Ukraine

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine has suffered the worst violence in more than a week as fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government troops in the region killed at least 12 people and wounded 32, officials said Monday.

Col. Andriy Lysenko told journalists in a briefing in Kiev on Monday that at least nine troops had been killed in a day and 27 had been wounded.

Meanwhile, the city council of Donetsk said in a statement published online that at least three civilians were killed and five wounded in overnight shelling of a residential area in the northern part of the city, where fighting has centered on the government-held airport. Throughout the day in Donetsk, regular explosions could be heard coming from the north of the city.

Violence has continued despite a cease-fire declared on Sept. 5. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been at pains to insist to a skeptical audience at home that his peace plan is working and said last week that he believed "the most dangerous part of the war" is over.

Since fighting began in April, the conflict has claimed at least 3,500 lives. On Sept. 20, representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and the rebels signed another agreement that would require both sides to remove all heavy artillery from the frontline, creating a buffer zone that would allow the cease-fire to be better enforced.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin said that the situation in east Ukraine was "anything but satisfactory."

"The elementary question of the cease-fire is not yet cleared up, still less the future status and cooperation between the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and the Ukrainian central government," Merkel said. "There is no protection of the border along the entire Luhansk and Donetsk region— no control, no buffer zones, and all of that is the minimum condition for us to be able to consider revoking sanctions. Unfortunately, we are a very long way away from that."

The EU imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russian companies and individuals for their role in the east Ukraine conflict. Kiev and the West have repeatedly asserted that Moscow has fueled the separatist insurgency by providing it with arms and personnel, something Russia denies.

On Sunday, in the second-largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv, nationalists tore down an enormous statue of Vladimir Lenin to cheers from the crowd. Across Ukraine, people have torn down statues to the former Communist leader in a symbolic display of anti-Russian sentiment.

The authorities in Kharkiv supported the move. Arsen Avakov, Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs and a Kharkiv native, wrote on his Facebook page: "Lenin? Let him fall... As long as nobody gets hurt."

———

Geir Moulson in Berlin and Darko Vojinovic in Donetsk, Ukraine contributed to this report.

[Artashes]

Re: Ukraine

Talking to a fella with a thick Russian accent yesterday.
We have a modest business contact and see each other on a monthly basis.
He is fond of Armenians and shows a lot of respect for us.
He's been in USA for a little over 22 years but his line of work (trucking) doesn't require much talking and he has retained his heavy accent do to no need to converse in English much.
We get along quite well and have had some interesting conversations.
After all this time of knowing him, I just found out yesterday that he lived his life in Ukrain before moving to America 22 years ago.
He calles family in Ukrain regularly. He told me all reports from friends and family are telling two stories.
(1) no Russian troop presence in eastern Ukrain. The eastern Ukrains are doing the fighting against govt troops.
(2) the Ukrain govt troops are committing atrocities against the predominate Russians who live in eastern Ukrain. That has incensed the eastern population and made them even more determined to separate from the Ukrain oligarch click that the USA/euro has installed in Kiev.
From what he said, it looks like USA/euro has installed a blatant pack of thieves in Kiev and the eastern citizenry ain't to happy about that. On top of the blatant thievery by the Kiev click, is blatant cruelty.
Oh America, defender of human rights and dignity --- WTF.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

Interesting things happening in the Balkans again..http://abcnews.go.com/International/...7298761?page=2
This region has a long history of being the spark that ignited the gunpowder of major powers.

[Mher]

Re: Ukraine

Interesting things happening in the Balkans again..http://abcnews.go.com/International/...7298761?page=2
This region has a long history of being the spark that ignited the gunpowder of major powers.

It's good to see some hint of self respect returning to a Serbian government that has been willing to bend down and take it up the --- for the past decade.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

Ukraine sinking financially and not even the printing presses of the western funny money czars are going to save it. It will default sometime within the next two years and then I wonder what these idiot fascists are going to do...They have destroyed their country and their attacks on the civilians in the east have made any compromise impossible. Ukraine has been torn apart by the western powers and it is their goal to destroy it. I feel bad for Ukrainians who were duped into a war and now they may not have much of a future. This all sounds pretty similar to the Georgia scenario but Ukraine stands to lose much more and stabilization is nowhere in sight.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-05/ukraine-bonds-at-60-cents-seen-signaling-risk-of-default.html

[londontsi]

Re: Ukraine

....It will default sometime within the next two years and then I wonder what these idiot fascists are going to do...

If it defaults all its creditors will be blown out of the water.

Basically Ukraine will not owe anything to anybody.
Nobody will let her any money also, except for political reasons.

Probably Russia will be the biggest looser. I have in mind financially.
They owe most to Russia, accumulated over the years.

Do not know if Russian banks have cross-hedged loans with Europe.

In any event generally if Russian banks go down they will pull down European banks.

.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

It is sad to see what USA and its friends have done to Ukraine. Of course only an idiot would say we never saw this coming because only an idiot would not see Libya, Iraq, Afganistan, Syria....as precedents. Unfortunately the world is full of idiots. Now the Ukrainian debt is being restructured and this means that only an idiot will invest in Ukraine now. Yet another country destroyed, yet again millions of people in misery, yet tens of thousends more deaths to add to the millions already inflicted by western interventions. How many times does this have to happen for people to understand what the "west" is all about? The fact is that idiots do not learn and repeat the same mistakes over and over again. There are many Armenian idiots to and you can see them on this forum quite clearly. No matter how many times the west makes Armenian issues into a joke, idiot Armenians will remain well..idiots. I think some have opened their eyes a bit but most will continue to live in their alternative reality where everything western is good and only special people can be victims of official genocide and well the Armenians have never been nor will they ever be special enough in western eyes. Hell even our special interest groups are not special enough here and are used as a punchline to a joke between congressmen and other lobbyists. It will soon be 100 years since the genocide. Was it the west that stopped the turck for 100 years from overrunning what is left of Armenia? Perhaps our not so special special interest group had something to do with it? Well an idiot might just believe such things.

[Mher]

Re: Ukraine

It is sad to see what USA and its friends have done to Ukraine. Of course only an idiot would say we never saw this coming because only an idiot would not see Libya, Iraq, Afganistan, Syria....as precedents. Unfortunately the world is full of idiots. Now the Ukrainian debt is being restructured and this means that only an idiot will invest in Ukraine now. Yet another country destroyed, yet again millions of people in misery, yet tens of thousends more deaths to add to the millions already inflicted by western interventions. How many times does this have to happen for people to understand what the "west" is all about? The fact is that idiots do not learn and repeat the same mistakes over and over again. There are many Armenian idiots to and you can see them on this forum quite clearly. No matter how many times the west makes Armenian issues into a joke, idiot Armenians will remain well..idiots. I think some have opened their eyes a bit but most will continue to live in their alternative reality where everything western is good and only special people can be victims of official genocide and well the Armenians have never been nor will they ever be special enough in western eyes. Hell even our special interest groups are not special enough here and are used as a punchline to a joke between congressmen and other lobbyists. It will soon be 100 years since the genocide. Was it the west that stopped the turck for 100 years from overrunning what is left of Armenia? Perhaps our not so special special interest group had something to do with it? Well an idiot might just believe such things.

Haykakan, I think the flaw in your view is breaking things down to a simplistic black v. white view and group things together and calling them the west. Though they tend to share some common goals, I think its safe to say the foreign policy and worldview of say the US is not exactly the same as that of Germany or that of France. I would say that these countries have very different goals for the future of Ukraine and Russia. A country wishing to have better economic relations with the EU shouldn't have its ambitious be broken down to putting its hopes on the west (read America and UK). As far as Ukraine goes, it is not as if these problems just appeared magically and unexpectedly simply because they decided to sign an association agreement. They appeared and grew substantially because of Russia's involvement and invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, they appeared because I would say the new Ukrainian authorities didn't take the best approach to their eastern regions, specially after losing Crimea. But to argue that them simply choosing to open up economic ties with Europe magically resulted in economic disarray is nonsense. The economic crisis is largely fueled by the destruction and subsequent loss of the country's industrial centers in the east, caused by a conflict fueled by Russia. It's as if a woman decides to leave a relationship, and the ex beats her up, and says see I told you things wouldn't go well without me. America's illegal actions in Serbia, Iraq, and Syria, places that America invaded without justification have nothing to do with Ukraine, where the invasion is taking place by Russia. Of course, you can argue Russia was acting in self interest, and doing what it should be doing, but in that case let's accept the reality, and not try to put our in the sand, and say only God knows what's causing these economic problems.

As far as being special in somesones eyes, I don't think that's the case for anyone. Other than Israel, who have their proxy running the US government, and maybe the two Turkic nations adjacent to us, I don't think there are many countries who count on being special in the eyes of someone else. There is a vast difference between hoping to open up some economic opportunities with some countries, and taking the leap to imagining some non existent EU army to come and save you- which I don't think anyone is suggesting.

Also, I see people on your side of these issues are very quick to point out that, oh you can't blame Russia for the damage done to Armenia by Soviets, because after all, Russia was a victim too, the Soviets weren't slavs. okay, alright, but following the same logic, isn't it wrong to credit the Russians for preventing the annihilation of Armenia when it was done by the Soviets? And after all, it was those "dear protectors of Armenia" Soviets who contributed to Armenia being weak enough to need its protection. If the Soviets didn't provide Ataturk with millions in gold, thousands of weapons, and millions of bullets, while simultaneously diverting Armenian forces from the Turkish war to stop the Communist invasion of Armenia, Armenia might have done fine on its own holding back the Turks as it had in the preceding years. Once again, we seem to be dealing with the abusive boyfriend character and blaming yourself for deserving the punishment. And don't get me started on the theft of Kars, Nakhichevan, Kirovabad, and Artsakh by our dear soviet protectors.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

As far as the "west" is concerned it is very much a black and white affair. All you have to do is look at the initial reactions from EU countries to the Russian actions in Crimea and compare them to the USA reaction. You will see that non of the EU countries wanted sanctions, they did not want an economic war with Russia but the USA did. The USA bullied its European "partners" and forced them to do what they did not want to do. So you see the interests of the EU countries mean nothing since USA makes them do what it likes. You also disregard the fact that this maiden in Ukraine is artificially created by the USA which time and again disregards the interests of the EU countries, international law, good/bad...you must have heard the "xxxx the EU" conversation on youtube which clearly shows that non of this is about EU interests nor German , nor French, nor.. As for soviets vs Russians, I am not sure where you are going with this. The bottom line Mher is that your arguments continue to have glaring holes in them which at this point there are no excuses for them. The information is there, the proof is there, both have been laid out before you as plain as day yet you persist with your flawed arguments. You can do as you wish but when people depart from rationality they should not be surprised when they are deemed irrelevant.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

More proof of what I have been saying.
EX-ITALIAN PM MONTI: EUROPE CAN'T APPEAR TO BE 'TOOL OF US INTERESTS'

Published time: February 10, 2015 11:05

http://on.rt.com/7ba3qf

Italy's former Prime Minister Mario Monti (Reuters)

Washington's potential willingness to arm the Ukrainian military has
elicited an unusually frank reaction from former Italian PM Mario
Monti, who warned that Europe must not be viewed merely as "tool"
of US global interests.

READ MORE: Le Pen says Washington attempting to start 'war in Europe'

Recently speaking on private Italian broadcaster LA7, Monti warned that
there was a definite risk of the conflict in Ukraine spilling over.

"For now it's a limited war, but be careful, you [advocates of arming
Ukraine] are creating among Europeans a climate of mistrust and mutual
misunderstanding that could take us too far," he said.

When asked how he felt about Washington's recent proposal that it
could send defensive lethal arms to the Ukrainian military, including
anti-tank and anti-mortar systems, Monti said he believed such a move
would prove "intolerable" to Russia.

READ MORE: Sarkozy: Crimea cannot be blamed for joining Russia

"I believe that the United States does not always realize that Europe
has its problems, and cannot be seen only as a tool of the global
interests of the United States," he said.

Monti also noted how the West had to make a choice in its decision
to break with Russia, noting that it might be forced to pay a high
cost while losing an ally "in containing terrorism."

Long viewed as a technocratic leader and Brussels insider, Monti,
who took over the reins from Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, has been a
perennial voice of moderation in Europe.

His comments echo similar statements made by former French Prime
minister Francois Fillon, who told public broadcaster France 5 on
Sunday that the US was attempting to "unleash a war in Europe, which
would end in catastrophe."

Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that
Europe is part of "a common civilization with Russia," saying they
needed to avoid conflict on the continent.

"The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests
of Europe and Russia," he said, adding that,"we do not want the
revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia."

The leader of France's rightwing National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen,
similarly took Brussels to task for not forming a Ukraine policy that
was independent from Washington's position.

"European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent
on US positions on Ukraine," Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.

"Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys," she said,
before warning that "the aim of the Americans is to start a war in
Europe to push NATO to the Russian border."