The standoff between Russia & Ukraine

Which side are you on? And why?

I am formerly from one of those countries, so my opinion can be somewhat biased. I just want to know what the rest of the world thinks on that issue.

 

It is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is between Russia and USA. USA has been moving the NATO frontier forward during the last 15 years and now they are finally on Russia door step. What happened in Ukraine was no Revolution, it was exactly the same as Libya, Syria and many other countries South American countries before that. Find the violent elements in the country, pay them money and give them weapon and try to change the government to new one which is just a puppet for USA. These new people make the life of Ukrainian even more miserable and no one in the right mind believes that people make a revolution to become unemployed, homeless and starved.

Are we suppose to believe that these neo-Nazi are the "democratic" representative of Ukrainian people?

The anti-science/anti-free speech left

 

@gworld it's a very valid point.

Historically, Ukraine has always had a strained relationship with Russia and if it could it would align itself with the West in a heart beat. The problem is, the West doesn't want it. I think when it comes to the protests, there's more than just a small violent element there. The anti-Russian sentiment can be found in the general population as well, especially in the western part of Ukraine. And as you probably also know, Ukraine owes Russia $2 billion that Russia is not just going to erase or forgive. There's money, power-struggle and who knows what else involved there.

 

West wants Ukraine for the following reason:

1) Gives NATO bases on Russia door step.
2) It takes out Russian´s navy port of call and makes it harder for them to go out
3) West is charging Ukraine 12% interest on the loans which they have been paying for last decade, IMF comes in and takes everything people have in order to make sure they get paid as they have done in Greece, Portugal, Spain,...
4) Open Ukraine market, sell their products and bankrupt all the industries there.

What West doesn´t want:

All the stupid people in Ukraine that think Ukraine will become part of EU and they can come to Europe and live there.

 

Russia is moreover against USA in this rather than Ukraine.

 

People in Crimea vote to join Russia. 80% of population take part in referendum and 93% vote for joining Russia.

Pro-Russian people in Crimea



Pro-USA people in Kiev

 

Aren't they going for another city on eastern ukraine now?

 

Some cities in Eastern part of Ukraine also want to join Russia. If you had a choice between ruled by Neo-Nazi groups that want to kill everyone who opposes them, your taxes be increased and your pension become half, be unemployed and no help from government or join Russia where you are not going to be robbed by IMF, get higher pension and some kind of law and order, which one will you chose?

Taking power in Kiev by Pro-Americans



Referendum and change of government in Crimea

 

It's a deal between Russia and the West (not USA only). Ukraine is just a doll in their hands and I feel sorry for ukrainians. The West sees Ukraine as a part of EU in near future, Russia can't afford that and don't want to give Ukraine in EU's hands. Thats the main issue here. All the rest is propaganda from both sides.

p.s: Im from Russia.

 

Leave it to a Russian to realize its not just the US that wants the Ukraine independent or part of NATO, and only Russia and more specifically Putin that wants the Ukraine to be part of the new USSR. Leave it to a Canadian to blame the whole thing on the US.

The US may be becoming more authoritarian, but we are still toddlers when it compared to the corrupt, lawless, anti civil rights regime in Russia. Ask Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Ask Pussy Riot.

The funny/sad thing is, Obama owns this. After botching Syria with his "red line" comment, Putin came out looking like a hero. He was pleasantly surprised to find Obama balls were located in his hip pocket.

Obama could have solved this entire mess diplomatically had he not been so anti-fossil fuels. Even announcing an effort to begin shipping liquified gas to Western Europe would have sent Gazprom shares reeling and significantly weakened Putin. I guess his environmental lobby is far more important than a few million dead Ukrainians.

 

Syria? r u kidding ? Syria is all the way going the Putin way. Plus Obama already "lost" the Crimea - anyhow he warns Putin with sanctions, which is a fact.

 

You are too modest, gulags in Russia are resorts compared to the Guatnamo bay and other USA secret prisons. Snowden says that Russia spying on its citizens is nothing compared to what the USA is doing to its own citizens.

LOL. Only American morons believe in such nonsense and the rest of the world is too smart for it. Where are the ports to send out this liquefied gas? Where are the ships to carry it? Where are the ports and distribution pipeline in Europe for using it? How expensive will be this gas? If they start today, it will be decades before such solution was feasible even if we don´t consider the price. Compared to this, he could as well claim that he is going wave his magic wand and make Russia disappear. The only reason for such statement that I can think of is that he has shares in couple of gas companies and was hoping to push their price up because he has found a solution to over capacity in the USA.

 

Perhaps it was lost in translation, but you just agreed with my post.

http://www.cheniere.com/LNG_terminals/terminals.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNG_carrier

http://en.ria.ru/business/20121126/177741743.html

US price for LNG averages about ~$265/cubic meter. Russia was charging $268/cubic meter until April 1st, at which point they raised the price to $485.50. Even after transportation charges, we would always be able to beat such a price offered by the Ukraine's (and Western Europe's) only other option.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303948104579537551417581312
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm

Educate yourself by reading any or all of the above links. This entire operation could be up and running by early 2016, and would have been operational sooner, had we got started earlier. The truth is, Obama hates the fracking that is making fossil fuels so cheap in America. Wherever he can, he is trying to block it's production at the federal level. Thankfully, the feds don't own everything in America (yet), so some states like N. Dakota are helping the US to produce more oil and gas now than at any time in history, even though federal permits are at an all time low.

This isn't about waving magic wands. This is about energy prices in western europe, something Gazprom has a choke hold on, and right now the Ukraine has the only pipeline. It was the 70s when Carter cooked up his doctrine which effectively declared any attack on energy resources vital to the US to be an attack on the US itself. It is a doctrine that has been carried forward by every president since, and one has only to look at what is happening in the Ukraine to understand why.

If Obama were even to announce an honest intent to start shipping LNG to the Ukraine and Western Europe, Gazprom share prices would plummet, cutting off Putin's balls financially speaking. He would be unable to afford continued military destabilization in the region, and this whole unpleasantness would quickly fade into memory. The truth is, Obama values the campaign contributions from his green lobby far more than he values the lives of a few million Ukrainians, or the lives of anyone in Western Europe for that matter. His incompetence could very well lead to a hot war in Eastern Europe.

 

In 2007, the European Union imported from Russia 100.7 million tonnes of natural gas, which accounted 38.7% of total gas import.

LNG Rivers, with a capacity of 135 000 cubic metres

How many trips do you need to deliver > 100 mln ? How many of them you need to build? Its not gonna happen like a twist of magic, lets be honest.

Also, $485 is not the right price, its the price for Ukraine (with political reasons of course). Germany gets it for $385. You won't be able to maintain a price of $265 for EU, don't lie.

"Gas prices in Europe to rise 50%, if it abandons Russia’s supplies"

http://rt.com/business/russia-west-energy-gazprom-433/

 

LNG Rivers at 135,000 cubic meters of gas carries 55,350 metric tonnes. To offset 100% of the 100.7 million tonnes imported from Russia in 2007, there would have to be 1820 shipments, or 5 shipments a day throughout the course of a year.

Since we are now talking about all of Europe, there are today LNG terminals in Belgium, France (3), Greece, Italy(2), Netherlands, Portugal, Spain(7), and Turkey(2).

There are another two being built in France, one in Italy, two in the Netherlands, one in Poland, one in Latvia, one in Lithuania, and one in the Ukraine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LNG_terminals#Europe

Is it your assertion that all the existing and proposed LNG shipment terminals can't handle more than 5 shipments of LNG per day or that LNG Rivers is the only ship?

Regarding price of export from the US, you need to appreciate that we are going through a gas and oil boom right now. The newly estimated/discovered oil and gas deposits under the US, based on access via fracking, far exceed anything in Saudi Arabia. Our natural gas prices are falling through the floor with Obama's hostile anti-fossil fuel administration being the only thing standing between us being the worlds largest exporter of the product.

On a geopolitical basis, that is bad news for both Putin's bank account and his ability to assert power in the Ukraine. Regardless of what the overwhelmingly Russian population of Crimea may want, Ukrainians seem to enjoy their independence.

 

Did you look it up first? The UK alone has five. My uncle spent many years working in Wales managing the construction of one, I definitely did not imagine it. He has (and still does) this around the world, including throughout Russia (he spent many years there). We can manage without Russia, but there is no point in another cold war and it's much better to have peaceful co-existence with them. (It's a beautiful country that everyone should visit.)

You are blinded if you cannot see Putin has been a provocateur for many years. He is playing a long game. And nothing he is doing is really in Russia's interest. Back in the '90s, Russia became heavily decentralised and then Putin made it again one of the most centralised governments. Yet, he demands that Ukraine becomes heavily decentralised. He's in no position to make such a demand and one that is only of interests of Russia. Putin has a lot of problems at home to fix before trying to build USSR 2.0.

 

I am sure economist, wall street journal,... and all serious news sources are wrong because we have your uncle to prove otherwise. The idea of sending gas from USA to Europe is total BS which has no base in reality and it is only good to justify fracking (very dangerous process) and push the gas price up so they can rob the American consumers again. Even if this was technically possible, USA can not compete with countries like Russia, Qatar and Iran that can cut their prices any time they want and push USA out of the market.
"Can American natural gas rescue Europe and Ukraine from the clutches of Russia? Not likely. Especially not soon.
..........
It isn’t that easy. The cost of getting U.S. gas supplies to Europe and the lack of infrastructure on both sides of the Atlantic are major obstacles. Plus, Asian customers are offering higher prices.
..........
It costs about $3 per 1,000 cubic feet to liquefy natural gas, about $1 to transport it to Europe and $1 or so to turn the liquefied natural gas back into a gas. Current U.S. prices would make U.S. natural gas roughly as expensive as some of the Russian gas under recent European purchase contracts. For U.S. gas to make economic sense in Europe, it has to stay cheap. Right now, Russia, Algeria and Norway have the flexibility to undercut U.S. supplies if they need to.

The same story applies to liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from other sources. Goldman Sachs estimated in its March 4 energy weekly that U.S. LNG prices would be 35 percent to 40 percent higher than Russian prices if imported by Europe in large quantities.
...............
A group of big U.S.-based petrochemical companies says that prices could spike higher because of higher demand. The companies say that NERA used too low a range for gas exports and that exports and new power plants could strain supplies. The group, called America’s Energy Advantage, warns that the LNG export terminals already approved would use up 13 percent of the current levels of U.S. gas production. It fears that could reduce or eliminate the huge competitive advantage they now have over European chemical makers and could imperil $125 billion of investment now being made in U.S. chemical plants.
..................
But it’s a free market in the world of LNG tankers. Because LNG prices are higher in Asia, especially in Japan, producers are ignoring geopolitics and shipping gas there. Most of Europe’s LNG terminals have been idle."

Can U.S. natural gas rescue Ukraine from Russia?

It is the only Washington Post and Goldman Sachs (American news paper and investment firm), but I am sure your uncle and obamanation know more about this.

How did Putin provoke the neo-Nazi and hooligans to overthrow the government of Ukraine? Did he also provoke the Neo-Nazi to burn people alive in Odessa? USA in the last decades has become a bully who cannot compete with the rest of the world with the economy and feels the only way they can make money is by terrorizing and robing other countries.

 

Sure, BBC is making it up, too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/7952415.stm


You asked "Where are the ports?" Maybe you need to see them to believe they are there?

Lots of blah, blah, blah from you regarding the cost. You are missing one important point - some countries might be willing to pay more just so they can't be held hostage by Russia. Russia's dominance in mainland Europe's energy sector is largely the reason this problem continues. Let's face it, gas prices go up each year at stupid amounts anyway (for the consumer), so it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference, just another money-grabbing price rise to add to their [energy companies'] already high profits.

So, anyone who is against what the so-called "pro-Russians" or wanting their country Ukraine to go in a different direction than Russia's arms are doing are automatically a neo-Nazi?

Have a read of the comments from people in Odessa:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27266922

Putin is full of provocative language. If Ukraine tries to resolve their crisis, there is the threat of invasion hanging over them. If they do nothing, their country will be lost.

And the actions he orders to take place. It's interesting how the taking of buildings is so similar to what happened in Crimea, where Putin confessed Russian troops did operate (well, duh, it was so obvious). An article from WSJ, which you seem to like so much:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303887804579498871951664710?mod=djemalertNEWS

And this article on Forbes pulls together quite a few sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...hatters-russian-lies-about-troops-in-ukraine/

Putin "played" quite well with Syria, but what has actually been achieved? When there are still air strikes against their own people and I am sure Russian pockets still being lined with cash. Yes, he definitely took care of Russia's interests. It shows what his interests are (himself and lining the pockets of his inner-circle).

To quote my wife (who's Russian) about the 2012 election: "What was the point? Everyone knew Putin was going to win. They should have saved money and swapped positions again." It was full of controversy, read this to start:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17256116

Putin is definitely no saint, despite what you might think. Europe needs to be cautious as he has darker ulterior motives than most politicians. I don't think Putin is quite ready to push things so far that Europe and US put in place serious economic and travel sanctions. Instead, he will keep trying to manipulate the situation at a distance and even that he is very dangerous with.

 

It all has to do with the US...

 

Ukrainians not wanting to be part of Putin's Iron Grip has nothing to do with the US. Or so-called pro-Russian's wanting independence is not about the US. Likewise, Putin's desire for USSR 2.0 is his own. It has been stirred up too much in Ukraine; language is a pathetic excuse. There is no threat to people speaking Russian, if they want to (the influence on my view comes from having Ukrainian friends in the East of Ukraine and my Russian wife who spent a lot of time in Crimea). So what if it's not Ukraine's official language; unsurprisingly, Ukrainian is. Just like in the UK English is the official language, but that doesn't stop communities of Russians, Polish, Sri Lankans, Indians, Pakistanis, etc, speaking their own language.