President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin traded accusations today over the ongoing crisis in Crimea, with Putin complaining about Obama’s hysterical rhetoric and the US backing of extremist protesters in Kiev, and Obama insisting he has a “strong belief” that Putin’s deployment of troops is illegal.
Ukrainian officials have claimed 16,000 Russian troops are in the Crimea, and the US is accepting this figure. Russia has pointed out that a 1999 pact between Russia and Ukraine allows them to keep up to 25,000 troops in the Crimea as part of their naval base rental deal.
Obama has repeatedly threatened retaliation against Russia for the deployment, saying the Crimea belongs to Ukraine, and that Russia needs to immediately withdraw.
Putin has presented the deployment as a “humanitarian” endeavor, aimed at protecting the ethnic Russian majority in the Crimea. The Crimean parliament has authorized a referendum on secession from Ukraine, and suggests they may seek to join the Russian Federation.
The bottom line is that hooligans, anarchists, Neo, old and ok’d fascism dividing Ukraine and according to RT news the Swedish. Danish foreign ministers are on their way to start the business deal with whom are not the legitimate Ukrainian government, thats vulture capitalism in action. Supporting these elements is yet a vulture capitalism within vulture capitalism political prospect.
Obama insisting he has a “strong belief” that Putin’s deployment of troops is illegal.
And this expert opinion comes from the guy who also claims the authority to blow you up in your jammies (especially if there is explicit intelligence to prove your innocence posthumously); yea, even though that area of law is alleged to be his specialty. And this new-expertise of his is coming just as a traditional boogeyman raids Nuland's cookie jar….
Putin has presented the deployment as a “humanitarian” endeavor
Perfectly credible: wouldn't want Russian speakers/ethnics ending up like "Ghaddafi supporters" –for whom explicit intelligence may also be proof of something entirely different –however posthumously. I.e., what happens to ordinary people wherever the US treads? Dude, I'd deploy just to protect the MAM's.
This morning I read the front page of a major Dutch newspaper, the NRC-Handelsblad (center-right). It had only one item on Ukraine namely the news that Merkel and Obama are working on an 'out for Putin'. What a difference that is from the hysterical over-the-top reporting here when you consider that The Netherlands is considerably closer to Russia-Ukraine than we are.
S'pect another difference is that the USg/US-JMSM tilting routine would not go over well with the Dutch… not necessarily to flatter them; just s'pect that'd be in-their-wheelhouse.
Putin said yesterday that the troops in Crimea are not part of the Russian armed forces, which raises the very interesting question of who they actually are. I would guess that they are mercenaries hired from one of the notorious "contractors" and paid for with private US neocon money. If they were Russian military, they would, in accordance with standard milkitary practice, be under the ordersof the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, the senior Russian officer on the spot, but he seems to have no control over them. There's no doubt that Putin has made a complete fool of himself. He has been manipulated like an amateur by Nuland and that will probably cost him his job, all the more so as he has interfered with the business of the people who actually control modern Russia: the oligarchs. The NRC-Handelsblad story thus rings true, except that I would include the oligarchs in the combination.
Under the conditions of the treaty on 'Sevastopol' Russia has the right to keep up to 25,000 soldiers in the Crimea which are part of the Russian armed forces. It is still not clear who the men in unmarked uniforms at the airports of Sevastopol and Sinferapol were. Putin was correct. These were not soldiers of the Russian armed forces. I think that it is highly debatable to call them 'troops'.
It appears that you know who they are although you state also that your knowledge is based on a 'guess'. It appears from all reports that the regular Russian armed forces have taken over control of the Port of Sevastopol and the two airports mentioned above. We no longer see pictures of your 'mercenaries' strutting around. You may rest assured that Putin will not be deposed in Russia.
Have you actually read the article in the NRC-Handelsblad?
The defenders of President Obama are blind as bats because he has committed a huge political blunder by treating Russia like Libya and Putin like Khadaffi. Well, Russia is not Libya and Putin is not Khadaffi. Who in the White House has the guts to tell Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry these facts?