Experts Say Russia Has Re-Emerged as a Great Power While Obama has Been President
Photo Credit: Reuters By ROBERT WILDE
Sebastian Gorka, a Professor of War and Conflict Studies at National Defense University in Washington, told Breitbart News Saturday that Russia has re-emerged as a great power while Obama has been President.
Gorka, who holds a PhD and is also an Associate fellow at the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM)’s Joint Special Operations University, asserts that Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has reinvigorated itself due in large part to the weakness demonstrated by the United States and Europe.
Russia, with its economic stranglehold in Western Europe and the United States’ recently announced defense cuts, can pretty much do what it wants to do in the most important land mass of the 20th century. “If you think about it we got involved in two world wars because of the Eurasian Continent, and now if you just had to pick one person who can do what he likes in Eurasia it’s not going to be the US President, it’s not going to be the Chancellor of Germany or even the British Prime Minister. It is a former Colonel in the KGB who is shaping the future of Europe.”
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Crimeans vote in referendum on whether to break away from Ukraine, join Russia
By Carol Morello, Pamela Constable and Anthony Faiola.
Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Russia, election officials said Sunday, capping a heavy-handed campaign that blocked most voters from hearing a vision for any alternative to unification with Moscow.
Mikhail Malyshev, a senior election commission spokesman in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, announced that with a little more than 50 percent of the ballots counted, about 93 percent had voted in favor of joining Russia.
The White House and Western governments rejected the referendum, conducted as thousands of Russian troops occupied the peninsula, and are eyeing sanctions. Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, dismissed the vote as a “circus” under the “stage direction” of Moscow. Russia has staunchly defended it.
A vote in favor of seceding from Ukraine was widely expected; ethnic Russians make up 60 percent of Crimea’s population, and the region has deep historical ties to Russia. But the vote may only complicate the biggest standoff between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War and increase security fears in the rest of Ukraine and in other former Soviet states.
Tensions rose elsewhere in Ukraine on Sunday. In the eastern city of Donetsk, thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators rallied in support of following Crimea’s lead and holding a referendum on joining Russia. Clusters of protesters stormed two government offices. Pro-Russian activists in Kharkiv, another troubled city in Ukraine’s east, charged into a cultural center and burned Ukrainian-language books while several thousand Moscow sympathizers marched in the southern city of Odessa, according to the Reuters news agency.
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Photo Credit: Fox News Crimea referendum: Wide condemnation after region votes to split from Ukraine
By Fox News.
Crimean voters on Sunday overwhelmingly backed a referendum to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, in an election denounced by the United States, Europe and the Ukrainian government as illegal and destabilizing.
Fireworks exploded and Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds after the vote, which election officials said stood at 95 percent with more than half of the ballots counted.
The vote, the final results of which were not expected until Monday, offered voters on the strategic Black Sea peninsula the choice of seeking annexation by Russia or remaining in Ukraine with greater autonomy.
Opponents of secession appeared to largely stay away Sunday, denouncing the vote as a cynical power play/land grab by Russia. But turnout was reported to be well above the 50 percent that would make the referendum binding — and secession was expected to be approved overwhelmingly.
“We want to go back home, and today we are going back home,” said Viktoria Chernyshova, a 38-year-old businesswoman. “We needed to save ourselves from those unprincipled clowns who have taken power in Kiev.”
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