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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.
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.
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
Wasn't it a wonderful, peaceful time, so long ago? Ah, those were the days.
Yeah, both Hitler and Putin put on good games before moving on to occupying what they believed their natural sphere's of influence in eastern europe.
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!
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
Hurghada - odprawa paszportowa:
-Nationality?
--Russian
-Occupation?
--No, just visiting.
(from a friend in Poland.)