We cannot stop Putin in the Ukraine, we can at most make him pay dearly for his gains.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 27 2014 18:53 utc | 4

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 27, 2014 2:53:28 PM | 4
That in the context of the Pravy Sektor snuff video?
I would not spread it as its intention obviously is civil war, fake or no fake.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 27 2014 19:00 utc | 6

@ralphieboy #4:
Do you really think your pathetic whining is going to have any effect? You might as well leave and troll somewhere else.
But speaking of videos, the Saker gives background on the Ukrainian special forces, three of whose thugs were caught yesterday near Donetsk. There is a video of them being interrogated in front of the press. The three look and act like demoralized, mishandled dogs.
The hunta keeps on going on about how it has caught GRU officers, but significantly, it has not released any videos.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2014 19:05 utc | 8

Here is the new snuff video
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/04/ukraine-media-obfuscate-about-osce-observers.html#c6a00d8341c640e53ef01a3fcfab8b5970b
Note its the exact same clothing on both victim and perpetrator as the earlier slash-the-throat-movie.
Real or fake?

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 27 2014 19:23 utc | 10

@ralphieboy #11:
Is the fact that Ukraine lost its sovereignty when the US State Department executed the violent overthrow of its legitimate government too hard for you to understand?
To return to the capture of three Ukrainian special forces officers near Donetsk, a Google News search indicates that there is a complete Western news blackout of that.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2014 19:38 utc | 12

Fuck the wishes of the people who live in that territory, that’s your position. Stop hating.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2014 19:48 utc | 14

Poor, innocent Washington: it has been lied to and deceived by Russia: now it is sobering up to the absolute, incomprehensible evil that is Russia (link is to a German article).
Evidently the editors of the FAZ have had it with their readers, whose brainwashing by their American occupiers did not take. The editors have turned of readers’ comments. That, or FAZ has lost its readers, since there are zero comments.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2014 20:26 utc | 16

Demian 16
What does the article say?

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 27 2014 20:36 utc | 18

Demian
Thanks for translation. Yes I cant read this either, it just get too much. How can ppl be so wrong? And why are ppl that dont know s*it about the politics try to start WW3?

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 27 2014 21:26 utc | 20

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27, 2014 5:10:56 PM | 19
I am not sure the article is saying what you think it is saying.
The header, as translated by you with emphasis

Washington feels lied to and deceived by Moscow. The relationship with Russia is being evaluated completely anew. Further sanctions should Putin to reason – but their brunt will fall on Europeans.

Though the article continues with “the West”, there is a differenciation here in interest.
The article ends with Henry Kissinger – EU yes, NATO no – which is a solution Russia presumably will agree to. A neutral Ukraine with EU association – membership was never the offer.
Which rhymes with Obama’s press conference
basically admitting in not so many words that the US was not able to get Europe to agree on sanctions that hurt their own business with Russia.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 27 2014 21:38 utc | 22

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27, 2014 5:48:23 PM | 23
Demian you are a right wing nutter, I remember you claiming your German is rusty, how can you pretend to know any of this?
Germans being disgusted about NSA spying means just that – and they share this with US Americans.
Something else – dramatic – happened in Europe inc.
The French government asked Siemens to save French Alstom from GE takeover

Posted by: somebody | Apr 27 2014 21:55 utc | 24

I had an interesting thing happen to one of my comments at the Guardian site today. The story was about how horrible the eastern Ukrainians were treating the arrested “observers” and someone linked to a video showing them tied up and blind folded. I simply responded with a link to an image of the “American taliban” John Walker Lindh from 2001 how the US treats prisoners.
That was it, they deleted the comment. You can see it here: guardian“>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/27/ukraine-donetsk-pro-russian-forces-seize-tv-station-parade-captives#comment-34886299″>guardian
Of course you can’t see it because it was deleted. But the part of the post remains with their statement that it was deleted because it did not accord to standards etc. BTW, it was under my other handle Theodore Svedberg (this was not my choice to create numerous handles, just seemed to happen in the whole registration process in different sites).
In any case, there does seem to be active monitors at the Guardian that are explicitly working to control the anti Russia message. In spite of that effort there do seem to be many good comments there.

Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27 2014 22:22 utc | 26

ToivoS, I noticed that many of the comments questioning the “official Russohobic” message receive the most recommendations. One can imagine how many still got deleted. In general, just like on Syria, the comments seem to run 4-to-1 against the official Guardian stand. not only that, but those who reject the official empire message generally have the best, most thoughtful comments.
Not unlike what we see on NYT and WaPo.
On anything to do with I/P the ratio is even more lopsided, with typically half the comments deleted.
I gather this is what’s happening in German papers as well.
TIt seems that the fraction of at least the people-who-read are not tracking with the empire and PTB propaganda. Or may be they just all flock to MoA for more balanced slices of information?

Posted by: Merlin2 | Apr 27 2014 22:38 utc | 28

@somebody #24:

I remember you claiming your German is rusty

I didn’t say my German is rusty. What I said after I watched a link you gave is that I was pleased to find that I can still fully follow German TV news reports, after not having been to Germany for several years. So your memory is playing tricks on you.
Make ad hominem attacks, because you can’t refute what I actually say.
@ToivoS #26:
Thanks for sharing that. I couldn’t find the video. Was it of the EU captives? I haven’t seen photos of them being blindfolded. The three captured Ukrainian special forces operatives were blindfolded, however. (That link has photos.) Odd that the Guardian story doesn’t mention them.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2014 22:52 utc | 30

Demian this is the link: the horror
After looking at it again, this might be what you also saw. There are only three captives here.

Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27 2014 23:01 utc | 32

@ 30 The Daily Mail has lots of juicy details. You can also catch up on various celebrities…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614365/Ukraine-Special-forces-officers-captured-bound-blindfolded-peoples-militia-Donetsk-region.html

Posted by: dh | Apr 27 2014 23:01 utc | 34

@13
This whole western fantasy fairytale on territorial integrity and international law has the danger to make these terms irrelevant. Just as no one takes “terrorist” or “international community” seriously anymore.
If you are so interested in Ukraine’s territorial integrity then it would help to know something about the region too. The East and South East were never part of Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine and Russia have been one for 300 years prior to Nulland’s coup.
While the murderous butcher Obama and his minions chat “territorial integrity” they not only planned, funded but directed the rape of Ukraine.
So, lets get our facts right here.

Posted by: Mohsin | Apr 27 2014 23:21 utc | 36

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 27, 2014 3:31:11 PM | 11
“… the sight of the Ukraine being chewed off in chunks is disgusting to anyone who values the notion of territorial integrity and international law.”
1. The borders of Ukraine were set by Lenin, Stalin, and Krushchev. Why were the dictates of Soviet premieres honored after the fall of the Soviet Union? Because the US (and the west in general) wanted to see as much territory stripped away from Russia as they could. As far as I’m concerned, the dictates of Soviet premieres should have had no standing whatsoever in the post-Soviet world. The people of the Ukrainian SSR should have been asked what they wanted to happen to them after the breakup of the USSR.
2. The only part of Ukraine that is gone is Crimea, and it wasn’t “chewed off.” It voted to leave, overwhelmingly (really, they pretty much ran screaming away from the Ukraine). The coup government in Ukraine would never have allowed the vote to take place, and they never would have let the Crimeans go, had the Russians not given the Crimean people space to make their own choices.
3. States hate to see parts of themselves break off. States make international law. Hence, states have made it very hard for people to break away from a state legally. On the other hand, the UN charter enshrines self determination as a basic human right. This is a contradiction. However I believe that human rights trump self-serving laws every time. Russia did the ethical thing by allowing the Crimean people to exercise their right of self determination. Maybe if you had seen videos of the celebrations in Crimea after they were accepted into the RF, you would feel differently (but then you wouldn’t have seen those videos if you only watch western media).
4. Old men drawing lines on a map to suit their own interests have caused immeasurable problems by creating countries that have no reason to exist, at least not in their particular forms — Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Georgia, and the Ukraine, to name a few. The only way such made-up countries can exist is by creating neutral, multi-ethnic societies. As soon as one faction tries to lord it over the others, you wind up with civil war and breakup. Ukraine had a chance so long as it went the neutral, multi-ethnic route. Now it has none.

Posted by: shargash | Apr 27 2014 23:43 utc | 38

@39
They were asked, but they didn’t give the right answer, so they didn’t get what they asked for. To me, that means they weren’t really asked.
Do you think, if the South-Eastern voters didn’t occupy buildings, they would be granted a democratic choice? Do you think the South-Eastern voters trust the existing Ukrainian democratic processes after their last democratic choice was run out of town on a rail and replaced by a coup?

Posted by: shargash | Apr 28 2014 0:17 utc | 40

The Uki Minister of Interior is announcing purges again. From RT:

The authorities in Kiev have announced they will carry out a massive purge of the security forces, as many officers are refusing to stand against the pro-federalization protests in the south-east of the country.
“We have problems with the quality of police performing their functions, including those in the east [of Ukraine],” coup-installed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told local media, adding that a “significant” number of officers are not ready to “perform their duties.”
In light of this “incompetence,” Avakov promised to purge a large part of security forces’ personnel, noting that in some divisions the process is already ongoing.

Here is what he what he wrote on his blog at the beginning of March (the blog’s in Russian, of course; sorry for the poor Google translation):

Such is the boiling point that people’s expectations are extremely high and intolerance . Situation in which the country finds itself – shock. Situation in which the police was – total demoralization and disorganization on the verge of collapse.
To this we must add an emergency and absolutely necessary lustration leading cadres MVD [Ministry of Interior Affairs] in the center and in the field. Dismissed for today 90% of all managerial personnel – personnel , mostly discredited management department for the last three months . Personnel, led to the fact that the credibility of the police – hardly different from zero, and as close to zero functional ability .
What was there to do? Close eyes with his hands? Wait, that will resolve itself ?
I had to do the hard and dirty work – to clear and build .
You can assign 27 heads of regional offices for a week? And all of the highest quality – the pros , the last contest? And they, in general, there are?
In general, a country has a senior police officer to whom no questions? .. Let’s hope that is – but the reality and practice – harsher.

A Russian speaker may want to look at more recent entries in his blog to see if there is anything noteworthy. The most recent entry is about the “АТО” (antiterrorist operation). The minister of interior writes his blog in Russian, and yet these crazies refuse to make Russian a second national language.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 28 2014 1:44 utc | 42

Demian #42 I thought written Ukrainian and Russian were pretty much the same. The differences in those languages were in pronunciation of certain consonants.

Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 28 2014 2:45 utc | 44

Why do they keep referring to their fascist purges as ‘lustrations’? I don’t think I even need to look this up, that lustration is consecration by sprinkling of water, isn’t it? I am aware of the fascist addiction to neo- or pseudo-classical symbolism, but still, what does this word have to do with anything?

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 28 2014 4:06 utc | 46

We cannot stop Putin in the Ukraine, we can at most make him pay dearly for his gains.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 27, 2014 2:53:28 PM | 4
who is ‘we’?

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 5:46 utc | 48

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 27, 2014 3:42:52 PM | 13
hawaii

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 6:04 utc | 50

@brian #49:
There is no ritual washing in Christianity. Baptism has nothing to do with “purification”. Christianity concerns the spirit, not the flesh.
Since everyone knows that ritual purification plays a large role in the Old Testament, obviously I was using “pagan” in the broader sense of “not Christian”. (The Concise OED says, “early Christians called themselves milites or ‘soldiers’ enlisted in the ‘army’ of Christ, and used paganus to mean ‘heathen’ (i.e., not part of that ‘army).”)

Posted by: Demian | Apr 28 2014 6:21 utc | 52

Petri 51.
Ukraine is not “my side”. I am looking all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR, when nothing at all was done to address the issues of Russian nationals living abroad, or how to divide up the infrastructure, resources and assets of the 15 nations that were once held jointly.
Instead, the assets were left to be snatched up by oligarchs, and the expatriate Russians, once a privileged minority, were left to seethe in resentment over their new diminished status.
Russia is now taking advantage of the situation to its own ends.
I do not wholeheartedly support the new government in Kiev or its leaders, but I do not see developments there as a justification for starting to redraw the map of Europe by force or threat of force.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 28 2014 6:58 utc | 54

Posted by: Demian | Apr 28, 2014 2:21:48 AM | 52
“There is no ritual washing in Christianity.”
And history records many, many, many instances where this had a very distressing effect on the noses on non-Christians.
http://wordinfo.info/unit/2701/ip:1 Ablutions or Bathing, Historical Perspectives

Posted by: scalawag | Apr 28 2014 6:58 utc | 56

Petri Krohn
What is the view in Finland on Ukraine/Russia? Only anti-russian?

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 28 2014 7:17 utc | 58

@ Petri Krohn | 9

Are you saying produced the films but faked the murders? I find that unlikely.
There are only two realistic options:
1) The murders are real. Pravy Sector produced the videos as tools of terrors.
2) The murders are fake. Someone else produced the films to frame Pravy Sector.

I’m basing my opinion on the fact the 1st victim – police chief is alive and well. Pravy Sector made two(?) gruesome movies about him, with throat slashing. 2nd hanged victim also seems fake, too many details are off comparing to actually hanged people, its unanimous opinion by Russian commentators: http://vk.com/wall-70006340_55365 and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdj24-pWnzc
Also there is a 3rd realistic option:
3) Pravy Sector produced these fake videos as tools of intimidation and terror, as well as to show “they are serious” and to get “street cred.”
In Syria or Libya there were many actually beheaded or hanged people, and still terrorists produced many fake videos, some for propaganda or to get cash from sponsors.
One could argue that these Pravy Sector videos are more useful for Russia’s line about fascists and the need to protect Russian speakers, so theoretically it can be done by them, but lets not forget pretty much everything Pravy Sector and Svoboda do goes perfectly in-line with Russia’s warnings about radicals and their threat. Therefore there is no need for Russia to be involved in faking such videos, radicals are doing just fine on their own. Its consistent with their history, behavior and mentality. I’m glad these are fakes, but if civil war starts, you can bet there will be real videos about it.

Posted by: Harry | Apr 28 2014 7:31 utc | 60

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 28, 2014 2:58:13 AM | 54
You’re simply a victim of Western propaganda. Russia certainly is not ‘taking advantage’ of anything. It is attempting to salvage what it can and protect Russian speakers in Eastern and Southern Ukraine from the US-instigated coup government in Ukraine. What Russia wants, and what most eastern Ukrainians want, is establishment of a federalized Ukraine with very strong regional governments. This was never Russia’s first preference, instead it is what the West has forced upon it. Obviously what Russia wanted a few months ago was to continue massively subsidizing Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine coming closer to Russia economically by (possibly) joining the Eurasian economic union. Second place would be a neutral Ukraine that is independent of both NATO/US and Russia. What Russia is going for now is likely its third or fourth preference.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 28 2014 8:02 utc | 62

One important thing you can do on the mainstream sites is attack the prow of their ship, the now standard ‘lie’, “pro-Russian”:

Just for starters, the relevant and accurate descriptor is one of the following: “pro-federation,” “pro-referendum,” or “anti-coup.”
By calling the forces “pro-Russian,” the Guardian is getting over a Big Lie to its readers, that the eastern Ukrainians want to unite with Russia. The fact is that all of the leadership in eastern Ukraine wants to be part of a Ukrainian federation in which the regions have strong powers. Understandable, since they don’t trust the coup masters and their right-wing thug enforcers.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 28 2014 8:09 utc | 64

About the movies, as I think seems real, strange thing though is that it hasnt been on RT or any news site at all..

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 28 2014 9:08 utc | 66

@farleft #62,
in the good old days of the USSR, the Republic one lived in was just an administrative matter. And Russians living in the other Republics often enjoyed a privileged status.
With the sudden and unplanned collapse of the USSR, those Russians lost their privileges, and in some cases, even their citizenship. That was something that should have been considered before dismantling the USSR.
I would like to see the entire region adapt a system closer to that of Western Europe, where your basic rights and privileges are universal, and you place of residence or work it is only a matter of certain local laws and where you pay your taxes.
Is this really what Russia wants, and is that is what was behind their annexation of the Ukraine?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 28 2014 10:37 utc | 68

valentina ‏@valenti27051839 8m
@Steiner1776 @BSpringnote Steiner, Kernes was one of the persons who paid Pravy Sector for their attacks,so he became victim of their attack

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 10:51 utc | 70

Truth about situation in Ukraine shared a link.
15 hours ago · Edited
This video works!
Neonazis brutally beat the pro-russian demonstrants in Kharkov. One is killed, many Demonstrants and Policemen are injured. The comments of the boy, who is shooting the video from his window: There they go, the colorado beetles. The oldster fall down, he will get in the snout, that’s right. Yes, that’s right, beat this idiot, kill this Russian dog. Yes, they smashed his head!
Please share!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbOaz-r1vio

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 11:17 utc | 72

Haha the danish military caught has been in Iraq/Afghanistan for NATo
His name: John Gerhard Christensen
https://www.facebook.com/johniraq?fref=ts
And hes been in Ukraine since 2013! I have no facebook but apparently there are anti-russian pro-ukraine photos on his Facebook (or were).
Is this sanctioned by the danish government?

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 28 2014 11:57 utc | 74

Those of you who actually enjoy licking up puke will be delighted by this new exercise in total puke from the Independent’s Kim Sengupta. They have created a synthetic ‘SBU Colonel Julia’ for the camera – scroll down to look at her tits in that fetching camo t-shirt:
http://tiny.cc/6qz0ex

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 28 2014 12:04 utc | 76

Anonymous @74.
Little Johnny seems to have been associated with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, yet another international foundation. This one appears to be populated by lots of national MoD/DoD types. Johnny’s Facebook page now appears to have been scrubbed.
One thing to bear in mind – it was (is?) common for CIA agents to be given cover as members of a non-existent US military outfit. I presume other nations do the equivalent for their State Security people.

Posted by: Yonatan | Apr 28 2014 12:46 utc | 78

guess who tried to visit Donetsk… as much a dempcrat as the JUNTA
deserved!
RETWEETED BY ANATOLY KARLIN
chinahand @chinahand · 16h
Khodorkovsky heckled by pro-Russian activists in east Ukraine http://news.yahoo.com/khodorkovsky-heckled-pro-russian-activists-east-ukraine-192113960.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons … via @YahooNews

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 13:15 utc | 80

Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia
Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev
Vladimir Rybak’s killing: the art of provocation

Posted by: ProPeace | Apr 28 2014 13:38 utc | 82

Through CSTO, Moscow Readies For Ideological Battle With West
April 21, 2014 – 11:19am, by Joshua Kucera The Bug Pit CSTO Russia
Russia is gearing up for an ideological battle with the West, using its post-Soviet security apparatus to counter the threat of “color revolutions” around its borders.
The Russia-led political-military bloc the Collective Security Treaty Organization recently held a roundtable in Minsk on countering “color revolutions,” the motley collection of recent popular uprisings that, in the Kremlin’s mind (or perhaps only its propaganda), are orchestrated by the U.S. and include such disparate revolutions as Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, and Syria. “All so-called ‘color revolutions’ are carefully prepared in advance by the creation and training of ‘leaders’ and special groups capable of organizing protest actions of the population aimed at creating informational-psychological pressure on the government,” said CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha at the event. And he called for the “collective response using the CSTO” to combat those threats in CSTO countries (which, in addition to Russia, include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan).
The CSTO has been making those sorts of statements for a while, but the events in Ukraine seem to have sharpened its focus on color revolutions. Bordyuzha, however, has been fairly vague about what, exactly, the CSTO could do about the issue. Аn analysis was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta making some more concrete suggestions about what the CSTO and Russia could do. One of its suggestions was to work with the press, and the fact that it came out the same day as the Minsk roundtable suggested that the article may itself be part of the strategy.
The author, Aleksandr Bartosh, is more explicit than Bordyuzha can be about who, exactly, are organizing these color revolutions:
The coordinated and deliberate activity of our geopolitical enemies, above all the U.S. and NATO, is a powerful source of challenges, risks, dangers, and threats of a nonmilitary character for Russia and its allies in the CIS and CSTO. This activity in the post-Soviet space includes a complex of information-psychological operations for the deformation of the consciousness and national-cultural identity of the population, incitement into a dead-end way of development, and creation of a network of agents. As the events in Ukraine show, the goal of such actions is the violation of the subjectivity of development, strengthening of the confrontational spiral, replacement of the government elites and support of the opposition, ready to act in the framework of models of external rule.
It’s a remarkable framing of the issue. If you want to see a “complex of information-psychological operations” aimed at shaping “national-cultural identity of the population” to the end of organizing “opposition” to implement “external rule,” Russia is conducting a master class right now in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. While U.S. democracy promotion organizations certainly nudged along some of the color revolutions (notably Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine), if they could pull things off as effectively as Russia has done in Ukraine, the world would look very different today. And yet, the defensiveness and circling of the wagons in Russia’s approach to Ukraine generally is mirrored in this proposed CSTO strategy more specifically: it’s exclusively defensive, seeking only to preserve the current order around its borders rather than to export it further afield: “NATO continues to actively work in the Caucasus and Central Asia, not simply ignoring the fact of the CSTO’s existence, but also often circumventing Russia and the political elites of CSTO member countries… The increase in capability of the CSTO to counter threats of a nonmilitary character will add stability to the 21st century world order, decrease threats of large-scale war, and enable the preservation of Russia and the CIS countries in the framework of a united identity of Eurasian civilization.”
Specifically, Bartosh calls for upping the CSTO’s “public diplomacy” efforts:
In the framework of countering nonmilitary threats the CSTO needs to create its own system of public diplomacy, one of the tasks of which should be to form a positive image of the CSTO on the national and international level….
In this respect, the explanation of the national policy in the sphere of defense and security, as well as the role belonging to each country in the CSTO, should be the prerogative of the government of the corresponding governments. Each country should independently choose the methods of information and allocate the necessary resources. The goal: to ensure the public’s understanding of the policies of the country and its role and place in the CSTO.
Bartosh isn’t alone in his analysis: Editor-in-chief of the website Vestnik Kavkaza comes to a similar conclusion:
The situation is Ukraine is a result of the work on making people sincerely believe that by supporting the Maidan they support democratic legitimate power… To prevent repetition of the situation in other parts of the post-Soviet space, we should extend the notion of security. The CSTO responds to foreign risks, while a big part of threats and challenges comes from inside under financial and administrative support of foreign forces. We should consider the facts in establishing of a full-scale system of Eurasian security.
And intriguingly, China also recently weighed in on the color revolution threat and proposed that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a China-led group also including Russia and most of Central Asia, do more about it: “External forces are using the social-economic contradictions and problems … to overthrow the authorities and are trying to provoke a new wave of color revolutions,” said Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, at an SCO meeting in Dushanbe. “This is a serious threat to the sovereignty and security of countries in the region and is a shared concern of the SCO member states.” While color revolutions have been on the agenda of the CSTO for some time, they have not been much under discussion in the SCO, which tends to focus more on Beijing-centric bogeymen like “splittists.” So perhaps this is a new focus, or perhaps its a rhetorical bone thrown to Moscow.
In any case, if Russia and the CSTO are going to start publicly elaborating a “united identity of Eurasian civilization,” that’s going to be pretty interesting.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68288?utm_content=buffereb0a4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Posted by: brian | Apr 28 2014 13:42 utc | 84

@80
Priceless!

Posted by: Tea | Apr 28 2014 13:53 utc | 86

“Lustration” or the verb “lustrer” in French also means to purify, to return (something) to its essence, its true nature, its fundamental quality, etc. It also means to sterilize, i.e. to get rid of impurities, or shed what is not useful or good. Latin: lustratio, Eng. luster for ex.
So the word has a broader meaning than the original coming from Rome.
The word ‘lustration’ was used after the fall of the Wall to describe the publication of ‘secret service communist collaborator’ lists. I believe it is even an official judiciary term in law texts, in many countries (languages): Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria.. so it is common, has a precise meaning, well understood to mean “out” and “get rid of” the whatever people. Why this term was chosen I know not, maybe a ‘new’ word (not purification and the like) was needed; maybe the sense of ‘lustration’ was more towards ‘shed the bad’ to begin with?

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 28 2014 14:01 utc | 88

Instead, the assets were left to be snatched up by oligarchs, and the expatriate Russians, once a privileged minority, were left to seethe in resentment over their new diminished status.
Russia is now taking advantage of the situation to its own ends.
I do not wholeheartedly support the new government in Kiev or its leaders, but I do not see developments there as a justification for starting to redraw the map of Europe by force or threat of force.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 28, 2014 2:58:13 AM | 54

A cogent and sane comment immersed in a morass of incoherent insane comments. Well said, ralphieboy.
It reminds me of Reconstruction in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. The handling of it was abysmal and as a result, we still have some remnants fighting that war seeking to restore their former glory without ever realizing you can never go back. There’s only forward, but they never learn.
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

One effect of Reconstruction was to fuse the whites into a single homogeneous party. Before the war political divisions were sharply drawn and feeling often bitter, so also in 1865-1867 and to a certain extent during the early period of Reconstruction. At first there was no “Solid South”; within the white man’s party there were grave differences between old Whig and old Democrat, Radical and Conservative. There were different local problems before the whites of[Pg 767] the various sections that for a while prevented the formation of a unanimous white man’s party. There were the whites of the Black Belt, the former slaveholders, who wished well to the negro, favored negro education, and looked upon his political activity as a joke, but who came nearer than any other white people to recognizing the possibility of permanent political privileges for the black. They believed that they could sooner or later regain moral control over their former slaves and thus do away with the evils of carpet-bag government.
It must be said that the former slaveholding class had more consideration, then, before, and since, for the poor negro than for the poor white, probably because the negroes only were always with them. The poorest whites felt that the negro was not only their social but also their economic enemy, and, the protection of the owner removed, the blacks suffered more from these people than ever before. The negro in school, the negro in politics, the negro on the best lands—all this was not liked by the poorest white people, whose opportunities were not as good as those of the blacks. Between these two extremes was the mass of the whites, displeased at the way negro suffrage, education, etc., was imposed, but willing to put up with the results if good. The later years of Reconstruction found the temper of the whites more and more exasperated. They were tired of Reconstruction, new amendments, force bills, Federal troops, and of being ruled as a conquered province by the least fit. Every measure aimed at the South seemed to them to mean that they were considered incorrigible, not worthy of trust, and when necessary to punish some whites, all were punished. And strong opposition to proscriptive measures was called fresh rebellion. “When the Jacobins say and do low and bitter things, their charge of want of loyalty in the South because our people grumble back a little seems to me as unreasonable as the complaint of the little boy: ‘Mamma, make Bob ’have hisself. He makes mouths at me every time I hit him with my stick.’” Probably the grind was harder on the young men, who had all life before them and who were growing up with slight opportunities in any line of activity. Sidney Lanier, then an Alabama school-teacher, wrote to Bayard Taylor, “Perhaps you know that with us of the young generation in the South, since the war, pretty much the whole of life has been merely not dying.” Negro and alien rule was a constant insult to the intelligence of the country. The taxpayers were non-participants. Some people[Pg 768] withdrew entirely from public life, went to their farms or plantations, kept away from towns and from speech-making, waiting for the end to come. I know old men who refused for several years to read the newspapers, so unpleasant was the news. The good feeling produced by the magnanimity of Grant at Appomattox was destroyed by his southern policy when President. There was no gratitude for any so-called leniency of the North, no repentance for the war, no desire for humiliation, for sackcloth and ashes and confession of wrong. The insistence of the Radicals upon a confession of depravity only made things much worse. There was not a single measure of Congress during Reconstruction designed or received in a conciliatory spirit.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Apr 28 2014 14:10 utc | 90

Exxon And Rosneft Continue Oil Exploration
“U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil and Russian state energy major Rosneft will continue to develop hydrocarbon reserves in the Arctic even as broader sanctions over the unrest in Ukraine may target the energy sector and its executives.
Rosneft approved the development of two oil fields jointly with ExxonMobil at a board meeting on Monday, the company said in a statement.”
Surprise surprise…

Posted by: Tea | Apr 28 2014 14:22 utc | 92

Among those sanctioned were Igor Sechin, head of state energy firm Rosneft, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak. A Russian deputy foreign minister was quoted as expressing “disgust” at the White House announcement.
More Sanctions

Posted by: Tea | Apr 28 2014 14:29 utc | 94

Truth or propaganda?

Here’s How Obama’s Russia Sanctions Will Destroy Vladimir Putin
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/04/28/heres-how-obamas-sanctions-will-destroy-vladimir-putin/
When Russians arrive back home, they will find things only getting worse. The Russian economy is expected to fall into recession this quarter and Putin’s continued adventures will only get more expensive. Before long, imported goods will become scarce and social payments will need to be cut. Russians will begin to remember what the Soviet Union was really like.
In the years to come, decreased gas exports to Europe and a softening market for oil could cost the Russian economy as much as $100 billion annually—roughly 5% of GDP. Putin promised a new stronger Russia, respected throughout the world. Now he is delivering an impoverished pariah state.

Posted by: Virgile | Apr 28 2014 15:35 utc | 96

At least in the Ukrainian-language versions I have seen and was paying attention to, the word used was “лустрацiя”

Posted by: sid_finster | Apr 28 2014 15:46 utc | 98

@98
That’s weird. In Ukrainian, the word is spelled with a ю, not an у. So I’d be interested to see which Ukrainian sites you’re reading with the wrong spelling in them…
Ukrainian wiki page for spelling purposes

Posted by: ДжММ | Apr 28 2014 16:02 utc | 100