What Are the Goals of the Rebel Leaders?

[Photo Guy]

fathertime? Anyone? Are their goals a secret? Is it all about power and money? Ideology?

[Muzh]

Create their little fifedom and become another oligarch.


DUH!!

[fathertime]

fathertime? Anyone? Are their goals a secret? Is it all about power and money? Ideology?

I don't know enough about them to say...I'll leave this one to others.. 


Fathertime!   

[Photo Guy]

But, wouldn't you describe yourself as a
Putin-apologist? How do you see the war?

[Photo Guy]

Muzh, that's a refreshing response. I think
the media should focus on that idea. I need
to phone Simon, over at Vice news.

[fathertime]

fathertime? Anyone? Are their goals a secret? Is it all about power and money? Ideology?

But, wouldn't you describe yourself as a
Putin-apologist? How do you see the war?

Why is my viewpoint important on what the rebel goal are? I'm not a Ukrainian rebel, and don't know any personally, and certainly wouldn't know their secrets.  You have a specific question, I'm sure you will get feedback from posters closer to the situation, I'm sure you will get their viewpoints.  You really don't need my conjecture on this issue do you?  I told you I don't know. Do you want me to make something up? 


Fathertime! 

[Photo Guy]

Fair enough, but how do you see the war?
You come across as contrarian. I think
it's a fair question. No?

[fathertime]

Fair enough, but how do you see the war?
You come across as contrarian. I think
it's a fair question. No?

I may be a contrarian here, but many of the viewpoints I have, are shared with others often even the majority. 


 I look at the war from what I think the US perspective should be.  So in that respect, I think we should stay the hell out, and what Obama has already done is enough.  The US has made Russia pay a price, that is the best we are going to get...now Russia will make us pay a price somewhere else.  Apparently this is how the innocent victim-filled, and disgusting 'game' is played (by both)...and sometimes it even leads to dead toddlers washing up on beaches....No good guys, rarely is...just nations trying to make other nations pay, to promote their own agenda...and thwart each other. 


So what is your updated opinion of the war?     


Fathertime!   

[mendeleyev]

The original separatist leaders were Russian Army, FSB, and Special Forces masquerading as local rebels. Most of them have been pulled back to Moscow. The original goal was to force Ukraine back into submission to Mama Russia.

Some of the current leaders appear to have an independent streak, defying Moscow. That is why there are "night squads" roaming the region, "liquidating" current local yokels who seem to be hard of hearing when Moscow calls.

The new goals seems to be a "frozen conflict" of which Russia has mastered to perfection in several regions of the FSU.

[Photo Guy]

The War is a complex arrangement of opposing forces. I agree with everything Mendy has just stated. I don't see it as the West versus Russia, or the US versus Russia. I see the war as a way for Putin to possibly retain control of Ukraine. I think Putin is living in a time warp, where Russia reigns over the regions of the former Soviet Union. As an example of that directive, Putin has made blatant vague threats, along with a hybrid warfare strategy. Putin has numerously warned the new Ukrainian government to avoid trade agreements with the EU. I see that as barbaric, as a lack of respect for Ukraine's sovereignty. Putin's Russia wants to affect other nations through intimidation. It bothers me to see the people of Ukraine suffer. Their people generally want an EU style of democracy, and generally want an end to the rampant corruption and the exorbitant power of oligarchs. So the question is How can they get there? Putin is an obstacle in that quest. Putin is against a move toward democracy which he probably sees as antithetical to his old brand of totalitarian control. As I've said before, I think he takes it personally, when the cradle of (his) Russian civilization rejects his Moscow and embraces democracy. I see most of Russia's efforts in Donbas as counter-productive for Russia. I see the US influence over there as minor, laissez faire. Maidan was a grass roots movement, a revolution of hope. The present realities of war and division have brought a general feeling of hopelessness. Rather than Russia versus the West, I see the war as Ukraine trying to shed the former Soviet Union, as a movement of independence. I think NATO is just reacting to Putin's unpredictable aggressive tendencies. NATO is processing all of the severe Russian propaganda, trying to catch up.