Crisis Oekraïne - Rusland #186 Vuren nog niet gestaakt

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Russian conscripts tell of fears of being sent to Ukraine
MOSCOW (AP) — When Alexander was due to finish his year of mandatory military service in October, his commander told him he had no choice: He had to sign a contract to extend his stay in the army and head to southern Russia for troop exercises.

The 20-year-old knew that meant he might end up fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Other soldiers he talked to had been sent there.

His commanders "didn't talk about it, but other soldiers told us about it, primarily paratroopers who had been there," Alexander said in an interview with The Associated Press, which is not using his surname for his safety.

The former private first class ended his military service earlier this month. He avoided being sent to Ukraine — although not without first being threatened with prison for desertion.

Human rights groups have received dozens of complaints in the past month alone from Russian conscripts like Alexander who say they have been strong-armed or duped into signing contracts with the military to become professional soldiers, after which they were sent to participate in drills in the southern Rostov region.

"We receive messages from all over in which (soldiers) say that they're being sent again to Rostov for military exercises," said Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, a group with a three-decade history of working to protect soldiers' rights.

"Those who have been there (to the Rostov region) before know that in actual fact it means Ukraine."

Because only contract soldiers can legally be dispatched abroad, worries are spreading among families that inexperienced young conscripts could be sent to fight in eastern Ukraine.

While Russia has denied it is sending arms and troops to support the separatists, since the summer dozens of soldiers have been reported killed by explosions during drills in the Rostov region — deaths that rights groups actually attribute to the conflict over the border in Ukraine. Weapons appear to flow freely across the frontier, and one group of Russian paratroopers was even captured in August, 50 kilometers (30 miles) inside the war zone.

So far, the Russian government has been able to keep a tight lid on information about any soldiers in eastern Ukraine through a shroud of official denials, harassment of independent reporters who cover the deaths, and carrot-and-stick pressure on the families of those killed. But rising concerns among families with young sons could pose a risk for President Vladimir Putin.

Russia's secrecy about the soldiers' deaths has an important precedent: During the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the government released little information about those killed in the conflict. When the true numbers of casualties became known, the intervention turned unpopular.

More than 5,600 people have been killed since April in the fighting between Ukrainian troops and the rebels. It is unclear how many Russian soldiers have died in the conflict, as the Defense Ministry has rejected rights groups' requests on the number of soldiers killed on duty in 2014. But the rising casualty count among Russian soldiers specifically could prove decisive in Putin's thinking as he comes under pressure to prevent an expansion of the conflict that might put more Russians in the line of fire.

"This is a conflict that reaches pretty deep into the psyche of the Russian people. It's not a foreign conflict. ... It's something very close to home," said Dmitri Trenin, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow. "This is something that's at the back of a lot of people's minds, and in particular, people with sons of draft age are worried.

"Military conquest, in my view, would not be supported by the Russian people, and I think everyone knows it," he added.

In October, Alexander was preparing to return to his hometown of Inta, a city of 30,000 people that skirts the Arctic Circle, when he and a dozen other recruits were told to report immediately to their base outside of Moscow.

"They told us: You have to go on a trip," he said as he wolfed down a full tray of food at the local McDonald's. "At first there wasn't any talk about a contract, but later they said that in order to go on the trip we would have to sign a contract, because we can't go as conscripts."

Russia requires almost all young men to serve in the army for one year at age 18, although many find ways to defer or avoid it. Those who want to have careers in the army can become professional soldiers by signing contracts for two or three years.

Alexander and his best friend in the unit both have pregnant girlfriends and had no intention of extending their army service. But they were told that they had already agreed to the trip, and that they couldn't back out.

"We wanted to refuse," he said. "But they refused our refusal, and we had to go."

The commander assured them the contract was a formality and they could quit within a month, when the trip was over. But Alexander had different commanders in Rostov, who told him that he was obliged to carry out his three-year contract. He heard tales of fighting from more experienced soldiers who had already been to Ukraine. Alexander would not repeat those stories, noting that he "did not want to go to jail" for revealing state secrets.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a written request for comment sent Feb. 9 or to follow-up phone calls.

Adelya Kamelatdinova's 19-year-old son was serving as a recruit in the army in July when he sent her a text message saying he was being sent to military exercises in Rostov. Then in August, he disappeared for weeks — only to resurface in September and tell her had been stationed in the Ukrainian region of Luhansk, in a village about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Russian border.

When she went to the local recruitment office to complain with another mother whose son had been hospitalized with a concussion, nobody listened: "They told us that our sons were participating in exercises and there aren't any soldiers in Ukraine; that it was a fantasy we thought up."

Kamelatdinova, who asked that her son's name not be used for fear of retribution, said he had not signed a contract but that he had been forced to sign a statement in which he agreed to cross the Ukrainian border. The document did not have a specific date on it listing the span of the assignment.

Melnikova, from the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, believes the drive to recruit more professional soldiers could be a way to make Russia's involvement in the conflict look retroactively legal, were it ever to become public. Rebel leaders have also said that any Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine are volunteers fighting during their vacation time — a privilege enjoyed by contract soldiers alone.

"Here they got some smart-aleck lawyers who said, 'OK, we'll observe at least this (law), we won't send conscripts,'" she said. "It's absurd and nonetheless illegal."

The recruits are sometimes tempted by the promise of relative fortunes — a minimum of 20,000 rubles ($300) per month, compared with the 2,000 rubles ($30) that conscripts usually receive. But often they say they are tricked, told that the contract will only last for one or two months, or threatened.

"My son said they held them all in an auditorium, threatened that they would ruin their reputations, send them crawling through the trenches ... and told them they were traitors of their country," said the mother of one soldier who serves at a military base in Kamenka, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of St. Petersburg. She asked that neither her name nor that of her son be used for fear of reprisals.

"A lot of them gave in, whoever's nerves didn't hold out," said the woman. She added that her son had managed to turn down the contract, but that many of his fellow conscripts hadn't, and were supposed to leave for Rostov this week.

Many conscripts who then try to break the contracts are threatened by commanders with being considered absent without leave, a charge punishable by up to five years in prison.

Alexander and his friend ultimately fled Rostov on Dec. 31. They said they were threatened with desertion by their commander in Naro-Fominsk, and it was only after reaching out to NGOs for legal help that they were able to return to Naro-Fominsk to legally quit. But most conscripts are 18 or 19 and have little awareness of their rights to do so: Alexander says that the 10 other conscripts from his division sent to Rostov with him in October are still there, and that he has heard from other soldiers that 500 new recruits signed contracts in January, and were also headed there.

"The phrase 'I'll put you in military prison if you don't sign the contract' explains everything," said Alexander, when asked why he and so many other conscripts collapsed under the pressure.

Irina, the mother of a 19-year-old recruit serving in the Nizhny Novgorod region who asked that her last name not be used for fear of reprisal, said her son had recently called to say he had signed a contract and was on his way to Rostov. She didn't know whether he had been coerced or not, but said she had never heard him previously mention plans to sign a contract.

"I deceive myself and tell myself that it's just the army, that everything has to be this way, that everything is OK," she told the AP. "But they've sent them for three months to the border with Ukraine. ... Of course I'm scared."

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 14:59 schreef haags_kwartiertje het volgende:
Wat staat ons allemaal nog te wachten, vraag ik mij oprecht af.. Stront aan de knikker tussen Rusland en Navo geloof ik niet zo in eerlijk gezegd.

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The Draft Dodgers of Ukraine

The country’s struggling army is trying to replenish its ranks. But with its forces taking a pounding in the east, Kiev is discovering that new recruits are making themselves scarce.

KIEV, Ukraine — Roman has been dodging the draft for almost a month now.

A longtime political activist and accountant in Lviv, in western Ukraine, he no longer lives where he’s registered at his parents’ house in a small village outside the city, so he wasn’t there when the local draft board tried to serve him notice on Jan. 16. His father refused to sign at first; he relented after the head of the village threatened to call the police. But Roman, 24, who declined to give his last name for fear of being tracked down, never showed up for the required medical examination.

“I am against every war, but especially this war, because it’s meaningless,” said Roman, who has been staying in an apartment in Lviv that belongs to his wife’s relatives. “I think this conflict was created artificially. The Ukrainian mass media helped this along by spreading this patriotic hysteria.”

Desperate for manpower in its standoff with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, which has lasted some 10 months and killed at least 5,600, the Ukrainian military early this year reinstituted a general draft, giving itself the power to conscript young men between the ages of 20 and 27. But a huge number of Ukrainians, like Roman, are reportedly avoiding service, either because they’re disturbed by the prospect of fighting their fellow countrymen in the rebel ranks, are against the war in principle, or because they are simply afraid to go. Although no exact figures on the number of those avoiding conscription are available, it could be as many as tens of thousands: The military said in September that during partial mobilizations in 13 regions in 2014, 85,792 of those summoned didn’t report to their draft offices and 9,969 were proven to be illegally avoiding service.

Now young men with views like Roman’s are on the run as the government tries to stem a rash of reported draft dodging and is cracking down on anti-war sentiments. Last week, high-profile journalist Ruslan Kotsaba was detained on charges of treason and espionage after he spoke out against mobilization. Days later, President Petro Poroshenko announced that the security service had “detained 19 active critics of mobilization” for their “anti-Ukrainian activity.” New regulations reportedly in the works could soon prevent those eligible from service for going abroad or even leaving their home regions without permission.

The reports of large-scale draft dodging have raised questions about whether Ukraine will, in the face of a cease-fire that appears increasingly shaky, be able to recruit the manpower it needs to defend itself against Russia aggression — and whether it will be able to do so without repressing freedom of speech or civil liberties.

Roman, for his part, is nervous. This month, worried that his arguments against the war would attract the attention of the authorities, Roman deleted all the posts on his Facebook page.

“I deleted everything, cleaned out the page, because I’m afraid,” he said. “I’ve been reading the statements of these parliamentarians that social network pages are full of terrorist propaganda … that what you write on networks can be held against you, that censorship should exist even on the Internet.”

The Ukrainian military, hollowed out by years of corruption, was woefully unprepared for the pro-Russian uprising that began in eastern Ukraine in April.
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A vast web of volunteer battalions sprang up to fill the manpower gap — some of which, operating only loosely within the scope the military’s chain of command, have been accused of human rights abuses and war crimes.
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The draft announcements have been met with alarm even in the country’s traditionally more nationalistic west. Ukrainian outlets have published reports of men fleeing the country en masse to avoid being drafted. In one village in the Ternopil region, 45 men out of the 60 who were to be called up left the country five days beforehand, and all the draft-age men in another village disappeared overnight, regional draft office commissar Andriy Masly told journalists. Of the 14,000 men who were supposed to present themselves at the regional draft office for medical examinations, 7,500 didn’t show up, he said.

Roman said that out of the 36 young men in his home village who were called up, he knows several who are avoiding service. More than 1,300 criminal investigations have been opened against citizens suspected of evading military service, according to the Defense Ministry.

Small anti-mobilization rallies have been held in places like Zaporizhia, which borders Donetsk region and is close to rebel-controlled areas.

The Ukrainian government’s response to reports of draft dodging has been to tighten the screws on civic freedoms.

The moves come just as Ukraine faces increasing scrutiny for its handling of the detained journalist, Kotsaba, who faces treason and espionage charges for recording a video statement in which he called on Ukrainians to resist Kiev’s “illegal” mobilization, and argued that the conflict in eastern Ukraine was a “civil war,” not an “anti-terrorist operation,” as Kiev officially calls it.

Human rights watchers roundly condemned Kotsaba’s detainment, and Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience. But that hasn’t stopped the Ukrainian government from pursuing other measures that would clamp down on freedom of speech when it comes to the fighting: After Kotsaba’s arrest, Anton Geraschenko, an aid to interior minister Arsen Avakov, said he was working with Parliament to introduce legislation making it a crime to publicly call on people to avoid mobilization. On Feb. 7, Geraschenko warned activists planning to hold a picket against mobilization the next day that if they spoke out, each of them would be held for several hours to ascertain their identity, Amnesty International reported.

Valeria Lutkovskaya, Kiev’s official human rights czar, said in a statement on Tuesday that the “persecution of journalists and civic activists for their activities is unacceptable.” Lutkovskaya said she was “fairly confident” that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the freedom of expression, had been violated.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 15:05 schreef Cherna het volgende:

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Daar geloof ik totaal niet in. Putler is een idioot, maar zo gek is hij ook weer niet. Al roepen de separatisten wel te willen doorstoten tot Kiev ook dat zie ik niet gebeuren. De steun van de Russen zal wel ophouden als het Novorossiya veilig is gesteld. Wel kan het zo zijn dat men wat blijft stoken om de destabilisatie in stand te houden zodat ook het Westen niets aan de Oekraïne heeft.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 14:24 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Apart hoe de geschiedenis zich herhaalt.

In 39/40 dacht Frankrijk veilig te zijn achter de Maginot linie en vonden de Duitsers de Blitzkrieg uit als antwoord op de slopende loopgraven oorlog uit WW1.

De huidige manier van Russische oorlogsvoering is een antwoord op de zeer geautomatiseerde manier van oorlogvoeren waar wij de NAVO gewend aan is geraakt. Echter zijn kruisraketten, bommenwerpers en drones niet te gebruiken als er geen grote afstand zit tussen jou en de vijand en het vooral gaat om straatgevechten en infiltratie missies.

In Fallujah hadden de Engelsen hetzelfde probleem, een angry mob met molotov cocktails die je tanks bestookt op straat is niet te lokaliseren of uit te schakelen met een vliegtuigbom.

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De VS en Groot-Britannië overleggen over nieuwe sancties tegen Rusland vanwege het schenden van het staakt-het-vuren in Oost-Oekraïne.

De Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken John Kerry houdt Moskou verantwoordelijk voor recente gewelduitbarstingen in het oosten van Oekraïne. Hij noemt het gedrag van Rusland 'landjepik'.

Zo wijst hij met name naar de situatie rond Marioepol, waar Oekraïnse soldaten bedreigd worden door een troepenopbouw van de rebellen. Als zij deze stad veroveren, hebben de rebellen een havenstad vlakbij de Krim, eerder geannexeerd door Rusland.

"Wat er gebeurt in Marioepol is onacceptabel, we denken aan extra sancties," aldus Kerry.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 15:32 schreef Breekfast het volgende:

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 15:44 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:
Afsluiten van SWIFT. Echt benieuwd wat de Russische reactie zou zijn.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 15:52 schreef Cherna het volgende:

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Dit.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 16:02 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Zou het knap vinden als je in de tijd van Twitter en Facebook een geheime aanval kunt uitvoeren. Tot nu toe is iedere poep en scheet van het Russische leger van hun basis vlak over de grens tot in Oekraine bijgehouden en vastgelegd. Tanks zijn getraceerd met emblemen en markeringen van Rostov tot Debaltseve.

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MarQs__ twitterde op zaterdag 21-02-2015 om 15:58:45 In #Donetsk, damaged vehicles and ammo arriving, probably from #Debaltseve @21brklynhttp://t.co/G9pPpqZsm5 reageer retweet

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MarQs__ twitterde op zaterdag 21-02-2015 om 15:56:46 #Mariupol: City quiet but battles ongoing east of it. All checkpoints are closed.via @DEmmerich reageer retweet

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Pro-Russia rebel build-up near port city alarms Ukraine military
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A Reuters media team in Sakhanka, half-way between Mariupol and Novoazovsk, were told by rebels that one of the local roads had been closed "because of fighting" though no shooting or shelling could be heard.

Some rebels had formed a base in a complex of houses in Bezimenne further up the coast and there were dozens of well-armed fighters milling around, some of whom looked like Russian military special forces wearing Russian army patches and insignia on their uniforms.

There were no signs of a new influx of tanks and troops in the region as mentioned by Kiev on Friday. A couple of military trucks could be seen on the road from Novoazovsk to Mariupol and an armored personnel carrier was parked in a forest near Shyrokine also on the coastal road.

In Bezimenne, one rebel fighter who gave his nom de guerre as Boxer denied the Kiev reports of more Russian tanks and fighters being sent to the area.

"It's all a lie. The only people fighting here are miners, tractor drivers and farm workers," he said.

He said rebel fighters were observing the Minsk ceasefire agreement worked out by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarussian capital and had pulled back heavy artillery from the Mariupol area

The United States, which is considering tightening sanctions against Russia and arming Kiev, also says it has sighted Russian reinforcements in the south east. The State Department said Russian support for the rebels was undermining international diplomacy and would bring costs on Moscow.

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Mass protest in Moscow against 'coup' in Kiev
Thousands of pro-Kremlin activists have taken to the streets of central Moscow vowing to prevent a Ukraine-style uprising in Russia.

The rally on Saturday by the Anti-Maidan movement marked one year since scores of demonstrators were gunned down in Ukraine's pro-Western uprising that came to be known as the Maidan protests.

"Ukraine's example has taught us a lot, and we won't allow a Maidan in our country!" organisers said ahead of the rally in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Putinism forever," said a hand-made banner held by an elderly woman, while a column of Cossacks brandished a placard reading "The Maidan is a disease. We will treat it".

After the Kiev uprising ousted Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych last February, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and has since backed a separatist rebellion in the east of the country.

Moscow police said some 35,000 turned up for Saturday's event.

The marchers, some dressed in fatigues, waved Russian flags and many sported the black and orange St George ribbon, a symbol of victory over Nazi Germany that Ukrainian separatists have adopted as their badge of honour.

"Yankee go home and take the Maidan with you," read a massive banner carried by several people.

Established early this year, the umbrella movement includes several groups representing bikers, Cossacks, athletes and Russian veterans of the Afghan and Chechen wars, some of whom have fought alongside rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Warning against coup attempts

One of the movement's leaders, Nikolai Starikov, said the march was their first major rally aimed at discouraging the pro-Western opposition from plotting a coup in Russia.

"Don't even try. Don't make any attempts to rock the boat in Russia," he said in televised remarks.

State-controlled television gave ample coverage to Saturday's event and said similar rallies had been held across the country.

The opposition plans a protest on March 1 against the Ukraine conflict as well as Russia's economic crisis, which has been exacerbated by Western sanctions over Moscow's support for the separatists.

Earlier this week a Moscow court jailed top opposition activist Alexei Navalny for two weeks in a move that will most likely prevent him from leading next weekend's rally.

The protest is set to take place in southeastern Moscow, after authorities denied permission for the activists to march through the city centre.

Putin remains Russia's most popular politician despite hardships brought on by the economic crisis and several rounds of Western sanctions.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 16:33 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:
Er is nog geen sprake van een aanval op Mariupol, maar Westerse en Oekrainse media lijken zo'n aanval reeds te gebruiken om het akkoord van Minsk te begraven.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 16:33 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:
Er is nog geen sprake van een aanval op Mariupol, maar Westerse en Oekrainse media lijken zo'n aanval reeds te gebruiken om het akkoord van Minsk te begraven.

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Op zaterdag 21 februari 2015 16:33 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:
Er is nog geen sprake van een aanval op Mariupol, maar Westerse en Oekrainse media lijken zo'n aanval reeds te gebruiken om het akkoord van Minsk te begraven.