What is going on in Kiev?

Yanukovych flees Kiev as protesters seize his palace. Opposition parliamentarians seek to establish themselves as the real Parliament; pro-Russian legislators object. Eastern and Southern regional leaders moot separation from the rest of the country. Riot police flee their barracks, hiding their faces from the crowds. Opposition leaders who signed the agreement with Yanukovych are repudiated by the Maidan protesters.

Yanukovych has fallen back to Kharkiv and refuses to recognise the Kiev parliament. He and his backers are not seeking a split of the country which only means civil war. This ain't over yet.

What a day, though.

I heard that Yulia Timoshenko was released from prison, too.

Civil war now?

Yep, she's out and crowds are cheering her. I'm not crazy about that as she isn't exactly whiter than white either.

I dunno, Ro, once the Sochi games are over I'm really worried we might see something quite nasty. I hoping cooler heads will prevail.

Russia will get *more* involved.

DSGamer wrote:

Russia will get *more* involved.

Yeah, this could get ugly, especially if the Ukraine parliament asks NATO for help. I'm not sure that we could back away from this one. Course, I also think that we would maul Russia in their current state if it came down to a fight on a neutral battlefield, but it certainly wouldn't be pretty.

I'm not sure if Russia would rather see a decentralized Ukraine or to see the country split in half. Don't know enough about Russian politics.

As long as Russia controls/influences the part of Ukraine their gas lines flow over, I don't think they care much either way.

Monument to corruption: Ukraine's most-wanted man built $75M home on a $25G salary

article wrote:

In a 2012 article on the excesses of Mezhyhirya, the nonprofit site reported that:

Each of the mansion’s Lebanese cedar doors cost $64,000.
Three sets of wooden paneling for staircases cost $200,000.
Cladding for a neoclassical column and parapet for a flight of steps cost $430,000.
In just 18 months, Yanukovych spent nearly $9.5 million on imported fittings for the home.

“In a country where 35 percent of the population lives under the poverty line, spending $100,000 on each individual chandelier seems excessive, to say the least,” wrote Sergii Leshchenko.

...

Many of the financial and other documents were burned, while others were dumped in a lake before Yanukovych fled his closely guarded residence, flying to the eastern city of Kharkiv, where his support base is strongest. Divers were able to retrieve many of the documents, and activists laid them out to dry.

The drying papers included a bank receipt for $12 million in cash, a $2.3 million receipt for the decoration of a dining hall and a $115,000 price tag for a statue of a wild boar.

Photos of the documents were posted online by Mustafa Nayem, a top Ukrainian investigative journalist for the Ukrainska Pravda website and Hromadske.tv online news channel.

Yeah, heard people were touring the outside of the mansion. Gardens, pools, tons of cars, etc.

Thanks for the perspective, Gorilla. I'd hate to see a split as one fears this would only lead to greater blood shed, however well intentioned.

Axon wrote:

Thanks for the perspective, Gorilla. I'd hate to see a split as one fears this would only lead to greater blood shed, however well intentioned.

Splits have a good history of preventing further problems. the Czechs and the Slovaks were able to do theirs entirely peacefully, and other recent breakups like Yugoslavia became violent only because the outgoing government tried to prevent them; they've been peaceful ever since. The Soviet Union's initial breakup was almost entirely without incident; it wasn't until the Second Chechen War that things went downhill, and that again because the Russians simply wouldn't give up.

The Balkan Wars happened in part because you had various peoples spread around the area behind "enemy lines". All factions assumed the worst given their history and jumped in to defend their people living in Croatia, Serbia, etc. That and the fact that Serbia wanted to keep Yugoslavia intact. But the reason they wanted to keep it intact, largely, was to protect their people.

The same thing happened when Turkey and Greece swapped citizens and the same thing happened in the partition of India and Pakistan. I wouldn't be so cavalier about saying these can easily go smoothly.

LeapingGnome wrote:

As long as Russia controls/influences the part of Ukraine their gas lines flow over, I don't think they care much either way.

The pipelines run east to west, the entire length of the country.

I am not in touch with today's common Russian sentiment, but it used to regard the East of the country as the place of tremendous cultural affinity to Russia, and the West as the hotbed of the hostility towards Russia (widespread collaborationism with Nazis during WWII, progroms and atrocities against Poles, Jews, and Armenians, earlier wars with Russia when that region was a part of Poland/Rzecz Pospolita/Livonia/Lithuania/Sweden). In addition to that, there is a frequent complaint about the lack of appreciation for the role Russia played in the role of Ukrainian state. At no point of time Ukraine existed as an independent state, instead being controlled by Poland, or Turkey, or Austria. It first got its statehood through the Soviet Union, through the collective blood and of strength of arms of Russians and then Soviets at large.

In addition to that, there are issues like Crimea, which was cut away from Russian Federal Republic contour and given away to Ukraine by Nikita Khruschev (himself a Ukrainian).

Given that, I think there would be a sizable support for the breakup of Ukraine into "our Ukraine" and "that other Ukraine".

Edit: typos

DSGamer wrote:

The Balkan Wars happened in part because you had various peoples spread around the area behind "enemy lines". All factions assumed the worst given their history and jumped in to defend their people living in Croatia, Serbia, etc. That and the fact that Serbia wanted to keep Yugoslavia intact. But the reason they wanted to keep it intact, largely, was to protect their people.

The conduct of the war doesn't really support this argument. Milosevic came to power on a platform of reducing the autonomy of Kosovo and Montenegro, and keeping Yugoslavia together (a platform that was initially supported by the United States). If all Serbia wanted was to protect their people, they could have simply defended them - they had the vast majority of the heavy weapons and controlled virtually all of the JNA military units. It was Serbian militias that started the fighting in Croatia, not the fledgling Croatian government. And the siege of Sarajevo served no defensive purpose, nor did the sniper attacks and ethnic cleansing. Quite clearly, their purpose was to put down what they saw as a rebellion and retain Serbian control of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

The same thing happened when Turkey and Greece swapped citizens and the same thing happened in the partition of India and Pakistan. I wouldn't be so cavalier about saying these can easily go smoothly.

The India/Pakistan partition was fairly peaceful, apart from sporadic ethnic violence. the Indo-Pakistan war in 1947 wasn't caused by the partition, but rather Pakistan's attempt to conquer Kashmir. Again, if they had left well enough alone, things would have been very different. Similarly, the Greco-Turkish war in 1919 was caused by Greece attempting to conquer Turkey and re-establish the Byzantine Empire, and had little to do with Greek minorities in former Ottoman holdings, although things went catastrophically bad for them as the Greeks withdrew.

In short, the only way this will go bad is if Yanukovych gets Russian military support and attempts to retake the western half of the country. If he just leaves well enough alone, it'll settle out without much further bloodshed.

From various sources, it sounds like eastern Ukraine is very, very Russian.

The big problem I see with a potential split is this: it may end up being like the Northern/Southern California split that gets mooted every decade or so. They can never agree on where the line should be, because everyone wants to be in the North.

Is there going to be a clear line in Ukraine that a substantial majority could agree to, and that the remainder can tolerate without violence?

The Moscow Times:

1. Forget Kiev. The real fight will be about Crimea.

Demonstrators in Crimea have been toting signs reading "Putin is our president" and "Russia, we have been abandoned, take us back!" Late Sunday in the city of Kerch, someone took down the Ukrainian flag above the city administration building and hoisted the Russian flag in its place. At the same time, armored vehicles from the Russian military base in Sevastopol blocked all entrances to the city — essentially protecting it — after local authorities refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government.

2. A Russian citizen has been elected as the mayor of Sevastopol.

Pro-Moscow demonstrators in Crimea have named a Russian citizen as the new mayor of Sevastopol, underscoring fears that the region may try to break away from turmoil-gripped Ukraine.

About 20,000 demonstrators carrying Russian flags gathered in Sevastopol for a rally on Sunday, electing businessman Alexei Chalov, a Russian citizen, as their new mayor, Crimea's Navigator news agency reported.

Sevastopol is the only city in Ukraine whose residents do not get to elect their mayor directly as a law on the seaport's municipal governance is yet to be approved by Ukraine's parliament, Sevastopolskaya Gazeta reported.

Not saying the same thing is happening here but for some reason this reminds me how USSR liberated Latvia in 1940. Then masses of plain cloth personell arrived in Latvia on the same trains along with the Red Army troops, hours later they were in the streets, with signs and chants demanding stepping down of the president (who was a totalitarian a**hole, btw, and had just suspended Constitution to get rid of political opponents) and asking USSR to kindly take us under Kremlin wing. Next day the protesters were back on the trains and back to motherland.
President stepped down, Kremlin threw a quick election of the parliament with bunch of fresh Kremlin friendly politicians on the ballot. They promptly "won" with 97.6% of votes before they were even counted. And the new parliament promptly and officially asked USSR for Latvia to be accepted as part of the communist empire.

Most wrote:

Not saying the same thing is happening here but for some reason this reminds me how USSR liberated Latvia in 1940. Then masses of plain cloth personell arrived in Latvia on the same trains along with the Red Army troops, hours later they were in the streets, with signs and chants demanding stepping down of the president (who was a totalitarian a**hole, btw, and had just suspended Constitution to get rid of political opponents) and asking USSR to kindly take us under Kremlin wing. Next day the protesters were back on the trains and back to motherland.
President stepped down, Kremlin threw a quick election of the parliament with bunch of fresh Kremlin friendly politicians on the ballot. They promptly "won" with 97.6% of votes before they were even counted. And the new parliament promptly and officially asked USSR for Latvia to be accepted as part of the communist empire.

Yes, absolutely, there is already plenty of talk of sending willing "volunteers" to provide the "moral support" to the Russian populace in the Crimea... Astroturfing works! Which is not to say that apparently a very strong pro-Russian sentiment is not already there.

If you haven't listened to it yet, highly recommend checking out Dan Carlin's latest Common Sense podcast on this issue. Dan makes a great point that we really need to look at this from the Russian standpoint. The US would never idly sit by and let Russia or China help overthrow the Mexican government and install a puppet dictator. Trying to woo the Ukraine into the EU and NATO is essentially the same existential threat to Russia, even if we see it as a clear case of freedom versus totalitarianism. Dan also talks about how Russia is still the greatest potential threat to America due to their huge nuclear arsenal, Putin's dictatorship, and the lack of strong economic ties to the US that would dissuade another Cold War. (At least China has more reasons to cooperate with us than directly confront us.)

Here's a link to the podcast and some articles Dan used as material :
http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/c...

I'll listen to the podcast, jdzappa, but I'll admit to being very skeptical on its content and suspect it's being viewed through a US centric lens. The influence the US had over this situation was and is very minimal.

Putin has decided to flex his military muscle in the region.

President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a surprise military exercise of ground forces in western Russia and air forces across the country on Wednesday, intending to demonstrate the country’s military preparedness amid tensions with Europe and the United States over the turmoil in Ukraine.

...

Russia has refused so far to recognize the legitimacy of the new political powers in Ukraine’s Parliament following the flight of President Viktor F. Yanukovych on Saturday, and officials have denounced the actions of opposition leaders now in control.
Two days ago, Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev said the turmoil posed “a real threat to our interests and to our citizens’ lives and health.”

Hello Cold War, can't say I'm happy to see you again but I missed your movies.

Kehama wrote:

Hello Cold War, can't say I'm happy to see you again but I missed your movies.

Well, except that in this case there's very little chance of the EU/NATO or the U.S. getting militarily involved if the Russians decide to support Yanukovych.

Aetius wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Hello Cold War, can't say I'm happy to see you again but I missed your movies.

Well, except that in this case there's very little chance of the EU/NATO or the U.S. getting militarily involved if the Russians decide to support Yanukovych.

In fairness, there was never any chance of the US and/or NATO getting involved in Ukraine even during the Cold War.

Kehama wrote:

Putin has decided to flex his military muscle in the region.

I'm sorry, but my response was to roll my eyes.

garion333 wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Putin has decided to flex his military muscle in the region.

I'm sorry, but my response was to roll my eyes.

He's gotta' do something stereotypically macho after the Olympics, right? What better than military exercises within spitting distance of an explosive politicial situation?

Kehama wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Putin has decided to flex his military muscle in the region.

I'm sorry, but my response was to roll my eyes.

He's gotta' do something stereotypically macho after the Olympics, right? What better than military exercises within spitting distance of an explosive politicial situation?

Perhaps he is just pissed that teh gheys weakened his hockey team.