IMF Bailout for Ukraine Will Come with Massive Austerity
More?

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Feb 13 2015 19:57 utc | 3

Young ukrainan looking like…I dont know is ready to kill!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2_oyGQeVCA&feature=player_detailpage#t=33

Posted by: Anonymous_test | Feb 13 2015 20:24 utc | 5

@6
You’ve lost it completely.

Posted by: jfl | Feb 13 2015 20:36 utc | 7

From TRNN:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13210

Posted by: ben | Feb 13 2015 20:44 utc | 9

A number of Russian media now reports that a group of soldiers from Murmansk refused to go to fight in Ukraine. Or, more precisely, they requested that their commander gives them the order officially, on paper, and notified Russian human rights activists.
There was a similar situation with paratroopers from Pskov last year, when a group was dispatched to fight in Donbass and immediately died in an artillery attack after crossing the Ukrainian border.

Posted by: Ulster | Feb 13 2015 21:39 utc | 11

Another fun fact about the new Minsk Agreement: can anyone explain why Tornado-S was included on the list of equipment to be withdrawn?
Hint: check who is the exclusive user of Tornado-S and when Russian army officially enlisted it on their equipment.

Posted by: Ulster | Feb 13 2015 21:57 utc | 13

Possible variant:
Gott mit uns

Posted by: rjj | Feb 13 2015 22:18 utc | 15

@ Demian #6, Ulster #12
I’ve never heard “Бог даст” in actual speech. But even the non-religious in Russia (and I ran into it from Ukrainians a fair bit, too… though they call him “boh”, which just sounds weird) use “дай бог” not infrequently in everyday speech. And to keep the colloquial sense, I’d translate that pretty much the same way Saker used.

Posted by: DZhMM | Feb 13 2015 23:15 utc | 17

If anyone can demonstrate that the expression “God willing” has any Christian provenance, I would be most grateful.

I don’t imagine anecdote will help here, but I worked with an Orthodox Christian who used this expression regularly.
I have also heard my sister’s Calvinist husband say it, so it’s not unheard of amongst Reformed Protestant types either.

Posted by: RudyM | Feb 13 2015 23:29 utc | 19

Yes, there are still Calvinists.

Posted by: RudyM | Feb 13 2015 23:30 utc | 21

And it looks like Martin Luther used the phrase as well, unless this is an awful translation:
God willing, we shall start for Wittenberg tomorrow.

Posted by: RudyM | Feb 13 2015 23:43 utc | 23

@18 “Бог даст” literally translates to “if God allows” or “God willing”, and according to this is a “statement expressing the hope of a successful outcome of events”.

Posted by: Ulster | Feb 14 2015 0:13 utc | 25

Posted by: Ulster | Feb 13, 2015 7:13:20 PM | 26
Yep, it exists in German, too, “so Gott will”.
For some reason the negative “Gott bewahre” “god forbid” is more common …. I guess people prefer to think if they succeed, it is them, and if something bad happens it is the will of god :-))

Posted by: somebody | Feb 14 2015 0:23 utc | 27

GOD WILLING
Do nonconformists count as Christians?
2 of several from John Wesley’s letters (always in context of travel) :
July 12, 1760 There the Conference is to begin (if it please God to give me a prosperous voyage) on Wednesday, August 27. If there be no ship ready to sail from Cork on or about August 20, I design (God willing) to return straight to Dublin, and embark there.
June 3, 1774 I purpose, God willing, to leave York on Wednesday, July 13; to dine at Leeds that day, and preach there at half-hour past six in the evening.
Does D also have a list of authorized/approved benedictions?

Posted by: rjj | Feb 14 2015 0:33 utc | 29

@26
We all know what it means — it’s only two words, and they each only mean one thing. The point was that, in six years living and moving around Russia I never heard a single person actually say “Бог даст”, while it was no uncommon thing at all (in fact, I picked it up myself as a verbal tic and it still shows up every once in a while) to hear “Дай вог”. Which second is *also* ‘a statement expressing the hope of a successful outcome of events’.
Demian’s claim that the use of an americanized version of the same is somehow evidence of non-Russianness is simply silly. Even non-religious Russians use the phrase.

Posted by: DZhMM | Feb 14 2015 0:37 utc | 31

@citizen x, 10:
“I shit on the communion wafer (Me cago en la hostia – google translate tells that com. wafer is the translation for “hostia”, ain’t there a single word for this?)”
“Host” would be the single word, I think, or more fully “consecrated host.” I’ve never been monotheist so I don’t speak from inside knowledge, but I think it refers to the consecration allowing the wafer to be the host for the body of Christ (same substance? different substance? I guess it depends on the recipe). Can anyone with inside knowledge of this verify/disprove?
All the “I shit on…” curse constructions are interesting; I’ve never heard any of them in Latin American Spanish, but I have read of “Mentulam caco” which in Latin means “I shit on your prick.” I imagine it goes way back…
“Today I learned that prior to the Civil War, it was almost a republican “sport” to burn churches and kill priests (tell me about a grudge!).”
I once saw a photo of Spanish Republican soldiers training volunteers, using a statue of Jesus for target practice… Of course, the Catholic Church was staunchly on the side of the fascists.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Feb 14 2015 0:53 utc | 33

God isn’t real, Demian.
Posted by: Demian is a dumbshit | Feb 13, 2015 5:21:19 PM | 16
Yes She is.
Did you forget that “God” & “Religion” have nothing whatsoever in common?
What next … DNA designed itself?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 14 2015 1:11 utc | 35

Sorry to break in on the theological discussion among non-believers … except maybe hoarse? Excellent troll topic!
Ms. Merkel and Peace

One can assume that all European governments, including Ms Merkel’s, are well informed about the real situation in the Donbass. In public they talk about the ‘evil separatists’, but they do know that the Ukrainian army shells the cities. They know the extent of destruction and they know who is responsible. Why? Because OSCE delivers this information daily to their desks. Publicly the OSCE acts as though it is not capable of calculating from the remains of a rocket stuck in the ground the direction from which it came. The reality is different. We can assume that all the atrocities committed by the Ukranian regime throughout the last months are well known. That includes the humanitarian situation in the Donbass.

The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout?

The only parties to the deal who had to sign it are the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk break-away republics. The other signers to the Minsk deal are an OSCE representative which is the European group that is supposed to monitor the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, a former Ukrainian president Viktor Kuchma, and the Russian ambassador in Kiev. Neither the German chancellor nor the French, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents who brokered the deal had to sign it.
The ceasefire is of no benefit to the Donetsk and Lugansk republics as they are prevailing in the conflict. Moreover, the deal requires the republics’ forces to give up territory and to pull back to the borders of last September and to eject fighters from France and other countries who have come to the aid of the break-away republics. In other words, the agreement erases all of Kiev’s losses from the conflict that Kiev initiated.
All of the risks of the agreement are imposed on the break-away republics and on Putin. The provinces are required to give up all their gains while Washington trains and arms Ukrainian forces to attack the provinces. The republics have to give up their security and trust Kiev long before Kiev votes, assuming it ever does, autonomy for the republics.
Moreover, if the one-sided terms of the Minsk agreement result in failure, Putin and the republics will be blamed.
Why would Putin make such a deal and force it on the republics? If the deal becomes a Russian sell-out of the republics, it will hurt Putin’s nationalist support within Russia and make it easier for Washington to weaken Putin and perhaps achieve regime change. It looks more like a surrender than a fair deal.
Perhaps Putin’s strategy is to give away every advantage in the expectation that the deal will fail, and the Russian government can say “we gave away the store and the deal still failed.”

And whose store did they give away … for a deal that still failed? The people who had to sign the deal which they had zero input on.
With friends like these the DPR and LPR don’t need enemies.

Posted by: jfl | Feb 14 2015 1:50 utc | 37

>Russia takes Ukraine accords to the Security Council
Now the US have to confess.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 14 2015 2:21 utc | 39

@jfl #38:
As somedody noted a while ago, you should link to the original source. That is PCR’s blog, not Counterpunch. Also, PCR has an update to that post.
Finally, PCR appears to be out of his depth, since he refers to an imaginary entity called “Ukraine”, which exists only in the minds of Nazis.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 2:56 utc | 41

@Scott #43:
Haha, I guess I’ve effectively been a troll in this thread. But I have no regrets, since the phrase “God willing” really bothers me, and I got informative feedback as to how that relates to Christianity. (To reformulate an idea I expressed before: I find the idea that God cares about what you do in your mundane daily life to be vulgar.)
To get back on track:
DeepResource: Jacques Attali Says US Wants to use France in War Against Russia

We can get rid of the MTV/Disney culture and have the grandeur of European civilization back and continue where we left off in 1914, the year Europe got terribly lost and the dominance of Anglosphere over continental Europe began. The time has come to reverse that.

I have a strong feeling that Atlanticism is on the skids. Europe: Goodbye American woman.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 3:44 utc | 43

Right Sector militants surrounded the Krasnoarmeisk Ukrainian command headquaters, threatening to storm it
I’ve been expecting some form of conflict eventually to erupt between the UAF and the fascist volunteer units ever since Ilovaisk. Whatever may be planned in terms of another coup, between fascist barrier troops shooting retreating UAF conscripts, incidents of UAF artillery shelling fascist battalions, and events such as reported above, general hostilities may break out between the two at any moment.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Feb 14 2015 4:38 utc | 45

Russian Spring
02/14/2015-02:10
Units of Lugansk Republic army secured positions in north part of Debal`tsevo:
In the evening of February 13, the Lugansk army combatants entered city Debal`tsevo. The fourth mechanized brigade of Lugansk Ministry of Defence (also identified as “Batman’s” brigade) and the brigade “Prizrak” (“Stecter”) under command of A. Mozgovoy stormed their way through the defense frontiers of Debal`tsevo caldron enduring large casualties from both sides.
The battles continue on the streets of the city. “Our units entered outskirts of Debal`tsevo, and having secured there, battle taking new streets”, said combatant Aleksandr.
According to last data, north part of the city is under control of special units of Lugansk Republic, and they attempt to tear through the fortifications of the Ukrainian forces near railway.
The combatants would not accept the ceasfire until Debal`tsevo is liberated. Everyone knows that the Ukrainian troops locked in the caldron exert looting and humiliate locals.
“The real situation is far from pictured by media; it is more complex and twisted. The ceasefire might apply to someone, but, in any case, local clashes and shootouts will go on”, says one combatant.

Posted by: Fete | Feb 14 2015 4:42 utc | 47

@demian:If anyone can demonstrate that the expression “God willing” has any Christian provenance, I would be most grateful.
James 4:15 😉

Posted by: The Saker | Feb 14 2015 5:20 utc | 49

@rufus magister #48:
Matt. 18: 19-20, 33, 35. ESV.
Enlightened Anglophones read the NRSV. That is also the translation which liberal scholars use.
And your constant dwelling on deism is getting old. Deism was just a fad, and as far as I can tell, no one took it seriously aside from American high school history teachers. You are evidently looking for a rational response to Christianity, and that is not deism, but Hegel. Read Hegel by Frederick Beiser. (Haha, TypePad let me link to that.)

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 5:58 utc | 51

@The Saker #51:
Thank you so much for answering my question. I hope that you will continue to monitor this excellent blog.
As for the Biblical passage you cite, I’m afraid that I am not into taking snippets of Biblical text as being probative for what Christianity is about.
You grew up in a Catholic European country. I grew up in the northeastern US. Thus, it should not be surprising that your and my receptions of Russian Orthodoxy are different. Nevertheless, my view of Russian Orthodoxy has improved considerably since the Ukrainian crisis started, and I never stopped having a friendly and cheerful attitude towards Russian Orthodoxy, even though I don’t understand it, since I grew up in America. But Russian Orthodoxy is easy going. There is no such thing as a lapsed Russian Orthodox, like a lapsed Catholic. I hope that I will once more have occasion to take communion in a Russian Orthodox church.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 6:27 utc | 53

in re 53 —
I harp on Deism when your ill-considered and retrograde anti-catholicism annoys me. I see no reason to reconsider historical materialism.

Posted by: rufus magister | Feb 14 2015 7:36 utc | 55

@31 crone.. i enjoyed your post. thanks.
@49 fete. thanks
@ demian.. i like your determination and perseverance in the face of obstacles.

Posted by: james | Feb 14 2015 7:44 utc | 57

Something happened. Main stream media are losing sympathy with Kyiv – New York Times:

Sifting fact from fiction in Ukraine remains a challenge nearly a year after the conflict erupted after weeks of peaceful demonstrations in the capital, Kiev.
Earlier this week, a BBC News investigation of a pivotal moment in the transformation of last year’s peaceful protest movement in Kiev into deadly violence — the killing of dozens of protesters on Feb. 20 — suggested that the security forces might not have used deadly force until after they were first shot at by armed supporters of the pro-Western demonstrators.

Now waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 14 2015 8:09 utc | 59

@ToivoS #61:
For some reason they are standing and resisting. And it seems that religion is part of it.
In my humble and naive opinion, I don’t think that religion has much to do with it. Certainly Orthodoxy is a major component of Russian nationalism and identity (according to my casual folk knowledge of history, Stalin had to bring back Orthodoxy in order to motivate the Russians to fight the Germans), but I don’t think that religion is in play here. Resisting fascism is just as much a part of Russian identity as Orthodoxy (I think I can tell, since my family were on the Nazi/German side), and I think that that is what is motivating the Novorossiyans to fight. To them, it is World War II (the Great Patriotic War) all over again.
@rufus magister #56:
your ill-considered and retrograde anti-catholicism annoys me.
Your Roman Catholic apologetics are vulgar. And you have previously taken a dogmatic atheist position. Thus, your coming to the defense of Catholicism can only be seen as the manifestation of a reactionary personality.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 9:55 utc | 61

“deo concedente” the humble formula medieval alchemists
used in their treatises
read: C.G.Jung, Psychology ans Alchemy

Posted by: mundanomaniac | Feb 14 2015 11:26 utc | 63

Posted by: Noirette | Feb 14, 2015 6:32:34 AM | 65
:-))
you can’t really use it in a “can do, will do” business environment …

Posted by: somebody | Feb 14 2015 12:41 utc | 65

As far as I know, God doesn’t interfere with free will or human politics but perhaps through the concept of irony. Everywhere and everything else is subject to infinite conjecture. Unless you know with absolute certainty, which is the provence of foolishness.
So political and conjecture about world situations is why we all are here? That certainly seems fair game.

Posted by: Geoff | Feb 14 2015 13:20 utc | 67

in re 62 —
No phenomena is wholly good or bad. The church kept literacy and antiquity alive. Christianity’s notions about human dignity enabled later Enlightenment thinkers to further advance the notion of human rights. It is clearly a Christian organization.
If it has done great wrongs, it is because it wielded great power for a long time. Their treatment of pedophilia amongst the clergy is an abomination. Same for their role in Irish social services for single mothers.
Mrs. M., btw, is Catholic. More so than when we first married. So we had to get it redone in according to Rome’s liking. The things we do for love.
And most importantly, on topic, from NewColdWar — Ukraine ultranationalist leader rejects Minsk peace deal, reserves right ‘to continue war’. Long analysis, worthy, highlight:

If the Minsk Agreement is all but guaranteed to fail, has anything been achieved at all? The short answer is ‘not very much’. The Russians have managed to move the focus further in their direction by putting the question of constitutional negotiations at centre stage and by linking the question of control of the border to the successful outcome of these negotiations.

And now it’s off to the Ephrata Cloister in Amish Country. Seriously. Little road trip, see some family on the way back.

Posted by: rufus magister | Feb 14 2015 14:08 utc | 69

acri, you missed the point. It is about the propriety of the expression God willing as a pious ejaculation (I hope that’s the correct rhetorical term).
Thank God nobody was accused of winding up D.

Posted by: rjj | Feb 14 2015 14:17 utc | 71

the point of this formula (Deo volente) is not so much to profess pious belief in God as to recognize the contingency of all human statements about future events–Arabs today interject the same formula whenever speaking in the future tense, Greeks of the older generation still do this (prota o Theos)

Posted by: Cu Chulainn | Feb 14 2015 14:33 utc | 73

@Harold #45
Deus Vult is no longer used that commonly – as crusades are now justified by other means such as R2P.
However, the sentiment underlying it still very much exists.
Look up the Council of Clermont sometime…

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Feb 14 2015 16:31 utc | 75

Several years ago I quit reading the Race for Iran blog, because it became a “warzone” between different sects of Islam. I’m not even sure the blog is still up.
On topic:
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol11/vol11_no1_Minsk_2_Victory_for_the_Transnational_Elite_in_Ukraine.html
At the economic level, the aim of the coup was to create a client regime in Ukraine which would torpedo the Eurasian Union, given that once Ukraine had joined the EU, even as an associate member, it could never become a full member of a political and economic union like the EEU, which is based on the national and economic sovereignty of each member nation. This is by definition incompatible with membership of the EU, which effectively abolishes the economic, and therefore national, sovereignty of its members which are not also members of the TE. Given the particular significance (economic, geopolitical, cultural) of Ukraine for Russia and the Eurasian Union, one can imagine why its integration into the EU is a very serious ― if not mortal ― blow for the proposed Eurasian Union.
At the geopolitical level, the establishment of a client regime by the TE in Ukraine would mean the completion of Russia’s encirclement, as all other countries in the area have already either joined NATO and/or the EU, or are expected to do so in the near future. With the stakes being so high, once the people of Eastern Ukraine had begun a heroic struggle against the Kiev junta, the latter launched a huge terrorist campaign against them, with the full support of the TE and the decisive help of the Euro-fascists of Maidan (the Right Sector etc. who, although being self-declared fascists, still fight under the EU flag!). This terrorist campaign culminated in the massacres that took place in Odessa and Mariupol, and the mass bombing of hospitals, schools, bus stations etc. in the cities of Donbass. This was clearly a systematic effort to subjugate the people of these areas which resulted in thousands of victims, while Western humanists looked the other way and Russia’s fifth columnists did everything they could to minimize the significance of the massacre.
~~~
At the same time, the TE began a vicious economic, military and propaganda campaign against Russia, although the latter did everything it could to placate them: from the de facto recognition of the junta and the electoral farces that followed to legitimize the coup, to refusing to recognize the rebel republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The inevitable result was that the rebel republics were not even allowed to take part in the ‘peace’ negotiations and Putin had to negotiate instead with the war criminal Poroshenko and his bosses in the TE.
The economic war against Russia involved everything from sanctions to the use of the ‘oil weapon,’[2] so that the Russian people could be made to suffer as much economic damage as possible for daring to support the Ukrainian rebels and, even more so, for celebrating Crimea’s re-integration with Russia. Lately, the TE further tightened the screw by threatening Putin with Russia’s exclusion from the Swift banking payment system, something which, according to Andrei Kostin, chief executive of VTB ― Russia’s second-largest bank ― would be tantamount to “war.”[3]

Posted by: okie farmer | Feb 14 2015 17:27 utc | 77

any interesting comments on the satellite pics that geoffrey pyatt is sharing on twitter? since it is g pyatt i think that explains it all, but was curious of others views on this..
how about the pictures senator inhofe was sharing, thanks the good folks/liars in kiev?

Posted by: james | Feb 14 2015 18:23 utc | 79

#Debian
Use of sentiments such as “God Willing” are also common outside Christianity:
Wikipedia article: “Inshallah. or Inshallah, is Arabic for ‘God willing’ or ‘if Allah wills’. The term is used in the Islamic world, but it is also common in Christian groups in the Middle East, in parts of Africa and among Portuguese and Spanish-speaking peoples.”
The Jews say “From your mouth to God’s ear”, although, curiously, I thought they were forbidden to pronounce the name of God.

Posted by: gersen | Feb 14 2015 19:27 utc | 81

The really notorious saying of the crusaders was supposed to have been uttered in 1209 by at the start of the massacre at Béziers, during the Albigensian crusade against heretics in southern France. When asked how the crusaders were to distinguish heretics from orthodox believers, the papal legate is supposed to have replied: “Kill them all, God will know his own.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominus_qui_sunt_eius

Posted by: Harold | Feb 14 2015 19:50 utc | 83

@gersen #83:
Use of sentiments such as “God Willing” are also common outside Christianity
Well yes, the reason I raised the question in the first place is that the expression “God willing” sounds utterly alien to my (atheist) Christian ears. But because of the discussion in this thread, I will try to become more tolerant of such language. Although as far as I can tell, the use of such language is blasphemous.
@ToivoS #82:
Internal areas means Debaltsevo.
You’ve got to hand it to the Novorossiyans: they are clever. (That is why they are winning the war. Ukrainians in contrast operate on the level of cows.) Anyway, Zakharchenko obviously wouldn’t have said that without approval from Moscow. Putin has had it with being the nice guy.
Zakharchenko looks haggard in that video. How long are the junta and the Empire going to continue this madness? Until one or the other or both collapse, I guess.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 20:37 utc | 85

While I would never say that M2A has been a “betrayal” of NovoRussia by Russia, I would say it was totally predictable that:
1) Ukraine would violate the ceasefire.
2) Russia (personified as “Putin”) would be blamed for it, and
3) Demands for more sanctions/arming of Ukies would ensue.
I’m waiting to be convinced that Merkle/Hollande were doing anything other than act as the imperial cat’s paw. The both sides of the “Atlantic Partnership” have an interest in the illusion of independence, but what I think we have is at best, the US is looking for a face saving way out and wants to pull back from the brink but put the blame on the cowardly Europeans. And at worst the US looking to use France and Germany to negotiate with Russia on their behalf to save the Junta/UAF from destruction so that it can fight another day. Threats of kicking Russia out of SWIFT and arming the UAF are meant to be the “stick.” Whatever empty promises the Euroclowns made to Putin was the “carrot,” if you’ll forgive my usage of the empire’s basest analogy.
Lucky for the world Russia is not a donkey, but it does have to negotiate a tight obstacle course. It needs to buy time until it can find a way around SWIFT and means to retaliate in kind. (I don’t think threats to arm the UAF scare Russia at all, but SWIFT is serious) AT the same time, Russia is preparing the NAF for the next phase of the war, which when the Ukies break the ceasefire will involve the liberation of Mariopol and other parts of NovoRussia. I’m Sure Putin explained that in some fashion to the Euroclown leadership who no doubt relied this info to Obama. What he does with it remains to be seen, but I’m worried that with winter passing, they will feel safe to move against Russia in SWIFT system while the cutoff of gas will have less effect on Europe.
What I hope Russia’s plan is over the years is NOT simply “federalization” of Ukraine or independence of any eastern region of it, but to once and for all reclaim ALL of Ukraine into the Eurasian Customs Union, Russian “sphere of influence” or a neo Soviet Union. I really don’t care what Hillary Clinton calls it. This brings Russian influence right into the Balkans and central Europe, and would negate any need of south stream or Turk Stream or whatever. And any money the IMF sinks into Ukraine in the meantime they can kiss goodbye.
And both the EU and US need to understand that playing AGAINST Russia and loosing is a very costly prospect, while cooperating WITH Russia can be a win-win for everybody.

Posted by: Lysander | Feb 14 2015 21:27 utc | 87

@Lysander #89
Nice analysis.
both the EU and US need to understand that playing AGAINST Russia and loosing is a very costly prospect, while cooperating WITH Russia can be a win-win for everybody.
I take you to have mispoken there. The Empire is determined to destroy Russia. Thus cooperating with Russia is not an option as far as USG is concerned, and Russia surviving would be a major LOSS for the US. Putin and Lavrov have repeatedly spelled out why: the US is a broken society; unless it can maintain its monopolar hegemony, it is doomed. Today, Russia is the main challenger to USG’s monopolar world order. There is no win for the US if Russia survives, because, as Jean Baudrillard observed, Ce pays est sans espoir.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 14 2015 21:57 utc | 89

@84 nana.. thanks. we see that very much the same way!
@89 lysander. i always enjoy reading your posts and your insights.. i agree pushing russia out of swift is a big deal. i don’t know how that works and who controls the levers at swift, but my thinking is the fact it hasn’t happened yet means that although they might be thinking of it, they might not be able to do it so easily. i really don’t know how it works and would like to. i understand its importance for international banking. i believe it is set up to favour the us$ also, much like the rule of buying oil in us$ favours the us$..
i am not convinced of your 2nd to last paragraph though. it is true russia has a tricky road to navigate here, but i don’t see reclaiming ukraine in the cards..
i do agree with your last paragraph.. i can only conclude merkel has been bought and paid for but knows just how costly it will be for germany in the long run if she continues on the path proscribed for her..

Posted by: james | Feb 14 2015 22:08 utc | 91

Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine?
The Real News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MptYEsV159s&feature=em-share_video_user

Posted by: okie farmer | Feb 15 2015 0:51 utc | 93

@95 somebody.. thanks re swift. that makes sense. one can read up on them, as i have, but still not find a clear answer to this question/threat that has been suggested.

Posted by: james | Feb 15 2015 1:11 utc | 95

@RudyM #97:
working link (with Eng subs)
@somebody #95:
I think you are right. But if the Russo-Chinese project to create a multipolar world succeeds, globalization as we have known it will end anyway. “Globalization” is just a euphemism for full spectrum dominance by the US empire.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 15 2015 1:22 utc | 97

@RudyM #97:
working link (with Eng subs)

It’s because I didn’t say “God willing.”

Posted by: RudyM | Feb 15 2015 1:26 utc | 99