RUMORS OF WAR: Is Ukraine Just About To Blow?

crimsonaudio · Aug 10, 2016

For the better part of a year, the war in Ukraine, has been “frozen but oven-ready,” as former NATO press officer Ben Nimmo once put it, with regular upticks in violence and provocations not quite leading to full-scale melt-downs.

That changed over the last week, however, with whispers inside Ukraine and among the foreign press corps that another big clash may be in the final stages of preparation with the locus of unusual activity in, yes, Crimea. Tatar activists on the peninsula noted that Russian military hardware had been moving towards the northern towns of Dzhankoy and Armyansk, near the frontier with Ukrainian-controlled territory.

At the same time, verifiable video evidence emerged of large quantities of Russian military hardware on the move in the south of Crimea.

Columns of armored personnel carriers, military ambulances, fuel tankers, trucks, signals and engineering vehicles have been recorded in the port town of Kerch— which handles ferry arrivals from Russia. They have also been spotted in the Crimean regional capital of Simferopol, and outside a military training range near the southern town of Feodosia.

In Sevastopol, RFE/RL’s Crimean Service filmed the Mirazh, a Nanuchka-class missile corvette, at anchor in the bay. Incidentally, it was the Mirazh that sank a Georgian coastal patrol boat exactly eight years ago today.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/10/is-ukraine-just-about-to-blow.html

This has quietly been brewing for some time now. I'm not certain that Putin is satisfied with Crimea...

Would love to hear Tidewater's thoughts on this article.

Catfish · Aug 10, 2016

Maybe we could go in there and diffuse the situation with a few nukes. Why cant we do that?

92tide · Aug 10, 2016

Catfish said:
Maybe we could go in there and diffuse the situation with a few nukes. Why cant we do that?

we'd have to make sure they pay for the nukes first.

Tidewater · Aug 10, 2016

crimsonaudio said:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/10/is-ukraine-just-about-to-blow.html

This has quietly been brewing for some time now. I'm not certain that Putin is satisfied with Crimea...

Would love to hear Tidewater's thoughts on this article.

I know Ben Nimmo. Good man, astute observer.

Pavel Felgenauer, whom I do not know personally, but would love to share a Stoly with, has some astute observations as well:
1. Lame duck president. There is some "time pressure" on the American side, the desire to achieve something before the change of administrations.
2. The Russians are moving hardware north in the Crimea, and the Russo-Georgian War started with Russian "peacekeepers" setting aside the role of peacekeepers and assuming the role of "international belligerent."

NationalTitles18 · Aug 10, 2016

92tide said:
we'd have to make sure they pay for the nukes first.

The nuke just got bigger.

crimsonaudio · Aug 10, 2016

Thanks for your input, TW.

Tidewater said:
Pavel Felgenauer's thoughts

Ugh.

Tidewater · Aug 10, 2016

Trump advisor Paul Manafort had ties to Russian interests in Ukraine and has massaged the Republican platform vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine, or as one Russian dissident has put it, "А теперь Манафорт пролез к Трампу, но связь с российскими кураторами наверняка не потерял." ("Now Manafort climbed to the Trump [bandwagon], but the relationship with the Russian overseers is certainly not lost.").
On the other hand, "the situation in US-Russia relations would significantly change if the Minsk document’s implementation proceeds before the US presidential election."

If you sleep with dogs, you wake up with flees. Lots of dogs in this.

TIDE-HSV · Aug 10, 2016

Tidewater said:
Trump advisor Paul Manafort had ties to Russian interests in Ukraine and has massaged the Republican platform vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine, or as one Russian dissident has put it, "А теперь Манафорт пролез к Трампу, но связь с российскими кураторами наверняка не потерял." ("Now Manafort climbed to the Trump [bandwagon], but the relationship with the Russian overseers is certainly not lost.").
On the other hand, "the situation in US-Russia relations would significantly change if the Minsk document’s implementation proceeds before the US presidential election."

If you sleep with dogs, you wake up with flees. Lots of dogs in this.

Lotsa fleas, also. The Manchurian Candidate?

Tidewater · Aug 10, 2016

TIDE-HSV said:
Lotsa fleas, also. The Manchurian Candidate?

Maybe, but a more plausible explanation for the Donald's behavior is that Bill suggested to The Donald that he run as a Republican against H when her time came.
"You know, if you just bluster and bang the nationalist drum and wave a flag, most of those rubes will buy it. Then, you can throw the match and Hillary will waltz into the White House. We'll take care of you on the fiip side."

MattinBama · Aug 10, 2016

There must be something about the Olympics that just makes Putin want some war.

TIDE-HSV · Aug 10, 2016

MattinBama said:
There must be something about the Olympics that just makes Putin want some war.

Almost having all of your teams blanket-banned for state-sponsored doping might have something to do with it...

92tide · Aug 11, 2016

Tidewater said:
Maybe, but a more plausible explanation for the Donald's behavior is that Bill suggested to The Donald that he run as a Republican against H when her time came.
"You know, if you just bluster and bang the nationalist drum and wave a flag, most of those rubes will buy it. Then, you can throw the match and Hillary will waltz into the White House. We'll take care of you on the fiip side."

bill may have suggested it, but the gop put him at the top of the ticket

Tidewater · Aug 11, 2016

92tide said:
bill may have suggested it, but the gop put him at the top of the ticket

True. Out of frustration with Republicans in Washington campaigning one way, and acting another once they got (back) in office. The establishment Republicans in Washington brought this on themselves. Trump is, to most of his supporters out here in fly-over country, an anti-Washington candidate. Folks inside the Beltway hold non-Washingtonians generally in contempt, and this year, non-Washingtonians are returning the favor.

Tidewater · Aug 11, 2016

Here is a take from a Russian dissident, Valery Solovey, who believes Putin will not re-ignite the Donbas war.
There was a Ukrainian "terror" incident in Crimea recently and Russian military moves are a response to that.
It would be "senseless and counterproductive" for Putin to pursue overt military action against Ukraine just now. "Putin did not go for a military solution in the favorable situation in April 2014, and now the situation is extremely disadvantageous."
Solovey says Putin wants to put pressure on Kyiv and get western governments to put pressure on Kyiv to implement the Minsk-2 agreement.

Tidewater · Aug 12, 2016

Wasn't sure where to place this, but I thought it was funny and thought other might appreciate it.

Putin has done what Hitler could Not: Close the Stalingrad Tractor Works.
Apparent the Russian economy is so bad, that Russian authorities have taken the decision to close the tractor factory in Volgograd, which kept producing tanks even during the battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43. Now it is closed.

Who says Russians don't have a sense of humor?

Tidewater · Aug 17, 2016

Another take.
40,000 Russian troops mobilizing on the border.
Then again, the Ukrainian apparently poked the bear in Crimea a few weeks ago and this might be Russia's response. Rattling 40,000 sabers along the border.

81usaf92 · Aug 17, 2016

Tidewater said:
Another take.
40,000 Russian troops mobilizing on the border.
Then again, the Ukrainian apparently poked the bear in Crimea a few weeks ago and this might be Russia's response. Rattling 40,000 sabers along the border.

I seriously doubt even if Putin crosses into Ukraine the west would do anything more than what they did when he invaded Crimea. So I think Ukraine is gernerally alone on this. But I don't think Putin will invade, and this is more of a "shut up and be happy you still have most of your country" statement. Plus I doubt Putin would want to deal with the conquered people constantly rebelling to really want to conquer it in the first place. He got what he wanted in 2014, and he just wants the west and the Ukraine to either try to take it back or shut up and color.

Point is the business in the Ukraine is over, and WWIII isn't going to start because the Ivans and the Bears invade an Eastern European country not named Poland.

bama_wayne1 · Aug 18, 2016

Hasn't the Ukraine always blown???

Tidewater · Aug 18, 2016

81usaf92 said:
I seriously doubt even if Putin crosses into Ukraine the west would do anything more than what they did when he invaded Crimea. So I think Ukraine is gernerally alone on this. But I don't think Putin will invade, and this is more of a "shut up and be happy you still have most of your country" statement. Plus I doubt Putin would want to deal with the conquered people constantly rebelling to really want to conquer it in the first place. He got what he wanted in 2014, and he just wants the west and the Ukraine to either try to take it back or shut up and color.

Point is the business in the Ukraine is over, and WWIII isn't going to start because the Ivans and the Bears invade an Eastern European country not named Poland.

I would agree. Some have suggested that Putin would like to geographically connect the Donbas, Crimea and the Russian mini-state in Transnistria (eastern Moldova), but the regions of Ukraine between those are Ukrainian-majority regions. They have a slightly higher than average percentage of Russians. Within Zaporozhiya Oblast (like a state in Ukraine), the Yakymivskyi Raion (county), Pryazovskyi Raion, Melitopolskyi Raion, Prymorsk Raion all have significant Russian minorities but they all have small total populations. Odessa has a population that is 29% Russian.
Bottom line, "connecting the Russian dots, if that was what Putin had in mind, would be tough and would entail having a big (and angry) Ukrainian population inside Russian-administered territory.

RUMORS OF WAR: Is Ukraine Just About To Blow?

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