Ukraine crisis: Rebels 'retreating' in Sloviansk

[The Magistrate]

15. And Here You Put Your Finger On The Problem, Sir

"...so they can't really federalize to the extent the Russians demand..."

Russia has no more right to demand anything in Ukraine than we would in a neighboring country. Who would defend or excuse a U.S. demand for an alteration in the relation of Mexico's states to that country's Federal government, or a U.S. demand that Canada re-draw its provincial map, to cut out as separate areas which are heavily involved in trade with the U.S., and especially who would defend or excuse such a demand if it was backed by bodies of troops mobilized to the border and covert operatives seizing government and police facilities?

The pressures leading to both the possibility of partition and the resort to violence by Ukraine's government to suppress looming secession are external, applied from Russia; they are not things arising naturally to their present pitch from internal conditions.