Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[carl]

So, there is no evidence which could possibly change your belief into "pro-Ukranian Crimea" and any piece of infirmation you stumble upon would just reinforce it? Confirmation bias as it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Mirhond:

If you guys are going to troll here as "Mirhond" work a little harder and have just one person do the trolling. When you switch off the quality of the written English and the sentence construction is wildly variable. Have a little respect for us and at least try to make it look good.

[kaur]

Analyze this.

Correspondence of US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev.

We have hacked e-mail correspondence of US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev Jason Gresh and a high ranking official from Ukrainian General Staff Igor Protsyk.

appears that they are planning to conduct a series of attacks on Ukrainian military bases in order to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.

Particularly, Jason Gresh writes to Igor Protsyk that it’s time to implement a plan that implies “causing problems to the transport hubs in the south-east of Ukraine in order to frame-up the neighbor. It will create favorable conditions for Pentagon to act”, says Jason Gresh.

In his turn, Protsyk writes to some Vasil and tells him to arrange an attack on an airbase of 25 aviation brigade of Ukrainian air force stationed in Melitopol.

This Vasil is responsible for arranging the details of the attack, gathering of the gunmen and providing them with a map of sites that are chosen to be attacked.

We strongly recommend everyone to look through these documents. There you will find all the details. (anon)

http://marina-yudenich.livejournal.com/1077483.html

[carl]

kaur:

That is WWII stuff. It would be comical if there wasn't a chance that a lot of people will get killed.

[kaur]

If those letters are true, then something must be done with your military education system . If this is fake, it reminds me this kind of activity.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...0USA-17Dec.pdf

Thanks for the links to 20committee site, that gave me hints about this clever method!

[Firn]

@kaur: Sadly I do not speak Russian. Not mastering on of the Slavic languages is something I regret, I really should have taken those Russian university courses. I got a bit into Slovak for personal reasons, but I didn't progress much.

@AmericanPride: Corruption is indeed a plague infesting the whole country throughout most layers. On the political one I'm pretty sure that within the black to white spectrum of that cancer the gray is a lot darker for the guy around the ex-president, but I obviously don't have the stats to prove it right now. Maybe apart from the amazingly expensive palasts he built.

Overall I would not be surprised if the new government does paint the picture of the Ukrainian economy in the grimmest of colours and puts the € billions needed even over the upper estimates. That might play well an secure as much billions of foreign loans as possible. The story of the only 6000 combat-ready soldiers seems to work in the same way.

This doesn't of course mean that both the economy and military aren't in a terrible mess.

@kaur again: This one does obviously fail Occam's Razor and plausibility. I mean the enemy has invaded and occupied a part of your guaranteed and undisputed territory and now there is suddendly the desperate need to trigger a conflict against that very invader by wild fabrications?

If spread by the Kremlin it looks as much other stuff to be about further brain-washing the people back home. Poor guys.

[carl]

On the political one I'm pretty sure that within the black to white spectrum of that cancer the gray is a lot darker for the guy around the ex-president...

Firn:

That is very finely written. I am officially jealous.

[davidbfpo]

On the link is a table of force strength and equipment (excl. naval assets):http://www.iiss.org/en/militarybalan...60DA63A360E839

IISS also have an article reviewing the military dimensions, now a week old:https://www.iiss.org/en/militarybala...-military-0218

[Firn]

Quite early I wrote about the danger that the Ukrainian banks in the Crimea could run dry without a rapid reaction by the seperatists. We will see, but you know that there is no big confidence if you see scenes like that:





It is quite a murky business, with rumours of a complete nationalization of the Crimean banks going around. What seems quite certain that the withdraw limits per person per day have been pushed down again. All this insecurity is of course bad for business and the economy.



The big management problems, all that KGB stuff and the disregard for an economic fallout really seem to support the informations which indicated that only a small circle, mostly ex-KGB, was involved in the initial decision makings.

[mirhond]

@Firn

Sadly this is just the acceleration of a long term trend in which more and more power within Russia gets centralized and concentrated. The 'Russian Federation' seems increasingly to be so only in name.

Legalistic fallacy. New rules and regulations don't nessesarily mean the actual grouth of Putin's power and influence. He may exploit it or may not, lots of hidden variables behind this. Recent "dictatorship laws" didn't help Yanukovich to stay in power, as you remember.
You are right about "Federation" - this part of the term is meaningless, sad but true.

[mirhond]

Mirhond:

If you guys are going to troll here as "Mirhond" work a little harder and have just one person do the trolling. When you switch off the quality of the written English and the sentence construction is wildly variable. Have a little respect for us and at least try to make it look good.

Total and complete offtop

You made my day! It is the best compliment about my English i've ever heard in my entire life!

I can give you my Skype contact, so you can personally evaluate how crappy my spoken English is, written is just slightly better. Really, do it, send me a PM. Presupposing that you value your beliefs more than reality, I give a 15% a priori probability you'll do this.
Besides, I am not trolling, just plaing a legitimate role of devil's advocate.

ps. Sorry for offtop, the temptation was irresistible.

[carl]

Total and complete offtop

You made my day! It is the best compliment about my English i've ever heard in my entire life!

I can give you my Skype contact, so you can personally evaluate how crappy my spoken English is, written is just slightly better. Really, do it, send me a PM. Presupposing that you value your beliefs more than reality, I give a 15% a priori probability you'll do this.
Besides, I am not trolling, just plaing a legitimate role of devil's advocate.

ps. Sorry for offtop, the temptation was irresistible.

Glad to see you guys have upped your game and put one of your better guys on this as this and your next post show. I feel better now.

[mirhond]

Glad to see you guys have upped your game and put one of your better guys on this as this and your next post show. I feel better now.

Well, I gave you a tool to verify your statement, you failed to use it. Here is another one - ask admins to check my IP. But I'am sure you are not going to use it, because you are happy with your belief in "misteriuos guys behind the user".
I have a scientific explanation - you just never met a non-native English user with huge gaps in grammar and syntax. Nice to meet you - I'am such kind of a person, I've never studied English properly, so I dont bother with this stuff.
Anyway, enjoy your confirmation bias and false beliefs.

ps. Video especially for you, "right people" beat and humiliate "wrong people"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=afrXa-qsLfo

pps. Communists are gone, enjoy your Nazism.

[carl]

Mirhond:

Fascinating. No subtlety at all. Fascinating.

[JMA]

Communists are gone, enjoy your Nazism.

It's not an either or choice. Who needs either?