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Lugansk and Donetsk are just two parts of Ukraine that don't want to be. They identify more with Russia than the EU.

I compare the situation to if Texas and Alaska would secede from the United States. Would you be in favor of bombing their cities back into submission?

Ukrainian security forces have been pushing back pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine for weeks now. Because this means a humiliating defeat for Russian efforts to annex the Donbas there is fear that the Russians will escalate. Ukraine and the rest of the world are waiting to see if Russia will admit defeat or escalate by sending heavily armed “peacekeepers” into Donbas “for humanitarian reasons” to “pacify” the area by expelling Ukrainian troops and annex Donbas.

This would make Russia an international outcast, subject to more sanctions and be a major setback for the Russian economy. The two Ukrainian provinces (Donetsk and Luhansk) which comprise the Donbas contain about nine percent of Ukrainian territory, 13 percent of the population and 15 percent of the GDP. Donbas is about 38 percent ethnic Russian.

This looming defeat in Ukraine angers Russia, where senior politicians have portrayed the Ukraine situation as all the fault of the West which was seeking to turn Ukraine into an enemy of Russia (which Ukrainians prefer) rather than a part of a Russian empire (which Russians prefer). Bad relations between Russia and Ukraine go back over a thousand years but Russians still claim Ukraine is theirs and consider any disagreement over that attitude to be a hostile act towards the Russian people. The current Russian leadership is backing this myth but that support is becoming a lot more expensive than originally expected.

The aid convoy may be a Russian cover to establish a presence in Lugansk and Donetsk.

McGruff is one of a handful of KGB Putin supporters we have here on FR. He doesn't care one wit about any of the evil things the Russians have done, or are doing today. For the life of me, I can't understand why these guys are allowed to remain on the site, pushing their enemy propaganda.