Ukraine say's Russia has invaded

This really cracked me up though:



Note to self: don’t look at funny stuff when drinking ginger beer, extremely unpleasant to choke on, especially if it goes up your nose.

 

This is quite a good read:

http://opendemocracy.net/anatol-lieven/why-obama-shouldn’t-fall-for-putin’s-ukrainian-folly

 

My mother grew up in USSR controlled Ukraine all the way up to her teen years where her family moved to Cuba. Ukrainian language was outlawed in writing and speech, my mother only knows Russian thanks to them, then she learned Spanish in Cuba, and finally english here in the USA .

History repeats itself

 

He has some good points and I don't see why America thinks that it has the right to say anything.

http://rt.com/news/putin-address-ten-quotes-778/

 

He has an awful lot of spin.
What countries has the US annexed again?

 

the world is going all :woo::woo::woo:

why don't we spread some :love::love::love:

 

Looks like Vladimir is trying to rebuild the old USSR. His speech the other day was firghtening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26658582

Baza

 

Sifu ben or whatever you want to be addressed as, do as I say don't argue or complain because our way is the best and only way because we are right proven over time, do as we say or we will not feed you.

 

Off the top of my head: Texas, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, and various groups of islands in the Pacific whose names I find difficult to remember.

(I'm not sure that making comparisions between Russia and America serves any purpose, but since you asked the question, I thought it only polite to reply. )

 

That's me being America and just a little sarcastic and joking nothing against you Big smile.

 

LOL, if we play the pre-1940 game I'm pretty sure Russia wins hands down
My point was that there's a lot of "one rule for America and another for everyone else" rhetoric being used by the Russians, but the truth is that the US hasn't land-grabbed since 1898, and then under very different circumstances to what we see here. Indeed the Russians are trying to paint the Crimea as Texas, but the situation is probably the complete opposite.

 

Saw this in the news just now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26680250

The EU has signed an association agreement with Ukraine's un-elected government. Can this be considered legal or democratic? Does an un-elected government represent the will of the Ukrainian people and their wishes for their future? Was there a referendum for this decision? If the US/EU were really so concerned with the wellbeing of the Ukrainian people, would they take such action?

I suppose one can argue that the reason the former government was overthrown was as a result of that government’s failure to sign the association agreement in the first place, but all of this was happening in one (capital) city whereas we know for a fact that Ukraine is divided virtually in half by pro EU and pro Russia sides.

Furthermore, we know one of the main divergent points for this, so far cold conflict, was the EU's insistence that Ukraine "must pick a side" as opposed to Russia's suggestion that both EU and Russia could help Ukraine out of its dire socio-economic situation. To me it looks like a typical divide and conquer tactic for furthering specific interests.

 

Russia has forced people's hands. I should also point out that the Russians told the Ukranians before the revolution that if they moved towards the EU they'd turn the gas off and close the border, which is the exact same thing they threatened the last time the Ukraine talked about the EU as well, I'd hardly say the Russians are non-agitating easygoing peacemakers.

 

The "land grab" is just rhetoric from one side's mass media.

Crimea is historically Russian land, has only been in Ukraine for 60 odd years and is populated by pro-Russian and majorly Russian population.

I don’t see what is so odd about these people choosing their side. Their choice seems pretty obvious given the alternative.

The "one rule for America and another for everyone else" is fact as far as I see it, the US has consistently ignored international norms and opinion to go on numerous military adventures which continue to this day and exceed well beyond its territory. Whereas, Russia is protecting its legitimate interests in its immediate region from the likes of the US and their reckless, destabilising and dangerous behaviour.

 

Which people? The pro Russia or pro EU crowd?

I’d like to see a source for this, sounds like more mass-media rhetoric.

Though realistically, why would you trade a strategic product with a partner who is being led away from your sphere of influence and in to the hands of your economic nemesis? Does anyone have any entitlement to Russia’s energy products, including Ukraine? What is wrong with using your resources to advance your economic and strategic interests? I think you will find this is pretty standard practice undertaken by any government which can exert leverage on others with its resources.

Sure, but compare this to the US which has bombed its way through the last 70 years, Russia seems pretty tame by comparison.

 

The Russian/non Russian split is only around 60/40 and Russia extensively ethnically cleansed the Jewish and Islamic populations after the second world war, so decidedly less clear cut than the Russians are making out.
The Americans have played the long game in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both countries are stabilising. It's very difficult to say where those countries would be now without that intervention, but looking at events in the middle east in recent years they would be potentially substantially less stable than they are now.
So again, not that straight forward.

 

The Russians just gave bombs to everyone else and let them get on with it.

 

I don't know, I was paying attention at the time.

 

Why do Russia and the EU need to be economic and strategic nemeses? For all the rhetoric from the Russians they are very guilty of sustaining cold war thinking. The point is the Russians have always made it an either or deal. A couple of posts back you were condemning this perceived behaviour from the EU, but now you defend it from the Russians? Hardly a consistent approach.
It would be in the economic and political interests of both sides to have strong links with the Ukraine, unless of course that interest is outweighed by a burgeoning expansionist, neo-nationalist agenda.

 

If you have sources to support these numbers, do show, otherwise I can’t take them seriously. Nothing personal, but the amount of disinformation, misrepresentation and censorship I see in the mass-media on this subject, I can’t realistically take your word for it.

No. It was not Russia, it was the Soviet Union, which was made up of 15 nations including Ukraine and led by people from all of the 15 nations. Khrushchev was Ukrainian, Stalin was Georgian, Lenin was mixed, Trotsky was Jewish, etc etc.

If anything, it seems that EU/US still have a cold war mentality and the fact that pro-western mass-media occasionally equates Soviet Union with Russia just reinforces this in my mind.

I mostly disagree. I’ve previously had this discussion on MAP, was it not with you? I think it was a thread on Syria and the chem weapons use.

They don’t, but it seems the EU prefers it. As I mentioned earlier, it was the EU back in November that insisted that Ukraine chose either EU or Russia, whereas Russia said “we can both help”.

See above point.

Also, why does NATO encroach on to Russia’s sphere of influence? You think if Russia started building a missile defence shield stationed say between Venezuela and Cuba the US would just sit there smiling. Very plain double standards here.

I have not seen any evidence that Russia has done this, in fact I have seen the opposite as I pointed out above. If you have evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.

I agree, which is why the EU’s insistence on the either-or is clearly self-serving and disingenuous. Or at least from what I have seen.

Nonsense. The US has consistently been the largest weapons exporter in the world, arming the likes of Iraq, Afghani Taliban, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan amongst many others. No to mention destabilising numerous democratically elected governments and replacing them with their puppet dictators.

Well, not much I can say to that