Putin puts world on the brink of another Cold War over Crimea

For more than three months we’ve watched in helpless horror as the events in Ukraine have unraveled. On the heels of  joining a Western alliance  last fall, the Eastern European country was invaded by Russian troops Saturday  in its Crimean peninsula.
In less than two weeks the country’s president has fled in shame — both for ordering direct fire on protestors and for looting public coffers -— to be replaced by an interim team challenged to maintain peace until elections in May.
Today, Western nations are  on the brink of another Cold War as Russia digs in its heels to usurp control of the eastern portion of Ukraine despite objections from members of the United Nations, the European Union, and  the United States.
Russia, of course, is well-equipped to run rampantly over the objections of Ukrainians -— and the outside world — who just a few months ago had high hopes of putting their economic future in line with the European Union.
Today, the threat of civil war is perched to tear the Ukraine asunder, or at the very least face the loss of Crimea to Russia.
For some Crimeans that’s the preferable path.  The majority is of Russian descent and continues to speak their mother tongue. When Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych escaped to Russia in late February, Crimean leaders asked Russian president Vladimir Putin for protection for fear “ultranationalists” would invade.
Only too happy to oblige, Putin deployed troops. Russian flags now fly in former Crimean government buildings.
Ukrainians in the western part of the country view the move as a military incursion.

A BEST-CASE scenario may be a split off of Crimea from the Ukraine, if indeed, that’s the people’s will.
Foreign policy experts  worry Putin will go for a power grab of the whole eastern half of the country — a certain recipe for retaliation.
World leaders are holding their breaths for fear of that first shot volleyed.
Let us pray for saner heads to prevail and for all to step back in realization of the consequences if war were to break out in Eastern Europe.
-— Susan Lynn