Merged Ukraine erupts in riots and general strike.

[Childlike Empress]

If they were sincere, they could just wait for the the election in May, and then abide by wishes of the then-legitimate government.

Whether Russia has a hand in these protests or not, they look as if they do.

You keep repeating this "election" stuff. Are you aware what they are going to elect? The president. Who has vastly fewer powers under the constitution the illegitimate parliament decided to reinstall than Yanukovic had under the current constitution. While I haven't heard anything about a parliamentary election or something like a constitutional referendum planned. Meaning, they will get to elect a figurehead and the illegitimate rump parliament and the government with Swoboda and worse goons in positions of power and Yats as significant decider will stay for the foreseeable future if it goes like they want.

Any information to the contrary?

 

[Dcdrac]

An illegal land grab and obviously bogus referendum in Crimea was somehow magically legitimate?

 

[IDB87]

An illegal land grab and obviously bogus referendum in Crimea was somehow magically legitimate?

LOL - did the pre$$titude tell you that? Sheeple. Go back to sleep.

Read RT or else you're uninformed.

 

[daenku32]

LOL - did the pre$$titude tell you that? Sheeple. Go back to sleep.

Read RT or else you're uninformed.

RT reads like Fox News did when Bush was President.

The approach they take to news is directly in line of Russia's geopolitical interests. Their coverage of Russia's worst allies of Iran & Syria makes that pretty darn clear. They white wash negative coverage about those countries as badly as they white wash negative coverage about Russia.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Someone remind me, has the thread gotten to the truth yet?

An interview today with the Ukrainian activist/singer, Ruslana, on Ronan Farrow Daily (MSNBC) claimed the Russian activists who have taken over Ukrainian government buildings near the border are Russian citizens, not Russian citizens of the Ukraine. She said they even made mistakes about which buildings were the government buildings.

I wish there was some way to filter all the lies and find the truth. I would like to believe this woman, she lives there. But I don't know the level of ethnic strife in the country.

 

[IDB87]

RT reads like Fox News did when Bush was President.

The approach they take to news is directly in line of Russia's geopolitical interests. Their coverage of Russia's worst allies of Iran & Syria makes that pretty darn clear. They white wash negative coverage about those countries as badly as they white wash negative coverage about Russia.

That's the joke

 

[Childlike Empress]

I would like to believe this woman, she lives there.

Did you care to read her wikipedia article? You could as well ask Yats or Timoshenko. If she was presented as "unbiased", never turn on that show again.

 

[uke2se]

I hope the West has decided on what to do if Putin invades again. He can't be allowed to get away with it again. Targeted sanctions aren't going to cut it.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Here's a map. It's a nice thing for those who usually fail to spot Ukraine on a map, but also for all of us who witness the current stage of the drama and need some context to the sagas that now somehow thousands of Russians are showing up and making trouble, fine-tuned by Putin with his brainwaves directly from the Kremlin. Or something.

Presidential election 2010, run-off Timoshenko against Janukovic. Janukovic won country-wide with 48.95% to 45.47%. Notice to the left (west), Lviv, hometown of Ruslana and the Bandera cult, 70+% for Yulia Timoshenko. In the center, Kiev, Yulia slightly won. Wander to the far east - the cities in the news today. Kharkiv, 60+ percent Janukovic. Lugansk, 80%. Donetsk, a whopping 85% Janukovic.

Why that? Only because he's "pro-Russian"? He hasn't been that pro-Russian at all. I recently read an interesting interview with Peter Scholl-Latour^WP, one of - or rather THE - Germany's most experienced and respected foreign affairs journalists. He was asked if he ever met Janukovic. Yes, he said, he met him when Rinat Akhmetov^WP, Ukraine's wealthiest man, the oligarch of their oligarchs, invited him to an audience. After he was gifted a T-Shirt of Akhmetov's football club, Shakhtar Donetsk, the oligarch introduced him to Janukovic as "the next president of Ukraine". So that must have been around the turn of the century. In other words, J. is Rinat's creation.

Both Kharkiv and Rinat's base, Donetsk, are centers of Ukrainian heavy industry with millions of citizens. They aren't competitive by EU standards and would have suffered the most by the "association agreement". Think Eastern Germany's industry sold for a symbolic Mark.

Word is that Achmetov has visited Putin in Moscow last week. So if you want to make your CTs a bit more credible, assume that he is investing some considerable amount of money into making the Russian proposal of a constitution with stronger federalism happen, for the sake of his $15 billion, but don't forget that it is also for the sake of the peanuts all the fine people of Eastern Ukraine will receive "trickling down".

 

[Dcdrac]

And how does any of that legitimise the illegal seizure of the Crimea by Russia?

 

[McHrozni]

You keep repeating this "election" stuff. Are you aware what they are going to elect? The president. Who has vastly fewer powers under the constitution the illegitimate parliament decided to reinstall than Yanukovic had under the current constitution. While I haven't heard anything about a parliamentary election or something like a constitutional referendum planned. Meaning, they will get to elect a figurehead and the illegitimate rump parliament and the government with Swoboda and worse goons in positions of power and Yats as significant decider will stay for the foreseeable future if it goes like they want.

Any information to the contrary?

Plenty, but some people - you for example - refuse to acknowledge it exists.

Both Kharkiv and Rinat's base, Donetsk, are centers of Ukrainian heavy industry with millions of citizens. They aren't competitive by EU standards and would have suffered the most by the "association agreement".

If they aren't competitive by EU standards, they don't have a choice between suffering under the association agreement or not suffering at all. They have the choice of suffering temporarily under association agreement and improving, or suffering permanently and more severely under Putin and whomever will succeede him. Anyone telling you otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

So if you want to make your CTs a bit more credible, assume that he is investing some considerable amount of money into making the Russian proposal of a constitution with stronger federalism happen

It's funny how meddling in internal affairs of other countries is perfectly fine, as long as it's not US (or the West in general) doing the meddling. Why isn't Syria a federal state yet?

McHtozni

 

[McHrozni]

And how does any of that legitimise the illegal seizure of the Crimea by Russia?

It's the N-word. A member of the Ukrainian opposition types made eye contact with a skinhead six years ago, therefore Putin is allowed to do anything he wishes in Ukraine, because clearly all opposition folk are Nazis and everyone supporting them are Nazis and want to reestablish the Nazi dominance and they want to kill all Russians in Ukraine and they want to take over Russia and kill everyone there as well and they want to take the rest of the world afterwards. It's really for our own good that everyone who ever touched a member of the opposition or saw their propaganda in Ukraine is immediately killed, salted thorughly, burned and thrown into the sea.

McHrozni

 

[trustbutverify]

I hope the West has decided on what to do if Putin invades again. He can't be allowed to get away with it again. Targeted sanctions aren't going to cut it.

As I commented hundreds of posts ago, there's really nothing practical the West can do about any of this. Putin has free reign in Eastern Ukraine as long as his political base cheers him on for the greater glory of Russian power and pride. The Western audience he actually cares about are the type of folk who think 9/11 was an inside job and depend on RT for the majority of their "news"...and that crowd's on auto pilot. Those Ukrainians opposed to Putin's operations are pretty much on their own; it's up to them to make these adventures as costly for the Kremlin as possible.

 

[eirik]

Did you care to read her wikipedia article? You could as well ask Yats or Timoshenko. If she was presented as "unbiased", never turn on that show again.

Yes, her pro democracy and human rights- attitudes sickens me. We need balanced and fair news.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Did you care to read her wikipedia article? You could as well ask Yats or Timoshenko. If she was presented as "unbiased", never turn on that show again.

She was not presented as unbiased. She was presented as an activist.

My question is, which biases are we to accept?

 

[Childlike Empress]

She was not presented as unbiased. She was presented as an activist.

My question is, which biases are we to accept?

Ok. Well, I guess we have to accept them all, the art is to be aware of them and try to extract something close to the real situation out of the total of available biased voices. In Ruslana's case, how should she possibly be able to know what you reported she reported? Answer: She can't. Likely she hasn't been to the Eastern provinces for quite some time. She was told about it by one of her Euromaidan buddies. Who likely care A LOT about what she says on MSNBC. Totally useless and only fit for valid TV "information" if some sort of balance is provided (which will never happen, of course).

A guy from buzzfeed is at the occupied government building in Donetsk at the moment. They await an announced crackdown from a bunch of unknown special forces filmed arriving by plane. Russian sources say those are Blackwater type mercenaries. He tweets live. What he tweets will have a very low bias due to the intense nature of his experience. Potentially useful: @mike_giglio

 

[Childlike Empress]

While we're at it - today PressTV published a documentary about the Crimea referendum, entitled "Crimea Returns to Russia". I just watched it and at some point was offended by the anti-Putin rhetoric allowed!!! No, not really, but it has a heavy focus on the opinions of their fellow Muslim Tatars which leads to some sequences one wouldn't expect at a superficial level. Professionally done and certainly worth watching - with a turned-on highly active critical thinking filter with its core mantra: Who tells me what out of which reasons?

If you keep that in mind, you'll always be above the bias.

 

[TheRealnz]

USA = Root of all Evil in the universe
Anyone opposing the USA = Good

Some people can't handle complexity well.

I am still waiting for your response in the Ukraine sniping thread.

 

[Border Reiver]

He tweets live. What he tweets will have a very low bias due to the intense nature of his experience. Potentially useful: @mike_giglio

Actually, what he tweets is much more likely to be biased due to the intense nature of his experience. It will be far more challenging to remove the personal view from the informaiton.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Actually, what he tweets is much more likely to be biased due to the intense nature of his experience. It will be far more challenging to remove the personal view from the informaiton.

Gibberish. Information would have come through more spontaneously and unfiltered.

Here's his report after a peaceful night without any special forces showing up.