Can we have a Ukraine/ Russia/ Crimea thread for dummies?

[chicaguapa]

In other words, could someone explain the situation in really simple terms please. I don't understand it but feel it's important and I should know what's going on.

And because DD(12) asked me this morning and I couldn't answer.

"May is also the time of Euro elections, which will deliver a crushing defeat to the political parties of the elites"

do you think the MEPs are important?

'do you think the MEPs are important?'

Yes, because it is predicted that right wing populist anti EU parties will win approx 35% of seats in the EU Parliament and they will work together to end the EU. The EU is the puppet of the elites, it is their expansionist empire and if it collapses, their dreams and schemes will crumble to dust just as the Roman Empire crumbled to dust. There will no more climate change claptrap, no more austerity, no more empire, no more control by bankers. It will end all their plans.

Elites will not accept the end of their plans and everything they have worked for. That is why this is such a dangerous time because the old world order is fragmenting - China and Russia are rising and Putin has not been allowed in the Club. A New World Order is emerging and there will be a struggle to gain command of it.

However, it is possible that the real elite (above the level of nations) is in firm control and has planned a clash to achieve its aims - in which case the world will get the low growth green nightmare they have planned for us.

The West did not treat Russia as an equal partner. Obama says that Russia is just a "regional power". The EU backed a group of people that overthrew an elected President and they rushed to Kiev and signed a deal with these people and the EU did not even enforce the deal they signed. They pushed Russia into a corner and must have known that Russia would either react or give in.

Why would the West back a bankrupt Ukraine with a government that contained far right elements against a huge power when Europe imports 25% of its gas from that power, which is a major world power, unlike bankrupt Ukraine.

It can only be because it did not care about Russia and was prepared to isolate and exclude Russia.

But why would it do such a thing? It must be because it either thinks it can break Russia or that it had to try and break Russia as Russia may be about to make allliances and deals with China etc that threaten the West's hegemony.

Whichever one it is, it says that we are now in dangerous times.

I think Bridget Kendall's assessment here is very realistic.

I think the US will try to tone down its rhetoric -- the assurance that Russia does not plan any military incursion into Ukraine has taken the wind out of US sails. It is obvious that Crimea's return to Russia is accepted as a fait accompli that Ukraine will have to be talked into accepting in order for the US to save face and not appear to have been beaten. Unless the Ukrainians are deluded about who is paying the piper here, it is likely they will have to fume in silence.

The question of Ukraine having to approve all negotiations is also subject to the issue of payment for the piper. On matters such as language rights and the disbandment of militias the US would have a very hard time explaining to the world why the Russian language shouldn't be a second official language given that so many speak it even in the capital, and the militias have the potential to seriously embarrass both Ukraine and Washington -- so I think the 'interim government' will have to call off their hounds, think seriously about stopping the tribal triumphalism (as expressed by Tymoshenko for instance) and get real about co existence within the current borders.

Even so, I suspect the next few years will see attempts to prosecute business and political leaders who are seen as Russian-leaning, much settling of personal scores and even outright robbing of businesses and banks by people who feel like Tymoshenko does about the Russian east. There will also be continuous attempts to call referenda and carve out semi autonomous status or the equivalent of federalism; even if that issue results in a brick wall for Russia at the moment it is not going to go away.

As cuts, unemployment and price hikes hit Ukraine, the appeal of the nationalist right will increase exponentially. When it is realised that the IMF package is basically going to result in hardship for ordinary Ukrainians along with payment of Gazprom bills and repayment of loans from various banks, there will be much scapegoating (and to be fair to people who will feel very cheated and used, ordinary Ukrainians really have been cheated and used here, and their welfare disregarded in favour of that of creditors). There is potential for unrest everywhere and ethnic strife in the east. Yats and crew will be pressured by the US government to deal with the Right in as ruthless a way as necessary because if they manage to foment serious opposition to the government and ethnic strife they will make Washington look amateurish and prove Russia correct and far more subtle in its appreciation of the situation than the US. It may well be that US special forces of some sort will be brought to Ukraine to deal with the Right. It may well already have happened (Sashko Bily). It may well be that federalism that allows the east to protect itself somewhat from the nationalist right and from being legally robbed would be an approach that the US could accept.

And the lack of denial about the existence of militias and nationalist bands of thugs is very revealing.

I agree, mathanxiety. But I don't think Sashko Nily had anything to do with US special forces.

There are reports saying that quite a lot of the Ukrainian military are not fully with the government and nor are some of the old secret services and police. Now the Right Sector have been alienated, Klitschko has stood down from the Presdidential elections and an oligarch is standing together with Tymoshenko and I think the leader of teh far right, Svoboda, it looks like the same old, same old as before the revolution.

Apparently, Russia is going to make Crimea a special economic zone with tax breaks for large investors. So Crimea will probably boom, while some parts of Ukraine stagnate under the IMF. Soon people will realise they have been sold out and will vote this lot out.

An NBC report (plus video) on an assault on Ukrainian First National TV station head Oleksandr Panteleymonov by Igor Miroshnichenko, Svoboda MP, and a group of four or five accomplices.

Miroshnichenko is the deputy head of Ukraine's freedom of speech committee . He forced Pantelymenov to resign.

'since Yanukovych's ouster, the right-wing Svoboda Party has gained more ministry positions, now making up around a quarter of the ministries including that of defense minister. The Right Sector, an even more extremist group which made up the most militant aspects of the Kiev protests last month, also has stronger links to the new government...

...Russia has legitimized its actions in Crimea by saying it is protecting ethnic Russians from the "fascist" government in Kiev. The West has largely dismissed this as propaganda, but the incident at First National TV highlights the fact that a sizable proportion of the country's new ministers are aligned with the extreme right.'

This conclusion is very hard for the US to deny.

"And the lack of denial about the existence of militias and nationalist bands of thugs is very revealing."

indeed so, math. Where do you think those large gangs of armed thugs in Crimea came from? The ones with no badges who surrounded and pillaged the Ukrainian establishments?

I don't think Sashko Bily had anything to do with US special forces.
What I suspect is that US special forces may have had a hand in his bumping off, not that he is associated with US special forces.

There is oil off of Crimea and some Western companies were going to drill there. Exxon, the largest company in the US, was intending to drill there and is in a huge partnership with Russian oil compnay, Rosneft, to drill in the Arctic. Exxon won the deal over BP. I think money and business talk.

I think he was probably bumped off by Ukrainian police under a deal with the Russians. I think the Russians want to see that the Right Sector is being marginalised before they will engage in deals with the Ukrainian government.

There is no way that any government with links to a far right Russophobic party will be able to rule in the East and South of Ukraine. They were used for the coup, but they have a limited shelf life now.

A Google search for 'pillage Crimea' comes up only with references to the anticipated IMF pillage of Ukraine and articles on distant history.

Do you mean the pillaging of military graves in the Valley of Death, Sebastopol, Balaklava, Alma and Inkerman and sale to collectors of relics under the benevolent eye of Ukrainian police, customs officials, etc., back in 2004ish?

I suspect the Right has the potential to do far more damage to the US and the EU than it has to dent Russia. In fact, the reporting of far right extremism such as that (completely mainstream and respectable) NBC report is very useful to Russia. So my conclusion is that the US and possibly the EU may get involved in extra-legal anti-Right shenanigans once the Right's influence becomes undeniable, and certainly once popular protest gets going in the wake of the upcoming hairshirt policies, with the Right front and centre in all of that.

If anything, the presence of militias and the undeniable presence of the Right in government bolsters Russia's claim of concern for the ethnic Russian minority.

There are also confirmed reports of pillaging of Art and Icons worth about $Million in the leisure centre, "guarded" by the Right Sector...

Agree, mathanxiety

pro-Russian gang seizes Ukrainian facility

Ukrainian airbase blockaded for three weeks

Russian troops and militias storm airbase

pro-Russian mob breaks in and ransacks offices

Russians seize a sweet factory

pro-Russian gang seizes navy base

armed pro-Russian mob