Greets from Norway Sevo. Fingers crossed to the safty of you and and the wife.

Not very good news as of recent reports we are getting.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f30_1393584675

RUSSIAN MI-24 60km north of “Belbek” Sevastopol

Let us all remember these people are "in country". Glad to hear the Bob and family are doing well.

If we want to discuss Geopolitics or pieces on the board, there are many other, more appropriate places to do it.

Sev, I hope all is well with you and the boss don’t forget to let us know that all is well Kameraden

hope you and your wife are well and everything turns out good :D

Net just returned in total but don't know how long. We are fine. Please, PLEASE do not take any news seriously from either side. Remember the old saying: The first casualty of war is truth.

As I said earlier let's keep the politics for elsewhere. We are fine. Not a shot has been fired anywhere in Krim that I know of including Feodosia on the south coast, scattered reports about Feodosia notwithstanding. We watched Feodosia live as the Marines negotiated for the, not surrender but 'control', of that base. Not a shot, albeit a raised voice or two. We went to City yesterday on the other side of the ditch. All is calm, stores, shops, businesses are operating normally. Food stores are full, my beer shop still has Weissen by the truckload, butcher has fresh meat for us tomorrow, all is good. Except the net, which runs through Kiev at the moment via fiberoptic and of course has been cut now 4 times. Tomorrow, in theory, we will get satilite net and all should be good. But again, we are fine, no more danger than the normal of some idiot deciding to pass us on a blind curve halfway up the side of the Old Post Road from Inkerman south.

Take care, Bob, & have a cold one for me!

Was at the Casbah just a couple weeks ago while back in JAX & couple of us were talking about you & your love those gorgeous Russian ladies. Certainly makes far better conversation that politics & war mongering.

Bob replied to my last email and asked me to post this:

'SitRep is normal here, peaceful and calm. Net is up and down, and down for the last 2 days. Should be better in another day or two.


Black Sea Fleet reacted to a very real and dangerous threat from Right Sector and Svoboda party in Kiev, spelled out in clinical detail and clearly stated in Ukraine TV. Search 'em, they won the coup d'etat up north. I won't tell you what the threat was but it involved every man, woman and child in this city and was so serious Krimea invited Russia in to protect us, which is completely legal and within the Law of Krimea. We don't belong to Ukraine, we are 'adminstered' by Kiev. Please, friends, don't believe a thing from the news, either US or EU or Ukriane. All are cavalier with the truth.


At any rate, we are fine and will be fine. Not a shot was fired in all of Krimea after the Russian Marines arrived and we expect zero trouble here except for the net, long distance phone and Post. Russia and Krimea Government are working mightily to solve those problems.


Sev'


Jerry

Hi Take care of yourself and your family .lets hope there is a peaceful end to this problem.

regards pete

Good morning my friends. Situation here is quiet. The disturbing news is the first refugees are showing up at the north border and a boat load from Odessa arrived in our city yesterday afternoon. Refugees will of course be taken care of by the Fleet and Krimea Government with help from Mother.

Боб, Вы находитесь в наших молитвах. Мы имеем две запасных спальни, если Вы должны уехать. Мартайнко

Мартайнко. Большое спасибо за ваше любезное предложение! Мы очень безопасны в это время, Черноморский флот и морская пехота защищаете все Krimea и Севастополе очень сильным. Насколько я понимаю, что несколько террористов правого сектора, которые пришли на Krimea до дороги были забаррикадировались охотятся с некоторыми захватили уже.

It is a sunny early morning in Sevastopol, my friends. City is quiet and peaceful. Life is normal, people are working and shopping as usual. There will be two referendums later in March, one by the Krim population to decide what they want to do as far as the association agreement with Ukraine. The other is for Sevastopol citizens to decide what Sevastopol is to do. Krimea is actually The Autonomous Republic of Krimea with all that name entails.

Bob, I am glad you guys are ok. Love to her more of what is going on, when you have the time.

The original post asked for this thread to remaiin apolitical but its getting a bit hard to ignore the fact that one side is being promoted. Admittedly you probably didnt expect a private email to be posted but nonethless, some of us have friends, also in Crimea, who dont like being initimidated by the "mothers" troops who handily seem to have lost thier uniforms insignia.

it is interesting to hear about things in crimea but if one wants to avoid the thread being political then its best for all, including the original poster, to avoid making obvious comments as to which side he believes to be right.

its odd to ask for a thread to be apolitical and then persist in making veiled assertions as to who is right.

p

I guess those prayers worked Bob. I hope stability and cooler heads prevail over there soon for the sake of you and VCO. I have been following it on the BBC World News which I like it better than most of the US media for international news. As I said on our PMs.... I wish you could come back to the States.

At least the Russians know how to recycle......

http://global.fncstatic.com/static/m...S./Ochakov.jpg

Hello

I must agree with Post 40. I do not wish anyone harm on either side BUT these events are starting to look familiar to what happened in the past, leading up to WWII and of course Georgia. A author once said if we do not learn from the past then we are doomed to repeat it. Strange is it not that OLD leaders who like the old ways, live well beyond what they deserve and young people suffer for their lifestyle? I guess it will take at least a generation to die off before this kind of grief is no more.
George

I fail to where a comment about refugees is political in the least but I will refrain from such in the future. We got a new internet system yesterday that is secure and will not go down, ergo commo will be a bit more reliable than in the past few days.

City is calm and quiet this morning on our side of the harbor.

Some of teh comments which are overtly political and are coming from the person who called for the thread to stay apolitical include:

- the existence of any refugees is disputed by international observers, border monitors and humanitarian agencies. The use of the word "refugee" implies they are fleeing from something - no evidence exists that there are widespread conditions existing in Ukraine from which to flee due to danger to life or limb. People might be on the move but its not exactly like they are fleeinga situation such as may have existed in Rwanda.

- political

-political

Its good to hear that you and yours are fine.

You asked for an apolitical thread yet have, overtly and otherwise, made clear you support for one side.

Let us remember that an awful lot of the tanks we play with only exist at all due to the last time an authoritarian leader of a military power decided he would grab some land using the excuse that he was "ensuring the safety of his citizens living in another country".

And another set of tanks we play with only exist because for 50 years people had to defend themselves against the political system which is now sending its forces to threaten and intimidate another country and which will, by all examples of history, not content itself with that but will then move onto another one. Georgia, Ukraine...whats nexts....Estonia? Poland? Latvia?

These are tank threads. You asked to keep politics out of this one. That should apply to all posters. Including yourself.

P

Iposter, you have your brains washed. So sad...

Perhaps I should have been more specific in my request to not believe news and include Russian news also. One can piece together some knowledge of a situation by reading available reports from all sides and find the little nutshell of possible truth. You know the old saying: Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see. How true.

Stating truth about the situation and causes of the situation down here is not political.

To the best of my knowledge there are no accredited 'international observers' in Krimea at this time. A large group who said they were from OSCE arrived at the checkpoint on the Kherson Road at north Krim border yesterday afternoon and when told their vehicles would be searched and documents varified before they could enter, they turned around and left stating they would come back some time this morning. That incident was shown live on local TV. I have seen nothing this morning about the delegation returning. Is it possible the entire incident was staged and is false? Of course, that is possible.

Again I and Ye'lean'chka would like to thank all of you for the outpooring of concern and worry of us from all our fellow tankers. We are deeply moved, very deeply moved. VCO can't read some of them without weeping. We have been offered if needs be sanctuary in several nearby countries. For that we are extremely grateful and thankful. At this time it seems the situation is stabilized. What the two referendums will bring, one for Krim and one for this berg, we will see on 16 March.

Whether my brains are washed or not is entirely beside the point.

The thread was supposed to be apolitical. It isn't - its being politicised by amongst others the very people calling for it to be apolitical.

Maybe it should be moved to another more general part of the RCU site.

Because it isn't about tanks and it is struggling to stay out of the sort of territory where Godwins law is probably soon going to come into effect.

The original sentiment was admirable but such a thread was never likely to remain strictly apolitical.

Normally RCU/RC tanks does a fairly good job (for a site about military items) of staying out of the sort of the discussions likley to get a bit heated.

BUt this is the second thread in recent days promoting (intentionally or not) one particular view point of the situation in Ukraine.

And if I remember correctly - you were involved in the first one.

If it aint about rc tanks or a related topic- why cant you just post your political views on one of the million other forums designed for just that purpose?

I come here to read about rc tanks - not to have to see threads about the sort of topics that I turn to rc tanks to help me avoid having to hear about for an hour or two.

p

Im afraid it is. Because, quite frankly, I have no reason to beleive your version of events is any more reliable than anyone elses or any other source of information I have. Just because you are intererested in rc tanks and post here does not make you any more reliable as a news source. No offence but thats just a fact of life.

"the truth" and "the causes" of the situation are heavily reliant on ones view point - thats why stating your version "the truth" or "the causes" is entirely political because ones version of them is entirely reliant upon ones political perspective.

You said this thread was to let people know you and yours are OK. Thats a good thing.

I dont see why this thread should be about you stating what "the truth" is about "the causes" because quite frankly, "the truth" of the situation is only your version of it.

And I dont see a forum about rc tanks being a suitable forum for one person to be able to state "the truth" about a situation which all agree is very nuanced and of a nature determined largely by the observers politics.

p

I am 'treads on the ground', you are not. If Ken chooses he can and will remove the thread. However, nothing will ever stop our appriciation of the concern for us in this difficult time.