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Petro Poroshenko

5 (29.4%)

Yulia Tymoshenko

2 (11.8%)

Oleg Lyashko

2 (11.8%)

Anatoly Hrytsenko

2 (11.8%)

Serhiy Tihipko

0 (0%)

Mykhailo Dobkin

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Other

6 (35.3%)

Total Members Voted: 17

[mainiac]

Okay let's assume that there would have been a rebellion without Putin's support.  What would it have actually looked like?  My guess is non-violent protesters occupy some government buildings for a few weeks.  Relatively few small arms and no heavy arms.  Death toll below 100 people if it even cracks the single digits.

Bad outcome if you think that the Ukrainian government sucks or you want a rebellion for some reason or other.  But if your motive is that you fear for the safety of Russian civilians in eastern ukraine it's an excellent outcome, far, far, far better then the situation we are seeing.

[Sheb]

Yeah, actually, we know what that would have looked like: Odessa and Kharkiv.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I don't think that Odessa events happened without direct Russian influence

[Sergarr]

That mentioned, has the investigation in Odessa gone anywhere? Last time I heard they said that "there was not enough evidence to determine the culprit". Also people in Dom Profsoyzov were apparently shot by somebody from inside.

[Knit tie]

Okay let's assume that there would have been a rebellion without Putin's support.  What would it have actually looked like?  My guess is non-violent protesters occupy some government buildings for a few weeks.  Relatively few small arms and no heavy arms.  Death toll below 100 people if it even cracks the single digits.

Bad outcome if you think that the Ukrainian government sucks or you want a rebellion for some reason or other.  But if your motive is that you fear for the safety of Russian civilians in eastern ukraine it's an excellent outcome, far, far, far better then the situation we are seeing.

You don't actually try to imply that Putin is capable of doing something that is not 100% realpolitik, do you?

Anyway, in the aforementioned inteview with Strelkov, where he is not exacly approving of Russian government's actions and thus is unlikely to defend it out of political motives, he basically states that Ukrainian army reacted to the DNR and LNR seccession in the same way Russian army reacted to the rebellion in Chechnya: ignore attempts to parlay and compromise, move in and start shelling the rebel cities like it's 1914 all over again.

[Sergarr]

That's a gross overestimation of what he said, knit tie.

The conflict was escalating in strength and in equipment used from spring to the beginning of June, where they started to use artillery en-masse. They did not instantly go "mass bombardment".

[Knit tie]

That's a gross overestimation of what he said, knit tie.

The conflict was escalating in strength and in equipment used from spring to the beginning of June, where they started to use artillery en-masse. They did not instantly go "mass bombardment".

True, I could've worded that better. Strelkov said that the Ukrainian army was initially very cautious, wary of possible Russian retaliation, but as said retaliation was nowhere to be seen, the UAF grew increasingly bolder, until they started a full-on traditional military attack. They still didn't want to compromise or parlay with the rebels, though.

[mainiac]

You don't actually try to imply that Putin is capable of doing something that is not 100% realpolitik, do you?

I was responding to the assertion that Putin's actions could be explained by protecting Russians.  Make of it what you will.

[Sergarr]

Well IIRC NATO has justified its actions in Libya as preemptively protecting the citizens of Libya from genocide.

The civil war in Libya is still going on, by the way, with much tribal violence, so...


EDIT: What I meant is that both sides here proclaim different objectives from the real ones.

[Knit tie]

You don't actually try to imply that Putin is capable of doing something that is not 100% realpolitik, do you?

I was responding to the assertion that Putin's actions could be explained by protecting Russians.  Make of it what you will.

I don't think that even the most jingoistic Russians believe that drivel now. Putin has never done anything out of anything but sheer, cold logic, and he sure as hell wasn't going to suddenly start doing the opposite during the Donbass uprising.

[mainiac]

You don't actually try to imply that Putin is capable of doing something that is not 100% realpolitik, do you?

I was responding to the assertion that Putin's actions could be explained by protecting Russians.  Make of it what you will.

I don't think that even the most jingoistic Russians believe that drivel now. Putin has never done anything out of anything but sheer, cold logic, and he sure as hell wasn't going to suddenly start doing the opposite during the Donbass uprising.

Okay that's cool, you asked for peoples opinions on this view a while back.  So you are saying that like most non-Russians and Russians would be in agreement on this?

[Sheb]

Sergarr: Except NATO didn't create the Libyan civil war. There was a war, we tried to help, might have made things better (Libya is no Syria), or maybe not. We didn't have NATO troops creating the whole thing after annexing part of it.

[Sergarr]

There wouldn't have been a large civil war without NATO's intervention. The rebels were already pretty much defeated before it happened. Then the NATO swooped in and destroyed the country.

[Knit tie]

You don't actually try to imply that Putin is capable of doing something that is not 100% realpolitik, do you?

I was responding to the assertion that Putin's actions could be explained by protecting Russians.  Make of it what you will.

I don't think that even the most jingoistic Russians believe that drivel now. Putin has never done anything out of anything but sheer, cold logic, and he sure as hell wasn't going to suddenly start doing the opposite during the Donbass uprising.

Okay that's cool, you asked for peoples opinions on this view a while back.  So you are saying that like most non-Russians and Russians would be in agreement on this?

What pro-Putin people actually think back home in Russia is that the separatists should be helped not because they are Russian by ethnicity, but because they are pro-Russian by ideology instead, i.e. "these guys support us and want to join us, we should help them!" And if Putin didn't intervene and the separatists would've been suppressed, well, that wouldn't be any good in the eyes of the public, because Putin the Russian defender would've let pro-Russian supporters down. Nobody really cares that (very potentially) less people would've died if the rebels were left to their own devices, including the rebels themselves, whose position can be summed up as "we don't care if we die, as long as Novorossia is free!" A very Russian position, by the way - "It is better to die for the Emperor Motherland than to live for yourself."

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I like how in new Ukraine President can go and chat with football ultras that protest near presidential administration.