Ukraine Riots
 

Another member on this board has been following this longer than I have, but it's gotten pretty fucking bad the last few days. Apparently this started due to laws that limited the rights of protesters, so obviously protests happened and the police used force against the protesters. Live ammunition is being used now, and the police are using snipers. There is/was talk of bringing in the Russian military to quell the protests, either way I'm rather anxious given the amount of violence on both sides. I hope it doesn't come to an all out civil war, and I hope the use of artillery/mortars doesn't make an appearance, but judging from what I've read, seen, and feel this conflict is going to get a lot worse.

LiveLeak.com - RAW - Feb. 20 Kiev, Ukraine - Civillians picked off one by one by snipers.

LiveLeak.com - Fighting in Kiev - Intense documentary style footage

Videos are nsfw, and the first one shows the advance and the systematically sniping of rioters.

The highlighted is an age old problem, but the recent riots were triggered by the government's decision to pull out of a trade agreement with the EU and instead sign another agreement to tie them even more to Russia. The last thing Russia wants is the EU even closer to its doorstep.

If the past tells us anything, I think the last thing Ukrainians want is to be dominated by Russia.

Well given that only 40% of people voted for trade agreement with the EU, I don't think the above is necessarily true. In many ways it makes sense that the Ukraine continues to have stronger ties once again with Russia, as the Russian economy has been strong for a number of years now (one of the best in Europe) whereas Ukraine's has been really bad and of course there are huge cultural ties between the two countries, but then of course there has been a lot of animosity between the two countries as well. It's kind of like England and Scotland but on a much larger scale!

Still that figure of 40% doesn't mean that 60% of Ukrainians want to be dominated by Russia. 72% of Ukrainians want to see the Ukraine and Russian to be independent friendly states... as I see it, I'm 32 points ahead of you.

Nothing wrong with your maths there and both are independent and friendly states. The problem is one is a booming economic giant and the other just the opposite at the moment, so as is human nature the former is going to take a more dominant approach in that friendship and dictate what they should do, as per usual the west doesn't much care for it .

Either side doesn't much care for what the other side. Russia also doesn't care much for EU is doing. In a way it is a fork in the road that leads to the Ukraine into one form or another of relinquishing some of its sovereignty. The EU is inviting it to join, but maybe somewhere down the road or it would be subject to EU laws that perhaps were unforeseen at the time. Or if Russia prevails the Ukraine will someday be assumed (along with Belarus) into a single Russian (federation) and inevitably loosing its national identity.

Well half of the Eastern European countries in the EU still don't really apply EU law as they should do, so I'd imagine if the Ukraine joined they'd get away with all sorts without giving up too much of their sovereignty. As for a future Russian Federation, Belarus is actually still like a throwback to the old Soviet Union and is suspicious and paranoid about everything anyway. Russia though has lost its Baltic states but they're relatively small states to lose, Ukraine though is a different ball game as it is a large country with a large population and it occupies a large chunk of the Black Sea coast and for these reasons Russia certainly doesn't want the Ukraine falling into the hands of the EU.

Putin is a dictator. Some people I know via internet, Russians, have been jailed because they protested against him peacefully. The problem is, Russian's history is filled with dictators and so they really always need a strong leader, for they have always had one.
And every good kind of dictator wants to possess and boss his neighbors.

And when Putin's friend was kicked out, he went angry. The biggest mistake the ex-government of Ukraine did was when they started to use violence against the protesters. Hopefully Russians calm down and more importantly, none of the western countries do anything. It could become very large conflict if they did.

Edit. And Ukraine won't be joining. EU has too many problems even without yet another country that's in a need of curing so they will not take any more countries that are so unstable.

Since their independence the same could be said for the Ukraine.

This I agree with, there are too many countries in the EU at the moment that really shouldn't be in it due to being too unstable and even more importantly they have no real idea of the concept of democracy either.