Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, President Obama criticized Russia for running “roughshod over its neighbors” and reaffirmed Washington’s endorsement of the de facto government in Kiev. He acknowledged that the West was not prepared to use military force to retrieve Crimea, but assured the anxious Baltic States bordering Russia that they are safe under NATO's auspices. Russia scholar and longtime Nation contributor Stephen Cohen joined Bloomberg Radio’s The Hays Advantage to give his take on the situation in Ukraine. Cohen says the provocations coming from all sides—Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Kiev—are fueling “the worst crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis internationally between the United States and Russia.” Presently some 20,000 Russian troops have been assembled on the Russian border with Eastern Ukraine, and NATO commanders and ministers in Washington and Brussels are discussing the possibility of moving NATO troops into Western Ukraine. “A lot of this is bluster and show, but we can’t be sure,” Cohen says. “We need immediately to demilitarize everything—the rhetoric, the troop movements and the rest—because there is a diplomatic way out.” Indeed, there has to be, for the alternative to a negotiated settlement between the US and Russia is, as Cohen puts it, “unthinkable.” 

—David Kortava