Understanding Euromaidan

[Darren Dirt]

The spectacle of Russia swallowing pieces of a neighboring country while claiming to defend its people would make George Orwell grimace with recognition ... In this twilight zone of make-believe, Russian troops invade after removing the insignias from their uniforms and Putin explains, "You can go to a store and buy a uniform," claiming they are local "self-defense forces."

I like one of the comments: "I'm guessing this means he would be fine with independence votes in his Caucus republics, right? He would respect those votes? How about the Chinese moving to protect those of Chinese ethic origin in the Russian far east?"

[Mr. Analog]

Ukrainian soldiers serving in Crimea have been authorized to use their weapons to defend themselves, according to the acting Ukrainian president's press service.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukrainian-soldiers-authorized-to-use-weapons-by-acting-president-1.2577236

The stage is set, the actors in place, it begins.

[Darren Dirt]

@%&#.
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/445965896498946048

^ and that tweet ain't just the fearmongering from some random blogger, hell no: http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer/2014/03/13/who-loses-most-in-ukraine/

[Darren Dirt]

heard around the world?

Ukraine's military says an officer has been killed in an attack on a base in Crimea, the first such death since pro-Russia forces took control in February.

Ukraine has now authorised its troops to fire in self defence.

The attack came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Crimea signed a bill to absorb the peninsula into Russia.


...The Ukrainian government said the commander of the unit was captured by men wearing Russian uniforms.

Defence ministry spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov told Reuters the attack was by "unknown forces, fully equipped and their faces covered".

The Ukrainians had had their IDs, weapons and money confiscated, he said.


[sadly, nicely and accurately summed up, UK Prime Minister David Cameron!] "Russia used force to change borders on the basis of a sham referendum held at the barrel of a Russian gun"

[Darren Dirt]

So looks like the media is doing a hindsight analysis of the annexation of Crimea as a done-deal. e.g. calling it "the smoothest invasion of modern times. It was over before the outside world realised it had even started" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26644082

[Tom]

If you want some extra background from what seems like a credible source read:

http://www.moderntokyotimes.com/2014/03/19/useu-most-responsible-for-crisis-in-ukraine-crimean-people-have-spoken/

[Darren Dirt]

EXCELLENT find, Tom!

I learned a lot of stuff not twisted by western interests nor Russian bias. Mainly that the way Kosovo* was dealt with by everyone makes the majority of westerner's objections logically inconsistent and void. And also opens the door for Kurds and Albertans to break off on their own...


*even Wikipedia hasn't "memory hole"d that part of very relevant history -- http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Kosovo_declaration_of_independence

[Darren Dirt]

If you want some extra background from what seems like a credible source read:

http://www.moderntokyotimes.com/2014/03/19/useu-most-responsible-for-crisis-in-ukraine-crimean-people-have-spoken/

I am hoping the aforementioned excellent article's author ain't acquired any American assets.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/march/14/against-ukraine-war-obama-may-seize-your-assets.aspx




PS: leave it to the Muppets to accidentally comment on the current global political situation:
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-muppets-steal-crimea/25303894.html

[Thorin]

Kosovo was not handled the same way as Crimea.  Kosovo had freedom fighters / terrorists fighting for independence from any country.  Crimea had foreign troops pretending to be locals getting ready to fight for switching which country they were dependent on.  If the Crimeans had said, "Ukraine, get out, Russia, get out, we want to be our own state", and then in return the Ukrainian troops had started killing Russians and Tatars in Crimea, then it would've been similar to Kosovo.

Ukraine was slowly working towards EU and NATO membership, but with Russia annexing Crimea and giving veiled threats about doing the same to eastern Ukraine, that has been stopped.  The next question is what Putin intends to do to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all of whom are NATO members.  If he attacks them in any way, NATO is required to respond to defend them.  At the same time, Putin has stated that he needs to defend Russia from the military pact of NATO , that he needs to keep NATO away from Russia's doorstep.  Well, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia border directly on Russia, so NATO is already on Russia's doorstep.

More than anything, I think Putin's decision to annex Crimea has to do with the military importance of the Black Sea Fleet port at Sevastopol and the multiple oil and gas fields found in this area (Russian special forces landed at a gas plant in Strilkove, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, which is not part of Crimea although it's very close).  Putin is working hard at creating a Fortress Russia, where the country becomes completely self-sufficient with energy, production, and agriculture again.

[Tom]

Crimea/Ukraine also had serious outside meddling.

The EU agreement seems to have been untennable, and not actually possible for ukraine to implement. It would have cost them more than their GDP to do so, when they are already in massive debt.

I understand now why the sudden about face from the EU deal to take Russia's deal. I don't think it should have been done so secretly or suddenly, but I understand the reasoning. Take a deal on gas, and billions in direct aid, or wait (possibly) decades for the EU to get around to approving your entrance into the EU, while they mandate you REDO your entire rail infrastructure and change various laws to be more EU friendly (like the EU is trying to do to canada in various trade deals).

Taking the EU deal as it is described in the article I posted would have been a major mistake.

The meddling from the US is just... wow. The US is essentially directly responsible for the bloody mess of maidan. They helped a violent racist nationalist party gain traction, and then grab actual power. The first thing they do when they get in office after booting the democratically elected president out? Revoke a law making Russian an official language. Second thing they "do" is not implement an agreement the country made that the maidan group agreed to. Go figure.

The US has done that before, in several other countries. Meddle and try and get some kind of benefit out of the situation regardless of the consequences.

Makes me angry.

[Darren Dirt]

Above truths and stuff been reading this weeks makes me partly hoping that some Deep Impact or financial megacrash or whatever other @%&# DOES happen tomorrow... then maybe sleeping narcicistic apathetics might wake the hell up about how disconnected and adversarial everybody and everything has gotten over the past quarter century or so. And unite in a way never seen before in decadesm Just without globalist/state control orchestrating it all, instead may we see a true grassroots humanity-healing change come forth.



#soundingLikeAnOldMan #but@%&#ItWhoCares

[Mr. Analog]

Somebody's got a case of the Malaise

[Thorin]

That article you posted completely missed the previous statements that Yanukovych and his friends absconded with billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian hryvna out of the Ukrainian Treasury.  That is, Yanukovych was having the government fork over money to him and his friends to go on trips, to build houses (palaces), to buy things that aren't even listed on an invoice, etc.  The estimate was approximately $15 billion dollars worth of graft.

Euromaidan started because the people of Ukraine had had enough with government corruption and graft, as they saw their tax money disappear while their country fell into disrepair.  They blamed this entirely on Yanukovych and his modelling himself on the leaders of Russia (not just Putin, but also the rich oligarchs at the top).  When it first started, one of the chants was "no more corruption".  It is believed now that Euromaidan was eventually infiltrated by multiple groups with their own agendas, including Svoboda (an extreme right party), Spetsnaz (some are suggesting the snipers were Spetsnaz), CIA (some are suggesting the CIA paid locals to try and cause riots), and even plain-clothes Burket (the riot police, who were itching to beat down rioters but needed the rioters to start it).

As for Crimea, as much as Putin claims it was the people who rose up and decided to switch to his country, the fact of the matter is that first Russian troops suddenly appeared across all of the region, and only then was there suddenly a hue and cry for the region to join Russia.  This is similar to the trouble in Georgia, with Russia militarily backing separatists in the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions back in 2008 (and actually for a decade before that).  That also led to Russia sending troops in and eventually annexing a region or two from another sovereign state under the guise of "protecting its citizens".  Even though they only became Russian citizens after the invasion and annexation was complete.

[Tom]

I do think the article left out a few points, but the US has clearly been meddling again. and it continues to piss me off

Not to say that Russia's meddling doesn't also piss me off.... They had turned off radio and tv stations in Crimea for not toting the official russian line. Interfering with stations from across the crimean border, and there were rumors that Cell and Internet services may get turned off (I heard this directly from someone in Ukraine). At one point it was hard to get any information in Crimea that wasn't directly out of Moscow (or twitter! ).

[Darren Dirt]

That article you posted completely missed the previous statements that Yanukovych and his friends absconded with billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian hryvna out of the Ukrainian Treasury.  That is, Yanukovych was having the government fork over money to him and his friends to go on trips, to build houses (palaces), to buy things that aren't even listed on an invoice, etc.  The estimate was approximately $15 billion dollars worth of graft.

Euromaidan started because the people of Ukraine had had enough with government corruption and graft, as they saw their tax money disappear while their country fell into disrepair.  They blamed this entirely on Yanukovych and his modelling himself on the leaders of Russia (not just Putin, but also the rich oligarchs at the top).  When it first started, one of the chants was "no more corruption".

^ yeah!


But...

It is believed now that Euromaidan was eventually infiltrated by multiple groups with their own agendas, including Svoboda (an extreme right party), Spetsnaz (some are suggesting the snipers were Spetsnaz), CIA (some are suggesting the CIA paid locals to try and cause riots), and even plain-clothes Burket (the riot police, who were itching to beat down rioters but needed the rioters to start it).