Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Singha »

I have posted an update on the kerch situation in the international military thread.

about half of ukraine's coastline is behind that bridge and dozens of ships are now blocked at both ends of the straits.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Philip »

The Russians and Ukranians had equal rights to access the Sea of Azov.After the return of the Crimea to Russia- by an overwhelming referendum in favour of the same and Putin building the majestic Kerch bridge in an incredible 2+ yrs time only, the Crimea was linked directly to Russia after centuries. The earlier bridge built during the times of the Czars, collapsed shortly after it was opened.

All that Russia wanted from the UKR was info. when its ships transited the bridge for security purposes.A terrorist vessel stocked with explosives could destroy key parts of the bridge's supports in a suicide mission.Egged on by the West, and with Poroshenko's rapidly declining popularity threatening his weak grip on power, and with elections due shortly , the UKR asininely and arrogantly tried to enter the straits without prior info./ permission and their boats anx crew were humiliatingly captured by minor Ru naval and special forces!

The UKR has now played into Russia's hands.It can now throttle Mariupol and other UKR ports in the region and render them impotent in the future by preventing any UKR shipping of any kind accessing these ports vital for logistic supplies to UKR territory under its control in the east south of rebel- held territory.The eventual outcome? The capitulation of the UKR east and the entire Sea of Azov becoming sovereign Ru territory. Putin's approval ratings just got a bonus boost thanks to Poro's arrogance and imbecilic act of aggression!
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

I am trying to figure out why Comrade Putin is so gung-ho when meeting Bin Salman. There was something very special there, like "we did it, comrade!"
Did what? Also, given the net result, that "incident" was no accident or coincidence. Who ordered the tanker to block the strait so conveniently?
I see that UKR has now banned entry of the Balaclava Boyz from Russia into Ukraine (ages 15 to 60!!) . Will Putin now send 100,000 Ludmilas and Natashas with bottle of vodka I wonder.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Deans »

UlanBatori wrote:I am trying to figure out why Comrade Putin is so gung-ho when meeting Bin Salman. There was something very special there, like "we did it, comrade!" .
Russia and Saudi each produce around 10.5 million barrels of oil / day.
They have probably just agreed to cut production (to around 10 MBD) which will increase oil prices by $10, to $ 60.
$ 10 per barrel for over 3 Billion barrels exported by each country is a US$ 30+ billion gain to each country.

At the same time, $ 60 is enough for Trump to claim his intervention reduced prices from a peak of $ 86 this year and low enough for US shale
production (under a lot of financial stress) to be uneconomical.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Singha »

i think history will judge the shale oil boom as a ecological devastation that will take 100s of years to recover from.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by ramana »

UB, Oil will go down to $45.
Bear picture with MBS is a geopolitical move after the Kashhogi mess.

I hear truce in Sea of Azov.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by ramana »

UlanBatori wrote:Sea of Azov has been shut off by Russian Navy: Tanker across the Kerch Bridge. Mariupol cut off from Naval access. Winter must be at hand there: Just enough time for a quick takeover from land side?

Bridge seems pretty low-clearance for such a chokepoint: Can even a destroyer go through without leaving the Captain's Chocolate Machine on the road bridge?

I hear Sea of Azov is calm now.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

Oil will go down to $45.
By the grace of ATM! This may save the Indian rupee a little bit. I consider this the LAST chance for NaMo GOI to move towards energy self-reliance, and cut back on rampant use of imported oil. The economics of Peak Oil will kick in, shale or no shale.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

Breaking news: Ukraine asks NATO help as it "prepares for war with Russia". :eek: :shock:

I thought they kicked the Georgian turkey out? Has his folly infected the UkBapzi netas? If Putin is cavorting with G-20 they can't be taking this very seriously, I mean what leader goes wandering around phoren jaunts when their country is going to war?
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Singha »

hysterics to pull in nato into a fight, and then a base near odessa.

its the same meme as TSP begging for US/Saudi intervention in cashmere.

ukrainian navy flagship is a solitary old krivak-III FFG. rest are more like FACs and gunboats that too in small number. in a 1:1 fight the russians will sink their navy and blocade their entire coast in a day or two. in addition russia has placed missile batteries into the crimea island which straddles the ukraine coast in the middle.

its a more even contest on land where ukraine does have better resources. but their staying power is minimal vs a serious russian push.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by ramana »

DT is not planning on leaving Af-Pak to deploy in Ukraine.
GD, Hopefully no more push comes from Putin.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

I think the whole thing has the fragrance of a Putin chess gambit. Absolute precision with level of provocation tuned with expertise. Nothing is going to happen until deeper winter. The denial of port access (OK, they say "partially" unblocked now) seems a ploy to cut fuel oil deliveries or at least drive up the price of fuel in UkBapZistan. Also to convey that the act can be repeated at any time. A few months of fuel starvation would set the stage for a balaclava boyz action, starting with blowing up fuel dumps. Then they will find that all roads from and to Mariupol are suddenly impassable.

Mariupol is unfinished business from a couple of years ago. Only question was when. Looks like Putin was waiting for the Syrian tamasha to end.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Singha »

sections of civilians in places like mariupol have close relatives in the donetsk and luhansk peoples republics and are not averse to russian rule so long as they get roti kapra makaan and jobs going.

the kiev elites are dancing to a different drummer though.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

Finally! A nation where democracy has really taken root. Ukraine elects a Comedian
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience who plays the country’s president on a TV show, has won Ukraine’s presidential election in a landslide, according to a national exit poll. The poll showed Zelenskiy receiving 73 percent of the vote, sweeping away Ukraine’s incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, who conceded defeat.
At a campaign party in a bar in Kiev, packed with hundreds of journalists, Zelenskiy declared victory. As the exit poll’s results were announced, confetti was shot into the air and Zelenskiy thanked his campaign volunteers, saying they had “protected Ukraine.” Poroshenko announced he was conceding shortly afterwards.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by A_Gupta »

Rather than voting to return a dull oligarch to the presidency, the Ukrainian people handed power to a pro-European Russophone Jewish populist.
In the past few years, nearly every European nation has witnessed a surge of anti-Semitism. Ukraine, still home to at least 50,000 Jews, is the miraculous exception to this trend. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that only 5 percent of Ukrainians reject Jews as their fellow citizens—the lowest number among the countries surveyed in the region. Although vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries persists—and the country has a weakness for venerating 20th-century heroes who instigated pogroms—there hasn’t been a single anti-Semetic assault reported in the country since August 2016. (If only New York City could say the same.) A researcher named Vyacheslav Likhachev told me that surveys show that Ukrainian parents would be pleased if their daughters married Jewish men, because Jews are identified with devotion to family.


The Russian invasion of Ukraine cemented this new philo-Semitism. The Kremlin’s tactics didn’t consist just of storm troopers and militias. Propaganda depicted Ukrainians as neo-Nazis. “There was a steady drumbeat from Russia that a fascist junta was taking over,” according to Sam Sokol, the author of Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews. In the face of this slander, Ukrainians self-consciously set out to debunk the charge. “Anti-Semitism dropped sharply after the Russian invasion,” Likhachev told me. Ultra-nationalist political parties, which the Russians portrayed as dominant, performed terribly in the subsequent elections.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... nt/602905/
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by nachiket »

There were plenty of pictures and news items about neo-nazis taking part in the Euromaidan protests. Is Sam Sokol claiming that all of it was just Russian propaganda?
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by UlanBatori »

The trouble is that in modern America there is no more something called "fact". Or Logic. Only "Russian Propaganda" and "Fake Neuj". Thinking for oneself icht verboten. One has a Google Nest Mini to do the "thinking".
Hey Google! Who won the Ulan Bator Municipal Election?
"Ask me something like "What is the time?"
:roll:
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Rony »

Fierce fighting flares in Donbas, Ukraine reportedly loses positions
Russian-backed militants attacked Ukrainian military formations near the front-line town of Zolote in Luhansk Oblast, some 600 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, the Ukrainian military reported early on Feb. 18.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by chanakyaa »

Another color revolution on Russ's border was started recently after Luka's election win and got nipped in the bud after a deal with Russ. Although, there are usual culprits involved in this color revolution, interestingly, Russ may have played its part in turning the table in its favor. Please read the entire story. I found it interesting vis-a-vis India's neighbors (esp. Nepal, Lanka) often leaning against India by aligning with others, primarily China.

Belarus - This Color Revolution Is Already Dead. The Union State Has Killed It.
The color revolution attempt in Belarus, which we predicted in June, evolved over the last week. But today's events tell us that it will soon be over.

While President Alexander Lukashenko claimed to have won 80% of the votes during last Sunday's election, the 'western' candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya claimed that she had won. (While the 80% is certainly too high it is most likely that Lukashenko was the real winner.) Protests and riots ensued. On Tuesday Tikhanovskaya was told in no uncertain terms to leave the country. She ended up in Lithuania.

During the week several nightly riots were shut down by the police. Several protester were 'roughed up'. Videos of those incidents were used by the usual 'western journalists' as example of unusual police brutality. It is as if none of those empire serving scribes ever watched how 'western' police react when bottles and fireworks are thrown at them....(more)
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Jarita »

Ukraine has deep significance to the Jewish groups. It is a long standing settlement and also has some recent pilgrimage sites (18th/19th century rabbis). Do study the annual trips to Uman.
If things continue this way, it has the potential of becoming the next Israel. Israelis and the orthodox Jewish communities have made significant investments in the country. Today both the president and prime minister are Jewish.
Watch this part of Europe for the play between the desert brothers.

https://ukrainianjewishencounter.org/en ... n-ukraine/
Today, after three years of volunteering, Ukraine for me is first of all people with whom we actively communicate, mutually help one another, and support. These are people who seek to change the present and the future.

I believe that Ukraine will be able to move onto the European path of development. I always hear about new initiatives, projects, and startups. We are creating an influential “lobby” for Israel in Ukraine, an international community of citizen diplomats from both parties, and we advance Israel in Ukraine as a strategic partner and friend.

I am glad that civil society has appeared in Ukraine! People take the initiative. But I don’t like the old system, which is stubbornly holding on. I am disturbed by the policy of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. I see the important purpose of educational seminars in the study of joint history, so that Ukrainians can begin to ask questions about who are their heroes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uman
Every Rosh Hashana, there is a major pilgrimage by tens of thousands of Hasidim and others from around the world to the burial site of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, located on the former site of the Jewish cemetery in a rebuilt synagogue.[9] Rebbe Nachman Me'Uman spent the last five months of his life in Uman,[10] and specifically requested to be buried there. As believed by the Breslov Hasidim, before his death he solemnly promised to intercede on behalf of anyone who would come to pray on his grave on Rosh Hashana, "be he the worst of sinners"; thus, a pilgrimage to this grave provides the best chance of getting unscathed through the stern judgement which, according to Jewish faith, Hashem passes on everybody on Yom Kippur.[11]

The Rosh Hashana pilgrimage dates back to 1811, when the Rebbe's foremost disciple, Nathan of Breslov, organized the first such pilgrimage on the Rosh Hashana after the Rebbe's death. The annual pilgrimage attracted hundreds of Hasidim from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 sealed the border between Russia and Poland. A handful of Soviet Hasidim continued to make the pilgrimage clandestinely; some were discovered by the KGB and exiled to Siberia, where they died.[citation needed] The pilgrimage ceased during World War II and resumed on a drastically smaller scale in 1948. From the 1960s until the fall of Communism in 1989, several hundred American and Israeli Hasidim made their way to Uman, both legally and illegally, to pray at the grave of Rebbe Nachman. In 1988, the Soviets allowed 250 men to visit the Rebbe's grave for Rosh Hashana; the following year, over 1,000 Hasidim gathered in Uman for Rosh Hashana 1989. In 1990, 2,000 Hasidim attended.[8][12] In 2008, attendance reached 25,000 men and boys.[13] In 2018, over 30,000 Jews made the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman.[14]

Today Israeli Hasidim from many sectors of Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community, including many Mizrahi Jewish rabbis, make the pilgrimage. The event brings together a wide variety of Orthodox society, from Yemenite yeshiva students, to former Israeli prison inmates, and American hippies.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... in_Ukraine
The history of the Jews in Ukraine goes back over a thousand years. Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus' (late 9th to mid-13th century)[9][10] and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions such as Hasidism.[citation needed] According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitute the third-largest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth-largest in the world.[3]
Persons of Jewish origin were over-represented in the Russian revolutionaries leadership. However, most of them were hostile to traditional Jewish culture and Jewish political parties, and were loyal to the Communist Party's atheism and proletarian internationalism, and committed to stamping out any sign of "Jewish cultural particularism".
Counter-revolutionary groups, including the Black Hundreds, opposed the Revolution with violent attacks on socialists and pogroms against Jews. There was also a backlash from the conservative elements of society, notably in spasmodic anti-Jewish attacks – around five hundred were killed in a single day in Odessa. Nicholas II of Russia himself claimed that 90% of revolutionaries were Jews.
https://ukrainer.net/the-jews-of-ukraine/

This one is a fantastic write up.
The 1926 census showed that more than 1.5 million Jews were living in Ukraine at that time.
Chernivtsi is a very Jewish city. There were up to 70 percent of the Jewish population before the war. Well, I didn’t live then, before the war, but in the 50’s I remember, half of the city was Jewish. It was one of the most Jewish cities in Ukraine. So the atmosphere, the environment has also come to light later.

For his activity and active anti-Soviet stance, Zisel’s was twice sentenced to imprisonment. After spending more than 10 years in Soviet prisons, after the collapse of the USSR, Joseph began to actively build up a Jewish community in Ukraine
I identify myself with Ukraine. The form of my identity is Ukrainian, but my inner side is Jewish. I will never become a real Ukrainian. And it is not necessary. But I think I have become a Ukrainian Jew.
The Arc of History Bends From Ukraine to Israel and Back Again
In Kyiv, the first meeting between the two world leaders of Jewish descent was short on accomplishments but big on symbolism.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news ... back-again
It is a remarkable time in Eastern European history. A month after the unprecedented Zelensky landslide election that ousted the old Ukrainian political elite, Latvia, another post-Soviet state with a complex relationship to Russia, elected Egil Levits another president of Jewish descent. And here was Netanyahu, leader of the Jewish state, traveling back to the Eastern European ‘old world,’ where the Jews in their wandering centuries had dreamed of Jerusalem, and then willed that dream into the political struggle that created the state of Israel. It was one thing for the Israeli prime minister to be in Ukraine, the heartland of the Pale of Settlement where modern Zionism began as well as being the site of the “Holocaust by bullets,” but he was there to meet with, of all things, a fellow Jew, one of two elected in the past year as leader of a former Soviet state.
[/quote]
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Jarita »

Dup
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Jarita »

Dup
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Rony »

Looks like something is cooking again in Donbass.

Russia warns new Donbass conflict could 'destroy' Ukraine, NATO rebukes Moscow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn3Uy6VHhhE

Biden calls Ukraine's leader, pledges "unwavering support" in the face of Russian "aggression"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-ru ... ggression/
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

Moving from another ukraine thread that seems defunct

https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/13 ... 8265661441
Many videos appear on the internet, showing Russian trains and military convoys in Crimea and at the Ukrainian border — yes, again.

We have mapped the alleged locations, which are mostly in Crimea and Russia's Rostov and Krasnodar regions.
https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/13 ... 8265661441
Kremlin has been warning Ukraine against a military solution and putting the blame for the recent conflict thawing on Kyiv.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65254

It is hard to believe Ukraine would seek a military solution, despite persistent rumors from separatist "republics"
Russia expecting Ukraine with support from the US raise the heat in Crimea/sebastopol -- troop movements from both sides. If Russia loses Crimea/Sebastopol, it will be a diminished landlocked country during winter months (ignoring the melting arctic ice caps).
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

I don't like to quote wikipedia but the information here is mostly right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbass.
In March 2014, following the Euromaidan and 2014 Ukrainian revolution, large swaths of the Donbass became gripped by unrest. This unrest later grew into a war between pro-Russian separatists affiliated with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (neither of which are recognized as legitimate by any of the UN member states[11]), and the post-revolutionary Ukrainian government. Until the ongoing war, the Donbass was the most densely populated of all the regions of Ukraine apart from the capital city of Kyiv.[citation needed]
Ukraine purple revolution in 2014 -- all color coordinated with free vodka thrown in , and 5 years later, voila, we have "Donetsk People's Republic, and Luhansk and Alchevsk in the Luhansk People's Republic."

This is the same devious "revolutionary" shyte that is going down in Myanmar, and if left unchecked will result in "Karin Republic and Kachin Republic that are friendly to western interests.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 2867664899

Instructive thread on the motivation of this conflict -- all the tanks seen heading east are to the Ukrainian rebels, so Ukraine will have to fight on two fronts.

Looks like these newly-minted Ukrainian "Republics" have cut off water supply to Crimea, so the whole exercise by western powers it to take Crimea out of Russia's hands. Odds are Russia will do what is necessary to get water flowing to Crimea and no more -- just like they stopped after taking over crimea in 2014. NATO was dead during Trump's time but looks like Biden and co have started where they left off in 2016.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Atmavik »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMQS6_ms6E

russian mobilization. i dont see any Armatas??
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Pratyush »

Atmavik wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMQS6_ms6E

russian mobilization. i dont see any Armatas??
How many have been built??
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Atmavik »

^^^ Commisar Phillipov would know
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

Russia has made it clear that NATO should stop pushing further east, but NATO has no intention of that, which falls in line with their aggressive belligerence, as seen in Lakshwadeep yesterday. Empire building is no easy thing, clearly, Xiden should know.

Denying the only Russian warm water port to the west (outside of murmansk) is not something Russia is liable to take lightly -- that is an open attack on Russian ability to project naval power westward. Should be interesting. Cut off crimea, and NATO (US) has an open hand in Syria and surrounding areas, without Russian interference.
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by dnivas »

Pablo Escobar on this issue
https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/ukraine-r ... lineistan/
The decree establishes that retaking Crimea from Russia is now Kiev’s official policy. That’s exactly what prompted an array of Ukrainian battle tanks to be shipped east on flatbed rail cars, following the saturation of the Ukrainian army by the US with military equipment including unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems, anti-tank systems and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

More crucially, the Zelensky decree is the proof any subsequent war will have been prompted by Kiev, debunking the proverbial claims of “Russian aggression.” Crimea, since the referendum of March 2014, is part of the Russian Federation.....
.....
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by dnivas »

Linked from Above article. Pertinent to note the US conundrum

https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/0 ... ssues.html
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

crossposted from ukraine 2019:
g.sarkar wrote:https://news.yahoo.com/russia-warns-u-w ... 54371.html
Reuters
Russia calls U.S. an adversary, warns its warships to avoid Crimea
Andrew Osborn and Alexander Marrow, April 13, 2021

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday called the United States an adversary and told U.S. warships to stay well away from Crimea "for their own good", calling their deployment in the Black Sea a provocation designed to test Russian nerves.
Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and two U.S. warships are due to arrive in the Black Sea this week amid an escalation in fighting in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have battled Russian-backed separatists in a conflict Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people.
"The United States is our adversary and does everything it can to undermine Russia's position on the world stage," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies. "We do not see any other elements in their approach. Those are our conclusions," the agencies quoted him as saying. The comment suggests that the veneer of diplomatic niceties that the former Cold War enemies have generally sought to observe in recent decades is wearing thin.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in March that he thought his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was a killer who would "pay a price" for alleged meddling in U.S. elections - an accusation that Moscow denies.
Ryabkov's remarks suggest Russia will in turn robustly push back against what it sees as unacceptable U.S. interference in its own backyard.
"We warn the United States that it will be better for them to stay far away from Crimea and our Black Sea coast. It will be for their own good," said Ryabkov.
.....
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Philip »

Is the US retreat in indecent haste from Afg. even before a peace agreement has been reached,dumping the Kabul regime into dustbin,have something to do with Ru. and the UKR?
It is not beyond the realm of fantasy to see the US getting involved in the Black Sea both on the ground and in the waters against Russia. Warships have been sent there,heavy transports are making shuttle runs to the UKR packed with weaponry allegedly and action in the Black Sea and the Crimea to bottle up Putin's forces reducing or severing the Russian logistic chain to Syria cannot be ruled out. The Yanquis wish to rewrite history hoping that the last Crimean war where they were allied with the Ottomans will be repeated.

But beware Yanquis! Look to history to see what happened the last time a western fleet and army dared to attack mother Russia in the Crimea and the historic imbecility of the Light Brigade who charged at the wrong target! But all it needs for history to repeat itself is another geriatric Yanqui leader like bumbling Biden to be humbled at Balaclava! Still later on remember well Yanqui admirals the debacle at Galipolli where the kangaroos from Oz lost 5000 men. Is history going to repeat itself this time as farce?
Any wagers?
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Rudradev »

Philip wrote:Is the US retreat in indecent haste from Afg. even before a peace agreement has been reached,dumping the Kabul regime into dustbin,have something to do with Ru. and the UKR?
It is not beyond the realm of fantasy to see the US getting involved in the Black Sea both on the ground and in the waters against Russia. Warships have been sent there,heavy transports are making shuttle runs to the UKR packed with weaponry allegedly and action in the Black Sea and the Crimea to bottle up Putin's forces reducing or severing the Russian logistic chain to Syria cannot be ruled out. The Yanquis wish to rewrite history hoping that the last Crimean war where they were allied with the Ottomans will be repeated.

But beware Yanquis! Look to history to see what happened the last time a western fleet and army dared to attack mother Russia in the Crimea and the historic imbecility of the Light Brigade who charged at the wrong target! But all it needs for history to repeat itself is another geriatric Yanqui leader like bumbling Biden to be humbled at Balaclava! Still later on remember well Yanqui admirals the debacle at Galipolli where the kangaroos from Oz lost 5000 men. Is history going to repeat itself this time as farce?
Any wagers?

Really doubt it. Biden, like Obama will probably prefer to "lead from behind"... letting the Kiev Banderistas man the front lines instead.

They will surely remove all restrictions on storage & deployment of Javelins & other systems the US previously sent Kiev, and also provide ample ELINT/SIGINT, cyber warfare, and satellite-int support.

They may provide extensive drone warfare support using the Turkish intervention at Nagorno-Karabakh (which was very successful against Armenia's Russian-supplied ADS) as a model.

At the very most they may move CBGs threateningly around the Black Sea. I doubt they would even dare lob a few Tomahawks from SSGNs therein, however badly they might want to.

The objective is to show that Russia's small neighbours can successfully bait the bear on his own turf with standoff US support. By extension they want to send a message to China, India, EU & others that Russia is not as valuable a defence partner as they might think.

Essentially they want to undo the impression of successful power projection that Russia achieved with its Syria deployment. But I don't think they have the stomach to spill American blood in this endeavour.
srikandan
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by srikandan »

Rudradev: Really doubt it. Biden, like Obama will probably prefer to "lead from behind"... letting the Kiev Banderistas man the front lines instead.
I wager you are correct about this -- there is no stomach for american casualities politically, so they will fight the russians until the last ukrainian.

Ukraine seems to be corrupted to the point where they actually gave up free russian oil in winters for nothing at all, well, they did get shaakashvili, the Georgian as their president in return.

The objective is to show that Russia's small neighbours can successfully bait the bear on his own turf with standoff US support. By extension they want to send a message to China, India, EU & others that Russia is not as valuable a defence partner as they might think.
Russia needs to spend a lot less effort to project power in Crimea and the region than the US, and Ukraine's ragtag army may not be a match to Russian troops and Gear. Those movies on youtube with long convoys of tanks and artillery on the way to Donbass suggest Russia has already started war plans and have them in place.
Rudradev
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Rudradev »

Interesting discussion here. Apart from Melinda Haring (a full-two Shrillary clone with an obvious agenda to undermine Russia) the other three on the panel are quite balanced.

Philip
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Philip »

Perhaps wiser heads have prevailed. The US has withdrawn its plan to send 2 DDGs into the Black Sea at this moment as it would escalate tensions with Russia,already anything but calm. The latest expulsion of Ru diplomats and further sanctions against Ru
has come in for scathing criticism and condemnation from Kremlin spokesmen. The presence of 2 USN DDGs supposedly going to the rescue of the UKR could've tipped the scales and seen Russia put part of its warplans into action against the UKR.

Secondly, it isn't the wisest act,sending in 2 warships when other than Turkey, a reluctant Ottoman Nato ally, there are no heavyweight pro- US military forces that can take on Russia in its southern backyard of the Black Sea. Both naval,surface, sub-surface and land based air forces of the Russians would very easily send the 2 DDGs to Davidov Ivan's locker! In fact a Buyan class small corvette in the Caspian Sea could do the business with its Kalibir missiles! Remember how the 2 RN warships the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse lacking air cover were sunk in WW2 off the Malayan coast by Japanese aircraft?
That fact of history probably weighed heavily in the saner minds of the USN and Pentagon. After all who needs to lose both face and force over the UKR,thousands of miles away from the US, the UKR after all isn't Cuba!

Ramping up tensions enough for arms deals to go through benefiting a " Hunter's" interests, and keeping Putin engaged in the west while the Yanquis try and square the Chin circle in the east, is far safer than joining the Right Sector and Azov Batallion neo-Nazis in a mad charge raring to kill " commies".
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Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

Post by Aditya_V »

Have the Russians managed to integrate Yakont to their Su 30 SM, that would be a potent weapon rather than just relying on Tu95, Tu22, Tu160s to carry ASHMs for them.
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