Less than $4.2k to go!!
Git-R-Done!
Posted on 03/01/2014 6:35:18 PM PST by Jim Robinson
KIEV, Ukraine — The new government of Ukraine called an emergency session of its national security council on Saturday in the face of the Russian military’s seizure of Crimea, but the leaders are facing a grim reality: Their armed forces are ill equipped to try to reconquer the region militarily.
Crimea has always been a vital base for the Soviet and then Russian Navy, serving as the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, which has controlled the waters off southern Russia since 1783. After a period of tension following Ukraine’s independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia got to keep its base in Crimea on a lease, extended until at least 2042 by the now-ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych.
But the Ukrainian military has only a token force in the autonomous region — a lightly armed brigade of about 3,500 people, equipped with artillery and light weapons but none of the country’s advanced battle tanks, said Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. The forces also have only one air squadron of SU-27 fighters deployed at the air base near Belbek.
A senior NATO official said that Ukraine’s small naval fleet, which was originally part of the Black Sea Fleet, had been boxed in by Russian warships.
The Russian takeover of Crimea was relatively easy, in part because the Ukrainian military was careful not to respond to a provocation that would excuse any larger intervention. The military — which has seen its top leader change constantly with the political situation — has also made a point of staying out of the internal political conflict in Ukraine.
The current military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Mykhailo Kutsyn, was named to the job only on Friday,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"If you like your country, you can keep your country. Period." the president said.
Don't be so hard on him. I heard that if the Russians invaded Miami, that Obama would draw a red line through North Carolina.
Obama: "So who am I supposed to support in this Ukraine thing? Which side are the Sunni Muslims on?"
Jarrett: "There are no Sunni Muslims involved. Basically it's a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know little. But Putin's intelligence agency has the goods on both of us, so just make some noise for a while but ultimately we're going to let Putin have whatever he wants."
sorry but svoboda is a neo nazi political party that got around 10% in last elections in ukraine ,
and yes they are a real deal neo nazi party akin to npd in germany, ataka in bulgeria and jokib in hungary and have nothing to do with real right wing consertive parties in europe like ukip in britian or pvv in netherlands
On one hand, a country that supports Christian faith (though Orthodox) and opposes homosexuality is a threat to the goal of a United States of Sodom. Thus you have and will see the paradox of pro communist liberals opposing Russia, and even sounding somewhat hawkish even now.
And the other hand, Putin is more of a wolf in sheep's clothing, and the Orthodox church is a means of controlling what atheism tried to do, and persecutes evangelical churches, and the fall of Ukraine signals another step towards Russia gaining terror-tory the Soviet Union lost. And a challenge to NATO, and to US influence and power.
But America's greatest enemies are within , inequity and the anti-Christ ideology that fosters it.
>>>How is it that Ukraine is not armed and one of the only decent supply’s of cheap ammo in this country is from Ukraine?
Here is the answer. They have sold it all.
In 1992 Ukraine was a #3 global military power with some 800,000 standing army, thousands of jets including hundreds nuke strategic bombers, over 10,000 tanks and APCs, some 3000 nukes and hundreds of warships.
Russians has stolen the nukes, air force and navy were rusted away or sold to China, tanks and APCs went to Africa, small arms to America.
On that aspect,
But the Ukrainian military has only a token force in the autonomous region — a lightly armed brigade of about 3,500
A senior NATO official said that Ukraine’s small naval fleet, which was originally part of the Black Sea Fleet, had been boxed in by Russian warships.
Ukraine had accomplished some military reform with NATO advice, but since President Yanukovych said that Ukraine was not interested in full NATO membership, cooperation has lagged, the NATO official said.
“Now the force is somewhat pathetic.”
Ukrainian air defenses, all produced in Russia and a generation behind, are considered weak.
www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/world/europe/ukraine-finds-its-forces-are-ill-equipped-to-take-crimea-back-from-russia.html?_r=0
yeah and that has nothing to do with Semion Mogilevich, the billion dollar don from Ukraine who is the head honcho of organized crime in Russia and his orgianaztion which is notorious for arms trafficking
From the NYB:
The protesters represent every group of Ukrainian citizens: Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers (although most Ukrainians are bilingual), people from the cities and the countryside, people from all regions of the country, members of all political parties, the young and the old, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Every major Christian denomination is represented by believers and most of them by clergy. The Crimean Tatars march in impressive numbers, and Jewish leaders have made a point of supporting the movement. The diversity of the Maidan is impressive: the group that monitors hospitals so that the regime cannot kidnap the wounded is run by young feminists. An important hotline that protesters call when they need help is staffed by LGBT activists.On January 16, the Ukrainian government, headed by President Yanukovych, tried to put an end to Ukrainian civil society. A series of laws passed hastily and without following normal procedure did away with freedom of speech and assembly, and removed the few remaining checks on executive authority. This was intended to turn Ukraine into a dictatorship and to make all participants in the Maidan, by then probably numbering in the low millions, into criminals. The result was that the protests, until then entirely peaceful, became violent. Yanukovych lost support, even in his political base in the southeast, near the Russian border.
After weeks of responding peacefully to arrests and beatings by the riot police, many Ukrainians had had enough. A fraction of the protesters, some but by no means all representatives of the political right and far right, decided to take the fight to the police. Among them were members of the far-right party Svoboda and a new conglomeration of nationalists who call themselves the Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor). Young men, some of them from right-wing groups and others not, tried to take by force the public spaces claimed by the riot police. Young Jewish men formed their own combat group, or sotnia, to take the fight to the authorities.
Although Yanukovych rescinded most of the dictatorship laws, lawless violence by the regime, which started in November, continued into February. Members of the opposition were shot and killed, or hosed down in freezing temperatures to die of hypothermia. Others were tortured and left in the woods to die.
The protests in the Maidan, we are told again and again by Russian propaganda and by the Kremlin’s friends in Ukraine, mean the return of National Socialism to Europe. The Russian foreign minister, in Munich, lectured the Germans about their support of people who salute Hitler. The Russian media continually make the claim that the Ukrainians who protest are Nazis. Naturally, it is important to be attentive to the far right in Ukrainian politics and history. It is still a serious presence today, although less important than the far right in France, Austria, or the Netherlands. Yet it is the Ukrainian regime rather than its opponents that resorts to anti-Semitism, instructing its riot police that the opposition is led by Jews. In other words, the Ukrainian government is telling itself that its opponents are Jews and us that its opponents are Nazis.
Welp,
Buy that cheap ammo while you can, because there is an ammo shortage in this country and Ukraine is one of the only cheap sources we have as of the moment.
I have knowledge of europian politics and nyt is doing a disgusting thing and is comparing svoboda which are skinhead neo nazi thugs to geert wilders and his political party pvv in Netherlands who is anti islamic staunch pro Israel conserve party
And there are similar groups in the West with similar vote %. Do we let Russia roll in and take over? Heck, the Chinese Nationalist Party was a fascist party. They took massive amounts of aid from Hitler during the Sino-Japanese War. Should we not have backed the Chinese with arms, equipment and personnel against the Japanese? The Kuwaitis, like the rest of the Arabs, have always hated both Israel and the Jews. Should we have stood by after Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait?
The one constant in the last several centuries about Russia is its zeal for land grabs. What you've missed is the far larger Russian historical responsibility - in particular the Russian material support and training for Korean and Vietnamese communists that killed 100K GI's. Russia's Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany gave Germany a free hand to invade the West and Russia provided Germany's supplies for the invasion. As a result, millions more Jews were killed than would otherwise have been during the Holocaust. What about the 400K GI's who died because of a war the Russians made possible?
Some “conservatives” believe the bankrupt United States is still world Robocop.
Shhh, we’re supposed to believe Svoboda and Pravny Sektor are misunderstood. The straight-arm salutes and calls to kill the Jews are just misunderstood.
I never said there were no other such parties in europe , ataka in Bulgaria, Jobbik in Hungary , npd in germany , golden dawn in Greece are large political parties that are openly neo nazi ,
its odd to for nyt to pick out Austria,France and the Netherlands three nations that do not have any significant openly neo nazi parties
Shhh, there are no fascist parties in Europe, all that matters is that Russia did something.
Indeed theres no neo nazism in ukraine at all , no sir not at all
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/70932/agencies-send-help-to-ukraine-jews-synagogue-attacked/
synagogue firebombed
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-man-stabbed-in-kiev-in-suspected-anti-semitic-attack/
two violent anti Semitic attacks , indeed lets just ignore the huge neo nazi elephant in the room
If the Ukrainians were suicidal Nazis to the last man, woman and child, all yearning to kill all the Jews and Slavs in Ukraine to make way for Nordic settlement, it would still make sense to help them repel the Russians, for exactly the same reason that it made sense to send material aid to help the Soviets repel the Nazis despite the Russian betrayal via the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact that made gave Hitler a free hand in the West, and the tens of millions deliberately starved to death by the Bolsheviks during their collectivization campaigns. The key difference here? Ukrainians haven't actually massacred tens of millions of people. The Russians had.
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