The situation in Ukraine is dangerous. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: I think it could deteriorate into hot confrontation." According to the veteran journalist William Pfaff, Kerry indicated in the interview that the American government and administration are fully aware that this confrontation with Russia could lead to nuclear war."

Members of an election commission count ballot papers at a polling station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, on May 11, 2014. Voting occured Sunday in referenda called by pro-Russia rebels to split from the rest of Ukraine, polls the US slammed as "illegal" as the West fears they could spark civil war in the former Soviet republic. [Xinhua]

Kerry blames the Ukraine crisis solely on Russian President Vladimir Putin, in spite of the fact that NATO for many years kept relentlessly expanding eastward right to the borders of Russia and deploying anti-missile systems threatening the security of Moscow. And it was the West which engineered the Maidan coup that sparked the current crisis.

The United States and EU supported the Maidan protesters but condemn the Eastern Ukraine protesters. And after CIA chief John Brennan's rare high profile visit to Kiev, the interim government sent forces to suppress pro-Russia forces in the East. The neo-Nazi forces set fire to the Trade Union building in Odessa, killing two scores of pro-Russia protesters. Ukrainian troops leveled a protester-held police station in the port city of Mariupol with rocket propelled grenades, killing at least 20 people and wounding many more.

The U.S. government generally condemns any country using its military against its own people. This time, it blames the victims.

But it is unlikely that the Ukrainian army can defeat the forces of protesters that have taken control of the cities of the Donbas, the Russian-speaking industrial and mining region in the east. According to Anatol Lieven, professor of King's College London, these forces are well organized, have a lot of local support and are implicitly backed by the 45,000 Russian troops deployed to the Ukrainian border.

Professor Lieven also criticized the perception that a larger confrontation involving Russia and the West may be unavoidable, saying it was a terrible mistake.

Kerry's rash talk of hot confrontation" and nuclear war" is utterly mindless. He is even worse than his hawkish predecessor Hillary R. Clinton.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's hand-picked our Yats," Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Yatsenyuk talked about World War III. And according to the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, his government has hired 400 American mercenaries from Academi, formerly Blackwater Worldwide, to lead military operations against eastern protesters.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also talks tough, just like the Americans. It was during his tenure as Denmark's prime minister that a major Danish newspaper printed 12 cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Mohammad as a terrorist.

By contrast, Putin tried to de-escalate tensions. He called for the referendum in east Ukraine to be postponed, indicating that he may be willing to recognize a national election scheduled for May 25. He also declared he has pulled Russian forces back from the border with Ukraine. All of us are interested in settling this crisis, in settling it as soon as possible, accounting for the interests of all Ukrainian citizens irrespective of their place of residence," Putin said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed Russia's conciliatory move.