Ukraine/Crimea

Wouldn't it be ironic if a busload of civilians got blown up leaving Debaltseve on the eve of the Munich Security Conference (Feb 6-8) and the rebels got blamed for it. Or, perhaps a better word than "ironic" is "convenient".
 
Where is everyone the people ask? Well, not to worry. While the US has been trying to decide whether or not to send lethal aid to help the government of Ukraine kill the people of Donbas (sorry, "cleanse") the US has been ... sending lethal aid. I guess the Kiev junta are running out of old Soviet incendiaries to drop on civilian towns. That and the cluster bombs the US backed regime have used are a bit war-crimey.
 
This is something I read fairly often:

Vladimir Putin wants Donbass to instead remain a part of Ukraine, as a counter-weight there against the rabidly anti-Russian voters in Ukraine's western region, so as to produce yet another Yanukovych-like leadership in Ukraine and thus reduce the likelihood of a global nuclear war (which would be Russia's only alternative if Obama were to succeed in his surround-Russia-with-missiles plan).
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and it makes sense if you look at what Putin has been doing and not what the mainstream media (that includes BBC and CBC) have been saying that Putin is doing including that he discouraged the holding of the referendum (which went overwhelmingly for separation with high voter turnout and was ruled to be clean by international observers who were there).

Meanwhile the Kiev regime continue to shell civilians to get rid of the Russo-philic population and the US is talking about fanning the flames even further, though others see that as dangerous. It'll be interesting to see whether Angela and Francois are acting in the interest of Europe now or whether they remain bagmen for the US - after all, if a war gets fought it'll likely be fought in Europe.

Also, conscription in Ukraine isn't going so well with lots of people just not showing up. Perhaps that's why Ukraine just passed a law to allow shooting of defectors and those that have already been conscripted often abandon their weapons at the first opportunity (and who can blame them - they aren't fighting for where they live unlike the people of Donbas). - and backstop brigades haven't worked.

It will be difficult for future peace talks to go anywhere though since the Donbas region has completely lost trust in Kiev and that's just as well, because they are completely untrustworthy - they only have ceasefires to regroup.
 
Some parliamentarians didn't like this speech (Nov 2013).
 
I don't expect too many people will watch this - it's quite long by internet standards - 34 minutes. And it's just one guy talking and it's subtitled. It's the former Prime Minister of Ukraine and it gives a fascinating inside look at recent events.
 
Debaltseve has fallen/been liberated. The defenders are now in control and humanitarian aid is reaching the citizens that still remain.
Now that the IMF installed manager has lost that war, what is his future looking like?

By the way, did anyone notice that the tie eating fugutive ex-President of Georgia, Sack-of-willies, was appointed head of the International Advisory Council on Reforms by Poroshenko? What a bunch of shady characters. Poor Ukraine.
 
China tells US to back off on Ukraine. This is quite a surprisingly clear statement as diplomats are generally much more couched than this. China obviously understands that if Russia goes down then China is next. Perhaps they are no longer willing to appease the one "indispensable nation".
 
Ukraine is getting Greeced! They have to allow Monsanto in and they have to hand over land etc in order to get loans. But after you hand over all your stuff, what the heck do you pay the loans back with?
 
Op-ed from the Guardian:

Putin’s authoritarian conservatism may offer little for Russia’s future, but this anti-Russian incitement is dangerous folly. There certainly has been military expansionism. But it has overwhelmingly come from Nato, not Moscow. For 20 years, despite the commitments at the end of the cold war, Nato has marched relentlessly eastwards, taking in first former east European Warsaw Pact states, then republics of the former Soviet Union itself. As the academic Richard Sakwa puts it in his book Frontline Ukraine, Nato now “exists to manage the risks created by its existence”.
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Instead of creating a common European security system including Russia, the US-dominated alliance has expanded up to the Russian border – insisting that is merely the sovereign choice of the states concerned. It clearly isn’t. It’s also the product of an alliance system designed to entrench American “leadership” on the European continent – laid out in Pentagon planning drawn up after the collapse of the Soviet Union to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival”.
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Robert said:
In work right now and watching videos isn't so convenient here - any chance of a synopsis?
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Synopsis - when the Ukrainian army came to the east they brought with them fracking and oil operations - something the locals previously said they objected to.
When the locals chased them out some vehicles were left behind.
 
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