M

strong>March 20, Online/AP

Russia imposed on Thursday entry bans on nine US lawmakers and officials in response to Washington'€™s sanctions over Crimea, the first retaliatory strike by Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday released the list that includes House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

It also named Ben Rhodes, a deputy US national security adviser along with White House advisers Caroline Atkinson and Dan Pfeiffer, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind).

Your comments:

I can understand the Russian position. Crimea is strategic to Russian interests and has a majority Russian-speaking population.

It was largely an accident of history that Crimea was made part of the Ukraine, which occurred in the era of the USSR.

Seizing Crimea solved a lot of talk that most likely would not have been to Russia'€™s advantage. Putin has indeed shown that actions speak louder than words. All that is now left is negotiations over other Ukrainian territories that have majority Russian speakers.

Putin largely set a post World War II precedent, proving borders are only temporary. Other countries such as China will be viewing this precedent with great interest.

Jagera

Russia has returned to the bad old days of Soviet aggression against all its neighbors.

This mind-set of Russia'€™s is a harbinger of a time that should be relegated to the waste bin by educated and evolved societies, but Russia still seems to be enamored with everything European.

They have always desired to be accepted as European, but instead are constantly at odds with Europe.

Brien

Quite a lot of turncoats here; everyone seems to be worried about the right wings '€” Europe is enervating scenarios about expats, foreign workers, living or working in Indonesia.

We all of a sudden see the same profiles being hit by selective mutism. Morale is good, but double standards are twice as good.

C Down

Any idea what the CIA gets up to? Think that you have freedom of speech and of the press? Believe that you are innocent until proven guilty? Feel secure in your home? Know how many people are in American prisons?

The US has bombed Korea, China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. and has over 800 military bases, including those in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Germany, Greenland, Guam, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

Tell me what Russia has?

Sheldon Archer

When I walked around in London, I noticed there were mass surveillance cameras (thousands) watching me.

It is worse than Prague and the Kremlin in the USSR union era I suppose. There is simply no privacy. Will this mass surveillance lead to a totalitarian state?

DT Van Man

In seizing control of Crimea, Putin has more in common with Yekaterina II than with Pyotr I. The latter certainly extended Russian domination over the Baltic peoples.

But during his reign, the Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 both failed. Although the Russians won sovereignty over Azov through the Treaty of Constantinople in 1700, they lost it again in 1711 by the Treaty of the Pruth.

It was under Catherine the Great that Russia achieved the dismemberment of Poland, the occupation of western Ukraine and the defeat of the Ottomans in the Russian-Turkish War of 1768-1774.

Under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, the Turks ceded territories in southern Ukraine, including the ports of Azov and Kerch, and declared the Crimean Khanate to a '€œRussian protectorate'€, paving the way for Catherine to formally annex Crimea in 1793.

John Hargreaves

They'€™ll give lip service, saying that America is awful; believe some of the accusations but none of them would turn down an offer to move here.

For example, look at the biggest American critics and see them quietly moving their money here and sending their kids to college here.

Marko