Northwest Indiana Discussion

Russia’s upper house of parliament has approved President Putin’s request for Russian forces to be used in Ukraine.

He had asked that Russian forces be used “until the normalisation of the political situation in the country”.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based in the Ukrainian region of Crimea, where many ethnic Russians live.

Kiev has reacted angrily to days of military movements in Crimea, accusing Moscow of trying to provoke the new government into an armed conflict.

Interim President Olexander Turchynov has called an emergency session of his security chiefs.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin submitted the request for troops “in connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine and the threat to the lives of Russian citizens”, the Kremlin said.

The BBC’s Richard Galpin in Moscow says it is potentially significant that the request was for deployment in Ukraine as a whole, and not specifically for flash-points such as Crimea.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers Sunday said the naivete of President Obama’s national security advisers about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motivations is allowing Russia to outmaneuver the U.S. in Ukraine and other hot spots around the globe.

“Putin is playing chess and we’re playing marbles,” Rogers, R-Mich., said on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.”

“As you move down the list in Syria and the Ukraine and other areas,” he said, “they’ve been running circles around us.”

After Russian troops moved into the Crimea region of the Ukraine on Friday, President Obama warned Putin there would be “costs” and the administration said it would suspend participation in the planning sessions for the G-8 Summit of world leaders in June in Sochi, Russia.

On Saturday Obama and Putin spoke by phone for roughly 90 minutes. Putin reportedly said Russia reserves its right to protect its interests in the Crimea region of the Ukraine and the Russian-speaking people who live there.

Obama continued to warn that Russia’s continued violation of the Ukraine’s sovereignty would hurt its standing in the international community, according to the White House read-out of the call.

Rogers urged the U.S. to be more aggressive in its message to Putin, although he stopped short of advocating for any type of U.S. military action.

Instead of just pulling out of G-8 planning sessions, he said the U.S. should cancel its participation in the summit in Sochi altogether.

He also said the U.S. should take steps to try to kick Russia out of the G-8 group of world leaders and move to impose economic sanctions.

“Russia believes there is nothing going to stop them,” Rogers said. “I would just cancel the G-8 in Sochi – I wouldn’t just talk about preparations.”

Sarah Palin had foreshadowed the impending Ukraine invasion six years ago – and she is not shy about telling her detractors ‘I told you so.’

The former Alaska governor and one-time vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket wrote on her Facebook page Friday a strongly worded post calling out her ‘high-brow’ critics for mocking her.

‘Yes, I could see this one from Alaska,’ Mrs Palin wrote. ‘I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as “an extremely far-fetched scenario” by the “high-brow” Foreign Policy magazine.’

As Palin pointed out in her post, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Foreign Affairs wrote an article ridiculing her prediction that if then-Senator Barack Obama is elected into office, Russia under President Vladimir Putin will move to occupy Ukraine.

Palin’s statements on the campaign trail came during an armed conflict that broke out between Russia and Georgia over the contested territory of South Ossetia.

‘After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next,’ Palin told a crowd at a rally held in Reno, Nevada, in October 2008.

Palin’s gloating Facebook post has been shared more than 15,000 times and has drawn more than 67,000 ‘likes.’

Speaking to Fox News’ Todd Stanres, Palin said: ‘We can expect more of this sort of thing in a world where America is gutting its military and “leading from behind.”’

Meanwhile, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin tweeted: ‘Palin not only knows where Russia is, but she knew what Putin would do to Ukraine with Obama as president.’

Palin’s self-congratulatory Facebook message comes as Russia appears to be poised on deploying ground forces across Ukraine, ostensibly to protect Russian nationals from ongoing violence, in the words of President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking at a press conference on the crisis in Ukraine, President Obama has warned that ‘there will be costs’ if Russia invades the neighboring country, where pro-Russian and pro-European Union factions have been fighting in the streets for the past month.

KIEV, Ukraine — Some Syrians have a simple message for Ukrainians waiting for a response from the U.S. and the West as the crisis in Crimea unfolds: Don’t get your hopes up.

The Syrian uprising grinds into its third year this month, and many in the opposition see a long string of broken promises from an international community that voiced support for their fight to overthrow their Russia-backed president, Bashar al-Assad.

With Russia now sending its forces to the Ukrainian region of Crimea, and with worries that it might invade the mainland, western leaders have been swift with recriminations. President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that there would be “costs” for its aggression.

But Syrian rebels and activists reiterated one piece of advice for the Ukrainians whose protest movement toppled the country’s president, a Russian ally, last week. “Make sure that you achieve whatever you’re aiming for with your own hands,” Abdullah Ismail, a rebel coordinator based on the Turkish border, told BuzzFeed. “That’s the only way to avoid relying on promises.”

“Ukrainians must believe only in themselves,” said Barzan Iso, a Syrian-Kurdish journalist and activist.

The Syrian opposition had long held out hope for significant U.S. support for their uprising, from heavy weapons and surface-to-air missiles to a no-fly zone. They argued that Assad’s main allies — Russia and Iran — had been steadfast in boosting his regime with arms and money, and in the latter case, with boots on the ground.

Many Syrians were deeply disappointed when Obama failed to enforce his famous “red line” on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons with air strikes — opting instead for a Moscow-initiated deal for the regime to give up its stockpile of chemical arms. “Do not develop strategies that are based on any assumption that the U.S. or EU will demonstrate assertive leadership to deter Russian aggression,” said Amr al-Azm, a U.S.-based member of the Syrian opposition and a professor at Shawnee State University.

At home, this intervention looks to be one of the most unpopular decisions Putin has ever made

The economic impact on Russia is already staggering.

Even Russia’s closest allies want no part of this

Russia’s isolation from the West will deepen dramatically

Russia successfully test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Tuesday, Fox News confirmed.

The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from a region near the Caspian Sea, successfully hitting its target in Kazakhstan.

Defense officials told Fox News the test was “not unexpected” and that “START treaty notification occurred.”

Russia is required under the START treaty to notify the U.S. of such tests.

Officials did not say how much notice Russia gave.

Earlier this year, the Russian military had announced plans to test around 70 types of rocket and missile weaponry, according to an RIA report.

MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti) – An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that authorities would issue general advice to dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine.

Sergei Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime.

“The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia,” Glazyev said. “Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don’t depend on them in any way.”

Glazyev noted that Russia is a creditor to the United States.

“We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” he said. “We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market.”

George Bush called the country a "beacon of liberty"—has long wanted to do. In this, the Russians will almost certainly succeed.