The sanctions and bans clearly will not work to defuse the Ukraine crisis. The Russian public has bought into Putin's nationalist rhetoric. Putin completely controls the political discourse in the mass media within Russia. This year, Kremlin increased pressure even on web based news, social networks, and blogs. Every Western sanction is met with a counter-sanction from the Russian side. The Russian economy and standards of living may suffer (some have serious doubts about the effectiveness of these sanctions), but I don't think they will make Russia back away.
Moreover, it's not clear what is the goal of the western sanctions as their goal is often amorphously described as "deescalate the situation in Ukraine". What does this mean? Russians think that annexation of Crimea is a done deal. Not just Putin, average Russians too. They certainly won't back away from that. As for the instability in east Ukraine, it's not clear how you prove who is escalating what right now? The locals in East Ukraine are certainly as pissed off at Kiev as it gets, specially after deadly Odesa clashes and the coup in Kiev. I don't think they need a lot of encouragement from Putin at this point.
The best way to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, is to help this country rebuild its democratic institutions and economy. While Ukraine is viewed as the victim in this dispute, its government must do more to accommodate the concerns of its Russian-speaking citizens in the East regions. For one, they should be allowed to elect their local government officials.
I'd disagree. This is subjective of course. On my U-Verse dvr, I constantly have a backlog of 60-80 hours of shows. TV series, sports, animal shows, movies, travel shows, etc. I wouldn't have been aware if some of these even existed without taking occasionally time to "browse" what's on those 200 channels. In my view, the biggest problem with cable TV right now is not bundling, but the incessant commercials. A typical news program, sports, or TV series is loaded with commercials. The real content is like 70% of the total. Recording on DVR and skipping forward, is the only way to watch shows, though it's getting annoying to fast forward four-five times during an hour long show.
And why do you compare Putin with Hitler? Why does every authoritarian leader draw comparisons with Hitler?
Hitler rounded up millions of "undesirables", such as Jews, communists, and prisoners of war in concentration camps and had them murdered or starved to death. What was the figure, 10-12million people? He wrote that hideous book called Mein Kampf which was the manifest for everything he was going to do. I don't see any parallels with Putin here.
You don't know what you're talking about. Putin has been in the office of President of Russia or Prime minister for over 15 years. Is he authoritarian? yes. But next Stalin? Please.
By the time Stalin completed his first 15 years as the leader of Soviet communist party, he already managed to murder millions of Soviet people. Stalin's great purge of 1937, resulted in the murder of over 600,000 people while millions of people starved to their deaths in the Holodomor.
Wow, cry me a river over this. Let's expel all whites from the north american continents. Let's declare Kosovo a part of Serbia. Let's declare South Sudan a part of Sudan. Let's join the East Timor back with Indonesia.
Of course most countries will not recognize a vote by separatists. However, that does not make the vote less valid (see Kosovo). People should decide where they belong, not some nationalists in Kiev.
Indeed. Gregory has been posting hysterical anti-Russian garbage for months now, together with a guy called Greg Sattel. These two are the primary anti-Russian neo-con mouthpieces at Forbes.
You are wrong. There was an option to stay in Ukraine. Check your facts. Moreover, the Forbes article is garbage. The guy was posing hysterical anti-Russian garbage for months. The report said that _probably_ 30-50% of voters voted, with 50-60% voting pro-Russian. So why does the guy lowball his numbers? Forbes is the last place you should consult for the truth in international politics, by the way. It's a typical conservative, neo-con mouthpiece.
Actually, the guy who posted the piece on Forbes is just a lying bastard. First, the figures were not official but estimates. Second, the estimates said that the turn out was 30-50% while the pro-Russian vote was 50-60%. So why does the Forbes editor low ball the numbers? Anyways. Personally, I have not respect for Forbes and its neocon conservative hacks, but I am surprised the story got posted on slashdot. Slasdhdot could do better than repeat a completely baseless claim.
It seems much more plausible that more ethnic russians would prefer to stay part of ukraine than ethnic ukrainians would prefer to join with russia because some will be happy with the status quo, but ethnic ukrainians have no particular tie to Russia, they don't even speak the same language.
Why? Your comment is laughable. Zero evidence. Pure speculation.
Not only Crimea is heavily Russian ethnically (60% Russian, and the rest speak Russian language anyways), but it is also home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet ships and headquarters. So, the whole economy depends on Russian navy and tourists. Typical public sector salaries were twice as low under Ukrainian rule compared to Russia.
Here is a google translate version of the actual report on referendum:
" According to almost all survey participants and citizens :
- The vast majority of inhabitants of Sevastopol voted in a referendum to join Russia ( 50-80 % turnout ) , in Crimea on different data for joining Russia voted 50-60% voter turnout with a total of 30-50 % ;
- Inhabitants of Crimea voted not so much for joining Russia , as for the termination, in their words, " corruption and lawlessness thieves dominance Donetsk henchmen." Inhabitants of Sevastopol to vote for annexation to Russia . Fears illegal armed groups in Sevastopol were higher than in other regions of the Crimea."
Now note that the report states that voter turn out was _likely_ between 30 and 50%. These are not even official figures. So why does Forbes's Paul Roderick Gregory say that only 30% were voting? Clearly the guy is low balling the numbers. Next, the report says that 50-60% voted for joining Russia. So once again, why does Paul low ball the numbers? The guy has zero credibility. He has been posting hysterical, anti-Russian pieces on Forbes about once a week.
Let me point out that the article was based in the op-ed column by Paul Roderick Gregory, who referred to a web piece that we can no longer find ourselves. This guy has been posting anti-Russian articles, often quite ridiculous ones, about once a week of Forbes's web site. In my view, this guy is simply a neo-con mouthpiece and has zero credibility.
There is no such thing as "Pro Russian Militants" or pro-Russian anything.
You are full of yourself if you think that at very least one third (namely, the southseast) of Ukraine are not pro-Russian. Why don't you educate yourself before posting? For example read this:
Completely baseless statement. Putin was the strongest, most organized and honest leader Russia had in about a century. He is the one who was cleaning up the Russian government from the criminals that took over in the 90s.
The Ukraine is being annexed on the behalf of a handful of Putin's ultra-rich backers that sit to make untold billions off of the natural resources they can exploit there. (Or ship through there via a pipeline)
Another completely baseless statement. Ukraine is a lot poorer than Russia. If anything, Russia has to subsidize Crimea and other annexed regions big time. There is no money to be made in Ukraine.
As for pipelines, Russia is already building an pipeline on the bed of Baltic to completely bypass these unstable Russophobic regions, like West Ukraine and Poland, to reach Germany directly. Once this pipeline is completed, all others become worthless.
Fortunately Russia is effectively a failed state.
Another baseless garbage statement. A failed state does not launch astronauts into space, field aircraft carriers, conduct Olympic games, or build oil platforms in the arctic.
So corrupt and screwed up that less than a month's worth of economic sanctions are making their house of cards criminal-run economy crater.
Those sanctions are toothless and have nothing to do with the real economy. Let me remind you that when the 2008 Georgian War started, the Russian stocks lost more than half of their value (a lot more than right now) immediate. Yet, they recovered in less than a year. The decisions of nervous western investors are pretty much meaningless. In less than a year, they will be begging to be allowed back into Russian stocks and businesses. Right now Russians are not going to cry a river over losing 1% of economic growth. The slowdown is temorary but annexing Crimea is forever. Big net gain for Russians.
Putin is also a bit of a coward. He'll give up in a few more months when his buddies who are no longer making money hand over fist start thinking about replacing him.
Another stupid and baseless statement. I follow Russian politics and I haven't seen any of key figures of Russian politics replaced within something like 7-8 years. It's exactly the same people running the show. It's actually getting boring IMO.
Your understand nothing about the Georgian War and conflict if you put it in the same tier with Crimea and Ukraine. Absolutely nothing.
As for monitoring the vote, the major international organizations were invited, but refused to attend. It's their problem IMO. Those organizations have not right to determine the legitimacy of people's vote, so they won't be missed.
Forbes reported on Monday that The President of Russia's Council on Civil Society and Human Rights very briefly and supposedly by accident posted the actual results of the Crimean secession vote.
Forbes is one of the primary neo-con internet mouthpieces. They have posted an incredible amount of ridiculous, 100% emotionally driven, and 0% fact-based articles on the Ukraine conflict.
Moreover, the claim that's based on a website that was taken down is pure garbage. At least give us an archive version, please?
There is no way for this claim to be verified as no foreign observers were allowed during the voting process.
Foreign observers were allowed in Crimea, and I have seen many on TV, from Finland, Serbia, etc. If Americans, Germans, or British refused to attend, that's their problem.
The vote is reportedly being conducted again during the 'May 11 referendum on the status of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk.'"
The vote is NOT conducted AGAIN. That's a different referendum, concerning a different territory and has nothing to do with Crimea.
The cost of a Windows and Office license is quite high.
Just as many others, you haven't gotten yet the main point of the article. The cost of the software license is often a relatively small part of the cost of using software. Training the users is also part of these costs.
And by the way, the effective cost of Windows and Office licenses to businesses, government, and universities is much lower than the listed MSRP. When I worked in IT, the license prices was the last thing that worried us. The guy who did installations and setup probably charged more than what the software actually cost to buy.
Why should we worry about earth becoming uninhabitable for humans? What evidence exists out there that all 7 billion lives can be wiped at once, besides the imagined science fiction? Why haven't the astronomers observed such catastrophic events in the past?
The best thing that we can do as a species to make sure we survive and that our planet remains inhabitable is to reduce the population growth, perhaps plan for a reduction of population overall, stick with environmentally sound and sustainable energy generation, agriculture, and fishing.
Russians of Crimea have never lost their Russian identity. They always viewed Russia as their mothership and most didn't want to have anything with the government in Kiev. Russia has a big military presence there because of the Black Sea Fleet. I think it's possible some Russians would prefer to stay with Ukraine, but at the same time it's entirely possible that some ethnic Ukrainians would have preferred to be transferred to Russia. The benefits are obvious: much more stable politics, and a better economy. I think the explanation for the 97% pro-Russian vote is quite simple. Those who didn't want to transfer Crimea to Russia simply stayed home because they thought they'd lose anyways.
Also Russian take over of the Ukrainian base happened after weeks of begging Ukrainians from all bases to switch sides or at least surrender. They were offered citizenship and jobs with Russian military. The problem is with the government in Kiev. Why didn't they just give the order to evacuate Ukrainian troops? Cheap populist politics. No politician in Kiev want to give the order to surrender or evacuate because that would mean formally surrendering Crimea. But they also didn't give anyone the orders to defend with force, because that would mean a war.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the intent is to get more Russians to use Russia's GPS equivalent.
The sanctions and bans clearly will not work to defuse the Ukraine crisis. The Russian public has bought into Putin's nationalist rhetoric. Putin completely controls the political discourse in the mass media within Russia. This year, Kremlin increased pressure even on web based news, social networks, and blogs. Every Western sanction is met with a counter-sanction from the Russian side. The Russian economy and standards of living may suffer (some have serious doubts about the effectiveness of these sanctions), but I don't think they will make Russia back away.
Moreover, it's not clear what is the goal of the western sanctions as their goal is often amorphously described as "deescalate the situation in Ukraine". What does this mean? Russians think that annexation of Crimea is a done deal. Not just Putin, average Russians too. They certainly won't back away from that. As for the instability in east Ukraine, it's not clear how you prove who is escalating what right now? The locals in East Ukraine are certainly as pissed off at Kiev as it gets, specially after deadly Odesa clashes and the coup in Kiev. I don't think they need a lot of encouragement from Putin at this point.
The best way to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, is to help this country rebuild its democratic institutions and economy. While Ukraine is viewed as the victim in this dispute, its government must do more to accommodate the concerns of its Russian-speaking citizens in the East regions. For one, they should be allowed to elect their local government officials.
It's not about suspending GPS. It's about land based sites. Some kind of signal boosters I suppose.
I'd disagree. This is subjective of course. On my U-Verse dvr, I constantly have a backlog of 60-80 hours of shows. TV series, sports, animal shows, movies, travel shows, etc. I wouldn't have been aware if some of these even existed without taking occasionally time to "browse" what's on those 200 channels. In my view, the biggest problem with cable TV right now is not bundling, but the incessant commercials. A typical news program, sports, or TV series is loaded with commercials. The real content is like 70% of the total. Recording on DVR and skipping forward, is the only way to watch shows, though it's getting annoying to fast forward four-five times during an hour long show.
And why do you compare Putin with Hitler? Why does every authoritarian leader draw comparisons with Hitler?
Hitler rounded up millions of "undesirables", such as Jews, communists, and prisoners of war in concentration camps and had them murdered or starved to death. What was the figure, 10-12million people? He wrote that hideous book called Mein Kampf which was the manifest for everything he was going to do. I don't see any parallels with Putin here.
You don't know what you're talking about. Putin has been in the office of President of Russia or Prime minister for over 15 years. Is he authoritarian? yes. But next Stalin? Please.
By the time Stalin completed his first 15 years as the leader of Soviet communist party, he already managed to murder millions of Soviet people. Stalin's great purge of 1937, resulted in the murder of over 600,000 people while millions of people starved to their deaths in the Holodomor.
Wow, cry me a river over this. Let's expel all whites from the north american continents. Let's declare Kosovo a part of Serbia. Let's declare South Sudan a part of Sudan. Let's join the East Timor back with Indonesia.
Of course most countries will not recognize a vote by separatists. However, that does not make the vote less valid (see Kosovo). People should decide where they belong, not some nationalists in Kiev.
Indeed. Gregory has been posting hysterical anti-Russian garbage for months now, together with a guy called Greg Sattel. These two are the primary anti-Russian neo-con mouthpieces at Forbes.
You are wrong. There was an option to stay in Ukraine. Check your facts. Moreover, the Forbes article is garbage. The guy was posing hysterical anti-Russian garbage for months. The report said that _probably_ 30-50% of voters voted, with 50-60% voting pro-Russian. So why does the guy lowball his numbers? Forbes is the last place you should consult for the truth in international politics, by the way. It's a typical conservative, neo-con mouthpiece.
Actually, the guy who posted the piece on Forbes is just a lying bastard. First, the figures were not official but estimates. Second, the estimates said that the turn out was 30-50% while the pro-Russian vote was 50-60%. So why does the Forbes editor low ball the numbers? Anyways. Personally, I have not respect for Forbes and its neocon conservative hacks, but I am surprised the story got posted on slashdot. Slasdhdot could do better than repeat a completely baseless claim.
It seems much more plausible that more ethnic russians would prefer to stay part of ukraine than ethnic ukrainians would prefer to join with russia because some will be happy with the status quo, but ethnic ukrainians have no particular tie to Russia, they don't even speak the same language.
Why? Your comment is laughable. Zero evidence. Pure speculation.
Not only Crimea is heavily Russian ethnically (60% Russian, and the rest speak Russian language anyways), but it is also home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet ships and headquarters. So, the whole economy depends on Russian navy and tourists. Typical public sector salaries were twice as low under Ukrainian rule compared to Russia.
Tatar population is not large at all, about 10%. Even with the 25% Ukrainians, they won't make a majority.
Here is a google translate version of the actual report on referendum:
"
According to almost all survey participants and citizens :
- The vast majority of inhabitants of Sevastopol voted in a referendum to join Russia ( 50-80 % turnout ) , in Crimea on different data for joining Russia voted 50-60% voter turnout with a total of 30-50 % ;
- Inhabitants of Crimea voted not so much for joining Russia , as for the termination, in their words, " corruption and lawlessness thieves dominance Donetsk henchmen ." Inhabitants of Sevastopol to vote for annexation to Russia . Fears illegal armed groups in Sevastopol were higher than in other regions of the Crimea ."
Now note that the report states that voter turn out was _likely_ between 30 and 50%. These are not even official figures. So why does Forbes's Paul Roderick Gregory say that only 30% were voting? Clearly the guy is low balling the numbers. Next, the report says that 50-60% voted for joining Russia. So once again, why does Paul low ball the numbers? The guy has zero credibility. He has been posting hysterical, anti-Russian pieces on Forbes about once a week.
Let me point out that the article was based in the op-ed column by Paul Roderick Gregory, who referred to a web piece that we can no longer find ourselves. This guy has been posting anti-Russian articles, often quite ridiculous ones, about once a week of Forbes's web site. In my view, this guy is simply a neo-con mouthpiece and has zero credibility.
There is no such thing as "Pro Russian Militants" or pro-Russian anything.
You are full of yourself if you think that at very least one third (namely, the southseast) of Ukraine are not pro-Russian. Why don't you educate yourself before posting? For example read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
Russia is a corrupt cleptocracy run by criminals.
Completely baseless statement. Putin was the strongest, most organized and honest leader Russia had in about a century. He is the one who was cleaning up the Russian government from the criminals that took over in the 90s.
The Ukraine is being annexed on the behalf of a handful of Putin's ultra-rich backers that sit to make untold billions off of the natural resources they can exploit there. (Or ship through there via a pipeline)
Another completely baseless statement. Ukraine is a lot poorer than Russia. If anything, Russia has to subsidize Crimea and other annexed regions big time. There is no money to be made in Ukraine.
As for pipelines, Russia is already building an pipeline on the bed of Baltic to completely bypass these unstable Russophobic regions, like West Ukraine and Poland, to reach Germany directly. Once this pipeline is completed, all others become worthless.
Fortunately Russia is effectively a failed state.
Another baseless garbage statement. A failed state does not launch astronauts into space, field aircraft carriers, conduct Olympic games, or build oil platforms in the arctic.
So corrupt and screwed up that less than a month's worth of economic sanctions are making their house of cards criminal-run economy crater.
Those sanctions are toothless and have nothing to do with the real economy. Let me remind you that when the 2008 Georgian War started, the Russian stocks lost more than half of their value (a lot more than right now) immediate. Yet, they recovered in less than a year. The decisions of nervous western investors are pretty much meaningless. In less than a year, they will be begging to be allowed back into Russian stocks and businesses. Right now Russians are not going to cry a river over losing 1% of economic growth. The slowdown is temorary but annexing Crimea is forever. Big net gain for Russians.
Putin is also a bit of a coward. He'll give up in a few more months when his buddies who are no longer making money hand over fist start thinking about replacing him.
Another stupid and baseless statement. I follow Russian politics and I haven't seen any of key figures of Russian politics replaced within something like 7-8 years. It's exactly the same people running the show. It's actually getting boring IMO.
Your understand nothing about the Georgian War and conflict if you put it in the same tier with Crimea and Ukraine. Absolutely nothing.
As for monitoring the vote, the major international organizations were invited, but refused to attend. It's their problem IMO. Those organizations have not right to determine the legitimacy of people's vote, so they won't be missed.
Sounds like you enjoy quoting pieces that suit your views instead of studying the facts on the ground.
Forbes reported on Monday that The President of Russia's Council on Civil Society and Human Rights very briefly and supposedly by accident posted the actual results of the Crimean secession vote.
Forbes is one of the primary neo-con internet mouthpieces. They have posted an incredible amount of ridiculous, 100% emotionally driven, and 0% fact-based articles on the Ukraine conflict.
Moreover, the claim that's based on a website that was taken down is pure garbage. At least give us an archive version, please?
There is no way for this claim to be verified as no foreign observers were allowed during the voting process.
Foreign observers were allowed in Crimea, and I have seen many on TV, from Finland, Serbia, etc. If Americans, Germans, or British refused to attend, that's their problem.
The vote is reportedly being conducted again during the 'May 11 referendum on the status of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk.'"
The vote is NOT conducted AGAIN. That's a different referendum, concerning a different territory and has nothing to do with Crimea.
The cost of a Windows and Office license is quite high.
Just as many others, you haven't gotten yet the main point of the article. The cost of the software license is often a relatively small part of the cost of using software. Training the users is also part of these costs.
And by the way, the effective cost of Windows and Office licenses to businesses, government, and universities is much lower than the listed MSRP. When I worked in IT, the license prices was the last thing that worried us. The guy who did installations and setup probably charged more than what the software actually cost to buy.
Why should we worry about earth becoming uninhabitable for humans? What evidence exists out there that all 7 billion lives can be wiped at once, besides the imagined science fiction? Why haven't the astronomers observed such catastrophic events in the past?
The best thing that we can do as a species to make sure we survive and that our planet remains inhabitable is to reduce the population growth, perhaps plan for a reduction of population overall, stick with environmentally sound and sustainable energy generation, agriculture, and fishing.
Manned space programs are significantly more expensive and the benefits are dubious.
Keynes was an economist, and one of the best ever. Unlike you. And most of your assertions are garbage.
Russia will announce the formation of G1 and hold the G1 talks in Sochi as planned.
Russians of Crimea have never lost their Russian identity. They always viewed Russia as their mothership and most didn't want to have anything with the government in Kiev. Russia has a big military presence there because of the Black Sea Fleet. I think it's possible some Russians would prefer to stay with Ukraine, but at the same time it's entirely possible that some ethnic Ukrainians would have preferred to be transferred to Russia. The benefits are obvious: much more stable politics, and a better economy. I think the explanation for the 97% pro-Russian vote is quite simple. Those who didn't want to transfer Crimea to Russia simply stayed home because they thought they'd lose anyways.
Also Russian take over of the Ukrainian base happened after weeks of begging Ukrainians from all bases to switch sides or at least surrender. They were offered citizenship and jobs with Russian military. The problem is with the government in Kiev. Why didn't they just give the order to evacuate Ukrainian troops? Cheap populist politics. No politician in Kiev want to give the order to surrender or evacuate because that would mean formally surrendering Crimea. But they also didn't give anyone the orders to defend with force, because that would mean a war.