US and EU to impose tough sanctions on Russia

[altinfoil]

The whole point of the EU/US/NATO incursion into formerly peaceful Ukraine was to drive a wedge between the EU and Russia. The US saw its influence in the EU nations declining as greater economic and social ties were developed between the EU and Russia. This is of crucial importance to the US as its economy crumbles, its Dollar is increasingly debased by money-printing, and its military stature declines over the failures to secure Iraq and Afghanistan and to force Egypt, Libya, Iran and Syria to heel. 
The first step was to align Ukraine with the EU, install NATO, force Russia out of its Black Sea base in Crimea, and turn Ukraine over to the tender mercies of the IMF, which would put Ukraine onto an austerity diet and force the sale ("privatization") of all valuable state assets to Western capitalist interests. The plan started off well enough, with PM Yanukovich forced to flee, and the US-chosen Yatsenyuk installed as new boss. The plan started to go awry when Crimea voted to join Russia. Then the eastern provinces demanded independence from Kiev. Frustrated in its ambitions, the US put its propaganda machine into high gear, demonizing Putin, and upped the ante to provoking a new Cold War. 
The IMF gave notice that no more money would be advanced unless the eastern provinces were returned to Kiev's control, so the neo-Nazi "National Guard" was unleashed to terrorize the eastern population, while the US and EU declared sanctions against chosen Russian targets and financial interests. The US has sent its CIA and FBI agents, and Blackwater mercenaries, to Kiev to aid in putting down the separatists. 
Sanctions have not worked, but have accelerated the Eurasian nations' move away from the US dollar and Petrodollar, which have been propping up the US. EU nations proved less than enthusiastic to enforce sanctions against Russia, as it became clear that sanctions would do great damage to already fragile EU economies. The US announced a new round of sanctions, but received tepid support from Europe. Then, by magical timing, a Malaysian airliner was shot down over Ukraine. The plane had barely crashed before the US/Western propaganda machine launched a frantic campaign to blame Putin and Russia for shooting down the plane, although there had been no investigation even begun as to the cause of the crash. But the aim was clear - to force the EU nations to join the US in enforcing more sanctions against Russia.
The "smoking gun" evidence alleged against Russia and the eastern separatists was a series of messages intercepted by Kiev, in which separatist leaders were alleged to have announced that they shot down the plane, and allegedly discussed the shooting down with Russian authorities. Then a Swedish researcher looked at the time signatures on the messages, and found that they had been uploaded to a Kiev government server the day BEFORE the plane crashed. Then Russian researchers looked at the messages and found that they had been faked out of snippets of other messages. This indicates that the Kiev government had foreknowledge of the shooting down of the plane, implicating them in a plot to stage the shooting down and to blame the Russians and separatists to advance Kiev and US interests against Russia. There are also serious questions as to why the plane was diverted onto a track 300 miles north of its intended flight path, and directed to a lower elevation. There are also reports, backed by radar track evidence and eye witnesses, that there were 2 Ukrainian Air Force fighter jets near the plane when it was shot down, and no explanation for their presence has been given.
Russia has released its radar and satellite information on the incident, maintaining that Russia did not take part in any action against the plane. The US has not released any records, and Kiev has not released any records. A Spanish air traffic controller who was on duty in the air traffic control center in Kiev said that there were 2 Ukrainian fighter jets near the plane, and that the Ukrainian military took over the air traffic control center immediately after the incident, and threw out the civilian staff. Very strange.
The US is now backing down from their initial stance that "Russia did it", having reduced their story to "Someone made an error". That "someone" may be the Ukrainian military crew shown in Russian satellite photos operating a Buk missile battery while surrounded by beer bottles, indicating they had been drinking. 
The most frustrating thing to the US is that Putin has resisted all the Western provocations and has not sent Russian troops in.  The US is continuing to escalate the sanctions push, and does not care how much damage this does to Europe, as long as the EU moves its economic and political ties away from Russia.

[MrSteveykk]

The EU needs to watch it's step. It's more reliant on Russia than it realises. And what happens when the inevitable collapse comes in the west? Will all countries be effected, sure. But eastern countries will be the ones left standing as they had the sense to set up alternative trading methods such as new trade deals that don't rely on USD and a new central bank that is not owned by western federal systems. Not to mention they have self reliance from production industries while the west shipped most of their production elsewhere or centralised it to one country of many in a group (like Germany in the EU with it's production of cars etc and France with it's agriculture). The west is in no fit state to start heavy sanctions. These sanctions are more an attack on us than it is on Russia.

[Roverable]

It will cost the Common man in the EU very dearly this, they don't speak for me? the plane that went down in the Ukraine the perpetrators have not been proven yet?