Though you wouldn’t know it if you read U.S. media sources, Ukraine’s about to go to war with Russia. That’s right, Russia — not the pro-Russia rebels terrorizing its southeast, but the country whose armed forces are four times as numerous as its own and whose armed-forces budget is a staggering $78 billion, annually, compared to Ukraine’s own paltry $1.6 billion.
At least so reads a headline at Gazeta.ru, a popular internet news source: “Kiev Readies for War.” Ukraine’s cabinet ministers asked for budgetary reconsideration on military expenses for the current year, and for extra funds, which Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak says will be used for anti-terrorist actions. (“That,” the newspaper snarkily adds, “is what they call the war in the Southeast in Ukraine.”)
Though the article points out that Ukraine’s financial situation is very, very bad, it warns that the real war isn’t in Donetsk — Ukraine is coming for Crimea, internal unrest be damned. And of course, Mother Russia is ready.
“We have a national security doctrine that very clearly lays out the actions we will take in such a case,” the paper quotes Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying earlier this month.
You heard it here first, folks.
