Preparations for Joining Russia Already Underway – Aksyonov

[dipsydoodle]

Source: RIA Novosti

SIMFEROPOL, March 10 (RIA Novosti) – Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said Monday that preparations for the the southern Ukrainian region to become part of Russia are already underway.

Crimea was flooded with Russian troops following the fall of the government in the capital, Kiev, last month and a referendum to decide whether the region will become part of Russia will take place on March 16.

The peninsula will be ready to begin using Russian law within a couple of months of a pro-secession vote, and the local Finance Ministry is already working on a roadmap for switching from the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, to the Russian ruble, Aksyonov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The referendum in Crimea, where ethnic Russians make up about 60 percent of the population, is widely expected to return a favourable result that will pave the way for annexation by Moscow.

Aksyonov also promised that Ukrainian would cease to be an official language if Crimea joined Russia.

Read more: http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140310/188282411/Preparations-for-Joining-Russia-Already-Underway--Aksyonov.html

[blackspade]

1. Seems a little premature without the actual voting results....

Unless the results don't matter, which is likely the case.

[davidpdx]

2. The results will matter about as much as the election did in North Korea

If the referendum doesn't pass it can always be rigged.

[Adrahil]

21. There will be 100% turnout and 100% approval! NT

[dipsydoodle]

3. Ukraine crisis: US will not recognise Crimea referendum, says ambassador

America's ambassador in Kiev said the US would refuse to recognise next Sunday's "so-called referendum" in Crimea, and said Washington would take further steps against Russia if it used the poll to legitimise its occupation.

Geoffrey Pyatt said Barack Obama and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had spent the weekend talking to European leaders. Obama also spoke to Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. The ambassador said the US and EU were in complete agreement that stronger sanctions could follow after next weekend's referendum, adding: "There is no daylight between us."

The ambassador said the White House was unbending in its view that Crimea was part of Ukraine. He said that in the runup to Sunday's referendum "gangs of pro-Russian thugs" were roaming the peninsula, beating up activists and creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Without mentioning Moscow by name, Pyatt said there was also an "active campaign right now" to stir up dissension and division across the country.

Ukraine's interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is due to travel to Washington on Wednesday for talks with Obama. The trip would be an opportunity to reaffirm the US's strongest support for the "new democratic Ukraine'", its integrity and the Ukrainian people, Pyatt said. They would also discuss Russia's invasion of Crimea.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/ukraine-crisis-us-crimea-referendum-putin-ambassador

[cosmicone]

4. hahahahahaha

So fascist and neonazi gangs occupying government buildings to remove Yanukovytch from power by intimidation and contrary to an interim deal signed off by the EU and US is ok?

We are such hypocrites.

[tiny elvis]

5. good news, kiev. your state is preapproved for legitimacy

we are sorry to inform crimea that they are illegitimate in definition and being

[Catherina]

17. Staggering hypocrisy 2 view Crimea referendum as "illegitimate" but a violent putsch is "legitimate"

Funny how they're pushing FOX-level propaganda that Crimea's referendum, a democratic vote from the population for change, is "illegitimate" but a violent putsch that doesn't even have the benefit of a referendum is deemed "legitimate" with one of its leaders on the way to the White House.

[ctsnowman]

20. Exactly!

[OilemFirchen]

6. Not that they'll have much choice, but...

if Ukraine allows Crimea to break away, and if Ukraine joins the EU, then

"the local Finance Ministry is already working on a roadmap for switching from the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, to the Russian ruble"

that's likely to severely bite them in the ass.

Anyone been paying attention the the collapse of the Ruble lately?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26414285

[Igel]

7. Not in the Crimea.

There the news is that if they vote to join Russia they'll find a big increase in their standards of living, employment, and prosperity.

Most other sources of information are down. Don't know if the Crimeans widely use proxies to get around the Internet restrictions in place, or if the proxies are blocked.

Since there's only one kind of news source, and this isn't being reported, the Crimeans have no choice but to be oblivious of it.

[OilemFirchen]

9. My post presumes that Ukraine joins the EU.

While the Russians may pump rubles into Crimea, the advantage to the Crimean population will be short-lived. The EU will bail out Ukraine, the hryvnia will disappear, and the temporary gains seen by Crimea will flip to losses.

[JVS]

8. The hryvnia is in worse shape.

Last edited Mon Mar 10, 2014, 01:56 PM - Edit history (1)

It's lost 1/6th of its value in the last few months.

[OilemFirchen]

10. Same response as above.

My post presumes that Ukraine joins the EU. If they choose not to, and if Crimea splits off, they'll have no choice but to join the Russian Federation.

[JVS]

13. You think Ukraine could go to the Euro?

It would destroy them

[OilemFirchen]

14. Why?

I would presume that the EU would help them mitigate the effects of the conversion, as would the Russians in Crimea.

[JVS]

15. Because the Euro is a notoriously hard currency

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

What they've experienced so far is that the weaker economies need a softer currency or else the debts crush them. Ukraine isn't even close to the level of Spain or Greece economically though.

[dipsydoodle]

16. They don't have that option anyway.

Joining the Euro even for non EU members is conditional on meeting specific Debt : GDP targets.

The issue with Greece was that they blagged it.

[dipsydoodle]

12. There is no question of Ukraine joining the EU as a member country.

The current issue concerns only the trade agreement - nothing else.

Fluctuations in the Ruble occur anyway : same with the US$ which in relation to the £ for example ranged between £1.4 and over $1.9 since 2002.

The only thing the Hryvnia might become is the New Hryvnia whatever and that would really only be in the event of another round of hyperinflation in Ukraine.

Current news on the Hryvnia here :

Finance Ministry: Hryvnia rate in 2014 could be kept at Hr 10-10.1 per $1

The Ukrainian Finance Ministry has said that the average exchange rate of the hryvnia in 2014 could be kept at Hr 10-10.1 per U.S. dollar, Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.

He said that the hryvnia exchange rate had currently reached a balanced level, which corresponds to the trade balance.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/finance-ministry-hryvnia-rate-in-2014-could-be-kept-at-hr-10-101-per-1-338959.html

Not sure how that fits in with the likleyhood of a requirement by the EU as as condition of loans that the currency is devalued.

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. Maybe I'm being naive but

Wouldn't a peaceful succession of this piece of land over to Russia, if the majority want it, be preferable to a long drawn out international incident? Wouldn't it be better for Putin not to have his excuse to invade the greater Ukraine? Then Crimea could have their economy tied to Russia, and the Ukraine to the EU.
You think the GOP is calling Obama a weakling etc...now, wait until it escalates into a full blown invasion.


The Crimea was annexed to the Ukraine during the old USSR days when it really didn't matter as every "nation" was really only a satellite of Moscow. In hindsight it was a big mistake for the Soviets.

[saidsimplesimon]

18. LiberalLug, not naive, an example of critical thinking on

your part. I never trust those who "preach" with certainty their superiority on facts, or moral authority.

RT's Oxana Boyko aired an interview on her "Worlds Apart" Putin approved talk show. I admire Professor Nina Khrushcheva (USA) for her intellectual and factual handling of the interview. She left Ms. Boyko in the dust with her grasp of the issues, eye rolls and diplomatic behaviour.

However, it does not change the facts of the ground.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/27/283481587/crimea-a-gift-to-ukraine-becomes-a-political-flash-point

Crimea: A Gift To Ukraine Becomes A Political Flash Point

by Krishnadev Calamur
February 27, 2014

.....snip

Russians have a decidedly different view of the events.
On Feb. 19, 2009, Pravda ran a piece with the headline: "." Here's how the article described the events:

"Khrushchev informed his comrades of the decision to deliver Crimea to Ukraine incidentally, on the way to lunch. 'Yes, comrades, there is an opinion to deliver Crimea to Ukraine,' he said casually. No one dared to express any protests, because a word of the first face of the Communist Party was law.

"The agenda of the session of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which took place January 25, 1954, contained a question about the delivery of the Crimean region to the structure of the Ukrainian SSR [Soviet Socialist Republic]. The discussion of the question took only 15 minutes. The participants of the meeting approved the decree, and the region was given away to Ukraine for free."

As Siegelbaum, the MSU historian, notes in his essay: "A gift that was at the time essentially meaningless has acquired great historical importance."

[840high]

19. ...^ that