Ukraine – Page 2 – praag.org

Indian warplanes go missing in Ukraine

Five of India’s 40 AN-32 military transport aircrafts being upgraded in Ukraine have gone missing “without a trace”; Ukrainian diplomat says the government is unable to help.

India says five of its 40 AN-32 military transport aircrafts have gone missing “without a trace” while the planes underwent upgrades in Ukraine, Sputnik reported.

“These five aircraft are almost lost as it is difficult to trace them and diplomatic efforts to find their whereabouts have failed,” the website DefenseNews quotes an Indian Air Force official as saying.

In 2009, India signed a contract with Ukraine’s state-owned arms trading agency, Ukrspetsexport Corp., to upgrade its 104 AN-32 transport aircrafts at a cost of US $400 million, as the fleet had reached its life expectancy.
The upgrade program started in 2011 and was set to run through 2017.

Under the deal, the modernization of 40 warplanes should have been completed in Ukraine at Kiev-based Antonov State Co. facilities, while the 64 others were set to be upgraded in India at the Air Force’s Kanpur-based base, under a technology transfer from Ukraine.

Out of 40 warplanes sent to Kiev, only 35 made their way back home. The remaining five have been “lost without trace”.

Reuters published false report on MH17 says eyewitness

An eyewitness, whom Reuters cites as saying he saw evidence of a surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory on the day MH17 was downed, told RT the news agency gave a false report of his interview.

As a part of a March report on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 tragedy Reuters talked to Pyotr Fedotov, a 58-year-old resident of the village Chervonniy Zhovten in the Lugansk Region of eastern Ukraine.

“When interviewed by Reuters, Fedotov, the witness who described the ‘wiggling’ rocket, at first said on camera that it was fired from territory held by the Ukrainian army. Later, off camera, he said it was launched from a nearby rebel area. Asked why he had originally said the opposite, he said it was because he was afraid of the rebels,” the news agency said.

RT contacted Fedotov who, after some persuasion, agreed to be filmed. He told RT that Reuters correspondent Anton Zverev was “less than accurate” with Fedotov’s testimony.

“When we talked about the Boeing on camera, I explained everything as it was. The things that I allegedly said off-camera were just made up by the journalist. It’s all lies. Off-camera, we never discussed the Boeing,” Fedotov told RT.

He added that the Reuters journalist contacted him after taking the interview, but never showed him a draft of the article. Instead he was asking whether Fedotov had got into trouble for speaking to him.

“The journalist called me and asked if I was in trouble. I was really surprised. Why would I be in trouble if I told the truth? And then my friends told me in the article I was saying different things when the cameras were on and off. That’s when I understood why he was asking if I was in trouble,” the witness explained.

“So it’s mere fantasy from the journalist or maybe he was doing it for his own benefit,” he added.

RT’s request to Reuters for comments on the controversy and raw footage of Fedotov’s interview was not replied to as of publication of this article.

Earlier in March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the Reuters report of witnesses’ statements, saying it “looked like a stovepiping.” The top diplomat also then said that questions posed by Russia’s officials remained unanswered, saying there have been no promised images from American satellites or recordings of Ukrainian air traffic controllers’ communications with the plane.

The Malaysian Boeing 777 airliner was downed over eastern Ukraine on July 17 last year, killing 298 people on board.

Earlier Ukrainian media falsely claimed that Dutch investigators concluded that MH17 had been shot down by the rebels with a Buk missile, citing a report in the Dutch media that outlined the popular theory, but didn’t claim it to be proven. Dutch prosecutors told RT at the time that the investigation had not been concluded.

American diplomats receive Russian ‘gifts’

American diplomats, US Embassy consul for political affairs, Andrea Brouillet-Rodriguez and second secretary of the US Embassy, Christopher Grossman were presented with Russian “gifts”.

One of the presented photos, “Gorlovka Madonna,” is considered one of the symbols of war in Donbass. A young mother with a ten-month baby in her arms from Gorlovka was killed by the Ukrainian punishers.

The guests were also presented with the photo of brutally murdered Vadim Papura who died on May 2, 2014 in Odessa.

Andrea Brouillet-Rodriguez hastened to turn away when receiving the photos, her eyes barely had caught the sight of the images.

“The purpose of our present is ‘let’s be friends’. Let us recall the experience of our grandfathers, who together forged victory. A certain contribution to our victory over the Nazis was made by the Americans. It is better to combine our efforts today to win over the worst evil on the planet,” the Russian communist deputy, Bair Tsyrenov said.

He also reminded the American visitors about the approaching 70th anniversary of the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic war.

The communists expressed hope that the two countries entered into another confrontation can find common ground in the struggle for world peace, just as they did 70 years ago.

Russia stages massive military exercises in response to NATO provocation

Russian military exercises this week range from the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean and involve tens of thousands of troops, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

The Kremlin has voiced concern about U.S. plans to beef up its military presence near Russia’s borders. Later this month, U.S. troops are holding joint exercises with forces from EU nations Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Four Polish NATO MiG-29s flew training missions in Lithuania on Monday, under the command and control of an alliance AWACS surveillance aircraft in a small corridor between Belarus and the Kaliningrad region.

Monday’s AWACS mission was flying from Oerland airbase, near Trondheim in Norway. The AWACS flights were part of efforts to bolster NATO members, particularly the Baltic states.

AP reported that Russia plans to station state-of-the art missiles in its westernmost Baltic exclave and deploy nuclear-capable bombers to Crimea in response.

The Iskander missiles will be sent to the Kaliningrad region that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania as part of the maneuvers, said a Defense Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly.

The official also said Russia will deploy long-range, nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 bombers to Crimea, on the Black Sea peninsula.

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the Baltic Fleet, the Southern Military District and the Airborne Forces have been brought to the highest stage of combat readiness and have started moving to shooting ranges as part of the drills.

The wide-ranging exercise started Monday, when President Vladimir Putin ordered the Northern Fleet and other military forces on combat alert as part of the exercise in the Arctic. Other units in the Pacific region, southern Siberia and southwestern Russia also launched drills.

The Iskander missiles deployment to Kaliningrad reflects Moscow’s readiness in response to NATO moves to deploy forces closer to Russia’s borders.

The missiles, which are capable of hitting enemy targets up to 500 kilometers (310 miles away) with high precision, can be equipped with a nuclear or a conventional warhead. From Kaliningrad, they could reach several NATO member states.

Meanwhile heavy machine-gun and light artillery fire pounded a district of Donetsk, the biggest city of eastern Ukraine, on Monday and pro-Russian self-defence forces said there has been no lull in the fighting since a February cease-fire.

The Spartak district, adjacent to the city’s now-flattened airport, is one of several sites in eastern Ukraine to have seen continued hostilities between the self-defence forces and the Ukrainian junta since last month’s cease-fire, brokered by France and Germany in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

The cease-fire is broadly holding in the rest of the region, Reuters reported.

Farms for sale in crisis-ridden Ukraine

Experts say the crisis in Ukraine is set to trigger the sale of state-owned farm land and small family plots to foreigners

Ukraine, known as Europe’s bread basket, has the eighth largest agricultural area in use globally and is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and sixth largest grain grower, potentially making it a prime target for foreign investment.

But the government has been wary of allowing foreign land sales, fearing rural unrest, and the value of its 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of farmland has been limited by its division into small plots with relatively low productivity.

However economic turmoil emanating from the conflict between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in the east has intensified the need for change, said Heinz Strubenhoff, agribusiness investment manager for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in Ukraine.

Opening the farm sector, a key driver of the economy, to outside investors has long been backed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Strubenhoff believes changes will now happen sooner rather than later.

“It’s time to think about privatization. They need to prepare everything to allow for farm land sales (to foreign and domestic investors) in three to four years,” Strubenhoff told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Currently, farm land cannot be bought or sold in Ukraine, but companies can sign onto long-term leases with small holders.

President Petro Poroshenko, elected last May after protests ousted previous Russian-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich, had considered lifting restrictions on land sales during “long discussions” with World Bank officials, Strubenhoff said.

But Kiev backed off the move as it feared a backlash from rural communities, he said.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture was unable to immediately respond to requests for comment.

Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko told local media last month that he believes Ukraine can produce 100 million tonnes of grain annually by 2020, up from 62 million tonnes in 2014.

To nearly double production, the country aims to attract $25 billion in outside investment for agriculture, Pavlenko said.

But enticing new capital in the midst of the conflict that has displaced nearly a million people won’t be easy.

Jean-Jacques Hervé, counselor to the board for agriculture at France’s Credit Agricole Bank in Ukraine, said local people don’t have enough money to buy the land.

“Speculators with access to foreign currency would be the biggest winners (if the land market was opened),” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Selling land to foreign investors could cause problems and the government should instead help get finance to farmers, search for new export markets and simplify the procedures for land leases, he said.

Frédéric Mousseau, policy director of the Oakland Institute, an NGO critical of privatization, said pushing Ukraine to open its land market would end up giving domestic and foreign oligarchs more control over the country’s agriculture potential.

“About 20 percent of the country’s most fertile lands are already controlled by large agribusiness firms (through long-term leases),” Mousseau told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The (proposed) reforms would just intensify this concentration.”

But despite concerns from some quarters, U.N. officials are backing the World Bank’s view on sales.

“In the long term, Ukraine should aim to open its land market to allow optimum resource allocation,” Dmitry Prikhodko, an economist with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

With foreign currency reserves low, Kiev needs the World Bank’s money – up to $2 billion this year with another $8 billion from the IMF – which potentially gives officials like Strubenhoff greater policy leverage.

“There is a big chance in the crisis for the Ukrainian government,” Strubenhoff said.

Source: Reuters

Black Hawks head to Europe

An additional 450 soldiers and 25 Black Hawk helicopters will join the expanding roster of NATO forces converging on Eastern Europe in March

Pilots, flight and ground crews from the 4th Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade out of Hunter Army Air Field, Ga., will be deploying to Illesheim, Germany, later this month.

From the staging ground there, they will then deploy in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a multinational training mission to reassure Poland and the Baltic countries of NATO’s commitment in the face of Russia’s aggressive moves in Ukraine.

The unit will remain deployed for about nine months, U.S. Army Europe said in a March 3 news release.

While in Europe they will serve as a supporting element to the Operation Atlantic Resolve ground forces, led by the 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga., as that unit assumes the role of the regionally aligned force in the area. The Vilseck-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment is currently holding that position.

About 100 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colo., make up the regionally aligned force operational command element, led in part by Brig. Gen. Randy George, the 4th ID deputy commander.

“USAREUR right now is running [Operation Atlantic Resolve], but the commander of USAREUR also has responsibilities elsewhere throughout Europe,” said 4th ID mission command element deputy chief of staff Maj. George H. Johnson. “He just has somebody now that he can give particular direction to.”

George will run the first iteration of the mission command element in Europe. His first task, according to Johnson, will be to coordinate the transition with the outgoing 2CR.

After that, the 4th Infantry soldiers will settle in for their first long-term command of troops in Europe as Operation Atlantic Resolve continues.

“USAREUR was running that themselves and that is because there hasn’t been a division headquarters in Europe since the 1st Infantry Division left,” Johnson said. “Now they see a place where having a division headquarters in Europe could help in synchronizing between the militaries of nations, making sure that we train together and learn how to work and operate together. That’s what we’re here to do.”

Source: Stars and Stripes

US waging a financial war for imperial ambitions

The United States is waging a finance war against Moscow in a bid to weaken Russia to a point of economic and social destruction, the Austrian Contra magazine said, adding that this campaign goes against the international law, WTO rules and bilateral agreements.

The United States has a wide array of instruments at its disposal. The Austrian magazine named assigning false credit ratings as a prime example.

“Russia’s fundamentals are the best in the world. Not a single (big) state has better fundamentals than Russia.

However, Fitch downgraded it to a 3B rating – just above junk level. The US has the worst fundamentals in the world. But the same rating agency has given it AAA, the best rating possible. It remains a mystery how the rating agency counts that,” the publication said.

The media outlet compared the US to a terrorist state that disregards general code of conduct and acts upon its whims and wishes, forcing other countries to participate. Moreover, Washington threatens any country that has chosen to act independently with war and sanctions.

The US monthly CounterPunch also called American and British imperial ambitions the real challenge to the world.

Any country resisting the American Empire, taking a stand against its hypocrisy, double standards, and complete lack of respect towards other countries and cultures, US monthly CounterPunch reported, suffers from these attacks.

The last year coup in Ukraine was openly supported by the West. US Senator John McCain along with EU representative Catherine Ashton traveled to Ukraine personally to show their support and urge on the protesters in Kiev.

The United States is a global hegemon with over 1,000 military bases and 11 navy battle carrier groups around the world and a military budget that exceeds budgets of all other industrialized nations combined.

The truth is that the challenge facing the world right now is how to deal with the United States and its imperial ambitions, rather than contain a fake Russian threat.

The Ukrainian crisis has once again shown that “we live in a world in which the West’s interests and rights are the only ones deemed legitimate”. The imperial hegemonic agenda of the United States and Britain is the root cause of the crises currently taking place in eastern Ukraine and the Middle East.

American and British hypocrisy knows no borders, the US monthly said. How the United States and Britain who played central roles in diminishing Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria into an abyss of carnage and savagery, could then make statements that Putin is a greater threat to Europe than the Islamic State?

Ukrainian army leaves fracking equipment behind

On the outskirts of the village of Shishkovo under the snow and rain rusts the expensive equipment: four residential trailers for employees, diesel substation and equipment for conducting seismic surveys. Judging by the labels this equipment was certified in the U.S., and now it is in possession of the people of Donbass.

Local residents recall that this was a temporary base of geologists from Ukrgazdobicha. The residents of the Shishkovo witnessed the beginning of the work.

“This equipment was brought at a time when in June the Ukrainian tanks came from Metallist and started shelling the city. As we suppose, Kiev authorities planned a quick capture of South-East, Donbass in particular, for further extraction of shale gas,” explains a local resident Vladimir.

“They were from Western Ukraine. Geo-research. They were saying something about gas, said there is shale gas here. First there were two vehicles, then 10 -12. There was a lot,” says a resident.

Earlier the field was divided into squares, here the expert gasman conducted seismic studies and measurements and were preparing to install a rig.

Local mechanics and welders were not hired, because many of the them spoke out against the extraction of shale gas.

The residents of Shishkovo were not notified of the purpose of the camp. The camp was staffed mainly with residents of Western Ukraine, which is revealed by the documents left behind : “Ivano-Frankovsk, Cherkassy, Poltava region, Zhitomir region.” The documents also mention both gas and oil research.

According to the paperwork for 2013 found onsite, similar bases were also located in villages Shevchenko, Raigorodka and Gerasimovka.

As the local residents say, the research continued until the Ukrainian national guard had left. Along with tanks and howitzers the Ukrainian soldiers also took part of the seismic equipment, but in the rush they did not have the time to gather everything.

This abandoned base can be observed well from the Ukrainian side of the frontline. Just over this field, a mile from the abandoned base is the town of Schastye, which is under the complete control of the Ukrainian army. Even now, in the midst of a ceasefire it is not safe to be here. Locals say that during evening hours the Ukrainian Armed forces and volunteer battalions begin to fire at each other.

Translated from Russian LifeNews

Suspects named in Nemtsov murder

The Nemtsov murder investigation has focused on the theory that the crime was organized by a Chechen militant commander Adam Osmayev, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, who also was named in the case concerning the attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Investigators are allowing for the possibility that the militants, who fought against DPR and LPR, operated at the behest of Ukrainian secret services, since the murder of the opposition leader would have discredited the Russian leadership and destabilize the political situation.

A law enforcement source had told the media that the investigating group has evidence that Ukrainian secret services played a role in Nemtsov’s murder. On the day of the murder the Investigative Committee spokesperson Vladimir Markin announced that the investigators are studying the possibility the murder was intended to destabilize the political situation in the country.

“The murder could have been used as a provocation to destabilize the situation, with Nemtsov becoming a sort of a sacrificial lamb for those who are not overly choosy in their political methods,” Markin told Izvestiya.

The investigators are also working on other versions: political, extremist, business, and personal. However, judging by the quality of preparation and implementation, it was done by professionals. The Izvestiya source said that the killer shot Nemtsov only a few tens of meters from the Kremlin, and it since became known that the murder took place in a spot not covered by a surveillance camera. Moreover, they chose a time during which there are no traffic jams, but there is still heavy traffic in the center which allowed the killers’ car to become lost among other vehicles.

The information that Ukraine’s special services ordered the murder is being verified. The bandits may have performed a mission assigned by Ukrainian secret services, but also avenged the death of their former leader Isa Munaev. He was killed on February 1 during the battle for Debaltsevo, after which the battalion’s command was taken over by Adam Osmayev.

The so-called Dzhokhar Dudayev international peacekeeping battalion is fighting on Ukraine’s side, and was formed by Munaev in March 2014. Munaev fought in the first Chechen campaign against Russian forces, and after 1999 he declared himself the commander of the South-Western sector and participated in organizing acts of terrorism.

Munaev fled Chechnya in 2006 for Denmark, where he received asylum. He founded the movement “Free Caucaus” which, according to secret services, financed terrorists. When in 2014 the Ukrainian government launched the ATO against LPR and DPR, Munaev went to Ukraine and declared the formation of his battalion. Russian sources indicate that he was personally invited Igor Kolomoisky, who financed the battalion. The battalion’s core were Chechen immigrants in Denmark, and citizens of other countries who belonged to terrorist organizations.

Isa Munaev was one of the individuals, along with the commanders of Azov and Dnepr, who supported terrorism on Russia’s soil and who were ordered delivered to Chechnya by Ramzan Kadyrov.

Russian services are trying to establish how many people participated in the preparation and implementation of Nemtsov’s murder. It cannot be ruled out that, in addition to killers and spotters, there were also “controllers” in Moscow who observed the murder’s aftermath and political effect. One of them may have been the Ukrainian deputy Aleksey Goncharenko. Experts who were questioned by Izvestiya believe the theory of foreign secret service involvement to have merit.

Translated from Russian LifeNews

Oligarchs, seed companies benefit from land redistribution

The federal government has admitted that national and international companies in Ukraine benefit from EU subsidies and loans. Fertile lands in Ukraine are being transferred to Ukrainian oligarchs and international seed companies, and in return the Kiev government receives international loans.

The inquiry of the parliamentary group of the Left Party, submitted on January 19, 2015, criticizes the ‘land grabbing’, i.e. the ‘landgrab by states and major national and international companies’ in Ukraine.

Concerned citizens are outraged over a planned redistribution of land:

‘In the shadow of the Ukrainian crisis we can observe an alarming transfer of land to Ukrainian oligarchs, but also Western publicly owned agricultural companies and non-Western states. In the past Ukraine was considered a breadbasket of the Soviet Union and thanks to the considerable amount of black earth is known to be particularly fruitful and productive. With 32 million hectares of crop land Ukraine has twice as much crop area as Germany. Ukrainian and foreign agroholdings already control about half of the Ukrainian agricultural land, which is about 17 million hectares. The lessors generate low income due to the low rent payments and are sometimes even paid in kind’.

Seed producers have a strong interest in Ukrainian lands:

‘Ukraine is one of the auspicious growth markets for seed producers Monsanto and DuPont. It is feared that Monsanto exercises great pressure on the authorities in Ukraine to force through its demands for development of production of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Last year Monsanto invested 140 million to increase the capability for future production’.

German companies also benefit from the ‘land grabbing’:

‘One of the German companies that profit from land grabbing in Eastern Europe, is AGRARIUS AG, founded in 2007 with headquartered in Bad Homburg, which offers ‘investment in farmland’ and services related to the purchase of land. In Hamburg German agricultural CEE GmbH lures with returns of 100 percent in the ‘most interesting agricultural market in the world’, and KTG Agrar SE, also based in Hamburg, advertises organic products because they promise a much higher profit margin’.

International and national companies receive financial, developmental and EU subsidies. In the past ten years agricultural corporations have been increasingly cultivating rapeseed in Ukraine. This is connected with the increased needs of the EU for biofuels. About 90 percent of rape is exported to the EU and processed there. The federal government reported as part of the inquiry that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) had awarded 2,014 loans to a total of 131 Ukrainian and 55 international agroholdings.

To the question of whether the agricultural concerns DuPont and Monsanto would receive KfW loans for its operations in Ukraine, the federal government was not willing to give a clear answer.

It is stated in the response:

‘The publication of information on granting of credit by the KfW bank group affects trade and business secrets of the concerned companies. The public response to the question of whether and to what extent a company finances its business activities and by which type of loan is generally suitable to give competitors information not only about the financial resources of a company, but also about its strategy and positioning in the market’.

Source: German Economic News

France will not send military, arms to Kiev

France has no plans of sending military instructors or delivering equipment to Ukraine as opposed to Great Britain, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain would send instructors to Ukraine to train the country’s military, Sputniknews reported.

“Great Britain has taken a hardline to the situation and is considering a number of measures that you have said [sending military instructors], which Prime Minister David Cameron announced. We have also taken a firm position, but are still pushing for the de-escalation of the conflict,” Fabius said on France Info radio station.

France is party to the Normandy format talks on Ukrainian reconciliation, which also includes Russia, Germany and Ukraine. The most recent Normandy-quartet meeting between foreign ministers took place in Paris on Tuesday.

Kiev authorities repeatedly asked foreign partners for lethal assistance. On Tuesday, Ukrainian Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said that the United Arab Emirates had agreed to send weapons and military hardware to Ukraine.

A number of European states, including Germany, refused to arm Kiev. The United States, where according to a recent poll by Pew Research Center more than half of the respondents oppose sending weapons to Ukraine, is yet to make a decision on the matter.

State Department’s Nuland wants to ‘fight against the Europeans’

There are increasingly signs that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande operated behind the backs of the Americans, when they traveled to Minsk last week, in an attempt to reach an agreement between the warring factions.

The 53-year-old European representative of the US government, Victoria Nuland, is responsible for guiding the United States through the Ukraine crisis and solving the problems with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But in the crisis Nuland has herself become a problem.

The American gave an internal briefing to the US delegation at the Munich Security Conference last Friday. She sat on the sixth floor of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof; in the room were perhaps two dozen US diplomats and senators. The German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen had just publicly spoken about the fact that weapon deliveries could serve as an accelerant in eastern Ukraine. The Americans were angry.

According to the German “Bild” newspaper, Nuland said, “We can fight the Europeans.”

According to the report, Nuland called Chancellor Merkel’s trip to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin “Merkel’s Moscow stuff.” The atmosphere heated up; one of the senators was to have ridiculed the German Defense Minister (the “Defeatism Minister”); and made a reference to the Europeans’ “Moscow bullshit”.

The top diplomat Nuland will be considered a potential new Secretary of State. She is married to Robert Kagan, a neo-conservative thinker. Last year he published a text on why America must remain the undisputed leader of the world.

She already managed to make headlines after the Munich Security Conference last year with her somewhat limited mastery of language.

At that time she flew from Munich via Cyprus and Prague to Kiev, and on the way she called Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine. Nuland dispensed with special security procedures and used her normal mobile phone. So the conversation went unencrypted.

In the evening of February 4, 2014, a four minute and eleven second recording appeared on YouTube. The conversation between the two top diplomats gave a rare glimpse into the world of American diplomacy.

At the end of the call Nuland mentioned a proposal by the US government, meant to outmaneuver the hesitant Europeans, which made her world-famous.

Shortly before she had spoken with the United Nations: the United Nations should send an envoy and engage with Ukraine, then the EU would no longer have much to say. “That would be great, I think, to help advance this thing, the UN would advance things,” Nuland said, and then added: “Fuck the EU”.

Source: RussiaInsider

Putin says US is already arming Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the US is supplying Kiev with lethal weapons, telling reporters that the conflict in Ukraine will not be resolved through military escalation.

“According to our intelligence, [US] weapons are already being delivered,” Putin was shown on state television Channel One as telling a press conference on Tuesday, when asked if a shipment of lethal hardware from Washington to Kiev would fan the flames of war in eastern Ukraine.

Putin, speaking in Budapest during a presidential visit to Hungary, added that arms deliveries would only contribute to the loss of lives in the war-torn region.

“I am deeply convinced that whoever and whatever weapons are delivered to the conflict zone, the [outcome] will always be bad … the number of victims could increase,” he said in comments widely published by Russian media.

Kiev and Western nations, in turn, have for months accused Moscow of arming pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine — a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

In December the US Congress passed legislation authorizing the sending of arms to Kiev. But while US President Barack Obama signed the measure into law, he has been hesitant to use the option, amid widespread warnings arming Kiev would be seen as a declaration of war.

US Senator sells war with fake photographs

Serious questions have been raised about the authenticity of photographs provided by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) to sell a “Russian invasion”.

Inhofe released “photographic proof of Russian solders in Ukraine” in order to push forward his bill to provide U.S. arms to Ukraine. Or so he thought.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee first viewed the graphic pictures in December. Sen. Inhofe then obtained the photos and worked to independently verify and confirm the authenticity of the photos, before providing the fake photo’s “exclusively” to the Free Beacon.

Several images of the Russian convoys appear to have been taken in 2008, during Russia’s conflict with Georgia, but have been presented as “evidence” of an Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Inhofe wanted the Obama administration and American people to see “graphic violence inflicted upon Ukraine by the Russian-backed separatists”.

United States Senators are the people who actually play an important role in deciding when their country goes to war. Inhofe’s bill to arm the Ukrainians is sponsored by at least 16 other leading Republicans, including Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), John Cornyn (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.), and Tom Cotton (Ark.).

Sen. Inhofe said in a statement: “The Ukrainian parliament members who gave us these photos in print form as if it came directly from a camera really did themselves a disservice. We felt confident to release these photos because the images match the reporting of what is going on in the region. I was furious to learn one of the photos provided now appears to be falsified from an AP photo taken in 2008.”