Take a look at her:

Video Link

She lives in Canada but was born in Ukraine.

Come on guys, let’s get serious; in 2021, who’s writing a “War Strategy� on printed papers, read it casually on a park bench in central London; such document would be most probably digital, highly protected digitally, to be opened and read only once, it won’t be printable, nor distributable, it would be accessible only by a few top officials on their highly protected personal digital device, one time only, and if you try to access it again, it will lock you out.

“The Brits are masters at intrigue, double-dealing and propaganda.� and that’s what this is, just a propaganda.

Aside from the fact that Pearl Harbor, a direct attack on the US by Japan being the essential element of my response (which you too are ignoring), I would direct your attention to the sinking of the Lusitania. I assure you it had a direct effect on public opinion regardless of the fact that you are correct in the strict legal sense. People tend to get emotional about the mass death of women and children even during wars. I hope that continues to be the case. Why do you think the US government is so determined to silence Julian Assange? Collateral murder. I hope you understand the reference. Or have they already succeeded?

As per the unrestricted submarine warfare, it involved the waters around the British Isles. American in boats in the Gulf of Mexico or Cape Cod were in no danger. Americans can hardly expect to travel freely in areas that are a war zone.

I’ll grant you the influence of British propaganda in regards to the US entering WWI although I think things like unrestricted submarine warfare had at least as much influence. However, as to the US entry into WWII, I am surprised to learn that Pearl Harbor has escaped your attention.

The Confederate States of America did not start the war. The war was started when the tyrant Lincoln tried to send warships into Charleston Harbor then issued a call for troops to invade the Southern nation. Lincoln started the war. It was a shame he did not get what he deserved until the war was over.

Note that the Anglo-American alliance was a kind of tag team when Britain couldn’t keep on fighting Hitler, America came to the rescue…for a price. the lend-lease meant America got Britain’s gold, and many in Britain, esp. Lord Halifax, thought some kind of treaty with Hitler was preferable to the empire going bankrupt. Churchill decided otherwise. In Churchill’s War, David Irving directly blames him for the end of the British empire.

America always had its own interests, which is to say global banking. Now, we may be seeing things change, especially if we bankrupt the west. As the mercenaries always say, no money, no battle.

On the Crimean War: has anyone seen The Charge of the Light Brigade? The 1968 Tony Richardson film? Very fun and a thoughtful view of that war. Britain went to war to save ‘poor little Turkey.’
And later it was ‘poor little Serbia’, then ‘poor little Belgium’, and ‘poor little Vietnam,’ then ‘poor little Kuwait.’

Anyone see a pattern?

During the 1930’s the French governments (which fell almost monthly) promoted what they called a freedom barrier against the Soviet Union. Poland was to be at the tip of that barrier and Chamberlain’s mission to Munich was meant to enlist the support of Adolf Hitler to be Poland’s back stop. Hitler signed on but had his own ideas. He was not going to be a back-stop for France and Britain.
P.S. At the time when France and the USSR were allies in the war against the axis France had not yet recognized Stalin’s government! As a matter of fact it never did.

What we are witnessing today is a re-construction of that barrier but on a much more grandiose scale and now against Putin-Russia. Russia proper must be encircled. The Baltic Sea and Poland are in the bag. Ukraine is almost in the bag. The current attempt is centered on as much control of the Black Sea as possible to be followed by getting as many of the ‘stans’ into the fold. Then the struggle will shift to the Arctic if it has not already begun there. Remember “buying Greenland”?

The objective appears to be the balkanization of what was once the Tsarist empire. Well, Birobidzhan is already an autonomous oblast of Russia.

Given the relentless reduction in warning times, I am surprised that it hasn’t happened already. We are one computer glitch or one demented hacker away from total disaster.

I’ve often wondered what clandestine assurances the leaders of the southern Confederacy might have received from their trading partners in “perfidious Albion.� How likely is it that they would have started a war against the vastly stronger free states without specific guarantees from the superpower they sold most of their cotton to? Eighty years later Britain publicly promised the arrogant Polish dictatorship military aid it had no intention of providing, hoping Poland would provoke Germany into attacking, so they could have an excuse to have another go at their most feared European economic rival.

It was the dearest hope of the Old World aristocracy to shatter the United States, and this goal became a priority after the bloody rebellions of the “European Spring� of 1848, directly inspired by the US example of freedom. It is a matter of record that Britain, France, and Spain entered into a secret alliance in 1861 to gain as much territory in the western hemisphere as they could while the world’s only democracy was at war with itself. In short order, Spain recaptured Santo Domingo, Britain sent ten thousand crack troops to Canada, and France launched her first invasion of Mexico. The repulse of the latter by a determined peasant army on Cinco de Mayo caused the British to pull out of the alliance, and within a year Garibaldi’s march on Rome resulted in the sacking of the aggressive French Minister of War, and the plans were abandoned.

The sun sets on all empires, though none think it will. All empires eventually get the war they seek to avoid – their fall. Since the start of the atomic age competing powers have been trying to avoid nuclear war: the conflict they still need to be aware of, but are not. History shows powers blindly stumble into catastrophic war. And they can be triggered by a minor power.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Ukrainians are more Russian than the various -Stan and -Chen peoples in the Caucasus.
Russia should have claimed at least half of Ukraine, if not all of it when the breakup of the Soviet Union happened.

It was the end of history. Everyone was to just disarm; open up completely to foreign corporations, lobbyists, and values; splinter into fluid associations of of tiny harmless countries; accept their roles of students who follow the lead of the masters and thus participate in the great family of civilized societies, creating a planetary utopia.

Being small, weak, and harmless, and knowing your place is a fundamental piece of planetary utopia. Latvia and Lithuania are leading the way.

After the collapse of Yugoslavia, its core, Serbia (the regional “mini-Russia”), was not left alone, until it was battered into collapsing into its constituent internal parts as well — losinng Kosovo and Montenegro — ensuring it was forever “rendered harmless”. And if it tries anything it can lose Voivodina as well.

Same plan for Russia. The collapse of the USSR was just the start of eating Russia in several sittings. The collapse of the federation kicked off with the troubles in Chechnya and Dagestan, then Yakutia and Bashkiria and Tataria and the rest were supposed to follow suit.
Putin stopped that. Putin is a fascist. Putin began to reverse the fragmentation by reabsorbing a lost piece. Putin is a double fascist.

China is also supposed to splinter into cute safe little pieces, starting with Tibet and Xinjiang. Xi is not having anything of this. Xi is a fascist. Xi does not hide plans to reabsorb lost pieces. Xi is a double fascist.

The point of the ‘Defender’ exercise was to humiliate Russia and show off its weakness

And yet, this exercise achieved nothing.

Of course, the western presstitutes would say over and over again how the valiant ‘Defender’ never cowed to the russians, and there were never warning shots fired. They may even claim that the russians were “humiliated” for not sinking the brit’s destroyer.

But, as I commented under another article on the subject – the russians couldn’t care less about the western PR. What they cared about is to drive the brits off russian territorial waters. Which they did, BTW, without unnecessary escalation.

What were Russians thinking when they allowed Ukraine the status of independent state?

Ukrainians are more Russian than the various -Stan and -Chen peoples in the Caucasus.
Russia should have claimed at least half of Ukraine, if not all of it when the breakup of the Soviet Union happened. Solzhenitsyn insisted Ukraine be kept as part of Russia. Well, it wasn’t and look at the mess.

Belorussia also should have been kept as part of Russia.

All to please Uncle Sam, of course.

Uncle Shem

the sun has set on the british empire long ago and is setting on the american empire now. the only difference is the u.s. has enough nukes stock piled to incinerate the planet. that and biological warfare are the only options left to the increasingly impotent former hegemon.

“Russia reoccupied Crimea, one of Russia’s most important naval bases, after a US-led coup overthrew…”

Oh please. Russia had troops in Crimea under a treaty with Ukraine for Russian use of that seaport at Sevastopol long before the overthrow of the Ukranian government. The People of Crimea then voted in a free election to apply for admission to the Russian Federation, which was granted. There was no Russian “reoccupation.”

This tempest in a teapot suddenly became a farce after a stack of soggy secret British naval documents was found behind a park bench in Kent. ‘Defender’s’ mission was discussed in them, Russia’s possible response, and, of all crazy things, potential new British operations in Afghanistan. All to please Uncle Sam, of course.

These embarrassing documents caused an uproar in Britain, made the government look like fools, and put the lie to Whitehall’s claims that the naval operation was only an innocent patrol.

Oh do get over yourself. The Documents found were so obviously a plant even the supine cut n paste meeja couldn’t run the story for more than a day.

Why do “turks” of Izmir call themselves Turks and not Greeks? Or why do French call themselves Franks and not Gauls or Celts?

Actually original Tatars were a nomadic tribe situated in border areas of PRC and Mongolia, genetically those original Tatars were ancestors of present day Mongols, and not ancestors of Tatars of Tatarstan(Volga Bulgaria), Astrakhan or Crimea.

So why do they call themselves Tatars, and not Goths for example?

Only around 1/5 of the Crimean Tatars are of Central Asian Nogai Turkic origin, the rest are descendants of Islamised and Turkified Greeks, Goths and Circassians, so majority of them are closer to Europeans than to Türks of Central Asia.

Hmm and who were the two groups that bought slaves from the Tatars and later sold them in the slave markets of Constantinople and Middle East?

On a massive scale they practiced enslaving of Slavs and unlike Christians they feel no shame for their evil deeds…

Afghanistan vote is a genius kudos for Russia – the country still managed by America in many aspects, history of Soviet war there….. and I think their President is ( or was at the time) a University graduate at an American University – so America approved candidate.

Exactly the reason why I found it the funniest. I’m not saying it’s not a diplomatic victory for Russia, my point was just that what the deceloped world thinks matters more.

Why the Tatars? They are a minority. They took the place by force and lost it by force. They are no longer the majority, not even close. And others have lived there before.

Ideally, Crimea should belong to the Crimean Tatars.

Ideally, Crimea should belong to Neanderthals (like southern Spain – this is the last refuge of this species)

And it would be nice to have elves living in the Crimea. The Elven Kingdom of Crimea

The Tatars are nothing, but a wandering tribe of bandits, originally from Central Asia. A more virulent form of gypsies essentially.

Why Tatars? Why not Greeks? Or Scythians?

Kashmir is in a state of limbo, part of it under Pakistani rule, but it’s unclear how much international recognition the de facto border enjoys.

When it comes to UN Population Projections, Pakistani-controlled Kashmir appears to be treated as a part of Pakistan while Indian-controlled Kashmir appears to be treated as a part of India.

Israel is perhaps the most famous example of border changes not being internationally recognized, though apparently the US recently recognized the Israeli annexation of Eastern Jerusalem.

AFAIK, though, by this move, the US still DIDN’T foreclose the possibility of an eventual Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

Ideally, Crimea should belong to the Crimean Tatars. But this was no longer possible after the 19th century due to the extremely extensive Slavic colonization of Crimea.

Yeltsin likely ceded Crimea to Ukraine because he wanted to eventually lure all of Ukraine back into the Russian orbit. It was only when this failed in 2014 that Russia outright annexed Crimea.

It is a no very subtle advertence to the Ukrainian regime.

Yes, your explanation of rich gifts (not to be used against Russia proper) as territorries stripped from Russia by bolsheviks is more straightforward then mine guessed previously (wealth given to oligarchs).

This is misleading rhetoric. With Crimea, everything is simple – the state of Ukraine that has existed since 1991 has ceased to exist, as extremists with foreign help carried out a coup d’etat, trampling on the constitution of Ukraine. Accordingly, Crimea received a full and legitimate right to self-determination. All the talk about historical rights only obscures the point

Russia allowed Crimea to be part of Ukraine when it more naturally should have been part of Russia. Same goes for other regions of Ukraine and regions in Kazakhstan and Belarus. But Russia accepted the situation as long as these countries doesn’t start to antagonize Russia (in particular at the behest of a foreign sponsor).

I think that by “rich gifts” he refers to the territories, or geopolitical spaces, “given” away by the Bolsheviks to “quasi-state” entities.
In other words, he says Russia will not tolerate these spaces being used as a “spring board” for any hostile actions against Russia. This is a veiled reference, primarily, to Ukraine but may also apply to other former SU republics.

What does President Putin mean by ‘But we will never tolerate one thing – someone using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the Russian Federation.’?

It probably relates to previous paragraph which indicates the perception of RF neighbours as brother/fraternal nations (Ukraine?) and readiness to help them to develop and go on while accepting current borders drawn by bolsheviks in disadvantage of historical Russia (as mentioned before). Using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the RF may relate to the experience of oligarchs draining the wealth and moving it abroad. Perhaps another signal to domestic oligarchs to stay in line with Kremlin/Russia… just guessing.

Several important countries abstained ( in other words, accepted without enticing sanctions) the reunification you dimwit.

WTF makes a nothing country voting against it, as Estonia, a “bastion of civilisation, science and high culture”?

Anyway at least 4 of those countries that voted for Russia, the US has attempted to destroy and seriously harmed in the last 50 years, so don’t be so disrespectful you myopic lesbian.

Afghanistan vote is a genius kudos for Russia – the country still managed by America in many aspects, history of Soviet war there….. and I think their President is ( or was at the time) a University graduate at an American University – so America approved candidate.

What does President Putin mean by ‘But we will never tolerate one thing – someone using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the Russian Federation.’?

while Taiwan keeps existing as a de facto independent sovereign state ever since, despite basically no one recognizing it since the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan

Interestingly, one of the 15 states which fully recognise the ROC ( Taiwan ) is Nicaragua, which you mocked in #7 for recognising Crimea as Russian.

We now know the next American war for Biden. Not only would it remove one more state which recognises Crimea, but Taiwan too.

NICARAGUA, EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE

They’ll leave Ukraine and Syria till next year.

Somewhere I read that some Latin American countries existed for decades without international recognition. But I’m not sure if it really was so. The Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was never recognized by most NATO powers, including the US, and as a result even the UN didn’t recognize it. The People’s Republic of China gained full international recognition only by the 1970s (though most countries recognized it by the 1960s…), while Taiwan keeps existing as a de facto independent sovereign state ever since, despite basically no one recognizing it since the 1970s. Kashmir is in a state of limbo, part of it under Pakistani rule, but it’s unclear how much international recognition the de facto border enjoys.

Israel is perhaps the most famous example of border changes not being internationally recognized, though apparently the US recently recognized the Israeli annexation of Eastern Jerusalem.

Eight countries, Afghanistan, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, have recognized the Russian-held referendum in the Crimea

Eight bastions of civilization, science and high culture!

I guess Afghanistan is by far the funniest of these.

It will be interesting to see which is the first neutral or even Western country to recognise Crimea as Russian.

The most important thing in this is that Crimeans overwhelmingly want to be in Russia. Virtually no one in Crimea wants to return to the Ukrainian madhouse. Eight countries, Afghanistan, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, have recognized the Russian-held referendum in the Crimea (https://www.quora.com/Has-any-country-recognized-Crimea-as-a-part-of-Russia).

But as far as foreign recognition goes, Crimeans don’t give a hoot.

7 years now and Russian opinion seems almost totally accepting that Crimea is Russian. I suppose those Russians in favour of returning Crimea to the Ukraine must be in the lower single digits ( What’s the latest opinion poll ? ).
Certainly, the Crimean Bridge is a masterstroke in achieving complete economic integration of Crimea with Russia. Putin must be given full marks for its construction. It also limits Ukrainian access to the Sea of Azov, so it’s clever on that level, too.

It will be interesting to see which is the first neutral or even Western country to recognise Crimea as Russian. And when ?

In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks, as they formed the Soviet Union, gave away vast territories, geopolitical spaces, for reasons still hard to understand, to quasi-state entities.

Another disassociation from bolshevism indicated after longer period of time. Nice to read that.

Simple facts. Sevastopol was never Ukraine, it was centrally governed city in the USSR. Drunk traitor Yeltsin decided to cede Sevastopol and Crimea, which was one of his many crimes. Crimea did not want to remain in Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. They held several referenda on the issue. Crimea was an autonomous republic with its own president until Kiev government unlawfully cancelled its autonomy. Crimea was deteriorating in Ukraine, as nothing was invested into it. I visited it in 2015: main roads were repaired after its reunification with Russia, but side roads remained in their dismal Ukrainian state. No wonder Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. In fact, the great majority of Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea promptly switched sides after its acceptance into RF. Some of the military personnel who ran away to Ukraine subsequently returned and wanted to join Russian military. If the referendum in Crimea would be held today, the results would be either the same as in 2014, or pro-Russian vote would be even greater.

Crimea Day! It should be a public holiday everywhere!

Yes, that one too.

However, some of those federations were federations in name only. The USSR, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia didn’t start out as a bunch of independent states freely or even under some military pressure deciding to join together, but rather previously unitary states changing their constitutions under communist party rule to nominally become federations, with the borders often arbitrarily set.

There are partial exceptions: Yugoslavia was arguably formed by Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, three previously existing states (of which Croatia just gained independence, Montenegro lost its independence, and the newly created Slovenia was added to the mix), and arguably the changing of the constitution by the king was unconstitutional and unpopular, hence illegitimate. But then the commies added Macedonia and Bosnia (though the latter had been a separate province before 1918, so at least the internal borders weren’t totally arbitrary, rather historical – it’s worth mentioning that the province had been created in a series of historical accidents and had zero legitimacy for the majority of its population before 1918), and it’s pretty obvious that the internal borders were illegitimate already at the time of their creation.

With Czechoslovakia, the internal border was legitimate and historical, but then it was the most peaceful of all the breakups with exactly zero casualties or violence.

With the USSR, the internal borders were usually set absolutely arbitrarily, with zero legitimacy, except in the case of the Baltic states. (The borders of Estonia and Latvia were even here changed arbitrarily, with both losing some smaller border areas to Russia, though arguably those areas had a mostly Russian population and the borders had been set arbitrarily after the Russian civil war anyway. So at least in the case of the Baltic states the internal borders were more or less legitimate.) Those borders were then even sometimes changed arbitrarily, especially in the case of Crimea, which is the border contested here.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to see how the breakups of these federations – whether nominal or not – should or could not have been accepted by the international community. For example in the case of the USSR, the constituent republics declared their independence in mutual agreement with each other, then the Supreme Soviet of the USSR became permanently disabled after the Russian deputies were withdrawn, then the president declared that he would cease his activities as president, and lastly the last legislative body, the Council of The Republics declared its dissolution (and that of the country).

So what could other countries do other than accept this reality? Start an embargo against these countries?

Then once this precedent was accepted, they basically had to accept similar outcomes for other federations as well. It was way messier in Yugoslavia (and so wasn’t accepted for a while). Epigon complained that the Germans started the international recognition against the wishes of the Americans. I think it’s an oversimplification: American opinion was divided from the beginning, and so the Germans had some room for maneuver. But then a few months later the Americans recognized the independence of Bosnia as well (which was definitely not a German initiative), though in part it was driven by the (stupid) idea that it would stop the war already starting there. Anyway, Kosovo (and the NATO bombing) was totally unprecedented and a deliberate policy of choice. You cannot say it was a hastily decided blunder.

Czechoslovakia already had multiple precedents and the acceptance of both constituent republics, so again, the international community had to accept it.

Also, another small correction regarding your introduction: this wasn’t actually only “the internal Ukrainian political discussions between Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and former SBU head Valentin Nalivaychenko”, but a meeting of the entire Ukrainian elite of the new Maidan government. Even Timoshenko was there and had a say – mainly, imploring the rest of them not to start a war because she didn’t think Ukraine could win it. Which was also what Yatsenyuk was saying.

From the Ukrainian press reports about this document, it seems that the one who released it was Turchinov, because he believed that it showed him in a good light – taking charge and maintaining a hard anti-Russian line, compared to some of the others who were urging caution and voicing fears of failure.

Thanks for highlighting my translations, Anatoly.

If I may, I’d like to request that you cross out (or remove) the sentence “Although, what’s the proof that it’s a real document? How was it published?”

And append (or replace) it with what I later posted in that thread:
“The host site of that document, rnbo.gov.ua, is the homepage of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, currently led by the same Turchinov who was Acting President of Ukraine back then. That’s pretty convincing as proof that it’s legitimate.”

And if anybody doubts my translations, they can use my method and check the document for themselves.

I should also add that Turchinov’s quote at the end is full of logical inconsistencies if read carefully… For example, he insists that there were no local elites rebelling against his government; that it was only the Russian military… And in the very next breath, asks for suggestions on how to win back the Crimean elites.

There seems to be some dvoeverie at play here, or am I missing something?

I’d understand if this was a press conference, but it was an exclusive meeting between top officials.

For those who believe that that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct, your belief means that Crimea belongs to Russia (transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided. End of story.

No, because federations could break up. If they do break up, however, their internal (now international) borders should be respected–or so the Western logic goes.

The Kosovo analogy is more apt in the sense that the West violated international law there and thus can’t complain about it if Russia does the same thing in Crimea.

And for the Falkand Islands referendum in favor of continued British rule, no?

Yep. Crimea deprived the scum from their favorite enjoyments: shooting unarmed people, raping defenseless women and girls, and looting. Bandrites are mad with rage.

With regard to “fake ballots”, I mean in black precincts in America. Blacks often have low turnout, but in national or state elections there may be incentives to increase the number of votes artificially. In poor, black urban areas, I find it believable that they might vote something like 99% one way – knowing their psychology. That’s about what is reported anyway.

So, what I mean to say is not all these Saddam Hussein-type votes are necessarily phony, but arguably a population voting 99% one way in some areas is a serious and largely unacknowledged flaw in the American system, and America is so gung-ho on exporting both democracy and diversity, and also is critical of 99% votes – except its own.

But I wouldn’t put Crimea in the Saddam category because of the abstainers. 80% is quite believable to me.

True and the Crimeans likely saw something similar in their immediate future. The Crimeans had time to watch the Euromaidan drama unfold and didn’t want the same thing coming their way. They knew Crimea — with its sui generis status and Russian treaty ports — was the jewel in the crown as far as the US/EU gang was concerned.

In addition, Crimea was saved from the brutal agression suffered by Donbas. Western Ukranianas get furious because they were deprived from the pleasure of killing Crimeans.

Good Discussion on Crimea

Re: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/03/russia-gained-annexing-crimea-190318190011084.html

Mark Sleboda and Olexiy Haran go at it good. The kind of rock and sock ’em point-counterpoint exchange that’s typically lacking on the major 24/7 TV news channels. The other guest, Ilya Ponomarev, comes across as a quintessential traitor to his country.

Haran’s slant is shown by his comparing Crimea’s reunification with Russia to Saddam’s seizure of Kuwait. Actually, a better comparison (relative to Crimea) can be made with what prompted Turkey to sever northern Cyprus from the rest of Cyprus – never minding how Kosovo was forcefully separated from Serbia. The Kuwaiti population didn’t embrace Iraq’s attempt at taking over their country in the way that most Crimeans (by a well over 2/3 margin) support their area’s reunified status with Russia.

Contrary to Haran, some Crimean Tatar activists have engaged in post-Soviet era violence. It’s also inaccurate for Haran to suggest that the Crimean Tatars are more indigenous to Crimea than the Rus Slav (Russo-Ukrainian) presence there. Regarding that very point and some other tangential issues:

https://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the ballots themselves were fake.

According to official data, 80% of the Crimean population voted to join Russia (out of 82% who came to the referendum, 96.7% voted to join Russia; those who were against secession did not come to the referendum). These results are confirmed by all surveys.

My two cents for those who only believe Western data:

German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf

Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Both polls confirmed the results of Crimean referendum: the great majority of Crimea residents wanted to get out of the Ukrainian madhouse and join a sane country. Looking at Ukraine post-2014, who can blame them?

As an aside, those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent (and without a referendum even in Kosovo) have no leg to stand on.

For those who believe that that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct, your belief means that Crimea belongs to Russia (transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided. End of story.

Conceptually all border changes are ‘illegal’. And yet they have happened hundreds of times in just the recent past. Every single time the losing side could – and almost always did – claim that ‘law was broken‘.

The tension between people’s will (referendum), legal boundaries and laws, and physical force – that is pretty much the whole of human history. What is being said about Crimea is neither new, nor particularly perceptive, it is the oldest story of ethnic tribes and lands. There are really no ‘rules’ or laws to manage it to everyone’s satisfaction.

Then there is the Kosovo precedent: 2 million Albanians in a Serb province of Kosovo were forcefully separated and given independence by Nato bombing of Serbia. All rules were also broken at that time, and thousands of civilians died in the bombing. They didn’t even bother with a referendum.

Today the same people and Western ‘analysts’ who fully supported and justified Kosovo, claim that Crimea was a ‘violation of international law’. Right, very convincing. Kind of like ‘when I steal your cow it is good, when you steal my cow it is bad‘… It is embarrassing, and the fact that Ukraine supposedly didn’t support Kosovo bombing is irrelevant – their sponsors did and Kiev said nothing. What goes around, comes around.

I am sure the Crimean referendum accurately reflected the will of the Crimean people for many reasons. On the other hand India annexation of Sikkim in 1975 on the pretext that 97% of Sikkimese voted to join India. This is clearly rigged and illegitimate. India’s annexation of Sikkim is as brutal and illegal as Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait fifteen years later. Yet the West ignore India’s transgression and focus on a made up subject of the so called Russian annexation of Crimea. This goes to show the hypocricy and the left is right up is down narrative of the Western media.

You actually see such results in some black precincts in America. In such cases, I think the percentages reflect reality, though I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the ballots themselves were fake.

I think Rhodesians understood that the UK government was about to sell them down the river.

In 1991, Ukraine and Lithuania voted 92% and 93% in favour of independence, respectively. Were those referendums laughably rigged as well?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_referendum#Past_independence_referendums

Check out the numbers for Armenia, Slovenia, Iceland, Norway, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Rhodesia. It seems that landslide victories are common with such votes.

didn’t they vote for it, 99.9999999%?

of course they did 🙂

When was it offered? 90’s?

There were no such proposals (on the return of Koenigsberg).

…Königsberg was not taken back when it was offered.

When was it offered? 90’s?

Russia has 3.5 times Ukraine’s population; it’s agricultural exports were $25 billion in 2018.

What has population to do with agricultural production and exports? Except perhaps that Russia has more mouths to feed.

What you need is good soil, and these days you don’t need that many farm hands…

Defending your country from renegades and outside provocateurs is what true patriots do.

These patriots came to kill people for wanting a referendum. Shame on them!

War crimes? Defending your country from renegades and outside provocateurs is what true patriots do. I personally know one Ukrainian patriot who ended up becoming a paraplegic because of injuries sustained in skirmishes at the airport. He has not regrets that he defended his homeland.

Making light of the war crimes your side keeps committing. There is no way to rebuild while Ukies are shelling civilians all the time. Very classy. EU would love to have classy people like yourself telling them what’s really right.

Königsberg was not taken back when it was offered.

Considering that Porky’s choice is very limited: victory, exile, or jail, he will ensure his own victory. The mechanisms of coming falsifications have been explained many times, in Ukraine and outside of it. Even masters via G7 made a half-hearted statement to that effect. Besides, if he cannot steal any more, what’s the poor Porky to do? His only professional qualifications are to be a thief. What else can be expected from a former minister in Yanuk’s government, or any Ukrainian government, for that matter?

As I recall, there were two sides fighting it out at the airport? If ‘Porky’ is indeed a laughing stock, the citizens of Ukraine will be able to help him pack his bags very quickly, at the polling booths. But what about the banditi running the Republics of Donbas? They’re so incredibly popular, that nobody can even remember their names, not even you. Small time thugs that come and go replaced by their Kremlin overlords.

No arguments on substance? I am not surprised. Porky is a laughing stock even for his puppet masters. They’d be happy to replace him, but have trouble finding equivalent obedient scumbag. Showing picture of Donetsk airport destroyed by Ukies? Yes, they did that and committed many other crimes. This is only natural, considering what they are.

Well, there’s no sugar coating this public works program in Donbas. The current ‘president’ of Donbas probably isn’t too happy with his own accomplishments within this new ‘Republic’. Unfortunately, I can’t remember his name, they seem to come and go so often. Perhaps, you can help me remember who the current prez is? You must have an icon of him on your wall somewhere either at home or in your office at the University?

Kiev with some great infrastructure though like its Metro – as a result of excellent Soviet engineering.

Yes, the metro is lovely, although claustrophobically overcrowded and very slow (it takes about 25 minutes to get from the center to the northernmost stop in the Obolon district; a similar ride on the Stockholm metro is half that time or less).

Do Europeans typically put developments inside the cloverleaf like that? Seems kind of dangerous and noisy.

Hey, don’t tell this to Ukies, that interchange is probably the only thing they can be proud of. At least if it’s in Ukraine: recently Porky showed a picture of Petersburg metro construction from a few years ago, claiming that its metro construction in Kharkov. This was not the first time when Porky showed pictures from Russia to demonstrate his “achievements� in poor unfortunate Ukraine or glorious future plans.

Cloverleaf interchanges are very outdated, and unpleasant to drive on. Most civil engineers have given up on them.

6.3 billion is an abysmal number t

It is agricultural exports to the EU. Someone foolishly stated that Ukraine failed to export to EU, I showed that agricultural exports increased by 1.5 times since Maidan.

Total agricultural exports from Ukraine was $18.8 billion in 2018, a record high.

Russia has 3.5 times Ukraine’s population; it’s agricultural exports were $25 billion in 2018.

The exports are nowhere near Yanukovich levels-

Ukraine has 10% to 15% fewer people than under Yanukovich, and lost the steel-exporting regions. However trend has been increase in exports since the low in 2016:

https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/exports

Ukraine is losing exports

See above.

This was also true of Polish roads until very recently, so no biggie, but AnonFromTN is not wrong here.

Non-comparable situation. Much of the Polish issue also was conncected to the massive rise in car-ownership – and even then we are not talking about anywhere near as bad.
Only “no biggie” if nobody is buying new cars in Ukraine (tick), petrol consumption is very low (tick) , the country is being deserted ( tick), basic maintenance is done ( no tick)

You could call Rostov-on-Don a “Ukrainian” city – in which case it would be by far the wealthiest one – and that is before we get to issues of much lesser income tax, new construction/mortgages, imports of high-end or essential western products, state support and authorites use of their resources – in which case the difference is twentyfold.

In a mountain of shit, Kiev is having the effect of further draining weak areas as everybody wants to work there as more people get desperate ( not unusual in any country, but vastly more harmful considering the situation Ukraine is in. Russian Far East budget ( 6 million people) is higher than the entire Ukrainian budget!…and that is not including the non-Government/indirect-government funding

You’re talking of the best city in ukropia now being somewhere between the worst in the North Caucasus to lower-middle Russian cities in living standards.

LOL, our expert on Ukraine. Hilarious that Beckow believes him, too.

Ukraine found the hard way that their hopes of exporting to Europe were vain.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-economy/2652831-ukraine-boosts-agricultural-exports-to-eu-15fold.html

The export of Ukrainian agricultural products to the countries of the European Union during the three-year period of operation of the free trade area has increased 1.5-fold up to USD 6.3 billion.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-economy/2646734-share-of-eu-in-ukrainian-export-rapidly-approaching-50-percent.html

“The share of the European Union in the overall structure of Ukrainian exports is already 42.6% and is rapidly approaching 50%.

I suspect the overlap is enough.

He wrote: ” the state of the roads in Ukraine (never repaired since the USSR)” which is ridiculous.

Ukraine has many bad roads (and some good ones). You wrote Ukraine has not done any repair or construction since 1991, which is ridiculous.

Kiev with some great infrastructure though like its Metro – as a result of excellent Soviet engineering.

Comparison of the income offered for normal jobs, it’s probably similar to Volgograd or something.

But the income and wealth distribution will be even more polarized in Kiev than more modest city like Volgograd, with parts of the top portion in Kiev not measured at all. There will be more rich people in Kiev (and in e.g. Volgograd, less rich people including proportional to population), whose income and asset not known anywhere in either official or unofficial figures,

I don’t think any particular ‘provocation’ from Russia has much to do with the overall policy. We can see that ever more minutia reasons are used, or older things recycled, to keep the hostilities escalating. Short of Russia surrendering, there is not much they can do other than control the timing. I don’t think they are about to surrender and I think new additional casus belli will be introduced until some sort of a confrontation.

My hope is that the rise of Asia will cool things down. Scientific findings may also ease tension. I have already heard a normie friend of mine claim that Swedes “are really Ukrainians” (referring to the Yamnaya culture).

…Ukraine after the coup of 2014 killed its chances for any partnership with Russia. Ukraine found the hard way that their hopes of exporting to Europe were vain.

True, and the we are at the beginning of this process, it will get worse. For example, an eventual downturn in EU economy will be devastating for Ukraine, both in real terms, and psychologically.

What most slogan-generating intellectuals forget is that economy is about real things, real unchangeable relations of physical stuff to other physical stuff. It is very shallow to live on the level of ‘we will increase exports to EU’, or ‘we don’t need Russia’. That’s not the way it works. Russia has an economy with resources that is a natural complement to highly industrialised EU. It is simply a great fit: few areas where they compete and a large number of areas where they naturally complement each other. Ukraine on the other hand is mostly a competitor to Europe, with few areas where trade could blossom, other than things based on cheap labor or charity.

This is exactly what Ukrainian Academy delivered to Yanukovitch in late 2013, and he put the EU Association on hold to be renegotiated with better terms for Kiev. The estimated 5-year damage to Ukraine was over $100 billion in lost trade with Russia, and in not being competitive inside EU. Simple numbers, but not what people wanted. So they forced the EU treaty and now they are living with the consequences. The actual damage has been slightly higher than $100 billion if you look at Ukraine’s exports and shrinking of its GNP. The PPP sub-refuge that they use to fool themselves is true inside the country, but externally they are just poorer than they used to be.

They are waiting for a miracle and Porky is promising one, ‘any day now‘. In the meantime, West has lost all interest and is slowly disengaging. There is no EU in Ukraine’s future, once that reality sinks in the anger will be unstoppable. Or tears.

You write some real nonsense about Ukraine. It’s not nice to trick naive Americans.

Kiev’s streets (outside the very center) are certainly below Stockholm standards (obvious tilts that fill with rain water, etc.), and the roads in the Odessa region are downright frightening (very deep potholes + velocitized and often drunk drivers). This was also true of Polish roads until very recently, so no biggie, but AnonFromTN is not wrong here.

Well. By that token one could say that the majority in every election either liked the losing candidate or was undecided when you include the people who didn’t turn out.

No. Undecideds in a poll are not the same as abstainers in an election. This is a category error.

those nations have a lot of potential, and that potential is best achieved in partnership with Russia

Potential is often very different from reality. Ukraine in 1991 had potential to become a fairly well-off decent country, but it blew its chances big time due to widespread thievery of elites (not just after 2014, but from 1991 on). Not to mention that after the coup of 2014 it killed its chances for any partnership with Russia. Russia started producing a lot of things, for military and civilian use alike, that it used to buy from Ukraine, giving Ukrainians jobs and income. Ukraine found the hard way that their hopes of exporting to Europe were vain. It uses up its quotas for most exports into EU within a month or two.

Belarus did not fully fall into this trap, but it’s on the way there. Even Russian mobile military rockets used to be on Belorussian chassis, and now they switched to domestic ones, dealing a huge blow to the Minsk automotive plant. If Belarus retains good relationship with Russia, it would remain ahead of Ukraine in living standards. Otherwise, it is going to fall into the same trap, basically wasting its potential.

You should than inform international agencies, as they keep saying that horrible state of Ukrainian roads impedes its development. Here is a recent one, from February 2019:
https://financialobserver.eu/cse-and-cis/poor-roads-are-impeding-ukraines-economic-development/
What do they know, right? Why don’t you enlighten those bloody foreigners?

…EU of early 2014 still had lingering confidence in the inevitability of social liberalism

It still lingers, they will never give up on ‘the values‘, as they call it. They think it is preordained and there will be an inevitable march of mankind toward an ever more progressive future.

I agree that EU stuck with the less confrontational policy longer, but they are followers, it is only a question of when and how actively they follow.

I don’t think any particular ‘provocation’ from Russia has much to do with the overall policy. We can see that ever more minutia reasons are used, or older things recycled, to keep the hostilities escalating. Short of Russia surrendering, there is not much they can do other than control the timing. I don’t think they are about to surrender and I think new additional casus belli will be introduced until some sort of a confrontation.

But Kiev income is similar to middle income large city in Russia.

It’s actually below average though maybe similar to a middle income city if one takes into account cost of living.

Ukraine doesn’t have oil and gas, it lacks political stability, and there is probably some lower human capital overall (across whole country to country matching).

However, remember there is a lot of regional variable in both Russia and Ukraine. E.g. Kiev will have higher average incomes than many parts of Russia.

I can’t remember exactly. But Kiev income is similar to middle income large city in Russia. While Lvov is more like low income city in Russia (but there are still quite a few large cities in Russia with similar incomes to Lvov).

Thank you for your response and expertise

“Expertise.”

As he wrote – “It is enough to compare the state of the roads in Ukraine (never repaired since the USSR) ”

And in reality, just one of many examples:

http://evrascon.com/en/projects/24/47

The most remarkable success is the growth of the external debt, which exceeded $114 billion by the end of 2018 (https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/external-debt).

Chart shows that Ukraine’s debt is much lower now than it was in 2016 when it was nearly 118 billion. And it was 134 billion in 2014.

So in addition to having gained 1% in terms of GDP PPP per capita on Russia since 2013, Ukraine has also paid down a lot of its external debt.

This is part of Ukraine’s ongoing “collapse” you are always mentioning.

Could you please inform the readers how many clients will Ukrainian prostitutes

A native of Donbas should not be mentioning prostitutes…