Month: February 2015

Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian brigade to become operational in 2015

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Posted on Fort Russ

2/20/2015

Poroshenko creates the Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian militarybrigade. Its command to be located in Poland.

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

Petro Poroshenko signed the law ratifying the agreement with Lithuania and Poland on the creation of a joint military unit.

“The brigade is being formed in order to participate in international operations on the basis of a UNSC mandate and decisions by the appropriate government agencies of Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. The agreement is open to other countries upon their invitation by the three signatories,” the announcement states.

The president’s press service notes that the structure, manning, weapons, and equipment or other aspects of its activities will be regulated by a separate technical agreement between security institutions of the respective countries.

The brigade’s HQ will be located in the Polish city of Lublin. The HQ will operate in accordance with Polish law and relevant components of international law.

Each of the signatories is responsible for the financial support of its units included in the brigade during joint training exercises and operations.

The agreement was signed by Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania in Warsaw on September 19, 2014 and was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada on February 4, 2015.

Defense Minister Poltorak announced earlier that the brigade should become fully operational in the first half of 2015. He estimates that the first group of Ukrainian military personnel will arrive in Lublin in the second quarter of 2015.

Poltorak also said that the number of Ukrainian soldiers included in the brigade will be determined during the working group meetings, and the troops will be subject to rotation.

It sounds something like “fascists of all countries unite.” They have united before, and have come to Russia before, but we also know how these marches had ended. If someone has a short memory, too bad for them.

J.Hawk’s Comment:  This announcement, coming very shortly after Poroshenko’s call for peacekeepers, makes one wonder whether this is how he intends to deal with the Donbass problem, namely by handing over the fighting to Poles and Lithuanians. Because once Poles and Lithuanians start dying, the rest of NATO might be drawn into the conflict. This is a rather artful way of overcoming the inevitable French and German objections to a NATO-led peacekeeping force being sent to Ukraine. This is a trilateral agreement that does not involve Germany or France, therefore they have no official say about it. But once this unit is deployed anywhere, it will quickly become a NATO mission simply because these are NATO countries. There can be absolutely no doubt that Poroshenko wants to continue the war until victory or Doomsday.

However, what is the likelihood if the brigade being deployed? There are many obstacles to the implementation of the plan. The brigade is unworkable, period, and it will not be a militarily effective formation. For starters, Lithuania and Poland are NATO countries whose militaries have been under NATO standards for years. Just to illustrate the level of difficulty here, Polish and Lithuanian soldiers use 5.56mm rifles (Kalashnikov clones, to be sure), while Ukraine uses actual 5.45mm AK-74s. Similar problems exist in all areas of interoperability.

But the real problem is political in nature. Poland and Ukraine (though probably not Lithuania, but we’ll never know) both pretend to be the regional leaders. Poland will treat its former colonies as if they were younger brothers in need of tutelage by their world-wise (and Iraq/Afghanistan experienced) older brother, while Ukraine will naturally feel that since it bore the entire burden of defending Civilization from Russian aggression, it should be in the driver’s seat. It’s unlikely that the shared Russophobia of the three partners is sufficient to overcome their mutual suspicions and megalomania. The Poles’ hatred of Nazis and Banderites might even prove stronger than  Russophobia, for what will happen should one of the units rotating to Lublin be one of the ones which treat Stepan Bandera as their patron saint?

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/ukrainian-polish-lithuanian-brigade-to.html

War correspondent Vauro Senesi on the situation in E. Ukraine; “The Americanist front is cracking”

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From Fort Russ

Interview of Vauro Senesi by Lorenzo Maria Alvaro
Published February 10, 2015 in Vita Magazine
February 20, 2015
Translated from Italian by Tom Winter
 
The satirist is one of the few people from the west to have been on the ground in the Donbass, the part of Ukraine called Novorossiya that is fighting against Kiev. “The situation is extremely dramatic. Instead of Russian regular army, there are guerillas that fight against a nazist government.”
The situation is at a crossroads. At present there are negotiations between the USA, the EU, and Russia. If Merkel, Hollande and Kerry can find a deal with Putin the situation could cool down. The problem is that in the opposite case, the scenario is at risk becoming quite dramatic. The notices that come from the war zone are few, and almost always from Ukrainian and American sources. One of the very few Italians and westerners to have been on the other side, amidst the pro-russian combatants, is the famous satirical cartoonist Vauro Senesi. Therefore Vita has contacted him and asked him to recount what he saw.
Vita: You’ve recently been in the east of Ukraine. What did you see?
VS: A humanitarian disaster. Many cities and villages are partially depopulated. Mainly the refugees head for Russia, and this goes a long way about saying who the liberators are. The ones to remain are those who can’t get out. These are the elderly, the disabled, or persons in extreme poverty. It’s winter, with temperatures of 20 below. They don’t have water; they don’t have electricity. I’ve seen them transport drinking water in old oil drums in the back of pickups in the bombarded and half-destroyed neighborhoods. One moving scene: the driver of the pickup was an old World War Two vet, still in his Red Army uniform.
It’s impossible, going there, not to see the fact that there is a clear strategy on the part of Kiev: ethnic cleansing. When you strike the nerve center of the life of a community with such arrogance, that can only be the motive: Raze to the ground the schools, hospitals, factories, electric power plants…
Vita: What’s the response of the pro-russians?
VS: The reply of the armed Cossacks is participatory, and heroic. In addition to defending the territory militarily, they have also taken on the burden to the extent possible, of sustaining the population. They distribute food and water, and organize co-ops and aid groups to rebuild the social fabric.
The population in recent years has had the experience of a liberalism without rules, a society run only in the private interest of the tycoons. In Ukraine the system denies fundamental rights like access to health care: right in Kiev, the hospital, for example, even before the conflict, was still living in the Chernobyl emergency era, without available cures or treatments. The only access was the black market.
A situation like that, with a state system so unfair, then coupled with the Maidan coup, and the memory of the massacre at Odessa, has cut a deep chasm between  the the russo-ukrainian population and the Kiev regime. I say the regime, because within the same society of Ukraine there are strong currents of dissent, stifled by the militarization in place in Kiev.
Vita: His reading of the facts is a bit pro-soviet, Or at least, that is the accusation of his critics. But we should remind these gentlemen that the Soviet Union ended in 1991.
Actually, the accusation is a matter of being nostalgic…
VS: I’m not Russian, so the nostalgia would be about something else. But certainly there is a vein of nostalgia in the population of Donbass. The people there say that while there was a Soviet Union, the welfare was free and better than today. Sanitation and school worked for everybody. In the midst of it all, strange to relate, were mingled Byzantine icons, Madonnas, portraits of Lenin, Russian flags and Red flags. I have to say that this nostalgia is for a system that, with all its horrors, guaranteed basic rights: health, education, and work.
Vita: How did Anti-fascism get into the pro-russian revolt in Ukraine?
VS: It’s outright: the salute the Cossacks give among themselves is a clenched fist accompanied by the phrase “¡No pasarán!” This because on the opposing side there are army divisions  that have adopted the symbols of the German SS. The battalions of the Ukrainian National Guard are openly nazist. At Kiev they have erected a monuments to nazi criminals like Stepan Bandera.
Vita: In the western media they refer to the rebels of the Donbass as regular army supported by Russia. True?
VS: I haven’t walked through every corner of the Donbass. What I saw was an army equipped with light to medium weapons. I didn’t see an army set up like the Russian army. There certainly are Russians among them, but they are volunteers. Guerillas. A guerrilla army. They are composed, from a tactical standpoint, on Guevarism. So said the general I was able to talk to — the idea is that of a guerrilla war of liberation and of reconstruction of an ethical society. 
The thing I don’t understand is that here we are in 2015: Why don’t we have satellite photos or news of prisoners from the Russian Army that are supposed to have invaded Donbass? It seems that these soldiers of Putin have the gift of invisibility.
Vita: In these hours we have negotiations between the US, the EU, and Russia. There are those who say it’s an attempt to manage the conflict at least, if peace itself is not attainable. What do you think?
VS: From my personal experience as a war correspondent, the idea of regulating the intensity of a conflict is folly. When you unchain the breakout of the violence it’s not able to be regulated or circumscribed. A war on this scale in the heart of Europe could be the fore-runner of a world conflict.
Europe is getting pushed onto pro-American positions, but I hope diplomacy can get to a positive opening. The alternative would be an immense tragedy. On the positive side there is this: Europe, though Mogherini has categorically squelched the idea of arming Kiev. And Tsipras is dealing with Putin and has said no to new sanctions. So the Americanist front is cracking. I hope they take it hard. 

To read Vauro’s own account of his tour of Donbass, click here, and here

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/vauro-americanist-front-is-cracking.html

Crimea: was it seized by Russia, or did Russia block its seizure by the U.S.?

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By Eric Zuesse

Both before and after Crimea left Ukraine and joined Russia in a public referendum on 16 March 2014, the Gallup Organization polled Crimeans on behalf of the U.S. Government, and found them to be extremely pro-Russian and anti-American, and also anti-Ukrainian. (Neither poll was subsequently publicized, because the results of each were the opposite of what the sponsor had wished.) Both polls were done on behalf of the U.S. Government, in order to find Crimeans’ attitudes toward the United States and toward Russia, and also toward Ukraine, not only before but also after the planned U.S. coup in Ukraine, which occurred in February 2014 but was actually kicked off on 20 November 2013, the day before Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych publicly announced that Ukraine had received a better economic offer from Russia’s Eurasian Economic Community than from America’s European Union. (The EEC subsequently became the Eurasian Economic Union, now that it was clear that Ukraine was going with the EU.) That decision by Yanukovych in favor of the EEC was mistakenly thought by him to be merely an economic one, and he didn’t know the extent to which the U.S. Government had set up an operation to overthrow him if he didn’t go along with the EU’s offer. (If some of these basic historical facts don’t come through from merely the wikipedia articles alone, that’s because the CIA is among the organizations that edit wikipedia articles, and so wikipedia is unwittingly a political propaganda vehicle. It is especially used for propaganda by the CIA and FBI.)

 

More recently, a poll of Crimeans was issued on 4 February 2015, by the polling organization GfK, and paid for this time by the pro-American-Government Canadian Government, via its Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and via Free Crimea, which is itself funded by the latter organization. However, the Canadian Government got no better news than the U.S. Government had gotten: 82% of Crimeans “Fully endorse” Crimea’s having become part of Russia (of which it had been part between 1783 and 1954, and which the public there had never wanted to leave); 11% “Mostly endorse” it; 2% “Mostly disapprove”; 3% “Don’t know”; and only 2% “Fully disapprove.” Or, to put it simply: 93% approve; 3% don’t know, and 4% disapprove. This poll was publicly issued only in the polling organization’s own report, which was made available only in Russian (the Ukrainian Government’s main language for international business) and therefore not comprehensible to English-speakers. It was titled, “СОЦИАЛЬНО-ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЕ НАСТРОЕНИЯ ЖИТЕЛЕЙ КРЫМА Исследование проведенное GfK Ukraine по заказу компании” or “SOCIO-POLITICAL SENTIMENTS IN CRIMEA: Research conducted by GfK Ukraine on the order of the company.” On February 10th, an English-language article reported and summarized the poll’s findings.
During the 16 March 2014 public referendum in Crimea, 96% voted to rejoin Russia. One question on the post-referendum, April 2014, U.S.-sponsored Gallup poll in Crimea, was headlined, “Perceived Legitimacy of March 16 Crimean Referendum” (on page 28 of the poll-report), and 82.8% of Crimeans agreed with the statement, “The results of the referendum on Crimea’s status likely reflect the views of most people here.” 6.7% disagreed. According to the newer poll (4 February 2015), 96% were for annexation to Russia, and 4% were opposed, which happens to be exactly what the 16 March 2014 referendum had actually found to be the case. But, continuing now with the description of the April 2014 Gallup poll: its “Views of Foreign Parties’ Role in the Crisis — Crimea” (p. 25), showed 76.2% of Crimeans saying that the role of the U.S. was “Mostly negative,” and 2.8% saying the U.S. role was “Mostly positive”; while Crimeans’ attitudes towards Russia were the exact opposite: 71.3% said Russia’s role was “Mostly positive,” and 4.0% said it was “Mostly negative.”
An accurate reflection of the reason why Crimeans, during the lead-up to the referendum, were appalled by America’s extremely violent and bloody takeover of the Ukrainian Government (as the EU itself had confirmed), was given on Crimean television shortly before the referendum, when a former criminal prosecutor in the Ukrainian Government, who lived and worked in Kiev and saw with her own eyes much of the violence but was not personally involved in the events, quit her office, and got in her car and drove back to her childhood home in Crimea, now unemployed, because she was so revulsed at what had happened to her country. On this call-in show, which was watched by many Ukrainians, she explained why she could no longer, as a lawyer and a supporter of the Ukrainian Constitution, support the Ukrainain Government — that it was now an illegal Government. She closed her opening statement, just before taking the calls from people over the phone, by saying, “Despite that our ‘great politicians’ who seized power by bloodshed, are now claiming that we don’t have the right to decide our own future — citizens of Crimea, you have every right in the world. Nobody is allowed to usurp power.” She subsequently became a criminal prosecutor in the new Crimean government, enforcing now the Russian Constitution, in Crimea.
However, anyone who says that Russia “seized Crimea,” is clearly lying or else is fooled by people who are.
Here, then, are highlights from a typical Western ‘news’ report about Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, in the issue of TIME magazine (December 10th online, December 22nd issue on newsstands), headlining “Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist,” in which Putin was a “runner-up” as the “Person of the Year” — a year when, actually, Obama overthrew Ukraine’s Government and replaced it with one run by racist-fascist (or nazi) haters of Russia, who were setting up to yank the remaining years on Russia’s lease of its crucial Black Sea Naval Base in Crimea, and the Crimeans were imminently fearing a Ukrainian invasion (the author was Simon Shuster):
His decision in March to invade and then annex the region of Crimea from Ukraine marked the first growth of Russia’s dominions since the fall of the Soviet Union. …
With the conquest of Crimea, a derelict peninsula about the size of Massachusetts, Putin at last restored a scrap of Russia’s honor, says Gorbachev, by “acting on his own,” unbound by the constraints of U.S. supremacy and the table manners of international law. …
That name [Crimea], redolent with the history of Europe’s 19th century wars, has become a byword in Russia for national revival, a taste of the imperial glory that a generation of Russians have long hungered for. …
Already expelled from the G-8 club of wealthy nations in March after the annexation of Crimea, Putin was further ostracized at the G-20 summit. …
So, was Putin’s taste of empire worth the cost to Russian prosperity? For those who carry the grudges of Russian history, it was. …
Russia now seeks to position itself as an alternative to the Western model of liberal democracy—and it’s had some success. Right-wing politicians in France and the U.K., not to mention Central and Eastern Europe, are not shy about declaring their admiration for Putin. The ultraconservative government of Hungary, a member of NATO and the European Union, has announced its intention to develop as an “illiberal state” modeled on Russia, cracking down harshly on civil society. …
Putin will face challenges of his own as the West begins to rally against his aggressiveness. …
Make no mistake, though: Russians also remember that their country once dominated a sixth of the earth’s landmass and stood as a global player second to none. That is the role Putin seeks to regain. …
Nothing was said about the Black Sea fleet, nor about any strategic issue. Nothing was provided in order to help readers understand what was happening. Readers’ Cold-War buttons were being pushed; that is all. America’s aristocracy despises its public, whom they merely manipulate and control.
Here is an article about (and linking to) U.S. President Barack Obama’s “National Security Strategy 2015,” in which Obama uses the term “aggression” 18 times, 17 of them referring to Russia. Obama never once cites a reason for applying that term; for example, unlike Simon Shuster, he doesn’t even so much as mention “Crimea.”
And, here is the best video that has yet been issued on Obama’s February 2014 coup, the coup that installed the Ukrainian regime that has been carrying out the ethnic cleansing operation, which Ukraine calls their ‘Anti Terrorist Operation,’ in the Donbass region, though it’s really the anti-resident operation there.
That fate of ethnic cleansing or local genocide — the fate which befell the residents of Ukraine’s Donbass region, the region that’s shown in dark purple in this election-map for the man whom Obama overthrew in February 2014 and which is the area that voted 90% for him — is the fate that Crimeans were protected from when they rejoined Russia.
Russia’s using its troops, who were permanently stationed in Crimea already and didn’t need to ‘invade’ anything in order to protect the residents in Crimea so that they could hold their referendum in peace, is what blocked the seizure of Crimea by the newly installed Ukrainian regime.
The invader was the United States, in its typically sneaky post-1950 way: a coup d’etat. What Dwight Eisenhower’s, Allen Dulles’s, and Kermit Roosevelt’s CIA operation had done to Iran in 1953, Barack Obama’s and Victoria Nuland’s operation did to Ukraine in 2014: a violent coup installing a far-right government — in Obama’s case, even a nazi government (and see this and this and this).
That — and the firebombings and other horrors that Washington’s Brookings Institution think tank want U.S. taxpayers to finance yet more of in Donbass — is what RussiaprotectedCrimeans from.

The aggressor here is not Vladimir Putin; it is Barack Obama. All honest news media (such as here and here and here and here and here and here and here) are reporting that. For economic analysis and reporting on these and other events, here is an excellent general news source. (It autotranslates if viewed in google’s chrome browser.) As for dishonest ‘news’ media, such as TIME  and Fox ‘News,’ they serve a different purpose than truth; so, none of them will be listed here, where the only interest is truth.
PS: For further insights into the lying that is prevalent in the West regarding Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia, see this remarkably honest testimony to the U.K. House of Lords’ 20 February 2015 Committee report, “The EU and Russia: before and beyond the crisis in Ukraine,” linked there on p. 108 as “RUS0012” and titled “Irina Kirillova MBE – Written evidence,” in which that Cambridge university professor describes the profound disappointment of ordinary people she had encountered in Russia, as they saw the misrepresentations in the West regarding the situations in Russia, Ukraine and Crimea. Outside of the English-speaking world, and especially in the regions that are not controlled by the U.S., the fakery of ‘journalism’ in the English-speaking world is becoming shockingly more evident than it formerly was. As usual, however, the House of Lords’ final report ignored these realities; and, throughout, it starts with the assumption that Russia is aggressive and that the West is merely responding to that. This professor’s written testimony was thus ignored. Most of the other individuals in the “Appendix 2: List of Witnesses” were the Anglo-aristocracy’s usual Russia-haters, such as Ian Bond, Director of Foreign Policy, Center for European Reform, saying that, “The most important thing is that the EU, as a rules-based organisation, should follow a rules-based approach to Russia,” as if that would be something alien to Russians. This type of bigoted condescenscion was rife throughout the report. If those people are as blind to evidence and science as they put themselves forth as being, they are dangerous in any governmental role; and to call the U.K. a ‘democracy’ is questionable, at best. Britain is an aristocracy, not a democracy. And the U.S. is at least as bad. In regards to the relationships between Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea, the West might be as bad as Ukraine, and should just quit the entire matter and try to start over from scratch, which means to let the nazis whom Obama placed into power there sink, not provide them with more weapons. Or, if more weapons are provided to them, then the rest of the West should issue sanctions against any nation that does that. Under liars and fools the West is drifting towards a totally unwarranted nuclear conflict with Russia.

PACE deputies threatened to be put on black list for supporting Russia

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Posted on Fort Russ

February 2, 2015
Sunday Night with Vladimir Solovyev
Translated by Kristina Rus
(Video 58:00 – 1:06)

Vladimir Solovyev: 

Russian delegation again left Strasburg without having found mutual understanding with most of the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was clear before the beginning of the session that the right to vote will not be granted. Why did they go there? Hoped for common sense? And what will be the consequences? Ultimate exit from this platform and exit from the Council of Europe?

I have to point out that the Europeans were surprised by your comment about your exit, are they that clueless? Do they live in their own world?

Alexey Pushkov, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Relations: 

Some of them thought, that although we informed them, in case of sanctions, and in particular – stripping the right to vote, which was the main sanction applied to us, that we will leave until the end of the year. But they thought, so what, “they came here, threatening us, putting pressure on us.” Someone shouted that the Russian delegation is blackmailing them, that if “we approve the sanctions, they will leave, so we should approve the sanctions on principle”.

And part of them didn’t understand, that when they approved the sanctions, and when we congratulated them with such a wise decision, after which nothing in Ukraine depends on them anymore, and all the contacts with Russia are cut, they realized that they cannot demand anything from us.

They wanted to meet with Savchenko and we were prepared to help with this issue in Moscow, if we stayed in PACE, now that we left, PACE will have no access to Savchenko for sure. Other international organizations may have such access, but PACE is excluded from this issue.

They wanted to make a Human Rights report in Crimea. And we allowed such possibility, while we insisted on a Human Rights report in Eastern Ukraine, where they are violated much more then in Crimea. And we told them, yes, we may consider an opportunity for you to go to Crimea and work on such report. Now this issue is closed.

Parliamentary Assembly excluded itself from the process of resolving Ukrainian crisis and from the dialogue with Russia about Ukraine. I think some of them understood that this will happen.  But  they wanted to isolate Russia and push us out. But some of them only got it now.

After our departure on Friday they started to actively discuss what will be their next steps. “The Russians said, we can meet with Savchenko, we can go to Crimea”, and then someone said: “Wait, the Russians are gone!”

And Ukrainians said, “The Russians offered … we should take their offers!” – “Well, then go talk to the Russians!” But where are they? They are already in Moscow!

I think that PACE punished itself in their anti-Russian push, to show us that we are not agreed with, that we have to be punished,  limited in our rights, they forgot that they lost Russia, a key player in Europe.

Now they are getting it. And we hear again talk that the dialogue with Russia is very important, and they can’t afford to loose it. And so on and so forth.

You asked, why did we go there. And I want to answer that question. There are not that many platforms in Europe where we can say the truth about Ukraine. And we speak the truth about Ukraine there.

We relentlessly bring up the issue of Odessa Massacre. We tell them, do you really think, that several dozen people can burn themselves, shoot themselves in the face, suffocate themselves? We talk about the refugees. We talk about the bombings of residential neighborhoods, about the murdered children We talk about what goes on in Eastern Ukraine, the number of killed and wounded in Eastern Ukraine.

If we are not there then no one will talk about it. Only our delegation goes against the mainstream. And sometimes I am asked, if there are any results. Yes, there are results.

I have to tell you that now 64 deputies, about more then 30% of deputies voted against the sanctions. And in April, when we were first stripped of the right to vote, only 20 people voted against.

So we are moving this agenda ahead, and there is much more skepticism towards Ukraine, much less faith.

There are people whom we have established very good relationships with. These is the left faction, some of the socialists, some of the conservatives. Many people came to our defense, representatives of the Serbian delegation, French, Norwegian.

We have to see that this is a platform on which an information war is waged.

V.S.: If this is a platform where a war is waged, then why did you leave?

We left because Russia is not prepared to play a role of a statist.

V.S.: Then why did you go, the British said it will be “good bye”!

Sergey Zheleznyak, Deputy Chairman of State Duma of RF:

The thing is, every year each national delegation is reviewed. The sanctions which were enacted last year expired by the end of 2014. And even at the session of the profile commission, which reviewed this issue, the spread was with a difference of only one vote a day before the parliamentary session.

We paid attention to the extraordinary efforts taken by Western diplomatic missions and international organizations to adjust the positions of those deputies who demanded to keep our privileges. There was talk that those who support Russia will have no political future in their own countries. And those delegates from countries other then EU were directly threatened, that if they support Russia, they will be put on black lists, and won’t be able to go …

V.S.: Who told them?

In private conversations with various representatives of Euro-bureaucracy and a large number of Trans-Atlantic lobbyists, who very officially are acting …   Their lobbyists are not just better then ours but much more tougher.

The truth is on our side, but what was remarkable is not only what was done but how it was done.
I was the author of all the adjustments for the final project of a resolution from our country.

When I was preparing them, I set politics aside on purpose and only followed the norms of common sense and international law. For example, if PACE is against volunteers from Russia, then it should be against volunteers from all countries, and not just Russia. When I was told, “no, the ban should only be for volunteers from Russia”  And I said, therefore this is a paradox – that means volunteers from Abkhazia, South Ossethia, Belorus, and other countries may be there? They said, this is not as important, our task is to force Russia to follow our line.

The paradox is that they think that our participation in PACE is a privilege, which we can be blackmailed with. For us only a fair dialogue is acceptable. And we were prepared to have it, but we weren’t heard.

Many important points here including this:

If we are not there then no one will talk about it. Only our delegation goes against the mainstream. And sometimes I am asked, if there are any results. Yes, there are results.

I have to tell you that now 64 deputies, about more than 30% of deputies voted against the sanctions. And in April, when we were first stripped of the right to vote, only 20 people voted against.

 It’s easy to forget this — telling the truth matters. It and our example influence other people. It’s very difficult most of the time to see results or the changes to dominant modes of thinking. And it’s very easy to get discouraged and give up. But speaking the truth brings results. There are always some who listen, some who are curious, some who still ask questions and don’t automatically believe the dominant narrative. And they influence other people — their family, their friends, their co-workers, their neighbors.

Speak up.

It is vital.

Tell the truth and keep telling the truth in as many creative ways as possible to as many people as possible.

Push outside of your comfort zone.

Don’t leave it to the “experts” or the “activists” or the politicians.

If you care about Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, or South and Central America, about freedom, every single person must tell what he or she knows if we are to have any hope of breaking the chokehold of tyranny, of brutality, of evil, of societal and earth murder.

The Korsun massacre, February 20 2014 – what really pushed Crimea away from Ukraine (VIDEO)

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Posted on Fort Russ

February 21, 2015
Antifashist
Translated by Kristina Rus

While the Ukrainian Euro-maidanites are celebrating the anniversary of the bloody coup, the supporters of Antimaidan begin to mark their own tragic dates. Exactly one year ago, on February 20, a bestial gang of Nazis from the “Right Sector” attacked a convoy of buses with Crimeans near Korsun, perpetrating a real slaughter and a massacre of the opponents of a nationalist coup.

Eight buses with Crimeans, who participated in Kiev in Antimaidan rallies, were returned home [after their opponents have won]. Near Korsun in Cherkasy oblast, the convoy was ambushed by the armed thugs from the Right Sector. As became known later, the Nazis were aware of the movement of the column and were expecting the Crimeans.

The captured buses were burned, their passengers were brutally tortured, beaten and humiliated. Several people were beaten to death and murdered.

A testimony of one of the victims of torture by the Right Sector scum soon appeared online:

“We were going home from Kiev with the guys on a bus. There was a roadblock. They started to shoot at us, throwing Molotov cocktails,” – shared her experience victim Oksana. “When I came out, I was hit, then they started to pull the boys”. The Crimean activists of “Stop Maidan” were attacked near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky, when they returned from Kiev. On the bus there was also an injured man, for whom an ambulance was called earlier. “And they started to beat us. Boys, girls – they didn’t care – remembers Oksana. “Then they took the men, and they came back already half naked. Forced them to kneel on broken glass and sing the Ukrainian anthem, shouting “Glory to the Heroes”. They took the phones, passports, beat them and took them away. We were left on the bus for nine hours, and then released”. The attackers spoke Ukrainian, and forced the Crimeans to speak the state language. Their actions were marked by frenzied brutality and hatred for the Crimeans.

“Now I like the situation in Crimea. At that time, when we were in trouble, not one military, nor the police saved us. No one would give a damn. When they let us go, told us to pass a message that they will soon arrive in Crimea, and it will be much worse than in Kiev. I’m glad that someone will protect us.”

Remembering those tragic events, well-known political analyst Vladimir Kornilov noted that, despite the horror of what happened, this massacre was destined to become the impetus, which roused the Crimea for the following complete liberation from the aggressive Ukrainian banderovshina, sinister shadows of which were already hanging over the peninsula.

“I want to remind you that until then Crimea rather inertly reacted to what was happening in Kiev. Some dear to me Crimeans publicly spoke, saying, “this is not our war”. I even argued about this with some Crimean political scientists. Some went to Kiev to protest on Antimaidan, but mostly among the masses there was not a lot of emotion. But when the Crimean survivors of this massacre came home and talked about who came to power in Kiev, Crimea exploded, then it realized that it is time to act and defend yourself! Personally, I count the beginning of the reunification process of Crimea with Russia starting from that day. [It was still more then two months until the Odessa massacre – K.R.]

So the Ukrainian Nazis had done everything they can in order to start this process,” – said Kornilov.

Kristina Rus:

 When the Western press cheers “the democratic aspirations of the Ukrainian people shown on Maidan” they conveniently forget and ignore the aspirations of those mostly Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Crimea and South-Eastern Ukraine, who were protesting nearby in Kiev against the Maidan. Unfortunately it took a bloody civil war to open the eyes of the most, and those few people who had the foresight of what’s to come and understood what was in store for Ukraine did not have the time and the funding of the Right Sector and Maidan organizers to adequately prepare and make any difference from the start.

 But when the determination and brutality of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist thugs became apparent after their deeds in Korsun and Odessa became known to the public, most Ukrainian citizens became horrified by what the Maidan had unleashed and were forced to make a decision if this is the kind of country they want to leave in.

The global stakes of the Ukraine crisis. The failure of western civilization

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From Global Research, February 20, 2015

crisis in ukraine3

By Prof. John McMurtry

War party bigotry and hate may be enough to drive neo-Nazis leading Kiev in the Ukraine civil war. But the reverse blame of Putin and Russia by corporate media and states has a deeper interest. It propels the geostrategic economic and military war of movement through East Europe to Russia. It is the indispensible big lie to mask their set up for foreign financial predation. A big pay-off matrix looms in Ukraine for US-led arms corporations and military services, agribusiness and GMO’s, speculator funds on debts and currency, monopoly providers of privatized social services, Big Oil frackers for newly discovered rich deposits, junk food suppliers like Poroshenko in US-frankenfood alliance, and – last but not least – the IMF money party waging a war of dispossession by financial means. 

The IMF enforces the global money-sequence cancer system by its defining policy commands on debt-impoverished countries to open them up to foreign feeding on their domestic markets and fire-sale enterprises, drastically reduced workers’ wages and benefits, stripped public pensions, healthcare and education, sell-off of historic infrastructures to pay ever more bank-created debts, and – in general- multiplying transnational money demand and profit invading their life functions at all levels. The IMF and Wall Street have been cumulatively hollowing out Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia, South Europe and the US itself in these ways over 35 years. Now it is the turn of the once social democratic Europe, state by state, beginning with the most indebted and helpless. Ukraine on the outskirts of Europe next to Russia is where the military option has been required to strip it and its former Slavic economic union with Russia. This historic relationship has been the last line of life defence in the way, a conservative but sharing ethos of resource-rich societies with Putin as a superior leader facing the US-EU’s many-times more powerful economic levers and lethal arms to bully him and Russia into submission.

To take the naturally rich Ukraine for transnational bank and corporate looting, the public must be sold the story of Putin as the villain. Only then can debt screws be applied and the country opened to long-term and full-spectrum financial, foreign and oligarch control beneath the people’s notice. The IMF is already in motion to ensure that the Kiev coup state provides all of this. Few observe the underlying fact that the crushing bank debt eating societies alive across the world is all debt money created by big private banks with no legal tender to back 97% of it. Ukraine is the latest nation to fall into the deadly trap without a sound. Here public money for public need is ended, although it created the US itself. As Ben Franklin has testified, to regain public money issue was the prime reason for the American Revolution. Public banking was also what made modern Canada from 1938 to 1974 by public investment money without private debt-servicing loaned by the public Bank of Canada for construction of Canada’s material and social infrastructures from the St Lawrence Seaway to public pensions and universal healthcare.

The same is true of almost every society that has economically succeeded in the modern world. . The Depression and the War especially taught the world’s real leaders something about public banking as the only thing that works for real social development. Germany in peace, China, India, Japan in their most prosperous periods have all relied on public investment banking in some form. But the Wall Street counter-revolution happened invisibly in 1974 by Bank of International Settlements policy to stop governments from lending their own money for their public investments – the BIS being a coterie of bank heads meeting in Switzerland led by Wall Street bankers and with no accountability to any public interest or body. On the contrary, against their constitutional rights, all governments have been made accountable to the Wall Street system which runs the US Treasury and the IMF by the revolving door method.  This silent BIS policy destroyed public investment free of the self-multiplying debt charges now eating away at every level of the Western economy including sovereign public investment. Ukraine, with few noticing, has just been privatized at the bank debt and investment level by the US-led coup state. Its arrangements with the IMF now loaning money on Wall Street permanent debt-servicing terms have replaced the $20 billion it had from Russia on payable public terms along with 30% cut-rate oil and gas.

This most far-reaching change of all has been erased from view by the official story – the delivery of Ukraine by the US-led coup into the ever-devouring funnels of the Wall-Street-and-company private banking system. With all the permanent new debt servicing of an already broken country spending its future debt on fighting a US-manufactured civil war fueled by neo-Nazi war thugs, Ukraine will be bled dry. A revealing example of how IMF debt bondage leverages transnational corporate control of Ukraine’s greatest resources is the new IMF $17 billion loan on the condition that Ukraine opens up its peerless vast stretches of black soil and fertile lands to the biotech cycles of Monsanto, Dupont, Deere and factory looting of the earth. Similar plans are also in motion for Big Oil racking of Ukraine’s large newly discovered gas deposits (fracking is prohibited in Russia). Continue reading →

Ukrainegate: U.S. and NATO weapons in Ukraine

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From Oriental Review, February 19,2015

Initially it seemed surprising that on the first day of the negotiations marathon in Minsk a bill to “provide lethal weapons to the Government of Ukraine in order to defend itself against Russian-backed rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine” would be introduced in the US Congress. However, it soon became clear that its sponsor, Sen. James Inhofe (left), simply harbors no illusions about his Ukrainian partners’ competence or ability to comply with their obligations. He understands that Kiev will inevitably violate the cease-fire and that Washington will soon have to explain why the militias in the devastated region of what is known as the “Debaltsevo cauldron” are in possession of such a vast number of captured weapons originating from NATO countries.

And there can be no doubts whatsoever that this will happen. The militia continues to provide documented evidence of Kiev’s use of NATO-standard weapons, such as Paladin M109 self-propelled howitzers, portable Javelin anti-tank weapons systems, and small arms (M16 rifles and much more).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpbOxVdIP4M

Video taken in Gorlovka on Feb.1, 2015. Life News reports that the Christian cathedral in the centre of town was shelled by 155mm cannons of a US-made Paladin howitzer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFfwxIei20

Video taken at Donetsk airport on Jan 18, 2015 presenting piles of NATO light weapons left by the Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian TV report (Sept 2014) on Western military assistance to Ukraine. Javelin anti-tank weapons and other systems presented.

The age and condition of these weapons suggests that the West is simply selling Ukraine military equipment that was already destined for the recycling bin. For example, Britain first produced its Saxon armored personnel carriers in 1983, and they were removed from service in 2008. Now they are being shipped through the port of Odessa to the company Ukroboronprom, which will adapt them to the needs of the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian government is spending about $51,000 on each Saxon AT-105. It is worth noting that due to the all-out crisis situation there, the Ukrainians have vetoed the idea of producing their own Dozor-B armored carrier.

Image: Ukrainian Pres. Petro Poroschenko touches the Saxon’s thin armor. Photo via Accidents News

According to official statistics, before 2007 the German army possessed 570 M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzers. But not a single one remains. Where do you think those tanks went? The answer is simple – in December 2014, Ukrainian officials suddenly closed the airports in Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, and Kharkov because of the ostensible threat of Russian paratroopers (!), while several of NATO’s C-17B Globemaster and C-130 Hercules military transport planes landed there. Eyewitnesses in Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk saw four self-propelled Paladin howitzers (and boxes of their ammunition) being unloaded. Witnesses in Kharkov claim two RomanianLAROM MLRS and a Spanish Teruel-3 were transported there.

Military convoys that have been regularly crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border since the summer of 2014 are arriving at the 169th Training Center of the Ukrainian ground forces in the Chernihiv region, where instructors from NATO countries are conducting workshops with soldiers serving in Ukraine’s security forces, in order to train them on NATO weapons and equipment.

Polish General Bogusław Pacek is leading the group of NATO advisers in Ukraine since September 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH1NnN1MjvI

The incompetence of the Ukrainian army, as well as the question of provisioning them, is a very serious problem. NATO weapons systems are difficult to operate and require large quantities of the proper ammunition, which is not manufactured in Ukraine. But channels for delivering such ammunition to Ukraine have already been established. For example, in early February the cargo ship Yasar Abi sailed from Burgas (Bulgaria) to the port of Oktyabrsk (the Mykolaiv region, Ukraine) carrying a load of 680 tons of NATO and old Soviet ammunition.

So Senator Inhofe’s bill is not about rendering military assistance to the puppet government in Kiev, but is rather a way to legitimize the shipments that are already being sent. As usual, only the most aged, decrepit weapons are ending up in the region where the anti-terror operation is underway – meaning that Ukrainian officials are re-exporting everything that is worthy of resale to third countries, including Syria. No one can guarantee that the weapons that will pass to Ukraine legally will not soon be used against America’s interests in global hot spots. However, it seems that this threat is the last thing on the minds of US senators.

 Update #1 Feb 20, 2015; 4pm msk:

Militias in Debaltsevo after liberation of the city. DNR and LNR fighters came upon a large number of weapons left by retreating Ukrainian military, American armored Humvee vehicle among them.

Source:

http://orientalreview.org/2015/02/19/ukrainegate-nato-weapons-for-truce/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainegate-nato-weapons-for-truce/5432489

Poland launches $42-billion war buildup

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Sofia News Agency
February 16, 2015
Poland Embarks on Massive Spending to Overhaul Military Hardware

NATO member Poland, bordering conflict-torn Ukraine, has earmarked a whopping EUR 33.6 B in spending to modernise its armed forces.

The plans will bring Poland in line with NATO’s recommended defense spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, AFP said on Monday.

The planned overhaul over a decade calls for the purchase of new military hardware including anti-aircraft systems, an anti-missile system as well as combat drones, armored personnel carriers and submarines.

Poland’s shopping list also includes helicopters and cruise missiles for submarines and drones.

According to Polish officials, “the risk of the conflict in eastern Ukraine heating up remains” even though a ceasefire agreement between the government in Kiev and pro-Russian separatists was signed last week in Belarus’ capital Minsk.

“The possibility of a lasting peace still isn’t close,” AFP quoted Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski as saying last week.

…

Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said last week that Poland was drawing up a long-term plan to shift some of its military strength towards its eastern border, closer to Ukraine and Russia, in response to Moscow’s involvement in Ukraine.

 

Source:

https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/poland-launches-42-billion-war-buildup/

In Romania: U.S. troops, missile “defense” base, NATO CC centers

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The United States did not tolerate missiles in Cuba, but the U.S. and NATO with impunity will threaten Russia with multiple bases with missiles, a build-up of foreign military personnel, and continuous military exercises on Russia’s borders, as well as patrols in the Black Sea.

“Russia will be forced to react not only to these command centers, but also to arsenals and any other military infrastructure. We know that Romania can also have an offensive potential,..”

Of course, they will be forced to act. This is an open threat, a taunt, a dare by the NATO bully boys.

Why are there no statesmen and women, why are there no leaders in Washington DC, in London, in Brussels? Where are the people with sanity and sense and courage?

It will take the deep reservoirs of wisdom and heart of the Russian people and all good people everywhere to resolve this horrible situation and stop these violent threats.

Romania-Insider
February 11, 2015

The U.S. brings 250 soldiers in Romanian base as Russia warns it might neutralise the county’s military targets

Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis informed the Senate that he approved the temporary deployment of up to 250 American soldiers in the Mihail Kogalniceanu military base in Eastern Romania, according to Mediafax.

The U.S. has been using the military base, which is close to the Black Sea Port of Constanta, and the Mihail Kogalniceanu International Airport to transport troops and equipment to and from its military operation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The President also approved the a request from the U.S. to use the Henri Coanda International Airport in Otopeni, Romania’s largest airport, as an alternative for its multimodal transport operations, in 2015, in case weather conditions make it impossible to use the Kogalniceanu airport.

The American military presence in Romania has become more visible in recent years. The most important U.S. project in Romania is the missile defense base in Deveselu, which should become operational this year.

NATO also announced it will open two command and control centers in Romania, which will contribute to strengthening the Alliance’s Eastern flank.

All these operations have determined adverse reactions from Russia, which sees the U.S. and NATO bases in Romania as threats. A Russian military expert recently said that military objectives in Romania might become targets for Russia, in case the situation in Ukraine degenerates into a military conflict between NATO and Russia.

“If Romania will let itself drawn into such a confrontation, then it’s likely that a series of military objectives in Romania will become targets that will be neutralised with different types of weapons (by Russia – e.n.),” said Vladimir Evseev, director of the Center for Public Policy and Military Research in Moscow, in an interview for the Romanian national television.

He said that Russia is training troops in Crimea capable of neutralising all possible threats. Russia thinks that the military bases that will be set up in Romania won’t be able to launch just anti-ballistic rockets, but also cruise missiles.

“Russia will be forced to react not only to these command centers, but also to arsenals and any other military infrastructure. We know that Romania can also have an offensive potential, this is why we will seek ways to annihilate the Romanian military fleet,” he explained.

Source:
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/romania-u-s-deploys-troops-in-military-buildup-against-russia/

NATO Secretary General: Warplanes over Baltic states, warships off coast, troops on ground

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This is sheer lunacy.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Febuary 18, 2015

Opening remarks
By NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the joint press point with the Latvian President

Thank you, Mr. President, for your warm welcome. We just had an excellent discussion.

I want to commend Latvia for the leading role you are playing in European affairs.

You currently hold the EU Presidency.

You play a key role in NATO’s eastern defences. And you have kindly offered to host one of our new command and control units on your territory. All these contributions are very welcome.

I want to reassure you that NATO stands shoulder to shoulder with Latvia.

The Alliance’s responsibility is to protect and defend each and every Ally against any threat. And NATO’s support for its eastern Allies, including Latvia, was confirmed at the recent NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting in Brussels.

Here, more progress was made in implementing our Readiness Action Plan, including establishing an enhanced NATO response force and a very high readiness Spearhead Force.

In addition we continue with assurance measures.

NATO aircraft continue to police Baltic skies. NATO ships continue to patrol the Baltic Sea.

NATO forces continue to exercise on the ground.

During these challenging times, it is important that NATO Allies spend more on defence, and spend better.

And again I want to commend Latvia for your commitment to raise defence expenditure in line with the pledge that we made in Wales.

Mr. President, I thank Latvia for all your work during these difficult times.

We also spoke about the conflict in Ukraine.

The Minsk agreement is the best opportunity for a lasting peaceful solution.

What really matters now is implementation of the ceasefire and the Minsk agreement.

Today I am deeply concerned by the deteriorating situation in and around Debaltseve.

The refusal of the separatists to respect the cease-fire threatens the agreement.

As does their denial of access to the area for the OSCE monitors.

Russian forces, artillery and air defence units as well as command and control elements are still active in Ukraine.

Russia has supported the separatists with forces, training and advanced weapons.

And there has been a steady buildup of tanks and armoured vehicles across the border from Russia to Ukraine.

I urge Russia to end its support for the separatists.

And withdraw its forces and military equipment from eastern Ukraine in accordance with the Minsk agreement.

The separatists should halt all attacks immediately.

And allow OSCE monitors full access.

I support the call by the UN Security Council to all parties to implement their Minsk commitments.

We continue to believe that this agreement is the best way forward to a political solution to the conflict in Ukraine.

Source:

https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/nato-chief-warplanes-over-baltic-states-warships-off-coast-troops-on-ground/