Ukraine's navy says Russia has opened fire and seized three of its vessels off the coast of Crimea. - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14966774
One Degree wrote:In other words, NATO is chickenshit and would rather sacrifice an autonomous country than confront Russia?
Why ally with someone if Russia doesn’t want you to? Pretty pathetic moral superiority for the self acclaimed morally superior. :)


Not necessarily. Nato lives not only in a military realm but also in political realm. NATO can't keep expanding forever until it consumes all. Also such an expansion in to Ukraine is potentially very hazardous for the well being of NATO members themselves. Ukraine is a tough question because the more we keep expanding closer to Russia, the more Russia will scream that NATO is surrounding it, the more Russia will be willing to do a pushback (Military if needed) to stop this from happening. You know, when somebody is cornered and has no chance but to fight back then he will fight back even if it is suicidal. So Ukraine is a very complicated question in this regard. It is a territory that Russia considers part of its core territory. Not just Russian elite but also the Russian people.

Let us pretend the US lost the cold war and also collapsed to a degree with an independent Texas. Now Warshaw Pact is trying to expand in to Texas. How would it make you feel? This is the kind of situation Russian leadership/Russian people find themselves in right now. (Note i am not saying this is right or wrong. I am just trying to put me in the shoes of Russia to a degree)
#14966776
JohnRawls wrote:Not necessarily. Nato lives not only in a military realm but also in political realm. NATO can't keep expanding forever until it consumes all. Also such an expansion in to Ukraine is potentially very hazardous for the well being of NATO members themselves. Ukraine is a tough question because the more we keep expanding closer to Russia, the more Russia will scream that NATO is surrounding it, the more Russia will be willing to do a pushback (Military if needed) to stop this from happening. You know, when somebody is cornered and has no chance but to fight back then he will fight back even if it is suicidal. So Ukraine is a very complicated question in this regard. It is a territory that Russia considers part of its core territory. Not just Russian elite but also the Russian people.

Let us pretend the US lost the cold war and also collapsed to a degree with an independent Texas. Now Warshaw Pact is trying to expand in to Texas. How would it make you feel? This is the kind of situation Russian leadership/Russian people find themselves in right now. (Note i am not saying this is right or wrong. I am just trying to put me in the shoes of Russia to a degree)


Well put. NATO should be a confederation to strictly protect autonomy rather than to expand political doctrine imo. The latter is what creates the conflict.
#14966794
[center-img]http://i63.tinypic.com/2d85krm.jpg[/center-img]

[center-img]http://i65.tinypic.com/2njj9g6.jpg[/center-img]

Ukraine has placed its troops on full combat alert, as MPs in Kiev are set to approve President Petro Poroshenko’s proposal to impose martial law following a skirmish between the Russian military and Ukrainian vessels near Crimea.
The decision to put the Ukrainian armed forces on the highest level of alert came after the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) supported Poroshenko’s earlier proposal to invoke martial law for 60 days.
The move is now awaiting the approval of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, who will be voting on the motion on Monday.
“Based on the NSDC decision to impose martial law, the head of the General Staff – the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – has ordered to put all units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on full combat alert,” reads a statement released by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Monday.
On sunday, Russia opened fire and seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels – two artillery boats and a tugboat. It says that these were breaching the Russian maritime border and trying to pass through the Kerch Strait, a narrow waterway between mainland Russia and Crimea, which connects Ukrainian ports in the Black and the Azov seas.

The Russian coastguard said that the vessels had not given proper notification of their passage and repeatedly ignored warnings and “legal demands” to stop. Three Ukrainian crew members were injured in the altercation, and were treated by Russian medics.
Kiev insists that it had given proper notice to the Russian side ahead of what it describes as a planned routine maneuver. It is now demanding the release of the ships and their crew, as well as compensation for the damage inflicted.
The Ukrainian government has asked its allies, including NATO and the EU, to retaliate against what Kiev describes as Russian “aggression,” calling on its Western backers to tighten existing sanctions and impose new measures against Russia, as well as providing Kiev with “military assistance to protect its territorial integrity.”
Poroshenko said, however, that martial law does not mean that Ukraine is now in a state of war with Russia.

https://www.rt.com/trends/russia-ukrain ... -standoff/
#14966797
JohnRawls wrote:They haven't. They are not members of Nato and Nato does not want to accept them because it knows it will lead to a direct confrontation with Russia not to mention that we can't fully deny that this will fuel Russian animosity to Nato/Eu/West even further. Nobody wants this.


This kind of appeasement will make things worse than WW2 because there are no Nazis to act as a common enemy now.
#14966798
Ukrainians obviously hate and fear the Russians.

The Holodomor was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It is also known as the Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine or The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33.
#14966799
JohnRawls wrote:Not necessarily. Nato lives not only in a military realm but also in political realm. NATO can't keep expanding forever until it consumes all...


I will put things like this.

Russia had done very badly during the Tsar and USSR eras that many countries newly escaping it surely don't want to be under its influence again as much as possible. That's why they turn to NATO. It's not really that NATO is actively seeking expansion, but the system of NATO is probably better that it attracts surrounding countries even if it actually wants to sit and not do anything.

You can say Russia is more or less struggling with the reaction that's seeded by their ancestors. I understand any sensible leader of such a nation would want to reverse this trend, but I am afraid Putin is not doing it in a convincing way. If he died, got senile or whatever, and his team could not hold things around, I am afraid another apocalypse would be waiting for them.
#14966966
Kerch straight is the only connection Crimea has to Russian mainland. There is no way Russia is going to allow Ukrainians in that straight so they can have control of the only route to Crimea. This is Nato and Americans playing games with Russians again.

As for Crimea and Ukraine Russians are willing to go to war over it. It is that simple. Perhaps they will in the future surrender their claims to Ukraine but it will only be temporary. Even Navalny Putin's arch-nemesis support annexation of Crimea. Trump signaled in his election campaign that he is willing to recognize annexation of Crimea; however it seems with pressure from his allies and Washington hawks this is not possible at the moment.

Putin is a freaking idiot. Instead of prioritizing of rebuilding the Russian economy and restoring law and order in society like Ukrainian oligarchs all he was concerned about was living a high life like an aristocrat. Obviously Ukrainians started to look towards the west for better life then to corrupt incompetent officials in Moscow.

Now Russia lost the support of about 50% of Ukrainians as they rightful so look at Russia and see things are not improving. So they turn to EU to improve their lives. The trouble now is that Ukraine has a government that relentlessly is anti-Russian and pro-EU. Any political representation of pro-Russian sentiments have been purged out of political scene after Maidan. So any effort of unity or perhaps of reunification without force is off the table for foreseeable future.
#14967295
Things seem to be hotting up in Crimea...
Russian anti-ship missiles have just been filmed moving towards the Crimean city of Kerch after the flare-up with Ukraine.

A large column of Russian military hardware, including anti-ship missile systems, has been spotted moving towards the Crimean city of Kerch, after Russian border guards faced off with Ukrainian ships violating Russia’s border.
A video exclusively obtained by RT’s video agency Ruptly shows a whole column of military trucks, as well as several ‘Bal’ coastal defense systems, moving along a road in Crimea. The troops were being relocated to an area near the city of Kerch, following the tense standoff on Sunday with a group of Ukrainian ships that, despite repeated warnings, had breached Russia’s territorial waters in the Kerch Strait.
The ‘Bal’ systems are equipped with eight X-35 cruise anti-ship missiles, capable of hitting vessels with displacement tonnages up to 5,000 tons at a distance of up to 20 kilometers.
Ukraine parliament backs Poroshenko’s 30-day martial law in Russia border areas after Kerch standoff
The video emerged hours after the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) admitted that intelligence agents had been on the ships which entered Russian waters. Russia’s FSB had earlier accused the SBU or coordinating the “provocation,” and also released a confession of one of the two SBU officers detained and interrogated after the chase was over.
Moscow said the Ukrainian vessels had failed to apply to pass through the narrow strait as required, and were undertaking dangerous maneuvers while ignoring the orders of the Russian border guards. Following an intense hours-long game of cat-and-mouse and the blocked Ukrainians’ attempt to break through, the guards saw no option but to open fire and seize the vessels. Several Ukrainians who received shrapnel wounds were immediately treated and hospitalized.
Kiev immediately accused Russia of “aggression” and, on Monday, imposed martial law on its territories bordering Russia as well as along the coast of the Black and the Azov Seas. Moscow, in turn, has accused Kiev of staging a planned provocation aimed at stirring up the conflict between the two neighbors and justifying the imposition of martial law ahead of the presidential vote in March, in which President Petro Poroshenko is trailing behind several candidates in polls.

RT News.

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