The Situation in the Ukraine. #13

The comedy gold keeps on coming. Now the official Ukrainian Press Centre of the so-called ATO says there are no volunteer battalions fighting on the Ukrainian side. Perhaps I should link them the Youtube channel of the Chechen pro-Ukrainian volunteer battalion, happily filming their private war?

etaepsilonk wrote:

flamming_python wrote:

Those liberators from fascism are protecting the locals, not torturing them

Yes I know, I know, the Amnesty International and HRW reports.

Meanwhile we have dozens of actual videos worth of footage, of unarmed locals resisting the Ukrainian army, locals supporting the militia, militiamen proffessing themselves to be locals and recounting their past lives, all sorts of atrocities and crimes by the Ukrainian side, artillery strikes on innocents with the innocents claiming that the Ukrainians are responsible, torture of prisoners, etc...

I'll believe the line about the militia being Russian invaders, occupiers and unwelcome for the local population, mostly or wholy Russian citizens, torturers, terrorists, etc... when I actually see evidence of it.

Ukraine made it's own bed in regards to its integrity; as did Georgia, various other post-Soviet countries, and indeed the Soviet Union itself did in 1989-1991.
Perhaps if it didn't decide to trample on the millions of votes and voices from the East, didn't violently throw out the elected preisdent who had near unanimous support in the Crimea, didn't start with nationalist hysteria and beatings of Party of Regions and Communist deputies in the Rada, etc... then Crimea might not have elected to secede and Russia wouldn't have decided to intervene.
Perhaps if the Ukrainian government then didn't decide to deal with the protest movement with political repression and arrests, seize control over all the media, use Neo-Nazi hooligans to violently scatter and bully protestors, and perhaps tried to negotiate first with the inevitable civil and then armed uprising that followed.. then the Ukraine wouldn't have lost the Donbass either.

When Gamsakhurdia of Georgia in 1991 or whenever it was - stated to his supporters that 'Ossetia is a lovely country - only w/o the Ossetians'... well - is it supposed to be any surprise today, to us - that Ossetia split away from Georgia?
Should one step in for its territorial integrity too? "It was all the evil Russians, you see"..
The American ambassador to Georgia, after meeting with Gamsakhurdia, promptly relayed to his government his dismay over this man's ideas, and declared him a nut that should not be supported.

Yet here we are with Kiev, in 2015; using the same sort of language, the same sort of tactics - yet now it's supported.
Yet now, it's the victim, and its 'territorial integrity is threatened'
Yet now, it's not fighting against its own people, it's fighting against a Russian invasion.
Bullshit

What will it lose next? Dunno, it's up to them and their decisions really. What I've seen so far gives me no grounds for optimism and I see it as very likely that the Ukrainian government will provoke or restart the war, make more mistakes, and ultimately destroy itself and break apart its own country even further.

I'm curious, what's your opinion about russians putting down the tambov rebellion?

The what?

KoTeMoRe wrote:I don't need to imagine anything. I have a vivid idea on how it works out, trying to root out people of their land. Albeit this is a kind of blasphemy here, Yugolsavia is a great example (not) on how you lose everything, when yo try to retain everything, by force.

Yugoslavia is a great example how, with the government for fifty years pretending that it's all rainbows and unicorns with the nationality stuff, things might end up pretty badly.

Ukraine is another one

TheArmenian wrote:

Neutrality wrote:A bit off-topic maybe, "Izvestia" has published an article (sorry, I can't post external links as I'm still considered "new") and the article says that Merkel is apparently planning to meet the Russian opposition leaders on May 10th. They'll ask her to keep the sanctions and strengthen them against certain individuals because it's apparently the only way to change the government.

RIP to the Russian opposition. Putin doesn't have to do anything, they are destroying themselves.

I haven't seen that report on any other news channel.
I think the report from Izvestia is bovine excrement.

What's "any other" news channel? I actually read it on Lenta which quoted Izvestia. I guess we'll see on May 10th. She might cancel that idea now that the press knows.

etaepsilonk wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:I don't need to imagine anything. I have a vivid idea on how it works out, trying to root out people of their land. Albeit this is a kind of blasphemy here, Yugolsavia is a great example (not) on how you lose everything, when yo try to retain everything, by force.

Yugoslavia is a great example how, with the government for fifty years pretending that it's all rainbows and unicorns with the nationality stuff, things might end up pretty badly.

Ukraine is another one

Yes including IMF loans...so come again, what am I supposed to see or understand about the current options picked by the Ukro leadership?

etaepsilonk wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
Anyway, just to satisfy my curiosity, are you or have you ever been a member of MP.net.

No.

And you are correct, ukraine's goal is genocide. Now, I understand that for your prorussian allegiance, it might be difficult to go past all the nazi, bandera, evilness cliches, but try to imagine yourself in the shoes of ukraine leadership. And here you're seeing all of those separatist warlords boasting how they'll drive for kiev. Wouldn't it be a matter of serious concern for maintaining your country's survival, to the point where every possible war strategy may become viable?

Or do you think that ukies are actually wishing to do what they've been doing, and not forced by the circumstances?

1). Those 'drive on Kiev' slogans are a reaction to what the Ukrainians have done; the same type of slogans you get in any war. All the rebels actions have been defensive; there is no evidence that they started any offensives or have been trying to renew the war.
Maintaining your country's survival? There were barely any rebels at all in the beggining; just a couple armed groups in Donetsk and Lugansk, and later some in Slavyansk. The DNR/LNR was declared; so was the Kharkov people's republic, and other organized protests emerged simultaneously in other regions. In all the protest movements; the only armed men were those protecting the protestors in Lugansk and Donetsk. Everyone else was unarmed. The tactics and actions - aside from their limited contingent of self-defense forces - were far more conservative and less provocative than what the Maidanists themselves got up to the previous winter, with all the police they killed and buildings they occupied. Their stated aims were far more reasonable too - they weren't looking for a counter-revolution, the DNR/LNR leaders started calling for negotiations instead between Kiev and themselves; they weren't interested in an armed confrontation or anything of the sort - they were moved to action only because all their previous efforts were disrupted and their protest leaders were arrested.

Kiev at this point - outlawed them as terrorists and decided to respond with military force. What do you think is more likely - that they did this because they were worried about a few armed bands destroying their country and invading Kiev? Or because of their own nationalist atmophere that they had created that pressed them into action, and the continuation of the course they had commited to of ruling the country with an iron fist and crushing any opposition to their rule that emerges?

2). Why should I imagine myself in the shoes of the Ukrainian leadership? In my first point - I pointed out that they are the belligerants and the aggressors.
Here in my second point, I will point out that they are not legitimate, and do not represent the country or its interests in any case; only themselves.
Despite any phony elections, presented as a fait accompli to any political opposition in the country that they ruthlessly started to repress after they seized power - it still doesn't change the core fact that they are illegitimate and have no right to run this country, nor instate their rule over millions of people who didn't vote for them, didn't participate in their unconstitutional wrecking of the government, didn't sympathise with their nationalist rhetoric and never wanted anything to do with them. The DNR/LNR are no less legitimate, from a constitutional point of view - than the current Kiev government is. Why do you think they are called a 'junta'? It's not for nothing.
In centuries past; you had 'wars of succession' over exactly such things. Let's not brush it off like it's nothing - the lack of legitimacy of these coupists was and is a very serious issue, and instead of tackling it - they decided to brutally repress, and murder even, anyone who disagreed with them.
All these people in the Donbass, in Crimea - they had to put up with hostile governments to them before; which restricted their language, made difficulties for them, etc... yet they always followed the law. They always voted. They organized politically. They finally voted in someone to represent their interests in 2010 - only for him to be overthrown again.
Despite all, I think that this flagrant trampling of people's voices and votes; would have been tolerated at the end of the day. And something could have been worked out. If only Kiev and its new 'owners' learnt to respect them and leave them alone, for the most part.

KoTeMoRe wrote:Yes including IMF loans...so come again, what am I supposed to see or understand about the current options picked by the Ukro leadership?

Many countries have taken imf loans without descent into civil war afterwards...

You know, this ukraine conflict has been brewing up for quite a long time and I personally don't claim to understand all the peculiarities. As a result, I also find the expert commentaries from the people who never even heard of the country before it hit the news quite amusing (not aimed at anyone particular).

Here's one comment translation from the other site:

Donbas conflict is pretty old.
I once had the opportunity to attend a football match between donetsk ''shahtar'' and kiev ''dinamo'' clubs somewhere around 2006.
In it's entirety donetsk fans shouted ''davi khokhlov'', and kiev fans were shouting something about ''moskaliv''
When I asked my friend, donetsk native, what this is all about, since both teams were technically ukrainian, he said ''well, you see, donetsk is not ukraine''

etaepsilonk wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:Yes including IMF loans...so come again, what am I supposed to see or understand about the current options picked by the Ukro leadership?

Many countries have taken imf loans without descent into civil war afterwards...

You know, this ukraine conflict has been brewing up for quite a long time and I personally don't claim to understand all the peculiarities. As a result, I also find the expert commentaries from the people who never even heard of the country before it hit the news quite amusing (not aimed at anyone particular).

Here's one comment translation from the other site:

Donbas conflict is pretty old.
I once had the opportunity to attend a football match between donetsk ''shahtar'' and kiev ''dinamo'' clubs somewhere around 2006.
In it's entirety donetsk fans shouted ''davi khokhlov'', and kiev fans were shouting something about ''moskaliv''
When I asked my friend, donetsk native, what this is all about, since both teams were technically ukrainian, he said ''well, you see, donetsk is not ukraine''

The IMF loans part was a joke regarding the similarities between YU and UA.

But enough deflections here, I do know that the UA has been very divided regarding its "identity". I also know that it had mostly tried to keep that divide under the rug. Until it exploded back in 2004 with the "Orange Revolution".
What the little anecdote tells me isn't anything new, by 2006, the US embassy un Ukraine had several cables regarding the Crimea and whole swathes of Ukraine being ripe for secession. This is on wikileaks.

However this doesn't explain to me, where did you find the idea that the current Ukrainian leadership is forced to cleanse the territory of Donbass, because of the Separatists boasting they'll be za Lvov within the week? And how do you interpret that such a country as Ukraine fears a couple thousand guys with "some" RU-help? What does that tell you about the state of Ukraine?

Don't be shy.

KoTeMoRe wrote:
However this doesn't explain to me, where did you find the idea that the current Ukrainian leadership is forced to cleanse the territory of Donbass, because of the Separatists boasting they'll be za Lvov within the week? And how do you interpret that such a country as Ukraine fears a couple thousand guys with "some" RU-help? What does that tell you about the state of Ukraine?

Don't be shy.

Well, maybe I wasn't clear enough. The term ''genocide'' did not mean destruction of any particular ethnic group in this case, but rather, destruction of people, infrastructure in the adversary state (novorussia) to the point where a continuation of war for them would be as difficult as possible, if possible at all (total war strategy).

As you see, it is certainly not ''a clean war'' to win hearts and minds...

Therefore, lots of resentment is produced which russia is quick to exploit for their own plan (which I talked about before).

etaepsilonk wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
However this doesn't explain to me, where did you find the idea that the current Ukrainian leadership is forced to cleanse the territory of Donbass, because of the Separatists boasting they'll be za Lvov within the week? And how do you interpret that such a country as Ukraine fears a couple thousand guys with "some" RU-help? What does that tell you about the state of Ukraine?

Don't be shy.

Well, maybe I wasn't clear enough. The term ''genocide'' did not mean destruction of any particular ethnic group in this case, but rather, destruction of people, infrastructure in the adversary state (novorussia) to the point where a continuation of war for them would be as difficult as possible, if possible at all (total war strategy).

As you see, it is certainly not ''a clean war'' to win hearts and minds...

Again, if they were to go through the total war strategy, they would employ a thoroughly different approach and declare Russia a belligerent. IE declare war on Russia. This is a cat and mouse game in which Ukraine pretends to fight and Separatists pretend to win. Only it is costing real lives and real people.

So far the options have been proven idiotic at best, with both sides achieving the exact contrary of what they wanted. Ukraine is losing people and time in rebuilding its wrecked economy and Novorussia is gearing for a war it doesn't want to keep going.

Instead of weakening the Separatists combat capabilities, Ukraine is reinforcing them, while decisively weakening its own chances to regain in the future those areas.

Once again, I'm forced to ask you, are you or have you ever been a member of MP.net? This discussion is the one that got me banned for good over there, and here I find another tenent of the Total War nonsense.

Have the brave partisans based in Kharkov and Odessa been up to anything recently?

etaepsilonk wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
However this doesn't explain to me, where did you find the idea that the current Ukrainian leadership is forced to cleanse the territory of Donbass, because of the Separatists boasting they'll be za Lvov within the week? And how do you interpret that such a country as Ukraine fears a couple thousand guys with "some" RU-help? What does that tell you about the state of Ukraine?

Don't be shy.

Well, maybe I wasn't clear enough. The term ''genocide'' did not mean destruction of any particular ethnic group in this case, but rather, destruction of people, infrastructure in the adversary state (novorussia) to the point where a continuation of war for them would be as difficult as possible, if possible at all (total war strategy).

As you see, it is certainly not ''a clean war'' to win hearts and minds...

Therefore, lots of resentment is produced which russia is quick to exploit for their own plan (which I talked about before).

No body has to "exploit" resentment. What you're describing is exactly what the North did to the South in our Civil War.

It's a fight to the bitter end, to whomever has the most resources and can win, and imho, in Ukraine that's the East, not the West.

& as for as resentment, resentment can last 150 years or longer.

Cowboy's daughter wrote:

No body has to "exploit" resentment. What you're describing is exactly what the North did to the South in our Civil War.

It's a fight to the bitter end, to whomever has the most resources and can win, and imho, in Ukraine that's the East, not the West.

& as for as resentment, resentment can last 150 years or longer.

Poor innocent south, attacked by evil kentucky... oh wait

So far the options have been proven idiotic at best, with both sides achieving the exact contrary of what they wanted. Ukraine is losing people and time in rebuilding its wrecked economy and Novorussia is gearing for a war it doesn't want to keep going.

Both sides want to keep the war going. Forgot about all those seps bragging about taking kiev?

etaepsilonk wrote:

Cowboy's daughter wrote:

No body has to "exploit" resentment. What you're describing is exactly what the North did to the South in our Civil War.

It's a fight to the bitter end, to whomever has the most resources and can win, and imho, in Ukraine that's the East, not the West.

& as for as resentment, resentment can last 150 years or longer.

Poor innocent south, attacked by evil kentucky... oh wait

Well at least we got that covered, Ukraine attacked Ukraine.

Tonight I bragged about shagging Kate UPton. I'm sure she's right now at her local gun store and buying a couple of AR-15's to fend off my rapturous advances. Or whatever. You sure you're not Aurimas? Because this is all too familiar by now.

If Ukraine was serious about kicking the living shit out of the Seps, it would have done a basic police work, accepted Minsk agreements and then culled the guys one by one and bought them out. But the fact that Kiev doesn't want or can't afford that strategy, means that these people don't want the war to end, because it serves their purpose. And this is not about the Separatists, it is about people who call themselves Ukrainians.

flamming_python wrote:

Military coup in the Ukraine? A real Junta?

As someone on that other forum said, Ukrainian generals can't even order their wives to make em a sandwich; WTH would they get the authority to command a nation?
This isn't some South American nation where the officer class is looked upon as a respected elite

Maybe You are right, but then again what authority does Poro have?
Who respects Ukr politics in their country?

Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

I can't say anything good about separatist gov too much these days. They talk too much shit like their Ukr colleagues. I can hardly relate to some of their ideas.
Seps still have moral high-ground in my eyes unlike Ukrainian armed forces and their idiotic and careless approach towards civilians, infrastructure and their own personnel. I can only hope that won't change.

Regular wrote:Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

But if it was about economics and the IMF, why shell the Donbass infrastructure to bits, and bomb the brand new Donetsk airport to rubble? I don't think it was as simple as that. I think Kiev were encouraged to destroy things by outsiders, because it doesn't make sense otherwise. All they had to do was reach a political settlement with Donbass before the fighting broke out last year, and everything would be intact and productive still. The destruction campaign is deliberate.

Erk wrote:

Regular wrote:Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

But if it was about economics and the IMF, why shell the Donbass infrastructure to bits, and bomb the brand new Donetsk airport to rubble? I don't think it was as simple as that. I think Kiev were encouraged to destroy things by outsiders, because it doesn't make sense otherwise. All they had to do was reach a political settlement with Donbass before the fighting broke out last year, and everything would be intact and productive still. The destruction campaign is deliberate.

Again don't forget they didn't decide out of the blue to destroy everything. They tried a limited approach from May to June. Didn't quite worked out, war dragged until July and it really started to come down to closing the border...which off course didn't happen. The rest is history. This escalation of force put Ukraine in such a situation it could not escape from a war. They tried to contain it but the UA armed forces were not up to the task.

Morality: Don't train your guys with the US for COIN, because the other guys will go mechanized warfare on you.

Regular wrote:Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

I can't say anything good about separatist gov too much these days. They talk too much shit like their Ukr colleagues. I can hardly relate to some of their ideas.
Seps still have moral high-ground in my eyes unlike Ukrainian armed forces and their idiotic and careless approach towards civilians, infrastructure and their own personnel. I can only hope that won't change.

That's true. I've tried to find that exact news article again.

Many things I now wish I'd saved at the time.

I thought I'd try to find as many of laws Kiev government has passed such as:

1. Ukraine Passes Law Allowing Military to Shoot Deserters

http://europe.newsweek.com/ukraine-passes-law-shoot-deserters-304911

2. Do Ukraine's new nationalist laws justify Kremlin's criticism? (+video)

Kiev has passed new laws that outlaw communist symbols and honor Ukrainian nationalists connected to Nazis and ethnic cleansing during World War II. Experts say the timing could not be worse.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0413/Do-Ukraine-s-new-nationalist-laws-justify-Kremlin-s-criticism-video

3. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed into law a ban on all Russian films and television serials in the country.
On February 12, the Verkhovna Rada stripped Russian news outlets of government agency accreditation. All Russian TV channels except, for Dozhd, had accreditation canceled.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150402/1020355171.html#ixzz3ZDF0Scw4

4.Ukraine Passes Law Toughening Penalties for Soldier Disobedience

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150205/1017841910.html

5.Ukraine to rewrite Soviet history with controversial 'decommunisation' laws
President set to sign measures that ban Communist symbols and offer public recognition and payouts for fighters in militias implicated in atrocities

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/ukraine-decommunisation-law-soviet

Erk wrote:

Regular wrote:Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

But if it was about economics and the IMF, why shell the Donbass infrastructure to bits, and bomb the brand new Donetsk airport to rubble? I don't think it was as simple as that. I think Kiev were encouraged to destroy things by outsiders, because it doesn't make sense otherwise. All they had to do was reach a political settlement with Donbass before the fighting broke out last year, and everything would be intact and productive still. The destruction campaign is deliberate.

I am talking about beggining of so called ATO where seps had few hundred men in total.
As Kotemore mentioned, conflict escalated. Dont forgrt that Ukrainian soldiers were refusing to engage separatists and shot their ammo into the air.

Erk wrote:

Regular wrote:Let us remember who pushed Ukraine to start ATO.
It was IMF and their proposal - get Your land back or else You won't get any money.
It ended up terribly bad.

But if it was about economics and the IMF, why shell the Donbass infrastructure to bits, and bomb the brand new Donetsk airport to rubble? I don't think it was as simple as that. I think Kiev were encouraged to destroy things by outsiders, because it doesn't make sense otherwise. All they had to do was reach a political settlement with Donbass before the fighting broke out last year, and everything would be intact and productive still. The destruction campaign is deliberate.

If they destroy industry tied to Russia, then ??? Although I read somewhere that Russia saw it coming and had already started preparing to "separate" from Ukraine..

There's so much I don't know. I don't know what's been destroyed, or moved, or Kiev government has shut down.

At the least, imho, Kiev gov. doesn't want Eastern Ukraine to prosper.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-factories-equip-russian-military-despite-support-for-rebels/2014/08/15/9c32cde7-a57c-4d7b-856a-e74b8307ef9d_story.html

etaepsilonk wrote:...

You know, this ukraine conflict has been brewing up for quite a long time and I personally don't claim to understand all the peculiarities. As a result, I also find the expert commentaries from the people who never even heard of the country before it hit the news quite amusing (not aimed at anyone particular).
...

You're not exactly new here, and I've posted this in the past, but if you missed it, here it is again:
"A prophecy of pain: Solzhenitsyn foretells the future for Ukraine"

Link >>

The man predicted what would happen some 60 years ago. Excellent and well balanced read, highly recommended.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/rbth/opinion/11345645/south-stream-gas-war.html

This was uncharacteristically good for an English paper.

Well if you carefully look at the link, you'll see it's a sponsored article, and only republished by the DT...
It's from RBTH (Russia Beyond The Headlines - used to be a part of Voice of Russia).
That's why it's balanced. The stuff that the DT puts online by its own editors and commentators is utter crap (to put it mildly).

Regular wrote:I am talking about beggining of so called ATO where seps had few hundred men in total.
As Kotemore mentioned, conflict escalated. Don't forgrt that Ukrainian soldiers were refusing to engage separatists and shot their ammo into the air.

But those were unarmed civilians facing a conscript army once ideological driven units like NG and volunteer battalions got involved peace protesters started to get killed.

Although in the end trying to stop a "tank" with your bare hands was not peaceful enough.