You're clearly not trying to hold a debate if you're trying to use evidence you say there's no proof for, you claim that Russia has seized all of Ukraine, and using hyperbole like saying everyone thought it would be an all-out war. You're dodging around the fact that a lot of what you said is factually wrong. You're abusing well-held definitions such as, I don't know, using the word 'seized' in a context that is clearly not applicable to the situation. Russia does not hold Ukraine, therefore it has not seized Ukraine. By no stretch of the imagination is that statement right. A key part of debate is both sides using the same definitions for the same term. I'd echo what other posters have said before: please, please, learn how to post.
If you feel like you know how to post, explain the following:
a) How Russia has seized all of Ukraine
b) How you can assert Russia controls all of Ukraine (protip: 'everyone knows it, it is soooo obvious, lern2raed!1!111!' is not a correct answer)
c) How Russia killed Ukrainians despite having literally not fired more than a warning shot
d) Where else Russia has moved into Ukraine
e) How either side can be constitutionally right when all of the pro-Russian Ukrainians, pro-West Ukrainians, and Russia have acted against Ukrainian or international law?
Please deal with them in a similar way for ease of reading.
Dear God... Well let's start. As for international law:
President Barack Obama has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has violated international law by sending troops into the Crimea. Law is on Obama's side, which is why Putin is organizing his justification counter-offensive.
The United Nations charter
(article 2(4)) prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." Ukrainian lawyers have said there are
additional treaties Putin is violating.
Putin's forces were apparently concerned enough about the U.N prohibition to strip the identifying markers off Russian soldiers before sending them into Crimea, and to now call these troops "local defense forces." But removing their insignias does not change the facts.
Putin's new tactic is to claim that Russia has been invited in. It is illegal to invade another country, but not illegal to send in help when a legitimate government requests it. Putin has asserted that Ukraine's ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, remains the Ukraine's legitimate president, and he has asked for help. Putin may also be behind the influx of protest tourists
to Ukraine who pretend they are Ukrainians asking for Russian help.
There is a long and storied tradition of governments inventing a legal premise to justify their actions. During the Cold War, President Reagan
justified U.S. intervention in Grenada as necessary to protect Americans living on the island. Reagan also defended U.S. military support in Nicaragua as
collective self-defense requested by El Salvador. These claims were just as credible as Putin's claims, which is to say: not very.
Putin
cares little whether his actions violate international law. But the Europeans and Americans who will organize a response do care, and ordinary Russians may also care, which is why Putin is working to create the appearance of legal intervention. While only the U.N. Security Council (where Russia holds veto power) can authorize a collective response to Russian aggression, the legal principle of "responsibility to protect" allows individual states and groups of states to legally justify their response to illegal acts of aggression.
