US Warns Moscow Off Military Move In Ukraine

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s national security adviser said Sunday it would be a “grave mistake” for Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine.

Susan Rice said on NBC television’s “Meet the Press” that in Obama’s phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday the two agreed that a political settlement in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, should ensure the unity of the country and the right of Ukrainians to express their free will. She was asked whether the White House fears Putin will send Russian troops into Ukraine.

“That would be a grave mistake,” she said. “It’s not in the interest of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or the United States to see the country split.”

Protesters occupied a main square in downtown Kiev late last year after President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an agreement that would have strengthened his country’s ties with the European Union in favor of seeking closer cooperation with Moscow.

Rice said that in the weeks ahead, Washington will cooperate with Europe and international organizations to help the Ukrainian economy, which she described as fragile.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-warns-moscow-off-military-move-in-ukraine/#ixzz2uBryscrm

[dipsydoodle]

1. A trade ageement with the EU accompanied by loss of exports to Russia

is not economically viable. Only division of the country would overcome that issue.

Russia has no need to respond militarily - even the suggestion is absurd.

[kelliekat44]

3. We have to say something to look like we can influence this... it's just another coup, proving that

democracy is not necessarily what people want. Most people just want a share of the wealth and FREEDOM.

[840high]

2. Let's mind our own business.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. Ukraine isn't going to be divided.

Too big, too visible. Can't pull a South Ossetia and expect to get away with it.
Not that it matters. Ukraine is a Russian satellite. Even EU membership won't change that. Putin has enough smarts to know he can't pull a South Ossetia, and enough smarts to know he doesn't have to.
The former East European satellites are still struggling to free themselves as much as they can from Russia, but it's a tough haul. The simple fact of the matter is that the largest economic actors there are Moscow and St Petersburg. They dominate Russia, which in turn dominates that part of the world. There simply aren't any other truly self-sustaining economies there outside of those metropolises.
That's been true for hundreds of years, and will continue to be true for as far as the eye can see. Until the economies of places like Warsaw or Kiev or Lvov or any one of any number of such places you can name become large enough to rival Moscow or St Petersburg, it will continue to be true.
Putin is playing the oldest of the colonial games: economically dominating the cities of his rivals. If you want energy from Germany on east, you have to go to Moscow to get it. It's a lesser version of London's old way of dominating the British Empire: everything imported from the rest of the empire for other destinations in Europe had to go through London first. It's still true to this day that the most trades in foreign exchange go through London, a sort of shadow of the time when London dominated world trade.* It will be true, similarly, for a very long time that if you're in Eastern Europe you will have to deal with Moscow if you want your energy at an affordable price.

*Wikipedia ranks by country: the United Kingdom (41%), the United States (19%), Singapore (5.7)%, Japan (5.6%) and Hong Kong (4.1%). But when you say UK, you're really saying London, just like with the US that really means New York. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market