Ukraine talks breakthrough. Good deal or bad?

[BrainGlutton]

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, recently gunned down in central Moscow, apparently was preparing to release proof of Russian armed forces being involved in the Ukrainian conflict.

[Sitnam]

@BrainGlutton

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, recently gunned down in central Moscow, apparently was preparing to release proof of Russian armed forces being involved in the Ukrainian conflict.

Who on this planet needed proof? I don’t believe even the sympathizers doubted direct Rissian intervention from the get go, saying it in public is always different however.

[kaylasdad99]

@Sitnam

Who on this planet needed proof? I don’t believe even the sympathizers doubted direct Rissian intervention from the get go, saying it in public is always different however.

^^^ This. ^^^

For that matter, who on this planet needs proof that Putin ordered the assassination?

[Little_Nemo]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

As events are clearly displaying, the current “ceasefire” is about as much of a joke as the Munich Agreement. Hopefully the United States will start pouring in weapons to Ukraine.

Honestly, I don’t.

I’m not supporting Russia here. Putin and Russia are completely in the wrong here despite what some apologists are claiming. I think comparisons to what Hitler and Germany were doing in the thirties are legitimate.

But I don’t want the United States to get involved and I don’t think we need to. Yes, it sucks if you’re Ukrainian. But I don’t Ukraine as a cause the United States needs to fight a world war over.

[Trinopus]

Little Nemo: I mostly agree, but I do want the U.S. and NATO to draw a very clear line here, that we’ll swallow the loss of Ukraine…but one step over into Latvia, and it’s war. Russia must not be emboldened to keep going.

[Little_Nemo]

@Trinopus

Little Nemo: I mostly agree, but I do want the U.S. and NATO to draw a very clear line here, that we’ll swallow the loss of Ukraine…but one step over into Latvia, and it’s war. Russia must not be emboldened to keep going.

I completely agree. We have a treaty commitment with Latvia and the other Baltic countries. If Russia attacks an ally, the United States should fight.

[BrainGlutton]

@kaylasdad99

^^^ This. ^^^

For that matter, who on this planet needs proof that Putin ordered the assassination?

Masha Gessen. Who is no Putin sympathizer.

In all likelihood no one in the Kremlin actually ordered the killing — and this is part of the reason Mr. Nemtsov’s murder marks the beginning of yet another new and frightening period in Russian history. The Kremlin has recently created a loose army of avengers who believe they are acting in the country’s best interests, without receiving any explicit instructions. Despite his lack of political clout, Mr. Nemtsov was a logical first target for this menacing force.

<snip>

In the almost three years since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency, and especially in the year since Russia annexed Crimea, the Kremlin has increasingly focused on the enemy within. A new movement called Anti-Maidan marched through Moscow two weeks ago calling for violence against the “fifth column.” At least one of the signs carried at the march named Mr. Nemtsov as the organizer of the Ukrainian revolution.

Less than a week after that march, and just before the one he had organized, Mr. Nemtsov was gunned down while walking a bridge that spans the Moscow River right in front of the Kremlin. It is under constant camera and live surveillance. The message was clear: People will be killed in the name of the Kremlin, in plain view of the Kremlin, against the backdrop of the Kremlin, simply for daring to oppose the Kremlin.

[Grey]

So Russia remains Russia - my shock knows no bounds.

[BrainGlutton]

@Grey

So Russia remains Russia - my shock knows no bounds.

Too facile. Gessen’s point (made in a radio broadcast I heard yesterday) is that a window is closing – that Putin’s Russia was before merely a authoritarian state, but, over the course of the past three years, is now becoming a totalitarian state, one where people necessarily become alert to the direction of the official wind and make sure to blow with it.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Little_Nemo

Honestly, I don’t.

I’m not supporting Russia here. Putin and Russia are completely in the wrong here despite what some apologists are claiming. I think comparisons to what Hitler and Germany were doing in the thirties are legitimate.

But I don’t want the United States to get involved and I don’t think we need to. Yes, it sucks if you’re Ukrainian. But I don’t Ukraine as a cause the United States needs to fight a world war over.

I certainly wouldn’t want a world war over Ukraine either and for that reason there will be no direct military intervention in Ukraine unless Putin decides to attack a NATO member (which I highly doubt). But I don’t think weapons aid fall into the same category-the Soviet Union and China gave weapons to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War while the US gave weapons to Afghan rebels during the Soviet intervention there without threatening World War 3.

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

Masha Gessen. Who is no Putin sympathizer.

But, there is another theory.

As usual, the warring sides have not listened to one another, and have shown little interest in discovering the real reasons for the killing. In this setting the remarks of St Petersburg blogger Anatoly Nesmeyan, known on the net as El-Murid, are especially notable. In his view those who ordered the murder were not “sworn conspirators” from among opposition activists and liberal westernizers, but high-ranking figures from within the Russian establishment. In other words, a pretext was being prepared in Moscow for a palace coup.

It is such a coup in the top echelon of the authorities, and not marches by the opposition intelligentsia, that poses the only real threat to Putin, who despite everything enjoys the support of a large majority of Russians. Unless the president decides for some reason to hand over power ahead of time, as Boris Yeltsin did in 1999, no one but his own innermost circle can remove him. The growing crisis in relations with the West is not bringing any joy to the Russian elite, and the economic mess is not giving its members cause for optimism. Government organs are constantly refusing, publicly, to implement decisions of the president, as occurred for example in the well-known case of the tax that Putin tried to levy on oligarchs who had grown rich on the privatizations of the 1990s. In such a situation the question of replacing the leader inevitably arises, and precisely in the top ranks of the administration.

If we go on to examine the events from the angle of the distribution of power within the government, there is every reason to suspect that the shooting of a well-known politician and personal acquaintance of the president, literally within a few steps of the Kremlin, amounts to a sort of message whose target is particularly obvious. There is not the slightest doubt that the “national leader” understands the significance of this message, but what conclusions Putin will draw concerning his own options is less clear. We shall find out in the coming months.