Russia is the last hope left for Western civilization. Long after the Western countries have collapsed due to homosexuality, liberal permissiveness, sexual promiscuity, adultery, moral degeneracy, low-birth rates, unregulated capitalism and lack of strong government, Russia will be left standing.

If Russia wanted to invade the Ukraine they would have done so months ago and it seems more that they're helping out the separatists to prevent a onesided massacre.
It is Poroshenko who makes any negotiations impossible at this moment and gambles everything on that the west will come to the aid of Ukraine and already got several billions in monetary aid from the EU.
Meanwhile several Ukrainian aircraft had been shot down by seperatists/Russia but Ukraine doesn't close its airspace for civilian aircraft, Ukraine doesn't even try to intercept Russian aircraft flying over the Ukraine and their airdefenses remain silent.
The seperatists actually declared their held territory as a no fly zone, a lot of airliners (Quantas, Air France, British Airways) avoid it but several airlines (Malysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, a.o.) ignore the situation and keep flying over the Ukraine.
Anyway this seperatists "mistake" was "helped" in a big part by Ukrainian leadership to the point which makes it seem they hoped something like this would happen.

If this situation ever spirals out of control and the west decides to help the Ukraine with armed force we're helping another wrong party and the west can't achieve anything good there only make things worse for everyone.
The feelings of belonging to Russia from the seperatists are genuine, not something Putin made up in his dreams, it was what this whole situation with Yanukovitch started in the first place.
If there ever existed Ukranian sympathizers in eastern Ukraine they will be long gone now with the heavy handed way Ukrainian leadership tries to quell the situation over there.
So Ukraine and especially its leaders should ask themselves if the eastern Ukraine is worth fighting for, I guess the answer is yes but only the territory, the people who live upon it not so much and are to be disposed of.

P.S. This may all seem very pro Russian which in this case might actually be true and if this whole mess turns out the be part of a diabolical scheme made up by Putin and his henchies I'll take everything back and be pro west again like a good decadent fat westerner and get my information from reliable neocon controlled newsnetworks.

Apparently you haven't been in Russia at all or haven't been there too long. If that is the last hope, then we're _ucked. I can say that about every slavic ex-USSR country, including mine.

To me it even sounds not very pro Russian but rather neutral. I guess the feeling of belonging to Russia of the separatists is partly genuine, but does this justify starting a war and using violence? I thought the population was once divided in Eastern Ukraine, half pro Russian, half Ukrainian but it didn't really matter. Or was it different? Now we have a lot of displaced people. When do they get justice? Under which circumstances is it okay to use weapons and violence? Can the people who want to live in Russia not just move to Russia instead of making the other people go away which is at least equally bad? And the last question I ask myself is: Would anyone have started such a war if he/she wouldn't have some hope to get help?

Every war is always a catastrophy. It means that everyone involved loses. I think the West could only go in as part of a United Nations mission (then probably hand in hand with Russians) but this unfortunately won't happen.

And then, what to do? Do you say: Eastern Ukraine is part of Ukraine and must stay part of it, or do you say, who last controlled it shall get it, or how should the fate of this area be decided? Maybe Obama and Putin should decide?

It's like a collective conspiracy. Russia invaded Crimea but at this time and for quite some time afterwards not very many if any Russians would admit they had invaded Crimea. But of course not only Russia does it. The most prominent case of the last 20 years is probably the US claim of having found WMDs in Iraq which also nobody of status in the US could afford to criticize for a long time.

What is new is that even big countries engage in guerilla warfare. The goal is probably to increase the threat or state of distress until the enemy is ruined (military and or economically).

Yeah. At minimum - slowly suck the blood out of your opponent by destroying his industry in the region and putting constant pressure on the budget, which could've been used for better purposes. At maximum - get yourself some territory or simply make another Transnistria.

UN forces actually will simply make it worse and freeze the conflict, which will will put a joker in separatists hands. It won't make any good and will solve nothing.

Letting go the region is foolish. Let go one, next year there'll be fire in another. Plus, it will be pure betrayal of people who don't want to become part of another country. We already betrayed those crimeans (even if they are minority) who felt that way. And many lives lost till now, would be lost for naught. That's my opinion anyway.

Sorry, but i have to ask - are you high or something ?:) Not that i have strong positive feelings for US but Russians are the ones to blame here, it's kinda obvious for anyone who cares to analyze what have happened. If you want it reiterated:

1. Terrorists had BUK (rocket launcher). Ukrainian army theoretically has them too, but since terrorists have no planes, why the f#ck they would need it anywhere near the battlefield ?:) I assume we don't take version of shooting plane with Putin seriously, because it's purely idiotic.
2. Military rocket launchers are kind of complex devices , in fact complex enough that only trained personnel can operate them. Which likely means that either current or ex-military officers were operating them. Kinda pointing to Russia, don't you think ?)
3. Obama has no balls to start a war, ask around our US friends even on this forum if you want proofs :)

Seriously, this. There is no reason for Ukraine to be using their AA since the "separatists" have none.

Putin has been sending across only arms that Ukrainians use to confuse the issue even further.

Hey you sound like you could be in Svoboda. No no, the hope for western civilization is south america, they are recovering from the US terrorism of the cold war. They are going to ditch the war on drugs next. Uruguay has already legalised pot completely. (not this toleration or decriminalization BS)

Who me? You mean the guy who founded the Joseph Goebbels research center is not a nazi? The guys who called themselves Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine are not nazis? (Nazi=NAtionalsoZIalisten) The guy who declared Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk a hero is not a nazi? Oh well thanks for informing us!

I have interest in twisting your words, they are pretty clearly wrong as we have covered: "...and at no point had any meaningful political power."
btw..merely calling them "far right" elements is a belittlement already, it makes em sound like stupid but harmless right wingers, Palin like or something.

Change "Russia" to "Ukraine" and I'll fully agree.
A month ago I'd say we've done worse in the '90es, but now I'm not so sure anymore.
Alas, those are the realities of our dearly beloved Information Age. You may be as innocent as Abel (and noone is that innocent nowadays) but if the mass-media cry "Criminal!" long enough and loud enough, you get Cain's Mark for life.
Russia didn't understand that in 2008, let's see what we have learned in those years.
1. Yup. That's a little birdie-loo.
2. Huh? Sure, KGB did it, Putin personally was there. Can we be serious here, please?
3. What Obama has and what he has not, we have already seen, thank you. It was the UN who fully supported the bombing of Libya... right?

Providing proof on a hearsay basis? I can reverse this the other way - if you admit this as a proof, then it must be affirmed that these so-called militia (what a word for freaks with artillery and tanks) have AA units, because we also have hearsay evidence of it. Just stop. It'd be better this way.
Who said KGB, Putin? Can't see this in quoted post. Russia on the other hand does provide armaments support at the least. Who precisely? Nationalist groups, oligarchs, military? Can't say. But otherwise there wouldn't be so many armored machinery in the hands of pro-russian secessionists.

Here we go.

Russia has no damned business in the Ukraine, unless they were attacked by the Ukraine.

Russia had no damned business in the Crimea, part of Ukraine, until they made themselves "invited."

Events in Georgia emboldened.

Events in Syria emboldened.

WEAK, US/INTERNATIONAL response to the latter, emboldened the former.

Russian people are fine, but leadership is creating grief, but quite good at what they do.

Solution, you figure it out and have some cookies.

Damn, how many times do things have to repeat themselves.

Btw. it's the same here. I just translate todays headline from the online site of a popular newspaper: "Attacks on ukrainian army allegedly from russian territory: New allegations of the USA against Russia. Ukrainian troops are supposed to be under fire from russian territory. The USA according to their own account have indications that there was artillery fire from russian territory towards Ukraine. Also a delivery of multiple rocket-launchers to separatists is intended by Russia, says a speaker of the US foreign office in Washington. The information has come from secret services of friendly nations."

The formulation is absolutely adequate IMO. The article contains a fair amount of warning (in almost every line). Now the problem here is that publishing information that is based on intelligence will hardly ever get proof. It is difficult to distinguish from fabricated information and therefore not worth very much. And so are the allegations of the russian side which are also reported, maybe a bit less often.

What can the media do except reporting what is there and that includes to some extent rumours? The media cannot discover the truth if it isn't visible. It doesn't have this power. As long as it remains a critical distance the media does the right thing.

Only thing we can do is putting pressure on our politicians to stop the war (any war) as early as possible. But when the war is far away we actually do not care that much to put that pressure. And who knows if something gets better even if we would be active.

As it is, Russia probably sneakily supports the separatists and we probably sneakily support the other side. The outcome is a prolonged sneaky war on Ukrainian territory with lots of civilian casualties. I guess that Russia and the West should by now have realized how stupid this is and agree on ending this now, but they haven't obviously. At least one side (maybe both) still hope to get more out of it. So people will continue to die.

Slightly off-topic (or not)...
I was just browsing the trademarks website of my country for some infos and noticed this article linked in the Tweets section, it's even worse than the "candy crush saga" episod:
http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/daily/detail.aspx?g=ee50c570-641f-41ee-a0dc-a2fb78239f7d

1. This proves exactly nothing - they needed to take airport to prevent UA military planes from getting there.
2. Being serious is what i'm asking of you. Or do you really think that alcoholics and thugs (90% of the "rebels" there) can operate something as complex as Buk ?
3. And Russia had overtaken part of Georgia without any right to do so either. Not to mention the Crimea with faked referendum which has no legal meaning whatsoever.

If that's your level of argumentation i don't think we can discuss anything productively here, sorry.