Sunday, February 23, 2014

Ukraine and Russia, a few notes

(This post has been corrected and combined with two other posts, to create the more complete Ukraine: The Great Game, v2.0. I am leaving it here so that links and references stand. I have struck out my exceptionally egregious errors so that misinformation is not spread, but am leaving them for completeness.)

Situation, as I so far understand it:

  1. Russia wants Ukraine firmly under control because of its agricultural productivity and its ports on the Black Sea.
  2. Ukraine wants out of the Russian sphere of influence because of over a century of oppression, culminating in a genocidal famine, the Holodomor, which was the work of Stalin.
  3. Ukraine is currently energy-dependent on Russia. Fuel shipments from Russia to the rest of Eastern Europe also pass through Ukraine. Pipelines from Russia to Milan and Frankfurt also run through Ukraine.
  4. Chernobyl is in Ukraine, making nuclear power an unlikely method for achieving Ukrainian energy independence.
A few links: There seems to me a risk of Russian invasion, or Russia simply cutting off the fuel next winter. How will the world react?

2 comments:

  1. as long as they don't cut into their tv viewing with updates we'll ignore it like everything else the majority don't give a fuck about..sad

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  2. :-(

    Thanks for dropping by.

    I've added a link to an article on the gas pipelines that run into and through Ukraine.

    If they cut the pipelines to the West, that will be noticed. If people freeze in Ukraine, probably, that, too. Not this year, I think, not with the world's eyes on Sochi. But next year or the year after?

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