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Sign up with GoogleCrisis in Ukraine
- Thread starter LazyLion
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w1z4rd
Karmic Sangoma
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LazyLion
King of de Jungle
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RUSSIA DOMINATES, BUT OBAMA TRIP BROADENS OUTREACH
President Barack Obama begins a week of international travel with Russia's Crimean incursion at the top of his agenda, even as he simultaneously seeks to re-emphasize U.S. influence abroad.
As he arrived in the Netherlands Monday on a sunny and brisk morning, no issue commanded more of Obama's and Europe's attention than Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the fear that Moscow could decide to expand further into Ukraine.
But Obama also is attempting to use his weeklong trip to personally reconnect not only with Europe but Asia and the Middle East, all strategically crucial regions with their own tensions and qualms about the U.S.
That outreach will be underscored by Obama's meeting Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit. On Tuesday, Obama has planned a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, a session preceded by a sitdown with Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate in the United Arab Emirates federation.
The two-day nuclear summit was the long-scheduled draw for Obama's visit to The Netherlands, but the headline event Monday is a Ukraine-focused, hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies - the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant published ahead of his arrival in Monday, Obama says his message to European leaders is that Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to "understand the economic and political consequences of his actions in Ukraine."
Still, he said he does not view Europe as a battleground between the East and the West. "That's the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War," he said. "On the contrary, it's important that Ukraine have good relations with the United States, Russia, and Europe."
Discussion among Obama and his G-7 counterparts will center on economic aid to Ukraine, while at the same time seeking to segregate Putin from the exclusive group, which Russia usually joins in Group of Eight meetings.
More broadly, the Ukraine crisis will test Obama's ability to forge a unified and forceful stance against Russia from European leaders who are alarmed by Putin's moves but whose economies are dependent on Russian energy and trade.
In the interview, Obama conceded that the sanctions he has threatened against Russian economic sectors could have worldwide impacts.
But, he added: "If Russia continues to escalate the situation, we need to be prepared to impose a greater cost."
Still, European sanctions against Russia have not matched those announced by Obama. Michael Geary, who has written two books on the European Union, said expectations for concrete action are not high.
"I suspect that what we will get ... is a lot of harsh rhetoric from the G7 and EU but little in the way of deeper, coordinated sanctions," said Geary, a global fellow with the Wilson Center.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte greeted Obama upon arrival in Amsterdam at the recently renovated Rijksmuseum, the grand, castle-like home to works by many Dutch masters. Obama got a look at the museum's centerpiece, Rembrandt's massive 17th century painting "Night Watch." Obama and Rutte then met one-on-one at the museum.
Obama's meeting with China's Xi highlights another tricky front in U.S. international relations and comes just a day after The New York Times and the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the U.S. National Security Agency had hacked into the servers of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Meanwhile, China has been wary of Obama's efforts to increase U.S. influence in the Asia Pacific region. The U.S. has also called for restraint in China's maritime territorial disputes with Japan and its Southeast Asian neighbors.
China, a frequent Russian ally, abstained a week ago from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring Crimea's secession referendum illegal. With Russia vetoing the measure and the 13 other council members voting in favor, China's abstention served to isolate Moscow internationally.
Tuesday's meeting with Japan's Abe and South Korea's Park comes after what national security adviser Susan Rice conceded was "a period of tension," a reference to Chinese and South Korean anger at recent Abe gestures that have rekindled memories of Japan's aggression in World War II. It will be the first meeting between the two Asian leaders since they took office more than a year ago.
Tuesday's session with the Abu Dhabi crown prince will also serve as precursor to Obama's end-of-trip visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Saudi King Abdullah to address Arab anxieties over the Syrian civil war and U.S. nuclear talks with Iran, a Saudi Arabia rival in the region.
Source : Sapa-AP /kd
Date : 24 Mar 2014 11:09
President Barack Obama begins a week of international travel with Russia's Crimean incursion at the top of his agenda, even as he simultaneously seeks to re-emphasize U.S. influence abroad.
As he arrived in the Netherlands Monday on a sunny and brisk morning, no issue commanded more of Obama's and Europe's attention than Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the fear that Moscow could decide to expand further into Ukraine.
But Obama also is attempting to use his weeklong trip to personally reconnect not only with Europe but Asia and the Middle East, all strategically crucial regions with their own tensions and qualms about the U.S.
That outreach will be underscored by Obama's meeting Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit. On Tuesday, Obama has planned a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, a session preceded by a sitdown with Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate in the United Arab Emirates federation.
The two-day nuclear summit was the long-scheduled draw for Obama's visit to The Netherlands, but the headline event Monday is a Ukraine-focused, hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies - the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant published ahead of his arrival in Monday, Obama says his message to European leaders is that Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to "understand the economic and political consequences of his actions in Ukraine."
Still, he said he does not view Europe as a battleground between the East and the West. "That's the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War," he said. "On the contrary, it's important that Ukraine have good relations with the United States, Russia, and Europe."
Discussion among Obama and his G-7 counterparts will center on economic aid to Ukraine, while at the same time seeking to segregate Putin from the exclusive group, which Russia usually joins in Group of Eight meetings.
More broadly, the Ukraine crisis will test Obama's ability to forge a unified and forceful stance against Russia from European leaders who are alarmed by Putin's moves but whose economies are dependent on Russian energy and trade.
In the interview, Obama conceded that the sanctions he has threatened against Russian economic sectors could have worldwide impacts.
But, he added: "If Russia continues to escalate the situation, we need to be prepared to impose a greater cost."
Still, European sanctions against Russia have not matched those announced by Obama. Michael Geary, who has written two books on the European Union, said expectations for concrete action are not high.
"I suspect that what we will get ... is a lot of harsh rhetoric from the G7 and EU but little in the way of deeper, coordinated sanctions," said Geary, a global fellow with the Wilson Center.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte greeted Obama upon arrival in Amsterdam at the recently renovated Rijksmuseum, the grand, castle-like home to works by many Dutch masters. Obama got a look at the museum's centerpiece, Rembrandt's massive 17th century painting "Night Watch." Obama and Rutte then met one-on-one at the museum.
Obama's meeting with China's Xi highlights another tricky front in U.S. international relations and comes just a day after The New York Times and the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the U.S. National Security Agency had hacked into the servers of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Meanwhile, China has been wary of Obama's efforts to increase U.S. influence in the Asia Pacific region. The U.S. has also called for restraint in China's maritime territorial disputes with Japan and its Southeast Asian neighbors.
China, a frequent Russian ally, abstained a week ago from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring Crimea's secession referendum illegal. With Russia vetoing the measure and the 13 other council members voting in favor, China's abstention served to isolate Moscow internationally.
Tuesday's meeting with Japan's Abe and South Korea's Park comes after what national security adviser Susan Rice conceded was "a period of tension," a reference to Chinese and South Korean anger at recent Abe gestures that have rekindled memories of Japan's aggression in World War II. It will be the first meeting between the two Asian leaders since they took office more than a year ago.
Tuesday's session with the Abu Dhabi crown prince will also serve as precursor to Obama's end-of-trip visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Saudi King Abdullah to address Arab anxieties over the Syrian civil war and U.S. nuclear talks with Iran, a Saudi Arabia rival in the region.
Source : Sapa-AP /kd
Date : 24 Mar 2014 11:09
And Long term, Ukraine, or what's left of it, will be a member of NATO. NATO even closer to Russia than before.
In 2008 Georgia was promised membership of NATO in the future. NATO countries don't really want these countries to join. They are basically stalling Georgia. But the Russians seem to doing everything they can to piss off their neighbours.
So Putin's aggression is just driving more countries into NATO.
Garson007
Honorary Master
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You're kidding. NATO countries will not allow a country to join that has territorial disputes with Russia.
This whole event actually makes Ukraine less likely to join.
I agree in the short term. I did say that they where stalling on Georgia. But that's the point. They are stalling. Not saying no.
Ukraine is a lot more complicated than Georgia. As someone living in the UK, I don't see Ukraine as being European at all. Ukraine is a very fragmented, dangerous place. It is beset by extreme right wing nationalism. Something which will block it from joining the EU and therefore NATO as well.
But if this changes, then Ukraine will move closer to the EU. And from there its a small step to NATO. I think there definatly is a long term possibility that Ukraine will end up in NATO.
If Ukraine does fragment more, then its more likely that whats left up the Kiev govt will be more likely to become, over time, acceptable to EU and NATO.
Right now, I am happy for the Ukraine(poor sods) to remain a buffer between Europe and Russia.
If you really believe that NATO wont accept members just because it might piss off Putin, then you are mistaken:
3 former Soviet republics are already part of NATO: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
And Georgia is on its way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-p-joseph/after-ukraine-nato-must-g_b_4875263.html
Hamish McPanji
Honorary Master
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- Oct 29, 2009
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Look what happens to dessenting voices in the new democratic Ukraine:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...rney-general-natalia-poklonskaya-9212474.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...rney-general-natalia-poklonskaya-9212474.html
snoopdoggydog
Expert Member
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TehStranger
Executive Member
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OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
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As compared to what Putin and his thugs do to dissenters? Pfft.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
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LAVROV AGREES TO MEET UKRAINE FOREIGN MINISTER: REPORT
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has agreed to meet his Ukrainian counterpart for crisis talks on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in The Hague, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency said.
"By request of the Ukrainian delegation, a meeting between Lavrov and (Ukraine's interim Foreign Minister Andriy) Deshchytsya has been planned on the sidelines of the summit," RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed source in the Russian delegation as saying.
Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 24 Mar 2014 19:09
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has agreed to meet his Ukrainian counterpart for crisis talks on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in The Hague, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency said.
"By request of the Ukrainian delegation, a meeting between Lavrov and (Ukraine's interim Foreign Minister Andriy) Deshchytsya has been planned on the sidelines of the summit," RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed source in the Russian delegation as saying.
Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 24 Mar 2014 19:09
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
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'SORRY BROTHER': UKRAINE MARINES BETRAYED BY RUSSIAN RAID
by Dmitry Serebryakov
Just a year ago, Ruslan, a marine in Ukraine's top battalion stationed in the Crimean port of Feodosiya, helped Russian soldiers paint their armoured personnel carrier for a military parade.
On Monday, he spotted the same vehicle being used to block the gate to his base as Russians showered its barracks with tear gas and stun grenades in a pre-dawn raid that took the unarmed Ukrainians by complete surprise.
"We thought of them as our own, as our brothers," said Ruslan, who declined to give his last name.
"We trusted them... and they trusted us," he told AFP at a Feodosiya cafe after spending hours in Russian custody.
"And now they received these orders (to attack us), and what they did was completely inhuman. It's not the Christian way."
Ruslan, who is in his late 20s, said he was torn by Moscow's seizure and annexation of Crimea as his parents live in Ukraine and his wife and children were born on the peninsula.
The Feodosiya base, where he served for six years, is one of the last Ukrainian military bases in Crimea to fall under Russian control.
But it was not the tear gas that stung these marines the most -- it was the Russians who broke a promise to allow them to leave the base peacefully on Monday in exchange for their arms.
"There was an agreement that we hand over the weapons... and at noon today we were to lower the flag and drive out on our trucks to go to the mainland. But that's not what happened," Ruslan said.
The unit locked up its armoury and handed it over -- but then was woken up by a raid at 4:00 am.
"They fired bullets at us while we were completely unarmed," said Yevgeniy, another marine.
"My friend had his nose broken with the butt of a rifle for nothing, he put up no resistance.
"They took our military IDs, phones, money -- everything they could lay their hands on."
The marines said that if they had known this was going to happen, they would never have surrendered their weapons.
A soldier Yevgeniy knew tied him up and loaded him onto a Ural military truck at 6:00 am.
"He said 'Sorry brother, we have nothing to do with this. The security services are at work here'."
As Russia asserts its control over Crimea, Ukrainian servicemen note the irony that many of those under attack were themselves born in Russia and felt closer to Moscow than their new government.
In the early days of the blockade, Russians besieging the base carried food parcels to the Ukrainians inside, who then frequently shared the food.
"We resisted for 23 days on dried food, on canned fish. Could defence ministry officials have survived like that for so long?" Ruslan asked bitterly.
"They kept saying, 'Hold on... it's being decided'.
"We asked them for a command, but there was nothing."
The angry marines are ready to go straight to Kiev and raise some hell, said Yevgeniy, who is also in his late 20s.
"We'll go back to Ukraine. If nobody picks us up at the border, all of us will go to Kiev to the Rada (parliament), to the defence ministry.
"We'll storm them, and maybe then they'll treat us differently," he said as he waited for a bus to the border town of Chongar.
Ukraine should have immediately put up barriers at all Russian crossings to protect Crimea, the marines said. They think the peninsula has been lost because of poor leadership.
Former president Viktor "Yanukovych should have used troops at Maidan," Yevgeniy said, referring to the Kiev square occupied by pro-European protesters who toppled the pro-Moscow leader last month.
"He believed the wrong people... and where is he now? And where are we now? We are totally ****ed."
Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 24 Mar 2014 19:32
by Dmitry Serebryakov
Just a year ago, Ruslan, a marine in Ukraine's top battalion stationed in the Crimean port of Feodosiya, helped Russian soldiers paint their armoured personnel carrier for a military parade.
On Monday, he spotted the same vehicle being used to block the gate to his base as Russians showered its barracks with tear gas and stun grenades in a pre-dawn raid that took the unarmed Ukrainians by complete surprise.
"We thought of them as our own, as our brothers," said Ruslan, who declined to give his last name.
"We trusted them... and they trusted us," he told AFP at a Feodosiya cafe after spending hours in Russian custody.
"And now they received these orders (to attack us), and what they did was completely inhuman. It's not the Christian way."
Ruslan, who is in his late 20s, said he was torn by Moscow's seizure and annexation of Crimea as his parents live in Ukraine and his wife and children were born on the peninsula.
The Feodosiya base, where he served for six years, is one of the last Ukrainian military bases in Crimea to fall under Russian control.
But it was not the tear gas that stung these marines the most -- it was the Russians who broke a promise to allow them to leave the base peacefully on Monday in exchange for their arms.
"There was an agreement that we hand over the weapons... and at noon today we were to lower the flag and drive out on our trucks to go to the mainland. But that's not what happened," Ruslan said.
The unit locked up its armoury and handed it over -- but then was woken up by a raid at 4:00 am.
"They fired bullets at us while we were completely unarmed," said Yevgeniy, another marine.
"My friend had his nose broken with the butt of a rifle for nothing, he put up no resistance.
"They took our military IDs, phones, money -- everything they could lay their hands on."
The marines said that if they had known this was going to happen, they would never have surrendered their weapons.
A soldier Yevgeniy knew tied him up and loaded him onto a Ural military truck at 6:00 am.
"He said 'Sorry brother, we have nothing to do with this. The security services are at work here'."
As Russia asserts its control over Crimea, Ukrainian servicemen note the irony that many of those under attack were themselves born in Russia and felt closer to Moscow than their new government.
In the early days of the blockade, Russians besieging the base carried food parcels to the Ukrainians inside, who then frequently shared the food.
"We resisted for 23 days on dried food, on canned fish. Could defence ministry officials have survived like that for so long?" Ruslan asked bitterly.
"They kept saying, 'Hold on... it's being decided'.
"We asked them for a command, but there was nothing."
The angry marines are ready to go straight to Kiev and raise some hell, said Yevgeniy, who is also in his late 20s.
"We'll go back to Ukraine. If nobody picks us up at the border, all of us will go to Kiev to the Rada (parliament), to the defence ministry.
"We'll storm them, and maybe then they'll treat us differently," he said as he waited for a bus to the border town of Chongar.
Ukraine should have immediately put up barriers at all Russian crossings to protect Crimea, the marines said. They think the peninsula has been lost because of poor leadership.
Former president Viktor "Yanukovych should have used troops at Maidan," Yevgeniy said, referring to the Kiev square occupied by pro-European protesters who toppled the pro-Moscow leader last month.
"He believed the wrong people... and where is he now? And where are we now? We are totally ****ed."
Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 24 Mar 2014 19:32
CataclysmZA
Executive Member
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Can't possibly be. He's a staunch republican :erm:
The_Assimilator
Executive Member
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If Clancy could predict this, Stratfor and US intelligence could too. In fact, I bet they did, but were ignored by the useful idiots in Congress who preferred to believe that the Cold War was over and done with. But at the end of the day, all this happened on Obama's watch, and - rightly or wrongly - that's how history will remember him.
Lets hope they dont start mass executing Ukrainian soldiers like they executed Polish soldiers in WW2 :/ There are already reports of Ukranian soldiers going missing
Here's your missing Ukrainian soldier (with his bags packed).
The caption:
"Ukrainian soldiers left a naval base at Feodosia - Ukraine's last military base in the region - on Monday"
Garson007
Honorary Master
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History will forget this, unless the USA makes a fuss.
Dave
Honorary Master
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- Aug 31, 2008
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Well, the G8 just became the G7 today, and it seems Euro policy is now to find alternative gas suppliers (which might make the US happy with all their new fracking gas).
Economically it could prove quite costly to Russia if Europe does boycott Russian gas.
OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
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On Obama's watch? Why is he responsible for what happens in Russia and Ukraine?