Dwayne
so many dumb brainwashed and americanised people in comments detected.

we attack and invade everything! and we drink vodka every day ! so we can have more land for bears to ride their unicycles! And we all wear those funny looking hats, and if we dont... we get shot!! Also it snows 24/7 , and the temperature is -1000 degrees!!

And america and EU are peacemakers! And they want to help the world and make it a happy place!!

thats what all of you dumb fuckheads probably think.

It makes me angry how fuckin retarded most of you people are

deathtokoalas
i think you're confused.

that's actually what americans think about canada.

Dwayne 
well at least ive learned that americans can think. Maybe sooner or later they will be able to read and write

deathtokoalas
my sarcastic comment aside, i don't think there's much use in trying to determine a right and wrong, here. we're heavily conditioned in the west to think of every conflict as good v. evil, coming out of world war two - which russia and america ended up on the same side of, in a conflict of lesser evil v. much greater evil. colonialism is nasty, but even the genocide of native americans (and it's russian equivalent of siberian colonization) is hard to compare to the systemic extermination of multiple groups that was the holocaust, whether it had anything to do with british and american involvement in wwII or not.

the point is that since then every american conflict is put through this prism of american exceptionalism saving the world from itself, and as bullshit as it is through conflict after conflict, it is very difficult to shake. it's deeply embedded within the american psyche. if america is involved in a conflict, the enemy immediately becomes evil by default. they don't even need the propaganda anymore. it's just implicit.

the reality here in ukraine is that this is a part of a very complicated geopolitical struggle that is partially about resources but reduces at the end to america seeking to stamp out a competitor before it's able to reassert itself. you have to put it in the context of the missile shield that's coming up around russia, and the conflict in syria, and the asian pivot. america is being extraordinarily aggressive in containing russia - not because it's a threat to american security, but because it is competing with america for influence in several complex theatres, including syria, iran and china.

russia is rightly defending itself, but self-defense is not necessarily a pure motive. if the tables were turned, putin would be no less aggressive.

so, the key to getting a grasp on the situation is to understand that it is the sum of colonial powers competing against each other, and not some dualist struggle of good over evil. otherwise, you're just playing into the propaganda from one side or the other.

Max
look, i see what you mean, but invading other country (even with an execuse of defending it's people) is not a self-defence. And so is setting up rebel movements (obviously they're pro-russian, heavily armed, etc)

deathtokoalas
i want to be clear that this war is already lost. russia has no ability to defend itself from far superior western technology. when the missile shield is complete, russia will be swiftly invaded by nato, the government will be dismantled, and the country will be broken into several states and split between europe and china.

you don't realize this is the end game of a centuries old conflict between london and moscow (indeed, between rome and constantinople) that is on the brink of a final resolution.

so, the strategic objectives in the region have to do with the defense shields and naval bases, which extends the possible theatre in which russia can act in self-defense to a very wide area, including the baltics. russia cannot invade poland due to article V, but it's only chance is to take over the polish government somehow. this is not truly realistic...

in reality, the rather spineless actions russia has taken in ukraine are pretty lame in terms of defense arrangements. stalin would have leveled the country. jfk would have threatened nuclear war.

the truth is that putin is a wimp who history will remember as responsible for the final and irreversible decline of russian civilization.

Dwayne
"russia will be swiftly invaded by nato, the government will be dismantled, and the country will be broken into several states and split between europe and china."  hahahahahahaaa yeah right

deathtokoalas
you think they're surrounding them with missiles pointed at their major cities for no reason? there's a lot written about this, from the brzezinski text to the pnac. the long war - which started at the end of the napoleonic wars, not the end of the second world war - is entering it's final stages.

Max
you're right, but to my mind the only reason, why Russia is acting such a way is need of money.

Let me explain myself : not long before Crimea became russian, Shell made a contract with Ukrainian government, obliging itself to search for oil, you what happened next.

Haven't you thought why Sloviansk & Kramatorsk were the main point where the firefight occured ? Not Lugansk or Donetsk. You see, Shell was there too, and even managed to get some shale gas.

Russia (as I think) is just trying to cut off Ukraine's ability to be energy dependent.

deathtokoalas
the amount of gas you can pull from shale is not enough for independence from russia, who has enormous energy reserves. this idea that fracking is going to keep america energy independent is likewise just a silly fantasy; the desperate attempt to squeeze the last bit of hydrocarbons out of america will be dry by roughly 2020. ukraine could get a few years out of it...

there's no doubt that energy is a huge aspect of this, but this doesn't have anything to do with ukraine, the ukrainian people or the resources that exist in ukraine. it's a geostrategic conflict over control of base placements.

this is really stage three of the post-iraq (and post-afghanistan) cleanup of russian influence from the energy triangle. stage one was ejecting russia from it's naval bases in libya, which was swift and successful. stage two was about kicking them out of syria, which looks like it failed. stage three is ukraine, but it's intricately tied into stage two. i'm sure you've noticed that the mess in ukraine has happened at the same time as an escalation of saudi mercenary movement in syria and iraq. russia has been forced to quiet down a little while it focuses on it's own backyard, giving the saudis and americans more room to maneuvre.

crimea is of course home to the southern part of the russian fleet. is it a coincidence that there were american warships moving to dock there after the coup? it's not.

now, imagine if that had happened, if the ukrainians had invited american naval troops into sevastopol. again, this isn't new, though. it just pulls the conflict back from the stalemate it was in through the 20th century to the offensive western position that existed in the 19th. and, there's not a militant germany in the middle anymore to keep both sides on their toes.

so, of course the russians seized crimea. it's one of their most important military bases, and the americans were on the cusp of taking it over. they couldn't let that happen.

but, the fact that it almost did is indicative of the relative weakness of russia in relation to america's continued dominance. this would have been inconceivable even ten years ago. but, all putin has done is twiddle his fingers while nato has slowly surrounded the country.

the eastern part of ukraine is of importance to russia primarily because it is an industrial area that (previously, the contracts are now cancelled) produced military equipment for russia. however, it is also an economically depressed area that russia does not want to pay the bills for. there was never a plan to annex the region, only a plan to set up a buffer state.

i was initially suggesting that all russia could accomplish in the region was to drain itself of resources, which is what nato was hoping for - that russia was foolishly taking the bait, when it should have been focusing on trying to engineer political movements in the more strategic regions of poland and the baltics. but, it seems that poroshenko has overplayed his hand by flat out destroying the area. the region is of no importance to russia if the factories are destroyed. should the russians rebuild their capacity, it would make more sense to do so elsewhere.

and, there is now no future left for the region but pointless conflict leading to abandoned ruins. neither moscow nor kiev will put the funds down to rebuild, and there is no economy there for the people to rebuild themselves.