According to the piece, published in Washington Post, Russia's interests in Ukraine are much more serious than just overwhelming desire to protect the poor Russians there.
I actually recommend the opinion of Lilia Shevtsova for an insight.
Just like all of his predecessors, Putin supports the empire. Just like
them, he probably believes that Russia can survive only as an empire
rather than as a normal nation state.
According to Shevtsova, postmodern Europe, with its emphasis on treaties, soft power, and
negotiations, has proven utterly feckless when it comes to bringing the
Kremlin to heel.
The Russian elite is plugged into the Western economy and its financial
system. That is why the West is helpless when it comes to containing
Russia. So far, the Western governments haven’t shown any willingness to
inflict financial or other kind of pain on themselves.
According to this piece in Forbes, only 15% of voters in Crimea voted for annexation.
Official Kremlin results: 97% for annexation, turnout 83 percent, and percent of Crimeans voting in favor 82%.
President’s Human Rights Council results: 50% for annexation, turnout 30%, percent of Crimeans voting in favor 15%.
46* (unofficial data so far) have been killed and about 200 injured yesterday in a fire in an official building
in the city of Odessa in south-west Ukraine.
Things are getting worse in Ukraine. Early Friday, pro-Russian militants shot down two Ukrainian attack helicopters and a third one, carrying medics... with shoulder-fired missile launchers!
I would not have problem with pro-Russians, clashing, throwing homemade Molotovs, building barricades and protecting their point of view. Okay, let's throw few hunting guns in the mixture. But shoulder-fired missile launchers? I don't have any of that sort stored under my bed. And you?
Who will stop all this bedlam and when? Aren't you scared how fragile and vulnerable the peace of post-war Europe had been despite all the treaties, unions and agreements?
U.S. is waiting for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to persuade Europeans
to take a firmer stand against Russia, but, as usual, EU is unable to make any decission. What's left? Only NATO.
NATO pledged in a 1997 cooperation agreement with Russia that it
wouldn’t station “substantial combat forces” in central and eastern
Europe. But now the crisis in Ukraine is pulling it back to the mission that led to its creation 65 years ago:
defending Europe’s eastern rim against Kremlin expansionism.
Soo.... The Cold War is back? Or we shall see escalation, leading to something far worse?
