Posted on 03/01/2014 7:10:27 AM PST by maggief
Simferopol, Ukraine (CNN) -- [Breaking News Update, 10:02 a.m. ET] (CNN) -- Russia's upper house of parliament voted Saturday to approve the use of military force in Ukraine. The vote was unanimous.
[Original Story, published 9:23 a.m. ET]
(CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the upper house of parliament for approval to send Russian troops into Ukraine's Crimea region to normalize the political situation there, the Kremlin said Saturday.
Due to the "extraordinary situation in Ukraine," Putin said, there are threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian military personnel based in the southern Crimean region.
It comes on the same day that the new pro-Russian leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, asked Putin for help in maintaining peace in the Black Sea peninsula -- where Russia has a major naval base at Sevastopol.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
It was settled - Ukraine kept the Crimea and gave up its nukes.
Gee, ya think.
Like being in Danzig in August 1939.
Wasn’t worth it....if they’d given up the Crimea, the rest would be in the EU and NATO by now.
The problem that we’re having is that Putin is a leader.
A dictator no good, but still a leader.
And we have a pot smoking, peace activist Community organizer in charge over here.
I don’t have any respect for Obama and I’m not leading a hostile foreign regime.
... maybe too late.
http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/State-Department-Warns-Americans-on-Ukraine-Travel-247961141.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is warning U.S. citizens to put off all nonessential travel to Ukraine, and particularly Crimea.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-26387567
The Foreign Office has urged all UK citizens in Crimea to leave amid escalating violence.
It is also advising against all travel to the peninsula in the south of troubled Ukraine, with those remaining advised to “keep a low profile”.
Another Twitter Report:
“Russian naval vessels including “Moskva” reported headed towards Ukr naval vessels off Crimea coast”
The Foreign Minister is going to dramatically read Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade to the Ambassador...
It's worse - imagine if Mexico had deliberately starved millions of Americans to death during its former reign over the US in order to crush American opposition.
That’s what the Ukraine has been doing to Crimea?
Yikes. You just don’t DO that to the Bear.
Now the Canadians have done the same:
“OTTAWA-The Department of Foreign Affairs is advising against travel to Ukraine’s Crimea region and says Canadians already there should consider leaving “while it is safe to do so.”
OK. Holodomor. The Ukrainians had a grudge, understandably.
Well it’s going to be messy. Russia going to reclaim Crimea now?
That foreign territory has been part of the USSR/Russia for the last 300+ years.
Very bad, and maybe about to get worse. Much worse.
Correcting Khrushchev’s mistake.
Think of the US and let’s say Panama. If our military and citizens were threatened by a revolution (or maybe a drug dealing dictator), what do you think the US would do?
I’m not backing Putin but I’m just saying...
Imagine Jimmy Carter giving Southern California to Mexico.
That’s why Khrushchev did with The Crimea, for all intents and purposes.
The Russians starved millions of Ukrainians to death. Khrushchev was the Butcher of Ukraine. After WWII, the Red Army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians while putting down a Ukrainian insurrection led by Stepan Bandera. That's the background for Khrushchev's "gift" of the Crimea to Ukraine. It was a peace offering, a consolation prize. I have no idea how emotive this issue is to Ukrainians, but given that Russia has never offered reparations of any kind other than the territorial one, it may be more significant than anyone thinks, and significant enough that Ukrainians are willing to die (and kill Russian troops) in large numbers to keep. Ukrainians are descended from the Cossacks whom the Russians have repeatedly massacred in large numbers in order to keep Ukraine within the Russian empire. In a way, Ukrainians share a history with the Poles of repeated large-scale insurrections against Russia, but without successfully holding the Russians off long enough to regain their independence.
The only people Bandera and his crew hated more than Russians, were Poles. They were despicable characters, on par with the Ustashe in Croatia.
A revolution in the Philippines (an ex-colony of the US) toppled Ferdinand Marcos. We were turfed from our bases less than a decade later. We stood by.
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