So Ukraine is mobilizing their army, and just created a 60,000 strong National Guard corps I heard.
Will this give Russia pause, or will it embolden them somehow, like a grab for more lands in the east of Ukraine?
I don't think the Russian military is too concerned about dealing with the Ukrainian army, but the possibility of the west stepping in to arm them probably gives them pause. They didn't enjoy our last round of gifts we gave the guys they were beating up on.
I have a hard time believing that if all the Nordic and Baltic states were Nato-members, they would betray eachother in case of a war with Russia. History shows these are crucial times where we need to stick together against Russian imperialism.
What is happening now in Ukraine, happened in the Baltics in 1939-1940 except that there's no world war going on. The Soviet Union massed troops on the Baltics republics borders and the republics were forced to let in Soviet troops. In 1940 elections (obviously fraudulent) were held where the republics were annexed to the Soviet Union. Finland refused to comply with Soviet demands, a month later the Soviets invaded. In 1932 Finland and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact respecting each others territorial borders, 7 years later the Soviet Union broke that treaty. In 1994 Russia signed a treaty to respect Ukraines borders, 20 years later they broke it. 70 years ago Finns in Soviet propaganda were shown as fascist russophobes planning to attack the Soviet Union. In 2014 Russian propaganda tells the same lies about some imaginary fascist russophobes attacking Russian-speaking population in Crimea. Russian imperialism is a threat to peace in Europe.
I have a hard time believing that if all the Nordic and Baltic states were Nato-members, they would betray eachother in case of a war with Russia. History shows these are crucial times where we need to stick together against Russian imperialism.
What is happening now in Ukraine, happened in the Baltics in 1939-1940 except that there's no world war going on. The Soviet Union massed troops on the Baltics republics borders and the republics were forced to let in Soviet troops. In 1940 elections (obviously fraudulent) were held where the republics were annexed to the Soviet Union. Finland refused to comply with Soviet demands, a month later the Soviets invaded. In 1932 Finland and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact respecting each others territorial borders, 7 years later the Soviet Union broke that treaty. In 1994 Russia signed a treaty to respect Ukraines borders, 20 years later they broke it. 70 years ago Finns in Soviet propaganda were shown as fascist russophobes planning to attack the Soviet Union. In 2014 Russian propaganda tells the same lies about some imaginary fascist russophobes attacking Russian-speaking population in Crimea. Russian imperialism is a threat to peace in Europe.
Russian imperialism is a threat to peace in Europe.
95% sends a message: We know that you know it's a fraud, and we don't give a fuck. Makes Putin and Russia look strong, the West look weak.LOL at the crazies in this thread...
I always wonder, when these "referendums" are conducted at the barrel of a gun and they don't even try to pretend that they are in any way legitimate. No legitimate referendum on a subject that is more controversial than "would you like your head cut off" gets 95% vote. None.
Why do they even bother pretending that there was a vote? With or without such a "referendum", and anyone inside Russia and outside knows that 95% can only be achieved by massive fraud. Since they are fixing up the result anyway, why not fix it as something more reasonable like 70%? Or even 60%? Don't they realize just how laughable a 95% result is?
Ukraine wisely realizes that armed resistance will mean Russia taking all of Ukraine at once.The "clown car" assembly is the same parliament that was there before the revolution. This same clown car assembly is the reason for their restriant. One has to give tremendous credit to Ukraine. Ukraine absolutely has a casus belli against Russia and would be perfectly justified in going to war with them - indeed, they have been justified in going to war with Russia for weeks now.
Having part of the country conquered by another would be a slight on a nation's honor that could not be countenanced but the ensuring war would have been much, much worse. Ukraine, to its enormous credit, chose to accept that they couldn't do anything about this that would not result in a bloodbath. Russia tried to push Ukraine into shooting, like they did with Georgia, but the Ukrainians were too smart for it.
Relations are already soured. The reboot failed misreably, mainly because Obama/Clinton failed to realize that the problem was not Bush, but rather a resurgent Russia gaining strength from its energy resources and no longer forced to deal with a weakening America from a position of weakness.Why would I strap on? I oppose US intervention in damn near everything. I certainly never supported losing good American kids over another country's problems.
So you oppose what is happening in Crimea but you aren't calling for military intervention? You don't want to go to war with Russia over this, you just want to sour relations and damage our economy over it? What human suffering has been introduced by this "invasion"? Where is the great injustice? What unpardonable sin has been committed? Please enrich our knowledge from your deep well of wisdom.
Welcome, and thanks for the unique viewpoint. In your opinion, is Finland prepared to risk a resurgent Russia? Given their pre-war embarassment from such a small country, I would think Putin would be looking elsewhere, but honestly I haven't kept track of Finland's military strength.OSCE is not sending in _election_ observers because the OCSE does not recognise this referendum as legal. However they were sending in _military_ observers who were not let into Crimea but rather were shot at. Russia then invited pro-Russia people to "monitor" these elections, who are no part of OSCE. This has been all over the news, over here atleast...
Johan Bäckman is a known troll in Finland. He works for the Russian government and is paid by the Russian government. Russia is waging an information war on its neighbours and Bäckman is a weapon used in that war. Whenever Finland does something that the Russians don't like, stories appear in Russian media how Finland is a bad place to live and it has been Bäckman giving "expert" opinion for the Russian media. Some examples of these made-up stories to make Finland look bad in Russian people's eyes are stories how Finland is a bad place for women and children to live in, how families in Finland are destroyed for some gay-"agenda", how Finland is racist, fascist or russophobe. There might be some friction in some trade talks for example and suddenly these "news stories" start circulating in Russian media, Bäckman acting as some Finnish expert while in reality he works for the Russian government. Other neighbours of Russia, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (no shit), Caucasus states, have had their share of Russian smear campaign of the 2000's. Russian aggression in the media seems to have increased every year.
One thing Russia has done with their aggression is to drive Finland more towards NATO. Finland is not a NATO-member. During the Cold War we couldn't join and there are still plenty of anti-NATO people around but I'm sure opinions are changing because of this new Russian imperialism. Some ideas are brought up in the media how we could also form a military alliance with Sweden, also not-Nato. Russia might see NATO expand closer to its borders in the coming years anyway. 1300 kms of more NATO-border for Russia. Russia fail.
I like lurking all kinds of American-, British-, international etc forums because I like the different viewpoints people around the world have but this thread made my head hurt so much I had to register. I live in the backwoods of Finland close to the Russian border and I've been worried about the situation in Russia for some years now.
What has been really sad to see are all the excuses made for Russian imperialism.
OSCE is not sending in _election_ observers because the OCSE does not recognise this referendum as legal. However they were sending in _military_ observers who were not let into Crimea but rather were shot at. Russia then invited pro-Russia people to "monitor" these elections, who are no part of OSCE. This has been all over the news, over here atleast...
Johan Bäckman is a known troll in Finland. He works for the Russian government and is paid by the Russian government. Russia is waging an information war on its neighbours and Bäckman is a weapon used in that war. Whenever Finland does something that the Russians don't like, stories appear in Russian media how Finland is a bad place to live and it has been Bäckman giving "expert" opinion for the Russian media. Some examples of these made-up stories to make Finland look bad in Russian people's eyes are stories how Finland is a bad place for women and children to live in, how families in Finland are destroyed for some gay-"agenda", how Finland is racist, fascist or russophobe. There might be some friction in some trade talks for example and suddenly these "news stories" start circulating in Russian media, Bäckman acting as some Finnish expert while in reality he works for the Russian government. Other neighbours of Russia, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (no shit), Caucasus states, have had their share of Russian smear campaign of the 2000's. Russian aggression in the media seems to have increased every year.
One thing Russia has done with their aggression is to drive Finland more towards NATO. Finland is not a NATO-member. During the Cold War we couldn't join and there are still plenty of anti-NATO people around but I'm sure opinions are changing because of this new Russian imperialism. Some ideas are brought up in the media how we could also form a military alliance with Sweden, also not-Nato. Russia might see NATO expand closer to its borders in the coming years anyway. 1300 kms of more NATO-border for Russia. Russia fail.
I like lurking all kinds of American-, British-, international etc forums because I like the different viewpoints people around the world have but this thread made my head hurt so much I had to register. I live in the backwoods of Finland close to the Russian border and I've been worried about the situation in Russia for some years now.
What has been really sad to see are all the excuses made for Russian imperialism.
Finland recognized Kosovo independence almost right away when it broke away... when will you do the same for Crimea?
Welcome, and thanks for the unique viewpoint. In your opinion, is Finland prepared to risk a resurgent Russia? Given their pre-war embarassment from such a small country, I would think Putin would be looking elsewhere, but honestly I haven't kept track of Finland's military strength.
Finland's military is doing alright as far as I know, still very much oriented towards defending from an invasion. The weak link in Scandinavia is Sweden, they've been screwing over their military for a while now, they spend more time arguing about removing penises from lions of their coat of arms than they do defending their own airspace. As a Dane I got a nice chuckle out of having to scramble Danish fighters patrolling the Baltics to defend Swedish airspace from the commie bastards.
A weak and destabilized Europe is best for the world. Would be interesting to see the Russians roll through Ukraine and into the EU. Europe is going to be colonized, might as well start doing it now.
Sweden has completely restructured their military to just be a rapid response force for humanitarian needs plus some NATO operations. We hold the world record for longest peace time.
I do wonder if Europe has the stomach for standing up to Russia.
Hey! Påsk is an important holiday, it's not our penis-hating politicians' fault Russia exercised air strikes on a holiday. Had it been a weekday, we would've intercepted
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev weighed in on the crisis Tuesday, hailing Crimea's vote to join Russia as a "happy event." Gorbachev, in remarks carried Tuesday by online newspaper Slon.ru, said Crimea's vote offered residents the freedom of choice and showed that "people really wanted to return to Russia."
Sorry but Afghanistan (a nation where almost everyone hated the Russians and no one identified with Eastern European or Russian culture) does even remotely come close to being similar in nature with the Ukraine. A nation where there is already is a significant population of people with Russian heritage and ancestry.
your artillery regiment doesn't have any artillery pieces either... what are you going to do? throw gender neutral pronouns at the commies
reports are coming in about Russia storming a Ukrainian military base on Crimea, gun fire may have wounded a Ukrainian soldier. So much for Putin's speech earlier today.
I would suspect our first line of defense would be a welcome party of pro-communism feminists. If that doesn't scare the Russkies away then nothing will.