More military

It was reported yesterday that the Independent Trade Union of Soldiers in Ukraine will not take up arms against the people. This is a union, like any other union, which represents the interests of members of the military. (Do they ever go on strike. Well apparently they will if asked to fight in this.) I don’t know if they represent all the members of the military or if this is even something they polled their members about, but it at least represents the opinion of some of them. That is a good thing. The question, though, is how broad that opinion is.

The statement by the union said not only that they would not take up arms against Ukrainians but that they would “annihilate any mercenaries—they said “free lancers”—on Ukrainian soil.

This brings up two interesting possibilities I had not thought of. It is quite possible that the Russian spetznaz forces spied here in the Ukraine are either mercenaries or they have gone off the reservation or maybe both. It is possible that they have been paid by someone to come in to quell the uprising and now the person paying them is not sure what to do. Or they might be rogue units come on their commander’s own initiative. This might sound the least plausible but there is this idea out there that Putin does not control as much of Russia and its government as we think he does is the West.

Anyway, this is just something more to mull over.