelevant here: in a conventional war, the Ukranians would lose embarrassingly, and neither Europe nor the US is interested in engaging Russia in a conventional war over its understandable desire to seize territory it deems vital to its natinal security, despite its encroachment on the rights of a sovereign nation. And despite the vote being illegal, the reality is is the Crimean people voted to secede, that was a democratic action. It would by rather hyppocritical of the US and the West to say "hey thats not ok, thats illegal". The American Revolution was illegal. The French revolution was illegal. The Mexican revolution was illegal. Countless other European revolutions were illegal. That does not mean they were not the right thing for those people to do. The Crimean people have spoken. Russia wants Crimea, Crimea wants Russia. The rest of the world cannot decide for others what they should or should not do. Now if the Russians start pulling some Hitler shit, and begin preparing to annex other territories in addition to Crimea (which was an autonomous state within Ukraine) that would be different. The world would probably not stand for another war of expansion by a european power. but lets be real, the people with the most stake and therefore the most say in the matter are Europeans, and if there's anything history has taught us its that Europeans do not fight for each other, they fight for themselves. If Russia were to try to start taking territory that is part of the whole of Ukraine or spread into other neighboring countries, it would be interesting to see how the world reacts.

But lets be real, who's willing to die to prevent Russia for taking over a few Eastern European nations. Raise your hands high please.

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

I agree with Zorbanos, the US and other nations may whine and bitch at Russia for taking Crimea into their Russian Federation (I find that significant as it wasn't actually annexed by Russia as far as I heard) in a very underhanded manner, they aren't going to waste their time fighting Russia for it.

I'm more pissed off about my own gov't over it (Canadian for those of you that don't know), because apparently we have over 220 million to spare to Ukraine's economy when we're supposed to be paying off our debt and are willing to take cuts on social services to do it, yet we apparently cannot cut our foreign aid spending. Not that I have anything against foreign aid, but I don't see why a gov't which I and many other people don't support should spend our tax money on something we don't support and probably will never profit off of. If Ukrainians or other people want to have their money spent to support Ukraine, then that's another story but I don't want to see any Conservatives claiming that they are saving money when they just spent a ton of it on something useless to our economy.

Rant aside, I say we should just let Ukraine settle its affairs, if they want independence, they'll fight for it again like they did last time.

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

I know nothing of Canadian politics so that is really interesting to me. Has there been country wide cuts or more so in heavily populated areas? Has tourism gone down?

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

I know nothing of Canadian politics so that is really interesting to me. Has there been country wide cuts or more so in heavily populated areas? Has tourism gone down?

Its more provincially than anything, and I only really know about Ontario. I do know that lots of services jobs have been cut, along with education, and lots of doctors took a pay freeze. I just find it amazing that our government can claim that its trying to pay off our debt as foremost among its objectives when they're somehow finding boatloads of cash to send to Ukraine and makes ridiculous financial decisions which won't strengthen Canada's economy in the long run (the Keystone Pipeline being a perfect example).

But this is getting off topic from Ukraine so I'll leave that for another thread.

[Beglar 1st MRB]

He should go back to boxing and leave politics!!! there is no way he is a Politician, only a puppet.

[Beglar 1st MRB]

after neo-Nazi activists who helped bring the acting government in Kiev to power turned against it, Ashton has issued a statement condemning the “pressure by activists of the Right Sector who have surrounded the building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.”

http://rt.com/files/news/24/58/90/00/rada1.png

[Gilmore 1st MRB]

A lot of the initial rioting was spurred on by the Neo Nazi movement. My fiance's grandfather works for the UN and just sent me an article about the movement asking the Jews the leave Ukraine...it's sickening.

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

Neo-Nazism seems to follow the path as the old Nazi and Fascist movements, wherever there is economic crisis of a serious nature there will likely be an appeal to extreme nationalistic and perhaps even popular racist and cultural stereotypes to try and find a scapegoat for their suffering, and therefore a reason for extreme change.

Greece has had the same issues with the Golden Dawn Party whom are basically the German Nazi Party reincarnated except in Greek, and I'm sure its not alone. Hopefully the Ukrainians can sort them out, but I have a feeling we'll see another split again before this is over.

[Captain Giraffe BAR]

It won't. The reality of the situation is: who gives a shit about Crimea? It's historically and ethnically a Russian territory. Russia has a MAJOR stake in holding on to the peninsula, and if the Ukranian gov. wants to lean towards the west thats fine, but the Russians wont allow major military installations to be held by a western leaning nation, especially when those installations are in an area that is markedly pro-russian (if you believe the status quo the news is reporting). The whole nuclear power thing is irrelevant here: in a conventional war, the Ukranians would lose embarrassingly, and neither Europe nor the US is interested in engaging Russia in a conventional war over its understandable desire to seize territory it deems vital to its natinal security, despite its encroachment on the rights of a sovereign nation. And despite the vote being illegal, the reality is is the Crimean people voted to secede, that was a democratic action. It would by rather hyppocritical of the US and the West to say "hey thats not ok, thats illegal". The American Revolution was illegal. The French revolution was illegal. The Mexican revolution was illegal. Countless other European revolutions were illegal. That does not mean they were not the right thing for those people to do. The Crimean people have spoken. Russia wants Crimea, Crimea wants Russia. The rest of the world cannot decide for others what they should or should not do. Now if the Russians start pulling some Hitler shit, and begin preparing to annex other territories in addition to Crimea (which was an autonomous state within Ukraine) that would be different. The world would probably not stand for another war of expansion by a european power. but lets be real, the people with the most stake and therefore the most say in the matter are Europeans, and if there's anything history has taught us its that Europeans do not fight for each other, they fight for themselves. If Russia were to try to start taking territory that is part of the whole of Ukraine or spread into other neighboring countries, it would be interesting to see how the world reacts.

But lets be real, who's willing to die to prevent Russia for taking over a few Eastern European nations. Raise your hands high please.

This isn't right, on a number of levels. A very vocal part of Crimea has spoken out in favor of joining Russia, sure, but the Russian government has bussed over scores of Russian citizens to sell that image as well. The oldest inhabitants of Crimea, the Tatars who have lived there since the Mongolian conquest, have had virtually no say in the matter, and would much rather live under a Ukranian government that doesn't try to systematically deport them like the Russian government has for 200 years. The "vote" that was held most certainly was not democracy, as it was entirely orchestrated and run by the autocratic Russian government as a pretense for annexation. And it does matter. You know who cares about Russia's annexation of Crimea? Moldova, Poland, Estonia, countries that have seen shit like this happen before and know what it leads to. This is not a good thing, I can guarantee you that, and it will have ramifications. They might not be military ramifications, I certainly hope they aren't, but they will be significant.

[Beglar 1st MRB]

this is 2 days ago in Donetsk, looks very bad and screwed my friends!