I concur the whole situation with Viktor Yanukovych has been blown over. Aswell as the Crimea now being Russia.

So this thread got reanimated. Oh well...
An interesting news... with an interesting source. It's not my place to tell other people what to do, but personally I prefer my information checked and double-checked. Just saying.
Last I checked there was no mobilization, no frontlines marked, no attack/defense operations announced. So... are we at war?
That is, besides the infowar.

I myself am quite curious how the situation with that downed Boeing plays out. That might well be the end for one of the sides of the conflict.

Both sides are going to pass the buck to each other until one side gets stuck with the 'Black Peter' card, in this case a downed airplane and 295 dead people. That's a stain that won't wash off so I doubt anyone will ever officially own up to this class A screw-up, neither side can afford to.

i know that the news are full of propaganda and dont wanna take a position on this info and civil war. i just took the first english article with this story in the hope that the pros on thic topic would correct everything wrong in the stated article during the discussion. since you are better informed, i'd like to read what you know about this probably russian direct intervention in the civil war?

But of course, that's the point! While all the deaths and havoc in Ukraine are really bad, to most people in Europe they were somewhat distant. Now if some EU citizens died, the ones responsible will have a hell to pay. If that was the pro-feds' fault, their days are numbered: UN sends peacekeepers there and it's game over. If that was Kiev's fault, I guess Ukraine is gonna have a new president soon. If there's some third party involved... well, that's where things would get interesting.
And that, comrade (hope you don't mind being called that; that's my sense of humor speaking now), is the problem: am I? I read about the whole issue, but I found no proof of Su-25 being shot down by Russia. Neither did I find proof that Russia was not involved. So what do we assume if we are given no evidence of the crime, "guilty" or "not guilty"?
Here's another article on the topic, with a more level-headed caption. And another one
I'm not giving links to Ukrainian and Russian mass-media for obvious reasons. But, in short, the latter call the accusation preposterous, stressing that the airspace on Russian-Ukrainian border is being closely watched and such attacks would be detected even by Europe and there would be no problems with providing proof of them; the former's point of view you have already read.

thanks,+1 rep

I'm not current on the entire thread, so feel free to simply link me to previous posts if this has already been answered here:

The impression I get is that Ukraine has two major regions. The north and west of the country favors the European Union and predominantly speaks Ukrainian, and the south and east of the country favors Russia and predominantly speaks Russian. The political divide is a geographical divide. Is that more-or-less accurate?

If so, why not hold a referendum in each region, supervised by both EU and Russian representatives to facilitate a fair vote, and allow the people living in each area to decide their fate instead of allowing violence to force one half of the country to submit to the wishes of the other half? It might result in two separate countries... but is that a bad thing in this case?

I am admittedly an ignorant outsider concerning this matter, so please do forgive me if the above is a gross oversimplification of matters.

Unfortunately it's a lot more complicated than that. Regarding ethnic groups, in Crimea there are three main groups, ethnic Russians (58%), ethnic Ukrainians (24%), and Crimean Tartars (10%). There's also a bit of history there, as part of the reason for those demographics is that there was a forced deportation carried out in the region in 1944 (ordered by Stalin), which included all the Crimean Tartars (then about 20% of the region's population); as a side note about 100,000 people died as a result of this deportation, so the Crimean Tartars aren't too keen on returning to Russian rule. Among the ethnic Russians feelings are pretty mixed on whether they want to be part of Russian; some remember Soviet rule as the good old days, while others remember it quite differently, and the younger generation tends to lean more towards wanting to stay with Ukraine. The eastern part of Ukraine (such as the Luhansk and Donetsk regions) are about a 50/50 mix of ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians.

Regarding the feelings of the populace on what they want to happen, that's very difficult to honestly gauge with recent events. Prior to Crimea being annexed polls showed a little under 50% support for breaking away from Ukraine, with support for joining Russia being lower than that. However, what then occurred was that the region was occupied by military forces bearing no insignia and refusing the identify themselves (although later Moscow admitted that these were Russian forces). A referendum was then carried out, with a reported result of 97% support for breaking away from Ukraine and joining Russia (and immediately following the referendum Russian forces annexed the region).

In eastern Ukraine things started with "local militia" (armed with military grade weapons) occupying government buildings, and things escalating from there. However, many of the rebel forces in eastern Ukraine have been identified as former (or in some cases current) Russian military, and some of the rebel leaders are former Russian military/FSB (former as in until just a year or two ago). There have also been reports of Russia providing weapons to the rebel forces, and there's been an on-and-off buildup of Russian military forces on the Ukrainian border (currently at around 12,000 troops).

There's also significant geopolitical factors to take into account. Crimea is home to a key Russian naval base (in Sevastopol), and key Russian gas pipelines run through eastern Ukraine. Ukraine also acts as a sort of "buffer" state between the EU and Russia, and both would prefer to have it be their ally (or puppet state).

So while a referendum to allow the different regions to fairly and honestly decide their future would be great in an ideal world where everyone had honest intentions and was playing fairly, unfortunately the actual situation is very, very, very far from that ideal.

Besides the huge civilian casualties occuring in the last days I wonder what will happen to this war? Could it have been avoided or ended much sooner? How long will it go on? What will be the result in the end?

I don't blame the people on Maidan for it. They didn't ask for war.
I don't blame the Ukrainian government for it, apart from some early ideas about the Russian language they respected the right of the Russian minority (afaik).
I don't blame the Russian people living there that do not directly support the war.
I blame the Russian sources of weapons because they helped this war to be started and continued.
I blame the pro-Russian fighters who started the war.

I think they have no chance without Russia invading too. Russia will probably not invade. Not a 100% sure - Russian tanks may go over Maidan but I think this is rather unlikely.

In the end probably the immediate fighting will cease in about half a year. And I think the war could not really have been avoided. You would have to act much more strict in the beginning but with Russia close by there was never a chance for that.

And then: hopefully Ukrainian and Russians will find a way to reconcile themselves. Given this years events I bet this will take a very long time, maybe a generation or two. Russians living in Ukraine and Ukrainians living in Russia will face violence for quite some time.

As a bit of irony I know a Russian-Ukrainian couple living in germany. They are kind of the hope for the future.

I'm no expert in warfare, but I'd say, rather sooner than later. Winter is coming. Quite literally. I'm not naive enough to say that no Ukrainians will suffer because of the current situation, but I'm not expecting an outbreak of violence directed at them specifically (people of the late Muzychko type excluded). I hope it won't come as a ground-shaking revelation for you, but Russians and Ukrainians used to get along quite well... I mean, not all and every single one, but still much better then, say, Englishmen with Frenchmen. Well, until recently.
Still, it's not uncommon for us to have such mixed families.

Maybe not uncommon for normal people/citizens, but surely uncommon for your aristocracy/upper class which includes politicians. (Yeah I know, there are no classes in socialism, but... well you know... there isn't such a thing in reality).

People should forget about nationalities already and the military should ignore the politicians BS a lot more often... :/
We wouldn't have gotten a lot of bitter stuff where I live in the last century, if the military wouldn't have been so loyal to total morons, many officers and soldiers knew that it was all bollocks in many ways...

That's one reason why I'm so surprised about the hostilities.

I'm true child of USSR - my first grandmother is Poland, grandfather is from Ukraine, they moved to Belarus, where my father was born, and my mother's ancestors are from Ural mountains region.
I won in genetic lottery very good brain with IQ around 150. My second degree is in economics, but who doesn't have it now :)
How I see situation - it looks like "divide and conquer" tactic against humankind, and post-USSR area in particular.
When you are the strongest, it is easy to deal with two hundreds duck-sized horses which attack each other at the same time. Like suing horse for disagreeing with you. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-bnp-paribas-settlement-idUSKBN0F52HA20140701 And when you have horse as big as you? Divide it and divide it even more. Start the war between horses, protect and sponsor weaker horse so it would stand against stronger horse for longer period of time.

Last time we had so much fuzz in press in 2008 with the War in Georgia, when Russia was blamed for everything.
It was proved that Saakashvili was the one to blame. He isn't sentenced for war crimes, he is a proud citizen of US now.
USA trained and sponsored Georgian army, Russia took some trophies. USA even asked them back. http://tinyurl.com/ku5arj3

Now, hot trend of the year - Ukraine.
Let's start with Crimea. Ukraine got it as symbolic gift, nobody intended to let it go from USSR. Crimean people didn't like it on their own - they tried to return into Russia three times since detach. Last attempt was successful.
Why they didn't like being Ukrainian?
Ukraine had three revolutions. Ukraine showed zero economical growth. And all this while lending Russia their land and getting huge benefits on gas price without improving life of citizens in Crimea.
Why I think so? Because when USA started third Maidan they already saw needing in renovation of Sevastopol base for their fleet (check the dates when this was posted). https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=2bb691b61c59be3a68180bd8c614a0cb

Second strategical meaning of Ukraine - transit of Russian gas. http://i.imgur.com/E4vqkpd.jpg

Third strategical meaning - war plants on the East. Yeah, it is part of USSR MIC (it was evacuated to Ural during WW2, but still has some) and militants can simply take old USSR weapon or make their own - I hear about capture of tank plant (with some production intake) and ammo plant. But yeah, "they have Russian weapon because Russia supports them".
Who gets benefits of their production? Not USA and EU, obviously. Official Kiev is trigger-happy about leveling them to the ground. Maybe because it benefits leading person in Ukraine - US consul http://i.imgur.com/C3JNK8U.jpg

Who are these militants? I hear version that they are, mostly, private military company of Kolomoysky and he attempts to take over property of Yanukovich's family and fights against Akhmetov and his american friends http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article127862117/Hunderte-US-Soeldner-sollen-fuer-Kiew-im-Einsatz-sein.html
Militants don't look like protectors of freedom for me. Why? Because Russia alone houses 100k+ refugees from Ukraine. Ukrainians on their own don't see any point in fighting for ephemeral "democracy" in Ukraine or even fighting for its Independence. This mass giving up on country says something. Remember, three revolutions - they can't live on their own. Poroshenko was the sponsor of Yanukovich's party, so it looks like they removed clothes to let mosquito suck blood faster.

Accident with Malayzian boeing... It benefits official Kiev. Top joke on russian bash.org is "Records from black box would say anything, even pleas for new sanctions against Russia".
You can google translate this article. http://lenta.ru/news/2014/07/21/launchers/ tl&dr version - Ukraine had at least 3 working Buk complexes in the zone of supposed launch, satellite photos as evidence. Compare this to hoaxes "intercepted radio" and "video of Buk" as anti-militant evidences from Ukrainian side.

And all this accompanied with loud messages in press - "Russia went batshit crazy, ready to start the war in Europe, buy our weaponry, invest spare money into stable US".

Sad thing from humanly point of view? Russia doesn't participate in war on state scale - war in Georgia took days, and we have even better army now. Ukrainians kill each other simply because they couldn't sit and talk.
Why Russia doesn't participate? Well, Russia secured their assets in Crimea. MIC is mostly replaced. Gas pipes in Ukraine are on second plan now - we got gas contract with China.
Ukraine has only 3 regions with positive balance of export/import - 2 of them are Novorossya, leveled to the ground. We have nothing to fight for. Human rights or democracy? They made their choice. Ukraine next year would be humanitarian catastrophe - it needs more investments as first payment, like 150% more, than Greece got total. Germany, are you ready to support another piss poor country with MayDown's government for free?

So, summarize - EU gets burden of rotten corpse, Russia gets fireplace of hatred near border and tons of sanctions, Ukrainians lose country. Who wins? Someone, who replaces Russian export to Europe with own while making money on war contracts.

i'm very happy, that you post the truth, which helps against this disgusting and irrational anti-russian propaganda in the west media. +1

I cannot let this stand uncommented. People in germany don't really know how good they have it now, also with media. There is so much to choose, you can see freely what you want, you can even say a lot of nonsense, nobody will object in general, people will just ignore you. Try to say the same thing but the other way around in China or in Russia and you'll see what real freedom is worth.

I compared german and russian media in the last days I can only say that I'm happy to live here. In german media you have indeed tendencies to denounce Putin - he has a very bad image currently. But at least all the relevant facts are contained in the information. In russian media you get half of the facts (those who fit) and a lot of nonsense. If you believe it then Ukraine consists totally of fascists and the separatists never ever did any bad thing and everything in the world is a US conspiracy.

The difference is actually not as big as I would like it to be but still I would say that anti-russian propaganda in western media is mostly harmless and not competitive with russian news articles - at least the ones I saw. As I said, glad to be here where you can say anything.