Airborne_Again wrote:
That is true, but you can’t do it the way Russia did it.
Most probably no country will accept the results, but it was done to form a legal reason for mass mobilization – in case it will be needed. And it is a step in the escalation process – Russians will be able to use nuclear weapons to “protect motherland”. (I mean under nuclear escalation process: verbal threats → military excercises → agressive advance of strike capabilities → preparation of nuclear strike capabilities for a “live” action → missile tests → tests of such nuclear weapons that shouldn’t exist under valid international agreements → then comes next phase: the use of nuclear weapons)
So it will be “legal” to move from threat phase to use of nuclear weapons phase.
Whether its a bluff or not is a good question.
[ formatting cleaned up; a dash – and > produces an arrow → ]
If the Donbas area population is mainly ethnic Russian and wants to be part of Russia, then the democratic choice is to let them be part of Russia.
Any area can be populated by particular ethnic group if you execute ethnic cleansing and remove others.
I am sure it’s not an accident but 100m is easily reached with trimix diving from a small diving boat, a fishing boat, etc. You don’t need a submarine to do this.
Although it’s possible, I doubt it’s done by divers. Baltic is murky and it’s not easy to find objects at its bottom. Setting up explosive requires some time, I’m not sure it’s feasible in 15 min. Even if the support boat has decompression chamber the divers would still have to do deep part of decompression in the sea and then surface from let’s say 18m to surface and enter the chamber. Ideally it one hour or so of runtime. Pretty risky if anything happens to support boat because without surface support divers would have 2 hours more of decompression with oxygen enriched mixes and pure oxygen. I don’t think anyone would risk such mission.
If operated from surface it’s more probably done with ROV, similar to ones used to control and fix cables and pipes on sea bottom.
The trouble with a surface operation isn’t just the technical difficulties. It’s also the fact that it would probably be easy enough to identify who did it. Ships move slowly.
The Russians have never taken particular care to disguise it when they do this sort of thing. They almost certainly do not have the capabilities to do anything really technically difficult and do it covertly.
The idea with Russian ops is that it’s supposed to be obvious who did it and the subsequent denial is not one you’re supposed to believe. That’s how they work – e.g. the various poisonings in the UK.
Peter wrote:
I don’t think it is true; for example would Sweden run a referendum allowing its border regions to break away? I am sure it would not. No country would allow that. Also I doubt Norway etc would be happy to redraw its borders to suit the reduced-size Sweden
Well, that was exactly what happened in 1905 when the union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.
Sure, and the USSR nicked a bit of Slovakia in 1945, and Czech Rep nicked a bit of Germany while everybody else was nicking other bits 
But that was a while ago. I would suggest this is completely irrelevant in the post-WW2 “civilised world order”. You are not supposed to occupy a country (recognised as sovereign by the UN, and everybody else), run a referendum in a bit of it (whether or not largely emptied of its population by your invasion) and then annex that region based on the referendum result
I cannot believe anybody is willing to argue this point. If the Russians in the east of Ukraine love Russia so much, they should pack up and move there. This is also exactly what I say to anybody who hates the UK but lives here. Go and live in Botswana, or whatever…
Airborne_Again wrote:
Well, that was exactly what happened in 1905 when the union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.
Reading the article you link to (and not knowing anything about those events previously) that’s something very different. Sweden and Norway were separate countries, united under one Sovereign, and that union was dissolved.
It’s a bit different to region(s) of a single state holding a referendum and declaring independence.
How you determine who is (and who isn’t) eligible for self-determination is one of the unsolved questions in the practical application of democracy. If e.g. Scotland or Catalonia wants to break away, how do you decide whether that’s a valid thing and their will must be respected, or whether they get treated like some crackpot village that declares independence because it hasn’t got the version of democracy it wanted? There are related questions around ‘the will of the people’ at a national level vs whatever regional level you choose to recognise – it is often said that “Scotland voted against Brexit” to which the logical answer is that Scotland wasn’t asked, the United Kingdom was. But if you decide that Scotland should have it’s own choice, why stop there? Why doesn’t Oxfordshire get it’s own choice? Why don’t I get my own choice?
Yes. Hegra Fortress just some 6-7 km from my home was built in anticipation of a Swedish attach just after 1905. Today it’s a nice place for family trips. Also, the Swedish Air Force roundel consists of three crowns. These three crown symbolizes the Kalmar Union (approximately 1300-1500) of Sweden Denmark and Norway. Started with Queen Margrete I. Not entirely sure that’s the true origin of the shield, but it certainly symbolized it at some point. When wee see a Swedish Gripen, we always think: hmm
LeSving wrote:
hese three crown symbolizes the Kalmar Union (approximately 1300-1500) of Sweden Denmark and Norway. Started with Queen Margrete I. Not entirely sure that’s the true origin of the shield, but it certainly symbolized it at some point. When wee see a Swedish Gripen, we always think: hmm
Sorry, but no. There is a documented use of the three crowns in Swedish coats-of-arms as early as 1336, which predates the Kalmar Union by 61 years! Also Denmark was the dominant part of the union, not Sweden.
