As English colonists living in America understood, living under an empire is not a pleasant experience. Empire officials are inevitably arrogant, pretentious, pompous, haughty, big-headed, insufferable type of people. They believe that others should bow down them, pay them homage, and behave subserviently to them.

American colonists, of course, haven't been the only ones who have had to suffer under the dominion of imperialist officials. Generations of people in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia have had to live under the insufferable rule of officials in the French Empire and British Empire.

And now we have the U.S. Empire, whose officials have proven to be no different in how they treat people around the world. Like other empires in history, U.S. empire officials treat foreigners like garbage. That's precisely why there is so much deeply seated resentment against the United States all over the world - not because people resent Americans for their wealth, freedom, or values but because people are sick and tired of being treated like garbage by the U.S. Empire.

The most recent example is, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Whatever might be said about Putin - that he himself is an arrogant, pompous, dictatorial autocrat - the fact remains that ever since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Empire has treated him, other Russian officials, and the entire Russian populace like garbage.

The US has been selective in supporting the self-determination of nations. It continues to dismiss Crimea's choice to reunite with Russia, while at the same time backs the coup in Kiev. And the idea is hardly new for Washington.

The current situation in Ukraine has something in common with the one in Colombia, James Petras, a political analyst and Professor (Emeritus) at Binghamton University, New York, believes. The common part is the US role in what's going on in both countries, he suggests in his op-ed, recently published at the website of Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalization.

"The two paths to 21st century empire-building-via-proxies are illustrated through the violent seizure of power in the Ukraine by a US-backed junta and the electoral gains of the US-backed Colombian war lord, Alvaro Uribe," Petras says. "By rendering democratic processes and peaceful popular reforms impossible and by overthrowing independent, democratically elected governments, Washington is making wars and violent upheavals inevitable."

The US has quite a history of meddling in Colombia since encouraging the breakaway of Panama, in the early 20th century. The US was then able to negotiate favorable conditions for the creation of the Panama Canal. The most recent example comes from 2013, when The Washington Post published an article revealing that the CIA actively helped the Colombian government to locate and kill guerrilla leaders.

Putin is everywhere. Everyone talks only about him. He is on the receiving end of all the aspirations and curses. It's not even a cult of personality - it's more like schizophrenia.

If you try to talk to someone, especially if it's a someone who is dedicated to the "Euromaidan", he will give you a lengthy list (in a size of a half-meter check at the supermarket) of grievances toward Putin. He grabbed Crimea, conquered the country, bought provocateurs, etc.

Fear and Loathing in Ukraine - all because of Putin. The more they talk about it, the more excited and fierce they become. They even invented a nickname for him: Putler, and added a mustache.

One enemy, one hate, one fear. Here is something many Ukrainians are united about.

Yes, it's Putin who hung Russian flags around Ukraine at night. And earlier, it was he who helped to bring to power armed Bandera people. It's Putin who drove the bulldozer and threw "Molotov cocktails" and burned tires. He drove around the cities, smashed the monuments and painted swastikas. It was Putin who beat the hell out of Rabbis and desecrated Ukrainian synagogues. It was he who broke into the offices of the Ukrainian TV channels to establish such an information dictatorship that Goebbels would be green with envy.

President Vladimir Putin completed his annexation of Crimea on Friday, signing a law making the Black Sea peninsula part of Russia just as Ukraine itself sealed a deal pulling it closer into Europe's orbit.

Putin said he saw no need to further retaliate against U.S. sanctions, a newly conciliatory tone that apparently aimed to contain one of the worst crises in Russia's relations with the West since the Cold War. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry said a few hours later that Moscow will "harshly" respond to the latest round of U.S. sanctions - the conflicting signals apparently intended to persuade the West to end the spat over Ukraine.

At Ukrainian bases on the peninsula, troops hesitated, besieged by Russian forces and awaiting orders. Russia claimed some had already switched sides and agreed to join the Russian military. Friday had been the deadline for Ukrainian troops to leave Crimea, join the Russian military or demobilize.

More than 5,000 pro-Russia residents of a major city in Ukraine's east demonstrated on Saturday in favor of holding a referendum on whether to seek to split off and become part of Russia.

The rally in Donetsk came less than a week after the Ukrainian region of Crimea approved secession in a referendum regarded as illegitimate by the Western countries. After the referendum, Russia moved to formally annex Crimea.

With Crimea now effectively under the control of Russian forces, which ring Ukrainian military bases on the strategic Black Sea peninsula, concern is rising that Ukraine's eastern regions will agitate for a similar move.

Russia has brought large military contingents to areas near the border with eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there is no intention to move into eastern Ukraine, but the prospect of violence between pro- and anti-secession groups in the east could be used as a pretext for sending in troops.

Eastern Ukraine is the heartland of Ukraine's economically vital heavy industry and mining and the support base for Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who fled to Russia last month after being ousted in the wake of three months of protests in the capital, Kiev.

I have just been watching the news and, frankly, I ended up laughing.

First, I saw the Eurobureaucrats adding another 12 or so names to a list of 20 or so (sorry, I was not paying attention) names which are going to be on the sanctions list. The US did something similar yesterday. Looking at that circus, I was wondering: does these imbeciles really believe that these puny sanctions of 30-40 individuals will make Russia suddenly change course, apologize and leave Crimea? Have they forgotten that during WWII Leningrad was blockaded by German forces for nine hundred (900! Not 33 like Hezbollah or 78 like the Serbs - 900) days and that it was pounded by the German Air Force and artillery during each one of these 900 days, that most men died and that the city at the end was defended by mostly women, that hunger was so bad that people were making "soup" from glue used to put up posters, that medicine had run out and that the winter colds were brutal and yet that the Russian people did not surrender?! Don't they understand that for Russians Crimea is at least as important as Stalingrad was? Do they seriously think that their stupid little sanctions will affect a country which was - and still is - willing to go to war over Crimea?

Amazing. Just amazing...

Ukrainian paratroopers with armoured vehicles were digging in on Thursday near the Russian border as the military demonstrated its presence in the east following Kiev's loss of Crimea to Moscow's forces.

The soldiers, camped in tents with some two dozen trucks and BMD-1 combat vehicles, would not discuss their mission. They set up sandbags, strung barbed wire and carried out infantry drills in small groups next to a small quarry in rolling grain country, 30 km (20 miles) from the Russian border in Donetsk region.

Ukraine's government has put its heavily outnumbered and outgunned forces on alert for an invasion from Russia in the east following Moscow's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula. But there is little evidence of a major Ukrainian troop build-up.

The isolated unit near the village of Andriivka, close to a major highway, would stand little chance of resisting a major assault backed by air power, though the paratroopers put on a determined face as they set up their position. "I think things will be all right in the end," said one soldier on guard duty.

The American president and vice president directly challenging the Russian president and threatening them with isolation is going to bring the opposite effect.

If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it was not there - Marshal Georgy Zhukov

Let's start with the serious stuff. As Russia's Federation Council ratifies a treaty with Crimea, concluding the formal annexation, Ukraine signs the political chapters of an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The signing of the full EU agreement will only happen later in 2014.

These are the facts on the ground. Now let's turn to comedy hour - also known as the sanctions war.

The oh-so democratic EU has punished the democratic Crimea referendum by sanctioning 33 Russians and Crimeans with asset freezes and travel bans, according to that Magritte-style walking fiction, European Council President Van Rompuy. The EU also canceled the EU-Russia summit in Sochi on June 3. And the vast, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the European Commission (EC) has taken time out from subsidizing European cows to prepare for "possible economic sanctions", according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The EU is irretrievably split on what to do. Whatever it does, Moscow's capacity to make the EU badly hurt is stronger. There may be another meek set of sanctions next week, as Merkel advertised. But that's it.

Western sanctions might push Russia to deepen cooperation with BRICS states, in particular, to strengthen its ties with China, which will possibly turn out to be a big catastrophe for the US and the EU some time later.

On March 18, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, claimed in a BBC interview that Russia would switch to new partners in case of economic sanctions being imposed by the European Union and the United States. He highlighted that the modern world isn't unipolar and Russia has strong ties with other states as well, though Russia wants to remain in good relations with its Western partners, especially with the EU due to the volume of deals and joint projects.

Those "new partners" are not really new since Russia has been closely interconnected with them for almost 13 years. This is all about the so-called BRICS organization, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS represents 42 percent of the world's population and about a quarter of the world's economy, which means that this bloc of states is an important global actor.

The BRICS countries are like-minded in regard to supporting the principles of international law, the central role of the UN Security Council and the principles of the non-use of force in international relations; this is why they are so actively performing in the sphere of settling regional conflicts. However, the cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa goes beyond political aspects and is also demonstrated by dynamic trade and multiple projects in different areas. Today, in total, there are more than 20 formats of cooperation within the BRICS which are intensively developing. For example, in February the member-states came to an agreement about 11 prospective directions of scientific and technical cooperation, from aeronautics to bio- and nanotechnology. In order to modernize the global economic system, at the center of which stand the US and the EU, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have created the BRICS Stock Alliance and are creating their own development bank to finance large infrastructure projects. On the whole, despite fierce criticism of BRICS as an organization with no future, it is developing and increasing cooperation with its members and, in fact, BRICS is showing pretty good results.

With suspension of Russian participation in G8 and possible strengthening of economic sanctions, the experts expect some particular industries to be targeted, including limits on imported products. While the West seeks to hit Russia hard, it is important to notice that Russia is ready to switch to other markets, for instance BRICS, and increase trade volumes with countries from this bloc.

Indeed, Russia buys significant amount of products from NATO states, for example, 50 percent of fruits and berries come from Spain, Holland and Poland. Nevertheless, Russia is intensifying its economic ties with the developing world. In 2012 Russia was buying 41 percent of its beef from Brazil, though this index has recently decreased to 20 percent, and Russia is likely to increase its import in case of need. In February 2013, Russia and Brazil reached an agreement on the long-standing problem of pork exports to Russia, as well as agreeing on a list of sanitary and quality requirements for the annual import of millions of metric tons of Russian wheat. This is a shining example of the substitute partnerships that have yielded positive results, although some problems with sanitary norms had to be resolved. In other words, it's beyond the power of the EU and US to make Russian people suffer from products scarcity since they are not the country's only trade partners.