Eastern Europe/Ukraine

[Philip]

What has been the most disturbing of all in the Ukranian crisis has been the blatant open use of neo-Nazi thugs like the "Right Sector" by the Western sponsors of the Kiev putsch.It is astonishing that so-called democracies who preach from the pulpit the virtues of democracy and preach, practice the very opposite .

Up to six Eastern Ukraine deaths in overnight checkpoint raid
Published time: April 20, 2014

Six people have been reportedly killed in a gunfight in Slavyansk, a city in eastern Ukraine held by anti-government protesters. The fatalities include four protesters and two attackers, who are believed to be from the Right Sector paramilitary.

The deaths came after a night attack on a protester checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, an eyewitness told RT. Four cars drove by the checkpoint and opened fire at the local residents manning it, killing three people and seriously injuring several others.

“They approached with their high beam headlamps on. Our man went to them and asked not to blind us, show IDs and open the trunk for inspection. Then an assault rifle got stuck out of the window and he was gunned down,” the witness, Vladimir, said.

He added some of the people trying to flee the attackers were shot in their backs. One gunshot victim died later in hospital from a head wound, local medics said. Two others are undergoing treatment.

The checkpoint was in the control of 26 civilians armed with bats. Their lack of firearms was due to a so-called “Easter truce” announced by both the Kiev authorities and the protest leaders to de-escalate tension.

Among the victims of the night attack is Sergey Rudenko, 53, who worked as a school bus driver, his wife told RIA Novosti. He lived in a village near Slavyansk and was guarding the checkpoint on Easter night together with his two adult sons.

As the civilians were pinned down, a group of 20 protesters with firearms came from the city. They opened fire on the attackers, killing two of them and sending the rest running.

The protesters captured two of the attackers’ four cars, which were damaged in the gunfight and later torched by protesters angry over the deaths of their fellow Slavyansk residents.

Footage of the equipment confiscated showed firearms including a machine gun, a night vision device, aerial photos of Slavyansk, military uniforms, camping tools and other things handy for guerrilla warfare.

There was also a medallion with Right Sector paramilitary symbols, which implicated the radical nationalist movement in the attack.

The attackers may have been planning a subsequent raid on the protester-held TV tower in Slavyansk, which is marked by a circle on the maps discovered at the captured cars, protest leader, Vyacheslav Ponomaryev, said.

The protester’s self-defense force HQ told Interfax that there were reports of gunfire near four other checkpoints overnight, but no clashes happened at either of them.

In a separate incident in central Slavyansk, two people have been injured overnight, after a group of unidentified gunmen fired at them. Two young men were shot in the leg after they ignored an order to stop and tried to flee, RIA Novosti reported. The report gives no account of events after the shooting, but both victims are now in hospital.

Protest leaders ordered a curfew in Slavyansk between 12:00pm and 06:00am in response to the overnight violence.

The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the night’s violence on Sunday, saying it puts in question Kiev’s ability to disarm radical groups.

Protesters in eastern Ukraine have captured government buildings across the Donetsk region over the past two weeks. They call the authorities in Kiev illegitimate and are demanding a referendum to vote on autonomy for their region. Similar calls are coming from other eastern Ukrainian regions.

Slavyansk.(Google map)

Kiev deployed military and special operation troops to the Donetsk region in a bid to crackdown on what they referred to “terrorist actions” by the protesters. The crackdown so far has been futile, with a number of troops switching sides to the protesters.

There are indications that the Kiev authorities simply do not have enough loyal troops to crackdown on the protest. On Saturday the Interior Ministry called on former members of the Berkut riot police, which had been branded as thugs and criminals by the new authorities, to return to service.

The ministry said the Berkut troops must forget their past grievances and protect Ukraine from what Kiev calls a secret invasion by a covert Russian operation. The allegations have not been confirmed by an OSCE observer mission in the Donetsk region.

Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU signed an agreement this week in Geneva aimed at de-escalating the tension in Ukraine. One of the key points in it is disarming militias and paramilitary units in the country. But neither Right Sector and similar pro-Maidan groups nor the anti-Maidan militias in the east seem to be willing to take the first step.

More details on the clash and Right Sector honcho exterminated.

Some details. 4 SUVs, machine gun, pravij sector badge, aerial maps...

[div class="excerpt"]Slavyansk Self Defense roadblock was attacked by people without insignia, who started to shoot from cars approaching roadblock.
They killed three unarmed self defense helpers, then self defense arrived, killed two of the attackers and captured the cars.

Right Sector insignia found inside of cars and lots of advanced weaponry, not army issued.

http://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/20140420075923.shtml[/div]

Found in their cars were advanced weaponry like plastic explosives, night vision goggles and other stuff.
[div class="excerpt"]
In Slavyansk "Right sector" attacked a checkpoint and killed three people. At the time of the attack there were only 26 unarmed locals who were on duty at the checkpoint.

The gunmen pulled up in four SUVs, ran out of the car and opened fire on everyone who was at the checkpoint. As a result, three people died on the spot. Many fled into the woods to escape. The militia is combing the territory looking for the other attackers. The attackers knew there was no militia there and that the people at the checkpoints would be unarmed.

At the sound of shots, the Donetsk militia came and managed to repulse the attack. Two of the attackers were killed.
When they searched the dead radicals they found "right sector" certificates, Dmitri Yarosh business cards, sniper ammunition and a large arsenal of weapons.

http://lifenews.ru/news/131635[/div]

News report video report at link showing what was captured. Video shows a dead Pravij Sector (Right Sector) body, his identification, aerial maps, US cash in $100 bills, a machine gun, machine gun clips, a rifle, rifle ammo, a large caliber ammo, Dmitri Yarosh's business card on the Bandera neonazi black and red, a Pravij Sector uniform medaillon (#0020), a machete....

[Philip]

The de-facto state of east Ukraine is gradually taking shape and control over its destiny,no doubt with the moral and logistic help from Russia.Ukraine of the post Cold War,RIP (Rest in pieces)!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 71398.html
The new people’s republic of east Ukraine

Kim Sengupta
Donetsk Sunday 20 April 2014

The morning session of the governing council discussed an array of subjects ranging from litter collection to supplies to the militia and organising the coming referendum. Outside, joggers went by men in masks and barricades of sandbags and tyres without a second glance. This was another day in the People’s Republic of Donetsk.

The birth of the separatist enclave on 7 April was greeted with varying international versions of the Passport to Pimlico kind, a comic twist in the current tragedy of Ukraine as the country faces the prospect of further dismemberment after losing Crimea to the Kremlin. But, with each passing day, this alternative “administration” is beginning to take shape.

This has been helped, to a degree, by the ineptitude of the Kiev government; its impotence as state institutions across the region were taken over by pro-Moscow militants; the ignominy faced by its much-announced anti-terrorist mission with the loss of armoured personnel carriers which were then paraded with Russian flags flying.

Last Friday, this separatist leadership, routinely accused of being terrorists by Ukrainian authorities, was met at its Donetsk headquarters by Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and a runner in the forthcoming national presidential election.

A few hours earlier, Denis Pushilin, the chairman of the People’s Republic, had dismissed the agreement in Geneva between Russia, the US, the EU and Ukraine which called on the protesters to vacate the buildings. Nevertheless, Ms Tymoshenko declared the meeting had convinced her that “a compromise was possible” and that any solution to the crisis needed to involve “representatives of all groups retaining control over administration buildings in the east”.

The fact that the protesters’ administration could guarantee safe conduct to Ms Tymoshenko at a time of strife added to its credibility. Now there is talk of another high-profile visitor: Viktor Yanukovych. There are persistent, although unverified, reports that the former president, driven into exile in Russia by the uprising in the Maidan, is arriving across the border in the very near future to pledge his support.

The Donetsk leadership had given little indication that it sees a future for Mr Yanukovych in the new order being created. However, the trip would be a source of further humiliation for the Kiev government. The man for whom it had issued arrest warrants on charges of mass murder can, it would show, appear with impunity in Ukrainian territory.

Separatist officials refused to discuss whether the former president would be making an appearance. At the administration building in Donetsk occupied by the protest, Mikhail Berezin, an officer in the People’s Militia, stated: “ We cannot talk about who may, or may not, be coming, but there is no reason why Yanukovych should not be here. He is still the legitimate president. He was removed by a coup. Obviously there are serious security issues here; there may be fascist agents from Kiev who may try to carry out an attack. Can we deliver security for such a visit? Yes, as we showed with Tymoshenko.”

It remains unclear what role the militia had played when Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s acting prime minister, came to the city just over a week ago with a government team to meet local political and civic leaders and the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

The visit had not been made public for security reasons. A few who had rushed to the chamber of commerce building, where the meeting was being held, said they had heard about the government presence very late.

Members of the militia were, however, very much active in what happened next. Mr Yatsenyuk had offered devolution of powers to the regions during his visit. The response was the capture of more than a dozen official buildings, and in many cases the effective control of the cities and towns in which they were located. In the space of 48 hours, the reach of the People’s Republic had extended from Donetsk to Slovyansk, Yenakiyevo, Horlivka, Artemivsk, Kramatorsk, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Zaporizhya, Makiyivka and Druzhkivka.

The separatists insisted that the risings had been spontaneous; others were clear that was not the case. After leaving the police station in Horlivka, which had just been taken over, I was stopped by a man. “I have lived in Horlivka all my life. I am 60 years old, and I have never seen most of these people. They are strangers,” insisted Vladimir Petric (not his full name). “But this was organised elsewhere. They brought it ready made into our city.”

There were, indeed, plenty of signs of co-ordination in the attacks, with direction coming not always from Donetsk, but also Slovyansk which has become a symbolic and strategic centre of pro-Russian resistance. The militants in the city were well trained, with a large number of them admitting that they were former soldiers.

The public insistence was that they were Ukrainian and not Russian, but there were occasional glimpses of what was going on behind the scenes. During one of my visits to the city, Aleksandr, a militia member, said pointing to his combat clothing: “I’ve seen pictures of this type [of uniform] in the Western media, saying it’s Russian. It is similar but actually different.” He asked his companions to fetch Nicolai and, when the man appeared, added: “Now look, that’s Russian kit.” So where was Nicolai from? I asked. Both the men smiled and shook their heads.

It was the Slovyansk attack that led to Kiev launching what it termed the major part of its counter-terrorist offensive. The commander, General Vasily Krutov, stated that it would be “too humanitarian” to give the protesters more time to leave the buildings they were holding.

Later, after Ukrainian troops had taken Kramatorsk airport, General Krutov attempted to order the crowd to go home. He ended up being manhandled and punched. He was last seen scrabbling to get back behind the wire amid shouts of “war criminal”, “grab hold” and “jail him”. The following day, six Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers were cornered and surrounded by a crowd; masked men appeared, disarmed the soldiers and took the vehicles.

The Kiev government announced that there will be an Easter truce in the military operation. In reality, its forces, mainly confined to Kramatorsk airport, do not appear to be in a position to launch assaults; they are not in control of the streets.

But just how much independent control does the People’s Republic exercise? Rejecting the Geneva accord, Mr Pushilin declared at a press conference: “Sergei Lavrov didn’t sign anything for us; he signed on behalf of the Russian Federation.” It was noticeable, however, that he read many of his answers from papers placed in front of him, and surrounding him were colleagues to ensure he put over the right message.

[UlanBatori]

At the sound of shots, the Donetsk militia came and managed to repulse the attack. Two of the attackers were killed. When they searched the dead radicals they found "right sector" certificates, Dmitri Yarosh business cards, sniper ammunition and a large arsenal of weapons.

Smells. If the 4 SUVs were out to attack buildings in downtown, why get out of the SUVs and go shooting unarmed people at the checkpoint? Why wait around until armed militia came from elsewhere?
Either these were pretty stupid thugs, or their vehicles got disabled at the check point so their mission was aborted. Or the guards at the gates managed to disable the vehicles so that they couldn't go back either.

Or... the story is pretty amateurish...

[Samudragupta]

What is it there for India for us to support Russian return????

[RSoami]

If the 4 SUVs were out to attack buildings in downtown, why get out of the SUVs and go shooting unarmed people at the checkpoint?

Perhaps because the checkpoint would not let them reach the buildings without being crossed and was manned by unarmed people.

Why wait around until armed militia came from elsewhere?

Were they waiting for the armed militia to come?! Or perhaps trying to get past by removing the barricades when the militia came and attacked them.

the story is pretty amateurish.

The story may or may not be true but what about your doubts/questions ?!

[pankajs]

Senator: “We’re going to lose Eastern Ukraine”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/senator-bob- ... rn-ukraine

“I think we’re going to lose eastern Ukraine if we continue as we are, and I think it’s going to be a geopolitical disaster if that occurs,” Corker said to NBC News’ David Gregory on Meet the Press. Calling for tougher international measures against Russia, Corker said “our foreign policy is always a day late and a dollar short.” Corker also said that Putin is showing the ‘era of permissiveness the U.S. has created around the world.”

Pennsylvania Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who also appeared on Meet The Press, echoed Corker’s call for the Obama administration to take a tougher stance toward Russia. ”I think the time is now to ratchet up our sanctions,” Murphy said.

New York Times columnist David Brooks raised eyebrows when he added on Meet the Press that President Obama has a ‘manhood problem’ in the Middle East, questioning ‘Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin?’

Ukraine crisis is not about Ukraine. It is about Obama's manhood!

[kuldipchager]

Samudragupta

Post subject: Re: Eastern Europe/Ukraine

PostPosted: 20 Apr 2014 23:38



Offline
BRFite

Joined: 12 Nov 2010 23:49
Posts: 534
Location: Some place in the sphere

What is it there for India for us to support Russian return????


Russia always came to help us specially when we needs VETO at UN.

God knows that how many times we might needs Veto for us.

S0 we have to go along Russia it doesn't matter if they are right or wrong. But this time they are right.

[UlanBatori]

The story may or may not be true but what about your doubts/questions ?!

I will add one more: What about them? Never seen anyone doubt or question anything b4?

[Philip]

Pankaj spot on! What I said in an early stage of the crisis in the UK-raine.The Ukranian maidan coup took place during the Sochi Olympics,when O'Bomber and his NATO/EU bum-chums thought that Putin's eye was off the ball.The reason was to pay back Putin for O'Bomber's great loss of face and doubts about his manhood (not his wife's!) when he couldn't even launch an "unbelievably small" attack that JoKer-ry promised,that had seen his oily allies enraged and deserting him.

The timing was no coincidence.In fact the Ukraine had been rather quiet and peaceful.Step two after orchestrating the protests using neo-Nazi thugs of the "Right Sector",was to get Yanukovych to drop his guard,which was done through the scheming EU ministers who signed an agreement with him and less than 24 hrs. later pushed him out through the neo-Nazi thugs who missed capturing him which was part of the plot.He was to have been hung up to dry in a show trial.The amazing speed with which the Crimea voted to join Russia and the grand historic signing ceremony in the Kremlin ,plus Putin's massive mandate from the Russian parliament and overwhelming support from the people-his highest ever ratings,sharply contrasted with O'Bomber's plunging reputation as he entered the lame-duck period of his presidency. Other than the elimination of Osama BL,his presidency will ever be remembered for the great retreat from Af-Pak,the insidious use of drones to kill innocent people worldwide,its use even in the US,and the highly damaging NSA snooping leaks,a far worse crime than Nixon lying about Watergate.In truth,he should have been impeached.

The expose of how the putsch was orchestrated is now common knowledge. The open use of neo-Nazi fascists armed and funded by the US/EU has astonished and alarmed the global community.Even in the West serious Qs are being raised about the illegality of it all and the utter bankruptcy,both financial and political of the puppets,the Kiev chickens led by the Baptist preacher and the wicked white witch,Timoshenko,who is frothing at the mouth wanting to "nuke" Russia! The huge significance of Russian gas to Ukraine and Europe and its large financial investments in the West,especially in the UK,where even the Tories have been funded by Russian money is the stark reality that is being driven into the heads of the unbiased Western politicos. There is great unease as few want another Cold War to erupt and destroy the economic gains that the last few decades of peace have brought with it.Many Western nations have squandered the economic gains and are also basket cases as much as the Ukraine! Frau Merkel and her hard working Germans cannot set up "soup kitchens" for the whole of Europe.

Amidst the truth of the Ukranian gambit,the game which was lost in the first few fatal moves,comes the antics of the court buffoon,JoKer-ry,to entertain us in a grotesque pantomime,Punch and Judy (Ukranian) style.Here Mr.Putin is Mr.Punch who will inevitably get the better of all his enemies,his wife Judy (Witch Timoshenko),the cry-baby (Ca-moron),the crocodile (the CIA chief),the policeman (the NATO chief),the hangman (William Hague-the vague),Joey the clown (JoKer-ry!), the doctor (M.Hollande) ,Pretty Polly (Frau Merkel),the sausage (Polish PM) ,the skeleton (Arsenic Yatsenyuk,Ukranian interim "PM") assorted chickens (Kiev clique),Toby the Dog (Yanukovych) and the Devil (featuring Mr.Insane O'Bomber!).

Ukraine shootout threatens to bury Geneva peace deal
Kiev ridicules claims by Russians that violence at Slavyansk checkpoint was caused by far-right Ukrainian nationalists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... slavayansk

Luke Harding in Slavyansk
The Guardian, Sunday 20 April 2014 19.28 BST

Slavyansk checkpoint
The wreckage of the vehicles after a midnight shootout at a Slavyansk checkpoint. Photograph: Maysun/Corbis

An international agreement to defuse the crisis in Ukraine was all but shredded on Sunday after a shootout in the separatist town of Slavyansk.

Three days after the Geneva deal brought modest hopes for a resolution to the gravest east-west stand-off since the end of the cold war, the midnight incident at a checkpoint – in which reports said as many as five people were killed – unleashed a torrent of accusations and counter-accusations that bodes ill for international peacemakers.

Russia claimed that far-right Ukrainian nationalists opened fire at the checkpoint just outside the town, seized by an armed pro-Russian militia two weeks ago. The foreign ministry in Moscow accused Kiev of failing to disarm "extremists and terrorists" and blamed the clash on the Right Sector, a nationalist Ukrainian group that has supported the pro-Western interim government in Ukraine.

The new self-proclaimed mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said Russian troops were urgently needed to protect the civilian population. He threatened to "personally shoot" Ukraine's interior minister Arsen Avakov if he could.

The authorities in Kiev described the incident in the early hours of Sunday as a "crude provocation", made for Russian TV. They said some of the details of the shootout were so implausible as to be ridiculous.

Ukraine's intelligence service said its Russian military counterpart, the GRU, had staged it with help from criminals.But Russian channels claimed that a business card belonging to Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of the far-right Right Sector, had been left by the "attackers".

Also discovered were crisp new $100 bills, a satellite map of the area, and a second world war German gun, they reported.

The death toll and the allegiance of those involved were hard to confirm independently. Armed militias manning checkpoints and flying the Russian flag outside Slavyansk were reluctant to allow the Guardian to investigate on Sunday. At the bridge into the town, one commander armed with a pistol told the Guardian to leave. He punched the car with his fist, leaving a dent. "Get out of here," he screamed.
Euromaidan PR The Euromaidan PR tweet about the return of the Ukrainian flag in Yenyakiyevo.

Ukraine's new leaders, and many in the west, fear such an incident could be used as a possible pretext for the kind of Russian military manoeuvre that rapidly led to the annexation of Crimea last month. Under the Geneva agreement between Russia, Ukraine, the US and EU, illegal groups are meant to end occupations of official buildings and give up weapons. But pro-Russian militias which grabbed administrations in at least 10 eastern towns two weeks ago have mostly refused to budge.

In one town, Yenyakiyevo, activists did go home on Sunday. The Ukrainian flag is back on the roof in a rare piece of good news for Kiev's pro-western government, which appears powerless in the face of fast-moving events.

Ukraine's new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is hosting the US vice-president, Joe Biden, this week, told US television that he wanted greater support from America in the face of Russian aggression. "We need a strong and solid state," he told NBC. "We need financial and economic support. We need to overhaul the Ukrainian military. We need to modernise our security and military forces. We need real support."

But the US ambassador to Kiev warned later that the US could do little to tilt the military balance in Ukraine's favour. "The geography and balance of power is such, there is no military solution to this crisis," Geoffrey Pyatt told CNN. "The fact is that militarily, as Crimea showed, Ukraine is outgunned."

Ukraine's interior ministry said none of its forces had carried out an operation around Slavyansk over the weekend. It described the town 90km north of the regional capital Donetsk, as "the most dangerous place in Ukraine, in view of the presence in the town of foreign saboteurs and illegal armed groups."

[UlanBatori]

The reporting on the Ukraine tamasha is very interesting, from both the Russian side and the British side.

He punched the car with his fist, leaving a dent.

Some fist, and some car construction!
Also this classic:

There is no military solution: As Crimea showed, Ukraine is outgunned.

Er... so OF COURSE there is a military solution: The UkBapZis can run for their lives.

[RSoami]

I will add one more: What about them? Never seen anyone doubt or question anything b4?

The west has lost a lot of credibility over the years. From weapons of mass destruction to Libyan no fly zone bombing etc. Every narrative that the west has put forth has backfired. Most recently the fiasco of Ukrainian military personnel going over to the other side. Hypocricy of recognising the maidaan coup. The list is endless.
The media blitzkrieg low on facts and high on propaganda is forcing people to doubt the western narrative. Such black and white stories like Assad is bad and those opposing him are angels have not served their cause either.
During the same time, Putin more often than not has taken a more suave approach. Also his narrative seems to be truer than that peddled by the west. No wonder no one believes a word coming from Washington Post or new york times.

[member_28440]

Russia’s New State Ideology a Strategic Weapon against depravities of West & Europe’s Contemporary Evil Culture

[UlanBatori]

rsoami: No argument there. But the best way to refute the propaganda is to be objective and ask the tough questions. That is what destroys the UkBapZi propaganda.

The roadblock gunbattle story has several unanswered questions. Just like the 6 APCs that "entered the town flying Russian flags". Now those same 6 have been described as
a) defecting from the 21 that Kiev sent
b) driving into the town flying fake Russian flags
c) surrendering to "pro-Russian forces"
d) being forcibly captured and taken away flying Russian flags..

Similarly the roadblock event now has several SUVs turning around and running back to Kiev, leaving 2 burning. One has to ask how the unarmed people at a checkpoint managed that - also, how the armed defenders were able to rush in so fast and overpower the attackers. Something is being hidden. Maybe there were very well-armed types waiting at that roadblock, maybe it was an ambush? Or the attackers were drunken louts who didn't have the sense to turn around - or the guards at the roadblock were no ordinary people, they were very well armed.

I am just trying to get a sense of what is actually going on there. At some point we are going to see an influx of VERY well-armed types from the East. I wonder if that has happened already, and the "unarmed people" thing is to hide that fact. Maybe the Kiev Right Sector came rushing in expecting to terrorize unarmed people, and started shooting. They got RPGs and bazookas and machinegun fire instead. Some managed to turn around and flee. Two SUVs were destroyed. The story that "the people burned the SUVs in anger" may be to hide the fact that the SUVs were disabled by accurate RPGs or machine-gun fire, which is the only plausible explanation for the UkBapzis trying to get out on foot and shoot their way out.

Satyam eva Jayate.

[anmol]

U.S. Conducts Spy Flight Over Russia
by Bill Gertz, freebeacon.com
April 21st 2014 6:22 PM

After a tit-for-tat series of delays, the United States conducted an Open Skies Treaty intelligence flight over Russian territory on Monday, a State Department official said.

The spy flight originally was scheduled for April 14 but was canceled by Russia after a U.S. team for the flight failed to arrive near Moscow on time and Moscow refused temporarily to reschedule it.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also expressed anger on Monday over U.S. delays in certifying a new high-tech Russian aircraft to be used for spying missions over the United States under the Open Skies Treaty that permits limited legal spying over U.S. and Russian territory.

The State Department official said, however, that last week’s delay was the result of bad weather – despite radar images showing mostly clear skies over of Russia during the period of last week’s planned flight.

“The U.S. Open Skies mission dated April 14 was delayed due to weather conditions beyond the time permitted by the treaty,” the official said in a statement. “The flight was rescheduled and on April 21, the U.S. Open Skies Treaty aircraft began its mission in the Russian Federation.”

The official said the treaty permits the country conducting the surveillance flight to postpone the flight for 24 hours, “after which the host country is permitted to cancel the mission.”

Earlier, the official did not mention that Russia had canceled the April 14 flight or the reasons for the cancelation.

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich on Monday defended Moscow’s decision to cancel the flight and criticized the United States regarding the treaty, calling the U.S. position “highly non-constructive.”

Lukashevich said Russia canceled the April 14 flight by a joint U.S.-Czech Republic team after the team failed to arrive at a meeting point in Kubinka, a town about 40 miles west of Moscow.

Lukashevich made no mention of Monday’s U.S. flight, however.

“At the request of the American side of the mission the arrival time was postponed for 24 hours,” Lukashevich told state-run ITAR-TASS news agency.

“However, neither the Americans nor the Czechs showed up in Kubinka,” he said. “When a new request for a postponement came, we rejected it for good reason, taking into account, among other things, the fact that Russia had already sustained certain costs while waiting for the American observation plane.”

Lukashevich said the costs of using Russian resources to support the mission were part of the decision to cancel the mission last week.

The spokesman also noted the U.S. refusal to certify a new Russian Open Skies aircraft for use over the United States as one reason for Moscow’s anger at the U.S. overflight last week.

“We have to state with regret that the American side, the only of the parties to the Treaty on Open Skies, has long been adhering to a highly non-constructive position on the examination of our digital observation equipment by putting forth requirements that are not provided for in the treaty,” he said.

The Russians want “implementation of the treaty will be safeguarded against the negative impact of considerations of expediency and that its members will strictly abide by their obligations,” Lukashevich said.

U.S. intelligence officials and members of both congressional intelligence oversight committees want the Obama administration to block certification of the new Russian surveillance aircraft that are equipped with digital sensors, including advanced radar that allows the aircraft to see through structures.

The White House National Security Council (NSC) deputies committee, a group of senior security officials, met on the issue last week.

An NSC spokesman declined to comment on whether the Russian aircraft had been certified for future Open Skies flights over the United States.

The aircraft are part of a 1992 agreement among 34 nations that allows parties to the treaty to conduct intelligence-gathering flights over national territory. The treaty is a so-called confidence-building measure.

Pentagon and U.S. intelligence officials are concerned the new equipment on the Russian aircraft will permit spying on new and advanced U.S. military capabilities, weapons, and facilities.

The cancellation of the flight last week coincided with the crisis over Ukraine where some 80,000 Russian troops, along with tanks and armored vehicles, are massed near Ukraine’s eastern border.

A U.S. official said the cancellation of the flight last week appeared to be part of an effort by Moscow to deny U.S. surveillance of Russian force deployments that appear being readied for a large-scale military intervention in eastern Ukraine.

[pankajs]

TIME.com ‏@TIME 2h

U.S. gives Russia ‘days’ to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine http://ti.me/1eYVm08

[Austin]

Pretty Huge Subsidy for Ukraine Economy and still they are basket case


Russia's post-Soviet aid for Ukraine totals about $250 bln - Russian PM Medvedev

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_2 ... edev-7356/

[UlanBatori]

$$250B

All those leather jackets, jackboots, Lightning symbols, and Arsenic's Sugar-Water Hairdo cost money, u know..

[Philip]

Ukraine's interim "President" restarts the anti-terror operations(on CIA advice?).

Tuesday, April 22
17:04 GMT:

Acting Ukrainian President Aleksandr Turchinov has demanded that special services “resume productive anti-terrorist operations that will protect Ukrainians living in the east of the country,” his press service reported.

According to the statement, the renewed focus was provoked by the discovery of two “mutilated bodies,” including one belonging to nationalist local deputy Vladimir Rybak. The dead politician was found near Slavyansk, which has been in the grip of pro-Russian activists.

He accused the purported murderers of “crossing the line by torturing and killing Ukrainian patriots,” and said the illegal activities were carried out with “full support” from Russia.

Eastern Ukraine stands defiant against Kiev
April 22, 2014

*Going,going,,,going....

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... ion-russia
Biden pledges support for Ukraine as east edges closer to union with Russia
Vice-president lines up $50m reform package as armed militia occupying government buildings continue to defy Geneva deal

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, has thrown US support – and funds – behind Ukraine's interim government as anti-Kiev militia in the country's east edged a step closer towards secession from Kiev and joining Russia.

A "people's assembly" in Luhansk, where heavily armed militia have been occupying the security service headquarters for more than two weeks announced on Tuesday morning that they would hold a two-stage referendum on the region's future.

The armed men remain in the regional government buildings they have occupied for several weeks despite a peace deal struck in Geneva that called on pro-Russian rebels to turn in their weapons and vacate the buildings they had seized in nine cities.

Russian and western leaders have accused each other of not fulfilling their end of the bargain following a shootout in eastern Ukraine that left at least three dead this weekend.

Speaking in Kiev following meetings with the western-allied leadership, Biden told Russia on Tuesday that it was "time to stop talking and start acting".

Biden met members of the parliament, the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, and the acting prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and warned that the country must "fight the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system" before pledging $50m (£30m) to help Ukraine's government to carry out political and economic reforms, including $11m to help conduct the presidential election on 25 May.

Biden also announced an additional $8m in non-lethal military assistance for the Ukrainian armed forces, including bomb-disposal equipment, communications gear and vehicles.

In Luhansk, voting for a Ukrainian president will be preceded by a vote for independence. The first phase of the referendum, planned for 11 May, when voters will be asked whether the region should become an autonomous entity. A second phase, planned for 18 May, will ask whether Luhansk should be independent or join Russia.

Pro-Russian protesters in Donetsk have also promised to hold a referendum on the region's "sovereignty" by 11 May.

Ukraine's interior ministry has reportedly created a special "Timur" battalion to fight separatism in the Luhansk region. Although the unit would appear to take its name from its commander, army veteran and champion power lifter Timur Yuldashev, he said on Ukrainian television it was so named because Timur in the Uzbek language means "ironclad".

"I'll try to do everything so that this battalion will indeed become ironclad, so that it becomes a unit that can help fend off the threat of separatism in our Luhansk region and the breakup of our nation," Yuldashev said.

So far, police in Luhansk have allowed the building occupation and rallies outside to proceed unimpeded. The anti-terrorist operation announced by Kiev last week to regain control over the east of the country has achieved little success, with some soldiers defecting to the rebel side and surrendering six infantry fighting vehicles to militia in Slavyansk.

During his meeting with Biden, heavyweight boxer and Kiev mayoral candidate Vitaly Klitschko called on the US and Europe to adopt fresh sanctions against Russia that would "include all sectors of the economy and actually be painful". The US and its European partners, which have greater trade ties with Russia, have limited their sanctions to visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials, an approach that has not noticeably affected the Kremlin's policy on Ukraine.

Klitschko also called on the US to help equip the Ukrainian military, which has reportedly suffered from shortages in manpower and supplies.

The US has sent the USS Donald Cook to the Black Sea for war games. A US navy spokeswoman said there was "no truth" to Russian media reports that US and Russian military dolphins could meet in open waters, following Russia's takeover of Ukranian combat dolphin unit when it annexed Crimea.Also on Tuesday, Russian authorities barred Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev from all Russian territory for five years, citing a law banning foreign nationals who are accused of threatening public order. The ban on Dzhemilev, who left the peninsula for a trip to Kiev on Tuesday morning, came a day after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, rehabilitated Crimean Tatars of political crimes they were accused of by Joseph Stalin, who deported most of the ethnic group during the second world war.

[RSoami]

Why does the west need IMF to give money to Ukraine. Because they want the country to be perpetually indebted to them with heavy interests to pay forever. Its a very old trick.
If US of A is so concerned why not give some loans free of interest directly to needy Ukrainians. Thats what the Russians had done with their $15 billion. Isn't the west the richest alliance ever on the planet.
Unkill doesnt want nothing but to create a mess in Russia`s neighbourhood. They have little concern whatsoever for any human lives lost or any chaos created in Ukraine. The Ukbapzis are only willing idiots to this scheme.
Ukraine is facing the same cut throat politics that USSR faced right before its demise. Yeltsin was willing to destroy USSR if he were just to get the chair to rule Russia. Yushchenko, Yanukovich, Tymoshenko and now this Arsenik guy are doing something similar with Ukraine now.
How much aid has US of A given directly to Ukraine ?

[UlanBatori]

this Arsenik guy

Unless my eyes are seriously disconnected from my brain, there is a "lingam" problem here...

[Gagan]

Both powers are playing the same trick they played against each other in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
They want the other to move in, so that they can mire them in a low intensity, bloody conflict.
Either way the ukranians always end up being cannon fodder.

The funny thing is that both powers are once bitten twice shy, and are not rushing into this like they used to do back in the cold war days. They are moving pieces on the chessboard one by one - they are playing chess, instead of acting like Rambos

[devesh]

to me it seems like Putin's preemptive move into Crimea is aimed primarily at thwarting any future attempts at West+Turkish (Islamic) combo trying to squeeze Russia. Russians have a very clear understanding of what securing the Black Sea entails. and they also have a historic dread of loosing out the Black Sea. the old Imperial Russian struggle with the Ottomans for centuries to gain a foothold in that area is deeply ingrained lesson for Russians.

IMO, Putin's Russia understands the current symbiotic relationship between the Anglo-American driven West and Islamic (Sunni) Ummah. they fear the Protestant+RCC+Sunni/Wahabi Jihad combo squeezing them out of their southern reaches. especially the Steppe. if this area goes out of their control, China will move in from East and their entire Southern frontier is nothing more than paper tiger.

Annexing Crimea is about preempting such moves. this brings Eastern Ukraine entirely into Russia orbit, and makes it that much more hard for Turkey to play harakiri with West's support in future.

As long as Russia remains a force to reckon with in the Black Sea zone, they will remain a thorn for all those Islamic dreamers of grand alliance with PRC. we should also keep this in mind.

in essence, as long as Russia remains in Black Sea, the Islamic world will always have that threat hanging over its throat. this is ideal for India. till the point comes when an Indian regime is suitably capable of shedding the Nehruvian/Gandhian/Secular baggage, Russian presence in Balck Sea and the Steppe will always keep the Islamics destabilized, the Cheens from getting any grand ideas, and ultimately the RCC+Protestant combo from unleashing their Jihadi partners on India.

[vijaykarthik]

^^ Quite right. It has everything to do with the black sea fleet. Russia has this plus one at Tartous as its only warm water ports and will do everything to ensure that they are safeguarded.

[vijaykarthik]

However, I am surprised about a few things;

No world power worth its salt can ever show its dominance and advantage over the yonder without a credible and good naval force. And Russia has had the possibility and real threat of both of the ports currently being taken away from them in the long term [Both Tartous and Black Sea. Come to think of it, I am reminded of this aspect only now].

a. Its nonsensical that the EU and the US tried to push an EU AA to Ukraine considering these aspects. Ukraine, as it is, is a divided nation and without getting the public of Russia and Ukraine ready, getting into a hasty EU AA was just dead wrong. Shock no 1.
b. Assuming that Russia will just be a coquettish kitten and self-contentedly purr without doing anything about it and the EU&US feigning surprise at Russia's moves (pretty much expected moves, I should add) -- this really take the cake. If they didn't foresee this situation, I qn the mistaken thought of the apparently brilliant idiot who thought it will be a great idea to take Ukraine away from Russia's orbit. All geopol and geodynamic equations need considerable thought and not just go plonk ahead with the deal the minute some random freak gets the idea?

All considered, I think it will be Russia that will be laughing [though cant laugh all the way to the bank] and currently by the looks of it, the EU is surely the laughing stock with the US not far behind. [I still cant get how they even proceeded with this act without even CONSIDERATION. that really shocks me. They complain about Russians 19th century attitude. How about their thought process in moving forward with the deal without thinking of consequences? that seems 17th BC to me.]

[svinayak]

However, I am surprised about a few things;

No world power worth its salt can ever show its dominance and advantage over the yonder without a credible and good naval force. And Russia has had the possibility and real threat of both of the ports currently being taken away from them in the long term [Both Tartous and Black Sea. Come to think of it, I am reminded of this aspect only now].

. [I still cant get how they even proceeded with this act without even CONSIDERATION. that really shocks me. They complain about Russians 19th century attitude. How about their thought process in moving forward with the deal without thinking of consequences? that seems 17th BC to me.]

Russia risks further US sanctions over Ukraine, says Kerry
BBC News - 22 minutes ago

[vijaykarthik]

^^ Yes. I am actually expecting more sanctions. [As I was telling my team in the other project, all this recent media bump up is to push for new sanctions. Basically prepare public and get their collective outrage. bla bla.]

Pretty sad that Russia will get hurt economically. But should cope with it hopefully in the near term. Long term effects still unclear.

in the meanwhile, Move borders

Funny!

[vijaykarthik]

^^ and if I may add, if Yulia *really* had her way, she might prefer the moving of borders too, no?

[gunjur]

Hopefully this hasn't been posted here yet, as this article is more than month old.

The U.S. has treated Russia like a loser since the end of the Cold War.

Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991, is the author of “Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.”

One afternoon in September 1987, Secretary of State George Shultz settled in a chair across the table from Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in a New York conference room. Both were in the city for the United Nations General Assembly.

As he habitually did at the start of such meetings , Shultz handed Shevardnadze a list of reported human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. Shevardnadze’s predecessor, Andrei Gromyko, had always received such lists grudgingly and would lecture us for interfering in Soviet internal affairs.

This time, though, Shevardnadze looked Shultz in the eye and said through his interpreter: “George, I will check this out, and if your information is correct, I will do what I can to correct the problem. But I want you to know one thing: I am not doing this because you ask me to; I am doing it because it is what my country needs to do.”

Shultz replied: “Eduard, that’s the only reason either of us should do something. Let me assure you that I will never ask you to do something that I believe is not in your country’s interest.”

They stood and shook hands. As I watched the scene, with as much emotion as amazement, it dawned on me that the Cold War was over. The job of American ambassador in Moscow was going to be a lot easier for me than it had been for my predecessors.

I thought back to that moment as talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s top diplomat this past week failed to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. It’s striking that the language being used publicly now is so much more strident than our language, public or private, was then. “It can get ugly fast if the wrong choices are made,” Kerry declared Wednesday, threatening sanctions.

I don’t believe that we are witnessing a renewal of the Cold War. The tensions between Russia and the West are based more on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and posturing for domestic audiences than on any real clash of ideologies or national interests. And the issues are far fewer and much less dangerous than those we dealt with during the Cold War.

But a failure to appreciate how the Cold War ended has had a profound impact on Russian and Western attitudes — and helps explain what we are seeing now.

The common assumption that the West forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus won the Cold War is wrong . The fact is that the Cold War ended by negotiation to the advantage of both sides.

At the December 1989 Malta summit, Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush confirmed that the ideological basis for the war was gone, stating that the two nations no longer regarded each other as enemies . Over the next two years, we worked more closely with the Soviets than with even some of our allies. Together, we halted the arms race, banned chemical weapons and agreed to drastically reduce nuclear weapons. I also witnessed the raising of the Iron Curtain, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the voluntary abandonment of communist ideology by the Soviet leader. Without an arms race ruining the Soviet economy and perpetuating totalitarianism, Gorbachev was freed to focus on internal reforms.

Because the collapse of the Soviet Union happened so soon afterward, people often confuse it with the end of the Cold War. But they were separate events, and the former was not an inevitable outcome of the latter.

Moreover, the breakup of the U.S.S.R. into 15 separate countries was not something the United States caused or wanted. We hoped that Gorbachev would forge a voluntary union of Soviet republics, minus the three Baltic countries. Bush made this clear in August 1991 when he urged the non-Russian Soviet republics to adopt the union treaty Gorbachev had proposed and warned against “suicidal nationalism.” Russians who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union should remember that it was the elected leader of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who conspired with his Ukrainian and Belarusian counterparts to replace the U.S.S.R. with a loose and powerless “commonwealth.”

Even after the U.S.S.R. ceased to exist, Gorbachev maintained that “the end of the Cold War is our common victory.” Yet the United States insisted on treating Russia as the loser.

“By the grace of God, America won the Cold War,” Bush said during his 1992 State of the Union address. That rhetoric would not have been particularly damaging on its own. But it was reinforced by actions taken under the next three presidents.

President Bill Clinton supported NATO’s bombing of Serbia without U.N. Security Council approval and the expansion of NATO to include former Warsaw Pact countries. Those moves seemed to violate the understanding that the United States would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat from Eastern Europe. The effect on Russians’ trust in the United States was devastating. In 1991, polls indicated that about 80 percent of Russian citizens had a favorable view of the United States; in 1999, nearly the same percentage had an unfavorable view.

Vladi­mir Putin was elected in 2000 and initially followed a pro-Western orientation. When terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, he was the first foreign leader to call and offer support. He cooperated with the United States when it invaded Afghanistan, and he voluntarily removed Russian bases from Cuba and Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

What did he get in return? Some meaningless praise from President George W. Bush, who then delivered the diplomatic equivalent of swift kicks to the groin: further expansion of NATO in the Baltics and the Balkans, and plans for American bases there; withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; invasion of Iraq without U.N. Security Council approval; overt participation in the “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan; and then, probing some of the firmest red lines any Russian leader would draw, talk of taking Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Americans, heritors of the Monroe Doctrine, should have understood that Russia would be hypersensitive to foreign-dominated military alliances approaching or touching its borders.

President Obama famously attempted a “reset” of relations with Russia, with some success: The New START treaty was an important achievement, and there was increased quiet cooperation on a number of regional issues. But then Congress’s penchant for minding other people’s business when it cannot cope with its own began to take its toll. The Magnitsky Act , which singled out Russia for human rights violations as if there were none of comparable gravity elsewhere, infuriated Russia’s rulers and confirmed with the broader public the image of the United States as an implacable enemy.

The sad fact is that the cycle of dismissive actions by the United States met by overreactions by Russia has so poisoned the relationship that the sort of quiet diplomacy used to end the Cold War was impossible when the crisis in Ukraine burst upon the world’s consciousness. It’s why 43 percent of Russians are ready to believe that Western actions are behind the crisis and that Russia is under siege.

Putin’s military occupation of Crimea has exacerbated the situation. If it leads to the incorporation of Crimea in the Russian Federation , it may well result in a period of mutual recrimination and economic sanctions reminiscent of the Cold War. In that scenario, there would be no winners, only losers: most of all Ukraine itself, which may not survive in its present form, and Russia, which would become more isolated. Russia may also see a rise in terrorist acts from anti-Russian extremists on its periphery and more resistance from neighboring governments to membership in the economic union it is promoting.

Meanwhile, the United States and Europe would lose to the extent that a resentful Russia would make it even more difficult to address global and regional issues such as the Iranian nuclear program, North Korea and the Syrian civil war, to name a few. Russian policy in these areas has not always been all the United States desired, but it has been more helpful than many Americans realize. And encouraging a more obstructive Russia is not in anyone’s interest.

[TSJones]

Russian troops cover their faces and don't wear insignia on their uniforms. It's too bad they can't be proud of what they are doing. They don't like journalists either and have detained a number of them. Top secret double probation I guess. They're really impressing us here in the west.

No face masks here.

http://rt.com/news/pentagon-poland-ground-troops-556/

[RSoami]

The dumbos in Washington are saying if they dont act fast they are going to `lose Eastern Ukraine`. It doesnt seem to occur that eastern Europe was never theirs to lose anyway. Its Russian. Unless they were to forcibly keep them in their sphere.
One really has to give it to Unkill`s overflowing stream of strategic experts.
All the money that the west is now going to give to Ukraine is eventually going to Russia. This will more than offset the effect of sanctions. The increase in price of gas means that there will be a continuous flow of wealth from Ukraine to Russia. Add this to the gas dependency of Euro-Peons on Russia. Their money was going to Russia anyway. Now more of it will go to Russia through Ukraine.
And no guarantee of Ukraine joining any of west`s lauded institutions.
Putin must be laughing day and night.

[Yogi_G]

What the "west" thinks doesn't matter anymore, the assorted Germannic tribes have become the laughing stock of the world. Russian firmness and guts have attracted admiration from the world over while the buffoons in the west are hastening their own downfall, the 15 seconds of fame for the west built on colonial loot is over now. The true thorough breds like India, China and Russia are reclaiming their rightful place in the world, they after all dominated its course for over 7000 years of human history. What Japan does it to be seen, it has to come out of the orbit of the falling "west". I am very very thankful to Putin for calling the bluff on "western" foreign policy and firmness. Next slap should be from Modi much harsher than the one he delivered on Powell.

[Philip]

If the cretins like "Insane" O'Bomber and JoKer-ry push Putin over the edge,he won;\'t stop with the east! Do you think that Kiev will not fall too? Putin said "God only knows how Ukraine was created" ,always being part of greater Russia,or words to that effect.When the crisis first erupted,Russians from all walks of life,intellectuals,etc.,spoke lovingly about Kiev's historic role in Russian religion,culture,literature and history.Putin has the people of Russia behind him,which is the most important fact.He is great chess player,and will move the pieces until the Kiev chickens and neo-Nazi thugs over react which is precisely what they're about to do.In fact,the east has already been lost in the hearts of the people there,as one can see from the report by the Independent UK.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 75548.html
Ukraine crisis: A moment of dignity for the dead then the recriminations fly

In his sermon Father Nicolai dwelt on the parable of Cain and Abel; brother slaying brother; the calamity of a house divided: three generations of one family sobbed in the corner holding on to each other, three bodies lay in open caskets, heaped in flowers, the dead from Ukraine’s internecine strife.

There was dignity, grace and grief during the service at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Slovyansk. As the service ended, mourners came forward with more bouquets.

Elderly women in scarves and elderly men, Soviet veterans in frayed dress uniforms, bent down to kiss the foreheads of the fallen. As the bodies of 53-year-old Sergey Rudenko, Pavel Pavelko, 42, and 24-year-old Alexander Sigano were taken outside there were roars, over and over, of “Glory to the Heroes of the Donbass”, as the bells tolled.

Then, as a young man who had taken part in the fatal fight spoke of how one of the victims had been hacked to death with a knife, an argument broke out with a group of men in balaclavas, they insisting that all had, in fact, been shot. A doctor who had examined the wounds was called up to adjudicate, but his verdict was drowned by a man with a loudhailer shouting: “The Ukraine junta had declared war on us. It is killing our people. We shall fight back, we shall be victorious.”

The acting president of Ukraine also promised action with the re-launch of a military mission at the end of a ceasefire over Easter offered by his government. Oleksandr Turchynov claimed that “brutally tortured” bodies had been found of people who had been kidnapped by separatists in the region. One, that of a local politician, Volodymyr Rybak, from his Fatherland party.

Separatist officials accused Kiev of putting up a smokescreen. Aleksei Andriovich, who described himself as a captain in the people’s militia, maintained: “This is an attempt to hoodwink people when the world can see how Turchinov’s so-called government is killing civilians. They declared a false truce and then used Right Sector [a ultra-nationalist group] to carry out these murders.”

There are still unanswered questions about what exactly happened at the checkpoint at the village of Bylbasovka in the early hours of Easter Sunday. But, the crowd which had gathered outside the church had no doubts, the killings adding to their firmly-held views that fascists had been coming from Kiev to carry out attacks.

“What is going on today is proof enough. They first send their troops, who refuse to fight the people, so they send terrorists. I fought in Afghanistan and now I find myself fighting in my own city,” said an indignant Mikhail Grushanin. “The Americans are paying for this, even if is the people in Kiev sending them.”

A younger man, Maxim, came over: “They have got a female terrorist in prison now. She was sent to co-ordinate these attacks. She was doing the same thing in the Maidan [the centre of protests in Kiev which led to the current government getting in power]. They should have dragged her along here to see what her people had done.”

Pro-Russian militants have been holding Irma Kart, 29, a journalist and activist who had arrived from Kiev in the morning after the checkpoint shooting. She has been accused of involvement in the torture of anti-Maidan reporter Sergiy Rulyov and membership of Patriots of Ukraine, a group with links to the Right Sector. Another journalist, Simon Ostrovsky, was arrested late tonight at a checkpoint in Slovyansk. The newly-installed pro-Moscow mayor, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, admitted that the highly-respected documentary maker, for Vice News was being held in custody, but refused to say for what reason.

Mr Ponomaryov had accused Ms Kart of war crimes. Produced before a group of journalists, including myself, on Monday, she had protested: “I did not have anything to do with torture. I want to say sorry for what had happened, but they shouldn’t put all the evil on me. They are just trying to find people to blame.”

Leonid said he did not want to focus on who killed Sergey Rudenko; he wanted to talk, instead, about his friend. “He was not involved in politics, he was not a soldier, he was just a driver. He was at the checkpoint because it had been set up to guard our homes. You saw in church just how much it had affected his family; he had always worked so hard for them. Forget about politics, we are just talking about a good man who has gone.”

As the mourners were taken by buses for the burials, Father Nicolai, too, was reflecting on the losses: “Easter should be a time of rebirth and life, instead we have this. I have told the families that those who die at such a holy time doing good things will go to heaven. These men were doing something good – they were defending their community.

And the Western puppet and fascist thug lets loose his dogs.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... -operation
Ukraine's acting president calls for action against pro-Russian separatists

Ukraine's acting president has called for the resumption of military operations against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, claiming two of his party's supporters had been "tortured to death", in a further blow to an unravelling international peace plan.

Turchynov's call to relaunch army operations came on a day when international monitors reported a worsening in the security situation in separatist-held eastern districts, while the US and Russia blamed each other for the continuing unrest.

Biden flew to Kiev to offer the Ukrainian government economic support and tell Moscow it was "time to stop talking and start acting". In response, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the onus was on Washington to rein in the authorities in Kiev, which he said had been brought to power by the US and was responsible for "outrages".

Western officials acknowledged that the Geneva plan – agreed on Thursday by the US, Russia, Ukraine and the EU – was clearly in trouble, but the US and the EU put off a decision on imposing new sanctions on Russian leaders, hoping diplomacy could somehow be salvaged in the new few days.

Meanwhile, the OSCE said the security in the most troubled areas was getting worse. An American journalist working for Vice News, Simon Ostrovsky, was reported to have been held by the separatists running Slavyansk, on the orders of their leader, the self-styled "People's Mayor", Vyacheslav Ponomaryov.

Amid a growing number of reports of abductions, arrests and disappearances, the head of the OSCE mission, Ertugrul Apakan, called for pro-Russian separatists to release the chief of police in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, Colonel Vitaliy Kolupai. "The OSCE monitors talked to witnesses who were able to confirm reports that armed individuals who called themselves supporters of the so-called 'Donetsk Republic' entered the premises of Kramatorsk police department and abducted its head Colonel Vitaliy Kolupai who is being kept against his will," the Vienna-based organisation said in a statement.

The OSCE added that because of "unpredictable security risks", its observers had been unable to reach the site of a shooting on Sunday morning in another separatist-held town of Slavyansk, in which at least three people were reported dead. Moscow and its supporters in the region blamed Ukrainian rightwingers. Kiev blamed Russian military intelligence.

The OSCE mission called the incident "a worrying deterioration of the situation" and said Slavyansk had become a no-go zone. "The security situation is assessed as deteriorating, and operating conditions for OSCE teams are marginal," it said.

Meanwhie,while US Veep,Biden pledged $50M to Ukraine for improving its security apparatus,he also warned the Kiev clique ,with the the acting leadership must "fight the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system".

PS:Yes Yogi.I would love to be a fly on the wall when Modi and Putin meet! They are in many respects trying to protect their country's interests first.

[vijaykarthik]

Putins empire of the mind

A specter is haunting Europe, the specter of Russian imperialism.

When Vladimir Putin first came to power in 1999, he talked ideologically but acted rationally. He listened to a range of opinions, from liberal economist Alexei Kudrin to political fixer Vladislav Surkov -- people willing to tell him hard truths and question groupthink. He may have regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, but he knew he couldn't re-create it. Perhaps the best metaphor is that while he brought back the Soviet national anthem, it had new words. There was no thought of returning Russia to the failed Soviet model of the planned economy. And as a self-professed believer who always wears his baptismal cross, Putin encouraged the once-suppressed Russian Orthodox Church.

He was a Russian patriot, but he also was willing to cooperate with the West when it suited his interests. One of the first leaders to offer his condolences after the 9/11 attacks, Putin shared Russian intelligence on al Qaeda with the United States. He did not hesitate to protect Russia's interests against the West -- in 2008 Putin undercut any thought of NATO expansion into Georgia by launching a war against its vehemently pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili -- but Putin's challenges were carefully calibrated to minimize repercussions while maximizing gains. He shut off gas to Ukraine, unleashed hackers on Estonia, and, yes, sent troops into Georgia, but he made sure that the costs of asserting regional hegemony were limited, bearable, and short term.

But that was the old Putin. Today, the West faces a rather different Russian leader.

After all, the annexation of Crimea, by any rational calculation, did not make sense. Russia already had immense influence on the peninsula, but without the need to subsidize it, as Ukraine had. (Russia has already pledged $1.5 billion to support Crimea.) The Russian Black Sea Fleet's position in the Crimean seaport of Sevastopol was secure until 2042. Any invasion would anger the West and force it to support whatever government took the place of Viktor Yanukovych's administration in Kiev, regardless of its composition or constitutionality.

In Putin's actions at home as well, the Russian president is eschewing the pragmatism that marked his first administration. Instead of being the arbiter, brokering a consensus among various clans and interests, today's Putin is increasingly autocratic. His circle of allies and advisors has shrunk to those who only share his exact ideas. Sober technocrats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu played seemingly no role in the decision-making over Crimea and were expected simply to execute the orders from the top.

This has become one of the new themes of Russian politics: the conflation of loyalty to the Kremlin with patriotism. It says much that dissidents at home, from journalists failing to toe the official line to protesters on the streets, are castigated either as outright "foreign agents" (every movement, charity, or organization accepting foreign money must register itself as such) or else as unknowing victims and vectors of external contamination -- contamination, that is, from the West, whose cosmopolitanism and immorality Putin has come to see as an increasing threat to Russia's identity. As a result, Putin's relationship with Russia's elite -- now often foreign-educated, usually well-traveled, and always interested in economic prospects abroad -- has become tortuous. Having provided members of the elite with opportunities during his first presidency, Putin not only mistrusts the elite now, but sees it as unpatriotic. Some $420 billion has flowed out of Russia since 2008, and in 2013, Putin decried those who were "determined to steal and remove capital and who did not link their future to that of the country, the place where they earned their money." In response, he launched a program of "de-offshorization" that has prompted major Russian telecom, metals, and truck-manufacturing companies to announce their return to Russia. And Alexander Bastrykin, the powerful head of the Investigative Committee and one of Putin's closest acolytes, promised a crackdown on schemes designed to transfer money out of the country.

These efforts are representative of a broader reconsolidation that requires the West to stay out of Russia's politics and that prevents its ideas and values from perverting Putin's country. In this context, Yanukovych's ouster from the Ukrainian presidency was the inevitable catalyst for a decisive expression of a new imperialism. From the Kremlin's perspective, a Western-influenced and -supported opposition movement in Kiev rose up and toppled a legitimate leader who preferred Russia over the European Union, in the process threatening the liberties and prospects of the ethnic Russian population in Ukraine's east.

Perhaps the world should have paid more attention when Putin made 2014 Russia's "Year of Culture." This was to be when the country celebrated its unique identity -- a year of "emphasis on our cultural roots, patriotism, values, and ethics." It was nothing less than a recipe for a new Russian exceptionalism, one that Putin himself would craft and impose. Seen in those terms, the turmoil in Ukraine did not merely allow him to step in -- it demanded it.

The imperialism that has sprung from Putin's revived emphasis on Russian identity cannot neatly be compared with either its tsarist or its Soviet forebears. The tsarist empire was driven by an expansionist logic that would gladly push Russia's boundaries as far as they could stretch. Although multiethnic, there was no question that ethnic Russians were the imperial race and that others -- with a few exceptions, such as the Baltic German aristocrats on whom Tsar Nicholas I relied -- were second-class subjects. This was Russkii, ethnic Russian, not Rossiiskii, Russian by citizenship. By contrast, Soviet imperialism embodied, at least in theory, a political ideology greater than any one people or culture and a rhetoric of internationalism and evangelism.

Putin has spent considerable effort in forging a new Rossiiskii state nationalism. Absent is the visceral anti-Semitism of the Russian Empire, and the widespread racism and hostility visible within much of Russian society is not reflected in government policy. Nor does the president seem interested in expanding direct Russian rule (as opposed to political authority) or in exporting any particular political philosophy to non-Russians. At the same time, Putin thinks that "the [ethnic] Russian people are, without a doubt, the backbone, the fundament, the cement of the multinational Russian people." In other words, though ethnic Russians do not rule the state, they do provide the foundations for the "Russian civilization" on which it is based.

Putin's reference to Russia as a "civilization" signals itself a return to the time-honored belief that there is something unique about Russia rooted not only in ethnic identity but in culture and history -- a belief that began when the country became the chief stronghold of Eastern Orthodoxy after the fall of Constantinople. As he put it in his 2012 state-of-the-federation address: "In order to revive national consciousness, we need to link historical eras and get back to understanding the simple truth that Russia did not begin in 1917, or even in 1991, but, rather, that we have a common, continuous history spanning over 1,000 years and we must rely on it to find inner strength and purpose in our national development."

Putin's conception of what it means to be Russian combines the stern-jawed heroics of the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad with the exuberant loyalty of the tsar's own Cossacks, while excluding the humanism of Andrei Sakharov and the ascetic moralism of Leo Tolstoy. It is a version of Russian history and philosophy cherry-picked to support Putin's notion of national exceptionalism. In fact, he recently assigned regional governors homework, writings by three prominent 19th- and 20th-century intellectuals: Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Solovyov, and Ivan Ilyin. These three, whom Putin often cites, exemplify and justify his belief in Russia's singular place in history. They romanticize the necessity of obedience to the strong ruler -- whether managing the boyars or defending the people from cultural corruption -- and the role of the Orthodox Church in defending the Russian soul and ideal.

In this, Putin is directly drawing on a classic Russian dichotomy between autocracy and anarchy, as well as on the country's experiences during the 1990s, when there was no strong, consistent central rule and the country was beset by rebellion, gangsterism, poverty, and geopolitical irrelevance. In his 2013 state-of-the-federation speech, Putin made the connection between authoritarianism and social order, admitting, "Of course, this is a conservative position. But speaking in the words of Nikolai Berdyaev, the point of conservatism is not that it prevents movement forward and upward, but that it prevents movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state."

THIS IS THE CENTER OF PUTIN'S IMPERIAL VISION: The pragmatic political fixer of the 2000s now genuinely believes that Russian culture is both exceptional and threatened and that he is the man to save it. He does not see himself as aggressively expanding an empire so much as defending a civilization against the "chaotic darkness" that will ensue if he allows Russia to be politically encircled abroad and culturally colonized by Western values at home.

This notion of an empire built on the basis of a civilization is crucial to understanding Putin. There are neighboring countries, such as those in the South Caucasus, that he believes ought to recognize that they are part of Russia's sphere of influence, its defensive perimeter, and its economic hinterland. But, he stops short of wanting forcefully to bring them under direct dominion because they are not ethnically Russian. Even when Moscow separated the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, for example, it set them up as independent puppet states; it did not annex them into the Russian Federation.

Putin does insist, however, that Moscow is the protector of Russians worldwide. Where there are Russians and Russian-speakers and where Russian culture and the Russian Orthodox faith hold or held sway, these are nash -- "ours." Despite his mission to "gather the Russian lands" like the 15th-century's Prince Ivan the Great, this does not necessarily mean occupying Crimea today, Donetsk in eastern Ukraine tomorrow, and Russian-settled northern Kazakhstan the day after, but it helps define what he thinks is Russia's birthright. In his defense of the annexation of Crimea, he said that the Soviet Union's collapse left "the Russian nation … one of the biggest, if not the biggest, ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders."

Crimea, after all, is historically, ethnically, and culturally Russian, which is why, after its residents voted in favor of annexation, Putin approvingly noted that "after a long, difficult, exhausting voyage, Crimea and Sevastopol are returning to their native harbor, to their native shores, to their port of permanent registration -- to Russia." By contrast, the case to reach out to Transnistria in Moldova, for example, or even eastern Ukraine, is less clear. The Transnistrian Russians are relatively new colonists, arriving after World War II, and eastern Ukraine has Russian cities, but also a Catholic, Ukrainian countryside.

Putin is putting as much effort into defending his vision of "Russian civilization" at home as abroad, and he has drawn a direct connection between the two. In the past, he was a patriot, a Russian Orthodox believer, and a social conservative, but he saw the difference between his own views and state policy and was little interested in enforcing a social agenda. Indeed, he warned in 1999 that "a state ideology blessed and supported by the state … [means] practically no room for intellectual and spiritual freedom, ideological pluralism, and freedom of the press -- that is, for political freedom."

But what he once merely frowned upon, Putin now wants to ban. The conservative backlash, with laws against gay "propaganda," the heavy-handed prosecution of members of punk band Pussy Riot after their "blasphemous" performance in a church, and renewed state control of the media, all speak to a new moral agenda -- a nationalist and culturally isolationist one. Just as Putin has been trying to "de-offshorize" the Russian elite, he is now launching what could be called a "moral de-offshorization." His more recent pronouncements have been full of warnings about the "destruction of traditional values," threatening the moral degradation of Russian society.

The Russian Orthodox Church thus comes increasingly to the fore as a symbol and bastion of these traditional values and all that they mean for the new imperialism. Russian Orthodoxy was never an especially evangelical faith, concentrating on survival and purity over expansion, and much the same could be said of Putin's worldview. In Putin's previous presidency, the church was supportive, but just one of many of his allies. Now, though, from the pulpit to television news programs, the church is one of the most consistent and visible supporters of Putin's state-building project. When interviewed on the subject of Crimea, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, one of Putin's cassocked cheerleaders, asserted that the church has long believed that "the Russian people are a divided nation on its historical territory, which has the right to be reunited in a single public body."

IN 1999, SOON BEFORE HE BECAME ACTING PRESIDENT, Putin released a personal manifesto in which he admitted that Soviet communism was "a road to a blind alley, which is far away from the mainstream of civilization." Now, he is looking for exit ramps from that mainstream. Speaking in 2013 at the Valdai International Discussion Club, he warned against "mechanically copying other countries' experiences" because "the question of finding and strengthening national identity really is fundamental for Russia." It is a quest that he has taken upon himself in the name of personal and national greatness: A people with a destiny cannot be allowed to let him, themselves, their country, and their mission down.

All this helps explain the difficulty that Western governments have in understanding and dealing with him, especially this most aggressively cerebral U.S. administration. It seems that much is lost in translation between the Kremlin and the White House. Putin is not a lunatic or even a fanatic. Instead, just as there are believers who become pragmatists in office, he has made the unusual reverse journey. Putin has come to see his role and Russia's destiny as great, unique, and inextricably connected. Even if this is merely an empire of, and in, his mind -- with hazy boundaries and dubious intellectual underpinnings -- this is the construct with which the rest of the world will have to deal, so long as Putin remains in the Kremlin.

[Lisa]

Russian troops cover their faces and don't wear insignia on their uniforms. It's too bad they can't be proud of what they are doing. They don't like journalists either and have detained a number of them. Top secret double probation I guess. They're really impressing us here in the west.

No face masks here.

http://rt.com/news/pentagon-poland-ground-troops-556/

I really don't like crossing swords with you but do you really know which nation you belong to? Were the soldiers some 8000 miles away from home at Mi Lai wearing masks? What were they doing 8000 miles away in the first place? Forcibly partitioning a nation. Sound familiar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

All this could be done in the defense of your county's defense but the Russians are cruel and barbarous people when the act next door after repeated provocation by the US!

Your nation after the deaths of 2500+ on 7-11 could justify the invasion of 2 sovereign nations so i will assume that if the Vietnamese attack and kill a million Americans you would be OK with that in lieu of your county's actions in their nation.

One last thing, you are pretty big in invading small helpless nations, why not Russia/Ukraine. You are not cowards are you or is it that unlike Iraq and Afghanistan they can reach out and 'touch' you.

Masks indeed!

[UlanBatori]

But come now! Isn't is immensely impressive that US troops marching in Warsaw wear those cool uniforms rather than masks? Even in Washington DC they wear uniforms, though it IS kind-of dangerous to do that in many parts of DC.. or NY... or Gulfport Mississippi... or Georgia or Alabama.

[pankajs]

Bloomberg News ‏@BloombergNews 58m

FM Lavrov: “Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation” http://bloom.bg/1jAUGtt pic.twitter.com/R57xD4sMDX

[RSoami]

Is it not cool that Russian troops wear uniforms in Moscow or Indian troops wear uniforms in Delhi. Ha!! What kind of statement is that.
It has not been established that any Russian soldier is there in eastern Ukraine at all. And going by the zeal of the western media, governments and the gullible people leaving in that part of the world, IMHO there actually are none.
Its more likely that the Russian speaking people in the east have formed a militia to defend themselves. May be there are a lot of ex soldiers therein but quite unlikely that the narrative pushed by the west is true.
Repeating the crap is unlikely to make it sound true either.

[Lisa]

Uniforms have nothing to do with it. The West has said that intervention is OK when their interests are threatened. So when Russian interests are threatened then ........

Old wasteful proverb, Do as I say not as I do

P.S. Particularly when you are insulting my impotence on the world stage and leaving me (US) the only available option of imposing the same sanctions that I have used to break the Kingdom Of Zimbabwe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marange_diamond_fields

That's why Zimbabwe is off the front page. Mugabe is financially independent and the West have no more levers to use and they think this idea will bring Russia to its knees!

[Austin]

US not ready to admit it can’t run the show around globe — Sergei Lavrov

MOSCOW, April 23. /ITAR-TASS/. The United States can’t admit that it is unable to manage processes around the world from Washington single-handedly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with RT television channel.

“As I said, the point is not Ukraine. Ukraine is only one case that shows the United States’ unwillingness to make concessions in the geopolitical struggle,” Lavrov said.

“The Americans are not ready to admit that they can’t single-handedly run the show in all corners of the planet from Washington, that they can’t impose their ready decisions on everyone,” he said.

“And they can’t realize — that is, I think they are already beginning to realize but still keep instinctively adhering to the position that they don’t need to take into account the opinions and interests of others,” the Russian foreign minister said.

“You know that in response to a demand to vacate the illegally occupied buildings in Kiev, [US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs] Victoria Nuland said that ‘everything that is still being held by protesters is being held with licenses and with the agreement of the government of Ukraine… or with regular leases from the owners of the building’,” he said.

“It’s just incredible! It’s hard to believe that they may use such arguments seriously,” Lavrov said.

[UlanBatori]

This Zimbabwe operation does appear to have the latest, most advanced western technology in use to achieve highest productivity and working conditions; field tested in Baghdago (Abu Ghraib) and Guantanamo

The BBC, the British state broadcaster, claims Zimbabwe's security forces have a torture camp in the Marange diamond fields;[20] methods include severe beatings, sexual assault and dog mauling according to alleged victims.[20]