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[Ukrainian Ranger]

 I suggest this twitter to follow the news from Crimea

[GlyphGryph]

Note that the "Crimean Parliament" and the "Crimean Officials" who are making statements, as far as I can tell, are specifically those who "unknown gunmen" have selected and allowed to make statements, and that the organization itself is not actually the organization that was elected by the people of Crimea.

If there is even a chance that the situation in the West was a coup, the current Crimean situation is definitely one. And if anything about that was unconstitutional, the Crimean situation is definitely so.

So the situation is basically "unknown armed group" (Let's be honest, probably Russia) has seized control of Crimea and "unanimously" decided Crimea is part of Russia, but the actual Crimean elected government hasn't actually existed in any noticeable form since then.

This group of politicians couldn't care less what the rest of Ukraine thinks about them, as their ability to continue holding power is dependent entirely on the people with guns wanting them too, it seems.

Does this seem accurate, UR?

[Sergarr]

We should write a letter to the Paradox Entertainment to give a player the ability to invade a state without declaring war.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We should write a letter to the Paradox Entertainment to give a player the ability to invade a state without declaring war.

Putin confirmed for Suomenusko Reconstructionist.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

GlyphGryph

Well, not exactly. Formally the local government was formed by parliament that was elected in 2010 on local elections but

a) Somehow the parliament voted for the guy from a party that got 4% on the said local elections. Now he is a Prime Minister of Crimea
b) The voting was done behind the closed doors with armed men nearby and no no-Russian media were present
c) It is not enough to vote for new prime minister of Crimea, Prime minister of Crimea must be approved by the President of Ukraine

[Mr. Strange]

Putin confirmed for Suomenusko Reconstructionist.

Now don't go giving him any ideas. Putin putting up his own religion or cult would be too... Stalin like.

[mainiac]

You will notice in this thread that nearly everyone believes their own politicians are utterly incompetent.

I would question that strongly.

Obama is a leader in a democracy facing meaningful opposition.  The constitution doesn't give him all that much power so there is a natural limit on what he can accomplish.  Other western leaders face similar constraints.  And Obama and other western leaders had no way of knowing they needed to pay particular attention to the Ukraine.  There's a lot of global hotspots of potential instability out there, including Russia itself, and Ukraine wasn't high on that list.  The only thing that elevated Ukraine to such a high priority was that the Russians moved in, if the Russians had stayed out, it wouldn't be a high priority.

So saying that the west was blindsided by this isn't to ascribe incompetence to them, it's the point out that there are a limited number of regions that can be prioritized at a given time.  For the Russians, that is clearly much less of an issue because Putin obviously took a proactive role getting into this.

[XXSockXX]

And Obama and other western leaders had no way of knowing they needed to pay particular attention to the Ukraine.  There's a lot of global hotspots of potential instability out there, including Russia itself, and Ukraine wasn't high on that list.  The only thing that elevated Ukraine to such a high priority was that the Russians moved in, if the Russians had stayed out, it wouldn't be a high priority.

So saying that the west was blindsided by this isn't to ascribe incompetence to them, it's the point out that there are a limited number of regions that can be prioritized at a given time. 

There are points to make about Western politicians acting incompetent in this, but I do think they realized the potential danger early on. At least in Europe it was a big thing since it started. Our politicians do have a responsability to keep attention on all potential hotspots, and they usually do, especially if it involves a big player like Russia. That Putin would be unhappy with the prospect of Ukraine potentially joining the EU or NATO even was always perfectly clear to anyone, that is the reason they did not join NATO in 2008. We talked about potential Russian involvment way back in autumn, before this thread started, so I'm sure our governments were very aware of this possibility. Now I'm not sure what they could have done to avoid having a situtation like this, if anything could have prevented this at all.

[mainiac]

Our politicians do have a responsability to keep attention on all potential hotspots,

If they paid 1 hour a week attention to every potential hotspot, they wouldn't sleep or have time for domestic politics.

[Sheb]

Which is why they have intelligence agencies and a foreign affair ministry whose jobs is to monitor all those hotspots and draw their attention when something bad happens.

[Guardian G.I.]

We should write a letter to the Paradox Entertainment to give a player the ability to invade a state without declaring war.

It'll be very useful when reconstructing American "humanitarian interventions", which were also started without any formal declarations of war.
They also should introduce information warfare - the ability to use unbiased independent Western media (or horrible Russian state media) to present them as totally justified and legitimate.

[Sheb]

Information war is important. Russians not checking many sources have had a very different pictures from Westerners not checking many sources.

[Helgoland]

We should write a letter to the Paradox Entertainment to give a player the ability to invade a state without declaring war.

It'll be very useful when reconstructing American "humanitarian interventions", which were also started without any formal declarations of war.

Yes, but if we can understand that statement as being directly related to the current events in Crimea: Do you seriously think that Crimea is comparable to, let's say, Srbenica?

[Sergarr]

Apparently the infamous leader of the Right Sector wants to become the president of Ukraine. http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/right-sector-leader-yarosh-to-run-for-president-338685.html

Also he wants to rename his party.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Apparently the infamous leader of the Right Sector wants to become the president of Ukraine. http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/right-sector-leader-yarosh-to-run-for-president-338685.html

Also he wants to rename his party.

What can I say? Svoboda is going back to a regional party status