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Deep State war? Seven Russian officials murdered or found dead since U.S. election day

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The tragic loss of Vitaly Churkin is the latest. The loss of his voice at the United Nations is a great loss indeed for the world. The loss for his family must be enormous. 

By Claire Bernish
Global Research, March 01, 2017
The Free Thought Project 27 February 2017

Russian diplomats seem to be an endangered species, as seven officials have been found dead under mysterious or unexplained circumstances just since Election Day, and — although any link remains as yet unprovable — the deaths certainly provoke a number of questions.

1. Sergei Krivov:

First is the perplexing case of Sergei Krivov — disputably a consular duty commander at the Russian Consulate in Manhattan — died on November 8, Election Day, under perhaps the most problematic circumstances of any of the deaths listed.

Found unconscious and unresponsive on the floor inside the consulate, Krivov suffered blunt force trauma to the head — initially reported as received in a fall from the roof of the building — and passed away before emergency services could reach the scene.

Consular officials quickly backtracked that Krivov died after plunging over the building, instead insisting he’d suffered a heart attack — but the diplomat’s lack of paper trails and ambiguity from officials about his career position make the death appear to be far from ordinary.

“That position is no ordinary security guard,” reported BuzzFeed on Krivov’s ambiguous role at the consulate. “According to other public Russian-language descriptions of the duty commander position, Krivov would have been in charge of, among other things, ‘prevention of sabotage’ and suppression of ‘attempts of secret intrusion’ into the consulate.

“In other words, it was Krivov’s job to make sure US intelligence agencies didn’t have ears in the building.”

2. Andrey Karlov:

On December 19, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov met his fate while giving a speech at an art exhibit in Ankara, when Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş — an off-duty Turkish riot police officer — fired several shots from behind, fatally wounding the diplomat and injuring several others.

Altıntaş proceeded to declare jihad and implored the terrified, small crowd of attendees and press, “Do not forget Aleppo, do not forget Syria!”

It was later revealed Altıntaş had used his law enforcement identification to enter the gallery; but at the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin railed against the attacker, thin security allowing him to enter the exhibit, “Russia Through Turks’ Eyes,” without issue, and the possible implications for resolving the conflict in Syria, stating,

“This murder is clearly a provocation aimed at undermining the improvement and normalization of Russian-Turkish relations, as well as undermining the peace process in Syria promoted by Russia, Turkey, Iran and other countries interested in settling the conflict in Syria.”

3. Petr Polshikov:

At some point on the same day — and prior to the brazen assassination of Karlov — Petr Polshikov, a senior diplomat in the Latin America division at the Russian foreign ministry, died in his Moscow apartment of a gunshot wound to the head. An announcement of the suspicious death did not become public until a few hours after Altıntaş shocked the world in Ankara.

Detailed information on Polshikov’s untimely demise remains difficult to obtain, but reports at the time alleged authorities found two bullet shells on the scene and a firearm under a sink in the bathroom.

4. Oleg Erovinkin:

Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin — believed to have assisted former British spy, Christopher Steele, with a lurid dossier alleging explicit acts by President Donald Trump — was found dead in his black Lexus on December 29.

Erovinkin had been close to Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now head of State-owned oil company, Rosneft, and had acted as a key liaison between Sechin and Putin.

Although validity of the contents of that dossier have been called into serious question, Erovinkin’s alleged involvement in compiling the information makes his death dubious by nature. An investigation is ongoing.

5. Andrey Malanin:

Despite living alone on a tightly-guarded street, Andrey Malanin — head of the consular section at Russia’s embassy in Athens — was “found on the floor of his bedroom by a member of the embassy’s staff with no evidence of a break-in, the official said on condition of anonymity,” Reuters reported January 9.

Authorities also told Reuters there were no indications Malanin had been murdered, but homicide officials are investigating the death due to his status as a diplomat.

6. Aleksandr Kadakin:

On January 26, Russian ambassador to India, 67-year-old Aleksandr Kadakin — who had served in the position since 2009 and spent over two decades as a diplomat — died in New Delhi, ostensively from heart failure.

Although it appeared the man’s death was unrelated to the others and had been natural, the timing in conjunction with Karlov, Polshikov, Erovinkin, and Malanin raised some eyebrows.

7. Vitaly Churkin:

Then, last week, Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin died one day before his 65th birthday in New York City — reportedly of a heart failure.

According to the New York Times on February 20, “The Russian government said he died suddenly but did not specify a cause. The New York City police said there were no indications of foul play.”

However, Pravda reported, “According to ABS-CBN, a post-mortem examination of Churkin’s body showed the presence of poison in his kidneys. Allegedly, the diplomat had had late supper, at around midnight, hours before his death. Perpetrators could have added an unknown substance in his food.”

Churkin had been a vocal critic of hypocritical Western foreign policy, particularly concerning military actions in Syria.

An obituary in the Guardian stated Churkin

“hated the moralising tone of his US, British and French counterparts on the UN security council who, he felt, were not only hypocritical but were playing to the global gallery and aiming to score rhetorical points instead of looking for compromises that could lead to the resolution of differences. This applied particularly to the war in Syria, about which western governments tabled resolutions that could lead, in the Russian view, to full-scale military intervention against the Syrian government and which they knew Churkin was bound to veto. Russia preferred to produce resolutions that criticised the Syrian army for using ‘disproportionate’ force and sought agreement on ceasefires. Churkin consulted the security council’s five permanent members on these resolutions, but chose not to provoke vetoes when he realised there was no consensus.”

What, if anything, this growing Russian diplomat body count actually means might never be fully known, but many suspect the deaths evince a methodical, covert war between the Deep State and Russia — particularly as hostilities continue mostly unabated — as a shift in power away from the ailing imperialist U.S. empire gathers speed.

The original source of this article is The Free Thought Project
Copyright © Claire Bernish, The Free Thought Project, 2017
http://www.globalresearch.ca/deep-state-war-seven-russian-officials-murdered-or-found-dead-since-us-election-day/5577279

Top Secret – Beijing has become one of the greatest cities on Earth!

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By Andre Vltchek
Global Research, February 28, 2017
Chinese_flag_(Beijing)_-_IMG_1104

Open your eyes and see for yourself. Unclog your ears and hear. Discard your preconceptions, of all those propaganda refrains that are accompanying the myriad of brainwashing tunes that are being spread by the Western indoctrination media.

For decades, smearing Beijing, while negating its greatness, has been one of the most effective weapons used by the US and Europe in their cultural anti-revolutionary war against all those great independent nations of the planet, especially China.

For those who want to taste the reality, the best advice would be: enter Beijing and let Beijing speak for itself, without an intermediary or ‘interpreter’. But could it be done? Aren’t biases already too deeply engrained in the psyche of most of the people worldwide, people that are bombarded by professional disinformation campaigns manufactured by the Empire and its mouthpieces?

“I used to cry almost every night, from hopelessness and pain,” I was once told by one of the greatest contemporary concert pianists, Yuan Sheng, who decided to return to his native Beijing many years ago. “When I lived in New York, when I read and heard all those lies about my country and my city, I felt so helpless. I couldn’t explain the truth, as nobody around me was willing to listen.”

Old rattles have been played day and night on the BBC, the CNN and many other official channels of the West: the tear-jerking stories depicting the plights of the migrant workers, or some gruesome portrayals of China’s human rights record (all based on extremely arrogant Western dogmas, thoroughly incompatible with Chinese and Asian culture), or the mainstream interpretation of the Tiananmen Square events, or the loud and hypocritical laments about the disappearance of some old neighborhoods, and not to speak of the loud salvoes fired against Beijing’s ‘disastrous’ air pollution and traffic jams.

When a tremendous effort by the government had been made to accommodate the migrant workers arriving from the poorer provinces to Beijing and to other major cities, and when, simultaneously, the standard of living began to rise dramatically all over the Chinese countryside, the topic got quietly shelved. Hardly any credit has been given to the country’s leadership.

When new evidence about the 1989 Tiananmen events began to surface, when it was proved, again and again, that the West actually infiltrated and supported the so called ‘student pro-democracy movement’; and when the facts about the extremely violent nature of many of those ‘students’ became simply undisputable, the Western media clenched its fists and never backpedaled, never bothered to present arguments ‘from the other side’. On the contrary, it turned up the volume of its monotonous propagandist cacophony. Until now, in the eyes of the general Western public, Tiananmen Square is synonymous with ‘oppression’ and not with the great revolutionary history and stunning monumental beauty.

 

Brian Becker wrote for LiberationNews.org :

The fictionalized version of the “massacre” was later corrected in some very small measure by Western reporters who had participated in the fabrications and who were keen to touch up the record so that they could say they made “corrections.” But by then it was too late and they knew that too. Public consciousness had been shaped. The false narrative became the dominant narrative. They had successfully massacred the facts to fit the political needs of the U.S. government.

“Most of the hundreds of foreign journalists that night, including me, were in other parts of the city… Those who tried to remain close filed dramatic accounts that, in some cases, buttressed the myth of a student massacre,” wrote Jay Mathews, the Washington Post’s first Bureau Chief in Beijing, in a 1998 article in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Mathews’ article, which includes his own admissions to using the terminology of the Tiananmen Square massacre, came nine years after the fact and he acknowledged that corrections later had little impact.

As for violations of human rights in China in general and Beijing in particular, only one (Western) view is commonly presented in the West. As Tom Zwart (professor of cross-cultural law and human rights at Utrecht University) wrote on January 21st, 2017 for China Daily:

Generally, Western states seem to be strongly attached to promoting their own position and using it as a benchmark to judge others… While Western states are uncompromising about their own stance on human rights, China is keen on achieving harmony and therefore attaches less value to human rights dogma.

That is certainly a nobler approach, but the loud shouting, simplifications and vulgar insults coming from the Western media, politicians and academia, are effectively indoctrinating billions worldwide.

But let’s return to Beijing.

The Demolition of several old hutons in the capital was never presented (by Western media) for what it really was: as part of the great effort to improve living conditions and sanitation of the poor people. Instead it was portrayed as some atrocious crime against the city’s history and culture. Never mind that all truly architecturally valuable old neighborhoods were painstakingly preserved and restored, as were actually almost all important structures of the capital. Never mind that when asked, most huton dwellers are actually grateful for being awarded with comfortable and modern flats.

What about pollution? I encountered people in all corners of the world, who swore that they would never set foot in Beijing, as the pollution levels there are hazardous, almost murderous. Most of these same people said that they’d have no objections to travel to much more polluted cities which are located in the ‘client’ states of the West and therefore managed to escape the toughest criticism: Jakarta, Manila, Phnom Penh and Bangkok, to give just a few examples.

There is hardly any mention, at least in the West, that for years and decades Beijing has been engaged in an epic fight against pollution and in support of the environment: the massive improvement of ecological public transportation (already 17 mostly modern metro lines are in service, countless trolley bus lines, encouragement of electric vehicles, wide sidewalks and introduction of shared bicycles, plus several revolutionary new forms of public transportation soon to be introduced). There are tough emission controls in place, and a ban on scooters. There is also the huge expansion of green areas around and inside the city, as well as the recently imposed ban on smoking (one of the toughest in the world).

 

It was recently reported by local Chinese media outlets (including China Daily) that:

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region saw improvements in air quality in 2016… the average concentration of PM2.5, a hazardous pollutant, has decreased by 33 percent compared to the level of 2013…

Many other indicators have improved as well, although mentioning this fact on regular basis in the mainstream Western media would be ‘unacceptably pro-Chinese’.

*

In the last two decades, Beijing has become one of the world’s most exciting cities.

Its cultural life is second to none.

One of the curators of the National Center for Performing Arts (also known as “The Egg”, the largest opera house and performing center in the world) once explained to me:

When I used to live in London, I was dreaming about all those great world-class musicians and performers. Now I’m having meetings and dinners with them, all the time. It is because almost all great artists want to come to Beijing; to perform here.

One of the greatest (and free for all) museums on Earth, the China National Museum, is presently hosting two parallel world-class exhibitions: on the archeological treasures of Saudi Arabia, and the other on the collection from the Louvre Museum. In that institution, some of the greatest masterpieces of Salvador Dali rub shoulders with Chinese revolutionary art and anti-imperialist manifestos.

But now there are actually dozens of world-class museums and concert halls all over Beijing. In the iconic “798” (an old and massive weapons factory located on the outskirts of the city, which used to cover several square kilometers), literally hundreds of avant-garde art galleries are exhibiting everything from Western mainstream art including Andy Warhol or fashion images of Conde Nast, to the most ‘outrageous’ and politically daring ‘radical’ art, critical of the West, of capitalism, in China, and even of the government itself, is on display. It is mind-blowing! There is nothing like this anywhere in the West. Beijing artists are without any doubt much more innovative, daring and free than those in Paris, London or New York.

And on the other side of the city, around the ancient lakes and canals, dozens of clubs are hosting great bands from Africa and other parts of the world.

 

A prolific writer based in China, Jeff Brown contributed to this essay:

Beijing is one of the world’s greatest repositories of ancient history and modern humanities, showing off hundreds of world class museums, galleries, parks, temples, squares, shrines, monuments, mountains, lakes and rivers – all within a one-hour drive of the city center. You don’t need a car anyway. Beijing has the world’s largest metro system, 1,000 public bus routes and 66,000 licensed taxis to get you to all these myriad sites.

Since 1949, metropolitan Beijing has planted over a half a billion trees, shrubs and flowering bushes, as well as millions of square kilometers of green belts along the fringes of the nearby Gobi Desert, to stop its southern advance and to reduce dust levels blowing in from the north. By 2050, Beijing will have planted 100 billion trees to its north, covering more than ten percent of the country’s landmass

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2874368/Will-China-s-Great-GREEN-Wall-save-country-dust-storms-100-billion-tree-project-halt-advancing-Gobi-Desert.html.

This greenification program continues with a passion and love for nature. Beijing has identified and coddles, like rock stars, 40,000 urban trees that are over 100 years old, some dating back more than 1,000 years

http://www.fao.org/docrep/u9300e/u9300e04.htm. 

Contrary to ceaseless propaganda in the West, Beijing and all of China’s cities have shown nonstop improvement in air quality, and Beijing is spending billions to keep bettering its environment. This has been going on since the 1990s, something I can personally attest to

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-01/04/content_27853288.htm.

Tetovo, Cairo, Kathmandu, Accra, Manila, Delhi, Beirut, Ulaanbaatar, Baku, Dhaka and Sao Paulo, among others, all had higher 2016 pollution indexes than China’s capital, but only Beijing gets the mainstream media black eye

https://www.numbeo.com/pollution/rankings.jsp?title=2016.

Why? Because Beijing is the heart and soul of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and thus, is not a NATO doormat and puppet, an intolerable affront to Western capitalism.

Proud, forward-looking, full of hope and dreams, Beijing is marching forward.

The West which is clearly in permanent decay, is shooting its poisonous but powerless arrows tinted with nihilism and spite, towards the great capital of this enormous nation which, after a long and dark period of humiliation and suffering is finally reclaiming its rightful place in the world.*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Andre Vltchek, Global Research, 2017
http://www.globalresearch.ca/top-secret-beijing-has-become-one-of-the-greatest-cities-on-earth/5577157

UN committee’s bogus Syria “human rights” report ignores evidence. Co-author’s blatant conflict of interest

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[Co-author] Karen AbuZayd is a director of the Washington based Middle East Policy Council, itself a strong supporter of the US-led dirty war on Syria. Other MEPC directors include present and former US military, intelligence, oil industry and other US corporate figures.
By Prof. Tim Anderson
Global Research, March 03, 2017

A UN committee has produced another one-sided, bogus ‘human rights’ report on last year’s liberation of Aleppo, Syria’s second city. Co-authored by US diplomat Karen AbuZayd and Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, the report attacks both the Syrian Army and the al Qaeda groups (UNGA 2017).

However its stronger condemnation of the Syrian Army is notable, as part of constant attempts to delegitimise the Syrian people’s struggle to liberate their own country from the NATO-backed terrorists. This report follows similar partisan attacks from ‘watchdog’ groups embedded with the US State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty USA.

None of these groups have condemned the anti-ISIS operation in Mosul (Iraq) in the way they did the anti-al Qaeda operations in Aleppo (Syria).

The principal effect of the one-sided and bogus ‘human rights’ reports on Syria is to prolong the war and embolden foreign powers who, in open breach of international law, arm and finance all the al Qaeda groups in Syria and Iraq.

Although the latest AbuZayd-Pinheiro report is poorly referenced it follows much the same method as other US-backed ‘human rights’ denunciations: (i) speak to a number of anonymous al Qaeda ‘victims’ and their families, mainly in Turkey but some also by phone in the al Qaeda occupied parts of Syria, (ii) collate the latest claims from US-funded and jihadist-linked groups, (iii) make no visit to Syria nor communicate with Syrian organisations (e.g. there is no sign the committee tried to speak with the 4,000 member Aleppo Medical Association) and then (iv) present a thoroughly one-sided judgement.

The western media mounted furious propaganda resistance to the Syrian Army’s operation to take back Aleppo, claiming there were ‘indiscriminate’ airstrikes, and so on. Syria and Russia denied these accusations and the AbuZayd-Pinheiro report has backed them all.

Notable features of the report include: obviously false assertions about supposed ‘daily airstrikes’ on Aleppo city, the suggestion that al Qaeda makeshift clinics were the only ‘hospitals’ in Aleppo, and the baseless claim that Syrian-Russian airstrikes destroyed a humanitarian convoy.

The report claims that “Syrian and Russian air forces conducted daily air strikes in Aleppo throughout most of the period under review”, that is July-December 2016. On this basis the committee adopts the armed groups’ claims that eastern Aleppo was subject to constant ‘barrel bomb’ and chemical weapons attacks (UNGA 2017).

However, unlike the AbuZayd-Pinheiro report, much of the western media did report that air strikes on the city were halted in mid-October, as humanitarian corridors were established for the evacuation of civilians. When Russian air strikes resumed several weeks later, in mid-November (despite efforts by the New York Times on 16 November to fudge this detail), they were on al Qaeda and ISIS groups in rural Idlib and rural Aleppo; not on the city. The liberation of Aleppo between October and December was almost entirely through Syrian ground forces smashing resistance street by street. So the ‘daily airstrikes’ on Aleppo city, spoken of in the AbuZayd-Pinheiro report, is an obvious falsehood.

On hospitals, the report names several armed group makeshift clinics in eastern Aleppo, none of which were marked and registered hospitals. (Clinics lose their protection under international law when they become covert military support installations.) By contrast there is not one single mention of the large hospitals of western Aleppo (Dabbit, Ibn Rush and al Razi), which were bombed by the al Qaeda groups in 2016.

The attack on a UN humanitarian convoy on 20 September (just days after the 17 September US-led airstrike massacre of 80 Syrian soldiers fighting ISIS in Deir Ezzor) was blamed squarely on a Syrian or Russian airstrike, it seems on the basis of evidence from anonymous ‘witnesses’. There is no plausible motive for this. Syria and Russia were and remain the largest providers of services and humanitarian aid to all Aleppo communities.

The report fails to mention the fact that the armed groups in eastern Aleppo had emphatically rejected humanitarian aid, holding a demonstration just one week before the burning of those trucks. A UN spokesperson at the time claimed the armed groups were blocking the delivery of aid for “political gain” (Sanchez 2016). Further, the Russian military had observed that there were no craters on the road nor destruction of the trucks’ chassis, as would be the case with aerial bombing (RT 2016). The area had been occupied by al Qaeda groups who have a record of murder of civilian drivers and burning trucks; they did this two months later when civilian trucks traveled through Idlib to the besieged Shi’a villages of al Fouaa and Kefraya (Pasha-Robinson 2016). The AbuZayd-Pinheiro claims about Russian-Syrian airstrikes on this convoy and therefore baseless and contrary to the known evidence.

The AbuZayd-Pinheiro committee is the same one which, from Geneva, fabricated a report on the terrible Houla massacre of May 2012, in which over 100 villagers were killed by the NATO-backed Farouq Brigade (FSA). At least 15 independent witnesses identified Farouq brigade (FSA) leaders (Abdulrazzq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf) and local collaborators (Haitham al Housan, Saiid Fayes al Okesh, Haitham al Halq and Nidal Bakkur) for the massacre (see Anderson 2016: Ch. 8). The AbuZayd-Pinheiro committee, however, tried to blame un-named “shabiha” militia loyal to President Assad. No motive was given. Some of these villagers had participated in the recent National Assembly elections, over which the jihadists had demanded a boycott. The obvious partisan nature of the Houla report led Russia, China, India and others to withdraw their support from this and future UN Security Council resolutions on Syria.

Karen AbuZayd is a director of the Washington based Middle East Policy Council, itself a strong supporter of the US-led dirty war on Syria. Other MEPC directors include present and former US military, intelligence, oil industry and other US corporate figures. On simple conflict of interest principles she should never have been appointed to such a committee, as a diplomat from one of the warring parties. Former UN Secretary general Ban Ki Moon was responsible for this error. Washington, for its part, has been too absorbed in hubris to notice that it is unseemly to pretend to be both assailant and mediator.

UN special envoy Stefan di Mistura, despite being ‘appalled and shocked’ that the armed gangs were targeting and killing ‘scores’ of civilians in western Aleppo by ‘relentless and indiscriminate’ rocket attacks (BBC 30 October), nevertheless proposed an ‘autonomous zone’ in eastern Aleppo to protect the al Qaeda controlled areas. The proposal was emphatically rejected by the Syrian Government (Reuters 20 November), which went on to eject all the al Qaeda groups from Aleppo in late December 2016.

Purchase Tim Anderson’s book “The Dirty War on Syria” directly from Global Research Publishers

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Sources:

Anderson, Tim (2016) The Dirty War on Syria, Global Research, Montreal

Barnard, Anne and Ivan Nechepurenko (2016) ‘Airstrikes on Aleppo Resume as Russia Begins New Offensive in Syria’, New York Times, 16 November, online: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/world/middleeast/syria-aleppo-russia-airstrikes.html

BBC (2016) ‘Aleppo siege: UN envoy Mistura ‘appalled’ by rebel attacks’, 30 October, online: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37816938

Pestano, Andrew (2016) ‘Aleppo airstrikes resume after 3-week pause’, UPI, 15 November, online: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/11/15/Aleppo-airstrikes-resume-after-3-week-pause/8561479211543/

Pasha-Robinson, Lucy (2016) ‘Buses used to evacuate Syrians from villages ‘attacked and burned’’, 19 December, online: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-aleppo-what-is-happening-villages-buses-attacked-and-burned-a7482736.html

Reuters (2016) ‘Syria foreign minister says no to east Aleppo autonomous zone’, 20 November, online: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN13F0J1

RT (2016) ‘Russian, Syrian Air Forces did not strike UN aid convoy in Aleppo – Russian MoD’, 20 September, online: https://www.rt.com/news/359990-russia-denies-aleppo-strike/

Sanchez, Raf (2016) ‘UN says armed Syrian groups blocking Aleppo aid for ‘political gain’, UK telegraph, 14 September, online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/14/un-says-armed-syrian-groups-blocking-aid-to-aleppo-for-political/

SOTT (2016) ‘Keeping their word: No Russian or Syrian airstrikes on Aleppo for 7 days, humanitarian corridors open’, SOTT News, 25 October, online: https://www.sott.net/article/332069-Keeping-their-word-No-Russian-or-Syrian-airstrikes-on-Aleppo-for-7-days-humanitarian-corridors-open

UNGA (2017) ‘Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic’, 34th session, A/HRC/34/64, 2 February, online: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/026/63/PDF/G1702663.pdf?OpenElement

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Prof. Tim Anderson, Global Research, 2017
http://www.globalresearch.ca/un-committee-bogus-human-rights-report-endorses-al-qaeda-questions-the-liberation-of-aleppo/5577638

Donbass republics nationalize Ukrainian factories

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From Fort Russ

March 1, 2017 – Fort Russ News –
RIA Novosti – translated, edited by J. Arnoldski –
As of today, March 1st, external management will be introduced at all unregistered Ukrainian enterprises on the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic. This decision was taken by the leaders of the republics in response to the transport blockade of Donbass.
In late January, a group of veterans of the military operation in Donbass, including deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, blocked freight rail traffic from the Donbass republics at several points. The “blockaders” stated that in their opinion any trade with the self-proclaimed republics is illegal. The blockade has led to shortages of anthracite coal which is mined in the areas of Donbass uncontrolled by Kiev. In connection with this, Ukrainian authorities have been compelled to introduce emergency measures in the energy sector with the aim of saving resources. A number of industrial enterprises have had to stop production.
On Monday, February 27th, the heads of the LPR and DPR announced that the republics would cease coal deliveries to Kiev if the railway blockade continues. In addition, they promised that if by midnight of March 1st the blockade is not lifted, then external management will be introduced at all enterprises under Ukrainian jurisdiction working in the DPR and LPR.
Due to the transport blockade, a number of large enterprises around the frontline in Donbass have ceased production. Among them are the Enakievsky metallurgical factory in the DPR and the Krasnodonugol company in the LPR. Both of these factories are part of the Metinvest group belonging to Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. 
The leader of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, had warned at a press conference: “The Enakievsky metallurgical plant has ceased working, and some other companies need to be jumpstarted. If they do not register themselves by Wednesday, then they will all come under our complete control. This also includes stadiums and hotels.”
During emergency sessions of the DPR and LPR parliaments on Monday, the relevant amendments to legislation were adopted which allow for external control to be imposed on Ukrainian enterprises that are not registered on the territory of the republics by March 1st.
The DPR and LPR have announced the creation of a special headquarters for controlling Ukrainian enterprises’ transition to external management. The LPR has emphasized that the employees of these enterprises will keep their jobs.
The chairman of the LPR’s People’s Council, Vladimir Degtyarenko, said: “The established headquarters intends not to merely keep enterprises ‘afloat,’ but to contribute to their further development and reorientation towards Russia.”….
Representatives of Donbass have explained that this decision on “nationalizing” Ukrainian enterprises was necessary. The primary task is resuming their work and saving jobs. But this, according to DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko, will take about two months.
“In the short term we will have to rebuild industry and change markets. The main task is ensuring the smooth operation of enterprises and salaries and work for the workers of these enterprises,” Zakharchenko said.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the DPR has stressed that there can be no doubts that the enterprises will be successfully reoriented from the Ukrainian market to markets in the Russian Federation and other countries. In addition, the transfer of all enterprises of non-residents to republican jurisdiction only broadens the foreign trade ties of the DPR. 
“Despite difficulties with the political recognition of the republic, our enterprises are quite successfully working with countries in the near and far abroad. For already more than two years, our manufactures have essentially begun the process of withdrawing from Ukrainian markets in favor of other countries. Both the state and business circles have some experience in this,” the acting industry and trade minister, Aleksey Granovsky, affirmed.
Granovsky added that the republic is now exporting more than 50 types of goods among including from light industry, food products, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and metallurgy. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/donbass-republics-nationalize-ukrainian.html
See also:
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/behind-donbass-economic-offensive-part-1.html

US deploys Black Hawk choppers in Latvia to protect ‘sovereignty & bright future’ (VIDEO)

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From RT

March 2, 2017

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US deploys Black Hawk choppers in Latvia to protect ‘sovereignty & bright future’ (VIDEO)
A U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter © Mark El-Rayes / Reuters
Five UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and nearly 50 crew members have arrived in the Latvian capital of Riga as part of NATO’s Atlantic Resolve operation which sees an enhancement of American forces across the Baltic States.
TrendsRussia and WTO

The helicopters were unloaded from a transport plane on Wednesday and welcomed by officials including US Ambassador to Latvia Nancy Bikoff Pettit.

“US Air Force transport aircraft with UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and military units Phoenix 10th Air Brigade of the US Army arrived at Riga airport,” the Latvian Defense Ministry reported. The ministry said earlier that the new arrivals will replace the existing unit of Black Hawk helicopters deployed at the Lielvarde Air Base in central Latvia.

“We are thrilled to welcome so many excellent American soldiers, who will serve as members of the continuing US aviation presence deployed to NATO’s eastern flank in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve,” Ambassador Pettit said at Riga International Airport.

“This year, thousands of US soldiers will rotate through Latvia…,” Pettit added. “You can be assured that they… are committed to standing shoulder to shoulder with our Latvian allies to protect the independence, sovereignty, and security of Latvia.”

“I see nothing but an incredibly bright future for US and Latvian relations because of how closely our two countries work together,”said Maj. Gen. Timothy Zadalis, US Air Forces in Europe vice commander.

The deployment of the choppers in Latvia marks another phase of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which began in April 2014, following the Crimean referendum where people voted to split from coup-stricken Ukraine and join Russia.

In total, the US Air Force is offering the Eastern European countries a total of 85 aircraft, including CH-47 Chinooks, UH-60 Black Hawks, and AH-64 Apaches. Medical evacuation helicopters and some 2,200 soldiers will also be deployed to assist the helicopter forces in Eastern Europe.

Ar lidmašīnu "Galaxy" no ASV Latvijā nogādā helikopterus "Black Hawk"

Atlantic Resolve is perceived by Washington as a demonstration of continued US commitment to the collective security of Europe in view of alleged Russian “assertiveness.” US troops and hardware will be constantly stationed in the Eastern European countries on a rotational basis in this operation.

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© RuptlyUS military helicopters arrive in Germany amid NATO buildup in E. Europe (VIDEOS)

“Task Force Phoenix, led by the 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, signifies the first rotational combat aviation brigade deployed to provide a persistent presence in Eastern Europe,” the US Air Force said in a press release.

Russia has continuously criticized the buildup of NATO forces on its borders, where the military bloc has also fortified its naval positions in the Black Sea. In Romania, the US and NATO maintain a naval task force, along with Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense sites which became operational earlier this year.

Last month, speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, noted that “NATO’s expansion has led to an unprecedented level of tension over the last 30 years in Europe.”

President Vladimir Putin has accused NATO of meddling in Russian affairs and trying to provoke a conflict. Putin warned that the alliance, with its “newly-declared official mission to deter Russia,” and repeated attempts to “draw us into a confrontation” poses a threat to global security.

READ MORE: NATO expansion led to tension in Europe unprecedented in last 30 years – Lavrov

“They are provoking us constantly and are trying to draw us into a confrontation,” the Russian leader stated in February, adding that NATO states are continuing their attempts to “interfere in our internal affairs in a bid to destabilize the social and political situation in Russia itself.”

https://www.rt.com/news/379127-us-black-hawk-helicopters-latvia/

To help refugees, stop arming terrorists – Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

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From RT

March 1, 2017

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To help refugees, stop arming terrorists – Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
US Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) © / RT
Representative Tulsi Gabbard called again for the US to stop aiding terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, while her guest at the presidential address to Congress, a Kurdish refugee activist, called for an end to the US policy of “regime change in Syria.”
While many Democrats invited immigrants as their guests for President Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, hosted Tima Kurdi, whose 3-year-old nephew drowned on the shores of Turkey in September 2015. Photos of Alan Kurdi’s body quickly became the symbol of Syrian refugees’ plight – and led the US to step up efforts to overthrow the Syrian government, actually magnifying their suffering.

On Wednesday, Tima Kurdi joined Gabbard at a press conference on Capitol Hill and called on Trump “to end the regime change in Syria.”

“The most important question is, how do we address the cause of these people fleeing their homes,” said Gabbard, pointing to the bill she submitted in this session of Congress. Her “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” or HR 608, would ban the use of US taxpayers’ funds to aid terrorist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda or Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

“For years, our government has been providing both direct and indirect support to these armed militant groups, who are working directly with or under the command of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all in their effort and fight to overthrow the Syrian government,” Gabbard told RT.

Gabbard traveled to Syria in January on a fact-finding mission, meeting with President Bashar Assad. She also visited Aleppo, liberated in December from Islamist rebels led by Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham, a re-branded Al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Jabhat Al-Nusra.

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U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). © Scott Audette
Rep. Gabbard calls on US govt to stop ‘supporting terrorists’ after meeting Syria civilians & Assad

The Pentagon’s $500 million effort to train and equip “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight against IS and Damascus met with disaster in 2015, as the majority of the fighters either surrendered or defected to Al-Nusra, with all of their US-funded weaponry. In the end, the program produced only “five or six” trainees, to the consternation of Congress.

With that fiasco in mind, Gabbard propose the first draft of her bill in December 2016. Her subsequent trip to Syria was met with outrage from the US foreign policy establishment and in the mainstream media, who denounced her as “Assad’s mouthpiece.”

Representative Tom Garrett (R-Virginia), a US Army veteran, spoke out in support of HR 608 and said that the goal of US policy in Syria should be peace.

“Tulsi understands that arming the so-called ‘rebels’ in Syria has only led to more bloodshed, more suffering, and created more refugees,” Tima Kurdi said in a statement on Tuesday. “A military solution in Syria is not the answer. I hope that President Trump will stop arming terrorists and commit to a political solution in Syria—it is the only way to restore peace.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/379119-tulsi-gabbard-terrorists-syria/

‘Spilling American blood’ to whip up the public and trap the President

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It can happen anytime and anywhere. It can be civilians or military. Americans are poor in reflective capacity and quick to ‘support America’, whatever that means. The worsening narcissism, functional illiteracy, societal disconnection and dis-cohesion, and lack of moral grounding converge with extreme levels of U.S. militarism. Are Americans capable of sanity?

From David Swanson

Has Van Jones Lost His Mind, Or Are Sane People Missing the Point?

March 1, 2017

A rational and moral person might think of the recent U.S. raid in Yemen this way. Here’s one small incident out of a war consisting primarily of a massive bombing campaign that has slaughtered innocents by the thousands and is threatening to lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands. In this one incident some 30 people were murdered, some 10 of them women and children, one of them the 8-year-old sister of a 16-year-old American boy whom President Obama had earlier murdered just after having murdered his father. There wasn’t some Very Important Thing accomplished, such as learning the cell phone number of someone suspiciously Muslim or whatever, that an immoral hack could try to claim justified this incident. This was mass murder.

In the course of this mass murder, one American taking part in it was killed.

The first paragraph above is of virtually no interest to the U.S. media. The second paragraph above is of intense and passionate interest. But there is a very different point that this interest misses. Much of the media coverage suggests that the One American being killed was a very negative thing for Donald Trump. I’d suggest that it was a very negative thing for the man killed and his family and loved ones, but not necessarily a bad thing for Donald Trump or Lockheed Martin. Here’s why.

When Van Jones appeared to lose his mind and declare Trump some sort of deity because of his Very Solemn treatment of the death of the One Person Who Mattered, Van Jones was following a long tradition of treatment of the sacred sacrificing of lives to the God of War, the feeding of troops to the Holy Flag. Only lives that matter can be used in this ritual. Only lives that have been lost and that mattered can be used to justify hurling more lives after them. President Polk knew this when he got U.S. troops killed in Mexico. So did those war propagandists who “remembered the Maine.” The mast of the Maine still stands at the Naval Academy in Annapolis as a monument to the fundamental rite of lying about dead people who mattered, in order to remove all constraints on behavior.

As Richard Barnet explains, in the context of Vietnam:

“The sacrifice of American lives is a crucial step in the ritual of commitment. Thus William P. Bundy stressed in working papers the importance of ‘spilling American blood’ not only to whip up the public to support a war that could touch their emotions in no other way, but also to trap the President.”[i]

Who was William P. Bundy? He was in the CIA and became an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was exactly the kind of bureaucrat who succeeds in Washington, D.C. In fact he was considered a “dove” by the standards of those in power, people like his brother McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to Kennedy and Johnson, or William Bundy’s father-in-law Dean Acheson, Secretary of State for Truman. The war makers do what they do, because only aggressive war makers advance through the ranks and keep their jobs as high-level advisors in our government. While resisting militarism is a good way to derail your career, no one seems to have ever heard of a D.C. bureaucrat or CNN news reader being sidelined for excessive warmongering. Pro-war counsel may be rejected, but is always considered respectable and important — even proposals to murder Americans directly, like Operation Northwoods or Dick Cheney’s scheme for Iran.

How can being responsible for getting People Who Matter killed trap a president into killing lots more of them?

This is not about logic. You have to stop thinking, and start observing the behavior of Van Jones’ audience. When People Who Matter have been killed, it becomes important to kill more of the Enemy even — or perhaps necessarily — through means that also kill many more of the People Who Matter. The flag’s appetite has awakened.

This is not the only way in which the U.S. media is treating this Death That Matters. Some commentators are even suggesting that it was a life lost in vain. Not in mass murder, but in vain. We should be aware, however, that the insanity Van Jones is tapping into is a powerful current with a long record of horror and destruction behind it.

http://davidswanson.org/node/5462

[i] Stavins et alia, Washington Plans an Aggressive War, p. 206.

Building a post-West world order of sovereignty, international law, and mutual respect — Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Munich Security Conference, February 18, 2017

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Leaders with a sense of responsibility must now make their choice. I hope that this choice will be made in favour of building a democratic and fair world order, a post-West world order, if you will, in which each country develops its own sovereignty within the framework of international law, and will strive to balance their own national interests with those of their partners, with respect for each country’s cultural, historical and civilisational identity.

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation:

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s address and answers to questions at the 53rd Munich Security Conference, Munich, February 18, 2017

Ladies and gentlemen,

Ten years ago, President of Russia Vladimir Putin addressed this conference with a speech that many in the West saw as a challenge and even a threat, although what his message emphasised above all was the need to renounce unilateral action in favour of honest cooperation based on mutual respect, international law, joint assessment of global problems and collective decision-making. Unfortunately, the warnings he sounded then about the negative consequences of attempting to obstruct the emergence of a multipolar world have become reality.

Humanity stands at a crossroads today. The historic era that could be called the post-Cold War order has come to an end. Its main result, as we see it, was the complete failure of the Cold War institutions to adapt to new realities. The world has become neither ‘Western-centric’, nor a safer and more stable place. This is evident in the results of ‘democratisation’ in the Middle East and North Africa, and in other places too.

NATO expansion has created a level of tension in Europe unseen in the last thirty years. Yet this year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Russia-NATO Founding Act in Paris, and 15 years since the Rome Declaration on a new quality of Russia-NATO relations was adopted. These documents’ basic premise was that Russia and the West took on a joint commitment to guarantee security on the basis of respect for each other’s interests, to strengthen mutual trust, prevent a Euro-Atlantic split and erase dividing lines. This did not happen, above all because NATO remained a Cold War institution. It is said that wars start in people’s heads, but according to this logic, it is also in people’s heads that they should end. This is not the case yet with the Cold War. Some statements by politicians in Europe and the United States seem to confirm this particularly clearly, including statements made here yesterday and today during this conference.

I mentioned NATO expansion just now. We categorically reject the allegations of those who accuse Russia and the new centres of global influence of attempting to undermine the so-called ‘liberal world order’. This global model was pre-programmed for crisis right from the time when this vision of economic and political globalisation was conceived primarily as an instrument for ensuring the growth of an elite club of countries and its domination over everyone else. It is clear that such a system could not last forever. Leaders with a sense of responsibility must now make their choice. I hope that this choice will be made in favour of building a democratic and fair world order, a post-West world order, if you will, in which each country develops its own sovereignty within the framework of international law, and will strive to balance their own national interests with those of their partners, with respect for each country’s cultural, historical and civilisational identity.

Russia has never hidden its views, and has always been sincere in advocating work based on equal footing in order to create a common space of security, good-neighbourliness and development from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The tensions of recent years between North America, Europe and Russia are unnatural; I would even say they go against nature.

Russia is a Eurasian state with a variety of cultures and ethnicities. Predictability and goodwill in relations with all countries, primarily, its neighbours, have always been inherent to our policies. This line of thinking underlies our close work within the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO, the SCO, and BRICS.

Good-neighbourliness and mutual benefits underlie our relations with Europe as well. We are part of the same continent, we wrote our history together, and we were successful when we worked hand-in-hand to achieve prosperity for our peoples.

Many millions of Soviet people gave up their lives for the freedom of Europe. We want to see Europe strong, independent in international affairs and taking good care of our common past and future, while staying open to the world around it. We are appalled by the fact that the EU is unable to muster enough strength and give up its Russian policy based on the least denominator principle where fundamental and pragmatic interests of its member states are being sacrificed to Russophobic speculations out of sheer “solidarity.” We look forward to seeing common sense take the upper hand.

What kind of relationship do we want to establish with the United States? We want relations based on pragmatism, mutual respect, and understanding of our special responsibility for global stability. Our two countries have never been in direct confrontation with each other. Our history is steeped in friendliness more than confrontation. Russia did a lot to support the independence of the United States as it proceeded to become a united powerful state. Constructive Russia-US relations are in our common interest. Moreover, America is our close neighbour, just like the European Union. We are divided by just 4 km of the Bering Strait. The potential of our cooperation in politics, the economy, and the humanitarian sphere is enormous. But, of course, it has to be tapped. We are willing to go ahead and do so inasmuch as the United States is prepared to do so on its part.

Today there is no shortage in evaluations of the genesis of global challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking, or the crises that engulfed territories from Libya to Afghanistan, leaving countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen bleeding. Certainly, the Munich debate will provide an opportunity to review in detail all these issues, as well as the continuing conflicts in Europe. Most importantly, a settlement cannot be achieved by military means.

This fully applies to the internal Ukrainian conflict. There’s no alternative to complying with the Minsk Package of Measures through a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk. This is a firm position adopted by Russia, the West and the UN Security Council. Importantly, the Kiev authorities should embark on that path and honour their obligations.

Today, more than ever, we need a dialogue on all complex issues in order to find mutually acceptable compromises. Actions based on confrontation and the zero-sum-game approach will not cut any ice. Russia is not looking for conflicts with anyone, but it will always be in a position to uphold its interests.

Our absolute priority is to use dialogue to achieve our goals and mutually beneficial consensus. It is appropriate to quote a directive which Chancellor Gorchakov, back in the times of imperial Russia, sent to Russian Envoy in the United States Eduard von Stoeckle in July 1861: “there are no such divergent interests that cannot be reconciled through zealous and hard work … in the spirit of fairness and moderation.”

If everyone could subscribe to such an approach, we’d be able to quickly overcome the post-truth period, to reject hysterical information wars imposed on the international community and to proceed to keep up the honest work without being distracted by lies and falsehoods. Let this be a post-fake era.

Thank you.

Question: I have a concrete question about military exercises. Why are Russian military exercises held without prior announcement, and why are they so non-transparent? This year you will hold the largest Zapad (West) exercises in 20 years, which have alarmed your neighbours. What should be done to build up confidence regarding this issue?

Sergey Lavrov: As you know, Russia-NATO relations and the Russia-NATO Council have been suspended at the bloc’s initiative, although after the 2008 Caucasus crisis our American colleagues, including then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, admitted that the suspension of the Russia-NATO Council was a mistake and that it should be more active especially in times of trouble. However, they continue to step on the same rake. NATO has decided to suspend all practical contacts with Russia, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told me yesterday. He said they would maintain contact at the level of ambassadors at the Russia-NATO Council and between himself and me, but that they had curtailed all practical contacts.

At some stage, Sauli Niinisto, the President of Finland which is not a NATO member, expressed concern that not just Russian aircraft but also the planes of NATO states fly over the Baltic with their transponders switched off. He mentioned his concern at a meeting with President Putin during his visit to Russia. Following that, President Putin instructed the Russian military to prepare proposals to settle the issues of transponders and aviation security over the Baltic. Our military experts brought detailed proposals to Brussels in July 2016, when the Russia-NATO Council held a meeting there. We believed that these concrete proposals would prompt a response, and that experts would get together to coordinate security enhancement methods. This did not happen. We still cannot start working on this issue. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told me yesterday that an expert meeting might hopefully convene in March. It is taking too long, of course, but we are not to blame for the delay.

He also mentioned the issue of military exercises yesterday and expressed satisfaction that the Russian military held a briefing on the exercises held last autumn. He also expressed hope that special briefings would be held on the exercises we plan for this year.

As for the surprise factor, I am not a military man, but I know that military attachés working in Moscow, including from NATO countries, are invited to such military exercises. But the best answer to this question, as I told Mr Stoltenberg yesterday, is that we should resume military cooperation to remove all these concerns and suspicions. The NATO Secretary General, who was accompanied by his deputies, could not say that NATO is ready to do this, which is a pity, because without military cooperation our diplomats’ meetings will be of little importance for security issues.

As for our relations with NATO, we proposed resuming them long ago. Instead of accusing each other and discussing and implementing plans to deploy NATO combat capabilities on the border with Russia for the first time in a decade, we should sit down to discuss the situation. We proposed looking at the maps to see how many weapons and military personnel NATO and Russia have, and where. After we collect this data, we will be able to gauge the real measures of military security in Europe. And then we will be able to use this information to consider arms control agreements and additional security measures.

Once again, it was not Russia who suspended practical cooperation in the framework of the Russia-NATO Council.

Question: Russia has submitted the first three provisions of Minsk-2 for discussion by the UN Security Council: the cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and admission of the OSCE observers to all the Ukrainian regions. Why doesn’t Russia find it possible to meet these obligations and thereby send a message about an increased level of confidence and improved overall situation?

Closer to the end of your remarks, you mentioned the post-fake era. Russia’s interference in the US election campaign was mentioned while it was underway. An election campaign is underway in France, and one of the candidates complained of Russia’s interference as well. French President Hollande even convened an extraordinary meeting of the Security Council to discuss this.

Sergey Lavrov: Regarding your first question, I’m pleased that you are familiar with the Minsk agreements, though it’s a pity you didn’t read them to the end, apparently. Indeed, the first item is the withdrawal of heavy weapons, but then it says that on the 30th day after the start of such withdrawal, which began in April 2014, the Kiev authorities will prepare a draft law on elections and begin consultations thereon with Donetsk and Lugansk. You can ask all kinds of questions about the timeframe of a particular item in the Minsk arrangements – they don’t always offer fixed dates. However, this date is specified and it’s 30 days. The withdrawal has begun. The beginning of consultations with Donetsk and Lugansk did not hinge on the completion of this process. As you may be aware, a lot has changed since then: the weapons were first withdrawn and then disappeared from the warehouses. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, which worked in very difficult conditions – and whose work we highly appreciate and hope that the mission will represent more OSCE members, not just  NATO and EU member countries – repeatedly noted violations on both sides with regard to the ceasefire, and the presence of heavy weapons in the security zone. However, the Ukrainian armed forces have always been the champion when it came to heavy weapons missing from warehouses. Again, other kinds of violations happen on both sides.

There have been repeated accusations (interviews with several Ukrainian political pundits have been published recently) that President Putin uses women and children in Donbass as human shields and tries to convince the Ukrainians living to the left of the contact line that people in Donbass hate them, while people in Donbass are being told that the Ukrainian government wants to destroy them. These arguments are false and hold no water. They also wrote that Donbass self-defence forces and unnamed Russian troops shell Donetsk in order to blame everything on Ukraine.

Getting back to your question, I have many times mentioned  how to make a ceasefire stick. No matter what you think about the Russian media, we can see our reporters doing their jobs along the  contact line in Donetsk and Lugansk on a daily basis. They run their stories live showing us destroyed residential areas and social infrastructure buildings, including children’s homes, schools, outpatient clinics, and civilian casualties. I became interested in what’s happening to the west of the contact line and started watching CNN, Fox News, Euronews, and BBC. I haven’t seen anything like that done by Western reporters on the western side of the contact line. They don’t run live reports, which our reporters do, risking their lives and getting wounded and even killed in the process. I asked my Western colleagues whether Western reporters are instructed to stay away from the other side of the contact line for security reasons. There’s no answer. Then we asked the OSCE SMM to focus, in their reports, on the destruction of civilian infrastructure to the left and to the right of the contact line. So far, we haven’t received exhaustive information. This may give an idea of why Western reporters, who are so bent on bringing the truth about the events in Ukraine to the world, do not show what’s happening in the areas to the west of the contact line, which are controlled by the armed forces of Ukraine. Are they discouraged from going there for safety reasons or are they doing some self-censorship? I would like to figure that out.

Our stats show that there are many times more destroyed social infrastructure buildings on the side controlled by Donbass as compared with the situation on the left side of the contact line. In most cases, fire is aimed at the positions controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces. Nonetheless, some members of the media make it into the war zone.

Not long ago, I saw a report by the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Washington Post articles by journalists who have been on the line of contact. They wrote that volunteer battalions are the ones provoking violence in Donbass. These forces do not obey anyone, they do not take orders from Ukraine’s Armed Forces and act solely at their own discretion. The journalists wrote that thousands of ultra-nationalists from the Right Sector are fighting there and are not controlled by Kiev in any way whatsoever. The reporters concluded that Kiev may be interested in armed and angry radicals staying on the line of contact in Donbass instead of staging another Maidan uprising in the capital. These articles also mentioned neo-Nazi foreigners who are fighting in Donbass, while others tend to turn a blind eye to their presence there.

We discuss these issues in the Normandy format. Today, a meeting of French, German, Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers will take place. The question remains: why is there so little information about what is going on to the west of the line of contact? It is key to answering your question about why so little progress has been achieved in terms of security. However, making progress on security issues is not a goal in itself. Our common aim is to ensure full implementation of the Minsk agreements that provide for security on the line of contact (and I mentioned why it has not been achieved so far), constitutional reform to introduce a constitutional provision on the special status, amnesty for all who took part in hostilities in Donbass (just as all those who took part in what happened during Maidan uprisings benefited from amnesty), and the holding of elections. Under the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian government can restore full control of the border with the Russian Federation only when these provisions are implemented. As I have already said, we are not there yet.

As for what our European partners are saying regarding sanctions, I have already commented on the illogical and artificial nature of the formula whereby the EU lifts sanctions once Russia implements the Minsk agreements. Russia also wants the Minsk agreements to be implemented, and will not lift its sanctions against the European Union until the Minsk agreements are implemented. There has to be clarity on this issue. Paris, Berlin and hopefully Washington and other capitals, including NATO headquarters, know all too well what is really happening in Ukraine and why the Minsk agreements are not working properly. But they are unable to recognise it in public due to a distorted sense of solidarity with those who decided to bring freedom and European values to Ukraine. When our good friend, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini says that sanctions are a tool for ensuring implementation of the second Minsk agreements, I see this as a way to use sanctions for regulating the crisis in Ukraine, since sanctions unambiguously shift the blame on Russia. As Federica Mogherini said, maybe it was a Freudian slip, ‘We will wait until Russia concedes and departs from Minsk-2 by undertaking something unilaterally and forcing Donbass fighters to take unilateral action.’ The hidden message behind this position is that there is no need to work with Kiev, Kiev is doing everything right. That said, I strongly believe that the key capitals know the truth. I do hope that they send signals to this effect to the Ukrainian government during their contacts, if not publicly. Not only do I hope but I know that this is the case. It is hard to tell whether these signals come across.

Regarding the second question, on Russia’s alleged interference in election campaigns and other events in countries abroad, if you recall, when Donald Trump said that the election was not very honest and that the Democrats got votes from ‘dead souls’, the Democratic Party demanded to see the facts, but for some reason, when it comes to us, no one demands to see the facts. I have not seen any evidence regarding our alleged hacking of Democratic Party sites, or of whatever we are alleged to have done in France, Germany or Italy. We know that there were facts several years ago in Germany, when the eavesdropping on the entire German senior leadership was revealed. Leaks emerged a few days ago, suggesting that the CIA engaged in cyber-espionage throughout the entirety of France’s 2012 presidential race.  A CIA representative told a journalist today that he had no comment on this subject. No comment. But my good friend, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking in  parliament after the information came out about suspicions that the CIA had meddled in the 2012 election (though, as I understand it, there are not just suspicions but also concrete facts), said that they oppose all cyber-espionage, no matter whether it comes from Russia or any other country. Modesty is always a fine thing, of course, but in this case, once again, I ask to see the evidence.

Let me remind you that Russia was the first country to initiate work in the UN many years ago on coordinating our positions on international information and cyber-security. Our Western partners evaded tackling these issues for a very long time. Finally, a couple of years ago, we adopted a resolution by consensus and a group of government experts was established, which produced a good report, which formed the foundation for a new resolution. Another expert group has been set up and will continue working on this matter now. We proposed long ago that our colleagues work more actively on the professional, technical and technology aspects of cyber-security issues. When the USA, during Barack Obama’s presidency, started hunting down our citizens in violation of the agreement our countries have, and did not inform us that they were catching these people on suspicion that they were involved in cybercrime, we proposed that both sides sit down together and settle all these issues. We have absolutely no desire to see our citizens involved in these illegal cyber activities. In November 2015, we proposed to the Obama administration that we meet and begin bilateral work on cyber-espionage, cyber-security and other cyber-related areas. A year went by without a response, even though I mentioned the matter to John Kerry every time we met. In the end, they proposed meeting in December 2016, but then said that everything would have to be postponed because of the new administration coming in.

Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, when she spoke about cyber-security today, put forward the interesting idea that the Russia-NATO Council should address this issue. Let me return to my answer to the first question. We always wanted to see the Russia-NATO Council work on real substantive issues. We were not the ones who broke off practical cooperation. If the Federal Chancellor of Germany, one of the main NATO member countries, wants the Russia-NATO Council to work on cyber-security, we see this as a signal that Berlin, at least, wants the Russia-NATO Council to resume real work and not just limit itself to discussions.

http://www.mid.ru/en/vistupleniya_ministra/-/asset_publisher/MCZ7HQuMdqBY/content/id/2648249

Ukraine opens fire across entire Donbass front, targets Donetsk water system

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From Fort Russ

February 23, 2017

Novorossiya – translated by J. Arnoldski –
Since the early morning of February 23rd, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been particularly active across the entire Donbass front. Grassroots sources such as “Updates from the Novorossiya Militia,” “Burning Hearts of Donbass”, and the “GO Alert Group of Novorossiya” have been reporting the situation on social media. 
War correspondents have reported: “Since 06:35, the Dzerzhinsky front has been active, and the enemy has been unusually active on the Svetlodarsk front.”
According to the Donbass militia and local residents, UAF shells have hit the village of Zaytsevo north of Gorlovka. “Gorlovka is loud in the north and northeast. There are reports of incoming shells hitting the Zaytsevo area,” a report reads.
The Donetsk front is also restless. In the Petrovka district firefights broke out this morning and the UAF fired off small arms, mortars, and artillery.
Local residents have confirmed incoming reports.
It has also been reported that this morning Ukrainian troops shelled the Donetsk filtration station. As a result, the Donbass Water Company has confirmed, the water filters have been damaged.
In addition, the UAF has opened fire on the Mayorsk checkpoint near Gorlovka. Fortunately, no shells hit the checkpoint directly.
War correspondents have urged civilians not to lose vigilance. 
At 10:00 this morning, the Ukrainian troop activity was also recorded by the Lugansk People’s Republic. Citizen reports have warned people to be careful and stay away from the Bakhmutka highway. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/02/ukraine-opens-fire-across-entire.html

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova briefing, February 15 — Obama, U.S. use of depleted uranium in Syria, ‘Russian hackers’, Ukraine’s information campaign

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From Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
February 15, 2017

Excerpts:

…

The situation in Syria

 

The ceasefire regime in Syria introduced December 30, 2016, is being observed. Its zone continues to expand with units of the Southern Front armed opposition joining the ceasefire. The ceasefire is guaranteed by Russia, Turkey and Iran, with Jordan making a substantial contribution to it.

The fight continues against ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, terrorists. The Syrian Army and militia units, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, are methodically pushing terrorist elements out of the country. About 1,400 square kilometres of territory have been liberated since January 1, 2017. It became possible to force ISIS terrorists out of a fortified outpost in the village of Tadef near the city of al-Bab, to establish a bridgehead near the city and to gain control of the Raqqa−al-Bab motorway. Over 650 terrorists were eliminated in Tadef, and a route for supplying ISIS with reinforcements, equipment and financial assistance was cut off.

Government forces continue to advance on Palmyra. The Russian Defence Ministry has published drone footage showing the barbaric destruction of UNESCO World Heritage Sites by ISIS militants in this city. Unfortunately, it is already clear that little remains of these ancient architectural and cultural landmarks. The terrorists have razed the façade of an ancient Roman amphitheatre, as well as Tetrapylon columns, to the ground. They are also highly likely to blow up the remnants of the historical architectural complex and nearby residential areas. The jihadists have shelled the Homs refinery with mortars, and they also set fire to natural gas fields while retreating.

As you know, Astana will host the second international meeting on Syria over the next few days. The Russian delegation that has already arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan will hold working consultations today. We hope that the upcoming meeting in the capital of Kazakhstan will provide an additional boost to the inclusive intra-Syrian dialogue under UN auspices in Geneva. Hopefully, it will become possible to resume this dialogue on February 20.

Against this backdrop, we note the attempts to aggravate the intra-Syrian conflict still further and to exacerbate contradictions between the warring parties. This is the only way to interpret the media leaks by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Atlantic Council of the United States, via CNN, about the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces in Aleppo, mass executions at Sednaya military prison near Damascus, and the methodical destruction of Syrian socioeconomic infrastructure by the Russian Aerospace Forces. The evidence backing up these so-called “sensations” leaves a lot to be desired, but, as we can see, their authors don’t seem to care. Their purpose is to torpedo any chance for launching a political peace settlement that has appeared largely through Russian efforts and to thwart emerging prospects for broad, equitable and mutually respectful international cooperation in the interests of eradicating a terrorist hotbed in the Middle East and stabilising the region.

 

Media response to the United States using depleted uranium in Syria
Given how many sensationalistic stories are planted in the media, as I mentioned earlier, it’s fun to watch world media juggernauts and institutions dealing with freedom of speech get busy with creating websites to oppose the spread of “fake news,” which has become a widespread practice. On the one hand, they say it’s imperative to not just counter it, but to do all it takes to prevent the spread of “fake news,” while they themselves engage in spreading precisely such news.

Against the background of this data, the information provided by the United States Central Command, whose operational responsibility includes, primarily, the Middle East, to the effect that the US Air Force used munitions with depleted uranium in air strikes on ISIS positions in Syria, came as a shock to many who did not believe us when we said so. As you may be aware, such a statement was made by an official representative on Tuesday when he spoke about the US air operations with the use of toxic substances which cause cancer and birth defects.

As you may recall, Russia has stated this more than once. Back in October 2016, citing independent experts, we presented such information and called on the public to pay attention to it. At that time, our American partners denied all the accusations against them. A couple of months later, these accusations were not merely confirmed, but confirmed by the United States itself. The only difference is that we provided this information a few months ago, when the previous team led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was at the helm. Clearly, he was the one to give the go-ahead to using these weapons − any other scenario is unlikely, since such things must be approved at the highest level. I would like to say that the goal pursued by US officials was noble, that is to fight terrorists. But the point is that the traces of these weapons will remain in Syria forever. You can find out more about it if you read some professional literature. The number of missiles that were used is simply devastating. I would like to quote the same US official, who said that out of 1,790 missiles fired on November 16, 2016, 1,490 contained toxic materials, and 3,775 missiles of 4,530 fired on November 22, 2016 contained toxic materials. Thus, there were five rounds with depleted uranium for every conventional missile. Each operation involved four A-10 jet aircraft. You can look up these numbers.

I would like to remind you that earlier the United States, particularly the Pentagon, claimed that the United States has never used ammo with depleted uranium during the international anti-terrorist operation in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, in 2003, these munitions were used during the US invasion of Iraq. I reiterate, it is better to read up on this subject in specialised literature, make inquiries, perhaps, even with independent expert institutes, and ask the experts specialising in this area to provide their opinion. They will tell you what the use of weapons with depleted uranium is all about, and what its implications are for the lives and livelihoods of the local people.

I mentioned this with regard to fake news and the role of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s team in resolving international conflicts. Incidentally, people live in Syria. The scary thing is that the focus was on isolated cases which were clearly propaganda shams where individual Syrian citizens, unfortunately, were propelled to the status of international stars, and the information campaign regarding these people was used as a front to cover up what was really happening in that country.

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