In a post today at Euan Mearns blog, Eaun suggests that the reality in Ukraine is that:

"the USA and our European allies supported the destabilisation of the elected government of Ukraine. Russia reacted by repatriating the strategically important Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine to Russia following a hastily convened referendum. The region around Crimea has since descended into civil war."

In reply, I said

"Euan, the “reality” you state – the West destabilizing the government and Putin “repatriating” the Crimea – and what I read in the Economist and FT etc. have little common ground. I know little of Ukraine but you are asking me to think that everything I have read is false and instead to believe the Kremlin version of events. From what I know (or think I know) about Putin and his Russia, I would need a lot of evidence to believe this. That various bloggers believe Putin is of little reassurance."

I wondered whether anyone has thoughts on this.

Yes, why don't you have this conversation on Euan Mearns blog?

Agree with TBYJ

I am, but there is not so much activity there and once again I am in a minority - there is no disagreement with Eaun. I wondered how people here view the situation. The Bishop posts items from Euan's blog here from time to time and people discuss them, so what is the difference?

If you have to ask, you won't understand.

As TBYJ said.

mind you, Raff did take one hell of a pounding over there, basically because of his total ignorance of how Russia has viewed its relations with "Europe" for more than a century. The opinions of someone at that level of ignorance should be disregraded. No doubt, he would retort that similar levels of ignorance should apply in climate "scientivism". He is right, of course. All climate scientivists should be ignored.

Unsurprisingly you misread the outcome of that discussion. Euan stated what he claimed to be the "reality" of the situation in Ukraine but failed completely to justify his views much beyond stating that:

"My views on this are formed by retaining knowledge of events as and when they actually unfolded. It comes with following international news 24/7. "

This sleepless vigil of international events has, unless he is keeping quiet about it, NOT included visiting Ukraine before, during of after the months of protest in Kiev and elsewhere and has NOT included ever speaking to independent people within the country. How anyone can state with such certainty the "reality" of events of which he has absolutely no definite knowledge is beyond me. I'm sure you are up to it though, as it is an everyday occurrence here.

And your best argument was that Euan Mearns didn't agree with what you've read in the newspapers. You didn't even point out which of Euan's observations were wrong. You might start by proving that the Ukraine does pay its gas bills or that the EU didn't interrupt the construction of pipelines that would circumvent the Ukraine.

There's a difference. Euan maintains that he knows what is "reality" and what is not on the basis of hearsay and no more. I make no claim to know the real situation in Ukraine - all I have is hearsay too. You, it would seem, think that Euan's hearsay trumps my hearsay.

I don't see why pipelines and payment should sway me (or you). Sure there have been issues over payment but they didn't stop Russia responding to the drift of Ukraine towards the EU with an apparent offer of a $15 billion loan, a lower gas price and the purchase of $3 billion of Ukraine gold bonds.

He's clever at pushing your buttons, Tiny and Geronimo. I'll give him that. If he doesn't get you on the original troll, he'll personalise it to your bugbear.

But if we don't respond to button pushing, we'd eventually have nothing to say. Warmist sites are deadly dull because they post something; everyone agrees; and they've nowhere to go from there. Sometimes the Bish's posts with the least number of comments are the one's we can't find fault with. When we source arguments to Raff or trolls like him we dig deeper into the issues. The science sticks in our minds because we have to revisit it to better argue our corner.

I see that Tiny, but the humiliation of being made to dance is not outweighed by your increased knowledge, I'm afraid.