And this one is interesting.

---

The only problem with the West's attitude is that Ukraine's choices are no longer limited to the West or Russia. There is also China, which is gradually entering the international arena. It has built up influence in Russia's former backyard in Central Asia and may emerge as a player in the Ukrainian conflict.

China's economic presence in Ukraine is already growing. The Ukrainian automotive market, while still small, is seen by Chinese automakers as a possible base for eventual global expansion. Ukraine has natural resources and agricultural land and could become an important supplier to China.

Moreover, Ukraine is of crucial strategic importance. Without Ukraine, Russia has no empire, which is why Putin is doggedly fighting for it. China, which has territorial claims on eastern Siberia, would be happy to see Russia enmeshed in a draining military conflict.

If Ukraine begins to crumble militarily, don't be surprised if Beijing starts to supply it with war materiel. It may help Ukraine survive, but what it will mean for the EU and U.S. is another matter.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/if-the-west-won-t-help-ukraine-china-will/506160.html

If I was living under a post-putsch government that was sending militias flying Hitler's SS flag into my town, damn straight I'd be asking for help from Putin.

Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists
Kiev throws paramilitaries – some openly neo-Nazi - into the front of the battle with rebels

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11025137/Ukraine-crisis-the-neo-Nazi-brigade-fighting-pro-Russian-separatists.html

Given that there are no good guys in this fight, I hope the US stays out of it.

As Putin pushes Ukraine to bend to his will and allow greater independence to Russian-backed separatists in the country's southeast, the Russian president holds a trump card: Winter is coming.

“I think that nobody thinks of [winter] anymore, except Russia,” Putin said on Sunday, according to The New York Times. “There are ways of helping resolve the issue. First, to immediately stop hostilities and start restoring the necessary infrastructure. To start replenishing reserves, conducting the necessary repair operations and preparing for the cold season.”

Geysar Gurbanov, a Rotary international world peace fellow currently at Harvard, recently explained the leverage that Putin has over Ukraine as the temperature drops.

"According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, [Ukraine's] primary energy consumption is fueled by natural gas (40%) and coal (28%)," Gurbanov writes in The Duke Chronicle. "With winter coming to Ukraine in less than four months and the coal mines located in the easternmost part of the country ravaged by conflict, Ukrainians will freeze in their homes as their gas supplies from Russia are depleted. Therefore, if the rebels fail to achieve their goal, Gazprom, Russia’s energy giant, will help Putin to win the war eventually."

http://www.businessinsider.com/putins-ukraine-trump-card-winter-2014-8

---

“Russians are very brave and very long suffering, and they will tough out any economic difficulty,” said Ms. Feinstein, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” She added that economic sanctions don’t “shake the people that much.”

She instead said the U.S. and its allies must engage in direct talks with Mr. Putin, who she said is calling the shots for Russian separatists in the Ukraine. Mr. McCain said Mr. Putin’s goal is to reconstitute the Soviet Union and that the U.S. should provide Ukraine’s military with weapons and battlefield intelligence. “For God’s sake, can’t we help these people defend themselves?” he said.

President Barack Obama on Thursday ruled out U.S. military intervention in Ukraine and said U.S. intelligence shows sanctions are having an effect but didn’t provide details. U.S. officials have said some declines in Russian financial markets are linked to existing sanctions and threats of further penalties.

“We are working closely with the EU and other partners to hold Russia accountable for its illegal actions in Ukraine, including through additional economic sanctions,” Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Saturday. “We remain committed to supporting Ukraine as it seeks a diplomatic resolution to the crisis and call on Russia to immediately remove its military, including troops and equipment, from Ukraine and end its illicit support to the separatists.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/08/31/u-s-sanctions-not-effective-against-russia-senators-say/?mod=WSJBlog

"Arm Ukraine or Surrender" -- rhetorically framing America as the surrendering party. Surrender? Hell no! Let's arm them!

"...or we force Kiev to surrender." Wait...what? We're forcing them?

Bullshit. We need to pause in these discussions and look at the premises. The starting point of almost every mainstream discussion out there is that America MUST become entangled in this dispute between Moscow and Kiev.

In my opinion, no, we don't.

That is one off them. I'm not sure why they did it that way.

He has a different set of assumptions.

Many believe that everything has a price. One value matters, and that is economics. This is insanely reductionist.

It is irrational to have children. They cost more than they return to a family.

It's irrational to hold onto a family heirloom that has deep emotional value if it can be sold for a nice sum and return a profit--selling something to keep from defaulting and losing home equity, for instance.

It is irrational to quit a good-paying job for some insubstantial value like dignity or honor.

It is irrational to quit a job over religious observance.

It is irrational to put your life in jeopardy over the value of freedom of speech.

Putin's schtick currently is Russian importance in the world. His fear is that Russian sovereignty, ethnicity, Orthodoxy as the core of Russian culture is being undermined. His fear is Russian territorial and ethnic disintegration.

Ukraine is essential to his Customs Union and Eurasian project. It eats at Russian sovereignty and further divides Russian ethnicity. The Maidan and color revolutions have always been a cause for terror, because what holds Russia together isn't so much compared to what pulls it apart. A Maidan in Moscow would reduce those ties; then Siberia, the steppes, the tundra, European Russia from Murmansk to Sochi, might fray and dissolve.

Russia has a messianic destiny. If you don't believe this, then you have a real problem with the brutality, oppression, the crime against humanity that has been Russian history. If you don't do evil things for a saintly purpose, if you can't justify evil by the ultimate good, then you're left with bare power and evil. The USSR was not evil, and that's a core belief. Knocking down a statue of Lenin strikes at the heart of what keeps self-image going from "I am good" to "I adore evil." As in China, as in the Middle East, there are things to be resisted because they are affronts against the natural order of things: Russia triumphant, China triumphant, Islam triumphant. All of creation strives to restore order, and they are but working out the will of history and historical justice. (The ever-present refrain of ideologues.)

Russia fell apart when it became disillusioned. The Soviet project flopped. Generations of Russians gave their life and property, their liberty and blood and sweat, to build something beyond themselves. Then a generation that saw nothing improving in the future came along, that saw no reason to believe, and it stopped. Those who were invested were furious: The Czechs, the Poles, the Hungarians, all those people that the Russians were told they were sacrificing for, who had damned well better be grateful, resented the Russian presence. If that was one of the pillars of your self esteem, you were left with ashes. The only explanation that could be reached was that it was a plot, external enemies--if it were purely internal enemies and internal dynamics, you're back to the Maidan.

The problem in the Donbas is the last vestige of that fight in Ukraine, while in Russia Putin tries to turn back the tide. USSR = good and great. If it requires that people be religiously Orthodox and praise the USSR, so be it. If it requires that you be openly fascist and praise the USSR, wonderful. What matters is that you say how important Russian culture is, how important Russians are, how important Russia is. In this the Donbas has two choices. It can accept that there is life after Russian imperialism; or it can yearn for empire. The dvoechnye that are in charge yearn for empire because they have nothing worth living for in their lives. Their sense of self isn't just Russian, but imperialist Russian. (Lots of Russians in the West have a perfectly fine sense of self without empire. There are Americans who come unglued over the loss of the Panama Canal, even though America is still important it is not clearly in charge.)

Russia must show how good it is by destroying not what's bad, but by destroying what would dispel the illusion that they lived by and that Putin still lives by. And this is a completely rational goal.

If he's irrational, he is covering it up well.

I don't see anything you say there that arouses much disagreement, but I would add that most of that sort of thinking looks like vanilla nationalism to me, which is not uncommon elsewhere in the world.

Edit: I think the USSR was dismantled by a a russian nationalist insurrection prompted by the exorbitant costs (to russians) of that empire, and particularly of Afghanistan. And what happened after that is pretty much what happens with neoliberal economic policies anywhere, maybe a bit worse. That collapse was also predicted in the 1970s by Emmanuel Todd, based of the demographic decline already evident then.

that was their preference.

It is freaking WAR! It was iinevitable from the moment that Kiev started bombing. Outside of a truce and negotiations, there are only two other choices. Kiev suppresses the rebels; or the war goes to Kiev. The rebels are not going to say... aha, Kiev isn't winning, We will now sit here and get bombed for 10 years.

You would think all these armchair analysts would at least understand this part of how a war works.

Kiev stops the war by surpressing rebels. The rebels **have* to be offensive if they want to stop the war, wether they want to or not. That is why it is so important to consider negotiating when the opportunity may arise. It is not weak to negotiate. In many cases it would be wise.

Three months ago a negotiation would have been a united country with the Donbass federalized. That was not such a terrible thing and probably sounds awfully good right now.

One has to wonder why they have not earnestly attempted to negotiate all this time.