Ukraine agrees to host NATO war games

[amandabeech]

23. Then he should pull his troops back from the southern and eastern border with

the rest of Ukraine and keep his mouth shut.

If he has what he wants, then that should be no problem.

Yesterday evening, I talked to my 92-year-old Mom. She does great for her age, thank you.

She graduated from high school in 1939, and she was a very solid student.

She told me that they were taught that the Russians were paranoid. She's paid attention to them ever since and she thinks that her old-time teachers were right.

I was ecstatic when the Soviet era ended, but I thought that the West moved in too quickly and forced too much change during the Yeltsin years. Nevertheless, I have had continued hopes for a peaceful, reasonably normal international relationship between Russia and the West.

I no longer have hope of seeing that normal relationship in my lifetime. I'm 58.

We in the West have at times been idiots, but I write with great sadness that my Mom's high school teachers were probably right about Russia, and, in addition, that Putin behaves like a punk.