Will Obama and the West finally now stand up to Putin?

As predicted, the war between Ukraine and Russia has intensified over the last week-end, and we now have Putin's proxies and his Russian soldiers beginning to target civilians.

"Grad rockets rained down on residential areas of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, killing at least 30 and wounding more than 90, according to local authorities.

The rockets, apparently fired by pro-Russia rebels, came on the day their leader announced an assault on the city, despite earlier denials from rebel authorities that they were responsible." (Shaun Walker in Donetsk : The Observer, Saturday 24 January 2015)

 And whilst these rockets were raining down on residential areas in Mariupol, Putin was telling students in St. Petersburg that,

“We often say: Ukrainian army, Ukrainian army. But who is really fighting [in eastern Ukraine]? There are official divisions of the armed forces but to a great extent there are so-called voluntary nationalist battalions. This is not even an army, it's a foreign legion. In this case it's a foreign NATO legion,” Putin said, speaking before university students in the city of St. Petersburg." (VoA : January 26, 2015)

Whilst NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed Putin's claim as "nonsense." (ibid VoA), the scary thing is that these students 'believe' him.

"Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who currently serves as president of the European Union, tweeted in a message, "Once again, appeasement encourages the aggressor to greater acts of violence. Time to step up our policy based on cold facts, not illusions." (ibid VoA) (my emphasis) Tusk is here referring to those European leaders who, until recently, talked of easing economic sanctions against Moscow.

We now wait to see just what the EU foreign  ministers will come up with at their meeting on Thursday with the current Ukrainian issue on their agenda.

(to be continued)