@RABEL222,
Quote Rabel22:
Quote:Not knocking Obama but he hasent pushed Putin like he should have.
Ukraine is not a NATO country, so we are not obligated to defend it militarily. Russia took over the Crimea peninsula, which belonged to Ukraine and which had the only warm water Naval Base Russia has, (Russia leased the land from the Kiev government). Russia also armed rebels in Eastern Ukraine near the Russian border and started a civil war. The United States sent troops to train the Ukrainian Army to help them fight the rebels. Against Russia, which is totally dependent on oil exports, Obama upped US domestic production, then worked a deal with the Saudi so they would not cut back production to boost prices. The price of oil fell hugely, Russia's economy went into a Depression, the ruble is now worth less than half of what it was worth two years ago before the Crimean invasion.
Obama also followed through on previous plans to give an antimissile system to former Russian vassal states Romania and Poland. Up to now, the former Soviet breakaway states belonged to NATO, but there were no NATO bases there because we did not want to raise tension with Russia. The anti-missile systems in Romania and Poland serves reminders to Putin that if he wants to play games, he's going to be looking at NATO bases up and down his Eastern European border.
