Ukraine As A Bargaining Chip? (Highly recommend to read)

f you believe all the talk out there lately, Vladimir Putin is not only duplicitous and hypocritical -- he's also been pretty damn busy lately. Busy cutting secret deals with the same Europeans and Americans he has been vilifying for years.

And if you believe the rumors, the Europeans and Americans have also been busy selling out Ukraine to the Russians.

Not that any of this would be unusual or particularly surprising. Cynicism, duplicity, and hypocrisy are often the reserve currencies of politics, where interests tend to trump values.

There have long been suspicions out there that the United States and Europe might give Ukraine up in exchange for Moscow's support in securing a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program.  

Additionally, Washington has been seeking Moscow's backing in securing a managed, orderly, and negotiated exit for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, which would go a long way toward ending the conflict in that country.

And over the past two weeks, speculation has intensified that some kind of quid pro quo has in fact been reached with Putin. It began in earnest on July 14 when U.S. President Barack Obama praised Moscow's role in securing a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program.

The suspicion only increased two days later, on July 16, when U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to Kyiv to persuade lawmakers to include language in amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution recognizing the special status of separatist-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

This is something Moscow has long sought, but that Ukraine had been resisting.

And the speculation reached a fever pitch when people began connecting the last couple months' data points: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Sochi on May 12 for talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin on Iran, Syria, and Ukraine; a bilateral diplomatic channel on the Ukraine conflict was subsequently opened between Nuland and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin; Obama and Putin had two long phone conversations, on June 25 and July 15........................

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