Just two... one they are being paid off (already cited), two the whole Russia is a bit authoritarian thing so people would be less likely to be disagreeable.
Strawman. Nobody here is saying Putin orchestrated the coup, in all likelihood he would have preferred Yanukovich to stay in power. But what Putin did, was orchestrating and continuing to support the uprising in Eastern Ukraine.
Wow!...Putin would have preferred that to the bloodbath we have?
If you say so. I guess we don't need any evidence.
The "uprising" as you call it was those in the east no recognising an illegitimate group who took power in a violent coup . This unelected group then attacked them!JayJay said:
No, "those in the east" i.e. the few militants consisting of Russian fighters and a few locals for show, started taking over government buildings and the government in Kiev was merely reacting like any sovereign country would. What do you think Putin would do if some foreign-led militia tried to pull off someting like that in Russia?
None of this shows that "Putin created the conflict", which is a claim you appear to have now abandoned. You have just moved the goalposts. In fact you pretty much hand waved away what really "created" this conflict.
It's probably true that there are at least Russian volunteers in Ukraine, but one wonders why American politicians have to produce photos from Georgia in 2008 and claim they are from Ukraine recently, if the evidence is so clear that Putin is sending troops.
They are defending themselves. They didn't march on Kiev. They have remained in their homes, where they live.
I imagine it will now be hard for people such as this poor man who just had his children killed to accept the current Kiev regime. What do you think?
Really? exactly the same, really?
Do you think that the US wants to get NATO bases in Ukraine? Just to digress for a minute.
Makes sense to me. The warmongers have a lot to answer for. But again, my point is that is it the so called rebels who were first attacked by the coup government and then by Poroshenko. they were attacked in their own homes. So Poroshenko has more to answer for . He rejected peace as one of his first moves in power. Why? one wonders.
None of the links Axulus showed referred to Einhof's photos. One gullible US senator doesn't refute the fact that Russia is heavily arming the rebels, and providing troops. Over 200 Russian on-duty Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, so most likely the number of actual troops is in the thousands or tens of thousands. And the notion of them being "volunteers" is laughable... soldiers who are actively serving in the army don't "volunteer" to go fight foreign wars, and they don't get to take their tanks, artillery and BUKs with them on vacation.
Igor Girkin lived in Moscow. So did many of the "volunteers". But that's besides the point... just because you live somewhere doesn't make you can just pick up a gun and start taking over police stations and government buildings.
It is the same in the sense that in Georgia, six years later, the breakaway regions are still in state of frozen conflict. Russia's goal was not to conquer entire Georgia, which it could have easily done, but to destabilize it. Same with Ukraine. Only exception is Crimea, that had a Russian naval base and a clear Russian ethnic majority.
In 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO decided not to offer Ukraine membership. Since then, the interest to join has waned even more. We can speculate that maybe NATO would prefer to have bases in Ukraine, but clearly this is not one of the "stated goals". Besides not even all of the NATO members have NATO bases in their soil.
