News Items Thread

[battlejellyfish]

Are you sure that everyone voted? Cause I'm actually not. I've heard the 80% of the population of Crimea participated and not everyone decided to vote on backing Russia (however, 97% did, like you mentioned). Maybe some of Ukrainians find better to join Russia than stay, but I know, it's just a wild guess

Edit:

Ethnic Ukrainians made up 24% of the population in Crimea according to the 2001 census, compared with 58% Russians and 12% Tatars.

Ah, who knows...

[SCH]

The referendum makes me laugh btw. 97% voting yes? That is in no way in relation to the percentages of pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian inhabitants. Bet there have been a shitload of fake votes.

Love Russia's hypocrisy too. Occupying Crimea to "protect Russian citizens", but refusing to let go of Chechnya.

It's probably a pretty low percentage of people voting, far less then those 80% Convicted mentions...

[tjakevladze]

Well EU can't put effective sanctions on Russia due to the huge gas exports going from Russia to Germany, France, Baltic states, Finland and Ukraine.

If war was to erupt, Iran-styled sanctions would be put into action however.

This has more sides.
Russia is heavily dependant of the export of their gas. Their National Income is all about it. If the EU decide to stop, Russia will have some serious financial problems.

[SCH]

The thing is, EU can't just stop importing gas like that, for that to happen, new pipilines needs to be built from Iran. And Iran is arguably a worse choice then Russia.
And afaik Norway can't produce enough gas to supply all of Europe.

[Fission]

The referendum makes me laugh btw. 97% voting yes? That is in no way in relation to the percentages of pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian inhabitants. Bet there have been a shitload of fake votes.

Love Russia's hypocrisy too. Occupying Crimea to "protect Russian citizens", but refusing to let go of Chechnya.

It's probably a pretty low percentage of people voting, far less then those 80% Convicted mentions...

Either way, it's obviously not right.

First off all, I can't imagine anyone in their right minds wouldn't vote on such a subject. So at least 80% sounds reasonable to me. Like Convicted mentioned, 24% of the population of Crimea is ethnically Ukrainian, 12% Tatars. I doubt that a vast majority of Ukrainians would vote Pro-Russian, and I'm absolutely certain not a lot of Tatars would even begin to consider voting pro-Russian. So the percentages just don't make sense to me.

If you're right, and less than 80% of people showed up, the outcome of the referendum can only be explained by very few Ukrainians and Tatars showing up whereas a lot of Russians showed up. If I were a Ukrainian living in Crimea, I'd at least want to get my voice heard, so I'd definitely vote, and with me, lots of others I think. So I don't think that's the case either.

Strongly suspect this referendum to be manipulated. After all, Russia is the place where the voting turnout for the elections was 140%.

[GamerZoneUSA]

Russia gets an Olympics and this is what happens?

Spoiler

But seriously this is starting to get bad. You can't just annex someone like that. If you're gonna do it.. Do it like we did it at least and no one complains! Wouldn't be surprised to see us (The States) step in soon. Another Cold War perhaps?

[Digital Audio Tape]

Strongly suspect this referendum to be manipulated. After all, Russia is the place where the voting turnout for the elections was 140%.

get your numbers straight! it's 146%

Love Russia's hypocrisy too. Occupying Crimea to "protect Russian citizens", but refusing to let go of Chechnya.

ah, good that you mention it! Russia will never let go of Chechnya, because Checnya doesn't want to go. you see, it's actually a common knowledge here, that most of Chechen people either work in their government or have members of their clans (you know, like family clans) work there. so in fact this means that all those huge sums of money that are being donated to Checnya wind up in somebody's hands. seriously. at least once a month I read in the news something along the lines of "A Chechen governor got caught on stealing five billion rubles of subsidies" and so forth.
also there's one more thing. I won't lie to you, it's just a theory, but imo it's a very good theory. Chechen mafia is the main reason Putin is where he is now. the thing is, Chechnya is governed by bandits. not in its direct meaning ofc, but that's a fact - Kadyrov family (the current president, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his father, Forgot-His-Name Kadyrov) had been in various terrorist organisations for a very long time. there are even pictures of Kadyrovs with various terrorist leaders of Chechnya. so. yeah, now Ramzan is not a terrorist anymore, but however he has very strong bonds to mafia and all that. so. back when Putin has been elected for the first time, it was voters from Chechnya that were the base for his victory. seriously, he had like 80% support there. why? well, he started subsidizing Chechnya, and as I said before, those money ended in the hands of all the people needed.
but anyway, it's all just a theory.

[battlejellyfish]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... LO20140324

Eh, seriously?

[SCH]

This is starting to sound more and more like the partition of Poland in the 18th century tbh.

[battlejellyfish]

It's just not realistic, that's the difference Hungary has to cope with many other serious problems, I personally think we don't even need 1 million Rusyns, as a minority group also lol (no matter if 150.000 Hungarians live in Zakkarpatia Oblast)