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Sunday, November 02, 2014

Uh Oh, the Russians are Coming

Is the part of eastern Ukraine--plus whatever can be grabbed around Donetsk in the next week or so--held by Russian forces about to join Crimea as new Russian territory?

This sounds ominous given the voting today by Russia's hand puppets in Ukraine's east:

"There is intensive deployment of military equipment and personnel of the enemy from the territory of the Russian Federation onto territory temporarily controlled by insurgents," Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told a briefing in Kiev.

Perhaps recent Russian military activity around their periphery was not just a spasm of paranoid stupidity, but was meant as a warning to neighbors to back off and foreshadowed this pre-H Hour act of Russian aggression in Ukraine's east.

UPDATE: The vote is in!

Pro-Russian rebels elected a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday in a vote President Petro Poroshenko called "a farce".

Russia, but not America or the EU, recognize the vote.

But with Russian troops moving into the region, that recognition is likely to be the decisive one.

UPDATE: Ukraine is preparing the unwelcome wagon:

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has ordered army reinforcements to key southern and eastern cities in case of a new rebel offensive.

Mr Poroshenko said the units were to protect Mariupol, Berdyansk, Kharkiv and the north of Luhansk region.

Russia can surely deploy enough power to defeat Ukraine's military in the east.

But does Russia want to pay the price in dead Russian soldiers, further bad relations with the West, and more worries by former Soviet states that they are some place on Putin's list?

UPDATE: The Russians are still coming:

Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it will "respect the will" of separatist voters in eastern Ukraine who elected leaders for their proclaimed independent republics in defiance of international warnings that their actions were illegal..

Moscow's swift show of support for the separatists it is accused of arming and instigating drew new warnings from Germany and other European Union states that further sanctions may be imposed on Russia if the 7-month-old war with Ukrainian government forces intensifies.

As long as the will of those in charge of the Russian-controlled east is the same as Putin's, Russia will no doubt respect their permitted expression of will.

I think it is really past time we voted Putin off of the island.

UPDATE: The Russians will be coming as soon as their pretext is made, so Putin's hand puppets claim Ukraine is violating the ceasefire that the secessionists have never obeyed.