Posted on 03/17/2014 4:32:09 AM PDT by goldstategop
MOSCOW, March 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver an address to Russia’s parliament, the Federal Assembly, over Crimea’s accession to Russia as a new constituent entity on Tuesday, March 18, First Deputy Speaker of State Duma lower house of parliament Ivan Melnikov told reporters on Monday after a meeting of the State Duma Council.
In his words, Putin will deliver an address to Parliament at 3pm Moscow time (GMT+4).
On Independce of Crimea
The Supreme Council of Crimea on its special plenary session on Monday has adopted the resolution “On Independence of Crimea”. According to the Crimean parliament’s press service, 85 deputies have casted affirmative votes.
The adopted document stipulates that the Republic of Crimea represented by the Supreme Council “addresses the Russian Federation with a proposal to admit the Republic of Crimea in the Russian Federation’s structure as a new subject with the status of a republic”.
Results of the referendum
According to summary data, 96.7% of people voting in the Crimean referendum backed Crimea’s re-joining Russia, the head of the Supreme Council’s referendum commission, Mikhail Malyshev said on Monday. A total of 1.2 million people, or 96.7%, said they wanted to join Russia.
The voter turnout was 1.2 million people, or 83.1% of eligible voters, he said summing up the results of the referendum in which voters were asked whether they wanted to join Russia or have a greater autonomy within Ukraine.
The official said 31.9 votes or 2.5% were cast in favor of a greater autonomy within Ukraine. As many as 9.1 ballot papers (0.7%) were invalid.
Some 70 observers from 23 countries were monitoring the referendum. According to some of them, the voting passed in a calm atmosphere, in an organized and transparent way. Head of the mission of international observers Mateusz Piskorski (Poland) said that their final declaration would be announced on Monday morning.
It’s not who votes, it’s who counts the votes.
Anschluss.
Confirmed on the Kremlin website:
http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6882
March 17, 2014, 14:30
“Vladimir Putin will address State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and civil society representatives at the Kremlin on March 18 at 3 p.m. on the Republic of Crimea’s and city of Sevastopol’s request to join the Russian Federation.”
The pace of events is accelerating.
Thanks for the post. Just a heads up: 3:00 pm in Moscow is 7:00 am EDT. It will be interesting to see if he will encourage the Duma to vote for annexation on Friday, or suggest Crimea become an autonomous dependent of Russia. My money is on a dependent, hoping to reduce the impending sanctions.
I think that with the Duma confirming on Friday, Putin will begin the push into Eastern Ukraine.
Thoughts?
Gwjack
Putin is obviously going to make the request official on the part of the Russian government.
And he has made fools out of Western diplomats and journalists who said he might leave the issue in limbo. He obviously doesn’t care about poking the West in the eyes.
This is vintage Putin - to any one still surprised.
They are apparently holding up signs that say “russia help us” so I am guessing the eastern Ukraine is not interested in being part of Svboda.
Wait for the photo op of Bathhouse Barry, chin in the air, crisply pressed mom jeans on, taunting Vlad after he hears the thinly veiled threats coming his way. ValJar in the background with Kleenex. Carney furiously jotting down the days talking points.
I think he’ll make it official. If Putin wanted to lower the heat, he would not have gone out of his way to deliver a presidential address so soon and this was not a previously scheduled event.
Something tells me Putin wants to make history with the eyes of the entire Russian nation and the world watching. This is not the kind of guy who plays it safe. I believe he will recommend the formal accession of Crimea and the City Of Sevastopol as new federal subjects of Russia to the Federal Assembly.
And this will make him even more popular in Russia.
Putin will announce to his Parliament that the people of Crimea, under duress and ad being abused by the rest of Ukraine invited Russia to help, and then voted to become a part of Russia and that it is imperative for the Russian assembly to vote equally unanimously to annex Crimea according o their wishes. Then a vote will follow that does exactly that.
It will not matter to Putin or those Russian elected officials what Barack Obama or John Kerry say about it or drone on regarding it. Those two have done NOTHING to stop or deter a man like Putin. He understands one thing...force.
The only question now is whether the will be satisfied with just the one Province of the Ukraine.
Potential things the US could have done (or still could do):
1. Immediately begin sending C-17s into Kiev with military supplies, military advisors, military trainers, humanitatiran supplies, and small security detachments to protect the same. Make it a rive rof C-17s, and ensure those aircraft are escorted into and out of Kiev and other major cities in the Ukraine at the invite of the Ukraine.
2. Immediately release all restrictions on the exploration, extraction, and production of natural gas and oil, and restrictions on its import to Europe. Sadly, this should have been done (and was in the process of being done) in 2008 as Bush left office...but Obama turned it all off. It will now take 3-5 years to be in a position to address Europe’s needs, but starting the process will send the message and impact the Ruble.
3. Take whatever financial means necessary to isolate the Ruble as a world currency.
Europe will never join with us in number 3, until they are sure we are serious about number 2. Putin will never believe we are truly serious about number 2, until we do something like number 1.
We just turned down sending Ukraine military assistance and arms.
That’s why Putin went ahead. He sees the Germans are already wobbling.
Without American leadership, Europe will do the minimum it can to avoid Russian retaliation because no one in Europe can count on Obama.
And Americans don’t care about Crimea and Obama as unpopular as he is at home, is not going to arm-wrestle with Putin. Every one knows it.
Exactly.
Of the three things I listed, Obama and Kerry will never do one and two and will try and start with number three which the Europeans will not join in with because of the issues associated with number two. Putin has already figured this out, and so has acted with impunity.
He will not be. Why should he? Obama blusters, Europe waits for him, and no action is taken. All Putin sees is a clear path to take back all of Ukraine and begin the Cold War all over again. And I would not be surprised that he will go ahead with nuking the US while Obama is still in charge.
Is the ruble really a world currency?
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