Could The Ukraine Crisis Turn Into A Third World War

[gordiescotland1]

Hi there I am getting concerned about the situation in Crimea and Russia seem to be very agressive and America is starting to get involved could this have the potential nuclear conflict

[EDDIE51]

I am concerned as well and i think it could.
I can't see Putin backing down and losing face.
We (UK) are committed to helping Ukraine if it is invaded due to a treaty we signed back in 1974 .

[emmie]

it could, America is involved as are Britain, why wouldn't they be, seeing as how the assessor Russia, Putin, has caused the deaths of many who don't want to be be allied to them but lean towards Europe

[douglas9401]

The threat of freezing the overseas assets of those paragons of virtue, the Russian super-rich, will help on the road to a peaceful solution.

[jomifl]

Russia signed a treaty guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It tried the ploy of 'protecting Russian speakers' in the ex soviet Baltic states but gave up when nobody bought the argument.

[Baldric]

Anything here?

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1319176.html

[emmie]

that seems to have replaced a word, aggressor, spellchecker, humph

[mikey4444]

I think that Putin has over-reacted and should instruct his armed forces to go back to their barracks ASAP. But this affair started because a democratically elected Leader was ousted in a coup d'état in Ukraine. So there aren't many innocent parties here is there ?

[emmie]

a puppet, who was ripping off the people left right and centre.

[mikey4444]

Yes emmie, like many democratically-elected Leaders around the world. But I was just pointing out there are no "good guys" in this affair. The protesters in Kiev must have realised that Putin wasn't going to stand back and watch the "revolution" take place and do nothing. If they didn't work out what was going to happen, they must have been seriously naive. Russia has form in this area and has never turned a blind eye yet when it comes to interfering in its former allies affairs.

The main problem seems to be that Ukraine is an entirely artificially constructed country, with a heady mix of totally different peoples, with contrasting cultures. Just like the former Yugoslavia, it was an accident waiting to happen.....only at peace when controlled by one strong dictatorial Leader or regime.

[ichkeria]

mikey, you are wrong.
Ukraine is not an "accident waiting to happen".Comparison with Yugoslavia is wide of the mark.
There are two people in my house just now: one from Kyiv, one from Donetsk in "Russian leaning" Eastern Ukraine. One Ukrainian speaking, one Russian speaking and half Russian. They are pretty much united on what is going on in their country now. And they are largely typical.

This is an issue entirely of the Kremlin's making.
As for "democratically elected". Hitler was, wasn't he?

[emmie]

you are wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians

[emmie]

That was for mikey,
Hitler was responsible for mass genocide, he got to his position largely by force, killing the opposition, if the world turns its back, we could be back there.

[ichkeria]

Sorry, I should have answered the question
I don't think this will lead to a third world war, but the situation is miost definitely on a knife-edge. One false move could cause a conflict, at least on a regional scale.
The Russians in Crimea are stuck though: the Ukrainian troops besieged in their barracks are refusing to surrender, rather inconveniently. Most are unarmed. If the Russians try to drive them out they will be exposed as the aggressors they are. So far, they seem to think that if no one has been shot then it's not an invasion of a sovereign country.

[mikey4444]

ichkeria. Beware of taking the opinions of just two people to represent the millions involved. As emmie has demonstrated, Ukraine is populated by widely disparate peoples, languages, religions and cultures.

I am not, for one moment, condoning Putin's actions here. But it was always going to be a difficult job keeping such a diverse country from splitting into disagreeing factions. I think my analogy with the former Yugoslavia is exactly apposite. Once Tito died, it was just a matter of time before the country split into its different groups.

All that we can hope is the Ukraine won't sink into the kind of savagery that we saw in the Balkans.

[Kromovaracun]

I don't have the kind of personal connections ichkeria does, but about a month ago there were some preliminary attempts to gauge exactly who the Maidan are (which could well be out of date now...):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/02/12/who-are-the-protesters-in-ukraine/

Survey evidence has severe limitations, but it does suggest that being anti-Yanukovich and in favour of less kleptocratic government was/is the major thing uniting the opposition. I'd be very, very surprised if they were at all united on what "better government" means.

For the West's options, Sam Greene has written a good article. Put simply, there's not a great deal the West can actually do so the likelihood of WW3 breaking out is pretty low (I hope...). What America can do is harm the assets of Russia's elite - and ultimately they're the only people Putin is (semi)accountable to:

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=54731

[ichkeria]

"Beware of taking the opinions of just two people to represent the millions involved."

I'm not! Like I say they are laregly typical.

[ichkeria]

Sorry, I meant to add Ukraine is comparatively mono-cultural compared say to Britain or even Russia. There are no serious ethnic divisions. In fact Crimea is arguably the most ethnically diverse. And even there people get on well, despite the obvious hardships suffered by the Tatars for example.
It certainly doesn't have the problems experienced by Moldova, for example, which literally is spilt into "east" and "west" on cultural and political lines.

[atalanta]

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so not subject to mutual-defence treaties and agreements. However, if Putin gets too big for his boots, he may well look at the Baltic states - which are in NATO, and which used to be under the aegis of the old USSR. And which are now covered by defence agreements with NATO. And does anyone think Putin is not too big for his boots ? He now seems to think he is a Tsar, and he knows that Russians ( in spite of their communist history) have always loved a Tsar.
I should not be remotely surprised if the Russians brought about the whole Ukraine conflict from the start by deliberately fomenting internal tensions, just so they could provoke this situation exactly the way it has happened. It would be child's play to do the same with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, if he wanted to push the Western Powers to their limits. These states' governments may not be as corrupt as Ukraine's was, but we have to wonder just how reckless and power-hungry Putin is. He has clearly read the history of the USSR and the Bolshevik revolution. He knows that the old Russian Empire broke up after the Revolution, just as it did after Communism, but the Communist government got all 17 states back in the fold by setting up puppet governments in each one and ( probably composed of ethnic Russians) and getting them to send for the Red Army. And there are an awful lot of ethnic Russians in the Baltic states. Planted there long ago for exactly this reason.

[Davethedog]

Eddie the UK signed a treaty with a member of the USSR?

Russian economy tanking - troops last resort etc - Talks nobody outside of the middle east is that stupid