No, you're wrong. Only in Crimea there are more Russians than Ukrainians and there are very few Ukrainians who support Russian invasion and ripping their country apart.

BTW, The Russian Federation Council requested the president to withdraw russian ambassador from the USA. They called the States The Empire of Lie. Those stupid ignorant old bastards.

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/world/ukraine-divided/?hpt=hp_t2

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/world/ukraine-divided/?hpt=hp_t2

CNN is a cool source, but I referred to Wikipedia. I trust them much more.

BTW, The Russian Federation Council requested the president to withdraw russian ambassador from the USA. They called the States The Empire of Lie. Those stupid ignorant old bastards.

I think it's fair to call that utterly terrifying. The US and Russia are major nuclear powers. A war would be pretty much the worst thing that could happen for the entire world.

I think it's fair to call that utterly terrifying. The US and Russia are major nuclear powers. A war would be pretty much the worst thing that could happen for the entire world.

I don't think this may lead to a war, really. But for me it might be impossible to get back and continue studying in American university, and the same for the rest of Russians who don't hate America. My guess is that Putin would like to establish the Iron Curtain again.

CNN is a cool source, but I referred to Wikipedia. I trust them much more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RussianUseEn.PNG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RussianUseEn.PNG

Russian wiki says otherwise, but OK, I'm wrong, you right, sorry for offending you! Anyway, I think if someone doesn't want to live in Ukraine and wants to live in Russia, he should move to Russia and not support a war against his home country.

Man, are you serious? Offending me? Where did you offend me? We are both just trying to prove our point in a civil discussion. I don't recall offending anyone or being offended.

I agree, but the fact that some minority is oppressed, whether it's true or not, is a great casus belli.

America won't get involved, they learnt their lesson from Afghanistan. They will threaten to but I doubt they will.

 

Putin is pissed off as his predecessors gave Crimea away to Ukraine, he wants it back. Putin's only port is located in Ukraine and without it, he's gonna have to go around the bloody long way. Putin doesn't give a damn about Ukraining people he just want Russia to be more powerful. Troops aren't holding the Russian flag on their uniform so in case things go south, Putin can just say they're not his soldiers.

 

It wouldn't be unrealistic to say that things may get nuclear but let's face it, America and Russia both know no one wins that way.

America won't get involved, they learnt their lesson from Afghanistan. They will threaten to but I doubt they will.

 

Putin is pissed off as his predecessors gave Crimea away to Ukraine, he wants it back. Putin's only port is located in Ukraine and without it, he's gonna have to go around the bloody long way. Putin doesn't give a damn about Ukraining people he just want Russia to be more powerful. Troops aren't holding the Russian flag on their uniform so in case things go south, Putin can just say they're not his soldiers.

 

It wouldn't be unrealistic to say that things may get nuclear but let's face it, America and Russia both know no one wins that way.

I'd say, they learned it in Georgian War, when USA was equally unable to do anything with Russian aggression. Afghanistan ended pretty bad for USSR mainly... I think, US and EU might impose any economical sanctions, which will hit Russian citizens in the first place, leaving putin unharmed.

I think it's fair to call that utterly terrifying. The US and Russia are major nuclear powers. A war would be pretty much the worst thing that could happen for the entire world.

 

Indeed they are nuclear powers, but I don't think it'd escalate to nuclear usage. The world was so frightened at what happened during WWII, and especially with M.A.D., I don't think it'd ever escalate from such a small issue (In regards to using nuclear weapons) to that. 

 

However I've been wrong before, and the consequences would indeed be utterly terrifying. 

I'd say, they learned it in Georgian War, when USA was equally unable to do anything with Russian aggression. Afghanistan ended pretty bad for USSR mainly... I think, US and EU might impose any economical sanctions, which will hit Russian citizens in the first place, leaving putin unharmed.

As far as I know, the EU's limited in its ability to enforce sanctions against Russia by the fact that Russia provides most of their natural gas.

Damn it, I knew somebody would bring this up...

Alright, so I'm sure plenty of people are going to debate me, but here we go:

1.) I'm aware of no such alleged agreement between the U.S.A. and the Ukraine that we would prevent them from being invaded. We've had little to do with them throughout modern history, even before WWII. Once Russia started pushing the Germans out of their area, England and America's armies didn't go there. The countries that would form NATO would be more concerned with keeping the Soviet Union from completely taking over Germany and pushing on westward for the next 50 years, give or take.

2.) The 'Phony War' was a result of the still war weary nations of France and England (WWI fatigue) not wanting to be drawn into another World War. They continued to let Hitler rattle his sabers and take over small chunks of land in an attempt to keep him satisfied, but he wanted total conquest. France had no means of fighting an offensive war in the 1930's and 1940's. They lost a lot of men during WWI and they had a severe dip in birth rate. England had financial troubles and was attempting to shrink their army. The 'League of Nations' was a joke. World War II stemmed from a lot of different things, but two things that don't catch a lot of blame, but really should are The Treaty of Versailles, and Neville Chamberlain. A good reason why so many people were supportive of Hitler was because France and England more or less castrated Germany as a country, both militarily and financially. They made them agree that they were 100% to blame for WWI and owed everybody reparations money. Hitler started a national "revival" which people were glued to, they wanted to be proud to be German again.

Neville Chamberlain I blame for being too soft and unable to see the looming threat. The threat of an oncoming European war should have been clear in 1935 with the reveal of the Luftwaffe, since Germany was at the time forbidden to have an air force, and even more so in 1938 after the re-unification with Austria and the attempted hostile takeover of Czechoslovakia before Neville Chamberlain gave away somebody else's country in exchange for no more territorial demands in the future. He should have known what kind of man he was dealing with, and he should have been seriously re-arming sooner than he did, or even help France with their system of bunkers, the Maginot Line. Hitler had been in power for 5 years before anything significant had been done to prepare for war.

 

3.) The Cold War was a lot more serious than people think. The Cuban Missile Crisis wasn't the only time the world was a button push away from being completely annihilated. There was a false detection from a Russian satellite of U.S. missile launches in 1983 that could have resulted in disaster, were it not for a cool headed Russian officer who decided the computer was being buggy. In fact, the flashes seen by the satellite were high altitude clouds that create sun flares that look like launch flashes. In addition, while Russia is not nearly as technically capable as some NATO countries are, they can still put together a massive standing army, and as history has proven time and time again, their land mass would be next to impossible to conquer, and that's what a country would have to do in order to get them to stop fighting 100% in the event of all out war. Germany lobbed 3 million men at them (which is about the size of our standing army right now) and it couldn't be done.

The U.S.A. is a big country, Russia is a big country. People around the world can say what they want, but we're still the world heavyweights, and a fight between us would mean another world war. World War II's death toll is now  estimated to be as high as 70 million people, and over half of these deaths were civilians. World War III could be far worse if started. The United Nations has done a better job of keeping the worlds various military powers on a chain up until now. We're all going to have to hope that unlike the League of Nations before it, they can stop the fighting before it starts. Otherwise, history will start to repeat itself.

My personal opinion; Let Ukraine figure out who their president should be. They're all grown up and the internal fighting has calmed down already.

Also, on a side note;

Europe may get oil from Russia, but Russia has a major lack of vital raw materials to build things with, and they rely on Western Europe for that. So trade sanctions or sacrifices are a possibility. The only problem with that is, trade sanctions were a big reason as to why Japan attacked the U.S. in 1941. Because we choked them off of trading after we told them to stop invading various places in China.

Phew. I need to rest. 

I'm just sitting here and hope we don't see another war of 1919-1921. I have family that doesn't live too far from the border, and it does seem to have some parallels with the times, especially with the US maybe not being too happy about the Russian military movement, but not wanting to do much due to the idea being politically unpopular at war.

 

 

1.) I'm aware of no such alleged agreement between the U.S.A. and the Ukraine that we would prevent them from being invaded. We've had little to do with them throughout modern history, even before WWII. Once Russia started pushing the Germans out of their area, England and America's armies didn't go there. The countries that would form NATO would be more concerned with keeping the Soviet Union from completely taking over Germany and pushing on westward for the next 50 years, give or take.

Except there was a treaty about 20 years ago. Look up the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. I don't think it specifically would say the US and UK would send troops to Ukraine to protect it though, in the event of a Russian invasion, or vice versa. It was signed in exchange for Ukraine to give up their nuclear arsenal (which was the 3rd largest at the time.)

 

Also, while the US had little to do with Ukraine before WWII even, the events from 1918-1921 then did have many European Countries find themselves involved, and Ukraine was a big center of it too (in fact, it did have a bit of an impact about 20 years later in the region.)

This whole thing is a mess, really, and things I hear on both sides worry me greatly.

Edited March 2, 201412 yr by Leonov

I don't think it specifically would say the US and UK would send troops to Ukraine to protect it though, in the event of a Russian invasion, or vice versa.

Yeah that was more what I was on about. That whole idea is too "romantic" to ever take place, maybe just implied intimidation, which is what's happening now, I guess. No idea what's up with the missing patches on the Russian troops at the airports either. I don't know who they think they're fooling. Their armored personnel carriers have Russian flag insignia on them, and one even broke down on the side of the road so an AP photographer could get some snap shots of it. They could have at least spent the extra 20 minutes putting duct tape on all of their flag symbols if they wanted to conceal themselves more thoroughly.

On a more lighthearted note about Russia:

Some of these videos were shot just mere days ago. Videos have sound starting at 0:18.

Edited March 2, 201412 yr by unr3al

Yeah that was more what I was on about. That whole idea is too "romantic" to ever take place, maybe just implied intimidation, which is what's happening now, I guess. No idea what's up with the missing patches on the Russian troops at the airports either. I don't know who they think they're fooling. Their armored personnel carriers have Russian flag insignia on them, and one even broke down on the side of the road so an AP photographer could get some snap shots of it. They could have at least spent the extra 20 minutes putting duct tape on all of their flag symbols if they wanted to conceal themselves more thoroughly.

On a more lighthearted note about Russia:

Some of these videos were shot just mere days ago. Videos have sound starting at 0:18.

 

Yeah, I'm amazed at how quick they get these Compilations up. Do have to say, with well over 110,000+ miles experience on the roads here, it does make me wonder what would happen if we had those cameras used on cars here in Florida, especially Central FL and South FL.

Do have to agree with most of that there. It's also hard to hide the fact most of these vehicles have black and white plates that say "RUS" on them as well. I can't give an explaination to it either, nor do I want to make some. As I said, I really don't like what's going on at all, but am really not surprised either. I remember when the Kiev protests started being shown more, thinking that the Eastern Half isn't too impressed with them.

Edited March 2, 201412 yr by Leonov

 No idea what's up with the missing patches on the Russian troops at the airports either. I don't know who they think they're fooling. Their armored personnel carriers have Russian flag insignia on them, and one even broke down on the side of the road so an AP photographer could get some snap shots of it. They could have at least spent the extra 20 minutes putting duct tape on all of their flag symbols if they wanted to conceal themselves more thoroughly.

 

Well, it's not like they're trying to fool anybody. It's like... Like 'Hell, we'll pretend that's not our troops, but we won't try too hard - anyway you can do nothing about it'.

If you remember Georgian War a few years back, there was the same situation. When there were discussions in the UN about Russian actions, Russian representatives laughed and replied 'Hell, they lynch black people in America, they can't tell us what to do'. And the invasion was left without any serious consequences. 

 

Meanwhile my Ukraine friends tell that Ukrainian Army is actually ready to fight back. Of course they're scared of consequences but still not going to give up.

The latest that I have heard is that the Ukrainian army are on combat alert and the government are calling up reservists to prepare for action. If this doesn't show things are getting real then I wonder what will.

NATO or the EU has hardly worked  well with Russia after the Cold war. Thule base and the missile shield by Bush is two fine examples of the generous treatment Russia has been given by NATO, the organization formed to "fight" the USSR if the cold war turned hot.

 

However, saying that we're facing a new Cold war or a major military crisis is very unlikely as the situation is complicated. It's likely Russias way of showing that they should be taken seriously by NATO and that the rest of Eastern Europe shouldn't be so quick to jump on the EU bandwangon, not forgetting that Russia supplies the EU with a lot of natural gas and fossil fuels.

NATO or the EU has hardly worked  well with Russia after the Cold war. Thule base and the missile shield by Bush is two fine examples of the generous treat

NATO kept troops, weapons and technological resources on standby for 50 years while Russia was essentially concentrating on the continental U.S. They weren't useful as a diplomatic force, but they were allies America wanted and should still want as far as I'm concerned. The Georgian invasion was left without serious consequences because they pulled out when the U.N. told them to. Bush Jr.'s threat to Russia was something that shouldn't have been issued. Perhaps Putin thinks the U.S. is soft because the Bush Jr. white house didn't actually do anything physical when Russia threw their weight around. Putin is making a big mistake if he's thinking that is the case.

NATO kept troops, weapons and technological resources on standby for 50 years while Russia was essentially concentrating on the continental U.S. They weren't useful as a diplomatic force, but they were allies America wanted and should still want as far as I'm concerned. The Georgian invasion was left without serious consequences because they pulled out when the U.N. told them to. Bush Jr.'s threat to Russia was something that shouldn't have been issued. Perhaps Putin thinks the U.S. is soft because the Bush Jr. white house didn't actually do anything physical when Russia threw their weight around. Putin is making a big mistake if he's thinking that is the case.

 

What's Obama going to do?  It's pretty much "Stop or I'll tell you to stop again".

 

You can just picture Sergei Lavrov sighing, saying "whatever" and hanging up the phone.  I don't think Putin is the sort of person that loses sleep over the prospect of not being in the G8, especially when he has the valves to half of Europe's gas.