Riots in Kiev

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linguoboy
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-22, 14:10

Lada wrote:I wonder why there are no any meetings against the war? It's like as world community doesn't care that civilians are dying every day.

When you say "meetings", what do you mean? Conferences? Demonstrations? How exactly do you think these would help given that that the rebels are, as I mentioned above, unconcerned with world public opinion and not a coherent group for purposes of negotiation or deal-brokering?

Lada wrote:Only Ukrainian mothers whose sons are in the army cry for peace, nobody else. I remember something like "stop war in Iraq" and something about Middle East, but not about this war.

People protested against the Iraq War because they genuinely thought their actions could influence policy. Do you really see a prospect for that here? And, if so, what have you done to help organise protests in your own country?
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby chung » 2014-07-22, 15:19

Lada, you're mistaken. There have been meetings among the EU, Russia, Ukraine and USA to try to end the crisis (e.g. Apr. 17, 2014). You tell me how those went. There of course have been protests in the western world (especially in North America because of the large Ukrainian diaspora) in reaction to the Russian annexation of Crimea and the appeal to Russian irredentism in eastern Ukraine, but those protests haven't mobilized the non-Ukrainian parts of the population.

As much as loathe the almost reflexive tendency for some Russians to invoke Whataboutism when dealing with unflattering aspects of Russian foreign policy, I can't help but play a bit of it too by asking if enough of the Russian public itself is sufficiently high-minded to protest or apply internal pressure (admittedly this is difficult with the Kremlin's shameless suppression or obfuscation of issues that don't jive with officialdom's spin).

The truth (and we ALL know it) is that with the forces aligned as they are, no one really wants peace yet given that military action seems to be the only (but second-best option) now. The rebels/insurgents haven't given in and neither has the Ukrainian military. I'm sure that Moscow would be very pleased if Poroshenko's government collapses because of the rebels and its other proxies' efforts, as much as Brussels and Washington would be thrilled to stick it to Putin and get back at him tacitly for turning off the gas taps a few winters ago.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2014-07-22, 20:06

What this war highlights is the importance of media, propaganda, PR and public opinion. If you've got the public opinion on your side, you're winning.


And on the account of the plane, I have a very cynical view. I think that the Ukrainians knew perfectly well that the separatists have the weapons that they kept denying having. Ukrainians also knew perfectly well that the separatists are sloppy and prone to errors. So they have allowed the civilian airplanes to fly over the warzone and hoped that one of them would get shot down. That way they proved that Russia is giving some serious fucking weapons to the separatists, delegitimized the separatists, made Putin a child-killer and stopped Europe from getting too friendly with Russia. This is literally the best thing that has happened to Ukraine during this whole war. This could very well be the deciding moment of the war.


Still, I too am jumping to conclusions. We really don't know for sure who shot it down, why and under what circumstances. Not that it matters much anyway.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-22, 20:22

I may sound even more cynical, but wasn't it ultimately the airlines' decision to run the risk? After all, the separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane only four days before ML17 took off. But even the International Civil Aviation Organisation considered overflying the region safe as long as pilots remained above 32,000 ft. It's not clear to me what authority the Ukrainian government would've had to prevent commercial flights over their airspace even if they had decided to overrule the ICAO's NOTAM.

And though it's a boon for them politically, militarily it sounds like it may have bolloxed up a planned assault which they hoped would result in the recapture of Luhansk and Donetsk by leading to international calls for a cease-fire in order for international inspectors to do their work.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2014-07-23, 6:05

Ukraine could have closed the airspace over Donetsk and Lugansk for commercial flights out of safety concerns. ICAO probably didn't know that weapons capable of shooting down commerical planes even exist in the region. Ukraine did.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Varislintu » 2014-07-23, 6:39

linguoboy wrote:I may sound even more cynical, but wasn't it ultimately the airlines' decision to run the risk? After all, the separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane only four days before ML17 took off. But even the International Civil Aviation Organisation considered overflying the region safe as long as pilots remained above 32,000 ft. It's not clear to me what authority the Ukrainian government would've had to prevent commercial flights over their airspace even if they had decided to overrule the ICAO's NOTAM.


Isn't there a European authority as well? At least that's the one that kept being mentioned in our media (in the context of having or not having issued a ban on the flight over Ukraine).

But airlines can also decide not to fly some route, of course. Finnair representatives appeared in the media the day after the crash, acting all super-responsible, and announcing they were halting flights over Ukraine for two days. Two days. :roll: Later they made it an until-further-notice policy.

What bugs me about the fact that commercial airlines were flying over that area is that ultimately, it's an economical decision. They kept flying over there because going around costs more money. I mean, I do understand that a company needs to guard its economy or it will go under, but they were still gambling with a lot of people's lives for economic reasons. That feels questionable, now that we have a few hundred dead.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Varislintu » 2014-07-23, 7:18

Lada wrote:It's like as world community doesn't care that civilians are dying every day.


No. Just look at the activity of this thread, for example. Or how much Ukraine is discussed in Western media. Western people don't have much of an attention span, but Ukraine is on the news every evening. In fact, a good part of the reason for the negative reactions against Russia's alleged escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine is because of what is happening to the civilians.

Lada wrote:And I read an article in Italian newspaper (can't find the link now) about Italian man, who joined Ukrainian army and many other neo-nazis from Sweden, Finland, Latvia and maybe some other countries joined it too.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/russia_demands_investigation_into_claims_finns_joined_fighting_in_ukraine/7368805


Yes, this was all over the news yesterday. Or rather, the fact that Russia grunted authoritarianly our way officially asked the Finnish government to make an inquest into possible Finnish mercenaries in Ukraine, and then condemn it with the strongest of terms. (Just what we needed to boost the pro-NATO sentiments.) Finland is apparently declining to do so.

I have to say that I honestly don't understand what that was supposed to be about. (Appart form another chapter in the media games.) Do professional mercenaries with Finnish citizenship exist? Yes. Do Finns know such people exist? Yes. Do they represent the Finnish state in any way? No. Does the Finnish government have some kind of intimate control over what legal professions people with Finnish citizenship possibly engage in? No, and it seems strange that Russia seems to expect so.

Now, if the Finnish state had somehow been involved in sending them there, then I could see what the Finnish state has to do with them, but otherwise I'm not sure what Russia's angle here is. I guess the whole thing was intended more for the internal Russian audience. On this side of the media wall, it didn't make Russia look less menacing.

(What has made Russia seem less menacing in our media lately is the fact that Viborg has decided to improve the infrastructure and services it offers for visiting boaters. I'm sure this will delight Finns who'd like to visit there on boat. Thank you for the hospitable and non-military-related investment! :) More of this, and our countries will become better friends, I'm sure!)

Lada wrote:and one more weird thing:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2014/07/21/01001-20140721QCMWWW00108-pensez-vous-que-les-russes-soient-responsables-du-crash-du-vol-mh-17-de-la-malaysia-airlines.php
A very big newspaper asks its readers if Russia is responsible for airplane crash? Readers really know the truth?


I think they are asking for what the readers think, not what the truth is.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-07-23, 17:50

Varislintu wrote:Russia officially asked the Finnish government to make an inquest into possible Finnish mercenaries in Ukraine, and then condemn it with the strongest of terms. (Just what we needed to boost the pro-NATO sentiments.)
Sounds like projecting!
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2014-07-23, 18:11

The brother of someone at my work died. And two people who worked at the university I work for, and two students. And a friend of someone at my work. And so forth.
The bodies are finally coming back to the Netherlands. It's national mourning and we are allowed to put out flags (half-mast). I don't think I've ever experienced such a sense of national mourning before. Of course there have been other accidents and incidents and murders but not with this many people at the same time, not something as terrible as this.

Of course there already was a lot of attention on the Ukrainian war in the Netherlands, the newspapers write and wrote about it every day, but now even more, they involved us. Hopefully the ones who can will make sure the separatists won't ever get new weapons and stuff like that so that the violence can stop.

I have heard that they don't fly anymore above Ukraine, but in stead they fly above Syria now. I guess this isn't true.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2014-07-23, 20:07

Varislintu wrote:
Lada wrote:It's like as world community doesn't care that civilians are dying every day.


No. Just look at the activity of this thread, for example. Or how much Ukraine is discussed in Western media. Western people don't have much of an attention span, but Ukraine is on the news every evening. In fact, a good part of the reason for the negative reactions against Russia's alleged escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine is because of what is happening to the civilians.


The world community (shorthand for 'the West') cares about the civilians that are dying. But they care much more if it's their 'allies' that are dying. The level of sympathy depends on the political situation.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Lada » 2014-07-23, 20:16

linguoboy wrote:
Lada wrote:I wonder why there are no any meetings against the war? It's like as world community doesn't care that civilians are dying every day.

When you say "meetings", what do you mean? Conferences? Demonstrations? How exactly do you think these would help given that that the rebels are, as I mentioned above, unconcerned with world public opinion and not a coherent group for purposes of negotiation or deal-brokering?

I ment demonstarations. Why do you talk only about rebels? They are not the only one who are responsible for what's going on. Ukrainian army is involved at least too. And there was no any significant intention to stop the war from both sides. It means that Kiev doesn't care about public opinion too as they are backed by US. Protests actually made impact even on Russian politics which is a very closed thing, so I think will of many people can really help and change something.

Lada wrote:People protested against the Iraq War because they genuinely thought their actions could influence policy. Do you really see a prospect for that here? And, if so, what have you done to help organise protests in your own country?

I see prospects everywhere in case of real work. I do not organase any protests as I realize what power I have (better to say power that I don't have) and I realize in what country I live - every day I see angry posts "why don't we bomb Ukraine?" etc. but I tried to do something good for Russia-Ukrainian relations.

chung wrote:There of course have been protests in the western world (especially in North America because of the large Ukrainian diaspora) in reaction to the Russian annexation of Crimea and the appeal to Russian irredentism in eastern Ukraine, but those protests haven't mobilized the non-Ukrainian parts of the population.

I ment protests for peace and not for "let's punish them because they're wrong". I haven't seen any protests for peace. What is more ugly - to annex territory that historically and culturally belongs to you without any single shot or to kill people, citizens of your country, sometimes civilians, just to save the borders as they are?

I can't help but play a bit of it too by asking if enough of the Russian public itself is sufficiently high-minded to protest or apply internal pressure

Even the opposition is not ready to protest, may be they support the war too. Actually Russian public is not more high-minded or less then public in any other country as we see it's very easy to manipulate public opinion everywhere. But protests for peace are not about what side is wrong and what side is right, it's just about peace and imho such protests show the level of civil society development. Russia is ranked very low here I guess.

Varislintu wrote:
Lada wrote:It's like as world community doesn't care that civilians are dying every day.


No. Just look at the activity of this thread, for example. Or how much Ukraine is discussed in Western media.

Speaking and doing are too different things and I believe only in action. Journalists have to write news coz it's their job.

In fact, a good part of the reason for the negative reactions against Russia's alleged escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine is because of what is happening to the civilians.

Many civilians are refugees in Russia, Russia welcomes them, gives them shelter - official numbers of refugees are about 500 000 persons. That gives negative reaction?

Lada wrote:and one more weird thing:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2014/07/21/01001-20140721QCMWWW00108-pensez-vous-que-les-russes-soient-responsables-du-crash-du-vol-mh-17-de-la-malaysia-airlines.php
A very big newspaper asks its readers if Russia is responsible for airplane crash? Readers really know the truth?


I think they are asking for what the readers think, not what the truth is.

My question was rather rhetorical than real, but anyway any opinion is based on what you read, not on your real knowledge and the only aim of such polls is to understand if locals support your propaganda or not. They don't ask who is responsible, they even don't give the variant "I don't know".

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-23, 21:38

Lada wrote:I ment demonstarations. Why do you talk only about rebels?

Because it doesn't matter if one side decides to pursue peace if the other isn't interested. The West can, as you say, bring pressure to bear on the Ukrainian government, but only Russia is in a position to influence the separatists (although to what degree is very unclear to me).

Lada wrote:but I tried to do something good for Russia-Ukrainian relations.

What was that?

Lada wrote:What is more ugly - to annex territory that historically and culturally belongs to you without any single shot or to kill people, citizens of your country, sometimes civilians, just to save the borders as they are?

The reason we treat borders as sacrosanct is that changing them unilaterally is one of the surest ways of getting people killed--the history of Europe in particular is littered with examples. I believe that international borders can (and should) be changed, but this has to be done in an orderly, organised, legitimate, and transparent matter. Asserting otherwise is flagrantly irresponsible, a way of giving carte blanche to every hotheaded band of irredentists anywhere.

Think about what you're saying. Are you really supporting the right of Poland to reoccupy the Borderlands? Of Germany to declare it's taking back Kaliningrad Oblast?

Lada wrote:Many civilians are refugees in Russia, Russia welcomes them, gives them shelter - official numbers of refugees are about 500 000 persons. That gives negative reaction?

If Russia hadn't armed the separatists and encouraged them to rebel, how many civilian refugees would there be?
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2014-07-23, 22:13

linguoboy wrote:
Lada wrote:What is more ugly - to annex territory that historically and culturally belongs to you without any single shot or to kill people, citizens of your country, sometimes civilians, just to save the borders as they are?

The reason we treat borders as sacrosanct is that changing them unilaterally is one of the surest ways of getting people killed--the history of Europe in particular is littered with examples. I believe that international borders can (and should) be changed, but this has to be done in an orderly, organised, legitimate, and transparent matter. Asserting otherwise is flagrantly irresponsible, a way of giving carte blanche to every hotheaded band of irredentists anywhere.

Exactly. Like Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo... Oops, bad examples.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-23, 22:15

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Exactly. Like Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo... Oops, bad examples.

Case in point. How many people died when Montenegro and Serbia parted ways?
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Johanna » 2014-07-23, 22:54

Has any country ever become part of another already existing country voluntarily? Or seceded any territory to one?

In reasonably modern times I mean, and not counting colonies.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-24, 3:06

Johanna wrote:Has any country ever become part of another already existing country voluntarily? Or seceded any territory to one?

First one which comes to mind is the plebiscite which returned Northern Schleswig to Danish rule in 1920. Another plebiscite was held in Carinthia that same year to determine the boundary between Austria and what is now Slovenia, but that didn't result in any redrawing of the border.

In 1948, Newfoundland and Labrador, at that time a dominion of the British Empire, voted for confederation with Canada, which took place the following year.

In 1954, the Free Territory of Trieste, a polity formed from land annexed by Italy in 1921, was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia. The inhabitants were not consulted, although they were given the option to resettle.

The Panama Canal Zone was legally a US territory from 1903 until 1999, when it was returned to Panama under a treaty signed by President Carter.

Just four years ago, the people of the Netherlands Antilles voted to dissolve the country. Curaçao and Saint Maarten are now (like Aruba, which seceded in 1986) "constituent countries" within the Kingdom of the Netherlands whereas the other islands have been incorporated into the Netherlands as special municipalities.

All of these and more can be found in this list of national border changes since WWI.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Varislintu » 2014-07-24, 8:48

Ludwig Whitby wrote:The world community (shorthand for 'the West') cares about the civilians that are dying. But they care much more if it's their 'allies' that are dying. The level of sympathy depends on the political situation.


Yes, for sure. The last thing I want to do is imply that the Western public is some kind of consistent or thoroughly enlightened and fair entity. Far, far from it.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Sol Invictus » 2014-07-24, 9:46

Lada wrote:And I read an article in Italian newspaper (can't find the link now) about Italian man, who joined Ukrainian army and many other neo-nazis from Sweden, Finland, Latvia and maybe some other countries joined it too.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/russia_demands_investigation_into_claims_finns_joined_fighting_in_ukraine/7368805

Aren't you getting tired of all this lying and seeing fascists and neo-nazis everywhere, but in Russia? Latvia doesn't have any notable neo-nazi activity, our ultra-nationalists have
their own ideas. And the only Latvian citizen that has been reported to go to Ukraine was pro-Russian




I find the pro-Russian reaction to MH17 - desperately trying to come up with believable conspiracy theory and impending investigation - ridicilous and disgusting at the same time. This is such a terrible and sensless loss of life of people who were in no way involved and didn't have any clue they were in danger, I am rather sure it was the rebels who downed the plane (acctualy just saw an article saying that one of them finaly admited it, but not sure if it's true) and that they probably made a mistake, but it is too late to take it back now, so they could at least apologise, even if they feel like this somehow was also somebody else's fault.

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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby linguoboy » 2014-07-24, 12:42

Sol Invictus wrote:This is such a terrible and sensless loss of life of people who were in no way involved and didn't have any clue they were in danger, I am rather sure it was the rebels who downed the plane (acctualy just saw an article saying that one of them finaly admited it, but not sure if it's true) and that they probably made a mistake, but it is too late to take it back now, so they could at least apologise, even if they feel like this somehow was also somebody else's fault.

A reporter from Corriere della sera claims an anonymous militiaman told him this at the Torez train station: http://www.corriere.it/english/14_luglio_22/how-malaysian-plane-was-shot-down-51e99c60-118f-11e4-affb-3320a03d21e8.shtml. Make of that what you will.

BBC News ran an interview with Alesandr Borodai, who describes himself as "prime minister" of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic. Think he's local? Think again:
Let me remind you, I myself am from Moscow. I am Russian. A citizen of Russia, and a resident of the city of Moscow. I am not from the Donbas, not at all. I came here as a volunteer.
The defence minister, Strelkov, is also from Moscow, not to mention a "former" member of the Russian security services. But let's all focus on these "Finnish mercenaries" whose presence I'm sure is making such a difference in the conflict.
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Re: Riots in Kiev

Postby Sol Invictus » 2014-07-24, 16:29

linguoboy wrote: an anonymous militiaman

Not that, somebody claimed it was comander of one of the units, who apparently now says he's been misinterpreted EDIT: Here, apparently reporter had it on tape and released it after they tried to deny it http://www.rferl.org/media/video/ukrain ... ?nocache=1 baisicaly he says there was SAM, but they no longer had it because there was need to hide evidence after Ukraine "provoked" them to use it (so Ukraine is better informed about
arms the rebels have than the rebels themselves :lol: )
Think he's local?

And apparently his deputy is a guy wanted by Latvia and Moldova (for his 20+ year work expierience in managing similar pro-Russian rebelions) seeing how last we heard he's in Transnistria, he must be able to fly like a bird to get to Donetsk without getting arrested


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