[Aardwolf]

I heard (src=my dad) that somebody interviewed some of the supposed "Russian" troops, and they claimed to be "Crimean". Also that they aren't wearing proper Russian uniforms... that they are missing insignia and that sort of thing.

Although if that's the case, why when we called Putin out on deploying troops there did he say "we'll protect our interests there" instead of "those aren't my troops"?

[Grizzly]

That was like two weeks ago, when this whole thing kicked off. The official troops were deployed afterwards.

[Dragon]

Yeah. The "Crimean" troops weren't so bad. But Putin just walked in and took the place, with regular military and everything. Just like that. It wasn't even much of an invasion, they just walked in, set up the shop and said "OK, now we're in charge here". And that's despite everybody telling Putin not to do that, UN not recognizing the referendum, whatever. Well, I suppose this says a lot of how much power UN really has, and how much they really care for Ukraine... Honestly, Putin just made a laughingstock out of UN, and he wasn't even trying. "OK, so you guys can debate, while I'll go about my business of taking over Crimea".

[Scotty]

That's probably because the only way to stop Putin from annexing Crimea would be to forcefully oppose it, and nobody wants to first the first shot of any kind of conflict on that scale.  With how Cold War macho and realpolitik Putin likes to think he is, I see a frighteningly likely nuclear outcome to that.

[Dragon]

It might not end with a war this time. Putin knows well that nobody wants to fire the first shot, so they just let him take what he wants. I wonder what's next, though. If he really know what he's doing, he'll lay off Europe for a while and annex something off his southern border, so NATO forgets about Ukraine and is "taken by surprise" again when he makes another move into Europe. If he only thinks he's smart, but he's not, he'll follow this annexation up with an attempt on the rest of Ukraine, or Poland, which might end really badly (even though we sold half our country off to Germans, Poland was always defiant when someone tried to take it by force...). Either way, for someone who lives in southern Poland, the situation just keeps getting scarier.

[An4ximandros]

"Crimea has always been Russia."

[Flipside]

It might not end with a war this time. Putin knows well that nobody wants to fire the first shot, so they just let him take what he wants. I wonder what's next, though. If he really know what he's doing, he'll lay off Europe for a while and annex something off his southern border, so NATO forgets about Ukraine and is "taken by surprise" again when he makes another move into Europe. If he only thinks he's smart, but he's not, he'll follow this annexation up with an attempt on the rest of Ukraine, or Poland, which might end really badly (even though we sold half our country off to Germans, Poland was always defiant when someone tried to take it by force...). Either way, for someone who lives in southern Poland, the situation just keeps getting scarier.

Let's face it though, to call the other guys 'Neo-Nazis' and then invade Poland would not go well for him in any way, shape or form.

[Luis Dias]

Crimea has always been Russian.

Orwell didn't put it better.

[The E]

sometimes, you just gotta go with the classics.

[karajorma]

"Crimea has always been Russia."

To be honest, I've never been able to figure out why it stopped being part of Russia. I know Khrushchev was Ukrainian but that's a pretty stupid reason to start reorganising your internal borders. 


The Chinese view of proceedings is also rather interesting. And the map at the bottom of China according to Taiwan is downright hilarious given that it claims parts of other countries belong to them that even the People's Republic don't.

[Dragon]

"Crimea has always been Russia."

To be honest, I've never been able to figure out why it stopped being part of Russia. I know Khrushchev was Ukrainian but that's a pretty stupid reason to start reorganising your internal borders. 

It wasn't much of a problem back then, internal borders were nearly meaningless in the USSR. It was an ultimately empty political gesture, which only turned out to have serious implications after USSR fell. I suppose Crimea is indeed Russian, but that's not the problem. The problem is that Russian troops just walked into another country and claimed it as their own, without any prior consent from anyone besides Putin. Sure, referendums are a good thing (people should be able to decide in which country they belong), but when they're unbiased and not enforced at gunpoint. We don't know what the result would be if the referendum was held, say, 2 years ago.

[Aardwolf]

At least some sources say Ukraine invited them¹. Although any sort of "Ukraine says X" is not very meaningful considering the government just got ousted.

Appeasement, you say? So... I kinda want to compare to Hitler. Well no, I want to contrast with Hitler. Pre-ww2, did Hitler bother with holding (presumably rigged) elections in the places he invaded? (srs question, I don't know the answer) If there had been a referendum on "become part of Germany" and there wasn't a military occupation, how would the vote have gone?

¹Source: I don't remember, but I'm guessing it was something tweeted by @YourAnonNews

[Mpez]

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/us-army-to-proceed-with-planned-exercise-in-ukraine

The US will do military exercise in Ukraine, along with other countries (it was planned before the crisis).

In addition to USAREUR troops, Rapid Trident 2014 [it's the name of the exercise] will include units from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, Westover said. It will feature a combined U.S. and Ukrainian battalion headquarters practicing a peacekeeping operation, he said.

[Dragon]

Good. Rapid Trident is a really nice thing to see in those time, it could serve as a warning for Russia if done right. As long as it doesn't end like Able Archer, at least... I suppose having so many "western" forces around would help stabilize the region, and with Crimea pretty much separated, what's left of Ukraine is definitely pro-west.

[An4ximandros]

Not necessarily, a large chunk of eastern Ukraine is rather Russian leaning... That said, perhaps not as much as the Crimea.

EDIT: SURPRISE MOTHER****ER

[Dragon]

Well, that would be fun, wouldn't it? Indeed, if we're to go that far back, those lands were originally Turkish. I'm seriously concerned about rights of Crimean Tatars, what's with Putin's record with minorities, but it'd certainly stir up the pot if Turkey decided to remind Russia of the treaty.

[Grizzly]

It's very easy to get out off, actually, as the treaty was with the Russian empire - and everyone involved with that got shot.

[Dragon]

Well, it should be so. However, it's not always as easy, if a government wants to proclaim itself a successor of another state, it also has to inherit stuff from it, including the previous government's crimes and responsibilities. I'm not sure to what degree does Russian Federation declares itself a successor of Russian Empire, but it definitely does inherited a lot of such "legal" stuff from USSR.

Though I do think that the Red October rendered any treaties made with Czars null and void by the time commies took power anyway.

[An4ximandros]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/03/17/former-top-putin-advisor-sounds-the-alarm-putin-has-already-declared-war-on-kiev/

EDIT: Should add, the article is not exactly... unbiased.

[karajorma]

Never trust anything that comes from forbes.com/sites. It's about as reliable as wordpress since sites is actually just a blogging site really, unlike the main Forbes website.