From today's Guardian "A solution to the crisis in east Ukraine had seemed remote on Tuesday, when six Ukrainian army servicemen were killed in an ambush by rebels and attempts to get Kiev and the armed separatists to negotiate came to nothing.

Ukraine's defence ministry released a statement saying six of its soldiers had been killed and a further eight wounded during an ambush outside the town of Kramatorsk, in Donetsk region. The attackers used grenade launchers and automatic weapons to fire at the Ukrainian column, hitting an armoured personnel carrier.*

Must be those darned unarmed protestors again

I see you are not able to quote any sources with different results from mine or with "different facts".

Well the information about Russia unilaterally cancelling the four agreements with the Ukraine about the Crimea Naval base came from Putins' own web site, see here
http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6955.

Seems Putin has joined the synchronized, monotoned chorus of the western (US) media

So Russia terminates some agreements that originated before Crimea voted to return to Russia. They're rendered null and void by current circumstances anyway. What exactly is your point?

It's kind of a given that each media outlet will have some form of "spin" as it's rare to find purely unbiased factual news anywhere. I read various news sources, CNN, NYT, Gaurdian for the US/Brit perspective, DW for German, local Swiss news, ITAR-TASS and speak to my relatives watching Russian news TV for their perspective (well, they don't really watch it much anymore), then aggregate all this in my head and try to come to some reasonable conclusion of what is going on. Generally you can find a string of similar facts, just bent in one direction or the other to support different viewpoints.

One major problem, is that most people in Russia just simply watch Russian news on TV and aren't exposed to a multitued of different viewpoints and accept what Russian TV tells them as facts. And Russian media has been extremely agressive in portraying the interim government as "fascists" and using that angle to create fear in the East.

One example, a detention center on the Russia/Ukraine border that was started under Yanuokovich was suddenly turned into a "fascist concentration camp" by Russian media:
http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine.../25370814.html

Is that not "twisting facts" and "stoking tensions" in a volatile situation? That's coming from a major Russian TV channel. Who wouldn't be scared after seeing stuff like that?

I'm not sure what Al Jazeera's angle is, but they have been pretty critical of Putin lately:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...523249486.html

But putting media spin aside, the majority of the world governments are not supporting Putin's actions in Ukraine, that's not any spin, that's a fact:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.as...3#.U3RuDShpekk
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/ga11493.doc.htm

Aside from Russia, you, and a handful of "Banana Republics", nobody recognized the Russian absorption of Crimea as legal.

My point is that now you agree I did provide the evidence that Russia did cancel these contracts. We are slowly making progress.

Now you just have to accept the other three points that I made in my post.

There have been two massacres in Ukraine in recent months -- in February in Kiev and on the 2nd of May in Odessa. Both were carefully stages covert operations. This is what makes people scared, seeing stuff like that. By the way, the western corporate coverage of the Odessa events has been criminal in its demonization of anti-coup activists.

This was a direct result of the illegal overthrowing of the democratically elected government in Kiev.

About "This was a direct result of the illegal overthrowing of the democratically elected government in Kiev?"
So one illegal act justifies a second illegal act?

BTW did you read the Al Jazeera article quoted in post 465, link here.
What did you think of the article as it is from a non-Western source?

No, of course not.. Honestly I am not happy about any of this. But at least the people in Crimea are safe.

John Pilger writing in the Guardian yesterday . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ia-john-pilger

Oh come on now.

You are really going to upset people who post comments like;
"I will no longer assume that the US-driven western media always tells the truth"
and
"the synchronized, monotoned chorus of the western (US) media"

About "at least the people in Crimea are safe" I hope so

Talking to Ukrainian friends who have family in Crimea there seem to be a lot of day to day issues but nothing life threatening.

Positive point is; Schools are running normally.

On the other side,
prices in shops are shooting up (Ukraine prices were roughly half Russian prices),
it is difficult to get money from banks (very long queues and cash limits),
job security is an issue while many businesses have been seized by the Russians and it is not clear if they will continue in the same way with the same staff.

I agree that both the mass killings in Kiev and Odessa were terrible, but after reading about it from both perspectives, I honestly don't know exactly what happened or who is to blame. Media reports are of course slanted in one way or the other. All I can say is that I hope nothing like that happens again. People living in Ukraine especially don't want to see things like that again either, which has resulted in some cases of both sides working together to solve their problems thru dialog. The problem right now is in the east, the armed gangs that have taken Donetsk and Lugansk.

The government can change, it always does. Even after the 2004 "Orange Revolution" it changed again 4 years later to a pro-Russian president. It will change again next week. Like them or not, the current government is temporary.

Russia's taking of Crimea is permanent. And it goes against the status quo in Europe of countries respecting each others borders.

They were not under any threat before the Russian army rolled in.

The people in the East right now are living in insecurity because Russia has made them fearful of the West, then coordinated the sepratist movement there that resulted in breeding armed gangs and anarchy. I suppose that sets the stage for Russia to send in their army in to restore order (altho I'd prefer to see UN peace-keepers). I think the French UN representative Gerard Araud said it best when he called Russia “a pyromaniac fireman”

Businesses seized? Do you mean state-owned or private-owned as well?

Both, I believe the private ones are those that were owned by prominent Ukrainians who live in and support W. Ukraine.
I have not heard of any seizures of businesses owned by Crimeans who continue to live there.
Of course it is all word of mouth so subject to inaccuracies, exaggerations, &&&&

UN statement today that the Crimean Tartars are being persecuted. One example is one of their leaders visited Kiev and is now not allowed back into Crimea.

That's a perfect sampling of exactly the boilerplate propaganda currently being mindlessly parroted by the mostly US-compliant 'western media'. It's inflammatory, unsupported by documented facts, and serves only to stir up anger against Russia and sympathy for the EU, NATO and the self-declared 'government' of Ukraine in Kiev, which forcibly deposed the democratically elected government it has displaced.

Where's the unequivocal evidence of Russia's evil doings in this matter?

I suggest you go there and see for yourself. Instead of asking people here to provide evidence which you promptly reject without quoting any links or sources to support your rejection. I look forward to your "on the spot" report.

Why should I be required to quote links or sources when I'm not the one making the assertions?

If Russia has "coordinated the separatist movement," where has that been unequivocally documented?

If Russia is "breeding armed gangs and anarchy," where has that been unequivocally documented?

If Russia is "setting the stage for Russia to send in their army in to restore order," where has that been unequivocally documented?

Meanwhile, we know (here and here) US State Department officials were involved in Kiev events from the start, even showing support for the coup.

And we know (here) that the US hastened to get the usurpers in Kiev to sign on to $17 billion in debt (to the US) through the Washington-based International Monetary Fund — a debt obligation and influence-peddling trade-off that Yanukovich was understandably hesitant to embrace.

So it's no secret that Washington is up to its elbows in the whole sordid affair, but despite all the accusations being parroted about Russia's alleged involvement, nobody seems able to produce any compelling evidence — just more parroting.

Meanwhile, here's your "on the spot" report.

__________________
"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant

Every single news source you quoted is from LewRockwell, an anarchist/Libretarian website? That's definitive proof to support your points? If accept everything that one news source puts out as facts, then you really aren't any better than those you accuse of following the "the synchronized, monotoned chorus of the western (US) media", are you?

In any case, the leader of the military in the East, Igor Girkin (aka "Streklov") is a former Russian secret service man from Moscow (ie: not a local Ukrainian), he's given interviews to Russian media, distributed leaflets claiming to be the "commander" of the "militia", he's not hiding who he is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-elu...rebels-2014-15


The insurgent leader in Lugansk, who was recently shot in assassination attempt, just returned from medical treatment in Russia:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A4G02F20140517

Here's a nice list of militants in East Ukraine right now with ties to Russian military:

http://www.ukrainianwinnipeg.ca/russ...naries-donbas/

There have been some cases of Ukrainian SBU capturing agitators with Russian passports as well.

But aside from those examples, there is general support for these people coming out of Russian media:
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/731328

So, to sum up: people with links to Russian military are documented (check), Russian media supports theses people (check) and fosters fear towards Kiev by repeated use of "fascists" in daily media (check), Russia's military is massed on the border a few km away (check), and it's in Russia's interest to have these regions (and Ukraine as a whole) aligned with Russia. I think it's hard to deny that Russia's hand isn't directly involved with what's happening there.