Criza politica din Ucraina

[TheIceMan]

Rusia a dat ultimatum in Crimeea daca pana maine dimineata la ora 5.00 nu se preda atunci vor fi atacati...

Ukraine says Russian forces controlling the strategic region of Crimea are demanding that the crew of two Ukrainian warships must surrender.

[delaparis]

Rusia dovedeste inca o data ca face ce vrea in fieful sau, fara ca vestul sa o opreasca in vreun fel.

Pai ce sa le faca? Se stramba la ei ...
Imi place ca Fabius s-a declarat extrem de preocupat de atitudinea lui Putin si ... tot le poate face e sa excluda pe Monaco din ligue1

[TheIceMan]

Poate sa boicoteze FIFA World Cup din Rusia mai ales ca asa ceva i-ar pica "manusa" lui Piturca

[delaparis]

Sau daca ma gandesc bine, sa intervina in Siria

[TheIceMan]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26424738

Russia's military has given Ukrainian forces in Crimea until dawn on Tuesday to surrender or face an assault, Ukrainian defence sources have said.

The head of Russia's Black Sea Fleet Aleksander Vitko set the deadline and also threatened two warships, Ukrainian officials said.

However, Interfax news agency later quoted a fleet spokesman who denied that any ultimatum had been issued.

[Sir. Eko]

cu cine se invecineaza rusia ? Cu cine vrea.

[delaparis]

Pe vremuri ... un mustacios brunet tot se pregatea pt nu stiu ce. Occidentalii tot convocau sedinta sa discute despre. Mustaciosul incepea sa gesticuleze la granita. Occidentalii au crezut ca nu e grav. Mustaciosul a trecut granita. Occidentalii convocau inca o sedinta urgenta. Mustaciosul trece a doua granita. Occidentalii sunt obligati sa intre in razboi nepregatiti. Mustaciosul castiga tot ce se poate castiga timp de 4 ani.

Istoria nu se repeta. Putin nu are mustata.

[TheIceMan]

Adevarat delaparis, dar eu nu as imbratisa opinia asta, comparatia este cred prea fortata, dar binevenita un fel de eye-opener daca vrec, ci mai degraba zic ca situatia este foiarte bine descrisa de ministrul de externe canadian John Baird cand spune ca este o interventie soviet-style ca si in 1968 Cehoslovacia sau 1956 Ungaria:

John Baird rules out military intervention to stop Russia's ‘ridiculous’ ‘Soviet-style’ invasion of Ukraine

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03...on-of-ukraine/

[delaparis]

Am uitat sa precizez ca razboiul care a urmat din cauza mustaciosului a facut 80 milioane de morti. Un detaliu ...

[TheIceMan]

Am uitat sa precizez ca razboiul care a urmat din cauza mustaciosului a facut 80 milioane de morti. Un detaliu ...

Mda... cel mai probabil acuma se va incheia cu "independenta " Republicii Crimea, la fel ca si Transnistria, plus ceva "Sanctiuni economice" catre Rusia, politice cel mai probabil excluderea din G8, asta daca Putin vrea sa termine treaba cat mai repede.

[JJ]

Pai ce sa le faca? Se stramba la ei ...
Imi place ca Fabius s-a declarat extrem de preocupat de atitudinea lui Putin si ... tot le poate face e sa excluda pe Monaco din ligue1

Si Didier, ca presedinte OSCE e "foarte preocupat" de situatia din Crimeea.
Polonia a convocat maine o sedinta NATO.

[miril]

Ukraine crisis spreads as Russians advance Bob Hoyle The Times

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multim...3-_532409b.jpg (Russian soldiers took part in exercises in St Petersburg yesterday)

Russia’s strike into the Crimea threatened to spread across Ukraine last night after demonstrators calling for autonomy from Kiev stormed local government buildings in the East and South .

In Donetsk, stronghold of the former President, Viktor Yanukovych, hundreds of pro-Russia protesters forced their way past police into the regional parliament, besieging politicians during a vote on regional autonomy.

In Odessa, where a Russian flag was reportedly raised over the local administration, similar clashes triggered fresh fears about the ability of Ukraine to withstand growing military and economic threats from Moscow.

An estimated 10,000 people protested in Odessa, once the largest port in the Soviet Union, at the weekend against Russian intervention . However, a senior official in the new Crimean Administration, which Kiev regards as illegal, said that groups in the southern cities of Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa were pushing to join the peninsula’s bid for independence from the pro-Europe Kiev Government. In Crimea , the stage was set for a showdown after thousands of Ukrainian troops defied Russian pressure to switch sides, despite being trapped behind enemy lines and outnumbered almost ten to one by an estimated 30,000 Russian troops.

Russian forces swarmed across the peninsula, surrounding military bases, taking control of a ferry terminal and issuing an ultimatum for the crew of two Ukrainian warships to surrender or risk being stormed. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that Russia had issued an ultimatum to its forces in Crimea to surrender by dawn today or face an assault. Moscow denied making such a threat.

Across Crimea, however, forces loyal to Kiev came under intense pressure to pledge their future to Russia. These included the crew of two Ukrainian ships — the anti-submarine warship Ternopil and the command ship Slavutych, currently blocked in Sevastopol harbour by four Russian warships.

President Putin, who yesterday oversaw war games in western Russia designed to check the combat readiness of Russian forces, received the first taste of a backlash against Moscow’s invasion of Crimea.

The rouble fell to an historic low against the dollar and the euro, prompting Andrei Klepach, the Deputy Economy Minister, to try to reassure investors that there would not be a collapse of the currency, although he conceded that there would be considerable inflationary consequences. Frenzied selling wiped almost 11 per cent off the value of Moscow’s MICEX Index, the main rouble-backed stock exchange, on the first day of trading since Mr Putin asked for and received permission from parliament on Saturday to use troops on the territory of Ukraine .

The loss amounted to more than the record $51 billion spent on last month’s Sochi Winter Olympics, in which Mr Putin attempted to position Russia as a modern, open and responsible world power.

Russia’s UN Ambassador claimed last night that Mr Yanukovych had sent a letter to Mr Putin asking that he use the military to restore law and order in Ukraine.

President Obama warned Mr Putin that his intervention in Crimea was in breach of international law and put Moscow on “the wrong side of history”.

Stepping up a package of sanctions to step up pressure the Pentagon announced it had suspended defence cooperation with Russia.

“We have, in light of recent events in Ukraine, put on hold all military-to-military engagements between the United States and Russia,” spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

The suspension covers “exercises, bilateral meetings, port visits and planning conferences, Kirby said.

The coalition Government appeared to rule out punishing Russia with trade curbs. An official memo said that closing off the City to Russians had been eliminated as a sanction. It confirmed that ministers were considering visa restrictions and travel bans . The paper was photographed in the hands of a senior official as he entered No 10.

It emphasised the need to leave room to de-escalate the crisis, and advised the use of “generic” messages in public. Specific threats should be reserved for private diplomacy, it said.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/w...cle4022301.ece

[miril]

America’s gas glut could burn Putin’s fingers Justin Webb The Times

At the end of January, almost unnoticed by the outside world, America cut its aid to Afghanistan by 50 per cent. Yes, 50. Overnight. Congress signed off on a spending bill in which the Obama Administration had asked for $2 billion in development funds but got only a billion. Did the Administration complain? No. Across the board — from the Republicans who control the purse strings of the House of Representatives through to the White House that made the half-hearted request for the money — the momentum in American politics has been the same: spend less abroad, do less abroad.

And then Ukraine happens and everything changes.

Really?

The thrust of the attack from some on the American Right is that the Obama White House’s lack of diplomatic forcefulness has emboldened America’s enemies. Eventually this president or a future president will have to man up. The American people will demand it and vote for it. They will send for Reagan/ McCain, metaphorically speaking.

Not necessarily. In fact you could argue that the evidence suggests Americans rather prefer Eisenhower/ Obama: caution and restraint. I was in Washington during this White House’s previous half-hearted effort to spend capital abroad, the semi-threat to bomb Syria after Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Congressmen and women were stunned by the level of public involvement — they were called to packed public meetings and harassed day and night on social media. Overwhelmingly the message was: Stop! It was a message they heard.

There is no suggestion so far that events in Ukraine have altered that fundamental sense in modern America that a period of splendid isolation is in order while the world finds a new equilibrium.

Take the firmest suggestion for action over Ukraine that the hawks can come up with: the reopening of plans to base missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic. On the liberal left and the libertarian right — both energetic, perhaps even dominant constituencies in contemporary US politics — there would be little enthusiasm.

Perhaps your priority is mending America’s infrastructure, or perhaps you want to bring down long-term fiscal deficits. Either way, extra $4 billion foreign commitments are off your agenda. The hawks in the centre would have to make the case and it is by no means certain that they would succeed.

Take Iran. The President may or may not have taken an over soft approach and signed an interim nuclear deal with Tehran that America will come to regret. Plenty of Democrat politicians think he was hoodwinked but the public like his Iran policy. In a poll for AP at the end of last year almost 60 per cent either approved or leant towards approval. For an unpo****r president, these are rock-star numbers.

It was argued before Mr Obama came to power that the biggest task any president faced was to persuade the American people to come to terms with a multipolar world in which US power, while still huge, was destined for a lengthy period of relative decline. When I interviewed Mr Obama for the BBC in 2009 I asked him whether he regarded Hosni Mubarak, still in power in Egypt though facing mounting criticism, as an autocrat. The newly elected president said he did not like such terms. In fact he praised Mr Mubarak: he was “a stalwart ally” and “a force for stability”. Cautious, from the outset. Modest is not a word used much in conjunction with the 44th president but, from the start, it summed up his actual foreign policy, if not the rhetoric that enveloped it.

In the event you could argue that the American people needed little persuading that modesty was the right way to go. They did not want to lead in Libya. They did not want to rush in to Syria. They saw what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan — what happened to the war aims but also what happened to the actual clout of American values in the world. Were they enhanced?

There is just one area where foreign policy aims and domestic priorities might fit happily together. America has a superabundance of fracked gas but, as yet, not much of an infrastructure to export it. The Energy Department has issued permits for six export terminals that would liquefy gas and load it on to tankers. More could come soon. There is even talk of overturning the decades old ban on exporting US oil.

Energy exports could well be the bedrock of all future US foreign policy. From G8 summits to your cooker: Russian gas switched off. It’s not exactly shock and awe, but it might be Mr Obama’s best, and most po****r, move.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinio...cle4022028.ece

[miril]

EU draws up target list for sanctions against elite Charles Bremner The Times

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multim...3-_532343c.jpg

English public schools, London’s high-end housing market and Russian-owned football clubs could suffer if the European Union decides to punish Moscow for its intervention in Ukraine.

Refusing travel visas and freezing individuals’ wealth are favoured tools for inflicting pain on regimes that fall foul of the EU and the United States, and Brussels is brandishing them this week.

These “targeted” or “smart” sanctions are supposed to hit the ruling elite where it hurts, and they are less costly to apply than trade embargos or boycotts that hit both sides.

President Putin is personally targeted in threats by the G7 group of Western democracies to boycott the G8 summit that Russia is to host in Sochi this June. Russia was admitted to the G7 club in 1998 and Mr Putin sets great store on his seat at the world’s high table of economic power. Hardliners in the US are calling for Russia to be expelled if it intervenes militarily, but this has not been broached in Europe.

The EU, which has in the past applied smart sanctions to Iran, Syria and the former Ukrainian leadership, is drawing up potential targets while putting the public emphasis on diplomacy. Members of the US Congress are aiming to expand the “Magnitsky” list of Russian officials banned from entry to the US because of human rights abuses. This would block blacklisted Russians from carrying out business in the US.

Washington is more forthright in threatening the whole gamut of trade sanctions. “We are looking at a broad menu of options to curtail our economic relationship [with Russia]”, said a US official. “This will have an enormous cost for the Russian economy.”

Analysts doubt this, and few experts expect Western sanctions to make much of a dent on the Russian economy. Trade between the US and Russia amounted to only $40 billion last year, a small proportion of total US trade.

President Obama is planning action against Russian energy companies and banks — measures that have worked well against Iran.

However, Europe is hesitating over blunt trade measures because it depends far more heavily on commerce with Russia, especially on energy. Russia is the EU’s most important trading partner after the US and China, with ¤123 billion (£101 billion) of goods exported there in 2012. The EU is Russia’s largest trading partner by far.

The EU could scrap a joint strategy for energy supply over 30 years that was drafted with Russia last year but that would be a setback for the bloc’s attempts to stabilise its energy markets.

France is resisting calls to freeze the sale of military hardware to Russia because it is in the midst of a ¤1 billion contract to deliver two Mistral class warships to the Russian navy.

Publicly, Moscow has been reacting to Western sanction threats with a yawn. “They talk and talk, and then they’ll stop,” said Oleg Panteleyev, a member of the upper house of the Russian Parliament.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/w...cle4022187.ece

[miril]

Criza din Ucraina, Putin, Gazprom si...fotbalul:

http://www.prosport.ro/sport-life/sp...resti-12189660

http://www.realitatea.net/mircea-lucescu_1391887.html

[Marius]

Iar putin tocmai ce-a deschis calea negocierilor pentru Crimeea.

[miril]

Ukraine: Putin's headaches

There are still factors beyond the control of Russia's president: the economy, regional resistance, and the Crimea's Tatars

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...hree-headaches

[miril]

Ultimile stiri despre criza din Ucraina:

US and EU impose sanctions and warn Russia to relent in Ukraine standoff

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ukraine-crimea

[delaoltenia]

http://www.dcnews.ro/2014/03/confrun...ia-si-ucraina/

[TheIceMan]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/crimea-east...155255272.html

After Crimea, Eastern Europe looks nervously toward Russia and asks: who's next?

The Canadian PressBy Alison Mutler And Monika Scislowska, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – 15 minutes ago
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BUCHAREST, Romania - Broken promises of help from the West. A tragic history of Russian invasion that goes back centuries. A painful awareness that conflicts in this volatile region are contagious. These are the factors that make nations across Eastern Europe watch events in Ukraine — and tremble.

From leaders to ordinary people, there is a palpable sense of fear that Russia, seemingly able to thumb its nose at Western powers at will, may seek more opportunities for incursions in its former imperial backyard. The question many people are asking is: Who's next?

"There is first of all fear ... that there could be a possible contagion," Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean told The Associated Press in an interview. "Romania is extremely preoccupied."

Specifically, concerns run high that after taking over the strategic peninsula of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin may be tempted to try a land grab in Moldova, where Russian troops are stationed in the breakaway province of Trans-Dniester. It's one of several "frozen conflicts" across Eastern Europe whose ranks Crimea — many in the West now say with resignation — has joined.

In Romania, which neighbours predominantly Romanian-speaking Moldova, Monica Nistorescu urged the West to stand up to Putin — lest he come to view himself as unbeatable.

"The world should stop seeing Putin as the invincible dragon with silver teeth," said Nistorescu, "because we will succeed in making him believe that Russia is what it once was."
Across the border, Moldovan fears of Russian invasion were in no way theoretical: "We are afraid the conflict in Ukraine could reach us in Moldova," said Victor Cotruta, a clerk in the capital Chisinau. "Russian troops could take over Moldova in a day."

Many in the region are keenly aware that Poland had guarantees of military aid from France and Britain against Nazi aggression. But when Hitler invaded in 1939, France and Britain didn't send troops to Poland despite their declarations of war. That history feeds skepticism that NATO would come to the aid of eastern member nations in the event of a Russian attack.
"Poland's history shows that we should not count on others," novelist Jaroslaw Szulski told The AP.

Such feelings are particularly acute in the Baltic nations that are members of NATO and the European Union. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have sizable Russian po****tions that Moscow periodically declares it needs to "protect" — the key word Putin used in justifying its invasion of Crimea.

"I'm a bit skeptical," said Tiina Seeman in Tallinn, Estonia, when asked if she believed the West would come to her nation's rescue. "I'd like to believe so but I can't say I trust them 100 per cent."

Moscow routinely accuses Estonia and Latvia of discriminating against their Russian-speaking minorities. Tensions between Russia and Estonia soared in 2007, when protests by Russian-speakers against the relocation of a Soviet-era war monument ended in street riots. Many Estonians blamed Moscow — which has handed out passports to ethnic Russians in the Baltics — for stirring up the protests.

As she arrived at an EU emergency summit on Ukraine last week, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite expressed more confidence than Seeman in the U.S.-led security alliance: "Thank God! Thank God that we are already 10 years in NATO!"
But she, too, expressed grave concerns about Russia's actions: "Russia today is trying to rewrite the borders in Europe after World War II."

History weighs heavily in Eastern European minds as they contemplate the future.
Many people see Russia's seizure of Crimea as similar to their experiences after World War II, when Soviet troops rolled through towns and villages, effectively putting them under the Kremlin's rule for decades.

"Of course there's a potential threat for us in the future," Katerina Zapadlova, a waitress in a Prague cafe, said with a bitter smile. She recalled how Soviet troops rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the Prague Spring liberalization movement.
"I'm afraid," she said, "It's because of what they did to us in the past."
Some experts say those fears are overblown.
"I wouldn't be afraid of Russian aggression in a short term," said Michal Qur’an of Prague's Institute of International Relations. "I'm 100 per cent sure (that NATO would help its eastern allies). I think that NATO gets stronger as a result of the conflict in Ukraine."

Mutual economic dependence also lowers the likelihood of an armed conflict between Russia and the West. Russia's economy runs largely on the massive natural gas supplies it sells to Europe every year — and in 2012 it bought $170 billion in European machinery, cars and other exports. But it is also precisely the reliance of both eastern and western European nations on Russian energy that gives the West fewer options in taking a hard line against Moscow.

Romania's foreign minister also said that NATO has taken positive action in dealing with the Ukraine crisis, citing the dispatch of AWACS reconnaissance planes to fly over Poland and Romania to monitor the crisis.

"The measure taken by the North Atlantic Council aims ... to prevent tensions at a regional level and to guarantee the security of state members," Corlatean told AP.
Yet he, too, could not refrain from expressing historical fears, evoking the bloodbath that resulted when dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ordered troops to fire on protesters in the dying days of his regime.

"Romanians followed very closely everything that happened in these weeks, especially the dramatic events in Kyiv," said Corlatean. "For us Romanians, this reminded us of the December 1989 revolution."

Some countries like Poland, which shares a border with both Ukraine and Russia, are already starting to take precautionary measures. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that instability in Ukraine may be prolonged and lead Warsaw to upgrade its weapons. At Poland's request, about 300 U.S. airmen and a dozen F-16 fighters arrived in Poland this week for a military exercise.

Tusk alluded to Europe's appeasement of Hitler and Stalin in the 1930s as he warned about the implications of letting Russia get away with its takeover of Crimea.
"Anyone who believes that peace and stabilization can be bought through concessions is mistaken," Tusk said last week in parliament. "Europe has made such mistakes, and they always led to a catastrophe."

___
Scislowska reported from Warsaw. Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, Karel Janicek in Prague; Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia; Corneliu Rusnac in Chisinau, Moldova; Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia; Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania; Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria; Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.

[TheIceMan]

^

Prima data cand vad pe yahoo (preluat de la The Canadian Press) mentionandu-se si Romania.