Monday, February 23, 2015

Another reason why the West is hijacking Ukraine, an illustration of Obama's duplicity, and more about the "Nuland Factor."

Saker Community and Friends

Voice of Sevastopol: http://en.voicesevas.ru/

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2015

Ukraine... It's a Heist!!!

Excellent video made by a friend. Please distribute!

http://youtu.be/68RErgHOzN8

POSTED BY VINEYARDSAKER: AT 02:38

Sunday, February 22, 2015

This post is the most important of any I’ve ever re-posted, so I will not supersede it for a significant length of time. It summarizes over a year of Washington’s meddling with Ukraine, which I have garnered mainly from Paul Craig Roberts (who is blogging again after a worrisome 10 day absence!). It is the neocons in the U.S. government who are trying to provoke a nuclear war with Russia …which they plan to survive in huge underground bunkers they have had built in various locations around the country. Whether or not they get their way now depends in large measure on how many Americans (and Europeans) understand what they are up to, and some of them pass the story on to patriots in positions where they may stymie the neocons’ plans. The article below succinctly and accurately describes the situation as it presently stands. Please spread it around.

Will Nuland’s Nazis push the world into war?

From Executive Intelligence Review, February 20, 2015
by Jeffrey Steinberg

Feb. 17—As of midnight on Feb. 15, a ceasefire went into force in eastern Ukraine. The deal that was hammered out among Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko—i.e., without the direct involvement of the Obama Administration and the U.K. government—after 17 hours of non-stop negotiations in Minsk last week, is fragile, to say the least.

The immediate danger lies with an identifiable force—the neo-Nazi militias who are an integral part of the Kiev government, which came to power one year ago in a Nazi-driven coup d’état. Those Nazis are acting as protected assets of the Obama Administration, specifically Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland.

These neo-Nazi forces have officially rejected the ceasefire. The battalions they control in southeastern Ukraine are not fully under the control of the central government in Kiev, but are armed by Ukraine’s “oligarchs”—big businessmen such as Dnepropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoysky. They are the offshoot of the Bandera movement, which was fascist in its own right even before World War II, then welcomed Hitler’s invasion of Ukraine and carried out atrocities against the people of Ukraine and Poland that should have landed them in the dock at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. Instead, they were recruited by British and American intelligence services for the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The neo-Nazi representatives within the government in Kiev are also out to sabotage any peace agreement. According to Russian media, former Commandant of the Maidan and current First Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament (the Supreme Rada) Andriy Parubiy is coming to Washington this week. A cofounder of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party and of one of the paramilitary groups that became the Right Sector spearhead of the February 2014 coup, Parubiy today is a leader in the People’s Front, the political party of the man Victoria Nuland hand-picked as Ukraine’s post-coup prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Speaking Feb. 14 on Ukrainian TV, Parubiy announced the purpose of the trip: to get weapons. He said that Ukraine needs to strengthen its armed Forces and get “the USA to give us highly precise modern weaponry.” He added,

“Next week I am going to the United States, to discuss this in a very concrete and targeted way.”

The possibility that the U.S. would arm Ukraine—a move Moscow would see as an act of war—is precisely what impelled the leaders of France and Germany to work frenetically to get a ceasefire in Ukraine. It would be a step to World War III.

The Rush for a Ceasefire

President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel saw the Minsk talks as existential. They agreed that, if there were no diplomatic breakthrough, the Obama Administration would begin arming the Ukrainian military and this would escalate the crisis. Over the past weeks, more and more strategic analysts and policymakers have come to view the Ukraine crisis as a potential trigger for thermonuclear war between the United States and Russia. Articles headlining the danger have appeared in Germany’s Der Spiegel and even Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

The specter of a war of annihilation starting in the center of Europe was a powerful incentive for Merkel and Hollande to team up to preempt the U.S. weapons flows by the last-ditch diplomacy.

On the eve of the Minsk talks, Chancellor Merkel flew to Washington on Feb. 9 to confer with President Obama. She delivered a blunt message, according to German and American sources. First, she told the President that Europe was adamantly opposed to the U.S. arming the Ukrainian Army. Second, she told Obama that the lack of a direct dialogue between him and Russian President Putin was putting the world at risk. Only the leaders of the two nations with the thermonuclear arsenals that could destroy the planet could be the ultimate guarantors of mankind’s survival. They had to resume a direct, personal dialogue, Merkel insisted.

Her admonition appears to have had some impact. On Feb. 11, on the eve of the Minsk talks, Obama called Putin, and the two men had a 90-minute conversation, the content of which has been kept secret. According to Spiegel Online, which published a detailed account of Merkel’s and Hollande’s diplomatic efforts, the mere fact that the phone call took place demonstrated that Washington was deeply interested in the outcome of the Minsk talks.

At one point in the marathon diplomatic session, according to the Spiegel account, Putin, in private, spoke by phone to the heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). He secured their agreement to the ceasefire terms. In addition, Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov shuttled between the Hollande-Merkel-Poroshenko-Putin meeting and the Minsk contact group, which also met through the night at another location in Minsk (because Poroshenko refused to speak with the DPR/LPR delegation directly). It was the contact group, consisting of Alexander Zakharchenko (DPR), Igor Plotnitsky (LPR), Ukrainian ex-President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov, and OSCE negotiator Heidi Tagliavini, who actually signed the 10-point Minsk accord.

In the previous months of renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine, after the September 2014 ceasefire broke down, the DPR/LPR forces captured an additional belt of territory, especially within the Donetsk Region, as they moved to push the Kiev battalions out of the range from which they could shell Donetsk and other cities. While the Minsk talks were proceeding, the DPR/LPR militias had nearly encircled 6,000 to 8,000 Ukrainians in the town of Debaltseve, the major rail junction between Donetsk and Lugansk. With growing defections, collapsing morale, and widespread draft evasion, the Ukraine Armed Forces were already at a break-point. For Merkel and Hollande, the idea of arming such a disintegrating army was a grave mistake, reflecting a lack of understanding of the reality of the Ukraine crisis in official Washington.

The Nuland Factor

Indeed, the policy of the Obama Administration towards Ukraine and Russia has been hijacked from day one by a collection of neo-conservatives and humanitarian interventionist ideologues—led by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. The wife of neo-con Robert Kagan, Nuland served as a foreign policy advisor to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, before being appointed as the Bush Administration’s Ambassador to NATO.

Nuland publicly boasted that the U.S. had poured $5 billion into the “democracy” movement in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War, and she made clear, in an infamous taped phone call in January 2014, that the man who is now Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yatsenyuk, was owned by Washington. She is responsible for covering up the powerful role of the Banderite Nazis in the Maidan coup and the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Nuland’s current role in sabotaging efforts for peace was highlighted in a Feb. 15 article in Germany’s Der Spiegel, entitled “America’s Riot Diplomat.”[1] The column stated that Nuland poses a threat to America’s allies, and that while she is supposed to solve the crisis of Ukraine and relations with Russia, “in the crisis, Nuland herself has become the problem.”

Der Spiegel described a closed-door meeting, apparently reported anonymously both to it and to the Bild newspaper, held by Nuland at the Munich Security Conference one week ago, with “perhaps two dozen U.S. diplomats and Senators.” There Nuland gave instructions to “fight against the Europeans” on the issue of arming Ukraine to fight Russia. She was described as referring “bitterly” to the German Chancellor’s and French President’s meeting with President Putin as “Merkel’s Moscow junk,” and “Moscow bullshit,” and she welcomed a Senator’s calling German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen the “Defeatism Minister.”

These reports give the lie to Nuland’s claim on the morning of Feb. 11, when the Minsk Agreement was announced, that “we [the United States] enthusiastically support it.”

Der Spiegel says that Nuland does not stop short of calling for “heavy weapons” to be given by NATO to Ukraine.

Raising the Alarm

In a statement issued on Feb. 14, Lyndon LaRouche warned that the war danger would persist until Nuland was fired and her links to hardcore Banderite Nazis exposed publicly (see box).

The larger threat of thermonuclear war, stemming from the Ukraine crisis, was a dominant theme behind the scenes at the annual Munich Security Conference. On the eve of that meeting, three national security specialists, former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and former British Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne, wrote an op-ed calling for an overhaul of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture, with an inclusive role for Russia.

The same view was echoed in two other high-visibility venues. On Feb. 11, Jack Matlock, who was President Reagan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union during the closing days of the Cold War, told a packed audience at the National Press Club in Washington that the West had violated some of the most essential agreements with Moscow, those which had allowed for the peaceful demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, and that the danger of a world war was grave (see transcript in this Feature).

Two days later, Markus Becker, writing about the Munich Security Conference in Spiegel Online, warned that the “Threat of War Is Higher than in the Cold War.” He presented some of the same arguments as the Nunn-Ivanov-Browne article.

Unless LaRouche’s demand for Nuland’s ouster is acted upon swiftly, the chances of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine wrecking the fragile peace are immense. Nuland’s ouster must be followed by the agreement among governments to disqualify and remove the Nazi elements now running rampant, and participating in government, in Ukraine. This demand has been raised repeatedly by the Russian government, and by LaRouche.

If the cycle of violence in eastern Ukraine resumes full-force, the prospects of escalation into a direct Russia-U.S. military confrontation are very high.

Richard Burt, who was one of the chief U.S. arms control negotiators with the Soviets, told Spiegel Online (Feb. 9) that the danger of nuclear war is very great. “Both American and Russian nuclear arms are essentially on a kind of hair-trigger alert. Both sides have a nuclear posture where land-based missiles could be authorized for use in less than 15 minutes.” He acknowledged that the kind of “hybrid warfare” now underway in eastern Ukraine adds greatly to the danger of miscalculation into thermonuclear confrontation. Former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov concurred, telling Spiegel, “Now the threat of a war is higher than during the Cold War.”

It must be understood, in addition, that the primary driver for war is the bankruptcy of the trans-Atlantic financial system, centered in London and Wall Street. The desperation of financier circles over the looming doom of their system and the collapse of their political power is driving the war danger. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has observed in recent statements, if there had been no Ukraine crisis, some circles in the West would have created one—to deal with the larger collapse they are facing.

Source:
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.html

[1] Der Spiegel article is here (in German):
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/victoria-nuland-barack-obamas-problem-diplomatin-a-1017614.html

6,000 Ukrainian Jewish refugees to be granted Israeli citizenship, as Israel and West support neo-Nazi regime
In "Gladio"

America backed Ukraine neo-Nazis after World War II and trained Nachtigall (Nightingale)
In "Bandera"

Ukraine Neo-Nazis Trained by NATO to Commit Atrocities: NATO’s ‘Gladio’ Army in Ukraine
In "Allen Dulles"

Saturday, February 21, 2015

It will be just one more miseable step backwards into poverty for the Ukrainians as Washington moves closer to an insane war with Russia.

The global stakes of the Ukraine crisis. The failure of western civilization

From Global Research, February 20, 2015

By Prof. John McMurtry

War party bigotry and hate may be enough to drive neo-Nazis leading Kiev in the Ukraine civil war. But the reverse blame of Putin and Russia by corporate media and states has a deeper interest. It propels the geostrategic economic and military war of movement through East Europe to Russia. It is the indispensible big lie to mask their set up for foreign financial predation. A big pay-off matrix looms in Ukraine for US-led arms corporations and military services, agribusiness and GMO’s, speculator funds on debts and currency, monopoly providers of privatized social services, Big Oil frackers for newly discovered rich deposits, junk food suppliers like Poroshenko in US-frankenfood alliance, and – last but not least – the IMF money party waging a war of dispossession by financial means.

The IMF enforces the global money-sequence cancer system by its defining policy commands on debt-impoverished countries to open them up to foreign feeding on their domestic markets and fire-sale enterprises, drastically reduced workers’ wages and benefits, stripped public pensions, healthcare and education, sell-off of historic infrastructures to pay ever more bank-created debts, and – in general- multiplying transnational money demand and profit invading their life functions at all levels. The IMF and Wall Street have been cumulatively hollowing out Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia, South Europe and the US itself in these ways over 35 years. Now it is the turn of the once social democratic Europe, state by state, beginning with the most indebted and helpless. Ukraine on the outskirts of Europe next to Russia is where the military option has been required to strip it and its former Slavic economic union with Russia. This historic relationship has been the last line of life defense in the way, a conservative but sharing ethos of resource-rich societies with Putin as a superior leader facing the US-EU’s many-times more powerful economic levers and lethal arms to bully him and Russia into submission.

To take the naturally rich Ukraine for transnational bank and corporate looting, the public must be sold the story of Putin as the villain. Only then can debt screws be applied and the country opened to long-term and full-spectrum financial, foreign and oligarch control beneath the people’s notice. The IMF is already in motion to ensure that the Kiev coup state provides all of this. Few observe the underlying fact that the crushing bank debt eating societies alive across the world is all debt money created by big private banks with no legal tender to back 97% of it. Ukraine is the latest nation to fall into the deadly trap without a sound. Here public money for public need is ended, although it created the US itself. As Ben Franklin has testified, to regain public money issue was the prime reason for the American Revolution. Public banking was also what made modern Canada from 1938 to 1974 by public investment money without private debt-servicing loaned by the public Bank of Canada for construction of Canada’s material and social infrastructures from the St Lawrence Seaway to public pensions and universal healthcare.

The same is true of almost every society that has economically succeeded in the modern world. . The Depression and the War especially taught the world’s real leaders something about public banking as the only thing that works for real social development. Germany in peace, China, India, Japan in their most prosperous periods have all relied on public investment banking in some form. But the Wall Street counter-revolution happened invisibly in 1974 by Bank of International Settlements policy to stop governments from lending their own money for their public investments – the BIS being a coterie of bank heads meeting in Switzerland led by Wall Street bankers and with no accountability to any public interest or body. On the contrary, against their constitutional rights, all governments have been made accountable to the Wall Street system which runs the US Treasury and the IMF by the revolving door method. This silent BIS policy destroyed public investment free of the self-multiplying debt charges now eating away at every level of the Western economy including sovereign public investment. Ukraine, with few noticing, has just been privatized at the bank debt and investment level by the US-led coup state. Its arrangements with the IMF now loaning money on Wall Street permanent debt-servicing terms have replaced the $20 billion it had from Russia on payable public terms along with 30% cut-rate oil and gas.

This most far-reaching change of all has been erased from view by the official story – the delivery of Ukraine by the US-led coup into the ever-devouring funnels of the Wall-Street-and-company private banking system. With all the permanent new debt servicing of an already broken country spending its future debt on fighting a US-manufactured civil war fueled by neo-Nazi war thugs, Ukraine will be bled dry. A revealing example of how IMF debt bondage leverages transnational corporate control of Ukraine’s greatest resources is the new IMF $17 billion loan on the condition that Ukraine opens up its peerless vast stretches of black soil and fertile lands to the biotech cycles of Monsanto, Dupont, Deere and factory looting of the earth. Similar plans are also in motion for Big Oil racking of Ukraine’s large newly discovered gas deposits (fracking is prohibited in Russia).

The transnational corporate and bank looting of Ukraine is the shadow reason for the US block against any reasonable truce in the civil war that it has created. This is why a jackal government like Canada’s Harper’s refuses to respond to any diplomatic correspondence from Russia, blocking information flows, and proclaiming inflammatory falsehoods. The profound common life interests at stake are exactly what the war party is out to make impossible to act on. Ukraine is a prime agricultural land source of the world and Europe’s biggest landmass, and it is set for US-EU financial and corporate takeover. Ukraine is also facing the same ultimate crisis as every country and people – its government being mutated into a corporate satrap to ensure the country as an unlimited profit site at least costs and accountability for foreign corporate and local oligarch profit. It is a paradigm case of the carcinomic global dispossession that knows no growth but its own. But it is also the leading current case of armed resistance against this takeover. Donbas, Putin and Russia are alone in stopping the life-devouring system’s advance East, with Syriza in Greece the newly elected resistance within Europe.

All face the same stripping of collective life capital bases to grow the global money sequences of the apical few with no life function. Ukraine is the new major feeding zone opening towards Russia. Here as much as Greece, public assets are on the privatization block. Slash-and-burn budgets are set to service new unpayable debts to foreign banks, with far more rich natural and soil wealth to marketize and expropriate for debt servicing. Ukraine also has large and untapped fossil-fuel deposits, and it provides new strategic military control up to Russia’s main border and colossally rich natural resources on the other side.

Yet the operation of reverse blame goes from Iraq to Libya to Syria to Ukraine to Russia in one society destruction to the next. With one-way pervasive media abuse, cumulatively destructive sanctions, and incremental arming of neo-fascist-led Ukrainian forces, vast global power, treasure and most of all direction are at stake which affect all humanity. The line is drawn on the global disorder’s runaway aggression and trail of social ruin. Or it is stopped by intelligent mass resistance that does not let up.

This resistance has grown stronger. A new truce was formed for February 15 by the EU, Kiev-Ukraine and Russia for this reason. Predictably all voices of the official story warn that “Russia and the separatists” will not obey its terms. Yet when we examine the record of international law and agreements, life-protective promises and agreements, who always overrides them at will? The track record tells us very plainly, but the record is always excluded from the ruling story. What is presupposed instead is the most inane of all moral equations unconsciously assumed as first principle of judgement in international affairs: the US = Good and its Enemy = Evil. Search for any exception to this inner logic of the official narrative in any major conflict across the globe in 50 years. What is never stated are the actual facts of “lawless aggression”, “gross violations of international law” and “innocent civilians terrorized and murdered”. That the US is by far the knock-down leader on all counts of war crime, killing, terror and, in general, violence against human life of every kind is taboo to understand. While always accusing others of violating “the international laws and norms of the community of nations”, it repudiates and sabotages them without evident exception.

Consider the systemic violations and subversions across the spectrum. The US government has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court to uphold the law against war crimes and crimes against humanity, and it has publicly repudiated the Court’s right to investigate US criminal violations including the “supreme crime” of initiating a war of aggression. While it perpetually invokes international laws to accuse others, it repudiates any life-protective law whatever in its actions. In truth, the US (and its key ally Israel) has systematically undermined virtually all international laws to protect human life – treaties and conventions against landmines, against biological weapons, against international ballistic missiles, against small arms, against torture, against racism, against arbitrary seizure and imprisonment, against military weather distortions, against biodiversity loss, against climate destabilization, and even international agreements on the rights of children and of women.

The big-lie system runs to the moral DNA of the US state. Its record of continual war crimes and crimes against humanity by direct or proxy violation should be foremost in the minds of those observing what happens next in Ukraine. It can only continue if NATO-country public opinion does not join the dots in the ultimate failure of Western civilization.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-global-stakes-of-the-ukraine-crisis-the-failure-of-western-civilization/5432144

The aftermath of the supposed ceasefire agreement fought on their own soil by citizens of the Donbass, whose families lived there for centuries. Meanwhile the U.S. tries to convince NATO countries that Russia was the aggressor and that the NATO countries should beef up their armed forces in order to drive the Russians out of Ukraine...

Novorossia acquires a treasure trove of UAF equipment abandoned at Debaltsevo

Four articles from Fort Russ

An apparently intact BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle formerly of the 128th Mountain Infantry Brigade of the UAF

2/19/2015
On the trophies kindly left by the UAF for Novorossia in theDebaltsevo cauldron
By Aleksey Smirnitskiy Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

We are receiving the first reports concerning the approximate numbers of equipment captured in the Debaltsevo cauldron.

Armored vehicles. By first estimates, Novorossia captured over 80 tanks in repairable condition. Some of them were fully operational, even loaded with ammunition. Some have been abandoned without fuel, others were abandoned after their tracks were damaged, most of the vehicles captured have light or medium damage. This is sufficient for at least two tank battalions.

According to the official Kiev GenStaff announcement, as many as 15 tanks managed to leave the cauldron…out of at least 5 battalion tactical groups which were originally in the cauldron and 4 additional ones that were sent in to help.

Over 100 BMPs and BTRs have been captured in repairable condition. The junta managed to take out only about 50.

Artillery. Not fewer than fifty 122mm and 152mm weapons (not counting 120mm mortars), many of which are repairable, and about 15 BM-21 122mm Grad launchers. At least 500 tons of artillery ammunition.
A huge amount of small arms, including heavy machine guns, RPGs, RPOs [flame rocket launchers used for assaulting fortified positions and buildings]. Storehouses of food and medicine. Other goods.
Novorossia commanders are especially grateful to the numerous volunteer organizations which have equipped the junta’s forces so well: the hundreds of night vision devices, digital radio stations, thermal imagers, modern ballistic computers and fire direction gear, wound treatment and anti-shock kits of Western origin, Kevlar helmets (even though Russian ones are better, there aren’t enough of them), modern body armor, will be of great use.

J.Hawk’s Comment: Just to reiterate, these are the weapons and equipment which are in repairable condition. Many of UAF’s losses were irretrievable—there are many photos circulating on the internet showing fields and roads littered with burned out armored vehicles left behind by the UAF.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/novorossia-acquires-treasure-trove-of.html

NAF thanks the United States for the new LCMR (Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar)
February 20, 2015
BMPD – Live Journal
Translated by Kristina Rus

Judging by the “LifeNews” report on February 19, 2015 about Novorossia fighters collecting trophies after Ukrainian troops withdrew from Debaltsevo, among other finds, NAF received one whole complex of LCMR (Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar), supplied by the United States as part of military assistance to Ukraine.

http://youtu.be/kjf95WiAo3g

The U.S. has decided to send to the armed forces of Ukraine 20 LCMR radars, the first three of which were delivered in November 2014. According to the information, received by our blog from the most serious sources, soon after the transfer one of the stations was damaged during transportation, and then another station was damaged by artillery fire of the enemy at the first attempt of its combat use by the Ukrainians. We can assume that the LCMR radar, abandoned by the Ukrainian troops in Debaltsevo is the third of this ill-fated first batch of the three stations.

K.R.: Please, McCain – do send more!

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/naf-thanks-united-states-for-new-lcmr.html

US-supplied armored Humvee captured by Novorossia militia

2/19/2015
US-supplied armored Humvee captured by Novorossia militia

By J.Hawk

The vehicle was one of the many seized from the UAF at Debaltsevo and its vicinity. It seems to be in perfectly good working order. I suppose the most surprising thing about it is that the UAF had no time to put it up for sale, as it did the British-supplied Saxon APCs…
http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/us-supplied-armored-humvee-captured-by.html
NAF: Thank you to Canadians and Ukrainians for supplies! (Video)

http://youtu.be/I5bUjRUvFbw

February 19, 2015

Novorossia TV

Translated by Kristina Rus

00:00 – 13:00

NAF commander Terek is in charge of a drone recon unit of the First Slavyansk battalion. His unit of 25 people works with drones doing intelligence gathering near Debaltsevo.

Military correspondents of Novorossia TV delivered humanitarian aid to the unit from humanitarian battalion “Novorossia.” Some deliveries are addressed to specific units and fighters.

- Is this a good bulletproof vest?

- It’s average, so so, but better then nothing.

- I am wearing a police one.

- If you crawl on the ground, the pockets start to tear. The detachable pockets are better.

The correspondents asked commander Terek, what they need.

- Thermal boots, or at least warm leather boots

- Everything is mined, there are not enough sappers, so we use drones to save the lives of our fighters who go on recon missions.

- We need thermal underwear, thermal socks, thin warm hats under helmets, tactical gloves, knee pads and elbow pads.

This is regarding the personal equipment, but as far as military equipment we have plenty of trophies left by Ukrainian troops. New drones. You know they had truckloads left in Nikishino. When they run, they leave everything behind. Were do you think our drones come from?

We do need radios with closed channels. They cost 25 000 roubles, unfortunately. At least a few would be nice. We had to shut them off in Nikishino. Because their artillery works on signal very well, they strike on the signal of our drones.

We need serious things, because they get serious things from America and Europe.

- Night vision goggles – at least couple, not to stumble on their positions.

- We have nothing to charge the radios, phones with, no heat, we need generators, better diesel – because there are problems with gasoline.

- We got dry meals, thermal underwear, hygiene products for women. Thank you to the Russian brothers for helping us! The war showed who is our friend and who is our enemy.

A large amount of ammo and equipment was left by the Ukrainian troops.

- We got lists of who was in Redkodub, even with phone numbers.

Tank ammo, Vasilek ammo, 82 mm grenades, 120 mm grenades, RPG, 762, TURs.

We are almost on a frontline.

This is ammo left by the Ukrainian troops in Redkodub.

This is only a tenth part, a lot has been taken out already.

Mines, bullets, we are not supposed to have anything else.

Several Ural truckloads were taken out just by our brigade.

American, NATO helmets, goggles, about 40 bulletproof vests, good quality, neck protection, 4th generation.

- So you got your own humanitarian aid from Ukrainian volunteers?

- Canadian helmet with excellent quality. Comfortable. Thank you to Canadians and Ukrops for deliveries of supplies!

- Ukrainian army left us some excellent weapons, 120 mortar in great condition.

TUR – anti-tank rocket system

- Why does a mortar unit need TUR?

- We want to be prepared for any breakthrough. We have our own TUR, RPG, muhi, now we are not just a mortar, but a mobil assault brigade!!!

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/naf-thank-you-to-canadians-and.html

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Dear reader, If you had watched videos of the ceasefire being negotiated by Merkel, Hollonde, Poroshenko, and Putin, you would have seen Putin offering to save the Ukrainian troops that everyone knew were surrounded at Debaltsevo, if only they would surrender and leave without their arms. However Poroshenko, probably following U.S. instructions, pretended that those troops did not exist and so no plan for their surrender was offered (too bad for them). Moreover, the ceasefire agreement was immediately violated by all elements of the Ukrainian Army, likely again as instructed by the U.S., attacking the secessionists including use of the heavy artillery stipulated in the agreement to have been pulled back.

Events in Debaltsevo — “The lies are obvious…We no longer control Debaltsevo”

Posted on Fort Russ

2/18/2015 “The Debaltsevo Cauldron had closed. It’s a second Ilovaysk.”
By Yuliana Skibitskaya

Translated from Russian and Ukrainian by J.Hawk

We have collected the statements from combat participants and commentary from social networks concerning the events at Debaltsevo.

Dmitriy Gross, Deputy Commander, 25^th “Kievan Russ” Battalion

“We are under fire from mortars, Grads, self-propelled howitzers, small arms, and lots of other stuff. There is close combat in the streets. 90% of the civilian population had left. Debaltsevo is not fully surrounded, but all roads leading into it are under militant [sic] fire. It is practically impossible to enter the city.

“Gusar,” an officer of the 128^th Brigade (published on the Zerkalo Nedeli web site):

“We are facing the second Ilovaysk. It’s been five days since the cauldron had closed. When the Donetsk Airport was taken, they lied to people for five days that it’s under control. In reality it was the other way around. Debaltsevo is under de-facto encirclement since five days ago. There used to be a small path out, which they tried to use to break out. They lost vehicles but broke out. The enemy occupied the commanding heights along the road and has it covered with fire. People are telling us nice stories that there are still communication routs, some detours, dirt roads…There was a road like that, but as of yesterday the convoy of five vehicles that left Debaltsevo yesterday lost all five of them. Only seven guys made it out. We don’t know what happened to the rest.”

Viktor Baloga, Politician [Transcarpathia oligarch, governor] (comment on facebook).

“Mr. President. You and I both know well that we no longer control Debaltsevo. I’ll say more. Preventing the media from reporting the true state of affairs will not help anyone. Our own HQ is lying worse than the Russians. Moreover, the lies are obvious—there are so many people there that it’s impossible to conceal the truth. My local guys are there, lots of them. But since nobody is doing anything, they are losing faith.

You know what needs to be done, both in the military and diplomatic sense. In other words, either we cancel the ceasefire which had never existed for the entire region, switch on the artillery and send weapons and ammunition in. Or we decide to withdraw. The decision must be made NOW!”

Deputy Commander of the 25^th “Kievan Rus” Battalion

“The situation in Debaltsevo is critical, very bad. 90% of Debaltsevo is under their control. It is in operational encirclement. All three roads to the city are mined and under dense enemy fire. Our higher command is gone. The Sector command and commander were here. But in reality he abandoned this position and caused senseless losses. The command is not in control of the situation here.”

Vitaliy Tilizhenko, volunteer (facebook)

“The Debaltsevo cauldron had closed! There is exfiltration by small groups. Somebody is covering the withdrawal and holding positions, gradually abandoning them and withdrawing. We have lost the police HQ and the rail station in the morning. We lost 1/3 of our equipment at Ilovaysk. We’ll lose 1/5^th of all equipment, abandoning it because people are more valuable, and there will be nothing to fight with, as always. All withdrawing groups are falling into ambushes and are losing men and equipment. The ambushes are growing stronger and more fortified with every hour, and the percentage of people making it out of the cauldron is dropping. They won’t say this on TV. Everything is great there. Pete [Poroshenko] outplayed everyone, no need for martial law, Europe is concerned, etc.”

Debaltsevo Update, morning 2/17

“The separatists [sic] fired from all kinds of weapons, from mortars to SP howitzers and Uragan rocket launchers. Our guys held their positions to the last. We had no communications with them. They started to come out of the city at night, in a column of trucks and APCs. There were many wounded in the column. Our intelligence was able to find a relatively save path out. Our guys broke into groups. ‘McCloud’s’ group went second. Tolya was behind them. They fell into an ambush. Lost lots of equipment, but managed to break out. But that corridor is now closed.”

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/its-second-

The Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-speaking people of Donetsk and Lugansk continue despite the the promised ceasefire, yet a large number of Ukrainian troops are still surrounded by citizen soldiers of Domboss waiting for them to surrender.

Ukrainian General Staff confirms Debaltsevo force collapse

Posted on Fort Russ, February 17, 2015

2/17/2017

Ukrainian General Staff Confirms Losing Control Over Debaltsevo Forces

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

Earlier today the Russian Spring reported that, according to the information from the relatives of UAF troops located in the vicinity of Debaltsevo, the chain of command has completely broken down and the troops were issued orders to break out of the cauldron on their own. However, several Ukrainian media immediately denied the reports, claiming it was panic-mongering.

However, only an hour ago the acting spokesperson for the Ukrainian General Staff Vladislav Seleznev confirmed this information during a live interview on the TV channel 112, saying that DPR units were assaulting the UAF base-camp at Debaltsevo, and that the headquarters for all UAF forces there has been destroyed.

Oddly enough, Seleznev would not confirm that the Ukrainian forces are in a cauldron. But he did not deny it either.

J.Hawk’s Comment: So it’s coming to an end. It’s only a matter of how many troops make it out alive. But the loss of equipment, combined with earlier losses here and everywhere, put into question the UAF’s ability to conduct large-scale operations for a long time to come. The days of “Victory” have come to an end. The days of “Treason” are only beginning… Poroshenko and others were able to avoid reckoning for the earlier Ilovaysk debacle apparently only by promising a rematch. They seem to have lost that one too, and Round 3 does not seem in the cards. But Round 2 is the only thing that kept all the different factions of the very fragile “pro-European” junta together.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/ukrainian-general-staff-confirms.html

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Please click the link following "Read More." Aside from the introduction, the text you will read has been composed solely by Paul Craig Roberts. The interspersed pictures are the whimsical work of Eric King of King World News. The message is that the Ukraine Army has been defeated by the Russian-speaking people whose republics they attacked following orders from Washington.

PCR Interviewed by King World News — Russia Warns West

February 16, 2015 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

PCR Interviewed by King World News

Putin Warns Europe of Dire Consequences of Enabling Washington’s War Against Russia

Read More:

http://kingworldnews.com/paul-craig-roberts-putin-just-warned-west-faces-terrifying-consequences/

Sunday, February 15, 2015

The plot thickens. The Ukrainian army began a new offensive before the ink dried of the latest Minsk agreement. However, most of their forces were already trapped by separatist forces without food or ammunition. Moreover, the incompetent field general was afraid to mention this to his Commander in Chief or Poroshenko "...which may turn everything agreed upon in Minsk upside down." Glossary: [Donbass = a region including Donetsk and Lugansk] [UAF = Ukraine Armed Forces] [NAF = Separatist Armed Forces] [DPR = Donetsk Republic] [LPR = Lugansk Republic] [MLRS = Multiple Launch Rocket System] [cauldron = a group of soldiers surrounded by a superior force] [Debaltsevo = town that has become a cauldron surrounded by NAF troops: see map below provided by the blogger]

Original Here

February 12, 2015
Evgeny Krutikov for Vzgliad

Translated from Russian by Kristina Rus

The situation in Debaltsevo may overturn all Minsk agreements

During the entire Minsk negotiations Ukrainian General staff disinformed Poroshenko about the situation in Debaltsevo, and the most important trump card in the hands of the President of Ukraine turned out to be a bluff. UAF was not able to crack open the cauldron, and it has turned into the most sticking point of negotiations, which may turn everything agreed upon in Minsk upside down.

Poroshenko's perception of reality was ultimately shattered by his propaganda trip to Kramatorsk in the company of the chief of the General staff Muzhenko and a French philosopher-Russophobe Bernard-Henri Levy. The President of Ukraine is a man not too brave, very emotional and gullible. What was originally conceived as "pumping" of Western public opinion with all the classic moves of PR campaigns, turned into a psychological trap for himself.

The Minister of Defense and head of General staff, spurred by Turchynov, had promised the President to carry out the operation, which will deblock Debaltsevo, and at the same time "will pay back for Kramatorsk." When Poroshenko was already flying to Minsk, he was convinced that it is enough to buy some time and the attack on Logvinovo will end in complete victory, and he will get a new starting position for negotiations. Throughout the entire night Poroshenko checked for updates from his General staff, but victory did not come. It hasn't come by morning, and a light bulb went off: something is not right, the cauldron does exist! Although he has already for 10 hours told respected people that it did not.

One can only guess about the motives of the security block of Ukraine for disorienting and misinforming their Commander In Chief. The dominant conspiracy theory: Turchynov, actually managing the security block, thus was buying time, following the general American line. More down to earth and realistic version: it was a traditional (of all times and all peoples) aspiration of parquet generals to please and ward off accusations, glossing over reality. Considering the general panic mood, combined with an unbridled propaganda, it is much more likely than a transatlantic conspiracy about Debaltsevo cauldron. The Ukrainian command also doesn't quite understand what is happening. There is no connection with some units for more than a week, and if there is, it boils down mainly to cries for help and heated exchanges about "who is to blame". The chain of misinformation may well start from the very bottom, gradually accumulating "meat". And to treat any information in a favorable light is a very common mistake of bad scouts and analysts. The past six months revealed much about the strategists of the Ukrainian General staff.

All night from Wednesday to Thursday UAF tried to exert pressure upon the entire front line. A formation of two thousand from Svetlodarsk, which was assembled by UAF for almost a week, went head on to the strongholds and minefields of NAF at Logvinovo, but the militia has also strengthened this position in recent days. NAF even managed to transfer significant reserves to Uglegorsk. As a result an attack on Logvinovo from two sides (there was also an attack from Debaltsevo, but very unconvincing) was stopped only by the morning. By this moment Poroshenko got his own localized apocalypse.

UAF also tried to attack directly from Lugansk through the infamous village of Schastye, simultaneously firing on the city from MLRS, which has not happened for six months. UAF command, as it turned out later, believed that LPR units were too busy near Debaltsevo and Bakhmut highway, that supposedly weakened defense of the direct road to Lugansk (this is, again, another demonstration of the low level of Ukrainian intelligence and strategic analysis). Battalion "Azov" again imitated the offensive on the coastal route through the neutral zone with the same results, as a few days ago. These people are generally more prone to simulate turbulent activity than to thoughtful action.

Where UAF is not capable of real activity, the pressure was carried out using MRLS and heavy weapons. For example, Peski, Opytnoye, Donetsk itself, Gorlovka, Yenakievo, Makeevka, Dokuchayevsk, and Dzerzhinsk were heavily shelled.

Vladimir Putin, appearing to the press after the talks, openly called on the Ukrainian side to allow troops in Debaltsevo to surrender, or to arrange an organized exit. Poroshenko wanted to turn the situation around Debaltsevo into his almost only trump card, and in the end it became a monstrous failure. In fact, regardless of what and in what language is written in the agreement of the contact group, Debaltsevo cauldron may turn into a huge mass grave in the next two days, because none of the demoralized generals (as Poroshenko himself) will give an order to surrender. And to organize a controlled exit of the Ukrainian troops from the encirclement in such a short time is impossible. Soldiers are not concentrated in any one place, but scattered in groups by checkpoints, many without communications, without commanders and without ammo. Even if they can scavenge some food at homesteads, no one will bring them ammo or medical supplies. In the steppes there is dirt and slush, to detour the positions of the militia on the road to Logvinovo through fields is impossible, even if there was fuel. Militia doesn't even need to use heavy weaponry, it is enough to gradually cut off one checkpoint from the another.

After the defeat of Ukrainian attack on Logvinovo a real danger emerged to get a second cauldron in Svetlodarsk, which would trap this other "deblocking unit", that was built up over a week. Another thing is that it is problematic to create a new operational encirclement of a large formation in two days, and any offensive action by NAF will now be associated with hysterical information uproar in Ukraine, although UAF themselves have failed at Uglegorsk, Logvinovo, and now of Svetlodarsk. Only officers and soldiers can explain to the Ukrainian public that "a cauldron - is no good", but if they start talking, it will seem more like a riot, and in a hysterical atmosphere no one will listen.

It is interesting, that a new offensive on Logvinovo was started by UAF immediately after the announcement of the results of Minsk talks, sometime around noon. Commander Semen Semenchenko - one of the most active "Twitter warriors" - said that the Ukrainians had already taken Logvinovo and are "carrying out a sweep". In reality, the situation remained exactly what it was, a new attack on "cauldron lid" is purely political in nature.

Thus, a small village Logvinovo on the highway Debaltsevo - Artemovsk turned for Poroshenko into a "new airport", only now these attacks also have a purely military, practical value.

Poroshenko will be now learning about the difficult reality with apparent difficulty and reluctance. For him this reality, among other things, is dotted with various "red lines" which he can't cross even verbally. The military situation had become a taboo, although it remains a key part of the agenda. Even the questions of the political status can be brushed off, creating "joint commissions" including representatives from DPR and LPR, but the front line requires immediate decisions. Sometimes everything depends not on big ideas and global plays, but simply on the human qualities of a particular politician or officer. But a commander in chief of the Ukrainian army, alas, got this position as a figure of compromise and was controllable from the start. He, as a person, may want to achieve something. To preserve peace in Europe, for example. But it is beyond the range of circumstances and human power.

Debaltsevo cauldron has evolved from a military operation of a local value into the main factor of political settlement. What will happen there in the next few days (or rather, what steps will Kiev take to change the situation) will determine the further balance of power. To demonstrate DPR and LPR in the face of Europeans as "wild barbarians", and Russia as the aggressor will not work anymore. You were given options - it's your choice. Even Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky were brought to you for negotiations, and in the end we got a vague paper signed by Kuchma, whose position at the moment is - a retiree. "Ratified verbally" certain agreements - it's such a fresh and new phenomenon in international diplomacy that all textbooks should be rewritten.

To seriously discuss the details of pulling the heavy artillery to some distance from the front line (lines?) is pointless. As well as to discuss clause-by-clause an agreement, from which there will not even be a memory left in a short time. Yes, the Ukrainian troops will be pulled from the actual line, but Ukraine's control over the border with Russia can only be restored after a constitutional reform, guaranteeing new status for Donetsk and Lugansk. That is, "money - in the morning, chairs - in the evening".

A much more important question, is how long can the state of "no peace, no war" hold. To predict it now is extremely difficult, it all depends on many factors, including purely private, invisible to the naked eye. Most of these factors are now in Kiev. What will happen to public opinion, if the losses exceed all reasonable limits? When and on what conditions will Debaltsevo surrender? How hard will the Parliament groups fight against the bills on the new status of Donbass, and how will Poroshenko cope with it? There is a myriad of these key elements. Especially that in reality there is no monitoring mechanism for the removal of heavy weapons from either side. OSCE can not monitor the ceasefire: tanks and 80 mm mortars will remain at the contact line, which do not fall under the category of "heavy artillery", and in an urban setting - they are terrible, deadly weapons. A mine doesn't break the asphalt, but bounces from it. Shrapnel flies in all directions parallel to the ground, and people lose their legs.

All this looks like a new calm before a big war.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Just when the Minsk peace deal was looking like a disaster for the beleaguered separatists of Donetsk and Lugansk, the analyses of two independent observers conclude the contrary. "Saker sees the conflict ending this year with the economic, military, and political collapse of Ukraine." Certainly Ukraine is broke and its conscripted army does not wish to be slaughtered fighting under incompetent generals against the far more motivated and better-led separatists (see link just below). NB The acronym NAF stands for the separatist Armed Forces while UAF is the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

http://freeukrainenow.org/tag/naf/

Update of Minsk Peace Deal — Paul Craig Roberts

February 13, 2015 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Update of Minsk Peace Deal

Paul Craig Roberts

In my last column I provided reasons for believing that the deal will fail. I saw a larger downside for Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk republics because Putin and the break-away provinces will be blamed. English is the world language, and this enables Washington and its presstitutes to control the explanation.

The Saker and I are in agreement that the provisions of the peace deal are ridiculous and cannot and will not be implemented. However, The Saker sees an advantage for the republics in the provision, if implemented, to remove heavy weapons from the conflict zones. The Saker’s viewpoint is worth knowing. Whereas I have stressed that the conflict could be ended by Russia accepting the republics’ requests for unification with Russia and that the longer the conflict is drawn out the more the West can demonize Putin and the break-away republics, Saker sees the conflict ending this year with the economic, military, and political collapse of Ukraine. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40979.htm

Alexander Mercouris makes the point that one positive feature of the Minsk agreement,
which isn’t actually a deal or an agreement, is that Europe is now involved and opposes Washington’s plan to escalate the military conflict. He writes that the outcome in Ukraine depends on what the Europeans do, a point with which I concur. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40967.htm

It is difficult to believe that European governments are not aware that the entire Ukraine crisis is a Washington orchestration. Now that Europeans are beginning to realize the risk and recklessness in Washington’s aggressive hostility toward Russia, Europeans might develop an independent foreign policy, as opposed to lining up with Washington, and cast off their vassalage. If this were to happen, Washington’s hegemonic aggression would cease to have enablers. The Evil Empire would begin its break-up, and the chances for peace would improve.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Whoops! It appears that my sanguine view of the Minsk peace deal yesterday was badly mistaken. Below, Paul Craig Roberts explains why. I urge you to open the link in the first paragraph, which is a series of still photos with short explantions, either before or after reading all of PCR's concerns that follow.

The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout? — Paul Craig Roberts

February 12, 2015 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout?

Paul Craig Roberts

Judging by the report on RT http://rt.com/news/231667-minsk-ceasefire-deal-breakup/
I conclude that the Ukraine peace deal worked out in Minsk by Putin, Merkel, Hollande, and Poroshenko has little chance of success.

As Washington is not a partner to the Minsk peace deal, how can there be peace when Washington has made policy decisions to escalate the conflict and to use the conflict as a proxy war between the US and Russia?

The Minsk agreement makes no reference to the announcement by Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army Europe, that Washington is sending a battalion of US troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces how to fight against Russian and rebel forces. The training is scheduled to begin in March, about two weeks from now. Gen. Hodges says that it is very important to recognize that the Donetsk and Luhansk forces “are not separatists, these are proxies for President Putin.”

How is there a peace deal when Washington has plans underway to send arms and
training to the US puppet government in Kiev?

Looking at the deal itself, it is set up to fail. The only parties to the deal who had to sign it are the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk break-away republics. The other signers to the Minsk deal are an OSCE representative which is the European group that is supposed to monitor the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, a former Ukrainian president Viktor Kuchma, and the Russian ambassador in Kiev. Neither the German chancellor nor the French, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents who brokered the deal had to sign it.

In other words, the governments of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia do not appear to be empowered or required to enforce the agreement. According to RT, “the declaration was not meant to be signed by the leaders, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.” http://rt.com/news/231571-putin-minsk-ukraine-deal/

The terms of the agreement depend on actions of the Ukrainian parliament and prime minister, neither of which are under Poroshenko’s control, and Poroshenko himself is a figurehead under Washington’s control. Moreover, the Ukrainian military does not control the Nazi militias. As Washington and the right-wing elements in Ukraine want conflict with Russia, peace cannot be forthcoming.

The agreement is nothing but a list of expectations that have no chance of occurring.

One expectation is that Ukraine and the republics will negotiate terms for future local elections in the provinces that will bring them back under Ukraine’s legal control. The day after the local elections, but prior to the constitutional reform that provides the regions with autonomy, Kiev takes control of the borders with Ukraine and between the provinces. I read this as the total sell-out of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Apparently, that is the way the leaders of the republics see it as well, as Putin had to twist their arms in order to get their signatures to the agreement.

Another expectation is that Ukraine will adopt legislation on self-governance that would be acceptable to the republics and declare a general amnesty for the republics’ leaders and military forces.

Negotiations between Kiev and the autonomous areas are to take place that restore Kiev’s taxation of the autonomous areas and the provision of social payments and banking services to the autonomous areas.

After a comprehensive constitutional reform in Ukraine guaranteeing acceptable (and undefined) autonomy to the republics, Kiev will take control over the provinces’ borders with Russia.

By the end of 2015 Kiev will implement comprehensive constitutional reform that decentralizes the Ukrainian political system and provides privileges of autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Both Putin and Poroshenko are both reported as stating that the main thing achieved is a ceasefire starting on February 15.

The ceasefire is of no benefit to the Donetsk and Lugansk republics as they are prevailing in the conflict. Moreover, the deal requires the republics’ forces to give up territory and to pull back to the borders of last September and to eject fighters from France and other countries who have come to the aid of the break-away republics. In other words, the agreement erases all of Kiev’s losses from the conflict that Kiev initiated.

All of the risks of the agreement are imposed on the break-away republics and on Putin. The provinces are required to give up all their gains while Washington trains and arms Ukrainian forces to attack the provinces. The republics have to give up their security and trust Kiev long before Kiev votes, assuming it ever does, autonomy for the republics.

Moreover, if the one-sided terms of the Minsk agreement result in failure, Putin and the republics will be blamed.

Why would Putin make such a deal and force it on the republics? If the deal becomes a Russian sell-out of the republics, it will hurt Putin’s nationalist support within Russia and make it easier for Washington to weaken Putin and perhaps achieve regime change. It looks more like a surrender than a fair deal.

Perhaps Putin’s strategy is to give away every advantage in the expectation that the deal will fail, and the Russian government can say “we gave away the store and the deal still failed.”

Washington’s coup in Kiev and the attack on the Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east and south is part of Washington’s strategy to reassert its uni-power position. Russia’s independent foreign policy and Russia’s growing economic and political relationships with Europe became problems for Washington. Washington is using Ukraine to attack and to demonize Russia and its leader and to break-up Russia’s economic and political relations with Europe. That is what the sanctions are about. A peace deal in Ukraine on any terms other than Washington’s is unacceptable to Washington. The only acceptable deal is a deal that is a defeat for Russia.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Russian government made a strategic mistake when it did not accept the requests of the break-away provinces to be united with Russia. The people in the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces favored unification with the same massive majorities that the people in Crimea showed. If the provinces had been united with Russia, it would have been the end of the conflict. Neither Ukraine nor Washington is going to attack Russian territory.

By failing to end the conflict by unification, Putin set himself up as the punching bag for Western propaganda. The consequence is that over the many months during which the conflict has been needlessly drawn out, Putin has had his image and reputation in the West destroyed. He is the “new Hitler.” He is “scheming to restore the Soviet Empire.” “Russia ranks with ebola and the Islamist State as the three greatest threats.” “RT is a terrorist organization like Boco Haram and the Islamist State.” And so on and on. This CNN interview with Obama conducted by Washington’s presstitute Fareed Zakaria shows the image of Putin based entirely on lies that rules in the West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duu6IwW3sbw

Putin could be no more demonized even if the Russian military had invaded Ukraine,
conquered it, and reincorporated Ukraine in Russia of which Ukraine was part for centuries prior to the Soviet collapse and Ukraine’s separation from Russia at Washington’s insistence.

The Russian government might want to carefully consider whether Moscow is helping Washington to achieve another victory in Ukraine.