Huge pro-EU rally grips Ukraine

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The source of information I found seems to be a campaign created for Command, however the information contained within seems to be within a fairly accurate state, so the guy seems to have done his research.

Rgr that.

Pro-Russian militants continue to occupy government buildings in eastern Ukraine, ignoring a deadline to leave or face eviction by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine's interim president promised military action if government buildings were not given up by 06:00 GMT.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27018199

Could this be the quickest way to bring about the end game and precisely the excuse Putin needs?

[Aktungbby]

The question begs...if the non-insignia'd 'Russians, which Moscow denies are involved, are captured in battle, does any semblance of the Geneva Convention apply to illegal masked banditos here?

[Jimbuna]

I doubt the Ukrainians will fight other than in self defence of the western part of the country.

Any attack would be almost suicidal when considering the number of troops on their border and I'm confident they know that.

Their best chance is NATO giving military assistance and I'll wager that won't happen.

[Oberon]

It's 50/50 I'd say Jim, Russia won't go west of Kharkov, they don't need to. What they want is the Ukraines financial heart, without the east the Ukraine will be forced to beg for money from anyone that will give it to her, even with the east the crippling financial situation is going to ruin the Ukraine for the next decade at least, without it, Ukraine is in deep matter.
Russia is hoping for a quick airmobile assault into the east, take a look at where these uprisings are happening, all around airfields, Kramatorsk AFB, Donetsk has an airport (although the last Google earth image of it has it in very poor condition, but nothing engineers couldn't fix up) and Lungask AFB. There's also an airfield not far from Kharkov at Chuguyev which is close to the Russian border, and would fall quickly in any airborne assault.
Ukraine has been putting SAM and AAA systems eastward, but it's debatable how affective they will be against Flankers with Krypton ARMs. The Ukraine will be wanting to slow the Russians down for as long as possible in order to give NATO time to respond. NATOs response will be two fold, the likelihood of weapons sales to the Ukrainian government is high, and when the Russians have got their line set up between Kharkov to the north and the Dneiper to the south then NATO may well move in to western Ukraine in order to 'protect it from Russian expansionism', and we'll be looking at a return to the whole East/West Germany affair. It'll be a win for Russia in that it'll get its 'protection of ethnic Russians in Ukraine' and a win for NATO because it gets to stand up to 'Russian expansionism' but the Ukraine, or what will be left of it, will be totally boned.

[Jimbuna]

^ Pretty much concur but always expect the unexpected from Putin and heaven only knows what he'll do now that his political puppets have given him a free hand to protect ethnic Russians.

I don't see the Ukraine coming out of this at all well irrespective of what the future holds.

[mapuc]

Have just been reading the Leader from aftonbladet.se(the owner of a newspapers daily saying) it was about a young guy with a broken nose. He had been interviewed 3 times by 3 different Russian news media and every time the story was quit different.

Markus

[Skybird]

The East is lost for Kiew, and what happens there is an almost identical copy of the events on Crimea. With securing the East for Russia, Putin has reached his goal of splitting the Ukraine and porevcenting it from becioming a big united NATO base, and not even the Western remains can dare to become a NATO member, not to mention that several NATO states, at least Germany, would oppose that move anyway now. Ukraine will become a rest body that stays weak and cannot become a strategic threat for Russia. Putin also must not invade Ukraine if Kiew does not order m ilitary action, becasue those mobs taking over in the East could only act like they do when a silent majority of the local population tolerates the events - which obviously what they do indeed. So it is not even a hostile takeover of these territories, from a perspective of the local population (its majority).

It falls apart what never should have come together to form a "sovereign" wannabe-state. The inner rifts and breaking-lines were too obvious from beginning on. Funny part is, I was in "Grundstudium" when the Ukraine was declaring sovereignity in 1991, learning for my "Vordiplomsprüfung", and in debates with freinds I back then preicted that the Ukraine would not last biut fall in part, maybe in civil war. Nobody believed me, they all still were drunk of Glasnost and Perestroika and cold war "won". So, dear stupid Western politicians, such obvious outcome actually can be forseen decades in advance. Did somebody hear the Dutch and Belgian ministers commenting today on German TV, the naive childishness and heartbreaking helplessness they dared to express in front of cameras and microphones? Made my evening,Ii almost spit my dinner on the screen, laughing. Compared to that even the German foreign minister sounds like an intellectual genius, although he is nothing but a vacuum moving around in the world and sucking air in.

Russia will now press to have the Western Ukraine also not joining the EU.

What really is left and is somewhat difficult to forsee is Russia's next move on Transnistria and the region around Odessa. Odessa not being Russian? Difficult to imagine or accept from a Russian POV.

Kiew'S referendum idea is a joke, it compares to the story of two wolves and a lamb deciding what will be eaten for lunch. The referendum is only to be held by people who want to fall away from the Ukraine. Why other people not living in the affected regions should have a say in it, escapes me: do the latter think they could own the first? If Bavaria wants to secede from the rest of Germany, no matter what treacherous laws say, the decision whether Bavairans want to get governed by Berlin or not any longer, is not to be made by Berlin, of Northrhine Westphalia or the people in Lower Saxony - but the people living in Bavaria exclusively. Any law hindering them to do so, is against natural law and is morally invalid and a crime against human freedom.

[Mittelwaechter]

Thank god - or someone else investing 5 billion bucks - in Putin's backyard happened a coup d'état. This guy got too much positive feedback for saving thousands of Syrians from being cruise missiled.
Quick - someone should offer weapons to the upset people or the endangered new government.
Maybe some instructors or Academi helpers too...

[Oberon]

I dunno Sky, I think Russia will let, or more likely offer as a concession its blessing for western Ukraine to join the EU, as it's essentially a husk of Ukraine devoid of any means to generate income and thus would only serve to further drain the EUs precious resources, putting it closer to the point of collapse and fragmentation which would mean that there would be no united Europe in order to challenge Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe. Eastern Ukraine will become a part of Russia and thus will void its debts, or will have any small debts absorbed by the Russian economy, and western Ukraine will still be forced to kowtow to Moscow for gas supplies until its able to get them from elsewhere.

[Jimbuna]

More of the same old talk...

US President Barack Obama has urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to use his influence to make separatists in eastern Ukraine stand down.

The phone call between the two leaders came as pro-Russian activists continued to occupy buildings in eastern towns.

For his part, Mr Putin rejected accusations of Russian interference, calling the reports "unreliable".

Must be like treading on eggshells.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's acting President, Olexander Turchynov, has announced the start of an "anti-terrorist operation".

He told parliament it had begun in the "north of Donetsk Region" on Tuesday morning and was being conducted "stage by stage, in a responsible and weighed manner".

The extent of the operation was unclear but unconfirmed reports on Russian media, quoting separatists, speak of Ukrainian armour being on the move near the flashpoint towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Tanks and armoured personnel carriers could be seen parked 70km (44 miles) from Sloviansk on Monday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27030652

[Oberon]

Now we wait...

[Skybird]

At least "several dozens" of soldiers have switched sides and joined the forces of the Donezk opposition. In Slawjansk and Kramatorsk they have reflagged their armoured vehicles as well, operating now under Russian colours. There is photographic evidence for it.

On the Crimea, there also have been small events like this - but in so many places that in the end the number of soldiers switching sides resulted in many hundreds.

[Jimbuna]

It must be very hard for the Ukrainians, not wanting to antagonise the Russians and feeling physical opposition from their own people as well.

Ukrainian troops have entered the eastern town of Kramatorsk a day after an operation began to recapture areas seized by anti-government separatists.

But they were blocked by civilians and the situation is unclear, amid reports that some may have abandoned their vehicles or even changed sides.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27045534

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

It must be very hard for the Ukrainians, not wanting to antagonise the Russians and feeling physical opposition from their own people as well.

"The" Ukrainians? They are obviously not one homogenous group, but at least two quite differently feeling groups (three if you count the Tartarians as a different group as well). In a multi-cultural state like the old Soviet Union, this was not so much an issue in everyday life and private relations between ordinary people and in the Ukraine many ethniuc Russians are married to ethnic Non-Russians. The moment the Ukraine turned into a sovereign state for the first time ever in history (in other words: it got artificially created), it immediately became a hot boiling issue. The ink-drawn borders on the maps did not take into account ethnic borderlines, and borderlines between interest spheres projected from higher, supernational levels of the political hierarchy.

I think there is some lessons to be learned from this example , especially for the EU's glorious social engineers. Not that there have not been examples like this before, but I am told time and again that I should not give up hope that people will finally learn, so... I think this is also part of the explanation for what Westerners found so hard to understand: why so many people in the former USSR still are sorry for the USSR being gone. The loss of imperial glory is one aspect of it, yes. But it is not the only one.

[Skybird]

"Welcome!" looks different.