What is happening with Russia and Ukraine now?

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by Derrame, Feb 28, 2014.

  1. Derrame

    Derrame Well-Known Member
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    Thread summary:

    [​IMG]


    Original post:

    I saw the news, russian troops entered in Ukraine, there are riots and the soldiers attacking people,
    i hope they dont attack 4A :(

    can someone please explain this situation in a simple way?
    is the third war coming? both countries have nuclear weapons

    i do not want any political problems with the forum's members :)
     
    #1 Derrame, Feb 28, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 5, 2014
  2. Stalker Bar

    Stalker Bar Well-Known Member

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    From what I've heard the Russian government is hiding Ukraine's president
    I will have more info for you.

    EDIT: There might be a conflict but very unlikely, Russia has deployed fighter jets and troops in the southern and western border of Russia.
     
    #2 Stalker Bar, Feb 28, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 28, 2014
  3. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    An extremely oversimplified and generalized timeline detailing what has been happening since November of 2013 till February of 2014:

    1) Ukrainian people (generally speaking, but not 100% accurate) want closer ties with the European Union.

    2) Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, retreats on decisions to form closer trade relations with the EU (which were supposed to lead to joining the EU) after being offered a better deal from Russia.

    3) A peaceful protest breaks out in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, in November of 2013. Popularly dubbed "Euromaidan", the protest soon grows to involve several hundred thousand people.

    4) The Berkut - Ukraine's former special police force - don't deal too kindly with the protesters, assaulting and provoking them often. The protesters break into some government buildings and occupy them.

    5) As Euromaidan begins to feature more and more clashes with the police and especially Berkut, new laws are passed that severely limit protesting - essentially making Euromaidan completely illegal. This simply infuriates the protesters more.

    6) By now Euromaidan is no longer just about moving closer to the EU, but resignation of then current government (with Yanukovych going too) and severing ties with Russia. It is worth noting that fascist organizations have also stepped into the ranks of the Euromaidan some time ago, seeing themselves as the vanguard of a "national revolution".

    7) Kiev has turned into a battlefield (only a few are killed, but many are wounded; live ammunition is used very rarely and only by a minority of protesters), with barricades and watchtowers set up by the protesters - not to mention the camps they've set up in Independence Square.

    8) Kiev is turning into a war zone, with shootouts becoming more frequent.

    9) International organizations and politicians from other countries have been attending meetings with Ukrainian officials; at one of these, it is finally decided that Yanukovych and those in his office are no longer in power (as they have fled so the decision can finally be made without them having to accept); the constitution from 2004 is restored, Yulia Tymoshenko is released from prison and an ally of hers takes office as acting president.

    10) Most at the Euromaidan seem satisfied with this outcome, but the fascists continue to shoot at the police even after the meetings - and the police shoots back every time - resulting in more casualties and killings.

    11) Pro-Russia Ukrainians (mostly in Eastern Ukraine) don't like what happened, so protests start cropping up there. The inhabitants of Crimea also seem unhappy, where there is a majority of Russian speakers.

    12) The Russian Armed Forces are mobilised in great numbers near the border with (eastern) Ukraine; Russian navy and infantry arrive in Crimea, taking over an airport with reportedly little to no resistance and practically no violence (not firing a single shot). There have been reports that Russian forces are scheduled to attack Ukrainian units tonight.

    The situation as it is now: Ukraine either accepts Russian control of Crimea (which will result in a severe loss of sovereignty and reputation) or organizes an armed response (thus sparking a war between the two nations, risking major territorial losses in the East and a very high possibility of epic failure).
     
  4. Derrame

    Derrame Well-Known Member
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    thank you for the explanations :)

    poor Ukraine :(
     
  5. Ukraine SSR separated during the dissolution of USSR and received independence in hopes of having better life. Unfortunately it didn't happen. Then the people of Ukraine have elected shitty presidents four times in a row.

    Ukraine is essentially separated roughly in the middle into two parts. The western part is mostly aligned with Europe and the eastern one with Russia. It tried to ballance between EU and Russia and this essentially leads to a reenactment of a Swan, Pike and Crawfish fable...

    When partners can't agree
    Their dealings come to naught
    And trouble is their labor's only fruit.
    ____________

    Once Crawfish, Swan and Pike
    Set out to pull a loaded cart,
    And all together settled in the traces;
    They pulled with all their might, but still the cart refused to budge!
    The load it seemed was not too much for them:
    Yet Crawfish scrambled backwards,
    Swan strained up skywards, Pike pulled toward the sea.
    Who's guilty here and who is right is
    not for us to say-
    But anyway the cart's still there today.

    ...and looks something like this.

    [YOUTUBE]yh8gdYMhIwg[/YOUTUBE]

    Yanukovich government wanted to remain friends with Russia while Russia wanted another ally, and the Ukraine was being given "rewards" for staying loyal to Putin in form of giant sums of money and such. It helped since the country was (And still is) in financial difficulty and close to defaulting.

    A significant number of people in Ukraine, however, don't care about that and want to move towards the EU, in the hopes of having higher standards of living and better trade with and access to the western world.

    The government was completely shutting out public opinion on this matter. The conflict has been escalating until december, when the government decided to say fuck it to civil liberties and put in place some rather heavy-handed laws, making it jailable offences to blockade public buildings, wear masks or helmets at demonstrations, erect unauthorised tents in public areas, and even made it arrestable to "slander a government official".

    This eventually escalated into violent riots you saw in late december and january. The government and the opposition have almost reached a solution and a peaceful resolution was very close, but guess what, not everybody likes that. Most likely local neo-nazis stormed and took a government building and it all went to shit again.

    Then there were these provocations of supposedly berkut firing at civilians...

    Click for picture:
    [​IMG]

    1. All captured berkut soldiers were stripped, so the uniforms, shields and riot shotguns were not hard to obtain.
    2. They carry older AKMS rifles, Berkut doesn't use these, but the military warehouses that were raided recently had them.
    3. What spec ops soldier would wear formal shoes to do riot control?
    4. Why do they wear yellow bandages over insignia? To tell real berkut from fake berkut probably, because real one doesn't need these.

    ...and a video where you can clearly see shots coming from the point of view of the civilian operator filming soldiers shooting civilians. And many other things like HOLY BALLS, THEY ARE FIRING LIVE AMMUNITION, HERE IS WHAT WE TOOK OUT FROM AN INJURED PERSON #shows a bullet that's not deformed#

    Either way protesters started killing cops (As in burning them alive) and the cops returned the favor.

    That's all gone now though. Now Yanukovich fled the country and the temp government was put in charge.

    On topic of Crimea: it has always been an autonomous republic. After the riots started, they said they want nothing to do with this and will support Yanukovich. When he fled and the new government appeared they said that they don't want anything to do with the neo-nazis and try to secede.

    Sevastopol is in Crimea and it has RF Black Sea Fleet base so naturally we want to keep it, so we are throwing soldiers at it.

    This will force the new government to act and depending on their actions or lack there off we get to keep Crimea or potentially eastern Ukraine + Crimea.

    It's actually pretty fucking neat to follow, because that's some history textbook material happening right here folks.

    We might even go into WW3 over this shit.
     
    #5 Komodo Saurian, Feb 28, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 28, 2014
  6. Derrame

    Derrame Well-Known Member
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    WW3? but only if EUU participates, because Ukraine has no chance against Russia
     
  7. Crimea seceding technically violates an agreement that Ukraine will surrender all nuclear weapons if the sovereignty of the country is respected.

    This means that they can make nukes now and wave that deterrence dick around like all the big countries do.

    So in the worst case scenario we will have a nuclear war in Eastern Europe which might as well be WW3 since usually if someone sends a missile, everyone does.

    [YOUTUBE]TGHC_aInRPE[/YOUTUBE]
     
  8. Derrame

    Derrame Well-Known Member
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    i understand, thank you :)
     
  9. Potarto

    Potarto Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for sifting through stuff and putting it together in a way that not only is easier to follow for those of us on the other side of the world, but also is even a bit entertaining (got a kick out of that first video). It's hard to get reliable and relevant information these days, even in our age of information technology. Hope stuff works out, although if anything did happen, it would admittedly (ashamedly) be kinda interesting to see the result of a war between two civilized countries where a good majority of the people on either side could just hop online and talk to somebody from the country they're at war with.
     
  10. NuclearWastE3

    NuclearWastE3 The Toxic Avenger
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    All this time I thought that Russian had already invaded Ukraine and the protests were an after effect of it. :eek:hwell:, thanks for clearing it up.
     
  11. Jet Odessa

    Jet Odessa Mutant Hunter Extraordinaire

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    this doesn't look good. according to a 1994 treaty, signed by UK, US, Russia and Ukraine, pertaining to the integrity of the Ukraine as a sovereign nation, in exchange for giving up thier nukes, if their integrity of the Ukraine as a nation was compromised by Russia, the Uk and US would have to intervine military to defend the Ukraine. whether that treaty is legally binding or not, I don't know, but it certainly doesn't look good.

    Why not let the Crimea decide whether they want to be part of Russia or the Ukraine? What a mess....
     
  12. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    Crimea is now part of Russia. A Ukrainian soldier was shot dead by an unidentified group of people who tried to storm their position... as a result, Ukraine has given its soldiers permission to use force. Now if anyone gets too close - and if that person happens to be a Russian soldier - then they might receive a bullet to the skull. If that happens, the likelihood of a local war increases immensely. I doubt that any other countries would get involved in such a case militarily, though of course they'll want to keep pushing the economic sanctions, which aren't doing much at the moment.
     
  13. Darkbringer

    Darkbringer Huntsman

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    Awww shit. This might get ugly. I don't know what I would do in a situation like this. Now the protester are back in Kiev, saying the government is weak, and yet if the Ukrainians open fire on Russian soldiers (funnily enough I think Putin will lay the cards on the table and admit that the soldiers are Russian if one of them gets killed) they have an excuse to declare war on Ukraine.
    What I'm getting at is that I would not just let Russia manhandle my country and undermine my sovereignty, but on the other hand I'd know I would get steamrolled in weeks if I do anything about it. Ukraine could really use some help.
     
  14. TheDarknessEnvelops

    TheDarknessEnvelops Lion Triumphant

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    The economic sanctions seem to be targeting little people as far as Putin is concerned so is really not putting much strain on him
     
  15. Darkbringer

    Darkbringer Huntsman

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  16. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    :lol: Some Polandball stuff is quite funny.
     
  17. Darkbringer

    Darkbringer Huntsman

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    [​IMG]
    Look at that gear. This dude claims he is acting independent from the Russian government.
    Is it even possible to get top notch modern (Rusfed, not USSR) gear as a civilian in Ukraine? Last time I checked their gun laws were pretty strict, and that rifle is full auto. Also, I read that Ukrainians in this guy's district around Slaviansk make about 3200 USD per year. He would have to spend an entire year of average paychecks to get his hands on that gear - that is, if he really bought it himself.
     
  18. Here is a relevant comic:

    [​IMG]
     
  19. Darkbringer

    Darkbringer Huntsman

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    But there shouldn't be any dealers like the guy in your comic selling military-grade hardware in Ukraine.
     
  20. True, but that's not the point.

    When there is a war-like situation like that, free guns are going to be given out to eager people.

    Besides, there are several military bases that defected and the Ukrainian army uses the same equipment.

    [YOUTUBE]vLqz1F9PwWE[/YOUTUBE]
     
: russia, ukraine, war