Are The Ukraine really just going to allow Russia to take a fairly sizeable chunk of their country?

[Rich]

Ridicules pushovers imo. The France of the east.

Stand up for yourselves!

[Nicosia Gooner]

Russia?

[Rich]

done.

Russia can't be allowed to keep Crimea.

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Camp Freddie]

1. He doesn't care about sanctions and knows that he can hurt the EU more than they can hurt him. This explains the high on rhetoric, low on action response so far.
2. The US is not going to launch a land war with Russia over Ukraine. It just isn't, despite hawkish catcalls from Congress.
3. After putting up spurious reasons for invading other countries in the past, the west has no moral legitimacy to complain.

[Classic Jorge]

It's almost as if the rest of the world have too much invested in Russia to kick up a fuss and potentially ruin a very lucrative relationship.

In mitigation though, those people are very, very Russian.

Transdinistra is next.

Moldova who?

[Camp Freddie]

Which wasn't exactly inaccurate! Not condoning mind, just noting the rhetorical similarities.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

1950's. Ukraine wanted to hand it back in 1991 buy Yeltsin, who was drunk at the time, said he didn't want it.

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Wembleygooner- raised in hornsey]

Although thousands of Cypriots died and are still missing with displaced property still in the hands of the invaders - I feel sorry for them - but it could have been much worse, still, a superpower flexing its muscles, are they still fighting in Chechnya ?

[Wembleygooner- raised in hornsey]

As much as I applaud the careful construction of your sound bite - yes it is inaccurate and it's when people swallow the ' we were worried about another country invading so we invaded instead' line that's when the truth of what went on with Kissinger and the Middle East horse traders goes all murky and polarised. Many things contributed but it's plain wrong, was internationally condemned, 40 years later, despite repeated attempts by Turkey to legitimise occupied Cyprus , it isn't recognised . Crimea isn't in the same league as Cyprus. It's bad but Cyprus is far worse.

[Camp Freddie]

[Camp Freddie]

[Camp Freddie]

...Khrushchev was merely redistributing land from one republic to the other. It's of no relevance to the current dispute!

[Chief Arrowhead]

All they can do is spit in Russia's general direction. That's why alliances mean things. The problem arises when the other party decides to renege on the agreement when the going gets tough.

So right now? No,there's nothing they can do.

[Chief Arrowhead]

which crumbles by the logic that our intent on foreign forays is to liberate people from oppression, not to conquer and oppress.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

Republics). The gift of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine made by Khruschev made little difference at the time, but created a hostage to fortune consisting of a huge Russian majority population left in Ukraine when independence came.

As I said before Kravchuk, the first independent leader of Ukraine, was quite happy to give it back to Russia in 1991. If Yeltsin hadn't been such a sot we would have avoided this nastiness.

[Camp Freddie]

...but don't confuse the Soviet term republic with anything like a republic in the western sense. They had no substantive autonomy.

Your point about Yeltsin has some significance. The reality at the time was that Russia was bankrupt and happy to offload as much as possible. Now Putin wants to rebuild the empire.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Will Putin stop at the Crimea or take other Russian speaking 'areas'? If the latter, which I suspect, your argument collapses.

[Camp Freddie]

...with western acquiescence. Iraqis don't look particularly liberated from here!

[Wembleygooner- raised in hornsey]

[Chief Arrowhead]

Did you ever see that final interview with Saddam? So he destroyed all the WMD, but didn't want anyone to know about it as that revelation would have turned his closest confidants against him. This is the kind of thing that intelligence should sort out.

Out "light footprint" strategy indicates how wrong our intelligence was out there. I think we were seen as liberators for about a half hour. Imagine how ****ty it is now after being allowed to 'wither on the vine' under Obama.

[Camp Freddie]

[Wembleygooner- raised in hornsey]

[Mo Britain less Europe]

country.

Ukraine was just as bankrupt as Russia in 1991.

We supported self-determination in Kosovo, remember? And killed innocent civilians in Belgrade to prove our point.

Don't know what Putin will do, he is not a nice guy, but we have to be objective. Good guys can only be considered good guys if they act accordingly.

There may be other trouble spots, don't think so but if by "Empire" you mean Soviet Union and its allies, there is no chance of the Russians marching into Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland etc. None.

[Nicosia Gooner]