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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Here we go again...Activists in Ukraine's Crimea ask Russia to reclam territory
2008-08-22
Right on cue ...
SIMFEROPOL, August 22 (RIA Novosti) - About 50 protesters gathered in the Crimean capital of Simferopol on Friday, urging Russia to pull out of a friendship agreement with Ukraine and to make a territorial claim on the peninsula. The organizer of the rally, Valery Podyachy, told the gathering: "We ask Russia to tear up the agreement [on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership with Ukraine] and to file territorial claims to Ukraine."

The Crimea, which has a predominantly Russian-speaking population, has been the focus of frequent disputes between the Russian and Ukrainian leaderships, over the Russian Black Sea Fleet's lease of the soviet-era Sevastopol naval base.

During the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia that followed Tbilisi's August 8 offensive in breakaway South Ossetia, Ukraine threatened to bar entry to Russian Black Sea fleet vessels that had been deployed near Georgia's coast. Ukraine's Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov signed instructions on Thursday to implement an earlier presidential decree complicating the rules of deployment for the Black Sea Fleet.

Podyachy, who heads the Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia Popular Front, said: "While Russia sent aid to flood-hit Ukrainian regions, Ukraine failed to help Russia to force Georgia to peace, and took an openly hostile stance."

Ukraine supplied weaponry to President Mikheil Saakashvili's regime that was used to kill Russian peacekeepers, he said. "Ukraine has proved by its policies that it is not a friend but an enemy to Russia," Podyachy said.

Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who grew up in Ukraine, made the Crimean Peninsula - a territory of 26,100 sq km - part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. The peninsula was until then a part of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, the Crimea has unsuccessfully sought independence from Ukraine. A 1994 referendum in the Crimea supported demands for a broader autonomy and closer links with Russia.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have deteriorated recently following Kiev's NATO membership bid and its demand that Russia's Black Sea Fleet withdraw from its naval base in Sevastopol.
Posted by:Spike Uniter

#5  Ok, we need to form administrative teams and deploy them to the embassy in Moscow and consulate in St. Petersburg. Give each team a couple million US Passports to be given to any healthy wannabee former Russian farmer and his immediate family for immigration to the US. Kelo the lot of unattended farms, originally derived from the Homestead Act, in the Plains which only draw farm subsidies to absentee Manhattan owners. The deal is that each family will get the basics to get started and the usual subsidies the city folk were pinching. In return they will work the land for seven years. So, what's Puty going to do without farmers? Going to eat that oil and gas. Heh.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2008-08-22 23:07  

#4  IRONY > Russ helping empower and protect NUCLEAR-AMBITIOUS IRAN vv US-West/Allies ala "the Great Game", to wit Iran = Radical Islam is now turning agz Russ + Asia as it slowly but steadily Nuclearizes + StratWeaponizes. Russ econ is also still very weak despite improvements in selec sectors - RUSS FEARS THAT CHINA, INDIA, etc WILL MODERNIZE MORE RAPIDLY AND POTENTLY THAN IT WILL.

IOW, DESPITE ITS BELLIGERENT RHETORIC, RUSS COVERTLY NEEDS THE US-NATO/EU TO COVER ITS OWN STRUGGLING SIX AGZ FUTURE ISLAMISM + CHINA, etc. IN EURASIA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-08-22 19:36  

#3  Again, RUSSIA >:
* OSama's + Radical Islam's "WAR OUTSIDE IRAQ" NEW STRATEGY > IS WORKING, with Radical Islam diligently carving out enclaves throughout CENTRAL ASIA + PAN-ASIAN PERIPHERIES/NEAR-ABROADS, BESIDES ALSO GOING NUKULAR.

* NET > RUSSIA itself anticipated to become MUSLIM-MAJORITY NATION [NUKE-ARMED] by 2050. AT curr trends, UNO > Russ popul to shrink down to approxi 20.0 Milyuhn +/- before 2100 [2080-2100].
MUSLIM/ISLAMIST RUSSIA 2050-2100 WILL SCARE CHINA.

* NEW ISLAMIST THREAT AGZ CHINA PER SE + NORTH ASIA. Lest we fergit, ditto for NORTHERN INDIA, PHILIPINES, SE ASIA = AUSTRALESIA/AUSTRANESIA, etc.

* NUKE-ARMED? ISLAMIST CENTRAL ASIA, etc. - read, RUSSIA's GEOGRAPHIC CENTER.

* HIGH PAN-MUSLIM BIRTH RATES inside and outside of Russ.

* FUTURE CHINA > future NUKE-ARMED ECON SUPER-JAPAN versus NUKE-ARMED STARVING SUPER-NORTH KOREA versus VARIOUS "ISLAMIST CHINA" SCENARIOS???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-08-22 19:23  

#2  With Georgia the Russians were at least along the border. In Ukraine the Russian army will have to plow through a lot of Ukrainian territory to get to the Crimean.

One almost thinks the Germans and/or Poles should start making a claim on that chunk of Russia isolated out there on the Baltic just to give the Russians something to think about.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-08-22 16:56  

#1  And the same thing has been intimated by Russia w/r/t the Balkan states. I can see Pooty Poot's soul shining through.......and it ain't pretty.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2008-08-22 16:04  

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