The Ukraine Thread

[Stacy]

I prefer that idea for sure. 

 

Any action is better than no action. I am not one to believe in this huge fascist group talk at all, (or not as concerned with it as I am Russia at the current time). At this time if we do nothing, Ukraine will slowly fall apart as Russia takes over bit by bit like they did with Crimea by getting their own insurgents on the soil and intimidating pro-independent Ukrainians into joining with Russia. 

 

If we do nothing and distract ourselves with this talk of fascists and radicals, there will be no Ukraine by that point.

 

So we should just ignore that they exist then? They are major problem one of the main reasons why Russia is being so aggressive in the first place. These fascists are a threat to future of a democratic legitimate Ukraine that respects the majority and minority of Ukrainians. Removing the fascists would give Russia less of an excuse to intervene. Just like removing Assad's chemical weapons helped prevent a Western intervention in Syria. Problem is Ukraine and Russia are bitter and won't negotiate with each other for obvious reasons.

 

I posted a video by BBC Newsnight pages ago showing that they exist it shows that removed the Communist Party and Party Of Regions from Kiev and took control of their administration buildings by force, not protest.

 

The Svoboda formed a coalition with other right wing Nationalist Ukrainian parties to create a majority, a majority that could possibly win the next election.

 

Is this democratic? If you think this bad the Right Sector make these guys look like choir boys.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GeBpZ5VHY

 

The Ultra-Nationalists the Right Sector they are armed and are gaining new members daily they won't give up until they are all dead or in power. I am really glad that Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal so these bastards couldn't get hold of them.

 

Obama has said he won't intervene with the military, he knows the costs to the US, Europe, Ukraine and Russia is too great. The sooner Ukraine deals with the countries fascist elements the better. But only way for the Ukrainian government to do is by force and this would mostly create a civil war which could drag everyone in.

 

So you still might get your intervention.  

[188Eternal]

 No amount of "brotherhood" justifies sending your military into another country without the host country's permission.

 

No host country is justified to give such permissions if their government is run by unelected thug muppets who have been bribed to drive out the democratically elected leaders by use of barbaric violence and non-democratic fascism.

Who funded their revolution? Did they even work any jobs at the time that they were rioting in Kiev to make Yanukovich flee? Hell no. Their minds were poisoned through external filth. This was all organized by USA.

 

Despite considering myself an Atheist, I am now fully convinced that Barack Obama is exactly "the third Antichrist" that the Bible refers to. You just wait until he tries to rebuild a temple in Israel or something like that. It would only make the nightmare worse! He has the whole world fooled. The proof of deception is evident in the posts that I read on this thread. 

[Patticus]

No host country is justified to give such permissions if their government is run by unelected thug muppets who have been bribed to drive out the democratically elected leaders by use of barbaric violence and non-democratic fascism.

 

Ah yes, the universally recognized "bribed unelected fascist thugs" measure of determining governmental legitimacy... Please, tell us more about how that isn't just your opinion based on what you've been seeing on the probably-pro-Russian TV news you watch, and the pro-Russian views your family clearly seems to fill your head with.

 

Who funded their revolution? Did they even work any jobs at the time that they were rioting in Kiev to make Yanukovich flee? Hell no. Their minds were poisoned through external filth. This was all organized by USA.

I hardly think every single protester was an unemployed do-nothing lay-about American-propaganda-shoveling fascist; there were members of the country's wealthy elite in attendance, who were obviously deeply unhappy with the EU trade deal falling through on Yanukovych's whim, along with a lot of ordinary people who did not like the way things were going with things like protesting being banned outright. Poisoned with external filth? Nope, just more desiring of a closer relationship with the west and not so desiring of a return to being underneath the Russian heel again.

 

Despite considering myself an Atheist, I am now fully convinced that Barack Obama is exactly "the third Antichrist" that the Bible refers to. You just wait until he tries to rebuild a temple in Israel or something like that. It would only make the nightmare worse! He has the whole world fooled. The proof of deception is evident in the posts that I read on this thread.

 

You're not an atheist in the slightest if you believe that garbage....

[Candescence]

 

*conspiracy nonsense*

No, I think you'd deluded and indulging in conspiracy theories with absolutely no basis in fact. The Maidan protests and the old government being overthrown were entirely driven by the people of Ukraine. The USA never really gave a shit about the Ukraine until Russia stepped in. The people protesting demanded that Yanukovych resign, and he was extremely unpopular across the country at that point anyway - if the people display a mass show of no confidence in their elected leaders, they should be stripped of their right to rule, either voluntarily or otherwise.

 

As for the old government being more 'legitimate' than the new one? Well, they kinda stopped being legitimate once the evidence of their rampant corruption came out. Especially Yanukovych. So that's a moot point.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Despite considering myself an Atheist, I am now fully convinced that Barack Obama is exactly "the third Antichrist" that the Bible refers to. You just wait until he tries to rebuild a temple in Israel or something like that. It would only make the nightmare worse! He has the whole world fooled. The proof of deception is evident in the posts that I read on this thread. 

This is the most insane troll logic you have ever spewed out. This makes the fucking Tea Party sound moderate.

[Razor]

I'm living in Ukraine. And I hope to get out from there to normal country (or be captured by Russia). Because Ukraine is so stupid country in many ways possible.

[Stacy]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/russia-tv-accuses-navalny-cia-contacts-taking-foreign-092549952.html

 

Russian propaganda to smear dissents against Putin? No shit. CIA involvement is probably true though expect their usual plausible deniability bullshit to the press as usual. I would like to hear the leaked phone calls in full. Fucking CIA.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Blaming America for the country's woes is a standard tactic in states like Russia and Iran. There's always the possibility of some truth to it, but at the end of the day it's a scapegoat.

Once again, I'm sad that the voices of moderates in Russia are drowned out by right-wing nationalists like Putin. I think a sizable minority of Russians would really like to return to the era of peaceful coexistence with the West, even if they'd pass on Yelstin-style economic management.

Unfortunately it's the militarists and self-reliance folks who are in power.

 

Who funded their revolution? Did they even work any jobs at the time that they were rioting in Kiev to make Yanukovich flee? Hell no. Their minds were poisoned through external filth. This was all organized by USA.

Have you ever thought that Ukrainians have a legitimate reason to not want to be part of Russia?

For example, there's the Holodomor. Or is that a Western conspiracy too?

Ukrainians are not Russians. Even if they remotely were at some point, the fact they haven't joined the Federation is proof enough they are not Russian anymore. If Ukrainians are Russian, then Americans and Canadians are British.

The only thing you're convincing me is that Russia is second only to North Korea in the informational box it lives in. There are people of multiple nationalities outright saying that there's more to this than a Western conspiracy. It's fallacious to assume the locals always know best - just look at how the Turks deny the Armenian genocide. I'm moreso just disappointed that Putin's desire to craft a "Russia against the world" perspective is working.

If 99% of the world say this happened, and 1% say otherwise... there's a strong chance, given the ability to reason, that the 99% are correct.

Also, the American right-wing really wish what you said was the case. They'd drool at the chance to just create revolutions at whim. While America's power is great, it's vastly overstated.

[Candescence]

A Russian troper over at the TvTropes forums who has been actively involved in the thread about the Ukraine crisis did say that a lot of Russians believe that the west is actively out to get them, everything is a western conspiracy, and the Ukraine has been taken over by fascists and thugs. Hell, it's probably something Putin himself believes, considering he's been saying it and that he grew up in a time of conspiracy, it's not difficult to think he does.

[Tani Coyote]

It's why I think Putin is ultimately bad for Russia in the long run. He's a demagogue who feeds upon Russians' anxiety. He's like their Bush II or Reagan in that regard. And just like those two, he's very popular at home, but pretty much everyone abroad thinks they're a loon.

And just like in that case, the nationality in question think it's just a case of the world being out to get them. I really hate how when a country's policies are critiqued, all the patriots assumes it's some massive conspiracy. It couldn't possibly be that there is something genuinely wrong with them. Russia's got some justification in being paranoid about the West, understandably, but it looks like there's some serious misinformation and revisionism going on in the country's textbooks.

I guess in their own minds the flamethrower-wielding maniacs think everyone's just out to get them, too...

[Tani Coyote]

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-no-further-retaliation-against-us-093200798.html

So a mixed bag of news.

The Duma's upper house has approved the legislation to annex Crimea. Meanwhile, Ukraine has inked a trade pact with the European Union.

While Russia has authorized some retaliatory sanctions against Western officials, it seems Putin isn't interested in escalating things any further. He wants to limit how much damage is being done despite the tensions - he said Russia will keep funding a program that helps NATO troops in Afghanistan, for example.

I suspect some sort of arrangement will be made where Putin takes his hands off Ukraine as a whole in exchange for the West ignoring Crimea. Given that he invaded the country, I'd say that in all likelihood Putin has indeed written off the idea of Ukraine as an allied/client state and just wanted to grab what he could while he had the chance.

I just hope some sort of travel restrictions are put in place for those seeking to cross either way.

If such an arrangement does come to be, it'll be hilarious to see the spin each side puts on it to make it look like a victory instead of a compromise, sort of how the Cuban Missile Crisis went.

[188Eternal]

I suspect some sort of arrangement will be made where Putin takes his hands off Ukraine as a whole in exchange for the West ignoring Crimea.

 

BINGO! *clap*clap*clap* That's exactly what the majority of people, including all of my relatives, are hoping for.

 

As someone who served in the Soviet Army, my father feels a duty and an obligation to respect his elders, even if they are already buried in a cemetery. And this means supporting what they believed in.

Everyone wants to transmit their values onto their offspring, regardless of what ethnicity they are.

The indigenous Ukrainians need to accept that Crimea was never theirs to begin with. As long as they stay on the mainland and cooperate with the west without trying to drag Crimea into their interests, we will have peace.

[Tani Coyote]

Except you transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. It has been Ukrainian for 60 years.

It doesn't matter if Ukraine was part of the USSR at that point; the fact remains it became part of the polity that eventually became Ukraine. Then again, with how many Russians seem to consider Ukrainian a fake identity, I'm not surprised they don't recognize this transfer as being of any importance.

It doesn't acknowledge the large number of Crimeans who didn't want this but weren't allowed to speak their mind, either. Whether through the inherent social and legal intimidation, or through a referendum which had rigged options.

This is all typical consequences of borders being freely redrawn without regard for the locals, though. What happened in Africa seems to have also happened in Crimea.

This won't end peacefully. There are Crimeans who don't want to be part of Russia, period. I would not be surprised if they become the European equivalent of the Palestinian Arabs.

[Patticus]

The indigenous Ukrainians need to accept that Crimea was never theirs to begin with.

 

And the Russians need to accept that Crimea was never theirs to begin with, either. It belonged for centuries to the Tatars, who, oh yes, the Soviets forcibly relocated after WW2 because they didn't like the Soviets.

 

Don't pull the "Russia was here first" card, because it wasn't.

[Tani Coyote]

Hilarity ensues whenever we try to say that one group was in a region first. Pretty much nobody's millennial ancestors lived on the same lands they do due to migrations of all kinds.

I think living on and working the land should be the basis of ownership, and it's a fairly sound one - so do most governments, hence the fact you often can lose your rights to land if you don't use it or live on it, or gain rights to it by doing the opposite. Israel deserves its land, all the American nations deserve theirs, and the Crimeans deserve their land. Including the ones who quite frankly want to give Russia the finger.

I get the oddest feeling Russia wouldn't be open to the principle of Poland owning Belarus and a ton of the Baltic coast. Or Mongolia owning half of Russia.

[Autosaver]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26678145

 

Those sanctions getting testy.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Um, yeah...I know Putin's being a jerk, but that seems a bit of a dick move for a sanction.

 

Then again, I don't exactly know all that much about how sanctions work anyway.

[Autosaver]

Well, the whole point of sanctions is to destroy their economy in hopes of them agreeing with your terms.

Better than a full out war I guess.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tani Coyote]

You have to hurt the livelihoods of innocent people to bring about change, sadly. There were probably lots of innocent people who received money from the bus companies in the South, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boycotts would have impacted those people. We can't really say it was a bad move though, can we?

The idea behind sanctions is the target makes their own Hell. Their people suffer only because of the government's decisions. The ultimate goal here, I think, is to make the people dissatisfied with Putin so that he'll change his tune. Which I think can work - Putin isn't one of the Kims and actually has an electorate he doesn't want to annoy too much.

The odd thing is Putin has pretty much said that while he won't concede Crimea, he doesn't really want to fight the West. Not a bad tactic if he wants to make the West look like a bully, to say the least.

[Killtank]

I prefer that idea for sure. 

 

Any action is better than no action. I am not one to believe in this huge fascist group talk at all, (or not as concerned with it as I am Russia at the current time). At this time if we do nothing, Ukraine will slowly fall apart as Russia takes over bit by bit like they did with Crimea by getting their own insurgents on the soil and intimidating pro-independent Ukrainians into joining with Russia. 

 

If we do nothing and distract ourselves with this talk of fascists and radicals, there will be no Ukraine by that point.

 

While I do believe that it is better to act than to sit passively off to the side and do next to nothing, I think that it would be foolish to deploy American troops to Crimea. That isn't to say that you endorse any action of the sort, but I've heard too many pundits go after Obama for his alleged inaction. In any case, it's unlikely to happen. The American public, by and large, no longer has the same stomach for war it had back in 2001. I know that these sanctions ultimately harm average citizens who don't have a vested interest in bolstering conflict in the Ukraine, but I'd rather take the time to see if they have any lasting impact. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You have to hurt the livelihoods of innocent people to bring about change, sadly. There were probably lots of innocent people who received money from the bus companies in the South, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boycotts would have impacted those people. We can't really say it was a bad move though, can we?

Well considering the number of high profile racists during that era, I'd hardly consider them innocent.

 

Then again, I'm a cold-hearted bastard when it comes to reactionaries from Jim Crow era USA.

 

Either way, I should know better than to think innocents wouldn't be involved whether in the Ukraine and Russia and in the past.

[188Eternal]

It belonged for centuries to the Tatars, who, oh yes, the Soviets forcibly relocated after WW2 because they didn't like the Soviets.

 

 

Have any of you ever considered that if that navy base becomes the property of the muslim tatars then there could be the danger of other muslim extremist groups migrating there and using the fleet to wage war on the infidels of the West?

My family believes that by having Crimea dominated by Russia we are actually protecting the west from jihad attacks.

[Tani Coyote]

My family believes that by having Crimea dominated by Russia we are actually protecting the west from jihad attacks.

Key word is believe.

Not all Muslims are radicals who want to destroy the West. And the ones who are are opposed by the Muslims who aren't (otherwise, Turkish, Egyptian, Arabic, etc. military hardware would have been stolen in large numbers by radicals long ago).

Trust me, if the West was concerned over radicals getting ahold of a naval base, there'd be no discussion of intervention; it'd have already happened.

That fleet, furthermore, would be of little use against the West. The West is vulnerable to most terror attacks because they happen in a way that we can't retaliate against short of massive, unjust incarcerations and abuses. The West has no problem taking on enemies in the field - this is why Al-Qaeda and the like don't raise an army and charge at the West's forces; they'd be slaughtered. They need to work from the shadows.

Finally, I understand Russia's military isn't always the most top notch, but I presume their seamen are intelligent enough to scuttle their own ships rather than let them be captured by a loose cannon like Islamic radicals.

What we we would be concerned about are radicals getting a hold of nuclear weapons, because those can fit inside a suitcase, be smuggled into a city, and then detonated. Fortunately, there are no nuclear weapons inside Ukraine, as Russia took them all when the country split as memory serves. It's kind of hard to sneak a cruiser or other vessel into a port.

Finally, to get that vessel to the West, you'd have to go through Turkey. Turkey is a Western ally and would sink it.

[Tornado]

And we're laughing at Kerry and McCain for being such morons.... Did they seriously think that the Russian Empire would be afraid of their "economic sanctions"? Were they really stupid enough to think so?

We've already survived economic blockades in the 1950ies and 1960ies where we built our own technology without relying on foreign products and made history by sending the first man into space!

Foolish American senators can cry us a river. They don't know who they're messing with.

 

They know they're messing with a country that can't even be called a shadow of what it was in the 1950s and 1960s; against a United States that isn't much weaker economically and a Western Europe that has been united economically ~20 years in a far stronger way than the Soviet Union ever was. The only question is how badly would the EU be willing to hurt Russia, and that's a political issue.

 

 

 

Though "Russian Empire" was a particularly poor choice of words on your part.

 

 

 

Have any of you ever considered that if that navy base becomes the property of the muslim tatars then there could be the danger of other muslim extremist groups migrating there and using the fleet to wage war on the infidels of the West?

My family believes that by having Crimea dominated by Russia we are actually protecting the west from jihad attacks.

I don't think any Muslim extremist group that took control of a former Soviet naval base would use anything they found against anyone but the country that put it there. What with the Russian/Soviet history with Islamic countries of "annex them, claim the annexing was legitimate, then assassinate anyone who takes issue with it."

[Tani Coyote]

Indeed, it's a key detail to remember that Russia is considered with almost as much disdain in a lot of Islamic countries as the United States is. While America is known as the "Great Satan" in Iran, for example, Russia enjoys the privilege of being the "Little Satan."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't hold up well in reality. A lot of Islamic countries dislike America, it's true, but they have just as much reason to dislike Russia; America is just the more prominent target at the moment.

Chechens, Tatars, not to mention the many Central Asian peoples... there's quite a few Islamic factions Russia's done a fair bit to peeve.

Never mind naval vessels are a poor choice of weapon to hijack when the enemy has smart bombs and it can't reach the open sea.