Ukraine was on the verge of slipping into the “too hard” box for foreign observers and crisis managers. It was among the “crisis of the month,” Playboy centerfold equivalents for international viewers-with-alarm whose attention spans are only slightly longer than mayflies.
So, Russia’s seizure of Crimea in March 2014 was and continues to be condemned by the (ho hum) United Nations combined with economic sanctions that have no practical effect other than irritating some high-ranking Russian bureaucrat-politicians. Moscow’s continued support for its deniable “little green men” grinding away at Ukraine’s eastern frontier has prompted desultory U.S./NATO deliveries of military equipment. The Kremlin simply denies complicity in the shootdown of Malaysia flight MH-17 in July 2014, despite conclusion by an international Joint Investigation Team the shooters employed Russian antiaircraft missiles and returned the launcher/equipment to Russia.
