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Russian Military Forces Have Now Invaded Ukraine
SpzToid (869795) writes Those plucky "Ukrainian separatist's" ambition to join Russia have now been given Russian military support, as the Russian Army with long columns of armor have invaded Ukraine and have opened up a second warring front, in a big way. The Reuters report, interestingly, quotes a member of Putin's own advisory council on human rights describing the move as an invasion: "When masses of people, under commanders' orders, on tanks, APCs and with the use of heavy weapons, (are) on the territory of another country, cross the border, I consider this an invasion."
In Soviet Russia, border crosses troops!
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
With hastily spray-painted Ukrainian flags!
Unfortunately for those living there a lack of control of Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia, and it always has been. This is Putin and his faction basically saying "Bring it Europe/US. What are you going to do?" They're gambling that Ukrainian sovereignty is less important to the US and Europe than getting in a shooting war with Russia, and quite frankly they're probably right.
Wasn't it a wonderful, peaceful time, so long ago? Ah, those were the days.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6...
As someone else put it, Putin is aspiring to be a Dune character. Or more prosaically, he's learned a lot from watching US corporations and the US government manipulate the news cycle. Do something that will outrage the public, wait for the new furor, pull back a little, wait for the news to move on to some other subject, and try again.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... has some photographs if you care.
In a more conventional war typically the targeted nation's shipping is seized, both flagged vessels and vessels under other flags owned by those from that nation.
If I remember right, there's a treaty in place that was the result of Ukraine's voluntary handover of its nuclear weapons where it was supposed to receive defense. I'm curious to see if it'll be invoked.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
However...A Big Part of the issue was Ukraine wanted to join the EU and NATO, however the Ukrainian president at the time decided to side with Russia while most of the country wanted to be with the EU.
So we are in kinda of a gray zone here.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually, the handover of USSR's stockpile of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine wasn't in exchange for defense, but rather in exchange for a promise from Russia that Russia will never use its military weapons to attack or intimidate the Ukraine. (See the Budapest Memorandum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... )
Clearly, that agreement has been broken by Russia. Of course, I doubt any powers are going to try to exacerbate the situation by either providing the Ukraine with nuclear weapons or suggesting that Ukraine should acquire nuclear weapons, but based on my understanding of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine is well within its rights to do so now that Russia has breached the agreement.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Eh, I'm usually a pacifist when it comes to all the pointless conflicts the US gets involved in, but unopposed military hegemony ruthlessly expanding has a .000 batting average on helping anyone but the elites of the expanding power.
This is something we saw coming, at least since the incident with Crimea. What plans were made for this? Or are they all pretending to be surprised?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
And for good measure, Ukraine should "sell" its ownership in the Ukrainian section of the gas pipeline to a Nato country and then shut off the flow of gas.
Cutting off the flow of gas would hurt Europe a lot more than it would hurt Russia at this point. Entering the winter with your largest gas supplier no longer providing you with the gas that you use for heating would suck. And as gas is fungible, it doesn't matter to Russia if we stop buying it from them, unless everyone else stops buying it from them - if China doesn't join in with the boycott then it just means that they'll be buying more has from Russia because the price of everyone else's gas will go up.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Finally they will be able to find those WMDs that the Ukranians are hiding!
Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive.
Huh? Wait, we can...
Germany? Austria? Turkey? Saddle up and regain your empire from last century, the sale has begun!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yea, the rights of the Ukrainian people to choose their government be damned, this is Russian imperialism at stake here.. (sarcasm off)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This Russian move represents a serious deterioration of the world unity as we knew it, and is likely to affect most of us, directly or indirectly, and more or less severely. Yes I want to read here the various opinions on this crucial topic, moderated the /. way.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
No go.
Europe is quite dependent on Russian gas and oil. You'll be hard pressed to convince Europe that it should do without. And now take a wild guess where more of that money is located...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Once you appear weak, and unwilling to stand for your "red lines", your competition simply won't take you seriously anymore.
Nothing Obama (or the international community for that matter) is willing to do will aver Russia from its course. At this point, the questions to be settled will be around just how much of Ukraine manages to stay independent at all.
While people may have been all pissy about Bush, unilateral wars, and Team America World Police, the fact of the matter is that it was better than the alternative. "America, Fuck Yeah" sure looks better than "America, Fuck No" at this point.
People keep repeating this but I don't think it's true.
It will be difficult in the short term but the consequences of being under Russia (Or rather the robber barons that control the failed state that carries the name Russia) are becoming too big to ignore.
China and Russia really are not friends. China's not stupid. They don't want to be dependent on them either.
The problem is, another part wanted to join Russia. When you look at their economy, that makes a damn lot of sense. The eastern Ukraine is fully dependent on Russia, if Russia nailed the border shut ... well, let's say Detroit would look like everyone's fully employed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You don't want China deciding to flex their economic muscles by playing with the bond market next time America invades some random country, do you?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe that would be a nice object less as to why it's not healthy to be buried in so much debt. Or to be policing the entire damned world on our own dime, for that matter.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
You do realize Moscow pays people to post in these forums right?
Yeah, supplying weapons and lunatics crazy enough to fight our enemy has worked so well in Afghanistan, let's do that again!
Ukrainians are a modern, western, civilized people. Arming them is quite different than arming religious fanatics looking to recreate the middle ages.
And besides, it did work. The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded. The Russians experienced actual battlefield military defeat. Not the political defeat the US is experiencing.
Wat?
I assume from your absurd statement that you consider invading Afghanistan and Iraq, then replacing their governments, is not "conquering"? Because ..... ? Because they installed a new government and then left, sorta, except they still routinely fly drones and air-strike anyone in those countries they see fit, which no truly independent country would tolerate.
Even if you use such a stupid definition of "conquer", you're attacking a straw man. I said invade, not conquer. It's indisputable that America has routinely invaded countries far away from their own borders over and over again. Any regime that boils down to "those who use military force against others gets sanctioned" would result in America being entirely cut off from the world economy for years. That clearly won't happen so this is just another case of American (and to some extent European) hypocrisy at work. Either do it consistently or don't do it at all. Preferably not at all - sanctions are based on the idea that punishing huge swathes of ordinary citizens on both sides will somehow bring about political change. How many people really believe the people are in charge of their governments foreign policies in countries like the USA?
what we have is actually only quotes from Kiev
The BBC and many other outlets have published NATO confirmations that at least 1000 Russian soldiers have entered Ukraine in this invasion. This directly contradicts your ludicrous claim, but you already knew that.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Yeah, supplying weapons and lunatics crazy enough to fight our enemy has worked so well in Afghanistan, let's do that again!
Most Ukrainians are secular, and those who are religious are mostly Christians. I don't see much parallel at all to Afghanistan and the things that went wrong after we double-crossed them.
Also, we wouldn't economically abandon Ukraine afterwards; all of Europe already have trade ties, and nobody is against trading with them or investing there, post-war. Heck, I've got sunflower oil from Ukraine in my kitchen right now. Afghanistan went sideways because we promised them they could be in the modern family of nations if they drove out the Russians, and that was a lie. They were abandoned to their mud huts.
They just need to supply Ukraine with advanced weaponry. It worked in Afghanistan in the 1980s
Just who do you think we've been fighting against in Afghanistan for the last 15 years?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
What the fuck are you talking about? This myth that Russia keeps trying to push that there are Nazis in Ukraine is only there to deflect Russian attention away from the fact that Putin's policies mirror Hitler's policies almost to the letter. Ukrainian President was elected by 53% of the vote after overthrowing the former President who was clearly a Russian puppet. Russia is taking by force what it couldn't take through bribes.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The west must go all out on sanctions. Gonna happen sooner or later.. and later is always bad.
And do you think Germany is going to shut down 1/4 of their GDP by stopping trade with the Superpower next door? Not likely no matter what Putin does.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Arming Afghanistan wasn't the problem. Arming them in secret (so most of the population had no idea that the USA was spending half a billion dollars a year on helping them fight the USSR and felt abandoned) and then cutting off the money as soon as the USSR pulled out and leaving the country a mess, rather than helping to rebuild schools and so on was the problem.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ukraine is well within its rights to do so now that Russia has breached the agreement.
I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 2014, it's a little hard to come by.
Russia and China just signed a big longterm gas and oil deal. Any amounts over that, in a scenario where Russia doesn't have other buyers, and China would be able to push the price down as far as they wanted; barely over cost.
Also, China is 9th in the world in natural gas production, and they don't use much; only 5% of their energy usage in 2012.
And they've been working hard to diversify their energy supply. They're not going to stop buying from the countries they just signed trade agreements with. Those are real victories much bigger than a short-term discount. They're also not going to convert factories to a new fuel source just to be supplied by Russia, because Russia is not an honest player; everybody knows, especially the Chinese, that they will raise your prices if you don't act like their puppet. China doesn't like being told what to do. At. All.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Everyone keeps waving around this "US debt is bad" thing like they understand how national economies work. Guess what currency the US debt is issued in? And who prints that currency?
Well, for the US an open conflict started by China in our bond market, that would naturally leave them frozen out of it. They enjoy buying our bonds, so they'd be cutting their own nose. And as the largest bond holder, they'd be destroying their own investments. Our continued bilateral economic friendliness is a basic requirement for China to get any return on those investments.
When they're the biggest bond holder, attacking the market would risk losing their investment, and for the US, our risk is that we would have to write off a bunch of debt. We'd come out ahead in the long term; they could trash our federal budget for a couple years, but most of the US economy is private and independent of the government.
Also, in the short term the dollar would drop, and China would have increased costs in keeping their currency pegged low against. Likely it would rise. That would lower the value of their giant pot of cash, which would be growing quickly without bond purchases. They would be stuck with shrinking liquid assets where they used to have an increasing investment portfolio.
So, no. The whole situation is an object lesson in not buying somebody's debt if you want them to be your enemy; you'll only be able to afford them as friends. China may not be our "best" friend, but their economic friendliness runs deep. Trillions of dollars deep.
It's silly to expect sanctions to accomplish much.
After WWII, the US should have had Patton march east and take care of uncle Stalin.
There was a second chance much more recently to decisively deal with the Russian problem. A bit less than ten years ago, this paper http://belfercenter.ksg.harvar... identified the US as having achieved nuclear primacy (a shorter version can be found printed in Foreign Affairs of that year). It would have been possible at the time for the US to get away with a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia. With most silos and mobile launchers on Russian territory located, a counterforce preemptive nuclear attack by the US would have resulted in the only real retaliation to be from submarine launches, which would have been few enough not to overwhelm missile defense.
The paper generated controversy and there were counterpoints from other academics and some in the military, but there was also a lot of support expressed. In any case, it's at least plausible that the US could have taken the first shot and saved an order of magnitude more pain, suffering, and deaths in the future than it would have generated. No doubt Russia's military build-up in the last decade takes this scenario out of the realm of possibility, and given the evil the russkies are doing and the tons more they've yet to perpetrate, it's a damn shame.
I expect to be modded down, as many here won't understand a sentiment generated by having survived the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. No, things haven't changed. The bear's beastly character is immutable, a fundamental aspect of it that can't be tamed or cured by diplomacy, education, or civilization.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
The question is who is the aggressor here? Lets not forget the US helped violently overthrow a pro-Russian Ukrainan government leading up to this situation.
"R" that you're quoting is the Russian government propaganda rag. You can actually check them on real events in the world, and then check back in 6 months and see what was the truth. They're full of lies every time. I wouldn't trust them for a baseball score.
Check back in 6 months, compare what they reported on this conflict to what really happened. Because they were reporting the Ukrainian protests as being a bunch of Fascists who, if they had their way, would be building concentration camps for Russian speakers. Of course, the protesters won, got new elections, and turned out to be what they appeared to be; moderate youths who want increased relations with the EU.
The majority of Ukrainians wanted to be in the EU, but Yanukovych wouldn't be able to continue raping his country for billions if that happened. It was his pay off for following Putin's orders.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Ukraine has the right to use any and all means necessary to protect itself from this unprovoked aggression by Russia.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yeah, I wouldn't take seriously the post of any AC or anyone whose slashdot id is in the last 10-20% of the id range (you can configure your slashdot settings based on that).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Recent Ukrainian events summed up for those that care:
1954 Crimea was given as a "Gift" to Ukraine by Russia/USSR and Nikita Khrushchev (an ethnic Ukrainian) as a symbolic gesture commemorating the 300th anniversary of Crimea becoming part of the Russian empire.
1991 Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence from Russia
1994 Ukraine signed a treaty with Russia and the USA to disarm its nuclear arsenal in return for a treaty that guaranteed Russia and USA would come to their aid if they were ever invaded.
2010 Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych was elected president. He had been a minister of an eastern Ukrainian province. The US and Europe had supported his opponent, and Russia had supported him. Likely both sides illegally influenced the election with money and espionage. In the following years, there is little doubt he ran the country in the ground, he was a terrible president.
2014 The Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly to remove him from the presidential office. A poll in April showed his approval rating at 5% This event was likely assisted by the US and Europe and was basically a Coup de'etat. Russia freaked out and had Russian agents already in place in Ukraine start stiring up violent unrest. They've basically been in a state of civil war since. Russia is providing troops and hardware, the west seem a little more reluctant to provide direct support.
Russias primary goals are to keep the strategic port in the black sea open and prevent Ukraine from joining the EU.
Wow that is some pretty powerful Russian propaganda you have been drinking there. Calling normal peaceful Ukranians "fascists"? Check. Calling it a "violent overthrow" despite it not being one? Check. Calling the government "ultra nationalist"? Check. Blaming the US despite them having nothing to do with anything? Check. Russians have a "right to use force"? Check.
Thanks for popping in Putin, but your deluded views aren't welcome here.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Actually there are minor fascist elements in Ukraine. And in Russia. And in the US. And every other place in the world.
They certainly aren't controlling any of those countries though, or any cuntries of much consequence.
So.. assuming it is "true" (and if you take at face value anything Ukraine or Russia says you are an idiot) and we apply your idea of penalties, are you also willing to apply those to western nations (ie, US, UK, France, etc...) who have use air assets to bomb other countries, sent special forces into another country (invasion!), sent military "advisors" to help rebels/"freedom fighters", etc? Or shall we just ignore the hypocrisy of it all?
Can only imagine if Ukraine were some country bordering on the US/UK/France/Germany and a similar unstable political situation existed which was at least in part fostered by Russian political meddling (as opposed to Western in Ukraine). The tanks and planes would have rolled the border long ago.
We were busy having our asses kicked by a couple of towel-heads in a foxhole. The multi-trillion dollar juggernaut of the US Military was having it's head handed to them by some IEDs and a few snipers. We couldn't fight a guerilla war with all that cold-war training, and it was already stressing our military.
Furthermore, you're missing the entire point of 10 years ago. There was no PROFIT in nuclear striking Russia. Dick Cheney wasn't interested in attacking anyone he couldn't steal money from on both sides, that's why North Korea was ignored, and Iraq was invaded.
Striking Russia wouldn't do anything except isolate the US from the rest of the world, as we'd be responsible for a Billion deaths, and we'd be spending all our time even now defending ourselves from every other country on Earth, and we'd be starving and bankrupt because China would have cut us off.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
RT is claiming that Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia, in order to defect, and the Ukranian government admits this.
Now counter these pictures of tanks entering from Russia
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Do you trust your information sources?
The only sources disagreeing on whats happening are the Russian government and Russia Today. You'd have to be pretty naieve to take their word on any of this.
Russians are being paid to flood the site with propaganda. Unfortunately it doesn't make any sense so you can't argue with it. You just have to sift through the crap to find the real comments.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
No, the current regime of Russia is a text book Nationalist Socialist regime. Russia is currently a text-book Nazi state. So the factions in Russia which are Nazi are not minor. They are the government.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
That's a rather one-sided view of what happened. Yes, the Soviet Union did invade Afghanistan as part of pushing its global ideology, much like the USA invaded Vietnam. But the stone age state of Afghanistan at the time of the US invasion in 2001 was a direct result of America supporting religious fanatics in a proxy war, the mujahideen, who after the war ended and the Soviet's were defeated went on to become the Taliban. That's why bin Laden is so famously a former ally of the US.
The USA is not only building an empire but doing so in plain sight of everyone. To quote Putin directly:
This principle is most clearly visible in two acts. One is that the sanctions on Iran are built as a "you're with us or against us" model. Any country that is seen by America to be "undermining" the sanctions i.e. not joining in is itself sanctioned. And the second act is again sanctions based: every financial institution in the world is being taken over by Washington via a system of recursive ("viral" if you like) sanctions that require banks to obey the USA even if that would contradict local laws. The goal is to collect tax from American's abroad. It's called FATCA and it's resulted in many, many nations having to repeal their own privacy laws, in order to allow banks to become agents of the US Government. They were given no choice in the matter.
So the USA has found ways of forcing people in countries all over the world to: (a) engage in economic warfare against America's enemies and (b) pay taxes directly to America, all regardless of what the local government wants or how the local people vote.
Being able to conscript people to their fights and force payment of taxes is the very foundation of empire itself.
Don't forget that before this whole mess, the Ukrainian president was going to the EU hat in hand asking for 15 Billion Euros to pay off debts paid to Russia and to fix its infrastructure. Speaking of which, their infrastructure is in complete shambles. When Russia first took Crimea a couple days later the Russian minister of fiance was bitching about how much is was going to cost to fix Crimea (something like 15 Billion over 3 years).
So by all means, if Russia wants to take over Ukraine an incur the expense of actually fixing Ukraine... excellent, I suspect very quickly the whole thing will be a pyrrhic victory.
Also, while they're expending their military forces trying to keep the Ukrainians from engaging in an insurgency against them, we're going to keep putting the screws to them on the global market, causing their currency to go into an inflationary spiral.
As of right now, the Europeans have been hesitant about criticizing Russia too heavy because of fears about their gas supply. However, I can't imagine the Europeans will say nothing if Russia rolls in the tanks. Possibly we'll start shipping NG to the Europeans to further undercut the Russians? Who knows.
However, now that Russia has banned food imports from the EU and the US. How long before the standard of living starts spiraling downwards? I don't imagine that Putin would starve his own people, but who knows?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Hurghada - odprawa paszportowa:
-Nationality?
--Russian
-Occupation?
--No, just visiting.
(from a friend in Poland.)
I'm painfully aware of my own country's misdeeds in the past re: land grabs. But the pattern is clear and we must not forget the lesson: A bully like Hitler in 1938, or Putin in 2014, only has his appetite increased by eating. The West can stop Putin now at a small cost, or deal with him in a few years at a staggering cost. The Russian people deserve better than what will happen to them eventually under Putin's direction. Berlin 1945 == Moscow 2020. For the sake of ordinary Russians, if no one else, Putin's gang must be checked *hard* in their attempts to eat Ukraine piece by piece.
And for good measure, Ukraine should "sell" its ownership in the Ukrainian section of the gas pipeline to a Nato country and then shut off the flow of gas.
Cutting off the flow of gas would hurt Europe a lot more than it would hurt Russia at this point. Entering the winter with your largest gas supplier no longer providing you with the gas that you use for heating would suck. And as gas is fungible, it doesn't matter to Russia if we stop buying it from them, unless everyone else stops buying it from them - if China doesn't join in with the boycott then it just means that they'll be buying more has from Russia because the price of everyone else's gas will go up.
No Russian economy depends on this income, it make up a significant part of their entire national GDP, meanwhile Europe has been finding other alternative sources of energy in case Russia would cut of the supply again as they did after the sanction put on them for the invasion of Georgia. And the gas is not fungible, it would take over a year to build new pipelines to other countries, especially China is a long long way away from the gas going to Europe. Russia would be completely and utterly fucked without the gas, in Europe it would just hurt the home owner who has invested in natural gas heating to save money, they would not be saving money anymore.
Maybe he'll bump into ISIS....
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design