US/NATO War on Russia

[Magda Hassan]

Looks great Peter. I'll have to watch it tomorrow as it is late here. It looks just what westerners unfamiliar with some of the politically and economically powerful groups in that area need to understand what is at play more fully.

By the way there is footage around the net of one of the oligarchs, Khodorovsky?, who went to the east to set the separatist right and was chased out for his troubles. I'll see if I can find it again and post it.

[David Guyatt]

Great Wikispooks post Peter. I usually prefer to read than watch doco's, and this ones a beaut!

The point the writer makes about how MI6 vets all senior corporate appointments in the UK came as a surprise. Until I thought about it a little. That all the big corporations get MI6 briefing papers on business matters, this then makes perfect sense. Safe pair of hands and sailing in the same direction, and all that.

[Paul Rigby]

This is long but very informative video. Spoken in Russian, it is a lecture to a Moscow University class, with simultaneous dubbed English text.

I have also posted the full transcript on [URL="https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Battleground_Ukraine"]Wikispooks here
[/URL]

From the transcript of Fursov's lecture posted by Peter on Wikispooks:

The western intelligence, and the non-governmental organizations, they worked with the oligarchs, the intelligentsia and the masses. And look at the result: although Kiev is not a Galician city, 90% of the Kiev intelligentsia are supporters of the Galician Project. That means the Western intelligence did a good job. Indeed, that was their job.

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Bat...nd_Ukraine

Fursov's remarks on the success of foreign intel in winning over the Kievan intelligentsia and of New Russia's pressing need to fight back - called to mind the Changing Landmarks movement, organised by Moscow in the early 1920s. The Wikipedia entry is a useful introduction to its bare bones:

The Smenovekhovtsy (Сменовеховцы) is the name for a political movement in the Russian émigré community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" (translated "Change of Signposts") in Prague, in the year 1921. [1] This publication had taken its name from the Russian philosophical publication "Vekhi" ("Signposts") published in 1909.

The thoughts published in the "Smena Vekh" periodical told its White émigré readers: "The Civil War is lost definitely. For a long time Russia has been travelling on its own path, not our path", "Either recognize this Russia, hated by you all, or stay without Russia, because a "third Russia" by your recipes does not and will not exist", "The Soviet regime saved Russia - the Soviet regime is justified, regardless of how weighty the arguments against it are", "The mere fact of its [the Soviet regime's - ed.] enduring existence proves its popular character, and the historical belonging of its dictatorship and harshness".

The ideas in the publication soon evolved into the Smenovekhovstvo movement which promoted the concept of accepting the Soviet regime and the October Revolution as a natural and popular progression of Russia's fate, something which was not to be resisted despite perceived ideological incompatibilities with Leninism. The Smenovekhovstvo admonished its members to return to Russia predicting that the Soviet Union would not last and would give way to a revival of Russian nationalism.[1]

They supported co-operation with the Soviet government in the hope that the Soviet state would evolve back into a "bourgeois state". The cooperation was important for the Soviets, since the whole Russian 'White diaspora' included 3 million people.[2] The leaders of smenovekhovstvo were mostly former Mensheviks, Kadets and some Octobrists. The leader of the group was Nikolay Ustryalov [3] On March 26, 1922 the first issue of Nakanune (smenovekhovtsy newspaper) was published; Soviet Russia's first successes in foreign policy were praised. Throughout its career, Nakanune was subsidised by the Soviet government. Alexey Tolstoy had become acquainted with the movement in Summer 1921. In April 1922 he published an open letter to émigré leader N.V.Chaikovsky, and defended Soviet government for ensuring Russia's unity and preventing attacks from the neighbouring countries, esp. the Polish-Soviet War. [4]

Conservative émigrés such as those in ROVS were opposed to the Smenoveknovstvo movement, viewing it as a promotion of defeatism and moral relativism, as a capitulation to the Bolsheviks, and a desire to seek compromise with the new Soviet regime. Repeatedly, the Smenoveknovtsi were accused of ties with the Soviet OGPU, which had in fact been active in promoting such ideas in the émigré community. Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin commented on the Smenovekhovstvo movement in October 1921, "The Smenovekhovtsy express the moods of thousands of various bourgeois or Soviet collaborators, who are the participants of our New Economic Policy".

There were other émigré organizations which, like the Smenoveknovtsy, argued that Russian émigrés should accept the fact of the Russian revolution. These included the Young Russians (Mladorossi) and the Eurasians (Evraziitsi). As with the Smenovekhovtsy, these movements did not survive after World War II.

In addition, among Ukrainian emigres there was also a movement in favour of reconciliation with the Soviet regime and return to the homeland. This included some of the most prominent pre-revolutionary intellectuals such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko. The Soviet Ukrainian government funded a Ukrainian emigre journal called Nova Hromada to encourage this trend. The Soviets referred to this movement as a Ukrainian Smena Vekh, as did its opponents among the Ukrainian emigres, who saw it as a defeatist expression of Little Russian Russophilia. For this reason, the actual proponents of the trend denied that they were Smenovekhovtsy.[5]

Bibliography
Christopher Gilley, The 'Change of Signposts' in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s, Stuttgart: ibidem, 2009.
Hilda Hardeman, Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The "Changing Signposts" Movement among Russian Émigrés in the Early 1920s, Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.
M.V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. ISBN 5-86231-172-6
"Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924 by Robert C. Williams in Slavic Review Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 581-593

Notes
Jump up ^ Laqueur, Walter (1996). The Dream that Failed : Reflections on the Soviet Union. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510282-7. p. 188
Jump up ^ "Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924. Robert C. Williams Slavic Review Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 581
Jump up ^ "Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924. Robert C. Williams Slavic Review Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 584
Jump up ^ "Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924. Robert C. Williams Slavic Review Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 591
Jump up ^ Gilley, Christopher (2009). The 'Change of Signposts' in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s. Stuttgart: ibidem. ISBN 978-3-89821-965-5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smenovekhovtsy

"Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924 by Robert C. Williams in Slavic Review Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 581-593:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/24...3946400847

In summary, Russia has been here before, and responded accordingly.

[Peter Lemkin]

Killing the Putin-Obama Trust'

April 28, 2014

Exclusive: Last year, Russian President Putin and U.S. President Obama became a geopolitical odd couple as they worked to cool off hotspots such as Syria and Iran. But U.S. hawks succeeded in killing that collaboration via the crisis in Ukraine, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
"Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure," American journalist Josh Rogin was told late last week by a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. If Russia's President will no longer call or accept calls from President Obama, this strikes me as the most important casualty so far from U.S.-provoked "regime change" in Ukraine. Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin apparently had conversations on Ukraine almost every week in March; their last talk took place on April 14.
U.S. "pressure" including token economic and travel sanctions against some Russian companies and friends of Putin is likely to continue. But it is not likely to become more extensive if key European countries "man up" and tell Washington what was obvious from the start; namely, that Russia holds very high cards in this area and that the Europeans will not damage their own flagging economies by approving stronger economic sanctions that would inflict real "punishment" on Russia.
President Barack Obama talks with Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice in the Oval Office on March 19, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As for Russia's leaders, the U.S. emphasis on economic sanctions bespeaks a punitive, belligerent attitude not conducive to real cooperation of the kind that is desperately needed on a crisis like Ukraine and that has proved so useful in averting escalations in other international hotspots, such as Syria and Iran.
It was rapport and trust between Presidents Obama and Putin, together with the adroit diplomatic efforts of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that produced the agreement announced on Sept. 9, 2013, under which Syria agreed to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction. Two days later, the New York Times published an op-ed by Vladimir Putin pegged to the tumultuous events of the previous two weeks regarding Syria.
Putin began by saying that Syria was what "prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies." Putin argued against a U.S. attack on Syria, a position which was still being advocated passionately by Secretary of State John Kerry and many neocons.
Regarding the sarin attack of Aug. 21, 2013, Putin wrote: "No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons. …
"I welcome the president's [Obama's] interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.
"If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues."
Putin closed his Sept. 11, 2013, op-ed saying, "My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust."
Syria: the Crucible
The real story here is that the trust between Obama and Putin headed off what would have been a devastating U.S. military intervention in Syria and succeeded in getting Syria's chemical weapons destroyed. (The process is scheduled to be completed by early summer.)
Just days before Putin's op-ed, President Obama at the last minute cancelled the war urged on him primarily by Kerry, the still-influential neoconservatives, and the "tough" White House women and men, all lusting for a U.S. attack on Syria and almost all (with the notable exception of Kerry) bereft of any sense of what war is like.
The evidence suggests that Obama, a reluctant warrior on Syria, belatedly learned that he had been misled about what U.S. military and intelligence officials actually knew and did not know regarding who was responsible for the chemical attacks of Aug. 21 near Damascus.
It seemed his Secretary of State was lying on Aug. 30 when he thundered during a State Department speech that "we know" the Syrian government was responsible. The fact that Kerry made that claim 35 times that afternoon did not make it true.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group that I co-founded consisting of former intelligence analysts and other ex-government officials, learned from insiders and former colleagues that Kerry was being untruthful. On Sept. 6, we warned President Obama in a Memorandum titled "Is Syria a Trap?"
It is also a safe bet that Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Obama the truth; i.e., that "we" did not know, at that point, who was responsible for the sarin attack and that British intelligence had examined a sample of the sarin used, and it did not match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army's arsenal.
Moreover, there was other evidence (in addition to what we were being told by our former co-workers) as well as pretty compelling logic suggesting that opponents of the Syrian government staged the attack and blamed it on the Syrian government shortly after the arrival in Damascus of UNinspectors. The aim was reportedly to trip President Obama's "red line" and mousetrap him into committing U.S. forces to attacking Syria.
It is altogether likely that Putin took advantage of the "growing trust" in his relationship with Obama to share with him the evidence behind Russia's belief that the Syrian opposition was responsible for what Putin later referred to in his op-ed as the "poison gas" attack in Syria.
I would wager that Putin also told the President that Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov was on the verge of getting the Syrians to allow their chemical weapons to be destroyed removing the neocons' ostensible casus belli and that Lavrov had not shared this with Kerry, lest he, intentionally or inadvertently, screw up the emerging deal.
If Putin did share this with the President and there was in fact a modicum of trust between the two, there was a way out for Obama. By getting the Syrian chemical arsenal destroyed, he could attenuate charges that he was indecisive and cowardly in changing his mind and not "manning up" to another war.
Rather, Obama could be let down relatively easily, despite thoroughly disappointing the neocons, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others wanting to see the U.S. involved militarily in Syria. Obama apparently decided to trust Putin and may even have been convinced by the logic of blindsiding Kerry. In the end, Putin and Lavrov delivered.
Disdain for Liar' Kerry
It is rare that a head of state will call the head diplomat of a rival state a "liar." But that's what Putin did six days after Obama overruled Kerry and stopped the attack on Syria. On Sept. 5, 2013, as Obama arrived in St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit, Putin referred openly to Kerry's congressional testimony on Syria a few days earlier and remarked:
"This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad."
It was even sadder a few days later when Kerry, having been kept out of the Putin/Lavrov-Obama loop, referred dismissively to the likelihood that Syria would ever agree to give up its chemical weapons for destruction. Speaking in London on Sept. 9, Kerry continued his effort to drum up international support for military action against Syria.
When asked what would stop the U.S. from attacking Syria, Kerry commented dismissively that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could give up every one of his chemical weapons, but "he isn't about to do it; it can't be done, obviously." I can visualize Lavrov taking a perverse pleasure in announcing a few hours later that Syria was about to announce agreement to do precisely that.
This is the same London press conference at which Kerry argued that an attack on Syria would be an "unbelievably small, limited" effort aimed at punishing the Syrian regime without getting the U.S. military involved in a long conflict.
Kerry also assumed his former role as prosecutor and protested (a bit too much) that the case accusing the Syrian government of responsibility for the chemical attacks of Aug. 21 was airtight. (It was a most revealing performance)
It's hard to know what Obama really thinks of Kerry. The Russians, however, are not likely to regard Kerry as a serious person and that goes in spades if they have watched the video of that London press conference on Sept. 9, 2013. [For the latest on the evidence regarding Syria, see Consortiumnews.com's "Was Turkey Behind Syria-Sarin Attack?"]
Why Not Fire Kerry?
All this raises the question of why Obama shouldn't fire Kerry. But has Obama fired anyone from the national security bureaucracy besides Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who certainly asked for it with his insubordination toward the President? Torturers? National Intelligence Directors who lie under oath? National Security Agency Directors who swear to have used bulk collection to thwart 54 terrorist attacks when actually there was just one case of a taxi driver caught trying to send $8,500 to a terrorist group in Somalia? CIA Directors who defy Congress?
There was the case of CIA Director David Petraeus being urged to step down after a sex scandal, but Obama has a pattern of shying away from confrontations with the bigwigs of the national security apparatus. The impression given is that he doesn't have the courage to stand up to them.
That is bad enough domestically, but it is poison when dealing with foreign leaders. Those periodic Obama-Putin telephone calls now ended have also been credited with helping defuse the crisis with Iran over its nuclear program. The "trust" held out promise for other major steps toward a more peaceful world.
But the cooperation between Obama and Putin proved useless over Ukraine where Kerry's State Department particularly neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland was literally cheering on "regime change" as a direct challenge to Russian influence on its border.
Amid the corresponding public demonization of Putin from the State Department and the mainstream U.S. news media, Putin seems to have recognized that Obama wouldn't buck Official Washington's conventional wisdom and wouldn't defend the "working and personal relationship … marked with growing trust" that Putin had cited last September.
Still, I had hope that Putin and Lavrov could salvage something from that "trust" relationship, despite their growing disdain for the bellicose Kerry. I found some reason for encouragement from Putin's answer to a question at a March 4 press conference:
Question: Following the U.S. Secretary of State's harsh statement, the Federation Council suggested that we recall our ambassador to the United States. Do you support this idea?
Putin: The U.S. Secretary of State is certainly an important person, but he is not the ultimate authority that determines the United States' foreign policy. … This [recalling the ambassador] would be an extreme measure. If necessary, it will be used. But I really don't want to use it, because I think Russia is not the only one interested in cooperation with its partners on an international level and in such areas as economy, politics and foreign security; our partners are just as interested in this cooperation. It is very easy to destroy these instruments of cooperation and it would be very difficult to rebuild them.
On April 10, as I taped an interview on RT with Sophie Shevardnadze, granddaughter of former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, I found myself reaching back to Putin's New York Times op-ed of Sept. 11, 2013, and the conciliatory tone of Putin's answer on March 4 for some tangible substance on which to pin some hope. Sadly,that president-to-president trust appears to be a thing of the past.
This does not mean it could not be re-established and, hopefully, Putin and Obama will soon be reminded of the utility of their frequent conversations. After all, there is ample opportunity for all manner of provocateurs and saboteurs to create havoc in today's Ukraine. There needs to be a way to communicate at senior levels to avert a dangerous escalation.
Some Russian officials seem to be looking for ways to dialogue with U.S. counterparts lest things get out of hand. The Interfax news agency reported Friday that in a telephone call, Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov warned U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Ukraine had a "substantial group of forces" near the Russian border, including troops intent on conducting sabotage.
Or We Could Send in the Clowns …
On the senior political level, though, who's left to talk to? How about Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Susan Rice, who is keeping a close watch on developments in Ukraine? According to the Associated Press, she found the anti-Semitic leaflets distributed in eastern Ukraine "utterly sickening," and when she showed them to the President, he bluntly expressed his disgust.
And not only that: Rice has reported that John Kerry has forcefully conveyed that view to his Russian counterpart (as well as the media, of course). I find myself wondering if Rice has taken the time to tell Obama and Kerry that the leaflets appear to have been clumsy forgeries distributed as black propaganda to discredit ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who are resisting control from the "regime change" government in Kiev.
And how about those photos front-paged by the New York Times ostensibly showing Russian "special operations personnel" in eastern Ukraine? Kerry saw fit to repeat that particular claim last week even though it already had been debunked in several major U.S. publications and had been "corrected" by his own State Department. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Retracts Russian Photo Scoop."]
Still, despite those propaganda embarrassments, the anti-Putin "group think" across Official Washington remains strong. Indeed, there is a unanimity that smacks of a totalitarian system. All the "smart" people are coming up with new ideas for how to escalate the tensions over Ukraine into a full-blown cold war.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was State Department Director of Policy Planning for two years under Secretary Hillary Clinton, is now head of the New America Foundation, which describes itself as an "idea incubator." Slaughter ties Ukraine and Syria together in a most imaginative way. Ready for this?
In an April 23 think piece titled "Stopping Russia Starts in Syria," Slaughter suggests that the U.S. must "change Putin's calculations, and Syria is the place to do it." She argues: "A US strike against the Syrian government now would change the entire dynamic. It would either force the regime back to the negotiating table with a genuine intention of reaching a settlement, or at least make it clear that Assad will not have a free hand in re-establishing his rule.
"The US, together with as many countries as will cooperate, could use force to eliminate Syria's fixed-wing aircraft as a first step toward enforcing Resolution 2139. Aerial bombardment' would still likely continue via helicopter, but such a strike would announce immediately that the game has changed.
"After the strike, the US, France, and Britain should ask for the Security Council's approval of the action taken, as they did after NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999. Equally important, shots fired by the US in Syria will echo loudly in Russia."
Army Col. Patrick Lang (ret.) commented on this military slaughter being recommended by Anne-Marie Slaughter in his blog: "Her preposterous proposal' should be seen as satire of actual strategic thought. I am tempted to compare this to Dean Swift's Modest Proposal…' but that would be giving her far too much credit.
"She also believes that this ferocity on our part would frighten the Russians. The Russians are damned tough people. They will not be cowed. They will simply be irritated and angered."
Col. Lang is right, of course. The clowns and "idea incubators" are either ignorant of Russia's long history or are arrogant about the limitless reach of American military might (or both).

[David Guyatt]

A very interesting article.

Is Obama really that weak, I wonder?

[David Guyatt]

From VoltaireNet:

Ukraine Crisis Accelerating the Restructuring of the World

by Pierre Charasse

The Ukrainian crisis has not radically changed the international situation but it has precipitated ongoing developments. Western propaganda, which has never been stronger, especially hides the reality of Western decline to the populations of NATO, but has no further effect on political reality. Inexorably, Russia and China, assisted by the other BRICS, occupy their rightful place in international relations.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | MEXICO CITY (MEXICO) | 30 APRIL 2014 FRANÇAIS ESPAÑOL PORTUGUÊS ITALIANO

The Ukrainian crisis has highlighted the magnitude of Western public opinion manipulation by major media, TV channels like CNN, Foxnews, Euronews and many others as well as the entire printed press powered by Western news agencies. The manner in which the Western public is misinformed is impressive, yet it is easy to have access to a wealth of information on all sides. It is very worrying to see how many citizens of the world are being lured into a russophobia never seen even in the worst moments of the Cold War. The image that enters the collective unconscious through the powerful Western media machine is that Russians are "barbaric and backward" compared to the Western "civilized" world. The very important speech that Vladimir Putin delivered on March 18, after the referendum in Crimea, was literally boycotted by Western media [1], as they alotted a large place to Western reactions, all negative of course. However, in his speech Putin explained that the crisis in Ukraine was not triggered by Russia and he presented, with great rationality, Russia's position and the legitimate strategic interests of his country in the post- ideological conflict.Humiliated by its treatment by the West since 1989, Russia woke up with Putin and began to reconnect with a great power policy by trying to reconstruct the lines of the traditional historical strength of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Geography often controls strategy. Having lost much of its "historical territories", in the words of Putin and his Russian and non-Russian population, Russia has set a great national and patriotic project for recovering its superpower status of "global" actor by first securing the safety of its land and sea borders. This is exactly what the West wants to prevent in its unipolar worldview. Good chess player that he is, Putin is several moves ahead thanks to a deep knowledge of history, the real world and the aspirations of a large part of the population of the territories formerly controlled by the Soviet Union. He knows the European Union to perfection, its divisions and weaknesses, the real military capability of NATO and the state of Western public opinion reluctant to see an increase in military spending in times of economic recession. Unlike the European Commission, whose project coincides with that of the United States to strengthen the Euro-Atlantic political-economic-military bloc, European citizens in their majority do not seek more eastward enlargement of the EU, neither with Ukraine nor with Georgia, nor with any other country of the former Soviet Union.With its posturing and its threats of sanctions, the EU, slavishly aligned with Washington, shows that it is powerless to "punish" Russia seriously. Its actual weight is not up to its ambitions always proclaimed to shape the world in its image. The very responsive and malicious Russian government applies "gradual ripostes," deriding Western punitive measures. Putin, haughty, even allows himself the luxury of announcing that he will open an account at the Rossyia Bank of New York to deposit his salary! He has not yet mentioned limiting the supply of gas to Ukraine and Western Europe but everyone knows he has this card in hand, which has already forced the Europeans to think about a complete reorganization of their energy supply, which will take years to materialize.Western Errors and divisions put Russia in a position of strength. Putin enjoys exceptional popularity in his country and in the Russian communities in neighboring countries, and we can be sure that his intelligence services have penetrated deeply into countries formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, abundantly supplying first-hand information on internal power balances. Its diplomatic apparatus gives strong arguments to remove the monopoly of interpretation of international law from the "West", particularly on the thorny issue of self-determination. As might be expected, Putin does not hesitate to cite the precedent of Kosovo to vilify the double standards of the West, its inconsistencie , and the destabilizing role it played in the Balkans.While Western media propaganda had been in full swing after the referendum of March 16 in Crimea, Western shouts have suddenly dropped a tone and the G7, at its summit in The Hague on the sidelines of the conference on nuclear safety, has not threatened to exclude Russia from the G8, as it had trumpeted a few days earlier, but simply announced that it "would not participate in the Sochi summit ." This allowed it the opportunity to reactivate at any time this privileged forum for dialogue with Russia, established in 1994 at its express request. First retreat of the G7. Obama in turn hastened to announce that there would be no military intervention by NATO to help Ukraine, but only a promise of cooperation to rebuild the military potential of Ukraine, composed largely of obsolete Soviet equipment. Second retreat. It will take years to put a Ukrainian army worthy of the name on its feet, and one wonders who will pay considering the plight of the country's finances. In addition, we do not know exactly what is the status of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after Moscow's inviting, with some success, it seems, the Ukrainian military, heirs of the Red Army, to join the Russian army while maintaining individual rank. The Ukrainian fleet is already fully under Russian control. Finally, another spectacular reversal on the part of the United States: there would have been very advanced secret conversations between Moscow and Washington to adopt a new constitution in Ukraine, to install a coalition government whose neo-Nazi extremists would be excluded in Kiev on the occasion of the May 25 elections and, especially to impose a neutral status on Ukraine, its "Finlandisation" (recommended by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski) [2], which prohibits its entry into NATO, but allows economic agreements with both the EU and with the Eurasian customs Union (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan). If such an agreement is reached, the EU will be faced with a fait accompli and will have to resign itself to pay the bill of the Russian-US head-to-head. With such guarantees Moscow could consider its safety requirements are met. It will have regained its footing in its former sphere of influence with Washington's agreement and will refrain from fomenting separatism in other Ukrainian provinces or in Transnistria (Moldova province populated by Russians ) while reaffirming its strong respect for European borders. The Kremlin will at the same time have offered an honorable exit to Obama. A master stroke for Putin.

Geopolitical consequences of the Ukrainian crisis

The G7 had not calculated that, by taking steps to isolate Russia, besides the fact that it will have applied to itself a "sado-masochistic punishment" in the words of Hubert Vedrine, former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, it, in spite of itself, precipitated a process, already well under way, of deep restructuring of the world for the benefit of a non-Western group led by China and Russia under the aegis of BRICS. In response to the G7 communiqué of March 24 [3] , the foreign ministers of BRICS have expressed their rejection of any measures to isolate Russia and they immediately took the opportunity to denounce the U.S. practices of espionage against their leaders and for good measure they demanded that the United States ratify the new distribution of voting rights at the IMF and the World Bank as a first step towards a "more equitable world order" [4]. The G7 did not expect such a quick and virulent reply from BRICS. This episode may suggest that the G20, of which G7 and BRICS are the two main pillars, could traverse a serious crisis before the next summit in Brisbane (Australia) on November 15 and 16, especially if the G7 continues to marginalize and punish Russia. It is just about certain there will be a majority in the G20 to condemn the sanctions on Russia, which will in fact have the effect of isolating the G7. In their statement to the press, the ministers of BRICS felt that to decide who is a member of the group and what is its purpose is up to all its members "on an equal footing" and none of its members "may unilaterally determine its nature and its character." The Ministers call to resolve the current crisis in the context of the United Nations "with calm, high road vision, by renouncing hostile language, penalties and sanctions against". A snub to the G7 and the EU! The G7, which alone put itself in a bind, is warned that it will need to make significant concessions if it wants to continue to have some influence in the G20.Moreover, two important events are to occur in the coming weeks.First, Vladimir Putin will pay an official visit to China in May. The two giants are about to sign a major energy deal that will substantially affect the global energy market, both strategically and financially. Transactions will no longer be in dollars, but in the national currencies of the two countries. Turning to China, Russia will have no problem selling its gas production in case Western Europe decides to switch supplier. And in the same rapprochement, China and Russia could sign an industrial partnership agreement for the production of the Sukhoi 25 fighter, a highly symbolic development.Elsewhere, during the BRICS summit in Brazil in July, the Development Bank of the group, whose creation was announced in 2012, could take shape and offer an alternative to financing by the IMF and the World Bank, ever reluctant to change their operating financing rules to give more weight to emerging economies and their currencies beside the dollar.Finally there is an important aspect of the relationship between Russia and NATO which is sparsely commented in the media but is very revealing of the state of dependence in which the "West" finds itself as it withdraws its troops from Afghanistan. Since 2002, Russia agreed to cooperate with Western countries to facilitate the logistics of troops in the Afghan theater. At the request of NATO, Moscow authorized the transit of non-lethal equipment for the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) by air or land between Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Uzbekistan and Estonia, via a multimodal platform at Oulianovk in Siberia. This is nothing less than conveying all supplies for thousands of men operating in Afghanistan, among which are tons of beer, wine, pies, burgers, fresh lettuce , all transported by Russian civilian aircraft, since Western forces do not have sufficient air assets to support military deployment of this magnitude. The NATO-Russia October 2012 agreement extends cooperation to the installation of a Russian airbase in Afghanistan with 40 helicopters where Afghan personnel are trained in the anti-drug fight which the West has abandoned. Russia has continued to refuse to allow transit through its territory of heavy equipment, which poses a serious problem for NATO at the time of withdrawal of his troops. Indeed they cannot travel via Kabul-Karachi land because of attacks on convoys by the Taliban. The Way North (Russia) being impossible, heavy equipment is flown from Kabul to the United Arab Emirates, then shipped to European ports, which quadruples the cost of withdrawal. For the Russian government, NATO intervention in Afghanistan has been a failure, but its precipitate withdrawal before the end of 2014 will increase chaos and affect the security of Russia and may cause a resurgence of terrorism.Russia also has important agreements with the West in the field of armaments. The most important is probably the one signed with France for the manufacture in its arsenals of two helicopter carriers for $ 1.3 billion euros. [5] If the contract is canceled under the sanctions, France must repay amounts already paid as well as more contractual penalties and will lose thousands of jobs. The worst is probably the loss of market confidence in the French armament industry as noted by the Russian Ministry of Defence.Let's not forget that without the intervention of Russia, Western countries would have never been able to reach an agreement with Iran on nuclear non-proliferation, or with Syria on chemical disarmament. These are facts about which the Western media are silent. The reality is that because of its arrogance, its lack of knowledge of history, its clumsiness, the Western bloc has precipitated the systemic deconstruction of the unipolar world order and offers on a platter to Russia and China, supported by India, Brazil, South Africa and many other countries, a "window of opportunity" to strengthen unity of an alternative block. The evolution was moving forward, but slowly and gradually (nobody wants to give a kick in the anthill and suddenly destabilize the global system), but all of a sudden everything is going faster and interdependence is changing the rules of the game.Regarding the Brisbane G20, it will be interesting to see how Mexico positions itself, after the G7 summits in Brussels in June and BRICS in Brazil in July. The situation is very fluid and will evolve quickly, which will require great diplomatic flexibility. If the G7 persists in his intention to marginalize or exclude Russia, the G20 could disintegrate. Mexico, caught in the nets of TLCAN and the future TPP, must choose between sinking with the Titanic of the West or adopting an independent line, more in harmony with its interests as a regional power with global ambitions, by drawing nearer to BRICS.

Pierre Charasse

[Peter Lemkin]

A very good summary of things in the Ukraine, I think....

[David Guyatt]

Hiw will the bankrupt Ukraine pay for military conscription?

Ukraine crisis: Interim government to reintroduce military conscription in face of Russian security threat




President Turchynov said he made the decision in light of Russian "threats" against "Ukrainian integrity"

KASHMIRA GANDER

Thursday 01 May 2014

The interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov announced on Thursday that the country will renew military conscription, in response to what the government views as an intensifying security threat from Russia.

The decision came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine should end its military presence in the eastern and southern regions of the country, where pro-Moscow insurgents have seized buildings.
Last year Ukraine announced plans for its army to become an all-volunteer force, but Mr Turchynov ordered on Thursday that the draft must be re-instated in light of "threats of encroachment on Ukraine's territorial integrity and interference by Russia in the internal affairs of Ukraine."
Mr Turchynov did not, however, specify if new conscripts would be deployed.
Earlier in the day, anti-government protesters took over the regional prosecutor's office in the city of Donetsk, after riot police were unable to stop activists from entering the building using stun grenades and tear gas.
As the confrontation escalated, some in the crowd threw rocks and managed to wrest away shields from police. An Associated Press reporter saw a handful of officers being dragged away and beaten by members of the crowd.
Meanwhile, in the town of Amvrosiivka, around 30 armed men arrived in six cars and took over the city council and forced the mayor to resign, according to local news website Novosti.
Protests have been taking place in eastern provinces bordering Russia for weeks, where support for ousted pro-Moscow former President Viktor Yanukovych has not abated.

Mr Turchynov has twice proclaimed "anti-terrorist" operations to regain control of the east, but with little success.
The assault on the prosecutor's office involved protesters more heavily armed than in other government office seizures, with at least one firebomb being thrown at the building during the clash.
Armed protests have been focused on Slovyansk, a city 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Donetsk, in which seven European observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe remain held by pro-Russia gunmen.
On Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked President Putin his assistance in freeing the group during a phone conversation on Thursday.
Christiane Wirtz, a spokeswoman for Merkel, said the conversation focused on the "the continuing hostage-taking of the OSCE observers by separatists in eastern Ukraine."
She added that Mrs Merkel "appealed to the president to use his influence" in resolving the situation.
Russia denies allegations from Kiev and the West that it is influencing or fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin also confirmed the conversation and said Putin stressed "the main thing was for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from southeastern Ukraine, stop the violence and quickly start a broad national dialogue on constitutional reform."
On Wednesday, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said it had detained the military attache at Russia's embassy on suspicion of spying and would remove him from the country. Russia has made no public comment on the issue.

[Magda Hassan]

Hiw will the bankrupt Ukraine pay for military conscription?

Ukraine crisis: Interim government to reintroduce military conscription in face of Russian security threat




President Turchynov said he made the decision in light of Russian "threats" against "Ukrainian integrity"

KASHMIRA GANDER

Thursday 01 May 2014

The interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov announced on Thursday that the country will renew military conscription, in response to what the government views as an intensifying security threat from Russia.

I don't think conscription is a sensible thing. It's not likely going to happen anyway. They are having a hard enough time getting a volunteer force besides the ever reliable fascist tools to turn on fellow Ukrainians. Forcing unwilling people to fight each other for no benefit wont fly. Decentralization or federation is the only practical outcome from now. I don't see Putin wanting a western empire, though the Black Sea fleet is safer now, just not wanting a western expansionist empire on his door step. Any conscripts will have to be, and probably are, being brought in on a contract by Academi, Executive Outcomes etc. And the bill will never be able to be paid off no matter how much blood is spilled.

[Keith Millea]