Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002
Indeed the "red" line is east "Ukraine".
... Odessa could be a flashpoint ...
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I had a feeling that Odessa would be a flashpoint.
Now we'll see which band leader has a bigger set of brass.
If they have a big enough set to attempt it all the way to Odessa, they could secure Crimea from all sides, secure the major northern Black Sea commercial port, eventually hoping to resume trade with Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and a few others once the sanctions fade, which they will maybe after some years, maybe sooner, and, if they attempt to move a bit further, possibly unite with Transnistria (not the mention the breakaway territories around Georgia).
These are the strategic stakes on the ground, at least as concerns eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea region, in addition to all the strategic stakes in the interior, such as agribusiness, gas pipelines, the industrial-military complex, and strategic military concerns.
Now I'll let you adolescents go back to sorting out the public propaganda end of it.
If they attempt it and succeed, the longer-term challenge will be an economy capable of sustaining it, or whether it will prove to be a pyrrhic victory.
Wasn't that the long-term problem of the Soviet Union and its empire, an economy capable of sustaining it?
If the US/EU/NATO/IMF, on the one hand, and Russia on the other, both on relative decline, lock horns again for a long time, the Chinese and
possibly the Islamists may be in a position to take advantage, each in their own inimitable styles.
On a personal note, condolences to the families of people who have lost their lives, on both sides, victims of selfish, greedy, narrow-minded men, on both sides; this is too sad and it is making me sick.
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The future of Ukraine and Europe
