And they did it by tricking Putin into sending missiles to the pro-russians (Come on, are you a real man or what?) and then showing the pro-russians how to use the Internet to locate civilian air traffic.

As for Russian tanks in Kiev, well maybe we should wait a few days more before we laugh it.

I assure you there would be more blood, than in Czechoslovakia.
Sure, Russia wants to avoid WW3. They just want South Osetia-2, but considerably bigger and much more economically valuable. With the same blind eye and uninterrupted business with EU partners. Who actually cares about Eastern Europe countries of ex-USSR. Most don't even know where they're located. That's why I think open war would be fairer. Even if most of us die, at least we will know, see and show everyone for who they are.

Ok, let me paraphrase that

Russia is smart and understands this and does what it can to try and avoid making seem like it's doing anything on an official level

The reality here is that NATO and the US are using the current Ukranian government (Because of the US all this crisis happened in Ukraine) in their interests to be hostile towards Russia and Russia is "Quietly and secretly" supporting the rebels in Eastern Ukraine in various ways

Ukraine is a chessboard with two big players on each side and the deaths of all of these people that died in that plane is nothing more than a pawn moving forward to keep the game moving towards something much bigger

Well, I'm gald that at least one person knows which one in the chicken-egg pair was the first. Duh.

I see the problem that you basically deny the Ukrainians their own will and to determine their fate in peace. They had comparatively peaceful demonstrations on Maidan the last year and they had comparatively democratic elections in May. No chance for the pro-russians in East Ukraine or on Crimea to gain anything if Russia would not have helped them. Russia is doing everything it can to come down hard on Ukraine but in a guerilla/terrorist kind of way. Just because the troops on Crimea didn't have official signs doesn't mean they weren't Russian.

And now we are where we are. I believe that the shooting down of the airplane was not intented but it was surely risked easily and most probably from the pro-russians who do shooting downs of airplanes for weeks and probably also with support from the Russian side who probably delivered the weapons.

It's just my opinion and of course the truth will never be discovered completely.

Anyway when you say something bigger then you probably mean a bigger war. Also you say that the US is behind all this weird action of Russia and the pro-russians. Sorry, but this sounds too strange to me. The most direct proviteer so far has been Russia and therefore I think it is much more likely that Russia is behind all this. They are not smart or clever, they are just mean and bold and maybe a bit of madness and hate of Ukrainians too.

Lol.
2004. The whole Ukraine democratically elects an East-aligned president. Western Ukraine protests, ousts him, puts Western guy in power. Everyone agrees he's a corrupt asshole, as post-Soviet presidents tend to be, but he sits his term.
2010. The whole Ukraine once again democratically elects an East-aligned president, same guy as before. Everyone agrees he's a corrupt asshole, Western Ukraine protests, ousts him, attempts to put a Western guy (or gal) in power.
Eastern Ukraine says, fuck this shit, we're outta here.

edit: I should probably clarify. Do Eastern Ukrainians need support? Yes, they do. Unfortunately, support is provided by this shitstain and his faction of neo-Nazi fucknuts, including Boroday and Girkin. Pretty much every change for the worse in Russia that hit international news was lobbied for by this turdling, and he helped himself to billions of dollars of state money. Oh, and he also funds domestic terrorism.

All in all, it's a very bad time to be an Eastern Ukrainian.

Eastern Ukraine didn't care for Yanukovych either (polls showed around 70% didn't view his administration as legitimate), although they don't care for the current administration either. However, the events in eastern Ukraine didn't originate from any of their own elected officials (or any strong populist movements for that matter), but rather groups of armed militia seizing government buildings then claiming they represented the eastern regions and that those regions were breaking away from Ukraine. Many of those individuals are also Russian nationals and Russian ex-military (Girkin/Strelkov was active FSB right up to early 2014).

There are certainly some disgruntled eastern Ukrainians as part of the rebel forces, but it's hardly accurate to try to paint the rebellion as the will of the people in the region.

I think that's the most likely scenario. I would be very astonished if it turned out to be anyone other than an Eastern separatist, and I would also be quite surprised if it is was anything but accidental.

The problem is that a lot of these separatists - at least the ones in Donetsk - are Neo-Nazi gopniks who have no interest in democracy. It just so happened that the democratic process swung their way in 2010 (at least ostensibly, but that too is debatable), and are now throwing temper tantrums that they can't get what they want. Very few of them actually have any kind of actual military training - most are probably military fanatics/gun fanatics, but are not trained in actual rules of engagement or proper handling of weapons.

Crimea was a different kettle of fish - there genuinely seemed to be little general interest in staying as part of Ukraine.

Chances are that some moron saw the plane in the sky, thought it was an Air Force plane, then took a potshot at it with a SAM without checking his target. Separatist commanders thought "shit, if this gets pinned on us then we'll lose all support" and tried to frame the Ukrainian Army for it.

We have had nuclear capabilities and lots of wars for a while and we have not killed ourselves yet.

I think in case of a WW3, the powers that be would not go nuclear as wars are good business for the people in top and good tools to keep the government in control (nuclear and biochemical weapons would be great to keep the people in fear) so I have scary visions of 1984 and the Ministry of Peace.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%94%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80_2010_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%85-en.png]nope.png[/url]

The events in eastern Ukraine were directly caused by western Ukraine trying to appease their own neo-Nazi militants by introducing anti-eastern legislation. There's a reason American political commenters were asking "Are we the bad guys?"

And it happens that orthodox oligarchs (Slavic neo-Nazis) are obsessed with creating a separate, unaccountable ultra-right-wing state. Some of them try to go Galt. Others run their businesses as religious sects. Galthood happens to be stupidly impractical from the get-go, and Vassily Boyko the Great (no, seriously, that's his legal name) can't ethnically-cleanse Ruza no matter how much he wants to. Malofeev wants an isolated country, and when eastern Ukraine protested, he decided the region was up for grabs. Most Ukrainians don't want to and are completely unprepared to actually fight in a war, so mercenaries (sorry, volunteers) fighting for both sides keep murdering civilians.

So when Western commenters (both Ukrainians and global Westerners) say Putin in his official capacity as president of Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union, they couldn't be more wrong. The truth is, a very powerful right-wing faction wants to restore the Russian Empire. And they have supporters in and in the [url=http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/world-congress-families-us-evangelical-russia-family-tree]United States. In Russia itself, Malofeev basically has the media by the balls and has set his sights on childcare, but 1.5 years ago (during the current presidential term) he was raided by the feds and barely evaded jail.

PS. And no, they aren't communists. They are monarchists, which was the other side in the Russian civil war of 1917-1922. Girkin himself is a LARPer, and this is his Mary Sue.

edit: and Girkin is not with the FSB, holy shit no way, he is/was a GRU officer. The FSB are cops (Putin is a cop), the GRU are the army intelligence. They hate each other for more than a quarter of a century.

So, my impression of this is that the Pro-Russian Ukranians want to rejoin the Russian empire? And the western part wants to stay Ukraine? So, if that's the case either break this country in two or have the minority Pro-Russians move to Russia...problem solved. Seems like a civil war that Russia, the US, and everyone else should stay the hell out of.
Can we setup some Call of Duty servers in Ukraine and let them battle this out in a non-destructive way? Well, except for the broken gamepads, mice, and keyboards.

Sorry, but that's a stupid point. Surely some dimwits tried to push through the cancellation of some language law, which gave more rights to minority languages. But, firstly, that law didn't even work anyway. Secondly, cancellation was vetoed long ago (is this the right English word?), so it was obvious that if you want gov't to listen, you don't have to shoot someone. Thirdly, there was nothing else to justify hanging some stupid non-existent countries flags and wave Russia tri-colored banner, except for some of the elder people to get a higher pension. Lastly, recent elections showed how much every region actually "cares" about nationalists, they didn't manage to get a decent percent for each of their candidates. Bummer.
It all began with the local oligarchs trying to hold the power they had, because they weren't sure it wouldn't shift from them under new gov't. If they would try just a bit to control the situation, all this wouldn't have happened.

As stated in the article I linked, and indeed made clear by Azurekite, the Ukrainians are persistently claiming that Russian planes are invading their airspace so they have every reason to have defences against them in case the war suddenly gets hot. Saying that they don't is simply wrong. It isn't the Russians saying that, it was (though for some reason they've shut about it now) the Ukrainians claiming the presence of Russian planes.

While not everyone would have an encoding radio you'd expect the defence minister of the DPR- and former GRU officer- to use one and certainly a supposed Russian handler to use one as well. Sheesh, there's been equipment capable of localising signals available since at least WW2, if Strelkov were using base line equipment such as a cell phone he'd be begging for a bomb on the scone every bit as much as Bismark radioing in in 1941 asked for a torpedo up the rudder.

And yes, you can make unbreakable ciphers, any cipher that provides zero intrinsic information, such as a one time pad, is unbreakable by standard means. Even with non perfect ones military grade keys require longer than the age of the universe to brute force even if you are the NSA, that's why they build back doors into even relatively weak commercial solutions like SSA.

You're just turning this upside down. Using AA now would be calling for a war. Russia wouldn't care that some heli or plane of their forces was shot down in a foreign country airspace.

Maybe this will be a discovery, but our military forces don't really have precise long range weaponry. Other than that, we should see what the investigation shows. Though I doubt it'll come to a meaningful conclusion after the crash area was searched by pro-russians.