Crisis in Oekraïne #121 Putin vs. The World

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Lugansk Machine Works moved to Russia

Lugansk Machine Works brings its production in Russia. The company will stop its work in Ukraine and will resume in Chuvashia. Such measures, plant management decided after the shop had been almost completely destroyed by shelling, according Vesti.ru.

Currently, workers are dismantling the surviving equipment. Once it will be delivered to Russia, the production is fully operational at the new location. All employees of the plant as it was decided to evacuate to Russia. It is planned that Friday will be connected equipment for precision metalworking. Now Chuvashia equipped canteen for the workforce and prepare for their accommodations.

The last 12 years LuganskMash worked on the Russian market. Now Russian partners provide the necessary support to Ukrainian colleagues for settling in the new place.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 19:45 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Putin is altijd zo onvoorspelbaar geweest. Gevaarlijker zijn die malle alu hoedjes die om hem heen lopen. Ik spotte gister ook weer zijn adviseur in de beelden uit Minsk, de adviseur die denkt dat een derde wereldoorlog onvermijdelijk is, omdat hij de toekomst kan voorspellen en de natuurlijke cyclus van de wereld heeft doorgrond o.i.d. . Op dit moment weet ik niet hoe het westen meer druk kan zetten. De economische sancties zijn al vrij fors, maar in tegenstelling tot voorheen wil Putin niet zijn hok zijn.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 19:45 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Putin is altijd zo onvoorspelbaar geweest. Gevaarlijker zijn die malle alu hoedjes die om hem heen lopen. Ik spotte gister ook weer zijn adviseur in de beelden uit Minsk, de adviseur die denkt dat een derde wereldoorlog onvermijdelijk is, omdat hij de toekomst kan voorspellen en de natuurlijke cyclus van de wereld heeft doorgrond o.i.d. . Op dit moment weet ik niet hoe het westen meer druk kan zetten. De economische sancties zijn al vrij fors, maar in tegenstelling tot voorheen wil Putin niet zijn hok zijn.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 20:02 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
PM of self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic says DPR leaves Ukraine never to return

DONETSK, August 26. /ITAR-TASS/.

The prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko, has vowed that the DPR will not remain a territory of Ukraine under any circumstance.

The Novorossiya news agency says he dropped the remark in view of the on-going negotiations in Minsk by the heads of state of the Customs Union countries, Ukraine and EU representatives. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said at the meeting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be preserved.

“Federalization does not suit us,” Zakharchenko said.

He said the DPR now saw only one possible option — its total independence from Ukraine.
Zakharchenko speculated that armistice talks, even if they begin after the Minsk meeting, “will not change anything in principle.”

“Of course, negotiations may get underway and some kind of armistice may be achieved, but it will be fragile and not real. Novorossiya no longer agrees not only to federalization, but to the preservation of Ukraine as such,” Zakharchenko said.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 20:03 schreef Gabrunal_2013 het volgende:
We mogen God op de blote knieen danken dat Rusland hier nog wat tegengas geeft.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 20:03 schreef Gabrunal_2013 het volgende:

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Wie bedoel je dan? Toch niet Vladislav Soerkov, dat is juist een hele slimme man! Hij is de architect van het huidige Rusland. Verder is het logisch en voorspelbaar dat sancties niet werken. Ze werkten al niet tegen Iran, laat staan tegen Rusland. Sancties zijn contraproductief, hierdoor worden alleen de standpunten maar verhard. Het enige dat werkt is integratie,samenwerking en vooral tijd. Het polariseren van nu zet je alleen maar terug in die tijd.

De Russen zijn de geallieerden uit WO2 , die misschien wel de meeste verliezen hebben geleden in de strijd voor onze vrijheid. Dat respect heeft men nooit gehad. In tegendeel, Rusland is altijd neergezet als de "bad guy" , terwijl het juist vaak de vredesduif is in de internationale politiek en in ieder geval het westerse geweten. Zonder Rusland (en soms China) zou het westerse machtsblok hun hele agenda van werelddominantie en onderdrukking zonder tegenstand kunnen doorvoeren. We mogen God op de blote knieen danken dat Rusland hier nog wat tegengas geeft.

twitter:

StateOfUkraine twitterde op woensdag 27-08-2014 om 12:46:52 Battalion Donbas cmdr: our men in #Ilovaisk have been abandoned by #Ukraine's mil leaders. We have no choice but to picket Defense Ministry reageer retweet

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 19:42 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Putin is altijd zo onvoorspelbaar geweest. Gevaarlijker zijn die malle alu hoedjes die om hem heen lopen. Ik spotte gister ook weer zijn adviseur in de beelden uit Minsk, de adviseur die denkt dat een derde wereldoorlog onvermijdelijk is, omdat hij de toekomst kan voorspellen en de natuurlijke cyclus van de wereld heeft doorgrond o.i.d. . Op dit moment weet ik niet hoe het westen meer druk kan zetten. De economische sancties zijn al vrij fors, maar in tegenstelling tot voorheen wil Putin niet zijn hok zijn.

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A Russia Problem, Not a Putin Problem

Thomas Graham, Kissinger Associates, August 2014
The Ukraine crisis has put an end to 25 years of U.S.-Russia relations. The swiftness with which they collapsed, and the absence of any influential forces in either country actively working for their repair, is evidence of how much pretension and frustration had infused relations in recent years. It also suggests a deep-seated anti-American bias in the Russian elite, mirroring a Russophobia of comparable depth on the American side.

It may remain true that there is much the two countries could do together, on WMD nonproliferation, counterterrorism, regional balances, energy security, and climate change, among other things, that would advance the interests of each country and benefit the world as a whole, particularly over the long term. But shared interests will not be enough to bring the two countries together again. For the problem in relations is grounded in each country's sense of itself and its role in the world -- in the American belief that it should be the global leader and in Russia's conviction that it should be a major independent actor. That reality creates major obstacles to cooperation even on shared interests.

Under these circumstances, there can be no new reset in relations. Seeking to repair them by returning to an earlier set of assumptions about them is a dead end. Those assumptions no longer hold. Rather, relations need to be rethought in light of the realities in both countries, including the huge divide in worldviews.

The first step in rethinking relations on the American side will require that we ask some fundamental questions, such as:

How important is Putin?

Putin is the dominant figure in Russia today, and he makes the final decisions on foreign policy. But we need to remember that he operates in a political context and does not have a free hand, as he must balance the competing factions around him to maintain his own position. Moreover, he is a product of the Russian elite, and he gives voice to its consensus on Russia's role in the world, which has deep roots in history and strategic tradition. His departure might lead to a change in style, but it will have little impact on the substance of Russian foreign policy. In short, we have a Russia problem, not a Putin problem.

How does the Russian elite think about world affairs?

Russian strategic thinking falls within the broad outlines of the realist school: Sovereign states are the central actors in world affairs; competition among states is inevitable; power, especially the hard variety, is the coin of the realm; and the goal of foreign policy is to create the optimal geopolitical balance for advancing one's interests. In such a world, only the great powers have the wherewithal to pursue genuinely independent policies; they are the few countries that determine the substance and structure of world affairs. Russian pride dictates that Russia must do all it can to sustain itself as a great power. The first task is guaranteeing Russian security.

What are the essential requirements of Russian security?

First, modern Russia has seen its security as dependent on creating strategic depth, as it emerged on the almost featureless great Eurasian plain. To that end, it has pushed its frontiers outward until it met the resistance of well-organized and powerful states. Over centuries, this dialectic of expansion and resistance came to define Russia's geopolitical zone of interest as the heart of Eurasia, which encompasses all of the former Soviet space (and most of the former Russian imperial space minus Finland and Poland). Today's Russia believes that Russian primacy in -- not necessarily control of -- this region is vital to its own security. Ukraine is critical in this regard, since it creates strategic depth against potential aggression from the West; in particular, it precludes Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO and bringing that organization's infrastructure within a few hundred miles of Moscow.

Second, the choice that faces countries in this region is not Russian domination or genuine independence; it is a choice among great powers vying for influence over them. Russians tirelessly point out that today's Ukraine is composed of disparate territories that were only united under Soviet rule. In their minds, much the same could be said of all the other former Soviet states, which assumed their current form in the Soviet period and most of which had no substantial history of independent statehood before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Such states can never be fully sovereign. If they are not in Russia's orbit, they will inevitably fall into that of another great power. As a matter of its own security, Moscow will always seek to limit the presence of other powers in the former Soviet space.

Third, Russian territorial ambitions beyond its traditional geopolitical zone have been quite limited historically. In this regard, the Soviet period stands out as an anomaly, born of the unique conditions of the mid to late twentieth century: the power vacuum in the center of Europe created by the total collapse of Nazi Germany and the subsequent bitter ideological divide and revolutionary upheaval that produced a global competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. Those conditions no longer prevail, and Russia has reverted to its historical policy of creating a suitable balance of power on the European continent that takes into account the interests of the other great European powers.

Is an ideological divide emerging?

Since he returned to the Kremlin in May 2012, Putin has advocated a form of Russian nationalism that sets itself against the West. But his anti-Westernism does not mark an absolute rejection of the West and its values; it does not mark a return to the existential Cold-War struggle between two political systems with diametrically opposed views of human character and the relationship between state and society. Rather, Putin has positioned himself as the defender of traditional Western values against their postmodern, and he would argue decadent, interpretation in much of the West today. In his mind, he is not seeking to export Russia's values, as the Soviet Union did, but rather to rally other societies that also oppose the West's interpretation of certain values to create an international system that is more representative of the differences within a shared value system.

Despite much overblown rhetoric in Washington, Russia in fact poses a limited challenge to the United States. The appropriate response is not to return to the Cold War. But neither is it to speak of a return to cooperation if Russia realizes the errors of its ways and begins to conduct itself in a way the West finds more compatible. Rather, we need to abandon hopes of transforming Russia and acknowledge that it is one of many major powers in the world today. In dealing with Russia, we need to think in terms of competition and accommodation, that is, of great power diplomacy, refashioned to take account of the differences between today's world and the last period of great power diplomacy in the nineteenth century. We might also remind ourselves, that period was one of relative peace and security, of prosperity and progress.

This article is part of Carnegie Corporation of New York's Carnegie Forum: Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations.

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Against detainees paratroopers opened a criminal case

According to him, the Department of Investigation of the SBU launched a pre-trial investigation of the two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - "participation in a terrorist organization, promoting the activities of a terrorist organization" and "the illegal circulation of weapons, ammunition or explosives."

Head of the Investigation Department of the Security Service of Ukraine reported that illegal crossing of the state border of Ukraine is not a criminal offense. At the same time, for the organization of illegal crossing of the state border criminalized. The question of opening a criminal case on illegal smuggle persons across the state border, which may be instituted against the commanders of the paratroopers.

In accordance with the recently amended legislation, a person who is suspected of terrorist activity, but for which there is insufficient evidence, may be detained for a period of 30 days prior to the court decision. On this basis, the Donetsk prosecutor decided to arrest 10 Russian paratroopers.

Previously detained in Ukraine Russian paratroopers were taken to one of the detention centers in Kiev.

On the military detention 331st Regiment of the 98th Division Svir Airborne troops in the SBU reported on 24 August. Later appeared on the Internet of photos and videos of detainees paratroopers. In the Defense Ministry confirmed the findings of the Security Service of Ukraine on the detention of Russian troops of the 98th Division in the area Svir Donetsk region is correct. According to the Ministry of Defense, detainees in Ukraine Russian troops patrolled section of the border, and probably crossed it by accident.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 20:03 schreef Gabrunal_2013 het volgende:

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Wie bedoel je dan? Toch niet Vladislav Soerkov, dat is juist een hele slimme man! Hij is de architect van het huidige Rusland. Verder is het logisch en voorspelbaar dat sancties niet werken. Ze werkten al niet tegen Iran, laat staan tegen Rusland. Sancties zijn contraproductief, hierdoor worden alleen de standpunten maar verhard. Het enige dat werkt is integratie,samenwerking en vooral tijd. Het polariseren van nu zet je alleen maar terug in die tijd.

De Russen zijn de geallieerden uit WO2 , die misschien wel de meeste verliezen hebben geleden in de strijd voor onze vrijheid. Dat respect heeft men nooit gehad. In tegendeel, Rusland is altijd neergezet als de "bad guy" , terwijl het juist vaak de vredesduif is in de internationale politiek en in ieder geval het westerse geweten. Zonder Rusland (en soms China) zou het westerse machtsblok hun hele agenda van werelddominantie en onderdrukking zonder tegenstand kunnen doorvoeren. We mogen God op de blote knieen danken dat Rusland hier nog wat tegengas geeft.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 21:43 schreef tfors het volgende:

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Haha, hier moest ik wel even over lachen. Als de VS, Canada etc. niet snel genoeg naar het Oosten hadden kunnen oprukken had Nederland onder de USSR onder net zo veel (weinig) vrijheid geleefd als het oostblok na WOII

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 21:44 schreef Gabrunal_2013 het volgende:

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Zonder de Russen waren de Duitsers nooit verslagen.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 21:46 schreef tfors het volgende:

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Nee, maar wat is beter de Duitsers of Rusland? Enige reden waarom ik liever onder de USSR had geleefd dan onder nazi-Duitsland is dat de Duitsers aan concentratiekampen voor Joden enzo deden.

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FBI Said to Be Probing Whether Russia Tied to JPMorgan Hacking

Russian hackers attacked the U.S. financial system in mid-August, infiltrating and stealing data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and at least one other bank, an incident the FBI is investigating as a possible retaliation for government-sponsored sanctions, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The attack, which occurred in mid-August, resulted in the loss of gigabytes of sensitive data, and authorities are investigating whether recent infiltrations of major European banks using a similar vulnerability are also linked to the attack, one of the people said.

In one case, the hackers used a zero-day vulnerability in one of the banks’ websites, then plowed through layers of elaborate security to steal the data, a feat several security experts said appeared far beyond the capability of ordinary criminal hackers. The incidents occurred at a low point in relations between Russia and the West, as Russian troops continue to mass on the Ukrainian border and the West tightens sanctions aimed at crippling Russian companies, including some of the country’s most important banks.

The sophistication of the attack and technical indicators extracted from the banks’ computers provide some evidence of a government link, but the trail is muddy enough that investigators are considering the possibility that it’s cyber criminals from Russia or even elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Other federal agencies, including the National Security Agency, are now aiding the investigation, a third person familiar with the probe said.

“The way the Russians do it, to the extent we can see into the process, is they encourage certain targets,” said James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The Russians typically keep open the options to do something more, and the question now is what would trigger that and what would our response be.”

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 21:51 schreef Gabrunal_2013 het volgende:
Als je het over de geallieerden hebt, moet je ook de Russen noemen. Juist zij hebben grote offers gebracht in WO2 voor onze vrijheid dus.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 23:01 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Wel vreemd, Rusland is nu 'echt' Oekraine binnen gevallen in het Oosten, daar zijn de NAVO, US State dept. etc. het allemaal over eens, maar blijkbaar heeft dat geen impact meer.

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Op woensdag 27 augustus 2014 23:13 schreef mapampa het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

Heerlijk die omsingeling van UKR troepen in Amvrosievka

twitter:

Liveuamap twitterde op woensdag 27-08-2014 om 17:28:02 Novoazovsk taken under full control of the ukrainian forces - NSDC via @rnbo_gov_ua http://t.co/SyPvXNDA5g reageer retweet

twitter:

NatVasilyevaAP twitterde op woensdag 27-08-2014 om 18:03:51 Novoazovsk mayor: Rebels enter key southeast Ukrainian town http://t.co/HWTKSZURDc reageer retweet

twitter:

EuromaidanPress twitterde op woensdag 27-08-2014 om 20:41:12 #Novoazovsk "in Russian hands".Info confirmed by local police, local people "prevented from leaving". reageer retweet

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uatodaytv twitterde op woensdag 27-08-2014 om 20:56:47 BRKNG: Ukrainian army has left Novoazovsk. At about 30 Russian tanks and 500 soldiers entered the city - TSN reageer retweet