EPTUkraine Crisis - Page 499
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xM(Z
Romania5298 Posts
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radiatoren
Denmark1907 Posts
As on other fronts, the media fight between Moscow and Kiev is mis-matched. Russia's well-organized and well-financed state media have portrayed events in a style reminiscent of the Soviet era, peppering their reports with the message that Ukrainians, as during World War Two, may be cooperating with fascists. By contrast, Ukraine's fragmented media lack the single mindedness to answer the charges, remaining poorly financed and usually controlled by business tycoons who have been reluctant to offend business partners in Russia. source | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On May 06 2014 04:53 Mc wrote: @nyxisto - the twitter spam from ghan is definitely excessive. The youtube videos of *raw* footage I found very useful. Propaganda videos are another matter. I disagree, the video footage stuff is the opposite of useful. Look at Paleman. All it takes for him to go on a two week rage is a video of some idiots swinging nationalistic symbols through the air and suddenly the one hundred thousand people on the Maidan are all right-wing nutjobs. Many journalists and long time observers as well as polls have repeatedly confirmed that the majority of Ukranians that participated in the Euromaidan movement were/are in fact not right-wing radicals. That groups like the right sector got some momentum during a revolution is unfortunate but not unexpected. That doesn't turn the whole western Ukraine into nazis, which some people in this thread have repeatedly implied. Posting selective 'evidence' especially in the form of video footage is only an emotional appeal. Everybody can proof everything by cherry picking their sources. It's the job of journalists to provide a balanced view that actually resembles reality, and that's why we should stick with that. Also the government in Kiev is an interim government, not a junta. They haven't committed any atrocious crimes to anyone in Ukraine and they have done nothing that would legitimate the people of South- and East-Ukraine to pick up guns, take over buildings, and take international observers as hostages. Some stuff that comes from the pro-russian side in this thread is delusional and sounds like it could come from Russian state television. On May 06 2014 05:12 PaleMan wrote: you want a russian guy who spits on his country and hates it - that will be reliable for you No. the problem is that the media in Russia has made their people, including you, believe that the rest of the world hates Russia and wants to get rid of everything that is Russian. Pointing out the worrisome course that Russia is on is sufficient reason for you to believe that people hate your country and want to spit on it. It's that exact kind of wrong perception that people are criticizing in the first place.It's like Russia suffers from some kind of Cold war ptsd, and a simple free trade agreement with the EU is enough to trigger a nearly war like response from Russia. | ||
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semantics
10040 Posts
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prplhz
Denmark8045 Posts
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Acertos
France852 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Well I think Putin essentially wants to build a 'great nation'. He seems to think antagonizing the West is what defines Russia's identity. He seems to view the West as degenerated and materialistic, stresses the whole 'Slavic sister-nations' stuff a lot, and in his last four hour TV-appearance went as far as calling the Ukraine 'Novorossiya', which essentially is a 18th century term under which the Russian empire controlled significant territory that is now Ukrainian. It's terrifying really because there are a lot of fascist parallels in the way he seems to look at the world. At the end of his TV appearance he was talking about how death can be beautiful if it ".. serves the people: Death for one's friends, one's people or for the homeland" | ||
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prplhz
Denmark8045 Posts
@Nyxisto I reeeaaally don't see Putin as an idealist. I don't see him not wanting to live in a world where his "great nation" doesn't control the entire slavic part of the world, it seems a lot more like propaganda to further whatever objective he's pursuing right now. If this goes south I don't see him shooting himself (like that other famous idealist), I see him grabbing everything of value that isn't bolted down and running for the hils. It seems more like he's afraid that the next guy who comes to power, if not directly controlled by Putin himself, will lock him up and throw away the key. Anyway, I don't really know anything about this, just wanted to hear what other people think. | ||
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Deleted User 183001
2939 Posts
On May 05 2014 21:53 zeo wrote: I've only eaten kebab twice in my life, don't like it, burgers much better. They arn't UKR snipers. They are a militia loyal to Kiev killing Ukrainian citizens. Violation of human rights and law in Ukraine, must read. http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/media/events/eng/files/41d4d9d308e6f2ed8a7b.pdf I'm slightly disappointed you don't know you aren't aware of the most famous meme regarding Serbs.  Interesting read (well, I read about 30-40 pages), but it's about as slanted as anything that comes from the US for example (maybe not with UKR scenario but certainly others). It isn't useless, as this is a decently detailed chronology, but well, I'll be the first "non-hypocrite" to admit that where something comes from has a lot of bearing on the tone of the content. Just saying. That's very evident in this report. It aims to incriminate opposing Ukrainian groups as much as possible. On May 06 2014 01:40 Mc wrote: Marigold. Your posts make no sense. 1.)"One of the few times a Slavic country has had an honest election is Serbia when it replaced Milosevic" WTF? Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia have had *very* fair elections for the past couple decades. As to others, I'm pretty sure Croatia and Slovenia have pretty functioning democracies. WTF? 2.)"Close proximity to Russia is correlated with higher levels of corruption, and economic failure." Are you talking about geographic proximity? A lot of those countries don't share a border with Russia. Are you talking about pro-Russian policy? A lot of those countries are very independent of Russia. I'm glad you're "pro-Ukraine", but you clearly don't know your European history. As to having "no good reason" to join Russia - I agree with you for the most part except that in the short term Russia could heavily invest in the annexed areas in order to show the "benefits" of joining Russia. I thought this was established when he started posting ... It's like zeo, but without any sort of argument or evidence (I may be giving threads awards soon). I don't know what to think of the matter. On May 06 2014 02:37 LocalPredictor wrote: I'm not going to argue about corruption and stuff instead i'll tell you one thing. Those people want to be part of Russia because they feel inextricable connection with it and they are ready to build our common happy future sharing all the hardships with us. Happiness is not measured by money in the Russian lands. That's why we are invincible. Empire shall rise. LOL!!! Except for the part about happiness not being a measure of money, I don't know where you got all of this stuff from. You play too much Civ 5 bro? PS: Russia sucks in that game. lol Oh dear... I'm afraid to visit St. Petersburg now when I'm not an impoverished grad student anymore and able to do some traveling. Hey man, the guys were hungry haha. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if what happened is those guys ate a huge meal and decided to take a nap afterwards. What the heck is a "sleeping potion" anyways? Is this like a medieval RPG or something? Sleeping potion or not, these guys were not very careful to say the least On May 06 2014 03:23 Mc wrote: @Zeo, paleman, nunez could we form an temporary alliance against marigoldran (a la Molotov-Ribbentrop)? We won't bash each other a while and focus on marigoldran. Once things settle down, we'll go back to bashing each other. The city of Babylon pledges to this alliance as well. We has science and epic wall-building :3 On May 06 2014 06:01 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Why can't this thread be a bit more like the Syria thread? As said before there's almost no real facts posted anymore and the thread is just getting worse and worse. Well, no one here really gives a fuck about Syria, so there's not much going on in that thread. Here, we have Baltics, Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish guys who for obvious reasons have a huge interest in what's going on in Ukraine. On May 06 2014 07:36 prplhz wrote: Does anybody know what Putin's motivation is? If we assume (correctly) that the militaristic turn of events has been fueled by Putin's Russia's intervention and that the Russian mass media under Putin is propagandizing everything to weaken Ukraine as much as possible, what exactly is Putin trying to gain? This seems like a risky gamble where he is alienizing the entire western world for a few scraps of land, outside of the naval bases in the Crimea he already had access to this seems completely useless. At some point (hopefully soon) we will have had enough and will tell him to go sell his gas and oil to the North Koreans instead, I have no idea why he wants to antagonize his biggest trading partners. Is he doing this because his hold on power in Russia is slipping or something like that? I've argued this quite a few times earlier in the thread, but in brief, Ukraine is the rope in a tug-of-war. The US wants to oppose Russia and any Russian interests, whereas Russia doesn't want Ukraine becoming a US toy poodle, which is very possible considering the US has infinite money to offer, and keep it "neutral" or with Russia. These conflicting interests have led to Russian aggression, and US sanctioning. No political bigwigs actually care about Ukraine no matter what "humanitarian" rhetoric gets spewed, certainly not the US, but they do have critical strategic interests. Without either of these ideological camps, I'm certain there wouldn't have been political moves from either Russia or the US. Crimea is an extremely, extremely special case that has been discussed to death, but I don't think Putin cares so much about a "few scraps of land" as in eastern Ukraine. The Duma overwhelmingly approved for military action, Putin is getting every excuse he needs from the Ukrainian crackdown to intervene, and some of the people in these eastern Ukrainian cities are begging for his intervention. Considering the circumstances, he's showing an awful lot of restraint for someone who wants a "few scraps of land". ---------------------------------------------- What kind of Mi-24s are these that get downed by machine gun (guessing 12.7mm) fire (the third one at least)? Jesus... It's like they're ill-maintained and never upgraded, which wouldn't surprise me. However, I doubt they're export variants, seeing as Ukraine inherited them from USSR. So Ukraine's legit Hinds are seriously underperforming, and I seriously believe it's lack of maintenance and updating. If they were export variants, then there'd be no surprise. Soviet/Russian export models are completely downgraded trash. | ||
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Skullflower
United States3779 Posts
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Deleted User 183001
2939 Posts
On May 06 2014 09:54 Skullflower wrote: Maybe they're just taking the whole 'flying tank' moniker a little too serious. Honestly though I'd imagine you're spot on about the poor maintenance. Shame too because those are some seriously badass helicopters Yeah, a bit disappointing from a technical perspective, and a bit embarrassing for the Ukrainian military's operations as well to lose 3 already. But, anyways, I'm glad to still see you around the SC community, even after WBs kinda died lol. | ||
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marigoldran
219 Posts
East Ukrainian insurgents to Russia: "Give us money and be our sugar daddy." Putin in response: "Sure. But in return you're going to be my biatches." My question for those who support the separatists: are you sure you want Eastern Ukrainians to become Putin's biatches? Most people would consider becoming "Putin's biatch" as a bad thing. It's remarkably similar to prostitution. | ||
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Deleted User 183001
2939 Posts
On May 06 2014 11:02 marigoldran wrote: Well, given that Yanu was the former president of Ukraine, it's not surprising that the Ukrainian military is doing so poorly. After Yanu's rule, I'm surprised the helicopters even managed to fly. East Ukrainian insurgents to Russia: "Give us money and be our sugar daddy." Putin in response: "Sure. But in return you're going to be my biatches." My question for those who support the separatists: are you sure you want Eastern Ukrainians to become Putin's biatches? Most people would consider becoming "Putin's biatch" as a bad thing. It's remarkably similar to prostitution. Actually, the military has been in poor shape ever since Ukrainian SSR became Ukraine, but that's irrelevant. I guess we can blame things on people we don't like, whether it's true or not, if that's how we want to roll. And we have no proof of Putin giving money/arms to the insurgents, among other things you have stated that others have refuted. It was an initial conspiracy theory for rhetoric purposes that even Kerry is starting to shy away from, because every proof points to the opposite. I certainly don't support the insurgents, but I won't create falsehoods regarding the matter either. | ||
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Sub40APM
6336 Posts
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/vladimir-putin-pro-kremlin-journalists-medals-objective-crimea Putin awarded medals of the "Order of Service to the Fatherland" to 300 journalists including several editors, directors and television hosts known for their Kremlin-friendly coverage in an executive order signed on 22 April that was not made public. After the well respected newspaper Vedomosti first published details of the awards on Monday, presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the order had been signed but declined to provide details. Does anybody know what Putin's motivation is? If we assume (correctly) that the militaristic turn of events has been fueled by Putin's Russia's intervention and that the Russian mass media under Putin is propagandizing everything to weaken Ukraine as much as possible, what exactly is Putin trying to gain? This seems like a risky gamble where he is alienizing the entire western world for a few scraps of land, outside of the naval bases in the Crimea he already had access to this seems completely useless. At some point (hopefully soon) we will have had enough and will tell him to go sell his gas and oil to the North Koreans instead, I have no idea why he wants to antagonize his biggest trading partners. Is he doing this because his hold on power in Russia is slipping or something like that? I do believe that partially it is an economic issue for him, stagnation seems to be setting in and after the 2011-12 protests against Putin's right to be Tsar by people he thought were the backbone of his regime, Moscow/Leningrad dwelling middle class who benefited the most from the last 10 years of oil price increases, he shifted to a more conservative message that rests on 'the silent masses' that are more nationalistic/religious. Thats why you see ever more Imperial Russia style regelia, bringing back the Cossaks as some kind of paramilitary thing, more pronounced anti-gay sentiment, more pronounced 'Russia is an alternative civilization, different from gay Europeans', all the 'gay fascism' talk and stuff like this http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27286742 Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law banning all swearing in films, television broadcasts, theatres and the media. . I dont think Putin is corrupt the way that Yanukovich was corrupt, I think he is trying to rebuild some kind of 'great power', which is why he's cobbling together the 'Euroasian Union', another great way to spend Russian oil revenues. But broadly this has been a history of Russian Tsars trying to build alternatives to liberalism from the West since the 1800s. He's probably closest to Alexander III -- he'll take any Western military innovation and loans he wants but will try to build a top down authoritarian state with a power 'vertical' where a wise leader can squash corruption and incompetence. Or if you want to be cynical, Putin has ruled as the ultimate arbiter of power among various competing groups of politicians/oligarchs/security service personnel, they all are okay with Putin doing his Ken-dress up and talk tough stuff because they dont have to openly battle each other for power but they being all proud douches themselves also resent Putin for occupying a space some of them -- *cough* Igor Sechin *cough* imagine themselves occupying -- so Putin staying where he is the only way Putin can protect himself against any kind of backstab. After Yeltsin appointed him Putin marginalized the entire power structure that built around itself Yeltsin within 2-3 years and Putin can clearly imagine the same kind of situation. And you cant go from wrestling bears and finding archaeological sites while randomly scuba diving or flying birds or whatever else he does one day and the next day just hang out in some country home, waiting for the clock to run out on you. | ||
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marigoldran
219 Posts
2. Isn't that the whole point of politics to blame things on people we don't like? The Russians are doing it: they're blaming everything on "fascists." Why not return the favor? At the very least it'll make things more entertaining for everyone. And regardless of your opinion on the two points above, the major point remains: If East Ukraine breaks from West Ukraine, East Ukraine will become Russia's biatches. For those who support the separatists, are you sure you want that to happen? Historically, Russia's rule in Ukraine has not always been kind or gentlemanly. EDIT: Had Hitler NOT invaded Ukraine in 1941, there was a high probability Ukraine would have revolted against Stalin. My take on all of this is that Russia is the abusive husband and Ukraine is the submissive wife, who somehow for some idiotic reason always returns back to living with the abusive husband. I see that as a bad thing. Perhaps it's time for a divorce. | ||
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nunez
Norway4003 Posts
Armoured Personnel Carrier in Frankivsk: The Farce Continues uauk@wordpressYesterday’s post on the presidential election campaign ended on an optimistic note regarding the “activism” of Maidan Self-Defence and Right Sector in the city. Unfortunately, this optimism proved premature as the farce of the selection of the new head of police in region entered a new act today. Since 25 April, an armoured personnel carrier has been stationed outside the police HQ in the city, so the building whose Security Service wing was burned out in mid-February. The campaign to prevent Volhynia native and experienced police functionary Serhiy Piddubnyj becoming head of Ivano-Frankivsk region police has been going on much longer. Today was supposed to have been Piddubnyj’s first day at work, although he never turned up, at least not through the front door. Perhaps because since this morning a crowd of a hundred or so “activists” had been awaiting his arrival, hoping that he would take the APC “Taxi to Dubno” back to his native region.Most probably the armoured personnel carrier belongs to one of these guys, interviewed here, with the article asking if they are “extremists or defenders”. Good question. It’s not clear from any media reports what grievance Maidan Self-Defence and Right Sector have with Piddubnyj, other than that they are categorically opposed to his role.* While the media continue to claim that this small group of activists represent “the community”, in reality public opinion in the city has very little interest in who is head of police and instead is more concerned by the ability of these groups to continue to blockade streets and administrative buildings. ![[image loading]](http://uauk.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/2014-05-05-13-47-21.jpg?w=676&h=505) APC outside Ivano-Frankivsk police HQ, 5 May 2014 ... | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Putin is not trying to rebuild the Soviet union in the sense of the communistic leaders of the past. He's trying to rebuild some kind of orthodox kingdom that's not as 'degenerated and materialistic' as the west. | ||
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marigoldran
219 Posts
EDIT: And I honestly don't understand it: why do some Ukranians want to return to Russia? Hasn't Russia rule in Ukraine been abusive in the past? Just think of all the horrible stuff that Khrushchev and Stalin and Lenin did to Ukraine. If someone has a history of beating you with a whip (or worse), perhaps it's time for change. Does that make sense? | ||
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Deleted User 183001
2939 Posts
On May 06 2014 11:21 marigoldran wrote: 1. Even if you're right, after Crimea very few people in the West believe you. Putin did it in Crimea, so now most people assume he's doing the same in East Ukraine. So your point is rather meaningless. 2. Isn't that the whole point of politics to blame things on people we don't like? The Russians are doing it: they're blaming everything on "fascists." Why not return the favor? At the very least it'll make things more entertaining for everyone. And regardless of your opinion on the two points above, the major point remains: If East Ukraine breaks from West Ukraine, East Ukraine will become Russia's biatches. For those who support the separatists, are you sure you want that to happen? Historically, Russia's rule in Ukraine has not always been kind or gentlemanly. EDIT: Had Hitler NOT invaded Ukraine in 1941, there was a high probability Ukraine would have revolted against Stalin. My take on all of this is that Russia is the abusive husband and Ukraine is the submissive wife, who somehow for some idiotic reason always returns back to living with the abusive husband. I see that as a bad thing. Perhaps it's time for a divorce. No, my point is completely relevant, and it's completely relevant to anyone with an ounce of intelligence (sorry about that, bud). Journalist and observers have literally been like wolves in trying to nab any evidence that what you imply is remotely true. However, everything they've yet to report says the exact opposite. Take it up with them. Maybe in your eyes, there's a giant international conspiracy to keep everything hush-hush, because you are literally the only human being who apparently "knows" that Russia is sending arms/money to the insurgents, and on top of that, Russia has tons of military forces in Ukraine. I don't see what Hitler has anything to do with 2014, but it's not like your posts have ever had much reasoning to them anyways, so it's not like it means anything lol XD On May 06 2014 11:32 Nyxisto wrote: yeah what sub40 said. It's about building a 'moral superior society'. Putin's first enemy is liberalism. I think people payed way to little attention when the whole NGO screening and Pussy riot and anti-gay legislation stuff started. The rise of the influence of the orthodox church supports that to. It went from basically barely existing after the communist regime to having support of about everyone today. Putin is not trying to rebuild the Soviet union in the sense of the communistic leaders of the past. He's trying to rebuild some kind of orthodox kingdom that's not as 'degenerated and materialistic' as the west. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you are), the Church has played a critical role in working against Russia's most serious social problems, like drug abuse, declining population, etc. Most people seem to be completely ignorant about the 1990s in Russia, but the economic and social collapse exceeded almost any other in modern history. The society was very reminiscent of some dystopian-world sci-fi, with pretty much nothing going right, and everything bad that could happen, happening. Well, when you have a Church that is working to resolve these issues, it's going to give them a lot of political leverage. This is one reason why the Church has come to have such an alliance with the government. I'm of the opinion that governments should work entirely atheistically so to speak, so this is a bit shocking to me. I am against rhetoric damning homosexuality or other religious groups, so I wish they'd do away with this. However, California at least (as this is the part of the US I know best) could do with a lot less materialism and vanity. Then again, I grew up lower middle-class in a humble household so maybe my outlook is probably skewed. | ||
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marigoldran
219 Posts
My point about Hitler is that choosing Russia over "fascism" isn't necessarily a much better choice. EDIT: Russia has a history of being abusive towards Ukraine. It's like asking someone: would you rather have your stomach removed or your liver? Do you want to be ruled by the people in Kiev, or the people in Moscow? | ||
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