Russia Blocks Internet Sites of Putin Critics

An anonymous reader writes in with news about Russias censorship of internet sites critical of President Vladimir Putin. "Russia blocked access to the internet sites of prominent Kremlin foes Alexei Navalny and Garry Kasparov on Thursday under a new law critics say is designed to silence dissent in President Vladimir Putin's third term. The prosecutor general's office ordered Russian internet providers to block Navalny's blog, chess champion and Putin critic Kasparov's internet newspaper and two other sites, grani.ru and ej.ru, state regulator Roskomnadzor said. The move was the latest evidence of what government opponents see as a crackdown on independent media and particularly the internet, a platform for dissenting views in a nation where state channels dominate the airwaves. Ej.ru editor Alexander Ryklin called it 'monstrous' and a 'direct violation of all the principles of freedom of speech,' More at EFF, and in earlier stories at the The Huffington Post, and Deutsche Welle, which notes, 'This year's report by Reporters Without Borders on World Day against Cyber Censorship condemns Russia as one of the "Enemies of the Internet." "Russia has adopted dangerous legislation governing the flow of news and information and freedom of expression online," it concludes.'"

Comments

Reassembling the Soviet Union

[cold fjord]

Sadly, Russia is turning more and more to Soviet ways. Putin was even rehabilitating Stalin.

Putin Reportedly Claims the Dissolution of the Soviet Union May Have Been Illegal

This may not end well.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Soviet Union dissolution was technically illegal like any other coup/revolution, so calling is so is a truism, but what does it have to do with rehabilitating Stalin?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

All this years Russia only pretended that they are democratic nation. In fact, they are the same red communists they were before. I say that because I'm a Ukrainian.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[cold fjord]

As one of the great monsters of history, rehabilitating Stalin is an important bit of symbolism and tone. If Austria and Germany were to one day declare that they were reuniting in an act of self-determination by the German people, and then started making public pronouncements about the many great achievements of Der Führer, wouldn't that be cause for concern? Stalin killed far more than Der Führer.

Putin’s long game? Meet the Eurasian Union

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[erikkemperman]

For a man who puts himself on his own, almost personal, state tv to the extent Putin does, we can probably safely assume that articles with the phrase "Putin reportedly claims" are full of it.

I don't understand why you keep going back to Soviet days -- your "née Soviet Union" line is almost never missing, though it doesn't make any sense (born as Soviet Union?). It is almost as if you feel you need to arouse ancient Cold War anxiety among the older readers.

Really the present Russian antics are scary enough without revisionist historical fear mongering.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Soviet Union dissolution was a lie. Ukraine is as much of inheritor of 'communism' as Russia is. Better stay as a single state to fight elements of old regime. They're present in all former soviet countries and made up this dissolution just to make some toy states to play with. I say we better undo it.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

For 400 years Ukraine fights with Russian occupation. Even in the USSR, we still resisted their regime.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

Ok, say that to ''green mans'' in Crimea and personally to Putin. We, Ukrainians, don't want to fight with Russia, but if occupation will continue, we will counter-attack.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

Ukraine is not Russia. This idea we are trying to convey for so many ears...

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Borg453b]

.. but in Soviet Russia, TV remote controls you!.

Sorry - couldnt help myself.

>Really the present Russian antics are scary enough without revisionist historical fear mongering.

Tasteless pun aside; I agree.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

Wont to Russia? Go to Russia! Ukrainians is for democracy and freedom!

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Cenan]

Nationalism must be eradicated for the good of the Humanity

At gun point if need be right? We've all heard it before, you don't need to try and package it up into something that will be easily digestible, nobody believes your bullshit outside of Russia.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Mashiki]

but what does it have to do with rehabilitating Stalin?

Haven't seen the whitewashing of his crimes against the populace at large that they're pushing in the schools? Don't have friends or family that live in that part of the world who lived through it? Well that's okay. Stalin was a mass murderer, like many communist and socialist dictatorships he set the tone for all the other countries that followed that same ideology. However, what's happening these days isn't any different from fascist groups who whitewash their favorite fascist leader.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

We will destroy anyone who will tray to separate Ukrainian. Even a ''russian brothers''. We are peaceful and tolerant nation, but not in the case of occupation.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Only in self-defense. Nationalists are crazy and will draw the gun first in practice.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[spark89]

The main problem is Putin. He wont only blood and power.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Putin is just a figurehead. He means NOTHING. Besides, how do you know what he wants? Read his mind? It's not as simple. Life is not Star Wars. There are no villains here, just people who are delusional or mistaken. Remember you can be mistaken too. Don't take anything at face value. Large scale politics is just a show. Remember than national and state differences are forced on us by ambitious people that just want to play Civilization in RL. Putin isn't any different here than any other state leader. I wouldn't call him particularly bloodthirsty based on his past actions and actions of the government he represents. Nobody knows what can happen in future. And don't ascribe your thoughts to him.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy and freedom often has a cost of blood.

Nationality is a lie.

My language, culture, history, ideology, way of thinking and distinctive looks says otherwise. Oh and passport, flags, government, law and all that state stuff as well.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[h5inz]

Assembling the Soviet Union was illegal, so any laws and treaties made by Soviet Union are void anyway.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Cenan]

I grew up in the shadow of fucking Soviet warheads. When the abomination that was the Soviet Union collapsed (because that is what it was, a collapse that forced a dissolution), everyone were better off. We've never had it better here in fact, than since that monstrosity of a union disappeared, and Russians could have had it just as good, were it not for Putin.

There is no interest in "eradicating the old elements", Putin is one of those old elements himself. He's building himself a buffer zone that he can steal from without repercussions, because he wants a new empire and he can't afford it on Russian GDP alone. He needs vassals he can exploit without affecting the core of his new empire. He is in essence rebuilding the Soviet Union, one invasion at a time. He couldn't have done it without you though, and I'm sure he's grateful for your support (no, not really).

The way he is doing this is actually quite smart, although the end goal doesn't serve the widest of interests. He's filling the Russian media with macho propaganda and grand standing to seed the yearning for the old days of power. Ask almost any Russian and they'll have zero clue what the fuck is going on, except what Putin has made them believe. If he says green is red, that is what the Russians will walk into the future believing. "Solving" the world's problems isn't on the agenda for you great leader, it is a talking point - and nobody outside of Russia is buying it, but that's not the point of it. All that sauce is for you, not us, so you can stop regurgitating it, Putin already knows it's a sham and you sound ridiculous when you do.

When there are no protests at home, you can pretty much act as you wish. When you act like a dick and the negative responses start flooding in, you can always point to them and go: "everyone is afraid of us, they don't understand our grand design, we must continue on with our master plan". But what your great leader has forgotten to tell you is that his grand standing is hinging on a bluff, and an assumption that nobody is going to call it out of fear of "Old Russia".

If the gas revenue stream dries up, you guys are going to be seriously fucked. For the takers of the gas, the price of heating a living room will rise, but that is not the end of the world over here - we still have the money we're not giving to Putin in our hands. But for the Russian end of the transaction is a catastrophe. There will only be more gun point diplomacy or capitulation left, again. An argument can be made that those two options really are the same, the only difference is the length of time it takes the first option to merge into the second option, or you could count the number of bodies that has to pile up before that happens - your choice really.

What all this amounts to, is a massive failure in learning from your collective mistakes. All of this will not end well for anyone but Putin himself, he's already pocketed enough money to not care what happens to the rest of Russia, the worst that can happen (bar a gunshot wound to the head, launched from a mile out) is exile with pockets full of cash, so of course he's moving forward. Just don't keep kidding yourselves and thinking he's going to take you all with him.

What's more likely to happen down this path you're following, is another era of an isolated, poverty stricken Russia, and the really, really sad part is that you're all buying into it as the only way to go. I feel for you guys, I really do. It saddens me, because I remember the 80s. Do you?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Humans are different yet they all are part of Humanity. Culture and language aren't a viable reason to start a war with people with different language and culture. They don't justify having national states either. They're merely accidental traits of interest to anthologists and linguists.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Cenan]

I feel for you, and I sincerely wish the best for you. I hope you wake up soon and join the rest of us in moving forward, and I hope the bodies have not been piled up so high that there will be no way back.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

communist and socialist dictatorships

I don't know what you understand under socialist and dictatorship, but these 2 terms are mutually exclusive. USSR was fascist.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Jade_Wayfarer]

One People, One Empire, One Leader? Hmm, somehow sounds familiar...

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[psychonaut]

But there was no revolution, and the only coup was a short-lived one which actually tried to restore the ancien regime. The Soviet Union was dismantled largely peacefully and within the existing political framework, via legislation and referenda. Furthermore there was a continuity of leadership in most republics -- those at the upper echelons of society remained very much in power, except that post-USSR they were fabulously rich as well, having dispensed with the pretense of economic equality and helped themselves to personal ownership of formerly state-run enterprises.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Some of us here do remember them too, and most of us just can't still get over the shock of the speed with which the high tide of nationalism and chest-pounding has risen here. We still thought that old SU was left dead and buried back in the 1991, now just a horrible husk to warn the future generations. Nope, it seems to raise its ugly head once more, and suddenly there are so little sane people left, so little ways to change things back or even to run from them... Strange times here, really.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

yes, but economic interests of a small, rich, minority of big country x is a reason to go to war, apparently. substitute x for a country of your choice.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[psychonaut]

You could say the same thing about the United States of America, whose formation in 1776 was a treasonous act against the Kingdom of Great Britain. In both cases it makes little practical sense to consider all their respective laws and treaties void, and as a matter of law they are not (at least insofar as Russia and the USA are concerned).

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Anonymous Coward]

Being together with same language is more efficient. We should eliminate national differences, not promote them.

And yet you complain about not wanting to live in that other 'Ukrainian' culture. You are essentially saying that other peoples must adopt your culture while you do no effort to live with them. "Boo hoo hoo, I lived in Ukraine but I don't wan to be Ukrainian. These peoples are stupids, they stink, their language sound funny, their women look ugly. Resistance is futile, my race is superior."

Nations were, more often the not, able to live in peace with their neighbour. Nationalism are not the cause for conflict. Hateful bigot like you are. Fuck off.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[h5inz]

You are right, so that must mean there is no need to complain about legality of the Soviet Union dissolution either. I am fine with this one too.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Moving forward is exactly what I'm trying to do. Meaning moving beyond silly superstitions like nationalism. I'm a world citizen and genuinely consider nationalists to be kinda insane. I will not harm other human being just because he happens to be of different nationality than me. But I will defend my own life and that of people I care about no matter which nationality they are. Thanks to Internet I have friends from all over the world and this is what makes me consider the notion of Nationality obsolete and dangerous.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[petermgreen]

Putin’s long game? Meet the Eurasian Union [bostonglobe.com]

It's always struck me that being just outside the european union must kinda suck. Customers in the EU will be reluctant to buy from your buisness because they know they risk being stuck with stupid fees for collecting trivial ammount of VAT*. Travel into neighbouring countries is subject to restrictions decided by the block as a whole** rather than by your neighboughing country.

Putin aside I can see why the russians would not much like the idea of going from being the dominant force in a block to being the ones stuck just outside it

* buy a £20 item, pay £4 VAT plus £10 fee for collecting the VAT is the sort of experiance i've had when buying from outside the EU.
** Strictly speaking it's the schengen area rather than the EU per-se but there are only a handful of countries that are in one but not the other.
 

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Please, read this poem to the last line and tell me what do you feel about it.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Cenan]

Yeah I thought as much. You don't remember, you only know what you've been told. You've got no education worth a damn so you can't tell a propaganda move from a donkey, even if one of them kicked you in the face. It is sad, both that you don't get it, and that it will take you the better part of your life to come to the realization that you don't get it. And while you're mulling it over you're letting someone else make all the big decisions for you, having you think they're your own thoughts. These are all traits that the older among us have seen before, there is nothing you can tell us we have not heard before, and rejected as the propaganda that it is.

But I digress, there is no point in arguing with the indoctrinated. I've said my piece, you've regurgitated your leader's stance and done your duty, all is well on the surface for now.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

This is a non-sequitur in context of this discussion.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[petermgreen]

What is the upside of existence of Ukraine as separate state? And any other national state for that matter..

The larger an empire gets the less representation each citizen of that empire has and the harder it gets to topple corrupt rulers. It can also mean that entities just outside the empire come under a lot of pressure to become part of it (in turn making the empire ever larger and more powefull).

Which I get the impression is the big problem for ukraine. It's presumablly very difficult to find compromises in politics when one side wants to be part of the russian block, the other side wants to be part of the EU and being part of the two is mutually exclusive.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Nationalism is the main driving force behind Hitler's ideology and yet another demonstration of nationalism's evils.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Really? Ever heard of Anschluss? Doesn't ring a bell?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

What you telling me is propaganda too, don't you see it? And I rejected it just like you rejected Soviet propaganda. I don't believe in any political bullshit, either by Putin or arrogant people like you. I don't see any difference between your ramblings and Soviet state propaganda. You should practice your critical thinking skills and forget about politics, which is mostly a big show with little consequence other than senseless violence.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Anonymous Coward]

The Golden Horde would like to lodge a complaint about these rebellious Moscow princes. Any by a complaint, I mean a sword. In their skulls.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Anonymous Coward]

no better and no worse than any other clique either in Russia or in any other country "Reverse cargo cult" at its finest, LOL. "You see, our planes are made from grass and dirt, and thus cannot fly. Those Westerner's planes must be also made from grass and dirt, and also could not fly, and tales about them are all lies."

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[ultranova]

I don't know what you understand under socialist and dictatorship, but these 2 terms are mutually exclusive. USSR was fascist.

USSR was a secular theocracy. It treated Marxism - or "Dialectic Materialism" - as revealed truth, and as theocrats usually do, made more shit up as it went along. If and when reality disagreed with revelation, it got ignored or violently suppressed. And it never really changed: people got tired and disappointed with their prophet, just like they'd gotten tired and disappointed with the Czar earlier, and abandoned him. But the spirit of autocracy - the myth of divine leader - lived on, thus Putin is now enthroned as the new Czar, just like Stalin before him. Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss.

And no, USSR was not fascist. Fascism and Stalinism are both manifestations of something far older and nastier, a sickness that to some extent pervades all human societies. All who try to build a utopia reach the point where it seems the goal is just within range if they only sacrifice a few people to reach it. If they don't, the paradise remains flawed, and if they do, it turns into a nightmare - just like Soviet Union and various fascist regimes did.

Of course, the US also did exactly that to win the Cold War, and it seems the bill is now coming due. Time will tell how far the "land of the free" will fall before what it's unleashed is done with it.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

It's also a driving force behind Putin's ideology that you seem to be defending.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

That's great, but whilst Putin IS in charge of Russia, the Ukrainians want fuck all to do with it, so stop insisting they should just sit under Putin and put up with him.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

"Naturally I don't ask them to give up their culture. But I don't want them to force it on unwilling people on territory of Ukraine. This is absolutely inadmissible. "

Yet you want to force it onto them and when you do it it's not inadmissible? You don't see the hypocrisy in that?

"This is the reason Crimea rebelled."

Accept it didn't. In polling in February before this all happened only 41% of Crimeans wanted to join Russia. What's going on in Crimea isn't rebellion, it's Russian occupation - it's forced annexation of Crimea against the will of the people there - you know, that thing that on one hand you're saying is inadmissible, and on the other you're arguing for?

"If Ukrainian state respected Russian people as much Russian Federation respects its own people of different nationalities"

Yeah because it's so nice being Jewish in Russia and suffering attacks from Neo Nazis? It's so nice being Chechnyan in Russia and getting bombed to fuck? Outside of nationalities it's so nice being gay in Russia and being legislated against and beaten to death with the blessing of the state? It's so nice having differing political views than Putin and being beaten, jailed, or killed?

The only thing Russians look after in Russia are straight white Russians who conform to the will of Putin. Anything else and you're fucked.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Yes. But it still doesn't answer my question. Many states have merged in the past with varying levels of violence and illegitimacy. Fascist Germany was merely one of them and can't be considered proof that any sort of state merger is inherently bad.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Is it really that mutually exclusive? Russia isn't at odds with EU and US anymore.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[rossdee]

And what gave the British the right to set up colonies anyway? The (Amer)Indians were here first... (well long before the British, French and Spanish anyway.
The Vikings also reached North America before the other Europeans... Say who founded Russia in the first place?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

If you think I defend Putin's ideology you're insane. I don't even think there is any ideology here, only a lot of confused people. I merely profess my Humanist Cosmopolitan ideals. I don't care about Putin. Thus I see Ukraine's existence as separate state a bad thing. It only serves to break cultural ties without anything good to compensate for it. I don't believe that Ukraine's possible government has any chance to be any less authoritarian than Putin's. If it will I'll be happy if Russia joins this new state instead because Ukrainians don't have any right to keep such godsend to themselves :P

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Anonymous Bullard]

Sadly, Russia is turning more and more to Soviet ways. Putin was even rehabilitating Stalin.

Well the West, thanks to the upstanding duo of Nixon & Kissinger, "rehabilitated" Mao's empire already in the mid-seventies and helped the fine western industrialists relocate their ("means of") production over to the PRC while helping their own profit margins in the process, at least for a while.

Mao Zedong, despite having achieved double the body count of Stalin, doesn't even need rehabilitation as his "Communist" Party's princelings have continued to rule the empire, albeit now under new and improved nationalist-corporatist style policies. Nothing wrong with that in the 21st century, right?

Mao also successfully (re-)incorporated the vast western territories of Tibet, South Mongolia and East Turkestan (chin. "Xinjiang") to the Han Chinese empire; Tibet actually well after WWII in 1950-51. Nice grab of Lebensraum, natural resources and new geo-political/military influence over South and Central Asia... and they're still militarily claiming control of massive maritime territories extending deep into South-East Asia and of course large areas belonging to both north-western and north-eastern provinces of India.

China's national (and increasingly international) media is naturally still totally harnessed to spreading CCP's nationalist propaganda.

I have zero sympathy for Putin or his policies to rebuild the Soviet/Russian Empire through threats and military aggression, but hey, the West (USA, EU et al) have okayed and are of course currently perfectly fine with the People's Republic of China doing all these things. The key lesson learned has been that business always wins in the end over morality or international law. We often reap what we sow.

Should we be surprised if a Soviet-groomed KGB agent turned Russian authoritarian strongman feels that his regime deserves the same imperial carte blanche priviledges both domestically and over their smaller/weaker/more peaceful neighbours as China has been afforded (essentially with zero concessions)?

My old signature below may seem totally pointless to many, but the West set their tone already some forty years ago and the only reason the western democracies are now even considering diplomatic and economic sanctions seems to be that Ukraine happens to be located in eastern Europe, unlike those inconsequential (former) neighbours of China.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

It's definitely true that Ukrainization policies are creating tensions within Ukraine. And there exists strong support for some parts of it to secede to Russia. And there were better ways of resolving them than staging a coup and shooting at law enforcement. In fact this coup only gives Russia a reason to invade and many here are happy to oblige. If state borders were made to match national distribution Ukraine would end up losing a lot of territory so only sane strategy for them was to de-emphasize national aspect and become a cosmopolitan state on territory of former Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Instead radical national elements are trying to build a national state without losing any territory which doesn't make sense.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

You seem to think state can be separated from it's leadership.

It can't, both are far too closely intertwined to make the absurd argument you're making that you can merge Ukraine and Russia and tell the Ukrainians not to worry about Putin.

If the Ukraine merges with Russia it ends up stuck with Putin. Ukrainians don't want Putin, so Ukrainians shouldn't have to merge with Russia. It really is no more complicated than that.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

There was no coup. The democratically elected Ukrainian parliament voted with a majority of 73% to oust Yanukovych. That's a democratic decision, not a coup.

There is no part of the Ukraine where a majority of people want to merge with Russia, that's why Russia is deploying troops and spreading propaganda in Crimea, because it's the only way they can rig the vote to make it look like that's the case.

See here, and stop spouting Putin's lies and propaganda for him:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

No side wants to be part of the Russian block, that's a key myth that Putin is desperately trying to peddle:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

The whole reason Putin has troops locking down Crimea and spreading propaganda left and right is precisely because he knows he could not win the referendum there legitimately. It's a sham, a stitch up, theft of Ukranian territory against the genuine will of the people. Even with a majority of 58% of ethnic Russian origin in Crimea most of those ethnic Russians still identify their nationality as Ukrainian, even though their ethnicity is Russian.

There is no division in the Ukraine, separatists across the whole nations are an absolute minority. It's no different to Scotland and the UK in this respect - the fact that 90% of the population there are Scottish doesn't mean 90% are in favour of independence, on the contrary, polling consistently puts only about 30% in favour of independence.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Then what was the point to shoot at law enforcement? If it was in any way lawful Yanukovych wouldn't have to flee the country. And, besides, polls doesn't show national distribution. And are kinda unreliable, prone to manipulation. Why do you think that polls manipulated by Ukrainian regime are any better than polls manipulated by Russian regime? And even 33% wanting to secede is more than enough to demonstrate tension. It's really huge value that means that radical national stance is untenable for Ukraine.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

What does Putin have to do with anything? You're so obsessed with this guy. I'm pretty sure that most Ukrainians care about him as much as I do, which is don't care at all. Fighting Putin is like fighting windmills.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

The Berkut (acting as Yanukovych/Russian enforcers) were shooting at riot police AND protesters to try and provoke a bigger confrontation between the two - this is something eyewitnesses in both the police and protesters have both attested to witnessing. This did result in some police/protesters firing at each other in the confusion it caused.

"If it was in any way lawful Yanukovych wouldn't have to flee the country."

He didn't have to flee the country, no one made him flee the country. What he didn't want was to face justice though because the only thing that was unlawful was his used of the Berkut to kill civilians and police alike.

"Why do you think that polls manipulated by Ukrainian regime are any better than polls manipulated by Russian regime?"

Because when that poll was done there was no Ukrainian regime other than Yanukovych's.

"And even 33% wanting to secede is more than enough to demonstrate tension."

That's roughly the same amount of Scottish people that want independence from the rest of the UK, yet there is literally no tension between the English and Scots. Wanting something as a minority doesn't mean you're willing to kill, rape and riot for it - some people are mature enough to accept the democratic decision of the majority, and that if they don't, they always have the option to move to Russia if being in Russia is the most important thing to them (Hint: Ukrainians can't move to the Ukraine if they don't want to be part of Russia and the Ukraine no longer exists). What would create tension though is a minority forcing something down the throats of a majority, which is exactly what's happening with Putin's annexation of Crimea.

"It's really huge value that means that radical national stance is untenable for Ukraine."

Stop using "national", and "nationalism" like you know what it means. The only nationalist here is you, you're a Russian nationalist because you support annexation of Ukraine into Russia, you believe Russia is the mother state into which all states have been enveloped. No one here is as stupid as you though and hence no one is buying it. Go worship Putin in Moscow or something if you desperately want people who are stupid enough to follow your line of nationalist and fascist thinking.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

Erm, because you want the Ukraine to become part of Russia and Putin is in charge of Russia, which would mean Putin would become in charge of the Ukraine?

The real question is why are you trying to pretend Putin ISN'T part of this equation?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Xest]

Russia has always had the option of joining the EU, in fact, after the fall of the USSR there was even a lot of talk about allowing it entry into NATO.

But that aint going to work for Putin because the EU is a largely democratic organisation, and Putin wants to run a dictatorship all by himself, so he's always chosen to pursue conflict with them rather than cooperation, unlike his predecessors post-USSR who were more progressive and more willing to look to eventually becoming a more integral part of Europe and NATO.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

>USSR was a secular theocracy
interesting points you make. but in practice, the ussr worked like a fascistic state: a small group of people controlling the whole of the state. throw in the militaristic tendencies and the nationalism ... sounds a bit like the other superpower does it not (yeah, technically the US has 2 parties, but they are both controlled by the people with the money)

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Because he's just a worker in government service. A public face, yes, but just a worker in the end nonetheless. States are made by work of many people, Putin is just a figurehead.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[ultranova]

We don't want to be separated with friends by national borders just because some moron wants a toy state to play with.

National borders don't need to separate people any more than, say, city limits do. In a free country, crossing the border is a formality, and many neighbour states have dispensed with even those. It's empires who make a huge deal of borders; normal nations treat them as legislation handover points.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[CrimsonAvenger]

Sadly, Russia is turning more and more to Soviet ways.

Soviet ways??

This is classic Russian Empire from the 1700's and 1800's. It's not something that Stalin or Lenin thought of all on their own.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[aralin]

They should learn from US that this doesn't work. Why don't they simply label them as whacko and conspiracy theorists and let them run their mouth off. It's not like they can do anything. By blocking them, they just give credibility to what they write. The freedom of speech in US is such a great tool of mass control. See, if things were bad, we wouldn't let you speak, like the Russian or Chinese do, so clearly, we are the good guys, no story here, move on. So much better approach. Same with freedom of movement. Yeah, you can go anywhere you like, but please make sure you get vaccinated for this two page long list of deadly diseases and check with the embassy for the terrorist activity in your destination. Oh, you changed your mind and will go to Hawaii? Good. Why deny issuing passports when 96% of people won't even ask for them with just a little bit of scare tactics and squeezing the extra money out of population. Then just cut back vacation days to 0 and no problem.

Russia is so backward. Freedom propagandized is the key to real enslavement.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[IamTheRealMike]

Actually the latest polling on Scotland gives more like 38-40% in the "yes" block.

I would like to see evidence for your claim that Ukraine is not really a divided country and that's all Putin's propaganda. Everything else I've seen suggests that Ukraine really is a highly divided country with a large population of people who would prefer to be a part of Russia than the EU. I'm not convinced this is something Putin is just making up.

The problem here is that the west has already decided it doesn't matter what the outcome of the Crimean referendum is - if Russia wins, that must be because of foul play, intimidation or excessive "propaganda" (as if western elections are not also filled with propaganda). In fact, I don't see any way the people living there could ever actually decide they prefer to be aligned with Russia without western powers decrying it as the work of the dastardly Putin.

Here's an idea. Why don't you go compare American propaganda (Obama's comments) vs Russian propaganda (Putin's comments). In particular note that Obama doesn't even bother taking press questions any more, whereas Putin takes lots of very aggressive and straightforward ones.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[petermgreen]

Afaict becoming part of the EU means handing over control of your trade and borders policy (among many other things) to the EU and is therefore mutally exclusive to making similar arragemens with anyone else.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Cenan]

Apathy is an acceptable outcome for a propaganda machine.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Raenex]

USSR was a secular theocracy.

You're just redefining terms in contradictory fashion. There was no appeal to a divine being, hence no theocracy. Putting the leader on a pedestal is not the same as saying the supernatural ruler in the sky has blessed your rule. It may share similar dogmatic values, but it is still different.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[ultranova]

We've never had it better here in fact, than since that monstrosity of a union disappeared, and Russians could have had it just as good, were it not for Putin.

And yet when either old age or an "accident" does Putin in, the next leader will be about the same or worse. Putin might make a passable impression of a supervillain, but he's just a man; he didn't beat people into submission with his superpowers, he rose to power because he's the kind of person who gets power in a country like Russia.

So no, Russians couldn't have had it just as good were it not for Putin. Some details would be different, but the country would still be just as authoritarian and obsessed with domination. Lenin did away with the outer trappings but not the inner essence of Czarism, and added a cartful of "ends justify the means" to the mix, which then made Stalin the best available match for the resulting muderous abomination. The later leaders then renounced Stalin but not the essence of the system, and the ball simply kept rolling until the empire collapsed. But even then only the symbols and forms of Russian institutions changed, while the heart of the system went to live on. Which then led to Putin's being the next behind to keep the throne of Czars warm.

Until something is done to its national psychosis, Russia will always be a country where a leader like Putin is the best people can hope for, since he's the least nasty embodiment of Russian national spirit (which still makes him pretty damn nasty). Did I say leader? Because all decisions of importance are made by the nature of the Russian system, and Putin simply handles the logistics of implementing them, getting his share of the loot as payment.

Every country has the government it deserves, and Russia is no exception.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[unixisc]

Problem is that the West - particularly Western bureaucrats in DC, London, Brussels and elsewhere in the West - never stopped looking at Russia as an adversary, even in 1991. Putin only came to power in 2001: until then, Russia was run by Yeltsin, and had some very pro-Western free market people in the Prime Minister's role. That would have been the time to offer Russia membership into NATO as well as the EU, and would have enhanced the viability of NATO. (Incidentally, during the Cold War, I could understand the utility of NATO - as a military alliance keeping the Soviets at bay. It had a collective defense agreement: if any member, say Turkey or Norway, was invaded, it would activate all of NATO into war against that invader, here clearly meaning the Soviet Bloc. Today, what is its utility? If Russia sent tanks into Latvia, for instance, would that activate it?)

The West lost a golden opportunity to co-opt Russia during the Yeltsin years, instead transforming its anti-Soviet agenda into an anti-Russian one, harking back to the 19th century. Just look at the support for Chechen secession, and opposition to Russian interests throughout that time. By the time Putin became Prime Minister, it was hard for Russians to make the case that their country should be more pro-Western: the West certainly didn't seem to reciprocate.

I do blame Putin for backing Islamic powers like Iran and their allies like Syria. However, here too, Western support for the Chechens has a good deal to play in that.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[hazah]

Subscribing to a lie doesn't make it less of one.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

But where do you see apathy? How refusal to accept your theories as gospel constitutes apathy? In fact such ramblings are manifestations of apathy themselves. They only serve as excuses for procrastination in practice. They offer nothing beside depression, and I can get depressed on my own without someone talking my ear off. I want something more constructive. Not talking about random bullshit for sake of it. Not pretending to understand motivation of Eltsin or logic of oil prices or whatever you decided to ramble about this day. I like to get the job done. Apathy is in your actions, not in your words. If you do nothing but ramble there's nothing to talk about in the first place.

People like you are dictator's best friend. Lot of talking so it's easy to find you and use you as scapegoat. Which is necessary for establishing the atmosphere of fear. To effect actual social improvement requires hard work, good social skills and great wisdom. It's a lot easier to just ramble on a kitchen. So most people do just that. I don't claim to support current government unconditionally. In fact my opinion on some issues differs sharply with it. But I will always keep my feedback specific and it will not spiral into paranoid ramblings. And I will not vote for Putin on elections.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

Funny how all flavors of strong socialism end up fascistic. Almost like there was a basic defect in the philosophy.

Hint: the defect is excessive concentration of power.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

>excessive concentration of power.
That's exactly what socialism is NOT any system with a large concentration of power in few hands goes against the definition of socialism

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

You have a book of philosophy and fallacies, I have history.

That makes you wrong.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

the ussr calling itself socialist, does not make it socialist. #propaganda.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

Same as _all_ the other socialists? No true Scotsman?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

the closest to socialism are the socialistic democarcies of western and northern europe (france, germany, netherlands, scandinavia)

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

None are socialist. Some could be called capitalist welfare states.

Read your own book of fallacies and philosophy. If 'the means of production' are in private hands, it is not socialism.

Socialism implies a command economy. Markets are self organizing systems, command economies require concentration of power.

The closer an economy comes to 'ideal socialism' the worse it works. The problem is the ideal is just stupid.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

Mao: 'All political power comes from the barrel of a gun.'

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Algae_94]

Stalin killed far more than Der Führer.

This depends on what column you put dead people under in the tally. Stalin killed more people under his rule than died in the Holocast, but Hitler was responsible for a lot more deaths than that. Add in all the military combat deaths in the war to Hitler's column (as he was kind of responsible for the war) and he tops Stalin.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

1/that's why i called them 'closest to socialism'.
2/the state = the people. (or rather : the state should be the people, it mostly is not : the market forces the much money and thus power into too few hands)
3/'Markets are self organizing systems' HAHAHAHAHAH THAT's a good one. GIVE AN EXAMPLE.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Algae_94]

Problem is that the West - particularly Western bureaucrats in DC, London, Brussels and elsewhere in the West - never stopped looking at Russia as an adversary, even in 1991. Putin only came to power in 2001: until then, Russia was run by Yeltsin, and had some very pro-Western free market people in the Prime Minister's role. That would have been the time to offer Russia membership into NATO as well as the EU, and would have enhanced the viability of NATO. (Incidentally, during the Cold War, I could understand the utility of NATO - as a military alliance keeping the Soviets at bay. It had a collective defense agreement: if any member, say Turkey or Norway, was invaded, it would activate all of NATO into war against that invader, here clearly meaning the Soviet Bloc. Today, what is its utility? If Russia sent tanks into Latvia, for instance, would that activate it?)

I don't believe anything about the NATO treaty has changed. If Russia did send tanks into a NATO country, I believe that would activate a military response from all members. I don't know if this is as useful anymore. It was a strong sign of solidarity during the Cold War, but now it just strikes me as a treaty that has the ability to pull all the western powers into another Great War.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Dissolution of the Soviet Union was not done in a coup. Unlike other countries (like, say, USA), USSR always had the provisions for any member republic to unilaterally disassociate and withdraw - it's just that they were a sham (much like the rest of the constitution) during the rule of the communist party. When the latter started to break down, duly elected governments of Soviet republics withdrew from USSR. In fact, Russia itself withdrew earlier than most others.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HornWumpus]

Not my job to teach you economics. Start with Adam Smith.

No market has ever put power into as few hands as socialism has repeatedly done.

Like I said upthread, you have a book of fallacies, I have history. That makes you wrong.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

This isn't true. Russia was actually democratic in the 90s, or at least much more so than it is today. Unfortunately, the "democrats" in power turned out to be plutocrats, and they marred the very idea of democracy by association with the mess that they've made out of the country's economy - and so people went and voted for Putin and his "strong hand" in droves.

We had democracy, but we fucked it up. :(

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

The only thing Russians look after in Russia are straight white Russians who conform to the will of Putin. Anything else and you're fucked.

That's not true, actually. Chechnya, for example, has been receiving preferential treatment for many years now - meaning the pro-federal government in power there, and people who are loyal to it.

They don't actually care about nationalities and ethnicities at all. What they care about is whether you're a loyal boot licker or not. In fact, being a loyal boot-licker who is not ethnically Russian is, in many ways, preferable, since Russians are the majority in the country, and in case of any rebellion having a russophobic ethnic minority on your side can ensure that they remain loyal to death - much the same logic as Ottoman Janissaries. That's why Chechen OMON was used to break up opposition meetings, for example.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Algae_94]

So you want to eliminate national states and replace them with ethnic states? How do you figure that will lead to less needless conflicts?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

There is no part of the Ukraine where a majority of people want to merge with Russia

According to the poll results that were published a week ago or so (and the poll itself was a week before that), slightly over 50% of Crimea residents want to separate from Ukraine. This is not the same as unification with Russia, but realistically, there's no way they can be independent - they depend too much on Ukrainian mainlain right now for a lot of things (potable water, electricity, gas), and if they reject that then they'll need Russia to supply them with the same.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

I only know that Berkut was using nothing more than non-lethal methods against some rioters.

Did you miss all the YouTube videos that have clearly captured uniformed Berkut forces firing AKs and SVDs?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Ukraine is a divided country, but the division is not strictly geographic, and not even strictly across language lines. There are plenty of Russian-speaking citizens who self-identify as Ukrainian and don't want to join Russia. According to the polls, the only region where the majority of residents wants to leave Ukraine is Crimea, in the rest of southeastern regions there are significant minorities (anywhere from 20% to 40%), but they're still minorities.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Megol]

communist and socialist dictatorships

I don't know what you understand under socialist and dictatorship, but these 2 terms are mutually exclusive. USSR was fascist.

And I don't know what you know about political ideologies but that is clearly wrong unless you mean by the "standard of the day" definition - Fascism: everything I don't like. Otherwise I'd suggest looking up the definition.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HeckRuler]

Yes. Russia is for democracy and freedom too.

Wut? Whoa dude. Just.... whoa.

Ok, lemme make this clear. You are simultaneously claiming that Russia is good/pro-democracy/pro-freedom, and lambasting nationalism. And you are Russian.

Duuuuuude, you're being nationalistic here. Russia just got caught doing something very anti-freedom. You, as a Russian, are shouting about how good and pro-freedom Russia is. That's nationalism. You're the nationalist here.

And you claim you want to get rid of all nations, while also wanting a world government. Just... whoa dude. Lemme guess, that world government happens to be run by Putin?

You can't possibly be serious.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Ralph Wiggam]

I don't know what you understand under socialist and dictatorship, but these 2 terms are mutually exclusive. USSR was fascist.

By the textbook definition of Socialism, it is incompatible with Dictatorship. But plenty of countries that call themselves Socialist do have dictators. The most famous would be North Korea. Venezuela under Chavez qualifies, and it seems like the new guy is continuing that.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

I don't want separate states at all. I never saw any need for borders or ambitious politicians seeking fame at expense of other countries. I think a single world government will be enough. UN and EU are in some respects precursors of it.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Still it's enough people to take their interest into account. There's too much of those people to just to ship them to Russia and alternatives are either subjugation or some kind of compromise. Is new temporary Ukrainian government ready for compromise? It doesn't seem to me that is so, but I might be wrong.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Ukraine got hit by it worse.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Well, those people weren't really "subjugated" before. The only real point of contention there was the language issue, and situation with Russian language in Ukraine is complex - but they're far better off there than, say, English speakers in Quebec.

Basically, the constitution defines Ukrainian as a state language, and Russian as "the protected language of inter-national communication", and it explicitly protects "the freedom to speak Russian". In practice, almost everyone in Eastern Ukraine, and a good part (depending on who you ask, the majority) of central Ukraine actually speak Russian in everyday life, even when they state that their native language is Ukrainian. Almost all newspapers and books are published in Russian. TV news are mostly Ukrainian (but there are Russian channels, too), but most movies are in Russian. Most schools do teach Russian, even those where Ukrainian is a primary education language.

Russian in education is probably the area where most concerns manifest. There are Russian schools, but many argue that there's not enough of them given the number of Russian speakers (but, OTOH, Crimea has barely any Ukrainian schools, despite having 25% of population self-identify as Ukrainian - but Crimea is kinda special, being an autonomous republic with its own unique status). Ditto for Russian universities.

The talk about making Russian the official state language alongside Ukrainian, much like in Ireland or Canada, is occasionally floated, but that would mainly affect businesses (which have to submit tax reports etc in Ukrainian today). In theory, regional governments are supposed to operate in official language, but in practice those in Eastern Ukraine has been using Russian pretty much exclusively anyway...

As for compromise, I think that it was entirely possible before the occupation of Crimea. There were a lot of Russian speakers on Maidan, and that was appreciated - for example, in Lvov, which is considered the heartland and hotbed of western Ukrainian nationalism, they had a "speak Russian for a day" event as a sign of respect, and that was supported by Right Sector and other nationalist groups.

Generally speaking, you should understand that the new government is not actually all that nationalist. The actual nationalist parties are Svoboda and Right Sector. Svoboda has 3 ministers in the new government out of 18, Right Sector has none. Most of the new government is Batkivshchina, which is more pro-Western/European than it is nationalist.

The problem is that the invasion has upset the balance. Basically, the extreme nationalists that claimed that ethnic Russians are the "fifth column" paving the way for Russian occupation of Ukraine can now nod at Crimea as testament to their words. If Russia pushes on, I'm afraid that Ukrainian nationalists will rapidly radicalize, and will start actually persecuting ethnic Russians as intrinsic enemies of their budding nation-state. That region has seen ethnic violence for the sake of nation-building on a large scale before (most recently, Volyn Massacre), so yet another one would be nothing new. And, of course, ethnic Russians in southeastern and central parts would also radicalize in response to that, just as Poles did in Volyn. So this has all chances of blowing up into full-fledged everyone-on-everyone genocide along the same lines as Yugoslavia - assuming, of course, it doesn't blow up even further into a major war between Russia and NATO/EU.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, they did. The difference is that they don't have the history of empire-building, and so they can't look back at some mythical times of plenty and glory - and when they look at the USSR, even if you would convince them that they were better off economically, they were still a vassal nation - the empire was not theirs.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

You've misread me. I was merely claiming that Russia is in equal degree for freedom and democracy as Ukraine is. This makes me as much of a Russian nationalist as Ukrainian one. All nations are for freedom and democracy. Even China. Or at least they claim. They all end up working short of the ideals in practice, and Ukraine isn't any different.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Ukraine, Russia and Belarus come from Kievan Rus'. All empires WERE theirs.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Kievan Rus was a thousand years ago, and the then-single nation has split into three separate and distinct ones, with common roots, yes, but their own culture and language and destiny. USSR was created by and dominated by the Russian nation, and Ukrainians (and Belorussians) were not the beneficiaries of it. Ditto for Imperial Russia.

By the way, this whole notion of Ukrainians and Belorussians as "brotherly peoples" - and then the corresponding jump to "we should all be in a single country" (which, somehow, always ends up centered on and around Russia) - is one of the cornerstones of Russian imperialism for the last 300 years or so.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

If it was invasion, then Crimea can't be 5th column because it's just a victim of invasion. If it wasn't then why did Crimea rebel NOW? What triggered it?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

That's absurd. When Germany took over Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, it was definitely an invasion, and everyone treated it as such - yet, at the same time, Sudeten Germans were the "fifth column" that enabled it.

The reason why Crimea rebelled (before Russian troops entered) is because there was a power vacuum due to the events in the capital, and the secessionist forces seized the opportunity. Partly this was also due to to the propaganda in these regions presenting Maidan as "fascist", which caused widespread fears of said fascists among the population at large.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

I bet they weren't as long they were in Poland or Lithuania or whatever. But I simply don't see how they would be any different than any other territories in either Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Both of those states were to large degree nation agnostic. So Belarus, Ukraine and Russia definitely share some legacy as far as empire building is concerned because they all contributed to it with their soldiers and politicians.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

I bet they weren't as long they were in Poland or Lithuania or whatever.

They weren't what? Being the beneficiaries? In the Poland, no, they were not. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, they actually were, because they constituted the majority of the population after being conquered, and in a matter of decades became to dominate, to the point where GDL's code of laws would be written in a dialect of East Slavic that'll later become Ukrainian and Belarusian; and Slavic elite - boyars, wealthy landowners etc - merged into (and largely overwhelmed) the Lithuanian one in the state.

But I simply don't see how they would be any different than any other territories in either Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Both of those states were to large degree nation agnostic.

Seriously? You'd have to be Russian to claim that, since it was only nation agnostic for that one particular nation.

Russian Empire was explicitly Ukrainophobic, to the point of denying the existence of Ukrainians as a separate nation with their own language outright, all while actively trying to eradicate it. Heck, Ukraine was already feeling oppressed a few decades after signing Pereyaslav Rada.

Soviets under Lenin initially reversed that process and encouraged nation-building (so long as the economic system would remain communist). But Stalin quickly put an end to that, with Ukrainian language and writing system being "depolonized" (really, russified), Ukrainian intellectual elites being persecuted, and Ukrainian churches not associated with Russia (i.e. anything other than Russian Orthodox Church - such as Greek Catholic uniates and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church) closed down.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

So local population is just tired of weird revolutions at the center? You can expect it to end as Ossetia war did, in nothing. Hopefully there will be no attempts of genocide this time.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[guacamole]

Even with a majority of 58% of ethnic Russian origin in Crimea most of those ethnic Russians still identify their nationality as Ukrainian, even though their ethnicity is Russian.

And there would have been even less support for the union with Russia if Russian Black Sea fleet was not based in Crimea. Ukraine had lost a historic opportunity to remove much of Russian influence there when they extended the lease of the Black Sea Fleet ports past 2017.

So I don't think it's the Crimean Russians who want a union with Russia. It's Russia's Russians who had been told for decades by nationalists that Crimea must be Russian and that Sevastopol is the city of "Russian Glory".

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[guacamole]

I would like to see evidence for your claim that Ukraine is not really a divided country and that's all Putin's propaganda. Everything else I've seen suggests that Ukraine really is a highly divided country with a large population of people who would prefer to be a part of Russia than the EU. I'm not convinced this is something Putin is just making up.

Ukraine is a divided country, but not in the sense that you speak off. When Ukrainian nationalists are in power, they try to Ukrainize the Russian-speaking East and glorify controversial and deeply loathed historic figures such as Stepan Bandera. On the other hand, when East regions have influence in Kiev, the more nationalist West regions do not accept Kiev's authority. I think the primary issue here that in such a diverse country, people do not want their local politics to be dictated from Kiev. If Ukrainian politicians have the guts, they should change Ukraine's political organization into a federation. As soon as people have enough of local power in their hands, most of arguments for the division of Ukraine would disappear.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[guacamole]

I place the place the blame on the inept, corrupt, and drunkard Yeltsin. He was never a strong leader, specially at the time when Russia needed one the most. Putin, with all his faults, defined himself as a strong, healthy man and a leader.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

You're missing my point. People born on Ukraine DID contribute to empire building, participated in common state. What language they spoke as they did so matters not. They might be compelled to continue this as Ukrainian state this time, perhaps to rebuild ancient Rus' or something. You can always come up with some reason to build an empire. But the time of empires has passed. And nobody will actually try to pull it off. Neither Russia nor Ukraine.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

There were no shots fired, so it's not a war - yet. It may still become one.

And don't think that if it comes to that, it'll be like Ossetia. For one thing, many politicians in the West are now re-evaluating their stance on Ossetia as there is growing realization that not reacting to that was what made Russia more bold in this current crisis. For another, unlike Ossetia, Ukraine borders EU. The West will likely swallow the annexation of Crimea (not recognize it, of course, and there will be sanctions and all that), but if Russian tanks were to roll further, this will be met in force. The lessons of WW2 were learned well, and at a too high a price, to permit stepping over that line again.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

You're missing my point. People born on Ukraine DID contribute to empire building, participated in common state.

Sure, and people born in Algiers did contribute to the French Empire. So what? It was still not their empire, they were the exploited in it, not the beneficiaries.

But the time of empires has passed. And nobody will actually try to pull it off. Neither Russia nor Ukraine.

Now go tell that to Putin. And all the retards on the streets of Moscow who are cheering him, and asking for more (I heard Transnistria is next?).

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

That's definitely a part of it, but Yeltsin was a product of his environment. And so was his entourage.

Really, what the system needed at the time was a complete reboot: any person who held any position of authority in the communist government allowed to hold any government office under the new regime. Many Eastern European countries implemented something like that, and ended up much better off. As Vaclav Havel said, "better five years of mistakes than fifty years of sabotage".

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Algae_94]

Fair enough. The EU and UN would be the most likely precursors to this global government, but they would most likely just be a higher level of government above the nation states. Much like the EU itself is a conglomeration of individual nations.

I think you're being a little too naive about the ability of many different people and cultures on Earth to get along with each other.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Sure, and people born in Algiers did contribute to the French Empire. So what? It was still not their empire, they were the exploited in it, not the beneficiaries.

Soviet Regime had statesmen of local nationalities in pretty much all regions and communistic movement is international by definition. Soviet Union is built by rebels of all nationalities.

Now go tell that to Putin. And all the retards on the streets of Moscow who are cheering him, and asking for more (I heard Transnistria is next?).

And previous was Georgia. Only it wasn't annexed.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[ComputersKai]

And Putin was...democratically elected?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Soviet Regime had statesmen of local nationalities in pretty much all regions and communistic movement is international by definition. Soviet Union is built by rebels of all nationalities.

Circa Lenin, it was true - that guy was an aggressive anti-nationalist.

But then, something happened.

"I should like to propose a toast to the health of our Soviet people, and in the first place, the Russian people. I drink in the first place to the health of the Russian people because it is the most outstanding nation of all the nations forming the Soviet Union. I propose a toast to the health of the Russian people because it has won in this war universal recognition as the leading force of the Soviet Union among all the peoples of our country. I propose a toast to the health of the Russian people not only because it is the leading people, but also because it possesses a clear mind, a staunch character, and patience."
- Joseph Stalin

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Yeah, he was born Georgian though. That citation is definitely ripped out of context.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Local governments have levels of their own too, provinces and what-not. Many of them were independent principalities in the past.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

This is not WW2 definitely. The only reason there's no outcry from world community is that 1: no annexation was done, 2: genocide was prevented. I'd even say Putin pulled off a reverse Hitler here. This was an epic fail for Georgia. If Ukrainian government tries to pull off something like that too another epic fail will follow.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Genocide did happen, it just happened to be a genocide of Georgians by Ossetians, rather than the other way around.

The new Ukrainian government did not try to pull anything like that, it didn't even threaten or gave any hint of such. That's why Russian claims that occupation of Crimea is to "protect the local population" are so obviously full of BS - protect from whom?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, Stalin himself was a Georgian. That did not prevent him from turning the USSR into a Russian nation-empire.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

Yeah, Georgia and Ossetia are in long term conflict just because some clown in old Soviet Union placed them in same republic. Georgia failed to establish relationships with Ossetia so hard that this ended with incursion by Russian army which was even NOT condemned by international community. I bet Russian government expects similar fails by Ukraine based on this experience. Given you're not in any hurry to congratulate Russian army on this feat of Humanism and instead link to wikipedia edit wars based on mistranslated sources, I can only consider you biased. Everyone deserves credit for saving human life, no matter for which country they happen to fight. If there are people like you in Ukraine any people of Russian descent DO need protection.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

I'm Russian. I just happen to not be blind to the history of my own country.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

You're just a troll. Most of former Soviet Republics were so much of a failure that it's even problematic to justify their continued existence. Russian Federation is not an exception. But response to Ossetia issue WAS a success for Russia, one of few cases in recent history when army was actually employed to save lives rather than to control oil or something. And ignoring this and making up excuses for Georgia instead IS blindness.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Fact: South Ossetian paramilitaries have carried out a genocide of Georgians after 08.08.08, while Russian "peacekeepers" stationed in the region looked the other way. Not any different from Kosovo, really, except for a higher body count from victors' justice.

Now go suck Vova's khuy.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

This is not a fact but some moron's fantasies. And if it were true it wouldn't justify Georgia's fail either.

And what does it have to do with Vova? Are you insane? Disagreeing with your lunacy doesn't constitute dick-sucking to Putin. Your double standard against current Russian Government is ridiculous. And I would know it for sure because I'm not a Putin supporter, I merely agree with this particular action. So why do you emphasize Russia's fails over other former Soviet republic fails and diminish Russia's successes? What's the point?

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[polar red]

I can call my self great, but that does not make it so. look up 'propaganda'

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[doccus]

Well, a lot of people like Putin.. He is a great proponent of the Church and legislating "moral behavior" (Betcha the tea party and or "moral" majorty would have him over for tea in a heartbeat), and in fact has a legitimate reason for his actions currently in Crimea.. .But after "tea" with the "tea party" they'd turmn around and decry his Soviet style leadership style. Because, at the end of the day, he is "Diktatura".. and a proud KGB agent. He has had no qualms about jailing anyone who disagrees with him , or steps outside his line. If you saw his acceptance speech after the last election, an election which , if it had been able to be propoerly monitored, might have gone differently, he walked up tothe podium followed by even more agents than an americvan presidentm, and immediately said something like .."Russia after fair free honest elections have freely and of their own accord willingly voted in a publik election, for a demokratic government" ;-) He looked like a Soviet style leader when saying it though... I like Putin. But then I liked Kruschev.. who was a reformer until the politburo got to him. And this time it's the reverse. Before he's done, Russia will be a Kommunista diktatúra again, just with a different name..

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[ultranova]

You're just redefining terms in contradictory fashion. There was no appeal to a divine being, hence no theocracy.

The essence of theocracy is not an appeal to a divine being. The essence of theocracy is claiming your national system reflects the "natural order of reality", which in times past was described in terms of gods and in Soviet Russia in terms of ideology, which described the both history, future and such details as how to make frost-proof wheat (with predicatable results). It even had its priest class: the Communist Party. It persecuted heretics and killed them, after extorting a confession about dealing with the Devil - excuse me, "counter-revolutionaries". And so on and so on.

In other words, theocracy is perhaps the ultimate expression of human hubris and unwarranted self-importance.

Putting the leader on a pedestal is not the same as saying the supernatural ruler in the sky has blessed your rule.

No, but claiming the entire world is going to see the light and join your nation because fate says so is.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[mirix]

Well, to be fair South Ossetia was autonomous oblast (region) within Georgian SSR. So when Georgia left USSR, S. Ossetia should have been free to stay in USSR / leave Georgia - which instead commuted it's autonomy and instigated the first war there.

More or less the same deal in Abkazhia, except it had even higher status (ASSR, autonomous republic). I think in the early years it was a full blown SSR, even.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

What makes you think so? Not a single autonomous oblast/sub-SSR was allowed to be independent state by the dissolution. Only SSRs were, and ALL of them. The thing is if Soviet Union didn't dissolve and instead elected to become democratic loose federation, but still a single state, then many post-soviet conflicts could have been prevented. What really happened is a lot of fails due to there being not enough skilled statesmen and too many ambitious people wanting their own toy state.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[Raenex]

The essence of theocracy is not an appeal to a divine being.

You're making up your own definitions. A dictionary reference:

"1: government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided"

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HeckRuler]

No, you see, this is where you're just plain loony. Not all nations are for democracy. China isn't claiming to be for democracy. Their diplomat isn't even sure that the french revolution was a good idea. They have a long history of democracy. Or, at least, "western democracy". They currently have their communist party vote about things, but you have to be part of the party. And the party decides who gets to be in the party.

Russia wasn't being pro-democracy or pro-freedom when unmarked Russian soldiers barred elected Crimean politicians from entering parliament and voting.

You are balls to the walls wrong about this and you are either intentionally spreading false pro-Russian propaganda or you are a delusional pro-Russian nationalist.

Hey, Crimea might be better off being Russian. But this sort of bullshit people like you are spreading makes me highly doubt it.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[HeckRuler]

Whelp. So much for "no shots fired"
Warning shots fired. They kept out a force trying to enter Crimea.

At least no one has been arrested, tortured, and killed. well damn

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[shutdown -p now]

Let me amend that: no fire has been exchanged. All the victims so far have been tentatively linked with "Crimean self-defense", which is basically the hastily formed gestapo mostly made of locals who go around seeking for "facists" by checking peope's propiska in their passport or quizzing them about local geography. By now there have also been some shots fired when Russian troops took over Ukrainian bases, but in no case this escalated into a war.

In Ossetia, in contrast, it was a full-on war, with mechanized infantry units directly engaging each other in combat, with air support etc. Nothing anywhere like that happened in Crimea.

Re:Reassembling the Soviet Union

[loonycyborg]

You can never know for sure what really happened there and for what reason. But both Ukraine and Russia make themselves known as democratic states. I have no reason to believe one of them is more truthful than other. All people seem to have different visions of what democracy and freedom is so any such statement is close to being a truism. Even China has People's democratic dictatorship.

But it's evidently true that Ukraine repeatedly failed to establish a government that satisfied both eastern and western parts of it. Both of those parts want democracy and freedom. They profess their love for democracy and freedom to implicitly assert that the other side isn't democratic. This is bullshit sophistry.This conflict isn't about democracy and freedom but between two groups that hate each other and have different pet political ideas, and it just got violent. Russia would never get an opportunity to meddle like that if not for this conflict.

Russia is evil again.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice that we've had 25 year break from facing global thermonuclear war, but Russia is an expansionist aggressive nation again. Mutually assured destruction may not work this time if Putin would rather die and take the rest of the world out with him rather then relinquish power.

Re:Russia is evil again.

[Artifakt]

Russia is still inhabited by a lot of people who still have power AND who were trained in the Soviet version of MAD (Mutual Assured Distruction, for those who didn't spot or don't grok the acronym already) . This means that, when people in the west start classifying Putin as another possible 'classic nutcase leader', along the lines of Saddam Hussein, Moammar Kadafi or the Ayatollah Khomeini , they should remember, Putin has some very different reasons why he might just want to give the appearance of being one. ,

Re:Russia is evil again.

[rasmusbr]

It's nice that we've had 25 year break from facing global thermonuclear war, but Russia is an expansionist aggressive nation again. Mutually assured destruction may not work this time if Putin would rather die and take the rest of the world out with him rather then relinquish power.

I suspect you're quite wrong. Men like Putin (megalomaniac psychopaths) adore and respect military strength in others and, as with all psychopaths, they love themselves far to much to risk dying. If Obama had responded by moving intermediate range nuclear missiles into Poland and the Baltic countries thus enabling a faster first strike capability, Putin might have been angry at first, but the US would have won his respect in the long run.

If history is anything to go by Putin is going to keep doing land grabs until someone with a good arsenal of nukes agrees to play the brinksmanship game with him.

Re:Russia is evil again.

[N1AK]

If history is anything to go by Putin is going to keep doing land grabs until someone with a good arsenal of nukes agrees to play the brinksmanship game with him.

It's far too early to say but I'm hopeful that this isn't the only solution. The risk with brinkmanship is that it only takes a tiny mistake to turn into a global catastrophe. What we might be seeing at the moment is a credible attempt to move beyond hard power politics by the west and if it works it could set a far better precedent for diplomacy throughout the century which will become especially important as new global powers become more influential. Personally I think doing something like what you proposed, upping the military rhetoric would likely have little impact at all and would put Putin in a position where he couldn't pull back without losing face and control.

Re:Russia is evil again.

[rasmusbr]

We can hope that Putin will be satisfied with Crimea, but it looks like Moldova is next on his list. One can hope that that will be all that he takes and that he wouldn't for example risk invading Lithuania, a NATO country. But on the other hand, what could be a greater victory for Putin and his dream of breaking the west's dominance than invading a NATO country Crimea-style, without a shot fired? It would shatter the idea that NATO is a strong and relevant player in one fell swoop.

The thing that is both hopeful and frightening depending on how you look at it is that Russia's neighbors and Russia are both dependent on the trade of Russian gas. The neighbors for their survival and Russia for it's trade balance. Whatever he does, Putin is probably not going to risk a shooting war that could destroy gas pipelines and ruin trade relationships.

Re:Russia is evil again.

[HornWumpus]

Medium range nukes are just a bad fucking idea.

Why would you force your 'opponent' to launch on launch detection?

We should deploy our anti-missile systems in eastern Europe. Still a clear kick in Russia's balls, but not de-stablizing, and not a damn thing they can do about it.

If we really wanted to fuck with them, we'd just freeze Putin's personal western bank accounts.

Re:Russia is evil again.

[Megol]

I don't think anybody think he is a nutcase? This is about standard actions of any state with ambitions.

Hearts and Minds

[edelbrp]

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

Go find another thread to whine in

[Sycraft-fu]

There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!

Seriously, this American-centric bitching is really annoying. People need to knock it off. This is about Russia. That things are happening in America doesn't mean things aren't happening elsewhere. It also doesn't mean those things aren't of interest to the wider world. What is happening in Russia right now is of quite a bit of interest not just to Russians, but to Ukrainians, and to the whole of Europe. Also some people from the US might like to know too because hey, it is nice to be informed about the wider world.

So quit. Quit trying to make every thread about the US. There are lots and lots of those on Slashdot. When something comes up on a foreign country, let it be on that topic. The topic at hand is Russian media/internet censorship not NSA spying. That one is a little further down the front page.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[Dave Emami]

There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!

What's ironic is that the folks who tend to do this, are just as likely to sneer that Americans don't care about anything happening outside the US.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down for un-derailing topic and addressing GP's logical fallacy. Probably an NSA shill.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you get the information that these same people are likely to say that Americans don't care what's happening outside the US?

He often saw the same person held both opinions, often in the same thread. It was probably that Anonymous Coward guy. He is always contradictory and cruelly honest.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[murdocj]

I wish I had points to mod you up. Absolutely right.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[CohibaVancouver]

There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!

Yep, welcome to Slashdot. You could have an article about the most hellish police state on earth, where visiting a site like Reddit could have your grandmother tortured to death and the second comment post (after the GNAA and frosty piss comments) will be "YEAH, but the USA is WAY WORSE."

Usually these posts are by basement-dwellers who have no concept what living in a police state or under a totalitarian regime actually means.

Could the USA do better? Yes. Dramatically better, but there are many places on this blue marble that are MUCH, MUCH worse.

...oh yeah, and I'm not American and I don't live in the USA.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[cyn1c77]

There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!

What's ironic is that the folks who tend to do this, are just as likely to sneer that Americans don't care about anything happening outside the US.

Well, Americans don't really care about anything happening outside the US, unless it affects them. Even the US government is that way... why are they not in Ukraine right now while this democratic country is under attack by "unspecified" militants? The US was happy to roll into Afghanistan (for revenge) and Iraq (for oil) at a moments notice. No problems helping dispose of their old enemy Gaddafi either. (Libya has oil, right?)

The Europeans can't complain much though as they are even softer on military intervention! They were excited about the Ukraine's merging with the EU, but all it took was a little posturing from Putin to reduce the European states to hand-wringing and empty threats. Why? Because they are whores for Russia's oil and have no backup plan in place were Gazprom to cut them off.

Finally, Asia and South America only care about their own continents. So pretty much everyone only cares about themselves.

I am surprised that no one is calling Putin's bluff however. He's refused to acknowledge that the "pro-Russian" troops are Russian. It seems like a good way to force his hand would be to start rolling heavy military equipment into the rest of the Ukraine to protect it from the "terrorists" in Crimea. Then, when Russia starts saber-rattling, NATO should start testing their ballistic missile and interceptor assets... You know, to protect the Russians from the Crimean terrorists. Bullies only respect other bullies.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[ahabswhale]

But how will American millennials have an outlet for their inferiority complex?! They're still learning the world doesn't work like they think it does.

Re:Go find another thread to whine in

[Megol]

There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!

What's ironic is that the folks who tend to do this, are just as likely to sneer that Americans don't care about anything happening outside the US.

Well, Americans don't really care about anything happening outside the US, unless it affects them. Even the US government is that way... why are they not in Ukraine right now while this democratic country is under attack by "unspecified" militants? The US was happy to roll into Afghanistan (for revenge) and Iraq (for oil) at a moments notice. No problems helping dispose of their old enemy Gaddafi either. (Libya has oil, right?)

The Europeans can't complain much though as they are even softer on military intervention! They were excited about the Ukraine's merging with the EU, but all it took was a little posturing from Putin to reduce the European states to hand-wringing and empty threats. Why? Because they are whores for Russia's oil and have no backup plan in place were Gazprom to cut them off.

Europeans isn't a valid word to use here. Europeans isn't one nation. This is something mostly Americans doesn't get (I don't know however if you are one) which I personally find very strange. Europe isn't the same culture, not the same language, not the same legal system and not the same political system. Why should a group of mostly independent states have the same goal in a matter that isn't about their survival (all out war) or economic catastrophe?

Not all European countries need Russian oil or gas so claiming that just makes it clear you don't know much about Europe.

But even so European countries aren't much for using military force since the end of WW II. While it isn't impossible it would in most cases require an UN intervention which, due to the fact that Russia is the aggressor here, is impossible due to their veto rights.

The alternative would be a NATO operation. Some European countries are members of NATO, some are not BTW.

Finally, Asia and South America only care about their own continents. So pretty much everyone only cares about themselves.

I am surprised that no one is calling Putin's bluff however. He's refused to acknowledge that the "pro-Russian" troops are Russian. It seems like a good way to force his hand would be to start rolling heavy military equipment into the rest of the Ukraine to protect it from the "terrorists" in Crimea. Then, when Russia starts saber-rattling, NATO should start testing their ballistic missile and interceptor assets... You know, to protect the Russians from the Crimean terrorists. Bullies only respect other bullies.

Yes that seems like a good idea - irony.

Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Timmy D Programmer]

Rules against criticizing the government makes a political campaign all but impossible for anyone but the incumbent. In other words, they are now a dictatorship. Hopefully the Russian people won't give up their freedoms so easily, and push back.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well, it's nice to hope, but Putin's rating is at its highest in the last 3 years, somewhat about 71%. There is no realistic hope for any "push back" anytime soon. Its not like some crazy dictator and small group of his henchmen took over the country - no, its like the majority of population is winding up some sort of mass psychosis. Which is a much more terrifying thought, really.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[spark89]

Most people in Russia have been brainwashed. They really think that war against Ukraine it's war against nazism.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well - try and tell them that it's bullshit propaganda. You'll be instantly branded as a "unpatriotic liberalist scum" and no further discussion would be possible. Propaganda works best when its seeds fall on the right soil. If most of the people in Russia wouldn't want it to be true, all this crude and blunt bullshit that's pouring from the official TV, radio and newspapers wouldn't work so good.

It's really painful to see young, bright and generally decent people honestly protecting this shameless invasion of the other country. It's a zeitgeist, not just a scam by some political and media crooks.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Xest]

Normally I like to not try and blame the people for the actions of their leadership, but frankly I've lost all faith in the ability for the majority of the Russian populace to engage in any kind of rational thinking at this point. They are part the problem.

A couple of years back they were out in protest against Putin rigging the vote to put himself back in power and I thought hey, finally, the Russian people are taking responsibility for their state, and trying to deal with their dictator.

Now two years on, an Olympic games, a bit of propaganda, creating a hate target in homosexuals to blame societies ills on (just as Hitler did with the Jews etc.), an attempted annexation of Crimea, and the resurrection of Stalin as a popular deity and suddenly Putin has 70% approval ratings again.

So whilst there are clearly a good number of Russians that still want him out, at this point they're a minority by quite a stretch. It really is the Russian people that are the problem - you might as well just alias the nation as Dumbfuckland now, because it really is a nation mostly full of dumb fucks given the approval they're now giving Putin based on his fascist, dictatorial policies. I thought it was bad enough that my nation, the UK is full of people so easily swayed by populism, bigotry, and general ignorance peddled by the media, but the idiocy of many of my countrymen appears to pale compared to those in Russia. At least whilst our population recently argued against striking Syria by a decent margin. In contrast, the Russians positively support annexing the whole of the Ukraine, not just Crimea with about 59% support on latest polls.

I wouldn't put your faith in the Russian people, they mostly seem to be an extremely fickle, easily swayed bunch and Putin controls the media, so swaying them his way appears trivial.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Sabriel]

Why should I trust polling figures produced by an organisation that is owned and run by the same government that is suppressing opposition media?

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well, even the opposition (at least the sane ones) today admit that Putin's popularity is quite high - much higher than popularity of said opposition. Even in our social networks (including LiveJournal) there are many, many people who honestly believe that Putin is doing a great job. And the silent majority are mostly apathetic, because of "If not Putin, than who?" mentality. There is no reason not to trust these polling figures, as there is no political or social force strong enough to prove them wrong. Some historical parallels (1933-1939, anyone?) are quite scary, to be honest.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to you, who have been brainwashed into thinking that 1) there is a war in Ukraine and 2) the group of criminals who to took over the Ukrainian government are "the good guys" and have absolutely no ties to right wing extremists 3) that this entire story is not a way for the NATO to expand to the east further and 4) USA are not an imperialist country who gives shit about freedom and whose only goal is to control every fucking country on this planet.

See, brainwashing is something both parties are good at!

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[loonycyborg]

Our 'opposition' was always a joke, not enough sane and skilled people in it. Zhirinovsky openly shows it on his own example. He's obviously a gifted person, but he opted for a career of a clown instead. Presumably because there's no place in political life for anyone remotely serious.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Xest]

Sure bigotry is commonplace, but there are different levels of it in different societies and some have a clearly much higher level of social acceptability of it than others. In terms of homosexuality as an example whilst much of the West has been moving towards more equality such as legalising gay marriage some states like Uganda and Russia have been going backwards and making some things related to homosexuality illegal so there is a disparity and some cultures most definitely can be called out as more bigoted than others.

"but at this rate Russia has a better track record than you, one mistake over a multi-decade long feud with a neighboring country of whom have had a complicated past to say the least is almost understandable in comparison."

That's cutting the truth a bit thin, Georgia? Litvinenko? Russia doesn't exactly have a rosy past decade to point to either. Not to mention Russia's feud with the Ukraine has been entirely it's own doing, such as poisoning Yushchenko, Yanukovych's competitor way back in 2004 when Russia tried to defy the democratic will of the Ukrainian people even back then.

For 10 years Ukrainians have been trying to break away from Russia and for 10 years Putin has been doing everything he can including assassination attempts through to death squads to install Yanukovych in power and keep him in power as a puppet, just like Lukashenko in Belarus. Putin needs to accept no matter how long he tries to keep the game going, he has already lost.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Xest]

Except no coup has been staged. Yanukovych was kicked out by a similarly elected branch of government using the procedure of impeachment with a majority of 73% voting to oust him.

This was an entirely democratic act against a single individual who granted himself more powers than the people wanted him to have and no longer was representing the people. That's how it promotes freedom - by giving the majority what they want.

So I'll turn the question around on you, how does allowing Yanukovych to stay in power amongst the will of the majority and allowing Russia to lock down Crimea holding guns to people's heads, taking over the airways and spreading propaganda promote freedom in your mind?

This has been brewing since 2004 when Russia poisoned Yanukovych's competitor in the race for president and the Ukrainian people voted for a Western facing government back then. Russia has been meddling and forcing Ukraine against it's will back towards it since then, and you're surprised that after 10 years of that the people finally take matters into their own hands and the parliament votes in favour of the will of the people and you call that a coup? What fucking planet do you live on, Planet Putin by any chance?

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[geekymachoman]

This is NOT intended to be a troll post.. I'm just pointing out the bias, hypocrisy and double standards.

And I'm really trying to not blame American people for what their Gov is doing. Going around conquering, stealing, raping cultures, and pillaging. What Hillary Clinton calls "bringing democracy". I'm not even gonna start on covert psy ops marketing shit cia does to manipulate people in other countries to start hating on their own leaders so that you can install puppet leader who will not do anything good for interests of the people in whatever country, but will do for interest of US Gov.

So if you want to blame Russians... go ahead, you can. But don't feel bad when rest of the world blames you. You deserve it 10x more than any Russian, but we.. the rest of the world are really trying not to do that. Maybe we should stop.. and just openly blame you.

And no.. I'm not Russian and actually... I don't like Russians.

You shouldn't have the right to blame anyone for anything. Not before you clean the mess in your house.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[Xest]

Well ignoring the fact I'm not American, something I thought would be pretty clear from my post, where I say "my nation, the UK", what you say still applies to my nation, and I agree it is hypocritical for us to lecture on some issues.

This is not one of those issues, and the argument has worn thin. This government has been actively pulling us out of wars, and our current parliament was the one that put a stop to plans to bomb Syria when we voted against that.

As such I do (especially as someone who voted for the only mainstream party that voted against the Iraq war) have every right to criticise Russia and the Russians that support Putin.

Your nonsense about psyops by the CIA is stupid too given that exactly that sort of meddling by the Russians is what has caused the Ukraine to end up like this - you're basically arguing it's okay for Russia to install a dictator, but if the CIA dares to try and counter than then they're OMG BAD GUY. Either it's bad when nations do that or it's not, you can't suggest it's only an outrage when America does it.

Try reading before you post a rant in future. Assuming someone is American just because they argue against Russian support for Putin says an awful lot about your own irrational bias towards the situation than anything else - you have a preconceived assumption that anything wrong in the world is America's fault, and anyone defending western action to try and right that wrong is obviously an American. It's pathetic - there's room for far more than one evil in this world, and one country doing wrong doesn't automatically make all other countries right.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[IamTheRealMike]

George Bush and Obama were also very popular at times. Is the majority of the USA suffering from mass psychosis?

Putin is popular because the economy of Russia has recovered a lot since he took power. There isn't really anything magical about this. It's the same with China. Leaders that make poor populations a lot wealthier get a lot of slack in the authoritarianism department.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[IamTheRealMike]

Syria is a country far from the UK that has no connection to Britain at all, and despite that we (I'm also a Brit) are so amazed at ourselves for the fact that politicians finally voted no. Why the hell did the decision even come up in the first place? Right, because both Blair and Cameron are warmongers who squeal with delight the moment a far off country destabilises because it gives them a chance to prance around on the "world stage", as they put it. Not so different from what they accuse Putin of, is it?

Ukraine is right on the border of Russia and has a lot of Russian people in it. The first thing the new Ukrainian government did (if you want to call the outcome of a revolution/coup a government) is start to try and suppress the Russian language. If you're looking for a better analogy, perhaps look at Ireland, the long-festering Troubles and the occupation-like conditions that parts of Ireland were put under by the British Army at times.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[FilatovEV]

If you believe the Russian people are a part of the problem, THEN you have some actual problems.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[shutdown -p now]

I'm a Russian who hates Putin and thinks that the events that are currently unfolding are warmongering insanity that is largely perpetrated by Russia. If I told you that GP is correct in that there seems to be widespread support for all this from most of the population, would you believe me?

Unfortunately, my nation has gone mad, practically wholesale. We've seen it before in Europe, in 1930s. Even the methods are eerily familiar:

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[shutdown -p now]

It's not really a cultural difference thing. It's more like what happened in Germany after WW1.

A lot of people took collapse of the USSR very personally. Then the younger generation heard all the bitter stories about how we had a great empire that was taken away from us. This is fertile ground for any would-be "empire rebuilder", and Putin is milking the opportunity to do just that and enter into the history books (and also crush the opposition) for all it's worth.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[guacamole]

George Bush and Obama were also very popular at times. Is the majority of the USA suffering from mass psychosis?

I think Americans did experience a mass psychosis during the 2001-2003 drum up for the second Iraq war. Nobody questioned the White House claims/intelligence and everyone felt we need to go into Iraq to avenge the 9/11 and to take away his WMD. The second mass psychosis and mass hysteria was experienced during the first two weeks of the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. The information warfare employed by the White House was quite disingenuous, but all the news outlets did not question anything and it was pretty sad to observe.

Putin is popular because the economy of Russia has recovered a lot since he took power. There isn't really anything magical about this. It's the same with China. Leaders that make poor populations a lot wealthier get a lot of slack in the authoritarianism department.

Having a stable economy is very important for the popularity of the leaders. However, Putin did quite a bit more to earn his popularity. He projected an image of a strong, healthy man and a strong leader with guts who is not afraid to defend the interests of Russia internationally. The win in the Second Chechen War was also a big boost to the morale of the Russians. When Russia suffered a big loss in the war against the Japanese in 1905, widespread rioting that's known today as "The Revolution of 1905" (probably more correctly labeled as the revolt of 1905) lasted for months, so boosting the morale of people is very important. Another thing that he did was cracking down on the highly loathed Russian oligarchs. After several demonstration exiles and imprisonments, it was understood by the rest of oligarchs that they cannot use their wealth to bring down Putin, making sure that Russia can't have a well-funded political opposition. The west viewed these moves as a political persecution, but crackdowns were somewhat popular among ordinary Russians, who felt robbed during the unequal privatization of the 1990s. It also didn't help that many of those oligarchs were of Jewish descent, adding more fuel to the fire. And finally, cracking down on the independent media was part of the equation. Putin understood that controlling the main TV networks was the key.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[guacamole]

You cannot expect a nation with centuries of undemocratic and authoritarian rule to suddenly embrace the ideals of democracy, human rights, tolerance, and say federalism.

It's quite interesting to contrast Russia against Ukraine, which despite all of its internal problems seems to have some kind of democratic processes in place. That's not a coincidence. Ukrainians trace their roots to the quasi democratic republics of 17-18th centuries such as the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporozhia Sich which had free peasants at the time when Russia was an absolutist monarchy and all peasants were serfs of the landowners.

Re:Hopefully Russians don't give up their freedoms

[strikethree]

Normally I like to not try and blame the people for the actions of their leadership, but frankly I've lost all faith in the ability for the majority of the Russian populace to engage in any kind of rational thinking at this point. They are part the problem.

Hm. All these leaders. All these countries with populations that allow those leaders. I sense a pattern here... almost as if certain groups are using scientifically sound principles to manipulate other groups.

But yeah, it is all those dumb Americans who elected Bush for 2 terms. Oh wait, we were talking about Putin and Russia. Dumb Russians.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[cold fjord]

There are other stories about the NSA and related matters on the page now, and over the last several days. I find it odd that you apparently didn't post in them. You kind of went off topic there.

Or just trying to deflect the heat off Russia? You even got there with a first post.

Is the rule we can't discuss anything other than the NSA? Are you felling personally oppressed?

Other parts of the world have problems besides the US. They can be discussed too. It isn't a "hollow" problem.
 

Self Defeating?

[purpledinoz]

I wonder if blocking this kind of stuff is self defeating. It sort of signals what you should be looking at. If I saw that The Huffington Post was blocked, it would make me curious and I would find a way to read The Huffington Post.

Re:Self Defeating?

[quantaman]

I'm curious about this myself, obviously dedicated opposition will oppose Putin and evade blocks regardless, so I assume the target is slightly apathetic or undecided Russians. I suspect they're mostly trying to stop people from posting articles on the equivalent of the Russian Facebook.

China is probably the best example of blocking on a large scale (by a country that dominates the language), there's clearly a lot of Chinese who go to great lengths to evade the censorship, but what about the ordinary people? When the dissident is blocked do they just not bother?

Sneakereski Nyetya

[invictusvoyd]

Russsian forr Interrnet . No one can a block russssian. you foool

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[Dave Emami]

Until we stop living in a mass surviellence state, this all rings hollow.

The US (and the West in general) differs from Russia not in our inclination towards surveillance -- pretty much all governments do that -- but in the fact that it's controversial here.

You do know that it's possible to criticize bad things done by the US government, and criticize bad things done by other governments, right? Because your statement seems to indicate that you're unaware of this option.

Unlike Russia, we don't need to ban critics. We can just stalk and harrass them, until then ruin their lifes.

Tell that to Alexander Litvinenko, Viktor Yuschenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Yuri Shchekochikhin, and many others.

Russia or Soviet Union v2.0

[spark89]

Putin blocks everything that can hurt his regime. Especially now, when one mentally unstable dictator wont to occupy Ukraine and others country's to restore Soviet Union. Also, he knows, that for his unjustified act of aggression West will destroy him and all Russia like Soviet Union once.

Re: Mr. Snowden, we need your help

[spark89]

Mr. Snowden is a russian double agent. Wake up.

Re:Russia is evil again

[spark89]

As neighbor of Russia, I will say that she was always evil. Prior to this, she just didn't want to show his true face, and you didn't want to take a closer look.

Re: Mr. Snowden, we need your help

[marcello_dl]

Snowden might be a Sealand double agent for all I know, the point is: were his revelations made up or he spit the truth? The truth is way more damaging of course. Well, a strange kind of damage. Knowing about the excesses of surveillance state is a benefit to the people and does not hinder in any way the agencies to keep doing what they do, because they always de facto operate above the law in every place. So you have a double agent aiding the enemy. Hmmm?

Besides... If there had been the hint of the smell of a convoluted link between snowden and russians, it would have been all over the news in an attempt of damage control.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[Kkloe]

So you mean we have to get rid of internet?

Re:Funny

[Mitchell314]

That's a whole lotta words just to say "Please mod me down, I wanna pretend to be ironically persecuted so I can feel vindicated".

Re:Funny

[Mitchell314]

Yup, it's completely true. We all email each other and hold secret meetings with our own special handshakes. And you're not invited. All to make you rage those sweet, sweet tears.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[Xest]

Oh don't be so stupid. I'm no fan of the NSA's surveillance either but pretending that has any bearing this is complete nonsense.

About the only connection is that Putin's Russia is a warning about how bad it can get, so yes the NSA and CIA need to be reigned in somewhat, but the US isn't exactly as bad as Russia where the KGB, sorry, "FSB" as they prefer to be called nowadays, have their man in charge and basically run the entire show. At least there's still some semblance of separation between US intelligence agencies, the courts and the people who run the country still. In Russia it's all one big completely KGB orchestrated machine. The very fact the CIA had to try and meddle with the senate in itself shows they don't have that level of control over them yet, in Putin's Russia they'd have just had Feinstein and co. arrested on some trumped up charges and that would be the end of it.

So yes, whilst the US has lost it's right to preach on some issues (i.e. bitching at China for hacking) this is at least one area where it's hardly reached Putin-esque levels of dictatorship.

Stalking and being harassed even if that were happening on a widespread scale to all critics (it's not, people are still free to criticise - that's what you're doing for fucks sake and I doubt anyone is stalking or harassing you) is even then still a far cry from being beaten senseless and chucked in jail, or just outright assassinated with a bullet to the head by an assailant that never gets found (because they don't want to find him).

Let's keep in mind who sells that software.

[Ruedii]

Let's keep in mind that it is US companies that sell the software to handle massive site blocking like this.

Re:Funny

[Mitchell314]

Ahhhh. Sweet, sweet, delicious tears of self righteous rage. Especially those from the line-toeing groupthink against special handshakes.

Re:Funny

[N1AK]

You could have saved a lot of space by leaving out the puerile insults. Slashdot's moderation system is a long way from perfect but what exactly do you think they should do to 'fix' it. Stop users moderating and have all comments equal, allowing the spamming of views? Have one person or a small group decide which posts are good or bad?

Based on this post it seems likely to me that you can't express a point effectively and rather than resolve that you've decided it must be the fault of other people that you get down-modded.

Hypocrisy is always on topic

[kevlar_rat]

The issue is that there is a claim of moral superiority in TFA. It says that

Putin [has] tight control over Russian society

, but the US gov't also tightly controls US society - so there is nothing to be smug about. Hypocrisy is an inconsistency between two things - the response when someone else does something, and when we do the same thing - the only way you can tell hypocrisy is to compare these two things. So if you only ever look at one thing at a time - and declare any comparison is 'off-topic' - then you will never notice any double standard.

Re:Hypocrisy is always on topic

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But the level to which Russian society is controlled by the government has always been markedly higher than the level to which the US society is controlled by the goverment. What about restricted cities, internal passports, vastly greater lack of freedom of speech and expression etc.? Even though I'm always ready to call on Americans for being absurd, I'm also perfectly willing to admit that the civic situation in the US, while not perfect, is somewhere in the 90th percentile, as far as the world's nations are concerned. You simply can't say the same thing about Russia. You never could.

Re:Hypocrisy is always on topic

[shutdown -p now]

Restricted cities don't exist anymore (well, I suppose they might be bringing them back shortly, we seem to be returning back to full-fledged Cold War state of affairs really fast).

Re:Hypocrisy is always on topic

[alexo]

I assume that more extreme measures are needed because, on the aggregate, the Russian population is harder to control than the American one.

Tell Putin that you disapprove

[Alain Williams]

Commenting here is great, but Putin does not read Slashdot. Write to your country's Russian ambassador, tell him what you think. OK: what you say will be ignored, but if 10,000 of you write - then Putin may hear of it ... maybe no more than 2 lines at the bottom of some report, but that is better than nothing.

Just to make it easier for you: the UK Russian embassy contact page (I would suggest Russia-UK relations queries); the USA Russian embassy contact page, post & 'phone only, unless someone can dig better than I can. Also feel free to reply to this comment with contact info for the Russian embassy in your country.

If you say nothing, then you will be ignored. Saying something cannot be worse than that !

Re:Tell Putin that you disapprove

[Alain Williams]

This is what I wrote. Do not copy this word for word, write it your way.

Dear sir,

I was aghast to learn that Russia has sought to stifle political dissent by blocking news sites and closing these sites. This is very much against the spirit of glasnost that the great Mikhail Gorbachev used some 25 years ago when he brought the Soviet Union into the modern world.

To be healthy a society needs its citizens to be able to speak freely, otherwise it will stagnate: innovation will suffer if new ideas are frowned upon, we live in a changing world, if we do not change then we slowly decline.

This is as much about science & technology as it is about politics. If you stifle political thought then you chill all thought and the country will suffer.

Mr Putin is putting his short term comfort before the long term health of Russia. Please tell him this this is neither good for Russia nor the rest of the world.

Please convey this email to the ambassador.

If you are not aware of what I talk about, please read: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/russia-blocks-access-major-independent-news-sites

Re:Tell Putin that you disapprove

[FilatovEV]

What do you want to say to the Russian people? We at polismi.ru are a team of volunteer translators who would _enjoy_ to facilitate the discussion between the West and Russia. However, nobody from the Western countries shows up. If you are so daring, register at polismi.org and try to engage in/start a discussion in a dedicated English part of the forum. English is OK. You are welcome.

Re:Tell Putin that you disapprove

[shutdown -p now]

These laws seem to be enthusiastically supported by a good majority of the Russian population, judging by the reaction that I've seen in Russian blogosphere so far. There are certainly quite a few citizens not happy about this, but they are the minority by now, and the one that's being labelled "fifth column" at that. So what makes you think that Putin will give a shit about the opinion of some foreigner? If anything, he'll just use your letters as a "proof" that Russian opposition is a CIA- and DoS-backed movement that's there to "destabilize the country", like they've been saying for the last few years.

It's too late for this. I'm just glad that I got out of the country in time.

Re:Tell Putin that you disapprove

[Anonymous Coward]

BWUHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! Haha!.. the great... Gorbachev! MUHAHAHAHA!
oh, you're killing me. You have no idea that Gorbachev is as universally hated in Russia as he's admired in the West.

Re:Tell Putin that you disapprove

[sesshomaru]

I'm surprised considering what a great job he did destroying Russian power and prestige throughout the world...

Oh..

I think I get it now.

Pity

[korbulon]

Petty power play by Puting to prevent protest and put plaintive political people in a perpetual position of powerlessness.

Re:Pity

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Perfect! Playful and powerful political prose is pretty precious presently. Please, proceed, promote personal prudence.

Re:Pity

[q4Fry]

Putin's petty power plays prevent protest, putting plaintive political people in powerless positions, perpetually.

(almost) FTFY

Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[guacamole]

I have been reading a lot about the turmoil going on in Ukraine, from both English and Russian language sources. I still don't get it why Putin invaded Ukraine. I get it that returning Crimea back to the mother Russia will strike the chord with the Russian nationalists. One thing is certain that his popularity is hitting another high right now, so he and the rest of his ruling elite can sail through the next round of elections. But could Putin and other politicians in Russia be so shirt sighted that they would risk labeling Russia and starting the next Cold War for this simplistic short term goal? It's quite shocking to think that today in 21st century, a European country is invaded by its neighbor, and on on quite dubious grounds. Sure, I don't think any really costly sanctions will be applied to Russia again, but I think from now on Russia will simply be tolerated because other countries still have to do business with it. No one will harbor any illusions about Putin's regime from now on.

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we set a precedent with Kosovo that a region of a country can break away if enough of the population there want it to. Unless self-determination only applies where the West approves of the outcome. I guess in that regard, it's pretty much like elections, military-coups, etc.

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[q4Fry]

Because we set a precedent with Kosovo that a region of a country can break away if enough of the population there want it to. Unless self-determination only applies where the West approves of the outcome. I guess in that regard, it's pretty much like elections, military-coups, etc.

I humbly submit that in the secessions of Kosovo and (more recently) Southern Sudan, the inclination of the national government toward genocide and/or systematic violence might be a relevant factor?

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[shutdown -p now]

Putin wants the country to become a pariah to the West. It will allow him to consolidate his power even further, since now he doesn't have to invent external and internal enemies anymore - the West is the external enemy, and anyone who is pro-West is the internal enemy.

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[HeckRuler]

Why

1) Dick waving. If you wave it about and nobody slaps it down it makes other people afraid of your ability. If you can showcase your strength it increases your political capital. It's a gamble though, if the UN throws a fit, ham-strings Russia, cock-blocks Putin, and generally beats down Russia for their illegal actions, then Russia will have just showed how weak they are.

2) The opportunity presented itself. There's the thinnest veneer that they're "protecting ethnic Russians". And since the Ukrainian government is going through tormoil, it's not like they're going to have an organized response.

3) Resources, power. This is the old-school thinking but it still applies. Cimera simply has value. Russia now has it.

But could Putin and other politicians in Russia be so shirt sighted that they would risk labeling Russia and starting the next Cold War for this simplistic short term goal?

Yes.

Whoa, wait a minute.

they would risk labeling Russia

Risk labeling Russia as what?
"Someone that will unilaterally invade a sovereign nation" The USA is way ahead of them there.
"A war-mongering beast that'll invade your country if you even think about revolting " Arguably that stabalizes the region
"A powerful political player that can disreguard international laws" That just makes them more powerful.

As for risking a COLD war, hell yeah Putin would risk that. Hell, he'd welcome it. He's KGB. The cold war made him, the soviet government (and the federal government of the USA) a hell of a lot more important, powerful, and needed. It's the hot war that nobody wants.

Sure, I don't think any really costly sanctions will be applied to Russia again, but I think from now on Russia will simply be tolerated because other countries still have to do business with it.

So even you can see that there's really not going to be any actual negative impact to Russia.

No one will harbor any illusions about Putin's regime from now on.

?
Right, Putin is solidifying his position. No one will question that he is running the show. He probably won't even have to step down for that other guy to pretend to be president.

Are you starting to realize why he did it now?

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[guacamole]

Are you starting to realize why he did it now?

Yes. Thanks for clearing it up. He did it for the chicks ;)

Re:Why did Putin invade Crimea?

[guacamole]

Yes, Kosovo was quite different from Crimea. The government in Kiev may have been trying to "Ukrainize", quite ineffectively, the non-Ukrainian population of Crimea but there was no violence or ethnic cleansing there. On the other hand, I think the independence of Kosovo may have set a valid precedent for the future independence of the autonomous regions Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno Karabakh since those were the sites of actual or attempted ethnic cleansing of the local minorities by the central governments of Georgia and Azerbaijan respectively in the early 90s. One difference though is that Kosovo is independent because the international community wanted this, but they don't really want to interfere with the other case.

Re:Funny

[benjfowler]

Was going to say "you must be new here", but you have a very low UID. Surely virtually everyone must understand how the Slashdot moderation system promotes groupthink by now?

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Only on Slashdot can you see an ego quoque argument... And apparently with a perfectly straight face, no less.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[murdocj]

However well it may have worked out, Snowden's actions in distributing documents clearly violate some laws, and he clearly should face trial in the USA. Whether he should be convicted of anything or not is a separate matter.

Assange is accused of rape in Sweden. Nothing to do with the USA, unless you spend your life walking around with a tin foil hat.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Russia, you cannot become rich and/or powerful unless higher-ups have tons of "compromat" on you. And at the moment you step off line, you'll stop being "rich and powerful", and become prisoner. (Look at Magnitsky's case. His bosses were even Putin's vocational supporters! They were rich and powerful. And at the moment they stepped off the line, they were robbed, and Magnitsky was murdered in the jail). Sure, US and EU tendencies with mass surveillance, censure, attack at investigative journalists, etc are quite troubling, and may end up with catastrophe in few decades (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely). But Russia already went far beyond that line.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[Ol Olsoc]

So we get the first post and its the old "Yeah - but Teh Eval America'z worster. Ermaghered!"

Tell you what - If America is so fucking awful, why don't you renounce your citizenship, and move to Russia, because it's obviously so much better a place, and you have finally thrown off the shackles of the terrible conditions you are made to live under in the states. I'll pay for your one way ticket

Otherwise, at least stay on topic.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[blueg3]

You do know that it's possible to criticize bad things done by the US government

Sure it is. How's that working out for Assange and Snowden?

Making public a ton of classified documents is not criticism. It might be right, it might be wrong, it might be some of both, but it's not accurate to describe it as "criticism".

How's criticizing the government going for all the people who criticize their handling of Manning? For the people who are criticizing the NSA now?

Kremlin also pays people to

[melted]

Kremlin also pays a bunch of shills to comment on forums it can't control, such as Youtube, Facebook, Western news sites, and the like. Some of which you can witness in the comments to this news.

That's the thing, you don't know

[melted]

That's the thing, you don't know. Because Putin controls the statisticians who produce this rating. If they don't come up with the right one, they could lose their jobs, or worse.

Re:Until the NSA stops spying on America...

[HornWumpus]

Look at what happened to the 'owner' of Quest after he didn't cooperate with the NSA. Things aren't that different.

Also note how dirty Feinstein is. If she didn't support the NSA without question, the public might find out about all the self dealing she does for her husbands company. That however, is the public's fault, not like it's secret.

Fascism and demographics

[markhahn]

Obviously, this kind of thought-control, especially when combined with state capitalism/oligarchy/kleptocracy, is what we in the west would call Fascist. It is perhaps an interesting real-life demonstration of newspeak that much of Putin's fervor, at least for public consumption, is directed *against* Fascists in Ukraine. For him, the f-word means neo-nazi, or perhaps just ultra-nationalist for any nation other than greater Russia. It's really weird and mindbending, but you can find a lot of his undiluted propaganda on the web (rt.com, plenty in youtube, and planted comments on just about any relevant news article in any media...)

I find this fascists calling each other fascists thing quite interesting, but it seems to depend on a highly prepared political environment. The ex-USSR population seems to be uniquely primed to equate fascist=nazi, with all the baggage of WW2 (including the meme that the hard part was fought in Russia, not western europe, and that the cold war was essentially a continuation of WW2, with nazi-derived forces still conspiring against The Fatherland.) I imagine that works best for the older generation, but surely any Russian under 30 must look at the internet and see something closer to the truth...

Re:Fascism and demographics

[mirix]

including the meme that the hard part was fought in Russia, not western europe

You think this isn't true?

Putin following old Soviet patterns

[Martin S.]

Putin will follow the old Soviet pattern and invade very shortly after being invited following the bogus referendum result is announced.

Just like the Soviets did in Hungry 1955, Czechoslovakia 1968 Afghanistan in 1979 and Georgia in 2008

Re:Funny

[HornWumpus]

Browse at -1 to get both sides of an argument on /.

And if you want examples of American censorship...

[rs79]

Look at http://free.tibet/

Re:Funny

[iNaya]

>> My university degree and the 22 books I've written are conclusive proof that I can express myself just fine Well they didn't teach you that starting off by insulting a group is NOT the best way to get them onside? I think you are incapable of expressing yourself in a non-arrogant manner.

Re:Funny

[sesshomaru]

'twas ever thus......

Re:Funny

[ronfar]

'twas ever thus......

Indeed it was....