Sorry, made a mistake:

//Most Australians don't think it's OK to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses so that we can lick a Russian despot's arsehole.//

Should have been:

//Most Australians don't think it's OK to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, war crimes, poisonings, etc. so that we can lick a Russian despot's arsehole.//

My bad.

Thanks to all for their good feedback. I'll read up on the Crimea and Ukraine as Armchair Critic suggested.

I was talking to a Ukrainian military man at one time- he mentioned the Western (proto-Ukranian/ pro-European Union/ pro-West) and Eastern Slavic (proto-Russian/ pro-Russian) make up of the Ukraine as loosely being the cause of the conflict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation

It was interesting wiki mentioned the removal of Crimea's autonomy by Kiev in the build-up to the declaration of Crimea's independence

Hi Canem Malum,
I tried looking for some old videos on the subject but I'm not sure if YouTube has deleted them and the channel I was looking for.

Lee Stranahan had the best overview of the events in Ukraine, but his channel and videos were a target of YouTube deletion policies.

What you firstly need to know about Ukraine and Crimea is this:

1. It wasn't a Civil war
2. Russia didn't annex Crimea

Anytime a news publication tells you otherwise, you can generally assume they are lying and know it, or else are such bad journalists that the article isn't worth reading.

AC- I think I understand you- and agree- but would you mind expanding on your two points.

Ok why wasn't Ukraine a Civil war?

Because Soros, Nuland and the Deputy leader of Ukraine before the Maidan said so.

Soros openly admitted to using his open society groups to effect change in Ukraine.
Nuland openly admitted the US spent 5billion making it happen.
And the Deputy leader of Ukraine openly stated in Parliament before the Maidan that the US was planning civil war and regime change, right out of their embassy in Kiev.

Prior to the events in Ukraine we had Occupy Wall St.
It was during this that protesters were trained to co-ordinate with each other.

The software was called Civil Society 2.0, and the US ran these workshops on Civil Society 2.0 from their embassy in Kiev prior to the Maidan.