While everyone is focused on all the President’s, his political appointees’, his personal attorney’s, and the variety of post-Soviet state oligarchs’/post-Soviet state mobsters’, and various other riffraffs’ ongoing attempts to screw around with and screw over Ukraine until President Zelensky announces an investigation into the Bidens, which he’s not going to do, and Guiliani and the various post-Soviet state oligarchs/post-Soviet state mobsters he’s working with to shake down the Ukrainian natural gas industry, life actually goes on in Ukraine. And that life is one where part of Ukraine has been scarfed up by Vladimir Putin and another part has been invaded by Putin. And, as a result, Ukraine is at war with Russia in order to preserve its territorial integrity.
As a result of all of this, President Zelensky has learned some hard lessons in his short time in office. His views below are just one of those lessons.
I don’t trust anyone at all. I’ll tell you honestly. Politics is not an exact science. That’s why in school I loved mathematics. Everything in mathematics was clear to me. You can solve an equation with a variable, with one variable. But here it’s only variables, including the politicians in our country. I don’t know these people. I can’t understand what dough they’re made of. That’s why I think nobody can have any trust. Everybody just has their interests.
He also knows that at least for right now, he’s largely on his own despite the US’s international agreement obligation to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us,” he said. “I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo.”
Ukraine has just reached an unfortunate milestone, for lack of a better term.
Since the beginning of the fighting in the Donbass, human casualties from explosive objects amount to more than a thousand people. Mine killed 300 civilians, including 27 children. About it reports ArmyInform with reference to management of ecological safety and mine action of the Ministry of Defense.
According to preliminary estimates, the area of areas contaminated with mines and explosive objects is about 7 thousand square meters. km controlled areas and approximately 9 thousand square meters. km of occupied territories.
Infrastructures are in a critical condition because sometimes they cannot be accessed through shells and improvised explosives.
This is a humanitarian nightmare and is going to take decades to fix even if a ceasefire was put in place immediately and was quickly followed by the withdrawal of Russian and Russian proxy forces and the reestablishment of Ukrainian sovereignty over the occupied territories in Donbass.
This is the actual effects on the Ukrainian citizenry not only of the occupation and the war, but the mine fields:
Baba Masha’s neighbors say that because of the danger of entering the village of Opytne at night (it sits on Ukraine’s front line and is accessible only by a dirt road through a mined field) fire trucks were unable to respond. Her house is still smoldering as I type this.
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 1, 2019
Here’s more from Christopher Miller at Buzzfeed (emphasis mine):
When he’s not engaged in gun battles with Russian-led forces on Ukraine’s eastern front line, Stas, a scruffy 26-year-old soldier, likes to cozy up in his bunker and brush up on his English skills by watching Stephen Colbert and Saturday Night Live. He cracks up at Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of President Donald Trump.
Watching political satire on American TV — when he’s able to get a strong enough signal on the battlefield to access YouTube — is also how Stas learned that Trump had frozen $391 million in US security aid meant for the Ukrainian armed forces over the summer. The news made him angry. The fighting was hot at the time, and he and his fellow soldiers were stuck with mostly crappy, old gear.
“Look at this. It’s old and falling apart,” he complained of his Ukrainian government–issued bulletproof vest in accented English. It was barely stitched together and slouching on one side. “It’s a piece of shit.”
There’s one thing Stas and the soldiers in Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade positioned in the village of Novooleksandrivka do have, which they say has helped them spot enemy soldiers who creep within grenade-throwing range of their trenches at night: a pair of US-made night vision sights.
The only problem? They don’t fit on the Ukrainian rifles.
He explained that “they would definitely be more effective if we had them on our rifles,” which is impossible without a special adapter. He demonstrated how he has to hold the sight in one hand, pick a target, lower the device from his eye, and try to remember where he was looking as he aims and fires his weapon. Despite all this, an extra pair or two would be good, he said.
He wondered: Would his brigade have gotten at least another sight if the security aid hadn’t been held up? If only Americans knew how much the equipment would help…
“Nobody in your country knows what’s happening here,” Stas continued, waving his arms in frustration. “They don’t know how we are fighting for our lives with almost nothing.”
Fought for more than five years in trenches cut through some of Europe’s most fertile farmland, Russia’s war in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas has killed around 14,000 people and brought under its control a chunk of a territory larger than the state of New Jersey. Yet — despite it being fought with $1.6 billion of US help in the form of military aid and training since 2014 — the war had largely been forgotten before it was catapulted into the headlines amid the House impeachment inquiry against Trump.“While they were playing with our aid, I wonder, did they know we were dying out here?” asked Oleksandr, a sergeant in the 14th Mechanized Brigade who goes by the call sign “kuvyrok,” or “somersault.” As we crept through trenches outside the village of Krymske, 40 miles northwest of Stas’s position, careful to keep our heads down and out of Russian snipers’ sights, Oleksandr said at least two soldiers were killed at the position over the summer.According to statistics from the Ukrainian military, at least 46 soldiers have been killed since July 18, when word spread throughout the Trump administration that the president had secretly frozen aid for Ukraine. Around 19 of those deaths came during the window of time in which the aid was delayed. While there’s no way of tying those deaths directly to the lack of new US aid at the front line, more than two dozen Ukrainian soldiers — located at four fighting positions, a tank base, and a military hospital — told me they were disappointed by the news. Their morale suffered, and they felt vulnerable and abandoned by their biggest supporter.
The soldiers, whom I met over the course of a week this month while traveling along the snaking 250-mile front line in eastern Ukraine, painted a clear picture of just how important US military assistance is for Ukraine in its war against Russia. The soldiers spoke on the condition that their surnames not be used for security reasons. In what many described as a David-and-Goliath-like fight, they shared several stories about how the US aid has helped level the battlefield and stop the larger and more powerful Russia from grabbing more of their land.
They also said that any aid freeze — even a temporary one — jeopardizes not only themselves but perhaps the very future of Ukraine.
There is much more at the link.
14,000 Ukrainians – Soldier and civilian alike – have been killed in Ukraine’s attempt to resist Russia’s incursion into Donbass. And to establish enough of a position of strength so that Ukrainian officials can negotiate a ceasefire and peace agreement that maintains Ukraine’s territorial integrity and gets Crimea back as well. That isn’t going to happen without the US backing it up. Which means it isn’t going to happen until, at least, January 2021 and despite the US’s international obligations to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity. What the US would need to do today is much harder than it would have been in 2014 and in 2021 any response will be that much harder than it would be today. And throughout it all Ukrainians are dying – Soldiers and civilians – because Putin has decided that he gets to draw the borders of eastern Europe wherever he likes. And that cannot be allowed to stand. However, because Ukraine has now been turned into another partisan issue, just as trade, Israel, healthcare, education, climate change, and so many other issues, as long as there is a Republican president and/or at least one chamber of Congress in Republican hands, stepping up and doing the right thing for Ukraine, as well as for the rest of our European and NATO partners is going to be a very heavy lift. Because it is going to be a partisan lift.
When you see the domestic news reporting on Ukraine, where Ukraine is simply a sort of funny sounding part of the horserace coverage of domestic American politics, keep in mind that the real focus here should be Ukraine; should be on the fact that Ukraine has been invaded and been occupied for going on five years; should be on the fact that the US has an actual international obligation to safeguard Ukraine’s territorial integrity; and that it isn’t just another partisan football so the talking heads on the news shows have something to stroke their chins about.
Open thread!
Adam L Silverman
I’m off to walk the dogs.
Lapassionara
Thank you, Adam. We need reminding that the person we elect to the presidency can have real life consequences for people.
Citizen Alan
When I think about the situation in Ukraine, all I can think about is that they used to have one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals. And they gave it all away and signed onto the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty because they trusted *us* to defend them. Because they were persuaded to believe in *Western civilization* and other lies. What fools they were to believe that the United States of America, the shining city on the hill, would always be an honorable nation.
Patricia Kayden
Gin & Tonic
Many thanks for this post, Adam.
zhena gogolia
Thanks, Adam.
Gin & Tonic
@Citizen Alan: I can’t tell you how many times in recent months I’ve heard some variation on “if only we’d kept the nukes.”
Barbara
I am old enough to remember when the break up of the Soviet bloc and the resulting independence of its satellites, both internal and external, was considered to be the crowning achievement of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, even if came afterwards and even if it was obviously overblown. I honestly can’t tell whether people like Giuliani or Rand Paul or that horse’s ass from Louisiana have fallen into some kind of moral abyss or have been lobotomized. It doesn’t much matter to people in Ukraine hanging on to their national integrity for dear life.
FelonyGovt
Thanks, Adam. It bears repeating that many people have died because of this administration’s actions. And the faith our allies had in us will never be recovered.
phdesmond
bbl — adam schiff on “the last word”: https://www.livenewsmag.com/msnbc-news-live-stream/
Jeffro
Wait…this is the U.S. we’re talking about?
I mean I completely agree in principle, but we’re about at IdiocracyDefCon 3 already in this country.
I think going bigger – like this part
is a better way to make the argument. We can’t do jack squat, at least nothing jack GOOD squat, until the Republicans are out of power. Ties in nicely with the 400+ House bills piled up at #MoscowMitch’s door
Jeffro
@Barbara: Rudy 911 and Rand are just responding to where the money is flowing from. I mean you’re right, they had no real morals to begin with so a ‘moral abyss’ is possible, but they have been there from the start. At some point, Putin saw what a great ROI other folks are getting out of GOP lawmakers and wanted in on that action.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman:
We haven’t even started to touch that one.
Eolirin
@Jeffro: What allows Republicans to maintain power is the turning of everything into a partisan issue. Their power base falls away almost immediately if people start viewing issues as beyond just sports team scoring of points.
This isn’t, and shouldn’t, be a partisan issue. We should resist their attempts to frame it as such. It’s part of destroying them as they currently exist.
Cheryl Rofer
On Ukraine and the nuclear weapons that were on its territory when the Soviet Union dissolved –
Those nuclear weapons were never controlled by Ukraine. They were controlled by Moscow. Moscow was the only party that could launch them. They had various locks and safety devices that only Moscow had the codes for.
I have heard that the Ukrainians were figuring out how to bypass those devices. It’s possible – the devices are not a total block and can be bypassed with resources and time. They are intended to delay unauthorized use, not totally prevent it.
The agreement that was reached was expressed in three Budapest Memorandums. Here is the text of the memorandums. The signatories are Ukraine, the United States, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. China and France were added later.
The key phrases are “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force” against that country. Clearly Russia has violated the memorandums. What the other signatories are to do about that is subject to interpretation. A former US ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, argued in 2014 that it obligates the United States to supply military aid.
We need to support Ukraine, for many reasons. But citing their sending Soviet nukes back to Russia and the Budapest Memorandums are not the strongest argument for that.
Cheryl Rofer
Looks like there will be a conference on the Budapest Memorandum this Friday, so there is likely to be something in the news about it. Good lineup of speakers.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: The source for that “story” that Buck, as well as Omar’s supposed Republican challenger are citing that Omar is a Qatari agent, is the same fake Shi’a Imam I wrote about here:
https://balloon-juice.com/2019/04/13/the-assassination-of-congresswoman-omar-has-already-been-planned-many-times-over-and-one-of-the-white-christian-men-who-have-planned-her-assassination-will-carry-it-out/
The assertion is false. The fake imam is an asshat who is going to get someone killed.
NotMax
Repeating from below.
Foreign policy other than Ukraine, keep a weather eye on this ticking bombshell.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: The nukes were, of course, not under the control of the Ukrainian military, as there was no “Ukrainian” military at the time, only “Soviet.” And the ethnically-Ukrainian people who were Red Army officers at that time were unlikely, for various reasons, to be Ukrainian nationalists. But over 25 years perceptions can change and mythology may develop, to the point that people can now say, and genuinely believe, that having somehow kept possession, if not control, of those resources 25 years ago would have strengthened the country’s position today.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Actually I’ve covered it in several of posts over the past month.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Cheryl Rofer: Make’s sending the Sec. of Energy instead of the VP to the inauguration just snap in place: “We’re coming for your resources”.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I’ve been watching it for several months.
NotMax
Adam, any commentary on how al-Sistani essentially forced the PM resignation in Iraq? An uncharacteristically assertive stance from al-Sistani in reaction to the chaos underway , IMHO.
(And as a side topic, the Iraqi Defense Minister is in deep doo-doo, from government investigations by both his nationalities – Iraq and Sweden.)
Cheryl Rofer
@Gin & Tonic: But there is no reason to promulgate a false narrative.
There was a Ukrainian government at that time, and that government had physical possession of the nukes but couldn’t do anything with them other than use them as bargaining chips, which they did.
chris
Power & Politics is a mostly useless Canadian news show.
Mike in DC
@NotMax: Annexation is one of the ultimate red lines in the I/P crisis. The only one worse is ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian areas by Israel. Even the most “humanitarian” version of the latter would result in thousands of deaths, and the more aggressive versions would result in tens of thousands of deaths.
On topic, if the Paris meeting doesn’t result in a peace deal, I would recommend that the next administration work out a support package that would “bleed out” the Russians and force them to pull out, with accompanying humiliation and loss of face.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Iraq is facing a tribal revolt and increased sectarian violence. Sistani speaks when he feels the need to and only then. So when he does, people pay attention.
My former boss is now the Combined Joint Task Force Commanding General. I was his cultural advisor/senior civilian advisor when he was a brigade commander back in 2007-2008. I emailed him yesterday and volunteered to go back if he wants me.
debbie
I’d like to see Tim Cook added to the list of criminals for annexing Crimea to Russia in its app. Just rank stupidity.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
It was astonishing how (ostensibly) dug in Shiite support forAbdul-Mahdi in the Parliament melted away faster than an ice cream cone at high noon on the 4th of July at Disneyworld immediately after Sistani released his statement.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: The real problem is going to be what happens when Sistani eventually passes away. I wrote a paper on the potential succession for the Army back in early 2009.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Also, marja a taqlid (the way to follow) actually means something. You just saw it play out with Sistani’s statement. He’s the Supreme Religious Authority for Iraqi Shi’a. If he speaks, they listen.
Mary G
@chris: “He announced [inaudible]. You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.”
When Justin Trudeau says this on camera, he’s sending a message to the world.
Adam L Silverman
Who could’ve known?
Jay
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Somewhat amazing he’s held on as long as has, what with his health having been touch and go. AFAIK he has neither named nor suggested a successor, so fully expect an eruption of factionalism upon his demise.
Jay
chris
@Mary G: Remember the times that shitgibbon said the world was laughing at the US and Obama? Ayup.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: There are two potential successors. Unless something has changed over the past few years. My guess is he’s named one, he just hasn’t publicized it. And he likely hasn’t told either of them yet.
patrick II
If Trump’s political end becomes apparent, does that cause Putin to update his conquer Ukraine schedule?
Jay
@Cheryl Rofer:
The Ukranians entered into independence with a lot of the most modern Soviet hardware, weapons factories, technical and research institutes.
Unfortunately, a lot of that left the country due to corruption, mismanagement and outright criminality, and that did not change after the Russian invasion.
Now, there seems to be a “fight” between China and a bunch of the Ususal PMC suspects to carve off what is left.
Duane
@Eolirin: Given the time and opportunity republicans will completely sellout the Ukrainians. It’s so obvious. It needs repeating until people understand how dangerous Russian appeasement is to world order.
Adam L Silverman
@patrick II: I don’t know. G&T may have a different take, but mine is that the Ukrainian military has basically held the line against what Putin has been able to throw at them so far. Putin doesn’t have a lot of military power to actually use, which is why he’s changed the way Russia conducts warfare to the political warfare that I’ve been describing here. I’m not really sure Putin has anything more, other than nukes, to throw at the Ukrainians.
Jay
@patrick II:
it’s harder for Russia now. The Ukrainian Military, despite a disparity in numbers and the quality of equiptment, are not the Ukrainian Military Russia faced in Crimea, Lugansk and Donbass.
They have better training, better morale, better tactics and strategy, better Commanders, and better logistics. They also have the lessons hard won through experience.
And the West is watching now.
I doubt that the Russian plan was to ever “conquor” Ukraine. Russia’s too weak for even that. The plan was/is to bleed Ukraine and force Ukraine to capitulate economically and politically to Russian demands, with Russia never giving up it’s vise grip, so as to always keep Ukraine subservient.
basically a replay of many of the post Soviet “breakup wars” that left Russia with a military “foothold”, like with Georgia.
Adam L Silverman
As I was saying…
Cheryl Rofer
@Jay: Yes. Their factories were mainly for missiles, and some of them are still operating. They have little to no capability to manufacture nuclear weapons, although the state of their technology was, maybe is, sufficient to support such a thing.
But it would take a lot of money and the ability of the government to concentrate on something other than the Russian invasion.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: This
needs to be said again and again. Too much superficial military analysis makes Russia sound like it’s got military to spare. It doesn’t. Not even close.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Yup. Hardware can substitute for only so much wetware.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I thought about putting it in the post, but the site logged me off while I was composing and things were touch and go and it got left out.
The simple fact of the matter though is that Putin only respects force and all other forms of national power we’ve tried other than military have failed to change his behavior. If the next President is a Democrat, they have no choice but to reduce Russia. And I’m using reduce in the military doctrinal sense. I know you don’t like me saying it, but the easy and better options are now all no longer available. We have two and only two strategic possibilities left: 1) Live with what Putin has done, is doing, and will continue to do or 2) Russia delenda est.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Once Putin passes from power, a truer scale of the bankruptcy and hollowness of Russia and its might will no longer be able to be papered over, methinks. Not gonna be a pretty transition.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: But he could be around for a long time to come. You willing to wait that long. You willing to see who he actually picks as a successor?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
If the only alternative is direct, overt military confrontation, yes. New eras bring new options. Not saying collateral damage in the interim will not be awful; it will. The key is to mitigate the awfulness and damage as much as possible short of pulling the triggers.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Any chance some of the oligarchs could get ticked off with him and he ends up falling out the window of his sixth floor apartment while moving his piano? Or something along those lines?
OT–I went back and looked for the thread you mentioned the other night. I think I found the question you mentioned. It was more of a rhetorical question on my part, although if you want to answer it, that’s fine too. No big deal if you don’t.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: How much dirt do you think Putin has on Republicans? It seems like they keep going above and beyond what is needed to show loyalty to Trump.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, he’s still murdering at will. So many Deutsche Bank executives dying before they have to cough up documents or testify. Like the Republican Party, Russia must be reduced to rubble. And I’m a longtime peacenik.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I’m happy to answer it, just need you to email it to me.
As for the oligarchs, if he becomes a liability and they think they can get away with it? Maybe.
Mary G
@Mary G: Not getting the edit option, but to be clear, I don’t mean the regular Russian people should be reduced to rubble. Just the Putin mob and anyone who supports it.
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman:
not me, I want the motherfucker dead.
I want the people who prop him up dead.
I want the people he worked with in the West, either jailed or dead.
and I’m not too fucking fussy about who does it. I’m not a violent person by nature, but I’m not especially happy thinking that if we allow this shit to pass, who/what would be next? The Chinese? The Saudis? The North Koreans?
and maybe I need a time out, but I’m tired of people using the system and our own moral and ethical code against us. It’s great when everyone abides by the rules, but these people are using the same constraints that we abide by in playing relatively nice and fair and pissing all over the game and the time for abiding those constraints have now passed.
You want the whilrwind Vladdy baby, I still believe that there is plenty of capacity to sow it.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: We know he’s got what was reported as hacked in 2016. The question is whether he has other stuff. I’m sure he’s got stuff on those who have made congressional delegations (CODELS) to Russia, as well as to a number of other European, Middle Eastern, and Asian states. The other issue is we don’t know who is sharing what. So, for instance, we don’t know if the PRC is sharing with him. Or the Turks now. Or the Israelis or the Hungarians or the Saudis. And we don’t know whether Christopher Steele was right in his dossier that part of what the President did for the Russian mob in NY was to collect information on Russian expats and Russian Americans and others, both American citizens and non-citizens, in NY for the Russian mob. If this is true, and given that we know from Wayne Barrett’s and other of his biographers’ reporting that the President also used to collect dirt on anyone and everyone he thought he might need it on, then it is possible that a lot of information has made its way to a lot of places it shouldn’t have. And not just David Pecker’s or Harvey Levin’s safes.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: I understand your frustration. The responses for the domestic problems will have to be significantly different than for the foreign ones even if the problems are connected. I wish there was a way to use the other elements of national power than military power to change Putin’s behavior, but we have over five years of experience showing that they haven’t. And that he is only encouraged as a result. As I wrote, this leaves us with two and only two options left. Live with what he’s done and is doing and will continue to do or stop him. And stopping him requires reducing Russia.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Well, that means I’d have to find it again!
In other news, this is interesting…
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Well there is that.
As for the tweet, apparently in the call logs for Stone’s calls to the President in the White House “-1” was identified as the line, or one of the lines, to the President.
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: I understand that Adam, and its why I seriously have issues with some of the Dem candidates that are currently running. Harris, I have no illusions that Harris would order a drone strike on Putin at the first opportunity and start doing the needful to wipe out the 5th column here at home.
Warren and even Klobuchar, I actually trust them to do the same.
The dudes, Sanders, Biden and Mayor Pete, less so… I believe that they would go back to the “tried and true” economic sanction bucket and try and exert pressure that way, which may have been so successful, that Putin launched this campaign as a way of dealing with that.
I have perhaps a naive assumption that Ukraine would be on board, as would the Germans and the French… The Brits less so because Putin’s groundwork is also paying off handsomely there.
I do not want to go to war, but short of widespread wet work on an unheard of scale, I’m not sure that there’s any other way to bring the Bear down.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@piratedan: Wilmer wouldn’t do sanctions as he voted against the Magnitsky act, voted against sanctions for election interference, and refused to vote for sanctions on Oleg Deripaska.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Adam L Silverman: Did the report/Schiff say the extension belonged to Dump?
Kayla Rudbek
@Adam L Silverman:
@piratedan:
this has been a problem since at least the 19th century: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_trucebear.htm
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: No. And Schiff has made it clear they are continuing to investigate in order to find out. The subsequent reporting brought forth that the “-1” was the extension for the President on Stone’s call logs from his trial.
Jay
@Cheryl Rofer:
a lot of the hardware that Viktor Bout was selling globally came out of the Ukrainian stockpiles and factories. Not all, not even half, but enough. While Ukrainian industry was most famous for the big rockets, space and nuclear, they also made tanks, armoured vehicles, helicopters, artillary missiles, artillary, transport aircraft, electronics, survelliance gear and were a “go to” post Soviet breakup “factory” for keeping the Soviet hardware going, and even upgrading it with domestic and imported “western” technology.
Porshenko (??sp) and his Government made the case during and up to Minsk II, that Ukraine had to sell upgraded T-72s etc to Kenya etc to be able to “afford” the war, but:
– the tanks for example wound up in Nigeria violating the end user certificate,
– Ukraine never got paid, (some Ukrainians did),
– and by the time of Maiden, some of the best of the Ukrainian hardware, had long been looted from Military stocks and shipped overseas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukroboronprom
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
On the bright side, Putin says there are no Russians in Ukraine except for some enthusiastic “volenteers”. So if something say sudden and massive were to happen to them all at once, Putin wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
Crimea would be a bit trickier.