Posted on 05/12/2014 2:19:02 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
MOSCOW — Russia stopped short on Monday of outright recognition of the contentious referendums organized by separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, Russian-speaking provinces of southeast Ukraine, instead using the results to intensify pressure for a negotiated autonomy for those provinces.
The separatist leader of the self-declared People’s Republic of Donetsk wasted no time in announcing that his province wanted to join Russia, but the question seemed to be whether Moscow was interested.
Russia avoided any suggestion that it would react to the results with the same alacrity seen after the Crimean Peninsula referendum in March. Within hours of that vote, President Vladimir V. Putin declared that Russia was annexing Crimea, part of southern Ukraine that had once been part of Russia.
This time, the Kremlin issued a statement saying only that it “respects the will of the population of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” and that the crisis should be resolved through dialogue between representatives of the easterners and the national government in Kiev.
The Russian government did not even say that it recognized the results of the voting, which the authorities in Kiev and their Western supporters all declared illegal from the start.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Putin is looking at two oblasts that are the most corrupt and have the most needs of all. The Crimea is going to be a huge drain on Russian resources. With the Russian economy in a recession, taking on Luhansk and Donetsk is the same as throwing money into a black hole.
There’s a reason Russia dumped Ukraine and Belarus twenty years ago.
Yes. They had stripped them of just about everything they could...
In 2012, Donetsk was admitted as the best city for business in Ukraine by Forbes. Donetsk topped the rating in five indicators: human capital, the purchasing power of citizens, investment situation, economic stability, as well as infrastructure and comfort.
http://yellowpage.in.ua/en/archives/45318
Russia is keeping its options open. But it won’t abandon its Ukrainian supporters.
It can use the referendum results to bring Kiev to heel and then there is the economic spigot.
Moscow has plenty of time to make its next move.
I suspect Eastern Ukraine is going to start looking a lot like late 60s/early 70s Northern Ireland.
Yes. They had stripped them of just about everything they could...
More like all the good-looking Ukrainian strippers already moved to Clifton, NJ.
The head of the State Duma committee for relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States (a Russia-led economic and political bloc where Ukraine was an observer member until mid-march this year),..... Leonid Slutsky, said Monday that the referendum only confirmed the information that Russian officials already possessed – that the overwhelming majority of people in Eastern and Southeastern Ukraine were opposing the Kiev regime and the forced union with the West. Slutskiy added ....that the poll results 'will be taken into consideration' as Russia develops its new relations with Ukraine, ......but the major priorities of these relations will remain the same – stopping the bloodshed and prevent a humanitarian disaster.
However, the decision to hold the referendum still must be respected as such a move is fully within the sovereign right of the Ukrainian territories, Slutskiy added.
Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin, said that the fact that Ukrainians were holding a referendum on federalization was a proof of their drive toward freedom. He added that the numerous statements that the referendums and their results were illegitimate do not mean that the referendums never took place and through these events millions of Ukrainians have expressed their opinion that the current Ukrainian state allowed the mass violation of their rights.
http://rt.com/politics/158412-russia-duma-ukraine-referendum/
A lot of Russia’s military industrial capability is located in, and around Donetsk. So are the nickel mines, which are hugely important, strategically.
There is a real reason they don’t want it under Western control.
I think they will admit them as independent states. They won’t require the complete top-down rebuild that Crimea has to have.
However...with Crimea now, the Russian teams sent there have determined many of the ships there were older ships and in great need of upgrading and repair as well as the overall area needs to be modernized....the intentions are to bring crimea to a state of the art area and this for ship building as well.
~There’s a reason Russia dumped Ukraine and Belarus twenty years ago.
Yes. They had stripped them of just about everything they could..~
Are you talking about Ukrainian government?
In fact Donetsk is a part of ‘rust belt’ generating $14,000 GDP per citizen into total Ukrainian economy.
It might be a ‘black hole’ by Russian standard, but the rest of Ukraine has a GDP of just $5,000.
The only reason why the west of Ukraine has new stadiums and subsidized housing and the ‘rust belt’ has potholes in the streets and dilapidated buildings in because central government taxes all it can from the east and redistributes it.
In 2012, Ukrainian Forbes (the publication to which you are referring)was owned by Sergey Kurchenko, a crony of former President and now fugitive Yanukovich. Kurchenko is believed to have stolen $ 1 billion from the citizens of Ukraine.
You have your facts wrong.
He didn’t buy the magazine until June 2013.
That’s a full year after Donetsk was named best city for business for the second year in a row by Forbes (in May 2012).
GDP per caita of Donetsk in 2011 (in USD) was $4,590.
Ukrainian Crisis is about Taxes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3153983/posts
I’m talking about the entire E.Ukraine.
“Russia is keeping its options open. But it won’t abandon its Ukrainian supporters.”
From the article: “The Russian government did not even say that it recognized the results of the voting, which the authorities in Kiev and their Western supporters all declared illegal from the start.”
LOL...why the cold shoulder, Vladimir ?
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