US/NATO War on Russia

[Lauren Johnson]

[B]PROTOCOL[/B]

on the results of consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group
with respect to the joint steps aimed at
the implementation of the Peace Plan
of the President of Ukraine, P. Poroshenko,
and the initiatives of the President of Russia, V. Putin

Upon consideration and discussion of the proposals put forward by the participants of the consultations in Minsk on September 1, 2014, the Trilateral Contact Group, consisting of the representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE], reached an understanding with respect to the need to implement the following steps:

1. Ensure the immediate bilateral cessation of the use of weapons.
   

1. Ensure monitoring and verification by the OSCE of the regime of non-use of weapons.
   

1. Implement decentralization of power, including by means of enacting the Law of Ukraine "With respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions" (Law on Special Status).
   

1. Ensure permanent monitoring on the Ukrainian-Russian state border and verification by the OSCE, together with the creation of a security area in the border regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
   

1. Immediately release all hostages and unlawfully detained persons.
   

1. Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
   

1. Conduct an inclusive national dialogue.
   

1. Adopt measures aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in Donbass.
   

1. Ensure the holding of early local elections in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "With respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions" (Law on Special Status).
   

1. Remove unlawful military formations, military hardware, as well as militants and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine.
   

1. Adopt a program for the economic revival of Donbass and the recovery of economic activity in the region.
   

1. Provide personal security guarantees for the participants of the consultations.
   

Participants of the Trilateral Contact Group:
Ambassador Heidi Talyavini (signed)
Second President of Ukraine, L.D. Kuchma (signed)
Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, M.Y. Zurabov (signed)
A.V. Zakharchenko (signed)
I.V. Plotnitskiy (signed)

The twitter feeds are going nuts.

Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 21m #ALL - THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS IS FOR THE WAR TO RESUME. And Zakharchenko/Plotnitskiy should not bother coming back to Donbass.

Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 46m GODDAMN IT - LPR AND DPR WERE NOT EVEN _NAMED_ in the DAMN DOCUMENT. COULD IT GET MORE INSULTING? PERFIDY.

Tricoteuse Defarge ‏@tricodefarge 15m @hero_crappy @GBabeuf @gbazov It's suicide if this is implemented. The fascist death squads were "legalised" months ago. Only NAF disarms.

And this tweet was interesting:
Gracchus Babeuf ‏@GBabeuf 14m @gbazov @baz2000 it is customary law from time immemorial: inviolability of ambassadors. This clause actually enshrines their outlaw status.

[Paul Rigby]

[B]PROTOCOL[/B]

on the results of consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group
with respect to the joint steps aimed at
the implementation of the Peace Plan
of the President of Ukraine, P. Poroshenko,
and the initiatives of the President of Russia, V. Putin

Upon consideration and discussion of the proposals put forward by the participants of the consultations in Minsk on September 1, 2014, the Trilateral Contact Group, consisting of the representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE], reached an understanding with respect to the need to implement the following steps:

1. Ensure the immediate bilateral cessation of the use of weapons.
   

1. Ensure monitoring and verification by the OSCE of the regime of non-use of weapons.
   

1. Implement decentralization of power, including by means of enacting the Law of Ukraine "With respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions" (Law on Special Status).
   

1. Ensure permanent monitoring on the Ukrainian-Russian state border and verification by the OSCE, together with the creation of a security area in the border regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
   

1. Immediately release all hostages and unlawfully detained persons.
   

1. Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
   

1. Conduct an inclusive national dialogue.
   

1. Adopt measures aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in Donbass.
   

1. Ensure the holding of early local elections in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "With respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions" (Law on Special Status).
   

1. Remove unlawful military formations, military hardware, as well as militants and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine.
   

1. Adopt a program for the economic revival of Donbass and the recovery of economic activity in the region.
   

1. Provide personal security guarantees for the participants of the consultations.
   

Participants of the Trilateral Contact Group:
Ambassador Heidi Talyavini (signed)
Second President of Ukraine, L.D. Kuchma (signed)
Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, M.Y. Zurabov (signed)
A.V. Zakharchenko (signed)
I.V. Plotnitskiy (signed)

I'm sceptical that any of the participants/signatories, for their many and conflicting reasons, believed a word of the above, or reposed any confidence whatever in the measures outlined. So what were their real motivations and objectives?

The twitter feeds are going nuts.

Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 21m #ALL - THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS IS FOR THE WAR TO RESUME. And Zakharchenko/Plotnitskiy should not bother coming back to Donbass.

Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 46m GODDAMN IT - LPR AND DPR WERE NOT EVEN _NAMED_ in the DAMN DOCUMENT. COULD IT GET MORE INSULTING? PERFIDY.

Tricoteuse Defarge ‏@tricodefarge 15m @hero_crappy @GBabeuf @gbazov It's suicide if this is implemented. The fascist death squads were "legalised" months ago. Only NAF disarms.

And this tweet was interesting:
Gracchus Babeuf ‏@GBabeuf 14m @gbazov @baz2000 it is customary law from time immemorial: inviolability of ambassadors. This clause actually enshrines their outlaw status.

Those interested will doubtless have read oodles on the reinforcements, repositionings and resupplying undertaken by the junta. It would be fascinating to know just what the NAF was doing during the brief hiatus.

More seriously still, one hitherto unremarked consequence of the "damned document" was an apparent change in the junta's strategy: instead of shifting from offence to defence, Langley's kamikaze squad reversed tack and went back to "more of the same". If this reading is correct, I rather suspect that strategists in Moscow will regard the entire farce as a richly rewarding exercise.

Their objective, after all, is to bleed the junta dry, of both blood and money, just in time for the onset of winter.

[Lauren Johnson]

More seriously still, one hitherto unremarked consequence of the "damned document" was an apparent change in the junta's strategy: instead of shifting from offence to defence, Langley's kamikaze squad reversed tack and went back to "more of the same". If this reading is correct, I rather suspect that strategists in Moscow will regard the entire farce as a richly rewarding exercise.

Their objective, after all, is to bleed the junta dry, of both blood and money, just in time for the onset of winter.

Apparently, there was a large armored column that headed down the the road to Donesk. Some ambulances were pulling artillery. Now this:

• Free Mind ‏@FreeMindTH 1h
  #UkraineWar RT @stefsiohan: Coming back from #Donetsk airport: it's shooting again! Heavy artillery, probably a few Grad, and machine gun.
  Expand
  • Reply
    
  • Retweet
    
  • Favorite
    
  
  
  
  
  
• Retweeted by Rock Solid Politics
  
  PaulaSlier_RT ‏@PaulaSlier_RT 1h
  Ceasefire definitely NOT HOLDING here in #Spartak and other areas surrounding #Donetsk airport
  Expand
  • Reply
    
  • Retweet
    
  • Favorite
    
  
  
  
  
  
• Rock Solid Politics ‏@BradCabana 1h
  SIT REP: #Ukraine artillery are firing on area around the #Donetsk airport right now. #cdnpoli #ceasefire
  Expand
  • Reply
    
  • Retweet
    
  • Favorite
    
  
  
  
  
  
• Rock Solid Politics ‏@BradCabana 1h
  SIT REP: #Ukraine troops at the airport used GRAD against residential area in #Spartak (adjacent to airport) #Donetsk #cdnpoli #ceasefire
  
  
  
  
  
  

[Lauren Johnson]

And there is the promise to provide precision guided weapons, whatever that this. They certainly will not be delivered by the Ukrainian Air Force, which does not exist.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nato-summit-201...ne-1464067

[Lauren Johnson]

In the above protocols, the sixth one is particularly important:

Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions of Ukraine.

Not only do the killing units of the Ukraine government get a free pass, the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts are called regions of the Ukraine. This is a clear message that Putin does not want a Novorossia. The resistance indeed has been told to give it up.

[Magda Hassan]

In the above protocols, the sixth one is particularly important:

Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions of Ukraine.

Not only do the killing units of the Ukraine government get a free pass, the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts are called regions of the Ukraine. This is a clear message that Putin does not want a Novorossia. The resistance indeed has been told to give it up.

Also the area where MH17 went down so no prosecution for who ever did that.

Of course Putin does not want a Novorossia. Never did. There is no Russian invasion. It has been a joke to see the MSM screeching abut it. The locals have been caling and pleading for Russian intervention since day one. It never came. Never was going to. The whole thing is a colossal PITA to Putin who has just ever wanted a compliant Ukraine. The Rovorossians have shown signs of being far too independent and a genuine people's uprisings. A danger to oligarchs and business as usual everywhere.

[Magda Hassan]

Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault

The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin

By John J. Mearsheimer
From our September/October 2014 Issue

A man takes a picture as he stands on a Soviet-style star re-touched with blue paint so that it resembles the Ukrainian flag, Moscow, August 20, 2014. (Maxim Shemetov / Courtesy Reuters)

• Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault34 min 45 secs
  
• +ADD TO PLAYLISTBUY AUDIO VERSION
  

According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed Crimea out of a long-standing desire to resuscitate the Soviet empire, and he may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine, as well as other countries in eastern Europe. In this view, the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 merely provided a pretext for Putin's decision to order Russian forces to seize part of Ukraine.
But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU's expansion eastward and the West's backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a "coup" -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.
Putin's pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia's backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics. They tend to believe that the logic of realism holds little relevance in the twenty-first century and that Europe can be kept whole and free on the basis of such liberal principles as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy.
But this grand scheme went awry in Ukraine. The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia's border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia's border.

THE WESTERN AFFRONT
As the Cold War came to a close, Soviet leaders preferred that U.S. forces remain in Europe and NATO stay intact, an arrangement they thought would keep a reunified Germany pacified. But they and their Russian successors did not want NATO to grow any larger and assumed that Western diplomats understood their concerns. The Clinton administration evidently thought otherwise, and in the mid-1990s, it began pushing for NATO to expand.
The first round of enlargement took place in 1999 and brought in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The second occurred in 2004; it included Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Moscow complained bitterly from the start. During NATO's 1995 bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs, for example, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said, "This is the first sign of what could happen when NATO comes right up to the Russian Federation's borders. ... The flame of war could burst out across the whole of Europe." But the Russians were too weak at the time to derail NATO's eastward movement -- which, at any rate, did not look so threatening, since none of the new members shared a border with Russia, save for the tiny Baltic countries.
Then NATO began looking further east. At its April 2008 summit in Bucharest, the alliance considered admitting Georgia and Ukraine. The George W. Bush administration supported doing so, but France and Germany opposed the move for fear that it would unduly antagonize Russia. In the end, NATO's members reached a compromise: the alliance did not begin the formal process leading to membership, but it issued a statement endorsing the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine and boldly declaring, "These countries will become members of NATO."
Moscow, however, did not see the outcome as much of a compromise. Alexander Grushko, then Russia's deputy foreign minister, said, "Georgia's and Ukraine's membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security." Putin maintained that admitting those two countries to NATO would represent a "direct threat" to Russia. One Russian newspaper reported that Putin, while speaking with Bush, "very transparently hinted that if Ukraine was accepted into NATO, it would cease to exist."
Russia's invasion of Georgia in August 2008 should have dispelled any remaining doubts about Putin's determination to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was deeply committed to bringing his country into NATO, had decided in the summer of 2008 to reincorporate two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But Putin sought to keep Georgia weak and divided -- and out of NATO. After fighting broke out between the Georgian government and South Ossetian separatists, Russian forces took control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow had made its point. Yet despite this clear warning, NATO never publicly abandoned its goal of bringing Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. And NATO expansion continued marching forward, with Albania and Croatia becoming members in 2009.
The EU, too, has been marching eastward. In May 2008, it unveiled its Eastern Partnership initiative, a program to foster prosperity in such countries as Ukraine and integrate them into the EU economy. Not surprisingly, Russian leaders view the plan as hostile to their country's interests. This past February, before Yanukovych was forced from office, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the EU of trying to create a "sphere of influence" in eastern Europe. In the eyes of Russian leaders, EU expansion is a stalking horse for NATO expansion.
The West's final tool for peeling Kiev away from Moscow has been its efforts to spread Western values and promote democracy in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, a plan that often entails funding pro-Western individuals and organizations. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, estimated in December 2013 that the United States had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to help Ukraine achieve "the future it deserves." As part of that effort, the U.S. government has bankrolled the National Endowment for Democracy. The nonprofit foundation has funded more than 60 projects aimed at promoting civil society in Ukraine, and the NED's president, Carl Gershman, has called that country "the biggest prize." After Yanukovych won Ukraine's presidential election in February 2010, the NED decided he was undermining its goals, and so it stepped up its efforts to support the opposition and strengthen the country's democratic institutions.
When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next. And such fears are hardly groundless. In September 2013, Gershman wrote in The Washington Post, "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents." He added: "Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
CREATING A CRISIS

Imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico.

The West's triple package of policies -- NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion -- added fuel to a fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in November 2013, when Yanukovych rejected a major economic deal he had been negotiating with the EU and decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead. That decision gave rise to antigovernment demonstrations that escalated over the following three months and that by mid-February had led to the deaths of some one hundred protesters. Western emissaries hurriedly flew to Kiev to resolve the crisis. On February 21, the government and the opposition struck a deal that allowed Yanukovych to stay in power until new elections were held. But it immediately fell apart, and Yanukovych fled to Russia the next day. The new government in Kiev was pro-Western and anti-Russian to the core, and it contained four high-ranking members who could legitimately be labeled neofascists.
Although the full extent of U.S. involvement has not yet come to light, it is clear that Washington backed the coup. Nuland and Republican Senator John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych's toppling that it was "a day for the history books." As a leaked telephone recording revealed, Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did. No wonder Russians of all persuasions think the West played a role in Yanukovych's ouster.
For Putin, the time to act against Ukraine and the West had arrived. Shortly after February 22, he ordered Russian forces to take Crimea from Ukraine, and soon after that, he incorporated it into Russia. The task proved relatively easy, thanks to the thousands of Russian troops already stationed at a naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Crimea also made for an easy target since ethnic Russians compose roughly 60 percent of its population. Most of them wanted out of Ukraine.
Next, Putin put massive pressure on the new government in Kiev to discourage it from siding with the West against Moscow, making it clear that he would wreck Ukraine as a functioning state before he would allow it to become a Western stronghold on Russia's doorstep. Toward that end, he has provided advisers, arms, and diplomatic support to the Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, who are pushing the country toward civil war. He has massed a large army on the Ukrainian border, threatening to invade if the government cracks down on the rebels. And he has sharply raised the price of the natural gas Russia sells to Ukraine and demanded payment for past exports. Putin is playing hardball.
THE DIAGNOSIS
Putin's actions should be easy to comprehend. A huge expanse of flat land that Napoleonic France, imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany all crossed to strike at Russia itself, Ukraine serves as a buffer state of enormous strategic importance to Russia. No Russian leader would tolerate a military alliance that was Moscow's mortal enemy until recently moving into Ukraine. Nor would any Russian leader stand idly by while the West helped install a government there that was determined to integrate Ukraine into the West.
Washington may not like Moscow's position, but it should understand the logic behind it. This is Geopolitics 101: great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory. After all, the United States does not tolerate distant great powers deploying military forces anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, much less on its borders. Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Logic aside, Russian leaders have told their Western counterparts on many occasions that they consider NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable, along with any effort to turn those countries against Russia -- a message that the 2008 Russian-Georgian war also made crystal clear.
Officials from the United States and its European allies contend that they tried hard to assuage Russian fears and that Moscow should understand that NATO has no designs on Russia. In addition to continually denying that its expansion was aimed at containing Russia, the alliance has never permanently deployed military forces in its new member states. In 2002, it even created a body called the NATO-Russia Council in an effort to foster cooperation. To further mollify Russia, the United States announced in 2009 that it would deploy its new missile defense system on warships in European waters, at least initially, rather than on Czech or Polish territory. But none of these measures worked; the Russians remained steadfastly opposed to NATO enlargement, especially into Georgia and Ukraine. And it is the Russians, not the West, who ultimately get to decide what counts as a threat to them.
To understand why the West, especially the United States, failed to understand that its Ukraine policy was laying the groundwork for a major clash with Russia, one must go back to the mid-1990s, when the Clinton administration began advocating NATO expansion. Pundits advanced a variety of arguments for and against enlargement, but there was no consensus on what to do. Most eastern European émigrés in the United States and their relatives, for example, strongly supported expansion, because they wanted NATO to protect such countries as Hungary and Poland. A few realists also favored the policy because they thought Russia still needed to be contained.
But most realists opposed expansion, in the belief that a declining great power with an aging population and a one-dimensional economy did not in fact need to be contained. And they feared that enlargement would only give Moscow an incentive to cause trouble in eastern Europe. The U.S. diplomat George Kennan articulated this perspective in a 1998 interview, shortly after the U.S. Senate approved the first round of NATO expansion. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies," he said. "I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else."

The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer.

Most liberals, on the other hand, favored enlargement, including many key members of the Clinton administration. They believed that the end of the Cold War had fundamentally transformed international politics and that a new, postnational order had replaced the realist logic that used to govern Europe. The United States was not only the "indispensable nation," as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it; it was also a benign hegemon and thus unlikely to be viewed as a threat in Moscow. The aim, in essence, was to make the entire continent look like western Europe.
And so the United States and its allies sought to promote democracy in the countries of eastern Europe, increase economic interdependence among them, and embed them in international institutions. Having won the debate in the United States, liberals had little difficulty convincing their European allies to support NATO enlargement. After all, given the EU's past achievements, Europeans were even more wedded than Americans to the idea that geopolitics no longer mattered and that an all-inclusive liberal order could maintain peace in Europe.
So thoroughly did liberals come to dominate the discourse about European security during the first decade of this century that even as the alliance adopted an open-door policy of growth, NATO expansion faced little realist opposition. The liberal worldview is now accepted dogma among U.S. officials. In March, for example, President Barack Obama delivered a speech about Ukraine in which he talked repeatedly about "the ideals" that motivate Western policy and how those ideals "have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power." Secretary of State John Kerry's response to the Crimea crisis reflected this same perspective: "You just don't in the twenty-first century behave in nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext."
In essence, the two sides have been operating with different playbooks: Putin and his compatriots have been thinking and acting according to realist dictates, whereas their Western counterparts have been adhering to liberal ideas about international politics. The result is that the United States and its allies unknowingly provoked a major crisis over Ukraine.
BLAME GAME
In that same 1998 interview, Kennan predicted that NATO expansion would provoke a crisis, after which the proponents of expansion would "say that we always told you that is how the Russians are." As if on cue, most Western officials have portrayed Putin as the real culprit in the Ukraine predicament. In March, according to The New York Times, German Chancellor Angela Merkel implied that Putin was irrational, telling Obama that he was "in another world." Although Putin no doubt has autocratic tendencies, no evidence supports the charge that he is mentally unbalanced. On the contrary: he is a first-class strategist who should be feared and respected by anyone challenging him on foreign policy.
Other analysts allege, more plausibly, that Putin regrets the demise of the Soviet Union and is determined to reverse it by expanding Russia's borders. According to this interpretation, Putin, having taken Crimea, is now testing the waters to see if the time is right to conquer Ukraine, or at least its eastern part, and he will eventually behave aggressively toward other countries in Russia's neighborhood. For some in this camp, Putin represents a modern-day Adolf Hitler, and striking any kind of deal with him would repeat the mistake of Munich. Thus, NATO must admit Georgia and Ukraine to contain Russia before it dominates its neighbors and threatens western Europe.
This argument falls apart on close inspection. If Putin were committed to creating a greater Russia, signs of his intentions would almost certainly have arisen before February 22. But there is virtually no evidence that he was bent on taking Crimea, much less any other territory in Ukraine, before that date. Even Western leaders who supported NATO expansion were not doing so out of a fear that Russia was about to use military force. Putin's actions in Crimea took them by complete surprise and appear to have been a spontaneous reaction to Yanukovych's ouster. Right afterward, even Putin said he opposed Crimean secession, before quickly changing his mind.
Besides, even if it wanted to, Russia lacks the capability to easily conquer and annex eastern Ukraine, much less the entire country. Roughly 15 million people -- one-third of Ukraine's population -- live between the Dnieper River, which bisects the country, and the Russian border. An overwhelming majority of those people want to remain part of Ukraine and would surely resist a Russian occupation. Furthermore, Russia's mediocre army, which shows few signs of turning into a modern Wehrmacht, would have little chance of pacifying all of Ukraine. Moscow is also poorly positioned to pay for a costly occupation; its weak economy would suffer even more in the face of the resulting sanctions.
But even if Russia did boast a powerful military machine and an impressive economy, it would still probably prove unable to successfully occupy Ukraine. One need only consider the Soviet and U.S. experiences in Afghanistan, the U.S. experiences in Vietnam and Iraq, and the Russian experience in Chechnya to be reminded that military occupations usually end badly. Putin surely understands that trying to subdue Ukraine would be like swallowing a porcupine. His response to events there has been defensive, not offensive.
A WAY OUT
Given that most Western leaders continue to deny that Putin's behavior might be motivated by legitimate security concerns, it is unsurprising that they have tried to modify it by doubling down on their existing policies and have punished Russia to deter further aggression. Although Kerry has maintained that "all options are on the table," neither the United States nor its NATO allies are prepared to use force to defend Ukraine. The West is relying instead on economic sanctions to coerce Russia into ending its support for the insurrection in eastern Ukraine. In July, the United States and the EU put in place their third round of limited sanctions, targeting mainly high-level individuals closely tied to the Russian government and some high-profile banks, energy companies, and defense firms. They also threatened to unleash another, tougher round of sanctions, aimed at whole sectors of the Russian economy.
Such measures will have little effect. Harsh sanctions are likely off the table anyway; western European countries, especially Germany, have resisted imposing them for fear that Russia might retaliate and cause serious economic damage within the EU. But even if the United States could convince its allies to enact tough measures, Putin would probably not alter his decision-making. History shows that countries will absorb enormous amounts of punishment in order to protect their core strategic interests. There is no reason to think Russia represents an exception to this rule.
Western leaders have also clung to the provocative policies that precipitated the crisis in the first place. In April, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden met with Ukrainian legislators and told them, "This is a second opportunity to make good on the original promise made by the Orange Revolution." John Brennan, the director of the CIA, did not help things when, that same month, he visited Kiev on a trip the White House said was aimed at improving security cooperation with the Ukrainian government.
The EU, meanwhile, has continued to push its Eastern Partnership. In March, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, summarized EU thinking on Ukraine, saying, "We have a debt, a duty of solidarity with that country, and we will work to have them as close as possible to us." And sure enough, on June 27, the EU and Ukraine signed the economic agreement that Yanukovych had fatefully rejected seven months earlier. Also in June, at a meeting of NATO members' foreign ministers, it was agreed that the alliance would remain open to new members, although the foreign ministers refrained from mentioning Ukraine by name. "No third country has a veto over NATO enlargement," announced Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's secretary-general. The foreign ministers also agreed to support various measures to improve Ukraine's military capabilities in such areas as command and control, logistics, and cyberdefense. Russian leaders have naturally recoiled at these actions; the West's response to the crisis will only make a bad situation worse.
There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however -- although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria's position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.
To achieve this end, the United States and its allies should publicly rule out NATO's expansion into both Georgia and Ukraine. The West should also help fashion an economic rescue plan for Ukraine funded jointly by the EU, the International Monetary Fund, Russia, and the United States -- a proposal that Moscow should welcome, given its interest in having a prosperous and stable Ukraine on its western flank. And the West should considerably limit its social-engineering efforts inside Ukraine. It is time to put an end to Western support for another Orange Revolution. Nevertheless, U.S. and European leaders should encourage Ukraine to respect minority rights, especially the language rights of its Russian speakers.
Some may argue that changing policy toward Ukraine at this late date would seriously damage U.S. credibility around the world. There would undoubtedly be certain costs, but the costs of continuing a misguided strategy would be much greater. Furthermore, other countries are likely to respect a state that learns from its mistakes and ultimately devises a policy that deals effectively with the problem at hand. That option is clearly open to the United States.
One also hears the claim that Ukraine has the right to determine whom it wants to ally with and the Russians have no right to prevent Kiev from joining the West. This is a dangerous way for Ukraine to think about its foreign policy choices. The sad truth is that might often makes right when great-power politics are at play. Abstract rights such as self-determination are largely meaningless when powerful states get into brawls with weaker states. Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? The United States certainly did not think so, and the Russians think the same way about Ukraine joining the West. It is in Ukraine's interest to understand these facts of life and tread carefully when dealing with its more powerful neighbor.
Even if one rejects this analysis, however, and believes that Ukraine has the right to petition to join the EU and NATO, the fact remains that the United States and its European allies have the right to reject these requests. There is no reason that the West has to accommodate Ukraine if it is bent on pursuing a wrong-headed foreign policy, especially if its defense is not a vital interest. Indulging the dreams of some Ukrainians is not worth the animosity and strife it will cause, especially for the Ukrainian people.
Of course, some analysts might concede that NATO handled relations with Ukraine poorly and yet still maintain that Russia constitutes an enemy that will only grow more formidable over time -- and that the West therefore has no choice but to continue its present policy. But this viewpoint is badly mistaken. Russia is a declining power, and it will only get weaker with time. Even if Russia were a rising power, moreover, it would still make no sense to incorporate Ukraine into NATO. The reason is simple: the United States and its European allies do not consider Ukraine to be a core strategic interest, as their unwillingness to use military force to come to its aid has proved. It would therefore be the height of folly to create a new NATO member that the other members have no intention of defending. NATO has expanded in the past because liberals assumed the alliance would never have to honor its new security guarantees, but Russia's recent power play shows that granting Ukraine NATO membership could put Russia and the West on a collision course.
Sticking with the current policy would also complicate Western relations with Moscow on other issues. The United States needs Russia's assistance to withdraw U.S. equipment from Afghanistan through Russian territory, reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, and stabilize the situation in Syria. In fact, Moscow has helped Washington on all three of these issues in the past; in the summer of 2013, it was Putin who pulled Obama's chestnuts out of the fire by forging the deal under which Syria agreed to relinquish its chemical weapons, thereby avoiding the U.S. military strike that Obama had threatened. The United States will also someday need Russia's help containing a rising China. Current U.S. policy, however, is only driving Moscow and Beijing closer together.
The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process -- a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1...the-000000

[Lauren Johnson]

This article is well worth reading. If accurate, it gives a lot of background about why things starting going south for the junta shortly after Strelkov's resignation. One feature of this article is Cassad's description of the "humanitarian aid" otherwise known as the "military surplus store." He thinks that ultimately, the junta's shooting down of MH17 played into the hands of the NAF.

1. On the political underpinnings of the replacement of the leadership of the DPR and the LPR I wrote more than once in July and August, especially in the materials related to the attempts to neutralize Strelkov. Eventually, what was planned already in early July is attempted to be realized in early September. Those who lacked negotiating capacity were pushed aside, the others were suspended on the threads of shipments. If somebody didn't get it yet, the shipments of the humanitarian aid to some or other commanders are the indirect element of control over the political processes in Donbass. Those who receive humanitarian aid are the good guys, those who don't receive it are on the sidelines, in the best for them case. After a certain point, the valve of shipments of the humanitarian aid is arbitrarily turned on in the interest of some field commanders and shut off for those who are stubborn. This is how the increase of controllability from Moscow actually happens.

2. Moscow, just like in the Spring of 2014, does not have a coherent strategy in Donbass. It operates situationally. This happens because the line towards Large Novorossia, which was planned in early March and required a military intervention for its support, was abandoned. But because the rebellion actually already went full steam ahead by that moment, the Kremlin faced an unpleasant dilemma: the military intervention was ruled out due to a threat of a direct confrontation with the USA. They also had to rule out a complete dump of Novorossia, because the consequences of it for the internal stability of the Russian Federation were considered to be unacceptable. In the end, a half-and-half variant was chosen, when they fed the militia on the one hand and tried to negotiate with the Ukrainian oligarchs (bypassing the USA) about mitigating the process on the other hand.

3. These negotiations continued over July, in the meantime there was a shallow stream of humanitarian aid for the militia. The fighting was in general low-intensity (compared to July and August), the sides swarmed, trying to feel out a compromise, but it couldn't be achieved. During this time Mariupol was surrendered to the junta with Akhmetov's help. In Donetsk they engaged in every possible activity (raiding businesses, fighting for power, fighting for humanitarian aid, creating constitutions of varying degrees of sanity) except war. Strelkov, who appeared in Slavyansk with the expectation of a military intervention (which didn't happen) and sat on the crucial transport hub in the rear of the junta military group that covered the border from a possible invasion, was frankly "sad", while the increasingly strong military of the junta continued to encircle Slavyansk, preparing a pocket for Strelkov.

4. Later the well-known events occurred: the junta offensive started on July 1st, Slavyansk fell into an operational encirclement, the work on surrendering the city started in Donetsk, Strelkov, after consultations with Moscow, leaves Slavyansk and Kramatorsk and arrives into Donetsk with 2000 fighters. Immediately, Pozhidayev, Khodakovsky, Lukyanchenko are thrown out of their positions. Pushilin left a bit later. After that the war got really serious, without joking: the casualties got really massive, the destruction got really large-scale, every weapon that could be used was used. The failure of the attempts to negotiate naturally led to the attempts by the junta to win the war using only the force. They got close to this in the first half of August, when after a month of bloody fighting its detachments rolled into the streets of Shakhtyorsk and Krasnyi Luch. But as we now know, this didn't happen and Novorossia stood its ground.

5. Meanwhile, after Strelkov arrived in Donetsk, due to the increase in density of their battle order, the militia managed to free up the forces and set up the first major encirclement for the junta, which terminated in a massive catastrophe with thousands KIAs and MIAs and also with more than a hundred armored vehicles that were destroyed and captured by the militia. At the same time, negotiations with Akhmetov and Poroshenko were continued by the initiators of the negotiations with the junta (the immediate contacts were carried out both by Surkov in person and by his people) and their masters the Russian oligarchs like Friedman and former members of the so-called The Family, like Voloshin. Kolomoisky, as his conflict with Poroshenko was developing, gradually fell out of the possible partners in these negotiations. Now Russia and Poroshenko hammer him together: Benya is no longer needed, Benya will absorb the responsibility for the civil war.

The main interest of the circles that are represented by Surkov is to prevent a direct confrontation with the USA, which would put their assets in the West and their ability to run business there under threat. The boundary condition was to prevent a complete dump, which would primarily damage Putin. He would have to explain why is it that despite all of the bombastic hurrah-patriotic rhetoric, Russia is getting bent over again and again in Ukraine one time they put Yuschenko, another time they depose Yanukovich, and now Novorossia getgtting dumped. So while they were laying into Strelkov to the benefit of the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who were trying to negotiate, the valve of the "military surplus store" started to gradually open, but in strictly homeopathic doses.

6. This was quite sufficient for the militia fighters to contain the offensive of the junta forces. The militia suffered losses and slowly retreated to the crucial positions: pretty much surrendering the Lisichansk protrusion, Debalcevo, and Saur-Mogila. All of this quite reasonably led to the August crisis, when the junta tried to achieve a decisive victory by using the bridgehead in Debalcevo, getting so close to the victory that it could almost touch it. It is quite possible that if the junta wouldn't plan various stupid moves near Perekop and on the border with Transnistria, but would use the military that were stationed there in Donbass, then they would be sufficient to actually cut the DPR from the LPR. But it didn't happen. In Moscow it was understood that it is no longer possible to wait any longer. A swift replacement of the leadership of the DPR and the LPR with more controllable people followed. They were replaced exactly with the focus on the negotiations with the junta. The main mechanism of the replacement was the humanitarian aid. The same Strelkov was given a clear condition: either you will go or your military won't get the aid. It is quite clear what Strelkov chose. The private contractors were openly told not to send cargo to Strelkov a few days before his resignation. Because the decision to open the "red valve of the military surplus store" to the full was already made back then, the curators of the Ukrainian direction were absolutely not interested in Strelkov taking the credit for this. By this time he already managed to successfully defend Slavyansk for 3 months and then to defend the Donetsk agglomeration for more than a month. Therefore, right before the start of the counter-offensive, following Bolotov (in that case there were both political and a number of non-political reasons), Strelkov was forced to resign. Literally within a few days, the hot stream of water from the "red valve of the military surplus store" started to digest the junta units in rapidly emerging cauldrons. This led to the overall apocalyptic picture of burned bodies, burned tanks, and other materiel. The junta losses increased by the factor of several tens of times in a few days and the front line started to attain increasingly dangerous shape.

7. The junta clearly missed this moment and continued to try to penetrate the defense of the army of Novorossia near Ilovaysk despite the threatening situation, with confidence worthy of a better cause. They pretty much did the same thing that the Germans did in Stalingrad. This culminated in a terrible catastrophe and in the disintegration of the whole South Front. The "red valve of the military surplus store" played its part perfectly and the junta started to openly get massacred in numerous cauldrons. In some places it was done by the forces of the army of Novorossia, in other places it was done by "merchandisers from the military surplus store". But officially there are and there were no "merchandisers" there. The junta rolled back straight to Mariupol on the south, it surrendered the Lugansk airport and Lutugino, it effectively surrendered Debalcevo and the question of the military of Novorossia entering the operational space was put on the agenda. Meanwhile, Russia was taking advantage of the opportunity due to the unsuccessful provocation with the downed "Boeing". "Boeing" was shot down by the junta, but it couldn't properly dump the responsibility for this on the militia and Putin. So, while the junta yelled that the "military surplus store" is turning into an adult film studio where the Ukrainian army is having a very rough time, Russia expectedly pointed to the "Boeing" and the junta. As a result of this, a nicely shaped informational line of the West with respect to Novorossia was temporarily undermined by this unsuccessful provocation, which is now let go, albeit with difficulty.

The assault on Mariupol, a complete sweep of Debalcevo, capturing Schastye, the strikes on Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, and also the offensive on Konstantinovka were on the agenda. A threat of utter military catastrophe started to loom before the junta, on the background of a lamentable situation in the rear.

8. By the late August - early September it became clear to everybody that it won't be possible to destroy Novorossia militarily. The junta was clearly spewing blood and at the same time the USA and their satellites started to toughen their policy in the relations with the Russian Federation. Just like in April, the attempts to mitigate the process by going around the USA began, recording some acceptable result on the ground (which is attempted to be covered with media phantoms like the "united pro-Russian Ukraine" and various rotten talk of "federalization"). If you look carefully, the USA weren't actually represented during the Minsk talks. And the behavior of the junta depends exactly on them. By September, Akhmetov already managed to fully reinforce his positions in the structures of the DPR (he will do just fine in Novorossia, no matter what it will become) and to set up a certain dialog with Moscow. All people who lacked negotiating capacity were removed from crucial positions. Thus, the negotiations were launched in Minsk, which were supposed to not only determine the future of Novorossia but also to help Russia avoid a direct confrontation with the USA, gradually letting go of the war and also avoid sanctions that touch "our precious Gazprom", oil, and bank sector, and also some of the oligarchs. Little depends on Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky here, both of them are suspended on the humanitarian shipments and if it is necessary, then they will be replaced with even more flexible people. The junta of course jumped at such an opportunity, because the offensive by the army of Novorossia was developing successfully and the junta had no military way of stopping it. The offensive itself didn't run out of steam yet and could continue successfully for another 5-7 days at least, liberating significant territories and major cities in the process. In the military respect the junta certainly benefits from this respite. Currently it is urgently plugging holes in the front and sending the reserves there, performing local offensives at the same time, akin to the offensive on Telmanovo with the goal of cutting the Novoazov group of the army of Novorossia from the main forces to the north of Telmanovo. Russia also got what it wanted in the form of softening the rhetoric of the USA and their satellites and the delay of sanctions. Ordinary militia fighters and fascist punitive troops, who didn't understand what is the truce for... of course, they weren't asked. Within the framework of the so-called "big politics" these are just consumable pieces on the "chessboard". Some of them may bleed in defense for a month, waiting for the valve of the "military surplus store" to be opened up for them. Others may perish by hundreds in the cauldrons, cursing Poroshenko and the AFU.

9. Nevertheless, despite the political truce, the war as such continued, because the logic of the conflict demands its resolution by exactly military means. The inertia of war triggered new firefights, shelling, and combat. At the same time the junta openly and publicly demonstrates that it uses this "cease-fire" for accumulating forces and for preparing a new offensive. The USA look at this approvingly, because the military solution of the problem of Novorossia and the final defeat of Russia in the fight for Ukraine is among its national interests. It is absolutely irrelevant what will be state of the junta while it remains in power, it will be used against the Russian Federation. The suffering of the population, victims among soldiers, destroying the infrastructure from the point of view of the USA all of this is just insignificant collateral damage. So, from the military point of view, only a complete destruction of the fascist junta is a best guarantee for ending the war.

The leadership of Novorossia understands this, but cannot do anything they are dependent on the political line of the curators of the Ukrainian policy and on the humanitarian shipments.

From this come stupid announcements like "we thought that the junta may possibly observe the cease-fire, but it doesn't observe it bad, bad fascist junta". Of course, such kindergarten seriously discredits both the military and political leadership of the DPR and the Russian policy in Novorossia. The junta figured out this moment and clearly uses it, but it has one problem: it cannot solve the problem of Novorossia by force if the star-and-striped hand of sanctions won't be placed on the "red valve of military surplus store" and carefully shut it off, giving the necessary time for the junta. Otherwise, it is certainly possible to start another offensive, but the risk is very high of not getting the junta flags over Donetsk and Gorlovka as a result, but rather getting new thousands of corpses and hundreds of destroyed tanks and APCs with yet another temper tantrum by the patriots of Ukraine that Poroshenko and generals betrayed everybody.

Because the parties cannot determine the parameters of resolving the crisis, the war continues on its own. The resumption of full-scale military action appears unavoidable, because the USA will push the junta towards forceful destruction of Novorossia. Russia, on the other hand, will fall into the very same fork of decisions: between a forceful scenario (military intervention or "impolite merchandisers" is not all that important this is just a method of implementing a decision that was taken) and dumping Novorossia (stopping military support, agreeing to "united Ukraine", and arm-twisting for those commanders of the army of Novorossia who will start to ask "unpleasant questions). The main difficulty of the negotiators is that the standard reaction of the militia to the proposal of "united pro-Russian Ukraine" is "Which fucking Ukraine?!" Only the political technologists in Moscow and Surkov's servants, who broadcast this BS into the masses, may fight for the "united Ukraine" on the Russian side. The militia fights for other things.

Some still cannot understand that the war of the junta against Novorossia is just one dimension of the conflict. Without resolving the tensions between the USA and the Russian Federation there won't be a full-fledged piece there. So, the Minsk negotiations and the obscene piece of paper that was signed there is just another attempt to jump out of the same unpleasant dilemma. One of these decisions will have to be made in the end.

Actually, this is why I am not in a hurry to join the crowd with the cries of "Novorossia was dumped" or to deliver mantras about "Putin's Clever Plan". The final choice is yet to be made. The current attempts to avoid this choice only make the conditions for making it worse.

Novorossia in one shape or another will definitely happen. In the nearest weeks it will be decided what exactly will it be, once the final choice of Russia in the Ukrainian question will become clear.

Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1773476.html (in Russian)

[Lauren Johnson]

Another interpretation of the truce and an important one. Skip to the bold section below for a good summary.

Novorussia - Surrender or victory?

by Yuri Baranchik

So, what happened in Minsk? Surrender or victory? This is the kind of argument that not only the average citizen of our immense territory is currently having, but unfortunately, also a significant part of the expert community. There is no simple answer to this question without considering what had happened a week earlier in Brussels at the EU summit and at the NATO summit on the 4th and 5th of September in Newport, Wales.

Russia won a political victory in Brussels: the EU (Germany and the countries of the Old Europe) refused to impose new sanctions against Russia under pressure from the United States and its most loyal vassal states (Britain, Poland, the Baltic States and Ukraine). Thus, the EU chose not to escalate the conflict with Russia on the eve of winter. Furthermore, the EU itself has advised a way out of the situation on the South Stream and remove it from the sanctions of the Third Energy Package: to apply the same rules that apply to offshore projects of the EU; for example in Bulgaria, to allow Gazprom to buy them and connect them to the "South Stream".

Despite the many hints and threats from the USA's poodles on the eve of the summit of NATO member countries (as we have discussed in detail in the article "The fate of Novorossia: the US raising the stakes": a) a threat of deployment of a European missile defense system against Russia; b) establishing five new NATO bases in Poland, Romania and the Baltic States; c) breaching the terms of the Founding Act "Russia - NATO"), the summit only concluded with an official statement, which reflects the opinion of the North Atlantic Alliance on the current events on the territory of the disintegrating Ukraine.

As expected, NATO condemned the Russian military invasion of the Ukraine; urged Russia to withdraw its military from Ukraine; to cease its assistance to the militias and intervening in the situation in Ukraine under any pretext. There was no discussion of anything else - not about the violation of the terms of the Founding "Russia - NATO" Act, the deployment of the European missile defense, or of NATO bases in the five above-mentioned countries. According to Rasmussen, he took into consideration (it can't be said any better) the desire of the Poles, Balts and Romanians to place NATO "transit points" on their territories.

What does this tell us? The EU, despite all of the threats and cries of the U.S. and their accommodating "tough-talking" poodles, is not ready to go beyond the current level of confrontation with Russia. Germany, the countries of not only the Old Europe (Greece, Italy) but also the New Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) have opposed the escalating level of anti-Russian rhetoric, the development of new sanctions, and especially, the inclusion of mechanisms and instruments of pressure by NATO.

Furthermore, the recent summits in Brussels and Newport showed that Europe wants to end the current tense relationship with Russia as quickly as possible and return to the previous level of cooperation, despite, let me stress, the current events in Ukraine. In fact, Europe agrees with the return to Russia of her historical territories (Crimea and those regions of Ukraine which had been given to her by the Bolsheviks) in exchange for an uninterrupted supply of gas and the continuation of mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation.

The reason for this is that Europe is not happy with the new format of Ukraine's statehood, which was established there after the February revolution. Therefore, this dangerous regime, which entails instability, has to end. In the way it was hinted at the talks in Minsk on the eve of winter.

Therefore, the achievement of the ceasefire agreement between the junta and the representatives of Novorossia in Minsk is a major victory for Russia, because it didn't allow the United States to sever relations between Russia and Europe and gave Europe the necessary arguments for the rejection and blocking both in Brussels and in Newport, of the decisions that the US was prepared to launch against Russia. It is a big joint victory for Russia and the EU today.

Now let's go back to the long-suffering Novorossiya. Many, even such distinguished experts as Boris Rozhin, consider what has happened as a sell-out of Novorossia. Let's look at this in more detail.

First, apparently, Poroshenko and the junta are not going to abide by the terms of the truce the shelling of Donetsk, Lugansk, and Gorlovka and the fighting in the district of Mariupol by the junta's troops continue. Therefore, the hands of the resistance forces are no longer tied.

Secondly, if attacks by the junta's troops were to stop and the peaceful and boring process of negotiations were to resume, where would those residents of Ukraine, who are now under the authority of a neo-banderite fascist junta, shift most of their attention to? That's right; it'd switch to the internal problems: the price of food, gasoline, inflation; unemployment; the hryvna's weakening exchange rate; gangsterism, and etc. etc. Poroshenko will be pretending that he is making decisions because he needs to win the parliamentary elections.

What will Kolomoisky, Lyashko, the battalions of the National Guard and all those others who are interested in kindling the fires of war, do? What are they supposed to do? There is nothing for them to do in such circumstances; therefore, tensions within the junta will increase. Even if Russia and Germany are able to continue to keep Poroshenko from the use of force in the East, sooner or later the abscess inside the junta will burst.

About the "new Transnistria". This is what the experts scare the population and neophytes with as a proof of the American party and the government's slogan that "Putin sold out". The fact is that the phenomenon of Transnistria has only become so because of one factor - the absence of a common border with Russia. Nothing else. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have a common border with Russia which is another matter. Yes, technically they are all unrecognized states. But in reality, I emphasize, in reality Abkhazia and South Ossetia, unlike Transnistria, are under the protection of the Russian army, and no-one in his right mind would dare stick his nose in there..

Therefore, the scenario of a "new Transnistria" in relation to the DPR and LPR is out of the question - the common border with Russia rules out such a scenario. Yes, these regions will have an uncertain status for some time. However, after the bursting of the abscess in Kiev or another scenario the two regions of Novorossia will be joined by the other five that were handed over to Ukraine by the Bolsheviks. And that will be the end of Ukraine in its present form.

In conclusion, about the main question: why did Russia choose this course and not speed up events in Novorossia? The first reason has already been mentioned: it was necessary to give Germany and Europe the arguments required not to allow the US to implement their prepared-in-advance positions at the summits in Brussels and Newport.

Secondly, it is necessary to provide Europe with a calm winter and not to let those Eastern European countries that depend on gas supplies through Ukraine, to freeze. Because, if chaos begins on the territory of the Ruin and the gas pipelines begin to be blown up, Eastern Europe will freeze, and the US will then have very strong arguments with which to put pressure on the EU in regards to Russia's position in the Ukrainian crisis.

Therefore, the question of uninterrupted gas supplies to Europe in the winter is one of the most important ones. This alone is a reason for the ceasefire, not to mention the welfare of the peaceful inhabitants of Novorossia.

Besides, a cold and hungry winter will bring to their senses those in Ukraine who are now controlled by the junta. The junta will be pushed out after the winter anyway.

Thirdly, the rapid capture of all seven regions of Novorossia would give the US a pretext to build a new iron curtain. Not somewhere in Germany, but right on the border with Russia and in the form of the notorious NATO bases in the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania. At the same time, we would permanently lose the rest of Ukraine, which is unacceptable. That is, any immediate division of Ukraine gives us a victory: so much was captured and so quickly. However, from a strategic and long-term perspective, such a scenario would in the end be our defeat, because we would lose the rest of Ukraine and in addition, would allow the US to take full and complete control over Europe.

***

That's why we need all of Ukraine, which, similar to Belarus, will be friendly to Russia and join (with the possible exception of the three Western regions) the Eurasian Economic Union. Together we will then form a trade zone with the EU that will unite the entire Eurasian continent from France and Holland to China, Iran and India in a single trade and economic zone.

[Magda Hassan]

***

That's why we need all of Ukraine, which, similar to Belarus, will be friendly to Russia and join (with the possible exception of the three Western regions) the Eurasian Economic Union. Together we will then form a trade zone with the EU that will unite the entire Eurasian continent from France and Holland to China, Iran and India in a single trade and economic zone.

You would think is would be strongly in Germany's interest too.