topic Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine! in Community Spirit

NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

icyfroth — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:58:59 GMT

"Kerry's (John Kerry) rush to punish Russia and Nato's decision to respond to Kiev's call by holding a meeting of member states' ambassadors in Brussels today were mistakes.

Ukraine is not part of the alliance, so none of the obligations of common defence come into play. Nato should refrain from interfering in Ukraine by word or deed.

The fact that it insists on getting engaged reveals the elephant in the room: underlying the crisis in Crimea and Russia's fierce resistance to potential changes is Nato's undisguised ambition to continue two decades of expansion into what used to be called "post-Soviet space", led by Bill Clinton and taken up by successive administrations in Washington.

At the back of Pentagon minds, no doubt, is the dream that a US navy will one day replace the Russian Black Sea fleet in the Crimean ports of Sevastopol and Balaclava.

Since independence, every poll in Ukraine has shown a majority against Nato membership, yet one after another the elites who ran the country until 2010 and who are now back in charge ignored the popular will.

Seduced by Nato's largesse and the feeling of being part of a hi-tech global club, they took part in joint military exercises and even sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq and Afghanistan."

From Here

And we wonder why there are so many displaced persons looking for refuge!

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

lakeland27 — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:21:09 GMT

they will . what can they do .

its good to see someone acknowledge the push factors that see people driven to our shores too. congratulations on that score .

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

newstart2380 — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:23:04 GMT

Being a cynic I think heads of some countries believe there has to be a war somewhere in the world, think of all the people in the ammunitian factories who would be out of work if bombs, bullets , guns etc were not being produced.

Most wars appear to be coming to an end or under control at this time so the powers that be need to fuel the war machine, what a shame.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

freakiness — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 07:34:28 GMT

@newstart2380 wrote:
Being a cynic I think heads of some countries believe there has to be a war somewhere in the world, think of all the people in the ammunitian factories who would be out of work if bombs, bullets , guns etc were not being produced.
Most wars appear to be coming to an end or under control at this time so the powers that be need to fuel the war machine, what a shame.

I'd rather see munitions factories close than food processing and automative industries close.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

monman12 — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:53:29 GMT

A somewhat biased irelevant article IF, but as it is from the Guardian, say no more.

"Since independence, every poll in Ukraine has shown a majority against Nato membership, yet one after another the elites who ran the country until 2010 and who are now back in charge ignored the popular will."

What absolute nonsense that is IF:

"....numerous independent polls conducted since 2002 apropos Ukrainian public opinion on NATO membership is split, with the majority of those polled against joining the military alliance"

"Influential Ukrainian politicians like Yuriy Yekhanurov and Yulia Tymoshenko have stated Ukraine will not join NATO as long as the public continues opposing the move.This was also confirmed by a 6 March 2008 agreement between the parliamentary coalition and opposition parties

What is not made clear in the article is that the current troubles are based upon the fact that since 2004 there has been majority support in Ukraine for European Union membership, which is contrary to Putin's plans, which do not include what the majority want, let alone popular will, nothing to do with NATO.

nɥºɾ

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

cherry*135 — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 12:15:50 GMT

A somewhat biased irelevant article IF, but as it is from the Guardian, say no more.

Agree.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

the_great_she_elephant — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 12:50:20 GMT

The problem s not with the Ukraine as a whole but with the Crimea.As I understand it, This region was annexed to Ukraine in the 1950 by Nikita Kruschev, without any consultation and against the wishes of the local population who still consider themselves to be Russian.

The setting up of arbitrary and artificial borders has been the curse of Europe and indeed of many other regions for centuries.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

fourandsixpants — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:32:43 GMT

I would really like to understand what this is all really about. Obviously the situation is complicated. News reports cannot be relied on for the 'truth'. From what I can gather the Ukraine gained sovereignty in about 1956 from Russia. Why? It seems there are a lot of Russian supporters in Russia?....or not? Am not sure who the majority of the people support. The head of the Ukraine has been deposed?.....why? There is a major port on the south coast of the Ukraine......where there are many Russian navy vessels-ships,submarines etc. I read a few days ago where the Ukraine agreed to the Russians docking/using the port and that if the Russians wanted to remove/move their vessels from this port communications for agreed permission had to take place. Is this true?Have the Russians forced control of this Ukrainian port now?

I have read where soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms/no ensignia were arriving and seen in major parts of the Ukraine?.....where have these military come from?....and under whose orders?

Have many civilians been killed in the Ukraine recently? why? By whose hand/orders?.....saw recent footage where civilians and soldiers were laying memorial flowers and lighting candles-this is usually symbolic of serious times. I feel really bad about this issue and if I can't actually do anything to help the very least I can do show some interest, acknowledge it and try and understand it all.

Is this altercation over the port and access or more?

Would appreciate someone explaining please.

Thanks in advance.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

fourandsixpants — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 18:04:06 GMT

....I found this link: http://beforeitsnews.com/war-and-conflict/2014/03/the-truth-about-the-current-ukrainian-situation-2450734.html

and the foll ....is this true?:

The Truth About and Timeline for the Current Ukrainian Situation

Sunday, March 2, 2014 12:43

The U.S. has spent tens of millions of dollars funding subversive groups in the Ukraine in an attempt to expand NATO all the way to the Russian border. This was exposed to the world when American diplomats Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, were caught talking on unsecured cell phones plotting to fund and support opposition groups inside the Ukraine. To do this the U.S. had initially funded more traditional pro-EU groups who the U.S. had known to have built ties with radical fascist political groups in an effort to destabilize the Ukraine and discredit President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

The U.S. had hoped more moderate leaders would hand the Ukraine to the U.E. and the U.S. However, this strategy has blown up in the face of the U.S. as radical fascist groups who have taken control of the political situation threaten the collapse of civil society. These fascist groups have called on Chechen terror groups to attack Russia and the pro-Russian majority of the Crimea. It now seems clear that the only way to avoid a huge military confrontation will be to allow the peaceful secession of Crimea and call the population therein Crimeans as was the case with allowing the secession of Kosovo from Serbia and calling its Muslim population Kosovars. It is either that or accepting the Crimea absorption into Russia.

Radical fascist groups led by Pravy Sektor and Dmitry Yarosh are known political entities who are now working with Muslim Chechen terror leaders such as Umarov who had ties to the individuals who carried out the U.S attacks during the Boston Marathon. Fascist elements in the Ukraine are also working with other terrorist groups such the notorious Riyadus-Salikhin suicide formation, as a means to attack pro-Russian politicians and Russian speaking ethnic groups. As Ukraine seeks Umarov as an ally, Umarov has publicly acknowledged his leadership and control over these Muslim terror groups and is known as Russia’s “bin Laden” due to his mass-casualty attacks against Russian civilians and his running of an operational terrorist network.

Terrorist operations are being publicly called for by Ukrainian fascist leaders as a means of attacking Russia and preventing the independence of the many millions of self-identified ethnic Russians in the Crimea whose citizens seek to continue their close ties with Russia and maintain what had already been recognized and established as an semi-autonomous region of the Ukraine due to is ethnic and cultural identity and its historic ties to Russia.

The U.S., through NGO’s working closely with the U.S. State Department and the CIA, have succeeded in destabilizing the Ukraine whose government was in the process of receiving the equivalent of billions of dollars in loans and energy from Russia. Shockingly, the Ukraine, as its fascist leaders call on attacks against Russia and the Russian majority in the Crimea, also demand that Russia continue to provide it fuel and loans.

The U.S. policy with the Ukraine, as it is with Syria, is to use the chaos of Muslim radical terrorists to obtain short-term advantage while completely ignoring the long-term consequences to members of all the affected parties and being oblivious to or denying unintended consequences and second and third order effects.

For years as the U.S. has attacked, bombed and occupied Muslim lands, its citizens were told that al Qaeda was in disarray, rendered ineffective, on the run and unable to carry out major terrorist operations. Now we see al Qaeda was never a resurgent force, but in fact maintained its cohesiveness while building and growing itself into an army that has spawned offshoot organizations such as the al Nusra Front, ISIS and AQAP while also receiving help and support from Saudi Arabia, Israel, the CIA and Chechen guerillas. Yet, the U.S. government has spent trillions of dollars in its “Global War on Terror” only to find itself supporting the very same terrorists it seeks to exterminate. These terror groups the U.S. supports both explicitly and implictly have all sought to defeat the U.S. in Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen.

U.S. ambition and imperial overreach has once again created a situation the U.S, did not anticipate, nor has any idea how to contain. U.S. policy has established precedent in Egypt, Libya, Syria and now in the Ukraine whereby the overthrowing of internationally recognized governments, to include those established democratically, can now be perpetrated through outside terrorist groups or within through the instigation of internal fascist groups with connections to international terror groups. U.S. policy has established the destabilization of a country and created such an enormous threat to a region that once again there are millions of people who now need outside intervention by those who are willing to provide protection against radical elements. Obama and the U.S. establishment should realize that while the Crimean region is of little strategic value to the U.S., it is of inestimable value to the Russians especially given that the U.S. seeks it in order to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep and has subverted its government through the funding of radical fascist opposition. Just as the U.S. thought it could contain radical jihadist elements in Syria by supporting moderate Islamist groups and thusly failed, it now thinks it can control moderate political forces in the Ukraine after fostering the rise of radical nationalists. Hubris will once again prove to be the U.S.’s undoing.

It should be telling to the world that the very same methods the U.S. uses to destabilize foreign countries are the very same methods the U.S. government has outlawed within the U.S. The U.S., instead of allowing the Ukrainian people to decide their foreign and domestic policy at the ballot box, funded treason and violent revolution within the Ukraine. The opposition burned the ruling party’s political headquarters and then seized government buildings and attacked and killed unarmed police whose disarming was supposed to be an act of magnanimity towards protesters. In addition to disarming the police, the president freed scores of protesters and dropped charges against those who had committed crimes that no ruling government could overlook. Instead of assuaging the hostility it served to encourage ultra-nationalist elements that held prosecutors and lawmakers at gunpoint. During the ensuing melee about 100 people died. Yanukovych also attempted to defuse an escalating situation by firing individuals from his own party and offering positions at the very highest levels of government to the opposition. These offers were ignored.

The Crimean area of the Ukraine, that area that seeks close ties with and protection of Russia, has now decided it wants no part of a country where the president is violently and criminally overthrow with the help of U.S. money, internal fascist actors and outside terrorist groups. The people of Crimea want no part of a country where the constitution is thrown out the window for the expediency of foreign powers seeking to expand their empires. It is this very area that is the prized jewel of the Ukraine for which without its economic clout would surely leave the remained of the Ukraine, already completely bankrupt, to the mercy of the global loan sharking operation known as the IMF.

As the people of the Ukraine now seek the protection of Russia for exactly the same reason groups internal to Serbia sought the protection of the U.S. to provide for their cessation of Kosovo, we see that U.S. foreign policy has done an excellent job at Balkanizing the Ukraine.

Putin will rightfully protect millions of ethnic Russians, their land, homes and the businesses they have built within the area where they are the majority. These people now see there is no law within the Ukraine to be had by a fascist government. These people and will never allow themselves to be ruled by political extremists and their terrorist allies. The illegal government in the Ukraine does not have the power to attack, invade and occupy the Crimean area without the help of the U.S. and the EU, while it is possible that it can order the slaughter of its own civilians. For this reason, Russia has decided it will ensure that those who desire security, peaceful trade and the rule of law can depend on Russia in the same way Yanukovych was able to depend on Russia for loans and energy far above what the U.S. and NATO were willing to provide.

U.S. foreign policy will ensure that the Ukraine will lose a major source of revenue for the very nation that itself is sinking into an economic abyss. U.S. foreign policy will ensure and necessitate the need for the people of Crimea to separate themselves from a country that is willing to destroy itself for the short-term benefits of radical politicians and the long-term interests of imperial meddlers. As it now stands there are millions of Libyans, Egyptians and Syrian Sunnis who curse the day they ever asked the EU and the U.S. to provide “support”.

We will now see if Obama’s State Department has overplayed its hand and to what extent U.S. machinations will continue to cause misery for the untold millions of people that the Western media never seems to show nor even mention. If NATO decides to get involved in the Ukraine Victoria Nuland will have realized exactly what she stated she wanted to achieve when she made the now famous statement to Pyatt of: “F_ _ K the EU.” NATO intervention will surely achieve that goal.

Speaking as a retired military officer, I hope that one day foreign governments will provide true American patriots with the money needed to provide the political organization necessary to throw off the control of the American people by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the corporate military industrial complex. I know the American people themselves are long past the point of needing to establish an interim constitutional government so that their liberty and prosperity can once again be realized. As it now stands the U.S. warfare/police/surveillance state has made itself the enemy of the American people and more and more people are beginning to understand that only the elite profit from militarism and corporate globalism.

The reason why Putin is now so dangerous is that Obama’s ignorance and arrogance has directly led to a strategic threat against Russia itself. Putin is now facing a threat so great that to capitulate would place Russia at the mercy of the U.S. and the EU. What is clear is that if Russia were to accept surrendering all of the Ukraine to the ultra-nationalists and U.S. puppets, given the U.S.’s predilection for pressing advantage, Russia would soon be facing strangulation as the U.S. attempted to place Russia under a death grip at its leisure. Putin is under no illusions regarding U.S. intentions and actions.

Obama has leveraged his influence and has placed the U.S. in a position in which the U.S. efforts to control the Ukraine are assured to fail and could lead to a world war and global economic collapse if Obama continues to listen to the same brain trusts who allowed him to stumble his way towards WWIII or nuclear confrontation. There is no way the U.S. could defeat Russia and successfully project enough force in Putin’s backyard. What some are now wondering is if the U.S. seeks war as a means to gain cover and whatever strategic advantages it might obtain internationally and domestically for an upcoming economic collapse.

There is a line in the sand with regard to international relations that is understood should not be crossed. It may not be as pronounced as Obama’s repeatedly sketched drawn red lines, but what’s crossing is assured to have greater implications and consequences than any line Obama could have laid down. If Obama is allowed to drag the U.S. into war and begins ordering the deployment of U.S. troops to the region, the U.S. House of Representatives must immediately begin impeachment proceedings. It seems the incompetence of the Community Organizer on the world stage could be the U.S.’s undoing. A war with Russia would drag in Iran and China and would surely lead to complete collapse of the global economic system and make Iraq look like a walk in the park.

The current situation now begs the question regarding what Russia has to lose in backing the Taliban in Afganistan, Assad in Syria, Iran’s right to nuclear energy and Crimean people to the hilt. Once you’re all in and your life is being threatened, you can only be killed once.....

Update:

3/2/14 – Russian soldiers are now occupying Crimea and a dispatch of Ukrainian troops to the Crimea by the illegal interim government has resulted the soldiers switching sides and supporting the pro-Russian people of the Crimean region.

3/2/14 – Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky, appointed as head of Ukraine’s Naval forces just two days ago, has sworn allegiance to the people of Crimea. The Western media has claimed he has surrendered all naval forces under his control to Russia, but it is now clear that the forces he controls are now aligned with the Crimean people and are beginning coordination with Russian forces as they consolidate their hold on the Black Sea peninsula. The ultra-nationalist government of the Ukraine has now officially charged Admiral Berezovsky with treason while the Crimean region has now formed its own navy.

3/2/14 – The U.S. has threatened sanctions and the expulsion of Russia from the G8. Threatened sanctions include the banning of visas, asset freezes and trade isolation..."

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

spotweldersfriend — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 19:54:00 GMT

Artificial borders as she-ele points out
Ireland/Northern Ireland
The former Yugoslavia
India/Pakistan
Israel/Palestine
Getting the picture?

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

the_hawk* — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:09:11 GMT

@the_great_she_elephant wrote:
The problem s not with the Ukraine as a whole but with the Crimea.As I understand it, This region was annexed to Ukraine in the 1950 by Nikita Kruschev, without any consultation and against the wishes of the local population who still consider themselves to be Russian.
The setting up of arbitrary and artificial borders has been the curse of Europe and indeed of many other regions for centuries.

And a great arguement for a one world government with a sponsored amry to make any non compliant country tow the line

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

the_hawk* — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:12:30 GMT

A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it’s going to get.

Ian Williams Goddard:

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

the_great_she_elephant — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:46:15 GMT

@the_hawk* wrote:
@the_great_she_elephant wrote:
The problem s not with the Ukraine as a whole but with the Crimea.As I understand it, This region was annexed to Ukraine in the 1950 by Nikita Kruschev, without any consultation and against the wishes of the local population who still consider themselves to be Russian.
The setting up of arbitrary and artificial borders has been the curse of Europe and indeed of many other regions for centuries.
And a great arguement for a one world government with a sponsored amry to make any non compliant country tow the line

A one world government sounds great in theory, Hawk, but I doubt it could ever work in reality. What sort of a government would it be - bearing in mind that, on a world scale, democracy is probably not the norm who would put it in power and who would dismiss it if it if it overstepped it's authority?

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

icyfroth — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 01:34:56 GMT

@the_great_she_elephant wrote:
@the_hawk* wrote:
@the_great_she_elephant wrote:
The problem s not with the Ukraine as a whole but with the Crimea.As I understand it, This region was annexed to Ukraine in the 1950 by Nikita Kruschev, without any consultation and against the wishes of the local population who still consider themselves to be Russian.
The setting up of arbitrary and artificial borders has been the curse of Europe and indeed of many other regions for centuries.
And a great arguement for a one world government with a sponsored amry to make any non compliant country tow the line
A one world government sounds great in theory, Hawk, but I doubt it could ever work in reality. What sort of a government would it be - bearing in mind that, on a world scale, democracy is probably not the norm who would put it in power and who would dismiss it if it if it overstepped it's authority?

I think Hawk was being wry

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

the_great_she_elephant — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 02:08:44 GMT

This article from the BBC seems to offer a balanced assessment of the crisis and the reasons behind it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26415508

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

fourandsixpants — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 02:36:36 GMT

cheers sheheffalump.

Maybe the whole thing is true but perhaps many historical events are being put forward as an excuse fby all interested parties (Russians and NATO and US included.....amongst many) simply to get better access to the gas fields/supplies, nuclear power and port with all the infrastructure, ships and nuclear subs?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26387353

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

catsnknots — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 03:18:55 GMT

I heard someone talking on the BBC radio last night and they live in Ukraine.

They are saying that Russia has been heading back to the Cold War days. Where people around them have been reducing their army Russia has in fact being increasing theirs. They were saying that Russia wants control over them and they don't want to be controlled. Georgia is a classic example of how Russia is behaving.

NATO would have been seeing this happen don't you think and maybe are trying to stop a massive takeover?

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

fourandsixpants — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 03:27:18 GMT

hi catmad:)

Trouble is, which media storyline/branch do we believe??????

There are always many sides and angles to every situation.

Do we believe that the Russians are the bad guys?

Do we believe that the USA supporters are the bad guys?

....seems like all the media reports are supporting either one or t'other.

I feel for the civilians caught up in all this.

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

catsnknots — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 03:59:12 GMT

Actually this person was for neither Russia or the USA. They were for an independant Ukraine and wanted to have new elections and have the people actually have a say rather than a leader that was buddies with Russia.

They felt that they were not being listened too.

They also said the Russians and Ukranians lived happliy together and no matter who they ended up going to pair up with they would alaways live happily together.

The whole of the Ukraine parliament voted out the President. Not just one side but all of them voted him out. For that President that was lawfully voted out to then go to his mate and say help me was inappropriate. The natural system should have been left to play out.

The Ukraine's UN Ambassodor has pleaded with the UN to help them.

Russia is going in and going to shoot first.... in fact they already have with one Ukranian soldier with brain damage after being shot at.

For Putin to say that they were invading Ukraine because of the risk to their peoples lives shows that he is a nut case and from what I have just been reading he is behaving very much like Hitler did.

‘PUTIN ACTING LIKE HITLER’

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was accused of acting in Crimea much like Adolf Hitler did in central and eastern Europe in the late 1930s.

“What’s happening in Ukraine is history repeating itself,’’ former Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg said in an interview with Austrian daily Osterreich.

“Putin is acting along the same principle as Adolf Hitler’’ did during his invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938 and 1939, he said.

Mr Putin asked Russia’s parliament on Saturday to allow him to send troops to Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians in Crimea and elsewhere in south-eastern regions of the ex-Soviet country, which has ancient historical and cultural ties to Moscow.

“Since he wanted to invade Crimea, he needed a pretext and said that his compatriots were oppressed,’’ the 76-year-old Mr Schwarzenberg said, adding that Russians in Crimea, where they are a majority, were not facing any discrimination.

“When Hitler wanted to annex Austria, he said that Germans there were oppressed,’’ he said.

Europe should “clearly tell him that this is a violation of law that will not pass,’’ said Mr Schwarzenberg, who served as Czech foreign minister from 2007-2009 and 2010-2013.

Hitler annexed then Czechoslovakia’s northern and western regions in 1938 under the pretext of protecting the ethnic German population there. The following year his forces occupied the rest of the country.

Austria was annexed into the Third Reich in March 1938.

http://www.news.com.au/world/ukraine-russia-says-surrender-crimea-or-face-allout-assault/story-fndir2ev-1226844230261

Re: NATO And the US Need Back Off On The Ukraine!

icyfroth — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 04:08:57 GMT

@catsnknots wrote:
I heard someone talking on the BBC radio last night and they live in Ukraine.

They are saying that Russia has been heading back to the Cold War days. Where people around them have been reducing their army Russia has in fact being increasing theirs. They were saying that Russia wants control over them and they don't want to be controlled. Georgia is a classic example of how Russia is behaving.

NATO would have been seeing this happen don't you think and maybe are trying to stop a massive takeover?

I think it's more like Russia wants to continue holding it's traditional territories and it's the US and NATO are trying for a massive takeover

Malcolm Fraser on the subject:

"There were many ways in which the former members of the Soviet Union in eastern Europe could have been given security for the future. Nato chose to provide that security by moving eastward to the borders of Russia.

The then president, Gorbachev, in negotiating with secretary of state, James Baker, had insisted that Nato should not move one foot east – this was an area of traditional Russian influence.

President Clinton pushed to expand the Nato alliance to the very borders of Russia. There was talk of Ukraine and Georgia being included.

The move east, despite the negotiations held with Gorbachev, was provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia: we are not willing to make you a co-operative partner in the management of European or world affairs; we will exercise the power available to us and you will have to put up with it.

The message was re-emphasised years later, when President Bush sought to place elements of the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. America said this was aimed at Iran. Russia would not have believed that. The west was acting as though the cold war still persisted.

What happened a while ago in Georgia, and what is happening now in Crimea, grows directly from those early mistakes made by the west. The west has been angling over the years to draw Ukraine into Nato. It has been doing whatever it could to support a pro-European government in the Ukraine, and to oppose or to bring down a pro-Russian government.

In January, Seumas Milne described those fighting against the then government. If but a small part of what he then said was correct, the west has once again chosen some unsavoury partners and that does not augur well for the future. Milne then described the elements then fighting the government as pro-fascist, pro-nazi, anti-Jew."

From Here

and:

"At the back of Pentagon minds, no doubt, is the dream that a US navy will one day replace the Russian Black Sea fleet in the Crimean ports of Sevastopol and Balaclava."

From Here

Why shouldn't Russia defend it's territories against an invasion? Especially strategic ports like the above? It wouldn't be the first time the west has tried to grab it:

"The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Anglo-French-Turkish campaign to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal.[4] Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimea since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence."

From Wiki