I'd be surprised if it is fact Russian military.

Didn't interfere with airport operations.

Pictures I've seen show them without magazines in their rifles.

They aren't talking to anybody.

Thanks for all your responses to my questions on these events over there. We really never get the full story here, and there are no nuances to the coverage here. Seems to be more like - good guys vs. bad guys. I see them all as good until proven to be total screwups. And I don't necessarily consider if the 'like the USA' as criteria to judge their actions. It's their own country, not ours.

We get too much visceral, hair on fire kind of news designed to fit a narrative that in many ways is decades behind the current situation.

I don't even think we're being given a realistic picture, and the truth is not theirs or ours, but somewhere else. The news organizations, including those online, just push our buttons.

I think Europeans are getting a better quality of journalism and more diversity than we get here and it's making us dumb. Do you feel your news sources are reliable? Or should I say, in keeping with the views you have on how these affairs should be handled? You seem to have different opinions on things that we go HOF about.

Gotta get some sleep. Later.

... then they extremely well and uniformly equipped with Russian vehicles, arms, and uniforms.

And if they ARE moving to protect their people, why remove all markings? That seems kinda foolish.

I am sure most who live there would prefer to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine.

Russia does not want to lose Crimea either, since it has a military base there with access to the Black Sea.

I hope it can be settled peacefully.... it almost would be better to let it join Russia in my opinion.

MH

(Reuters) - Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region on Friday in what Ukraine's government described as an invasion and occupation by Russian forces, stoking tension between Moscow and the West.

But Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based in the region, denied its forces were involved in seizing one of the airports, Interfax news agency reported, while a man who said he was helping the armed group at the other site described them as simple people from the "People's Militia of Crimea".

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Russian naval forces had taken over the military airport near the port of Sevastopol, where the Russian navy has its base, and other Russian forces had taken over Simferopol international airport.

This met with a Russian denial of involvement in the military airport action. "No Black Sea Fleet units have moved toward (the airport), let alone taking any part in blockading it," Interfax quoted a spokesman for the fleet as saying.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/uk-ukraine-idUKBREA1H0EM20140228

They were talking to one of these guys and he identified them as independent members of the Peoples Militia of Crimea.

Very strange...... because they are very well organized and equipped for a "militia" group.

Makes them sound like Woolfie Smith.



I could get that stuff from where I am 15 miles NW of central London down to Camden Town and back in a few hours and rig myself out the same from one of our many army surplus stores.

If so....... that's a bad neighborhood!

Are you aware of gun laws here.

Even carrying a spud gun could be treated as an offense. There was a case where a guy was shot dead by our police when he holding a loose chair leg.

For the year 1947 when they were invented.

The earlier version was phased out decades ago.

I saw an interview with a former Spetsnaz paratrooper who said they train doing pushups holding their AK's beneath them. The clip and its catch are, he claimed, so strong they can support the weight of a full grown man.

He added, "The M-16 is a prom queen. The Kalashnikov is a biker babe."

It's hastening to give Russian passports to Berkutovtsy that fled the country.

So you could have Russian Ukrainian Russians.

And, in fact, to a large extent that's how the Berkutovtsy were perceived--as a kind of ethnic-Russian praetorian guard doing Yanukovich's wishes, separate from both the Army and the police.

Not Russian military.

Few here will qualify them as "mercenaries." That's a term reserved for Western contractors, most of whom are in construction. Then again, the Berkutovtsy were the ones doing the sniping and killing of Ukrainians, so you could consider them to be "intraethnically hostile" in a warped sort of way, since we play with "Ukrainian" and "Russian" now as ethnonyms and now as citizenship status and, if necessary, to describe linguistic affiliation. (Classic set-up for a fallacy: Fail to define your terms and let them shift meanings between and within sentences.)

I saw the note about the passports on RIA Novosti.

By "contractors, most of whom are in construction" I assume you mean there.

We're not journalists here.

Who is this guy, Sarah Palin?

Joe Kerr or Wayne Kerr ?

Hmmmmmm!

To Russia.

Russia's working at equipping them with passports and citizenship as loyal servants of the Reich ... uh ... of something.

In any event, Putin knows who to support in this to provide maximum gain at minimum risk.

Old Russian folk saying suggests that "Once you have the official denial, then you know it's the truth."

RT news has this to say:

'No takeover' at Crimean capital’s airport, ‘self-defense squads’ on nearby patrol.

The head of the Simferopol airport security service, Vladimir Perepelitsa, said that the people now patrolling the territory of the airport are calling themselves “self-defense squads” and their intention is to prevent possible turmoil. “We are constantly in touch with them,” Perepelitsa said, the Crimean information agency reported. “We protect the passengers inside the airport, and they do the same outside. If everything goes as peacefully as it does now, then they will stay here for as long as it takes to provide security.”

Maksim Pastukhov, a correspondent with RT’s documentary channel who is now at the airport, has confirmed that it’s being patrolled by self-defense squads, adding that they in no way are hampering the airport from operating flights according to schedule. "It’s all quiet inside the airport,” he said. “There are much fewer armed people outside than there were in the morning.”

(snip)

According to eyewitnesses, in the middle of the night at least three KamAZ trucks without license plates drove to the airport with about 50 men. At first the group cordoned off the airport’s domestic flights terminal, but then pushed forward.

An airport spokesman, however, rejected reports of a takeover. He said that about 50 armed men arrived at the airport to search for Ukrainian airborne troops. However, after finding out that there were no military personnel present on the tarmac, they apologized and left the territory, Igor Stratilati told Echo of Moscow radio.

http://rt.com/news/crimea-airport-terminal-capture-095/

Oh, no!, Ukrainian troops at a Ukrainian airport? The nerve!

And if they did find some Airborne or Para troops there what was the intention I wonder?

Those kind of troops are usually a little too gung-ho to just give up to some Russian militia. I don't think it would have been pretty...and could snowball up to WWIII a lot faster then any Iran scenario could.

If the people who took over in Kiev sent gangs of their armed supporters to Crimea, it would soon be open warfare between them and the ethnic Russian majority who live there. Is that want you really want to see? Better the armed coup supporters stay out of Crimea until this situation cools down, right?

Do remember that the Cold War ended 23 years ago. And I don't think Putin would be nearly suicidal enough to threaten the U.S. with nuclear annihilation, either, for that matter.

We called Putin's "bluff"...

Putin repied "I'm not bluffing" and put in his troops...

We then said "whoa, we really didn't mean to go there. How about you withdraw your troops and we'll pretend it never
happened."

So chances it was Russian military become nil.

See BBC live update

"Russian military forces are blockading Sevastopol airport in the Ukrainian region of Crimea", he might now find he's got a credibility problem for making alarmist stuff up.

Thanks for the link - I was out and using the mobile on which I don't know how to link.

Also on the BBC live feed we have:

Ukraine's State Border Guard Service said about 30 Russian paratroopers from the 810th brigade of Russia's Black Sea Fleet had taken up position outside the Ukrainian Coast Guard base in the Sevastopol area. It said the paratroopers said they were there to prevent any weapons at the base from being seized by extremists.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-02-28-09-04-28

....taking up station out side Ukrainian bases to help "guard them".

Only a faux one, installed by rioters and Western economic and military interests. The real Ukrainian President is still Yanukovich, or you can toss any pretense of democracy down the crapper.

....and then do the exact opposite don't be surprised when they throw you out on your ass.

Which western military interest helped install a new leader?

Not keeping a campaign promise is now acceptable grounds for overthrowing a democratically elected government? In what international treaty is that lame-assed excuse enshrined?

The one called reality?

Native peoples don't need a treaty to change their own government.

Sometimes in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.

when the EU offered a billion dollars to tide when them over despite the fact it was clear Ukraine needed $8 billion.

The EU were sticking with their figure this week and the US agreed to underwrite another billion. Still leaves a very large hole expecially given Ukraine has now increased their own figure to $30 billion.

Overall figure is seen to $220 billion to cover the foreseeable if Ukraine and Russia cease trade.. That figure is roughly equal to the tptal Greek bailout.

....who had a comparable (low) per capita GNP in '91 when the Soviet Union went belly up and now Poland who developed closer ties to the West has a per cap GNP 3 times the Ukraines.

Then let them do it without loans.

protestors, don't be suprised if they fight back and kick your butt out of the country.

He sounds real to me:

Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov (Ukrainian: Олександр Валентинович Турчинов; born 31 March 1964) is a Ukrainian politician, screenwriter, and Doctor of Economic Sciences. Turchynov is the current Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament and acting President of Ukraine after Viktor Yanukovych was ousted on 21 February 2014. On 25 February acting President Turchynov assumed the duties of the supreme commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Turchynov is the first deputy chairman of the political party Batkivshchyna (All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland&quot .
Turchynov has been before acting Prime Minister (then ex officio), when he was the First Vice Prime Minister in the absence of a prime minister after Yulia Tymoshenko's government was dismissed on 3 March 2010; until the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) appointed Mykola Azarov as Prime Minister on 11 March 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleksandr_Turchynov

Still no actual justification to remove or replace a democratically elected President.

That is undoubtedly how history will record it as well.

Or perhaps an avid fan of Assad?

Qaddhafi?

It gets old. At some point when there's an uprising, however biased and partial, and the guy in charge breaks agreements and bugs out it must be admitted that there's been a revolution. If it's a small number, it's a coup, but if there's a persistent influx of people and widespreadalbeit not unanimous support for the ouster, it's a revolution.

Morsi. Qaddhafi. Pinochet. Tsar Nicholas II.

Otherwise we'd had been feted with celebrations of the Russian Coup of 1917 and the Venezuelan putsch that brought Chavez to power.

Although in Morsi's case, as well as others, I'm open to the idea that the revolution was orchestrated and the populace played by those who wanted a coup and, in the end (but only in the end) the revolution devolved into a coup.

If you like, we can call this one the UV Revolution, a "color" revolution that is beyond the visible spectrum. After all, UV is at the end opposite "red" in the spectrum (which is ambiguous between "communist" and "Republican&quot .

They're setting up now. David Gregory bloviating, saying that "contractors" are in Crimea.