Russian vassalization of Ukraine

[exploited]

[broken robot]

[Kane]

It's not just another poor country though....it's a very strategic piece of Russian influence in the European area. You think Putin is doing all of this because it doesn't mean anything to him?

[exploited]

[Doncorelone]

No one in the US is willing to go to war over the sake of Russians wanting to be with other Russians. Cut the Crimea loose.

[Kane]

[Gremlin]

Its March... its everyone's favorite time of the year for WAR FEVER!

Oh the government media loves this s#it, because they can sell more penis pills while keeping you up to date on Miley's tweark.
If you receive and follow legit reporting on this situation the last couple months none of what is happening would be a surprise.

[Spider]

Ukraine really is not as trivial as its being made out to be. Don't forget...Putin's long terms ambitions are the establishment of the Eurasian Union. Ukraine, being one of the world's great breadbasket countries, is essential to that. In fact is pretty much the keystone of the the legitimacy of the whole thing when it comes to expansion. Otherwise all Tsar Vladimir has to play with are countries that really are useless, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. Trying to muscle Ukraine into this thing would be a gigantic coup. And considering the fact that Georgia, even having been on the receiving end of Imperial---er, sorry, Soviet....er sorry, Russian strategic bombers, is considering playing ball with them...I doubt the Tsar feels strongly motivated to pull punches.

When it comes to long term strategic planning, the virtual reestablishment of the USSR is not to be understated. The US and EU have very good reasons to try to stifle this thing. The problem is they just won't have the stones to do it unless there is an actual shooting war on the table. And even that might tip it further into Putin's camp.

[exploited]

I find it interesting that you think the reestablishment of the USSR as an "Eurasian Union" is somehow going to present any more of a threat to the West than we have always faced from Russia. What does it change? How does it fix their economy? How does it improve their strategic standing?

It's as if Ukraine was once a true independent country, when it just isn't the case. So now you'd have Georgia, Ukraine and some other countries working with or under Russia, as they have for the past half-millennia or so... And this is supposed to be something the West is supposed to go to war to prevent or something?

[John Galt]