You are seriously beyond ridiculous. No, not every Russian is out to destroy Ukraine but it’s incredibly reasonable for the Ukraine to limit Russian men from entering their country after what just happened/is happening. For you to be so amazingly obtuse to that makes me wonder what the point of reasoning with you might be.
Just to get a sense of the room, NFbW and BrokenBriton do you agree with RedFury that it’s xenophobic and undemocratic to attempt (regardless of the chance of success) to limit 16-45 yr old male Russian visitors for a bit?
RedFury, I just warned you a day or so ago to throttle it back. Yet in this post you appear to be calling a poster a xenophobe and in your post of 5:21 you are backdoor insulting another poster with that ‘idiocy’ line.
This is a warning. Further such posts will earn more. It is possible to discuss even heated issues without resorting to derision and insults. I encourage you to do so.
Really? See Below: "Yushchenko announced last summer that Ukraine would not extend the lease of the Sevastopol base beyond 2017, and urged the Russian fleet to start preparations for a withdrawal."
And the US was pushing it: European NATO members led by Germany blocked U.S.-backed bids by Ukraine and Georgia to join programs leading to membership in the military alliance, but the ex-Soviet states were told they would eventually be allowed to join.
http://news.kievukraine.info/2009/07/ukraine-will-not-host-nato-bases.html
[retracted]
Didn’t bother me in the least. The police from what I can tell are pretty much with the anti-Maidan ‘mob’ … don’t know if that includes the border police.
Well, you “really” need a lesson in geography if you think that the elimination of one port on the Black Sea would eliminate Russia’s access to the Mediterranean.
At minimum, Russia would still have access by way of Rostov-na-Donu, Novorossijsk, and, perhaps, Sochi.
And letting other nations join NATO also fails to prevent Russian access to the Mediterranean. The one nation that actually can prevent Russian access to the Mediterranean has been a member of NATO for decades.
That one port is the only geographic location that could accommodate and was deep enough to harbor ‘a platform for projecting power’ into the Mediterranean.
((“For Russia, the fleet and its Sevastopol base are a guarantor of its southern borders and a platform for projecting power into the Black Sea and from there into the Mediterranean. Its base is also a docking point for Russian oil tankers bound for the Bosporus and the fleet will be tasked with protecting Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline once it is finished.”))
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA260Y320140307?irpc=932
Elections are in May, in current conditions that’s a lifetime away.
Amazing. Both of you quoted me but neither of you actually answered the question. I will rephrase and see if that works: NFbW and BrokenBriton, is it reasonable for a country to bar military age men from a country it considers hostile? Is it fair for the Ukraine to consider Russia hostile?
“fair” LOL. What are you talking about, you think this is contract bridge?
You are just proving you aren’t arguing in good faith. I am not a moron. I know how much “fair” counts in the real world. I was asking if you fucking agreed with Redfury’s assessment of me and Ukraine being “xenophobic”. But clearly you are too invested in winning the internets to be able to honestly answer the question.
sorry, what you’re postulating makes no sense: ‘is this entity called Ukraine "xenophobic?’ - half the country comprises the people Kiev is trying to restrict entry to so it seems a odd on the face of it.
Of course Putin wants more of his people in situ - unfortuately for him, and unlike Crimea, he hasn’t got 25,000 already stationed there, and of course Kiev wants to keep them out.
Yesterday you didn’t think a referendum would happen, today you don’t seem to understand proxies.
Both of you, calm the heck down.
This applies to ALL in this thread. No more attacking the poster AT ALL. Arguments, yes. Arguers, no.
Get it?
Lol. You just can’t do it. You can’t concede a small single point so you have to dodge.
Oops. I simulposted with that mod note. I was dropping it there anyways.
Ok, ignorance fought. However, that isn’t an agressive act, acts of this nature would warrant whining and negotiating. Going straight to invading your neighbors and depriving that country of their harbor is a bit extreme, don’t you think?
And your statement that the U.S. was “pushing” Ukraine into NATO? GOOD. I’ve never said the U.S. didn’t encourage them. I was saying that a great deal of Russia’s neighbors want to join NATO whether the U.S. was pushing them or not. If Russia is upset about that, they really have no-one to blame about the situation but themselves, and only they can make the situation less threatening.
I don’t think the word “fair” is being used the same way in these two posts. The question as I understand it is: “Is it reasonable for the Ukrainian government (whether you consider it legitimate or not) to consider the Russian government hostile?” And of course it is.
I’ll also ask, is it any more xenophobic, undemocratic, or absurd for the Ukrainian government to restrict Russian nationals travel into their country at this time than it was for the United States to restrict travel into the United States by Saudis after 911? And of course it is not.
I am no expert on ports or military projection but I will say this much - if it is true that Russia has for years allowed itself to have only one means of projecting power into the Mediterranean, that one being a port in another country with a lease that was due to expire in 2017, then either they either don’t really feel the need to project power in that region in that way or are very stupid.
DSeid, if I am interpreting BB and NFbW responses to me correctly, neither of them agree with RedFury that this is some outrageous move but both seem happy for some reason that it’s going to be hard to enforce.
And the lack of deep sea warm ports is merely Russia’s unfortunate geography, not stupidity. Well, before they annexed Crimea, of course.
Novorossiysk not only could be, but is in early stages of being, developed as a Black Sea military port. They just hadn’t ever bothered to do it before and have not been in any hurry to get it done.
Of course they did just (last June) give up their other option for a naval presence in warm waters - the Syrian port of Tartus.
How to put this together?
Did Putin (and it seems likely that he thinks for the Russian government in decisions) assume that there was no chance Ukraine would go West last June so there was no need for Tartus? Or does he actually not care too much about projecting power into the Mediterranean, prefering more to focus on nearby spheres of influence with an expanding contiguous Imperial Russia and with these portions of Ukraine being more important to a sense of nationalist pride and mythology than of critical strategic need?