Ukraine

[Tomdstone]

The call took place after Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet visited Kiev on February 25, following the peak of clashes between the pro-EU protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital.

*During the conversation, Paet stressed that “there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition.”

According to the Estonian FM, “all the evidence shows” that the “same snipers” at Maidan were shooting at people from both sides – the police and the protesters.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton reacted to the information by saying: “Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible,” adding that the matter is worth investigating. *

If I understood the leaked telephone conversation correctly, during the call the Estonian PM said that all of the new leaders in Ukraine have a dirty past and that members of Parliament are being beaten up.
breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/05/Estonia-Prime-Minister-Evidence-Shows-Maidan-Leaders-Behind-Snipers-in-Kiev

 

[grotto]

The people that were protesting Yanukovich were exposing a corrupt government and wanting to get him and his agents out of Ukraine government. There was hardly another way to get started - one cannot peacefully sit at a table and ask the citizens to step right up, put your name and county (area) on this petition if you agree to recall Yanukovich. I’m sure the sun would not have gone down within 5 minutes and there would have been a loud smashing at the door! It makes sense that Putin (who had a Plan A and a Plan B to take advantage) was ready with armed men at the moment word came that the people were gathering in protest.

How rapidly they appeared and right behind them came the big stuff. Arms, tanks, trucks, tents, helicopters, and the kitchen sink. What kind of a world leader (besides N.Korea’s Kim)
would stand before the microphones and say that no Russian troops were deployed. There seem to be several mental health candidates that are in competition with Putin.

Ash Wednesday today - every last one of us will answer.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Or that we’re walking around with a giant plank in our eye.

Thats a tired meme.

At least be constructive with your criticisms. What do you expect us to do about it? Occupy Ukraine and stand our troops toe-to-toe with the Russians to see who blinks?

The better question is “what should we have done previously”. No sense asking what to do about a house burning when the second floor collapses into the first floor. Better to have fixed the wiring long before.

And “tired old meme” though it may seem to the left, the truth, as well illustrated in this thread, is that the left excuses its own failures in governance by condemning this country and its people. A former KGB colonel seizes part of another country, catching this administration totally flat-footed, and all the left can do is condemn America. And, oftentimes, as with the “grab from Mexico” accusations one sometimes hears, the actual facts are distorted to fit the “evil America” ideology.

I think the tiredest old meme is the apologia for Russian imperialism. It has been the stock in trade of the left since the 1920s.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If I understood the leaked telephone conversation correctly, during the call the Estonian PM said that all of the new leaders in Ukraine have a dirty past and that members of Parliament are being beaten up.
breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/05/Estonia-Prime-Minister-Evidence-Shows-Maidan-Leaders-Behind-Snipers-in-Kiev

But does this really work?

Somebody supposedly gets beaten up in Kiev, and so Russia seizes the crimea, hundreds of miles away to protect against such things?

Doesn’t work for me.

 

[pepipop]

This I do not understand, who’s side was Yanukovich actually on, initially? The EU didn’t play ball, and then ‘all change again’.

reuters.com/article/2013/12/19/us-ukraine-russia-deal-special-report-idUSBRE9BI0DZ20131219
*
(Reuters) - On September 4, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich called a meeting of his political party for the first time in three years, summoning members to an old Soviet-era cinema called Zoryany in Kiev.

For three hours Yanukovich cajoled and bullied anyone who pushed for Ukraine to have closer ties to Russia. A handful of deputies from his Party of Regions complained that their businesses in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east would suffer if Yanukovich didn’t agree to closer ties with Russia. That set him off.

“Forget about it … forever!” he shouted at them, according to people who attended the meeting. Instead the president argued for an agreement to deepen trade and other cooperation with the European Union.Yanukovich’s other hope was the IMF. It rescued Ukraine during the onset of the global financial crisis with a $16.5 billion loan in 2008 when Tymoshenko was prime minister. It also approved a $15.5 billion stand-by program for the Yanukovich government in 2010, disbursing about $3.5 billion, before freezing the program in 2011 because Ukraine failed to meet its conditions. A year later, the program had expired.

The IMF, like the EU, was unwilling to grant the sort of loans Yanukovich wanted under a new program. In a letter dated November 20, it told Ukraine that it would not soften conditions for a new loan and that it would offer only $5 billion, Oliynyk said. And Kiev would have to pay back almost the same amount next year, he said, as part of repayments for the earlier $16.5 billion loan.

The IMF declined to comment. According to IMF figures, Kiev should pay back $3.7 billion next year.

“We could not contain our emotions, it was unacceptable,” said Oliynyk.

Yanukovich was furious, party members said. He believed the IMF had ignored what he what he saw as reasonable demands to lift tough conditions for its earlier help, such as increasing the retirement age and freezing pensions and wages. Worse, the IMF was asking him to repay a loan that had been negotiated by his arch enemy, Tymoshenko.

Yanukovich was also offended when he found out Kiev would not be offered a firm prospect of full membership of the EU; he felt Ukraine was being treated as a lesser country to “even Poland”, with which it shares a border.

“Many citizens have got it wrong on European integration. It is not about membership, we are apparently not Poland, apparently we are not on a level with Poland … they are not letting us in really, we will be standing at the doors. We’re nice but we’re not Poles,” Oliynyk said. *

Sorry, re-posting my OP. But I’d still be interested in anyone’s opinion as to Yanukovich’s actions, in September 2013.

Why, if Yanukovich was so on for Russia would he have stood up for 3 hours and try to change everyone’s mind to go with the EU? He then goes with the EU, and then changes ship and goes with Russia - due to the EU’s ongoing, restrictions / conditions.

It’s very confusing, considering it has been reported he was meant to be one of Putin’s ‘men’, so why did he not bring everyone aboard with him to chose Russia, in September 2013, rather than insist that they go with the EU?

 

[Miserissima]

Sorry, re-posting my OP. But I’d still be interested in anyone’s opinion as to Yanukovich’s actions, in September 2013.

Why, if Yanukovich was so on for Russia would he have stood up for 3 hours and try to change everyone’s mind to go with the EU? He then goes with the EU, and then changes ship and goes with Russia - due to the EU’s ongoing, restrictions / conditions.

It’s very confusing, considering it has been reported he was meant to be one of Putin’s ‘men’, so why did he not bring everyone aboard with him to chose Russia, in September 2013, rather than insist that they go with the EU?

Sounds look the Godfather called in a favor and Yanokovich couldn’t refuse.

 

[grotto]

Perhaps Yunakovich was hoping to ease/confuse people’s minds about his own shaky status.

 

[pepipop]

Sounds look the Godfather called in a favor and Yanokovich couldn’t refuse.

It doesn’t make sense though, (I assume you mean Putin is the Godfather) as, if he was under Putin’s thumb then Yanokovich already had the government wanting to go to Russia, in Sept, and he tried to change their minds. It would also infer, that if he was under orders that Putin told Yanokovich to go with the EU, and then Putin changed his mind for some reason and told him to stay with Russia?

It doesn’t make sense, it looks like he was disenchanted with the EU and Putin had nothing to do with it.

 

[GaryTaylor]

news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2014-03/04/c_133160333.htm

“Those troops have been deployed there long before the recent events. And they may legally stay there until 2042. So they pose no threat to Ukraine,” said Kozin, who is also a Russian Academy of Military Sciences professor.

All Russian troops deployed in Crimea were attached to the Black Sea Fleet, in accordance with agreements signed between Moscow and Kiev following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the expert said.

According to the agreements, Russia has a right to move its personnel between its coastal facilities, for example from Kerch to Sevastopol in Crimea.

Kozin said the legal status of Russian troops in Crimea had been restricted to protection and servicing of the Black Sea Fleet stationed in the peninsula, adding they could not occupy any facilities not belonging to the fleet’s infrastructure.

“Until recently, no frictions have ever appeared between Russian and Ukrainian military personnel. They used to hold joint drills and military parades, and participate in anti-terror operations,” Kozin said.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

And “tired old meme” though it may seem to the left, the truth, as well illustrated in this thread, is that the left excuses its own failures in governance by condemning this country and its people.

What failure would that be? What exactly do you expect the President to do about the situation that he hasn’t already done?

A former KGB colonel seizes part of another country, catching this administration totally flat-footed, and all the left can do is condemn America. And, oftentimes, as with the “grab from Mexico” accusations one sometimes hears, the actual facts are distorted to fit the “evil America” ideology.

You can’t change the facts about 60 years of American foreign policy and military intervention/support. So I’ll ask again, if our foreign policy motivations are solely based around some inalienable right of a people to shape their own destiny, why should we care about Russia maintaining the status quo in Crimea? Why impose the choices of the people in Kiev on an autonomous region which clearly does not want to go down the same path?

 

[gilliam]

Video: Anchor at Russian propaganda network quits over Ukraine invasion — on the air

hotair.com/archives/2014/03/05/video-anchor-at-russian-propaganda-network-quits-over-ukraine-invasion-on-the-air/

 

[GaryTaylor]

nytimes.com/2014/03/06/world/europe/united-nations-crimea.html

UNITED NATIONS — A senior United Nations diplomat who was sent to the Crimea region of southern Ukraine to assess the Russian military takeover there was threatened by armed men at gunpoint on Wednesday, and aborted his visit a day after it had begun.

The United Nations is sending the head of its human rights office, Ivan Simonovic, to lead a team that will visit both western and eastern Ukraine, including Crimea. Mr. Eliasson said he hoped Russia would welcome the deployment of the monitors

 

[M-Dent]

It doesn’t make sense, it looks like he was disenchanted with the EU and Putin had nothing to do with it.

Ukraine felt the heat in September.

Kiev’s volte-face is likely to be hailed as a foreign policy victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has not hidden his distaste for Ukraine-EU integration.

Ukraine has come under sustained pressure from the Kremlin in recent months as diplomatic negotiations over its alignment with the EU intensified.

As well as the threatening the imposition of a strict new customs regime, Russia also ratcheted up pressure on Kiev, which depends on Russia for its energy supplies, over payments for gas imports.
_
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov acknowledged on Wednesday that his country had already registered significant losses because of shrinking trade volumes with Russia and other members of an alliance of former Soviet countries, the Commonwealth of Independent States.
“Trade turnover grew significantly in 2012, but in 2013 we have lost nearly one-quarter of our trade turnover with CIS markets,” Azarov said. “Those economic losses are significant for us, and Ukraine has been facing serious [financial] hardships lately.”

en.ria.ru/russia/20131121/184845623.html

The financial pain followed by the threat of Russia ** shutting off the gas** on some cold night…brrrr. Ukraine was bullied then as they are now.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Video: Anchor at Russian propaganda network quits over Ukraine invasion — on the air

hotair.com/archives/2014/03/05/video-anchor-at-russian-propaganda-network-quits-over-ukraine-invasion-on-the-air/

Ha, she said she admittedly didn’t know as much as she should. She knows now how it is to work for Putin. They’ll give her a few extra hours of the mandatory after work indoctrination state program. In fact I heard yesterday they were sending her straight to Crimea for practical experience.

 

[pepipop]

nytimes.com/2014/03/06/world/europe/united-nations-crimea.html

UNITED NATIONS — A senior United Nations diplomat who was sent to the Crimea region of southern Ukraine to assess the Russian military takeover there was threatened by armed men at gunpoint on Wednesday, and aborted his visit a day after it had begun.

The United Nations is sending the head of its human rights office, Ivan Simonovic, to lead a team that will visit both western and eastern Ukraine, including Crimea. Mr. Eliasson said he hoped Russia would welcome the deployment of the monitors

Saw it on ITV, he and others were filmed sitting in a cafe as he had to get out of his car. He finally went out to his car and a crowd that looked like local people, male and female, all shouted Russia (something or other at him), whilst he finally got into his car and left.

Happened several times to me, in NI, visiting primary schools for work. I was followed in by a car to the school, in a small catholic town, the car then waited outside until I left and got into my car and then followed me out of the town. I believe the drivers were most likely armed too. The only reason the followed me was because I was a stranger they didn’t know and I was followed.

Just sheer and utter madness, everybody gets riled up when a country has had a revolution in addition to a total change of government (that a lot of the Ukrainians will not like). OTT reactions.

Wait and see, who was responsible.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The Taters, what happened to them?

nytimes.com/2014/03/02/world/europe/crimean-tatars-ponder-the-return-of-russian-rule.html

 

[Ridgerunner]

What failure would that be? What exactly do you expect the President to do about the situation that he hasn’t already done?

You can’t change the facts about 60 years of American foreign policy and military intervention/support. So I’ll ask again, if our foreign policy motivations are solely based around some inalienable right of a people to shape their own destiny, why should we care about Russia maintaining the status quo in Crimea? Why impose the choices of the people in Kiev on an autonomous region which clearly does not want to go down the same path?

As to the first paragraph: I don’t purport to be an expert on foreign affairs, but some things should occur to anyone. I doubt there’s anything he could do now. Putin is in control with that situation, just as he is in other points of potential contest. But for example, Obama could have had sufficient intelligence or direct diplomatic resources, or, caring enough if he did have those resources to do something about it, to know Ukraine was in financial trouble, and perhaps acted to forestall an economic crisis. For another, he could encourage, rather than discourage, development of petroleum resources in this country and elsewhere on the planet in order to ensure that Europe was not quite so dependent on Russian resources.

I don’t seek to change the facts about American foreign policy over the last 60 years, but I do think the interpretation of those facts can, and does vary greatly. The reality of the Ukrainian situation is that Russia has occupied a substantial part of it. The likely future reality is that Russia will remain in occupation, as it does presently in eastern Georgia. At some point, one has to put some credence in the statements of someone like Putin who considers the unraveling of the Soviet Empire the great tragedy of the 20th Century. It’s not absurd to believe he actually meant that, means it still, and will act to reverse it to the extent he is able.

And who said American foreign policy is or ought to be based on the “inalienable right of peoples to determine their own destinies” and extend that “right” to whatever indigenous person or persons runs the place? To say that is to endorse the rule of the Kims and their comrades in North Korea. I’m not Obama. I don’t assert that whatever indigenous group, however opposed to American interests it might be, takes or seeks power in a country should be encouraged and/or aided to have that power.

Putin is not preserving the status quo in Ukraine. Did the status quo include surrounding Ukrainian military posts and demanding their surrender? “Autonomous” does not mean “independent”, either. And “autonomous” certainly does not mean “occupied by Russian troops”.

 

[pepipop]

Well I wasn’t sure how the Irish news talks shows would cover Ukraine, but they’re all singing the same tune. In summary, that the Ukrainian government has not been democratically elected, the Russians in Ukraine do not like it, and a lot of Crimeans want the Russians there as they are nearly 60% of the population.

 

[TEPO]

Really, this is a perfect ‘peace’ opportunity between the East and West. I think it would be a nice gesture if America, Russia and all Ukrainians got together and formed a new alliance allowing a United Ukraine Confederacy, which would allow for an Eastern and Western Ukraine -to live together as one economically yet remain culturally seperate… This would occur right at the geographical point where East and West meets.

…now that would be the perfect example -who better than the Ukrainians (who have been doing it for years) to teach the world just how East and West can live together yet separately. Just like in the real world, where Eastern and Western cultures retain their roots. It’s all about mutual respect. Not empire building or conform.

Perhaps we need a leader capable of diffusing the old Cold War mentality. Someone who can look outside the box, and can work better with Eastern leaders. I’m sure both sides are equally exhausted with this nonsense.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

This is what the Ukraine is and was in the past.

Ukraine was the center of the first eastern Slavic state, Kyivan Rus, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Weakened by internecine quarrels and Mongol invasions, Kyivan Rus was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and eventually into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The cultural and religious legacy of Kyivan Rus laid the foundation for Ukrainian nationalism through subsequent centuries. A new Ukrainian state, the Cossack Hetmanate, was established during the mid-17th century after an uprising against the Poles. Despite continuous Muscovite pressure, the Hetmanate managed to remain autonomous for well over 100 years. During the latter part of the 18th century, most Ukrainian ethnographic territory was absorbed by the Russian Empire. Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine was able to achieve a short-lived period of independence (1917-20), but was reconquered and forced to endure a brutal Soviet rule that engineered two forced famines (1921-22 and 1932-33) in which over 8 million died. In World War II, German and Soviet armies were responsible for some 7 to 8 million more deaths. Although final independence for Ukraine was achieved in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, democracy and prosperity remained elusive as the legacy of state control and endemic corruption stalled efforts at economic reform, privatization, and civil liberties. A peaceful mass protest “Orange Revolution” in the closing months of 2004 forced the authorities to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor YUSHCHENKO. Subsequent internal squabbles in the YUSHCHENKO camp allowed his rival Viktor YANUKOVYCH to stage a comeback in parliamentary elections and become prime minister in August of 2006. An early legislative election, brought on by a political crisis in the spring of 2007, saw Yuliya TYMOSHENKO, as head of an “Orange” coalition, installed as a new prime minister in December 2007. Viktor YANUKOVYCH was elected president in a February 2010 run-off election that observers assessed as meeting most international standards. The following month, Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, approved a vote of no-confidence prompting Yuliya TYMOSHENKO to resign from her post as prime minister. In October 2012, Ukraine held Rada elections, widely criticized by Western observers as flawed due to use of government resources to favor ruling party candidates, interference with media access, and harassment of opposition candidates. President YANUKOVYCH’s backtracking on a trade and cooperation agreement with the EU in November 2013 - in favor of closer economic ties with Russia - led to a three-month protest occupation of Kyiv’s central square. The government’s eventual use of force to break up the protest camp in February 2014 led to all out pitched battles, scores of deaths, international condemnation, and the president’s abrupt ouster. An interim government under Acting President Oleksandr TURCHYNOV has called for new presidential elections on 25 May 2014.

cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/up.html

They have had a long hard path to independence. They over threw their last government and are looking forward to free elections soon. Wanting to forsake Russia, and join the EU is a choice they have made. We should all join in support.

Putin, as we all know is trying to build a Russian empire run at least partially as a capitalist endeavor. Taking control of former soviet satelites is certainly on his to-do list. The world has stood by while he invaded Georgia, and we are preparing to stand by for his taking of the Crimea. As I listen to the things he says. Lying to the world, and claiming things that are patently not true. He is statrting to sound like a Saddam Hussein, or a Moammar Gadhafi. In other words a Deranged Bully Boy. As we see, Russians (the ones with money anyway) have had a taste of the life that western civilization has to offer. If the world can get it’s collective act together and intitute financial, sanctions. Vlad. Putins career may come to a screeching halt. A stable, and participatory Russia then may appear.

ATB