Sure they can. Reality is certainly not like something you'd see on a TV program like 24 where Chloe repositions them at a moment's notice and watches Jack take down the terrorists in real time, but it's also nowhere near as spartan as you are making out, if it were they'd be of very limited use indeed. They certainly can be manoevred onto specific orbital paths, else they'd be not much use at all, having to rely on the earth's and the satellite's orbital/ rotational and absolute velocities to line up semi randomly- Digital Globe, the non military commercial provider used say they can take a specific shot in as little as 6 hours. Should also be noted that their stated abilities of their 'basic' package far exceed the quality of the released pictures. And the obvious expectation is that military satellites are better in both regards, the resolution of a near forty year old KH spy satellite was 15cm, by comparison.

And, this situation is exactly what spy satellites are designed for, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering when alternatives do not exist. In Syria and Iraq, as your examples, the US can use drones for surveillance as ISIS have very limited AA capability, they're cheap and numerous, and flexible and easy to manouver and retask. Send the drones into eastern Ukraine or Russia though? They'll be scrap in minutes, if not seconds. So if you want to monitor the situation in Ukraine, and I think we can all agree that the US does want that, then they have to use satellites.

Just because they can do it from technical point of view, does not mean they can do it from logistic and monetary and political point of view.

Moving a satellite is costly. It also costs fuel which as far as I know cannot be replenished. Therefore, even if they have the ability to get a satellite at any moment in six hours doing so would be extremely costly. If it is not necessary to do it, then they won't do it for sure. It also ties up resources. It is not like spy sattelites are falling on their orbits doing nothing. No. They were placed on orbits with goals in mind. Now, conflict in Ukraine might become higher priority than current missions and will demand a full 24h coverage by satellites but fortunately nothing happened so far to warrant USA doing something so costly. When that happens military might release higher quality pictures.

Your demand of HQ pictures is unreasonable. It won't happen unless a full scale war between Ukraine and Russia happens which will demand the coverage you seek. Otherwise the conflict has limited impact on USA which does not require them to use their satellites in that area on moments notice. After tanks were spotted crossing border they might have started to point their surviliance equiment at ukraine, but it will take days or even weeks to minimize the cost of fuel (without fuel satellite is useless like you pointed out)
but when that LQ picture was taken there was no reason for USA to point their most advance hardware at Ukraine 24/7.

Moving satellites is costly and can be done easily if the cost is justifiable. nothing in ukraine happened when tanks crossed the border for usa to justify the cost.

U.S., allies to stage exercises in West Ukraine as battles rage in East
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/02/us-ukraine-crisis-exercises-idUSKBN0GX23Q20140902

It would seem they are really trying to escalate this into something more. The small scale proxy war is threatening to blast off into something far worse. Both sides are entrenching and pushing the other side to make a move. This reminds me more and more of the Georgia '08 exercise. Russian and American fifth columns, operating against each other in otherwise independent regions. Same game that's been going on since the end of world war II.

I have to admit I'm a bit proud of my future-telling skills. Already in mid-april I predicted that russian military will need to occupy Ukraine. It's sad that this had to happen but it was easy to foresee.

It's not really a civil war (probably never was). The title of the thread should be changed to Ukraine vs. Russia. The many dead people in Eastern Ukraine could only happen because of the weapon deliveries. In my eyes Russia and especially Putin does a lot of getting his nation to the top ten list of evil nations on earth.

Now what will happen is that in the last half year so much trust is lost that the economic ties between Europe and Russia are damaged beyond repair (at least this is my impression). It will hurt both sides, but there is no alternative. The russian behavior is in my eyes just unacceptable. Sending disguised troops to Crimea, hasten a referendum, frighten non Russian Crimeans, asking two times the same question, cheating in the vote, sending weapons and probably also skilled people to Eastern Ukraine, finally sending troops. This is all a breaking of international law and an offense to all Ukrainians living there and people got killed too. I really had a lot of sympathy for Russia (more than average, that's why I feel so disappointed now) and hoped that they make it to an open, friendly, modern country, but all my trust is gone and replaced by fear. Ukraine is only one country away. There doesn't seem to be any alternative to another cold war.

Also I think Putin is crazy and you don't stop crazy people by giving in. History shows that appeasement never, ever works. In the worst case he will destroy us all but then he might do this anyway anytime.

Russia is no partner anymore and the sad thing is that each side will blame the other. You cannot expect anything different from Russian media. Their leader succeeded in alienating Russia from Europe. That's basically the result of this year apart from the direct impact on Ukraine.

Russians will feel the hurt, but they will have a hard (or not so hard if they just listen to what Putin says) time figuring out whom to blame. Farewell and good luck.

The most hilarious thing remains still that if Russia / Putin hadn't done what he did to Georgia and Chechnya, and if he hadn't placated the west in 2007 Nato summit (where he was invited and lead a speech that already cost him most trust) Nato would be dissolved or at least extremely irrelevant by now.

And let's face it, this is not a "year" of things that ruined EU : Russian relations. It started when Russia committed a coup that failed and then just flat out invaded Chechnya in 1994 and again in 1999. And let's not forget that the German unification happened and Russia was never happy about that either.

A country like that is not a partner, certainly not to Germany. To the EU, Russia was only interesting because of markets and economic reasons and even that is fading now.

To go a bit on a rant here...
In my opinion. The only reason Europe was close to Russia was Gerhard Schröder, imo the person that did the greatest damage to this my country in the entire history post ww2. Schröder is still one of the most hated people in Germany. Nobody forgot that he pushed for Hartz IV, and the dehumanization of jobless that followed.... sigh. He is the reason Germany has extreme dependency on Russian gas too.

Ps.: Yes I know that 1994 was not Putin era ;) Point is, Putin continues confrontational course already ongoing since the fall of the wall. I think Russia never stomached the fall of the Soviet Union.

Let's put it like that: during external conflicts not every citizen would support its government.
For example, there were cases during war of 080808 of soldiers that deserted Russian army for profit, for not liking government or whatever.
You can find dozens of facts about desertion from official Ukrainian army, asking for citizenship in Russia or even switching sides to militants. There are no similar news about militants. At all. For months.
Is there Russian army? As a force, probably, no. Remember during spring USA "intercepted radiograms between plane and Russia"? And now they say that there are thousands of coordinated from Russia people and can't intercept anything for months.
I could say in a heartbeat ages ago - there are Russian people. Imagine people, which fought for Russia during our latest conflicts. And when they see that Kiev's new government closes their eyes (tbh, everyone knows that this was done by them) on investigation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_May_2014_Odessa_clashes they are ready to protect Russia one more time. Tbh, I seriously considered to move there myself.
(As for this article - check page for "Red bands". News said that this was symbol of people, which started firing, some men from police worn them, BUT... check photos - pro-russians already use distinctive symbol - black/orange band. They don't need red one.)

Just for information for ones, who are even worse in Ukrainian than me - ofc its just usual pure bullshit above. There is already preliminary report from Ukraine investigation team http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_1?pf3511=52134, and while it doesnt provide much new data, exept one what was known pretty at the spot (pro-russian provokateurs shot into demonstration, then lured some other pro-russian activists to barricade instead of fleeing from enraged avending crowd, resulting in casualities), but its hardly can be called "closes their eyes (tbh, everyone knows that this was done by them) on investigation". While im pretty sure what anyone who care know about it already, just this certain lie is too ugly and blatant to simply pass by.

Blaming a single guy is maybe too much credit to him. After all the famous reduction of social benefits was never undone later on, and there were governments of almost every possible party except more extreme left and right ones. Especially the conservatives just love this and they get around 50% of the votes each time. Others even say that this formed the basis of the current well being of the german economy with the comparatively low unemployment rate. So it's kind of disputed, the majority (those not affected) even seem to like it.

And the dependency on russian gas and other ressources - also no government before or after Gerhard Schröder (1998-2005) did change anything about it. There were European plans for a southern independent pipeline (Nabuko) but they failed - but not for this guy but for all involved countries together because russian gas was just too cheap to build a competition. And in times of peace this is fully justified. A win-win situation for everyone. Affordable gas for Russia in trade for good money they can use to modernize themselve. But in times of aggression and war this doesn't work. Then there is no alternative to stoping all this. All of the german governments in the last 20 years did nothing to reduce the dependency. In hindsight this was a mistake of all of them and Schröders friendship with Putin was probably a mistake too.

In the end I still think Schröder is not amongst the most hated persons in germany. Every Nazi easily beats him. And if he is hated then for different reasons, some even saying he didn't went far enough with his reforms.

I think that there was a brief period in the beginning of the 1990 where Russia wasn't like it is now, where they could have become anything, anything. But this is more theoretically - one is only as smart and as strong as the parental and cultural background. Widespread corruption and crime, weak justice, mismanagement, fear - if you have all this the game is over. The political system now is unfortunately not much better than it was on Soviet times and there doesn't seem big improvements ahead - although one should never say never.

In the end I think we should give Ukraine and Georgia a perspective to join NATO in not too far away time and then the there is no space for dubious movement of borders anymore. Then we just have to wait which path Russia choses in the future. For now it is isolation and of course it would be hypocrisy of us to think we can change much there.

Or in short: You cannot have a cake and eat it. You cannot attack Ukraine and stay friends with everyone else. The only interesting questions would be: who are you going to blame? But actually the answer is already almost clear. There is not much hope for immediate improvement. It will get worse as long as Putin is boss of the Russians and maybe even beyond this.

The changes Schröder started and the liberals (SPD/CDU/CSU/Grüne/FPD) happily maintained were imo a massive gift to the baby boomers, if you are born at or after 1985 you are literally part of a lost generation. Baby boomers are sitting on the best paid jobs and don't pay good wages for younger people anymore and this is why parties like the AFD get massive boost.

The problem has gone even so far that the current pension "gifts" are 100% awarded focused at baby boomers. We actual working people who earn the money pensions pay out get less money and no pensions (that's already a fact, when I get to 70 I will get zero pension, because the system can't possibly work anymore at that point)

Maybe the more correct expression is to say that mostly anyone born after 1985 hates Schröder more than any Nazi ;) The AFD will only get stronger, and they WILL get stronger. Baby Boomers are going to be dead at some point, and all that's left is disgruntled and badly paid employees in questionable contracts. The entire system with "Zeitarbeit" is imo one of the greatest anti-social crimes ever instituted by a state. It is quite literally modern slavery, job agencies send you to these agencies that pay very badly and where you have zero rights, and if you refuse you get no benefit payment anymore.

Anyhow.. sorry for off-topic

someone less lazy than myself made a full list of russian media fakes here: http://made-inukraine.livejournal.com/1055603.html

JFYI and for lulz cause some fakes are quite idiotic.

I often wonder in these times "WTF will history books in schools tell in a couple of decades ?", in 'some fatalist way' I think we'd rather stop teaching history and let people go on wikipedia (sic) because, even when you take into consideration the last centuries wars and the different treatment they got in different nation's history books .... the actual clusterfsiks we are witnessing won't make much sense on a 'global' perspective.

Edit : proof is, this thread started with the Ukrainian civil war months ago (topic title), and everything slided to Russian invasion.

Edit2 : and I am quite sad Ukrainian people don't get more EU help with everyone going to be 'maneuvering' in Irak this autumn:(

Don't be such a dimwit. He obviously said it to show that they COULD do it. To demonstrate that they are NOT TRYING to do it right now. The media right now it turning this guy into the boogeyman, so don't be fooled by out of context quotes. Every newspaper I look at constantly has headlines like "What to do against Putin" "How to deal with Putin" "Putin Putin Putin". Anything to avoid talking about the actual conflict. If the guy would step down tomorrow, Russia would still do the same thing and Nato would, too.
Oh so judging by the word "current" you at least realised that the government right after the coup had nazis from svoboda in it. Guess that is progress.
Umm yeah lets maybe not forget either that the only reason Russia accepted german unification was not to expand NATO beyond those borders. A promise they stupidly expected Nato to keep.

Nice selective view on the matter. Ukraine wanted a Eu-Ukraine-Russia agreement instead which the EU categorically denied. THAT started the whole breakup. The EU wanted Ukraine all for itself instead of a happy threeway.

Actually [url=http://www.examiner.com/list/russia-s-top-100-lies-about-ukraine ]www.examiner.com/list/russia-s-top-100-lies-about-ukraine [/url]suit better here, i think, as i got your link anyway mostly use Julia's work.