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Valiantman posted:I would like to ask you less West-oriented people what you think about the options given in the upcoming refendum and how it is presented in the Russian media. The Finnish media has been pretty neutral all things considered but even here the headline was, paraphrased, "No option for status quo". The 1992 constitution doesn't make Crimea independent, (it is a part of Ukraine as it states there in article 9), but gives a very high degree of autonomy from Kiev government(this is that constitution http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/krym/show/rb076a002-92). It explicitly mentions Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar languages as state languages btw; also the special status of Sevastopol where Russian fleet is. Crimean parliament never canceled that constitution, nor did it have a referendum about it, Ukraine did so unilaterally, link to that law is on top of constitution(apparently cyrillic letters in url don't work on SA) Pyromancer fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 10:19
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Pyromancer posted:The 1992 constitution doesn't make Crimea independent, (it is a part of Ukraine as it states there in article 9), but gives a very high degree of autonomy from Kiev government(this is that constitution http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/krym/show/rb076a002-92). It explicitly mentions Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar languages as state languages btw; also the special status of Sevastopol where Russian fleet is. It's a bit more complicated than that -- article 1 clearly gives it sovereign status and treats any delegation of power to Ukraine as being a voluntary decision by Crimea, and article 10 gives it the power to conduct its own foreign policy. Article 9 itself says that its relation to Ukraine is determined by treaty and contract between the two, the key point being it treats them as equal partners and it's not through legislation from Kyiv as the Ukrainian constitution would stipulate. It's also not clear whether the 1992 constitution the referendum concerns is the May constitution or the September constitution -- the ballot paper just says "constitution of 1992". The one you've linked is the latter, as it says at the top, but the May version is supposed to be a lot more emphatic on Crimea's independent status.
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Mar 12, 2014 10:59
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On a really serious note, Maidan gouverment just found out that only about 6000 Ukrainian troops have "combat readiness", so they are now starting to recruit a "National Guard". Well yeah, "interrim gouverment" my arse.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:56
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If there was no Russia situation I would agree, but considering part of the nation is loving occupied by a hostile foreign power I don't think trying to get some impromptu militias going is sign of a dictatorship.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:11
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Considerable parts of the country regard the Russians as neither hostile nor foreign. And well, for what will those units likely be used? Tank battles against the Russians, or beating the crap out of anti Maidan protests in the Eastern parts of Ukraine? The regular Ukrainian army would never do the later thing, the police can arrest some leaders, but wont beat down uprisings, the National guard certainly will. This raises all manner of red flags (literally) in the eastern parts, especially since the eastern parts basically told the Newly Maidan-appointed Oligarch gouverneors to go gently caress themselfs. This includes shouting "Rinat Akhmetov (Big "Pro Yanuk" Oligarch") is an enemy of the people" (and in former Soviet Russia, this is serious buisness)in Kharkiv and Donetsk. Also, the "interrim gouverment" which earlier claimed to do not much until election is now creating its private army.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:49
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I wonder why the "Crimea Defense Forces" (Which admittedly could be largely native Crimean) are stonewalling every journalist\news agency from entering the region, including OSCE observers. What are they so afraid of? If everyone really does want to join Russia; isn't that all they'd discover?
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Mar 12, 2014 21:08
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Seeing how Western media generally shat all over any pro-Russian sentiment in the country, I can understand them.
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Mar 12, 2014 22:23
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That doesn't seem to be any different from the eastern media's stance (in opposition)
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Mar 12, 2014 23:25
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Seatbelts posted:I wonder why the "Crimea Defense Forces" (Which admittedly could be largely native Crimean) are stonewalling every journalist\news agency from entering the region, including OSCE observers. What are they so afraid of? Do these defence forces want Crimea to remain part of the Ukraine or do they want Crimea to be autonomous? I don't know why I'm so confused about this.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:03
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The Crimean defense forces are unilaterally against the Kiev government. The Donbass has a few for and a few against. I don't think that any self defense force claimed loyalty to Russia specifically.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:05
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At this point I think the best option is to return the Crimea to its rightful owners, the Khazars.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:09
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Nah, let the Byzantine Empire rise again (As a Russian Vasall of course)!
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Mar 13, 2014 08:48
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http://www.interfax.ru/364335 Simferopol, March 13th. INTERFAX Ukrainian soldiers that refuse to swear loyalty to the people of Crimea begin leaving the peninsula, said first vice-premier of Crimea, Rustav Temirgaliev. "The majority of the military stationed in Crimea is on the side of the self-defense force. Those singular servicemen, largely from Western areas, including sailors, that did not swear loyalty to the people of Crimea have already started leaving the territory of the peninsula. We provide a free exit without weapons from the territory of Crimea" - Temirgaliev said. He explained that the first group was already delivered to Armyansk, on the Ukraine-Crimean border. Meanwhile, several tank units agreed to swear loyalty to Crimea. "Crimean self-defense forces took over tank units, which have T-80UD tanks. The personnel of those units stated their readiness to serve the people of Crimea. Now we have armoured forces." - Temirgaliev said.
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Mar 13, 2014 14:08
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Do any of you guys have any ACTUAL insight into the immediate future of the Grivna? Im looking for anyone who is actually educated on this specific subject. Not media based speculation.
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Mar 13, 2014 20:40
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Tankus posted:Do any of you guys have any ACTUAL insight into the immediate future of the Grivna? Im looking for anyone who is actually educated on this specific subject. Not media based speculation. I used to teach the Ukrsotsbank managers for the Odessa region English a few years back. They were offering 20% interest a year for 3 year locked-in accounts in 2011-2012. I asked them if I should do it and they said hell no, change your salary into dollars every week and keep it under your mattress. That was when things were looking relatively ok, too, so that's some actual advice. A fairly big company I worked for kept their capital surpluses in 40% dollars, 40% euros, and 20% Grivna, so something like that is probably not a bad idea if you have any savings. As you might recall, things went from 3.5-4 the dollar to 6.5-7 to the dollar in less than few months during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. There's no real reason it couldn't go from 8 to 16 now. Foreign currency reserves are low and a lot of the IMF/EU/American money is stretched out over the next 10 years, plus the IMFs target for making Ukrainian exports competitive is around 12. No one knows the future, but I can almost guarantee it's not going much below 9.5 in the next 12 months. Also, thank you for not typing it "Hrivna."
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Mar 14, 2014 10:10
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Smerdyakov posted:I used to teach the Ukrsotsbank managers for the Odessa region English a few years back. They were offering 20% interest a year for 3 year locked-in accounts in 2011-2012. I asked them if I should do it and they said hell no, change your salary into dollars every week and keep it under your mattress. That was when things were looking relatively ok, too, so that's some actual advice. A fairly big company I worked for kept their capital surpluses in 40% dollars, 40% euros, and 20% Grivna, so something like that is probably not a bad idea if you have any savings. At 12 to the dollar, would it cause absolute poverty? Like as a lower income worker would I be able to afford food, housing and energy or are we talking doom and gloom? The kind thing either way is to subsidise Ukraine while they improve efficiency to the point where 8 to the dollar is ideal, but I wouldn't give a cent to them while there is a chance of corruption. If what I heard of the last president is true, than corruption sounds endemic to the country and that should be fixed first.
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Mar 14, 2014 10:44
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The grivna was already on the mend before this stuff with the annexation of Crimea started, but in the last few days the Grivna started falling again. I think people are buying dollars in anticipation of Crimea voting to leave Ukraine. Im just curious if this trend will continue or will rebound in the next month or so. 12 grivna to the dollar is a loss of 50% of the currency's value, could you imagine if something like that happened to the dollar?
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Mar 14, 2014 11:15
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Lord Windy posted:At 12 to the dollar, would it cause absolute poverty? Like as a lower income worker would I be able to afford food, housing and energy or are we talking doom and gloom? Fixing corruption is ridicululously difficult. Now, transforming corruption into "honest graft" (which is like, Support my proposal for X, and I will Support a new plant in your district which will get you relected and richer, as opposed to "Support my propasal for X and I pay you 1 Million grivna) and going to transparancy from there may work, but would require decentralisation first I think. For the most part it requires trust, and that is in ridiculously short supply across Ukraine. It also requires a Situation where People can plan longterm (if everything is very short term, corruption is often the "superior" choice on the economic individual Level), heck the whole Thing about "Preussischer Beamter" (Prussian beurocrat) was that those People had a set career in the beurocracy for life (unless they were proven corrupt, and unless some other stuff), so each corruption would potentially risk their safe and comfortable future. This gave them powerfull incentives to not be corrupt. In Ukraine, the beuracracy basically changes completely and often unpredictably really often, so beurocrats will line their pockets while they still are beurocrats.
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Mar 14, 2014 23:23
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Tankus posted:The grivna was already on the mend before this stuff with the annexation of Crimea started, but in the last few days the Grivna started falling again. I think people are buying dollars in anticipation of Crimea voting to leave Ukraine. Im just curious if this trend will continue or will rebound in the next month or so. 12 grivna to the dollar is a loss of 50% of the currency's value, could you imagine if something like that happened to the dollar? Sure, but the grivna was doing "great" in 2007 and early 2008, apparently, then it lost 40% of its value in a month. I don't think it's been on the mend, honestly--creeping up from 8 to 8.5 to 9 back down to 8.75 briefly before going to 10 does not constitute improvement. So while I can't imagine that happening to a reserve currency like the dollar, it's not only possible but likely to happen to the grivna over the next 12 months. I would guess that things will either stay approximately the same or get worse, so there's really no reason to hold them beyond what you need for everyday purchases. The 2-3% exchange fee doesn't really matter since the grivna is fully capable of losing 5-10% of its value over a 24 hour period. The reason not to hold onto the currency in significant amounts is that it's very unstable, since both political and financial events can cause its value to fall by a huge amount in a short period of time. When that happens, it causes a domino effect that makes the currency fall more AND the cost of exchanging it higher. Lord Windy posted:At 12 to the dollar, would it cause absolute poverty? Like as a lower income worker would I be able to afford food, housing and energy or are we talking doom and gloom? For frame of reference--a loaf of bread is 10-15 Grivna, a beer at a bar is 10-12, and many older people own their own apartments from privatization in the early 1990s, so their kids usually live with them until they get married. Ukraine is an agricultural breadbasket and neighboring Moldova and Belarus are also economic disaster areas, so food scarcity isn't the concern. The government heavily subsidizes electricty and gas, and even when they don't, most people fiddle with their meter and steal it regardless. My highest electric bill was about 100 grivna a month when it was 8 to the dollar, and the free hospital was free to all citizens and they charged foreigners about 60 grivna for it. This is part of the problem of "increasing economic efficiency." The first step is to cut all the crippling subsidies that let factories built in the 1930s stay in business, but when you do that you put people out of work and makes it impossible for millions of others to get by, which in turn causes political authorities to either backtrack or lose the next election/be overthrown. If anyone were to step up and subsidize the entire economy, there's no guarantee it would actually modernize, and previous attempts mostly resulted in all the money being stolen. Smerdyakov fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 01:32
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Smerdyakov posted:If anyone were to step up and subsidize the entire economy, there's no guarantee it would actually modernize, and previous attempts mostly resulted in all the money being stolen. Well, that is why I said corruption had to be dealt with first. As well as that, the idea of subsidising the economy includes providing for the workers you put out of business by providing unemployment. It would be beyond stupid to come up with a plan that will fail in 4 years because the plan was so painful it caused your politicians to be kicked out of power.
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Mar 15, 2014 09:01
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Smerdyakov posted:Sure, but the grivna was doing "great" in 2007 and early 2008, apparently, then it lost 40% of its value in a month. I don't think it's been on the mend, honestly--creeping up from 8 to 8.5 to 9 back down to 8.75 briefly before going to 10 does not constitute improvement. The actual price for a dollar was in no way reflected by what was reported. If you could find dollars to buy, they were at 10,70 or higher per dollar. This past week the rate went back down to what the actual rate was, which was a substantial improvement. Now with anticipation of losing Crimea it has gone back to around 10,30 or higher. So that does constitute an improvement. Also the disparity between buying and selling Euros/dollars is substantially larger than before, usually its around 10-20 kopeks, now its 70-1,20 Also, just curious, where and when did you live here? It couldn't have been Kiev. Beer in bars here is almost never below 20 grn and is typically 25 grn for half a liter.
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Mar 15, 2014 17:07
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Ensign Expendable posted:The Crimean defense forces are unilaterally against the Kiev government. The Donbass has a few for and a few against. I don't think that any self defense force claimed loyalty to Russia specifically. Do you seriously believe these "defense forces" are anything other than Russian astroturf at best? (if not the more plausible explanation that they're just regular Russian soldiers)
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Mar 15, 2014 22:58
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Mortabis posted:Do you seriously believe these "defense forces" are anything other than Russian astroturf at best? (if not the more plausible explanation that they're just regular Russian soldiers) Why do you have to believe western propaganda? Is it so far-fetched that Vladimir Putin has the best interests of the Crimean people at heart? I mean, who wouldn't want to be a part of Putin's Russia? They won the Olympics!
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Mar 16, 2014 01:57
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Mortabis posted:Do you seriously believe these "defense forces" are anything other than Russian astroturf at best? (if not the more plausible explanation that they're just regular Russian soldiers) You can easily tell from looking at the self-defense forces who's the thinly veiled Russian or Russian-funded force (mostly matching camo, standardized firearms, no insignia) and the genuine ones (lots of banners, St George's ribbons everywhere, biggest mixmaster arsenal I've ever seen).
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Mar 16, 2014 04:15
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Tankus posted:Also, just curious, where and when did you live here? It couldn't have been Kiev. Beer in bars here is almost never below 20 grn and is typically 25 grn for half a liter. Odessa and some brief spells in Nikolaev. Kiev is overpriced because business owners there expect to make money from things other than the black market. Odessa is also the city of 10,000 currency exchanges, so rates were always a little bit better there. That said, some bank lockouts definitely happened in Odessa anyway and whoever wasn't checking twitter or vkotankte missed out on the best opportunities to exchange.
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Mar 16, 2014 04:29
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A question for those in the region, do you think there is a chance that Ukraine will go the way of Yugoslavia?
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Mar 16, 2014 05:37
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Outside Dawg posted:A question for those in the region, do you think there is a chance that Ukraine will go the way of Yugoslavia? Wouldn't that require them having more ethnicities?
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Mar 16, 2014 06:23
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Smerdyakov posted:Odessa and some brief spells in Nikolaev. Kiev is overpriced because business owners there expect to make money from things other than the black market. Odessa is also the city of 10,000 currency exchanges, so rates were always a little bit better there. That said, some bank lockouts definitely happened in Odessa anyway and whoever wasn't checking twitter or vkotankte missed out on the best opportunities to exchange. The price differences between Kiev and western Ukraine are amazing. Ive yet to go to Odessa though, anything you suggest doing? When are the best times to go? How do people in Odessa feel about the current situation, assuming you still have contact with them.
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Mar 16, 2014 11:02
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Lord Windy posted:Wouldn't that require them having more ethnicities? Ukraine has Romanian and Polish minorities, that iirc are a considerable minority but not quite a plurality in some regions. However, the thing about Yugoslavia was that the combatant factions were all Seccessionists (meaning people with no Nation that want to have one), in Ukraine, the other minorities could presumably work through the channels of the gouverments of their ethnic nations to get redress. In Yugoslavia, that wasnt the case which made the different factions be less diplomatically inclined. This is somewhat less true with the Crimean Tatars, who would use Turkey in such a fashion but arent exactly Turks. The Crim Tatar situation is interesting, because Eastern and Western narrative are so sharply different here. Putin reportedly held a telefone talk with the Tatar leader to give reassurances basically, and it seems that the Tatar leader was successfully playing hard to get. It is within Russias interests and abilities to offer the Crimean Tartars a pretty good deal (status of Tartar as second language, money, perhaps even some political or monetary compensation for earlier poo poo they went through during Stalin. This is propably what is being negotiated), the question is how much the Tartars can extract there. If Putin can pull this off, he will score a major propaganda victory, this could be translated into a diplomatic victory if he uses Erdogan or Gül (Given that both are in a power struggle, there is a risk for Putin of backing the wrong horse here) as the "negotiator" and lets him bag the prestige. The tatars are iirc not exactly confined to Crimea proper only, and "going over to the Russians" could have consequences for their brethren in mainland Ukraine. So the issue is still in doubt.
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Mar 16, 2014 14:31
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Lord Windy posted:Wouldn't that require them having more ethnicities? The "break-up" of Yugoslavia was a bit more complex than just a matter of a difference of ethnicity.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:16
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Arguably, but this time there are more distinct powerfull faction interfering. The EU and the USA dont have the same aims, and Russia is both way more pissed and way more in a position to do something about it than it was during the Yugoslavian breakup.
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Mar 16, 2014 19:27
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Yeah, the Yugoslav breakup did not involve any regions inhabited by people who identify as Russians or which were formerly part of Russia. Serbia is a traditional Russian ally but it's not at all the same relationship as with a region like Crimea. Also Yugoslavia as a country had a rather short history and its national identity really started to fall apart with the death of Tito, and was probably always weaker than the identities as Croatians, Serbians, Slovenes, etc. but was held together by the strength of his personality and their rather unique geopolitical position in relation to the rest of the Communist world. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 19:33
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Concerning Tito, he first united Yugoslavia against Hitler, and then later against Stalin. I dont think anyone could unite these nations in the absence of a huge threatening foe.
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Mar 16, 2014 21:24
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Mightypeon posted:Concerning Tito, he first united Yugoslavia against Hitler, and then later against Stalin. I dont think anyone could unite these nations in the absence of a huge threatening foe. Stalin died in the early 1950's, Tito didn't die until 1980 and it was a few years after that things really started to fall apart.
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Mar 16, 2014 21:31
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That Tito stood up to Stalin was a major second feather in his cap though (and prevented any nationalist challenge against him), and basically rendered him unassailable politically. He was Yugoslavian Nationalist that just happened to be a communist on top of that. This isnt too dissimiliar from Ho Chi Minh, who imho was a Vietnamese nationalist first and a communist second. This is propably a major reason why both of them were pretty successfull.
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Mar 17, 2014 18:48
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Mightypeon posted:That Tito stood up to Stalin was a major second feather in his cap though (and prevented any nationalist challenge against him), and basically rendered him unassailable politically. He was Yugoslavian Nationalist that just happened to be a communist on top of that. Tito was part of the October Revolution in Russia, was a vital member of the Yugoslavian communist movement before the war and made sure that the soldiers under him were fighting under his ideals. He also had a big important role in the attempt of creating an independent third world with quite clear socialist intentions. Opposing Stalin doesn't take away commie points. Castro is the best example of a dude who was nationalist first and communist second, specially since his love for communism was conveniently only proclaimed after he established relations with the USSR and saw that the U.S. wouldn't show him any love 
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Mar 18, 2014 03:21
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According to the BBC: A Ukrainian soldier has been killed in an attack on a military base in Crimean capital #Simferopol, the defence ministry says. The BBC's Ben Brown, who's at the scene, says Russian troops are pushing press back and bursts of automatic fire can be heard.
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Mar 18, 2014 17:37
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Stay safe dude!
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Mar 18, 2014 17:46
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A soldier of the Crimean self-defense force is also dead and two are wounded. I guess BBC didn't care enough to report that.
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Mar 18, 2014 18:43
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Ensign Expendable posted:A soldier of the Crimean self-defense force is also dead and two are wounded. I guess BBC didn't care enough to report that. Further proof of the pernicious worldwide anti-Russian conspiracy! In this current climate of relentless persecution, Putin is wholly justified in annexing various places, in self-defense.
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Mar 18, 2014 20:19
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