Ukraine and Russia where will this go? AKA Ukraine VIII

[SkaggCannibal]

I suppose it's worthwhile to draw a distinction between uniformed armed services and a dictator's personal thug squad, just like it's worthwhile to draw a distinction between reclaiming territory that was seized by Russian shit-stirrers, and "using military force against its own people."

How was Yanukovych an actual dictator? He was even willing to write out an early elections. Maidan was (un)controlled by regular police forces, not a personal thug squad. It is a huge difference of using police to install order or using the army to do so. The latter usually ends up in more abuse and deaths.

[Suttree]

How was Yanukovych an actual dictator?

Please tell me this is some sort of joke. Or are you trying to be sly adding "actual".

[Doireidh]

I'm not claiming they are all GRU officers, just the leadership. As for the will of the people, it's a bit hard to know given that these 'self defence' forces express their opinions through attacking journalists and beating up Ukrainians that express a different opinion to their own. It certainly doesn't help that Russian media is spreading false information claiming that Russian speaking people are in mortal danger from those 'fascists' that are 'running' Kiev.

I found only this short compilation of reports on journalists being harassed and only in one of those cases was a journalist actually attacked.

On ethnic Ukrainians being in any way harassed, I couldn't find any reports.

Could you please link your sources?

[Serious Callers Only]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w2nGLiBzWZc

[The Iceman of the North]

I found only this short compilation of reports on journalists being harassed and only in one of those cases was a journalist actually attacked.

On ethnic Ukrainians being in any way harassed, I couldn't find any reports.

Could you please link your sources?

The link you provided had plenty of examples of journalists being harassed.

But I guess these Ukrainians are just strongly encouraged that joining Russia is for the best?

[Shryke]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/15/ukraine-military-forces-russia-live-blog

It is a sad day. Today the Ukrainian government has started to use militairy force against its own people. And the West will not condemn it.

Your link says that there have been no instances of that actually:

There were no reports of substantial armed clashes by Tuesday evening local time. Acting Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov said the military had "liberated" the Kramatorsk air field, but no opposition force was seen there, apart from unarmed locals who challenged troops outside in a nevertheless tense standoff.

Do you even read what you link or think about what you post?

Also, UN Human Rights office report predictably calls bullshit on everything Russia has said:

Ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine have falsely claimed to be under attack to justify Russian involvement, a report by the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday.

"Although there were some attacks against the ethnic Russian community, these were neither systematic nor widespread," said the report, which follows two visits to the country last month by Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic.

"Photographs of the Maidan protests, greatly exaggerated stories of harassment of ethnic Russians by Ukrainian nationalist extremists, and misinformed reports of them coming armed to persecute ethnic Russians in Crimea, were systematically used to create a climate of fear and insecurity that reflected on support to integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation."

The report, which analyses events up to April 2, called for an urgent effort to uphold the rule of law, respect human rights and end so-called "hate speech" - such as nationalistic rhetoric and advocacy of racial or religious hatred.

One right-wing group, the "Right Sector", which was involved in the Maidan protests in Kiev, had caused concerns for the Russian-speaking minority, it said.

There were numerous reports of Right Sector acts of violence against political opponents and representatives of the former ruling party, the report said. The group's alleged involvement in killings of law enforcement members should be investigated, it said.

But it said that according to all accounts heard by the U.N. delegation, fear of the Right Sector was disproportionate.

In Crimea, where a referendum on secession from Ukraine was held on March 16, there were "credible allegations" of harassment, arbitrary arrest and torture targeting activists and journalists who did not support the referendum.

It was "widely assessed" that Russian speakers had not been subject to threats, the report said.

Basically what you expected if you'd been paying attention.

[Shryke]

As noted above it was a warning to Ukraine and the West as to how far Russia was willing to go. They could have had the East by now if they wanted. No one can stop them.

All this talk of Russia attacking other nations and taking over countries willy nilly is cold war thinking. It's fantasy.

Except the times they've done it of course, as Scot listed. You are the only one talking fantasy here as you try to desperately ignore evidence to try and maintain some sort of silly "centrist" position because apparently calling a spade a spade is wrong in your mind.

Annexing another nations territory is not a warning by any stretch of the imagination. Neither is fomenting rebellion in another nation's territory. That's action, the next step after the warning where you do the thing you threatened you would do.

Russia didn't need to annex Crimea or stir up trouble in eastern Ukraine to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Nor do either of these actions serve that goal. Your position here is just not credible.

[Kungsmurfen]

Vice dispatch 25

[SkaggCannibal]

Please tell me this is some sort of joke. Or are you trying to be sly adding "actual".

Do you know what a dictator is? Even in mainstream media he wasn't named a dictator. Yes he had authoritarian tendencies, but that does not make one a dictator. I gues you consider Putin a dictator in need of an overthrow too?

Your link says that there have been no instances of that actually:

Do you even read what you link or think about what you post?

Also, UN Human Rights office report predictably calls bullshit on everything Russia has said:

Basically what you expected if you'd been paying attention.

Please if anyone doesn't know what he's talking about and isn't interested in knowing what is going on, it's you. As long as you can declare how bad anything Russian is, you don't care about facts.

Now if you had actually read the live-blog, you would've come across this:

A Ukrainian National News report quotes an unnamed source in the Defense Ministry, who says "Yes, there were casualties. There's a lot of information, but we're unable to share it at this time. … The operation hasn't finished. Information about its results will be explained later."

and this

The Guardian has reported two wounded, one with an alleged bullet graze, at the site.

and this

The general commanding the operation, Vasily Krutov, told angry locals outside the airfield gates that his troops needed to open fire because armed men had opposed them. But locals said the troops had fired on men armed only with clubs. The Guardian saw a man in the crowd with a wound on his side that he said was from a bullet graze.

Krutov was nearly dragged off by furious citizens after he came out to speak to hundreds of locals who had gathered. After he said troops were there conducting an "anti-terrorist" operation, people shouted, "What terrorists?!"

But that's not even the point, an intimidation of the people is also a use of force. When you take your tanks to the streets, that is already military force, even if you don't outirght kill someone. Ordering the army to restore order, is using military force against your people in itself. But hey here you have, actual casualties.

Lastly, maybe of you read the whole article instead of one alinea of a biased opinion at the top of the page, you could accuse me of talking without reading or thinking myself. Now I advise you to do that, as you clearly like to talk, much less think. I would very much like to have a decent discussion, but please leave the personalising out of it. And stop acting like you know, when you don't.

[Suttree]

Do you know what a dictator is? Even in mainstream media he wasn't named a dictator. Yes he had authoritarian tendencies, but that does not make one a dictator. I gues you consider Putin a dictator in need of an overthrow too?

Ah ok, you were merely being disingenuous(yet again) with your argument. Thanks for making that clear.

Edit: Also since you dodged this last time, want to take stab now?

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/106273-ukraine-and-russia-where-will-this-go-aka-ukraine-viii/?p=5583603

[Shryke]

Do you know what a dictator is? Even in mainstream media he wasn't named a dictator. Yes he had authoritarian tendencies, but that does not make one a dictator. I gues you consider Putin a dictator in need of an overthrow too?

Please if anyone doesn't know what he's talking about and isn't interested in knowing what is going on, it's you. As long as you can declare how bad anything Russian is, you don't care about facts.

Now if you had actually read the live-blog, you would've come across this:

and this

and this

But that's not even the point, an intimidation of the people is also a use of force. When you take your tanks to the streets, that is already military force, even if you don't outirght kill someone. Ordering the army to restore order, is using military force against your people in itself. But hey here you have, actual casualties.

Lastly, maybe of you read the whole article instead of one alinea of a biased opinion at the top of the page, you could accuse me of talking without reading or thinking myself. Now I advise you to do that, as you clearly like to talk, much less think. I would very much like to have a decent discussion, but please leave the personalising out of it. And stop acting like you know, when you don't.

Uh, it's not a biased opinion, it's the articles summary of itself.

And if you, again, actually read your article, you'd see that all the more recent stuff states there is no confirmed evidence of any of this shit you are on about:

From 4:15pm

Reuters' latest overview of the Ukrainian deployment takes care to point out that despite the increasing Ukrainian military presence, there has been little evidence or indication Tuesday of actual clashes in the east.

The summary, again, which is stated to still be current as of literally less then 5 minutes ago (5:48)pm:

There were no confirmed reports of substantial armed clashes by Tuesday evening local time. Acting Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov said the military had "liberated" the Kramatorsk air field, but no opposition force was seen by reporters there, apart from unarmed locals who challenged troops outside in a nevertheless tense standoff.

Secondly, the use of force to end rebellion and insurrection is well within the powers of the state and is, in fact, one of their duties. Putting down armed rebellion is what the government is supposed to do. Armed paramilitary groups taking control of local government offices is exactly when you send in some sort of armed units to take those instillations back.

The issue here is that I actually care about facts and all you care about is pushing your narrative, even to the point of ignoring what your own links supplied as evidence say.

[Doireidh]

The link you provided had plenty of examples of journalists being harassed.

But I guess these Ukrainians are just strongly encouraged that joining Russia is for the best?

Fml, the site crashed when I clicked "Post" and I lost everything I typed... I don't feel like typing all of that again so I'll go with TL;DR version. Some things may remain unclear so point them out or PM me about them if they need further clarification.

The link I provided had 1 report of a journalist being attacked, 2 reports of news stations being "harassed", one report of journalists being denied access to a city, and one report of Ukrainian journalists not being allowed to go into Russia and photograph the Russian military (afaik no one anywhere is allowed to photograph the military even in peaceful times, so I don't know why is this even there).

Also, there was a report of Russian journalists not being allowed to enter Ukraine at all.

All of those reports suffer from severe lack of information (For example the report on that attack on a journalist only showed this picture and said that he tweeted about it. No link to his twitter was given, and I couldn't find it myself) and even if they are all completely true they still don't show that anyone is attacking the journalists.

About the clashes between pro-russian and pro-ukrainian protesters, they weren't one-sided. By that logic, Russians are being harassed too.

[Shryke]

Fml, the site crashed when I clicked "Post" and I lost everything I typed... I don't feel like typing all of that again so I'll go with TL;DR version. Some things may remain unclear so point them out or PM me about them if they need further clarification.

The link I provided had 1 report of a journalist being attacked, 2 reports of news stations being "harassed", one report of journalists being denied access to a city, and one report of Ukrainian journalists not being allowed to go into Russia and photograph the Russian military (afaik no one anywhere is allowed to photograph the military even in peaceful times, so I don't know why is this even there).

Also, there was a report of Russian journalists not being allowed to enter Ukraine at all.

All of those reports suffer from severe lack of information (For example the report on that attack on a journalist only showed this picture and said that he tweeted about it. No link to his twitter was given, and I couldn't find it myself) and even if they are all completely true they still don't show that anyone is attacking the journalists.

About the clashes between pro-russian and pro-ukrainian protesters, they weren't one-sided. By that logic, Russians are being harassed too.

The link above from the UN human rights office talks about more incidents in the report they put together.

[Horza]

Right now, the only claims of casualties at Kramatorsk are coming from Russian media and officials. Journalists on the ground haven't found anything to back that up.

[Disturber of Peace]

"Dictator" is such a nasty word.

Whatever happened to the g'old "Consul for life"?

[SkaggCannibal]

Ah ok, you were merely being disingenuous(yet again) with your argument. Thanks for making that clear.

Edit: Also since you dodged this last time, want to take stab now?

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/106273-ukraine-and-russia-where-will-this-go-aka-ukraine-viii/?p=5583603

As if you answer any of my questions... Now if you are really interested in South-Ossetia, just look it up and don't ask me to do that for you.

Uh, it's not a biased opinion, it's the articles summary of itself.

And if you, again, actually read your article, you'd see that all the more recent stuff states there is no confirmed evidence of any of this shit you are on about:

From 4:15pm

The summary, again, which is stated to still be current as of literally less then 5 minutes ago (5:48)pm:

Secondly, the use of force to end rebellion and insurrection is well within the powers of the state and is, in fact, one of their duties. Putting down armed rebellion is what the government is supposed to do. Armed paramilitary groups taking control of local government offices is exactly when you send in some sort of armed units to take those instillations back.

The issue here is that I actually care about facts and all you care about is pushing your narrative, even to the point of ignoring what your own links supplied as evidence say.

You read the summary, just proves how thorough you were and how you inform yourself in general. As of your defence of using the army against protestors, it is just wrong. You have the police for that, and if you cannot agree on that, we just can't have a decent discussion.

[Suttree]

As if you answer any of my questions... Now if you are really interested in South-Ossetia, just look it up and don't ask me to do that for you.

It clearly shows you didn't have a clue as to what you were on about. As long as that doesn't bother you don't look it up I guess. *shrug*

You've mad it quite clear you have no intention of debating in good faith. Every time you're shown to be wrong you either disappear or move the goal posts. Why even participate if that's the case?

[SkaggCannibal]

It clearly shows you didn't have a clue as to what you were on about. As long as that doesn't bother you don't look it up I guess. *shrug*

You've mad it quite clear you have no intention of debating in good faith. Every time you're shown to be wrong you either disappear or move the goal posts. Why even participate if that's the case?

I'm not going to assume south-ossetia=crimea, because it just isn't. Differences are too big. If you have anything else to say on the matter, just write it out instead of asking meaningless questions. I have not been shown wrong on Crimea, because there is no way to predict how that area will look like in a few years (better, worse?), there are too much variables. Now please tell me why you consider Yanukovych a dictator, because just saying I'm wrong (disingenuous?) doesn't really proof that. I seriously do not consider Yanukovych a former dictator, so I'm surely not being disingenuous.

[Shryke]

You read the summary, just proves how thorough you were and how you inform yourself in general.

Yes, it proves I actually pay attention to my news sources and thus, when a news organization sums up it's live-blogging, I pay attention because the summary will take into account when earlier reports are discounted or left unconfirmed or circumstances change to make them pointless or a whole host of other things. That is, after all, why they do a summary. That's what it's for.

It proves that unlike you, I know how to read a news source.

As of your defence of using the army against protestors, it is just wrong. You have the police for that, and if you cannot agree on that, we just can't have a decent discussion.

Well, no, we can't have a decent discussion because your responses are ridiculous and have no connection to reality or even the reports you link to.

None of which changes that the governments job is to put down armed insurrections and when it becomes too much for local police forces, as it did here, they can and should call in more powerful assets to restore order. And that's what this is, an armed insurrection/rebellion. Not protests.

That they should also do this putting down as carefully as possible, with a respect for human and political rights and with the minimum number of casulaties is both obvious and utterly disconnected from what force they use to do it. History has amply demonstrated that the police are just as capable of oppression and murder as the army. Your focus on the type of force used is either based in ignorance, poor reasoning or an attempt to continue to support the fictional narrative that the Ukrainian government is oppressing people in order to justify whatever political position you hold.

If the Ukrainian forces deployed in eastern Ukraine start shooting a ton of unarmed people or something, then they'll be doing it wrong. But that doesn't mean the nature of the force deployed is what's wrong, it would be their actions that were wrong. But there's no evidence that they are doing so at this point, so we don't even need to talk about that.

[Suttree]

I'm not going to assume south-ossetia=crimea, because it just isn't. Differences are too big. If you have anything else to say on the matter, just write it out instead of asking meaningless questions.

Seemingly much like your news sources, you don't read what has already been posted in thread. The economic issues unique to Crimea have already been detailed and discussed. You are right about one thing however, there are major differences. Crimea will be more difficult to prop up and will be a larger hit to Russia's economy. It doesn't matter what side you fall on in regards to Russia's actions, that is something most people agree on. But by all means though, show us how economists are wrong on the topic.

As for the rest, I refuse to engage when you act purposely obtuse. You know damn well what was meant by the "dictator" post and you've been playing with words to avoid addressing the topic.