Ukraine Civil War - a reality

OfflerCrocGod

According to this BBC article both sides seem to be ready to push this all the way.

Calling for a general strike, Mr Yushchenko told a vast crowd of supporters in the central Independence Square that Ukraine was on the brink of a "civil conflict".

Mr Kuchma, who backs Mr Yanukovych, denounced the opposition protests and warned civil war "could well become a reality at the present time".

This all depends on which way the army and police go, many municipalities seem to be supporting Yushchenko so all he needs is armed backing and he's in. This may be a surpise first use for the European battle groups that we have been talking about, of course it's an extreme chance but if things get really bad I would approve of their use to remove that Putin-ass-licker Mr Yanukovych. Europe has to react strongly if this gets out of hand, the Ukraine is part of Europe and hopefully will - one day - be part of the EU so we should really help it out in it's time of need if it's necessary. What do you all think, is civil war coming?, should we try and stop it from escalating if it does?, interfere in it?

chewy

come on everybody croc is dying to shoot someone, raise the airfare for him

OfflerCrocGod

Bloody right! I've got my M-76 with high powered zoom and I'm ready to hunt baby! YEHAAAAA

No but seriously things may get out of hand and it could get nasty in Ukraine, that's why I'm also bringing my M-4A1 with LSS, XM-26.

So I can clear the streets and not leave the buildings standing. Ay least if Ukraine goes on fire we can stop talikng about the evil Americans and instead complain about the evil Ukrainians, it will make some people on this forum very happy :rolleyes:

Horeb

If the Ukraine falls into Civil war, I reckon the Russians will stand in as per usual.

It does'nt look good.

OfflerCrocGod

Horeb-Security wrote:

If the Ukraine falls into Civil war, I reckon the Russians will stand in as per usual.

That's why I think we should also "stand in", after all aren't there reports of Russian SF in the east of the country? I just hope and wish that the EU has the balls for it.

Jim

The M79 is a grenade launcher.

Horeb

Well if the Russian Spenatz get stuck in only god knows what will happen.

OSCE can't do anything, nor the EU at the moment, a UN Force would not suit that area..

So only a NATO Force could deploy rapidly enough.

It is clear and simple the government there are boggie in every sense.

Horeb

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

The M79 is a grenade launcher.

40MM Grenade Launcher to be precise better know as the "Thump Gun" in Vietnam

bonkey

This is not the Weapons Nuts forum.

jc

Horeb

Watch who you are calling a weapons nut, it was a joke, take a chill pill

Redleslie2

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

That's why I think we should also "stand in", after all aren't there reports of Russian SF in the east of the country?

Russian SF? Led by Gerry Adamski? The guy who taunted his enemies in his international hit "Killer" some years ago?

I just hope and wish that the EU has the balls for it.

I wish some of the people who are so keen on war had the balls to do us all a favour and join the army.

sovtek

bonkey wrote:

This is not the Weapons Nuts forum.

jc

....Classic

Horeb

Redleslie2 wrote:

Russian SF? Led by Gerry Adamski? The guy who taunted his enemies in his international hit "Killer" some years ago?


I wish some of the people who are so keen on war had the balls to do us all a favour and join the army.

I was in there and TBH, war is not a solution to anything.

Nuttzz

bonkey wrote:

This is not the Weapons Nuts forum.

jc

Can we have one please Sparks and Civdef get grumpy on the shooting forum if you post anything that isnt an BB gun


Back on topic, Its a east v west type conflict here, the western side is "jealous" of poland and its EU entry, the east has always "looked" to Russian for support and the heavy industry their fear (rightly in a way) that western style economics will have the same affect that it had in East germany after in the early 90's

Horeb

Do they have a Nuclear Weapons or did the Russians pull them all out ??

OfflerCrocGod

Redleslie2 wrote:

I wish some of the people who are so keen on war had the balls to do us all a favour and join the army.

Right so if Russia decides to "help out" the "democratically elected" leader of Ukraine we should just sort of......sit back and do nothing? Jesus no wonder the Americans make fun of us we will probably be needing them again very soon to clean up another East-european mess while we are busy sending in diplomats to bore the Russians to death :rolleyes: Anyway as I said there isn't really much chance of that happening ( Putin is already backing down ) but still if it does we really should react rather then sitting on our asses and talking about the situation.

OfflerCrocGod

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

The M79 is a grenade launcher.

I said M 76

Horeb-Security wrote:

Do they have a Nuclear Weapons or did the Russians pull them all out ??

Officially no they don't, but they may because of some errors when they where giving them back to the Russians, proper numbers weren't kept.

Horeb

MMMMMMMMMMM could be a problem if all hell breaks loose !

Sparks

Nuttzz wrote:

Can we have one please Sparks and Civdef get grumpy on the shooting forum if you post anything that isnt an BB gun

Not so much "grumpy" as "viciously angry and vengeful"

ionapaul

So there are requests for a "Gun Nut" forum and a "Tin-Foil Hat" forum - in my mind, those two could easily be combined! In the States there are tons of tin-foil hat-wearing gun nuts..."Quick boys, down to the tornado shelter, I hear the black helicopters coming, the Gov'ment wants to take our guns and make us speak Mexican or live in Canadia!!!"

sliabh

Horeb-Security wrote:

Do they have a Nuclear Weapons or did the Russians pull them all out ??

As part of the agreements relating to the break up of the Soviet Union all nuclear weapons were returned to the Russian state for decommissioning.

Redleslie2

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Right so if Russia decides to "help out" the "democratically elected" leader of Ukraine we should just sort of......sit back and do nothing?

K so, as long as we get to serve under whipcracking leather clad eurovision babe Ruslana, I'm right behind you. Here's some songs to sing to keep spirits up in case we get captured and have to endure some unpleasant torture by psychotic Russian Chechnya vets. Ne pospishayte!

Jesus no wonder the Americans make fun of us

Pay no heed. The Americans who make fun of europe are usually the ones who go to great lengths to avoid military service when their country is at war.

dahamsta

Court freezes Ukraine poll result

Ukraine's top court has suspended publication of the presidential election result until it considers the opposition's complaints next week.

Liberal opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko appealed to the Supreme Court after election officials declared Viktor Yanukovych the winner.

He called for a general strike amid widespread concern that the election was rigged in favour of Mr Yanukovych. Supporters of the official winner have vowed to ignore the strike calls.

[...]

.

OfflerCrocGod

Putin says let the courts decide
Russia and the European Union have called for a peaceful approach to solving the Ukrainian political crisis.

Russia's Vladimir Putin and EU leaders agreed that objections to the outcome should be examined by the courts.

It seems as if Russia may not have the stomach to push hard on this, Putin is already making appeasing noises at the EU. Of course he would love to have a puppet in power but he is sensible enough not try anything dangerous, so maybe given enough time Yanukovych will just be pushed out.
Poison scandal look at the difference......amazing.

arcadegame2004

Military intervention by the West in Ukraine is sadly not realistic because Ukraine may have nuclear weapons. Officially Belarus and Ukraine supposedly sent Soviet nuclear weapons remaining on their territories after independence to Russia. However, in the mid 1990's it was announced in Ukraine that due to a so-called "clerical error", Ukraine may retain hundreds of nuclear missiles, though supposedly not targeted ones. Wouldn't risk it though, especially considering that the Russian Black Sea fleet are based in Ukraine, and that Russian and Belarussian special-forces are allegedly inside Ukraine to support the evil Kuchma/Yanuckovych dictatorship.

I say freeze the bank-accounts of all members of the Ukrainian government and those implicated in the rigging of the elections. Also, ban them from travel to the West, impose an arms embargo, an oil-embargo, and a total trade-embargo excluding food and medicines. Then see how long the Russophile clique in the Presidential HQ will hold out.

oleg

Hi, all!
I think all of you noticed events that are developing in the Ukraine at the moment. People trying to protect their right to vote and democracy.
What you say - is that possible to pass an idea of U2 support in Kiev? There is constant arena for signers and of cause politicians. But, Ruslana winner of Eurovision 2004 declared hunger-strike against elections result and brothers Klitchko "showed their muscles" there already. There are a million of people only in capital city came to street. Help to support democracy!

Who is a contact person, where is a gate to knock?

Best regards to all!

Sparks

arcade, if it didn't work against Bush, why would it work against Yanukovych?

oleg

they are two different fruits!

Redleslie2

Hi Oleg! Can you tell me what "Ne pospishayte" means please?

oleg

"Don't be hurry" from ukrainian

Redleslie2

Dyakooyu!

OfflerCrocGod

Sparks wrote:

arcade, if it didn't work against Bush, why would it work against Yanukovych?

The EU had a trade embargo againts the US? When did this happen?

Sparks

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

The EU had a trade embargo againts the US? When did this happen?

That would have been me making an ironic point...

sovtek

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I say freeze the bank-accounts of all members of the Ukrainian government and those implicated in the rigging of the elections. Also, ban them from travel to the West, impose an arms embargo, an oil-embargo, and a total trade-embargo excluding food and medicines. Then see how long the Russophile clique in the Presidential HQ will hold out.

And just before you do this can you also do exactly the same to the Bush regime.
It's the height of hypocrisy for Colon Power to sit there and demand that the Ukraine not recognize their election because of the disparaty between exit polls and the ballot count.
That's it...I'm moving to the Ukraine.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

arcadegame2004

And just before you do this can you also do exactly the same to the Bush regime.

Those fraud allegations were confined to Florida in 2000 and had credibility because Bush's own brother is Governor of that state. Hardly a reason to impose sanctions against the entire US, whose president then was Clinton and hardly rigged the election against his own Vice-President. :rolleyes:

It's the height of hypocrisy for Colon Power to sit there and demand that the Ukraine not recognize their election because of the disparaty between exit polls and the ballot count.

But ALL the exit-polls in Ukraine found Yuschenko ahead by up to 11%! Not a single exit poll put Yanuckovych ahead. Also, note that in several Eastern pro-Russian parts of Ukraine, the number of voters was higher than the numbers of registered voters. Or do you think the dead voted?

elivsvonchiaing

arcadegame2004 wrote:

But ALL the exit-polls in Ukraine found Yuschenko ahead by up to 11%! Not a single exit poll put Yanuckovych ahead. Also, note that in several Eastern pro-Russian parts of Ukraine, the number of voters was higher than the numbers of registered voters. Or do you think the dead voted?

Think you might find the result of voters of Chernobyl - illuminating

Sparks

It would be interesting to compare the exit poll disparaties in the Ukraine with those in Ohio...

Redleslie2

Who paid for the exit polls.

SkepticOne

sovtek wrote:

And just before you do this can you also do exactly the same to the Bush regime.
It's the height of hypocrisy for Colon Power to sit there and demand that the Ukraine not recognize their election because of the disparaty between exit polls and the ballot count.
That's it...I'm moving to the Ukraine.

It's great that there's people here defending the right of the Ukraine to a rigged election. Why should the US be the only ones to enjoy this privilage.

Oleg, you must be pleased that there's people here willing to defend you against the bullying US! If you lot want a rigged election, go right ahead. You have our full support. We stand against hypocracy here.

SkepticOne

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

That's why I think we should also "stand in", after all aren't there reports of Russian SF in the east of the country? I just hope and wish that the EU has the balls for it.

At the moment the EU are have sat in on negotiations between the two sides as did Russia. It looks like the EU are taking slightly more interest in events than I would have imagined but I don't think the EU would intervene to prevent a civil war. Most likely a civil war would have to get started before such an intervention.

The talks have ended without agreement and Yushchenko has rejected an offer to go with the courts decision on the election. Instead he is calling for a re-election and is threatening continued protest until such time. He is insisting that protests remain peaceful but, of course, this can't be guaranteed with people on the streets.

It is interesting that he seems to have the support of the police and that the main TV station have come out in favour of him.

Journalists in Ukraine seem to have responded to the call by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko for them to reject government censorship.

A correspondent on the state channel, UT1, announced live on the evening bulletin that the entire news team was going to join the protests in Independence Square. She said their message to the protesters was: "We are not lying anymore". url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4044791.stm]source[/url

Things seem to be working out in favour of Yushchenko but he is relying fully on the protesters staying on the streets until he achieves success. What happens if they gradually start to lose interest?

sovtek

SkepticOne wrote:

It's great that there's people here defending the right of the Ukraine to a rigged election. Why should the US be the only ones to enjoy this privilage.

Oleg, you must be pleased that there's people here willing to defend you against the bullying US! If you lot want a rigged election, go right ahead. You have our full support. We stand against hypocracy here.

Not what I was saying....
I just wished that all hell was breaking loose in America over another, possibly rigged, election...and even more hell over the Bush regime's policy of "do as we say, not as we do".

bonkey

sovtek wrote:

Not what I was saying....
I just wished that all hell was breaking loose in America over another, possibly rigged, election...and even more hell over the Bush regime's policy of "do as we say, not as we do".

Well, in fairness, the election in the Ukraine - from what we can tell - is far more clearly corrupted.

There may, or may not, have been engineered irregularities in the US election (which in itself should warrant scrutiny, I agree) but that is a far far cry from what pretty-much every supposedly neutral observer is stating is the widespread case in the Ukraine.

jc

sovtek

bonkey wrote:

Well, in fairness, the election in the Ukraine - from what we can tell - is far more clearly corrupted.

There may, or may not, have been engineered irregularities in the US election (which in itself should warrant scrutiny, I agree) but that is a far far cry from what pretty-much every supposedly neutral observer is stating is the widespread case in the Ukraine.

jc

I agree that it's probably alot more pervasive and pronounced in the Ukraine...but I think the principle is the same.
I also wonder how close America's election would ever be scrutinized by international observers...but then maybe I'm just paraniod (and what Kurt said).

Redleslie2

I think the media coverage has been pretty poor and people's eagerness to take everything at face value is a bit pathetic. There's an article in The Guardian about it.The western media's view of Ukraine's election is hopelessly biased.

Plunging into the crowd of Yushchenko supporters in Independence Square after the first round of the election, I met two members of Una-Unso, a neo-Nazi party whose emblem is a swastika. They were unembarrassed about their allegiance, perhaps because last year Yushchenko and his allies stood up for the Socialist party newspaper, Silski Visti, after it ran an anti-semitic article claiming that Jews had invaded Ukraine alongside the Wehrmacht in 1941. On September 19 2004, Yushchenko's ally, Alexander Moroz, told JTA-Global Jewish News: "I have defended Silski Visti and will continue to do so. I personally think the argument ... citing 400,000 Jews in the SS is incorrect, but I am not in a position to know all the facts." Yushchenko, Moroz and their oligarch ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, meanwhile, cited a court order closing the paper as evidence of the government's desire to muzzle the media. In any other country, support for anti-semites would be shocking; in this case, our media do not even mention it.

Both sides look just about as hopeless as each other to me.

Redleslie2

Just make this woman queen ffs.

SkepticOne

sovtek wrote:

Not what I was saying....
I just wished that all hell was breaking loose in America over another, possibly rigged, election...and even more hell over the Bush regime's policy of "do as we say, not as we do".

Well, you must be really angry with John Kerry (the real president of the US) who doesn't appear to be doing much about it. And it didn't help that the Democrats campaign was somewhat lack lustre and failed to capture the vote of large sections of the population and that Kerry probably wasn't the best candidate that could have been put up by his party.

Personally, I don't think what Colin Powel says matters too much in this instance. Although the US might marginally prefer a western facing Ukraine, they don't appear to have a great interest in the matter.

We need to be able to evaluate events independently of what the US thinks or wants and this means that we need to stop being obsessed with them. The Ukraine situation is interesting in its own right.

sovtek

SkepticOne wrote:

Well, you must be really angry with John Kerry (the real president of the US) who doesn't appear to be doing much about it. And it didn't help that the Democrats campaign was somewhat lack lustre and failed to capture the vote of large sections of the population and that Kerry probably wasn't the best candidate that could have been put up by his party.

Yes I do think Kerry was a political coward and the Demo's screwed themselves by spending so much time and money on trying to get rid of Nader.
At the end of the day they just want to be Republicans.
Kerry also promised to "count every vote and.....blah blah blah" a promise that lasted less than a day.
Unlike Kerry, Nader is still presiding over recounts and pointing out election fraud.

Personally, I don't think what Colin Powel says matters too much in this instance. Although the US might marginally prefer a western facing Ukraine, they don't appear to have a great interest in the matter.

I don't know about the Ukraine in particular but they are definetly interested in their influence in the former Eastern Bloc.
Of course what Powell says probably isn't going to hold alot of sway in the Ukraine...but it speaks volumes about how they operate.

We need to be able to evaluate events independently of what the US thinks or wants and this means that we need to stop being obsessed with them.

I might be obsessed with the US government because that's who issues my passort.
What they think or do has alot of implications in the world now-a-days.

The Ukraine situation is interesting in its own right.

True. I'm probably just jealous of their democratic zeal.

Redleslie2

sovtek wrote:

Kerry also promised to "count every vote and.....blah blah blah" a promise that lasted less than a day.

I think the dems took a look at the mess they would have inherited if they'd won and said to themselves that they'd be mad to have to want to deal with it. Let the crazies finish ruining the place and get so many troops killed that they'll be unelectable for a term or two.

SkepticOne

Redleslie2 wrote:

Let the crazies finish ruining the place and get so many troops killed that they'll be unelectable for a term or two.

Could this possibly explain the whole Democrat approach to the campaign? Put up someone like Kerry thus guaranteeing a Bush win. Hold back the decent candidates till 2008. Where's me tinfoil hat?

Anyway, it doesn't look like the Ukrainians have time for such nonsense. Major flaws recognised by international authorities and an active fight for another election under stricter supervision and even the state police and media coming out in support of the contender.

OfflerCrocGod

Is Kerry campaigning in Ukraine now?