Posted on 09/03/2014 1:21:31 AM PDT by tcrlaf
Edited on 09/03/2014 6:47:04 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is hoping for a peace agreement to be reached between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels by Friday.
Mr Putin urged both sides to stop military action in eastern Ukraine, adding that his views and those of his Ukrainian counterpart were very close.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said they had agreed a "ceasefire process".
US President Barack Obama said he stood with Ukraine's people because they had a right to determine their own future.
Speaking in the Estonian capital Tallinn, Mr Obama also said Nato would guarantee the independence of the Baltic states.
"You've lost your independence once before, with Nato you'll never lose it again," he said.
A Nato summit opening in Wales on Thursday is expected to back plans for a rapid response force.
snip
“Ukraine needs a nuclear weapons program and a medium-range missile”
What Ukraine “needs” is a way to keep the heat and lights on this winter.
Worked all night, now I’m off for fresh, hot donuts.
Can someone else keep this live thread running for the next 40 minutes or so?
The REAL question now:
Are the Right Sector and Oligarch militias going to honor the Poroshenko-declared cease-fire?
Based upon the death and destruction the Ukrainian regime has brought to the people of eastern Ukraine I don’t see any uniting of that country for a long time. I wouldn’t forgive and forget.
Sure - if Obama says so.
Back when he was a US Senator, he was insisting Al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq.
What a difference a decade makes.
Putin won. The western Ukraine will be semi-independent states—when things cool down he will take them with a few votes.
beheadings does what it says on the tin, those guys are dead, murdered, that’s not failure, does what it did, sent a message.
On the other hand, Obama went golfing, went to fundraisers, did nothing, that too sent a message....the WRONG one.
That’s not going to happen.
Novo Rossiya is more or less de facto independent and can expect to prosper with Russian help.
And Russia did not need to capture Kiev to force the fight out of it. Putin is the big winner in a conflict he looked like he was on the verge of losing back in February.
No one now is going to defy Moscow.
Yup, its the reality of todays warfare, this is not 1939 when wars were fought with huge armies, these days its economic, tech, strategic.
Its not 1939 europe when armies were mobilized against Hitler, this is gas reliance, economic reliance, payoffs.
There is a lot of people reliant on russian energy, winter is getting closer, Putin turned the screws, its not hero worship, its just where the power lies and a man like Obama who is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I'm glad for that.
That and Ukraine is better off rehabilitating itself than throwing away resources on a war it has no real hope of winning.
Winter is setting in soon and even Poroshenko knows Ukraine can’t survive for long without Russian gas. Who is going to replace it? And the country is bankrupt from the rule of various oligarchs who looted it.
Bad idea. “Ukraine” needs to figure out how to federalize (they should have done that long ago).
Yeah and the worse thing is, Ukraine expected the west to come to its aid, it didn’t.......They may just turn back to Mother Russia because now they know what the west is all about and could not be trusted.
Yep.
Now the question for the Putin worriers on this board is how does the next President (forget about Obama) hold the line in Estonia, Latvia, etc, etc. There is some strategizing to be done. Rhetoric is cheap.
But keep in mind that just isn't Obama, but Germany. Germany probably got some cheap Russian gas out of this.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29044170
10:24: Here’s that Russian denial in full: “Putin and Poroshenko really discussed the steps that would contribute to a ceasefire between the militia and the Ukrainian forces. Russia cannot physically agree to a ceasefire because it is not a party to the conflict,” Russian news agency RIA quotes President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, as saying.
More:
10:44: President Obama has urged European members of Nato to do their fair share of defence spending to bolster the alliance. He said the international community needs to give the Ukrainian economy short-term support, but warned “we’re going to have more work to do”.
10:42: If Russia is prepared to stop “financing, arming and training troops”, then the Ukraine crisis can be resolved, says President Obama.
10:38: More from Mr Obama, who says no resolution to the Ukraine conflict is possible as long as Russia continues to send “troops disguised as separatists” there.
10:37: President Obama added that America’s preference is for a strong productive cooperative Russia, but that must be achieved by abiding by international norms.
10:34: US President Barack Obama says “it’s too early to tell what the ceasefire means...we have consistently supported the efforts of President Poroshenko to achieve a meaningful ceasefire in the conflict,” speaking live from Tallinn, Estonia.
I know that i said it earlier, Merkel is reliant on Russian gas and winter is approaching. Germany was never going to help Ukraine.
in other words, Ukraine took the bait, declared a ceasefire agreement, now Putin will tell them the terms.......
They did. Third biggest stockpile in the world.
Gave it up because the USA promised we’d protect them.
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