Thanks for the thread, dipsydoodle.

After all, no one is talking about Crimea anymore, right? Is a cost a big, but Russia got to take Crimea back and we're all just so happy it didn't turn into goddamned WWIII, that we're happy to let him have it.

He's a clever sonofabitch, I'll give him that. And he knows how to play certain elements in the West like a fiddle.... All that KGB experience.

EU integration and flirting with NATO membership for the Ukraine was a strategic gamble. Russia doesn't "own" the Ukraine so in a sense all is fair in love and war, but "the West" was assertive, and Russia moved to counter. The Crimea was relatively low hanging fruit for them, and they decided it was worth the international blow back to grab it. Russia has paid a price to accomplish that but Putin thought it was worth it. Once relations with the West were damaged anyway Putin has bee n testing the resolve of the West to see how far he can push at what further price to him. It seems like he will get his earlier demand of a more federalized Ukraine with less central control with semi-autonomy for some of the regions bordering Russia. Having said that I don't doubt that he has been weighing whether it is worth the price to make a grab for more than that.

A Barrage Of Lies Against Russia
General ‘Breedhate’ in Another Sabotage Sortie

By Finian Cunningham

September 22, 2014 "ICH" - "SCF" - US Air Force General Philip Breedlove strafed the renewed peace plan for Ukraine before it barely got off the ground at the weekend, thereby aiming to shoot down another political bid to end months of deadly violence in the country.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39747.htm

Russia is the unquestioned aggressor and upon that fictitious foundation, the US and EU have built an edifice of escalating sanctions against Moscow and likewise provocative NATO military actions across Eastern Europe, from the Baltics to the Black Sea. NATO is currently carrying out “war games” in Ukraine despite the country not being a member of the alliance.

cookies or coup-kies are causing diarrhea.

Europe needs gas.