@CB @CB that there is something actually at stake in all this. There isn't. Both Russia and Ukraine are ruled by highly "corrupt" entities which are themselves products of a "post-Soviet" political economy. In short, kleptocratic oligarchy A has invaded the declared turf of kleptocratic oligarchy B. The historical basis for the invasion means little beside the fact that everyone gets a kleptocratic oligarchy. That having been said, war is bad, and the worst of the bunch are those who want to perpetuate war indefinitely.

To wit: in the Soviet era, most "property" was "public," except the "public" was not constituted as any sort of ruling class. Rather, in Soviet reality there was a ruling class that the Yugoslav thinker Milovan Djilas called "the new class," in Russian, the apparat.

The post-Soviet "property" reality, on the other hand, is determined by international banking entities like the IMF and the World Bank, and so the required gestures for all who want to participate are "privatization" and "free trade." Under such newly-imposed rules, for the ruling classes of the Ukraine and elsewhere the reality of "property" became a free-for-all, to be "won" through whatever means could be found to steal whatever could be stolen. Ukraine is a test-case for Proudhon's maxim: property is theft: see Yuliya Yurchenko's book on post-Soviet Ukraine. I have no reason to believe that such a reality does not obtain now. The weapons sent over there will be sold on the international black market, either now or later. There are no longer people in power, over there or here, who are not neoliberals -- maybe such people still exist, fighting against long odds, in Latin America, but that's another issue.

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the opportunity to "de-nazify and demilitarize" Ukraine and annex more land. I believe the Russian goal is to not only take the east but also the south adjoining the Black Sea. Too many Russian troops have paid the ultimate price.

Putin had (finally) realized that the US backed (and controlled) Ukrainian government is "agreement incapable". He was left with no other choice but to militarily support the Russians in Ukraine who were pleading for his help to prevent their cultural and ethnic genocide. History has shown (and subsequently proved) taking advantage of this wedge issue was long planned by the neocons in Washington as a way to attack (and dismember) Russia. The US doesn't give a damn about Ukraine or its people. They are simply a means to an end - literally cannon fodder.

Understanding the Other Ukraine: Identity and Allegiance in Russophone Ukraine
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Figure 1: Simplified historical map of Ukrainian borders: 1654-2014

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Figure 2: Historical borders overlaid on 1994 Presidential results.

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According to the Copenhagen School, the most profound security challenge that nations face today involves not sovereignty, but identity – specifically, the identity of the cultural subgroups that make up a society and whose cohesion and loyalty are essential for society’s (and the state’s) survival. State security could thus be significantly enhanced by satisfying, rather than suppressing, the cultural demands of minorities (Petro, 2009).

The fact that the Russian-speaking minority within Ukraine has a powerful external patron only makes this solution more attractive. Putin’s only two demands for Ukraine, stated in his interview of 4 March 2014, are: (1) that the population in the East and the South be safe, and (2) that they be part of the political process (Petro, 2014).

By embracing the Russian language and culture as legitimate aspects of Ukrainian identity, Ukraine could thus allay Russia’s concerns, while at the same time neutralising its popular support within the Other Ukraine. This would also have the salutary effect of shifting the discourse of Ukrainian patriotism away from its current obsession with “our language” and “our identity,” toward the inclusive civic patriotism that is more common in western Europe and the United States.

Acknowledging the obvious reality that Ukraine is, at its heart, bilingual and bicultural, might finally allow Ukrainians to deal with domestic issues in ways that build loyalty to the state, rather than further divide the Ukrainian nation.