New gas pipeline - "first deliveries in late 2015".

Entry on Wikipedia about it. Goes through the Black Sea.

Twitter is buzzing with (alleged) photos of Russian artillery, armored personnel carriers and other AFV's along the eastern border. Russia admits to conducting military training near the border involving light infantry vehicles and attack helicopters. Maybe it is a drill, maybe it isn't; they said the same thing about a "military exercise" near Crimea before seizing it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/world ... raine.html

Putin is planning to use Ukranian woman and children as human shields for the Russian army:


just so you don't think it's propaganda, the quote is in the Russian pro-state press:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://izvestia.ru/news/566953&langpair=ru|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

note: I just copied the translator results, but the Russian conjunction "a" means "but" most of the time. Both Google and Bing online translators are not aware of this fact, even though it is one of the first words you learn when learning Russian. (edit: come to think of it, "A" means "and" when it is the first word of a question, never before a comma though) Thus the correctly translated sentence above should be something like: "Not in front, but rear".

I think war is likely to break out in Ukraine. At first I found it to be exceeding unlikely but now after reading there was a death a of pro-Russian supporter in Kharkiv and Putin saying he will defend compatriots in all of Ukraine, it seems that he will use this to his advantage.

Apart from that the situation seems to be only getting worse, I really hope war doesn't break out though.

Obviously Putin is moving troops in the frontier in case the Ukrainians try to stop the referendum by military means.

There is no way the government in Kiev can be that deluded. Maybe Putin thinks they are but I'm pretty sure the new president has mentally accepted that Crimea is gone and can't be taken by military force. They have half the reserve troops, 1/3rd the tanks, 1/4th the attack choppers, 1/5th the artillery, 1/6th the active duty troops, 1/7th the combat aircraft, and 1/9th the battleships. Their lone submarine hasn't run its engine in ten years, half of their combat-ready fighter jets were based in Crimea (and therefore now Russian-controlled), and the majority of their tanks are nearly 50 years old. If you include reserve equipment in storage, the ratios for tanks and artillery more than double and nearly triple (respectively).

Russian military has taken a village north of the Crimean border: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fconflict.rbc.ua%2Frus%2Fmid-ukrainy-nazyvaet-vysadku-desanta-rf-v-hersonskoy-obl--15032014173500

"John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov fail to reach agreement as Crimea prepares for referendum on joining Russia"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... ail-london

(interesting what readers make of the situation - concerning Nuland in particular)

Bulletins for tommorow's referendum already stamped with the Russian option: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdirectpress.ru%2Fv-ukraine%2F37044-na-krymskikh-byulletenyakh-uzhe-stoyat-pravilnye-otmetki

Those aren't ballots, they're leaflets (like a campaign advertisement).

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/03/1 ... hat-wasnt/

An article from 2010, readers comments are interesting

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/curr ... e-day.html

The readers commentary is the typical news site conspiracy potpourri. None of it is meaningful to this thread, and the article's premise is itself absolutely hilarious in retrospect.

Yes hilarious. All this hasn't happened "over night", things have been building up especially over the last decade. Some of the comments in the links I've posted are interesting you just have to sift through them.

Knowing your gimmick, I'm sure the "Germany and Russia will join up to turn the British into serfs" was probably what excited you most. But yes, what Russia preparing for a land invasion of the Ukraine is about is joining the Eurozone. Sure. Whatever.

Crimea officially joined Russia, don't really think that surprises anyone though...

I'm not taking the bait , sorry.

A few of you need guiding by the hand it seems. The comments I was mostly referring to concerned Victoria Nuland, also about all the machinations that go on.
If I see a readers comment that to me stands out, I spend time cross referencing news articles and researching from different sources to verify if there's any substance to it.
I wish I did get excited by the news/comments but the more I read and learn about world affairs I just feel saddened, and jaded by all the constant duplicity.

If there was any doubt before as to the depths of your delusions, they're erased now. References to Nuland? She was an largely irrelevant special envoy collecting a government check when this article was typed up (along w/the comments) in November of 2010.

Please read all the related posts before you respond.
Let's not reduce this thread into a slanging match as this is a serious topic and I'm sure most realise how the situation in the east is very precarious.

I was obviously responding to the post DIRECTLY ABOVE IT.







Given what I've said thus far in thread, clearly I must have no clue.

The US and Canada are opening up massive oil shale and sands deposits that will basically make energy sources outside of North America completely irrelevant to our existence. Europe and Russia can go fuck themselves, at this point.

Not. Our. Problem.

How awfully American of you.

That mindset is not only compatible with a portion of the US, ya know. You only have to look at our own PVV over here in the Netherlands.

We're not your daddy. We're not your benefactor. We're not your friends (a nation-state, as Henry Kissinger once aptly noted, has no friends). This whole exercise is, on Russia's part, an attempt to dominate energy resources. So be it.

Not. Our. Problem.

Hahahaha. Wow, you really do think you're the centre of the world, don't you?

Not at all, quite the opposite, in fact. I see no reason for American involvement in this pseudo-crisis because I see the US as one nation among many, rather than the "center of the world."

Yeah, I've definitely noticed a bit of a double standard when it comes to foreign perspectives on U.S. foreign policy. So much (deserved) anger/resentment toward our perpetual need to be the World Police, sticking our hands into any and every global crisis that might possibly have some negative impact on U.S. interests, but then at the same time we get criticized when we *don't* do these things. Shit, just a couple weeks ago I saw some opinion piece in the BBC blasting the US for being ineffectual in our threats toward Putin.

Right, so as long as it doesn't involve your country personally we should just ignore whatever land-grabbing countries like Russia do. That way Russia'll just take the entire Eastern Europe, because they have no resources to defend themselves, and Western Europe and the US wouldn't give a shit. Is that really what you want the world to amount to?

Invading another's territory is where I, and developed regions like Western Europe and the US should, draw the line. Especially if it's done by a country like Russia, who are perfectly capable of continueing this behavior.

As far as I'm concerned the EU needs to get together, make a (insanely) huge investment and get all our military to build enough solar panel and windmill parks and nuclear plants to ensure that we are no longer reliant on a country that has shown to be unreliable, corrupt and power hungry and just shut down their gas pipes. Because let's not forget, Russia needs us to buy their gas as much as we need it.

Are you personally willing to put yourself on the front line in the Ukraine? How many of your countrymen are you interested in seeing die over what's happening there? Look, no one is saying you should cheer this situation, but sometimes the best thing to do is let situations "resolve" themselves. That's the case even if the short term results are nasty.

Due to my educational level, it's more likely that I'd be somewhere behind the frontlines, but I am concidering joining the army, and yes, I would be willing to die for democracy.

You'd be willing to die for a European take on Ukraine's democracy, too?

Still better than letting that cancer Russia go about their business.

I think it's just a little bit to early to start calling Russia "the cancer"

Ukraine isn't a real country. It's an appendage of European Russia with no real independent history, except during the last 20 years, when it has essentially been a failed state. It is historically a Russian possession, and I see no reason to get our noses out of joint if it becomes a Russian possession once more.

More importantly, your argument is all fallacy and emoting.

Yes Russia must abide by the democratic process and listen to the people, just like how its done, er, here

The idea that this is all about natural gas sales strikes me as overly simplistic, even naive. As was pointed out earlier in the thread, for years Russia has been building pipelines under the Baltic Sea precisely so they don't have to worry about negotiations with Ukraine or any other country about whether or not to build pipelines on their territory.

I have a better idea for Europe, collectively: live up to your NATO obligations. Of the 28 NATO countries, only 3 of them (UK, US, and Greece) actually meet their domestic military expenditure requirements. Another 4 (Poland, Estonia, Turkey, and France) come fairly close. The remaining 19 range from meeting 75% of their spending obligations to meeting less than 10%. Putin and all of his successors are impressed by tanks, not windmills. Windmills impress nobody.

I have an even better idea: dissolve the NATO altogether. Its defensive role was never more than lip service, it's a tool of aggressive foreign policy serving all the wrong goals. At least during the cold war it still had the semblance of a justified institution - from the perspective of capitalist self-preservation that is. Now it's little more than a way for dominant members to drag others into their militarized economic campaigns, which run under the guise of "humanitarian interventions", which is PC-speak for "just wars" and a rotten concept per se. The Balkan wars, Afghanistan, people should have realized by now what the NATO really represents.

I agree that NATO has outlived its purpose and I have no strong objection to dissolving it (nor to the U.S. leaving it) but I'm not really sure where the rest of that paragraph is coming from...especially given that it's written by someone living in a country that spent four decades living under the delightful auspices of Soviet foreign policy.

Part of the country. Not sure what you're implying though.

Earthcubed and inhumanist: yes it is long past time for NATO to end. It lost all legitimacy when it bombed Serbia in support of the KLA, a known terrorist group. This has only slight connection to the thread topic though; as I still haven't found clear evidence that the earlier EU-Ukraine Association Agreement contained bringing the country into NATO. It is sort of implied however.

There is no reason why they wouldn't want to make Ukraine join the NATO sooner or later. The continuous east-expansion of the NATO is enough of a clue I think. All contrary promises made by the west towards post-soviet Russia already turned out to be diplomatic lies. Little wonder Russia is no longer willing to sit back and let it happen.



http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 63315.html