back to article How AGILE DIPLOMACY will spike PUTIN'S GUNS

One by one the faces in the Google Hangout flickered into life. “It’s amaaaaazing. So amaaaaazing! It’s like I am teleporting!!” “Welcome, Professor Cox.” Another postage stamp frame popped up, and was immediately filled with many chins. “Terribly awfully sorry, old boy, I am, you might say, rather more au fait with …

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  1. mastodon't
    Unhappy

    Where's BoFH

    I want BoFH(ski) and the PFY's view of the ukrainian spring.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Where's BoFH

      Not funny.

      The whole thing can be described with one word: Hipocrisy. On all side - no exemptions. There are no clean parties in the whole affair.

      When it is in our interest we will scream bloody murder in the name of self-determination. When it is not in our interest, the "countries have their rightful leaders". Funnily enough these leaders happen to be non-elected products of a putch which is not supported by the rest of the country (valid for every single participating party in the whole affair - Kiev, Crimean parliament, local governments in Eastern Ukraine, you name it).

      When it is in our interest, the rights of minorities are sacred. When it is not in our interest, we are happy to support a government whose first act of power is to revoke all minority rights there and then. Again - all side in the conflict is guilty as charged. The parliament in Crimea is doing to Tatars exactly what the parliament in Kiev is doing to Russian minority rights. When it is ...

      It is just a continuation of where we are today when the Helsinky declaration of human rights and the following Eu convention are a matter of convenience. If it is convenient today to revoke the right of privacy, we shall snoop. If it is convenient to revoke the rights of minorities we shall do that too. Oh and the right to selffdetermination and other minority righst - that is BS.

      1. Tom 38
        Headmaster

        Re: Where's BoFH

        The whole thing can be described with one word: Hipocrisy.

        Want to try again?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Where's BoFH

        I'd read your post properly if I had time, but the Moscow Exchange Server is nearly full and I need to sort it. Bloody Russians, given the chance and the mailbox quotas they'll expand into just about anything....

        Where's Helsinky, by the way?

      3. JLV
        Paris Hilton

        @ Hypocrisy

        Don't be an ass. Are you suggesting we send troops against Russia?

        It's not a question of how we feel about it, but how little can be done.

        UN? veto...

        Sanctions? Gazprom

        Boycott Sochi? Err...

        I deeply dislike Putain so I'd be all for screwing him if at all possible, but not holding my breath. Not least that Putain is gonna benefit at home from being pilloried abroad.

        @ Bong: geeeeenius!

        1. Charles Manning

          We can all do something...

          I, for one, won't be playing Russian roulette any more.

          I'll still drink vodka but say it with a hard V, ie not "wodka".

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Where's BoFH

        The whole thing can be described with one word: Hipocrisy. On all side - no exemptions. There are no clean parties in the whole affair

        it's becoming worse, my relatives who've just visited Kïyv yesterday mentioned that the Maidan square is now full of people who have realised what new government they have got, and they're sitting-in asking for a new 'new' one. Will *this* be televised?

        1. JohnG

          Re: Where's BoFH

          Right Sector did a lot of the fighting in Maidan and they want a very different government. They hate the EU (although not as much as they hate Russians) and have indicated something along the lines of "this is a good start but now we need to clean out the rest of the government". As they and their mates in Svoboda now control the Security and Defense Council, they will soon have more modern weaponry with which to achieve this goal.

      5. Charles Manning

        It is easy to tell if they are legitimate

        If they are buying their weapons from us, they are the good guys.

        If they are getting them from elsewhere, or using the stuff we sold them ten years ago, then they are not.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Where's BoFH

        "The whole thing can be described with one word: Hipocrisy. On all side - no exemptions. There are no clean parties in the whole affair."

        Just as an aside - you always can tell when our government has changed its mind about the rulers of another country because overnight they'll go from being called - for the sake of argument - "The Syrian government" to "The Assad regime". Ie - use the word regime and personalise it around the leader. Its psychology for idiots. Which is why politicians - in the UK at least - love doing it so much.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone's Durian is in for a bashing

    Ahem .... is มาลัย aware that "MINUTE OF CODE is seeking attractive lady computer programmers under 25 years of age; no experience of programming required. Apply to Steve via @BongVentures" ??

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Sadly, this comical plan probably has a better chance of working than anything the government has thought of.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    you lost me

    the plot with its richly-woven between-the-liners, etc, is waaay too condensed for my almost-Friday-afternoon brain cell(s). Sorry :(

  5. Teiwaz

    wait,,, what now?

    I'm sorry, I didn't really read it properly...

    Is this a new screenplay/novel excerpt by Stephen Fry?

  6. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    Obama and Putin on the telephone

    Obama: "So as I was saying, we will not tolerate -"

    Putin: "Hey, knock knock."

    Obama: "... but... (sigh) Who's there?"

    Putin: "Crimea"

    Obama: "Crimea who?"

    Putin: "Crimea river!" [click]

    Obama: "um... Vlad? Hello?"

  7. Admiral Grace Hopper

    Lady Programmer Available

    Well over 25, ugly as a thunking layer, 28 years experience C/C++/COBOL/S3/BASH/PowerShell/SQL, available immediately.

  8. i1ya
    Coat

    Let me describe how it feels being a Ukrainian

    I live in Ukraine... Here's how my typcal day passes: morning (turining PC up): is Putin already conquered Ukraine? Oh, no... Ok. Let's go to work. Evening. Reading the news: what? More russian troops in Crimea? Oh, hell... probably the war will start tonight. Ok, let's read something peaceful and not related to politics. Something that describes the things I love the most - the computers... TheRegister, my peaceful cape of technology, here you are.... (browsing through some headlines)... Oops! Putin is already here! Is some place out there left he didn't conquered yet? Slashdot probably? /sarcasm

    1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Let me describe how it feels being a Ukrainian

      Truly sorry about that. Although El Reg seems to make a serious effort of ignoring the world politics (unless there is an IT angle to it), so this site is still relatively Putin-free.

      Hang on there, and please try to keep the blinkenlights working, no matter what is coming through the gates. Because that is what we do.

  9. A Twig

    Does this mean, if Scotland decided to vote for independence, England can follow Putin's plan and waltz in with the army (oh but with all the badges taken off their uniforms), take over Aberdeen (for the oil) in the interest of all the "ethnic English" who are being threatened by the "sham Government"?

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Don't think that plan isn't already in some Westminster scrote's computer at the moment. Self-determination for the person with the biggest stick.

      The coverage of the Ukraine situation makes me ill. It is the equivalent of people in London scaring off the government elected by the rest of the country (under the shitty voting system we have) because it doesn't match what they voted - and the rest of Europe and the USA supporting it! This is a new form of capitalism - the people in the capital decide the government ...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's good to have friends in disparate places

    I have a friend living in Ukraine, near Crimea, he tells me that he, his wife and some friends have confronted some of the "local" militia and they have admitted to being Russian troops sent over by the Russian government.

    Large numbers of the "protesters" they have confronted speak with strong Rostok accents and have watches set to Russian time (1 hour different to Ukraine).

    Local Ukrainian "Russians" are mystified by the alleged mistreatment Putin is reporting against them, and many of them publicly state they do not want Russia in Crimea; even Pravda headlines are mostly anti-Putin on this issue.

    Putin wants the USSR back, Crimea is just the first move, with Eastern Ukraine already under threat and Poland, and the other old vassals next in line.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Forget the politics

    Come on folks, screw all this heavy political commentary. Did *anybody*, Ukranian or otherwise, hit up The Register because they wanted to hear just a little bit more about the dire straits on the fringe of the continent? "Depressed enough yet? How about the same miserable degenerating situation, phrased in a sarcastic and 'satirical' light!"

    The target of the sarcasm is less Ukraine's impending civil war, and more the jean wearing venture capital types against which El Reg has waged a vendetta for some time. I really hoped upon opening the comments that I'd see discussion around that topic, to which I would have contributed "maybe there comes a point where your first-world problems don't really apply so appropriately - superstate backed civil war for instance". As the Ukranian commenter himself alluded to, arguments over the broader rights and wrongs of the situation can be had just about anywhere else. Reminds me of when Israel/Palestine somehow finds its way into some argument, followed promptly by the destruction of any nuance or validity in either position.

    Save the moralising for BBC comments, when they let you. I'm hoping the 'IT perspective' (i.e. this article and antecendent comments) has something different to say.

  12. All names Taken
    IT Angle

    It might be interesting and informative to analyse conflict zones and association of those zones with mobile, multimedia user content uploads and communications.

    Even a meta-analysis of the data without considering content can be informative?

    For example: Crimea comms vs Occupied Territory comms?

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