The Swiss federal government on Wednesday decided not to impose sanctions against Russia for its seizure of Crimea, claiming it wanted to find a “balance” between international law and Switzerland’s interests.
“The position of our country is independent of the UN,” Swiss president Didier Burkhalter told a press conference in Bern, saying Switzerland can only use sanctions when they are based upon “international law and the interests of the Swiss”.
“And in this case the rights and the interests play a role… we need to find a balance,” he added, as well as noting that Russian interests in Switzerland were “very large”.
“The federal council has noted the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States,” he added.
Burkhalter said some sanctions imposed by the EU would apply to Switzerland, including a ban on the freedom of movement of some Russian nationals as Switzerland is a member of the Schengen group of European countries, which allow passport-free movement between them.
Burkhalter, who is also the country’s foreign minister, said Switzerland would not allow itself to be used in the conflict.
The majority of Russian gas and petrol is traded in Geneva, and Switzerland is an increasingly popular destination for Russia’s wealthy.
Last week we reported that while the West was busy alienating Russia in every diplomatic way possible, without of course exposing its crushing overreliance on Russian energy exports to keep European industries alive, Russia was just as busy cementing its ties with China, in this case courtesy of Europe’s most important company, Gazprom, which is preparing to announce the completion of a “holy grail” natural gas supply deal to Beijing.
We also noted the following: “And as if pushing Russia into the warm embrace of the world’s most populous nation was not enough, there is also the second most populated country in the world, India.” Today we learn just how prescient this particular comment also was, when Reuters reported that Rosneft, the world’s top listed oil producer by output, may join forces with Indian state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp to supply oil to India over the long term, the Russian state-controlled company said on Tuesday.
It said both companies, which work together on Russia’s Sakhalin-1 project, may also join forces in Rosneft’s yet-to-be built liquefied natural gas plant in the far east of Russia to the benefit of Indian consumers of LNG.
We just have one question: will payment for crude and LNG be made in Rubles or Rupees? Because it certainly won’t be in dollars.
Rosneft, which is increasing oil flows to Asia to diversify away from Europe, did not provide any additional details but said it had discussed potential cooperation with Reliance Industries and Indian Oil.
It did not have to: it is quite clear what is going on. While the US is bumbling every possible foreign policy move in Ukraine (and how could it not with John Kerry at the helm), and certainly in the middle east, where it is alienating Israel and Saudi just to get closer to Iran, Russia is aggressively cementing the next, biggest (certainly in terms of population and natural resources), and most important New Normal geopolitical Eurasian axis: China – Russia – India.
There is only one country missing – Germany. Because while diplomatically Germany is ideologically as close to the US as can be, its economy is far more reliant on China and Russia, something the two nations realize all too well. The second the German industrialists make it clear they are shifting their allegiance to the Eurasian Axis and away from the Group of 6 (ex Germany) most insolvent countries in the world, that will be the moment the days of the current reserve petrocurrency will be numbered.
In 2013 only four NATO members—the U.S., U.K., Greece and Estonia—spent at least 2% of GDP on defense.
At 1.9%, France last year fell short of the 2% that is supposed to be the technical requirement for membership. Denmark spent 1.4% of its GDP on defense, Germany 1.3%, Italy 1.2%, and Spain 0.9%. This is what a country spends if it thinks its main “security threat” is Russia.
The group of five major emerging national economies known as the BRICS has rejected the Western sanctions against Russia and the “hostile language” being directed at the country over the crisis in Ukraine.
“The escalation of hostile language, sanctions and counter-sanctions, and force does not contribute to a sustainable and peaceful solution, according to international law, including the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter,” foreign ministers of the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – said in a statement issued on Monday.
The group agreed that the challenges that exist within the regions of the BRICS countries must be addressed within the framework of the United Nations.
“BRICS countries agreed that the challenges that exist within the regions of the BRICS countries must be addressed within the fold of the United Nations in a calm and level-headed manner,” the statement added.
The White House said earlier on Monday that US President Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan decided to end Russia’s role in the G8 over the crisis in Ukraine and the status of Crimea.
Meanwhile, the G7 group of top economic powers has snubbed a planned meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to host in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi in June.
The G7 said they would hold a meeting in Brussels without Russia instead of the wider G8 summit, and threatened tougher sanctions against Russia.
Russia brushed off the Western threat to expel it from the G8 on the same day. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17 and formally applied to become part of Russia following a referendum a day earlier, in which nearly 97 percent of the participants voted in favor of the move.
On March 21, Putin signed into law the documents officially making Crimea part of the Russian territory. Putin said the move was carried out based on the international law.
Yet another Cold War will not come about and Western sanctions are not dreadful to Russia, Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament, points out in an article published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Wednesday.
The article, which deals with Russia’s stance in the light of the situation in Ukraine and threats of sanctions from the West, has been published under the headline “A Brief Telegram: Don’t Overstrain Yourself”.
“Yet another Cold War will not happen, the times have changed. The West is not a zone of economic growth any longer. It is, rather, a zone of stagnation,” Nikonov writes in reply to the article of Michael McFaul, US former Ambassador to Moscow, published in The New York Times on Monday.
Nikonov writes that only some 30 years ago the West accounted for 80% of global GDP, whereas now they account perceptibly for less than a half. “The European Union (EU) is yet to grow for another decade to reach out again to the indicators of 2007. In a couple of years, China will become a major economy in the world, getting ahead of the United States,” the MP points out.
Touching upon possible sanctions against Russia, he maintains that in present-day conditions efforts to isolate Russia would fail. “Its isolation does not work at all, even within its closest circle G7 where far from all share the radicalism of (Barack) Obama and of his chief expert on Russia (Michael) McFaul. Exclusion of Russia from G8 only deprives the Group of the leftovers of its significance,” Nikonov is convinced.
He recalls that the EU is one-third dependent on Russia-supplied energy, whereas Russia consumes one-third of European imports. “Are the Western constituents prepared to find themselves in another deep crisis due to the expression of the will of people in Crimea? Obviously not,” Nikonov writes.
Meanwhile, in his view, efforts to turn Ukraine into a showcase of prosperity and democracy will fail.
“The EU is not in a position to help even its own members Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. Will it be able to help Ukraine, too? No way! An Association Agreement will signify not only a loss of (Ukraine’s) ‘nezalezhnost’ (independence) but an economic collapse as well,” the MP believes.
He points out that Russia, by bringing Crimea back, “has overcome the paralysis of will, and political apathy”.
Nikonov believes that Russia will not allow drawing itself into confrontation, “which the US ex-Ambassador calls for”.
NATO supreme commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, warned Russia against any attempt to “annex” Transnistria.
The Foreign Affairs Minister of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic, the very glamorous Nina Shtanski, welcomed the outcome of Crimea’s referendum on self-determination and recalled that on 17 September 2006, in an analogous vote, 97.2% of Transnistrians had come out in favor of becoming part of the Russian Federation.
The President of Transnistria’s Parliament, Mikhail Burla, wrote to his Russian counterpart asking him to pass a law on the accession of Transnistria to the Russian Federation emulating, what has been done for Crimea.
The President of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, asked the European Union to speed up the signing of an association agreement so as to have a lock on Transnistria’s legal attachment to his country.
The President of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic, Yevgeny Shevchuk, went to Moscow to discuss the situation of his country’s Russian-speaking population following Kiev’s closure of the Ukrainian border.
Moldova declared its independence on 19 August 1990. Just as, at the time of the USSR, Crimea was administratively attached to Ukraine, Transnistria was attached to Moldova, from which it declared independence one week later, on 1 September. However, Moldova was admitted to the UN, but not Transnistria, which has existed for 24 years as an unrecognized state. In June 1992, NATO tried unsuccessfully to resolve this issue through force, killing more than a thousand people, but had to back off due to the resistance of the population. Since then, the country’s security has been provided by a contingent of Russian peacekeepers.
Japan’s Minister in charge of Economic Revitalization, Akira Amari, has spoken in favor of restoration of Russia’s involvement in the Group of Eight after the resolution of current problems around Ukraine.
He said it Tuesday at a news conference in Tokyo.
Russia is an important international actor related to the maintenance of global order and it would be desirable for Moscow to regain its position in the G8 after the solution of the problems the world community has pointed out, Amari said.
He said that the sanctions imposed by the US, the EU and Japan on Russia do not affect the Japanese economy considerably but an escalation of tensions around Ukraine may exert impact on bilateral trade.
Monday night, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. issued a statement, which said among other things they were leaving the G8.
The G7 leaders claimed that “this Group came together because of share beliefs and shared responsibilities” but “Russia’s actions in recent weeks” (support for the Crimeans’ referendum on self-determination and reunification with Russia) allegedly were not consistent with them.
“We will suspend our participation in the G-8 until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G-8 is able to have a meaningful discussion and will meet again in G-7 format at the same time as planned, in June 2014, in Brussels, to discuss the broad agenda we have together,” the statement said.
“We have also advised our Foreign Ministers not to attend the April meeting in Moscow. In addition, we have decided that G-7 Energy Ministers will meet to discuss ways to strengthen our collective energy security,” it said.
From a node in the neoconservative network, a Fox News studio, Charles Krauthammer has complained about the eviction of the Ukrainian Navy from the city of Sevastopol, where it was headquartered. Not a word did the commentator say about the city’s location: Sevastopol is on the Crimean Peninsula. It would appear that the city now falls within Crimean jurisdiction – starting March 16, the day the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine.
By most estimates, between 97 and 93 percent of Crimean voters said yes to a reunion with Russia. High too was voter turnout. McClatchy pegs it at 83 percent of registered voters in Crimea. BBC News was agreed, also reporting a ballot of “more than 80 percent.” Zerohedge.com counted a “paltry” 73 percent turnout, still “higher than every U.S. presidential election since 1900.”
As rocker Ted Nugent might say, the Russians and Crimeans are blood brothers. Nugent got into trouble for using this perfectly proper appellation to describe his affinity for a politician, of all people: Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott. Notwithstanding that in the land of the terminally stupid, linguistic flourish can land one in hot water – blood brother is a good, if colorful, turn of phrase that denotes fealty between like-minded people. Steeped in state-enforced multiculturalism, America’s deracinated, self-anointed cognoscenti have a hard time grasping the blood-brother connections between the people of Russia and Crimea.
For no apparent reason other than that it is pro-Russian, Americans have reflexively aligned themselves against the swell for secession in southern Ukraine. Separatist referenda in Kosovo, Catalonia, South Sudan and Scotland have been accepted without demur by a political and media establishment unprepared to countenance a similar referendum in Crimea.
Guided by the pack animals of politics and punditry who seldom fail to shed darkness on whatever topic they tackle, a nation that struggles to locate the disputed territories on the map has been convinced of the menace posed by Russia. According to a CNN poll, 69 percent of Americans say they see Russia as a threat. A Rasmussen Report poll indicated that “52 percent support U.S. diplomatic action against Russia over Crimea.”
Helping to drive American Russophobia is the implacable logic exemplified by Bill O’Reilly of “The Factor,” yet another node in the network mentioned. At the suggestion that there are similarities between Russian and American military bellicosity, the TV host foams at the mouth. Fulmination is followed not by argument, but by a form of ad hominem or psychologizing.
It is absolutely verboten on this popular and powerful show to compare Russia’s “excursion” into Ukraine to America’s naturally illicit and illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. In defense of their reflexive rejection of the reasonable, if inaccurate, comparison – for decades the U.S. has been far more aggressive than Russia in its forays abroad – Bill and his gang “argued” (on March 3) as follows:
President Vladimir Putin is a thug. That’s why his actions can’t be contrasted with the actions of “a good country” like the U.S. By “logical” extension, George Bush and Barack Obama are never to be fingered as thugs.
Why, Billy, some of you will inquire? Is it because these thugs are American? Precisely.
Next, Bill O’Reilly’s mind-reading gifts were galvanized to negate the juxtaposition of the actions on the ground of the Russian and American governments. Putin, it would appear, seeks the recrudescence of the Russian empire. On the other hand, the U.S., with a military presence in 148 countries and 900 bases worldwide, has neither sought nor achieved empire status.
Why, Billy, some of you will ask? Is it because the U.S. is a good country? You got it!
Be it in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Japan, Bahrain, Djibouti, South Korea, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Kuwait – even Aruba, Iceland, Indonesia, Kenya, Norway and Peru – wherever it plants its military boot, a “good country” is never an empire, only a force for good.
Me, O’Reilly would dismiss as “anti-American.” But what of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger? While Kissinger has condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he excoriated “the demonization of Vladimir Putin.” This antipathy “is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.” “The United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington,” wrote the statesman in the Washington Post.
Is Henry Kissinger anti-American or simply smarter than some Americans?
At least Secretary of State John Kerry hung on to his sense of humor. “Unless you are the United States of America, you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests,” Kerry lectured the congenitally incurious David Gregory, of “Meet the Press.”
I ad-libbed. Except for the first eight words in quotation marks, Secretary Kerry did indeed say the foregoing. Given America’s military record, the missing words are implied.
The O’Reilly school of “thought” could – and does – counteract that Crimea’s vote to join Russia was tainted by fraud. This is certainly possible. Nevertheless, it is none of our business. Americans have their own tyrants to dethrone.
We’re supposed to be the freest people in the world, aren’t we? Is this claim not the moral basis for America’s we-know-best global meddling? But if we Americans are the freest people in the world, where’s our right to a referendum on, say, that “little” legislative “blip” called Obamacare? And if we’re so bleeding free, where’s our right to secede from D.C.?
US news agency Associated Press is no longer marking news items coming from Crimea as Ukrainian. In a blog statement, the American news major explained that the Ukrainian regime had lost control over the peninsula, and stressed its marking practice was based on the actual state of things.
Where it once used this dateline: “SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP),” it will now use this one: “SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (AP).”
The reason is that Crimea is geographically distinct from Russia; they have no land border.
“For instance, we just say “Sicily” and “Sardinia” in datelines – “Palermo, Sicily” – even though they are part of Italy, and “Guadeloupe” in datelines even though that island is part of France,” Associated Press’ Stylebook announced
The change will effectively recognize Crimea as an independent state following a referendum on Sunday where the vast majority of Crimeans voted to become independent and join Russia.
Rather than champion the cause of independence and self-determination for colonized peoples around the world, the United States has become a center for defending inequitable status quos.
When, in 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo declared the region independent of Serbia, it was immediately recognized by the major corporatist powers because NATO troops were present to ensure that Serbia did not try to reassert its control over the region. NATO and the European Union also warned the majority Serbs in northern Kosovo not to declare independence and unify with Serbia.
Apparently, independence for ethnic groups is only permitted by NATO and the European Union as long as it is not Russians, Serbs, Afrikaners asking for the independence or the right of self-determination.
In the Crimean referendum, registered voter turnout was 83.10 percent. Only 2.09 percent of those voting opted to restore the 1992 constitution and remain a part of Ukraine. A clear majority of 96.7 percent favored joining the Russian Federation.
If the same rules that are presently applied by the corporatist powers to Crimea were extended to independence referenda held in other countries, there today would be no independent Norway, Iceland, Cambodia, Guinea, Samoa, Algeria, Malta, Djibouti, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Eritrea, East Timor, Montenegro, South Sudan, or, in fact, Ukraine.
All declared independence after referenda, some of which were more openly in favor than that held by Crimea (Norway, 99.9 percent; Iceland, 99.5 percent; Cambodia, 100 percent; Guinea, 95.2 percent; Samoa, 85.4 percent; Algeria, 99.7 percent; Malta, 54.5 percent; French Territory of Afars and Issas (Djibouti), 99.8 percent; Slovenia, 88.5 percent; Estonia, 78.4 percent; Latvia, 74.9 percent; Lithuania, 93.2 percent; Bosnia-Herzegovina, 99.7 percent; Moldova, 97.9 percent; East Timor, 78.5 percent; Montenegro, 55.5 percent; South Sudan, 98.3 percent; and Ukraine, 92.3 percent.)
The corporatist powers have, like Ukraine, denied their regions independence after clear majorities voted in favor of secession. In 1933, the British Parliament rejected a 70.7 percent vote in favor of secession by Western Australia. In 1946, the Danish King rejected a 50.4 percent vote in favor of independence held in the Faroe Islands. The declaration of independence by the islands was rejected by Denmark. In 1977, after the people of Aruba voted 95.1 percent for independence, the Netherlands instead offered the island a bogus self-determination status.
Great Britain still recognises the independence of two Bantustans in Southern Africa today, but refused to recognise the independence of other ethnic states because they had no control over them. Instead Britain called the independence of South African provinces “apartheid” and launched a worldwide attack on separate development.
Argentine leader Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner recalled that the UN Charter stipulates the right of people to self-determination, which means that this rule should be applied to all countries without any exception.
Kirchner compared the situation in Crimea with another event in modern history. The Falkland Islands also held a referendum a year ago. It was a disputed territory, claimed by both Argentina and the United Kingdom. In 1982, differences resulted in an open military conflict.
Britain then defended the Falklands by force of arms, and last March almost all the residents voted to stay a part of the UK in a plebiscite. The UN did not question the legality of the vote at that time, Kirchner said.
“Many of the major powers, which have secured the Falklands’ people right to self-determination, do not want to do the same in relation to the Crimea now. How can you call yourselves guarantors of world stability, if you do not apply the same standards for everyone? It looks like the Crimeans cannot express their will, but the residents of the Falklands can. There is zero logic in that,” she said.
The EU countries and the US government refused to recognize the results of the referendum in the Crimea, with region’s residents voting almost unanimously for joining Russia.
The EU imposed second-tier sanctions against Russia on Monday, as a retaliation measure to the holding of a referendum in Crimea. Financial assets freezing and a visa ban on entry into the EU countries were applied to those Russian officials, who the West calls responsible for the annexation of the Crimea.
The US sanctions have affected an even higher tier – Barack Obama signed a decree that prohibits entry into the United States and seizes US assets of seven Russian officials and deputies: the Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, Presidential Adviser Sergei Glazyev, Assistant to President Vladislav Surkov, State Duma deputies Elena Mizulina and Leonid Slutskiy, Senator Andrey Klishas.
Rejecting contacts with Russia, the West harms himself, not us, the Vzglyad newspaper states. As a response to the US and European sanctions the State Duma issued a document named “On the US and EU sanctions,” suggesting that Western leaders should extend restrictions on all Russian deputies.
A woman with her face painted in the colours of the Russian national flag waits for the announcement of preliminary results of today’s referendum on Lenin Square in the Crimean capital of Simferopol March 16, 2014
The referendum in Crimea was fully consistent with international law and UN Charter, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Barack Obama, after the overwhelming majority of Crimeans expressed their willingness to join Russia.
The citizens of the peninsula have been given an opportunity to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination, the Russian president said in a phone conversation with his US counterpart, according to Kremlin’s press service.
With a record-breaking turnout of over 80 percent, according to preliminary results, over 95 percent of the Crimean population said ‘yes’ to the reunion of the republic with Russia. International observers have not reported any violations or anything resembling any kind of pressure during the vote.
However, Obama said the Unites States and the “international community” will “never recognize” the results of the referendum “administered under threats of violence and intimidation,” according to White House spokesman.
Obama “emphasized that Russia’s actions were in violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that the US in coordination with its European partners is “prepared to impose additional costs on Russia,” the White House added.
Despite the existing differences in the assessment of the situation in Ukraine, the leaders of Russia and US have agreed that they must jointly seek to help stabilize the situation in the country, the Kremlin said.
“Putin drew attention to the inability and unwillingness of the current Kiev authorities to curb rampant ultra-nationalist and radical groups, destabilizing and terrorizing civilians, including Russian-speaking population, and our fellow citizens,” Kremlin statement reads.
In this context, the possibility of sending an OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine was discussed, the press office reported. The Russian President believes such a mission should be extended to all Ukrainian regions. – RT.COM
The deepening crisis in Ukraine involves not only issues of political sovereignty, European integration and Russian hegemony, but also language and its relationship to nationalism and ethnic identity. Immediately after the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, the Ukrainian Parliament repealed a controversial law passed in 2012 that allowed the use of “regional languages” – including Russian, Hungarian, Romanian and Tatar — in courts and certain government functions in areas of the country where such speakers constituted at least 10 percent of the population. (In 1991, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent state of Ukraine established Ukrainian as its sole official language.)
Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov has since vetoed that repeal, but the episode has alarmed many of Ukraine’s Russian speakers and others. “Just as the law itself was meant to validate the continued use of Russian in Ukraine for a wide range of activities, the move to cancel that law was perceived as taking away rights enjoyed by the Russian-speaking population, and potentially a sign that there might be growing discrimination against them,” explained Olga Oliker, a security and defense analyst at the RAND Corp.
Indeed, after the 2012 law was passed, 13 of Ukraine’s 27 regions, mostly in the industrial eastern parts of the country, quickly adopted Russian as a second official language. (But even then, the passage of the law triggered demonstrations in the streets and even fistfights in Parliament.) Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, associate professor in the department of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Kansas, commented that the 2012 language law was poorly written and roundly criticized by many experts at the time. “Additionally, no budgetary allocations were made at the time, so passing this law was, in effect, a purely symbolic measure intended to divert the attention of the Ukrainian electorate from corruption and economic problems,” Chernetsky said in an interview.
According to the CIA/World Factbook, the Russian language is spoken by about one-fourth (24 percent) of the Ukrainian population, while about one-sixth (17.3 percent) of the Ukrainian population are ethnic Russians. RT, a Russian television network, claims that 40 percent of Ukrainians speak Russian, (presumably including non-Russians). Russian speakers are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine – while in the southern autonomous region of Crimea (where the Russians have had a naval base on the Black Sea for more than 200 years), an estimated 60 percent of the population are ethnic Russians.
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The Ukraine Parliament reportedly will consider yet another language law in the coming weeks or months – it is unclear if it will again allow a multi-language framework for the country’s social and political life.
Svitlana Melnyk, a lecturer in Slavic languages and literatures at Indiana University-Bloomington, argued that the establishment of monolingualism formed a key part of solidifying Ukraine’s national identity. “For post-Soviet independent countries and Ukraine in particular, the state language has symbolic meaning and a great symbolic value in the process of nation-building,” she said. “This is a national symbol along with the flag and anthem. The language issue is highly politicized in Ukraine, and its future management heavily depends on the evolving political situation.”
Melnyk added that she thinks that Ukrainian should be “the only state language” in the country. “At the same time, the [new language] law should consider the current socio-linguistic situation and protect the languages of national and ethnic minorities in the country,” she said.
But the temporary repeal of the 2012 law sparked outrage from Ukraine to Moscow and even in the European Union. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev condemned the law’s abolition. “We do not understand what is going on there. There is a real threat to our [Russian] interests and to the lives and health of our citizens,” he said at a press conference, adding that the new interim government in Kiev lacks legitimacy. Similarly, Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, characterized the law’s repeal as an “attack on the Russian language in Ukraine” and a “brutal violation of ethnic minority rights.”
Outside of Russia, the European Parliament even passed a resolution calling on the new Ukraine regime to respect the rights (and languages) of its minority population. “The Parliament of Ukraine has made what I believe to be a mistake… canceling a law on regional languages,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told CNN. “The new Ukrainian government should signal very eloquently to the ethnic minorities in Ukraine that they are welcome in Ukraine; that they are going to be part of the new Ukraine. And also Ukraine is a member of the Council of Europe, [with] its laws on protecting minorities.”
Separately, in response to the gathering storm in Ukraine, some nationalist lawmakers in Moscow, led by the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, have called for the fast-tracking of Russian citizenship to ethnic Russians in Ukraine. LPDR MP Ilya Drozdov has already tabled a bill that would grant Russian citizenship to Ukrainian-Russians within six months of proving their ethnicity. “The adoption of this amendment would allow [us] to lawfully use the migration potential of Ukrainian citizens of Russian ethnicity who desire to get Russian citizenship,” Drozdov explained. RT reported that more than 2 million residents of the former Soviet republics have received fast-tracked Russian citizenship since the fall of the Soviet Union – even including people not of ethnic Russian origin, like the South Ossetians of Georgia, who speak an Iranian-related language.
Meanwhile Ukrainian nationalists, particularly members of the ultra-right Svoboda (Freedom) party led by Oleg Tyahnibok, have even threatened to ban the Russian language completely and even strip the Ukrainian citizenship of the nation’s Russian speakers. Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, expressed their grave concerns about another Svoboda-proposed bill that would essentially ban all Russian language media in Ukraine (which Svoboda has defended by citing that Russian reports of the turmoil in Ukraine have been tarred with bias). That bill would prohibit from Ukraine any media from nations that have not ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television — Russia has signed the convention, but has not ratified it yet.
“Russia is not a party to the convention, but it does not prevent us from broadcasting all across Europe. No EU member makes any problems for our broadcasts. If such a decision is taken in Ukraine, it would be a serious violation of the freedom of speech,” Lavrov said at a media conference.
With respect to the prevalence of Russian language, Chernetsky also noted if one looks at an average Ukrainian newsstand, one will find that about 90 percent of the publications are in Russian, even in the areas where the majority of the population speaks Ukrainian. “The Russian language also dominates the radio,” he said. “The only segment of the media where the Ukrainian language predominates is the national-level television channels.”
Oliker noted that while Ukraine has some strident far-right groups, including Svoboda and Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector), there are also more measured voices that recognize that Ukraine is a multi-ethnic country and which have absolutely no interest in denying anyone their citizenship on ethnic grounds. “Emotions are of course running very high right now, but I think most Ukrainian leaders, including the leadership of Svoboda, know they stand to lose far more than they stand to gain by taking action against the ethnic Russian minority,” she noted. “That said, the situation bears watching, because people are very angry and frightened, because one cannot ignore the ethnic undertones to the anger or the fear, and because elements of Svoboda, and certainly Pravyi Sektor, do hold ultra-nationalist views.”
Russian and Ukrainian are closely related Slavic tongues, but they are also distinct languages with separate ethnic and national identities. The Christian Science Monitor reports that Russian-language activists in Ukraine have long wanted to make Russian a second official state language, citing such scenarios in multi-lingual countries like Canada and India. “There is this pervasive suggestion that if you speak Russian, you’re not a loyal or true Ukrainian. This makes Russian-speakers feel like second-class citizens,” Ruslan Bortnik, vice chairman of Russian-Speaking Ukraine, an advocacy group, told the Monitor.
Of course, Ukrainian nationalists fear the further encroachment of Russian into its national fabric. “If Russian were an official language, the main fear is that it would be a wide-open door for Russian influence in Ukraine,” said Oleksiy Kolomiyets, president of the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies in Kiev. – International Business Times
The defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia have agreed on a truce in Crimea until March 21, Ukraine’s acting defense minister said on Sunday.
“An agreement has been reached with (Russia’s) Black Sea Fleet and the Russian Defense Ministry on a truce in Crimea until March 21,” Ihor Tenyukh told journalists on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting.
“No measures will be taken against our military facilities in Crimea during that time. Our military sites are therefore proceeding with a replenishment of reserves.” – Reuters
An international observer from Finland, who sees the referendum on the status of Crimea as absolutely legitimate, has received death threats.
A referendum is due to be held in Crimea on the status of the peninsula tomorrow, on Sunday, March 16, so on Saturday, any campaigning is banned there. An ad-hoc commission is due to see to it that this is strictly observed.
Meanwhile, an international monitor from Finland, Johan Bäckman, has complained at Simferopol airport of pressure that has been brought to bear on him and his colleagues, and also said he’d received death threats, because he supports the referendum.
“It’s all threats and slander. I received a letter with death threats earlier today”, Bäckman said. “The letter is anonymous. The Western media are full of aggression against Russia. I can’t really make out the position of the West that the referendum is allegedly in breach of international law”.
He said the residents of Crimea have every right to determine their future. The US and the European Union are bending every effort to have the referendum cancelled, and are threatening with sanctions. That the EU is considering sanctions is absolutely absurd.
Bäckman said the attempts of western politicians to stop or cancel the referendum are prompted by their desire to downgrade Russia’s authority.
The All-Crimea plebiscite is due on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. The minimum voter turnout to consider the referendum valid is 50%. International observers keep arriving in Crimea to monitor the plebiscite.The international observer stressed that he sees the referendum on the status of Crimea as absolutely legitimate.
The situation in Crimea is calm, Deputy of the Belgian parliament Frank Creelman, who arrived to monitor the referendum to be held on March 16, said on Saturday. Everything is very calm and normal, absolutely not the way it is being pictures abroad, he said.
There are many pro-Russian people among residents and many law enforcement officers are at streets, Creelman said.
Creelman said he intended to monitor the referendum on the status of Crimea not just in Simferopol but in relatively small Crimean settlements as well.
The former Republican congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has launched a scathing attack on what he calls a US-backed coup in Ukraine, insisting the Crimean people have the right to align their territory with Moscow and characterising sanctions against Russia as “an act of war”.
“The evidence is pretty clear that the NGOs [non-governmental organisations] financed by our government have been agitating with billions of dollars, trying to get that government changed,” he said. “Our [American] hands are not clean.”
Voice of Russia, Interfax, Life News, The Guardian
An American scout-attack drone was intercepted in the Crimean sky, the Rostec state corporation reports. “Judging by side marking, the MQ-5B drone was part of the 66th US brigade of military intelligence with the main location in Bavaria,” the report on the website of the corporation reads.
According to the report, at the beginning of March, the American brigade was relocated to the Ukrainian Kirovohrad, from where drones commit reconnaissance raids in the direction of Crimea and Russian border areas.
Earlier, they reportedly appeared in the Kherson region, in the area of the Crimean roadblock Chongar.
The 66th Military Intelligence Brigade is a United States Army brigade, subordinate to United States Army Intelligence and Security Command and based at Wiesbaden Army Airfield, Wiesbaden, Germany. After years of history as a counter intelligence/intelligence group with headquarters in Munich and geographically dispersed detachments, it became a brigade on 16 October 1986, but was inactivated in July 1995. Reformed again as an intelligence group in 2002, it became a brigade again in 2008.
The unit’s mission is to provide intelligence support to U.S. Army Europe and U.S. Army Africa.
Part of the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade supports near real-time missions for deployed soldiers such as operations in Afghanistan and also Iraq.
“According to some data, the American reconnaissance brigade had 18 MQ-5B drones in its arsenal. This is the second time the American UAV is intercepted over Crimea,” the report says.
“The drone was at the height of about 4 thousand meters and was practically invisible from the earth. It was possible to break the drone’s link with its American operators with the help of the EW (electronic warfare) complex Avtobaza. As a result, the device made an emergency landing and passed into the possession of the self-defense forces almost unbroken,” the report says.
Ten years ago a German drone nearly collided with a passenger plane over Afghanistan. The classified drone camera footage drew public attention after the German defense ministry scrapped a drone program for its lack of anti-collision technology.
Footage taken by an EMT Luna X-2000 reconnaissance drone as it passed mere meters under the left wing of an Airbus A300 passenger plane surfaced on YouTube several years ago. After the encounter, the drone was caught in the plane’s wake turbulence, lost control, and crashed over the Afghan capital Kabul, Der Spiegel reported.
The Ariana Afghan Airlines plane was carrying about 100 people on board, the magazine said. The manufacturer of the 40kg drone has claimed that the near-collision occurred after the passenger jet veered off-course without informing ground control.
The video was leaked a week after German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière decided to scrap the $652 million EuroHawk program meant to be a replacement for existing reconnaissance aircraft. EuroHawk is part of the NATO Global Hawk project.
Local German communities have expressed apprehension about US drones being in German airspace. Germans are concerned about potential violation of their freedoms after the drones come into operation. The recent scandal surrounding NSA spying activities in Germany and the protests that followed, has heightened public skepticism.
“It’s a big issue here in general, and it’s a very German topic,” Constanze Schulze, a reporter for ARD Bavaria stated. “There are many discussions going on about unmanned units, and of course there is some concern. I think that’s why you see so many reporters here. Everyone is talking about it.”
Politicians have also expressed concerns. Reinhold Strobl of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) said that the public was informed “too late” and that there was “inadequate” information provided by the German authorities and US military ahead of the deployment. If it was not for test flights conducted in July, the politician says, Germans would have been left completely in the dark.
Richard Reisinger from the Christian Social Union Party (CSU) also said that the way the public was informed about the issue lacked transparency. “What happens to the collected data?” he asks, expressing concern of potential risk of information misuse.
Source: Voice of Russia/BBC/RT
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