Posted on 02/22/2020 3:24:15 AM PST by tlozo
Russia could regain its status as “a global rival” for Western powers through some degree of “integration” with Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said...
Putin made the comment while reiterating his belief that Ukrainians and Russians are “the same people,” a claim widely perceived as a means to justify Russian influence over former Soviet nations. His reference to “integration” is even more unusual, and incendiary, according to Western analysts, given that the two countries have been locked in conflict since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014...
Multiple Western analysts noted that Putin has been pressuring Belarus to form a new political union with Russia, a political shift that could enable him to remain president of the expanded Russian state. That effort is anchored in an ambiguous 1998 political agreement between the two countries. Ukrainian authorities never signed such a deal, and the current conflict has alienated the two peoples despite Putin’s long-running effort to deny that Russian military forces invaded Ukraine.
“The Ukrainians understand now that the Russians, particularly this group in the Kremlin, are no longer their brothers,” another former U.S. official familiar with Russian-Ukrainian issues told the Washington Examiner. “From the Ukrainian standpoint, it's ludicrous to even contemplate.”
Alisa Muzergues, a foreign policy analyst at GLOBSEC, echoed that assessment and added that the attempt to maintain influence in Ukraine is partly a way to appeal to the domestic Russian population.
“Putin is striving for recognition of Russia as a superpower, but while having limited capacities, it can only have a direct influence on its immediate neighborhood,” she told the Washington Examiner. "And Ukraine is indeed a crucial player in this game of Putin’s influence due to a number of reasons: economic, cultural, historic — but also it is important for his influence inside Russia.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Your figures are as suspect as you are.
And no, driving a tank is not like driving a car.
I also suspect most Ukrainians would not shell their own cities because they are dying to get the Russians back seeing how it turned out last time.
Your Rusdian propaganda is as transparent as you.
Respectfully, Ukraine and the Ukrainians who lived there have had a lot of history happen to them since the early 1900.
You keep posting old maps and polls from Ukraine in 2010. Since then, Crimea has been taken away, and there has been an ongoing war with Russia since 2014 resulting in 13,000 deaths and 1.5 million refugees. Show me any poll of Ukrainians that shows a majority want integration with Russia as opposed to closer trade ties with Europe.
Russian propaganda, Russian this, Russian that.... I guess it has to be tiresome by now unless you are a nevertrumper.
I just checked out my statistics and it was a bit off.
Ukraine had 18800 military personnel in Crimea. 11900 of them Navy, 2900 Air Force. Roughly 15000 defected. Near entire Ukrainian Navy defected.
Does it sound as insignificant defection? If so maybe you are right.
They had to appoint a woman in her 20s the Chief of Navy because of it, imagine it.
If you have different numbers don’t scream propaganda, provide correct numbers.
What is the mechanism of Russians killed 13k Ukrainians in your opinion? Most of the fatalities are in the city of Donetsk and the surrounding towns. Even if the Russians were there as you state they were on the defence and the Ukrainian military was attacking it.
Who killed the civilians in this case? The simple logic says it was the Ukrainians military using artillery and air forces. Do you suggests the Russians bombed and shelled themselves in the city?
Well I guess that a win to even have you admit Russian military was in Donbass. Post 43 above shows Russian artillery, in Russia, firing across the border at Ukrainian forces. I'm sure those barrages didn't kill any civilians. You're like the crazy attorney that defends the wife batterer and blames the wife for defending herself.
I said hypothetically. But Russia clearly supported the rebels and most likely had advisors in their ranks.
Why shouldn’t it? US sends advisors to Syria because the government allegedly kills some ‘opposition’. Why Russia shouldn’t send advisors to help people against rogue government shelling and bombing them over wrong vote?
As for the rest what is the source of your graphic? It is the same source saying Trump is a Putin’s puppet?
Are you on Putin’s payroll?
You speak up a lot for Russia here, don’t you?
I didn’t start this thread. Do you have any factual input or prefer personal attacks due to a lack of it?
Oh you had better believe that there are paid trolls right here on FreeRepublic.
You are very confident about a lot that is not true.
For those polls you cited, can you guess what percent of respondents were from Crimea, Donbas or Luhansk?
What percent were afraid to answer honestly?
I go to Ukraine every year.
You know what, the people are afraid to answer honestly on the phone or to some interviewer. In fact many are afraid to tell their own family they disagree. There are many families with split opinion.
But you convinced yourself you know the true opinion of Ukraine. You fooled yourself.
This article says what a scandal it is that Putin thinks Ukraine and Russia are the same people. A huge percent of Ukraine thinks the same. Not 13%, I promise you. Many, many people have extended family with relatives in both countries.
No one 'took Crimea away' from Ukraine, Crimea exercised their natural right to self determination in the face of an undemocratic overthrow of their elected government...something the neo-liberal parasites here and elsewhere refuse to acknowledge.
Yeah, when polled, 97.6% of Crimeans wanted closer association with Russia. LOL.
Let’s say the freedom of press waned after Yanukovich ouster and the freedom of speech is heavily suppressed.
It is true that anti-Russian sentiments are present and mainly due to a massive propaganda campaign but many people start to realize what the European choice really was.
The entire 2014 uprising was based on a lie.
Ukraine went bankrupt and Yanukovich was looking for a bailout.
Putin offered billions of cash no strings attached and the most favorable trade status for Ukrainian goods and services in Russia meaning tariff-free trade for the Ukrainian companies in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
EU offered open borders for Ukrainians, ‘may be’ a few hundred million Euro and wanted Ukraine to lift tariffs for European exports without opening to the Ukrainian exports themselves.
What was a better deal?
But when Yanukovich picked it the Western media started to scream Soviet Union 2.0 and said Yanukovich rejected EU membership.
Which was all lies because neither Soviet Union was proposed nor EU membership was on table.
The results of the implementation of EU plan after Yanukovich ouster are evident.
The populace impoverished, 3/4 of all businesses are bankrupt, third of the country illegally works in EU and Ukraine owes IMF the entire national budget annually in interests on credit alone.
He does, so do I.
One of the main reasons I voted for Trump was his policy to pursue closer relations with Russia, which was and is in our national interest ("Our" in this case refers to the United States of America where I am a citizen).
Good old George is known for making billions off shorting currencies of the countries in crisis.
Ukrainian ruble fell from 8 to 26 over all of the above.
That is more than he could ever dream about in Limey Pound.
“If you are talking about Pozner he is alive and well. A big time Putin critic. Anti-communist but more on a liberal side.”
Yes! I would hear Vladimir Posner on the radio and in American media and he was a big time Soviet propagandist. Of course he and Putin were on the same team.
But failure does have a habit of making people “change.”
When I saw your comment, it was almost a carbon copy of the propaganda points he’d used. When anyone would discuss the ugly policy of the Soviets in general or the Soviet man-made famine in Ukraine, he would use the exact same attacks you did.
It literally took me back decades. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Surprised that Posner is still kicking.
Pozner is a well-off multimillionaire who got rich over media business in 1990s. He can afford to speak whatever he believes true now and who including Putin dares to touch him?
As for this thread I really wonder why do you call my posts attacks. Correct me if something posted is factually incorrect.
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