"EU chief supports Russian stance on Ukraine" Topic

The Russians have been calling for Ukraine to be decentralised and federalised.

And now President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy is doing the same as has German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.

rt.com/news/209539-rompuy-eu-federalization-ukraine

In my opiinion this all placates Russia by:

1. Legitimises separatists by acknowledging they need autonomy.

2. Decentralisation and federalisation would make it extremely difficult for Ukraine to reform it's economy, thus making EU membership difficult.

3. No economic reform means not much money for military reform, which in turn makes NATO membership more difficult.

4. Depending on how any decentralisation/federalisation is handled in terms of who votes for what and who controls what, it could also make it difficult to join EU and NATO.

The European Union sought to tangle with Russia on Ukraine expecting Russia to lie down and take it. But now the Russians are ramping up their own military and economic responses (massive impact on Eastern Europe), the Europeans and in particular Germans are trying to back down.

In the end it could be America alone supporting Ukraine.

EDIT: Seems Von Rumpuy is out of office as of 30/11/14. He will be replaced by Donald Tusk, who is a former Polish Prime Minister.

As such the EU will probably not adopt Von Rumpuy's suggestions. In fact one can probably expect a greater push for more sanctions on Russia.

Still it does show that there is a degree of support for Russia's stance within the EU.

Well here's something for all you modern gamers. Now you can use MARPAT M4 equipped Marines and MRAPs for your modern police forces.

All you have to do is paint police on them.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/26/ferguson-congress-military-police-streets

theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police-military-restraints-violence-weaponry-missouri

businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8

Also it seems that rules for Positive Identification (PID) before shooting in games like Force on Force won't need to be used.

Zombie game rules would also be useable – use zombies to represent protestors.

I suspect more futuristic gamers can also add UAVS, wheeled infantry fighting vehicles with 25mm cannons and helicopter gunships with an assumption it is probably a realistic assumption.

And dropping a flash bang in a baby's crib with baby still in it – I'd have fashbangs attached to those cops and have them detonated on them. How do you wargame that?

At least our local cops aren't as bad as American ones in terms of militarisation. They're still incompetent and corrupt for the most part – my wife works in the courts and sees the results of their "policing" all the time. They'll pick on a single mother junkie or someone with a mental illness but don't worry about drug gangs going around shooting each other (until some innocent guy who happened to be a wargamer got accidentally hit outside a wargaming/internet cafe store in a drive by).

WHoa that's just copied my post from my cop thread. Bizarre!

With friends like this who needs enemies

As such the EU will probably not adopt Von Rumpuy's suggestions. In fact one can probably expect a greater push for more sanctions on Russia.

Indeed, Trump has been quite an advocate for increased pressure, so I think you can expect his leadership to be in pretty much aimed in the opposite direction.

Imagine Russia deposing the elected premier of Canada to replace him with a Russian figurehead who was happy to invite massive investment, military advisers, and a re-equipping of their armed forces with Russian equipment. Oh, and he was also happy to accept neo-Nazis murdering his political opponents.

Now you might get some insight into how Russia sees the situation in Ukraine.

Well, that's not really what Van Rompuy said… remember to have an ample supply of grains of salt handy whenever reading anything on rt.com

if you read the full text of that speech (link provided in the RT article, but you have to speak French) you will find that they have been very selective in what they quoted. No surprises there I guess :-)
Now where did the part about territorial integrity got to???

Except in Ukraine he wasn't deposed, he fled before he could be impeached or go through a rather awkward vote of no confidence (awkward as he had rather a lot of diverted funding to explain), and (despite various rumours attempting to turn it into something bigger) it was done by indigenous, dissatisfied and disillusioned local population.

The neo-nazi bit was a bit of media paranoia – note they have pretty much disappeared from being mentioned in the press these days, the alleged hordes of nazis trying to invade Crimea never appeared, and they pretty much failed to get any following as stability returned to the rest of the country – Right Sektor managed to obtain 1 seat out of 450…

Wha? That's not what I wrote at all! Have I had my first encounter with The Bug?

Toto we're not in Kansas anymore.

Those hilarious Ukranians!

For a people fighting for their own sovereignty and democracy, the current President appointed several foreigners to key ministries (Health, Economy and Finance).

online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-goes-abroad-for-government-ministers-1417552835

A case of you can vote for whoever you want, but they won't be the people running the show. Instead you get some unelected foreigners to do it.

Then there's the purging of the governement of all "undesirables" i.e. anyone who worked for the pro-Russian government, was a Communist,was remotely pro Russian etc etc." And stopping pensions and other salaries to people in separatist areas or water to Crimea (he's effectively acknowledging Russian sovereignty).(.

And to add some Orwellian spice, there's the new Information Ministry which journalists are calling the Ministry of Truth.

Given the ongoing suspicions of ingrained corruption, and the requirements for IMF funding, seems a pretty sensible decision. They have tough times ahead, and some radical changes may be necessary.

Abromavicius has good investment experience and has been married to a Ukrainian for 10 years. Natalia Yaresko (clearly a good old American name – she is actually from a Ukrainian origin) has been working over "the attraction and management of foreign investments in Ukraine for more than 20 years", and Kvitashvili noted: "I've been working over reforms in Ukraine for the last 3 months", so it's not like they are complete outsiders. According to the US State Department the US is not connected with the decision to appoint Yaresko.

And technically all three were full Ukrainian citizens at the time of taking up the post ;-) link

How would feel if the British PM (or in this case technically the Queen) simply appointed unelected Cabinet Ministers that weren't even citizens until they were appointed?

And were these appointments made under a transparent, merit based process? Of course not – the President just picked them out based on his own perferences.

My department just lost 2 out of 3 CEOs because they made appointments in a similar manner. It's called lack of transparency, corruption and nepotism in the West. In this case it's also undemocratic (and you always harp on about Ukrainians right to democracy.

Poroshenko is essentially the same as Putin. He has already proven to be a tyrant that uses division and high handedness to enforce his will. Just like Putin.

clearly a good old American name

Just like Barrack Obama or Alberto Gonzales or Carlos Gutierrez
or whatever. USA is a country of migrants last time I checked. That they didn't even have Ukranian citizenship tells the whole tale.

Given the background, if it brings stability and gets the job done…

(Don't recall having any say in the appointment of our ministers. Not even sure who half of them are, but suspect there are plenty of outsiders who could do a far better job) ;-)

…country of migrants…

Wasn't implying any issue with a migrant. Merely pointing out that this 'American' was actually of Ukrainian origin, raised in a Ukrainian family in the US, and has lived and worked in, and for, Ukraine for the last 20 years.

She also represented Ukrainian interests back in September : link

And is an unelected official that didn't even have citizenship.

It's the equivalent of putting in American officials to run Britain – most of them have British origin somewhere.

Given the background, if it brings stability and gets the job done…

So when you talk about "right for Ukranians to chose. Ukranian democracy blah blah," you're actually only talking about Poroshenko's right to democracy and not the other 45.5 million people who live in the country.

Is Poroshenko your father-in-law or something by any chance?

Sometimes you just have to open your mind to the bigger picture.

This reminds me of the time the Europeans sold out Czekoslovakia. Does anyone ever learn from history?

So what do we have here, the Quislings or the Nazi-Soviet Pact or both.