Geopolitical considerations around the Greek crisis?

Lambert Strether in the comments says "I’ve toyed with the notion that it’s U.S. policy to set the Mediterranean and Black Sea littoral ablaze, along with Syraqistan. This post would seem to fit right in with that." in the comments to an article by John Helmer republished in Naked Capitalism. There are various interesting comments. One by MRW:

“Having thundered for a year on the illegitimacy of the March 2014 referendum in Crimea, saying yes to accession to Russia
Effing idiots. The UKRAINIAN constitution written in 1992 gave Crimea the legal and constitutional right to determine its own future. Russian expert Matthew Crosston explains at the link:

That 1992 constitution, however, was the Ukrainian Constitution and not the Russian one. It does indeed grant the Crimean region effective independence within Ukraine and the right to determine its own path and relations with others. Ukraine wrote those words in the immediate glowing aftermath of Soviet dissolution, when, quite frankly, most in the West felt the true political and economic prosperity path shone brightest for Ukraine and not Russia. Many seem to have forgotten this but any simple source search back to the time period will reveal massive Western enthusiasm for Ukraine’s prospects while being skeptical of Russia’s size, infrastructure and historical legacy. So yes, it was quite true that the constitution recklessly gave Crimea the opportunity to pursue the very path it was now pursuing. But this flawed constitution was written by Ukrainians, not Russians. This is a reality not revealed to readers. The problem, once again, is a pervasive subconscious Cold War pathology that predetermines how readers around the world learn about the situation in Crimea and therefore how they see Russia’s role there. [emphasis in original]

So Nuland is lying to us, and the Europeans."
Another by gemini33:
"The fact that Obama kept Nuland in a position of power given Nuland’s ties to the neocon faction and her past role as Dick Cheney’s foreign policy advisor, then ambassador to NATO and CoS for Strobe Talbott under the Clinton admin (and Talbott seems to still have a hand in foreign policy in the region somehow) is really telling. If you listen to the weekly radio segment with John Batchelor and Stephen Cohen, they used to believe Obama was not in favor of this warmongering policy toward Russia but they no longer believe that because of a recent event with John Kerry.

Kerry went to Sochi in recent weeks and met with Lavrov and Putin. Kerry told them the US strongly supported the Minsk agreement, which maintains a ceasefire (mostly) between the Ukraine govt and the separatists in East Ukraine. He told them the US would like to be part of future Minsk talks, etc. At the same time Ukraine president Poroshenko was warmongering in Kiev, talking about resuming full on war and attacking the separatists. Kerry made a public, kind of scolding statement directed at Poroshenko (who is a US puppet) that it would be very unwise to do that. At this point in time it looked like the Obama admin. was changing course on Ukraine and Russia and pulling back from the brink. Given that Kerry is Obama’s Sec of State everyone thought Kerry was acting on Obama’s behalf.

But almost immediately, Nuland, from Kiev, publicly stepped all over Kerry’s statements and reversed them (to everyone’s surprise because he is supposedly her superior). Then Obama did the same. It was a massive embarrassment for Kerry and it makes no sense because there’s no way Kerry would go to Sochi without Obama’s blessing. There was talk that Kerry might step down as a result of it. But his bicycyle accident happened right after that and he was out of the picture for awhile, and then presumably he assumed his tasks with the Iran negotiations. I don’t know if he’s said anything about Ukraine or Russia since."

Many more such comments. It is difficult to know what is happening and what will happen.