The Other McCain

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Ukraine Concedes Crimea to Russia

Posted on | March 19, 2014 | 83 Comments

Putin scores an easy victory:

Bowing to the reality of the Russian military occupation of Crimea a day after Russia announced it was annexing the disputed peninsula, the Ukrainian government said on Wednesday that it had drawn up plans to evacuate all of its military personnel and their families and was prepared to relocate as many as 25,000 of them to mainland Ukraine.
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors have been trapped on military bases and other installations here for more than two weeks, surrounded by heavily armed Russian military forces and loosely organized local militia.
While the provisional government in Kiev has insisted that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is illegal and has appealed to international supporters for help, the evacuation announcement by the head of the national security council, Andriy Parubiy, effectively amounted to a surrender of Crimea, at least from a military standpoint.

The “crisis” is over, and we now have the fait accompli.

 

Category: Russia, Ukraine

Comments

83 Responses to “Ukraine Concedes Crimea to Russia”

  1. Wombat_socho
    March 19th, 2014 @ 9:31 pm

    We’re all waiting for General Mattis to cross the Potomac with his legions in defiance of the Senate. 😉

  2. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 9:55 pm

    Briefly, nonsense. When one sees 123% turnout, one is (usually) assured that a democratic process had very little to do with anything.

    And 97% of an 83% turnout is not within shouting distance of a credible result in as contentious a region as Crimea.

    But, hey, don’t let reason impede the rush to worship at Vladimir’s feet as he resurrects the Empire.

  3. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:06 pm

    Oh, dear. Look, I was a Soviet Studies major, back when that really was a job. Generally, Russians we meet are great, and there is no (as any reasonable reading of the press shows) “hatred” of Russians.

    Frankly, the press doesn’t understand or want to analyze Putin’s’ oligarchy or his ambitions. There seems to me to be a media suspended between vehement condemnation and slavering devotion of Putin. Not Russia, but Putin.

    Or, “I reject your attempt to impose your propaganda on my personal judgment.”

  4. Ukraine preparing withdrawal of troops from Crimea
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:10 pm

    […] on Putin really hurt huh? Ukraine is already preparing to pull their troops out of Crimea, and basically give territory to […]

  5. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:13 pm

    I wasn’t there, but followed events with interest. It seemed then, and seems now, that Ukrainians want a better government than they have yet achieved.

    I don’t believe that renders their evident desire void.

  6. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:14 pm

    Oh, dear.

  7. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:18 pm

    We have an interest in rolling back pretensions before they become…ah, destabilizing.

    Though expecting this administration to even begin to understand that concept is probably insane.

  8. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:20 pm

    Extraordinarily inaccurate. Thoroughly propagandized populations have very weak ” reality” filters.

  9. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:22 pm

    No. However, broad historical patterns do tend to hold, given human beings as a constant.

  10. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:24 pm

    Now that is a remarkably silly response!

  11. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

    There’s a difference between explaining and justifying. You are well into the justifying portion of the Venn diagram.

    Hence, you are an apologist. Enjoy the label.

  12. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:26 pm

    I’m thinking that since Ron Paul endorsed Putin’s land grab, using “logic” similar to what is being displayed here, we have an infestation of Ronulans.

  13. Art Deco
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

    I am not tossing out gratuitous insults; you’re offering fraudulent arguments. Ethnic cleansing was ongoing. Those estimates were speculative and reasonable given the death toll of the Bosnian war. You know that.

  14. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:31 pm

    Putin would call them “gulags”, not “concentration camps”. Just for nostalgia, you understand, due to a certain longing for the days when he was a KGB agent, wild and free.

  15. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

    Phil is using ridicule in an attempt to shut down debate. I find that reassuring, because it means he has no argument. It’s hard to keep up the “Look! Bunnies!!!!” schtick for an extended period.

  16. Art Deco
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:34 pm

    It does not surprise me there was intramural political violence in Kosovo at the time, though there was surprisingly little under the circumstances. Ibrahim Rugova had some success at organizing a parallel set of institutions in spite of the repression.

    The deal was and is this: Serbia had no claim to rule a mess of Albanians not grounded in reasons of state. They could not manage it without being severely abusive to that local population.

    No clue why palaeoknuckleheads appointed themselves unpaid press agents for Slobodan Milosevic. The silly shtick cost Chronicles most of its readership.

  17. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:35 pm

    “Penal Colonies”, if you please. Vladimir Putin does not wish to reconstitute the ramshackle Soviet Union, but a modern, organized, and profitable Russian Empire.

  18. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:37 pm

    I am aware.

    I merely choose to respond as bluntly as possible.

  19. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:37 pm

    Oh, yes, that’s right! The gulags weren’t very profitable as slave labor camps.

    “Penal Colonies” works much better.

  20. JeffS
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:38 pm

    I agree — that’s why I call out the Putin trolls on their tactics.

  21. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:39 pm

    Certain concepts are (I note apologetically) entirely discredited, even in Russia.

  22. Art Deco
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:41 pm

    The Muslims engaged in wide scale terrorism (though we didn’t really
    call it that then) which lead to the Serbs electing leaders who vowed to
    end the Kosovo threat.

    The abuse of the Kosovar population began in 1987. There was no terrorism and were no elections at that time.

  23. Dianna Deeley
    March 19th, 2014 @ 10:53 pm

    Would that include the speech by Eisenhower that encouraged the Hungarian rebellion in 1956? Don’t get me started on that particular betrayal. Just, don’t. The sole positive part of the current ongoing disaster is that as absolutely no one is relying upon this adminisration’s word.

  24. CPAguy
    March 20th, 2014 @ 1:03 am

    At some point there was terrorism.

    That conflict didn’t begin over peanuts.

    Not to support the Yugoslav position…they went way too far…but there was a reason it all went down.

  25. Phil_McG
    March 20th, 2014 @ 5:25 am

    You might be on to something Dianna.

    Explains why Obama got elected twice.

  26. Esther Williams
    March 20th, 2014 @ 9:47 am

    Sodomite activist and anti-Christian bigot Jamie Kirchick’s hatred for Russians is pretty well documented.

    Kirchick’s personal milchama, under the filthy rag of Sodom, seems particularly targeted at Russians:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamelder/reporter-blasts-kremlin-channel-over-anti-gay-law

  27. ThePaganTemple
    March 20th, 2014 @ 1:01 pm

    Hell, it would be a lot easier to care about this crap if the residents of the Crimea were not Russian but, for example, well, Americans

  28. David R. Graham
    March 20th, 2014 @ 1:09 pm

    FYI, this discourse by Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz titled Ukraine: Code Orange: http://theological-geography.net/?p=5104

  29. Quartermaster
    March 20th, 2014 @ 1:51 pm

    I hadn’t heard that it really hurt Chronicles. Kosovo, however was historically Serbian and Albanians came in and were never put back out. There is a lesson there for our country that the GOPe had better be learning, and quickly.
    Under the circumstances, I can’t fault the Serbians for wanting to hold onto the place, but they had already given it away and there was no chance they were going to hold onto it.

  30. And in Other News… @DonLemon | Regular Right Guy
    March 20th, 2014 @ 2:27 pm

    […] Ukraine Concedes Crimea to Russia […]

  31. The Obama Transparency Contagion… | Regular Right Guy
    March 20th, 2014 @ 4:11 pm

    […] Ukraine Concedes Crimea to Russia […]

  32. Adobe_Walls
    March 20th, 2014 @ 6:01 pm

    Just because it’s parody isn’t necessarily a disqualifier.

  33. Adobe_Walls
    March 20th, 2014 @ 6:07 pm

    Our vital national interests in this little drama are limited but more than zero.

    I’ve found this discussion most clarifying: non-genocidal ethnic cleansing has much to recommend it.

    “Vladimir Putin did not read Barack Obama’s soul. He just
    read Obama’s resume and knew he could take him. He knows Obama is the heir of
    the San Francisco Democrats and their blame America first foreign policy.”– Eric Erickson