Ukraine: Anyone Interested In A Larger War?
The situation in Ukraine is somewhat obscure. There were claims form the coup government of attacks against military outposts but those are unconfirmed. There was an attack by some security forces in military light infantry carriers on one opposition checkpoint near Slaviansk. Two or three people may have died there but the military turned around and the checkpoint is back in opposition hands. Such "hit and run" warfare is usually a tactic a guerrilla force would use but not a decent military against a much, much weaker opposition. More security forces seem to have been positioned around the city but so far held back.
The Russian President Putin talked of "consequences" but did not mention any specific means. The Russian military announced to renew some military training near the Ukrainian border.
This is all just minor public skirmishing. Kiev does not dare to do much more as that would give the justification for a Russian invasion. I do not believe that anyone in Kiev is interested in provoking such.
But people in Washington may be interested in provoking a conflict that involves Russian troops, later NATO and then all its European "partners". What better means is there when you want to hold Europe down, economically and politically, and when you want to prevent any Eurasian cooperation? A nice "little" war in Europe would also do wonders for the U.S. economy. Just keep it below the nuclear threshold and the U.S. will, in the end, be the winner of it all.
Let's just hope that at least some politicians in Europe see this obvious trap and manage to avoid it.
Posted by b on April 24, 2014 at 15:15 UTC | Permalink
next page »Ukraine SITREP-update April 24, 1506 UTC/Zulu
Wow! Now things look very serious indeed. RT reports that Russia is starting military maneuvers involving not one, but TWO military districts plus the Air Force ...
Posted by: john francis lee | Apr 24 2014 15:21 utc | 2
I think a war is coming. Russia is summoning up military execises in TWO military districts plus the air force. In short its rallying a force larger than the one it used in the Georgia war or Chechen wars and having it performing drills across the border. As Vineyard of Saker wrote, this is a massive buildup, a size used to fight a continental scale war.
Russia's defence minister Sergey Shoigu when talking about the Facsist attacks on Eastern Ukraine mentioned "The order to use force against civilians has already been given, and if this military machine is not stopped, the amount of casualties will only grow". That is a world different from Putin warning about "consequences" if East Ukraine is attacked, now they talking about stopping "this military machine".
MK Bradrakumar is also expecting a Russia intervention to defend the people of Eastern Ukraine.
On the heels of Biden’s visit, Kiev on its part has resumed the crackdown on the pro-Russian protestors. The Geneva deal on ‘de-escalation’s is dead as dodo. Moscow and Washington are barely on talking terms and neither side seems to see any point in talking past each other as they have been doing lately. We are edging dangerously close to a Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine and in an interview with RT, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recalled the creation of South Ossetia as an independent entity under Russian tutelage in 2008.
Putin is not going to just sit back while Russian speakers are gunned down just over the border by these Coup plotters. I think if this crackdown continues he is going to seize all of Eastern Ukraine.
Posted by: Colm O' Toole | Apr 24 2014 15:43 utc | 3
Something I wrote month ago on March 24, 2014. I could call it the Order of Battle for the liberation of Novorossiya:
Peter Lavelle – No, Moscow will abide by international law and not interfere with Ukraine's internal affairs. Russia will win and control Novorossiya, but it will not happen through military intervention, not now.This is not a military conflict, so no Russian military action is needed. This is a non-violent conflict of the Gene Sharp variety. Violence will be used, but only non-lethal violence. This is the post-nuclear World War 4*, so the weapons will be fists, stones, and baseball bats.
What is needed:
• 100,000 protesters at demonstrations on city squares
• 10,000 unarmed self-defense activists to man roadblocks to isolate Novorossiya
• 1000 loyalist police to protect self-defense forces.
• 100 Ukrainian Spetsnaz to protect police
• 10 Ukrainian local leaders to organize resistance
• 1 Putin
• 1000 Russian Spetsnaz in reserve to support Ukrainian Spetsnaz
• 100,000 troop on standby near border to deter NATO invasion
• 100 tactical nuclear warheads for force protection
• 1000 ICBMs for deterrenceThe fighting is left to the people. Each level in the pyramid only exist to give support to the lower level.
(* It is quite a coincidence, that Einstein predicted that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. It may turn out to be true, but for very different reasons. Cold War was naturally WW III.)
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Apr 24 2014 15:46 utc | 4
life better in ukrainian SSR than as independent state
http://twitpic.com/e1urq7
Posted by: brian | Apr 24 2014 15:58 utc | 5
Ukrainian Defense News Network shared a link.
4 minutes ago
ANTI TERRORISM OPERATION" HANDED OVER TO RIGHT SECTOR TERRORISTS?
About a week ago I wrote that if it turned out that Kiev could not find regular troops to suppress the south east of the Ukraine there was a serious risk that instead of negotiating it would start using right wing militia instead. See the comment at 11:19 GMT on this RT thread
http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-army-operation-680/
There are reports from RT and VoR citing a source within the Ukrainian General Staff which say that that is exactly what is now happening and that because the regular army is refusing to participate in the "anti terrorism operation" its conduct has been handed over by Kiev to 5,000 right wing militia who are being provided with NATO support and intelligence.
The first point to say about this is that this report may be untrue. The report could be a deliberate plant by Kiev to provoke a reaction from Moscow. However if it is true then it is a very ominous development. Firstly right wing militia with a Nazi ideology are by definition extremely violent and dangerous people as we saw during the Maidan protests. Deploying them in the eastern Ukraine seriously increases the risk of massacres and atrocities taking place there. It would in effect be a case of putting an "anti terrorist operation" under the control of terrorists.
Secondly, a militia by definition lacks the discipline and organisation of a regular army, which may explain the hit and run nature of the operations so far. This must call into question its ability to suppress the protests as opposed to inflaming them in a way that consolidates local people still further against Kiev.
In summary if Washington and Kiev are trying to provoke a civil war then they are going about it the right way.
Posted by: brian | Apr 24 2014 15:58 utc | 6
http://syncreticstudies.com/2014/04/23/putin-the-last-man-standing/
Posted by: brian | Apr 24 2014 15:59 utc | 7
My guess would be that there is going to be clandestine warfare between mercenary security forces for Kiev and Russian special forces. Russia cannot allow the uprising in the east to be rolled back.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Apr 24 2014 16:01 utc | 8
Poland is out.
This here is Radoslav Sikorski
Mr. Sikorski denied that he was effectively abandoning non-NATO members, such as Ukraine, to defend themselves against Russia.He said that preparations were already underway to apply further punitive sanctions against Moscow should Mr. Putin send his troops across the Ukrainian border.
“If Russia invades – of course it will be called humanitarian intervention or peacekeeping, pick your anesthetic – but if Russia does go in, we will reluctantly have to impose further sanctions. And I say reluctantly because I know it will be politically and economically painful. Much more for Poland than for Canada,” he said.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 16:06 utc | 9
"Just keep it below the nuclear threshold and the U.S. will, in the end, be the winner of it all."
Why, that would fit in very nicely with the American - with the Europeans not very far behind now, maybe pulling even? - PTB's neoliberal tactics of keeping the domestic populace at bay with the merest pittances of social support. Health care/student loans bankrupting millions, slashing food stamps/unemployment assistance for millions more and on and on and on yet NO RIOTS!! Somebody's doing something right, huh? Gee, it's almost like they've calculated just how much shit peons will/can eat, huh? Actually, I think clinical trials are still underway...
Remember peons: it's not all you can eat at Uncle Sam's Shithouse, it's all you CAN eat. Get the zip-ties!
Thus, transposing this strategy to the foreign arena, the commission of more "low-key" murderous war crimes allows certain industries their largess - e.g., defense, the apartheid genocidal state of Israel, etc - all the while keeping the peons out of the street especially if a la Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc. they can from the beginning of the campaigns shovel enough propagandistic horseshit to confuse the issue by dressing it up as yet another "humanitarian crisis" - Looking at you HRW, Amnesty etc etc!! - until it's too late and the issue has become "meh" to the VICE/Facebook generations. Why, there sure is pattern there, huh? Let's see: for the first 0 to 6+ months in Libya, Syria and Ukraine the "human rights" organizations aggressively roll-out the campaign allowing reasons for US "legitimacy" in regards to intervening (including the arming of mercenaries). After that period, and with nasty reality beginning to intrude upon the fairy tale-like war criminal narrative, it's already too late as enough people have been "sold" on TPTB's version of events - they probably only needs what 40%? 30%? to remain in the narrative fold for things to go smoothly i.e., no protests - and thus there's no time for a oppositional consensus to be built until the NEXT rollout.
With "Cold War: Part Deux" lifting the playbook from the GWOT we'll be sure to witness any number of low-level flair-ups as evil Putin and his minions attempt to bring the Evil Empire back into existence country by country. Today it's Ukraine! Tomorrow? Belarus? Romania? Poland? The possibilities - as with the GWOT - are limitless as the evil-doers could be ANYWHERE!!! Hey, maybe we'll do a South American tour once again!!! We're putting the band back together, boys!!!
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 24 2014 16:08 utc | 10
@1 I agree. They are jumping through hoops to provoke Russian intervention.
I think Saker is right. Both Kiev and US knew E Ukraine was already lost, at very least to federalized, semi-autonomous regions and that they'd lost the battle for hearts and minds.
Instead of admitting that, they want to be able to blame it all on a Russian intervention, and to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They've been saying that E Ukraine was infested w/ Russian forces. They've lost all credibility on that. Now they want to force it to happen.
The big question is, what happens when Russian troops cross that border? I am still hoping that they won't. And will Kiev keep striking E Ukraine towns and killing people until they do? I also wonder if Russia will conduct some surgical, covert strikes in Kiev or on Right Sector groups.
Posted by: gemini333 | Apr 24 2014 16:10 utc | 11
somebody
Haha those poles never stop do they, why dont they attack Russia once and for all, their hate for russians seems to be neverending. Lets get it through with. Oh what did you say Poland? US? Oh you want US to attack Russia?
Idiots!
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 24 2014 16:10 utc | 12
Truth about situation in Ukraine shared a link.
about an hour ago
23.04 Ukranian Officer Colonel Krasota threatening to shoot military forces of 93 brigades if they don't perform the criminal orders Kiev junta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a_uc2pTCXQ#t=90
Posted by: brian | Apr 24 2014 16:20 utc | 13
the war- porn addicts in washington are following the well known path of all addicts. It always ends in death, jail or spiritual awakening. the american family needs to do a good intervention and soon. I doubt they will, denial is the foundation of american culture now.i'm sorry this sounds so depressing, but reality sometimes just is.
Posted by: kate | Apr 24 2014 16:21 utc | 14
just read the new article by pepe:
US 'pivots', China reaps dividends
i found this link he referenced most interesting:
Stopping Russia Starts in Syria
what was astounding was the misogynistic commentary by a mr phifer. i never heard about two tomahawks being fired against syria. is his asessment correct?
Posted by: svd | Apr 24 2014 16:28 utc | 15
Presumably Biden was sent to convey the message "we've got your back" after the embarrassing spectacles of a Russian Lada chasing a Ukrainian tank, and soldiers handing over their weapons when confronted by a crowd of onion farmers and cabbage patch men.
This was posted here before by somebody else, but I'll post it again: Is Putin being lured into a trap?
However painful it is for Putin to watch Russian speaking Ukrainians get beaten and perhaps killed by Nazi thugs and foreign mercenaries dressed up as Ukrainian Security Forces, he should avoid sending in the troops. It’s a trap.
...
Putin will not allow Russian-speaking people to be killed in Ukraine, that’s the red line the junta government must not cross if they want to avoid a confrontation with Russia. Unfortunately, Washington wants Russia to invade so it can put its “proxy war” plan into motion.
And what better way to hold down Europe economically than to engender a separation between them and their "gas station".
Posted by: Pat Bateman | Apr 24 2014 16:35 utc | 16
This is obviously such a lose-lose situation for the EU that it almost seems like it was a trap set by Germany to further bifurcate Europe from the US. FU Nuland has staged a coup too far.
Posted by: Bob In Portland | Apr 24 2014 16:49 utc | 17
Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal (the fifth largest in the world in 1992)in exchange for guarantees of its territorial integrity.
Its integrity had been violated.
is it not only fair that we give them back their nukes?
Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 24 2014 16:52 utc | 18
15) New Europe is definitively not going to make it.
Czech, Slovakia doubt sanctions
Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 24, 2014 12:52:13 PM | 16
Remember Cernobyl?
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 17:10 utc | 19
#16;Total idiocy to give unelected wackos nukes,and who violated that territory?If you are an anti commie wacko(in this day and age?),LGBT-homonazi)or Zionazi wacko it's Russia,and if you astutely read non biased news and follow history,it's NATO,and US.Who is thousands of miles away with absolutely no connection other than a few refugees post ww2,and who has lived as neighbor for hundreds of years?Jeez,the disconnect from reality by these obviously biased creeps,who then say that astute comments with facts to back their arguments are Russian plants.(Graun)Ukrainian nationalism is a normal manifestation of nationhood,and I have no problem with nations and self determination,but any group that allies itself with the absolutely corrupt American govt at this time just exposes their own corruption.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 24 2014 17:19 utc | 20
Re: ANTI TERRORISM OPERATION" HANDED OVER TO RIGHT SECTOR TERRORISTS?
(brian at #5, but originally Alexander Mercouris on Facebook)
RT today at 1:19 GMT:A source in Ukraine’s Joint General Staff has told RIA Novosti that the operation against Slavyansk has been planned by the country’s Security Service, the SBU, and that Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is no longer responsible for the operation.
The groups storming Slavyansk consist of approximately 5,000 militants of the far-right nationalist Right Sector movement, either acting on their own as terror groups or operating as National Guards, the source said. These groups are being supplied with NATO intelligence and aerial photos of the region. The data is being delivered by couriers to avoid interception.
Kiev is not planning to deploy regular troops into the mutinous regions, as the soldiers have been refusing to fight against their own people. The SBU has also deployed up to 500 troops from special forces groups to the area, the source said.
The National Guard is a de facto NATO occupation force. NATO understood that the old Ukrainian army would be totally useless to them, so they needed to set up a new force. The National Guard is supplied with NATO weapons, trained by Western military trainers and ultimately commanded and controlled by the US. Its relationship with the armed thugs of Pravy Sector is somewhat similar to that between the FSA and al-Nusra Front in Syria. Two sides of the same coin; both cooperate under US control and command.
This situation may have unintended consequences. So far the Ukrainian army has absolutely refused to be involved in the internal political conflict. When ordered to do so, they defected, some switched sides. The army has good reason to stay out; their involvement could never bring about a political solution. It would only lead to civil war, a split up of the country – possibly after a foreign invasion. Artillery and multiple rocket launch systems are useless against civilians or lightly armed rebels embedded in civilian areas.
The situation has now changed. There now is a hostile military force in Ukraine that can be attacked and destroyed with extreme prejudice. The isolated outposts of the National Guard in the middle of hostile pro-Rus' territory, like the one outside Izyum are a perfect target for the heavy arms of the Ukrainian army. Killing armed NG and Pravy Sector troops by the thousands is NOT a human rights issue. Most importantly, if the Army were to rise against the National Guard and the Pravy Sector, it would produce a political solution that foreign powers would have to accept. NATO would be driven out of Ukraine and Russia would have no need to enter.
Where is Ukraine's General Sisi? (In fact, I would even settle for a Wojciech Jaruzelski.)
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Apr 24 2014 17:34 utc | 21
Via Colonel Lang's site:
Russian Radio is claiming that the Russian Su-24 planes that buzzed the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea on April 12 were able to jam the Aegis system and that this caused a quiet panic in the US Navy command.Source:Sic Semper Tyrannis : HARPER: RUSSIA CLAIMS IT JAMMED AEGIS
That would seem to be this Radio report: Russian Su -24 scores off against the American "USS Donald Cook" - News - Politics - Russian Radio:
The demonstration was original enough. A bomber without any weapons, but having onboard equipment for jamming enemy radar, worked against a destroyer equipped with "Aegis", the most modern system of air and missile defence. But this system of mobile location, in this case the ship, has a significant drawback. That is, the target tracking capabilities. They work well when there is a number of these ships which can coordinate with each other somehow. In this case there was just one destroyer. And, apparently, the algorithm of the radar in the "Aegis” system on the destroyer did not load under the influence of jamming by the Su-24. It was therefore not only a nervous reaction to the fact of flying around by the Russin bomber which was common practice during the Cold War. The reaction of the Americans was due to the fact that most modern system, especially its informative or radar part, did not work adequately. Therefore, there was such a nervous reaction to the whole episode.
After the incident, the foreign media reported that "Donald Cook" was rushed into a port in Romania. There all the 27 members of the crew filed a letter of resignation. It seems that all 27 people have written that they are not going to risk their lives. This is indirectly confirmed by the Pentagon statement according to which the action demoralized the crew of the American ship. Read more: http://indian.ruvr.ru/2014_04_21/Russian-Su-24-scores-off-against-the-American-USS-Donald-Cook-5786/
more at the link.
Dubhaltach
Posted by: Dubhaltach | Apr 24 2014 17:36 utc | 22
Total idiocy to give unelected wackos nukes
I agree. This is why the world needs to find a way to neutralize Putin's nukes. Madmen and nukes are a dangerous combination. I'm glad there are a few sane voices of reasons here afterall.
Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Apr 24 2014 17:42 utc | 23
Well these planned "surges" where no one shows up helps add up, in my mind, that this East vs West Ukraine showdown is really about the Neocons vs Russia.
Posted by: Tea | Apr 24 2014 17:49 utc | 24
Cold N. Holefield @ 21
Is a TROLL.
Please do not feed.
And best not to read.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 24 2014 17:52 utc | 25
I suspect the US is contemplating something like this:
1. 100,000 US troops move into Poland
2. Move the troops into wesern Ukraine (at Kiev's invitation, of course)
3. Establish heavily fortified bases in eastern Ukraine
4. Send fascist death squads into Novorossiyan cities to pacify the "terrorists"
This is a variation of the "surge" in Iraq that the US believes worked so well.
With US troops on the ground in eastern Ukraine, it would be difficult for Russia to do anything without provoking a full fledged war with NATO. It would also give Kiev the room to do whatever it wanted internally.
The US loves death squads, from the tonton macoute in Haiti to El Salvador to the "Salvador Option" in Iraq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Option, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4209595.stm).
Posted by: shargash | Apr 24 2014 18:09 utc | 26
shargash
Ukraine is not in nato, nato cant do shit.
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 24 2014 18:23 utc | 27
24) you forget that Russia is not just any nuclear power and that Obama has the duty to prevent nuclear rockets landing in Manhattan ....
The Russian Foreign Ministry sticks to their intent on doing an exceptionalist parody
#Lavrov: Russia has done more than anyone to support its neighbour’s sovereignty and put tens of billions of US dollars into this effort
Nuland - 5 billion - pah!
#Lavrov:The non-aligned Ukraine must link Russia and Europe to form a common economic and cultural space stretching from Atlantic to Pacific
Oh gosh. They are not serious, it is a parody, right?
There are a lot more "musts" ...
ah yes, and they use the hashtag #UnitedforUkraine now.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 18:23 utc | 28
@25 anon
Perhaps I should have spelled it out in more detail. US doesn't need NATO permission to send troops into Ukraine, any more than it needed NATO permission to send them into Iraq. However, if US troops are attacked, NATO is treaty-bound to come to the US' assistance (if the US asks for it). If US troops are sitting near the Russian border it would be difficult or impossible for Russia to intervene in eastern Ukraine without involving the US and potentially involving NATO.
@26 somebody
I don't think I forgot anything. Are you suggesting that if the US sends troops into Ukraine at the invitation of Kiev that Russia will nuke Manhattan?
Posted by: shargash | Apr 24 2014 18:34 utc | 29
shargash
Thats not how NATO works. Besides I dont think Russia fear them anyway, europe has been occupied with american troops the last 4 decades.
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 24 2014 18:38 utc | 30
Well, Obama sounds incoherent in this but somehow there seems to be a threat :-))
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 18:42 utc | 31
This here is the full fun Obama quote
"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness," Obama said.Russia's actions are a problem, but they're not what the U.S. worries about the most.
"They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States," Obama said. "I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security of the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan."
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 18:48 utc | 32
@Dubhaltach #20:
Russian Radio appears to be an outfit directing crude propaganda at the Third World. The story you link to has several absurdities in it which I won't bother to go in to. What that story claims has not been repeated by any credible Russian news source.
Tea@22
And Obama is a neocon, albeit a black one with a nice smile.
In provoking Russia he is following the instincts of a man born not only in but because of the Cold War. He is a product of that global campaign by the US and its allies to harass, isolate and weaken the Soviet Union because its example, merely by existing, forced the advanced capitalist states to institute progressive income and wealth taxes to finance social services and support for the destitute.
Now that the USSR no longer exists and Russia differs little from any other capitalist state, and the "west" is rapidly dismantling its welfare states in an orgy of private plundering of the public, it might be expected that, rather than seeking conflict with Russia the "west" would be co-operating with its rulers the better to fleece and enslave the working class.
This is not happening largely because the MIC has such a grip on the economy that the USA is programmed for war. This necessitates the constant maintenance of international tensions and the, contradictory, strategy of imposing US hegemony on the entire planet. A strategy which, should it succeed, would obviously cancel any rationale for "defence" spending and the MIC.
In a word the US is on auto-pilot: it provokes Russia because to do so is instinctive. Reason has nothing to do with it. Luckily the President is himself totally committed to Cold War aims, as is the camarilla of cronies and harpies (someone should explore the incredible prominence of bloodthirsty women in his council)with which he has surrounded himself.
Obama's father was a student plucked out of Kenya on a scholarship designed to win the allegiance of a new generation of Africans in Independent countries to form a pro-US ruling class. And to learn to perform the job, for capitalism, that the old colonial elites had performed. He was in Hawai'i to be corrupted. A young fly in the spider's web.
As to Obama's mother, the possibility of contracting an inter-racial marriage, without committing socio-economic suicide was new to the US in the sixties. In an era in which even the American ruling class had begun to understand the damage Jim Crow caused them internationally, and the Civil Rights movement was being afforded the minimal amount of freedom from brutal suppression that its courageous ranks, including the great mass of the Black population, required to win their struggle, the young anthropologist's marriage, and Obama's birth became possible. Before the Cold War it would have been much more difficult. And government employment would have been almost impossible.
We have discussed here before the peculiar circumstances of Obama's early life: his mother's employment by the Ford Foundation (primary sub-contractor of CIA subversion in that era) and for the US Embassy in Djakarta, a palace of war crimes. His step father(another scholarship candidate promoted by the State Department)'s role in the Indonesian army while it was organising, at the Embassy's behest, the massacre of a million or so (and the imprisonment in Concentration Camps of many more) suspected of sympathy with the Communist Party; his role as a combat officer in Indonesia's sub imperialist adventures in New Guinea and Timor and his retirement to a senior executive position with a US oil company.
The dutiful, obedient, exemplary son, Obama, has spent his entire life deferring to his seniors and conforming with their wishes. All his life he has been a front man for interests which he has never questioned and to which it has always been easy to recall him. It was unnecessary to convince him to confront Russia and to threaten the world with an extraordinary Centennial event for the year: it came naturally to him. He does what his masters want. They do not even have to tell him. He lives for their approval, isolated, frightened, intimidated as a boy he is constitutionally incapable of defying power.
The good news is that what seems obviously right to Obama and his supporters makes increasingly little sense to public opinion. There seems to be little appetite among people for war and a great deal of cynicism about the motives and honesty of the government. And all this has a great deal to do with websites like this one where-if people can navigate their way past verbose old fanatics like me- anyone with a computer can keep abreast of the real news, unpolluted by propagandists and shrewdly monitored and analysed by dozens of regular commentators and the whisky bar's 'mein host'.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 24 2014 18:54 utc | 34
Putin calls Internet a CIA project.
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the Internet a CIA project and made comments about Russia's biggest search engine Yandex, sending the company's shares plummeting.The Kremlin has been anxious to exert greater control over the Internet, which opposition activists - barred from national television - have used to promote their ideas and organize protests.
Russia's parliament this week passed a law requiring social media websites to keep their servers in Russia and save all information about their users for at least half a year. Also, businessmen close to Putin now control Russia's leading social media network, VKontakte.
Speaking Thursday at a media forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that the Internet originally was a "CIA project" and "is still developing as such."
Fucking Vlad, the next thing you'll try and tell us is that companies like Oracle - y'know, the one started by everyone's favorite POS billionaire Larry Ellison - were originally started/funded as CIA projects.
What a loon!!!
I mean, HELLO, shit like this is TOTALLY BENIGN, VLAD!!!
In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.[4]
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 24 2014 18:58 utc | 35
@JSorrentine #33:
Why are you using a Western wire story with essentially no direct quotes to tell us what Putin said?
Oh dear.
Russian Diplomats are Eating America's Lunch
The Russian ambassador to Germany, Vladimir Grinin, who joined the diplomatic service in 1971, has served in Germany in multiple tours totaling 17 years, in addition to four years in Austria as ambassador. He is fluent in German and English. He has held a variety of posts in the Russian Foreign Ministry concentrating on European affairs. Berlin is his fourth ambassadorship.
The U.S. ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, has seven months of diplomatic service (since his arrival in Berlin) and speaks no German. A business and entertainment lawyer, Emerson has campaigned for Democrats ranging from Gary Hart to Bill Clinton. He bundled $2,961,800 for Barack Obama’s campaigns.
...
And if the White House believes it can achieve its goals toward Moscow by sending TV soap opera producers, hoteliers and other campaign contributor neophytes to face veteran Russian diplomats in key European capitals, it is nothing short of delusional. At the very least, Obama risks stumbling in his pursuit of foreign policy goals in a situation where every mistake counts.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 24 2014 19:07 utc | 37
Why is Putin always called "Vlad", and never "Volodya", the actual nickname for Vladimir?
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 19:11 utc | 38
The dual US/Israeli "journalist" Simon Ostrovsky has been released by the Ukrainian resistance, apparently in response to USG pressure.
The article in the Romanian Wikipedia article on the name Vlad (as in Vlad Țepeș, Vlad the Impaler) says that the Russian names Vladimir and Vladislav are compound names using the same root as Vlad, but says nothing about the name "Vlad" being used in Russian.
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 19:17 utc | 40
A recent piece on Ukraine:
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc240414.htm
Posted by: bevin | Apr 24 2014 19:19 utc | 41
@34
Because I'm a fucking secret agent sent here to mess with your mission!! Holy fuck.
Please type the following: "Putin Internet CIA" into your favorite search engine and you'll find that plenty of other Western propaganda sources have already picked up on it so I thought it worthy of note especially as everyone knows it's no longer what a person really says that's important in the West.
Is that good enough, Cap'n? Again, holy fuck.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 24 2014 19:24 utc | 42
@ Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 2:49:31 PM | 31
What point exactly are you trying to make? Voice of Russia is a Russian radio station that broadcasts in several languages and fulfills the same function as for example Voice of America or Deutsche Welle.
As a general point irrespective of whose making them whether it's you, or Rowan Berkey, or anyone else here I only give credence to statements that have some sort of back-up thus saying things such as: "The story you link to has several absurdities in it which I won't bother to go in to." doesn't cut it either you're capable of backing up your statement by pointing out the absurdities or you're not.
Dubhaltach
Posted by: Dubhaltach | Apr 24 2014 19:30 utc | 43
This is a concept that hadn't occurred to me, made in a comment by bluelight at Saker: link
"...if Russia is going intervene militarily, they would not just stop with the East. They will at a minimum invade Kiev proper and overthrow the Junta. That’s why they assembled such a large force and are issuing warnings about consequences to the Junta leadership."
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 24 2014 19:39 utc | 44
UN chief Ban Ki-moon warns Ukraine crisis could 'spin out of control'
"Military action must be avoided at all costs," Ban continued, urging all sides "to immediately refrain from violence, intimidation or provocative actions and find a way forward toward de-escalation."Ban's comments came as Ukraine's military launched assaults to retake rebel-held eastern towns.
The offensive, which killed at least five people, sent international tensions soaring and oil prices up, raising the prospect of Russia making good on its threat of a massive response in the ex-Soviet republic.
Funny how Western media don't appear to find this worth reporting.
somebody | Apr 24, 2014 2:42:24 PM | 29
Wow.
Tacky fearmongering BHO....
Anyway, I would think that nuclear weaponry would be more likely used by the USG, since I do not think the USG has much, if any, tactical advantage against the Russian army in an Ukrainian invasion.
When was the last time an Anglo-European-American militaries "won" a war against an equal?
Posted by: Tea | Apr 24 2014 19:46 utc | 46
A war in Ukraine with Russia would be a logistical nightmare for the U.S. The lines of supply would all be in favor of the Russians, who could also count on support from a large part of the local population. It would be Vietnam to the tenth power. As long as the war stayed conventional.
There's an old saying in the U.S. Army: Amateurs think strategy and tactics, professionals think logistics.
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 19:51 utc | 47
And, speaking of lines of supply, what would happen to all the NATO and U.S. troops and equipment in Afghanistan, if war should break out in Ukraine?
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 19:53 utc | 48
"The Taylor is one of the lightest armed American fighting ships to be deployed in the Black Sea since the US Navy commenced its continuous reassurance and interoperability operations in February. For those stories, click here and here. The Taylor is equipped with anti-ship missiles and torpedoes, as well as anti-aircraft cannon. This is more firepower than the intelligence and command vessel, USS Mount Whitney, which the Taylor was escorting when it ran into the seabed at Samsun. Since then the more heavily armed destroyers, USS Truxtun and USS Donald Cook, have come, and in the Truxtun’s case gone."
Posted by: Tea | Apr 24 2014 19:59 utc | 49
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24, 2014 3:53:21 PM | 46
Pakistan?
Posted by: Tea | Apr 24 2014 20:00 utc | 50
@Dubhaltach #41
From the article you linked to:
experts say that this plane was equipped with the latest Russian electronic warfare complex. According to this version, "Aegis" spotted from afar the approaching aircraft, and sounded alarm. Everything went normally, American radars calculated the speed of the approaching target. And suddenly all the screens went blank. […]After the incident, the foreign media reported that "Donald Cook" was rushed into a port in Romania. There all the 27 members of the crew filed a letter of resignation. It seems that all 27 people have written that they are not going to risk their lives.
How would the writer of the article learn so quickly that "all the screens went blank"? (And why would they go blank just because the radar stopped being able to detect the target?) This is sensitive operational military information, and anyone who disclosed it to the press would be court-martialed. And since when are enlisted military personnel allowed to resign en masse because they are afraid "to risk their lives"??? Also, I didn't know that you can operate a USN destroyer with only 27 crew members.
This story is obviously nonsensical. To repeat, no reputable Russian news outlet has mentioned it. (No one disputes that a Russian bomber repeatedly buzzed a USN destroyer. Why it did that is explained here.)
The lines of supply from Afghanistan into Pakistan can easily be cut off. They have been recently, by striking Pakistanis. They were also, spectacularly, at the end of the First Afghan War.
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 20:03 utc | 52
@lysias #45:
Ground Troops to Ukraine, Really Mr. Ambassador?
Unless the United States can send 150,000 US combat troops, at least 50,000 in the first 30 days, then, Jeffrey is simply courting disaster. Without such a core force, the Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Slovaks and Hungarians cannot hope to assemble a similar number of forces. More important, to be credible, the U.S. force must be heavily armored and include substantial quantities of rocket artillery, air and missile defense units, as well as, logistical elements. Evidently, the Ambassador is unaware that no such U.S. ground force exists.Thanks to the last 12 years of superb political and military leadership, what forces the United States once had were squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today’s wheeled Army constabulary forces along with Army and Marine light infantry are incapable of challenging Russian ground forces anywhere in Central or Eastern Europe without risking certain annihilation. As for alleged American conventional superiority, policing Arabs and Afghans with no armies, no air forces, no air defenses and no missile forces is not much evidence for the kind of military superiority the Russians respect.
Obomber repeated today, pivoting to Asia in Japan, that the US will not send military forces into the Ukraine.
Yarosh has moved Right Sector headquarters to Dnepropetrovsk. Ukraine’s far-right leader moves HQ to the east, forms new squadron:
Ukrainian radical neo-fascist Right Sector group has moved its main headquarters from Kiev to Dnepropetrovsk to “closely monitor” the developments in the east, its leader said, announcing the formation of yet another paramilitary squadron in Ukraine.“I moved my headquarters to Dnepropetrovsk. The purpose is to prevent the spread of the Kremlin infection,” Ukrainian presidential candidate and Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh announced at a press conference in Dnepropetrovsk.
He says the vital industrial city in Ukraine, Dnepropetrovsk provides a better platform to observe the situation in Donbass where pro-federalization protests are flourishing, after the coup in Kiev.
Yarosh, placed by Russia on an international most wanted terrorist list, also announced that he started forming a special squad of fighters called “Donbass.”
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 20:25 utc | 54
lysias | Apr 24, 2014 4:03:51 PM | 50
Yes, but look at this.
Posted by: Tea | Apr 24 2014 20:37 utc | 56
Goodbye, Ukraine, it was nice knowin' ya!
Those pesky Poles: Poles living in Ukraine demand autonomy
Poles in the Zhitomir Region want to form autonomy with broad self-governance rights on the territory of Ukraine. According to the statements made by some representatives of that ethnic minority, "over the last decades they have been going through difficult times being prosecuted and discriminated against by the Ukrainian authorities". The Polish authorities support the idea to unite with their historic homeland. Over the past few years they have been freely handing out Polish passports on Ukrainian territory anyway.With Warsaw's approval the Ukrainian Poles started to demand that the authorities in Kiev give back TV broadcasting in Polish, revive the Polish street names in Zhitomir Region and open kindergartens and schools with the Polish language.
Maybe Right Sector is going to have to pivot to the West, and resume Bandera's project of killing Poles?
Funny how USG isn't demanding that Poland stop stoking unrest in western Ukraine.
kalithea is now at Vineyard of the Saker with the same old same old:
I have read some at MoA discrediting Saker because of his Anglo/Zio description of the Empire. This is because they work with half-truth and Saker works with the full truth, at least from my initial impression as I have only been visiting this site for over a month. Make no mistake about it, the intent of Zionists is to sack and exploit to their advantage Russia’s wealth of resources as they attempted to do in the past. This is a big part of the imperial agenda. As I stated over at MoA, Zionists intend to solidify their power by piggybacking on this U.S./Nato offensive that Neocons i.e. Zionists dreamed up decades ago. And I'll be damned if I'm going to allow b or anyone else fudge this truth or underestimate the role of Zionism in this empire offensive!
Call me naive, but Jews have lived with Russians for hundreds of years. I think Jews have more culturally in common with Russians than they do with Protestant Americans. The Mosad obviously has relations not only with the CIA, but also with the FSB, and I would say that the US has more to fear from the Mosad than Russia has. (I have seen no credible accounts that the Mosad supported Chechen terrorists, whereas the CIA certainly did.)
@58 I didn't even know there were still Poles in Zhitomir.
Posted by: Grim Deadman | Apr 24 2014 21:22 utc | 62
b writes This is all just minor public skirmishing.
Now that is an optimistic interpretation that I would like to share. Unfortunately, though maybe they are not major operations yet the Ukis seem to be putting forces in position to launch larger scale attacks. If they do not have plans for a bigger offensive, those forces are now in exposed positions making them targets for guerilla attacks.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 24 2014 21:32 utc | 63
#59
Since you asked, everyone knows the US is overrun with US-Israeli double agents, but not everyone is aware that Israel is overrun with Israeli-Russian double agents.
The logical result is that US military secrets stolen by the Israelis end up on Vladimir Putin's desk. Where do you suppose all those recent leaks have come from?
Posted by: Dave of Maryland | Apr 24 2014 21:48 utc | 64
@ToivoS #61:
A commenter at Saker said that today, the Yukis are doing reconnaissance, sizing up the resistance forces. That would make sense, I guess. Another commenter wonders why Russia isn't attacking the Yukis now, while they're exposed. I would say the Russians are not going to move in unless the Yukis give them a clear justification. The Russians are not going to "shoot first".
I don't think anyone knows how much coordination there is between the people occupying government buildings and manning checkpoints and RF intelligence/military.
It just occurred to me that the FSB would have recruited people throughout the Ukraine after the breakup of the USSR. (In the case of Ukrainian intelligence, little recruitment would be necessary. It is not surprising that the head of Ukrainian intelligence fled to Russia right after the coup.) It is probably using the people it has in southeastern Ukraine mostly for observation, and I would doubt that many of them would tell separatists that they are actually working for Moscow.
I would imagine that the people who took over in Ukraine have virtually no experience with intelligence or military work. This is a main reason why Washington basically has to run things for the putsch regime.
@brian #6:
Very interesting article. But I only found out about it at the Saker, because you did not say anything about the article. You just gave a link, and I usually ignore bare links.
@62 Dave: You mean them Nuland,Ashton,Erdogan and Turkish False-Flag leaks? I thought about it too. But I somehow get the feeling, those who leaked it were after a bigger PR impact. After all, if our Western-Media wasnt hi-jacked, they'd be all over the leaks, as their content is just amazing, exposing an agenda. Im not sure how Putin got these. Im not aware of all the spy tech going on, but could Russia have showed off their strength with those leaks?
Posted by: Kal | Apr 24 2014 22:45 utc | 66
Signals intelligence could tell what coordination there is between the people occupying the buildings and the RF military (unless they're communicating exclusively through couriers, which I think is unlikely). I doubt if the putschists (I prefer to call them that, not the "Yukis") have much experience with signals intel, but the U.S. does, and I imagine we're handing over a lot of intelligence to the putschists.
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24 2014 22:47 utc | 67
ot
massoud's old pal, abdullah abdullah is as thick as two bricks & corrupts as they come
meanwhile the empire is going very very mad
loonier by latitudes
bevin, we are both old fanatics & i am rather proud of it
Posted by: remembererringgiap | Apr 24 2014 23:16 utc | 68
@lysias #65:
Yeah, the Russians have to assume that the Americans are monitoring all radio transmissions. I personally very much doubt that the RF would communicate with the Ukrainian resistance via any electronic channels that are easily intercepted. If the US intercepted such transmissions, that would provide it with a tremendous propaganda coup. Thus far, the US has essentially zero evidence that the Russians are coordinating with or assisting the resistance (the people occupying the buildings). Although of course, the whores in the White House and State Department will keep on repeating that they are "very confident" that the Russians are doing that.
As you no doubt know, there's a lot of bad blood between Russians and other East Europeans on account of the Soviet period, so the Russians have to tread very carefully here, and not undermine the general appearance (which I believe has been true so far) that this is a conflict between the putschists and anti-putsch Ukrainians.
The Saker wrote a while back that in 1993, when Yeltsin attacked the Duma with tanks, that operation was basically run from the US embassy. I believe that. I imagine that something similar is happening in Kiev today. I find it hard to believe that many nationalist extremists would go into the intelligence services or officer corps: they become politicians or criminals. That is why Ukraine doesn't appear to be able to use its army in the current "anti-terrorist operation".
I was hoping that the Russians might take a cue from los gringos and send in some drones armed with missiles and lob them at those Pravy sector pendejos. I would have enjoyed it very much, however Putin continues playing chess while Obama plays soccer with a robot in Japan.
Obama has ruined america, really he has so many people voted whole heartedly and in good faith for what Sarah Palin then referred to as that "hooey changey stuff", that now they will not believe the next Tom, Dick or Harry who comes along promising them Heaven.
Putin has got this, I will not worry. The empire has failed in Venezuela, it will fail also in Ukraine, nobody believes in them anymore and like McArthur, they "fade away".
Posted by: Fernando | Apr 24 2014 23:32 utc | 70
Hopey changey,stupid computadora. Where is Mr. Pragma?
He goes but Cold and A-Hole stay?
K pasa?
Something is very wrong here.
Posted by: Fernando | Apr 24 2014 23:34 utc | 71
@57 Lysias,
I appreciate you putting up the links you do. I like to get different views on current events and am always looking for informative reads.
Thanks much.
Posted by: b4real | Apr 24 2014 23:48 utc | 72
@69
Apparently Anti-Zionism is frowned on, while Russophobia is accepted, so no boot for Cold.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 25 2014 0:02 utc | 73
If anti-us forces, whether Russians, Syrians, Iranians, or Chinese were to sink or severely damage a US carrier in a future confrontation, western capital markets probably would crash since the myth of US military invincibility would be blown to smithereens.
Posted by: Andoheb | Apr 25 2014 0:55 utc | 74
Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 7:16:52 PM | 67
I find it hard to believe that many nationalist extremists would go into the intelligence services or officer corps: they become politicians or criminals.
It is a fact, but yes they become politicians and criminals, too. In Germany you have a situation where it is official, by high court, that leading members of NPD are paid by the "Verfassungsschutz" Interior Security Service, that they are basically state run.
Think it through. The Security Service of Germany pays the leadership of a fascist party. This leadership - what type of people are they likely to be? Is the pay that good that they turn their whole life into right wing politics, a role they also have to keep up in private life? Much more likely they are right wing and find it convenient to be protected by the Secret Service.
The same type of scandal is the background of the case of support of a clandestine fascist group that was able to live underground and do a continuous string of hate killing.
It is not just the right wing. A similar dynamic can be assumed with the Boston bomber - the older brother very likely was a FBI informer, or the Mohamed Mehra case in France. And it happened to the left wing, too. Anybody who might take up a gun, is interesting.
You are right in that they do not become the office people. The mentality of the office people is another issue.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:01 utc | 75
Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 7:16:52 PM | 67
Ukraine still has a conscript army, that is why they cannot use them.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:03 utc | 76
Anti-Russian flyers are thrown from a helicopter in Donbass (in Russian)
I hope someone translates the flyer into English. It is completely over-the-top propaganda, speaking of Russian terrorists whom you should stay away from because they will use you as human shields. It's really scary that the people who write that stuff think someone might believe it.
I would hate to see what's on Ukrainian TV channels right now. It would probably shock even North Koreans with its primitiveness.
People like this simply cannot be allowed to stay in power in a large (if poor) European country.
A commenter at the Saker said that European media are very quiet now. Are European elites having second thoughts of what they were party to in the Ukraine?
Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 6:02:21 PM | 63
That is not true. The new people are the old Orange revolution people - the ones the US has groomed for a long time. The Orange revolution also introduced this Western Ukrainian nationalist project - language, history, culture - that now finally splits Ukraine.
The now head of the Ukrainian Security Services was head before ...
You can assume that there are people in the Ukrainian Security Service who work for the US, who work for Russia and who work for both. I guess most work for both.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:12 utc | 78
As a general point irrespective of whose making them whether it's you, or Rowan Berkey, or anyone else here I only give credence to statements that have some sort of back-up thus saying things such as: "The story you link to has several absurdities in it which I won't bother to go in to." doesn't cut it either you're capable of backing up your statement by pointing out the absurdities or you're not. Posted by: Dubhaltach | Apr 24, 2014 3:30:55 PM | 41It's striking how this person uses trivialities as pretexts to launch smears against third parties not related to his ostensible target by anything except by his own intellectual dyspepsia. It's reminiscent of professional 'liberal' ideologues at work. The inability to spell surnames is alas, normal for USAians.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 25 2014 1:24 utc | 79
@bevin: "Now that the USSR no longer exists and Russia differs little from any other capitalist state"
I think this goes slightly too far, though I know where you are coming from. And I know I'm not telling you anything you already know with what follows. In fact, I'm only telling any of us what I learned with some duckduckgo-ing...
Russia is obviously not a socialist country anymore, not by a long shot. But it should be noted that Russia has fewer people, as a percentage, living in poverty than in the US. Pensions are still features of Russian old age. Russia again has a system of universal healthcare - although it briefly moved to a sort of "Obamacare" system for a few years in the 1990s. And Russia still subsidizes housing for young people. And the people still have that spirit that some material comforts of life are not for buying and selling: "Most Russians reject mortgages, which they call "debt bondage," as an unjust "overpayment" for a good they consider to be a basic right." [1]
And the fact is that much of what I just mentioned about Russia is true for Ukraine as well - and this is surely part of the reasoning why the US wants to destroy it just as it is destroying the remnants of anything that even remotely smacks of socialism (such as they were) wherever it can - in Libya, Syria, Egypt, India and wherever it can.
I'm not trying to say that Russia is not a capitalist country, beset upon by a parasitic class of oligarchs - it is. But this is not the whole picture. The social values of the Soviet Union still, in many ways, shine through the cold capitalism that has descended on Russia. And after Putin clamped down on the worst excesses of the 1990s, it is clear that Russia is still a state primarily interested in supporting its society, not a state whose sole interest is defending the rights of the oligarchy as the United States has become. And no doubt this is why the United States is so eager to ruin it again.
Posted by: guest77 | Apr 25 2014 1:32 utc | 80
As you no doubt know, there's a lot of bad blood between Russians and other East Europeans on account of the Soviet period
It would be a mistake to imagine this feeling to be unanimous. These polls, carried out by an American firm, are pretty interesting: Eastern Europe: Views of Neighbors and Global Opinion of Russia.
Posted by: guest77 | Apr 25 2014 1:33 utc | 81
@somebody #76:
I stand corrected.
That's pretty disturbing about the NPD. Yes, the older alleged Boston bomber was probably an FBI informer, or perhaps recruited by the CIA to go to Russia.
I hope I was not fooled by that story about the anti-Russian flyers; they are so outrageous that I wonder if that is not a Russian psy-op. But then there are people in the comments section of that article praising the flyer.
It's kind of strange how the Western press so matter-of-factly treats the fact that the Kiev regime speaks of Russians as "terrorists" (it doesn't matter if they are of Ukrainian or Russian nationality).
Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 9:06:28 PM | 75
German media keeps coming back to it. There was a hype of the Maidan, describing it as progressive, civic society project, Green and Pirate Party were used to whitewash the Fascists out of the picture. With the sniper deaths, and Yanukovich's ouster, people began to take a hard look at what was going on, and the comment sections revolted. There was a huge backlash against the way television reported, too.
The old guard of detente politicians and journalists came out when it got clear it would come down to a confrontation with Russia. Newspapers and television had to react.
You now have a mainstream debate on the role of propaganda in the media.
Confrontation with Russia is just not Germany's interest. And yes Ukraine is very much on the first page of German main stream media.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:43 utc | 84
The Saker wrote a while back that in 1993, when Yeltsin attacked the Duma with tanks, that operation was basically run from the US embassy
No doubt about this. The first signs that all was not well in "democratic Russia" should have been images of a that drunken pig Yeltsin was bombarding his nation's parliament with tank fire. I can't find it, but RT has an excellent little documentary about this episode.
Posted by: guest77 | Apr 25 2014 1:46 utc | 85
Posted by: lysias | Apr 24, 2014 3:17:51 PM | 38
It is a fashion like "Yats" and "Klitsch", trying to sound like an insider though you know nothing.
Some people realize how arrogant and insulting it is and do it intentionally, some people are just stupid.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:47 utc | 86
Posted by: Demian | Apr 24, 2014 9:36:23 PM | 80
The flyers presumably are real. It is very obvious the "Kyiv government" (intentionally not Kiev in this case) has been working for a split all along, not the Party of Regions and not the Russians. They are unable to win national elections with the present demographic makeup of Ukraine.
Americans are stupid, but not that stupid. So I assume they also planned for civil war and conflict in this case, which they then intended to blame on the Russians.
It would have worked if the Europeans were not so economically connected with Russia. And that includes "New Europe".
It is the end of the Neo Conservative project I think.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 1:56 utc | 87
@85
"It is the end of the Neo Conservative project I think"
Nope. Not until American Empire has its last final gasp. Which is decades away.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 25 2014 2:02 utc | 88
@somebody #85:
Ah, you're saying that that's a deliberate provocation, to alienate anti-putsch Ukrainians further. Yes, that makes more sense.
Yeah, I don't even think most Poles are happy with the US plan. But as you said, there is no opposition in Poland. (I would like to be directed to an article about that.)
You are perfectly welcome to use the Ukrainian spelling if you want to accentuate the nationalistic nature of the government. :-)
guest77@78
Thank you for this information which indicates something that I had suspected but had not seen confirmed- I know very little about modern Russia.
The truth is that very few people put up with the sort of crass persecution of the weak that characterises US governments and is now at the top of the "To Do" list of every politician in the English speaking world. Where the language of Bentham, Ricardo and Pecksniff is not dominant it is proving a harder sell.
One aspect of Russian capitalism that is important is that ownership is very centralised, with most Russian owned enterprises being in the hands of a very few people. Who was it who wished that all his enemies all had but one neck?
Posted by: bevin | Apr 25 2014 2:29 utc | 90
@ somebody | Apr 24, 2014 9:43:11 PM | 82
German media … see the editorial in Frankfurter Algemeine. Pure White House propaganda.
Rowan @77
I think that you will find that Dubhaltach is actually from Ireland. This would seem to let "USAians" off the hook on this occasion. As to the surname thing, it makes me wonder whether your antagonist is not actually a cockney and assumes that Berkeley is your first, or christian, name.
In any case he obviously understands how blogs work: his information when this one was down was very useful.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 25 2014 2:37 utc | 92
@ somebody | Apr 24, 2014 12:06:02 PM | 7 ??? Sikorski and Poland are very much "in".
A Dispatch: Irish Traveler from Lviv via Kiev to OdessaIt's certainly true that the Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski (a long-time British resident, married to a former editor at the Russia-bating Economist magazine, Anne Applebaum) has been vocally supportive of Euromaidan and that a number of Ukrainian's who had been resident in Poland suddenly returned home to take prominent roles in the movement. But accusations of direct, financial support do seem a little fanciful for a rather poor state with its own problems of mass emigration and abundant poverty, unless of course they merely acted as a conduit for a third, more-powerful, country? This is actually plausible as I later discover in Kiev.
See my earlier posts last Sunday @MoA, just before blog went down.
Posted by: Oui | Apr 24, 2014 10:36:27 PM | 89
Have a look at the comment section :-)) FAZ keeps trying to revert to propaganda but cannot completely alienate their readers - from time to time they have to confess the truth.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 2:56 utc | 94
Russia is escalating the pressure:
Russia to call up UNSC meeting if Kiev continues military crackdown
If the violence in the southeast of Ukraine doesn't stop, Russia will call a special session of the UN Security Council, Churkin said in an interview to Rossiya 1 channel. […]“The US is at a crossroads,” he said. “The US has already understood that they are unable to command the entire world, but they cannot translate it into another way of behavior. They feel uncomfortable when they see another pole of power,” such as Russia or China, Churkin added.
In the Ukrainian case, the UN envoy continued, “US wants not only to distance Ukraine from Russia, but also to “hang Ukraine on the EU.” The reason Churkin says is simple, Washington wants the EU become an “amorphous structure” that will “appear incapable of operating as a competitor of the USA on the world scene.”
Hear that, Europe? ("Könnt ihr mich hören?") (I don't think even Israel talks about the US so contemptuously. If Israel says something harsh about USG, my impression is that it's usually personal.)
Churkin should lock Samantha Power up in a room with a very loud sound system that plays Rammstein's Amerika over and over.
○ New Atlantic Initiative Founded by Neocons
The project's six patron luminaries were: Václav Havel, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Schmidt, Leszek Balcerowicz, Henry Kissinger, and George Schultz. Its executive director was Radoslaw Sikorski [Yes, now Foreign Minister of Poland and leading voice to get Ukraine into NATO's sphere of influence, married to Anne Applebaum], a Polish politician and former AEI fellow. The international advisory board, chaired by Kissinger, included a number of prominent neoconservative figures as well as European officials. Bruce Jackson of the Project on Transitional Democracies and the now-defunct U.S. Committee on NATO, was a founding member. The patrons shared a concern that "Europe's desire for self-reliance mixes dangerously with the motives of those who wish the new Europe to emerge as a counterweight and strategic rival to the United States."
Anne Applebaum is not only a journalist covering East-European issues, she is employed by New Zealand's billionaire Christopher Chandler at Legatum.
Based in Dubai, UAE, the Legatum Group was established in 2006 by Christopher Chandler, who was formerly President of Sovereign Asset Management which he co-founded in 1986.
Read also: Ukrainian Smears and Stereotypes by Anne Applebaum on Feb. 21, 2014
Also published as opinion piece in the Washington Post.
The Interpreter - fully exposed in my earlier diary - Ukraine NGO Chesno (Honestly) partner of USAID on March 10, 2014
Interesting article in 2006 by Mark Ames of former paper the eXile:
○ How Dick Cheney Got His Cold War On
This is what Ukraine "anti-terror" operation is all about: Yarosh wants access to storage site in #Slovyansk with 1 million #Kalashnikovs to arm his terror troops. The Donbass People's Militia have guarded the site from March 18.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/24/protesters-ukraine-weapons-cache-mine
Posted by: brian | Apr 25 2014 3:14 utc | 98
@ Demian | Apr 24, 2014 10:57:28 PM | 93
○ Kiev must stop war on Ukrainians – Russia’s envoy Vitaly Churkin told UN Security Council
○ US 'Diplomacy' Dead-Ended In UN Security Council
Ambassador Susan Rice had been unbelievably blunt in expressing US views and insulting other nations in the UNSC meetings. The new ambassador Samantha Power managed to anger Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador and insulted the Russian Federation by calling them "thieves."
In response, ambassador Churkin threatened to withhold Russian cooperation on resolving the Syria crisis and the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Both sides now in a mode of scorched earth policy on a geopolitical hot issue of the Ukraine: the faultline between NATO states and the Russian Federation.
Christian Amanpour getting personal with UN envoy Vitaly Churkin.
These masked militia or whoever they are have now been made into the famous matryoshka dolls. And one more note: we continue to reach out to the Russian government for their comment, including officials such as UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin. We haven't had much luck, but perhaps people like Churkin feel they don't really have to leave their comfort zone."
"Churkin's own daughter is the US-based reporter for 'Russia Today' in New York. She's shown here, quizzing US State Department spokesman, Jen Psaki, over this whole Ukraine crisis. And in the past, she's even reported on her own father."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
Dear Ms. Amanpour,
I am taken aback by the personal attacks you resorted to in your show on March 20. I have known you for many years (including through a number of on-the-air interviews) and used to respect you professionally. So it was somewhat startling that my inability to give another interview provoked such an outburst ...
○ Obama Pushes Bush's Legacy on Ukraine :: More Army Defections
The comments to this entry are closed.
Here you are wrong imo
What we see is rather Russia holding back from these provocations by Kiev and Nato. They would love if Russia intervene.
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 24 2014 15:21 utc | 1