Any doubts that the US is pulling the strings in Ukraine are now swept away .
They are orchestrating a push to contain Russia and bring about a new "cold war" that will kill off the Russian economy.
Going to the extreme of having a US citizen "declared" a Ukrainian and then appointed as a government minister.
The economic embargo instituted as a reprisal for the supposed shooting down of MH17 must now be seen for what it is, a false flag operation.
http://rt.com/usa/216143-obama-sanctions-russia-crimea/
Obama authorizes ‘economic embargo’ on Russia’s Crimea
December 19, 2014
Ukraine appoints three non-native ministers Government hastily grants citizenship to Lithuanian, Georgian and American to enable them assume key cabinet positions.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/12/ukraine-appoints-three-non-native-ministers-20141221954454451.html
Ukrainian parliament has approved the formation of a new government that includes three foreigners who had received Ukrainian nationality on the same day specially for the job. Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, granted citizenship to Georgia-born Aleksandr Kvitashvili, US-national Natalie Jaresko and Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavicius on Tuesday, just hours before the vote.

Dear Robert,

What makes you think that the US is pulling strings
in the Ukraine? The Ukrainian government is quite
capable of running its own affairs and who it invites
to join its cabinet is their business. Most of the
former Soviet countries who gained independence invited
foreign citizens to give them advice in the formation
of new governments. A former President of Lithuania
was a US citizen of Lithuanian ancestry. Most of the
reaction to the downing of MH17 has come from European
countries, Australia, Canada and the US. This doesn't mean
that anyone is pulling strings. It is unfortunate that
Russia's reaction to the downing of the plane was not
more co-operative - forcing countries to react accordingly.

For me there never was any doubt.

In today's world there really isn't any investigative journalism anymore, its more western sponsored (rather than state sponsored) and we get the viewpoint of what western leaders approve.

You could find an alternative point of view on just about every aspect of what we've been generally lead to believe with this conflict.

You could go back to the Victoria Nuland leak about US involvement -
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

Or that Sergey Lavrov said it was Right Sector that did the sniping at the Maidan -
http://rt.com/op-edge/ukrainian-extremists-eu-reputation-377/

All the way up to the the opposing claims as to what happened to MH17 -
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/25/mh17-russia-claims-to-have-airfield-witness-who-blames-ukrainian-pilot

Also what Ukraine has to hide by not releasing air traffic control data -
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-18/ukraines-security-service-has-confiscated-air-traffic-control-recordings-malaysian-j

And admissions that the US has waged economic warfare on Putin.
(Steve Pieczenik worked for the US State Dept under Kissinger, I don't believe everything he's trying to make us believe, but I will accept his admission he said the US has deliberately done this to Russia)
http://youtu.be/cn72zNCGtuI

Plus there is heaps more...
I cant remember all the news stories and videos I've read/seen on this topic this year.

Putin is a very clever man. He has passed new laws using the UN Charter saying no energy will be sold to countries who engage in torture or support Nazi Regimes. Well we all know that the present Ukrainian Govt is Nazi and is financed by NATO and the USA. So many European countries could find themselves with no energy.

Robert you are 100% correct.

Foxy..
Ive been wanting to directly respond to your doubts about the US pulling strings in the Ukraine and Ive just come across something that should suffice, if the Victoria Nuland tape release wasn't enough.

George Soros (Hungarian born American Jew and 20th richest man in the world with wealth of 22bn made from hedge funds) did an interview on CNN earlier in the year.

http://www.infowars.com/soros-admits-responsibility-for-coup-and-mass-murder-in-ukraine/

Here's the link to the actual interview, but one small part of the interview has been removed at 2:55.
I will add a link to the actual CNN transcript as well as adding the missing part of the interview below, but I notice that some parts of the transcript are not accurate either.

http://youtu.be/kPGMPlEHLTA
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1405/25/fzgps.01.html

SOROS: Unfortunately, Europe is very weak. It's preoccupied with the eternal problems which are unresolved. The euro crisis is no longer a financial crisis. It's turning into political crisis and you're going to see in the elections and Putin --

ZAKARIA: Explain what that means. It's going to be -- you're going to see it in the elections because you're going to see the rise of nationalist anti-European forces?

SOROS: Yes, and interestingly, they are supported by Russia and pro- Russian. So Russia has emerged as an alternative to the European Union. Putin has sort of come out of the closet in Ukraine. With their ideology that is nationalist , be some ethic nationalism, you could call it Russism.

ZAKARIA: That's right.

SOROS: It's a new word to describe it because I don't want to call it Nazi because it is very similar to what you had in the end of warfare and fascism, you know --

ZAKARIA: Connecting your ethnic groups with military force if necessary?

So you see there is foreign involvement in these countries, and the funding of dissident activities to cause civil unrest to bring about a change in governments. Its interesting the part which was cut out, where he accused Russia of ethnic nationalism.
This is like the pot calling the kettle black coming from a Jewish person given Israel's own ethnic nationalism.

Here's another article I found earlier. (I haven't read it though.)
Pro-West Snipers Murdered Kiev Demonstrators in False Flag: Canadian Academic Analysis

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_ukraine_opinion/2014/11/05/04-47-53pm/pro-west_snipers_murdered_kiev_demonstrators_false

Dear Archair Critic,

Thank You so much for providing so much information.
I have to admit that I hadn't done enough research
on the subject at the time of my posting so Thanks
again.