CEASEFIRE in Ukraine, What's Next?

The ceasefire agreement is the subject of intense discussion and has clearly left some people unhappy. I will make a few quick observations here before returning more fully to this subject later when I am under less time pressure than I am at present: 1. The ceasefire has been forced on Poroshenko and the junta as a result of (1) the disastrous military situation the junta now finds itself in and (2) the refusal of the NATO/EU powers to intervene militarily on his behalf to redress the balance. The last was again clearly reiterated by Obama at the NATO summit yesterday when he publicly refused even to supply the junta with weapons (NB: we should not take that seriously – weapons have already been supplied on a significant scale but clearly even the outward appearance of involvement through token public weapons transfers is being ruled out). Incidentally Obama’s talk about the importance of Article 5 of the NATO Charter was intended to underline this point. Obama brought up Article 5 not to “reassure the Baltic States” – which are not being threatened and do not therefore need this reassurance- but to underline to Kiev the point that as the Ukraine is not part of NATO it is not entitled to military help from NATO.

Did Putin Just Bring Peace to Ukraine?

Obama Begs for More War “In the implementing of their policies, our western partners– the United States first and foremost – prefer to be guided not by international law, but by force. They believe in…

Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union: The US and NATO Are Provoking the Ukrainian Crisis

Encircling Russia and Arming Ukraine Are What’s Provoking the Bear Jack Matlock, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, says that the U.S. and NATO are to blame for the Ukraine crisis: The fact is they are going to intervene until they are certain that there is no prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. And all of the threats by NATO and so on to sort of increase defenses elsewhere is simply provocative to the Russians. Now, I’m not saying that’s right, but I am saying that’s the way Russia is going to react. And frankly, this is all predictable. And those of us who helped negotiate the end of the Cold War almost unanimously said in the 1990s, “Do not expand NATO eastward. Find a different way to protect eastern Europe, a way that includes Russia. Otherwise, eventually there’s going to be a confrontation, because there is a red line, as far as any Russian government is concerned, when it comes to Ukraine and Georgia and other former republics of the Soviet Union.”