Posted on 03/16/2014 11:39:09 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy
The Baltics, and especially Estonia have large and restless Russian minorities, unhappy to be cut off from Mother Russia. What would stop Putin from intervening to “protect” the Russian minority? What would NATO do?
The point? The point is that throughout the history of Russia, and not just in the last century, the country has been an imperial power with unstoppable appetite for its neighbours. Has anything changed?
Yes, exactly. That’s why I and others have assumed that Kreml hoped for the other alternative, but the situation has really got out of hand for all participants, and possibly Putni considered this result was seen as “good enough”.
Which Crimeans have no desire to be part of. They’ve formally left the country but that was already clear for some time. And now the forthcoming Russian annexation has the stamp of democratic legitimacy behind it - and Kiev and the West are reduced to talking about illegality.
Not much! And unfortunately for the Baltics they have always been situated between two (or more) voracious powers; Sweden and Russia, Germany and Russia, Germany and the USSR, and now the EU and Russia.
Yes, the EU is an imperial power, though it has so far only used "soft power" and the power lent it by the US.
Why did Russia ever want to cede Crimea in the first place, and that at the Sinkmeister’s request? I can only think it was so Ukraine would nurse it to better health, then comes the grab like today.
The US Civil War formerly started not even over the secession but over federal properties that were seized by the seceded states. Well surely this Crimea has just walked away (or been walked away) with he Ukrainian equivalent. Just “curious” how that little matter is going to stand. I am not so sure Ukraine wants to just forgive it.
One reason apart from the NATO membership not to be too worried about the Baltics is that they have handled the euro-crisis somewhat better than the other countries. The economy is on its way up at the moment (but that can surely change due to the Ukranian crisis) and therefore the social/ethnical problems are less acute than they were only a few years ago.
No, Crimea was ceded to Ukraine in 1954 by Chrustjev. It remained that way when the USSR broke up.
Maybe Putin does know best, and solved a seemingly impossible situation. I pray that is so.
Meanwhile, instead of all of this talk about the US defending Ukraines border, how about defending our own southern border and kicking invaders out of the US?
But what about all the resources Ukraine sunk into that place. Gone. And Russia is surely going to keep having the nerve to harangue Ukraine about their gas bill.
Bye, Bye, California, and New Mexico, and half of Texas.
Russian minorities are content to live under Baltic rule - and they are democratic and prosperous countries so there is not much concern for separatist sentiment. Russians actually like it and have no real desire to rejoin the Motherland there.
Ukraine on the other hand is a corrupt and bankrupt country and no sane person would want to be part of it. If its dissolved its because its politicians and the oligarch class intertwined with them looted the country. I’m not really surprised the Crimeans voted to get out as soon they had the chance.
And Ukrainians must understand without a stable democratic government offering rule of law and economic prosperity, no one will want to preserve Ukraine. A free society doesn’t need a constitution and tanks to attract others to it. If it isn’t free, citing laws and making threats won’t keep others loyal to it.
So those are vastly different situations.
Ukraine was also Russia’s bread basket. It was the rednecks of the USSR.
Yes, with Crimea gone, ethnic Russians in Ukraine are probably now less than 20%.
A reasonable question. If Ukraine agrees to cede the Crimea, then that is one of the questions that will have to be solved. But if Ukraine maintains its position that this is an illegal vote, and that Crimea has no right to cede then that question will among many others will not be resolved.
About the gas bill; it will be you dear US taxpayer and us EU taxpayers that will foot that bill - directly into the coffers of the Kreml. Also, given the promsed loan by the IMF the Ukraine debt/GDP ratio will be well above 60%. Russia owes some $3bn Ukrainian bonds, that are immediately redeemable if the debt/GDP ratio exceeds 60%. (Issued according to UK law so they are basically inviolable.) So, for all loans to Ukraine the first billions are going back to Moscow.
Yes, the Russians are not bad chessplayers.
Take a look at Crimea from Google maps. Under Ukraine, it has become wasteland of ex-Soviet ruins, just one of many provinces.
Under Russia, due to it’s importance, it has a chance at an economic resurgence, and that means JOBS...
They make the stereotypical ‘hard nose Jew’ (which is actually pretty rare) look like a piker. Someone’s going to be screaming unfair.
Anyhow, shouldn’t Crimea’s part of Ukraine’s gas bill now become Russia’s own headache?
If Russia can resist the temptation of squeezing the guts out of a golden goose.
What goose?
It’s long dead now, at least in Crimea.
Those reports prove the election was massively rigged by Putin’s Russian regime, because the demographics alone make such an election result quite impossible. The Ukrainians make up something on the order of more than 25 percent of the population and the Crimean Tatars more than 12 percent of the population. The ethnic Russians are fewer than 58 percent of the population. Many ethnic Russians in the Crimea were loyal to the Ukraine and wanted to have nothing to do with Putin’s autocratic Russian government. At the very most a fair election result would have seen no more than a 45 percent vote in favor of annexing to Russia, and a far more likely result would have been around 9 to 12 percent in favor of Russian annexation.
Another way of knowing with absolute certainty the voting was rigged and fraudulent is by looking at the ballots. The ballots presented the voter with only two choices. One choice was for the Crimea to declare independence from the Ukraine. The other choice was for the Crimea to declare independence from the Ukraine and request Russian to annex the Crimea to Russia. The faked vote chose to become annexed to Russia. Nowhere on the ballot was there any option to vote in favor of remaining the territory of the Ukraine.
GIven that the IMF and the EU are coming to help the Ukrainians with their economy (remember Reagan’s saying about the nine most dreaded words in the English language...) I believe that in a few years, even with less Russians in Ukraine than prior to the Crimean vote, the majority will want to form an alliance with Russia. But then it may be too late....
PS The IMF has already demanded that Ukraine stops subsidizing the prize of gas to its citizens. Otherwise no loan. They are going to love it. Russia was offering $15 bn with no preconditions except of course that Ukraine stayed out of EU and NATO: You pick you choice...
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