Slashdot Mirror
Russian Army Spetsnaz Units Arrested Operating In Ukraine
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Examiner: "The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed March 16 the arrest of a group of Russians in the Zaporizhzhia (Zaporozhye) region of Ukraine. The men were armed with firearms, explosives and unspecified 'special technical means'. This follows the March 14 arrest ... of several Russians dressed black uniforms with no insignia, armed with AKS-74 assault rifles and in possession of numerous ID cards under various names. One of which was an ID card of Military Intelligence Directorate of the Russian armed forces; commonly known as 'Spetsnaz'. ... Spetsnaz commandos operating in eastern Ukraine would have the missions encompassing general ground reconnaissance of Ukrainian army units ... missions they may perform preparatory to a Russian invasion would be planting explosives at key communications choke points to hinder movement of Ukrainian forces; seizing control of roads, rail heads, bridges and ports for use by arriving Russian combat troops; and possibly capturing or assassinating Ukrainian generals or politicians in key positions ... Spetsnaz also infiltrate themselves into local populations ... Once in place they begin 'stirring the pot' of ethnic and political strife with the goal of creating violent clashes usually involving firearms and destabilizing local authority."
The submitter adds links to more at Forbes, The Daily Beast, and The New Republic.
The summary is over-hyping this story, which is a day or two old, and not given anything like this much play in the mainstream media. The link to Forbes is actually just to a third-party renting space on the Forbes site, and the New Republic piece is opinion, not news coverage. Not that I am in any way denying or condoning Putin’s invasion, but overreacting doesn’t help.
For the hundredth time, please recall that the USA did not enter WW2 until the Axis powers declared war on it (or attacked it in the case of Japan). Hitler personally declared war on the USA while the latter was STILL mulling its options several days after Pearl Harbor.
The obvious moral of that particular period of history is that the USA is always willing to beat up weaker nations, but maintains a prudent neutrality in the face of anyone of its own size.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Aaaand what "treaty" would that be? (hint: there isn't one).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
which is a memorandum contingent upon Ukraine signing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
Although the memorandum is not a treaty, but a mere political agreement, "The memorandum bundled together a set of assurances that Ukraine already held from the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) Final Act, United Nations Charter and Non-Proliferation Treaty." So there are treaties in place that should prevent what Russia is doing. Russia just doesn't care.
The USA messed up it's abusive relationship with Europe; it's not Snowden's fault he reported the USA for beating the wife.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Crimea has been autonomous within the Ukraine precisely because it is more ethnically Russian than Ukrainian,
How Russians Became Crimea's Largest Ethnic Group, In One Haunting Chart
Crimea may have a majority Russian population today, but it hasn't always been that way.
The peninsula's dark history of ethnic cleansing is visible in the following chart from Reuters.
The chart shows a collapse in the population of native Crimean Tatars from 34.1% in 1897 to zero in 1959, marking brutal harassment leading up to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's forcible deportation of the entire population in 1944, with nearly half dying in the process. It took decades for the population to climb back to 12% by 2001.
While the population of Ukrainians and especially Russians rose, the percentage of the population falling into an unlisted category also fell from more than 20% in 1921 to around 5% in 1959. This was a consequence of the deportation of Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and other groups.
Who are the Crimean Tatars, and why are they important?
Whatever the Tatar grievances against the Ukrainian state may be, when faced with the choice of being under either Russian or Ukrainian control, the Crimean Tatar leadership has consistently and unequivocally chosen Ukraine. Since the Soviet period, attempts to split the Crimean Tatar movement and persuade some of the Tatars to support a pro-Soviet, and later pro-Russian, agenda has not borne fruit.
Crimean Tatars fret over Russian domination again
Crimean Tatars living in Turkey said Monday they worry of a return to the terrible oppression they suffered in the Ukraine province the last time it belonged to Russia and the Soviet Union.
"We've seen this movie before and we don't want to see it again," said Celal Icten, 59, head of Crimean Tatar Association of Istanbul, whose parents were born in Istanbul and Romania but both draw direct lines to the ancient city of Bakhchisaray, the pre-Tsarist capital of Crimea.
Once Victims Of Stalin, Ukraine's Tatars Reassert Themselves
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell