Posted on 08/28/2014 7:36:36 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
KIEV, Ukraine — Russian forces in two armored columns captured a key southeastern coastal town near the Russian border Thursday after Ukrainian forces retreated in the face of superior firepower, a Ukrainian military spokesman said.
The two Russian columns, including tanks and armored fighting vehicles, entered the town of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov after a battle in which Ukrainian army positions came under fire from Grad rockets launched from Russian territory, according to the spokesman, Col. Andriy Lysenko.
“Our border servicemen and guardsmen retreated as they did not have heavy equipment,” Lysenko said in a statement.
Ukrainian authorities have denounced the latest fighting as a Russian invasion of their territory, intended to prop up pro-Moscow separatists who have been losing ground to Ukrainian forces and to open a “second front” in the southeastern corner of Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said earlier that Ukrainian troops were battling combined Russian and separatist forces on a new southern front around Novoazovsk, about eight miles west of the Russian border. The Ukrainian military also said Russian troops were increasing surveillance from northern Crimea, the autonomous Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in March.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My guess is that Russia will want to occupy strategic parts of East and South Ukraine, create a land bridge to Crimea. Ukrainians gave the Nazis a hard time, Russia does not want to occupy more of Ukraine than is needed. I still hope Ukranians will develop an insurgency, my tax dollars should totally go to that.
Other people’s quarrels aren’t our business.
Its the local Hatfields vs. McCoys.
And no one is going to take on Russia. Its not important enough to make Obama stop his golf game.
“Western Ukraine can survive. Its a homogeneous country that is 80-90% Ukrainian-speaking.
It can live without the Donbass. For that reason, it can count on its soldiers to defend it from a Russian invasion.”
Or Ukranians can be men and not let Russia occupy half their country. They could slit the throat of any Ukranian citizen that cooperates with the invasion, and wage a bloody war of attrition against the invading army. That is what real men do.
Why?
Poroshenko can’t stop the Russian army.
And Afghan-style insurgency works only if the Russians are stupid enough to move into Western Ukraine.
Putin won’t take the bait.
Was this "agreement" submitted to the Senate for ratification?
No? Didn't think so.
The President cannot involve the united States in international disputes and conflicts without the binding authority conferred by the representatives of the several states.
I am not worried about Obama, I know he is useless. I am alot more upset with the Ron Paul/Code Pink wing of the GOP that say that other nations quarrels are not our own. That attitude would have us all speaking German or Russian decades ago. Isolationism is cowardice. Free nations should be lions fighting tyranny not scared little kittens.
Meanwhile the Russian ISIS moves ever westward
bump
When a third of your citizens speak Russian and the border with Russia is effectively non-existent - fighting them is an uphill battle.
The reality is Ukraine is fracturing along linguistic lines. Everything east of the Dnieper is already good as gone.
Poland cannot sit idly by if for nothing else, they don’t want a bunch of Ukrainians fleeing into Poland.
Poles and Ukrainians are good neighbors, but you don’t want them both to be under the same roof.
Eastern Ukraine is full of ethnic Ukrainians, Russians are just a sizable minority almost everywhere and many of them are neutral about the conflict. Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine will mean millions of ethnic Ukrainians living under occupation.
They’re Russified and have the Orthodox religion and Russian culture.
The further west you go, things look quite different.
I think the Russians want to be rid of Galicia. Once Lemberg and its hinterlands are gone, the whole thing becomes much more manageable.
The (really, really) big question in all of this is, once it becomes clear that Ukraine in its present form is finished, is Germany going to cooperate in rearranging the pieces on the board between the Oder and the Dnieper?
Lemberg was never really Polish (Lwow only lasted a few years). Maybe it can become an EU protectorate? That really depends on whether or not Putin is done once the Ukraine thing is over, or whether he wants the Baltics, too.
If he's content for Estonia and Latvia to be in the EU, he'll probably be fine with Galicia being in the EU as well.
“When a third of your citizens speak Russian and the border with Russia is effectively non-existent - fighting them is an uphill battle.”
keeping putin out of ukraine would have been tough even if the west had highly competent and effective leadership... instead we have obama and the eu
Russia is quite content to divide Ukraine. It would rather keep it under its thumb but barring that it takes the spoils in NovoRossiya.
The West can figure out how to prop up a bankrupt Kiev and Lvov.
And with winter fast approaching, the real fun is just beginning.
I doubt the Poles will move unless an agreement is made with Germany. Simply put, the Poles have their own border to defend.
Those armored tank battalions lost their way and accidently took over a city and they somehow are all volunteers and bought their tanks and equipment at Wal-Mart in Donetsk or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin
In his books (which you can find for free, don’t send the guy money) he talks of letting that sliver of Russia on the Baltic to Germany.
I fear that Dugin’s works will be remembered as the warning no one wanted to see.
If you believe Putin, no one in Russia is involved and everything was rented at the Donetsk Walmart.
The man is no dummy and knows the value of plausible denialbility.
Heck the Hungarians would take all of Slovakia if they could.
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