Ominous Russian movements in Black Sea raise alarm

[Dial H For Hero]

Source: Yahoo! News

The Ukraine crisis entered a new state of intensity over the weekend, as the U.S. warned that movement by Russian troops — now numbering well over 100,000 along the Ukrainian border — and unspecified intelligence has led Washington to believe Moscow is on the brink of an invasion.

“We are in the window. And an invasion could begin — a major military action could begin — by Russia, in Ukraine, any day now,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on CNN.

But it’s not just Russian troop movements that are setting off alarm bells. A large naval buildup in the Black and Mediterranean seas has created another threat to Ukraine near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.

“This is an unprecedented Russian naval presence,” Andrii Klymenko of Ukraine’s Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies told Yahoo News via a translator, adding that 12 landing ships had appeared in the Black Sea on Friday. Such a concentration, he said, hasn’t been seen since the Cold War ended three decades ago.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-ukraine-black-sea-naval-blockade-175148404.html

[IronLionZion]

2. Ukraine doesn't have much of a Navy

Russia is trying to blockade their cargo ships and supply routes.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Doesn't need one if it has a shitload of exocet missiles. Several could overrun ship defenses.

[IronLionZion]

8. Russia is trying to provoke them into doing something

anything to use as an excuse for invasion, kind of like Saddam's imaginary WMDs for Iraq.

[Igel]

10. No, it doesn't.

Most of its navy was at Sevastopol', and when the Russians expropriated Crimea they expropriated any Ukrainian ship at port. A few managed to depart and were rendered non-seaworthy (and sank as a result) because, well, the Ukrainians were stealing expropriated ships. That were Ukrainian a day or two before.

[IronLionZion]

11. If you hear Putin tell it, their officers defected to Russia

as if they had much choice in it

[oldsoftie]

15. They also lost their only sub in that invasion. They should be given more.

Sink a few Russian ships & Russian civilians start to get pissed. They're already not really in favor of invading Ukraine.

[FloridaBlues]

3. The President of Ukraine seems too calm for having his country surrounded by Russians.

[monkeyman1]

4. neither side want's to pull the trigger first !! now is a big poker bluff ??

[dchill]

5. Send Irish fishermen.

[relayerbob]

9. Good call

[C Moon]

6. So what's putin going to do now? Stop food and water from coming in?

That freak is a cancer in this world.

[cstanleytech]

14. Really surprised no one has pulled a Litvinenko on Putin to solve the problem.

[oldsoftie]

16. I've wondered how tight his protection is.

A well placed sniper would do the world good.

[inwiththenew]

17. You are making an awful big assumption that nothing worse could come after him

We could very well end up with someone who makes Putin look reasonable.

[oldsoftie]

18. He seems to dispense of anyone with his strength or NEAR it.

He, like trump, surrounds himself with scared yes men.

[cstanleytech]

19. Unless its tried you can never really know.

Take for example a few hundred years ago when the idea came about that we should ditch being ruled by the British.
If they had not tried then we would never know if it would work even though it largely has.

[jgmiller]

12. I think the naval movements are more for show

The Russian navy is a far cry from where it was in the cold war. If a shooting war starts and we get invovled control of the Black Sea isn't really an issue. We don't need to put any equipment in there and any Russian ships in there could be effectively bottled up or taken out very quickly.

For that matter even our carrier along with the French and Italian carriers in the Med are more for show than anything else. Our planes flying from Poland, Romania and Italy would be much closer to the action than those carriers.

[OnlinePoker]

13. Does the 130,000 Russian troops include those that are already in Crimea?

Not good for Ukraine with threats to the north from Belarus and Russia, and the east and south from Russia. If Ukraine goes, you can probably kiss Moldova goodbye as well. Putin is reconstructing the U.S.S.R one piece at a time.