Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[KRonn]

I think the Russians have things a bit backwards. Texas gained its own independence, which of course they don't even mention that state. California was heading the same way as probably were the other regions given how corrupt and hated the dictators in Mexico were. Heh, that all sounds like similar reasons why Ukraine left Russia.

[crazy canuck]

The Russians do not appreciate Canada sending 200 troops to the Ukraine to help train Ukrainian troops.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadas-decision-to-send-troops-to-ukraine-deplorable-russia-says/article23969990/

[KRonn]

The Canadians do not appreciate Russia sending troops to Ukraine to train rebel Russian fighters.   

[Valmy]

I think the Russians have things a bit backwards. Texas gained its own independence, which of course they don't even mention that state. California was heading the same way as probably were the other regions given how corrupt and hated the dictators in Mexico were. Heh, that all sounds like similar reasons why Ukraine left Russia.

Trying to get the US and Mexico to get angry about 1846 is like trying to get France and Germany mad about Alsace Lorraine again. Just detached from reality.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I think the Russians have things a bit backwards. Texas gained its own independence, which of course they don't even mention that state. California was heading the same way as probably were the other regions given how corrupt and hated the dictators in Mexico were. Heh, that all sounds like similar reasons why Ukraine left Russia.

Trying to get the US and Mexico to get angry about 1846 is like trying to get France and Germany mad about Alsace Lorraine again. Just detached from reality.

Like the Russians (or at least their propaganda-products) in other words

[Syt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/27/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-military-idUSKBN0OC2K820150527?utm_source=Facebook

Exclusive: Russia masses heavy firepower on border with Ukraine - witness

Russia's army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week.

Many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues. As such, they match the appearance of some of the forces spotted in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev and its Western allies allege are covert Russian detachments.

The scene at the base on the Kuzminsky firing range, around 50 km (30 miles) from the border, offers some of the clearest evidence to date of what appeared to be a concerted Russian military build-up in the area.

Earlier this month, NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove said he believed the separatists were taking advantage of a ceasefire that came into force in February to re-arm and prepare for a new offensive. However, he gave no specifics.

Russia denies that its military is involved in the conflict in Ukraine's east, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting forces loyal to the pro-Western government in Kiev.

Russia's defense ministry said it had no immediate comment about the build-up. Several soldiers said they had been sent to the base for simple military exercises, suggesting their presence was unconnected to the situation in Ukraine.

Asked by Reuters if large numbers of unmarked weaponry and troops without insignia at the border indicated that Russia planned to invade Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call with reporters:

    "I find the wording of this question, 'if an invasion is being prepared', inappropriate as such."

The weapons being delivered there included Uragan multiple rocket launchers, tanks and self-propelled howitzers -- all weapon types that have been used in the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev's forces and separatists.

The amount of military hardware at the base was about three times greater than in March this year, when Reuters journalists were previously in the area. At that time, only a few dozen pieces of equipment were in view.

Over the course of fours days starting on Saturday, Reuters saw four goods trains with military vehicles and troops arriving at a rail station in the Rostov region of southern Russia, with at least two trainloads traveling on by road to the base.

A large section of dirt road leading across the steppe from the Kuzminsky range to the Ukrainian border had been freshly repaired, making it more passable for heavy vehicles.

The road leads to a quiet border crossing typically only used by local residents. On the other side is Ukraine's Luhansk region, which is controlled by separatists and has been the scene of intense fighting.

Valentina Melnikova, a human rights campaigner who works closely with families of Russian servicemen, said she had information that Rostov region was being used as a staging post for troops on their way to Ukraine.

She said the information came from the mother of a serviceman stationed in the town of Totskoye, in the Orenburg region near Russia's border with Kazakhstan.

Melnikova said the serviceman heard from commanders that "they are going to be transferred to Rostov region after May 20 and then to Ukraine. They signed papers about non-disclosure of information and about acting voluntarily.

"Of course it was an order. How could it be voluntarily? They are servicemen," said Melnikova, who runs the Moscow-based Alliance of Soldiers' Mothers Committees.

Her account could not be independently verified by Reuters.

In some cases where Russian citizens have been captured in Ukraine by forces loyal to Kiev, Russian officials have said they were there of their own accord and were either on leave from the armed forces or had quit the military.

More military hardware trundles into the Matveev Kurgan railway station on goods trains every day.

A train that pulled in on Tuesday was carrying 16 T-72 tanks, and a number of military trucks.

A local woman who was at the station with a pre-school age girl looked at the tanks on flat-bed rail cars, sighed, and said: "Nothing surprises me any more."

Over the four days, trains arrived delivering a total of at least 26 tanks, about 30 Uragan launchers, dozens of trucks as well as several armored personnel carriers and self-propelled howitzers.

On two occasions, after the trains had been unloaded, reporters followed the column of vehicles to the firing range -- a location that has already been linked indirectly to the fighting in Ukraine.

Bellingcat, a British-based group of volunteers who use social media to investigate conflicts, analyzed postings by Russian soldiers on social network accounts, including geo-location tags on photos, and concluded that some of those in Ukraine had earlier been at the Kuzminsky range.

A former Russian soldier said last year, when he was on active military service, that he underwent training at the range and was later sent up to the Ukrainian border. Once at the border he was ordered to fire Grad rockets, although he said he could not be certain they were fired into Ukraine. He also said some members of his unit had crossed into Ukraine.

"That's a very big firing range. We studied for two weeks, we had a quick course. After that we got the order and went to the border," said the former soldier, who did not want to be identified because the operation has not been made public.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-classifies-information-on-deaths-of-russian-troops-on-special-missions/522552.html

Putin Classifies Information on Deaths of Russian Troops on Special Missions

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared all deaths of Russian soldiers during special operations to be classified as a state secret, a move that comes as Moscow stands accused of sending soldiers to fight in eastern Ukraine.

Putin, who has repeatedly denied any involvement of Russian troops in a pro-Russian rebellion there, amended a decree that had previously classified only deaths of servicemen during war time as secret.

Asked to explain the rationale behind Putin's move, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had no immediate comment.

Russian opposition activists released a report saying at least 220 serving Russian soldiers were killed in fighting in two hot spots in east Ukraine last summer and earlier this year.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, 2014, after wresting control over the peninsula by deploying troops with no insignia. Russia initially vehemently denied the soldiers, who became to be known as "little green men", were Russian troops.

Putin only publicly admitted Russian soldiers had been deployed in Crimea nearly a month after signing legislation formally completing the peninsula's annexation.

Russia has backed many of the separatists' political claims but denies direct military involvement in east Ukraine, where more than 6,100 people have been killed in more than a year of fighting between the rebels and Kiev's forces.

A Reuters reporter witnessed earlier this week the Russian army massing troops without insignia and hundreds of pieces of unmarked weaponry on the border with Ukraine.

Asked by Reuters if this indicated Russia planned an invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told a conference call with reporters: "I find the wording of this question, 'if an invasion is being prepared', inappropriate as such."

A ceasefire has been in force in eastern Ukraine since February, but each side accuses the other of violations. Kiev says it fears Russia could commit troops to a push to extend control by separatist forces along Ukraine's southern coast.

[KRonn]

Well, it's a good thing the US and others didn't send weapons to Ukraine! That would have angered Putin and caused him to invade....

sooner....

[Syt]

http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2015/06/transnistria-shapes-up-as-next-ukraine-russia-flashpoint/

Transnistria shapes up as next Ukraine-Russia flashpoint

Keep an eye on Transnistria, the pro-Russian breakaway state in Moldova. On Monday, Dmitri Trenin, one of Russia's best-known foreign policy analysts and a man with good Kremlin antennae, tweeted: "Growing concern in Moscow that Ukraine and Moldova will seek to squeeze Transnistria hard, provoking conflict with Russia." On Tuesday, a columnist in the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper warned that Russia "seriously faces the prospect of a repeat of the [2008] situation" – when it went to war with Georgia – "this time around Transnistria".

What sparked the tensions was a May 21 vote in Ukraine's parliament to suspend military co-operation with Russia. That included a 1995 agreement giving Russia military transit rights across Ukraine to reach Transnistria, which borders Ukraine's Odessa region.

Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in the unrecognised statelet since its brief war for independence from ex-Soviet Moldova in 1992, and Russia has a base there with about 1,350 soldiers and heavy weapons. Losing access via Ukraine means Russia must resupply its base by air through Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, and across Moldovan territory.

But Moscow complains Moldova has recently detained and deported several Russian soldiers. Mr Trenin alleged to the FT, moreover, that Ukraine had deployed S-300 air defence systems near the border.

Cue claims by Russian and Transnistrian officials that Ukraine and Moldova are imposing an economic blockade; civic leaders in Transnistria last week appealed to Russian president Vladimir Putin to protect them "in case of emergency". On Monday, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hard-line deputy premier, assured Transnistria's leadership that "Russia will always be there" to ensure regional security.

A senior Ukrainian foreign ministry official insists there is no Transnistria blockade, only a "political decision to suspend military-technical-co-operation with Russia because of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. This is a matter of principle for us."

It is for Moscow, he adds, to ensure in talks with Chisinau that its soldiers have access. He calls any suggestion that Ukraine might try to shoot down Russian planes resupplying its Transnistria base "absurd".

There have been false alarms around Transnistria before since the Ukraine crisis broke out. Its leaders appealed to Moscow to join the Russian Federation days after Russia annexed Crimea, but nothing came of it. About one-third of the region's 500,000 inhabitants are Russians and almost another third are Ukrainians. Some 97 per cent voted in a 2006 referendum to join Russia, which Moscow has never recognised.

But Russian and Transnistrian officials are making more of the issue this time. Transnistria's foreign minister Nina Shtanski alleged on Monday that Ukraine had placed troops along the border – which Kiev denies. And Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko's unorthodox appointment at the weekend of ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili – a bête noire for Moscow – as governor of the Odessa region has added an element of psycho-drama.

At least two Russian newspapers speculated on Tuesday that Mr Saakashvili's task was to maintain the "blockade" of neighbouring Transnistria, and even act as "provocateur" to start a new war. The Izvestia columnist suggested that "the fate of all the issues that exist between Russia and the west is being decided today in the Kiev-Donetsk-Odessa triangle".

"This is not only the state TV narrative. Serious people are concerned about the implications of Ukraine's moves," Mr Trenin says. "Misha is best remembered here for launching an attack on South Ossetia."

In fact, Mr Saakashvili allowed himself to be lured into a trap after weeks of provocations in South Ossetia by launching an ill-advised assault on the Georgian breakaway region, which provided the pretext for Russia's 2008 invasion. Russian media's evocation of his role then may be just another way of Moscow registering chagrin over his Odessa appointment.

But Ukraine's ending of Russian military access to Transnistria – however understandable – does pose a logistical problem for Moscow. And it is a reminder, in the new climate of east-west antagonism, of just how many potential flashpoints lurk in the zone between the two.

[derspiess]

Wow.  Saakashvili getting involved is just a whole new level of bizarre.  Seems reasonable to not want to give the Russians military access through Ukraine, but to throw Misha into the mix does actually come across as a bit provocative.

[Barrister]

Yeah, that's been a particularly wierd angle on all this.  Saakashvilli has given up his Georgian citizenship, taken on Ukrainian citizenship, and become governor of Odessa.

[Valmy]

"the fate of all the issues that exist between Russia and the west is being decided today in the Kiev-Donetsk-Odessa triangle

All Russian Trolls are being executed in the Kiev-Donetsk-Odessa triangle? Nice.

[DGuller]

Yeah, that's been a particularly wierd angle on all this.  Saakashvilli has given up his Georgian citizenship, taken on Ukrainian citizenship, and become governor of Odessa.

It's weird, but not as much as it normally would be.  Ukrainians have drafted plenty of foreigners into their government in order to revamp it completely, and Georgia is viewed as a very applicable example of how to do it right.

[Admiral Yi]

Had heard about all the English speaking Ukrainians with experience working for foreign companies, had not heard about foreigners per se.

[DGuller]

Had heard about all the English speaking Ukrainians with experience working for foreign companies, had not heard about foreigners per se.

Well, they gave an offer to John McCain to be an adviser for them, and he was actually considering it, before he checked the US Constitution.

[The Minsky Moment]

Drafting in talented foreigners makes a certain amount of sense.  Why not get the best people you can, especially if one the biggest problems the country has is entrenched local patronage networks?  There are plenty of historical precedents although not as much in democracies.