Russia attacks Ukraine

[wufan]

The Russian coast guard took three Ukrainian navy vessels in “Russian” waters last night. This appears to be escalating.

[SB Shock]

Ukraine seems to have not followed the "rights of passage" laws and was trying to instigate an incident. Russia had warned them they would not allow the militarization of the Sea of Azov through their territorial waters. The 3 Ukraine ships tried passing through without declaring their intent in violation of "rights of passage". Of course, you could argue this would not have been Russian waters if the annexing of the Crimea had not stood. This provocation is possibly for the benefit of Poroshenko reelection campaign. Poroshenko now wants to declare martial law due to this incident (btw, he trailing in the polls by 8%). If martial law is declared he could then move the election to a later date.

Another possible reason is Ukraine want to sour the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 summit coming up this week.

[wufan]

Ukraine seems to have not followed the "rights of passage" laws and was trying to instigate an incident. Russia had warned them they would not allow the militarization of the Sea of Azov through their territorial waters. The 3 Ukraine ships tried passing through without declaring their intent in violation of "rights of passage". Of course, you could argue this would not have been Russian waters if the annexing of the Crimea had not stood. This provocation is possibly for the benefit of Poroshenko reelection campaign. Poroshenko now wants to declare martial law due to this incident (btw, he trailing in the polls by 8%). If martial law is declared he could then move the election to a later date.

Another possible reason is Ukraine want to sour the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 summit coming up this week.

I always appreciate your breakdowns of international stories. You have low level CIA intel it seems.

[SB Shock]

Thanks. It mainly about finding good sources on national security affairs that don't have bias like the main stream media (CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc).

[Shockm]

Ukraine seems to have not followed the "rights of passage" laws and was trying to instigate an incident. Russia had warned them they would not allow the militarization of the Sea of Azov through their territorial waters. The 3 Ukraine ships tried passing through without declaring their intent in violation of "rights of passage". Of course, you could argue this would not have been Russian waters if the annexing of the Crimea had not stood. This provocation is possibly for the benefit of Poroshenko reelection campaign. Poroshenko now wants to declare martial law due to this incident (btw, he trailing in the polls by 8%). If martial law is declared he could then move the election to a later date.

Another possible reason is Ukraine want to sour the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 summit coming up this week.

You may be correct about this one incident. However, you leave out a lot of pertinent information regarding the escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. First of all Putin is also is not currently popular in Russia (at least as much as a dictator can be unpopular and is looking for ways to increase his stature in Russia) and an aside Ukraine is a fledgling democracy and close to Russia and Putin may have a stake in closing down a democracy so close as a border country. Second, Putin is trying to build a surface to air missile in the Crimea which would be similar to Mexico or Canada building weapons of mass destruction on our border. This places pressure on the Ukraine people and political pressure on a young democracy, politically.

Suffice it to say, that the tension in the region is extremely high and not one sided with Ukraine at fault and as you mentioned, Putin instigated all of this several years ago when he manufactured an invasion of Crimea which was a under Ukraine authority under the guise that he was helping Russians who lived there. While we shouldn’t get directly involved in the dispute, we need to give appropriate assistance to Ukraine to resist the aggression of Putin.