Ukraine 14: Nipple beams and tiger fights for all!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

StepStark,

What is your primary source of news?

[StepStark]

StepStark,

What is your primary source of news?

Why does it matter? What I'm telling is either true or not. Feel free to contest anything I wrote using whatever source you choose and I'll try to reply accordingly.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

If it's RT news their status as a propaganda source for the Russian State puts your "facts" into question.

By the way you analogize Russian actions in Ukraine to US actions in Afganistan, who was Ukraine sheltering that attacked Russia?

[StepStark]

If it's RT news their status as a propaganda source for the Russian State puts your "facts" into question.

By the way you analogize Russian actions in Ukraine to US actions in Afganistan, who was Ukraine sheltering that attacked Russia?

And if it's not RT? Are "my" facts unquestionable then?

Actually I was using Afghanistan as an example of USA's readiness to use military force against a country that is recognized by US as a legitimate threat. And it's pretty obvious that "Right Sector" and "Svoboda" neo-Nazis from neighboring Ukraine can harm Russia and Russians way more than terrorists from Afghanistan can harm America and Americans.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

When have Sector Right or Svboda attacked Russia as Al-Queda attacked the US?

[Celestial]

Afghanistan is the perfect example of what I'm saying and you actually confirmed it, the fact that they were providing aid and shelter to Al-Qaeda was a good enough reason for USA to invade Afghanistan and it strongly indicates that the US reaction to the similar thing in Canada would be only more drastic.

It looks like you misunderstood those "But what about USA" comparisons you hate so much. It doesn't mean that something is automatically legal and legitimate for Russia to do if USA did it first, but that the Ukraine crisis has to be analyzed in the context. And the context is that one country, USA, and it's allies, continually break other nations sovereignty for decades now. Reasons for their actions are sometimes fabricated but even when they're not they're far less legitimate than Russia's concerns over Ukraine. Serbia, Libya and Iraq were in no way endangering USA. Even Afghanistan with it's support for Al-Qaeda was a far less a threat to USA than Ukraine's new regime is to Russians in Ukraine. But the most important thing is that because of USA's unprovoked attack on other countries nations like Russia aren't going to play it nicely any more. And why should they? If you're fighting against an opponent that keeps breaking the rules, why would you respect those rules any more? Between protecting your own interests and security, and protecting the rules that are already broken by other participants, of course one is going to choose the former.

What you're saying about "fundamental principle of international law" is illogical and proved meaningless in practice. For the attacked country it makes no difference if the reason is territory or resources or political submission. It is true that in modern times countries usually don't admit they're waging wars over territories, but in effect they are because once they defeat the attacked nation they go on and occupy it with their armies and impose laws and regimes and use any resource they want. One could say it's more practical that way for the occupiers, especially if they're attacking a country on the opposite side of the world. But in any case that "fundamental principle" you refer to didn't decrease the number of wars. On the contrary, more wars were fought in the last 70 years than ever before.

Cuba was a special case because in those days Soviet Union was a match to USA and USA couldn't do whatever the hell they want. But even then they didn't allow Cuba to harbor Soviet nuclear missiles, which means that USA had a say in the Cuban internal matters. What is important to remember is that USA installed it's weapons very close to Soviet Union in Turkey, but they were OK with it until Soviets did the same thing in Cuba.

Saddam was never Russia's friend. In fact he was an ally of USA during the eighties in the Iraq-Iran war (which was a territorial dispute by the way but it didn't prevent USA to help one side against the other).

About Kosovo you're so wrong it would take too much time and space to answer it. I'll just say that there was no repression against Albanians. Some among Albanians were rebelling against Serbia and there was some heavy fighting there, but there was no general repression. Serbia's response was not nearly as strong as let's say what American authorities responded with against the riots in Ferguson this last summer. And Rambouillet talks were just a farce that was organized only after initial plan for the attack on Serbia failed. NATO planed to attack Serbia in October of 1998 and everything was prepared for a sudden and swift operation that would catch Serbia by surprise but a Serbian spy gained the information through French military diplomat and informed Serbian government. Once informed Serbian army was prepared for the attack and when NATO saw that they aborted the plan and went on with political pressure that resulted in Rambouillet talks and subsequent bombing. The French guy was heavily sentenced because of that and the entire affair was quite a big deal back in the day.

After reading this, I have to say that the criticism against Scott for being too "harsh" was unfair. Ok, being nice and civil is cool, but when one part is basically impersonating Andrey Vyshinski, you have to call a spade a spade.

Afghanistan is the perfect example of what I'm saying and you actually confirmed it, the fact that they were providing aid and shelter to Al-Qaeda was a good enough reason for USA to invade Afghanistan and it strongly indicates that the US reaction to the similar thing in Canada would be only more drastic.

"pro-Al Qaeda" elements in the Canadian government (which was the original argument) and Canada "providing aid and shelter" to Al Qaeda are not the same thing.

At the moment, Ukraine has not provided "aid and shelter" to any organization engaged in active terrorist campaign against Russia. In whose fucking world some far-right idiots in the Kiev government, who have not done anything against Russia, equates with providing aid and shelter to an organization waging war against Russia?

It doesn't mean that something is automatically legal and legitimate for Russia to do if USA did it first, but that the Ukraine crisis has to be analyzed in the context. And the context is that one country, USA, and it's allies, continually break other nations sovereignty for decades now. Reasons for their actions are sometimes fabricated but even when they're not they're far less legitimate than Russia's concerns over Ukraine.

The bolded part is a bare-faced lie.

Serbia, Libya and Iraq were in no way endangering USA.

1. Ukraine is in no way endangering Russia.

2. At least for Serbia and Libya, nobody claimed they were endangering USA and that was not the reason invoked for war. The casus belli was made on humanitarian grounds - the same reason Russia invokes for its actions in Ukraine. The difference is that in Kosovo and Libya the humanitarian argument was real, while in Ukraine is not, as the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine was engineered by Russia. Thus, your statement that "they're far less legitimate than Russia's concerns over Ukraine" is a crock.

Russia's actions are akin to someone who set his neighbour's house on fire because he refused to pay protection money anymore, then started expressing concern for the safety of some of the mansion's inhabitants.

Even Afghanistan with it's support for Al-Qaeda was a far less a threat to USA than Ukraine's new regime is to Russians in Ukraine.

Hilarious stuff. A pathetically weak new government, with a pathetically weak army a "threat" for the Russians in Ukraine, when the latter have Putin guarding their back with his hand on the gas spigot and the Russian army at the border.

Listening to you lot one would think that Hitler, Goring and Goebbels just took power in Kiev, while Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf are massing at the border, ready to march on Moscow.

For the attacked country it makes no difference if the reason is territory or resources or political submission.

It makes one hell of a difference, because it means, once hostilities are over, that the attacking party is compelled to give back any territory it seized. In addition, it cannot alter the ethnic make up of seized territory. That's one fundamental protection which modern states enjoy in the post WW2 era.

Saddam was never Russia's friend. In fact he was an ally of USA during the eighties in the Iraq-Iran war (which was a territorial dispute by the way but it didn't prevent USA to help one side against the other).

Which is utterly false. He wasn't..

US and Iraq didn't even have diplomatic relations until 1984, while Soviet Union and Iraq had a treaty of friendship and cooperation signed in 1972. Their relationship cooled between 1980 and 1982 as a result of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but in 1982 Soviet Union resumed arms shipments to Iraq (which had stopped in 1980).

On the other hand, the most US did for Iraq was to provide it with some intelligence.

So, Soviet Union providing Saddam with thousands of tanks, guns and planes does not count as being "Russia's friend", but US giving Saddam some information apparently is a full-fledged alliance. Nice idea. Mr. Moscow Bob.

About Kosovo you're so wrong it would take too much time and space to answer it.

If Pravda... ahem, Russia Today says so...

I'll just say that there was no repression against Albanians. Some among Albanians were rebelling against Serbia and there was some heavy fighting there, but there was no general repression. Serbia's response was not nearly as strong as let's say what American authorities responded with against the riots in Ferguson this last summer.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/drwcasebook/files/the_kosovo_report_and_update.pdf

"The origins of the crisis have to be understood in terms of a new wave of nationalism that led to the rise of Milosevic and the official adoption of an extreme Serbian nationalist agenda. The revocation of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 was followed by a Belgrade policy aimed at changing the ethnic composition of Kosovo and creating an apartheid-like society".

"The Serbian response to the initial KLA attacks was, as expected, brutal and was also directed against civilians".

"The war quickly took a direction that surprised and shocked the world. The FRY military and paramilitary forces launched a vicious campaign against the Kosovar Albanian population. The FRY government maintained

throughout the conflict that it was only conducting military activities against the KLA, and blamed all human rights violations, especially the forced displacement of Kosovar Albanians, on NATO and the KLA. However, virtually every other international, governmental and non-governmental organization that has studied the facts has reached the opposite conclusion. There is widespread agreement that FRY forces were engaged in a wellplanned campaign of terror and expulsion of the Kosovar Albanians. This campaign is most frequently described as one of “ethnic cleansing,” intended to drive many, if not all, Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo, destroy the foundations of their society, and prevent them from returning".

Also: "On 23 September 1998 acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199. This expressed 'grave concern' at reports reaching the Secretary General that over 230,000 people had been displaced from their homes by 'the excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav Army',^[98] demanding that all parties in Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) cease hostilities and maintain a ceasefire".

And it's pretty obvious that "Right Sector" and "Svoboda" neo-Nazis from neighboring Ukraine can harm Russia and Russians way more than terrorists from Afghanistan can harm America and Americans.

Are you advocating Russia' right to wage preventive wars?

"Can" and "might" do not provide grounds for war.

Do you know who else can harm Russia, much more than the Right sector/Svoboda? The United States. And Britain. And France. And China. And India. And Israel. According to your logic, Russia should launch preventive nuclear strikes against all of them, no?

Here is an opinion piece I found on the net which highlights why so many people (government and private persons) are negatively inclined towards Russia:

To be clear about this, and to head off any other "well, let's talk about facts we can all agree on" - I'm not in any way a "Ukranian sympathizer". The Ukranian government has generally shown itself to be venal, irresponsible, short-sighted and at times incredibly cynical (Tymoshenko's health policy), which has been occasionally interrupted by populist movements of dubious merit. However, the past 15 years or so, and the last 2 years especially, have shown us that Russia isn't just venal and cynical, it's a fundamentally bad actor. It has been flat out lying consistently and repeatedly with respect to the Ukraine crisis. Those weren't Russian troops, all Crimeans are in favor of secession, there is no Russian involvement with eastern Ukraine, etc. etc. These weren't prevarications - these were bald faced lies, some of which Russia has since admitted (Putin confirmed those were Russian troops after all). Which is all beside the point that Russia simply invaded and took Crimea with absolutely zero provocation on the basis that Crimea was Russian 50 years ago.

So when people argue that some of us believe the worst of Russia, it's not because we're Russophobic, it's because Russia has consistently shown itself to be a fundamentally bad actor. Which is why the "I don't believe either side, what about shooting down the Iranian flight" etc are terrible arguments. No other side in this conflict has been so consistently mendacious and so consistently unconstrained by the truth or any semblance of it. When the Russian government speaks, it's almost impossible to believe anything it says because it now resides in a propaganda world it has created for itself - a world where most Russians believe that the Malaysian flight is a Ukranian plot the world is trying to foist on Russia, and that there are massacres of Russian-speaking Ukranians by western-armed fascist western Ukranian brigades.

So when people in the west try to create rationalization for "seeing both sides" and "apportioning blame", it's simply a continuation of the long line of "useful idiots"* that have helped Russian regimes for so many years. Arguing for moral equivalency or treating this current iteration of Russia as just another typical country is wrong on the most important level - there's no moral equivalency and Russia is, again, fundamentally a bad actor. Thus my frustration with people's attempts to lay blame in other places - this is entirely a crisis of Russian doing, who turned a purely internal matter into a complete destabilization of an entire region, which has now cost thousands of lives. And the incredibly cynical thing about the crisis is that the crisis itself is the goal - the crisis and destabilization is the end game.

Obviously this isn't a call not to criticize other countries - every state has its deserved share of criticisms. But don't adopt a position of moral equivalence or treat Putin's Russia as a typical state pursuing rational typical goals. It's not, and while I'm sure Ukranians are lying about some things with respect to this tragedy, we know that Russia is lying almost entirely if not wholly entirely, and this entire fiasco is their fault. So let's focus on that rather than trying to assign blame to Ukranians for not giving other people the heads up that there are Russian-supported drunks shooting at planes.

*A phrase typically attributed to Lenin, who certainly used such people (the Comintern is the epitome of a useful idiot organization), but one that never appeared in his writing. Still, it's something he'd totally say

[Weirwood Druid]

This has been discussed among some of the circles I have been visiting but I will put it here if someone wants to discus it; Do you guys think that Putin will invade the south of Ukraine to create a land corridor for Crimea? there are certain indications that he may;

1. There is no good way to really supply Crimea; It doesn't really work by air, the ferry becomes kind of unusable in the winter and the bridge from the Russia mainland will only be ready around 2018. He needs to find a way to directly supply it or else his reputation as "папа Вова" starts taking a hit and chaos can erupt in Crimea.

2. There is a large, large military build up around the Crimean-Ukrainian border. It has been building up for several months now and numerous border violations have happened .

There are also arguments against this;

1. The Russian economy is encroaching more and more to panic levels, invading the South will surely mean the death blow for the economy and what small chance there was for reconciliation with the West is gone and the West will give Ukraine direct military aid.

2. Puts has his propaganda channel turning overtime about the glorious rise of "Novorossiya" and how they are fighting for their independence from the "fascist junta", unfortunately reality and Puts are not the best of friends and in actuality the people of the bordering region hate his guts and will fight a brutal guerilla war to kick his invading troops out and there will surely be no magic little green men to save the day.

what do you guys think?

I personally think he will not invade; he will just exert a stricter control over Crimea and repress dissident and use the all typical "Russian relativism" to make the lives of Crimeans seem better than they actually are and meanwhile he will try and sow discord in Ukraine any way he can and see what chances come from it and will probably go begging to countries like China, India and the like to save Russia's rapidly failing economy.

[The Fallen]

Weren't the Russians, through or in tandem with the rebels, already targeting the area when they tried to take Mariupol? It was presumed that it was an attempt to create the corridor you're referring to. I'd be surprised if this is the end of Russia's involvement in the Ukraine. Maybe Putin is waiting for the world to get distracted.

Or maybe Putin is working on his master plan to eradicate ISIS.

[Weirwood Druid]

That was in the Donbas region,I'm talking about an invasion from the south into the Kherson oblast. The land corridor will go through Mariupol but capturing Mariupol right now is entirely useless, even if they do, they are nowhere near there goal of creating a land corridor to Crimea and it will come at a heavy price. There is no way of capturing it without the full use of the Russian military.

[snake]

An interesting article in Spiegel online about flight MH17.

According to German intelligence the plane was downed by rebels using a BUK air-defense system they captured from the Ukrainian military. They also stated in their report that Ukrainian pictures pertaining to the crash had been manipulated.

The article also states that the Dutch investigative commission placed no blame for the crash after reviewing the flight recordings which is what was expected I think.

[StepStark]

After reading this, I have to say that the criticism against Scott for being too "harsh" was unfair. Ok, being nice and civil is cool, but when one part is basically impersonating Andrey Vyshinski, you have to call a spade a spade.

"pro-Al Qaeda" elements in the Canadian government (which was the original argument) and Canada "providing aid and shelter" to Al Qaeda are not the same thing.

At the moment, Ukraine has not provided "aid and shelter" to any organization engaged in active terrorist campaign against Russia. In whose fucking world some far-right idiots in the Kiev government, who have not done anything against Russia, equates with providing aid and shelter to an organization waging war against Russia?

The bolded part is a bare-faced lie.

1. Ukraine is in no way endangering Russia.

2. At least for Serbia and Libya, nobody claimed they were endangering USA and that was not the reason invoked for war. The casus belli was made on humanitarian grounds - the same reason Russia invokes for its actions in Ukraine. The difference is that in Kosovo and Libya the humanitarian argument was real, while in Ukraine is not, as the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine was engineered by Russia. Thus, your statement that "they're far less legitimate than Russia's concerns over Ukraine" is a crock.

Russia's actions are akin to someone who set his neighbour's house on fire because he refused to pay protection money anymore, then started expressing concern for the safety of some of the mansion's inhabitants.

Hilarious stuff. A pathetically weak new government, with a pathetically weak army a "threat" for the Russians in Ukraine, when the latter have Putin guarding their back with his hand on the gas spigot and the Russian army at the border.

Listening to you lot one would think that Hitler, Goring and Goebbels just took power in Kiev, while Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf are massing at the border, ready to march on Moscow.

It makes one hell of a difference, because it means, once hostilities are over, that the attacking party is compelled to give back any territory it seized. In addition, it cannot alter the ethnic make up of seized territory. That's one fundamental protection which modern states enjoy in the post WW2 era.

Which is utterly false. He wasn't..

US and Iraq didn't even have diplomatic relations until 1984, while Soviet Union and Iraq had a treaty of friendship and cooperation signed in 1972. Their relationship cooled between 1980 and 1982 as a result of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but in 1982 Soviet Union resumed arms shipments to Iraq (which had stopped in 1980).

On the other hand, the most US did for Iraq was to provide it with some intelligence.

So, Soviet Union providing Saddam with thousands of tanks, guns and planes does not count as being "Russia's friend", but US giving Saddam some information apparently is a full-fledged alliance. Nice idea. Mr. Moscow Bob.

If Pravda... ahem, Russia Today says so...

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/drwcasebook/files/the_kosovo_report_and_update.pdf

"The origins of the crisis have to be understood in terms of a new wave of nationalism that led to the rise of Milosevic and the official adoption of an extreme Serbian nationalist agenda. The revocation of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 was followed by a Belgrade policy aimed at changing the ethnic composition of Kosovo and creating an apartheid-like society".

"The Serbian response to the initial KLA attacks was, as expected, brutal and was also directed against civilians".

"The war quickly took a direction that surprised and shocked the world. The FRY military and paramilitary forces launched a vicious campaign against the Kosovar Albanian population. The FRY government maintained

throughout the conflict that it was only conducting military activities against the KLA, and blamed all human rights violations, especially the forced displacement of Kosovar Albanians, on NATO and the KLA. However, virtually every other international, governmental and non-governmental organization that has studied the facts has reached the opposite conclusion. There is widespread agreement that FRY forces were engaged in a wellplanned campaign of terror and expulsion of the Kosovar Albanians. This campaign is most frequently described as one of “ethnic cleansing,” intended to drive many, if not all, Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo, destroy the foundations of their society, and prevent them from returning".

Also: "On 23 September 1998 acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199. This expressed 'grave concern' at reports reaching the Secretary General that over 230,000 people had been displaced from their homes by 'the excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav Army',^[98] demanding that all parties in Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) cease hostilities and maintain a ceasefire".

Are you advocating Russia' right to wage preventive wars?

"Can" and "might" do not provide grounds for war.

Do you know who else can harm Russia, much more than the Right sector/Svoboda? The United States. And Britain. And France. And China. And India. And Israel. According to your logic, Russia should launch preventive nuclear strikes against all of them, no?

Here is an opinion piece I found on the net which highlights why so many people (government and private persons) are negatively inclined towards Russia:

Oh it's OK to have Nazi elements in the government as long as you don't shelter or provide aid for someone US has a beef with? Some logic. No wonder you keep failing to discuss things in a civil manner.

You seem to think it's OK to have Nazi elements in the government but Russians have all the reasons in the world to think the opposite. Soviet Union lost more than 20 million people because of Nazism so no wonder they see red when someone idolizes Hitler and says Hitler had good ideas. You Americans are so touchy over 9/11 but you deny Russians the right to feel anything over the worst tragedy and human loss in their history. How respectful and thoughtful of you. By the way it's not only about ideology because those Nazis from new regime were attacking Russians on the East before the Eastern parts rebelled. As for Crimea yeah there was no trouble there before Russia took control over it but everything that happened after proves that Crimeans definitely had reasons to fear. Also Russia used the opportunity to take Crimea but it was not Russia that created that opportunity. And from what I know Crimea was illegally taken away from Russia in the first place 50 years ago so maybe this new situation is more just even if it's not entirely legal.

You're so rude and aggressive because everything you say is proven incorrect long ago. You say that ethnic structure isn't changed when there is no annexation but guess what ethnic cleansing is exactly what happened in Kosovo after NATO occupied it. More than 300.000 Kosovo Serbs were forced to leave their homes and the majority of them fled the province while the minority of them settled in the northern parts that are still controlled by Serbs. That is more than half of the entire Serbian population before the NATO attack. Is that not changing the ethnic structure? By the way I know all this because I'm one of those that had to run for their lives 15 years ago. God knows what's happening in other countries NATO and USA occupied like Libya and Iraq and what people from there could tell.

About your statements on repressions against Albanians in Kosovo that's the only thing you can offer: bold claims without any proof. That document you attached doesn't have any proof at all. It's been like that since forever. From before NATO bombing there is not a single crime that is documented and proven in the court of law. I lived there in those years and yes there were tensions in towns and curfews but it was less dramatic than what was going on in Ferguson this past summer. There were also gunfights between Albanian terrorists and police but it was happening outside of residential areas. There were few exceptions like Racak when gunfights happened in residential areas but there is nothing but bold claims and allegations about Serb crimes. Not a single crime was proven in the court of law. I think that no crime before NATO attack was even charged against Serbs that were on trial for Kosovo.

By the way who did Saddam ask for the approval before he invaded Kuwait? American ambassador. He never asked Soviet ambassador for anything but that one time he asked American ambassador for the approval. That was in 1990. and it shows he was very close to Americans back then. He thought they are his allies and he didn't get that impression out of the blue. The fact that he was buying weapons from Soviet Union is incidental, perhaps their weapons were cheaper. I think Iran was also buying weapons from Soviet Union. It doesn't have to mean anything.

Since you are so disrespectful and vulgar I have no interest at all to continue this discussion with you.

[Suttree]

Ah, it was quite there for a bit. Apparently dropping oil prices and economic sanctions didn't hurt the budget for RT's paid commentators quite as hard as we thought.

By the way it's not only about ideology because those Nazis from new regime were attacking Russians on the East before the Eastern parts rebelled. As for Crimea yeah there was no trouble there before Russia took control over it but everything that happened after proves that Crimeans definitely had reasons to fear. Also Russia used the opportunity to take Crimea but it was not Russia that created that opportunity. And from what I know Crimea was illegally taken away from Russia in the first place 50 years ago so maybe this new situation is more just even if it's not entirely legal.

The whole post is pretty classic but the above is comedy gold.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

StepStark,

By the way it's not only about ideology because those Nazis from new regime were attacking Russians on the East before the Eastern parts rebelled. As for Crimea yeah there was no trouble there before Russia took control over it but everything that happened after proves that Crimeans definitely had reasons to fear. Also Russia used the opportunity to take Crimea but it was not Russia that created that opportunity. And from what I know Crimea was illegally taken away from Russia in the first place 50 years ago so maybe this new situation is more just even if it's not entirely legal.

At best, for the Russian position on Crimea, Russia endorsed and accepted the prior (using your term) "illegal" cession of Crimea to Ukraine when it endoresed Ukraines existing borders in exchange for Ukraines Nuclear weapons in the 90's. Is Russia now going to give them back since it has taken a giant crap on its earlier promises?

[Shryke]

An interesting article in Spiegel online about flight MH17.

According to German intelligence the plane was downed by rebels using a BUK air-defense system they captured from the Ukrainian military. They also stated in their report that Ukrainian pictures pertaining to the crash had been manipulated.

The article also states that the Dutch investigative commission placed no blame for the crash after reviewing the flight recordings which is what was expected I think.

Yeah, if the plane was shot down, the flight recordings will show nothing. They would just cut-out.

[Celestial]

Oh it's OK to have Nazi elements in the government as long as you don't shelter or provide aid for someone US has a beef with? Some logic. No wonder you keep failing to discuss things in a civil manner.

Composition of a government is not a reason for war according to international law. What part of this you fail to understand?

You have been asked repeatedly by multiple people how did those "nazies" attack Russia and you are running from that question faster than the Road Runner.

Russians have all the reasons in the world to think the opposite. Soviet Union lost more than 20 million people because of Nazism so no wonder they see red when someone idolizes Hitler and says Hitler had good ideas. You Americans are so touchy over 9/11 but you deny Russians the right to feel anything over the worst tragedy and human loss in their history.

Please cut the crap. Russia's actions in Ukraine are imperial expansionism, plain and simple.

Let's say you are correct, there are nazies in the Ukrainian government and Putin & Co. pissed their pants at the sight of them. If Russia feels insecure because Svoboda "idolizes Hitler", then how exactly do current actions help?

Does annexing Crimea and instigating a rebellion in two ukrainian eastern provinces improve Russia's security somehow? The first effect of this adventurism is that Ukraine, who was pretty friendly with Russia and indifferent towards NATO, becomes bitterly hostile towards Russia and starts considering joining NATO. The number of ukrainians in favor of joining NATO increased over the last year from around 12% to almost 45%.

Moreso, Russia's aggressive behaviour will only serve to radicalize the remaining Ukraine and push it towards Svoboda. While the latter was a minor group prior to these events, they could become one of the major powers in ukrainian politics and promote an agenda of standing up to Russia.

In addition, Russia's behaviour is slowly eroding its relationship with Europe and America. The Eastern European countries, which had mostly bad experiences with Russia, are already asking for permanent deployment of NATO troops on their territory. As such, Russia's actions could very well result in NATO setting up a permanent military presence on their very border and further economic sanctions.

Why does bullying Ukraine make Russia feel better about "the worst tragedy and human loss in their history", since the consequences are mostly negative for Russia's security and economic prosperity?

Since you are so disrespectful and vulgar I have no interest at all to continue this discussion with you.

Surely you cannot expect to say things like "it's pretty obvious that "Right Sector" and "Svoboda" neo-Nazis from neighboring Ukraine can harm Russia and Russians way more than terrorists from Afghanistan can harm America and Americans" and "Serbia's response was not nearly as strong as let's say what American authorities responded with against the riots in Ferguson this last summer" with a straight face and still be taken seriously?

[Ghjhero]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-offered-divide-ukraine-poland-polish-ex-minister-210859509.html

[Suttree]

Looks like combatants were using cluster bombs in the conflict.

Human Rights Watch says in its report that cluster weapons have been used against population centers in eastern Ukraine at least 12 times, including the strikes on Donetsk, during the conflict, and possibly many more. The report said that both sides were probably culpable, in attacks that “may amount to war crimes” in a grinding conflict that has claimed at least 3,700 lives, including those of many civilians.

[snake]

Interestingly, a BBC article on the same story only mentions Ukraine while commenting that it wasn't determined who carried out some attacks.

"While it was not possible to conclusively determine responsibility for many of the attacks, the evidence points to Ukrainian government forces' responsibility for several cluster munition attacks on Donetsk," it found.

Good example of how two different sources can have different takes on the same information.

ETA:

And the headline in the Guardian states,

"Human Rights Watch evidence suggests use by Ukrainian government forces – and possibly rebels – in Donetsk attacks"

[Suttree]

Good example of how two different sources can have different takes on the same information.

ETA:

And the headline in the Guardian states,

"Human Rights Watch evidence suggests use by Ukrainian government forces – and possibly rebels – in Donetsk attacks"

As the NY Times article is titled "Ukraine Used Cluster Bombs, Evidence Indicates" I'm not really sure what your point is?

Additionally the Human Rights Watch report cites both sides.

[snake]

As the NY Times article is titled "Ukraine Used Cluster Bombs, Evidence Indicates" I'm not really sure what your point is?

Additionally the Human Rights Watch report cites both sides.

The point is how the headlines are written and how they differ from the other. Not hard to understand frankly.