Gorth

My bad, it didn't transfer it "to" Russia, it transferred it "away" from Ukraine. An independent S.S.R. like Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine etc. Sadly google is useless at the moment as any search with the word crimea or ukraine leads to 10+ pages of history starting in 2014... Washington Post simply describes it as "a brief tussle" (Crimea having no military). Details being notoriously hard to come by atm because of the popularity of related and more recent events, forcing just about anything else out of the search results... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/02/27/to-understand-crimea-take-a-look-back-at-its-complicated-history/ Following a brief tussle with the newly independent Ukrainian government, Crimea agreed to remain part of Ukraine, but with significant autonomy (including its own constitution and legislature and – briefly – its own president). In 1997, Ukraine and Russia signed a bilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, which formally allowed Russia to keep its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. So far, so good (and frankly, Yeltzin did NOT inspire a lot of confidence in the early 1990's). Things changed as the conflict of interest between west and east Ukraine heated up (you mentioned yourself, governments coming and going at some point)... an interesting map from WP that sort of shows *why* there could be a problem the way the country was created post Soviet Union. The darkest blue areas are "lost causes", the people there never going to identify as Ukrainians.... at least as long as the government isn't an inclusive type of government, toning down the nationalist rhetoric a bit. The lighter blue areas may not go into open rebellion, but probably just be grumpy for many decades to come (hypothetical situation if there had been no war). edit: trying a twitter source rather than the WP website

What could have been done depends on what stage in the sequence of events we're talking about. The west could have objected to the Ukrainian invasion and occupation of Crimea. To this day, most western media (most likely out of complete ignorance) talks about Crimea as if was once part of Ukraine, the nation. Hint, it never was. The same Soviet legislative authority that assigned it from the Russian S.S.R to the Ukrainian S.S.R. also removed it again before the collapse of the Soviet Union. If you accept the Soviet Union had the authority to hand it to Ukraine, you also have to accept that it had to authority to remove it again. If you don't accept it had the authority to remove it from Ukraine, you're by the same token also rejecting it had the authority to move it to the Ukrainian S.S.R in the first place. Whichever one, Crimea was never part of Ukraine post 1991. Only because it got invaded and direct Ukrainian military control imposed. You could argue as a nation, with it's old internal Soviet administration borders suddenly resulting in a significant land grab containing a really significant amount of Russians, which ended up on the receiving end of a lot of stick and persecution from a new nationalist government in Kiev in 2014. It's not coincidence **** started hitting the fan that year. It was never going to be a stable country and secessionist movements were written on the wall already 1991 because of some really nonsensical border drawing. So, what does the west do? Instead of putting pressure on Ukraine to respect the rights of ethnic minorities and cease the occupation of Crimea, they encourage them by dangling a EU membership under the noses of western Ukraine (where the population is predominantly Ukrainian), regardless of Ukraine not meeting any criteria whatsoever of EU membership. Especially corruption is rampant and no election so far has been without it's problems. Oh yeah, and the treatment of ethnic minorities. No other country would have gotten into the EU in the shape Ukraine was through the 2010's The war in the Donetsk region is recent history. The Minsk accord was agreed upon as the future, but when NATO suddenly hinted at Ukrainian membership, Zelenskyy suddenly felt brave and publicly declared, that Ukraine no longer had any intention of honouring it's commitment to the accord. With visible results. The people in eastern Ukraine declared themselves independent (the people in Crimea were already independent and held a valid referendum asking to be accepted as part of the Russian Federation). So many places this could have been nipped in the bud, but western countries with typical arrogance simply decided what is best for all other countries, regardless of realities on the ground. So, stage one, the west should never have accepted Ukraine's original claims to it's new national borders, regardless of ethnic composition. We saw that in the 1920's too int he middle east (the Kurds sends their "regards"). Stage two, The west should have put sanctions in place against Ukraine over the invasion of Crimea, demanding the removal of Ukrainian troops. Stage three, If more effort had been put into seeing Ukraine and former parts of Russia in as neutral territory rather than advanced military outposts to encroach on Russia in it's own backyard, a lot of paranoia and suspicion could have been avoided. Last but not least (my pet peeve), done more to integrate Russia too into the western " cultural hemisphere" and let cultural change seep in gradually, rather than being handed to them, ultimatum by ultimatum. Proud people don't respond well to threats and holier than thou attitudes.

You're right, that was your neighbour to the west... but I suppose the Habsburgs still count as "German"?

He might have been thinking about The Holy Roman Empire wanting Slovakia back...

I think the 1991 border drawing showed how bad an idea it is to chew off a large chunk of people who are not "compatible", rather than agreeing that maybe it would be best for now if Russians lived in Russia and Ukrainians in Ukraine? I.e. you're never going to have peace and growth as long as you have a large minority that is being subjugated... as the Ukrainians found out the hard way at the moment.

I hope you'll forgive me for paying more attention to BBC and Al Jazeera than ZeroHedge. The latter may be perfectly fine, I'm just not familiar with it

On a more serious note, the BBC is predicting doom and gloom for the world’s food supply effectively from this summer and onwards (because of the war) with the food supplies dropping up to 50% in some cases https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60623941 Edit: reading between the lines, prepare for famine and social unrest

The Taliban even has Black Hawks now

For some reason, Russia always seems to have been a "slow learner" when it came to warfare. During Napoleons invasion, he made it to Moscow without too much trouble. Winter saved the day for the Russians and France got spanked good on the way out. Don't get me started on the Russo-Japanese War! During WWI, after initial success against the woeful Austro-Hungarian empire, Germany showed them how it's done. Not only that, Germany deployed Lenin as the tactical nuke of the time, destabilizing the country. The war was however effectively decided after the battle of Tannenberg (losing Finland, the Baltic territories and what became then east Poland). Enter WWII and Russia again got repeated ass kicking the first two years, despite German forces almost disintegrating during the first winter (because, everybody, not just Russia, seems to underestimate the challenges of logistics on those huge, open plains). They did eventually shape up though, not at least due to a blatant disregard of the cost in human lives and ended up giving as good as they took, but they always seems to be a few years behind?

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons.... Finished the main story last night. Haven't unlocked the Siege Turtle collection yet (something you need to do to acquire the turtle). The brilliant minds at ANet decided that it should not be easy to get, so they put it behind a map meta event. It takes two hours and on a *very* tight timer. I.e. if just a handful out of 50 people messes up, you've wasted 2 hours of your life. The unforgiving difficulties you normally associate with raids and organized raid groups, not 50 people random pug groups Apparently the failure rate is still over 80%, but getting ever slowly lower (from an initial 100%) as people keep banging their heads against the fight and learning the mechanics.... Edit: The recipe for success... just bring 60-120 people organized into 3 raid squads made up of experienced raiders

I definitively declined to extend the lease of the place I'm living in today. Nothing like a bit of pressure to motivate one self Still, I got 10-12 days to find a new place, arrange removal company for my furniture and cleaners for the old place. No hurry....

For those interested in history and background for the war... warning, long video, but very interesting. Bear in mind this is from 2015, covering post Soviet and Western relations after 1991, but could have been made yesterday. From the University of Chicago...

To the best of my knowledge, I never claimed Putin to be a champion of Democracy. What I have given him credit for, is providing stability after the implosion of the Soviet Union. The Russian "rump state", with the worlds largest (possibly second largest, as I don't know how many of the nukes Kazakhstan and Ukraine had respectively) and completely falling apart. I still remember watching on TV, how Soviet tanks rolled into Moscow as Red Army officers wanted to force a stop to the dissolution by any means necessary and Yeltsin taking power, literally on the barricades and then proceeded to governing the remnant of Russia while transitioning the country from communism to alcoholism. My horror vision back then was a Russian federation falling apart into 30+ warring areas, each with a warlord or oligarch with their private armies and all of them having hands on nuclear weapons, including world wide reaching ICBM's Putin put an end to that and made me sleep better at night in the late 90's. That I will give him credit for. Also for trying to approach the west and get Russia integrated with Western Europe, but constantly being rejected, rebuffed and mocked for his attempts at modernizing Russia together with the west, rather than despite the west doing much other than encouraging the Ukrainian invasion of Crimea (where were the cries of outrage and the threats of sanctions against Ukraine when they occupied Crimea? Oh right, the victims were Russians, therefore it was perfectly Ok and beneficial for the west), splitting off chunks of sovereign countries allied with Russia, ignoring sovereign borders, and acting with at times cringe worthy arrogance. All those events in the 90's contribute to me "feeling", that this is very much something the west brought upon itself, despite all the cries of outrage and disbelief. Yes, we can easily agree today, that isolation and ridicule may have done permanent damage to Russia and Putin's psyche, creating a completely irrational and ruthless decision maker. I still ask the question though, what could have been done differently at a much earlier point in time (like 1991-92) to avoid the present.

Deleted a few posts. Let’s *not* play the false quote game without making it painfully explicit it’s a sarcastic paraphrasing, never said in that form by the person being quoted. Or I’ll get grumpy. It’s fine to give an interpretation of what somebody else says (within reason) but don’t make it look like something actually said

Speaking of huge... playing Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Only 4 days in, so still a long way to go (skipping everything except the main story line at the moment)

Currently busy playing Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons... the Asian inspired expansion. Being no expert, I couldn't tell what culture it leans most heavily on. Could be Korean, could be Chinese, could be Khmer, could be a hybrid... Welcome to New Kaineng The game has it's own stylistic art direction. A bit like watercolours The city is "tall", with the nobility and who's who living in the upper layers and the rabble and gangs living on the ground levels Old Kaineng, which (like the city of Lions Arch) was destroyed in the tsunami created by Zhaitan when it raised the nation of Orr from the sea botton Welcome to the new player "home" while in Cantha, the ruins of Arborstone, being the new base of operations

I couldn't find any easily accessible list of demands of Ukraine other than honour the Minsk accord (which Zelenskiy effectively declared they were not going to implement after all) and don't join Nato. But The Guardians seems to have a decent list of demands made of Nato (including not accepting Ukraine as a member) and to pull Nato troops (I assume this refers to "foreign" troops in the countries in question, the countries would still remain Nato members) back. Lastly, that the US honours the INF treaty, which they unilaterally abandoned in 2018. Did I miss anything significant? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato

Welcome to Queensland (The Sunshine State) and Brisbane, the (new) Venice of Australia Watch out when crossing the streets... not because of traffic, but bull sharks https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-23/how-shark-infested-is-brisbane-river/10731866 Edit: Oh look, the weather forecast

While the price is high, you could argue that such an outcome is giving Putin exactly what he wanted and then ask, why did that have to take a bloody war? As for reparations, I (jokingly) suggested before the war, as compensation Russia could provide Ukraine with all the LPG they need for the next 100 years or so (probably less as hopefully renewable energy sources will have replaced fossil fuel before the end of such a period). Mind you, that was just a pragmatic solution. Ukraine gets rid of a headache (all the Russians living on the wrong side of a "border" that should never have existed where those places to begin with, but the west being the west etc. perfectly happy to recognize the Ukrainian invasion of the independent Crimean S.S.R in 1991 and accept Ukraine imposing direct control of an occupied country, similar to China's invasion of Tibet in the 50's). Now there is the added cost in both human lives and material. Edit: That was a rhetorical question, as I do know the answer. Nationalist pride getting in the way of sensible solutions.

Let me guess, you don't want to criticize him for lying through his teeth about... well just about everything he says? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/14/deceit-boris-johnson-liar-prime-minister-joke-mendacity "he prime minister’s unhappy relationship with the truth is longstanding and embedded in his character. Veracity is trumped by ego. Most of his recent catalogue of woes – Brexit promises, dodgy peerages, sleazy colleagues, flat decorations, lockdown parties – could have been soothed had Johnson simply come clean early on, appeared frank and apologised. He seems psychologically unable to disentangle falsity from half-truth. A life spent in bland denials and upmarket jokes has lent him a high-risk belief in his invulnerability. From each laughable lie he could, in one bound, leap free." No, he's still not as bad as our own beloved, glorious and inspirational leader here down under, but he also had a professional career in playing loose and fast with the truth, before he turned politician. It's not for nothing he's known as "Scott from Marketing"

Speak for yourself Edit: I noticed some fancy new buzzword on the internet in recent months... sigma male (/facepalm)

It probably sounds better on domestic TV. No, the government from 2014 to 2019 wasn't "NAZI", just right wing and very nationalistic. Not the same. But NAZI Germany was the last existential threat to Russia (USSR), hence portraying the enemy as such. You have to go back a lot further to when French troops made it to Moscow, or even when Poland invaded Russia and burnt the city down, but those are most likely too distant events in peoples awareness.

Gen X says hello

Are you sure about that? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/europe/putin-sanctions-proofing.html "Crucially, the once-dominant dollar now accounts for only 16 percent of Russia’s currency reserves, which Moscow has replaced with euros, China’s renminbi, and gold." Edit: $631 billion is the nominal value of Russia's currency reserves, but an insignificant part of it is US dollars (according NY Times)

Meh, it's overrated. After too many years of 200% utilization, you feel "burnt out" in a real, bad way