European Politics

The Iran deal was delusional IMO, but I would agree the Red Line is the biggest driver in Putin's thinking. What can stop Russia is money (or lack there of), the question is, will the EU turn off the spigot on Russian exports (including gas)
 
Ukrainian navy chief Denys Berezovsky has apparently pledged allegiance to the "Crimean people". I have no idea what they're saying in this video but apparently that's what happening:


Yikes!
 
Kerry:
You just don't in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext...
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Hmmm... this stance could prove problematic, given the West's recent history of military action in foreign lands.

From the BBC Live Text:
The unrecognised Prime Minister of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, says he is ordering all Ukrainian navy servicemen in Sevastopol to ignore orders coming from "the self-declared agencies and officials in Ukraine, including the illegally appointed Defence Minister Tenyukh".
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So, the unelected talking about the unelected. Complicated.
 
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Well Kerry wasn't part of the Republican administration that invaded Iraq but I agree. WMDs, no "smoking gun" etc. Remember Tony Blair's "sexed-up dossier"? ::)
 
Zare said:
This thread here

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forum...on-in-the-Ukraine-Crimea-*Photos-Videos*-ONLY

contains material from the day 1, from Kiev to Sevastopol. This kind of footage explains the situation on the ground way better than paranoia Cold War rhetoric being tossed in last few days.
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I fail to see how a 55 page thread (proclaiming to be photos only) from another forum, posted here, "explains" anything, to be honest. Interesting images all the same. I do agree much of the current coverage is rhetoric though.
 
It explains how real things are there, and how little our smartarsery here is worth.
 
They didn't want foreign nations to intervene in Syria. Now they say they want to "protect" their citizens in Ukraine (I put in the brackets because this necessity can be debated).
 
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The protect part is what I find silliest tbh. If there were still massive internal riots and a very real threat to lives, it carries a little more credibility but still doesn't sit right. But it is essentially saying "protect them from the new government, we don't like it", which isn't their decision to make really.

When I visited the tank museum at Bovington last year they did a cold war demonstration, and part of it was stressing that whilst the west had better advancements in vehicles/technology etc, Russia more than made up for it in numbers. Now if a worst case scenario (god forbid) came up and there was a very real war with Russia... there's been a lot of trade back and forth, a lot of sharing, this difference in tech level is no longer there whilst the numbers still is. This shouldn't be anything that actually needs thinking of, as I would certainly hope it never came to that scale, just something that I pondered. Wars are of course fought very differently these days in general though.
 
I don't think any person in the world honestly believes Putin's concern is to protect the Russians on Crimea. I would still like to stress that there may be completely intelligent, affable and reasonable Crimean Russians who would like to be independent of the Ukraine.
 
Certainly, it cannot also be assumed that the Russians in Crimea, Ukraine, or any of the former USSR states want to be part of Russia again either. Having an ethnic population within another countries borders does not convey a right to use your military within another country
 
But how can Western powers hold any moral authority here, when they've engaged in the very same practise (& recently too)? This Western rhetoric doesn't sit comfortably with me, even when I agree with the sentiments.
 
I guess the Western leaders could argue that they've helped to overthrow illegitimate and undemocratic regimes while the Russians are threatening to oust a government that doesn't pander to Moscow like Putin wants it to. The legitimacy of the Ukrainian government is, however, questionable because Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president in internationally approved elections but then again he was responsible for the police and army shooting unarmed protesters and he ran away. The Ukrainian parliament believed they have the power to impeach him and remove him as president but Yanukovych believes the opposite.
 
Just watched the news, nothing extra really came up. I wasn't aware that the trenches you mentioned were on the main Ukraine/Russia border though - I thought they were between Crimea/Ukraine... if they're preparing over there then that adds a bit. Russian troops have surrounded and barricaded Ukrainian troops within a military base in Crimea and apparently cut the power to it, Russian military is being mobilized en masse.

One good thing is that supposedly a 'contact group' is being setup between Russia and the west with a view to resolve it, so at least that's something underway. Many comparisons being drawn to Georgia too.
 
maass-iraq-anniversary.jpg
 
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