Ukraine: What Will Obama Do? What Can Obama Do?

Ukraine is a dangerous place. I visited the country twice in 1994 when I was in DEA's International Training section. We had been asked to put on one of our two-week drug training seminars in Kiev, in this case for drug enforcement officers from each of the 15 former Soviet republics including Russia. My first trip was to set things up; arrange a training site, hotel for lodging, a conference room and interpreters. The second time was when we actually put on the event. It was at a resort-hotel complex that had been used as an Olympic facility when Moscow hosted the Olympics.

Suffice to say, life in Ukraine was not easy, but the vodka flowed. Ukraine, like the other republics, was trying to form an independent country after the break-up of the USSR. It was not an easy process. The deputy minister of interior at the time, Yuriy Kravchenko, who presided over our opening and closing ceremonies, later died under mysterious circumstances.

Fast forward to 2014.

I don't know what to make of President Obama's statement today about the situation in Ukraine. I have no idea what he is going to do. Not much, I suppose. What the Hell can he do? Nobody takes him seriously, least of all Vladimir Putin. Does anybody take John Kerry seriously? Did anybody take Hillary Clinton seriously after she "set the restart button with Russia"? We now see how that turned out.

Now this:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/19/putin-policies-obama-response-being-played-out-in-deadly-ukrainian-uprising/?intcmp=latestnews

"There will be consequences if people step over the line,"

Really? Is that the same red line that Obama warned Bashar Assad not to step over? 

Ukraine has close historical, linguistic and ethnic ties to Russia. After independence, the country was left with many of its citizens being ethnic Russians who favored  close ties between Ukraine and Russia. Pure ethnic Ukrainians have had other ideas. Hopefully, Ukraine will  come out of this with its independence intact and continuing to forge closer ties with western Europe. Hopefully, the bloodshed will cease. Ukrainians deserve better.