The ceasefire between Ukraine and its eastern rebels has been holding, despite the Ukrainian government’s talk of mass conscription to attack the region, and a new round of peace talks are scheduled for later this week.
The dates haven’t been finalized, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko suggested the talks could be on Wednesday and Friday. The talks are likely to center on prisoner exchanges.
Months of fighting in the east of the nation have left a number of rebels in military custody and a number of soldiers similarly held by the rebels, and while past talks have suggested an exchange they have not said how this will proceed.
Other issues include mutual withdrawal of heavy weapons from contested areas, something that similarly both sides had agreed on in principle, but had not agreed on implementing.
The problem is that Kiev did not received all the money it asked round the world.This could start new gun battles in Donbass region : accusing Moscow of all sort of interventions could bring some additional money.
Or Poroshenko just allowing the US to continue to make up the accusations will do it too. It's just been too easy to see through the veil of deceit this time around. Even easier than the lies for war against Iraq, and that's going some!
Essentially, Putin has painted himself into an impossible corner. He can't stay where he is, Crimea with no land access is a white elephant, to say nothing of the two ridiculous enclaves in Donetsk and Lugansk surrounded by the Ukrainian army. If he tries to grab more Ukrainian territory, the implicit threat to re-constitute the territory of the Soviet Union could set off a fullscale war with NATO. If he abandons Donetsk and Lugansk, he's humiliated in front of his elderly supporters, who want, precisely, to see the Soviet Union re-constituted, and might be forced from power. He can't go forward, he can't go back and he can't stay where he is! No Soviet leader ever did anything so stupid!
Putin trying to re=constitute the former Soviet Union? You have some imagination even for a propagandized American. What's so difficult to understand about the US/Nato having plans to bring the Ukraine into the Nato fold, thereby taking away a peaceful arrangement Russia had with it's Crimean naval base? Or at least take the time to explain how the Crimea going to Russia after a vote of 95% to do so is somehow a more eqregious crime to you Americans than your destruction of Iraq and the murder of a million on false pretences of those missing WMD's. Take your time and be imaginative.
"No Soviet leader ever did anything so stupid!"
Except, of course, for those who did.
Lenin tried to just stop fighting the Central Powers in World War One without sitting down to hash out border demarcations and ended up losing a lot more before the humiliation of Brest-Litovsk. Then he invaded Poland and got his ass kicked.
Stalin trusted Hitler, entered into a non-aggression pact with him and apparently forgot the "verify" part of "trust but verify and ended up with four years of heavy combat to save the Soviet Union.
Does the word "Afghanistan" ring any bells?
I bet it doesn't, because to all appearances you are some kind of repetitive/sampling spam bot. Last time I thought that and cut you off, you apparently didn't even notice your comments weren't appearing. I don't know why I went back to letting you post absent any verification that you are human — for example, a response when queried about that. This time you're done until you do something along those lines. You're only allowed to be stupid in comments if you're actually a you.
Spare his worthless hide, he's more of a discredit to the propaganda he spews than any threat.
Actually none of these Russian leaders did or is doing the wrong thing. Lenin was fighting a civil war that Poland picked sides in as part of its goal to expand east. The Polish Soviet conflict ended with a settlement after Poland narrowly avoided becoming the Polish SSR. The losses of Brest Litovsk were inevitable, but Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only national force capable of holding all the Russias together as one polity, and they succeeded. Lenin was one the the greatest statesmen of the century for that feat alone. In the end those losses were reversed, anyway.
Stalin didn't trust his cronies, much less Hitler. The non aggression pact came after years of failed Russian efforts to create an anti-Hitler alliance with the UK and France. Without it Stalin would have found himself in a war with Germany anyway eventually, but completely isolated diplomatically if Germany had no other enemies.
For more modern events, the west created a chaotic situation in Ukraine with a threat to ethnic Russians and Russian interests that no Russian leader could have politically afforded to just let unfold. So of course Russia seized Crimea (its strategically vital naval hub) and supported Russian rebels. Anything less would have discredited the leadership by showing its inability to pursue the national interests. Not even Yeltsin would have just looked the other way while a nationalist infected government took power, threatened Russia and Russians, and aligned itself with NATO.