Reply to Bohdan Ratycz on Ukraine vote

E-mail from Trevor Hoyle

YOUR Ukraine correspondent makes some bizarre statements.  He says Putin wanted to 'disrupt'  the voting.  Putin said publicly he would accept the result of the vote.  Where is your correspondent's evidence that Putin wasn't happy with the result?   He claims Russian forces stirred up trouble in eastern Ukraine. Ask him to provide evidence that this actually happened.  True, there are a lot of pro-Russian, Russian-speaking sympathisers in eastern Ukraine -- but they are Ukrainians, not Russians.

As I said before when we discussed this, Putin has shown remarkable restraint in the face of Nato and the EU steadily encroaching into former Soviet Union territory. Imagine for a moment how the US would react if they were being surrounded from Canada, from Mexico, from central America by forces friendly to Russia -- we all know the answer. They would go ape-shit. But Russia is supposed to just sit there and accept an encircling by hostile forces on all its borders. 

I think your correspondent should look at all the facts fairly and impartially. His is a biased and one-sided viewpoint.

Trevor

ps -- the photo below actually tells the truth of this situation. Can you publish it on your blog?