No, I’ve never denied that a majority of Crimeans may want to join Russia. I’ve denied the legality, legitimacy and transparency of this referendum. The means justify the end 
Suspicious goings on amongst former KGB and the Oligarchs and who knows who else filling their coffers during the breakup of the USSR are CT enough to be not worthy of the issue being discussed today.
While I agree with your point, a survey with a margin of error of +/- 55% is not good stuff.
What I find rather strange is that more than 1,500,000 people voted in this referendum, in a region where there are 1,660,000 people aged 15 and over. Assuming that some sectors of society boycotted the referendum, and that (I guess) people aged 15-17 were not allowed to vote, this seems like an excessively high turnout. Perhaps I’ve got the numbers wrong?
For the avoidance of doubt that was a joke, contrasting the 41% in the poll with the 95% in the referendum. According to 538 KIIS do very reliable polling.
Oh, Jesus that was dumb. I’ll look into the actual survey as soon as I have some time 
The only question I have about all this is:
What is the West’s intention beyond waving a stick at Russia?
Crimea is de-facto Russian now.
Would Putin & Russia really care if UN or NATO somehow sanctions them?
No they haven’t cared before and won’t now.
And its not like in South Korea with US GIs at the border ready to invade. This is far away Ukraine with puppet regime that seems about to fall anyday the Russians step in.
And again let’s be honest the Europeans have absolutely no negociation power.
So its up to the Yankees but it really doesn’t seem like they will do much.
Putin = Winner, at least I think so in future.
What poll are you contrasting to the actual vote?
Politically, and in the short-term. From any other point of view Putin may regret his actions during the last month. Russia now has to support an under-developed region that depends on mainland Ukraine for almost all of its necessities. In addition to this, Ukraine will become a more pro-European, anti-Russian country than it was three days ago, if only due to basic demographic changes.
In the long-term, Europe is likely to reduce its dependence on Russian gas. Russia is a country with a horrendous corruption problem that survives thanks to its raw materials, so long-term changes in this area could prove catastrophic. Don’t be mistaken by Russia’s enormous size, gas wealth, and aggressive foreign policy. This is an empire built on quicksand.
The one discussed in the article we’re talking about, the one I linked to above.
Do try to keep up.
It’s that tiger blood thing he’s got going. WINNING!!!
No, but Nazi war criminals killed millions of Russians. I suspect, and in fact I know, members of Putin’s party have glorified Stalin (not a totally uncommon thing in Russia at large, actually.)
We had a thread some time ago about the ideology of fascism, and one of the arguments I put forward in that thread is that unlike Communism which is a fully fleshed out ideology both about economics and how to run a State fascism is neither. Any desire for a strong (code word for “authoritarian”) State, combined with nationalism and “state direction of certain industries for the benefit of the State” would qualify as fascism. There is no fascist equivalent of Das Kapital or of Marx, Engels, or Lenin. There’s not a huge amount in common between the governments of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Franco other than authoritarianism and state direction of industry. There’s actually only scant difference between how those countries ran and how how Stalin-era Soviet Union ran; except the leaders of those countries were ironically virulently anti-Communist. Which basically meant instead of couching all of their authoritarian abuses in terms of “working for the people’s ultimate benefit” the fascists leaders couched it as “working for the benefit of the State.”
I don’t believe that fascism is a firm enough ideology to say that just because Putin’s party doesn’t glorify Goebbels and Himmler that means they aren’t fascist.
I’m not going to get into that game. The fact that you’re repeating Putin’s arguments and trying to justify his actions is the evidence of the falseness of your claims. No serious observer believes Putin was justified in going into Crimea. No neutral party believes that Crimea needed Russian “protection.” No neutral party is ignorant of the fact that once in Crimea “protecting” people the Russians shut down all dissent and free press. If you accept that the Russians were unjustified in going into Crimea in the first place and have acted as thugs since–then we don’t really disagree on much. I don’t disagree there are “troubling” elements in Ukraine, even outright fascist ones. But I believe you can only fairly say that some members of Svoboda meet the Nazi-associated “negative” connotation of fascism and the rest are more akin to a “generic” Eastern European far right party–and since Svoboda is a very small party in the parliament bringing them up as evidence of trouble is disingenuous. Far right parties have held seats in Greece, Austria–even France. That doesn’t justify invading those countries.
I was mistaken on that. In the weeks since this Crimean business has started I’ve read a bit on Ukraine as it wasn’t a part of the world I had followed much. Part of that was I read that Oleh Tyahnybok was ejected from a coalition due to some anti-semitic and anti-Russian comments he had made. In my mind I misremembered that as him being kicked out of his party, which did not happen.
[QUOTE=Anondragon2012]
Would Putin & Russia really care if UN or NATO somehow sanctions them?
[/QUOTE]
Well, NATO isn’t going to sanction anyone…it’s a military alliance and doesn’t do sanctions. The EU COULD do sanctions that would really hurt Russia (and they would certainly care about that), but it would hurt the EU as well. The US will certainly (has already at this point) do sanctions against Russia, but I doubt it will have a large impact as they aren’t one of our major trading partners, and vice versa.
The US isn’t actually poised on the NK border ready to invade…we only have like 30,000 troops in South Korea, so it would be a pretty small invasion. Those troops are there as a trip wire…if North Korea invade they will have to go through those troops, thus bringing the US into the war.
As for the Ukraine, we could invite them into NATO. Doing that, if Russia attempted anything overtly military (such as, oh, say blockading Ukrainian military bases, ports, etc…not that this is likely, amiright? :p) NATO would be treaty bound to do something about it. Bringing the Ukraine into the EU would open up all sorts of possibilities for trade and improving the Ukrainian economy, but that’s probably less likely right now with the EU having their own internal economic troubles and probably a bit gun shy (heh) about bringing in another failing state.
Totally untrue. The EU and Russia are major trading partners, so if the Europeans REALLY wanted to buckle down on the sanctions and were willing to take the economic hit over it, they could hurt Russia a hell of a lot more than they would be hurt in turn (after all, while Western Europe is one of Russia’s largest trading partners, the Europeans have a bit broader trading base than just Russia). I doubt they would or will do this, but they COULD do it…which means they do have quite a bit of potential negotiating power.
As far as the Crimea goes, certainly. It’s a done deal at this point. But more broadly? Only time will tell, but personally I think Putin stepped on his own crank this time. I don’t think he believed it would be this messy or overt, and I think he tried to do too much too fast…and it’s going to eventually bite him on the ass. Especially if the US and EU DOES impose sanctions that actually hurt Russia, and if we use this to bring the Ukraine more into our own sphere of influence with trade and military alliances or treaties.
The 95% number strikes me as a fairly typical Communist election result. Seventy percent or so would perhaps have been credible. We look to be back to the bad old days.
The numbers hardly matter. The ethnic makeup of the region speaks for itself. Move on, already.
Why have fair and free elections when you can just look at people’s family trees?
Does it? I’m sure we’ve addressed this already - not all ethnic Russians in Crimea necessarily want to join Russia. Many may, certainly, but others want independence or to remain with the Ukraine.
And the whole problem here is that the people of the Crimea aren’t being allowed to speak for themselves. Not really. Which is why the numbers matter. You can’t just say “Well, obviously they all want to join Russia” when a month ago a majority of them didn’t.
And even then, the Lorax speaks for them.
The method yesterday to leave Ukraine’s borders was a hell of a lot more democratic than the method that joined Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. At that time the Premier of the USSR gave Crimea to Ukraine as a gift. Presumably because Nikita Khrushchev had found a Ukrainian woman who was willing to marry his ugly face.
Blood and soil nationalism, eh?
What do you mean that’s not what happened in Ukraine? That is bizarre. The violent street mob and the legislators joined together to overthrow and replace the executive branch in order change the direction that the elected president wished to go on ties to the east or west. If that is what you now accept as democracy in action for a 20 year old democracy then Ill have to review where you’ve stood on that topic in the past.
We may have to wait a while to find out what role the security forces and military played in the mind of Yanukovich as to whether they would defend his life as one would think is required by the Constitution.
If the military and police or either agency sided with the mob and refused to protect the elected President, that makes a mob induced coup d’état also a police or military coup d’etat.
Nit-picking again that it can’t be a popular uprising that resulted in a coup? That is plenty weak and beside the point.