So much for Putin's influence in eastern Ukraine!

Russia and Putin serve extremely well as scapegoats for everything and anything that the West  wants  to offload off their shoulders.

So ... this is how world wars get started.  We are living in very interesting times. This is going to be very, very painful for all of us, even here in Canada, because Harper and his Cons are heavily invested in the coup govt. of Ukraine.  

Why are we blind to the fact that there are billionaire Ukrainians on both sides of the coin. You think there are no bigwig Ukrainians on the separatists' side?  They don't need Putin to get things going. The east Ukrainian billionaires will get the separatists whatever they need in the hope that when the regions separate they will get a bigger share of the control and the pie.

Matt Robinson and Gabriela Baczynska writing at Reuters:
....Ukraine rebels ignore Putin call to delay independence vote.  Pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine ignored a public call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone a referendum on self-rule, declaring they would go ahead on Sunday with a vote that could lead to war.

The decision, which contradicted the conciliatory tone set by Putin just a day earlier, caused consternation in the West, which fears the referendum will tear Ukraine apart.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said Russia was heading down a "dangerous and irresponsible path" and the situation in Ukraine was "extremely combustible".

Denis Pushilin, a leader of the self-declared separatist Donetsk People's Republic, said the "People's Council" had voted unanimously on Thursday to hold the plebiscite as planned.
"Civil war has already begun," he told reporters. "The referendum can put a stop to it and start a political process."

The announcement coincided with a sharp change of tone from Moscow, which had signaled a pullback from confrontation on Wednesday with Putin's call for the vote to be delayed and a declaration that troops were withdrawing from Ukraine's border.....