To understand Ukraine, you start with its modern history. Although the geographic area has a long and complicated history, here, it was part of the Soviet Union. The official name of the Soviet Union was: Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (RSFSR). The Ukraine has a separate official identity: Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR) The Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire since 1783 when Russia defeated Ottoman forces and it became part of the Russian Empire and eventually the RSFSR. However, in 1954 Nikita Khrushchev decided to give the Crimea to Ukraine and for reasons that aren't exactly clear, here. Most probably, the Soviets believed that giving the Crimea to Ukraine would strengthen its loyalty to Moscow.
The people of the Crimea are nearly 80% Russian speaking and mostly ethnically, culturally and religiously Russian. At one point the Crimea has a substantial Tatar (Muslim) population but Stalin relocated them by force after WW II. The Russians and Ottomans have engaged in numerous wars - Orthodox Christian vs. Islamic conquest but that's another story. Presently, the Russian identity of the people of Crimea is clear.
Source: Map: Russian language dominant in Crimea
The Ukraine itself has a long history of divided loyalties because of its Russian speaking population as well as religious rifts, Western Christianity vs. Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Russian speaking Ukrainians identify with Russia culturally, politically and religiously.
It's a complicated situation and the US has made things far worse because of its never ending cold war against Russia. The Ukrainian people are in the middle of the US-Russia tug of war for influence and control. Still, the folks managed to peacefully co-exist to various degrees.
UNTIL President Obama made a stupid, horrid and deadly decision to engineer the overthrow of a government legitimately elected by the Ukrainian people and install US puppets in Kiev, and most of the US puppets were so ruthless that Kiev became known as Nazi Kiev. The US supported and funded the Nazi regime in Kiev and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a raging neocon and dangerous psychopath, admitted to giving the Kiev regime $5 billion.
Victoria Nuland Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of Ukrainian, "Democratic Institutions"
That's what US neocons and the US foreign policy establishment do - they overthrow democratically elected governments and then fund phony baloney democratic institutions thru NGO's and with CIA help. It's all one giant farce that almost always results in blood flowing in the streets somewhere.
The US engineered Ukrainian regime change resulted in outright war on Russian speaking Ukrainians as their cities were bombed with US help. Death and destruction followed.
OBAMA ADMITS U.S. OVERTHREW DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT
Obama’s candid admission should not come as a surprise following the release of a surreptitiously recorded conversation between Victoria Nuland, the US-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the US Ambassador to Ukraine.Quite naturally, Russia moved to help protect Russian speaking Ukrainians, something the idiot US never anticipated but should have. The Russians in Crimea were terrified that Kiev would start bombing and killing them. Putin organized a referendum that gave the Crimeans a vote on whether to join with Russia or say with the Ukraine. Over 95% of Crimeans voted to join Russia which of course was a slap in the face to Obama, homicidal-genocidal maniac Victoria Nuland and the Obama installed Nazi regime in Kiev. Crimea officially came under the protection of Russia.
The conversation centered on ousting Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and replacing him with one of several hand-picked State Department choices.
Nuland instructed Pyatt to “have the UN glue this thing” and then dismissively added “fuck the EU” for its role negotiating the crisis.
The U.S. orchestrated “transition,” as Obama characterized it, resulted in the appointment of fascists to key positions in the Kiev government and led to the current war in eastern Ukraine launched by Petro Poroshenko, the former confectionary magnate turned Ukrainian president.
Poroshenko’s war on those who do not accept the nationalist government in Kiev has thus far killed more than 5,000 people, although unofficial tallies are far higher.
In the not too distant past, the U.S. government attempted to hide its involvement in coups and the removal of democratically elected leaders. It relied primarily on the CIA to foment coups and counter-revolutions.
However, since the advent of NGO and foundation spawned “color revolutions” attributed to the people of target countries, while in actuality orchestrated by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. government has admitted its role in overturning governments.
Hilariously, Obama and his brain dead foreign policy establishment accused Russia of illegally annexing Crimea while failing to acknowledge that Ukraine had an elected government that Obama overthrew or that the Crimean people actually VOTED to secede from Ukraine and its Nazi regime in Kiev.
Crimea isn't just another piece of land to Russia. It's strategically critical to Russia because it houses Sevastopol which houses the Russian naval fleet, something the US is well aware of. Throughout its history, Russia has always been plagued by its lack of access to a warn weather port as its northern ports were frozen tundras during the winter, which made trade extremely difficult.
Anyway, Obama got plenty of blowback for his foreign policy disasters including Ukraine.
The Ukraine Mess Is the Worst of Obama's Many Foreign Policy Disasters TruthDig
But history’s judgment of Obama’s foreign policy will likely hang on the outcome of the American-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014. It was intended to bring about Ukraine’s eventual adhesion to the European Union and ultimately to NATO (despite earlier U.S. assurances to the contrary).The National Interest is a nasty neocon website that mostly advocates for US wars and empire. It was highly critical of Obama over his Ukraine intervention.
The cease-fire between Ukrainian forces and Russian insurgents that precariously prevails today was brought about by Franco-German diplomatic intervention to pre-empt declared American intentions to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons to expand the war against the insurgents.
The circumstances surrounding the instigation of this crisis have yet to be seriously investigated by the American press, and Russian claims that it was a hostile American act have been dismissed without solid evidence by American and NATO spokesmen and officials.
European opinion and most of the European press, accustomed to follow the American lead in major foreign policy matters, have expressed notable doubt about the origin and purpose of the current American and NATO roles in Ukraine, which seem to have been to provoke an unwelcome war with Russia.
Ukraine: Part of America's "Vital Interests"?
"If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to "fall" to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States."....
The United States does have one security interest in Ukraine. Though it is not a vital interest, the preservation of an independent neutral zone between NATO and Russian military forces has been a stabilizing factor in east-west relations....
The crisis in Ukraine, however, is a direct consequence of the fact that Ukrainians do not agree on the extent to which they should be associated with the West or with Russia. This disagreement threatens to tear the country apart. If Ukraine falls into civil war, with Russia and the West aiding their respective favorites, the risk of a direct NATO-Russia clash also rises. To ensure peace between Russia and the West, the question of foreign alignment should be taken out of Ukrainian politics.Other foreign policy analysts who lean antiwar and anti-intervention let it rip and called Obama's Ukraine venture precisely what it is - putting Nazis in power.
The Coup in Ukraine: Obama’s Dumbest Plan Yet
The United States helped defeat Nazism in World War 2. Obama helped bring it back.One of the biggest supporters of the Ukraine intervention was Joe Biden, reported to be a contender for securing the 2020 Democrat nomination for president. Foreign Policy, one of the most vile advocates for endless wars and US empire, wrote an interesting piece on Biden and Ukraine that pretty much validated that Biden was indeed the force behind Obama's disastrous folly in Ukraine.
As you probably know by now, Obama and Co. have ousted Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, with the help of ultra-right, paramilitary, neo-Nazi gangs who seized and burned government offices, killed riot police, and spread mayhem and terror across the country. These are America’s new allies in the Great Game, the grand plan to “pivot to Asia” by pushing further eastward, toppling peaceful governments, securing vital pipeline corridors, accessing scarce oil and natural gas reserves and dismantling the Russian Federation consistent with the strategy proposed by geopolitical mastermind, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski’s magnum opus–”The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and it’s Geostrategic Imperatives” has become the Mein Kampf for aspiring western imperialists.
Ukraine is gradually succumbing to the loving embrace of the New World Order where it will serve as another profit-generating cog in Wall Street’s wheel. That’s the theory, at least. It hasn’t occurred to the boneheads at the New York Times or Washington Post that Ukraine is rapidly descending into Mad Max-type anarchy which could spill over its borders into neighboring countries triggering violent conflagrations, social upheaval, regional instability or–god-help-us– WW3. The MSM sees nothing but silver linings as if everything was going according to plan...
Of all the dumb plans Washington has come up with in the couple years, this is the dumbest.
What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe?
Vice President Joe Biden led the administration’s support of Ukraine. But Kiev worries whether the next White House will have its back as Putin looks to ramp up pressure.The neocons that dominate the US foreign policy establishment are always accusing Trump of being soft on Russia because they want a freaking war with Russia. These raging psychos don't care if the world explodes into mushroom clouds.
No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden.
It’s widely believed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is better prepared to take on Russia on behalf of Ukraine and walk a more hawkish line on foreign policy than the Obama administration. But Ukrainian officials are extremely apprehensive about her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, who has spoken warmly of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While it's clear that US foreign policy is crafted by dangerous psychopaths who heap wars and misery upon a suffering humanity for no sane purpose except to pacify their own colossal egos and assert their evil powers, blood continues to flow in nations and towns everywhere.
What about Trump's foreign policy? It's shaping up to mirror the deadly and disastrous foreign policy of his predecessors. Trump and his neocon regime that includes John Bolton (National Security Advisor), Mike Pompeo (former head of CIA to Secretary of State) to Warvangelical Pence are not folks who advocate for peace and peaceful co-existence. They are all lunatics just itching for any excuse to bomb somebody. They all subscribe to the view that US global power requires bombs, death and destruction.
While things had been fairly calm in Ukraine, yesterday 2 events happened that are potentially explosive.
The Ukraine Navy infringed on Russia's territorial waters in the Kerch Straight of Crimea, Russia fired upon them and seized 3 ships.
Tense standoff around Kerch Strait between Russia & Ukraine: How it developed
The waters near the Crimean peninsula were the site of a tense standoff between Russian and Ukrainian ships that involved a chase, some gunfire, and fighter jets, followed by strong statements from Moscow and Kiev.
The Ukranian vessels were sailing between two Ukrainian ports: from Odessa in the Black Sea to Mariupol in the Azov Sea. The only waterway that connects these is the Kerch Strait between Crimea and mainland Russia. Kiev says it notified Moscow in advance that its navy ships would be sailing through the area. Moscow denies that it was given warning.
While both Russia and Ukraine have freedom of navigation in the Kerch Strait under a 2003 treaty, there are detailed technical rules on how vessels should pass through the narrow, complex waterway. All traffic in the area is controlled by the Crimean sea port of Kerch, and every ship should contact the facility, report her route and destination, and receive permission to sail through the Strait.
Then, Kiev resumed bomb of the Russian speaking Donbass region of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Forces Pound Donbass Residential Area with Heavy Artillery
The Ukrainian army on Sunday opened up with massive artillery fire, shelling residential areas of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), an RIA Novosti correspondent has reported.Both Russia and Europe, especially France and Germany, have been instrumental in brokering ceasefires in Ukraine and for obvious reason. Neither wants the volatile situation to escalate into a full fledged war in their backyard.
In 2015, a ceasefire deal was signed between conflicting sides in Minsk after talks brokered by the leaders of the so-called Normandy group — Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine. Despite the ceasefire agreement, sporadic fighting has continued in Donbass. The situation remains tense, with both parties accusing the other of violating the ceasefire. According to the United Nations, over 10,000 people have died in the conflict.
Belligerent as Trump is when he's talking about Iran, his position on Ukraine and Russia is far more conciliatory despite the hostile neocons in his administration. His summit with Putin was bashed by Republican and Democrat necons, as well as the media and Deep State operatives. Alarmingly, the DOD (Mattis) made a unilateral decision to arm the Nazi regime in Kiev.
Pentagon’s $200m Aid To Ukraine Is Slap To Trump
Only days after President Donald Trump’s successful summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, the Pentagon this week announced that it was sending $200 million in military aid to the Kiev regime.Arming Kiev should NOT be the decision of Mattis or the DOD but absolutely should be the decision of Congress. To what extent the Nazi regime in Kiev is getting US arms is not known but arming Kiev will only empower them to wage war and genocide on Russian speaking Ukrainians and maybe even Crimea.
It's not likely that Ukraine unilaterally made the decision to 'test Russia' in the Straights of Kerch nor is it likely that Kiev made the decision to resume bombing in Donbass WITHOUT US permission.
Regardless of who made the decision, it's a dangerous provocation but it's also highly likely that Russia and Europe will once again diplomatically intervene to keep the situation from escalating.
Meanwhile, the US media continues to attack Trump for working with Putin to avoid more damn wars. The Deep State controlled media is actually advocating for war with Russia because the media is a gang of war whores.
