They are ceremonial. Seems like we forgot how cold war works. Merkel does not want to deliver weapons to Ukraine, because she can not imagine to impress Putin w

They are ceremonial. Seems like we forgot how cold war works. Merkel does not want to deliver weapons to Ukraine, because she can not imagine to impress Putin with additional weapons, that he fears to lose the conflict, regardless of how many weapons we deliver. And concerning Ukraine: I think in their interest (that is to stop the EU and NATO from expanding) they acted pretty smart. They took a part of the country, that the West will not get back. They know, that the EU only accepts countries without questioned borders, by destabilizing Ukraine they prevented that for a very long time. NATO is not keen on including Ukraine either. Once he is tired of the sanctions, he can stop supporting the rebels or force them to negotiate while keeping the Krim. Meanwhile he can act like a conquerer, protecter and ultimately peacemaker to his own people, which has weakend the rising opposition dramatically. If the West truly wants to weaken Russia, it needs to tighten bonds with China, Turkey and some other countries. But then again, Russia is already pretty poor economically …