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[GlyphGryph]

There's no Aqizzar here...

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Before we overdo it with the silly invasion scenarios - German and Russian FM are currently meeting in Geneva.

Hm, so I guess we should expect invading German troops two weeks after Russian invasion?



Oh and Yanukovich asked for Russian military assistance to restore law and order in Ukraine. That is announced by Russian ambassador in UN. That is for naive guys who think that Russian aggression will be limited to Crimea

[XXSockXX]

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_03/Kherson-Nikolaev-and-Odessa-declare-their-desire-to-join-Crimea-official-5026/

I hope you are taking everything official and semiofficial russian media says with a fair sprinkling of salt. Not everything's wrong, but many things are exagerrated or glossed over.

Even if that wouldn't turn out to be true, the fact that it's reported in Russian media indicates that there probably indeed are aspirations beyond Crimea.

Oh and Yanukovich asked for Russian military assistance to restore law and order in Ukraine. That is announced by Russian ambassador in UN. That is for naive guys who think that Russian aggression will be limited to Crimea

I agree that's what it looks like. They are creating a massive amount of pretext for a takeover.

Hm, so I guess we should expect invading German troops two weeks after Russian invasion?

Just like good old times.

[GlyphGryph]

For those who don't understand the larger-scale reasons for why this whole thing may be bad:

1) It destroys the whole nuclear non-proliferation thing. Remember that Ukraine gave up it's nukes in exchange for a treaty that said Russia would NOT do what they are rather explicitly doing. The thing they would not be doing if Ukraine had not given up it's nukes (probably). All those non-nuclear states are suddenly going to see the idea of obtaining their own nukes as a LOT more attractive, and if they've still got any they are gonna hold them as tightly as possible. The idea of giving up your nukes in exchange for assurances is now completely, 100% dead.

2) It establishes that we are perfectly okay with Russia carving off chunks off one of their neighbours. I'm not sure how the historical memory is for some of those here who are saying it's not so bad (or worse than the actions of other countries in recent years), but this is literally how World War II got started, with what amounted to an official policy of appeasement, in Manchuria and the Rhineland. If Russia encounters no existence here, such activity will be considered acceptable - the Overton Window will shift. This is... bad. Exceptionally bad. Escalation is the major worry here - with as tepid a response as we have seen, why would any rational expansionist leader NOT push further? If Russia stops with Crimea, maybe this worry will be allayed.. but with the minimal amount of opposition they are getting here, why would they stop? The US may have gotten cocky, but thanks to their complete incompetence handling Iraq and Afghanistan, both conflicts destroyed our desire for intervention overseas as a nation for at least a little while - Libya was only palatable because we didn't send in any troops, and it was still unpopular. Russia seems to be suffering no such weariness, and in fact this action seems only to be feeding into the new Russian mythos. Especially if they manage a completely bloodless annexation, popular support for such activity seems like it will remain quite strong.

The main hope right now is that they secure Crimea, get the port, and that's it. If they make no greater moves, if they are satisfied with that, we're probably okay. I'm just not all that sure that will be the case right now. And if they do decide to invade the Ukraine as a whole, they get into a quagmire situation like the US did in Iraq - but that would be TERRIBLE for Ukraine, unbelievably so.

[Knit tie]

Well, if Putin wants the entire Ukraine, he'll have to deal with armed resistance and partisan movements. I don't know much about ukrainian army, but when the nazis came, the ukrainians fought with suicidal bravery and grim determination and the partisans in particular were an absolute nightmare to the wehrmacht. I am not saying that Ukraine will win, but it certainly will go down kicking and screaming and take Russia's image and probably Putin's populatity as well down with it.
He's not that crazy. I hope. Oh, hell, I don't, this is Putin.

Anyway, I just talked to my dad and he thinks that this entire situation is Putin enacting vengeance on the English government after it broke the terms of the secret pact it made wih Putin and let the ukrainian uprising it sponsored remove Yanukovich.

EDIT: World War 3, I believe, is unlikely as both NATO and Russia have a lot of nukes. There certainly may be war in Ukraine if Dobbyface goes full retard, but the world won't all go to war. Hopefully.

There is another issue that will go against Putin if he starts a world war, even if it won't involve nukes - russian military is corrupt, inefficient, underequipped and   not at all ready to combat the professional armies of NATO members. The spending, factoring in misappropriation, is not that great. And let's not get into the issue of morale: most of the soldiers are conscripts with no real stake in the war.

[10ebbor10]

Well, not secret. I mean, there was an official agreement the day before Yanukovich fled.

[GlyphGryph]

Anyway, I just talked to my dad and he thinks that this entire situation is Putin enacting vengeance on the English government after it broke the terms of the secret pact it made wih Putin and let the ukrainian uprising it sponsored remove Yanukovich.

Has there actually been any evidence that the UK sponsored any sort of uprising? Not sure what you are talking about here.

[Knit tie]

Anyway, I just talked to my dad and he thinks that this entire situation is Putin enacting vengeance on the English government after it broke the terms of the secret pact it made wih Putin and let the ukrainian uprising it sponsored remove Yanukovich.

Has there actually been any evidence that the UK sponsored any sort of uprising? Not sure what you are talking about here.

My dad likes to think that the absolute majority of events that happen in Europe nowadays are orchestrated by Putin and the English in their eternal power struggle.

Well, not secret. I mean, there was an official agreement the day before Yanukovich fled.

That's intersting. Could you please elaborate?

[XXSockXX]

Anyway, I just talked to my dad and he thinks that this entire situation is Putin enacting vengeance on the English government after it broke the terms of the secret pact it made wih Putin and let the ukrainian uprising it sponsored remove Yanukovich.

Has there actually been any evidence that the UK sponsored any sort of uprising? Not sure what you are talking about here.

It's the Russian media saying that the West (not the UK specifically) sponsored the revolution in Kiev. There have even been reports about troops from western countries showing up on Maidan. This is of course an enormous exaggeration, the West did support the opposition in Kiev diplomatically, but that's pretty much it.

The agreement refers to the deal the EU brokered with the protesters and Yanukovych. That deal was indeed broken, which is why Russia can argue that the current government is illegitimate. Why exactly it was broken is a bit unclear, one the one hand Yanukovych just disappeared after signing it, on the other hand the protesters wouldn't accept possibly keeping him till the end of the year and his own party did turn against him.

[mainiac]

2) It establishes that we are perfectly okay with Russia carving off chunks off one of their neighbours.

No, it establishes that there is middle ground between nothing and WWIII.

At the end of the day you are going to have a Ukraine that just lost it's strongest dissidents and gotten propped up by western aid on the one hand while Russia will be economically weakened and gained a tiny patch of land.  It's not like Putin is just tossing his weight around with consequences.  He's actually tossing his weight around in a hamfisted fashion, wasting the influence his petrowealth has given Russia on small potatoes.

[gigaraptor487]

PTW

[Knit tie]

My dad is a very devout conspiracy theorist whose favourite phrase is something along the lines of "actually, everything was not like this", so there's also that.

Regardless, I do not believe that Russia will start a new world war because even with nukes, it cannot take on the entire NATO. It certainly can fight Ukraine alone, but this will probably be another "Winter War".

[GrizzlyAdamz]

There is another issue that will go against Putin if he starts a world war, even if it won't involve nukes - russian military is corrupt, inefficient, underequipped and   not at all ready to combat the professional armies of NATO members. The spending, factoring in misappropriation, is not that great. And let's not get into the issue of morale: most of the soldiers are conscripts with no real stake in the war.

Eh, NATO members haven't been much more active than russia as far as military ops go. Russia had georgia, NATO had afghanistan & libya.
Spending won't be much better either- no one's really keen on building up their military, (or at least they  weren't..).
The real problems are the nukes foremost, and if we discount those then America's military & the economic/diplomatic crap that'd ensue are the most problematic issues.
This pretending the rest of the world doesn't get rustled.

Though on second thought, I'm probably sticking my foot in my mouth there.

[boki]

For those who don't understand the larger-scale reasons for why this whole thing may be bad:

1) It destroys the whole nuclear non-proliferation thing. Remember that Ukraine gave up it's nukes in exchange for a treaty that said Russia would NOT do what they are rather explicitly doing. The thing they would not be doing if Ukraine had not given up it's nukes (probably). All those non-nuclear states are suddenly going to see the idea of obtaining their own nukes as a LOT more attractive, and if they've still got any they are gonna hold them as tightly as possible. The idea of giving up your nukes in exchange for assurances is now completely, 100% dead.

2) It establishes that we are perfectly okay with Russia carving off chunks off one of their neighbours. I'm not sure how the historical memory is for some of those here who are saying it's not so bad (or worse than the actions of other countries in recent years), but this is literally how World War II got started, with what amounted to an official policy of appeasement, in Manchuria and the Rhineland. If Russia encounters no existence here, such activity will be considered acceptable - the Overton Window will shift. This is... bad. Exceptionally bad. Escalation is the major worry here - with as tepid a response as we have seen, why would any rational expansionist leader NOT push further? If Russia stops with Crimea, maybe this worry will be allayed.. but with the minimal amount of opposition they are getting here, why would they stop? The US may have gotten cocky, but thanks to their complete incompetence handling Iraq and Afghanistan, both conflicts destroyed our desire for intervention overseas as a nation for at least a little while - Libya was only palatable because we didn't send in any troops, and it was still unpopular. Russia seems to be suffering no such weariness, and in fact this action seems only to be feeding into the new Russian mythos. Especially if they manage a completely bloodless annexation, popular support for such activity seems like it will remain quite strong.

Dude, looks like you dont understand, or you are very naive or new to this.

1) Its not a problem. All those non nuclear stats dont have money to get it anyway. And the ones that have are already in nato, or are trying to get it (against nato or similar). Its not a big thing in any way.

2) First, world war did not start because of it. Second the reason there is no defence is the fact that people in that region are pro russian and wont to separate from the ukrain for whatever reason. Russia will not carve a chunk from a country. They are there to "protect" them. The country will have a referendum if it wants to get separated or not. So its not as bad as you make it again.

Russia is not going for territory that doesn't want to be separated, but the ones that want. That is a key difference and why it doesnt look that bad, and why there is no huge resistance for now.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Spoiler: Russian text (click to show/hide)

Многонеуважаемый господин Путин.
 Хочу обратиться к Вам с предложением. Я, и еще более миллиона русскоязычных граждан Израиля, нуждаемся в Вас, господин президент. Нас здесь так много, более 6-ой части населения страны, но почему то, русский язык до сих пор не является главным языком страны. Эту вопиющую несправедливость можете исправить только Вы, с помощью Вашей армии.
 Чем мы хуже Крыма? Мы тоже стратегически очень важное место, от нас в два плевка можно попасть в арабские страны, где нефти, просто как нецензурных слов в монологе пьяного русского прапорщика.. Ну, Вы поняли.
 А еще, мы здесь являемся главным, по своей значимости святым местом для всех православных. Ну, это же понятно. Ведь все таки Иисус Христос был русским. Как нет?! И мама его, Мария, и ученики Петр и брат его Андрей, и Фома- ну где вы видели евреев с такими именами? Стопудово, русские мужики были!
 А главное, как великая Россия отпустила сюда ученых? Учили же их бесплатно, заметьте, а они уехали в Израиль. Непорядок.
 Надо Вам, вместо Украины, в Израиль вторгаться.
 А че, Украина? Че с ней воевать, такому мужчине как Вы? Армии профессиональной у нее вроде совсем нет. Если уже решили Вы письками мериться, то уж с кем то, кто сможет Вам тоже кое что алаверды показать. И при этом, не только показать, а еще и наглядно объяснить, как работает. Да так, что впечатлений, у Вас, будет много, и хватит их надолго.
 Не хотите? Очень жаль..
 Ну, тогда пришлите мне Кабаеву.. Я научу ее, что делать, чтоб больше Вам никогда и ни с кем не хотелось воевать..

 Без грамма уважения,
 Эвелина из Израиля.

Here an Israeli citizen* jokingly asks Putin to go ahead and defend more than million of Israeli Russian Speaking citizens. It's a good piece of humor but I am too lazy to try and translate that.

* Or one who pretends that he is one