The Battle for Novorussiya

[R.K. Locke]

Stephen Cohen "Unprecedented NATO Mobilization Looks Like War With Russia"

https://off-guardian.org/2016/05/31/audi...th-russia/


The large-scale US-NATO amassing of military force on Russia's Western borders, NATO's "Eastern Front," is unprecedented and creates the impression of preparation for actual war

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.)

This installment continues last week's focus on the extraordinary US-NATO build-up of military forceson land, sea, and in the airon and very near Russia's borders, the opening of, as Cohen terms it, "NATO's Eastern Front."

The size of the build-up, and its proximity to Russia, had no precedent during the preceding 40-year Cold War, leading Cohen to ask if this is already something more than "Cold War," a mobilization for real war.

US and NATO officials have recently made clear this is only the beginning of what will be a very large-scale and permanent amassing of military power on the new Eastern Front. And Moscow, while remembering the German invasion of 1941, is reacting accordingly by mobilizing its own forces on its Western territories and promising more "counter-measures."

Even though the alleged threat of ongoing "Russian aggression," which Washington and Brussels officials cite as justification, clearly does not exist, no critical questions about the NATO build-up have appeared in the American mainstream media, only applause and calls for "more and bigger military exercises," as a New York Times editorial put it.

Meanwhile, a final, desperate attempt by Germany, France, and Russia is being made to save the seemingly doomed Minsk Accords, designed to bring about a negotiated end to the civil war and US-Russian proxy war in Ukraine, as Cohen reports. An emergency phone conversation between the leaders of those countries with Ukrainian President Poroshenko seemed intended to urge him to enact legislation long overdue by Kiev. But besieged by ultra-right forces threatening to overthrow him if he moves to enact the necessary legislation, Poroshenko seems unwilling or unable to do so, raising the possibility of another "revolution" in Kiev.

Cohen speculates that fear of an even more nationalist government coming to power may be behind the urgent attempt to save the Minsk Accords. Indeed, both the NATO military build-up and the economic sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014 are still directly related to the Ukrainian crisis, which remains the political epicenter of the new East-West confrontation.

Cohen and Batchelor end by recalling that it was 30 years ago that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan agreed to a new political and strategic approach, which soon, they thought, ended the Cold War: a mutual agreement that henceforth both sides would pursue military build-downs, or "mutual security," instead of the decades of mutual build-ups.

That historic opportunity, Cohen points out, has been lost. He also points out that in recent interviews, Gorbachev, while critical of Putin in other respects, says that if he had still been in the Kremlin in March 2014, he too would have acted to bring Crimea back into Russia, where it had been for centuries.

Gorbachev's statement confirms Cohen's thesis that any established Russian leader would have pursued the annexation of Crimeaor "reunification with Russia," as is said in Moscownot only the demonized Putin, considering the uncertain upheaval in Kiev in February 2014.

[Peter Lemkin]

Funny you should mention that.......a very large NATO/US military contingent just passed though the Czech Republic this past weekend, and was joined by Czech Military vehicles. I didn't pay attention to where they were headed...but will check that out pronto. ::lilgreenman::

[Lauren Johnson]

Ever since stopping the Donbass patriots from taking Mariupol when it had been all but abandoned and then the imposition of Minsk I and II on the DLPRs, I have suspected Russia wants to get out. Confirmation of sorts from I. Strelkov via Suchan:

Igor Strelkov shares his recent conversation with someone evidently high or higher in the Russian security structures, who explained or tried to explain to Strelkov the existing "internal" view on Donbass and on the essence of Putin's policies rather stripped of its usual make-up meant for the public. Thus, according to the officer, the view from within on what Putin and the Kremlin has been doing, which still carries a lot of rationalization, but is closer to the truth, is that Putin looked and decided that today's Russia is just to weak to defend its interests and the Russians in Donbass and Ukraine. The ruling elite sees Donbass much like Russia's new Vietnam, and Putin sees himself like US President Richard Nixon, but overall much smarter--he decided to quit and get out of the fight before the fight even started in earnest. His comprador oligarchic buddies and his mirror congratulate him for it and call him great and wise for that. The Kremlin has thus decided a long time ago what Minsk 1 already stated back in September of 2014--that Donbass and its people must go back to the fascists sooner (or later). According to this Russian officer who tried to persuade Strelkov to come to his senses, this betrayal does not mean that the Kremlin is throwing the Russians in Ukraine and the people of Donbass overboard or under the bus. For, as he put it, even the soldiers would have eventually a chance to flee to Russia and, perhaps, they might even be given--maybe--a share in the Russian unlivable, slave-lake pensions.

Thus, as this Russian officer tried to argue: Donbass is for the Kremlin--its new Vietnam, a strategic defeat and loss--but supposedly much less costly and much smarter than the one which the US suffered.

[Lauren Johnson]

Report today that the Donbass war hero Motorola was injured and evacuated to Russia. This may be why:

Breaking: Credible reports from Donbass, the Kremlin began gradual, crawling disarming of the militia/army of the DPR and the LPR so that, by the end of the summer, the process might be finalized. At the same time, the Kremlin began cooperating with the fascists with a view of handing Donbass over to them. This includes providing the junta with lists of the Donbass militia and officials who are presented as desirably eligible for "amnesty" and those who are just sacrificed and written off. Today's new of the medical evacuation of Motorola is viewed in this light too--as a plausible way of covering his departure.

[David Guyatt]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...04837.html

[Paul Rigby]

Intense Battle of Kominternove

July 2016

[video=youtube_share;bDFQrkHSDZ0]http://youtu.be/bDFQrkHSDZ0[/video]

[Paul Rigby]

A brief glimpse of the huge price in wounded and dead that Ukrainians are paying in the service of the Exceptional Ones:

[video=youtube_share;3RTRWzXnQPA]http://youtu.be/3RTRWzXnQPA[/video]

July 2016

[Paul Rigby]

Desperate Aggressor: Clinton needs war in Ukraine to stop Trump

September 3rd, 2016 -
- By Eduard Popov for Fort Russ - translated by J. Arnoldski

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/09/despera...s-war.html

As became known today, September 3rd, US Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has jumped one percentage point ahead of his opponent from the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton. This is evidenced by the results of a public opinion poll conducted by Reuters and the research company Ipsos. One can safely conclude that this survey has caused panic not only at the Democratic Party headquarters, but also in Ukraine.

It is well known that Ukrainian business and political structures are full of sympathy for the Democratic candidate. Viktor Pinchuk, a former Ukrainiano oligarch and the ex-leader of the Jewish Congress of Ukraine, participated in financing Clinton's electoral campaign. Meanwhile, some members of Donald Trump's team are being "accused" of cooperating with President Viktor Yanukovych's entourage before the coup d'etat in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian issue is thus invisibly present in the US presidential election. Donald Trump recently generated yet another controversy by stating that Crimea's reunification with Russia was legal and that there is even the possibility that the US will recognize the peninsula as Russian territory.

A Trump victory would be an unpleasant surprise for the Kiev regime. Kiev would be engulfed by panic if Trump wins. After all, Kiev is tied to the current US administration and its continuation in the form of Hillary Clinton and her team through a number of public and, especially, confidential contracts. For example, some of the most senior members of the ruling Democratic administration have been involved in corruption schemes in Ukraine. In May 2014, the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings announced that it had appointed a new legal department director: Robert Hunter Biden, the son of US Vice President Joe Biden. This is the loudest precedent that made splashes in the media, but it is not the only one.

For the Democratic administration in the US, Ukraine is a big wardrobe with dirty laundry. If Trump wins, then the corruption investigations which he has threatened Hillary Clinton with would undoubtedly affect the behind-the-scenes business of representatives of the Democratic administration in the US' new overseas colony of Ukraine. If such investigations would be unpleasant for the Democrats, then they would be fatal for the ruling Ukrainian establishment. Without protection from Washington, the Kiev regime is doomed.

Ever since the times of Ancient Rome, there has been one famous way out of a difficult foreign political situation - a "small victorious war." Allow me to express one speculation which I've discussed with some observers in Russia and Donbass who share this opinion.

Going forward in the race to win voters' sympathy from Donald Trump, the ruling establishment in the United States will become increasingly interested in an armed conflict. There are two possible scenarios here. The first is that the US could win a small victorious war and the Democrats' rating would skyrocket. But the trouble is that the US doesn't stand to well to win anything now. The second scenario is creating not so much a victory as a problem. Trump could then be blamed for this problem and for impermissibly positively speaking about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine represents the most convenient base for implementing this plan. Pushing Ukraine into a large-scale provocation directed against Russia, which the latter cannot help but respond to, and provoking an armed conflict between the two countries is the main goal of this plan for discrediting Russia and its leader as the "aggressor." An appeal would then be made Urbi et Orbi: "No one should ever deal with the "discredited" Putin, and Donald Trump has tried to make a deal with the Devil." Then the full power of the propaganda machine to discredit Putin and Trump will be swung into action. We've seen the power of this propaganda more than once: with the former Yugoslavia, twice with Iraq, and then with Afghanistan and Libya.

This, of course, is just a speculation. I am sure that sooner or later the turn of events will lead to a sharp confrontation with Russia. Who knows, maybe this will happen on the eve of US presidential elections?

[Lauren Johnson]

There was a bomb planted in the elevator of his apartment building. Very sad day'.

[Lauren Johnson]

• Nina ������ Byzantina ‏@NinaByzantina 31m31 minutes ago
  Motorola's assassination (ie, Kiev carries out terrorist acts on what it considers its own land): #Ukraine de-facto pulls out of Minsk II.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Nina ������ Byzantina ‏@NinaByzantina 29m29 minutes ago
  The assassination of a prominent Donetsk figure could lead to precisely the kind of escalation that would benefit US election warmongering.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Nina ������ Byzantina ‏@NinaByzantina 4m4 minutes ago
  Wouldn't be surprised that Kiev had help from above killing Motorola, considering those rumored NATO instructors on the downed copter.