Ukraine Thread

[Gilrandir]

Is this high treason?
http://uatoday.tv/politics/ukrainian...-r-414058.html

[Beskar]

"LOL", Putin goes on national television to say Crimea was intentional.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31796226

It was the worst kept secret.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Claude Rains put it best....

Shocked

[Gilrandir]

"LOL", Putin goes on national television to say Crimea was intentional.
It was the worst kept secret.

Brenus will sue BBC for disproving his analysis skills thus causing moral and reputational damage. He was the one to claim that the Crimea was Putin's impromtu.
And watch out for confessions about Russian military in Donbas, MH 17, Nemtsov... One usually comes a year later.

[Husar]

That's just a smokescreen to hide the still-very-secret NATO-encroachment via regime-toppling that forced Putin to make this brave move.
And since Ukraine is more or less a standstill by now, Obama has decided to bully the nation of Venezuela, declaring it a security threat to the US' financial system due to alleged transfers by corrupt officials. Meanwhile HSBC knowingly laundered money for terrorists and drug cartels and is probably part of the financial system that has to be "protected" for US security. There are most likely banks laundering ISIS money (or do they cart around paper money in treasure chests to pay for their conquests?) whose heads are very welcome in the US and who'd get barely more than a slap on the wrist if it every becomes public, just like HSBC did.

The US bullying has to stop so that the people of Russia and Venezuela can focus on internal issues again and finally get rid of Putin et al.
This entire antagonism policy just serves as a convenient distraction for these dictators and drives up the profits of the West's weapons manufacturers while everybody else suffers from it. But then again, who cares if the poor people suffer, right? The only thing that matters is that some people get the few extra billions to buy even more politicians.

[GenosseGeneral]

German ministry of foreign affairs calls Nato general's claims about Russian troops in Ukraine "dangerous propaganda".
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...a-1022193.html
It seems to me indeed, that some people in Brussels (no, not at the EU) are very glad about finally havin a purpose again.

[Brenus]

"Brenus will sue BBC for disproving his analysis skills thus causing moral and reputational damage. He was the one to claim that the Crimea was Putin's impromtu." Well, you should re-read what I wrote. Once again, you are either lying, either didn't understand (I now go for the 2nd hypothesis after reading some of your justifications). I said, and you can check, that Putin, (or Russia) had and have contingency plans in case of their vital interests are in danger. So, contrary to yours, as still no armoured Russian divisions are rolling to Berlin and even not to Kiev, my analyses are still valid. But don't let reality disturbs you fantasies.

[Viking]

German ministry of foreign affairs calls Nato general's claims about Russian troops in Ukraine "dangerous propaganda".
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...a-1022193.html
It seems to me indeed, that some people in Brussels (no, not at the EU) are very glad about finally havin a purpose again.

Article:

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm.

Real life last Wednesday:

Mr. Bociurkiw said [...] fighting continued around the rebel-held city of Donetsk and the village of Shyrokyne near the industrial port of Mariupol. Ukraine reported that one serviceman died in the past 24 hours.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/osce-say...ear-1425489721

Shyrokyne remains a hot front.


It's like the author(s) of that article has forgotten that Minsk I ever existed, and how much land has changed hands since then, and who has been on the offensive. This becomes ironic when a keyword of the article is aggression.

[Brenus]

Yeap, but the US general is still lying.

"He blamed both sides for a “piecemeal approach,” in same article.

What is tragically ironic is it will finish as it should have started with proper understanding and negotiation: Ukraine will become a Federal State, so Russia (not only Putin as lazy media want to portray it) will have it buffer zone, NATO will sent for few weeks 43 soldiers etc.

[Husar]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/osce-say...ear-1425489721

Shyrokyne remains a hot front.


It's like the author(s) of that article has forgotten that Minsk I ever existed, and how much land has changed hands since then, and who has been on the offensive. This becomes ironic when a keyword of the article is aggression.

Just let me quote your own article:

OSCE Says Ukraine Violence Easing

You act as though one dead soldier in a war zone makes it intense fighting.
And you cherry-picked your quote from the Spiegel article. The full quote should be more like this:

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.

One dead guy doesn't make a front incredibly hot and one cherry-picked sentence doesn't invalidate an entire article just as quoting something out of context doesn't make its author wrong.

What's ironic is your way of "arguing" where you quote one sentence out of context and try to use that to somehow prove that the entire article is wrong. That the previous peace negotiations didn't yield a positive result is not really relevant. If that meant only a military solution is possible then we should have driven Israel back into the sea in the 60ies or so already...

[Gilrandir]

One dead guy doesn't make a front incredibly hot and one cherry-picked sentence doesn't invalidate an entire article just as quoting something out of context doesn't make its author wrong.

It is not about "just one dead soldier", it's about continuous attempts of the separatists to capture Shyrokine that have never ceased whatever agreements might have been signed. A bit of land here, a bit of land there (like Svitlodarsk between Debaltseve and Artemivsk) - a crawling offensive, which is not noticed by Europe, because the scale of it is too minute and it will not prevent the EU from lifting sanctions against Russia one of these days.

That the previous peace negotiations didn't yield a positive result is not really relevant.

It is!!! Those where not "just negotiations", those ended up with a signed treaty. The treaty was discarded by Russia which spurred the separatists into the winter offensive. It happened once, it will happen again. At the moment Russia is pinning hopes on destroying Ukraine from within by instigating Ukrainians to topple the current government and making use of the ensuing chaos. Once Putin sees that this goal can't be immediately reached, the offensive will resume.


Meanwhile Russia seems now safe from being SWIFT-expelled:
http://www.thebanker.com/Editor-s-Bl...cision?ct=true
Somehow the link doesn't show the article itself, so I give the full text of it:

With the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) under pressure to throw Russia off the system as part of western sanctions against the country, the news that Russia has been given a seat on the Swift board is open to misinterpretation.

But, the promotion of Russia from being represented under one of three amalgamated seats on the 25-seat board to having its own director has nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with the tensions over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. Board seat allocation is a purely mechanical process based on traffic volumes.

Swift, as every banker knows, is a non-political utility, which connects up 10,500 banks in more than 200 countries and territories. It provides the messaging that makes trillions of dollars of international payments possible. It literally makes the world of global trade and payments go round.

The whole system could be blown up, however, if politicians from the US and Europe start to drag Swift into their sanction armoury against this or that country with which they are currently having problems. Regrettably this has already happened in respect of Iran. Back in March 2012, the EU passed a regulation prohibiting Swift from providing services to EU-sanctioned Iranian banks. As Swift is headquartered in Belgium, it was obliged to comply with Belgian law.

Since the Swift cut-off measure almost certainly played a part in pushing Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme, the temptation is to use the same means against other countries at odds with the west, such as Russia.

Poland’s foreign minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, has described this as the nuclear option, which hopefully means that he understands the risks of such an approach. For, while the immediate outcome is to cause chaos in Russian finance and disrupt trade, the long-term result is for major powers, such as Russia, China and India, to build their own messaging systems. The advantages of having a global politically neutral system would be lost and would be replaced by competing systems all with their own political agenda.

One can imagine a situation, a few decades hence, in which US financial institutions are thrown off a new Chinese system amidst a dispute between the two countries. US banks then find their requirements cannot be met by the truncated Swift system that has resulted from its repeated use as a sanctions tool and which now only serves a proportion of the world. The US’s trade would suffer as a consequence.

That is why it is important that there is no misunderstanding about why Russia has been given a board seat. Swift’s board is reconfigured about every three years with shares, and subsequently, seats allocated on the basis of network usage. On this basis, in 2015, Russia gains a seat and Hong Kong loses one; Belgium gains an additional seat giving it two and the Netherlands loses a seat giving it one.

Changes in traffic volumes could be due to a change of business hub by an international bank or the location of infrastructure, such as Euroclear in Belgium. But mostly, it reflects changes in economic growth and trade. Unsurprisingly, China gained a board seat in the last reallocation back in 2012.

As economic power shifts to the east, more such changes can be expected. As long as institutions such as Swift can continue to provide a framework with open access and even treatment, all parties will benefit. The alternative is to misuse the global financial architecture as a sanctions tool and end up with a more factional and divided world economy.

[Husar]

It is not about "just one dead soldier", it's about continuous attempts of the separatists to capture Shyrokine that have never ceased whatever agreements might have been signed. A bit of land here, a bit of land there (like Svitlodarsk between Debaltseve and Artemivsk) - a crawling offensive, which is not noticed by Europe, because the scale of it is too minute and it will not prevent the EU from lifting sanctions against Russia one of these days.

You mean we are too stupid to notice when these towns have changed hands or are you saying it will only happen in a hundred years when we have already lifted all the sanctions and Putin will finally grab them on his 160th birthday?

[CrossLOPER]

A bit of land here, a bit of land there (like Svitlodarsk between Debaltseve and Artemivsk)

90% of Ukraine was constituted by Russian influence. It's more like repo, don't you agree? :D

I'm being facetious again, if it matters.

[Viking]

You act as though one dead soldier in a war zone makes it intense fighting.

During a ceasefire, there is no fighting at all.

And you cherry-picked your quote from the Spiegel article. The full quote should be more like this:

Yes, it contradicts itself. There was no calm, and there still is no calm:

#pisky and surrounding villages are burning. Huge battles going on in #ukraine. Just got out of frontline in time.

- Tom Daams

That the previous peace negotiations didn't yield a positive result is not really relevant.

The reason why it didn't work is vital for the context of Breedlove's statements.

[Husar]

During a ceasefire, there is no fighting at all.

There should be none, that is correct, but that's beside my point, which was that you cite one dead soldier as evidence for intense fighting, which it is not.
You also ignore the possibility that maybe Putin is not 100% in control of the rebels and some try to sabotage the ceasefire. If that were the case, we would play into their hands by taking that as a reason to start WW3.

Yes, it contradicts itself. There was no calm, and there still is no calm:

It says calm and then specifies this as a relative calm compared to what there was before, that's not a contradiction.
Adding context or detail does not make the sentences contradictory.

- Tom Daams

Using random guys on twitter as evidence, priceless. You forgot that your own article said the situation is calming down.

The reason why it didn't work is vital for the context of Breedlove's statements.

You mean that he exaggerates the figures about russian support is justified by the context?

[Brenus]

You mean..... propaganda? In the Free World?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You mean..... propaganda? In the Free World?

Even in the West there is little pravda in izvestya and a lack of izvestya in pravda.

[Gilrandir]

You mean we are too stupid to notice when these towns have changed hands or are you saying it will only happen in a hundred years when we have already lifted all the sanctions and Putin will finally grab them on his 160th birthday?

I don't know what you mean by "we" (Europe, NATO, you personally), but this is not about stupidity, it is about reluctance for any serious response if it is just a small town that changed hands. Debaltseve was symptomatic in this respect: weeks after ceasefire had been proclaimed the town was taken (and after heavy battles too). What did "we" do? "We" lumped it. Of course "we" keep on saying that there is a red line which, if crossed by Putin, would meet a serious response. But no one specifies what is this red line supposed to be. Mariupol? Russia will not storm the city head on. It will rather try to surround it by way of Volnovakha-directed offensive and then move south. This will (hopefully for Putin) cause panic within the city and (still more important for him) general dissatisfaction with the current government and (hopefully for Putin) attempts to topple it. Will such a development spur the "we" into anything serious? I doubt it, because for Russia SWIFT switched off means a war. Will "we" risk it? Oh, no. I believe it will be just another portion of grave concerns and serious warnings.

You also ignore the possibility that maybe Putin is not 100% in control of the rebels and some try to sabotage the ceasefire.

Control works simply: no weapons, no fuel, no ammo, no money for the recalcitrant and (if it is not convincing enough) send Russian spetznaz or regular army against them. The latter happened several times, especially against "the Donskiye kazaky" who have been dislodged from many towns of Luhansk region.
And if anyone still doubts that there are Russian military aplenty in Ukraine:
https://www.rusi.org/downloads/asset...aine_FINAL.pdf

[Sarmatian]

During a ceasefire, there is no fighting at all.

Give it a rest. Different levels of violence require different level of response. A bar brawl is not the same as WW2.

[Husar]

I don't know what you mean by "we" (Europe, NATO, you personally), but this is not about stupidity, it is about reluctance for any serious response if it is just a small town that changed hands. Debaltseve was symptomatic in this respect: weeks after ceasefire had been proclaimed the town was taken (and after heavy battles too). What did "we" do? "We" lumped it. Of course "we" keep on saying that there is a red line which, if crossed by Putin, would meet a serious response. But no one specifies what is this red line supposed to be. Mariupol? Russia will not storm the city head on. It will rather try to surround it by way of Volnovakha-directed offensive and then move south. This will (hopefully for Putin) cause panic within the city and (still more important for him) general dissatisfaction with the current government and (hopefully for Putin) attempts to topple it. Will such a development spur the "we" into anything serious? I doubt it, because for Russia SWIFT switched off means a war. Will "we" risk it? Oh, no. I believe it will be just another portion of grave concerns and serious warnings.

We as in our governments, intelligence services and populations. So do you think Ukraine would be better off if the West finally sent military there and started to carpet bomb the separatist forces? Do you expect Putin to retreat in that scenario or launch an all-out offensive on Ukraine after which Ukraine would be even better off? You keep criticizing what we don, maybe tell us what we should do and what you expect to happen if we do that. Constructive criticism is much better than just whining about the attempts of others to help.

Control works simply: no weapons, no fuel, no ammo, no money for the recalcitrant and (if it is not convincing enough) send Russian spetznaz or regular army against them. The latter happened several times, especially against "the Donskiye kazaky" who have been dislodged from many towns of Luhansk region.
And if anyone still doubts that there are Russian military aplenty in Ukraine:
https://www.rusi.org/downloads/asset...aine_FINAL.pdf

With the first option they may still have reserves to keep fighting until you and others demand an end to the ceasefire and with the second option there might be "intense fighting" on the front that would make you and others demand an end to the ceasefire, no?

[Viking]

There should be none, that is correct, but that's beside my point, which was that you cite one dead soldier as evidence for intense fighting, which it is not.

He is one example, equally important is this bit:

fighting continued around the rebel-held city of Donetsk and the village of Shyrokyne near the industrial port of Mariupol.

If one soldier dies a day, that's quite a lot and way beyond the levels of a frozen conflict.

The article says

The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.

which is misleading. Such details become very important when the main topic is the accusation that one individual is exaggerating what is going on. The article is itself is exaggerating how peaceful the situation is with its choice of words. It should have said "the ceasefire is holding many places, but not all", which is the literal truth. If Spiegel doesn't have to choose its words carefully, why should Breedlove? If it is roughly correct, it's good enough - right?

By the look of things, the insurgents are trying to take Shyrokyne , which is another of way of saying that there is no ceasefire at that location. Controlling Shyrokyne is important when it comes to taking the strategically important city of Mariupol.

Note how different an impression the article would have given if it contained the sentence "the ceasefire does not hold in town X" instead of the "the ceasefire is largely holding".

You also ignore the possibility that maybe Putin is not 100% in control of the rebels and some try to sabotage the ceasefire. If that were the case, we would play into their hands by taking that as a reason to start WW3.

No, I haven't touched that subject or anything directly relevant.

It says calm and then specifies this as a relative calm compared to what there was before, that's not a contradiction.
Adding context or detail does not make the sentences contradictory.

It says "it was another quiet day", which isn't true. It wasn't quiet, no such sentence should have been included. It's a misleading choice of words. If "the battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped", that means battles are still going on, and where battles are still going on, it is not quiet. So the first part has gotten contradicted, not supplemented.

The article's audience is mainly people that live outside war zones. For them, it's not quiet if mortars rain down and tanks are firing shells at the enemy.

Using random guys on twitter as evidence, priceless. You forgot that your own article said the situation is calming down.

A war photographer isn't a random guy. He's one of many whose work I've been following for a while.

That article is from last Wednesday as that was the specific day the Spiegel article was talking about. Things change.

You mean that he exaggerates the figures about russian support is justified by the context?

So you know he exaggerated? Of course you don't, you only have different sources to rely on rather than counting for yourself. Is Breedlove correct, or the people who contradict him? Maybe the truth is somewhere in between? Don't forget that definitions matter when counting, as well as the possibility that some sources have less complete data to base their counting on.

It might be said that Breedlove is being careless with how he chooses to present information, but that is separate from lying or exaggerating.

Give it a rest. Different levels of violence require different level of response. A bar brawl is not the same as WW2.

Beside the point.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Is this high treason?
http://uatoday.tv/politics/ukrainian...-r-414058.html

No - unless the Ukrainian Church applies to the Ecumenical Patriarch to be released from the Moscow Patriarchate they are answerable to Moscow. So they agree or they get Excommunicated, which trickles all the way down to YOU being excommunicated with Constantinople. Messy. It'll get even messier when Constantinople convenes an Ecumenical Council over the issue.

All those excommunicated soldiers in a war zone, not spiritually healthy

"LOL", Putin goes on national television to say Crimea was intentional.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31796226

It was the worst kept secret.

So at what point will he admit to the Donbass now?

The US bullying has to stop so that the people of Russia and Venezuela can focus on internal issues again and finally get rid of Putin et al.
This entire antagonism policy just serves as a convenient distraction for these dictators and drives up the profits of the West's weapons manufacturers while everybody else suffers from it. But then again, who cares if the poor people suffer, right? The only thing that matters is that some people get the few extra billions to buy even more politicians.

An Entente with Putin was tried, remember how the G7 became the G8, even after Georgia we tried, then Ukraine happened.

On the one hand you're correct that sanctions don't work especially well, but on the other hand we don't have a lot of options given that cuddles apparently lead to wars in Central Europe.

[Husar]

It might be said that Breedlove is being careless with how he chooses to present information, but that is separate from lying or exaggerating.

You spend half a page explaining how the Spiegel article is bad for not representing the literal truth and then this?
The article says his numbers do not reflect the findings of several european intelligence services, since he doesn't have one of his own, where does his sloppy research come from? Does he just add up the averages he gets from various sources?

There are plenty of examples. Just over three weeks ago, during the cease-fire talks in Minsk, the Ukrainian military warned that the Russians -- even as the diplomatic marathon was ongoing -- had moved 50 tanks and dozens of rockets across the border into Luhansk. Just one day earlier, US Lieutenant General Ben Hodges had announced "direct Russian military intervention."

Senior officials in Berlin immediately asked the BND for an assessment, but the intelligence agency's satellite images showed just a few armored vehicles. Even those American intelligence officials who supply the BND with daily situation reports were much more reserved about the incident than Hodges was in his public statements. One intelligence agent says it "remains a riddle until today" how the general reached his conclusions.

He's a top official of NATO giving information to the public that cannot be backed up by any reliable sources or intelligence services and you turn that into little mistakes he made by being a little sloppy? Is he a first grader or what?
And what's your actual accusation? That Der Spiegel is a pro-russian newspaper on par with RT? Even in Germany this sort of criticism of the West/NATO is relatively rare, newspapers don't just throw that around usually.
Why is it so hard to see that there are people here who would like to further escalate the conflict?

On the one hand you're correct that sanctions don't work especially well, but on the other hand we don't have a lot of options given that cuddles apparently lead to wars in Central Europe.

I wouldn't call regime change cuddles, but declaring war on Russia will hardly not lead to war either, sometimes I get a little confused on what people actually do want us to do. Station lots of tanks in Ukraine which will actually not do anything and stay away from the fighting? Send mercenaries and drones? Declare War on Russia and go all in? Deliver lots of equipment to Ukraine? How would that actually help if Russia has so much more to send itself?

[Brenus]

“even after Georgia we tried” Georgia, Georgia, ah, yes, the country where a dictator tried to play Tudjman in Ethnically cleansing minorities… Shelling refugee camps he was indeed. And help by US of course, as he was a democrat, a pro-Westerner. Got the red nose, indeed… Then, unfortunately, the revenge ethnic cleansing, all by his fault…
You should take another example: What about Kosovo from where the poor local Kosovars are emigrating “en masse” to escape the Mafia State put in place by NATO.

“Ukraine happened.”Oops, you forgot few steps, as US missiles in Poland, NATO attack on Serbia, building of US bases all around Russia (Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Turkey, Baltic States, Japan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.): Indeed, it did. Miscalculation, ignorance, arrogance, violence, Coup d’Etat followed by attacks,

[Viking]

The article says his numbers do not reflect the findings of several european intelligence services [...]

Where does the article say this?

The closest I could find was this:

At the beginning of the crisis, General Breedlove announced that the Russians had assembled 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and warned that an invasion could take place at any moment. The situation, he said, was "incredibly concerning." But intelligence officials from NATO member states had already excluded the possibility of a Russian invasion. They believed that neither the composition nor the equipment of the troops was consistent with an imminent invasion.

a covert invasion did happen in August, when the insurgents suddenly got superpowers and turned a steady rout into a decisive offensive. Prior to this, there was also solid evidence of shelling of Ukrainian troops originating from inside Russia.

The text you have quoted is weird. Hodges talks about direct Russian military intervention, which means that the troops are already fighting, so why they are dragging in the claims about military vehicles crossing the border at that point is beyond me - the Russian vehicles would already be at the front line, of course. Reports in the Russian newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta that was recently brought up here corroborate Hodges' claim of direct but covert military intervention.

And what's your actual accusation?

That the article depicts the situation inaccurately, and in a way that promotes the article subject. You could call it sensationalism.

Kazakhstan

Nope.

Afghanistan

From the fight against the Taliban after the WTC attacks.

Japan

WWII

Russia is the biggest country on the planet and makes most other countries look like dwarves. The only way to not have bases anywhere near Russia is to have them in Africa, South America or Australia.

[Husar]

Where does the article say this?

The closest I could find was this:

Let me help you out, it's right after your quote:

The experts contradicted Breedlove's view in almost every respect. There weren't 40,000 soldiers on the border, they believed, rather there were much less than 30,000 and perhaps even fewer than 20,000. Furthermore, most of the military equipment had not been brought to the border for a possible invasion, but had already been there prior to the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, there was no evidence of logistical preparation for an invasion, such as a field headquarters.

He exaggerated the numbers and their preparations, yes, maybe there was seeping in of russian troops, but it was not the invasion he wanred of or Ukraine would probably be 100% part of Russia by now.

The text you have quoted is weird. Hodges talks about direct Russian military intervention, which means that the troops are already fighting, so why they are dragging in the claims about military vehicles crossing the border at that point is beyond me - the Russian vehicles would already be at the front line, of course. Reports in the Russian newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta that was recently brought up here corroborate Hodges' claim of direct but covert military intervention.

There are two claims, first Hodges claimed that there was direct Russian involvement, which is what the intelligence services found weird as they had apparently no evidence at that point in time when he claimed it.
And then there was a claim about 50 heavy tanks and dozens of rockets, while actual intelligence only showed some lighter vehicles, although it seems that at this point, one day later, a movement of vehicles from Russia was visible.
The article does not deny Russian involvement, it merely says that some top NATO officials exaggerated that Russian involvement in order to evoke a much stronger reaction from Western leaders and scare people into thinking along the lines that Putin was going to start a huge war.
And it's not the first article to claim that, the only thing that is sensationalist here are the claims of the NATO officials, they are the ones who portrayed the situation inaccurately because they gain a lot of importance if NATO gets more scared of Russia and moves further towards actual military involvement.

Russia is the biggest country on the planet and makes most other countries look like dwarves. The only way to not have bases anywhere near Russia is to have them in Africa, South America or Australia.

Pretty much the three places apart from Russia and immediate surroundings where they have almost none...
http://forusa.org/sites/default/file...ilexpan117.jpg

[Brenus]

“Nope” Well. According the map of NATO bases, yes. And on line articles such as http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ary-bases.html

But all right, at least you don’t deny the rest. So, in term of Geo-strategy, even without Kazakhstan, you can recognise that it not Russia going around USA/NATO and in fact, NATO/USA/EU upsetting Russia, and this immediately after the collapse of USSR.

“From the fight against the Taliban after the WTC attacks.” & “WWII”: So? They don’t count as US bases?

“Russia is the biggest country on the planet and makes most other countries look like dwarves. The only way to not have bases anywhere near Russia is to have them in Africa, South America or Australia.” So many? So recent? And why do you need bases around it, if not for the capacity to attack in all flanks?

[Gilrandir]

We as in our governments, intelligence services and populations. So do you think Ukraine would be better off if the West finally sent military there and started to carpet bomb the separatist forces? Do you expect Putin to retreat in that scenario or launch an all-out offensive on Ukraine after which Ukraine would be even better off? You keep criticizing what we don, maybe tell us what we should do and what you expect to happen if we do that. Constructive criticism is much better than just whining about the attempts of others to help.

1. It may be an eye-opener, but all you people are doing here is sheer criticizing - nations, governments, individuals, minorities, confessions, values, trends ... The whole forum is about it. So I just conform to the pattern.
2. Own up to it: the "we" aren't helping (or attempting to help) Ukraine. The we are concerned with how to keep what they have had before 2014 (reputation-wise, money-wise, business-wise, security-wise). This approach was once epitomized in a phrase by Pannonian: "I was better off when I didn't know anything about Ukraine and I would be happier if the good old times returned". If we look at the Ukraine situation from this vantage point everything the we do is sensible. The problem is that in the past such attitude often led to adverse consequences.
3. As to what may be done to stop Putin: total economic and finacial embargo/blockade. Weapon supplies (if any are done) should not be heralded by worldwide trumpet calls. And peacekeepers at the frontlines. Of course, I don't know (and no one does - except, perhaps, Brenus the Seer) if it will bring the desired result or what will the Huilo do if such measures are introduced, but the we have tried other things and they didn't work, so maybe it is time to try something else, no?

And you never told us your recipe. So spill it out.

With the first option they may still have reserves to keep fighting until you and others demand an end to the ceasefire and with the second option there might be "intense fighting" on the front that would make you and others demand an end to the ceasefire, no?

And who provides the reserves? If Russia decided on stopping rebels their reserves would run short within weeks. And I've heard reports of dissatisfaction among the separatists, as their wages are not always regularly paid, which shows the absence of significant reserves.
As for the second option, the intense fighting that would ensue will be far behind the front lines (as are the non-intense fightings among the separatists that we witness from time to time), so it will in no way be considered a violation of ceasefire between UKRAINE and SEPARATISTS.

No - unless the Ukrainian Church applies to the Ecumenical Patriarch to be released from the Moscow Patriarchate they are answerable to Moscow. So they agree or they get Excommunicated, which trickles all the way down to YOU being excommunicated with Constantinople. Messy. It'll get even messier when Constantinople convenes an Ecumenical Council over the issue.

Ukaine has several christian churches, those with the largest congregations being Ukrainian Orthodox church (Moscow patriarchy), Ukrainian Orthodox church (Kyiv patriarchy), Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church and Greek Catholic church. The only "canonical" church (recognized by Constantinople) is the first and the dioceses in the Crimea belonged to it. But it has (officially) a complete autonomy within Russian Orthodox church, including its property and right to choose a metropolitan (and the latest elections happened in August 2014). Its status can be loosely compared to the status of Scotland within the UK. Can Scotland give some of the state property or land to England without prior discussions, voting and other procedures? I don't think so. That is why alienating property/dioceses of UOC was as much of a treason as the imagined alienation in Scotland would be.

Why is it so hard to see that there are people here who would like to further escalate the conflict?

However numerous such people in the West may be (or you recognize them as such) the only person responsible for further escalating the conflict is Putin. Other "hawks" are only on-lookers doomed to react (mostly inadequately) to Putin's moves.

“Ukraine happened.”Oops, you forgot few steps, as US missiles in Poland, NATO attack on Serbia, building of US bases all around Russia (Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Turkey, Baltic States, Japan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.): Indeed, it did. Miscalculation, ignorance, arrogance, violence, Coup d’Etat followed by attacks,

Remind us, how many lives were lost during the malicious base-planting process? And compare against what was and is going on in Ukraine.

“Russia is the biggest country on the planet and makes most other countries look like dwarves. The only way to not have bases anywhere near Russia is to have them in Africa, South America or Australia.” So many? So recent? And why do you need bases around it, if not for the capacity to attack in all flanks?

Now remind us, how many Nato's flank attacks against Russia happened and compare it against Russia's attacks in Transdniestria, Abkhasia, South Ossetia, Chechnya and now Ukraine. How come that Russia has been delighting in creating a belt of unrecognized quasi-states around its borders, while Nato did it once with Kosovo (and you never tire to bring it up as an ultimate example)? The existing pattern and current Russian government's attitude suggest that the Empire's reconquista is likely to proceed.

[Gilrandir]

I like this:http://tass.ru/en/world/782433
My favorite is:

"Ukraine lost its territorial integrity due to complicated internal processes that are of no relation to Russia or its commitments on the Budapest memorandum," Lukashevich said.

And this is after Putin's confession of how much Russia was "unrelated" to the Crimean events.

[Husar]

And you never told us your recipe. So spill it out.

Where to begin? First of all I wouldn't have given Austria a blank cheque for attacking Russia in 1914...
Then we have the election of Yanukovich by a majority of Ukrainians, the way the Maidan movement acted and was celebrated and a few other mistakes in more recent history. Maybe one could have talked to Putin a little earlier about this whole affair, before he said "Hello, I'm here in Crimea" for example. You know, finding common solution instead of going all "Nyanyanya, suck on this Putin, EU gets Ukraine, *****!" It's not like you would expect a communist overthrowing of the government to suceed in Mexico without the US attempting a counter-coup or an invasion.

By now the entire situation is a train wreck and I'll be happy with any solution that doesn't end up with half of Europe getting nuked, which is why I don't like the jingoist rhetoric. All the West does is talk down to Russia, but the Russians are proud people, much like us, I tend to think that an approach where we don't act like their parents will work better than trying to subdue them with force, threats and so on. It may work for the time being if you go far enough, but consider that they may hate us for it for decades to come...
As for 'the West is only talking down to Putin', he still has enough support even among the population to stay in power, those segments of the population do not like it if we disrespect their president.

If Putin doesn't get reelected for having lost a war and being too weak, which seems to be the plan for some here, then who will the Russians elect instead? Someone who is even more of a strongman?

And who provides the reserves? If Russia decided on stopping rebels their reserves would run short within weeks. And I've heard reports of dissatisfaction among the separatists, as their wages are not always regularly paid, which shows the absence of significant reserves.

Russia provided them stuff and some of it may not have been used up by now = reserves.
And yes, they may run out within weeks, but that's not of much use if the West cries for WW3 after a day already.

As for the second option, the intense fighting that would ensue will be far behind the front lines (as are the non-intense fightings among the separatists that we witness from time to time), so it will in no way be considered a violation of ceasefire between UKRAINE and SEPARATISTS.

If a unit of separatists is breaking the ceasefire at the frontline and Putin wants to stop them he can do that by fighting them way behind the frontlines? How, if they are all on the frontline breaking the ceasefire?