Eastern Ukraine

[Tubthumper]

So while we've been wasting lives and money faffing about in Afghan and Iraq, the Soviets have been rearming and re-equipping. And now they're off and running, annexing the Crimea and de-stabilising areas prior to moving in to 'save the population', generally trying to provoke a fight.
I used to wonder about Chamberlain and the appeasement of Hitler, but I'm amazed at the lack of concern here. Is this what it was like before the last lot kicked off in 1939?.
We'll be re-aquainting ourselves with 3 Shock Army shortly... better dust off the respirator and SLR!

[theone]

So while we've been wasting lives and money faffing about in Afghan and Iraq, the Soviets have been rearming and re-equipping. And now they're off and running, annexing the Crimea and de-stabilising areas prior to moving in to 'save the population', generally trying to provoke a fight.
I used to wonder about Chamberlain and the appeasement of Hitler, but I'm amazed at the lack of concern here. Is this what it was like before the last lot kicked off in 1939?.
We'll be re-aquainting ourselves with 3 Shock Army shortly... better dust off the respirator and SLR!

It's an interesting situation, but very different I think from what the Nazi's did in the 30's.

De-stabilising? I've yet to see any proof of that.

This whole situation started with protests against the government, and police marksmen killing dozens of civilians in the capital Kiev, hundreds of miles away from where the "trouble" is now.

The fact is Ukraine is in trouble. The economy has colapsed, unemployment is high. The Ukrainian government aren't respected by large proportions of the population. I find it quite ironic that if you trawl through news reports from the last year, when all the trouble was occuring is Kiev, the western media was blaming the Ukrainian government for being too pro-Russian and anti EU!

Ukraine is a relatively new country and many in the east, due to their ethnic background, culture and language never considered themselves true "Ukrainians" after independence. Now, with the government shooting its own, it’s no surprise these natural differences cause divisions. I don't think it's anything to do with pressure or a scheme from Moscow.

The people of Crimea voted in a referendum, whether or not that referendum is recognised as legitimate is a different matter, but very few people would disagree that the vast majority of people there are more pro-Russia than Ukraine. Democracy.


I fully expect this to be repeated across the ex-USSR states. Nothing breeds separatism like separitism.