Putin should just say that Ukraine has WMDs and show some memo about yellow cake... or that he intends to launch drones in search of terror suspects....

Brendan, thanks for the continuing coverage of what's happening in Ukraine. Great to have Chris Collison's contributions on the ground.

Interesting that Putin called this revolution an "unconstitional coup." Who knew the Ukrainian constitution had a provision that the president of the Russian Federation is also the protector of Ukraine's government?

(Paraphrasing a remark Samantha Powers made to the UN Security Council.)

I worry that Tikhon Dzyadko is overlooking another possibility. Putin has made his love of the old Soviet Union an integral part of his image and his long term goals. If you look at the situation in Ukraine with that mindset, here is what I see:

Plan A: Get the most pro-Russian government in control and make the Ukraine's economy heavily indebted to Russia. This is done by encouraging corruption and graft of public funds, forcing Ukraine to borrow ever larger sums of money from Russia.
Plan B: If the pro-Russian government goes to far and gets itself thrown out, use the turmoil and "threat" to Russians still in the country from the Soviet days to justify military intervention and take over the country outright.

Look at how after Yanukovich was ousted, military bases and political centers were quickly seized by paramilitary groups with no insignia but with similar uniforms and weapons. The speed and efficiency says this was planned well in advance, like the Tonkin Gulf resolution.

You can argue that Russia risks uniting the opposition, but you can also argue that they have shown all the former satellite states that if they don't tow the Russian line, the same could happen to them.

Yeah, sure, it'll most likely turn out to be disastrous for Putin. But I think we can all agree the IMPORTANT thing is, Putin has made the American right wing swoon with his decisive, authoritarian manliness.

I told you he lies.

I meant it.

I'm old enough to remember the Prague Spring. This is history repeating.

I'm old enough to remember Budapest 1956.

@7) Not if you ask Ray McGovern:

Unlike ‘Prague Spring’ 1968

Moscow’s advantage was not nearly as clear during the short-lived “Prague Spring” of 1968 when knee-jerk, non-thinking euphoria reigned in Washington and West European capitals. The cognoscenti were, by and large, smugly convinced that reformer Alexander Dubcek could break Czechoslovakia away from the U.S.S.R.’s embrace and still keep the Russian bear at bay.

My CIA analyst portfolio at the time included Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe, and I was amazed to see analysts of Eastern Europe caught up in the euphoria that typically ended with, “And the Soviets can’t do a damned thing about it!”

That summer a new posting found me advising Radio Free Europe Director Ralph Walter who, virtually alone among his similarly euphoric colleagues, shared my view that Russian tanks would inevitably roll onto Prague’s Wenceslaus Square, which they did in late August.

Past is not always prologue. But it is easy for me to imagine the Russian Army cartographic agency busily preparing maps of the best routes for tanks into Independence Square in Kiev, and that before too many months have gone by, Russian tank commanders may be given orders to invade, if those stoking the fires of violent dissent in the western parts of Ukraine keep pushing too far.

That said, Putin has many other cards to play and time to play them. These include sitting back and doing nothing, cutting off Russia’s subsidies to Ukraine, making it ever more difficult for Yanukovich’s successors to cope with the harsh realities. And Moscow has ways to remind the rest of Europe of its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Another Interference

There is one huge difference between Prague in 1968 and Kiev 2014. The “Prague Spring” revolution led by Dubcek enjoyed such widespread spontaneous popular support that it was difficult for Russian leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin to argue plausibly that it was spurred by subversion from the West.

Not so 45-plus years later. In early February, as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, “plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.”

We know that thanks to neocon prima donna Victoria Nuland, now Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who seemed intent on giving new dimension to the “cookie-pushing” role of U.S. diplomats. Recall the photo showing Nuland in a metaphor of over-reach, as she reached deep into a large plastic bag to give each anti-government demonstrator on the square a cookie before the putsch.

More important, recall her amateurish, boorish use of an open telephone to plot regime change in Ukraine with a fellow neocon, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Crass U.S. interference in Ukrainian affairs can be seen (actually, better, heard) in an intercepted conversation posted on YouTube on Feb. 4.

Olympics are over, putin wants to keep himself in the spotlight, he's a piece of shit.