Russia invades Ukraine

[Mr. Analog]

The sad thing is I can believe it, I remember thinking back in spring that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a full scale invasion happened in the summer, and now it has

[Darren Dirt]

The 24-hours-a-day media industry likes to jump on anything that hints at anything, and often amplify a rumor into a fact.

At the present time is it a definite fact, or just a "things are looking that way"?

Because a lot of the comments here (for example) say the "evidence*" is less than crystal clear....
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-crisis-russian-tanks-enter-ukraine-fire-missiles-at-border-post-1.2749066


PsyOps: the cheapest way to battle your enemy! (let the media do the fearmongering for you!)  

(hopefully that's all this is... at the present time)




*evidence claimed by NATO, found @ http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/photos_112112.htm

Heck, even CNN is asking questions instead of reporting factual news:
"Is Russia opening up a new front in Ukraine?" (Youtube)


And even if kinda-factual...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Russian-troops-have-invaded-our-country-Ukrainian-President-Petro-Poroshenko-says/articleshow/41110936.cms
^ "voluntarily and not on Moscow's orders" ^ is a lot different than "Putin is moving in and taking over more of Ukraine". Thankfully.

[Mr. Analog]

I've seen some comments questioning this as well when the news first broke, but the sources indicating non-involvement are Russian propaganda sites, I've also seen a lot of pro-Russia propaganda pop up in forums leading up to yesterday, users who say nearly the same thing and don't have long comment histories. Now there are a lot more sources covering it as it happens. Also, I kind of like to think of outright invasion as something beyond "slow news day so fan the flames" it's been an ongoing action this summer with civilian casualties already.

More articles (with pictures):

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28961080

http://news.yahoo.com/kiev-reports-movement-tanks-heavy-weapons-russia-105057667.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11062196/Markets-take-fright-as-Russian-tanks-roll-into-Ukraine.html

[Thorin]

I've been following the Ukrainian crisis since I first learned about the Euromaidan through the Lowetide.ca hockey blog.

The first thing I'll say that I've noticed is that there are clearly people being paid by the Russian government to post comments on various websites absolutely smearing the Ukrainian government.  Not only do I see hundreds and thousands of posts with the same talking points, but there was an email leaked from within the Russian government showing the pay structure people would get for posting these comments.

Secondly, when Russia invaded the Crimean portion of Ukraine all of the Russians were insisting they had no hand in it, that it was all local volunteers.  Until annexation was complete and secure, at which Putin admitted on Russian state television that, "of course we had Russian soldiers standing behind the volunteers to help keep the peace".

So, because of the former I tend to believe Western news agencies more than Russian ones, and because of the latter I believe that Russia already had soldiers in the eastern portion of Ukraine months ago.

Keep in mind that these "self-organized local volunteers" in eastern Ukraine have (had?) Russian leaders (the self-proclaimed president, top commanders in the rebel armies are Russian nationals which even Russia has admitted), have highly sophisticated military weaponry at their disposal, and somehow appear to have magically learned how to accurately target it.

Recent indications that Russia has indeed invaded and is siding with the rebels:
* border guards have been forced to flee their posts due to attacks from the Russian side of the border - for instance the helicopter attacks that were reported by Reuters a couple of days ago
* well-trained Russian soldiers claim to have "stumbled into Ukraine by accident"; these were paratroopers so not your run of the mill infantry grunt, and they were not a few meters across the border, they were 20km+ across the border when they were caught
* aid convoy crossed the border with partially-filled trucks that they let reporters look into beforehand, then returned "empty" but refused to let reporters look again
* the new Ukrainian rebel leader claims 3,000+ Russian troops have fought on his side
* the Russian presidential human rights council has said 100 troops have died helping rebels fight Ukrainian troops

Especially that last one, that's a piece of the Russian government that is very close to Putin, so he knows what they're going to say and when, and he's allowing them to say it so that on Russian state television he can continue to villify Ukraine's government as "monsters" and "barbarians" who kill good Russian boys when they're just trying to help non-Russian Russians (that is people of Russian ancestry that have been living in Ukraine all their life).

Heck, even CNN is asking questions instead of reporting factual news:
"Is Russia opening up a new front in Ukraine?" (Youtube)

Don't know where you've been the last ten or fifteen years, but CNN has been asking questions instead of reporting factual news for ages.  To the point where Jon Stewart has stopped making fun of them for it because it's older than his Dubya jokes.

[Tom]

"voluntarily and not on Moscow's orders" ^ is a lot different than "Putin is moving in and taking over more of Ukraine". Thankfully.

Not with putin. If it's allowed without his fist coming down hard, its implicit support. Heck, maybe he /suggested/ it to a few military guys, or it was suggested to him, then things filtered down, and he's just not stopping it. Same diff if you ask me.

[Thorin]

Russia will claim that these soldiers are "volunteering" because it gives President Putin a chance to back out and save face if things go wrong.

When the appear-to-be-paid-Russian-shills started posting about Ukraine's government being fascist (funny how they all started doing it at the same time, eh), I went back and re-read what Fascism really is.  Basically, it's state-centered authoritarian government that is willing and able to sacrifice any of its citizens to further the ambitions of said government.  This describes Russia's current government pretty well, doesn't it?

I also remember when the shills started going on about how the US invaded Iraq and how come they're allowed to do that but the world isn't okay with Russia annexing Crimea.  There's a key difference here, though - the US made a public statement that if X didn't happen by Y, then their military would roll in.  This made it abundantly clear that they would be invading.  Russia, on the other hand, quietly told their soldiers to mask or remove all identifying marks, to take over all positions of strength, and to claim it was local volunteers who did it.

That difference, to me, is like standing in front of a person with a knife and telling them you're going to stab them if they don't back off, vs sneaking up behind them and stabbing them between the ribs, then claiming their wife did it.

[Darren Dirt]

Черт возьми, плохая новость для моей perogy изобретать родине ...

[Mr. Analog]

That's for sure...

[Lazybones]

At the same time they are working on that whole antarctic claim

[Thorin]

And there's subs under the ice within Canada's sovereign claim in the north

[Tom]

The US, and some european country is staking claims up there too. It pisses me off. It's been ours for a long time.

[Thorin]

So here's an account that I would hold beyond reproach - the mothers of the soldiers who are "not in Ukraine", or if they are then "volunteered":

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/28/russian-moms-denounce-putin-s-not-so-secret-ukraine-invasion.html

Read that article carefully.  Russia has a draft, not a volunteer army.  The drafted soldiers are being forced to fight in Ukraine.  The drafted soldiers are being forced to sign papers saying they're volunteering.  The mothers of the soldiers are part of a giant organization, and that organization has counted and figures there's 10,000 Russian troops in Ukraine.  Meanwhile, Russia's government is still denying that they have any troops in Ukraine.

As for the north, Denmark (via Greenland) and Norway have territories in the Arctic circle.  Canada and Russia have the two biggest claims, then I think it's the US and then Denmark?  I'd have to fact-check that.

[Tom]

Some articles:

"U.S. official says 1,000 Russian troops have entered Ukraine"
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html

Though the U.S. (and canada for that matter) have been a little one sided...

http://usnato.tumblr.com/post/96003086125/new-satellite-imagery-exposes-russian-combat-troops

https://twitter.com/CanadaNATO/status/504651534198927361

Geography can be tough. Here?s a guide for Russian soldiers who keep getting lost & ?accidentally? entering #Ukraine

[Thorin]

How many other countries can you name on that map?

[Mr. Analog]

Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany and Finland?