Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Firn]

I doubt Russia will intervene directly in the east - not out of fear of U.S. sanctions, but because of the uncertainty that lies in an open-ended conflict with Ukraine.

I actually agree mostly, but I want to ask: What is a direction Russian intervention in your opinion? What isn't open-ended to this war, with the Crimea occupied by Russia and Russian men and Russian weapons reinforcing Russias shadow armies lead by Russian veterans with it's limited local support while the Russian army shells Ukrainian forces from Russia proper?

I have a pretty hard time to draw a line...

@davidpfbo: There might also be considerable differences from city to city, area to area with the larger cities giving a better idea then the smaller ones in which extremes are more likely to be observed. All in all the local support for the shadowy Russian invasion isn't certainly as big as the Kremlin would have hoped. Weapons are certainly not the bottleneck.

@Shchors: Maybe you could open a new thread about the strictly military aspect of the conflict. This thread contains already so many strands. Thanks anyway.