Crimea votes to join Russia, accelerating Ukraine crisis

Yahoo News ^ | March 6, 2014 | Alissa de Carbonnel

[yldstrk]

Crimea's parliament voted to join Russia on Thursday and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum within 10 days on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis over the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula. The sudden acceleration of moves to bring Crimea, which has an ethnic Russian majority and has effectively been seized by Russian forces, formally under Moscow's rule came as European Union leaders gathered for an emergency summit to seek ways to pressure Russia to back down and accept mediation. The Crimean parliament voted unanimously "to enter into the Russian Federation with the rights of a subject of the Russian Federation". The vice premier of Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea military base in Sevastopol, said a referendum on the status would take place on March 16. He said all state property would be "nationalized" and the Russian ruble could be adopted. The announcement, which diplomats said could not have been made without Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval, raised the stakes in the most serious east-west confrontation since the end of the Cold War. Russia stocks fell and the ruble weakened further after the news. Far from seeking a diplomatic way out, Putin appears to have chosen to create facts on the ground before the West can agree on more than token action against him.

[yldstrk]

Putin has stolen a state of another country

[Viennacon]

Putin continues to run rings around Obama and Kerry, who have no idea what to do. They actually got duped by Putin’s soft rhetoric yesterday. No, he doesn’t think military engagement is necessary... because he’s going to annex the crimea with the local government’s consent.

India and Pakistan should take notes for the Kashmir. Big leaflet drop, then a Saturday referendum.

[SoConPubbie]

Putin has stolen a state of another country

Aren't we all about self-determination?

Aren't the vast majority of Crimeans of Russian ancestry?

Aren't they following democratic norms/processes to secede from the Ukraine?

Do you favor a region staying under the governance of a government they believe does not have their best interests at heart?

[Licensed-To-Carry]

Just change the names 'Putin' to 'Hitler' and 'Crimea' to 'Austria' and we have seen this exact same thing before.

And if you have 2 functioning brain cells, you can change the name 'Ukraine' to 'Poland' and then you will know what happens next and be smarter than the US State Department and 0bama and Kerry.

[yldstrk]

Its an anshluss — you need to look at history

http://www.historycentral.com/Europe/Anshluss.html

Putin took a page out of Hitler’s book

[joseph20]

When hispanics are a majority in Texas, do you support Texas leaving the Union for Mexico?

[ealgeone]

is this like Austria “voting” to join Germany??

[SoConPubbie]

On March 12th, 1938, German troops invaded Austria. Hitler was received with great enthusiasm by the Austrian people and he immediately announced that Austria had become part of the German Reich. The laws of Germany, including its anti-Semitic acts, were swiftly applied in Austria.

You might want to re-read that.

Big difference between a country forcefully, and without a vote, eating up a country and making it part of it, vs. having the current representative Parliament vote for it and then ask the citizenry to back up that vote by voting for it.

[yldstrk]

you need to get your head on straight

[SoConPubbie]

When hispanics are a majority in Texas, do you support Texas leaving the Union for Mexico?

Sorry, but either we stand on our principles or we are no better than democrats.

Personally, if a state/country feels like it is not being represented by current political representation and furthermore, if all entreaties to address that failure to represent are re-buffed, then that state/country has the right of self-determination to throw off the yolk of that unrepresentative political representation.

What do you think the formation of our country was all about?

BTW, if Hispanics, and primarily by that I mean Mexicans loyal to Mexico, gained a majority and decided to try and secede to Mexico, I gather that the remainder of Conservatives, which must have decreased dramatically for this occur, would then go to war, which would also be their right since most of the Hispanics would be Illegals.

[SoConPubbie]

When hispanics are a majority in Texas, do you support Texas leaving the Union for Mexico?

Everything is not as black and white as you want it to be in this scenario.

There would be no harm, if the people of Crimea, being of Russian Ancestry(majority), VOTED to join Russia and it completely disarms the whole political firestorem.

It lets the Western part of the country go with the EU and lets those that want to go with Russia, the east, primarily, go with Russia.

Problem solved.

You have the socialists of the EU getting the western part of the country and you have Putin and Russia, whatever you may think of him, getting Crimea.

Everybody is happy, problem is defused.

Are there other subtexts in play here, yes there are, however, this seems to be what the people of Crimea desire.

[SoConPubbie]

you need to get your head on straight

Everything is not as black and white as you want it to be in this scenario.

There would be no harm, if the people of Crimea, being of Russian Ancestry(majority), VOTED to join Russia and it completely disarms the whole political firestorem.

It lets the Western part of the country go with the EU and lets those that want to go with Russia, the east, primarily, go with Russia.

Problem solved.

You have the socialists of the EU getting the western part of the country and you have Putin and Russia, whatever you may think of him, getting Crimea.

Everybody is happy, problem is defused.

Are there other subtexts in play here, yes there are, however, this seems to be what the people of Crimea desire.

[NELSON111]

>>>you need to get your head on straight

No....you do. If a section of a country elects to leave...they have that right (in my mind). This is not Austria...they are apples and oranges.

And personally....I think about our current situation. I'm in Texas...and I can see that there is a time coming in my lifetime that we, with some other states, may be doing the same thing. I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE under corruption (and yes...Putin is corrupt...but in their mind he was the lesser of two evils)...and under values that are VASTLY different than mine. I do not want my life to be dictated by large populations of metropolitan socialists.

So....we would not have the right to tell a government and a group of people with different values to go pound sand?

[Wallace T.]

Keep in mind that all three Baltic states have large Russian minorities that were settled there following their annexation by Stalin in 1940 (effectively 1945, as the Nazis occupied those countries from 1941 to 1945). The Baltic states had also been part of the Russian Empire from the 18th Century to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia's major Baltic Sea port of Kaliningrad is surrounded territorially by Poland and Lithuania, just as their Black Sea port of Odessa was in Ukrainian territory. Interestingly enough, Kaliningrad was once called Koenigsberg, and after the Treaty of Versailles, it was isolated from the rest of Germany by the cession to Poland of the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk (Danzig). The German demand for a land bridge connecting Koenigsberg and East Prussia with the rest of Germany led to the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II.

The analogy of Putin to Hitler is somewhat stretched, as the Russian dictator is not racist or anti-Semitic and he is friendlier to religion and market economics than Hitler was. A comparison with Peter the Great and Stalin is more accurate as Putin has so far outfoxed his foreign foes in his drive to expand Russian interests.

[yldstrk]

Yes, I think the citizens can repudiate a government, which the Ukrainians did

then they got invaded by their neighbor

different from Texas seceding

you are the one mixing apples and oranges

[CodeToad]

No he has not. That was territory stolen and given to Ukraine.

[yldstrk]

stolen

would you care to elaborate?

[mgist]

“It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” (Joseph Stalin)

[CodeToad]

You were the one ignorantly mouthing off about this situation. Try learning some history before making such stupid accusations.

[LambSlave]

I think your points are dead on here; those trying to equate this to Hitler are way off base. This is a region that was not so long ago part of Russia, is ethnically Russian, has politically supported pro-Russian/anti-EU candidates and who wants nothing to do with the Western Ukraine. By seceding, through an uncoerced legal political process that represents the wishes of their people, they are averting a bloody civil war that could only end the same way.