2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolt: News, Views, Photos & Videos

[Rutim]

My Dutch newspaper doesn't doubt the numbers of voters and the result of the voting.

And maths doubts it's possible.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Ukrainian government refuses to remove troops from Crimea, prepares for war
Print version
March 17, 2014, 5:30 p.m. | Ukraine — by Isaac Webb

Ukraine's Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh speaks during the cabinet of the ministers sittings in Kiev on March 16, 2014. Crimeans voted on March 16 in a unique referendum on breaking away from Ukraine to join Russia that has precipitated a Cold War-style security crisis on Europe's eastern frontier. Ukraine's new government and most of the international community except Russia have said they will not recognise a result expected to be overwhelmingly in favour of immediate secession. AFP PHOTO/ YURY KIRNICHNY
© AFP





Isaac Webb

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In the wake of a March 16 referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Ukrainian leaders refused to cede any part of the peninsula, calling on their troops to prepare for war.

“Crimea was, is, and will be our territory,” said Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh in a statement delivered at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on March 17.

Former heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko announced that Ukrainian troops would remain at their bases, even after March 21, the end of a peace treaty signed by the interior ministries of Ukraine and Russia.

In accordance with the March 16 peace treaty, the Russian Interior Ministry promised to allow Ukrainian soldiers to pass freely into and out of their bases, which Russian troops had surrounded for more than two weeks. Tenyukh said that the Russian military had thus far respected the terms of the treaty.

Although tensions have de-escalated around military bases in Crimea since the signing of the treaty, neither side is prepared to back down. The Russian government expects that Ukrainian troops will surrender their military bases before the conclusion of the treaty. The Ukrainian government has said that it will not withdraw forces from Crimea, using the peace as an opportunity to replenish supplies for Ukrainian troops stationed on Crimean bases.

When asked whether Ukrainian troops would fight to defend Crimea, Tenyukh replied tersely, “The armed forces will execute their tasks, ” later adding, “Ukrainian forces will stay [in Crimea] until all their tasks have been completed.”

Speaking to the Verkhovna Rada in the evening on March 17, Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said that his government would "do everything possible to prevent war." However, he noted that "the threat of war is real...We are strengthening our defense capacity. Ukraine is ready to defend its territory."

Earlier on March 17, the Ukrainian parliament voted to allot 6.7 billion hryvnia (more than $600 million) to bolster the country’s defenses over the next three months, and to partially mobilize the armed forces.

Tenyukh said that the mobilization was intended to bring the military to “full readiness.” The Verkhovna Rada called for 40,000 troops to be mobilized, calling on reservists to prepare for active duty.

As the Ukrainian economy teeters on the verge of default, the country’s top leaders have been forced to devote resources to bolstering Ukraine’s military, which many believe former President Victor Yanukovich intentionally undermined over the course of his three and a half year reign.

Klitschko said Ukrainian parliamentarians were prepared to send 25 percent of their salaries to “support patriots in Crimea.”

Pavlo Petrenko, Ukraine’s Justice Minister, said that the “the most important issue is to restore the military might of Ukraine.”

“Our army should be ready for combat,” said Petrenko.

Klitschko reiterated that the March 16 referendum in Crimea was conducted illegally, and that the peninsula remains “part and parcel” of Ukraine. As such, the Ukrainian government will continue to provide services to Crimea, including electricity, gas, and water.

In another indication of deteriorating relations between Ukraine and Russia, Klitschko announced that Volodymyr Yelchenko, the Ukrainian ambassador to Russia, would be recalled from Moscow for consultations with the newly formed government in Kyiv.

The escalation in rhetoric comes as pro-Kremlin Crimean leaders took the first steps towards integration into the Russian Federation.

The Crimean Supreme Council voted on March 17 to introduce Moscow time to Crimea on March 30. On the same day, Crimean leaders announced that the Russian ruble would begin circulating alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia and would become the only currency in Crimea by Jan. 1.

Kyiv Post staff writer Isaac Webb can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @isaacdwebb

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[Blackstone]

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I respect the Ukrainians for fortitude, but if they fight in the Crimea, Russia will crush them and then take Eastern Ukraine as booty. No chance NATO would come to the rescue, and since the Ukrainians aren't stupid, they got to know they're on their own.

 

[Mr T]

the UK doesn't have a constitution.

It does have a constitution. It's just an unwritten constitution - but yes, it does still exist. For example, the Queen is head of the armed forces but this is not set out in written law.

 

[thunderchief]

The US is currently the largest supplier/producer of natural gas in the world. We produce more than enough for our own needs, we just are not using all that we produce. That's how crazy the current amdinistration's policies and regulations are making things.

The US, within 3-5 years, if the US and the EU wanted it to be so, could prioduce more than enough for the European needs.

We just have to choose to do so. And as we did...the price would lower, and reflect that reality in the market.

Hey, I just gave you official government data. Are they lying ? Don't know

As for the price, although production is increasing , so is the price

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Why is that? It's not just dollar losing value and increased demand . It is also matter of technology . To put it simply, you need much more energy (and therefore money) to extract one cubic meter of shale gas, then to extract one one cubic meter of gas from conventional sources .

Finally, natural gas is , well gas To transport gas overseas you would need specialized ships and port infrastructure . All of that increases cost .

Therefore, although US could supply Europe with gas in few years , it is not going to be cheap . Could EU afford that ? I sincerely doubt .

 

[SampanViking]

My Dutch newspaper doesn't doubt the numbers of voters and the result of the voting. It writes that many Ukrainian speakers in the Crimea voted for transfer to Russia because they wanted to leave the poorhouse Ukraine and that the pensions of the old people are to become 3 or 4 times as high.

A phenomena unlikely to be unique to the Crimea. Do you get a sense that this could be the start of a new Yugoslavia?

I also note a lot fanfare about the formation of the Ukrainian new National Guard, mainly drawn from the ranks of the Maidan activists. It hardly denotes a high degree of confidence in the proper armed forces, perhaps justifiably given the defections in Crimea that even the BBC were broadcasting yesterday.

Still a separate and "ideologically pure" elite second force, does contain; shall we say, a curious echo!

 

[jobjed]

And maths doubts it's possible.

Your opinion ≠ maths. Stop misquoting it as such.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

For Putin's sake you best hope this is not the "New Yugoslavia" soon as Russia fell into decline the whole thing fell apart. Going to have a lot of of work to do. First convincing the Crimean Tatars That they will not be treated like they were in the past under Russian rule as otherwise they might become a weapon against Russian control. Second establishing a actual nation and not just a puppet show. But a functioning nation with a working economy.

 

[bajingan]

You know whats funny? the way all western leaders has been portraying Putin as irrational, crazy leader, just like Merkel who said that Putin was in another world. When themselves are not in touch with reality.

There is an article from yahoo news written by Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?"

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Was it not predictable that Russia, a great power that had just seen its neighbor yanked out of Russia's orbit by a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev, would move to protect a strategic position on the Black Sea she has held for two centuries?

Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Putin is out to recreate the czarist empire. Others say Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union and Soviet Empire.

But why would Russia, today being bled in secessionist wars by Muslim terrorists in the North Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, want to invade and reannex giant Kazakhstan, or any other Muslim republic of the old USSR, which would ensure jihadist intervention and endless war?

If we Americans want out of Afghanistan, why would Putin want to go back into Uzbekistan? Why would he want to annex Western Ukraine where hatred of Russia dates back to the forced famine of the Stalin era?

To invade and occupy all of Ukraine would mean endless costs in blood and money for Moscow, the enmity of Europe, and the hostility of the United States. For what end would Russia, its population shrinking by half a million every year, want to put Russian soldiers back in Warsaw?

But if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.

Consider the world Putin saw, from his vantage point, when he took power after the Boris Yeltsin decade.

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan.

He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited Russia's withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

Had the neocons gotten their way, not only the Warsaw Pact nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but five of 15 republics of the USSR, including Ukraine and Georgia, would have been brought into a NATO alliance created to contain and, if need be, fight Russia.

What benefits have we derived from having Estonia and Latvia as NATO allies that justify losing Russia as the friend and partner Ronald Reagan had made by the end of the Cold War?

We lost Russia, but got Rumania as an ally? Who is irrational here?

Cannot we Americans, who, with our Monroe Doctrine, declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to the European empires — "Stay on your side of the Atlantic!" — understand how a Russian nationalist like Putin might react to U.S. F-16s and ABMs in the eastern Baltic?

In 1999, we bombed Serbia for 78 days, ignoring the protests of a Russia that had gone to war for Serbia in 1914. We exploited a Security Council resolution authorizing us to go to the aid of endangered Libyans in Benghazi to launch a war and bring down the Libyan regime.

We have given military aid to Syrian rebels and called for the ouster of a Syrian regime that has been Russia's ally for decades.

At the end of the Cold War, writes ex-ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, 80 percent of Russia's people had a favorable opinion of the USA. A decade later, 80 percent of Russians were anti-American.

That was before Putin, whose approval is now at 72 percent because he is perceived as having stood up to the Americans and answered our Kiev coup with his Crimean counter coup.

America and Russia are on a collision course today over a matter — whose flag will fly over what parts of Ukraine — no Cold War president, from Truman to Reagan, would have considered any of our business.

If the people of Eastern Ukraine wish to formalize their historic, cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, and the people of Western Ukraine wish to sever all ties to Moscow and join the European Union, why not settle this politically, diplomatically and democratically, at a ballot box?

 

[delft]

It does have a constitution. It's just an unwritten constitution - but yes, it does still exist. For example, the Queen is head of the armed forces but this is not set out in written law.

Nowadays we can call it a virtual constitution.
Constitutions are differentiated from normal laws by the fact that they are more difficult to change. For example the Dutch constitution is changed by having the changes accepted by ordinary majority by both chambers of parliament after which new elections are held and the same changes must be accepted by a two third majority in the new parliament. In the sense that the UK government can say in parliament we change the working of the state in this respect and can have it accepted even without changing the laws of the land that virtual constitution is even easier to change than an ordinary law.