Now the Long Knives are poised right in the back of Ukraine:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26400035

Fucking brilliant approach, this. First the attempt to play divide and conquer in Ukraine pretty transparently crashed and burned with the retun of Ukraine's Benazir Bhutto to political influence. Then, the Russians decide evidently that they really did move in Russian Army soldiers into the Crimea. Because the proper instinct when a risky gamble fails is to raise the stakes. This is not going to end well by any means. Now I'm wondering how long Lucashenko will have a country to rule as dictator, and what might happen with Round II with Georgia. If Tsar Vladimir I of the House of Putin succeeds in this kind of thing, that will only encourage him to expand his wars of aggression further because Ukraine is rather larger than Georgia, and this would permit Russia to begin aspiring to regain aspects of the old Tsarist boundaries. I sincerely expected Russia would use Central Asia for this kind of thing, not Ukraine.

The EU wouldn't give a damn about invading Muslims in Kazakhstan, but invading an EU state? That's not going to lead Russia to do anything but decide to engage in still-larger wars of aggression in the long term.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/europe/ukraine-politics/

And one of the chambers of the Russian legislature just approved this request. Hoo, boy.

Shit got real-er:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26403996

The Ukrainian Army is now on full combat alert. The prospect that the centennial year of the First World War will see the first large-scale conventional European war in decades has risen exponentially.

Comments

[olegborisov.livejournal.com]

Crimea is the Russian land.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Tatars might disagree with that assertion.

[vercors.livejournal.com]

American Indians, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Serbians, Syrians - too

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Whoever conquers it, it's theirs - is that what you're saying?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Only brilliant if Russia wants to become the next Iran.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Obviously, that's Bulgarian territory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Great_Bulgaria)!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Obviously it's Greek because the Byzantines were there first. :P J/K.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Iran played its cards right by not starting wars. Russia is engaging in major acts of aggression with a tremendous likelihood to backfire. This is 1940 in the Baltic all over again. Comrade Jugashvili would approve.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Of course they were there first. They arrived right after the Scythians and Sarmatians!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I was kidding. ;)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Come on! It's the truth!

[olegborisov.livejournal.com]

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B0

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Crimea will return to Russia and the rest of Ukraine will eventually join the EU. Check back in 5-10 years and let me know if I was wrong.

[uglich-jj.livejournal.com]

the secession of Crimea Russians is possible, nothing wrong here.

but what we see now it`s another story, it`s not a secession, it`s an invasion, fearful Putin exporting his dictatorship

[olegborisov.livejournal.com]

Leaders of Ukraine: Klitschko, Yatsenyuk and Tyagniboka. :-)))

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

But the hat and pipe give your icon that scholarly look.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Oh goody...it's 2008 again in these parts wherein a flock of previously unheard from Russian bloggers descend to explain to us how every place a Russian has taken a dump in the past 300 years is part of Russia.

Ukraine let Russia have most of the Black Sea Fleet and gave up all of the nuclear weapons the former USSR had in Ukraine in the 1990s. Part of the idea of these moves was that the newly formed Russian Federation would recognize the existing boundaries of the former Soviet states. No good, I suppose. Putin wants vassals instead of neighbors. If I were the government of a Baltic state right now, I'd be very nervous.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Next Russian-majority territory to "return" to Russia - Brighton Beach, NY?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Not likely.

:P

Most of the Ukrainians I know here despise Putin.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how you're expecting people in an English-speaking forum to get your reference. It's like me posting something in Afrikaans to you and expecting you to provide a coherent response.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Only Crimea?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

It's kind of surprising that Putin would choose to up the ante so drastically in Ukraine, whereas he could've just left Ukraine to implode economically (possibly aiding the process by stopping the gas supply, or making it incredibly expensive), then pick the fruit of this blockade. He could've had all of Ukraine, now he's gambling it all on Crimea.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's almost as if they're totally not being hoarded in this direction.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Like unterlankers said, the Russians like to carve out territories slowly. The Crimea is easily in their hand, whether or not occupied by force, whether or not in administration majority or in behind-the-scenes influence. Whether the rest of East Ukraine also needs to be russified further remains to be seen. This is nothing new, they have been at it for a century and a half now?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

What they've been doing for a century and a half is invade entire swaths of territory, and carve segments of the globe for themselves. The South Ossetia / Crimea scenario is relatively new for them.