Okay, here is the gist of the matter, for events in the Ukraine have escalated dramatically as of late.

The Ukraine government is claiming six-thousand Russian soldiers have already invaded...

Source Here

Other sources have not verified this, and Putin today is supposed to have gone before the Russian parliament to request the usage of force and of troops (depending on source article you believe)

Where is this mess going to, and what will be the cost to Europe and the United States if we get dragged into a shooting-war?

Does anyone think someone in the current administration (not necessarily the President) will panic and cause war to begin or escalate?


My opinion is this - we need to stay out of it, as the United States has no means to respond other than useless UN Sanctions, strongly-worded notes, empty threats, and the like.

To answer the second question: highly probable.

 

First of all I very definitely want to stay out of a shooting war. I do not want any threats made to Russia that can only backed up by going to war.

Second, I think it was foolish not to disband NATO when the Warsaw Pact disbanded. Instead we encouraged former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO.

Russia does not threaten Western Europe. Russia does not threaten the United States. If Russia wants to occupy countries it used to occupy I want to stay out of it.

As it happens, I doubt the Soviet Union wanted to conquer Western Europe and the United States. Nevertheless it was more dangerous to either than Russia is.

 

No one should get involved to help the ukraine govt. They are being overthrown because their people are sick of corruption. The world governments should help the people reclaim their country, not help the current regime continue to grow corruption. Just sayin

 

The problem is that someone already has - Russia. The question is what should we do about it.

 

I feel strongly about this one. I'm normally on the side of diplomacy, and non intervention, particularly in cases of civil war and civil unrest. Personally I usually believe it is in our best interests both financially, strategically and morally to stay out of other people's business. However, this time I see Russia as the party that is secretly responsible if not for instigating the unrest, certainly escalating it. And now they are capitalising on the situation to divide Ukraine further and potentially annex the Crimea. And while this maybe popular with many in that region of Ukraine, not all people are happy to become Moscow's pawns.

If ever there was a need for America and Europe to stand up to Russia since the Cold War, it is now.

 

Russia will annex the Crimea with no doubt as they have already closed the airspace and have boots on the ground before the US/West even thought about it. As Ukraine is a very important market for Russia it is difficult to imagine an actual invasion.

 

Time to laugh at Oduma again

Putin just bitch slapped Obama.... Now lets all watch Obama do nothing. Time for Obama to run and hide in some other debacle he has created...

Putin gets permission to use military in Ukraine; parliament wants to pull ambassador in DC

Published March 01, 2014 FoxNews.com

The Russian parliament unanimously voted Saturday to grant President Vladimir Putin permission to mobilize the country's military in Ukraine and asked that the country's ambassador in Washington be recalled after earlier statements by President Obama.

Putin says the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea. But the request came a day after Obama warned Moscow that "there will be costs" if it intervenes militarily in Ukraine.
"I'm submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country," Putin said before the vote.
Putin's call came as pro-Russian demonstrations broke out in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, where protesters raised Russian flags and beat up supporters of the new Ukrainian government.
Russia's move sharply raised the stakes in the conflict following the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president last week by a protest movement aimed at turning Ukraine toward the European Union and away from Russia. Ukraine has accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" -- a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis, and raised fears that Moscow is moving to intervene on the strategic peninsula where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
The move also appears to formalize what Ukrainian officials described as an ongoing deployment of Russian troops in the strategic region of Crimea. His motion loosely refers to the "territory of Ukraine" rather than specifically to Crimea, raising the possibility that Moscow could use military force in other Russian-speaking provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine where many oppose the new authorities in Kiev.
WATCH: Is it too late to warn Russia to stay out of Ukraine?
In Crimea, the pro-Russian regional prime minister had earlier claimed control of the military and police there and asked Putin for help in keeping peace, sharpening the discord between the two neighboring Slavic countries.
Sergei Aksenov, the head of the main pro-Russia party on the peninsula, said in a statement reported by local and Russian news agencies that he appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin "for assistance in guaranteeing peace and calmness on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea."
Aksenov declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards will answer only to his orders. He said any commanders who don't agree should leave their posts.
Russia's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said unidentified gunmen sent by Kiev had attempted overnight to seize the Crimea region's Interior Ministry offices and that people had been wounded in the "treacherous provocation," Reuters reported.
Ukrainian border guard vessels were put on combat alert in the Crimea region on Saturday and were leaving port to prevent the capture of military bases and ships, Interfax news agency quoted the border guard service as saying, according to Reuters.
Russian troops moved into Crimea Friday, U.S. officials told Fox News, prompting Ukraine to accuse Russia of an "armed invasion."
Ukraine's defense minister said on Saturday Russia had “recently'' brought 6,000 additional personnel into Ukraine and that the Ukrainian military were on high alert in the Crimea region, Reuters reported.
WATCH: Krauthammer 'shocked' by Obama Ukraine statement
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk opened a cabinet meeting by calling on Russia not to provoke discord in Crimea.
"We call on the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine.”
At the White House, President Obama said the U.S. government is "deeply concerned" by reports of Russian "military movements" and warned any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty would be "deeply destabilizing."
U.S. officials told Fox News they see “evidence of air and maritime movement into and out of Crimea by Russian forces” although the Pentagon declined to officially "characterize" the movement.
Earlier Friday, Agence France Press quoted a top Ukranian official as saying Russian aircraft carrying nearly 2,000 suspected troops have landed at a military air base near the regional capital of the restive Crimean peninsula.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian border service said eight Russian transport planes have landed in Crimea with unknown cargo.
Serhiy Astakhov told The Associated Press that the Il-76 planes arrived unexpectedly Friday and were given permission to land, one after the other, at Gvardeiskoye air base, north of the regional capital, Simferopol.
Astakhov said the people in the planes refused to identify themselves and waved off customs officials, saying they didn't require their services.
Earlier in the day, Russian armored vehicles rumbled across Crimea and reports surfaced of troops being deployed at airports and a coast guard base – signs of a more heavy-handed approach to the crisis from Moscow.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/0...trol-asks-russia-for-help-in-restoring-peace/

 

+1

And it won't stop with the Crimea.

There are unconfirmed (and indeed unconfirmable) reports of boots on the ground in Eastern Ukraine. Special Forces, going in advance of the 150,000+ troops massing on the eastern border.

And the ultranationalist Russian MP, Zhirinovosky, has promised ethnic Russians living in Ukraine that they can go about their business "with smiles," secure in the knowledge that the Motherland will protect them.

Obama had better have more than words. (IMO he should not have spoken in the first place, but it's too late to wish he would have kept his mouth shut.)

 

This is no laughing matter.

Last night, our feckless Commander in Chief was being advised by David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett on whether boycotting the Group of Eight meeting in Sochi this summer is too bold a retaliation!

By this summer, we will be redrawing the maps of Eastern Europe, if the United States and Western Europe do not act. FAST.

 

Obama will file a complaint with the UN tomorrow...

What else do you expect or think a spineless coward like Obama will do?

His foreign policy has been a big disaster since day one. I don't see that changing now or anytime in the near future.

Russia will do and take what ever they want. Obama will do nothing. That's what he does... Besides run his mouth and write checks his ass can't cash...

 

You know we are trying to figure out how to get all of our military machinery OUT OF Afghanistan...We have a lot of it there and needs to be moved to the USA....

Seems to me moving it to the Ukraine would be a lot easier....
Time for the rights to a new base approved by the current Ukraine govt....

 

I wish Obama hadn't drawn more "lines." While I am called a "warmonger" (while I would call it pragmatism), I wish the position of the United States could have been, "If the people of Ukraine want independence from Russia, the people of Ukraine should fight for it."

But it is too late for that.

Perhaps rightfully so. DeviousDave argues persuasively elsewhere in this thread that something has to be done. If Western Europe and the United States cave on this one, there are many untenable repercussions. (Eastern Europe dangerously destabilized; Turkey destabilized; Assad entrenched; Iran emboldened, Western Ukraine and even Poland imperiled.........)

There are no good answers.

 

Which might actually achieve something, if the UN hadn't been turned into a toothless waste of time by ... let me think, which country was it that has consistently been shitting on the UN and its opinions for the last fifteen years ... oh yes, the USA.

 

So you're advocating a hot war with Russia, then. Because that is what it comes to, if we attempt to assert this so-called prerogative by establishing a beachhead.

I am the warmonger around here, but I don't know if throwing down the gauntlet is the answer. Kennedy stood up to Kruschev. Do you really think Barack Obama can stand up to Putin?

 

What the hell does it matter to us?

 

LMAO!!!! Stop, now my side hurts.....

 

I don't think it is cowardly for Obama not to move, just pragmatism. Russia will annex Crimea & may even "control" Eastern Ukraine but to start a War would be precipitous.

 

Nothing. Lots of Ukrainians are pro Russian.

I can just imagine the U.S. sending troops there only to have the troops killed by Ukrainian civilians, just as they were killed by civilians in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

"When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?"

- Pete Seeger

 

Looks like there are plenty of examples of what would probably happen.

 

I don't think the President should have made threats about this and I do not see it as our fight. We are not chartered to be in control of the world. All these politicians flex their muscles and then send others to do their bidding. This is a trap just like the other ones we've walked into.