The ceasefires have failed. While the treaty for the most part has been respected, the Rebel forces have continued their siege on Debaltseve, where a large number of Ukrainian troops have been cut off from the primary Ukrainian front line by massive artillery barrages.

While this video was taken a few days ago, this same battle is still being fought without pause.

This is not to mention a massive barrage on Luhansk two days ago.

This attack seems to have been launched as a saturation bombardment and was meant not to strike specific military or industrial targets but residential areas. There can be no question that civilians are now targets in this war.

4086540 I heard that NATO might take military action in a way...

With all this I'm wondering how long Ukrainian independence can last. Historically, the Ukraine has usually been controlled by whoever also controlled Russia; ironically, the Ukraine is where the distinct Russian civilization actually started, as Kievan Rus in the 10th-11th centuries AD, a thousand years ago.

4086607 It's basically Nazi Germany and Poland. They felt that the land was rightfully theirs, and the Poles did pretty much this same thing except with circa 1935 weapons... and horses.

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4086639

Don't worry, Ukraine!

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I was actually thinking it's more like Czechoslovakia 1938-39. Peripheral Western ally which was once under complete control of the once and future enemy (in the case of Czechoslovakia the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose rump state had already been folded into the German Empire by the Annschluss; said ally being gobbled up by geographical salami-slicing tactics.

It would be very bad if this led to general war, since aside from the losses of hundreds of millions of American, European and Russian lives, the aftermath of a Russo-American general war is one of the few situations in which I could imagine Islam really being able to make long-term inroads against Christendom.

What we need, is for Putin to get out of office. I feel like the majority of Russians would agree. Plus, we don't need the United States to get involved. They will only make things worse.

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More to the point, there is no way for the United States to intervene without risking a military disaster on our part, given the correlation of forces, the geography, and the lack of enthusiasm for intervention on the part of our European allies ... and Turkey, which controls the Dardanelles.