Peace shattered in Ukraine

AllVoices has an article by Paul Jesep, an attorney, policy analyst, and author of Lost Sense of Self & the Ethics Crisis: Learn to Live and Work Ethically, about the latest in the Ukraine:

On Easter Sunday, a recently brokered deal by the US and its European allies between the Ukraine and Russia was shattered. According to conflicting reports, a “shootout” occurred at a checkpoint in the eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-financed separatists. At least one person is dead and several were injured. One news report placed the number killed at five.
In the deal brokered in Geneva, Switzerland, Moscow agreed to do everything in its power to dissolve the separatist movements. A poll released this month found a clear majority in the eastern Ukraine, though unhappy with the politicians now running the country’s government, do not want to join Russia.
During an interview with The Washington Post, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski didn’t mince words when asked of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs on the Ukraine.
According to Sikorski: “The separatists have equipment that only Russian armed forces possess. And we had seen the pattern in the Crimea. It’s an extremely hard task to reform the country, introduce an International Monetary Fund adjustment program, and defend its territory at the same time.”
Before the ink dried on the Geneva agreement, Putin sat for an interview on national television warning of further incursions to protect Russian minorities and maintain stability in the region. He also repeatedly denied Moscow is organizing or financing separatists in the eastern Ukraine or did so in the Crimea, now formally annexed to Russia.
Putin referred to most of the eastern and southern Ukraine as Novorossiya or New Russia. If his expansion strategy is left unchecked, Russia will not only annex almost a third of the Ukraine, but he’ll go clear across the country to expand into parts of Moldova, a small nation between Romania and the Ukraine.
Sikorski also observed that Putin “wants to prevent the Ukraine from becoming a successful European/EU-associated country. To that end, he needs to destabilize the Ukraine, upset its electoral calendar and make it more difficult to carry out economic reforms.”
Americans, weary of involvement in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, may wince at Sikorski’s comments inferring why the Ukraine must matter to the US, not just Europe.
He told the Post interviewer: “It matters because for the first time since the Second World War, one European country has annexed a province from another European country. And that matters because it is a rejection of our entire legal system and international norms and treaties that we have regarded as the foundation of peace.”
Sikorski added: “Remember, there is not a country in Europe that does not have national minorities. If we went back to protecting them through changing borders, we would be back in the hell of the twentieth century and before. This is why what President Putin has done in the Crimea and is now doing in the eastern Ukraine is so threatening to all of us.”
Four nations— Latvia, Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania, with Russian minorities and long historical conflicts with Russia— are now part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
NATO members, including the United States, have pledged to defend each other in the event of an attack. In short, an attack, whether in the name of protecting Russia’s ethnic minorities or in the spirit of maintaining regional stability by Moscow, would be considered an attack on the US. Thus, Russia could cause another world war.
Sikorski is urging a focused US approach with the resolve to contain Russia before it gets out of control. This includes a greater NATO presence in Poland and the Baltic States, while imposing aggressive sanctions on Russia for the slightest infringement of the recently signed Geneva agreement.
In light of the Easter killings, separatists are calling on Russia to send in “peacekeepers”. The Russian Foreign Ministry has formally blamed the Ukrainian government for violating the Geneva agreement. Ironically, the killings and provocations on Easter Sunday occurred after the Ukrainian government called for a suspension of hostilities and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was about to send two hundred more monitors to the region.
Just days ago, Putin told his country, during a nationally televised interview, that the upper house of Russia’s parliament granted him, “the right to use military force in the Ukraine. I really hope that I do not have to exercise this right, and that we are able to solve all today's pressing issues via political and diplomatic means.”
If the US and EU are serious about keeping Russia contained, then imposing additional sanctions sooner, rather than after the fact, would be a more pragmatic strategy.

Rico says this is gonna get fugly...