my point exactly. We're not going to convince Putin of anything by doing that.

^^^^^mscot

And just to clarify, it's not that I radically disagree with peterlund, I don't even know that (and at least he's not a Trump supporter) but his insistence to mute someone else...

I mean, if you want to mute Putin (or me, the other "megaphone" as you said, lol), just do it and stop messing around.

I can understand muting, if you don't want to get involved in the argument, but to mute, and then continue to exclaim your position is a little obnoxious.

@pricipians I have gotten to understand that you speak your true mind and that you actually believe in what you are saying. Putin is just spamming and I do not believe he even believes himself in the things he is saying. So my conclusion is that he speaks for someone else. If you don't speak your own mind but someone else's mind it get completely useless to communicate.

@mangos Putin cannot be convinced. He is not here to exchange ideas. Only to promote others ideas I am afraid.

I disagree. His thought are too well developed to be spam. You have to give him credit: He knows what he believes. That's more than most people can say.

But they are not well developed ... that was my point. They are vitriolic, for sure. And they are assertive, absolutely. I can credit him with selectively using/ ignoring information available to provide "evidence" of his positions - which at least shows a willingness to do some basic Internet research in support (and only in support) of his position. But I wouldn't say that is well-developed; it is, in fact, an insult to argument-building as HoM previously stated quite well in an earlier post.

In Putin's last message this evening he mentioned a very specific Swedish news story "Sweden sell arms to the Saudis without saying a word about that regime". I am sure that no "ordinary" Russian person would have a clue about this news story. This and other specific fact dropping he has made, makes me quite confident that this guy is a PRO working for the Russian propaganda machinery. Before you denounce this statement of mine, please make a simple Google search on the words "Russian propaganda". You'll be surprised what you find.

hmmm. maybe. I guess we should ask him :)

Nah, I'd say he just follows Russia Today, he's american btw

I don't think Americans bother about swedish politics (same for French, German. ..). Anyhow i find this very strange.

peterlund, I find your conspiracy theory to be quite amusing and naive. If you don't think Putin would be able to find a news story, what make you think that the Kremlin would find webDiplomacy and then hire someone to convince 2,000 people to become pro-Putin?

As for how Putin found the news story, that the West ignores Saudi Arabia's atrocities for trade relations is widely known. I also suspect that principians is right about Putin reading Russian news.

Hi everyone. Since I actually live in Russia I think my voice would be quite helpful in this.
Disclaimer: I'm not here to promote Russian media's ideas, but rather try to find points which both sides agree upon.
So here are my points.
1) Yanukovich was elected legitimately, but Ukraine got basically divided into two large electorates, with Southeast voting for Yanukovich and West voting for Timoshenko.
2) Timoshenko was put in (Putin, hehe) into jail for political reasons, even though the official reason was "abuse of authority".
3) Yanukovich tried to stay friends with both Russia and Europe, but he had to choose. First he chose to get into EU, but then Russia got quite pissed, and Yanukovich agreed to delay it.
4) And now West&Center of Ukraine got pissed and started Maidan, first to cancel the delay of the agreement, but later radicalised and started pillaging the building near them.
5) Keep in mind that Yanukovich could get rid of Maidan easily if he told militia to attack the crowd (I guess "attack" is wrong in this situation, but whatever). He never did.
6) At some point several state institutes were lost to Maidan, and Yanukovich fled to Russia. The leaders of Maidan got to power.
7) If you think #6 shouldn't be considered a coup, I can't understand you. But whatever.
8) The new government quickly started spreading nationalist, anti-Russian ideas, mostly based on Maidan's ideas. For example, they decided to cancel Russian as the second official language.
9) Obviously, now the Southeast got pissed, since the president who they voted for was overthrown, and the new government is spreading ideas against them.

Ok, I'll stop here for now. Please tell me which points you agree with and which you don't.

The buildings*

@maks-s15 Your resume was actually quite ok all the way 1-4, but I would like to comment 5-7. Since your resume was not at all in the style of Putin33, I wonder what media you listen in to living in Russia. My guess is that you read lots on the Internet. Right?

At 5 you claim that Yanukovich never ordered an attack. Maybe he did not make that order personally, but someone did. If he did not then someone underneath him did in the police or in the security police. And it was quite obvious too that such violent resolution of the Maidan situation was something that was promoted by Moscow. This in oder to teach the Ukraine people and more importantly the Russian people to stay in line so they do not defy or question the powers of Yanukovich or Putin.

At 6 After the killings at Maidan it seems Yanukovich lost control of the police/military forces. I do not know why, but I suspect that Yanukovich wanted to step up the violence even further. Probably the police/military refused to follow this order and then it was game over for Mr Yanukovich. Fleeing to Moscow was the only option left for him.

At 7 you discuss the wording on how to label the events of Maidan. "Coup", "revolt", "uprising" or "revolution". Use whatever you wish. They are all to me quite the same. They all mean a political change of power by violent means. The key question on who to blame is in the event details (discussed at 5 and 6 above). But all through these events there was a lot of unjust external pressure from the Kremlin, not allowing Ukraine to independently choose their own path.

Your point 8 and 9 are kind of ok. But you are missing one point 10.
10) Putin use 8-9 to illegally send in Russian troops into Crimea and Donbass. 8-9 could easy have been handled internally inside Ukraine. If Kiev wants good relations to the EU, Kiev would have been forced to treat the Russians in those areas respectfully.

"If Kiev wants good relations to the EU, Kiev would have been forced to treat the Russians in those areas respectfully."

as seen with turkey, with which the eu makes agreements while they simultaneously imprison journalists who speak out against erdogan.

@maks-s15 At point 3 I think you missed one piece of fact. I think that Yanukovich after delaying signing the EU trade agreement, he instead signed a trade agreement with Russia. This was the immediate cause of the Maidan protests.

@kasimax
not to mention the respectful treatment Turkey gives to kurd

@peterlund
1. Russai didn't send soldiers to Crimea cos the soldiers were already there.
2. I may not have all the facts in my hand, but let me say (again) what I think about Russia sending soldiers to Donbass. I don't doubt that Russia has supported the upraisng with whatever means they've found suitable (weapons, money, etc.) but I keep thinking that to involve soldiers directly is a bit more complicated and has bigger implications. Not saying it didn't happen, but the fact western media keeps repeating it doesn't autamatically make it true.

Putin33 is American, not Russian, peter.

Kasimax is right in that EU practices a lot of hypocrisy there - as shown by this batshit crazy idea to essentially bribe Turkey into taking back refugees who are then coming straight back to Europe. I don't personally think Poroshenko is like that - I seem him more as a businessman who's capitalised on the chaos to become the world's most successful Oligarch - but I don't see evidence of much government oversight at all from him. So anti-Russian elements wield a lot of power.

I'm not sure why we shouldn't be familiar with foreign politics if we're interested in politics though. I followed Swedish politics during and after their last election with the whole budget debacle - though I'm not a fan of the Nordic permanent blocs model of politics. As an active member of the Labour party here I take a lot of interest in the success (or not) of other left wing parties across Europe - whether it be V in Sweden, Die Linke in Germany, or Podemos in Spain. I'm sure there are plenty of other like minded individuals who do the same on this site.

Erdogan showing preferential treatment to Kurds? That's a hell of a joke. As soon as his party lost its majority because the pro-Kurdish HDP got over the 10% threshold; he restarted the civil war with the PKK to boost his own ratings and demonise the HDP; getting his majority back in the second election.

Not to mention how Turkey stood and watched and blocked the border crossing when IS were attacking Kobane - refusing to led other Kurdish fighters through to reinforce the YPG (Syrian Kurds) defending Kobane for over a week before international pressure finally forced them to cave.

sorry, hellenic, I was being sarcastic.

also in my previous comment, by 'uprisng' I meant 'uprising' (the Donbass one)

@principians Then you must have missed the news story of Russian mothers in Moscow receiving their dead sons after the sons had so called "volonteered" to take part in the fighting in Donbass. They had to volunteer and they had to go in without a proper Russian military uniform since they were "freedom fighters". Obviously the regime has done all they can to silence this story within Russia but it has slipped out into western media.
I wonder how much @maks-s15 have heard about this?

peterlund
I don't deny volunteers, but in the 1837 Texas war, the majority of 'texan' soldiers were US citizens, and though US media might have encouraged the participation of us citizens, it still true that US gov was not (most probably) directly involved.

@hellenic I wonder how you know what passport Putin33 has and how you know where he lives? Is it because Putin33 had said so?

I also agree that in the Turkey case with this flood of immigrants EU is hypocatic about and bypassing Turkey's internal affairs and this is due to the simple fact that EU needs that bully Erdogan. I agree fully about his mistreatment of the country and now getting even worse, moving the Putin way away from freedoms and democracy within Turkey. And it is shameful that EU is so passive.

But EU is not dependant on Kiev. Instead we try to help Kiev, but that we only will do if we morally can justify it. You can compare with Estonia and Latvia which have large Russian minorities. EU is the one thing that guarantees the right of the Russian population there. No-one can be member of the Union if they harass etnic or other kind of minorities. This pressure on being civilised is great to have now especially in our new member states in the East.