Posted on 08/30/2014 2:54:55 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Leaders of countries sharing borders with Russia led the way in demanding tougher action against what they see as blatant aggression on their doorstep.
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite bluntly called for the West to wake up, and appeared to urge Nato to give significant military aid to Kiev.
‘Russia is at war against Ukraine and that is a country which wants to be part of Europe. Russia is practically at war against Europe,’ she said.
She lambasted previous sanctions as ‘a big mistake’ because they were ‘too general’.
Lithuania is one of at least six states believed to have signed up to a new British-led Nato rapid-reaction force, the formation of which is expected to be announced this week by David Cameron as Wales hosts the most important Alliance gathering since the end of the Cold War.
Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands will also join the 10,000-troop bid to deter Putin from what the West sees as an attempt to redraw the frontiers of Europe.
A key concern is that he intends to use his military might to impose a new ‘statelet’ within Ukraine called Novorossiya – or New Russia. What remains of Ukraine could be left with no coastline if the plan goes through.
A diplomat said: ‘Putin is obsessed with Novorossiya, territory won for the Romanovs by Catherine the Great. He wants it back.
'But the so-called rebels in this region of eastern Ukraine, who he praised for keeping Kiev’s army at bay, are his own soldiers, using his latest military equipment. Let’s not fool ourselves about the acute dangers.’
Putin’s use of the Tsarist name of Novorossiya is sending shudders through Europe. While it includes the Donetsk and Lugansk regions ....it also includes such major cities as Kharkiv, Kherson and Odessa.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Hahahahaha! 10,000 men isn’t even a full division! Yeah, that’ll stop him.
Yeah what with Tsar named I know they have tsar named after Vladimir his first name what that about
Afraid the first event where Russian and NATO forces clash will be the beginning a new world war.
There is no way any piddly force can have the slightest effect on anything Vlad might decide to do. To think NATO can plop a small force down in the middle of such a vicious civil war is a mistake that has been made by external powers dozens and dozens of times and it has never, ever worked. I don’t see anything at all the West can do wrt the Ukraine other than these semi-sanctions...and that would go for *any* US president. There’s nothing we can do there. It’s somebody else’s backyard, and we may or may not like what is going on there, but nothing we can do will affect the outcome.
If NATO sends too large of a force then the Soviets will wipe it out using tactical nukes, just like they planned to do during the Cold War. We can’t afford to lose all our ground forces in the opening stages of the war. This force is really just a tripwire which will commit the participating nations to war once the Soviets attack it.
There is no Soviet Union any longer, so I’m guessing that you’re referring to the Russian Federation, yes?
No Soviets anymore? Yeah, right. That’s funny.
It is a 10,000 man reaction force, it is a great move.
A tripwire.
That didn’t work in the 1950’s but it’ll work now? More like “ritual sacrifice” than tripwire. Has the manliness truly been bred out of the Europeans?
That’s a pretty small force to defend so much territory. I doubt they could deploy much more than a significant fraction of that to the west considering they’re still got troops trying to hold down parts of the Caucasus and they’ve got the eastern border to maintain.
It is a quick reaction force to speed up the reaction of the existing larger Reaction force, it isn’t intended to replace the NATO forces.
It worked well enough in western Europe from between 45 & 90 and in S Korea since 52.
You mean the 144 million Russians versus the world, you think they are ready to end themselves now?
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