Ukraine and Crimea development thread

[ElvenKind]

hahahaha oh my god

everything you post is literally misinformation. and it's hilarious to watch you call late November Euromaidan "violent protesters", meanwhile you haven't so much as typed the word 'Berkut' in any of your posts, so according to your fiction, Euromaidan is "most of protests start peacefully, some turn into riots". hahahahahahaha. just by themselves. the protest turned into a riot just by itself. i bet a warm breeze blew over the square one day and it suddenly awoke the inner Waffen SS in them. according to the next chapter in your fiction, this was finally when riot police were finally ordered to contain the fascist threat.

and i'm going to keep repeating this as long as you people keep repeating it: THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE WAS NEVER IN DANGER OF BEING BANNED. THE REPEAL WAS TARGETING ITS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE STATUS, AND IT WAS VETOED ANYWAY BY "THE ILLEGITIMATE NAZI HEADMASTER" TURCHYNOV.

that there are Russians living in Ukraine and Ukrainians living in Russia has literally nothing to do with what we are discussing, you tried to use it to explain why the ARMED MILITANTS in eastern Ukraine are Russian and that because of this, it's very similar to Euromaidan, which is just dishonest, because there are no armed Ukrainians going across the border to have an adventure in Russia.


the following are pictures from pre-December Euromaidan. where is the violence?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

then after Berkut attacked them at 4 am while disrupting communications, the crowd multiplicated as people came from all over Ukraine and then things started spiraling out of control for the interior ministry.

Everything you post is total Rusophobia and miss information.

When you start storming Government buildings ( somewhere around 25 November 2013. http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20131124142743878664 ) that's when peaceful protests are not categorised as peaceful anymore, but violent. You can come up with pictures of peaceful protesters, I can come up with pictures of violent protesters.

I am not claiming there were no peaceful protest days, but on the other hand you are trying to claim there was no violence from protesters side.


Regarding the ban of official secondary languages, The Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) abolished the 2012 law “On State Language Policy” the day after it voted to dismiss President Viktor
Yanukovich. It discriminated not only Russian, but Romanian and Hungarian.

Russians as Ukrainian citizens are there, what do you think, they magically disappeared from the scene?

I mean, BS in your posts ignoring their presence in Ukraine dating from centuries ago is so funny.

Oh man, post some more BS.

[snuggans]

When you start storming Government buildings ( somewhere around 25 November 2013. http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20131124142743878664 ) that's when peaceful protests are not categorised as peaceful anymore, but violent. You can come up with pictures of peaceful protesters, I can come up with pictures of violent protesters.

the only problem with this is that you rely on a single sentence from Aljazeera while i've already read up on this. the sentence: "However, some protesters on Sunday tried to storm government buildings and police responded by using tear gas and batons against them."

what you're trying to do is attempting to make it seem as if the small groups of protesters that were at the European Square having a stand-off with the Berkut and taking over buildings represent numbers equaling anywhere even remotely close to a majority, meanwhile there was still a peaceful assembly going on simultaneously at the Independence Square which is not the same area at all, full of thousands. it makes no sense to use the Berkut on a peaceful assembly in Maidan just because a small splinter group in another part of the city were behaving badly 6 days earlier. pre-december Euromaidan was still peaceful, the actions of a few in another area do not taint it, sorry. in every protest there will be a splinter group trying to hijack it and pushing the envelope. nobody followed them until Berkut were chasing down even the peaceful protesters 6 days later and even getting in several hits on the press. in fact, there were multiple disagreements and feuding in-between the ultranationalist groups, PRECISELY because some of them were occupying buildings just to show the police that they had the capability to do so, they would then leave the building peacefully. the feuding between the ultranationalist groups happened because some of the leadership were scolding them for relying on such tactics in the first place.

I am not claiming there were no peaceful protest days, but on the other hand you are trying to claim there was no violence from protesters side.

not at all, i'm merely explaining to you what caused things to spiral out of control, and it wasn't just the protesters standing idly and then suddenly becoming violent for no reason, which is what your previous posts try to paint it as.

Regarding the ban of official secondary languages, The Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) abolished the 2012 law “On State Language Policy” the day after it voted to dismiss President Viktor
Yanukovich. It discriminated not only Russian, but Romanian and Hungarian.

that language law was problematic and mired in controversy anyway, which you wouldn't know about of course because you haven't read up on it. Turchynov declared that a new law that respects all minorities will be made in its place. that's already one important quote we can hold over the new Ukrainian government's head, if they don't follow through with this, it will be more than pointed out.

[wulfgar610]

Hanna Arendt said there a no good or bad people but simply people who do good or bad things. There may have been good justification for the Madian protests (aided by Globalists think tanks).............but there is always a price to be paid.

Every initiative comes at a price and the cost is great in a country to have political instability when it is wedged between conflicting giants.

[Geronimo2006]

Peter Lavelle on RT's "Crosstalk" says "Russia has stood on the sidelines throughout this crisis". Really?

Elvenkind the Rada did not ban the Russian language. A law that would have removed official use of Russian in certain Russian speaking regions was vetoed by Olexander Turchynov. But ever since the Russian media and politicians have been screaming that "Russian is banned in Ukraine", which is ludicrous. If Russians in Ukraine think they have a hard time now, wait till they see what's in store for them under Putin's police-state. They are not being persecuted but those who try to break away and take up arms cannot be considered as "peaceful protesters".

[ivan_the_terrible]

So why was the first order of business for the parliament to ban all official use of non-Ukrainian languages? Yes, Turchinov had the presence of mind to veto it, but why was the vote taken at all, and why was it such a priority?

Also "peaceful protesters" is a strawman, since no one claimed they are peaceful. For my part, I have only said that pro-Russian thugs taking over buildings, notably police stations, in eastern cities is not that different from Ukrainian nationalist thugs taking over police stations in the west. This is Lvov, in February: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA6MzrSvmCk#t=145

[snuggans]

So why was the first order of business for the parliament to ban all official use of non-Ukrainian languages?

i see it as a symbolic middle finger to Putin and a metaphor of Ukraine choosing to be governed by Ukraine and not by Russia's buddies that run back to them with state money after sowing corruption all over Donbass. also, the vote itself almost failed to pass, at least some of the Ukrainian parliament still have their brains, it was obviously some sort of reactionary message which unfortunately used legislative powers when it should have been sent another way, they merely ended up feeding large coals to the propaganda machine when they did that. now we've got someone coming in here every week echoing the lie that the Russian language was banned or even came close to being banned. including you.

Also "peaceful protesters" is a strawman, since no one claimed they are peaceful. For my part, I have only said that pro-Russian thugs taking over buildings, notably police stations, in eastern cities is not that different from Ukrainian nationalist thugs taking over police stations in the west. This is Lvov, in February: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA6MzrSvmCk#t=145

there is a huge difference, for one, in Lvov it was Ukrainians taking over Ukrainian buildings/police. it remains solely a Ukrainian issue.
in eastern Ukraine and Crimea it's spetznas, GRU, Cossack paramilitary organizations, Transnistrian citizens, Russian citizens, ex-Berkut with Russian passports (who should be undergoing trial) etc, with arms, taking over all sorts of buildings. as well as unarmed Ukrainians who are serving as human shields and are likely paid by Moscow. it is now a war between two nations.

you're basically saying that because some Ukrainians did something to their own buildings, that it's similar to Russia coming in and annexing territory and trying to spark a civil war?

[Border Patrol]

Absolutely hilarious. There are real live Russian troops invading Ukraine and annexing territory and somehow the US is responsible. Oh, and apparently big bad Ukraine with the mighty army smaller than its postal services was planning on 'doing stuff' to Russia.

[ivan_the_terrible]

i see it as a symbolic middle finger to Putin and a metaphor of Ukraine choosing to be governed by Ukraine and not by Russia's buddies that run back to them with state money after sowing corruption all over Donbass. also, the vote itself almost failed to pass, at least some of the Ukrainian parliament still have their brains, it was obviously some sort of reactionary message which unfortunately used legislative powers when it should have been sent another way, they merely ended up feeding large coals to the propaganda machine when they did that. now we've got someone coming in here every week echoing the lie that the Russian language was banned or even came close to being banned. including you.

Can you quote me where I said Russian was banned? I think not.

Put yourself in eastern Ukrainian shoes for a moment. You are not against Ukrainian unity, but in the past few months you've seen thugs from the other side of the country arm themselves and take over police stations and other government buildings; you've seen them disregard the EU-brokered accord and topple the elected government who, though always corrupt and eventually violent, was in fact chosen by the whole country. The shock troops of the rioting wear far-right insignia, revere Bandera, and march up and down the streets at night chanting "[put the] Russians to the knife!". And the first thing the new authorities do is take a vote on stripping any official status from your native language. They set a date for an election, but the last elected leader got overthrown. These are all facts.

Now, Russian propaganda or not, can you honestly say you would feel OK in this situation, let alone optimistic about your country's future (bearing in mind how past promises of rooting out corruption turned out)?

there is a huge difference, for one, in Lvov it was Ukrainians taking over Ukrainian buildings/police. it remains solely a Ukrainian issue.
in eastern Ukraine and Crimea it's spetznas, GRU, Cossack paramilitary organizations, Transnistrian citizens, Russian citizens, ex-Berkut with Russian passports (who should be undergoing trial) etc, with arms, taking over all sorts of buildings. as well as unarmed Ukrainians who are serving as human shields and are likely paid by Moscow. it is now a war between two nations.

you're basically saying that because some Ukrainians did something to their own buildings, that it's similar to Russia coming in and annexing territory and trying to spark a civil war?

I think it's naive to think that it was a "solely Ukrainian issue" when select western countries had poured billions into organising these political movements and got directly involved in hand-picking and grooming their leaders. Both the west and Russia have their marionettes in Ukraine, and both marionettes have used similar methods (capturing government buildings in their respective regions) in pursuit of their goals.

It would be much more reasonable to argue, as for example Drom does, that though the methods are very similar the long-term outcome is better in the pro-western option (rule of law, less corruption, etc.). And I would probably agree, with a couple of qualifications. As it stands, you've picked a side and refuse to see things from the other perspective. In this you have a lot in common with our friends Heathen Hammer and Alejandro Sanchez; no wonder you are all just talking past one another now.

[snuggans]

Can you quote me where I said Russian was banned? I think not.

you didn't say it was banned, you said..

If the regular forces are refusing to fire it probably means that there are genuinely and substantially different views on the situation throughout the country. I think ideally the government should have announced local referenda on autonomy with the election on 25 May without using military force to displace the rebels -- if the rebels disrupt the vote then the government has a clear moral highground in the eyes of the local population (whose trust it has already seemed to have lost when the first priority for them looked to have been banning the Russian language...).

equally guilty of misinformation. if you had any sense of accuracy and good will you would be saying instead "looked to have been stripping Russian its official language status", which is a damn far cry from outright banning which is the image a lot of the common people are getting when they listen to the propaganda machine, that they will be in fact imprisoned for speaking Russian in public? when in reality, AT WORST they wouldn't be able to understand some official documents if they don't know any Ukrainian, but that's not even happening either because they will write a better law instead of the controversial law that was already in place. instead of repeating the fallacy that Russian was about to be banned why not educate other readers over the FACTS? which is the side i'm siding with.

The shock troops of the rioting wear far-right insignia, revere Bandera, and march up and down the streets at night chanting "[put the] Russians to the knife!".

post the related video, but still, the organization these shock troops might belong to are not in control of the government in Kyiv (5-8% seats), their leaders know what is at stake. praviy sektor has been somewhat ostracized themselves anyway.

by the way, you can't just say that "the last elected leader got overthrown" and leave it at that with nothing else to accompany it, because you're being disingenuous when you do that. you have to say the whole thing. "the last elected leader who charged a peaceful assembly with a unit that has deep roots in Moscow and then had the interior ministry use live ammo when they became angry, got overthrown" (and currently has almost nonexistent support according to polls even in the east so i honestly don't believe that the majority of eastern Ukrainians are worried about any leader they elect being overthrown, especially because it is now so much more difficult to mess up at a level that Yanukovych did, he has set the benchmark. now there is a lack of Putin calling the shots and a rampant Berkut praetorian guard doing his bidding which is mostly what made the overthrow so possible)

I think it's naive to think that it was a "solely Ukrainian issue" when select western countries had poured billions into organising these political movements and got directly involved in hand-picking and grooming their leaders.

see you're being disingenuous again. you're making it seem as if those "billions" were used to fund Euromaidan, that's the sort of crap RT would have everyone believe. you know that figure was talking about total expenditure since the 90's right? it's for democracy building, which Ukraine sure as hell needed (thank Yanukovych and Berkut tampering with ballot boxes for the repeat elections). you're also severely underestimating how much of a factor was the carefree use of the Berkut on November 30th, because the effect that had on Ukraine is the type that can't be simply bought. anyway, your parallel fails because there aren't any western militants in Ukraine while there are clearly Russian militants, and it also spectacularly fails because the Russians have already involved over 6 divisions of military in this situation, how much has western military moved inside/surrounding Ukraine? or, hell even in eastern Europe, you're not even talking about 1 division anymore there. how much territory has the west annexed through phony snap referendums?

don't get me wrong ivan, i know there is some pull from both sides in Ukraine, but that doesn't change how much Russia is failing spectacularly at geopolitics and getting everyone to agree that she's the bad guy.

not only has Putin lost Ukraine but in some weird macho attempt to try and take it back he's also lost his credibility and any diplomatic grace he still had on the global stage, and his country is now hemorrhaging money, its credit rating one level above junk status.

[Love Mountain]

Absolutely hilarious. There are real live Russian troops invading Ukraine and annexing territory and somehow the US is responsible. Oh, and apparently big bad Ukraine with the mighty army smaller than its postal services was planning on 'doing stuff' to Russia.

What are you talking about?

[Adar]

So why was the first order of business for the parliament to ban all official use of non-Ukrainian languages? Yes, Turchinov had the presence of mind to veto it, but why was the vote taken at all, and why was it such a priority?

Because it was a hotly contested issue based on a law pushed through in preparation for the 2012 elections. Essentially you have to separate parts of the debate.

1) The status of the russian language.

2) The lack of financing and actual implementation of the law.

Some people dislike the law due to being worried about the status of the Ukrainian language (personally I support the rights of people to speak their own language regardless of if it's Russian or Ukrainian) but you also have to remember that the current language law was a populist move by Yanukovich that caused major issues with it was impelmented (an argument that I am more sympathic to).

(Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich on Wednesday signed into law a bill which will make Russian the official language in parts of the former Soviet republic, angering opponents who warn it risks splitting the country.
The political opposition, which has united to fight Yanukovich's Party of the Regions in an October 28 election, also cried foul after election authorities refused to allow jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko run in the vote.
A statement by the united opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) said her exclusion by the central election commission had been carried out on Yanukovich's direct instructions and amounted to "a violation of the rights of millions of our fellow citizens who support Yulia Tymoshenko".
Yanukovich's Regions rushed the language bill through parliament last month in what opponents saw as an attempt to rally flagging public support in Russian-speaking regions ahead of the October vote.
The move led to street protests in the capital Kiev and brawls in parliament as the opposition, which fears it will lead to the status of Ukrainian as the state language being eroded, fought to block it.
But Yanukovich, who is on holiday in Crimea, on Wednesday took advantage of the lack of political activity in the summer lull to sign it into law.
A statement by the presidential administration said he had instructed his government to take the necessary steps to adopt local legislation to take account of the new law.
Opposition politicians, including Tymoshenko and one-time foreign minister Arseny Yatseniuk whose two parties have united to fight the election together, have described the bill as a "crime against the state" which could set citizens at each other's throats.
"Yanukovich has managed to do everything that the Russian emperors and the Soviet general secretaries could not do. He has passed a death sentence on the Ukrainian language," Oleg Medvedev, an opposition strategist, said on Wednesday.
Yanukovich, himself a mother tongue Russian-speaker rather than naturally Ukrainian speaking, has made few public comments on the issue.
But his popularity would have taken a hard knock in his eastern Ukraine power base if he had failed to sign it into law.
While Ukrainian is the only state language, the bill would make Russian an official regional language in predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the industrialised east and southern regions such as Crimea where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
FRAGILE SOVEREIGNTY
Opponents of the bill say it is a blow to the fragile sovereignty of a country long divided between regional powers and persecuted by Moscow's tsars and its Communist leaders.
They say it will mean that knowledge and usage of Ukrainian will die out in traditional Russian-speaking areas.
Supporters of the bill say it responds to reality on the ground and will mean that Russian speakers will not be discriminated against in state sector employment on the basis of language.

So the law will be replaced but Turchynov made the decision to not abolish the current law until the new one is in place.

[Dromikaites]

Yesterday the Ukrainian government made clear what "negotiations with the representatives of the Eastern Regions" mean: negotiating with the elected MPs and mayors from there, not with the separatist leaders.

The move was very smart because until now it was rather unclear for the average citizens in the East if they still had any representatives or not. Western citizens, who are used to writing to their MPs when they think an issue should be addressed might not grasp the importance of the Kiev government's move, so I will go into details here.

In the US and in the Western part of the EU the people have reasonable grounds to believe that the politicians they elect do represent them and do care about their voters' needs to a large extent.

The more one goes to the eastern part of Europe, (EU Eastern members included) the citizens generally believe their politicians are just a bunch of self-interested thieves who mainly care about lining their own pockets while in office. Elections there simply consist of replacing some thieves with other thieves.

Why one can never replace thieves with honest politicians? Because it is impossible to set up a party and get media coverage to promote one's ideas without spending a lot of money. Not only it costs to buy coverage, but the media outlets themselves are owned by the local oligarchs, who in turn own the local politicians (unless they are both oligarchs and politicians in the same time).

Therefore honest people who may want to get into politics have no practical means to start up a party from zero and grow it into winning the elections. (Assuming truly honest people ever want to get into politics - something which doesn't seem to happen anywhere in the World anyway, so please replace "honest" with "somewhat honest").

The situation was no different in the West up until some 50 years ago, when the structure of the society changed and the so-called middle class became the largest class there. Then suddently there was a large amount of people who grew up learning one does not need to steal in order to provide a good standard of living for one's family. Those people raised that way became the majority of the policemen, prosecutors and judges. They cleaned their own ranks first, then started to cleanse the political class.

In the Eastern parts of the EU after 10+ years of forced EU reforms the police and the judiciary were finally extracted from the direct political control, therefore the cleansing of the political class has just begun (in the last 6 - 9 months, not earlier than that). It would probably take two more rounds of elections (8 - 10 years) till the Eastern EU politicians would be at the same level of [dis]honesty as their Western counterparts. Only then the Eastern EU citizens would reasonably believe their MPs, mayors, city counselors, etc actually represent them and cater to their needs most of the time.

In Ukraine however there is no such thing yet as the judiciary cleansing the political class (by arresting and throwing them in jail till each party is depleted of the most rotten members and the less corrupt politicians get a chance to run for office). This is why the majority of the Ukrainians, including those in the East, support joining the EU - they know that under the EU pressure things will finally change for the better like they did in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. For now however, in the eyes of the Ukrainian voters the mayors, city counselors, MPs are just the "less of the evils" picked from the ballot lists, not their representatives.

The thugs who now lead the separatists aren't considered legitimate representatives either. How can they be, given they are locals everybody knows to be career criminals or troublemakers + the assorted selection of foreigners (Russian professional Spetznaz/Razvedka soldiers, Serbian volunteers, etc)?

But here is the twist, which makes the Ukrainian's government move brilliant: the mayors, MPs, city counselors might not be real representatives (because they don't really care about their voters) but they are elected nevertheless. So now the Kiev government forces them to care about what their voters think: the negotiations were adjourned to give time to those people to actually talk to their voters and figure out what those voters really want.

Now the voters know their elected "representatives" will talk to them and the elected "representatives" know they have to actually listen to what their voters have to say before returning to the next round of negotiations.

Where does that leave the pro-Russian thugs in terms of legitimacy? Nowhere! They hold the elected mayor of Sloviansk hostage like all good terrorists do, and they now have to decide if they allow other elected politicians from the city or from the province to talk to the citizens and then represent them in the next round of talks.

If they don't release the mayor and don't allow the elected politicians to hold meetings with their voters they would lose whatever support they might have had. Videos from the city already showed several locals who weren't shy to call the "independent forces" "goons", "bandits" or "a*holes".

If they do, they destroy their own legitimacy. Either way nobody would shed a tear for them when the Ukrainian army would restore the control over the city.

Well played, Kiev!

[Lord of Nihilism]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ts-kiev-russia

A fairly long read but essentially, volunteer troops from the Western Ukraine are training for offensive operations in the East. It's going to be interesting to see who comes on top; these thugs and Maidan protesters from Kiev or the terrorists/rebels/protesters/thugs from the Eastern Ukraine/Russia. Either way, it'll be a good show I reckon. Apparently, the rebels in the East have equipment to take down helicopters, and a decent arsenal of small arms. The smallarms such as the AK's, pistols, shotguns, snipers and etc can be easily explained by the fact that the Soviet Union mass produced them by the millions, and that gun laws are almost non existent in Eastern Europe, but you need to have good connections to get your hands on a weapon that can take out APC's, helicopters and etc.

The most important part is seeing if these volunteer units can defeat the Eastern Ukraine militia. They had no problem defeating the police in Kiev when the previous President was ousted, but these militia in the East seem to have better equipment(Military grade) than the police during the Kiev protests.

[pajomife]

Yesterday the Ukrainian government made clear what "negotiations with the representatives of the Eastern Regions" mean: negotiating with the elected MPs and mayors from there, not with the separatist leaders.

The Ukrainian government, which derives from a coup of state, wants to negotiate with elected representatives?

Anyway,things are getting tough for the Ukrainian side.Eleven deaths.http://www.euronews.com/2014/05/15/f...kraine-troops/

[Dromikaites]

The Ukrainian government, which derives from a coup of state, wants to negotiate with elected representatives?

The government is the result of the vote of the Ukrainian Parliament, which never ceased to exist and which is comprised of elected members. Some of them who are now negotiating with the government.

But you are missing the key point: those elected officials who are now taking part in the negotiation had their status increased from "elected thieves" to "legitimate representatives of the people". They were sent back to their voters, to find out what those voters really want and then properly represent them in the negotiations. To have people truly represented by politicians is a first in Ukrainian politics.

As for what those needs might be, we already know (and the government knows as well) through the opinion polling (and from the SBU reports - make no mistake, the secret police always tells the leaders the truth about the public opinion, it's the leaders who choose to disregard that information). They want a better life, more control over the politicians, less corruption and to preserve Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Therefore there's no request those politicians might come up with after asking their voters, that the government might be unwilling to accept (especially since their Western backers are anyway pushing for the same things).

The only one who loses big is Putin, because he gets what he absolutely doesn't want to see happening neither in Ukraine nor in Russia - politicians who implement their voters' wishes.

Anyway,things are getting tough for the Ukrainian side.Eleven deaths.http://www.euronews.com/2014/05/15/f...kraine-troops/

You do realize that the Ukrainian army was 160,000 strong before the Crimean crisis, rose now to over 200,000 and on top of that force there is also a National Guard and Kiev-1 type of armed formations on the government's side?

So a dozen of separatists killed (those are the casualties your article reports) aren't exactly going to tip the balance against the Ukrainian government, are they?

What I also love form your article is this:

Meanwhile, the commander of pro-Russian forces in Donetsk has given Ukraine troops a 24-hour ultimatum to withdraw or face sustained attack.

It's good if they are now suicidal, it means the whole affair will be over soon.

[DarthLazy]

The Ukrainian government is not a permanent government and did not just spring up from Mars like little green men, take a guess on who they were before Yanu got kicked.

[Mangalore]

Absolutely hilarious. There are real live Russian troops invading Ukraine and annexing territory and somehow the US is responsible. Oh, and apparently big bad Ukraine with the mighty army smaller than its postal services was planning on 'doing stuff' to Russia.

And how dare the EU meddle in Ukraine's affairs, didn't they know Russia owns the Ukraine and the whole sovereignty bit was just a practical prank on the UN?

[Heathen Hammer]

Absolutely hilarious. There are real live Russian troops invading Ukraine and annexing territory

Outside of Crimea? Source?

and somehow the US is responsible. Oh, and apparently big bad Ukraine with the mighty army smaller than its postal services was planning on 'doing stuff' to Russia.

No, its Ukraine treating its non-Ukrainian territories (which were illegally annexed to it by the communist dictatorship) as its colonies, and now complaining about their population not desiring to become second-class citizens.

And how dare the EU meddle in Ukraine's affairs, didn't they know Russia owns the Ukraine and the whole sovereignty bit was just a practical prank on the UN?

Sovereignty of Ukraine was recognized by Yeltsin and died with him.
Plus Soviet dictatorship wasn't democratically elected, so annexations of Russian territories to other Soviet "republics" were not legitimate.

[DarthLazy]

Outside of Crimea? Source?

No, its Ukraine treating its non-Ukrainian territories (which were illegally annexed to it by the communist dictatorship) as its colonies, and now complaining about their population not desiring to become second-class citizens.
Sovereignty of Ukraine was recognized by Yeltsin and died with him.
Plus Soviet dictatorship wasn't democratically elected, so annexations of Russian territories to other Soviet "republics" were not legitimate.

So by that logic, every single former USSR country not officially recorgnized by Putin himself deserves to be annexed?

[Heathen Hammer]

So by that logic, every single former USSR country not officially recorgnized by Putin himself deserves to be annexed?

No, but self-determination of people who live there should be of priority over what some Soviet politicians chose to "recognize".