President Putin has been giving a national televised address to the Russian people.
Putin insisted that Ukraine was a creation of Russia. Complaining that it had been ‘madness’ to allow any former Soviet republics to leave the Soviet Empire, he declared that Ukraine had never had a consistent tradition as an independent nation, and blamed the US for supporting ‘radicals’.
All this after a bizarre, carefully choreographed televised meeting of his security council today – where one by one Putin’s subordinates gave their support to recognising the independence of two breakaway regions. — Ch 4 News - Putin signs decree
This is what @Apollodorus is utterly incapable to understand: the US didn't create it's sphere of influence by "divide and rule", but through integration, that the other countries saw beneficial also. — ssu
According to the European Commission, corruption costs the EU economy around €120 billion per year in terms of lost tax revenue and investments. The European Parliamentary Research Service's Cost of Non-Europe report, has found that corruption related to public procurement alone costs the EU over €5 billion annually.
Research by historian Dov Levin, for example, found that between 1946 and 2000, the United States manipulated the democratic elections of other countries more than 80 times, including in European countries such as Italy and Greece … From a strategic point of view, there is criticism, among other things, that relations between Europe and the USA are unequal, as the US enforces its foreign policy with little consideration for European interests …
If you are overtly hostile towards a country, which the US has been towards Cuba, in the end you only have the option to invade. When sanctions, coup attempts, using proxies, assassination attempts aren't options anymore ...
On Tuesday (15th Feb), the Duma, Russia’s parliament, passed a resolution authorizing Putin to recognize the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic—the two provinces of Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, which are occupied by armed pro-Russia separatists—as independent states. He could next move thousands of troops, tanks, and other weapons into the territories, at the “request” of their leaders, to defend their people from Ukrainian assault. — Slate, Feb 16th
Putin Claims Ukraine as Part of Russia
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin said he would recognize the independence of two Russian-backed territories in eastern Ukraine and warned the government of Ukraine that further bloodshed “will be fully and wholly” on its conscience, delivering an emotional and aggrieved address that set the stage for the possibility of Russian military action against Ukraine. — NYTimes
'We're taking over, and any resistance will be regarded as an act of aggression.' — Wayfarer
Why and how other world leaders let this happen for so long...? — Amity
The US and European nations have long opposed Russian territorial aggression on Ukraine. The US has been screaming blue murder for the last six weeks, which a lot of people say is simply scare-mongering, although it's obviously not. — Wayfarer
The EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel said: “The recognition of the two separatist territories in Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law, the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the Minsk agreements.
Except Putin. He surely wants this to happen. Do note the choreographed theater how Putin plays this.Nobody wants any of this to happen. — Wayfarer
Putin calls eastern Ukraine ancient Russian lands. He says situation in eastern Ukraine is critical again.
“Ukraine authorities have been contaminated by virus of nationalism and corruption," he said during a televised address. The President accuses Ukraine of stealing Russian gas in the past, of using energy to blackmail Russia.
"Ukraine leaders wanted all good things from Russia without obligations." He accused the western intelligence services of helping Ukraine commit crimes.
They haven't stopped talking about Crimea, so this won't be forgotten.And no, NATO won't do anything and no-one will even be talking about it in six months. — Baden
In any case, Crimea doesn’t belong to Ukraine, — Apollodorus
Oh so empty with nothing else to say that go for ad hominems or national stereotypes? Lol.You know what Swedes and other Scandinavians say about Finns, don’t you? — Apollodorus
Nobody wants any of this to happen.
— Wayfarer
Except Putin. He surely wants this to happen. Do note the choreographed theater how Putin plays this.
This isn't anymore some rough-handed way to get NATO to "back down", to get them seriously to talk, but an obvious march to war. — ssu
Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood. - From the very first steps they began to build their statehood on the denial of everything that unites us. They tried to distort the consciousness, the historical memory of millions of people, entire generations living in Ukraine.
In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike. If our ancestors had heard about it, they probably would simply not have believed it. And today we don't want to believe it, but it's true.
They are trying to blackmail us again. They are threatening us again with sanctions, which, by the way, I think they will introduce anyway as Russia's sovereignty strengthens and the power of our armed forces grows. And a pretext for another sanctions attack will always be found or fabricated. Regardless of the situation in Ukraine. There is only one goal - to restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it, as they did before. Even without any formal pretext at all. Just because we exist, and we will never compromise our sovereignty, national interests and our values. I want to say clearly and directly that in the current situation, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country is increasing significantly, Russia has every right to take retaliatory measures to ensure its own security. That is exactly what we will do.
as Russia's sovereignty strengthens and the power of our armed forces grows
The Truth from you (likely as a slip, — ssu
As for Crimea, don’t you see that the very fact that Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine in 1954, demonstrates that it cannot be Ukrainian??? Crimea had been invaded by Mongols (Tatars) and Turks in the Middle Ages and was under joint Tatar and Ottoman control until Russia took it back in 1783. It had never been “Ukrainian” before 1954! — Apollodorus
Erdogan is not shy to publicly chase his Ottoman dream and to reinvent himself as a Caliph. If Erdogan is out to overshadow the legacy of Ataturk, then undoing the Lausanne Treaty is what will help him accomplish this goal – even if it means declaring war. Once the 1923 treaty expires, Erdogan will immediately seek to reclaim the territories the Ottomans lost.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief aide said the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies and established the modern border between Turkey and Greece, had “expired,” freeing Turkey up to seize rich resources including those in northern Iraq.
It could feasibly be the beginning of WWIII, but even if it's not, it really is war, and it looks like it really is coming. — Wayfarer
Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski observed that without Ukraine, there can be no Russian empire. Putin fears a Ukraine that is economically and politically orientated towards the west with an ever closer security relationship with the US and other members of Nato — even if it is not a member of the alliance. He regards that as a critical security risk and, just as bad, an alternative economic and political model likely to be increasingly attractive to Russians — a dagger pointed at the heart of Russia.
Very soon it will be clear to the whole world that Russia will have to send in peacekeepers to maintain civil order, while the West falsely accuses it of war-mongering. — Wayfarer
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops into separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine in what the Kremlin called a "peacekeeping" mission, just hours after he signed decrees recognizing the independence of the Moscow-backed regions.
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