Anybody look at Ukraine lately?

[Cain]

Olga?  Maybe.  She's very high profile though.  They call her "the Mother Theresa of the Maidan protests".

[Junkenstein]

A high profile martyr could serve any sides interest. Just saying if I was her I'd be being very fucking careful for the forseeable future.

[Junkenstein]

Missed this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26447200

On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities confirmed that communication networks had been targeted, the first significant disruption of technology.

"I confirm that an... attack is under way on mobile phones of members of the Ukrainian parliament for the second day in a row," Ukrainian security chief Valentyn Nalivaichenko told journalists.

"At the entrance to [telecoms firm] Ukrtelecom in Crimea, illegally and in violation of all commercial contracts, was installed equipment that blocks my phone as well as the phones of other deputies, regardless of their political affiliation."

In addition, Ukrtelecom said its premises were raided last week by armed men, and fibre optic cabling was tampered with, causing loss of service for some users.

Another angle worth watching and certainly one that will have all sides involved.

[Cain]

The Estonian government has confirmed the phone call mentioned earlier is legit, though it's keen to give the impression that their Foreign Minister was not accusing the new Ukrainian government, merely repeating a serious accusation.

What most people call "splitting hairs"

[Cain]

Crimea's parliament has approved a referendum on the region joining the Russian Federation.

It's set for way too soon though.  Like, in a month.  And, lets not forget, the peninsula is already occuped by Russian troops.  There is no way a fair and free vote can take place in these circumstances, even if joining Russia is the will of the people (and, to be fair, it probably is).

[Junkenstein]

In a month, it certainly will be. There's a lot you can do to get public favour in a month. They're not off to a bad start by not killing everything moving.

[Cain]

Well, let's put it this way.  The last time a leader invaded a country, and then that country had a vote on whether to join them within a month was in fact actually Hitler.  And while I'm leery of Hitler comparisons, overused as they are in the case of every tinpot dictator the West hates, this is the exact modus operandi of the annexation of Austria and an extremely dangerous international political precedent.

Even though I strongly believe the Crimean Republic probably really does want to join with the Russian Federation, this is about the worst possible way to go about it.  It sends a message that a major global player believes in using military force to settle territorial disputes, and given the large number of territorial/ethnic disputes there are in the world, we really do not want to go down a route whereby people invade first, then take the vote second.

[Junkenstein]

I'm torn between my normal healthy laugh and abject terror.

The implications globally for the future are, as you note, terrifying. China's got more than a couple of places that it would do this to in a heartbeat. Hells, just consider what would happen to Africa. Again.

And the Hitler aspect, wow. Finally, godwins law can be invoked legitimately. 

[LMNO]

Well, let's put it this way.  The last time a leader invaded a country, and then that country had a vote on whether to join them within a month was in fact actually Hitler. 

This also gets a

[Cain]

It's very worrying.  I think, had the Crimean Republic decided to secede and come under de facto Russian control, that would be broadly acceptable.  That was certainly my assumption, based on previous Russian behaviour in Georgia etc. 

However, this signals a major shift in Russian policy, and could see other areas, like South Ossetia being incorporated into the Federation.  It also means any nations with significant Russian minorities (like Kazakhstan, or Lithuania) have reason to be suspicious as fuck about Russian intentions.  Which will probably lead to greater harassment of Russians, leading to calls on Russia for protection, leading to a spiralling, ethnically driven international security dilemma.

The other reason for such an extreme Russian reaction has to be the Black Sea Fleet.  Notice how no-one, not Ukraine's new government, the EU or the USA have been willing to guarantee continued Russian leasing of the base?  Russia may have taken such silence as consent to the idea of throwing them out.  In fact, that is my belief about what is currently informing their actions.

[Cain]

As loathe as I am to admit it, Kissinger is making a lot of sense:

Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia's borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia's means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

The European Union must recognize that its bureaucratic dilatoriness and subordination of the strategic element to domestic politics in negotiating Ukraine's relationship to Europe contributed to turning a negotiation into a crisis. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities.

But then, lack of smarts has never been a problem for Kissinger.  Lack of morals, sure.  But in times like this, I'd rather listen to the guy who went through the last Cold War and has a strongly stated distaste for nuclear weapons than the ideological fools currently populating the State Department, no matter how much blood is on his hands.

[Telarus]

I agree with both of your lasts posts :P

[East Coast Hustle]

The first dramatic question that springs to mind is: what are the chances that this is just the beginning of a push towards re-establishing the old USSR boundaries as much as possible, at least with regards to the European former soviet states?

I am, admittedly, curious as to Russia's seeming dependence on Sevastopol, when they have their own integral territory fronting the Black Sea.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The first dramatic question that springs to mind is: what are the chances that this is just the beginning of a push towards re-establishing the old USSR boundaries as much as possible, at least with regards to the European former soviet states?

I am, admittedly, curious as to Russia's seeming dependence on Sevastopol, when they have their own integral territory fronting the Black Sea.

While I am certain that Putin would love to grab the choicer bits, why would they want the whole thing back?

[Cain]

A good question.  Putin's media propagandists have been extolling the virtues of Stalin and the Great Patriotic War a lot lately.  Putin seemed to prefer the Eurasia Union approach, but events in Ukraine definitely made that impossible.

I think Putin knows most of Europe is a lost cause, the EaU cannot possibly compete with the EU at this moment in time, so he's retrenching on areas of the Russian border, so Ukraine, Belarus and...well, Transnistria I suppose, technically.  The decisive shift here seems to be from simply protecting Russians abroad, a key component of Putin's foreign policy both in actuality and in propaganda terms, to integrating Russians back into the Federation.  I hope this is a one off, but Putin has won a decisive victory here, despite the diplomatic fallout so I don't think we can discount future occurences.

Putin's overall vision does seem strongly influenced by the Eurasianist faction in Russian politics, which does stress a "third way" Russian Empire...of a pluralistic nature, so they claim, though given the overlaps between Eurasianism and some forms of mystical fascism I'm not sold on that claim.  Such an empire would exist to counterbalance "Atlantacist thalassocracy", and is understood in mostly geopolitcal terms, traditional power politics.  But I don't believe Putin's entirely sold on it, he's far too tactically shrewd I think to be tightly bound to such a vision.  But it is politically expedient for him to use the Eurasianists to bolster his own domestic position.

As for the Black Sea Fleet, from what I can tell, Russia doesn't have the facilities to host the fleet in the Krasnodar Krai coastal cities.  Given their importance for Russian tourism, it may be that the economic incentives for development simply are not there, and given Russian finances, that income may itself be considered a strategic asset.

And of course, there is the history of Sevastopol and Ukraine, which I'm sure I don't need to go into.  Russians sure are attached to their hsitory.