Brewers Droop, the people of Crimea were not asked if they wished to be part of Ukraine in 1954, they were however in 2014 asked if they wished to be part of Russia.
You say that larger neighbours cannot go into smaller and weaker neighbours? But is it ok for Washington to invade and attack smaller and weaker nations far away from their own nation?
At the end of the day its easily possible the majority in eastern Ukraine want to be part of Russia again or at least a new independent nation, but for sure some of the people want this. Russia supporting them is NO different to Washington supporting various anti government groups in Libya and Syria! Its arguably less bad than the actions of Washington.
I would agree Moscow has no legal right to do this BUT I would say they have a moral right to support their own people. Its unrealistic to expect them to do nothing as its on their doorstep.
I would suggest if the Soviets had won in Afghanistan there would not have been a 911! Also if the west had not destroyed Libya then its unlikely in a Gaddafi ruled Libya that the terrorists would have been able to assassinate the US Ambassador and without the wests invasion of Iraq and later attempts to remove Assad in Syria there would be no IS! Talk about total foreign policy failure and blowback! Its a bit hard to respect governments and leaders who are behind such disasters.
Compared to all this Russia being involved in their next door neighbouring country in a limited way hardly seems the crime of the century.
Considering the outrageous actions of western governments in recent years for moral reasons and reasons of humility it would be best if they simply kept their mouths shut, sadly that's unlikely as they were most likely behind the coup in Kiev setting those whole chain of events in Ukraine in motion, they should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
Last edited by Ronald Reagan; 8th Feb 2015 at 21:12.