Putin the Predictable

Salon ^ | May 2, 2014 | Lucian Kim

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"....Like the Moscow rallies two years ago, this winter’s Maidan protest was supported by the urban middle class and young people who came of age after the fall of communism. Together with backers from western Ukraine—which became part of the Soviet Union only after World War II—the demonstrators in Kiev made up a broad coalition not just against Yanukovych’s Moscow-sanctioned kleptocracy, but the country’s Soviet legacy. It’s no wonder that the toppling of Kiev’s Lenin monument in December was so symbolic.

In eastern Ukraine, where ubiquitous Lenin statues are seen as a sign of Russian identity, feelings toward the Soviet past are more ambivalent. The industrial complexes and slag heaps that dot the Donetsk region have given rise to a gritty, working-class ethos. Locals looked down at the “good-for-nothings” who protested on the Maidan, as civic activism has never been writ large here.

All the more surprising, then, were the pro-Russia demonstrations that began in Donetsk and other eastern cities in March. The Kiev government accused Russia of sending in busloads of provocateurs. The rallies attracted a mix of “angry babushkas,” aggressive, unkempt young men,and middle-aged conspiracy theorists—in other words, the losers of Ukraine’s transition to capitalism. Everybody assumed that they were being paid by Yanukovych’s henchmen,just as the thugs,the so-called titushki, who attacked the Maidan protesters had been.

The danger today is that Putin’s fake separatist movement could take on a life of its own. The alarming footage on Russian TV of “Kiev’s punitive action against its own people” may force people in eastern Ukraine,who never even considered secession,to take sides. The Kremlin’s main goal is to rush through a referendum on independence on May 11 and undermine Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled two weeks later.

If there’s bloodshed among the separatists before the referendum,Putin has reserved his “right” to intervene militarily in Ukraine......"

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There are ways to influence but all this administration ever does is muck it up. Simple odds would have him winning at least one of these global “incidents,” so it’s obviously willful interference and/or hands off to diminish the U.S. and advance anti-capitalist states.

[rbmillerjr]

“defend some botched CIA operation in eastern Europe.”

The only CIA operation in Eastern Europe is in your head. There is a real Russian KGB, GRU Putin operation going on in Ukraine.

This is as simple as it gets. Russia is forcibly annexing former Republics of the old Soviet Union back into the Russian sphere.

[mac_truck]

Your response to the “Soviet KGB” dog-whistle is Pavlovian.

Fetch boy!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Cincinatus’ Wife.

[rbmillerjr]

“Your response to the “Soviet KGB” dog-whistle is Pavlovian.”

You can ignore reality if you wish. The facts on the ground in Ukraine are there for all to see.

But for the weak-minded there is the conspiracy theory avenue...just keep veering toward America’s enemies.

[tumblindice]

Please to be chilling everybody—Moose, squirrel, Maxwell, Mandrake, not our dogfight it being ...
Ukrainian joke to make happiness: hot Ukrainian chicks with large American breasts, cool.
OK,

New Russian asks his secretary to make a reservation in the hotel:
- In the room there should be a cool TV set, a big bed, a modern PC, satellite, Jacuzzi, and so on, and so forth.

In the evening when he returns to the hotel besides all the things he ordered, he sees two gorgeous chicks.

- What is it? – he asks his secretary.

- And so on, and so forth...

[rbmillerjr]

Ok, we are all for hot Euro chicks.

It is in America’s national security interests to impede, constrain and now back to contain, Russia’s forcible annexation on Ukraine....not with troops but with economic sanctions and possibly covert action if they send troops in.