Putin puts troops in western Russia on alert in drill 1.1

[Crispin]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z3

It seems that E. Ukraine is going to get a huge amount of aid, if both the west and Russia shows up.

[burek]

I dont doubt that Ukraines will get some serious national feelings in a situation like this, the exact same can be said about Russians.

However, if the Ukraine are infact using some Nazi militias, the west needs to react to it, ofcourse we do, a country in Europe with a Nazi like agenda is completely unacceptable.

The issue however is that Kiev will use every man available to fight the terrorist, and Kiev will most likekly avoid a internal fight while fighting in the east aswell, but hell will freeze over before Europe will support a Nazi agenda in the Ukraine, I'm not sure you've been taught what ww2 did to Europe, it werent just Russia who were invaded.

europe supported genocides, ethnic cleansing and terrorism, all quite recently, what makes you think they wouldn't support a little bit of nazi agenda?

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What gives you the right to say what other countries must or must not do in their internal politics? You have enough problems inside your own country, bother yourself with those first, before telling others what to do.

hypocrisy at its finest


[Infracted]

[Crispin]

europe supported genocides, ethnic cleansing and terrorism, all quite recently, what makes you think they wouldn't support a little bit of nazi agenda?

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hypocrisy at its finest

Perhaps the history with Nazis.

[Ravenblade]

[...]

And yet EU supported coup that promised Ukrainians exactly that... talk about false advertising.
[...]

Very loaded statement again. First the EU's original goal was not a coup nor did they actually aim for a government switch. Yanukovych belonged to the EU-friendly wing of the PoR so the EU put a lot of trust into him. Saying they wanted him to go is misrepresenting the timeline of things and the agenda behind. EU had and still has a lot programmes going in Ukraine aimed at supporting reforms, reforms which are apparently needed and had nothing to do with power play.

The next step would be to reboot the EU association programme under a different set of future goals. An EU association does not inherently mean joining the EU otherwise we would have countries like Algeria, Israel, South Africa and Liechtenstein joining in the future.

[...]
The fact that you think a referendum is ok, even though it swarming with military from a foreign country is ok, does not make it so.

Would it be ok if Germany send soldiers into Holland, then made a staged referendum while german soldiers were inside the voting area? ofcourse not.

Sweden would switch sides a lot if all it would take is placing soldiers and holding a faux referendum lol.

[Bakis]

Sweden would switch sides a lot if all it would take is placing soldiers and holding a faux referendum lol.

Now I dont quite follow.

[Shalcker]

Very loaded statement again.

That's what opposition was selling to Ukrainians on Maidan.

First the EU's original goal was not a coup nor did they actually aim for a government switch. Yanukovych belonged to the EU-friendly wing of the PoR so the EU put a lot of trust into him. Saying they wanted him to go is misrepresenting the timeline of things and the agenda behind. EU had and still has a lot programmes going in Ukraine aimed at supporting reforms, reforms which are apparently needed and had nothing to do with power play.

And yet when Yanukovich was ousted instead of supporting their own plan they themselves signed just a few days ago as suggested by Russia (that was the cue to avoid entire Crimea situation) they supported everything new government did, downplayed radicals while not reigning them in, and ignored Yanukovich totally... i guess Europe did not value his "friendship" that much.

Out of sight - out of mind. Who cares about elected heads of state, right?

The next step would be to reboot the EU association programme under a different set of future goals. An EU association does not inherently mean joining the EU otherwise we would have countries like Algeria, Israel, South Africa and Liechtenstein joining in the future.

Yes, but instead by supporting illegal government they got Association Agreement signed as is, unrevised.

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More on effect of Russian sanctions:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4730c...44feabdc0.html

The EU plans to hold talks with countries such as Brazil and Chile in an attempt to dissuade them from stepping in to replace Europe’s banned agricultural exports to Russia, senior officials said on Monday.
Since Russia banned food imports from the EU and the US last week in a response to sanctions, Moscow has been courting Latin America for alternative supplies.
Several countries and trade groups in South America have said that Moscow’s measures could offer them a lucrative windfall.
Such excitement in the agricultural powerhouses of Latin America has triggered concern in Brussels. “We will be talking to the countries that would be potentially replacing our exports to indicate that we would expect them not to profit unfairly from the current situation,” said one senior EU official at a briefing on the situation in Ukraine.

Ahahaha, "profit unfairly". Brazilians seem to be having fun in comments there.

[Ravenblade]

Now I dont quite follow.

Yeah, I didn't elaborate it. If every country should hold a referendum on whether to join someone and if Crimean annexion was a lesson in creative referendum management then we would see a lot military tourism and apparently countries with low amount of active personnel would be visited a lot.

[Deleted]

More on effect of Russian sanctions:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4730c...44feabdc0.html


Ahahaha, "profit unfairly". Brazilians seem to be having fun in comments there.

China will sell fruits and vegetables directly to Russia, now this. Hi BRIC.
EU is trying to achieve something they're unable to. But thanks EU, I guess, you're boosting their relationship.

[Tierbook]

China will sell fruits and vegetables directly to Russia, now this. Hi BRIC.
EU is trying to achieve something they're unable to. But thanks EU, I guess, you're boosting their relationship.

How can you talk with a straight face about how good it is that China is importing food to Russia while talking about "Poisonous" Polish apples.

[Rukentuts]

How can you talk with a straight face about how good it is that China is importing food to Russia while talking about "Poisonous" Polish apples.

The smog adds to the flavor.

[Crispin]

Ofcourse sanctions will "do something" Europe will seek new markets, Russia will buy from someone else, it is as expected, but European economy is not tied up on exporting food to Russia, both sides will adapt and we'll continue from there.

I gotta admit, it made news the first day, havent seen anything about it since.


The only surprising thing is that Russia targeted food, afaik the US and the EU wont touch their food and medicine exports, but apparently Russia doesnt care, currently the EU is considering to compensate the farmers who are affected by this, but are holding off, since they might move to other markets to cover their loss.

[Deleted]

How can you talk with a straight face about how good it is that China is importing food to Russia while talking about "Poisonous" Polish apples.

Banning Polish apples is just a retaliation to EU sanctions and especially Poles stirring that shit. Or are we pretending to be naive?

They were willing to take shit apples, they are willing to take inferior products from China. And let's be honest, we're exporting mainly inferior products to Russia. As my country is importing inferior products from some other countries.

This will boost their relationships and that's only a good thing.
Europeans, you wanted to be free of Russia? There, you have it.

[Crispin]

China will sell fruits and vegetables directly to Russia, now this. Hi BRIC.
EU is trying to achieve something they're unable to. But thanks EU, I guess, you're boosting their relationship.

China imports food from the EU.

Consider the scenario, China begins to import more food, the EU covers their loss, and China ends up selling the food to Russia with a profit, obviously just speculating, but it seems like a posibility.

[Ravenblade]

That's what opposition was selling to Ukrainians on Maidan.

And yet when Yanukovich was ousted instead of supporting their own plan they themselves signed just a few days ago as suggested by Russia (that was the cue to avoid entire Crimea situation) they supported everything new government did, downplayed radicals while not reigning them in, and ignored Yanukovich totally... i guess Europe did not value his "friendship" that much.

Out of sight - out of mind. Who cares about elected heads of state, right?

Yes, but instead by supporting illegal government they got Association Agreement signed as is, unrevised.

They downplayed radicals? Source? As far as I remember there's been a really heated discourse on how to proceed here, if that happened here it happened in all EU countries. There was certainly no unanimous support or a general common line which explains the muteness about it. They could have been a lot more vocal but in reality it wasn't going to happen due to lack of common stance, instead you had politicians across the EU who relied on countries like Germany to determine that stance and Germany for a long time rejected a clear one-sided position and that's about it. You had countries like Poland which were far more worried and others which preferred trying to mediate and you had individuals like Urmas Paet trying to make their own investigation into things. Fact finding.
Don't forget that in the end a lot of things in the EU are decided based on political and economical ramifications especially the latter. If the EU had not already been investing into Ukraine they might have considered a withdrawal but on the other hand a lot EU countries had also economical ties with Russia.
Least of all they possess powers to "reign in" radicals. Radicals who reject any foreign influence including the EU. Most of the influence which the EU had was based on civilian and economical NGOs and programmes. The political power of the EU is more or less overstated as much as it is understated.

They absolutely did not ignore Yanukovych even if they could have because he was the one to shut the door first. In fact they had sent a team of foreign ministers to broker a peace between protesters and government. If it hadn't been for the radicalized faction of the protesters who tore apart the agreement shortly after then he might not have fled the country and the process would have been rebooted.

Yes, the interim government did sign the political part of the AA which is actually only a small fraction of it. In return the agreement was also binding for them. The trade part was signed in June. It is currently undergoing ratification and, no, it's not going to be signed without revision.

[Deleted]

China imports food from the EU.

Consider the scenario, China begins to import more food, the EU covers their loss, and China ends up selling the food to Russia with a profit, obviously just speculating, but it seems like a posibility.

China is producing more than you can imagine. And they're buying from other Asian countries. They don't need EU.

[Tierbook]

China is producing more than you can imagine. And they're buying from other Asian countries. They don't need EU.

However, since 2000 the depletion of China's main aquifers has led to an overall decrease in grain production, turning China into a net importer. The trend of Chinese dependence on imported food is expected to accelerate as the water shortage worsens.[27] However desalination plants find few customers because it is still cheaper to over-utilize rivers, lakes and aquifers, even as these are depleted.[28]

Today, China is both the world's largest producer and consumer of agricultural products.[29][30] However, the researcher Lin Erda has stated a projected fall of possibly 14% to 23% by 2050 due to water shortages and other impacts by climate change; China has increased the budget for agriculture by 20% in 2009, and continues to support energy efficiency measures, renewable technology, and other efforts with investments, such as the over 30% green component of the $586bn fiscal stimulus package announced in November 2008

China is not in much of a position to export.

[Rukentuts]

How can you talk with a straight face about how good it is that China is importing food to Russia while talking about "Poisonous" Polish apples.

You see their GDP numbers?

[Crispin]

China is producing more than you can imagine. And they're buying from other Asian countries. They don't need EU.

I know China is producing more than I can imagine, they produced my phone, ofcourse they're buying from other countries, did I imply that they did not?

They need the EU as much as we need them, I doubt the Chinese middle class is ready to take any hits because Russia is acting unpredicatble again, they have their own issues.

Incase you forgot, China havent been taking any side in this conflict whatsoever, they'll sit on the sideline and make smart moves when they can.

Like that gas agreement, which they got alot cheaper than what Russia have been asking the last 10 years, good move from China, it's always a sign of a great ally who'll take an advantage of the situation and dump the prices from their "friend"

[Rukentuts]

I know China is producing more than I can imagine, they produced my phone

They "produce" it or just manufacture it?

[Crispin]

I've got no idea where they get their material from tbh.

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Aha, manufacture