Posted on 03/02/2014 6:17:11 AM PST by Corporate Democrat
(Reuters) - Ukraine mobilized for war on Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," said Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich fled last week.
Putin obtained permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine, spurning Western pleas not intervene.
Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea - an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. On Sunday they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, although no shots were fired.
Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but so far they have not crossed. However, pro-Russian demonstrators have marched in the east of the country and have raised Russian flags over government buildings in several cities, in what Kiev says is a move orchestrated by Moscow to justify a wider invasion.
Ukraine's security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert, the council's secretary Andriy Parubiy announced.
The Defense Ministry was ordered to conduct a call-up of reserves - theoretically all men up to 40 in a country with universal male conscription, though Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for significant numbers of them.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Thanks for the correction. I forgot the way he pronounced it. Good job.
From what I recall Ukraine has one of the largest militaries in Europe. However, I doubt the nation nor the military can offer anything that reassembles a united front. Unification of purpose is what’s needed to repel a Russian route. The Western interests will need help, but no Western country is in any position to help. That’s what I think based on my limited knowledge. I hope this thing doesn’t get wheels and drag us in. If so, Obama has to go by hook or crook.
“That treaty is called the 1994 Budapest Memorandum....”
This story could be spun either way. There are too many ambiguities. The Crimean Parliament doesn’t recognize the new Ukrainian govt. The new govt didn’t abide with the power sharing agreement from just days prior. Essentially it was a coup. The Crimeans are still loyal to Yanukovych and have always considered themselves Russians. They could easily rationalize that the new government is illegitimate, filled with extremists that would be oppressive to them. Yanukovych could say, he called on his allies (Russia) to protect his people from dangerous extremists trying to destabilize his country.
Just sayin...
Brought to you by the same yahoos that gave us The Dayton Accords, how did that work out for Yugoslavia?
No way Russia was ever going to give up on The Crimea. It was foolish to think otherwise.
They've all been issued bongs.
No, but an illegal alien that stole two US Presidential elections has plenty of nukes. And drones, and planes, and missiles and ships. He has also stated repeatedly that he can do whatever he wants. The Russians have to contain him now. It is for world peace. We are at fault for allowing an illegal alien to control the military of the worlds former super power.
It was a piece of garbage that should have been used for toilet paper.
Sadly it is a lesson to our enemies as well - Iran and North Korea.
“...Obie giving Vlad a good talking to. Note optics - got his sleeves rolled up.....”
It was staged for a photo-op to make the foreign gay pansy look “tough”. He was probably on the phone with president Jarrett.
“...Meanwhile, Obambi sucks his thumb in the Oval Office.
You don’t mean the one he just pulled out of his ass, do you?....”
Of course! He probably just loves the taste of seconds when it comes to Reggie.
Yes, and to show it is not an old file photo, the casual dress - it must be a working weekend. Gotcha! Right arm in power pose (of a gay polka dancer.)
“...What I’d really be worried about is if he parked a couple of Typhoons off the East or West Coasts....”
You know they’re out there. The ship in Cuba is probably part of their intelligence/targeting network. Putie Toot has a gun pointed at odongo’s head. The question is: How stupid is odongo after he finishes crapping his pants?
Your sarcasm tells me I could have left the pronunciation alone.
Prolly right.
You've just described Afghanistan, which was (and remains) divided by race, ethnicity and tribe - Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Pashtun and a bunch of smaller groups with distinct languages - when the Soviets invaded. There's plenty any interested party can do to help without sending troops. Using a few billion dollars of foreign aid, Afghans wore the mighty Red Army out after less than a decade of hostilities and 13K Russian dead. If the Ukrainians are prepared to fight, the Russians will leave, probably only after a protracted guerrilla war, but leave they will.
In 1951 CIA covert operations chief Frank Wisner estimated that some 35,000 Soviet police troops and Communist party cadres had been eliminated by guerrillas affiliated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the period after the end of World War II.Bandera's guerrillas fought with no outside help. It's not clear that today's Russians are prepared to deal with this kind of death toll. And the Russians conducted mass killings of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to keep their casualties low (in the tens of thousands). Would they get away with that in modern-day Ukraine? Maybe, but not without triggering a flood of foreign weaponry to the Ukrainians.
And who is the current democratically elected president of Ukraine, and where is he at the moment?
Unarmed forces regularly cross the southern border of the U.S. unchallenged.
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