DISCLAIMER: If you have no interest in discussing Ukrainian civil war or something related, this thread will be useless to you.

For the rest of us, here's the deal:

1. As many here are painfully aware , one of my main hobbies is studying the Ukraine war, and writing/translating stuff about it. Furthermore, I think the official CNN/Obama administration narrative is full of shit (although the Russian official story is also crap).

2. This presents two problems: first of all, I get into protracted mud-slinging contests with a couple Ukrainian nationalists on here. Sorta like #Trump/#nevertrump debacle, but even less intelligible to a non-believer. This even happens in threads that initially contain no mention of UA, e.g. Arab Memes Thread. I feel bad about derailing threads, but I can't simply ignore it when some dude starts accusing me of being a Russian FSB employee or something.
Therefore, this thread is for me to have purse fights with Kopec and Co.

3. Second problem arises when someone starts asking honest questions related to the conflict. Since it usually comes from people reading only Western sources, it's like explaining gun laws to anti-gunners, or explaining capitalism to a Berner. You can't just give a reasonably complete, useful answer without a prolonged discussion (I actually wrote about this).

Imagine trying to explain the Iran Air 655 incident to an Iranian: to come to a conclusion on the issue, you'd have to compare and reconcile American and Iranian views of what led up to the tragedy. That would include the specifics of the incident, previous naval fighting in the Gulf, US involvement in the Iran-Iraq war, what led to it, US support for the Shah government, etc. etc. - up 1920 Anglo-Persian Agreement maybe.

So, the second purpose of this thread is to move lengthy, serious discussions of UA conflict details here, so they wouldn't clutter up other threads.
However, please note that just like with capitalism vs socialism or the gun debate, there is no way to explain _everything_ in any forum discussion. Moreover, someone else's answers are pretty useless without having your own in-depth knowledge on the issue - I can tell you 2+2=5, but unless you go out and study math yourself, you won't be able to check if it's true, and 1+1 and 3+3 would remain a mystery. And as the 2+2 thing above hints, I'm pretty biased and by no means infallible.

Therefore, feel free to ask anything about UA and related topics (Russian foreign policy, how do "Putin troll" websites work, etc.), but keep in mind that:
- You would get a lot better answers on recent, factual stuff (what were the key reasons for UAF retreat from Debaltsevo in Feb 2015?) rather than political/philosophical ancient issues (what is the relationship between Russian and Ukrainian nations?)
- I will give a lot of links, because I'd rather link an in-depth article explaining the issue than copy-paste a wall of text
- For many questions (e.g. UA famine 1932, genesis of Donbass militias) I don't know of an article that would adequately explain all the factors that played into it, and I can't give a sufficiently complete explanation on a forum. So, you'll get a short answer and a few incomplete links.

How much does he pay?

Where is stienhab?

He is the one who should be your prosecutor.
But I'll be on the jury.

I'll be the other one not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

FYI, I'm all about jury nullification...for the right price.

You know, it's pretty funny. There are probably people employed by the Russian state to run blogs. But they work almost exclusively inside Russia and for Russian public, as far as I understand.

To the best of my knowledge, the only "Putin's troll" website turning any sort of profit is Russia Insider, and they do it through an obnoxious marketing campaign and stealing articles from other sites. Now, I don't mind if they reprint my stuff, but a lot of people are pissed at them and consider them basically profiting from the civil war hysteria, and the free work of volunteer translators/bloggers. I can't be bothered digging into the whole mess and finding out who's in the right.

There's obviously RT, too, but it's not like random crazy bloggers can get a job there. Plus both me and most ppl I know disagree with the "Party line' too much to work there.

We've done that McCartyist dance with steinhab like 3-4 times, pretty sure he got the answers he wanted by now ).

There are a lot of US military guys over there.

One is a friend of mine, a Ukrainian guy. The DoS interviewed me about him before they let him in.

Last time i was in Kyiv, my hotel was full of guys from Fort Collins. Up drinkin late.

Good times.....

Op is good people!

McCarthy was right.

A Dance of Two Trolls.

That is the title of my next book.

Make your case if you're serious.
We're sort of, kind of monitoring between hot pockets and beer runs

So what did the russians do with all the stuff they looted off the corpses from MH17 after they shot it down?

Awesome idea OP!  

Maybe JasonB will have the courage to start a thread like this to come clean about his slave erotic humiliation fetish.  

In for the pics of the IDF girls

I got nothing against the troops, but let's just say I strongly disagree with Obama/Biden/Kerry decision to get into that whole mess.

For one, it resurrected the ghost of global nuclear war. Also, US is getting blamed by half of the world for UA going down the drain (the half that isn't watching CNN/BBC).

What do they have to show for it? Joe Biden's son as CEO of gas company in UA? Great f***ing trade.

Probably? It's a known fact.

Video explaining it:

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

Video is part of my recent thread, actually:

Donbass militiaman - memories from the trenches at Yampol, June 2014

Tell us about the 44 tons of gold that the Ukraine had.

No, some libtard newspaper published a story claiming its a fact.
BTW, even they were claiming those "Putin's trolls" were working inside Russia on a second-rate Russian blog platform.

The reason I'm saying it's probably true is because I've seen a few stories of popular Moscow bloggers being contracted for hit pieces on specific companies or officials, to influence municipal elections, that sorta deal. But hey, FHRC does it over here, too.

Not that faintest idea.
What, are the coup-installed officials claiming the former president stashed it all in his pockets when he walked out of the office? Right as they're moving large amounts of unexplained cash into offshore accounts?

The paid ones run the universities, work as comunity organizers and are mebers of the US govt and court system.

I love the ghost of global nuclear war.

I grew up with it.

If you think any other president would have done different, then you know jack shit about history.

How much is Putin paying you?

Meh, I suppose since this is a thread for UA clutter, I'll please the crowd and add a few pics of Donbass militia fighters:




















PS. Some of these are probably cooks/clerks given guns. Some have likely seen combat. According to photo caption, last girl is KIA. The one before her was company CO at Ilovaysk battle.

Get out of Ukraine.

That video didn't explain anything it's a propaganda piece to make it seem like Pootie poots buddies didn't know they shot down an airliner while the launcher retreated into russia.

And does nothing to contradict the videos of people rifling through luggage looking for valuables while speaking russian

If both Obama and Putin got out of Ukraine when the mess started, militia would've likely won.
Coup-installed regime was flat broke, without Obama financing the war it would go nowhere.
Not to mention the coup would've never happened without Western backing.

As for Russians in UA... Well there were a lot of volunteers, but they were still a minority. IIRC UAF took over 1,000 militia POW, less than 50 were Russian citizens, only 12 were Russian solders. That should give you an idea of force composition.

There was a lot of outside meddling and supply to be sure, but as I said above, both sides are guilty of that.

Meh. FGWB? Prolly. Reagan or even Bill? Doubt it. They didn't interfere in conflicts in other Soviet republics, IIRC. Although of course, the world was different back then.

EDIT: Payment discussed above

Aaand that's how I know you have no idea how these things work in the real world.

1. Propaganda/no propaganda, it proves the "evidence" used in the official mass media story is shit.
Wanna have another go? Find new evidence.

2. Why would you think the militia on site would know about the launcher? They're likely a different faction/unit, for chrissakes.
... Now that I think about it, if Grim was still in the same outfit at the time, that means he was from a different republic than people who may have had the launcher.

3. Even if someone looted shit (which some locals may have done, although militia did establish a quarantine around the area), they certainly wouldn't do it on camera. "People going through luggage" are doing so to find IDs and personal effects.

The United States is going to remain committed to the Ukrainian people, and rest assured that the illegal occupation of Crimea is not legitimized by the time passed. Illegal is illegal even after 2 years, and what was stolen will be returned and the people behind the illegal invasion and occupation will be held accountable.

The justification to Annex Crimea was based on a highly dubious and unilateral referendum, with no international oversight, no internationally recognized electronic systems to ensure electoral fairness and prevent fraud, and it was done under the gun barrels of Putin's thugs.

Soon, Russia will collapse under the weight of crushing US sanctions and it's own tyranny both at home and abroad, the question is when.

In this thead: Russian IW goes fishing for suckers.

Isn't it amazing how these airliners always go down near Russian missile deployments?

The flight MH17 shot down over Ukraine with 298 men, women, and children murdered.
The Egyptian flight now shot down within striking distance of the missiles deployed in Syria to prop up the Assad regime and protect ISIS terrorists from coalition airstrikes.

There's this tiny issue of local population overwhelmingly supporting the annexation, according to Gallup and Canadian polls specifically designed to prove the opposite.
LINKY

Not to mention the whole thing involved only one shootout with 2 KIA (local militiaman and a UAF soldier).
In fact, reunification was supported by the vast majority of local cops and soldiers. IIRC only about 20% didn't later enlist in the Russian army.
LINKY

As for "illegality" of occupation, the coup was equally illegal. In effect, USA soft-annexed Ukraine with the support of ~50% the population, Russia hard-annexed Crimea with the support of 80%+ of the population.

Not to mention the Kosovo thing:
Hey Obama, What About Serbia’s “Territorial Integrity”?

To be fair this one actually has a beginners grasp of rhetoric, unlike Primorsky who was pretty much just "RUSSIA #1 STALIN HERO MOTHERLAND AHHHHHHHHH!"

Well, if we go into far-fetched stuff...

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870

Also, since we got to the usual "Blame Assad for ISIS" stage:
(BBC) poll shows 81 percent of Syrians believe US created ISIS

Guy, I really can't reasonably connect the dots on that one

I actually read that in a stereotypical vodka-drunk Russian voice.

With this playing in the background.

And yet, not one shred of evidence.

The UN made it clear that the international community would respect the will of the Crimean people, and repeatedly offered to provide legitimate oversight and electronic systems to ensure the vote was not rigged. But Putin refused like a petulant child and came out with the now iconic hand counted voting result showing 90%+ of the people supported unification (similar to how North Korea does elections). Remaining part of Ukraine was not even on the ballot, and armed thugs were posted at the doors of polling stations preventing the democratic opposition from even entering the building. Putin even denied that these thugs were Russian military units, calling them "self defense" forces. The entire affair was wrapped in lies, deceit, illegality, and illegitimacy, because Putin knew that the Crimean people were and will always be Ukrainians, and they would never support breaking from their home country to be annexed the tyrannical state who slaughtered them in years prior.

You sound like one of the girls from the state dept

I'm not putting my money on that. The Saudi's are already starting to crack, and they are the cornerstone of our economic pressure on Russia.

It could still happen, but the odds aren't looking so great. If Russia keeps its shit together through September, I think they'll ride out the storm.

Beyond the absolutely crucial importance of Saudi economic pressure, a lot hinges on the instability in Europe. The more Europe falls apart, the less likely Russia will implode.

Putin is an asshole. Ukraine is an eu/us controlled government to fuck with Putin. UA lives do not matter.

V

 



We bailed on Ukraine and on Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans.

Is the pay in Good Vodka?

Actually, the dickheads mentioned had an obligation to be involved.  They are just pussies doing their best to weaken America in the eyes of the world.

Txl

Our lack of response in Georgia was fucking bullshit. If we had put Putin in check in Georgia, this shit wouldn't have happened in Ukraine.

Hey remember when the Russian backed militia committed war crimes by executing Ukrainian POWs? https://news.vice.com/video/the-ruins-of-donetsk-airport-russian-roulette-dispatch-95




Execution of uniformed fighters with bound hands.












 

Sheeeeit, a bunch of us outed a few GRU cocksuckers apiece in the big Ukraine thread.


I outed 3 of them.

I'd have sent a C-5 full of Javelins to the Azov battalion.

The Russian backed insurgency got mauled. The VDV and Spetznatz units hopefully are hurting from their losses.


There's a motherfucking ghost army all over the Rodina now.


Then there was the armor officer's selfie trail