Is Crimea In Russia? Internet Companies Have Different Answers

judgecorp (778838) writes "Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network, Vkontakte, still say Crimeans are located in Ukraine, while other Russian social networks say they are Russians. Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an edit war has resulted in Crimea being part of Russia, but shaded a different colour to signify the territory is disputed. Search engine Yandex is trying to cover both angles: its maps service gives a different answer, depending on which location you send your query from."

Comments

is this seriously

[etash]

stuff that matters? This is a trivial detail, and in due time all websites will list it under Russia.

Re:is this seriously

[mi]

in due time all websites will list it under Russia.

Only the Russian websites will do so. The rest will list it as "Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation". Unwieldy, perhaps, but reflecting the truth.

Or, as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuff that matters, news for (cartography) nerds.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

stuff that matters?

kinda newb question dont ya think?

Re:is this seriously

[T.E.D.]

If you are a Polynesian, perhaps it is a trivial detail. If you live in the area itself, a country bordering one of the principles (eg: Most of Eastern Europe), or a country pledged to militarily protect one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA), then this ought to matter a great deal to you.

This is essentially a story of an ongoing propaganda effort. Try as we might, there is flat out no way to classify any part of what a year ago was Ukraine without making a political statement. When you make a political statement, you are serving the purposes of one side or the other. These "sides" run countries with hundreds of millions of people in them, who might one day come to blows over the issue. There's no getting around that either.

There are still mobilized military units moving around in both the former and rump remainder parts of Ukraine. We honestly don't know if the country will exist at all two months from now. Getting their story out about their view of the status of these areas is just another ongoing part of the war (or whatever you want to call it), and websites like Wikipedia are bound to get caught in the middle.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Not even the West has the gall to claim Crimea is occupied.

Annexed, yes. Occupied, no. By who? Locals?

Re:is this seriously

[T.E.D.]

The current government there is a party that got less than 10% of the vote in the last Crimean regional election, and was essentially appointed by Putin after his troops moved in. So it owes its entire political existence not to local support, but to the support of some guys in Moscow.

Its possible that if you had a completely free plebiscite on the issue, without Russian troops and "militias" backed by them standing around with guns, the people of Crimea would have willingly voted for something similar to what they have now. Its also possible they wouldn't. We'll never know now, because it doesn't look like there will be anything like a free election there again for quite a while.

Re:is this seriously

[Carewolf]

Better examples might be Kashmir (India/Pakistan), or South Ossetia and Abkazhia (Georgia/Russia). Disputed territory is not that uncommon.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

And the people on the streets, celebrating after the referendum en masse were shipped from Moscow. In containers. Because that's how Russians treat their own people. You know it because you have been told so by the same sources.

And while at it, you may wish to check just how much support people currently installed by the West in Kiev command. May make for a good example of hypocrisy for which your types are known so well.

Re:is this seriously

[TangoMargarine]

or a country pledged to militarily protect one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA),

Why do people keep saying this? According to that very article, Ukraine is not a member of NATO:

[In 2009] Ukraine and Georgia were also told that they could eventually become members.

After the 2010 election in Ukraine, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych declared his administration would not be pursuing NATO membership.

Those are the only 2 times Ukraine is mentioned in the entire article. Or is this "pledge to defend" a secret or something? Ukraine is neither a member of NATO nor the EU currently.

Re:is this seriously

[TangoMargarine]

Oops...those quotes were from the actual NATO article. That list of member countries doesn't even have the string "Ukraine" anywhere on the entire page, though.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why do people keep saying this? According to that very article, Ukraine is not a member of NATO:

Probably because they can't keep the contracts straight.
The UK, the USA and Russia itself signed a contract to protect Ukraina in exchange for it giving up the (huge amount of) nuclear weapons it had.
Which isn't the same as NATO membership, but since NATO is just a contract as well, it's no wonder that some countries are wondering if their NATO membership is actually worth the paper it's written on, at least UK and USA showed they don't care about that kind of contracts too much if it would mean they'd actually have to start a war with Russia...

Re:is this seriously

[MightyMartian]

Newsclips of people dancing around does not evidence of unimpeded electoral intent make. In an election such as this, where the borders of a sovereign state are to be redrawn and some of its territory annexed by a much more powerful neighbor, the standards of what constitutes a legitimate election are all the higher, and justifying it under the grounds that you watched a television program where a bunch of people were happy simply does not suffice.

Napoleon I and the III were famous for holding referendums, but I doubt anyone would confuse them with champions of democracy.

Re:is this seriously

[TangoMargarine]

Yeah, I just found that. Apparently the "assurances" don't exactly include mandatory military intervention per se though.

Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances

Re:is this seriously

[T.E.D.]

I neither said they were, nor implied it. Was I really that confusing?

Let me try again. I'll use a operating system analogy, so perhaps your geeky minds can understand better.

Much like an OS like Linux has levels of security organized into rings, there are essentially four "rings" of interest in this matter.

• Ring 0 would be Crimea. Its their lives being directly affected.
• Ring 1 would be Russia and what's left of Ukraine (assuming any still is left by the time you read this). They are the former and existing countries squabbling over it.
• Ring 2 would be all of Russia's neighbors. This isn't the first time Putin has marched his troops into the ethnic Russian portions of a neighbor who's government was getting too uppity. Clearly its been working for him, so he's got no reason to quit doing it. They all have ethnic Russian minorities as well. It doesn't take a prophet to figure out the rest out.
• Ring 3 would be anyone pledged to defend one of the countries within Ring 2. Since some of Russian's neighbors are NATO members, that means all of NATO (including Western Europe, Canada, and the USA).
• Ring 4 would be anyone pledged to defend one of the countries within ring 3. (for simplicity's sake, we'll make this transitive)
• Ring 5 would be everyone else. They can probably afford not to care (assuming things don't escalate to a point where large amounts of nukes are a real possibility)

If you think the idea of things escalating out to a Ring 3 or 4 problem is ridiculous, I highly suggest you take a hard look at how the last two World Wars started, and ask yourself what's completely different this time.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

How high are we talking here? They voted with participation of over 85%, and of that vote, overwhelming majority agreed to annexation.

To compare, average Western country has election for government with voter activity barely around 50% (often much lower) and ruling parties are often elected with very small minorities of under 20% of those who came to vote.

So your requirement is largely met, unless you're planning on insisting on 100% kind of numbers.

Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.

Re:is this seriously

[TangoMargarine]

If you are a Polynesian, perhaps it is a trivial detail. If you live in the area itself, a country bordering one of the principles (eg: Most of Eastern Europe), or a country pledged to militarily protect [wikipedia.org] one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA),

Your clauses and antecedents* were jammed together a bit squintingly, and I keep hearing lately that Ukraine is supposedly part of NATO, so I went with that interpretation. I took "a country pledged to militarily protect one of those countries" to mean "protect Ukraine" and asked where exactly that pledge was made.

You seem to think that I'm arguing that there's nothing to worry about with this whole situation. That is most assuredly not what I'm saying.

* I assume:
"the area itself" = Ukraine
"one of the principles" = former Russian territories?

Lastly, the point I was making was that "a country pledged to militarily protect [wikipedia.org] one of those countries" DOES NOT mean NATO as you seem to be saying, but rather only Russia, the US, and the UK (China and France gave weaker assurances).

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

Re:is this seriously

[cheesybagel]

It is de facto Russian. That is what matters. There is a number of disputed territories in the world. We might as well color Tibet differently by this token.

Re:is this seriously

[cheesybagel]

You need to learn how to read. What he is claiming is that Ukraine borders NATO countries like Poland and Romania and if the war escalates it may end up involving all of NATO.

Re:is this seriously

[TangoMargarine]

I would argue that this is in fact a case of the GP needing to write more clearly and not assume everyone can follow his assumptions.

And you need to learn how to not insult people's language skills. It's rather rude.

Re:is this seriously

[WaffleMonster]

stuff that matters? This is a trivial detail,

Yes, when it comes to borders legitimacy is everything.

and in due time all websites will list it under Russia.

Says you.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

So in your opinion, if a state is not perfectly stable and/or has any issues that people are passionate about, it's not a "real Democracy".

I humbly disagree. I do believe that vast majority of sane population of the West is with me on this particular issue, regardless of their views on the Ukrainian conflict.

Since the only comparison you could come up with here is Nazi Germany, I think I will just label you a "standard, shameless militarist nut job" and stop talking. Arguing on merit of facts with your kind is pointless - you will twist the reality to fit your own, warped imagination and disregard any inconvenient inconsistencies with your story, like your aforementioned claim that democracy is not "real" if people feel compelled to vote.

Funnily enough, most pro-democracy movements continue to make an argument that one of the biggest problems with democracy in the West is low participation. Inconvenient, and I'm sure you'll ignore that tidbit as well. After all, they're probably not about "real" democracy.

Re:is this seriously

[Zontar The Mindless]

At the risk of putting words in T.E.D.'s mouth (feel free to correct me if that's the case), I think what he's saying is that when an election is decided by a 99-to-1 margin, the odds are about 99 out of 100 that the deck's been stacked.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

And I would agree. Which is why it's relieving that it in fact we have not seen those numbers in Crimea.

In fact, some of the more reliable and neutral press in the West, such as Der Spiegel (you'll know them from the fact that people like Snowden and Assange trusted them enough to give them the source materials for redaction) posts stories like these today:

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Juicy quote: "Nevertheless, the situation here is not as unambiguous as it was on the Crimean Peninsula" when talking about situation in Eastern Ukraine. In other words, they agree that situation in Crimea has had little ambiguity - people by far and large wanted to join Russia and they got their wish.

Considering that euronews mentioned in the a footnote of their story on pullout of Ukrainian troops from Crimea after the annexation that "2/3 to 3/4 of the ukrainian soldiers are actually staying behind because they deserted before or during the conflict in Crimea", we can see that desperate attempts to claim that Crimea's vote wasn't geniunely democratic have little merit.

About the only argument you can make is that situation was orchestrated to manipulate public opinion. But if we call that an offence that makes referendums and political decisions invalid, shouldn't we have already put other people who have been proven to have used massive disinformation to get the outcome they wanted in prison, such as former US president G.W. Bush? And can we really argue that Russia is in this alone, and West has not been the prime instigator of current situation with Russia being the massive loser who's merely reacting? They lost entire country of Ukraine after all, with all its industrial base. This isn't some crappy third world oil producer - they make things like engine parts for space rockets. And they are historically ally of Russia throughout several centuries against threats like Ottoman slaver empire or Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, not to even mention being the birthplace of modern Russian culture.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

To someone who modded this flamebait - presenting relevant facts that disagree with your point of view is not baiting flaming. It's bating an intelligent discussion.

If you disagree, grow a pair, show that you can be called a person who supports freedom of speech as a core Western value and present your counter arguments instead of downmodding it.

Especially when the issue is of that importance - voting apathy in the West is exceptionally destructive to democratic process, and one of the key elements which have allowed corporatist and militarist agenda holders to take power even when their platform is not the one most voters would prefer.

Re:is this seriously

[T.E.D.]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Despotic governments are not places where no elections happen; they are places where all the numbers in elections are up near 100% for whatever the current guys carrying guns want it to be.

If your "election" looks more like the numbers you'd see out of North Korea, it carries about as much weight as a videotaped "confession" from a guy with visible bruising.

Re:is this seriously

[Cyberax]

Incorrect. You get "landslides" with 55% of votes only when people have to chose between Giant Douche and Shit Sandwich.

Referenda, especially independence referenda, often get 90%+ participation. For example, just last month Putin has obviously orchestrated a non-binding independence referendum in Venice: 89% of participants voted for independence with 75% turnover ( http://rt.com/news/venice-vote... ).

Re:is this seriously

[T.E.D.]

often get 90%+ participation. For example, just last month Putin has obviously orchestrated a non-binding independence referendum in Venice: 89% of participants voted for independence with

That's actually a very insightful (and it turns out informative) refutation.

You see, it turns out that Venice poll was not actually a proper plebiscite, but rather an online poll. Online polls aren't exactly famous for being accurate representations of popular opinion. I can't find any official number for participation, but it looks like they were "expecting" no more than half the electorate to vote.

So what would they have found in a real vote? Actual opinion polls on the question were apparently finding about 2/3 support for the idea. A 66% vote for a popular measure in a Democracy would be perfectly in line with what one would expect to see in a real vote.

But maybe you're right, and I should look at a real independence referendum. They are preparing to have one of those in Scotland soon, right? What are the predictions for numbers there? Well, current opinion polls seem to show the electorate running at about 50% to 33%, with the rest undecided. So we can expect that when election day happens, whichever side wins, it won't be by larger than 77%, and likely far less.

Or how about we look at actual numbers from an actual vote? Puerto Rico had a referendum on statehood/independence/etc. again two years ago. 78% of those eligible voted (so indeed high by western standards, but not ridiculously so), and the results were about 54% to 46%.

So I may have to grant you that turnout numbers may be a bit higher than normal during a referendum like this, but that's still worlds away from making the "results" the Russians reported from Crimea look anything like a real vote.

Re:is this seriously

[Cyberax]

It was a verified online poll, i.e. only Venice citizens could vote and only once. They got 75% of participation - I remember reading it on some Italian blog, but I might be wrong.

Anyway, there are plenty of other examples: Kosovo independence was unanimously passed by its parliament, very own Ukrainian independence referendum in 1991 passed with 90% of approval and 80% turnover, South Sudanese referendum passed with 98% approval and so on. Wikipedia has a helpful list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... In short, it's not unusual for independence referenda to get near-anonimous votes.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

> When you make a political statement, you are serving the purposes of one side or the other. These "sides" run countries with hundreds of millions of people in them, who might one day come to blows over the issue.

Which is weird, because Russia and Russian culture is still more of a part of what we call Western civilization, so Russia should not pick fights with its own brethren (Western Europeans, Americans, Eastern European slavs, and its smaller sibling Ukraine. It should instead recognize that the Western civilization is in one boat, while China and most of the Far East is in another. Infighting will only weaken Russia's and its former Western partners' economy and relationship, while China and the Asia-Pacific area zooms past, laughing all the way to the bank.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that this is in fact a case of the GP needing to write more clearly

I understand what he was referring to.

And you need to learn how to not insult people's language skills.

Hope he chooses a better teacher than you.

It's rather rude.

No shit.

Re:is this seriously

[Neo-Rio-101]

In Soviet Russia, it will be listed under all websites!

Re:is this seriously

[HJED]

Where do you see participation numbers over 85%?

So Australia isn't a democratic country? I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
I would argue that it is a sign of a bad democracy that few people turn out to vote. Whether this election is valid or not is an entirely different question.
Where there international observers? Where people coerced? Was the counting process public and valid? (The answer to two of these isn't currently clear).

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

Of course we are all going to accept that "what matters" is what $random_slashdot_poster says. Maybe what matters is what the United Nations decides. Or maybe what matters is different for everyone.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

people currently installed by the West in Kiev

"The West" has not installed anyone in Kiev. They are Ukrainians who installed themselves. Unless by "the West" you also mean Ukraine.

Unlike, say, the little green men. Now who's being hypocritical?

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

The West installed the current regime. When "Yats", the Nuland's guy got the top job, kicked out the "too inexperienced to rule" (aka not corrupt enough) "Klitch" and went to maidan to annouce his government (which could be summed up as Tymoshenko and her stooges), do you know what happened?

They openly threatened to kill him for "continuing the same order we are here to fight against". After Tymoshenko saw this, she ran away to Germany and left her stooges to take the hits. The only reason they are still in position of some power in Kiev is because Right Sector, which was the real power behind maidan but had little public support initially switched sides to West puppets because it saw just how vulnerable they were against the people and just how much power they would get by essentially taking the entire security apparatus into their hands by supporting the weak puppet government.

Nowadays they do stuff like beat up MPs and journalists, while taking videos of it. Euronews had a hilarious story that got through propaganda curtain by sheer absurdity of it a few weeks ago, where the deputy minister for free speech beat up a head of TV station in Kiev while filmed by one of his (assaulting party) guards until he signed his resignation. Then he uploaded the clip to youtube to show his supporters that he's defending the "motherland". Even hollywood isn't good enough to write stories like this one.

Maidan is still there by the way. People are still protesting against the current regime. Have you heard any news about them in the Western media as of late? Ever wondered why they stopped covering maidan so abruptly after the current US-approved regime took power?

Sometimes, 2+2=4. Even if there's a massive lobby screaming at you that it equals 5.

Re:is this seriously

[david_thornley]

The reason he compared it to Nazi Germany is that it bears a striking similarity. Large power army occupies area, holds plebiscite, gets a very high percentage of the vote for annexation. It immediately reminded me of the Anschluss.

If Putin wants to not get compared with Hitler, all he has to do is not act like Hitler. Seems simple to me.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

How high are we talking here? They voted with participation of over 85%, and of that vote, overwhelming majority agreed to annexation.

To compare, average Western country has election for government with voter activity barely around 50% (often much lower) and ruling parties are often elected with very small minorities of under 20% of those who came to vote.

So your requirement is largely met, unless you're planning on insisting on 100% kind of numbers.

Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.

Your numbers are meaningless if I believe people were more or less coerced.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Crimea had lots over 75% Russian-speaking inhabitants. They voted by a very large margin to become part of Russia. Several eastern parts of Ukraine have over 50 percent Russian-speaking.

Re:is this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also possible that without Russian presence people would not have dared to vote pro-russian.

Re:is this seriously

[CHIT2ME]

Hey frickn' Russian troll, tell Putin his man boobs are starting to sag. He'd better hit the gym a little more often!!!

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Clearly, they looked very coerced after the fact on the streets. We all know that singing, dancing and partying is how Russians show they are coerced.

Yes, Russians are weird, and our propaganda, no matter how absurd is correct. Thank you for playing!

Re:is this seriously

[CHIT2ME]

"To someone who modded this flamebait - presenting relevant facts that disagree with your point of view is not baiting flaming. It's bating an intelligent discussion." Hey frickn' Russian troll, the preceding sentences just show that the Russians are Master Debaitors!!!

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Is that even possible? Is there a stop where russophobes such as yourself stop imagining things, and connecting incomparable things just because "oh god, RUSSIANS!"?

If there is one, I haven't seen it yet. On a lighter note, the sheer absurdity of your behaviour leads more and more people around the world to simply ignore outbursts of your types, or openly deride them.

So please go on. Be as absurd and as noisy as you possibly can. The faster your credibility is eroded completely, the faster we may start getting crises where sacrificing massive amounts of people to the engine of war will not be the only solution and way out.

Re:is this seriously

[Xest]

"Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation."

Wow, what an obscure twist on reality. The OECD observers were fucking shot at as soon as they tried to get near Crimea:

http://www.dw.de/warning-shots...

Being shot at and told you're not welcome is not even remotely the same as "They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.". Putin and his cronies make statements like "But we invited the OECD, it's all the West's fault!" precisely because he's talking to the folk at home who can't get information from anything other than state outlets. I'm amazed there are people like you who do not take advantage of what is available to us in the West - plurality of media information to realise what actually went on.

You seem to have swallowed Putin's propaganda hook, line, and sinker. What's wrong with you?

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

The only reason they are still in position of some power in Kiev is because Right Sector, which was the real power behind maidan but had little public support initially switched sides to West puppets because it saw just how vulnerable they were against the people and just how much power they would get by essentially taking the entire security apparatus into their hands by supporting the weak puppet government.

Let me get this right. The Right Sector was the real power but it had no power. But it would gain power by supporting a government that had no power.

So, this "weak puppet government". Nothing you have said so far proves or even implies that "The West" (scary shady figures in the background, who are they even really?) installed them. Everything you have said is misdirection and spin.

I fully expect that there will be protesters against the current government. Ukraine needs to hold a fully accountable general election so that everyone can have faith in their government. They're not going to be able to do that though while Putin continues to incite civil war through astroturfing shills like you.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

OECD military observers were told to get out after they went in uninvited and warning shots were fired after they pushed in in spite of multiple warnings.

Election observers were invited. They did not accept the invitation.

The fact that you confuse two completely different agencies within OECD speaks volumes.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Correct. That's how politics work. Maidan had no power until Right Sector joined it, and it lost power after Right Sector left Maidan to join the weak government.

In any situation, the real power is always in the hands of men with guns. The question is if there is any power that control men with guns. Men with guns went for the party that allowed them to get the most out of situation, switching sides to Maidan initially, and then to the weak government that had West's support after it became obvious that it would not survive a weak without them, allowing them to extract massive concessions from them in exchange for their support.

As for "proof", it takes living in one hell of a bubble not to see it. Clearly, Nuland telling us who will be in government weeks before the overthrow was a coincidence. McCain visiting was also a coincidence, as were several others. CIA chief visiting before the announcement of "counter terrorism operation" was also a coincidence. Kicking Klichko out of power structures, who actually wanted change is also a coincidence. Utterly absurd rhetoric coming out of Kiev today is also a coincidence. Oligarchs being installed into official posts is a coincidence. Maidan threatening "Yats" with assassination (but lacking the power to do it because Right Sector left it) after he showed them who will be in his government after the overthrow was also a coincidence. Svoboda and Right Sector getting posts like deputy of minister of freedom of speech is a coincidence. Them going on to beat up journalists in Kiev until they sign their resignations is a coincidence. Said journalists not getting their jobs back even after the Western media couldn't put a lid on that particular story is also a coincidence. And countless other coincidences you can find by following the news, and just reading carefully, as funnily enough, it's actually there in the stories a lot of time, even in the Western media. It's just well obfuscated, like the story on the Ukrainians soldiers leaving Crimea, with long moaning about how their entire families have to be uprooted. Which ends up in short sentence that those make for barely a quarter of Ukrainian troops originally stationed in the region. The rest apparently switched sides and are staying.

I have a suggestion. When the amount of coincidences reaches the point, where to believe in all of it being a coincidence starts to be smaller than that of winning a lottery, you may start considering that maybe, just maybe, you live a propaganda bubble and look utterly hilarious, not to mention gullible to those who aren't inside it.

Just something for you to consider.

Re:is this seriously

[david_thornley]

I'm not a russophobe, and I didn't say "oh god, RUSSIANS!". What I said is that I was familiar with a historical example of one country occupying another and holding a plebiscite and winning by an unexpectedly large margin. You're not going to change that by going "oh, wow, RUSSIANS!".

Some of us are actually absurd enough to study history.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

In any situation, the real power is always in the hands of men with guns.

By this logic Yanukovych was the real power when he ordered the Berkut to open fire on unarmed civilians. But strangely the next day he had to flee the country.

What you don't seem to realize is that the more you antagonize Ukraine, the less moral authority you have. What Russia is doing is like depriving a man of sleep for five days and then pointing and saying "I told you he was a bad driver!" when he crashes his car. Invading and occupying the Crimea turned Ukraine into the victim, any issues that they might have with their government can simply be blamed on that and on Russia's continued agitprop in the East: they can't do their spring cleaning while you're setting their house on fire.

The way the whole of the rest of the world sees this situation is that Ukraine is a man who fell down the stairs and bashed his head. While he was lying bleeding in the gutter, Russia stole his wallet and kicked him in the nuts. You want to show your moral authority? Help him to his feet and take him to hospital.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

... and take nothing from it anyway?

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Nope. Berkut was hopelessly outgunned by Right Sector. That's why he lost. There have been quite a few interviews with police forces after the fact, and all agreed on one part. Police were completely outgunned by demonstrators in the end - that is why they lost.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

Ooooooookaaaaaay

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Right Sector themselves admitted to having about 400 guns in the crowd on the day of overthrow. You can find their interviews even on Western news sources.

More realistic estimates have been in low to medium four digits.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

Of course. The unarmed civilians who were killed weren't actually unarmed civilians, they were hardened battle fascists. And the little green men were backing singers from the Crimean Children's Choir. And Russia has no special forces in Eastern Ukraine, because every Ukrainian separatist has identical full combat battle dress, automatic weapons, ammunition and squad training to take over his local town hall.

I notice you completely ignored the entire issue of moral authority and justification which is mostly pertinent to this thread, instead choosing to throw more of your FUD dung around. Do you have anything to say on that issue?

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

No. Those killed were random people on the both sides. Bullets miraculously missed everyone important on both sides. Must've been some shitty snipers, considering most of the key figures in the uprising were on the Maidan stage much of the time, elevated and free to pick off.

And in spite of the massive outcry, shooters still haven't been investigated, much less found.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Also, "identical battle dress"? So BBC, CNN, and everyone else is lying and falsifying video footage? Because they all seem to agree that these guys are wearing a mish mash of crap, including German army outfits, sneakers and so on, and carry weapons ranging from old AK-47s (army uses AK-74m) to hunting rifles.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

Kramatorsk: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27012612

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Same link, Luhansk.

Fact is, you're looking at 10 men who managed to score same outfits, ignore the much larger mass shown on the very same page and ignore countless footage collaborating all that footage including eyewitnesses and reports from all reporters in the area, choosing to extrapolate 10 men over almost everything.

I could do the same to conclude that US army is nothing but a ragtag military band by simply looking at a picture where soldiers with different camo happen to be shot in one picture and extrapolating in face of all other facts.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

you're looking at 10 men who managed to score same outfits

Sure, a bunch of civilian neighbors who all have the same outfits, automatic weapons, military training and bags of ammunition. Let's see how that theory plays out in 2 weeks' time when Putin admits that there were Russian military in East Ukraine just like he has now admitted that there were Russian forces in the Crimea when he originally swore blind that the little green men were "local self-defence forces".

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Have you ever heard of "universal conscription"? Ukraine has that. That means that almost every male of age is a trained soldier in reserve. Of those, quite a few are going to be trained special forces in reserve.

We also know that these local police and army units have defected to their side when the conflict started. Western media likes to call those "occupation of buildings" when in reality it's more of a police and army defecting to the protesters' side and using their resources to arm the reservists among the protesters.

That's why they have such an amalgam of gear in most cases. They just grab whatever gear and uniform is available, and that's often a mix of various camo patterns for different seasons and from different branches of forces. Before the defections, they had an even greater of a mix, there are images of people wearing things like surplus German army jackets and similar stuff. But having 10 men in same gear is nothing out of the ordinary. Most barracks and police stations would likely have much more of the same kind of gear in storage.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the "smoking gun" that these are Russian forces. This ain't it even by a long shot.

Re:is this seriously

[Hypotensive]

you'll have to look elsewhere for the "smoking gun" that these are Russian forces

I don't have to do anything except wait and see. And, in fact, nor does Russia, despite all the tub-thumping. Even if all the Kremlin propaganda were true and Kyiv were a hotbed of destabilized lunatic anti-Semitic fascists, they pose no credible threat to Russia. So why don't you just pack up and go home and occupy yourself with your own affairs.

Re:is this seriously

[Luckyo]

Can't. I live in another state with long border with Russia. Finland. Unless you're calling for me to get out of my home country, I cannot exit the situation.

And NATO with help of our single pro-NATO party are slowly pushing us into situation which Ukraine is today, in spite of massive popular opposition to independence.

Here's a fairly reasonable opinion piece on what's going on in there:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...

Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[mi]

Russia annexed the province by use of force. Any and all counter-arguments like "but they voted" are meaningless: first, the voting took place under the "gentle" guidance of Russian military. Then, even if you think, it is legitimate for a referendum on whether to join a foreign power to take place while under occupation by that same power, the vote was fraudulent. For example, in Sevastopol the number of people showing up for vote was 123% of the eligible voters.

And, finally, even without the above two arguments, would Russia accept a referendum by residents of the Kuril Island, for example, on breaking away from the Motherland and joining Japan? Would the US accept the results of Southern California (or Southern Texas) voting to break away and join Mexico?

Neither would, of course. The Crimean referendum is a joke. A sad joke perpetrated by Russia-the-bully on Ukraine weakened by internal strife and years of mismanagement (to which Russia heartily contributed just for this purpose, BTW).

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Russia handled this badly in a lot of ways. But in the end what we know is that once Russia offered, if there were a fair and free referendum the Crimean people would like to join Russia and leave Ukraine. I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of. I believe self determination gives people, not just states, the right to change borders.

And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accept it. I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force. That would completely undermine everything else about American democracy. Americans like to have a government by the people for the people. A government imposed is not either.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[etash]

Is this the first time in your life that you see a not 100% correct by the international standards change of regimes/borders (Kosovo comes to mind)? On the other hand I do like your Kuril argument. Let's extend it a bit more: "Finally, would the British Empire accept a referendum by residents of it's colonies in the new world, for example, on breaking away from motherland and becoming independent?" Those sorts of things are not achieved by throwing roses at your enemies.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[rolfwind]

You apparently never heard of the American Civil War then.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TrueRecord]

>Russia annexed the province by use of force.

Not, really. That's not true.
No external force from mother Russia was used, no force at all except of the people of the Crimea itself who sought independence from the current radical regime in Kiev and defended the people from the hostilities of the radicals.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

What we did 150 years ago is not what we are likely to do today. The American Civil War the states breaking away wanted to maintain slavery. Had they not been slave states it is entirely possible that the moral case for the civil war would have turned out quite differently.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force. That would completely undermine everything else about American democracy. Americans like to have a government by the people for the people. A government imposed is not either.

American Civil War. Look it up. Indian Wars. Ditto.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[mi]

And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accept it.

American Constitution does not provide for territories leaving the Union. At the least, it would require a Constitutional Amendment. Interestingly, Ukrainian law does provide for such border-changes — they can happen by nationa-wide referendum...

I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force.

You have a very limited imagination then.

Now try imagining Russia letting Kurils Islands go... However hard you may try, you'll see only the same reaction, Russia has shown to Chechnya's vote for independence 20 years ago. We know, how that played out, don't we?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[mi]

Kosovo comes to mind

Kosovo did not vote to join the US — nor any of the others, whose military was occupying the land.

Finally, would the British Empire accept a referendum by residents of it's colonies in the new world

As a matter of fact, India left the British empire without war. Look up Ghandi...

Those sorts of things are not achieved by throwing roses at your enemies.

We'll never know, what roses (or stones) Crimeans would've thrown at Kyiv on their own — had it been so clear-cut, Russia would not have had the need to occupy the peninsula before the referendum — nor would they have had the need to shut off Ukrainian TV rebroadcasts over it, replacing them with Putin's lying propaganda.

What we do know is that the fraudulent vote took place under the guns of the occupiers.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Narcocide]

I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force.

But, ironically enough, that's basically how we got Texas in the first place.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyYar]

People are exactly the same as they were 150 years ago. I imagine the exact same thing would happen: Texas would declare itself independent. There would be a thorny issue of a bunch of federal property still in Texas. For a short time, there would be an uneasy peace as the Texans tolerated US forces within their borders. Eventually, someone would do something aggressive and you would have war.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

American Constitution does not provide for territories leaving the Union. At the least, it would require a Constitutional Amendment.

No it wouldn't. Congress doesn't appropriate money to fight a war against Texas and they leave. When we had our revolution we didn't check with what the British government's rules were.

Now try imagining Russia letting Kurils Islands go.

I was alive 20 years ago when Russia (the Soviet Union) let 14 Republicans go. I have no trouble imagining them letting territory go.

Russia has shown to Chechnya's vote for independence 20 years ago. We know, how that played out, don't we?

Yes there is an example where Russia held territory by force. As far as I understand it the primary issues were oil, minority protection and unclear borders. The Russians were willing to give Chechnya a great deal of independence but the government was rather incompetent on top of everything else. Certainly that's an example that self determination is not universal but I wasn't arguing self determination was always honored just that it can be and would likely be in the USA.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[BradMajors]

Ukraine is threatening to separate from the CIS. The international community should also be opposed to that.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Antique Geekmeister]

> And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accep

Not a _chance_. Texas has oil, just like Iraq.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[etash]

ah...the force of reality distortion field is strong in this one.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

>Russia annexed the province by use of force.

Not, really. That's not true. No external force from mother Russia was used, no force at all except of the people of the Crimea itself who sought independence from the current radical regime in Kiev and defended the people from the hostilities of the radicals.

And I have some prime ocean-front property or sale. Easy to develop and real cheap - special offer just for you, my friend. Located in Kansas, USA.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Last I checked we didn't annex Iraq.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

Revisionist nonsense

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[ageoffri]

The American Civil War was not a war over slavery. It was a war over Federal vs. State control. Slavery was an emotional issue used to by both sides as part of the their argument on control, but ultimately it was a secondary issue. If it was about slavery why did Lincoln "free" slaves in only the secessionist States?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

No I don't think people are the same as they are. The horrors of the civil war were inconceivable to the people who started the civil war. Today we know what such a war looks like. That's real change.

The issue of Federal property would get settled by some sort of agreement. The property gets sold to Texas or leased or... I think everyone involved would want to avoid war. The south was reckless the north was aggressive and slavery made compromise difficult. There is no more slavery and both sides would be careful.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[redmid17]

I was alive 20 years ago when Russia (the Soviet Union) let 14 Republicans go. I have no trouble imagining them letting territory go.

Which Republicans did they have captured? It was generous to let them go. On a serious note, the USSR was flat broke when the Iron Curtain fell. Russia could not have held onto those countries it if were threatening to use their nukes. The lack of Russian money was one of them main reasons why North Korea went through horrible starvation. It's why the DDR had rampant runaway inflation until they were absorbed back into Germany.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[sbrown123]

Sorry, still don't care.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TrueRecord]

Honestly I don't get the stance of some ppl from the US against Russia.
Russia is the best friend and has been the most loyal, the strongest and the most valuable ally for the USA. Really. At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together. It was before and it may be again when we have to save the Earth itself. Nobody can help the US but Russia when things get hot. Alienating Russians is what make things worse.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

It's always nice to see the same, tired propaganda, that the person behind it himself officially admitted to being a lie repeated time and time again.

I'm sorry to tell you, but that particular number was in fact a misquote from the original announcement of results of referendum, where "1,5 million" said to the camera became "1,7 million" in the press. "Accidentally" of course. To provide people such as yourself ample talking points.

You russophobes are like the anti-vaccine crowd, who cares if the original study is a lie. The goal is good, therefore all lies to back it up are good.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[fey000]

Honestly I don't get the stance of some ppl from the US against Russia.
Russia is the best friend and has been the most loyal, the strongest and the most valuable ally for the USA. Really. At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together. It was before and it may be again when we have to save the Earth itself. Nobody can help the US but Russia when things get hot. Alienating Russians is what make things worse.

Those things are called movies. The space aliens didn't really invade Earth.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Man, you need to get out of your apartment more. There is real world besides your computer/TV screen. I'm telling you this as a Russian myself.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[NotDrWho]

It was a war over Federal vs. State control

Yeah, control of slavery.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[aardvarkjoe]

Although that sounds reasonable at first, it leads to a lot of problematic situations. One obvious example in this case there is a minority of people in Crimea that are strongly against it, but because of the tyranny of the majority they have been forced to join Russia. Why should those people be "trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of"?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

Aye. US doesn't take that kind of responsibility for people it "liberates". It just leaves them to largely fend for themselves. Like in Iraq.

Mind telling us how that is a good thing, other than for your bottom line - i.e. less mouths to feed?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Before the civil war:
North was fighting for the union
South was fighting for slavery

Because the war was so destructive both sides had been discredit. So after the fact both sides used the reverse of the other side's arguments
North was fighting to end slavery
South was fighting for state's rights.

And of course slavery played a huge part in the issue. That was the issue they couldn't resolve that caused the underlying conflict.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

The claim above was that Texas is like Iraq. Hence the response. As for how the USA handled Iraq... I think overthrowing the Ba'ath government wasn't a bad thing. Staying for years was a bad thing and very expensive. Leaving was a good thing. Iraqis didn't want to become Americans.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

They shouldn't. After Ukraine splits up ethnically there likely will and should be an exchange of minority populations so that people in the now smaller Ukraine who want to be in Russia are in Russian and the people in Russia who want to be in Ukraine are in Ukraine.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TrueRecord]

The Nazi Germany was not a movies, the warm and close alliance between The US and Russia up until the 20th century was not a movie.
The natural phenomena like earthquakes won't be movies either. Don't reject the helping hand. No one knows what's in store for us.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Arker]

"Any and all counter-arguments like "but they voted" are meaningless: first, the voting took place under the "gentle" guidance of Russian military"

By that logic the vote for statehood in Alaska was meaningless as well - in fact it's even worse, because the US troops voted!

If you are just making an abstract point, fine, conceded. If you are implying that there is any legitimate US interest to be pursued through pressing that point and pursuing confrontation with Russia? I do not see one.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

And you chose to make an example that US didn't annex Iraq. Which lead to my argument.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[aardvarkjoe]

So why don't the people in the Crimean area who want to be Russians just move into Russia? Why should a majority of of people in an area be able to vote and force an ethnic minority to leave their homes?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] Let's extend it a bit more: "Finally, would the British Empire accept a referendum by residents of it's colonies in the new world, for example, on breaking away from motherland and becoming independent?" Those sorts of things are not achieved by throwing roses at your enemies.

They would and have accepted such results. While many Americans may assume that the only for independence is through revolution, there are long list of countries that left the empire peacefully, starting with NZ in 1840 and Canada in 1867:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Kjella]

At the start of the war holding slaves was not unconstitutional, each state made their own laws and there was slavery on the Union side as well. The United States simply did not want 30% of their population and 70% of their exports seceding away, it would totally cripple their economy. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 - long after the war started - was just directed at the slaves in states in rebellion, those under Union control still remained in slavery. In short, it was a wartime measure to cripple an armed rebellion and recruit soldiers to their own side. I'm sure the Lincoln movie is not the most accurate historic source but there was huge doubt if the proclamation had any force once the war was over or if they'd all be returned to slavery.

There was huge resistance to passing the 13th amendment even with the southern states broken away, it was rejected as late as 1864 and only passed with the smallest possible 2/3rds margin (119-56) through the House in 1865 before the South rejoined. And that was only after years of negros serving in the Union army and dying for the north, at the start of the war... no. The abolitionists might have been on the rise but in 1860 support for slavery was alive and well all over the United States. They might have climbed to the moral high ground during the war, but initially it was a simple case of the government fighting down a rebellion like any other.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of.

You mean except for the part where Russia signed a treaty with Ukraine that they explicitly wouldn't fuck with their borders.

Ohhhh...we had our fingers crossed. Gotcha!

Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and many folks in Russia felt the same about the dismemberment of the USSR - a sad joke perpetrated by the West on a country weakened by the internal mismanagement. So what if the overwhelming population of the Baltic countries wanted to split? Would you accept San Diego country joining Mexico? Oh, wait, your argument is supposed to work only one way.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyMartian]

The South was not just fighting for the right of states to have slaves. The whole issue of the status of slavery in the states that would be formed out of the territories was probably the largest single factor. The slave states were not just interested in maintaining slavery within their borders, they wanted to have slavery perpetuated as much as possible throughout the Continent United States.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

"Independent" Ukrainian polls in mid-February 2014, while Yanukovich regime was still in power, showed that 41% of Crimeans considered joining Russia. On one hand, it's quite far from 90%+ reported by this "poll", on the other, Ukraine invested tons and tons of money into Crimean infrastructure and development, starting from 1954 when Crimea joined then-USSR. Crimean infrastructure, business, economy are heavily dependent on mainland Ukraine. This annexation will, on one hand, decrease the social/economic situation in this region dramatically, on another, it will prolongate Putin's regime in Russia for a few more years. That's ~2.3 million of people versus one. There's a lot of "who owns whom what"-style arguments going on, and this is why the modern society uses economy and laws, rather than active warfare, to resolve issues. If you still insist on supporting military-style actions, look at how much good it did to, say, Africa.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[torsmo]

As a matter of fact, India left the British empire without war. Look up Ghandi>/quote> India was able to break free from the clutches of the British empire largely because Britain after WWII was too exhausted and depleted to maintain control over a country the size of India. Sustained rebellions and freedom movements within that country forced Brtitain's hand, as well. There was no plebescite held in India, and had Britain not been involved in total war, it is highly doubtful they would have let go of India, although evolving global politics over the next few decades might eventually have brought about an Indian independence. Also, it wasn't just Gandhi's non-violent movement, but also actions of Indian revolutionaries. which precipitated Britain's exit.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

I don't think Russia in 1990 has the right to forever bind the Ukrainians to Ukraine. The idea of intergenerational unbreakable contracts is how one legitimized intergenerational slavery and serfdom. Absolutely Russia is in violation of the treaty with Ukraine. But the solution to that treaty violation is not to leave the Crimeans in a country they no longer want to be part of.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyMartian]

The USSR was a Western ally for precisely as long as it took to beat Nazi Germany. It wasn't a friend to the West before WWII (although I do concede Stalin had approached the Allies with concerns about Nazi Germany in 1938, though at the same time he had absolutely no problem exporting steel to Germany during the whole period), and it wasn't a friend after WWII. While Cold War propaganda may have exaggerated the economic and political ills of the Soviet Union somewhat, at the end of the day, it was no friend of the West.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

That's called democracy. The majority get to decide on the form of government, within limits and people have the right to move to governments they approve of. No one is being forced to move. Crimea either has to be part of Ukraine or part of Russia. If it is part of Ukraine the majority is unhappy. If it is part of Russia a minority is unhappy. One of the basic ideas of government in such a situation is to side with the majority all other things being close to equal.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

I didn't GP did. Your argument is that annexing Iraq would have been a good thing which is irrelevant to whether did in fact annex Iraq.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the US signed a contract to protect Ukraina? So at the very least whether such contracts (and possibly NATO as a whole) have value is potentially at stake.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together.

You mean the events that never would have happened if they weren't on opposite sides? I assume you're referring to the Cold War.

"Most loyal"? Dear lord...have you been *watching* Putin the last few years?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

I'm not sure how you are disagreeing with me above. I agree there were tensions. Things like the Fugitive Slave Act were required. But regardless the south (the CSA) is not a good example of self determination because of slavery while a modern succession would not have that problem.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal is good, therefore all lies to back it up are good.

You're accusing them of (Marxist-Leninist) socialist morality?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

the warm and close alliance between The US and Russia up until the 20th century

In other news, up until WWI broke out, Germany was still hoping for an Anglo-German alliance, and up until WWI France and Britain were at each others' throats in almost every war.

Times change. Talking about the tsars, the Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Russia as the same thing is foolishness.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[ShanghaiBill]

Interestingly, Ukrainian law does provide for such border-changes — they can happen by nation-wide referendum...

Too bad we don't have that in America. We could hold a nation-wide referendum, and vote to give Texas back to Mexico.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TrueRecord]

I did not mention the whole West. But the US-Russia relations saw really good days. Especially in the beginning when both countries confronted the British Empire in the 19th century. And IMO anything is nothing when compared to WWII.
Btw, actions speak louder than words: it is Russia that prevented the US from engaging in war with Syria and thus Iran making it too close to WWIII with heavy casualties. Russia has helped. It is Russia who declined to extradite Snowden. His revelations can help the US remain a free nation. And so on. Russia IS friend.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

My argument is actually that if US annexed Iraq, it would have had to take responsibility for people it left in an impossible situation after its invasion.

Russia is giving all Crimeans, regardless of ethnicity of vote a right to vote in Russian elections for example. When will people of Iraq, who are massively impacted by results of US elections be given the same right?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

Yes. There's little difference between the morality of the militarist wing of East and West. Both are two sides of the same militarist coin, with same level of ethics.

Did the whole Snowden debacle show you nothing? Iraq?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

But the solution to that treaty violation is not to leave the Crimeans in a country they no longer want to be part of.

Assuming the results of that referendum with 123% voter turnout is legit. I'm just gonna let you think about that sentence for a minute. (Putin seems to be adept at this maneuver...remember when his popular support totals jumped by 20% overnight, to over 100% total polling the last time he was elected?)

And you're complaining about "forever binding the Ukrainians to Ukraine"? How is NOT violating their border considered a transgression? This is/was a UKRAINIAN province.; why the hell should RUSSIA get to decide where it goes?

And technically, they gave Crimea to Ukraine back in 1954; the Budapest thing was a reaffirmation that the Soviet Oblast borders were to be followed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1...

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[squiggleslash]

The American Civil War was not a war over slavery. It was a war over Federal vs. State control

It really was about slavery. The notion the South were just concerned about Fed being "too powerful" and being likely to "force" them to do things they didn't want to do over them kinda ignores the fact that whole Fugitive Slave thing, where the South was using the Federal government to force the North to do things they didn't want to do, and the Federal government turned out not to be powerful enough to do it.

And it was the complete failure of the Fugitive Slave acts, and the fact that the whole free trade/movement thing meant that without such a law, the South would be competely unable to deal with escaping slaves, that created the actual triggers for the creation of the Confederacy.

States Rights? There's a stronger argument that the North was fighting for those over the South. After failing to work within the system to force the North to do things they found completely abhorent, the South wanted to bypass the constitution completely by declaring independence and using its economic and military might instead. The North even limited its response to a silent "WTF" until the South fired first. The rest is history.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[biojayc]

If people want to be a part of Russia they can move there. This was a land grab. You don't just vote to steal a piece of land from a sovereign nation.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[cheesybagel]

No state will ever give up land willingly. It is from that taxes are derived. You are naive if you think the only reason the South seceded from the Union was slavery. There was a lot more at stake than that. People tend to reduce issues to slogans or sum things up in simple sentences that do not explain the whole situation.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MaWeiTao]

This is why we don't have pure democracies. You can't just have the majority vote impulsively on every whim that pops into their heads.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Arker]

The sanctity of treaties? That's your argument? A better argument to quit signing them so promiscuously but let that go for the moment.

The idea that the putsch in Kiev is legitimate successor to the elected government they deposed is... let's just say problematic. At best.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Never. You don't get the right to vote by being impacted by a country. What Iraqis did get was the right to vote in their own elections. Now if Iraq wants to apply for statehood (which is incredibly unlikely) they have a responsive agency which could guide them through the process.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Assuming the results of that referendum with 123% voter turnout is legit.

I understand the point of 123%. We had regions in Minnesota with turnout like that for Bill Clinton in 1996, that doesn't mean that Bill Clinton didn't win the American election.

This is/was a UKRAINIAN province.; why the hell should RUSSIA get to decide where it goes?

They shouldn't. The people of Crimea however should get to decide where Crimea goes. The only thing Russia can do is either offer to annex or refuse to offer to annex if the Crimean people wish to be part of Russia.

And you're complaining about "forever binding the Ukrainians to Ukraine"?

The people of Crimea don't want to be Ukrainian anymore. This is like a divorce it dissolves the relationship. The same way Ukraine is no longer part of the Soviet Union.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Of course you can and this was a supermajority.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

The land belongs to the people who live on it ultimately. The purpose of states is to represent the people of those states.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[cheesybagel]

It caused the Cuban 'special economic period' too.

The USSR went bankrupt for all sorts of reasons. Expenses on the war on Afghanistan. Crumbling infrastructure including oil extraction and transportation. Supposedly their oil industry production collapsed just before the crisis happened. Besides the infrastructure they ran out of the easily accessible oil that used to fuel their planned economy. As a result the whole thing came tumbling down. The system was designed to run on cheap oil.

They did not have unfettered access to the worldwide markets either not a lot of goods they could sell to other countries besides weapons. That certainly did not help either.

So the move to thawing relations with the West had to happen regardless of it breaking up or not.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

I'm not sure about that. It seems like the people of Texas were deeply divided about what they wanted: part of Mexico, part of USA, independent. The USA never held Texas in a situation where the overwhelming majority was against being held.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

The polling changed when Russia offered the opportunity to be annexed. Until then it appears that most Crimeans favored some sort of federalism. Certainly I'm not going to disagree this moved fast, perhaps too fast.

As for Africa... Africa mainly has had a pretty good agreement not to modify borders. IMHO one of the reasons that African states are so dysfunctional is that they aren't nation states but rather you have nations scattered across multiple countries and countries each containing multiple nations. Cleaning that mess up I think would be good for Africa.

As for the economics of Crimea. I've heard people say Crimea isn't economically viable detached. They may be true, but ultimately I think that's a choice for the Crimean people. As for Ukraine investing in Crimea vs. Crimea's investment in Ukraine .... where are you getting figures on net inflows and outflows?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

If we accept that the referendum is legitimate, then your points all more or less make sense. I, however, do not. You can't have a fair vote when one of the sides has soldiers at the voting area.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[unixisc]

And technically, they gave Crimea to Ukraine back in 1954; the Budapest thing was a reaffirmation that the Soviet Oblast borders were to be followed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1...

How was that a legitimate transfer? Did the population of Crimea have any say in it? Nikita Khrushchev made an arbitrary decision to transfer that peninsula over to his home republic of Ukraine, and it just happened. Neither did the citizens of the RSFSR have any say in whether that bit of land of theirs got to be given to anyone else, nor did their compatriots in the Crimea get to choose either.

Yeah, it would have been better had all of Ukraine gone thru a referendum as to which parts wanted to remain w/ Ukraine, and which parts wanted to go to Russia. Yeah, there is a large Russian minority in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, but that doesn't make them majorities. But Ukraine is fine going monolingual Ukrainian only: bilingual states have a terrible precedent - just look @ Quebec. Russians in mainland Ukraine (not in Crimea) who don't want to assimilate into Ukrainian can just cross the border. I see that there is plenty of real estate from the Urals to the Bering Straits.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[thrich81]

"No state will ever give up land willingly" Two counterexamples: The USA found itself in possession of several previously Japanese territories after WWII, most notably Okinawa; it was returned to Japan in 1972, 27 years after the war ended.
The USA found itself in possession of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War; both were granted independence sometime afterward (Philippine independence took a long time and was interrupted by Japanese occupation of WWII).

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

Yeah, it was a really bad idea to begin with IMO. But now everybody's angry so it doesn't seem fixable anymore.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

That's a dispute of fact. I'd suggest asking American Russian and Ukrainians and asking them if any of them doubt the outcome. Or for that matter most media. Crimea remember did vote overwhelming for the pro-Russian / anti-Western (anti-Ukranian) candidates before the soldiers. The soldiers were mostly containing the Ukrainian soldiers as far as I know.

Absolutely Putin managed to cast a shadow on his referendum when it was pointless. That was a bad move on his part. I'm not going to deny that but... do you have any evidence but your gut that Crimeans don't want to be part of Russia?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Luckyo]

We were discussing Crimea just a moment ago, so I think we can safely say that your passionate "never" has been debunked before it has been uttered.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TangoMargarine]

If they had a free and clear referendum with no intimidation and *actually* 100% voter turnout, I'd abide by their decision. The anti-Russian people also boycotted the vote somewhat from what I heard...which makes all this shadow-casting rather silly, as you said, if they were doing so voluntarily.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that it wasn't an occupation. Russia has had a military presence in Crimea since the time of Catherine the Great. There was an agreement between Ukraine, Russia and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which supersedes Budapest, which allows for a permanent Russian military deployment of at a maximum 25,000 troops in Crimea.

There were never more than 25,000 troops in Crimea, as per the terms agreed upon by the governments of Ukraine, Russia and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, all is good an well, you may want to call it an occupation, but it isn't. Credit where credit is due, at least you're not calling it an invasion.

You also ignore that the self-governing Autonomous Republic of Crimea ruled by it's own constitution and government asked for Russian support, which is Crimea's prerogative. Credit where credit is due once more, it's hard to muss about Ukrainian sovereignty while utterly dismissing Crimea and Sevastopol's autonomous status, while keeping a straight face, respect.

For example, in Sevastopol the number of people showing up for vote was 123% of the eligible voters. [thegatewaypundit.com]

"However, as of November 1, 2013, according to the statistics in Sevastopol , all the permanent population of the city – 383,499 people, and is present at the time – 385,462 people".

And in the meantime, since the events of Maiden, thousands flocked to Sevastopol in fear of their safety, Sevastopol of course, being the safest place in all of Ukraine at the time, you know, with all those Russian warships and whatnot (same reason people in Western Syria flock to Tartus, and Armenian civilians flock to Gyumri in times of conflict). There's also the matter of BEIKRUT officers and their families being invited to live in Sevastopol and granted the equivalent of citizenship status (Sevastopol was and remains a semi-autonomous special region separate from Crimea), so yeah, to anyone paying attention to what has been going on since November, this doesn't seem suspicious or out of the ordinary.

And, finally, even without the above two arguments, would Russia accept a referendum by residents of the Kuril Island [wikipedia.org],

Has such a referendum taken place? The answer is no, and there is unlikely to be one, you picked a really shitty example.
Iturup: 60% Ukrainian population
Kunashir: has a history of revolt against Japan.
Shikotan: the Ainu claim ownership (and possess autonomy under Russian jurisdiction).
Habomai Islands: uninhabited other than a Russian border guard post.

The likelihood of a referendum to join Japan is slightly less than nil.

You'd have had a better argument with Chechnya and Dagestan, though the separatism is mostly fueled by jihadists, whereas the non rabid population is content with autonomy, so that'd be a pretty bad example, too.

A sad joke perpetrated by Russia-the-bully on Ukraine weakened by internal strife and years of mismanagement (to which Russia heartily contributed just for this purpose, BTW).

Yes, let us ignore not only the Western meddling in Maidan, the Western instigated Orange revolution, and the Western backed toppling of a legitimate, democratically elected government, and ignore that Russia, via heavy subsidies has singlehandly kept Ukraine afloat so far.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[cheesybagel]

It is called Realpolitik. It was probably invented by Cardinal Richelieu who joined the Thirty Years War in Europe, of Protestants vs Catholics, by siding with the Protestants despite being a Catholic priest himself because he was not interested in the Spanish Habsburg Empire gaining dominion in Europe.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

You really out to have some sort of argumentation as to whether polling changed when Russian military sprang all over the peninsula, and if it did, into which direction it happened to change and how far. The only proper way to answer the question of whether Crimean people really wanted to separate or not would be via a properly arranged referendum, with international observation, etc. What we have on our hands instead is a "poll" performed under Russian regime, which is known to NEVER in it's history to have opposition win any kind of important elections. The only methods Russians used to get their powers to change are via a murder (Tsar times), a revolution (1917, 1991), or a special KGB ops (2000). Would you trust any numbers coming out of polls performed by this kind of "democratic" tradition?

As for Africa - the "nations" thing in developed world is no longer used to draw borders. Do "nations" and "nationalities" influence elections? Sure. Cultural/theological policies - you bet. Economics - maybe. But borders? Not since 1945, and for a good reason. Military actions tend to bring on destruction, which is always much worse economically and socially than, say, policies and contracts based on international law - which is the very thing Russia broke with Crimea, and continues doing so with the rest of Ukraine (my home country, btw).

On the economics question. A quick answer is this - Crimea was not really developed up until 1941, was occupied by Nazis during WW2 and left in ruins. In 1945-1954, while still part of Russia, it was neglected - USSR was rebuilding elsewhere. In 1954, due to it's geographical connections to mainland Ukraine, it was decided by Khrushev to make Kyiv (Ukraine) responsible for [re]building Crimea. Which Ukraine did, and kept doing, up until 2014. For example, Crimea has very few natural water supplies, something like ~10% of what's required for modern agriculture, plants, drinking water. Back in 50-60, Ukraine built a system of aqueducts, running all the way from the Dniepr river (Kherson region, mainland Ukraine). Less than 20% of electricity is produced locally; the rest is coming from mainland Ukraine as well. Remember, there's no land connection with Russia. Natural gas, electricity, water - everything was coming from mainland Ukraine, and was sold at exceptionally low prices - in other words, donated. Officially, it's economic deficit is 1 billion USD yearly.

I've visited Crimea on numerous occasions (15 times or so) during past decade. It is a relatively developed region of Ukraine, but still a lot of people have to make their rather poor living via private small farming and tourism. Now, ~60% of tourists (~5 million) were coming from Ukraine. Only 20-30% were from Russia. Guess how badly this annexation is going to hurt?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[argStyopa]

And the likelihood of such a vote is ABOUT THE SAME as the odds of TX actually voting to join Mexico.

TX would go independent about 1000x more than join Mexico.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

The war was over whether or not a state could secede form the union.

The reason it happened was because the southern states and northern states disagreed on a host of issues related to slavery and the souther states decided to secede.

The reason The north didn't juts say "see ya" was because it was apparent to anyone with a modicum of foresight that if states can secede from the union, it's just a matter of time before all sates have seceded (eventually every state will have some issue on which they disagree with the other states).

The precedent that states are not permitted to secede from the union, now having been established would mean that any sate who wished to secede would need to be prepared to fight a war to defend their independence. Which would mostly come down to whether or not they have nukes. The Federal government would not risk having a city nuked over a line on a map, but otherwise they probably would not accept a secession.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

TX likes to talk a big game about being able to leave if it wants to, but it just doesn't work that way. TX is just too economically important for US to just let secede without a fight. It also has a huge US military footprint that would make secession by force a very bad idea for the Texans perpetrating it - and it would be a minority of Texans pushing for it if it ever did happen.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

You really out to have some sort of argumentation as to whether polling changed when Russian military sprang all over the peninsula, and if it did, into which direction it happened to change and how far.

Well yes. Polling typically changes radically when a policy proposal is on the table vs. when it is something that's only supported by a small group of activists. Once a policy is genuinely being considered you would almost always expect support to go up. The only question is how far. What we know from the on the ground evidence both before and after is that there was strong support for Crimean succession once it was offered.

via a properly arranged referendum, with international observation, etc.

I think that's a reasonable request. I think Putin was a fool for cheating when he could have won honestly. But the referendum being handled badly is different than all the other counter arguments that the Crimean people should be forever trapped in a country they no longer wish to be a part of.

As for Africa - the "nations" thing in developed world is no longer used to draw borders.

Well yes they do that's what we are seeing. And frankly it is happening in Africa too where tribes are rearranging themselves in line with borders and effective governing areas arranging themselves in line with nations. I think the nation-state makes a lot of sense.

which is always much worse economically and socially than, say, policies and contracts based on international law

The problem with international law as it exists today is that it doesn't include a right to self determination. We have a bad international law. I'd certainly agree that good international law is preferable to war but I don't agree that avoiding war is reason to give up self determination.

continues doing so with the rest of Ukraine (my home country, btw).

I'm 3/4s ethnically Ukrainian myself. But I've never been. My wife (Russian) has been and she always considered Crimea to be Russian because the people are Russian not Ukrainian.

Guess how badly this annexation is going to hurt?

No clue. I've heard similar argument though Russia might create a land bridge by grabbing other ethnically Russian areas leaving behind 2/3rds-3/4s of Ukraine that is all western and ends up part of the EU. But whether it is a good deal or a bad deal I think that's a choice the Crimean people are entitled to make. I think the Iraqis were insane not to agree to become a US colony (effectively) and instead be a PIA during the occupation, but that is their right. The people of Crimea get to decide how they want their economy organized. If it turns out to have been really really stupid they live with the consequences.

____

There is another problem with your argument. You can take a post national perspective that borders don't matter and all that matters is economics in which case what Crimea did is rather irrelevant. Or you can take a national perspective in which Russians pulling together makes sense. But it seems inconsistent to analyze Russian action by saying it violates post national norms and then argue it is so terrible because it violates sovereignty which is a rather traditional concept. Why does it matter who governs what if we all live in a world controlled by corporations anyway?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Billly Gates]

What about the Americans who were in Texas and So California before the illegal invasion of refugees outnumbering native residences? I seen it happen in Riverside, CA. 60% of hte people there are not American. What about those who were there previously? Think they want to get kicked out of their homes, loose citizenship, or be forced to move to stay national to their country?

Seriously 30 million illegals have changed the southern US.

No I am not racist at all. I know I maybe modded down by some mod thinking I am insensitive, but fact is if they all wanted to join Mexico I would have a real problem with it and fight anyone who would say so if they came in armed.

So no we would not want a peacefully kick out of our homes or loose our citizenship.

Crimea had a 13% non Russian population so what you saw where Russians wanting to join the motherland. Not the reactions of the oppressed Tar Tars and Ukrainians who hid and kept their mouths shut as many who protested are missing and presummed dead.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Billly Gates]

Ukrainians are mixed with Russians through a century of marriage during the soviet union.

There maybe more pure russians or close to it in the east, while in the west it is the opposite. But more than likely they are mixed and have extended family members vowing and routing for one side vs the other. Property too is a problem. What if you had a Russian wife and lived in the east where you job is at and the house you paid a lot of money for is located as well. Now your wife is cheering invasion and bringing food to the rioters taking over government buildings, while you and your brothers and parents join the Ukrainian national guard to fight the evil Russian imperialists? What do you do?

Live under Putin's rule if Russia wins and be backwards in time? SUpport Ukraine and endanger your wife and yourself, but loose your home and job and maybe your marriage?

I spoke with a Russian once on Ukraine several years ago. She said they are Russian or at least slavic. The difference is politics but their true heritage is ours.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Billly Gates]

Wow

My other post mentioned a hypothetical situation of you being Ukrainian and your wife russian. I guess that was real life. lol

So in my other post what if you as an Ukrainian owned land and a home and had a job in Crimea? Would you want to loose your identity as an Ukrainian and be under Putin's thumb instead of Ukrainian and perhaps be part of the more open EU later on?

Would you want to loose your home and job if not? What if your wife was Ukrainian or Tar Tar instead? What then? You have a lot invested. That doesn't sound far to me unless you are Russian and then you are screwing your neighbors over by supporting this?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Freultwah]

...And I have read that the war was over the South giving the North the finger and trading with Europe directly (cotton for thee, machines for me), thus denying the North a huge market for its industrial output – there were reportedly messages passed between the sides with Lincoln proposing the South that they can keep the slaves as long as they stay in the Union and buy the stuff that the North makes, and the South flipping them the bird because the European stuff was so much better. And that the slavery issue was an afterthought, as Lincoln himself had previously said that he had no right nor plans to force the slavery issue upon the Southern states, and that he had proposed sending the freed slaves of the North to some uninhabited Pacific island in order to avoid living with them in the same country.

So everybody has an opinion about it that they can back up with some documents. There is just so much material to pick from. It’s not unlike Soviet Union where everything could be justified with a citation from Lenin, as the guy had written dozens of tomes of self-contradicting shite.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

Well yes. Polling typically changes radically when a policy proposal is on the table vs. when it is something that's only supported by a small group of activists. Once a policy is genuinely being considered you would almost always expect support to go up. The only question is how far.

I have another plausible argument - wanting something is one thing, seeing armed people and violence in the streets is quite another. There has been a lot of reports that the support for secession went down considerably prior to polls, and per unofficial (as if there are any official) results, only 34% of people attended. You see, anything beyond proper referendum is a wild guess, and we really ought not to take it into account.

The problem with international law as it exists today is that it doesn't include a right to self determination. We have a bad international law. I'd certainly agree that good international law is preferable to war but I don't agree that avoiding war is reason to give up self determination.

The funny thing is that this "self-determination" idea comes up when a certain politician wants some power and appreciation and uses nationalistic ideology to do so. It's the same as with religions, it just takes a somewhat bigger effort to get one group of people get angry with another group of people based on nationality. Still, it's doable, and Putin made a great example of just that. The Russian TV has been full of one-sided, highly skewed reports regarding everything there is to say about Ukraine, including "how bad Ukrainians are to Russians", etc. Pretty much nothing of this sort happened thus far - and I live in a Russian-speaking Odessa region, with ~30% of people of Russian descent. BTW, there's only one way for me to figure out who considers herself a Ukrainian or Russian - by asking. The whole situation resembles that of Rwanda ca '94.

My wife (Russian) has been and she always considered Crimea to be Russian because the people are Russian not Ukrainian.

Well, guess what - a lot of Russians think Alaska should be "returned" to motherland as well. I am not joking. It appears to be more about what they teach you at schools and brainwash on TV, versus what the current political and social reality is. Some governments just won't let you think for yourself.

58.5% of Crimeans are of Russian ethnicity. Are you entirely sure all of them would want to join up Russia? See, today's Russia is not some kind of a prosperous country on the rise, far from that. It's a highly corrupted autocracy with appalling business conditions, disastrous social situation, and very little hope for any change. There are lots of arguments to support these claims, and I'll save them for some other time. Ukraine isn't doing much better, perhaps worse in some areas. What's definitely more interesting in Ukraine these days is that we do not have Putin, we just kicked off Yanukovich (once again). This is in part a result of the past 23 years when a new generation came into being, raised in a freer society and looking to build a proper country based on 21st century ideas. In other words, we had less of Russian TV and more of EU/US TV. More books to read. More countries to visit. We are not looking to be governed by some kind of KGB despot who, for example, may get Wikipedia banned for whatever reason (almost happened a few times in the past few years). I have a lot of friends here in Odessa who are ethnic Russians and see things the same way. Here, it's really not about nationality (the way Russia tries to make it look like); it is about values of a higher order. None of the countries who broke up with Russia in 20th century want to get back to it's despotic ideas of what economy and social life is. Ukraine is simply the next in line.

The idea of annexing more parts of Ukraine based on "nationality" is also not based on facts. See here for % of ethnic Ukrainians, per region: http://en

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

But how far down does it go. if the neighbors across the street want to join a different country, should you be forced to go along with them? The Crimea has a majority of pro-Russian people but not an overwhelming majority. Tyranny of the majority perhaps.

On another level, is the desire to send your taxes to a different address important enough to create a civil war, important enough to send out gangs to rough up people who disagree, and important enough to totally screw up the place you call home?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

The primary reason for the South to secede, according to leaders within the confederacy, was to maintain slavery. Slavery was an underpinning of the economy (and it was weakening to be sure but still dominant). Slavery was also a major political issue, it decided what sorts of power you had in relation to the federal goverment (the 3/5s rule gave slave states a disproportionate amount of political clout compared to the number eligible to actually vote). Sure there was more at stake but slavery was the overarching issue to be resolved, and it was the untreated open wound left from the initial formation of the union.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

The south had a disproportionate number of legislators because they could count 3/5s of a slave towards their population even though the slaves could not vote. The north had the larger numbers and the larger economic base and yet the federal government was split. The big political battles were over which new states could be slave states or not, in order to maintain the status quo of an ineffective federal government. So in that sense, the northern states had less power than they felt they should have had.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

Don't forget that most of those soviet republics were populated by people who hated the Russians. They were glad to leave. The problem were all the Russians who were left behind in countries that were no longer dominated by Russia. And those Russians had been purposely imported to those regions (starting in czarist times) to keep the locals in check and so were not viewed favorably by the non-Russian speakers. Russia doesn't see it that way though, it sees itself as the primary country in the region and that all the former parts of the empire should continue to remain grateful to have been associated with it, and that any Russians left behind should be seen as helpful brothers rather than as the former occupying force.

I think this greatly affects the Russian views of those countries, and they see it as an insult when those countries look west instead of east. This is similar to how some Americans saw it as an insult when France decided not to help out in the Iraq invasion ("they'd all be speaking German if it weren't for us!", "freedom fries", etc). Never mind all the weird propaganda that's been floating around Russia for decades ("Crimea has always been Russian").

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

So if the people of Chechnya decide to leave, Putin will let them go?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ukrainian constitution does not allow something like this.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[painandgreed]

It was a war over Federal vs. State control

Yeah, control of slavery.

According to U. S. Grant, in his memoirs, it was over money. The US had just fought a war to help Texas gain indpendence, mostly funded by the north in both money and soldiers. The South was mostly economically depressed and the US had a great deal of possessions there, such as Fort Sumter, as well as money they had put into the South. There was simply no way the North would be willing to let them take all the toys and walk away with them. Slavery was certainly a wedge issue, and the reason Grant gave for the South being impoverished (You can't keep a third of your population so uneducated and unskilled that they can't even act as factory workers, and expect to do any better.). It was certainly one of the requirements for ending the war as at the Siege of Richmond when the South stalled by asking terms, Lincoln's offer was come back to the Union as if nothing had happened and abolish slavery and they would be allowed to write any other terms they wanted. Still, he stated in his memoirs that had the South sought independence without the economic entanglement, they would have been allowed to leave.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Darinbob]

This is the important thing. Nothing in that referendum was legitimate, it was suspicious from the start. Russian troops were in Crimea within a week of Yanukovych leaving office, though they took off their insignia and tried to pretend they weren't Russian. A politician who couldn't even get local Crimean residents to vote for him, part of the leadership of an unpopular party in Crimea that couldn't get members elected, ends up being declared the Crimean prime minister behind closed doors. We don't know what the Crimean people want, we only know what Russian and the ultra nationalists in Crimea want.

What we really have is a nearly failed state in Ukraine with severely weakened power, and the local opportunists are taking charge where they can. These people did not like Yanukovych either, they're not really sad to see him go, they're just sad to see him replaced with someone less loyal to Russia.

(And Russia should beware of Crimea too in some sense. It's like the man who says "I'll get a divorce so we can get married" and is told "why would I marry someone who cheats on his wife?")

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbburks]

Cuba and the Phillipines cost more to defend and 'pacify' than they were worth at the time, so they were let go.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyYar]

Slavery may not have been the direct reason cited for Southern succession, but it was most definitely the cause. Remove slavery and you have no motivation for any of the other stuff. Slavery was a major political football at the time, forcing even the admission of new states to be forced around the issue. Succession only became a real possibility once it became clear that free states would dominate the slave states politically. The South certainly had other grievances, but even collectively they don't add up to succession.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[walshy007]

It was more about the north trying to screw over the south economically. Provide an economical way for the cotton fields to be harvested and the need for slaves goes away. If someone tried to destroy my livelihood I'd fight against it tooth and nail too.

It is sad how much slavery there is today though. While there is officially no slavery, that tends to just means it's harder to know when you are one.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyYar]

screw over the south economically

By "taking away their property"? Please...

Provide an economical way for the cotton fields to be harvested

There was no moral duty to prop up a fundamentally corrupt way of exploiting people.

While there is officially no slavery

Unless you are talking about the sex trade, there is nothing even close to approaching what was happening in the US South in the 1850s.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[aardvarkjoe]

Wait -- you originally said that "I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of." Indicating that you think that having the people move to a country that they want to be a part of is not acceptable. But for some reason, you don't believe that the "losers" of this referendum are "trapped" in the same way. That seems rather contradictory.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[walshy007]

By "taking away their property"? Please...

No, by displacing the means of production of a whole agricultural sector. Eliminating slavery all at once when they were so dependent on it would be like us banning farming machines today in an instant. Recipe for disaster.

There was no moral duty to prop up a fundamentally corrupt way of exploiting people.

Who said anything about continuing slavery? You don't just ban it, you migrate away from it while providing solutions to the massive hole left in the labour sector.

Machine harvesters would have done the job.

Until the south started trading directly with europe instead of the north, few seemed to object to slavery in the north enough to take action.

The north had just spent a whole lot of money on other conflicts, and needed the resources.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyYar]

You don't just ban it, you migrate away from it while providing solutions to the massive hole left in the labour sector.

No, you ban it. The people that then lose their ill-gotten plantations can go pick cotton. They can consider themselves lucky that they aren't punished more directly.

The north had just spent a whole lot of money on other conflicts, and needed the resources.

The north even had slavery at an earlier point in history. Plenty of blame for slavery all around.

But the Civil War still boils down to slavery.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Lincoln knew he was on shaky legal ground with the Emancipation Proclamation, and the principle on which it was based could only be invoked because the slave owners it was invoked against were in open rebellion. Slaves in non-secessionist states couldn't be freed the same way - they had to wait for a proper legal process to run its course.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[mjwx]

"Finally, would the British Empire accept a referendum by residents of it's colonies in the new world, for example, on breaking away from motherland and becoming independent?"

Australia,
New Zealand,
Malta,
India,
Canada,
Sri Lanaka,
Singapore,
Malaysia,
Jamaica,
Lesotho,
Botswana,
Kenya,
Ghana,
Kuwait,
Oman,
Brunei,
Papua New Guinea,

This is just a short list of countries that voted for independence or gained independence from England using diplomatic means. Countries like Australia and New Zealand are quite proud that we gained our independence with a vote, not a war.

In fact the states that have been actively fighting the British have remained in British control the longest (Ireland).

You might be able to add Scotland to this list, after centuries of fighting the English for independence, it looks like they'll get it just by voting.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Anonymous Coward]

What we do know is that the fraudulent vote took place under the guns of the occupiers.

And the huge, joyous celebrations all over Crimea after Russia accepted the vote -- all of that was coerced? The people were smiling, laughing, and singing all day long because the Russian tanks forced them to do it?

I think you're giving the word "propaganda" a whole new level of meaning. You have to consider that maybe you're living in Mordor, where the shadows lie.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[gmhowell]

Honestly I don't get the stance of some ppl from the US against Russia.
Russia is the best friend and has been the most loyal, the strongest and the most valuable ally for the USA. Really. At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together. It was before and it may be again when we have to save the Earth itself. Nobody can help the US but Russia when things get hot. Alienating Russians is what make things worse.

Those things are called movies. The space aliens didn't really invade Earth.

Idiot, he was referring to the documentary about the asteroid that they blew up with the nuke. You know, when Daredevil makes out with Arwen.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TranquilVoid]

The people of Crimea however should get to decide where Crimea goes. The only thing Russia can do is either offer to annex or refuse to offer to annex if the Crimean people wish to be part of Russia.

How far should this be taken? Should the majority-Ukrainian sub-districts within Crimea get to decide if their sub-district is part of Ukraine or Russia? How about individual Ukrainian households within Russian-dominated sub-districts?

Managing populations is messy and there is no clear moral principle around geography, but Crimea was a Ukrainian state, under a constitution that required a nation-wide referendum. The question is, at what point are things so bad that you should violate another country's sovereignty?

Russia clearly did more than offering to annex. They actually ran the referendum after sending their military in semi-covertly, ensuring history books will forever question the legitimacy of the vote.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[walshy007]

Sure, the then unemployed slaves can then starve from the mass unemployment and lack of social security.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[MightyYar]

"Live free or die"

It's amazing to me that people still act as if it is OK to treat the slaves so gently, like they were children. They, the Indians, and the poor white farmers were the only ones who actually knew how to live off of the land.

And once again, the Southern economy ended up collapsing anyway as a result of the war. At the time the South left the union, the thought of a sudden freeing of the slaves was unthinkable even to the vast majority of Northerners.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

This is about societies not individuals. When building a society the best we can do is where people are going to need to live under a system their neighbors in the aggregate like. What is being debated here is a system that even the neighbors don't like.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Yes. It is very much like America where people's ethnicities are mixed and their are issues of identification. And BTW there was intermarriage for centuries before the Soviet Union as well. On the other hand what language is spoken at home isn't an unreasonable standard:

http://blogs-images.forbes.com...

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

So in my other post what if you as an Ukrainian owned land and a home and had a job in Crimea? Would you want to loose your identity as an Ukrainian and be under Putin's thumb instead of Ukrainian and perhaps be part of the more open EU later on?

I'm not sure about "under Putin's thumb". There is a different way of life between the two countries but there isn't some horrible contrast. It isn't like one society is a miserable dictatorship and the other a wide open European country. It is like USA vs. Canada vs. Mexico there are plusses to any of these countries and minus to any. I'm Western so I'd like what the Eastern Ukrainians want. OTOH I can see the downsides and why people might prefer Russia.

That doesn't sound far to me unless you are Russian and then you are screwing your neighbors over by supporting this?

That's because you are supposing that Ukraine is good and Russia is bad. Make it more balanced in terms of plusses and minuses.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Billly Gates]

Yes I am anti Putin.

Russia is a corrupt place with the mob running everything and controlled dictatorship with no free press under Putin. Yelstin made some improvements and Putin reversed them. I would not want to live in Russia. At least not currently.

Ukraine is a democracy that is trying to modernize. Maybe I am too western in opinion but I would not be happy if I lived in Eastern Ukraine or Crimea and had Russians planted in by Stalin (eastern Ukraine) dictating to me that I loose my freedom with a country that acts like a bully or loose my life and home and half my family if I support the opposition in Kiev.

US and Canada? There is a reason we are separate countries. Yes Canadians and Americans are very similiar and get along real well. However Americans do not support the queen as the head of state nor or happy with a freaking 50% take rate and corporate taxes so high many companies prefer to do business further south in the US instead. The American revolution seperated the US from the Canadian maritime provinces. Canadians support more government and the British crown and liked the way things were. Americans were anti tax.

Mexico is so different they do not speak the same language. Their culture is different. The ones who come here tend to learn english and know the risks of leaving their homeland for a better life. That is a decision they made. Not was made for them.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

You see, anything beyond proper referendum is a wild guess, and we really ought not to take it into account.

We have to estimate using the best data we have. And the best data is strong support.

seeing armed people and violence in the streets is quite another.

So far there has been very little violence. Conversely the overthrow of the pro-Russian government by the pro-Western faction was extremely violent from the start. I'm not sure how this standard doesn't cut the other way.

- a lot of Russians think Alaska should be "returned" to motherland as well.

That analogy doesn't fit because Alaskans don't want to return to Russia. They are happy to be in America. There is no harm to self determination in allowing Alaskans to remain American.

See here for % of ethnic Ukrainians, per region:

I'd use language spoken at home as a better metric then you get: http://blogs-images.forbes.com...

The entire western 2/3rds are obviously staying in Ukraine.

All of this needs to be redone for 2.5 million people!

Those 2.5m people are asking for it to be redone.

140 million of Russians, who don't really want to live in their home country, just added 2.5 millions, out of whom perhaps 1/3 want to live there, but have a high chance of changing their minds pretty soon!

I know lots of people in Russia they do like their life there. Obviously some want to leave. OTOH I also know Ukrainians who want to leave.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

The level of mob involvement has dropped off in Russia under Putin considerably. Both Russia and Ukraine are new democracies. You do understand that Ukraine just had a violent overthrow of their elected president and a replacement with an unelected government. This is not as clear cut as you are making it.

Mostly what you are saying is you like Ukraine better. Which is fine but Crimeans made the opposite choice. You are arguing they aren't entitled to live in the society they want.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

How far should this be taken?

The old standard under Vienna was "the ability to stand alone". That is the ability to form relations with neighboring countries that guarded the territory they control. Russia obviously qualifies under this standard.

The question is, at what point are things so bad that you should violate another country's sovereignty?

I don't think they have to be that bad. Border adjustments don't need to be traumatic.

Russia clearly did more than offering to annex. They actually ran the referendum after sending their military in semi-covertly, ensuring history books will forever question the legitimacy of the vote.

Their military was already there. The population was heavily involved in the military. As for the legitimacy of the vote Crimea became part of Ukraine because one guy moved it. How it got to be part of Ukraine was far less legitimate than a poorly run referendum.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Actually it does have an overwhelming majority. I don't buy 97% but 75% speak Russian at home.

Tyranny of the majority perhaps.

Well if they remain in Ukraine that's a tyranny of the minority. Crimea has to be in one place or the other. Either we follow popular will or ignore popular will.

On another level, is the desire to send your taxes to a different address important enough to create a civil war, important enough to send out gangs to rough up people who disagree, and important enough to totally screw up the place you call home?

Being part of a country is more than the address you send your taxes to. Either being part of a country is trivial in which case what Crimea did doesn't matter or it is important in which case their objections matter. You are trying to have it both ways.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

So if the people of Chechnya decide to leave, Putin will let them go?

He should. Frankly I think if they had handled Russia's legitimate concerns better in the early 1990s regarding a pipeline treaty they could have left under Yeltson.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

We have to estimate using the best data we have. And the best data is strong support.

.. And estimations vary drastically depending on who's estimating. What's the point of estimating then? To make oneself feel a bit better regarding something you have no definite data of ?

So far there has been very little violence. Conversely the overthrow of the pro-Russian government by the pro-Western faction was extremely violent from the start. I'm not sure how this standard doesn't cut the other way.

It surely works both ways. Over a 100 people were killed in Kyiv by Ukrainian armed forces while Yanukovich was still in power, backed up by Putin. Now, you observe all of that in your TV set for 3 months while sitting comfortably in Crimea. The killings are over, new intermediate PM is in power, etc.. And suddenly you see armed people in the streets, supported by Putin. Are you entirely sure no killings will occur in your city?

And there was violence - a lot of people were beaten, some killed, thousands had to relocate to mainland Ukraine. And who's to say that more is not to come ? Chechnya, Pridnestrovye, Abhasiya, South Osetiya - these places were captured by Russian military and not showing any signs of prosperity, long after the war aggression was over. Are you entirely sure that the Crimean people are that stupid as to not realize that the Russian troops freely walking on the streets aren't exactly the sign of the same "prosperity" coming to Crimea as well?

- a lot of Russians think Alaska should be "returned" to motherland as well.

That analogy doesn't fit because Alaskans don't want to return to Russia. They are happy to be in America. There is no harm to self determination in allowing Alaskans to remain American.

This is not an analogy. This is an example of how Russians think these days. There's a large number of Russians supporting such world views - and they were carefully brainwashed by Russian propaganda machine. I don't know how far this is going to go, but the outlook surely does not seem to be in support of freedom, self-determination and democracy - ironically enough, the very values Russians claim to support fully while erecting a new kind of hatred and outright stupidity.

I'd use language spoken at home as a better metric then you get: http://blogs-images.forbes.com... [forbes.com]

Okey, so originally it was ethnicity, now it's language. You can also try perhaps the color of skin, theological views, left- or right-handedness. All of this is nothing but pure speculations.

Those 2.5m people are asking for it to be redone.

Do you realize this claim is not supported in any way, except for wild speculations?

I know lots of people in Russia they do like their life there. Obviously some want to leave. OTOH I also know Ukrainians who want to leave.

There's always plenty of "patriots", lots of people who are satisfied with what they have, and a lot of those who simply can't leave. After all, USSR dissolved only very recently. Think Africa, again - there are language barriers, educational barriers, inability to get visa, find jobs or sustain any kind of "modern" life in a modern society. Plenty of people don't even have a slightest idea what these things mean. The Russian brainwashing machine is quite successful at making people actually NOT want to have democracy, free society, separation of state and religion. For example, 30% of local municipalities in Russia do not elect mayors; they are assigned instead. Orthodox christianity taught by priests is a mandatory course in schools and universities. A "rotting EU", "gay EU", "rotting US" are popular terms even among intellectuals. Like I said before, the concrete criticism of modern Russia is enormously and dangerously rich area of discourse full of plan and simple facts.

Now, a lot of my friends here had a cha

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

And estimations vary drastically depending on who's estimating. What's the point of estimating then? To make oneself feel a bit better regarding something you have no definite data of ?

Elections are just estimates all sorts of situational factors come into play. Estimating is how you govern societies. You do the best you can to figure out policy preferences and usually those estimates are going to be pretty good. If you are wrong things change. The point is to try and align the government with the population.

Are you entirely sure that the Crimean people are that stupid as to not realize that the Russian troops freely walking on the streets aren't exactly the sign of the same "prosperity" coming to Crimea as well?

No I'm not entirely sure. But it appears the Crimean people wanted more than just material wealth, otherwise they would have supported joining the EU.

This is an example of how Russians think these days. There's a large number of Russians supporting such world views - and they were carefully brainwashed by Russian propaganda machine.

You don't see a problem with attributing pro-Ukrainian beliefs to reason and pro-Russian beliefs to brainwashing? It is hard to argue if you are going to believe that no one could possibly disagree with you based on their analysis of the plusses and minuses.

Okey, so originally it was ethnicity, now it's language.

Language is part of culture. Ethnicity is a question of identification. A French child raised in Russia would be Russian.

Do you realize this claim is not supported in any way, except for wild speculations?

No it is supported by solid evidence. Ranging from polling to a referendum to street interviews to public reaction.

. And since we can't grant them that, how can we trust them with the rest?

Well if you are going to attribute their views to brainwashing you can't. If on the other hand you assume that people are evaluating their circumstances and deciding based on those evaluations then you could look at things like election results.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Billly Gates]

THey were occupied and the votes were invalidated as evident by the other posts.

Yes Ukraine is corrupt too but not as bad as Russia. FYI the president left and was impeached. Nothing illegal about that under Ukraine's own constitution.

Crimeans had their choice made for them if you supported Russia or not.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

Elections are just estimates all sorts of situational factors come into play. Estimating is how you govern societies. You do the best you can to figure out policy preferences and usually those estimates are going to be pretty good. If you are wrong things change. The point is to try and align the government with the population.

Still, a proper method is to actually perform proper elections. This was not done in Crimea.

No I'm not entirely sure. But it appears the Crimean people wanted more than just material wealth, otherwise they would have supported joining the EU.

Crimea is the worst when it comes to pro-Russian propaganda. How can you expect a "free" choice from people who are receiving information pre-packaged in a certain way, and having no or very weak alternatives?

You don't see a problem with attributing pro-Ukrainian beliefs to reason and pro-Russian beliefs to brainwashing? It is hard to argue if you are going to believe that no one could possibly disagree with you based on their analysis of the plusses and minuses.

I did my research and yet to hear a good reason to join Russia or their "Customs Union", as opposed to making an alliance with EU. You are free to discuss your arguments if you feel so, or have any. Just please hesitate to make any use of cultural, language or ethnicity-based ones. I'll respond to economical, social and educational ones only.

Language is part of culture. Ethnicity is a question of identification. A French child raised in Russia would be Russian.

It appears that these days being "Russian" means you ought to obey Kremlin. Independent opinions don't matter; if you speak Russian, look Russian, you must obey Kremlin to (and be) Russian. To me, this sounds very much imperialistic, totalitarian, unintelligent and will result in yet another 20-30 years of inevitable poverty, banditism, suffering, hunger and pain for roughly 150 million of people - which is, so to speak, a standard state of things in a world governed by natural selection and evolution. How come Russians to this day can't find an escape in a higher order, so nicely exemplified by U.S. and EU ?

No it is supported by solid evidence. Ranging from polling to a referendum to street interviews to public reaction.

This so called "solid evidence" was accepted only by Russia and a number of it's satellite allies. What is called "developed world" these days did not accept their "solid evidence" as anything but a profanity. Now, who am I to trust? A country deploying military and lying each step of the way, or a union of developed countries making and reporting observations which happen to coincide with what I'm exposed to myself, living and operating in a region threatened by above-mentioned militia?

Well if you are going to attribute their views to brainwashing you can't. If on the other hand you assume that people are evaluating their circumstances and deciding based on those evaluations then you could look at things like election results.

It was Kremlin I was unable to grant with democratic values, not people of Crimea. And I'm unable to look at election results in this particular case, as most if not all democratic procedures were severely violated -

a) a list of registered voters was absent
b) no access to independent information
c) a list of options did not include an option to stay in the same state
d) there were no independent observers
e) militia was out on streets with guns
f) no independent press allowed

The grand irony of this "referendum" is that (some) people "voted" for joining a country where referendums are outlawed.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Still, a proper method is to actually perform proper elections. This was not done in Crimea.

I agree. If the international demand were for a proper election and a better process to be followed I wouldn't have an objection. If the international demand is for Crimeans to forever be part of Ukraine with no possibility for redress then I don't support it. And that is the current demand, an assertion that Crimeans have no right to secede.

Crimea is the worst when it comes to pro-Russian propaganda. How can you expect a "free" choice from people who are receiving information pre-packaged in a certain way, and having no or very weak alternatives?

And I don't buy your distinction that information that agrees with you is policy debate and pro-Russian stuff is propaganda leading to brainwashing. There is a functioning press and they have internet. Perfect no, good enough, yes.

You are free to discuss your arguments if you feel so, or have any.

Neo-liberalism is leading to a high degree of concentrated wealth.
The EU social structures undermine many of the cultural values that Russians want.
The EU democratic structure creates too many levels and thus reduces democracy to formal democracy.
Ukraine by being the border between Russia and the West could end up suffering terribly in a war, see Germany's history.
Better integration with the Russian educational system and access to research opportunities in Russia.
etc...

How come Russians to this day can't find an escape in a higher order, so nicely exemplified by U.S. and EU ?

The GDP of Russia has gone from $200b in 1999 to over $2t today. In the same time period the USA GDP has less than doubled. I'd say they are escaping but it takes time. They have economic growth.

What is called "developed world" these days did not accept their "solid evidence" as anything but a profanity.

That's not true. NBCnews, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight... did an analysis and they didn't support the contention of fraud. Carl Bialik's in particular is quite good. Volodymyr Paniotto of KIIS who did polling in Ukraine for years is well respected in the west.

f) no independent press allowed

That's not true. NBCnews had people on the ground.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[david_thornley]

The Philippines had cost a lot to pacify, but that was in the past. Their defense was costly, but it was part of US geopolitics. The US wanted to maintain a forward fleet base in Manila Bay no matter what. The Philippines were let go because they were ready. I don't know enough about Cuba to say, but I don't remember its annexation as being a war aim.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[david_thornley]

The American Civil War was a war over many things, and it was a diplomatic coup for Lincoln to manage to present it as a war against slavery, cutting potential European support for the South. Secession was primarily about slavery.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

I agree. If the international demand were for a proper election and a better process to be followed I wouldn't have an objection. If the international demand is for Crimeans to forever be part of Ukraine with no possibility for redress then I don't support it. And that is the current demand, an assertion that Crimeans have no right to secede.

By the same token, you should grant a right to secede to all sorts of communities - including small town and cities. Doesn't it sound convenient to grant secession rights based on regions?

And I don't buy your distinction that information that agrees with you is policy debate and pro-Russian stuff is propaganda leading to brainwashing. There is a functioning press and they have internet. Perfect no, good enough, yes.

The internet is available to a very limited number of people, and the information provided in Russian is mostly one-sided. I do not see how one is supposed to have a choice in this kind of arrangement.

Neo-liberalism is leading to a high degree of concentrated wealth.

... which is nowhere near to the realities of modern-day Russia. Vast majority of people in this country are poor and socially unprotected beyond anything even closely resembling modern standards.

The EU social structures undermine many of the cultural values that Russians want.

Russians are free to drink vodka and play balalaika anywhere they want, given there's no violence.

The EU democratic structure creates too many levels and thus reduces democracy to formal democracy.

Notwithstanding the unfoundedness of this statement, would you recommend a direct rule by Kreml as the better alternative? We did live through USSR and witnessed all of it's "social achievements". Thanks, but I'll pass..

Ukraine by being the border between Russia and the West could end up suffering terribly in a war, see Germany's history.

Why would be be engaged in any sort of war? Who exactly would be fighting against whom?

Better integration with the Russian educational system and access to research opportunities in Russia.

Which are virtually non-existent? What did Russia invent in the past 23 years, exactly?

etc...

Sounds like you do need to elaborate on this last item.

The GDP of Russia has gone from $200b in 1999 to over $2t today. In the same time period the USA GDP has less than doubled. I'd say they are escaping but it takes time. They have economic growth.

.. which is almost entirely based on selling natural gas and oil. As opposed to much more sophisticated and elaborate economies of, say, EU (~22T USD). US (~16.8T USD), China (~10T USD). Russia had economic growth - up until Kreml decided to wreak havoc of the international law.

That's not true. NBCnews, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight... did an analysis and they didn't support the contention of fraud. Carl Bialik's in particular is quite good. Volodymyr Paniotto of KIIS who did polling in Ukraine for years is well respected in the west.

So you are saying 123% turnout rate in Sebastopol was a no big deal, who cares. The maximum number of pro-annexation support I heard of was 41%. This is the highest number by far. What sort of numbers do you have?

That's not true. NBCnews had people on the ground.

Why not more? Normally, elections are covered by more than 5-10 independent news agencies. How come you can only name one which is non-Russian?

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[david_thornley]

I don't think there is an international demand for Crimea to stay in Ukraine permanently. If there had been a proper referendum, there would have been plenty of people unhappy with the situation, but it would not have risen to the level of outrage.

The fact that Putin didn't allow a real referendum suggests that he's doubtful he would have won one. It may well be that a large majority would have voted to join Russia, but we'll never know.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[david_thornley]

The Soviets did not get along well with the Western allies in WWII. They had a common foe, and that's pretty much it. Any close relationship was PR or diplomacy.

The Soviets continued to be extremely secretive with the West. They wouldn't in general allow shuttle bombing using Soviet-controlled bases because that would mean allowing Western soldiers onto Soviet-controlled soil. Seamen from the Murmansk convoys were restricted heavily in their movements. I've read that the West learned of the late war Soviet heavy tank from captured German documents (but haven't confirmed, so take that with a grain of salt).

The Soviets had tried to make an alliance with France and Britain before the war, and insisted on being able to annex Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as part of it. That's one reason negotiations broke down (the other is that France and Britain didn't pursue the alliance with any energy - the British representative didn't get authorization to speak directly to the Soviets until Stalin had decided to ally with Germany).

Soviet-Western relationships, never warm, were going downhill starting roughly with the Warsaw Rebellion, which the Soviets called for in the hope that they could join up with the rebels, and repudiated when the Germans stopped the Red Army. My impression is that Stalin would rather it be thought that he called for the Rebellion to get rid of uppity Poles than it be thought the Red Army couldn't accomplish what it was ordered to do.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

@David

We do know there were reputable polling agencies and they all showed strong support.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

By the same token, you should grant a right to secede to all sorts of communities - including small town and cities. Doesn't it sound convenient to grant secession rights based on regions?

There have been border adjustments for towns between the USA and Canada. Northwest Angle Inlet (pop 102) is going through the process to move.

The internet is available to a very limited number of people, and the information provided in Russian is mostly one-sided. I do not see how one is supposed to have a choice in this kind of arrangement.

I'm pretty sure I can find a pretty wide diversity of sources in Russian. Ukraine internet usage is 33.7% and Russia is is 53.3% so I'd say that's rather widely available.

Russians are free to drink vodka and play balalaika anywhere they want, given there's no violence.

With comments like this I have a lot trouble understanding why you want Russians in your country at all. You obviously have contempt for them, why keep them?

Notwithstanding the unfoundedness of this statement, would you recommend a direct rule by Kreml as the better alternative?

No but I don't consider Russia to have the same sort of problems you do.

Which are virtually non-existent? What did Russia invent in the past 23 years, exactly?

I could ask the same thing about Ukraine. But a few examples in IT
Relex is a huge player in software
CROC telco virtualization
Kaspersky Lab is one of the biggest software security companies in the world
Eagle Dynamics a major player in simulation ...
you can google as well as I can. Clothes is another huge area for Russia. You can just look at the data on GDP it isn't just selling raw materials.

So you are saying 123% turnout rate in Sebastopol was a no big deal, who cares. The maximum number of pro-annexation support I heard of was 41%. This is the highest number by far. What sort of numbers do you have?

Yes. I'm saying that the polling indicates that troubled referendum or not the measure would have passed by a huge margin. The Kiev poll you are citing was before the overthrow of the president that Crimea had voted for. The numbers I've heard were 78% in line with the Yanukovych vote in the first place. Most reputable pollsters (USA based so this is not kremlin controlled) believe that the referendum as run because it didn't offer anything other than the '92 constitution might have been much higher. I haven't heard one USA agency that doesn't think 50% was easily achievable.

Why not more? Normally, elections are covered by more than 5-10 independent news agencies. How come you can only name one which is non-Russian?

You had said none and I personally watched NBC based reporters. CNN had 2 teams Anna Coren's and Anderson Coopers'. Amy Kellogg from FOX. Alex Marquardt from ABC. CBS had 3 teams Elizabeth Palmer's in Crimea while Charlie D’Agata and Clarissa Ward's stayed in Kiev. The BBC had a few teams... As far as I can tell anyone who wanted to cover it could.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

There have been border adjustments for towns between the USA and Canada. Northwest Angle Inlet (pop 102) is going through the process to move.

Border adjustments between two friendly, highly developed countries and sending 2.5m people back to neo-USSR regime are sort of very, very different things.

I'm pretty sure I can find a pretty wide diversity of sources in Russian. Ukraine internet usage is 33.7% and Russia is is 53.3% so I'd say that's rather widely available.

Internet is widely "available", but a) it's not widely used as the news source and b) most of Russian-oriented websites are filled with one-sided information, same as TV.

With comments like this I have a lot trouble understanding why you want Russians in your country at all. You obviously have contempt for them, why keep them?

I do not have any contempt for either Russians nor their culture. For instance, I read one Tolstoy book every other year. You still have all your work to do regarding argumentation to your original statement, and I cite it for convenience: The EU social structures undermine many of the cultural values that Russians want. EU basically provides all that to a wide diversity of cultural groups from all over the world. What is so special about Russians? I live in a society where roughly 30% consider themselves to be Russians ethically, and personally I have no idea of why and how these people - my friends - would be unable to fit in into the modern EU society. And guess what - some of them emigrated and live happily in e.g. Germany, US, Poland, UK, NL.

[Notwithstanding the unfoundedness of this statement, would you recommend a direct rule by Kreml as the better alternative?]
No but I don't consider Russia to have the same sort of problems you do.

Does Ukraine and Crimea have to solve our own problems the way Kreml dictates ?

I could ask the same thing about Ukraine. But a few examples in IT Relex is a huge player in software CROC telco virtualization Kaspersky Lab is one of the biggest software security companies in the world Eagle Dynamics a major player in simulation ... you can google as well as I can. Clothes is another huge area for Russia. You can just look at the data on GDP it isn't just selling raw materials.

It's not a comparison of Ukraine vs Russia. As a Ukrainian, I am comparing Russia and EU/US - looking for a better partnership in (in my case) technological/IT sector. Russia did not invent search engines, anti-virus software, computer simulation stuff, clothing. It merely made copies, and a rather poor ones at that. On contrary, EU/US have been at the forefront of invention all long. Please, do yourself a favor and google for that (was this self-pun of using google intentional?).

Yes. I'm saying that the polling indicates that troubled referendum or not the measure would have passed by a huge margin. The Kiev poll you are citing was before the overthrow of the president that Crimea had voted for. The numbers I've heard were 78% in line with the Yanukovych vote in the first place. Most reputable pollsters (USA based so this is not kremlin controlled) believe that the referendum as run because it didn't offer anything other than the '92 constitution might have been much higher. I haven't heard one USA agency that doesn't think 50% was easily achievable.

Again, a mediocre wishful thinking at best. I personally visited Crimea over 15 times in past decade and not even once heard any desires or complaints or discussions regarding joining Russia or disliking Ukrainian rule.

You had said none and I personally watched NBC based reporters. CNN had 2 teams Anna Coren's and Anderson Coopers'. Amy Kellogg from FOX. Alex Marquardt from ABC. CBS had 3 teams Elizabeth Palmer's in Crimea while Charlie D’Agata and Clarissa Ward's stayed in Kiev. The BBC had a few teams... As far as I can tell anyone who wanted to cover it could.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

Today there was another report from NBC on the ground in other towns where they interviewed Ukrainian military officials who had switched to the Russian flag. They didn't like their pay, they didn't like the hours and they were happy to switch. There were interviews with police who were being asked to arrest or shoot at the very people who had been supporting them a month earlier when everyone was against them. This wasn't Russian propaganda this was an American network representing the real grievances of the people on the ground.

I think I've given more than enough evidence that sources that if anything are biased towards the anti-Russian side investigated and found genuine discount. I'm not going to keep responding to, "This whole business of covering up a rigged poll is not impressing anybody outside of Kreml's media space.." That is clearly unequivocally and verifiably false. At this point you are simply ignoring evidence that contradicts your spin that no one believes Russians that Crimeans were unhappy.

It's not a comparison of Ukraine vs Russia. As a Ukrainian, I am comparing Russia and EU/US

So was I. I gave growth figures and comparative economic figures. Russia's economy is far smaller than EU/US (though on par with many EU countries) but is growing much faster. Showing a healthy government under Putin contrary to your comments above about shrinkage. Again GDP data is public.

As for not having contempt for Russians I think you should read your comments in this thread.
 

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[TrueRecord]

The West declared the cold war, not the Soviet Russia. Actually the cold war period is so short as compared to very long history of Russia-Western relationships. The cold war period can be neglected for insignificance. All petty differences pale when compared to the defeat of Nazi Germany. If Russia had failed to defeat Nazis at Stalingrad, at Moscow and generally at the front, we would had no Jew these days in Europe, not one. And genocide for other nations. Nazis killed many. Imagine what they would have done if they had won.
You've got no other friend like this like Russia.
And mark my words. Should neocon madmen succeed in isolating Russia, the fragile world, peace, the USA, and the world economy will go down to hell.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Xest]

"But in the end what we know is that once Russia offered, if there were a fair and free referendum the Crimean people would like to join Russia and leave Ukraine.

No we don't know that, if anything we can only say we know the opposite - a handful of weeks before the Russia occupation support for joining Russia in a poll was only at 41%. There was slightly higher support for independence - 52%, but certainly we absolutely cannot say in a free and fair referendum people would've voted to join Russia - polls without the barrels of Russian soldiers watching over them tell a completely different story to what you're suggesting. At worst they'd have voted for independence by a margin of only 2%.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[Xest]

"As a matter of fact, India left the British empire without war. Look up Ghandi..."

Why even just use India as an example? Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa. There are many many more examples. The manner in which countries left British control covers pretty much every part of the spectrum, from violent exit, to exit by referendum, to the British themselves deciding it's time for them to go independent.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[IgShaman81]

Today there was another report from NBC on the ground in other towns where they interviewed Ukrainian military officials who had switched to the Russian flag. They didn't like their pay, they didn't like the hours and they were happy to switch. There were interviews with police who were being asked to arrest or shoot at the very people who had been supporting them a month earlier when everyone was against them. This wasn't Russian propaganda this was an American network representing the real grievances of the people on the ground.

Nothing of this sort had happened yesterday. A group of UA military was captured by armed "rebels", which are controlled by a small group of Russian special forces. There's an abundance of videos on youtube and news sites supporting this. Later, they escaped and got back to their military base. I happen to live in the region where these things are happening, and receive my info from multiple independent sources. Some US and other news agencies are bound to make mistakes and report things they'll have to correct later on; no correction ever does happen on Russian TV, which is always single-sided. And yes, some people are truly upset with the situation, largely thanks to these idiotic messages Kremlin kept broadcasting for the past few months - namely, once again, regarding language and ethnicity issues. Which are virtually non-existent! Consider this my live report from Odessa, a primarily Russian-speaking large city in the South of Ukraine.

I think I've given more than enough evidence that sources that if anything are biased towards the anti-Russian side investigated and found genuine discount.

All you did is a mundane recitation of what Russian TV is broadcasting. Ground reports from Ukraine do not support vast majority of their claims, including language or ethnic-related violence. I understand you built your version of Ukrainian reality based on anything but actual facts. And you are quite welcome to come to, say, Odessa, and check it out for yourself.

I'm not going to keep responding to, "This whole business of covering up a rigged poll is not impressing anybody outside of Kreml's media space.." That is clearly unequivocally and verifiably false. At this point you are simply ignoring evidence that contradicts your spin that no one believes Russians that Crimeans were unhappy.

It just so happens that these days, pro-Russian people believe what they are told by their media, rather than people who actually live in the regions in question.

So was I. I gave growth figures and comparative economic figures. Russia's economy is far smaller than EU/US (though on par with many EU countries) but is growing much faster. Showing a healthy government under Putin contrary to your comments above about shrinkage. Again GDP data is public.

Well, having done this comparison myself, I vote for making closer ties to EU/US. Russia clearly looses on the economy side of things, dramatically looses on the social side of things, and has zero support on the democratic side of things. For example, just yesterday, mayor elections were basically eliminated in this country. How's that for a fun fact? And Russian economy is highly likely to start shrinking starting 2014 - they already changed their forecast of GDP growth from 3.5% to 0.5%. This info is public and coming from Russia.

As for not having contempt for Russians I think you should read your comments in this thread.

I stand by every word that I said. My contempt is addressed directly against Putin, Kremlin, Russian government and military. In no way am I against Russian culture, language, heritage and people. For as long as, of course, they do not support war against my own home country and annexation of Crimea.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[etash]

australia, 1901, which incidentally is about 130 years after the US. comparing the britain of 1770 with that of 1900 is comparing apples to oranges. Plus australia is not totally independent, having the queen still as head of state and the british flag as part of its own.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[david_thornley]

Strong enough so that Putin felt forced to keep troops in the street and conduct a plebiscite with no way to vote for the status quo, apparently.

Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force

[jbolden]

@David

I have no idea why Putin felt he needed to cheat when he could have won so easily. But others have done the same thing. Richard Nixon, 1972 being an example that comes to mind.

Give up your nukes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 90s, Ukraine negotiated with Russia and US to give up their nukes for sovereignty assurances. Suckers!

And America is baffled why every second rate regime seeks nukes. The west totally undercut itself handling this to the rest of the world. Now, no one is going to give up shit becaus ethey know how empty promises are.

Re:Give up your nukes!

[Vitriol Angst]

This might provoke countries to lie about their nuclear ambitions!

What's next, fabricating attacks so that you can have a rationale to go to war???? !!!
Or will Allan Greenspan discover that Wall Street has greedy people? The world is waiting with baited breath.

Re:Give up your nukes!

[jbolden]

Nuclear weapons require a lot of upkeep that's very expensive. Ukraine's military budget in 2013 was $1.9 billion. With any fraction (or even all of it) their weapons would be worthless today.

Moreover Soviet Ukraine's defense establishment was manned by the same Russian nationals who are voting to join Russia. Do you think Ukraine would be safer if the Russian separatists in Ukraine had nuclear weapons today?

Re:Give up your nukes!

[unixisc]

It made sense for Ukraine to give that up. The controls were all still in the Kremlin: it's not like someone in Kiev could have turned them on and launched an attack on Turkey, or Moldova, or Romania, or Slovakia. Those nukes could, however, have been turned on from Moscow. Why would any regime in Kyiv keep weapons on its soil that it had no control over? The Kremlin could theoretically turn them on and send them all at US troops in Iraq, and a retaliation could have involved the bombing of Ukraine. Once the Soviet Union came unravelled, it made sense for Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to turn over all their nukes to Russia

Re:Give up your nukes!

[unixisc]

Soviet nuclear weapons outside Russia

- Belarus had 81 single warhead missiles stationed on its territory after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. They were all transferred to Russia by 1996. In May 1992, Belarus acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[59]

- Kazakhstan inherited 1,400 nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, and transferred them all to Russia by 1995. Kazakhstan has since acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[60]

- Ukraine has acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ukraine inherited about 5,000 nuclear weapons when it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, making its nuclear arsenal the third-largest in the world.[61] By 1996, Ukraine had voluntarily disposed of all nuclear weapons within its territory, disassembling them in Russia.[62]

Kazakhstan & Belarus turned over the weapons to Russia, while Ukraine got them sent to Russia and disassembled.

Re:Give up your nukes!

[Xest]

The difficulty in creating a nuclear weapon isn't the command and control, it's creating the warheads and the delivery vehicles. Slapping on different electronics to control the missiles would've been a trivial task compared to the job of developing warheads and rocket technology required for delivery.

It's probably the one thing about creating nuclear weapons that your average bedroom hardware hacker could do with physical access to the missiles.

Though it should also be noted that many of the USSR's weapons were created in the Ukraine in the first place, so the Ukraine probably still has some of the guys who actually made these things to start with, regardless of the fact that actual command and control was in Russia.

This

[TrueRecord]

they are Russians.

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

Which is rather like claiming the residents of South Tyrol are Austrian, and perhaps more apropos to the Crimean situation, stating Austria is German.

How precisely Russia threatening to swallow up any of its neighbors' territory because ethnic Russians live there differs from Anschluss escapes.me.

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

Russia is not threatening, all that the Russians say is that some ppl have gone mad supporting crazy nationalists who overthrew the legitimate authorities and democratically elected president Yanukivich. Nobody denies that. Nobody elected the people who now pretend to be representing Ukrainian authority.
They are but usurpers and they are backed by crazy ppl like McCain. The ppl in pro-Russian provinces dread the crazy nationalists de-facto in power in Kiev and are not willing to put up with that. They are revolting.

Re:This

[jbolden]

How precisely Russia threatening to swallow up any of its neighbors' territory because ethnic Russians live there differs from Anschluss escapes.me.

The main difference is there was far less support in Austria for union with Germany. I suspect if you polled in Austria you'd have something like 30-45% support while Crimea it 70-90% support. So in Austria it wasn't self determination as much as a popular conquest. The analogy would be more apt if Russia took over all of Ukraine again.

Re:This

[fey000]

Are you sure it was only 90%? Last I heard it was 123%.
Which is fully understandable. Putin, much like Kim Jong-iI, is so filled with awesomeness that people can express more than 100% of their love towards him. Furthermore, IEEE has declared that this percentage can only go down when Putin does manly things with his shirt on, which is very rare.

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

Was there actually any threat against ethnic Russians anywhere in Ukraine? There seems a long distance to be traveled from angry protesters to the kind of ethnic cleansing that one would expect would be necessary for an external power to walk in and force a separation referendum, even more dubious when the power doing that puts on the ballot "Do you want to join us..."

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

Whatever the level of support (and we will really never know with any certainty, considering the referendum was backed by the very state that has now annexed Crimea), the point is the same. The sovereign territory of nation states are supposed to be nearly-inviolable against annexation. Special cases exist where the population of a region has been heavily persecuted (ie. Kosovo, South Sudan, East Timor), or where the situation between the governing power and the political entity had been as a client state (ie. Marshall Islands, Namibia). In a few other cases there has been mutually agreed upon terms for separation, as with the splitting of Czechoslovaki into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Merely having a large number of people of an ethnicity in a specific region is not in and of itself an argument for secession, and most certainly not an argument for a seceding polity to be annexed by another power. Now maybe the end run of a properly handled transition in Ukrainian politics may have been the departure of Crimea and other southern and eastern areas of the country, but the idea that there is any legitimacy to a referendum on allowing a polity to be annexed when the country that is to gain the region is the occupying power is absurd.

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

It's absurd to recognize the coup in Kiev as legitimate shift of power. So there's no such thing as a legitimate authority in Ukraine except for the Yanikovoch who is now a refugee government.
According to the Intentional law the self-determination of peoples is quite enough and does not require any approval from any other authority to decide on separation. And the people decided. The polls, the referendum, the ppl themselves rejoicing, and the common sense prove it.

Re:This

[dunkelfalke]

Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
What they shout is "One nation, one language, one fatherland. Hang the Russians".

Or here:
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtXGMmrVB0"
"Cut the Russian's throats".

Re:This

[jbolden]

I think we know with a very high degree of confidence that the support for being annexed with Russia is sky high. We have polling that conforms the strong support and the lack of any opposition on the ground also confirms the strong support. Absolutely, unquestionably Russia should have handled the referendum better so these sorts of doubts wouldn't exist. Russia didn't have to cheat and they shouldn't have. At some point in the future there will be fair election in Crimea and I suspect the pro-Russia parties will win by huge margins. So let's put aside the issue of how the people would have decided I think for reasonable people we know with 99% probability what would have happened had their been a valid referendum.

Given that, no I don't agree that this is absurd I don't see any reason that we shouldn't have a world where self determination is important. I don't see any reason that sovereign territory should be permanent. Having governments have to compete for lands and peoples doesn't strike me as a bad thing. I believe the American Revolution was legitimate. I think the anti-colinial movements were legitimate. I think people have the right to determine their government. I just don't see the great problem with granting people the right to have a government of their choosing.

I can imagine rules like requiring 60% for a region to change ownership to prevent territories from flipping back and forth. But I can see no reason for denying 80% their will. I think one of the big accomplishments of the last few hundred years is getting rid of serfdom and getting rid of the more advanced form of it that the UN supports seems to me to be a good thing.

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

So Russia should immediately let Chechnya go, right?

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

Chechnya participates in Russian elections, with some 90 or so per cent of Chechens voting for Putin in the last presidential elections. They don't want to go. That's for sure.

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

International law does not support annexations no matter how you read it. Self-determination is not in and of itself sufficient to see the borders of a sovereign state undermined. Good grief, what the hell do you think the UN was formed for, to prevent precisely what has happened.

Re:This

[jbolden]

Yes assuming the population still wants to leave. Russia's handling of their dispute with Chechnya over oil and minorities was immoral.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, man, shouting some bullshit is a crime against humanity. Guess we shoulda nuked Moscow after that Kruschev speech.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

Anschluss with Austria is a bad comparison. The better comparison is with the Sudetenland. Unlike in that case, where Germany forcibly annexed land from a foreign power to the detriment of a majority of their people, there is no good moral argument whatsoever for the separation of Germany and Austria. They are the same people with essentially the same culture (comparing Austria with southern Germany, like Bavaria) and the same language, who have thought of themselves as the same for centuries and whose separation prior to world war 2 was a purely historical accident. If Europe was fairly divided according to nation states, there is no reason why the two German empires of the Habsburgs and the Prussians should have been kept separate against (presumably) the wish of the people, and the post world war 2 separation of the two states was done purely to restrain the Germans in the future.

Im not German and I highly doubt any German would publicly write the above, especially in English. I have Askenazi heritage so Im no sympathiser of the Nazis, and it is certainly fair that Germany paid some territorial price after WW2. But I think the Anschluss with Austria was extremely natural and justifiable. On a related note, the fact that Ostpreussen was taken from the Germans after WW2 and gifted to Russia is an absolute disgrace. 800 years of serious German culture dating back to the Teutonic period has been replaced by industrial, Soviet wasteland. If Russia feels that history and culture are a good criterion for borders, as they have been loudly proclaiming, then they should lead by example and gift Ostpreussen back to the Germans.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

UN Court of Justice decided differently on the complaint of Serbia against Kosovo unilateral declaration of independence. If you had paid attention you would have noticed, that Russia cited that exact precedent in Crimea case.

Re:This

[MightyMartian]

Russia may cite what it likes, but as I've said before, the situation in Kosovo was such that Kosovo's secession was necessary to prevent further crimes against humanity; in particular ethnic cleansing that was almost certain to approach, if not become genocide. There is no indication that any Russian or other minority in Ukraine was under that kind of threat.

What is more, the secession of Kosovo was done under the watchful eye of numerous international agencies, whereas the Crimean "secession" was done with the Russian military and a puppet government running the entire show. To equate Kosovo and Crimea is ludicrous; both from the point of justification and from the point of how the secession was carried out.

It might be one thing if Putin and the Russian parliament hadn't been preparing annexation instruments at the very same time this referendum was being prepared.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point in the future there will be fair election in Crimea and I suspect the pro-Russia parties will win by huge margins.

That won't be any time soon. There aren't fair elections in Russia today, there won't be fair elections in Crimea while it is under Russian control and Putin rules Russia.

Re:This

[cheesybagel]

The proper way to handle that was not via a land grab where they carve up pieces of Ukraine for themselves. For one there were no actual violent actions taken. If there were there are other way to engage in 'peacekeeping' other than this.

Re:This

[cheesybagel]

Merely coincidentally the Russian areas of interest include not only the Sevastopol naval base but also the Kharkiv Tank Factory. I wonder if they will also invade Kiev just to get the Antonov manufacturing plant as well.

Re:This

[cheesybagel]

Just because the government is illegitimate is no justification to proceed to a land grab.

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

The land was not 'grabbed', the declaration of independence from Ukraine and a subsequent move to the Russian jurisdiction were done in accordance with proper legal procedures and with respect for ppls' rights and their property, all by consent and strong desire of the ppl in the Crimea.

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

So far it's the Crimea who has moved to and invaded Russia with all the mutuality. If the Ukranian unrest persists, the ppl of the Ukraine will flee to Russia as to a safe haven or they will rise to stand up to the junta. The junta in Kiev is almost penniless. I think the rise of the ppl is inevitable with either the subsequent joining with Russia or staying formally independent like Ossetia, for example.

Re:This

[cheesybagel]

Which legal rights? The constitution of Ukraine only allows such a partition after a nation wide referendum. Russia signed an agreement where they guaranteed to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is all a bunch of bullshit. They did not even bother making it a puppet state. They just steamrolled into it.

Do you honestly believe even if the voting was conducted properly that the people voting in that referendum did not feel coerced into it by the presence of Russian military forces during the voting procedure? Fact is Stalin agreed after WWII to let the people of the nations 'liberated' from Nazi Germany have free elections. He basically rigged all the elections to ensure the local Communist parties would win. This is a repeat of the same thing. Putin rigs elections in Russia and mocks the Russian constitution by doing a tag team alternation with Medvedev. Do you seriously think he would not do the same in Crimea?

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

1. The Crimea is the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, their being under Ukraine is very conditional. It has government and it has its own parliament. The Crimea decided to part when the junta that grabbed power in Kiev issued orders and made appointments in the Crimean police violating the laws of the Crimea. Such appointments could have been made only with the agreement with the local government. That right was rudely violated.
2. The constitution of Ukraine has nothing to do with the right to the self-determination of the ppl in the Crimea. They divorced. Russia agreed with the cessation, thus the Crimea is no longer Ukraine for Russia.
3. Yes, I believe it's honest, all the polls showed that attitude right before the referendum.
4. Military forces is the people living there. Imagine that: within one family brothers served in Ukrainian and Russian Armies. When the time came to defend the family and all their friends they just left their bases to join the local self-defending forces.
5. The source of power is people, putins come and go. The main thing is what people decides. Crimea decided to be with Russia. So be it.

Re:This

[dunkelfalke]

You have planned to nuke Moscow long before that. Fortunately, you were too afraid of the second strike.

Besides, the new Ukraine's national guard was recruited from neo-Nazi paramilitaries and they are what the current junta in Kiev uses as anti terror task force in eastern Ukraine.

Re:This

[cheesybagel]

1. The President of Crimea had 10% of the votes in the previous election.
2. Might say the same about Chechnya.
3. It was bunk. There were different polls and none had 80% or 90% majorities.
4. The US and Russia have naval bases across the entire world. Crimea does not even have a land connection to Russia.
5. No. The source of power is power. Russia is simply exercising their military muscle to do a land grab. But what goes around comes around.

Re:This

[TrueRecord]

Chechnya voted for Putin with 95+ per cent in the last presidential elections. They enjoy Russian citizenship with all the money they get from the central budget and they want to be in Russia. You may forget the Chechnya argument.

>Crimea does not even have a land connection to Russia.

The Crimea has had centuries as a Russian land officially since 1783, unofficially even longer when fighting with Turkey for the peninsular.

>Russia is simply exercising their military muscle to do a land grab

There was no 'grab', no military actions, at least no civilian got hurt, not one in the Crimea. Live and learn how to deal with ppl. Then again, Russians and Ukrainians are almost one nation. No one wants hostilities except for some foreign sponsors that gave away billions $ to nazi guerrillas allegedly for the sake of "democracy". What a shame.

The peaceful and well organized with all the legal procedures self-determination of the peoples has everything to with ppl's freedom, benefit and legitimacy.

Re:This

[david_thornley]

The Sudetenland was also part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, so I fail to see what the difference between the Anschluss and the Sudetenland in that regard. Both were heavily German parts of Austria-Hungary.

The separation of Austria-Hungary and Germany had been deliberately formalized by Bismarck in his unification of those parts of Germany not under Austro-Hungarian rule up until WWI, and the Austria-Germany split was basically imposed from without both after WWI and WWII.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us how you really feel about the revolution, comrade!

simple solution

[slashmydots]

Call it Crussia.

Re:simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the boundary with Russia is the Crimea River.

Re:simple solution

[slashmydots]

You mean the Criver?

Let the pandering begin!

[Vitriol Angst]

Companies will likely be influenced by economics decisions when displaying who Crimea belongs to. The same thing happened to Taiwan -- you see it on a map in China and it's part of China; http://www.computerworld.com/s...

Re:Let the pandering begin!

[BradMajors]

According to the UN, Taiwan is part of China.

Re:Let the pandering begin!

[serviscope_minor]

According to the UN, Taiwan is part of China.

Yes, but there is no meaningful definition by which Taiwan is part of China. It is politically and economically separate in every regard, and the people living in it regard it as not China. They have different laws (PRC laws have no bearing in Taiwan), a different government and an independent military. It's also got a bunch of pretend-not-embassies from quite a large number of countries including the US.

The only reason the UN don't recognise it is because China has sufficient influence to make the member states maintain a rather silly fiction.

Re:Let the pandering begin!

[pjt33]

My understanding is that the governments in Beijing and Taipei agree that there is only one China, which includes the territory effectively governed by Beijing and the territory effectively governed by Taipei. The point of disagreement is which of them is the lawful government of the whole thing.

Re:Let the pandering begin!

[MightyMartian]

The only reason the UN don't recognise it is because China has sufficient influence to make the member states maintain a rather silly fiction.

Well that, and the fact that Chiang Kai Shek insisted upon the pointless ruse that the Kuomintang was still the lawful government of mainland China, and was permitted to keep this delusion by US foreign policy for nearly a quarter century.

"use of force"

[KraxxxZ01]

what was breaking Kosovo from Serbia than? "use of out-of-this-world-force"?

NATO fucked up when it broke sovereign state by use of ... flowers?

I could go with statement that Crimea is annexed by use of trickery and lies. But force... that just laughable.

Re:"use of force"

[mi]

what was breaking Kosovo from Serbia than? "use of out-of-this-world-force"?

Kosovo was torn away from Serbia to become independent — not to be annexed by one of the powers doing the tearing away. That's the major difference.

NATO fucked up when it broke sovereign state by use of ... flowers?

NATO intervened in Yugoslavia after the Belgrade regime committed serious crimes against humanity — and only after the UN-forces demonstrably failed to end the abuses. Now Russian propaganda keeps repeating the same accusations against Ukraine's current government — except Russia is obviously lying.

But, no doubt, Putin will thank you for this rhetorical cover. He needs every sympathizer (or even a neutral) in the West he get...

Re:"use of force"

[Luckyo]

Kosovo today is a de facto EU protectariat. Independent, it has a viability of a large, crime infested town with no industry of its own.

Re:"use of force"

[cheesybagel]

Just call it a puppet state like we used to back when it was WW2 time.

Re:"use of force"

[vasko]

NATO intervened in Yugoslavia after the Belgrade regime committed serious crimes against humanity

Yeah, right. NATO intervened before all those serious crimes, just not so openly. They supported KLA (they were terrorist, then suddenly they were not; how convenient). But please, keep repeating same Sui generis bullshit, someone might believe you.

Doesn't matter. I block all of Ukraine anyway.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Set up a website to support my Android app, and after a couple months I started getting a flood of referrer spam filling up my logs. All of it from a couple dozen different netblocks in the Ukraine. I tried a couple different techniques to filter out the bad guys, but at this point I just toss all the netblocks into the reject pile in my htaccess file.

Does anyone actually get legitimate traffic from the Ukraine anyway?

Sure, the real-world violence and power struggles are sad. But from an internet perspective, I have a hard time seeing much to care about.

Re:Doesn't matter. I block all of Ukraine anyway.

[RyoShin]

I help moderate a small 4chan-like website and we started getting hit by Child Porn bots in mid-January. We're moving to different software right now, and in the process we analyzed all of our bans for spam and CP in the past year, finding that Ukraine made up about 70-80% of that (including most of the CP).

So in our new software we just banned the entirety of Ukraine and most of Russia in the hopes of stopping the tide.

Question

[Nieriko]

how to categories their users from the region?

Is that proper english? What about:

how to categorize users from their region

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not proper (GB) english :-P

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Crimea is part of Russia.

Crimea being part of Russia ..

[DTentilhao]

Crimea is to Russia, the same way the UK is to the USA, as we both pretend we're an independent country.

Easy Solution for Ukraine

[Anonymous Coward]

Petition the United States for Statehood.

Become part of the United States, host gobs and gobs of American military bases and ballistic missiles and finally bring peace to the region.

You don't say.

[demon driver]

Guess the percentage of currently existing and valid borders that weren't.

And while the Crimea case may be dubious according to international law, it is utter hypocrisy to insist upon that only when it happens in a part of the former Soviet Union and, this time, serves Russia, while Western countries fell all over themselves when it came to accepting the self-proclaimed status for each and every former Yugoslavian region, ripening it for all the economical exploitation by Western capital which was about to happen.

speaking of disputed territory...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does the TLD resolve to in the West Bank or Gaza?
Just curious.

Re:speaking of disputed territory...

[Anonymous Coward]

.ps - for that fictional entity that most of the UN recognizes, but which doesn't exist, except in the wet dreams of the Islamics.

I have an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we ask the people of Crimea who they pay their taxes to?

Re:I have an idea

[kthreadd]

We did, and according to Russia who counted the votes most people wanted to pay to Russia.

Re:I have an idea

[Xest]

So if I don't pay taxes I become an independent nation or?

Fight for the land

[Anonymous Coward]

Sovereignty is kept intact by military force not by "right to land" bullshit and this is why the Ukrainians should had fought off the Russians. No human has rights to land, the lands have been here before we ever existed, do we have rights over the hospitals were we were born in? NO. There was a 13000 year old Caucasoid skeleton found in Mexico, does that mean whites have land rights of Mexico? NO!

Same with the Mexico(immigration hypocrisy by the way) pushing their citizens onto the U.S, we should use military force(shoot the fence jumpers) against them if we want to keep the "United States Of America" intact. Humans are still Nomads.

Re:Fight for the land

[unixisc]

Ukraine would have lost such a war easily: they'd even lose if Russia decided to conquer Ukraine. I agree - the US should take an aggressive policy against fence jumpers. If the US dealt w/ Mexican immigrants in the same manner that Mexico deals w/ Central American immigrants, they wouldn't have an illegal immigration issue.

Depends on whether you ask the CIA or KGB

[NotDrWho]

It's always funny when two puppet governments fight over who is the less puppetty.

Think Back to the 1930s

[DERoss]

The Crimea is Putin's Sudetenland.
The Ukraine will be Putin's Czechoslovakia.
See http://www.rossde.com/editoria....

Re:Think Back to the 1930s

[Anonymous Coward]

And as with Sudetenland, the western countries decided to do nothing.

Re:Think Back to the 1930s

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Iraq was Bush's Czechoslovakia?

Google also gives different answers

[swillden]

Google Maps shows Crimea as part of Russia to users from Russia, and part of Ukraine to the rest of the world.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/12/302337754/google-maps-displays-crimean-border-differently-in-russia-u-s

This is nothing new. As the article above mentions the name of the Arabian Gulf also changes depending on where you are, and mentions that there are many more cases. I believe Taiwan may be another. This approach is clearly a compromise, and like all compromises, makes no one really happy.

Re:Google also gives different answers

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the East Sea vs Sea of Japan. The "Arabian Gulf" seems rather stupid because, as I understand it, even Arabs call it the Persian Gulf. So is the west trying to ride the fence, or just piss Iranians off?

Obligiatory

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, obviously.

IRL!

[DarthVain]

A few years ago we had some Chinese exchange workers come and work for us. At the end of their stint, they did a bit of a presentation about similar work in China. They did a bit of background on China, and were still calling Taiwan part of China! I was a bit flabbergasted...

Different perspectives or propaganda I guess. Eye opener either way.

Re:IRL!

[jittles]

A few years ago we had some Chinese exchange workers come and work for us. At the end of their stint, they did a bit of a presentation about similar work in China. They did a bit of background on China, and were still calling Taiwan part of China! I was a bit flabbergasted...

Different perspectives or propaganda I guess. Eye opener either way.

Did you know that Taiwan also calls itself China? There is the PRC (the mainland side) and ROC (Taiwan side). The first is the Peoples Republic of China, and the second is the Republic of China. They both consider the other to be part of their territory and are waiting for the other side to give in to their leadership.

Re:IRL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they're both wrong.

Re:IRL!

[Gavagai80]

Taiwan is split on that perspective though, with one major political party favoring independence and the other favoring continuing to claim the mainland.

Is Point Roberts part of the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

A geopolitical oddity, Point Roberts is a part of the mainland United States but is not physically connected to it, making it a pene-exclave of the U.S. It is located on the southernmost tip of the Tsawassen Peninsula, south of Delta, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, and can be reached by land from the rest of the United States only by traveling through Canada. It can be reached directly from the rest of Washington and the U.S. by crossing Boundary Bay by sea or air.

http://goo.gl/maps/h6klY

The acceptance of the 49th parallel as the international boundary was concluded without precise knowledge of the effects that it would ultimately have. Later, as the Boundary Commission was surveying the line, the British government realized that the peninsula of Point Roberts would be an isolated part of the United States.
Wikipedia on Point Roberts

No, they will not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia will buy silence with gas.

Ground reality won't be affected by any of this

[unixisc]

in due time all websites will list it under Russia.

Only the Russian websites will do so. The rest will list it as "Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation". Unwieldy, perhaps, but reflecting the truth.

Or, as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."

Did most websites - read organizations - recognize Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania - as independent, but under Soviet occupation, during the Cold War? Do most websites - or organizations - recognize Tibet as an independent country under Chinese occupation? The US recognized and recognizes all of them as occupied but independent, but was that true about anyone else?

Jerusalem has always been a part of Israel. Only disputed part was East Jerusalem, which was a part of Jordan before the Six Day War, and became a part of Israel after that. Unlike the rest of Judea & Samaria, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, just like they did the Golan Heights, so both territories are legitimately part of Israel. Yeah, the rest of the world disputes it, but a good portion of them are in bed w/ the OIC, which in fact recognizes all of Israel as 'Palestine', and would like to replace Israel w/ a Pali state.

If anyone disputes that, they might also want to dispute territorial ownership elsewhere in the world, such as Srpska, whose status is identical to the Crimea, except that Serbia isn't as militarily powerful to reclaim it, the way Russia is for Crimea.

Re:Ground reality won't be affected by any of this

[HJED]

The difference with Jerusalem is the United Nations specifically placed restrictions on Israel forbidding them from annexing those territories (for good reason). This makes it very different from individual states recognising it as belonging to different entities, which is the case with Crimea,

Wher is Crimea?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about any of this nonsense. I always thought Crimea was on the continent of Tellius and had been part of the Begnion Empire.

Re:Wher is Crimea?

[stackOVFL]

I don't know about any of this nonsense. I always thought Crimea was on the continent of Tellius and had been part of the Begnion Empire.

You know I was thinking just the same thing. To me this is like Jaffa Cakes. Are they cakes or biscuits? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

The world will never stop arguing about them nor this.

International "ethics"

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."

I recently too a course titled "Ethics in International Relations" at a major college. (This was to fulfill a distribution requirement for an "ethics" class and the particular course had the bonus of also fulfilling an international affairs requirement.)

One of the first points made:
  * Which regions are part of which countries is NOT a subject of international ethics.
A fait accopli is accepted as is. (This was taken as a universal, part of the definition of the boundaries of the field (as taught), which otherwise studied many different, often conflicting, schools of thought.

I interpret this as follows: "International Ethics", as a dicipline, is an attempt by academics (and the rich people who fund them - such as Andrew Carnegie, who largely founded the field) to influence governments, primarily to improve their treatment of the people they rule and otherwise use force upon. ("Improved" being viewed throught the biases of the academics in question.)

In order to sway the behavior of rulers - especially those who are oppressing their long-standing citizens, recent conquests, or those with whom they are considering resolving a dispute with force, they have to appear non-threatening to the rulers' core issue: that the ruler is in charge. So they must strictly avoid challenging WHETHER the rulers rule, sticking to issues of HOW they rule.

So don't expect academia to support any move for self-determination by the people of an occupied region. The rulers that make the claim and have the power to enforce it will be passively accepted.

DO expect them to oppose such people arming themselves to assert a right to self-determination, or even anyone speaking in a way that might "lead to conflict" rather than passification and quiet (but mainly non-violent) suffering. Thus you see them supporting things like censorship of speech an arms blockades to regions of conflict - which are then selectively enforced and lead to "ethnic clensing" genocides by the side that more successfully evades them against the side that is now largely disarmed.

(Example on censorship: During the period where the Benghazi attack was being blamed on a video posted on YouTube, Sarah Chayes, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote an op-ed for the L.A. times calling for its censorship.)

Zontar = sockpuppeteer & lying libelous troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.

Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!

---

You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...

---

Why, Lastly?

You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

APK

P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):

"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!

(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)

... apk

Occupy Quebec

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the US should take Quebec. Sure plenty of the citizens of Quebec would prefer to be part of Canada, as the healthcare is a much better deal. But when we ask each citizen if Canadian Healthcare can stop a bullet, they will quickly "vote" to join the USA.

Shameful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling Crimea "disputed" is shameful. No doubt if Wikipedia had been around during WW2, most of Europe and East Asia would be shaded and called "disputed" rather than "occupied."

The Germans, as ever, have a long word for it

[Hognoxious]

how to categories their users from the region?

Untermenschen. Covers all the cases.

who lives there = what country it belongs to

[Anonymous Coward]

If the majority of the population of Crimea is Russian and still feels an allegiance to Russia then Crimea belongs to Russia.

VK might have vested interest

[Jonah Hex]

A photographer in a forum I frequent has been trying to get VK to remove his pictures from their site where a user uploaded them, and received this answer to his requests:

By publishing content in free access, every user grants it freedom to spread across the Internet and there's no way to stop that process. Even if we're talking about posts plagiarism we need official copyright proof in order to take actions. This is Internet after all. Everything belongs to everyone and any information becomes public sooner or later. VK Support Team.

I wonder if their location puts them in Crimea, the Ukraine, or Russia, and if their policy to ignore copyright laws plays a part in their decision.

Who are the pro-Russian commenters?

[quantaman]

Everyone has noticed there are a lot of very pro-Russian people popping up on websites and I can't really understand them. The facts seem very apparent that Russia has done some extremely objectionable things, and threatens to do even more objectionable things, and the justifications for those actions seem extraordinarily weak.

Maybe some of the commenters are paid by Russia (I think that's been documented with some blogs), but a lot of them seem to be sincere westerners and I can't figure them out. Do they have Russian ancestry that makes them pro-Russia? Are they just really counter-cultural and suspicious of Western interference in the East?

Personally I'm fairly pro-West, anti-authoritarian, and have Ukrainian ancestry so I have strong feelings on the subject, but I still think I make a fairly impartial assessment of the situation. I just can't figure out the ideology that drives the Russian supporters.

Re:Who are the pro-Russian commenters?

[Xest]

I think there's two camps, there's the clear and obvious propaganda campaign, you see this on prominent sites like the BBC when they have live feeds on the topic and it's full of nonsense such as:

Nikki e-mails: I LOVE PUTIN HE'S THE GREATEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE AND THE WHOLE WORLD SHOULD BE OWNED BY RUSSIA!!

Okay that was hypoerbole, but you get the point. Then you get sites like this, where there is a non-negligible bunch of useful idiots available. These are people that just like to argue, they like to do so even if their point is completely untenable, and they'll pursue it long after their points has been highlighted as complete and utter bollocks. They like to play devils advocate, which is sometimes useful, as it's good to question, but other times it just makes them look more than just a bit retarded.

A handful are ideological, you get people who were so scarred by what the West did in fucking up in attacking Iraq in 2003 that they think everything that's wrong in the world is entirely the fault of America and it's allies, and that no other nation could ever possibly be evil, hence, if America has an opinion on it, they assume it's automatically wrong, and the other guy is right. These people really are retarded, they're the people who were arguing that because America had a problem with Ahmadinejad's Iran and his nuclear program, that Iran must inherently be a peaceful, friendly, freedom and liberty loving nation. It was just incomprehensible to them that there could be wrongs on both sides of the argument.

Re:Who are the pro-Russian commenters?

[Hypotensive]

a lot of them seem to be sincere westerners

The entire purpose of astroturf agitprop is to make you believe this.

Re:Who are the pro-Russian commenters?

[quantaman]

A lot of the comments comes from long established accounts that have commented on many other topics which doesn't really seem feasible for an astroturf network (unless they were 3rd party groups that get contracted by different entities). But moreso there's a lot of them who do engage in back and forths for quite a while, that's simply something that doesn't make sense for an astroturf because there's no point in a one-on-one with someone you clearly can't convince.

Re:Who are the pro-Russian commenters?

[Hypotensive]

Good point. I think there is something in what Xest says.

politics

[myblossomsquare]

good job www.blossomsquare.com "Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network, Vkontakte, still say Crimeans are located in Ukraine

have a nice day

[myblossomsquare]

"Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network, Vkontakte, still say Crimeans are located in Ukraine. www.blossomsquare.com

Red Hat/Cent timezone update

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember seeing this patch come across my servers - RHEA-2014:0338-1
I remember wondering at the time who exactly makes the decision that a country has officially changed timezones when there is a conflict going on.

"Details
Updated tzdata packages that add one enhancement are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4, 5, and 6.

The tzdata packages contain data files with rules for various time zones.

This update adds the following enhancement:

* Crimea is switching to the Moscow time zone on March 30, 2014 at 2 a.m. local
time. The respective tzdata rules have been updated to reflect this change.
(BZ#1080526, BZ#1080527, BZ#1080528)

All users of tzdata are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which add
this enhancement."