There is no question that there are long standing ties between Russia and Ukraine. Indeed, Putin’s actions are in keeping with the Russian tradition of viewing Ukraine as a vassal state whose resources, both human and material, are to be seized and exploited. The presidency of Yanukovich served Putin’s desire to extract resources from Ukraine, and Putin’s actions since Yanukovich abandoned Ukraine are those of a thief whose victim is trying to recover his wallet.
With respect to the argument, “there are no clean hands here, a pox on both their houses”, I would point out that the argument breaks down the moment an outside country introduces thousands of its armed soldiers into the mix. At this point, the military and political leadership of the Eastern Ukraine “governments” consists of Russian citizens brought to Ukraine by Putin and his allies. The most aggressive and highly skilled armed forces of these men have also been brought in from Russia. This includes Chechen and South Ossetian fighters who have been engaged in combat and manning checkpoints in Eastern Ukraine. Videos of these men are now widely available on the internet.
Obama’s reckless support for coup attempts around the middle east have all failed. We have adversarial governments in Egypt and Libya. There was a counter-coup in Egypt, a killed ambassador in Libya, and now his Ukraine adventure has gone to hell.
Why blame this on those of us in the USA who don’t slobber all over the current regime he approves of in the Ukraine?
Thank you for taking a stand in this. Russian propagandists are very prolific and sometimes it feels I am reading Communist Party Daily and not Free Republic. I know it is likely not accurate and they are a vocal minority, but it is still demoralizing when people don’t tell them what is what.