So you are basically saying we are back to Cold war with Russia again.

Cold war is back for quite some time. You just somehow had'nt noticed. The actual temperature of it is not quite surely measured tho, But international law dead and cold war arent synonims at all tho.

Oh this wasn't about realism and power politics. It was a simple: If you could decide, what would you do?

In principle nobody is really native somewhere. Still history counts and plays a role. For germany for example history of the last 100 years is quite some burden and rightly so. And for Russia this will be a burden too. People will remember it.

Sure the further you go away the less important it should become. But a big deportation around 70 years ago should still matter today, at least in my books. An offer of compensation might be in order. if this hadn't happened, there would be much more Tartars living. And I wonder specifically what they would want? Would they want to be part of Russia, of Ukraine or being independent? We have a duty of making right, what others did wrong in history, at least nearer history. Anyway you can never do it completely right, but you can try for some kind of rightness.

The gifting of Crimea to Ukraine I see not as that decisive. It was at a time where anyway everything belonged together. But in 1990 Russia basically forfeit Crimea and acknowledged it during several treaties. Basically this meant that at that time Russia didn't want to have Crimea. Now taking it... sorry not the right way. Still I see a strong claim except for the last 20+ years.

And there comes the Ukrainian claim. For the last 20+ years they took care of Crimea and not that badly. Did they really give any reason to the Crimeans to believe they are second class or something else this way? I guess mostly not. That and one quarter of the people constitutes also a claim.

So I don't know really. I would say that the Russian claim indeed is a tiny bit bigger than the Ukrainian or Tartarian but these exist too. One would have to think about it for quite some time and make some kind of compromise to make all involved parties kind of happy, not only one.

But of course that is not the way it works. The way it works is that the most bold party just takes what it wants and that's it. But maybe they didn't really think it through. All the other neighbors will probably not just tolerate this but will seek sanctions and that's what's happening. Russia has resources but otherwise the economy is very weak. I would say they need partners in the world. They don't have many currently. Maybe because they act so blunt. You cannot just send your troops somewhere and say everything is fine. "Self defense" forces is even more hilarious than "Good news" for the introduction of regional prices.

Please note, while this has been stated multiple times in the media it is, factually, wrong. Tartars were [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crimean-tatar-population-comparison-1987-2001.png]less than 20% of the population in 1944[/url]. Not that I blame anyone for getting it wrong, it's been repeated multiple times by supposedly authoritative sources- and someone even went to the trouble to make the writing on the horizontal scale of that graph so small it is impossible to read on the main wikipedia page, so it does actually look like tartars were a majority. Well, plurality, for the statistically minded.

I might believe it although the sources of the data in that graph are not really visible, I couldn't find out where the data is taken from? Also the file is from 9 March this year, very new. It could be a fraud.

If it's true it would means that the Tartarian claim would be reduced. Probably they cannot really decide the fate of Crimea but as a historically discrimated and quite strong minority or maybe even majority it should be taken care about their views. Do they like to be part of Russia again?

the Ukraine is a good example of modern politics.
In a nutshell nobody cares about the people living there.
The Europeans have half heartedly talked with them the last 2 decades about joining.
Without real pressure behind it. Moscow only interest is the strategic situation.
They can't have it that *maybe* the Ukraine would join the NATO.
The interest of the USA are the resources of the country. The big companies
have interest in GAS (fracking). Also its a plus if they could hit Russia.
Conversation recordings of the US administration shows that they are financing
the former opposition and that their *wishes* who rules the country after Janukowitsch
was fulfilled.

Now comes Putin, with his idea of going down in history as the man who brought the
Russians back home.
The Europeans are useless as always. Making useless threats.
The one big economical Country (Germany :p) can't do anything, thanks to their
own politicians they are dependent not only from Russian gas deliveries (funny note,
the tanks for national emergency reserve of gas is owned by Russians companies)
but also by the threat that Russian would confiscate their branch offices in Russia.
So in the end they do what they always do...talk, talk, talk,
The USA is ready for stronger sanctions. Not because they want to help or think
that would help. But for them its a win win situation. If Putin strikes hard (financial)
it would hit the Europeans most. Russia has only one source of income...their
resources. So if they stop delivery its bad for Europeans and Russia. But the
USA is ready to take over that part with delivering LPG to Europe.

Whatever happens there I am sure that the big players are not interested in the
people.

So the people must make themselves heard. My impression is that this was what the demonstrations since last fall in Ukraine were all about. There were real people on the streets.
But of course also the russian people could tell their president what they think he really should do, or the americans their president, or germans and britains their chancellor or prime minister or whatever.

Russians allready tried telling their president what they want after Putin was last time re-elected and several voting frauds have been confirmed but the protests (over 100.000 people) were beaten down by police and Putin had his own party people march up and down Moscow then. But this has already been forgotten around the world.

Error 404: Democracy not found

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/russia-blocks-access-major-independent-news-sites

Their was undoubtedly some fraud in the previous Russian presidential elections (as their are in most countries where living standards are lower and corruption exists) but the idea that the verdict was decided by fraud is laughable, Putin is obviously quite popular and even if their was some fraud (on either side) it wouldn't be enough to swing the verdict of the result either way decisively.

Western media tends to get very hysterical about these things, won't be long till they're screaming that Putin is the new Brezhnev or Stalin (lol) and that Russian is not a democracy, they always lose their bearings and make outrageous claims like emotional little girls.

Truth is Russia is not a "true" democracy, it's political system has elements of nascent authoritarianism and democracy, as do many/most countries in the world which are "democracies" in name.

Yes, actually Putin is the second most popular leader on the world. Two weeks ago Russian Public Opinion Research Center made a poll about how popular is Putin. Results are astonishing: 72% of Russians like and support Putin. No other leader in Europe or in any other place in Western World have such popularity. Even in history you won't find so popular leader - Roosevelt didn't get even close!

Putin is truly great leader. Only Kim Jong-un is greater (amazing 100% popularity). But I guess that was because of those pesky independent media that spread lies. Fortunately Putin got rid off them and hopefully soon he will be just like Kim Jong-un.

Again, comparing Russia to North Korea and Putin to Kim Jong-un is hysterical bullshit, and you know it, if Russia was NK they wouldn't be using allowed to use the internet at all, let alone actually able to vote for someone outside Putin/his party.

It's what betrays the cause of so many people, their unable to think in degrees, it's everything or nothing, a country is a perfect democracy or it's a totalitarian hell.

I didn't compare them. I just said that he is the only world leader that has higher popularity than Putin. Putin has long and hard way before he gets there.

And all hail to the Putin. He let's his people to use Internet. So generous and kind leader! No wonder he is so popular. There is no sarcasm in this sentence at all (after all I live quite close to Russia).

And that would change... how exactly? I highly doubt that those agreements were made "because Mr. Putin is such a nice man", more likely it was about (mutual) profit. So if politics gets mixed up in that, will they have to look for less profitable deals with someone else? Putin wasn't threatening or playing muscles when he said that economic sanctions won't affect Russia alone, others will have to pay as well. Will USA/EU/whoever compensate those who get hit by "economic collateral damage"?
Speaking of trade agreements, Yanukovich's government bargained for a massive discount on gas (as compared to europrices; yep, that's right, we have regional pricing here as well) which was to be renegotiated every 3 months. Now Miller (the Gazprom CEO) claims there will be no more discounts until Kiev pays its debt (over $1.5 billion). There were even talks about stopping to sell gas to Ukraine till the debt is payed, but knowing this would likely affect Europe, the topic was dropped for now. You might remember how ugly it turned out in 2009 when a certain country decided to compensate for its lack of gas by "requisitioning" some of that which was intended for Europe.

A. Absolutely bows to them
B. Russian, how after restless work from the media thinks that the former *brothers* now
are hooligans and faschists? And the others? Where were the protests for Chechnya (Tschetschenien),
South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Südossetien und Abchasien), Transnistria (Transnistrien)? Gerogia?
Belarus?


What i was saying.
If there are financial interests everything else doesn't matter.
That