 Woo hoo!! And now less than $7.5k to go!! We can do this. |
Posted on 02/27/2014 1:54:54 AM PST by cunning_fish
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia ordered 150,000 troops to test their combat readiness Wednesday in a show of force that prompted a blunt warning from the United States that any military intervention in Ukraine would be a "grave mistake."
Vladimir Putin's announcement of huge new war games came as Ukraine's protest leaders named a millionaire former banker to head a new government after the pro-Russian president went into hiding.
The new government, which is expected to be formally approved by parliament Thursday, will face the hugely complicated task of restoring stability in a country that is not only deeply divided politically but on the verge of financial collapse. Its fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the capital last week.
In Kiev's Independence Square, the heart of the protest movement against Yanukovych, the interim leaders who seized control after he disappeared proposed Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the country's new prime minister. The 39-year-old served as economy minister, foreign minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010, and is widely viewed as a technocratic reformer who enjoys the support of the U.S.
Across Ukraine, the divided allegiances between Russia and the West were on full display as fistfights broke out between pro- and anti-Russia protesters in the strategic Crimea peninsula.
Amid the tensions, Putin put the military on alert for massive exercises involving most of the military units in western Russia, and announced measures to tighten security at the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet on Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
The maneuvers will involve some 150,000 troops, 880 tanks, 90 aircraft and 80 navy ships, and are intended to "check the troops' readiness for action in crisis situations that threaten the nation's military security," Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Things that make you go hmmm?:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2568959/Blast-past-Mystery-surrounds-Russian-spy-ship-docked-Havana-no-explanation-US-warns-Moscow-war-games-Ukraine.html
Follow the money .....
NATO spends 10x the amount of money Russia does on defense, and 60% of the world's total. Our procurement budget alone is 50% bigger than Russia's entire military budget. There are many ways to describe the West, but weak is not one of them.
I have to hand it to the Russians - they are as good as selling themselves as the good guys to many right wingers in the post-Cold War era as they were to many left wingers during the Cold War. A shambles of a kleptocracy that can't even provide clean water in hotels during the Olympics despite spending a record amount of money for any Olympics, yet retains the loyalty of right-wing supporters abroad, definitely knows a thing or two about information operations.
Given that most of Russia’s gas flows to it’s EU customers through pipelines in the Ukraine, I doubt it’s in Putin’s (or anyone’s interest) for a real, hot war to develop there.
Putin’s doing what he does best; sabre rattle and manoeuvre.
Another red line? I’m sure Pooty Poot is quaking in his boots.
US warning from our admin? Ha..... Just like the red line in Syria. Non existent.
Are we going to draw a line in the sand ?
Or are we going to have an unbelievably small intervention ?
Someone said Obama was selling Red Lines over in eBay, there is a good supply if them and they are all unused.
It would be a grave mistake to cross that red line. :P
It all hearkens back to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s warnings to the West about its moral weakness in the 1970’s and his view that there was moral strength in Russia.
and what is that pussy Obastard going to do ?
Ooooh.
Another red line.
Vlad says to add it to his collection, over there.
Putin versus our first gay President. Who will win this showdown?
What is really a horror show is all the women at the top of the State Department. Many-most are career employees. They are 100% ineffective and out of control libs and lefties
“...the divided allegiances between Russia and the West were on full display as fistfights broke out between pro- and anti-Russia protesters in the strategic Crimea peninsula.”
I know this is a serious matter, but...
“Oh, No! Fistfights!”
I can think of at least a DOZEN CongressRats I’d like to smash in the kisser over what they’re doing to America!
Obama is drafting a sternly worded letter as we speak!
Putin is laughing his ass off wondering what it will say!
As all here know (please don’t tell the lame-stream), the flexible one has struck again ... LOL
Obama: “Speak loudly, and carry a little stick”.
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