Russia Discussion

I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
 
Anyone who is surprised by this is deluded and naive.

Russia has HUGE interests in the Crimean region, both military and economically, as 70% of its gas pipes to Europe go through the region. The "government" in place now has performed a coup against a democratically elected president, led by a group of rebels / oppositionist / whatever who do NOT represent the majority of the Ukrainian people. The majority of Ukraine's population are pro-russians who are more ethnically russian than ukrainian, and who want ties to Russia rather than the EU. The demonstrations in Kiev did not represent the general opinion in Ukraine, but were representative of the popular opinion in western Ukraine, which is pro-EU and ethnically less Russian than the eastern parts of the country.

The natural solution is for Russian to annex Crim and the pro-russian parts of the country, and let the western parts become their own nation if they so badly want to lead a political line that is not representative for the majority of the people in the country.
 
712 said:
I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
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He was ousted by parliament, was he not?
 
Raoul said:
Its an option, but at this early stage would be a needless tit-for-tat escalation. Putting sufficient diplomatic and economic pressure on the Russians; combined with a bit of international naming and shaming; perhaps a call to revoke the World Cup etc, will do a lot imo.
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It would be intentionally provocative to announce it but perhaps it could be fed to them via chatter that the US has opened dialogue with both countries about reviving the treaty. There's only so much naming and shaming that can be done that hasn't been already, with regards to Putin and his cronies. Reducing oil/gas imports from Russia would be the most obvious way to put pressure on Russia, but is the EU willing to pay more for it from other sources or can it overcome Gazprom's ties to EU politics?
 
712 said:
I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
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I think it has more to do with the fact that people in the Western media tend to side with protesters against political powers - especially when they react in such a violent manner - regardless of the value of whatever grievance they have.
 
712 said:
I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
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Spot on. Yanukovitch was democratically elected. You cant have a group of rebels occupy parliament and expect the government not to try to break it up. They have the opportunity to organise their own campaign against Yanukovitch for the next election, and opted for the less democratic choice. Probably because they know that a general election would leave pro-russian politicians in charge still, because the majority of the Ukrainian population is pro-russian.

The demonstrations in Kiev were not representative of the popular opinion in Ukraine as a whole.

Imagine if some large group had tried to occupy the white house in washington :lol: They would be shipped to Guantanamo for life and no one would question the legitimacy of that decision.
 
Does anyone think a West looking Ukraine can include Crimea? Based on the terribly accurate method of looking up ethnicity statistics on Wikipedia it seems hard to imagine.
 
That being said, sending the police in to deal with the demonstrations by shooting live rounds at them was definitely a criminal offense, and was an unnecessary escalation of the situation that makes it impossible to side with Yanukovich.
 
712 said:
I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
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Not if you view it through the prism of "The West vs Russia". The U.S. and EU view a pro-Ukrainian government as being destabilizing to Russian hegemonic aspirations, so they're naturally going to support more democracy, individual freedoms, and economic reforms in Ukraine irrespective of whether Yanukovich was democratically elected or not. He's obviously corrupt and unsustainable to the general public.
 
Andrew~ said:
I think it has more to do with the fact that people in the Western media tend to side with protesters against political powers - especially when they react in such a violent manner - regardless of the value of whatever grievance they have.
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A perceptual illusion related to their having access to demonstrators and civil society members for interviews and information. The government leadership typically try to either avoid doing media, or else do it in tightly controlled conditions where they feel they can come off looking good.
 
Sir Matt said:
It would be intentionally provocative to announce it but perhaps it could be fed to them via chatter that the US has opened dialogue with both countries about reviving the treaty. There's only so much naming and shaming that can be done that hasn't been already, with regards to Putin and his cronies. Reducing oil/gas imports from Russia would be the most obvious way to put pressure on Russia, but is the EU willing to pay more for it from other sources or can it overcome Gazprom's ties to EU politics?
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The EU could retaliate by annexing Chelsea
 
DiseaseOfTheAge said:
Does anyone think a West looking Ukraine can include Crimea? Based on the terribly accurate method of looking up ethnicity statistics on Wikipedia it seems hard to imagine.
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Crimea is already a very autonomic region, more so than the other regions of Ukraine. The people in the region and the regional government is very pro-russian. In fact, they are already trying to pass a law for increased autonomy from Ukraine in advance of the upcoming presidential election. This is probably in an attempt to avoid a potential pro-western government from taking increased control of the region.

There is no way Russia lets a western-aligned Ukraine take complete control over Crimea.
 
Raoul said:
A perceptual illusion related to their having access to demonstrators and civil society members for interviews and information. The government leadership typically try to either avoid doing media, or else do it in tightly controlled conditions where they feel they can come off looking good.
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That's a good point actually.
 
712 said:
I really don't understand the attitude of either the Western governments or the Western press on this one. Was Yanukovych not an elected president? Shouldn't their position have been to support an elected government, or does the fact that the opposition to him was pro-Western override democracy? For me the protesters should have been organising for the next election, and looking to put in the government they wanted in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The US, UK and others spend a lot of time lecturing the world on democracy, but if I did happen to be a religious fundamentalist I'd be looking at this and saying, democracy, yeah, right.
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Just because he was elected democratically does not make him a democrat or infallible. He imprisoned his main opposition's leader on the charges of embezzlement, corruption, or abuse of office--the same charges used everywhere to silence political enemies. Tymoshenko and her party are incompetent and may be guilty of the charges, but Yanukovych winning the election by a small margin and following it up by jailing his opponent is always going to look terrible. He's been increasingly authoritarian since his election and has helped ensure his party maintain power through various means (vote-rigging, suppression of the press, gerrymandering, etc). He's ensured that he and his cronies all got filthy rich while in power. Given the PR's efforts to ensure its primacy, just preparing for the next election would likely not be enough to actually win since Yanukovych has worked to rig the game.

Democratically elected governments can, and do, violate the idea of democracy and should be removed or abolished--ideally, this would be done peacefully but in many cases it is impossible. Robert Mugabe is ostensibly democratically elected, so was Saddam Hussein.
Neither of them can be considered a shining beacon of democratic ideals.

An article from a few years ago: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...and-rajan-menon/five-more-years-of-yanukovych
 
Raoul said:
Not if you view it through the prism of "The West vs Russia". The U.S. and EU view a pro-Ukrainian government as being destabilizing to Russian hegemonic aspirations, so they're naturally going to support more democracy, individual freedoms, and economic reforms in Ukraine irrespective of whether Yanukovich was democratically elected or not. He's obviously corrupt and unsustainable to the general public.
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If he was obviously corrupt and unsustainable, and I'm not saying he wasn't, what was wrong with waiting for the next election and seeing if it was a genuine one or not? He was elected in 2010 so whatever the Ukrainian system is it couldn't have been that long to the next one.

Your phrase 'irrespective of being democratically elected or not' indicates to me what you really think of democracy - good if it suits.

Some advert.
 
Raoul said:
Not if you view it through the prism of "The West vs Russia". The U.S. and EU view a pro-Ukrainian government as being destabilizing to Russian hegemonic aspirations, so they're naturally going to support more democracy, individual freedoms, and economic reforms in Ukraine irrespective of whether Yanukovich was democratically elected or not. He's obviously corrupt and unsustainable to the general public.
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The US is going to support whatever abomination of government and leadership as long as it's Washington friendly (ie Saudi Arabia). The story of the US being out there spreading democracy and individual freedoms is quite obviously a fairy tale. A fairer assessment would be that we have a number of global, military and economic powers whose only concern is the expansion and preservation of those powers, by any means necessary.

In this respect nothing that the Russians are doing now in Ukraina/ Krim is so unbelievably outrageous. The US would do the exact same thing given a different location but the same circumstances.
 
712 said:
If he was obviously corrupt and unsustainable, and I'm not saying he wasn't, what was wrong with waiting for the next election and seeing if it was a genuine one or not? He was elected in 2010 so whatever the Ukrainian system is it couldn't have been that long to the next one.

Your phrase 'irrespective of being democratically elected or not' indicates to me what you really think of democracy - good if it suits.

Some advert.
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Spot on.
 
"Obama said any Russian intervention would constitute a "clear violation" of international law."

Putin should really watch what he's doing as the privilege to violate international law is reserved for the US and NATO only.
 
sun_tzu said:
The g8 in russia in june could be interesting... depending on who does and does not attend
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It's early days but I'm relatively sure I'm not going to make it.
 
712 said:
If he was obviously corrupt and unsustainable, and I'm not saying he wasn't, what was wrong with waiting for the next election and seeing if it was a genuine one or not? He was elected in 2010 so whatever the Ukrainian system is it couldn't have been that long to the next one.

Your phrase 'irrespective of being democratically elected or not' indicates to me what you really think of democracy - good if it suits.

Some advert.
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You know who else's party was democratically elected?

Hint: It's Hitler. /Godwin
 
Mihajlovic said:
The US is going to support whatever abomination of government and leadership as long as it's Washington friendly (ie Saudi Arabia). The story of the US being out there spreading democracy and individual freedoms is quite obviously a fairy tale. A fairer assessment would be that we have a number of global, military and economic powers whose only concern is the expansion and preservation of those powers, by any means necessary.

In this respect nothing that the Russians are doing now in Ukraina/ Krim is so unbelievably outrageous. The US would do the exact same thing given a different location but the same circumstances.
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That's the game all great powers play though isn't it. In the case of the US vs Russia, its quite easy to see that Russia would be greatly undermined if Ukraine became more less corrupt and dependent on Russian resources.
 
Mihajlovic said:
"Obama said any Russian intervention would constitute a "clear violation" of international law."

Putin should really watch what he's doing as the privilege to violate international law is reserved for the US and NATO only.
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In case you haven't gotten the memo, International Law is controlled by the states with the most power. The smaller states get to pretend they are part of the process in order to perpetuate the facade.
 
Raoul said:
In case you haven't gotten the memo, International Law is controlled by the states with the most power. The smaller states get to pretend they are part of the process in order to perpetuate the facade.
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I absolutely agree. And anyways, I have no problems accepting this reality. It's just that the talk of 'spreading democracy and individual freedoms' is annoying and borderline offensive to the human common sense. Democracy (similar to Religion) has become such a non-sensical, all-encompassing term with endless possibilities to bend it whichever way you want. People are literally bring killed in the name of democracy.

We already had the exact same discussion two years ago at the time of the war in Libya. Obama sounds like a broken record (and so do you and I).
 
Mihajlovic said:
I absolutely agree. And anyways, I have no problems accepting this reality. It's just that the talk of 'spreading democracy and individual freedoms' is annoying and borderline offensive to the human common sense. Democracy (similar to Religion) has become such a non-sensical, all-encompassing term with endless possibilities to bend it whichever way you want. People are literally bring killed in the name of democracy.

We already had the exact same discussion two years ago at the time of the war in Libya. Obama sounds like a broken record (and so do you and I).
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Promoting Democracy and greater freedoms is still part of US government policy. That doesn't mean it happens in every country (Saudi Arabia etc). The overarching goal is obviously greater power.
 
This means it's Ok for the rest of the UK to seize part of Scotland to secure our nuke base if Scotland votes for independence then.
Will the rest of the Ukraine accept losing this part of their country to the Russians or will they try to do something about it?
It’s strange to think that Kramer was right all along
 
712 said:
If he was obviously corrupt and unsustainable, and I'm not saying he wasn't, what was wrong with waiting for the next election and seeing if it was a genuine one or not? He was elected in 2010 so whatever the Ukrainian system is it couldn't have been that long to the next one.

Your phrase 'irrespective of being democratically elected or not' indicates to me what you really think of democracy - good if it suits.

Some advert.
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You've laid it out nicely. Nascent democracies aren't immune from setbacks where the majority seek new elections after rampant corruption has taken place and the country's leader steals a large part of the national budget.

Also worth considering that Yanukovych preemptively fled, then had his powers stripped through a legislative process.
 
Raoul said:
You've laid it out nicely. Nascent democracies aren't immune from setbacks where the majority seek new elections after rampant corruption has taken place and the country's leader steals a large part of the national budget.
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Of course this happens. And plenty of corruption and pork-barrell stuff in not-so-nascent democracies too, not to mention democracies where the majority don't give a shit whether the poor have health care or not, because they haven't got enough votes to matter anyway. That's democracy though, find out, do what you think is the right thing, cast your vote.

The point about democracy is that you have to believe in it to establish it. To you it's mildlly desirable but secondary to your own national interest. If the families of those that have died in the middle-east are happy with that, fair enough, but I wouldn't be right happy myself.
 
This situation really is doubleplus ungood. One of the most significant international crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis IMO. Russia invading Ukraine, you couldn't make it up!
 
Lu Tze said:
This situation really is doubleplus ungood. One of the most significant international crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis IMO. Russia invading Ukraine, you couldn't make it up!
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Russia is only protecting their regional interests. And coming to aid the ethnic Russians before they fall into the hands of the right wing mob as many did in Kiyev in the past few weeks.
 
Mihajlovic said:
Russia is only protecting their regional interests. And coming to aid the ethnic Russians before they fall into the hands of the right wing mob as many did in Kiyev in the past few weeks.
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Yeah, just like a certain somebody was protecting his fellow countrymen in a neighboring territory and his nations regional interests sometime in the past....hmm...I can't quite remember where that was.

Oh yeah, it was the goddamn Sudetenland. It is increasingly apparent that nobody in the reborn USSR reads their history books. Putin is a corrupt dictator, like so many before him.
 
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Lu Tze said:
Yeah, just like a certain somebody was protecting his fellow countrymen in a neighboring territory and his nations regional interests sometime in the past....hmm...I can't quite remember where that was.

Oh yeah, it was the goddamn Sudetenland. It is increasingly apparent that nobody in the reborn USSR reads their history books. Putin is a corrupt dictator, like so many before him.
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Putin just wants some lebensraum.
 
Raoul said:
In case you haven't gotten the memo, International Law is controlled by the states with the most power. The smaller states get to pretend they are part of the process in order to perpetuate the facade.
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I'm not sure the US has received that memo. Someone should really update the IT department infrastructure to ensure all these important memes get where they need to be.
 
So it's looking pretty likely that the Russians will move in and create a new Russian-orientated state, whilst the the majority of the Ukraine will become a separate pro-Western state. Which would have happened anyway had the democratic process been supported, but apparently that doesn't matter anymore. Quite how much the Russians take will be up to them, hopefully they will do it as fairly as possible, so the inevitable turmoil that follows will be minimised.

Not to worry, this is all in the interests of the US according to our chief pundit, so it must be a good thing.
Also for some reason Hitler will be pleased about it.
Sorry to be insensitive, but interesting times can be quite good entertainment really.
 
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Sir Matt said:


Sorted. Peace in our time?
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Looks like it. Seen other tweets about Obama and Putin having a 90 minute phone chat. Made up and are BFFs. Putin was sorry for not listening to Obama and making him feel unimportant. Oh wait, maybe that's me and my lady....
 
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