True, they did cause him to flee. But they didn’t remove him from power.
My point is, grand as it may be to sit in the safety of your room and criticize events on a strictly legal basis, reality often demands actions not entirely constricted by high minded virtues. Doesn’t make them right. But it does make them necessary in the face of the alternatives. To pretend otherwise is naive, at best.
Cool. Now do explain what the “alternatives” were that made the Russian invasion of Crimea “necessary”.
What “reality” or “necessity” demanded that Russia invade Crimea and take over its parliament?
The excuse offered was to protect minorities. So far, there has been exactly zero anti-minority activites, as far as I know (and in any case, ethnic Russians are a majority in Crimea, not a minority). And even if there had been - why would the protection of minorities require seizing parliament?
Were they going to pin a medal on him for being the most outstanding oligarch of 2014?
Uhh, yeah. After protesters stormed the government buildings and Yanukovich ran for it.
So an agreement was made for interim government, not good enough for protesters and they storm the buildings. Then opposition perfectly Constitutionally votes Pres out of office while he is in hiding. Come on.
LOL. I refer the honourable Gentlemen to the title of this thread: it’s wrong - legally, there has been no ‘invasion’.
From where did the OP get the idea it was an invasion?
I’d hazard a guess it wasn’t the Crimean Parliament.
“Come on” what? Was what the vote that impeached Yanukovich legal/constitutional or not? You do understand that him being in hiding does not make it illegal to impeach him, right?
Yes, legally there has been. Having foreign troops occupy government buildings, patrol your streets and control your cities is, legally (as well as realistically), an “invasion”.
The title of the thread accurately reflects reality. Only Russia - and a few internet die-hards - seriously doubts that what is happening in Crimea is an “invasion”.
No, I really don’t think that vote can be considered legal. Any allies of Yanukovich would not feel they could vote freely even if they felt safe enough to stick around. The “come on” is because I can’t believe anyone could believe otherwise.
Thought I’d link to this opinion piece on CNN. It’s a bit tangential to the discussion, but to me it shows a point of view on how long the propaganda war has been going on with Russia trying to paint the Ukraine in as bad a light as possible and to stir up a civil war there…and how obvious (to all but a few in this thread) Russia’s aggression is in this thing.
This would require me actually knowing Putin’s motives. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to venture in that direction because I can’t read minds.
Facts remain thus:
Ukraine became unstable. Russia has important interests in Crimea. Russia saw this as an opportunity to seize control of the area, including the parliament in order to avoid having the possibility of the local parliament give orders to the Ukrainian military to resist Russian troops. If bloodshed was avoided in this manner, then it was not a bad thing. There is still the very good possibility that Russia will return control to the local authorities once they are satisfied that their interests are not threatened. Or they may not. We shall see.
If you want to continue begging the question of whether Russia had a right to enter Crimea then have fun with it. But don’t expect to do so in isolation of other similar events by various nations throughout history.
I already posted it upthread - it was hand-waived away as ‘not evidence’.
No. Either I’m really bad at explaining myself, or you’re really bad at understanding me.
I believe that Russia is in the wrong here. They have no right AT ALL to station their troops in Ukraine, and their actions are illegal. Quite honestly, the worse this turns out for Putin the better in my opinion.
What we have to understand - and the West seemed to have forgotten at first - is that Russia sees Ukraine as its own backyard. A bit like the USA did with Cuba during the late 1950s. This means that the West can’t go prancing around Ukraine after its leader has been toppled without watching out for Russia’s reaction.
Going back to your robber and murderer analogy. Imagine Russia as someone who has owned a house for 50 years, was later evicted, and has since then spent his days walking around the house and staring in through the windows. You’d be stupid to leave the house unlocked, because you know that the moment you do so this weirdo will break in, rob you, and perhaps murder you. Of course the robber and murderer would be the criminal here and would eventually go to jail. But international relations know no jails, so you just have to make sure you lock your doors.
That seems to be delving into mind-reading. Yes, they voted to impeach, but they really didn’t want to? And that makes the impeachment illegal?
This is somewhat circular reasoning - Russia takes the place over to avoid the possibility of resistance to … Russia taking the place over? :dubious:
Was there ever any likelihood of Ukraine (which is, as everyone knows, an economic and military basket-case and very dependent on Russia) forcibly booting Russia out of its Black Seas base, in violation of its agreements, thus giving Russia a perfect casus belli?
Oh, sorry…I missed that. My apologies.
It’s certainly evidence, though it’s not conclusive. But what it shows is another view point, and one that runs contrary to the theme of many folks in this thread. Hard for me to really wrap my head around Russia’s actions and how people are swallowing what seems obvious to me is a (long planned) power grab in an effort to start reconstituting their old empire via direct military action.
I said Yanukovich’s allies wouldn’t feel safe voting or even sticking around. That doesn’t take a lot of mind reading when you see the destruction outside in the square and know the protesters have seized the government buildings. So the only people left to vote is opposition, who yes wanted to impeach. What’s the confusion?
Let’s take that as a given. The only people left to vote is opposition, who voted to impeach. The vote was by a huge majority (328 out of 450), when you count those who didn’t stick around as “no” votes. So - what exactly is illegal in that impeachment?