My, a touchy one. No offense meant kid, I guess you just aren't old enough to be conscripted anyway. Which is good, all things considered. Or whatever's left of it. Speaking of foreigners, do Natalie Jaresko, Aivaras Abromavičius, Mikhail Saakashvili, Alexander Kvitashvili (and some others) have a right to discuss your country? 'Cause, you know, they aren't Ukrainians to begin with. Nah, I never thought it was you, I was wondering genuinely. You might've noticed that the thread lacks post #1384 and I believe whoever left it is the culprit. "Look what the cat's dragged in" referred to the thread itself, not to you (or anyone else, for that matter). No problem. Should we just stop noticing the refugees, problems with gas debts, outright screwed rhetoric of your "polititians"? Stop making problems for others and live the way you want to. In that order. Well, I don't. I just log into Steam and here's one of my friendlisted pals writing "They actually stopped shelling us, hooray!", I start Skype - and another one's asking me about the exchange rates and stuff "'Cause I'm going to Russia with my family soon". Dammit, I use the TV set as a monitor for my PC, I don't watch it otherwise and still I get the news without even choosing to!
You know, I have a good metaphor for your (country's) situation "not affecting anyone" but as it might hurt your feelings I'll just keep it for those who aren't that touchy.
P.S. By the way, you don't have to explain the "crucified boy" stuff anymore, I've already been told what it's all about. What was whoever made that fake thinking, I wonder. A sloppy, a very sloppy job it is.

My father is ukrainian, one of killed by Kiev's forces journalists is my cousine.
My company used to buy engines from closed plant.
This is personal.

Your cousine has been killed by Kiev's forces?

Yes. Igor Kornelyuk, died under shelling in Luhansk.
Wouldn't lie, I didn't have close contacts with him, my grandfather had 11 brothers and sisters, so there are a lot of my relatives.

I'm sorry for your loss.

My opinion is that Crimea and Donbass (or whatever is called) seccesion was done in a wrong way.

People from Crimea shoud have peacefully manifested and, considering that more than 80% (or even 90%) of the populations supported independence, almost all western world would have recognize it after a few weeks. If Kiev would have used force, have them arrested and so on then the foreign countries would further sympathize with the locals.
I would have invited all the foreign observers (especially western) who wouldnt have any choice than to admit that Crimea wants independence with a vast majority.


I don't know if this would have worked for Donbass too. How many people from that region don't want to secede from Kiev? 20%? 40%? 60%? But doing it in the way I described above we would have known.
What should Kiev have done? Just let people with firearms capture the public institutions? Until a recognized referendum is done those people are nothing but terrorists. In Luhansk could be that 50% of population want to stay with Kiev but are too affraid to fight with the locals who have taken up arms. Perhaps they would have fight but didn't have firearms, like those supported by Russia.


There is no doubt Putin used Ukrainian citizens to meat his goals and also sent troops and arms to the rebels. Kiev's killing of unarmed citizens is a mistake (like the shooting down of the plane by the rebels) and I'm sure they regret that but most of the people's blood is on Putin's hands.

Everything could have been done in a civilized way.......

You see, it all comes back to Maidan. Crimean representatives were already breathing down Yanukovych's neck telling him they would secede from Ukraine if he didn't deal with the extremists wreaking havoc in Kiev. Absolutely everyone knew what was going to happen after the Maidan coup, everybody.

You seem to be under the impression that there weren't peaceful protests in the east. People were furious, an unelected government which gained power through an illegal coup was now signing away the future of their grandchildren's grandchildren and robbing the country blind. The constitutional court said that the transition of power was against all laws in the Ukraine so the Maidan leaders jailed the constitutional court judges. There were peaceful protests all over Ukraine but you weren't going to hear about it on CNN or BBC because it went against their narrative. You also wouldn't hear about the kidnappings and beatings.

All the representatives of the people living in those regions were fired by the Kiev government and people who had nothing to do with those cities came in and suddenly became mayors who brutally cracked down on any anti-maidan dissidents. When Strelkov entered Slavyansk with 20 accomplices and a crowbar he had far from any support for a violent struggle among the locals of Donbass. All they wanted was federalization so that they would have the freedom to run their regions as they see fit without fear of the US funding revolutions in Kiev every 5 years and ruining everything.

Think about it for a second. If an armed group of 20 people take over a building in your country what happens? Thats right, the police deal with it, you send in a SWAT team. Do you scramble fighter jets and start bombing runs on the city? No, no you do not. This whole ordeal has been one catastrophic mistake from the Kiev government after another. There is a reason why corrupt politicians love war, ex-Yugoslavia citizens can testify to that. Gorlovka, was completely surrounded, nothing could come in, nothing out, yet the rebels inside had a constant flow of weapons. How? They were buying trucks full of AK's and ammunition from politician who are now in Poroshenko's government for peanuts.

The politicians in Kiev need this war to get rich while the people leading Donbass now hope to get rich in the future. You are right that this could have been done in a civilized way, but the US and Russia don't care.

Well my thoughts as a foreigner.

The only logical conclusion is that Ukraine will be split in 2. With the east becoming Russia and the west possibly becoming an EU nation.

Civilized way - Kosovo.
We have seen it, thanks.
You forget that current people in Kiev are result of armed captures of administrative buildings by people, which don't represent majority of Ukrainian population. They were legitimized by not letting any pro-russian candidate participate in the presidential elections and excluding 25% of population, which is 70-80% pro-russian, from voting pool.

About Crimea:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-06/one-year-later-crimeans-prefer-russia

I recommend to read Bismark quotes about Russia, he really did understand us.

Do not expect that once taking advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. Russian has always come for their money. And when they come - do not rely on an agreement signed by you, you are supposed to justify. They are not worth the paper it is written. Therefore, with the Russian is to play fair, or do not play.
- Otto von Bismarck

It was cut off at the moment of Russian weakness. Taking it back is fair. Old map of Ukrainian republic in USSR doesn't justify it.

Root of current problems lies in the fact that region-Ukraine for almost ~1000 years wasn't politically, economically and culturally meaningful. It was borderline region, divided between Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary and other players. Smartest, strongest, wealthiest always leaved Ukraine heading either into Russia or West.

About USSR:
while it formally was union of republics, it was political and economical monolith. Nobody bothered with administrative borders - everything belonged to state. Borders were redrawn at will, like giving land for Republic's cake day, because nobody expected fall of USSR. This way Ukrainian Republic, which was created mainly for additional seat in UN, got its current form.
Iron curtain blocked possibility for people to migrate into West, so for last 5 generations most competent Ukrainians headed to Russia, so Kiev started to fill with west-oriented but still lacking competence people (There were Poland, Lithuania, Estonia with even better level of life).
Division of USSR was made in a hurry by 100 years old nominal administrative borders against referendum on which 80% of people voted AGAINST division. Borders weren't in any way agreed upon nor people were asked for self-determination; but they got instantly solidified by western world. Yes, against referendum. Because fuck Russia.
These borders don't match to distribution of population and economical ties. Many newly created countries got enclaves of Russian population with economical ties to other Russian regions.
In first ten years or so post-USSR area was like EU - everywhere was similar level of life, you could move freely, so people didn't bother with self-determination in newly created countries.
When alcoholic and people behind him were thrown out situation started to change, Russia started to grow in quality of life level, and many regions noticed this, to the point of "take us back".

Post-division Ukraine got biggest Russian population from all other enclaves, around 60%(in mentality, not nationality). Thing is, economical, cultural and political center for Russian population - Moscow. There are millions of Ukrainians in Russia, you don't see multimillion meetings "Putin, stop attacking my homeland". Even in post-soviet period many Ukrainians continued migration to Russia. For example, I work in Siberia. When I do search in our filial's address book for "*enko", typical ending for Ukrainian family, I see that ~15% of people have it. Me, myself, is a result of such migration.
Russians are underrepresented in Kiev. People democratically elect pro-russian president and factual Ukrainian minority, majority in capital, goes into protest mode.
Though, problem isn't in course, problem in http://i.imgur.com/ACYWckx.png oligarchs pillage country like there is no tomorrow, no GDP per capita growth at all - growth by 20% tied to 20% population loss http://imgur.com/2Cp19Mr

My whole life ukrainians protest,
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/9/9/7/3175799.jpg
protest
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/1/0/8/3175801.jpg
protest.
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/2/0/8/3175802.jpg
protest.
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/4/0/8/3175804.jpg
protest
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/7/0/8/3175807.jpg
protest
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/0/1/8/3175810.jpg
protest
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/3/1/8/3175813.jpg
and continue to protest
http://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/4/1/8/3175814.jpg

Ukraine produced chips for Russian 5th generation jets; engines for space rockets and helicopters, gas transport system... All these plants, located in the East region, die because of puppet government, which banned export to Russia. West isn't interested in making our life better. Never was.

This "divide and conquer" politic against Russia at its finest:
"Postrevolutional democratic Georgia" tried to make ethnic cleansing of Russia-oriented region with similar infowar in press about "Russian aggression". Funny thing, but the same firm which worked with Saakashvili in Georgia now works for Kiev. Saakashvili himself works in Kiev. Yes, after getting "free from Russia", new government rewrote constitution to let foreigners take seats in government. Freedom my ass.

Then there are "democratic Lithuania", which doesn't let 15% of its population vote because they are Russians.

Thing with HUGE amounts of weapon on Ukraine - during soviet era it housed 3 armies for potential attack on Europe. Hundreds of tanks, millions tons of shells...
Ukraine is one of the world leaders in weapon export - not because they have strong weapon producing complexes (there is only one ammo plant with license for Kalashnikov ammo in Ukraine, Luhansk - under militants), they sell USSR heritage for 20 years and still have tons of equipment.

When Cuban crisis happened, US gathered UN and presented photos of soviet missiles.
So, after all these years they lost all capabilities for spying and rely on "someone posted this photo in twitter"?
Hey, this is biggest corruption scandal then - CIA takes money and doesn't work.

Crimea tried the peaceful route from 1992-5, Kiev did not take it kindly, sent in troops and Crimea was even ruled by presidential decree for some time. The west completely ignored it.

Wow, all of the sudden russian trolls got activated in every possible media everywhere two days ago with exactly matching posts (in many cases - exactly same to the last letter). Up until now i haven't believed that they are on payment from russia and claims about this are bullshit but looks like i was wrong.

I'm sorry for forbidding you to provide proof links to support your point of view (since I don't see anyone else here forbidding you that it must've been me). I take it back, feel free to provide proof of your statements or bring to light the fakes of Russians.
You may start with proving that foreigners (I mentioned 4 of them in my post; in case you've forgotten: Jaresko, Abromavičius, Saakashvili, Kvitashvili) are not part of your government or other structures that actively influence Ukrainian policies.
You might also feel like telling us that you don't have a history of protests against the presidents that you elected all by yourselves. (Yeah, wiki sources. Call me lazy).
Do not hesitate to tell us how your valiant army heroically shells despicable civili... terrorists who do terrible things to your prisoners like healing them and showing them what they've done.

On a side note, "Russia" and "Russian" are spelled with capital letters, but since you are a savage from Xen, I understand why you don't know such basic things and forgive you for the time being.

A few days ago a Polish journalist, a good friend of one of my colleagues btw, published an article based on the stuff he witnessed himself there. He was with Ukrainian "soldiers" there (actually volunteers, mostly without military experience, according to him mostly members of the social "elite" - academics, doctors, students etc.) and he witnessed the first days of the cease fire himself. The soldiers honored the cease fire despite the separatists' artillery fire continuously threatening their lives and killing and wounding at least two of them after the cease fire had officially started. Also that journalist dude got caught in mortar fire himself a bunch times since then. Yes, the separatists are truly honorable men indeed, shelling soldiers who won't fight back because they respect their government's peace efforts. Not to mention that civilians can still be found in the areas they keep firing at. True heroes, those separatists.

Mhm, a friend of colleagues. Of course I know him, he's a jolly good fellow and the most reliable source of info there is. (All right, I'll try to be more serious).
The thing is, I have read that in the first hours of ceasefire there were a few violations of it - from both sides, mind you, and mainly around Debaltzevo that was considered an internal territory of Donetsk People's Republic. Did your friend's friend's friend happen to be there? Could you give some details so that the incident could be identified?
I won't question academics fighting in Donbass since whether it's true or not, that makes no difference. Unless, of course the fact was mentioned for some specific reason. Let me add though (for clarity's sake) that not all volunteers are exactly knights in shining armor.
I won't even ask why your academics or their friends shell and [url=http://tass.ru/en/world/776861]bus stations - clearly those were in truth disguised enemy headquarters.

I was going to post the article but couldn't find it right away. It's in Polish but I might post it later once I find the link. It was published by one of the major Polish newspapers.

Yes it was. As everyone should know (especially the Russian government surely does) the intelligentsia is more resistant to propaganda and tends to behave more ethically than angry mobs of poor peasants. That these kinds of people tend to join the Ukrainian government rather than the separatists kinda supports the notion that the people loyal to the Ukrainian government are the good guys. If you don't acknowledge that fact you know little about your own country's history and modus operandi.