[h=1]Kiev forces fire ballistic missiles into E. Ukraine – US media[/h]
In the past two days Kiev’s forces have launched several short-range ballistic missiles into areas in east Ukraine controlled by self-defense forces, CNN reports, citing US government sources.


The move “marks a major escalation” in the Ukrainian crisis, CNN said.


“Three US officials confirmed to me a short time ago that US intelligence over the last 48 hours has monitored the firing of several short-range ballistic missiles from territory controlled by Ukraine government forces into areas controlled by the pro-Russian separatists,” Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, said in a live report.


Short-range ballistic missiles can carry warheads of up to 1,000 pounds (450 kg) and are capable of killing dozens of people at a time, Starr said.


A Moscow correspondent for another American television network, ABC, tweeted Tuesday that the Kiev forces fired three ballistic missiles at self-defense forces near the town of Snezhnoe (Snizhne in Ukrainian) in the Donetsk Region. According to Kirit Radia, this is what a US official told ABC’s Pentagon digital journalist Luis Martinez.


Radia added that according to the official, it is likely that Ukrainian forces use such missiles since they do not want to risk their planes being shot down by sending them to the area.


The CNN gave no details regarding the exact missiles’ launch and impact point.


“In fact, the US is holding this information right now fairly tightly, officials say, because they are in an awkward position: these are, you know, the so-called ‘good guys’ firing ballistic missiles, Ukraine government forces,” Starr said on air.



So far, there has been no official reaction from Kiev and Moscow. The question now is how Washington – which has strongly backed the Kiev government – will comment on the revelations, CNN’s correspondent said.


Earlier this week, the US State Department released satellite images via email which it said act as “evidence” that Russia was firing rockets at Ukrainian troops across the border. Russia’s Defense Ministry stated in response that the “fake” images were created by American advisers “with close links to Ukraine’s Security Council.”


“Will we see the satellite imagery of the Ukrainians firing against the separatists? That may be a very tricky political question for the US intelligence community today,” CNN’s Starr said.


However, CNN’s correspondent in Donetsk, Nick Paton Walsh, said he had heard nothing of ballistic launches in the area and nothing of that kind has been openly discussed. He added, though, that it is no secret that both sides of the conflict were using “very heavy weaponry” against each other.


Russian military experts say that if the Ukrainian military did use ballistic missiles, most likely they would be Tochka-U (NATO Designation SS-21 Scarab).

Viktor Murakhovsky told RT that the military possibly used the missile against a fixed target, such as the militia’s staff headquarters.


“I’m talking about the Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile on a wheeled chassis, which the Ukrainian army has in its arsenal. It’s a Soviet-designed and produced missile. It may have a high-explosive fragmentation warhead or a disintegrating warhead,” Murakhovsky said.


Anatoly Tsyganok, the head of the Military Forecasting Center in Moscow, agreed that the Ukrainian army could have used the Tochka-U missile.

The news broke amid growing tensions between Washington and Moscow over the ongoing violent confrontation in Ukraine.


The US, giving strong backing to the Kiev government, has repeatedly accused Russia of supporting anti-government separatist forces in east Ukraine and supplying them with arms – an accusation Russia has strongly denied. Last week, US government officials claimed that Russia was firing artillery across the border into Ukrainian territory, but refused to provide any hard evidence besides some pictures captured by a civilian satellite, which were rebuffed by Russia’s Defense Ministry.


So far the US has failed to back its statements with any trustworthy proof, mainly referring to some images, “commons sense” and social media.


Charges and counter charges between the two powers have been boiling following the tragic accident with Malaysian Airlines Boeing-777 that crashed in Ukraine on July 17. The very next day after the incident, long before experts arrived at the scene and a probe was launched, President Barack Obama said that America had “increasing confidence” that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from militia-controlled territory. US intelligence said later that it found no direct link between Russia and the plane disaster. But, still, the blame-game continued with Russia being accused of “creating conditions” that led to the incident.


A fresh bunch of accusations were thrown at Moscow on Tuesday, with Obama stating that Russia was not cooperating with the international investigation of the plane crash.


Chief of the Air Force General Staff Igor Makushev and Head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia’s Armed Forces Andrei Kartapolov (from right to left) at the news conference on the crash of the Boeing 777 passenger airliner in Ukraine.(RIA Novosti / Vadim Savitskii)



Russia on the contrary has been calling for a transparent and impartial investigation of the tragedy from the very beginning. Russia’s Defense Ministry presented its own evidence on the movements of Ukrainian military before and after the tragedy, including surface-to-air missile systems, and a fighter jet that had been tracking the civilian aircraft. During the press conference, Russian military posed a number of questions to Kiev and Washington answers to which could shed light on what really happened on that day and help the international investigation. Those questions however were left unanswered with western media and politicians instead blaming Russia of not willing to use its “influence” on anti-Kiev forces whom they accused of hampering the investigation despite the fact that it was Kiev’s forces who intensified the military operation in the direct vicinity of the crash site.


On Tuesday however, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko finally said that Kiev is ready for a cease-fire at the MH17 crash site, as was demanded by the UN Security Council resolution on July 21. The local militia in the meantime confirmed they were ready to further cooperate with international experts investigating the crash.

 

And once again we see the continuous ranting and raving of a lunatic left-winger fanatic.
Nice job following the party line to the limits of insanity.
Hence the reason why liberalism is a true mental disorder.

You are as insane as Pres Obama.

 

This is just a canned and senseless reply which is actually really stupid because can't see that you are actually revealing yourself because its you who can only rant senselessly with nothing more than your blind hatred to back it up. And so all you can do is parrot the same little sayings over and over and over again.

 

And outrageous and dangerous fools like you say President Obama should be giving these guys more weapons. I'd be laughing again if that wasn't so dangerously sick.

 

So to offer assistance to armed aggression is dangerous and outrageous? Spoken like a true leftist comrade.

 

From your own source genius.

Kiev forces fire ballistic missiles into E. Ukraine – US media

And you want to trust those guys with more weapons?

And you remember who else we gave weapons to in order to fight the Russians don't you? You know Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

 

Better than you will ever understand, also the fact that UBL was offered on a plate twice or more times by foreign governments to Pres Clinton.
As usual with the left, they only seek their own gains for domestic political reasons and let real threats go without dealing with them.

 

[h=1]Merkel Is Giving Putin the Silent Treatment[/h]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since July 20, three days after the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash. In their last conversation, the Wall Street Journal describes her sentiments to Putin as "Call me if you have progress to report in defusing the conflict." Putin has not called.
View photo
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Putin, FIFA President Sepp Blatter, and Merkel watch the opening ceremony of the World Cup final. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
For a long time, it was considered that Angela Merkel could get through to Putin in a way that other leaders could not. Merkel pledged that Germany and Russia would have a "partnership for modernization." At the World Cup in Brazil, the two leaders even sat together. Between the time when the Ukraine/Russia conflict began this winter and July 20, Putin and Merkel had at least thirty known phone calls.


Some have speculated that Germany and Russia had been negotiating a secret "land for gas" deal that fell apart after the MH17 crash, which could have led to this silent treatment. The deal would have Germany recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, and in exchange, Russia would create stable, cheaper gas supplies to Ukraine.

The alleged deal was being brokered by Merkel between Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. A German government spokesperson has shot down reports of this deal, saying "The report has no basis," and it remains unconfirmed.



Merkel has moved even further away from Putin this week, as she joined the European Union's plan to issue further sanctions against Russia. These sanctions will strike Russia's banking, exporting and energy sectors, though not natural gas, as Europe heavily relies on Russia for this resource.

 

[h=1]Ukrainian troops suffer heavy loss in ambush[/h]
DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities said Friday that at least 10 government troops were killed in an ambush by pro-Russian separatists in an area near the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but international inspectors nonetheless set off for a second day at the crash site.






Defense officials said in a statement that the attack happened during redeployment in the town of Shakhtarsk, which has been the object of sustained battles for several days. The statement did not specify when the attack occurred.


A convoy of international investigators headed out in the early morning for a visit to the wreckage site of the Boeing 777, but on a road that didn't go through Shakhtarsk.


A small team managed to perform an initial survey of the area for the first time Thursday. For days, clashes along routes to the wreckage site had kept investigators from reaching the area to find and retrieve bodies that have been decaying in the 90-degree (32 C) midsummer heat. Independent observers warned that there has been tampering with evidence.


The team was traveling Friday in 15 cars and one bus from their base in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Their convoy was joined by three vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross when it reached the government-controlled town of Debaltseve.


Both sides in the conflict in east Ukraine have tentatively agreed to a cease-fire around the crash zone, although there is evidence that fighting was continuing in nearby locations.

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Ukrainian government artillery guns stand in a field near the village of Debaltseve, Donetsk region, …



Ukrainian forces have latterly focused their strategy on driving a wedge into an area between the largest rebel-controlled cities, Donetsk and Luhansk.


Shakhtarsk lies on one of two highways linking those cities and is about 20 kilometers south where the Malaysia Airlines plane came down.


The aircraft was brought down in a missile attack last month, killing all 298 people onboard.


It is believed up to 80 bodies may still remain uncollected at the crash site, which is sprawled in a broad area across fields between two villages.


Investigators working on the site say their first priority will be to recover human remains and retrieve victims' belongings, so that they can be returned home.

 

Oh so now its President Clinton's fault? What happened to all this being President Obama's fault? As if President Obama sparked the Ukranian uprising and protests and drove their Russian president from office.

You never really touch reality do you?

 

Okay lets see - Clinton had a chance to have UBL given to him, and chose not to do so...that makes it his fault on his watch.
Pres Obama failed to make a strong stand, repeatedly, on the Ukraine and other places during his watch, hence his failure.

Only on the left does their insanity and fervent fanatical fever for Pres Obama cause history to be rewritten and words twisted to the wind.
Hence the reason you choose to take two different matters and try to make them one and the same.

 

What do you consider strong stands? Going to war against Russia over the Ukraine, going to war in Syria, and sending troops back into Iraq and trying to fight three or four wars (including against a nation that has as many nuclear weapons as we do) at the same time?

You are simply so hate filled and brainwashed you can't even see how illogical and deadly your position is. All you can do is parrot right wing false propaganda without even thinking about what the consequences would be.

You really should go back to simply copying and pasting news updates because that's the only thing you are really good at.

 

[h=1]Unclear whether sanctions can influence Russia[/h]
Brussels (AFP) - No one doubts the latest EU and US economic sanctions on Russia will inflict significant costs, but whether they can force Moscow to reverse course in Ukraine is a completely different question.



The United States has been making life difficult for Cuba for more than 50 years but its communist government has carried on through thick and thin, even surviving the collapse of its most important ally, the Soviet Union.
Similarly with Zimbabwe where veteran President Robert Mugabe continues to thumb his nose at the West, pressing ahead with the very policies his critics most condemn.
But in Iran, hard hit by US sanctions since the 1980s, the picture is more nuanced.
With an oil-dependent economy teetering on the brink and a young population hungry for modernity, Tehran has softened its line in recent years, agreeing finally in 2013 to talks with the major powers on its hotly disputed nuclear programme.
How effective economic sanctions are "is one of the key debates over many, many years," said Ian Lesser, a senior director at the German Marshall Fund. "It is simply an unsolved, open question."
Alongside sanctions success-story Iran, Lesser cited the case of South Africa where "it is arguable that they worked to end apartheid over time, but elsewhere it is very, very unclear. All are unique."
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Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, on July 4, 2014 (A …

- Putin's stake in Ukraine -
As the Ukraine crisis deepened, and especially after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, President Vladimir Putin has presented himself as the guardian of Russian nationalism and claimed the right to intervene in defence of Russian minorities elsewhere if necessary.
For Putin, the Ukraine crisis is a high-stakes confrontation with the West which must not be lost given the reverses and slights he believes Russia has suffered since the end of the Cold War.
"Investors should be wary of assuming that the economic risks to Russia occasioned by its actions in Ukraine will inevitably lead to Russia pulling back from confrontation," Adam Slater, a senior economist at Oxford Economics, said in a commentary.
It may seem obvious that "the economically rational thing for the Russian authorities to do in the face of further sanctions is to pull back from Ukraine, (but) this is by no means guaranteed to happen.
"The political calculations being made by Putin may be very different from the approach that might be followed by another leader in another country," Slater cautioned.
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Ukrainian tanks stand guard near a field on July 31, 2014 in the village of Debaltseve, in the Donet …

Ukraine has a special place in Russian history, with Kiev the seat of a precursor state to what became the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
Strategically sited to the southeast, Ukraine was the scene of some of the largest Nazi German offensives into Russia during World War II after which it became a Soviet republic, with Crimea serving as the home base for Russia's Black Sea fleet.
For Russia, "if its leaders and the public think (Ukraine) is absolutely vital, then it is going to be very hard to move them," Lesser said.
Lesser noted that sanctions can also be counter-productive, citing the case of Serbia in the 1990s where dwindling supplies of food and other daily necessities strengthened the government's position because the population had no one else to turn to for help.
- Unintended consequences -
The list of countries hit with sanctions is a long and checkered one, from Syria to North Korea by way of Myanmar and Belarus, to Iraq and Poland of the 1980s who found economic, political, and even cultural and sporting ties severed or curtailed.
In Russia's case, the European Union, similarly to Washington, is targeting its banking, defence and energy sectors, aiming to make it pay a price over the Ukraine crisis in the hope Moscow will then reverse course.
Konstanty Gebert, Associate Fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said he was sceptical the new sanctions would produce results any time soon.
Europe variously wants Moscow to stop meddling in Ukraine, support a peaceful resolution of the crisis and give up occupied territory such as Crimea, Gebert noted.
From Russia's perspective, the most that could be expected was that "it might be willing to consider the first, depending on how serious the EU is on the sanctions, but certainly not the second or third," he said.
The latest measures "were a major improvement" on the asset freezes and visa bans imposed previously as "they can actually bite but (they) won't be a disaster for Russia."
Recalling Western sanctions imposed on Poland's last communist-era leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Gebert noted how one government official at the time had dismissed the measures with the infamous quip: "The government will always find something to eat!"

 

[h=1]U.S. plans to train, arm Ukraine national guard in 2015[/h]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration has notified Congress of its plans to train and arm the Ukrainian national guard next year, the Pentagon said on Friday, as Washington continues to intensify its response to Moscow's support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.


"The Defense Department and State Department have notified Congress of our intent to use $19 million in global security contingency fund authority to train and equip four companies and one tactical headquarters of the Ukrainian national guard as part of their efforts to build their capacity for internal defense," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.


The training, which requires congressional approval, would occur at a location within Ukraine that hosts multilateral exercises, Kirby said. The trainers would be provided by U.S. Army Europe and by the California National Guard, he added.


While Kirby did not link the training to the West's deepening standoff with Russia over Ukraine. The announcement comes as the United States and other Western nations seek to tighten pressure on Moscow after the July 17 downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held territory in Ukraine by what Western nations say was a Russia-supplied missile.


Earlier on Friday, President Barack Obama urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine and to seek a diplomatic end to the crisis. [ID:nL6N0Q75B2]. Washington and European nations announced new sanctions against Russia earlier this week.


While the United States has repeatedly slammed Russia's troop buildup along the border with Ukraine and its support for the rebels, the Obama administration has limited military assistance to non lethal aid such as medical supplies and helmets.

Also on Friday, the United States pledged about $8 million in new aid to bolster the Ukrainian border guard service.

So it appears to be that Pres Obama has finally come to an decision about helping out the Ukraine government in the new year: far enough off in time to let him change his mind yet again, and flip-flop all over the place.

I will believe this when I see it and expect him to fail again as always. This is the classical syndrome of 'Leading by failure.'

 

This must be President Obama's fault and snowleopard3200 can explain that to us. Not *snark, snark, roll on the floor laughing at fool*

 

Once again the fact that liberalism is a mental disorder is well established.

Oh, and for the record, as Pres Obama is the PRESIDENT and has ordered this to be done, then yes, when it fails or he changes his mind, then it is his fault.
Oh wait...that's right...to the left-fanatics such as you truth does not matter...
Now you will blame it on Pres Bush?

 

[h=1]Russia accuses EU of double standards over Ukraine[/h]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the European Union of double standards on Saturday, saying it had lifted a ban on supplying Ukraine with military technology and equipment "on the quiet" but imposed sanctions on Moscow's defence sector.





Relations between Moscow and Brussels have deteriorated since the EU imposed sanctions on Russia over its involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting government forces.


"During a recent meeting of the Council of Europe in Brussels, leaders of EU member states agreed 'on the quiet' to remove restrictions on exports to Kiev of equipment that could be used for internal repression," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.


"Exports of military technologies and equipment were also allowed," the statement said, without saying exactly when the decision was taken by the EU.


The Foreign Ministry, which has suggested the EU is dictated to by the United States, also called on EU leaders not to be "goaded" by Washington over events in eastern Ukraine.


The EU passed its heaviest penalties on Moscow this week, imposing sanctions on Russia's defence, energy and financial sectors.


It agreed in February to review export licences for deliveries of military technology and equipment to Kiev and to suspend export licences for riot-control equipment that could be used by ousted president Viktor Yanukovich's government for "internal repression."


In July, the EU revoked that agreement. Its members did not impose an outright ban on military equipment exports to Ukraine but instead agreed to review such exports.


EU officials in Brussels were not immediately available for comment.

 

[h=1]Chief Internet Sleuth May Have Found Launcher That Downed MH17[/h]
As fighting interrupted international investigators from working on the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash site, the internet's premiere armchair detective claims to have tracked down the rocket launcher that shot down MH17.





First, on Saturday, there were reports that fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels once again kept the full crash site from being investigated. This follows a series of delay related to fighting and interference by pro-Russian rebels, including the Ukrainian allegation that the rebels had planted mines around the crash site. From the BBC:

Alexander Hug, the deputy chief monitor with the Ukraine mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told Agence France-Presse a visit to the village of Petropavlivka had been agreed with the rebels and Ukrainian forces.
However, he said: "We heard at a distance of approximately two kilometres incoming artillery from where we were and that was too close to continue."
​

The main area of focus was reportedly not impeded upon by the violence. Elsewhere, a massive rally in support of the pro-Russian rebels was held in Moscow.

The bigger news of the day may be that blogger Eliot Higgins, aka Brown Moses, claims to have tracked down the rocket launcher reportedly used to shoot down MH17.


Higgins was the subject of a New Yorker profile last year after he confirmed that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria last year from the comfort of his couch in Leicester, England.



Higgins' method is to use open source information, mostly social media photos and accounts, to make links between various pieces of evidence. (And who says the surveillance culture is a bad thing?)


His musings (with some photos and evidence) were run on Saturday by the Daily Beast, where Higgins followed a rocket launcher thought to be used in the attack that shot down MH17 on its journey from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to Luhansk, where it is believed the fatal missile was fired on July 17.


He concludes:

Based on the above information alone it seems impossible to deny that the rebels were transporting a Buk Missile Launcher through the region on the same day as the downing of flight MH17. It also demonstrates the Buk was transported from Donestsk, through Torez, while still on the transporter... Finally, we know a Buk missile launcher, minus at least one missile, and the netting seen in other locations pre-launch, was spotted in the rebel held town of Luhansk, and it seems reasonable to assume this was after the downing of MH17.
​

 

Moscow (AFP) - Punitive sanctions and the calling into question of a key arms control treaty with Washington have ratcheted up pressure on Russia, leaving President Vladimir Putin few palatable options to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, analysts say.





Putin might have thought he could get away with keeping the conflict simmering with a divided Europe wary of imposing tough sanctions that could plunge its own economy back into recession.


But the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over territory held by pro-Russian rebels last month, with the loss of all 298 people on board, including 193 Dutch nationals, forced the European Union into action.


For the first time, the sanctions imposed by Brussels and Washington last week apply to entire sectors, impeding access to Western capital markets and technology needed to develop new oil and gas fields, as well as an arms sales ban.


Many analysts believe that the measures will gradually impact the Russian economy, already teetering on the brink of recession.


But the ultimate question is whether they will have a political effect -- pushing Putin to stop supporting the pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine and to come to a mutually acceptable resolution of the crisis.


Adam Slater, senior economist at Oxford Economics, said that pulling back from Ukraine would appear the economically rational thing for Russia to do, but this is by no means guaranteed to happen.


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"The political calculations being made by President Putin may be very different from the approach that might be followed by another leader in another country," he said in a recent report.


That is because Putin has created a popular political image as a strong leader who can stand up to the West, and during the Ukraine crisis he has styled himself as a defender of ethnic Russians abroad.


US President Barack Obama told a press conference Saturday Putin "should want to resolve this diplomatically, to get these sanctions lifted, get their economy growing again, and have good relations with Ukraine."


However he cautioned that "sometimes people don't always act rationally".



- Putin 'zugzwanged' -


Yet the MH17 crash could give Putin an opportunity to break from the insurgents in Ukraine if they are determined to have shot down the plane, journalist and long-time Putin observer Andrei Kolesnikov believes.

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Dutch experts examine the area of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 plane crash in the village of Hr …



"The death of children, adults and the elderly is a sort of red line that he won't cross... Putin will break with them," he wrote in the Russian daily Kommersant.


But others believe abandoning the pro-Russian rebels would be difficult, especially given that state media has been portraying them as defending ethnic Russians against neo-fascist Ukrainians. Putin has also faced growing calls from nationalists at home to send in troops.


Konstantin Kalachev, head of the Moscow-based Political Expert Group think-tank, said Putin hasn't taken the opportunities to disown the rebels that the crash has afforded, and he is now like a chess player faced with only bad moves.


"It's zugzwang, when each move only worsens the situation," Kalachev told AFP.


Putin's objective in Ukraine has been to keep the country out of the orbit of the EU and NATO.


When protesters earlier this year ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych from power in Kiev after he rejected an EU trade deal under Russian pressure, Putin seized the opportunity to take over Crimea.

View gallery



And as the new Ukrainian authorities gravitated towards the West, a well-armed rebel movement led by former Russian officers sprang up.

Putin "miscalculated, thinking we can do what others can't," said Kalachev, pointing to the way Russians persevered for years to impose a military solution in Chechnya.



- Treaty threat doubles ante -


But if Putin's plan was to call the West's bluff over Ukraine, the MH17 disaster changed the dynamics of the crisis.


Washington doubled the ante by going public with accusations that Russia violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) by testing a cruise missile.


"You can't look at the case of the INF Treaty in isolation, only in the context of the general worsening of relations between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine crisis and the Malaysian Boeing 777," the head of the International Security Centre at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, Alexei Arbatov, told the daily Kommersant this week.


Arbatov said going public with the complaints was a "psychological threat", as doing away with the treaty -- which bans all ground-launched medium range missiles -- would prove costly to Moscow.


After the collapse of the INF treaty "the United States would consider that it had the right to deploy its missiles in eastern Europe, dangling a new Sword of Damocles over Russia," Dmitry Polikanov, deputy head of another Russian think-thank, the PIR Centre, was quoted as saying by Kommersant.


The option of a full-on Russian intervention might also lead to the country's further isolation and a reinforcement of NATO.


Independent political analyst Maria Lipman said that Putin's "room for manoeuvre has shrunk although not disappeared altogether".


"He is trying to find steps that don't appear as a retreat," she said.


Speaking at World War I commemorations on Friday, Putin drew many contemporary parallels, saying that history proved time and again that an "unwillingness to listen to each other" and respect each other's interests can have huge costs.


Lipman said that if the West wants a quick end to the fighting it will need to find an agreement with Putin as sanctions will only gradually have enough impact to cause political concerns for the Russian leader.


"Stopping the war should be the top goal for Europe, and that is impossible without Russia," she said.


Interesting that Pres Obama states that "Some people do not always act rationally..." Talk about someone who needs to look in the mirror and recognize his own hypocrisy. If Pres Obama had stood firm at the start of this crisis, then this mess would not have happened.

It took the leaders of Europe to do something while Pres Obama only imposed useless, worthless, toothless sanctions for most of the crisis.

He deserves no credit for anything in this crisis save for exasperating it and allowing it to go on longer than it needed to.
In the years to come, historians will point to Obama's legacy and declare he had a great opportunity for change for the better in the world, and instead, personified "Leadership by failure.'

 

You know when it comes to posting these updates you are actually pretty good. But then when it comes to your blind hatred of President Obama you fulfill your own prophecy.

"I have seen people who hate so much that they live it completely, not knowing or not caring for anything else."

Do you recognize that?