Poll: Putin Seen by Russians as Highest Moral Authority: 36% see Putin as a shining beacon of morality. http://t.co/U5n7DyD6Bb
— Pete Josse (@PeterRadiator) September 25, 2014
Russia’s Dangerous Adventures in NATO Airspace http://t.co/2r05KvRacx #Putin #Russia #RussiainvadedUkraine #NATO pic.twitter.com/qcUda4BwU3
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 25, 2014
Finland president @niinisto and Estonian president @IlvesToomas spoke about concern for minority groups inside Russia http://t.co/XIcDVdlH3z
— James Miller (@MillerMENA) September 24, 2014
Owen Matthews has been writing for "Newsweek" on the role gas and Gazprom could play in Russia-EU relations this coming winter. He argues that any prolonged stoppage of gas supplies to European Union countries may damage Russia as much as it does the EU:
The strange truth of the Gazprom bogeyman is that both producer and buyer are locked in a relationship of mutual dependence. An all-out gas war between Europe and Russia would be the economic equivalent, says the Western diplomat "of the old Mad thinking" – Mad being the Cold War Acronym for the Mutually Assured Destruction that would follow a nuclear strike. Brussels is betting that Putin may be dangerous – but not suicidal.
Read the entire article here
'Recently we asked people who the most intelligent person is, and the answer was... also Putin', state pollster sighs http://t.co/7TrB0MvNCw
— Maria Antonova (@mashant) September 25, 2014
Thick black smoke still rising over Donetsk airport. Probably diesel oil burning. It's been going on for a few days now.
— Paul Gypteau (@paulgypteau) September 25, 2014
Even in its aftermath, the war in Ukraine is a total mess. Nice @AndrewKramerNYT piece on murky prisoner swaps: http://t.co/ZYaOmLSpaY
— Joshua Yaffa (@yaffaesque) September 25, 2014
29% of Russians support anti-war protests - Levada. http://t.co/Y7rls6zx5i
— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) September 25, 2014
More nationalist porn (it gets creepy around 2:22) https://t.co/WOcW2A3CAN
— Andrew Roth (@ARothNYT) September 25, 2014
Paul Roderick Gregory has been writing with some urgency for Forbes on the ramifications of the Ukraine crisis in terms of world peace, suggesting that it poses a far greater threat than IS:
Whereas Poroshenko’s “blankets do not win wars” line gained the most attention, his chilling parallel with the Cuban Missile Crisis largely escaped notice:
“Without any doubt, the international system of checks and balances has been effectively ruined (by Russia’s actions). The world has been plunged into the worst security crisis since the U.S. (Cuban missile) standoff of 1962.”
By this stark comparison, Poroshenko made clear that Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, his clear intent to restore a Russian empire, and hishatred of NATO provide the tinderbox for reigniting events similar to October 1962 when U.S. and Soviet forces faced each other “eyeball-to-eyeball.” We could be weeks or months away from another such standoff with Russia, not in the Caribbean, but in a small state on the Baltic Sea.
Are the world’s two largest nuclear powers moving towards a missile-crisis-like confrontation because Russia is achieving or failing to achieve its objectives in Southeast Ukraine? Are Europe and the U.S. really hoping that a peace deal entered into by a weakened Ukraine will end Putin’s empire-restoration dream? Or would only effective Ukrainian resistance that denies Putin hisNovorossiya head off such a catastrophe? Merkel and Obama regrettably seem to be pushing Ukraine towards an unfavorable peace that gives Putin a permanently destabilized Ukraine blocked from the European Union and NATO. And the only price he has had to pay is sanctions, which he expects to be lifted after a decent time has passed.
Read the entire article here