Ukrainian "Navy".

Poroshenko needs desperately some kind of force majeure to cancel elections and stay in power, Ukraine desperately needs a bloody nose to get support from the combined West: US, Germany, France, you know real West, which in Ukraine means people with money (Poland needs not apply). Ukraine needs it to preserve gas transit from Russia through her rusting GTS by means of shutting down Nord Stream 2. This may happen, especially when one considers who runs Germany, but for that Ukraine needs to provoke Russia. Hence:

MOSCOW,December 19. /TASS/. The next passage of Ukrainian ships through the KerchStrait, announced by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexander Turchinov earlier, will be considered as a new irresponsible provocation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated during Wednesday’s briefing. "This is just an announcement of a new provocation,which has the same provocative nature," the diplomat said. "It is absolutely irresponsible. It is only meant to make the situation worse." "Many Ukrainian partners are trying to defuse the tensions in this situation, and are actually working on finding ways of de-escalation," Zakharova noted."To make such a statement in the context of these attempts made by several states, including EU member countries, is to confirm that provocations are the calling card of the current Kiev regime." Earlier today, Turchinov stated in an interview with the BBC that Ukraine has no plans to cease the passage of its military vessels through the Kerch Strait, and did not rule out the possibility of eliminating the Crimean Bridge. He added that Ukraine is ready to invite representatives of the OSCE, NATO and other international organizations to be present at the Ukrainian vessels.

Obviously, Ukrainian "Navy" is such an "impressive" force, that no one in their mind would consider spending even a single anti-shipping missile on the Ukrainian floating bathtubs once they will try to "breakthrough" Kerch Strait into the Azov Sea, but what  is the most fascinating here is the fact of yet another statement (highlighted in yellow) from the Ukraine's political top calling on, basically, terrorist act on Russian territory. Hm, I wonder how the US or Germany will react if Russia's political top called on blowing up some serious infrastructure in US or Germany? Do I hear condemnation of Turchinov's reckless (on the advice of his American instructors) statement from D.C., Berlin, Brussels? Crickets, crickets...

Of course, even more serious provocation may be conceived by a desperate and, most of the time, drunk Poroshenko. No, I am not talking about attacking LDNR. There is a probability, however not very high now, that Ukrainian Army may try to even attack Russia proper and, again, I am not even talking about Crimea, albeit it is in the contingency plans of Ukrainian General Staff. No, I am talking about Russia, such as attack on the Kharkov-Belgorod axis. There is only 40 miles between them. Obviously such an attempt will be stopped and whatever Ukrainian forces could be committed to such an act will be annihilated with massive Ukrainian casualties, but the damage will be done. After all, hapless Ukrainian sailors and SBU thugs who supervised them last time during their pathetic attempts in the Kerch Strait have been sent by Poroshenko with the idea that they will die clashing with Russian Coast Guard.  They even photoshoped additional hole from who knows what caliber gun.

Arrow shows photoshoped hole.

Now, Ukraine needs bigger blood, bigger than even them shooting down Malaysian MH-17. Anything dramatic which either allows Poroshenko to declare himself a real (sort of) war president or will give him some justifications for escaping aggressive Russians and their hordes of Buryat-driven T-90s and T-72BM3s to some Western European paradise to live out on his stolen riches. The more the blood, the merrier. The US would love this scenario, in fact people like Kurt Volker (a US governor in Ukraine) work hard for this scenario to materialize, despite publicly expressing displeasure with Poroshenko's "state of war". 

Here is Putin's conundrum--he promotes (granted with some justification) Ukrainians as a relatives of Russia who, in the end, will come home. Moreover, Sergei Lavrov was explicit two days ago in his interview (in Russian) to KP that Russia is interested in a whole, stable and prosperous Ukraine and that is why does not recognize LDNR. Was Lavrov bluffing? Very well could be, in the end, it was Lavrov who a week ago described the scale of Russophobia in Ukraine as unprecedented and being an official policy of the state. He is absolutely right here. Does Russian political top consider a scenario when it will be forced to annihilate Ukrainian troops trying to provoke Russia? Absolutely. Does Russia have plans of, indeed, disposing of banderite regime in Kiev? Yes. But there is also an important factor playing into these considerations--overwhelming majority of Russians doesn't really view Ukrainian nation as it formed in the last decade as friendly or relative. So, what is at stake here? Russians do not want to denazify, which is tantamount to de-ukrainiization, of this hell hole in the middle of Europe. But it very well might be that at some point Russia will simply have no other option but to finish-off this Western freak-show next to her borders and will try to mobilize some competent and courageous forces within Ukraine (LDNR is a first candidate for this) for a complete reconstituting of the Ukrainian State as normal, more-or-less prosperous nation friendly to Russia. But that is a separate discussion which involves the fate of the so called Ukrainstvo as anti-Russia as such.