De-escalation is certainly preferable to playing with fire when lives are on the line. There is nothing for the West to lose if everyone backs down. Certainly there is nothing to gain by letting this spiral out of control. Ukraine's people would pay the price because in the end, Russia's nukes will deter any serious outside military response.

Mr. Putin seems to have problems both with concepts and spelling. The word is Slavs. Not Slaves.

Ukraine’s troubles began when the US State Department
toppled the elected president in February and replaced him with a compliant stooge who agreed to follow Washington’s directives. The new “junta” government quickly launched a full-blown war against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east which split the civilian population and drove the country to ruin. The plan “pacify” the East was concocted in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not Moscow.

Moscow has repeatedly called for an end to the violence and a resumption of negotiations, but each request has been rebuffed
by Obama’s puppet in Kiev leading to another round of hostilities. Washington doesn’t want peace. Washington wants the same solution it imposed on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, that is, a chaotic failed state where ethnic and sectarian animosities are kept at a boiling point so forward-operating bases can be established without resistance, so resources can be extracted at will, and so a formally-independent nation can be reduced to a “permanent state of colonial dependency.” (Chomsky) That’s the basic gameplan wherever Washington
goes. The same rule applies

Barack Obama has pushed Ukraine to the brink of political,
economic and social collapse. Now he wants to blame Russia for the damage he’s done. It’s absurd. Moscow is in no way responsible for Ukraine’s descent into anarchy. That’s all Washington’s doing, just as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria were Washington’s doing. If you want to blame someone, blame Obama.

You lie again. United states of agression

"“We cannot do for them what they are unwilling to do for themselves"- wish Obama and the rest of his administration felt the same regarding welfare and other handouts

This view of the broader realities is essential.
The US and Russia urgently need to cooperate on matters ranging from destroying ISIS to settling the Iranian nuclear energy controversy.
Ukraine is a sideshow, an irrelevance.
Time to back off, cut the explosive rhetoric, tell the NATO pot-bangers to focus on ISIS and restore some semblance of order to US-Russian relations.
Russia will no more back away from Ukraine than the US would back away from trouble being stirred up in Mexico.

The US and Russia urgently need to cooperate on matters ranging from destroying ISIS

Why? How can one cooperate with the enabler of ISIS?

http://www.theamericanconse...

Russia does her part by providing Su-25s and, now, Mi-28s and 35s to Baghdad. Probably, some military advisers on the ground.

If you're really determined to assign blame for the genesis of ISIS, you would be wise to look at the root of the issue for the past 1,500 years: religion.

Washington's desire to see Assad fall (and subsequent enabling) is a byproduct of a fantasy world where American policy makers believe removing a tyrant will allow democracy to flourish. The reality, as has been constantly reiterated for centuries now, is that for as long as the majority of your population believes in a religion that advocates the execution of blasphemers and non-believers, the only way to maintain some semblance of order is to have a very strong centralized government keeping the lid on things.

Knowing that, we can see the real culprits in the formation of ISIS are the Gulf States and Turkey. That's the short-term answer. The long term answer is the remove Islam, and all religious zealots, entirely through science and education.

I am keenly aware of Islam. But no substantive discussion on Islam is possible in the West. It is not PC.

Ambassador Jack, welcome,

As we would expect from you, a sane and knowledgeable voice in a sea of shameful US/UK Russophobic hysteria

You recommend (in general) what Henry Kissinger, Zbig (before his ancestral anti-Russian feelings overtook him) and most serious Europeans, like myself, who know the situation and background, have been saying since the Putsch on February 21

Keep up your good work, and I hope that Mrs Merkel and the Europeans can sort this before it becomes a real Cold War with devastating results.

But I am afraid deep and lasting damage has been done to relations with Russia through all this infantile, shameful and counter-productive Russophobic propaganda from US/UK media...which can only be the result of the US administration's deliberate and orchestrated policy to smear and blacken the latest "bogeyman"...the opposite of the way a great power should behave...

I, for one, cannot think of such a disgraceful campaign since the media blitz surrounding the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and I will never trust a US administration again...

In this spirit of balance, it is imprudent to lambast "Russophobic propaganda" without giving due service to Russia's own propaganda. The US government is quite good at giving the well-timed press release that news outlets gleefully re-hash with little critical thought given; however, Russia's own news networks are a constant parade of "news" attacking not only the policies of Western nations, but the very fabric of their societies.

Mr. Matlock's suggestions are poignant and practical, but they are impossible to implement so long as there is an absence of clarity regarding what is happening in every involved capital.

I am sure that Ambassador Jack and his Carnegie team are very well informed about what is "happening in every capital involved" (What Moscow, Kiev and Berlin/EU really want is pretty well known, in fact). He is a distinguished old hand, and there are only about 3 capitals truly involved...Moscow, Kiev (Washington's poodle; for the moment) and Berlin....

These three will, eventually, sort it out...sadly, it may take time...

Gosh, almost a reasonable proposal by an American ex-diplomat, freed from the Russia-bashing truth consensus. The problem, as prof Matlock undoubtedly knows, even if he can't say, is that Washington doesn't give much of shit what happens to Ukraine. What it wants is to separate west Europe from Russia, and this requires a Cold War 2. The hot war that instigates it will increasingly impoverish an impoverished people, but Washington couldn't care less. It is following its Divide and Ruin strategy to increase Washington power.

and 80% of Americans do not even know were Ukraine is on the map...

But don't forget who started all of this...the Neocons like "F*ck the EU" Nuland and others who wormed their way in the Obama Administration...most of whose families came from Russia or eastern Europe and who have a revenge to take out on Russia, by fair means or foul, as in this case...

That is the unspoken truth...and creating death, destruction and mayhem in Russia's backyard is what these neocons want...just as they want killings fields in the Middle East to protect Israel....

I have a profound respect for Esteemed Ambassador Jack Matlock--he put a bar on the diplomatic art so high, that very few of current American foreign policy officers dealing with Russia will ever reach. Having said all that, I have to disagree on this:

Coverage of events in Ukraine by prominent American and Western European
media, while more accurate and balanced than that in the Russian
government-controlled media, has nevertheless devoted little attention
to the militant right-wing elements in Ukraine’s Maidan movement, or to
Kiev’s use of unofficial armed militias with ties to countries in the
West

From the get go Western media have become the bullhorn of Kiev propaganda (granted Russia has her own propaganda machine). It manifested itself most dramatically after the tragedy of Malaysian Flight Mh-17. Moreover, already for four + months the so called mainstream media in the West spread disinformation (which is not surprising when one relies on the Kiev "sources") about the real state of the affairs on the ground in Donbass and Luhansk. I don't remember, I simply can not find, ANY competent military (operational and strategic) analysis of the events on the ground in English. None, zilch, nada. Could it be that media are so incompetent that they cannot even find a proper professionals? Highly likely, in fact, it is a fact, but not only that. What this crisis in Ukraine has shown is that from the get go all those so called "Russia experts" and "Moscow sources" got it all wrong all along. Virtually, no real expertise on Russia's foreign policy, military or economy (forget about culture) remains today inside the "political elites" in the US, just same old nauseating "Russian narrative". It is especially striking against the background of people of such scale as Ambassador Matlock, but then again, it was a different time and Jack Matlock served the US which was a very different country then.

P.S. Would Ambassador Matlock, who knows full Evgenii Onegin in Russian, the feat very few Russians can accomplish, stand for such people as Jenn Psaki being the face of US Foreign Service?

To get a thorough analysis of what s REALLY going on in Ukraine,
visit globalresearch.ca

A lot of things have become clear to me after I have read their
articles, written by investigative historians/journalists and even CIA retired
members.

After that, I stopped reading the MSM, especially western and
Ukrainian. Even "The
Economist", a magazine that I had been reading for many years, has
joined this Russophobiac bandwagon publishing

distorted facts, so I have lost respect for it - it has no
credibility for me any longer. Same applies to most western media.
Unfortunately, there are but very few reliable news sources left as the
propaganda hysteria is in full swing.

There
are certain forces behind this hysteria, and don't assume that they are those
who are trying to save peace on earth.

We,
westerners, need to come out of this placid dormancy that our governments want
to permanently keep us in

and become RESPONSIBLE, pro-active citizens.

Good morning Smoothie

Re our Jen Psaki, I love this stand up humour...she should be a groupie for some punk rocker...that is about her level....or running the State Department nursery...

http://freebeacon.com/natio...

She is apparently so stupid that she does not realize that most of the time she is giving us our daily vaudeville ...and she even blushes like a high school girl when she lies (which is most of the time especially on Ukraine and the Middle East)

Good day, mate. I agree. It blows my mind to see and listen to her. I do, however, reserve a small probability that she is not THAT stupid and she cries in the evenings at home understanding what crap she is forced to deliver for all world to see.