Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

[Deans]

Video shows rebel leader Zacharenko, in Debaltsevo, talking to a POW, from the pocket - supposed to be a Ukrainian special forces.
officer. English subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpJYzfxigs8

Ukrainian forces in the pocket have mostly pulled back inside the town of Debaltsevo. Their HQ in Debaltsevo, was hit by a Grad strike yesterday.

[Philip]

Tx Idev,that was very illuminating,Putin's attempts to constructively engage with the US but as is usual was betrayed.

The manner in which this conflict reminds me more and more of a micro-Stalingrad is intriguing. Fundamental lesson."Never take on Russia".Napoleon and Hitler learnt it the hard way. Here we have UKR forces "invading" the East which is for all purposes pro-Russian territory,arrogant invaders trapped and surrounded.Neo-Nazi Willy Wanker choc-supreme commander ranting and raving in his HQ in Kiev.
The result is inevitable.We all know what's going to happen. What is going to happen in Kiev next is anyone's guess though.

Meanwhile Europe is in deep double-edges crisis,not just the UKR war but the Greek Revolution,which now threatens to destroy the EU after the rejection by Greece of eco talks. Frankly,the "Zeropeans" should simply abandon the UKR and Willy Wanker to his inevitable fate,cut their losses and attempt as much as poss. to resolve the looming "Greek Tragedy" which threatens the very fabric of the EU!

Greek 'disaster' moves closer as eurozone talks collapse
http://www.independent.co.uk/?CMP=ILC-refresh

Greece bailout talks break down after Athens rejects 'unacceptable' eurozone demands
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... -ministers

[Philip]

http://rt.com/news/232631-putin-hungary-turkish-stream/
Hungarian rhapsody: Will Putin’s visit to Viktor Orban give Russia a way into Europe?
Published time: February 17, 2015 05:10
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.(Reuters / Yuri Kochetkov)


The Russian president’s visit to Hungary is keeping EU officials in Brussels guessing about what sort of deals exactly are going to be signed in Budapest.

Putin is visiting Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a time of unprecedented confrontation between the western world and Russia over the bloody conflict in Ukraine.

The EU has broadened its anti-Russian sanctions on Monday, expanding the blacklist with 19 more people and nine new companies. The EU blacklist now includes 151 citizens of Russia and Ukraine’s self-proclaimed eastern republics, as well as 37 Russian companies.

The Kremlin press service said that talks of the Russian and Hungarian leaders will focus on bilateral economic and trade relations, and in particular the nuclear energy deal signed in December.

Under a deal worth up to €10 billion, Russia’s Rosatom will build a 2,000 megawatt addition to Hungary's state-owned nuclear power plant MVM Paksi Atomeromu.

READ MORE: ‘National independence under attack’: Hungary’s PM answers McCain's remarks

Russia is Hungary’s largest trade partner outside of the 28-nation EU, with exports worth $3.4 billion in 2013. Budapest is also highly dependent on Russian energy, both gas and oil refined products.

Russia supplies approximately 80 percent of the oil products and 70 percent of the natural gas consumed by Hungary.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been harshly criticized in the west due to his close economic cooperation with Russia. Orban, in turn, is critical of the EU for alienating Russia and plunging into a painful trade war with it.

On the eve of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Budapest, about 3,000 people rallied in front of the Hungarian parliament holding national and European Union flags and demanding Orban's resignation.

READ MORE: Thousands protest against Hungarian PM ahead of Merkel’s visit (VIDEO)

Although protesters represented only about 0.17 percent of Hungarian capital’s 1.75 mln population, PM Orban is being forced to explain to Hungary’s EU partners and people of Hungary that his policies are economically justified.

“We don’t want to get close to anyone, and we don’t intend to move away from anybody,” Orban said in November 2014. “We are not pursuing a pro-Russian policy but a pro-Hungarian policy,” he added, advocating expansion of the only Hungarian nuclear power plant, explaining that this is the “only possible means” to lower dependence on external energy resources.

EU critics tend to accuse PM Orban of authoritarian trends because of the reforms he introduced to transfer more powers to the central government to effectively leverage large business entities, banks, mass media and other centers of power.

[Philip]

​France should recognize Crimea as part of Russia – Le Pen
Published time: February 17, 2015

http://rt.com/news/232919-france-le-pen-crimea-russia/

The leader of the French National Front Party, Marine Le Pen has urged the French government to recognize Crimea as part of Russia’s territory and to restore ties with Moscow, a “natural ally of Europe.”

There is no alternative, but to recognize the legality of Crimea’s ascension into the Russian Federation, Le Pen told the Polish Do Rzeczy in an interview. The French politician says that Paris must accept Crimea’s choice, as it became part of Russia in the time of lawlessness following an orchestrated “coup” last year, when “Neo-Nazi militants organized a revolution in Ukraine.”

Le Pen says the Peninsula had no other choice as “power in Kiev was illegal,” at that time. “The authorities [in Kiev] started to make decisions that would lead to civil war,” she added.

The leader of the French National Front emphasized that “Russia is a natural ally of Europe.”

“We are pawns in the game of influence between the United States and Russia. Russia is a great country, a great people, with which Europe has many common strategic interests. We need to talk with Russia,” she said.

Le Pen has been a strong critic of EU policies towards Russia and US influence in European geopolitics from the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. In March, speaking about the results of the referendum in Crimea, Le Pen said that on the peninsula, the people’s choice was to be expected.

"This was to be expected," Le Pen said. "And the people [of Crimea], who lived in fear, rushed into the arms of the country where they were from: as you know it, Crimea is part of Ukraine only for 60 years."

Earlier this month, Le Pen voiced her disapproval of Washington’s stake in Europe.

“Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” she said, before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”

She went on to accuse European leaders of turning a blind eye to the Ukrainian government’s “bombing of civilians,” adding that both those in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine believed the country should be federalized.

Equally critical of the EU role in Ukraine, in September, she told Le Monde that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is “all the European Union’s fault,” saying Brussels had “blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia.”

To resolve the conflict, Le Pen has more than once called on necessity to conduct negotiations on federalization and constitutional reforms to decentralize the power, rather than to try solve the issue by military means.

[RSoami]

Hear hear

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/250851.html

"The situation in the Debaltseve area is controllable. It is possible to bring ammunition and food to the positions," acting speaker for the General Staff Vladyslav Selezniov said at a press briefing on Monday.

[vinod]

NATO expansion at heart of Ukraine crisis

WASHINGTON – The Cold War didn’t end. It just took on a 24-year pause. The East-West showdown over Ukraine makes that clear.

As the non-Russian republics broke free in the Soviet collapse and Eastern European Soviet satellite countries snapped the chains of Moscow’s dominion, common wisdom held that the Cold War was over. The victors: The United States and its European allies, bound together in the NATO alliance to block further Soviet expansion in Europe after World War II.

Since the Soviet collapse – as Moscow had feared – that alliance has spread eastward, expanding along a line from Estonia in the north to Romania and Bulgaria in the south. The Kremlin claims it had Western assurances that would not happen. Now, Moscow’s only buffers to a complete NATO encirclement on its western border are Finland, Belarus and Ukraine.

The Kremlin would not have to be paranoid to look at that map with concern. And Russia reacted dramatically last year. U.S.-Russian relations have fallen back into the dangerous nuclear and political standoff of the Cold War years before the Soviet collapse It began with prolonged pro-Western demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital. The upheaval caused corrupt, Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Moscow nearly a year ago. The political turmoil broke out after Yanukovych – contrary to an agreement with the European Union for closer trade and political ties with the pan-European political and trading bloc – backed out and accepted Russian guarantees of billions of dollars in financial aid.

When a new, pro-Western government took power in Ukraine, Russia reacted by seizing the Crimean Peninsula and making it once again a part of Russia. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred the strategic region from Russian federation control to the Ukraine republic in 1954. Crimea remained base to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and ethnic Russians are a majority of the population.

Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine — along the Russian border — began agitating, then fighting to break free of Kiev’s control, variously demanding autonomy, independence or to become a part of Russia. As Russian-backed fighters — the West claims they have been given Russian heavy arms and are backed by Russian forces — pushed deeper into Ukraine, a September peace conference drew up plans for a cease-fire and eventual steps toward a political resolution.

The cease-fire never held and the fighting between Ukrainian forces and the separatist grew more intense. The separatists accumulated considerable ground in the fighting, which the United Nations reports has claimed 5,300 lives.

Now there’s a new peace plan. Hammered out in all-night negotiations earlier this week, it calls for a cease-fire to take effect Sunday. But since the deal was announced, fighting has only increased, as Ukrainian forces battle to hold a major rail hub in Debaltseve. It controls transport between the rebel-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Those regions are home to major heavy industrial complexes, many of which produce weapons for Russia’s military.

As part of the deal that calls for an end to fighting, both sides are to draw back heavy weapons from the conflict line. Kiev is to write a new constitution that would reflect the autonomy demands of the separatists. Ukraine would retake control of its border with Russia. Moscow views the deal as a guarantee Ukraine will not join NATO.

The deal was heralded as a new chance for peace by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who arranged the new peace deal at negotiations that involved Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rebel leaders also signed on. The administration of President Barack Obama, which has led a tough sanctions drive against Moscow over its actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, has taken a wait-and-see attitude.

“The true test of today’s accord will be in its full and unambiguous implementation, including the durable end of hostilities and the restoration of Ukrainian control over its border with Russia,” the White House said in a statement.

American officials are skeptical the deal will hold. Secretary of State John Kerry put it bluntly: “Actions will be what matter now. We will judge the commitment of Russia and the separatists by their actions, not their words.”

In the meantime, the administration has put off a decision on sending lethal weapons to Ukraine and additional sanctions on Russia. Putin, who so far has proven impervious to Western sanctions and crashing oil prices that threaten his entire economy, is a step closer to his goal of making certain there won’t be yet another NATO member along his Western frontier.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Steven R. Hurst, an AP international political writer based in Washington, reported from Moscow for 12 years and has covered international relations for 33 years.

[vinod]

A Broken Promise?
What the West Really Told Moscow About NATO Expansion

Twenty-five years ago this November, an East German Politburo member bungled the announcement of what were meant to be limited changes to travel regulations, thereby inspiring crowds to storm the border dividing East and West Berlin. The result was the iconic moment marking the point of no return in the end of the Cold War: the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the months that followed, the United States, the Soviet Union, and West Germany engaged in fateful negotiations over the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the reunification of Germany. Although these talks eventually resulted in German reunification on October 3, 1990, they also gave rise to a later, bitter dispute between Russia and the West. What, exactly, had been agreed about the future of NATO? Had the United States formally promised the Soviet Union that the alliance would not expand eastward as part of the deal?

Even more than two decades later, the dispute refuses to go away. Russian diplomats regularly assert that Washington made just such a promise in exchange for the Soviet troop withdrawal from East Germany -- and then betrayed that promise as NATO added 12 eastern European countries in three subsequent rounds of enlargement. Writing in this magazine earlier this year, the Russian foreign policy thinker Alexander Lukin accused successive U.S. presidents of “forgetting the promises made by Western leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev after the unification of Germany -- most notably that they would not expand NATO eastward.” Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 were fueled in part by his ongoing resentment about what he sees as the West’s broken pact over NATO expansion. But U.S. policymakers and analysts insist that such a promise never existed. In a 2009 Washington Quarterly article, for example, the scholar Mark Kramer assured readers not only that Russian claims were a complete “myth” but also that “the issue never came up during the negotiations on German reunification.”

Now that increasing numbers of formerly secret documents from 1989 and 1990 have made their way into the public domain, historians can shed new light on this controversy. The evidence demonstrates that contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington, the issue of NATO’s future in not only East Germany but also eastern Europe arose soon after the Berlin Wall opened, as early as February 1990. U.S. officials, working closely with West German leaders, hinted to Moscow during negotiations that month that the alliance might not expand, not even to the eastern half of a soon-to-be-reunited Germany.

Documents also show that the United States, with the help of West Germany, soon pressured Gorbachev into allowing Germany to reunify, without making any kind of written promise about the alliance’s future plans. Put simply, there was never a formal deal, as Russia alleges -- but U.S. and West German officials briefly implied that such a deal might be on the table, and in return they received a “green light” to commence the process of German reunification. The dispute over this sequence of events has distorted relations between Washington and Moscow ever since.


Contrary to Russian allegations, there was never a formal deal about NATO expansion.

GETTING THE GREEN LIGHT

Western leaders quickly realized that the fall of the Berlin Wall had brought seemingly long-settled issues of European security once again into play. By the beginning of 1990, the topic of NATO’s future role was coming up frequently during confidential conversations among U.S. President George H. W. Bush; James Baker, the U.S. secretary of state; Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor; Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German foreign minister; and Douglas Hurd, the British foreign minister.

According to documents from the West German foreign ministry, for example, Genscher told Hurd on February 6 that Gorbachev would want to rule out the prospect of NATO’s future expansion not only to East Germany but also to eastern Europe. Genscher suggested that the alliance should issue a public statement saying that “NATO does not intend to expand its territory to the East.” “Such a statement must refer not just to [East Germany], but rather be of a general nature,” he added. “For example, the Soviet Union needs the security of knowing that Hungary, if it has a change of government, will not become part of the Western Alliance.” Genscher urged that NATO discuss the matter immediately, and Hurd agreed.

Three days later, in Moscow, Baker talked NATO with Gorbachev directly. During their meeting, Baker took handwritten notes of his own remarks, adding stars next to the key words: “End result: Unified Ger. anchored in a ´changed (polit.) NATO -- ´whose juris. would not move ´eastward!” Baker’s notes appear to be the only place such an assurance was written down on February 9, and they raise an interesting question. If Baker’s “end result” was that the jurisdiction of NATO’s collective-defense provision would not move eastward, did that mean it would not move into the territory of former East Germany after reunification?

In answering that question, it is fortunate for posterity’s sake that Genscher and Kohl were just about to visit Moscow themselves. Baker left behind with the West German ambassador in Moscow a secret letter for Kohl that has been preserved in the German archives. In it, Baker explained that he had put the crucial statement to Gorbachev in the form of a question: “Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces,” he asked, presumably framing the option of an untethered Germany in a way that Gorbachev would find unattractive, “or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?”

Baker’s phrasing of the second, more attractive option meant that NATO’s jurisdiction would not even extend to East Germany, since NATO’s “present position” in February 1990 remained exactly where it had been throughout the Cold War: with its eastern edge on the line still dividing the two Germanies. In other words, a united Germany would be, de facto, half in and half out of the alliance. According to Baker, Gorbachev responded, “Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.” In Baker’s view, Gorbachev’s reaction indicated that “NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.”

After receiving their own report on what had happened in Moscow, however, staff members on the National Security Council back in Washington felt that such a solution would be unworkable as a practical matter. How could NATO’s jurisdiction apply to only half of a country? Such an outcome was neither desirable nor, they suspected, necessary. As a result, the National Security Council put together a letter to Kohl under Bush’s name. It arrived just before Kohl departed for his own trip to Moscow.

Instead of implying that NATO would not move eastward, as Baker had done, this letter proposed a “special military status for what is now the territory of [East Germany].” Although the letter did not define exactly what the special status would entail, the implication was clear: all of Germany would be in the alliance, but to make it easier for Moscow to accept this development, some kind of face-saving regulations would apply to its eastern region (restrictions on the activities of certain kinds of NATO troops, as it turned out).

Kohl thus found himself in a complicated position as he prepared to meet with Gorbachev on February 10, 1990. He had received two letters, one on either end of his flight from West Germany to the Soviet Union, the first from Bush and the second from Baker, and the two contained different wording on the same issue. Bush’s letter suggested that NATO’s border would begin moving eastward; Baker’s suggested that it would not.

According to records from Kohl’s office, the chancellor chose to echo Baker, not Bush, since Baker’s softer line was more likely to produce the results that Kohl wanted: permission from Moscow to start reunifying Germany. Kohl thus assured Gorbachev that “naturally NATO could not expand its territory to the current territory of [East Germany].” In parallel talks, Genscher delivered the same message to his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, saying, “for us, it stands firm: NATO will not expand itself to the East.”


By design, Russia was left on the periphery of a post–Cold War Europe.

As with Baker’s meeting with Gorbachev, no written agreement emerged. After hearing these repeated assurances, Gorbachev gave West Germany what Kohl later called “the green light” to begin creating an economic and monetary union between East and West Germany -- the first step of reunification. Kohl held a press conference immediately to lock in this gain. As he recalled in his memoirs, he was so overjoyed that he couldn’t sleep that night, and so instead went for a long, cold walk through Red Square.

BRIBING THE SOVIETS OUT

But Kohl’s phrasing would quickly become heresy among the key Western decision-makers. Once Baker got back to Washington, in mid-February 1990, he fell in line with the National Security Council’s view and adopted its position. From then on, members of Bush’s foreign policy team exercised strict message discipline, making no further remarks about NATO holding at the 1989 line.

Kohl, too, brought his rhetoric in line with Bush’s, as both U.S. and West German transcripts from the two leaders’ February 24–25 summit at Camp David show. Bush made his feelings about compromising with Moscow clear to Kohl: “To hell with that!” he said. “We prevailed, they didn’t. We can’t let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.” Kohl argued that he and Bush would have to find a way to placate Gorbachev, predicting, “It will come down in the end to a question of cash.” Bush pointedly noted that West Germany had “deep pockets.” A straightforward strategy thus arose: as Robert Gates, then U.S. deputy national security adviser, later explained it, the goal was to “bribe the Soviets out.” And West Germany would pay the bribe.

In April, Bush spelled out this thinking in a confidential telegram to French President François Mitterrand. U.S. officials worried that the Kremlin might try to outmaneuver them by allying with the United Kingdom or France, both of which were also still occupying Berlin and, given their past encounters with a hostile Germany, potentially had reason to share the Soviets’ unease about reunification. So Bush emphasized his top priorities to Mitterrand: that a united Germany enjoy full membership in NATO, that allied forces remain in a united Germany even after Soviet troops withdraw, and that NATO continue to deploy both nuclear and conventional weapons in the region. He warned Mitterrand that no other organization could “replace NATO as the guarantor of Western security and stability.” He continued: “Indeed, it is difficult to visualize how a European collective security arrangement including Eastern Europe, and perhaps even the Soviet Union, would have the capability to deter threats to Western Europe.”

Bush was making it clear to Mitterrand that the dominant security organization in a post–Cold War Europe had to remain NATO -- and not any kind of pan-European alliance. As it happened, the next month, Gorbachev proposed just such a pan-European arrangement, one in which a united Germany would join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, thus creating one massive security institution. Gorbachev even raised the idea of having the Soviet Union join NATO. “You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities,” Gorbachev told Baker in May, according to Soviet records. “Therefore, we propose to join NATO.” Baker refused to consider such a notion, replying dismissively, “Pan-European security is a dream.”

Throughout 1990, U.S. and West German diplomats successfully countered such proposals, partly by citing Germany’s right to determine its alliance partners itself. As they did so, it became clear that Bush and Kohl had guessed correctly: Gorbachev would, in fact, eventually bow to Western preferences, as long as he was compensated. Put bluntly, he needed the cash. In May 1990, Jack Matlock, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, reported that Gorbachev was starting to look “less like a man in control and more [like] an embattled leader.” The “signs of crisis,” he wrote in a cable from Moscow, “are legion: Sharply rising crime rates, proliferating anti-regime demonstrations, burgeoning separatist movements, deteriorating economic performance . . . and a slow, uncertain transfer of power from party to state and from the center to the periphery.”

Moscow would have a hard time addressing these domestic problems without the help of foreign aid and credit, which meant that it might be willing to compromise. The question was whether West Germany could provide such assistance in a manner that would allow Gorbachev to avoid looking as though he was being bribed into accepting a reunified Germany in NATO with no meaningful restrictions on the alliance’s movement eastward.

Kohl accomplished this difficult task in two bursts: first, in a bilateral meeting with Gorbachev in July 1990, and then, in a set of emotional follow-up phone calls in September 1990. Gorbachev ultimately gave his assent to a united Germany in NATO in exchange for face-saving measures, such as a four-year grace period for removing Soviet troops and some restrictions on both NATO troops and nuclear weapons on former East German territory. He also received 12 billion deutsch marks to construct housing for the withdrawing Soviet troops and another three billion in interest-free credit. What he did not receive were any formal guarantees against NATO expansion.

In August 1990, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait immediately pushed Europe down the White House’s list of foreign policy priorities. Then, after Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Bill Clinton, Bush’s staff members had to vacate their offices earlier than they had expected. They appear to have communicated little with the incoming Clinton team. As a result, Clinton’s staffers began their tenure with limited or no knowledge of what Washington and Moscow had discussed regarding NATO.

THE SEEDS OF A FUTURE PROBLEM

Contrary to the view of many on the U.S. side, then, the question of NATO expansion arose early and entailed discussions of expansion not only to East Germany but also to eastern Europe. But contrary to Russian allegations, Gorbachev never got the West to promise that it would freeze NATO’s borders. Rather, Bush’s senior advisers had a spell of internal disagreement in early February 1990, which they displayed to Gorbachev. By the time of the Camp David summit, however, all members of Bush’s team, along with Kohl, had united behind an offer in which Gorbachev would receive financial assistance from West Germany -- and little else -- in exchange for allowing Germany to reunify and for allowing a united Germany to be part of NATO.

In the short run, the result was a win for the United States. U.S. officials and their West German counterparts had expertly outmaneuvered Gorbachev, extending NATO to East Germany and avoiding promises about the future of the alliance. One White House staffer under Bush, Robert Hutchings, ranked a dozen possible outcomes, from the “most congenial” (no restrictions at all on NATO as it moved into former East Germany) to the “most inimical” (a united Germany completely outside of NATO). In the end, the United States achieved an outcome somewhere between the best and the second best on the list. Rarely does one country win so much in an international negotiation.

But as Baker presciently wrote in his memoirs of his tenure as secretary of state, “Almost every achievement contains within its success the seeds of a future problem.” By design, Russia was left on the periphery of a post–Cold War Europe. A young KGB officer serving in East Germany in 1989 offered his own recollection of the era in an interview a decade later, in which he remembered returning to Moscow full of bitterness at how “the Soviet Union had lost its position in Europe.” His name was Vladimir Putin, and he would one day have the power to act on that bitterness.

[UlanBatori]

Sequential - earliest to latest. Tweets from Debaltseve
4 hours ago: Situation in #Debaltseve DPR with LPR control east-north part of city districtions - Oktabrskiy,50letie Pobedu, 8March, 1Ploshadka
Ukraine Reporter ‏@StateOfUkraine 3 hours ago: Reports are coming out of #Debaltseve that Russian forces are in the city and have captured the railway station
3 hours ago: Reports that pro-Russian/rebel forces take #Debaltseve railway station, no confirmation yet
3 hours ago: Soldier in #Debaltseve says rebels in outskirts of city, machine gun fire being exchanged. ATO claims road under control
Conflict News ‏3 hours ago: Russian backed separatists now control the north-eastern part of Debaltseve
Conflict News ‏3 hours ago:Reports of heavy fighting to the north of Debaltseve, possibly an attempted Ukrainian breakout/relief operation.
Conflict Reporter ‏3 hours ago: Also yet another little #pocket in the making. Russian troops avoid direct confrontation in northern Debaltseve.
Novorossiya Lives ‏2 hours ago: During debrief Ukraine terrorist army prisoners from Debaltsevo said they received no instructions from Kiev on ceasefire.
Francine Lacqua ‏2 hours ago: Urban Warfare Taking Place in #Debaltseve, Ukrainian Police Say
Ukraine Reporter ‏@StateOfUkraine 2 hours ago:Fighting between Russian & Ukrainian troops moving from outskirts of #Debaltseve into the city. Situation similar to Donetsk Airport in Dec
Yury Barmin ‏2 hours ago: BREAKING: Rebels have announced that #Debaltseve is under their control. Kiev hasn't commented yet https://meduza.io/news/2015/02/17/separ ... debaltsevo …
Conflict Reporter ‏2 hours ago: #BREAKING "One hour ago,the central police department in #Debaltseve became part of the Rus world. Screaming: Allah hu akbar!" -A.Tsaplienko
NSDC of Ukraine ‏1 hour ago UPDATE. Intense fighting near Debaltseve train station. Ukrainian forces hold their positions.
Conflict News ‏51 minutes ago: VIDEO: Large contingent of pro-Russian infantry moving in towards central #Debaltseve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iFz2YOKdE …
Julia Smirnova ‏42 minutes ago: Today we saw and heard outgoing artillery from the DNR side in Vuhlehirsk (8 km from #Debaltseve) every 2-5 minutes. Saw no incoming fire.
Tomasz Maciejczuk ‏31 minutes ago: The end of #Debaltseve coming soon. + I've lost contact with 3 soldiers from 128brig. 24 h without any response. Unusual...
Sputnik ‏25 minutes ago: Donetsk continues to evacuate civilians from Debaltseve http://bit.ly/17dBnaC
Right Now I/O Feed ‏@rightnowio_feed 21 minutes ago: Street fighting in Debaltseve. Combined for... http://www.rightnow.io/breaking-news/fo ... 93832.html … #Footage #Kalynivka Debaltseve via @robertwyspa
Conflict Reporter ‏21 minutes ago: The Russian invasion command contacted the Ukrainian general staff 6 times today to negotiate the surrender of the #Debaltseve troops.
Conflict Reporter ‏@Conflict_Report 18 minutes ago #Report by Russian media 15 Ukrainian troops surrendered so far in #Debaltseve today. Looks solid imo.
ter 15m15 minutes ago: Russian army at railroad station in #Debaltseve http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/17-februar ... debaltseve …
daan ver ‏@whereismymon 14 minutes ago: ATO spokesperson Motuzyanyk says seps have stormed a #Ukraine 'base camp' in #Debaltseve @Liveuamap @MillerMENA http://inforesist.org/shtab-boeviki-nac ... debalcevo/ …
Tore ‏11 minutes ago: Around 80% of #Debaltseve under Novorussia control acc to interview in Life news http://lifenews.ru/news/150023
Benjamin Bidder ‏5 minutes ago: Interfax has it, too: Rebell-commander Bassurin: "Peoples Republic Donezk" army took 80% of #Debaltseve http://www.interfax.ru/world/424633 (ru) #Ukraine
Exen ‏14 minutes ago: Czech news site @lidovky claims 2200 NATO soldiers in #Debaltseve, incl: - 100 US - 100 UK - 100 French - 100 Polish
Tiago Morais Morgado ‏@tmoraismorgado 14 minutes ago Channel4News: VIDEO: Huge explosions as shelling hits pipeline near #Debaltseve - http://bit.ly/1AhoKWp #c4news…

(UBCNews asks: UkBapZis Scorched-Earth Tactics? Lives of their 8000 would be worthless if they do that..)


PoliticsAndSecurity ‏@PoliSecurity 8 minutes ago: #Breaking #Ukrainian army withdraw from #Slavnoe, #Maloorlovka, #Shevchenko and #Novoorlovka, probablu to defend #Debaltseve

[UlanBatori]

Tweets about Debtaltseve

Dalibor Perkovic ‏@Izitpajn 6 minutes ago @Conflict_Report @MarQs__ @OnlineMagazin It seems Ukrainians are withdrawing south of #Debaltseve, source unverified http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/s ... tcount=515 …
Hermius ‏ 7 minutes ago"Liberation" -- "Ghost" brigade enters Debaltsevo and evacuates 135 civilians #debaltseve #donetsk #Novorossiya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y_UeirgDSE#t=31 …
AJSB ‏ 7 minutes ago: UNCONFIRMED: All #Ukraine forces retreating from towns previously announced are moving to #Debaltseve. The final stand }:>

Conflict Reporter ‏6 minutes ago: #BreakingPicture Abandoned Ukrainian defense base in S-E #Debaltseve. All armored vehicles left behind.
Nikolaus von Twickel ‏@6 minutes ago: DNR Separatists: 300 Ukrainian soldiers have given themselves up to become prisoners in #Debaltseve http://www.interfax.ru/world/424640
Conflict Reporter ‏5 minutes ago: All the catastrophizing was justified. All the Ukr army claims lies. Ukrainian troops in #Debaltseve are either withdrawing or left behind.
Novorossiya Lives ‏@Novorossiyan 4 minutes ago: "Ghost" brigade enters Debaltseve, evacuates 135 civilians #debaltseve #Novorossiya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y_UeirgDSE#t=31 …

[UlanBatori]

Interesting: from same url "Tweets about Debaltseve"

Olga Datsiuk ‏@hikariolga 3m3 minutes ago
Ukrainian troops:road to rail junction #Debaltseve unblocked as shelling continues around the town which pro-Russian rebels say is encircled

Are they being allowed to get out? I wondered what they would do about 8000 (well... 7000 or 6000 by now) UkBapZis surrendering: can they feed them? Or is this just wishful thinking from UkBapZis?

[UlanBatori]

So in summary, the UkBapZis are generally collapsing except for some diehards at the rail station and other pockets. UkBapZis from surrounding villages/suburbs are pulling out and into Debaltseve for general surrender (or suicide?) to avoid being hunted down after the fact. All are pulling back to the south from the town center..

No orders to surrender from Kyiv yet. Just like Hitler at Stalingrad. A lot of needless death and maiming and destruction. Hope they get to Kyiv and find lampposts for all the Nazi command there. Maybe the Kyiv population will do it for the rest of the world.

[UlanBatori]

Meanwhile around Mariupol:

Gleb Bazov ‏5 hours ago #MARIUPOL - The 538th iteration of Dumbass Battalion, led by #Semyonchenko from his Facebook account, ia encircled by #NAF in #Shirokino.
Conflict Reporter ‏@Conflict_Report Feb 16 5 #Azov, 2 #Donbas KIA 18 Azov, 4 Ukrainian soldiers WIA east of #Mariupol YESTERDAY.
TheEqualizer 4 hours ago: #Kiev Nazi Bat Azov:"On Feb 14,we lost 4 men and 56 were injured which were TWENTY PERCENT of our forces in #Mariupol
Enrico Ivanov ‏2 hours ago: SIT REP Ongoing fighting in #Shyrokino! Battalion Donbass arrived to help Azov, both suffered heavy losses. Town 80% in NAF hands! #Mariupol

[ldev]

In the meantime the chess match goes on.

Putin in Hungary.

Russian resurgence: how the Kremlin is making its presence felt across Europe

Coming off the early shift at Hungary’s sole nuclear power station, on the Danube south of Budapest, Jozsef, a 30-year-old turbine engineer, is grateful to have a relatively secure job that pays considerably more than the national average.

Hungarians have never been big fans of the Russians. But Jozsef knows whom he has to thank for his job security – Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who is making a rare visit to an EU country with a trip to Budapest on Tuesday.

The Russians already supply 80% of Hungary’s natural gas. If things go to plan at Paks, in a little more than a decade Russian technology and expertise will also be supplying 56% of Hungary’s electricity.

Orbán (The Hungarian Prime Minister) appears entirely comfortable with that dependency. He is the leader of a country in the EU and Nato, but voices only contempt for western “liberal democracy” and holds up Putin as a leader to be admired and imitated.

When John McCain, the US senator, challenged him last year on his pro-Moscow leanings, Orbán, said a source who witnessed the exchange, replied: “I don’t care what you think. You don’t matter. Russia matters because of energy. Germany matters because of jobs.”

This guy better watch it. Nuland will be on the next flight to Budapest to organize another Maidan!!

[ldev]

So the Germans may be learning from history after all.

Excerpt from the foreignaffairs.com article linked by Vinod above in which the Soviets wanted to become part of a pan-european security architecture i.e. become part of NATO, an idea handily rejected by the US:

Bush was making it clear to Mitterrand that the dominant security organization in a post–Cold War Europe had to remain NATO -- and not any kind of pan-European alliance. As it happened, the next month, Gorbachev proposed just such a pan-European arrangement, one in which a united Germany would join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, thus creating one massive security institution. Gorbachev even raised the idea of having the Soviet Union join NATO. “You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities,” Gorbachev told Baker in May, according to Soviet records. “Therefore, we propose to join NATO.” Baker refused to consider such a notion, replying dismissively, “Pan-European security is a dream.”

And now after 25 years, this is what the Germans are talking about:

Putin begins to crack the Atlantic Alliance

In theory, after the Obama administration outsourced the response to the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine to Angela Merkel ’s Germany, only U.N. Security Council member Britain was (very theoretically) left in Europe to take sides and name names. But London chose not to press for an active role. Ms. Merkel then signaled that Germany’s “strategic patience” with Mr. Putin’s asymmetrical war could last for decades.

In Germany, echoing the Gerhard Schröder years, the weekly Die Zeit made reference without particular alarm to a Europe now “wrestling” with its “emancipation” from the U.S. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a newspaper close to the chancellor, last week referred to Ms. Merkel as a “mediator” between the U.S. and Russia, a notion she refutes but that has wide appeal in Germany.

Sueddeutsche’s chief editor, Kurt Kister, wrote on Saturday that “the Americans hardly play a role anymore” in Europe and recommended its countries begin thinking of setting up a “European Treaty Organization or EUTO.”

That’s crackpot stuff. How could a Europe without America ever muster a credible nuclear deterrent against Russia? But there’s the potential for a rewrite of Europe’s security treaties lurking out there that could make for trouble. The German foreign ministry of Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Russians want “to discuss” such a rewrite.

So some answers may be emerging about how real the differences are between the US and Germany (and its really Germany that matters in the EU), that this article answers. Important sections of the German elites likely want their own peace with Russia within a new European security architecture. And Mrs Merkel apparently has the patience to let it work out. As the article linked by Vinod states, James Baker was prescient, 25 years ago the US should not have been tactically brilliant, they should have allowed Russia into a new translantic and european security structure superseding the cold war era NATO. Ukraine probably would not have happened.

[UlanBatori]

Continuing Debaltseve

Evgen Vorobiov ‏4 hours ago
A column of Ukr troops w/ armored vehicles ambushed and captured at #Debaltseve after they ran out of ammunition, confirms Ukraine's MoD
AJSB ‏3 hours ago: 120-150 #Ukraine POWs made by NAF seem 2b precisely from the UA rescue convoy that was trying reach #Debaltseve & got ambushed & destroyed.
Conflict News ‏3 hours ago: NEW VIDEO: 72 #Ukraine soldiers surrender in #Debaltseve to separatists -
Armed Research ‏2 hours ago: #Ukraine's soldiers within #Debaltseve area continue to receive a general SMS encouraging them to surrender.
Christopher Miller ‏29 minutes ago: Donetsk rebel leader Zakharchenko, not one to be behind a desk, reportedly wounded in battle near #Debaltseve http://lifenews.ru/mobile/news/150038 …
Yury Barmin 11 minutes ago: This photo purportedly shows Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in #Debaltseve today. http://msk.kp.ru/daily/26342/3226180/ …
Yury Barmin ‏@10 minutes ago: One of Ukrainian commanders in #Debaltseve says rebels control 90% of the town. http://nv.ua/publications/debalcevo-na- ... 34951.html …
Storm Bringer ‏@StormBringer15 4m4 minutes ago

#Logvinovo footage: Road of Death from or to #Debaltseve . Terrific!(UBCN WARNING: GRAPHIC AND TRAGIC!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yprw9jbu5U … #Ukraineconflict #Ukrainewar #DNR #NAF #Donetsk
ouge68 ‏@rougek68 3m3 minutes ago

#ATO tighten to #Debaltseve for destruction "boiler" http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.a ... a-kotla%2F … pull together equipment and additional units to area

Giter Done News 4 minutes ago: Ukrainian cease-fire � Day 3 Rebels ambush troops demand surrendr #Debaltseve #EuropeanUnion #NATO http://j.mp/1DmFRK6
Right Now I/O Feed ‏@rightnowio_feed 8m8 minutes ago

RT : #Ukraine army POW being escorted out of... http://www.rightnow.io/breaking-news/pr ... 91254.html … #Russia #Putin #Debaltseve #Mariupol via @Pickme2be

[UlanBatori]

Meanwhile: Lamp-posts being cleaned in Kyiv:

Alexandru Cociorvei: Semenchenko called urgently to strike at terrorists in #Debaltseve

Dr. Dzerzhinsky 14 minutes ago: Relatives of Ukrainian soldiers trapped in #Debaltseve block traffic and demanding Kiev to pull out and save lives. http://tass.ru/en/world/778200

[RSoami]

So, they have captured debaltseve as was expected.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... tseve.html

Poroshenko will say that its not, road is open and ukraine soldiers have been supplied with ammunition and food.

[RSoami]

If the ceasefire breaks down completely then Mariupol will be next. Pro Russians are too strong. Noone but the volunteer battalion morons want to die in this useless war for the Ukbapzis.

[Shreeman]

Debaltsevo was never really important. Ukraine was really just drawing down the seps weapons/warriors in this battle of attrition. It will be the same in mariupol, then artemivsk. All of the seps town will be reduced to rubble, and kiev will have all the healthy people and all the economic power and all the infrastructure. The seps will be forced to live of handouts in third world conditions.

Surely, then they will realize that russia is not the savior it promised to be, and that there is only one true savior. And that is America.

[Tuvaluan]

Poroshenko seems to be lying about DEbaltseve because if he does not acknowledge that Debaltseve is lost to freedom fighters, then he does not have to do anything about his trapped soldiers -- such tactical brilliance will make any paki general proud.

[Shreeman]

Ukraine does not believe in leaving a job half done, like russians in afghsnistan or even georgia. This is a tactical withdrawal. You are bound to get the odd flash wound in a knife fight. In an unconventional war, the prudent party always wins. Look at pakistan, holds the majority of kashmir. just like this.

The UN resolution is being discussed. The air strikes will come. In the end, its a matter of simply finishing the job.

[Lisa]

Debaltsevo was never really important. Ukraine was really just drawing down the seps weapons/warriors in this battle of attrition. It will be the same in mariupol, then artemivsk. All of the seps town will be reduced to rubble, and kiev will have all the healthy people and all the economic power and all the infrastructure. The seps will be forced to live of handouts in third world conditions.

Surely, then they will realize that russia is not the savior it promised to be, and that there is only one true savior. And that is America.

I may be wrong but i think that Debaltsevo is the principle rail hub for the movement of all coal from the east. If it is taken the Ukrainians have no access to vast coal reserves of the east, no oil and also no gas. The Germans and the French have been running around specifically for this reason because the current basket case of Ukrainian is only solidified when Debaltsevo's rail hub is taken.

[UlanBatori]

Despite being out of fuel, food and ammo, and completely encircled, the UkBapzis in Debaltsevo are not surrendering en masse - some units have been overwhelmed but the number captured is I think less than 1000, of the 8000 totally there. Maybe another 1000 are dead.

Why are the rest not surrendering? My guess is that they have committed a lot of atrocities on the civilian population and on captured Pro-Democracy, Anti-Coup Freedom Fighters. Also, a lot of foreign mercenaries among them, plus NATO/US 'advisors'? What do u think? The "defend their land" theme is BS: back in March when they came by train towards the border, the locals in Donetsk etc stopped the trains and convinced them to go back to Kyiv, saying we don't want war in our towns. So clearly the UkBapZis were not popular east of the Dnieper.

If this keeps up, there will be 7000 dead UkBapZis. Most of whom are just conscripts. Also a lot of needless Freedom Fighter casualties, civilian deaths and destruction. How can the Kyiv regime be caught and hanged for this?

[Shreeman]

The ukranian army are highly motivated, they only surrender if ordered by kiev. they can fight without ammo and guns by using enemies guns against them. The 6000 strong force is now being joined by a clean up crew heading south from artemivsk. Soon debaltsevo will be cleared by ATO LEO.

[Shreeman]

Debaltsevo was never really important. Ukraine was really just drawing down the seps weapons/warriors in this battle of attrition. It will be the same in mariupol, then artemivsk. All of the seps town will be reduced to rubble, and kiev will have all the healthy people and all the economic power and all the infrastructure. The seps will be forced to live of handouts in third world conditions.

Surely, then they will realize that russia is not the savior it promised to be, and that there is only one true savior. And that is America.

I may be wrong but i think that Debaltsevo is the principle rail hub for the movement of all coal from the east. If it is taken the Ukrainians have no access to vast coal reserves of the east, no oil and also no gas. The Germans and the French have been running around specifically for this reason because the current basket case of Ukrainian is only solidified when Debaltsevo's rail hub is taken.

debaltsevo's only utility was railroad to crimnia, now the railroad has been dismantled and stored for later use by ATO. Debaltsevo is useless to the seps and Russians. There are no trains going to crimnia from debaltsevo while ATO are there.

[Shreeman]

ps -- the artillary on the gas pipeline was not targetted. could be separatist. there was a ukranian reporter recording when it hit.

edit1 -- kiev hopes to get "them" out.



This was the ukranian reporter at the pipeline (via BBC). The driver was injured in the shelling so they stopped and took pictures.

[Shreeman]

Conflict Reporter @Conflict_Report· 4m 4 minutes ago #BREAKINGREPORTThe Ukr.general staff gave its troops the order to destroy all equipment in #Debaltseve and #withdrawhttp://uapress.info/uk/news/show/62445 …

If true, will seps let them pass if they destroy equipment or they try to breake trought en force?

Follow #Odessa: Local media reporting the explosion was at 85, Balshaya Arnautskaya which is where the leader of the "AutoMaidan" group lives

Sad trombones....

[UlanBatori]

Mysterious silence from Debaltseve. Except:

Stop EXCEPTIONALISMs ‏@StopEXCEPTIONS 2 hours ago: Ukrainian General Staff Confirms Debaltsevo Force Collapse #Debaltsevo #Debaltseve #Novorossiya #Mariupol #Logvinovo

tuumapomm ‏@tuumapomm 56 minutes ago: Ukrainian volunteer who failed to rescue casualties from #Debaltseve: "Number of KIA and WIA is already in hundreds, all roads are mined."

DJ Rubiconski ‏@Rubiconski 58 minutes ago: 40th battalion in #Debaltseve surrendered to #NAF w/ ALL weapons, light and heavy

DJ Rubiconski ‏2 hours ago: #NAF people's militia control the railway hub in #Debaltseve

Joseph Maloney : 1 minute ago: UN Security Council approves Russian resolution for new ceasefire http://ibt.uk/A006FCZ via @IBTimesUK #Debaltseve Putin's "New Russia".

Stop EXCEPTIONALISMs ‏12 minutes ago: Lugansk and Donetsk armies connected in #Debaltsevo. Lugansk troops are in charge of the Northern section, Donetsk, the Southern #Debaltseve

Leading Ukrainian Nazi Will Visit Washington Next Week Seeking Weapons

[UlanBatori]

stephan herzog ‏35 minutes ago: UAF soldiers in #Debaltseve Boiler mass surrender / Massenaufgabe / Game over #Novorossiya #NAF #Дебальцево 17.2.15 http://youtu.be/yL34z0J8GZw
Depressing sight, but I guess it's better than being dead.

[Deans]

On the 15th of Feb, there was a discussion on a Russian forum as to how long the pocket would last. Estimates varied from
5 to 60 days. It looks however that the pocket is collapsing faster than anyone expected. The tweets posted earlier seem largely correct.

Clip of Ukrainian POW's from the pocket yesterday (from 1.00 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL34z0J8GZw

The Ukrainian general staff spokesman contradicted chocolate on TV yesterday and said the soldiers in the pocket have been
asked to destroy their heavy weapons and make their way out as best they can. A relief attempt was made by the Ukies yesterday and was beaten back. The rebel leader Zacharenko (who visits the front regularly) was wounded in the leg.

[Deans]

Despite being out of fuel, food and ammo, and completely encircled, the UkBapzis in Debaltsevo are not surrendering en masse - some units have been overwhelmed but the number captured is I think less than 1000, of the 8000 totally there. Maybe another 1000 are dead.

Why are the rest not surrendering? My guess is that they have committed a lot of atrocities on the civilian population and on captured Pro-Democracy, Anti-Coup Freedom Fighters. Also, a lot of foreign mercenaries among them, plus NATO/US 'advisors'? What do u think? The "defend their land" theme is BS: back in March when they came by train towards the border, the locals in Donetsk etc stopped the trains and convinced them to go back to Kyiv, saying we don't want war in our towns. So clearly the UkBapZis were not popular east of the Dnieper.

If this keeps up, there will be 7000 dead UkBapZis. Most of whom are just conscripts. Also a lot of needless Freedom Fighter casualties, civilian deaths and destruction. How can the Kyiv regime be caught and hanged for this?

There is 1 unit inside the pocket known to comprise foreign mercenaries. There was a clip posted from a Ukrainian source showing them speaking in Georgian accents, discussing executing rebel prisoners (during their successes in summer). Rebels are not in a mood to spare them and have hinted at `shot while trying to escape', if they are taken prisoner.
From the clips I've seen, the soldiers who have surrendered are conscripts, who have not been issued their white winter outfits.

[RSoami]

And washington Post has also come to know of it. That 5000 Ukrainian junta troops are trapped. Now thats news.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eur ... story.html

Cease-fire in peril as rebels trap 5,000 Ukrainian troops

Dated 17th feb.

[vijaykarthik]

Anyway Michael Saakashvili is also the Ukranian some ambassador for some stupid reason and he is a friend of the NATO / West too. Hardly surprising that there will be the Georgian nexus somewhere.

[RSoami]

http://www.dw.de/ukraine-separatists-cl ... a-18264224

In a statement, Ukraine's defense ministry denied the city had been lost to the separatists, but acknowledged a group of soldiers had been taken prisoner, and that "part of the town has been seized by...bandits" backed by artillery and armored vehicles.

Am beginning to like Ukraine defence ministry.

[Shreeman]

Earlier this morning, I was in Debaltsevo, just as part of my morning walk. Papers had been delivered, milk bottles lay on most front doors. Birds were chirping, and dogs barking. What is this commotion you speak of?

[Lisa]

Further to my last post, via FT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7fe1d32e-b047 ... z3S5NpXGs3

"At stake is control over regional railway shipments of coal mined in rebel-held territory on which Ukraine’s electricity generators and export-oriented steel sector depend.
Capturing Debaltseve would allow Moscow to further cripple Kiev’s fragile energy sector and recession-battered economy. It would also put rebel fighters within striking distance of a vast weapons depot 50km north in the town of Artemivsk."

[Shreeman]

Nonsense. All coal from Donetsk is piped to kiev. Ukraine would never permit its core infrastructure to be jeopardised if debaltsevo had a real role in the energy sector.

The gas pipelines are a problem, but the new ship based gas terminal in the baltic is producing all the gas ukraine needs.

ps -- rebels controlled artmevisk in not too distant past. All entrances have been blown up by ukraine after the best weapons were sent to christies in paris for auction.

[Philip]

Soami,Shreeman, !
I was also told guys that UKR streetwalkers were plying their wares as usual!

"DebacleSev" will this battle henceforth be known as. Will "Surpreme Commander" Willy Wanker,aka Poroshenko now award himself the "Grand Order of beating the Retreat-Gold" for Debaclesev? Will he famously claim it to be the UKR's Dunkirk? One is waiting to see what happens when the full rage of the families of the trapped,wounded and killed UKR soldiers explodes.

The impotent US is as usual full of bluff and bluster.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... -ceasefire

Ukraine: US accuses Russia of breaching ceasefire after fighting at key town
Some pro-Kiev troops pulling out of Debaltseve, say paramilitary units, as Moscow sharply criticised at UN

Alec Luhn and Oksana Grytsenko in Artemivsk
Wednesday 18 February 2015

The US has accused Russia of violating the ceasefire in Ukraine, amid reports that some Ukrainian troops are pulling out of the key strategic rail hub of Debaltseve.

The US joined other UN security council members in lining up to pour scorn on a resolution drafted by Moscow approving the truce.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, said it was “ironic to say the least” that Russia produced the motion at the same time as it was “backing an all-out assault” in Ukraine despite the ceasefire.

Ukraine pro-Russia forces seize strategic Debaltseve railway hub despite truce

Commanders of pro-Kiev paramilitary units said on Wednesday morning that some pro-government forces were pulling out of Debaltseve, which has been under siege from Russia-backed separatists.

Associated Press reporters on the road to the government-controlled town of Artemivsk saw several dozen Ukrainian troops retreating with their weapons from Debaltseve.

The separatists said they had taken control of the town and offered Ukrainian troops the opportunity to surrender and abandon their weapons, a claim Ukraine denied.

Anatoliy Stelmakh, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said in a televised briefing on Wednesday that the rebels had launched five artillery strikes on Debaltseve overnight, “grossly violating the peace accords”.

On Tuesday, pro-Russia forces seized parts of Debaltseve in intense street fighting, ignoring the shaky ceasefire agreement, as a deadline for removing heavy weapons from the frontlines went unheeded.

Rebels were closing in on government soldiers who were trapped in bombed-out ruins and running out of food and supplies after more than a week under siege.

The size of Debaltseve – it was home toabout 25,000 people before the war emptied its streets – belies its importance to rebels as the site of a rail junction connecting their strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Vladimir Putin sought to delay the ceasefire by 10 days because he wanted to give separatists time to capture the town, an EU summit was told last week.

The rebels have been trying to take the town for weeks, and on Tuesday Kiev’s forces appeared to be losing their grip on it.

“The railway station is partially under the control of the terrorist fighters,” said Ilya Kiva, the deputy head of Donetsk regional police. “Active fighting is going on inside the city, there’s essentially a struggle for every block and every street,” he told television channel 112 Ukraine.

Putin told Kiev to let its soldiers surrender to the pro-Russia rebels. “I hope that the responsible figures in the Ukrainian leadership will not hinder soldiers in the Ukrainian army from putting down their weapons,” the Russian president said.

Albert Sardaryen, a Ukrainian national guard medic in Debaltseve, told the Guardian on Tuesday that he had been trapped in the town since 5 February, when he turned up for a 12-hour shift and was not able to leave. The dead and injured are not allowed out, he said.

Pro-Russia forces were already in parts of the city and Sardaryen’s unit had exchanged close-quarters machine gun fire with rebels, he said, cutting the conversation short when mortar fire began landing nearby.

Joe Biden, the US vice-president, “strongly condemned” the violence and warned the “costs to Russia will rise” if it “continues to violate the Minsk agreements, including the most recent agreement signed on 12 February”.

The UN motion was passed on Tuesday night, with the support of the US, but a number of security council members condemned Russia’s stance. Shortly before the meeting the council issued a statement expressing “grave concern at the continued fighting in and around Debaltseve” and demanded that all parties to the conflict cease hostilities immediately.

Ukraine confirms the Russian capture of Debaltseve.
Security council members have repeatedly accused Russia of backing the separatists in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow denies.

The British ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said there had been “flagrant disregard” for the ceasefire that started just after midnight on Sunday and called on Russia to “deliver on the promises it has made”.

Lyall Grant said the council, which has been deadlocked on Ukraine because of a possible veto by Russia, must play a full role in ensuring compliance with the ceasefire, including “willingness to take further steps in the event it is not implemented”.

The US blamed the violence on “separatist forces acting in concert with Russian forces”. Putin, however, said the conflict, in which more than 5,600 people have died, could not be solved by military means and urged Kiev’s troops to surrender.

The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, said in a phone conversation with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, that the assault on Debaltseve was a “cynical attack” on the truce brokered last week by Germany and France.

He called for the EU and international community to take a “tough reaction against the treacherous actions of the rebels and Russia”.

Kiev and pro-Russia rebels agreed a peace roadmap on 12 February after marathon negotiations in Minsk involving the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

[Philip]

DEBACLESEV!
Surrender en masse.
http://rt.com/news/233363-ukraine-debal ... ithdrawal/
Kiev says troops withdrawn from Debaltsevo, rebels claim military ‘surrender en masse’
Published time: February 18, 2015

Kiev troops surrounded in the city of Debalstevo have started to surrender en masse, Ukrainian rebels have said. President Poroshenko announced a complete withdrawal from the contested city.

The claim came on Wednesday from Maksim Leshchenko, a senior official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, who told journalists that the Ukrainian troops are laying down their arms “in their hundreds.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Eduard Basurin, a military spokesperson for the rebels, confirmed taking some 300 soldiers prisoner.

Debaltsevo is Kiev’s stronghold deep inside the rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine, a military asset portrayed in the media as a site of a heroic last stand of the Ukrainian military. The rebels say they have some 3,000 troops still encircled in a pocket and have been calling on them for days to lay down their arms and surrender. Kiev rejected the claims, insisting that Debalstevo supply lines are intact and that the city would remain under their control.

“We are currently monitoring Debaltsevo. Ukrainian troops stationed there are demoralized, their commanders have left,” Leshchenko said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed in a video statement that he has given an order to withdraw troops from Debaltsevo.

He added that some 80 percent of the troops have already left the city.

Reuters cited a witness who saw the troops, some of them injured, arriving in Artemyevsk, a city northwest of Debaltsevo, through which a road leading to Kiev-controlled areas goes.

Poroshenko will visit eastern Ukraine later in the day and chair a security council session in the evening, Ukrainian media reported.

Earlier Semen Semenchenko, MP and commander of one of Kiev’s volunteer battalions, reported that the troops were being withdrawn from the contested city.

“The withdrawal of troops from Debaltsevo is going as planned in an organized manner… The enemy is trying to take over roads and prevent our forces from moving out,” he wrote on his Facebook page

He added that Kiev should now attack in other parts of the frontline, which had been weakened by the rebels to lay siege on Debaltsevo.

“They are empty and we have troops. One strike and the frontline would crumble,” he assured, adding that withdrawal is “beyond comprehension.” ( )

The fate of Debaltsevo was arguably the biggest debating point at last week’s peace talks in Minsk, which resulted in a ceasefire agreement. The continued violence around the city contrasts the virtually uninterrupted truce in other parts of eastern Ukraine.

On Wednesday, anti-government forces started pulling back heavy weapons from the frontline in quiet areas of the conflict zone.

“Five 152mm self-propelled artillery pieces are being withdrawn from the village of Yelenovka to their permanent base,” Basurin told the media.

RIA Novosti confirmed the pullout, saying that its correspondent witnessed withdrawal of Grad multiple rocket launchers and tanks from the disengagement line.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Kiev and the rebels to do whatever they can to resolve the issue without loss of life.

READ MORE: Putin: West already supplies arms to Kiev, but Moscow optimistic about Minsk deal

“I really hope that the decision-makers in the Ukrainian leadership won’t prevent the Ukrainian troops from laying down arms, if they cannot take such an important decision themselves and order it. Or at least they shouldn’t harass people who want to save their lives,” he said.

“On the other hand, I expect the militias not to detain those people and allow them to leave the conflict zone and go back to their families,” he added.

CNN's blooper. But perhaps on the cards!

Did CNN just annex Ukraine for Russia?
Either CNN has inside information on a sinister Kremlin plan to occupy all of Ukraine or it made yet another blunder. In a new report on challenges facing Europe the news channel apparently marked the Eastern European nation as part of Russia.

Everyone loves a winner!
Vladimir Putin receives a warm welcome from Hungarian PM Viktor Orban
The Hungarian prime minister hails Russia as a successful example of the “illiberal” states which he wants to emulate
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Orban.html

PS:Who wants to emulate CaMoron?

[Singha]

draw a line from Mariopol -> Donetsk -> Luhansk and Debaltseve is at a point between Donetsk and Luhansk where two major highways cross.
taking it would make it tougher for kiev to attack anywhere behind this imaginary line connecting the 3 cities.

in due course perhaps Kharkov could be a target. it sits near belarus which is rus friendly.