Ukraine War Thread

[mr friendly guy]

Crimean parliament asks to join Russia

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26465962

MPs in Crimea have asked Moscow to allow the southern Ukrainian region to become part of the Russian Federation.

The parliament said if its request was granted, Crimean citizens could give their view in a referendum on 16 March.

Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the move had no legal grounds.

Crimea, a region whose population is mostly ethnic Russian, has been at the centre of tensions following the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president.

Pro-Russian and Russian forces have been in de facto control of the peninsula for several days.

I have just quoted the relevant parts about the vote.


Crimea stats

Autonomous republic within Ukraine
Transferred from Russia in 1954
Ethnic Russians - 58.5%*
Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%*
Crimean Tatars - 12.1%*
Source: Ukraine census 2001

I suspect given the make up, if both Ukraine and Russia did not station troops there, the vote would still go Russia's way.

[K. A. Pital]

Just to show you that BBC is not journalism:

A black and red flag, this one raised by pro-Ukraine protesters, belongs to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The members were Ukrainian nationalists who fought against both sides in WW2 for an independent Ukraine - even resorting to collaborating with the German army as a tactical strategy to achieve nationalist goals. Some accuse them of murdering Jews and Poles, so in Russia this flag is regarded as fascist

"Some accuse"? As if, that's not true, that's just accusations by "some" people? Come on, what next? David Irving on late evening news telling Auschwitz is just what "some accuse" the Nazis of? What about Poles in Volyn, did they just dissappear themselves? Fuck you BBC.

[Vympel]

Our entirely self inflicted Ukraine disaster

Excerpt:

Stephen Cohen makes some sensible points about Putin’s obligations to Russia on PBS, saying basically, look Putin is not entirely the bad guy here, and no one should be trying to push Western institutions right up to Russia’s borders, and any responsible leader would have acted similarly , and the reaction–look at the comments!– is a kind of full-blown of rage. What drives it? Or more precisely, what is the motivation to try to drive the sphere of Western influence right up to Russia’s borders? Is it because our ambitions (and whose, exactly?) are insatiable? Because that seems to be it: we aren’t satisfied with the liberation of the satellites of Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, former Cold War flashpoints and now NATO members; with the reunification of Germany and under Western auspices, so that Berlin is now a virtual capital of Nato; with the Baltic states as NATO members too. There seemed to be no end to it. We have learned from Robert Gates’s memoirs that at the time, Dick Cheney was advocating not only for the dismantlement of the Soviet empire (accomplished) but of Russia itself. Cheney then lacked the power to try carry this out, but what would have been the plan if he had?

The dream of chaos inside Russia still animates half the people inside the Beltway. Paula Dobriansky, a big deal ambassador during the Bush administration tells an audience that Putin’s real fear is that the Maidan revolutionary spirit will spread to Moscow. That is obviously what she wants—though why anyone would seek regime disintegration in a state that possesses hundreds of nuclear missiles in not obvious. And why was the neoconservative Victoria Nuland apparently put in charge of Obama’s Ukraine policy? Several weeks ago her cell phone conversations were intercepted and published, revealing Nuland choosing the ministers for the regime which would soon overthrow Ukraine’s fairly elected government. What was she doing there, plotting a regime change right on Russia’s border? What would have been our reaction, or Berlin’s, if Russian diplomats were active in fomenting anti-EU demonstrations in Athens? Or plotting the overthrow of similarly fairly elected Western governments?

John Kerry has run off to make a fool of himself in Kiev. Kerry will find that Nuland, or whoever has been in charge of trying to drag the divided Ukraine into the Western camp, has created a situation in which the United States is now isolated from and privately mocked by its main European allies. Britain is not expressing much interest in anything other than symbolic sanctions against Russia, and early signs are that Germany is opposed too. Apparently there are some people in the foreign offices there who understand that it isn’t really a good idea to pick a fight with a major power with whom you have, to boot, substantial economic ties, over a matter which has zero national interest value for you. So United States diplomats will get to rant and rave and find they have no one standing behind them. Congratulations!

Emphasis added- has anyone else read this? I feel like buying the memoir just to read about that.

[mr friendly guy]

This is most probably old hat, but has any conservatives or liberals for that matter in the West noted the problems with talking about rar rar democracy and will of the people and how
1. Yanukovych was not ousted via an election after having been elected
2. Crimea wants to vote on secession (or is this hypocrisy on a grand scale like with South Ossetia and Abkhazia).

[mr friendly guy]

Just to show you that BBC is not journalism:

A black and red flag, this one raised by pro-Ukraine protesters, belongs to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The members were Ukrainian nationalists who fought against both sides in WW2 for an independent Ukraine - even resorting to collaborating with the German army as a tactical strategy to achieve nationalist goals. Some accuse them of murdering Jews and Poles, so in Russia this flag is regarded as fascist

"Some accuse"? As if, that's not true, that's just accusations by "some" people? Come on, what next? David Irving on late evening news telling Auschwitz is just what "some accuse" the Nazis of? What about Poles in Volyn, did they just dissappear themselves? Fuck you BBC.

This is BBC. This trick of trying to paint it some dispute as controversial (ie undecided) is similar to what Creationists use when going into creationist / evolution debates.

As to what's next, I was going to suggest James Reynolds reporter extraordinaire insinuating there were no Tibetan serfs to free, because its what the Chinese government says and they are attempting to "lock their own particular view of history" by creating a holiday. But then I realised BBC already did that 5 years ago.

[IronStar]

Just to show you that BBC is not journalism:
Quote:
A black and red flag, this one raised by pro-Ukraine protesters, belongs to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The members were Ukrainian nationalists who fought against both sides in WW2 for an independent Ukraine - even resorting to collaborating with the German army as a tactical strategy to achieve nationalist goals. Some accuse them of murdering Jews and Poles, so in Russia this flag is regarded as fascist

Well, this is quite expectable. I we been through CNN, Guardian and BBC photographs- and have feeling that they just avoiding to include footage with fascists(and there is FAR more than they have), and on photographs where there are fascists under red and black flags and with signs they dont explain who they are. I ve recently seen very funny thing at euronews- they showed some little footage of fascists, and said "look at the celtic cross at their uniform- this is sign all ukraine fascists use, but there are very few people with celtic cross = there are very dew fascists blah blah blah". Pathetic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nds8Vhk5Gtg#t=22
Ukraine fascists torch march at maidan. They are cute, aren they?

More info- leader of Donetsk anti-maidan movement Pavel Gubarev was caught by SBU yesterday and is now under custody. A lot of arrest orders are issued on "separatists". And now SBU is officialy on protesters.....
Although- some interesting leak - http://www.kommersant.ua/docs/2014/2014 ... n_plan.pdf
It is 46-page document claimed to leak from Ukraine ministry of finances about measures for IMF loan.
Among some "provide grounds for effective IMF work blah blah" there are some interesting things pointed by good people from livejournal. Shortly- serious reduction of social sphere. And bear in mind that there is although EU ascociation and its consequenses.......
Maybe later i ll give translation of some interesting paragraphs- it is just a lot of writing an i thin i have an info-overdose....

To Flagg, Thanas, and anyone else accusing people of being "Kremlin propagandists," this is why you're wrong.

Some people have no idea how does actual kremlin-propaganda look like. And i dont support it.
I ve recently been through comment sections at guardian.... it is funny how people there react at any different opinion, like "how much are you paid for your posts".....are they serious or it is trolling? Actually, their behaviour mirrors that or worst pro-putin supporters ("Ohraniteli" how they are called in Russia) who see pro-west plot in ANY protest and behave similarly in internet.

[Siege]

A black and red flag, this one raised by pro-Ukraine protesters, belongs to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The members were Ukrainian nationalists who fought against both sides in WW2 for an independent Ukraine - even resorting to collaborating with the German army as a tactical strategy to achieve nationalist goals. Some accuse them of murdering Jews and Poles, so in Russia this flag is regarded as fascist

"Some accuse"? As if, that's not true, that's just accusations by "some" people? Come on, what next? David Irving on late evening news telling Auschwitz is just what "some accuse" the Nazis of? What about Poles in Volyn, did they just dissappear themselves? Fuck you BBC.

You are overreacting. This is a bite-size article written for BBC Magazine, not an in-depth treatise on the horrors of WWII or right-wing politics in Ukraine. And it uses the "some accuse" line because the writer has only one paragraph for each flag, which isn't enough to go into detail on the history of each, much less the sordid background of the groups that use them. You and I would have worded it differently but it's clear all the same that the writer's intent isn't to imply what you imply she's implying.

If you'd said that this particular article is in several places poorly worded, that Western media regularly show only a surface-level understanding of what's happening in Ukraine, and that the bloody history of how Eastern European right-wing nationalist groups have been entangled with fascism and nazism is unrecognized in Western Europe, then I would've agreed with you. But to jump from 'this magazine article about flags could have been worded better' to 'BBC isn't journalism' is more than a little hyperbolic, and it's the kind of over-the-top embellishment that this thread doesn't need right now.

[IronStar]

More from maidan torch march(just to see the scale, and that these are not "few" people). And these were organized by svoboda. This footage is from Bendera s anniversary celebration on 1-2 january 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjHEedT0t2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLZRyq-UK2E

[Mange]

Crimean parliament asks to join Russia

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26465962

MPs in Crimea have asked Moscow to allow the southern Ukrainian region to become part of the Russian Federation.

The parliament said if its request was granted, Crimean citizens could give their view in a referendum on 16 March.

Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the move had no legal grounds.

Crimea, a region whose population is mostly ethnic Russian, has been at the centre of tensions following the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president.

Pro-Russian and Russian forces have been in de facto control of the peninsula for several days.

I have just quoted the relevant parts about the vote.


Crimea stats

Autonomous republic within Ukraine
Transferred from Russia in 1954
Ethnic Russians - 58.5%*
Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%*
Crimean Tatars - 12.1%*
Source: Ukraine census 2001

I suspect given the make up, if both Ukraine and Russia did not station troops there, the vote would still go Russia's way.

That's not at all certain. A referendum now, with Russian troops on the ground would be a joke. The Russian Federation Council just announced that they'll be sending "observers", which is also a joke. Anyway, just because you're Russian doesn't mean that you're pro-Russia. In the last poll before the crisis started, 53 percent of those polled wanted to remain with Ukraine while less than a quarter wanted to either become independent or join the Russian Federation.

[mr friendly guy]

That's not at all certain. A referendum now, with Russian troops on the ground would be a joke. The Russian Federation Council just announced that they'll be sending "observers", which is also a joke. Anyway, just because you're Russian doesn't mean that you're pro-Russia. In the last poll before the crisis started, 53 percent of those polled wanted to remain with Ukraine while less than a quarter wanted to either become independent or join the Russian Federation.

True on the part about just because you belong to one ethnicity you don't necessarily have to support the government of the country of your ancestors. However the fact that the country they are in seriously proposed to strip them of certain rights like language might change things.

[Mange]

That's not at all certain. A referendum now, with Russian troops on the ground would be a joke. The Russian Federation Council just announced that they'll be sending "observers", which is also a joke. Anyway, just because you're Russian doesn't mean that you're pro-Russia. In the last poll before the crisis started, 53 percent of those polled wanted to remain with Ukraine while less than a quarter wanted to either become independent or join the Russian Federation.

True on the part about just because you belong to one ethnicity you don't necessarily have to support the government of the country of your ancestors. However the fact that the country they are in seriously proposed to strip them of certain rights like language might change things.

There's no-one stripping anyone of anything. There's no ban on the Russian language and no-one preventing the autonomous regions from using the Russian language. As I wrote a few days ago, the interim President won't sign the order to revoke the current law until another comprehensible language law is in place. If the law would be revoked, it would be similar to say, California where English is the official language despite the large Spanish minority.

[K. A. Pital]

You are overreacting. This is a bite-size article written for BBC Magazine, not an in-depth treatise on the horrors of WWII or right-wing politics in Ukraine. And it uses the "some accuse" line because the writer has only one paragraph for each flag, which isn't enough to go into detail on the history of each, much less the sordid background of the groups that use them. You and I would have worded it differently but it's clear all the same that the writer's intent isn't to imply what you imply she's implying.

If you'd said that this particular article is in several places poorly worded, that Western media regularly show only a surface-level understanding of what's happening in Ukraine, and that the bloody history of how Eastern European right-wing nationalist groups have been entangled with fascism and nazism is unrecognized in Western Europe, then I would've agreed with you. But to jump from 'this magazine article about flags could have been worded better' to 'BBC isn't journalism' is more than a little hyperbolic, and it's the kind of over-the-top embellishment that this thread doesn't need right now.

I have been following their coverage for quite a while. In all of their summaries or articles they use the very same type of wording. I'm not really convinced it's just lazy work. Look (this an article that is supposed to expose the far-right and provide an in-depth view):

Bandera was, according to a number of Western and Ukrainian historians, a fascist or an "integral nationalist", which is something very close. The two organisations he led - the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) - are said to have engaged in atrocities against Poles, Jews, Russians and other Ukrainians.

I get the feeling that every word here is not just an accident. It's like saying "in Putin's Russia people are said to dissappear" instead of saying "they dissappear". It really looks like Russia Today with a minus sign.

[Broomstick]

So... where does one go for unbiased (or at least as unbiased as possible) reporting?

[Siege]

Here's a rule of thumb: if a western journalist uses a phrase like "according to some" or "some accuse" it's because either they don't have the time to fact-check the information, or because they cannot be arsed to infodump the historical specifics. It's a shorthand you use when you want to put the information out there while still cover your own ass in case you were misinformed.

The reason they do this has nothing to do with propaganda, and everything with lack of time, lack of in-depth knowledge or simply because the journalist in question doesn't want to be caught in one of those 'was he a terrorist/guerilla/freedom fighter' discussions. That's just the way it works, especially in today's 24/7 free online news media. That means the people writing the articles will probably be strapped for time and/or not fully aware of the details of the story they're writing because who the fuck can still afford to pay for enough well-informed correspondents in every corner of the globe to churn out articles all day, and then put them up to be watched by all the world for no fee?

What this boils down to is that some people apparently expect free BBC online articles to match the work of bi-monthly magazines specializing in foreign affairs. That is unreasonable, because you get what you pay for. It doesn't mean the people at the BBC aren't journalists, it means they're doing the best they can given the circumstances they're in.

[Irbis]

And why was the neoconservative Victoria Nuland apparently put in charge of Obama’s Ukraine policy? Several weeks ago her cell phone conversations were intercepted and published, revealing Nuland choosing the ministers for the regime which would soon overthrow Ukraine’s fairly elected government. What was she doing there, plotting a regime change right on Russia’s border? What would have been our reaction, or Berlin’s, if Russian diplomats were active in fomenting anti-EU demonstrations in Athens? Or plotting the overthrow of similarly fairly elected Western governments?

Oh, it gets better than that! Look here, where Mrs. Nuland openly admits that USA invested since 1991 about 5 billion dollars into kickstarting Ukrainian nationali-- oops, I mean FREEDOM. Similar 'help' given to Poland gave us (in 1997) the worst, most inept and xenophobic government we had in a century, quite eager to start as many diplomatic wars with Russia as they could, with fallout from it still being felt in our politics.

So... where does one go for unbiased (or at least as unbiased as possible) reporting?

Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian news, I'd say. West reporting shows no iota of understanding local situation. You need to filter out russophobes and nationalists on one end, though, and oligarch owned and ukrainophobic press on the other. Objective reporting is rare these days, sadly.

You are overreacting. This is a bite-size article written for BBC Magazine, not an in-depth treatise on the horrors of WWII or right-wing politics in Ukraine.

Overreacting.

Imagine the reaction if that was "alleged Armenian genocide", "alleged Blitz victims" or "alleged Holocaust victims from France". All are on about the same order of magnitude as "alleged" Ukrainian victims, or even smaller if we count Ukrainian units helping SS. If anything, this shows enough arrogance and lack of understanding of the matter to reject everything they write out of hand.

Here's a rule of thumb: if a western journalist uses a phrase like "according to some" or "some accuse" it's because either they don't have the time to fact-check the information, or because they cannot be arsed to infodump the historical specifics.

Do they also say UK is 'allegedly' a kingdom to avoid infodump?

Funny that, they always write 'allegedly' when they need to show their subject in positive light, even when it's easy to verify in 30 seconds that, yes, all the 'alleged' accusations are facts, we just don't want to make our boys look bad even for a second.

There's no-one stripping anyone of anything. [...] If the law would be revoked, it would be similar to say, California where English is the official language despite the large Spanish minority.

Yeah, except for the fact that Crimea was annexed into Ukraine in 1995, being illegally stripped of their autonomous republic status. If anything, yes, it's like California, in 1848, after USA annexed it from Mexico.

[Siege]

Imagine the reaction if that was "alleged Armenian genocide", "alleged Blitz victims" or "alleged Holocaust victims from France". All are on about the same order of magnitude as "alleged" Ukrainian victims, or even smaller if we count Ukrainian units helping SS.

First of all nobody used the word alleged. Putting that word between quote brackets as if someone actually used it is misleading at best.

Secondly, what the article that sparked the exchange between Stas and me actually stated was, and I quote: "Some accuse them of murdering Jews and Poles..." Which is truthful. They - the UIA - are accused of this. Just like the Nazis are accused of murdering millions of people in death camps, and Turkey is accused of genociding the Armenians.

'To be accused of' and 'to allegedly have done' are not synonymous in the English language. To be accused means to be charged with an offence or crime. Words have specific meanings, and just because a news agency doesn't write its articles in exactly the way you want them to that doesn't mean you get to read into their words whatever strikes your fancy. Were the UIA charged with the crime of murdering Jews and Poles? Yes? Well then, there you go.

And speaking of accusations, if you want to convincingly accuse major international news outlets of dogwhistle racism you're going to need a hell of a lot more evidence than the creative textual interpretations that your charge currently boils down to. Because right now it sure looks like an allegation without much in the way of substantiation to me.

Funny that, they always write 'allegedly' when they need to show their subject in positive light, even when it's easy to verify in 30 seconds that, yes, all the 'alleged' accusations are facts, we just don't want to make our boys look bad even for a second.

Are you implying that the editors of the British Broadcasting Corporation consider the Ukrainian Insurgent Army "their boys"? I'm asking to make sure because, whilst I've read some truly dumb shit today, that would really take the cake as the dumbest fucking thing.

[fgalkin]

Except the article didn't say "accused." It clearly said "some accuse." As in, the accusation is not widespread and unequivocal.

If you want to talk about the meaning of words, it helps to actually use the correct words.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Siege]

Like I said before I do agree that the article could have been worded better. What I reject however is statements like 'BBC is not journalism' or the suggestion that the BBC might consider a bunch of fascists 'their boys'. It's difficult enough to figure out what's going on without throwing that sort of hyperbole in the mix, in fact it just makes it more difficult to distinguish legitimate criticism on reporting from outright dingbattery.

[mr friendly guy]

That's not at all certain. A referendum now, with Russian troops on the ground would be a joke. The Russian Federation Council just announced that they'll be sending "observers", which is also a joke. Anyway, just because you're Russian doesn't mean that you're pro-Russia. In the last poll before the crisis started, 53 percent of those polled wanted to remain with Ukraine while less than a quarter wanted to either become independent or join the Russian Federation.

True on the part about just because you belong to one ethnicity you don't necessarily have to support the government of the country of your ancestors. However the fact that the country they are in seriously proposed to strip them of certain rights like language might change things.

There's no-one stripping anyone of anything. There's no ban on the Russian language and no-one preventing the autonomous regions from using the Russian language. As I wrote a few days ago, the interim President won't sign the order to revoke the current law until another comprehensible language law is in place. If the law would be revoked, it would be similar to say, California where English is the official language despite the large Spanish minority.

I said they proposed to do it. Don't tell me that won't make ethnic Russians nervous even if the proposal is defeated.

[mr friendly guy]

What this boils down to is that some people apparently expect free BBC online articles to match the work of bi-monthly magazines specializing in foreign affairs. That is unreasonable, because you get what you pay for. It doesn't mean the people at the BBC aren't journalists, it means they're doing the best they can given the circumstances they're in.

I am not sure why you think the "you get what you pay for" applies to public broadcasters. I thought public broadcasters were supposed to provide good journalism and to be free from commercial pressures. That's why they are tax payer subsidised. With emphasis on the subsidised part, so they can provide good service on the cheap for consumers. Unless the UK totally have a different expectation of what their public broadcaster should do compared to Australia.

However its telling when the arguments boil down to between
a) they are inaccurate because of bias vs
b) they are inaccurate because of incompetence / lack of resources.

[K. A. Pital]

Like I said before I do agree that the article could have been worded better. What I reject however is statements like 'BBC is not journalism' or the suggestion that the BBC might consider a bunch of fascists 'their boys'. It's difficult enough to figure out what's going on without throwing that sort of hyperbole in the mix, in fact it just makes it more difficult to distinguish legitimate criticism on reporting from outright dingbattery.

It is not just a matter of one or two instances like this. I said before: I follow the coverage quite closely. Coverage on Indonesia, coverage on Spain, on many things usually completely hides the fascist nature of forces at play. I still remember Sukharto's obituary in the BBC (you can dig it up if you wish), it was quite awful to see. The way they used positively-sounding terms (like "old-fashioned nationalist" to describe de-facto a leader of one of world's most brutal and agressive neo-fascist regimes) really implies some sort of system.

I also think that being a public and free news service does not actually mean the articles necessarily need to have such an attitude. In fact, some articles on Volyn massacre ran by the BBC before the current situation were phrased in a very different way (as late as 2013). They never used the word "some" at all and they stated directly that UPA carried out the massacre. They also provided at least some information about the number of the dead, instead of just referring to them as generic "Jews" and "Poles". Maybe it's not terribly accurate, but it is something.

[Mange]

Ahh, the hypocrisy... Calling the Kiev government for "fascists" while there are reports, even from reporters at RT, that there are Serbian Chetniks patrolling the streets on the Crimea.

[Siege]

I am not sure why you think the "you get what you pay for" applies to public broadcasters. I thought public broadcasters were supposed to provide good journalism and to be free from commercial pressures.

They are supposed to, yes. And they'll try their hardest. But just because they're publicly funded doesn't mean they're immune to pressure to get the story out, to be the first to report, to deadlines, to writing words that may be misunderstood, or to the simple fact that not every reporter knows everything about every situation and they can't afford to retrain the entire editorial office every time a crisis rolls around. It doesn't mean there aren't expectations they may well occasionally fall short of.

The simple fact is that every time there's something major going on in a corner of the world there'll be people writing about it who aren't necessarily familiar with all the details. Because no major news source commercial or public can keep up a significant stream of information about what's going on tens of thousands of kilometers away just by having their few specialists in that particular country/region/topic write about it. So the specialists are reserved for big stories whilst the details - like what are those flags in that square about - get filled in by lesser gods.

I've worked for public broadcasters, and that's just the way it is. I know, it's shocking. In fact it's almost as if public funding doesn't translate into unlimited money, time, energy or people, and journalists are humans! Who in this case by the way are pretty decent at their job, considering BBC Magazine is a long way up from the bottom of the heap, and considering we've narrowed the problem with the article that sparked all this down to a single use of "some" where "they are" would have been better.

It is not just a matter of one or two instances like this.

I'm not sure what you're expecting, frankly. I've looked up the obituary you mentioned and it says that Suharto was corrupt, that hundreds of thousands died in East Timor, that communists were massacred during his takeover, that he stifled his political opposition and that his regime was accused of human rights abuses. He's called "ruthless", "repressive" and "corrupt". Does this really read "positively-sounding" to you just because they didn't outright call him a fascist while labeling him with all the hallmarks of one?

I don't know, maybe you're looking for a specific kind of reporting and not getting it, or maybe it's death by a thousand cuts that I'm not feeling yet but I honestly don't see what you're seeing here.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, maybe I'm just too picky. I tend to notice when some things meant to be taken as fact start being presented as mere allegations, and when the reverse happens too. It is much like Russian media. Words are chosen in ways that always make the statement a hard-to-argue-with half-truth. Maybe it is the fear of saying something wrong and then facing consequences, but to me it just seems wrong when things you yourself presented as a well-known fact are moving into the realm of the claims. There is really no historical research that would somehow abdicate the nationalists.

I also get worried when people say 'some claim a lot of people were deported in the USSR' because it is a documentarily comfirmed fact. The real reason for such statements is always political and hardly ever technical. When some facts need checking, i agree that being careful is important, but i still can't help but feel that the role of the extreme right is intentionally downplayed, just as it is overplayed in Russian media.

I have little symapthy for nationalists, i admit. This stretches to Russian ones as well. I would prefer an independent or semi-independent Crimea.

[Broken]

I have seen it mentioned in a couple places now that Russia's response to this crisis may well end up being less then advantageous to them. First because Russia has a stock market now, which is not reacting (down 12% one day, up 6% another) all that well to the situation. Secondly, and potentially more importantly, if Crimea ends up part of Russia or just independent of the Ukraine, then that is a large, Pro-Russia voting bloc that will no longer have any influence in Ukraine politics/elections. Which would end up via voting the thing Russia/Putin fears most, a largely Pro-EU/Nato Ukraine on their border. Put take all that with a grain of salt, its all spit-balling at this point, this has a way to go before it finally plays out.