The referendum took place. The Crimeans supposedly elected to become part of Russia. There were numerous irregularities (actual turn out much lower, journalists not allowed to watch vote counts, boycotts, dead people voting, people without Ukrainian passports voting, etc, etc).
Russia has since moved to annex Crimea.
Putin thumbed his nose at Crimea.
The Ukrainian government declared weapons free for the soldiers posted there. A Ukrainian serviceman has since died from an assault by Russian forces in Simferopol.
A Crimean Tatar was tortured and killed. He was since buried by his people.
The Russian equivalent of Glenn Beck made uber boastful claims Russia could reduce the US to radioactive ash. The difference between Beck and this other twist is the Russian is formally backed by the Russian government.
The West has stated it will retaliate with more sanctions though Europe is pretty fractured. The sanctions put in place so far have been pretty lame. This goes for the US as well.
The French have announced they may cancel the amphibious warship contract with the Russians.
The Ukrainians are vowing to get back Crimea and seize the assets of Russian companies and Russian government in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians have shifted their forces to the south and east. The 26th airborne (iirc) has been seen outside Donetsk. Likewise, a number of armored vehicles were moved there as well from armoured brigades.
The Turks have warned they will close the Bosporus to Russian ships and shipping, effectively blockading the Russians in the Black Sea.
There have been massive hacker attacks on Russia and Ukraine, but only on government websites. I am not sure whether this is fortunate or not.
The Russians have supposedly planned a nuclear reactor for Crimea.
The Japanese have waded in and started condemning the Russians fwiw as well.
My personal opinion is little will happen. The Russians will take Crimea. The West will impose some sanctions and cancel other contracts and further developments with the Russians. The mainland Ukrainians will unite for a change and do moderately well, with the help of the West. The West is seeming pretty toothless at the moment. I would hope Obama would release more oil from the reserve and make some concessions with the Saudis (though they are not happy with him) to up production to reduce the price of oil...
The short term initiative is in the hands of the Russians. They can stop where they are or they can take the south and East of Ukraine. I call it 50-50 whether they are really done.
Ukraine will likely not do much if the Russians do not. However, I do predict they will not take their kick in the 'nads by the Russians well. They are likely in the future to try to take back Crimea from the Russians. it won't be the administration of Turch/Yats, but probably the follow-on or the one afterwards. They'll make a play for Crimea in a revanchist spasm. I felt this was like post-WW2 Germany. However, a friend pointed out while it does feel interwar, that it felt like Ukraine was in the position of Poland, rather than Germany.
3 comments:
Why does the US need to open oil reserves? We produce enough as is and are actually exporting it.
To drive down the price of oil to hurt Russia's economy: Obama released 5 million barrels and the price dropped ~$5/barrel. The reserve has over 600 million barrels in it.
The reserve becomes an economic weapon.
Ah, I see.
But the problem is, is that Russia exports a lot of Natural Gas and that the Europeans are still buying it. Not only that, but the CEO of Exxon is close friend with Putin. So opening up the reserves would actually hurt US strategically more than Russia.
And I don't see why US oil companies (USA is 2nd largest oil exporter of the world) would take a drop in profit for something that the companies don't care about to begin with.
Thanks,
Alcaster42
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