Posted on 08/25/2014 11:27:00 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Russia's just not the same under President Vladimir Putin.
It wasn't long ago that Russia didn’t need to paint its military convoys a pale white to cross international boundaries.
The trucks and tanks were green and boldly emblazoned with red stars -- not crosses -- on their sides and turrets. And when they entered a country, they stayed, at least for a while, in countries like Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. (The United States followed the Soviet example in Afghanistan more than a decade after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.)
And places like Kiev, Luhansk, Donetsk and the rest of Ukraine belonged to the masters of the Kremlin by right and by conquest and without question. And the Kremlin starved the Ukrainian breadbasket in the name of Stalin's Socialism and a greater good that never came.
And the men in the Kremlin dreamed.
The dreams were large.
The ambitions of the Soviet Union didn’t end at the ends of the earth, or even at the edges of the atmosphere. They imagined first creating a red planet that wasn't Mars and then planned to make Mars Red, too.
Such ambition lives on in one of the few high officials still standing in Ukraine’s Russian-aligned armed opposition. ....
The Soviet Union was first to land a probe on the moon softly enough for it to function.
But the United States landed men there and won the war.
And now, despite the fact that Russia has the only way to get people to the International Space Station, the spaceport doesn't even sit on Russian territory. Russians have to make the hike to independent Kazakstan to reach Baikonur, with its Cosmodrome, which was once theirs by right, too....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
....”He is dissolving Parliament because it was not able to do its job and function as it should”......
You mean ow he wants it to function. We have gridlock as well should OB then dissolve our Congress? Very tricky when you go that route. You end up with a dictatorship, but then that is how Ukraine works best...one man..all the power.
.......”I saw this coming a week ago”......
It was on the agenda clear back at the Maiden riots.
I still get a kick out of media bent on using the term ‘pro-Russian separatists’ in east Ukraine....might as well call the Kiev lot ‘pro-American separatists.
As mentioned before the whole ordeal was a cluster mess from the get go...and they’ve only managed to gain another Oligarch infested leadership, out in front and behind the scenes.
Further latest news is Europe will NOT bail out E. Ukraine for Keiv. Kiev’s on their own with whatever mess is left there. Translated means the USA will be paying the tab as usual.
You hate it when an independant country doesn’t follow Russia’s edicts don’t you?
This is a very poorly written column. It reads like something a high school kid might have published in the school newspaper around 1982.
You also have the Russian Oligarchs seeking to make Kiev their “Base”...meaning those who Putin booted out of Russia.
I agree it’s about which ones will in the end rule the day. For part of the Eastern Ukraine conflict has had much to do with the Oligarchs, many “outsiders” were actively involved and or supporting the conflict.
I really don't care what they do frankly....but Kiev is certainly following the “Russian Way” of running their Gov.
Kiev's been shelling and killing those in the EAst who do not submit to the authority of the Kiev Gov. Sounds and looks like what the USSR was. Now Porenshenko has full hand until Oct. and by then the cards will be stacked accordingly and the elections for Parliament bought and paid for. Also much like USSR.
But am not surprised in the least it has gone this way....all they have accomplished is musical chairs. The dynamics have not changed, and the people will continue to suffer for it...especially once the US crews leave.
wait wait wait.....so a government works to eradicate russian influence...and you believe this is the way of the Soviet Union. So you dissapprove.
But russia attacks, takes over land of a sovereign nation, continues to attack in the East, throws in supplies, weapons, troops, shoots down an airliner, and you support them because apperantly that is not the way of the Soviet Union.
BTW, I asked you several times in the past, you seemed to have missed my posts, I wanted to know why you would post anti-semetic rantings from communist blogs? You seem to like those communist blogs.
call me crazy, but it’s almost like you’re on here supporting the neo-soviet push by russia.
You assume I support Russia....I think better not to further discuss...you’re apparently up for a fight...I’m not interested. ...and why in the past your posts have not been responded to. So let’s just leave it at that. I’m sorry I responded this time.
The oligarch in charge of Eastern Ukraine is Rinat Akmetov, Ukraine's richest man, leader of the Donetsk oligarch clan. Akhmetov, who has extensive links to Russia, is the puppet master who has played both sides of this conflict from the beginning. Even though he was responsible for bringing Yanukovich to power in the first place, in December he praised the Maidan protests and condemned Yanukovich’s violent attacks on the protesters. In May, Pavel Gubarev revealed that Akhmetov had financed most of the pro-Russian rebel groups. Akhmetov is linked to Alexander Khodakovsky's Vostok Battalion. Vostok prevented Denis Pushilin’s “Donetsk People's Republic” from nationalizing Akhmetov’s property and it was Vostok who took control of Pushilin’s headquarters in May. The reason the Chechens fighting for the rebels are part of the Akhmetov backed Vostok battalion is because Akhmetov is a Tatar muslim. Akhmetov’s goal is an autonomous Donetsk as part of a federalized Ukraine which would not answer to either Russia or Ukraine, but which he would personally control.
.....”The exiled Russian oligarchs already have a base: London”.....
Yes, but with the idea of making Ukraine their ‘new’ base. Loving the idea it’s under Putin’s nose. They’ve already set up “foundation” fronts in Keiv.
I’m aware of Akmetov’s interests and movements, but there’s a host of Oligarch’s, much more powerful then he, who are leading this directly connected with Poroshenko and the US.
Still, the idea is obvious...the Oligarchs are not going to let loose of their control and will be considered in all decisions about who gets what in Ukraine.
That’s a pretty vague accusation. Surely if there are so many exiled Russian oligarchs aligned with the USA and Poroshenko, then you should be able to name at least one. Berezovsky is dead and Khodorkovsky seems to have have had the wind taken out from his sails by his ten years in a Siberian gulag.
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