Ukraine (cont.)

[pepipop]

I haven’t watched the video, as I don’t like watching things like this. However, the transcript speaks for itself. Good luck to the EU working with their newly appointed government.

youtube.com/watch?v=VzdkDE81iiM

*On Tuesday night, members of parliament from the far-right Svoboda party stormed a Ukrainian state television CEO’s office, beat him, and forced him to resign on the spot.

The filmed altercation shows the Svoboda MPs attacking the television network CEO and reportedly criticizing him for allowing his network to broadcast untruths about their movement. According to Ukrainian Pravda, the MPs forced the CEO to write and sign his resignation on the spot and later “shoved” him into an SUV to be taken to an undisclosed location.
*

 

[Miserissima]

Exactly. Foreign soldiers, whether Russian or American or Soviet mean pretty much the same thing to locals. You don’t understand this because you’re from a country which can’t remember a foreign army of occupation. But if elections are free in Iraq so they can be free in Crimea.

There were foreign observers who said the referendum was fair.

Valid choice what was wrong with the choices? Please explain to me.

Please name journalists mentioned, just as I asked Pepi to please give ANY of the 20k foreign reporters info and articles.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The Crimean’s went willingly, they were not forced to. Crimea get their republic - so quid pro quo.

Nonsense. SOME residents whose Russian forbears were put there by Stalin after the genocide of the Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, voted in a bogus election in which there was no “NO” vote possible and AFTER Russsian occupation. In any event, Russia twice acknowledged Ukraine’s independence and Crimea as part of the Ukraine. And now Russia takes it in the most transparent and egregious manner imaginable.

My goodness, how quickly we excuse imperialism as long as it’s real imperialism, and genocide as long as it’s real genocide.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ukrainian Catholics comprise roughly 10% cent of Crimea’s two million inhabitants. Even before the referendum result came out priests have went missing.

Read this from yesterday:

foxnews.com/world/2014/03/17/catholics-in-crimea-fear-oppression-under-possible-russian-rule/

Now those Catholics are under Russian rule just like the Tartar Muslims.

I do have cause to be worried about my Church in Crimea.

Catholics and Tatars will have to leave and are, by news accounts I have seen, leaving Crimea. The Russian branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church is territorial as well, and will not make it easy for even Greek Eastern Orthodox, let alone Catholics.

The real question remaining is how much of Ukraine Russia will NOT annex, if any part of it.

 

[pepipop]

Nonsense. SOME residents whose Russian forbears were put there by Stalin after the genocide of the Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, voted in a bogus election in which there was no “NO” vote possible and AFTER Russsian occupation. In any event, Russia twice acknowledged Ukraine’s independence and Crimea as part of the Ukraine. And now Russia takes it in the most transparent and egregious manner imaginable.

My goodness, how quickly we excuse imperialism as long as it’s real imperialism, and genocide as long as it’s real genocide.

So how far back do we go, with each conflict around the world. Do we give Australia back to the Aborigines, America back to the native Americans and northern Ireland back to the Irish.

Whilst, I fully empathise with the Tartars, minorities never get the chance to sway a democratic vote to their satisfaction. The Tartar language will be officially recognised within the Republic, and other measures were discussed too.

As I’ve stated already, none of this would have occurred, except for the EU mess-up in promising monetary and other deals, taking away the deals, the president changes money lender, which then caused the riots, a coup - et viola.

Crimea wanted out, they got to be a republic and Russia has safe access to their port.

 

[josie_L]

I’m not saying the rest of Ukraine must succumb to Russia. I’m just saying that the principle of self determination should hold.

Who can judge? Obviously one should try to correct ones’ own faults first you know. It’s kind of a tenet of our faith. And subsequently we should admit to our mistakes before we point fingers. Since the politicians won’t do that, well… that will just enable others to do what we’ve been doing.

And of course you should be free to judge. I still maintain that the popular opinion of those people can’t be brushed off.

I have never stated that these people’s opinions shouldn’t matter but the circumstances surrounding this debacle of a “referendum” is completely immoral and extremely biased towards Russia. I don’t blame the people, it’s the tactics which have been used that antagonize me to bits.

P.S. It’s kind of a tenet of our faith to love thy neighbour, i.e., is Russia showing “Christian” love for their neighbour, Ukraine??? Is anyone showing love for the 42% of Ukrainians and Tatars that have absolutely NO say whatsoever in this sham of a “referendum”.

 

[josie_L]

She isn’t excusing “her side” and is being “consistent and fair”. I have agreed with practically everything she has said.

Thank you, Vouthon, and the fact of the matter is I don’t even like Obama (or the European Union that much), but since this situation with the Ukraine, I like Putin even less than I do Obama and/or the E.U…

 

[gilliam]

Watch as 1000 years of European borders change

loiter.co/v/watch-as-1000years-of-european-boarders-change/

 

[GaryTaylor]

and the fact of the matter is I don’t even like Obama (or the European Union that much), but since this situation with the Ukraine, I like Putin even less than I do Obama and/or the E.U…

 

[M-Dent]

The real question remaining is how much of Ukraine Russia will NOT annex, if any part of it.

Hm, since it will take a while for Russia to build the bridge to Crimea…one wonders if Putin will continue his land grab?

Regarding Sevastopol (naval base), it would be advantageous to also have access via a land route from Eastern Ukraine to Russia. Another land grab could include the loss of another Ukraine port, Mariupol.

Leaving Ukraine with just developed ports, Odessa or Nikolayev?

And at what point does Ukraine use military means for self defense?

 

[Ridgerunner]

So how far back do we go, with each conflict around the world. Do we give Australia back to the Aborigines, America back to the native Americans and northern Ireland back to the Irish.

Whilst, I fully empathise with the Tartars, minorities never get the chance to sway a democratic vote to their satisfaction. The Tartar language will be officially recognised within the Republic, and other measures were discussed too.

As I’ve stated already, none of this would have occurred, except for the EU mess-up in promising monetary and other deals, taking away the deals, the president changes money lender, which then caused the riots, a coup - et viola.

Crimea wanted out, they got to be a republic and Russia has safe access to their port.

I don’t doubt you believe all this “blame the West” business. But one salient point stands out; Europe and the U.S. do not presently occupy Crimea with armed troops, and did not, prior to conducting a controlled “referendum”. Russia did and does.

This happened, not centuries ago, but within the last few weeks.

One could say Ukraine should never have been constituted containing a significant number of Russian nationals who are there because of previous Soviet genocide committed against Ukrainians and others who are now minorities because of the genocide. But it was so constituted, and Russia agreed to it, not once but twice.

And you say minorities don’t get to sway the vote? The Russians in Crimea were a minority within Ukraine. In this matter, Russia had 100% of the “say” because Russia took the place by armed aggression. Conquerers, by definition, have all the “say”.

 

[pepipop]

I don’t doubt you believe all this “blame the West” business. But one salient point stands out; Europe and the U.S. do not presently occupy Crimea with armed troops, and did not, prior to conducting a controlled “referendum”. Russia did and does.

This happened, not centuries ago, but within the last few weeks.

One could say Ukraine should never have been constituted containing a significant number of Russian nationals who are there because of previous Soviet genocide committed against Ukrainians and others who are now minorities because of the genocide. But it was so constituted, and Russia agreed to it, not once but twice.

And you say minorities don’t get to sway the vote? The Russians in Crimea were a minority within Ukraine. In this matter, Russia had 100% of the “say” because Russia took the place by armed aggression. Conquerers, by definition, have all the “say”.

Well, yes, the evidence is there. Here is a list of Soviet leaders, so only the ‘Russian born’ leaders committed the genocide? (I am not a historian and do not know anything about what happened in years gone by.)

Lenin – Russian (with German/Swedish)
Stalin – Georgian
Khrushchev – Ukrainian (with Russian)
Brezhnev – Ukrainian
Andropov – Don Cossack (with Finnish)
Chernenko – Siberian born Ukrainian
Gromyko – Belarusian
Gorbachev – Russian

The Russian Crimeans were a minority in Ukraine, true and Crimea was also set up as an autonomous republic.

However demographic polls undertaken in the Ukraine as a whole, funded by USAID, indicated a majority of Ukrainians wished to enter a economic union with Russia and only in the second half of 2013 it slightly decreased. So the Russian sentiment (or whatever it is called) remains high in Ukraine as a whole. In addition, 50% of Ukrainians voted having a WARM attitude to Russia, 41% - EU, 40% - Poland and 26% USA a majority again, in favour of Russia.

**If Ukraine was able to enter only one international economic union, with whom should it be? **Page 10. (I cannot paste the graphic).

iri.org/sites/default/files/IRI_Ukraine_August-September_2013_Edited%20Poll.pdf

In March, May and August 2012, the majority of Ukrainians wished to enter economic union with Russia at 43%, 41% and 42% respectively.

In May and September 2013 the stats changed slightly to 40% and 42% EU, with Russia getting 37% in each month. So hardly a ‘minority’ of opinion in Ukraine as to who they wished to align with.

Likewise another question asked was:

**How would you evaluate your attitude towards the following entities? ** Page 16

50% - WARM to Russia
41% - warm to EU
40% - warm to Poland
26% - warm to USA

These stats were carried out between Aug-September 2013, all before Yanukovich changed his mind, after vociferously arguing to join the EU in September and then back pedaled to Russia.

 

[Vouthon]

4:05: Bulgaria’s president, Rosen Plevneliev, tells the BBC he shares the concerns of his eastern European colleagues that Russia might be tempted to annex parts of other countries.

“What about Lithuania? What about Estonia? We do have Russian communities and minorities there. Is it possible in [the] 21st Century that they can call Moscow and Moscow will send troops and occupy and annex some part of their territory. Is that possible?”

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26645477

This was a geopolitical disaster waiting to happen. With so many Russian minorities in former Soviet countries, the situation is similar to Germany after the Treaty of Versailles between the years 1919-1939. Putin is an ethnic nationalist who has made it clear that he plans to “unite Russians”, irrespective of whether there is a universally recognised border separating them from him.

He knows that Russia has very precarious borders without the buffer states of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

He knows that Russia has massive internal problems (it has poverty close to a Third World country) and could possibly break-up and fragment itself in the future.

So he is playing the “I am the saviour of all Russians” card.

Just read this:

Germany, whose unification Russia has supported, will also approve the aspirations of the Russian world to restore unity, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his appeal to the Russian Federal Assembly on Tuesday.

“I believe that Europeans, firstly Germans, will understand me,” the president said. During political consultations on the unification of East Germany and West Germany “at expert, but very high levels, not all countries’, who were Germany’s allies, supported the very idea of unification,” Putin said.

“Our country, on the contrary, supported explicitly and sincerely the aspiration of Germans for national unity,” he said.

“I am certain that you have not forgotten this and I count that German citizens will support the aspirations of the Russian world and historical Russia to restore unity,” Putin said.

Read more:

voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_18/President-Putin-signs-treaty-of-joining-Crimea-Sevastopol-to-Russia-9079/

What exactly is “historical Russia” and “the Russian world”?

The comparison with German unification does nothing to assuage my concerns.

 

[Ridgerunner]

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26645477

This was a geopolitical disaster waiting to happen. With so many Russian minorities in former Soviet countries, the situation is similar to Germany after the Treaty of Versailles between the years 1919-1939. Putin is an ethnic nationalist who has made it clear that he plans to “unite Russians”, irrespective of whether there is a universally recognised border separating them from him.

He knows that Russia has very precarious borders without the buffer states of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

He knows that Russia has massive internal problems (it has poverty close to a Third World country) and could possibly break-up and fragment itself in the future.

So he is playing the “I am the saviour of all Russians” card.

Just read this:

Read more:

voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_18/President-Putin-signs-treaty-of-joining-Crimea-Sevastopol-to-Russia-9079/

What exactly is “historical Russia” and “the Russian world”?

The comparison with German unification does nothing to assuage my concerns.

Does this mean Russia is going to return Koenigsberg to Germany? One ought not to hold one’s breath. What a joke this appeal to Germans is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Well, yes, the evidence is there. Here is a list of Soviet leaders, so only the ‘Russian born’ leaders committed the genocide? (I am not a historian and do not know anything about what happened in years gone by.)

Lenin – Russian (with German/Swedish)
Stalin – Georgian
Khrushchev – Ukrainian (with Russian)
Brezhnev – Ukrainian
Andropov – Don Cossack (with Finnish)
Chernenko – Siberian born Ukrainian
Gromyko – Belarusian
Gorbachev – Russian

The Russian Crimeans were a minority in Ukraine, true and Crimea was also set up as an autonomous republic.

However demographic polls undertaken in the Ukraine as a whole, funded by USAID, indicated a majority of Ukrainians wished to enter a economic union with Russia and only in the second half of 2013 it slightly decreased. So the Russian sentiment (or whatever it is called) remains high in Ukraine as a whole. In addition, 50% of Ukrainians voted having a WARM attitude to Russia, 41% - EU, 40% - Poland and 26% USA a majority again, in favour of Russia.

**If Ukraine was able to enter only one international economic union, with whom should it be? **Page 10. (I cannot paste the graphic).

iri.org/sites/default/files/IRI_Ukraine_August-September_2013_Edited%20Poll.pdf

In March, May and August 2012, the majority of Ukrainians wished to enter economic union with Russia at 43%, 41% and 42% respectively.

In May and September 2013 the stats changed slightly to 40% and 42% EU, with Russia getting 37% in each month. So hardly a ‘minority’ of opinion in Ukraine as to who they wished to align with.

Likewise another question asked was:

**How would you evaluate your attitude towards the following entities? ** Page 16

50% - WARM to Russia
41% - warm to EU
40% - warm to Poland
26% - warm to USA

These stats were carried out between Aug-September 2013, all before Yanukovich changed his mind, after vociferously arguing to join the EU in September and then back pedaled to Russia.

Economic relationships are one thing. Being ruled by foreigners is quite another. The fact remains that Russian troops are in Crimea, and took it over before the controlled “referendum”. Took it over from a country whose borders it twice recognized.

Russia is an armed aggressor here; an imperialist nation. That’s plain. It should surprise no one that it and its apologists make excuses and express rationalizations. All conquerers do that. History is replete with them.

The “Russian world” once included Alaska and parts of northern California. Putin’s not likely to make a move on those, but when one invokes concepts like that as justifications for aggression, the limits are as fluid as capability wants to make them.

 

[pepipop]

spiegel.de/international/europe/indirect-berlin-support-for-ukrainian-right-wing-extremists-svoboda-a-959073.html

Tight on the Right: Germany’s NPD Maintains Close Ties to Svoboda

*Germany shuns the right-wing extremist party NPD at home. But even though the Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda maintains tight links to the NPD, it has received indirect support from Berlin.

When Holger Apfel showed up at the Saxony state parliament with a “parliamentary delegation” from Ukraine last May, few had even heard of a party called Svoboda. Apfel, who was head of the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) at the time, proudly showed his guests – Ukrainian parliamentarian Mikhail Golovko and two municipal politicians from the Ukrainian city of Ternopol – around the parliament building in Dresden.*

 

[tomarin]

Russia is an armed aggressor here; an imperialist nation. That’s plain. It should surprise no one that it and its apologists make excuses and express rationalizations. All conquerers do that. History is replete with them.

So true.

 

[pepipop]

Economic relationships are one thing. Being ruled by foreigners is quite another. The fact remains that Russian troops are in Crimea, and took it over before the controlled “referendum”. Took it over from a country whose borders it twice recognized.

Russia is an armed aggressor here; an imperialist nation. That’s plain. It should surprise no one that it and its apologists make excuses and express rationalizations. All conquerers do that. History is replete with them.

The “Russian world” once included Alaska and parts of northern California. Putin’s not likely to make a move on those, but when one invokes concepts like that as justifications for aggression, the limits are as fluid as capability wants to make them.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ve posted many times my viewpoint on the entire scenario.

A coup, an illegal Ukrainian neo-nazi government set-up, an autonomous republic that wants to go back to Russia and/or get out of Ukraine, but most importantly to become a republic. Crimea got what they wanted, too. IF it is all a ‘big farce’ and Crimea was ‘invaded’ against their will and the vote was a sham, Crimea will turn out similar to NI and other countries that do not like their ‘rulers’ - there’ll be riots, terrorist groups setting themselves up, bombs going off, etc…

 

[tomarin]

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ve posted many times my viewpoint on the entire scenario.

A coup, an illegal Ukrainian neo-nazi government set-up, an autonomous republic that wants to go back to Russia and/or get out of Ukraine, but most importantly to become a republic. Crimea got what they wanted, too. IF it is all a ‘big farce’ and Crimea was ‘invaded’ against their will and the vote was a sham, Crimea will turn out similar to NI and other countries that do not like their ‘rulers’ - there’ll be riots, terrorist groups setting themselves up, bombs going off, etc…

Eh? There’s plenty of time for buyer’s remorse later.

 

[pepipop]

Eh? There’s plenty of time for buyer’s remorse later.

Too right, let’s wait and see.