RichardPrins wrote: 
I am not in the least equating Putin with Hitler. Nor am I saying it is simple. But the entire argument you are putting forward here is based on nationalist rhetoric. I had hoped the days of the nationalist state were waning and we were heading towards some sort of bumbling bureaucracy that superceded all this antiquated 19C nationalist jingoism. The western half of Ukraine wants to join the EU. Maybe the eastern half should be ceded to Russia and the border between the two should remain open to let people decide for themselves where they want to live and what sort of system they prefer. There is a reason a lot of Ukrainians don't want to remain under the Russian thumb. Corrupt politicans creaming the state coffers is part of it. If Russia was so damn attractive, why are all its satellites wanting to leave it?

It's far more complex than making Putin the next Hitler (which most Western media will only be too happy to oblige in)...
 
Commentary: Moscow Doesn’t Want to Intervene, But… | The National Interest
Andranik Migranyan | February 28, 2014

Few subjects have been more misunderstood in the West than the Ukraine. Moscow is being portrayed as a revanchist bully. Russian President Vladimir Putin is depicted as intruding upon the internal affairs of the country.

None of this is true. However, we can now conclude that with all due respect for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, should mass clashes and bloodletting happen in the East, the South and Crimea, the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Russia itself cannot just watch impartially from the sidelines. Ukraine is home to millions of Russians and to the relatives of millions in Russia itself. The Russian government will be under immense pressure to act to protect its own people.

Moscow has always recognized, and continues to do so, the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and despite the many opportunities to intervene and destabilize the young state since the fall of the USSR, it never once acted to do so. In 1992-1993, the Supreme Soviet of Russia demanded the return of Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia. In 1994, the Russian party in Crimea won the elections, and its representative Yuri Meshkov, upon becoming President, turned to Russia with the request to annex Crimea. Even then, the Russian government refused to do so.

How has the Ukraine preserved its territorial integrity? All the politicians and analysts talking about the deep ethnic, language, and religious cleavages in the country are correct, which is further supported by the permanent political crises in the country. It is obvious that Ukraine’s integrity was kept by just a few circumstances presently lacking in Kievan politics.

The status of Ukraine as a unitary state has been greatly enhanced by the fact that successive candidates for President from the East (Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yanukovich) won elections against their Western competition—winning the support of the Eastern and Southern electorate with slogans of respect for Russia and the Russian language. Once in Kiev, however, they understood that they de facto ruled over two different peoples and two different states, and that they must take into account Western Ukrainian preferences and, moreover, maneuver between Russia and the West. Carefully but consistently, they pushed Russia, Russians, and the Russian language outside of the political, cultural, and educational spheres in Ukraine. This approach inhibited the ability of Russians and pro-Russian political forces to organize themselves—and fooled the Eastern and Southern populations into believing that their interests were taken into account in Kiev by having an Eastern President. In this process, the Presidents constantly lied to both Moscow and their voting blocks in the East and South, crudely trampling upon their own electoral promises. Kuchma was the worst of them all, especially with regard to Crimea.

In 1994, at the pre-term elections, Kuchma won, largely because of Southern and Eastern support, and especially because of the support of Crimea, whom he promised wide-ranging autonomy secured by treaty on the model of Tatarstan with Russia. Then, right before the elections, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article of mine in which I argued that Crimeans ought not to vote in the Ukrainian Presidential elections until such a treaty was ratified. In 1993, Tatarstan refused to participate in the Duma elections in Russia until Russia signed a treaty codifying larger wider self-rule for the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan.

Unfortunately, neither Crimeans nor Russian political circles listened to my advice, while Russia considered him a pro-Russian politician. And as usually happens with the South, East, and Russian-supported Presidents in Ukraine, in the cases of Kravchuk, Kuchma and Yanukovich, they promptly forget their promises to both Moscow and their electorate. And so, Kuchma nearly destroyed Crimean autonomy after his election, and substantially reduced their already-given self-rule. (...)

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Russian tanks are apparently moving in already. Putin is instrumentalizing this to look like a strong leader back home and incite nationalist sentiment. It's all he's interested in. In the end it will back-fire on him but I'm afraid it is going to take a long while and involve untold bloodshed. Just because of one guy's puny little ego to remain king.

Next big steps will be to see what the reaction of the EU is and the USA.

thankfully, it will only take Russia a couple of weeks to overrun the country

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
I suppose it was inevitable. The older I get, the more disgusted I get at people who think violence is the answer to anything.

oh no, here we go...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the upper house of parliament to approve sending armed forces to Ukraine’s Crimea region, the Kremlin said in a statement on Saturday. “In connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine, the threat to the lives of citizens of the Russian Federation, our compatriots, and the personnel of the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory (in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) ... I submit a proposal on using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine until the normalisation of the socio-political situation in the that country,” the statement said.

these guys look like Russian marines or airborne troops to me.

Ukraine PM says $37 billion went missing under Yanukovich | Reuters

(...) The average salary in Ukraine is around $500 a month.

In addition to the missing $37 billion, Yatseniuk (The New No. 1) said as much as $70 billion had been sent out of the country during Yanukovich's three-year rule, although he did not make clear how much of this capital flight was illegal.

"I want to report to you - the state treasury has been robbed and is empty," he said before the national assembly voted him in as head of a national unity government.

"Thirty-seven billion dollars of credit received have disappeared in an unknown direction ... (and) the sum of 70 billion dollars was paid out of Ukraine's financial system into off-shore accounts."

At today's rate, $70 billion is equal to about half Ukraine's gross domestic product in 2013. (...)

New Ukraine Government Asks U.N. to Help Ease Crisis

Facing the threat of a potentially bloody breakup of its country, Ukraine's fledgling government this morning appealed to the U.N. Security Council to convene an emergency session to pursue a diplomatic settlement to the crisis in Ukraine.

BBC News - Ukraine crisis: 'Russians' occupy Crimea airports

Ukraine has accused Russia of carrying out an armed invasion by sending naval forces to occupy Sevastopol airport in the Crimea region.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet denies its servicemen are blocking the airport.

Another Crimean airport, Simferopol, has also been occupied by armed men, thought to be pro-Russia militia.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Viktor Yanukovych was ousted as Ukrainian president last week.

Mr Yanukovych is now in Russia and expected to hold a news conference later in the city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border.

He disappeared after leaving office but resurfaced in Russia on Thursday, asserting that he is still Ukraine's lawful president.

Ukraine's general prosecutor has said he will ask Russia to extradite Mr Yanukovych, if it is confirmed that he is still there. (...)

Scuffles as pro- and anti-Russian crowds protest in Ukraine's Crimea — RT News

Thousands of pro- and anti-Russian protesters are rallying in front of the parliament building in Simferpol, the capital of Ukraine's autonomous Crimea region.

The rival groups are protesting for and against the new national authorities in Kiev. Part of the residents proclaimed that Crimea will not going to obey Kiev, while the local Muslim community of Crimean Tatars expressed support for the new Ukrainian authorities.

Demonstrators from Russian-dominated Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, are arriving at the region’s capital Simferopol, in the center of the Crimea peninsula, to support thousands of Russian nationals rallying against the new authorities in Kiev.

Two separate rallies, consisting of several thousands of protesters, are facing each other, with the Tatars shouting ‘Ukraine!’ and the Russians shouting ‘Russia!’ Video footage from the scene appears to show that both sides are preparing for a clash. According to some reports, police who were separating the two sides have left the scene.

Crimeans started protesting on Tuesday outside the regional parliament building in Simferopol, urging local MPs not to support Kiev’s new government. Demonstrators want the autonomous region to return to the constitution of 1992, under which Crimea had its own president and independent foreign policy.

In addition, the protesters demanded a referendum be held to decide whether Crimea should retain its current status as an autonomous region in Ukraine, to become independent, or become part of Russia again (Crimea was part of Russia until 1954).

An interim government was established over the weekend in Kiev. The Ukrainian parliament elected Aleksandr Turchinov as interim president and scheduled presidential elections for May 25. Ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, whose whereabouts remain unknown, has decried the decisions of the interim government as “illegal” and said the unrest in the Ukrainian capital bears all the hallmarks of a coup d’état.

How the Media Got Played ... Again
The US Played Hardball Against Ukraine…and the EU

When the EU mediated a deal between the opposition and the government, I thought Yanukovich had dodged the bullet.

Not quite.

In parsing the circumstances of Yanukovich’s downfall, it is interesting to look for the machinations of Victoria Nuland, the State Department neo-con (wife of Robert Kagan) who was apparently given a free hand in matters Ukraine by President Obama.

(...)

It is rather ironic that Barack Obama, the progressive paragon, took a few hits from the Dick Cheney regime-change crack pipe, and now apparently finds it irresistible.

Maybe he feels that he might as well grab for a few cheap foreign policy wins, damn the consequences, because in two years he’s outta here and President Clinton can deal with the mess.

I imagine that Alfred Nobel’s image on President Obama’s Peace Prize medal is weeping blood tears by now.

Could we wind up with Right Bank and Left Bank again?

oh snap

(...) “Among the reasons Mr. Yanukovych turned away from signing political and trade accords with Europe in November was his unwillingness to carry out painful austerity measures and other reforms that had been demanded by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a large assistance package.On Sunday, the Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, said that there was concern about the political instability in Ukraine and that the fund could only provide assistance in response to a formal request.

Speaking at the end of a meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Sydney, Australia, Ms. Lagarde said, “If the Ukrainian authorities were to ask for I.M.F. support, whether it is policy advice, whether it is financial support together with economic reform discussions, we would be ready to do that.”

But, she said, “We need to have somebody to talk to because any discussion takes two.”

Ms. Lagarde added that an economic program to help Ukraine had to be “owned by the authorities, by the people, because at the end of the day it will be the future of the Ukrainian economy.”

The I.M.F. has extended help to Ukraine in the past, but has expressed reluctance to do so again because the Ukrainian government repeatedly failed to carry out agreed-upon reforms.” (...)

http://nyti.ms/1mnkLA2

 RichardPrins wrote: 
I have to back up and recall that someone(s) somewhere has a plan.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
EU/IMF/US. That might address one aspect of the problem, but is likely to mean the population will get saddled with more massive debt (and followed by privatization and austerity).

Regardless, that doesn't address the (alleged) two cultures in Ukraine, Pro-Western West and Pro-Russian East, which likely can't be solved that 'easily' by throwing cash at it.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
So the EU - that at least tacitly approved of the revolution - had better put their money where their mouth is now.

I don't think it is quite over yet, but we'll have to see...

Another different view...

Ukraine’s Crisis, Not Ours by Patrick J. Buchanan — Antiwar.com

Another article I read somewhere, probably RT, reported Russia has closed the financial faucet in response, which was to be expected.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
just a couple of random thoughts

the masses have the numbers on their side and they're obviously willing to sacrifice their lives/everything but for what?

if they don't understand the true root causes of their problems, this will be a "reset" and the same cycle will start all over again

centralized or concentrated power without a clear charter or guidelines usually (on a long enough timeline) leads to corruption

swapping one bad ideology for another is like meet the new boss same as the old boss (eventually)

corrupt rulers with a monopoly on the initiation of force/violence isn't going to produce the desired results for the masses

just think if the ukraine was the weapons dealer to the world (like the US) and had the weapons/technology that the US govt has

and ask if things would have turned out differently

peace

it seems as if the Ukrainian Revolution has been successful. interesting, given the fact that only the losing side had any firearms...