Ukraine Today
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A decent run down, rej.
In other news Moldova reports that young fit men arrive to Kishinev from Russia in alarming numbers and head out towards Transnistria.
We actually did see Russian scout ships too. Saw two Migs in the sky, but news say those were Ukrainian.
Otherwise things are relatively calm.
In other news Moldova reports that young fit men arrive to Kishinev from Russia in alarming numbers and head out towards Transnistria.
We actually did see Russian scout ships too. Saw two Migs in the sky, but news say those were Ukrainian.
Otherwise things are relatively calm.
Russian propaganda blunder caught by Forbes (and probably others as well):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/04/12/russian-tv-caught-red-handed-same-guy-same-demonstration-but-three-different-people-spy-bystander-heroic-surgeon/
Whoopsie.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/04/12/russian-tv-caught-red-handed-same-guy-same-demonstration-but-three-different-people-spy-bystander-heroic-surgeon/
Whoopsie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3H72I0Yym0&feature=youtu.be&gl=CA
Looks like the internal news channels of Russia yeah. I wonder if this level of propaganda is designed to buildup the Russian public for the possibility of war (just in case) while cementing the obvious support for the Kremlin's actions.
The situation seems to be getting uglier and uglier and the US/EU and Russia just can't seem to, or don't want to, work together diplomatically to find a common interest and resolve the issue. Both sides are accusing each other of destabilizing the Ukraine and neither side seems willing to budge from its high horse (was listening to the talks at the emergency Security Council meeting today and its not looking good).
The Ukraine afaik is of vital interest to Russia, whether its military port access or the pipelines from Russia to Europe which run almost exclusively through the Ukraine. Russia's supply of oil has been used as leverage for a long time in negotiations with Europe.
An interesting article that deals pretty much with this and some of the stuff I've already summarized about the Russian viewpoint etc:
But while Russia's imperial aggression is clearly a central factor, the US effort to rollback Russia's sphere of influence in Ukraine by other means in pursuit of its own geopolitical and strategic interests raises awkward questions. As the pipeline map demonstrates, US oil and gas majors like Chevron and Exxon are increasingly encroaching on Gazprom's regional monopoly, undermining Russia's energy hegemony over Europe.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/06/ukraine-crisis-great-power-oil-gas-rivals-pipelines
A user who commented further below in the article posted this which was interesting, might be worthwhile investigating not sure if its true though:
"The ex-president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili was on Radio 4 Today at 2:15 into the show, saying of Russia,
'And by the way, with huge reserves of gas, energy wise it's like Iraq grabbing Kuwait, because Crimea has one of the largest off-shore shale gas reserves in Europe, and actually it is one of the main alternative sources two or three years from now for European gas. And Vladimir Putin knows that, and American companies have already invested heavily in that...'
There are plenty of news references elsewhere to Ukraine gas, but this was the first explanation that the Crimea specifically has huge shale gas reserves."
Looks like the internal news channels of Russia yeah. I wonder if this level of propaganda is designed to buildup the Russian public for the possibility of war (just in case) while cementing the obvious support for the Kremlin's actions.
The situation seems to be getting uglier and uglier and the US/EU and Russia just can't seem to, or don't want to, work together diplomatically to find a common interest and resolve the issue. Both sides are accusing each other of destabilizing the Ukraine and neither side seems willing to budge from its high horse (was listening to the talks at the emergency Security Council meeting today and its not looking good).
The Ukraine afaik is of vital interest to Russia, whether its military port access or the pipelines from Russia to Europe which run almost exclusively through the Ukraine. Russia's supply of oil has been used as leverage for a long time in negotiations with Europe.
An interesting article that deals pretty much with this and some of the stuff I've already summarized about the Russian viewpoint etc:
But while Russia's imperial aggression is clearly a central factor, the US effort to rollback Russia's sphere of influence in Ukraine by other means in pursuit of its own geopolitical and strategic interests raises awkward questions. As the pipeline map demonstrates, US oil and gas majors like Chevron and Exxon are increasingly encroaching on Gazprom's regional monopoly, undermining Russia's energy hegemony over Europe.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/06/ukraine-crisis-great-power-oil-gas-rivals-pipelines
A user who commented further below in the article posted this which was interesting, might be worthwhile investigating not sure if its true though:
"The ex-president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili was on Radio 4 Today at 2:15 into the show, saying of Russia,
'And by the way, with huge reserves of gas, energy wise it's like Iraq grabbing Kuwait, because Crimea has one of the largest off-shore shale gas reserves in Europe, and actually it is one of the main alternative sources two or three years from now for European gas. And Vladimir Putin knows that, and American companies have already invested heavily in that...'
There are plenty of news references elsewhere to Ukraine gas, but this was the first explanation that the Crimea specifically has huge shale gas reserves."
Good stuff.Jhessail said:
And within the next few hours Danik will come along and make an argument along the lines of "but the US did...", "but Nato did..." and "but the EU did...".
Can anyone translate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVDx-TqeWj4&feature=youtu.be
It's a recording of Russian special forces coordinating activities, according to Ukraine. Hard to tell without knowing any Russian, though.
It's a recording of Russian special forces coordinating activities, according to Ukraine. Hard to tell without knowing any Russian, though.
Mage246
K-64 said:But the EU did jack **** except tax everyone yet again
And NATO and the US didn't do anything but try to peacefully compete on the basis of ideas and policies. Russia understands that its own model is so unappealing that no well-informed country would ever choose it over the West, so it responds to this "threat" the only way it can - through force and threats of force.
Duke Daniel Milutin
Banned
There you go, mate.Mage246 said:
Mage246
Is it common in your family to plead with your loved ones using armed force? I'm beginning to understand why your head is so ****ed up.
Duke Daniel Milutin
Banned
No, but if I knew that some really bad people wanted to kidnap them and maybe do nasty things to them, I would call the police or force them to be at home. Btw is it common practice in amerika to kidnap people into their own families?
Rongar
Master Knight
The most of time they are boasting that they successfully 'crumbled' very serious guys without losses, however they did know exactly who that guys were.Elfy said:
They are planing a kind of informational attack using 'Life News'. But I did not catch the idea.
Also there is a request for anti-tank weapon. The guy told that with anti-tank rockets they would be able to push everyone around beyond Mozhay. Mozhay=Mozhaisk is about 100km from Moscow.
They want a guy with a Ukrainian accent to go on Life News as a "deputy commander" and say that "everything is normal, we're victorious, they retreated with heavy losses and we've suffered few," and to demand federalization in Ukraine, immediate gubernatorial elections no later than the 25th and that parliament be forbidden from accepting foreign loans without a vote of 2/3rds of the regions approving, or something like that.
Oh please.Rongar said:
I challenge you to find something as ****ed up on "this" side of the fence.Whatever fence that might be, "common sense" I guess.
It's not even the first time they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar like that.
Mage246 said:And NATO and the US didn't do anything but try to peacefully compete on the basis of ideas and policies.K-64 said:But the EU did jack **** except tax everyone yet again
Russia understands that its own model is so unappealing that no well-informed country would ever choose it over the West, so it responds to this "threat" the only way it can - through force and threats of force.
Right... because unlike Russia we don't finance military operations around the globe against regimes we don't like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
What we did in the Ukraine was pretty straight forward enough; ie: Special political interest groups financed NGOs who in turn finance the revolutionary movements. This would be fine if there wasn't a concern that we may be hand picking which politicians we want in an interim government that then quickly does our bidding by signing agreements that we want but which may not have been desired by the overall majority.
http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/
We know full well what Russia's reaction might look like so I am not sure why we continually poke the Russians with these political games. At what point do we actually take the hint that encroaching into Russia's backyard is going to spark conflict? Do the Russians have to move their nuclear arsenal to Cuba again before we all back off?
Either way I feel both protests were somewhat synthetically created or propped up but once up and running seem to attract more genuine people who do harbor some outrages against the government. As things become more standoffish and the violence grows then so does the revolutionary fervor and outrage at the government. The difference however is that the Russian one seems blatantly militant in design. Russia doesn't have the large scale experience of global regime change through networks of NGOs nor does it probably assign the finances to such programs. So in essence your right but its not a one sided affair.
Tiberius Decimus Maximus said:
We were talking specifically about the use of military force and unlike Iraq, Libya, Syria etc the
Additionally the entire fiasco could have been avoided if we didn't continually cross over Russia's so called red line by taking sides in a conflict via financing/sanctions against the former Ukrainian government for the sake of our own interests. In the end its the Ukraine the suffers.
So your right is not exactly a suitable comparison. If you want a more suitable comparison you could point to Chechnya.
Crimea has been relatively autonomous in the past, unlike Iraq, Libya, and Syria? Those are all literally autonomous examples, and continue to be as such. The Russian majority, keep in mind, was partly the result of ethnic cleansing in the area with the expulsion of the Crimean Tartars from their homeland. Plus the historical baggage of the Holodomor to keep in mind as well. And consider our influence a counterweight to the inevitable heavy-handed influence of Russia on an autonomous nation. Like goddamn people this is its own country, it has its rights, and we all kind of agreed to respect that in return for handing over the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world over. If they still had those nukes I can pretty much guarantee you they wouldn't be going through this **** right now.
But yeah, Chechnya would be a finer comparison.
But yeah, Chechnya would be a finer comparison.
Tiberius Decimus Maximus said:
Yes your right and you can ignore that point as it should have been made outside of the ones that followed it.
Granted but you can't go back in time and change the past. The Soviet Union was a monster and there's no denying that but as a short lived entity it encompassed even the Ukraine as did Russia for goodness knows how many hundreds of years and I would argue that the USSR is dead. While the bitterness remains we are dealing with a new entity where the ethnic makeup of the region in Crimea is majority Russian. When do the rights of the state trump the rights of the people? It seems to me that international opinion in that regard seems to shift quite a lot depending the interests.
The thing is that Russia is increasingly becoming a counter weight to US influence around the world, albeit a rather stagnant one in that it sits in its cave of Eastern Europe only to stir when someone pokes it with a stick and then by jove yes it reacts like its trying to protect its bear cubs (namely its strategic interests) and it does so with much less support from the international media and often with a lot of fury. When we start to play the game overseas we usually don't have our media asking to many uncomfortable questions in the short run until things go sour but keep in mind we have been bumping heads with Russia repeatedly now over their allies and our actions. I am sure if Russia started propping up revolutionary groups in US friendly nations like Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, El Salvador, Panama etc we would be quite outraged as well. The way things are going I am convinced that Russia will or has already begun to take a stance against US interests around the globe. I also feel we are making an unnecessary enemy out of Russia.
We uphold the rights of countries when its convenient for us. Working in the background to undermine governments across the globe that aren't allied to us but are allied to Russia is extremely dangerous in its own right. Russia is not a marginal power and its reactions may be harsh but not entirely unforeseeable.
Sure but if Iraq, Syria, Libya etc where like North Korea in that they didn't have oil but had nukes then it would be the same issue. We tend to meddle in countries that have oil or are strategic energy corridors. Its a curse and the Crimea has oil while the Ukraine carries Russian oil to the EU. Its definitely a pivotal country in the role of energy deliverance. I don't know if that's a motivating factor for the US but it certainly is for Russia and so it stands to reason that the Russian's dire reaction isn't exactly unpredictable in a sense.
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