Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
While I neither support Russian action, nor pretend to know the plans of everyone involved, I don't think the view presented above is correct. It is not Russia's step in the alleged campaign to restore USSR or something like that. It is more like after US coup in Ukraine succeded, Russia realized that the next step is kicking their naval base out, so Putin had to take immediate action to hold onto Crimea now that he de facto lost Ukraine.
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How is it a US coup? The protesters won out and responded to the $15 billion Russia offered to Yanukovych. Sure you can say Yanukovych was forced out incorrectly following the original agreement, but his own party banished him and he fled. This wasn't the Svoboda that forced him out, this wasn't any of the protesters either. It was a result of the original agreement itself where he threw anyone not named Yanukovych under the bus for the actions during the protests. His allies in Kiev turned on him after that and he fled before the criminal charges came. It had much more to do with his own incompetence and self serving attitude than some US led coup against the government. Also his twisting of anti-protest laws as a justification for using live ammunition against protesters should rightly have led to his impeachment anyways.
Yes you could say this wasn't constitutionally correct to skip the impeachment process, but the same thing could be said about Russia's installation of the new Crimea government under gunpoint. Two wrongs don't make a right.