The funny thing is NATO isn't out to get Russia. The only reason Putin views NATO as a threat is because it stands in the way of his nationalist/expansionist vision of expanding the Russian sphere among the formet Soviet block countries. At its core, this is a conflict about power and influence.
Russia Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
The funny thing is NATO isn't out to get Russia. The only reason Putin views NATO as a threat is because it stands in the way of his nationalist/expansionist vision of expanding the Russian sphere among the formet Soviet block countries. At its core, this is a conflict about power and influence.
Its the natural thing to for Ukraine, as they are feeling heavily threatened by Russia and rightly so with Russia annexing Crimea and Yanukovich now suggesting there should be public votes for other parts of Ukraine as well. Of course I would accept it as democratic and understandable.
However, I dont see it as the correct move from for NATO to let Ukraine join. Its a completely unnecessary further escalation of the situation. NATO doesnt gain anything at all from letting Ukraine join, as Ukraine will always be just as ready to allow NATO to come and help them, and will always support NATO decisions because of the goodwill they will gain from NATO by doing so. Ukraine needs the protection from NATO, NATO doesnt need Ukraine. NATO has Ukraine exactly where they want them.
I think the most pragmatic thing to do is to leave Ukraine hanging in the squeeze between NATO and Russia. At least for as long as Russia doesnt start moving towards Kiev.
Theres a lot of immoral things going on that are done for political power and stability. The US doesnt mind whats going on in Saudi Arabia for instance in terms of democracy, because they are an important political and economical ally in the region. And they are right in doing so. Some times stability comes at a cost. See what happened in Libya, Iraq etc once the dicators got toppled. Major instability for a decade, far worse than the negative aspects of having a dictator leading the country.
Sucks for Ukraine but the potential negative ripple effect on stability and cooperation in the region it could cause to let them join NATO far outweighs whatever moral obligation we have to help them against bullying from Russia.
A pretty good piece on Putin's Fox News-like propaganda machine.
http://news.yahoo.com/putins-soft-power-media-machine-202503806.html
http://news.yahoo.com/putins-soft-power-media-machine-202503806.html
Putin's new soft-power media machine
Russia's new state media is helping shape perceptions in Ukraine and the rest of the Russian-speaking world. It is slick, professional, and rooted in heavily spun truth.
Dmitry Kiselyov strolls through a vast, ultramodern studio, gesturing dramatically with his hands while calmly and forcefully ticking off his talking points.
From time to time, the anchor of Russia's leading Sunday news show, "The Week," turns away from the camera, as if to thoughtfully examine a huge, evocative graphic that reads "Collapse of Statehood?" Then he turns back to look millions of Russians straight in the eye, with just a hint of outrage, while he soberly explains to them what's going on in Ukraine:
•It was a coup, engineered by a tiny, militant neofascist minority that used violent pressure from the streets to overthrow the legally elected President Viktor Yanukovych.
•European foreign ministers, who undersigned a deal between the president and opposition that might at least have given some legal form to the transition, stood back and did nothing when radicals rejected the deal and drove Mr. Yanukovych out of Kiev.
•The newly minted Ukrainian government, basically a junta raised to power by the mob, quickly tipped its anti-Russian hand by revoking a law that protected Russian-speakers.
•Western countries revealed their true colors, too, by tearing up all of their supposed principles and rushing to embrace a pro-Western government that had muscled its way into office by smashing democratic institutions and overturning valid election results.
And what is Russia to do? Mr. Kiselyov asks. Sit by and watch passively while extreme Ukrainian nationalists threaten the lives of peaceful Russian-speaking compatriots in the eastern Ukraine and Crimea? Let Ukraine disintegrate into chaos, to be gobbled up by Western powers that have been aggressively moving their institutions – the European Union and NATO – eastward into Russia's former sphere for the past two decades? Or should Russia act to protect its own national interests?
It's an impressive performance. Some of what Kiselyov says is true, some of it is debatable, all of it is one-sided. For those who have access to other news sources, it's not hard to spot the exaggerations and even a couple of whopping lies embedded in the narrative. If Kiselyov were just one voice in a diverse media spectrum like, say, a Russian version of Rush Limbaugh, it would merely be fascinating.
But all of Russia's major TV networks, which 9 out of 10 Russians identify as their top news source, are singing from exactly the same hymnal these days. And this media choir is providing the Kremlin with a new soft power both at home – where polls show Russians increasingly rallying around President Vladimir Putin as a bulwark against an aggressive West – and in the near abroad. Nowhere has this been clearer than in Ukrainian Crimea, where ethnic Russians, alarmed by the "fascists in Kiev" that they see on Russian media, have embraced Moscow as their savior.
BEYOND THE SOVIET ERA
For more than a decade, critics have been warning that the extreme centralization of Russian media under state and Kremlin-friendly ownership has created a monolithic propaganda machine on a scale unseen since the days of the Soviet Union. Until now, that has not been so obvious, but the crisis in Ukraine has suddenly brought it roaring into focus.
But it is something new. After all, people secretly laughed at Soviet-era news programming that featured stone-faced presenters reading out Politburo statements and introducing segments on rising agricultural production or the latest space triumph.
Today Russian TV looks completely different. It incorporates all the latest innovations of US cable news, with attractive, animated anchors and lots of on-the-ground reports.
Where Soviet TV would have erected a wall of silence, Russian TV went out and covered the revolt in Kiev intensively. Much of its narrative is constructed from on-the-ground reporting – but from what Western audiences would regard as unfamiliar angles, and with shifted emphasis and quite a bit of cherry-picking.
For instance, Russian journalists looked for – and found – violence-prone neofascists and anti-Russian radicals on Kiev's Independence Square, known as the Maidan, and filmed militant protesters initiating attacks against the police. Later, when a leaked phone conversation between the Estonian foreign minister and the EU's foreign-policy chief raised doubts that deadly Kiev sniper attacks had actually been ordered by Yanukovych, the Russian media treated that as headline news for days, while most Western outlets gave it minor play. The result is a seamless and well-documented story line that no one will laugh at.
"Our TV has been engaged in delivering high-quality propaganda for a long time, but we hadn't really noticed this before," says Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, an independent Moscow-based media consultancy.
"We have so many different sources of information. It's not like Soviet times at all. About 30 million Russians today regularly use the Internet and millions travel abroad. Outside sources of information are accessible, and millions of Russians speak foreign languages," he adds.
PUSHING ON AN OPEN DOOR
But despite having far more access to information than in the past, the message being delivered by TV seems to be the one that's working on the Russian public right now. Some analysts argue that TV polemicists like Kiselyov are pushing on an open door by appealing to public prejudices long latent in the Russian population. In fact, they suggest, it may not be that unusual for people to rally around their leaders in times of crisis, and even to accommodate a few transparent fibs for the national cause.
According to a mid-March survey released by the independent Levada Center in Moscow, Mr. Putin's personal approval rating, which had been slumping over the past year, grew from 65 percent in January to 72 percent by mid-March as the crisis in Ukraine worsened. The poll found that two-thirds of Russians are convinced that the new government in Kiev does not express the will of the whole Ukrainian people, more than 70 percent fear there is a real threat to the Russian-speakers of eastern Ukraine, and 67 percent blame Ukrainian nationalists for the power shift in Kiev. About a quarter of Russians thought it was acceptable on principle to introduce Russian troops into Ukraine, and 56 percent said they would agree to it under "extreme circumstances," to stop violence or forestall a humanitarian catastrophe.
"The coverage of Ukrainian events in Russia was one-sided, and it appealed to just one set of preconceptions in the Russian public consciousness," says Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center.
"But it's hard to say this point of view was forced upon public opinion. Yes, propaganda has its impact, but it takes years of constant influence to produce such an effect. It can't be done in the space of a few months. Public opinion is not formed only by TV channels. We have other sources, and it shouldn't be forgotten that about 40 percent of Russians say they have personal connections with Ukraine, either by having relatives there, or having lived there, or being born there. It's too simple to blame the media for the way Russians are reacting" to the events in Ukraine, he says.
The Levada survey found that 63 percent of Russians believe their media's coverage of Ukrainian events was objective on the whole, while 29 percent disagreed.
"What is new about these past few months is that our Russian media has become a raw propaganda tool, portraying events in Ukraine in monochromatic tones as an upsurge of fascists from western Ukraine," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal.
"It works very well, unlike Soviet-era media messaging, because this time there is an outpouring of genuine patriotism. We Russians, guided by our leader, are closing ranks and standing up to evil forces. Fascists, working with the West, are threatening our people," she says. "Given this country's history" – in particular the Soviet Union's 25 million casualties at Nazi Germany's hands during World War II – "there is no more effective appeal to the emotions of Russians than to rally against the threat of fascism. And this is how our people see the picture."
SWAY IN UKRAINE
In Ukraine, where those same Russian TV channels enjoyed wide viewership – at least until very recently – the Russian viewpoint is greeted with far more skepticism and even derision, at least from many people in Kiev who watched the Maidan events unfold firsthand.
"I can't watch the news anymore. I get most of my news from Facebook these days," says Oksana Fedorenko, an English teacher in Kiev. "This is an issue of critical thinking, and some people don't know how to do that. They just believe what they are fed."
The new Ukrainian government takes the power of Russian media seriously enough that its official National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council this month told Ukrainian providers to stop carrying five Moscow-based news channels, citing the need to defend the country's sovereignty. The move followed the pro-Russian Crimean leadership's decision to shut down Ukrainian broadcasters on the territory and replace them with Russian ones.
Ukrainians, who have enjoyed a relatively vibrant democracy and diverse civil society in post-Soviet times, also have the benefit of being mostly bilingual and able to access a far wider variety of sources than Russians typically can. According to Alexander Chekmyshov, deputy director of the Institute of Journalism in Kiev, it is perfectly normal for Ukrainians to watch the early news shows on Ukrainian TV, then switch to the later Russian news programs out of Moscow.
There wasn't so much difference between them until the current crisis began late last year. Then he began to notice that Russian news was full of "lies and disinformation," he says.
"Still, I don't think they should have banned Russian TV channels. It's useless to try to block the flow of information in the 21st century. We should have kept them to show everyone how foolish they are. The best way to combat lies is with the truth," he says.
It's not clear whether all Ukrainian cable providers will accommodate the demand of the new government, which is still in the process of establishing its authority around the country.
"Russian TV channels have good ratings in the east and south of Ukraine," though Ukraine doesn't have a standard system of measuring ratings, and satellite coverage is not monitored at all, says Natalya Ligacheva, editor of Telekritika, a Ukrainian Internet media portal.
Many different figures are on offer for the penetration of Russian TV in Ukraine. But the percentage of people who regularly watch Moscow-based TV programs is much greater – more than 80 percent – in the mainly Russian-speaking and more pro-Moscow east of the country than the number who watch in the central or western regions, says Vladimir Paniotto, director of the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's leading pollster.
Although far from the only factor, the Russian media certainly helped shape the sentiments of Ukraine's ethnic Russians, both in Crimea and the country's east, who are turning to Moscow for protection.
"There is no doubt that Russian TV coverage of the events in Ukraine has an impact on public opinion, but it's hard to quantify what that is," Mr. Paniotto says.
THE LIMITS OF MEDIA POWER
While Russia's pro-Kremlin TV narrative appears triumphant, at least among Russians, Moscow seems less confident. In recent weeks it has launched an intensifying campaign to drive alternative outlets out of existence.
The liberal Internet TV station Dozhd, which had featured a different brand of reporting on the crisis in Ukraine, was dropped by all Russian cable providers in February and now appears on the verge of closing. In early March the longtime editor of Russia's leading Internet news site, Lenta.ru, was fired by its Kremlin-friendly owner, apparently over an interview with a leading Ukrainian nationalist that she had published. Russia's official media watchdog subsequently blacklisted several independent Internet sources, including anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny's blog, the popular Grani.ru opposition website, dissident chess champion Garry Kasparov's site, and the liberal online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal, for allegedly posting "extremist materials."
And in mid-March, tens of thousands of Russians marched through downtown Moscow, some waving Ukrainian flags, to protest against Russian intervention in Ukraine's sovereign affairs. That suggests that antiwar sentiment may grow if the Ukraine operation turns sour, just as has happened in the United States when ill-advised foreign wars start to take their toll.
"Let's not be mesmerized by the power of the Russian media to shape public opinion," says Ms. Lipman. "It's early days in this Ukraine crisis ... and the majority of the people there seem to support it. In other words, Russians don't feel they are paying any cost for this. It would not be so easy to sell if the circumstances turn bad."
FACT-CHECKING RUSSIA'S MESSAGE
Claim: Ukraine's democratically elected leader was illegitimately toppled.
True. There's no glossing over two key facts about Ukraine's power struggle: It began last November with democratically elected, if increasingly unpopular, President Viktor Yanukovych at the helm – and ended with his sudden and chaotic ouster under pressure from a motley coalition of opposition forces. While Mr. Yanukovych was stripped of his duties by the elected and still-functioning parliament after he fled, the legality of his ouster is at best constitutionally murky.
Claim: Ukraine's interim government is full of radical nationalists.
Debatable. During the antigovernment protests in Kiev, two anti-Russian – and sometimes even anti-European – nationalist groups were prominent on the barricades: the political party Svoboda and the paramilitary group Right Sector. But Right Sector has virtually no representation in the interim government. Svoboda does count some senior government officials among its leaders, but it carried just 10 percent of the popular vote in the last parliamentary elections.
Claim: There were no Russian troops in Crimea prior to the referendum.
False. The armed soldiers in unmarked uniforms who flooded Crimea prior to its March 16 referendum often rode in Russian vehicles as Russian helicopters flew overhead. The soldiers were widely documented as speaking Russian, occasionally admitted to belonging to the Russian military, and were exceptionally well equipped and trained – all evidence that they were not "local self-defense forces," as Russian media claimed.
Claim: The West fostered the violence in Ukraine that toppled Yanukovych.
Debatable. Overt support for the Ukrainian opposition – including a procession of Western dignitaries through the protest camp in Kiev – did fuel the protesters' resolve to fight on. It also gave them the confidence necessary to summarily eject Yanukovych despite Europe's preference for an orderly transition. But this was not how the Russian state media portrayed it: as an allegedly well-organized and generously funded shadow campaign to take over Ukraine and turn it into a bastion of NATO and American influence on Russia's borders.
-Anna Kordunsky / Staff writer
Russia's new state media is helping shape perceptions in Ukraine and the rest of the Russian-speaking world. It is slick, professional, and rooted in heavily spun truth.
Dmitry Kiselyov strolls through a vast, ultramodern studio, gesturing dramatically with his hands while calmly and forcefully ticking off his talking points.
From time to time, the anchor of Russia's leading Sunday news show, "The Week," turns away from the camera, as if to thoughtfully examine a huge, evocative graphic that reads "Collapse of Statehood?" Then he turns back to look millions of Russians straight in the eye, with just a hint of outrage, while he soberly explains to them what's going on in Ukraine:
•It was a coup, engineered by a tiny, militant neofascist minority that used violent pressure from the streets to overthrow the legally elected President Viktor Yanukovych.
•European foreign ministers, who undersigned a deal between the president and opposition that might at least have given some legal form to the transition, stood back and did nothing when radicals rejected the deal and drove Mr. Yanukovych out of Kiev.
•The newly minted Ukrainian government, basically a junta raised to power by the mob, quickly tipped its anti-Russian hand by revoking a law that protected Russian-speakers.
•Western countries revealed their true colors, too, by tearing up all of their supposed principles and rushing to embrace a pro-Western government that had muscled its way into office by smashing democratic institutions and overturning valid election results.
And what is Russia to do? Mr. Kiselyov asks. Sit by and watch passively while extreme Ukrainian nationalists threaten the lives of peaceful Russian-speaking compatriots in the eastern Ukraine and Crimea? Let Ukraine disintegrate into chaos, to be gobbled up by Western powers that have been aggressively moving their institutions – the European Union and NATO – eastward into Russia's former sphere for the past two decades? Or should Russia act to protect its own national interests?
It's an impressive performance. Some of what Kiselyov says is true, some of it is debatable, all of it is one-sided. For those who have access to other news sources, it's not hard to spot the exaggerations and even a couple of whopping lies embedded in the narrative. If Kiselyov were just one voice in a diverse media spectrum like, say, a Russian version of Rush Limbaugh, it would merely be fascinating.
But all of Russia's major TV networks, which 9 out of 10 Russians identify as their top news source, are singing from exactly the same hymnal these days. And this media choir is providing the Kremlin with a new soft power both at home – where polls show Russians increasingly rallying around President Vladimir Putin as a bulwark against an aggressive West – and in the near abroad. Nowhere has this been clearer than in Ukrainian Crimea, where ethnic Russians, alarmed by the "fascists in Kiev" that they see on Russian media, have embraced Moscow as their savior.
BEYOND THE SOVIET ERA
For more than a decade, critics have been warning that the extreme centralization of Russian media under state and Kremlin-friendly ownership has created a monolithic propaganda machine on a scale unseen since the days of the Soviet Union. Until now, that has not been so obvious, but the crisis in Ukraine has suddenly brought it roaring into focus.
But it is something new. After all, people secretly laughed at Soviet-era news programming that featured stone-faced presenters reading out Politburo statements and introducing segments on rising agricultural production or the latest space triumph.
Today Russian TV looks completely different. It incorporates all the latest innovations of US cable news, with attractive, animated anchors and lots of on-the-ground reports.
Where Soviet TV would have erected a wall of silence, Russian TV went out and covered the revolt in Kiev intensively. Much of its narrative is constructed from on-the-ground reporting – but from what Western audiences would regard as unfamiliar angles, and with shifted emphasis and quite a bit of cherry-picking.
For instance, Russian journalists looked for – and found – violence-prone neofascists and anti-Russian radicals on Kiev's Independence Square, known as the Maidan, and filmed militant protesters initiating attacks against the police. Later, when a leaked phone conversation between the Estonian foreign minister and the EU's foreign-policy chief raised doubts that deadly Kiev sniper attacks had actually been ordered by Yanukovych, the Russian media treated that as headline news for days, while most Western outlets gave it minor play. The result is a seamless and well-documented story line that no one will laugh at.
"Our TV has been engaged in delivering high-quality propaganda for a long time, but we hadn't really noticed this before," says Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, an independent Moscow-based media consultancy.
"We have so many different sources of information. It's not like Soviet times at all. About 30 million Russians today regularly use the Internet and millions travel abroad. Outside sources of information are accessible, and millions of Russians speak foreign languages," he adds.
PUSHING ON AN OPEN DOOR
But despite having far more access to information than in the past, the message being delivered by TV seems to be the one that's working on the Russian public right now. Some analysts argue that TV polemicists like Kiselyov are pushing on an open door by appealing to public prejudices long latent in the Russian population. In fact, they suggest, it may not be that unusual for people to rally around their leaders in times of crisis, and even to accommodate a few transparent fibs for the national cause.
According to a mid-March survey released by the independent Levada Center in Moscow, Mr. Putin's personal approval rating, which had been slumping over the past year, grew from 65 percent in January to 72 percent by mid-March as the crisis in Ukraine worsened. The poll found that two-thirds of Russians are convinced that the new government in Kiev does not express the will of the whole Ukrainian people, more than 70 percent fear there is a real threat to the Russian-speakers of eastern Ukraine, and 67 percent blame Ukrainian nationalists for the power shift in Kiev. About a quarter of Russians thought it was acceptable on principle to introduce Russian troops into Ukraine, and 56 percent said they would agree to it under "extreme circumstances," to stop violence or forestall a humanitarian catastrophe.
"The coverage of Ukrainian events in Russia was one-sided, and it appealed to just one set of preconceptions in the Russian public consciousness," says Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center.
"But it's hard to say this point of view was forced upon public opinion. Yes, propaganda has its impact, but it takes years of constant influence to produce such an effect. It can't be done in the space of a few months. Public opinion is not formed only by TV channels. We have other sources, and it shouldn't be forgotten that about 40 percent of Russians say they have personal connections with Ukraine, either by having relatives there, or having lived there, or being born there. It's too simple to blame the media for the way Russians are reacting" to the events in Ukraine, he says.
The Levada survey found that 63 percent of Russians believe their media's coverage of Ukrainian events was objective on the whole, while 29 percent disagreed.
"What is new about these past few months is that our Russian media has become a raw propaganda tool, portraying events in Ukraine in monochromatic tones as an upsurge of fascists from western Ukraine," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal.
"It works very well, unlike Soviet-era media messaging, because this time there is an outpouring of genuine patriotism. We Russians, guided by our leader, are closing ranks and standing up to evil forces. Fascists, working with the West, are threatening our people," she says. "Given this country's history" – in particular the Soviet Union's 25 million casualties at Nazi Germany's hands during World War II – "there is no more effective appeal to the emotions of Russians than to rally against the threat of fascism. And this is how our people see the picture."
SWAY IN UKRAINE
In Ukraine, where those same Russian TV channels enjoyed wide viewership – at least until very recently – the Russian viewpoint is greeted with far more skepticism and even derision, at least from many people in Kiev who watched the Maidan events unfold firsthand.
"I can't watch the news anymore. I get most of my news from Facebook these days," says Oksana Fedorenko, an English teacher in Kiev. "This is an issue of critical thinking, and some people don't know how to do that. They just believe what they are fed."
The new Ukrainian government takes the power of Russian media seriously enough that its official National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council this month told Ukrainian providers to stop carrying five Moscow-based news channels, citing the need to defend the country's sovereignty. The move followed the pro-Russian Crimean leadership's decision to shut down Ukrainian broadcasters on the territory and replace them with Russian ones.
Ukrainians, who have enjoyed a relatively vibrant democracy and diverse civil society in post-Soviet times, also have the benefit of being mostly bilingual and able to access a far wider variety of sources than Russians typically can. According to Alexander Chekmyshov, deputy director of the Institute of Journalism in Kiev, it is perfectly normal for Ukrainians to watch the early news shows on Ukrainian TV, then switch to the later Russian news programs out of Moscow.
There wasn't so much difference between them until the current crisis began late last year. Then he began to notice that Russian news was full of "lies and disinformation," he says.
"Still, I don't think they should have banned Russian TV channels. It's useless to try to block the flow of information in the 21st century. We should have kept them to show everyone how foolish they are. The best way to combat lies is with the truth," he says.
It's not clear whether all Ukrainian cable providers will accommodate the demand of the new government, which is still in the process of establishing its authority around the country.
"Russian TV channels have good ratings in the east and south of Ukraine," though Ukraine doesn't have a standard system of measuring ratings, and satellite coverage is not monitored at all, says Natalya Ligacheva, editor of Telekritika, a Ukrainian Internet media portal.
Many different figures are on offer for the penetration of Russian TV in Ukraine. But the percentage of people who regularly watch Moscow-based TV programs is much greater – more than 80 percent – in the mainly Russian-speaking and more pro-Moscow east of the country than the number who watch in the central or western regions, says Vladimir Paniotto, director of the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's leading pollster.
Although far from the only factor, the Russian media certainly helped shape the sentiments of Ukraine's ethnic Russians, both in Crimea and the country's east, who are turning to Moscow for protection.
"There is no doubt that Russian TV coverage of the events in Ukraine has an impact on public opinion, but it's hard to quantify what that is," Mr. Paniotto says.
THE LIMITS OF MEDIA POWER
While Russia's pro-Kremlin TV narrative appears triumphant, at least among Russians, Moscow seems less confident. In recent weeks it has launched an intensifying campaign to drive alternative outlets out of existence.
The liberal Internet TV station Dozhd, which had featured a different brand of reporting on the crisis in Ukraine, was dropped by all Russian cable providers in February and now appears on the verge of closing. In early March the longtime editor of Russia's leading Internet news site, Lenta.ru, was fired by its Kremlin-friendly owner, apparently over an interview with a leading Ukrainian nationalist that she had published. Russia's official media watchdog subsequently blacklisted several independent Internet sources, including anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny's blog, the popular Grani.ru opposition website, dissident chess champion Garry Kasparov's site, and the liberal online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal, for allegedly posting "extremist materials."
And in mid-March, tens of thousands of Russians marched through downtown Moscow, some waving Ukrainian flags, to protest against Russian intervention in Ukraine's sovereign affairs. That suggests that antiwar sentiment may grow if the Ukraine operation turns sour, just as has happened in the United States when ill-advised foreign wars start to take their toll.
"Let's not be mesmerized by the power of the Russian media to shape public opinion," says Ms. Lipman. "It's early days in this Ukraine crisis ... and the majority of the people there seem to support it. In other words, Russians don't feel they are paying any cost for this. It would not be so easy to sell if the circumstances turn bad."
FACT-CHECKING RUSSIA'S MESSAGE
Claim: Ukraine's democratically elected leader was illegitimately toppled.
True. There's no glossing over two key facts about Ukraine's power struggle: It began last November with democratically elected, if increasingly unpopular, President Viktor Yanukovych at the helm – and ended with his sudden and chaotic ouster under pressure from a motley coalition of opposition forces. While Mr. Yanukovych was stripped of his duties by the elected and still-functioning parliament after he fled, the legality of his ouster is at best constitutionally murky.
Claim: Ukraine's interim government is full of radical nationalists.
Debatable. During the antigovernment protests in Kiev, two anti-Russian – and sometimes even anti-European – nationalist groups were prominent on the barricades: the political party Svoboda and the paramilitary group Right Sector. But Right Sector has virtually no representation in the interim government. Svoboda does count some senior government officials among its leaders, but it carried just 10 percent of the popular vote in the last parliamentary elections.
Claim: There were no Russian troops in Crimea prior to the referendum.
False. The armed soldiers in unmarked uniforms who flooded Crimea prior to its March 16 referendum often rode in Russian vehicles as Russian helicopters flew overhead. The soldiers were widely documented as speaking Russian, occasionally admitted to belonging to the Russian military, and were exceptionally well equipped and trained – all evidence that they were not "local self-defense forces," as Russian media claimed.
Claim: The West fostered the violence in Ukraine that toppled Yanukovych.
Debatable. Overt support for the Ukrainian opposition – including a procession of Western dignitaries through the protest camp in Kiev – did fuel the protesters' resolve to fight on. It also gave them the confidence necessary to summarily eject Yanukovych despite Europe's preference for an orderly transition. But this was not how the Russian state media portrayed it: as an allegedly well-organized and generously funded shadow campaign to take over Ukraine and turn it into a bastion of NATO and American influence on Russia's borders.
-Anna Kordunsky / Staff writer
She claims its real but that parts were doctored. Putin will have his hands full if she gets reelected. 
There were some quite funny/insane part of the video. 'We should kill them with nuclear weapons' for Russian citizens, 'I want to get a machine gun and go kill them', 'it is time to take weapons and go kill them and their leader' after that guy said that we don't have much military capacity, and how if she was there Crimea wouldn't have happened because she would have used every method to make the world destriy Russia (in some other words though) were really cringeworthy if true.
Shes mad, and should be kept far away from politics. Shes the kind of person who would accept a war and civilian losses and years of instability just for her own personal and political ideas to come to fruition.
When I saw the norwegian prime minister speaking to her as if she were a legitimate political figure deserving of respect I felt physically angry.
On another note, I don't know why I mistaken here name
I am not familiar with Ukrnaine politics, but I had a bit sympathy for her because she looked to have been clearly put on jail as the strongest political rival of Yanukovych. However she seems crazy.
On another note, I don't know why I mistaken here name
I am not familiar with Ukrnaine politics, but I had a bit sympathy for her because she looked to have been clearly put on jail as the strongest political rival of Yanukovych. However she seems crazy.
She's quite popular in Ukraine, and probably more so after the trumped up charges to imprison her. I'd imagine its between her and Klitschko in the next elections. Either way, the next Ukrainian leader is likely to be pro-European.
wasnt the supreme court? i mean, if my memory doesnt fail me, they decided to stop the vote recount
another thing, the amerincans let bush govern them, even though he wasnt the president who got more votes, they also let him invade afganistan and irak by a president "who didnt get the most votes" and they are letting the actual goverment to keep guantanamo open
americans can say "we didnt vote for him or for that" all they want, but they are doing nothing to stop their goverment stepping over human rights all over the world
the american citizens keep drinking lattes and buying the last Iphone
the same goes to EU citizens
It would be a disaster, really! Still hope for someone in his own mind to rule there.
Edit: oh, good - Poroshenko is leading in the polls now with 25%, Klitschko and Timoshenko is on about 9% each. He is pro-European but he seems like a sane man to me
Just to add a bit of clarity on this point, every US President is elected via the electoral college, even the current one.
She was fecking booed when she appeared on Maidan thinking she would be seen as a hero. Shes part of the oil and gas oligarchy just like Yanukovich and the people dislike her.
The only difference is that shes more western-friendly now because thats whats more beneficial for her atm with Yanukovich being Putins best buddy out of the potential Ukrainian presidents.
If Ukraine wants to move in the right direction democratically then every "politician" involved in the oil and gas business need to be kept far away from office. They are all opportunistic leeches.
According to the latest survey, neither Klichko or Timoshenko are even close to being favorites to being elected as the next president.
This guy is in the lead right now.
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_...al-candidates-in-Ukraine-with-24-9-poll-4807/
As for Yulia, she is a bit mental, plus she's as corrupt as Yanukovich, she's just being portrayed with sympathy because she's "West friendly".
Putin calls Obama for once. Sounds vaguely promising.
http://news.yahoo.com/russias-putin-calls-obama-discuss-u-proposal-ukraine-212358384.html
http://news.yahoo.com/russias-putin-calls-obama-discuss-u-proposal-ukraine-212358384.html
Yes they might come to their senses to save face. I told them to read this forum and look for my solution:
"It's about saving face now on both sides. Sanctions going forward won't be good for anyone. They should just comprimise. Russia recognizes the new government in Ukraine with the assurance of no NATO membership and an agreement never to invade, and the west gives Crimea up. if need be be put UN peacekeepers in the east."
She always was western-friendly, no? It was pro-west Yushenko-Timoshenko against pro-east Yanukovic at the first Maidan (god knows how much time ago, wow)
Trouble is they had a similar agreement in 1994 (Budapest agreement) to respect Ukraine's territory. There would need to be greater safeguards this time as well as an unraveling of the Crimea annexation involving international monitors there as well.
Yes, she has been pro-Western since she's been in government. She's still useless though. She and Yushchenko couldn't quit arguing while they were in office, which led to Yanukovych winning by default in the last election.
USA back in the Bush Sr days agreed not to expand NATO presence any further east towards Russian borders, either. Twenty something years later, there are NATO bases all over Eastern Europe and Ukraine is seemingly next on the list. So much for the agreements.
Was this a formal treaty ? I don't remember it.
I don't see NATO threatening to invade Russia, so why would Russia be concerned if neighboring states join it. If a nation like Ukraine chooses to do so, it shouldn't be anyone's business but their own and NATO's.
Russia doesn't own Ukraine, isn't its big brother, or have any sort of legitimate claims to interfere in Ukrainian affairs.
1. NATO does not need to "invade" in order to threaten Russia. There are many other ways, including the potential threat of armed conflict which is greatly facilitated by the sheer number of military bases surrounding Russia. That is why Russia is concerned despite the fact that you fail to see the reasons why.
2. Military alliances are not like "choosing between Coke and Pepsi" They are all about the balance of power. Lots of countries "chose" to join Nazi Germany against the USSR back in the day, and once the USSR defeated the Nazis some of those countries started "choosing" differently. In our current case, a western-backed alliance of neo-liberals and fascists seized power under the most dubious circumstances (but everything's fair in love and war, and geopolitics) who at best represent around half of Ukraine. In the near future, Ukraine may yet again "choose" otherwise, a bit like Crimea "chose" to join Russia.
3. Russia has in fact owned Ukraine for centuries upon centuries, it is precisely its big brother and has literally millions of legitimate claims to interfere in Ukrainian affairs. I mean, if the USA along with its Euro-lackeys have a right to interfere in Ukraine, then how on this God's beautiful earth doesn't Russia?
There is no NATO threat to Russia in terms of armed conflict. Russian paranoia about NATO has everything to do with the perception that NATO stands in the way of a re-expansion of the Russian sphere. Ukraine isn't a part of Russia and should have the right to make its own choice whether or not it wants to join a military, economic, or political alliance with the countries of its choosing. Russia's previous affiliation with Ukraine should not have anything to do with what Ukrainians choose to do in the present day. Its a separate country with its own borders and territorial sovreignty.
1. Russian paranoia or western hypocrisy? Why does NATO even exist? Who is the opponent?
2. Ukraine is literally half-Russian. Literally! Nevermind the long-standing historical, economic, cultural ties. Now, the enemies of Russia want Ukraine to be hostile to Russia and try to create all kinds of discord between the two countries, and also to create tension between Russia and the major European powers. As I told you before, Ukraine may "choose" in several different ways, depending on which power gets its way. It is always a matter of power.
3. Ukraine is an extremely young country with a very weak national identity, problematic borders (as we have very recently discovered) an appalling economy, and a current administration wholly dependent on EU-US support. Russia does not have a "previous affiliation" with Ukraine, they were the exact same country for centuries, far longer than Texas and California have been American, or even Scotland been British. The current situation in Ukraine is a consequence of extreme Russian weakness during the 90s. Once Russia is sufficiently powerful again, and the opportunity arises, they will definitely annex the parts of Ukraine (most of it in fact) that are, from their point of view, Russian lands, under foreign occupation. Borders and sovereignty are always subject to change, that is one of the first lessons of history.
1. I'm not here to argue why NATO exisits. It does and it isn't going away; infact it seems to be expanding rather than shrinking, and there's no evidence that it has any ambitions to invade Russia, so any Russian anxieties over NATO are completely unfounded and based on fear that former Soviet states joining NATO will prevent the expansion of the Russian sphere.
2. I spend plenty of time in Ukraine and understand the socio-cultural and linguist elements there. The historical ties don't mean Ukrainians are interested in resurrecting the Soviet Union or being a subservient satellite in the Russian sphere. Its time for people who analyze this situation to begin looking at Ukraine as a sovereign state that is capabale of associated with whoever it pleases, rather than an old Russian satellite that has to ask Moscow for permission to do things. I do agree with you that it is about power - between Russia and the West, and between Russia and Ukraine.
She wasnt western friendly when she built up her wealth on gas and oil deals with Russia.
So you think the US would have no problems with Mexico and Canada going into a military treaty with Russia? Suddenly "legitimate" Russian-friendly bases on your doorstep?
I don't think the situations are analogous. The U.S. doesn't claim to own either or want to dominate or bully them as some sort of expansionist nationalist program the way Russia treats the former Soviet states. All three are therefore cooperative and so its difficult to comment on the dynamics of a situation that doesn't exist and isn't analagous to Russia/Ukraine.
My broader point here is that Russia can't bully another country into what economic, security, or political treaties it chooses to sign on behalf of its own citizens and interests. The Soviet Union is dead and Russia's best chance at greatness is to shift from a nationalist agenda aimed at reinventing the Soviet sphere to reforming politically and socially, giving its citizens more rights, and reducing corruption so that its politicians don't feel the need to cover their shortcomings by fanning the flames of nationalism to mask the real reforms that need to take place within Russian society.
That's a mental analogy. Ukraine has pretty good reasons for wanting to get closer to the EU.
Im just trying to get people to get some perspecive on why Russia would see it as a provocation.
As I said earlier, the NATO has Ukraine exactly where they want them. There is no need to let them join, as it would only serve as an escalation of the situation.
I agree that it would be a good idea if Ukraine doesn't join at this time if it helps to deescalate the situation. But as a matter of principle, i don't think its a good idea to dictate to them that they can't join because it may anger Russia. Russia should sort itself out with internal reforms and not worry about Ukraine. In fact, if Russia cooled its jets, it would have a calming effect on its neighbors pondering NATO membership.
No arguments there. Unfortunately, some times principles have to give way to the more pragmatic solution.
Joining NATO and the EU would be pragmatic for Ukraines economy.
Its not pragmatic to do whats best for one country when the possible ramifications for co-operation and economy in Europe and the world as a whole are potentially large and negative.
What's the international implications then?
Russia isn't going to turn the oil tap off, that would take its economy to even darker pits. There'll be a little bit of grunting.
Russia isn't going to turn the oil tap off, that would take its economy to even darker pits. There'll be a little bit of grunting.
So you are willing to let Ukraine join NATO, something that is completely unnecessary considering they are exactly where NATO wants to have them (if push comes to show, Ukraine will let NATO come and help them, and will assist NATO because they want a good relationship with NATO), and gamble that Russia, probably the least predictable nation right now, doesnt turn off the gas?
Its ok if thats what you think should happen but its far from pragmatic.
Its ok if thats what you think should happen but its far from pragmatic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...worlds-post-crimea-power-blocs-mapped/359835/
http://www.trust.org/item/20140328214939-hi16s/?source=shtw
I guess the reason Iran didn't vote "no" is because they didn't show up at the vote.
For others, Putin used his KGB caseworker skills to try to exert some influence over countries.
I suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone
Exclusive: Russia threatened countries ahead of UN vote on Ukraine - envoys
Exclusive: Russia threatened countries ahead of UN vote on Ukraine - envoys
So Russians accused the West of the same thing earlier, neither accusation has been proven, but you pick and choose what to post. Well done.