US/NATO War on Russia

[Lauren Johnson]

David, I agree with your response in almost every way. I was responding however to answer this sentence.

Numerous media stories over past months have western pols accussing Russia of supplying Ukrainian separatists with weapons.

In the small scheme of things, Putin's support was very significant. (And you said you agree.) Since he had become the lifeline to Novorussiya, they owed him and depended on him. When they were in severe danger to of overrunning and destroying the Ukr forces, he pulled the plug and enforced a cease fire. Bizarre. Now they are re-supplied and well dug in.

BUT in the bigger picture, as you say, this is minor. In the bigger picture the US/NATO conceived, plotted, planned, and worked for years to trigger this war. And it is certainly part of a much larger scheme to impose hegemony on both Russia and China at the expense of millions of lives. And then of course the final prize has been the unachievable one -- planetary domination in a regime of re-imposed serfdom.

Certainly I agree with you and was I guess just quibbling.

On an another note, you wrote:

Having permitted this to occur in order to line private pockets at the expense of taxpayers across the world

I am starting to hear more about the "bail-in," which was used in Cyprus in the European financial crisis to "save the banks." A bail-in appropriates depositor funds to capitalize the troubled bank in question. The rationale I recently heard for this first time event is that this is a more just way of saving a bank since it does NOT inflict pain on the taxpayer but only on the depositor -- you know, the person was stupid enough to put money in a bank that was going to fail. ::

[David Guyatt]

David, I agree with your response in almost every way. I was responding however to answer this sentence.

Numerous media stories over past months have western pols accussing Russia of supplying Ukrainian separatists with weapons.

In the small scheme of things, Putin's support was very significant. (And you said you agree.) Since he had become the lifeline to Novorussiya, they owed him and depended on him. When they were in severe danger to of overrunning and destroying the Ukr forces, he pulled the plug and enforced a cease fire. Bizarre. Now they are re-supplied and well dug in.

BUT in the bigger picture, as you say, this is minor. In the bigger picture the US/NATO conceived, plotted, planned, and worked for years to trigger this war. And it is certainly part of a much larger scheme to impose hegemony on both Russia and China at the expense of millions of lives. And then of course the final prize has been the unachievable one -- planetary domination in a regime of re-imposed serfdom.

Certainly I agree with you and was I guess just quibbling.

On an another note, you wrote:

Having permitted this to occur in order to line private pockets at the expense of taxpayers across the world

I am starting to hear more about the "bail-in," which was used in Cyprus in the European financial crisis to "save the banks." A bail-in appropriates depositor funds to capitalize the troubled bank in question. The rationale I recently heard for this first time event is that this is a more just way of saving a bank since it does NOT inflict pain on the taxpayer but only on the depositor -- you know, the person was stupid enough to put money in a bank that was going to fail. ::

My position is that tax payers have been picking up this bill since 2008. This is certainly true in the UK where there has been considerable economic pain over the last 6 years after the government stepped in and rescued a couple of large banks and kept others afloat through changes in economic policy. The same has been true elsewhere in Europe too.

The Cyprus case is, so far as I am aware, an unusual but very worrying development because it makes depositors bear the pain, which is contrary to sound banking practice - where historically it is the shareholders, who invest in a bank, who quite rightly pick up the bill. That is the risk they take when investing. A depositor however, doesn't invest.

But in the Cyprus case the sums were too large anyway for shareholders to put things right, as I recall (banks there were over leveraged). I understand that part of the background to this was that Putin (and some chums) had some two billions of dollars worth of his own money in Cypriot banks and insisted these funds be returned to him - and that this happened. So some depositors got away with it. Meanwhile, all other non VIP depositors got their savings and, in some cases there pensions too, wiped out for simply using a local Cypriot bank account - which they must have to live there.

Inasmuch as today we all have to use banks and cannot escape from that, it stands to reason that depositors should not bail out banks - because how can they know, in advance, what crazy investment decisions a banks board of directors makes that puts it at risk? This is not usually made public. It happens in the shadows and when things starts to go wrong, it is not unusual for a cover up to occur to stop the inevitable from taking place. Thus compounding the problem. The last people to know are usually the depositors and then only after rumours begin to circulate about the soundness of a bank - and by then it is often too late to get your money out anyway.

In the UK there is a government protection scheme that guarantees depositors will have their deposits protected (up to £85k in any one banking group). Were this not to have been the case, I suspect that back in 2008/9 when everyone was bailing out of the stock markets and into cash and metal, there would have been a massive exodus of money out of the UK into offshore banking destinations, which would've brought to an immediate end the City of London. The government wouldn't permit this to happen, hence their immediate intervention.

There still are too many banks that are too big to fail and, in my opinion, what happened in 2008 will inevitably happen again - and from what I hear from friends who are still in banking, this is, in fact, already happening again as senior bankers once again chase annual bonus payments at the expense of prudent lending. Greed will always force its way to the surface when it comes to playing with other people's money.

But I have read some discussions that seem to suggest that the Cypriot bail-in option has now been virtually secretly enacted as a Europe wide emergency measure for the future.

[David Guyatt]

Mikhail Gorbachev warns global powers have put the world 'on the brink of a new Cold War'



Former Russian leader also voiced his support for current president Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions over Ukrainian conflict

ROSE TROUP BUCHANAN

Saturday 08 November 2014

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that tensions between the major powers have put the world "on the brink of a new Cold War".
[B][B]
The 83-year-old former leader, who was instrumental in ending the Cold War a quarter of a century ago, also accused the West - particularly the United States - of giving in to "triumphalism" after the collapse of the communist bloc.[/B][/B]
[B][B]"The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it's already begun," Mr Gorbachev said on Saturday at an event within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. The event marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.[/B][/B]

[B][B]His remarks come amid a time of increasingly tense relations between the United States and Russia.[/B][/B]
[B][B]The on-going conflict in Ukraine, which since erupting in protests in January has seen the country embroiled in a bloody civil war with thousands of civilians killed, has done little to ease the relationship between president Vladimir Putin and American leader Barack Obama.[/B][/B]

[B][B]Mr Gorbachev suggested the West should lift sanctions imposed against senior Russian officials over the country's support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, while calling for new trust to be built through dialogue between Washington and Moscow.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Prior to his arrival in Germany, the former leader made an explicit declaration of his support for the current Russian leader: "I am absolutely convinced that Putin protects Russia's interests better than anyone else."[/B][/B]
[B][B]He warned that the Ukrainian situation offered the US an "excuse" to victimise Russia, in an interview with the Interfax news agency, and added that failure to secure lasting security in Europe would make the continent irrelevant on the world stage.[/B][/B]

[B][B] "As long as Russians and Germans understand each other, as long as our relationship is good, then everyone benefits," Mr Gorbachev said.
German and Russian relations have also been strained by events in Ukraine, with Chancellor Angela Merkel voicing "grave concerns" over reports of a new Russian military incursion in the region yesterday.
The pro-Russian separatists have long denied they receive any form of aid from Putin's government.
Earlier this week the Ukrainian government alleged the rebels had received substantial consignments of weaponry and manpower from Russia. Moscow has consistently denied these claims.
[/B][/B]

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[Lauren Johnson]

But I have read some discussions that seem to suggest that the Cypriot bail-in option has now been virtually secretly enacted as a Europe wide emergency measure for the future.

It's now become a precedent! Now to have the practice go global, as utterly crazy this would sound if the goal were to have a confident savers and not destruction and looting.

[David Guyatt]

But I have read some discussions that seem to suggest that the Cypriot bail-in option has now been virtually secretly enacted as a Europe wide emergency measure for the future.

It's now become a precedent! Now to have the practice go global, as utterly crazy this would sound if the goal were to have a confident savers and not destruction and looting.

Yes, completely and utterly crazy if the idea is to have confident depositors. Not so crazy though, if the plan is to have sheep to sheer on a regular and ongoing basis. What that amounts to is an ongoing transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the very wealthy.

Dennis Moore has returned

[David Guyatt]

More journo propaganda "crud".

The new twist stands facts on their head by stating that it is the evil empire who is starting a new cold war. The US and NATO are innocent virgins shocked at Putin's vile decision to turn the clock back.

Close military encounters between Russia and the west at cold war levels'

Report lists 40 cases of brinkmanship' in past eight months, including near-collision between Russian spy plane and passenger jet

• Ewen MacAskill, defence and security correspondent
  
• The Guardian, Monday 10 November 2014
  
• Jump to comments (1076)
  

Russian military jets fly in formation above the Kremlin. The European Leadership Network's report comes after a warning from Mikhail Gorbachev that the world is on the brink of a new cold war'. Photograph: Tatyana Makeyeva / Reuters/Reuters

Close military encounters between Russia and the west have jumped to cold war levels, with 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents recorded in the past eight months alone, according to a report published on Monday.
The report, Dangerous Brinkmanship by the European Leadership Network, logs a series of "highly disturbing" incidents since the Ukrainian crisis began earlier this year, including an alarming near-collision between a Russian reconnaissance plane and a passenger plane taking off from Denmark in March with 132 passengers on board.
What made the incident especially dangerous was that the Russian plane did not have on its transponders, the usual method of signalling its presence to other aircraft.
The report by the London-based thinktank comes after a warning from former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that the world is "on the brink of a new cold war".
The encounters have taken place mainly around the Baltic Sea but also in the Black Sea and along the US and Canadian borders.
"We believe the nearly 40 incidents logged are a very serious development, not necessarily because they indicate a desire on the part of Russia to start a war but because they show a dangerous game of brinkmanship is being played, with the potential for unintended escalation in what is now the most serious security crisis in Europe since the cold war," say the report's authors Thomas Frear, Lukasz Kulesa and Ian Kearns.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russian and Nato forces have routinely tested one another's air defences, with both sending planes close to international borders to see how fast the other responds. But this year has seen not only a surge in such encounters but limits being pushed to new, more risky levels.
The US, Britain and other Nato allies accuse Russia of ramping up military action, but Moscow places the blame on the US and its European allies, accusing them of provoking the crisis in the Ukraine and through the imposition of sanctions on Russia. Gorbachev, normally a critic of Vladimir Putin, took the unusual step of siding with the Russian leader and called for new mechanisms for lowering tensions.
Some anti-war activists in the US and the west argue that Nato is hyping up encounters and risking all-out war.
The report authors urge the Russian leadership to "urgently re-evaluate the costs and risks of continuing its more assertive military posture". They also call on all sides to exercise military and political restraint and improve military-to-military communication and transparency.
Nato logged up to late October more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft, three times more than last year.
These and other incidents add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area, the report says.
Among high-risk incidents it lists are: the abduction by Russia of an Estonian intelligence agent in September: a mock Russian bombing raid on a heavily populated Danish island; simulated cruise missile attacks by Russian bombers on the US and Canada; Canadian warships locking radar on approaching Russian aircraft in the Black Sea; and a US plane making unauthorised entry into Swedish airspace after being chased by Russian planes.
Estonian defence minister Sven Mikser said last week that while he did not see outright military conflict with Russia as likely, Russia had returned to cold war ways by stepping up incursions.
According to Lithuania's defence ministry, Nato fighter jets around the Baltic states had been scrambled 86 times by mid-October, nearly twice as many as the whole of last year. Estonia has reported six breaches of its airspace by Russian aircraft this year, up from two in all of 2013. Latvia says it has sighted more than 40 Russian military vessels near its waters.
British general Sir John McColl, former deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, said the potential for miscalculation or escalation could be a matter not of if but when. While the recent increases in incidents were central high-level decisions, the physical execution of policy was delegated down.
"Junior commanders with highly capable equipment under their control will be interpreting broad direction using their initiative as circumstances develop in front of them. The potential for error and escalation is clear, and extremely dangerous; more a matter of when rather than if," McColl said.
Former British defence secretary Des Browne shared the concern, singling out the near collision between the passenger plane and the warplane as well as the abduction of the Estonian, which he described as "a Russian incursion into Nato territory which had it got out of hand, could have had incalculable consequences".
Kearns, who has been engaged with senior British foreign and defence policy makers for two decades, said: "We badly also need to negotiate a new crisis management arrangement with Russia to avoid a major unintentional escalation. The Chinese and Japanese have negotiated just such an arrangement in the East China Sea in the last few days. That is what we now need in Europe.'
China and Japan reached agreement on Friday on just such mechanisms in the East China Sea after similar tension. The two have been in dispute over tiny unpopulated islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing and known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.
Three close encounters

Near mid-air collision with passenger plane On 3 March this year, an SAS passenger plane taking off from Copenhagen with 132 passengers bound for Rome had a close encounter with a Russian reconnaissance plane which did not transmit its position. A collision was only avoided because of good visibility and the alertness of the SAS pilots, according to the report. The incident, which happened 50 miles south-east of Malmo, in Sweden, was before the shooting down of the MH17 passenger plane over Ukraine. Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists were blamed for the July missile attack.
Simulated cruise missile attacks on North America In early September this year, Russian strategic bombers in the Labrador Sea near Canada practised cruise missile strikes. The Russian aircraft stayed out of Canada's airspace but it was still a provocative move in light of the Nato summit at the time, according to the report. Cruise missiles launched from the Labrador Sea would have Ottawa, New York, Washington, Chicago and America's Norfolk naval base in range.
Black Sea encounter On 7 September, the Canadian frigate Toronto was buzzed by a Russian aircraft in the Black Sea with the plane coming within 300 metres. The Toronto locked its radar on the Russian plane but took no further action as the Russian plane was not armed. The incident coincided with larger Russian larger naval combat training activities near Sevastopol. "Such aggressive behaviour, if repeated by an armed aircraft, could have resulted in the ship commander targeting the aircraft in an act of self-defence," the report says.

[David Guyatt]

And the propaganda continues...

Imagine that - the the nasty, evil, awful and dangerous warmongering Russians are not adhering to "agreed safety procedures" when flying their aircraft to test western readiness. Talk about not playing fair...

Russia's warplanes are risking passenger jets, warns Nato chief



Jens Stoltenberg believes that Russian planes that do not follow safety procedures are risking the safety of civilian planes

BEN TUFFT

Sunday 16 November 2014

Russian warplanes are risking the security of civilian passengers as they play a dangerous game designed to test Western air defences, according to Nato's secretary general.

The Russian bombers, which fly over international and European airspace, do not follow agreed safety procedures, designed to minimise the risk of collisions, Jens Stoltenberg has said.
Nato jets have intercepted more than 100 Russian aircraft this year alone, compared to 13 similar such incidents in 2013.
Mr Stoltenberg told The Telegraph: "The problem is that many of the Russian pilots don't turn on their transponders, they don't file their flight plans and they don't communicate with civilian air traffic control.
"This poses a risk to civilian air traffic and therefore this is a problem, especially when the Russian activity increases because they have more Russian military planes in the air."

Back in March a Scandinavian Airlines plane and a Russian surveillance plane came within 90 metres of each other just outside of the Swedish city of Malmo, as the military plane had not contacted air traffic controllers or switched on its transponder.
Disaster was only averted thanks to the Scandinavian pilot's quick evasive action.
Nato's evolution
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Mr Stoltenberg's intervention comes after the European Leadership Network (ELN) published a report earlier this month that found almost 40 close encounters had occurred between Nato, Russian and civilian aircraft in the past eight months.
The ELN condemned Russia's "brinkmanship" under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.
Britain's RAF is tasked with patrolling thousands of square miles of airspace above the Atlantic and North Sea. Most recently Typhoons were scrambled on 31 October to intercept Russian aircraft approaching UK airspace.

[David Guyatt]

Putin claims west is provoking Russia into new cold war as spies' deported

Russian president denies fanning tensions and says Nato expansion in Europe has been geopolitical game changer'

• Alec Luhn in Moscow
  
• The Guardian, Monday 17 November 2014 18.42 GMT
  
• Jump to comments (2751)
  

Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Brisbane. Amid criticism from several other leaders, the Russian president left early. Photograph: Tass/Barcroft

Vladimir Putin has suggested to a German interviewer that the west is provoking Russia into a new cold war. The airing of the interview, which was recorded by the German channel ARD in Vladivostok last week, followed Russia's tit-for-tat expulsions of German and Polish diplomats, as well as the deportation of a Latvian accused of spying.
Asked whether the accusatory rhetoric between Moscow and Washington and a noticeable increase in Russian displays of military strength near western countries points to a new cold war, Putin said two rounds of Nato expansion in central and eastern Europe had been "significant geopolitical game changers" that forced Russia to respond.
Moscow resumed strategic aviation flights abroad several years ago in response to US nuclear bomber flights to areas near Russia that had continued after the cold war, he added.
"Nato and the United States have military bases scattered all over the globe, including in areas close to our borders, and their number is growing," Putin said. "Moreover, just recently it was decided to deploy special operations forces, again in close proximity to our borders. You have mentioned various [Russian] exercises, flights, ship movements and so on. Is all of this going on? Yes, it is indeed."
Putin has previously been accused by western leaders of fanning cold war-style tensions, most recently by the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who said he told Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing last week that Russia should stop "trying to recreate the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union". In August, Barack Obama told the late-night talk show host Jay Leno that the Russians often "slip back into cold war thinking".
In a speech in Australia on Monday, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who spoke at length to Putin during the G20 summit in Brisbane this weekend, said western sanctions against Russia would remain in place as far and long as they were needed and warned of growing Russian influence in eastern Europe. She argued that Russia should not be allowed to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States.
Also on Monday, the European Union's new foreign policy chief, Italy's foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, called for intensified diplomacy, including trips to Kiev and Moscow, to end the Ukraine crisis. Conservative commentators criticised Mogherini for being too soft on Russia after she was appointed in August, and her first meeting with other European foreign ministers on Monday saw them agree to consider additional sanctions against separatist leaders but not Russian officials.
The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, is to announce on Tuesday that the UK will donate communications equipment and 10 armoured vehicles worth £1.2m to the Ukraine special monitoring mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe , which is being expanded in the face of an increasingly unstable ceasefire in the east of the country.
During the ARD interview, Putin dodged a question about whether Moscow had supplied weapons to the separatists and deployed troops to eastern Ukraine, as Nato and Kiev have argued. "Nowadays people who wage a fight and consider it righteous will always get weapons," he said, blaming the west for supporting the government forces' use of ballistic missiles.
"You want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there in eastern Ukraine," Putin said. "Is that what you want? We certainly don't. And we won't let it happen."
But a report on the weapons used in the Ukrainian conflict released on Monday by the consulting group Armament Research Services (ARES) suggested that rebels were "very likely" to have received arms from Russia "however the level of state complicity in such activity remains unclear."
"It is very likely that pro-Russian separatist groups have received some level of support (including small arms, light weapons, guided light weapons, heavier weapons systems, and armoured vehicles) from one or more external parties," the ARES report said, although it admitted that the "most significant sources" of weapons and armoured vehicles were domestic ones.
Putin also said Russia's "friendship" with Germany was stronger than ever. German business groups have been among the most adamant opponents of sanctions. But in a sign of slipping political relations, Russia's foreign ministry confirmed to the news agency RIA Novosti on Monday that it had expelled an employee of the German embassy in Moscow in response to Berlin's "unfriendly actions toward an employee of one of Russia's foreign institutions in Germany". A Russian diplomat in Bonn had previously been expelled on suspicion of spying, Der Spiegel reported.
Moscow has also deported Alexei Kholostov, a former Latvian MP known as an advocate of Latvia's Russian minority, on spying allegations, the Latvian foreign ministry told Interfax news agency on Monday. In a Russian television report aired this weekend, Kholostov said on camerathat he was "in Russia on assignment for the Latvian special forces, which work under the CIA's control".
In another ongoing spy scandal, the foreign ministry also said on Monday it had expelled "several Polish diplomats" over "activities incompatible with their status", a common euphemism for spying. Polish television reported that four diplomats had been deported. Poland's foreign minister called the move a "symmetric response" after Polish authorities arrested a military officer and a Russian-Polish lawyer last month on suspicion of spying for Russia.

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[David Guyatt]

US pressure on Hollande must be intense?

France 'blocks' Russian sailors from boarding a warship



President Hollande has been under pressure to deny Putin access to two €1.2 billion helicopter carriers over the Ukraine crisis

ADAM WITHNALL

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Amid a growing diplomatic crisis between Vladimir Putin and the rest of Europe, hundreds of Russian sailors have reportedly been prevented from boarding a warship built for them in western France.

The €1.2 billion (£960,000) contract between France and Russia for the delivery of two new Mistral-class helicopter carriers has been the subject of intense pressure from the US and other nations.
President Hollande has spent months resisting calls to cancel the deal altogether in response to what David Cameron has described as "Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine", but has reportedly delayed the handover of the first of the two ships until the ceasefire in the conflict region is "fully observed".
Russia has warned that France will be subject to huge compensation fees if it does not give up control of the vessel, named the Vladivostok, before the end of November. It was supposed to be handed over on 14 November, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.
On Monday, the regional French newspaper Ouest-Francereported that 400 Russian sailors due to board Vladivostok for training were refused access at the request of the Paris authorities.
Russia's Interfax agency has since reported that the sailors in the port city of Saint Nazaire were allowed to board the vessel on Tuesday, citing a military source.

But the tussle for control of Vladivostok will do nothing to ease tensions between Russia and France, which insists that because of the fighting in Ukraine "the conditions are not in place" for delivery.

Separate Itar-Tass reports suggest the French shipbuilder responsible for the project, DCNS, is keeping quiet about a potential date when the second helicopter carrier, the Sevastopol, will be ready to float out.
And France's prime minister Manuel Valls hit out angrily last week at suggestions Moscow was setting strict deadlines for the ships' delivery.
READ MORE: CAMERON ISSUES PUTIN WITH UKRAINE WARNING
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT LEAVES G20 EARLY DUE TO CRITICISM OVER UKRAINE
HOLLANDE TO SPLIT UP OBAMA AND PUTIN AT D-DAY MEMORIALS

"Today, the conditions to deliver the Mistral aren't there," Valls told reporters. "France honours its contracts, but France is a nation that counts, wants peace in Ukraine and that makes sovereign decisions without anybody from outside dictating how it acts."
President Hollande and President Putin were due to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit at the weekend, but reports suggested the Mistral situation was not overtly discussed.
"What's key - and the president will discuss it with several leaders during the G20 - is to rediscover the path to peace between Ukraine and Russia," Valls told reporters last Friday. "We're far from that today."

[Peter Presland]

US pressure on Hollande must be intense?

Very intense. Could quickly become a crunch issue I'd say