Ukrainian Riots Accelerating

[Magda Hassan]

Full of testosterone but clearly afraid of other men.

[Magda Hassan]

US can't wait to load Ukraine up with debt. Kick backs for the puppets for delivering the pizza. Meanwhile the US warns Russia: " ....the White House sought to apply subtle pressure on Russia to let events unfold in Ukraine without interfering. This message has been delivered in recent days from President Barack Obama on down." In other words we (US-EU) are the only ones permitted to interfere. GTFO Russia. I predict a steep rise in gas prices.

U.S. eyes funding for Ukraine alongside IMF program

Source: Reuters - Mon, 24 Feb 2014 10:40 PM Author: Reuters


By Lesley Wroughton and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it was ready to provide financial assistance to Ukraine to complement a loan program from the International Monetary Fund in the aftermath of the ouster of Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovich.
Two days after the dramatic departure of pro-Moscow Yanukovich after bloody clashes in Kiev, the White House sought to apply subtle pressure on Russia to let events unfold in Ukraine without interfering. This message has been delivered in recent days from President Barack Obama on down.
Signaling U.S. concerns that Russian intervention could trigger more violence, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters: "It is certainly not in Russia's interests for there to be violence and instability in Ukraine."
With Kiev in desperate need of cash as it charts a new future, U.S. officials said Washington would be willing to provide some assistance in addition to an International Monetary Fund program which could go into effect after a new government is set up.
International financial diplomats told Reuters that one option under review to help prop up Ukraine's ailing economy was a bailout that would include IMF money as well as bilateral loans and guarantees from governments.
It was unclear whether Russia will be willing to go along with an international bailout although the financial diplomats said Moscow was part of the conversation.
The fall of Yanukovich has cast doubt on a $15 billion bailout for Ukraine from Moscow, which said it would not recognize the country's interim leadership because it came to power in an "armed mutiny."
Finance ministers from the Group of 20, including Russia, met in Sydney over the weekend and Ukraine's economic plight was discussed on the sidelines. Ukraine in the past has struggled to comply with the requirements of IMF programs.

SHORT TERM RELIEF
EU officials said it was highly unlikely Europe, the United States or anyone else would be willing to put up large sums of money until Kiev signs on to an IMF program, which would demand tough reforms that Ukraine has been unable to implement.
Ukraine could win smaller bilateral loans, possibly coordinated by the EU, to give it short-term relief, according to EU officials.
U.S. officials cautioned that discussions on funding assistance to Ukraine were still at an early stage. The State Department said British Foreign Secretary William Hague would visit Washington on Tuesday to discuss developments in Ukraine with U.S. officials and the IMF.
A senior State Department official said it was crucial that any funding go through the IMF, which has the experience to help countries implement difficult economic reforms.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew made clear on Sunday that Ukraine should begin discussions with the IMF as soon as a transitional government is in place in Kiev. Under IMF rules, the institution can only lend to elected governments although it can begin negotiations before then.
Ukraine's finance ministry said it needed $35 billion in foreign assistance over the next two years and called for a donor conference to raise money. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said a donor conference was under consideration and "this should be worked out in the coming days."
Ukraine's dollar bonds rallied on Monday and its five-year debt insurance costs tumbled as hopes grew that the country would win assistance from Western donors.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Ukraine was going through an important transformation that should be supported.
"We have a real opportunity to move beyond the current crisis and pursue a more democratic future," Psaki told a daily briefing, adding that the United States believed Yanukovich had lost legitimacy.

http://www.trust.org/item/20140224221942...ource=shtw

[Magda Hassan]

Looks Like US Played Hardball in the Ukraine...and Against the EU

When the EU mediated a deal between the opposition and the government, I thought Yanukovich had dodged the bullet.


Not quite.


In parsing the circumstances of Yanukovich's downfall, it is interesting to look for the machinations of Victoria Nuland, the State Department neo-con (wife of Robert Kagan) who was apparently given a free hand in matters Ukrainian by President Obama.


Consider this:


The background of Nuland's notorious Fuck the EU audio was her feeling that the EU was insufficiently confrontational with the Ukranian government, especially on the issue of sanctions.


As to what "sufficiently confrontational" might look like, consider this AFP report from back in January that showed up in the Yahoo! Sports feed, since its subject, R. Akhmetov, is the owner of Ukraine's most successful football outfit :

Ukraine's richest man Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of the Shakhtar Donetsk football club, is having a possibly decisive influence on Ukraine's standoff between the security forces and protesters.

Akhmetov has long been seen as a leading ally of President Viktor Yanukovych. He has bankrolled the ruling Regions Party which he formerly represented in parliament as an MP, and harks from the eastern Donetsk region that is the president's stronghold.


But in a possible turning point in a crisis that has raised fears of a prolonged civil conflict, Akhmetov on Saturday issued a strong statement warning that the use of force against protesters was unacceptable and the only way forward was negotiations.

…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…

…his reasons for being so strongly against the use of a state of emergency to forcefully end the protests may not be entirely altruistic.

According to the influential news site Ukrainska Pravda, visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland warned Akhmetov at a secret meeting when she visited Kiev in December that he and other wealthy backers of the Regions Party could face EU and US sanctions if the police used force against the protesters.


For a businessman with an international reputation and properties outside of Ukraine, including a luxury town house in London, this was clearly an unwelcome prospect.

…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand more please:

Akhmetov was able to control a group of at least 40 MPs from the ruling Regions Party in the Verkhovna Rada parliament.

So what happened after the EU brokered a transitional, power-sharing sort of deal with the EU?


The truce broke.


How did the truce break?

Fearing that a call for a truce was a ruse, protesters tossed firebombs and advanced upon police lines Thursday in Ukraine's embattled capital. Government snipers shot back and the almost-medieval melee that ensued left at least 70 people dead and hundreds injured, according to a protest doctor.
…
A truce announced late Wednesday appeared to have little credibility among hardcore protesters. One camp commander, Oleh Mykhnyuk, told the AP even after the alleged truce, protesters still threw firebombs at riot police on the square. As the sun rose, police pulled back, the protesters followed them and police then began shooting at them, he said.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand what happened in the parliament?

Ukrainian Parliament Deputy Speaker Ruslan Koshulynsky has announced that more parliamentarians have withdrawn from the Party of Regions faction.

In particular, Oleksandr Volkov, Yuriy Polyachenko, Vitaliy Hrushevsky, Volodymyr Dudka, Yaroslav Sukhy, Artem Scherban, and one more parliamentarian, whose name Koshulynsky pronounced unintelligibly, had left the Party of Regions faction.

Koshulynsky later announced the names of four other deputies who left the Party of Regions faction, i.e. Viktor Zherebniuk, Ivan Myrny, Hennadiy Vasylyev, and Nver Mkhitarian. He later added Larysa Melnychuk and Serhiy Katsuba to this list.

Hence, the Party of Regions has lost 41 deputies, including 28 on Friday and the other 14 on Saturday.

Don't know if any of these were among Akhmetov's 40 people. Would be interesting to find out. In any case, enough Party of Regions deputies bailed to give the pro-EU forces a majority and a free hand in parliament to undertake some sweeping initiatives, like unilaterally impeaching the president, repudiating a previous constitutional revision, and releasing Yulia Timoshenko from prison.


So, by a less-than-generous view, it might be suspected that the United States encouraged demonstrators to break the truce, with the expectation that violence would occur and Yanukovich's equivocal fat cat backers, such as Akhmetov, would jump ship because the US had already informed them that their assets in the West would be at risk under US and EU sanctions.


If this is the case, the EU perhaps has additional reason to feel sore and resentful at the US. By blowing up the truce and the transition deal, Nuland got Yanukovich out and "Yats"the preferred US proxy, Arseniy Yatsenyukin, but at the cost of terminally alienating the Ukraine's pro-Russian segmenta segment, it might be pointed out, was actually able to elect Yanukovich in a free and fair election a while back.


In any case, through some creative interpretation of the Ukrainian constitution, the now West-friendly parliament has constituted itself as the primary legitimate organ of government, selected a new prime minister, and scheduled elections for December.


Since this new government is flat-busted, needs somewhere north of $30 billion in fresh loans to make it through the year, one might think the West didn't get much of a bargain. However, it seems that everybody in the new government is gung-ho on accepting an IMF package through which, I suppose, the Ukraine will be comfortably chained in debt vassalage to the West for the foreseeable future and incapable of returning to the welcoming arms of Russia.


Whether the eastern and southern Ukrainestrongholds of pro-Russian feelingwill put up with the wrenching IMF restructuring that their western comrades appear so eager to implement is another question.


Don't be surprised if this miraculous offspring of Obamian righteousness and neo-con callous bravado yields another nation-building triumph along the lines of Libya and South Sudan, but this time with the fiasco squarely in the lap of the Ukraine's discombobulated EU neighbors.


It will also be interesting to see if Russia yields to its spiteful feelings and neglects to pony up the $15 billion it had originally promised in order to prop up Yanukovich. (Interesting thought: was all this US-encouraged upheaval timed for the Sochi Olympics with the thinking that Putin wouldn't dare intervene forcefully while his precious games were underway? Hmmm.)


By openly supporting insurrection by a militant faction in order to subject the Ukranian government to a level of stress that it, and particularly its apparently incapable pres, Yanukovich, were incapable of handling, I think the US crossed something of a Rubicon. It openly and enthusiastically backed a violent putsch against a democratically-elected government it didn't happen to like. Neo-liberal enthusiasts, it should be noted, splashed across this boundary without even getting their feet wet…except from the dull-witted drooling of Western correspondents apparently besotted by the contrived tire-burning, Molotov-cocktail tossing freedom-fighter narrative layered over the political struggle.


Reminded me of how the media let itself get played during the Iraq War, a period in history I'm old enough to remember, but perhaps some gormless young journos can't…or won't.


The Obama administration's new-found affection for street riots to overthrow unfriendly elected government will get its next road test in Venezuela. Caracas is starting to look like Kiev. The conservative youth of the private universities are already on the street looking for trouble and the excuse to exercise righteous violence like their ultranationalist brothers in Ukraine. If Carl Gibson's article in Reader Supported News is quoting an authentic document, the USAID, with the help of consultants and Colombia, was already mapping out plans to destabilize the country through economic sabotage in late 2013 and, according to Gibson's account, incite street confrontation:

"Whenever possible, the violence should cause deaths and injuries. Encourage hunger strikes of numerous days, massive mobilisations, problems in the universities and other sectors of society now identified with government institutions."

I don't think there's any question that opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is America's man in Caracas. Gibson's article also adds the detail that a Wikileaks cable apparently links Lopez to CANVAS, the US-funded democracy-promotion cum regime-change outfit that Yanukovich banned from Kiev just prior to his downfall.


Venezuela seems to fracture along class lines (not ethnic Russian vs. Ukrainian, or regional/tribal/Cyrenic/Tripolitan like Libya, or confessional Sunni/Shi'ite like Syria) so the task of catapulting a pro-US elite group into power may be bloodier and more prolonged than the adventure in the Ukraine. But I'm sure the United States has sufficient money and patience for a prolonged struggle, especially when the suffering is a thousand miles away from Washington.


As for the People's Republic of China, I think the takeaway will be 1) active US political subversion of its enemies is not just one of those myths that target governments console or terrify themselves with 2) don't let opposition parties form, let alone get on the ballot 2) don't let anybody in the downtown square and 3) pre-emptively treat any activists with US or Western ties as de facto subversives and counter-revolutionaries.


It is doubtful that heightened PRC vigilance will translate into anything near the democratic liberalization which the West ostensibly craves for China's benighted citizens. Instead, the regime will land on dissidents early and like a ton of bricks.


It is rather ironic that Barack Obama, the progressive paragon, took a few hits from the Dick Cheney regime-change crack pipe, and now apparently finds it irresistible.


Maybe he feels that he might as well grab for a few cheap foreign policy wins, damn the consequences, because in two years he's outta here and President Clinton can deal with the mess.


I imagine that Alfred Nobel's image on President Obama's Peace Prize medal is weeping blood tears by now.


http://chinamatters.blogspot.com.au/2014...ll-in.html

[Magda Hassan]

The EU's Second Ring
2014/02/25

BERLIN/KIEV/BERN
(Own report) - In the aftermath of the Western-oriented putsch in Kiev, German politicians are preparing German public opinion for the disastrous deterioration of the Ukraine economic situation. Even though it was most recently suggested that the country could only expect a thriving development by linking up to the EU, it is now - truthfully - being announced that Ukraine is practically bankrupt. The CDU European parliamentarian, Elmar Brok, predicts "difficult times" ahead: "It has never rained gold coins, except in fairy tales." In fact back in the fall, experts had already indicated that, because of its out-dated industry, the Ukraine would have to expect dramatic economic slumps if it signs the EU Association Agreements - unemployment and poverty would dramatically rise. In a position paper, the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) is now proposing the introduction of a special status in EU ties for the Ukraine as well as other countries, such as Turkey. This sort of EU "second ring" would also permit the economic integration of such countries as Switzerland, which politically resists joining the EU. The SWP contends that these plans could also be used for Catalonia, should it secede from Spain and Scotland, from Britain.


Automatic Adaption
The authors of the SWP position paper initially part from the EU's relationship with Switzerland, as the basis for their contemplations of the EU forming a "second ring." Brussels and Bern, according to the paper, have currently signed more than 100 bilateral accords, forming the foundation of close cooperation. Brussels is now insisting on changes, because the intransigence of the accords reached with Bern are no longer in step with the continually evolving EU rules. Rather than always having to "manually" update these accords, Brussels would like to have an agreement on mechanisms, which would make it possible to practically have Switzerland automatically "accept the Union's legal standards." This would be "a new institutional umbrella" for bilateral relations. Negotiations were to have begun this spring. However, following the Swiss Free Movement of Persons Referendum, this is no longer immediately possible, because the results of the referendum have placed in question current accords with the EU.[1]

Integrate into the Interior Market
After the results of the referendum, as the authors see it, there should first be a "discussion of principles" on the relations between Switzerland and the EU. This would simultaneously provide "the opportunity" to work out a "model for institutional ties" to the EU for all those countries that one wants "to have participating in the interior market," while "the political full membership is not wanted either by the country in question or by the EU." This concerns, first of all, members of the European Economic Area (EEA) (Norway, Island, Liechtenstein), but also Turkey - whose EU membership Berlin has been blocking - as well as the "EU-fatigued ... EU members ... such as Great Britain," for the case that the United Kingdom "really decides to abandon union membership." The Euro crisis has long since "imposed integration at two different speeds," according to the position paper on closer cooperation within the Euro zone. There are also "many indications that the members of the Euro zone will close ranks even more tightly."[2] The concept of a "second ring" around a core Europe with a common currency would also make it possible to standardize the economic penetration of European peripheral countries, even those lacking the political will for complete integration.

Possibility of Secession
The SWP position paper explicitly makes reference to the question of "the status that eventually newly-founded countries, such as Catalonia or Scotland, should have."[3] Catalonia and Scotland are pro-secessionist regions of sovereign countries, whose governments are adamantly opposed to their secession. Last year. in late summer, the EU Commission explicitly reiterated that EU member nations' territorial integrity is indispensable. Shortly thereafter, the SWP published a paper characterizing Catalonia's secession as difficult, however feasible. The EU could "reach a situation, where it must be considered" whether a "negotiated separation is not more preferable to a situation of permanent instability," according to the paper. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[4]) This statement could have been understood by pro-secessionists to be an indication that Madrid's and London's resistance could be broken. The current SWP position paper picks up where the previous paper left off, by proposing, at least, the prospect of admission of the areas of secession to the EU's "second ring," in case Spain and Great Britain oppose their full EU membership.

Accession Undesired
This plea for an EU "second circle" is of considerable interest, particularly in view of the Ukraine. The oligarch, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was released from prison last weekend and, for whose release, Berlin had launched a massive PR campaign in 2012 (german-foreign-policy.com reported [5]), has already declared on Saturday that she is convinced that the Ukraine will join the EU in the near future. This can only be seen as an open affront to Berlin and Brussels: As is known, Germany and the EU are not willing to pay for the expensive EU accession of the overwhelmingly impoverished country. This is why they are only seeking Ukraine's "association," providing the advantage of exclusive economic links, without the requirement of costly transfer payments. German politicians were quite annoyed with Tymoshenko's advance. "EU foreign policy has recently experienced ... that initiating accession negotiations too early with a large and heterogeneous country at the European periphery is a mistake," the German CDU European parliamentarian, Herbert Reul, is quoted - a clear rebuff to the country's EU accession.[6]

Socially Extremely Painful
Simultaneously, Berlin is preparing public opinion for the foreseeable disastrous development of the Ukrainian economy. Already last autumn, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) exposed in a paper that Ukraine's EU association would require "serious and extremely painful social adjustments."[7] In early January, an expert of the DGAP journal "Internationale Politik" pointed out that in the EU "very few Ukrainian products" are "competitive." "Open markets" would therefore incur "enormous adjustment costs" and "the unemployment rate would skyrocket." If the EU Association Agreements would have been concluded last fall, within a year, the Ukrainians' "approval rate" of their country's "EU integration" would probably plunge, according to the author.[8] This is the scenario that looms, if Berlin and Brussels can now put through the country's association.

Europe, No Fairy Tale
MEP Elmar Brok (CDU), who, for weeks, has repeatedly been negotiating in Kiev and is known as the one "secretly pulling the strings" for the EU in the Ukraine,[9] expressed himself accordingly. "It has never rained gold coins except in fairy tales," Brok declared following the putsch in the Ukrainian capital: Even though the country has the "best opportunities ... on its route to Europe," it still "will be difficult in the beginning."[10] Substantial economic problems are already looming. This year, Kiev has to pay approximately ten billion Euros in debts, which it cannot muster without dramatic budget cuts. Moscow had offered its help, but broke off transfer payments after the coup in Kiev. It can be practically excluded that Berlin and Brussels will jump in with billions in payments. After all, Berlin and Brussels are not as interested in the welfare of this country, as in its accession to the German European hegemonic sphere.

[1], [2], [3] Nicola Forster, Niklaus Nuspliger: Die EU braucht neue Spielregeln für widerwillige Europäer. http://www.swp-berlin.org 19.02.2014.
[4] See Spaniens Zypern-Szenario.
[5] See Between Moscow and Berlin, Zwischen Moskau und Berlin (II) and Between Moscow and Berlin (III).
[6] Der Timoschenko-Bumerang. http://www.handelsblatt.com 23.02.2014.
[7] See Problems of Eastward Expansion.
[8] See Integration Rivalry With Moscow.
[9] Brüssels heimlicher Strippenzieher in Kiew. http://www.bild.de 30.01.2014.
[10] "Es ist noch nie Gold vom Himmel gefallen". http://www.n-tv.de 23.02.2014.
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58724

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[Magda Hassan]

Ukrainian synagogue reportedly firebombed in first violence against Jews

The Molotov cocktails struck the synagogue's exterior stone walls and caused little damage, according to a Chabad blog.

By Haaretz | 04:17 25.02.14 | 1

Molotov cocktails were thrown at the newly-built synagogue and Jewish community center of Zaporozhye, in southeastern Ukraine, on Monday night, according to a blog of the Chabad movement.

It was the first known violence against Ukraine's Jewish community...[paywalled]

Ukrainian rabbi tells Kiev's Jews to flee city

Fearing violence against Ukraine's Jews, the Jewish community asks Israel for assistance with the security of the community.

By Haaretz | Feb. 22, 2014 | 4:20 PM | 44







Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, called on Kiev's Jews to leave the city and even the country if possible, fearing that the city's Jews will be victimized in the chaos, Israeli daily Maariv reported Friday.
"I told my congregation to leave the city center or the city all together and if possible the country too," Rabbi Azman told Maariv. "I don't want to tempt fate," he added, "but there are constant warnings concerning intentions to attack Jewish institutions."
According to the paper's report Azman closed the Jewish community's schools but still holds three daily prayers. He said the Israeli embassy told members of the Jewish community to avoid leaving their homes.
Edward Dolinsky, head of the umbrella organization of Ukraine's Jews described the situation in Kiev as dire, telling Maariv "We contacted Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman requesting he assist us with securing the community."
Protesters in the Ukrainian capital claimed full control of the city Saturday following the signing of a Western-brokered peace deal aimed at ending the nation's three-month political crisis.
President Viktor Yanukovych is still in Ukraine, a senior security source told Reuters on Saturday following reports his residence was empty and unguarded and his Kiev offices were in the hands of protesters.
Correction (Feb. 22, 4:20 P.M.): An earlier version of this report incorrectly described Rabbi Azman as the chief rabbi of Ukraine. Azman is not the country's chief rabbi, but one of two rabbis challenging the official chief rabbi, Yaakov Bleich, in Kiev.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewi...s/1.575732

[Lauren Johnson]

"We contacted Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman requesting he assist us with securing the community."

This is a very strange sentence.

[Lauren Johnson]

[url=http://A collection of interesting reads on how the putsch in the Ukraine happened and the background behind it.Max Blumenthal is looking at the historic background of the Nazi groups in the Ukraine and there relation with Ukrainian exile groups in the United States. The connections are deeper than one might have thought:Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? - Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine.Many surviving OUN-B members fled to Western Europe and the United States occasionally with CIA help where they quietly forged political alliances with right-wing elements. "You have to understand, we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence," one member told journalist Russ Bellant, who documented the group's resurgence in the United States in his 1988 book, "Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party."In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of "complete OUN-B fronts," according to Bellant. By the mid-1980's, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group's chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.Paula Dobriansky was on of the neo-cons in the Bush administration:According to her State Department biography, Dobriansky's background includes having "lectured and published articles, book chapters, and op-ed pieces on foreign affairs-related topics, ranging from U.S. human rights policy to East European foreign and defense policies, public diplomacy, democracy promotion strategies, Russia, and Ukraine.The current lead on Eastern Europe in the State Department is "fuck the EU" neo-con Victoria Nuland. The coup in Kiev was a neo-con project.Also this comment by markfromireland at Ian Welsh's blog:To eliminate Russia as a threat to American hegemony you need to hive of The Ukraine and use it as a forward post against Russian resurgence.This is why the Americans have been exerting massive pressure on the European Commission and on European governments to bring the Ukraine into the North American/North Western European economic sphere. With the UKraine in the "Western" camp they can stymie Russian efforts to drag the Baltic Republics back into orbit around Russia. Without it that becomes far more difficult.There are allegations in the following piece that parts of the neo-nazis that attacked the police in Kiev have been trained in NATO countries. I have not verified this but it seems plausible: Ukraine: Neo-Nazi Criminal State Looming In Centre Of Europe AnalysisA number of NATO-sponsored training centers for the Ukrainian ultranationalist militants were opened on the territory of the Baltic states immediately after they joined NATO in 2004. The detailed photo report on a Ukrainian group taking a course of subversive activities at a NATO training center in Estonia in 2006 is available here (texts in Russian).Abundant financial and human resources were directed to bolster the paramilitary units of the radical UNA-UNSO, Svoboda and other ultranationalist organizations in the Ukraine. Since 1990s these thugs were participating in the Chechen and Balkan wars on the side of radical Wahhabi (!) militants and committing war crimes against captured Russian and Serbian soldiers and civilian population. One of the notorious guerilla fighters of the Ukrainian origin in Chechnya, Olexander Muzychko (aka criminal leader Sasha Biliy) today is heading a brigade of "Pravyi Sector", the radical militant driving force of the ongoing coup d'état in Kiev.There have been reports, also mentioned in the above, from Russian sources that, allegedly, Israeli special forces were involved with the anti-semitic neo-Nazis in the Ukraine. That may sound implausible until you recognize that Israeli state policy is to move as many Jews as possible to Israel. To frighten those who still want to stay in their native country by promoting anti-semitic forces makes sense withing this (in itself anti-semitic) policy frame:For the life of me, I don't understand the Jews living in France. I don't understand the Jews living in Poland. I don't understand the one Jew living in Afghanistan (nor the one living in Eritrea) and I can't believe there are still 100 Jews in Egypt, Algeria, Iraq or Botswana. I don't understand the Jews living in the Ukraine and, to be honest, I don't much understand the Jews living in America either. ... But seriously if you are a Jew living in the Ukraine today, why aren't you packing your bags? If you are a Jew living in France, do you really expect it to get better? And, if you are a Jew living in the US, do you expect your grandchildren to still be Jewish?Chinahand aka Peter Lee explains how the U.S., by threatening sanctions on one oligarch, managed to change the majority in the Ukrainian parliament against Yanukovich: Looks Like US Played Hardball in the Ukraine...and Against the EU:So, by a less-than-generous view, it might be suspected that the United States encouraged demonstrators to break the truce, with the expectation that violence would occur and Yanukovich's equivocal fat cat backers, such as Akhmetov, would jump ship because the US had already informed them that their assets in the West would be at risk under US and EU sanctions.If this is the case, the EU perhaps has additional reason to feel sore and resentful at the US. By blowing up the truce and the transition deal, Nuland got Yanukovich out and "Yats"the preferred US proxy, Arseniy Yatsenyukin, but at the cost of terminally alienating the Ukraine's pro-Russian segmenta segment, it might be pointed out, was actually able to elect Yanukovich in a free and fair election a while back.I do not expect any Russian move on the Ukraine. Putin will now sit back and let the "west" squabble about who will throw tons of money into the bottomless pit that Ukraine is going to become. No politician in Kiev who wants to be re-elected will dare to sign an IMF agreement that will send a generation of the Ukrainian people into deep poverty. Unless there are nazi-progroms in Russian affiliated parts of the Ukraine Putin now just has to wait for the apple to fall from the tree.]Moon of Alabama, February 25[/url]

A collection of interesting reads on how the putsch in the Ukraine happened and the background behind it.

Max Blumenthal is looking at the historic background of the Nazi groups in the Ukraine and there relation with Ukrainian exile groups in the United States. The connections are deeper than one might have thought:

[URL="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/us-backing-neo-nazis-ukraine?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark"]Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? - Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine.

[/URL]

Many surviving OUN-B members fled to Western Europe and the United States occasionally with CIA help where they quietly forged political alliances with right-wing elements. "You have to understand, we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence," one member told journalist Russ Bellant, who documented the group's resurgence in the United States in his 1988 book, "Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party." In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of "complete OUN-B fronts," according to Bellant. By the mid-1980's, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group's chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.

Paula Dobriansky was on of the neo-cons in the Bush administration:

According to her State Department biography, Dobriansky's background includes having "lectured and published articles, book chapters, and op-ed pieces on foreign affairs-related topics, ranging from U.S. human rights policy to East European foreign and defense policies, public diplomacy, democracy promotion strategies, Russia, and Ukraine.

The current lead on Eastern Europe in the State Department is "fuck the EU" neo-con Victoria Nuland. The coup in Kiev was a neo-con project.

Also this comment by markfromireland at Ian Welsh's blog:

To eliminate Russia as a threat to American hegemony you need to hive of The Ukraine and use it as a forward post against Russian resurgence. This is why the Americans have been exerting massive pressure on the European Commission and on European governments to bring the Ukraine into the North American/North Western European economic sphere. With the UKraine in the "Western" camp they can stymie Russian efforts to drag the Baltic Republics back into orbit around Russia. Without it that becomes far more difficult.

There are allegations in the following piece that parts of the neo-nazis that attacked the police in Kiev have been trained in NATO countries. I have not verified this but it seems plausible: [URL="http://www.eurasiareview.com/25022014-ukraine-neo-nazi-criminal-state-looming-centre-europe-analysis/"]Ukraine: Neo-Nazi Criminal State Looming In Centre Of Europe Analysis

[/URL]

A number of NATO-sponsored training centers for the Ukrainian ultranationalist militants were opened on the territory of the Baltic states immediately after they joined NATO in 2004. The detailed photo report on a Ukrainian group taking a course of subversive activities at a NATO training center in Estonia in 2006 is available here (texts in Russian). Abundant financial and human resources were directed to bolster the paramilitary units of the radical UNA-UNSO, Svoboda and other ultranationalist organizations in the Ukraine. Since 1990s these thugs were participating in the Chechen and Balkan wars on the side of radical Wahhabi (!) militants and committing war crimes against captured Russian and Serbian soldiers and civilian population. One of the notorious guerilla fighters of the Ukrainian origin in Chechnya, Olexander Muzychko (aka criminal leader Sasha Biliy) today is heading a brigade of "Pravyi Sector", the radical militant driving force of the ongoing coup d'état in Kiev.

There have been reports, also mentioned in the above, from Russian sources that, allegedly, Israeli special forces were involved with the anti-semitic neo-Nazis in the Ukraine. That may sound implausible until you recognize that Israeli state policy is to move as many Jews as possible to Israel. To frighten those who still want to stay in their native country by promoting anti-semitic forces makes sense withing this (in itself anti-semitic) policy frame:

For the life of me, I don't understand the Jews living in France. I don't understand the Jews living in Poland. I don't understand the one Jew living in Afghanistan (nor the one living in Eritrea) and I can't believe there are still 100 Jews in Egypt, Algeria, Iraq or Botswana. I don't understand the Jews living in the Ukraine and, to be honest, I don't much understand the Jews living in America either.
...
But seriously if you are a Jew living in the Ukraine today, why aren't you packing your bags? If you are a Jew living in France, do you really expect it to get better? And, if you are a Jew living in the US, do you expect your grandchildren to still be Jewish?

Chinahand aka Peter Lee explains how the U.S., by threatening sanctions on one oligarch, managed to change the majority in the Ukrainian parliament against Yanukovich: Looks Like US Played Hardball in the Ukraine...and Against the EU:

So, by a less-than-generous view, it might be suspected that the United States encouraged demonstrators to break the truce, with the expectation that violence would occur and Yanukovich's equivocal fat cat backers, such as Akhmetov, would jump ship because the US had already informed them that their assets in the West would be at risk under US and EU sanctions.

If this is the case, the EU perhaps has additional reason to feel sore and resentful at the US. By blowing up the truce and the transition deal, Nuland got Yanukovich out and "Yats"the preferred US proxy, Arseniy Yatsenyukin, but at the cost of terminally alienating the Ukraine's pro-Russian segmenta segment, it might be pointed out, was actually able to elect Yanukovich in a free and fair election a while back.

I do not expect any Russian move on the Ukraine. Putin will now sit back and let the "west" squabble about who will throw tons of money into the bottomless pit that Ukraine is going to become. No politician in Kiev who wants to be re-elected will dare to sign an IMF agreement that will send a generation of the Ukrainian people into deep poverty. Unless there are nazi-progroms in Russian affiliated parts of the Ukraine Putin now just has to wait for the apple to fall from the tree.

[Lauren Johnson]

The Beeb reports on Russian military moves and armed pro-Russian militias storm the Crimean Parliament building. Yanukovych surfaces just outside the Crimea and schedules a press conference tomorrow.

[Magda Hassan]

Russia is negotiating to open military bases in several countries. Let's see how McCain likes it when Medvedev and friends go around giving out cookies and 5 Billion $s to the Occupy Wall Street and nuclear missiles pointing at Washington.

Russia with plans for military bases in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela

Russia is planning to expand its permanent military presence outside its borders by placing military bases or seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in a number of foreign countries, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday. The list includes Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and several other countries



Defense minister Shoigu made the announcement

Shoigu in remarks carried by Russian news agencies also revealed that the military was also conducting talks with Algeria and Cyprus. He said that it was essential for the Russian navy to be able to call at their ports to service its ships.
Shoigu said Russia was also talking to some of those countries asking them to allow long-range bombers to use their air bases for re-fuelling.
President Vladimir Putin has launched a massive military modernization program and sought to demonstrate Russia's global reach by sending navy ships to the Mediterranean, Latin America and other areas.
Russia according to Ria Novosti already has similar arrangements with Armenia, Tayikistán, Kirguizistán and Syria. Likewise in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, Russia has the outpost for its Black Sea fleet.
The fugitive Ukranian former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich was a close ally of Russia and President Putin his main support.



http://en.mercopress.com/2014/02/27/russ...-venezuela

[Lauren Johnson]

Russia is negotiating to open military bases in several countries. Let's see how McCain likes it when Medvedev and friends go around giving out cookies and 5 Billion $s to the Occupy Wall Street and nuclear missiles pointing at Washington.

Russia with plans for military bases in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela

Russia is planning to expand its permanent military presence outside its borders by placing military bases or seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in a number of foreign countries, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday. The list includes Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and several other countries



Defense minister Shoigu made the announcement

Shoigu in remarks carried by Russian news agencies also revealed that the military was also conducting talks with Algeria and Cyprus. He said that it was essential for the Russian navy to be able to call at their ports to service its ships.
Shoigu said Russia was also talking to some of those countries asking them to allow long-range bombers to use their air bases for re-fuelling.
President Vladimir Putin has launched a massive military modernization program and sought to demonstrate Russia's global reach by sending navy ships to the Mediterranean, Latin America and other areas.
Russia according to Ria Novosti already has similar arrangements with Armenia, Tayikistán, Kirguizistán and Syria. Likewise in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, Russia has the outpost for its Black Sea fleet.
The fugitive Ukranian former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich was a close ally of Russia and President Putin his main support.

http://en.mercopress.com/2014/02/27/russ...-venezuela

Hmmmm. Of course, despite the fact the US has bases in most of the planet, this will be clearly regarded as a clear and present danger.