Agreed, they shouldn't be thrown out. But they're not being thrown out. They're being asked to learn the local language (which is fair enough), offered lessons in it (free or at least subsidised), & choose local citizenship. The majority do so. A minority choose to claim Russian citizenship, & a smaller minority joins extremist groups which, for example, demand the formation of a self-governing region for Russians within Estonia which would hold the majority of the population, & more Estonians than Russians (I found that on the website of one such organisation, which had a map of its proposed region).
It gets a little more complicated then that. Like KiwiRob pointed out, even those who speak a local language are not treated the same as the titular ethnics. The extremists groups in question are not indicative of the majority. Nor do they justify broad discrimination against the population in question.
They are probably not representative of the entire Russian population in the Baltic states, unless you work in some strange industry that means you work with large numbers of people in every sector of the population, including those who do manual jobs like factory workers and toilet cleaners.
swerve was quite clear that he was talking about a minority of people. I don't think that anyone here is claiming that all Russians in that part of the world are flatly refusing to learn the local language.
KiwiRob is talking about the shipbuilding industry, which he works in.
As he pointed out, the Russian nationals form a technocratic elite, that works heavily in certain industrial sectors which would suffer if Russians left en masse. This is not unique to the Baltics. It's the same in, for example, Kazakhstan. In Southern Central Asia the Russian nationals did leave. The result has been a drastic decline of those countries. Tadjikistan is a prime example. Uzbekistan is another.
Back on topic, according to this site, large numbers of russian troops are crossing the border all over eastern Ukraine. There is lots of confusion as to what exactly is happening and wildly varying accounts of the number of russian troops involved.
Map of Ukraine Unrest
They're probably not Russian troops. And that map isn't accurate at all. Rebels are already west and south of Ilovaysk, though some fighting may still be going on in the city. There was fighting in Amvrosievka, which is far south and west of the "rebel held area" on this map.
I also have questions about the Novoazovsk area. The map shows a giant push there, far from any rebel force. And Oleg Layshko stated that the area fell to the rebels. But no pro-rebel source has stated anything of the sort, nor do we have photo or video footage backing this. I'm a little skeptical.
What is the composition of the UA? I read that until 2013 it used conscripts but then became fully professional. But have they called to service reservists after this crisis began? How is the morale and the will to fight?
I'm trying to figure out the reasons that the army's performance seems substandard and also what will happen in some time when/if they stop getting paid.
They never became fully professional. The fall 2013 draft was supposed to be the last one, but in the spring, when this whole mess started, the Turchinov government announced that they would maintain the draft, and continue it. They then declared a mobilization and called up tens of thousands of additional reservists.
Morale is low. Many are unwilling to fight. And they're already routinely being underpaid even the pittance that they're allotted officially.
The situation is a little different in the volunteer btlns, which consists of nationalists and in
some cases even extremists (Right Sector/Svoboda). They're quite a bit more motivated, but they lack training, heavy equipment, and they often refuse to coordinate with military leadership, instead acting on their own.
Yep, agreed southern sector, but the liveUAmap indicates point incursions along the border, north of Luhansk.. Not saying the northern incursions aren't happening, just no reporting coming out confirming this over last 24-72hrs, lest of all the Kiev Govt.
Are LNR and DNR rebel forces working in relative concerted moves? To me, it seems this recent 'second wind', is predominately the DNR rebel units..
The LNR is supposedly preparing an offensive to un-block Lugansk. We will see if anything comes of it.