Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Tamas]

Regarding the news anchor girl: I like she mentioned her '56 refugee Hungarian grandparents. The situation is similar, and I find it infuriating to see many Hungarians trying to white-wash the Russians. Traitors, the lot of them.

[Zanza]

Who on Earth would dare not voting on joining Russia when there are Russian soldiers and militia bullying everyone? Nobody. They will get 99% of population voting on joining Russia.

99.73% yes with 99.71% turnout 

[Syt]

Shaun Walker has just been at a press conference by Rustam Temirgaliev, the Crimean vice premier who first gave news of the imminent referendum on union with Russia, and it seems the Crimean government is taking an even tougher line than expected.

The 16 March referendum is being held, Temirgaliev said, purely to ratify the decision of the Crimean parliament to join the Russian Federation, and the parliament has appealed to Russia to assist with this. He said that Crimea was effectively Russian immediately:

    From today, as Crimea is part of the Russian Federation the only legal forces here are troops of the Russian Federation, and any troops of the third country will be considered to be armed groups with all the associated consequences.

The assumption is, Shaun adds, that this is being done with the full approval, even encouragement, of Russia, though it remains to be seen in Putin might use this to show his supposed moderation by refusing to act as decisively as the Crimean MPs wish.

[Syt]

Leaders from the Ukrainian Jewish community, which is mainly Russian-speaking, have written an open letter to Vladimir Putin - read a translated version here - rejecting his argument that minorities in the country feel under threat. They say:

The Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine are not being humiliated or discriminated against, their civil rights have not been infringed upon. Meanderings about "forced Ukrainization" and "bans on the Russian language" that have been so common in Russian media are in the heads of those who invented them. Your certainty about the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, which you expressed at your press-conference, also does not correspond to the actual facts.

[Agelastus]

Guardian:

Crimea's vice premier, Rustam Temirgaliev - who incidentally is of Crimean Tatar descent - said today Crimea will hold a referendum on 16 March on whether the region should stay with Ukraine or join Russia, Reuters reported the Russia's RIA news agency as saying.

According to RIA, the referendum will ask whether voters want Crimea to become part of the Russian Federation or remain in Ukraine under the country's post-independence 1992 constitution.

Within the Ukraine with Crimea's 1992 constitution; or within the Ukraine with Ukraine's 1992 constitution?

I'm actually guessing the former since Ukraine's post Soviet constitution is from 1996. Or are they talking about the constitutional arrangement they had with the old Ukrainian SSR as of 1992 (since Crimea was an ASSR at the time.)

[Crimea's 1992 constitution was apparently unilaterally scrapped by the Ukraine in 1995 if Wikipedia can be believed.]

[Syt]

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/722403

1. Do you support the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a subject of the Russian Federation? 2. Do you support the restoration of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and Crimea's status as part of Ukraine?"

[Agelastus]

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/722403

1. Do you support the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a subject of the Russian Federation? 2. Do you support the restoration of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and Crimea's status as part of Ukraine?"

Someone in Crimea's got a brain; that's probably a nasty pill for the Ukraine to swallow but may just turn the vote against Russia.

[jimmy olsen]

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/722403

1. Do you support the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a subject of the Russian Federation? 2. Do you support the restoration of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and Crimea's status as part of Ukraine?"

[Tamas]

It is now the OSCE's 40-men monitoring team that is held at gunpoint, prevented from entering Crimea.

The Russians are doing a quite effective mockery of the international systems. "well of course these observers of these international bodies are free to enter. But we are not responsible for the people wearing Russian uniforms, travelling in Russian vehicles with Russian license plates on them, maybe pointing Russian special forces weaponry on said observers, as they are not Russian soldiers."

[Syt]

Reuters is running fuller quotes from Rustam Temirgaliev, the Crimean vice premier, about the status of non-Russian forces in the region (see also this from earlier):

    The only lawful armed force on the territory of the Crimea is the Russian armed forces. Armed forces of any third country are occupiers. The Ukrainian armed forces have to choose: lay down their weapons, quit their posts, accept Russian citizenship and join the Russian military. If they do not agree, we are prepared to offer them safe passage from the territory of Crimea to their Ukrainian homeland.

Again, we cannot be sure how seriously this will be implemented, let alone whether Russia will act on it. But we can be fairly sure Temirgaliev would not speak without Russian approval.

[OttoVonBismarck]

If the Russians allowed international monitoring of the 3/16 referendum in Crimea I'd probably be okay with it and accept that as the end of the confrontation. The problem for me has never been Crimea going back to Russia, I suspect a genuine majority of Crimeans probably prefer that over a Western aligned Ukraine, fine. But there has to be some cost imposed for Putin's belligerence, which again I find very strange since I personally think Crimea would have left on its own without any of this crisis making. This whole thing makes Putin look weaker to me the more I think about it, that he felt the need to use soldiers to effect a fait accompli just shows deep insecurity in his and his country's power.

I also find it shocking the first reaction to a great recommendation by Hans on giving AA and AT systems to Ukraine is basically considered "overboard" by a poster here--and to be honest I've seen similar reactions on other forums where people act like it would be an "act of madness" to give Ukraine American weapons. It just shows to me people fundamentally do not understand even what we can and cannot do in relation to Russia. For those who think it's a bad idea (which I guess was just Queequeeg here), do you genuinely think giving those weapon system to Ukraine would lead to a war with Russia? Keep in mind Russia did the exact same thing in Syria when Obama was telegraphing 3-4 weeks in advance that we might launch airstrikes against the regime. If that's fair in Syria I very seriously doubt doing the same in Ukraine would lead to war. Further, I very seriously doubt Russia wants to establish the precedent that giving a country conventional weapons is an "act of war" or we'd basically be inevitably at war with Russia within the year.

[Queequeg]

I didn't think it was a good idea until the chance of an immediate war over Eastern Ukraine decreased. Russia wanted an excuse to start firing and supplying a small number of AA and AT systems would likely have dramatically increased the likelihood of violence without substantially raising the possibility that Ukraine would prevail in such a conflict. It'd be Georgia 2008; Ukrainian hopes of victory would be bolstered irrationally by unrealistic expectations of the extent we are willing to involve ourselves.

When the immediate crisis is over, we can sell them anything they want. Shit,  give it for free.

[Tamas]

I am reading that surprisingly now Russian state TV pundits started talking about how problematic annexing Crimea would be. Putin trying to retreat?

Impossible to tell, I guess. I can see why that major Crimean puppet-leader would be sabre-rattling however. Anything less than Russian annexation or independence and he gets executed or imprisoned.

I guess that will be a problem if the Russians would want to dance back from the whole thing: they have established people with power and weapons in Crimea who simply cannot afford to go back on this.

[KRonn]

President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev was on TV expressing concerns about the invasion. I guess he's getting worried about his own country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkJskTttBg

Well yeah.

Russia is basically saying that have carte blanche to invade any country in the area that has a sizable Russian speaking population who *might*, in theory, someday, be oppressed in some manner which is soley defined by Russia.

How many of the former Soviet republics have sizable Russian speaking minorities? All of them?

I'm thinking that's the game Putin is playing, seeing that he's gone after parts of Georgia and now Ukraine under similar pretenses. The rest of the former republics need to watch out because over time, maybe sooner than later while Putin is still in power, this kind of thing may happen elsewhere.

[Tamas]

President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev was on TV expressing concerns about the invasion. I guess he's getting worried about his own country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkJskTttBg

Well yeah.

Russia is basically saying that have carte blanche to invade any country in the area that has a sizable Russian speaking population who *might*, in theory, someday, be oppressed in some manner which is soley defined by Russia.

How many of the former Soviet republics have sizable Russian speaking minorities? All of them?

I'm thinking that's the game Putin is playing, seeing that he's gone after parts of Georgia and now Ukraine under similar pretenses. The rest of the former republics need to watch out because over time, maybe sooner than later while Putin is still in power, this kind of thing may happen elsewhere.

That has to be one of the things on the table with this crisis: if the Russians can annex territories and/or vassalise such an important ex-Soviet state under this ridiculous pretext, I am certain they will try it later on other ones.