Civil War In Ukraine? ...and Venezuela?

Everything is possible with Australia. I don't think Ukraine is quite as important.

Google "oil and gas pipelines in Ukraine" and get back to us on that.

Not sure, are we still discussing Risk? If so, the game has changed some since I last played.

Why has this to do with Venezuela?

Anyhoo, not sure which way to jump here. Probably neither. Don't the protestors contain some very unsavoury right-wing extremists?

Rick, when you say right wing extremist are you referring to people would've been considered left-wing in the 30s such as Nazis? Or are you referring to people who reasonable humans would refer to as centrists?

You tell us. The news is reporting that a beauty queen has been killed by government forces, perhaps she was a Tea Party member?

She had to be a Tea Party member. Leftist women are ugly.

Haven't you seen pictures of Gul, Anc, and Rick?

It's hard to get any news when the government has shut down all those darn seditious media outlets.

I'm sure there ARE some unsavory right-wing elements among the protesters, just like there were some communists among the ANC members fighting apartheid.

That doesn't make the whole group wrong.

And the government probably shouldn't be shooting them. Just a hunch.

If the source is to believed, they're being indiscriminate and just opening fire in what they consider to be "unsavory" parts of town under the pretense that people there look like they're protesting.

So now I'm hearing on NPR that Yanukovich has fled the capital. And Reuters reports that Parliament has voted to remove him from office and set elections for May

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/22/us-ukraine-idUSBREA1G0OU20140222

Eastern politicians (and Russian observers) meet and declare that they are assuming control until the constitutional crisis is over (they think parliament declaring Yanukovich unable to perform his duties after he fled unconstitutional).

This could just be starting.

http://rt.com/news/thousands-gather-eastern-ukraine-252/

Regional councils siding with the President, claiming authority to vacate the decision of Parliament? Prelude to civil war I'd say.

Not so much civil war as the Russians rolling in. They've intimated they're willing to go to war over the Crimea and a lot is on the line for Putin, without Ukraine his new USSR-lite is pretty much a collection of Bananarepublicstans, he needs it to have some form seriousness and legitimacy for it. And Russia needs USSR-lite to keep its commodity based economy above water and client states paying Gazprom and its ilk. It's why Russia is so supportive of Assad, they know a gas pipe going through Syrian territory into Europe kills off the annual blackmail Russia does with Ukraine and Europe every winter, would dampen gas prices and hit Russian finances.

It's also why the West is being really lukewarm, they saw what happened when Georgia was talking about joining NATO, and are wary about how Putin will respond here.

If a civil war does kick off, I can see lots of tutting from the West when Russia rolls in to "create stability" and installs a puppet government, but little else.

Sometimes I think my posts are in a different language to the one you're reading.

Or when said media is complicit in a coup, as in Venezuela.

You'd make an excellent Turkish prime minister.

I'm thinking Google's mistranslating your Gaelic when you post then

Must be. Because even in Gaelic, when you decline to support either side, that doesn't imply that you do, in fact, support one of them.

As for the right-wing group, see here.

The liberals always cry that we need to be somehow involved in every civil war on the planet and cry even harder when we do get involved. What has America lost in the Ukraine ? Don't you think that the US government would do whatever it takes to stay in power if it were threatened with an armed revolt? Look to our past. Why should we support every uprising?

I'll just figure you didn't read the thread.

And in the plot of a late 90's Tom Clancy knockoff, pro Russian forces seize the Crimean parliament.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303801304579408322329678800?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303801304579408322329678800.html

And Russia is mobilizing 150,000 troops.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/europe/russia.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0&referrer=

Any bright ideas on what should be done if those troops cross the border?

Nothing, unless you want to touch off WW III?

I watched Rocky IV last weekend, this is gonna be fun!

Maybe some sort of multi-national peacekeepers led by Russia, followed by UN election monitors? We get Russia to agree to this by offering some sort of carrot.

Like an Olympics?

We may have done this wrong.

From elsewhere: