Russian Prez Launches Flame War vs. Ukraine

President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s Maximum Blogger, launched a flame war this week against Viktor Yushchenko, the president of neighboring Ukraine.

In a vlog posted on the Kremlin 2.0 site, Medvedev accused Yushchenko of stoking tensions with Russia — and explained why he won’t be sending an ambassador to Kyiv unless ties improve.

“Recently, both the Ukrainian and Russian public have raised the alarm about our bilateral relations,” Medvedev said in a video taped on the Black Sea coast. “Even Ukrainian politicans admit that they have reached unprecedented lows.”

According to Medvedev, Ukraine is guilty of arming Georgia, which engaged in a brief, nasty war with Russia over the separatist enclave of South Ossetia. “Ukrainian weaponry claimed the lives of civilians and Russian peacekeepers,” he said. And he charged the Ukrainian leadership with “obstruction” of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which is based on Ukrainian soil.

Dima, please. If you want to get our attention, you at least have to take your shirt off. And the Ukrainians have already struck back: They have posted a parody on YouTube, dubbing the original video with a new text. “Aliens have taken over Ukraine,” the overdubbed Medvedev says. “And that’s no joke.”

Wired

Well, well, first Russia is putting more and more troops and equipment on Georgia's border and turning up the verbal attacks........

Now, they are upping the verbal attacks on Ukraine....................

Kinda looks like Russia is getting ready to send it's troops on the move to rebuild the old soviet empire.

Russia already handed out passports to ethnic Russian's living in Crimea less than 12 months ago. Russia want's the ports there, and Ukraine doesn't want to extend the contract any further. Think the contract is for a while though yet.

I'm split on this one.... I'd like to say Russia wouldn't want complete isolation from the west, but maybe they can get by with doing business with China, some of asia, africa and some of the middle east, and Venezuela.

Western europe is in trouble though, as we are reliant on Russian gas, and any takeover of Crimea by Russia and other neighbouring countries like Moldova with separist states would be more harmful to western europe and those countries than it would be to Russia. Although it would be damaging to Russia's economy if we stopped buying Russian gas, it would mean a few EU countries without gas after a few months of reserves have been exhausted. It will take years to sort out an alternative, not months!

Unless Russia engages a NATO country then the west will do nothing I expect, except harsh words, threaten sanctions, remove diplomats etc. Ukraine and Georgia will not get NATO membership in time, and in many ways that is a relief. All we need is for the middle east to go up in flames and then have to back Ukraine & Georgia militarily, that could only be defined as the starting point of a world war.

Last year a eastern european anaylst on BBC newsnight stated that any Russian aggression on Ukraine would be world war 3.

Again we wouldn't know the full picture and Russia may claim it's protesting Russian citizens in harms way in Ukraine.

It's always difficult to predict what the Russian's are planning, but I'd have to say nothing more than removing diplomats will happen, and they'll return in a few weeks with different diplomats.

Russia could just play a waiting game until a pro-eastern leader gets back in power in Ukraine. That may speed up if Ukraine can't pay their gas bills and the IMF cannot afford to loan them any more. Russia may use that as an excuse to keep the gas off for longer than necessary.

[edit on 12-8-2009 by john124]

They are not upping the verbal attacks or launching anything, it's going on since 2004 and Iouchtchenko's arrival to power.