Putin's New Russia: What the Future May Hold for Eastern Ukraine

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eastern-ukraine-could-become-a-new-russian-protectorate-a-990416.html



The fragile cease-fire in Ukraine appears to be holding, but President Vladimir Putin still has the upper hand. Increasingly, it looks like he intends to establish a Russian protectorate in eastern Ukraine.

Putin's New Russia: What the Future May Hold for Eastern Ukraine
By Benjamin Bidder, Markus Feldenkirchen, Marc Hujer and Matthias Schepp
September 08, 2014 – 04:23 PM

In the morning, when he drives from his apartment across from the German Embassy to his office in the Kiev city hall, everything seems normal. Outdoor cafés are humming with activity and wind surfers make their way to the shores of the Dnieper River.

Kiev, these days, feels like a city enjoying an eternal summer, as long as one ignores the enormous poster hanging at Euromaidan square in the city center. "Pray for Ukraine," it reads. One also has to look away from the old buses used by the Ukrainian army to ferry its soldiers and reserves to the front. They are part of the last contingent Kiev has to offer.

~snip~

The call took place last Friday, just as the NATO summit in Wales was drawing to a close. Once again, the West expressed its solidarity with Ukraine, but failed to agree on anything that would be of much help.

"The West has spent too much time thinking," Klitschko says. "The border should have been much more decisively demarcated from the beginning. It is no longer a secret that the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine. And that's not just a problem for Europe. The fact that Russia wants to redraw borders and expand its territory is a problem for the entire world."

[djean111]

1. Whay is it so surprising when a country acts in its own best interests?

We seem to accept that Israel has a right to kill women and children and grab more and more land - in its own best interests.
We seem to accept that it is okay for the USA to wreak havoc in the Middle East - because of our interests.
We accept that the EU and NATO seek to expand - in their own best interests.

Not a "Putinista", although I could give a merry shit if that label is flung - Russia will go on long after Putin, just as the USA will go on long after Obama. Was just reminded that in all conflicts, the people involved are acting on behalf of their own country, which seems natural. And the idiocy of calling someone like Assange a "traitor" or "treasonous". The whole world does not exist to further the aims of the US. And we have such police brutality, such poverty, such inequality, give so much obeisance to Big Money - why would anyone want to be like us, at this point in time? Free elections? I live in Florida. Snort. The world watched the GOP steal two elections, with nary a whimper. A coup. We have accepted that Washington does everything, or fails to do things, on the basis of getting reelected. Winning elections. They will put off legislation and aid while people die, just to try and ensure reelection and winning.

Just some thoughts.