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>I would ask you to explain the rape of Chechnya

what to explain here? Everything is well known. Chechnya wanted independence and it was bloodily squashed. Pretty typical story. Russia isn't a modern Britain where you can have an independence referendum. Russia is a very autocratic imperially ambitious state. Just publicly talking about separation (check the recent set of laws incl. the "public mass media" law) will most probably lead you to jail.

Of course, like pretty much any other power, the Russia uses double standards - one internally and another externally. So right of self-determination of Crimea has existed only until it actually joined Russia :)

>>Crimea used that right.

>The prevalence of this melarke is astounding. The chronology is a matter of public record. The 'vote' was nearly a month after the invasion.

of course. Without Russian military presence any attempt at the vote would be bloodily squashed by the [Western] Ukrainian volunteer battalions.

>>Kiev's "pacifier" operation

>I have no knowledge of this.

It is what officially called "Anti-Terrorist Operation" that is happening in the Donbass.

>I do remember that Ukrainian paras and LEOs cracked down on extreme [Ukrainian] nationalist in the Western Ukraine before they began the fight against the Cossack invasion

A creature of Hell - Sashko Bilyy - was killed in pretty strange situation. Even Ukrainian nationalists finally decided to stop being publicly associated with the river of blood and torture he was leaving in his wake.

>>Do you support Palestinians, Tamils, Uyghurs, Kosovars right to self determination? I am not an advocate for mass slaughter. I firmly believe in equal representation. Partitioning countries by ethnic division is the fast track to both.

yes, i do. As Eltsyn said in 1991 when USSR was breaking up - "Take all the sovereignty you're able to carry away." Unfortunately, this short period of bloodless (or low-bloodness)independence getting was more of exception in the world rather than rule.

>It seems very clear to me that Russia is backed into a corner. They have a dwindling, ignorant population obsessed with decadence. The have a poor geographical position. They have severe cultural divisions.

it is pretty typical situation for Russia.

>Hilariously, it seems to be working so far.

will see. Falling of oil prices was a nice punch that Russia still need to live through. Last time it happened - mid-198x - the USSR went down like in boxing knock-down.

>The only thing that stands in the way of Russian Gangster Ascendancy is a German Army with U.S. equipment. Putin knows this. I have no faith in my Nation's wherewithal and resolve. 4000+ KIA in 10 years has nearly broken our military; how can those weaklings go up against a country more willing to slaughter their children and burn their livelihoods instead of retreat? Bully tactics work on the US and most of Europe. Germany and Scandinavia, less so.

If you look at the actual fighting in Donbass you'd notice that Russian military isn't very effective as a whole system. Of course, having nuclear ICBMs Russia thus willn't be made subject to "pacifying" invasion from NATO, yet Russian military also in no condition to effectively fight a high-tech force of NATO. Bully tactics works because NATO doesn't want any war, successful or unsuccessful, because peaceful life is that much better and cost effective. Putin's regime on the other side is under huge stress, economical and political, and "small victorius war" would seem like a miracle medicine for it. Like with other similar regimes in similar situations such war somehow just doesn't materialize (Falkland war comes to mind). Nevertheless, when Ukrainian nationalists took power in the coup and couldn't force themselves to work through the main course - buildup of economy and army - and instead went straight for the desert - solving "issue" of ethnic Russians - it was an opening Putin couldn't resist. It was his wet dream come true. The bloodless takeover of Crimea (with full support by the majority of the Crimea population, technical/procedural issues with the referendum be damned :) shot his approval rating into stratosphere ... Well, despite it looking like a "miracle medicine", such actions have only short-term effect of opiatic pain-killer with real problems staying unsolved and only going worse... So, more pain-killer is in order...

I apologize in advance since I'm a bit short for time at the moment and I'll just post a short(-ish) reply to the questions I can answer from the top of my head (more or less).

> Girkin's presence in the Crimea before the 21st (which didn't happen) was supposed to be evidence of that.

The medal forged by the Russian Govt. itself is the most damning evidence[0] (it's basically a confession).

> Much of how to interpret the dates depends to some understanding of territorial sovereignty

There's nothing to interpret: at that time Crimea was recognized as part of Ukraine even by Russia (see below).

>> At that moment it wasn't disputed even by the Kremlin. The "disputing" would come a bit later.

> It's status has been disputed in modern history since at least 1991 when Crimea declared itself an independent autonomous state.

In 1997 Russia and Ukraine signed a Treaty in which Russia accepted Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea.[1]

> Could you expound on how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs... is a propaganda front for the Kremlin

Many of its statements are effectively regurgitated Russian state media news pieces, many of which are outright lies, while others are twisted to further a propagandistic agenda. It is amazing that a Foreign Office would base its official statements (and arguments used in international negotiations) on outright propaganda (made up or twisted stories the sole purpose of which is to incite hatred towards Ukraine within Russia).

> Can you show where TASS or RT have claimed such ridiculous things

Sure, but first: most of the well-known media outlets in Russia are state-owned or controlled/censored. Because of this there's practically no difference between them with respect to the journalistic integrity (or lack thereof) in their reporting.

"Channel One", the biggest Russian TV channel, ran a story[2] of a woman (allegedly from Slavyansk) who claimed that some Ukranian soldiers have crucified a child in front of his mother. Then they proceeded to tie the mother to a tank and drag her around the square (and she claimed to have seen it with her own eyes). Needless to say, this turned out to be a lie[3], but the story was circulated by many Russian news outlets without batting an eye.

As for ITAR-TASS and RT, you can read about some of their exploits here[4] and here[5][6][7].

[0] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/25/putin-s-cri...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Crimea#Autonomous_R...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1TJLNcc5DY

[3] http://www.stopfake.org/en/lies-crucifixion-on-channel-one/

[4] http://www.stopfake.org/en/tag/rt/

[5] http://www.stopfake.org/en/exclusive-german-professor-for-it...

[6] http://www.stopfake.org/en/itar-tass-lies-pro-ukrainian-radi...

[7] http://www.stopfake.org/en/china-did-not-declare-its-support... of-russian-annexation-of-crimea/

> I apologize in advance since I'm a bit short for time at the moment and I'll just post a short(-ish) reply to the questions I can answer from the top of my head (more or less).

That's okay. Totally get that. Same boat. Thanks for status.

> The medal forged by the Russian Govt. itself is the most damning evidence

Couple thoughts.

The article you link to concludes that the 2/20 date makes sense for being dates that snipers became active.

It's also easy to explain the 2/20 date as a day that contingency planning and deployment started, and the reason the medal exists is because the contigency plan needed to be executed.

Finally I checked the source of the Crimean medal story. I am not able to find (although it has been very difficult to search because I do not speak Russian) any statement made by Russia regarding the medal or it being a mistake, as claimed by Radio Free Europe. Also, provided that RFE is a propaganda outlet, and we're trying to exclude them as sources, how do you feel about this? In particular there's this interesting blog post about how the British propaganda effort made up a fake German medal in analogous circumstances [1].

Finally, I do believe that the medal is real and the 2/20 date is real. But I'm not sure how to interpret the 2/20 day other than as the beginning of contingency planning. It's 100% true that Russia wanted to annex Crimea and designed plans to do it. There's no debate from me there.

> Many of its statements are effectively regurgitated Russian state media news pieces, many of which are lies, while others are twisted to further a propagandistic agenda.

It does sound quite a lot like the State Department. Of course Russia's propaganda has always been a bit more crass. So are we at a point where no official statements can be trusted? If so we're really limiting our sources. Is there a department of Russia that you trust? It's sort of hard to cite material if anything from any source in Russia is knocked out of consideration.

Anyway, there are non-Russian sources that were presented. It would still be difficult to explain the Der Speigel numbers matching the RT numbers so closely, etc. I don't mind if you can't or don't have time to pursue this line any more - Academi/Greystone/Blackwater presence is a side conversation to the main discussion.

> Sure, but first: most of the well-known media outlets in Russia are state-owned or controlled/censored. Because of this there's practically no difference between them with respect to the journalistic integrity (or lack thereof) in their reporting.

Yes.

I meant a source for the drinking the blood of babies thing. But the crucifixion one is pretty good. That's pretty silly, Russia...

I do not know what to make of the stopfake website (it's the first time I have run into it.) Here's a neat one for the US news, in case it is useful to you [2]. Regarding fake news in the United States, there has been similar coverage. Of course first comes the reports of WMDs in Iraq, the DoD Analyst Program and then media blackout [3], and plenty of other examples of media manipulation from the US government [4]. I totally get that Russia and RT are more crass.

Anyway, there are other sources listed. If you don't want to use RT that's fine with me, but we should probably avoid a bunch of different news outlets in that case and be sure to reply to the non-RT ones.

[[Back to what was mentioned before...]]

We should consider consolidating the conversation. There are lots of interesting things to be said, but there's a lot that hasn't been addressed and there is significant danger of too much rat-holing. I think you agree with the thesis that the US has been pushing politics, activists, demonstrators and interest groups in the Ukraine toward Europe through the use of CSOs and their funding of NGOs, and organizing a replacement to Yan evidenced by the leaked tapes on DemocracyNow and by the USAID documents that clearly state US Foreign Policy objectives and procedures. (Interesting aside: Secretary of State Kerry's son is has recently become a major stakeholder in Ukraine oil)...

I think we differ about how okay that is - you'll say that it's legal or acceptable. Can you correct me if I'm wrong about your agreeing that both covert and overt action have been and are taken in Ukraine and other states by the US to pursue policy objectives?

[1] https://ersjdamoo.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/mystery-of-the-cr...

[2] http://www.emergent.info/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_military_analyst_prog...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8933443

How much money was bled out of the American economy to support those wars? What state are those countries in now? How much debt did the American people incur as a result? What sort of resources were returned to the American people?

All of the answers to these questions are a total loss. Did it make the world a safer place? No. It made the situation in the middle east far worse that things were 15 years ago and its still not looking like its going to get better any time soon.