I find it very disquieting that so few among the West European and American commentators on the Ukraine crisis, private or public, seem concerned that the United States started this affair, and that it is not inconceivable that it may end in a war.

Worse yet, Washington's demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been so successful in the press, and it has been so secret about the American role in Kiev, that it has left the public in the U.S. and in NATO Europe convinced that this has all been the result of a Russian strategy of aggressive expansion into Ukraine — and not a bungled and essentially American attempt to annex Ukraine to NATO and the European Union and to undermine the domestic political position of President Putin.

It all has gone badly and dangerously wrong.