Now, most of us can see this huge crisis coming up. Currently it looks like it might turn into a war. Putin engages troops, there are battles in Crimea between people who want to join Russia and those who don't, making it chaotic. There are already a couple fights and even a crisis of multiple aircraft carriers being blockaded in a river by a sunken boat :P
Loads of economic issues, and Russia is now excluded from G8.
Summary:
Putin decided to take back a part of the USSR that was taken by Ukraine when it was separated. Crimea. Obama got the whole UN into this and decided to not let it continue. This is slowly turning into a war over Crimea, and neither Putin or Obama release their grip.
Recently, China stated that it will demand all the US' debts in pure gold if it will continue its actions in stopping Russia.

(I don't know too much details, but being Russian, i decided to make a discussion on this. Tell me something, guys.)

Personally, i am sure on my side that states "Obama, keep your black ass out of this business," but the other half of me says that perhaps it'd be best that nobody should attack one another.
I say, however, that if the U.S. wouldn't interfere this would be much less of a problem.
Let's discuss it, your opinions, who shall be destroyed/punished, idk...

This is the first I've heard about China threatening to demand repayment of US debt, I'm surprised I actually found a source for it. They don't have the authority to do it either way, I wonder why they'd actually threaten something like that.

I don't have much else to add. It's hard to take someone seriously when they try to discuss complicated geopolitical affairs with immature statements like "Fuck Putin" and "Obama should keep his black ass out of this business".

Here's some things I picked up when I was following the Russia-Crimea stuff closely a while ago.

-Russia has wanted Crimea for a long time. Its inhabitants are largely of Russian origin and not Ukrainian.
-Under the reasoning "This is for the protection of the Russian people," Putin made a bulletless invasion of Crimea, bringing a large amount of forces and looking as scary as possible to intimidate Ukraine. I think "protection of Russian people" referred to the bloody protests going on earlier. All the while, anyone asked by outside forces told them that Russia was not invading Ukraine, though it was proven otherwise lots of times.
-Ultimately, the Ukraine government was intimidated and voted 100% to allow the annexation of Crimea into Russia.

Some more important information:
-A few decades(?) ago, Ukraine agreed to disarm and dismantle all of its nuclear bombs, in return for the protection of the world powers, including Russia. By invading, Russia broke their promise and also weakened any further agreements like that in the future.
-The G8/G7 wanted to try and solve the conflict peacefully, and repeatedly tried to get the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to speak together. Russia refused.
-Sanctions are being held on Russia that grow worse the longer that Russia remains in Crimea and calls the land theirs. It started with small things like the political leaders of Russia being able to use credit/debit cards, but it can worsen into being unable to trade with any of the world powers

Personally, Putin/Russia was stupid to invade the Ukraine. They proved to the world that they're not to be trusted in peace agreements, which will hurt a lot for everyone in the future. It's also not worth risking a global conflict for any reason as small as land.

Since Putin broke the promise Russia made by invading Crimea, war between Ukraine and Russia is near inevitable.

The worst thing that Obama can do, is try to get involved. The United Nations can get involved because, well, that's what it's supposed to do. If a country as influential as the U.S. gets involved in this conflict, it could very well lead to World War III.

Not to mention, if China's demanding payment if the U.S. stays involved, then the best option, in my opinion, is to back off.

Fix that poll, please.

Quote from extrafred

"Obama, keep your black ass out of this business,"

Putin should keep his Russian behind out of Crimea.

Quote from extrafred

This is slowly turning into a war over Crimea, and neither Putin or Obama release their grip.

There is no war over Crimea and there will not be one. The only power that wants to take Crimea is the RF/Putin. The US/UN want to prevent an invasion in/taking of Crimea but neither Obama or the UN seem to be being very successful at their job.

Quote from extrafred

Recently, China stated that it will demand all the US' debts in pure gold if it will continue its actions in stopping Russia.

Screw China.

Whether Russia decided to capture Ukraine or Kazahstan, which were both separated from it by the US, the US should really keep it's ass out of this. They caused enough trouble in Russia's economics, and now they're threatening its retaking of territory which was encouraged to separate from it by the US.

Quote from Naimad

Screw China.

I resent that

Anyway, I never thought that china would have enough balls to do this. Though it seems quite pointless to me seeming that America has a higher military advantage. (Though lets not hope for any wars here)

But when you do look on the russian side, there's a country FILLED with Russian people yet they don't own it. I guess they just found it a tad bit unfair so boom, invasion.
Of course with what Devour said, it's backfired on them, this does so that people aren't going to be so open for the Russians. But of course, would you blame them? Russia broke its most important(?) promise since a long while now.

And agreeing with Parasites point, it would be best to back off. I understand that Russia broke a promise, but better that than WWIII happening which = A lot of casualties considering all the firepower now. So yeah, back off americano's.

EDIT: I'm going to agree with Naimad on this one, change the fucking poll if you want us to be completely serious about this. Because, jesus christ, no person that actually can discuss a topic like this would say that.

Sooo, by fuck them, you mean like a roleplay chat thread? I'd happily play the person who undergoes sexual intercourse with. them. huehuehuehuehuehue fuk obama first though, putin might get interested and join in the middle of bamas climax. Im so hyped for this, thank you! ^-^

But in all seriousnesses and whatnot, Obama should not have interfered... Now the US is most likely sending troops over to ukraine as we speak to try and resolve this... *sigh* World war 3, here we come. And im positive that it won't be as badass as MW3 depicted it would be. And the military probably doesn't even have a soldier named frost, so it cant even happen... plus the US r totally fagits, so we're gonna lose. :c am gon crie in ma pillow

I would state my opinion on this but I don't really have much knowledge except the basic idea on the subject at hand.

do any of you actually understand why the US is getting involved in the first place? or what the extent of our involvement even is? I don't think anyone here actually understands what the hell they're talking about.

Fuck it. I'm going to explain.


If you're checking sources be sure to take note of the dates. Also, if The Economist is telling you to subscribe you can get around it by right clicking the link and go to "Open link in incognito window" (or whatever your browser's equivalent is).


A few months ago, the Ukrainian president had a choice between trade agreements with the EU or with Russia and Belarus (you can't have both because then a company from Belarus could trade with the EU via Ukraine and it all gets messy). The population of Ukraine wanted to take the EU option. Russia offered his government a large amount of money and he went the other way.

This led to protests in Kiev which turned into a revolution. The president then took all of Ukraine's money and fled to Russia.

Ukraine set up an interim government with elections to be held in three weeks' time under international observation. This government was not perfect and did some silly anti-Russia things, such as declaring that Russian would no longer be a regional language in Ukraine (which it had only been since 2012, incidentally), "regional language" basically just meaning you could conduct business in Russian.

The Russians started spreading propaganda saying that the new government was fascist, in a frothing-at-the-mouth, baby-eating-nazis kind of way. They said, for example, that the new government was going to make it illegal to speak Russian. At one point they took footage of refugees fleeing West to Poland and said they were going East to Russia.

Russian soldiers with the identifying marks removed from their uniforms invaded Crimea. Putin denied this at first but admitted it later.

Whilst under Russian military occupation Crimea held a referendum on whether to join Russia or become a more autonomous state than they had been before. There was no option for people to say that they were happy the way things were. The referendum was held with ten days' notice, was boycotted by 38% of the local population and allowed the invading Russians to vote too. No one considers the referendum to be legal except Russia. On the other hand, a fair referendum probably would still have generated the same result since the majority of the population considers themselves to be Russian, but it's worth noting that a genocide of the indigenous Tatar population probably has something to do with that.

After the referendum, Russia annexed Crimea. All of your maps are now out of date.

Now there are Russian militants in Eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military is currently attempting to remove them. Putin has been given permission by his parliament to invade Ukraine if he likes, and he has been talking a lot about how bad it is for Ukraine to be using the military against "it's own" population.

The BBC Timeline is pretty good for this.

Quote from extrafred

Putin decided to take back a part of the USSR that was taken by Ukraine when it was separated. Crimea.

Nope. Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1954, although at the time they were both part of the Soviet Union so it was just a case of moving the Crimea papers to a different filing cabinet.

Obama got the whole UN into this and decided to not let it continue.

The UN does not follow America. It got involved automatically because a country was being invaded and that's what the UN does. I haven't checked but I would be astonished if Ukraine didn't put some motions forward itself.

This is slowly turning into a war over Crimea, and neither Putin or Obama release their grip.

There will not be a war unless Putin invades the rest of Ukraine.

China stated that it will demand all the US' debts in pure gold if it will continue its actions in stopping Russia.

Quote from Parasite

if China's demanding payment if the U.S. stays involved, then the best option, in my opinion, is to back off.

Defaulting on a debt is bad because other people won't lend to you again afterwards. Refusing to go above and beyond what was originally agreed, however, will have no negative consequences. China cannot demand anything of the sort and the US will not be in trouble if they refuse to do anything about it.

Quote from extrafred

Whether Russia decided to capture Ukraine or Kazahstan, which were both separated from it by the US,

False.

Quote from devi

But when you do look on the russian side, there's a country FILLED with Russian people yet they don't own it. I guess they just found it a tad bit unfair so boom, invasion.
Of course with what Devour said, it's backfired on them, this does so that people aren't going to be so open for the Russians. But of course, would you blame them? Russia broke its most important(?) promise since a long while now.

And agreeing with Parasites point, it would be best to back off. I understand that Russia broke a promise, but better that than WWIII happening which = A lot of casualties considering all the firepower now. So yeah, back off americano's.

Boom. This is the exact reasoning that caused Europe to allow Hitler to continue invading countries until WWII finally began. If he had been stopped at the beginning, the war wouldn't have been so widespread and bloody. The first lands he took were mostly of German population as well.