Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Syt]

Well, currently it looks like this is all academic, anyways, because while Russia's henchmen gain control of the Donetsk region, Ukrainians fumble around aimlessly and let deadline after deadline pass without backing up their words. Just don't set deadlines if you can't or won't enforce them.

[Valmy]

President Putin's Constructive Approach

Against this backdrop of a full frontal subversive attack on Russia and Eastern Europe by the US/NATO/CIA we have President Vladimir Putin trying to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation and deal with the Machiavellian assault being waged directly against Russia and the world.

Russia's principled, peaceful and diplomatic approach in Syria and the rest of the world is being echoed in and around Ukraine and even though he has the full authority, the moral right and the upper hand to carry out a western style shock and awe cowboy military intervention in Ukraine to protect a country full of Russians and Russian speakers, President Putin does not.

On April 10th President Putin wrote a letter to 18 European leaders whose countries are dependent on Russian natural gas (one which was intercepted by the NSA/FVEY and even immediately responded to by the US State Department).

In the letter (the full text which is available on the Kremlin website) President Putin: points to the worsening economic situation in Ukraine; reiterates the fact that Ukraine's main trading partners are Russia and EU countries; underlines that all Russian attempts which include the participation of Ukraine are being sidelined by the West; derides western attempts to blame Russia for Ukraine's economic crisis amid calls to lower gas prices which were already at ridiculously low levels; lists the huge discounts that Ukraine has been receiving and the fact that Russia has maintained its contractual obligations under gas agreements from day one; reiterates that Russia has subsidized the government and economy of Ukraine for decades including the December 2013 loan of 3 billion US dollars and that Ukraine's real gas debt to Russia is now at $35.4 billion; blasts the EU for not offering Ukraine real support while using it as "... a source of raw foodstuffs, metal and mineral resources, and at the same time, as a market for selling its highly-processed ready-made commodities (machine engineering and chemicals), thereby creating a deficit";and the fact even though Ukraine continued to enjoy huge gas discounts in March they refuse to pay a single dime. All of these issues and the recent statements by "officials" in Kiev that they have no intention to pay Russia for gas was recently described by the president as intolerable.

Further President Putin details some of the measures that Russia will be forced to take as continuously supplying a recalcitrant Ukraine with billions of dollars of free gas is a condition that cannot go on much longer and that these conditions will affect the delivery of gas to Europe as there exists the very real threat that Ukraine (as it has done in the past) will begin siphoning off gas that is in transit through the Ukrainian section of the gas pipeline.

Finally the President very diplomatically underlines the fact that Russia's European partners have: "... unilaterally withdrawn from the concerted efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and even from holding consultations with the Russian side, leaves Russia no alternative",yet Russia is: "... prepared to participate in the effort to stabilize and restore Ukraine's economy. However, not in a unilateral way, but on equal conditions with our European partner."

Huh?  His peaceful and constructive approach is...give free gas to the Ukraine but not do so?  I don't get it.

[Syt]

Huh?  His peaceful and constructive approach is...give free gas to the Ukraine but not do so?  I don't get it.

What's even weirder is this:
On April 10th President Putin wrote a letter to 18 European leaders whose countries are dependent on Russian natural gas (one which was intercepted by the NSA/FVEY and even immediately responded to by the US State Department).

That letter was publicly posted by the Kremlin.

[Neil]

The Ukraine is in an unenviable position.  They have to do something for political reasons, but if they follow through, the Russians will attack.  So they just keep issuing empty deadlines.

Still, all those empty deadlines and nonsense shows one thing:  The Ukraine is definitely ready to join the EU.

[Jacob]

Oil wealth or no oil wealth, they're still heavily reliant on Soviet methodology, their first echelon units are few and far between, and geographically the Ukraine is not the phone booth that Georgia was.  40,000 cossacks arent going to be able to get the job done.

You people are talking like it's 1983 all over again.  The Russian bear has no real teeth.

That may be true, but if Ukraine turns out to be milk-soaked white bread then the lack of teeth may not be an issue.

[Valmy]

http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_04_13/US-client-states-lock-step-on-fascist-coup-in-Ukraine-Putin-forced-to-seek-resolution-4630/

As a former US citizen whose citizenship was stripped for supporting Russia and protesting US illegality

LOL sure you are.  These Russian guys just cannot help themselves but go full retard.

[mongers]

I still want to know, who in the EU thought it would be a good foreign policy adventure to try and wrestle Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence ?


Wouldn't it have been wiser to try and mend the Europeon home first, fix the leaking roof (Spain), sort out the plumbing (Italy), see to the waste pipe in the toilet (Greece) ?

[Queequeg]

Oil wealth or no oil wealth, they're still heavily reliant on Soviet methodology, their first echelon units are few and far between, and geographically the Ukraine is not the phone booth that Georgia was.  40,000 cossacks arent going to be able to get the job done.

You people are talking like it's 1983 all over again.  The Russian bear has no real teeth.

1) Georgia is in the Caucasus and they couldn't do shit on defense. Eastern Ukraine was the site of the greatest tank battles of all time because it is basically Iowa or Kansas.
2) Georgia's military was more competent.
3) Georgia's military didn't have officers and men in the pay of the Kremlin.
4) Georgia's government was more competent and not going through a messy revolution.
5) Georgia did not have massively powerful independent oligarchs. Saakashvili had real power. Putin can write out a check for Rinat Akhmetov. Ukraine's elite are 90s Subsaharan Africa level crooks.
6) Georgia still got their ass completely handed to them.
7) Western assistance didn't materialize.
8) Russia's military has been invested in substantially since 2008, while Ukraine's is far more Soviet.

Kiev falls in weeks if Russia pushes. Less.

[Valmy]

I don't know man.  The Western Ukraine is pretty desperate and despises Russia so much.  Look at all the horrible shit that went down in the Russian Civil War and World War II.  Wouldn't there be some sort of insurgency and wouldn't things descend into a long protracted hell should the Russian Army roll in?  On the other hand if the Russians just take the Eastern part and stop, creating an overwhelmingly anti-Russian Ukrainian rump state (sort of like what happened in Georgia)...well that might not be the worst thing in the world.

[Queequeg]

Lviv is different, geographically and culturally. The Carpathians are the most obvious site for potential anti-Russian insurgency but Rusyns aren't reflexively hostile to Moscow in the same way.

Kiev is different. It is close to the border. Chernihiv-Kyiv isn't an odyssey.

[PJL]

Oil wealth or no oil wealth, they're still heavily reliant on Soviet methodology, their first echelon units are few and far between, and geographically the Ukraine is not the phone booth that Georgia was.  40,000 cossacks arent going to be able to get the job done.

You people are talking like it's 1983 all over again.  The Russian bear has no real teeth.

Depending on how much of the country is effectively ambivalent and even preferring Russia to the Ukraine, I would disagree. Certainly the Donbas region is effectively Russian now. The only question is whether they just go to Odessa & Transdinistra or attempt the whole annexation of Ukraine.

[CountDeMoney]

The only thing less surprising than all the usual Languish pro-Russian cocksuckery is the typical Euro-racism against Ukrainians.

I hope you all wake up with a Turk in your bed, buttfucking you Jose Ferrer-style.

[Queequeg]

We could hypothetically be looking at simultaneous attacks from Crimea, Transnistria, Belarus and an already compromised Belarus. It wouldn't take Rokossovsky or Zhukov.

[Syt]

Lviv is different, geographically and culturally. The Carpathians are the most obvious site for potential anti-Russian insurgency but Rusyns aren't reflexively hostile to Moscow in the same way.

Kiev is different. It is close to the border. Chernihiv-Kyiv isn't an odyssey.

I don't think Putin would go that far West. His schtick is to "protect Russians", and there's not many of them over there, so he'd have even less legitimacy. And as was noted, a force of 40,000 (plus possibly 25,000 in Crimea) isn't anywhere near enough to occupy the whole country. I'm guessing he's going for Donetsk/Lugansk/Kharkiv, minimum, up to Odessa/Transnistria maximum.

[Valmy]

Lviv is different, geographically and culturally. The Carpathians are the most obvious site for potential anti-Russian insurgency but Rusyns aren't reflexively hostile to Moscow in the same way.

Kiev is different. It is close to the border. Chernihiv-Kyiv isn't an odyssey.

It just boggles my mind the Ukrainians would be eager to join (and not resist at all) the country responsible, on multiple occasions, with the systematic massacre of their people.  I don't buy it.  People are hardcore in that part of the world, the Russians will have to mass murder again if they want to take the Ukraine.