Ukraine

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gilliam said:
There is no “Russian half of Ukraine” it is all one country.

Just like there isn’t a “Hispanic part of the USA”
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You mean USA had no right to secede from the British Empire. You were all British subjects after all.
 
More world reaction
  • In further reaction, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his country will not recognise any referendum held in Crimea as long as Russia maintains its “illegal military occupation” there, Reuters reports.
  • The EU statement on Ukraine can be read in full here.
  • The EU considers Crimea’s decision to hold a referendum as “contrary to the Ukrainian constitution and therefore illegal”, says European Council President Herman Van Rompuy
The European Council president tells reporters in Brussels: “Russia must withdraw”
Mr Van Rompuy said the Ukraine crisis was “most serious challenge to security on our continent since the Balkan wars” of the 1990s.

BBC: Interpol receives a request to issue a red notice for the arrest of Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, Reuters reports. The interim authorities in Kiev issued an arrest warrant for Mr Yanukovych last month.

I don’t think Russia will abide by it, but it does make one more international diplomatic issue to contend with.
 
GraceSofia said:
Wow. Nice to see someone with principles. 👍
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I’m not so sure. Let’s wait and see what ‘job offers’ come her way.

Frankly, her justification for quitting seems very rehearsed and party-line-ish.

I realize this sounds very cynical, but we live in a world where it has become very difficult to know who to trust anymore - as this entire situation in Ukraine has revealed.

There are no more distinctively ‘good-guys’ and ‘bad-guys.’ Everyone seems compromised, more or less.

I’ve been wondering what information Snowden brought to Russia that may have been a catalyst for Putin’s pre-emptive move. Speculation, certainly, but isn’t every commentary being offered purely that?
 
Tenofovir said:
Of course. It’s dependent on the decision of the majority of Ukrainians in the given region.
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Please point to something in International Law (the treaties between nations) that says that?

The US fought a civil war saying that isn’t so.
 
President Obama is about to make a public statement on Ukraine shortly.

I can’t see the idea of dividing Ukraine, the idea is to remove the barriers. I also don’t really see Crimea as a great success for Russia here…
 
The Russians are a God fearing and devout people. Since the removal of communism the Orthodox Church has flourished. The west has shown repeatedly which god it worships and that is Baal and Mammon.
Mr Putin is protecting Russia from so much evil.
 
Jonathan Eyal, international director at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, is adamant that it is. “It is a gross violation. It is highly illegal. It is something that violates all conventions of warfare going back hundreds of years,” said Eyal.

He expressed surprise that the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is closely linked with the Geneva conventions on warfare, had not commented on this.

But the Geneva-based ICRC said the situation is far from clear-cut, a view supported by some military experts who offer alternative interpretations to Eyal.
Read the full piece here.

He is correct, this is a violation of the Geneva Accords. Soldiers must wear insignia.
 
Durnford said:
The Russians are a God fearing and devout people. Since the removal of communism the Orthodox Church has flourished. The west has shown repeatedly which god it worships and that is Baal and Mammon.
Mr Putin is protecting Russia from so much evil.
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Sure the Orthodox are better off, but what of the admittedly small Catholic minority, who are harassed by officialdom? What of the legitimate fears of Ukraine’s Catholics that to fall under further Russian influence will lead to a repeat of the tragedies of the postwar era (in which the ROC played a part in the persecution)? Is having a social conservative in the Kremlin really worth the liberty of Holy Mother Church in Ukraine?
 
Durnford said:
The Russians are a God fearing and devout people. Since the removal of communism the Orthodox Church has flourished. The west has shown repeatedly which god it worships and that is Baal and Mammon.
Mr Putin is protecting Russia from so much evil.
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When you say the Russians then you can’t be speaking explicitly the ROC. Or for example as I mentioned earlier Crimea is 12-15% Islamic. Thus too the West isn’t explicitly Catholic or Christian. 🙂
 
I believe that God is using Holy Putin in a manner similar to Constantine to attack the Baal worshiping NATO/EU clique. Constantine converted on his death bed and did bad things so Holy Putin’s mistakes are overshadowed by the blows he is delivering to the homo-fascist agenda.
 
danrooke said:
I think many people on this thread, understandably so, are falling into Cold War rhetoric. Russia is not the Soviet Union any more. America is not the international bee’s knees. All this stuff on the news is very disturbing, nobody is addressing the key problem, is the government in Kiev legitimate? It is becoming increasingly clear that the so call Russian troops around Crimea are actually Crimean’s - who, because they support unification Crimean autonomy and wish to be part of the Russian Federation, might be calling themselves Russian. In fact, it makes the most sense.
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It was legitimate but it no longer is (years and years of manipulating the constitution, the laws and people, abusing funds, arresting opposition leaders, beating up journalists . . . . led to this), moreover, what of the legitimacy of Putin’s government, i.e., do you think that he was voted democratically? And it’s nonsense to believe that the soldiers in Crimea are not Russian, i.e., the fact that they identified as Russians, the fact that the “new government” in Crimea was chosen by Russia (the man who’s now Prime minister had only 4% of the vote in the last election) and purportedly asked their help, the fact that busloads of people from Russia were brought into Crimea, the fact that Yanukovych sought Putin’s help … . .
So I call for care, it’s just the same kind of quick response which characterises the way the secular news reports on the Church. I’m sick of this. This will be a war if the west is not going to LISTEN. Dialogue! Dialogue! Not “AHAH YOU EVIL RUSSIANS”, I would condemn the same of Russia, but WAIT, they are not doing the same thing.
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No, not evil Russians, but a very autocratic and Machiavellian Putin, who will endanger his own country’s peace and prosperity, as well as that of the world’s. He should have never involved himself in the matter.
People keep saying that Putin’s argument (which Russia denies) for troops in Crimea is “protecting ethnic Russians.” Putin is not saying that, his main reason for leaving the door open for military action, which he has not taken yet, is due their belief that the current government in Kiev is illegitimate.
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You mean it can’t possibly be both, hmmmm, I didn’t realize these objectives were mutually exclusive.
Well obviously it is. They didn’t vote out the president, they forced him out. It has been discovered that the “police” who shot protesters were actually agents paid for by the nationalist groups during the protests. The same nationalist groups who are now in power. They caught the guys who did the shootings.
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And when the shooting did begin Yanukovych just stood by as 100 people died and thousand more were wounded? Why didn’t he stop the violence from escalating? And why did he outlaw the protestations in direct violation of the constitution, which quite frankly is when the proverbial **** hit the fan?
Please for the Lords sake, all of you. STOP BANGING THE DRUM OF WAR. Otherwise you’ll end up getting war. Instead just pray, and leave it at that. Don’t even bother with the propaganda of BOTH sides. PRAY. Please!
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We have all been praying for peace, in fact, you’re kind of preaching to the choir, so it is insulting of you to say “stop banging the drum of war”!! I’m beyond repulsed by this statement. :mad:
 
I think Putin looks at this as a struggle of the greater Russia (Byzantium if you will) vs the West (Rome if you will.) At least that is the impression I get.
 
Tenofovir said:
Of course. It’s dependent on the decision of the majority of Ukrainians in the given region.
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Want to give the residents of Texas the same opportunity? How about the Ozarks? How about every one of the 500-odd congressional districts?

Maybe Germany should have Gdansk and East Prussia back too.

Ukraine, like other European countries, but perhaps more than most, is a mixture of languages and ethnicities. It’s not homogenous, though more so than some. Even in the east, the majority of the people are ethnic Ukrainians (by history), though the majority is primarily Russian-speaking. But worlds of Ukrainians are bilingual…not a difficult thing considering that the two languages are basically mutually intelligible to start with.

So there is a real overlap between language spoken and ethnicity. There are lots of other groups in Ukraine, including Tatars, Poles, Rusyn, Bulgarians, even a smattering of Swedes.

At some point, despite ethnic minorities, one has to say “these are the boundaries of the country”. Treating it as fluid invites conflict, subversion and war. Russia agreed to Ukraine’s boundaries. Now it wants them to be different, and to Russia’s advantage.
 
catholicguy2 said:
I believe that God is using Holy Putin in a manner similar to Constantine to attack the Baal worshiping NATO/EU clique. Constantine converted on his death bed and did bad things so Holy Putin’s mistakes are overshadowed by the blows he is delivering to the homo-fascist agenda.
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Perhaps he will also have an ecumenical council and actually invite the Pope to Russia.
 
catholicguy2 said:
I believe that God is using Holy Putin in a manner similar to Constantine to attack the Baal worshiping NATO/EU clique. Constantine converted on his death bed and did bad things so Holy Putin’s mistakes are overshadowed by the blows he is delivering to the homo-fascist agenda.
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Are you seriously calling Putin “holy”? :mad:
 
GaryTaylor said:
President Obama is about to make a public statement on Ukraine shortly.

I can’t see the idea of dividing Ukraine, the idea is to remove the barriers. I also don’t really see Crimea as a great success for Russia here…
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Why assume it’s a ‘success’ for Russia, or a feather in Putin’s cap. It’s something that Putin possibly did to show his annoyance at western intervention in the overthrowing of a, neighbouring and closely-linked country’s, government.

The Crimean’s could genuinely have come to him and asked for help, they are 60% Russian. They, of their own accord, may want to break from Ukraine as they don’t want to join the EU (pretty sensible) and/or they intend to get better conditions and be even more autonomous if they go with Russia. It’s never one-sided there’s always something in it for both sides.

The problem with western media is they are assuming that this is Putin’s main aim - to build up Russia again - it may be the furthest thing from his mind, more mouths to feed, more debt to take on…

There are too many variables at play, and Crimea are well able to decide what THEY want out of all of this.
 
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