I suppose it's not unrelated to the russian embargo on European, Canadian, Australian, Norwegian and American food that was announced this morning and has yet to reach the US online news [0]. English translation [1].
Really, this guy is not doing well on the world stage, he almost seems to act like a petulant child at times with his comments.
Why shouldn't Russia do this, it causes embarrassment to a country who for the last few years has show contempt for anything Russia does. Its like the pot calling the kettle black.
The world is a flipping mess and two countries who could work together to fix it are having the equivalent of a playground spat.
If there are Russian soldiers in Ukraine supporting rebels, the actions of Russia are without question much worse than any of the actions taken by the US.
there aren't soldiers yet. Special agents, mercenaries and volunteers - yes. Including 200+ Serbs volunteers/mercenaries (Russians helped Serbs back in similar way in similar war in 199x)
>the actions of Russia are without question much worse than any of the actions taken by the US.
not really. Both countries regularly engage in proxy wars. US used real soldiers btw in Afganistan and Iraq.
Exactly. Bending the rules of our own Constitution and detaining and torturing folks is no where near as bad as stationing some troops in a disputed zone.
Sure, because Russia also has the habit of continued, systematic, shameless terrorizing and murdering innocent citizens of nuclear powers. I wonder why people are so outraged about Ukraine and yet fail to be about drones in Pakistan.
America has surely done the very same thing as Russia is being accused of, countless times over the last 50 years. Why the double standard? Are American soldiers somehow 'better' than the Russian kind?
It comes down to motivation. If the airliner was shot down accidentally, then there is a pretty clear precedent that victims and nations can sue for damages, but I do not recall any retaliatory sanctions against nations.
Ukraine shot down Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 in 2001, the US shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 and the French probably shot down Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 in 1980. The Russians do have form on this with shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983.
Unless it is a deliberate act, then it is generally treated as regrettable collateral damage, but is not usually considered an act of war. For the obvious reason that the world is already intentionally dangerous enough without us taking too much umbrage at any of the inevitable fuckups that constantly occur alongside the everyday business of blowing the shit out of each other.
Nobody in the West seem to think about hundreds of innocent civilians dying because of the brutal attempt of the new pro-Western Ukrainian government to subdue pro-Russian separatists in what they unashamedly call "Anti-terrorist operation".
Not to mention numerous other western-backed offensives in recent history... Wikileaks gave us brilliant statistics on civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's important to maintain some breadth of perspective here.
I have equal distaste for Obama and Putin and I have no idea if it's the Russians or Ukranians that are right / wrong (whatever that means). They can all burn in hell.
It's not cause the West "hundreds of innocent civilians dying because …" that you need to drag hundreds of OTHER innocent people into your conflict conflict.
So you thought that Russians and Ukrainians could burn in hell and the West would just keep supporting its puppet Ukrainian government and no western people would feel it? Wrong - you reap what you sow.
The people in that plane didn't support the Ukrainian or Russian government. Believe me, very few people here understand or even care about what goes on there. Personally I support neither cause I don't understand what it's about and it's none of my business. I stay out of your business and you stay out of mine.
If you say the Western public is guilty just cause they live or cause we vote, then believe me - nobody here votes for politicians based on what their policy on the Ukraine is.
Western public didn't care and let their politicians loose. This negligence had tragic and undeserved consequences for three hundred of them.
This equally applies to Russians not caring about war crimes in Chechnya.
not really - because no party (nor US/Ukraine nor Russia/rebels) is interested in the official confirmation of what everybody knows really happened.
3 weeks before MH-17, rebels captured a full Ukrainian military installation containing a number of BUK missile systems and parts storage for them. They were able to repair one BUK launcher. There is no need for an electronics professional like Kerry suggested because Russian military system like BUK is repaired by swapping whole blocks (sourced from other launchers or from parts storage). A BUK launcher is only part of the system. It has smaller, less capable fire control radar (lesser range, only 120 degree instead of 360, lesser resolution) than the main BUK radar (which is a large radar on a separate vehicle, has full acquiring/identifying/tracking/targeting capabilities, and rebels didn't have a working one). Basically BUK launcher alone is a super-large glorified "Stinger". Using the repaired launcher, 2 weeks after capture, the rebels downed 2 Ukrainian transport planes and week later they celebrated, for half-an-hour, until the first people reached the crash site, the supposed downing of the 3rd transport plane.
Russia obviously doesn't want the public confirmation because it was Russia supported rebels who downed the plane. US/Ukraine don't want it because it was a BUK captured from Ukrainians, and Ukraine hadn't close the airspace and was accepting the civilian airliners' flight plans through the war zone (basically each time declare it safe to fly) even though the Ukrainian military were regularly flying the combat missions in the airspace, receiving anti-aircraft fire and losing planes to it, lost a number of BUK systems to rebels, after that lost 2 cargo planes to surface-to-air missiles at the heights not reachable by MANPAD missiles - and still didn't close the airspace and were still explicitly accepting civilian flight plans... This is why all this propaganda theories about a ghost lone Russian BUK launcher almost every night crossing into Ukraine territory and crossing back again.
Unlikely to be related. Europe just embargoed Russia hard, those counter embargoes are their answer (it will hit them harder than us, but it still sucks).
The bad thing is that embargoes (and counter embargoes) hit ordinary people hard, not politicians.
Prices have increased by ~15% since January (and will increase more because of new embargoes). Many idiotic laws has been adopted. Other countries hate us. And so on.
Russia is now isolated from civilized world. And our government escalates this isolation.
I'm going to migrate to Australia/New Zealand/USA etc. But now it feels much more difficult to move to another country.
Patriotism, propaganda, religion...all these things are to control people. People live in provetry, have nothing to eat, have no rights etc. And, sadly, still think Putin is a great leader.
Majority of population do not like to think. It is better to turn on TV - and here are all answers!
TV sizes are no longer a problem since oil money and South Koreans manufacturng huge screens for cheap. Now the primary constraint is the size of apartments, which are often tiny by US standards - shiny large screen won't fit comfortably.
As a European I wonder how hard this will really hit us? I have been hoping for a complete embargo against Russia and russian made goods for a while now, but I know come winter some of Europe will freeze.
You don't want to be living in Finland and rely on natural gas for example. (To be honest I don't know how much and how Finland is using its natural gas)
Why wouldn't it be? The article begins with "his year-long leave to stay in Russia had expired on 31 July" and it's hard to imagine Putin not prolonging Showden's permission to stay cause it would be somewhat costly politically for him even if the relationship with the US hadn't deteriorated during this year.
I suspect that the initial sanctions had more to do with Snowden than with Ukraine.
FYI -- the women behind these sanctions, Victoria Nuland, used to be a senior aid of Dick Cheney. Prepare for shit to get a lot worse and last a lot longer than anyone expects.
[0] haven't seen anything yet on nytimes or wp.
[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http...