Having posted that I'm a massive Russophile, I went to find this topic.
Note that my opinions are on the
very pro-Russian, anti-Western end.
I might be voting against Putin in 2016, too, though.
Still, I have researched this topic intensively.
St. Elmo's Fire wrote:World War 3 in the making? Or are the allies too scared of Putin to do much about this?
I get the feeling the Budapest Memorandum probably actually
was cynically signed by the leaders back then more in the interests of making the Ukrainians disarm their nuclear stockpile rather than any future commitment to protecting them. So probably nothing will happen. I do not like the idea of Russia beginning a Soviet Reunion and getting away with it either, though...
George W. Bush would have pressed the big red button already, he always had the right idea.
Possibly WWIII in the making; I'm unsure.
Yeltsin did not want a united Soviet Union. In fact, after the
people of the Soviet Union voted to keep their unity, Yeltsin defiantly declared independence from the Soviet Union (which was now transitioning into Capitalism) and then the Supreme Soviet had to declare dissolution on 25 December 1991.
While I was a Republican in the USA for a long time (aka in my teens), and am now probably voting Constitution Party for 2010, I do not support attacking the largest Capitalist nation in the world. It's the end of the planet, and all.
Sonikku wrote:FTFY. 
And there will be no world war 3. The US isn't going to go out on a limb for a country with so few valuable natural resources and Putin knows Obama's threats are entirely empty.
Ukraine has a lot of trade with Russia which is now being cut. Also, it has Russian resource pipelines. Additionally, it has a ton of Russian assets even with Crimea having rejoined Russia, including many Soviet shipyards which were used to build aircraft carriers, etc. Essentially, this is a Western attack on Russia. Evidence in support of my theory includes the NATO bombing of the Russian port in Libya, which they promised would not receive damage in exchange for the no-fly zone approval.
AhmedHazuki wrote:Nobody can do anything about it, Russia throughout history does whatever it wants for the benefit of Russia not the people but for Russia. They will not negotiate with other countries. You can't let Russia get sanctioned because Europe is very dependent on Russia's resources, heck countries like France and Germany only make about 35% of their electricity so imagine what would happen if Russia were to pull the plug on them. The only country who could get involved however is the U.S.A but they are reluctant on doing so. Even the U.S citizens don't want another war. Is it possible for a WWIII? Yes very possible. If this continues to take place then the world is indirectly giving appeasement to Russia while they gain land and resources. Russia will be even a bigger threat and EU countries are no longer the global powers they once were, they stopped investing as much in the military for a while now and became more diplomatic states. Russia on the other hand is heavily investing in the military and is not afraid to bombard anyone in their way.
Honestly, if you sanction Russia, you'll only strengthen the "native" industries of Russia; for instance, their auto industry is extremely weak and only has like one company left making regular, consumer cars, which is really quite weak in their homeland and nonexistent outside of Russia AFAIK.
Essentially, by sanctioning Russia and imposing visa restrictions, the West will only make Russia stronger economically. Eventually, Russia would begin to export again and then the West would be finished. The problem would be that I would be rendered unable to move to Russia. RT (Russian news in English) even covered a story with the headline "PUTIN PREPARES FOR WWIII." awhile back, so I'm sadly predicting that he anticipated this, likely with GRU or SVR intelligence data.
beedle wrote:This isn't blind imperialism from Russia. It feels threatened by the expansion of western influences and NATO into its sphere of influence, and probably rightfully so in many respects. Ukraine was a buffer for Western Europe and a Russian ally, and regardless whether or not they have a genuine reason to be concerned, it's pretty obvious why they feel the way they do. Imagine if the Canadian government was overthrown and replaced by a pro-Russian one, and Russian diplomats were leaked discussing how they can exploit the crisis. I don't think the U.S. would behave calmly and accept the outcome. Of course, that doesn't mean I support what they're doing, I just feel it's important to understand the other side.
Also I don't think they'll pull the plug. It would ultimately harm Russia more so than Europe.
You're on the right track, but you've got to look deeper, in my opinion.
NATO took over most of Yugoslavia and essentially destroyed "Russia's best friend" Serbia. Then, they expanded their alliance deep, all the way to the Baltics in 2004. In the NATO bombing of Libya, they coincidentally destroyed a Russian Navy base in Tripoli. The Syrian government was coincidentally aligned with Russia and harbored a Russian Navy base at Tartus. Having lost their excuse to bomb that, the West had the Maidan movement in Ukraine. It is now largely proven (Estonian FM said that the snipers may have been hired by Maidan leaders, in the most pro-Western reports, while he said it outright in the more pro-Russian reports, but I didn't listen to the call.) that the opposition and/or EU, not the Berkut (Yanukovich), hired the snipers -- who, according to the democratic leaders of Ukraine, were using opposition-occupied buildings' roofs for their nests -- to shoot at protesters. Further proof is found in the fact that they also shot police, who would probably not be candidates to be shot by other officers.
Bambi wrote:In the Ukrianian cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Sevastopil, and Simferopil, there have been reports on the Russian news channels of "pro-Russian activists" speaking out about how they "feel threatened by the neo-Nazi fascists in Ukraine" and other BS like that. These reports were broadcasted all over the Russian news. However, if you look closely you can see that these women happen to look the same. Interesting, yes? Facial recognition technology further proves that these demonstrators are all the same people from the same small group of people. These are Russian citizens driven into and around Ukrainian cities and no doubt paid off to give their heart-felt speeches to the Russian citizens and anyone else watching. These are all lies. And to this day, on the Russian version of Facebook called VKontakte there are ads to get Russian citizens to go into Ukraine as "moral support groups" for the pro-Russian citizens...in other words, they get them into Ukraine and have them act as Ukrainian citizens, speaking on their behalf. They have absolutely no right to do this, in the same way that you and I don't have the right to vote in a different country. This is direct manipulation and provocation. Source is provided First link in Ukrainian (you can use google translate)
http://espreso.tv/new/2014/03/03/ukrayi ... _patriotiv Second link is in Polish
http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-ze-swiat ... 04641.html EDIT: people asked for more links. Here you have them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qISV2sv_56E (same voices/faces)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2v83IQ57r http://www.stopfake.org/en/ http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-26435333 http://euromaidanpr.wordpress.com/2014/ ... of-crimea/ More information can be found on facebook, on the groups EuroMaidan, Euromaidanpr, Euromaidan in English, Euromaidan Art & graphics. Info can also be found on espreso.tv, hromadske.tv, spilno.tv, KyivPost, Twitter feeds of EuroMaidan, as well as on Үкраїнська Правда online. Note: the facebook groups are good sources of information and further links. They receive info from anyone, so please be wary of the information, but as long as links are provided and they're valid, the information is true.
I honestly have no clue what's up with this but I think that they look different in some cases. For instance, it seems that her hair color deviates...
Still, I've seen the West do the same thing often, if this is accurate.
