Somehow the discussions on this forum are much easier to read. Is that weird, lol.

I don't really understand the situation. I've been interested because my grandfather's from the Ukraine and there are many expats from Russia and there living around here. It's weird when something the world over effects people here in such a personal way, but in some ways the blood is that close. I've been impressed with what I've seen of the Crimean/Ukrainian military. I don't think whats left of the government there has been given much of a chance to prove itself one way or the other, feels like so little time has gone by since it all started. I have to trust that things will work out for everyone involved, but from the outside it's hard not to wonder whether it was necessary. If they had been given time to settle things on their own, without all the outside influence, would it really have been that damaging to anyone? I feel that the country has been disrespected by the outside influence. It's been weird watching from here. I haven't really liked the news, and listening to Putin and other Politicians hasn't really inspired my confidence in anyone. I think there's too much of a generation gap between me and most of the talking heads I've seen, I know most of them grew up in a very different world and probably see this situation completely different but it makes them seem so distant.

It's been nice reading what you all have had to say. I've been growing more doubtful of our leaders the longer this goes on, and it's good reading the thoughts of actual people & not what media is spewing for a change. I hope we've seen the worst of it.

If I knew who were the leaders, I'd tell. Sadly for me, I'm not in the intelligence service. One theory is that Yanukovich was driven away by his former sponsors and supporters, whom he was continuously pushing away from financial and administrative levers of the country during his presidential time.

Just in case you actually missed it (again), Limonov's and other's followers are defending the Russian-speaking people rights at Eastern Ukraine regions for some time already. And trend is what they are actually "near real power" now.

organizing, tents, food, bathrooms. it is NOT that difficult.
We do that every day somewhere on this planet. public rallies, concerts, parades or other movements. They are not harder or easier to organize than what happened in Ukraine.
Yanukovich tried the same remember? You don't need a great leader to make those things happen. The only thing you need is willing people and everything else will fall into place.

It wasn't the first time something like that happened. Actually it happens every few years somewhere on the planet. Most often without 'higher power' instead those events create that power, allow gifted leaders to shine.

Oh, i see, so you just coined some words about stuff you have no glue then, not simply "missed some".

yes. because it happened before. that was not something unusual, out of nowhere.
and its not really that hard...
you have no job but hate government. with few buddies you go protesting. you protest for a week and then go home. a week later you come back with your buddies again. whats the issue?
how they got there? cars. buses, trains. getting 10 000 people in one place if they are willing is common. we do that everyday in every part of the world. 28.7 million people visit the busiest shopping centre in Australia per year. so per month thats 2.4 million. in area smaller than what was happening in kiev.
or do you mean a reason?
hate of government, hope for change, despair. those are more powerful goals than rock concert... Unity with their comrades against injustice, anger at lies spawned by government media, actions of government which they saw as disrespectful.
this happened before. thousands of times. It happened in Poland in eighties, in East Berlin, in Hungary, Tunisia and Egypt. Smaller scale or bigger. Most of the time without any higher power. Just power of the people. well that's their problem and a moment to shine. we will see how everything turns out.
didn't that guy say to annex part of Kazakhstan and East Ukraine?

With some time gone now I thought one might discuss beyond the immediate implications. So why did it all happen? Here is my view.

In the early 90s the Soviet Union collapsed but left a number of smaller countries with strong russian minorities and a quite reduced but still very big core Russia. In the first 10 years afterwards basically nobody was able to do change anything about it.

20 years later however core Russia is kind of stable again mostly due to their huge exports of natural resources. Other ex-members are in the NATO (Latvia, ...), others have developed strong national identities (Georgia, Kazahkhstan, ...) and others stayed divided as ever (Ukraine, ...).

However what didn't develop was a strong band of partnership between Russia and Western Europe or between Russia and many of its neighbours. Without dwelling on the reasons for that: Russia seems to want to be different entity. There is something like the notion of a Russian way of life which is different. Also Russia or at least the russian government seems to have ambitions currently of restoring what they once had in the Soviet Union. Why they have such ambitions when they know they will alienate many countries in the world? I don't know, but for now I reckon that military actions are included in the arsenal of possible actions. Let's face it, it's a possibility.

Whatever it really is, the invasion of Crimea was such a restoration. It may as well be the tipping point for the rest of Ukraine the majority of which probably now wants to put as much political distance between them and Russia as possible. The only possible way of preventing a pro-western government in the next election is probably an invasion of the rest of Ukraine. It didn't come so far, so the risk is going down, but it may still come.

I estimate the russian minority even in Eastern Ukraine is not strong enough to repeat a Crimea like coup, not without massive intervention from Russia.

The hastened vote on Crimea, the violation of international contracts, the invasion by russian troops, the subsequent bullying of non russians are by no means up to democratic standards. This can easily be condemned and one can be sure that without all these effects the number of opposing voices would be much greater for sure.

Nevertheless there is a case for independence of Crimea and one should have discussed it much earlier already but even much more importantly - the de facto control of Crimea by Russia will not go away anytime soon. The area is just not important enough to fight over.

The sanctions of the EU and USA that followed were quite small and not very effective and immediately counteracted by the boss of german industry corporation Siemens officially visiting Putin short time after. (*rolleyes*)

So as long as there is no further military clash my idea of what has happened and will happen is this:

- Crimea's status will remain disputed with different maps all over the world but defacto it will be part of Russia.
- Ukraine will elect a center politician in the upcoming elections in May with the clear order to steer the country westwards.
- If so the EU will have to help Ukraine by paying to modernize the country, hopefully corruption can be fighted more effectively by then.
- Business on both sides will take a hit because of political insecurity but may regain track later when time goes by.

This all makes clear who are the winners and losers of this:

- Winners are all Russians living on Crimea who preferred to live in Russia but didn't want to move and do not have high stakes in this seasons tourist business.
- Winners are Ukrainians in rest of Ukraine who wanted to live in a more western oriented country.
- Winner is Russia because it gained territory in a quite undemocratic way but nobody really opposed them.

- Losers are non Russians living on Crimea which would have preferred to stay in Ukraine
- Losers are Russians living in eastern Ukraine which would have preferred to stay in Russia but their chances are now rather lowered than increased.
- Loser is the Ukrainian government who lost territory and property on Crimea.
- Losers are all people everywhere who suffer from business taking a temporal hit.

So in case the rest of Ukraine stays intact and orients itself towards the west, the EU might profit in a quite distant future from that development too. Although not in the next years when they will have to pay for the modernization of Ukraine. However the very positive development in Poland (the western neighbour of Ukraine) in the last 20 years might give an example to Ukraine what can be possible. Basically rest of Ukraine has to modernize and they have to decide where they have the greater chances for this.

In the end there will not be much buffer zone left between Russia and its neighbours: China in the East, EU in the West, some funny countries in the South. I wonder to whom they will turn for partnership, if at all? This will be an open and very interesting question!

Although I'm not completely satisfied with my leaders actions I think their strategy is clear. They kind of inofficially tolerate the annexion of Crimea (by not doing anything severe) but sent a clear message that any step further will result in a severe (economic) action. If anything I think this message was very clear. I personally think that the missing legitimacy should be emphasized and opposed much more, even if there is a case the way the Russians did it is not acceptable.

So realistically the result can be a trade: Crimea against the rest of Ukraine, although I would argue that an annexion is worth much more than an unsure possibility for a fruitful partnership in the future (given the history of Ukraine as source of corruption in the last 20 years). But the result could also be anything up to an open war, if Russia attacks Ukraine again.

Why am I so insisting on saying attack, invasion, annexion? Because that is what Russia tried to hide by sending troops that were camouflaged. But one shouldn't forget this. Ukrainian troops on Crimea could have shot back in the name of self defense against the Russian "self defense" forces. They didn't and it made a big difference. If anyone is a hero, they are!

Almost two weeks later the situation in eastern Ukraine has kind of worsened. As a side effect Crimea is displaced in the news. Nobody really takes care of it anymore. The gas prices for Ukraine have been increased quite dramatically. I guess Ukraine never really had a right to cheap gas but doing it now and doing it by almost a 100% is clearly the best way to destabilize the country. So far the russian government does everything it can to destabilize its neighbor. And the incident of the russian military airplane flying repeatedly close to the US destroyer in the black sea means that kind of a small cold war is there in progress. It's not just a friendly game of chess they are playing there.

That's the situation so far. What can happen now? My guess is that eastern Ukraine is different from Crimea, it can only be taken by much more severe forces. Armed protests alone won't do it. But if Russia would stop the gas delivery suddenly and if they would send a substantial amount of troops it might be done. But then also all hell would break loose here, I guess. Basically I guess that at least then people here would feel severly threatened (so far they don't surprisingly) and would call for standing a more firm ground whatever this means.

On the other hand what could happen also is that the rest of the Ukraine gets peaceful again and offers some special rights to minorities are granted and also stays whole as it is and then slowly transforms into a modern industrial country (Poland would be a realistic goal). For me this would be the best possible outcome.

Basically in their hearts germans nowadays are peace-loving cowards. So one can expect money or economic sanctions from us but not much more. I have to say it as it is.

Won't comment on the situation in Donetsk, Lugansk or on the protests in Kiev, as there's much controversy about what is actually happening there.
Now for the gas... You know the official position of Gazprom, right? The prices were set long ago, Ukraine merely got a number of discounts. The condition for one of them was paying for gas in time. Did they do it? Oh, well...
But don't worry, Ukraine's already found gas suppliers so no harm done. You're lucky, guys, you might actually get some profit out of the situation.

BTW, what do you think of Paul Craig Roberts?

Heh. Paul Roberts is bad crazy. Now, even stark lunatics can be right from time to time, but...seriously. There's a guy who drank *way* too much koolaid and never snapped out of it. He's like an apocalyptic evengelical for a mythical economic structure.

And to the point, while there's recent precedent to support conjecture about bad behavior from the first world countries, it's still a little hyperbolic to call what's going on a coverup for OMG NEW WORLD ORDER.

Hah. Paul Roberts. Man, that guy.

eastern propaganda on the move...

Ukraine is already getting gas supplies from Germany from RWE officialy from today forward over the pipeline through Poland back to Ukraine.

Have never heard of him before and I didn't read the whole text but I think it's very unlikely. Also the text is a bit thin on substantial arguments. I guess Ukraine will be a financial burden for everyone. Except a few rich billionaires there is nothing existing in the country that anyone could take away in a short time. It's the future that counts. What Ukraine can be in 20 years maybe. For example if it follows a way like Poland did with less corruption and more modernization. Until then Ukraine will cost money for everyone involved I guess but I wouldn't mind it because the goal is worth it. Many fellow citizens of course will see it different.

For the gas: I don't like the timing while the price itself is okay because doing it now worsens the current situation. That's what I wrote above and that's also compatible with the official statement of Gazprom which is connected and owned by the government anyway. Increasing the price is okay but they don't have to do it now.

As far as I understand, it was part of the agreement: the discount was to be re-negotiated (possibly prolonged) every three months. March was the third. So what was Miller supposed to do, cancel the beginning of April?
Could Putin have convinced him to prolong the discount despite that condition being broken is another question. Then again, why would he? The current Ukrainian government isn't exactly on good terms with Russians.
Still, as I have already mentioned, a German company moved in to take the gas contract so it's not as much of a problem.

Meh. I read a lot of info on the topic, but before posting it here I try to find a corresponding article in the Western media and make sure the idea hasn't been twisted.
If you want eastern propaganda, here you go:
- 20 Greystone mercs MIA somewhere near Donetsk
- 27 sailors from "Donald Cook" were so distressed by the Su-27 maneuvers that they retired
- on the Independence Square in Kiev the Right Sector was besieging the Parliament

Should I continue? Now, that is propaganda. Just so you knew. :-/

Is that so? OK then, thanks for the opinion. :-)