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Discuss: Kerch Strait and Azov Sea Tensions

A general view shows a road-and-rail bridge, which is constructed to connect the Russian mainland with the Crimean peninsula, at sunrise in the Kerch Strait, Crimea November 26, 2018. REUTERS/Pavel Rebrov

The Guardian has a an opinion piece today, titled: The EU’s response to Russia must be bold and unanimous. It is written by German politician Norbert Röttgen, head of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee…and it is simply massively dishonest and one-sided.

The “mainstream” narrative on Ukraine has been corrected to death in the alternate media, there is no need to go back over old ground, suffice to say, here are just few of the relevent facts which Mr Röttgen leaves out of his article:

  • The Kerch Strait is incredibly shallow, it has a canal carved into to the sea bed to allow deep-draft ships to pass. Using the canal requires a pilot, and ships can only go in single file. The Ukrainian naval ships ignored these rules.
  • Ships using the Kerch strait are required to give 72 hours notice, due to the narrowness of the passage and the shallowness of the sea. These rules have been in place for years. Ukraine ignored them.
  • There have been calls – both inside and outside Ukraine – to blow up the Crimean bridge.
  • The Ukrainian naval vessels were sailing with their guns uncovered and refusing to answer radio communications.
  • Petro Poroshenko, incumbent President of Ukraine, has an 8% approval rating heading into the Presidential elections in March of next year.
  • In response to this “incident”, Poroshenko has declared martial law in the 10 Eastern regions of the country. Notably, these are the regions that voted for ousted President Yanukovych and will unquestionably vote against Poroshenko if the elections go ahead in march.
  • The US passed a bill in 2017 legalising attempts to undermine or sabotage “export pipelines” of “hostile nations”. This, among other things, was directly related to the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

If these omissions and inaccuracies have annoyed you to the point you’re thinking of heading over to the Graun to make a comment, well…bad news:

The comments on this story are being pre-moderated, this is being done to keep the thread on topic, and NOT to control the narrative and silence disagreement BTL. So that’s alright.

However, a totally accidental upshot of this drive to keep everyone on topic is that the usually fractious Guardian comments section seems to be broadly in consensus. Funny that.

So don’t waste your time writing a comment that won’t get published over there. Instead, discuss it here – where you won’t pre-emptively censored for disagreeing with the government line.

Important Questions –

  1. 1. Is the re-opening of the “conflict” in Ukraine a response to the complete defeat of NATO’s agenda in Syria?
  2. 2. Why are some Western politicians so insistent Russia ship gas through Ukraine?
  3. 3. Who sees Nordstream 2 as a threat? And why?
  4. 4. How far down the road to outright fascism will Ukraine have to go, before Western politicians comment on it?
  5. 5. Will NATO/EU back Poroshenko is he declares martial law and cancels the March election? Or will they move on to the next incompetent puppet?

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