Riots in Ukraine

[Bruce Wayne]

All messy isn't it. We've seen with similar 'uprisings' around the world that they often see worse regimes than the ones that were replaced. There's a nice feature in this weeks Economist looking at how bad a period it's been for democracy recently

http://www.economist.com/news/essay...ury-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-do

The progress seen in the late 20th century has stalled in the 21st. Even though around 40% of the world’s population, more people than ever before, live in countries that will hold free and fair elections this year, democracy’s global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone into reverse. Freedom House reckons that 2013 was the eighth consecutive year in which global freedom declined, and that its forward march peaked around the beginning of the century.

 

[TheFinnFan]

Im starting to prep in case of ruskie invasion.

 

[mezzrow]

Im starting to prep in case of ruskie invasion.

They'll have their hands full with this, Finners. Plus, they still remember how you lot kicked their behinds seventy-odd years ago, lid. We live in interesting times. (sigh)

All the best to our friends in Ukraine.

 

[bluestevon]

What do Ukranians actually want?

I know very little about the political situation

Will the populace at large be happy that Russia has sent troops in?

Long story short mikey, a very large amount of ukranians have russian connections, a large amount of the countries income comes via the transporting of russian trade to the west, oil and gas mainly through the pipelines the russians put in, the troops your seeing on the news at rilling atound in trucks and apc's where already in ukraine as part of the agreements made at the dissolution of the soviet union which allowed the russians to maintain a presence within the country to secure its interests - naval bases etc.

Curious little fact is that the ukrainians get hugely subsidised natural gas and oils on par with what russians pay for that, its about 5-10% of the cost over here, my gas bill for example in russia is set at a monthly rate of i think £10 or so

As for the ukranian people, in the last election they rejected the pro european parties in favour of the pro russian ones, by quite a margin too, what the pro EU parties really want is to have their cake and eat it, be admitted to the EU, whilst maintaining all the connections and ties to russia, thus putting the ukraine in the position of being the gateway country for trade with russia.

 

[bluestevon]

They'll have their hands full with this, Finners. Plus, they still remember how you lot kicked their behinds seventy-odd years ago, lid. We live in interesting times. (sigh)

All the best to our friends in Ukraine.

The fins lost the winter war vs russia mate, brave fight by them but in tge end they ended up ceding more territory and to more demands than russia actually wanted pre invasion, its a myth they won, they signed a pretty humiliating treaty to avoid complete defeat actually

 

[peteblue]

Looks like Russia has got the Crimea back again, which is fair enough.......it might just all settle down now.......

 

[mezzrow]

The fins lost the winter war vs russia mate, brave fight by them but in tge end they ended up ceding more territory and to more demands than russia actually wanted pre invasion, its a myth they won, they signed a pretty humiliating treaty to avoid complete defeat actually

Every word of yours is true. No one would claim the Finns won the winter war.

That said, few would claim that the victory was less than Pyrrhic in nature, for the effort it took for the Russians to prevail. For a mere few million people, the Finns drained a lot of blood out of the Russians before the Germans ever invaded. There are almost four times as many people in Florida as there are in Finland, mate. Talk about punching above your weight...

 

[bluestevon]

Every word of yours is true. No one would claim the Finns won the winter war.

That said, few would claim that the victory was less than Pyrrhic in nature, for the effort it took for the Russians to prevail. For a mere few million people, the Finns drained a lot of blood out of the Russians before the Germans ever invaded. There are almost four times as many people in Florida as there are in Finland, mate. Talk about punching above your weight...

Oh i agree mate, if anything the winter war highlighed the insanity of stalin as prior to it hed purged the army, basicslly removing everyone with military nous and experience, the term lions lead by donkeys could easily have been applied to the russian people too tbh.

Finland was utterly screwed due to its location though, caught between two impossible choices

 

[Billy Dean]

Long story short mikey, a very large amount of ukranians have russian connections, a large amount of the countries income comes via the transporting of russian trade to the west, oil and gas mainly through the pipelines the russians put in, the troops your seeing on the news at rilling atound in trucks and apc's where already in ukraine as part of the agreements made at the dissolution of the soviet union which allowed the russians to maintain a presence within the country to secure its interests - naval bases etc.

Curious little fact is that the ukrainians get hugely subsidised natural gas and oils on par with what russians pay for that, its about 5-10% of the cost over here, my gas bill for example in russia is set at a monthly rate of i think £10 or so

As for the ukranian people, in the last election they rejected the pro european parties in favour of the pro russian ones, by quite a margin too, what the pro EU parties really want is to have their cake and eat it, be admitted to the EU, whilst maintaining all the connections and ties to russia, thus putting the ukraine in the position of being the gateway country for trade with russia.

do you think there's also an element of US/EU meddling in order to punish Russia for its stance on Syria?

 

[bluemangroup]

do you think there's also an element of US/EU meddling in order to punish Russia for its stance on Syria?

I think you need to get over there and bridge the divide between all parties. I think it counts as freelance diplomacy which would look good for your international relations course.

 

[TheFinnFan]

@davek n lads

I suggest you google Sudetenland and read what Nazis once did. Youll understand what ruskies are doing now.

 

[Billy Dean]

I think you need to get over there and bridge the divide between all parties. I think it counts as freelance diplomacy which would look good for your international relations course.

thanks for the advice mate, I'll do that

 

[bluemangroup]

thanks for the advice mate, I'll do that

I'd completely ignore me if you have any sense mate.

 

[Billy Dean]

I'd completely ignore me if you have any sense.

Oh, ok, I will then. Thanks for the warning, I was already preparing to get out there.

 

[tsubaki]

@davek n lads

I suggest you google Sudetenland and read what Nazis once did. Youll understand what ruskies are doing now.

Perhaps, though it all depends on how far Russia ends up going into Ukraine.

If they stop at Crimea and parts of the east then it will probably backfire on them - all they will have ended up doing is leaving the rest of the Ukraine as much more anti-Russian than it had been, with a much greater likelyhood of going into an alliance with the West / NATO / EU - and (which is what separates this from the Georgian situation) Ukraine is a lot easier for NATO to get to and reinforce than Georgia was.

On the other hand, if they take over the whole country then the chances of this going seriously wrong are massive, especially as there will almost certainly be considerable and violent resistance to them doing so.