Who is driving the war with Russia?

Over the past several weeks, the international banter about sanctions against Russia has died down. Perhaps this is in the face of Germany discovering that the U.S. is still spying on them actively - especially in matters related to Snowden.

Throughout, the US/EU keep telling Russia to deescalate the situation. And Russia seems to comply, at least on the surface. Consider Putin currently is not supposed to be able to send troops into the Ukraine without prior parliamentary approval - something our president sees not need to get. And most of the time, it seems Kiev breaks the Russian negotiated ceasefires- not separatists or Russia. I have to agree that as long as Kiev keeps sending their military into the separatist region, there is not going to be a ceasefire. I also don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't get this. It is as if we have forgotten every revolution that has ever occurred. When England continued to send troops to America after we declared our independence, did we sit back and allow them to attack us?

Of course, Kiev will do whatever the US/EU wants because we are the ones who probably contributed to putting those currently ruling the country in power. However, it seems to be a back and forth dance, and one has to wonder just how involved NATO is in the whole thing. If our troops are the ones winning the battles, then I am sorry, but that means we are going to have to be their indefinitely to contain the unrest.

But we also seem to be the ones driving the sanctions. The US recently sanctioned Russia, again, which will probably get most US based businesses kicked out of the country. But it seems as if the US is leading it. Then the EU is expected to follow. If the US is in fact driving this forward, I can only conclude that it is because they want a reason to attack Russia. They want Snowden, who is obviously well enough protected to avoid being taken out by drone (our current president's favorite way of getting rid of people, including American citizens, that he doesn't like). The irony is that the EU should be praising Snowden for uncovering our spying against allies, but they are helping to put pressure on Russia to extract him. Granted, none of them offered him sanctuary either.

In the end, China and Russia grow closer while their relations with the West grow more and more strained. The question is, now that we have tried so hard to create a global economy, what will happen when two of the strongest economies extract themselves from the rest of us? Apparently none of the idiots leading the US have gotten the memo that this could be disastrous.