The Ukraine Crisis Part 1 The initial Battles

A thread to discuss the ongoing crisis that is affecting Eastern part of Europe

Please keep it on topic and focus on this part of the world .

Any off topic posts I will remove without any notification .

Any posts containing personal insults will be removed and warnings given .

 

Ukrainian TV




Russian and Soviet occupation decimated Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and other native to our land nationalities, working hard and deliberately for decades to erase our identities.

Poets and writers who would use their native tongue instead of language of invaders were often prosecuted. Many of them died in mysterious circumstances, many died in imprisonment.

 

If the USA can take South Sudan and declare it independent, and The UK and USA take Kuwait and declare it independent, and threaten China with Taiwan Independence, and recognize The Golan Heights and West Bank as parts of Israel, my guess is Putin will win this one. It's a case of the pot and kettle trading insults.

 

Not sure about Sudan but Kuwait was a Sovereign country in its own right .I dont want to get into a debate about these 2 counties otherwise the thread will go off topic.

With Ukraine

"Ukraine officially declared itself an independent country on 24 August 1991, when the communist Supreme Soviet (parliament) of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine would no longer follow the laws of USSR and only the laws of the Ukrainian SSR, de facto declaring Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union."

So its been fully independent for 30 years and now because of a change of regime in Russia ,they want it back .

That's how I see it

However I do accept in the Donbas Region they speak mainly Russian and have more Russian traditions than the Western side which is more aligned with the west .

 

Ukraine is doomed (and I predict the Baltic states; Putin's reconstructing the USSR); the writing was on the wall when Russian tanks began rolling over Ukrainian soil and the West clutched their pearls and pedantically debated the precise definition of "invasion".
Like Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938, Western powers have no taste for pan-European or global war, and Putin is betting on this.
For economic sanctions to have any effect, they would require the largest banks in London and New York to give up their lucrative money laundering operations for Russian oligarchs. That's simply not going to happen voluntarily and our governments haven't the power to compel them. Putin's betting on this as well.
The United States and Great Britain have shown precious little interest in preserving their own democracies; why would anyone think that they would rush to the defense of others?

 

I can see 2 arguments here :

The West regard it as an invasion as Russian tanks they said have gone onto Ukrainian soil .

The counter argument here.

1) The pictures so far from the Donbas Region do not necessarily show that the vehicles belong to Russian regular forces .
2) The pictures I have seen from the Donbas area are not tanks but lorried troops and Armoured Personal carriers with a pea shooter of a gun at most .
3) The so called tank shown in the footage I have seen is an Engineers trenching machine ( unarmed )
4) All the said vehicles have no identification markings and therefore could belong to the Separatists already there . These separatists are like private armies (Mercenaries fighting for a cause ) funded and supplied by the Russian state and have their own tanks and artillery assets .

The Main Russian argument as I see it :

They have no forces there and the troops are separatists that have been there since the 2016 ceasefire .

A reason why I am slightly sceptical here about Russian Tanks being in the Donbas Region is that so far no Satellite pictures have been released showing the dispersion of these vehicles . Yet satellite pictures are littered abut the web showing the build up of military hardware on all the other borders .

Of course once the evidence has been shown then that would kill this argument .

 

NATO Says Images Show Russian Tanks in Ukraine

 

Thanks for that

For me it doesnt prove anything as the Separatists have their own tanks .

I dont think the flags will be waving once in the areas of conflict .

Below is a picture of a column of Separatists T72 tanks .

They carry very few markings




Also Rostov is in Russia and not the Ukraine

 

Customs at the airport
"Nationality?"
"Russian."
"Occupation?"
"No, no; just peacekeeping!"

 

A map showing the Donbas Region .

I have placed this on here so we know what area we are debating about as this is likely going to be the first place of conflict. Actually conflict as been going on for 8 years without a break.

 

I know lol. I am as sceptical as some of you guys in all this .

All I want to do is to add a bit of balance and not go too overboard with Western Media or Russophobia

 

Until I was nearly ten years old, Kuwait was a part of Iraq and had been so for hundreds of years.

 

I guess it is an invasion when Russia does it but a liberation when America does it?

 

Dang; since Kuwait was partitioned after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that makes you around 110 years old.

 

United Nations in Ukraine
NATO - Topic: Relations with Ukraine

 

Trump praises ‘genius’ Putin for moving troops to eastern Ukraine

 

No sir, Kuwait was recognized by England as independent in 1961 and because a member of the UN in 1963. From 1919 until sometime after WWII the Brits considered Iraq to be under British Mandate and sent Gertrude Bell to terrorize the place. Iraq had 3 kings after WWI and all died young. Getting back to Ukraine, I would support their unity or independence of their minorities no different than the Kurdish people of Iraq. Most Kurds are nice; and I think they should live as they wish. At the same time, if you break up Iraq, and Putin breaks up Ukraine, then don't complain if southern California goes back to Mexico.

 

Errrmmm - isn't that second tank carrying the flag of Confederate Texas ???

 

Gawd you guys are testing my knowledge of this area.

No matey as its no stars in it .I believe it was influenced by the Confederate flag being that for rebels.But in this case Ukrainian Rebels.

Its a flag used by Russian Separatists who are as above in the main Ukrainian Rebels.





Novorossiya, IPA: [nəvɐˈrosʲɪjə] ( listen); Ukrainian: Новоросія, romanized: Novorosiia; Romanian: Noua Rusie, Polish: Noworosja), literally New Russia, is a historical term of the Russian Empire denoting a region north of the Black Sea (now part of Ukraine).

 

It brings to mind the Cuban Missile Crisis, but so far it seems like Russia isn't backing down. Maybe we can get Putin to agree to some compromise, the way we removed missiles from Turkey in exchange for them removing the missiles from Cuba.

It's scary as Hell, as if these times weren't already fucked up enough. I feel confident we'll get through this okay, but I'm still watching and waiting and hoping the shit don't hit the fan!