U.S. private military companies used for arms supplies to Ukraine

By Boris Novoseltsev
Posted on Strategic Culture Foundation, March 5, 2015

CyberBerkut is a group of Ukrainian hackers set to fight neo-fascism, nationalism and power abuse in Ukraine. It has gained access to the files on the mobile device of the Green Group PMC (private military company) official who has recently visited Kiev as a member of American military delegation. It made the materials public on February 27 using its website (http://cyber-berkut.org/).

Green Group is a US private military company founded in 2007 with headquarters in Edmond, Oklahoma. It has a European branch in Tbilisi. The number of employees differs from 50 to 200, though the exact number is not known as quite often the personnel hired for a concrete mission are not put on pay roll. The company is licensed with the US Department of State and the State Department. CyberBerkut posted the documents to open access along with the Green Group advertisement. Two letters of Gregg Holmes, the CEO of the PMC, to the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Chief of Staff Muzhenko became public domain. One of them written in Ukrainian and dated February 15, 2015 (the Minsk agreement was signed on February 12) is worth to be cited.

It goes like this: «As you know, the United States is in contact with NATO partners on lethal arms supplies to Ukraine. There has been no mutual understanding reached so far. As I am informed by my friends in State Department and the Pentagon, the United States is going to increase the pressure on European allies. During recent consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France the US State Department team insisted on expediting the procedures for delivering anti-tank systems and heavy weapons to Ukrainian military. The United States believes that lethal arms will stop the advance of separatists inside Ukraine and prevent them from approaching the administrative border of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. According to the US government estimates, the use of up-to-date weapons by Ukrainian military will inevitably inflict heavy losses upon Russian volunteers fighting in the terrorists ranks. It will be impossible to hide the fact of heavy casualties. In its turn, this information will cause tension in Russia and spur the emergence of anti-war movement to organize mass protests against the current Russian government. 

No matter the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs always supports the White house initiatives, the Government of France is hardly happy with our proposals. President Francois Hollande is not ready to drastically change his Ukraine policy but the US State Department came forward with a bright idea. The weapons will be delivered to “volunteers” fighting for Ukraine or the operatives of Western private military companies with great experience of using the weapons and equipment. Green Group is ready at any time to provide the Ukrainian military with volunteers in sufficient numbers. 

The US government believes that France could at least make a financial contribution with money transferred from the French Foreign Ministry to State Department accounts to hide the real purpose it is allocated for». 

It is known that the Ukraine-U.S. Joint Commission is responsible for arms supplies. A document of the US European Command (Eucom) contains a proposal to deliver lethal arms to Ukraine allocating $75 million for the purpose. The package includes Javelin anti-armor missiles, different kinds of light weapons, miscellaneous equipment and individual protection kits. $2 million are to be spent on some Maidan network. Another Eucom document mentions ammunition, including grenades. $45 million is to be allocated for the training of Ukraine’s military, first of all special forces. The arms will be transferred within the framework of Joint Multinational Training Group – Ukraine program in accordance with the Ukraine-U.S. Joint Commission.

Perhaps, the purpose of the Green Group’s mission was to get acquainted with the Ukraine’s military requirements and observe the situation on spot. The documents show that the US assessments were a bit different from what Ukraine requested. The US offers to make it a much bigger deal. For instance, Green Group proposes to increase the number of robotic systems and include 9 thousand optical devices. Communication systems top the list while Ukrainians give priority to drones.

According to the documents, Kiev started the talks on weapons supplies no later than mid-2014. The Ukraine-U.S. Joint Commission (its next session is slated for May or June 2015) serves as a cover. The geography is the whole Ukraine. The US does not trust Ukrainians with making assessments of their needs. This mission will be carried out by private contractors. They will also take part in combat actions and work as consultants and trainers.

Green Group is not the only private military company hired by the Pentagon and the State Department to provide for arms supplies to Ukraine. According to media, at least 3-4 thousand people employed by defense contractors operate in Ukraine. The decision is not taken at the political level but it does not prevent the organizers of military supplies from doing their job.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/03/05/us-pmcs-used-for-arms-supplies-to-ukraine.html

Russia’s remarkable renaissance

If you read the remarkable series of books by Vladimir Megre entitled The Ringing Cedars of Russia, you will see that a renaissance has been occurring for a number of years, albeit quietly.

From New Eastern Outlook, March 9, 2015
By F. William Engdahl

Something remarkable is taking place in Russia, and it’s quite different from what we might expect. Rather than feel humiliated and depressed Russia is undergoing what I would call a kind of renaissance, a rebirth as a nation. This despite or in fact because the West, led by the so-called neo-conservatives in Washington, is trying everything including war on her doorstep in Ukraine, to collapse the Russian economy, humiliate Putin and paint Russians generally as bad. In the process, Russia is discovering positive attributes about her culture, her people, her land that had long been forgotten or suppressed.

My first of many visits to Russia was more than twenty years ago, in May, 1994. I was invited by a Moscow economics think-tank to deliver critical remarks about the IMF. My impressions then were of a once-great people who were being humiliated to the last ounce of their life energy. Mafia gangsters sped along the wide boulevards of Moscow in sparkling new Mercedes 600 limousines with dark windows and without license plates. Lawlessness was the order of the day, from the US-backed Yeltsin Kremlin to the streets. “Harvard boys” like Jeffrey Sachs or Sweden’s Anders Aaslund or George Soros were swarming over the city figuring new ways to rape and pillage Russia under the logo “shock therapy” and “market-oriented reform” another word for “give us your crown jewels.”

The human toll of that trauma of the total collapse of life in Russia after November 1989 was staggering. I could see it in the eyes of everyday Russians on the streets of Moscow, taxi-drivers, mothers shopping, normal Russians.

Today, some two decades later, Russia is again confronted by a western enemy, NATO, that seeks to not just humiliate her, but to actually destroy her as a functioning state because Russia is uniquely able to throw a giant monkey wrench into plans of those western elites behind the wars in Ukraine, in Syria, Libya, Iraq and well beyond to Afghanistan, Africa and South America.

Rather than depression, in my recent visits to Russia in the past year as well as in numerous discussions with a variety of Russian acquaintances, I sense a new feeling of pride, of determination, a kind of rebirth of something long buried.

Sanctions Boomerang

Take the sanctions war that the Obama administration has forced Germany, France and other unwilling EU states to join. The US Treasury financial warfare unit has targeted the Ruble. The morally corrupt and Washington-influenced Wall Street credit rating agencies have downgraded Russian state debt to “junk” status. The Saudis, in cahoots with Washington, have caused a free-fall in oil prices. The chaos in Ukraine and EU sabotage of the Russian South Stream gas pipeline to the EU, all this should have brought a terrified Russia to her knees. It hasn’t.

As we have earlier detailed, Putin and an increasing number of influential Russian industrialists, some of the same who a few years ago would have fled to their posh London townhouses, have decided to stand and fight for the future of Russia as a sovereign state. Oops! That wasn’t supposed to happen in a world of globalization, of dissolution of the nation-state. National pride was supposed to be a relic like gold. Not in Russia today.

On the first anniversary of the blatant US coup in Kiev that installed a hand-picked regime of self-professed Neonazis, criminals, and an alleged Scientologist Prime Minister Andriy Yansenyuk, hand-picked by the US State Department, there was a demonstration in downtown Moscow on February 22. An estimated 35,000 to 50,000 people showed up—students, teachers, pensioners, even pro-Kremlin bikers. They protested not against Putin for causing the economic sanctions by his intransigence against Washington and EU demands. They protested the blatant US and EU intervention into Ukraine. They called the protest “Anti-Maidan.” It was organized by one of many spontaneous citizen reactions to the atrocities they see on their borders. Internet satirical political blogs are making fun of the ridiculous Jan Paski, until last week the fumbling US State Department Press Spokesperson.

Not even an evident False Flag attempt in the London Financial Times and Western controlled media to blame Putin for “creating the climate of paranoia that caused” Boris Nemtsov’s murder is being taken seriously. Western “tricks” don’t work in today’s Russia.

And look at US and EU sanctions. Rather than weakening Putin’s popularity, sanctions have caused previously apolitical ordinary Russians to rally around the president, who still enjoys popularity ratings over 80%. A recent survey by the independent Levada Center found 81 percent of Russians feel negatively about the United States, the highest figure since the early 1990s “shock therapy” Yeltsin era. And 71 percent feel negatively about the European Union.

The renaissance I detect is evident in more than protests or polls, however. The US-instigated war in Ukraine since March 2014 has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, one which the US-steered German and other western media have blocked out of their coverage. More than one million Ukrainian citizens, losing their homes or in fear of being destroyed in the insane US-instigated carnage that is sweeping across Ukraine, have sought asylum in Russia. They have been welcomed as brothers according to all reports. That is a human response that has untold resonances among ordinary Russians. Because of the wonders of YouTube and smart phone videos, Russians are fully aware of the truth of the US war in eastern Ukraine. Russians are becoming politically sensitive for the first time in years as they realize that some circles in the West simply want to destroy them because they resist becoming a vassal of a Washington gone berserk.

Rather than bow to the US Treasury’s Ruble currency war and the threat that Russian banks will be frozen out of the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) international interbank clearing system, something likened to an act of war, on February 16, the Russian government announced that it had completed its own banking clearing network in which some 91 domestic credit institutions have been incorporated. The system allows Russian banks to communicate seamlessly through the Central Bank of Russia.

That is inside Russia among banks that otherwise were vulnerable even domestically to a SWIFT cut. Russia joined the Brussels-based private SWIFT system as the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989. Today her banks are the second largest users of SWIFT. The new system is inside Russia. Necessary, but not sufficient, to protect against SWIFT cutoff. The next step in discussion is joint Russia-China interbank clearing independent of SWIFT and Washington. That is also coming.

The following day after Russia’s “SWIFT” alternative was announced as operational, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said China will build up its strategic partnership with Russia in finance, space and aircraft building and “raise trade cooperation to a new level.” He added that China plans to cooperate more with Russia in the financial area and in January Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that payments in national currencies, de-dollarization, were being negotiated with China. China realizes that if Russia collapses, China is next. Failing empires try desperate measures to survive.

Russians also realize that their leaders are moving in unprecedented ways to build an alternative to what they see as a morally decadent and bankrupt American world. For most Russians the disastrous decade of poverty, chaos and deprivation of the Yeltsin era in the 1990’s was reminder enough what awaits should Russia’s leaders again prostitute themselves to American banks and corporations for takeover, Hillary Clinton’s infamous “reset” of US-Russian relations she attempted when Medvedev was President. Russians see what the US has done in neighboring Ukraine where even the Finance Minister, Natalia Jaresko, is an American, a former State Department person.

Russia and its leaders are hardly trembling behind Kremlin walls. They are forging the skeleton of a new international economic order that has the potential to transform the world from the present bankruptcy of the Dollar System. Moscow and Beijing recently announced, as I discussed in a previous posting, their project to create a joint alternative to the US credit rating monopoly of Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. President Putin’s travel agenda in the past year has been mind-boggling. Far from being the international paraiah Washington and Victoria Nuland hoped for, Russia is emerging as the land which has the courage to “just say No!” to Washington.

Russia’s president has been in Cyprus where possible basing for the Russian navy was discussed, in Egypt where General al-Sisi warmly welcomed the Russian leader and discussed significant economic and other joint cooperation. Late last year Russia and the BRICS states agreed to form a $100 billion infrastructure bank that makes the US-controlled World Bank irrelevant. The list grows virtually every day.

The special human side

For me, however, the most heartening feature of this Russian renaissance is in the generation which is today in their late thirties to early forties—young, highly intelligent and having experience of both the depravity of Soviet communist bureaucracy but as well of the hollow world of US-led so-called “free market capitalism.” I share some examples from the many Russians I have come to know in recent years.

What is unique in my mind about this generation is that they are the hybrid generation. The education they received in the schools and universities was still largely dominated by the classical Russian science. That classical Russian science, as I have verified from many discussion with Russian scientist friends over the years, was of a quality almost unknown in the pragmatic West. An American Physics professor from MIT who taught in Moscow universities in the early 1990s told me,

“When a Russian science student enters first year university, he or she already has behind them 4 years of biology, 4 of chemistry, of physics, both integral and differential calculus, geometry…they are starting university study at a level comparable to an American post-doctoral student.”

They grew up in a Russia where it was common for young girls to learn classical ballet or dance, for all children to learn to play piano or learn a musical instrument, to do sports, to paint, as in classical Greek education of the time of Socrates or Germany in the 1800s. Those basics which were also there in American schools until the 1950s, were all but abandoned during the 1980s. American industry wanted docile “dumbed-down” workers who asked no questions.

Russian biology, Russian math, Russian physics, Russian astrophysics, Russian geophysics—all disciplines approached their subject with a quality that had long before disappeared from American science. I know, as I grew up during the late 1950’s during the “Sputnik Shock,” where we were told as high school pupils we had to work doubly hard to “catch up to the Russians.” There was a kernel of truth, but the difference was not lack of American students working hard. In those days we worked and studied pretty hard. It was the quality of Russian scientific education that was so superior.

Teaching of the sciences especially, in Russia or the Soviet Union, had been strongly influenced by the German education system of the 1800s, the so-called Humboldt Reforms of Alexander von Humboldt and others.

The strong ties in Russian education with classical 19th Century German culture and science went deep, going back to the time under Czar Alexander II who freed the serfs in 1861, following the example of his friend, Abraham Lincoln. The ties were deepened to German classical culture later under Czar Alexander II prior to the 1905 Russo-Japanese War when the brilliant Sergei Witte was Transport Minister, then Finance Minister and finally Prime Minister before western intrigues forced his resignation. Witte translated the works of the German national economist Friederich List, the brilliant opponent of England’s Adam Smith, into Russian. Before foreign and domestic intrigues manipulated the Czar into the disastrous Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 against Germany a pact which made England’s war in 1914 possible, the Russian state recognized the German classical system as superior to British empiricism and reductionism.

Many times I have asked Russians of the 1980s generation why they came back to Russia to work after living in the USA. Always the reply more or less, “The US education was so boring, no challenge…the American students were so shallow, no idea of anything outside the United States…for all its problems, I decided to come home and help build a new Russia…”

Some personal examples illustrate what I have found: Irina went with her parents to Oregon in the early 1990s. Her father was a high-ranking military figure in the USSR. After the collapse he retired and wanted to get away from Russia, memories of wars, to live his last years peacefully in Oregon. His daughter grew up there, went to college there and ultimately realized she could be so much more herself back in Russia where today as a famous journalist covering US-instigated wars in Syria and elsewhere including Ukraine, she is making a courageous contribution to world peace.

Konstantin went to the USA to work as a young broadcast journalist, did a master’s degree in New York in film and decided to return to Russia where he is making valuable TV documentaries on dangers of GMO and other important themes. Anton stayed in Russia, went into scientific and business publishing and used his facility with IT to found his own publishing house. Dmitry who taught physics at a respected German university, returned to his home St Petersburg to become a professor and his wife also a physicist, translates and manages a Russian language internet site as well as translating into Russian several of my own books.

What all these Russian acquaintances, now in their late 30s or forties share is that they were born when the remnants of the old Soviet Russia were still very visible, for better and for worse, but grew to maturity after 1991. This generation has a sense of development, progress, of change in their lives that is now proving invaluable to shape Russia’s future. They are also, through their families and even early childhood, rooted in the old Russia, like Vladimir Putin, and realize the reality of both old and new.

Now because of the brazen open savagery of Washington policies against Russia, this generation is looking at what was valuable. They realize that the stultifying bureaucratic deadness of the Soviet Stalin heritage was deadly in the USSR years. And they realize they have a unique chance to shape a new, dynamic Russia of the 21st Century not based on the bankrupt model of the now-dying American Century of Henry Luce and FD Roosevelt.

This for me is the heart of an emerging renaissance of the spirit among Russians that gives me more than hope for the future. And, a final note, it has been policy among the so-called Gods of Money, the bankers of London and New York, since at least the assassination in 1881 of Czar Alexander II, to prevent a peaceful growing alliance between Germany and Russia. A prime aim of Victoria Nuland’s Ukraine war has been to rupture that growing Russo-German economic cooperation. A vital question for the future of Germany and of Europe will be whether Germany’s politicians continue to kneel to the throne of Obama or his successor or define their true interests in closer cooperation with the emerging Eurasian economic renaissance that is being shaped by President Putin’s Russia and by President Xi’s China.

Ironically, Washington’s and now de facto NATO’s “undeclared war” against Russia has sparked this remarkable renaissance of the Russian spirit. For the first time in many years Russians are starting to feel good about themselves and to feel they are good in a world of some very bad people. It may be the factor that saves our world from a one world dictatorship of the bankers and their military.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/09/russia-s-remarkable-renaissance-2/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/russias-remarkable-renaissance/5435643

 

Nemtsov’s role in the plunder of Russia in the 1990’s: links to Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and Soros

From Fort Russ

Boris Nemtsov and Boris Berezovsky

March 9, 2015
Elena KREMENCOVA
Translated by Kristina Rus

Certainly, the performers of the savage murder should be caught and severely punished. However, we will likely not find the true customers. Well, except with nuclear missiles. However, listening last week to the praise for Boris Nemtsov, people in the know were puzzled: Oh my God, is this all really about Nemtsov?!

“Russia is rapidly becoming a colony of China. Russia is losing sovereignty. This is the main point of modern foreign policy of the Kremlin” – accused Vladimir Putin the opposition leader Nemtsov.

Apparently, he forgot that back in 1997 as Deputy Prime Minister himself he initiated this process and arrived in Beijing the day before President Yeltsin to finalize the agreement on the gas pipeline from the Kovyktinskij gas field in Irkutsk region and from Western Siberia to China.

His signature is under the agreement between the governments of Russia and China about the pipeline for transportation to the Chinese of crude oil from Eastern Siberia. Nemtsov participated in the negotiations on the demarcation of the Russian-Chinese border, which ended with the signing of a disadvantageous for us treaty. After which many Russians, to their astonishment, ended up on the Chinese territory.

And what about the agreement with Japan “About some of the types of cooperation in the field of harvesting of marine living resources”? Only business publications briefly reported that the Japanese were allowed to fish in our waters without compliance with the Russian legislation. And after seven years we saw terrible videos about how this is done. The damage to Russia was then estimated at $10 billion.

The Deputy Prime Minister also aided the Chechen terrorists. Personally signed an agreement on the transit of oil through Chechnya, through which the militants received from the federal budget about $10 million in excess fees for oil transit. This instrument of financial support for terrorism from the state worked properly prior to coming of Putin. At the first problems the press howled about human rights violations in Chechnya. And Boris Efimovich got the reputation of an irreconcilable opposition activist.

In one interview he admitted that he agreed to become first Deputy Prime Minister under pressure from Tatyana Dyachenko, who came to Nizhny Novgorod and “begged all night that the President always helped you and now the hour had come when you must help him”. But did not mention that Dyachenko begged him together with Boris Berezovsky, the corrupt alliance with whom by the time of the interview Nemtsov called an absolute lie. However, the jury in the High Court of England came to a different conclusion.

Boris and Boris quarreled about a blocking stake in Svyazinvest. Berezovsky wanted to buy it, but Nemtsov sold it to Soros!

In 1998 Nemtsov founded “The National Fund for Regional Policy” for the transfer of money from offshore companies, including TNK and YUKOS of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Part of the funds went to Nemtsov, “The Union of Right Forces (SPS) and “the human rights defenders”, but most of the money was cashed and disappeared. The loss to the state was estimated at 370 billion rubles. But everything was on the fringes of law, since after the shelling of the White House [in Moscow] in October 1993, the laws were written by scoundrels for scoundrels. And were approved by the cohort of senators whom Nemtsov had joined in December.

His election to the Council of Federation [Russian Senate] was financed by a businessman with a criminal background,  Andrey Klimentyev.

But that’s not all. Two weeks before the default of 1998, Nemtsov announced that he had found $30 million for the Russian Space Agency, which was behind on the production timeline of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. Say, the amount needed for the construction of the ISS was found by VimpelCom for the right to operate at frequencies of GSM 900 in Moscow and the Moscow region. But ISS had received only $7 million. The promise to save “Mir” station has remained only on paper, and experts wondered how much Nemtsov received for assisting the project on ridding the state for the promised $30 million of what is worth $200 million. Financial analysts estimated the commission for the service at 15 percent of projected annual profits of $4.5 million per year.

That is, the story of this gentleman is clear. All the corrupt deals of Boris Nemtsov apparently we will never be discovered. But many still remember the story of the bankruptcy of Navashinsky shipyard and the credit affair with “Nizhegorodets” bank.

Vladimir Putin’s legendary speech at 2007 Munich Security Conference

A commenter stated that this speech has been taken down numerous times. Apparently, there was also a Q&A with reporters after the speech. These versions are just the speech.

Here are two versions.

Full speech  — poorer video quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frDYKeP1hnM

30:46

—————————————————————-

Part 1-4 — good video quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlY5aZfOgPA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZewZnZ13X-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf90nezYKwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyBzNR-x6l8

 

How Vladimir Putin blocked the U.S. “pivot to Asia”

Posted on CounterPunch, March 8, 2015
By Mike Whitney

“The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the only constraint on Washington’s power to act unilaterally abroad…. Suddenly the United States found itself to be the Uni-power, the ‘world’s only superpower.’  Neoconservatives proclaimed ‘the end of history.’”

—  Paul Craig Roberts,  former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury

“Don’t blame the mirror if your face is crooked.”

— Russian proverb

On February 10, 2007,   Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the 43rd Munich Security Conference that created a rift between Washington and Moscow that has only deepened over time.  The Russian President’s blistering hour-long critique of US foreign policy provided a rational, point-by-point indictment of US interventions around the world and their devastating effect on global security.   Putin probably didn’t realize the impact his candid observations would have on the assembly in Munich or the reaction of  powerbrokers in the US who saw the presentation as a turning point in US-Russian relations. But, the fact is, Washington’s hostility towards Russia can be traced back to this particular incident, a speech in which Putin publicly committed himself to a multipolar global system, thus, repudiating the NWO pretensions of US elites. Here’s what he said:

“I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue.”

With that one formulation, Putin rejected the United States assumed role as the world’s only superpower and steward of global security, a privileged position which Washington feels it earned by prevailing in the Cold War and which entitles the US to unilaterally intervene whenever it sees fit. Putin’s announcement ended years of bickering and deliberation among think tank analysts as to whether Russia could be integrated into the US-led system or not.  Now they knew that Putin would never dance to Washington’s tune.

In the early years of his presidency, it was believed that Putin would learn to comply with western demands and accept a subordinate role in the Washington-centric system. But it hasn’t worked out that way. The speech in Munich merely underscored what many US hawks and Cold Warriors had been saying from the beginning, that Putin would not relinquish Russian sovereignty without a fight.  The declaration challenging US aspirations to rule the world, left no doubt that  Putin was going to be a problem that had to be dealt with by any means necessary including harsh economic sanctions, a State Department-led coup in neighboring Ukraine, a conspiracy to crash oil prices, a speculative attack of the ruble, a proxy war in the Donbass using neo-Nazis as the empire’s shock troops, and myriad false flag operations used to discredit Putin personally while driving a wedge between Moscow and its primary business partners in Europe. Now the Pentagon is planning to send 600 paratroopers to Ukraine ostensibly to “train the Ukrainian National Guard”, a serious escalation that violates the spirit of Minsk 2 and which calls for a proportionate response from the Kremlin. Bottom line: The US is using all the weapons in its arsenal to prosecute its war on Putin.

Last week’s gangland-style murder of Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, has to be considered in terms of the larger geopolitical game that is currently underway. While we may never know who perpetrated the crime, we can say with certainly that the lack of evidence hasn’t deterred the media or US politicians from using the tragedy to advance an anti-Putin agenda aimed at destabilizing the government and triggering regime change in Moscow.  Putin himself suggested that the killing may have been a set-up designed to put more pressure on the Kremlin. The World Socialist Web Site summed up the political implications like this: Continue reading →

Brzezinski says U.S. must send troops and weapons to stop Russia

Note: This hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee was held January 21, 2015. The link to the C-Span recording and transcript is here:http://www.c-span.org/video/?323887-1/hearing-national-security-threats

From Global Research, March 8, 2015
By Eric Zuesse

Zbigniew Brzezinski, U.S. President Obama’s friend and advisor on Russia, is a born Polish aristocrat who has hated Russia his whole life but who hid that hatred until after the communist Soviet Union collapsed and he then publicly came out as hating and fearing specifically Russia — the nation, its people, and their culture. In 1998, he wrote The Grand Chessboard, arguing for an unchallengeable U.S. empire over the whole world, and for the defeat of Russia as the prerequisite to enabling that stand-alone global American empire to reign over the planet.

He now has told the U.S. Congress (on February 6th but not reported until March 6th, when the German Economic News found the clip) that Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin “seized” Crimea and that Putin will probably try to do the same to Estonia and Latvia, unless the U.S. immediately supplies weapons and troops to those countries and to Ukraine. Here is his stunning testimony (click on the link under it, to hear it, but the key part is quoted in print below):

Screen Shot 2015-03-06 at 9.40.20 AM

http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/03/06/brzezinski-rede-vor-dem-us-kongress-russland-wird-angreifen/
[Note: the above link has only a short section which is also repeated. See this C-SPAN link for the complete hearing and transcript http://www.c-span.org/video/?323887-1/hearing-national-security-threats%5D

“I wonder how many people in this room or this very important senatorial committee really anticipated that one day Putin would land military personnel in Crimea and seize it. I think if anybody said that’s what he is going to do, he or she would be labeled as a warmonger. He did it. And he got away with it. I think he’s also drawing lessons from that. And I’ll tell you what my horror, night-dream, is: that one day, I literally mean one day, he just seizes Riga, and Talinn. Latvia and Estonia. It would literally take him one day. There is no way they could resist. And then we will say, how horrible, how shocking, how outrageous, but of course we can’t do anything about it. It’s happened. We aren’t going to assemble a fleet in the Baltic, and then engage in amphibious landings, and then storm ashore, like in Normandy, to take it back. We have to respond in some larger fashion perhaps, but then there will be voices that this will plunge us into a nuclear war.”

He continues there by saying that we must pour weapons and troops into the nations that surround Russia, in order to avoid a nuclear conflict: deterrence, he argues, is the way to peace; anything else than our sending in troops and weapons now would be weakness and would invite World War III.

He says that American troops must be prepositioned in these countries immediately, because otherwise Putin will think that America won’t respond to a Russian attack against those countries.

The most serious falsehoods in his remarkable testimony are three, and they’ll be taken up here in succession: Continue reading →

ISIL is not Muslim, says senior State Department official

State Department official Daniel Rubenstein spoke March 6 at a World Affairs Council luncheon in California[i].

When asked about ISIL and the radical Islam it espouses, Rubenstein told the audience, ISIL are “fakers…they’re not Muslim.” He said in that region, ISIL is “not considered to be the real thing.” He said they are actually “criminals”.

This startling admission by the State Department comes after months of controversy over the nature of ISIL/ISIS/Daish.

Rubenstein is Special Envoy for Syria, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, a Middle East expert. He served as Consul General in Jerusalem, with previous posts including Amman, Sinai, Tel Aviv, and Baghdad.

If ISIL is not radical Muslim, why is it destroying archaeological sites and treasures? If it is under no radicalized mandate to destroy human representations, what is the motivation?

Another audience member asked about reports from the Iraqi Parliament that the U.S and Great Britain are actually supplying ISIL

On February 23, the Iraqi military shot down two British military planes delivering weapons to ISIL. On February 26, a U.S. military helicopter delivering supplies to ISIL was shot down by Iraqi popular forces Al-Hashad Al-Shabi. The Iraqi Parliament stated it is receiving daily reports of U.S. military planes dropping supplies to ISIL. Head of the Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli says he has documents and photos showing that U.S. Apache helicopters airdrop foodstuff and weapons for ISIL.[ii] Coordinator of Iraqi popular forces Jafar al-Jaberi reported that U.S. planes carried additional Takfiri fighters to areas that had just been liberated from them.[iii]

Mr. Rubenstein declined to comment.

An investigation by Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) in November 2014 found hundreds of trucks going into Syria daily through an open Turkish border in NATO-controlled territory and directly into ISIL territory.[iv]

In December 2014, Veterans Today senior editor Gordon Duff traveled with a delegation of American intelligence experts to the International Conference on Combating Terrorism and Religious Extremism in Damascus. Duff made these points in a keynote address[v]:

  • What is happening in the Middle East are the effects of large scale international organized crime, not terrorism
  • ISIL and al Qaeda are criminal organizations within a worldwide criminal organization.
  • The motivation is mainly economic, to benefit a specific group of people.
  • Senator John McCain is the father of ISIL and of al Nusra[vi]
  • McCain will probably run US legislative and military foreign policy as a result of the last election.
  • American generals including General McInerny and General Paul Vallely, specialists in psychological warfare, helped organize ISIL.
  • “[McInerny and Vallely] have traveled in and out of Syria, over and over, as had Senator John McCain, meeting with al Qaeda”
  • Al Qaeda was “created by the American, Saudi and Israeli Defense Forces and Intelligence Services.”
  • Israel and organized crime control the United States.
  • The U.S. government serves the interests of a worldwide criminal organization.

Duff says this is built on “solid research on the ground, using human signals intelligence from our extensive capabilities.”

If ISIL’s sponsors are indeed the United States, Great Britain, Israel, and other coalition/NATO members, then ISIL are international mercenaries. The people flooding to join ISIL – 10,000 from Europe for 2015, estimates the French Prime Minister[vii] — are obviously not supporting the Arab Muslim countries of the Middle East.

That leads to the only possible rationale for the archaeological destruction — racism and domination. The goal: to destroy Arabic culture, history, memory, places of power, and people. This rationale has been applied to many other indigenous peoples, in fact, to any country and any people that provided an alternative, another narrative, an antidote, or a refuge from the current regime, whether that regime was Roman, Roman Catholic, Spanish, British, European colonial, Nazi, or American manifest destiny. There are connections and continuity between these regimes. Child and human trafficking and slavery, rape, drug trafficking, assassinations, death squads, weapon smuggling, and now organ trafficking[viii] are common features. Ukraine and the Maidan/Color Revolution movement are current aspects of the regime’s work. The use of “civil society” and NGOs shows this hydra’s reach.

Special Envoy Rubenstein said his present position facilitates aid to Syrian groups and outside NGOs and efforts to overthrow the Assad government. He said that the future transitional Syrian government will be between “external powers” and may not contain any Syrians.

This international alliance or syndicate intends to achieve its goals, whatever the cost. This is already seen in countries such as Ukraine, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria. The cost will fall cataclysmically on the nations of the region that are decimated, subjugated, stripped.

Citizens of sponsoring nations will continue to financially bear the costs – the white phosphorus, cluster bombs, bullets, Agent Orange, after all, cost money, as do soldiers’ salaries, when a country’s military personnel are brought into the fight. All of this is paid with taxpayers’ dollars, taxpayers’ Euros, and taxpayers’ shekels. The military who fight in their conflicts, under the flag-waving and drum-beat of lies, also pay costs like PTSD, damaged bodies, destroyed futures, and death.

Is it too late to stop this? U.S. and NATO forces seem to be racing to get personnel, weapons, structures, contracts, and training in place. A growing number of laws and executive orders in the United States and other countries institute surveillance and control, and undermine civil rights and the freedoms we have left. Are they racing against us? Against the public’s growing understanding of the threat these madmen and women pose to all life? Against the public’s growing action to halt this madness?

The blood is on our hands if we live in these sponsoring nations, whether we will or not. Until we say no, until we stop this violence, until we refuse to support this fascist-globalist machine and get actively involved to stop it, we are, all of us, responsible. Our actions start in our home towns, our schools, in our states, and our nations’ capitals. Our nations are the birthplace of terrorism. The roots are everywhere. We must expose it, root it out, and destroy it.

[i] http://www.wacmb.org/WACMB/Hot_Topic_March_6.html

[ii] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931209001345

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931204001534

http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-airdrops-weapons-to-isis-as-iraqi-army-makes-gains/5422034

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/12/27/392011/us-drops-weapons-in-areas-held-by-isil/

http://www.infowars.com/u-s-airdrops-weapons-to-isis-as-iraqi-army-makes-gains/

[iii] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931206000521

[iv] http://www.dw.de/is-supply-channels-through-turkey/av-18091048 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbfplUcjLU

http://www.globalresearch.ca/islamic-state-isis-supply-lines-influx-of-fighters-and-weapons-protected-by-turkey-in-liaison-with-nato/5416899

[v] http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/12/13/historic-speech-in-damascus-sends-shockwaves-around-the-world/

[vi] Additional information: http://www.voltairenet.org/article185085.html

[vii] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931217001412

[viii] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931129000236

http://www.globalresearch.ca/organ-harvesting-in-ukraine-goes-unreported/5390599

http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/incredible-story-edmond-mulet-and-children-he-exported

The relationship between Washington and ISIS: the evidence

The UN peacekeeping force based in the occupied Golan has reported its observations of Israel’s Defence Forces ‘interacting with’ al Nusra fighters at the border. At the same time, Israeli arms have been found with the extremist groups, in both Syria and Iraq. In November 2014 members of the Druze minority in the Golan protested against Israel’s hospital support for al Nusra and ISIS fighters. This in turn led to questions by the Israeli media, as to whether ‘ Israel does, in fact, hospitalize members of al-Nusra and Daesh [ISIS]‘.

From Global Research, March 8, 2015
by Prof. Tim Anderson

obama-isis

Reports that US and British aircraft carrying arms to ISIS have been shot down by Iraqi forces have been met with shock and denial in western countries. Few in the Middle East doubt that Washington is playing a ‘double game’ with its proxy armies in Syria, but some key myths remain important amongst the significantly more ignorant western audiences.

A central myth is that Washington now arms ‘moderate Syrian rebels’, to both overthrow the Syrian Government and supposedly defeat the ‘extremist rebels’. This claim became more important in 2014, when the rationale of US aggression against Syria shifted from ‘humanitarian intervention’ to a renewal of Bush’s ‘war on terror’.

A distinct controversy is whether the al Qaeda styled groups (especially Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS) have been generated as a sort of organic reaction to the repeated US interventions, or whether they are actually paid agents of Washington.

Certainly, prominent ISIS leaders were held in US prisons. ISIS leader, Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) is said to have been held for between one and two years at Camp Bucca in Iraq. In 2006, as al-Baghdadi and others were released, the Bush administration announced its plan for a ‘New Middle East’, a plan which would employ sectarian violence as part of a process of ‘creative destruction’ in the region.

According to Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, ‘The Redirection’, the US would make use of ‘moderate Sunni states’, not least the Saudis, to ‘contain’ the Shia gains in Iraq brought about by the 2003 US invasion. These ‘moderate Sunni’ forces would carry out clandestine operations to weaken Iran and Hezbollah, key enemies of Israel. This brought the Saudis and Israel closer, as both fear Iran.

While there have been claims that the ISIS ‘caliph’ al-Baghdadi is a CIA or Mossad trained agent, these have not yet been well backed up. There are certainly grounds for suspicion, but independent evidence is important, in the context of a supposed US ‘war’ against ISIS . So what is the broader evidence on Washington’s covert links with ISIS? Continue reading →

The CANVAS and Right Sector trail in the murder of Nemtsov

Posted on Fort Russ

March 6, 2015
Ruscom
Translated by Kristina Rus
Originally published: March 1, 2015

The Serbian trail, stretching from the terrorist attack in Kharkov to the murder of Boris Nemtsov, stands out from under the carpet too much to ignore it. NGO CANVAS, grown from the Serbian maidan organization “Otpor!”, is very heavily involved in Ukraine and now have seriously taken over Russia.

The murder of Boris Nemtsov, whose corpse was found almost at the walls of the Kremlin, is in itself a very extraordinary event for Russia. Never in the Russian Federation there was a murder of a former member of the government, Deputy Prime Minister, a politician who was welcome at the White House and who spoke before the U.S. Congress. The body of this politician, deliberately executed in direct line of sight from the Kremlin, calls for a very serious approach to the murder, the forces behind it and the effects. A serious approach to the situation forces us to carefully consider all the versions of what happened.

On February 28, 2015, on the program “Norkin’s List” (NTV) a well-known political analyst Sergey Kurginyan expressed some thoughts about the murder of Nemtsov:

In particular, Kurginyan said:

“…Yarosh [the leader of the Right Sector”, a radical Ukrainian organization – Ruskom] cooperates with CANVAS, it’s a Serbian – American organization for the implementation of the “orange revolutions”, this organization organized Maidan [in Kiev – Ruskom] and everything else. Now CANVAS is heavily involved in Russia. Boris Nemtsov, unfortunately, said some strange words on February 10th, that he is afraid he will be killed by the authorities [which turned to be a fantasy of the editors – KR]. Immediately after that, the topic was discussed by Yarosh and representatives of CANVAS. Then the representatives of CANVAS came to Russia, among those representatives there is a man, a Serb, “Atsa” is his nickname (Alexander “Atsa” Kazun, lives in the USA, works for CANVAS – Ruskom), who was apprehended for the Kharkov explosion, and then he was released by Turchynov. Isn’t this interesting? Do we really want to know who is behind the murders?”

If we discard all versions except for the most probable – the murder of Nemtsov was supposed to destabilize the situation in Russia before the opposition march on March 1, this destabilization is most needed by the Ukrainian radical organizations, and therefore, Yarosh and the Right Sector. The situation on the fronts of Donbass is such that defeated on all fronts and expelled from Debaltsevo Ukrainian military will not soon recover from the damage and most likely will not be able to recover at all. In this situation a strategically winning solution for the Ukrainian radicals and their Western friends and curators is only a serious destabilization of the situation in Russia.

The focus of certain forces on the course of civil and political terror in Ukraine is evident in the terrorist act that took place in Kharkov on February 23, killing three people and injuring about ten. Ukrainian media of course, immediately, before the start of investigation, rushed to blame the “separatists”, “vatniki” and the Russian security services. There is no faith that the Ukrainian investigation will find the perpetrators, just as there is no hope for the investigation of Maidan snipers, which has taken already a year to no result. But if we think about who benefits from the terror in Ukraine, it is clear that neither Russia nor DPR/LPR can benefit from it.

The terror only benefits Ukrainian radicals and their curators, who thus wish to strengthen the anti-Russian and anti-Donbass mood in the society.

What was extraordinary about the Kharkov explosion?

“…two fighters from the special police battalion group “Kharkov-1” and a girl from the Right Sector, who showed negligence when handling explosives, injuring themselves, were supposed to be evacuated by the group consisting of four people. Strange activity of this group attracted the attention of the police, and the four were arrested. During a search of their minivan it turned out that, that it was unclear how they were going to evacuate their own, when the car was packed full of weapons, including automatic mounted grenade launcher AGS-30 of Russian production. The senior of the group turned out to be a U.S. citizen, presumably, of Serbian decent, Alexander Kazun nicknamed “Atsa” permanently residing in Washington, DC. Place of work: NGO CANVAS. Mr. Kazun was immediately released on the personal order from the Secretary of the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine, Aleksandr  Turchinov.”

A capture of a foreign citizen at the place of a terrorist attack looks very suspicious. Even more suspicious is the fact of the release of this citizen, Alexander Kazun, on the order of Alexander Turchynov, who has serious ties with the elites in the USA. And it becomes even more suspicious after understanding what is the NGO CANVAS. Here’s what William Engdahl wrote about it on January 7, 2014 in the article “American NGO involved in the protests in Ukraine”:

“CANVAS: the Belgrade U.S.-funded training organization is behind the carefully organized protests in Kiev. The recent protests in Ukraine stink of an attempt to destabilize the government of Yanukovych, organized from abroad “

After the events in Kharkov the representatives of this organization, engaged in the export of “revolutions” ended up in Moscow. In addition, NGO CANVAS originated from the “bulldozer revolution” in Belgrade in 2000, which overthrew Slobodan Milosevic. The Serbs, who at the time experienced all the “charms” of the coups organized by the West, warned the citizens of Ukraine about those consequences which follow the “peaceful protest against the bloody tyrant” under the cries of “they’re just children!”:

“I live in Belgrade, Serbia, and events in Ukraine remind me of the events in Serbia in the late 1990s and in 2000. In 2000 Western-paid opposition overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, all to our great joy and our great hopes for the future, just because we were tired of the difficult life (or what we perceived as a difficult life at that time) and, in fact, we were naive and duped by Western media (as well as you are today, but let me continue, I will explain this later). Later we realized that it does not work like that – the West did not give us money, did not give us investments, in essence, the West and the European Union did not act like friends at all. Better life never came, and in fact things have gotten worse.

Now, attention! The same people who lied to us and made our “democratic revolution”, are now making YOURS – NGO called “Otpor!” (“Resistance”) in the 1990s, now known as the “CANVAS” – “The Center for the applied nonviolent action and strategies”. Also the usual names and agencies in this show: USAID, Freedom House, The National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros… See for yourself. These are the same people – the oligarchs in Serbia now. They are trained by the CIA, and do their work in Ukraine (and other countries), your Yanukovych even banned some of the many very interesting articles, Ukraine is mentioned in almost every one of them”

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians did not heed the calls of the Serbian people and decided by their bitter experience to test the heavy forces of democracy and breathe the free air of Maidan. In this they were helped by many experts from Serbia (and not only), in particular Marko Ivkovic, the head of the above-mentioned Serbian organization “Otpor!” This was reported by Oleg Tsarev on December 1, 2013 at his page on Facebook:

“The day before yesterday my friend was flying to Ukraine, and in his companion he recognized the well-known organizer of coups and revolutions, Marko Ivkovic. He became famous as the founder of the Serbian “Otpor”, then there were Georgian “Kmara” and Ukrainian “Pora”. Marco tried to organize something similar in Russia, but was extradited and banned from entry. Was in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, when President Bakiyev was ousted there. Now Maidan is in experienced and financially secure hands. Americans do not spare any money on Ivakovic – not so long ago on his projects in Ukraine the National Democratic Institute of the United States provided $1,200,000″.

In 2012, Marko Ivkovic already worked in Ukraine at the National Democratic Institute of USA, operated in contact with the party “Front of Changes” of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, created a public organization “OPORA” to count the votes at elections. Was the unofficial head of the electoral headquarters of Yatsenyuk. The Ukrainian media already in early 2012 hypothesized that Ivkovic was busy preparing “Maidan-2”.

In 2013, right before the aggravation of the situation, Ivkovic arrived to Ukraine on November 29, which was reported by Oleg Tsarev. Next, let’s give a word to the Ukrainian media (publication date September 12, 2013):

“On the eve of the “Popular Assembly,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk and opposition leaders met with Marko Ivkovic – one of the members of the National Democratic Institute, USA. This was reported by the media, citing sources close to Yatsenyuk. The meeting was attended also by Fink Bryne (Gomez) – U.S. citizen, employee of the Agency for International Development, USA. Both U.S. citizens, known as consultants for colored revolutions, came to Ukraine a few weeks ago (Fink Bryne – on October 28). [the spelling of the name may be different in English as it is a translation from Russian – KR]

Now the details of that meeting became known. In particular, it is reported that Marko Ivkovic offered to A. Yatsenyuk, V. Klitschko and O. Tiagnybok to proclaim on the Maidan on Sunday during the “Popular Assembly” a “Manifesto”, according to which to announce the transition of power into the hands of the provisional (until the elections) “people’s government”.

Next was a matter of technique and concerted action. The “People’s government” was supposed to move into the building of the Kiev city administration to use the existing phones of government communications, contact law enforcement agencies and the army calling for support. And also – and this is, perhaps, the most important thing – to contact the embassies of the European countries and the USA with the request for recognition. When it comes to their interests, the United States and Europe, do not waste time with recognition. According to the source, the American Embassy has already prepared the official response with the approval of the actions of the opposition”

Now we know that the January – February events of 2014 in Kiev took place according to the scenario written in December 2013, and therefore, reality confirms the involvement of Serbs and Americans in Kiev events, and the high profile of the organizers of Euromaidan.

Serbian – American consultants of Kiev Euromaidan do not hesitate to use established and successful templates, instructions and practices. For example, the leaflets, which were first used in Belgrade in 2000, then in Cairo in 2011, and then in Kiev in 2013-2014:

NGO CANVAS at first glance at its website seems like a reputable international organization which strongly emphasizes its non-violent character. Now we understand what “non-violent” actions the employee of CANVAS Alexander Kazun, nicknamed “Atsa” was engaged in in Kharkov on February 23 in the car with explosives and automatic grenade launchers and what actions he may have been engaged in in Moscow.

CANVAS operates in Europe, in America, in Africa, and Asia. Tremendous scope for a modest Serbian organization, isn’t it?

https://i0.wp.com/ic.pics.livejournal.com/ruskom/19557183/68575/68575_original.png

Everything falls into place, when we see,  which organizations CANVAS is cooperating with in “developing long-term strategies related to the production of knowledge, tools, and studies of the global nonviolent struggle and the formation of a network of researchers related to the topic of non-violent resistance and strategies”. This is the Air Force Academy of Colorado, the John Hopkins University, and Columbia University. The website of CANVAS shows links to the sites of organizations such as the Institute of Albert Einstein, Freedom House and others, not less “friendly” to Russia:

https://i0.wp.com/ic.pics.livejournal.com/ruskom/19557183/68182/68182_original.png

Words are given to us to conceal our thoughts, and websites – to hide the true extent and details of the activities of organizations. So the sterile website CANVAS will not reveal the real information about their activities. But this data is provided by Wikileaks and other resources.

For example, there is a correspondence between the staff of the American organization Stratfor (private intelligence company of the United States, which is also called “the shadow CIA”), in which “CANVAS” and its leaders are very highly rated:

“This is an impressive group. They come in, operate in a country, and try to topple its regime. When used properly, they are stronger than an aircraft battle group.”

In response to the mention of “aircraft battle group”, Vice President of Stratfor, Fred Burton, sarcastically said that perhaps they should be sent to Iran.

Another letter said that “this organization (CANVAS) gets a lot of American money …I spoke with some people who lobbied for them (CANVAS) to get more money”. It is further specified that the Serbian organization “Otpor!” was funded, in particular, by Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, The Open Society Institute, USAID and the U.S. Institute for Peace. And it is indicated that CANVAS has financial ties with these organizations.

“Otpor!” and then CANVAS are not only mentioned in the correspondence of Stratfor employees, they also have close ties with Stratfor, Goldman Sachs, and the U.S. government. The wife of the leader of CANVAS worked in Stratfor for one year (from March 2010 to March 2011).

Srdja Popovich, the leader of the CANVAS

To put it briefly, CANVAS helps Stratfor in executing the color revolutions, overthrowing any leader hostile to the United States. This is what, according to Wikileaks, the US elite valued in Srdja Popovic and his “Otpor”.

In another letter dated March 2010 Stuart Burton said that CANVAS “is trying to get rid of Chavez,” referring to the late President Hugo Chavez. In 2007, the CANVAS tried to overthrow Chavez with trained activists.

In conclusion we can say that the activists of Serbian “Otpor” in their work used (and use) the models of Gene Sharp, the leading expert on the so-called “non-violent regime change”.

How non-violent are these methods, you can evaluate, judging how Gene Sharp participated in the events in Riga in 1990, advising “Sajudis” (nationalist anti-soviet Latvian organization), and that snipers from “Sajudis” shot (and killed) the demonstrators and the police with the aim to destabilize the Baltic States and cause the collapse of the USSR. These are the “non-violent” methods used in his time by Gene Sharp. Such methods are used by his followers from CANVAS, blowing up rallies in Kharkov and killing politicians in Moscow. Don’t you think this version seems more than logical?

For Russia today a new complex phase began, in which the country can win, and therefore survive only if Russian patriots and responsible citizens will understand the situation in all its complexity and tragedy. For further detailed analysis please see Friend: http://friend.livejournal.com/1762463.html (Russian)

The Remarkable Coincidences of John C. Tefft

From Fort Russ

3/5/2015

The Remarkable Coincidences of John C. Tefft

By J.Hawk

The graphic above is going viral on the Russian side of the internet, and it reads as follows:

“Since the current US ambassador arrived in Russia, they killed Nemtsov, while he was in Georgia they killed Zhvaniya, and in Ukraine—Gongadze. Coincidence?”

Each of the three was a prominent opposition figure, and in each case his death had led to political upheaval. To quote Ian Fleming, “once is a happenstance, twice–a coincidence, three times–enemy action.”