TV comedy president takes big lead in Ukraine election

But the majority of Chechens wanted independence! The state should be outside russian borders, not within! How come Yeltsyn didn’t grant them freedom? Regional self-determination is the absolute right, according to you!

 

Really:

"The darkest evidence of the far right’s involvement comes from Ivan Katchanovski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, who researched the events of February 20, 2014, “Maidan snipers massacre” when mysterious gunmen killed over 50 people. In addition to being the crucial turning point that led to Yanukovych’s abdication, the massacre is the climax of Winter on Fire. Katchanovski argues, with considerable forensic and other evidence, that far-right groups not only provoked fighting by shooting at the police but also carried out the murder of Maidan protesters in a false-flag operation. The Kiev government has been unable to provide a definitive explanation to what happened that day.

The far right’s absence from Winter on Fire becomes even more glaring when compared with other documentaries about Ukraine. Maidan: Tonight Tomorrow, which received a positive review in The New Yorker, managed to include the far right, despite being less than nine minutes long, while Masks of the Revolution, a French film, focused solely on the role of ultranationalists during and after Maidan. (Ironically, the Ukrainian government attempted to prevent France from airing the latter film because they claimed it “creates misconception.”)

Another gross distortion in Winter on Fire is its presentation of Maidan as an independent phenomenon free of Western interference. While the film makes much of the ties between the Yanukovych government and Moscow, it portrays the protest movement as spontaneous, grassroots, and, above all, beholden to no foreign interests. Visiting American politicians appear in a single ten-second scene when they, according to the intertitle, “meet with Yanukovych in order to find a diplomatic solution to the current crisis.”

Evidence, however, demonstrates that America’s role during the winter turmoil of 2013–14 was more quarterback than arbiter. The most telling example of this comes via an intercepted phone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Washington’s ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. During the call, Nuland and Pyatt sound like two senior managers hashing out corporate restructuring, with Nuland instructing Pyatt on which Ukrainian leader should be appointed prime minister, how to sideline the UN and the EU in negotiations, and the best strategy for making Ukraine land “jelly side up,” as an enthusiastic Pyatt described it."

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-heartbreaking-irony-of-winter-on-fire/

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The call, which was leaked on February 4, 2014, was not the first time Nuland and Pyatt were deeply involved in Maidan. On December 11, 2013, the pair made a highly publicized tour of the barricades handing out cookies to protesters. Three days later, Senator John McCain flew in to speak to the crowds; McCain and Senator Chris Murphy shared the stage with Svoboda leader Tyahnybok. Both visits were filmed by Ukrainian and Western press, yet are absent from the documentary. Understandably, the involvement of senior US government officials working to land Ukraine “jelly side up” interfered with the “everyday people, teachers, doctors, street cleaners” narrative of Winter on Fire."

We are not discussing economic conditions in Russia but if you have a link to support your claim about Russian economic conditions please do provide and then perhaps we can also discuss poverty in American sacrifice zones such as Camden, NJ among other places - not that it's relevant to this thread in any way, but you brought it up.

It is not so much that Ukraine buys gas from Russia as much as it used to be a major transit point for gas to EU. Russia is working to go around that:

"The outlook for transit of Russian gas to Europe, and in particular transit across Ukraine, in 2020 and in the period up to 2025, is considered in this paper. The outlines of the problem are well known: Gazprom is aiming, by constructing transit diversification pipelines (principally, Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream), to minimise transit across Ukraine, and eventually to reduce it to zero; Naftogaz Ukrainy aims to retain the transit business as an important source of revenue. In any case, the transit diversification pipelines are very unlikely to be operating at full capacity by 31 December 2019,1 when the current transit contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz expires. New contractual arrangements must therefore be agreed; they are being negotiated in an atmosphere of unprecedented friction between the two companies. Failure to reach agreement would result in supply disruptions; this could seriously damage the gas industry’s efforts to raise its status as part of Europe’s energy supply future. I review the progress of transit diversification (Section 1), the state of the negotiations (Section 2) and possible outcomes (Section 3), and consider the implications of no agreement being reached (Section 4). I then review the prospects for transit of Russian gas to Europe up to 2025 and the implications for Ukraine (Section 5), and look at the issue of seasonal flow factors (Section 6). Finally I comment on the investment requirements of the Ukrainian transport system, and the influence on this of gas market reforms (Section 7), and present conclusions. 1. Transit diversification is underway, but will not be complete by 2020 Table 1 presents, in outline, the problem facing Gazprom and its transit diversification strategy. Two Scenarios, reflecting possible pipeline capacity into Europe, excluding routes through Ukraine (but including existing pipelines to Finland, and through Belarus and Blue Stream) are presented (summarising Table 4, below). Scenario A2 reflects the likely state of affairs in 2020: it is assumed, first, that EU regulation of the OPAL extension of Nord Stream will be adjusted to allow Gazprom to use all its capacity, and therefore to use the full capacity of Nord Stream 1 (55 bcm);3 second, that one string of Turkish Stream will be operational; and, third, that no other transit diversification pipelines will yet be operating. Scenario C reflects a possible state of affairs in 2021-25: that the Nord Stream 2 project, and both strings of Turkish Stream, are completed, and the total non-Ukrainian transit capacity exceeds 200 bcm. Even in this case, though, shutting the door on Ukrainian transit entirely may be problematic, (a) because volumes at the top of the range of demand projections mentioned could only be delivered using Ukrainian transit, and (b) because of seasonal factors."

https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/...sit-through-Ukraine-after-2019-Insight-41.pdf

Building dams to restrict downstream water supply to a population could be considered and act of war as much as illegal sanctions are an act of economic warfare.

 

Chechnya did declare independence in 1991. The republic was split in two with Ingush leaders choosing to remain within the Russian Federation. That eventually devolved into a civil war - the first Chechnyan war., Russia intervened to fight against Wahhabi terrorists and to restore order.

I do support the majority will of the Chechnyan people. I do not support Saudi backed Wahhabi terrorists who bomb innocent civilians.

Why do you?

 

Oh the Americans did do something about the apartment building bombing. They accused Vladimir Putin of it. Can you imagine if Russia instead of offering sympathy towards the bombing victims in the West, was to use it for propaganda against their presidents? But that's the difference between the civilized countries and sociopaths.

Here's a video showing over 10,000 Chechnyans ready to fight for Vladimir Putin and Russia. If you get on to 2:50 you can hear Kadyrov tell his men how Vladimir Putin risked everything to speak to the Mufti, and saved Chechnya. When Putin told Bush that they found CIA agents embedded with the terrorists in Chechnya, Bush told him Washington can do whatever it wants.

Today those Sunni Chechnyans are an indispensable part of the Russian peace process in Syria and are guards where others wouldn't be trusted.

 

You failed to show how the West managed to sway a huge number of Ukrainians to go on protest and risk their lives.
All you do is continue to repeat same old tired BS about billions of dollars and absolutely ignore the basic question - what were the funds used for and how could you change the minds of millions of people in absense of state sanctioned propaganda.

Closing an artificial channel because it’s impossible to maintain it by the owner is a perfectly legitimate reason for shutting it down.

I’m not sure why you got this to blabbering about Nord stream. I personally don’t care.

 

The terrorists did not represent the majority of people living in Chechnya.
Again, why wasn’t Chechnya granted independence in 1991?
How about Tatarstan? Until recently they even had different passports and car license plates from the rest of Russia.

 

But you are throwing facts into the Russia bad/Ukraine a democracy narrative.

Can't have facts clouding the issue. That's what comedians as politicians are all about.

Interestingly the issue of Bush et al and his CIA buddies actually creating and funding Wahhabi terrorists to draw Russia into it's own Vietnam in Afghanistan never seems to come up in these discussions.

 

You are just repeating the same old thing and it does not make sense. Chechnya did declare independence in 1991 - then there was a civil war

Yes, it is clear you do not care about facts. You claimed that Ukraine does not buy Russian gas and I tried to point out to you that it is more complicated than that.
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Try reading links before responding.

 

Nope, no civil war - russia attacked them and bombed them to the Stone Age. Their region and citizens!

Russia is not the only source of natural gas on this planet. Try to keep up!

 

Those Russian tanks were made in Ukraine, so what side of the border were they on? Besides that, the Ukrainians were surrendering with their tanks. They had no intention of killing their own people for an unelected junta in Kiev.

The Russians did shoot a barrage of bullets at the Ukrainians from within the Russian federation in retaliation for being shot at first. Believe me, they didn't need to enter Ukraine, they had plenty of means of getting back at them without doing so.

Taught the Ukrainians a good lesson. I only feel sorry for the poor conscripts who really were being forced to fight against their will. But it was one of the means Poroshenko had of killing off people he knew wouldn't vote for him.

 

The people who suffered with the bombings, were the Russians. The Chechnyans were able to go back to their villages.

Here's Grozny today, thanks to Vladimir Putin. Pouring so much money into Chechnya was resented at first in Russia considering how many died in the wars, but Kadyrov's men proved their loyalty to mother Russia with their lives in Ukraine and especially in Syria - and that is no small sacrifice.

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The Maidan protesters were being paid. You tell me how they could afford not to work for so many weeks and even months, unless you think the poorest area of Ukraine has tens of thousands of trust fund babies. One German poster said Merkel was paying them, but I don't think she was the only one. I know the nationalist armies were paid for by such as Kolomoisky.

Excuse me, isn't the main TV station in Kiev owned by Poroshenko? I'm sure there's a lot of objectivity there. Now answer this question. Why were the candidates that represent the people in East and South of Ukraine thrown in trash cans and threatened not to run?

 

I provided you links that tell exactly what happened in Chechnya. Now you are just denying what happened. I already told you I support democratic will of Chechnyans - all Chechnyans including Ingush and others. Here I'll try again with something simpler that maybe you can understand:

"From 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity left the republicamidst reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population (mostly Russians, Ukrainians and Armenians)..[18][19][20] Chechen industry began to fail as a result of many Russian engineers and workers leaving or being expelled from the republic combined with the Soviet era's crippling of the non-Russian/Armenian/Ukrainian populace (Chechens, some Ingush and Nogais, Jews) through Russian-only schooling, heavy discrimination in the public sector of the workforce, and other similar measures (even as late as 1989, Checheno-Ingushetia was ruled by a bureaucracy of ethnic Russians). During the undeclared Chechen civil war, factions both sympathetic and opposed to Dudayev fought for power, sometimes in pitched battles with the use of heavy weapons. In March 1992, the opposition attempted a coup d'état, but their attempt was crushed by force. A month later, Dudayev introduced direct presidential rule, and in June 1993, dissolved the Chechen parliament to avoid a referendum on a vote of non-confidence. In late October 1992, Russian forces dispatched to the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict were ordered to move to the Chechen border; Dudayev, who perceived this as "an act of aggression against the Chechen Republic", declared a state of emergency and threatened general mobilization if the Russian troops did not withdraw from the Chechen border. To prevent the invasion of Chechnya, he did not provoke the Russian troops.

I know wiki is not a totally reliable link but at this point I am trying to keep it simple so even you can possibly grasp what happened. Not to say Russia was not brutal in suppressing separatists but was hardly a case of Russia just attacking and bombing them into the stone age as you are trying to claim.

Chechnya is largely stable and at peace today anyway so why are you trying to conflate what happened there with Russia's support for ethnic Russians in Ukraine? But for the record I do support democratic rights and self-determination for the people of Chechnya. It is terrorism I denounce.

Who said it was? That being said, why are you ignoring the significance of the Nord pipelines and their routes through to Europe. It is relevant to the discussion on water and natural resources is it not?

One other note, you don't think the damming the Dneiper-Crimea canal, infrastructure built from 1961-'71 by the soviet state and creating drought conditions for Russian citizens of Crimea is a provocative act of aggression or that water rights should be fairly negotiated between Russia and Ukraine as well as independence and border disputes?

 

There is lots of evidence that the snipers were far right goons being paid to provoke government response too. Something that is completely ignored in the Russian media and which Thedimon would know nothing about.

The west conveniently ignores the fascists and neo-nazi influences in Ukraine and their atrocities such as the Azov battalion and others:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/02/neo-nazi-groups-recruit-britons-to-fight-in-ukraine

 

Neo Nazis and Azov, again? It seems to me russian trolls will never let it go. As if Russia or the US or any other country doesn’t have their own racial supremacy movements.
Whatever rocks your boat, I’m done with you.

 

@Thedimon.....the russki trolls are in love with all things "Nazi".....they collaborated with them, provided raw materials for Gitler.....Vlasov had armies fight for them.

If it wasnt for the Nazi scientists.....there would've been no Abombs, no Sputnik, no AK47, no reactive armor for their tanks, no jet propulsion for their rockets.

They just dont like when ukies adopt those ideals....or anyone else, LOL.

 

Chehnya was de-facto independent since 1991 till 1994. But this independence turned into blood and chaos. Because there is a big difference between an ability to gain independence and to build a statehood. It can be easily seen in Africa, for example, where after Europeans has gone шт 60-70s, the new states for decades sank in blood, misgovernment and tribalism. So, talking about independence of Chechnya it's completely not the same as independence of Czech Rep. and Slovakia, Montenegro and Serbia and so on. It's much more similar to Congo or Somalia. Because statehood means a society must have some important features and patterns. Every society can produce only its own model of statehood. Some societies fail to do that - as it happens now in Somalia.
Chechnya declared independence in 1991 and even elected the president. But that were all achievements of Chechen state-building. Then it went only worse. After getting rid of Soviet power and of all its institutions, Chechens very quickly went back to their natural condition - they split into clans and started war of all against all. Clan became the main unit of Chechen society. Not government, not police or justice, only clan could guarantee your life, your freedom, your rights. And how clan could do that? Only by force. Actually, that was typical society from the Early Middle Ages. And if that was somewhere in Africa - we wouldn't give a sh*t about it, like Europeans in 60s. But unfortunately Chehcnya is situated inside Russian territory. From the North it borders with Stavropol krai, form the West with Ingushetia and Ossetia, from the East with Dagestan. Soviet weapon storages in Chehcnya were ransacked, hundreds of thousands of guns were stolen, Chechen clans were armed and they started to do what they were used to do before Russian conquest of Caucasus - raids and robberies of neighbours - either other Chechen clans, or neighbouring territories, villages, towns. It's typical occupation for medieval society - gaining spoils of war, slaves from neighbouring tribe is a decent work for a real man. That's why Chechnya in 90s became the main source of climinal activity and terrorism in Russia.
Anarchy in Chechnya caused explosive growth of terrorism:
May 26, 1994 - Chechens captured regular bus, 33 hostages.
June 28, 1994 - Chechens captured regular bus,40 hostages.
July 28, 1994 - Chechens captured regular bus, 41 hostages.
It's apart from "usual" crimes - robberies, murders, kidnappings and so on. Kidnapping became the main method of "earning" of Chechen clans. Bands of Chechens captured people for ransom and enslave.
Chechen president elected in 1991, in 1994 became the president of several clans in Grozny and around.
Once again I have to say. If that was somewhere far from us, we wouldn't care a lot. But if you have to live close to such "independent nation" - it's a big problem. It's very easy to make bla-bla-bla - evilrussianswanttoseizethewholeworld-blablabla-evilrussiansbombedpoorsmallchechnya-blablabla-evilrussiansevilrussians-and so on... But it's far from reality and people who speak that are idiots and silly haters.

 

Russian trolls????

What the hell are you talking about?

I quite patiently tried to provide you with information to help you with your comprehension of what happened in Chechnya and Ukraine outside the western propaganda you lap up. You thank me by calling me a troll?

Aren't trolls the ones who butt into conversations with false information and then call people names when they lose the argument?

You're done because you have nothing intelligent to say.

 

Well...yeah, in a sense you are a troll......since you and others like you bring up the term "Nazis".....the supposed non trolls rarely do that.

It's not just here on PF, it's on other message boards also , where theres tons of them.


Usually one is called a "nazi" when one even remotely disagrees with a troll....or the troll loses the arguement/narrative....like yourself for instance.

 

Hey look, you can type in legible English after all......

 

Yes...I always could, i usually type crudely so that the trolls can easily understand.

 

Is it just me, or does the entire world just not trust the political class anymore?

Trump, this guy, heck even Bernie Sanders is consider an "outsider".

I don't think these stories could be any more clear, that people are sick and tired of the BS that their government "tells them" as the media spins a completely different truth.

 

To me, when a supposed American member here brings up Nazis and Azov in Ukraine, totally ignoring the fact that Nazis exist in propbably most of the countries in the world, that’s a sign. A sign that I’m talking with a paid Russian troll, or I’m talking with someone whose intelligence level is so low that I shouldn’t be disturbing them with my posts. In either case they end up in my ignore list.

 

So you spend your entire time here calling "Russkis" derogatory names and baiting with anti-Russian propaganda but I'm the troll???

I brought up neo-fascist complicity in the Maidan coup in direct response to a question by Thedimon to try and help him clarify his muddled view on history. I did not all him a Nazi, I pointed out that Nazis' opened fire on protesters prompting a violent government response that set the stage for overthrowing a government that we can all agree was backed by Russia but which was, nevertheless, democratically elected. I also attempted to understand that American interests were complicit in supporting the regime change in Kiev. The facts are not really in despute:

"§ That the snipers who killed scores of protestors and policemen on Kiev’s Maidan Square in February 2014, thereby triggering a “democratic revolution” that overthrew the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought to power a virulent anti-Russian, pro-American regime—it was neither democratic nor a revolution, but a violent coup unfolding in the streets with high-level support—were sent not by Yanukovych, as is stillwidely reported, but instead almost certainly by the neofascist organization Right Sector and its co-conspirators.

§ That the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa shortly later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II has been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative even though it remains a painful and revelatory experience for many Ukrainians.

§ That the Azov Battalion of some 3,000 well-armed fighters, which has played a major combat role in the Ukrainian civil war and now is an official component of Kiev’s armed forces, is avowedly “partially” pro-Nazi, as evidenced by its regalia, slogans, and programmatic statements, and well-documented as such by several international monitoring organizations. Congressional legislation recently banned Azov from receiving any US military aid, but it is likely to obtain some of the new weapons recently sent to Kiev by the Trump Administration due to the country’s rampant network of corruption and black markets."

§ That stormtroop-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other “impure” citizens are widespread throughout Kiev-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s. And that the police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neofascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kiev has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms and their leadersduring World War II, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more."

Americans cannot be faulted for not knowing these facts. They are very rarely reported and still less debated in the mainstream media, whether in newspapers or on television. To learn about them, Americans would have to turn to alternative media and to their independent writers, which rarely affect mainstream accounts of the new Cold War. "

https://www.thenation.com/article/americas-collusion-with-neo-nazis/

https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/the-ukrainian-revolutions-neo-fascist-problem-14785/



But of course, anyone who tries to point these facts out to Americans befuddled by their own anti - Russian propaganda is labelled a troll when the argument is lost.

Note that neither you or Thedimon has posted one link, fact or article to back up any of your claims but you are the ones calling people names at the end of a lost debate to try and salvage hurt butt feelings.

This is nothing new. It is what trolls do when they have nothing intelligent to say on internet forums

In fact, you are just as transparent in your hatred of Russia as the anti-Muslims and people who spend their time proposing we blow Iran to smithereens for no good reason are in spewing their bile and hatred of religions and countries they are here only to demonize.

Do you really think people don't get what you are up to?

 

Oooooh, Thediman's putting me on his ignore list.......which is pretty long I'm thinking. You had to tell me I was on your fearful people list rather than just put me there -funny that.

Yeah, if you don't like honest answers and facts then don't butt into conversations that are over head.

Whatever, go back and sulk in yoursafe place and take your teddy with you..just like a little sissy would do.