Posts by D3ads

Not going reply to a blatent strawman, Vilham. Either make a point and stop trolling or don't bother.

Quote from killertomato

I'm not taking any sides in this conflict, I'm just following it with great interest. Thanks everybody for their input (especially D3ads).

In regards to the mines, I saw something around the 6:55 mark about mines. Not sure if relevant tho..

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Cheers buddy

Those landmines have been laid in the villages of Chonhar and Mykolaivka near the administrative border seperating the Crimean territory with Ukraine proper.

Pretty sure your friends are sabre rattling Sentura, if they were pro-Russian they'd probably be talking about the Fourth Reich in Kiev and the threat of "genocide". Propaganda from all sides is ridiculous...

There's nothing to "see", you're trolling.. badly. Elections in NK mean nothing... 100% election win is complete shite, Kim Jong-Un is the leader, there is only one "president" and pretty much only one party (bar a couple of those that are still connected to the WPK).. there is nothing else. In NK you either love dear Kim or enjoy a one-way trip to a labour camp... and don't reply with something about gulags because they don't exist anymore. It's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and ebola...

If I made a blog, would you subscribe? I post things on Facebook semi-regularly, plus I post on a large active community forum with veterans of various wars and active military personal from around the world so most of that kind of thing is shared there... I don't think I have the will nor the time to make a blog.

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Quote from Vilham

Haha, I'm sure Kim uses the same arguements, after all North Korea loves him right.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26483940

Seriously...

sorry everyone, I cant help it, its so easy.

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Seriously.. you're attempting to compare Russia with North Korea?! NK is a completely batshit crazy totalitarian state where there is only Dear Leader and the people who serves his every whim. They still worship Kim Il-Sung as the real leader of the country for goodness sake, he's been dead for 20 years! NK is 50's USSR in 2014... no comparison. Try again.

Scratch that... I have a video of Victoria Nuland discussing how the US poured 5 billion dollars into Ukraine during the early stages of Euromaidan;

Skip to 7:27

It's not a map of NATO, there are four NATO countries that are in red. It's a satire map of the superiority complex of the Western powers in modern day politics, no worse than "Crimeariver".

Quote from Vilham

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_12_3…s-in-jail-8937/

Literally took 30 seconds of searching.

And no separatist movements across the world aren't frowned upon, if the UK acted in a similar way to Russia alex salmond would be in jail.

Literally took more than that, given that all the articles coming up for "Putin seperatism law" are about Crimea. Adding 2013 into the search brings up the right results. Anyway, nothing much to be said about it; "action aimed against Russia’s territorial integrity", ie to curb the aforementioned less than 10% of fanatics mainly located in the North Causcaus regions who are trying to form sharia Islamic states right on Russia's doorstep, isn't going to happen. Scotland has had a long standing movement for independence and negotiations have been made many times, the latest of which led to an agreement on a referendum. The case for Scottish indepedence is falling apart everyday anyway, Salmond hasn't got a clue what he's doing...

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I love that you don't see how ironic that is. Hmmm I wonder why there is no significant opposition movement. Beats me...

No, I see it but I repeat there is no significant opposition to Putin, not because they've all been jailed but because they don't exist... Navalny has the support of about maybe 1-2% of Russians, 40,000 march in Moscow is not even a quarter of Moscow's 10 million population let alone the rest of the country. Who else is left? Zhirinovsky? Zyuganov? If Russians felt they needed an actual revolution, they'd be doing it, they've done it plenty of times before.

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Anyway, I don't have a huge interest in discussing Russia, I am clearly a massive hater and you are a sycophant. Each to their own.

...or maybe I just know a lot of what I'm talking about, seperatism law aside.

Quote from Thrik

That is funny. From casual conversations I've had with other Brits, the perception that Turkey is a wonderful place for holidays is all they know about the place. The same goes for Egypt.

I guess the UK doesn't let things like terrorism and kidnapping get in the way of visiting traditional vacation spots... lol.

Egypt has removed Morsi and "restored democracy" so it's ok. Erdogan has made Turkey into a democracy, there's no corruption... he's not trying to push draconian laws that force his party's islamic doctrine on the population, all is well and fruity in Ottoman land...

Back on topic... I haven't had much to report lately, news is pretty much dead on Ukraine... I guess it'll hot up as we get closer to Sunday's "referendum"...

Btw, I'll leave you with a satirical map of how the West sees the world, I found it pretty amusing...

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Quote from blackdog

Oh, you wouldn't think he would that stupid, right?

It's a similar situation of our Berlusconi: popular and influential enough to maneuver and scheme. Just because you don't wipe out a parliament doesn't mean you're that kind of person, Berlusconi uses his influence over media to shift people's perception in his favour... i'm sure Putin has his ways to.

It's not really about being stupid or clever, it's the flawed comparison to the mentality of a dictatorship. A dictator believes that the people love them and anyone who turns on them is a threat to them and the nation and must be imprisoned/eliminated. They believe that they are a God-like entity that controls the nation and if they were to lose power, the nation would collapse. Thus they never give up power unless they are forcefully removed or killed. This doesn't fit Putin, he's a patriot with traditional Russian values who cares about his people. I mean you don't see Russian police killing people who protest on his orders, sure they end up locked up but let's be honest, it happens anywhere... how many OWS people were thrown in jail for protesting in New York? Hell the US monitorered that movement using anti-terrorism procedure...

Funny you mention Berlusconi, he and Putin get on like a house on fire! Influence in the media and press helps shape the campaign, but ultimately he was always democratically elected and to this day maintains a high degree of popularity (despite everything!), I'm sure it's the same with Putin.

Quote from FrieChamp

First of all this is leaving out all stations, papers etc. that are owned by companies which are controlled by the state and those whose owners have direct or indirect ties to the Kreml. Then it is obviously not about numbers but about reach (state-run media have the upper hand) and last but not least you do not take into account various anti-critic policies that lead to self-censorship and further stiffle objective journalism in Russia. Not going to get into this mess that is going on in the Ukraine right now, but I couldn't leave that uncommented...

Fair point, there are other media channels owned by Gazprom and some of the millionaires within government influence. My point is there is plenty of free press in Russia like interfax, it isn't all state-controlled. I don't know any Russians who actually watch the likes of Rossiya 24/Segodnya, most of them read interfax, watch BBC World Service (international press is freely accessible) and others. Freedom of the press is part of the Russian constitution. The censorship and outright bullshit comes from bosses who decide what goes in their coverage, state owned or not, no one gets an angry call from Putin saying this can't go ahead because he says so. Also.. Putin has regular press conferences with all number of media groups several times a year lasting several hours. When was the last time Obama sat down and answered journalists for 3 hours straight..?

Quote from Vilham

changed under Medvedev (quite blatently under Putins orders, he couldn't have done it during his own term that would have been a tad too obvious) to allow Putin to serve another 12 years, guess what will happen then, he will sit down for a term, allow one of his cronies to be president and its a sure bet that Putin will be back for another 12 years. Definitely democracy.

The constitution that extended the original presidential term of 4 years to 6, That's it. It is not "12 years", in order to serve a second term a new election must be won.

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Yeah, Putin enacted a law that makes secessionist demands a crime, punishable by 3 years in jail and 5 years if done through any form of media. Totally not a dictator.

I've never heard of such a law and no one in Russia I know has heard of it either when I asked them, so I don't know what you're talking about there. It depends what kind of secession you're refering to, you implied territorial seperatism which is frowned upon in pretty much every government around the world since borders are drawn (there are exceptions of course, Kosovo, South Sudan etc). Independence of Siberia, Chechnya etc is not going to happen since it's unconstitutional and there is only a minority of fanatics who want it anyway.

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http://www.khodorkovsky.com/memorials-full…ners-in-russia/ Locking up business and political rivals is pretty much what Russia is world known for doing.

Politicial prisoners are not the same as political rivals, like I said there are no political rivals to Putin since there is no signficant opposition movement that would take his place anyway. You can't seriously be giving me a list on a website dedicated to one of the most corrupt and criminal oligarchs in Russia?! No matter how many bullshit "political prisoner" articles AI, HRW etc wanted to post, he got what he deserved. Now he's out, he's meddling in Ukraine already, it's pathetic.

Going through that list, I'm not going through it all in detail but I can see mostly members of the Greenpeace collective there. They Attempted to illegally board an oil platform and put coastguards life in danger in the process. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes". They are released now because of the amnesty ruling, site probably needs updating. I also see members of Yukos on there, khodorkovsky's oil company no less. Obviously Pussy Riot are on there, making a mockery of a religious place and vandalising property in the process is not going to go down very well. Imho, they should have gotten a couple of months at best and then been released and ignored, the sentencing just gave them all the spotlight they wanted. Seems they still haven't learned, they've already been doing demonstrations after being released. The way people talk about political prisoners in Russia, you'd think everyone was such and no one could possibly be put in prison for... you know, actually breaking the law.

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That you think Russia is a country to be admired stuns me.

Every country has good points and bad points, admiration depends on the individual's values/attitudes and to a certain degree, knowledge of said area.

Quote from Thrik

While I won't pretend to know a great deal about the complexities of Russia, it has struck me for quite some time that it just doesn't feel right that Putin has been in the hot seat for as long as he has. It was widely said even when he was 'merely' Prime Minister that he was the one really pulling the strings, and in all honesty it just isn't good for a country to be led for so long by effectively one man — even if the country's people do approve (or at least appear to).

That's how dictatorship and cults of personality are born, as when the leaders in question manage to sufficiently bend the country's laws and earn unconditional military support, etc they are essentially untouchable. All the photos of him looking cool and awesome and hardcore are propaganda, and the saddest part is it works. Do we not learn from the past? Stalin and Lenin were (and sometimes still are) popular and similar strategies were used to cement that perception.

Of course, it could very well be that any leader other than Putin is a far worse thing for the world. On top of that, it isn't lost on me that there's a certain degree of typical Western arrogance to dismissing Russia's political system as wrong. But then, how many alternative systems that don't adhere to the principles of democracy have actually worked out? Russia itself learnt the hard way just how much of a fall a country can have when the system is rotten and the people blind to what's coming.

Well the idea that Putin was pulling the strings is speculation, there's no way to tell whether that's true or not. Medvedev's presidency was much more liberal and focused on several key points in the Russian sphere. He launched programmes to modernize the economy, reform police and implemented an anti-corruption plan being some of the key points. Relations with the West was much more relaxed as well, Dmitry actually got on pretty well with Obama. Putin had pretty much started to distance himself from politics, remaining in the background. It was only when the 2008 war with Georgia broke out and the economic recession that caused him to come back into the spotlight again.

Stalin and Lenin are still favoured because they developed Russia as a massive superpower, Lenin formed the USSR whilst Stalin actually built it into what it was. Despite the purges and general genocidal policies of Stalin, he was a very strong leader for Russia. So there is a certain degree of that highpower status that rubs off onto Putin, most Russians are more interested in a strong Russian nation with a powerful military and traditional values than they are about Western style democracy.

On the collapse of an unworkable system, it is a key factor here, after nearly 70 years of a Socialist dictatorship, you can't expect that a democratic state will emerge without a long process of reform. RF is only some 20 years old, it will take time for things to change.

If we're honestly looking for a real dictatorship in the area, look no further than Belarus, Lukashenko has been the president of that nation since 1994 and all protests of any kind are quashed, there are actual political prisoners, a massively corrupt court system, capital punishment is still in force and being gay is treated with the same degree as terrorism... It seems like it's no surprise they still maintain the Soviet doctrine and emblems of the former republic...

On the subject of media around the world... there is so much variation of press out there that one should read/watch from multiple sources and form their own opinion, it's the only way to really understand what is going on. Probably best to stay away from infowars and other Alexjones related stuff though, unless you want your brain to hurt badly.

Quote from Minos

Abby Martin

Oh Hell yeah...

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RT's full of a lot of bollocks, but there's some nice female eyecandy on there!

Quote from Vilham

No it really doesn't, it wasn't only the western world that oked afgan and iraq.

Russia was the great evil. The communist murdered more people than Hitler for fucks sake.

Russia is a "democracy" that has had its law changed to let the same guy run for the same office beyond what was legally allowed and used a clause to blatently side step the entire principle of democracy, that imprisons political rivals, that has pretty much only state run media, that despite having its own separatist movements that are killed by the Russian state and who quite clearly doesn't give a damn about self determination hypocritically invades another country to "protect the rights of Russian speaking citizens and self determination" when no one has even died and aren't under any current threat of being repressed.

I mean seriously... I know the world isn't black and white, that western countries carry out some pretty fucked up stuff. But it pales in comparison to how Russia would rule the world if it was a dominate super power.

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Whilst I wont disagree on your point about communism, Soviet leaders did not however nearly wipe out an entire people in a direct campaign of genocide. The largest number of people killed in the USSR were under Stalin, an ethnic Georgian and out of those killed the majority were Russians.

When exactly was Russian law changed? The constitution allows for a president to serve a six year term which can be renewed once upon winning the election again. After this, the leader must step down and sit out from running for office in the next election. Putin was voted into office after Yeltsin during the elections in 2000. In the 2004 election he was voted in for a second term. In 2008 he stepped down and was not allowed to run for office. Medvedev won the elections instead and was president for a six year term appointing Putin as PM. In 2012, since he was able to run again, he ran for a new term and won.

Sure, those elections were deemed as being unfair and corrupt (most of it coming from claims of the OCSE, known for being anti-Russian). If Putin was/is a "dictator", he'd just change the constitution to make him president for life and hold mock elections where the results would be 90% + (like the faux elections by Saddam and Bashar al-Assad) as it is, in the latest election even with the alleged fraudulent votes ommited, would still result in victory. Putin is very popular in Russia and the majority of those who are against him are those from the Communist Party and those who dislike him for not being Nationalist enough (they would like him to be more firm on the West and not have so many relations with the EU/US). It's worth noting that his popularity at the moment is extremely high because of Sochi, the gay Propaganda bill (around 85% of the population supports that) and now the invasion of Crimea to protect Russia's interests. That can change though obviously, if the situation in Ukraine escalates and Russians start dying in an actual war...

On the other points:

- On imprisoning political rivals: ...like who exactly? How many political rivals does Putin actually have? Navalny? Pussy Riot?!!

- Separatist movements? Chechnya? Read what I said in the post above. The only people interested in Chechen independence are fanatics and terrorists, vast majority of Chechens are happy under Kadyrov under his own islamic leadership.

- Pretty much only state media? There are nearly 100,000 media outlets in Russia, 10 of which are state owned... yeah that's really "pretty much only state media" clearly...

Ultimately I've made it clear I'm no supporter of Russia's actions in Crimea, I understand their position but invasion of a neighbour is not the way to go about it. We will have to just wait and see what happens here...

Quote from blackdog

Frankly, i don't think that people that care found Russia's image improved by the olympics.

I don't want to sound rude since it's your country, but it's a total joke the amount of money that was spent to build a desert's cathedral, massive cleansing of stray animals (like in China two years ago) and sorry if i stereotype, but I'm sure they didn't mind too much in building in a sustainable way.

Then we could also talk about organizational problems -sure there always are at these events- but i have a friend who came all over and she has been at several international skating competitions in the recent years and she had a lot to complain.

Not really going to go into the Olympics, different topic and definately not without controversy. Though consider that before the Olympics, Sochi had just hills, villages and a whole lot of nothing much else, they had to build everything from scratch:

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Comparison photos:

http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-so…c-change-2014-1

Anyway Russia pretty much pulled off everything that was promised with no real incidents or no terrorist attacks like those that the Chechens threatened. Thus it was successful for Russia's image.

As for Canada, the point I was making was the French empire's control of Canada ended in the 17th century, about 400 years ago. Russia's influence over Ukraine ended 20 years ago, hence apples and oranges.

Quote from ESToomere

I believe Crimea was "given" to Ukraine in 1954. I think if the Ruskies would have given us parts of territory back in '91 they'd long be occupying the shit out of them. It's interesting that everybody is talking about "invasion", Russian Federation has never, per se, invaded anybody, they've just offered security. Kinda like ISAF in Afghan, hell, even US in Iraq.

I guess the main difference here is that they're bloody efficient at what they do.

But, it's hard for me to defend Russia. There's way, WAY more Russians in Estonia than in Crimea, at any point Putin could come a-knockin: either if EU proves too harsh or too lenient for Russian intentions.

What I'm trying to ask is, even though I'm new to this community, anybody have a couch where I can crash?

ISAF into Afghanistan was a response to 9/11, however skewed the reasons were (most of the bombers were Saudis), the ring leader Osama was in the country and there had to be some kind of response. Iraq was an invasion based on either faulty intel or outright lies (depending on who you believe). One thing is for sure, Mr Dick Cheney certainly benefited a lot from that little venture.

There are more Russians in Crimea, over a million whereas there are only around 300,000 in Estonia. I wouldn't worry about Putin invading your country since it's a NATO member and Estonia was never part of Russia anyway.. those ethnic Russians left over are obviously a result of the colonisation after the mass deportation of Estonian "traitors" following Soviet annexation.

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

I liked this even though the numbers are wrong but then I started thinking. Crimea - 2014, Georgia - 2008, Chechnya - 1999 against Afghanistan - 2001 and Iraq - 2003.

That is not accurate, but even if it's 10 countries... it's still 9 countries more than Russia has invaded. Like I said when the US tries to lecture Russia on international law, it's the pot screaming the kettle's black...

Chechnya was not invaded, you can't invade your own territory, Chechnya has been part of the North Causcaus region of Russia since 1500AD. The beginning of the Chechen conflict began when the Chechens declared their independence and began ethnically cleansing and murdering Russians from the area for four whole years before Yeltsin declared war. The first war was badly handled, with terrible leadership and poor moral, most of the regions captured were retaken by Chechen seperatists. The second war was launched after several apartment buildings in Moscow were bombed by the Chechens and the terrorists invaded neighbouring Dagestan. Each war was a response to Chechen attacks.

Georgia was also not invaded, the situation there is somewhat complex:

During Tsarist rule, ethnic Ossetians sided with the Russian Bolsheviks to fight the Georgians in a newly formed state south of the region of North Ossetia-Alania (a region of Russia). In 1921, the Red Army conquered Georgia and it became part of the USSR. Inside the Georgian SSR An autonomous Oblast of South Ossetia was formed for the Ossetians that lived there. During Soviet rule, the Georgians and Ossetians were mostly peaceful. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991, Georgia gained independence and the Ossetians in the autonomous region called for the creation of their own republic. The Georgians refused and eventually after several years of unrest, war broke out. After a year of conflict, an agreement was reached whereby Georgias and South Ossetians would have their own zones of control with Russian forces overseeing events.

There were tensions between both sides and In 2006 South Ossetia declared it's independence which was not recognised by Georgia. Tensions escalated into war in 2008 after president Saakashvili ordered Georgian soldiers to fire on the city of Tskhinvali (the unrecognised capital of South Ossetia) in response to attacks by South Ossetian milita. The assault killed Ossetians and several Russian peacekeepers there. Russia responded by retaliating against the Georgian forces, pushing them back as far as Gori but pulled back before they reached Tbilisi, the capital. Saakashvili basically tried to start a war to retake South Ossetia by force believing that NATO would offer military support against Russia. He was wrong and ended up eating his tie (literally).

Quote from Minos

Anyway, this is very circumstantial evidence but the idea doesn't surprise me: Kiev snipers hired by Maidan leaders - leaked EU's Ashton phone tape

http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/

Whether RT is propaganda or not, audio recordings don't lie, as they didn't when Nuland the US ambassador to Ukraine were caught on tape. This is very very interesting, I will have to delve deeper...

Hello and welcome to the core!

No they're from seperate Instagram accounts;

http://instagram.com/p/lC8tCoyk4b/#

http://instagram.com/p/lDD5sSP22E/

http://instagram.com/p/lDJNRNuwkN/

http://instagram.com/p/lAD9J2zaij/

Generally most of the population welcome them as protectors, so there's a lot of photos being taking with them since their identity's are masked.

Some aren't so welcoming, like this Ukrainian:

"Where are you from?" "Are you from 810'th?" "Fuck off and solve your problems at home!"

RT's propaganda has been in overdrive recently, I don't really pay much attention to it and neither do any Russians for that matter. Though believe it or not, it's the third most watched news network in the Uk after BBC and Sky...!

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Just hangin' out with the invasion forces... Polite people with polite guns and polite manner...

The news in this is moving so fast, I've barely had time to check latest updates outside of local media, I'm trying to catch up before bedtime...

About the ultimatum: Ukrainian forces that are resisting have been ordered not to fire a shot, so if they are forced to surrender, they might just hopefully be overwhelmed, beaten up and disarmed without loss of life, because all parties know it only takes one shot to bring chaos. I hope that it isn't true anyway, Moscow is denying it and so far only the two ships within the Ukrainian defence Ministry are quoted to have claimed this. We'll see after 3am GMT I guess...

Poland concern over the situation - Understandable but probably an overreaction since it's unlikely that Russia will move outside of the Crimea.

Yanukovich is NOT pro-Russian, this is one of those stupid simplicities in the media that gets up my nose. Viktor is pro-Viktor, he's only been interested in futhering his own goals, like making lots of money for himself and his son and living off the wealth brought on by the oligarchs. He's simply been a useful idiot for Moscow, because of Eastern roots in Donetsk. There has never been a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, which is why the country overwhelmingly voted for independence in 1991. If there was ever a movement that was pro-Russian (except for the Crimea), they wouldn't have become their own state.

It's pretty debatable if Yanukovich's dismissal was ilegal. Pretty much as soon as the agreement was signed, the Rada was surrounded by a mob of Right Sector and Svoboda members that gave the parliament till 10am the next morning for Viktor to resign or they would storm the building with force. Yanukovich fled (reported to have been threatened and shot at). So it could be argued that those politicians once faithful to Yanukovich had to vote against him under diress. Under the constitution, a president can only be impeached if they commit treason or another crime and there has to be evidence to support it. I've got no time for Yanukovich, he's a cunt, but cunt or not, there is a proper process to follow. Very shaky ground there.

I think Pampers is partly right in the motives for Crimea, they certainly would be worried about losing the Black Sea Fleet I'm sure, this is one of Putin's red lines (unlike Obama, Putin's red lines actually mean something) and although the previous administration gave them until 2042 to remain in Sevastopol, it doesn't mean the new government can't cancel that.

Whilst I certainly don't support this madness, can I just say that I think it's fucking LOL tastic that we in the West are talking about "international law" and "breach of territorial sovereignty" given past performances in Iraq, Kosovo, Libya etc. Also the "Budapest Memorandum" everyone keeps talking about is not valid because the US congress never ratified it, the signatures are not valid... it isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

I thought more about Russia's reasons for this the other day. Once upon a time, after the cold war, Gorbachev agreed to reunite Germany on the promise that NATO would not expand into the East. Fast forward to today and pretty much all of the Warsaw Pact Countries are part of NATO, several bordering with Russia. Out of all the countries in Europe that border with Russia, only four of them (Finland, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine) are not in the treaty. Putin has constantly hinted that what the West does within it's own sphere is it's own business and whilst he may complain about it, there wont be any action... but... if you shit in the Bear's woods, you can expect to get bitten.

Ukraine is not Russia's backyard.. it is very much the frontyard and Putin will not tolerate inteference that goes against it's own interests and security. Given part of the parliament's desires to join NATO (another red line), I can kind of see why the action has been taken. Still doesn't make it right, but it is what it is.

For now Russia has taken the Crimea without any resistance or bloodshed, hopefully it stays that way.

Oh yeah and now we're talking about economic sanctions... remember when the US sanctioned Egypt for gunning down Muslim Brotherhood supporters en masse in the streets? Yeah me neither

I don't know r1ar, I'm usually on Russia's side in most things but it's hard to see the justification of moving troops into Ukraine on the grounds that the government is currently arguing. There are certainly a worrying number of radicals gaining power in Kiev but so far apart from a few low-level skirmishes, there hasn't been any violence. If people in the Crimea had been attacked and killed (I mean a proper attack, not just a few gunmen that appeared and then got chased out) then I would believe that some kind of operation to protect the Crimea from said radicals would be justified to some extent. Yeah you can argue that Russia is acting to stop this from happening full stop, but that's speculation... you don't know that for certain. It just makes Russia's image look bad, especially so soon after the Olympics.

Quote from blackdog

Sat afternoon in balaclava.

Town that gave the name to the hood?

The very same.

Quote from e-freak

I thought the bilingual law was retracted after the EU pressured the opposition to not alienate the eastern population.

Yeah but it was done after the troops captured the airports in Crimea.

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Also, at least from over here the law read more like: "the language used in official documents should not be russian anymore", not "you're never allowed to speak russian again". which in any case is still stupid (as you said, quebec is an example, california and florida (spanish) another), but i wouldn't lead the assumption that its a straight road to genocide from this also, i think canada would be pretty pissed off, if in such a case france declared to invade to re-institute french in quebec as the only language to be spoken and declares it to be its own country.

No it's more than that... the signs, notices, government administrations, official papers, language taught in schools and colleges has to be in Ukrainian. Might make sense in some parts of East Ukraine, but Crimea? Anyway, it's been withdrawn now doesn't matter.

How long ago was France in Canada? Ukraine first became a state in 1991, apples and oranges. At the moment troops are in Crimea, we'll see if they move outside of the autonomous region...

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and d3, yes - Territory was given by the UDSSR (and its predecessors) but at least from one of my friends from the region I've heard that a lot of the russian speaking population was put there in settlement policies during the UDSSR times to basically give more control over those areas (think chinese settlements and infrastructure into tibet as a far fetched examle). Granting territory to the ukraine doesn't say anything about the previous majority living there - could have been either ukrainian or russians living there before. in any case, it doesn't matter much, because the people who live there now and call it their home should have the right to stay and live in piece no matter what language or origin they come from.

I had to google UDSSR, damn Kraut Russian speakers would have been brought into the East more due to the capital being Kharkiv during the times of the SU, that's why a lot of the far East speak Russian as a first language. I simply posted it so people understand where modern day Ukraine came from, the central territory was when Ukraine was first it's own state, it wouldn't become such again until the fall of the Iron Curtain. You can argue Crimea is a special case because it's mostly populated by ethnic Russians as opposed to ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian.

This map shows Ukraine throughout history, it helps to understand why Russia is so deep rooted with it's smaller brother:

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Brown - Territories given to Ukraine by Russian Tzars in 1654-1917.
Blue - Territories given to Ukraine by Lenin in 1922.
Red - Territories given to Ukraine by Stalin in 1939-40.
Green - Crimea, given to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
Yellow - the original nation of Ukraine before the union with Russia.

Oh God this is a clusterfuck...

- After armed gunmen captured airports in Crimea, believed to be Russian forces with no insignia to show. Russian forces approved of by parliament, all representitives voted unanimously. Majority also vote to dismiss ambassador to the US, no action taken yet.

- Russian soldiers have captured several Ukrainian army/airforce installations in Crimea, personal disarmed with no resistance.

- Several members of the Rada are calling for the Ukrainian army to be deployed... They might have a large army but it is severely under-equipped with little fuel to power vehicles. Plus a lot of the commanders are former Soviet army veterans who will refuse to fight Russia and there are large numbers of constripts that would probably refuse to fight.

- Crimean Russians have formed their own Self-Defence unit made up of civilian volunteers and former Berkut members.

- For the first time in it's history, Sevastopol has elected it's own mayor after throwing out the one appointed by Kiev (which in previous years has always been the case).

- After Berkut was disbanded, many former officers received daily death threats and thus fled Kiev to Sevastopol. They have requested Russian passports. Seems the authorities didn't watch the news from Iraq in 2004 when former army/police were stripped of their jobs and promptly joined the opposition fighters...

- Armed gunmen believed to be from Kiev attacked government buildings in Crimean cities, shots fired but no one hurt, self-defence units pushed them back out.

- Svoboda party warns Russia against aggression or they'll become a nuclear power (I don't know how they're going to manage that, Ukrainian engineers only built rockets for delivery and the country is bankrupt)

- Massive protests in East Ukraine against Kiev government, thousands of people out on streets of Khakov, Odessa, Donetsk, Mariupol, Melitopol, Kerch, Odessa and Nikolaev.

- In lighter news.. Nikolai Valuev has been spotted in Sevastopol, I expect the differences between Ukraine and Russia to be resolved with a fight with Klitschko!

I have absolutely no idea what Moscow is thinking, you guys might be surprised to hear this from me... but this is just stupid.. Georgia made sense, Russian soldiers killed by Georgian soldiers in desputed territory.. this makes no sense at all. All I can think is that Moscow is arguing that since the EU went back on the agreement it reached and signed with Yanukovich, they have to take matters into their own hands to help out the East regions.. I don't know.

In terms of what's happenening in East Ukraine, the Anti-Maidan movement is what happens when you ignore 40% of the population and let mobs in the capital take control...

Last 12 hours are a blur... things have escalated big time... I'm trying to catch up with my sources...

Yes Tisky, I get it. I don't know perhaps I thought you would be more used to my perspective given posts I've made on Facebook

Several videos and photos have emerged about the shootings on Instytutska Street contradicing some of the media narrative about what happened, it appears several elite unit Berkut were fired upon (from the bottom at the barricades) and pelted with home made explosives forcing them to retreat up the street, the protesters then proceeded up the road, some of them armed. Armed gunmen from extremist group "Pravy Sektor" (Right Sector) also stormed into a nearby building and took positions firing at police from the windows.

I don't want to keep dredging this up but if people are interested, I'll post the links.

Seldoon: That's a pretty good idea actually, I don't know how bitcoin works exactly but that would stop any funds from being abused by others for their own gains, right?

Looks like the German version? No Nazi insignia anywhere...

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DAT SKY.