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Putin Asks Russia’s Senate to Use Military Force in Ukraine - New York Times
Mr. Putin’s request, largely a formality, signaled publicly for the first time the Kremlin’s readiness to intervene militarily in Ukraine, and it served as a blunt response to President Obama, who just hours earlier pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.
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Ukraine: Putin´s Crimea aim is to make the West look weak - Telegraph UK
This is tragic for Ukraine, for the near-abroad and for Nato not because it is taking us by surprise but because we have expected it for so long and seen it before and yet remain incapable of acting. This is the salami-tactics that Yes, Prime Minister joked about decades ago. Slice by slice, Russia is invading Ukraine and weakening the alliance that has kept the peace in Europe for almost 70 years.
It is a textbook KGB-led operation: the agent provocateur, followed by a self-organised militia, then Russian military protection to defend 'their’ people. The tactic was used to good effect throughout the Soviet period in Communist coups. It’s what brought down the government of Afghanistan and caused 30 years of war. And again it is unlikely to be resisted....
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Putin Asks to Deploy Troops in Ukraine - LUKAS I. ALPERT in Moscow, JAMES MARSON in Kiev and PAUL SONNE in Simferopol/Wall Street Journal
Russia's parliament voted unanimously on Saturday to authorize a request from President Vladimir Putin to deploy Russian troops in Ukraine, defying warnings from U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders not to intervene.
Russian lawmakers also asked Mr. Putin to recall the country's ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Obama has publicly warned Russia that there would be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.
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Revealed: The forgotten treaty which could drag the US and UK into WAR with Russia if Putin's troops intervene in Ukraine - JILL REILLY and LIZZIE EDMONDS/Daily Mail
◼ The agreement sees signatories promise to protect Ukraine's borders
◼ It was signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma in 1994
◼ Ukrainian parliament has now reached out directly to all the countries who signed the treaty
◼ Putin currently has 150,000 troops on Ukraine's borders and it is reported some have crossed into the country
◼ President Obama says he is 'deeply concerned' by the news
◼ The US and Britain have both made 'crisis calls' to President Putin to warn him to respect territorial boundaries
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Putin asks Russian parliament for approval to use military force in Ukraine; Update: Gets unanimous approval - HotAir
What will the Obama administration do? As it turns out, one reason why Russia finds this such a low-risk scenario is because the US and UK convinced Ukraine to give up its leftover Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994. In exchange for its unilateral disarmament, the US and UK pledged to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity against any aggression in a pact known as the Budapest Memorandum...
Update: Apparently, the Crimean peninsula has a third interested party — Turkey. A late-eighteenth-century treaty gave Crimea to the Russians, but only under certain conditions...
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Putin Wakes Up the World - J. Christian Adams/Breitbart
