Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Tamas]

No way Putin will invade.  He'll just continue doing sneaky KGB stuff to Ukraine.

*cough*

I wasn't thinking much about Crimea, but yeah I was wrong.  Crazy series of events.

It's looking like I was wrong too, when I said this is just a power play and Russian forces will withdraw.

It still boggles my mind "why" though.  Putin *just* finished the Sochi games, trying to open Russia to the world.  The games actually came off very well.  BUt now all that good will is gone, and likely more.  Even if Russia is only kicked out of the G8, that's got to be a blow.

And all over what - the Crimean Penninsula?  This has surely meant Russia has lost most of it's influence over the rest of Ukraine.

the Olympics was to steal insane amount of tax money legally.

[Tamas]

Russian guy in the UN claims they sent in troops due to the request of Yanukovich: for me this seems to prove that they are in the business of going after the entire country.

[The Larch]

I read somewhere this morning that the new Ukranian government was passing a bunch of unsavory bills during the last few days, amongst them one banning the use of minority languages in Ukraine (mostly Russian, but also Romanian, Hungarian and Greek). Is there a grain of truth to it or is is scare mongering about the "real face" of the new government?

[Barrister]

I read somewhere this morning that the new Ukranian government was passing a bunch of unsavory bills during the last few days, amongst them one banning the use of minority languages in Ukraine (mostly Russian, but also Romanian, Hungarian and Greek). Is there a grain of truth to it or is is scare mongering about the "real face" of the new government?

I dunno - what I've been reading is that they're trying to reach out to the eastern parts of the country precisely to prevent it from splitting up.

[The Brain]

I read somewhere this morning that the new Ukranian government was passing a bunch of unsavory bills during the last few days, amongst them one banning the use of minority languages in Ukraine (mostly Russian, but also Romanian, Hungarian and Greek). Is there a grain of truth to it or is is scare mongering about the "real face" of the new government?

Who wouldn't ban those languages?

[Malthus]

I read somewhere this morning that the new Ukranian government was passing a bunch of unsavory bills during the last few days, amongst them one banning the use of minority languages in Ukraine (mostly Russian, but also Romanian, Hungarian and Greek). Is there a grain of truth to it or is is scare mongering about the "real face" of the new government?

Not exactly ... the situation is that the default official language is Ukranian, but the previous gov't passed legislation allowing different cities to make other languages "official languages" if the percentage of pop. in those places of those speaking them were over a certain %. Many places did so, mostly Russian-speaking places, but also Hungarian.

The new government somewhat reflexively repealed the laws passed by the ousted guy, but the interim leader vetoed the repeal of this particular one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislation_on_languages_in_Ukraine

Note that this has to do with "official language" status, and in no way to do with "banning the use" of a language, which was never on the cards (and is of course a very different thing). That is a pure Russian propaganda distortion.

[Ed Anger]

I was amused by Gazprom's statement today:

Europe will become even more dependent on Gazprom's gas supplies in years to come, the Russian state company said Monday, despite calls for sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

With its stock down more than 13 percent amid market jitters over the stability of Russian gas flows via Ukraine, Gazprom's management was upbeat as it held its annual meeting with investors in London.

Lolz

[Queequeg]

UK should revoke Abramovich's visa and nationalize Chelsea.

Fire Mourinho too, he's probably a Russian spy.

This is what I've been hoping for since this whole thing kicked off. 

The next day Tamad joins the Psellus Pan-Slavic inclination.

I am opposed to any possible conflict between Ukraine and Russia.  East Slavic blood is sacred. 

[Barrister]

If the West is smart, we're seeing precisely how Putin can be influenced though - by pressuring his oligarch cronies, like Gazprom.  This isn't the Cold War - Gazprom does need to worry about it's stock price, which is taking a beating.

[CountDeMoney]

My sense of Cold War deja vu is getting stronger and stronger.

This is sickening.  It's like man being murdered in public while everyone politely looks the other way.

You know what's sickening?  How this is all Obama's fault.

OBMAMA LIED TRACKSUITS WILL DIE

Hawks: Ukraine is President Obama's fault
By: Philip Ewing
March 3, 2014 03:22 PM EST


President Barack Obama might as well have invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, conservatives charge, after years of what they call foreign affairs accommodation at best — and weakness, at worst — that has put the administration on defense against domestic critics amid the deepening Ukrainian crisis.

Salvo after salvo is landing from Republican hawks who say Putin's incursion into the Ukraine is the result of Obama's attempt to "reset" relations with Russia and give far too much ground to a ruler widely despised among U.S. conservatives. In a broader sense, when America absents itself from the world stage, they argue, aggressors feel free to step out of line.

The crisis is "the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy where no one believes in America's strength anymore," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said on Sunday that he believed Obama was playing marbles, while Putin played chess. Other Republicans, whose frustrations have been simmering since Obama decided last year not to authorize an attack on Syria, say Obama's previous threat about a "red line," which resulted in no major consequences when crossed, amounted to a green light for tyrants and despots to do as they will.

On Monday, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, faulted Obama for cuts to defense spending — the latest to be included in the president's budget set for delivery to Congress on Tuesday — which Inhofe said had amounted to a clear message.

Obama's "disarming of America over the past five years limits our options in Ukraine today," Inhofe said. "I just returned from Georgia in January, and they fear Russia will further invade their territory next. Throughout this administration, I have also warned that if the United States does not maintain a ready and capable military, we would surrender our global influence and leave a vacuum that will be filled by Russia. I warned this day was coming, and it is here."

The attacks aren't just coming from the president's Republican critics. The Washington Post scorched the administration with an editorial over the weekend headlined: "President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy."

A senior administration official was asked on a conference call with reporters on Sunday what conclusions the world should draw given that on Friday, Obama warned Putin directly not to intervene in Ukraine — and then Putin did it anyway.

"The premise of your question is that he is strong and the president of the United States is weak, when, in fact, he is not acting from a position of strength right now," the senior official said. "He is acting from a position of having lost the government that they backed in Kiev and made a play to move into Crimea, a piece of Ukraine, and being met with international condemnation."

A second senior administration official said Putin's incursion confirmed that he's simply a strong man with no ability to use the many other tools of the 21st-century international system — diplomacy, persuasion, culture and others.

"This chapter has proven decisively that when it comes to soft power, the power of attraction, Vladimir Putin has no game," the second senior official said. "So, he's left with hard power. And it's a very dangerous game to play in Ukraine because the Ukrainian people are not going to stand for it, and nor is the international community."

The "danger" the administration describes, however, is not of a military response, which officials have all but ruled out. Instead. Instead, Washington and its allies want to isolate Moscow and punish Putin and his associates with diplomacy and potential economic sanctions.

"We have decided for the time being to suspend our participation in activities associated with the preparation of the scheduled G-8 Summit in Sochi in June, until the environment comes back where the G-8 is able to have meaningful discussion," the leaders of the G-7 countries said Sunday.

That's all well and good, reporters said, but what evidence does the administration have that Putin is listening or that he cares about what officials called Washington's "menu" of options?

The first senior administration official could not resist a sarcastic allusion to President George W. Bush's 2001 meeting with Putin, in which he said he'd gotten a "sense of his soul."

"We in this administration have made it a practice to not look into Vladimir Putin's soul, so I can't speak for him," the administration official said Sunday. "What I can say is that we're not just speaking from the United States; we're speaking from the entire world. And what you see is, I think, a very clear message that nobody is going to accept the legitimacy of this action in Ukraine."

But to critics who believe the Ukrainian crisis represents Obama's chickens coming home to roost, these kinds of answers are a thin gruel.

"The world does not expect the United States just 'to stand with the international community,' as the president said," said former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now president of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "They expect the United States to lead. Weak statements, history has proven, only invite aggression."

Nonsense, says the administration. Putin is the one who has violated international law. Putin is the one ignoring his neighbors and the world. And Putin is the one who is responsible for this crisis.

"I do think it's a bit strange to lift up this action, this outrageous action that President Putin has taken, as some great show of strength by him," the first senior administration official said. "It's a show of weakness in the sense that they have lost the government that they backed in Kiev and have now had to resort to the type of intervention that is going to lead them to be severely isolated within the international community and, frankly, is not going to achieve the objective of unringing the bell that we heard in Kiev when the Ukrainian people were able to take control of their own future."

Gotta get Siegy to uncover the Benghazi plot in all this.

[PJL]

Looks like Russia is going to restore 'order' in the Ukraine. They won't make an official declaration, as they regard the current regime as illegitimate. Whatever happens, looks like this is going to be the biggest conflict since India/Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1970, and the biggest in Europe since World War Two, which will probably end up killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and goodness knows who else.

[Barrister]

Looks like Russia is going to restore 'order' in the Ukraine. They won't make an official declaration, as they regard the current regime as illegitimate. Whatever happens, looks like this is going to be the biggest conflict since India/Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1970, and the biggest in Europe since World War Two, which will probably end up killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and goodness knows who else.

Let's not get crazy - we're not there yet.  Quite unsure that either side has the willingness for that kind of bloodshed.  Those kind of losses by Russia would dwarf Soviet casualties in Afghanistan.

[DGuller]

Looks like Russia is going to restore 'order' in the Ukraine. They won't make an official declaration, as they regard the current regime as illegitimate. Whatever happens, looks like this is going to be the biggest conflict since India/Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1970, and the biggest in Europe since World War Two, which will probably end up killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and goodness knows who else.

Let's not get crazy - we're not there yet.  Quite unsure that either side has the willingness for that kind of bloodshed.  Those kind of losses by Russia would dwarf Soviet casualties in Afghanistan.

Doubtful there would be huge losses, especially if Russia limits itself to the eastern part of Ukraine.  The land there is flat as a pancake, and the population there may not unanimously like the Russian invasion, but it wouldn't perceive the occupiers as being totally alien to their culture.  I doubt that Ukrainian army units would commit themselves to suicide either.

Now, if the Russians are stupid enough to go for the whole Ukraine, then the partisan war in the forests of the west would get really nasty.

[CountDeMoney]

The same thing's going to happen in the Ukraine that happened in Georgia;  Russia gets control over the regions that Russia wants.  And there's nothing anybody's going to do about it.

[Razgovory]

Gotta get Siegy to uncover the Benghazi plot in all this.

Man, Siegy is going to fight for the other side.  In controllers in Beijing will probably order him to sabotage tanks or something.