Quote: (03-08-2014 02:45 PM)Big Nilla Wrote:
Probably best for Russia to annex Crimea to starve Ukraine of pipeline and bases money and leave it at that... and use the Russian loyalists all over the rest of Ukraine to make it politically impossible for the West/NATO to tip Ukraine to that side. Basically keep Ukraine as it is... a mess.
I would say "divide and conquer" is definitely part of Russia's plan.
Quote: (03-08-2014 02:45 PM)Big Nilla Wrote:
What's best for Ukrainians (both the nationalists and Russians) is to simply go their own ways if they had a choice in the matter. There will never be stability in Ukraine, otherwise, since it is just a pawn for others to manipulate the "multiculturalism" split. As long as NATO isn't brought in to the western half the situation and split should be fine... sort of like the Czech Republic and Slovakia. But the nationalist part of Ukraine would probably be landlocked and not really have anything to build a strong economy with.
This is one thing I'm not so sure about.
Except for Crimea, Russian doesn't have absolute dominance in any of Ukraine's oblasts. Donetsk and Lugansk have the highest concentration (70-75%) but even in that region I think secession would be difficult. Many of the oligarchs come from that part of the country, and they know their control of the country is much stronger t
In other oblasts, the situation is split more on an urban/rural basis, with the cities being predominantly Russian and the rural areas being predominantly Ukrainian. Kirovograd is a very strong example of that, and also Odessa to some extent.
I don't mean to preclude a split, either. There are also differences in the economy of the South/East and the West. The former is more heavily industrialised, where as the West is less developed and more focused on agriculture and services.
Quote: (03-08-2014 02:45 PM)Big Nilla Wrote:
Also, will Russia completely turn off oil/gas pipelines on the mainland of Ukraine or still use all or some of them once South Stream is going?
I don't think Russia will continue to use it for transit. It's an old and extremely inefficient system which consumes a lot of so-called "technical gas" just to run the pumping stations. All countries involved need to get efficiency gains out of the new pipelines to start recouping their capital costs.
Check the following.. The blue lines are potential South Stream routes. The circle is where most of Ukraine's heavy industry is located. That part of the current pipeline system will still operate near full capacity even if much of the rest of the network is shut down.
The Slovak and Hungarian legs have been modernised, and once South Stream goes active, the plan is to reverse the flow of those pipelines. Eastern Slovakia and Eastern Hungary are quite industrialised. A few large smelters and other heavy industry operate in that area.