Russians: How are we supposed to end this crisis if Ukraine joins NATO?

You almost have to admire Vladimir Putin's nerve, but you shouldn't because that's when you start losing sight of the mayhem he's perpetrating. Putin knows how to parse language: To "end a crisis" in his vernacular means to make sure Russia gets everything it wants and the rest of the world backs off and accepts it.

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That's why you can't end the crisis with Ukraine joining NATO - something it's wanted to do for some time now - because the crisis only ends if it ends on Putin's terms. So he'll propose "solutions" all right, but it's sort of like Al Capone setting the terms under which he'll let you keep your kneecaps intact. Do it Vladimir's way and no one gets hurt:

Lavrov’s comments came one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine that would entrench rebel gains there and hand a significant defeat to Ukrainian leaders who have sought to regain full control of their nation. Lavrov said attempts to end Ukraine’s non-aligned status by joining the NATO alliance could “derail all efforts aimed at initiating a dialogue with the aim of ensuring national security,” according to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.

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He said Russia was ready to take “practical steps” to de-escalate the crisis under the proposals made by Putin. “We hope that the calls (by Putin) will be heard, especially by Kiev, (and the rebel leaders of) Donetsk and Luhansk,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. The funniest thing here - funny in the sense that Russia keeps getting away with it - is the attempt to feign concern about Ukraine's "national security." It's like Saddam Hussein in 1990 telling everyone to back off or Kuwait's national security will be in jeopardy. The only threat to Ukraine's national security is Russia, but under the status quo Putin can pretty much use whatever language he wants and no one calls him on it. The larger problem, though, is this: NATO could have welcomed Ukraine at least for affiliate membership years ago, and dithered for fear of upsetting Putin. There is also this: The whole point of NATO is that its members will defend each other in the event of an attack, which means that if you take that seriously, NATO would have to take up arms against Russia in the event Russia decides to invade Ukraine, which of course it just did. The Russians don't want that, but perhaps more importantly, does NATO? It's never actually happened in the history of NATO that NATO forces engaged in any sort of combat with Russian forces (or Soviet/Warsaw Pact forces before that). The whole point was supposed to be that threat of it happening would prevent any action that might precipitate a conflict. None of that matters if the Russians are 100 percent convinced, as they apparently are, that NATO is unwilling to actually take action. Especially during the presidency of Barack Obama, that's really not hard to understand, is it? It's not that anyone likes the idea of war with Russia. But if we are unwilling to fight under any circumstances, and the Russians know that, then the Russians can and will do whatever they like. Welcome to that scenario.

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