I don’t see how the USA and the neocons, with their oft-expressed love of forcibly exporting democracy and self-determination, can possibly do anything but endorse Vladimir Putin’s muscular endorsement of free elections in Ukraine:
Ukraine’s military accused Russia on Friday of sending a column of 32 tanks and truckloads of troops into the country’s east to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces.
Thursday’s cross-border incursion, if confirmed, is a significant escalation of a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people since the separatists rose up in mid-April and would call into question Russia’s commitment to a two-month-old ceasefire deal.
The truce has looked particularly fragile this week, with each side accusing the other of violations after separatist elections last Sunday condemned as illegitimate by the West.
I was always skeptical about past claims of Russian incursions. Putin strikes me more as the sort of man who isn’t going to intervene in a small and plausibly deniable way. He wants to win, and he wants to win in a manner that lets his opponent know that he’s the winner.