Tag: NATO

New EU sanctions to target Russian oil, defence

The FT reports that Europe’s latest sanctions will target a number of key Russian oil and defense industry companies and banks. The new round of economic sanctions is due to be imposed by Brussels Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal also reported on the latest round of sanctions, referring to leaked EU documents.

Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft are among the oil sector companies, included in the sanction list the Wall Street Journal said it examined. They will reportedly be banned from raising funds with the maturity period exceeding 30 days. The same restriction will be imposed on five Russian state-controlled banks, including Sberbank and VTB Bank, already forbidden from raising bank loans in the European Union member states for longer than 90 days, the newspaper said Sunday.

Russian defense industry access to the EU capital markets will also be seriously complicated, according to the documents cited by the Wall Street Journal. Oboronprom aerospace holding, United Aircraft Corporation and Uralvagonzavod scientific industrial corporation are among the defense industry companies Wall Street Journal said would be able to get a bank loan with maximum maturity of 30 days in the European Union.

Nine companies, producing equipment for the Russian army, including Kalashnikov, Sirius and Stankoinstrument, will reportedly no longer be able to purchase dual-use technology (with possible military applications) from the EU member nations.

Brussels and Washington started to impose economic sanctions against Moscow since Crimea’s reunification with Russia in March, which the West considers illegal, and Russia claims to be fully legitimate. The latest round of restrictions has, in particular, limited capital raising in the European Union for a number of Russian banks.

As a responsive measure, Moscow issued a one-year ban on certain food products importation from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway.

New Sanctions against Russia in energy or finance sectors could trigger an asymmetric response from Moscow, such as closing its airspace, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the Vedomosti newspaper in an interview released Monday.

“It is them [the West], who should be asked whether there will be new sanctions. But if there are sanctions, linked with energy, [or] further restrictions on our finance sector, we will have to respond asymmetrically. For instance, [with] restrictions in transport area. We act on the premise of friendly relations with our partners, and this is why the sky above Russia is open for flights. But if we are restricted, we will have to answer,” Medvedev added.

The prime minister argued that certain Western airlines could go bankrupt in case they are banned to use Russia’s airspace.

“But this is a bad option. I just would like our partners to realize it at a certain moment. Especially, [considering the fact] that the sanctions do not help to establish peace in Ukraine. They miss [beside the mark], and an absolute majority of the politicians understand it. There are just an inertness of thinking and, unfortunately, the will to use force in international affairs,” Medvedev stressed.

France gets NATO fences from Wales summit

Britain has announced plans to erect a huge fence in the French port city of Calais. The steel fencing was previously used at a NATO summit. The move is part of the UK’s campaign to deter illegal immigrants from entering the British Isles.

Dubbed the “ring of steel,” the barrier – which measures more than 12 miles long and nine feet high – was previously used at a NATO summit in South Wales. It was first erected around Celtic Manor in Newport, as well as around summit venues in Cardiff. It was aimed at protecting dozens of world leaders and ministers from potential terrorist threats.

According to British Immigration Minister James Brokenshire, the fencing will now protect the country from illegal migrants entering the country by crossing the English Channel from Calais “which has been the access point to Britain from the continent for centuries.”

“These [fences] could replace and enlarge the inadequate fencing at Calais, which is too easy for illegal immigrants to scale,” the minister told The Telegraph.

Recently, the port has become a growing makeshift camp for an estimated 1,300 migrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, and other troubled states in the Middle East and North and East Africa. According to authorities, the number of illegal immigrants has risen by 50 percent in recent months and continues to increase.

In an attempt to reach the shores of Britain, people flock to Calais and many groups regularly climb over the existing fences – measuring five meters high – to get to trucks and ferries. Eurotunnel passengers and drivers have been warned to search their cars for people possibly hidden inside.

Amid rising tensions in the area, right-wing activists demonstrated to “save” Calais from homeless migrants on Sunday. Some 250 people, including a group called ‘Save Calais’ and skinheads with “white power” flags took part in the anti-immigration rally on the streets of the French city.

To help deal with the trouble, French officials have made a direct appeal to the UK. Claiming the town has been “taken hostage” by migrants with a goal to cross the channel, Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart has threatened to blockade the port should Britain fail to address the issue.

“We really want the UK Government to think about the English rules, which are possibly the best for immigrants in Europe. We want the Government to make it less attractive, to be less soft,” the mayor of the French city said.

The UK immigration minister said it was France’s responsibility to maintain security of its port, “but we want to do what we can to help.”

The minister highlighted that the move to install the fencing is part of a “very clear message” that “Britain is no soft touch when it comes to illegal immigration.”

British politician Michael Howard said it was France that needed to deal with asylum seekers, rather than blaming Britain.

Source: RT

Former Solidarity leader warns that arming Ukraine is a bad idea

European military assistance to Ukraine could lead to a nuclear conflict between Russia and NATO, according to Poland’s iconic cold warrior and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa.

“It could lead to a nuclear war,” the anti-Communist legend told reporters when asked whether the EU should send weapons to Ukraine to help it fights off separatist rebels and Russian aggression.

“The EU is well aware that Russia has nuclear weapons. NATO has them too. Must we then destroy each other?” said the former Solidarity trade union leader famous for negotiating a bloodless end to communism in Poland in 1989.

“This is why the EU keeps on repeating: stop being silly (…) This is why it isn’t getting involved too much!” he added, at an annual regional economic in Krynica, southern Poland.

The EU on Saturday agreed to impose fresh sanctions on Russia should Moscow failed to change its behaviour in Ukraine, after Kiev said Russian soldiers were fighting along side pro-Moscow rebels.

Source: AFP

Warning: Washington and its NATO, EU vassals are insane

By Paul Craig Roberts.

Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination. If we have “ to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.”

As the crazed Meyer illiustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint. Jose Manual Barroso, installed as Washington’s puppet as European Commission President, misrepresented his recent confidential telephone conversation with Russia’s President Putin by telling the media that Putin issued a threat: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.”

Clearly, Putin did not issue a threat. A threat would be inconsistent with Putin’s entire unprovocative approach to the strategic threat that Washington and its NATO puppets have brought to Russia in Ukraine. Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that if Barroso’s lie stands, Russia will make public the full recording of the conversation

Anyone familiar with the disparity between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries knows full well that it would take the Russian military 14 hours, not 14 days, to take all of Ukraine. Just remember what happened to the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian Army when Washington set its stupid Georgian puppets on South Ossetia. The American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army collapsed under Russian counterattack in 5 hours.

The lie that Washington’s puppet Barroso told was not worthy of a serious person. But where in Europe is there a serious person in power? Nowhere. The few serious people are all out of power. Consider the NATO Secretary General, Anders Rasmussen. He was a prime minister of Denmark who saw he could rise beyond Denmark by serving as Washington’s puppet. As prime minister he strongly supported Washington’s illegal invasion of Iraq, declaring that “we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Of course, the fool didn’t know any such thing, and why would it matter if Iraq did have such weapons. Many countries have weapons of mass destruction.

According to the rule that anyone who serves Washington is elevated, the cipher Rasmussen was elevated.

The problem with elevating unprincipled fools is that they risk the world for their career. Rasmussen has now put the entirety of Eastern and Western Europe at risk of annihilation. Rasmussen has announced the creation of a blitzkrieg spearhead force capable of blitzkrieg attack on Russia. What Washington’s puppet calls “the Readiness Action Plan” is justified as a response to “Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine.”

Rasmussen’s “lightening spearhead force” would be wiped out along with every European capital. What kind of idiot provokes a nuclear superpower in this way?

Rasmussen asserts “Russia’s aggressive behavior” but has no evidence of it. Russia has stood on the sidelines while Washington’s puppet government in Kiev has shelled and bombed civilian housing, hospitals, schools and issued a constant stream of lies against Russia. Russia denied the requests of the now independent eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine, former Russian territories, to be reunited with Russia. As readers know, I regard Putin’s decision as a mistake, but events might prove me wrong and that is OK with me. For now, the fact is that every act of aggressive behavior is the result of the US and EU support of the Kiev nazis. It is the Ukrainian nazi militias that are attacking civilians in the former Russian territories of eastern and southern Ukraine. A number of regular Ukrainian military units have defected to the independent republics.

Yes, nazis. Western Ukraine is the home of the Ukrainian SS division that fought for Hitler. Today the militias organized by the Right Sector and other right-wing political organizations wear the nazi insignia of the Ukrainian SS divisions. These are the people that Washington and the EU support. If the Ukrainian nazis could win against Russia, which they cannot, they would turn on the West, just as has the Washington-funded ISIS that Washington unleashed on Libya and Syria. Now ISIS is remaking the Middle East, and Washington appears helpless.

William Binney, a former high level official in the US National Security Agency, and colleagues from the CIA and military intelligence services have written to German chancellor Merkel advising her to beware of Obama’s lies at the upcoming NATO summit in Wales. The US intelligence officials advise Merkel to remember Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” and don’t again be deceived, this time into conflict with Russia.

The question is: who does Merkel represent? Washington or Germany? So far Merkel has represented Washington, not German business interests, not the German people, and not Germany’s interests as a country. Here is a protest in Dresden where a crowd prevents Merkel’s speech with shouts of “kriegstreiber” (warmonger), “liar, liar,” and “no war with Russia.”

My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: “Money, we give them money.” “Foreign aid?” I asked. “No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale, We bought them. They report to us.” Perhaps this explains Tony Blair’s $50 million fortune one year out of office.

The Western media, the largest brothel on earth, is desperate for war. The editorial board of the Washington Post, now a trophy newspaper in the hands of Amazon.com’s billionaire owner, ran an editorial on August 31 that projected all of Washington’s (and the Post’s) lies upon Putin.

Amazon.com’s owner might know how to market products on the Internet, but he is hopeless when it comes to running a newspaper. His editors at the Washington Post have made his trophy a worldwide laughing stock.

Here are the mindless accusations against Putin from the editors that the billionaire put in charge of his trophy newspaper:

Putin, bitterly resentful at the loss of power from the Soviet collapse, has “resurrected the tyranny of the Big Lie” in order to reconstitute the Russian Empire.

“Russian sponsored militias in Ukraine” are responsible for the “shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in July.” The “Russian state-controlled media” lied and misrepresented to the Russian people the party responsible for downing the airliner.

“In the absence of independent and free reporting, few Russians realize that Russian soldiers and armaments are in action in eastern Ukraine, albeit (as in Crimea) in uniforms and vehicles stripped of their identifying insignia and license plates. With no free media, Russians are left to fend for themselves against a firestorm of falsehoods.”

“Mr. Putin’s Big Lie shows why it is important to support a free press where it still exists and outlets like Radio Free Europe that bring the truth to people who need it.”

As a former Wall Street Journal editor, I can say with complete confidence that such extraordinary propaganda posing as an editorial would have resulted in the immediate firing of all concerned. In my days on the Congressional staff, the Washington Post was regarded as a CIA asset. Today the Post has sunk far below this status.

I have seen much media propaganda in my day, but this Washington Post editorial takes the cake. The editorial shows that either the editorial writers are completely ignorant or they are completely corrupt and also assume that their readers are completely ignorant. If Russian military units were in action in eastern Ukraine, the situation would be precisely as Alexander Zakharchenko and Dmitry Orlov describe. Ukraine would no longer exist. Ukraine would again be part of Russia where it was for centuries prior to Washington taking advantage of the Soviet collapse to tear Ukraine away from Russia.

The question before us is: how long will Russia’s patience last with the West’s enormous lies and provocations? No matter how restrained Russia is, Russia is accused of the worst. Therefore, Russia might as well inflict the worst.

At what point will the Russian government decide that Washington’s mendacity, and that of its European puppets and corrupt Western media, render hopeless Russia’s efforts to resolve the situation with diplomacy and unprovocative behavior? As Russia is constantly accused falsely of invading Ukraine, when will the Russian government decide that as Western propaganda has established that Russia has invaded Ukraine and has imposed sanctions and new military bases on Russia’s borders because of the alleged invasion, Russia might as well go ahead and rid themselves of the problem Washington has brought to Russia and invade Ukraine?

There is nothing that NATO could do about it if Russia decides that Ukraine in Washington’s hands is too much of a strategic threat to Russia and reincorporates Ukraine again into Russia where it has resided for centuries. Any NATO force sent would start a war that NATO can’t win. The German population, remembering the consequences of war with Russia, would overthrow Washington’s puppet government. NATO and the EU would collapse as Germany departed the absurd construct that serves Washington’s interest at the expense of Europe.

Once this happens, the world will have peace. But not until.

For those who care to understand how the land of lies works, Washington’s puppet government in Kiev attributes the defeat of its military forces by the Donetsk Republic to the presence in the Donetsk army of Russian military units. This is the propaganda that has gone out to western Ukraine and to the presstitute western media, a collection of whores that echo the propaganda without any investigation whatsoever. However, Kiev has a different story for the IMF. Kiev cannot receive IMF money with which to pay off its Western creditors if Ukraine is at war. Therefore, Ukraine tells the IMF the opposite story: Russia has not attacked Ukraine.

The Western media remains uninterested in any facts. Just the lies. Only the lies.

The Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox “news,” Die Welt, the French press, the British press all plead: “please Washington give us more sensational lies that we can trumpet. Our circulation needs it. Who cares about war and the human race if only we can regain financial stability.”

Justin Raimondo warns that Washington is planting the seeds of World War III.


Dr. 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. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Putin’s plan for de-escalation in Ukraine should be heeded

Very big doubts arise as to sincerity of Brussels and Washington with regard to the #Ukraine crisis, the minister has noted

The calls presented in the plan of peaceful settlement of the situation in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin should be heeded in Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov has stated this at a meeting with OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Chairman Ilkka Kanerva on Thursday.

“We do not give up. President Vladimir Putin personally makes great efforts in direct contacts with President Poroshenko to find such ways of cooperation that will allow immediately put an end to bloodshed, remove the threat for the civilian population, ensure solution to humanitarian problems, problems of reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure, and, of course, ensure the beginning of the negotiating political process,” the Russian minister said.

After such contacts, the Russian president formulated the seven-point initiative that is aimed at helping Kiev’s authorities and the militia of the southeast agree on and take steps in coordination to deescalate the situation, Lavrov said.

“We hope the calls will be heeded first and foremost in Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk,” the minister said. “We will be ready together with OSCE within the framework of the contact group to help the conflicting parties to move along the path of stabilization of the situation in practice.”

“Decisions of the Council of Europe, UN Security Council, and OSCEsce on Ukraine must be implemented undeviatingly; this applies to investigation of events at Maidan, in Odessa, and Boeing airliner crash,” the Russian foreign minister emphasized.

Very big doubts arise as to sincerity of Brussels and Washington with regard to the Ukraine crisis, the minister has noted.

Lavrov drew attention to the following fact: “There was no lack in peace initiatives. We were actively pushing forward approaches which are sealed in the Geneva Statement dated April 17. We fixed the Berlin Declaration and documents which presuppose an immediate cessation of fire and the start of a respectful inclusive dialogue on a constitutional reform with the participation of all regions. None of those that signed the documents together with us, I mean Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union, are interested, as it seemed to us, in implementing what we reached agreement about. This is very sad.”

“Since both OSCE and the United Nations under the pressure of Western countries refused even to acclaim the Geneva statement, when our Western partners in OSCE blocked the initiative of Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, of course, all that actions, the West’s behavior raises very big doubts as to the sincerity of what is being done by Brussels and Washington,” Lavrov said.

In his turn, Kanerva noted that the crisis in Ukraine’s southeast was impossible to settle by military means, and a political decision should be found. “We have arrived today here not to urge you to do something and not to persuade you to act in a certain way. We do not intend to assume any arrogant or aggressive attitude,” Kanerva said.

“We all are very concerned by the deteriorating situation in eastern Ukraine and on the border between Ukraine and Russia,” he added. “We urge all parties of the conflict not to attempt any further provocations and show a constructive attitude towards what is now happening in Ukraine,” Kanerva stressed. “That is why we believe necessary to prevent the flow of weapons and servicemen, which are now crossing the border. We need to find a secure solution for this crisis, which today became a very acute problem.”

Sergei Lavrov believes OSCE should provide a basis for cooperation in Europe that makes impossible “provocations” like the one staged in Ukraine. “We are always open, all the more so the OSCE indeed plays an important role not only when the fire has already broken out,” the minister said.

“The events in Ukraine are now the main problem, since there is a civil war, and civilians are eliminated,” the minister went on saying. “The southeast is the most hot spot of the Ukrainian crisis, but we shall not forget about the other parts of the country.”

In this regard, Lavrov pointed to the problems experienced by the Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, and which are discussed in Europe “but not aloud”. “That is why we considered the national unity in Ukraine the most important matter of principle,” the Russian minister stressed. He recalled the agreement of February 21, signed by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and other then-opposition leaders, who are currently members of the ruling coalition.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the bet made by the United States and some Western powers on the so-called NATO’s victory in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict would ‘lead to nothing good.’

“I am sure that Russia just like many other European countries want the Ukrainian people to win in terms of its multiethnic diversity,” Lavrov said during his meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn.

“Some of our Western partners, unfortunately including most influential player the United States, want NATO to win and want the situation, when the United States dictates its own will for everyone else, to win as well.”

“Nothing good will come out of such concept of exclusiveness, which President (Barack) Obama repeatedly voiced and nothing good comes out of it currently,” the top Russian diplomat said.

The decision of the Council of Europe (CE), the UN Security Council and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) must be fully complied with, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

He said at a meeting with CE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland, “We are convinced that the Council of Europe can and should play an active and constructive role in this uneasy period.” “Ukraine is on everybody’s mind, and we are convinced that the decisions, taken by the Council of Europe, the UN Security Council and OSCE should be fully complied with, the same as the agreements made in Geneva, Berlin and other formats.”

“This is so, regarding the investigation of all the crimes, all incidents, be it the Maidan, Odessa events, or the Malaysian Boeing crash, this is also true about the need for an urgent agreement on the unconditional ceasefire and beginning of the inclusive political dialogue,” Lavrov said.

Memo to Merkel from US intel veterans

MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO

We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5.

You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian “invasion” of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the “intelligence” seems to be of the same dubious, politically “fixed” kind used 12 years ago to “justify” the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Barack Obama tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift.”

Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on “intelligence” that was dubious, at best.

Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO summit next week.

Experience With Untruth

Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his Parliament: “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know.”

Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on August 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on February 5, 2003 that, likewise, proved nothing.

That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were “increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence” and told him flatly, “Powell’s presentation does not come close” to justifying war. We urged Mr. Bush to “widen the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

Consider Iraq today. Worse than catastrophic. Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can “shock and awe.” In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

If the photos that NATO and the US have released represent the best available “proof” of an invasion from Russia, our suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for the NATO summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative. Caveat emptor is an expression with which you are no doubt familiar. Suffice it to add that one should be very cautious regarding what Mr. Rasmussen, or even Secretary of State John Kerry, are peddling.

We trust that your advisers have kept you informed regarding the crisis in Ukraine from the beginning of 2014, and how the possibility that Ukraine would become a member of NATO is anathema to the Kremlin. According to a February 1, 2008 cable (published by WikiLeaks) from the US embassy in Moscow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US Ambassador William Burns was called in by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who explained Russia’s strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Lavrov warned pointedly of “fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.” Burns gave his cable the unusual title, “NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES,” and sent it off to Washington with IMMEDIATE precedence. Two months later, at their summit in Bucharest NATO leaders issued a formal declaration that “Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO.”

Just yesterday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk used his Facebook page to claim that, with the approval of Parliament that he has requested, the path to NATO membership is open. Yatsenyuk, of course, was Washington’s favorite pick to become prime minister after the February 22 coup d’etat in Kiev. “Yats is the guy,” said Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland a few weeks before the coup, in an intercepted telephone conversation with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. You may recall that this is the same conversation in which Nuland said, “Fuck the EU.”

Timing of the Russian “Invasion”

The conventional wisdom promoted by Kiev just a few weeks ago was that Ukrainian forces had the upper hand in fighting the anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine, in what was largely portrayed as a mop-up operation. But that picture of the offensive originated almost solely from official government sources in Kiev. There were very few reports coming from the ground in southeastern Ukraine. There was one, however, quoting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that raised doubt about the reliability of the government’s portrayal.

According to the “press service of the President of Ukraine” on August 18, Poroshenko called for a “regrouping of Ukrainian military units involved in the operation of power in the East of the country. … Today we need to do the rearrangement of forces that will defend our territory and continued army offensives,” said Poroshenko, adding, “we need to consider a new military operation in the new circumstances.”

If the “new circumstances” meant successful advances by Ukrainian government forces, why would it be necessary to “regroup,” to “rearrange” the forces? At about this time, sources on the ground began to report a string of successful attacks by the anti-coup federalists against government forces. According to these sources, it was the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership.

Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the “Russian invasion.” That is precisely when the fuzzy photos were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon were set loose to spread the word that “the Russians are coming.” (Michael Gordon was one of the most egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)

No Invasion – But Plenty Other Russian Support

The anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine enjoy considerable local support, partly as a result of government artillery strikes on major population centers. And we believe that Russian support probably has been pouring across the border and includes, significantly, excellent battlefield intelligence. But it is far from clear that this support includes tanks and artillery at this point – mostly because the federalists have been better led and surprisingly successful in pinning down government forces.

At the same time, we have little doubt that, if and when the federalists need them, the Russian tanks will come.

This is precisely why the situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire, which you know Kiev has so far been delaying. What is to be done at this point? In our view, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk need to be told flat-out that membership in NATO is not in the cards – and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia – and especially not in support of the ragtag army of Ukraine. Other members of NATO need to be told the same thing.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)

How can you tell whether Russia has invaded Ukraine?

By Dmirti Orlov.

Last Thursday the Ukrainian government, echoed by NATO spokesmen, declared that the the Russian military is now operating within Ukraine’s borders. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t; what do you know? They said the same thing before, most recently on August 13, and then on August 17, each time with either no evidence or fake evidence. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

You be the judge. I put together this helpful list of top ten telltale signs that will allow you to determine whether indeed Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday, or whether Thursday’s announcement is yet another confabulation.

Because if Russia invaded on Thursday morning, this is what the situation on the ground would look like by Saturday afternoon.

1. Ukrainian artillery fell silent almost immediately. They are no longer shelling residential districts of Donetsk and Lugansk. This is because their locations had been pinpointed prior to the operation, and by Thursday afternoon they were completely wiped out using air attacks, artillery and ground-based rocket fire, as the first order of business. Local residents are overjoyed that their horrible ordeal is finally at an end.

2. The look of military activity on the ground in Donetsk and Lugansk has changed dramatically. Whereas before it involved small groups of resistance fighters, the Russians operate in battalions of 400 men and dozens of armored vehicles, followed by convoys of support vehicles (tanker trucks, communications, field kitchens, field hospitals and so on). The flow of vehicles in and out is non-stop, plainly visible on air reconnaissance and satellite photos. Add to that the relentless radio chatter, all in Russian, which anyone who wants to can intercept, and the operation becomes impossible to hide.

3. The Ukrainian military has promptly vanished. Soldiers and officers alike have taken off their uniforms, abandoned their weapons, and are doing their best to blend in with the locals. Nobody thought the odds of the Ukrainian army against the Russians were any good. Ukraine’s only military victory against Russia was at the battle of Konotop in 1659, but at the time Ukraine was allied with the mighty Khanate of Crimea, and, you may have noticed, Crimea is not on Ukraine’s side this time around.

4. There are Russian checkpoints everywhere. Local civilians are allowed through, but anyone associated with a government, foreign or domestic, is detained for questioning. A filtration system has been set up to return demobilized Ukrainian army draftees to their native regions, while the volunteers and the officers are shunted to pretrial detention centers, to determine whether they had ordered war crimes to be committed.

5. Most of Ukraine’s border crossings are by now under Russian control. Some have been reinforced with air defense and artillery systems and tank battalions, to dissuade NATO forces from attempting to stage an invasion. Civilians and humanitarian goods are allowed through. Businessmen are allowed through once they fill out the required forms (which are in Russian).

6. Russia has imposed a no-fly zone over all of Ukraine. All civilian flights have been cancelled. There is quite a crowd of US State Department staffers, CIA and Mossad agents, and Western NGO people stuck at Borispol airport in Kiev. Some are nervously calling everyone they know on their satellite phones. Western politicians are demanding that they be evacuated immediately, but Russian authorities want to hold onto them until their possible complicity in war crimes has been determined.

7. The usual Ukrainian talking heads, such as president Poroshenko, PM Yatsenyuk and others, are no longer available to be interviewed by Western media. Nobody quite knows where they are. There are rumors that they have already fled the country. Crowds have stormed their abandoned residences, and were amazed to discover that they were all outfitted with solid gold toilets. Nor are the Ukrainian oligarchs anywhere to be found, except for the warlord Igor Kolomoisky, who was found in his residence, abandoned by his henchmen, dead from a heart attack.

8. Some of the over 800,000 Ukrainian refugees are starting to stream back in from Russia. They were living in tent cities, many of them in the nearby Rostov region, but with the winter coming they are eager to get back home, now that the shelling is over. Along with them, construction crews, cement trucks and flatbeds stacked with pipe, cable and rebar are streaming in, to repair the damage from the shelling.

9. There is all sorts of intense diplomatic and military activity around the world, especially in Europe and the US. Military forces are on highest alert, diplomats are jetting around and holding conferences. President Obama just held a press conference to announce that “We don’t have a strategy on Ukraine yet.” His military advisers tell him that his usual strategy of “bomb a little and see what happens” is not likely to be helpful in this instance.

10. Kiev has surrendered. There are Russian tanks on the Maidan Square. Russian infantry is mopping up the remains of Ukraine’s National Guard. A curfew has been announced. The operation to take Kiev resembled “Shock and Awe” in Baghdad: a few loud bangs and then a whimper.

Armed with this list, you too should be able to determine whether or not Russia has invaded Ukraine last Thursday.

Source: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-can-you-tell-whether-russia-has.html

Hungary seeks EU alliance with closer ties to Russia

Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday said he would seek to form a political alliance to stop the European Union pulling away from Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

“The EU gets further away from Russia every day. That’s not only bad for Hungary, but for the entire EU,” Orban told Hungarian ambassadors in Budapest.

“We will have to seek the company of those EU member states who are interested in slowing and stopping this separation process,” he added, without naming any specific countries.

Ties between the West and Russia have hit a post-Cold War low over the crisis in Ukraine, with the European Union and Washington slapping massive sanctions on Moscow over its perceived support for separatists.

Russia hit back with sanctions of its own, banning nearly all food imports from the EU and United States.

Orban, who has been criticised for steering Hungary away from Europe and towards Russia, insisted Monday that the country’s Western alliances were “not in doubt”. But he again warned that isolating Russia could hurt Europe’s competitiveness.

Kiev shells clinic and school in Donetsk

At least 11 have been killed in shelling of the Donetsk city in the east of the country by Ukrainian troops, the city residents said on Thursday. Ten people were killed in a culture centre fire as a result of shell explosion. A repair worker of Ukraine’s DTEK energy holding was also killed in the shelling.

The city’s regional clinical hospital was grossly damaged by fire from the Grad multiple rocket launch system late on Wednesday. The number of casualties is being ascertained.

According to local residents, the flights of surveillance drones precede Ukrainian troops’ artillery strikes on social facilities. A day before the shelling they saw a drone hovering over the area.

The local residents fear that artillery fire from the airport area will again be aimed at a hospital.

Ukrainian aircraft have been flying over Donetsk since the early morning on Thursday. Eyewitnesses said a plane dropped a cargo for the Ukrainian security forces, blocked in the airport area and then was performing surveillance flights over the city.

The local residents expect new airstrikes on Thursday. They say the Ukrainian troops are targeting Orthodox Christian holidays, as Thursday is Assumption Day.

During the night, Ukrainian army’s shelling destroyed apartment houses in two city districts and a civil registry office. One shell hit a city school, destroying it beyond repair.

donetsk

Source: Itar TASS

NATO ignores dialogue with aggressive posturing in Eastern Europe

Following NATO’s aggressive military posturing in Eastern Europe, Russian envoy to the alliance warned that the “configuration and activity” of its forces will impact how Russia proceeds with its own security planning and considerations.

“Obviously, we will take into consideration the configuration and activity of the NATO forces at the Russian borders in our military planning, and will take all that is necessary to reliably provide security and to ensure safety against any threats,” Russian media quoted Alexander Grushko citing Interfax news agency.

The statement by the Russian envoy follows on from the Cold War military alliance’s intention to put up more bases in Eastern Europe and the Baltic in order to counter an ‘overt’ Russian threat – despite objections from a number of NATO members.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen nonetheless said the 26-nation bloc will attempt to overcome the objections.

“We have something already called the NATO response force, whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly if needed,” he said in a statement to the European press. “Now it’s our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very high readiness. In order to be able to provide such rapid reinforcements you also need some reception facilities in host nations. So it will involve the pre-positioning of supplies, of equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases [and] headquarters.”

Grushko told journalists that Russia has always shown a readiness for open dialogue with the United States on a whole spectrum of issues of non-proliferation and arms control, including those of the INF Treaty.

Source: RT

What the Russian ambassador to the US thinks of NATO

By David Swanson.

The Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak, spoke at the University of Virginia on Tuesday evening, in an event organized by the Center for Politics, which no doubt has video of the proceedings. Kislyak was once ambassador to Belgium and to NATO.

Kislyak spoke to a packed auditorium and took, I think, well over an hour of questions. He spoke frankly, and the questions he was asked by students, professors, and other participants were polite and for the most part far more intelligent than he would have been asked on, for example, Meet the Press.

He told the audience that Russia had known there were no WMDs in Iraq, and had known that attacking Iraq would bring “great difficulties” to that country. “And look what is happening today,” he said. He made the same comment about Libya. He spoke of the U.S. and Russia working together to successfully remove chemical weapons from the Syrian government. But he warned against attacking Syria now.

There will be no new Cold War, Kislyak said, but there is now a greater divide in some ways than during the Cold War. Back then, he said, the U.S. Congress sent delegations over to meet with legislators, and the Supreme Court likewise. Now there is no contact. It’s easy in the U.S. to be anti-Russian, he said, and hard to defend Russia. He complained about U.S. economic sanctions against Russia intended to “suffocate” Russian agriculture.

Asked about “annexing” Crimea, Kislyak rejected that characterization, pointed to the armed overthrow of the Ukrainian government, and insisted that Kiev must stop bombing its own people and instead talk about federalism within Ukraine.

There were remarkably few questions put to the ambassador that seemed informed by U.S. television “news.” One was from a politics professor who insisted that Kislyak assign blame to Russia over Ukraine. Kislyak didn’t.

I always sit in the back, thinking I might leave, but Kislyak was only taking questions from the front. So I moved up and was finally called on for the last question of the evening. For an hour and a half, Kislyak had addressed war and peace and Russian-U.S. relations, but he’d never blamed the U.S. for anything in Ukraine any more than Russia. No one had uttered the word “NATO.”

So I pointed out the upcoming NATO protests. I recalled the history of Russia being told that NATO would not expand eastward. I asked Kislyak whether NATO ought to be disbanded.

The ambassador said that he had been the first Russian to “present his credentials” to NATO, and that he had “overestimated” NATO’s ability to work with Russia. He’d been disappointed by NATO actions in Serbia, he said, and Libya, by the expansion eastward, by NATO pressure on Ukraine and Poland, and by the pretense that Russia might be about to attack Poland.

“We were promised,” Kislyak said, that NATO would not expand eastward at all upon the reunification of Germany. “And now look.” NATO has declared that Ukraine and Georgia will join NATO, Kislyak pointed out, and NATO says this even while a majority of the people in Ukraine say they’re opposed.

The ambassador used the word “disappointed” a few times.

“We’ll have to take measures to assure our defense,” he said, “but we would have preferred to build on a situation with decreased presence and decreased readiness.”

German economy shrinks as result of Russian sanctions

Germany’s sudden second-quarter economic contraction was probably due to Russian sanctions and confidence eroded by the crisis in Ukraine, Reuters news agency quoted the finance ministry as saying on Friday.

The ministry’s monthly report obtained by Reuters shows that Europe’s largest economy shrank by 0.2% between April and June after growing 0.7% in the first quarter thanks largely to an unusually mild winter that gave a boost to construction activity at the start of the year.

“The decline in gross domestic product (GDP) goes beyond the expected counter-effect to the very strong weather-related performance in the previous quarter,” the finance ministry said in its report, attributing this “to the effect of sanctions and negative effects on confidence due to the Ukraine crisis”.

Uncertainty over Ukraine was likely to have resulted in the dampening of industrial activity in the second quarter, it said, adding that “other geopolitical tensions” and “weaker economic development in the euro zone” had also contributed to the contraction.

“If the Ukraine crisis does not escalate further and no further serious stages of sanctions are imposed, it is to be expected that the current economic slowdown is only temporary,” the finance ministry said, noting that if this was the case, investment was likely to pick up as the year progressed.

‘Putin won’t be around forever’

This must be the nice way of saying “we are trying to kill Putin”.

Following a summit in Brussels, a senior NATO diplomat proudly proclaimed that ‘allies’ have pledged more spending and will beef up its presence in Eastern Europe. However, likely to the chagrin of President Obama (and the West’s narrative), he let slip some uncomfortable truths:

*NATO DIPLOMAT SAYS PUTIN HOLDS TACTIAL SHORT-TERM CARDS (hhmm, ok)
*NATO DIPLOMAT SAYS LONG-TERM GEOPOLITICAL TRENDS FAVOR THE WEST (phew…)
*NATO DIPLOMAT SAYS PUTIN WON’T BE AROUND FOREVER (threat or warning?)

So, all the West has to do is be patient? Wait out Putin? We suspect that ‘strategy’ may get accelerated at some point.

It was reported some years ago that someone attended a firewall/email training course (PEAPOD BORDERWARE) along with a nice chap from NATO. The NATO chap looked after the email for them but he had no idea what an IP address or subnet mask was. It lead many to believe that NATO is merely an empty vessel being controlled from Washington.

Source: zerohedge.com

Anti-NATO protesters begin mass march on summit

Peace activists have set out on a three-week ‘Long March on Newport’ to protest against September’s NATO Summit. Police say they have drafted in 9,000 officers to face the protesters in one of the UK’s biggest ever police operations.

More than 20,000 activists from around the world are expected to take part in demonstrations during the summit, where a week-long peace camp and a counter summit are among some of the events planned in what has been billed as Wales’ largest protest in a generation.

Sixty world leaders from the 28-nation military bloc will meet at the Celtic Manor in Newport for the NATO summit on September 4 and 5. Previous NATO summits in Chicago and Strasbourg saw thousands protest war, austerity and global inequality.

In one of the UK’s largest-ever policing deployments, 20km of security fencing is being erected around the venues.

“This is a UK-wide policing effort and I am confident that we will be able to deliver a safe summit, for delegates and the public,” said Assistant Chief Constable Chris Armitt, who is leading the policing and security operation for the summit.

No NATO Newport is taking a 19-day route from the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli on Friday, arriving in Newport on August 29. The protest is inspired by the Newport Chartist Rising, a 19th century suffrage march where scores were killed while demanding the release of Chartists imprisoned in the town.

“Many of us are increasingly worried by the threat that NATO poses to world stability and peaceful relations,” said the organizers.

“Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has reinvented itself supposedly as a tool of the ‘international community’ to safeguard ‘freedom and security’.

“In reality it is a vehicle for US-led use of force in the interests of the rich and powerful, accelerating militarization, bypassing the United Nations and the system of international law, and escalating spending on arms,” they added.

Activists argue that the money spent on arms could be better spent on hospitals, schools and services.

The protesters want to collect messages on postcards from members of the public along the way with the aim of delivering them on the first day of the summit during planned demonstrations outside the venue.