Ukraine Crisis

[ag]

Actually, it seems some of the first trucks are already on fire. They tried to get into Luhansk and have been stopped.

[ag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/europe/russia-moves-artillery-units-into-ukraine-nato-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Ok. Now this is acknowledged officially.  Russian troops are attacking Ukrainian Army from Ukrainian territory: NATO knows it. What the hell are they planning to do about it ?!

[politicus]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/europe/russia-moves-artillery-units-into-ukraine-nato-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Ok. Now this is acknowledged officially.  Russian troops are attacking Ukrainian Army from Ukrainian territory: NATO knows it. What the hell are they planning to do about it ?!

Probably nothing. Its not their responsibility to assist Ukraine.

[ag]

For those who understand Russian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FLoKZQmJRk

[ag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/europe/russia-moves-artillery-units-into-ukraine-nato-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Ok. Now this is acknowledged officially.  Russian troops are attacking Ukrainian Army from Ukrainian territory: NATO knows it. What the hell are they planning to do about it ?!

Probably nothing. Its not their responsibility to assist Ukraine.

I know. They are planning to wait till it is their job. Doesn't matter if it means extra millions of their citizens' lives taken.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

All the sympathy I had for Moscow's line of thought (mostly in the immediate aftermath of the Kiev revolution and when the Ukrainian far-right appeared stronger than it is now) has long dried up. This just cements it.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

We really need to fortify the Baltics.

[© tweed]

Russians held a bit of a counter-parade in the East


"Captured Ukrainian soldiers marched through streets of Donetsk"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n4S10oDo0s

[ag]

It appears that following several days of artillery bombardment from the Russian territory, there is a major invasion going on substantially south of where the "rebel"-controlled area has been, in the direction of Telmanove - Novoazovsk (closer to the sea). The border station is overwhelmed and at least 4 tanks have entered FROM RUSSIA. Once again, there is no DNR-held territory immediately adjacent, the attack is  conducted from the territory of the RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

Anyways, I guess NATO is going to wait till the Russians are crossing the Danube.

[Simfan34]

Ukrainians march to fight the imperialist aggressors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxFfWObjKSc

[swl]

ag, I am making some effort but I still don't understand why you are so afraid of Russia. Were you alive during the Cold War? Were you somehow involved?

[ag]

ag, I am making some effort but I still don't understand why you are so afraid of Russia. Were you alive during the Cold War? Were you somehow involved?

Yes, I was alive Dreadfully scared as a kid that Americans would nuke my home

I am not afraid of Russia per se. I am afraid pf a country with nukes but without any checks or ballances.  Give Russia a reasonable set of institutions, and I would be ok - even with the same Putin elected. But at this point I am simply being aware of real dangers.

[ag]

Summary of the latest from the Russian blogs. Ukrainians destroyed a motorized unit (well inside Ukraine, of course). Found documents with names. Nearly simultaneously, some family members of Russian servicemen with the same names posted on social media the death notices. Within a day those were taken down and replaced with happy family notices ("my husband is alive, celebrating our daughter´s baptism and such). Some newsmen claimed to have talked with the "dead people", who were supposed to be happily at home. However, some local journalists in the area (it is the province of Pskov - the unit in question is the local paratroop division, and some of the soldiers are natives), based on earlier social media posts managed to show up at the funeral. Much of the division was present - and, yes, those are the names on the fresh graves.

Also, Putin has just awarded the Pskov Paratroop Division with a war-time decoration.

Not that anybody has had any doubts for a while, but, still... Poor relatives.

[Nhoj]

So yesterday the Ukrainians claimed to have captured Russian paratroopers and today the Russian MoD confirmed that they were indeed Russians. Naturally they claimed that they accidentally crossed the border. So either Russian paratroopers are idiots or Russia's excuses continue to get thinner.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

So yesterday the Ukrainians claimed to have captured Russian paratroopers and today the Russian MoD confirmed that they were indeed Russians. Naturally they claimed that they accidentally crossed the border. So either Russian paratroopers are idiots or Russia's excuses continue to get thinner.

To be fair, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If we take Putin at his word, it's clear now that Russia is unable to control events on its side of its border with Ukraine.  Perhaps NATO should offer to send troops into Russia to help the situation be stabilized?

[ag]

Seriously, it seems like a major Russian attack is under way. Ukrainian troops, according some reports, are facing major reverses, if not worse.  Clearly, they are giving some back - but they are facing what amounts to regular Russian units. Things are truly bad.

[Hamster]

Seriously, it seems like a major Russian attack is under way. Ukrainian troops, according some reports, are facing major reverses, if not worse.  Clearly, they are giving some back - but they are facing what amounts to regular Russian units. Things are truly bad.

All the info I'm seeing indicates several Ukrainian troop formations have been encircled by Russian/Separatist forces. There were also clashes along the southernmost point of the border by the Black Sea. Thousands of residents of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol have evacuated, fearing a Russian invasion.

Everybody in the west is expecting a hollywood invasion, a declare of war with tank brigades blowing through the board and conquering southeastern Ukraine in a week. Putin is much smarter than that. What we are seeing now is a slow motion invasion. The question is, what is Putin's end game. Does he just want to establish firm control over the Donbass region before coming to the negotiating table, or will we eventually see Russian paratroopers in Kiev?

[ag]

Seriously, it seems like a major Russian attack is under way. Ukrainian troops, according some reports, are facing major reverses, if not worse.  Clearly, they are giving some back - but they are facing what amounts to regular Russian units. Things are truly bad.

All the info I'm seeing indicates several Ukrainian troop formations have been encircles by Russian/Separatist forces. There were also clashes along the southernmost point of the border by the Black Sea. Thousands of residents of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol have evacuated, fearing a Russian invasion.

That is exactly what I am seeing.

[ag]

Everybody in the west is expecting a hollywood invasion, a declare of war with tank brigades blowing through the board and conquering southeastern Ukraine in a week. Putin is much smarter than that. What we are seeing now is a slow motion invasion. The question is, what is Putin's end game. Does he just want to establish firm control over the Donbass region before coming to the negotiating table, or will we eventually see Russian paratroopers in Kiev?

I believe, at this point it only depends on the strength of resistance. So far, at least, Ukrainians have been able to inflict what appears substantial casualties on the Russian troops - sufficiently serious that it has become pretty much necessary to semi-acknowledge that Russian soldiers are there and that they are dying (at this point it is no longer possible to deny - too many funerals going on near major Russian military bases).  Still, this appears to be not at all enough to stop Putin - the assault accelerates. The longer-term goal, of course, is Kiev and beyond - the question is how big the damage has to be for it to be redefined.

Of course, given what we know of Ukrainian mood and history, once the army gets demolished (which may well happen), a major partisan war will start. And that will, probably, go on for decades.

[Hamster]

Everybody in the west is expecting a hollywood invasion, a declare of war with tank brigades blowing through the board and conquering southeastern Ukraine in a week. Putin is much smarter than that. What we are seeing now is a slow motion invasion. The question is, what is Putin's end game. Does he just want to establish firm control over the Donbass region before coming to the negotiating table, or will we eventually see Russian paratroopers in Kiev?

I believe, at this point it only depends on the strength of resistance. So far, at least, Ukrainians have been able to inflict what appears substantial casualties on the Russian troops - sufficiently serious that it has become pretty much necessary to semi-acknowledge that Russian soldiers are there and that they are dying (at this point it is no longer possible to deny - too many funerals going on near major Russian military bases).  Still, this appears to be not at all enough to stop Putin - the assault accelerates. The longer-term goal, of course, is Kiev and beyond - the question is how big the damage has to be for it to be redefined.

Of course, given what we know of Ukrainian mood and history, once the army gets demolished (which may well happen), a major partisan war will start. And that will, probably, go on for decades.

I have to think trying to take all of Ukraine now would blow back on Russia in a major way. In that case, they would be responsible for the financial mess Ukraine is in, they would bear the cost of the partisan war, and they would have expended a massive amount of men, money, and material to defeat a Ukrainian army which looks to be half-way competent.

The smarter route, IMO, would be to take and hold Donbass and demand its independence at the negotiating table, along with economic concessions. Maybe Ukraine takes the deal, maybe they leave the Donbass as a frozen conflict zone. Wait a few years and the IMF will start applying the screws to Ukraine; they'll want their money back no matter what. The Ukrainian people will snarl, maybe a government will fall, and Putin will step in with another offer. Maybe they take it this time, maybe they reject it and another Separatist republic pops up, situated between Crimea and Donbass.

[ag]

1. When I say they want Kiev,  I do not mean they want to be responsible for Kiev. A compliant impoverished regime would be enough.

2. In order to achieve that they want to destabilize the country as much as possible. As long as people keep dying in Ukraine that is good, as far as Putin is concerned.

3. Geographically, they need not so much Kiev (or Donbass, for that matter - it is worthless), but the corridor to Crimea and Transnistria. Which, of course, means pretty much all of the coast. If they could get it for free, they would. The question is, what is the maximal price they are willing to pay.

[Beet]

NOVOAZOVSK, Ukraine — Tanks, artillery and infantry have crossed from Russia into an unbreached part of eastern Ukraine in recent days, attacking Ukrainian forces and causing panic and wholesale retreat not only in this small border town but a wide swath of territory, in what Ukrainian and Western military officials are calling a stealth invasion.

The attacks outside this city and in an area to the north essentially have opened a new, third front in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists, along with the fighting outside the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Exhausted, filthy and dismayed, Ukrainian soldiers staggering out of Novoazovsk for safer territory said Tuesday that the forces coming from Russia had treated them like cannon fodder. As they spoke, tank shells whistled in from the east and exploded nearby.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-novoazovsk-crimea.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

When was the last time there was a territorial land grab in Europe from one state to another (as opposed to civil war within a pre-established state, e.g. Yugoslavia?)

[Simfan34]

George Shultz and William Perry had a good piece in the Journal today; I completely forgot about that thing called the "Budapest Memorandum"... ugh.

[swl]

When was the last time there was a territorial land grab in Europe from one state to another (as opposed to civil war within a pre-established state, e.g. Yugoslavia?)

Russia in Georgia in 2008, if you consider establishing puppet states as a territorial land grab. Otherwise WWII.