I've been working today with Russia Today on in the background (channel 512 on Sky) and it's interesting just how different the picture is painted from Russia.
Now, before anybody tries to give me the 101 on propaganda; I'm fully aware the truth is somewhere between CNN and RT and nothing is black & white when it comes to this potential conflict, but it's quite remarkable that the following issues aren't being reported in western media:
Ukrainian troops are refusing to mobilise or are defecting,
Jail for dual citizenship - targetting ethnic Russians in Crimea and the East.
The prevelance of right-right extremists in the new Ukrainian government and their calls for terrorist attacks on Russian soil.
Calls from new government in Ukraine to reinstate nuclear arsenal
Law cancelled allowing Russian status of official second lanaguage
To me, at least, a lot of the rhetoric from Russia is as a result of the antagonism of some elements of the new government in Kiev. It's one thing to seek protection from the West from Russian aggression, it's totally another to plant a few punches on the nose of the Russian bear and then run behind NATO & the US for cover.
I've seen a number of people, both here and in comments sections of news items, refer that Russia is little more than seeking to annex the Ukraine to reap the rewards of the gas pipes that supply the EU. That's nonsense; Russia want to supply a commodity to a rival for the sake of a higher margin whilst at the same time likely to, at best, end in economic sanctions which will see the pipe turned off or at worst, war, which will see the pipes destroyed? If Russia wanted to cut Ukraine out of the supply line, surely they'd go through Belarus, which is staunchly in Russia's corner?
The only thing I can take from the events of the last couple of weeks is that Ukraine and Russia and the picture both sides of the media paints of the other are both correct to some extent. Russia, which how it gets away with still portraying itself as a democracy is a mystery to me, and it's rationale that majority language/ethnicity should allow the republic to dictate it's own rule - an attitude it conveniently ignores in Dagestan, Chechnya & Tatarstan amongst others - is laughable and then the new government in Ukraine, which the BBC and others are painting as a victory for democracy despite not being elected and having an unsavoury ultra nationalist element at it's core. The UN should undo the crimes of the Soviets, kick both Ukrainians and Russian's out of the Crimea and invite the, still significant, Crimean Tatar diaspora back to the region to run their own state.
I'm just about old enough to remember the back patting that went on after the dissolution of the USSR (bar Armenia/Azerbaijan & Kyrgyzstan) but that's biting everybody on the arse now. It's one thing having these borders when they were republics in the USSR but to use, for the most part, the same borders for independent states is madness. From the recent trouble to Georgia and now Ukraine, this is all caused because borders were used to create states from the ethnic situation in the 1920s and didn't take into account the Soviet engineered population migrations and exportations.
Something that's only been a footnote in the media so far is that China back Russia's stance. This is particularly significant considering Chinese state farms 'own' 3 million hectares of farmland in Eastern Ukraine. A convenient coincidence for Moscow, but it's something that will undoubtedly dictate NATO's response to any Russian course of action.
The only out I can see now is allowing Crimea & the South & East of the country to have a referendum to decide it's future political entity. If not, it'll likely be a shooting war and it's a matter of who's involved.
