Quote:
Originally Posted by XabbaRus
Oberon. Just reading your long previous post. I'd agree. However about Ivanovets according to the BBC locals said this is quite common seeing a warship hanging about.
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Oh, didn't realise that, I guess ELINT monitoring or just a general reminder that "We're not going away".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
It'S not all that bad, Oberon. If they militarily occupy the whole East Ukraine, then this would be another ball game again than if they just go for the Crimean peninsula where Russians are the majority population anyway. Outside the Crimean, Russians are a minority, Putin knows that. They will balk at the rest of the Ukraine, but I currently expect that chances will be their forces staying within the Crimean and not trying to occupy the whole East.
Especially the Western regions of the Ukraine he will leave to the EU and Washington-dominated ICF to pay their bills. That will be at the additional disadvantage of the West, and so is tasty for Russia. The Eastern Ukraine - I'd be surprised if he would risk a military shootout over it, if the Ukraine does not try to militarily "liberate" the Crimean. Kiew really should learn some lessons form Georgia now.
The ethnic majority of people on the Crimean is Russian, nobody denies that. If this majority by referendum wants to split be Russian, I have no problem with that. That is not different than what the Scots try. No local population is the property of any central government far away. If a region wants to succeed, inj principal it has the natural right to do so. A right for demand by self-legitimizing central governments to enforce "national integrity", does not exist,. nit in the understanding of a reasonable, natural law, or morals. It's not as if Moscow holds guns at the sleeves of people on the Crimean.
At least not this time.
Note that in past years, Tartars have claimed back the Crimean for themselves increasingly, although they now are a minority only. But they are Muslim and have ties to the notoriously critical and unsecure Southern, Islamic regions and neighbours of Russia. Moscow wants to make sure it does not send a message of weakness to these by spoiling up the game for the Crimean, becasue this could encourage Muslim terror again in its own South. And then it could become very nasty again. Chechnya, anyone? Say what you want, the Russians are not shy to become brutally violent if you step beyond their alarm wires too far.
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It does look like it's going to be just Crimea so far, but with Donetsk also rising up against Kiev, the door is always open for operations in East Ukraine too, and it's the fact that the west is forced to either ante up or fold, there's a lot of pressure on both sides, a lot of wang waving, and this could go south quickly. Then there's the Budapest Memoradum which adds another layer of complexity to the matter.
It's a mess, in short, and going to get messier, but perhaps...perhaps things will calm down after Russia takes Crimea. I honestly don't know, I did not think that Putin would actually resort to military force in the situation where he could have used the gas switch as a cudgel to beat the Ukraine into submission.