2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolt: News, Views, Photos & Videos

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Rutim

Banned Idiot
It's hard to lose so much in such a short time as Russia did this time. I think we can sum up a few things which happened to them in the last week:

- intrest rate rising and as a consequence rubel lost 8% (that's how much the're going to lose on export and how much more they'll pay for imprted goods in short and basic way) with 11 billion $ burned
- stock exchange loses resulting in real money
- foreign investment will surely drop a bit after they said they won't hesitate a moment with it's nationalisation in case of war
- US or EU didn't even start putting sanctions on Russia (and in US case they will surely put some!)
- EU countries will try to diversify their gas and oil supplies
- EU will give a 'green light' for shale gas mining and extraction
- the base in Sevastopol will be still their as it was before
and the most important
- they now have a sworn enemy in the form of Ukraine for many, many long years

All without firing a single bullet!

Is there any positive information for them right now?

Now ask yourself and judge if it was just tiny 'miscalculation' or a 'big mistake' or a bit 'hot-headed' decission made.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
Jura said:
yeah I stumbled upon this:
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I hoped it was Russian propaganda, but I used google.fr, found:
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I don't know the French language, so please help me ... is it a hoax or ...?
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As it is now we ( France ) have a contract with Russia and we hope that will continue. Taking account of our ties with the Russians, with which we have historical, cultural, political and economic relations, we can play our role in achieving negotiations.

My French was always somewhat shaky but this is the gist of the argument. But of course the European countries cannot afford to neglect a growing market in the neighborhood with their own economies still in trouble although slowly recovering. Sanctions against Russia would cause those economies to go into a tail spin.
Besides having the Nuland coup less than 24 hours after a political compromise was reached in Kiev that was signed by the ambassadors of Germany, France and Poland the US has made the European countries look irrelevant. It would be much better for the European countries if free and fair elections were to be held in Ukraine because those would be likely to sweep away the current 'government' .
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Russia vows retaliation if sanctions imposed
Staff writer, Al Arabiya News
Friday, 7 March 2014
Russia heightened its tone on Friday when it vowed retaliation if sanctions were imposed after France threatened a second round of embargoes if Moscow doesn’t stop its intervention in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s house of parliament, said Friday that Crimea would be welcome as an equal part of Russia if the region votes to leave Ukraine in an upcoming referendum, the Associated Press reported.

Matvienko met with the head of the Crimean parliament to discuss the region’s possible accession to Russia. On Thursday, the parliament of Crimea voted to move the referendum date up to March 16, and to include a question on joining Russia.

Russia’s foreign ministry accused the European Union of taking an “extremely unconstructive position” by freezing talks on easing visa barriers that complicate travel between Russia and the EU over Ukraine.

The ministry’s statement added: “Russia will not accept the language of sanctions and threats” and will retaliate if sanctions are imposed.

Not succeeding

On Friday, France’s foreign minister said that if a first round of sanctions did not succeed against Russia in the wake of its military intervention in Ukraine, a second could follow, targeting Russian businesses and people close to President Vladimir Putin.

“If there are not very swift results, there will be new measures aimed at those responsible and Russian businesses,” Reuters quoted Laurent Fabius as telling France Info radio.

“It could be freezing assets, it could be cancellations, it could be refusing visas,” he added, without elaborating.

Fabius called the situation in Ukraine “a serious crisis, maybe one of the most serious since the Cold War.”

On Friday, the Kremlin reported the Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying that Moscow and Washington should not sacrifice relations over the current crisis in Ukraine, despite the two having different ideas on how to deal with the situation.

Putin “stressed the paramount importance of Russian-American relations to ensure stability and security in the world. These relations should not be sacrificed for individual differences, albeit very important ones, over international problems,” the Kremlin quoted Putin as telling U.S. President Barack Obama in a one-hour telephone call.

Joining Russia

Putin told Obama that Ukraine’s new leaders, who came to power in an anti-constitutional coup, according to the Russian leader, had imposed “absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.”

On Thursday, parliament in Ukraine’s southern Crimea region voted to join Russia and will hold a referendum on becoming part of the Russian federation on March 16, moves which pro-Western leaders in Kiev said would violate international law. Russia on Friday said it “will respect the historic choice of the people of Crimea.”

Meanwhile, Putin added:“Russia cannot ignore calls for help in this matter and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with the international law.”

In the phone call, Obama urged Putin to accept the terms of a potential diplomatic solution to the situation, which has triggered the worst crisis in U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War.

Putin has stridently defended Russia’s moves in Ukraine, a country he calls a “a brotherly nation,” saying Moscow was not behind the seizure of Crimea, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Putin denied western accusations that his troops have captured state buildings in Crimea, saying the armed men were members of local self-defense units.

Willing to cooperate

He says Russia is willing to cooperate with Western powers but any solution to the crisis must be based on an EU-brokered agreement signed on Feb. 21 by ousted leader Viktor Yanukovich, who Putin has said is Ukraine’s legitimate president.

Putin said he agreed with Obama that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry should continue “intensive contacts” on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Obama told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Thursday in a 40-minute phone call that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine threatened world peace, Reuters reported the White House as saying.

Abiding by obligations

“The two leaders agreed that Russia’s actions are a threat to international peace and security and emphasized the importance of preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said in a statement about the call.

“They committed to work with other G-7 partners to insist that Russia abide by its obligations and commitments to Ukraine’s sovereignty,” it added.

The crisis has put Japan in a tight diplomatic spot, as it seeks to balance support for its key ally the United States with a recent push to improve ties with Russia driven by a need to increase energy imports to replace lost nuclear power.

While Obama ordered sanctions on those responsible for Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine, including bans on travel to the United States and the freezing of their U.S. assets, the Pentagon announced a large-scale air force exercise in Poland that Washington’s ambassador to Warsaw said had been augmented to reassure U.S. allies in the region in the light of the Ukraine crisis.

(With Reuters)
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Putin and Cronies Only Fear Targeted Sanctions

Vladimir Kara-Murza

One can think of a few possible ways to change Vladimir Putin’s mind on the occupation of Ukraine. He may listen to public opinion: 73 percent of Russians [1], even according to the state-run VTsIOM polling agency, oppose intervention in Ukraine. He may be persuaded by Russian opposition leaders, who condemned the war [2] as “madness of a deranged KGB officer” and a “reckless policy” that “goes against the interests of our country.” He may be swayed by Western moves to suspend military cooperation and threats by Western leaders to boycott the G8 summit in Sochi.

It is unlikely, however, that it will be any of the above. As a strongman whose power does not depend on democratic elections, Putin never really cared about what Russian voters think. For the same reason, he does not need to answer his opponents—the latter find themselves in prison [3] much more often than on Russian television. Meanwhile, symbolic Western gestures—such as boycotting the G8—can be a nuisance for the Kremlin, but would never compel it to change course on a major issue.

There is, however, a message from the West that Vladimir Putin—and “state oligarchs” around him—will hear loud and clear: It is the message that the occupation of Ukraine will pave the way for a dramatic expansion of the Magnitsky List [4] that targets Kremlin officials involved in corruption and human rights abuses and prohibits them from traveling to and keeping assets in the US.

This was clearly spelled out in a bipartisan Senate letter [5] to the White House, as well as in statements by senior US lawmakers, including likely 2016 presidential hopeful Marco Rubio [6] and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Corker [7]. Even more alarmingly for the Kremlin, there are signs that the European Union may join the US: after blacklisting departed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his senior associates, the government of Lithuania—a member state of the EU and the Schengen visa agreement—hinted that similar sanctions may follow [8] with regard to Russian officials, “if the situation does not improve.”

This is the only message the Kremlin understands. Appeals to reason and references to international law will always fall on deaf ears; Putin’s cronies only pay attention when their own interests are at stake, and when they realize that they will face personal consequences in the form of losing their Western visas and bank accounts.

Different forms of sanctions are currently being discussed in the US and in EU capitals. It is imperative that these sanctions do not affect Russian citizens as a whole—this is Putin’s war, not Russia’s [2]—but instead target those directly responsible for acts of aggression, whether toward their own citizens or toward neighboring states. Today’s announcement by the White House [9] is a major step in the right direction.

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Pentagon confirms report of Russian air defense drills
Published March 07, 2014 | FoxNews.com
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Russia has reportedly begun large-scale air defense drills as tensions with the West continue escalating over the fate of Crimea.

Roughly 3,500 troops and more than 1,000 units of military hardware will be hosted for about a month in Kapustin Yar, some 280 miles east of the Ukrainian border. The exercise by Russia’s Western Military District, according to a report from RIA Novosti, will culminate with live-firing drills and deployment of air defense systems.

“It is for the first time that all air defense units from the district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have gathered in one place,” district spokesman Col. Oleg Kochetkov said, adding that the drills were part of regular training cycles. “It is the largest-ever exercise held by air defense units of the Western Military District.”

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed the report to Fox News based on the latest intelligence available to U.S. officials. An estimated 20,000 Russian troops are now in Crimea, including roughly 15,000 that were stationed at its naval base in Sevastapol, Ukraine. A senior U.S. official told Fox News that no additional U.S. military commitments are expected as of Friday, adding that it's not in "national interest" to go war over Ukraine.

"There is no change to U.S. military posture in the region," one senior Pentagon official said. "Russia is in a high state of readiness and [the United States] can't underestimate the potential that they could act further."

The Russian military exercise comes as the speaker of its upper house of parliament said Friday that Crimea — an autonomous Ukrainian region with a majority ethnic Russian population — would become an equal part of Russia if the region votes to leave Ukraine in an upcoming referendum.

Valentina Matvienko met with the head of the Crimean parliament to discuss the region's possible accession to Russia. The parliament of Crimea voted on Thursday to move the referendum date up to March 16 and to include a question on joining Russia.

President Vladimir Putin told reporters on Tuesday that Russia had no intention of annexing Crimea, while insisting that residents had the right to determine the region's status — and thus possible independence — by popular vote. The referendum, however, will give Crimea residents only two options: to join Russia or to stay with Ukraine.

"If the decision is made (by referendum), then (Crimea) will become an absolutely equal subject of the Russian Federation," said Matvienko. She emphasized the grievances of Russian-speaking residents in eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, which have been the Russian government's primary justification for possible intervention in its neighbor.

Matvienko said the government welcomed the expedited referendum date, which was originally slated to coincide with nationwide elections on May 25. She dismissed that vote, saying there are "no conditions for honest, equal, transparent and open elections" in the country.

The Russian parliament has scrambled to introduce legislation that would simplify the procedure for Crimea to join Russia. According to current constitutional law, Russia can only annex foreign territory by an agreement "initiated ... by the given foreign government." Because Crimea is still legally Ukrainian territory, that would entail signing an agreement with new authorities in Kiev, who have condemned Russian moves in the region.

New legislation would sidestep that requirement, according to members of parliament, who said a new bill could be passed as soon as next week.

If the new bill is passed, Crimea would be the first territory to officially join Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke away from the Caucasus nation of Georgia after a brief 2008 war with Russia, have been recognized as independent by Moscow, but there have been few serious moves to enable them to join Russia.

Pentagon officials announced Thursday that six U.S. F-15 fighter jets had arrived in Lithuania to bolster air patrols over the Baltics. A U.S. warship, USS Truxtun, is also now in the Black Sea to participate in long-planned exercises.

The fighter jets and 60 U.S. military personnel landed at Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania, adding to the four F-15s and 150 troops already there to do the air patrol mission. The additional fighters came from RAF Lakenheath. The Navy destroyer is participating in exercises with Romania and Bulgaria and is expected to be in the Black Sea for several days.

The U.S. and other Western nations have begun preparing sanctions against Russia for its recent move to send military troops into Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Also Friday, military observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have been unable to enter the Crimea Peninsula for the second consecutive day, Reuters reports.

"Military assessment visitors from OSCE States denied entry into Crimea on Friday, heading back to Kherson to plan next steps,'' the body posted on Twitter.

Russia also warned on Friday that any U.S. sanctions imposed regarding the crisis in Ukraine with “boomerang” back on the United States. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “warned against hasty and reckless steps capable of causing harm to Russian-American relations, particularly ... sanctions, which would inevitably hit the United States like a boomerang,'' the Foreign Ministry said during a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, according to Reuters.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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And Breaking on BBC
7 March 2014 Last updated at 15:14 ET
Ukraine crisis: Armed men 'seize Crimea military base'
Armed men thought to be Russian have seized a Ukrainian military base in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
A Reuters news agency journalist said no shots were fired and negotiations between the two sides were going on.
Interfax-Ukraine earlier reported that about 100 Ukrainian servicemen had been deployed at the base before the raid.
Troops wearing Russian uniform without insignia and their supporters have blockaded bases in Crimea since taking control of the peninsula last week.
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Miragedriver

Miragedriver

Brigadier
I recall read somewhere that China had leased some large sections of farm land in Ukraine to supply them with agricultural produces. I image China has some concerns depending on where the farm land is located.

China can’t be too quiet on the topic of annexation to not upset the new Kiev government, and they cannot afford to upset the Russians. Any thoughts on the subject?
 
F

Franklin

Captain
Miragedriver said:
I recall read somewhere that China had leased some large sections of farm land in Ukraine to supply them with agricultural produces. I image China has some concerns depending on where the farm land is located.

China can’t be too quiet on the topic of annexation to not upset the new Kiev government, and they cannot afford to upset the Russians. Any thoughts on the subject?
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The Ukrainian government denied that report of China leasing land.

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C

chuck731

Banned Idiot
Miragedriver said:
I recall read somewhere that China had leased some large sections of farm land in Ukraine to supply them with agricultural produces. I image China has some concerns depending on where the farm land is located.

China can’t be too quiet on the topic of annexation to not upset the new Kiev government, and they cannot afford to upset the Russians. Any thoughts on the subject?
Click to expand...


For China, there are two different implications of Russian actions to consider:

1. Using presence of large number of people of your ethnicity as justification to make pronouncements on and interfere in the administration of another countries, with an eye towards carving out the other country's territory for incorporation into your ow - China has nothing to gain and quite somethings to lose if she was to be seen approving of this practice. China has all sorts of vulnerability in her western and northern borders to this sort of thing stirring up trouble for China. But has relatively few practical opportunities to take advantage of this sort of behavior. So she would not wish to be seen approving of this aspect of Russian action.

2. Using "history" to justify territorial claims rather than international treaties and international law. Obviously China is all about history when she justify her claims to Senkaku and SCS. China has much to gain and little to lose if she approves of the practice of saying something, and then nullifying what you've said in the name of "history" when it becomes incovenient for you.
 
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