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Poroshenko offers Yarosh a Ministry of Defense job

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Posted on Fort Russ

3/26/2015

Poroshenko offers Yarosh a Ministry of Defense job

Translated from Ukrainian by J.Hawk

President of Ukraine Poroshenko offered Right Sector leader a position at the Ministry of Defense. This was announced on the [Poroshenko-owned] TV Channel 5 by Anton Gerashchenko, a Poroshenko advisor.

“I can confirm that Dmitriy Yarosh received a proposal from the president to take up a position at the Ministry of Defense. I would be very pleased if Yarosh were to start working as part of the state administration. I’ll say more: I can see that he is very bored at the Rada. Plus he was wounded in battle. I would be most pleased to create, together with Yarosh, a Volunteer Union for the Defense of Ukraine based on the Estonian, Finnish, and Swiss systems,” Gerashchenko added.

J.Hawk’s Comment: So we’ve seen the stick (the high-profile arrests, the threats, the SBU campaign), now comes the carrot. If I were Yarosh I’d seriously consider it, though of course  I’d be concerned about losing control over the Right Sector should it become absorbed into some state structure. But a territorial defense job—now that would be something right up Yarosh’s alley. Besides, what’s the alternative? Wage a guerrilla war against Poroshenko? Hang out at Kolomoysky’s side, hoping the fortunes will turn? Nah. Besides, it doesn’t seem an offer Yarosh can refuse. If he doesn’t like the carrot, he might have to taste the stick instead.

It’s also becoming clear that Poroshenko is aiming not at destroying but at isolating Kolomoysky. The arrests during the Cabinet meeting were of officials who gave state contracts to Kolomoysky’s companies. The offer to Yarosh is an effort to peel off the oligarch’s militant support. 

Incidentally, I would not attribute any of it to the US or any other outside force. Poroshenko is doing it on his own. Remember how just a few months ago it seemed entirely plausible that Poroshenko might be overthrown and that Yats would once again be “the Man”? Well, the shoe is on the other foot now—I mean, Yatsenyuk surely thought for at least a moment that the people who came to arrest his Cabinet members were actually coming for HIM. Yes, Poroshenko can arrest Yatsenyuk’s ministers right from under his nose. He managed to similarly neutralize Parubiy and Turchinov and, at least temporarily, secure the support of Avakov and Nalivaychenko whose star is rising. The US and the EU are, at most, recognizing the reality on the ground, and that reality is Poroshenko as the clearly dominant force in Ukrainian politics. For better or worse. 

What that “clearly dominant force” will do is another question, of course.

 

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/03/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_26.html

Last paid in November, coal miners from Donbass strike and demand wages as Kiev shuts off electricity

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From Fort Russ

April 1, 2015
Antifashist
Translated by Kristina Rus
 
 SBU arrested “Antifascist” servers in Kharkov, this was posted on the “Antifascist” Facebook account.

In the “liberated” areas of Donbass, people are on the verge of starvation. The Ukrainian authorities have not paid wages to the miners for several months.

The miners of the four mines of the state enterprise “Selidovugol” went on strike because of an egregious situation with wage arrears. Depriving miners of their livelihood, the authorities consider it acceptable to shut off electricity of the population, insolvent through no fault of their own.

This was reported on the website of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine.

Representatives of the state-owned enterprises, trade union members arrived to Kiev to meet with the heads of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine.

“A delegation of 20 miners arrived to the capital from four mines: “Ukraine”, “Novogrodovskaya”, “Kurakhovskaya” and “Russia”. Among them are 10 representatives of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine”, – stated the message.

According to the chairman of the primary trade union organization of NPGU of the mine “1/3 Novogrodovskaya” of “Selydovugol”, Sergey Pavlov, they were delegated for talks with officials by people who are in a dire situation .

“The miners were not paid for January, December, February, although in April they should get paid for March. Meanwhile their electricity is shut off for failure to pay and the authorities don’t care that they have not been paid themselves. In our region there is a very difficult situation. In response the miners went on a hungry riot and four mines stopped working. The miners refused to go down to the mine, because they are waiting for the promised payments. Today we are going to demand justice in the capital. Our main demands: repayment of salary, arranging timely shipment of coal, the return of benefits to coal miners. We are ready for a radical protest,” – said Sergey Pavlov.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-miners-of-liberated-donbass-go-on.html

Russian consulate bombed and looted in Yemen; Saudis prohibit Russian plane to evacuate embassy staff

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Aden, Yemen
April 2, 2015

Translated by Kristina Rus
The Shiite rebels attacked and looted the Russian Consulate in Aden. They broke down the door of the Consulate building, and looted the consulate property and office equipment. The militants loaded the equipment and documents into cars and fled in an unknown direction. At the time of the attack there were no workers in the Russian Consulate.

Earlier the Russian Consulate in Aden was damaged in the bombing of the largest city in the South of Yemen by Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia. This was reported by the Russian Embassy in Yemen.

The source admitted that there was not a single window left in the building. He added that the Russian Consulate may be closed and Russian citizens evacuated.

On Wednesday, April 1, a Russian plane was not allowed to board on the territory of Yemen in order to evacuate the citizens of the Russian Federation. In early March the UN international staff was evacuated from Yemen. Germany, Japan, USA and Turkey already announced about suspending embassy operations.

A Russian plane is waiting at Cairo airport for permission to land in Sana’a. It has to evacuate Russian diplomats and Russian women who are married to the Yemenis. Despite the prior agreement, Saudi Arabia still does not allow the Russian plane to land in Sana’a.

Ukrainian pension fund is bankrupt

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From Fort Russ

USAID cartoon about the benefits of Euro-integration

March 27, 2015
Politnavigator
Translated by Kristina Rus

The Pension fund of Ukraine is bankrupt and exists only through subsidies from the state budget. This was declared by the Minister of Labor and Social Policy of Ukraine, Pavel Rozenko on “First National” channel.

According to him, the situation with the fund is catastrophic.

“80 billion UAH is a subsidy to the Pension fund of Ukraine, which will not even suffice for the payment of all pensions. I want to say that this is a catastrophic situation for any country, when the Pension fund does not have enough money not even to raise pensions, but in order to timely and fully pay the minimum, which we have today in our country. The Pension fund today is bankrupt and without the help of the state, it would cease to exist,” –  said Rozenko.

The doctor who treated women raped by “Azov” fighters, died from a stroke in Mariupol

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From Fort Russ

March 30, 2015
Varjag2007
Translated by Kristina Rus
 
 A Mariupol doctor, who frequently treated women raped by soldiers of punitive battalions, died of a stroke.

“Kharkov” news agency has reported about atrocities by soldiers of punitive battalions stationed in Mariupol. Residents said that they live like under the occupation during the Great Patriotic War (WWII). The only difference is that back then it was the German invaders who went on a rampage, but now they are – Ukrainian.

Almost weekly raped and battered women are brought to the hospital.

Fortunately, Mariupol clinics have highly qualified doctors. They managed to save the lives and health of even those women who were not just raped, but abused in particularly brutal ways. For example, by filling the anus with construction foam. Such incidents shocked the staff of the clinics.

The facts of the atrocities of the punishers were confirmed by the “Kharkov” news agency and an employee of the Mariupol female penal colony, reporting that the soldiers from battalions stationed here are raping young female inmates.

Commanders of the battalion take 15-20 women under 35 from the 107th Azov female penal colony on a daily basis. The inmates are taken to their base, raped, and in the morning returned to the colony barely alive. Many of them had to be treated by Mariupol doctors.

The other day one of the doctors who saved the lives of the female victims died of a stroke, unable to cope with stress. To live and work in such conditions was a real trial.

KR: 

 Mariupol is a largely pro-Russian city, which held a referendum in May 2014, like the areas of DPR and LPR, while Azov battalion is notoriously filled with those neo-nazis, russophobes and ultra-nationalists, who volunteered to go to war with Donbass on their own.

Azov is one of the battalions working with the U.S. military in upcoming training and war “games”.

Donetsk-Lugansk rail service restored after 8 months

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Congratulations to the people of the Donbass for this amazing accomplishment!

From Fort Russ

March 31, 2015
Da Dzi
Translated by Kristina Rus

There are good news, which somehow went unnoticed. But actually it is very important. Because it marks a new life of Donbass, its rebirth. The first steps of peaceful development.

I am very glad that the rail service between Donetsk and Lugansk has been restored. I remember when I was in Novorossia, in order to get to Donetsk from Lugansk and Alchevsk, we had to loop around narrow bypass trails in the dark of the night in a minivan – from checkpoint to checkpoint. Hoping that we won’t make the wrong turn and stumble on the ukro-punishers. 🙂 Under the seat layed the two “Mukhi”, on the seat – the AK. The feeling was unforgettable. But now Debaltsevo is free. And the direct way is open.

“On March 28 from Yasinovataya-Passazhirskaya station departed the first train in 8 months, connecting Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. It departs 3 times a week through the stations Yenakiyevo, Debaltsevo, Rudakova and 14 other settlements with the last stop in Lugansk at 13.30.”

And this is not a small thing. This is a huge, hard work of thousands of people. And those who freed Debaltsevo, and those who restored the rail communications and power lines.

“In response to another statement of the ATO spokesman Lysenko that UAF will leave us a “lunar surface”, and as directed by the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, we are ready to lay the railway on the “lunar surface”, which is left after the Ukrainian army.”

Donbass will be peaceful. Donbass will be prosperous. Hooray!

H.G. Wells: War will leave the world a world of cripples and old men and children

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From Rick Rozoff

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

H.G. Wells: Selections on war

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H.G. Wells
From Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)

wells

It was acutely shameful to him that all these fine lads should be going off to death and wounds while the men of forty and over lay snug at home. How stupid it was to fix things like that! Here were the fathers, who had done their work, shot their bolts, returned some value for the costs of their education, unable to get training, unable to be of any service, shamefully safe, doing April fool work as special constables; while their young innocents, untried, all their gathering possibilities of service unbroached, went down into the deadly trenches…The war would leave the world a world of cripples and old men and children…

He began to fret and rage. He could not lie in peace in his bed; he got up and prowled about his room, blundering against chairs and tables in the darkness…We were too stupid to do the most obvious things; we were sending all these boys into hardship and pitiless danger; we were sending them ill-equipped, insufficiently supported, we were sending our children through the fires to Moloch…

***

There came drifting to Mr. Britling’s ears a confusion of voices, voices that told of reaction, of the schemes of employers to best the trade unions, of greedy shippers and greedy house landlords reaping their harvest, of waste and treason in the very households of the Ministry, of religious cant and intolerance at large, of self-advertisement written in letters of blood, of forestalling and jobbery, of irrational and exasperating oppressions in India and Egypt…It came with a shock to him, too, that Hugh should see so little else than madness in the war, and have so pitiless a realisation of its essential futility. The boy forced his father to see – what indeed all along he had been seeing more and more clearly. The war, even by the standards of adventure and conquest, had long since become a monstrous absurdity. Some way there must be out of this bloody entanglement that was yielding victory to neither side, that was yielding nothing but waste and death beyond all precedent. The vast majority of people everywhere must be desiring peace, willing to buy peace at any reasonable price, and in all the world it seemed there was insufficient capacity to end the daily butchery and achieve the peace that was so universally desired, the peace that would be anything better than a breathing space for further warfare…Every day came the papers with the balanced story of battles, losses, destructions, ships sunk, towns smashed. And never a decision, never a sign of decision.

***

All over England now, where the livery of mourning had been a rare thing to see, women and children went about in the October sunshine in new black clothes. Everywhere one met these fresh griefs, mothers who had lost their sons, women who had lost their men, lives shattered and hopes destroyed. The dyers had a great time turning coloured garments to black. And there was also a growing multitude of crippled and disabled men. It was so in England, much more was it so in France and Russia, in all the countries of the Allies, and in Germany and Austria; away into Asia Minor and Egypt, in India and Japan and Italy there was mourning, the world was filled with loss and mourning and impoverishment and distress.

And still the mysterious powers that required these things of mankind were unappeased, and each day added its quota of heart-stabbing messages and called for new mourning, and sent home fresh consignments of broken and tormented men.

Some clung to hopes that became at last almost more terrible than black certainties…

H.G. Wells: War will leave the world a world of cripples and old men and children

 

In Latvia, “Summer Shield” land, air, naval exercises wrap up

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From Rick Rozoff

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
March 30, 2015

Exercise Summer Shield set to wrap up

image_thumbnail

ĀDAŽI, Latvia: In support of the Alliance’s enhanced readiness, more than 1100 troops have taken part in Operation Summer Shield XII at the Ādaži Training Area, Latvia. The exercise which began on 21 March concludes on Tuesday, 31 March.

The annual training event is a combined land, air and naval exercise, with participants from Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Luxembourg, Canada and the U.S.

The goal for the training event is to integrate and coordinate fire support in infantry unit operations through combat support elements.

“Summer shield is all combat support units involved in defensive operations,” said Summer Shield Director Maj. Girts Savins. “The main objective is to coordinate the joint fire elements in the exercise.”

Artillery, aviation, defence against weapons of mass destruction, support of engineers in united operation with overcoming obstacles, involving joint fire support front observers and close air support controllers are all elements the troops were trained and tested on.

“I was initially thinking this would be a bigger challenge but all the troops were very professional and they overcame all the small differences, said Major Savins. “By the end they were working effectively and efficiently hand-in-hand.”

Moved to Latvia in 2014, Summer Shield tests the strength of the Alliance by bringing NATO members together working towards a common goal.

“The training we are doing in this part of the world is showing the world that we are together and we are looking to have our countries be independent,” said Major Savins.

Story by SHAPE Public Affairs Office

https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/nato-completes-land-air-naval-drills-in-Latvia/

U.S. troops will train Ukrainian forces (Including Azov Battalion) in ultra-nationalist stronghold

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On March 17, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted in favor of a bill submitted by Poroshenko on admitting foreign servicemen for multinational exercises in Ukraine in 2015.

This bill violates the Minsk agreements. These actions by the United States and by Ukraine violate the Minsk agreements.

From Rick Rozoff

Interfax-Ukraine
March 30, 2015

U.S. army personnel to train National Guardsmen in Lviv region

On April 20, U.S. army personnel will arrive at Yavoriv training ground in Lviv region to participate in a joint military exercise with National Guard of Ukraine personnel, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

“American commandos, numbering 290, will come to Yavoriv training ground, Lviv region, on April 20. This is where a long-term military exercise of 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army and combat units of the National Guard will be held,” he wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

Avakov said that 900 guardsmen will participate in the exercise.

“Three parts with 300 national guardsmen each. Three parts for eight weeks each. Then the joint exercise [will be held],” he said.

According to Avakov, the following battalions will take part in the exercise – Azov [Right Sector], Kulchynsky Yahuar (jaguar), Omega, and others from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Odesa, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia.

“Our American partners will present special ammunition and communication devices to the National Guard detachments that underwent training at the end of the exercise,” he said.

Avakov also said that preparative work between the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Guard had been completed.

“I’m grateful to Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and the employees of U.S. embassy in Ukraine. Without their vigor, the important and complicated preparation of training would have been impossible,” Avakov said, and he added that the agreement on the military exercise had been reached during negotiations between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden.

On March 17, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted in favor of a bill submitted by Poroshenko on admitting foreign servicemen for multinational exercises in Ukraine in 2015.

On March 22, U.S. Department of Defense reported it was taking the necessary measures to organize the military exercises, and that it would dispatch U.S. army personnel to Ukraine to train National Guard personnel

In keeping with the scheduled exercises, the Yavoriv district in Lviv region will host the Ukraine-U.S. Fearless Guardian 2015 drills scheduled for March through November 2015. Up to 2,200 servicemen will participate: up to 200 Armed Forces of Ukraine personnel, up to 1,000 National Guard of Ukraine personnel, and up to 1,000 U.S. Armed Forces personnel.

From July to October 2015, the international center for peacekeeping and security in Yavoriv district in Lviv region will host the Ukrainian-U.S. Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015 exercises. The total number of participants will be up to 2,100 servicemen. This will include 1,000 Armed Forces of Ukraine personnel, 500 U.S. Armed Forces personnel, and up to 600 from NATO member states and countries participating in the Partnership for Peace program.

Servicemen from the 173rd Sky Soldiers airborne brigade stationed in Vicenza, Italy, will be sent to Ukraine to train six National Guard companies with an emphasis on domestic security and territorial defense, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren had said.

He said that the training program is part of a long-term strategy to improve Ukraine’s defense potential and capabilities, and to increase the professionalism of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

According to Warren, the program will be similar to the ones held in Ukraine since 1995, and he added that the United States was holding joint exercises with parties and allies in Europe, and also throughout the world.

Shirokino – the new fetish of the Kiev junta that it can’t give up?

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From Fort Russ

Shirokino

March 31, 2015
YuraSumy
Translated by Kristina Rus

Back in February there were hints that Shirokino will become a new fetish that they can’t “give up”. Yesterday we received a message from the OSCE that Shirokino is under NAF (at least partially) and rebuttals immediately followed:

1. From the Right Sector, which have not dissolved. Incidentally, the deadline of the “ultimatum” from the authorities ends tomorrow.

2. From Semen Semenchenko, who is no longer a commander of “Donbass”, who believes that Shirokino is under the junta, but “Donbass” is “withdrawn for rotation” and cannot go back  … because it’s an order from Kiev.

3.From the ATO speaker, Stelmach, who reported about partial control over Shirokino.

Actually it is not important who is right and who is lying. It is important that Shirokino has become that fetish that can ignite a new phase of the war. The very preservation of a significant hot spot of the war suggests that such a scenario is on the table. The last fetish – Donetsk airport, became the trigger for the winter campaign. Will Shirokino become a trigger for a new war?

P. S. Meanwhile LDPR defiantly comply with the Minsk agreement and accuse Kiev of non-compliance. But Kiev cannot fulfill these agreements. Every day the loop of opportunities for Kiev is shrinking. There are many facts of violations of the Minsk Memorandum and they have already reached the level of discussion at the UN.