Ukraine Crisis

[Хahar 🤔]

It also shows what a pointless joke the UN has become.

Please stop talking and come back when you figure out what the United Nations actually does.

In my lifetime, the only thing I have seen the UN "do" is make itself a forum for third world crackpots and tyrants to blame the west for their problems.

Here, I'll help you out. Have you noticed that smallpox isn't a thing anymore? Who do you think is responsible for that?

Seriously?  Not the UN.

Who, then?

Was this hint deliberate?

Well done.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Altho, WHO is merely the continuation of the Health Organisation of the League of Nations, so should anything it does really be credited to the UN per se?

[dead0man]

It also shows what a pointless joke the UN has become.

Please stop talking and come back when you figure out what the United Nations actually does.

In my lifetime, the only thing I have seen the UN "do" is make itself a forum for third world crackpots and tyrants to blame the west for their problems.

Here, I'll help you out. Have you noticed that smallpox isn't a thing anymore? Who do you think is responsible for that?

Seriously?  Not the UN.

Who, then?

yes

[Јas]

Altho, WHO is merely the continuation of the Health Organisation of the League of Nations, so should anything it does really be credited to the UN per se?

You propose the credit go to the League of Nations instead?

[Beet]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/24/334974644/u-s-russia-based-artillery-targeting-ukrainian-troops?ft=1&f=1001

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I trust the State Department about as much as I trust the Kremlin.

[Beet]

I trust the State Department about as much as I trust the Kremlin.

Sorry, but the U.S. has had the far more believable case throughout the Ukraine crisis. Also:

https://twitter.com/euromaidan/status/491997024737570816
http://cs620429.vk.me/v620429164/ea66/k14ggwJC9qk.jpg

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Altho, WHO is merely the continuation of the Health Organisation of the League of Nations, so should anything it does really be credited to the UN per se?

You propose the credit go to the League of Nations instead?

My point was more that even without a UN that attempts to solve international political problems, we'd have an organization doing the work of the WHO even without it being part of an ineffective world government.

[swl]

The UN is effective when neither Russia nor the US have direct interests in the conflict.

[GMantis]

I trust the State Department about as much as I trust the Kremlin.

Sorry, but the U.S. has had the far more believable case throughout the Ukraine crisis. Also:

https://twitter.com/euromaidan/status/491997024737570816
http://cs620429.vk.me/v620429164/ea66/k14ggwJC9qk.jpg

And this is evidence why exactly? It's not as if to social networks are immune to fake news.

[Zanas]

Altho, WHO is merely the continuation of the Health Organisation of the League of Nations, so should anything it does really be credited to the UN per se?

You propose the credit go to the League of Nations instead?

My point was more that even without a UN that attempts to solve international political problems, we'd have an organization doing the work of the WHO even without it being part of an ineffective world government.

If you think that the UN is, or is even intended to be, a world government, you're completely missing the point.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In related news, French-in-Russian-tax-exile actor Gerard Depardieu could be appointed head of the new Crimean wine agency:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gerard-depardieu-should-oversee-wine-721566

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/07/depardieu-to-be-face-of-crimean-wine/

[Zanas]

In related news, French-in-Russian-tax-exile actor Gerard Depardieu could be appointed head of the new Crimean wine agency:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gerard-depardieu-should-oversee-wine-721566

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/07/depardieu-to-be-face-of-crimean-wine/

That's f**king hilarious.

[Velasco]

We know that Depardieu is a connaisseur. FTR, I watched Novecento (1900, by Bernardo Bertolucci) in TV on past Sunday. Depardieu is an Italian communist peasant in that movie and I couldn't help but thinking on that special friendship between the French actor and Putin. I don't know why I made such association.

[Beet]

NATO says Russia may be about to invade. We are approaching the six year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Georgia. It may behoove Ukraine to temporarily declare a cease fire to remove any possible pretext for Russian intervention.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

NATO says Russia may be about to invade. We are approaching the six year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Georgia. It may behoove Ukraine to temporarily declare a cease fire to remove any possible pretext for Russian intervention.

Because being supine worked do well in Crimea?  If Putin wants to invade, a mere cease-fire that his troops already in Ukraine won't abide by will not stop him.

[Simfan34]

NATO says Russia may be about to invade. We are approaching the six year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Georgia. It may behoove Ukraine to temporarily declare a cease fire to remove any possible pretext for Russian intervention.

It would be a sign of desperation. Russia's MO throughout this whole conflict has been to avoid open confrontation and maintain a certain level of plausible deniability- to openly invade Ukraine would be recognition their efforts were stalling.

This would be considerably more drastic than the invasion of Georgia, considering that the Abkhaz and South Ossetians had established themselves, almost entirely without outside assistance, for the better part of two decades up to that point. In contrast, the entities in the Donbas are almost entirely the product of Russian agents, enjoy at best dubious legitimacy amongst their would-be citizens, and have already managed to attract global outrage.

One wonders at what point China and other "emerging powers" will be sufficiently unsettled by Russian belligerence to call for action.

[ag]

Just back from Russia.  Should write up the impressions.

[RogueBeaver]

Ukraine says the rebel plan was to shoot down an Aeroflot airliner as a false-flag invasion pretext, but the BUK was sent to the wrong town.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Ukraine says the rebel plan was to shoot down an Aeroflot airliner as a false-flag invasion pretext, but the BUK was sent to the wrong town.

A random right-wing blog post (I snooped around other posts which primarily consist of Islamophobia and general paranoia) which cites only a local Ukrainian news station doesn't seem to be the most reliable source.

[Simfan34]

Seems like Russian disinformation.

[swl]

The Russian leader of the Donetsk People's Republic stepped down in favor of a local guy. It may be small step towards a peace process.

[Tender Branson]

Business seems to get serious now.

The Ukrainian forces seem to have encircled and cut off Luhansk completely now and the Donezk rebel leader Strelkow has stepped down:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://derstandard.at/2000004391613/Regierungstruppen-haben-Luhansk-vollstaendig-umstellt

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28792966

[Tender Branson]

So, the Russians sent 250 white lorries to the Ukraine border with "food" inside. A possible trojan horse, or is it for real ?



Ukraine is doing the same, sending 80 lorries to the East:



And a Ukrainian billionaire said that next week 10.000 tons of food will follow.

[swl]

Here is my point of view on the situation in Ukraine:

This conflict is clearly escalating, and the Ukrainian government is lucky that the international attention has been focusing on other things. The loyalists are now shelling the big cities controlled by the rebels and there are many civilian casualties. It's a bit sad to see a European country bombing its own citizens in 2014, and getting away with it.

So now the loyalists are making progress towards the main cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and are clearly determined to get rid of the rebels, at almost any price. On the other side, the main political leaders of the rebels are fleeing now that things are looking bad for them. But the local guys, the normal fighters really believe that they are fighting against neo-nazis (which is not 100% false) and keep referring to a new Stalingard. They seem determined to fight until the last man.

This situation is a bit embarrassing for the European countries and the US who blindly supported the loyalists at the beginning, but now this conflict really has the potential to turn very ugly, and something has to do about it.

While the Western opinion is looking somewhere else, Putin is under heavy internal pressure to do something. The military conflict is about to be lost for the rebels, Putin knows it and anyway he also realized that they are not reliable at all. But he really has to do something, and the least he can do is to help the civilian population.  

So I think the convoy is not a trojan horse. The Ukrainian government is understandably paranoid and it would be a good compromise to allow international inspectors to verify it at the border. Ukraine is now afraid to be seen as the bad guys, so they are sending their own convoy too.

It's a good thing that both Russians and Ukrainians are sending humanitarian in Donetsk and Luhansk. They are also going to serve as human shields and fighters on both side will have to refrain from getting crazy.

Remember that many have been saying for weeks that this conflict needs to end in an honorable way for Putin. That's probably it. Both sides need to start negotiating soon, and the battles of Donestk and Luhansk must not happen because they would be really awful.