West, Russia signal line drawn in Ukraine crisis

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - Russia and the West drew a tentative line under the Ukraine crisis on Tuesday after U.S. President Barack Obama and his allies agreed to hold off on more damaging economic sanctions unless Moscow goes beyond the seizure of Crimea.

Describing Russia as a "regional power" and not the biggest national security threat to the United States, Obama said Russian forces would not be removed militarily from Crimea, but the annexation of the Black Sea region was not a "done deal" because the international community would not recognise it.

"It is up to Russia to act responsibly and show itself once again to be willing to abide by international norms and ... if it fails to do so, there will be some costs," he told a news conference at the end of a nuclear security summit in The Hague.

After scoffing at a decision by Obama and his Western allies to boycott a planned Group of Eight summit in Sochi in June and hold a G7 summit without Russia instead, the Kremlin said it was keen to maintain contact with G8 partners.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/uk-ukraine-crisis-idUKBREA2J1E820140325

Tacit acceptance of the situation - as was to be expected.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Not as was to be expected.

Putin massed his forces on the other side of their eastern border, testing. Once it became clear the new sanctions would be much tougher, he allowed one of his peeps to give out conciliatory remarks.
He would have taken the east otherwise. No one will credit Obama for this, as is usual, although in this case Merkel did a good deal towards keeping the bloodshed very low. As did the new Ukrainian government, which refused to fall into the trap of allowing the Russians to provoke them into a stupid shedding of blood that would have accomplished nothing except justify their further invasion of their east.

[dipsydoodle]

4. March 11th

What has been alluded to in UK media discussion on tv here in the UK is that the deal most likely to struck between the west and Russia is "OK - take Crimea and if you call it a day at that we'll let the subject of Ukraine drop"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=751752

I suppose in all fairness our UK TV media analysts could be psychic or do at least have half a brain compared with the US media.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

5. That was pretty obviously the best possible and the most likely outcome,

but that is a huge way away from the implied inevitability of "to be expected". It came about because of the actions of the key players. Had Obama not targeted the people very close to Putin, had Merkel not made it clear she would jump with both feet into the sanctions arena, and had the new Ukrainian government not held back from firing on the invaders, this would have fallen apart.
NOTHING was inevitable, and NONE of it happened because of Putin. Had any of those three things not occurred, Russian soldiers would very likely be in eastern Ukraine right now, and we'd be seeing a real war.

[The Magistrate]

2. If It Stops Here, Sir, The Thing Does Not Disturb The Unities

Putin is hugely out of line, certainly, but as the Rude One says "Motherfuckers fuck mothers. It's what they do."

[jakeXT]

3. I hear a lot about red lines and chessboards

“In the long run, he may not win, but his opening moves have been very impressive, taking a fair amount of real estate on the board,” Mr. Rojansky said

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/world/europe/ukraine.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0

[Igel]

6. In a sense it's not done.

The Kherson strait is now entirely Russian. It can easily be closed. In fact, it is.

Look at a map of Ukraine. It's got ports on either side of Crimea. Now the eastern part is rather less available for having sea-borne exports than Detroit. If you want easy exports from there, they'll have to go to Russia or through Russia, all but requiring economic allegiance of eastern Ukraine to Russia. It's a de facto sea blockade of eastern Ukraine. If you wanted to align the east of Ukraine with anybody *but* Russia it would be expensive.