Ukraine War Thread

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Interesting. EU nations are willing to utilize sanctions, as long as its some other EU member paying the price. Brilliant.

My strongest impression is that the EU is getting strung along by the US into this bloody mess, via the EU's Eastern European nations.

[mr friendly guy]

One wonders why America doesn't utilise sanctions. According to total American Russian trade last year was about $38 billion. Won't hurt them too much in economies worth trillions, but at least if they cut it off it would at least show America is serious.

[Vympel]

One wonders why America doesn't utilise sanctions. According to total American Russian trade last year was about $38 billion. Won't hurt them too much in economies worth trillions, but at least if they cut it off it would at least show America is serious.

Because it will just make them look weak and ineffective when it doesn't work. Russia won't change its policies in Ukraine for any price, let alone that piddling amount. Sanctions are just a bullshit ploy when you don't actually have a ploy.

[mr friendly guy]

Older article (march of this year), but it talks about how much more Europe has to pay to use non Russian gas.

twice as much.

[Thanas]

Who cares about Poroshenko? Poroshenko was elected less than a week ago - Kiev unleashed the army against them when exactly?

Certainly not right after they started terrorizing the populace. They tried dialogue, which won't work.

As to atrocities, people getting trapped in a burning building and getting burned to death is an atrocity, by any definition (the hilarious propaganda that said protesters burned thesmelves to death notwithstanding). It isn't the only incident of its kind, if you've been following this conflict at all, all the civilian casualties Kiev's attack on the East has resulted in are hardly difficult to find.

The people burning to death was not done by the armed forces, nor by state forces.

And I didn't say they revolted purely because they had atrocities committed against them. I also said they were disenfranchised by the coup, and that the interests of the Maidan are not there interests - particularly on the economic front, which I've already posted about. As for oppressing their language and culture, I guess you forgot their attack on the status of the Russian language?

Which attack on the status of the Russian language? The one that didn't even pass into law? Yeah, great justification there.

As to "terrorizing the populace", the militants in the East are operating with the consent of the majority of the population. The election didn't get disrupted because they "terrorized the population", it got disrupted because there's an armed conflict going on.

They are not operating with the consent of the majority of the population. For one, the people in the east are not Russian in majority. Second, most reports agree that the people in the east are not in favor of armed seperatism.

"Remarkable restraint" my ass. They unleashed the military as soon as they could, because the police in Donetsk wanted no part of it (all 17,000 of them are being prosecuted for violation of their oath - which is yet more evidence that your characterization of events is complete bullshit, btw). The army proved itself so unreliable that they had to create a politically reliable "National Guard" filled with street militants from the Maidan. The only thing governing the intensity of the army's attacks was finding politically reliable units to shell their own people with artillery.

No, they did not unleash the military as soon as they could. They waited for several weeks after the annexation of the crimea.

No, it really doesn't. As far as the invasion of the Crimea is concerned, the US and EU aided and abetted an anti-Russian coup on Russia's borders as part of a geopolitical contest against Russia. Part of that coup was signing an association agreement that would've eventually brought a hostile military alliance right on Russia's border, endangered their strategic position in the Black Sea, and potentially placed NATO navies - including BMD-capable warships - in Sevastopol. That's leaving aside the direct attack it was against Russia's Eurasian Economic Union. You don't get to play the great game and then pretend you're blameless when your opponent responds. Unsurprisingly, great powers don't stop vigorously defending their interests from attack just because it involves invading another state and stealing their territory.

The invasion of Crimea is easily the least serious thing to come out of this crisis. Russia took it with ease, and the overwhelming majority of the population was all too happy to see it happen. No use crying about it.

Last time I checked, having anti-whatever factions in control of the government was not a justification for an invasion. Even more, a NATO membership was not part of the debate and would never have proceeded forward because Germany blocked any such talks long before the Russians invaded, just like they blocked Georgia's bid. And don't make me laugh about the BMD bit, because the last thing NATO wants is a war with Russia. And last time I checked, the whole thing happened because the Russians pressured Janukovich into not signing an EU treaty. That is all. EU treaty, not NATO, not USA alliance or wahtever your feverish mind has concocted up. According to your logic, Germany would be right to invade Poland the minute they sign a favorable treaty with Russia. It is bullshit of the highest order.

A measure of responsibility for the unrest that has resulted from that lies at their feet, no matter how often you dodge it.

A measure of responsibility sure, but none of them forced Russia to invade. They offered a deal. Russia too offered a deal - and then invaded once the Ukraine did not take it. The whole invasion is Russia's fault.

Well there is evidence of that, because decrees and laws are being enacted to that effect - like I said, we don't know if they'll have any effect. And anyone who thinks Ukraine will become rich because its part of an EU is an imbecile, by the way. The EU doesn't have the political will to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies on Ukraine to make it prosperous, like they did (and continue to do) with say, Poland.

The EU has spent and is continuing to spend a lot of money on development. There is no reason to assume the Ukraine would be a special case.

Well of course. You're talking a political environement in which the east has no political structure anymore to represent its interests. Any election would just be a choice of "which douchebag who you hate and who hates you would you like to be President".

It scarcely is the fault of the western part of the Ukraine that the east cannot agree on a candidate.

[K. A. Pital]

The people burning to death was not done by the armed forces, nor by state forces.

This does not really help, however, since it gives the separatists a very clear argument: the government will not protect you if some paramilitary formations come to kill you. When the government won't protect you from anonymous attacks, you will turn to the people who claim they will do so - especially if they have guns to prove it.

They are not operating with the consent of the majority of the population. For one, the people in the east are not Russian in majority. Second, most reports agree that the people in the east are not in favor of armed seperatism.

If they are really not consenting, then the operation would be over by now. Problem is, there is no functional ethnic difference between the two nations. There are reports of whole Army units abandoning duty - those made from locals can even turn coats, those who were rapidly deployed from the west of Ukraine are simply surrenderring and running away. It does not look like they are extremely unsupportive of what is happening.

The EU has spent and is continuing to spend a lot of money on development. There is no reason to assume the Ukraine would be a special case.

There is no question that Ukraine won't be a special case and it will be a Third World shithole like Bosnia. Unemployment at 30-50%, endemic poverty, endless corruption. Having a plan to go somewhere does not mean actually getting there. Not that under Russia it would be any better, heh, I guess it is just a question of sheer incompetence. Electing the oligarch co-founder of the Party of Regions kind of tells you Ukrainians aren't much brighter than Russians when it comes to politics.

[Thanas]

The people burning to death was not done by the armed forces, nor by state forces.

This does not really help, however, since it gives the separatists a very clear argument: the government will not protect you if some paramilitary formations come to kill you. When the government won't protect you from anonymous attacks, you will turn to the people who claim they will do so - especially if they have guns to prove it.

I think it is a bit unfair to blame the government when separatists have denied the armed forces access. The Government could not have protected them if they wanted to as they did not control the city at that point.

[quotq]If they are really not consenting, then the operation would be over by now. Problem is, there is no functional ethnic difference between the two nations. There are reports of whole Army units abandoning duty - those made from locals can even turn coats, those who were rapidly deployed from the west of Ukraine are simply surrenderring and running away. It does not look like they are extremely unsupportive of what is happening.[/quote]

That is a good point, but I really doubt the separatists have that much popular support. After all, if they were we would expect to see the coal and steel workers firmly on their side but if anything they have kept out of it.

There is no question that Ukraine won't be a special case and it will be a Third World shithole like Bosnia. Unemployment at 30-50%, endemic poverty, endless corruption. Having a plan to go somewhere does not mean actually getting there. Not that under Russia it would be any better, heh, I guess it is just a question of sheer incompetence. Electing the oligarch co-founder of the Party of Regions kind of tells you Ukrainians aren't much brighter than Russians when it comes to politics.

Sure, but in the long run the EU simply offers much more than Russia can. Russia cannot finance the Ukraine - the EU can.

[K. A. Pital]

Sure, but in the long run the EU simply offers much more than Russia can. Russia cannot finance the Ukraine - the EU can.

Just think about the fact that Russia financed Ukraine for ages (it paid for the naval base rent and it also gave Ukraine very low gas prices until the recent hikes), except of course all that money was squandered by Ukraine's government, which led to its well-deserved, but poorly thought-through ousting.

The Government could not have protected them if they wanted to as they did not control the city at that point.

Actually, Odessa was under full government control when the tragedy happened. Unlike Slaviansk or Mariupol; which, by the way, were heavily swung towards further support of separatism by these events. The Odessa fire was all over the media, and there was no way to deny several dozen pro-Russia protesters were burned alive caught inside a building, so that was a good shot of fear and the Kiev government has no one to blame but the incompetence or unwillingness of the local police to stop it.

[Thanas]

Sure, but in the long run the EU simply offers much more than Russia can. Russia cannot finance the Ukraine - the EU can.

Just think about the fact that Russia financed Ukraine for ages (it paid for the naval base rent and it also gave Ukraine very low gas prices until the recent hikes), except of course all that money was squandered by Ukraine's government, which led to its well-deserved, but poorly thought-through ousting.

Probably the reason why the EU is demanding very strict plans for the money they are now lending/will lend in the future.

Actually, Odessa was under full government control when the tragedy happened. Unlike Slaviansk or Mariupol; which, by the way, were heavily swung towards further support of separatism by these events. The Odessa fire was all over the media, and there was no way to deny several dozen pro-Russia protesters were burned alive caught inside a building, so that was a good shot of fear and the Kiev government has no one to blame but the incompetence or unwillingness of the local police to stop it.

I'll take your word for it, in that case I would agree that the failings of the local police would at least give some rise to the sentiment "we have to restore order ourselves".

[Thanas]

The Opinion-Makers: How Russia Is Winning the Propaganda War
Ivan Rodionov sits in his office at Berlin's Postdamer Platz and seems to relish his role as the bad guy. He rails in almost accent-free German, with a quiet, but sharp voice, on the German media, which, he claims, have been walking in "lockstep" when it comes to their coverage of the Ukraine crisis. During recent appearances on two major German talk shows, Rodionov disputed allegations that Russian soldiers had infiltrated Crimea prior to the controversial referendum and its annexation by Russia. He says it's the "radical right-wing views" of the Kiev government, and not Russia, that poses the threat. "Western politicians," he says, "are either helping directly or are at least looking on."

Rodionov defends President Vladimir Putin so vehemently that one could be forgiven for confusing him with a Kremlin spokesperson. But Rodionov views himself as a journalist. The 49-year-old is the head of the video news agency Ruptly, founded one year ago and financed by the Russian government. The eighth floor of the office building has a grand view of Germany's house of parliament, the Reichstag. It's a posh location and the Kremlin doesn't seem to mind spending quite a bit of money to disseminate its view of the world from here. Around 110 people from Spain, Britain, Russia and Poland work day and night in the three-floor office space on videos that are then syndicated to the international media.

At first glance, it's not obvious that Ruptly is actually Kremlin TV. In addition to Putin speeches, there are also numerous other video clips available in its archive, ranging from Pussy Riot to arrests of members of the Russian opposition. When it comes to eastern Ukraine, however, the agency offers almost exclusively videos that are favorable towards pro-Russian supporters of the "People's Republic of Donetsk," which was founded by separatists. You'll also find right-wing radicals like Britain's Nick Griffin or German far-right extremist Olaf Rose, an ideologist with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), stirring up hatred towards the European Union and its Ukraine policies.

Propagating the Kremlin's Position

Rodionov says that, since its founding, Ruptly has attracted 14 subscribers and over 200 customers, including German broadcasters "both public and private." Subsidies from Moscow enable Ruptly to offer professionally produced videos at prices cheaper than those of the private competition.

The battle over Ukraine is being fought with diverse means -- with harsh words and soft diplomacy, with natural gas, weapons and intelligence services. But perhaps the most important instruments being deployed by Moscow are the Internet, newspapers and television, including allegedly neutral journalists and pundits dispatched around the world to propagate the Kremlin position.

"We're in the middle of a relentless propaganda war," says Andrew Weiss, vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an influential Washington think tank. Weiss describes this propaganda as a crucial tool used by Russia to conduct its foreign policy.

Moscow is looking beyond the short-term, seeking to influence opinion in the long-run to create "an alternative discourse in Western countries as well," says Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of Kremlin foreign broadcaster RT, formerly known as Russia Today, which owns Ruptly.

The Kremlin invests around €100 million ($136 million) a year in Russian media abroad in order to influence public opinion in the West. This effort also helps explain why Putin addressed Germans directly in his speech on the annexation of Crimea. Noting the Kremlin had supported Germany's reunification process, he called on Germans to back Russia's reunification with Crimea. Putin's popularity in Germany has declined steadily over the years, but his worldview remains quite popular.

A Triumphant Media Advance

Sources within the Kremlin express satisfaction these days when talking about Moscow's information policies. "We may have won the war in Georgia in 2008, but we lost the propaganda battle against America and the West by a mile," says one. "Thanks to RT and the Internet, though, we are now closing the gap."

Whereas Ruptly is seeking to establish itself as an alternative to Reuters and the Associated Press in providing video footage, RT has already successfully established itself in the nine years since its creation, recently surpassing even CNN when it comes to clips viewed on YouTube. With close to 1.2 billion views, the BBC is the only media outlet ahead of RT. In Britain, RT has more viewers than the Europe-wide news station Euronews and in some major US cities, the channel is the most-viewed of all foreign broadcasters. RT's 2,500 employees report and broadcast in Russian, English, Spanish and Arabic with German to be added soon.

The triumphant advance of Putin's broadcaster began in a former factory in northeast Moscow. Founding RT editor Simonyan was just 25 at the time Putin appointed her in 2005. Her assignment from the Russian president: to "break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon mass media."

It's a mandate she has been pursuing successfully ever since. "There's large demand for media that doesn't just parrot the uniform pulp from the Western press," says Simonyan. "Even in Western countries." RT gives pro-Russian representatives from Eastern Ukraine far more air time than supporters of the government in Kiev, and not even Simonyan disputes this fact. "We're something along the lines of Russia's Information Defense Ministry," her co-workers say, not without pride.

Ruptly and RT are only the most visible instruments being used by the Kremlin. Other propaganda methods being exploited can be less obvious.

For example, when German talk shows invite Russian journalists to speak about the Ukraine crisis, they are almost always pundits who could have been taken directly out of the Kremlin propaganda department. Programmers, of course, like to book these guests because they generate heated and provocative discussion. But it's also a function of the fact that experts critical of the government either don't want to talk or are kept from doing so. Take the example of Sergej Sumlenny, who served until January as the German correspondent for the Russian business magazine Expert. Early on, he appeared often on German talk shows, intelligently and pointedly criticizing Putin's policies. He has since been driven out at the magazine.

In his stead, the Russian perspective is now represented on German talk shows by people like Anna Rose, who is generally introduced as a correspondent for Rossiyskaya Gazeta, or Russian Gazette. The name sounds innocuous enough, but eyebrows should be raised immediately when this "serious" Russian journalist begins claiming that the Ukrainian army could be shooting "at women and children" and that Russian soldiers need to provide them with protection. Her positions suddenly become more understandable with the knowledge that Rossiyskaya Gazeta is the Russian government's official newspaper.

Manipulating Comments and Social Media

Those who read comments posted under articles about Ukraine on news websites will have noticed in recent months that they have been filled with missives that always seem to follow the same line of argumentation. Moscow's independent business daily Vedomosti reported recently that, since the start of the Ukraine crisis, the presidential administration in Moscow has been testing how public opinion in the United States and Europe can be manipulated using the Internet and social networks. The paper reported that most of the professional comment posters active in Germany are Russian immigrants who submit their pro-Russian comments on Facebook and on news websites.

In addition, journalists and editors at German websites and publications report receiving letters and emails offering "explosive information about the Ukraine crisis" on an almost daily basis. The "sources" often mention they have evidence about the right-wing nature of the Kiev government that they would like to supply to journalists. The letters are written in German, but appear to include direct translations of Russian phrases. They would seem to have been written by mother-tongue Russian speakers.

Other forms of propaganda have also been deployed in recent months. For example, there have been frequent incidences of intercepted conversations of Western diplomats or Kiev politicians getting published in ways that serve Russia's interests. From the "Fuck the EU" statement by Victoria Nuland, the top US diplomat to Europe, right up to statements made by Estonia's foreign minister that were apparently supposed to prove who was responsible for the deaths of protesters on Maidan Square. The Russian media also seemed to take pleasure in reporting in mid-April that CIA head John Brennan had traveled to Kiev.

There's a high likelihood that this confidential information and the content of intercepted communications is being strewn by Russian intelligence. Officials at Western intelligence agencies assume that even communications encrypted by the Ukrainian army are being intercepted by the Russians.

The Kremlin also deftly exploits the anti-American sentiment of many Western Europeans, by claiming, for example, that American mercenaries and consultants have been deployed in eastern Ukraine. Even today, there is still no evidence to back any of these allegations. But America's credibility isn't helped by the fact that Washington also disseminates its own anti-Russian propaganda.

Backed by the drumbeat of conservative Fox News, Republic Senator John McCain has been loudly calling on the US government to provide pro-Western forces with active aid, including weapons. Meanwhile, Forbes magazine has asked: "Is Putin a new Hitler?" In addition, Washington's development agency, USAID, announced at the start of May it would provide $1.25 million in support to Ukrainian media organizations as they prepared for presidential elections. Washington has long provided support for a network of opposition groups who were active during the Orange Revolution and are now mobilizing against Moscow.

A media center established by the new government in Kiev's Hotel Ukraina has been partly financed by George Soros' International Renaissance Foundation. Day in and day out, reporters are airing interviews with ministers and loyal political scientists who interpret events in eastern Ukraine the way the Kiev government would like to see them portrayed.

Still, Moscow's efforts present a stark contrast to the activities of independent European media companies. Many newspapers and broadcasters have scaled back their bureaus in Moscow or closed them altogether in recent years. This has created a shortage of experts who can penetrate the propaganda coming from all sides and provide honest analysis of what is actually happening.

The fact that the brainwashing seems to be working could be evidenced last Monday when German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made an appearance in the run-up to elections for the European Parliament on Berlin's Alexanderplatz square. Left-wing activists shouted and booed at the foreign minister and held up signs stating, "Stop the Nazis in Ukraine!" Moscow registered the protest with satisfaction and the Kremlin-aligned media reported on it extensively.

Russia's Greatest Propaganda Success

The purpose of this global battle to shape opinion isn't merely to transform Europeans and Americans into fans of Vladimir Putin. The Russian president is also targeting his own people, seeking to make himself unassailable within Russia.

Putin's greatest propaganda success is the fact that the majority of Russians now believe that Kiev is ruled by fascists. Evoking World War II in this way has proven very effective with Russians. One member of Russia's parliament, the Duma, even went so far as to call the fire in Odessa that killed 30 pro-Russia activists a "new Auschwitz." Meanwhile, the head of parliament spoke of genocide in Ukraine. With the spin machine at full steam, it is perhaps of little surprise that a radio poll recently found that 89 percent of listeners agreed with the idea that the "participants of the mass murder in Odessa should be found and executed without trial."

Journalists with the Russian state media often like to quote German politicians and experts. Unfortunately, they always seem to pick from the same pack of pundits. One is Putin biographer Alexander Rahr, formerly a Russia specialist at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and today a consultant with the gas firm Wintershall, which has deep ties with Russia." The West has never gotten over Putin's return," Rahr says in explaining Germany's position toward the Kremlin. He also claims that German politicians' private beliefs are different from their public statements. They are, he says, only able to express themselves openly about Russia once they have left office.

The Kremlin Seizes Control

A critical analysis of such statements has been lacking. One reason is that in recent months, the Kremlin has begun tightening control over Russian-language Internet media in order to keep the home front from wavering. Russian investigative journalist and security services expert Andrei Soldatov says that Kremlin-aligned youth organizations are assisting the government in posting blogs and attacking Moscow's critics.

Most broadcasters and newspapers are already under the Kremlin's control. Some 94 percent of Russians obtain their information primarily from state television. The problem is that state TV has no qualms about blatantly fabricating the news. Two weeks ago, for example, the evening news showed video allegedly depicting the murder of a pro-Russian fighter in eastern Ukraine by nationalists. In fact, the video used was actually one and a half years old and showed fighters in the north Caucasus.

Few have studied the effects of that kind of propaganda as much as Lev Gudkov, the head of independent Moscow pollster Levada. The institution recently had to undergo yet another government review. "The public prosecutor openly admitted to us that the only reason we haven't been closed yet is that the Kremlin hasn't given the final order to shut us down," says Gudkov. "But we are certainly being harassed."

The 67-year-old research pulls out one poll after another from a stack of papers. They show that when the mass protests against President Viktor Yanukovych broke out, only 30 percent of Russians believed that Ukraine's Association Agreement with the EU was a "betrayal of Slavic unity." In February, at the peak of the Maidan protests, 73 percent still considered the issue to be an internal one for Ukrainians. In the time that has transpired since, some 58 percent of Russians now support the annexation of eastern Ukraine by Russia.

"The successful propaganda campaign we are witnessing here surrounding the Ukraine crisis is unique and highly sophisticated, even compared to Soviet standards," says Gudkov. "The Kremlin has succeeded in stirring up sentiments deeply rooted in the Russian psyche: the yearning for an imperial grandness, a sense of anti-Americanism and pride over Russia's victory over Hitler's Germany."

Ultimately, it was the annexation of Crimea that silenced Putin's critics. Prior to the development, dissatisfaction with Putin had been growing continuously. Polls showed an increasing number of Russians wanted to vote the president out of office. In November 2013, 53 percent said they would vote for a different candidate during the next election. But Putin experienced a meteoric rise in popularity after the annexation, with 86 percent of Russians now saying they would re-elect him.

[Vympel]

Certainly not right after they started terrorizing the populace. They tried dialogue, which won't work.

What evidence have you got of the militants terrorizing the populace? And when did they try dialog? I'm not aware of any talks whatsoever between Kiev and the east.

The people burning to death was not done by the armed forces, nor by state forces.

Because they only have a right to be pissed off by something if its done by the armed forces?

Which attack on the status of the Russian language? The one that didn't even pass into law? Yeah, great justification there.

The only reason it didn't get passed into law was because it got vetoed. Guarantee that it won't just get passed again? Zero. Not without constitutional reform.

They are not operating with the consent of the majority of the population. For one, the people in the east are not Russian in majority.

Yes, they are. If they weren't, then they couldn't effectively operate at all. You've confused 'consent' with outright support and participation. And its irrelevant that "Russians" are not a majority in the east. What is a "Russian" in the east, anyway?

Second, most reports agree that the people in the east are not in favor of armed seperatism.

So? Not every fighter in the East even wants separatism either.

No, they did not unleash the military as soon as they could. They waited for several weeks after the annexation of the crimea.

There was no armed uprising in the east when Crimea was annexed in the first place. That took some time to coalesce beyond mere protests.

Last time I checked, having anti-whatever factions in control of the government was not a justification

This isn't about whether invading and stealing someone's territory is justified, which I've already told you its not*, but whether the US and EU bear a measure of responsibility for igniting the crisis in Ukraine, which they do.

*Which is seperate and distinct from saying I don't see why anyone should be particualrly bothered about it, given Russia's iron clad historical claim and support from the population which saw them effect the invasion with casual ease.

Even more, a NATO membership was not part of the debate

The terms of the association agreement contain references to military cooperation which are viewed as a precursor to NATO membership. But its not just that - its the political views of the faction that took over the government in Ukraine. They're clearly for NATO membership, even though a plurality of Ukrainians aren't.

and would never have proceeded forward because Germany blocked any such talks long before the Russians invaded, just like they blocked Georgia's bid.

Well I'm sure the Russians will be happy to base their national security interests on the indulgence of the Germans.

And don't make me laugh about the BMD bit, because the last thing NATO wants is a war with Russia.

And the last thing anyone wanted in 1914 was a contintent-spanning four-year long conflagaration. So what?

And last time I checked, the whole thing happened because the Russians pressured Janukovich into not signing an EU treaty.

You mean the democratically elected leader got a better offer with less strings and exercised his prerogative accordingly, and the people annoyed about it raised up an unelected, unrepresentative mob to oust him? Yeah, clearly I want to be on that side of the argument. Lets not forget that Yanukovych wanted both the EU and Russia to forge a tripartite agreement, but the EU flatly refused. The EU forced this issue, not just Russia.

That is all. EU treaty, not NATO, not USA alliance or wahtever your feverish mind has concocted up.

That it was a precursor to drawing Ukraine into NATO is hardly the concoction of anyone, feverish or otherwise.

According to your logic, Germany would be right

Since this has nothing to do with justification, no matter how much you keep trying to make this about that, this is an irrelevant analogy.

A measure of responsibility sure, but none of them forced Russia to invade. They offered a deal. Russia too offered a deal - and then invaded once the Ukraine did not take it. The whole invasion is Russia's fault.

Its not about the invasion, its about Ukraine in general.

The EU has spent and is continuing to spend a lot of money on development. There is no reason to assume the Ukraine would be a special case.

The EU doesn't have the political will to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on a second Poland. That's why the only thing anyone is talking about in relation to Ukraine now is austerity. Lots and lots of austerity. The only thing that has kept Ukraine afloat for as long as it has been is Russia.

What "joining Europe" could actually mean

While certain Eastern European countries (particularly Poland and Slovakia) have made impressively rapid economic progress over the past two decades, the reality of “convergence” is substantially more complicated than the simple narrative of “reform leads to growth.” The three most recent entrants to the EU (Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia) have performed terribly since the onset of the financial crisis. Croatia, in particular, has seen no economic growth for the past seven years. After many years of painstaking reform, per capita incomes in these countries are still less than 40% of West European averages. Even more alarmingly, these three countries have almost entirely stopped converging with the “old” EU members in the West. In fact numerous Western countries, such as Germany and the UK, are currently growing more rapidly.

Promoting the EU as a “solution” to Ukraine’s far more serious economic problems is disingenuous and even institutionally corrupt: The track record clearly shows that the EU accession process cannot function as a substitute for effective national-level economic policy making. When national policy-making is well executed, the EU can serve as goal-setting mechanism, as a way for helping people to set ambitious aspirations. But when policy-making is poorly executed, the EU simply cannot pick up the slack: The accession process falls far too heavily on national governments for Brussels to be expected to fix everything.

The other problem to note is that support for economic reform is much weaker in Ukraine than it was in other recent EU entrants. A recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute shows the Ukraine is characterized by stark regional differences in the willingness of people to suffer through “painful reforms,” and there is no true societal consensus on whether Ukraine should be a part of “Europe,” whether it should be a part of “Eurasia,” or whether it should (as it has for the past 23 years) have one foot in the East and one foot in the West. In Eastern Ukraine, the country’s economic center of gravity, a plurality of respondents still express a desire to join the Russian-led customs union while support for the is EU is as little as 20%.

The cost

“Country is heavily subsidized by its wealthier neighbors, experiences economic growth” isn’t a very captivating tale.

Now the United States and the European Union are capable of offering Ukraine a similarly generous deal. There is nothing preventing either of them from opening their checkbooks and promising Ukraine tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. Both the US and the EU are much wealthier than Russia, and if they wanted to outspend it they could easily do so. With some basic economic reforms, the Polish experience suggests that funneling tens of billions of dollars into Ukraine could achieve some real results in terms of GDP growth and poverty reduction.

The problem, however, is not financial but political: Ukraine hasn’t been (and won’t be) much of a priority for the US or the EU while it is Russia’s single most important foreign policy objective. Given the still-ongoing economic turmoil in the developed world, slumping average wages, elevated unemployment, growing inequality, lackluster growth, it’s simply not realistic to expect the onset of a massive package of aid to Ukraine. If a member of congress or a senator went down to Capitol Hill and introduced an aid package to Ukraine worth $300 billion, they’d be lucky to escape without being sent to a sanatorium.

In other words, while a Poland-sized program of economic aid would obviously do quite a lot to transform Ukraine and could conceivably make it a part of “Europe,” there is no chance whatsoever of such a program being adopted. In an era of austerity and voter fatigue, there aren’t going to be any more great transformative projects and there aren’t going to be any great gobs of foreign money headed towards Kiev. If Ukraine wants to finds its way into Europe it’s going to have to do it on its own.

It scarcely is the fault of the western part of the Ukraine that the east cannot agree on a candidate.

Rubbish. "Oh hey we've pulled off a coup on your President and destroyed your political party in the process, sucks to be you!"

[Thanas]

Vympel, I am glad that you and I agree the Russian invasion was unjustified. As I am primarily concerned about that, I see no point to discuss the rest any further (see my remarks to Stas about that).

[Vympel]

Vympel, I am glad that you and I agree the Russian invasion was unjustified. As I am primarily concerned about that, I see no point to discuss the rest any further (see my remarks to Stas about that).

Yeah, I thought I had said that earlier, but it might have got lost since its a monster thread.

[Vympel]

New York Times nails it

WASHINGTON — As the polls closed during last month’s snap presidential elections in Ukraine, violence broke out in the east of the country. Insurgents took over Donetsk airport and the government responded with airstrikes.

Eastern Ukraine has become a breeding ground for an armed insurgency. And if a comprehensive political settlement isn’t reached soon, Ukraine could descend into outright civil conflict. Western governments should make working with the Ukrainian authorities to pursue such an arrangement their top priority.

Until now, the West has prioritized holding a free and fair presidential election and is now celebrating a mission accomplished. As a senior American official put it, “It was a spectacular day for the people of Ukraine who went out in force to choose a new president and to say to their government and to the world that they want a future that is unified, that is democratic, that is prosperous and that is rooted in Europe.”

Without question, having a legitimate head of state is a positive development — all the more so since the president-elect, the oligarch Petro Poroshenko, won over 50 percent of the vote and therefore avoided a second-round runoff (always divisive in Ukraine) for the first time since 1991.

But Western pronouncements, particularly America’s, have misleadingly portrayed the violence as merely an unfortunate backdrop to otherwise successful elections, not as a symptom of an emerging rupture in the Ukrainian polity that could have profound consequences.

While noting the difficulties of voting in Donetsk and neighboring Lugansk, and praising the “courage and determination” of those who worked the polling stations there, a statement from Secretary of State John Kerry on the election did not even condemn the bloodshed, even though the death count in fierce battles between the Ukrainian military, backed by the newly formed (and poorly trained) National Guard, and armed insurgents had already reached triple digits.

Any government has the right to assert its writ on its own sovereign territory. But this “anti-terrorist operation” is being conducted in regions where the population was already overwhelmingly opposed to the government in Kiev. A mid-April poll found that over 70 percent of the population in both Donetsk and Lugansk consider that government “illegal.” A separate survey indicated that 80 percent believe it does not represent all of Ukraine.

The government’s assault on these regions has almost certainly hardened these views. As the Russian government’s first war in Chechnya or the Turkish government’s campaign against Kurdish separatists demonstrate, counterterrorism missions can be deeply counterproductive when the civilian population has as much or more sympathy for the alleged terrorists than it does for the military doing battle with them.

The Ukrainian government and its Western partners need to focus on three priorities that would do far more to stabilize and unite Ukraine than the recent presidential poll: an end to the “anti-terrorist operation” and a good-faith attempt at a negotiated settlement with separatists in the east; formation of a more inclusive government; and constitutional reform that decentralizes power.

Rather than escalate the assault on the insurgents, thus ensuring more killing of Ukrainians by Ukrainians, the government in Kiev needs to halt it and make a good-faith, high-profile effort at a negotiated solution. The crackdown should resume only if the government can credibly demonstrate to the local population that the separatists refuse to accept a reasonable compromise.

Second, the Ukrainian government must bring regional balance to a government that is currently dominated by representatives from western Ukraine: About two-thirds of ministerial-level and higher portfolios have gone to those regions, which represent only 12 percent of the population. The presidential elections demonstrated that the cabinet is not only regionally skewed, it’s also politically unrepresentative; the far-right Svoboda party, whose leader got less than 2 percent of the vote, has a third of the senior portfolios. Some of these should be allocated to southerners and easterners.

Finally, the constitutional reform package currently being negotiated and debated could transform Ukraine’s diversity into a source of strength. The drafting process must be treated as a top priority by the Ukrainian government and its Western partners. The country desperately needs a decentralized political system so that no Ukrainian feels that his or her way of life is threatened by a change in power in Kiev.

That can only happen through empowering regional governments with direct elections and far greater authority for decision-making on matters other than foreign and defense policy. Unfortunately, the current draft constitutional amendments don’t allow for direct election of governors.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government must avoid policies that aggravate regional divisions. Unfortunately, the United States and the European Union appear poised to assist Kiev in doing precisely that by pushing ahead with Ukraine’s rapid institutional integration into the West.

This agenda continues to be highly divisive in Ukraine. When asked in mid-April about which political and economic orientation — Russia, Europe or both — would be better for the country, Ukrainians were divided: In the west, 82 percent preferred Europe, only 2 percent preferred Russia and 9 percent favored both, while in the east only 16 percent preferred Europe versus 46 percent for Russia and 26 percent for both.

Ukraine’s presidential election was a positive step. But it has not come close to resolving the country’s multifaceted crisis or bridging its deep regional divides. It would be a strategic error for Western policy makers to soft-pedal the other, far more important steps needed to unify Ukraine, or to drive an agenda that pulls it further apart.

[Thanas]

I am not sure if a decentralized government is the way to go about this. It would almost certainly be seen as a first step towards breaking up the state, further weakening the central authority. What assurances would the Ukraine get that this would not be the first step to have Russia annex another breakaway region?

[Thanas]

Something which I did not know about now and which shed a whole new light on why the East of the Ukraine is so important to Russia - turns out that without the Ukraine, the Russian military, especially the Navy, would be very boned:

From War is boring

Russia can nuke Ukraine off the map. But those Russian nukes can’t fly without Ukrainian spare parts.

While Russia only obtains 4.4 percent of its total imports from Ukraine, around 30 percent of Ukrainian military exports to Russia “are unique and cannot currently be substituted by Russian production,” according to the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Now Russia is about to find out why it’s better to have Ukraine as a friend than as an enemy. Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian state-owned conglomerate that controls military production, has frozen arms sales to Russia.

This is bad news for Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces. Its SS-18 ICBMs are designed, manufactured and maintained by Ukraine’s state-owned Yuzhmash enterprise in Dnepropetrovsk. The SS-19 and SS-25 ICBMs are designed and produced in Russia, but their guidance systems come from the Khartron company in Kharkov.

These three types account for more than 80 percent of the missiles in Russia’s rocket forces.

“In addition, some 20 per cent of the natural uranium currently consumed by Russia’s nuclear industry, both for civilian and military purposes, comes from Zholti Vody in Ukraine,” RUSI reported.

Russian military dependence on Ukraine also applies to conventional arms. “Russia requires Ukrainian-produced gears for 60 percent of the surface combatants planned for its navy,” RUSI pointed out.

Ukraine’s Motor-Sich plant manufactures jet engines for Russian transport aircraft, engines for all Russian combat and transport helicopters and auxiliary power units for many types of aircraft and helicopters. Ukraine also makes auxiliary equipment, such as hydraulics and drogue parachutes, for advanced Russian fighters such as the Su-27, Su-30 and Su-35.

Ditto for the missiles carried by those fighters. Ukrainian companies manufacture the R-27 air-to-air missile as well as seekers for the R-73.

When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and comprised a large part of Soviet heavy industry, it made sense for key defense components to be manufactured there. But Ukraine declared independence in 1991. Why is Russia still dependent upon another country for its most sensitive military equipment?

“This is due to the fact that lots of the Strategic Rocket Forces missiles and their components were produced during the Soviet time by Ukrainian-based plants,” Igor Sutyagin, the RUSI researcher who co-authored the Ukraine report, told War is Boring. “It was impossible to build other plants which would produce the same products.”

Not that Russia hasn’t made some effort to foster domestic production. For example, Moscow has tried to reduce dependence on Motor-Sich for helicopter engines. Yet it still cannot manufacture enough engines domestically to either meet its own rearmament program or meet export orders for helicopters, according to RUSI.

What about existing stockpiles of spare parts? “It is important not to overestimate the amount of spare parts [in reserve], and not to underestimate the actual need Russia has in such parts,” Sutyagin told War is Boring. “They are far too numerous to buy and keep in storage under normal conditions.”

And even if the spare parts were there, Russia still needs Ukrainian specialists to service its nuclear missiles.

Yet Russian president Vladimir Putin had the nerve to claim last week that a Ukrainian arms embargo will hurt Ukraine more than Russia. “For the Ukrainian defense industry, the severing of ties with Russian partners is likely to lead to disaster,” Putin told Russian lawmakers. “Why? They don’t have any other markets. They just don’t exist. The only consumer is the Russian armed forces.”

Actually, Ukraine has been quite successful in exporting arms. Nonetheless, Putin said Russia is already working to create domestic substitutes to compensate for the Ukrainian arms embargo or Western embargoes. Germany has frozen arms sales, and Britain may do the same. Putin estimated the replacing arms imports with domestic supplies would take 1.5 to 2.5 years.

This seems an optimistic estimate for building the infrastructure needed to produce highly specialized items such as ICBM spare parts. It is significant that Putin promised that Ukrainian arms specialists would receive “worthy salary and accommodations” if they moved to Russia.

What about the ultimate option—invade Ukraine and seize the defense factories? This assumes that Kiev won’t destroy them … and that skilled workers and technical experts will be available to run the plants and maintain Russian missiles.

To be fair, the U.S. military uses parts made in China, despite the rivalry between the two powers. How long could the Pentagon function without electronics from Japan or Taiwan? On the other hand, neither the U.S. nor China has annexed each other’s territory, as Russia did in Crimea.

Will lack of spare parts deter Putin from supporting secessionists in eastern Ukraine, or invading the entire country? No one can be sure. Russia is far, far stronger than Ukraine. But its weaker neighbor may yet prove that spare parts are the Achilles heel in Moscow’s arsenal.

A slightly different take:
CSMonitor

Russia's sleek new military machine, currently poised on Ukraine's eastern borders, has a problem: It runs on components produced in Ukraine, which are still being delivered by Ukrainian companies. And now, Ukraine's beleaguered interim government is warning that it might call a halt to all arms supplies to Russia: "Manufacturing products for Russia that will later be aimed against us would be complete insanity," Vitaliy Yarema, Kiev's first deputy prime minister, said.

Such a move, experts say, could cause serious damage to Russia's military capacity, by greatly increasing the costs of the sweeping modernization ordered by the Kremlin after Russia's 2008 war with Georgia exposed serious shortcomings in the country's military preparedness. But in the longer term, experts add, the economic pain is likely to be felt more deeply in Ukraine, for whom Russia is the irreplaceable market for about 90 percent of its military exports.
Russo-Ukrainian military industry

The Kremlin is taking the prospect of a cutoff very seriously. At a government meeting Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin ordered emergency measures to work around any sudden cutoff of military components from Ukraine and promised to find funds to pay for it. "We need to look ahead and work out which Russian companies, in what time frame, and at what cost could produce these goods," Mr. Putin told his ministers.

Russian Industry Minister Denis Manturov told Putin that the value of outstanding orders from Ukraine in the "civilian and defense" sectors is more than $15 billion. Analysts say a major part of that would be military parts and equipment.

"This is a really unpleasant moment for Russia," because military cooperation with Ukraine was vital, says Viktor Litovkin, a military expert with the official ITAR-Tass news agency.

Though military integration between Russia and Ukraine is well down from its Soviet-era peak, Ukraine still makes a surprising number of essential parts that go into modern Russian weaponry.

According to a 2009 survey by Kiev's Razumkov Center, Ukrainian factories produce the engines that power most Russian combat helicopters; about half of the air-to-air missiles deployed on Russian fighter planes; and a range of engines used by Russian aircraft and naval vessels. The state-owned Antonov works in Kiev makes a famous range of transport aircraft, including the modern AN-70. The Russian Air Force was to receive 60 of the sleek new short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, which now it may have to do without.

Valentin Badrak, director of the Center of Army Studies in Kiev, says that even Russia's new Ilyushin Il-476 transport aircraft, which is built in the central Russian city of Ulyanovsk, cannot be produced without Ukrainian spare parts. He says Russia will be hurt by a cutoff of cooperation in "several spheres.... In Ukraine we have about two dozen companies that had projects with Russia important to Russia's security and defense."

The mainstay of Russia's strategic missile forces is the SS-18 Satan multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile, all of which were produced in Soviet times at the giant Yuzhmash works in Dnipropetrovsk, and which still rely on Ukrainian expertise to keep in working order. However, the Razumkov report notes that Russia's next generation of strategic missiles, including the mobile Topol-M, are entirely produced in Russia.

"We have our own specialists who can service the Satan missiles," says Mr. Litovkin. "The problem is mostly a legal one," because the Ukrainians have the propriety rights to do that work, he adds.

Selling Russian secrets?

The Kremlin may also be worried that a Ukraine freed from its contractual obligations to Moscow might go out and sell Russian military secrets to other countries.

Russia's foreign ministry posted an unusual note earlier this week warning that Ukrainian representatives of Yuzhmash, which built the SS-18, were meeting with "representatives of some countries, regarding the sale of a production technology for heavy-class intercontinental ballistic missiles."

It added "we trust that despite the complicated foreign policy situation in Ukraine and the lack of legitimate supreme authorities, the current leaders of the country will be responsible, will fully comply with their obligation" to fulfill legal requirements and international rules against the proliferation of missile technologies.

Some Russian bloggers suggested that Ukraine was trying to sell Russian heavy missile technology to Turkey, a NATO country.

Costs for Ukraine

Experts say that Russia's dependence on Ukraine is a Soviet-era habit that, once broken, will prove to be a boost to Russia's own military-industrial development.

"I think we will survive this stroke of misfortune," says Litovkin. "Russian industry can compensate for the losses, but it will require investment and may take some time."

For Ukraine, on the other hand, severing military manufacturing ties with Russia could be devastating in the long run. Ukraine makes few complete weapons systems – other than T-84 tanks, some Soviet-era air defense missiles, and Antonov planes – and would struggle to find alternative markets for its mainstay production of Russian military hardware components.

"For the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, it will be a disaster," leading to plant closures and tens of thousands of unemployed workers, predicts Igor Korotchenko, director of the independent Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade in Moscow.

"As for Russia, the situation is bad," he adds, "but we'll survive."

About that survival.....

Reuters

Russia’s Navy: More rust than ready

On May 8, the British Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon sailed from the naval base at Portsmouth on an urgent mission — to find and follow the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov and six accompanying vessels steaming through the English Channel. “A Russian task group of this size has not passed by our shores in some time,” said Rex Cox, Dragon’s captain.

True, the Russian navy has been more active in recent months. Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula with its strategic ports and asserted itself with troop, ship and warplane deployments along the frontier between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That’s important to the Kremlin because, historically, Russia has struggled to maintain warm-water ports. Seizing Crimea helps ensure Moscow’s access to ice-free waters for commercial and military shipping.

But Russia’s busy fleet schedule masks an underlying seagoing weakness. Moscow’s warships are old and unreliable. Yet the government is finding it increasingly difficult to replace them with equally large and powerful new vessels.

Russia is a geriatric maritime giant surrounded by much more energetic rivals.

In the final years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was determined to match the mighty U.S. Navy on the high seas. Moscow funded the construction of its first three full-size aircraft carriers in the late 1970s and 1980s — the non-nuclear Kuznetsov and a sister ship, plus a nuclear-powered vessel. The United States then possessed 15 large aircraft carriers, most of them nuclear-powered. After post-Cold War force cuts, today the United States has 10 nuclear flattops plus another nine small carriers. The Soviet Union’s collapse dashed Moscow’s naval expansion plans. The Russians managed to finish paying the Ukrainian shipyard to complete Kuznetsov. But there was not enough money for the other two flattops. Today, a new aircraft carrier can cost billions of dollars.

Commissioned in 1991, Kuznetsov was Russia’s last new large warship. In the past 23 years, Moscow has managed to complete a few new submarines and small frigates and destroyers at its main Sevmash shipyard, on the North Atlantic coast. But many of Russia’s current naval vessels — and all its large vessels — are Soviet leftovers. They’re outdated, prone to mechanical breakdowns and wickedly uncomfortable for their crews — especially compared to the latest U.S., European and Chinese ships. Washington alone builds roughly eight new warships a year, including a brand-new nuclear carrier every four or five years.

When Moscow moved to annex Crimea in March, the U.S. Navy promptly sailed its new flattop USS George H.W. Bush into the eastern Mediterranean to reassure NATO governments. Bush‘s battle group included no fewer than 60 high-tech warplanes and several of Washington’s modern Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, armed with missiles and guns for fighting planes, submarines and other ships.

In response, the Kremlin sent in Kuznetsov. The aging carrier — much smaller than Bush — carried a dozen or so Sukhoi fighters. Her six escorts included just a single heavily-armed vessel, the Soviet-vintage nuclear cruiser Pyotr Velikiy. The other five ships included one small amphibious landing ship plus three support tankers and a tugboat.The tugboat was along for a good reason. On the few occasions when Kuznetsov leaves port, she often promptly breaks down. In 2009, a short circuit sparked a fire that killed one seaman aboard the rusting vessel.

Kuznetsov shadowed Bush in the Mediterranean for a few weeks, then returned home to northern Russia through the English Channel in early May. That’s when Dragon found her. For a more enduring presence in the Mediterranean, the Kremlin deployed one relatively modern destroyer, to reinforce Russia’s small existing Mediterranean flotilla.

Kuznetsov doesn’t have many years left in her. Her boilers are “defective,” according to the trade publication Defense Industry Daily. Yet when she goes to the breakers to be dismantled, Moscow could find it impossible to replace her. For one, the shipyard that built all the Soviet carriers now belongs to Ukraine. It lies just outside of Crimea, and Russian forces did not manage to seize it.

Moreover, Ukraine is still the exclusive supplier for many of the heavy components, including engines and gears, for Russia’s warships — even the ones Russia builds in its northern shipyard. With the continuing tense stand-off, Kiev recently banned arms sales to Moscow.

Russia’s attempts to revitalize its domestic shipbuilding industry have not gone smoothly. In 2005, India inked a nearly $1-billion deal with Russia for a rebuilt Soviet-era small flattop. Russia’s work on Vikramaditya was so poor, however, that she suffered a near-total breakdown shortly after her purported completion in 2012. India finally accepted Vikramaditya this year — after the total cost of her refurbishment had nearly tripled to $2.3 billion. If Russia can’t even remodel an existing warship, imagine the difficulties it would face designing and building a big new ship from scratch.

Moscow knows its navy is in trouble. It seized on an extreme solution in 2011 — importing ships, technology and expertise from France. Russia signed a contract for two French Mistral-class helicopter carriers. Each ship costs more than $1 billion.

The plan was for Russian shipyards to help construct the vessels. “The purchase of Mistral shipbuilding technology will help Russia to grasp large-capacity shipbuilding,” Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, chief of the navy at the time. “It is important for construction of ships like the future ocean-going class destroyer and later an aircraft carrier.”

Unsurprisingly, the Russian yards have proved incapable of handling intensive construction. In 2013, the Kremlin asked France to take over the bulk of the work. When Russia annexed Crimea, Paris threatened to cancel the ship deal. But France was reluctant to give up billions of dollars in revenue. Russia’s first French-built ship is nearing completion and could sail to Russia late this year.

But buying two ships from France will do little to reform Russia’s shipbuilding industry if Russian workers aren’t directly involved in building them. Now deprived of the Ukrainian-made parts, Russia’s shipbuilding industry is arguably in worse shape than it was just a few months ago.

That bodes poorly for Russia’s future as a naval power. Dragon’s interception of Kuznetsov could prove to be a turning point. In coming years, large Russian warships could become a very rare sight. The implications are serious for Moscow’s influence in the world — and for its ability to win a war against a maritime foe.

[Vympel]

The CSM article is closer to the truth than War is Boring, which contradicts its own claims. You cant't say on the one hand "Ukraine as been very successful in exporting arms" to contradict the Russians saying they have no other market when at the same time you're pointing out the spares that are only applicable to Russian weapons. The factories etc in Ukraine are not a monolith - whereas the Kharkov tank plant is one thing (and not very successful at that) whatever plant makes spares for say, Russian fighters is quite another. Its very hard to ask your domestic industry to give up a revenue stream and cut jobs, especially given how fucked up Ukraine's economy is right now. Many enterprises would outright go under.

There's some specific claims in there that are borne out of ignorane of the specifics of the Russian army industry, but that's hardly surprising for a non-specialist article. For example, the An-70 has been a political football between Russia and Ukraine for 20 years - the Russians have never actually needed it. The appearance of the Il-476 (Il-76MD-90A, a new generation build of the Il-76) has made that even more obvious and it was widely believed before the crisis even started that the An-70 would once again be abandoned by the Russians, as they've done many times before.

"Yet the government is finding it increasingly difficult to replace them with equally large and powerful new vessels." is just a lazy comment based on old information, like "Russia is dying demographically" (false, and has been for several years). While it is true that Russia has yet to build any warships in the destroyer class and larger since the breakup of the USSR (apart from Sovremenny-class destroyers for China and completing ships still being built when the USSR broke apart), Russia is producing more large warships (i.e. frigates) now than it ever has - its not "increasingly difficult", the shipbuilding industry is much healthier now than it has been for over 20 years.

As to a shipyard to build a carrier, the Nikolaev shipyard in Ukraine was never on the cards to build another carrier for Russia. It is moribund and has no capability to do so anymore. The Russians have been investing in building their own new shipyards to build carrier-size vessels instead, but its not high priority work and aircraft carriers are a firmly post-2020 idea. The next priority is a new destroyer, whose design I believe has been finalised.

[Thanas]

Still, 60% of all powerplants and most of the engines...that would cripple any nation.

As to the Mistral class, I wonder why the Russian yards proved themselves incapable of even building parts of it. To my knowledge, they also wanted to start destroyer production two years ago but could not. The frigate Gorshkov is two years behind the completion date, the Grigorovich another. The only thing which is somewhat on time are the new subs, but even their pace is not something one would call stellar.

[Vympel]

Still, 60% of all powerplants and most of the engines...that would cripple any nation.

As to the Mistral class, I wonder why the Russian yards proved themselves incapable of even building parts of it. To my knowledge, they also wanted to start destroyer production two years ago but could not. The frigate Gorshkov is two years behind the completion date, the Grigorovich another. The only thing which is somewhat on time are the new subs, but even their pace is not something one would call stellar.

Well, my understanding was that the plan was always for the Russian yards to build the subsequent two Mistrals, not the first two. The intent was always, AFAIK, for them to be built in France. The Mistral deal was always controversial even in Russia - many saw it as an unacceptably large betrayal of Russia's defence industry, and viewed it as more worthwhile to painstakingly rebuild their own capability than rely on imports.

The frigates being behind is to be expected really - the Admiral Gorshkov-class is the first all-new frigate design produced since the fall of the USSR, while the Admiral Grigorovich is leveraging the shipyard's experience with the Krivak IV / Talwar frigates built for India, I imagine the differences between them (Talwar vs Grigorovich) acccounted for the delay. As it is, the addition of a single Pr 1136M to the Black Sea Fleet will increase its combat power many times - they're superior in anti-ship and air-defence firepower to every ship in the BSF except Moskva.

Far worse delays were evident with the first few smaller Stereguschy class corvettes.

Stereguschy was 5 years, 10 months, 24 days from being laid down to commissioning.
Soobrazitelny was 8 years, 4 months, 24 days.
Boikiy was 7 years, 9 months, 17 days.
Stoiky was 7 years, 6 months, 18 days.

And those are the four built at Severnaya Nerf shipyard. The Pacific Fleet shipyard building the remaining two is worse off. It'll be instructive to see how the further evolved, larger Gremyashchy-class corvettes progress in comparison.

Frankly its a miracle they're building the larger, more complicated frigates as quickly as they are. That's what happens when your shipyards have no work for well over a decade I guess.

[Ahriman238]

New article, Separatists are complaining that Putin hasn't backed them enough.

Amid rising death tolls in eastern Ukraine, the head of a pro-Russian rebel group expressed disappointment Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn't sent in more troops.

"The only possible help for us would be if the Russian forces came," said Dmitry Boitsov of the Russian Orthodox Army from Slaviansk, Ukraine — where fighting has been raging for two straight days.

"If he doesn't bring in forces, there will be people here who would want to destroy him, because he gave us false hope."

The Russian Orthodox Army is a newly formed militia group that is one of several armed rebel groups fighting in Ukraine's chaotic east. They are in dire need of help, Boitsov said.

"Our fighters are mine workers and young lads who do not know how to use arms," Boitsov told NBC News. It feels "like the whole world is against us.There are also many traitors amongst us."

Slaviansk is considered a town with strategic value because of its location at the crossroads of eastern Ukraine's three major regions. It's about 55 miles north of Donetsk, the largest city in the east.

On Wednesday, Boitsov said 50 forces belonging to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic had been killed in the last 24 hours.

"Putin's ratings will fall if he is going to be like this towards us," Boitsov said. "Why does he betray us? He gave us hope to fight, and then gave us up. When he moved his troops, people lost hope."

The fighting in Slaviansk over the past two days has sent many frightened residents fleeing, as gunfire rings out and plumes of black smoke rise above the edge of town.

Separatists have controlled the town of about 130,000 since April.

[Thanas]

That is funny, as Russian mercenaries are now there and they are apparently better armed than the army.

[quote]Fighters from Russia's Caucasus region have joined the separatists in eastern Ukraine, while Kiev has intensified its efforts to win back control of the region. Just 10 days after the presidential election there, the conflict is quickly turning into a war.

The man with the full, black beard looks satisfied, sitting on his wooden chair. He is wearing a white-striped baseball cap and his Kalashnikov sits on the table beside him. Fighters refer to him respectfully as "Komandir." His casual hand signals determine who is allowed into the headquarters of the regional administration of Donetsk and who is not. In response to questions, the Komandir answers in Russian, with a strong Caucasian accent.

Is he the boss here? "Yes, apparently." But he's not from here? "As you can see." Then, his mobile phone rings and he speaks in a Caucasian language. Is it Chechen? "Why do you want to know, my friend?"

After months of obfuscation, Russia's direct involvement in eastern Ukraine is becoming visible. And last week, it became clearer than ever that Russian and Chechen mercenaries are supporting the separatists in Donetsk, fighting side-by-side with Ukrainians against troops sent by Kiev. At first, the presence of Russian fighters was but a rumor, but then, last Thursday, a column of vehicles carrying 34 coffins draped with red cloth left Donetsk heading for the border. Two-thirds of the some 50 rebels who died in heavy fighting 10 days ago were Russian citizens.

Some of the fighters in Donetsk openly told journalists that they came "on the orders of Kadyrov." The Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov would only say on his Instagram page: "If any Chechen has been seen in the conflict zone, that's his personal business."

At the beginning of last week, it seemed as though the troops from Kiev, after weeks of hesitation, might finally be gaining the upper hand. The army was able to quickly regain control of the Donetsk airport, which had been occupied by the separatists. But the eastern flank remained open: On the drive from the Russian border to Donetsk, not a single Ukrainian soldier could be seen; at the edge of the city were fighters from the separatist battalion called Vostok, or East, their Kalashnikovs at the ready.

Serious Territorial Conflict

The battalion is now the leading power in Donetsk. It may only consist of a few hundred fighters, but they are armed with anti-tank guns, machine guns and anti-aircraft weaponry. And what began in April as the occupation of the regional administration building has since become a serious territorial conflict.

This week has seen heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine as Kiev launched an offensive against pro-Russian rebels in the area of Sloviansk, north of Donetsk, on Tuesday morning. The move followed an attack on rebel positions in Luhansk, located near the Russian border, on Monday. There were reports of several casualties on both sides.

"What is happening in the east is a repeat of the October Revolution," Yuri Lutsenko, an advisor to Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko, says in Kiev, 600 kilometers (373 miles) away. "At the beginning, the barricades were manned by adventurers, criminals and people from the lumpenproletariat who had no work. Just like in Petrograd in 1917. At the beginning, Viktor Yanukovych paid every fighter $400 per day, just as the German generals once paid money to Lenin's people. But now, there are mercenaries and Russian weapons."

Lutsenko, 49, was a pioneer of the Orange Revolution. Under Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, he twice headed up the Interior Ministry. But after Yanukovych came to power, Lutsenko was locked up for "abuse of office," only to be freed in April 2013 following European pressure. Now, he is working for Poroshenko, who will enter office at the end of this week. It is thought that Lutsenko will be tapped to head Ukraine's National Security Council and he is to help develop Poroshenko's Solidarity Party, which had played but a minimal role in Ukrainian politics prior to the May 25 election, into a solid power base.

Until then, though, he is working from the offices of the think tank he founded in the Kiev district of Podil. On the wall hangs an oil painting called "Pershy," The First. It shows an exhausted Ukrainian with his eyes closed as though he is trying to gather what remains of his strength. For Lutsenko, it is symbolic of the Maidan demonstrations, which led to the overthrow of Yanukovych in February.

'A European War'

"Keep a close eye on what is now happening in the east," Lutsenko says. "The separatists have long since ceased calling for federalism or for an improved status of the Russian language. They want to divide the wealth of the oligarchs among themselves, in this case, that of billionaire Rinat Akhmetov." He grabs a piece of paper and draws the outlines of Russia and Ukraine. "Putin doesn't want the Donbass region. He has other goals. First, he wants to sow anarchy in the region because it is extremely important for our economy and without it, the Ukrainians will never get back on their feet," Lutsenko says. "And secondly, he wants the separatists to gain so much independence that they will be able to veto any decision coming from Kiev. That would paralyze the state and would mean it was de facto governed from Moscow."

Lutsenko leans back, takes a deep breath, and says: "We have no choice. If we abandon Donetsk, Putin will soon be in Odessa. He is in the process of establishing a cordon sanitaire around Russia. And Ukraine is now, just as Poland once was, a buffer to Europe. It is not a local war, it is a European war."

And yet, despite the use of artillery and air strikes, Kiev's military does not appear to be able to regain control of the separatist regions. According to Lutsenko, some 12,000 pro-Russian militants are now fighting against Kiev government forces in the area of Donetsk with an additional 5,000 in the Luhansk region. And these men are better organized and better armed than the army, secret service and police. Just on Thursday of last week, the rebels managed to shoot down a National Guard transport helicopter, killing at least 12.

The army has no money and no fuel, says Lutsenko, adding that it hardly even exists as a fighting force. They need helicopters for the fight against the separatists, but the generals sold most of them to Africa. The few Russian helicopters that they still possess are poorly armed and can be shot down like balloons, he says. "We don't even have any more stun grenades to move against fighters in the city -- we can't go into Sloviansk with tanks." Poland, he adds, has at least sent over a supply of grenades. The Ukrainian National Guard on Wednesday said that it had abandoned a fight in Luhansk after running out of ammunition following a 10-hour battle with pro-Russian militants.

The May 25 vote did, however, bring some change: Petro Poroshenko was elected to the presidency with a surprisingly strong result of 54.7 percent, a strong mandate. Even his rival Tymoshenko backed down. She had planned to send 50,000 followers onto the streets in order to contest the results, but with a gap of 42 percentage points between her result and his, accusing him of electoral fraud seemed far-fetched.

Huge Tasks

In addition, the election result also disproved Moscow's claim that the country is hopelessly divided. Even in regions such as Odessa or Zaporizhia, places where residents tend to be pro-Russian, 40 percent of the vote went to Poroshenko.

But the tasks facing the new president are immense. There is no functioning police force, no tax authority, no effective border control and no judiciary to speak of. The natural gas ultimatum issued by Russia has expired, though Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom on Monday allowed Kiev six more days in ongoing negotiations in Berlin. And Maidan is to be cleared and parliament dissolved. On Wednesday, the president-elect met with US President Barack Obama in Warsaw and plans to fly to D-Day commemoration events in Normandy on Friday. His inauguration is scheduled for Saturday. And then he is planning on flying to the Donetsk region, where the military operation is underway.

"Poroshenko wants to lead them more effectively," says his advisor Lutsenko. "He wants to integrate the National Guard, the secret service and the army into a single chain of command." The president is also hoping for weapons, fuel and cheap food from the Americans, calling it a new "lend-lease act" in reference to the aid US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's provided to allies in World War II.

But it will be awhile before any such plan takes shape, which is why Poroshenko is currently leaning on Rinat Akhmetov, who employs some 300,000 people, most of them in eastern Ukraine. The oligarch has already said his workers would establish an unarmed civic defense force, but Akhmetov remains in Kiev and is wary of returning to Donetsk.

No Future

There, the power is lying on the street, as a Russian adage would have it, and the "Donetsk People's Republic" is doing what they can to harness that power. The 11-floor headquarters of the regional administration, which had become a shelter for both criminals and the homeless since its occupation, was "cleaned up" by the Vostok militia last Thursday, as self-proclaimed "premier" Alexander Borodai put it. On the same day, bulldozers cleared away the barricades in front of the structure. The time of chaotic revolution has passed, Borodai says. "As of today, this is the official government seat of the Donetsk People's Republic."

Most of the shops in the city center remained closed in the days following the battle for the airport, with much of the population shocked by the violence. The referendum held in May sent a clear message to the "fascist junta in Kiev," at least according to Russian propaganda. But now, a war is being fought in their city.

People who are opposed to their hometown's transformation into an independent people's republic are only willing to speak in private, "just like in Soviet times," says Alexander, a 30-year-old electrician. A few days previous, he saw a truck filled with "bearded Caucasians" driving through his city, he says. "Why is this riffraff here," he wonders? A father of two children, Alexander says he doesn't see a future for his family in the "Donetsk People's Republic."
/quote]

[Vympel]

I think FAIR.org has a good take on the low standard of reporting re: Russia's involvement in the rebellion:

http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/06/03/mud ... mlinology/

There is a tendency to believe that Russian president Vladimir Putin is orchestrating the unrest in eastern Ukraine, sending in irregular Russian forces to stir up pro-Russian separatist sentiment.

As guesses go, this might not be a bad one–but journalism is supposed to be about presenting evidence to confirm such speculation. The New York Times clearly has a hunch about deep Russian involvement in Ukraine. The ways it tries to confirm this hunch are curious.

Back in April, the Times got into some trouble (FAIR Blog, 4/23/14) with a "scoop" showing photos of people they claimed were Russian special forces and intelligence forces. A few days later, the Times was conveying skepticism about its own story–skepticism noticeably lacking in the original report.

But before long, the paper (5/4/14) was back on the case, reporting that "one persistent mystery has been the identity and affiliations of the militiamen, who have pressed the confrontation between Russia and the West into its latest bitter phase."

The piece offered close look at one group of fighters associated with the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic. "Moscow says they are Ukrainians and not part of the Russian armed forces," the Times reported, while "Western officials and the Ukrainian government insist that Russians have led, organized and equipped the fighters."

So what does reality say? The Times says that "neither portrayal captures the full story." Then it goes on:

The rebels of the 12th Company appear to be Ukrainians but, like many in the region, have deep ties to and affinity for Russia. They are veterans of the Soviet, Ukrainian or Russian Armies, and some have families on the other side of the border. Theirs is a tangled mix of identities and loyalties.

If these fighters are Ukrainian, and veterans of–not active duty members of–the Russian armed forces, then it would certainly seem that Moscow's explanation is closer to the truth than what "Western officials" are alleging about formal Russian control–unless there is evidence that they're not sharing.

The Times' interest in this story continues. "Russians Revealed Among Ukraine Fighters" was the May 28 headline, but the story was less conclusive than that might suggest:

The scene at the hospital was new evidence that fighters from Russia are an increasingly visible part of the conflict here, a development that raises new questions about that country's role in the unrest. Moscow has denied that its regular soldiers are part of the conflict, and there is no evidence that they are. But motley assortments of fighters from other war zones that are intimately associated with Russia would be unlikely to surface against the powerful will of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, experts said.

So the fighters raise "new questions" about Russian "role"–but there's no evidence the fighters are Russian soldiers. But Putin has such a "powerful will" that "motley assortments" of fighters wouldn't be there if he didn't want them to be there–so say the "experts."

As if that wasn't curious enough, the Times adds:

The disclosure of Russian nationals among the fighters here muddies an already murky picture of the complex connections and allegiances that are beginning to form. While their presence does not draw a straight line to the Kremlin, it raises the possibility of a more subtle Russian game that could keep Ukraine unbalanced for years.

So, to recap: There is no evidence that Russia is in control of any of this, but the lack of such evidence may be a sign of a "more subtle" game.

And then, one more–this past Sunday (6/1/14) brought the headline, "In Ukraine War, Kremlin Leaves No Fingerprints." In that piece, the Times reports that "eastern Ukraine is evolving into a subtle game in which Russian freelancers shape events and the Kremlin plausibly denies involvement."

While "Putin may not be directing these events…he is certainly their principal beneficiary." The Times also claims that "for now, at least, the strategy seems to be to destabilize Ukraine as much as possible without leaving conclusive evidence that would trigger more sanctions."

Again, some–or even all–of this could be true. But the Times doesn't seem to have the evidence to back up its claims of Russian management of the separatist movements or uprisings. The only time it presented anything that looked like such evidence, it had to retreat. Deep into the June 1 piece, the Times notes that a Russian investigative journalist thinks "does not believe that either Mr. Borodai or Mr. Strelkov"–those are the two separatists profiled–"is acting on behalf of the Russian government."

What you're left with from the Times is the suggestion that the lack of direct evidence is probably proof that Russia is up to something– i.e., "leaving no fingerprints."

During the days of the Soviet Union, Kremlinologists spent their time poring over state propaganda in an attempt to understand what was really going on in the USSR. It bears some resemblance to what one might be seeing in the New York Times now.

[Pelranius]

New article, Separatists are complaining that Putin hasn't backed them enough.

Amid rising death tolls in eastern Ukraine, the head of a pro-Russian rebel group expressed disappointment Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn't sent in more troops.

"The only possible help for us would be if the Russian forces came," said Dmitry Boitsov of the Russian Orthodox Army from Slaviansk, Ukraine — where fighting has been raging for two straight days.

"If he doesn't bring in forces, there will be people here who would want to destroy him, because he gave us false hope."

The Russian Orthodox Army is a newly formed militia group that is one of several armed rebel groups fighting in Ukraine's chaotic east. They are in dire need of help, Boitsov said.

"Our fighters are mine workers and young lads who do not know how to use arms," Boitsov told NBC News. It feels "like the whole world is against us.There are also many traitors amongst us."

Slaviansk is considered a town with strategic value because of its location at the crossroads of eastern Ukraine's three major regions. It's about 55 miles north of Donetsk, the largest city in the east.

On Wednesday, Boitsov said 50 forces belonging to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic had been killed in the last 24 hours.

"Putin's ratings will fall if he is going to be like this towards us," Boitsov said. "Why does he betray us? He gave us hope to fight, and then gave us up. When he moved his troops, people lost hope."

The fighting in Slaviansk over the past two days has sent many frightened residents fleeing, as gunfire rings out and plumes of black smoke rise above the edge of town.

Separatists have controlled the town of about 130,000 since April.

It's sort of weird to see a bunch of Chechens, Cossacks and Russian Orthodox Army (whatever the hell they believe in) fight together.

[Block]

So Vympel, how do you expect us to take video interviews on BBC with members of the Vostok battalion who say that "Brother Ramzan asked us to come, so we come"? Are we supposed to believe that there is no external involvement?

[K. A. Pital]

Vostok no longer exists, though civilian volunteers - as always - cannot be stopped by borders.