A war of words, tinted with matter of economic importance and constant predictions of a military invasion that never comes continues between Russia and Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin suggesting the interim government of Ukraine be more careful about making “irreversible” mistakes.
Putin’s comments were seen as a warning against the planned Ukrainian military offensive against the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, along the Russian border, which Ukraine’s Interior Ministry suggests is needed to crush separatist sentiment there.
Underscoring Russia’s continued influence, President Putin also suggested his government might start insisting that Ukraine pay for its gas up front, something the nation probably can’t afford to do.
Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced earlier this week that Ukraine isn’t going to pay for the gas it receives from Russia at all anymore, which is a rhetorical shift from the pro-Russian government that preceded him, but is practically the same, since they were many months behind on their bills themselves, and were constantly making empty promises to eventually make good.
Putin will do will is in the best interest of the Russian people. Obama and his administration will not do what is best for the American people, but will put the interest of a foreign nation first, as many other Presidents and politicians before him have.
All it's going to take is one little incident, contrived or accidental, to put this whole affair into a completely different realm of insanity…one that will not be so easily stopped once started. How many people must die before this is over? Where are the voices of reason and sanity here in the US? Surely our entire leadership corp does not agree with what is going on? Surely…well, then again…
The fact that Putin is huffing and puffing, rather than invading, shows us that he realises that the Ukrainians have him cornered. He invades, he discredits himself. He holds back, he discredits himself.
Yo, Michael. In case you haven't noticed, it's the West that's been doing the "huffing and puffing". Putin and his foreign minister Lavrov have been rational, restrained, and thoughtful, advocating at all times for peaceful and broadly-accepted electoral-based solutions: let the locals vote to decide what they want. The West is horrified by the notion of elections because, having already "taken" Ukraine and installed their Western puppet regime, the last thing they want to do is give it back to the Ukrainian people.
Fraudulent democracy: good; real democracy: bad.
"America! Fhuck yeah!"
Jeff you are talking to a wall troll. This guy is completely backwards when it comes to Russia – it's almost as if he was reading the news on antiwar.com and then fell and hit his head, and then when he woke up he was in a Bizarro World all of his very own. How precious the sound of his own voice must sound echoing back to him, devoid of any sense whatsoever.
I think the situation has moved on since two weeks ago NBC people visited the border and didn't find much of a military threat there. Now it's different. Nato is publishing a lot of photos.They're doing it for reasons of their own, but I doubt the photos are fake – at least not now.
The threat of military escalation is real. Not because Russia has expansionist dreams but because it both has strong demands about the future of Ukraine and because it went into zero tolerance mode. With an adventurous government in Ukraine , and with the adventurous initiatives from the US until now, that creates a volatile situation.
Now I think Russia has legitimate concerns and has lots of reasons to be unhappy with the west,
but that doesn't mean what they'll be doing next can be called reasonable and restrained.
Fyodor Lukyanov, who tends to write interesting things at http://eng.globalaffairs.ru says in the nytimes that if Ukraine tries to solve Luhansk or Donetsk with aggression, then Russia will intervene. It would come at a huge cost but as Lukyanov writes in earlier articles, they may be willing to pay the price for it. And they think they might end up stronger because Ukraine isn't worth enough to the West.