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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: What's going on in Ukraine?
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Why is it that fascism and anti-Semitism still hold such an attraction for so many people?
Here...
The Road to War: The Origins of World War II - Dr Richard Overy
The Origins of the Second World War - A. J. P. Taylor
Hitler - Ian Kershaw
and probably the best of them all...
The Anatomy of Fascism - Robert O. Paxton
And there are plenty more. People choose fascism when
(a) They are economically threatened
(b) Someone offers an alternative
(c) The "Establishment" political parties don't have an answer.
(d) There is a useful scapegoat
Point (c) is usually the one overlooked, but it is probably the most vital. If the people can see that the established, moderate political parties have an answer that looks like it will work, then the people will usually vote for them and the alternative fascist parties will wither away.
If they don't then the people cast around to find someone who can give them hope.
I note your question was rhetorical, but I hate to leave people with a superiority complex when they can be educated out of it. It's such bad manners don't you think?
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ukraine. 2/3rds Ukrainian speaking, 1/3rd Russian, half of whom are Ukrainian.
What Russia is more than capable of? Partition of the Crimea as of South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Another useful link:
John McCain (USA senator) meetings with far right Ukrainian politicians. The article makes for interesting reading. One would hope that McCain knew beforehand that he was meeting with far right anti-semites. But maybe his briefings were incomplete?
The Jerusalem Post published concerns about the opposition back last spring after the rejected EU treaty.
[fixed link]
[ 24. February 2014, 19:03: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
Part of Ukraine wants to return to the old soviet days of the Eastern block...and the other part of Ukraine wants to get closer to Europe and become part of the E.U.
The irony in this, is that the E.U. itself is becoming less and less "western", and increasingly reflects a re-incarnation of the old Eastern Bloc.
So they are squabbling over a distinction which will ultimately all amount to pretty much the same thing.
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 3M Matt:
The irony in this, is that the E.U. itself is becoming less and less "western", and increasingly reflects a re-incarnation of the old Eastern Bloc.
Hmmm... UKIP much?
That's a very overtly politcal stance presented without backup, and which will be argued against by many including myself, as a member of the Conservative Party.
All of which would certainly belong in another thread!
[ 25. February 2014, 14:05: Message edited by: deano ]
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Just read that Yanukovych might be hiding Sevastapol and that Russians might try to annex Crimea. Sounds like a good idea to me. Khruschev made Crimea part of Ukraine less than 60 years ago. Ethnic Russians make up 58% of the population. Hold a referendum to allow Crimea decide if it wants to join Russia, remain in Ukraine, or form it's own independent nation.
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Just read that Yanukovych might be hiding Sevastapol and that Russians might try to annex Crimea. Sounds like a good idea to me. Khruschev made Crimea part of Ukraine less than 60 years ago. Ethnic Russians make up 58% of the population. Hold a referendum to allow Crimea decide if it wants to join Russia, remain in Ukraine, or form it's own independent nation.
I'd agree -- if it weren't for the fact that a partition of Ukraine would immediately put the rest of the postwar Central European borders in question. I mean those decreed by Stalin and made permanent as one of the provisions of the German reunification treaty.
Stalin's borders are already somewhat in play -- there is a serious movement in Silesia for regional autonomy, for example. Perhaps that would be a good long-term solution, though it doesn't seem to make the Poles happy to contemplate it.
But the last thing Central Europe needs right now is an explosion of revanchist feeling, fueled by nationalist, anti-EU parties. That would be a real disaster.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
I'd agree -- if it weren't for the fact that a partition of Ukraine would immediately put the rest of the postwar Central European borders in question. I mean those decreed by Stalin and made permanent as one of the provisions of the German reunification treaty.
Well, the partition of Czechoslovakia doesn't seem to have had that effect. And I don't think the Treaty for the Final Settlement with regards to Germany refers to the Crimea, since at the time of Stalin it was presumably an internal Soviet affair.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Just read that Yanukovych might be hiding Sevastapol and that Russians might try to annex Crimea. Sounds like a good idea to me. Khruschev made Crimea part of Ukraine less than 60 years ago. Ethnic Russians make up 58% of the population. Hold a referendum to allow Crimea decide if it wants to join Russia, remain in Ukraine, or form it's own independent nation.
Do you have a reference please? That sounds interesting in a knowledge-of-history-can-be-scary kind of way!
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Prester John
Shipmate
# 5502
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
I'd agree -- if it weren't for the fact that a partition of Ukraine would immediately put the rest of the postwar Central European borders in question. I mean those decreed by Stalin and made permanent as one of the provisions of the German reunification treaty.
Well, the partition of Czechoslovakia doesn't seem to have had that effect. And I don't think the Treaty for the Final Settlement with regards to Germany refers to the Crimea, since at the time of Stalin it was presumably an internal Soviet affair.
I'm working off of a hazy memory but didn't it have an effect on the border of the Ukraine? I thought Poland had to give up some territory to the Soviet Union and in exchange it took some territory from Germany.
Posts: 884 | From: SF Bay Area | Registered: Feb 2004
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Prester John:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
I'd agree -- if it weren't for the fact that a partition of Ukraine would immediately put the rest of the postwar Central European borders in question. I mean those decreed by Stalin and made permanent as one of the provisions of the German reunification treaty.
Well, the partition of Czechoslovakia doesn't seem to have had that effect. And I don't think the Treaty for the Final Settlement with regards to Germany refers to the Crimea, since at the time of Stalin it was presumably an internal Soviet affair.
I'm working off of a hazy memory but didn't it have an effect on the border of the Ukraine? I thought Poland had to give up some territory to the Soviet Union and in exchange it took some territory from Germany.
In fact I was thinking of the western borders of Poland, rather than the eastern ones, and the Treaty does make reference to those.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
[Originally posted by Ricardus:
Well, the partition of Czechoslovakia doesn't seem to have had that effect.
Sorry to double-post here, Ricardus, but:
I'm not at all sure the "Velvet Divorce" can be considered a normal case, as far as partition of existing Central European nations is concerned.
For one thing, Czechoslovakia was not an invention of Stalin's, but was created from the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War, by Americans who believed that people who spoke closely similar languages belonged in the same country together.
Unfortunately for both Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, geography, history, culture, economics, and infrastructure all thought otherwise. The Czechs and Slovaks managed a reasonably peaceful parting, but of course that didn't happen in the case of Yugoslavia.
All I am saying is: Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps. There's a history here, one which is for the most part unknown in England and America, and it's full of volatile, deeply painful feeling. The European Union exists in the hope that this bitterness can be managed through inclusion of all the state actors in a supranational entity guaranteeing basic rights and freedom of movement to all its citizens. I still hope it can be done.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
... Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps. There's a history here, one which is for the most part unknown in England and America, and it's full of volatile, deeply painful feeling. ...
Not so fast here. Partition, drawing lines on maps, volatile deeply painful feelings have a profound resonance here, together with bombs, kneecappings, assassinations and all sorts of other horrors, which have been ever present presence in our lives for the whole of my adult life (I am in my sixties).
Wherever, however and on whatever basis you divide people and draw lines on a map, there are people that it doesn't fit, old hostilities reactivated and new hatreds and divisions born.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
All I am saying is: Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps. There's a history here, one which is for the most part unknown in England and America, and it's full of volatile, deeply painful feeling.
Yes because Northern Ireland and "The Troubles" were all a bit of a game really.
The current debate over Scotland's membership of the United Kingdom is not really relevenat either I suppose?
I don't know where the lemon tree's grow but they don't teach much British history there do they?
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
The current debate over Scotland's membership of the United Kingdom is not really relevenat either I suppose?
I'd say it's a perfect example of how these things should be done. One part of a larger country thinks it may prefer to be a separate country in its own right, so the pros and cons of such a decision are discussed publicly followed by a democratic referendum in which the decision is made and consented to by all concerned.
Why the hell the same thing can't be done in the Crimea, or South Ossetia, or Catalonia, or Texas, or anywhere else where the desire for independence is strong is a mystery to me.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why the hell the same thing can't be done in the Crimea, or South Ossetia, or Catalonia, or Texas, or anywhere else where the desire for independence is strong is a mystery to me.
Because in many of those cases there are no clear borders, there may not even be clear ethnic/language groups, and there may have been a past history of recent migration by a dominant ethnic group which is now resented. In the case of the Causasus there is also a recent history of forced migration.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
The case of the separation of Pakistan from India might be more instructive. The mixing of populations had been going on since before the Mughals arrived, but the ethnic/linguistic separations continued unabated. Then a specific political group decided it would not play with everyone else, and a forced separation occurred, with hugely negative results for the hundreds of thousands who were killed, fatal result for Gandhi, and a lingering lousy result for the separated Pakistan.
India survived in rather better shape, except for the lingering scar of Kashmir.
Ukraine has no reason to believe that Russia will behave any better under Putin than it did under Stalin, and the mix of opposing peoples is quite volatile because of recent history.
And, no, you cannot draw a neat line that separates the two populations, let alone satisfy Russian unhappiness with "western" influence in any part of Ukraine.
Then you have intensely nationalistic churches who are still fighting the Great Schism of 1054, just to prove that memories in the area are just as history-fixated as they are in Yugoslavia.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
For one thing, Czechoslovakia was not an invention of Stalin's, but was created from the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War, by Americans who believed that people who spoke closely similar languages belonged in the same country together.
Stalin however did alter the borders of Czechoslovakia by annexing the easternmost region (Ruthenia / Subcarpathian Ukraine / Podkarpatsko) into the Ukrainian SSR.
quote:
All I am saying is: Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps. There's a history here, one which is for the most part unknown in England and America, and it's full of volatile, deeply painful feeling. The European Union exists in the hope that this bitterness can be managed through inclusion of all the state actors in a supranational entity guaranteeing basic rights and freedom of movement to all its citizens. I still hope it can be done.
I agree with this. I'm just not convinced the treaty you mentioned makes much difference.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
All I am saying is: Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps. There's a history here, one which is for the most part unknown in England and America, and it's full of volatile, deeply painful feeling.
Yes because Northern Ireland and "The Troubles" were all a bit of a game really.
The current debate over Scotland's membership of the United Kingdom is not really relevenat either I suppose?
I don't know where the lemon tree's grow but they don't teach much British history there do they?
I think I know something about British history, and American history as well.
I was wondering aloud how much British and American people know about the history of Central Europe.
In my experience,they know relatively little.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, but the point being made is that Britain knows plenty about partition causing unrest, violence, many deaths, bombings, terrorism, and so on. I think the death toll from the Troubles is over 3000, and still rising, with some estimates of 50, 000 maimed and injured. I think this is a considerable trauma to the body politic, and of course, to individuals.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, but the point being made is that Britain knows plenty about partition causing unrest, violence, many deaths, bombings, terrorism, and so on. I think the death toll from the Troubles is over 3000, and still rising, with some estimates of 50, 000 maimed and injured. I think this is a considerable trauma to the body politic, and of course, to individuals.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) Thank you.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
So it's a thread about Ireland, then.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Erm, Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Erm, Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
So, let me know when you want to discuss Ukraine, OK?
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Erm, Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
So, let me know when you want to discuss Ukraine, OK?
I don't blame British people for reacting rather sharply to your line:
"Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps."
I think the Brits are well aware that it just doesn't involve drawing lines on a map.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"Be careful in speaking of partition as if it were easy to manage, if nothing more were involved than just drawing lines on maps."
Yeah - but some in this thread *have* been speaking as if it were easy to manage and as if it involved more than just drawing lines on a map.
That's even before you go into the important ways in which the two situations are different.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Just read that Yanukovych might be hiding Sevastapol and that Russians might try to annex Crimea. Sounds like a good idea to me. Khruschev made Crimea part of Ukraine less than 60 years ago. Ethnic Russians make up 58% of the population. Hold a referendum to allow Crimea decide if it wants to join Russia, remain in Ukraine, or form it's own independent nation.
Do you have a reference please? That sounds interesting in a knowledge-of-history-can-be-scary kind of way!
Khrushchev 'gave' Crimea to the then Ukrainian SSR in 1954 as a 'present' from Soviet government to 'celebrate' the 300th anniversary of Ukrainian 'reunification' with Russia.
What exactly had happened 300 years earlier? That depends on whom you ask, but basically in 1648 the Cossacks under Bogdan Khmelnitsky (even the spelling of his name depends on who you are...) in the central part of what is now Ukraine but which was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (henceforth the 'PLC'), rebelled against their overlords. Some might say that this was as much if not more a class war rather than a nationalist revolt. Anyhoo, the 'Zaporozhye Host' ('ZH') was consequently formed. The rebellion wasn't going too well by 1654 when war broke out between the PLC and Muscovy-Russia, so the ZH basically appealed to Moscow for help and in effect signed up for union with Moscow as part of the deal for that help. Moscow won the war - eventually - and the loss of the ZH by the PLC was ratified by the Treaty of Andrussovo in 1667. However, the ZH had understood the union to be one of equals whereas Moscow viewed it pretty much as a straight annexation, in keeping with its manifest destiny to reunite all the 'Russian' (ie: East Slavic-speaking) lands. A grudging, kinda-sorta autonomy was conceded by Moscow to the ZH which lasted until Mazeppa, Hetman of the ZH, picked the wrong side (Sweden) in the Great Northern War and lost at Poltava in 1709, and Peter the Great severely curtailed the ZH's rights. The ZH was finally wound up by Catherine the Great, I think in the 1780s but by that time she was busy gobbling up the rest of what is now Ukraine (with the exception East Galicia - around Lemberg/ Lwow/ Lvov/ Lviv and Vladimir/ Volodymyr - which the USSR only got its hands in 1945) as part of the Partitions of the PLC.
Now I need to go and lie down...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I don't like Putin, but, I saw his regime be constructive about chemical weapons disposal in Syria. Which leads me to think/hope, that he has more sense than to invade the Ukraine. That he might genuinely think a massive civil war is a bad thing. It is just that in other situations, like the Chinese government, he is always more likely to take a repressive stability over an unstable but possibly more representative future. I think he pours in resources to support the stability, but he won't waste them to try to restore a system that has already gone phut bang. He may have learned this from the Georgia situation.
Well that was over optimistic.
Listening to radio 4 this lunchtime, diplomat pointing out that NATO signed up to a document guarenteeing Ukraines territorial borders in 1994. Cue discussion on whether it is legally binding because "it is possible we may end up at war with Russia".
100 years since the outbreak of WW1 - what is Putin thinking - that sounded like fun, lets do it again ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think Putin has had a big set-back, with the events in Kiev, so he is now sabre-rattling, in order to cover this up his humiliation. Whether he will really push for Crimea to become part of Russia - I doubt. Also actually invading Crimea would be gambling like hell; depends on how humiliated he feels maybe.
He has to fake like mad now to the Russian public that he is in control, and of course, he is not in Kiev. And of course, he doesn't want the seeds of revolt to spread.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I don't like Putin, but, I saw his regime be constructive about chemical weapons disposal in Syria. Which leads me to think/hope, that he has more sense than to invade the Ukraine. That he might genuinely think a massive civil war is a bad thing. It is just that in other situations, like the Chinese government, he is always more likely to take a repressive stability over an unstable but possibly more representative future. I think he pours in resources to support the stability, but he won't waste them to try to restore a system that has already gone phut bang. He may have learned this from the Georgia situation.
Well that was over optimistic.
Listening to radio 4 this lunchtime, diplomat pointing out that NATO signed up to a document guarenteeing Ukraines territorial borders in 1994. Cue discussion on whether it is legally binding because "it is possible we may end up at war with Russia".
100 years since the outbreak of WW1 - what is Putin thinking - that sounded like fun, lets do it again ?
Who else posed a threat to Ukraine's territorial borders? He's thinking NATO isn't going to fight him over Crimea. Putin is likely correct.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
No power on Earth is going to stop the Crimea breaking away and re-joining Russia. It's already happened militarily without a shot being fired. The Speznaz secured the airports and 2000 airborne troops followed.
There will be no consequences, just as there weren't over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
NATO will do nothing.
The Ukraine will do nothing.
Obama will do nothing. Apart from obfuscate trade. And even that isn't useful: Ukraine needs bailing out by everybody working together.
It only remains to be seen how Putin will ensure that the Ukraine serves as a buffer between the EU and greater Russia.
If he's really smart he'll be charming in victory regardless.
[ 01. March 2014, 10:27: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I don't like Putin, but, I saw his regime be constructive about chemical weapons disposal in Syria. Which leads me to think/hope, that he has more sense than to invade the Ukraine.
It looks like this morning, or afternoon there that he doesn't have to invade. He is asked to restore stability and people interviewed from Crimea where the Russians have a military base are apparently happy about it as a majority.
I am having trouble understanding differences between Russian moves there and past American moves in say Panama in 1989, where the reasons given for invasion were safeguarding human rights, democracy, protecting USA citizens, something about treaties, and drugs. I would guess that a parallel set of "reasonable justifications" are already present. Ukraine is out of money, the energy supplier is asking for payment before it sends more gas, there is instability (whatever that means). The issue of protecting people from violence doesn't have to be real, it just has to be a potential.
The 1983 invasion of Grenada might be seen as more parallel. The risk for violence was an American invention, and all it really took for justification of it was someone who had authority to request it. We already have that in Ukraine where a leader of the autonomous area in Crimea has requested Russian help.
So it is not really a Russian invasion, it is a Ukrainian request. And this sort of thing works actually quite well. At least it has in the past.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
As I understand it, Crimea is a semi-autonomous region.
Yes, it's the only 'autonomous republic' within the Ukraine and apparently the only region to have its own constitution. It has an elected parliament but I can't quite pin down what it does - Wikipedia seems to indicate that it can't propose new laws which is what I would normally expect a parliament to be doing.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
So it is not really a Russian invasion, it is a Ukrainian request. And this sort of thing works actually quite well. At least it has in the past.
It sounds to me like a Crimean request - which isn't the same thing as a Ukrainian request. As I understand it, Crimea is a semi-autonomous region.
You mean like if Ontario in Canada, Wales in the UK or Texas in the USA asked for help?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Fine.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Does it change anything that Ukraine's interim president appears to be a Baptist pastor? ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
[ETA autoplay ad in link, sorry!]
[ 01. March 2014, 16:04: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Mockingale
Shipmate
# 16599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Does it change anything that Ukraine's interim president appears to be a Baptist pastor?
[ETA autoplay ad in link, sorry!]
No one's perfect.
Posts: 679 | From: Connectilando | Registered: Aug 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Goddaughter wasin Sevastopol, has now got back to Moscow.
Troops who took over airports in Eastern Ukraine are from the Russian Black Sea fleet - and once it was in their hands the airport saw the arrival of Russian military aircraft.
Attitude in Russia is that Ukraine should never have been 'let go' in the first place and that if intervention now brings it back into the fold, good.
Intermin leader of Crimea has made retrospective appeal to Putin for troops (yeah, right) but that just confirms the situation already on the ground.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
The Duma has just passed Putin authority to intervene military in the Ukraine. (Not just Crimea.)
This does not seem good.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Into the mouth of hell...
Here we go again.
But I don't feel quite as bad as I did in my teens and we sat through school lunch wondering what we could do with three minutes.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Listening to radio 4 this lunchtime, diplomat pointing out that NATO signed up to a document guarenteeing Ukraines territorial borders in 1994. Cue discussion on whether it is legally binding because "it is possible we may end up at war with Russia".
100 years since the outbreak of WW1 - what is Putin thinking - that sounded like fun, lets do it again ?
Oh shit. I was just thinking 'I'm glad Ukraine isn't in NATO' before I read this.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
NOTHING is going to affect your Corn Flakes.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Listening to radio 4 this lunchtime, diplomat pointing out that NATO signed up to a document guarenteeing Ukraines territorial borders in 1994. Cue discussion on whether it is legally binding because "it is possible we may end up at war with Russia".
100 years since the outbreak of WW1 - what is Putin thinking - that sounded like fun, lets do it again ?
Oh shit. I was just thinking 'I'm glad Ukraine isn't in NATO' before I read this.
Well, I look naïve now. But the interim government has said it won't respond to armed provocation. What they intend to do instead is another matter ...
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
The problem is, at what point do the west make a stand. Do they draw the line at the Crimea, or at the Ukraine or somewhere else. If they do, does someone blink first - or is there a way (most likely a proxy war),
Commentators have said it is a huge risk for Russia because of their economic dependence on selling energy on the international market. But if they took over the Ukraine, they would have access to its huge economic potential.
Moreover, there is the general problem of - if you make an agreement, and do not keep it - then such agreements in the future are worth less than the paper they are written on.
I think everyone is hoping everyone else is bluffing - but it just takes one fuck up for that to go badly wrong.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Listening to radio 4 this lunchtime, diplomat pointing out that NATO signed up to a document guarenteeing Ukraines territorial borders in 1994. Cue discussion on whether it is legally binding because "it is possible we may end up at war with Russia".
100 years since the outbreak of WW1 - what is Putin thinking - that sounded like fun, lets do it again ?
Oh shit. I was just thinking 'I'm glad Ukraine isn't in NATO' before I read this.
The document (Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, aka "the Budapest Memorandum") is available here.
In it Russia, the UK, and the US agree:
- to respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, and existing borders
- not to use force or threat of force against Ukraine (except in self-defence)
- not to use economic coercion against Ukraine
- to assist Ukraine if it is a victim of aggression or threat of aggression using nuclear weapons
- not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states except in self-defence against joint attack by an ally of a nuclear state
- to consult in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments
I don't see anything there actually obliging the US or UK to provide any aid to Ukraine, unless Russia uses nuclear weapons.
Agreeing to respect existing borders only means you won't violate them yourself - it doesn't mean you agree to go to war in the event someone else violates them, which is what a guarantee would imply. The word "guarantee" does not occur in that document.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There is no stand for the West to make.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
The problem is, at what point do the west make a stand.
The usual I should think. Only when it is important to our economies. We only bother when it is about money.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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