Ukraine – Page 13

‘Kosovo gives Crimea right to self-determination’

The recognition of Kosovo independence set a precedent that gives Crimeans, as well as Basques and Catalans, a right for self-determination, German opposition leader said, lashing out against Angela Merkel’s support of sanctions against Russia.

Gregor Gysi, a parliamentary head of the largest lower-house opposition party in Germany has spoken out on Thursday against German Chancellor’s unquestioning support of the coup-appointed Ukrainian government.

“They formed a new government….. Immediately recognized by president Obama by the EU and German government as well. Miss Merkel! The vice-prime minister, the defense minister, minister of agriculture, environment minister, the attorney general.. They are fascists!” he stated.

Gysi said that NATO opened Pandora’s Box by recognising the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo and that Crimea’s secession from Ukraine applies the same pattern of international law.

“With Kosovo, they opened Pandora’s box. What’s allowed for Kosovo, you should also allow for others. I told you this but you haven’t listened to me. Winning the Cold War has eclipsed everything for you, you forgot about everything else,” Gysi said.

“The Basques are asking why can’t they make their choice, whether they want to stay within Spain or not? Catalonians are asking, why can’t they decide whether they want to belong to Spain or not. Of course people living in Crimea are asking the same thing.”

“I think that Crimea breaking away from Ukraine is just the same as Kosovo. I knew Putin would use this argument, and he did,” the politician said. “It must be found, such status for the Crimea, which will be acceptable for Ukraine, Russia, and us.”

Gysi also commented on NATO’s expansion to the east and called on the German government and the West to acknowledge the “legitimate security interests of Russia.”

“When we restored Germany’s unity, the US, German and other foreign ministers proclaimed there will be no NATO expansion to the east. But this promise has been broken. There was an expansion of NATO in Russia’s direction,” said Gregor Gysi in an outburst directed at Merkel.

“Security in Europe, there are neither without nor against Russia, but with Russia. When the crisis is over one day, an advantage could be that international law is finally respected again from all sides,” Gysi concluded.

Right before Gysi’s emphatic statement Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed German MPs, expressing her support of imposing sanctions and warning Russia that it risks “massive political and economic consequences” if it sticks to its position on Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly said it considers the actions of Crimean authorities reasonable and legal, and will respect the results of the referendum.

Source: RT

US definitely wants war in Ukraine

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts talks to Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts thinks the Neoconservatives in the U.S. government want war in Ukraine. Dr. Roberts says, “They definitely want war, of course. They’ve wanted it ever since Reagan was President. The Neocons were always saying we have to attack the Soviet Union, and Reagan said we are not going to win anything, we are going to end it. The Neocons got to where they really disliked Reagan because he wouldn’t take advantage of Soviet weakness to attack them. So, they are war minded. They produce documents that say nuclear war is winnable. So, they are basically crazy people; and, yet, they have determined the course of foreign policy since the Clinton Administration. Under George Bush, they controlled the show; and today, under Obama, the Neoconservatives control it.”

Some say the U.S. wants war so they have something to blame the fall of the U.S. economy. Not so, says Dr. Roberts, “They (Neocons) have been very clear about their ideology of American hegemony over the world. It’s like Adolf Hitler all over again. You know, the Germans are the chosen people and have the right to override others. Neoconservatives don’t use the Nazi language. Instead, we’re (Neocons) said to be the ‘exceptional’ people, the ‘indispensable country.’ They use these adjectives to elevate the United States above law, its own law and international law. So, it’s alright if we commit war crimes with naked aggression. It’s alright if we torture. It’s alright if we kidnap people in foreign countries and take them to other foreign countries. This is all just part of America achieving hegemony. Notice the way we achieve it is not by argument or reason or persuasion or anything like that. It’s by force.”

Roberts goes on to say, “So, why is Ukraine important? Well, there is the Black Sea naval base that Russia has there. They have a lease on it until 2042. You have Eastern Ukraine, which is former Soviet military industrial complex . . . for Washington, they say, look we can really bring a serious strategic threat to Russia here. We can devalue their nuclear deterrent by putting anti-nuclear bases in Ukraine on their border. So, when we put pressure on them, they have to think much harder when they stand up to us because we will have the upper hand. . . . So, that’s the real reason for what they are doing. There are other economic reasons. They want to get their hands on Ukraine. They want to loot it.”

On the economy, and if we are headed for another crash, Dr. Roberts says, “I think what we are headed for is continuous sinking. How fast it would be? I don’t know. Everyone’s running out of savings. People have been living off their savings for 5 years. For example, the elderly don’t get any interest income. So, what people are doing is spending down their capital to maintain their lives. As this capital is spent down, there is nothing left to spend. So, consumer spending and retail spending just gradually fall and fall. I don’t think there is going to be a sudden collapse, but there could be a sudden collapse because of all the money the Fed is pumping into the system. This is inconsistent with the dollar’s value and the dollar being the reserve currency.”

On gold, Dr. Roberts says, “To protect the dollar from Quantitative Easing (QE), the Fed is selling naked shorts in the gold market to keep the gold price from rising so rapidly that it exposes the worthlessness of the dollar. . . . The physical stock of gold in the West to meet delivery demand is diminishing rapidly. So, one day the Chinese will buy 100 tons of gold, and we won’t be able to make delivery. That would crash the system. It would just pop. So, there are things that could crash it suddenly. Regardless . . . the economy is going to gradually sink because there are no jobs, or no good jobs. . . So, there is not a recovery. The U.S. is a busted state. It’s completely busted.”

On the Federal Reserve money printing to prop up the economy, Dr. Roberts, who has a PhD in economics, contends, “I think they realize all the money printing does undermine the dollar, and if they lose the dollar, the game is over. So, they have to protect the dollar.” But what happens if the economy falls hard? Will they crank back up QE? Roberts says, “Suppose the economy does move down fairly fast, then all the pressure will be on them to support the economy. Given the stupidity of the media and stupidity of economists and the stupidity of Congress, supporting the economy will mean more QE. If it gets really bad, you could see the Fed cave in and start printing more money . . . at some point, it’s going to cost them the dollar.”

A bright future with barraco barner

Given the tendency to handsomely reward the less educationally advantaged, Gemma Worrall may have a bright future ahead of her.

If you haven’t heard of her, she’s the British 20-year-old beauty salon receptionist from Blackpool who became an overnight Twitter sensation last week with her ludicrously misspelled and misinformed observation on the Ukrainian crisis.

If you really did miss it – and sadly for Gemma’s IQ score not many did – it went thus: ‘If barraco barner is our president why is he getting involved with Russia, scary.’

She’s had more than her comeuppance for the public display of ignorance, with 7,000 re-tweets of her observation, making news as far away as Australia.

But I have a feeling it will be Gemma – and all the other beautiful girls like her – who will have the last laugh.

Thery probably have a far brighter future than young women who model themselves on intelligent people. Think Kardashians or any American music star for that matter.

Think about it. Gemma’s had numerous interview requests and been wooed with promises of thousands of pounds for prime-time TV appearances.

With those 14 ditzy words, Gemma achieved what millions of well-informed girls – who could find Ukraine on a map in an instant – have failed to do. And that’s to be recognised and rewarded.

Times have changed and the value system seems to have gone into reverse. The only ones who hit the headlines and make the money are those who work hard… at being in the gym or at the tanning salon.

It’s not brains that line your pockets or attract admiration today.

Source: Daily Mail

Ukraine: The coup to install billionaires

By Dmitri Menin.

It has long been known that revolutions are carried out by romantics, and their fruits harvested by cynics. But Ukraine has now put them all to shame with the unbelievable speed with which it has rushed from romanticism to cynicism. The final few dazed revolutionaries are still wandering across Maidan Square shouting «Down with thieves and oligarchs!» and «Long live the government of national confidence», while at the same time it is these same oligarchs who are confidently taking up the more substantial government posts, such as multimillionaire Arsen Avakov, for example, who has been appointed Minister of Internal Affairs, as well as getting entire regions to feed on, such as billionaires Ihor Kolomoyskyi in Dnepropetrovsk and Sergey Taruta in Donetsk. The other appointees may have fewer millions at the moment, but they will soon catch up. New changes are also afoot. The New York Times reports that the nomination of Vadim Novinsky, the owner of Smart Holding Company whose net worth is estimated to be USD 1.9 billion, for the post of Kiev’s representative to Crimea is on the cards.

There is a rumour that the author of this ‘forced’ staffing strategy is former prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko, who went to see the people on Maidan Square in a wheelchair, but who was able to stand and walk about in the American Embassy. It turns out that is the place where one can breathe the salubrious air of freedom. It is assumed that the oligarchs, who represent the country’s business elite, will be able to exert a controlling influence over workers in eastern Ukraine. Yuriy Lutsenko, an ally of the magically-cured maiden Yulia Tymoshenko, has said that the reason oligarch’s are being appointed is so that big business can be as involved as possible in protecting the country’s territorial integrity, which will not just make use of public resources, but all available private resources as well. Only now, something tells us that this plan is far from spontaneous and that this is exactly the reason why the turmoil and undertaking took place to begin with. And as far as which citizens are primarily going to be saved by these private and public resources, there is absolutely no doubt at all – the most worthy, which is to say the oligarchs themselves. In essence, the era of the complete triumph of the oligarchy in Ukraine has arrived. Masks are being thrown off even more quickly than any kind of decency allows. There is a terrible hurry before the people befuddled by the incense of the burning tyres finally see the light. By then, however, it may very well be too late.

Simon Jenkins, a journalist for The Guardian, writes: «Romantics sometimes refer to the «wisdom of crowds», but they ignore the capacity of totalitarians to manipulate the masses to their will. They forget the hysteria and cruelty of which programmed crowds are capable. Any upheaval can offer the hope of better times. But history is always a sceptic».

Despair is discernible in the words of one of those who took part in the events in Ukraine: «In any case, good intentions like these without any constructive suggestions to take and create a people’s council, popular control or a people’s government are going to be faced with the fact that foreigners are once again going to end up in these public offices.

«Because the trend of Ukrainian desperation lies in the fact that the vermin we for some reason keep electing to govern us do not come from outer space. They live among us! Which is why any recombination of elements that make up the current system of power, which is represented by a political circle of particularly active, deceitful and cynical vermin, is going to come to nothing».

Another disillusioned revolutionary believes that «Maidan is probably waiting for the next grandiose ‘flop’ – something like what happened in 2005. There is no ‘elite’ in Ukraine that would be able to replace the corrupt domestic bedlam. The ‘Donetsk clan’ has been moved aside, and the ‘liubi druzi’ (the ‘dear friends’ of Viktor Yushchenko) are returning. What’s more, they are clearly hungry for revenge and in the mood for it. These are the same ‘liubi druzi’ that successfully ‘carved’ and ‘sawed’ under Tymoshenko in the previous attempt. Except that while they came to power in 2005 under the slogan ‘the Orange Revolution’, now they are chomping at the bit under the rhetoric of Maidan. Tymoshenko was released after all the human fatalities, and she and Turchynov were immediately hoisted to the top of the power pyramid. What is that about? Why such an unprecedented honour? Who exactly are these Elders of Zion? Whilst averting their eyes, some deputies say that such figures exist. All the rest are a closely guarded secret».

But they are not being kept secret any more. Let us look at two of them now.

The new head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration is Israeli citizen Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a well-known Ukrainian businessman and head of the European Jewish Council. He is ranked the second richest person in Ukraine (2013) with a net worth of USD 3.645 billion. He is a member of various supervisory boards, the co-owner of PrivatBank, the Neftekhimik-Prykarpattya oil refinery, and the oil and gas extracting company Ukrnafta, the vice-president of the Football Federation of Ukraine, and, according to a number of political analysts, one of the most influential people in Ukraine. It was Kolomoyskyi who was always the financial sponsor of the ‘Yulia Tymoshenko’ political project. He lives in Switzerland. The fact that his PrivatBank was one of the first major lending institutions in the country to stop issuing money to the people because of the ‘Maidan troubles’ is evidence of how much of his own money Kolomoyskyi is willing to share with the people of Ukraine. In reality, he needs additional money himself to rectify affairs in his business empire. Much to the joy of Kiev’s new rulers, he has already registered his presence through his offensive remarks towards Russian president Vladimir Putin. Evidently there will be no point waiting for money, only insults.

Sergey Taruta has been appointed the governor of Donetsk region and is co-owner of the Industrial Union of Donbas Corporation, as well as president of FC Metalurh Donetsk. In February 2008, his net worth was USD 2.65 billion and Taruta ranked 8th in the Top-130 Richest Ukrainians. After the global financial crisis, however, his net worth fell dramatically to approximately USD 750 million. He is urgently in need of fresh infusions to restore his former greatness and save his assets. Governing a region as affluent as Donetsk will give him a good chance to do this, where he will be busy collecting objects of ‘high antiquity’. For this reason, he has spent a long time getting closer to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.

Looking at these men, and knowing that it is these men who are standing behind the regime’s main figures, you start to wonder why Turchynov and Yatsenyuk are referring to themselves as a «kamikaze government» quite so insistently, and giving themselves a political life of 3-4 months. Why had it been necessary to rush to power quite so fiercely? Acting President Alexander Turchynov says that the provisional government is doomed because it will have to implement unpopular decisions. «Not those promised by the populists, but those that are needed to save Ukraine from default and restore the faith of creditors and investors. It will be criticised and vilified, but it must fulfil its duties and burn for the sake of Ukraine». Once again there is the question of whether it is for the sake of Ukraine or for the sake of its most worthy sons like Kolomoyskyi, Taruta and others. Yatsenyuk has already announced the unconditional acceptance of all IMF conditions, which will have a serious impact on the further deterioration of life for the Ukrainian people. But then on the other hand, fresh money will be received to save big business, which will then move along the already familiar route to offshore accounts and precious safety deposit boxes that will be hidden much more securely than those of the simpleton Yanukovych. It seems that the ‘kamikaze’ of Turchynov and Yatsenyuk is not going to involve anything except cutting out coupons to transfer power to the oligarchs.

And as far as Maidan’s «Circle of National Trust» is concerned, do they really believe in this fairytale about the fat cats being saviours of the homeland? After until, until fairly recently its leaders had been saying that Ukraine’s new government of national confidence would be closed to anyone on the list of the 100 richest people in Ukraine. Well what are they keeping quiet for?

They, for example, announced that they were going to convene a national popular assembly on Maidan Square on 2 March to listen to a report on the first results of the new government’s work. «And let Turchynov, Yatsenyuk, Tyahnybok, Klitschko and Avakov just try not to come!» it said in a statement on their social network site. People did actually gather on the square. But what did they talk about? About deflecting the threat of Russian ‘aggression’, both invented and over-exaggerated, seemingly so that no kind of report could be given. In truth, nobody has stuttered anything at all about the results of the new government’s work. And maybe nobody is going to ask, either. So what did the young people from the «Heavenly Hundred» and Berkut actually die for?

Drill, Baby Drill!

America is poised to displace Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer with fracking. With that could come a hobbling of Opec and unforeseen shifts in US foreign policy.

So rapid has been the change in its energy fortunes that even some experts, as well as policy-makers in Washington, are struggling to keep up. Nor are we just talking oil. So much natural gas is being released by the shale also that for now outlandish quantities of it are simply being burned off into the atmosphere.

Even predicting future oil output isn’t the precise science you’d expect. “We keep raising our forecasts, and we keep underestimating production,” Lejla Alic, an analyst with the International Energy Agency noted recently. Last year US production reached 7.4 million barrels a day, an increase over 2012 of 15.3 per cent. A jump that large hasn’t been seen since 1951. This year the US should produce 8.3 million barrels a day.

Take another indicator – the volumes of crude being moved by trains, often a mile long, from the shale fields to refineries and terminals. In all of 2008, train companies moved 9,500 wagons of the black stuff. Last year, 400,000 of them rumbled across America.

How long America’s shale boom will last is hard to forecast also. In Texas, which on its own is set to increase production to 4 million barrels a day this year, the drilling peak still hasn’t been reached, but it’s the politicians around the world who set the price and make the markets. Increasingly, the decisions that matter will rest with the US, as it adjusts to its new status as a glut producer.

“The United States is now poised to become an energy superpower,” write By Robert D. Blackwill and Meghan O’Sullivan, in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

The consequences are likely to be far-reaching, notably affording Washington a chance it hasn’t had since the energy crisis of the early 1970s to reassess its relationships with those countries, often ruled by unappetising despotic governments – Saudi Arabia included – on which America has had to depend for so long to feed its fossil fuel needs.

“Since 1971, when US oil production peaked, energy has been construed as a strategic liability for the country, with its ever-growing thirst for reasonably priced fossil fuels sometimes necessitating incongruous alliances and complex obligations abroad,” they write. “That logic has been upended, and the newly unlocked energy is set to boost the US economy and grant Washington newfound leverage around the world.”

Among the determinations Washington must make is whether to overturn a federal law, also dating back to the early ‘70s, that forbids US companies from exporting crude in all but a few circumstances. Full energy independence may still be many years away, but proponents of ending the ban argue it would not only further boost the US economy – fracking added 0.3 per cent to GDP growth last year – but also help America mitigate or even end Opec’s market influence and lessen Russia’s leverage also.

The Russia equation has, thanks to the Crimea crisis, raced to the fore, though it is more about gas from fracking than oil. America will see captured output touch 70 billion cubic feet a day in 2014, reaching over 100 billion cubic feet per day by 2040. In the past days, Bills have been tabled in both houses of Congress demanding that the federal government speed up the granting of licences to companies to export natural gas across the Atlantic precisely to reduce the dependency of Western Europe and Ukraine on Russian supplies.

Among those wading in is House Speaker John Boehner. “The US Department of Energy’s excruciatingly slow approval process amounts to a de facto ban on American natural gas exports that Vladimir Putin has happily exploited to finance his geopolitical goals,” he said in a statement last week.

Building the infrastructure to export quantities needed to alter the energy politics of Europe will take several years. Nor will changes in America’s foreign policy stance because of its newfound oil fortunes become obvious overnight.

Indeed, some experts warn against over-stating the likely effects. “The US has a lot of interest in what’s going on around the world, in the Middle East and elsewhere, regardless of whether it is independent or self-sufficient in fuels,” Adam Sieminski, the administrator of the Energy Information Administration in Washington told the Financial Post. “Those political and economic interests will remain whether we become an exporter or not.”

As vivid as the gas flares in the Texas sky at night, however, is America’s new-found love affair with fracking. Environmentalists warn loudly of water contamination disasters and some home owners speak of being rattled by man-made earthquakes, but there is no giving it up now. It’s a whole different world to 2008, when US oil production was at a historical low and Sarah Palin was drawing liberal ire declaring that “Drill, Baby Drill!” was the answer to all of America’s problems. Suddenly she seems to have been right.

Source: The Independent

US threatens war ‘if treaty obligations triggered’

The US has escalated hostilities in Europe further, citing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who said the US Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military action.

According to the Web site of the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said that “he’s sending a clear message to Ukraine and members of NATO that the US military will respond militarily if necessary.”

“We do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies. And I have assured them that if that treaty obligation is triggered [in Europe], we would respond,” Dempsey said.

According to the General, an independent Crimea creates risk for all the countries of Europe and NATO allies.

“If Russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it exposes Eastern Europe to some significant risk, because there are ethnic enclaves all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans.”

Obama’s war fever, his patent disregard for the sovereignty of nations, his expansion of the Afghanistan war, his illicit use of drones and continued operation of Guantanamo – all deemed “war crimes” of the Bush administration – are now hailed by Democrats and Hawks alike as “democracy”.

As conservative pundit Ann Coulter laments: “I’m sorry, but who cares about military spending as long as Obama is president? At the rate he’s going, Obama might use our military to attack England.”

In response, Russia’s Defense Ministry has given permission for a surveillance flight by Ukraine over Russian territory near the border between the countries. Kiev had claimed Moscow was building up its military presence there.

“The Ukrainians have asked for an unscheduled observation flight over our territory,” Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters in Moscow.

Russia and Ukraine are entitled to surveillance flights over each other’s territories following the Open Skies treaty signed in 1992, but Antonov said that Kiev had never asked for one before.

“We have decided to allow such a flight. We hope that our neighbors are assured that there is no military activity that threatens them on the border.”

Antonov vehemently denied a statement Tuesday by Igor Tenyukh, defense minister for the Kiev coup-appointed government, that Russia had amassed more than 220,000 troops, 1,800 tanks and over 400 helicopters in regions adjacent to eastern Ukraine.

“Ukrainian military officials know full well that the entire [Russian] Southern and Western Military Districts put together don’t have that much equipment. The only way you could arrive at that number of soldiers would be if you counted their families,” Antonov said.

“I would dissuade Mr Tenyukh from adding fuel to the fire of the crisis, which is what he appears to be doing. He openly outlined the reasons for this himself, when he asked the Ukrainian parliament to issue him with more funding,” continued the Russian official.

Antonov added that continuing mass training exercises in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev began this week, could plunge Ukraine into even deeper turmoil.

“Staging exercises in an area that is gripped by mass protests against the new regime which came to power as a result of a coup is a risky endeavor, which could further destabilize the political situation in Ukraine,” Antonov insisted.

Oleksandr Turchynov’s, Ukraine’s acting president, said earlier his country could not use its army alone to stop Crimea’s independence, thereby enhancing the possibility of US intervention.

Ukrainian putschists can’t send army to Crimea

Ukraine’s acting president said the country could not use its army alone to stop Crimea from seceding, the latest sign that Crimean independence may be imminent.

Oleksandr Turchynov’s comments came after the Crimean parliament voted for independence ahead of a Sunday referendum on joining Russia, while Washington and Moscow engaged in one of the fiercest clashes since the Cold War.

The interim leader of Ukraine’s putschists said intervening in the Black Sea peninsula, where Crimeans have seized de facto control, would leave Ukraine exposed on its eastern border, close to Russia.

“We cannot launch a military operation in Crimea, as we would expose the eastern border and Ukraine would not be protected,” Turchynov told AFP.

Willy Wimmer, former vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and state secretary at the German Defense Ministry, said the Black Sea territory might end up under US domination.

The veteran German politician warned more than a decade ago that NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia was actually part of a US expansion plan.

Until the mid-90s however, all major powers agreed in international law, and in cooperation. But in the middle of the 90s, the US changed tack. They clearly no longer feel bound by international law.

The war in Yugoslavia was only the beginning, and since then, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, have shown that the US would rather rely on military power.

Wimmer said the current government in the Ukraine is not legitimate. “I think it was a putsch, a coup d’état, what happened in Kiev. And what we heard in the news before, the OSCE and other international bodies are doing what they can to create a legal framework for a government which is not legal at all.”

Wimmer said the US puppets in Ukraine are co-operating with Nazi groups, a punishable offence in Germany and other European countries. Many ban all elements associated with Nazism, including Nazi symbols. The coup in Ukraine have left many Europeans fearful of what the US might plan next.

At a political rally in Bavaria this week the main speaker addressed the audience with an appeal not to forget the friendship with the Russian people.

MANPADS stolen from Ukraine’s military depots

Several, maybe even a few dozen ‘Igla’ man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) were stolen from Ukraine’s military depots during the incidents in this country, a senior Ukrainian military man told RIA Novosti.

The lack MANPADS was particularly registered at the 80th separate airmobile regiment, where there were 54 sets of such systems and at the 27th separate mobile brigade, stationed 45 kilometres from Lviv city, where there were 90 MANPADS, according to the information.

The new leadership of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry is taking urgent measures to “disguise this difficult situation” with old and experimental MANPADS, according to the source.

‘Igla’ man-portable air defense missile system is an extremely dangerous weapon designed to destroy low-flying air targets, so its dissemination is regulated by several international agreements, in particular by the agreements between Russia and the U.S. Such a weapon getting into the terrorists’ hands is extremely dangerous.

In autumn 2012, it was reported that a large consignment of MANPADS was stolen from a military base in Benghazi in Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was deposed as a result of an armed conflict.

Later, it was reported that the MANPADS could have also got into the hands of rebels fighting in Syria.

Source: RIA Novosti

India backs Russia in Ukraine

India broke with the international community in acknowledging that Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine.

On Thursday a senior Indian official endorsed Russia’s position in Ukraine in recent days, even as Delhi urged all parties involved to seek a peaceful resolution to the diplomatic crisis.

When asked for India’s official assessment of the events in Ukraine, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon responded:

“We hope that whatever internal issues there are within Ukraine are settled peacefully, and the broader issues of reconciling various interests involved, and there are legitimate Russian and other interests involved…. We hope those are discussed, negotiated and that there is a satisfactory resolution to them.”

The statement was made on the same day that Crimea’s parliament voted to hold a referendum for secession from Ukraine.

India is the second major nation to publicly lean toward Russia after China’s public statements.

Ukraine’s puppet government reacted to India’s endorsement of Russia’s legitimate interests with hostility.

India and Russia have long-standing ties and Moscow is Delhi’s top arms provider. Moreover, Russia and the former Soviet Union has been nearly alone in the international community in continue to back India during crucial moments such as following its 1974 and 1998 nuclear tests.

Delhi believes Russia’s intervention offers the best chance of stabilizing Ukraine. India’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday also released a statement noting that there are “more than 5,000 Indian nationals, including about 4,000 students, in different parts of Ukraine.” At the same time, India’s overall interest in Ukraine is fairly negligible—certainly less than China’s, for instance—and thus Delhi might assess that it has more to gain by publicly sticking by Moscow at a time when it desperately needs support.

India also has plenty of interests in certain regions along its peripheral, and at certain times—such as during the Sri Lanka Civil War—has intervened to protect various societal groups with strong ties to India.

Indian officials have told Telegraph India that, in the newspaper’s words, Delhi is “convinced that the West’s tacit support for a series of attempted coups against democratically elected governments — in Egypt, Thailand and now Ukraine — has only weakened democratic roots in these countries.”

This rationale would be consistent with India’s long-standing, deep-seated abhorrence to anything that merely resembles Western imperialism. At the same time, India has not historically made supporting democracy abroad a central tenet of its foreign policy.

Source: The Diplomat

Ukraine signs $10 billion fracking deal with Chevron

Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with U.S. Chevron on Tuesday, another step in a drive for more energy independence from Russia.

The deal to develop its western Olesska field followed a similar shale gas agreement with Royal Dutch Shell in January and boosts Ukraine’s leadership at a time of fraught relations with Moscow over gas supplies.

“The agreements with Shell and Chevron … will enable us to have full sufficiency in gas by 2020 and, under an optimistic scenario, even enable us to export energy,” President Viktor Yanukovich told investors shortly before the signing.

The highest end of expectations for Olesska’s potential reserves would match around three years of European Union gas demand, but similarly sunny hopes for shale reserves in neighboring Poland have been very sharply downsized.

Source: Reuters

Will Baroness Ashton of Upholland lead the nuclear charge?

Baroness Catherine Ashton — Catherine Ashton adjusting her GU crown

When Victoria Nuland rejected the EU solutions in Ukraine with her “Fuck the EU” comment, the EU went it alone. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed that he and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, fly to Kiev and try to reach a resolution of the violence before escalation. Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski was asked to join.

The talks in Kiev included the EU delegation, Yanukovich, the three opposition leaders and a Russian representative. The US was not invited.

Then suddenly snipers began shooting into the crowd in Maidan Square. Panic ensued and riot police retreated in chaos according to eyewitnesses. Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the deal. Yanukovich fled Kiev.

Now that the “opposition” has driven a duly-elected president into exile and dissolved the national riot police, Berkut, Washington has demanded that Ukraine submit to very onerous IMF conditionalities. As Paul Craig Roberts writes:

According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor.

The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan. Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an IMF austerity plan.

The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education, layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations.

Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness.

The conflict between the US and the EU has thus been exposed.

Meanwhile Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Moscow does not need to “invade” Ukraine. The 1997 Ukraine-Russia partition treaty specifically allows Russian troops in Crimea. No shots were fired and Russian “sons” were welcomed with open arms.

The US should start worrying about the white supremacists they so ardently and openly support in Ukraine, but shun elsewhere. If the Nazi’s take over – which seem more and more likely – the UN’s R2P (responsibility to protect) will come into play. Samantha Power, the architect of R2P, should be proud of herself for crafting the ultimate solution many hawks in the US wish for.

The three war-mongering women who represent the West’s foreign policy apparatus, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and EU official and onetime British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activist Catherine Ashton, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samatha Power, have been exposed. The first two by leaked phone calls, and the latter by her R2P plan.

Ashton, actually the grand and feudalistic Baroness Ashton of Upholland, also has an exaggerated view of her own accomplishments. She has scant knowlegde of what transpires in Europe, but flatters herself with the inflated title of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union.

Her title hasn’t lifted her dour expression and gloomy features yet, but it might be as a result of her closeness to the Great Unwashed, the GU.

The Baroness is married to former British journalist Peter Kellner, an executive of the British polling company YouGov. The pollster does political polling as well as the very dull infotainment media charts of Pop Idol and X-Factor, pandering to the GU. Only in Britain could a Labourite sink to such depths of grandeur.

In a phone call between herself and the Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet, Ashton was told what had really happened in Kiev. The High Representative could no wait to throw cold water on the information that the “opposition” – actually a NATO force with looted Libyan weapons some say – was behind the shootings of protesters and policemen.

Ashton quickly defended the new members of the Ukrainian Rada, the parliament. The Estonian Foreign Ministry in the meantime has confirmed that the transcript is authentic.

Essentially, Ashton told the Estonian foreign minister that in the Machiavellian shaping of the fake opposition in the Rada, some “cannon fodder” had been required.

Ashton’s agenda complements that of Nuland whose January phone call with US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt revealed that the Obama administration was hand picking and paying the future government of Ukraine even while Ashton, as well as Nuland’s co-ideologue Jeffrey Feltman, the United Nations Undersecretary General for Political Affairs, were feigning interest in a negotiated solution.

Nuland sounded certain that the US would achieve its political aims with the support of America’s bought-and-paid for UN team of Feltman and his boss, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who was known to South Korean journalists as the “slippery eel” when he served as South Korean foreign minister.

The Calcutta-born Special UN envoy to Ukraine, Dutch diplomat Robert Serry, in which Nuland expressed great confidence must also not be forgotten in the coup plot.

Thanks to the intercept capabilities of loyal and proficient Ukrainian security agents, the world now understands the perfidy of chattering women who are helping lead Europe and, possibly, the rest of the world, into a massive conflagration, possibly a nuclear war.

German economist warns sanctions against Russia could harm EU

Economic sanctions against Russia would cause serious damage to Germany’s switch to alternative energy sources, the head of the German Economic Research Institute, Hans-Werner Sinn, said in an interview published in Germany’s Passauer Neue Presse on Friday.

Germany cannot afford such a policy of sanctions, as it considerably depends on Russian gas supply in the process of switching to alternative energy sources, the economist notes. According to him, EU sanctions will only harm the European countries.

Any attempt to bring such countries as Ukraine out of Russia’s influence and link with the West is naive, he believes.

Russia, along with Norway, is an important supplier of gas to Germany, the publication notes.

Source: Voice of Russia, Interfax

Propaganda rules the news: Russia never invaded Ukraine

Gerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.

Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime’s illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC’s highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired.

Russia’s RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.

I agree with Greenwald. Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT’s Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.

My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative “mainstream media.” My point is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.

For example, Martin’s denunciation of Russia for “invading” Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.

Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. Washington’s propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.

As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia’s border in order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington’s hegemony.

Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.

It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington’s propaganda. They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat’s column calling on readers to “resist the war party on Crimea” opens with Washington’s propagandistic claim: “With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea”.

No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington’s coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.

So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

It appears that the power of Washington’s propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.

What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged “invasion” that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?

The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington’s stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” Paet goes on to report that “all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet’s report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation.

What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia’s help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia’s help.

The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost.

Russia surprised at EU refusal to comment on new leak

Kerry directing the script with Poroshenko, Klitch and Yats

Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed its surprise at the EU refusal to comment on the leaked phone conversation between the EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet. Earlier the Estonian Foreign Ministry confirmed the authenticity of the recording that suggested the snipers who shot at protesters and police in the Ukrainian capital Kiev were allegedly hired by the new coalition, and not ousted President Yanukovich. The Voice of Russia’s political analyst Dmitriy Babich expressed his opinion.

How can you comment on this conversation?
I think it is just astounding what Mr. Paet had to say because basically the Western press has been saying for all these days that the file only came from the government side and it was taken as an axiom by most of the media in the West. And now we find out from Mr. Paet who talked to some opposition activists of the civil society actually. So they acknowledged that the bullets and the weapons used to kill on both sides were basically the same and that the main suspicion is not actually with Yanukovych but with what Mr. Paet called ‘the opposition coalition’. But I would like to remind you that part of this opposition is the neo-Nazis party called ‘Svoboda’. Until 2004 it was called National Social Party of Ukraine. If you read its program, they suggest that people should identify their ethnic origin in their passports, that what the call Ukrainophobia should be punished, should be seen as the criminal offence and they make quite a few other suggestions which remind one of the Nazi Germany.

So the opposition is actually responsible for the killings?
Well, I think basically that the main problem is the bias of the Western media because just if you watch television, if you watch the television images of these three months, you can see that these so-called peaceful protesters attacked police much more often than the police attacked them. The most typical situation is the police standing on the street blocking the path to the Presidential administration, hiding behind their shields, and the “peaceful protesters” in the Western understanding of this word, first they throw at them stones and Molotov cocktails, and then they attack them with metal chains, metal sticks and this is all just civil society on protest against the corrupt government. I am afraid this lead conversation will not be investigated for the very simple reason. The new prosecutor general of Ukraine Mr. Makhnitskiy, he is a member of the Svoboda party. So for more than a decade he believed that people should be checked for their loyalty for the Ukraine state on the lie detector, that people who lied about having a double citizenship, most likely Russian citizenship should be deprived of their property. So you can imagine what this kind of person will do with this recorded conversation. He is not going to investigate it.

Is there any chance that Maidan, which is still a force in Ukraine will somehow press the authorities, force the authorities to start the investigation?
I think that what you call Maidan is just a crowd, which can be manipulated like any crowd. And crowds are incapable of investigations. Crowds are moved by hate or love, they are moved by primitive emotions. And the crowd that we have seen in the center of Kiev for these three months was an evil crowd. Even its supporters agree that about 50% was moved because of hatred for corruption and 50% moved by hatred for Russia and Russians. I think that ethnic hate is a lot worse than corruption and certainly these people are not going to push for a fair investigation and they are not going to accept the results of a fair investigation because in their hearts they have already blamed their enemies from everything.

Let’s get back to this tape. If we listen to it carefully, to what Mr. Paet and Catherine Ashton were talking about and to what they said, they actually never said that these facts should be concealed. So probably, is there a chance that international community, the so-called international community would somehow, especially now when it is leaked, press the authorities to still investigate it?
No, I don’t believe in it because the international community had every evening lots of television images before its eyes and it continues to pronounce the same lies. They have seen the Molotov cocktails, they have seen the policemen killed and mutilated, and they continued calling these people peaceful protesters for three months. So do you think that after this huge lie they are going to investigate just one small lie that conspired in the recorded phone conversation? No, the EU and the US engaged themselves 100% on the side of the opposition. They failed to guarantee the Agreement on division of power, which was signed between Yanukovych and the opposition on the 21st of February. Their attitude is not compromised in the investigation. Their attitude is media on slot and victory. And victory under the slogan “the winner takes all”. That’s their attitude, it is extremely destructive.

If we talk about situation in Ukraine. The two politicians are actually talking about credibility of Ukrainian politicians and they also say that the only one who is more or less popular both in so-called civil society and among Maidan and also in eastern Ukraine is Mr. Poroshenko. Do you think that actually reflects the state of affairs in Ukraine that no one is popular there except for one or two people?
The problem is that all their conversation is extremely amateurish. These are the people who have very superficial knowledge of Ukrainian politics. But they feel themselves empowered to discuss and decide who is going to be the next government and their attitude is based on hear-see things like “I liked this Olga, I think she should be the next Minister of Health”. Poroshenko is sympathetic to me; I think he should be a member of the new government. That reminds me of Victoria Nuland’s conversation that was also recorded how she says to the American Ambassador in Kiev “Okay, Yatzenuk, she calls him Yatz, he started with economics, so he probably should be in the next government”. You know, Klitch, this is the way she calls Klitchko “I don’t like him. He shouldn’t be in that government”. She probably doesn’t like him because he is a boxer and that doesn’t reflect well on her image of a member of government. So this talk is just laughable, it is extremely amateurish. And I think it is tragic that these kinds of people actually decide the fate of the country that has a population of 46 million. And this people lecture Russia and they lecture Ukrainians on how they should live, how bad we all are, and this is just pathetic. This is the only word I can find for it. Pathetic.

Source: Voice of Russia