Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

[Rory]

https://www.apnews.com/94fe1c68205a43ca96fcc89c88a7cc9f

Training kids to kill at Ukrainian nationalist camp
By YURAS KARMANAUNovember 12, 2018


KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The campers, some clad in combat fatigues, carefully aim their assault rifles. Their instructor offers advice: Don’t think of your target as a human being.

So when these boys and girls shoot, they will shoot to kill.

Most are in their teens, but some are as young as 8 years old. They are at a summer camp created by one of Ukraine’s radical nationalist groups, hidden in a forest in the west of the country, that was visited by The Associated Press. The camp has two purposes: to train children to defend their country from Russians and their sympathizers — and to spread nationalist ideology.

“We never aim guns at people,” instructor Yuri “Chornota” Cherkashin tells them. “But we don’t count separatists, little green men, occupiers from Moscow, as people. So we can and should aim at them.”

The nationalists have been accused of violence and racism, but they have played a central, volunteer role in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia — and they have maintained links with the government. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Youth and Sports earmarked 4 million hryvnias (about $150,000) to fund some of the youth camps among the dozens built by the nationalists. The purpose, according to the ministry, is “national patriotic education.”

Ministry spokeswoman Natalia Vernigora said the money is distributed by a panel which looks for “signs of xenophobia and discrimination, it doesn’t analyze activities of specific groups.”

Cherkashin is a veteran of the fight against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine; he was wounded in combat and later came to lead Sokil, or Falcon, the youth wing of the Svoboda party. It is important, he says, to inculcate the nation’s youth with nationalist thought, so they can battle Vladimir Putin’s Russia as well as “challenges that could completely destroy” European civilization.

Among those challenges: LGBT rights, which lecturers denounce as a sign of Western decadence.



“You need to be aware of all that,” said instructor Ruslan Andreiko. “All those gender things, all those perversions of modern Bolsheviks who have come to power in Europe and now try to make all those LGBT things like gay pride parades part of the education system.”

While some youths dozed off during lectures, others paid attention. Clearly, some were receptive.

During a break in training, a teenager played a nationalist march on his guitar. It was decorated with a sticker showing white bombs hitting a mosque, under the motto, “White Europe is Our Goal.”

Aside from the lectures — and songs around the campfire — life for the several dozen youths at the Svoboda camp was hard.

Campers were awakened in the middle of the night with a blast from a stun grenade. Stumbling out of their tents, soldiers in training struggled to hold AK-47s that were, in some cases, almost as tall as they were. They were required to carry the heavy rifles all day, and one of the girls broke down in tears from exhaustion.

At 18, Mykhailo was the oldest of the campers. The training, he said, was necessary.

“Every moment things can go wrong in our country. And one has to be ready for it,” he said. “That’s why I came to this camp. To study how to protect myself and my loved ones”

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Ukraine Braces for a Full-On Russian Invasion
8 hours ago
The Daily Signal
Nolan Peterson

Civilians walk past a sign indicating the nearest bomb shelter in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol—just miles from the front lines of the ongoing trench war between Russian and Ukrainian forces. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)
KYIV, Ukraine—Sunday’s Kerch Strait crisis underscored how quickly Russia’s simmering, 4.5-year-old, low-intensity war against Ukraine could escalate into a historic catastrophe.

“Yesterday we were close to war. In fact, war happened,” Capt. Andrii Ryzhenko, the Ukrainian navy’s deputy chief of staff for Euro-Atlantic integration, told The Daily Signal on Monday.

On Sunday, Russian ships fired on and captured three Ukrainian navy vessels approaching the Kerch Strait, a narrow waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The three Ukrainian vessels, two artillery boats and a tugboat, were in transit from Odesa to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Russian forces reportedly took 24 Ukrainian crew members prisoner during the maritime confrontation. Russia has already tried some of the captured Ukrainians as criminals. Kyiv, however, says the crews should be designated as prisoners of war, subject to the Geneva Conventions.

As of Wednesday, Ukraine’s armed forces remain on full alert. Martial law went into effect on Wednesday morning in 10 Ukrainian regions bordering Russian territory, as well as along the country’s Black Sea and Azov Sea coastlines. Ukrainian regions bordering the breakaway territory of Transnistria in Moldova, where Russia has stationed troops, are also under martial law.

The martial law status is scheduled to last for 30 days, Kyiv says.

Russia, for its part, announced on Wednesday the deployment of additional, advanced S-400 surface-to-air missiles to Crimea, a peninsula that Russia invaded and seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia already has three S-400 units deployed and activated in Crimea, according to Russian news reports. Thus, the entirety of Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov coastlines remains under the shadow of Russian surface-to-air missiles—a lethal prospect for Ukraine’s air force.


Ukrainian naval ships are seized by Russia, Nov. 26, 2018. (Photo: Xinhua News Agency/Newscom)

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, meanwhile, has been on a media blitz since Sunday, warning that an ongoing Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders could be a precursor to invasion.

“After the incident in the Azov Sea, we had to provide for the Ukrainian armed forces to repel a large-scale ground invasion,” Poroshenko tweeted Wednesday. “I want no one to think that this is fun and games. The country is under threat of a full-scale war with the Russian Federation.”

During a Tuesday roundtable with a trio of Ukrainian journalists, Poroshenko unveiled a binder of aerial photographs he said were provided by Ukrainian intelligence units. The photos were evidence, the Ukrainian president said, that since Sept. 17 Russia has tripled the number of tanks at a military base only 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Ukrainian border, underscoring a broader buildup of Russian forces within striking distance of Ukraine.

“The number of [Russian] units re-deployed along the entire length of our border has dramatically increased,” Poroshenko said.

On Wednesday in Mariupol—a Ukrainian port city of 500,000 people on the Sea of Azov—life was reportedly going on as normal, with no visible markers of either the enacted martial law or the military mobilization.

“Everything is as before, as if nothing happened,” Alexey Kelt, a 23- year-old Ukrainian combat veteran who lives in Mariupol told The Daily Signal.

Shattered Status Quo

Russia invaded Ukraine four and a half years ago, and the two erstwhile Soviet allies have been at war—albeit a limited, geographically quarantined one—ever since.

More than 10,300 Ukrainians have so far died in the conflict and on average one Ukrainian soldier still dies in combat every three days. The conflict is Europe’s only ongoing land war.

Since a shaky cease-fire, known as Minsk II, quelled the fighting in February 2015, the physical effects of the war have remained more or less geographically quarantined along a 250-mile-long static and entrenched front line in Ukraine’s embattled southeastern Donbas region. For the most part, the war has been fought from trenches and without the concurrent use of air or maritime forces.

Sunday’s seaborne confrontation, however, shattered the status quo military stalemate between Russia and Ukraine.

For one, it adds a maritime front to the ongoing trench war. It also marks the first time in four and a half years of constant combat that Russia has openly admitted to firing on Ukrainians.

“In fact, what happened on Nov. 25 is an extraordinary event,” Poroshenko said Tuesday.

“For the first time in four and a half years of Russian aggression, officially, without tearing off chevrons, without ‘little green men,’ Russian troops in large numbers attacked the ships of the armed forces of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.

Martial Law

According to some Ukrainian officials, the martial law that went into effect in parts of Ukraine on Wednesday was designed to cut down on the mobilization and deployment times required by Ukraine’s combined armed forces to defend against a Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s national security doctrine is a mix of conventional military force with the use of irregular, civilian territorial defense forces. Those irregular forces are meant to wage a guerilla war behind the front lines of an enemy invasion.

Thus, officials say that declaring martial law in those regions most vulnerable to a Russian attack puts Ukraine on a fast-tracked war footing now that Russia has signaled its intent to escalate the conflict.

“We already have an escalation and martial law is an opportunity to test the different systems of personnel management to find out our weaknesses and to improve them in case of further [Russian] escalation,” Alex Ryabchyn, a Ukrainian member of parliament, told The Daily Signal.

Echoing that line of thinking, on Wednesday Poroshenko tweeted his rationale for martial law in the context of military readiness: “We should not lose any moment in the event of open, full-scale ground aggression. Use everything: from mobilization to the operation of the territorial defense headquarters. Protecting people is our primary goal. Do not allow the aggressor to break through even farther.”

Thus, with Ukraine’s military—both its regular and irregular units—poised for war, some fear there is little breathing room in the current standoff to absorb another unforeseen crisis without it leading to catastrophe. A miscalculation by either side could spark an uncontrollable chain reaction leading to a general war, especially as the rhetoric between Kyiv and Moscow heats up.


Vladimir Lesovoy, a sailor of one of the three Ukrainian ships that were seized by the Federal Security Service of Russia on Nov. 25 in the Kerch Strait, is accused of illegal Russian border crossing, Nov. 28, 2018. (Photo: Viktor Korotaev/Kommersant Photo/Polaris/Newscom)
“Further escalation of the situation by the Russian Federation should not be ruled out,” Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, said at a Monday meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

“According to available intelligence data, there is a clear threat for the invasion and seizing of Mariupol and Berdyansk,” Yelchenko said.

Sunday’s maritime confrontation at the Kerch Strait was a chilling reminder for many Ukrainians of the spring and summer of 2014, when the war with Russia began and the possibility of a full-scale invasion hung over the country like a sword of Damocles.

As evidence of that volatile period, in cities across Ukraine, including the capital city of Kyiv, there are still spray-painted signs on the sides of many buildings pointing to the nearest bomb shelter.

“The situation in Azov Sea has reminded me of the same feeling during the scary days in 2014 in the Donbas. I was refreshing every five seconds the news tabs and Twitter trying to find new information about our sailors and our ships,” said Ryabchyn, the Ukrainian member of parliament.

“But this was the first official attack, not like in 2014 with the little green men without insignia in Crimea, or the so-called separatists,” Ryabchyn added, referring to the patchless Russian soldiers who invaded Crimea in 2014, as well as Russia’s proxy forces in eastern Ukraine.

A New Front

The Kerch Strait divides mainland Russia from the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia invaded and seized from Ukraine in 2014. The narrow maritime passage is the only outlet to the Sea of Azov, where Ukraine has two major ports.

This summer, Russian naval forces stepped up their harassment of Ukrainian merchant vessels in the Sea of Azov, spurring Kyiv to respond.

Along the Sea of Azov coastline, Ukraine has built a network of coastal defenses, including the creation of a new Marine brigade, as well as a new naval base at the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Russia’s 2014 takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula left 80 percent of Ukraine’s navy in the Kremlin’s hands. Rather than replace the blue-water warships lost in Crimea, however, Ukrainian military leaders have prioritized the creation of a “mosquito fleet” of shallow-water craft armed with advanced anti-ship weapons.

To that end, in September the U.S. Coast Guard handed over two of its decommissioned 110-foot armed cutters to Ukraine.

On Sept. 23, two Ukrainian navy vessels effectively ran Russia’s de facto blockade of the Sea of Azov. On that day, as Russian warplanes reportedly buzzed overhead, Russian ships escorted the two Ukrainian naval vessels, the Donbas and the Korets, as they passed through the Kerch Strait, Ukraine’s navy reported at the time.

Once through, the two Ukrainian navy ships were met by a pair of armored Ukrainian Gyurza-M class gunboats in the Sea of Azov, which served as escorts as the four vessels steamed toward the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, arriving there safely on Sept. 25.

The exercise underscored the burgeoning crisis between Russia and Ukraine over the right of free movement through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov.

Now, many Ukrainian officials and experts fear that Sunday’s maritime confrontation at the Kerch Strait could be the opening salvo of a stepped-up Russian gambit to consolidate its control over the entire Sea of Azov basin.

“Russian domination at the Sea of Azov could help to create so-called land corridor to Crimea. This is why Russia uses the boa constrictor strategy at sea,” Ihor Kabanenko, a retired Ukrainian navy admiral, told The Daily Signal.

“Ukraine needs naval forces in the Azov [Sea] to prevent the worst land scenario and to protect its economic interests by using maritime lines,” added Kabanenko, who also formerly served as military representative of Ukraine to NATO, chief of operations of the Ukrainian armed forces, and Ukraine’s deputy chief of defense.

Clear Threat

Since 2014, Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula has become a Russian military redoubt.

From October 2014 (eight months after Russia’s seizure of Crimea) to October 2018, the number of Russian troops in Crimea tripled, Poroshenko said on Tuesday, adding that Russia has also increased its stockpiles of armored personnel carriers, artillery systems, multiple-launch rocket systems, and has deployed more warplanes and ships to the peninsula.

“The buildup is still underway now,” Poroshenko said

“Crimea today continues to play the most important role in maintaining the country’s military security,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in June, the Russian news site TASS reported.

“In the peninsula there has been created a unique combined force and it is being strengthened steadily. Its advanced high-tech weapon systems will leave no chance for a potential enemy that may dare attack this indigenous Russian land,” Shoigu reportedly said.


The shoreline in Mariupol, a key Ukrainian port city on the Sea of Azov. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)
Beyond Crimea, Russia has positioned about 77,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders capable of launching a rapid, conventional land invasion, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said in April. At that time, Poltorak said Russia had 19 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine’s borders.

On Tuesday, however, a Ukrainian defense spokesman said the number of Russian battalion tactical groups “capable of carrying out combat missions” in Ukrainian territory had risen to 25.

“Since 2013, the Russian Federation has been modernizing its entire airfield network along the Ukrainian border, upgrading the fleet of combat aircraft, and expanding the capabilities of army aviation,” said Vadym Skibitsky, a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, during a Tuesday press conference in Kyiv.

“About 500 combat aircraft of tactical aviation and up to 340 helicopters of army aviation have currently been deployed along the border with Ukraine,” Skibitsky said.

Moreover, inside the two breakaway territories in the Donbas, there are currently about 3,000 Russian soldiers embedded within a larger force of about 34,000 pro-Russian separatists, and foreign mercenaries.

Ukraine, for its part, has about 60,000 troops deployed to the eastern war zone with tens of thousands more deployed to its southern coastal regions, ready to rapidly defend its coastlines on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Geopolitical Earthquake

Today, Ukraine’s combined military ranks comprise about 250,000 active-duty troops and roughly 80,000 reservists. On the Continent, only Russia’s military is bigger.

Ukraine’s revamped strategic military doctrine now identifies Russia as the country’s top security threat and treats the threat of a major war with Russia with lethal earnestness.

Since 2014, Ukraine has focused on boosting its land warfare units—a reflection of the immediate combat needs of the war in the Donbas.

Yet, with the threat of a Russian invasion in mind, this year Ukraine has stepped up rebuilding its navy and air force, too. Still, Ukraine remains outmatched by Russia’s combined armed forces, some Ukrainian military officials say.


Activists of opposition parties burn flares during a rally demanding to break an agreement with Russia on the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait in front of the parliament building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Nov. 26, 2018. (Photo: Gleb Garanich/Reuters/Newscom)
“We are not ready for the war with Russia at sea, even in proactive and asymmetric way,” said Ryzhenko, the Ukrainian navy deputy chief of staff.

Beyond Ukraine, the war’s fallout has reshaped the balance of power in Eastern Europe since 2014, spurring countries across the region to rapidly militarize to defend themselves against the contemporary Russian threat. And when it comes to Russia’s ongoing, multi-domain conflict against the West—all roads lead back to Ukraine.

“In many ways, the future viability of the transatlantic community will be decided in eastern Ukraine in the trenches of the Donbas or on the waters of the Azov,” said Luke Coffey, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy.

“This is why the most recent incident in the Kerch Strait should be so alarming to the U.S. and its European allies,” Coffey said.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/11/28/ ... ssion=true

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[seemslikeadream]

Ukraine condemns Russia's plan to deploy S-400 missiles to Crimea

today
Russian S-400 Triumph/SA-21 Growler medium-range and long-range surface-to-air missile systems drive during a parade at Red Square in Moscow in 2015 [Host Photo Agency/RIA Novosti/Reuters]

Kiev, Ukraine - Ukraine's foreign ministry has condemned Russia's plan to deploy a fourth S-400 surface-to-air missile battalion to the annexed Crimean peninsula amid a deepening conflict with Kiev.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia's southern military district spokesman Vadim Astafiyev told Interfax news agency that S-400s would soon be deployed to Crimea. The system is expected to be operational by the end of the year, according to Russia's RIA news agency.

Olexiy Makeyev, the Ukrainian foreign ministry's political director, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the development was "dangerous not only for Ukraine" but the whole Black Sea region.

"The system's operational range is up to 400km so it places all literal states in the Black Sea region, including NATO members under the threat of an attack. We know that those missiles can be used also for ground targets," he said.

Makeyev said that Moscow has been militarising Crimea since 2014 bringing in "new weapon systems including nuclear-capable aircraft and missiles as well as military personnel".

"The occupation and subsequent militarisation of Crimea led to the expansion of the area of use of Russian warships and military aircraft in the Black Sea and far beyond, even the Mediterranean basin," he said.

"Such militarisation has far-reaching consequences for security not only in the Black Sea area but in the whole southern Europe, as well as North Africa and Middle East."

Tensions escalate

The tension between Ukraine and Russia reached a new low this week after the Russian border patrol blocked the route of three Ukrainian military vessels travelling from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait - the shared internal waters of both states according to their 2003 agreement.

The seizure of the ships and the arrest of 24 crew members caused international outcry and condemnation of Moscow's moves, including from US President Donald Trump who suggested that he might cancel his planned meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin over the aggression.

Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov responded saying the meeting was "equally needed by both sides and important for the development of the general situation in the world".

Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, used stronger language, calling on Washington to stop encouraging "provocative" moves by Ukraine and instead mediate between Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels who claimed control of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.

Lavrov claimed Ukrainian warships had ignored maritime law on Sunday, aiming to create a scandal for domestic political purposes.

US encouragement for such acts "saddens me greatly", he said.



Makeyev responded to the allegations, advising "anybody who listens to the Russian statement [on Ukraine provoking Sunday's clash] to read George Orwell beforehand, because you would not understand the Russian false logic".

"Nobody [in Ukraine] is interested in warmongering. We are a peaceful nation. But we will defend our soil from the Russian aggression. We count on support of our American partners and we enjoy a full support also by the European Union," he said.

On Wednesday, a 30-day period of martial law took effect in 10 of Ukraine's 27 regions, with President Petro Poroshenko saying it aims to prevent an all-out Russian invasion.

'Kept like hostages'

Also on Wednesday, a Russian court in Crimea ordered the 60-day detention of the last group of 24 captured Ukrainian crew members.

The nine sailors were taken to the same detention centre in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Simferopol on the peninsula as their 12 colleagues who faced the court a day earlier on Tuesday, Aider Azamatov, lawyer of Yuri Budzila - one of the detainees, told Al Jazeera.

The same verdict was handed down to the remaining three crew members on Tuesday in Kerch city where they are hospitalised following their injuries in the Russian air force attack on his ship on Sunday.

They are accused of illegal crossing of Russia's maritime border, said Azamatov.

"Of course, my defendant did not plead guilty. He understands that it is a political matter and the sailors are kept like hostages," he said.

Azamatov also said that all of the detainees should be recognised as prisoners of war as they are all military personnel.

"The Geneva convention has to be applied to them, which means that the captured servicemen should not be put in custody like this," he said. "They should have been left on their vessels and armed patrol should have been assigned to them right in the sea."

Ukraine is seeking to secure their release through international mediators.

"We started negotiations with our partners and possible mediators. We engaged the International Committee of the Red Cross to be intermediator in our talks with Russians," said Makeyev.

"We would appreciate every possible effort of all the countries, of all the free nations to be intermediator and urge Russian Federation to return our prisoners of war."

Follow Tamila Varshalomidze on Twitter @tamila87v.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/ ... 40627.html

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SmartSelect_20181129-070224_Twitter.jpg

https://twitter.com/MaximEristavi/statu ... 90144?s=19

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Ukraine president calls for Nato warships in Sea of Azov

Kiev asks for western presence in sea it shares with Russia, saying Putin is blocking ports

Reuters in Berlin and Moscow
First published on Thu 29 Nov 2018 03.39 EST
The president of Ukraine has accused Russia of wanting to annex his entire country and called for Nato to deploy warships to a sea shared by the two nations.

Petro Poroshenko’s comments to German media were part of a concerted push by Kiev for western support for more sanctions against Moscow, tangible western military help and to rally opposition to a Russian gas pipeline that threatens to deprive Ukraine of important transit revenue.

His western allies have so far not offered any of these things soon, despite his warnings of a possible invasion by Russia after Moscow seized three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews on Sunday.

Moscow and Kiev blame each other for the Black Sea incident, which took place off Russian-annexed Crimea.

“Don’t believe [Vladimir] Putin’s lies,” Poroshenko told the Bild, as he compared Russia’s protestations of innocence to Moscow’s 2014 denial that it had soldiers in Crimea even as they moved to annex the peninsula.

“Putin wants the old Russian empire back,” he said. “Crimea, Donbass, the whole country. As Russian tsar, as he sees himself, his empire cannot function without Ukraine. He sees us as his colony.”

In a tweet later, Poroshenko said his country would impose restrictions on Russian citizens in Ukraine. His office could not immediately confirm what those restrictions were.

Volodymyr Omelyan, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, accused Russia on Thursday of imposing a de facto blockade on two Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov by barring vessels from leaving and entering the sea via the Russian-controlled strait of Kerch.

The Kremlin denied it was restricting shipping, saying it had not heard of any problems. If there were any delays they were due to bad weather rather than politics, it said.

There was no immediate reaction from Nato to Poroshenko’s call for the deployment of warships to the Sea of Azov. The Kremlin said Poroshenko’s request looked designed to cause more tensions in the area. Nato has condemned Russia’s seizure of the three Ukrainian ships and their crews.

There have been further signs that Russia is pressing ahead with its plans to fortify Crimea.

On Thursday, a new battalion of advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile systems was deployed in Crimea, the Tass news agency cited a spokesman for Russia’s Black Sea fleet as saying.

Citing a Crimean security source, the Interfax news agency also reported Russian plans to build a new missile early warning radar station in Crimea next year that would be able to track ballistic and cruise missiles from a long distance.

Russia was also working on a new technical system to allow it to better track shipping around the peninsula in order to protect its maritime borders, Interfax said.

The US and the EU have both imposed sanctions on Russia over its conduct towards Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow seized and annexed Crimea after a pro-Russia leader was toppled in Kiev.

Moscow later backed pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed. Major fighting ended with a 2015 ceasefire, but deadly exchanges of fire are still frequent.

Poroshenko, whom Putin has accused of manufacturing the Black Sea crisis to improve his flagging ratings before an election next year, also called on Germany to halt an undersea pipeline project that would allow Russia to supply more gas to Germany directly.

The Nord Stream 2 project is a potentially serious problem for Ukraine, which earns large transit fees from piping Russian gas to Europe and stands to lose out.

“We need a strong, resolute and clear reaction to Russia’s aggressive behaviour,” Poroshenko told the German media group Funke. “That also means stopping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.”



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... s-minister

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Russia blocks Ukrainian Azov Sea ports: minister

Cranes are seen in the Azov Sea port of Mariupol, Ukraine November 29, 2018. REUTERS/Iryna Gorbasyova
KIEV (Reuters) - Two Ukrainian Azov Sea ports, Berdyansk and Mariupol, are effectively under blockade by Russia as vessels are being barred from leaving and entering, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Volodymyr Omelyan, said on Thursday.

Overall, 35 vessels have been prevented from carrying out normal operations and only vessels moving towards Russian ports on the Azov Sea are permitted entry, he said on Facebook.

“The goal is simple - by placing a blockade on Ukrainian ports on the Azov Sea, Russia hopes to drive Ukraine out of our own territory - territory that is ours in accordance with all relevant international laws,” he said.

Omelyan said 18 vessels were awaiting entry into the Azov Sea, including four to Berdyansk and 14 to Mariupol. There is also a line of nine vessels to leave the Azov Sea and eight other vessels are standing by near the port berths.

Grain and steel dominates the Azov ports shipments.

Russia seized three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews on Sunday near the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters - a charge Ukraine strongly rejects.

The United States and the European Union have both imposed sanctions on Russia over its conduct toward Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow seized Crimea after a pro-Russian leader was toppled in Kiev.

Moscow later backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed. Major fighting ended with a 2015 ceasefire but deadly exchanges of fire are still frequent.

(This version of the story corrects typo, fixes section on death toll from Ukraine conflict)

Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Robert Birsel, Richard Balmforth
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukra ... SKCN1NY0NO

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Russia Announces New S-400 Missiles Deployment in Crimea Amid Ukraine Naval Standoff


S-400 / vitalykuzmin.net


Update: A spokesman for Russia's Black Sea Fleet was cited as saying Thursday that the new S-400 system had been deployed in Dzhankoi in northern Crimea.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has said it will deploy new S-400 surface-to-air missile systems on the Crimean peninsula as tensions flared in the region this week following Moscow's claims that three Ukrainian vessels had violated its territorial waters.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has bolstered the Black Sea peninsula’s military defenses with three S-400 systems since 2017. The S-400 is capable of targeting up to 36 aircraft at a range of 400 kilometers and has anti-ballistic missile capabilities.

Read More

Russia Set to Deploy New S-400 Anti-Aircraft System in Crimea


Russia’s Southern Military District spokesman Vadim Astafyev told Interfax on Wednesday that a fourth S-400 battalion would soon be deployed in Crimea.

The state-run RIA news agency said the new S-400 systems would be operational by the end of the year.

News of the deployment comes after Ukraine introduced martial law for 30 days in parts of the country following Russia's seizure of three Ukrainian navy vessels off the coast of Crimea on Sunday.
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia- ... doff-63629

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[seemslikeadream]

Ukrainian leader says Putin wants his whole country, asks for NATO help

BERLIN/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of wanting to annex his entire country and called for NATO to deploy warships to a sea shared by the two nations.

Poroshenko’s comments to German media were part of a concerted push by Kiev aimed at gaining Western support for more sanctions against Moscow, securing tangible Western military help, and rallying opposition to a Russian gas pipeline that threatens to deprive Ukraine of important transit revenue.

His Western allies have so far not offered to give him any of these things soon, despite his warnings of a possible invasion by Russia after Moscow seized three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews on Sunday.

Moscow and Kiev blame each other for the Black Sea incident, which took place off Russian-annexed Crimea.

“Don’t believe Putin’s lies,” Poroshenko told Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling paper, comparing Russia’s protestations of innocence in the affair to Moscow’s 2014 denial that it had soldiers in Crimea even as they moved to annex it.

“Putin wants the old Russian empire back,” he said. “Crimea, Donbass, the whole country. As Russian Tsar, as he sees himself, his empire can not function without Ukraine. He sees us as his colony.”

Volodymyr Omelyan, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, on Thursday accused Russia of imposing a de facto blockade on two Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov by barring ships from leaving and entering the sea via the Russian-controlled Kerch Strait.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko addresses servicemen as he visits the 169th training centre "Desna" of the Ukrainian Army ground forces in Chernihiv Region, Ukraine November 28, 2018. Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
The Kremlin denied it was restricting shipping, saying it had not heard of any problems. If there were any delays they were due to bad weather rather than politics, it said.

Poroshenko told Bild he also wanted NATO to deploy warships to the Sea of Azov. There was no immediate reaction from the alliance, which has condemned Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian ships. The Kremlin said Poroshenko’s request looked designed to cause more tensions in the area.

‘FORTRESS CRIMEA’

There were further signs that Russia was pressing ahead with its plans to fortify Crimea and turn it into what Kremlin-backed media have called a fortress.

Russia on Thursday deployed a new battalion of advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in Crimea, its fourth such, TASS news agency cited a spokesman for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet as saying.

Citing a Crimean security source, Interfax news agency also reported Russian plans to build a new missile early-warning radar station in Crimea next year that would be able to track ballistic and cruise missiles from a long distance.

Russia was also working on a new technical system to allow it to better track shipping around the peninsula in order to protect its maritime borders, Interfax said.

The United States and the EU have both imposed sanctions on Russia over its conduct towards Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow seized and annexed Crimea after a pro-Russian leader was toppled in Kiev.

Moscow later backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed. Major fighting ended with a 2015 ceasefire but deadly exchanges of fire are still frequent.

Crimean judge orders two month detention for Ukranian sailors
Poroshenko, whom Putin has accused of manufacturing the Black Sea crisis to boost his flagging ratings before an election next year, called on Germany to halt an undersea pipeline project that would allow Russia to supply more gas to Germany directly.

The Nord Stream 2 project is a potentially serious problem for Ukraine which currently earns large transit fees from piping Russian gas to Europe and stands to lose out.

“We need a strong, resolute and clear reaction to Russia’s aggressive behavior,” Poroshenko told Funke. “That also means stopping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.”

But Germany’s economy minister dismissed the idea that his country’s commitment to the pipeline undermined efforts to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis.

“These are two separate questions,” Peter Altmaier told the ARD public broadcaster.

Poroshenko’s attempts to get the EU to impose new sanctions on Russia appeared to be falling flat.

Heeding his suggestion, the EU’s hawks have called for more sanctions but the divided bloc is not going to act swiftly, if at all, diplomatic sources have said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would raise the Black Sea issue with Putin at a G20 summit which starts in Argentina on Friday where the Russian leader is also due to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.

NATO has urged Russia to release the three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews, saying there was no justification for Moscow’s actions. But the military alliance, which Ukraine one day hopes to join, has stopped short of offering to deploy new forces in the area to deter Russia.

Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow, Michelle Martin in Berlin and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukra ... SKCN1NY1K5

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Merkel: We sanction Russia for the sake of international law

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures as she speaks during the German-Ukrainian Business Forum conference in Berlin, Germany November 29, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the West was imposing sanctions on Russia to stand up for international law and added that she would address the Sea of Azov issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an upcoming G20 summit.

“We don’t impose sanctions on Russia for sanctions’ sake, rather we impose sanctions to make clear that countries, even if their territorial situation puts them close to Russia, have the right to their own development,” she told a Germany-Ukraine conference in Berlin. “Those are the principles of international law.”

The European Union’s hawks have called for more sanctions on Russia after a fresh flare-up of tensions with Ukraine but the divided bloc is not going to act swiftly, if at all, diplomatic sources have said.

Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Michelle Martin

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germ ... SKCN1NY12R

[Rory]

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/11/u ... .html#more

Ukraine - Poroshenko Launched Clash With Russia To Gain Dictatorial Powers - He Failed

The Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko's attempted to shore up his approval rate for the upcoming election by provoking a military incident. It was a gamble and it failed.

Three Ukrainian boats, a tug and two gun boats, attempted to sail from the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov. The Kerch Strait is territorial Russian water since Crimea voted to join Russia. "Innocent passage" is allowed but necessitates following the laws and regulations of the territorial country.

The Ukraine does not accept the decision the people of Crimea and insists that the peninsula is still part of its territory. The Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko sent the boats with the order not to coordinate their passage with Russian authorities. The captured sailors confirm that. He obviously wanted to provoke a violent Russian reaction.

The government of Ukraine practically admitted that the mission had nefarious intent:

Ukraine’s state security service says that its intelligence officers were among the crew on Ukrainian naval ships seized by Russia in a standoff near Crimea.

The SBU agency said in a statement Tuesday that the officers were fulfilling counterintelligence operations for the Ukrainian navy, in response to “psychological and physical pressure” by Russian spy services. It didn’t elaborate, but demanded that Russia stop such activity.

Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said late Monday that that there were SBU officers on board the Ukrainian ships, calling that proof of a “provocation” staged by Ukraine.

The SBU is the incompetent spy service that faked the murder of the Arkady Babchenko as part of a corporate raid.

What is the real reason that its agents were on board of the Ukrainian gun boats?

And why was the crew of the tug armed with heavy machine guns?

A few of the Ukrainian seaman were lightly wounded when the Russian coast guard took a shot at one of the boats.

The gun boats of the Gurza-M class were built on a shipyard that Poroshenko owned at that time. He profited from ordering them. They may be useful for river policing but do not belong at sea.

The Russian coast guard had no problem to disable the ships and to capture their crews. A Crimean court ordered that the sailors will be held for two more month while they face charges over border violations.

In 1988 the U.S. tried to pull up a similar stunt in the Black Sea. Two U.S. Navy ships with spying equipment crossed into Soviet territorial water near Crimea. They got rammed (vid) by Soviet ships and were smart enough to move out before the situation escalated further.

Poroshenko's intent was to provoke an incident that would allow him to present himself as a war-president. Elections are coming up and all polls show him below 10% and far behind two other candidates. He attempted to use the incident to introduce martial law over all the Ukraine.

Martial law would give Poroshenko full control over the country. He would be able to remove any regional or local government, to shut down the political opposition and to censor the media. He would be able to postpone the upcoming elections indefinitely.

Back in July Yulia Tymoshenko, who is leading the polls for the next elections, warned that Poroshenko would take this step (machine translation):

The leader of Batkivshchyna, Yulia Tymoshenko, claims that one of her main competitors in the upcoming presidential election, the incumbent head of state, Petro Poroshenko, is allegedly nurturing a “extremely dangerous plan” to disrupt voting by escalating the war in Donbass and imposing martial law in Ukraine. The politician made such a statement on the TV channel UA: First.

Tymoshenko stated that Poroshenko "does not want" to hold presidential elections in order to "save power", ...

Yesterday Poroshenko tried to scare the parliament into accepting his plans:

“Intelligence data speak of an extremely serious threat,” Poroshenko declared in a televised address on Monday, brandishing a pile of paper, which, he said, was an intelligence report detailing the Russian forces massed close to the border. At a session of the United Nations Security Council called at Ukraine’s request late on Monday, the country’s representative, Volodymyr Yelchenko, claimed the Azov Sea ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk faced invasion.

That is of course utter nonsense. Russia has no interest in launching a war with the Ukraine. There is nothing to gain from it.

The parliament must vote on the introduction of martial law and the opposition parties recognized Poroshenko's stunt for what it was. His plans were rejected. Poroshenko pulled back. Instead of the 60 day long, renewable period of martial law he wanted, he had to settle for 30 days. And that was still not enough:

Rival political parties - former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi’s Self-Help and populist Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party – demanded further concessions. They wanted immediate confirmation, rather than just a promise, that the election will go ahead on March 31. They sought to limit martial law to a number of regions rather the whole country, and they objected to any plans to limit Ukrainians’ constitutional freedoms. Their fear wasn’t just that campaigning would be limited, but that Poroshenko would get near-dictatorial powers.

There will now be a limited martial law but only in those regions that border Russia or the Black Sea. These are the Russian speaking regions which did not vote for Poroshenko in the 2014 elections. The opposition and its foreign backers will hopefully take care that the martial law use will not get out of hand. There will be a limited call-up of reserve troops, but most of the reservists are to likely ignore it.

With the election date set to March 31 by the parliament Poroshenko has no legal tool to postpone it.

Unless of course he manages to provoke a real war, either with the rebels who are holding the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, or with Russia itself. The lunatic warmongers at the Atlantic Council urge him to do exactly that:

Even though Ukraine is outgunned, it does have options. It can undertake operations to break the blockade, though they would likely be fruitless given the forces Moscow has sent there.

Nevertheless, it cannot accept this attack on its sovereignty and integrity passively. Ukraine should give careful consideration to a special operation that might disrupt the bridge that Moscow built over the Kerch Strait that joins Crimea to Russia.

But that’s not all. Ukraine should invite the United States and NATO to send a fleet of armed ships to visit Mariupol, the main city on the Sea of Azov coast and defy Russia to fire on or block NATO from exercising the right to visit Ukraine’s ports. Those ships should be armed and have air cover but be instructed not to fire unless fired upon.

Even Poroshenko is not dumb enough to repeat his failed provocation in the Kerch Strait. The Kerch bridge is guarded. Its pillars are massive because it was build near a fault and has be able to withstand earthquakes. A saboteur unit would have to bring several tons of high explosives to even damage one. To reach Mariupol in the Sea of Azov ships have to cross through the the Kerch Strait. The passage is a very narrow artificial channel with only 8 meter depth. Outside of the channel the water is as shallow as a think tankers thought. Any ship with more than 2-3 meters draft has zero room to navigate there. Russia does not even need boats or airplanes to protect it. A few guns along the coast can easily control the passage. No sane naval commander will try to pass the Strait by force.

Russia already warned warned against further 'reckless' moves and deployed an anti-ship missile system (vid) to the Kerch Strait to make sure that any further provocations there will have deadly consequences.

Poroshenko could start a provocation elsewhere. He could attempt to reconquer the Donetzk airport. But while he might itch for losing more fights, a full blown war is out of question. Kiev's army is low on morale and would be defeated within days.

Poroshenko's rule was catastrophic for the Ukraine. In several cities the central heating and warm water supply is broken. Ten-thousands will have to freeze during the winter, some of them to death. Since Poroshenko came to power millions of able Ukrainian workers have fled or work abroad, most of them to Russia. The most industrialized regions are in firmly in rebel hands. Most of the population is poor, the bureaucracy is utterly corrupt and the country is practically bankrupt.

There will likely be dozens of corruption cases brought up against Poroshenko himself as soon as he loses power. If he is smart he will flee the Ukraine the very day his term ends.

The international reactions showed that Poroshenko is no longer of value. While the russo-phobe Poland and the Baltic countries called for more sanction against Russia the European heavyweights Germany and France urged deescalation and direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. (Sources in Berlin say that Merkel firmly told him to stand down.) The U.S. reaction was delayed and mild. Trump punted the problem to the Europeans.

Pedro Poroshenko will leave the political stage as a despised man. But will also be much richer after he pilfered the Ukrainian state wherever he could. The people of the Ukraine should take their money back before dumping him abroad.

[seemslikeadream]

Putin Delivers Bizarre Insult to Ukraine: ‘If They Want to Eat Babies for Breakfast Tomorrow, They’ll Probably Give Them Babies’

By Cristina Maza On 11/28/18 at 10:41 AM
Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed off concerns about his country’s recent military confrontation with Ukraine, calling it a “minor incident.”

On Wednesday, he then went on to accuse Ukraine of stirring up anti-Russian sentiment as a way to placate its population, saying that if the Ukrainians wanted to eat babies, then the government would let them do that too.

"Kiev is actively stirring up anti-Russian sentiment. That's all they have. And it all works. If they want to eat babies for breakfast tomorrow, they'll probably give them babies,” he told an audience at a conference in Moscow.

On Monday, Ukraine’s government announced that it would declare martial law in 10 of the regions that are believed to be at risk of a Russian military invasion. The government in Kiev said that its intelligence services have evidence that Russia is planning a ground invasion.

The escalation began on Sunday when Russian ships prevented three Ukrainian navy vessels from entering the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait. The incident ended with three wounded Ukrainian soldiers being detained by Russia, and they still remain in Moscow's custody. They later emerged on Russian television confessing that the Ukrainians had been provocative, but officials in Kiev said that the men had been forced to lie.

gettyimages-1065455890-594x594 Seized Ukrainian military vessels are moored in the port of Kerch, Crimea, on November 26. The confrontation began on Sunday when Russian ships prevented three Ukrainian navy vessels from entering the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait. STR/AFP/Getty Images

During the conference Wednesday, Putin also claimed that Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko is trying to provoke Russia in order to gin up support for his candidacy in upcoming elections scheduled for March 2019.

“It was without doubt a provocation. It was organized by the president ahead of the elections. The president is in fifth place ratings-wise and therefore had to do something. It was used as a pretext to introduce martial law,” Putin told the audience, saying that the Ukrainian ships had invaded Russia’s territorial waters.

“There are clear signs of a provocation prepared in advance, designed to use this as a pretext to impose martial law in the country. It has nothing to do with trying to settle relations between Russia and Ukraine. This is a game of aggression,” Putin continued.

Russian media has presented Ukraine’s martial law as a crackdown against the country’s population.



Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president has called on President Donald Trump to use his upcoming meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit in Argentina to pressure the Russian leader to get out of Ukraine.

"I count on the United States," Poroshenko told NBC on Tuesday. "I count on the United States people."

Russia and Ukraine have had a tense relationship ever since a pro-Western social movement ousted a pro-Russian president in 2014. Since then, Moscow has supported pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Members of the international community, including the U.S., have sanctioned Russia for its involvement in Ukraine and called for the respect of the former Soviet country's territorial sovereignty.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-delivers ... st-1234913

[Rory]

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ibhf5kpUZHY

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Russia-Ukraine tensions: President Poroshenko urges NATO to send ships to the Sea of Azov


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fft7Qmq5ZjU