Ukraine
- Thread starter just me
- Start date
If anyone besides muir is still reading this thread and is still interested, here's a short video from Vice that touches on the history of the native Tatar people and the way the past month's events have affected them.
[video=youtube;1FZWgHi3unU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FZWgHi3unU[/video]
[video=youtube;1FZWgHi3unU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FZWgHi3unU[/video]
Putin bans GMO's from russia to protect the russian people. If only our leaders in the west would protect us from the corporations like that:
http://naturalsociety.com/vladimir-putin-says-russia-must-protect-citizens-gmos-stand-wto/
http://naturalsociety.com/vladimir-putin-says-russia-must-protect-citizens-gmos-stand-wto/
Ron paul explaining that the $1 billion aid package to the ukraine is a waste of money:
[video=youtube;pZ4p8mzAWJc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ4p8mzAWJc[/video]
IMF money is not free; its going to cost the ukrainian people; it won't affect the tatar people in the crimea however as they will be sheilded from the IMF
[video=youtube;IJEuXFdjXkU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJEuXFdjXkU[/video]
The ukrainian economy will nose dive as i said it would
[video=youtube;pZ4p8mzAWJc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ4p8mzAWJc[/video]
IMF money is not free; its going to cost the ukrainian people; it won't affect the tatar people in the crimea however as they will be sheilded from the IMF
[video=youtube;IJEuXFdjXkU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJEuXFdjXkU[/video]
The ukrainian economy will nose dive as i said it would
So now the UNELECTED coup government in kiev is sending tanks into the east against its own people and they are now murdering people in the east of Ukraine and now that NATO is going to put troops along russias borders the people who made so much noise about the crimean people breaking off and joining russia have now fallen silent!
No criticism of the kiev coup governments aggression?
No? Not a word?
No criticism of the kiev coup governments aggression?
No? Not a word?
http://www.darkmoon.me/2014/who-are-the-puppet-masters-by-neil-clark/
[h=1]Who are the Puppet Masters? by Neil Clark[/h]
Neil Clark reflects on the mindboggling hypocrisy and double standards of the US and its NATO puppet states. Why are these superbullies so intent on nation wrecking and chaos creation all over the world? Can it be because they seek world domination under a small, secretive elite of Puppet Masters? (LD) I’m confused. A few weeks ago we were told in the West that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine was a very good thing. These people, we were told by our political leaders and elite media commentators, were “pro-democracy protestors”. The US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these ‘pro-democracy protestors’ even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings. Now, just a few weeks later, we’re told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine are not ‘pro-democracy protestors’ but ‘terrorists’ or ‘militants’. Why was the occupation of government buildings in Ukraine a very good thing in January, but a very bad thing in April? Why was the use of force by the authorities against protestors completely unacceptable in January, but acceptable now? I repeat: I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
VICTORIA NULAND:
“Let them eat cookies!”
The anti-government protestors in Ukraine during the winter received visits from several prominent Western politicians, including US Senator John McCain, and Victoria Nuland from the US State Department who handed out cookies (pictured). But there have been very large anti-government protests in many Western European countries in recent weeks, which have received no such support, either from such figures or from elite Western media commentators. Nor have protestors received free cookies from officials at the US State Department. Surely if they were so keen on anti-government street protests in Europe, and regarded them as the truest form of ‘democracy’, McCain and Nuland would also be showing solidarity with street protestors in Madrid, Rome, Athens and Paris? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
“They blame me for 9/11 — and here they are supporting me in Syria!” 
Russia,
threatened by an ever-increasing number
of American and Nato bases,
is accused of being “aggressive”.
But how would the US feel if it were surrounded
by Russian and Chinese bases?
[h=1]Who are the Puppet Masters? by Neil Clark[/h]
Neil Clark reflects on the mindboggling hypocrisy and double standards of the US and its NATO puppet states. Why are these superbullies so intent on nation wrecking and chaos creation all over the world? Can it be because they seek world domination under a small, secretive elite of Puppet Masters? (LD) I’m confused. A few weeks ago we were told in the West that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine was a very good thing. These people, we were told by our political leaders and elite media commentators, were “pro-democracy protestors”. The US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these ‘pro-democracy protestors’ even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings. Now, just a few weeks later, we’re told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine are not ‘pro-democracy protestors’ but ‘terrorists’ or ‘militants’. Why was the occupation of government buildings in Ukraine a very good thing in January, but a very bad thing in April? Why was the use of force by the authorities against protestors completely unacceptable in January, but acceptable now? I repeat: I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
VICTORIA NULAND:“Let them eat cookies!”
The anti-government protestors in Ukraine during the winter received visits from several prominent Western politicians, including US Senator John McCain, and Victoria Nuland from the US State Department who handed out cookies (pictured). But there have been very large anti-government protests in many Western European countries in recent weeks, which have received no such support, either from such figures or from elite Western media commentators. Nor have protestors received free cookies from officials at the US State Department. Surely if they were so keen on anti-government street protests in Europe, and regarded them as the truest form of ‘democracy’, McCain and Nuland would also be showing solidarity with street protestors in Madrid, Rome, Athens and Paris? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
♣
A few weeks ago I saw an interview with the US Secretary of State John Kerry who said, “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests.” But I seem to recall the US doing just that on more than one occasion in the past 20 years or so. Have I misremembered the ‘Iraq has WMDs claim’? Was I dreaming back in 2002 and early 2003 when politicians and neocon pundits came on TV every day to tell us plebs that we had to go to war with Iraq because of the threat posed by Saddam’s deadly arsenal? Why is having a democratic vote in Crimea on whether to rejoin Russia deemed worse than the brutal, murderous invasion of Iraq – an invasion which has led to the deaths of up to 1 million people? I’m confused. Can anyone help me? We were also told by very serious-looking Western politicians and media ‘experts’ that the Crimea referendum wasn’t valid because it was held under “military occupation.” But I’ve just been watching coverage of elections in Afghanistan, held under military occupation, which have been hailed by leading western figures, such as NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a “historic moment for Afghanistan” and a great success for “democracy.” Why is the Crimean vote dismissed, but the Afghanistan vote celebrated? I’m confused. Can anyone help me? ♣
Syria too is rather baffling. We were and are told that radical Islamic terror groups pose the greatest threat to our peace, security and our ‘way of life’ in the West. That Al-Qaeda and other such groups need to be destroyed: that we needed to have a relentless ‘War on Terror’ against them. Yet in Syria, our leaders have been siding with such radical groups in their war against a secular government which respects the rights of religious minorities, including Christians. When the bombs of Al-Qaeda or their affiliates go off in Syria and innocent people are killed there is no condemnation from our leaders: their only condemnation has been of the secular Syrian government which is fighting radical Islamists and which our leaders and elite media commentators are desperate to have toppled. I’m confused. Can anyone help me? 
“They blame me for 9/11 — and here they are supporting me in Syria!”♣
Then there’s gay rights. We are told that Russia is a very bad and backward country because it has passed a law against promoting homosexuality to minors. Yet our leaders who boycotted the Winter Olympics in Sochi because of this law visit Gulf states where homosexuals can be imprisoned or even executed, and warmly embrace the rulers there, making no mention of the issue of gay rights. Surely the imprisonment or execution of gay people is far worse than a law which forbids promotion of homosexuality to minors? Why, if they are genuinely concerned about gay rights, do our leaders attack Russia and not countries that imprison or execute gay people? I’m confused. Can anyone help me? ♣
We are told in lots of newspaper articles that the Hungarian ultra-nationalist party Jobbik is very bad and that its rise is a cause of great concern, even though it is not even in the government, or likely to be. But neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists do hold positions in the new government of Ukraine, which our leaders in the West enthusiastically support and neo-Nazis and the far-right played a key role in the overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected government in February, a ‘revolution’ cheered on by the West. Why are ultra-nationalists and far-right groups unacceptable in Hungary but very acceptable in Ukraine? I’m confused. Can anyone help me? ♣
We are told that Russia is an aggressive, imperialist power and that NATO’s concerns are about opposing the Russian ‘threat’. But I looked at the map the other day and while I could see lots of countries close to (and bordering) Russia that were members of NATO, the US-led military alliance whose members have bombed and attacked many countries in the last 15 years, I could not see any countries close to America that were part of a Russian-military alliance, or any Russian military bases or missiles situated in foreign countries bordering or close to the US. Yet Russia, we are told, is the ‘aggressive one’. I’m confused. Can anyone help me? 
Russia,threatened by an ever-increasing number
of American and Nato bases,
is accused of being “aggressive”.
But how would the US feel if it were surrounded
by Russian and Chinese bases?
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/29/360586/us-caught-faking-russia-forces/
US, NY Times caught faking Russia forces in Ukraine
The State Department and the NY Times got caught red-handed with faked evidence of Russian aggression in East Ukraine. But the story is now one of a double and maybe a triple hoax.
One might become curious at the US repeatedly claiming that Russian troops and agents were the tip of the spear on the East Ukraine civic building takeovers. Why? Because day after day the charges went on and on without any proof being put on the table.
Now mind you, this is after we have had several big intercept releases, which we assume were from Russian intelligence, starting with Victoria Nuland and her potty mouth discussing who was going to be in the post-coup government in Kiev. This is the same Ms. Nudlemann that was shoehorned into a top level State Dept. job some years ago with only four years of college and no diplomatic experience. It is the kind of placement that would catch the eye of counter-intelligence people of someone being planted.
What made her position so strange is that she had started as an assistant to Dick Cheney, so her qualifications were family and Israel Lobby political connections. That she was kept over from the Bush thugs by Obama is still mind boggling, when all the NeoCons should have been cleaned out in the first day security sweep.
And then we had the EU's Catherine Ashton and the Latvia Foreign Minister talking about the Maidan coup killings, and how everyone knew who had done it, and how nonchalant Ashton was about that news. Those were major intelligence coups by the Russians to use on YouTube to stake out who the real aggressors were in Ukraine.
The Russians would have expected to be blamed for the East Ukraine city takeovers after Crimea, which was a totally different situation, as the troops were already based there with agreements to reinforce in times of threats. So it would not have made sense for the Russians to ruin the clean record they had hitting the “Crimean invasion” slow-ball hype out of the ball park.
The West failed miserably trying to pound that message onto the World public. And the 97% vote count on the referendum put the nails in the coffin of that attempt.
A pattern emerged of the State Department making charges and the Russians denying. This kept on until we were wondering if someone was trying to bore us all to death. If the US had proof of Russians on the ground running the protest movement, why was Kerry not putting it out in a Cuban Missile crisis fashion with some updated version of U2 spy plane photos of Soviet missiles there? We could think of nothing to justify holding it except... they didn't really have anything.
“We see in the photos that have been again in international media, on Twitter, publicly available, is that there are individuals who visibly appear to be tied to Russia. We’ve said that publicly a countless number of times,” Jen Psaki, State Dept spokeswoman said.
And the answer was someone decided to add a caption to Dondyuk's photo that said, “Group photo taken in Russia.” The other photos they had from the protests with some of the same faces, they just circled and presented them with the “Russian” photo as the evidence.
We think some State Department Intel dummies did that. Yes, State does have its own intelligence division, one that is not highly respected for being over-paid and under worked. Their mistake was that the caption was too pat. No really good psyops guy would have done that.
The State Department circulated this to all those involved in pandering the charges, to make them feel they were on solid ground that the meanie Russians were lying. Because the State Department is filled with dual-Israeli citizens, they like to show they can be valuable in a jam, so they got the photos over to the Israel Lobby's favorite newspaper for planting stories -- other than the Wall Street Journal -- the New York Times.
They participated in the scam by not making sure the photo was real, as it was being used as proof the Russians were lying. No major paper would forget to run down the photo, or they would not have run the story. The Times did it because someone they are close to asked them to.
The hoax was up when Mr. Dondyuk saw his mis-attributed photo and put a call into the NY Times pronto. “It was taken in Slavyansk [Ukraine],” he told NYT over the phone. “Nobody asked my permission to use it.” So now it was damage control time, and big outfits like this are not without some experience in that department.
The standard spin, when caught, is to admit that a mistake was made and then never say anything other than that. They will take the sloppiness hit, even being laughed at by other media, but they don't want to be grilled on whether they orchestrated the hoax.
But here are more clues, like the duplicitous language used by Jen Paski, “individuals who visibly 'appear' to be tied to Russia.” The key word is “appear”. They knew when they put this out that it would be taken by the public as “proof”, but she did not say that it proved they were Russians. The language used was carefully crafted for deniability if needed.
That folks, is run of the mill wordplay deception that governments run on their publics all the time. But what makes this evil, and an attack on the American people by its own government, is that this deception was being used to cover US aggression by framing the Russians so that the people would be primed to support military action, if the US goes that route.
It was a violation of the oath of office that the top people take... "to defend the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” These people, who concocted this faked photo story and all their other orchestrated aggressions to pin them on the Russians, are exactly why those words “domestic enemies” were put in the oath.
They crossed over the oath red line and became our enemies. Nuland, Cheney... there is a long list. It is time for others who took that oath to defend us from these domestic enemies. They have attacked us with lies in an escalating war situation. They are not fit to serve. On the contrary... maybe they should be POWs.
JD/NN
Jim W. Dean comes from an old military family dating back to the American Revolution. His father was a WWII P-40 and later P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. Jim's mother was a WWII widow at 16, her first husband killed with all 580 aboard when the SS Paul Hamilton, an ammunition ship with 7000 tons of explosives aboard, was torpedoed off the coast of Algiers. He has appeared on PBS most recently on the Looking for Lincoln documentary with Prof. Henry Lewis Gates and lectured at the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Gordon. His current writing focus is on national security, intelligence, black and psyops, military/Intel history including personal video archives, and the current wars. Jim Dean is the managing editor of Veterans Today. More articles by Jim W. Dean
US, NY Times caught faking Russia forces in Ukraine
The State Department and the NY Times got caught red-handed with faked evidence of Russian aggression in East Ukraine. But the story is now one of a double and maybe a triple hoax.
One might become curious at the US repeatedly claiming that Russian troops and agents were the tip of the spear on the East Ukraine civic building takeovers. Why? Because day after day the charges went on and on without any proof being put on the table.
Now mind you, this is after we have had several big intercept releases, which we assume were from Russian intelligence, starting with Victoria Nuland and her potty mouth discussing who was going to be in the post-coup government in Kiev. This is the same Ms. Nudlemann that was shoehorned into a top level State Dept. job some years ago with only four years of college and no diplomatic experience. It is the kind of placement that would catch the eye of counter-intelligence people of someone being planted.
What made her position so strange is that she had started as an assistant to Dick Cheney, so her qualifications were family and Israel Lobby political connections. That she was kept over from the Bush thugs by Obama is still mind boggling, when all the NeoCons should have been cleaned out in the first day security sweep.
And then we had the EU's Catherine Ashton and the Latvia Foreign Minister talking about the Maidan coup killings, and how everyone knew who had done it, and how nonchalant Ashton was about that news. Those were major intelligence coups by the Russians to use on YouTube to stake out who the real aggressors were in Ukraine.
The West had their controlled corporate media to help them publicize the endless charges above, using the old tactic of “the offense is the best defense.” Accuse your opponent with what you are doing, because who said it first always stays imprinted in the public's mind. But we were expecting some payback from NSA and CIA via releasing some intercepts of their own to show the Russians being caught red-handed.
General Breedlove added his failed spin attempt to this sad record of deception on the American people by releasing outdated satellite-photo “proof” of the Russian offensive build-up on Ukraine's borders, taken a year ago. It was shot down in flames by the Russians, without an S400 being needed.
The Russians would have expected to be blamed for the East Ukraine city takeovers after Crimea, which was a totally different situation, as the troops were already based there with agreements to reinforce in times of threats. So it would not have made sense for the Russians to ruin the clean record they had hitting the “Crimean invasion” slow-ball hype out of the ball park.
The West failed miserably trying to pound that message onto the World public. And the 97% vote count on the referendum put the nails in the coffin of that attempt.
A pattern emerged of the State Department making charges and the Russians denying. This kept on until we were wondering if someone was trying to bore us all to death. If the US had proof of Russians on the ground running the protest movement, why was Kerry not putting it out in a Cuban Missile crisis fashion with some updated version of U2 spy plane photos of Soviet missiles there? We could think of nothing to justify holding it except... they didn't really have anything.
It seems that things came to a head when the Russian Foreign Ministry got tired of making endless denials. Lavrov threw the gauntlet down and demanded the US show its proof. And therein is where the “mis-attributed photo” psyops was born out of need to cover the lies.
YouTube videos and photos on the East Ukraine protests were all over the Internet and we knew that payroll duty Intel workers would be sifting through them carefully with orders to “find us some Russians.” They didn't. So now time to fake some. They found a photo of freelance photographer Maxim Dondyuk... a bunch of gnarly-looking militia guys all decked out in combat fatigues and ready-to-do-business gear, including their weapons. Other photos were found in the Ukraine shots with some of the same faces. The question then was what to do with them.
“We see in the photos that have been again in international media, on Twitter, publicly available, is that there are individuals who visibly appear to be tied to Russia. We’ve said that publicly a countless number of times,” Jen Psaki, State Dept spokeswoman said.
And the answer was someone decided to add a caption to Dondyuk's photo that said, “Group photo taken in Russia.” The other photos they had from the protests with some of the same faces, they just circled and presented them with the “Russian” photo as the evidence.
We think some State Department Intel dummies did that. Yes, State does have its own intelligence division, one that is not highly respected for being over-paid and under worked. Their mistake was that the caption was too pat. No really good psyops guy would have done that.
The State Department circulated this to all those involved in pandering the charges, to make them feel they were on solid ground that the meanie Russians were lying. Because the State Department is filled with dual-Israeli citizens, they like to show they can be valuable in a jam, so they got the photos over to the Israel Lobby's favorite newspaper for planting stories -- other than the Wall Street Journal -- the New York Times.
They participated in the scam by not making sure the photo was real, as it was being used as proof the Russians were lying. No major paper would forget to run down the photo, or they would not have run the story. The Times did it because someone they are close to asked them to.
The hoax was up when Mr. Dondyuk saw his mis-attributed photo and put a call into the NY Times pronto. “It was taken in Slavyansk [Ukraine],” he told NYT over the phone. “Nobody asked my permission to use it.” So now it was damage control time, and big outfits like this are not without some experience in that department.
The standard spin, when caught, is to admit that a mistake was made and then never say anything other than that. They will take the sloppiness hit, even being laughed at by other media, but they don't want to be grilled on whether they orchestrated the hoax.
But here are more clues, like the duplicitous language used by Jen Paski, “individuals who visibly 'appear' to be tied to Russia.” The key word is “appear”. They knew when they put this out that it would be taken by the public as “proof”, but she did not say that it proved they were Russians. The language used was carefully crafted for deniability if needed.
That folks, is run of the mill wordplay deception that governments run on their publics all the time. But what makes this evil, and an attack on the American people by its own government, is that this deception was being used to cover US aggression by framing the Russians so that the people would be primed to support military action, if the US goes that route.
It was a violation of the oath of office that the top people take... "to defend the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” These people, who concocted this faked photo story and all their other orchestrated aggressions to pin them on the Russians, are exactly why those words “domestic enemies” were put in the oath.
They crossed over the oath red line and became our enemies. Nuland, Cheney... there is a long list. It is time for others who took that oath to defend us from these domestic enemies. They have attacked us with lies in an escalating war situation. They are not fit to serve. On the contrary... maybe they should be POWs.
JD/NN
Jim W. Dean comes from an old military family dating back to the American Revolution. His father was a WWII P-40 and later P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. Jim's mother was a WWII widow at 16, her first husband killed with all 580 aboard when the SS Paul Hamilton, an ammunition ship with 7000 tons of explosives aboard, was torpedoed off the coast of Algiers. He has appeared on PBS most recently on the Looking for Lincoln documentary with Prof. Henry Lewis Gates and lectured at the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Gordon. His current writing focus is on national security, intelligence, black and psyops, military/Intel history including personal video archives, and the current wars. Jim Dean is the managing editor of Veterans Today. More articles by Jim W. Dean
So, did the so-called western powers know how Russia felt about Ukraine before running their business as usual banking schemes (which I have almost no doubt to the reality of, at least singularly divorced from Ukraine)? How many people in the know with mc (mind control) tech does it take to f**k almost any country?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...ustria-signs-south-stream-pipeline-deal-defia
[h=1]Putin Scores Another Historic Victory: Austria Signs South Stream Pipeline Deal In Defiance Of Europe[/h]
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/25/2014 07:23 -040
As the war of words between Europe and Russia has escalated, one of the outcomes that has emerged is that just like in false flag war over Syria, the Ukraine war was about the simplest possible thing, and yet so very complicate: a gas pipeline. Of course, it was never a secret that the prize in controlling Ukraine was possession of the vast pipeline infrastructure that left Russia and entered Europe, but since it was all Gazprom's gas in the first place, it didn't really matter if Kiev had possession of the gas as it transits to Europe, or if, as the case is now, Ukraine is merely a transit hub with all Russian gas delivered to European countries and none of it staying in the civil war torn country. After all as of this moment Ukraine can't afford any Russian gas, and if it siphons off any of the product destined for Germany and beyond it would simply antagonize its new NATO best friends, who also happen to be Gazprom clients.
No, the pipeline that has emerged with a starring role in the Ukraine conflict has nothing to do with Ukraine, but is a pipeline that crosses several hundred kilometers south of Ukraine - the South Stream project, which leaves the Russian black sea coast south of Crimea, crosses the black sea, and traverses Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and ends up in the gas hub in Baumgarten, Austria from where it proceeds to all points in central Europe, mostly Germany.
The project, which was conceived in 2007, was meant explicitly to bypass Ukraine, and to be an alternative to the now mothballed Nabucco gas pipeline which, with the backing of the US and Europe, would have taken Caspian gas (mainly Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan) and traverse Turkey before emerging in Bulgaria, and then followed the European path of the South Stream into the Austrian hub and beyond.
Not surprisingly, it was the key transit hub of the South Stream, Bulgaria, that started making problems for Putin even as he succeeded in trumping Nabucco (when in June 2013 the CEO of Austrian energy giant OMV, Gerhard Roiss, announced the project as "over" after the Turkish Shah Deniz consortium chose the Trans-Adriatic Pipieline over Nabucco as a gas export route which would supply Italy instead of Austria).
Recall that it was in January, two months before the Ukraine government was overthrown that the prime minister of Bulgaria - a country that has a very distinguished love/hate relationship with Russia (a relationship which the US would love to make more "hate") - Plamen Oresharski, surprisingly ordered a halt to work on the South Stream, on the recommendation of the EU. The decision was announced after his talks with US senators.
"At this time there is a request from the European Commission, after which we've suspended the current works, I ordered it," Oresharski told journalists after meeting with John McCain, Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson during their visit to Bulgaria on Sunday. "Further proceedings will be decided after additional consultations with Brussels."
At the time McCain, commenting on the situation, said that "Bulgaria should solve the South Stream problems in collaboration with European colleagues," adding that in the current situation they would want "less Russian involvement" in the project.
"America has decided that it wants to put itself in a position where it excludes anybody it doesn't like from countries where it thinks it might have an interest, and there is no economic rationality in this at all. Europeans are very pragmatic, they are looking for cheap energy resources - clean energy resources, and Russia can supply that. But the thing with the South Stream is that it doesn't fit with the politics of the situation," Ben Aris, editor of Business New Europe told RT.
It was also in January when EU authorities ordered Bulgaria to suspend construction on its link of the pipeline, which is planned to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and onward to western Europe. Brussels wants the project frozen, pending a decision on whether it violates the EU competition regulations on a single energy market. It believes South Stream does not comply with the rules prohibiting energy producers from also controlling pipeline access.
Therein, of course, lies the rub, because as Europe has learned the hard way so many times, its overrliance on Russia for both the production and the transit of gas means that it has absolutely no leverage over the Kremlin - something recent events in Ukraine have only confirmed.
Putin, earlier today, merely cemented the reality that it is not so much about who controls the energy transit pipelines, but whose influence controls Europe: America's or Russia's. "The US opposes the Russian South Stream gas pipeline project because it wants to supply gas to Europe itself, President Putin said on Tuesday. He called the situation an "ordinary competitive struggle."
“They do everything to disrupt this contract. There is nothing unusual here. This is an ordinary competitive struggle. In the course of this competition, political tools are also being used,” the Russian president said after holding talks with his Austrian counterpart, President Heinz Fischer, in Vienna.
"We are in talks with our contract partners, not with third parties. That our US friends are unhappy about South Stream, well, they were unhappy in 1962 too, when the gas-for-pipes project with Germany was beginning. Now they are unhappy too, nothing has changed, except the fact that they want to supply to the European market themselves," Putin stated.
Should this happen, American gas “will not be cheaper than Russian gas – pipe gas is always cheaper than liquefied gas,” Putin stressed.
* * *
Which in turn brings us to the culmination of the political struggle over the South Stream, when earlier today, in yet another coup for the Kremlin, one of the most stable and respected European countries, AAA-rated Austria gave its final approval to the "controversial" Russian gas pipeline project early Tuesday, defying EU officials and welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin to the neutral country that has been a long-standing energy customer for Moscow.
As Reuters reports, "the chief executives of Russia's Gazprom and Austria's OMV sealed the deal to build a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline to Austria, a staunch defender of the project in the face of opposition from the European Commission."
In other words, one short month after Putin concluded the Holy Grail deal with Beijing, he not only managed to formalize his conquest of Europe's energy needs with yet another pipeline, one which completely bypasses Ukraine (for numerous reasons but mostly one: call it a Plan B), but scored a massive political victory by creating a fissure in the heart of the Eurozone, after Austria openly defied its European peers and sided with Putin.
Needless to say, the European Commission is furious, and is digging in its heels saying South Stream does not comply with EU competition law because it offers no access to third parties. South Stream also, as noted above, counters the EU's policy of diversifying supply sources to reduce dependence on Russia.
But OMV CEO Gerhard Roiss, in a stunning moment of realpolitik clarity and admission that when it comes to the energy future of Europe, Putin is more important than Mario Draghi, told a news conference after the signing: "Europe needs Russian gas. Europe will need more Russian gas in future because European gas production is falling ... I think the European Union understands this, too."
Of course, they do. The only issue is they don't want to admit it because doing so seals Europea's fate as a vassal energy state of Russia. As for Europe's pipedream, pardon the pun, alternative of receiving LNG from the US, it was none other than Cnehiere CEO Charif Souki who said in April, when asked if Cheniere’s terminal could rescue eastern European countries from their dependence on Russia, that "It’s flattering to be talked about like this, but it’s all nonsense. It’s so much nonsense that I can’t believe anybody really believes it.”
They don't, but it's all politics. And in politics it is all about wielding power, or submitting to it. Austria did the latter today, and by defecting on its European peers, it may have started a process that leads to the splintering of the Eurozone itself, with none other than Vladimir Putin once again pulling the strings.
The project has pitted European industry against politicians in Brussels, and divided South Stream supporters - which stretch from Germany through the heavily Russia-dependent central and southeastern Europe - from other EU member states.
On a one-day working visit to Vienna that drew some criticism in the EU, Putin spoke of close business ties to Austria, the first western European country to sign, in 1968, long-term gas supply deals with Moscow.
He called Austria an "important and reliable" partner for Russia, which is Austria's third-biggest non-EU trading partner after the United States and Switzerland.
Austrian President Heinz Fischer also defended the South Stream project, saying: "No one can explain to me - and I can't explain to the Austrian people - why a pipeline that crosses EU and NATO countries can't go 50 km into Austria."
Oh and for the record, the Austrian president said "He said he opposed sanctions against Moscow"... just in case the next time Europe dares to pass off any Russian sanctions over Ukraine decision as unanimous.
And speaking of Ukraine, things got downright bizarre in Vienna when the head of Austria's chamber of commerce reminded Putin that part of Ukraine had belonged to Austria in 1914. "What is that supposed to mean? What are you proposing?" Putin quipped, eliciting laughter from the business elite. Next thing you know Putin will be joking about annexing Hungary...
And there you have it, just in case it was still unclear: what is happening in Ukraine is all a big joke to the power brokers in Europe, the "business elite" - the decision has long since been made that Putin will see no objection by said elite to whatever his intentions with regard to the irrelevant and civil war-torn country are. Aside, of course, from the token CIA and US theater fit simply for lower common denominator consumption.
The joint South Stream Austria project will be 50 percent owned by Gazprom – Russia's largest gas producer – and 50 percent owned by Austria’s OMV Group, the country’s largest oil and gas company.
Austria's president Fischer stated that if anyone criticizes Austria, they should also criticize other member countries and their companies.
“I suppose that there will be no such moment when such a country as Austria will not be holding talks with a partner, which has intense relations with us, and will not be ready to negotiate with it,” the Austrian leader said.
“We know such a dialogue does not contradict any EU decision,” he added. What he meant is that nobody in Europe can tell Putin what to do.
* * *
As for the logistical issues of the pipeline, now that the agreement has been signed, they will all be resolved in due course: Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said earlier he was in weekly if not daily contact with European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger about winning approval for the South Stream project.
"We solve problems as they come up, and now the problem of construction of the pipeline is to be solved," Miller said.
The pipeline deal does not address the question of third-party access, which is required by EU law to prevent the owner of an energy source from monopolising its distribution channels. OMV's Roiss said the issue must be negotiated with Brussels. Roiss said the Austrian part of the pipeline, which is planned to be built in 2016 and deliver its first gas supplies around the start of 2017, would comply fully with European law.
Gazprom and OMV said they would split the 200 million euro ($272 million) costs of building the 50-km (31- mile) Austrian stretch of South Stream, which in total will be 2,446 km long. The total cost of the South Stream pipeline is $40 billion.
At the end of the day it's only capex: money that is more than returned to the investor in the long-run. America may remember capex - it's what companies did before they pushed financial engineering beyond the edge, all in the pursuit of short-term capital appreciation gains. And if Gazprom can't fund it, we are confident China would be delighted to invest in the project by buying a few billion Renminbi-denominated bonds.
* * *
So congratulations to Putin: today he merely further cemented his status as Europe's default energy provider. But not only that. As Reuters noted some politicians have warned that Putin may try to exploit divisions between friendly EU states, such as neutral Austria with its traditionally good ties to Moscow, and those like Britain that want to take a harder line.
"Obviously ... Putin wants to split the European Union. That's nothing new. That's what the Russians always try to do when they are in a corner," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told Austrian broadcaster ORF on Monday.
Well, Mr. Bildt, Russia certainly succeeded in sowing the seeds of even more discord in the European Union, whose most stable country just sided with Putin and told all of its European "partners", Merkel and Cameron included, a big fuck you. As for your completely wrong remark about just who is "in the corner" we will let it slip: after all, as that other European career politician Jean-Claude Juncker taught us, when it gets serious, you have to lie.
[h=1]Putin Scores Another Historic Victory: Austria Signs South Stream Pipeline Deal In Defiance Of Europe[/h]
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/25/2014 07:23 -040
As the war of words between Europe and Russia has escalated, one of the outcomes that has emerged is that just like in false flag war over Syria, the Ukraine war was about the simplest possible thing, and yet so very complicate: a gas pipeline. Of course, it was never a secret that the prize in controlling Ukraine was possession of the vast pipeline infrastructure that left Russia and entered Europe, but since it was all Gazprom's gas in the first place, it didn't really matter if Kiev had possession of the gas as it transits to Europe, or if, as the case is now, Ukraine is merely a transit hub with all Russian gas delivered to European countries and none of it staying in the civil war torn country. After all as of this moment Ukraine can't afford any Russian gas, and if it siphons off any of the product destined for Germany and beyond it would simply antagonize its new NATO best friends, who also happen to be Gazprom clients.
No, the pipeline that has emerged with a starring role in the Ukraine conflict has nothing to do with Ukraine, but is a pipeline that crosses several hundred kilometers south of Ukraine - the South Stream project, which leaves the Russian black sea coast south of Crimea, crosses the black sea, and traverses Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and ends up in the gas hub in Baumgarten, Austria from where it proceeds to all points in central Europe, mostly Germany.
The project, which was conceived in 2007, was meant explicitly to bypass Ukraine, and to be an alternative to the now mothballed Nabucco gas pipeline which, with the backing of the US and Europe, would have taken Caspian gas (mainly Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan) and traverse Turkey before emerging in Bulgaria, and then followed the European path of the South Stream into the Austrian hub and beyond.
Not surprisingly, it was the key transit hub of the South Stream, Bulgaria, that started making problems for Putin even as he succeeded in trumping Nabucco (when in June 2013 the CEO of Austrian energy giant OMV, Gerhard Roiss, announced the project as "over" after the Turkish Shah Deniz consortium chose the Trans-Adriatic Pipieline over Nabucco as a gas export route which would supply Italy instead of Austria).
Recall that it was in January, two months before the Ukraine government was overthrown that the prime minister of Bulgaria - a country that has a very distinguished love/hate relationship with Russia (a relationship which the US would love to make more "hate") - Plamen Oresharski, surprisingly ordered a halt to work on the South Stream, on the recommendation of the EU. The decision was announced after his talks with US senators.
"At this time there is a request from the European Commission, after which we've suspended the current works, I ordered it," Oresharski told journalists after meeting with John McCain, Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson during their visit to Bulgaria on Sunday. "Further proceedings will be decided after additional consultations with Brussels."
At the time McCain, commenting on the situation, said that "Bulgaria should solve the South Stream problems in collaboration with European colleagues," adding that in the current situation they would want "less Russian involvement" in the project.
"America has decided that it wants to put itself in a position where it excludes anybody it doesn't like from countries where it thinks it might have an interest, and there is no economic rationality in this at all. Europeans are very pragmatic, they are looking for cheap energy resources - clean energy resources, and Russia can supply that. But the thing with the South Stream is that it doesn't fit with the politics of the situation," Ben Aris, editor of Business New Europe told RT.
It was also in January when EU authorities ordered Bulgaria to suspend construction on its link of the pipeline, which is planned to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and onward to western Europe. Brussels wants the project frozen, pending a decision on whether it violates the EU competition regulations on a single energy market. It believes South Stream does not comply with the rules prohibiting energy producers from also controlling pipeline access.
Therein, of course, lies the rub, because as Europe has learned the hard way so many times, its overrliance on Russia for both the production and the transit of gas means that it has absolutely no leverage over the Kremlin - something recent events in Ukraine have only confirmed.
Putin, earlier today, merely cemented the reality that it is not so much about who controls the energy transit pipelines, but whose influence controls Europe: America's or Russia's. "The US opposes the Russian South Stream gas pipeline project because it wants to supply gas to Europe itself, President Putin said on Tuesday. He called the situation an "ordinary competitive struggle."
“They do everything to disrupt this contract. There is nothing unusual here. This is an ordinary competitive struggle. In the course of this competition, political tools are also being used,” the Russian president said after holding talks with his Austrian counterpart, President Heinz Fischer, in Vienna.
"We are in talks with our contract partners, not with third parties. That our US friends are unhappy about South Stream, well, they were unhappy in 1962 too, when the gas-for-pipes project with Germany was beginning. Now they are unhappy too, nothing has changed, except the fact that they want to supply to the European market themselves," Putin stated.
Should this happen, American gas “will not be cheaper than Russian gas – pipe gas is always cheaper than liquefied gas,” Putin stressed.
* * *
Which in turn brings us to the culmination of the political struggle over the South Stream, when earlier today, in yet another coup for the Kremlin, one of the most stable and respected European countries, AAA-rated Austria gave its final approval to the "controversial" Russian gas pipeline project early Tuesday, defying EU officials and welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin to the neutral country that has been a long-standing energy customer for Moscow.
As Reuters reports, "the chief executives of Russia's Gazprom and Austria's OMV sealed the deal to build a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline to Austria, a staunch defender of the project in the face of opposition from the European Commission."
In other words, one short month after Putin concluded the Holy Grail deal with Beijing, he not only managed to formalize his conquest of Europe's energy needs with yet another pipeline, one which completely bypasses Ukraine (for numerous reasons but mostly one: call it a Plan B), but scored a massive political victory by creating a fissure in the heart of the Eurozone, after Austria openly defied its European peers and sided with Putin.
Needless to say, the European Commission is furious, and is digging in its heels saying South Stream does not comply with EU competition law because it offers no access to third parties. South Stream also, as noted above, counters the EU's policy of diversifying supply sources to reduce dependence on Russia.
But OMV CEO Gerhard Roiss, in a stunning moment of realpolitik clarity and admission that when it comes to the energy future of Europe, Putin is more important than Mario Draghi, told a news conference after the signing: "Europe needs Russian gas. Europe will need more Russian gas in future because European gas production is falling ... I think the European Union understands this, too."
Of course, they do. The only issue is they don't want to admit it because doing so seals Europea's fate as a vassal energy state of Russia. As for Europe's pipedream, pardon the pun, alternative of receiving LNG from the US, it was none other than Cnehiere CEO Charif Souki who said in April, when asked if Cheniere’s terminal could rescue eastern European countries from their dependence on Russia, that "It’s flattering to be talked about like this, but it’s all nonsense. It’s so much nonsense that I can’t believe anybody really believes it.”
They don't, but it's all politics. And in politics it is all about wielding power, or submitting to it. Austria did the latter today, and by defecting on its European peers, it may have started a process that leads to the splintering of the Eurozone itself, with none other than Vladimir Putin once again pulling the strings.
The project has pitted European industry against politicians in Brussels, and divided South Stream supporters - which stretch from Germany through the heavily Russia-dependent central and southeastern Europe - from other EU member states.
On a one-day working visit to Vienna that drew some criticism in the EU, Putin spoke of close business ties to Austria, the first western European country to sign, in 1968, long-term gas supply deals with Moscow.
He called Austria an "important and reliable" partner for Russia, which is Austria's third-biggest non-EU trading partner after the United States and Switzerland.
Austrian President Heinz Fischer also defended the South Stream project, saying: "No one can explain to me - and I can't explain to the Austrian people - why a pipeline that crosses EU and NATO countries can't go 50 km into Austria."
And speaking of Ukraine, things got downright bizarre in Vienna when the head of Austria's chamber of commerce reminded Putin that part of Ukraine had belonged to Austria in 1914. "What is that supposed to mean? What are you proposing?" Putin quipped, eliciting laughter from the business elite. Next thing you know Putin will be joking about annexing Hungary...
And there you have it, just in case it was still unclear: what is happening in Ukraine is all a big joke to the power brokers in Europe, the "business elite" - the decision has long since been made that Putin will see no objection by said elite to whatever his intentions with regard to the irrelevant and civil war-torn country are. Aside, of course, from the token CIA and US theater fit simply for lower common denominator consumption.
The joint South Stream Austria project will be 50 percent owned by Gazprom – Russia's largest gas producer – and 50 percent owned by Austria’s OMV Group, the country’s largest oil and gas company.
Austria's president Fischer stated that if anyone criticizes Austria, they should also criticize other member countries and their companies.
“I suppose that there will be no such moment when such a country as Austria will not be holding talks with a partner, which has intense relations with us, and will not be ready to negotiate with it,” the Austrian leader said.
“We know such a dialogue does not contradict any EU decision,” he added. What he meant is that nobody in Europe can tell Putin what to do.
* * *
As for the logistical issues of the pipeline, now that the agreement has been signed, they will all be resolved in due course: Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said earlier he was in weekly if not daily contact with European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger about winning approval for the South Stream project.
"We solve problems as they come up, and now the problem of construction of the pipeline is to be solved," Miller said.
The pipeline deal does not address the question of third-party access, which is required by EU law to prevent the owner of an energy source from monopolising its distribution channels. OMV's Roiss said the issue must be negotiated with Brussels. Roiss said the Austrian part of the pipeline, which is planned to be built in 2016 and deliver its first gas supplies around the start of 2017, would comply fully with European law.
Gazprom and OMV said they would split the 200 million euro ($272 million) costs of building the 50-km (31- mile) Austrian stretch of South Stream, which in total will be 2,446 km long. The total cost of the South Stream pipeline is $40 billion.
At the end of the day it's only capex: money that is more than returned to the investor in the long-run. America may remember capex - it's what companies did before they pushed financial engineering beyond the edge, all in the pursuit of short-term capital appreciation gains. And if Gazprom can't fund it, we are confident China would be delighted to invest in the project by buying a few billion Renminbi-denominated bonds.
* * *
So congratulations to Putin: today he merely further cemented his status as Europe's default energy provider. But not only that. As Reuters noted some politicians have warned that Putin may try to exploit divisions between friendly EU states, such as neutral Austria with its traditionally good ties to Moscow, and those like Britain that want to take a harder line.
"Obviously ... Putin wants to split the European Union. That's nothing new. That's what the Russians always try to do when they are in a corner," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told Austrian broadcaster ORF on Monday.
Well, Mr. Bildt, Russia certainly succeeded in sowing the seeds of even more discord in the European Union, whose most stable country just sided with Putin and told all of its European "partners", Merkel and Cameron included, a big fuck you. As for your completely wrong remark about just who is "in the corner" we will let it slip: after all, as that other European career politician Jean-Claude Juncker taught us, when it gets serious, you have to lie.
Funny thing is, I like talking about politics.
It would appear that Russia has been convinced to stop instigating violence in Ukraine. There was a lot of unPatriotic talk amongst some of the Americans on the forum and in the media about how O'Bama was strategically and tactically inept.
It would seem that the the usurpation of power in Ukraine that began with the former gov rejecting closer ties with Europe has taken hold.
So like, shall the anti Obamans now shriek about something else? (perhaps they will sue him for not overstepping his legal powers and simply bus refugee children back home without a court hearing?)
It would appear that Russia has been convinced to stop instigating violence in Ukraine. There was a lot of unPatriotic talk amongst some of the Americans on the forum and in the media about how O'Bama was strategically and tactically inept.
It would seem that the the usurpation of power in Ukraine that began with the former gov rejecting closer ties with Europe has taken hold.
So like, shall the anti Obamans now shriek about something else? (perhaps they will sue him for not overstepping his legal powers and simply bus refugee children back home without a court hearing?)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/28/ukraine-accuses-russia-invading-south-east-help-rebels
"Russia's denials appear increasingly flimsy. When the Guardian saw a Russian armoured column cross the border two weeks ago, the foreign ministry and local security services denied any incursion had taken place, saying it was a border patrol that had not strayed into Ukrainian territory.
Earlier this week, when Russian paratroopers were captured well inside Ukraine, sources in the defence ministry also said they had been part of a border patrol that had got lost and entered Ukraine "by accident".
The head of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, admitted on Thursday that there are serving Russian soldiers among his fighters, but claimed they were volunteers who were taking a holiday in the region.
"Among the Russian volunteers there are many former soldiers, who are fighting alongside us and understand that it's their duty," said Zakharchenko in an interview with Russian television. "And moreover, I'll say it openly, we also have current soldiers, who decided to take their holidays not on the beach, but among us.""
"Russia's denials appear increasingly flimsy. When the Guardian saw a Russian armoured column cross the border two weeks ago, the foreign ministry and local security services denied any incursion had taken place, saying it was a border patrol that had not strayed into Ukrainian territory.
Earlier this week, when Russian paratroopers were captured well inside Ukraine, sources in the defence ministry also said they had been part of a border patrol that had got lost and entered Ukraine "by accident".
The head of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, admitted on Thursday that there are serving Russian soldiers among his fighters, but claimed they were volunteers who were taking a holiday in the region.
"Among the Russian volunteers there are many former soldiers, who are fighting alongside us and understand that it's their duty," said Zakharchenko in an interview with Russian television. "And moreover, I'll say it openly, we also have current soldiers, who decided to take their holidays not on the beach, but among us.""
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28968526
Ukraine conflict: Russian families look for soldier sons
"Valeria Sokolova, the wife of one of the paratroopers, told AFP news agency that coffins with the bodies of local servicemen had arrived in the town on Wednesday. There is no independent confirmation.
So far there are two confirmed sightings of funerals of servicemen deployed to Rostov.
Two freshly dug graves were discovered this week near the north-western town of Pskov, home to another well-known paratrooper division. They belong to 29-year-old Leonid Kichatkin and Alexander Osipov, aged 20. According to the inscriptions on the gravestones, they died on 19 and 20 August.
Correspondents who visited the cemetery on Tuesday, the day after the funeral, were pelted with stones and the tyres of their car were slashed. "Apparently, someone is keeping a close watch over this cemetery," said Vladimir Romensky of TV Rain."
Local journalists' attempts to meet relatives of the dead soldiers had to be aborted after threats from a group of aggressive men. Similar threats were issued to a Reuters correspondent the next day.
So far, there has not been any official explanation of these two deaths. The plaques with the soldiers' names were later removed from both graves.
The long-rumoured involvement of Russia's military in Ukraine tallies with the reports of a sudden loss of contact between soldiers and their relatives, posted on social networks, websites and regional media."
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/mothers-pressure-russia/1334610.html
"KOSTROMA: Several dozen women gathered on Thursday (Aug 28) outside a military base in central Russia to demand Moscow come clean about where their husbands are after reports of secret funerals for soldiers covertly sent to fight in Ukraine.
The young women - mostly in their 20s, a few with small children - huddled outside a base that houses paratroopers in Kostroma. Some 350 soldiers from the city north of Moscow were sent on military drills to the border with Ukraine and then went incommunicado, said one of the women, 26-year-old Valeria Sokolova. Several of the soldiers have apparently been returned in pine boxes, she said, adding that about 15 wounded soldiers were also flown back earlier this week.
(...) Sokolova said she last heard from her husband on Saturday when he told her that he and his comrades had received their marching orders. "Some will ride in tanks and I will be in a Kamaz (truck)," her 25-year-old husband told her without specifying where they were being sent. She said it was an unusually warm goodbye. "He said 'I'll come back, I love you,'" Sokolova said, adding the soldiers had been told to take winter clothes with them.
Another woman said her son, Yegor Pochtoyev, was among those detained by Ukrainian authorities. "He is now in a detention centre in Kiev," his mother Olga Garina told AFP by phone from Kostroma. She said he was taking part in drills but then ended up in Ukraine.
(...)Russian independent media have widely reported on the funerals of two paratroopers that were held in secret in northwestern Russia, citing mourners as saying they were killed in Ukraine.
A rights group that campaigns against abuses in the armed forces has drawn up a list of 400 soldiers believed to have been injured or killed in Ukraine, Moscow's Rain TV station reported this week. Officials would only say that the reports of the funerals were being looked into and deny Russian troops are deployed in Ukraine."
Ukraine conflict: Russian families look for soldier sons
"Valeria Sokolova, the wife of one of the paratroopers, told AFP news agency that coffins with the bodies of local servicemen had arrived in the town on Wednesday. There is no independent confirmation.
So far there are two confirmed sightings of funerals of servicemen deployed to Rostov.
Two freshly dug graves were discovered this week near the north-western town of Pskov, home to another well-known paratrooper division. They belong to 29-year-old Leonid Kichatkin and Alexander Osipov, aged 20. According to the inscriptions on the gravestones, they died on 19 and 20 August.
Correspondents who visited the cemetery on Tuesday, the day after the funeral, were pelted with stones and the tyres of their car were slashed. "Apparently, someone is keeping a close watch over this cemetery," said Vladimir Romensky of TV Rain."
Local journalists' attempts to meet relatives of the dead soldiers had to be aborted after threats from a group of aggressive men. Similar threats were issued to a Reuters correspondent the next day.
So far, there has not been any official explanation of these two deaths. The plaques with the soldiers' names were later removed from both graves.
The long-rumoured involvement of Russia's military in Ukraine tallies with the reports of a sudden loss of contact between soldiers and their relatives, posted on social networks, websites and regional media."
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/mothers-pressure-russia/1334610.html
"KOSTROMA: Several dozen women gathered on Thursday (Aug 28) outside a military base in central Russia to demand Moscow come clean about where their husbands are after reports of secret funerals for soldiers covertly sent to fight in Ukraine.
The young women - mostly in their 20s, a few with small children - huddled outside a base that houses paratroopers in Kostroma. Some 350 soldiers from the city north of Moscow were sent on military drills to the border with Ukraine and then went incommunicado, said one of the women, 26-year-old Valeria Sokolova. Several of the soldiers have apparently been returned in pine boxes, she said, adding that about 15 wounded soldiers were also flown back earlier this week.
(...) Sokolova said she last heard from her husband on Saturday when he told her that he and his comrades had received their marching orders. "Some will ride in tanks and I will be in a Kamaz (truck)," her 25-year-old husband told her without specifying where they were being sent. She said it was an unusually warm goodbye. "He said 'I'll come back, I love you,'" Sokolova said, adding the soldiers had been told to take winter clothes with them.
Another woman said her son, Yegor Pochtoyev, was among those detained by Ukrainian authorities. "He is now in a detention centre in Kiev," his mother Olga Garina told AFP by phone from Kostroma. She said he was taking part in drills but then ended up in Ukraine.
(...)Russian independent media have widely reported on the funerals of two paratroopers that were held in secret in northwestern Russia, citing mourners as saying they were killed in Ukraine.
A rights group that campaigns against abuses in the armed forces has drawn up a list of 400 soldiers believed to have been injured or killed in Ukraine, Moscow's Rain TV station reported this week. Officials would only say that the reports of the funerals were being looked into and deny Russian troops are deployed in Ukraine."
Last edited:
US sent troops into Ukraine ages ago
The US (ie the neo con zionists who control the US) basically supported the right wing neo-nazi groups to overthrow the democratically elected government in Kiev
They want to bring the Ukraine into the sphere of the EU, but this is an entirely selfish move as it will destroy the economy of the Ukraine the same way that the economies of many countries in the EU have been destroyed eg Greece, Spain, portugal etc (many more are sliding into chaos)
To achieve this the US has fomented violence and civil war
This has left the russians very concerned because all this is right on their border
The US has been discussing the possiblity of a first strike nuclear capability against russia and is trying to move all its missiles closer and closer. they even tested a new hypersonic weapon recently in alaska.
This aggression on the part of the US is moving the entire planet closer to world war 3 and sadly many civilians in the west are swallowing the lies of the mainstream media and don't realise what is going on or how it is them that will be reduced to nuclear dust if they continue to support aggressive zionist destabilisation around the world (we are all on the front line of a nuclear war)
One wonders just how blind people can get...
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/24/372559/us-to-send-military-advisers-to-ukraine/
US to send military advisers to Ukraine
Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:31AM GMT
The US military has announced plans to dispatch a team of advisers to Ukraine in a bid to assist Kiev in its military confrontation with pro-Russia forces in the east of the country.
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said the aim of deploying the US military team to Ukraine is to “shape and establish an enduring program for future US efforts to support the Ukrainian military through subject-matter expert teams and long-term advisers,” The Washington Times reported Tuesday.
The report also cites another Pentagon spokesperson, Eileen Lainez, as saying that “over the next weeks to months, additional items will move through the procurement process, including night-vision devices, thermal imagers, helmets, explosive-ordnance disposal robots, and additional radios.”
The US daily pointed to the support by hawkish Republican lawmakers for the US’s military support for Ukraine.
“Clearly, we have an interest in what happens in Ukraine and it’s far better to have an idea of where we can maximize any support we are willing to provide,” said California Representative Duncan Hunter as quoted in the report.
According to the report, earlier in the week, Arizona Senator John McCain criticized the “cowardly” US administration for failing “to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves.”
The alleged downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane over Ukraine last week has considerably raised tensions between the West, which backs the Ukrainian government, and Moscow.
MFB/HJL/HMV
The US (ie the neo con zionists who control the US) basically supported the right wing neo-nazi groups to overthrow the democratically elected government in Kiev
They want to bring the Ukraine into the sphere of the EU, but this is an entirely selfish move as it will destroy the economy of the Ukraine the same way that the economies of many countries in the EU have been destroyed eg Greece, Spain, portugal etc (many more are sliding into chaos)
To achieve this the US has fomented violence and civil war
This has left the russians very concerned because all this is right on their border
The US has been discussing the possiblity of a first strike nuclear capability against russia and is trying to move all its missiles closer and closer. they even tested a new hypersonic weapon recently in alaska.
This aggression on the part of the US is moving the entire planet closer to world war 3 and sadly many civilians in the west are swallowing the lies of the mainstream media and don't realise what is going on or how it is them that will be reduced to nuclear dust if they continue to support aggressive zionist destabilisation around the world (we are all on the front line of a nuclear war)
One wonders just how blind people can get...
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/24/372559/us-to-send-military-advisers-to-ukraine/
US to send military advisers to Ukraine
Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:31AM GMT
26
The US military has announced plans to dispatch a team of advisers to Ukraine in a bid to assist Kiev in its military confrontation with pro-Russia forces in the east of the country.
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said the aim of deploying the US military team to Ukraine is to “shape and establish an enduring program for future US efforts to support the Ukrainian military through subject-matter expert teams and long-term advisers,” The Washington Times reported Tuesday.
While noting that US President Barack Obama has ordered the deployment, the right-wing daily added, “Within the next few weeks, a group of Defense Department representatives who specialize in strategy and policy will head to Kiev to evaluate specific programs that the United States may want to help bolster.”
The report said that the US Defense Department has provided Ukraine with radios, individual first-aid kits, sleeping mats, neck gaiters, jackets and body armor, “but stopped short of offering anything that the country’s defense officials have requested that could be perceived as direct military assistance.”The report also cites another Pentagon spokesperson, Eileen Lainez, as saying that “over the next weeks to months, additional items will move through the procurement process, including night-vision devices, thermal imagers, helmets, explosive-ordnance disposal robots, and additional radios.”
The US daily pointed to the support by hawkish Republican lawmakers for the US’s military support for Ukraine.
“Clearly, we have an interest in what happens in Ukraine and it’s far better to have an idea of where we can maximize any support we are willing to provide,” said California Representative Duncan Hunter as quoted in the report.
According to the report, earlier in the week, Arizona Senator John McCain criticized the “cowardly” US administration for failing “to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves.”
The alleged downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane over Ukraine last week has considerably raised tensions between the West, which backs the Ukrainian government, and Moscow.
MFB/HJL/HMV
It has to be so......how could it be anything else. The clarity of your vision is overwhelming.
There is plenty of evidence out there that the zionists control congress (the neo-cons are all zionists) and we also know about US involvement in Ukraine so.......it is factually correct to say that the zionists are meddling in the Ukraine
I watched a distrubing documentary called 'donbass a chronicle of genocide' made by Ukrainians on the front line of the whole mess and they say as much at the end of the clip. They also expose the lies of the zionist backed Ukrainian government that they weren't shelling civilians (there's nothing like raw footage to expose a lie). I don't want to post it here due to graphic images but i can PM it to you if you want to know whats going on straight from the horses mouth...
The very fact that russia is standing up against the zionists should also be a bit of a clue to you about what its all about
Russia has made it clear that all trade agreements with the Ukraine will need to be re-written if they go over to the zionist controllled EU. This will cost ukraine billions and billions of pounds that it doesn't have
The amount of lies coming from the zionist backed Kiev government is incredible as it bombs and shells its own civilians. One wonders what kind of people would do this to anyone let alone their own countrymen...unless of course they are being controlled by outside forces who just don't care
Some people are trying to give a voice to the eastern Ukrainians that is not being allowed by the zionist dominated western corporate media
The following article has graphic images so be warned if you click on the link
http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/enemies-ukraine-speak/
Our ‘Enemies’ in Ukraine Speak
America’s ‘news’ media do not let the victims of Ukraine’s civil war — the people who are dying and being driven out from the southeastern regions of that country by the new Ukrainian Government — speak, and tell their story. Scenes will therefore be posted below from an admittedly overlong amateur video from southeastern Ukraine, in which they have been allowed to tell their story. This is being done here since U.S. ‘news’ media apparently don’t consider it something that you would want to know, and since you should be allowed to judge for yourself whether it is or not, and to judge why it’s not being reported on the ‘news’ sources that our ‘democracy’ offers to ‘inform’ America’s public about public affairs. It is also being done because these still photos from the documentary summarize this over-long documentary’s important narrative. You are welcomed to click onto the link above to see the entire 82-minute documentary.
First, there will here be an introductory paragraph summary of the relevant background (not discussed in the documentary), if you want to know that: In February 2014, our State Department and CIA used ‘false flag,’ or engineered-so-as-to-be-misinterpreted, violence by our country’s paid Ukrainian agents, in order to exploit the ‘Maidan’ demonstrations in Kiev, the desire of Ukrainians for a less-corrupt government than existed in Ukraine, and than has existed in Ukraine ever since the fall of communism there. Our Government, the Obama Administration, paid masked gunmen there to dress as if they were from the State Security Force of the corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and to shoot at and murder not just policemen but anti-Yanukovych or ‘democracy’ demonstrators. (However, Yanukovych had, in fact, himself been democratically elected in 2010, and still was the democratically elected President.) (NOTE: The complete key phone-transcript whose audio is briefly heard excerpted there is printed here.) And our gunmen also threatened some members of the Ukrainian Parliament at gunpoint, and engineered their approval of an emergency replacement of Yanukovych’s government by one that was appointed by Obama’s agent, Victoria Nuland, and that was headed by Nuland’s friend “Yats,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
This new government was filled with people who stated their desire to exterminate the people in Ukraine’s southeast, the people who had voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych — to just get rid of them. Doing that would make Obama’s regime in Ukraine become permanent. Then, Ukraine held a ‘democratic’ election in which voters everywhere but in the southeast voted, and essentially the same coup-installed people remained in power. The billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko was elected as the President of ‘Ukraine’; and Victoria Nuland’s chosen leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, continued on as the new country’s Prime Minister. Yatsenyuk fired the previous Defense Minister and replaced him with Mikhail Koval, who on June 11th announced a program of ethnic cleansing in the southeast. This was actually a direct extension from the program that had already started with the extermination on May 2nd of hundreds of supporters of the previous government, who were trapped inside the Trade Unions Building in Odessa and burned alive there. This massacre was masterminded by people who were installed by the Obama Administration.
That massacre started Ukraine’s civil war, by demonstrating to people throughout the southeast, that the newly Obama-installed Ukrainian Government wanted to kill them. It was now official policy throughout the southeastern portion of Ukraine, to kill the Obama-installed regime’s opponents. All of the residents there were being officially labelled by the Obama government as ‘terrorists,’ and their elimination was declared to be a patriotic necessity for Ukraine. However, this amateur documentary from Ukraine’s southeast — the video from which the scenes below are taken — presents the resulting civil war not from the Obama Government’s side, but from their regime’s victims’ side, which is hardly heard at all in the West.
Since this amateur documentary presents the unvarnished reality of an actual ethnic cleansing campaign in progress, corpses and parts of corpses are necessarily shown, and also bombed buildings are shown. There also are curse-words that are spoken by the victims. Censoring these things out would be a violation of the most basic requirements of honest journalism, and would be to cover-up the reality of an ethnic-cleansing campaign, merely because this reality is ugly — that would be a shameful thing to do, a fundamental violation of the journalistic standards of any democracy, and will not be done here, though it is routinely done by our ‘journalists.’
Well Stu you are causing a derailment of the thread here by asking me that so can we get back to the ukraine please
The bit about the zionists is at the end of the donbass documentary
But you can hear various cemmentators for example media people, ex intelligence service people, politicians etc saying that the zionists control the congress (also you should look into the neo-cons)
For example here is an ex CIA guy telling you that the zionists control the US congress
[video=youtube;D_T1VrzdaKs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_T1VrzdaKs[/video]
[video=youtube;4IgkO7ir-s4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IgkO7ir-s4[/video]
Unless of course you think he's lying
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