US/NATO War on Russia

[David Guyatt]

Belch...

5 February 2015 Last updated at 13:20

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Ukraine crisis: Europe leaders in Ukraine peace bid

More than 5,000 people have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine
Continue reading the main story

Ukraine crisis

• Why is east hit by conflict?
  
• Shattered lives
  
• 'Shooting all day long'
  
• Is Russia stoking war?
  

French President Francois Hollande says he is heading to Ukraine with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to present a new peace initiative.
He said they would put forward the new plan before meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry also landed in Kiev for talks on Thursday.
The diplomatic push to end the conflict, which has killed more than 5,000 people since last April, comes amid intensified fighting.
"Ukraine is at war. Heavy weapons are being used and civilians are being killed daily," Mr Hollande said at a news conference.
He said the new peace proposal was based on the "territorial integrity" of Ukraine and could be "acceptable to all" - but warned that diplomacy "cannot go on indefinitely".
President Hollande said "time is of the essence" in finding a solution to the ongoing fighting
A spokesman for the Kremlin confirmed that President Putin would meet the two leaders on Friday to discuss "the fastest possible end to the civil war in south-eastern Ukraine".
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of arming rebels in eastern Ukraine and sending regular troops across the border - something Russia denies.
Separately, Mr Kerry is meeting President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in Kiev to discuss how the US can provide the country with assistance.
US President Barack Obama is said to be considering sending "defensive" weapons to Ukraine. The US is currently only providing "non-lethal" assistance.
Shortly after news emerged that the European leaders were to visit Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksander Lukashevich said any decision by the US to supply weapons to Ukraine would "inflict colossal damage to Russian-American relations".
US Secretary of State John Kerry (right) met with President Poroshenko in Kiev on Thursday
The talks in Kiev come as Nato unveils details of a plan to bolster its military presence in Eastern Europe in response to the Ukraine crisis.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg says it will be the biggest reinforcement of its collective defence since the end of the Cold War.
A new rapid reaction "spearhead" force of up to 5,000 troops is expected to be announced, with its lead units able to deploy at two days' notice.
Nato is also establishing a network of small command centres in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Mr Stoltenberg said the bloc was responding to "the aggressive actions we have seen from Russia, violating international law and annexing Crimea".
New sanctionsMeanwhile, officials said on Thursday that the European Union is adding 19 people, including five Russians, to its sanctions list over the Ukraine crisis.
Nine "entities" will also be targeted by the sanctions, which were reportedly agreed at an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers last week.

Fighting has intensified in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks amid a rebel offensive.
On Thursday, both government and rebel officials said several civilians had been killed in clashes over the past 24 hours. Ukraine's military said five of its soldiers had died in the same period.
The fiercest fighting has been near the town of Debaltseve, where rebels are trying to surround Ukrainian troops. The town is a crucial rail hub linking the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

[David Guyatt]

Double belch.

What next I wonder, in this wonderful campaign of slagging off Putin and Russia because he won't bend over for the US?

Putin has 'some form of autism' Pentagon experts conclude, after watching videos of him



UK charity says 'laughable' study is 'driven by the wilder reaches of military intelligence'

EMMA FINAMORE

Thursday 05 February 2015

Vladimir Putin has "an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions", a report has claimed.

The Office of Net Assessment a Pentagon think tank in the US published findings in 2008 and 2011, and said the Russian President has "an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions."

Brenda Connors, an expert in movement pattern analysis at the US Naval War College in Newport, wrote: "The Russian President carries a neurological abnormality."
The think tank concluded that Putin's "neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy," after studying him in videos, and that his authoritarian obsession with "extreme control" is a way of overcompensating for his condition.
The report cites Dr. Stephen Porges as concluding that "Putin carries a form of autism". However, Mr Porges has since said he has never seen the finished report and warned Connor's team should "back off saying he has Asperger's".
The Pentagon thinks the findings could explain Putin's authoritative styleJane Harris, Director of External Affairs and Social Change at the UK's National Autistic Society (NAS) told the Independent:
"This kind of speculative diagnosis is fraught with risks and is unhelpful. Autism is a complex condition and a diagnosis should only ever be made following a thorough, holistic face-to-face process involving both the individual and the diagnostician.
"According to accounts in the media, the study authors themselves backed off from confirming their diagnosis because they were not able to perform a brain scan on the Russian president'.
"We are not aware of any definitive diagnostic tool that involves a brain scan.
"This study is driven by the wilder reaches of military intelligence and will seem laughable to parents in the UK facing the real and present challenge of getting a proper diagnosis for their child."
David Cameron and Vladimir Putin shake hands at the G20 in BrisbaneThe ONA was created in 1973 by the Nixon administration.
Its Facebook page says: "Essentially, the ONA develops and coordinates net assessments of the standing trends, and future prospects of US military capabilities and potential, in comparison with those of other countries or groups of countries, so as to identify emerging or future threats or opportunities for the United States.
"Think of it as an internal planning think tank for the Department of Defence."

[Peter Lemkin]

...surprise they didn't add some kind of dwarfism, as he is not very tall.....anything at this point to do character assassination. Sadly, many in the US and UK are 'buying it'.

[David Guyatt]

Well, at least that nonsense was seen through... "it seems like a clumsy attempt to discredit Putin", says respected Oxford professor, Dorothy Bishop. Read HERE.

[Magda Hassan]

Is This the End of NATO?

February 8, 2015
The last few days have brought depressing developments for those who care about European freedom. Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande went to Moscow to present a Ukraine "peace plan" that actually had been suggested to them by Vladimir Putin. Unsurprisingly, this went nowhere and Merkel has already pronounced that there is no military solution to the Russo-Ukrainian War, a message that was amplified by the Munich Security Conference, Bavaria's best-catered talkshop, where the lack of Western resolve to confront Russian aggression was made abundantly clear. In Munich, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a rare European NATO leader who has a clear picture of events, told Merkel that the choice was "surrender or arm Ukraine" to no effect.
To be fair to Europe, Washington, DC, has hardly been telegraphing resolve either. My proposal to send Ukraine defensive weaponry, which looked like it might be in the offing, by this weekend looked dead, though this White House sends so many mixed messages one can never be exactly sure. Late this week, the Obama administration unveiled its new National Security Strategy, amid less than fanfare, with the execrable Susan Rice explaining in "remain calm, all is well!" fashion that things are really much better globally than they look. This White House's new foreign policy mantra is Strategic Patience, which seems to be the been-to-grad-school version of "don't do stupid shit." Since nobody inside the Beltway is taking this eleventh-hour effort to articulate Obama's security strategy seriously, it's doubtful anyone abroad, much less in Moscow, will either.
It's therefore unsurprising that European leaders are in full-panic mode about what Putin will do next. The serious possibility that the Chekist-in-Charge in the Kremlin will seek more provocations, and possibly a major war, to achieve his strategic aim of establishing Russian control over the former Soviet space and therefore dominance over Eastern Europe, is reducing weak-willed Western leaders like Merkel and Hollande to political incoherence.
It seems to have never occurred to them, nor Obama and his national security staff either, that crushing the Russian economy with sanctions might bring more, not less, aggression from Putin, even though that was an obvious possibility. Jaws dropped this week when Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who until recently was NATO's civilian head, stated that it is highly likely that Russia will soon stage a violent provocation against a Baltic state, which being NATO countries, will cause a crisis over the Alliance's Article 5 provision for collective self-defense. Rasmussen merely said what all defense experts who understand Putin already know, but this was not the sort of reality-based assessment that Western politicians are used to hearing.
There are two core reasons for Western collapse of will before Putin's decidedly modest aggression in Ukraine. The first is that Western and Central Europe have so substantially disarmed since the end of the Cold War. Hardly any European NATO countries spend the "required" two percent of GDP on defense, and no amount of American scolding about it seems to make any difference. As a result, European NATO militaries, with few exceptions, possess a mere shadow of the combat power they had two decades ago. Several of them have abandoned tanks altogether, while even Germany has so cut back its combat power that there are only four battalions each of armor and artillery in the whole Bundeswehr.
Not all the fault for this sorry state of affairs lies in Europe. Here America has played an insidious role too, encouraging spending on niche missions for the Alliance at the expense of traditional defense. Hence the fact that Baltic navies have considerable counter-mine capabilities this being an unsexy mission that the U.S. Navy hates to do yet hardly any ability to police their maritime borders against intruding Russians. To make matters worse, since 2001 the Americans have encouraged NATO partners to spend considerable amounts of their limited defense budgets on America's losing war in Afghanistan.
But the moral collapse of Europe is even worse than the military collapse. All the armaments in the world do no good when the will to use them is absent. Since the Cold War's end, Western Europeans have convinced themselves of many things that simply are not true. Their optimistic worldview, which really is the highest form of the WEIRD Weltanschauung, abandoned any notion that monsters might still exist, and many Europeans, including most of their leaders, seem unable to accept the new reality that Vladimir Putin has forced upon them. Yet denying that Russia aims to change the European order, and will use force to do so, will not stop Kremlin misdeeds, actually it will only encourage more Russian aggression.
To be blunt, I see little evidence to date that major European leaders are willing to wake up to this new reality. In the event of Russian provocation against NATO, which is highly likely soon, it's very possible that the Atlantic Alliance will unravel completely. Putin may achieve his strategic victory with hardly a shot fired. In such an event, I have no idea how Obama, or any American president, could send U.S. troops to die to defend a Europe that is so flagrantly unwilling to defend itself.
Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Chinese sage Sun Tzu counseled that "the best military policy is to attack strategies; the next to attack alliances; the next to attack soldiers," and Putin is doing exactly this. He has no need to undermine NATO strategy, since none exists in reality, while he continues to hack away at the foundations of the Western Alliance through Special War, particularly espionage and subversion.
It's significant that, just after Greece elected an openly pro-Russian government, whose defense and foreign ministers are major Putin fans, the rising left wing in Spain announces that, should it come to power, it will take Madrid out of NATO altogether. Cyprus's announcement on Friday that it will offer its military bases to Russia should be seen in proper strategic context. If this chipping away at the foundations of European security by the Kremlin continues, there may be no big war for Russia to have to win.
Which is good news for Putin, since what makes craven European conduct towards Moscow so appalling is the fact that Russia is winning from a position of profound political, economic, and especially military weakness. In military terms, despite the shortcomings of European NATO, Russia lacks the ability to win any major war against the West. Moscow frankly would have a tough time subduing Ukraine quickly, much less marching westward with haste.
Outside the nuclear realm, where the Kremlin likes to rattle radioactive sabers, terrifying Europeans, Russian military strength is not especially impressive. Moscow is in the middle of a big military modernization program that will not be complete until the early 2020's, and at the moment its ground, air, and naval forces can be assessed as far from ready to win any major war in Europe.
A look at Russia's ground forces is revealing. Far-reaching reforms of the whole bloated army, which spent nearly two decades languishing in semi-Soviet mode from organization to training to manning, everything that commenced in 2007-09 are bearing fruit, but significant challenges remain. On paper, the active Russian army looks impressive, with slightly over forty maneuver brigades, many with modern weapons. But many of those brigades consist of conscripts who are not trained to NATO standards, and this army must face not just Ukraine and the West, but guard the vast border with China, while keeping a lid on the Caucasus and providing post-imperial order in parts of Central Asia.
In other words, Putin cannot engage in a major war without a substantial recall of reservists to flesh out the order of battle, and that may not be popular. The Russian population has endured the economic downturn, blaming the West rather than Putin for the collapse of their currency and much of the economy, and the Kremlin's anti-Western stance is supported by most Russians. Yet this has something to do with the fact that Putin has kept truly painful costs low so far. Soldiers killed in Russia's not-very-secret war in Ukraine are professionals. If bigger numbers of teenaged conscripts and thirty-something reservists start dying, Putin may find his war of choice is suddenly less popular.
For all the Alliance's military shortcomings, NATO can deter Putin's aggression until 2020 at least, with current forces. However, deterring the Kremlin's Special War, which I have long counseled the West to get serious about, may prove a more serious challenge. The West has the ability to keep a rampaging Russia restrained. Sending defensive weaponry to Ukraine would be a wise start, while so is bolstering NATO forces on the Alliance's vulnerable frontier, well beyond the modest efforts now, finally, being undertaken. What no defense budget or military strategist can provide, however, is political will. If Europe cannot regain enough self-confidence to resist Putin, it will lose everything, sooner than you think.
http://20committee.com/2015/02/08/is-thi...d-of-nato/

[David Guyatt]

From William Engdahl:

NATO: Atlantic Bridge is Falling Down…


Washington created something called NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to weld Western Europe firmly to the future foreign policies of Washington, however destructive that might prove to the genuine interests of Germany, France, Italy and the other nations of Europe. In 1986 the twelve nations of the then-European Economic Community modified the 1957 Treaty of Rome and signed the Single European Act. That mandated the creation of a single EEC market by end of 1992, and set forth rules for European Political Cooperation, the forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Then on November 9, 1989, an event of historic dimension intervened to disrupt the EEC strategy for a single market. Gorbachev's USSR surrendered the German Democratic Republic to the West. The Cold War was de facto over. Germany would be reunited. The West had apparently won. Most Europeans were jubilant. Many believed the decades of living on the brink of possible nuclear war were over. The emerging Europe seemed proud, confident of the future. NATO was an entity created by Washington, in the words of its first General Secretary, Lord Ismay, to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
European Defense Pillar or US NATO?
The Maastricht Treaty, a document with fatal flaws, was introduced at a meeting of the EEC in December 1991. A shocked Helmut Kohl was told by France's Mitterrand and Britain's Margaret Thatcher that Germany must agree to creation of a single currency to control the Bundesbank. That became today's Euro and an independent supranational European Central Bank. It was blackmail as precondition for their accepting German unification. The Germans swallowed hard and signed.
What was little discussed at the time was that the Maastricht Treaty also included a section mandating establishment for the first time of a Common Foreign and Security Policy. The twelve nations signed the treaty and intense discussions were underway of establishing a European defense pillar independent of NATO. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the raison d'être for NATO was gone. The Warsaw Pact had dissolved. Washington had assured Gorbachev that NATO would never extend to the east.
Bush Destroys EU Defense Pillar
US President George H.W. Bush was a man who left a blood-soaked legacy, from his early years in Washington that likely included playing a key role as CIA agent in Dallas Texas in November 22, 1963 in the assassination of JFK. He went on to head the CIA in the 1970's and to lure Saddam Hussein to occupy Kuwait in 1990 to provide the excuse for a bloody war Operation Desert Storm against Iraq.
As President, Bush also set in motion the events that would result in the destruction of Yugoslavia beginning the 1990's, much as Washington is destroying Ukraine today. The central purpose behind that US-incited war that ravaged the Balkans for a decade, was to make clear to the EU nations that NATO, under US Pentagon control, would remain and, in fact, would go east. In effect, he used the Yugoslav war to destroy the emerging threat of an independent EU defense capacity, the EU defense pillar. As US Presidential adviser and Trilateral Commission former founder, Zbigniew Brzezinski openly described Washington's view of Germany, she was a "vassal" of US imperial power, not a sovereign nation.
In 1999 Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were officially invited in Washington to join NATO as the dismemberment of Yugoslavia was capped by President Bill Clinton's shameful and illegal bombing of Serbia in the so-called Kosovo War that year, with the even more shameful participation of German Foreign Minister, the Hungarian butcher's son, Joschka Fischer.
By 2004 Washington was gleefully bringing NATO to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia. It was also secretly preparing its now infamous Color Revolution coups in Georgia and Ukraine that would being in US-chosen candidates, the corrupt Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev's so-called Orange revolution and Mikhail Saakashvili in the Georgia Rose Revolution. Both presidents pledged to join NATO as part of their campaign. Little wonder that by 2007, as Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon would install ballistic missile devices in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed de facto at Russia, Moscow was becoming more than a little uneasy about being choked on its strategic perimeter by NATO and a military alliance that ultimately brought the world's sole superpower to the gates of Moscow.
A German French Ukraine intervention
When the foreign ministers of Germany and France intervened in a desperate last-minute effort to broker a compromise in Kiev on February 21, 2014 to avoid civil war there they explicitly excluded one interested party from the talksthe US Government. They won a compromise that lasted less than 48 hours before CIA-backed snipers in Kiev ignited riot and panic causing the democratically-elected (a forgotten point in the slavish German media version of events) President, Viktor Yanukovich to flee for his life.
The next day, the Obama Administration, led by State Department hawk Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland, US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, and legions of CIA operatives inside the Maidan Square protests openly installed their hand-picked puppets, using overt neo-nazis of Pravy Sektor and Svoboda Party to do so. George Friedman, head of Stratfor, a US strategic consultancy whose clients include the Pentagon and CIA, as well as Israeli agencies, told the Russian Kommersant in a December interview, the US-organized coup d'etat in Ukraine was "the most blatant coup in history."
When Washington spat in the face not only of Germany and France and the EU, but in the face of Russia and of Ukraine itself, by dictating the persons to run the new Kiev coup regime, headed by their choice of Prime Minister, reputed high-ranking Scientologst, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Germany and France swallowed hard. They groveled behind the lead of the Washington warhawks in the Obama Administration. The EU unanimously voted US-dictated sanctions repeatedly against Russia after the March, 2014 referendum on Crimea. German industry protested openly. Merkel's government bowed before NATO and Washington, and the German economy began to go into recession along with the rest of the EU.
Now something highly unusual is taking place. France and Germany are openly again defying Obama's Washington. On the night of February 4, Merkel and French President Hollande quickly decided to fly together to Moscow to meet Russia's Putin. The purpose, as Putin spokesman stated was that the, "leaders of the three states will discuss what specifically the countries can do to contribute to speedy end of the civil war in the southeast of Ukraine, which has escalated in recent days and resulted in many casualties."
The most interesting part of the quick trip is that the "vassal" heads, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande did not ask permission from Washington first according to a French government source. Announcing the spontaneous Moscow trip, Hollande told the press, "Together with Angela Merkel we have decided to take a new initiative."
More interesting, their "new initiative" comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Kiev meeting President Poroschenko to discuss possible US weapons deliveries to Kiev, Washington's preferred brand of "diplomacy" at the moment. The Moscow talks between Putin, Merkel and Hollande reportedly followed "secret" talks between Paris, Berlin and Moscow.
In early December, Hollande made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin on Ukraine. At that time the French President declared, "I believe that we have to avoid having more walls' that separate us. At this moment we have to be able to overpass the obstacles and find solutions." Washington was not at all happy with that. There is strong suspicion in certain circles that the January 7 false flag attack on the Paris Satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo was the reply of the Washington-Tel Aviv war faction to the Hollande diplomacy.
The latest joint German-French diplomatic moves as John Kerry was in Kiev discussing US weapons for Ukraine. Le Nouvel Observateur journalist Vincent Jauvert says Hollande and Merkel's suddent decision to talk with Putin in Moscow came as an attempt "to get ahead of the Americans who are trying to impose their solution to the problem on Westerners: a transfer of weapons to Ukraine." He said the two leaders went to Kiev straight after Kerry, as they "distrust the American administration," and want to "present their diplomatic solutions just before US Vice President Joe Biden presents the US plan of sending lethal weapons to Kiev at the Munich security conference on Saturday."
The coming weeks will clearly be decisive for world peace. To parody an old children's song I sang as a kid, Atlantic Bridge is Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down…(To be sung to the melody of London Bridge is falling down). It is time for a new, stable bridge in its place, but that won't come from the Munich Security Conference message of Joe Biden.

[David Guyatt]

The French know what the real story is, as outlined by former EBRD president Jacques Attali -- Russia should be an ally not an enemy. The US through NATO is the real enemy.

From Sputnik News:

[B]NATO Wants to Draw France Into War With Russia Former President of EBRD[/B]

© Flickr/ U.S. Army Europe Images

EUROPE14:57 11.02.2015(updated 16:07 11.02.2015)
6807575

Jacques Attali, the adviser to former French President Francois Mitterand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) wrote in his blog that Russia should be France's ally, not the enemy.

© REUTERS/ MICHAEL SOHN/POOL

Envoys From Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany Meet for Ukraine Talks

Russia should be our friend, not the enemy, says Jacques Attali, the adviser to former French President Francois Mitterand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)."Once again, we could get dragged into a war against someone who should be our ally in solving more important issues," Attali wrote in his blog.
Attali says France should convince Europeans to stay away from the harmful influences of NATO, who comes up with an imaginary enemy to justify its own existence.

© AP PHOTO/ RAHMAT GUL

NATO Likely Boosting Presence Near Russia to Avoid Future Arms Reduction

"It is necessary to tell our European partners to speak with Russia as a potential ally, not as an imaginary enemy. We should also re-think our military planning. Especially our defense strategies." Attali said.The former president of the EBRD also said France should not support the government in Ukraine. Attali thinks that France should not stand up for the government that abolished the Russian language, which is a native tongue for a large part of the population in the country. He urges the public to consider a situation in which the French language would be abolished in Belgium or Switzerland. Of course, the French would not support that, Attali says.






Read more: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150211/1...z3Rovf8NW4

More From Sputnik News on how the US may disrupt the peace plan

US May Disrupt Peace Efforts in Ukraine With Training Kiev Troops - Experts

© AP Photo/ Evgeniy Maloletka

OPINION20:28 12.02.2015(updated 20:48 12.02.2015)
80414

Earlier in the day, the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, Russia, and France worked out a reconciliation deal outlining 13 points aimed at ending the military confrontation between Kiev forces and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine.
MOSCOW (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova Washington could play a destructive role in the recently agreed reconciliation deal on Ukraine, as it prepares to train the Ukrainian army and has always advocated deliveries of more weapons to the crisis-hit country, experts told Sputnik news agency Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, Russia, and France worked out a reconciliation deal outlining 13 points aimed at ending the military confrontation between Kiev forces and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine. Patrick L. Smith, the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" stressed that Washington may try to influence Kiev, which would have a destructive effect on the reconciliation efforts.

© AP PHOTO/ PAVLO PALAMARCHUK

US House Proposes $1Bln in Lethal Aid, Military Assistance to Ukraine

"One of the most important conversations going on right now is probably between Secretary of State [John] Kerry, and Poroshenko," Smith told Sputnik wondering what Kerry may promise Poroshenko and "depending on what it is, it could encourage the Poroshenko government in one direction or another."He also stressed that this all comes amid US plans to train the Ukrainian military and attempts to send lethal military equipment to Ukraine, a move largely opposed in Europe.
"We [the United States] are now scheduling battalion of trainers to arrive in March. It might disrupt the process that the Europeans are trying very hard now to advance," Smith added.

© SPUTNIK/ IGOR MIKHALEV

US Senate, House May Split on Lethal Arms Supplies to Ukraine

While it is quite clear that Europe is interested in settling the conflict in Ukraine for economic, political and security reasons, for the United States the issue is far more distant and economic sanctions against Russia that depend on the situation in Ukraine's east, are not troubling Washington.Political analyst Jon Hellevig reminded that the sanctions introduced against Russia were engineered by the United Sates, but "were never in reality connected with the Ukrainian crisis, which only served as a pretext to get at Russia."
"I would not think that the USA has now changed its position. They want to continue squeezing on Russia, but might be forced in view of the European activities to bid a tactical retreat from the hardline position," Hellevig told Sputnik.
Right after the 13-point reconciliation deal was agreed, the International Monetary Fund said it had reached a preliminary agreement with Kiev on an extended bond facility of $17.5 billion for a four-year-program to help Ukraine recover from the economic crisis.

© AP PHOTO/ JACQUELYN MARTIN

US Calls on All Parties to Implement Minsk Agreement Fully - White House

Patrick Smith said it was not a coincidence and the desperate economic situation, coupled with what he described as the "virtually non-existent" economy in Ukraine were among the key factors bringing Poroshenko to the talks in Minsk."In this sense, Poroshenko has done what the leadership in Kiev is really good at he accepted a bribe. These two things I think pushed him to the table," Smith said, commenting about the IMF help binding Ukraine to implement unpopular social measures.
Jon Hellevig agreed and underlined that with economy in tatters, the IMF package notwithstanding, "the government will not have a possibility to actually take on the social commitments to the Donbas people that are a part of the agreement."
The Minsk deal includes an unconditional ceasefire coming into force at midnight on February 14-15, urges Kiev to undertake constitutional reform with a focus on Ukraine's decentralization, as well as stipulates the withdrawal of all foreign armed groups, equipment and mercenaries from Eastern Ukraine under the observation of the OSCE.






Read more: http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150212...z3Row3lyPL

[Magda Hassan]

It was Sarkozy who I'm convinced was working for CIA/US interests that put France back into NATO on the quiet.

[Paul Rigby]

The US' Suicidal Strategy On Ukraine

We're alienating allies & risking a much larger war

by Chris Martenson

Thursday, February 12, 2015, 1:27 AM

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/91774...gy-ukraine

Ukraine is back in the news cycle and for good reason. The cease-fire has broken, fighting is intensifying, and the western-supported and installed leadership in Kiev is losing the campaign. At this point, the West's choice is to either double down and bet even more on a badly failing set of policies, or admit it has lost this round and seek to deescalate the situation.

Meanwhile, Europe has finally woken up to the risks and seems to be ready to carve out a different path than the US. A lot hinges on the high level talks that are currently underway between Russia and Europe's leaders.

As the President Hollande of France put it on Feb 7th, "If we don't find not just a compromise but a lasting peace agreement, we know perfectly well what the scenario will be. It has a name, it's called war."

He's not simply referring to an escalation of the factions fighting within Ukraine. He's warning about the real deal: a wider conflict that could easily spread into Europe, and possibly, the embroil powers across the world.

A Recipe For Unrest

As I've written previously, the West, especially the US, was instrumental in toppling the democratically-elected President of Ukraine back in February 2014. US officials were caught on tape plotting the coup, and then immediately supported the hastily-installed and extremist officials that now occupy the Kiev leadership positions.

In short, the crisis in Ukraine was not the result of Russia's actions, but the West's. Had the prior President, Yanukovych, not been overthrown, it's highly unlikely that Ukraine would be embroiled in a nasty civil war. Relations between Russia and the West would be in far better repair.

Russia, quite predictably and understandably, became alarmed at the rise of fascism and Nazi-sympathetic powers on its border. Remember the repeated statements by Kiev officials recommending extermination of the Russian speakers who make up the majority living in Eastern Ukraine. Were a parallel situation happening in Canada, for example, I would fully expect the US to be similarly and seriously interested and involved in the outcome.

The only people seemingly surprised by this predictable Russian reaction towards protecting its people and border interests are the neocons at the US State Department who instigated the conflict in the first place. In my experience, these are dangerous people principally because they seem to lack perspective and humility.

Ukraine's Civil War

Going Poorly For The Regime

Looking at the state of things, it's not going well militarily for the Kiev regime. Huge losses and persistent reports of low morale among Ukrainian troops tell the tale: Kiev is losing badly.

Let's begin with the reports of the fighting in Ukraine which have recently intensified:

Ukraine bloodshed intensifies ahead of peace summit

Feb 11, 2015

Kiev (AFP) - Intense fighting in Ukraine, including a devastating rocket strike on Kiev's military headquarters in the east, killed at least 37 people on Tuesday, the eve of a four-way peace summit.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said rockets for the first time hit the military's command centre in Kramatorsk, the government's administrative capital in the region, well behind the frontlines and far from rebel positions.

The latest fighting also saw rebels seek to encircle railway hub Debaltseve and Ukrainian forces launch a counter-offensive around the strategic port of Mariupol.

The rebels have encircled and ruined a number of Kiev forces over the past several months in what are called 'cauldrons', where the encircled forces are slowly ground down and destroyed. This appears to have finally happened in Debatlseve, which would be just another in a long string of heavy losses for Kiev.

The losses in prior cauldrons have been staggeringly high, with many analysts concluding that Kiev has been underreporting losses by as much as 90%.

I cannot vouch for all of these sources. But the following is a typical example of reporting coming from the front lines of the Ukraine conflict, which directly contradicts the official Kiev war reports:

Ukraine hides devastating losses as Russia-backed fighters surge forward

Jan 25, 2015

ARTYOMOVSK, Ukraine An ashen-faced man in a loose-fitting military uniform shuffles past a blood-soaked stretcher propped against the wall. Slowly stirring a cup of tea, he watches Ukrainian military officials announce the day's casualties one killed and 20 wounded.

"Don't believe what they tell you," he says, checking the door is closed before continuing.

"There are many, many more. At least 280 were injured in just one day last week and 30 or 40 killed. There were many more killed this week, Debaltseve and Konstantinovka are the worst cities now. I take 18 wounded to Kharkiv myself every day."

The man, who didn't want to be named, is a medic in Ukraine's overstretched, under-resourced army. Clearly traumatized, he speaks quietly and hesitantly, barely audible over the low rumble of artillery fire from the outskirts of town.

His words confirm Ukraine's worst-kept secret - that the Ukrainian army is drastically understating its casualties. But only now is the scale of that understatement starting to become clear.

On Jan. 22, the director of Kostiantynivka hospital told Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors that in the last two weeks that the number of soldiers admitted has "increased dramatically, with figures comparable to those in August and September 2014."

Between Aug. 10 and Sept. 3, when Russian troops first entered Ukraine in support of a beleaguered rebel force on the brink of defeat, the Kyiv Post estimates at least 200 servicemen were killed.

Many of the recent casualties are coming from areas around the besieged town of Debaltseve, a strategic rail junction between Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are struggling to prevent being surrounded and cut off from Ukrainian lines.

The town's defenders and its civilian population - have faced an incessant artillery bombardment from three sides since Russian-backed rebels launched a massive offensive all along the front line last week.

I have read enough first-hand reports to suspect that this article is pretty close to the truth. The contradicting numbers in the statements from the Kiev regime about losses are very hard to believe.

Part of what plagues Kiev's forces is the age-old problem of fielding an unmotivated force. Not everybody is excited to be fighting against people from within their own country. Moreover, training is poor, equipment and ammunition are in poor shape and supply, and pay is often late in coming if it comes at all. This is a very usual litany of problems that have plagued struggling armies through the centuries.

On the other side of the battle lines, you have people fighting for their homes, their families and their ethnic community, which the Kiev regime has promised to exterminate if and when it's given the chance.

Dubious Reporting

It's interesting to contrast foreign reporting with US reporting on the conflict:

As fighting deepens in eastern Ukraine, casualties rise and truce is all but dead

Jan 20, 2015

MOSCOW Intensifying battles, mounting death tolls and new accusations of Russian interference in eastern Ukraine have marked some of the worst fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatists since last summer, rendering a months-old cease-fire agreement effectively defunct.

The two sides have been trading heavy fire at the Donetsk airport, a prize that, though more symbolic than strategic, has been at the center of punishing recent attacks that have reduced much of the facility to rubble. Each side has claimed control of the airport at various points, and militia and army fighters there continued to launch strikes against each other over the past several days.

The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, bolstered Ukraine's accusations Tuesday, saying the United States was alarmed by what he called a Russian-provoked military escalation, coupled with the arrival of large quantities of weaponry from Russian territory, according to the Russian Interfax news service.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told reporters Tuesday that pro-Russian separatists were "taking advantage" of the military's compliance to seize "very substantial territory more than 500 square kilometers."

Let's decode this piece of writing from the Washington Post and provide some essential context that is, regrettably, missing far too often from US media sources when reporting on the Ukraine conflict.

To begin, there's the assertion once again that Russia has been supplying "large quantities" of weapons to the separatists. While this may or may not be true, not one shred of satellite or other imagery or any other evidence has been provided by the US to support that charge.

In this day and age it is literally not possible to move large amounts of heavy weaponry across open land without satellites and/or drones taking pictures of them.

Furthermore, in this case the charges are being levied by one Geoffrey Pyatt, the infamous US ambassador to Ukraine who was caught on tape discussing the imminent coup of then-President Yanukovych. He also famously tweeted out a crudely doctored photo purporting to show that the missile attack on MH-17 came from the separatists -- evidence that was quickly defrauded by the intelligence community.

Why the Washington Post would report anything from Pyatt as worthy of our serious consideration given his blighted track record so far is a complete mystery to me. It would be like recommending your friend to a doctor you knew had committed gross malpractice multiple times.

Next, the separatists are not 'taking advantage' of a one-sided lull in the fighting to claim territory. They have been winning battle after battle. What they have taken advantage of is the poor training and lackluster military strategy undertaken by Kiev's forces.

It should also be noted that the above article presents the status of the conflict an even match. There's no indication that one side is winning or losing.

This is par for the course with US media reports these days and it's really a disturbing indication that the shoddy journalistic ethics on display during the horrendously mis-reported weapons of mass destructions lies that led to the most recent US attack on Iraq are still with us today.

It's quite sad, really. Because when it comes to an issue as important as a potential conflict with Russia, the US owes it to itself to get the facts right. The stakes are worthy of that.

As a final point about the shortcomings of the Washington Post piece above concerns the heavily contested Donetsk airport. Five days prior to the above article's publication, the airport had been clearly reported by other outlets to have already been lost by Kiev forces:

Russia-backed separatists seize Donetsk airport in Ukraine

Jan 15, 2015

Russian-backed separatists announced that they have captured the shattered remains of the Donetsk airport terminal in eastern Ukraine and plan to claw back more territory, further dashing hopes for a lasting peace agreement.

The airport, on the fringes of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, has been at the centre of bitter battles since May. Control over it was split between the separatists and Ukrainian forces, who had held onto the main civilian terminal. Reduced to little more than a shell-strewn wreck, the building is of limited strategic importance but has great symbolic value.

An AP reporter saw a rebel flag hoisted over that building Thursday, although fighting still appeared to be ongoing. Ukraine insisted government troops were holding their positions at the airport.

Instead of the airport being up for grabs as the WaPo article implies, it has had the rebel flag flying over it as of five days ago. It's clearly in the hands of one side, the separtists'. That's a huge difference, and is just one more example of heavily slanted writing that passes for news in the US these days.

But leaving the shoddy reporting aside, the main summary here is that the intense fighting in Ukraine has resulting in mounting losses for Kiev.

All of which provides the context for this week's hurriedly-brokered 'peace summit' that will involve France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

Splitting Away
Europe has begun the process of splitting away from the US on the matter of Russia and Ukraine.

What's interesting is that an emergency meeting is being convened amongst several of the top leaders in the world, but looks who's suspiciously absent from the talks:

Merkel and Hollande's surprise Moscow visit raises hopes of Ukraine deal

Feb 5, 2015

The leaders of Germany and France abruptly announced a summit with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Friday in response to overtures from the Kremlin, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the year-old Ukraine conflict.

The sudden and unusual decision by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the president, François Hollande, to travel to Moscow, with the French leader talking of decisions of war and peace, increased the stakes in the crisis while also raising suspicions that the Kremlin was seeking to split Europe and the US. Putin was said to have made "initiatives" to the European leaders in recent days.

Merkel and Hollande met the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in Kiev on Thursday evening but left without making any comment.

EU diplomats and officials said that growing US talk of arming Ukraine was pushing the Russians and Europeans towards a diplomatic deal, with both sides keen to avoid weapons deliveries but also to keep the US on the sidelines of the diplomacy.

Note the progression of what transpired, which we can piece together from this and other articles. US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Kiev meeting with the president and prime minister of Ukraine, but did not attend similar meetings with Hollande and Merkel held on the same day.

Then Hollande and Merkel jet straight off to Moscow for high level talks.

Missing in action from the Germany-France-Ukraine-Russia talks is John Kerry, President Obama, or any other ranking US official. This speaks volumes about where we are in this narrative.

When the US started down this path of confrontation with Russia, which remains a complete strategic mystery to nearly all thoughtful observers, there were two large possible outcomes: isolating Russia and fracturing its growing ties with Europe, or accidentally fracturing the strong ties between the US and Europe.

Oops. Looks like we've opened Door #2.

I didn't know how serious it was until I read this:

Kerry Insists 'There Is No Split' With Europe on Russia, Ukraine

Feb 8, 2015

MUNICH Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday denied any divisions between the U.S. and Europe over how to handle Russia, as Germany announced another high-level summit aimed at stemming the crisis in Ukraine.

Kerry told a security conference in Munich that he wanted to "assure everybody there is no division, there is no split" between Washington and its European allies amid the crisis in Ukraine.

"We are united, we are working closely together," he told the conference following meetings with his French and German counterparts. "We all agree that this challenge will not end through military force. We are united in our diplomacy."

It's not terribly hard to read through that diplomatic double-speak here. The US is "united in our diplomacy" with Europe, even though the US was apparently not invited to be part of the biggest gathering of heads of state on what could be the flash point for a major regional war.

Nice try, John.

There's a saying that news is never official until it's denied. Well, I guess that makes it official: there's an emerging split between the US and Europe over the matter of Russia and Ukraine. And it's about time.

The key issue, apparently, is that the US, true to form, is ready to send in military arms to the Ukraine regime, and Europe thinks that's a bad idea for multiple reasons. I could not agree more.

After all, when has the US arming one side of a regional conflict led to regional peace and a good outcome for the citizens of any particular area? If you can't think of any recent examples, neither can I. The track record of late is nothing short of being a complete disaster for the people of the various countries involved. Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, and Nicaragua come to mind.

But the people of Ukraine have to be kicking themselves right about now. Not only did they fall for the rosy promises of change and hope peddled by the West, they also believed the West would be a better partner for them than Russia. Worse, instead of finding a way to have both as partners, they adopted the West's idea that it had to be one or the other. And now their country is being rent apart.

Why We Should Care, Deeply

So what? the average American might ask. Ukraine is half a world away. Who cares what happens there?

Putting aside the humanitarian reasons for not prolonging or intensifying a regional conflict, we risk not just only America's century-long ties with western Europe, but possibly the next world war. We are pushing our agenda and armaments right up against the Russian border -- for reasons that are still completely opaque at this time -- and Russia, understandably, will simply not stand for that.

In Part 2: America Vs Russia: What's At Risk, we explore in depth what's truly at risk here, why a lasting peace agreement in Ukraine is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, and the biggest risks concerned citizens in the West should prepare for right now.

[Paul Rigby]

Always worth reminding ourselves of the number of Nazis installed in the nascent EU bureaucracy by the CIA and State:

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