Meanwhile, back in Kiev....

[pErvinalia]

Well there's evidence to suggest that they were meddling. Secret tapes and all.

Doesn't the Crimea have some sort of autonomy within Ukraine?

[mistermack]

It's funny how the double standards crop up.

In the UK, when Scotland wanted a vote on independence, both parties said that it was their right, and they would abide by the democratic wishes of the Scottish people.

The Crimeans want a vote, and it's ''Crimea will always be part of Ukraine''.

Well, fuck em. They're having their vote, and it only took em ten days.
It took Alex Salmond five years.

[Seth]

It's funny how the double standards crop up.

In the UK, when Scotland wanted a vote on independence, both parties said that it was their right, and they would abide by the democratic wishes of the Scottish people.

The Crimeans want a vote, and it's ''Crimea will always be part of Ukraine''.

Well, fuck em. They're having their vote, and it only took em ten days.
It took Alex Salmond five years.

I didn't say that. I said that Crimea is part of Ukraine and as it happens I don't think that the administration of Crimea, which is analogous to a state government in the US, has the power to unilaterally declare the people and the land to be separate from Ukraine. Certainly not without consultation with the Ukraine central government and a vote of the people of, at the very least, Crimea. What happened was a unilateral legislative declaration of secession that doesn't appear to have any more legal basis than would Scotland's Parliament doing the same thing.

If the people of Crimea vote in a fair and impartial election to secede from Ukraine and align with Russia, then I'm willing to accept that. But no such vote has been held.

[mistermack]

If the people of Crimea vote in a fair and impartial election to secede from Ukraine and align with Russia, then I'm willing to accept that. But no such vote has been held.

Their parliament voted for exactly that, and the people will have their vote in about eight days.

And the Russians made sure that Kiev can't interfere.

Sorted.

What's amusing is all the talk about how Russia will suffer.
They're saving about fifteen billion, that they were going to give Ukraine.
Plus the rent that they will no longer pay to house their fleet.
Plus the rent that Ukraine WILL have to pay, to keep their ships in port.

The Russians suffering? They're billions better off.

[Svartalf]

except it's illegal.
a) as per the constitution it needs be a national votation, not regional

b) The Crimea is an unalienable part of Ukraine in the first place, again as per the constitution.

[mistermack]

except it's illegal.
a) as per the constitution it needs be a national votation, not regional

b) The Crimea is an unalienable part of Ukraine in the first place, again as per the constitution.

The constitution has been ripped up by a coup. There is no constitutional government in Kiev.

The Crimea is not an unalienable part of Ukraine. It was part of Russia, till Kruschov (a Ukrainian) got drunk one night and just GAVE it to Ukraine. That doesn't make it ''unalienable''.

On 19 February 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued a decree transferring the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.[27][28] The transfer of the Crimean Oblast to Ukraine has been described as a "symbolic gesture," marking the 300th anniversary of Ukraine becoming a part of the Russian Empire.[29][30] The General Secretary of the Communist Party in Soviet Union was at the time the Ukranian Nikita Khrushchev.

Clearly, the Crimea was transferred to Ukraine, on the understanding that the Ukraine was to remain part of the USSR. Yeltzin should have taken it back, when they split. But he was probably drunk too.

Maybe Putin got drunk and said, ''fuck em, we'll have it back''.
That's how things are done, in Russia.

[Audley Strange]

Western Democracy in action. "We want to be Russian!"

"NO! and if you keep that up their'll be reprisals"

[Jason]

Seth, I don't know where you get your 'facts' from, but you're an idiot.

In case you didn't notice, the new 'government' of the Ukraine is illegitimate, the legitimate government of the Crimea asked for Russian protection, the Crimean government has voted to join the Russian Federation. The western coup didn't go as planned, the neo-nazis took it over, and now the west is caught with its pants down in a situation where they can neither intervene militarily nor economically and their proposed puppets have already been subverted. It's a cock-up of monumental proportions that really looks good on the hypocritical US foreign department.

You forgot the part where the supposed "coup" was endorsed by the Ukrainian parliament voting unanimously to remove Yanukovich.

No, I didn't forget that 338 members voted to oust him in an unconstitutional vote. What they did was illegal - that's what illegitimate means in this context.

[MiM]

Only dictators rule their countries alone. Everybody else needs the confidence of the people and their representatives.

[Warren Dew]

except it's illegal.
a) as per the constitution it needs be a national votation, not regional

b) The Crimea is an unalienable part of Ukraine in the first place, again as per the constitution.

The constitution has been ripped up by a coup. There is no constitutional government in Kiev.

To the contrary. It was Yanukovich who ripped up the constitution as one of his first acts when he came to officie. The legislature has recently reinstated it.

[Warren Dew]

Seth, I don't know where you get your 'facts' from, but you're an idiot.

In case you didn't notice, the new 'government' of the Ukraine is illegitimate, the legitimate government of the Crimea asked for Russian protection, the Crimean government has voted to join the Russian Federation. The western coup didn't go as planned, the neo-nazis took it over, and now the west is caught with its pants down in a situation where they can neither intervene militarily nor economically and their proposed puppets have already been subverted. It's a cock-up of monumental proportions that really looks good on the hypocritical US foreign department.

You forgot the part where the supposed "coup" was endorsed by the Ukrainian parliament voting unanimously to remove Yanukovich.

No, I didn't forget that 338 members voted to oust him in an unconstitutional vote. What they did was illegal - that's what illegitimate means in this context.

[Warren Dew]

It's funny how the double standards crop up.

Maybe for you. When half our states voted to leave, they got the bloodiest war in history to prevent them.

[Jason]

Seth, I don't know where you get your 'facts' from, but you're an idiot.

In case you didn't notice, the new 'government' of the Ukraine is illegitimate, the legitimate government of the Crimea asked for Russian protection, the Crimean government has voted to join the Russian Federation. The western coup didn't go as planned, the neo-nazis took it over, and now the west is caught with its pants down in a situation where they can neither intervene militarily nor economically and their proposed puppets have already been subverted. It's a cock-up of monumental proportions that really looks good on the hypocritical US foreign department.

You forgot the part where the supposed "coup" was endorsed by the Ukrainian parliament voting unanimously to remove Yanukovich.

No, I didn't forget that 338 members voted to oust him in an unconstitutional vote. What they did was illegal - that's what illegitimate means in this context.

Um.. no.

Also the pretext of Yanukovich ordering snipers to kill protesters turned out to be so much bullshit. In case you only get your news from western sources: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/

It was an engineered and armed coup. Add to it that they broke the constitution by impeaching Yanukovich without legal cause and the current government is very much illegitimate.

[subversive science]

Because we should trust RT when it comes to Russian propaganda... uh, I mean news.

[Seth]

Because we should trust RT when it comes to Russian propaganda... uh, I mean news.

Even the article was vague allusive with no hard evidence.

If I had to state a conspiracy theory I'd say the snipers were SPEZNAZ or FSB agents sent by Putin to shoot at both sides to foment exactly what happened, or worse, which provided cover for Putin to seize Crimea. That certainly explains snipers shooting at everybody better than the article does.