re: US says it has conducted 'extraordinary' flight over Ukraine in warning to Russia

Yes, this is an open skies flight, but factor in the arms deliveries, the military to military training, the joint military exercise. Also our direct involvement in Ukrainian elections, and specifically, the protests we helped organize, that toppled the Yanukovych government.

We’re up to our necks in this, and everything do encourages Kyiv to take more and more foolish risks.

Ukraine believes we will help than defeat Russia.

We may flirt with the idea, which is irresponsible, and makes a crisis more likely, but we would never back them up. We’ll do what we did with Hungary in 56, or Iraq after the Gulf War.

Going down this route will only bring them pain and sadness, and potentially partition. And it’s not necessarily because of anything Russian does. Western Ukrainians, the current government, are pushing policies that victimize Eastern Ukrainians.

Their best option is actually to make peace with Russia, and provide cultural concessions to eastern Ukraine. That will not happen as long as we continue to indulge the radicals in Kyiv.