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Kiev Is Burning


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Sacking the local police does nothing to replace them. This, not Ukraine's military weaknesses, may prove the most crucial defect. As we found out in Iraq/Afghanistan, troops are not alone the solution.

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Roman got one thing right - it's fairly clear the Russian gunmen and thugs coordinated closely with Odessa police. The red arm bands on both police and rioters were a dead giveway. The Interior Minister has announced that Odessa security services have completely failed in their responsibilities, and the leadership in both police and security apparatus will be sacked completely. That's in addition to the ongoing investigation into actual collusion with pro-Russian rioters, which will likely end in criminal charges.

 

Meanwhile about 70 pro-Russian activists arrested yesterday were released by police after pro-Russian crowd nearly took over police headquarter building. Kiev officials are angry about it. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/04/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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Sacking the local police does nothing to replace them. This, not Ukraine's military weaknesses, may prove the most crucial defect. As we found out in Iraq/Afghanistan, troops are not alone the solution.

 

Interesting - police claim that the prosecution office ordered them to release the protesters, while prosecution office claims they did no such thing and started a criminal case against leadership of Odessa police.

 

Multiple agencies are starting their own paramilitary units - Ministry of Interior, Ukrainian Security Agency (SBU), local provinces....I'm guessing they will be replacing the police in "public order maintenance" role, and police reduced to criminal cases. In general, the talk is on drastically reducing the ranks of police who are seen as useless unless bribed into action.

Edited by Gregory
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Multiple agencies are starting their own paramilitary units - Ministry of Interior, Ukrainian Security Agency (SBU), local provinces...

Seems like situation in Russia in mid-1990th, when even Russian Post created own “spetsnaz” – all this in addition to oligarch’s private armies under cover of security firms… It is not helping security at all.

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The BTR-4's had some cracks in their armor. Which may have been due to any number of reasons.

 

It's something that happens to LAVs if they have high hardness steel as armor (which most should have due to the thiness, but this can lead to cracks).

 

They'll be fine combat units though, even with the cracks. It's not like they're going to face massed 12.7/14.5mm fire.

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Another NYT Sort of Retraction on Ukraine

The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraines east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

The Times, which has been an unapologetic promoter of the pro-democracy uprising that ousted the democratically elected president through violent extra-constitutional means, has recently been promoting the theme that Ukrainians would be happy with their new unelected government if only the Russians werent destabilizing eastern Ukraine.

 

(...)

So apparently after NYT bothered to actually send the reporters to the field, they "suddenly" found there are no Russian agents there. How surprising!

 

P.S. For the sake of my sanity, I no longer engage in arguments with members who see people burned alive and the resulting applause - and condemn not the criminals, but the victims.

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Still waiting for someone to explain why the US should get involved in someone else's misfortune?

 

Why am I supposed to care about all this scheming, fuckery and dysfunction?

 

Do they have money to buy arms? Hire PMC's? No....move along kid, you scare off customers. S/F....Ken M

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Another NYT Sort of Retraction on Ukraine

The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraines east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

The Times, which has been an unapologetic promoter of the pro-democracy uprising that ousted the democratically elected president through violent extra-constitutional means, has recently been promoting the theme that Ukrainians would be happy with their new unelected government if only the Russians werent destabilizing eastern Ukraine.

 

(...)

So apparently after NYT bothered to actually send the reporters to the field, they "suddenly" found there are no Russian agents there. How surprising!

 

P.S. For the sake of my sanity, I no longer engage in arguments with members who see people burned alive and the resulting applause - and condemn not the criminals, but the victims.

 

 

Oh yes. In Lav's vivid imagination, Russian agents are running around with "I'm a Russian agent t-shirt" and holding PKMs with ammo clips in Rambo style giving interviews to the first western journalists they spot.

 

Wake me up when the journalists interview some of the "little green men" that control the local crowds and militias...Might be a bit hard in Odessa for at least some them. Don't worry, medals for "Liberation of Ukraine" can be given post-mortem too !

 

And since you're so sincere in defending the right of russian elements in Ukraine to protest against a new government, I can only wish you'll be on Minsk streets protesting at your government when you feel your rights aren't respected. What can be more democratic than living by the same ideals in your country (kinda like Putin's Russia ) as the ones you encourage in Ukraine.

Have a good day !

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Photographs dating, reportedly, back to 2006 – NATO instructors running partisan warfare courses for Ukrainian nationalist youth in Estonia (but under flags of USA and UK).

http://varjag-2007.livejournal.com/2337068.html

If I remember correctly from 2006 it was later reported to be members of the Ukraininan Plast scout organization (http://www.plast.org.ua/en/). The venue in someones private farmhouse where a local club organizes military styled camps and competitions. There is an obstacle course and some dummy training equipment and opportunity to fire some guns. Certainly not NATO instructors and military base as mentioned in link.

 

Edited by carrierlost
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Nice, you tied irrelevant WW2 crap in with "terrorism."(the current excuse de jour for fuckery) Well done. Just in case you weren't aware, Chamberlain was not American :P

 

Look, you're UK'ian, I'm American. Given 20/20 hindsight, the US should have left WW2 ETO well enough alone, for the Nazis and Commies to fucking slaughter each other, even more than they did. Let fools kill each other. Make Money!

 

So because we have let the paid-for fools in DC and the scheming shysters in NYC loan some taxpayer money to foreigners, we should throw good money after bad and kick a tar baby? Really? Bullshit. Maybe the American taxpaying public should pull their heads out of the sand and ask "why are my tax dollars going to Zubash, the corrupt 3rd world oligarch? And how did they get there? Why should I send my sons to get some scheming NYC fuck's money back from Zubash? "

 

The Somalia savage issue is overblown by hand wringing pussies. Kill anything remotely resembling a pirate past the 12mile limit, problem solved. "But fishermen!" says the handwringing pussies. Too fucking bad, there's no law but power in international waters, same as there ever was.

 

Pussies get fucked, it's not just a cute line in a movie.

 

This is all just scheming fuckery. Ignore the bleats of stupid people and schemers, keep one hand on your wallet, the other on your pistol.

 

And one more thing, I don't think the various "real" countries in Europe are going to have serious problems with insurgents. The locals generally don't have much difficulty finding troublesome foreigners in their countries. Now if you let your country turn into a Balkanized shithole full of foreign malcontents OTOH, you might have some issues. S/F....Ken M

Edited by EchoFiveMike
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Wake me up when the journalists interview some of the "little green men" that control the local crowds and militias

 

 

Uh... have I missed something? Isn't that exactly what the NYT article was about?

 

 

some of the "little green men" that control the local crowds and militias...Might be a bit hard in Odessa for at least some them. Don't worry, medals for "Liberation of Ukraine" can be given post-mortem too !

 

 

What a genuinely deplorable comment. The disregard towards human life when it's in his interests that Stuart was attributing to Putin above seems to apply even more to you... except you haven't got any interests, you're just being a d!ck on the internet about people dying in tragic circumstances.

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Look, you're UK'ian, I'm American. Given 20/20 hindsight, the US should have left WW2 ETO well enough alone, for the Nazis and Commies to fucking slaughter each other, even more than they did. Let fools kill each other. Make Money!

 

 

Well it's just as well you aren't in charge of anything then. Without US involvement in Lend Lease and North Africa there's a good chance the Nazis would have overrun the USSR and the UK or the USSR would have defeated the Nazis and carried on 'liberating' the rest of Europe. Either way, the post-WWII situation would have been very different and, don't forget, who ever won was coming for you too (but this time with a resource pool spanning the whole of Europe, Russia and beyond).

Edited by ink
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Lend-lease= Sell/Make Money therefore "Good!" North Africa was useful as a training op, otherwise just a sideline from the main effort. Like China/Burma/India.

 

The Nazis overrunning the USSR? Doubtful due to the iron rules of logistics. USSR capitulates? Maybe. So what? B36 plus Manhattan Project with wartime work urgency= nuked Nazis in 48-49, even if the UK capitulates too. Nazi invasion was impossible without massive shipbuilding effort, which would have been tough with Lancaster rain. And no commie nukes via theft by spies.

 

What's not to like with this story? S/F....Ken M

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What's not to like with this story? S/F....Ken M

 

The fact that it's BS?

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How do you discover the difference between a East Ukrainian Ethnic Russian and an FSB Agent trying to be the an East Ukrainian? Do they have a barcode tattooed on the back of their head ala Agent 47? Do they wear a T shirt with 'Feliks Dzerzhinsky square trained hood' written on it? :)

 

Yes you are right – it is no way to identify well-prepared agent under cover from locals (especially taking into account there is hardly any practical difference between “East Ukrainian Ethnic Russian” and ethnic Ukrainian, in addition to the fact that many locals are nether Russians nor Ukrainians but Greeks, Armenians, Tatars, Germans, Jews in all possible mixes). But initial Western (and Kiev) point was “All this is done by Putin tourists bussed across the border and GRU units”, with reported hundreds of Russian agents arrested. Now seems like West discovered there is no proof for any Russian presence there and probably no way to get this proof (unless some “barcode tattooed”) - so now seems like it is up to one’s personal believe, it is not firm basis for state policy.

 

And about why Russian government (and large part of both Ukrainian and Russian society) was not supportive of Maidan - may be this video compilation would give idea (quite pathetic, sorry – it is propaganda, but gives you some idea who were at least some of this nice peaceful protestors in fact were) Note: authors translate traditional Ukrainian nationalist slogan “Слава Украине! – Героям слава!” as “Hail Ukraine! – Sieg Hail!” – IMHO it is not correct, it should be “Hail Ukraine! –Hail heroes!”

 

For comparison – crowd in Sevastopol (still Ukraine at that time) greeting Bercut riot police unit as they return from Kiev (crowd chanting “Thank you!”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbBXB49-_d0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XPmCZg1YI - Donetsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYGQ-wy3PRM - Mariupol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2ivWTMKWY - Kharkiv

 

And some Ukrainian video compilations in support of Berkut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og9Ct7HbmQo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-sxaLedpM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzxv1r-lpy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CccXTcJgDXU

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Sometimes I wonder what life would of been like with the internet during the events of the 20th century. This thread provides good insight into that question.

There is another worrying development in local (Ukrainian\Russian) Inet: people from both sides are busy identifying persons caught on images from Odessa (and not only Odessa) and disclosing their identities (names, social networks pages and even addresses) with calls to punish them for what they have done. Especially they are focused on girls for some reason. And, reportedly, at least one pro-Ukrainian 16-yo girl from Odessa already was found badly beaten and now to be transported to Moscow for further medical treatment. With this kind of personal revenge campaign unfolding from both sides, and taking into account specific nature of internet where information is almost indestructible – conflict can last for years, even if some kind of political settlement reached.

Edited by Roman Alymov
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