Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary general, described the seizure of the regional government administration building and parliament as “dangerous and irresponsible.”
Wait? Weren’t other government buildings seized by gunman in Kiev, just recently?
Meanwhile:
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said Thursday that her organization was ready to respond to a request for assistance from Ukrainian authorities and would send a fact-finding team to Ukraine to assess the situation and begin discussion of reforms the country needs. “We are also discussing with all our international partners — bilateral and multilateral — how best to help Ukraine at this critical moment in its history,” she said.
Reforms, eh? Remind me of the occasions on which IMF reforms have been beneficial to the average citizen of any country?
Then there is this:
A senior U.S. official familiar with the most recent administration assessment told CNN that now that the Russians “have brought troops out of garrison,” they could potentially move “quite quickly” once an order comes.
At that point, the official says, the U.S. assessment is that its “warning time” that Russian forces were on the move might be so short, it would be difficult for the United States to move diplomatically to try to stop it.
I—I, what? If you don’t want them to, the diplomacy is done now, and it involves threats and carrots. But the problem is that Ukraine is in Russia’s sphere of influence. Do you think that the new, IMF funded, Western supported government will be asking for NATO membership? I would be if I were them. Do you think Russia finds that, in any way, acceptable? Have you looked at a map?
The Ukraine in NATO is a strategic threat to Russia. It is of no value to NATO except as a threat to Russia. Russia knows that.
The strategic situation is such that Putin has many reasons to find an excuse and annex both the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (which contains most of Ukraine’s industry, by the way.) The rest can do whatever they want. And if Europe doesn’t like it, well Gazprom can sell its natural gas to the Chinese and Europe can go dark. As for the US, bluster all they want, they aren’t going to fight a war against Russia for the Ukraine. Russia’s still a real country; it has nukes.
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