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by smiths » Fri Aug 08, 2014 10:10 pm
by smiths » Fri Aug 08, 2014 10:36 pm
by conniption » Sat Aug 09, 2014 9:02 pm
SteveLendmanBlog
Saturday, August 09, 2014
The Battle for Ukraine's Soul
by Stephen Lendman
Many previous articles explained the geopolitical importance of crisis conditions in Ukraine.
The book "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III" discusses its gravity and much more in detail.
link
Ukraine remains in the eye of the storm. Neocons infest Washington. They influence administration policy.
They want total unchallenged world dominance. Russia and China mainly stand in the way.
United they pose formidable opposition to Washington's imperial aims. At risk is a potential East/West confrontation.
July 28 marked WW I's 100th anniversary. WW II followed the war to end all wars.
US-led NATO bears full responsibility for perpetual wars through today's ongoing conflicts. It's a global killing machine.
Wars on humanity persist without end. World peace hangs by a thread. America's rage for dominance risks WW III.
Ukraine could become the flashpoint that ignites it. The risk is huge. Daily events should scare everyone.
Western propaganda wrongfully blames Russia for US crimes. Putin is maliciously vilified.
Sanctions wars persist. An August 7 New York Times editorial urges Western unity against a fabricated in Washington Russian enemy.
It outrageously accuses Putin of "brazen(ly) challeng(ing) the post-Soviet order." It falsely calls Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters "secessionists."
It suggests possible Russian "direct intervention in support of the rebels" battling Ukrainian forces.
It ignores their freedom-fighting struggle. Their rejection of illegitimate fascist governance. Their passion for real democracy.
Their willingness to risk all for it.
Numerous Western editorials and op-eds falsely accused Russia of downing MH17. Michel Chossudovsky cited expert Peter Haisenko's analysis.
A missile was not responsible for the plane's destruction. No evidence whatever suggests it.
Shrapnel marks suggest a " '30 millimeter caliber projectile' fired from a military aircraft." Eyewitnesses reported a Ukrainian one flying close to MH17 when it was downed.
The New York Times and other Western media falsely blamed Russia and Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters for MH17's destruction.
The Kiev government in collusion with Washington bears full responsibility.
The obvious went unreported. Cui bono? Clearly, Russia and Ukrainian freedom fighters had nothing to gain and plenty to lose.
In contrast, Kiev and Washington benefit greatly by blaming Moscow and Ukrainian freedom fighters for their crime.
The incident was a classic false flag. Planned in Washington. Executed by the illegitimate fascist Ukrainian government. Falsely blamed on Russia and Ukrainian freedom fighters.
On August 7, Malaysia's New Straits Times accused Washington and Kiev of downing MH17. Western media ignored the report.
It refutes the official propaganda narrative. It bursts the illusion of Russian/Ukrainian freedom fighters' involvement.
At the same time, Moscow has verifiable satellite and radar data. They show a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 warplane tailing MH17 before its destruction.
The New Straits Times cited "experts who had said that the photographs of the blast fragmentation patterns on the fuselage of the airliner showed two distinct shapes - the shredding pattern associated with a warhead packed with 'flechettes,’'and the more uniform, round-type penetration holes consistent with that of cannon rounds.”
It bears repeating. Clear evidence is consistent with machine gun fire. No missile of any kind was involved. US and Western media claims otherwise are bald-faced lies.
A deplorable July 17 Washington Post editorial headlined "The world must know whose weapon destroyed a passenger plane."
It falsely claimed nonexistent evidence of "a missile fired by Russian-made surface-to-air battery supplied to Moscow's Ukrainian proxies."
It called on Washington and its allied to "insist that those responsible be held accountable - including those in the Kremlin."
It accused "Ukrainian rebels (of) cover(ing) up what occurred." It ridiculed Putin's correct analysis. It claimed he "disingenuously" blamed Kiev.
Wall Street Journal editors quoted billionaire anointed Ukrainian president Petro Poroshnko. He accused "Russian staff officers (of) taking part in military operations against Ukrainian forces."
No corroborating evidence was cited. Journal editors disgracefully accused Putin of "attempting to disguise his use of force to achieve his strategic goals…"
Facts are conveniently turned on their head. Truth is systematically suppressed. Pressure builds.
It bears repeating. A potential East/West confrontation looms. Western media propaganda aids and abets the possibility.
So does John Kerry. He shames the office he holds. He's an unindicted war criminal. He's a serial liar.
He claimed nonexistent "extraordinary circumstantial" evidence claiming freedom fighting Ukrainians downed MH17 with Moscow provided missiles.
The New Straits Times report discredits his fabricated account. So does other credible evidence.
Don't expect media scoundrels to explain. The official narrative repeats ad nauseam.
It constitutes lies, damn lies, and malicious anti-Russian propaganda. Truth is consistently drowned out. Pro-Western propaganda substitutes.
In mid-July, Moscow's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin submitted "elements" for a Security Council resolution on Ukraine.
Another won't follow, he stressed. "Instead, we offer the key elements that we believe are necessary to include in the text of the resolution,” he said.
They include halting all violence by both sides immediately. Giving journalists free access to cover events.
Going all-out for equitable conflict resolution. He called Poroshenko's peace plan "smoke screen" mumbo jumbo to militarize Ukraine's East.
At the time, Poroshenko said "(f)or every taken life of our servicemen, they will pay with tens and hundreds of theirs."
"Not a single terrorist will escape responsibility. Everyone will get what they deserve."
Meanwhile, fierce fighting continues. US-led NATO is funding and arming Kiev forces. Doing so, it claims, is to "protect (Ukraine's) eastern border against (nonexistent) Russian aggression."
The battle of words accompanies hot conflict. Deaths and destruction continue.
On August 7, US-led NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed support for Ukraine's putschist fascist government, saying:
"NATO's support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering. Our partnership is long-standing."
"It's strong, and in response to Russia's (nonexistent) aggression, NATO is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defence institutions."
Rasmussen shamelessly accused Russia of massing troops on Ukraine's border, shielding "separatists," and using pretexts for further intervention.
He turned reality on its head. He pointed fingers the wrong way. He made similar comments many times before. He lied blaming Russia for US-led NATO/Ukrainian crimes.
He called on Russia "to step back from the brink. Step back from the border. Do not use peacekeeping as an excuse for war-making."
He "urge(d) Russia to follow the genuine path to peace. To stop its support for separatists. To pull pack its troops from Ukraine's border. And to engage in a sincere dialogue for a peaceful solution."
Russia's Defense Ministry blasted NATO's claims. It called them unsubstantiated. They support a litany of Big Fat Lies.
Shameless Russia bashing continues unabated. Putin genuinely wants peaceful conflict resolution. Washington wants war without mercy.
It continues unabated. Western media sanitize deaths, destruction and appalling Kiev atrocities.
They report nothing about ordinary Ukrainian soldiers. They're underpaid, poorly fed and clothed, as well as deplorably treated.
Many young men seek refuge in Russia to avoid serving in a conflict they want no part of. Others are forced to fight against their will.
In contrast, Ukraine's National Guard is controlled by neo-Nazi extremists. Western media ignore their involvement and appalling atrocities.
Myth-making substitutes for reality. Lawless fascist elements are considered democrats. Courageous freedom fighters are called terrorists.
Truth telling is verboten. Most Americans are mindless of the real Ukraine story.
They're indifferent about a distant war. It's in a country they know nothing about.
On the one hand, they're fed up with US wars. They want them ended. They crave elusive peace.
On the other, they're unaware of US military and political involvement in Ukraine.
Euromaidan conflict erupted last November. Obama's dirty hands bore full responsibility.
Last February, Washington orchestrated democratically elected Viktor Yanokovych's ouster. It replaced him with putschist fascist governance.
Euromaidan protesters didn't go quietly into the good night. They remained. Their protests continue.
They clashed with police. They fortified old barricades. They erected new ones.
They threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police. They burned tires. They remain in control of government buildings and hotels seized earlier.
Ukrainian prosecutor general, Vitaly Yarema, said refusal to clear Maidan and leave occupied buildings constitutes criminal responsibility.
So far, protesters remain committed. It's unclear what may follow. Kiev's Independence Square again is on fire.
Despite Ukraine's new government, protesters say they'll remain in Maidan to ensure promised change benefitting them and all Ukrainians.
Expect them to be bitterly disappointed. What follows remains to be seen.
At the same time, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said protesters agreed to vacate the city's administration building as well as an area from the Central Department Store (TsUM) to Proreznaya Street.
Turmoil still rocks the city. Robberies and attacks on journalists increased. Garbage piled up. Sanitation is poor.
Kiev police initiated three criminal cases. Police chief Aleksandr Tereshchuk said "investigation(s) were underway under three articles of Ukraine's criminal code into car theft, illegal handling of firearms, ammunition and explosives, and hooliganism."
At the same time, Russia bashing and false accusations persist. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov categorically denied Russian military forces attempting to infiltrate Ukrainian territory.
"We struggle to understand what the Ukrainian side means. There have been no attempts of infiltration by the Russian army,” said Peskov.
Claims otherwise are false. They're Big Fat Bald-Faced Lies. They repeat. They persist. They risk potential global war.
Ukraine is the gravest geopolitical crisis since WW II. Washington stops at nothing to advance its imperium. Millions of corpses attest to its barbarity.
Replacing independent governments with subservient pro-Western ones is longstanding US policy. Wars are waged to achieve it.
Previous articles explained that Obama's Ukrainian allies are fascist thugs. They have no legitimacy whatever. They represent mob rule.
They're murdering their own people in cold blood. They're committing appalling atrocities.
Western media turn a blind eye. They support what demands condemnation. Major conflicts begin this way.
Potential nuclear war is possible. Preventing the unthinkable matters most. Obama pledged full support for Kiev. Even at the risk of open confrontation with Russia.
Belligerence is longstanding US policy. "Washington threatens the world," says Paul Craig Roberts. Its reckless irresponsibility is the greatest threat to world peace and stability.
The battle for Ukraine's soul persists. The struggle for humanity's survival matters most.
A Final Comment
An astonishing number of supportive well-wishing emails continue welcoming me back. Words can't properly express my gratitude.
Good friends are precious. I'm blessed with many. My sincerest thanks to everyone wishing me well.
It's wonderful being home. It's glorious doing what I love best. It's special knowing many friends, colleagues and readers care.
So do I. About spreading important truths on vital issues at the most perilous time in world history.
Survival depends on enough good people committed to doing the right thing. Settling for nothing less that peace, equity and justice for everyone.
This writer for sure is committed. Hopefully, good health will permit many more active years speaking truth to power - no punches pulled.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/ ... -news-hour
by Morty » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:46 am
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by conniption » Tue Aug 12, 2014 12:56 am
RT
Russian humanitarian convoy departs to E. Ukraine
Published time: August 12, 2014
Russian humanitarian convoy to Ukraine departs from Alabino, Moscow region. (RIA Novosti / Maksim Blinov)
Almost 300 trucks carrying 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid have been sent towards the border with Ukraine, Moscow regional authorities say. Earlier, Russia and Ukraine agreed on a humanitarian mission under the authority of the Red Cross.
Russia and Ukraine agree on humanitarian operation - Lavrov
Some 280 Kamaz trucks carrying food, medication, and drinking water were sent out by Russia’s Emergencies Ministry from the Moscow region on Tuesday morning, Russian media reported.
“The convoy will deliver to the inhabitants of eastern Ukraine around 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid collected by Muscovites and residents of the Moscow region,” the administration of the Moscow region told Ria Novosti.
The humanitarian cargo includes 400 tons of grains, 100 tons of sugar, and 62 tons of baby food, as well as 54 tons of medical equipment and medication. The convoy will also deliver around 12,000 sleeping bags and 69 power generators of various types.
The humanitarian mission is carried out without any participation of the Russian military, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized earlier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso earlier on Monday that Russia, in cooperation with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, is sending a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine.
Russian humanitarian convoy to Ukraine departs from Alabino, Moscow region. (RIA Novosti / Maksim Blinov)
Prior to that, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that “all possible and impossible pretexts have been dismissed,” referring to discussions with Kiev. Lavrov also expressed hope that “Western partners won’t put a spoke in the wheel and will think about the people who are badly in need of water and electricity.”
In the latest statement, the ICRC emphasized the urgent need for the aid to reach the areas affected by fighting, but said it expects more details of the operation from Moscow.
“Prior to the beginning of the operation, the ICRC should receive without undue delay from the authorities of the Russian Federation all necessary details concerning the aid, including the volume and type of items, and requirements for transport and storage,” the organization said.
Russia initially came up with a proposal to send humanitarian aid under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Ukraine's troubled eastern regions last week at the UN Security-Council meeting. However, the leaders of the US, UK, and Germany seem to be stalling the operation, Lavrov said, accusing the states of “blatant expression of cynicism” for claiming that all necessary humanitarian measures “are already being taken” by Kiev authorities.
by conniption » Tue Aug 12, 2014 6:49 am
RT
Kiev: Russia's humanitarian convoy will not be allowed into Ukraine
Published time: August 12, 2014
Kiev intends to hold up the internationally-supervised Russian humanitarian aid convoy meant for East Ukraine for at least a week, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine said the time is needed for the International Red Cross, which is contributing to the Moscow-initiated mission, to establish where the aid should go in the Ukrainian region engulfed by civil war.
The convoy of 280 trucks dispatched on Tuesday “did not pass the ICC certification,” Andrey Lysenko said.
Earlier, Moscow said that the humanitarian mission had been agreed by all parties concerned.
Russia has sent some 2,000 tons of aid to Ukraine, including food, medicine, sleeping bags and power generators.
The cargo is meant for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which have seriously suffered in more than three months of warfare, as Ukrainian troops used heavy artillery, bomber aircraft and tanks to advance on cities controlled by the militias.
Kiev earlier accused Moscow of trying to conduct a stealth invasion of Ukraine under a guise of humanitarian aid, saying that Russian troops would be posing as guards of the convoy while actually tasked with starting an offensive.
The narrative was supported by some western countries, which said that any humanitarian mission not backed by Kiev would be considered an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Russia dismissed the accusations as nonsense.
In another media briefing on Monday evening, Lysenko stated that the humanitarian convoy to Ukraine was organized “under an agreement between [President] Petro Poroshenko and the International Red Cross,” and that Russia “wants to present this mission as its own initiative” as a publicity stunt.
Ukraine ready to accept Russia’s humanitarian aid - Lavrov
Published time: August 12, 2014
The Russian Foreign Ministry has received a note from the Ukrainian government expressing its readiness to accept the Russian humanitarian aid. The news came as Moscow agreed on the Ukrainian presence in the humanitarian convoy.
The arrangements for the humanitarian aid convoy have been completely agreed upon, with all of Kiev’s wishes taken into account, including the route, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at a press conference in Sochi.
“We have agreed on a route convenient for the Kiev authorities. We agreed that our trucks would have Ukrainian number plates during their way through Ukrainian territory. We also agreed to take on board not only the representatives of the Red Cross and the OSCE, but also representatives of the Ukrainian authorities,” Lavrov said.
“The convoy has set off,” he added. “We have received a note with the confirmation of the Ukrainian side’s readiness to receive the aid.”
Earlier, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military said that Kiev intended to hold up the internationally-supervised aid convoy meant for the Ukraine's east for at least a week. Ukraine said the time was needed for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to establish where exactly the aid should go.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has abandoned the idea to reload the aid from Russian trucks onto Red Cross transport after a search at the border, according to Lavrov said.
“They raised the question of reloading the aid from all 287 trucks onto the trucks rented by the Red Cross, but, for obvious reasons, abandoned this idea, because it would only complicate and make the implementation of this humanitarian action more expensive,” the Russian FM said.
“I count a lot on the hope that public statements made by some Kiev authorities with the demand for new conditions will be disavowed and won’t interfere with the accomplishment of the agreements reached between Russia, Ukraine and the Red Cross,” he added.
Lavrov stressed that Kiev is guaranteeing the safety of the convoy.
“We firmly rely on the assurances by the Ukrainian authorities. They are guaranteeing the safety of the whole convoy’s movement on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian special forces,” he said.
Russia is also counting on the anti-government forces to ensure security. The self-defense troops in eastern Ukraine have already been informed:
“We expect the self-defense forces to express the same attitude toward this humanitarian action. I’m sure there’ll be no breaches, as they are now on the territory, the residents of which require badly humanitarian assistance,” Lavrov stated.
RAW: 280 trucks with Russian humanitarian aid depart to E. Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWsg-T7Ao5U
by conniption » Thu Aug 14, 2014 2:18 am
The Vineyard of the Saker
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Meet Irina Farion, the very official defender of Ukie "kulture"
A while ago I promised to describe more of the freaks in Kiev but never had the time to do so. Today, I got an email from a friend "AK" who send me a video which I had seen a long time ago but which somebody had the good idea to subtitle into English.
Meet Irina Farion, the crazy witch of the Ukie nationalist camp, the female counterpart of Oleg Liashko, and every bit as fake and nasty as he is.
Like so many Ukie nationalists, in a not too distant past Mrs Farion used to be a doubleplusgoodthinking and loyal member of the CPSU. Then, with the winds of change, she followed the example of another great Ukie turncoat - Leonid Kravchuk - re-designed herself as a virulent nationalist. See for yourself the kind of stuff she became famous for:
Ukrainian Member of Parliament slamming 5 year olds for having Russian names
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3R3pMtL3eoPublished on Aug 8, 2014
The Member of Parliament Iryna Farion for the party Svoboda who took power at the 2014 revolution in Ukraine, tells children in a kindergarten that their names are wrong.
This woman has also said things like, the demonstrators against the government should be killed, and after the arson fire in Odessa that killed 35+ anti-Kiev demonstrators, she wrote on Facebook: "Bravo Odessa.... Let the demons burn in hell".
And, as the video indicates, she is currently not in an insane asylum, but a bigshot in the Ukie junta.
When I look at the freaks in power in Kiev, I simply cannot understand how the western plutocrats can live with themselves. I must be very naive.
Cheers,
The Saker
by Morty » Thu Aug 14, 2014 9:33 pm
Ukraine in bloody chaos — Putin
Russia August 14,
He said that the situation is deteriorating
YALTA, August 14. /ITAR-TASS/. President Vladimir Putin described on Thursday the current situation in Ukraine as “bloody chaos”, pledging that Moscow will make every effort to stop the conflict.
“The country has fallen in bloody chaos, fratricidal conflict,” Putin said at a meeting with Russian lawmakers in the Black Sea resort city of Yalta. He said that the situation is deteriorating. “A major humanitarian catastrophe has broken out in the southeast [of Ukraine],” Putin said.
Russian sanctions
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian sanctions are not just retaliatory measures, but a means to support domestic producers and open up the domestic market to new partners.
“They are not just retaliatory steps. In the first place they are measures to support the domestic producers and to open up our markets to the countries and producers who are eager to cooperate with Russia and prepared for such cooperation,” the head of state said at a meeting with State Duma members in the seaside Crimean resort of Yalta on Thursday.
He recalled that the decisions on Russian sanctions had been taken in relation to the countries that had earlier imposed “utterly groundless and illegal sanctions” on Russia.
Putin added that regardless of the foreign political and foreign economic situation “the most important thing for us now is internal affairs, our tasks and goals that the people of Russia, the citizens of Russia set to us.”
Putin explained that the authorities should focus on the solution of national problems.
“Our future is in our own hands,” Putin said with certainty.
He believes that it is of extreme importance to ensure the highest quality of state governance and “most importantly, a high quality of Russian citizens’ life.
The Russian government is drafting a program for additional support of the national agricultural sector, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Russian lawmakers in Yalta on Thursday.
“The government is currently preparing an additional program for the support of agriculture,” he told members of the State Duma lower house of parliament.
Banning the imports of a number of food items from the West, Russia acted justifiably, not violating the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, President Vladimir Putin said.
The president said he considered pressure exerted on Russia ineffective.
“In my view, they (measures of pressure) are indeed rude, ineffective and harmful,” Putin stressed.
“Their aim is to ensure the global dominance of the United States. This is true,” Putin said, adding the aim could also be to create more profitable conditions of global competition for the United States and push Russia slightly away from the European market.
Isolation from the rest of the world
Russia does not seek isolation from the rest of the world, but the country intends to take the development course by relying more on domestic resources and by boosting industrial and agricultural sectors, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
“We must calmly, with dignity and effectively improve our country without isolating it from the outside world, without breaking ties with our partners, but also not allow us to be treated in insolent and tutorial manner,” Putin said at a meeting with members of the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, in Russia’s southern resort city of Yalta.
The president said he was confident that the Russian society needs to consolidate itself and mobilize “neither for any wars, nor conflicts, but for persistent work for Russia and in the name of Russia.”
Much of the Russian people’s solidarity depends on the work of lawmakers, according to Putin.
Russia’s quitting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is possible, but is not on the agenda at the moment, Putin said.
Russia is ready to withdraw unilaterally from international treaties, if this step meets domestic interests, President Vladimir Putin added.
“Let’s take the United States which walked out unilaterally from the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty,” he recalled. “We proceed as they believe from our national security considerations,” he said.
Crimea's role in unifying Russia
Vladimir Putin believes that Crimea may play a unifying role for healing historical scars and cementing Russian society.
“I believe that Crimea today may be a unique yardstick. It is capable of playing a unique unifying role for Russia, the role of a historical and spiritual source and another line of reconciliation of the Reds and the Whites,” Putin said.
Putin recalled that the Crimean peninsula remembers triumphs and the tragedy of the fratricidal civil war in the early years of the 20th century, where Russians were killing Russians.
The head of state said Crimea may help heal the injury the Russian people suffered as a result of the dramatic split of the 20th century and to mend the timeline of Russia’s history.
Putin urged legislators, representatives of political parties, religious organizations and culture workers to give thought to how to cope with this task.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated his call for ensuring the real equality of three languages - Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar - in Crimea.
He was speaking at a meeting with State Duma members in the seaside resort of Yalta on Thursday.
Caution is needed in dealing with proposals to amend the Russian Constitution, Russian President Vladimir Putin adde.
“I think we should treat this document, the foundation of the country and our life, very carefully,” he said meeting with lawmakers in Crimea
“The work to exonerate the repressed people of Crimea must be carried out in full and the real equality of the three languages guaranteed,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he approved the program to build a group of armed forces in Crimea.
The program drawn by the Ministry of Defense will not be expensive, so Crimea will not have excessive number of troops or armaments.
He said that Moscow’s policy of developing the national armed forces was by no means a manifestation of war-mongering. He explained that the sole objective was to make the modern army up-to-date, easy to run, and compact.
“There must be advanced, compact and effective armed forces. This is the main thrust of the program extending till 2020-2021,” Putin said.
Putin recalled that the program pursued ambitious goals and a mammoth sum of 20 trillion roubles had been allocated for it.
"We are still to put the money to use,” Putin said, adding that the money would be spent on creating offensive and defensive weapons that other countries did not have yet.
All this work “is not militarization, but a powerful impetus to the development of the national defense industry,” Putin said.
Crimean trip
Russian Prime Minister and chairman of Russia’s ruling United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev, State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin and a number of federal ministers are also attending Putin’s meeting with the State Duma lawmakers in Crimea’s Yalta.
Later on Thursday, the Russian president will meet with men of culture to discuss issues of Crimea’s integration into Russia’s cultural space.
President Putin is currently on the visit to the Republic of Crimea, which merged with Russia earlier this year.
The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean peninsula, signed reunification deals with Russia on March 18 after a referendum two days earlier in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.
Work to integrate the Crimean Peninsula into Russia’s economic, financial, credit, legal, state power, military conscription and infrastructure systems is actively underway now that Crimea has become part of Russia.
Sergei Aksyonov, the republic’s acting head, earlier said that the full adaptation of the republic of Crimea to the Russian legislation may take up to five years.
In the Soviet Union, Crimea used to be part of Russia until 1954, when it was gifted to Ukraine by Soviet Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev.
by conniption » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:00 pm
Consortium News
(embedded links)
The Hushed-Up Hitler Factor in Ukraine
August 16, 2014
Behind the Ukraine crisis is a revision of World War II history that seeks to honor eastern European collaborators with Hitler and the Holocaust by repackaging these rightists as anti-Soviet heroes, a reality shielded from the U.S. public, as Dovid Katz explains.
By Dovid Katz
Would America support any type of Hitlerism in the course of the State Department’s effort to turn the anti-Russian political classes of Eastern Europe into paragons of PR perfection that may not be criticized, howsoever mildly?
It was frankly disconcerting to see Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, embracing the leader of Ukraine’s far right, anti-Semitic, pro-fascist Svoboda party last December. It was disturbing to learn of the neo-Nazi elements that provided the “muscle” for the actual Maidan takeover last February (BBC’s Newsnight was among the few major Western outlets to dare cover that openly).
Most disturbing of all has been the mainstream Western media’s almost Soviet-grade wall somehow erected against critical mention of the far-right component of Ukraine’s 2014 history, rendering any such thought as worthy of ridicule on New York Times opinion pages last spring.
Most hilarious was the Times’s May 2014 publication of an (obviously ghost-written, State Department-scripted) op-ed by Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia V. Tymoshenko which quotes Churchill writing to Roosevelt, “Give us the tools, as we will finish the job,” rumbling on about “the just and open democracy that is America’s greatest bequest to the world.”
This, from the far right politician who had shortly before that expressed genocidal musings for the millions of Russian-speaking citizens of her country, and who was, during her tenure as prime minister, a prime devotee of the wartime fascist leader Stepan Bandera, whose organization slaughtered tens of thousands (many historians put it at hundreds of thousands) of Polish and Jewish civilians based on ethnicity, in the Aryanist drive for an ethnically pure state precisely on the Nazi model.
It was therefore refreshing to read in last Saturday’s Times a report that had, albeit buried near the end, a single line informing readers that “One [militia active in the Kiev government’s military campaign] known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.” By contrast, London’s right-of-center Daily Telegraph ran a whole report Monday titled “The neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists,” rightly including the observation that the neo-Nazi forces being used by the Ukrainian government to do military heavy lifting “should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.”
This goes to the heart of what is being kept from so many Western, and especially American readers. Putin — for all his authoritarianism, anti-democratic bent and revanchism — is not the cause of the Ukrainian conundrum (though he is certainly exploiting it). There is a genuine divide in Ukraine between a nationalist-dominated west and a Russian-speaking east.
Anybody who has traveled the country will tell you that these “Russians” in the east, and wherever else they are to be found, would much rather be living in a European Union-type country than in a Russia-type country. What then is the problem? They do not want to live in an ultranationalist-dominated state that is anti-Russian in a 1930s Aryanesque sense of ethnically and linguistically pure Ukrainism. They much prefer the Russia-model state to that.
Now those anti-racist values, including the revering of the Anglo-American-Soviet alliance that brought down Hitler, and the disdain of societies founded on models of racist purity, are in fact also American values. But that affinity between Western values and the easterners would never even be guessed at in the avalanche of Cold War II newsfeed coming our way.
Incidentally, some Western reports that caricature the Putinist press’s use of the word “fascists” for Ukrainian nationalists don’t appreciate the colloquial Russian usage where it refers not necessarily to swastika-wielding thugs but even to high society that holds in esteem the likes of Bandera and other World War II-era Nazist fascists as supposed mythical “freedom fighters” to be revered today by the state, in street names, statues, museums, and more.
That is not to say that America’s allies among the western Ukrainian nationalists are all pro-fascist. They are not. But there are two salient issues that go beyond Ukraine and cover all of “anti-Russian” Eastern Europe, particularly the new member states of NATO and the EU.
The first is casual acceptance of neo-Nazi elements, symbolism and ideology as part of any kind of supposedly centrist mainstream. In Latvia and Estonia, this is exemplified by tacit (or not so tacit) state support for honors for those countries’ Waffen SS divisions. In Lithuania, it can be manifest in state-sponsored shrines to the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) killers who unleashed the Holocaust on Jewish neighbors before the first German soldiers had quite arrived.
But there is a second issue that is much deeper, and has nothing to do with these more ostentatious kinds of Nazi worship. That issue is history.
‘History’ Alive
While World War II is indeed “history” for the West, it is very much part of Now in Eastern Europe. State-sponsored institutions in the three Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, especially, and also at times in Croatia, Romania and elsewhere have invested a fortune in a kind of Holocaust revisionism that would whitewash their own nationalists’ collaboration with Hitler and turn the Soviet Union into the real Hitler.
Known as “Double Genocide,” it posits the absolute theoretical equality of Nazi and Soviet crimes. Its constitution is the 2008 “Prague Declaration,” which most Americans have never heard of, that sports the word “same” five times in reference to Nazi and Soviet crimes. Even fewer Americans know that one of its demands, that the world accept a unitary mix-and-match day of remembrance for Nazi and Soviet victims, was snuck under the radar into last June’s congressional military appropriations bill.
The issue across the board is the choice made by nationalist elites in Eastern Europe is to construct national myths not on the merits of a country’s great artists, poets, thinkers and genuine freedom fighters, but all too often, on the basis of Nazi collaborators whose claim to fame is that they were also “anti-Soviet patriots.”
The fact of the matter is that virtually all of Hitler’s collaborators in Eastern Europe were “anti-Soviet.” In fact, the Soviet Union was the only power putting up resistance to Hitler in Eastern Europe. If the Soviets had not pushed the Nazi armies back by the spring of 1944, at huge sacrifice to all the Soviet peoples, there would have been no D-Day or opening of a Western front.
Whether it is hero-worship of Hungary’s Miklós Horthy, leaders of Croatia’s Hitlerist Ustasha, the Nazis’ Waffen SS divisions in Latvia and Estonia, or the likes of Ukraine’s Bandera and his OUN and UPA, and the Waffen SS, it is an offense to Western values that a NATO or EU state, or NATO/EU-aspiring state, would disburse state funds on the distortion of history, obfuscation of the Holocaust and construction of societies that admire the worst of history’s racists.
To do so quite simply implies that all the minority citizens they butchered, or whose butchering they supported, were quite unworthy of continued existence. Incidentally, all these countries have real heroes from that darkest moment in their history: those (often the simplest of people) who just did the right thing and risked all to rescue a neighbor from the Nazist establishment collaborationist leadership of their own nationalists.
A High Low Point
The trend reached an unseemly highpoint in 2012, when the Lithuanian government financed the repatriation from Putnam, Connecticut, to Lithuania of the remains of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius Brazaitis, who had personally signed documents confirming Nazi orders first, for Jewish citizens of his city, Kaunas, to be sent to a concentration camp (it was actually a mass murder site), and a few weeks later, for the remainder to be incarcerated in a ghetto within four weeks.
Instead of politely protesting, the American embassy in Vilnius helped camouflage the event with a symposium on the war and the Holocaust that did not even mention the reburial underway.
According to some in State Department circles, the Obama administration, shaken by criticism of its long-standing anti-neocon caution in Iraq and Syria, and rueful over Libya, has tried to show its muscle, and satisfy the contingent led by Robert Kagan and his wife, Victoria Nuland, now assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, with sheer one-sidedness over Ukraine.
That is the Ms. Nuland who was caught telling the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine “Fuck the EU,” which would have preferred peaceful, democratic change in Ukraine. She was also plotting which politician would emerge as prime minister in that nation in the worst neo-con tradition of organizing who will emerge as ruler after the next fixed case of foreign regime change.
In Ukraine, a negotiated solution could maintain the nation’s independence and freedom to join the EU but not the military alliance NATO that is the huge humiliation for Russia (a hostile military alliance coming right to more of its borders).
Any viable solution needs to take into account that it is a deeply divided country even in the absence of (ever-present) Putinist mischief. It therefore needs to also take into account the many millions of Russian speakers who oppose the racial chauvinism of some of the nationalist elite now in or close to the government, and who have very different ideas about Twentieth Century history.
That is the way forward, not the Cold War II nonsense of spreading the word that the westerners are pure angels and the easterners pure demons, not the neocon nonsense that America’s greatness depends on endless foreign military misadventures in regime change that lead to long , unpredictable, and uncontrollable cycles of violence.
That America shares with Russia the magnificent legacy of having in tandem brought down Hitler’s empire is a heritage worth invoking for building better understanding, not a fact to be buried in deference to the far-right revision of Holocaust history with which much of nationalist Eastern Europe is so obsessed.
Dovid Katz, formerly professor of Yiddish Studies at Vilnius University, is a New York born, Vilnius-based independent researcher. He edits DefendingHistory.com. His personal website is http://www.dovidkatz.net.
counterpunch
Weekend Edition August 15-17, 2014
Standing in Washington's Way
Why Obama Wants Maliki Removed
by MIKE WHITNEY
The Obama administration is pushing for regime change in Iraq on the basis that current prime minister Nouri al Maliki is too sectarian. The fact is, however, that Maliki’s abusive treatment of Sunnis never factored into Washington’s decision to have him removed. Whether he has been “too sectarian” or not is completely irrelevant. The real reason he’s under attack is because he wouldn’t sign the Status of Forces Agreement in 2011. He refused to grant immunity to the tens of thousands of troops the administration wanted to leave in Iraq following the formal withdrawal. That’s what angered Washington. That’s why the administration wants Maliki replaced...
continued: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/15/ ... i-removed/
by conniption » Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:52 am
by seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:31 am
AUGUST 18, 2014
Et Tu, Mullah?
Did Iran Just Knife Putin in the Back?
by MIKE WHITNEY
On Thursday, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law that will allow foreign investors to lease up to 49 percent of Ukraine’s transit pipelines and underground gas storage facilities. The bill, which had failed to pass just weeks earlier, was approved by the slimmest of margins, 2 votes, suggesting that there might have been some arm twisting or bribery behind the scenes. The new law is a victory for the Obama administration and western elites who want to control the flow of gas from Russia to the EU, set prices, and make sure that transactions continue to be denominated in dollars. Here’s a little more background from an article in Reuters:
“Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on Thursday to allow gas transit facilities to be leased on a joint venture basis with participation from firms in the European Union or United States….The government has said the joint venture will bring in investment and remove the need for the South Stream pipeline, which Russia’s Gazprom is building to take gas to southeastern Europe across the Black Sea, avoiding Ukraine.
If South Stream is built, it threatens to deprive Ukraine’s badly strained budget of the transit fees that it currently receives from Russia for gas heading towards Europe.
The EU imports 30 percent of its natural gas needs from Russia, and about half of that comes via Ukraine, with some already having been diverted through the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea.” (“Ukrainian parliament backs bill to open gas pipelines to EU, U.S. firms”, The Star)
You can see that the bloody, fratricidal conflict in Ukraine has nothing to do with democracy, sovereignty or even “evil” Putin. It’s all about gas and pipelines. It’s all part of Washington’s grand plan to put a wedge between Russia and the EU, control the flow of vital resources, and establish NATO bases on Russia’s western flank. The fact that the article mentions South Stream is particularly revealing. The Obama administration is doing everything in its power to sabotage South Stream so that Russia will be unable to bypass troublemaking Ukraine and sell its gas directly to countries across Europe. (Here’s a map of South Stream.)
Washington doesn’t want free trade between neighbors. Washington wants every drop of Russian gas to pass through its tollbooth so it can maintain a stranglehold on Europe’s economy and on Moscow’s revenues. Here’s more on South Stream from Bloomberg:
“The $46 billion South Stream project, spearheaded by OAO Gazprom, is on hold and will probably remain in limbo for years as Russia continues to foment armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and the EU retaliates with bans, Eurasia Group said.
That means the war-torn country will remain a key transit point for about half of Gazprom’s shipments to Europe, according to the New York-based risk research group. The EU previously had mixed positions on South Stream. With Russian troops massing near the Ukraine border, the bloc now has little choice but to stand united in opposition.
“There’s no way Europe is going to put South Stream negotiations back on the table now, given the larger geopolitical context of the Ukraine crisis,” Emily Stromquist, a Eurasia analyst in London, said in an interview.
The proposed 2,446-kilometer (1,520-mile) pipeline would run under the Black Sea and enter the EU in Bulgaria. That would end Gazprom’s dependence on the Ukrainian gas-transit system.” (“Putin’s Pipeline Bypassing Ukraine Is at Risk Amid Conflict”, Bloomberg)
So, you see, the US is using every trick in the book to prevent Russia from selling its gas to the EU.
But, why?
Because the US is left out, that’s why. Washington doesn’t want what’s best for the EU or Russia. Washington want what’s best for Washington. What they want is to pivot to Asia by pitting Moscow against Brussels, thus, creating the pretext for deploying cat’s-paw NATO to Ukraine so they can point their missiles at the Russian capital and bully everyone in the region. That’s the plan.
By the way, the claim that “Russia is massing troops by the Ukrainian border” is nonsense. An International team of inspectors was sent to Russia to check things out and here’s what the found:
“No instances of violations by Russia along the Ukrainian border had been registered by the inspectors,” the ministry said. “The last four months have witnessed 18 separate inspections along the Ukrainian border with the Russian Federation, all in line with the Vienna Open Skies Treaty and the Vienna agreement of 2011.” (RT)
See? It’s all baloney, just like most of what you read in the western media about Ukraine is baloney. In fact, there have been a number of excellent articles written on the topic just recently, notably articles by Ron Unz and Karel Van Woldferen. Having done considerable research on the topic, businessman and political activist, Unz is amazed at, what he calls “the utter corruption and unreliability of the mainstream American media”, adding that “the events of the last dozen years should have bankrupted any faith we have in our government or media.” (“American Pravda: Who Shot Down Flight MH17 in Ukraine?“, The Unz Review)
In a similar vein, Dutch journalist and retired professor at the University of Amsterdam, Karel Van Wolferen, takes aim at both the media and the state, but saves his most devastating salvo for Washington:
“America’s history,” he says, “since the demise of the Soviet Union, of truly breathtaking lies: on Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Libya and North Korea; its record of overthrown governments; its black-op and false flag operations; and its stealthily garrisoning of the planet with some thousand military bases, is conveniently left out of consideration. ….Decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.” (“The Ukraine, Corrupted Journalism, and the Atlanticist Faith“, Karel Van Wolferen, The Unz Review
Both articles are worth reading in full.
In any event, readers would be well advised not to trust anything they read in the media about Ukraine. It’s all bunkum. Just like the ridiculous article, that popped up in the Guardian last week (that was intended to start World War 3) is bunkum. Here’s the scoop: Last Thursday, journalists from the Guardian and the Telegraph reported that a convoy of Russian military trucks and armored vehicles crossed the border into Ukraine. Here’s a clip from the article in the Guardian:
“The Guardian saw a column of 23 armoured personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, travelling towards the border near the Russian town of Donetsk – about 200km away from Donetsk, Ukraine.
After pausing by the side of the road until nightfall, the convoy crossed into Ukrainian territory, using a rough dirt track and clearly crossing through a gap in a barbed wire fence that demarcates the border. Armed men were visible in the gloom by the border fence as the column moved into Ukraine. Kiev has lost control of its side of the border in this area.
The trucks are unlikely to represent a full-scale official Russian invasion, and it was unclear how far they planned to travel inside Ukrainian territory and how long they would stay. But it was incontrovertible evidence of what Ukraine has long claimed – that Russian troops are active inside its borders.” (“Aid convoy stops short of border as Russian military vehicles enter Ukraine”, Guardian)
“Incontrovertible evidence”, you say? No photos, no satellite imagery, no nothing. We are asked to believe that two professional journalists didn’t even have a workable cell phone with which they could take a picture. That’s Incontrovertible evidence?
Shortly after the alleged incident, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko issued a statement saying “that his country’s armed forces had destroyed part of an armed convoy that the Guardian saw moving through a gap in a border fence on Thursday night.”
Got that? So, now they not only SAW the phantom convoy they also blew it up. Not bad for a day’s work.
Okay, so where are the prisoners? Where are the blown up hulks of the armored vehicles? Where are the casualties? Where’s eyewitness testimony of the people who first appeared on the scene? Where’s the photographic proof from US satellites that were combing the area at the time? There’s has to be something to substantiate a claim as serious as this; a claim that could lead to a declaration of war on Russia.
Nothing. They have nothing; not a shred of hard evidence. It’s all just fluff.
This is sadly reminiscent of the bogus claims of “mobile weapons labs” and “aluminum tubes” that were used launch the war on Iraq. Similarly, all the media fell in line, reiterating the same basic narrative with zero evidence. Here’s a blurb form the New York Times:
“The government of Ukraine, pushing to oust pro-Russian rebels from their last enclaves in the east while nervously eyeing a stalled Russian aid convoy, said on Friday that its force had destroyed a number of Russian military vehicles that it said crossed into Ukraine late Thursday through a border area controlled by the separatists.” (NYT)
And the Telegraph:
“There was growing concern over the Ukraine crisis on Friday night after Kiev claimed to have destroyed parts of a column of Russian military vehicles, with Nato accusing Moscow of launching an “incursion”. Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, told David Cameron, the Prime Minister, that government artillery had destroyed a “considerable part” of a small military convoy that entered the country.” (Telegraph)
And the Kyiv Post:
“Ukraine claims it has destroyed Russian military vehicles in the country’s east, a day after a column was spotted moving across the border. Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, told David Cameron by phone that his country’s armed forces had destroyed part of an armed convoy that the Guardian saw moving through a gap in a border fence on Thursday night.” (Kyiv Post)
Propagandize. Wash. Repeat.
Russia’s Defense Ministry basically laughed off the allegations as politically motivated lies saying:
“No Russian military column that allegedly crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border at night or during the day ever existed….Such statements – based on fantasies, or journalists’ assumptions, to be precise – should not be subject for a serious discussion by top officials of any country,” said Major General Igor Konashenkov. (RT)
Ask yourself this, dear reader, if Russia had sent armored personnel carriers across the border into Ukraine, do you really think they’d do it on the same freaking day they were trying to get a green light for their humanitarian convoy? And if they did; do you really think that that Poroshenko would give the humanitarian convoy the go-ahead?
Of course, he wouldn’t. He’d be too busy declaring war on Russia. But he’s not declaring war on Russia nor has he stopped the humanitarian convoy.
Why? Because he knows that the whole story is bullshit, that’s why. His behavior proves its a lie.
PIPELINE POLITICS
If you follow pipeline politics, there was a development last week that will blow your socks off. In a nutshell: Iran sold out and switched over to the dark side. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this from World Bulletin:
”As the Ukraine crisis puts Russia and Europe at odds, leaving Europe with no choice but to search for alternative natural gas resources, Iran looks likely to fulfill Europe’s demand. Iran’s deputy oil minister Ali Mejidi has indicated that the Nabucco Project, which was presented as an alternative to Russian gas with the potential of fulfilling a large proportion of Europe’s need before being put on hold last year, is now back on track.
Speaking to Russian press, Mejidi confirmed that two separate delegations were sent to Europe. “With Nabucco, Iran can provide Europe with gas. We are the best alternative to Russia,” he said. Mejidi also said that though a number of routes to deliver the gas to Europe were being considered, Turkey was the “right address.”
The Nabucco project, which was first presented in 2002, plans to pump gas to Europe via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. The project will also pump 31 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani and Iraqi natural gas to Europe.” (“Iran to provide Europe with alternative to Russian gas”, World Bulletin)
Wow. What a kick in the teeth that is. This is a huge blow not just to Putin, but to everyone who seeks a multi-polar world run by sovereign nations who believe in the rule of law.
How did this happen? And why is Iran climbing into bed with the Great Satan instead of pushing for their original plan which was to build a pipeline from Iran-Iraq-Syria? Could it be that Uncle Sam is going to make sure that that pipeline never gets built? Is that why Washington is letting a couple thousand homicidal maniacs (ISIS) run around Syria and Iraq lopping off heads and wreaking havoc; so it will be impossible to lay pipe or transit gas?
It sure looks that way, but there’s more too. Check out this blurb from an article by William Engdahl:
“In 2009, the Emir of Qatar went to Damascus to negotiate an agreement with President Bashar Assad for a Qatari gas pipeline from their huge offshore gas field, North Dome, which is contiguous with the Iranian South Pars field in the waters of the Persian Gulf dividing the two countries. The South Pars/North Dome field is the world’s largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar….. Qatar’s proposition to Assad was to build a gas pipeline that would bring Qatari gas through Syria and into Turkey, a close Qatari ally. Assad refused, citing Syria’s strong energy relations with Russia.
In March 2011, Assad signed another gas pipeline deal: this time with arch-Qatar enemy, Iran. Qatar is fundamentalist Sunni and home to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Iran is fundamentalist Shiite Muslim and Iraq is ruled by a Shiite Prime Minister. Both Iran and Iraq back Assad in the current war for control of Syria. The Iranian gas pipeline would extend from its Persian Gulf field through Iraq and through Syria. No sooner was the ink dry on the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline when a full-scale terror war, financed by Qatar to the tune of billions of dollars, exploded across Syria.
Now Russia has stepped in, after the failure of Qatar, the Saudis and Turkey to topple the Assad regime and replace it, either with a fundamentalist Wahabite Saudi regime or a fundamentalist Salafist Muslim Brotherhood, one that would do business with them and not with Russia.” (“Syria attraction: Russia moving into Eastern Mediterranean oil bonanza”, William Engdahl, RT)
In other words, if you don’t do what your told to do, and sign on the bottom line; then we’ll start a terrorist war in your backyard and you’ll get nothing. Isn’t that what’s happening to Syria?
You bet, it is. Still, that doesn’t explain why Iran sold its former friends down the river. For clues to that, we need to look back to before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected and the western media was all atwitter about what a “moderate” he was. (Moderate is a euphemism that is usually applied to US puppets.) It all started back in September, 2013, when Rouhani opened up a channel for talking with Obama. It was obvious from the get-go that the White House figured they had a guy in Tehran, they “could work with”. Here’s a little background for the incident the pundits called “the phone call”:
“President Barack Obama and new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone on Friday, the highest-level contact between the two countries in three decades and a sign that they are serious about reaching a pact on Tehran’s nuclear program….
As president, Rouhani is the head of the government but has limited powers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the ultimate authority in Iran with final say on domestic and foreign policy, though Rouhani says he has been given full authority to negotiate on the nuclear issue….
In his speech to the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Obama cautiously embraced Rouhani’s gestures as the basis for a possible nuclear deal and challenged him to demonstrate his sincerity. However, the failure to orchestrate a handshake between the two leaders that day, apparently because of Rouhani’s concerns about a backlash from hardliners at home, seemed to underscore how hard it may be to make diplomatic progress.” (“Obama, Iran’s Rouhani hold historic phone call”, Reuters)
Of course, they couldn’t shake hands, because they are supposed to be mortal enemies. But, clearly, Rouhani has been busy behind the scenes cozying up to Obama. And it’s paid off too. Check this out from UPI:
“Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed delegates gathered for an economic forum in the Iranian capital. He said sanctions pressure has eased in coordination with multilateral negotiations over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
Iran under the terms of a multilateral agreement reached in November can export around 1 million barrels of oil in exchange for curbing nuclear research activity. Rouhani said moving forward with nuclear talks with the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France, plus Germany, should bring benefits to the international community.
“Western and eastern countries are telling us the sanctions have harmed them and their removal will benefit all,” he said.
The Iranian Oil Ministry said Tuesday its oil sales for the first four months of the year were up 5 percent when compared with last year.” (“Iran: Easing sanctions brings global relief”, UPI)
Iran’s fictional “nuclear program” had nothing to do easing sanctions. The whole thing is a red herring. The nuclear program is just a stick the US uses to beat up Tehran whenever they get the urge. Here’s what’s really happened: Washington agreed to ease up on the sanctions if Iran caved in on the gas deal, which it did. Now the US-backed Nabucco pipeline is back in business, while Russia’s South Stream is on the rocks.
You got to admit: US really knows how to play smash-mouth politics when it has to.
One last thought: The only way Washington would do a deal with arch-enemy Iran, is if there was some other country they hated even more.
That would be Russia.
by seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 18, 2014 9:19 pm
The Ukraine, Corrupted Journalism, and the Atlanticist Faith
(9Aug 2014)
The European Union is not (anymore) guided by politicians with a grasp of history, a sober assesment of global reality, or simple common sense connected with the longterm interests of what they are guiding. If any more evidence was needed, it has certainly been supplied by the sanctions they have agreed on last week aimed at punishing Russia.
One way to fathom their foolishness is to start with the media, since whatever understanding or concern these politicians may have personally they must be seen to be doing the right thing, which is taken care of by TV and newspapers.
In much of the European Union the general understanding of global reality since the horrible fate of the people on board the Malaysian Airliner comes from mainstream newspapers and TV which have copied the approach of Anglo-American mainstream media, and have presented ‘news’ in which insinuation and villification substitute for proper reporting. Respected publications, like the Financial Times or the once respected NRC Handelsblad of The Netherlands for which I worked sixteen years as East Asia Correspondent, not only joined in with this corrupted journalism but helped guide it to mad conclusions. The punditry and editorials that have grown out of this have gone further than anything among earlier examples of sustained media hysteria stoked for political purposes that I can remember. The most flagrant example I have come across, an anti-Putin leader in the (July 26) Economist Magazine, had the tone of Shakespeare’s Henry V exhorting his troops before the battle of Agincourt as he invaded France.
One should keep in mind that there are no European-wide newspapers or publications to sustain a European public sphere, in the sense of a means for politically interested Europeans to ponder and debate with each other big international developments. Because those interested in world affairs usually read the international edition of the New York Times or the Financial Times, questions and answers on geopolitical matters are routinely shaped or strongly influenced by what editors in New York and London have determined as being important. Thinking that may deviate significantly as can now be found in Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, does not travel across German borders. Hence we do not see anything like a European opinion evolving on global affairs, even when these have a direct impact on the interests of the European Union itself.
The Dutch population was rudely shaken out of a general complacency with respect to world events that could affect it, through the death of 193 fellow nationals (along with a 105 people of other nationalities) in the downed plane, and its media were hasty in following the American-initiated fingerpointing at Moscow. Explanations that did not in some way involve culpability of the Russian president seemed to be out of bounds. This was at odds right away with statements of a sober Dutch prime minister, who was under considerable pressure to join the fingerpointing but who insisted on waiting for a thorough examination of what precisely had happened.
The TV news programs I saw in the days immediately afterwards had invited, among other anti–Russian expositors, American neocon-linked talking heads to do the disclosing to a puzzled and truly shaken up audience. A Dutch foreign policy specialist explained that the foreign minister or his deputy could not go to the site of the crash (as Malaysian officials did) to recover the remains of Dutch citizens, because that would amount to an implicit recognition of diplomatic status for the “separatists”. When the European Union en bloc recognizes a regime that has come into existence through an American initiated coup d’état, you are diplomatically stuck with it.
The inhabitants and anti-Kiev fighters at the crash site were portrayed, with images from youtube, as uncooperative criminals, which for many viewers amounted to a confirmation of their guilt. This changed when later reports from actual journalists showed shocked and deeply concerned villagers, but the discrepancy was not explained, and earlier assumptions of villainy did not make way for any objective analysis of why these people might be fighting at all. Tendentious twitter and youtube ‘news’ had become the basis for official Dutch indignation with the East Ukrainians, and a general opinion arose that something had to be set straight, which was, again in general opinion, accomplished by a grand nationally televised reception of the human remains (released through Malaysian mediation) in a dignified sober martial ceremony.
Nothing that I have seen or read even intimated that the Ukraine crisis – which led to coup and civil war – was created by neoconservatives and a few R2P (“Responsibility to Protect”) fanatics in the State Department and the White House, apparently given a free hand by President Obama. The Dutch media also appeared unaware that the catastrophe was immediately turned into a political football for White House and State Department purposes. The likelihood that Putin was right when he said that the catastrophe would not have happened if his insistence on a cease-fire had been accepted, was not entertained.
As it was, Kiev broke the cease-fire – on the 10th of June – in its civil war against Russian speaking East Ukrainians who do not wish to be governed by a collection of thugs, progeny of Ukrainian nazis, and oligarchs enamored of the IMF and the European Union. The supposed ‘rebels’ have been responding to the beginnings of ethnic cleansing operations (systematic terror bombing and atrocities – 30 or more Ukrainians burned alive) committed by Kiev forces, of which little or nothing has penetrated into European news reports.
It is unlikely that the American NGOs, which by official admission spent 5 billion dollars in political destabilization efforts prior to the February putsch in Kiev, have suddenly disappeared from the Ukraine, or that America’s military advisors and specialized troops have sat idly by as Kiev’s military and militias mapped their civil war strategy; after all, the new thugs are as a regime on financial life-support provided by Washington, the European Union and IMF. What we know is that Washington is encouraging the ongoing killing in the civil war it helped trigger.
But Washington has constantly had the winning hand in a propaganda war against, entirely contrary to what mainstream media would have us believe, an essentially unwilling opponent. Waves of propaganda come from Washington and are made to fit assumptions of a Putin, driven and assisted by a nationalism heightened by the loss of the Soviet empire, who is trying to expand the Russian Federation up to the borders of that defunct empire. The more adventurous punditry, infected by neocon fever, has Russia threatening to envelop the West. Hence Europeans are made to believe that Putin refuses diplomacy, while he has been urging this all along. Hence prevailing propaganda has had the effect that not Washington’s but Putin’s actions are seen as dangerous and extreme. Anyone with a personal story that places Putin or Russia in a bad light must move right now; Dutch editors seem insatiable at the moment.
There is no doubt that the frequently referred to Moscow propaganda exists. But there are ways for serious journalists to weigh competing propaganda and discern how much veracity or lies and bullshit they contain. Within my field of vision this has only taken place a bit in Germany. For the rest we must piece political reality together relying on the now more than ever indispensable American websites hospitable to whistleblowers and old-fashioned investigative journalism, which especially since the onset of the ‘war on terrorism’ and the Iraq invasion have formed a steady form of samizdat publishing.
In The Netherlands almost anything that comes from the State Department is taken at face value. America’s history, since the demise of the Soviet Union, of truly breathtaking lies: on Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Libya and North Korea; its record of overthrown governments; its black-op and false flag operations; and its stealthily garrisoning of the planet with some thousand military bases, is conveniently left out of consideration. The near hysteria throughout a week following the downed airliner prevented people with some knowledge of relevant history from opening their mouths. Job security in the current world of journalism is quite shaky, and going against the tide would be almost akin to siding with the devil, as it would damage one’s journalistic ‘credibility’.
What strikes an older generation of serious journalists as questionable about the mainstream media’s credibility is editorial indifference to potential clues that would undermine or destroy the official story line; a story line that has already permeated popular culture as is evident in throwaway remarks embellishing book and film reviews along with much else. In The Netherlands the official story is already carved in stone, which is to be expected when it is repeated ten-thousand times. It cannot be discounted, of course, but it is based on not a shred of evidence.
The presence of two Ukrainian fighterplanes near the Malaysian airliner on Russian radar would be a potential clue I would be very interested in if I were investigating either as journalist or member of the investigation team that The Netherlands has officially been put in charge of. This appeared to be corroborated by a BBC Report with eyewitness accounts from the ground by villagers who clearly saw another plane, a fighter, close to the airliner, near the time of its crash, and heard explosions coming from the sky. This report has recently drawn attention because it was removed from the BBC’s archive. I would want to talk with Michael Bociurkiw, one of the first inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to reach the crash site who spent more than a week examining the wreckage and has described on CBC World News two or three “really pock-marked” pieces of fuselage. “It almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire that has left these unique marks that we haven’t seen anywhere else.”
I would certainly also want to have a look at the allegedly confiscated radar and voice records of the Kiev Air Control Tower to understand why the Malaysian pilot veered off course and rapidly descended shortly before his plane crashed, and find out whether foreign aircontrollers in Kiev were indeed sent packing immediately after the crash. Like the “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity”, I would certainly urge the American authorities with access to satellite images to show the evidence they claim to have of BUK missile batteries in ‘rebel’ hands as well as of Russian involvement, and ask them why they have not done so already. Until now Washington has acted like a driver who refuses a breathalyzer test. Since intelligence officials have leaked to some American newspapers their lesser certainty about the American certainties as brought to the world by the Secretary of State, my curiosity would be unrelenting.
To place European media loyalty to Washington in the Ukraine case as well as the slavish conduct of European politicians in perspective, we must know about and understand Atlanticism. It is a European faith. It has not given rise to an official doctrine, of course, but it functions like one. It is well summed up by the Dutch slogan at the time of the Iraq invasion: “zonder Amerika gaat het niet” (without the United States [things] [it] won’t work). Needless to say, the Cold War gave birth to Atlanticism. Ironically, it gained strength as the threat from the Soviet Union became less persuasive for increasing numbers among European political elites. That probably was a matter of generational change: the farther away from World War II, the less European governments remembered what it means to have an independent foreign policy on global-sized issues. Current heads of government of the European Union are unfamiliar with practical strategic deliberations. Routine thought on international relations and global politics is deeply entrenched in Cold War epistemology.
This inevitably also informs ‘responsible’ editorial policies. Atlanticism is now a terrible affliction for Europe: it fosters historical amnesia, willful blindness and dangerously misconceived political anger. But it thrives on a mixture of lingering unquestioned Cold War era certainties about protection, Cold War loyalties embedded in popular culture, sheer European ignorance, and an understandable reluctance to concede that one has even for a little bit been brainwashed. Washington can do outrageous things while leaving Atlanticism intact because of everyone’s forgetfulness, which the media do little or nothing to cure. I know Dutch people who have become disgusted with the villification of Putin, but the idea that in the context of Ukraine the fingerpointing should be toward Washington is well-nigh unacceptable. Hence, Dutch publications, along with many others in Europe, cannot bring themselves to place the Ukraine crisis in proper perspective by acknowledging that Washington started it all, and that Washington rather than Putin has the key to its solution. It would impel a renunciation of Atlanticism.
Atlanticism derives much of its strength through NATO, its institutional embodiment. The reason for NATO’s existence, which disappeard with the demise of the Soviet Union, has been largely forgotten. Formed in 1949, it was based on the idea that transatlantic cooperation for security and defense had become necessary after World War II in the face of a communism, orchestrated by Moscow, intent on taking over the entire planet. Much less talked about was European internal distrust, as the Europeans set off on their first moves towards economic integration. NATO constituted a kind of American guarantee that no power in Europe would ever try to dominate the others.
NATO has for some time now been a liability for the European Union, as it prevents development of concerted European foreign and defense policies, and has forced the member states to become instruments serving American militarism.
It is also a moral liability because the governments participating in the ‘coalition of the willing’ have had to sell the lie to their citizens that European soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a necessary sacrifice to keep Europe safe from terrorists. Governments that have supplied troops to areas occupied by the United States have generally done this with considerable reluctance, earning the reproach from a succession of American officials that Europeans do too little for the collective purpose of defending democracy and freedom.
As is the mark of an ideology, Atlanticism is ahistorical. As horse medicine against the torment of fundamental political ambiguity it supplies its own history: one that may be rewritten by American mainstream media as they assist in spreading the word from Washington.
There could hardly be a better demonstration of this than the Dutch experience at the moment. In conversations these past three weeks I have encountered genuine surprise when reminding friends that the Cold War ended through diplomacy with a deal made on Malta between Gorbachev and the elder Bush in December 1989, in which James Baker got Gorbachev to accept the reunification of Germany and withdrawal of Warsaw Pact troops with a promise that NATO would not be extended even one inch to the East. Gorbachev pledged not to use force in Eastern Europe where the Russians had some 350,000 troops in East Germany alone, in return for Bush’s promise that Washington would not take advantage of a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Bill Clinton reneged on those American promises when, for purely electoral reasons, he boasted about an enlargement of NATO and in 1999 made the Czech Republic and Hungary full members. Ten years later another nine countries became members, at which point the number of NATO countries was double the number during the Cold War. The famous American specialist on Russia, Ambassador George Kennan, originator of Cold War containment policy, called Clinton’s move “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.”
Historical ignorance abetted by Atlanticism is poignantly on display in the contention that the ultimate proof in the case against Vladimir Putin is his invasion of Crimea. Again, political reality here was created by America’s mainstream media. There was no invasion, as the Russian sailors and soldiers were already there since it is home to the ‘warm water’ Black Sea base for the Russian navy. Crimea has been a part of Russia for as long as the United States has existed. In 1954 Khrushchev, who himself came from the Ukraine, gave it to the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, which came down to moving a region to a different province, since Russia and Ukraine still belonged to the same country. The Russian speaking Crimean population was happy enough, as it voted in a referendum first for independence from the Kiev regime that resulted from the coup d’état, and subsequently for reunification with Russia.
Those who maintain that Putin had no right to do such a thing are unaware of another strand of history in which the United States has been moving (Star Wars) missile defense systems ever closer to Russian borders, supposedly to intercept hostile missiles from Iran, which do not exist. Sanctimonious talk about territorial integrity and sovereignty makes no sense under these circumstances, and coming from a Washington that has done away with the concept of sovereignty in its own foreign policy it is downright ludicrous.
A detestable Atlanticist move was the exclusion of Putin from the meetings and other events connected with the commemoration of the Normandy landings, for the first time in 17 years. The G8 became the G7 as a result. Amnesia and ignorance have made the Dutch blind to a history that directly concerned them, since the Soviet Union took the heart out of the Nazi war machine (that occupied The Netherlands) at a cost of incomparable and unimaginable mumbers of military dead; without that there would not have been a Normandy invasion.
Not so long ago, the complete military disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to be moving NATO to a point where its inevitable demise could not to be too far off. But the Ukraine crisis and Putin’s decisiveness in preventing the Crimea with its Russian Navy base from possibly falling into the hands of the American-owned alliance, has been a godsend to this earlier faltering institution.
NATO leadership has already been moving troops to strengthen their presence in the Baltic states, sending missiles and attack aircraft to Poland and Lithuania, and since the downing of the Malaysian airliner it has been preparing further military moves that may turn into dangerous provocations of Russia. It has become clear that the Polish foreign minister together with the Baltic countries, none of which partook in NATO when its reason for being could still be defended, have become a strong driving force behind it. A mood of mobilisation has spread in the past week. The ventriloquist dummies Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer can be relied upon to take to TV screens inveighing against NATO memberstate backsliding. Rasmussen, the current Secretary General, declared on August 7 in Kiev that NATO’s “support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering” and that he is looking to strengthen partnership with the country at the Alliance’s summit in Wales in September. That partnership is already strong, so he said, “and in response to Russia’s aggression, NATO is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defence institutions.”
In the meantime, in the American Congress 23 Senate Republicans have sponsored legislation, the “Russian Aggression Prevention Act”, which is meant to allow Washington to make the Ukraine a non-NATO ally and could set the stage for a direct military conflict with Russia. We will probably have to wait until after America’s midterm elections to see what will become of it, but it already helps provide a political excuse for those in Washington who want to take next steps in the Ukraine.
In September last year Putin helped Obama by making it possible for him to stop a bombing campaign against Syria pushed by the neocons, and had also helped in defusing the nuclear dispute with Iran, another neocon project. This led to a neocon commitment to break the Putin-Obama link. It is hardly a secret that the neoconservatives desire the overthrow of Putin and eventual dismemberment of the Russian Federation. Less known in Europe is the existence of numerous NGO’s at work in Russia, which will help them with this. Vladimir Putin could strike now or soon, to preempt NATO and the American Congress, by taking Eastern Ukraine, something he probably should have done right after the Crimean referendum. That would, of course, be proof of his evil intentions in European editorial eyes.
In the light of all this, one of the most fateful questions to ask in current global affairs is: what has to happen for Europeans to wake up to the fact that Washington is playing with fire and has ceased being the protector they counted on, and is instead now endangering their security? Will the moment come when it becomes clear that the Ukraine crisis is, most of all, about placing Star Wars missile batteries along an extensive stretch of Russian border, which gives Washington – in the insane lingo of nuclear strategists – ‘first strike’ capacity?
It is beginning to sink in among older Europeans that the United States has enemies who are not Europe’s enemies because it needs them for domestic political reasons; to keep an economically hugely important war industry going and to test by shorthand the political bona fides of contenders for public office. But while using rogue states and terrorists as targets for ‘just wars’ has never been convincing, Putin’s Russia as demonized by a militaristic NATO could help prolong the transatlantic status quo. The truth behind the fate of the Malaysian airliner, I thought from the moment that I heard about it, would be politically determined. Its black boxes are in London. In NATO hands?
Other hindrances to an awakening remain huge; financialization and neoliberal policies have produced an intimate transatlantic entwining of plutocratic interests. Together with the Atlanticist faith these have helped stymie the political development of the European Union, and with that Europe’s ability to proceed with independent political decisions. Since Tony Blair, Great Britain has been in Washington’s pocket, and since Nicolas Sarkozy one can say more or less the same of France.
That leaves Germany. Angela Merkel was clearly unhappy with the sanctions, but in the end went along because she wants to remain on the good side of the American president, and the United States as the conqueror in World War II does still have leverage through a variety of agreements. Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, quoted in newspapers and appearing on TV, repudiated the sanctions and points at Iraq and Libya as examples of the results brought by escalation and ultimatums, yet he too swings round and in the end goes along with them.
Der Spiegel is one of the German publications that offer hope. One of its columnists, Jakob Augstein, attacks the “sleepwalkers” who have agreed to sanctions, and censures his colleagues’ fingerpointing at Moscow. Gabor Steingart, who publishes Handelsblatt, inveighs against the “American tendency to verbal and then to military escalation, the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies” and concludes that also German journalism “has switched from level-headed to agitated in a matter of weeks. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the field of vision of a sniper scope.” There must be more journalists in other parts of Europe who say things like this, but their voices do not carry through the din of villification.
History is being made, once again. What may well determine Europe’s fate is that also outside the defenders of the Atlanticist faith, decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.
by conniption » Tue Aug 19, 2014 7:52 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:37 pm
by conniption » Fri Aug 22, 2014 3:33 pm
RT
Trucks with Russian aid reach Lugansk, E. Ukraine
Published time: August 22, 2014 07:49
Trucks of a Russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine, August, 22, 2014 (RIA Novosti / Maksim Blinov)
Moscow has accused Kiev of placing political interests above humanity, adding that it is confident it made the right decision to order a convoy with Russian humanitarian aid to proceed to the conflict zone without waiting for further Ukrainian permission.
All the trucks in the Russian aid convoy have arrived in Lugansk and are currently being unloaded, the city administration confirmed to the media.
Later, a specially formed commission will distribute essential supplies of food, medicine and water among the population. Part of the Russian humanitarian aid may be send to the neighboring Donetsk region, which has also been heavily hit by the ongoing violence.
Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately holding up the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, according to the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“Our convoy with humanitarian aid is starting to move in the direction of Lugansk,” the Foreign Ministry's statement reads. “We are of course ready for it to be accompanied by Red Cross representatives and for their participation in the aid’s distribution.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was not escorting the convoy.
“That’s because of the problems with security,” Galina Balzamova of the ICRC told RT. “Lugansk was shelled all night long. We believe we did not get sufficient guarantees of safety from all the parties to the conflict to start escorting the convoy.”
The head of the Russian Red Cross, Raisa Lukutsova, said the organization supported the decision to get the humanitarian convoy moving.
“The fact that the humanitarian mission has started – this has probably been the right decision,” Lukutsova said. “For how long do we have to put up with this mockery? They put forward one demand after another. All of them unrealistic.”
She added the Russian Red Cross was ready to escort the humanitarian convoy and appealed to the ICRC for permission to do so.
ICRC, meanwhile, confirms that people in areas affected by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine are in “urgent need for essentials like food and medical supplies.”
The crisis is particularly acute in Lugansk, where people have gone for weeks without water and electricity and have to queue every day for whatever scarce food supplies are brought to the city.
RT’s Maria Finoshina has spoken to Lugansk residents, who fear hunger is the reality they are about to face.
'We need this help': Starving Lugansk people in desperate expectation of Russian aid trucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN1H7ye4rOM
Ukraine's intelligence (SBU) chief, Valentyn Nalivaychenko, has described the convoy crossing the Russian border as a “direct invasion.”
“We call it a direct invasion,” Nalivaichenko told journalists. “Under the cynical cover of the Red Cross these are military vehicles with documents to cover them up.”
Kiev’s stance was echoed by the EU, who labeled Moscow’s decision to order the convoy to go ahead without Kiev’s consent “a clear violation of the Ukrainian border.”
“This also goes counter to the previous arrangements reached between Ukraine, Russia and the ICRC. We urge Russia to reverse its decision,” said Sebastien Brabant, spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, as cited by Reuters.
The US accused Russia of “a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity” and called on Moscow to withdraw its convoy.
“Russia must remove its vehicles and its personnel from the territory of Ukraine immediately. Failure to do so will result in additional costs and isolation,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told a briefing, Reuters reported.
NATO has also joined the chorus of condemnation, with the alliance's chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, saying in a statement that the decision to send the aid convoy into Ukraine without Kiev’s consent “can only deepen the crisis in the region, which Russia itself has created and has continued to fuel.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of “smuggling humanitarian aid to Ukraine” and said it had to allow the convoy to pass.
“To avoid provocations we have given all the necessary orders to let the convoy pass safely,” the ministry’s statement says.
In response to criticism voiced by Kiev officials over the Russian decision to give the aid convoy a green light and send it to people in conflict-hit areas who need water, food and medicine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it has always acted within the framework of international law.
“We are acting in full compliance with the norms of international humanitarian law. We can no longer and will not accept the distress of residents living in the southeastern Ukraine,” said Sergey Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister, its press service cites.
Ukraine agreed to let the convoy pass during an August 20 phone call between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers. That gave a start to customs procedures for checking and registering the contents of the trucks comprising the convoy.
The next day the process was stopped by Ukraine, citing intensified shelling of Lugansk.
“It was Kiev – apparently backed by Western sponsors – have been doing everything in the past several days to wreck a crucially important humanitarian action,” Ryabkov said.
Kiev authorities were “making up” countless bureaucratic hurdles, “the crossing of which appeared to be more difficult than for our trucks to travel down the road damaged by Ukrainian shelling,” the official added.
In Moscow’s view, Kiev authorities were deliberately trying to postpone the delivery of Russian aid. They attempted to buy time and finish the military operation oppressing “their own people” in the area “where Russian humanitarian aid is being distributed.” However, Ryabkov added, they failed to do so.
“We are confident that we are right. And we accuse Kiev and countries that support it that over and over again they have been placing their political – as a matter of fact anti-Russian – interests above established norms of humanism and compassion,” Ryabkov said.
The convoy of 280 Kamaz trucks carrying food, medicines and other essentials for Lugansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine left the Moscow region on August 12.
It was stuck at the border with Ukraine for more than a week.
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