Ukraine

[Artashes]

Re: Ukraine

More proof of what I have been saying.
EX-ITALIAN PM MONTI: EUROPE CAN'T APPEAR TO BE 'TOOL OF US INTERESTS'

Published time: February 10, 2015 11:05

http://on.rt.com/7ba3qf

Italy's former Prime Minister Mario Monti (Reuters)

Washington's potential willingness to arm the Ukrainian military has
elicited an unusually frank reaction from former Italian PM Mario
Monti, who warned that Europe must not be viewed merely as "tool"
of US global interests.

READ MORE: Le Pen says Washington attempting to start 'war in Europe'

Recently speaking on private Italian broadcaster LA7, Monti warned that
there was a definite risk of the conflict in Ukraine spilling over.

"For now it's a limited war, but be careful, you [advocates of arming
Ukraine] are creating among Europeans a climate of mistrust and mutual
misunderstanding that could take us too far," he said.

When asked how he felt about Washington's recent proposal that it
could send defensive lethal arms to the Ukrainian military, including
anti-tank and anti-mortar systems, Monti said he believed such a move
would prove "intolerable" to Russia.

READ MORE: Sarkozy: Crimea cannot be blamed for joining Russia

"I believe that the United States does not always realize that Europe
has its problems, and cannot be seen only as a tool of the global
interests of the United States," he said.

Monti also noted how the West had to make a choice in its decision
to break with Russia, noting that it might be forced to pay a high
cost while losing an ally "in containing terrorism."

Long viewed as a technocratic leader and Brussels insider, Monti,
who took over the reins from Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, has been a
perennial voice of moderation in Europe.

His comments echo similar statements made by former French Prime
minister Francois Fillon, who told public broadcaster France 5 on
Sunday that the US was attempting to "unleash a war in Europe, which
would end in catastrophe."

Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that
Europe is part of "a common civilization with Russia," saying they
needed to avoid conflict on the continent.

"The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests
of Europe and Russia," he said, adding that,"we do not want the
revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia."

The leader of France's rightwing National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen,
similarly took Brussels to task for not forming a Ukraine policy that
was independent from Washington's position.

"European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent
on US positions on Ukraine," Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.

"Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys," she said,
before warning that "the aim of the Americans is to start a war in
Europe to push NATO to the Russian border."

Agree with above post.
I can tell you USA road game now ... With the equipment USA wants to send to Ukraine , Russia will be forced to strike deeper into Ukraine to neutralize this. Then USA can say ... See Russia is the aggressor and we must act!!!
USA wants to have a protracted conflict on someone else's territory. They (USA) would love to force Russia into expending more time/energy/money to entangle them, no matter what the cost to other countries in lives and stability.
War is good business for USA military/INDUSTRIAL complex.
The cost to print an American dollar means a high profit margin for the elite warmongers.

[Artashes]

Re: Ukraine

More proof of what I have been saying.
EX-ITALIAN PM MONTI: EUROPE CAN'T APPEAR TO BE 'TOOL OF US INTERESTS'

Published time: February 10, 2015 11:05

http://on.rt.com/7ba3qf

Italy's former Prime Minister Mario Monti (Reuters)

Washington's potential willingness to arm the Ukrainian military has
elicited an unusually frank reaction from former Italian PM Mario
Monti, who warned that Europe must not be viewed merely as "tool"
of US global interests.

READ MORE: Le Pen says Washington attempting to start 'war in Europe'

Recently speaking on private Italian broadcaster LA7, Monti warned that
there was a definite risk of the conflict in Ukraine spilling over.

"For now it's a limited war, but be careful, you [advocates of arming
Ukraine] are creating among Europeans a climate of mistrust and mutual
misunderstanding that could take us too far," he said.

When asked how he felt about Washington's recent proposal that it
could send defensive lethal arms to the Ukrainian military, including
anti-tank and anti-mortar systems, Monti said he believed such a move
would prove "intolerable" to Russia.

READ MORE: Sarkozy: Crimea cannot be blamed for joining Russia

"I believe that the United States does not always realize that Europe
has its problems, and cannot be seen only as a tool of the global
interests of the United States," he said.

Monti also noted how the West had to make a choice in its decision
to break with Russia, noting that it might be forced to pay a high
cost while losing an ally "in containing terrorism."

Long viewed as a technocratic leader and Brussels insider, Monti,
who took over the reins from Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, has been a
perennial voice of moderation in Europe.

His comments echo similar statements made by former French Prime
minister Francois Fillon, who told public broadcaster France 5 on
Sunday that the US was attempting to "unleash a war in Europe, which
would end in catastrophe."

Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that
Europe is part of "a common civilization with Russia," saying they
needed to avoid conflict on the continent.

"The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests
of Europe and Russia," he said, adding that,"we do not want the
revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia."

The leader of France's rightwing National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen,
similarly took Brussels to task for not forming a Ukraine policy that
was independent from Washington's position.

"European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent
on US positions on Ukraine," Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.

"Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys," she said,
before warning that "the aim of the Americans is to start a war in
Europe to push NATO to the Russian border."

Agree with above post.
I can tell you USA road game now ... With the equipment USA wants to send to Ukraine , Russia will be forced to strike deeper into Ukraine to neutralize this. Then USA can say ... See Russia is the aggressor and we must act!!!
USA wants to have a protracted conflict on someone else's territory. They (USA) would love to force Russia into expending more time/energy/money to entangle them, no matter what the cost to other countries in lives and stability.
War is good business for USA military/INDUSTRIAL complex.
The cost to print an American dollar means a high profit margin for the elite warmongers.

Kruschev's mistake has been rectified. Crimea is Russia again and will remain so henceforth .
USA knows Russia will not tolerate Ukraine becoming a USA military base.
The Ukraine govt is an installed puppet of the west to further western (USA/England) ambitions.
A heartless politicle move by the greed ridden elite of the west.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

EU member Cyprus wants Russian security. This tells you a lot about the meaningless promises of the EU. You cannot have economic development nor anything else without security. I wish all the Armenians chasing after western tail would finely understand this simple fact with this one being a very applicable real example.

RUSSIA DOES NOT NEED BASES ON CYPRUS - MILITARY EXPERT

Interfax, Russia
Feb 9 2015

MOSCOW. Feb 9

Russia does not need military bases on Cyprus, especially considering
the current economic climate, former chief of the international
agreements division of the Russian Defense Ministry's main
international cooperation department Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky said.

"Sure, we do not need them [the bases], especially given the
present-day economic conditions," Buzhinsky, PIR Center Board Chairman,
told Interfax-AVN on Monday.

He was commenting on a statement by Cypriot President Nikos
Anastasiadis who said Cyprus was prepared to consider the deployment
of Russian air and naval bases on the island.

In the opinion of Buzhinsky, "Cyprus must need something, it wants
money and is ready to do anything. It is especially amusing that they
are offering [Russia] to open its base near Akrotiri, the location
of a British military base."

Being a member of the European Union, Cyprus is part of the sphere of
influence of the Europeans and the Americans, primarily, the Brits,
he said.

"So, all this talk about Russian bases on Cyprus reminds me of Cyprus'
"procurement" of S-300 missile systems. It even paid the bill, but
the S-300 systems were finally deployed in Greece because no one would
let Cyprus to deploy Russian-made air defense systems," Buzhinsky said.

Speaking of Greek media reports regarding the Russian government's
request for leasing an air base on Cyprus, a military diplomat told
Interfax-AVN in Moscow earlier that the Russian army did not have an
operative need to deploy an airbase in the Mediterranean but it could
temporarily use the Cypriot territory, for instance, for possible
evacuation of Russian citizens from conflict-ridden Syria.

"The Russian army has no operative need to station an airbase on
Cyprus, because the Russian Defense Ministry does not posses a regional
group which will require support from such base," the source said.

"Most probably, it could be the question of temporary use, with the
consent of the Cypriot side, of some airfield for possible evacuation
of Russian citizens in the case of escalated tensions in Syria,"
he continued.

"The situation around that country [Syria] has changed, and Russia
has contributed to that by its efforts," the source said.

At present, Russian airbases are deployed outside the national
territory wherever Russia has army forces, i.e. in Kyrgyzstan,
Armenia and Tajikistan, he said.

Western media, which commented on the statement by Anastasiadis,
said that a formal agreement on military cooperation between Russia
and Cyprus might be signed on February 25, 2015.

[londontsi]

Re: Ukraine

Poroshenko appoints exiled former Georgian leader as ‘non-staff advisor’

http://rt.com/news/232275-poroshenko-saakashvili-advisor-appointment/

Ukraine’s head of state Petro Poroshenko appointed former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as his non-staff advisor, according to a new decree.
Saakashvili is wanted for trial at home, as he is accused of corruption and brutality against protesters.......

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

The rebels have taken the strategic town securing a connecting railway bringing together the two main rebel cities. The seize fire is now holding as the government troops retreat from the contested city of Debaltseve.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

USA sending soldiers and weapons to Ukraine.

http://rt.com/news/236953-us-logistics-troops-ukraine/

[Artashes]

Re: Ukraine

Agree with above post.
I can tell you USA road game now ... With the equipment USA wants to send to Ukraine , Russia will be forced to strike deeper into Ukraine to neutralize this. Then USA can say ... See Russia is the aggressor and we must act!!!
USA wants to have a protracted conflict on someone else's territory. They (USA) would love to force Russia into expending more time/energy/money to entangle them, no matter what the cost to other countries in lives and stability.
War is good business for USA military/INDUSTRIAL complex.
The cost to print an American dollar means a high profit margin for the elite warmongers.

USA sending soldiers and weapons to Ukraine.
http://rt.com/news/236953-us-logistics-troops-ukraine/

Good analysis in the last post.
It's a given both USA & Russia have been supplying arms to their respective Ukraine forces.
The Russian supported contingent is kicking the western supported contingents ass.
The 300 USA tech support + Britain support are bringing in high tech target acquisition equipment and training personell to counter the successful Russian supported separatists.
This means more bloodshed.
These moves can be countered in several ways by the pro Russian side. Most common is air strikes. But that does not exclude other viable options.
USA is drawing Russia in.
Russia is prepared.

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

By LORNE COOK

The Associated Press
BRUSSELS —
Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement late Monday to ensure natural gas supplies to war-torn Ukraine for the month of March, averting possible cuts that could have hit supplies to the European Union.

The two countries have fought several gas price wars in past years and Moscow had been threatening to turn off the taps to Ukraine on Tuesday unless it received outstanding pre-payments, as agreed in a deal they clinched last October, the so-called winter package.

"I am satisfied that we managed to safeguard the full application of the winter package for the supply needs in Ukraine," said EU energy chief Maros Sefcovic after mediating emergency talks between Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Demchyshyn.

Demchyshyn said that both parties had agreed "to obey the rules" until the end of March.

Under the deal sealed in Brussels, Ukraine's Naftogaz will pre-pay and order sufficient quantities of gas to ensure all domestic consumption for March and guarantee undisrupted supplies to the EU. Gazprom commits to supply a set quantity of natural gas each day at agreed on delivery points.

The European Union imports around 40 percent of its gas from Russia, half through Ukraine.

Complicating the dispute has been deliveries to Ukraine's rebel-held east, where fighting between Kiev's forces and Russia-backed rebels has killed more than 6,000 people.

Kiev cut gas supplies to rebel-held areas last week, prompting Russia to pump gas there directly. Russia said those deliveries should be counted in gas exports to Ukraine.

Under the agreement, Kiev and Moscow acknowledged that the supply issue in eastern Ukraine "is highly complex in legal, technical and political terms", and they agreed that more discussions would be required, a statement said.

The EU's executive Commission has asked the two to propose possible agenda points for further talks before the end of March aimed at agreeing a new gas arrangement for coming months.

Copyright The Associated Press

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

THE U.S. AND RUSSIA: EXERCISES AND VENOM

Stratfor
March 6 2015

Geopolitical Diary
March 6, 2015

Three hundred U.S. paratroopers could soon be arriving in Lviv,
western Ukraine, for training exercises with the Ukrainian army. The
arrival of the troops, which was signaled several weeks ago and
alluded to as recently as Monday by the commander of the U.S. 173rd
Airborne Brigade -- the unit that would supply the troops -- would
represent a significant event in the Ukraine crisis. No matter how
few or what their mission, these are U.S. combat forces. The United
States would at that point have taken the step of openly deploying
combat forces in Ukraine, something that had not happened in some
time, taking the U.S. relationship with Ukraine to a new level. It
signals to the Russians that Ukraine, however informally, is now in a
special relationship with the United States. At the same time, military
exercises are taking place in the Black Sea involving a U.S. warship
and cruiser and Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish assets. It is a fairly
routine exercise, but under these circumstances, what had been routine
now takes on special meaning.

Russian forces are conducting exercises as well in southern Russia and
the North Caucasus, including Armenia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As
significant, the exercises extend to Crimea. They focus on air
defense. Significantly, both NATO and the Russians are conducting
exercises around the Baltics.

Armies exercise all the time, but context is everything. Before
the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, the United States was exercising
with Georgian forces while the Russians were conducting exercises
just north of Georgia. The Americans went home when the exercise
ended. The Russians stayed put: The exercise was the preface for the
Russian move into Georgia. Similarly, what has been routine before
now is not necessarily routine right now.

What is a Geopolitical Diary? George Friedman Explains.

The United States has indicated it may introduce a small force into
Ukraine. The Russians may easily view that as a preface to a larger
force. According to Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Russian
Security Council: "The U.S. is funding political groups under the
guise of promoting civil society, just as in the color revolutions in
the former Soviet Union and the Arab world. At the same time, the U.S.

is using the sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine as a
pretext to inflict economic pain and stoke discontent. It's clear
that the White House has been counting on a sharp deterioration in
Russians' standard of living, mass protests." Others in Russia are
charging that the United States is trying to overthrow President
Vladimir Putin, and some that the CIA murdered Russian opposition
leader Boris Nemtsov to generate protests. Meanwhile, the assumption
on the U.S. side is that Putin had Nemtsov murdered.

The atmosphere has become increasingly toxic. Under the circumstances,
every military exercise must be taken seriously for its implications.

U.S. exercises in Ukraine and the Black Sea can be viewed as the dress
rehearsal for naval action and larger forces. On the American side,
the emphasis on air defenses raises the possibility of a Russian
move to the west. If the Russians were to attack Ukraine, and the
Americans chose to resist, the primary means available would be air
power designed to strike at armor concentrations. The Russian counter
is not its own air force, which is limited, but rather its mobile
and strategic surface-to-air missiles to deny aircraft access to the
skies over the attackers. Therefore, of all the exercises to cause
potential concern in the United States concerning Russian intentions,
exercising this capability would raise the specter of a potential
Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There is, of course, a certain hollowness to all this rhetoric and
maneuvering. This is not 1980, with massive forces carefully trained
and deployed on both sides. The United States is planning to send a
battalion of paratroopers. That really isn't much. The Russian army
is a shadow of the Soviet army, and its ability to move even with
minimal resistance is limited.

At the same time, the rhetoric and the charges disproportionate to
the forces available are still noteworthy. The head of the Russian
Security Council has essentially accused the United States of trying
to cripple the Russian Federation. The Americans are saying that the
Russians have violated the territory of a sovereign state and must
be repelled. And the death of Nemtsov has triggered charges against
both the FSB and the CIA.

It is difficult to see how either side backs off its position; this has
become an American-Russian confrontation. Both are increasingly locking
themselves into a hostile posture. Neither is in a position to launch
a war, but both are ultimately capable of waging one. We expected a new
Cold War between the United States and Russia, but we are surprised at
the speed and venom that is framing this confrontation. The force is
not there to match the venom, but given the intensity, no one should
be confident that the force will not be generated.

https://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/us-and-russia-exercises-and-venom

[Haykakan]

Re: Ukraine

EU A TOOL IN AMERICA'S SHOWDOWN WITH RUSSIA - PISKORSKI

(c) Sputnik/ Leonid Sviridov
EUROPE
12:03 16.03.2015(updated 14:13 16.03.2015)
81781
The EU is instrumental in Washington's struggle with Russia and it
won't be long before Europeans finally realize that this tactic simply
makes no sense, a prominent Polish political scientist believes.

(c) AP PHOTO/ YVES LOGGHE EU Holds Back 'Zealous' Partners on New
Anti-Russia Sanctions - Deputy FM The United States started using
the EU as a tool in its anti-Moscow campaign right after Crimea
reunited with Russia in March 2014, Mateusz Piskorski, a prominent
Polish political analyst and the head of the European Center for
Geopolitical Analysis, a Szczecin-based think-tank on international
relations and geopolitics, told RIA news agency.

A year ago Piskorski was in Crimea coordinating the work of a team
of international monitors overseeing the March 2014 referendum where
the Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to rejoin the Russian Federation.

"For the mere fact that I went to Crimea and monitored the voting
process there I was immediately vilified by the Polish media and
politicians for allegedly causing damage to my country and the West
as a whole... In just overnight I became an enemy of my country
only because I saw with my own eyes everything that was happening in
Crimea," Piskorski said.

"The Crimeans simply used their right for self-determination which
US President Woodrow Wilson formulated almost a century ago," he added.

"They did so in a situation where the Ukrainian state had stopped
fulfilling its fundamental obligations to its citizens and started
treating them as an enemy."

Piskorski said the crisis in Ukraine led to unprecedented economic
sanctions against Russia and its people, sanctions which are equally
detrimental to the economic interests of both Russia and the European
Union.

"In 2014 these sanctions cost the European farmers about seven billion
euros in losses, and the closer a country was to Russia, the higher
the losses incurred," Piskorski noted.

Finland, too, found itself on the losing end, along with Poland,
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Greece, Italy and Spain.

In Poland the sharp drop in agricultural production caused by the
sanctions led to mass protests by domestic producers.

"The original purpose of the sanctions, that is to bring pressure on
Russia, was never achieved, but the Americans are still working hard
to keep it up," Mateusz Piskorski said.

Read more:

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150316/1019543575.html#ixzz3UY3Gjcna