Ukraine problems

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Volkodlak
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Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

Russians have taken Crimea then Ukraine puts military on full alert and orders full military mobilisation now there are reports that Poland is moving tanks too ukraine border.

should we be worried?
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Terastas »

Pretty much everyone I know in Russia has already apologized for their leader's idiotic behavior (to which I usually respond that, since they put up with Bush, that makes us even). So I'm pretty confident that, if Putin does attempt to invade Ukraine or elsewhere, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Yanukovych.

So. . . Well, yeah, I would be concerned. Just not necessarily about the possibility of war.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Alpha »

Well, if they do invade, there goes all of that goodwill that was generated towards them during the winter Olympics.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Terastas »

Alpha wrote:Well, if they do invade, there goes all of that goodwill that was generated towards them during the winter Olympics.
If nothing else, I'm looking forward to seeing how all the American theocrats that have been having raging orgasms over his anti-gay policies will respond to that.

Putin, meanwhile, looks like he's trying to talk out of both sides of his mouth; trying to appease the international community and the warmongers simultaneously by claiming he didn't send troops into Ukraine (but it'd be legitimate if he did!).
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Terastas wrote:Well, yeah, I would be concerned. Just not necessarily about the possibility of war.
Ummm... I have to disagree with you there. Putin is making noises about holding a (presumably rigged) referendum on Crimean "independence". I don't personally have any fundamental issue with Crimea going over to Russia, but it should be a free and fair election. Otherwise we undermine every ally we have ever had in the region, and give Putin even more justification to do whatever-the-hell evil cr@p he wants down the road. The problem is that it looks for all the world like he's convinced himself that the Ukraine is his personal plaything, and the rest of the international community can go suck an egg -- and that's just the natural order or something, and we're going to completely cave to him. Added to this is the frail condition of the Russian economy. If Germany and Poland hit Gazprom with sanctions (which is entirely plausible should Putin just decide to snap up Crimea), then the entire Russian economy will collapse overnight.

It's possible that Putin doesn't really understand the political and economic situation (it's been hypothesized that he's in a very tight bubble), and this whole thing could deteriorate very quickly. Almost as bad would be the Yanukovich scenario: Ukraine doesn't have nukes -- Russia does and they're not as secure as we would all like.

There's really nothing but bad options here.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Terastas »

Uniform Two Six wrote:If Germany and Poland hit Gazprom with sanctions (which is entirely plausible should Putin just decide to snap up Crimea), then the entire Russian economy will collapse overnight.
If that's true, that just makes me even more confident this won't result in war. Putin might have his head firmly wedged between his buttocks, but the rest of the Russian parliament and its industry leaders can't all be there along with him. If they even so much as imply that they could put sanctions on Russia, Putin and his ideas of Soviet restoration are going to get dropped by the majority of all Russians like a lead turd.

Billionaire investors are a panicky bunch that are easily provoked (and in this case, easily manipulated). The Tea Party learned that lesson the hard way when they forced the budget fight in 2011, and later, forced the government shutdown; just the fact that they were even entertaining the thought of causing the U.S. to default on its debt caused a panic that erased months of economic recovery. The same could easily happen in Russia.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Terastas wrote: Putin might have his head firmly wedged between his buttocks, but the rest of the Russian parliament and its industry leaders can't all be there along with him.
They probably won't be. What's your point? This isn't the U.S. (or any other semi-civilized country) we're talking about. It's Russia. If you're a member of the oligarchy, you toe Putin's line even if he's advocating investing the entire treasury in shares of New Coke or beachfront property in Nevada -- because they know if they don't, they'll suffer an "unfortunate" case of polonium-poisoning.
Terastas wrote: If they even so much as imply that they could put sanctions on Russia, Putin and his ideas of Soviet restoration are going to get dropped by the majority of all Russians like a lead turd.
The average Russian knows about as much about macro-economics as the average American does. Putin is playing the Russian-nationalism card, and for the moment it seems to be working. Remember that even after Hurricane Katrina, Bush was still polling at 24%. A quarter of Americans thought he was doing a great job -- simply because he was constantly mashing the nationalism button. Russia is even worse. Trust me, the average Russian just doesn't care. Putin will frame the whole thing as the United States interfering with Russian sovereignty and they'll eat it up.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

i see there is posibility of civil war in ukraine, but for the moment its just a terrorist operation whad do you think uniform?
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Eh... it's difficult to say. I don't think the situation really fits nicely into either of those categories (civil war, or terrorism). This whole thing is supremely complicated and has all sorts of convoluted elements to it. At its heart, I would say that this is more of a political disagreement than anything else -- one that has spiraled out of control to an extent. Ukraine (ethnic Ukranians, that is) appear to be leaning heavily toward closer integration with western Europe, and want economic ties to the E.U. because they see economic ties to Russia as something that will continue to draw in the sort of mafia-esque style of corruption that Putin nurtures on his side of the border. They also seem to want (to a lesser extent) inclusion to some degree or another, in NATO, as a guarantee of their territorial sovereignty. All this is driven by an historical relationship with Russia (or more accurately, the Soviet Union) which was not a pleasant experience, and what they see going on in Moscow is pushing some major fear-buttons on the ethnic Ukranian population. Remember that they were badly discriminated against historically.

This is complicated, however by the fact that Ukraine is not politically (or even ethnically) homogenous anymore. A good deal of heavy manufacturing in the post-World War II era relocated into Ukraine due to accessible natural resources and a generally milder climate. That drew Russians in because of all of the new jobs created. What this means is that the heavily industrialized Donetsk region isn't necessarily all that Ukranian any more. Crimea is an even worse situation as it was never really Ukranian in its identity (although it wasn't particularly Russian historically either). So now you have significant sections of the country that are ethnically Russian, who feel little loyalty to their countrymen in the west of the country. Yanukovich was their guy and the fact that the guy was as crooked as werewolf's hind leg was entirely secondary to the facts that he was pro-Russian and overthrown in a coup (never mind that that's not what happened exactly, he fled the country).

You also have to deal with the fact that Ukraine's tug towards the west is more for emotional reasons. The economics aren't really there. In real terms Russia brings more to the table than the E.U. or the U.S. ever could. The Ukranian economy is really systematically set up to integrate with Russia, and if they were ever to pivot to the E.U. they're going to have some serious problems since the old state-run industries dating back to the Soviet era aren't really set up to compete in the much more dynamic business environment in places like Germany, France or the U.K.. If this pivot ever comes off, Ukraine is going to go into something of an economic tail-spin for a few years, and the ethnic Russians in the Donetsk region know full well that they're going to be the ones to take it on the chin, since that's where all the manufacturing is.

The final layer to this little onion is Putin. He want's to keep Ukraine firmly in his little sphere of influence. Personally, I think he's far more concerned that Ukraine might join NATO, than he is about it joining the E.U., but that's just a guess. Given how much economic and financial pain this is going to cause Russia, nothing much else makes sense -- although his heavy-handed methods of dealing with the Crimea thing make that scenario more likely, not less...

Outside of the Donetsk region, Crimea, and a few other hot-spots like Odessa, Ukraine looks mostly peaceful. Now that the elections are over, I think the central government in Kiev will probably move quickly to restore law and order in the troubled regions. Despite this pretty significant battle at the Donetsk airport, I don't really think a true civil war is about to break out -- Ukraine is not Syria. The only real wild-card here is Russia, specifically Putin. If he decides that he's not going to lose Ukraine no matter what, then he has the military power to roll over the country right up to the Polish border if he wants. I don't think he's going to go that far, but I'm not firm in that conviction. I think he's going to hold on to Crimea and just absorb it into Russia forever, and use his little proxies in the east of Ukraine to diddle with the government in Kiev to punish them for as long as they refuse to toe his line.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

thank you for the info uniform :)
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

First piece of good news in a while: NATO says that Russia is withdrawing about two-thirds of their troop strength from the Ukrainian border. Putin may have just blinked. Hopefully the sanctions are biting hard enough that they have finally gotten their attention.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

i dont think it would help much he still got one-third there
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I wouldn't be so sure. If my math is right, that leaves him only about 13,000 troops. Ukraine has two full armored divisions, plus a whole bunch of infantry. Their individual unit quality probably isn't all that great (although neither are the Russians), but the basic rule of thumb is that you want at least a three-to-one advantage if you're thinking about offensive action. Even if successful, that could wind up being awfully costly for the Russians.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I see that Putin waited until the State Department was up to its eyeballs in trouble in Iraq (and thus, otherwise engaged) before sending tanks across the frontier to the rebels. I wholeheartedly agree with the Ukrainian foreign minister in that Putin is a "dickhead".

EDIT: Reuters is reporting that Finland is taking up the issue of potentially approaching NATO for full membership in the alliance due to Russian activities in Ukraine. Reportedly, they're worried Putin will try to invade again. This thing may backfire on old Vlad-the-Conqueror in unexpected ways.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

now its getting serious someone downed passenger airliner with 295 souls onboard.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

My first reaction: HOLY SH*T!!!
??
However, upon further reflection, I'd be suspicious of this. First off, the crash site is a bit north of the filed flight plan. Second, this is another Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777s going down mysteriously. If it had been any other airline that got "shot down" I'd be more willing to believe it. If it really does turn out to have been shot down... Well then, Malaysian Airlines is having a really bad year. More likely, I'd be inclined to suspect that there's something systemically wrong with the airline -- some sort of maintenance issue, or (my growing suspicion) they're shipping hazmat of some sort and not paying close enough attention to what they're doing. The 777 has one of the best safety records in the industry, and in one single year Malaysian Airlines has now lost two all of a sudden. No way. That's too much of a coincidence. This was an accident and I'll bet it turns out that Malaysian Airlines has been goofing off somehow.

EDIT:
Okay... HOLY SH*T!!!
??
Okay, now it's official. CNN is reporting that a senior U.S. official (speaking on condition of anonymity) has confirmed that Flight 17 was shot down. He was quoted a stating that the U.S. had radar tracking of the entire event, and that it was definitively a missile strike, although they do not know for certain who was responsible. That strongly suggests that there's a Burke Class destroyer loitering off Crimea, and they caught the whole thing on their SPY-1 array. Of course, everybody is pointing fingers at everybody else. Worse, we may never know who did it, since everybody has the SA-N-7 Gadfly system there; The Russians have it (they invented it), the Ukrainians have it (they inherited it from the Soviets), and the separatists have it (they have reportedly captured a Ukrainian air defense station which had it) -- and nobody wants to own this particular clusterf**k.

What a nightmare.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I was just checking online, and found out a surprising fact: Due to low availability, the losses in the last few months have wiped out about half of the Ukrainian Air Force's operational aircraft. They still have a sizable number of planes, but they've been cannibalizing them for spares for years. The rebels have managed to take out half a dozen Su-25 Frogfoot close air support planes in the last month alone. No way they're managing that on their own. That's the Russians.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Well, Reuters just ran a story that caught my attention. They have a tendency to focus in more on economic news and they brought up a point that I hadn't really thought about before. The Donbas region is collapsing economically as a result of the fighting (not surprising), but what I didn't realize was that much of that is because a significant chunk of the industry in the area is actually state-owned. The whole place is basically a throwback to the old Soviet system, which the Ukraine inherited when it splintered off in 1991. What that means, though is that the people who are fighting in many cases owe their paychecks to the government in Kiev, ultimately. Now, what that portends is that if the fighting continues for any length of time, they're screwed permanently because Kiev has been losing money on that garbage for years. Their only hope is if they manage to splinter off and join up with Russia, like they're obviously planning -- only there's a tiny problem with that logic: If Russia gets hammered by international sanctions (which they will if they annex the Donbas), then they won't be able to afford the absurdly inefficient industries either.

You know, if the Ukrainians are smart, they might just let the whole region go. Either the Russians cut them adrift in the long-term, and they're forced to come crawling back (letting Kiev negotiate pretty much whatever terms they want), or Vlad decides to make a point and subsidizes the region with money Russia doesn't have (thereby seriously weakening Ukraine's only real strategic threat in the region).

This whole thing started over economic issues (the ethnic-Russians fearing that a loss of Russian influence in Kiev would ultimately lead to economic reforms that would disenfranchise them), and assuming that that still holds true, the break-away region may soon have to face the reality that this whole thing just isn't going to break in their favor...

...Unless, of course, old Vlad-The-Conqueror decides to throw a fit and just take the whole place by force.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

lovec1990 wrote:i see there is posibility of civil war in Ukraine...
I think the events of the last week have sort of put the lie to the idea that this is in any way a true civil war. With Russian armored formations taking the lead, it's pretty clear that this was a Russian thing from the very beginning. Now that Ukraine is going to petition NATO for full membership (and apparently Finland is thinking about doing so too), it's hard to see what exactly Putin is trying to do here.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

i think things are getting worse ukrainian defense minister sad russia is threatening with nuclear attack, but i do not belive there will be such attack because no sane person would use a nuke exspecialy on a neighboor country.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I'm not sure where the Ukrainians are getting their press-relations people nowadays, but the current crop have this weird obsession with hyperbole (and tendency towards the hysterical rant). Of course the same could be said of the Russian Foreign Ministry and their press conferences -- where does this preoccupation with conflating Ukraine with the Nazis come from, anyway? So, I also agree that the nuclear thing is absurd. Putin is playing some sort of angle here. God only knows what that angle is, though. Russia is not going to win this thing in the long run. I find it at least 50/50 odds that Ukraine joins NATO now, and probably the same could be said for Finland. If Russia follows through on its (vaguely worded) threat to cut off all of Europe from its natural gas exports (which also makes no sense since that's just about the only sector of the Russian economy that's doing well right now), there is always the option of placing a total embargo on the Russian city of Kaliningrad, which is completely surrounded by NATO countries. This whole thing is totally perplexing, because it doesn't seem to make any sense.

Which leads me to my next point. Your operative phrase above was "sane person", which in the context of Putin is something of an assumption.
:D

EDIT: Hey, lovec I just thought of something. Much of Europe (and presumably including Slovenia) is heavily reliant upon Russian natural gas. How worried are people in your neck of the woods that the Russians are going to turn off the tap? Apparently the Czechs are really raising a stink at the E.U. about all this, but what is the feeling on the ground where you are? Is the sanctions-route the U.S. is taking being seen as hypocritical since we're not in the same boat with regard to our energy supplies?
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Volkodlak »

we are not worryed at all, because we are not so depended on it in slovenia around 15% of population is using it but Czechs and some other countrys hame more than 50% of population that depends on russian gas.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I tell you, this whole thing has taken a turn for the surreal. The Estonians are actually asking for 10,000 U.S. troops to be permanently stationed in their country. We pulled out the lion's share of our forces from Europe back in the 90s, and I never thought I'd ever see the other countries in NATO asking for us to put them back in. The only thing weirder is that the Poles are asking for German troops to prop up their eastern border in case Putin actually does decide to "take Kiev in two weeks" as he got quoted as saying to the Spanish. Seriously, every week this drags on, the more it's starting to feel like some episode of The Twilight Zone or something.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Apparently the Russians had to close the banks because the Ruble is in free-fall. I don't think Putin has a clue what he's doing or how to get out of it. The only country that's more goofed-up by this right now is Ukraine. This is really sad.
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Re: Ukraine problems

Post by Uniform Two Six »

I just saw pictures of the Donetsk Prokofiev International Airport (or rather what little is left of it) the other day. Wow. Brand new and now it's just gone. I don't even want to think of how much artillery they had to fire to get that level of devastation. The whole place looks like a big garden of craters.

No way that's the rebels on their own. That's Russian hardware.

The new incoming U.S. SecDef is now floating the idea of arming the Ukrainian military with American weapons (apparently including tactical aircraft). I'm frankly not sure where to stand on that. Even though this is not a true civil war, actively escalating it feels like a bad idea. On the other hand, if the Russians are going to do it, why not put some pressure on them. The fact that their economy is nosing into a full-blown depression obviously hasn't worked. (Called it)
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