Another Imperial Day

[Pol]

Russian and Vladimir Putin invade Crimea and Ukraine armed with £86 millions worth of British weapons ! Lets no hope it's Here comes world war 3

[Shush]

Vlad Spewtin  like most totalitarian dictators is determined to write himself into the history books. Conquest is always the easy way to do this.

[Heno]

they are all dictators. every last one of them. and they all want to go down I history. for such intelligent people I always wonder why they think that matters once they are dead.

anyhow, there is a lot of posturing. pretty sure they already know what the other side wants. Ukraine pipelines supply 30% of natural gas to Europe from Russia. sounds a little "afghanistani" all over again to me. they tried the people protests. pretty sure the cia were behind a lot of that just like the arab spring. not sure how much Russia will take with interference with their interests.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Imagine a load of teenage boys playing Risk............... Seems to be the only ability required to be a world "leader" (Ha!).

Personally I think the largely USA/European axis has had something like this coming for a while. Our recent history of "running round the world acting superior" ignoring accepted conventions and frameworks has surely meant that others round the world have been waiting for a chance to slap us back. Unfortunately I think Putin and co. have decided that this is a perfect opportunity to give us that slap.

I'm not there, I don't know any Ukrainians all I have is what's gleaned from the media. So I can't take sides in this because for every voice I hear that's "Pro-EU" I hear another that's "Pro-Russia". It does seem that the roots of this goes way back in history to when euro states coalesced into countries and this is a dispute that got postponed because of 2 world wars and a Soviet empire.

I must say tho' that I am intrinsically anti Vladimir "Brokeback Mountain" Putin - surely that amoeba is so far in the closet he's in ******* Narnia? (Oh and if you GCHQ/KGB/NSA boys are searching this place then I'll happily call for a comedy jihad slapping him with an plastic fish stuffed with exploding jelly but lets hope it wasn't swimming off Dungeness because it will be covered in uranium, I bet if you google there's a video out there where you can watch someone doing that to themselves in the buff)

Good times?
 

[Heno]

all part of the plan

[Shush]

is that the plan to be,,      ras-Putin, Tsar of all the Russia's 

[Billy T]

anyhow, there is a lot of posturing. pretty sure they already know what the other side wants. Ukraine pipelines supply 30% of natural gas to Europe from Russia. sounds a little "afghanistani" all over again to me. they tried the people protests. pretty sure the cia were behind a lot of that just like the arab spring. not sure how much Russia will take with interference with their interests.

I keep hearing this bandied about so I checked with the dozen or so close friends I have who have spent varying amounts of time on the Maidan barricades (or volunteering to cook, clean etc) and not a single one has gotten their CIA paycheck yet...Man are they angry about that....

[Heno]

maybe i listened to too much jello back in the day

[Rusco]

Things seem quite serious there at Krim now. It makes to wonder the ambiguous way Russia always seem to interact with other nations. Especially with us neighboring nations. The on-going public talk and news are probably forgeting where all that Ukraine issue started only couple of weeks ago: man, their president gave orders to shoot civilians, didn't he? Then he fled to Russia whining he's the official president. 

You probably understand it's very hard to be objective here when the history with Finland and Russia is what it is. But I try. Couple of words before that: Finland declared its independence in 1917. We've beated Russia twice in wars. But we've always been a land what other nations bicker and pretend for. Still we've had own language which originates from the culture that is thousands of years old, like in other Fenno-Ugrian cultures too.

We've lost territories to Russia too and nearly every second person have lost generic, uncle or someone in a war. Me too, so I can fairly say I'm not the best person to be objective.


Here's the old Finnish map before the Second world war. Here's after the Second world war and the lost territories.

[Billy T]

It's over in Krim (Crimea) for the Ukrainians. The Europeans, and I mean the Western ones, and by that I mean mainly Germany and London (Not the UK-Just London...I mean we wouldn't want to upset Chelsea football) have decided that too take any real action is not in their interest. So Ukraine is gonna take it in the neck...Give it a few weeks and they'll be in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, blocking off the west from the sea.....They may let Western Ukraine go off on it's own and become some small buffer state between them and Poland, but beyond that ther's not much reason to feel optimism for Ukraine...... Just at the start of this week 700 Russian special forces arrived here in Moldova on the Transnistria side of the river, so it seems highly unlikely that Russia has much else planned than to regain complete control over the former Soviet Republics.... We're packing our go bags and setting them by the door in case we need to make a run for the Romanian border.....

And frankly if I lived in the Baltic states I'd be nervous about how much you can rely on western Europe, NATO or not.... I am aware that the US sent 6 or 7 extra fighter jets to Poland and Lithuania this week, but even the US can't do much without Berlin on-board and it looks more and more like they have agreeed not to challenege Putin anywhere much east of Warsaw... I mean Gerhard Schroeder left the German Chancellorship and went right to work for Putin.....Can't help but feel the fix is in....

Sad, Ukraine has a ton of potential , in its people and in its resources but it just doesn't look good....

[Billy T]

Anyone curious about what's going on or trying to get caught up/make sense of alot of contradictory media noise coming from the press (especially The Guardian or The Fail) should watch this 43 minute film.....It's use of "heart stirring" music and appeals to God on high, can come across as pretty heavy handed and ham fisted to Western audiences (I know it did me) but the timeline is irrefutable and the overall feeling I have for it is it's an honest and balanced accounting of what happened/is happening...

Contrary to some talking, this didn't start a few weeks ago, but back in November, it isn't a west-east/ethnic thing, the "nazi"/fascist angle is completely overplayed and misunderstood.....Students were having a peaceful protest about the turning away from the EU, the Government sent in special police to beat the snot out of the kids, this pissed their parents off and coupled with the abolsute corrpution of the Yanuk government pretty much convinced most ordinary Ukrainians that enough was enough......

Oh it's in Ukrainian and Russian but has english subtitles....

Revolution of Dignity by ICTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol

[Rusco]

Oh s*** what they're doing now there? Tomorrow they have the so-called "election" which is largerly judged by 13/15 other nations as a con. Well now Russian soldiers tried to cross the northern border outside Crim (Crimean? Krim? -how do you say it in English?) and Ukraine sent air forces there immediately.

It's going to get nasty there. What is a vote when there is only two alternatives to choose and not a single chance offered to say "NO" for the Russian conquerors?

[Shush]

outside Crim (Crimean? Krim? -how do you say it in English?) and Ukraine sent air forces there immediately.

when we fought there 1853-6 with the French, we called it the Crimean Peninsula. The Germans 1941-42 called it Krim.

If Putin were being honest, he would call it, - the key to the Black Sea 

[Johnz]

Anyone curious about what's going on or trying to get caught up/make sense of alot of contradictory media noise coming from the press (especially The Guardian or The Fail) should watch this 43 minute film.....It's use of "heart stirring" music and appeals to God on high, can come across as pretty heavy handed and ham fisted to Western audiences (I know it did me) but the timeline is irrefutable and the overall feeling I have for it is it's an honest and balanced accounting of what happened/is happening...

Contrary to some talking, this didn't start a few weeks ago, but back in November, it isn't a west-east/ethnic thing, the "nazi"/fascist angle is completely overplayed and misunderstood.....Students were having a peaceful protest about the turning away from the EU, the Government sent in special police to beat the snot out of the kids, this pissed their parents off and coupled with the abolsute corrpution of the Yanuk government pretty much convinced most ordinary Ukrainians that enough was enough......

Oh it's in Ukrainian and Russian but has english subtitles....

Revolution of Dignity by ICTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol

Just watched it. Thanks for sharing. Interesting. I'm not sure how balanced it is, though. The film makers and everyone interviewed are obviously opposed to the old regime. While I'd probably side with the views portrayed here, it would have been interesting to let the other side explain their rationale.

Here is hoping for a peaceful outcome in the Ukraine.

[Rusco]

My poor English: I wrote election although that wasn't an election but just a vote - if even that. But I think there should be coming an election as well on May. Everything seems to happen so fast there that it's a bit difficult to follow things clearly.

This brings in my mind a question how clearly we can get a view in Europe and/or western world. Should not forget that the so-called wellfare civilisation is just a dream here too with all its negative sides as well. These kind of issues get often a black & white perspective about good and the bad, but it's never so easy.

Shush, it's called Krim in Finnish too. That's interesting information that England were there in 1850's, I didn't know that... And thanks to Billy T and Johnz for the information. Do you know btw is a group called IndyMedia still active? They tried to spread uncensored information at the time of G8 and EU-meeting riots. I remember they were active at least in start of 2000's.