WikiLeaks Cables Foreshadow Russian Instigation of Ukrainian Military Action 479
Now that Russia has sent troops to seize the Crimean Peninsula, international politics are tense and frantic. An anonymous reader notes an article from Joshua Keating at Slate, which points out that some of the diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks illustrate how this situation is not at all unexpected. Quoting a cable from October, 2009:
"... pro-Russian forces in Crimea, acting with funding and direction from Moscow, have systematically attempted to increase communal tensions in Crimea in the two years since the Orange Revolution. They have done so by cynically fanning ethnic Russian chauvinism towards Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, through manipulation of issues like the status of the Russian language, NATO, and an alleged Tatar threat to 'Slavs,' in a deliberate effort to destabilize Crimea, weaken Ukraine, and prevent Ukraine's movement west into institutions like NATO and the EU."
The article points out another cable from a few days later, which was titled, "Ukraine-Russia: Is Military Conflict No Longer Unthinkable?"
"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Insightful)
and now let's talk about the leaked documents involving the "pro-western forces in the Ukraine""
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the Cold War when half the world's nations were treated like nothing more than political footballs by both sides. It's partly why the Middle East is such a mess as both sides propped up dictators and fools and blowback fuel.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait: now EVERY country that has a Russian minority can expect to be invaded by Russia?
It'd never happen. I mean, that'd be like every country that had a German minority being invaded by Germany.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably safest. Wouldn't want to accidentally eat polonium.
Of course there was. And Winter War was started by the shelling of Mainila [wikipedia.org].
Some countries never change. But at least they act as efficient evangelists for Nato.
No, they were started by Putin trying to build a third Russian Empire on the ruins of Soviet Union. At this point the hope for Russia, the region and perhaps the world is that old age does its job before he can cause irreparable damage.
The truly sad thing is that it's saber-rattling like this that keeps Russia from assuming the place its size, population and natural resources would otherwise entitle it to. No one wants to deal with people who renege on their deals and send in the military the second they get - or manufacture - an excuse. Why do you think Ukrainians hated the very thought of "closer ties" - also known as chains - with Russia enough to revolt?
And Russia is the worst of the lot.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Insightful)
Partition of Soviet Union was a joke, most of its people was against it.
If you mean most Russians were against it, that wouldn't surprise me. If you mean the people in the countries being subjugated to rule from Russia, you're clearly biased.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:5, Funny)
More seriously, Ukraine is a failed state at the mercy of the shenanigans of both western and Russian shills. And, more importantly, neither party, Russia and West, act for the better of the Ukrainian people.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Insightful)
* Ukraine has been pretty badly run since independence but it's hardly a "failed state" - at 117 out of 178 countries it's not even in the bottom half of the index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index) - the US is 159 if you want to know.
* The overt and covert hands of Russia are MUCH more evident in Ukraine than the West's. US foreign policy been incredibly inward-looking of late and not much bothered with the complexities of post-Soviet states' politics (a mistake). EU is in play but mostly economically - this is the proximate cause of this whole recent mess.
* The 'Ukrainian people' means different things to different people - if you're an ethnic Russian in Crimea you live in Ukraine but probably have much more allegiance to mother Russia than the government in Kiev. If you're a kid in Kiev born post-Soviet era to ethnic Ukrainian parents, different deal. Ethnic Tatar, different again.
* People who live in Ukraine should decide how they are governed. If that means some regions split off and join Russia leaving a rump that is European-looking, fine.
* The one certainty once Russia gets involved militarily is that people will needlessly die, many Ukrainians will lose the right to choose their destiny, and the West will look foolish for having dealt with Putin's Russia as anything except an nuclear-armed oligarchic petrostate, i.e. a bad actor. How European countries let themselves become dependent on Russian oil and gas supplies with no thought for exactly this kind of contingency is beyond me. What are they going to do now, threaten economic sanctions that involve turning off their own heating?
So let's be careful before casting judgement but don't just throw the hands up and say "pot, kettle". I blame FOX (because I can) for having destroyed the critical thinking faculties of a generation of Americans with their discovery/invention of the "Fair and Balanced" trope, even amongst people that don't watch the damn channel.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Interesting)
The 'Ukrainian people' means different things to different people - if you're an ethnic Russian in Crimea you live in Ukraine but probably have much more allegiance to mother Russia than the government in Kiev. If you're a kid in Kiev born post-Soviet era to ethnic Ukrainian parents, different deal. Ethnic Tatar, different again.
I don't want to start a heated debate, so I'll answer only this point: saying that "the 'Ukrainian people' means different things to different people" is the exact mistake that brought them at this point. The Ukrainian people is all the people that dwells Ukraine: Ukrainians, Russians, Hebrews, Romanians, Poles and Tatars. The opposition parties should have been more levelheaded: if they really wanted to keep Ukraine united, they should have tried to keep the people (all of them) united. Instead they let the nationalists take a big part in the whole process, including rejecting a reasonable deal mediated by the EU [archive.org] with a president that was actually democratically elected and had a lot of support in vast areas of the country, taking three seats in the government including ministry of defence, and removing the Russian language from the list of the official languages of the country.
I'm not saying that Russia is right, but that the revolutionaries acted quite stupidly: they should have tried to wheedle ethnic minorities, not stir them up.
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea" (Score:4, Funny)
I have to admit, It's kinda cool that Putin posts on slashdot.
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US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Nuland said: “Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government - all that is necessary to achieve the objectives of Ukraine’s European. We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. ” Nuland said the United States will continue to
Sarah Palin (Score:4, Funny)
Predicted the same thing in 2008.
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Understandable, given that she can see Russia from her house.
Re:Sarah Palin (Score:5, Funny)
Today Ukraine, tomorrow Alaska? They've been bitching about getting ripped off back in 1867 when they sold it to the US for 7.2 million dollars. After the discovery of Gold and Oil there it looks like they got fucked over. No wonder Palin is nervous.
Re:Sarah Palin (Score:4, Funny)
I think you have Tina Fey and Sarah Palin confused. [newsbusters.org]
Unless you are thinking about the short run hit "Who's Nailin' Paylin?".
Who wouldn't have predicted this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who has paid even slight attention would have predicted this.
The Crimea is the home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Putin is not going to walk away from that (in fact they have a lease, although it has a somewhat dubious approval).
Putin would like to keep all of Ukraine in his orbit, but I think even he has doubts about his ability to seize Ukraine with force. The West will whine about the Crimea but has no leverage and will just hope they can bluff enough to maintain the rest of the existing Ukrainian borders without having Moscow annex the eastern part, too.
The whole east/west struggle is something of a pyrrhic victory for no matter who "wins" -- Ukraine's economy is a trainwreck, and the "winner" will have to spend big bucks to keep it propped up, which nobody wants to do.
Re:Paul the Octopus for president! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, the guy certainly is predictable. It was 100% obvious that he was going to invade as soon as the "local militiamen" (who managed to organize themselves and acquire somewhat modern military equipment and uniforms in two days!) started showing up.
Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has made their bed and now it is sleeping in it.
Wow, talk about ameri-centrism. This isn't about the US bro, this is about Ukraine and Russia. The US isn't suffering here, Ukrainians are. The US has nothing to do with it except the complaints of a whining president.
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Interesting)
The US spent a lot on color revolution efforts over the years and really wants to see some payback
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... [wikipedia.org]
US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (26 November 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
The US really wants NATO up against Russia (encirclement, containment) - like the Soviet Union used Cuba.
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
The US spent a lot on color revolution efforts over the years and really wants to see some payback
Russia has spent a lot on separatism efforts in many countries after the Soviet Union, centered in Russia, had previously shipped ethnic Russians to live in many occupied countries, often after engaging in various flavors of ethnic cleansing or other mass killings. We can expect more "protection" to be needed by those Russian in years to come, and Russian aggression and occupation of those countries will always be a danger under the current Russian government.
US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (26 November 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
There is a great deal that the account you reference leaves out, including government election fraud and thuggery. Lets add some more background.
Ukraine's Orange Revolution [nytimes.com]
The US really wants NATO up against Russia (encirclement, containment) - like the Soviet Union used Cuba.
Having regained its independence after a long, bitter period of foreign rule, Ukraine really, really wants to remain independent with its territory intact. By itself against Russia it is unlikely to do so given Russia's history and power, as we are seeing demonstrated now, and previously in Georgia.
You may recall that the Ukrainians have plenty of motivation to be free of Russia since a special word is used for the crime against humanity inflicted upon them by the Soviet Union, the heart of which was Russia: Holodomo. The Ukrainian terror famine killed perhaps as many as 10,000,000 people as the police, secret police, and army were used to confiscate food and prevent people from leaving.
The Soviet Story - trailer [youtube.com]
The Great Famine [historylea...site.co.uk]
The Soviet Union had to be contained, Russia didn't ..... or are we seeing now that it does?
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:4, Insightful)
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American Exceptionalism strikes again. How many invasions and regime changes has Russia performed over the last 10 years compared to your government? Is Putin asserting he has the right to have anyone murdered, anywhere in the world, based on his say so alone - and acting on those claims? How many military bases does Russia have around the world compared to the United States. Does Russia have special forces operating in more than half [motherjones.com] the world's countries?
Anyone with a half-functioning brain can see wh
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Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Interesting)
Now thats an unfair comparison. There were never that many interest or citizens of the US in Iraq as Russians in Crimea.
Since the revolution i hoped that Ukraina and EU do the most reasonable thing: Declare that Russia can keep the military base there (in the best interest of everybody), declare that the crimea is automonous in many aspects, and make an agreement that Russian is the second official language in Ukraina, and the first in the East part and the Crimea. Make a trade agreement and offer Russia Ukraina as a marketplace to access EU. Give Russia the prospect of becoming associated (not member, but free trade) with the EU via this way.
History has no rewind button. Russian speaking population is now living everywhere in the former Soviet union, and we have seen example of discrimination of Russians in other countries (Baltic states) before, where in some it was forbidden to speak russian.
The nationalist political games which the west does not keep a safe distance from are not good.
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Estonia, Latvia have both laws in place which pose big disavantages to russian communities existing there. A quick google search would have shown you this.
"Forbidden to speak russian" was meant to be "Forbidden to speak russian on official purposes".
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, shocking, people who immigrated to a foreign nation finally had to learn the nations language, just like everyone else who does that.
Only in their case, they got to wait a bit longer than most people.
I'm sorry, but the fact is that the russians that lived in the former baltic states had the ability to learn the native languages for years, but refused in their imperialist pride.
Furthermore, there is always the option to leave the country they illegally occupied for years and move back to their own nation of russia.
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Yeah. Imperialist pride. Sure. How about: Maybe they were sent there and did not like it, but after they lived in a purely russian city, where russuan language was demanded from the Soviet Union, newly built there for 50 years they are not welcome at "home"?
Never keep people living somewhere responsible for the political actions of their leaders 60 years ago.
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He is not. Although Russian was not forbidden per se, the use of the language was severely restricted including the law that forbade teaching children in Russian.
Not to mention the fact that the Russians were not granted citizenship based on their ethnicity alone.
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Sevastapol is largely Russian, but Crimea on the whole is ethnically Tatar. The problem is a hangover from the old imperial tactic of settling a privileged minority to try to make the local populace easier to control, and to try to trigger language change. Congo's crisis came because independence didn't do enough to start the process of returning land from the privileged settled whites to the native population, and then Mugabe gained power on the land reform ticket with no real plan on how to do it right --
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
Please elaborate a bit more on your first sentence. I don't live there, so I have to rely on Wikipedia etc., but the population of Crimea is around 2 million, out of which 58% (1.16m) are Russians and 12% (0.24m) are Tatars, with 24% Ukraininans.
If 100% of Sevastopol (population of 380'000) were Russian, that still leaves 780'000 Russians vs 240'000 Tatars for the rest of Crimea. I'd say if anything, Crimea on the whole is ethnically Russian.
Maybe you're referring to the historical development. But I don't see how 3 centuries of Tatar rule take precedence over 4 centuries of Bulgarian rule, 2 centuries of Kievan Rus' rule (both slavic) and all the others (Greeks, Goths, Huns, ....) before the Tatars arrived in the 15th century. And for the Russian rule since the 18th century, afaict the whole pretext for the subjugation was that the Crimea was slavic lands.
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There are more Tatars outside of Sevastopol than in the city, but they are still a minority. Their history with Russia is pretty complicated and has many conflicts the latest being WWII where the Tatar community openly supported Hitler even after they were denied their own country. While most collaborationists themselves could escape with the retreating Wehrmacht, the common people were not so lucky: the Tatars were deported to Uzbekistan, many of them died. 1989 the Soviets acknowledged the deportation as
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
US invaded Iraq, tried to reform the government, and eventually left.
Russia invaded Crimea, and may soon attempt to annex it [infowars.com].
That's a big difference, legally and morally.
Well, to be fair, Crimea was part of Russia until 1964 when Nikita Khrusjtsjov arbitrarily gave it away to Ukraine (according to some historians he did so while drunk). The majority of the people there identify with being Russian. Not saying Putin is right, but he is welcomed by many there.
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The Soviet Union shipped ethnic Russians to live in many "Soviet Republics," including the conquered and annexed Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. They did that as a means to pacify the annexed territory. Those populations are now serving as an excuse for Russian intervention and occupation. Can we expect to see Russia annexing those territories again due to the presence of Russian minorities? Is this the Sudetenland all over again? Does the world learn?
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It's still no reason to strip said Russians of their rights like Baltic countries did. The fear is that the new Ukrainian government would do similar steps and the fact that one of the first laws passed by the new government was to remove Russian's language "regional language" status is a strong indication for it.
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Unless Russian leaders want to have them as an excuse to pressurize the colonized countries instead and don't really care about them.
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Wanna be part of Europe? Better come up with ways to integrate, not exclude them.
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Trolling? I think that's your job.
You're presenting a slanted picture (as usual). I'm just straightening it out.
You have no idea what is going on there as all your information is from news outlets, I have friends and relatives there. So please do yourself a favor and shut up.
With the same effect I can say that Ukraine is calling the current government a coup d'etat (financed by western NGOs, which were barred from Russia a while ago), and is welcoming Russia's presence.
Sudetenland was used as a staging board for further expansion, which wo
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Crimea was part of Russia until 1964 when Nikita Khrusjtsjov arbitrarily gave it away to Ukraine (according to some historians he did so while drunk).
According to this [iccrimea.org] it was a vote in the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR that caused the transfer and not Khrusjtsjov alone.
By a decree issued February 19, 1954 of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Crimea was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. This decree was passed amid solemn circumstances. There were many speeches, which as far as one could tell had one purpose: to explain to the peoples of the USSR the reasons which made this act essential. According to the speakers the chief reasons were these: 1) The Crimea's economy is closely linked with the economy of the Ukrainian Republic; 2) The Crimea forms, as it were, a natural extension of the southern Ukrainian steppes.
The majority of the people there identify with being Russian.
Perhaps because most of the Tartars were exiled and may Ukrainians were starved in 1932 and 33. This followed by Russians moving to the area to support the Black Sea Fleet may be the reason for so many Russians on Ukrainian land.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:4)
Covert United States foreign regime change actions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
The US basically swaps out a gov, installs a weak new gov, or supports a gov and then gets a "request" for a shared or join facility (base, covert listening station).
No need to used the term land grabbers, when a term like research facility, partnership, joint military facilities, radar base, camps, air station, facilities, installations sound so much more normal.
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Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the US had every right to invade Iraq. After the first Gulf War the cease fire conditions called for UN inspection of Iraq for chemical weapons. Saddam impeded the inspectors at every turn. He continuously sent fighters into the no flight zone also. Violations of the cease fire agreement were so numerous as to make it a joke. Look at it as simply a continuance of the original conflict.
As I recall it, Saddam said the UN inspectors were welcome, as long as there were no American inspectors there, because he was convinced they were CIA spies. Hans Blix felt this was reasonable, the Americans said "hell no" and used their permanent security council status to block any agreement to carry on without any US presence on the ground. In effect, it was the US that stopped the inspections.
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:5, Interesting)
As I recall it, Saddam said the UN inspectors were welcome, as long as there were no American inspectors there, because he was convinced they were CIA spies.
No, Saddam didn't want the inspectors there because he didn't want actual evidence to get out that he didn't have WMDs. He was more afraid of Iran than he was the US, and he said as much [washingtonpost.com] after he was captured and before he was executed.
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:4, Interesting)
Saddam impeded the inspectors at every turn.
The actual inspectors on the ground disagree with this assessment [wikipedia.org].
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Actually the US had every right to invade Iraq. After the first Gulf War the cease fire conditions called for UN inspection of Iraq for chemical weapons. Saddam impeded the inspectors at every turn. He continuously sent fighters into the no flight zone also. Violations of the cease fire agreement were so numerous as to make it a joke. Look at it as simply a continuance of the original conflict.
Excuse me? If some big ass country was bullying me, I'd make what they were doing harder. Our invasion of Iraq was not only wrong, it destabilized the region into a big ass terrorist training area, something Saddam kept from happening.
And how many WMD's did we find? I know Bush said there were there, but how many did we find? Oh ya, None.
The biggest outrage of all of this is all the art and artifacts that got destroyed during this time, all that history lost.
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You seem to forget that very Constitution makes treaties the second highest law of the land. Treaties like the U.N. Charter [salon.com].
Now, you were saying?
Re:Well ... what do you expect (Score:4, Insightful)
Precedence is a bitch, the US set the precedent and now they are winging about what is happening in Crimea !!
Precedence only matters in law, in places that use common law [wikimedia.org]. In other legal systems, precedence doesn't matter at all.
It matters diplomatically and in propaganda.
The only thing I care about. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care who is right or wrong in the Ukraine, I don't care who is more manipulative: EU, USA or Russia. I don't care who has stolen more: Yanukovych or Tymoshenko. I pity those who died in this conflict, but I don't even care who has started the bloodshed.
There is one thing that I care about though. On one side of this conflict are Nazis. The "Right Wing", one of the main pushing forces in this uprising, are Nazis. They use Nazi symbols and slogans, they praise WWII Nazi collaborators as their heroes, their leader Yarosh (now the Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine) said that Russian people will never give up their ethnics and culture and therefore have to be eliminated.
So, if the Nazis are on one side, I'm on the other. No corruption can justify aligning with Nazis. I don't give a fuck how decent the majority of the protester might be. They. Fought. Side-by-side. With. Nazis.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the Russians joined the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 17th, 1939, so there's that, too.
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They even had non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. A mistake that the Russians have ultimately paid for with 20 million of their lives.
Therefore the Russians in power don't praise the Nazis. The Ukrainians do.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:4, Informative)
After Stalin caused the death of millions of Ukrainians I can see why they would prefer the Nazis. The lesser of two devils.
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And later went on to liberate almost all of Europe. Do your point is ?
You exaggerate (probably because you're some sort of Soviet apologist).
The Soviets were doomed without the help of the rest of the Allies. The entire world would have been better off if the Soviets and Nazis had just been allowed to kill each other off. They were made for each other.
Communists, Nazis -- how anyone could pick one as better than the other is beyond reason.
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Your knowledge of history leaves something to be desired (probably because you're some sort of Western Imperialist apologist).
Are you out of your mind? The Western Front, Africa, and the Pacific combined were a sideshow next to the Eastern Front. Western nations counted their casualties in the thousands to hundreds of thousands. Eastern Front casualties were counted in
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And later went on to liberate almost all of Europe. Do your point is ?
You exaggerate (probably because you're some sort of Soviet apologist).
The Soviets were doomed without the help of the rest of the Allies.
And here you're exaggerating.
The outcome in WWII would have been the same, except that all the conquered German territories would have been in Soviet hands. So France, Norway, Holland, Greece and so forth. It would have cost Stalin another 10 or 20 million people (most of them to starvation, disease and non battle related causes) but he would have succeeded.
The sad fact of the matter is that even if the British had acceded to Hitler's peace offering in 1941, he still would have fallen to the Russians
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:4, Insightful)
The war would be bloodier and take more time, but keep in mind that the vast majority of Lend Lease shipments happened after 1943. Prior to 1943 the Allies delivered much less than promised, e.g. only about one fifth of arranged trucks. The western front also happened in 1944, way after Stalingrad and Kursk.
The Soviets could successfully move their war production east to the Urals and defend the country till the production was running at full speed. The Germans simply didn't have enough resources to push further.
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Really? REALLY? Ask the Poles how "liberated" they were. Ask the Czechs how "liberated" they were. Ask the Slovaks how "liberated" they were. Ask the Hungarians how "liberated" they were. Ask the Bulgarians how "liberated" they were. Ask the Romanians how "liberated" they were. Ask the East Germans how "liberated" they were. Ask the Baltics how "liberated" they were. Yep, that's a lot of liberation, there.
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They got marionette governments to act as a buffer for Soviet Union. Because, you know, Czechs made a third of Third Reich's tanks, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians were actually fighting along with Nazis. Poland, too, has happily participated in the division of Czechoslovakia (after capturing parts of Ukraine and Belarus in 1919-1921). And Germany, well, started the whole mess. Besides, the Germans should be really thankful for the GDR: without it US and UK would carry on with the plan of destroying Germany'
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Czechoslovakia's strong production was providing a great deal of war supplies to the Germany (one in three panzers were produced there), both Hungarians and Romanians were part of the Axis as well not to mention Ustase in Croatia. You may consider marionette governments as a form of penance.
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Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:5, Informative)
You say this as if the other side doesn't have its own Nazis. Here [citysites.ua] is what the synagogue in Simferopol looks like, a day after its takeover by the local pro-Russian "self-defense force". The text says "Death to Jews".
Also, Crimean Tatars are not happy about Russian takeover for a good reason stemming from their own recent history. You might want to look it up on Wikipedia.
Oh, and the guy they've put in charge of Crimea? He has statues of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky in his work cabinet.
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Except the synagogue was not taken over by "pro-Russian self-defence forces". According to the Jewish association director someone climbed over the fence and made this "graffiti". I saw no claim that pro-Russian forces are behind this.
A singular act of an unknown individual is a far stretch from openly praising Nazis and using their insignia.
Crimean Tatars were known Nazi collaborators during WWII. Nonetheless, they still live on the peninsula.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the synagogue was not taken over by "pro-Russian self-defence forces". According to the Jewish association director someone climbed over the fence and made this "graffiti". I saw no claim that pro-Russian forces are behind this.
The point is that the graffiti was not there the day before (when, presumably, those "Nazis" were in charge), and now it is.
In any case, there's plenty of Nazi-like talk coming from Russia and easily seen in comments on YouTube and elsewhere on the Net. How about Sergei Lukyanenko: "There is no such country as Ukraine, and what's there is destined to be either a part of Russia or a Polish protectorate" [calvertjournal.com]. And there's plenty of far cruder stuff out there if one cares to look.
Don't kid yourself. The Russian tricolor and the orange-black striped ribbon are now as much Nazi symbols as swastika and SS runes.
Crimean Tatars were known Nazi collaborators during WWII.
What, every single one of them? You're trodding awfully close to nazism yourself.
Nonetheless, they still live on the peninsula.
Well yes, they were allowed to return there in 1989, shortly before Ukraine gained independence, which is the only reason why they're there now. To remind, Stalin - you know, the guy whom the new prime minister of Crimea is apparently a huge fan of - resettled all Crimean Tatars from Uzbekistan in 1944, with almost half perishing in the process.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see. So it's fair to say that whenever some right-wing shit happens to come out in favour of something you also favour, you'll instantly disavow it?
Oh, yes, that is very sensible.
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The protest leaders did nothing to banish Nazis from their midst, they relied on them heavily and made their leader Deputy Secretary of the National Security. So yes, in this case I don't care how noble their goals were. I sympathise with the Ukrainian's struggle for a fair government, but I will not support this uprising.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:5, Interesting)
They. Fought. Side-by-side. With. Nazis.
You need to go back a little further and read a little history. In 1932-1933 there was a famine [wikipedia.org] caused by Russia which killed over 2 million Ukrainians. When the Germans invaded they were seen as liberators by many as they were kicking out the hated Russians. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I also wonder if Russia is spinning WW2 ties with the German army to make their case look better.
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The famine was not in Ukraine only, parts of Russia and Belarus have suffered as well. The matter is highly disputed, it didn't help that the Ukrainians ones used the photos from US Great Depression to illustrate the atrocities of the Russians.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yarosh and his ilk are bad news. They are not representative of the majority of Ukrainians in the western half of the country. Given what Stalin did [wikipedia.org] to the Ukrainian population, it's understandable that there are present-day extremists who have adopted their positions from those who welcomed the Nazis as liberators. (That was a really bad decision, by the way. After Stalin had starved millions of them to death, they got stomped on by the Nazis, and then got stomped on again by Stalin towards the end of the war. They were fucked either way, but the way things worked out, they got fucked three times.)
There are lots of "they" in the movement to depose Yanukovych. There are hard-right elements within the Maidan, but they are not representative of the Maidan. (The closest American political analogies would be that the KKK is not representative of conservatism, let alone the GOP, and that Occupy Wall Street is not representative of the progressive movement, let alone the DNC.)
For what little it's worth, I think the most reasonable solution is to divide the country. Most of the land mass of Ukraine leans towards Europe, but some of that land mass, specifically Crimea, leans towards Russia. (This is in large part due to Stalin-era resettlements, but WW2 is long over, and so is the Holodomor, so it ought to be a moot point.) If Putin wants is a port for his fleet (he does), and if the Crimean region wants to ally itself with Russia (it does, by as large a margin as Western Ukraine wants to ally with Europe), then they should probably be free to leave.
The interesting question is how much more Ukranian territory Putin wants as a buffer zone between Europe and Russia. (Having a buffer zone is kind of a Russian thing. I can't say I blame them, given the history of invasions from Europe...) A partitioned Ukraine shrinks that buffer zone considerably. Taking all of Ukraine by force back into the Russian fold would, at the moment, imply a war whose costs could well exceed the worth of the natural gas reserves and the fleet. The question is -- how much territory is enough for Putin, and will the rest of Ukraine cede it?
I think this all ends diplomatically. Neither Ukraine, nor Russia, nor the rest of Europe, has much to gain from a civil war. Maybe all that needs to happen is Ukraine extends the lease on the port for a decade or two on the cheap. Or something to do with gas royalties. This is the sort of problem that is best solved by bankers and ballots, not bullets.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:5, Informative)
They. Fought. Side-by-side. With. Nazis.
You would be surprised to hear that many democratic countries in present-day Europe apart from the Nazi-Germany itself fought alongside the Nazis in WWII, including Italians, Finns, Romanians, Bulgarians and Norwegians. And these were the real-deal WWII genociding, totalitarian, Führer-hailing Nazis – not some modern-day, nostalgic Neo-Nazis, who don't even know how to genocide. And apart from those countries that fought alongside them, in the 1930s Nazis had large amounts of supporters in every Western country, and their policies were widely regarded as progressive, modern and necessary. Nowadays we know that the Nazi policies led to ruin, but the masses of the 1930s did not and thought they were behaving rationally. Do you think human thinking has changed much in mere 80 years?
Re: (Score:3)
There were also Russians fighting on the side of Nazis. Many of those collaborators did not view themselves as Hitler's subordinates. Their goal was to liberate their countries from Communists. Vlasov's Russian army wanted to create a free and independent Russia, while Ukraine's Stepan Bandera wanted to create a free and independent Ukrainian state. For this reason, Hitler had a quite uneasy relationship with them since he had other plans for conquered territories.
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As said, I don't care how noble their goals were. Siding with Nazis is an excuse to nothing. Vlasov and Bandera were used by the Nazi regime and whether they genuinely believed that they are fighting for noble cause is irrelevant -- both were sentenced to death for a reason.
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As said, I don't care how noble their goals were. Siding with Nazis is an excuse to nothing.
I beg to differ. It's only ex post, with all of our current knowledge of the full extent of Holocaust and other Nazi "accomplishments" and future plans, we can say TODAY that siding with Nazis back then was bad. In reality, back in the 30s, the Soviet union was regarded as just as bad and just as evil as the Nazis. So a lot of smaller nations were effectively choosing between two evils. Finns for example saw no diff
Re: (Score:3)
The point is, there are no Nazis in power in those countries nowadays (some Baltic countries may be considered an exception though).
What on Earth are you talking about? There are definitely no Nazis in power in any Baltic country (Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia) – they are all lead by liberal-democratic, conservative, social-democratic or centrist governments.
Fidesz, the ruling party of Hungary, has links to Nazi-like groups, but it is still half a Europe away from the Baltics.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I talk about SS parades and monuments in Latvia. Supported and mandated by the government. I talk about the discrimination of ethnic Russians who were refused the citizenship and were stripped of some rights there. Lithuanian government pursuits the use of Soviet symbolic but does not do the same to the Nazi insignia. All of the above routinely ignored by the European Union.
Re:The only thing I care about. (Score:4, Insightful)
... they praise WWII Nazi collaborators as their heroes,...
So, if the Nazis are on one side, I'm on the other.
Ergo you are on the side of Joseph Stalin. Death camps. Force labour. Expansionist military aggression. Civilian infrastructure retooled to produce a state-controlled war machine. Genocide of perceived "lesser races". Rejection of religious freedom. Restriction of travel. Secret police encouraging people to inform on their neighbours. Thought police enforcing the norm through "party membership" as a de facto prerequisite for employment.
All the evils we see from the Nazis were evils that Soviet Union had been visiting on its population for a good decade before Hitler rose to power. Knowing what Stalin was doing to them already, and not knowing that the Nazis were equally dangerous as Stalin, it was perfectly logical for them to side with the Nazis.
Why not just give up? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Why do you think that would satisfy Putin?
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It wouldn't satisfy Putin. He took South Ossetia from Georgia and is likely still engineering a wider pro-Russia coup in Georgia. He engineered this situation in the Crimean Peninsula, and he's probably engineering other such incidents in other former soviet republics.
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Russia has at least a superficially "legitimate" claim for Crimea, since some 60% of the population are ethnic Russians.
Only because Stalin deported 100% of the Tatars in 1944 (killing half of them)
Re:Why not just give up? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Ukraine ceded control of Crimea it would gain more unity, and have less trouble separating itself from Russia and foster its ties with the EU. Crimea is an autonomous region with its own government, so Ukraine stand to lose very little from there other than having a national minority there (they still have access to the Black Sea from the mainland). Russia OTOH gains very little: They already have a fleetbase there, and a national majority that'll follow their whim, that wont change with annexation. They will, however, have to contend with a large ukrainian minority that will be none too happy of their new overlords, and who can get reinforced from their homeland easily. Also, they'll obliterate any chance of moving at Ukraine as a whole, because this action will fan anti-russian sentiment.
All in all, the move on Crimea is a provocation from Russia trying to destabilise Ukraine. They may end up getting Crimea, but if they fail to throw Ukraine into chaos, then they come out of this the loser.
Re:Why not just give up? (Score:4, Interesting)
New pipeline deals with a new, split, weak Ukraine start to look amazing to the EU
The US gets NATO very near Russia under the cover of a new, split, weak Ukraine "invite".
Other parts go to Russia, Russians in the area feel safe, Russia keeps its mil happy with vital areas still been in Russian hands.
Win win win win for bankers with new 'loan' energy contracts, the USA, Russia, EU
Fun and years of extra funding for CIA, FSB and MI6 too.
Re:Why not just give up? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder the same. Crimea is historically neither Russian nor Ukrainian. It was populated by Tatars who constantly launched attacks against everyone north of them. Once they burned Moscow to ground. It was conquered by Russian Empire in 18th century culminating a rivalry that lasted for centuries. Crimea was defended by Russian Empire in the Crimean War of the 19th century. A lot of Russian blood was spilled there, and nationalist politicians in both Russia and Ukraine constantly manipulate the popular sentiment. It's a big problem for Ukraine.
However, I can see one reason why Ukraine may be reluctant to part with Crimea. It could only be a beginning of further partition of Ukraine. For example, once in control of Crimea Russia and its brethren in Ukraine could start a new campaign now to transfer the cities of Kharkiv and Donentsk to Russia, again both heavily dominated by Russians, and so on. The nationalist Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky has said many times that he sees a division of Ukrain where the west Ukraine has capital in Lviv, surrounded by 4-5 west Ukrainian provinces. No matter what happens, this conflict will go on for a LONG time...
Invasion of Grenada..Anyone..Anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
Thatcher sent a message to Reagan: This action will be seen as intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation, however unattractive its regime. I ask you to consider this in the context of our wider East/West relations and of the fact that we will be having in the next few days to present to our Parliament and people the siting of Cruise missiles in this country. I must ask you to think most carefully about these points. I cannot conceal that I am deeply disturbed by your latest communication. You asked for my advice. I have set it out and hope that even at this late stage you will take it into account before events are irrevocable. (The full text remains classified.)
They cannot stop with Crimea (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They cannot stop with Crimea (Score:4, Informative)
This is overstating things. Water rights are an old story in many places. People work out having other countries upstream of them, even unfriendly ones. Hell, even India and Pakistan manage. And the only *land* access to the Crimea is over the Isthmus of Perekop, but it is quite accessible across the Kerch Strait, which is very narrow (less than three miles wide), and is serviced by frequent and regular ferries. There are proposals to bridge it as well (it's been bridged in the past).
Re: (Score:2)
Who did that?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Uhm, no, that's nothing more than a bullshit excuse - the US did not have authority from the UN to depose the Iraqi government, they were never granted that in 1991, and they were never granted that at any time after 1991. They were given the authority to carry out specific actions in order to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait, but no more.
You also ignore the fact that as part of their request for help, the Kuwaiti government promised democratic elections in a free Kuwait. They never happened.
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Forging evidence of and publicly lie about mass-destruction weapons in order to make a case to invade a country...
Hey, I'm no fan of the crimes the US have been conducting over the past decade... But at least the US issued a declaration of war, and gave both Iraq and Afghanistan the option of negotiating their way out of the conflict without deploying troops on the ground.
Here the Russians haven't issued an ultimatum, they haven't given proper notice, nor have they tried to resolve their issues through neither direct negotiations or the UN. And as of right now, they do not seem open to retreat in favor of a UN peace
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ha, jokes on him, You can't destroy mass.
Re:Still far from... (Score:5, Informative)
Not really, This law [cornell.edu] defines a WMD for the purpose of domestic law enforcement as basically needing to expel something or cause damage by a projectile being expelled. A BB gun for instance can be a WMD but a rock alone couldn't. However, a rock in a slingshot might be.
It's tricky narrowing down a definition because it relies on devices defined in section 921 [cornell.edu] also and that specifically mentioned a starter pistol as a firearm if it can_be modified to shoot a projectile propelled by an explosive device even though it hasn't_been.
Originally, the term entered popular vocabulary by the use in the Safwan cease fire agreement with Iraq with the first gulf war. How it has changed to include a pencil sharpener or some silly irrelevant objects I don't know.
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Re:NATO expansion. It's all that simple (Score:5, Interesting)
> Kremlin had no other choices left with Ukraine.
Really? Like peaceful coexistance?
Putin is wagering it all. If he does not get at least Crimea from this (or even the whole SE of the Ukraine) he has a major defeat on his hands: Confidence in Russia fulfilling its contracts (they guaranteed Ukraine's teritorial integrity for getting back USSR nuclear weapons) will be severly damaged (also damaging their natural gas trade), the Ukraine will make life a hell for the Russian fleet in Sewastopol by subtle sabotage and the Ukraine now will definitely want to get into NATO as soon as possible.
With such high stakes he must be very sure, he can win this.
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>they guaranteed Ukraine's teritorial integrity for getting back USSR nuclear weapons
The treaty in question was signed but never ratified, neither by Russia, nor by US or UK.
Besides, US has guaranteed non-expansion of NATO to the Eastern Europe once. The Russians may be just learning from the world's leading democracy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Really? How was that little fiasco in Georgia resolved, again? Oh yeah - Russia ensured the safety of ethnic and national Russians, and withdrew.
Re:Soviet Union (Score:4, Informative)
There was no need to bribe Ukraine. Ukraine was 100% under Soviet control. No one knows why exactly the transfer happened. I believe it was meant to represent a display of friendship between Ukraine and the Soviet leadership. Back then no one would have imagined that the republics could split some day. For example, Russian nationalists are crying crocodile tears because of some territories lost to Kazakhstan during the partition of USSR, though Crimea is the most hurtful thing for them.
Re:The primitive division of both sides is appalli (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Putin is a neo-Soviet gangster, perhaps? And he's pissed off because the Ukrainian people have tossed out their dictator-in-waiting after the latter's sudden volte-face revealed him to be Putin's creature, maybe?
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It's amazing how any mention of Russia brings out the lunatica
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> I recall a guy called Chamberlain had similar, as well as extremely successful, approach to aggressors about 70 years ago.
Why? It has been indeed a success -- pushing the Germany to the East via Munich Agreement and Sitzkrieg aka doing nothing when Germany invaded Poland. Eventually Hitler did attack the USSR and everyone was happy for a while. Except the France who got occupied in the process.