From The Saker:

It is now becoming abundantly clear that the Ukronazi provocation was not only breathtakingly stupid and irresponsible, but also breathtakingly poorly planned and executed…

One of the most heavily monitored sections of our planet, right next to a war zone, which has been the object of innumerable threats, and yet they thought that they could somehow avoid being detected and intercepted…

Frankly, these Coastguard officers deserve some kind of humanitarian award…

The martial law will only be introduced for one month and only in the [pro-Russian] regions of the Ukraine…

It includes an obligation not to cancel the upcoming elections.

The junta which seized power is composed of many different factions including oligarch/mobsters à la Kolomoskii, neo-Nazis à la Farion, bona fide Nazis à laTiagnibok and assorted nutcases like Liashko.  There is also Iulia Timoshenko, a very sharp and therefore potentially dangerous foe who has powerful backers in the USA…

For Poroshenko’s point of view, the Americans either don’t care enough or simply lost control of the situation, a time-honored US tradition with their “sons of bitches” like Saddam, Noriega and many, many others…

The Nazi-occupied Ukraine is rapidly coming to a watershed moment…

Putin is quite correct when he says that “Kiev would get away even with eating babies…“

There are those who say that Poroshenko is not dumb enough to start war against Russia.  My question to them would be: do you really think that Poroshenko is smarter than, say, the various Latin Popes, Napoleon or Hitler?..

The sad truth is that Trump has become simply irrelevant, at least to the Russians…

“Meeting a US President is not a reward for a RUS leader. Canceling a mtg is no punishment. It is all a matter of necessity. RUS-US relationship today is solely about preventing the confrontation from turning into a collision, and escalating to war. This is all…“

The frightening reality is that the Neocons are the most rabid russophobes on the planet and that the clowns in the White House will do whatever the US deep state tells them to do.  

From the comments:

The two tiny river boats are ‘new’ by orc standards, built in the last half decade. They were supposedly designed for Dnepr River patrols but are not even adequate for that task, ludicrously wet in any swell higher than half a meter and ‘armored’ they ain’t, witness the round that went through the port side cabin of 175 and proved the little ‘floating tank’ is plastic. The tug is not ancient but certainly no spring chicken, minimum 40 years old…

2019 is the year in which the Ukraine’s turning into a basketcase will finally begin to develop with higher speed. Huge loan payments, impossible demands by the IMF, much higher costs of everything for the ordinary citizen. And the cherry on top – the ending of the gas transit contracts with Gazprom at the end of the year. When Nord stream 2 comes online (should be by that time) and the two pipes of Turkstream bypass the Ukraine, this means that the Ukraine will be left with 30-40% (or less or none) of the 3-4 billion USD of gas transit income. And if Gazprom and Neftogaz do not reach an agreement, which looks very likely in the current situation, then Gazprom can easily call force majeur and end all transit…

Russia is trying to save Ukraine from itself.