re: #11 Justanotherhuman

Doubtless Putin & Co is cooking something up right now.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Obama that Russia reserves the right to protect its interests if there is violence in eastern Ukraine or Crimea - @CBCAlerts
end of alert

A summary of what Russia wants:

2200 GMT: The UNSC meeting is now closed - A quick analysis — Russia has finally spelled out exactly what its given justification for invading Crimea is. According to their logic:

The EU, the UK, and the US incited the protests and fueled the revolt.

Yanukovych signed a deal with the opposition politicians that would keep him in power until, at least, early elections in December.

The “armed militants” broke this agreement by taking over government buildings, therefore:

Yanukovych is the legitimate leader of Ukraine and the people in charge are radicals, “Kiev,” the catchphrase for these radicals ho are now running the country, is sending provocateurs to takeover government buildings in Crimea (interjection — there is literally no evidence that this is true). Therefore:

The government of Crimea has asked Russia to send troops to restore order, and Russia has done so unilaterally because the West helped conspire to remove a democratically-elected government and put these radicals in charge.

The bottom line: the international community needs to help remove the radicals and enforce the February 21st agreement (which, by the way, would require reinstating Yanukovych back as President).

If this is not done, Russian troops will defend Crimea, and possibly attack Kiev to make it happen.

That’s it? Seems reasonable to me.

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