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wantkitteh writes:
"The BBC is reporting that Russia has given Ukrainian military forces in Crimea a deadline of 3AM Tuesday morning to surrender or face assault. Moscow claims the position is to protect Russian civilians in Crimea following what it describes as the illegal coup in the past weeks. The Ukrainian Prime Minister has denounced Russia's actions as totally illegal and has called on it's allies to put pressure on Moscow. Russian military readiness in the area is very high with a blockade in place at Ukraine's naval headquarters and pre-positioned air and ground forces already in central locations around Crimea. Ukrainian forces are outnumbered and unprepared to face the threat. Demonstrations in the largely Russian-speaking area have supported Moscow's position while outside the area civilians are scared of what the future holds."
Russia's military has given Ukrainian forces in Crimea until dawn on Tuesday to surrender or face an assault, Ukrainian defence sources have said. The head of Russia's Black Sea Fleet Aleksander Vitko set the deadline and also threatened two warships, Ukrainian officials said. However, Interfax news agency later quoted a fleet spokesman who denied that any ultimatum had been issued. Moscow has said its troops are needed in Crimea to protect civilians. The Kremlin says people in Crimea have come under threat from "ultra-nationalists" since pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted last month. Russia is now said to be in de facto control of the Crimea region.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Monday March 03 2014, @10:35PM
Thanks for posting that. For once we get to read -- in an American newspaper, no less -- a reporter who declines to separate the complex, ethnically-based crisis into "good guys" and "bad guys."
Even splitting the country in two would not solve this problem, since you'd still have the minority ethnic Ukrainians in the east, and minority ethnic Russians in the west, who'd become isolated and vulnerable.
The Balkans have pretty much the same problem. If I understand correctly, several sub-Saharan African countries do, too, partly because the former colonial powers disregarded ethnic differences when they drew up the borders of the colonies in Africa.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2, Informative) by darinbob on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:18AM
One reason that Estonia has fared so much better than Latvia and Lithuania is that it had a much smaller percentage of Russians, most of whom showed up in the Soviet era. It's certainly not the only reason of course, but it stands out. Never the less, when Estonia decided to relocate a WWII memorial to an unknown Russian soldier from city center to a cemetary, Russia became furious. To the Estonians this was a symbol of an occupation by a subjugating power, but to the Russians this was a near sacred symbol of all they had sacrificed to stop Hitler's armies. So of course the Estonians were called nazis and fascists, very similar to what they are saying about the western Ukrainians.
One thing in Ukraine though is that it is not necessarily that it's borders were drawn arbitrarily, but that there were active measures taken to put Russians there which was started with the czars and continued in the Soviet eras. The Crimea was neither Ukrainian nor Russian for a long time, though it changed hands often, until Stalin forcibly deported all of the Crimean Tatars who lived there to central Asia, and then later all of the Armenians, Bulgarians, etc. At that point it was essentially part of Russia, in name and in population; but then oddly Stalin granted it to Ukraine.
I personally think the autonomous region of Crimea should just be a separate state, since right now it is basically de-facto a part of Russia. But for rest of Ukraine it is very odd state of affairs. Do you punish western Ukraine for not being pro-Russia and pro-Putin, or do you punish eastern Ukraine for having the bad luck to have ancestors resettled by Stalin or the czars, or do you punish both sides by keeping them together, or punish both sides by splitting them apart?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:15AM
It was under Krushchev that Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.