CN LIVE S4 E11 WHATS NEXT FOR UKRAINE Scott Ritter, Mark Sleboda Tony Kevin

In Moscow: Mark Sleboda, IR Security Analyst US Navy vetNuclear Engineering; In the US: Scott Ritter, former U. S. Marine Corps intelligence officer UN weapons inspector; In Canberra: Tony Kevin, Ret. Australian ambassador to Poland diplomat in Moscow. (The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Consortium News or CN Live ) The war in Ukraine began in 2014 as a civil conflict when Russianspeakers in the east resisted a coup that overthrew a democraticallyelected president. The postcoup state then launched a war against the resisters for eight years, a war which Russia entered nine months ago on Feb. 24. It was an expansion of the fighting that could have easily been prevented. A peace accord was never implemented by the Westernbacked Kiev regime. Instead NATO armed and trained Ukrainian forces that included extremist groups which early this year began amassing at the conflict line with the east, poised for an offensive, prompting Russia to inte