Our grand goddess (Well, you know what I mean ,p) Merkel has spoken just now, for the first time in many many years very clearly ;) Crimea Independence and referendum illegal, against constitution of the Ukraine, and will not be accepted by the EU. The tone has changed drastically, now open economic sanction threat against Russia, if Russia does not stop blocking diplomacy.

Didn't expect that to be honest. Merkel is not usually speaking this harshly. She said there will be a time limit on the decisions, and if Russia does not move, the EU will move regardless.

Ukraine will sign association treaty with the EU soon (Wonder how Russia will take that news...)

Yes, the irony is not lost me. Russia has many reasons to distrust the west that is for sure....

Well, she had sent the vice-chancellor (secretary of economics) to Moscow earlier today. So her speech was targeted at the West.

No can do. In every war there's collateral damage. Still, my condolences. I feel sorry for your birches.

I guess when facing a war they maybe find that they can. It would be much better than war. At least it seems that the russian government thinks they will. For me it seems like a particularly risky game that is played currently. Threats of war when it has been already so and so many often been shown that everyone involved in a war loses.

I guess we are partly back to cold war which I really don't appreciate. In the last two weeks I sense a big change in public opinion here - a bit like being in a nightmare. We want to live our own lifes peacefully, nothing else, but now we have to face the world again.

Russian politics is seen as irate, emotional, agressive all leading to an increasing isolation. And who knows what a tiger does if he is running out of civil options? Very dangerous times indeed.

That's the situation seen from here.

No, that is incorrect. It passed as a true majority, even with a bunch of members missing. The Rada has 450 members and it got more than the 226 required for a true majority. That simply isn't a fringe group/ minority by any definition.

And you can certainly infer intent from it- it was, after all, one of the very first things the new government did. So the new government very clearly considered repealing official status of minority languages to be of critical importance, and passed it with a true majority. Again, to draw a parallel, if the Republicans got into power in both houses of Congress in the US and their first act was a law making gay marriage illegal it would not matter that Obama vetoed it, it would quite rightly be seen as an attack on a minority, and a sign of things to come. It's the same here.

I must say I don't really understand the russians trying to reestablish a kind of russian empire or soviet union. They are just endangering their economic position in the world. Rubble is diving whole week now, russian stocks are falling each day, russian central bank had to raise interest rate to 7.5% - extremely high. Yeah I hope the EU and US don't push russia to much. If EU stops buying their oil and gas then they will have a problem financing themselves. I don't know this seems too dangerous to me. The world is at this point to much intertwined to survive a big face off between NATO and Russia if the tensions increase.

http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/wer-toetete-100-demonstranten-die-schwierige-suche-nach-den-moerdern-vom-maidan_id_3668731.html

I'm staring to hate these rebels honestly, USA and EU cannot support this without investigating all that really happened there

edit: sorry wrong link

I think nobody can understand what is happening there at the moment. To many foreign interests colliding there. And that phone call really shows it we don't know anything.

Smaller countries are always mere pawns on the chessboard of superpowers.

Yeah thats for sure. Only bad luck for Ukraine is that it has strategic value from military point of view between EU and Russia.

.... and that justifies sending troops into a neighboring country? Is this a threat so dreadful, that you have to fear for the safety or wellbeing of part of it's people? No it isn't, at least not in my book.
This isn't about saving fellow countrymen, it's about influence.
Fact is, I haven't seen any sign from Russian side, that points anywhere near de-escalation.

I really DO hope that the Russia will just be satisfied with Crimea and they'll stop... but why would they? nobody ever stops them! they just come and take over some other part of Europe, because EVERYBODY is too fucking scared to stand against them (because every european country is dependant on their supply of fuel and gas)

Putin is right now laughing his ass off as he watches his plan going on without ANY problems... he can take over Latvia, or Lithuania (to connect the main Russia land with that piece of land they own), and nobody will do a thing again, they'll all just watch and say "errrm, this is bad, you should not do this... but what the hell"... I hate this. (being a post SSSR country, I know what I'm talking about)

Latvia, Lithuania is a bit different since they are NATO members. I don't think Putin would attack a Nato country.

why not? they didn't "attack" Crimea either... they just moved their "secret" units there and forced everyone to say "we love Russia and we want to be a part of the new SSSR"

what stops them from doing exactly that in Latvia or Lithuania? nobody cares, they just let them do what they want!