Posted on 04/06/2014 8:47:41 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
How many signers are native Ukrainian-speaking?
Looks like Kiev’s authority doesn’t run far in the Russian-speaking east.
Ukraine was independent since fall of Soviet Union. She had plenty of time to build a reasonable sized military. Instead her leaders and politicians created a kleptocracy where people are elected into high office to use the office to loot the national treasury. Look up the Ukraine military, it is in bad shape. Not enough uniforms, load bearing vests, ammo and weapons to equip her reserves or standing troops. Tanks and aircraft rotted in storage as funds for defense went overseas into Swiss accounts. Ukrainian people may want to fight but her leaders are thieves. IAW Ukraine is a lost cause. Best thing is Ukraine is a wake up call for NATO to draw up defensive line from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. While most of the EU and Scandanavia made cuts to their forces, Poland was the only EU/NATO nation that maintain war plans and forces for a possible major land war in Europe involving the invasion of Poland by a foreign attacker. Unlike Britain, France and Germany whom slashed their tank forces to 400 or less, Poland maintain her tank forces at 1100 and replace the older Soviet models slowly with modern German Leopard tanks. Despite the higher unit costs of western weapons, Poland intends to maintain current numbers and replacing them with modern systems. Polish defense budget in terms of percentage of GDP is the same as Israel’s. IAW Poland may be the only European nation that gets it.
I think the end result of all this is Poland will emerge once again as a major power in Central Europe and perhaps the hub of a new “Commonwealth” with the other Central European countries, and the Baltics.
That would be an interesting, perhaps optimal outcome.
As an aside, imagine a young man taking an evening walk with his girlfriend, and three men stepping up to block their way. The three want more than just to act the fool, and the young man has the options of either doing nothing (maybe even running), or he can engage the three. Assuming the young man is not armed, he still has an obligation to step forward, even if chances are he will still get the snot beaten out of him. He has an obligation to his lady to try - it is better for both of them to be in hospital than for his lady to be in hospital while he visits her with flowers and a card, looking all nicely put together because he ran away.
Ukraine needs to do something. The odds are (really) bad, the options are very few, it will probably not work.
All the same, form a line. If people only fought battles they could be assured of winning, the world would be a very different place.
It would be Marshall Pilsudski’s dream come true.
It would be a desirable check against the more enervated and decadent powers in the EU.
Many people felt the same way when rioters chased the president they voted for out of office. The genie is out of the bottle now. That’s why that was such a boneheaded play by the EU, State Dept. and CIA. The people running our foreign policy are morons.
However, also remember that in these areas there are Ukrainians who speak Russian as their native tongue but feel Ukrainian, unlike in Crimea where there were folks who felt Russian
It hurts when you think that if the lands from Finland to Romania had set up a mutual alliance in the 20s, then the Killing fields of the 40s would never have happened
Will they make the same mistake again?
Places like Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk and Lugansk are closer to Moscow than to Prague or Warsaw. Its a world away from Lvov. Even ethnic Ukrainian Russophones feel connected to the Russian faith and culture. Its almost entirely like a different country. I think its more like Belarus - people want a sense of statehood but they also wish to maintain close ties to Russia.
You mean the same Ukrainians forced to learn Russian by their Soviet masters while growing up?
“Even ethnic Ukrainian Russophones feel connected to the Russian faith and culture”
Don’t forget how much simple household economics are playing into this.
A Russian future for many in these areas seems so much brighter than a Ukrainian economic one, where the level of corruption would make even a Russian Oligarch blush.
I was listening to an analyst on radio (former CIA I think) who was asked about the results if Russia invades Ukraine. He said it would probably take 3 to 5 days to get the job done, but then the fun would begin. He said the Ukranians are very good at partisan warfare. Look what fun Russia had in Afghanistan, and they didn’t even have trees. The Ukranian Cossaks were always an independent minded bunch.
About Eastern Ukraine v/s W Ukraine culturally, you are correct.
“A Russian future for many in these areas seems so much brighter than a Ukrainian economic one, where the level of corruption would make even a Russian Oligarch blush.”
The corruption of the Ukrainian leadership could not “make even a Russian Oligarch blush,” because in many cases the Ukrainian leadership are “Russian Oligarchs” to the extent they are ethnic Russians or affiliated with organized crime political groups with Russian sympathis and anti-NATO and anti-EU antipithies. Viktor Yanukovich is half Russian, his mother was Russian. He is a career criminal having been convicted of robbery, assault, and rape; and later he engaged in the forgery of court documents in an effort to quash his crminal convictions. Yanukovych appoointed ministers from the pro-Russian minority of Donbas to rule over the Ukranian nation, and used this pro-Russian power bloc to establish and maintain an unprecedented level of official corruption. So, the corruption in the Ukrainian government is the corruption of Russian Oligarchs and their non-Russian criminal cronies.
Still pushing the Russian speakers crap ? A lot of Kiev is Russian speaking too.
Of course not. The only reason why Polish military looks relatively good is that others in that area either disarmed themselves nearly totally or are semi-fallen states like Ukraine.
“Instead her leaders and politicians created a kleptocracy”
That's true, however it was governed by Kremlin's (Gremlin's ?) puppets for most of past +20 years, who installed the same Mongoloid system as in Russia. Russia without oil & gas revenues would look like Ukraine now. Additionally, a lot of these “pro-Russians” in Ukraine are largely people with unclear national identification, they are rooting for Russia mainly because they see higher salaries and pensions over there. It seems to be a long term plan, turn them into a fallen state using agents of influence, so they have enough of their own independence. Their military for example, was in far better shape just a couple years ago, It must have been sabotaged on the government level. There's probably the same long term plan for Belarus, they keep in power a cartoonish dictator making a joke out of the country, at some point they will remove him (poison or whatever) and push in “join Russia, your salaries will grow by 250%” propaganda.
“Places like Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk and Lugansk are closer to Moscow than to Prague or Warsaw. Its a world away from Lvov. Even ethnic Ukrainian Russophones feel connected to the Russian faith and culture. Its almost entirely like a different country. I think its more like Belarus - people want a sense of statehood but they also wish to maintain close ties to Russia.”
Your above statements are further examples of false propaganda and disinformation being used to destablize the Ukraine and divide the allies of the Ukraine using fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) as the weapons of a fifth columnist. here is the reality of the ethnic Russian population and the way they actually voted in regard to the political “close ties” you mentioned:
Kharkiv Oblast:
Ethnic Russian 25.6%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 10%
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Ethnic Russian 17.6%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 7%
Donetsk Oblast
Ethnic Russian 38.2%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 12%
Luhansk Oblast
Ethnic Russian 39.0%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 13%
The other Oblasts and cities with an ethnic Russian population greater thanpopulaton percentage greater than 9.4% are:
Zaporizhia Oblast
Ethnic Russian 24.7%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 7%
Kherson Oblast
Ethnic Russian 14.1%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 7%
Mykolaiv Oblast
Ethnic Russian 14.1%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 8%
Odessa Oblast
Ethnic Russian 20.7%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 11%
Autonomous Republic of Crimea
Ethnic Russian 58.3%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 42%
Kyiv City
Ethnic Russian 13.1%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 5%
Sevastopol City
Ethnic Russian 71.6%;
Voted against Ukraine independence from Russia 39%
As can be seen from the above 2001 census and 1991 voting referendum results, ethnic Russians are a minority or small minority in each of the Ukrainian administrative districts, except in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol City. Not one of the Oblasts or cities voted in the majority against independence from Russia in the 1991 referendum or came anywhere remotely close to doing so, except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea 42% and Sevastopol City 39% despite their slight Russian population majority. So, the disinformation claiming the majority of ethnic Russians in the Ukraine have voted in favor of Russia and against the Ukraine are demoonstrated lies.
The reality is there are far more ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia and Ukrainian communities in greater geographic areas in Russia ranging from the borders with the Ukraine to Moscow and beyond to Siberia, where Ukrainians were exiled during the Soviet era, than there are ethnic Russians living in geographic areas of the Ukraine. Ukrainians are in fact the third largest ethnic group in Russia, after Russians and Tatars. Furthermore, the Russian government has an official policy discriminating against the Ukrainian population, their language, and their cultural organizations in Russia that has been the subject of conflict with Putin’s tyrannical regime. If the principle of alleged oppressed ethnic populations is to be the Russian basis for annexing territories, then Russia needs to surrender hundreds of thousands of kilometers of current Russian territories with their Ukrainian populations to the Ukraine. otherwise, Russia needs to abandon its conquest of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol City and return them to the Ukraine.
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