Russian vassalization of Ukraine

[Darkhorse]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world ... d-out.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a6c2e8f6-ab99 ... ab7de.html
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_04/268000581/

Yup, no big deal. We give Russia Crimea and then everything will go back to normal.

[exploited]

First article talks about how popular he is domestically, the second requires an account and the third talks about the opinion of some dude speaking outside the official position.

What exactly is your point here.

[Darkhorse]

The point for those too ignorant to see it themselves is that Russia is not constrained by silly things like reason and international law. They just invaded a neighboring country and it resulted in exactly the kind of boost in national pride that I predicted days ago. You really think a few billion dollars lost is enough to dissuade Russia from further hostility? You can't buy jingoism like this with money. They've been wanting a cold war rematch since the last one ended and that's what we're moving towards. Expect them to move closer to China, look at ending their use of the dollar and f**k with supply of petroleum products to EU. I was just reading earlier this week that they've been deporting foreign executives for petty offenses like parking tickets, wouldn't surprise me if they started confiscating foreign businesses.

Russia's state run media is making claims that they can turn the U.S. to ash... why would they want to say that? To drum up support for further aggression most likely.

[The Comrade]

russia's GDP is 2 trillion dollars. i don't know why anyone would think a few billion dollars taken from that would be devastating. even if the EU stopped buying all petroleum products from russia, the russians would simply sell to china. and the EU would be worse for it.

this is why saying "hur dur sanctions" is essentially saying you support doing nothing. because it will not affect russia in any meaningful way.

oh, but they won't be allowed to attend the G8. it was a token gesture to include them in it anyways and they haven't been in it long enough to matter. kicking them out won't mean shit and they obviously don't care.

[Thatcher]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[Thatcher]

I know some of the 'military experts' on hear claim it would be an easy fight if NATO went to war with Russia over Ukraine, but these other 'military experts' say otherwise.

http://www.ibtimes.com/crimean-war-woul ... ay-1561512
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1169 ... ope-russia

[exploited]

[exploited]