Crisis in Oekraïne #62 Rusland is een tankstation.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 14:24 schreef DeJori het volgende:

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pravolivo twitterde op vrijdag 28-03-2014 om 14:01:19 How interesting: reportedly Kremlin's directives on how to cover #Ukraine in media, via @barabanch: http://t.co/GgtORIbmZS”; reageer retweet

[ afbeelding ]

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Ukraine leader Turchynov warns of far-right threat


Ukraine's interim President Olexander Turchynov has condemned the ultra-nationalist Right Sector, saying the group is bent on "destabilisation".

Right Sector activists blocked the parliament (Rada) building in Kiev on Thursday night and smashed windows.

They blamed the interior minister for the killing of a Right Sector leader.

Meanwhile, ousted President Viktor Yanukovych has called for a national referendum to determine each region's "status within Ukraine".

He fled to Russia last month after massive demonstrations against him and clashes between protesters and police in which more than 100 people died. The Kremlin says the new government in Kiev came to power illegally.
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Attempt to destabilise

At a parliament session on Friday, Mr Turchynov, called the Right Sector rally outside parliament "an attempt to destabilise the situation in Ukraine, in the very heart of Ukraine - Kiev. That is precisely the task that the Russian Federation's political leadership is giving to its special services".

Right Sector activists are furious over the death of Oleksandr Muzychko, better known as Sashko Bily, one of their leaders. The interior ministry said he died on Monday night in a shoot-out with police in a cafe in Rivne in western Ukraine.

A member of the far-right group in Rivne threatened revenge for the killing of Mr Muzychko.

"We will avenge ourselves on [Interior Minister] Arsen Avakov for the death of our brother. The shooting of Sashko Bily is a contract killing ordered by the minister," Right Sector member Roman Koval was quoted as saying by the Ukrayinska Pravda website.

The Right Sector played a prominent role in the Kiev protests - and the clashes with police - which led to the removal of Mr Yanukovych from power. Its main support base is in western Ukraine.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26784236

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Ex-German chancellor warns of overreaction to Ukraine

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has become the latest German politician to express understanding for Moscow’s position on Ukraine as he warned that overreaction by the West could spur Russian President Vladimir Putin to further aggression.

The 95-year-old Social Democrat sharply criticized the sanctions imposed against Russian individuals as “nonsense” and cautioned that serious economic sanctions could hurt the West, especially Germany, as much as Russia.

He said it was a mistake to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight leading nations just when it was important to maintain a dialogue, but felt the G-20 would be a better forum for resolving the issue in any case.

Schmidt’s remarks in the weekly Die Zeit come as a new poll out this week shows a majority of Germans accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a fait accompli and believe Moscow views Ukraine as part of its zone of influence.

While a majority polled believe the West’s response has been appropriate, fully a third consider even the weak sanctions imposed so far as excessive.

Schmidt’s critique comes after another former Social Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, also expressed understanding for Putin’s actions and criticized the European Union for forcing the issue in Ukraine by insisting on an either-or choice between the EU and Russia.

However, Schroeder is considered particularly close to the Russian leadership and was criticized for his links to Gazprom RU:GAZP -13.62% OGZPY +1.21% after he left office, so Schmidt’s remarks are likely to carry more weight.

The Left party in Germany, which has also criticized the Western response to Ukraine and accused the new government in Kiev of being fascist and antisemitic, quickly seized on Schmidt’s remarks as echoing their own.

German ambivalence regarding Russia and Ukraine has to be an important part of any calculation about a U.S. response, since the EU’s biggest country will steer the entire bloc in the direction it wants to go.

Schmidt said Putin’s action in Crimea was “fully understandable.” Yes, it violated international law and territorial integrity, but so did Western action in Libya. Schroeder has compared it to the war in Kosovo during his chancellorship, which he says was also technically a violation of the U.N. charter.

The agitated reaction of the West is dangerous, Schmidt said, because it will lead to a corresponding agitation of Russian public opinion.

As to whether Russia might now invade other areas of eastern Ukraine, Schmidt said: “I think it is conceivable, but I think it is a mistake for the West to act as if it was inevitably the next step. That could possibly result in fueling the appetite on the Russian side.”

Schmidt had praise for the “caution” shown in the crisis by the current chancellor, Angela Merkel. He criticized those in the U.S. like Sen. John McCain who are calling for more forceful intervention, reminding his German audience that “at the end of the 21st century, Russia will still be a big neighbor.”

The former chancellor noted that while Ukraine is certainly an independent state, historians still debate whether Ukraine is actually a distinct nation.

Schroeder, at an event sponsored earlier this month by Die Zeit, suggested the West should allow some time to pass before engaging in negotiations with Putin. It might only be possible after elections in Ukraine for a government “that represents all the people.”

Germany is particularly sensitive to the fact that the current government in Kiev includes members of the Svoboda Party, which in the past has used Nazi symbols and maintained contact to the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany.

Schmidt reminded his readers that in World War II, Russia was on the side of the West and it was Germany that was the enemy.

“It is very important to remember that despite the Second World War, the Russians have put aside hatred of Germans,” Schmidt said. “There is no hatred, no rejection of Germans by the Russian people.”

http://www.marketwatch.co(...)o-ukraine-2014-03-28

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The Danger of False Narrative
_{March 27, 2014 by Robert Parry}

Exclusive: Like a decade ago with Iraq, Official Washington’s pundits and pols are locked shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx of misguided consensus on Ukraine, presenting a false narrative that is taking U.S. policy into dangerous directions, writes Robert Parry.

The American people got a nasty taste of the danger that can come with false narrative when they were suckered into the Iraq War based on bogus claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction that he planned to share with al-Qaeda.

Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers died in the conflict along with hundreds thousands of Iraqis. The war’s total financial cost probably exceeded $1 trillion, a vast sum that siphoned off America’s economic vitality and forced cutbacks in everything from education to road repair. Plus, the war ended up creating an Iraqi base for al-Qaeda terrorists that had not existed before.

But perhaps an even more dangerous problem coming out of the Iraq War was that almost no one in Official Washington who pushed the false narrative – whether in politics or in the press – was held accountable in any meaningful way. Many of the same pols and pundits remain in place today, pushing similar false narratives on new crises, from Ukraine to Syria to Iran.

Those false narratives – and their cumulative effect on policymaking – now represent a clear and present danger to the Republic and, indeed, to the world. The United States, after all, is the preeminent superpower with unprecedented means for delivering death and destruction. But almost nothing is being done to address this enduring American crisis of deception.

Today, Official Washington is marching in lockstep just as it did in 2002-03 when it enforced the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD. The latest case is Ukraine where Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of committing “aggression” to expand Russian territory at the expense of noble ”democratic” reformers in Kiev.

Not only is this the dominant storyline in the U.S. media; it is virtually the only narrative permitted in the mainstream press. But the real narrative is that the United States and the European Union provoked this crisis by trying to take Ukraine out of its traditional sphere of influence, Russia, and put it in to a new association with the EU.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Ukraine joining with the EU or staying with Russia (or a combination of the two) – depending on the will of the people and their elected representatives – this latest U.S./EU plan was motivated, at least in part, by hostility toward Russia.

That attitude was expressed in a Sept. 26, 2013, op-ed in the Washington Post by Carl Gershman, the neoconservative president of the National Endowment for Democracy, which doles out more than $100 million in U.S. funds a year to help organize “activists,” support “journalists” and finance programs that can be used to destabilize targeted governments.

Gershman, whose job amounts to being a neocon paymaster, expressed antagonism toward Russia in the op-ed and identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize,” the capture of which could ultimately lead to the ouster of Putin, who “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

The NED, which was founded in 1983 to do in relative openness what the CIA had long done in secret, listed 65 projects that it was financing in Ukraine, using U.S. taxpayers’ money. In other words, Gershman’s op-ed reflected U.S. policy – at least inside the State Department’s still-neocon-dominated bureaucracy – which viewed the EU’s snatching of Ukraine from Russia’s embrace as a way to weaken Russia and hurt Putin.

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Export crude, not gas, to help allies, oil exec says

An oil executive told the House Foreign Relations Committee that the United States should export crude oil to allied countries to help their energy security and reduce Russia’s influence.

The testimony from Harold Hamm, chairman and CEO of Continental Resources Inc., came amid bipartisan calls to increase exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to undercut the influence Russia holds by being an energy superpower in Eastern Europe.

“We could help with oil exports that could have an immediate impact all over the world,” Hamm, who is also chairman of the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, said at the Wednesday hearing.

While Ukraine and other Eastern European countries currently lack the infrastructure to import LNG from tanker ships, they have the infrastructure for oil.

“Making America a world leader in LNG exports is a worthy goal, but the truth of the matter is these new export terminals will not be up and running for some time,” he said in written testimony. “If we want to have an overnight impact on today’s global events, we can immediately begin exporting crude oil, which does not have the same infrastructure constraints.”

Continental has significant oil drilling operations in North Dakota's Bakken region, where it is one of the largest producers.

The Domestic Energy Producers Alliance said allowing crude exports are a “longstanding tenet” of its policy platform. A law passed during the 1970s OPEC oil embargo makes it illegal to export crude.

Continental also produces natural gas. Hamm called for quick approval of the 24 applications currently pending at the Department of Energy for projects to export LNG to countries with which the United States does not have a free-trade agreement.

http://thehill.com/blogs/(...)e-says#ixzz2xGfIUEWp

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 16:30 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Hitler achtig

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:17 schreef DeParo het volgende:

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Afghanistan gaat steeds beter .

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Four trapped inside Kabul guesthouse stormed by Taliban
_{KABUL Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:47am EDT}
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Violence has spiraled in Afghanistan in recent weeks, with Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacking an election commission office in Kabul on Tuesday.

Last week, nine people including an AFP journalist and an election observer were killed in an attack on a highly fortified hotel in Kabul.

A senior police official said one attacker in Friday's raid was still resisting, with 18 foreigners, including children, having been evacuated and taken to a safe house.

Deputy interior minister, General Ayoub Salangi, told Reuters that at least one Australian citizen was among those rescued, but the nationalities of the others were not clear.
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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:35 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Je moet wat meer uitzoomen.

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As US war ends, Russia returns to Afghanistan with series of investment projects
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In Afghanistan, Russian officials point to their development activities as a counterexample to US aid projects, which many Afghans criticise as wasteful and misguided.

"The mistake of the last 12 years is that people were eager to give money, but without the proper strategy," said Russian Ambassador Andrey Avetisyan, who was also based in Kabul as a young diplomat in the 1980s.

Many Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, praise the Soviet model even though they fought a bloody 10-year war against the country's army, which invaded in 1979 to support an unpopular communist government.

"The Soviet money went to the right place. They were efficient in spending their money and doing it through the Afghan government," Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post this month.

The new warmth between the Kremlin and Afghanistan was visible this week when the Afghan government released a message from Putin marking the Islamic new year. It was the only such message made public, and was released at a time when the United States and European governments are imposing sanctions on Russia for its expansion into Ukraine.
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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:47 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Leuke pro Russische propaganda crap. Zou ook voor het eerst zijn dat rusland een land hielp. Heb ze amper gezien bij rampen zoals orkanen en tsunamis.

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As the U.S. military prepares to leave Afghanistan after nearly 13 years of conflict with the Taliban, three visiting U.S. congressmen had to endure a statement from Afghan president Hamid Karzai that was released while they were in Kabul.

Citing “the free will of the Crimean people,” Karzai’s office said, “We respect the decision the people of Crimea took through a recent referendum that considers Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.” To date, only Syria and Venezuela have taken a similar position.

The New York Times suggests the Afghan move is linked to the fact that Russia “has been increasingly active in offering development aid. Given Russia’s heavy influence on countries along Afghanistan’s border, maintaining a long-term relationship with the Kremlin is seen as essential to Afghan foreign policy. Moscow is also ramping up its investment in Afghanistan. It is rebuilding the relics of the Soviet occupation and promoting its own political and cultural prowess.”

Indeed, Saturday’s Washington Post has an important article on the changing of the guard in Afghanistan:

“In Afghanistan, Russian officials point to their development activities as a counterexample to U.S. aid projects, which many Afghans criticize as wasteful and misguided. . . . Many Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, praise the Soviet model even though they fought a bloody 10-year war against the country’s army, which invaded in 1979 to support an unpopular communist government.

“The Soviet money went to the right place. They were efficient in spending their money and doing it through the Afghan government,” Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post this month.

The irony here, of course, is rich. Afghanistan was indeed invaded by the Soviets in 1979, but that is now conveniently forgotten by the Karzai regime. It is no doubt grateful the new Russian development aid is being spent “through the Afghan government,” a euphemism for the enormous corruption and bribery Karzai’s government is famous for. For some years, the U.S. tried to bribe the Karzai regime into doing its bidding. Ultimately, they failed. It seems the U.S. is not only clumsy at nation building, but also can’t seem to get the hang of “nation bribing.”

http://www.nationalreview(...)ck-country-john-fund

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Punish Russia? Why some Pentagon officials would prefer restraint. (+video)

While calls mount on Capitol Hill to robustly punish Russia for its incursion into Crimea, some officials in the back halls of the Pentagon are privately pushing for restraint.

That’s because senior US military officials are well aware that a key supply line in and out of Afghanistan runs through Russia.

That supply line, known as the Northern Distribution Network, or NDN, brings food, water, and building materials that keep US troops in Afghanistan fed and America’s longest war going.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/(...)fer-restraint.-video

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 18:17 schreef DeJori het volgende:

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Noorwegen heeft een van de hoogste per capita bijdragen aan de NAVO, en Stoltenberg heeft zoals ik al eerder zei aangetoond een voorstander te zijn van goede NAVO bijdragen vanuit Europa. Lijkt me dat hij mede op aanspraak van de Amerikanen is geplaatst gezien daar nogal wat onvrede bestaat over de bijdrage van Europa aan de NAVO. Hij zal wel moeten zorgen voor meer geld uit de lidstaten.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 20:04 schreef DeJori het volgende:

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Obama wil het defensiebudget nogal verlagen. De onvrede bij de Amerikanen gaat niet over de grootte van het totale NAVO budget maar over de scheve verhoudingen wat betreft de bijdragen.

Wat betreft die Somaliërs, da's niets nieuws. De Europeanen en Amerikanen vechten immers al sinds het begin van 19e eeuw samen tegen piraten.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 23:50 schreef DeJori het volgende:

Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine (Dispatch Nineteen)

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Lyashko: No sponsors, tycoons or deputies on election list of Radical Party
_{Aug. 8, 2012, 3:10 p.m. | Politics — by Interfax-Ukraine}

Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party has approved the party list of candidates for MP and candidates in single-member constituencies.
"A total of 197 people were put on the party list, and 30 people were nominated for single-member districts," Lyashko told reporters after the fourth congress of the Radical Party in Kyiv on Tuesday.

An Interfax-Ukraine reporter said that the top five on the list includes mother-of-many-children Oksana Shevchenko (Kirovohrad region), Liashko's assistant, Andriy Lozovy, expectant mother Ksenia Sapunova, a blind singer and head of the Kalinin Rural House of Culture (Kharkiv region), Ivan Hanzera, and Schors Mayor Roman Zub.

Among the candidates nominated for single-member districts are party leader Lyashko (Chernihiv region) and TV presenter Natalia Rozynska (Kyiv).
Lyashko said that the Radical Party "will do everything to win the election, although it will be difficult."
He also expressed confidence that many of the party's candidates would win the elections.
He said that "the country needs radical changes" and that they could be made only by his party.
"Neither the government nor the opposition can do it," he said.
Lyashko also said that "there are no sponsors, oligarchs or deputies" on the party ticket.
http://www.kyivpost.com/c(...)al-party-311218.html

Ukrainian Parliament Fight Adam Martynyuk vs Oleh Lyashko

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In a statement from the White House, officials said the telephone call from the Russian president had followed a proposal presented by Secretary of State John Kerry to Sergei V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, during talks at the Hague this week.

While there was no immediate indication that either side was prepared to give ground, Putin’s telephone call in itself appeared to represent a shift in tone aimed at defusing a serious rupture in relations and Russia’s increasing isolation.

U.S. officials did not describe details about the proposal but said Obama had told Putin during the call that the United States would like to see a diplomatic solution that involves Russia pulling back its troops from the Crimean Peninsula and not making any further steps to invade other parts of Ukraine.

The statement said Obama, who was visiting Saudi Arabia on Friday, had “urged Russia to support this process and avoid further provocations, including the buildup of forces on its border with Ukraine.”

White House officials said Obama and Putin had agreed during the call that Kerry and Lavrov would meet soon “to discuss next steps.”
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The Kremlin described the Friday telephone call in a statement on its official website, saying that Putin “drew Barack Obama’s attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents, government authorities and law enforcement agencies in various regions and in Kiev with impunity.”
“In light of this,” the Kremlin said, “the President of Russia suggested examining possible steps the global community can take to help stabilize the situation.”
The Kremlin said “specific parameters for this joint work” were to be discussed by Kerry and Lavrov.

In citing extremist action, Putin sought to capitalize on the surrounding of the Ukrainian Parliament over the last two days by members of a nationalist group, Right Sector, that has demanded the resignation of Ukraine’s acting interior minister over the shooting death of one of the group’s leaders this week in western Ukraine.

The presence of masked, armed demonstrators threatening to storm the Parliament building offered the Russian government an opportunity to bolster its contention that the ouster of Yanukovych was an illegal coup, carried out by right-wing extremists with Western encouragement.

In fact, the nationalist groups, largely based in western Ukraine, had formed just one segment of a broad coalition of demonstrators who occupied the streets of Kiev for months demanding Yanukovych’s ouster.

The Kremlin, in its statement, also drew attention to Ukraine’s blockade of Transnistria, a breakaway, pro-Russian region of Moldova, that has relied on land access through Ukraine for crucial imports.
The Kremlin said the blockade was causing “significant complication of the living conditions of people in the region” impeding their mobility and economic activity and urging negotiations.

Putin’s willingness to negotiate also suggested some confidence that he will be dealing with the West from a position of strength, having annexed Crimea and largely dispersed the remaining Ukrainian military units that had been holed up on basis awaiting instructions from Kiev. The Ukrainian government this week formally ordered a withdrawal of those forces.
http://www.theglobeandmai(...)der/article17725916/

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Few Signs of War Plans in Russian Border Town
_{By ANDREW ROTHMARCH 28, 2014}

BELGOROD, Russia — On the outskirts of this sleepy city bordering Ukraine, residents were surprised Thursday when a military helicopter lifted off into the dreary sky.

“Look! They brought out the real machines today,” said Viktor Naumov, 28, a courier, who pulled his car over to the shoulder of an adjacent highway to give a shout of appreciation.

The helicopter was one of the few visible signs here of what Western governments, including the United States, say is a muster of tens of thousands of troops deployed by the Kremlin that could preface an invasion of Ukraine, a step that President Vladimir V. Putin has said he might employ to protect Russian-speakers in the country’s east.

But in and around Belgorod, which sits a scant 40 miles from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and a likely target in case of an invasion, any increased military presence is largely kept out of the public eye. In a region that appears far from being on the brink of war, life continues as normal here, and many residents say they do not want war, dismissing reports of a buildup as rumors set to discredit Russia.

President Obama said Friday that Mr. Putin had signaled his intent to redress “a deeply held grievance about what he considers to be the loss of the Soviet Union.”

“It’s well known and well acknowledged that you’ve seen a range of troops massing along that border under the guise of military exercises,” Mr. Obama told CBS News in an interview. Throughout the month, videos had been posted on social media sites of convoys of heavy military trucks and armored personnel carriers purportedly moving troops into regions across Russia’s more than 1,400-mile border with Ukraine.

“It may simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine or it may be that they’ve got additional plans,” Mr. Obama said.

Residents here are not so convinced. “Show me the tanks first, show me anything here that proves all this, and then we can talk about an invasion,” said Pyotr Kudryavtsev, a retiree walking away from the tracks near the Vesyolaya Lopan station south of Belgorod, where scores of military vehicles were filmed being unloaded on March 12. Mr. Kudryavtsev, like other locals interviewed, denied this, saying that the heavy tracks in the mud close to the rails belonged to construction vehicles.

Those weapons of war have now seemingly dispersed, either onto nearby bases or, as some have alleged, into tightly guarded hiding places along the border, ready to strike.

Despite a strong dislike for the new interim government in Kiev, most residents of Belgorod and the surrounding towns and villages rejected the idea of any kind of offensive attack against their neighbor.

“At all costs we must avoid war,” said Aleksandr Strelkov, a mechanic, who was visiting the Museum of the Battle of Kursk in downtown Belgorod with his 7-year-old son.

Mr. Strelkov stood in front of a 50-foot-tall, larger-than-life diorama of the Battle of Kursk, featuring plumes of smoke from burning tanks and scores of soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The 1943 battle between Soviet and German forces is considered one of the largest tank battles in history.

Patriotism and a hallowed respect for those killed in World War II run especially strong in Belgorod, which bills itself as the City of the First Salute, after a salvo of fireworks in Moscow was dedicated to the city after its liberation from Nazi forces in 1943.

But today the voices of those in Russia who live closest to Ukraine are far less bellicose than leaders in Russia and in the West.

“Everyone has got an aunt, a cousin, or some relative in Ukraine,” Mr. Strelkov said. “My wife is Ukrainian. How could we go to war with ourselves?”

On the stretch of four-lane highway leading from Belgorod to the border, where a patch of warm spring weather has brought farmers out to cultivate their fields and trees into bloom, there are signs of heightened precautions.

Border guards, formerly unarmed, now stand with Kalashnikovs. A checkpoint had been bolstered to a six-man patrol and officers often stop cars with Ukrainian plates, checking documents and inspecting trunks.

Yet at least overtly, the military presence is invisible. Rather than waiting tensely for the first shots to ring out, most residents see a slow cooling and cross-border trips become more infrequent.

Valery Perfilyev, a taxi driver who regularly ferried Russians across the border to shop in Kharkiv, an industrial hub, and young men visiting the nightclubs and, occasionally, brothels of the city, said that traffic had slowed to a trickle since the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanukovych last month.

“We were the oxygen,” he said, referring to the money that entered Ukraine through Russia. “Now it is like that has been cut off. They need us as much as we need them.”

At the stations along the railroad that leads from the city to Kharkiv, administrators declined to discuss troop movements or confirm recent videos that showed a column tanks and other military vehicles purportedly being unloaded at a railway stop 10 miles from the border.

A representative of the Ministry of Defense also refused to comment on troop movements.

As the clouds dispersed and the afternoon sun warmed Belgorod’s wide boulevards on Thursday, locals flocked to the promenade on Narodny Boulevard in central Belgorod.

Many discussed politics, especially fears of growing nationalism in Kiev and reports of widespread lawlessness in eastern Ukraine that have dominated the Russian news media lately.

But would Russia make the next move?

“What will Putin do?” asked Anastasia Yefremova, who wore sunglasses and a lightweight sweater as she sat with friends. “I suppose he will do the right thing, he will protect us. But he will not attack.”

On the train from Belgorod across the border to Kharkiv, many passengers were Ukrainians returning from Russia laden with goods as men drank beer and exchanged Russian rubles for Ukrainian hryvnia with money-changers roving the cars.

A border official, Aleksei Filiptsov, took extra care as he photographed a journalist’s documents, asking questions about his journey.

“If you fly from Sheremetyevo to Ukraine, these kinds of things don’t happen,” he said, referring to Moscow’s largest airport. “But lately we’ve had a lot of unstable people around now. Many more than usual.” He declined to elaborate.

A man carrying a Ukrainian passport who gave his name as Aleksei, 37, was carrying four black bags filled with bottles of oil that he would sell in Kharkiv.

“We’re doing what we always do, just the same as before,” he said, as he watched tensely as first Russian border officials checked passports for those exiting the country, and later Ukrainian border police officers walked through the car, paying special attention to Russian arrivals, particularly young men.

As the checks ended and the doors to the train swung open, he gave a happy thumbs up.

“Praise be to God, things won’t get any worse,” he said, exiting the train, now in Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/20(...).html?hpw&rref=world

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US Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich says US instigated Ukraine Crisis
“What I’d do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers’ money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn’t try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest.”

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Ukraine crisis: Crimea joining Russia 'like Scotland staying in the Union'
Russia's ambassador in London compares Crimean referendum to Britain's case for keeping Scotland

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Ukraine Wants Action, But U.S. Sends Hashtags Instead
As Russian troops amass along the Ukraine border and take over military facilities in the Crimea region, the United States has distanced itself from any boots-on-the-ground intervention.
The U.S. won't send troops or weapons, but it will send hashtags.
While Congress approved an aid package for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia this week, the State Department pushed a Twitter campaign under the hashtag #UnitedForUkraine, which calls on people to share their support for the country.
President Obama had great success using social media during his campaigning days, but does that same mindset work for foreign affairs?
"I don’t know what effect this is supposed to have," said former State Department diplomat James Lewis. "It's a hashtag. What’s it going to do? For this situation, it’s not a useful tool.

twitter:

EuromaidanPR twitterde op vrijdag 28-03-2014 om 21:54:53 #Ukraine PM:We won’t make same mistakes taking IMF loan,as Greece.No pensions/wages cuts. @MaximEristavi http://t.co/9Oa3bOqpgn reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 29 maart 2014 09:43 schreef theNull het volgende:
Verschillende mening over het gesprek van gisteravond:
http://www.washingtonpost(...)of-obama-putin-call/

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VATICAN CITY — President Barack Obama and the Vatican gave distinctly different accounts of the president’s audience with Pope Francis on Thursday, with Obama stressing their common ground on poverty and inequality but Vatican officials emphasizing sharp differences over Obama’s health care law which mandates contraception coverage.

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But Obama said those discussions took place with the Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, not with Francis. ‘‘We actually didn’t talk a whole lot about social schisms in my conversations with His Holiness,’’ he added. ‘‘In fact, that really was not a topic of conversation.’’

The marked difference in emphasis introduced a perplexing element to the long-anticipated meeting, which the White House has looked forward to as way to validate Obama’s economic policies. In a report on Vatican Radio the day before the meeting, the Vatican had signaled that the divisive issues would indeed be on the agenda

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Measures announced by Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk included axing 24,000 public sector jobs and special pensions for members of the judiciary and the military, as well as a 50% increase in gas prices, starting on May 1.

Without these reforms, Yatsenyuk said in Kiev, the Ukrainian economy could shrink by 10% in the coming year. He acknowledged that his country is "on the brink of financial and economic bankruptcy."

He also said that inflation could rise to 14% during 2014, and pledged to counter the rise in the cost of living for the vulnerable, including pensioners.
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We've now heard from the supreme commander of NATO in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, that the 150,000 Russian combat troops on Ukraine's eastern border are "very, very sizable and very, very ready."

NATO on the other hand is "unwilling, unable and unready," at least if you go by some of its vocal military critics in recent years.

Breedlove would contest that description, and NATO remains, after all, the largest and most successful military alliance in history. The problem with history, however, is that the 28-nation alliance has seen better and certainly more coherent days.

From a military standpoint, the Ukraine crisis hits Europe at a time when its European members have slashed $45 billion from their militaries in recent years (the equivalent of the entire German defence budget).

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Op zaterdag 29 maart 2014 12:20 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Dus jij weet het exacte aantal en beschuldigd de NATO ervan het aantal op te kloppen voor hun defensie budget, ongeacht dat het opkloppen van aantallen niet goed is voor de wereld stabiliteit? Grote beschuldiging/ aanname van je.

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"The (Russian) force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready," Breedlove, a U.S. Air Force general, said.

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Russia may have 40,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, two U.S. officials told CNN on Thursday. The officials said that this estimate was largely based on satellite imagery and that a firm number is difficult to assess.

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We've now heard from the supreme commander of NATO in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, that the 150,000 Russian combat troops on Ukraine's eastern border are "very, very sizable and very, very ready."

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Op zaterdag 29 maart 2014 13:42 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Beetje een hoog aluhoedje gehalte.

Het klopt ook totaal niet met de feiten, zoals die er liggen. Eigenlijk wordt dit scenario uitgelegd alsof er tussen 1991 en 2014 'niets' veranderd is en Amerika en Rusland 'vijanden' zijn gebleven.

- Rusland had lid kunnen worden van de NAVO, 9/11 en het raketschild tegen Iran veranderde de zaak, maar de plannen om erover te spreken lagen er. Putin had zelfs aangeboden om Bush te helpen bij de aanval op Afghanistan.

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- De NAVO had een bewuste keuze gemaakt, om geen militaire infrastructuur of defensieve troepenmachten naar de Baltische staten te brengen en het te beperken tot politieke mogelijk economische samenwerking. Immers was er geen dreiging meer van Rusland.

- Om de relatie met Rusland te verbeteren en te 'resetten' werd het plan voor een raketschild stopgezet door Obama onder druk van Hillary Clinton en kwam er een nieuw ontwapeningsverdrag.

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http://mediamatters.org/r(...)-scrapped-mis/198517
It's long been a Republican mantra that President Obama caved to the Russians when he decided in 2009 to scrap a Bush-era missile defense program and replace it with a more flexible system he said would better address the threat of potential short- and medium-range missiles the administration believed Iran had made more progress developing. Defense hawk Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the decision "seriously misguided" at the time.

In fact, experts say, the new program was no less of a threat to Russia, which has always viewed U.S. missile defense as an affront to its own security. The president called it more comprehensive than the previous program -- as well as cost-effective -- and said it would provide "stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies." And in an op-ed about the program, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that critics who were accusing the administration of scrapping missile defense in Europe entirely "are either misinformed or misrepresenting what we are doing."

One former U.S. official who worked on national security issues called the Obama administration's new program "a double whammy" to Russia. [CBSNews.com, 3/10/14]

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- In Georgië werd al heel snel tegen Saakashvili gezegd door Condoleezza Rice dat hij niet kon rekenen op de militaire hulp van de NAVO of de VS als hij zelf een conflict uitlokte. De hulp was beperkt tot economische hulp.

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De EU daarentegen is wel medeverantwoordelijk voor deze rotzooi. De bureaucraten in Brussel hebben bewust de revolutie in de hand gewerkt en ondanks dat Verhofdstadt en van Baalen als twee rasmongolen stonden te schreeuwen dat ze Oekraïne zouden verdedigen en dat ze gewonnen hadden is daar niets van terecht gekomen natuurlijk.

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The Obama administration is pushing to free $50 million in long-stalled aid to promote democracy and civil society in Russia, an effort that comes amid a drumbeat of accusations that the United States is meddling in Russia’s internal politics.

The money, held up for years in Congress, represents some of the proceeds from an unusual foreign aid program in which tax dollars were invested in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to help them develop into market economies.

For the most part, the investments turned out to be profitable and the money was reinvested. In recent years some of the proceeds were returned to the Treasury, while some money has been redirected to create foundations that provide foreign aid.

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U.S. SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE: Voting 399 for and 19 against, the House on March 27 passed a bipartisan bill (HR 4278) authorizing $70 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine, including $50 million to strengthen its civil institutions. In part, the bill expands Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America broadcasts into Ukraine, Moldova and the Crimean Peninsula. The bill also expands and gives force of law to economic penalties and visa denials ordered by President Obama against certain Russian officials and civilians who have worked to destabilize Ukraine. To pay for itself, the bill cuts U.S. aid to Pakistan by $70 million.

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De Amerikanen hebben 'geen' hekel aan de EU als in de landen op zich, maar wel in het apparaat dat in Brussel zit. Barrosso, Schulz etc. daar hebben de Amerikanen niets mee, vandaar dat ze tegen Merkel zeggen: "Prima wij leveren gas" en tegen de EU bonzen: "Jullie moeten je eigen zaakjes opknappen".

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Het 'feit' is dat Yanukovich Oekraïne failliet heeft laten gaan, dat de huizen van hem en zijn ministers vol liggen met gestolen geld en dubieuze deals en dat ze van hun vijanden martelaren hebben gemaakt door ze te vervolgen. Vergeet niet dat Yanukovich al eerder aan het shoppen was voor financiële hulp en zowel in Europa en Rusland praktisch gezien weinig gehoor kreeg voor zijn criminele en frauderende bende. Als je de staat van het leger ziet dan snap je ook waarom

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Putin heeft handig gebruik gemaakt van de situatie om de Krim in te lijven en te laten zien dat Rusland het niet accepteert als Oekraïne een bende is, maar daardoor heeft hij verdere revoluties juist aangewakkerd. Plus hij heeft eerder nog Yanukovich neer gezet als 'zijn' mannetje en daarmee weinig vrienden gemaakt onder de niet Russisch sprekende Oekraïense bevolking.

Het enige wat je Obama en Kerry echt kunt verwijten is dat de twee niet hun verantwoordelijkheid nemen op het gebied van Syrië, Venezuela, Egypte, Irak, Oekraïne, delen van Afrika en zelfs Afghanistan en constant een afwachtende houding hebben. Ze laten wat drones rondvliegen in het Midden Oosten om Al Qaida kopstukken op te blazen en vinden het wel best. Nu is niemand 'voor' een Amerikaanse interventiemacht, maar enigszins moeite doen om te voorkomen dat onschuldige burgers het slachtoffer worden van burgeroorlogen en revoluties is het minste wat je van een 'supermacht' mag verwachten en wat ook vriend en vijand verwachten. Putin heeft een hekel aan chaos en zwakte.

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Op zaterdag 29 maart 2014 17:59 schreef theNull het volgende:

twitter:

GORussiaNews twitterde op zaterdag 29-03-2014 om 17:22:47 ?|?|? Breaking News Russia Conducts Test of Nuclear ICBM Missile Near... http://t.co/41Chtc6mbe http://t.co/DFNOQlsOvd #russia #asia reageer retweet

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Investigators dubbed them "the librarians," four Air Force nuclear missile launch officers at the center of a still-unfolding scandal over cheating on proficiency tests.

"They tended to be at the hub" of illicit exchanges of test information, says Adam Lowther, one of seven investigators who dug into details of cheating that has embarrassed the Air Force and on Thursday brought down virtually the entire operational command of the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.

At least 82 missile launch officers face disciplinary action, but it was the four "librarians" who allegedly facilitated the cheating, in part by transmitting test answers via text message. One text included a photo of a classified test answer, according to Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, who announced the probe's findings Thursday.
- See more at: http://www.cortezjournal.(...)sthash.U1AgVv3G.dpuf