Several ongoing parallel events that can shift to full warfare by the Russian intervention force parked on the border which has gone to high alert status.
Especially after the eastern Ukraine "declared their independence" on Friday.
Russia announces a three-day exercise near the Ukrainian border. On previous occasions it meant a surge of the intervention corps
1. the Ukrainian Army has basically completely refitted and rearmed and has launched an effective guerrilla war
2. the Russian economy is in totally free fall and is effectively headed to a default
3. the oil price is headed to the 40s range and the Russian economy at that range will never fully recover
4. the Russian population is getting on edge as they sense the economy is tanking and the percentage wanting no war in the Ukraine is climbing
5. more Russian soldiers are refusing to go to the Ukraine coupled with high loss of troops
6. by Spring 2015 the Russian mercenaries and troops will not be able to expand their current area leaving a small current occupied region to be a non viable area which Russia cannot economically support--estimates are that Russia is currently paying 20M a day to field their troops and support the mercenaries
7. Russia has not been able to "freeze" the situation as they did in Moldavia and Georgia as things have not gone back to "business as usual"
More importantly--the Ukraine votes this week to give up their non aligned status a supposedly Russian red line as Putin and his FM have stated a number of times.
Thus the interesting question for this White House--if Russia makes a military move to annex the full Donbas or their New Russia just what will the US response be when "soft power" has be proven to have failed?
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