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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Making It Worse?

Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and continues to fight Ukraine in the Russian-occupied Donbas. Yet if Ukraine breaks diplomatic relations with Russia, Ukraine will make the situation worse?

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a reported plan by Ukraine to cut all diplomatic ties with Russia would further deepen a crisis between the two countries and end up hurting the interests of both Ukrainians and Russians.

Seriously? Admitting they've been invaded only makes it worse?



Invasion! Invasion! Invasion!

This attitude is shocking. I either did not know or forgot that Ukraine didn't eject the Russian ambassador in February 2014.

All maintaining diplomatic relations does is sustain Russia's bizarre denial that they've invaded Ukraine!

Kick out the bastards. They invaded you and have the balls to deny they've done it!

Oh, and speaking of admitting reality, WTF?

According to a source in the aviation industry, Russia and Ukraine may resume cooperation on maintaining the airworthiness of Russian-Ukrainian Antonov An-124 Ruslan heavy cargo aircraft: "Both sides are interested in reaching an agreement, but the final decision has not been adopted yet over difficult relations between the two states… There is an understanding of the service cost and the place of production — a unit of the Ukrainian enterprise will start production at the Aviastar-SP factory in Ulyanovsk."



Ukraine shouldn't help their invader maintain their embassy or their transport aircraft.

I realize that Ukraine has a problem given that Russia supplies Ukraine with winter heating fuel, so perhaps they have little choice right now but to go along with the fiction that somebody not Russia has taken their territory.

But that energy leverage isn't a constant factor:

As Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine nears its fifth calendar year—and as Ukraine’s infamously cold winter draws near—American companies are incrementally cutting into Russia’s de facto monopoly as a supplier of nuclear fuel and coal to Ukraine, thereby undermining a longtime coercive lever of Russian influence over Kyiv.

“In recent years, [Kyiv] and much of Eastern Europe have been reliant on and beholden to Russia to keep the heat on. That changes now,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in July, announcing an $80 million deal to ship more U.S. coal to Ukraine.

At some point Ukraine needs to treat Russia like the invader it is.