Paul Roderick Gregory writes about Putin’s new type of war in the Ukraine and points to an economic aspect.  Take advantage of the local economic misery — unemployment, delayed wages, falling living standards — which you have helped create by cancelling Russian contracts and by other forms of economic subversion. Unemployed, unpaid and frustrated workers and their families can be lured into occupying buildings and taking part in protests, sometimes for a small payment. They become part of the human shield, not because they hate Ukraine or love Russia, but out of economic desperation.

Putin’s own timetable gives him only a short time to decide. His rubber-stamp Federation Council has “peacekeeping forces” on its Tuesday agenda. Putin’s operatives and surrogates in southeastern Ukraine have set the date of the “independence referendum” for May 11, and the Ukrainian presidential election is scheduled for May 25. An astute Ukrainian observer identifies the May 9 World War II victory anniversary as the ideal patriotic setting for returning (by force) New Russia back into Mother Russia’s embrace. Both May 9 and May 11 are approximately two weeks off.Putin’s own timetable gives him only a short time to decide. His rubber-stamp Federation Council has “peacekeeping forces” on its Tuesday agenda. Putin’s operatives and surrogates in southeastern Ukraine have set the date of the “independence referendum” for May 11, and the Ukrainian presidential election is scheduled for May 25. An astute Ukrainian observer identifies the May 9 World War II victory anniversary as the ideal patriotic setting for returning (by force) New Russia back into Mother Russia’s embrace. Both May 9 and May 11 are approximately two weeks off.