You're not replying to what I said, just using circle logic. Russia does not get to invade countries to make a political point or protect its interests without provocation. That's illegal and immoral. The EU did not do that, they ALLEGEDLY helped Ukrainian protesters, that's it.

Yeah, let just everyone move in their armed forces into any country, where your ethnic people live. Have the russians from Brighton Beach called for help and protection already?

Can't wait for China to invade Philadelphia because of Chinatown!

Bad example really, Ukraine is Russia's doorstep and part of it's strategic sphere of influence, and their was a basically a pro-EU coup in the country and aggressive attempts to pull the country into the EU/NATO sphere of influence. If you expected Russia to not do anything you're a fool. Call it an "invasion" or whatever, everyone knows the US/EU where pining for the Maidan protestors and in some cases actively supporting them to overthrow the government, if you expected Russia to just stand by while Ukraine went into the EU sphere, I think you're foolish.

And no, I'm not saying I agree with what Russia has done, or that I think it's "morally" right, truth is those kind of questions are irrelevant. If the US was faced with this kinda situation with a country within their own sphere, they would probably do the same thing - like when they invaded Grenada, Panama, Cuba, and supported a whole bunch of coups in South America.

Of course the best course would be for Ukraine to have a "compromise" President, someone who is acceptable to both Russia and the EU, and selectively allocate the seats in Parliament to all relevant parties, including the pro-EU and pro-Russia parties, and have both the US/EU and Russia support the country financially and politically to keep it on track.

But unfortunately sides in Ukraine don't seem to want that, they want all or nothing, which is the path to ruin.

Hey, New Zealand is on Australia's doorstep, why not invade it before it gets a better relationship with China?

You should also check the definition of 'coup', ousting him from office after hundreds of people died by government forces won't be it. And while you are at it, please provide evidence that Maidan protesters have been by the EU/USA.

The Ukraine is a sovereign state and so can decide for itself. They didn't want a bad relationship with Russia, they wanted both a good relationship with Russia and Europe.

More bad examples? Ease up on the strawmen. Russia isn't Australia and Ukraine isn't NZ, completely different countries, completely different politically situations, completely different regional calculations and everything else.

The point is, everyone in the world knew Russia would react this way after having their strategic interests hurt so badly, so complaining about it is just pointless moral vanity. Nope that sounds exactly what happened in Ukraine. Who can say? But at the diplomatic level they were certainly supported by Western diplomats, in words, that's on the public record. So protestors were obviously emboldened because they thought foreign governments were behind them. But they did, Yanukovych was democratically elected, so if the Ukrainian people wanted him gone - then wait till elections and elect someone else. Instead he was ejected from office illegally when out of the country.

Who is to say that the Maidans don't just represent a radical minority and that the new "interim" govt in Ukraine doesn't want new elections because they would lose?

The new government of Ukraine wasn't elected by it's people by vote so how is it legitimate?

And Ukrainians (or any group of people) do not get to overthrow their government to make a political point. You wait till elections like every civilized country. Everyone lives under a social contract to live in a country, which includes both rights AND responsibilities.

"Revolutionary" and mob-rule bullshit is a cancer on humanity.

Cant wait for Ireland to invade Boston!

Fenway here I come! :)

Oooops, sorry, haha, our bad. Totally forgot to claim Ukraine had weapons of mass destruction, move in to look for them and then shrug it off saying "Oh well, bad intel, things happen, whatever". :-p
So what's the problem? Just say that you are bringing democracy and go for it. Just don't forget to work with opposition before that.

...still not passing judgement on the situation. And still don't like it: RUB is getting cheaper by the day.

Dang, I wanted to make the same joke when responding to mg1979 yesterday but then changed my mind. Now I regret it.
It's hilarious that you actually suggest democratic means considering the whole conflict started with people standing up to a corrupt government. And the presence of Russian military in Ukraine sure is a good start for a democratic process. :P

Also, going back to your Czechoslovakia analogy - note that that nation was divided into two, not parts of it just given away to an already existing and huge nation infamous for its corrupt government and insane agenda harmful to their own people (btw, right now my brother's Russian wife is over there saving her family's savings before this insanity going on makes it worthless and shatters their whole economy). Anyway, if the greatest concern was getting Russians to live in a pro-Russian nation they should just be fucking moved to Russian territory - but this conflict is not about that. It's about Russia clinging to its imperialistic ideas, a psychopath on top trying to continue an agenda and executing it with means that have no place in the modern world.

Right. Sending forces will not help that at all.
But I also will mention language law once more. People tend to brush it off: what's the problem, they can still speak Russian all they want. Lovely.
They can. But without official status they don't have any rights for state education in Russian, they can't use Russian in civil service, etc.
Minor detail. And Russian is native language for majority of people there.
Somehow I don't think it will help them in finding their identity.
And this is not the only problem.

This was smoldering for years, and if people in Maidan can overthrow government because they got tired of crooks, then why can't people of Crimea do the same and decide their fate in haste and use any means they for that (ask for Russia for help)?
Why suddenly double standards?

I really think russian should remain official language, at least in all regions where it is spoken by at least a considerable part. But I wonder what the term help means here, when calling russian forces for help? Helping them keeping russian an official language? As long as nobody is killed we can talk easily about this. Let's hope it stays like that.

I believe the overthrowing of the government probably has a majority in the ukrainian population. They are genuinely feed up with their former president and want to put him in prison for corruption. I believe he doesn't have a majority of people behind him anymore.

But new elections are most important to really establish this fact. Maybe they even go back to the russian friendly stance - everything is possible but democracy should as soon as possible again be the basis of decisions. On the other hand four years is a long time and if you really fuck up during this time there should be a possibility for the people to demand new elections or taking back really bad decisions. I guess that's what happened.

I also believe that the country is deeply divided into an eastern and a western part. But is this enough reason to question the integrity of the country? The call for help is mostly a pretense. Something like a division is best be prepared in years of discussions and realistic estimation what it all means. It's a far ranging decision. At such a situation with all the violent threats and the imminent crisis - how can people make an informed decision? How can they realistically weigh all the (economical, political, ...) consequences of any vote? How can one make sure that noone is too intimidated to go and vote? And how large should the seceding area be?

If the russian government had the best fate of the people there in mind, they would mostly insist on a schedule to a referendum in let's say at least one year, better two or three in the future. In the mean time there could be a broad discussion what it really means.

So, is it still double standards? It may be a simple idea to balance one bad deed by another, but does it make the situation any better?

I would actually advocate the ukrainians to respect the strong russian minority and to come to good terms with them, if this is still possible. A government of national unity might be advantageous. Because if you cannot make compromises, if you cannot have a peaceful schedule for maybe a secession, the country will break apart violently. The russian help isn't really helpful there and my guess is that the strategy of the russian government is to break the Ukraine apart and take the pieces that you can get. The invasion was extremely well organized because it was planned for quite some time. It won't please all the other neighbours of russia, fear might make them move closer together, except China probably who doesn't care and rather buys the world.

We could make the thought experiment and speculate how the crisis would have played out if Yanukovich wouldn't have left and Russian troops wouldn't have entered the Ukraine. I guess the economy would have collapsed sooner or later and then Yanukovich would have been released anyway with new elections and everything. But who knows. Maybe Russia would have paid some more billions instead to buy some more time? Maybe Ukraine would now be in the middle of a civil war?

Good grief. Russian military forces INVADED Ukraine. This isn't a revolution. This is one nation deciding it wants part of another nation and attacking. We're not using double standards. We're judging 2 completely different situations differently. Because they're different.

It's just as stupid for Russia to claim part of Ukraine because some former Russians live there as it is for Ireland to claim part of the US because ethnic Irish live there.

P.S. Russia is doing this to get a port city. Putin does not care one whit about the Russians living in Ukraine.

People who come from a Russian background but are now Ukrainian citizens *are Ukrainian*. They *are not* Russian. Ukrainians *do* have a right to the land that Russians don't. It's *part of Ukraine*. Just like Ukrainians don't have any right to the land around Moscow, Russians don't have any right to parts of Ukraine.

Suggesting that if someone wants to be Russian they should move to Russia is perfectly reasonable. If someone wants to become American, they move to the US and apply for citizenship. If a person wants to live somewhere else they should move there.

Elections only work when the government isn't skewing votes. If the voters cannot trust that elections are run well, they will change the government forcibly. There is no doubt that the Ukrainian government was irredeemably corrupt. Hopefully elections are held soon and the Ukraine can recover from this.

Did US or EU deploy their forces in our territory? No.
Did Russia also pull the strings during and before the protests to change the international vector of the country? Yes. Fact - banning some products completely on a false pretense of their quality and trying to force to join Customs Union.

We had 2 "compromise" presidents 1991-2004. The country was heading nowhere with no firm footing and understanding of its place on geopolotical map of the modern world. I have to admit, being neutral in a military way may be good, but I don't see it as an option under current circumstances. Sitting on two chairs simultaneously is a bad choice.

And while we're at it. Current law makes a race for presidential office not a very desirable candy. Parliament elections is where the main battle should be.

To this day there's doubts that these elections were legit, there's been serious corruption and the whole recent escalation occurred because democratic means weren't allowed by said corrupt government. In a working democratic country a coup d'etat would not have been necessary, there just would have been new elections (like in Poland a few years back). And well, if a government reacts with violence to the broad public's legitimate requests for certain changes then it's just comprehensible that the situation escalates and that others should side with the people fighting the government. And no, I do not want a coup d'etat, I just want an end to the blood-shed and legit elections.

And why does Russia have interest in this matter? Plus I'm gonna say it again: Russia is one country, the European Union is a union that officially represents the interests of all its member states and also wishes for peace in the nearby nations. Russia follows only a very limited agenda serving its own corrupt government. And EU member states didn't just send armed forces into that country to enforce a new government that represents their interests. The European Union wants a stable situation in the Ukraine, no matter whether their government favors Russia or the West, they want to avoid blood-shed etc., Russia is willing to do a blood-shed to achieve an outcome that serves their own agenda which isn't even necessarily representative of its own citizens' interests. The "evil" guys can easily be identified in this case, especially taking into account that that even in Moscow the Russian government is brutally silencing protests against their current actions as we speak.

EXACTLY. And the only situation where it's legitimate to alter borders these days is when a huge ethnic group poses the definite majority on rather clearly defined terrain but has not a nation of its own, when they are oppressed, are unable to practice their beliefs etc. and have nowhere to go. That is not the case here. By your logic new nations or enclaves of existing nations should pop up whenever there's a large concentration of foreigners within the borders of an established country.

That's not how democracy works. You don't just divide a nation whenever the citizens express different interests. In a democratic society the government is responsible for all people living within its borders, so the Ukrainian government has to represent both Ukrainians and the "Russians" (and I will keep writing that in quotation marks because the Russian government seems to be the only group that claims to know exactly who the Russians of Ukraine are). And the corrupt Ukrainian government clearly didn't do that.

Btw: As far as I'm aware also the pro-Russian inhabitants of Ukraine didn't want to divide the country in order to live in Russia without the necessity to pay for a U-Haul truck, they wanted the government that is also responsible for people of Ukrainian heritage to be pro-Russia. So don't claim that your ideas of dividing the nation represent anyone except yourself.

I didn't say that because I do not acknowledge that this is actually about ethnicity nor that Russia has any responsibility for people who are "ethnically Russian" while they are Ukrainian citizens. Whether it was the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or now modern Russia, all these regimes claimed some sort of responsibility for people living beyond their borders solely based on propaganda and unproven facts to justify annexation or other political influence. Russia has often presented itself as the righteous protector of all Slavic people and claimed responsibility for all Slavs against their will, there's nothing new going on here. It's all just propaganda used by a nation that would just love to rule the world while being unable to take care of their own shit. The amount of oppression and violence they need to maintain some sort of stability within their own borders is best proof of that and is enough to deny them any right to take part in any social and political movements occurring beyond them.