Did you know that Putin is as wealthy as Bill Gates? They’re very close. Within a few billion of one another. Gates is afraid of his government. Putin is afraid of his people. Funny how that works.

I hope she enjoys a nice quite private life. Very private.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/23/six-reasons-why-ukraine-seems-to-have-won-against-putin/

This is good analysis, but it’s dangerous to believe the peril has passed. Hope for the best, but prepare for war.

http://ukrainianweek.com/Politics/110306

http://v-variant.lg.ua/lug_obl/incidents/76971-v-chisle-zaderzhannyh-boevikov-napavshih-na-izbiratelnye-uchastki-v-novoaydarskom-rayone-kakoy-to-prokuror-rf-iz-kryma-kazak-ataman-i-sotniki-lnr-eksklyuzivnye-foto.html

“It would have been cheaper to buy Crimea”—

Exactly what I’ve been saying. I couldn’t believe how f__king stupid Putin was. He had the western right wing eating out of his damned hand. He could have run the entire west in a generation. He could have used Russian labor and resources to partner with german science and engineering and rebuilt the self image of european civilization. He could have facilitated the widthdraw of the states from Europe.

Ukraine would have LOVED to sell Crimea for discounted petroleum. Hell, he could have purchased the east. Now he has unified Ukraine against Russia for generations. And he has told the west that they must rearm to fight Russia as an enemy.

F__king idiot. The Chinese are the worlds worst cancer. They are a plague culture.

Like I said ‘Russians: The White People Who Failed’.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Further investigation revealed that the 39-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation is a sniper and had been involved in military operations in the Chechen Republic.

During questioning by SBU investigators, the suspect said that he was going to the eastern regions of Ukraine to participate in illegal armed group on the instructions of the Russian special services and, before leaving for Ukraine, he had been given detailed instructions in Rostov-on-Don.

For his “work” he was promised payment: US$100 for killing an ordinary soldier, US $1,000 for killing an officer and another EUR 2,000 upon return.

http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/05/24/russian-sniper-promised-payment-for-killing-ukrainians/#more-9834

CURT: WHOO HOOOO!!!! UKRAINE HAS AN ENTREPRENEUR FOR A PRESIDENT!!!

Enough votes that he doesn’t need a run off.

CURT: I feel very lucky to live in interesting times. I cant wait for the day that americans and englishmen follow Ukrainians in overthrowing a corrupt government and take up arms against their oppressors.

Slava Ukraini!!

Brings tears to my eyes.

One octogenarian grandmother quoted today: “even a crappy democracy is still a democracy.”

I want to find her so I can hug her.

@MiddleEast_BRK 9m

Unbelievable footage Chechen terrorists salute vs. the Ukrainian state … IN UKRAINE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BszZufqXx4M

Collection of videos and photos:

The Vostok Battalion in Donetsk: http://inforesist.org/video-foto-v-donecke-kavkazcev-vstrechali-krikami-geroi/

Hero’s welcome. So strange.

@shaunwalker7 7h

Voting underway in Mariupol, just across from burned out administration building

@Ukroblogger 9h

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESSLLmy4nbg

#Krasnoarmiisk, #Donetsk Oblast: Protected by #Ukraine’s #Dnipro battalion #UkraineVotes

@StateOfUkraine 10h

Pro-#Russia forces have attacked several voting stations in #Donetsk #Ukraine which had to close as a result. http://novosti.dn.ua/details/225796/

@MiddleEast_BRK May 24

#BreakingNews Terrorists in #Donetsk kidnapped the head of district election committee and burned all related documentation. #Democracy?!

@Suleeko 2m

Epic fail of the Russian propaganda. RT @leonidragozin: Far-right candidates Tiahnibok and Yarosh get 1.3% & 0,9% respectively in exit polls

@NahlahAyed 6m

.@Poroshenko offers blanket amnesty to all separatists in East if they hand in their weapons. #cbc

@Ukroblogger 8h

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVYoVO8wDso

@Billbrowder 11h

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created an even bigger problem for him w/China in long term.Very interesting insight

ladimir Putin began pulling Russian forces back from the Ukrainian border and distancing himself from the secessionists in east Ukraine after his visit to Beijing convinced him that China, however useful tactically, is a long-term threat to Russia and that Moscow needs the West as a counterbalance to Chinese power, according to Rashit Akhmetov.

In the lead article in the current issue of “Zvezda Povolzhya,” the Kazan editor argues that Putin has begun to recognize that Russia is not quite as much a Eurasian country as he has suggested and that “an alliance with China” will lead to “the Sinification” of Russia and “the slow liquidation of Russian civilization” (no. 18 (698), May 22-28, 2014, p. 1).

Indeed, Akhmetov suggests, given the gas price concessions he had to make to China and the expansion of the Chinese presence in Russia he had to agree to, Putin may now wish he had purchased Crimea from Ukraine rather than seized it because in that event he would not have alienated Europe and the United States nearly as much.

Putin’s plan to “re-orient” the Russian economy away from Europe toward China was “condemned to failure from the outset,” the Kazan editor says, because it quickly became obvious during the Kremlin leader’s visit to the Chinese capital that “Russia is not Eurasia, but rather a completely European country.”

China is, Ahmetov says Putin became aware during his visit, “too distinctive and alien for the Russian world.” If Russians are now upset by the arrival of ten million gastarbeiters from Central Asia, many of whom were already adapted to Russia beforehand, “what will happen when ten million Chinese” or even more – “arrive in the course of the next few decades?”

Unlike the gastarbeiters from Central Asia, he continues, the Chinese are not going to accept inferiority status. They are used to feeling superior. “Chinese nationalism is not European nationalism. Chinese culture will simply swallow Russian Orthodox culture in a matter of a few historical seconds.”

And the issue the Kazan editor continues, will be not that Moscow will become “Moskovabad,” as many Russians now fear, but that it will be a “Moskvin or “Moskay.”

That the Chinese will flood into what is now the Russian Federation is even more likely now that Beijing has dropped its one-child policy, something that will lead to a new population boom that could leave the world with two billion Chinese, and also because Chinese workers will follow massive the Chinese investment into Siberia Putin has not so much secured as he has been forced to concede.

Indeed, Akhmetov says, the Chinese probably already psychologically view Siberia as “theirs,” and they are certain to view what Putin has done in Crimea as opening the way for them elsewhere. As a result, “even though Russia has nuclear weapons, it is powerless to oppose the demographic infiltration of the Chinese.”

“To oppose China’s expansion,” he argues, Russia is forced to rely on Europe and the United States.” Moscow “doesn’t have any other choice.” Consequently, it has to “immediately end its anti-European propaganda” because the Kremlin now perhaps sees that it would have been cheaper to buy Crimea from Ukraine than offend Europe by taking it.

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/05/window-on-eurasia-putins-shift-on.html?m=1

@Billbrowder 11h

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created an even bigger problem for him w/China in long term.Very interesting insight

ladimir Putin began pulling Russian forces back from the Ukrainian border and distancing himself from the secessionists in east Ukraine after his visit to Beijing convinced him that China, however useful tactically, is a long-term threat to Russia and that Moscow needs the West as a counterbalance to Chinese power, according to Rashit Akhmetov.

In the lead article in the current issue of “Zvezda Povolzhya,” the Kazan editor argues that Putin has begun to recognize that Russia is not quite as much a Eurasian country as he has suggested and that “an alliance with China” will lead to “the Sinification” of Russia and “the slow liquidation of Russian civilization” (no. 18 (698), May 22-28, 2014, p. 1).

Indeed, Akhmetov suggests, given the gas price concessions he had to make to China and the expansion of the Chinese presence in Russia he had to agree to, Putin may now wish he had purchased Crimea from Ukraine rather than seized it because in that event he would not have alienated Europe and the United States nearly as much.

Putin’s plan to “re-orient” the Russian economy away from Europe toward China was “condemned to failure from the outset,” the Kazan editor says, because it quickly became obvious during the Kremlin leader’s visit to the Chinese capital that “Russia is not Eurasia, but rather a completely European country.”

China is, Ahmetov says Putin became aware during his visit, “too distinctive and alien for the Russian world.” If Russians are now upset by the arrival of ten million gastarbeiters from Central Asia, many of whom were already adapted to Russia beforehand, “what will happen when ten million Chinese” or even more – “arrive in the course of the next few decades?”

Unlike the gastarbeiters from Central Asia, he continues, the Chinese are not going to accept inferiority status. They are used to feeling superior. “Chinese nationalism is not European nationalism. Chinese culture will simply swallow Russian Orthodox culture in a matter of a few historical seconds.”

And the issue the Kazan editor continues, will be not that Moscow will become “Moskovabad,” as many Russians now fear, but that it will be a “Moskvin or “Moskay.”

That the Chinese will flood into what is now the Russian Federation is even more likely now that Beijing has dropped its one-child policy, something that will lead to a new population boom that could leave the world with two billion Chinese, and also because Chinese workers will follow massive the Chinese investment into Siberia Putin has not so much secured as he has been forced to concede.

Indeed, Akhmetov says, the Chinese probably already psychologically view Siberia as “theirs,” and they are certain to view what Putin has done in Crimea as opening the way for them elsewhere. As a result, “even though Russia has nuclear weapons, it is powerless to oppose the demographic infiltration of the Chinese.”

“To oppose China’s expansion,” he argues, Russia is forced to rely on Europe and the United States.” Moscow “doesn’t have any other choice.” Consequently, it has to “immediately end its anti-European propaganda” because the Kremlin now perhaps sees that it would have been cheaper to buy Crimea from Ukraine than offend Europe by taking it.

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/05/window-on-eurasia-putins-shift-on.html?m=1

God bless these young men.

@paulhansen64 10h

#Donetsk #Karvlika May 23, battle, Soldier grieving over his dead comrade, Sergei. pic.twitter.com/u9ZX0rzGtK

@MiddleEast_BRK 6h

[youtube]NcruJgsWLcY[/youtube]