Eastern Europe/Ukraine

[Paul]

^^^One good thing about RTI is that you get to watch non Yanqui channels. Russia Today is one the channels to watch to get a balanced perspective. I am glad I do not have to put up with Amanpot horse face and Wolf Blitzer anymore. ABC, DW, etc. are the other news channels to watch.

CNN is the most blatant anti-Russian news telecasters, followed by Beebs.

[Singha]

deutcheWelle, japan tv, canada tv, al jazeera and russian channels are all watchable.

[Singha]

the gent between putin and the right side green jacket general has just his face visible.
looks like the villain in one of the Blade movies. Putinji himself has the look of Victor one of the elders in the coven of Underworld and beckinsale's adoptive father.

[vishvak]

CHURCH AND STATE; INTERNATIONAL
Ukraine Names Baptist Pastor as Acting President

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleani ... ident.html

Ukraine believers hopeful as Baptist becomes president

http://www.brnow.org/News/February-2014 ... omes-presi

February 27 2014 by Nicole Lee, IMB/Baptist Press

KIEV, Ukraine –
<snip>

что случилось с "secularism", a?

Notice how allahuakbar chanting Tartars have joined in with right wing fascist to push out elected government & joined with Christian fascists for power grab. A minimal separation of state and church is forgotten too- & Tartars don't mind either. Lessons for all including Iran, China as well as India.

[Paul]

It is only after watching non yanqui channels in depth and also over a period of time that one gets a feel of of the censorship or naqaab that is in place in the USA. The people in the USA are like cattle fed on a red meat diet of FOX, CNN, and Hollywood.

[Philip]

Manny,a real gem you have unearthed! The "Baptist" pretender.This explains a great deal.Russia and most of the population of Eastern European nations are of the Orthodox Church. Thus far,the "Christian Soldiers" of the American baptists and assorted EJs have failed to make much headway. The attempt by the US/EU to prise away the Ukraine has been a "full court press",economic,military and spiritual!

CNN reports that Russian forces have seized two Ukranian missile battalions in the Crimea.Tsk,tsk. So sad men!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 69052.html

Britain's Tories' Ukranian connections. Why it is so shy of imposing sanctions upon Russia!
The Ukrainian connection: John Whittingdale amongst MPs criticised for close ties with ex-Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych's favourite energy magnate Dmitry Firtash

enior British politicians have been challenged over their links to a billionaire businessman who was one of Ukraine’s most powerful figures under the country’s deposed President Viktor Yanukovych.

The energy magnate Dmitry Firtash has faced allegations of media censorship and prompted demonstrations in the City of London by British-based Ukrainians when he was allowed to open the London Stock Exchange in October after funding a “Days of Ukraine” cultural event alongside the Thames. This was run by his charity, the Firtash Foundation. British Ukrainians staged a demonstration outside its secretariat in Leeds at the start of the unrest in Kiev.

Mr Firtash has not been shy of his links to the ousted Ukrainian leader, with promotional material for the London event boasting: “The Days of Ukraine in the UK received support at the highest level, including the patronage of President Viktor Yanukovych.”

However, this has led to questions for the Conservative peer Lord Risby and John Whittingdale MP, chair of the House of Commons media select committee, who were among the members of the organising committee for Days of Ukraine and have other ties to the billionaire.

The event was launched in the Houses of Parliament and attended by the Speaker John Bercow and the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko. It was sponsored by the businessman’s Group DF global network of companies and the Foundation.

Mr Whittingdale is also director of the British Ukrainian Society (BUS), which the MP says has received financial support from Mr Firtash. In the register of members’ interests, Mr Whittingdale lists the society’s address as at a palatial office block in London’s Knightsbridge used in the past by the Firtash Foundation and Group DF.

The MP, who is chairman of the British-Ukraine All Party Parliamentary Group, has travelled to Ukraine at the BUS’s expense.

Mr Whittingdale went on a £2,800 trip to Kiev in 2010, “to meet members of the government of Ukraine and opposition”. He returned to Ukraine in 2011 as a guest of the society and in his capacity as chair of the British Ukraine All-Party Parliamentary group. That trip cost £1,700 and was to “meet members of the government of Ukraine”. A four-day visit in 2012 to attend a conference in Yalta, Ukraine cost £2,520. He visited the same conference for a £2,680 week-long trip in September last year.

In Parliament, the Labour MP Helen Goodman, the shadow Culture minister, challenged William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, over whether the Tories had taken money from supporters of the Yanukovych regime. Mr Hague described her suggestion as “ridiculous”.

Ms Goodman told The Independent: “It is vital that the British Foreign Secretary can negotiate in the knowledge that there are no conflicts of interest.”

Mr Whittingdale said his work sponsored by the BUS was intended “to promote closer relationships between Britain and Ukraine” and the society’s funding of his trips enabled him to “meet people in Kiev and Yalta of different political parties”, including the opposition leader Vitali Klitschko.

“They have never given me a line or influenced me. They pay travel costs and accommodation for me to attend the Yalta summit but on each occasion I have met people from every party,” he said.

The BUS, which has received secretarial support from Group DF, is chaired by Lord Risby.

The peer said: “I have never ever had any instruction from Firtash or had anyone ask me to take any political viewpoint. I made it clear that we would make a judgement about who we would see and that we would not be subject to any pressure.”

Mr Firtash – who owns a house near Harrods complete with an underground swimming pool – emerged in 2006 as one of the figures behind RosUkrEnergo, which controls the Russian company Gazprom’s gas supplies through Ukraine to Europe.

He is owner of Inter TV, Ukraine’s most popular television outlet, where journalists signed a petition complaining about alleged censorship and pro-Yanukovych propaganda in the run-up to the recent disturbances in Kiev.

However, Mr Firtash, who has in recent days also been linked to Mr Klitschko, states in his biography on the DF Group website that he “is not a member of any political party or movement”.

The Firtash Foundation denies it funded the BUS and said it has no relationship with it “beyond occasional discussions relating to culture projects in London”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 236.html[b]
Ukraine crisis: How do you solve a problem like Crimea?[/b]

Vladimir Putin has given a confident performance in front of the media, insisting that the events of the last 10 days in Ukraine amounted to nothing less than a coup d’état. At almost the same time, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, arrived in Kiev to shore up the new, pro-Western, yet unelected government.

In Crimea, where Russian troops have taken control and faced an ugly stand-off with Ukrainian forces at the Belbek military airbase, the situation is a long way from being under control. The Russians have effectively annexed the region, despite Mr Putin’s protestations to the contrary.

Ukraine’s finances have flirted with the precipice for a month and Washington announced a $1bn aid package; but beyond that, there seems to be little of substance from the West that will ultimately bring a swift end to the stand-off.

In truth the West has very few sticks with which to beat Moscow: the UK Government’s position – seen through a photographed briefing paper on Monday – makes clear that Mr Cameron is hoping others pick up the mantle. But allies in the EU are just as concerned about the supply of cheap energy from Russian gas fields as they are with the future of Crimea, and the US administration under Barack Obama has proven itself over six years to be doveish to the point of being seen as weak in the face of aggression.

Despite the tensions, the Russian military went ahead with the test-firing of a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile hit a range in Kazakhstan. The US said it had been notified of the test before the crisis began.

Vladimir Putin said Russia saw no need to use military force in the Crimea region of Ukraine for now (Reuters)
Moscow has no interest in armed conflict – a point underscored by Mr Putin – and its financiers will take as real the threat posed to the Russian economy by investors being spooked. But nor does it want to lose face by appearing to cave in to Western demands. All of which means the crisis in Crimea – in which nobody appears to have the upper hand – is far from being resolved.

[Philip]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -impotence

Ukraine has revealed the new world of western impotence
Behind the self-righteous bluster on Russia, all our leaders can do to punish Putin is cancel summits, school places and shopping trips

Simon Jenkins
The Guardian, Wednesday 5 March 2014
William Hague, the british Foreign Secretary, meets Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian prime minister in Kiev on 3 March. Photograph: ITAR-TASS/Barcroft Media

I am starting to lose this one. How dare anyone excuse a great power hurling brute force against a small one, justifying it with some nonsense about extremists and a "responsibility to protect". There should be no place for such cynical bullying in a 21st-century world order. And for what? So a leader with a virility complex can play to his domestic gallery. The whole thing is utterly unacceptable. There must be costs and consequences.

But enough of Iraq. What of Ukraine? We can only gasp at the hypocrisy of a British foreign secretary and an American secretary of state lecturing Russia from a Kiev street corner on the evil of invading small countries. Did no ghost of Iraq or Afghanistan, of Kosovo or Libya, hover over their shoulders? To be sure there are motes in Vladimir Putin's eye, but they are nothing as to the beams in the eyes of Washington and London. The occupation of Crimea is a village fete compared with shock and awe over Baghdad and Belgrade and the killing fields of Falluja and Helmand. As the western powers repatriate their blood-stained legions, surely a twinge of humility is in order.

Apparently not. The west is now chanting psalms of self-righteousness. David Cameron agrees with Barack Obama that Crimea is "completely unacceptable". John Kerry calls the occupation "an incredible act of aggression ... on a trumped-up pretext". To the Republican senator John McCain, "allowing" Russia to take Crimea makes him "remember the 1930s when Hitler took the Sudetenland".

The catchphrase for this crisis has become "costs and consequences". Obama threatens them, Cameron threatens them. The Commons Ukraine committee chairman, John Whittingdale, wants them "to send a very strong message" to Putin to "return to the table". Nick Clegg froths over them from his armchair. He is "absolutely not ruling out now the kind of options we will look at in order to make it very clear to Putin that there will be very real consequences". Wow.

The only costs and consequences on which anyone can agree is to cancel a G-something summit in a luxury hotel somewhere, and to ban oligarchs from shopping at Harrods and sending their sons to Eton. We might also keep our royals from their Paralympics. To this has the mighty British empire fallen. For all its armies, fleets and nuclear warheads, it can punish Russia's bear with nothing more terrifying than Harrods, Eton and the royal family. Putin must be rolling on the floor with laughter.

The truth is that western diplomacy has no language for the new impotence. It used to get its way by "drawing red lines" and threatening actual violence. So ineptly have post-cold war politicians deployed this threat, so exorbitant has been the cost, that enemies have come to treat it as bluff. Iran and Syria are the most recent examples. By the time Cameron tried to threaten Damascus with bombs, the British parliament had had enough. If Syria could call Cameron's bluff, how much more likely would Russia be to do so?

What has been encouraging about the Ukraine crisis so far has been the unusual emergence of a "case to be made" on both sides. For once we have seen a "revolution" with some balanced coverage. The BBC's Newsnight investigated the "fascist coup" in Kiev thesis, and found some truth in it. The legitimacy of Viktor Yanukovych as elected leader was contrasted with his manifest flaws, as was the motley character of the Maidan crowd. We know of the divided loyalties of Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

In the past week I have read more than I dreamed possible of the vexed history of Crimea, of Ukraine's role in Russian identity, and of Putin's complex relationship with Russian pride and paranoia. I have seen Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea as both understandable and illegitimate. Its legal crudity – without even awaiting a local referendum – compares with the political crudity of Nato's attempted encirclement.

This is a theatre on whose stage the fidgeting warmongers of London and Washington fear to tread. Even when McCain crassly compares Putin to Hitler, he nervously adds that he is against military action. The west can huff and puff, but dare not bomb. In a Pavlovian trance that requires "something to be done", it cannot think what that might be.

Democratic leaders usually find foreign affairs easy. They can relax into grandstanding, machismo and cliche, with little downside. Regular foreign trips (Cameron is addicted to them) offer a break, a stroll up a red carpet, and relief from the pestilential press.

Ukraine has changed that. It is proving fiendishly difficult for compulsive interveners. Nothing seems fit for purpose. Every threat sounds empty. But at least pragmatism is starting to break through. On Monday the Foreign Office indicated as much in its new, exotic form of press release: a document revealed to photographers on a Downing Street pavement.

This indicated how far the government has moved since its Iran belligerence. While William Hague was playing to the Kiev gallery, his officials were studiously analysing the content of "costs and consequences". They concluded there should be no military contingencies or economic sanctions on Russia, or at least none that might hurt the City of London. There should be financial relief for the new regime in Kiev, but for Russia merely the usual waffle about missions and all-party talks. As with China over Tibet, London knows it is dealing with a big, rich beast, not a small, poor one. It deals with care.

I find this encouraging. Britain is still searching for a new metaphor for "punching below its weight". Its leaders may invite Kipling's ridicule for "killing Kruger with your mouth", but behind the verbal bluster they seem to recognise the inanity of the Foreign Office's "department of meaningless gestures". They may yet move towards Germany's department of sensible and measured response. Angela Merkel is not hollering about costs and consequences. Why waste her breath?

When I was visiting Russia in 2006 I asked a diplomat how Moscow would react to Britain's current invasion of Helmand in Afghanistan. He smiled and said: "Don't worry. We won't boycott your Olympics." He had the measure of Britain's foreign policy at the time. Today's Russia knows what it wants while Britain is playing games. If hypocrisy is now cover for realpolitik, that is good. Less good is that we have to learn it from Vladimir Putin.

[Austin]

the gent between putin and the right side green jacket general has just his face visible.
looks like the villain in one of the Blade movies. Putinji himself has the look of Victor one of the elders in the coven of Underworld and beckinsale's adoptive father.

Hahaha ..Those are FSO security similar to Indian SPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Pr ... 8Russia%29

[Dilbu]

Russian Senate proposes freezing EU and US assets if sanctions

The upper chamber of the Russian parliament is reportedly preparing a draft law in case of EU and US sanctions against the country.

According to the Russian news agency Itar-Tass, the proposal is to freeze US and EU assets.

That decision comes amid diplomatic moves to ease the tension in Ukraine. These efforts are taking place in Paris and Brussels, where a NATO-Russia meeting will discuss the current situation.

Russian forces seized two Ukrainian missile defence battalions in the Crimea region on Wednesday, Interfax news agency quoted a military source as saying.

[Dilbu]

Ukraine live: EU announces 11bn€ aid to Kyiv

The President of the European Commission, Barroso is giving a press conference in Brussels on the EU's aid package to Ukraine of up to 11bn€, presenting the situation in the country as a "test" and as a "challenge" for the European leaders. "I expect Ukraine to sign an agreement with the IMF that will be a condition to agree this aid to the country".

No link: Embedded news from here.

[SanjayC]

I have been watching the western news channel over last couple of days. And it so happened that I started following the conflict first on BRF and then saw these channels for latest developments.

The thing that strikes you right in the face about these channels and their content is how pro-government/pro-west these channels are! There is no to negligible independent critical analysis and the content being delivered is simply an extension of respective government policies. And to buttress their narrative and seem 'independent', they trot out these analyst from 'think-tanks' who say the same thing with more mumbo jumbo and make it seem real independent+in-depth analysis.

And the news anchors!!! Oh my god...they are so bl@@dy full of themselves...it's as if there is a sermon going on with anchors being the head preachers.

These western 'think-tanks' seem to be really slime-balls...when it comes to other nations (apart from core Anglo-sphere), all they seem to do is produce literature which forwards and supports the government/western agenda.

The entire effort on these news channels and think tanks seem to be to paint Russia/Putin in bad light and as villain...and since they know that concepts of 'human rights', 'democracy' and 'freedom' are sensitive points with respect to western population, the entire narrative is couched in these terms.

I noticed this long ago. All arms of the Western society -- businesses, historians, academics, media people, church, army, foundations, think tanks, NGOs, entertainment industry -- exist to further the interests of the White Man and all are united with the same objective -- that of capturing territory and resources from other races. Their civilization is driven by greed and a genocidal pathology. Even their religion is nothing but a military ideology in disguise.

All of the Goras participate in the charade with tacit understanding and they don't rat on each other lest the charade is blown. They have developed various tools over the years to executive their objectives (outright invasion, propaganda industry, psyops, human rights, etc.) Paraphrasing what Prithviraj Chauhan said about Mohd. Ghauri, their kingdom is like a dagger pointed at the heart of humanity.

And they never give up -- they are like the Terminator. They will get you sooner or later, if not now, then in a 100 years, lest you take the battle to their camp by lighting fires in their own countries. That's why the rapidly increasing population of Muslims in West is good news for us.

Another thing is that the underlying foundation of their civilization is the Vatican. The church holds them together and united with a vision of world conquest -- it is the Anglo version of Jihad where you invade territory for Christ and in the process get to loot the money and women of non-believers. Both church and followers gain by the equation. That is why the other current of Goras turning atheists is good for us. That will destroy the glue that holds their civilization together.

[Austin]

Ukraine lawmakers register NATO entry bid

Ukraine’s parliament has allegedly registered a bill that aims to put the former Soviet republic on tracks towards joining the military NATO bloc. This is according to the secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada.

The draft law on Ukrainian accession to the North-Atlantic alliance was submitted by the opposition-turned-ruling party Batkyvshchina who claimed that Ukraine’s military neutrality would not guarantee its safety.

The initiative reportedly proposes to amend the country’s national security and home/foreign policy laws to define Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO accession as Ukraine’s foreign policy course.

The law that stipulated the country’s “non-aligned status” was signed by the parliament on 1 July 2010.

[Austin]

I think Putin did get outmaneuvered in Libya, so he has dug in his heels in Syria.

Actually Medvedev was the president when Libya issue happened ......The West managed to get a vote from Russia asking only for a No Fly Zone and then convinently using that excuse to Bomb Libya and using Special Forces to capture the country.

Medvedev later regretted in an interview for Trusting the West on its word.

Another fatal thing he did was imposing sanctions to now suppy S-300 to Iran , even though Defensive Weapons was not covered under UN Arms Sanctions and he did that to appease the west but in the bargain put Iran-Russia relations to the lowest and IRan even imposed IIRC $4 billion law suite for failing on the agreement but when Putin came to power they are renegotating it.

[Austin]

This is BIG Indeed

Kiev snipers hired by Maidan leaders - leaked EU's Ashton phone tape

[youtube]ZEgJ0oo3OA8#t=97[/youtube]

Officers of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) loyal to the ousted President Viktor Yanukovich have hacked phones of Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and leaked their conversation to the web. The officials discuss their impressions of what's happening in the country after the revolution. The gist of it is that Ukrainian people have no trust in any of the leaders of Maidan.

However the most striking thing of all is the fact which concerns the use of force during the revolution, particularly the snipers who killed both protesters and officers of the riot police. Mr. Paet reveals astonishing information which confirms the rumours that the snipers were employed by the leaders of Maidan.

[Philip]

Sensational! It proves fears that the entire protests and violence was stage managed by the CIA and Western intel agencies.Of course the western media will simply ignore it!

[Austin]

The Ukraine crisis through the whimsy of international law

[Austin]

Russia releases docs on Ukrainian nationalists' links to Nazis during WWII

The Russian Foreign Ministry has published a series of documents of the USSR's NKVD ( the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) of the USSR for 1942- 45 years relating to the activities of the Ukrainian nationalists during the Great Patriotic War.

These documents contain the evidence of eye-witnesses providing information about the cooperation of the members of the OUN-UPA organization with the fascist occupiers and also about their participation in the massacres of peaceful civilians.

[Austin]

Hillary Clinton compares Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s in Nazi Germany

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday compared recent actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine to those implemented by Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s.

Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she said.

Putin has been on a campaign to give Russian passports to anyone who has Russian connections, Clinton said.

The Russian leader has recently done so in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which, Clinton said, is similar to what happened in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Hitler resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in parts of Europe to Nazi Germany.

Clinton made her comments at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.

“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” she said. “All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”

[ramana]

ABC Radio reporter summed it up in a few sentences.
He said:
- Putin holds all the cards
- He has troops on the ground
- He has EU dependent on Russai for energy
- Obama is reluctant to put troops to confront Russia
- Obama needs Russia in Iran nuclear deal and Syria

I think it will be some diplomatic way out which recognizes Russian interests in Crimea, keeping it part of Ukraine, EU bailout for Western Ukraine, some US economic sanctions on Russia to appease US hardliners. UK as usual will make noises and egg on US to commit suicide while they still keep their capital markets open to Russian Oligarchs.
China will laugh all the way and get closer to Russia as it turns Asiawards after teh European rebuff.

[johneeG]

I think repubs want Obombo to get entangled in some mess and are trying to escalate on seeria, persia & now ukrain. I guess the country does not matter as long as Obombo ends up in some armed entanglement where he cannot win.

But, my doubt is who started this ukrain thing: Oirope or amirkhan? Who is shooting from whose shoulder?

[UlanBatori]

Russia releases docs on Ukrainian nationalists' links to Nazis during WWII

documents of the NKVD relating to the activities of the Ukrainian nationalists during the Great Patriotic War... evidence of eye-witnesses providing information about the cooperation of the members of the OUN-UPA organization with the fascist occupiers and also about their participation in the massacres of peaceful civilians.

That was the info on which Stalin based his kindness towards the Ukrainians, and invited their kind participation in the development of the People's Socialist Republic of Siberia.

My initial point about the Babi Yar massacres was that the Jewish ppl were rounded up with the joyful collaboration of the "Ukrainian Nationalists". Later the general festivities were expanded to include captured Soviet soldiers, those non-Jewish ppl whom the "Nationalists" did not like, and eventually perhaps the "Ukrainian Nationalists" themselves as the Nazis got more desperate.

But bringing out those papers now, esp. mentioning the NKVD, indicates that anger in Russia is EXTREMELY high. IOW, all the Kruschev/Brehnev era "reconciliation" is now out.

The only reason(s) I can see are:
1) Inform and remind the Israelis of the antecedents of the "Ukrainian Nationalists" (let's call them "UN").
2) Remind other Ukrainians of the 1940s history - and what to expect of the "UN".
3) Possibly, the "UN" were not Catholic/Russian Orthodox Xtians.
4) Probably, the "UN" were also anti-Communist, to be collaborating with the Nazis.
5) Combining 3) and 4) suggests that the "UN" of 1940s were indeed, "Baptist" or some version of Protestant. So this brings out ancient Northern Ireland type pleasantries.
6) If 5) is true, then it tells the French (i.e., Catholics and very non-Germanophile) to bug off.
7) It tells aam russkies that all-out war against "UN" Ukraine is very "kulturny".

Time for the West to de-escalate, and NOW. The Russians are mad enough to go for a total war and raze Ukraine, 1940s-style. And me not done with painting the Fallout Shelter!!

[Theo_Fidel]

The Russians are mad enough to go for a total war and raze Ukraine, 1940s-style. And me not done with painting the Fallout Shelter!!

This is a misreading of the situation.

The Russians don’t strike me as mad or threatening to raze Ukraine in anyway. Where does this come from!
It is a calculated moved to create facts on the ground for when it is time to negotiate.

[UlanBatori]

Theo, why bring out the 1940s stuff then? That's basically bringing out Babi Yar and what preceded and followed that.

This is an aspect of these festivities that I had not even suspected. But the mention of the Baptist choice for President of the Maidan-e-Kiev and the release of the NKVD documents, set off the alarm.

See Protestantism in Ukraine

Protestants in Ukraine number about 600 to 700 thousand (2007), about 2% of the total population. ..According to Christianity Today magazine, Ukraine has become not just the "Bible Belt" of Eastern Europe, but a "hub of evangelical church life, education, and missions"... key supplier of missionaries and center of evangelical training and press printing for all the countries of former Soviet Union, where legal environment is not so favourable. Compared to Protestants and Evangelicals in Western Europe and the United States, Ukrainian faithful are considered to be more conservative and traditional, practicing a form of strict moral asceticism.

Today the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists Church has nearly 150,000 members,[3] the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians (Pentecostal) claims about 105,000 members, and the Ukrainian Union of Seventh-day Adventists has nearly 40,000 members. Some Ukrainian Protestants have emigrated to the United States and went on to take an important part in local social activities... Evangelical Christian Baptists are among the most active Christian confessions in Ukraine and the world.
.. From the 1920s, Evangelical Christians and Baptists were prohibited in Soviet Ukraine... At the end of the 1950s, 75% of the believers of the All-USSR Council of ECB lived in Ukraine. Another reported revival was in the 1970s. In the period after the Second world war, baptists and other Protestant believers in the USSR (Pentecostals, Adventists etc.) were compulsively sent to mental hospitals, endured trials and prisons (often for refusal to enter military service). Some were even deprived of their parent rights. (added: and sent on lifetime vacations to Siberia in large numbers: entire families were uprooted and put in trains for the trip)
After the collapse of the USSR, migration and interaction with Western churches increased.
Nearly 90% of Baptists in Ukraine are united in the All-Ukraine Union of the Association of Evangelical Baptists (AUU AEB), established in 1994 at the 22nd Convention of the ECB of Ukraine. ..The AUU AEB is a member of the European Baptist Federation and the Baptist World Alliance.
An important leader in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Olexander Turchinov, is a publicly acknowledged member of a Baptist church where he preaches regularly.

Guys, Germany is the land of Protestantism (Martin Luther). When the Wehrmacht came marching rolling in, the Protestants may have seen Salvation from the Catholic and Jewish Oppressors. And then the Nazis followed, and they may have participated at least been very passive, as the Jews were rounded up and massacred. And then the Nazis murdered the captured Soviet soldiers, regardless of religion etc. And then their general view of the Russians as being sub-human, extended to all Ukrainians as food ran short and winters set in.

And then Stalingrad happened, and the Soviets came sweeping back through. And then the NKVD came, to deal retribution. What happened then was extremely bad.

The hate runs very very deep. Call most Ukrainians that you see in the US (i.e., probably Protestants) "Russian" and they may hit you.

Now the Russians are bringing out the NKVD files (since the fall of the USSR, the NKVD is hardly held in high esteem in Russia, hey?) despite the high cost of pointing to the NKVD's actions against the Ukrainians. WHY? Think about that. Fallout shelter time.

[Theo_Fidel]

This is standard counter OPS. I don't think it proves that Russia is mad or likely to retaliate against Ukraine.

[vic]

USA is shameless, these revelations will make no difference. Ukraine will join EU, then NATO and all it's resources will be divided between oligarchs.

[gunjur]

Ukraine through ages

[UlanBatori]

Ukraine-USSR history 1
The Ukrainian–Soviet War followed, which resulted in the Soviet Army establishing control in late 1919[7]Soviet victory. The conquerors created the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which on 30 December 1922 became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Soviet government was hostile to Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture; there were mass repressions of Ukrainian poets, historians and linguists.

More Ukraine/USSR memories

Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4[14] and 7.5[15] million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records,[16][17] but the number increases significantly when the deaths inside heavily Ukrainian-populated Kuban are included.[18] Older estimates are still often cited in political commentary.[19] According to the decision of Kyiv Appellation Court, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million famine deaths, and a 6.1 million birth deficit.

According to one estimate about 81.3% of the famine victims in Ukrainian SRR were ethnic Ukrainians, 4.5% Russians, 1.4% Jews and 1.1% were Poles. Many Belarusians, Hungarians, Volga Germans and other nationalities became victims as well. The Ukrainian rural population was the hardest hit by the Holodomor. Since the peasantry constituted a demographic backbone of the Ukrainian nation, the tragedy deeply affected the Ukrainians for many years. In an October 2013 opinion poll (in Ukraine) 38.7% of those polled stated "my families had people affected by the famine", 39.2% stated they did not have such relatives, and 22.1% did not know.

Back to History 1

During World War II the Ukrainian Insurgent Army tried to reestablish Ukrainian independence and fought against both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But in 1941 Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany, being liberated in 1944. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.[8] In 1954, it expanded to the south with the transfer of the Crimea.

MUST-READ: History of Ukraine, WWII (too long and harsh for me to post here)
Just one item:

During a period of March 1943 to the end of 1944 Ukrainian Insurgent Army committed several massacres on Polish civilian population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia having every signs of genocide (Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia). The death toll numbered up to 100 000, mostly children and women

Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis

The atrocities against the Jewish population.. started within a few days of the beginning of German occupation. ..Ukrainian auxiliary police was used in the round-up of Jews for the Babi Yar massacre and in other Ukrainian cities and towns, such as Lviv, Lutsk, and Zhytomyr. On September 1, 1941, Nazi-controlled Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn wrote "The element that settled our cities (Jews)... must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved." In May 2006, a Ukrainian newspaper Ukraine Christian News commented: "Carrying out the massacre was the Einsatzgruppe C, supported by members of a Waffen-SS battalion and units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, under the general command of Friedrich Jeckeln. The participation of Ukrainian collaborators in these events, now documented and proven, is a matter of painful public debate in Ukraine." While some proportion of collaborators were volunteers, others were given little choice. Ukrainian and some other nationalities caught fighting for the Red Army were sometimes given the option between dying of starvation and exposure in the ill-equipped POW camps reserved for the Red Army[16] or working for the Germans as a hiwi including duty in the concentration camps and ghettos primarily as guards. The men selected for such duty were trained in the Trawniki concentration camp and were used for that part of the Final Solution known as Operation Reinhard. However they were never fully trusted, and with good reason as some would escape their enforced duty, sometimes along with the prisoners they were meant to be guarding and occasionally killing their SS commanders in the process.

All extremely painful history, sort-of like Scotland where everyone was out to rape and loot and murder everyone else. But the point is, bringing out NKVD records now is extremely alarming.

[UlanBatori]

Theo, releasing NKVD documents (which requires Russian govt blessing) is not any standard anything, because it hurts the Russian govt deeply. It's like saying: "Look I know your family are thieves and murderers because here's the record of where my grandpa dragged your grandpa off to death in a labor camp without trial".
No one does that as part of their own "PR".

[Austin]

USA is shameless, these revelations will make no difference. Ukraine will join EU, then NATO and all it's resources will be divided between oligarchs.

Its not about being shameless but about real politic , US being powerful and the big bully in the room tries to get most of the pie ....while the other powers or call it small bully wants to make sure its not at their cost.

Having said that I am not against US playing this game for their own geo-strategic game its natural they would like other countries do ... but more against that in all the games they have played it has come at tremendous cost and blood of ordinary people .... the games played by US in past 2 decades Kosovo ,Iraq , Libya , Afghanistan , Syria has come at the cost of millions of innocent people and children , you can say that US no matter how high it is standing today is over the piles of millions of innocent dead people and children , some how it gets easily overlooked by Western Media the number of people who must have died directly or due to so called "sanctions" is in millions nothing short of Holocaust if you try to analyse it with your heart and mind at the right place , one needs to be seriously bothered about ones Karma coz eventually it catches up be it individual or countries.

[Austin]

Hit Us With Sanctions? We'll Seize West's Assets, Russia Warns

[vic]

India should learn and watch what USA is doing in Bangladesh

[ramana]

"Ukrainian Nationalists" (let's call them "UN").

I would like to call them UkNa. Easy to pronounce.
Calling them UN causes confusion.

[Philip]

Precisely! Have said it umpteen times.The US wants to oust Hasina,in "Orange revolution" style and bring back the fascist sow and her lumpen louts ,who learnt their tradecraft from the Paki butchers of Bangladesh.Once they gain control,a massive wave of terrorism directed against India will be launched ,in concert with the Porcus Pakistanicus on our western front.Let's hope the coming elections will bring into power in India our version of "Putin",a "Modi in India" warrior who will deal with our enemies as they deserve.

Putin shows the US/EU the upturned finger.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... gei-lavrov
Russia refuses to order Crimea troops to pull back in talks with US
US and British diplomats also say they have failed to bring together Russia and Ukraine for talks in Paris over crisis

theguardian.com, Wednesday 5 March 2014
Russian diplomats have refused a request to order the pro-Russian "self-defence" forces that have taken over the Crimean peninsula to pull back in the first day of face-to-face talks with the US aimed at resolving the Ukraine crisis.

Top-level US and British diplomats admitted they had also failed in their attempt to bring together Russia and Ukraine for discussions in Paris on Wednesday. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said that "regrettably" one member – Russia – had failed to appear for a meeting of the so-called Budapest agreement group, created to assure Kiev's security after it renounced nuclear weapons in the 90s.

Before entering his first face-to-face meeting with Kerry since the Ukraine crisis escalated, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also repeated the Kremlin's assertion – ridiculed by the west and disputed by international journalists in the Crimean peninsula – that the 16,000 troops that have seized Crimea are not Russian soldiers.

"If you mean the self-defence units created by the inhabitants of Crimea, we give them no orders, they take no orders from us," Lavrov told a press conference.

"As for the military personnel of the [Russian] Black Sea fleet, they are in their deployment sites. Yes, additional vigilance measures were taken to safeguard the sites … We will do everything not to allow any bloodshed."

As the British foreign secretary, William Hague, assured journalists in Paris that every possible diplomatic effort would be made to bring the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine together later on Wednesday, in Brussels the European commission announced a massive €11bn aid package to Ukraine.

"It is a package designed to assist a committed, inclusive and reforms-oriented Ukrainian government," the commission president, José Manuel Barroso, said.

"The package combined could bring an overall support of at least €11bn over the next couple of years, from the EU budget and EU-based international financial institutions."

He said he would discuss details of the assistance in Brussels on Thursday with Ukraine's interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who will be attending an emergency summit of the EU's 28 leaders called to mull a joint response to the military crisis in Crimea.

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said the meeting of EU leaders could decide on sanctions against Russia if there is no "de-escalation" by then.

"We're working on it," Fabius told the BFM television network before a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart. "There is no military solution."

Nato and Russia will hold parallel talks in Brussels amid concerns that a standoff between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers in Crimea could still spark violence, or that Moscow could also intervene in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

In Donetsk – the home of the deposed president Viktor Yanukovych and a flashpoint of tensions between pro-Russian and nationalist Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine – Ukrainian police seized the city's government headquarters from pro-Russian demonstrators who had occupied it. On Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian flag was raised above the building, replacing the Russian flag that had flown there since Saturday, when protests had erupted following the announcement by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that he had the right to invade.

Protesters led by a man who declared himself "people's governor" had been barricaded in the regional administration building demanding relations with Kiev be severed and control of the security forces placed in their hands.

A police statement said the evacuation began after reports the building had been booby-trapped with explosives.

Putin on Tuesday defended Russia's actions in Crimea, a strategic Black Sea peninsula that is part of Ukraine but used to be Russian territory, and said he would use force only as a last resort.

His comments eased market fears of a war over the former Soviet republic. But Russian forces remain in control of the region and Putin gave no sign of pulling servicemen – based in Crimea as part of the Black Sea fleet – back to base.

"What he wants above all is a new empire, like the USSR but called Russia," the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko told France's Europe 1 radio.

In Washington, Barack Obama acknowledged that Russia had legitimate interests in Ukraine but said that did not give Putin the right to intervene militarily.

"President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a different set of interpretations," the US president said. "But I don't think that's fooling anybody."

A senior US administration official said Obama had spoken to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Tuesday and discussed a potential resolution to the crisis. The Russian-speaking German leader has good relations with the German-speaking Putin, and Berlin is Russia's biggest economic partner.

The official said Obama, in his phone call with Putin last Saturday, had discussed what officials called an "off-ramp" to the crisis in which Russia would pull its forces in Crimea back to their bases and allow international monitors to ensure that the rights of ethnic Russians are protected.

The US president will stay away from a G8 summit scheduled for Sochi, Russia, in June unless there is a Russian reversal in the Ukraine crisis, the official added.

At his first news conference since the crisis began, Putin said on Tuesday that Russia reserved the right to use all options to protect compatriots who were living in "terror" in Ukraine but that force was not needed for now.

His comments, coupled with the end of Russian war games near Ukraine's borders, lifted Russian bonds and stock markets around the world after a panic selloff on Monday.

In comments ridiculed by US officials, Putin denied Russian armed forces were directly engaged in the bloodless seizure of Crimea, claiming that the uniformed troops without national insignia were "local self-defence forces".

The French president, François Hollande, became the latest western leader to raise the possibility of sanctions if Putin did not step back and accept mediation. He set out a tougher public line than Merkel, who has avoided talk of sanctions so far.

"The role of France alongside Europe … is to exert all necessary pressure, including a possible imposition of sanctions, to push for dialogue and seek a political solution to this crisis," Hollande told an annual dinner of France's Jewish community leaders late on Tuesday.

Putin earlier said western sanctions under consideration against Russia would be counter-productive. A senior US official said Washington was ready to impose them in days rather than weeks.

The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, said after speaking to Obama at the weekend that the G7 group of leading industrialised nations were considering meeting in the near future, a move that would pointedly exclude Russia. The G7 became the G8 in 1998 when Russia was formally included.

Kerry, on his first visit to Kiev since the overthrow of Yanukovych, accused Moscow of seeking a pretext to invade more of the country. He said the US was not seeking a confrontation and would prefer to see the situation managed through international institutions such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Yanukovych was expected to meet Lavrov, Hollande and Hague on the sidelines of a Paris conference on Lebanon, before holding private talks with the Russian minister later in the day in the French capital.

Ukraine's acting foreign minister, Andriy Deshchitsia, was also in Paris for talks with French officials and Kerry. It was not clear if he too would meet Lavrov.

No major incidents were reported in Crimea overnight. But in a sign of the fragility of the situation, a Russian soldier on Tuesday fired three volleys of shots over the heads of unarmed Ukrainian servicemen who marched bearing the Ukrainian flag towards their aircraft at a military airfield surrounded by Russian troops at Belbek, near Sevastopol.

After a standoff in which the two commanders shouted at each other and Russian soldiers levelled rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers at the Ukrainians, the incident was defused and the Ukrainians eventually dispersed. No one was hurt.

The Ukrainian border guard service said Russian navy ships had blocked both ends of the Kerch strait between Crimea and Russia, but Ukraine's infrastructure ministry said the 2.7-mile (4.5km) wide waterway was still open for civilian shipping.

[ramana]

Am surprised Russia is not saying that both US and UK are UkNa interested parties and hence have no right to talk about Ukraine.

[vishvak]

This is BIG Indeed

Kiev snipers hired by Maidan leaders - leaked EU's Ashton phone tape

[youtube]ZEgJ0oo3OA8#t=97[<snip>..

Comparing to chemical attack on civilians in Syria, here people are talking indeed.

..that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides..

In case of Syria, neither doctors nor anyone else such as journalists talked to people injured.

..that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened,” Paet said..

The Estonian FM has described the whole sniper issue as “disturbing” and added, “it already discredits from the very beginning” the new Ukrainian power.
..
He stressed that the Ukrainian people don’t trust the Maidan leaders, with all the opposition politicians slated to join the new government “having dirty past.”
..

[panduranghari]

.

I wonder whether US and Saudi Cabal is against EU, Eastern Europe and Russia getting close together? This combination would bring technology, manpower and natural resources together to create a huge economic empire.
.

Interesting, you should pick up on this. You must post more on economics forum. Your understanding of geopolitics and also economics seems deep.

Tomorrow ECB decides interest rates. I think, they will hold or raise them. However, I am not sure if US wants that as seen here

What if I say Saudi is already in ECB camp and has already, not openly, abandoned the US?

[panduranghari]

I think repubs want Obombo to get entangled in some mess and are trying to escalate on seeria, persia & now ukrain. I guess the country does not matter as long as Obombo ends up in some armed entanglement where he cannot win.

But, my doubt is who started this ukrain thing: Oirope or amirkhan? Who is shooting from whose shoulder?

[CT]
My hunch is the coup was instigated by oiropeans but CIA made it happen. I would also go one step ahead and say, this seems to be the plan to bring down the US dollar. The oiropeans wants their currency to be the de facto and eventually the de jure currency for global trade.

This may seem far fetched but French initiation in Libya conflict, German initiation in Ukrainian conflict looks like the grand game to keep Amirkhan involved bring their credibility into question.[/CT]

[Rudradev]

.

I wonder whether US and Saudi Cabal is against EU, Eastern Europe and Russia getting close together? This combination would bring technology, manpower and natural resources together to create a huge economic empire.
.

This is it exactly. Kiev was at a fork in the road.

Going one way, it would have become a bridge for further consolidation of Russian-Ukrainian-EU economic interests (precisely the tripartite arrangement that Putin himself had proposed).

If Kiev had gone the other way, embracing the EU and enlisting in a NATO subsidiary partnership completely unacceptable to Russia, such tripartite consolidation would have been thoroughly sabotaged; furthermore, Ukraine would have thwarted its own best interests as a nation, given how abjectly dependent it is upon Russia for its industry, economic stability and energy security. The EU, in November, tried to force Ukraine to take this latter path by delivering an ultimatum. When Yanukovych declined, certain forces staged an "Aam Admi" revolution to overthrow him. One must consider why this was done.

An important consequence of Russia-EU consolidation, via Ukraine, would have been an end to European dependence on Middle Eastern (specifically, Saudi/Qatari/GCC) energy supplies. US influence over Europe is largely based on being able to guarantee the security of those supplies to European countries. This has been the cornerstone of US policy in Eurasia since the FDR-Saud agreement of 1945.

The GCC countries, for their part, don't want to lose the lucrative market they have in Europe. In addition to preserving its protection racket in Europe, the US doesn't want to see the GCC countries lose their European market either... remember what sort of migraines that part of the world has incubated for America over the last 20-30 years. It is only by ensuring that the Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis continue to be able to sell their oil, and continue to fill their pockets with Euros, that the US has retained the cooperation of their regimes against a pandemonium of jihadi crazies.

Ukraine and Syria were both victims of the great gas contest. Syria was targeted because of Iranian plans to build an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline. This would have supplied gas to Europe more cheaply than either the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (which draws on low reserves to begin with) or the proposed Qatar-Jordan-Turkey pipeline (which would have had to go through territory presently controlled by Syria; specifically, through the region of Homs where, just by coincidence, anti-Assad "freedom fighters" were particularly active).

Ukraine, similarly, has been targeted because it could have enmeshed Russian-EU economic interests, and eventually strategic interests as well... keeping the Americans and GCC out of the Eurasian heartland. The EU's November ultimatum to Kiev must therefore be seen as the action of certain EU decision-makers incentivized to serve Washington's best interest.

[Philip]

With the US/Western hypocrisy fully exposed in its stance over the Ukranian crisis,condemning Russia over its exercising its legitimate rights in a crisis orchestrated in sinster fashion by the US/EU it is going to be very interesting to see how Russia views future Western adventurism around the world,without keeping quiet.It may also mark a pro-active Russian foreign policy in key regions outside its "near-abroad" (former USSR republics),such as Syria,Iran,the Gulf,Africa,Asia and the Americas.One predicts a new toughening of attitude by Russia with exports of sophisticated arms to friendly countries hitherto held back because of US/Western requests.A further cementing of ties between BRICS nations is to be expected as well.It would be very interesting for the NAM movement to invite Ukraine/Crimea (which declared itself to be Non-Aligned in its Constitution) to join!

US hypocrisy over ‘Russian aggression’ in Ukraine

Nile Bowie is a political analyst and photographer currently residing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Published time: March 04, 2014

As divisions deepen between the eastern and western regions of Ukraine, the backers of the putsch regime in Kiev portray Russia as a reckless aggressor to absolve their own responsibility for engineering the crisis.

While denunciations of Moscow have streamed out of western capitals in recent days over the standoff in Crimea, it should be understood that the political crisis currently unfolding in Ukraine could have been wholly avoided. In attempts to defuse unrest and maintain legal and societal order, ousted President Yanukovich offered remarkable concessions in his proposal to install opposition leaders in top posts in a reshaped government, which was rejected. Russia expressed readiness to engage in tripartite negotiations with Ukraine and the European Union with the hope that both Moscow and Brussels could play a positive role in Ukraine’s economic recovery, but the EU was unwilling to accept such a proposal. The February-21 agreement was mediated by Russia, France, Germany and Poland and aimed to end the bloodshed in Kiev by reducing presidential powers and establishing a framework for a national unity government, in addition to electoral reform, constitutional changes, and early elections.

There was clearly no shortage of opportunities to ease the polarization of the Ukrainian state through an inclusive political solution, and yet the opposition failed to uphold its responsibilities, resulting in the ouster of Ukraine’s democratically elected leader to the detriment of the country’s political, economic, and societal stability.

As the new self-appointed authorities in Kiev dictate terms and push legislation through a rump parliament, the reluctance of western capitals to address the clearly dubious legitimacy of the new regime suggests that the US and EU condone what is effectively a coup d’état with no constitutional validity.

The leaked phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, is a testament to Washington’s proclivity for foreign meddling and its brazen disregard of Ukraine’s sovereignty. It is no coincidence that Arseniy Yatsenyuk – handpicked by Nuland for the role of prime minister – now occupies that position in Kiev’s new leadership, and much like the reckless agitation strategies employed by the US elsewhere, extremist groups were manipulated to allow the nominal moderates to seize power on Washington’s behalf.

A new dawn for the far right

In order to maintain enough momentum to oust Yanukovich, Ukraine’s opposition leaders relied on allies in the radical camp such as fascist groups like Svoboda, Trizub, and the Right Sector. These organizations espouse ethnic hatred against Jews and Russians and promote neo-Nazi ideals. The foot soldiers of these movements laid the groundwork for the putsch by occupying the Maidan [Independence Square], storming government offices, and attacking riot police with Molotov cocktails, firearms, and other lethal weapons.

Members of these far-right groups have been integrated in so-called ‘self-defense forces’ that now patrol Kiev and other major cities, and have been seen wearing symbols that include the Celtic cross, which has replaced the swastika for many modern white-power groups, the wolf-hook SS insignia, and other occult symbols associated with the Third Reich. In his capacity as prime minister, Yatsenyuk has relinquished control of Ukraine’s national security forces to the heads of these radical organizations, who have openly used threatening and bigoted language to incite ethnic hostility, in addition to calls for Russians and Jews to be either destroyed or expelled from Ukraine.

Dmytro Yarosh, a leader of the Right Sector movement, addresses during a rally in central Independence Square in Kiev February 21, 2014. (Reuters / David Mdzinarishvili)

The political ascent of radical forces that represent a minority of Ukrainian public opinion has alarmed minority communities, indicated by Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman’s calls for Kiev's Jews to flee the country in light of recent political developments. Regions in the east and southeast of Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians and Russian speakers reside, are experiencing the Maidan protests in reverse, as protestors plant Russian flags atop government buildings in rejection of the new leadership in Kiev.

Since seizing power, the putsch regime in Kiev has attempted to pass laws against the official use of Russian and other languages throughout the country, fueling social unrest and secessionist sentiment in some quarters that culturally and linguistically identify themselves as Russian. Fast-moving developments in Kiev and actions taken by the new regime have enflamed the crisis, and any Russian intervention should be seen against the backdrop of eastern and southeastern Ukraine’s rejection of an unconstitutional transfer of power that directly threatens the integrity of the state.
Russia as a stabilizing force

The request by the legitimate President Yanukovich and the government of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to bring a limited contingent of Russian forces into the region to ensure the safety of ethnic Russian citizens living within Crimean territory is a reasonable request in light of the chaotic socio-political situation currently facing Ukraine. It should be understood that the movements of Russian forces in Crimea have been entirely lawful, and within legal boundaries established by existing security pacts with Ukraine. For western capitals to threaten sanctions and accuse Russia of a belligerent ‘invasion’ of Ukraine is completely unjustifiable, and tinged with political bias.

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statements alluding to Russia behaving like a 19th century power by ‘invading’ Ukraine on a trumped up pretext encapsulates Washington’s infinite potential for hypocritical double standards and pathological dishonesty. The egregious violations of international law by the United States and its NATO allies are abundant and need not be evoked to rebut Kerry’s desperate and deceptive accusation.

The outrage expressed by western capitals over the so-called ‘Russian aggression’ is in stark contrast to the restraint showed when Saudi Arabia militarily intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to put down peaceful protests. Recent interventions by France in its former colonies, Mali and the Central African Republic, have roused no international condemnation, despite notable local sentiment in those countries that view Paris as an aggressive actor.

The western stance on when intervention is and isn’t legitimate is highly selective, and for the interventionist countries to use their soft power monopoly to portray Russia as a meddler intent on aggressively undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty is truly a politically loaded and dangerous notion.

A man holds the Russian flag during a pro-Russian rally in Simferopol, Crimea March 1, 2014. (Reuters / David Mdzinarishvili)

The Obama administration, in an attempt to offer President Putin ‘a face-saving way out of the crisis,’ has proposed that European forces take the place of Russian forces in Crimea to guard against threats to the population, knowing full well that Moscow would never accept such an arrangement in a region like Crimea, which shares historic political, economic, cultural, and strategic military ties.

The area in which Kiev’s new authorities need Washington and Brussels most is in dealing with Ukraine’s impending debt crisis, and indications suggest that any economic assistance from the West would come with punishing terms and conditions, structural adjustments and austerity measures that would generate widespread social discontent in the country, and threaten the already shaky legitimacy of the putsch authorities.

Internal divisions within the defense sector and the bureaucracy of Ukraine, such as the prominent defection of the newly appointed head of Ukraine’s navy, Admiral Denis Berezovsky, and other significant figures in support of Crimea’s pro-Russian stance suggests that the anti-Kiev sentiment is deepening and showing no signs of abating.

Residents of the Crimea will take part in a referendum on March 30 to reevaluate the status of the peninsula, and the outcome is widely expected to result in the region seeking greater autonomy from Ukraine with a move towards federalism. If Russian authorities feel that all possibilities for dialogue have been exhausted, and a peacekeeping mission must be launched in earnest, there is every indication that Moscow will act within international law and show maximum restraint. Just as radical forces have become empowered as a result of western policy elsewhere, the result of the illegitimate putsch in Kiev is that those countries who claim to defend the post-World War II international order have empowered forces that sympathize with, and seek to propagate, fanatical prejudice and extremism, on the false notion that such radical groups will move aside peacefully to allow nominal western-aligned moderates and neoliberals to rule. It hasn’t worked elsewhere, and it won’t work in Ukraine.

http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-us-hypocrisy-russia-758/

[ramana]

Philip, Isnt it ironical that the Western powers have to support jihadis in Syria and Nazis in Ukraine!!!! Where are the directive principles that the US ennunciated in the declaration of war on Axis powers?