How bad is the situation with Russia right now? - General

When i went to my best friend on Friday everything was still normal regarding the Ukraine issue. Today i came back from an amazing weekend and suddenly Reddit, NeoGAF, Facepunch, etc are all filled with threads about a Russian invasion, sanctions, G8 pullout, countries asking NATO for help, impending invasion :'( So if i can just ask nicely, how bad is the situation right now as i don't want to see a war especially with Russia involved. :smile:

If Russia won't call back the troops, the (international) tension will keep on rising.

Everyone's fucked in one way or another.

I actually haven't been reading much into it myself, can someone sum it up but in enough detail to understand?

Didn't it start with a revolution in Ukraine, riots against the government, the president of the nation going into hiding and then escalate with Russia occupying land there?

The whole situation is really foggy right now. They basically just had a revolution, which Putin didn't like at all. Supposedly, he tries to secure his influence in the region with military presence, since the new political leaders in Ukraine are pro-europe and not pro-russia anymore. Will a war break out? Probably not, right now it' just muscle flexing from Putin. Not to say that the possibility of an armed conflict isn't there though.

Bad

with a revolution of that size going on, im sure some change will occur. im just hoping putin doesn't do anything stupid and try bombing the place or anything

Here's a good summary of the situation off of Reddit. [quote]It started with Ukraine's financial problems. Ukraine was trying to work out a deal with the IMF but Russia offered them a $15 billion bailout. The bailout included subsidies for oil. Ukraine does not have its own independent source for oil and actually depends on the Russia to provide it. You may be familiar with Russia turning off Ukraine's supply of oil many times in the past. The majority of people in Ukraine wanted to work with the European Union however Russia's influence on Ukraine (because of the bail out, and the oil subsidies, as well as threats to cut off all access to oil) made the Ukrainian government side with Russia as opposed to working out the trade deal with the European Union. The people of Ukraine were extremely upset and protested. Eventually protests that were peaceful turned violent. Some of the protests where co-opted by Neo Nazi organizations, and other extremely right wing (and violent) individuals. The government then made a series of anti-protest laws that were simply ridiculous. For example, simply protesting in front of a building and making it harder for people to enter that building can get you 6 years in prison. If you gather with a group and simply talk negatively about certain members of the government you can now get as much as 2 years in prison. The laws had the opposite effect and made the protestors even more violent. Within a matter of days the laws were repealed and eventually the protesters successfully ousted the prime minister (who now has been seen in Moscow). The government started negotiating with the protestors. Progress and financial independence from Russia seemed inevitable. This made Putin very angry because this meant that Ukraine would switch their allegiance from Russia to the European Union and the IMF. Putin wants to create a post communist Eurasian union which Kazakhstan and Belarus have already agreed to join. Many believe that this union is simply a disguise for combining all the post-communist countries into one huge organization resembling the USSR once again. This is the crux of the protesters argument. Putin believes that even though he has gained support for this union in other post communist countries, the protests in Ukraine might remove some of the successes he has gained. Furthermore, this could potentially stop other post communist countries from joining the union, thus he is putting military pressure to ensure that the protests do not leak to other post communist Eastern European nations. The WWIII aspect plays into this because Ukraine is requesting NATO support, which the US is part of, but this is not just limited to United States, Ukraine and Russia. NATO consists of 28 sovereign countries that have agreed to support each other militarily in case they are invaded. Many of those countries have other alliances which would increase the number of nations involved in any potential military intervention. The US has warned Russia as has have many other countries that their actions "have consequences". The question now is what will Russia do? If they don't leave will NATO take military action against Russia? If so, will China support Russia? Pretty soon this could escalate to into war with 35+ countries engaging in military action. Personally, I don't think we'll get there - but it is a real risk, and one that needs serious thought on how it can be avoided without Putin having to go back with his tail between his legs. If he can't save face this can start another Cold War.[/quote]

^ pretty good summation of it though there are some small problems nobody is talking about armed conflicts except for Russia and NATO, currently the U.S. State Department is the only one talking about this from the hill and they seem to be taking an economic sanctions route which could very well cripple Russia worse than a conflict with NATO because Russia is essentially run by powerful business men that keep Putin in power to keep them out of the spotlight and in power. the current threat from the state department is essentially economic isolation of russia with enough countries signing on to this that it would crash the russian economy overnight [editline]2nd March 2014[/editline] also germany has reached a separate deal with russia to send in a U.N. Inspector in to find out facts, which doesn't really seem necessary unless it involves just walking up to the mysterious occupation force and figuring out where they came from [editline]2nd March 2014[/editline] id say we're not near a nuclear war, but the threat of another world war is actually creditable, although low

Russia is ok but Ukraine is getting fucked by russia now.

World War 4 broke out (yes its not my joke deal with it)

Well, Russia is just defending Russians in Ukraine there are worse things going on