Riots in Ukraine

[Dymak]

FIFA decide not to hold the world cup in Russia in 2018, they give it to England instead, the kopites then get given a 20 million pound grant to help them with their stadium redevelopment.

 

[DualityNSNO]

What do you mean a 'puppet government'. Were they not elected democratically?

I tell you what, they were/are more legitimate than the puppet government that existed in Cuba before the mafia were cleared out.

The Kennedy administration took action because the Cubans were to have US range ballistic missiles. Understandable move by the US to face that down (though as history has shown the Russian long game there was to have Turkish US bases shelved). Now we have an EU/US inspired revolt using Ukrainian nazi groups in the front line to usurp a friendly regime and threaten the Russian Federation by extending NATO onto its doorstep and possibly seize their Black Sea fleet's home port.

But you think that's idiotic and nothing like a historical parallel.

Ok.

There you go again.

Picking at exactly 1 sentence of a whole post.

In turn with what you do - yes, it is idiotic, and it is like a historical parallel. The one you're pointing to, however, is not the right one.

 

[tsubaki]

What do you mean a 'puppet government'. Were they not elected democratically?

I tell you what, they were/are more legitimate than the puppet government that existed in Cuba before the mafia were cleared out.

The Kennedy administration took action because the Cubans were to have US range ballistic missiles. Understandable move by the US to face that down (though as history has shown the Russian long game there was to have Turkish US bases shelved). Now we have an EU/US inspired revolt using Ukrainian nazi groups in the front line to usurp a friendly regime and threaten the Russian Federation by extending NATO onto its doorstep and possibly seize their Black Sea fleet's home port.

But you think that's idiotic and nothing like a historical parallel.

Ok.

TBH the Kennedy adminstration took action largely because domestic US politicians had talked themselves in the last years of the Eisenhower administration into a furore over "missile gaps", the Soviets having a technological lead, America at risk etc etc. The actual military value of the missiles in Cuba was negligible, just as the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were essentially useless as anything other than bargaining counters.

As for the "Russian long game", dont forget that the end result of the Missile Crisis was Krushchev getting ousted, and them descending into a moribund state that only ended when Gorbachev killed the Soviet Union off.

 

[SerenityNigh]

What do you mean a 'puppet government'. Were they not elected democratically?

I tell you what, they were/are more legitimate than the puppet government that existed in Cuba before the mafia were cleared out.

The Kennedy administration took action because the Cubans were to have US range ballistic missiles. Understandable move by the US to face that down (though as history has shown the Russian long game there was to have Turkish US bases shelved). Now we have an EU/US inspired revolt using Ukrainian nazi groups in the front line to usurp a friendly regime and threaten the Russian Federation by extending NATO onto its doorstep and possibly seize their Black Sea fleet's home port.

But you think that's idiotic and nothing like a historical parallel.

Ok.

You don't like the use of the word puppet? I'll remove that. Can you justify these comments?

1. The EU/US inspired the Ukrainian revolt
2. The EU/US employed Ukrainian Nazi groups to destroy a Russia-friendy regime
3. The EU/US has taken these actions to threaten the Russian Federation via destroying a sovereign Ukraine

The last is logically extneded, since you seem to claim that the EU/US seek to set up NATO in Crimea; if I misunderstand, please explain how Ukraine's interest in joining the EU (an economic alliance) is the same as an EU/US extension of NATO (a military alliance) into near-Russian territory.

 

[davek]

There you go again.

Picking at exactly 1 sentence of a whole post.

In turn with what you do - yes, it is idiotic, and it is like a historical parallel. The one you're pointing to, however, is not the right one.

I read this post 5 times and still cant make sense of it.

 

[davek]

TBH the Kennedy adminstration took action largely because domestic US politicians had talked themselves in the last years of the Eisenhower administration into a furore over "missile gaps", the Soviets having a technological lead, America at risk etc etc. The actual military value of the missiles in Cuba was negligible, just as the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were essentially useless as anything other than bargaining counters.

As for the "Russian long game", dont forget that the end result of the Missile Crisis was Krushchev getting ousted, and them descending into a moribund state that only ended when Gorbachev killed the Soviet Union off.

You're mistaking Russian with Soviet. Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, Oligarch Russia...different points on a continuum.

 

[tsubaki]

You're mistaking Russian with Soviet. Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, Oligarch Russia...different points on a continuum.

Oligarch Russia is the one in question though, and if the people in charge were playing the long game then they wouldnt have spent the last twenty years looting the place. A genuinely democratic Russia would probably be richer than the US is.

 

[orly]

FIFA decide not to hold the world cup in Russia in 2018, they give it to England instead, the kopites then get given a 20 million pound grant to help them with their stadium redevelopment.

It's a joke really

 

[SerenityNigh]

Slate on the Russian claim that Neo-Nazi facists are behind the Ukrainian protests

If the increasingly bloody turmoil in Ukraine is primarily viewed in the West as a struggle between pro-European supporters of democracy and an increasingly authoritarian government under the influence of Moscow, the official Russian line on the events presents an alternate reality: Western governments are naïve dupes supporting violent extremists with far-right fascist tendencies.

The Russian foreign ministry has dubbed the protests the “Brown Revolution,” comparing it to the Nazis’ rise to power in the 1930s. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asked, “Why do we not hear statements of condemnation toward those who seize government buildings, attack and burn police officers, and voice racist and anti-Semitic slogans?”

The Russian government has a habit of throwing around labels like this a bit casually, but in this case—while undoubtedly self-serving—it’s not completely inaccurate.

One of the three figures who form the Maidan movement’s unlikely leadership coalition, along with boxer Vitali Klitschko and former Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party who has a habit of doing things like referring to the country’s government as a “Jewish-Russian mafia.” The party traces its roots to a Nazi-allied partisan army during World War II and was known as the Social-National Party—in reference to National Socialism—until 2004. Last month the party held a torch-lit march in honor of Stepan Bandera—acontroversial figure viewed by some as a Nazi collaborator.

The rebranded party’s election to parliament for the first time in 2012 concerned many Ukrainian Jews, though Tyahnybok has unconvincingly defended himself from charges of anti-Semitism, saying, "I personally have nothing against common Jews, and even have Jewish friends, but rather against a group of Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine and against Jews-Bolsheviks [in the past].”

It’s clear that the protests against the government by supporters of European integration started before Svoboda showed up and that the party's presence does not represent all—or even most—of the protesters in Kiev, which include a fair number of Jews. But Tyahnybok’s role has certainly made things awkward for the movement's international supporters.

The Svoboda leader was conspicuously absent at last week’s meeting in Berlin between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the far more palatable Klitschko and Yatsenyuk. Sen. John McCain was criticized for sharing a stage with him when he visited Kiev in November. More recently Tyahnybok has met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of StateVictoria Nuland and EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton.*

All the same, the charges that Euromaidan is defined primarily by fascism and anti-Semitism is a little rich coming from the people making it, as Timothy Snyder discusses in the New York Review of Books:

The protests in the Maidan, we are told again and again by Russian propaganda and by the Kremlin’s friends in Ukraine, mean the return of National Socialism to Europe. The Russian foreign minister, in Munich, lectured the Germans about their support of people who salute Hitler. The Russian media continually make the claim that the Ukrainians who protest are Nazis. Naturally, it is important to be attentive to the far right in Ukrainian politics and history. It is still a serious presence today, although less important than the far right in France, Austria, or the Netherlands. Yet it is the Ukrainian regime rather than its opponents that resorts to anti-Semitism, instructing its riot police that the opposition is led by Jews. In other words, the Ukrainian government is telling itself that its opponents are Jews and us that its opponents are Nazis.

The strange thing about the claim from Moscow is the political ideology of those who make it. [Vladimir Putin’s proposed] Eurasian Union is the enemy of the European Union, not just in strategy but in ideology. The European Union is based on a historical lesson: that the wars of the twentieth century were based on false and dangerous ideas, National Socialism and Stalinism, which must be rejected and indeed overcome in a system guaranteeing free markets, free movement of people, and the welfare state. Eurasianism, by contrast, is presented by its advocates as the opposite of liberal democracy.​

Some have also accused Yanukovych of deliberately facilitating Svoboda’s rise to prominence in western Ukraine as a useful political foil. If true, that now appears to have been a massive miscalculation on the president's part.

Svoboda’s prominence within the opposition movement is certainly concerning, not only because of the possibility it could now play a more prominent role in the future politics, but because it has allowed an increasingly authoritarian leader and his blatantly authoritarian international backers to make the case that their opponents are the ones who pose a threat to democracy.

 

[sbbefc]

We have such a greedy unscrupulous government, bending over backwards for these mega rich oligarchs in london.

This is also a lesson on why we should be self sufficient in creating our energy, not only for climate change but so we dont roll over to countries like russia. They've got us and the reat of europe by the balls.

 

[davek]

You don't like the use of the word puppet? I'll remove that. Can you justify these comments?

1. The EU/US inspired the Ukrainian revolt
2. The EU/US employed Ukrainian Nazi groups to destroy a Russia-friendy regime
3. The EU/US has taken these actions to threaten the Russian Federation via destroying a sovereign Ukraine

The last is logically extneded, since you seem to claim that the EU/US seek to set up NATO in Crimea; if I misunderstand, please explain how Ukraine's interest in joining the EU (an economic alliance) is the same as an EU/US extension of NATO (a military alliance) into near-Russian territory.

You dont challenge the Kennedy/Cuba parallel so I'll take it as read you accept that particular point.

Your list: you would have to have been living in a cave for the past few weeks/months not to appreciate the power bloc from the West using internal political groups to pile pressure on the elected government of the Ukraine. EU and NATO: you have to be kidding if you dont recognise one as a stalking horse for the other. They have a strategic partnership with each other. Good grief!!

 

[SerenityNigh]

You dont challenge the Kennedy/Cuba parallel so I'll take it as read you accept that particular point.

Your list: you would have to have been living in a cave for the past few weeks/months not to appreciate the power bloc from the West using internal political groups to pile pressure on the elected government of the Ukraine. EU and NATO: you have to be kidding if you dont recognise one as a staking horse for the other. They have a strategic partnership with each other. Good grief!!

DaveK, I admire your style. Head up your arse, maybe, but I love your style.

 

[bluestevon]

Ukraine had an overwhelming pro-Russia government. That government had also politically imprisoned leading opposition leaders. Protests started from those who wanted closer ties to the EU and the end of corruption.

The protests culminated in the regime collapsing with the president fleeing to Russia. An interim government was set up, consisting of those with EU leaning desires.

Russia have got upset as they preferred a puppet state on their borders. They sense that Ukraine may fall to the EU. As such, they have annexed what they see as their rightful land/people, taking over a region called Crimea.

The Ukrainians see this as an invasion of their sovereign territory and are preparing for war. They cannot hope to actually fight Russia, and they'd need the backing of the EU/USA - however, there is no appetite whatsoever from the west to back them with any more than meaningless words and useless sanctions.

As such, the likelihood is that we have a standoff in the long term, where Russia control Crimea but Ukraine does not recognise their right to it. The Crimean border essentially becomes the new Berlin wall.

In part pretty accurate Tubey, the cause of the protests though is very very important

The protests broke out after President Yanukovych's government rejected a far-reaching accord with the European Union in November 2013 in favour of stronger ties with Russia. Thousands of people, outraged that a long-standing aspiration for integration with Europe had been ditched overnight, poured into central Kiev for peaceful protests. They have occupied Independence Square, known as Maidan, ever since.
Quoted from the BBC

As that trade agreement would pave the way for eventual inclusion into NATO - you can see why legitimately the Russian government wanted to stop it, it threatened to stop the hugely subsidized supply of natural gas to the Ukraine and eventually that plus other threatened trade sanction and restrictions forced the government into a U turn over the backing of the bill, the following protests where from Pro EU supporting Ukrainians, and also included most groups objecting to a pro Russian government - Including the far right wing groups.

The unelected government interestingly as you state includes those with EU leanings, I'd go further and state that it is a very anti russian government itself now, including all the parties who lost the democratic election last time out, and now hold power illegally to all intents and purposes

Making out that the protesters where objecting solely to corruption and EU integration is very biased though mate, and wrong, the situation is far far more layered than that.

The part of your post i do find curious though is stating that the Ukrainians see this as an invasion of their sovereign territory, i think that depends which Ukrainian your thinking of though mate, im pretty sure that those of the Crimea region thought that the current government had done the same by overthrowing the elected president to install a EU friendly one, the Russians entering the Crimea have been welcomed by the populace mate, the situation is far from black and white as the Western Media would lead us to believe

 

[magicjuan]

The western media lead us to believe.....

There is the crux of the matter, through the middle east to Ukraine, the interpretation and spin on events decides the perception of the public and therefore its willingness to accept war

 

[SerenityNigh]

Al Jazeera reports

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has told at least parts of the Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5 a.m. Tuesday (10 p.m. Monday Eastern time) or face a military assault, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry as saying.

Interfax said Moscow demanded that the crew of two Ukrainian warships immediately surrender or have their craft stormed and seized. The report cited Maksim Prauta, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman.

Four Russian navy ships in Sevastopol's harbor were blocking Ukraine's anti-submarine warship Ternopil and the command ship Slavutych, waiting for their answers, he said in the report.

"If they do not surrender before 5 a.m. tomorrow, a real assault will be started against units and divisions of the armed forces across Crimea," Interfax quoted the ministry source as saying.

The ultimatum, the agency said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander.

Where are the stabilization forces, freeing ethnic Russians from Neo-Nazi protestors?