European Politics

Be careful, the government is watching you! :eek:

That's a pretty scary situation. Any chance of Turkey being the next Ukraine/Egypt/Tunisia?
 
I doubt it. The people are too stupid, bigoted and brainwashed to react. The people who defend the government say stuff like "If it's corrupt, if our prime minister stole money, he did for the country's good." or "They might steal but they serve the country well." etc.

Erdoğan is going to win the next election easily. It won't even be close. I have no hopes for Turkey.
 
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There's probably a lot of space in Bulgaria and Romania now that most of their populations have moved to Western Europe to get jobs. It's probably just Ariana left in Bulgaria.
 
Not good

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Dozens of armed men seized the regional government headquarters and parliament on Ukraine's Crimea peninsula on Thursday and raised the Russian flag.

The door of the parliament was blockaded from inside by tables and chairs, according to a Reuters correspondent on the scene in Simferopol.


Interfax news agency quoted a witness as saying there were about 60 people inside and that they had many weapons. It said no one had been hurt when the buildings were seized early on Thursday.

"I heard gunfire in the night, came down and saw lots of people going in. Some then left. I'm not sure how many are still in there," a 30-year-old man who gave his name only as Roman told Reuters.

The seizure of the building was confirmed by the country's acting interior minister, Ukrainian television reported.

Crimea, the only Ukrainian region with an ethnic Russian majority, is the last bastion of opposition to the new political leadership in Kiev following Saturday's ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Ukraine's new leaders have been voicing alarm over signs of separatism there.
 
A new Crimean War on the steps? Certainly hope not. But why is the Crimean Peninsula (and the Russian naval base there) so strategically important to Russia? They have all access they want to the Black Sea anyway. I get that the population there is dominated by Russian-speaking people, but still - why would Russia want to destroy their relations with the rest of Europe over that piece of land?
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
They have all access they want to the Black Sea anyway.
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Not really, and that's the point. Sevastopol is the perfect naval base for them, and they don't have very many good Black Sea ports other than that. I don't pretend to know all the reasons why, but if you look at the Second World War for instance, Sevastopol was one of the last places to be captured by the Germans, and one of the last to be recaptured by the Soviets.
 
Crimea is very important. Sevastopol is one of the most important Black Sea ports, along with Batumi of Georgia, Varna of Bulgaria, Istanbul and Samsun of Turkey and Constanta of Romania. With both Odessa and Sevastopol belonging to Ukraine, Russia is the only country that lacks a major port from the countries that borders Black Sea. Russia tries very hard to turn Sochi into one of the major ports, there's a reason why they submitted a bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics with Sochi.
 
We may want to add Odessa and Istanbul to that list, but I completely agree with your assessment.
 
Perun said:
Not really, and that's the point. Sevastopol is the perfect naval base for them, and they don't have very many good Black Sea ports other than that. I don't pretend to know all the reasons why, but if you look at the Second World War for instance, Sevastopol was one of the last places to be captured by the Germans, and one of the last to be recaptured by the Soviets.
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Beyond it's importance as a port, I think you can look at the terrain and the there are only a few narrow passages onto the Crimea. It seems easy to defend in contrast to an open plain for example.
 
That, and if you look on the map, it is quite literally in the middle of the Black Sea.
 
Sebastopol is traditionally the base of the Black Sea Fleet, and it's one of Russia's largest military bases. Additionally, it's also the best place for them to fly strikes/missions out of towards Turkey and the Middle East, especially Syria. Losing the Sebastopol base would be equivalent to America losing their forward bases in Japan or Guam. Russia currently operates 5 oceangoing ships out of Sebastopol, plus a naval assault force, a submarine, and around 20 other ships. It's one of their Navy's primary aviation bases, too.

The Caucausus region doesn't have many great ports, and certainly not naval fleet quality ones. If Russia's going to continue to project naval power into the Mediterranean it needs the Black Sea Fleet - and this could deny it to them. It also couldn't. Who knows.
 
The thing with Sevastopol is and has always been that it's open all year round. The Russians are not generally blessed with such a port.
 
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