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[olemars]

On the drone- yeah, I think it was announced a while back that the drones were being publicly supplied to Ukraine.

Sources please.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Hrm, looks like I got it from back here, but this's actually referred to as a surveilance plane.
Mm, looking for NATO sharing the stuff, closest headline I've found in the 5 minutes of looking is this bugger, (but it's two days after the video post).

Also, according to BBC, Russian troops are currently digging in on the Perekop isthmus.

Ukrainians also claim that surveillance plane was shot at. Still currently all these militias are probably more to worry about than the military. They seem to be somewhat aggressive towards journalists and if another protest results in a streetfight and they do something stupid, things might escalate quickly.

German FM has announced that the EU will probably issue the next level of sanctions (account and visa stuff) if there is no progress in negotiations by tomorrow.

So, apologies, assume I was incorrect until further notice.

[XXSockXX]

Yeah, that was a regular Ukrainian surveillance plane. There was another report of one of these getting shot at near the border, but that is also unrelated to the drone thing, which might very well be another fake.

[Guardian G.I.]

Russia's ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti claim that someone, presumably from Western Ukraine, tried to disrupt operations of Russian communication satellites broadcasting television signal to Eastern Europe by using ECM.

Also, Russian supporters and Ukrainian nationalists are fighting in Kharkov at the moment. Shots have been fired. One person was killed - he was a Russian supporter.

[Aqizzar]

Also also meanwhile: the Russian government has effectively quashed all remaining vestiges of independent media in Russia over the last couple days, and look prepared to start shutting down access to Twitter et al in Russia and eastern Ukraine.  Just like Iran, Egypt, China, Thailand, so on and so forth before them.

Yeah, probably gonna be a war this weekend.

[Darvi]

Also also meanwhile: the Russian government has effectively quashed all remaining vestiges of independent media in Russia over the last couple days, and look prepared to start shutting down access to Twitter et al in Russia and eastern Ukraine.  Just like Iran, Egypt, China, Thailand, so on and so forth before them.

Yeah, probably gonna be a war this weekend.

They say that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

How did they manage to forget that so quickly. Even I remember that!

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Also, Russian supporters and Ukrainian nationalists are fighting in Kharkov at the moment. Shots have been fired. One person was killed - he was a Russian supporter.

Russian supporters (The same guys who were the well known titushkas during Maydan)  attacked office of Prosvita and office of nationalist organization "Patriot of Ukraine"*  Looks like they got some resistance. And no police around... That guys should have been arrested long time ago, but our interim government somehow fails to arrest anybody

*Edit. It is Right Sector's office now

Of cause in Russian media it will be - Right Sector from the Westerm Ukraine arrived in Kharkov and started shooting random people

[olemars]

Hrm, looks like I got it from back here, but this's actually referred to as a surveilance plane.
Mm, looking for NATO sharing the stuff, closest headline I've found in the 5 minutes of looking is this bugger, (but it's two days after the video post).

Also, according to BBC, Russian troops are currently digging in on the Perekop isthmus.

Ukrainians also claim that surveillance plane was shot at. Still currently all these militias are probably more to worry about than the military. They seem to be somewhat aggressive towards journalists and if another protest results in a streetfight and they do something stupid, things might escalate quickly.

German FM has announced that the EU will probably issue the next level of sanctions (account and visa stuff) if there is no progress in negotiations by tomorrow.

So, apologies, assume I was incorrect until further notice.

The Ukraine border guards operate a few of these surveillance planes.
The NATO planes mentioned (the Luxembourg Air Force ) are E-3 AWACS, huge radar planes based on 707 passenger jets. They can monitor all of Ukraine's airspace (among other things), and probably Turkey for that matter, from within Polish air space.

And I might have an unhealthy interest in military tech...

[olemars]

Apologies for double posting, but I found two good sites about the propaganda war going on.
http://www.stopfake.org/en
http://fakecontrol.org/en/

Even factchecking sites like this should of course be read with skepticism since they're as prone to bias as anyone, but at least they provide sources.

[Owlbread]

Also, Russian supporters nationalists and Ukrainian nationalists are fighting in Kharkov at the moment. Shots have been fired. One person was killed - he was a Russian supporter nationalist.

Fixed that for you.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Also, Russian supporters Nationalists Imperialists and Ukrainian nationalists are fighting in Kharkov at the moment. Shots have been fired. One person was killed - he was a Russian supporter.

Fixed that for you.

Fixing the fix

[Owlbread]

Yeah, that would work. It just really annoys me though when I hear Russian-irredentists in Crimea bleating about the dangers of Nationalism, all the while they wholeheartedly support the invasion and partition/annexation of their country on the grounds of feelings of shared ethnic solidarity with Russians, and a clear sense of separateness from ethnic Ukrainians.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of Nationalism is "patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts." The pro-Russians in Crimea tick all those boxes, and given that those patriotic feelings, principles and efforts among Russo-Crimeans and other ethnic Russo-Ukrainians are highly politicised, they are most certainly Nationalists.

Now, I am a Scottish Nationalist. I don't hide it though, I make no apologies for who I am or my views, neither does Ukrainian Ranger. I cannot say the same for the irredentists in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

[Helgoland]

I'd say the World is fucked. And everything because they didn't finished Russia in the Cold war. That friendship in 1991 is like If Nazies would remove Hitler from power in 1944 (While Nazi party would rename and remain in power) and then allies agreed to stop the war allowing Germany to have pre-1939 territory

As I said before: The proper analogy is Germany 1919. A major power is defeated, humiliated, and left with no productive way to re-establish its sense of self-worth. I'm afraid that we'll get a war sooner or later...

So you would prefer Germany and Japan 1945, total and abject surrender? Not a loaded question mind.

I think the Russian people (!) need to be shown/need to understand that the times of imperialism, that the times of Russia acting as a 'great power' which didn't need to pay much respect to the surrounding countries have gone. And if necessary (which it might not be), that needs to be achieved through - you said it - total surrender. Anything else wouldn't have worked for Germany and Japan, even after their military defeats - the military defeats aren't that vital.
Maybe this transition can be achieved peacefully, but I wouldn't count on it. We should work towards it anyway, because the only alternative is preparing for the apocalypse while praying it won't happen.

So yes: Germany 1945 is vastly preferrable to Germany 1919. If only because Germany 1939 lies in between.



About that 'well-established' thought: It's actually more of a thing I heard from a friend (who claimed it was an established thought), but it seems plausible. The US constitution contains many archaic bits and pieces - I'm no US citizen, I don't know the details, but the wholee states' rights issue, the second amendment, the fact that the US system is presidential rather than parliamentary*, the death penalty, the fact that you guys elect your judges and so on (seriously, WTF?), and the general lack of positive rights** come to mind. Some of these may not exactly be issues with the constitution, but would have been resolved along with a major post-defeat restructuring. It's about attitudes within society as well: A whole lot of right-wing nutters would not exist/no longer be important, for example.

And at last, a link.

*It's a miracle you guys never turned into a dictatorship. In any other country the system would collapse within fifty years.
**Compare the first sentence of the first article of the German constitution (actually called the Basic Law, due to historical quirks), the very first law of them all: "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority." In fact, just compare the US and the German constitution directly, and you'll see what I mean.

[Sergarr]

"human dignity" is pretty vague, though.

And it's funny to hear from a German citizen about how good a crushing defeat can be.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Er, Helgoland, you're making the idea of less rivalry as unpalatable as possible there, talking about 'total surrender' & whatnot. Not to mention the idea is unattainable, as it was in the 1990s- you can't make a country go into 'total surrender' if it has nukes. Things would have gotten /really/ dicey when the soviet union collapsed if NATO had gone to occupy them or some shit like that.



Constitution:
You're making some statements out of left field there. Why would any other country have dissolved into a dictatorship? Outline the problem with electing judges?

Positive rights? You mean the bill of rights? (first 10 amendments to the constitution, pretty much ratified with the constitution simultaneously.)


Critical remarks on that source:
-They seem to be confusing 'amendments' with 'rights' in the first bullet. Which is both ambiguous and seems rather arbitrary, to the point of being nonsensical.
-I'm not really getting the point of bullet two. If the point is 'the second amendment is archaic', I disagree & would rather interpret that statistic through the lens of: this would be one of the first rights to be skipped in the constitutions of less..savory..'democracies'.
Otherwise, I would like to point out the significant role of court decisions when it comes to rights & constitutionality. Such as the freedom of movement.
-The contrary position as far as 'the constitution is old, therefore it must be antiquated & dysfunctional', is that since it has survived so long, it must not be dysfunctional. Else it would have been replaced just like all the others.

Your friend's views are pretty much antithetical to the views our public school system holds & teaches.