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.

oh goat, you are silly. What do you think are the characteristics of you MCarthyites then?

You must try not to make things up. I wrote "you will continue to fling around words such as "stooge" "puppet" and "nazi" to smear those with whom you disagree." Are you now claiming that you have not thrown those words around? Or are you perhaps claiming that you threw them at people with whom you did agree?

As your memory is poor, I will however refer you to

"you stand out as a Nazi apologist."

I call people who wear swastika on their sleeves, worship Bandera and Latvian SS as Nazi. I think Nazis are criminals and honouring them is revolting.

I never said puppet, I said "Leave the obsession with Kremlin to Brzezinski trudges", I never mentioned you.

You self identified to those words in your own post... what can I say, you know yourself!

stooges

PigletJohn, have you seen this BBC Newsnight report called "Neo-nazi threat in new Ukraine"?

It is obvious that these people do not represent many Ukrainians in the East and South of Ukraine and therefore they will eventually fail and be toppled from positions of power. They cannot unite the country and therefore one wonders why they were backed at all, since it is obvious that they cannot succeed and will just bring more problems to Ukraine.

Do you support these people?

so you do agree that you fling around such words.

You are making up the idea that I claim that all of them aimed at me.

Are you ready yet to provide your description of what you think you McCarthyists do?

'Ukraine would be best served by defaulting now'

They won't be allowed to default. The bankers will milk them and take control of Ukrainian assets. Yats, the former banker, and his pals are likely to sign over what the bankers say.

Piglet,

Play the ball, not the person. Engage with the arguments for once...

What do you make of 13% of Latvian population not having the right to vote and being classed as "non citizens" just because they are Russian speakers, even though they were born and bread in Latvia before the independence? in this BBC article.

How is it possible and acceptable in EU?

What do you make of Latvian SS marches in Riga?

Why are Russian speakers not represented in Latvian government when they account for 42% of population?

Why did president Youshenko make Nazi collaborator Bandera a national hero?
What do you make of Nazi worshiping Right Sector and Svoboda party in Ukrainian government?

What do you make of Timoshenko talking of wanting to nuke 8 million Russians in Ukraine?

Why do you say "you stand out as a Nazi apologist." and then "Play the ball, not the person?"

Why did you ignore my previous reply to your question about the bugged phone call?

Why do you make up tales about what I have (not) said?

Why do you avoid the question "which country do you think will be next to experience a Russian military invasion?"

Why do you enjoy raking up 70-year old stories about Nazis yet make excuses for equivalent atrocities by Russians?

I don't follow the financial side of things enough, but I think this may be a big part of why this is all happening.

From what I have read in the papers recently, it seems that Putin is going to China in May and hopes to make a big announcement about a possible gas deal.

"The Holy Grail for Moscow is a natural gas supply deal with China that is apparently now close after years of negotiations. If it can be signed when Putin visits China in May, he will be able to hold it up to show that global power has shifted eastwards and he does not need the West."

www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/20/3542254/putin-nurtures-ties-with-china.html

But no one really knows if China will go along with it. Without China, Russia risks isolation. China has good relations with the States and does lots of business with them. I don't think China will risk alienating the US. The Chinese President's daughter studies at Harvard and returned to China for Michelle Obama's recent visit. Lots of the children of the Politburo study for MBAs in the States. The States is the centre of business and capitalism and the Chinese want to be a part of that.

This is an article from the very good Daily Telegraph journalist Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, who seems to have very good sources and often calls things correctly. He says that Russia has stuffed itself and China will not back Russia

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10725643/Putins-Russia-caught-in-US-and-Chinese-double-pincer.html

There is also this thing called the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which Russia and China as well as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It has existed for a long time, but maybe it is becoming more important now, i don't know. Apparently Yanujovych had wanted Ukraine to have closer ties to it, and even the Turkish leader had mentioned to Putin that Turkey was interested in it since they weren't getting very far with EU membership. Maybe that is why he seems to be at risk of being overthrown with uprisings too.

Apparently, even India and Pakistan seem to be about to join it

"After the upcoming expansion of the SCO, it will go from being a regional organization originally created primarily to promote cooperation in Central Asia, to being a global force. “On the one hand, this is a positive thing. The SCO is expanding, it now covers almost half of the world's population,” noted Konstantin Sivkov, the first vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems."

in.rbth.com/world/2013/10/10/sco_membership_precursor_to_russia-india-china_alliance_30051.html

I am not sure all this cooperation is beneficial for Western hegemony.

It may be that events in Ukraine have put a spanner in the works and forced China to make choices. Russia is being isolated. I am not sure it will back Russia and if it doesn't Russia will be weakened.

Eventually China will probably get the same treatment, but that is probably still a way off.

But I think it is still a dangerous time for the world because countries are now being forced to choose and if they make mistakes, the consequences might be serious.

Defaulting is certainly a possibility in the minds of observers. Nobody wants to see that happen. However, it remains to be seen whether Ukrainian politicians will be able to resist the temptation to make promises to voters that they will not be able to keep, just to secure power. While loans appear to be in the pipeline today, both for short term debts and long tern 'restructuring' of the economy, all interested parties know that failure to sell the necessary austerity to voters could scuttle everything. Matters are still very much up in the air therefore.

The government stopped propping up the Hyrvnia in January and the effects of freefall have already been felt. Ukraine faces payment of $1.5 bn at the end of March for gas delivered by Russia in 2013 and early 2014. The price of gas will rise from April 1st.

Imo right wing nationalists are likely to attempt to make gains at the expense of the as yet unelected government as the effects of both a rise in the price of gas (and Ukrainian exports, and domestic food) and reforms of public spending at the behest of the IMF continue and in fact gather pace.

Sop you say "Play the ball, not the person" and then accuse me of being a Nazi apologist and a hater of Russians

Both of your insults are lies.

I have seen reports of Ukraines gold being spirited away, so that's 33 tonnes they can't use to pay their debts with. It may have been on Bloomberg, can't remember. I'll have a quick look to see if I can find it again.

The USA can't risk alienating China. The US at this point in time goes cap in hand to China, not the other way round. Nobody is going to ask China to choose sides. The US economy and the fate of the dollar is too intertwined with the Chinese economy to risk an attempt to dictate how China should proceed. China needs oil however, and a Russian deal helps diversify Chinese imports of oil (right now S Arabia has a huge share of the Chinese market).

'As world leaders gathered in The Hague to discuss nuclear security issues, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to encourage Chinese criticism of Russia on Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping in turn pressed Obama about a reported U.S. breach of the servers of China’s largest phone-equipment maker.

China has always held a “just and objective attitude” toward the Ukraine crisis, Xi said in the meeting with Obama, according to a report yesterday from China’s official Xinhua news agency. The world’s biggest energy user, China abstained from the United Nations Security Council resolution that declared the Crimean succession referendum illegal. Russia vetoed it.

China imported a record amount of Russian crude last month, 2.72 million metric tons, about a supertanker full every three days. The total more than tripled in a decade, and Russia now represents 12 percent of China’s crude imports, customs data show, among the highest levels in the past seven years.'

www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/russian-oil-seen-heading-east-not-west-in-crimea-spat.html

Crimea - invasion or emancipation as mentioned earlier its complex.

What happens next will be crucial, I assume Russia would only do this to other states/regions who appear to want to come back to the Russian fold.

As other have mentioned parts of Europe are heavily dependent on Russian Gas (the worlds largest exporter), If the west puts sanctions on would they turn off the taps? increase prices?

mathanxiety, no one is mentioning this at all. Does it make any sense?

If there was a world war, wouldn't that wipe out the debts of the winners?

There have been conflicting claims of shenanigans involving Ukraine's gold reserves and the fate of a lot of other assets -- Yanukovich stealing gold (and a lot more) and gold being flown out of the country bound for the coffers of the Federal Reserve.

World war is incredibly unlikely. I don't think you could get odds on it from anyone.

You couldn't have gotten odds on it in 1914 either.

It was a different kettle of fish back then.

Putin will have calculated the risk of someone wanting to fight him. He may have calculated that if necessary, he can grab some land, lose a few people, and agree a ceasefire line that means he stays in possession of whatever he's managed to grab. He could also gradually build more and more settlements on occupied territories in the expectation that no-one will stop him.

These arrangements have lasted for 50 years or more in other parts of the world.

A small and successful war is a great source of popularity for a country's ruler, as Mussolini, Hitler, Galtieri and Thatcher would agree.

If instability in Ukraine escalates, which is likely, Putin will probably move to split it in three parts and then move out. This would trigger sanctions.
The US will probably convince the Saudi to dampen the oil price to damage Russian economy. Saudis may ask to bomb Syria or Iran. If this happen, Putin would feel he didn't get enough value out of Crimea. He would anex Transnistria and parts of Ukraine.
The card Kremlin considers to play is damping the dollar. Would Putin really do that and would China follow?

You have to scratch your head and ask yourself how Obama hoped western arrogance and incompetence in getting major players onside would play out in the wake of its unmasking in Egypt, Libya and Syria where nobody has yet emerged as a clear winner and the US State Department is so far the only loser.

After all, in Ukraine, everybody stands to lose in a state of crisis that goes unchecked, and conversely everyone stands to win if and when stability is achieved. The US and Europe could both have gone on gradually increasing trade with Ukraine, and Russia could have gone on making money where it could from Ukrainian gas and oil sales. Butting the western nose in and forcing an acute crisis where before there was only a chronic malaise means matters must now come to a head. The dice have now been cast, and a lot of US prestige is riding on how well Ukrainian politicians previously proven incompetent and unable to understand the big picture (i.e. that their country was going down the toilet) will be able to do an about turn and start saying no to their strongest political instincts.

Obviously the US is faced with a set of facts it has yet to wrap its head around and has never heard of the law of unintended consequences.

www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/26/us-egypt-sisi-idUSBREA2P0XE20140326

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/24/libya-disaster-shames-western-interventionists

Butting the Russian Army in and forcing an acute crisis where before there was only a chronic malaise means matters must now come to a head.

'Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described the leaking on YouTube on Thursday of a recording of top security officials discussing possible military operations in Syria as "villainous" and the government blocked access to the video-sharing site.'

www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBREA2Q17420140327

If a world war is to come, it will probably be on many fronts.