Ukraine - Full Military Mobilisation.

[Zacs-Master]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26405635

I do hope Bill has his tin hat with him.

[albaqwerty]

oh dear.

If they face each other off, it only needs someone with an itchy trigger-finger to start a war :-(

[Peter Pedant]

I feel terribly sorry for the younger Ukrainians
who dont want to migrate to work in Germany
they want a German type economy in their own country....

[Old_Jim]

We all remember the stories about Billy Fizz and how he reckoned he could drink 16 pints every morning. Why doesn't he challenge Putin to a drinking contest? It doesn't matter who wins - they'll have both forgotten what the quarrel was about by the time they've finished.

[ichkeria]

Of course full military mobilisation. What on earth would one expect.
If this country was threatened with invasion there would be a full mobilisation.
Meanwhile in Crimea the situation remains tense: the marine unit in Feodosiya has refused to hand its weapons to invading forces. The Russians threatened to storm all security installations which had not surrendered by 5am local time this moring. However the deadline passed and no such storming took place.

Contrary to reports of "surrender" the Ukrainian military in Crimea continues to function and is attempting as best it can to calm the situatuion there.
For now the Majlis of Crimean Tatars has urged Tatars in the Crimea to keep a low profile for now and not to become involved in confrontation with the invaders

[Zacs-Master]

Its a significant step and I was merely informing people that it had happened. I wasn't surprised that it had.

[ichkeria]

Sorry Zacs I didn't mean to criticise you :-)

[Zacs-Master]

Maybe it was the 'Of course full military mobilisation. What on earth would one expect.' Bit that kinda suggested you were.

[ichkeria]

Cheers. I'll have a read of that. I couldn't help noting the words "Peter" and "Hitchens" in the same sentence though :-)

[ichkeria]

"Maybe it was the 'Of course full military mobilisation. What on earth would one expect.' Bit that kinda suggested you were. "

Yes I apologise. But the "you" wasn't meant to be personal. I meant "one". Nonetheless my language was intemperate

[237SJ]

It doesn`t look good, does it? John Kerry said "You just don`t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext" which caused me to nearly choke on my lunch!

[Zacs-Master]

I just thought you were posh ;-). Apology fully accepted. Now....
Hitchens assertion that the UK and USA have tried to entice Ukraine into the EU is incorrect. Their president needed to ally himself to someone for a bailout due to the fact he'd squirreled away billions of his country's money.

[ichkeria]

If this is the article divebuddy is on about it must rant as one of most ill-informed pieces of nonsense ever to grace the pages even of the Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2571139/Russia-sick-humiliated-pushed-ignorant-outsiders-MoS-columnist-PETER-HITCHENS-says-Putin-DOES-right-intervene.html

I won't waste everyone's time picking it apart but I note the massive contradiction of "proud country" ... "squalid regime" blah blah blah

But best of all is the comment from "Cassandra" of Durham:

"Spot on Peter. Let's ask the flood victims of Somerset what they think about the Ukraine"
It doesn't get much more small-minded than that

[ichkeria]

Zacs, the article, if it's worthy even of being called that, is so full of inaccuracies that it would be funny were the situation not so serious.
People like Hitchens are self-publicists.

I've been communicating on FB with some of the anti-war demonstrators in Moscow and St Petersburg, hundreds of whom were later arrested. I wonder what they would think of his argument.

[ichkeria]

It's rubbish divbebuddy.

Read this instead:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/?insrc=hpss
which I posted in an earlier thread. It tells a story of real people, rather than pontificating about the EU and NATO.
Always helps to come at these things with a few facts.

[ichkeria]

Who knows the truth indeed ...
But I know it doesn't reside in Hitchens' piece.
And I know enough about Ukraine to recognise what Tim Snyder is saying.

And saying that the USA and UK(?) are in no position to criticise is simply untrue. For one thing, these two countries are, along with Russia, guarantors of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia is now blatantly breaking that guarantee.

[ichkeria]

I have no idea what they will do or say, but the point is they DO have a say