Russia bullying Ukraine again

When it comes to countries that can do as they want without repercussions Russia is a distant 2nd to Saudi Arabia

Ukraine a puppet state of the West.

you mean the 4th reich's failure to expand eastwards??  Herr merkel has a lot to answer for - do you know she was backing FAR RIGHT movements to destabilise the place??

Now she is getting an army as well!!  a european one

This thread has epic potential for some whataboutery

moisok to you leave a little sticky note on your computer before you go to sleep at night, reminding you to put on your tin foil hat before you switch it on in the morning

more personal insults thank you scanda - pathetic response

I think Crimea belongs more to Russia then Ukraine

Crimea is joined to Russia not Ukraine

It was Kruschev(Ukrainian himself), who when president of the old USSR, gave Crimea to the Ukraine, he had no right to.

Crimea has a 98% Russian population.


The remainder of the Ukraine does belong to Ukraine even though there are a few Russians living there

Just my opinion

UBLE

for saying that  it will be implied that you are insane or wear a tin hat

a certain swedish type personality will inform you of this

ok moisock

Did you get banned EbulGery?

Or sectioned?

It's a good job the West didn't bring the Ukraine into the NATO fold.

yes jed

UBLE/REGY is correct.

It was basically as if there had been some sort of internal UK political deal in the 50s that classified Newcastle as part of Scotland, but it didn't really matter as it was all part of UK . But then the union breaks up and Scotland is still claiming Newcastle as part of the deal, but the people who live there consider themselves English.

Brussels were desperate to get Ukraine into the EU,time to get out of EU ?

germany have always looked east
who would trust them or the french

and the french are in the german pocket

and I mean their politicos not the people

Crimea is joined to Russia not Ukraine

Try Specsavers.

The geography explains why it's still reliant on Ukraine for its fresh water and electricity. Hence the Russian whining about how unfair it is when the region suffers blackouts.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-crimea-power-supply-electricity-explainer/27384812.html

Crimea is a mixture of swamp, mountains and semi-arid steppe. That's why, outside of the harbours, the inhabitants were, until recent times, just nomadic tribesmen (the Tatars). Then Russia did the same thing it did throughout Ukraine, of deporting and slaughtering the natives and replacing them with Russians. Unfortunately the latter found the place virtually uninhabitable, hence it being handed over to Ukrainian administration, who built modern infrastructure and supply links.

The sole reason for anyone wanting the place is access to the Black Sea via the ports. After independence Ukraine and Russia negotiated joint control of the ports, guaranteed for 40 years by international treaty. Putin, partly to boost his standing among the Moscow public, and partly because he's an idiot, decided to invade the place. This was despite already having access to the bit he wanted and saddling himself with the rest of it which he didn't.

Never mind. The idea was to invade Ukraine from the east and create a land-link that way. The Ukrainian people would rise up, he reckoned, and his troops would march through cities like Mariupol' to Crimea, and on to Odessa. Inevitably, they didn't. Mariupol' stood firm, and Odessa, being the only free Russian-speaking city in the world, decided it would rather stay that way, as part of Ukraine.

So Putin's left in a debilitating, endless war around Donetsk, Crimea remains isolated except for a bridge, the Russian economy continues to tank owing to the sanctions his actions have brought on it, and he's had to raise the retirement age by five(!) years as a consequence.

His approval ratings at home have plummeted, so, instead of promising the Russian people a fair standard of living in exchange for living under a dictatorship of violent gangsters, he's been forced to offer them a state of war instead. That should get the patriotic juices flowing.

Hence the incident yesterday.

good post.

Thank you.

As an aside, the reason for Russia choosing this particular weekend to open fire is that Saturday was Holodomor Remembrance day. Approaching four million Ukrainians died of starvation in 1933 when Russian activists descended on rural towns, seizing the food and blockading the exits.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/world/europe/ukraine-holodomor-famine-memorial.html

('Holod' = 'hunger'; 'mor', same root as our word murder.)

When Churchill asked Stalin at Yalta how many had been killed, the father of modern socialism boasted it was 10 million.

We make fun of the Guardian these days, but back then it was the only paper to report what was happening. Every other paper's reporter stayed in Moscow and dutifully reported the successes of collectivization. Meanwhile the man from the Manchester Guardian (Malcolm Muggeridge, of all people) travelled south to discover the horror of what was really going on.

Try Specsavers.

your deadright screaming

I must have looked at a historical map
There should be a referendum of crimean people dont you think?

I can see why Scandinavian thought it a good post

2 good posts screaming.