Russians in Ukraine

Tell that to the Scots.

It's a  very complicated situation when sovereignty is at heart specially with a naval nuclear capable base situated in main land. I do hope they get it sorted soon. It does not look good though!

That's fighting talk !!

What Scotland chooses to do is up to a democratic vote in the referendum.

I welcome a firm decision being taken either way.

If they leave the Union then there will be short term hardships for both the rest of Britain and Scotland itself, but in the long run things will settle down. Look at Slovakia and the Czech Republic. They separated, and each has benifitted in the longer term from becoming culturally homogenous countries. Multiculturalism only works up a certain point in reality.

The trouble in Ukraine is that the pollution is entirely divided between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. Given the apparent intensity of feelings between the two groups, I wonder if the Ukraine can any more survive as a single entity than the former Czechoslovakia. There are times when history has left borders that really are unsustainable, and the best thing is to accept that fact, allow a division [such as India and Pakistan] and hope that a more peaceful future can happens after a division.

ATB from George

PS: It is good that Mr Putin in Russia seems to want to co-operate with the rest of the World in finding a resolution to this rather than some Cold War style stand-off, which would be a terrifying prospect.

George,

i bet the ethnic Russians cause a lot worse - those Russian tanks drink a lot of gallons to the mile!

Debs

I spotted the mistake, population, not pollution!

It was too late to edit it. 

ATB from George

Yes, sorry about that, George, 

I did know that really 

and i don't think many on either side care for Green Party Politics.

I think the whole situation is currently on a knife edge of more or less civil war. That would be a disaster for the Ukraine, and the neighbouring countries. 

I hope that there is a lot of behind the scenes diplomatic work going on with Russia, the EU, and the Ukraine, about how to support the Ukraine in her hour of need. 

ATB from George

I sincerely hope common sense prevails here.  Europe can't afford this instability and more importantly the Ukrainian people (those leaning to the EU and those leaning to Russia) don't deserve violent civil unrest.  They have suffered significantly since the break up of the Soviet empire with corrupt leadership and a faltering economy.  I saw a statistic the other day which said Ukraine's GDP per head was well behind Bulgaria's for goodness sake.  I really hope that this is an occasion in which Putin decides to be statesman-like and works with the West to achieve an outcome that everyone can live with. Perhaps his success in preventing the West's military intervention in Syria will give him the confidence to do the right thing.  

If you really want to know what's going on in the Ukraine, read this article; it's by far the best I've found...

The Road to Moscow Goes Through Kiev: A Coup d’Etat That Threatens Russia | Global Research

Cheers,

BBM

PS: The mainstream media in the West is nothing more than a propaganda machine.

Having browsed a few other articles on this website I think I'll stick to the BBC and others for my news.  

Spent some time in Crimea in 2008 touring with a Ukrainian friend from Kherson (in southern Ukraine) - she spoke both Ukrainian & Russian, but identified much more strongly with Russia, and while down there only used Russian for everything we did.  The only significant group in Crimea that would side against Russia in this would be the Tatars.  As noted, the South & East of the country is heavily Russian.  Personally interesting to see the scenes from the Stavropol airport, where I flew into Crimea from Borispol.

Kruschev was Ukrainian, and his decisions in the late 50's as part of his de-Stalinization program had a lot to do with how the country is today.  He was, I think, trying to make up some for the Holodomor.  And I have never fully understood the relationship between Crimea and Ukraine, as an "autonomous" region, but still part of Ukraine.

If you stick with the BBC/NPR/Fox/etc, you will have a very skewed and biased information source.  Ditto for the Russian press.  In both cases the press works for the government that feeds them the bullsh*t they print.  If anyone thinks the Western press is not a propaganda machine, then I am sure the tooth fairy & Santa Claus cannot be far away.  Some are better than others, but none are honest.

I feel very badly for the Ukrainians.  Yanukovych is a thief and a criminal, but he was elected in 2010 in an election that international observers said was legitimate.  His jailing of Yuliya Tymoshenko was obviously politically motivated, and I can't help but think he would have lost the next election had it been held legitimately.  Russia had had them on a short leash, but all the EU will do is drown them in debt and then smack them down with austerity measures, making them beholden to Brussels & the ECB.  They really don't have an obvious winning choice.

I am sure all these high minded Western politicians (and I am speaking mainly of the US) would have loved for Sergei Lavrov to show up at the Occupy Wall St or Tea Party rallies and show their support for an anti-government/establishment rally, in the same manner that perma-hawk John McCain (when IS he going to drop dead?) and US Asst. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (she of "f**k the EU fame) did in the past few months.  I am also very sure that no shots would be fired by the Bush or Obama governments at demonstrators who were doing the same things as these demonstrators did.  (Sarcasm) - Bullsh*t - they would be mowing them down with a self-righteous "law and order" excuse.  Look what they did to the mentally unstable woman who crashed her car into the White House fence some months ago...so we would expect them to exercise the same restraint they called for from the Ukrainian government?  Give me a break.

The hypocrisy of the US government is literally staggering - with troops stationed in more countries than not, and having been at war for most of the last 20 years, they are going to tell Putin "not to interfere"?  From the country whose major export is war & regime change?  And of course the Ukrainian people are the victims here, between a rock (Putin) and a hard place (the West.)

The EU wants Ukraine's grain, NATO wants their location for missiles pointed at Moscow, and Putin wants to keep his buffer zone and likes the grain supply as well.  And no one gives a flying f*** about the Ukrainian people, despite the posturing on both sides.

I find it somewhat amusing that the Western banks are looking to "freeze" Yanukovych's accounts now that he is in exile - yeah, like they didn't know his stolen money was stolen before.  (More hypocritical grandstanding.)

Interesting Dr Mark but at risk of taking this thread off topic I think you're bracketing the BBC with Fox news and suggesting the BBC works for (UK) government is a bit off.  Leaving aside its poor corporate management of exec salaries and pay-offs, I think the BBC has rightly retained a good reputation for impartial journalism.  There have been quite a few instances in the past where the UK government has got very irritated with the BBC's coverage.  

Anyway, getting back on topic I won't disagree with your points about hypocrisy of governments (though they may call it pragmatism) but it's not the fate of the politicians that worry here. It's the 46 million people in Ukraine whose future I worry about. Surely nobody wants to see another example of what happened when Yugoslavia broke up.    

Thank you for your post, DrMark. We need to get away from our simplistic distorting lenses through which we view lands and people we don't know much about.

Well, jolly good for you. You can continue to drink their Kool-Aid then. Enjoy.

Dr. Mark,

I agree 100%. Great to see that I'm not alone in recognizing the BS in the MSM.

Cheers

BBM

"it's not the fate of the politicians that worry here. It's the 46 million people in Ukraine whose future I worry about."

Agreed - and that was my point, that while these politicians on both sides play "god" real peoples' lives about which they care nothing are affected by the snake oil they peddle so as to establish their "legacy".

May they all rot in hell.  (The politicians.)

For someone that professes not to care you talk a fair bit about us.  What Scotland has got to do with Ukraine and Russia, only your mind would know.

"You just don't in the 21st-Century behave in 19th-Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext," - quote by Kerry on the CBS program Face the Nation.
 
It amazes me that anyone in the US government can say this with a straight face...I mean, he has been awake for at least part of the last 20 years, right?

Dr Mark,

Here's a nice overview of the Ukrainian situation from a former CIA analyst...

Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many? | Common Dreams

Too bad that some folks on this forum have their heads firmly planted in their backsides. The US is an imperialist regime that uses covert tactics to destabilize countries and install puppet leaders. If the average person cannot see this by now, then they can only be described as willfully ignorant...

Covert United States foreign regime change actions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As mentioned earlier, the Western mainstream media is fully complicit in these ventures by purposely distorting the truth. Even the CBC has become a propaganda machine. It's truly disgusting. No wonder the USA/NATO wants to censor the internet.

BBM

I wish I could report that Kerry's head exploded from the cognitive dissonance of that comment, but it didn't.  The hubris behind such a statement from HIM is literally mind boggling.  What a tool he is.

It's also a question of what doesn't get reported on both sides.  Very filtered content.

The neo-cons are really in propaganda overdrive right now.

Dear CRMF,

Anyone who has studied the history of Europe since Tudor times at least will know that interfering in other countries' affairs, spying, secret services and so has been perfectly normal, but publicly unacceptable, and most usually carried out to be deniable, or completely secret for decades after the events.

I have no doubt that the Hawks in Russia are fiddling about in the Ukraine just as much as the Hawks in the USA. 

It would surprise me if they were not.

And just as this sort of effort is secret, undercover stuff, so it is hardly to expected that it will be reported by the news media, free or government inspired in a close time to its occurring.

I'll defend the BBC though, because though they are not privy to the secret service work of the UK government they are certainly prepared to report on what does cease to be secret. The BBC does a rather fine tight-rope walk of peeving the governments of the day, of whatever political colour, in a rather brave fashion. so much so that sometimes the government of the day shows its distaste for the BBC by accusing its news of being anti-government.

So long as that goes on, I reckon the BBC does as good a job of serious investigative journalism as they can this side of treachery - in other words revealing secrets prejudicial to the safety and security of Great Britain.

I will not ask for more than that.

ATB from George

According to the World Press Freedom Index (put out by Reporters Without Borders) the UK came in at # 33 (between Lithuania & SLovenia) and the USA came in at #46 (between Haiti & Romania.)  No word on the USA dropping after Kerry's comments.

Russia, unsurprisingly, was 148, and Yanukovych's Ukraine was 127.

Eritrea was last at 180.

The first 5 spots were held by Finland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, & Andorra.

FYI CRMF, Canada was #20, right after Namibia.

We do have a press gag in the UK called a "D-notice" that can can be placed on the press in the event of national security being put at risk.

I guess that you could demand to know how many D-notices had been issued over time through the freedom of information laws, but certainly not what was banned from publication!

ATB from George

George

The UK has become the US lapdog since Bush/Blair. As a result, the BBC is just another propaganda mill. Sorry to disappoint you.

Don't you find it ironic that the US is calling on Russia for restraint, when the US/NATO were the instigators in the destabilization of Ukraine in the first place?

Here's a hint. Read some articles by Stephen F Cohen regarding the current situation in the Ukraine, and the Western mainstream media bias.

BBM

I quite agree that Blair was Bush's lapdog, but the rebound from Blair [in the UK] has been profound. 

I don't think that any UK government could possibly follow another US President into a folly such as Iraq today. The mood here is very different.

If anything the UK is less pro the USA [folloowing the Bush/Blair debacle] than at any time since before the USA joined in the Second World War after it was attacked at Pearl Harbour two years after Britain's War with Germany had started.

Britain is far from being the lapdog of the USA today, though it has taken the futility of the Iraq expedition to show us just how wrong we have been to join ourselves at the hip to the USA. There are no International friends, but only foreign countries that happen to share national interests with us on this or that aspect.

ATB from George