The situation in Ukraine :(

Has just gotten incredibly serious. Take a line from North Cape Norway down through Finland Istanbul to North Africa and you have literally where East and West split open. Ukraine which like Poland is constantly at war for past thousands of years sits on this hinge and the mother of all contests is being fought as I write this. In terms of significant human history it doesn't get any better than this! Who will win? Neither; Quite soon the world is going to another never seen before North South split in our lifetime. My opinion!

 

Out there there has always been an East-West divide, there is in a cultural sense with Russia, and there is in a literal sense with Ukraine.

Ukraine has always been divided between anti-Western, pro-Russian Orthodox Christian easterners, and pro-Western, anti-Russian westerners, some Orthodox but many of whom are Catholic.

Of course in the modern world this has taken on new ramifications, with the West symbolizing liberalism (including gay rights) and democratic government, while the East (Russia) symbolizes traditional old-fashioned social authoritarianism (including the anti-gay agenda). Not to imply that gay rights is related to these protests, but the pro-Russian easterners definitely view the West as morally 'decadent' and thus want to align with traditional moral Russia over the morally 'degenerate' European Union.

Unfortunately I am fearful that Yanukovych will crush the protestors with extreme violence, and protected by Putin and Russia, there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

If the country were ever to split between east and west, that would mean good news for the people in the west, very bad news for people who value democracy and liberalism who are stuck in the east.

 

See, this is what happens when Russia tries to colonise another country, it just ends in tears.

There was some Russian propaganda floating about earlier that's well worth finding. Turns out the EU was founded by Hitler for the sole purposes of allowing balding men and male Fedora enthusiasts to establish relations with each other, all while corrupting the youth into becoming emo kiddies via the medium of Euros. Oh and Russia still live in something that looks like the 16th century, but still managed to put Yuri Gagarin into space.

 

I'm not sure if things will end in extreme violence, but I'm fairly confident that Yanukovych will continue to align Ukraine with Russia for two reasons:

1) Ukraine is reliant on gas imports from Russia (Ukraine imports roughly 80% of its natural gas needs). Russia recently agreed to sell gas to Ukraine at discounted prices - from $400 per 1,000 cubic metres to around $269.

2) the Ukrainian government needs the Russian government to buy their government bonds - of which Russia has agreed to buy roughly $15bn - perfect timing, since they had a $15bn gap in external financing.

Ukraine, for all intents and purposes, is a Russian puppet state. To put it in colloquial terms, Putin has Yanukovych by the balls.

Russia is bully on the political playground. They have an obvious advantage here because they are assisting Ukraine financially and provide Ukraine with the bulk of its natural gas needs. If it wasn't for this, and Russia's considerable nuclear arsenal, nobody would take any interest in or notice of Russia.

 

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Fair point - I guess I temporarily forgot about the violence already occurring. Up to 60 people have died in clashes today, according to France-Presse (although reports are conflicting and vary depending on source). A full-out civil war isn't unthinkable at this stage IMO.

 

Russian troops to be in Kiev by the end of the year. Won't be an invasion, they'll have been "invited".

I reserve the right to act smug when I'm proven right.

 

Only difference is this time America will be boycotting the World Cup and the Sovi...I mean Russians won't have to worry about sand playing havoc with their vehicles and equipment.

 

For a country that, if we're honest, isn't that popular the Russians seem to get invited into a lot of countries. I can't wait for them to get invited into Britain.

Wonder what Farage and his ilk make of all those Ukrainians fighting to get their country into the EU.

 

Necro and a double post to boot -

Ukrainian parliament has voted to release Yulia Tymoshenko (opposition figure and former PM), she says the dictatorship has fallen.

Oleksandr Turchynov has been voted as the new parliamentary speaker

Parliament has also kicked out Viktor Yanukovych out of office, he says he's not resigning and called the whole thing a coup. He's left Kiev and the new speaker says he tried to flee to Russia and is now in Donetsk.

Sergei Lavrov (Sovi...Russian foreign minister) says the whole thing was led by armed extremists that threaten Ukraine's sovereignty.

Leaders in the east of the country say they're taking control of their regions until constitutional order has been restored. I look forward to them inviting the Russians in.

"So that's where all my tax money's gone" - Bloke walking around Yanukovitch's residence

BBC News - LIVE: Ukrainian MPs vote to oust President Yanukovych

 

Huh, protesters have seized the presidential palace, and Yanukovych has fled the capitol...

NYT story

I'm always a big fan of when the palaces of corrupt/dictatorial sorts get seized. One of the dangers of being in that line of work: one day you have a palace, the next day, your carcass may end up being drug though the streets by an angry mob.

 

Highlight of the footage I've seen from the presidential palace has to be the model horse in the front yard. Cannot wait to find out if the toilets are gold plated.

 

Ukraine protesters take Kiev - World - NZ Herald News looks like ukraine will get broken up. i cant see russia giving up the crimea at all.my main hope is its not going to be violent .

 

This is horrifying. I hope the Russians and the Poles both have the good sense to keep out of it, but I feel that Russia's not going to want to give up the Crimea, and the EU are going to try to gain another political ally to undermine Russia. Let's hope it ends without civil/proxy war.

 

i dont think the eu is trying to undermine russia expose him maybe.even if there is a degree of truth to it it wont come close to the russian propaganda network.

check out yanukovych palace what a tool Ukraine President Yanukovych abandons lavish estate - take a look at his LOOT - Mirror Online

 

Like the Storming of the Winter Palace in 1917.

Except this time the storming actually was storming and filled with violence, rather than being a fantastical story concocted by Soviet propaganda.

I wonder whether this really will end up like a Cold War era-split state, West Ukraine and East Ukraine, and we're headed for another error of frost between the West and Russia. Only Putin's Russia is becoming scarier and an even worse place to live than the Soviet Union was, it doesn't even pretend to have noble intentions, it's all just about money and power for Putin and his thug cronies running that corrupt authoritarian mafia state, including the oligarchs, oil tycoons, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Of course another difference between the old Cold War and now is that Russia is even more isolated, it lost all its puppet regimes that held a stranglehold on Eastern Europe. All of Germany, the Baltic States, Poland, Czech Republic, etc., are now "Western". If Ukraine splits up, that means another region that directly made up the old USSR itself is now aligned with the "West".

Though another new variable in the modern world is the dramatic rise of China in the East, and whether China would align with Russia.