I thought it was obvious by now that Putin/Kremlin constantly refers to World War 2 and Russian victory over "the west" (in this case Nazi Germany) in the rhetoric to gain support against Ukraine and "the west" (this time the EU, NATO, Japan, whatever else)

The Nazi reference is because the minority presence of them in Ukraine, Putin creates thus an image of "reenacting" WW2 in the image of fighting Ukraine and its supporters. It isn't exactly directed against Germany, but the continued aggression against Ukraine and the longstanding Nazi rhetoric and reminders of WW2 creates a side-effect in Germany that more and more Germans are just fed up with the Russian propaganda rhetoric and see it as some kind of personal insult against the German people.

According to OSCE and Malay investigations the attack on the plane was launched from pro-Russian rebel held territory, Ukraine and the EU is said to have released additional confidential information on the event to some nations, like Netherlands and Australia. I don't know the details of the information but anyone who checks the news can notice that both Australia and Netherlands became much more hostile towards Russia after that. This may mean the allegations of direct Russian involvement in attacking a civil plane as Ukraine's government claims has merit. Too much "political correctness" means today that you will hear "a certain third party" and similar shady non-committal statement instead of "this guy, and that nation" being directly named. You can easily guess who is being pointed at with fingers usually though.

Economic sanctions are the only way if nations want to look committed to a side without actually truly being that. By both UK and USA weaseling their way out by non-commitment to the Budapest Memorandium claiming "it isn't really breaking an agreement as nothing was truly agreed upon" hard sanctions are basically the only way the leadership can save some face before the world leaders who watch the events very carefully, like those of Japan and China.

Nobody really wants a war, but Russia is already at war. I don't just mean the invasion and annexation of parts of Ukraine, but also the recently sped up annexation of Abkhazia that could create a new hot war with Georgia, breaking the current stagnancy. There is also the aerial skirmishing in & near EU/NATO air space in last half year (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Baltic states) which makes everyone uneasy, and of course the war with Japan that Russia is officially in since WW2, and is not resolved yet due to the Russian occupation of the Japanese Kuril islands.

The media just tries to avoid calling the "crisis" or "conflict" that Ukraine and Russia are in a war, because official recognition of this fact would mean a strong political change and the need for different political tone, and worse.
Still, to anyone who steps a bit back and looks at the big picture, unilateral invasion, occupation, annexation of territories like in case of Crimea obviously means being in a state of war.


I actually agree that in most cases this is a true statement, and sanctions are a good political tool to force investors to cut ties and get rid of assets of the targeted nation, and allow the economy to rebalance itself while dependence on goods and services are lowered between the nations involved in sanctions.

A good example for this kind of activity is Russia breaking banking/monetary ties with western nations, turning focus of foreign policy (towards China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran instead of Europe and USA), constant harassment (investigations, close downs, etc) of large foreign owned companies of certain nations (McDonalds, IKEA, Pepsi, various agricultural companies), or the proclamations from the Kremlin about the future self-sufficiency of military industry (which currently uses a lot of western imported parts) and increased military presence/spending, or even the end of international cooperation in space projects.

All these show a hostile attitude and a longterm plan for decreasing economical and military cooperation, which are indeed usually a sign of large war planning which may happen in circa 7-10 years from now.