Ukraine

Started by Blythe, February 28, 2014, 05:52:20 PM

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SGTDan

Well I think its less if the US wants to or not, it's whether the surrounding NATO countries force the West's hand. A lot of them will want NATO troops deployed as hard reassurance. It's going to be interesting to see it play out anyway, personally I've seen this coming but not this soon anyway. 

I am hoping for calmer heads to come out of this. I do feel for Ukraine's people and wish there was more to do then sit on the sidelines watching a country crumble.
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Neysha

Well the US and EU could just send troops to Ukraine and state they too are deploying troops there unilaterally to prevent violence, much like the Russians are.  ;D
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gaggedLouise

Quote from: Neysha on March 02, 2014, 03:42:08 PM
Well the US and EU could just send troops to Ukraine and state they too are deploying troops there unilaterally to prevent violence, much like the Russians are.  ;D

*nods* Poland, for one, would most likely want to urge that, to show everyone that this time around their allies mean business - and because they don't want Russia to get too close.

I hope the threshold of using any kind of nuclear weapons will be very high, if there would be some sort of extended war in Ukraine - though not happy with the idea of having a long and bloodstained ground war there either, of course. As LilT pointed out, this conflict could easily turn into a civil war as well.

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SGTDan

I don't think either side would be dumb enough to use nuclear arms but stranger things have happened. As for Poland I can see that being a red line for the West. Personally though I believe any deployment of NATO troops will ratchet up the tensions and easy make it slide to war. It's a sticky situation balanced on a knife edge. Cold war or hot war is the only outcomes I can see at this point.
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gaggedLouise

I was thinking Poland will likely be one of the countries to really urge stringent action on Russia, within a couple of days already. They have felt let down so many times historically by promises from western allies and sympathizers that proved ineffectual, Russia is their hereditary enemy and much of Ukraine used to be part of Poland - so they will really want NATO to stand up united even when it's "only" about Ukraine. Russia invading Poland itself - no, I don't see that happening for quite some time. *That* would be a class A challenge to the West and to the US.

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Callie Del Noire

Today it will be the Crimea (Possibly all of the Ukraine), next year it will be Georgia and any other 'old Soviet era clients' that Russia wants back. Putin wants it ALL back. EVERY LAST inch of what was the Soviet Union. He's going to keep coming till he gets it. Don't think he's not going to try.


Zakharra

Quote from: SGTDan on March 02, 2014, 04:13:34 PM
I don't think either side would be dumb enough to use nuclear arms but stranger things have happened. As for Poland I can see that being a red line for the West. Personally though I believe any deployment of NATO troops will ratchet up the tensions and easy make it slide to war. It's a sticky situation balanced on a knife edge. Cold war or hot war is the only outcomes I can see at this point.

War is already here. The question becomes when are we (the free world) going to be willing to fight it. If we stand around and just send mean messages to the aggressors, they will keep going  because they are the kind that has to be stopped by force. Th is  an important question to ask when the US President is having the US military, especially the Army, reduced to a smaller size than it has been since before WWII!

TaintedAndDelish

Looks like they've added dark wizards to their forces.     >.>
The middle one looks especially evil.  :)



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Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on March 03, 2014, 04:05:21 AM
Looks like they've added dark wizards to their forces.     >.>
The middle one looks especially evil.  :)



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ShadowFox89

Quote from: gaggedLouise on March 02, 2014, 03:55:08 PM
*nods* Poland, for one, would most likely want to urge that, to show everyone that this time around their allies mean business - and because they don't want Russia to get too close.

I hope the threshold of using any kind of nuclear weapons will be very high, if there would be some sort of extended war in Ukraine - though not happy with the idea of having a long and bloodstained ground war there either, of course. As LilT pointed out, this conflict could easily turn into a civil war as well.

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gaggedLouise

#36
Quote from: ShadowFox89 on March 03, 2014, 05:45:49 AM
It isn't a war until Poland gets invaded.

Is that a proverb?  ;)

I agree* both Poland and Ukraine could use some highland topography on their eastern reaches, too bad such hills are quite hard to move from one part of the continent to another.


*Someone pointed to their lack of steady natural defences earlier on this forum - can't find the post now, but of course all one need do is to look at a few historical maps of eastern Europe to see how those borders have been mobile over time, and hard to defend.

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TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: lovelylilT on March 03, 2014, 05:18:39 AM
Your "wizards", they're Orthodox priests. They're some of few helping keep sanity, there.

Yeah, I know.... I couldn't resist. :)

kylie

#38
Quote from: lovelylilT on March 03, 2014, 05:18:39 AM
Your "wizards", they're Orthodox priests. They're some of few helping keep sanity, there.

          Maybe they are there to divine whether the enemy are actually neo-Nazis, Jews, gays or just "weak" feminine men with too much Western attachment.  (Quite an alliance Putin seems to have imagined, huh?  Wow.  Laughs.

          Have to say, as I recall from Georgia, the Orthodox patriarchy (that's what it's often called including the leader referred to simply as The Patriarch) was not exactly the most moderating force in politics.  Many rural people at least, seemed to appreciate them in principle for their broader cultural and historical role there...  But as far as I could tell they also had a good deal of fire, brimstone, and discriminatory moralizing if not obvious nationalism going on.  Are the Russian ones really that different?

          Also on that note...  Has anyone found good reporting on the opposition?  I mean, I've mostly been reading the Guardian myself for overviews.  But I am getting tired of really brazen "neo-Nazi" references among dubious stuff in the Comments when I want to gather more ideas.  I would like something more in depth (and preferably balanced??) to understand what issues the opposition formed around and how it was composed.  It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few Nazi-inspired participants , not any more shocking than the fact that a few radicals joined the US protests against the WTO.  But trying to grasp better how this all played out earlier really.

     

gaggedLouise

#39
The Presidium of the Crimean Autonomous Republic (which has enjoyed some powers of limited "home rule" under Ukraine, and now is likely quite happy with Russia moving in) is pushing for having a referendum in Crimea at the end of March on issues of changing the status of the republic. As conditions are now, this would most likely mean creating something like Abkhazia, a breakaway republic which Russia can effectively control and put in its own back pocket.

The Crimean leadership is also urging the temporary government at Kiev "to refrain from ill-considered actions which could lead to an escalation of the conflict. The war against its own people is the gravest of the crimes for which there can be no justification". This slap in the face studiously avoids any statement implying that the new cabinet at Kiev would be a legitimate one - the parliament sitting now is merely the body that "has assumed political responsibility for the situation in the country".

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kylie

#40
         Just fishing up a couple things quick.  I didn't really follow that much on the opposition before it became a full-blown mess.  I bet many Americans had little to no clue who's who either... 

          Al-Jazeera (yes, sometimes said to be a little harsh on the US in the case of Iraq) actually had an article that at least seems plausible to me so far.  At least, I can't detect the vitriolic propensities I see in some places like Comments after Guardian articles -- where some people start assuming quite a few posts are by internal Russian stooges or similarly, Slavs with little reading outside of pro-Russian media.

          While the Washington Post may tend to run conservative, Anne Applebaum has some articles that seem fairly in touch to me about Russian propaganda language and possible Russian strategy.  I thought this was an interesting quote from the second one:

Quote
No one has yet explained, for example, why Ukrainian President Viktor Yanu­kovych not only left Kiev last week after signing a treaty brokered by the European Union but also ordered security guards to abandon all government buildings as well. Was that an unsubtle invitation for the opposition to ransack the offices so that he could claim he had been chased out by a violent coup? The evolution of Ukraine’s “far right” also bears watching. Although at the moment it is a lot smaller than the far right in France or Holland, I wouldn’t be surprised if it begins to grow: It’s amazing how far the ruble goes in a cash-strapped country. A few Molotov cocktails have already been thrown at a synagogue. In the current political environment, it’s important to ask: Did they come from real anti-Semites? From paid agents? From both?
     

gaggedLouise

According to Interfax and BBC, Russia has handed the remaining Ukrainian forces in Crimea an ultimatum: surrender all your positions by 5 a.m. local time tomorrow morning (I think that equals 10 p.m. EST), or you will be stormed.

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Neysha

#42
Attempts at false flag operations are still ongoing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StiP7ql0Exw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liOKVPDQsmI

The latest rumor mongering in Russia is that yesterday, mysterious individuals with US military gear were spotted in Kiev airports and are believed to be US mercenaries hired by the "Oligarchs" and now today are operating in Donetsk to disperse Russian protestors and liberate the occupied buildings.
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Callie Del Noire

This smells more and more like something that was set up and planned for a long long time. I think that Putin is trying to build a counter-EU block of nations and if he has to make 'client' states like Crimea as interim steps in rebuilding something to the similar the old Soviet block.

I wonder how far the planning is this going to go, because let's be honest, Ukraine cannot afford to let Russia to 'trim' off a province now and NOT expect it to happen later in 'defense' of other 'Russian-ethnic' segments of the country.

Oniya

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on March 03, 2014, 01:42:04 PM
other 'Russian-ethnic' segments of the country.

That sounds disturbingly familiar...
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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Oniya on March 03, 2014, 02:03:48 PM
That sounds disturbingly familiar...

And look how the person(s) used it before to justify all MANNER of things. It's not a new pattern but if its' worked in the past, why break a pattern?

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Oniya on March 03, 2014, 02:03:48 PM
That sounds disturbingly familiar...

*nods* Sudeten Germans, anyone?

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Question Mark

I heard on CNN (I know, I know...) that the Crimean defense authorities have been receiving several similar ultimatums over the last few days, and that Russia has consistently failed to deliver.

Anyone heard something similar?

gaggedLouise

#48
So far, they haven't really had to fire any shots or push with full force due to obviously being so much stronger, that's what I've heard. But Russia has consistently wished to avoid saying official stuff like "we're declaring war", "our regiments are moving in" and so on. It seems that from the first units that went into Crimea, and who had no markings indicating who they were, the Kremlin has wished to keep a fog over the affair - and occasionally has blamed Ukrainian forces or "undisciplined local thugs" for attacking their soldiers or ordinary people. Which also sounds familiar with an eye to how past dictators used to justify war and punitive massacres.

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Callie Del Noire

Don't think that Russia won't though. If the Ukraine doesn't blink..well I'm willing to bet by the end of the week, they (Russia) will find an excuse to get what they want. If it involves flattening a few Ukrainian bases with forces still in them. Oh well, you know what they say about omelets and eggs. To rebuild the Soviet Union.. a few Ukrainians .. small price.

Unless, of course, you're one of said people in the path of 'progess.'. I'm very curious to see what he (Putin) thinks he will get out of this economically. He's literally pissing on a neighbor, his currency has taken a dive in the markets, his shot at joining the G7 nations seems well and truly shot, and everyone to the west of him is angry at him (and/or afraid for the more immediately close neighbors)

He's thinking the EU/US/Everyone else will back down.

And honestly.. I don't know that he aint right.