Eastern Europe/Ukraine

[Deans]

Latest situation - Rebels say they have cut off the only access road into the Debeltsevo pocket. Ukies say there is heavy
fighting along the road (which is basically the same thing).
Rebel situation map (below) shows the pocket around Develtsevo - the Ukies have at least prevented a bigger pocket that was threatened when the rebels took the reservoir to the North West of the current pocket.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8_a5oIIAAEPdLX.jpg:large

As per Ukrainian media, 1 commander of a regular army unit was charged with treason for abandoning his position without orders.
The casualties his men were taking does not seem to have impressed Chocolate.

[Deans]

One not so serious question. Are the UkN girls are very very good looking or what? I mean why is EU want to have that nation has in it so that EU can benifit? I mean, nothing is there for EU, other than cost of maintaining a ruined nation, getting flooded with cheap labor and crime.

The answer is yes.

They are like any other Slavic women, but available at a lower cost. Their influx into EU will drastically lower costs of
existing `service providers'

[RSoami]

What hilarious stuff. This is what the west is supporting.

http://en.censor.net.ua/news/323121/rad ... aine_title

Rada deprives Yanukovych of president of Ukraine title

[ramana]

Since this thing blew up. I have tried to figure out who benefits from the mess.

Its not the Ukrainian
Its not Russia.
Its not the US. (At least not in the long term.)

The only winner I can think of is the PRC. It weakens the pacific pivot. It bring Russia even closer to the PRC.

The question that I an unable to answer is why needlessly provoke Russia & force-ably change the govt. That has less than 6 months to serve before fresh general election is called.

Ask Strobe Talbott who is now Foreign Policy eminence grise of the Democrats.

He was tweeting how Russia creates enemies on its borders and self contains itself.

[Shreeman]

It is days, from the look of it, before "lethal aid" starts flowing. Ye gahds. Why cant you call guns, just guns? At least stand up for the weaselry that you are commiting instead of hiding behind "lethal assistance".

[Tuvaluan]

When the US conducts "enhanced interrogations" of terrorists and prisoners of war, "lethal assistance" and "enhanced downhill skiing" seem to be par for the course.

[UlanBatori]

Another town cleared

(Reuters) - Pro-Russian rebels appeared to be in full control on Wednesday of one of the towns that has been a principal target of their advance, as they attempt to surround a nearby garrison of Ukrainian forces.

The apparent fall of the town of Vuhlehirsk would be a setback for Kiev, which has been trying to defend it and the larger neighboring town of Debaltseve, an important rail hub, from encirclement by advancing rebels.

A military spokesman in the capital said Vuhlehirsk was still contested. But Reuters journalists on the ground were freely able to enter about 60 percent of it and saw no sign of areas controlled by Ukrainian troops. Rebels patrolled casually and were in a boisterous mood, using positions in the town to fire artillery on Debaltseve.

n Vuhlehirsk, shattered from the combat, metal worker Sergey Kopun, 50, dressed in dirty blue overalls, walked out from a cellar where he had been hiding for days with his wife and quadriplegic mother.

"Someone should come to remove these corpses, it is inhumane to leave them here to rot," he said.

About 300 meters (yards) away at least four bodies of soldiers with Ukrainian shoulder patches were scattered inside a garden of what appeared to be a restaurant.

"They had a good firing point here. We had to use anti-tank weapons to blast our way into this garden," said a rebel commander in his 50s who gave his name as Ironside.

The town, with around 9,000 people before the war, has been one of the main targets of the rebel advance, sitting in a pocket of government-held territory surrounded on three sides by rebel territory and straddling road and rail routes linking major rebel strongholds.

Ukrainian forces are still holed up in neighboring Debaltseve, a major rail town of about three times the size and an important stopping point for goods traffic by rail from Russia. Taking the two would link up the main rebel strongholds of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Awful. The Kiev junta is forcing these conscripts to fight to the death. Stalingrad all over again.

[Tuvaluan]

A military spokesman in the capital said Vuhlehirsk was still contested. But Reuters journalists on the ground were freely able to enter about 60 percent of it and saw no sign of areas controlled by Ukrainian troops. Rebels patrolled casually and were in a boisterous mood, using positions in the town to fire artillery on Debaltseve.

This town Vuhlehhirsk seems to be a choke point for supplies to Debaltsev via the M04 Highway - once this is taken, there is only way into Debaltseve via M03. Next big town in the vicinity seems to be krasnoarmiisk.

https://www.google.pl/maps/place/Vuhleh ... 7bf81d28f7

[UlanBatori]

The pictures on Google look so peaceful. Beautiful electric trains too. Entire place is now up for D1ck Cheney Reconstructions Inc. First Waste Management Inc.

I think the vodka bottles should indeed stroll up to the Dnieper and clean the UkBapzis out of the entire area.

[Shreeman]

AFAICT, if matters go as far as Artemovsk then the lethal assistance will flow, given that russian aid will become distinguishable and unlimited if the easterners even needed it anymore. The rest is minor "reconstruction" by comparison.

ps -- porridge (http://www.interpretermag.com/many-sibe ... om-moscow/) is not quite done yet, and rice pudding (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /22855927/) doesnt taste familiar.

[Deans]

Video's with English subtitles - All from Rebel TV (they have embedded reporters with the rebels)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiFuYO-eWGA#t=179

Rebels, in the process of liberating one of the towns in the Debaltsevo pocket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sqvFJAEsh0#t=83

Rebel armour shelling the only road into Debeltsevo (a day before the pocket was closed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuPIBg7-d0#t=47

Rebels organising the evacuation of civilians from the liberated town of Uglegorsk (uninhabitable after the fighting) - not something that would be shown on Western TV.

[Philip]

Demos in Kiev outside Choco pres' office.With the reverses in the east,we could soon see a situ which the Lankans love to describe as ,"machan,match over no?"

Ukraine’s economy in backwards drive, feeds tensions and discontent’
Servicemen from the battalion "Aydar" throw a Ukrainian flag from the building of Ukraine's Defence Ministry, during a protest against the disbanding of the battalion, in Kiev February 2, 2015 (Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko)

Neil Clark Published time: February 04, 2015 16:11

Tuesday protests outside the president’s offices in Kiev are just a part of a bigger picture of discontent grasping Ukraine, journalist Neil Clark told RT. With the economy worsening, former Maidan allies are now angered and splitting up.

READ MORE: Hundreds trying to break into Ukraine president’s office in Kiev

RT: Is this a small pocket of discontent or are we seeing something wider here?

Neil Clark: I think it is a part of something wider because it is not the first time this has happened. We had similar demonstrations last week in Kiev; we had President Petro Poroshenko booed when he went to Maidan. I think what that reflects is the deep underground divisions amongst the pro-putsch, pro-Maidan factions.

What brought them together 12 months ago was the determination to topple the government of the then-President Viktor Yanukovich. There were desperate groups of people ranging from neo-Nazis, far right ultra-nationalists, to, if you would like, pro-Western globalists. And now the country is under great pressure, economically things are not going well at all – Ukraine is a basket case economy, it is near bankrupt. There are swingeing cuts in public provision almost the destruction of the welfare state there. So people are very unhappy. As I said this represents a wider discontent among the pro-putsch forces that are fighting amongst themselves now.

RT: There were demonstrations outside the very same buildings a year ago. Back then it was anger at the old authorities. But they've gone now. Will this cycle ever end?

NC: Not for a long time I fear, because this violent peak started in November 2013. That was the violence used to topple the previous government, that violence was shared by the West, let’s not forget that.

There was a democratic government in Ukraine that was violently toppled. What the Western leaders, the European leaders should have said was ask people to wait until the elections this year if they wanted to get rid of the Yanukovich.

But now they encourage the violence. We had a leading US State Department official going out there to Ukraine supporting the protestors. This is what happens: we’ve got the situation now in Ukraine where Poroshenko is a very, very weak president. We’ve got this very weak coalition of interest holding the pro-putsch side together. And there is a real anger now, real division between I would say, the ultra-Nationalist wings, and less nationalistic wings, the more globalist wings. People supported the putsch because they wanted to get Ukraine in the EU and NATO. And they are clashing now with more ultra-Nationalist wings who want something different.

And on the back of all of these there is economic collapse. We’re having some awful austerity measures being introduced in Ukraine, even worse than measures introduced in Greece which cause so much social discontent. And it was a poor country anyway. But the fact is that for the vast majority of Ukrainians things are a lot off worse now than they were under Yanukovich twelve months ago. The economy is going backwards. Poverty is rising. That is the sort of backdrop to what has happened today.

Unless something radical happens in Ukraine: a change of course within the government, there has to be a peace deal with people in the East, and change at economic policies, I think things are only going to get worse. A lot of people in Ukraine are very, very angry about what is going on, and the violence which started in November is carrying on today as we see.

[Deans]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9CbCrYCMAAQ9IO.jpg

Probably the worst recruitment Ad ever. A Ukrainian billboard calling for recruits, placed next to a Military cemetery !

[Austin]

EU looking at blacklisting about 15 more Russians and Ukrainians and 4 organization

I suspect eventually EU will end up blacklisting 145 million Russian plus all the companies/shops including the next door bakery shop minus one Putin

Must be boring to blacklist Putin now that EU leaders must be habituated to speak to him the nth time on phone on Ukraine crisis. Like the 9 pm saas bahu soap EU leaders and Putin must be addicted to speaking with each other

[Austin]

Finally Pentagon confirms what we knew all along

Pentagon 2008 study claims Putin has Asperger's syndrome

[Shreeman]

Finally Pentagon confirms what we knew all along

Pentagon 2008 study claims Putin has Asperger's syndrome

As I noted above, the rice pudding isnt ready yet either. Putin doesnt have anything, he is just from the planet Marklar. All will be revealed in due time.

edit -- to those complaining: how am I making any less sense than the pentagon expert report?

[RSoami]

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/248762.html

Georgian citizen becomes Ukrainian deputy justice minister

This is ridiculous. The only reason I can think of as to why Georgians are becoming ministers etc in Ukraine is because these individulas played a major role in provoking Georgia Russia war in 2008 acting at the behest of US.
And that speaks a lot about both the earlier conflict as well as this one.

[RSoami]

And more interesting news from the parliament of do-gooders.
http://rt.com/news/line/2015-02-05/#80687

Ukrainian MPs vote for arrest of judge over ex-PM Tymoshenko sentence

The Ukrainian parliament voted on Thursday to allow the arrest of Judge Rodion Kireyev, who sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, RIA Novosti said on Thursday. The judge attached to Kiev’s Pechyorsky District Court found Tymoshenko guilty and sentenced her to seven years in prison on October 11, 2011, for abusing power when signing the 2009 gas contracts with Russia. The criminal case against Tymoshenko was closed due to the absence of a crime after the Supreme Court of Ukraine canceled Kireyev’s ruling on April 14, 2014.

The parliament seems to have little else to do than pass vendetta laws.

[RSoami]

IMF Said to Seek Limit to Ukraine Aid Share as War Escalates

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... cmpid=yhoo

While neither Ukraine nor the fund has disclosed the amount of the request, Montanino said he expects Ukraine to receive an additional $5 billion to $6 billion from the fund. That will put pressure on the U.S. and EU along with other institutions such as the World Bank to come up with the remaining $9 billion to $10 billion.

“Europe doesn’t want a state the size of Ukraine failing on its doorstep,”

You dont want other people`s problems, then why poke your nose in other people`s affairs.

[RSoami]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... ng-ukraine

"We have simply been abandoned without promised protection," Oleksandr Kirsh, an adviser to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, wrote on Inforesist.org yesterday, accusing the "failed, brainless leaders of the West" of giving up Ukraine, and with it all Europe, to an "Asian aggressor." "Yes, the civilized ones also make mistakes," he added bitterly. "Their brains sometimes clog up with fat from satiety and overeating."

Ukraine has truly become Pakistan. Even the rona dhona has become similar.

[Shanmukh]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... ng-ukraine

"We have simply been abandoned without promised protection," Oleksandr Kirsh, an adviser to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, wrote on Inforesist.org yesterday, accusing the "failed, brainless leaders of the West" of giving up Ukraine, and with it all Europe, to an "Asian aggressor." "Yes, the civilized ones also make mistakes," he added bitterly. "Their brains sometimes clog up with fat from satiety and overeating."

Ukraine has truly become Pakistan. Even the rona dhona has become similar.

Ehh - no, it is standard Nazi rhetoric & it existed much before the Nazis, too, though it was the Nazi staple diet. Russians are always the barbaric Asiatic hordes in western narrative. Funnily enough, Ukraineans were also `barbaric Asiatic hordes' during Nazi times. If you can read Russian, I encourage you to give Alexander Blok's poem `Scythians' a try. It is fantastic.

http://az.lib.ru/b/blok_a_a/text_0030.shtml

[Shreeman]

^^^ It is quite bad. Interviews by non-name individuals over skype instead of even arsenyuk or poroschenko. The Kerry/Merkel/Hollande visit to moscow is all nonsense. If anyone thinks this lot in ukraine can actually hold any sort of agreement needs to revisit their meds.

Obama has likely given a go-ahead in principle to arming ukraine. I dont see how this works out.

[UlanBatori]

This Arming The UkBapzis will end up perfectly fine, just like Arming the Taliban Freedom Fighters in 1990-92 (Stingers etc). The pakis will end up with the weapons on the Peshawar market.

[chanakyaa]

Shreemanji, you are right. None of this, is seems, is intended to solve any problem. It is possible that khan told Mackeral and O'lund to try their best to convince Pootin to back off. Regardless, they are moving forward with their plans of fully arming NEW east ooeropean bakistan. It seems like the east ookra!nians have already been written off.

[Philip]

NATO scaremongering,making it out as if Putin is another Hitler. In actuality, it is the US/NATO who have been the warmongers supreme during the last decade and are still at it in the MEast. Putin is far more intelligent to start a second front while the UKR situ is still in flux. This is NATO's scaremongering trying to stampede the smaller Baltic states into allowing NATO troops and offensive missiles to be stationed there. Watch out for another "Cuban Crisis" in eastern Europe,where it will be the US and NATO who start moving missiles into the former Warsaw Pact nations.

Rasmussen's denial of an agreement with Russia in the deal to end the Cold War shows him to be a barefaced liar if one goes by the West's favourite Russian,Mikhail Gorbachev who categorically stated the facts and on the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall,when interviewed by the western media,condemned the West/NATO for betraying its solemn promise and expanding NATO to Russia's boundaries.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... chief.html

Putin could attack Baltic states warns former Nato chief

Vladimir Putin could mastermind a hybrid attack on a Baltic state to test whether Nato would mobilise, warns Anders Fogh Rasmussen
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

5:46PM GMT 05 Feb 2015
Vladimir Putin has dangerous ambitions beyond Ukraine and aims to test Western resolve in the Baltic states, the former head of Nato has warned.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary-general of the Atlantic alliance, said the Kremlin’s true goal is to shatter Nato solidarity and reassert Russian dominance over Eastern Europe.

“This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power,” he told The Telegraph.

“There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test Nato’s Article 5,” he said, referring to the solidarity clause that underpins collective security.

“Putin knows that if he crosses the red line and attacks a Nato ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite clear about that. But he is a specialist in hybrid warfare,” he said.

The fear is that the Kremlin will generate a murky conflict in Estonia or Latvia where there are large Russian minorities, using arms-length action or “little green men” without insignia to disguise any intervention. This may tempt weaker Nato members to play down the incident, either to protect commercial ties with Russia or because of pro-Kremlin sympathies as in Hungary or Greece.

Estonia's relations with Russia worsened significantly last September when a squad of Russian security operatives allegedly crossed into Estonian territory and seized Eston Kohver, a veteran officer in the Estonian Security Service.

Mr Kohver was paraded on Russian television as a spy and is currently being held in a high security prison in Moscow. Analysts believe the abduction - which took place two days after a visit to Tallinn by Barack Obama - was designed to demonstrate Russia's muscle in the Baltics.

Nato has already beefed up its forces in the region with squadrons of fighter jets, chiefly as show of force and as a strategic tripwire to reassure allies. Its Baltic Air Policing Mission intercepted 150 incursions into NATO airspace by Russian aircraft last year.

Article 5 states that a military attack on any one Nato country is an attack on all of them, triggering collective mobilization. It has been invoked just once in the 66-year history of the alliance, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

Nobody knows what would happen if one of the Baltic states invoked Article 5 protection but was turned down by the Nato Council. Failure to respond would devastate Nato’s credibility and undermine the principle of deterrence, though allies could still act as a coalition of the willing outside the treaty structure.

Mr Rasmussen, who had to grapple with the Ukraine crisis until stepping down as Nato chief in September, said Mr Putin’s immediate tactic is to create a frozen conflict in the Donbass rather than trying to conquer and hold large parts of the country. “He wants to keep the water boiling,” he said.

He called for urgent action by Nato to mount a rapid deployment force of several thousand troops in a permanent state of “high readiness” and able to act within 48-72 hours as a deterrent, but the cost is proving prohibitive. “It is very expensive. Only a few are able to do it,” he said.

Mr Rasmussen said the Europeans have slashed military spending so deeply since the financial crisis that they can barely defend themselves without American help. “The situation is critical. We have a lot of soldiers but we can't move them,” he said.

"Nato countries have cut defence spending by 20pc in real terms over the last five years – and some by 40pc - while Russia has increased by 80pc. The aggression in Ukraine is a wake-up call," he said.

“We learned in the Libyan crisis that Europe is totally reliant on the Americans for air-refueling, drones, and communications intelligence. We don’t have air transport. It is really bad.”

Belgium is the most extreme case, famed for its well-armed pension fund while fighting capability fades away. It spends 96pc of defence budget on salaries, retirement, and its Burgundian canteens. The share spent on military kit has been slashed to 4pc. “Military confidence is nearing the point of collapse," said Alexander Mattelear from the Vrije Universtiteit in Brussels.

Mr Rasmussen said there is no truth to Kremlin claims that the West violated pledges at the end of the Cold War that there would be no eastward expansion of the alliance into the territory of former Soviet Union. “No such pledge was ever made, and declassified documents in Washington prove this. It is pure propaganda,” he said.

[Philip]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... roposal-us
Merkel and Hollande’s surprise Moscow visit raises hopes of Ukraine deal
Summit announcement spawns suspicions that Putin is seeking to split Europe and America as US officials hint at military aid to Kiev

[quote]Putin held an urgent session of Russia’s security council to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine before the upcoming meeting, Peskov said. Presidential aide Yury Ushakov said he hoped Hollande and Merkel’s plan was “comprehensive and takes into account the many suggestions made by our president”.

He said the stimulus for the meeting had come from a comment Putin made during a phone conversation that the leaders of France and Germany “are always welcome guests in Moscow”.In Kiev there is a growing sense that the rebel-held areas of the east may be lost for some time, and privately many in the political establishment express a willingness to accept a “frozen conflict”, in which Moscow would have to fund the rebel territories it has helped create.

Moscow, however, apparently wants Kiev to pay for the territories while having no control.A foreign minister of an EU country told the Guardian that the Minsk agreements might only form a starting point for a new peace deal, while senior EU officials said that the recent Russian-backed separatist offensive in eastern Ukraine was aimed at creating new facts on the ground and a new ceasefire line before a peace process was initiated.

“Minsk is a table where Russia has to play its role. The beginning of the path is there,” said the minister. “There are big discussions on changing the Minsk protocols.”

Putin did not want to annex the rebel-held parts of eastern Ukraine, but keep control of them in order to weaken and destabilise Ukraine well into the future, the minister said.

“This is about changing the ceasefire line and about changing the conditions [for negotiations],” said a senior EU official.

Putin’s proposals include a demand for autonomy for the pro-Russian separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, but also insistence that the Ukrainian government maintain budget payments for social and public services in the breakaway regions. Kiev – officials in Brussels said – is certain to reject this because it is tantamount to asking the Ukrainian government to fund the partition of its country.

But in addition to such demands, Putin is also said to be offering sweeteners.

In Moscow, the foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the three leaders would discuss the deployment of UN peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine.
quote]

The urgent visit to Moscow by the top two EU leaders is in response to the US gambit of supplying the UYKR mafia with arms.Such an open move would see Russia throw down the gauntlet and openly start supplying the DR with arms,etc.US "advisers" sent to Kiev could also see Russian "advisers" operate in the east. The chances of US and Russian mil. personnel engaged in conflict with each other would dramataically escalate,sending Europe into absolute crisis. The EU does not want to be the battleground for a US-Russian proxy war which would destroy them yet again.

It is no secret that the EU is being armtwisted by the US into taking a strong anti-Russian stance. However,with the EU in deep eco crisis over the Greek elections and attitude and other eco weak EU states also smelling the aroma of rebellion,Germany and France cannot afford mil. tensions which would see an eco collapse.As an analysts on the BBC said yesterday,sanctions against Russia haven't worked.There is little that the West can do to influence Putin.The UKR situ is basically a "civil war" which has to be defused.US arms to the Kiev clique would very dangerously escalate the crisis and increase the possibility of a Russian-European mil stand-off with disastrous results for Europe,but not for the US! Why Merkel and Hollande are rushing to Moscow.

[Rahul M]

new thread please.