The on-again, off-again Ukrainian military offensive against eastern Ukraine threatens to drag both the United States and Russia into open warfare with one another, and the combatants on both sides seem determined to have that happen as soon as possible.

The self-proclaimed mayor of Slovyansk is pressing Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade immediately to save his town from western fascists, and others in the eastern protest movement have seen a Russian invasion as their ticket to a referendum on autonomy, or possibly outright secession.

Ukraine’s interim government is playing that game too, with Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk pressing the US for “real support” on the military front to save the nation from Russia.

Yatsenyuk suggested Russia would annex its eastern provinces without a massive build-up and modernization of Ukraine’s military, and that Putin would restore the Soviet Union before America knows it if they don’t get involved in his government’s internal fight.