Now Why Is The Ukraine So Keen To Join The Eu?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520405/Ukraine-crowd-topples-beheads-Lenins-statue-fight-join-EU-Russia.html

Couldn't be that it could supply them with a first class ticket to Britain, could it?

[solvitquick]

Because they are stupid or using EU as a bargaining chip with Russia.
The EU offers them an alliance with a hotch-potch of bankrupt states like Greece and Spain plus Britain's elected-dictatorship of plutocrats who are killing off the poor and the lower middle classes.
Russia is the richest country in the world overloaded with oil, gas, diamonds, the only big space programme etc and a much smaller National Debt than the USA.
Ask any Chelsea fan: Abramovich or Chancellor of the Exchequer as owner and manager of finances? You'll get a fast answer.
Ukrainians should stick by Russia with its strong economy and ignore the EU mess.
Don't think AOG will be awarding me best answer which I wouldn't accept from a Daily Mail lover anyway!
All alone,
SIQ.

[solvitquick]

Oh, sorry folks, I'm not entirely alone but usually I am vastly outnumbered when the Mail's biassed reporting wrapped in the Union Jack appears on AB every week. Note I am a true born and bred English patriot but become depressed daily by the political greed and corruption which is endemic and getting worse in our onetime Great Britain.
SIQ.

[ichkeria]

Russia has great potential wealth it is true but it has an economy over-reliant on energy exports and a thoroughly vile and corrupt administrative and judicial system. All it really offers its near neighbours is to smother them in the same mire. Ukraine still has many of the same issues but the difference is that in that country at least a significant number of people want to move away from all that

[ichkeria]

And I would add further that Russian people don't share your vision of their own country which is why so many who can emigrate in their droves. Even the rich are afraid to keep their money there

[Kromovaracun]

I know I've had this argument before on AB, but for all the criticisms of the EU that are completely valid and true, in my opinion the comparison with the USSR really just does not stand up. I'd suggest that the people who put forward such comparisons, generally speaking, are not people who actually know what it is like to live under a genuinely oppressive, imperialist super-state.

That's not to say I do, either. But the Ukrainians do. For them, the USSR is within living memory for everyone older than 35. I'd like to suggest that they do not see a parallel between the EU and the USSR because there is simply no comparison. The two organisations share only the most superficial of similarities.

(and the same goes for the pro-Europeans who compare the EU to the modern USA).

[solvitquick]

The cold war was supposed to be over and with it the dis-information from both major parties where most were led to believe "the West" were the righteous and democratic goodies while the USSR was only an evil dictatorship.
Tell that to the Vietnamese who suffered horrendous USA treatment: Napalm, Carcinogenic Agent Orange etc. Anyone remember the photo of the little viet girl running and burning to death with flaming napalm stuck to her body?
Tell that to the innocent 200 Kent State Uni students killed for their peaceful anti-war demo.
Tell that to the 100,000 Iraquis killed because of Sadam Hussein's
non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Tell that to our own trodden-down racially "inferior" blacks.
Tell that to the relatives of our own citizens who were starved to death on in our Staffordshire hospitals or the cruelty and deaths which happened and continues in our profit-orientated "care"-homes.
These posts would have been different in World War 2 when Russia sacrificed 30 million in the fight against Hitler.
Grow up! It's a cruel, greedy and corrupt world - North, South, East or West.
SIQ.

[jake-the-peg]

//Because they are stupid or using EU as a bargaining chip with Russia//

Wow you really don't know what you're talking about do you?

//The EU offers them an alliance with a hotch-potch of bankrupt states like Greece and Spain//

Or perhaps it's because the EU is negotiating a open market with the United States and membership would give them direct access into the worlds largest free trading Network

- But then you knew all about that and rejected it I guess?

[modeller]

SIQ// These posts would have been different in World War 2 when Russia sacrificed 30 million in the fight against Hitler. //

Would that be the same Russia that signed the secret
Nazi–Soviet Pact, Aug 39 and joined Hitler in invading Poland which resulted in WWII ?
Would that be the same Russia that invaded Finland , occupied the Baltic States and with German pressure occupied Bessarabia and Bucovina

Would that be the same Russia that was supplying war materials to the Germans until June 1941 when they were themselves invaded by the Germans. ?

Yes had Russia not joined Hitler , Russia would not have lost 30 million.
Yes the posts would certainly be different.

[Hypognosis]

and would that be the same Russia that invaded Afghanistan for no apparent reason, other than it was there and expanded the real estate a bit and was practically antipodean to the US of A?

Look where that got the rest of us. We used it as a proxy war against the USSR and they use the Islamists to fight a proxy war against us. Hmmm?

[solvitquick]

Sorry for the delay folks but Christmas preps and another thread have kept me occupied.
First I am a true-Brit and believe in a United States of Europe, unlike our politicians or most of you, I have no strong pro- or anti-feelings re Russia or the USA although I recognise the pluses and minuses of both - again unlike yourselves who see Russia as an evil state. I'll now respond in turn:
(a) Jake. Nope I did not know about the negotiations with USA re an open market. But I never knew that the USA were talking with Syria. Anyway, Jake, interstate and international talks go on everywhere. There is no way the USA would do a 100% even-stephen deal with the EU. It is pure
pie-in-the-sky thinking. The USA have open access to the EU and wouldn't do a fair deal - ask the Canadians who made that mistake.
(b) Modeller re WW2. I condemn the invasions you cite. I won't go into Poland's history as an independent state (part of Germany before the disastrous Versaille Treaty which facilitated Hitler's rise). I recognise Poland as an indepedent state but on a different thread many would be whining about Poles stealing our jobs and money - rubbish of course.
Anyway by design or accident the Russo-German Treaty allowed the Russians vital time to build tanks and other armaments to defeat the Germans. By the way for 1 year after declaring war we did nothing aggressive and the USA remained aloof until Pearl Harbour (neutality is very much akin to a non-agression treaty).
(c)Hypo: The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was not imperialistic but fear of the Iranian Ayatolla's maniacal desire to spread Islamic fundementalism. Exactly the same as the UK/USA reason. Russia has more muslims than the USA and they were afraid, like us, of the infection spreading via Afghanistan. But the Russians lost so many troops they were forced by Public Opinion (some dictatorship hey?) to surrender to the Taliban, just as we will.
I don't want to pursue this any further but will still read and maybe respond to your posts.
Kind Regards,
SIQ.