Reuters article: Ukraine, 14 years in the making.

[Viscount]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/18/us-ukraine-putin-diplomacy-special-repor-idUSBREA3H0OQ20140418


In this article, Reuters attempts to draw the big picture of international diplomacy that eventually led up to the current Ukraine crisis. The jist that I seem to be reading is that Putin has long been concerned that the Western countries were attempting to surround Russia and compromise their security, surrounding them with "hostile neighbors," and that this is an issue of Russia being scared of losing security borders (which I think has been fairly openly discussed).

Anti-Russian readers: Seeing the full picture, do you have any more sympathy for Putin than you may have before? Do the actions of pR forces still prohibit you from seeing them in a sympathetic light?
Pro-Russian readers: Do you believe Putin's paranoia is just? If so, why, and can you justify the aggressive measures taking place in Ukraine now?

How might we have handled our history with Russia differently to possibly have avoided this stand-off?

[Omnileech]

Viscount

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/18/us-ukraine-putin-diplomacy-special-repor-idUSBREA3H0OQ20140418


In this article, Reuters attempts to draw the big picture of international diplomacy that eventually led up to the current Ukraine crisis. The jist that I seem to be reading is that Putin has long been concerned that the Western countries were attempting to surround Russia and compromise their security, surrounding them with "hostile neighbors," and that this is an issue of Russia being scared of losing security borders (which I think has been fairly openly discussed).

Anti-Russian readers: Seeing the full picture, do you have any more sympathy for Putin than you may have before? Do the actions of pR forces still prohibit you from seeing them in a sympathetic light?
Pro-Russian readers: Do you believe Putin's paranoia is just? If so, why, and can you justify the aggressive measures taking place in Ukraine now?

How might we have handled our history with Russia differently to possibly have avoided this stand-off?

The only thing the West could have done differently would be to treat Ukraine and other former USSR satellites as non-sovereign nations and refused trade and diplomacy with them. Because that's what Russia wanted.