All posts filed under: Ukraine

Discuss: Kerch Strait and Azov Sea Tensions

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The Guardian has a an opinion piece today, titled: The EU’s response to Russia must be bold and unanimous. It is written by German politician Norbert Röttgen, head of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee…and it is simply massively dishonest and one-sided. The “mainstream” narrative on Ukraine has been corrected to death in the alternate media, there is no need to go back over old ground, suffice to say, here are just few of the relevent facts which Mr Röttgen leaves out of his article: The Kerch Strait is incredibly shallow, it has a canal carved into to the sea bed to allow deep-draft ships to pass. Using the canal requires a pilot, and ships can only go in single file. The Ukrainian naval ships ignored these rules. Ships using the Kerch strait are required to give 72 hours notice, due to the narrowness of the passage and the shallowness of the sea. These rules have been in place for years. Ukraine ignored them. There have been calls – both inside and outside Ukraine – to …

The EU and the warning signs of Fascism

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Things are spiralling out of control in Europe, faster than many predicted. Outside of Brexit, there is strong anti-EU feeling in Hungary, Spain, Italy, Greece and France. The EU is in danger of crumbling, and people afraid of losing power are prone to extreme acts of dictatorial control.

How long before the EU truly becomes the authoritarian force that people from both ends of the political spectrum have always feared?

Bleak See on the Black Sea

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Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarević Following the latest events in and around the Black Sea, two old questions are reappearing. Both are inviting us for a repeated elaboration: If a Monroe doctrine (about the hemispheric security exclusivity) is recognised at one corner of the globe, do we have a moral right or legal ground to negate it at the other corner? This irrespectively from the fact that Gorbachev-Yeltsin Russia unilaterally renounced the similar explication – the Brezhnev doctrine about irreversibility of communist gains. Clearly, the ‘might-makes-right’ as a conduct in international relations cannot be selectively accepted. Either it is acknowledged to all who can effectively self-prescribe and maintain such a monopoly of coercion, or it is absolutely (revoked and) condemned as contrary to behaviour among the civilised nations. Next to the first question is a right of pre-emption. It is apparent that within the Black Sea theatre, Russia acts in an unwilling, pre-emptive and rather defensive mode. That is not a regime change action on the other continent following the rational of extra security demand by …

Andre Vltchek Interviewed in L’Antidiplomatico

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Alessandro Bianchi’s interview with Andre Vltchek, originally published in L’Antidiplomatico. You can read both parts 1 and 2 in the original Italian here and here. Alessandro Bianchi Let’s start from today’s crisis in the Sea of Azov. The European Union and NATO have given full support to Ukraine after the violation of Russian sovereignty by two Ukrainian vessels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave his full support to Poroshenko, who declared martial law. What does a country like Italy risk in continuing its accession to NATO? Andre Vltchek: Russia intercepted three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. The ships had, even according to Ukrainian authorities, several intelligence officers on board, as well as a number of light arms and machine guns. It was clear provocation, as the ships refused to inform Russian authorities about their intentions, and behaved in an aggressive manner. They were passing through Russian territorial waters. Ukrainian intelligence officers were obviously in charge of the entire operation. So, what is really so ‘alarming’ for the West? The ships were stopped, some crew …

Uber-loser Poroshenko goes “full Saakashvili”

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by Saker, November 30, 2018, via the Unz Review Petro Poroshenko is in deep trouble. His ratings have been in the single-digit range in spite of a vast propaganda effort, and his latest attempt to create a salvific crisis involving the usual “Russian aggression” has not only failed but appears to be backfiring. It is now becoming abundantly clear that the Ukronazi provocation was not only breathtakingly stupid and irresponsible, but also breathtakingly poorly planned and executed. The documents seized by the FSB on the Ukrainian ships show that the Ukrainian captains were given the order to “covertly” sneak under the Kerch bridge. I have no idea what the Ukronazi junta leaders were thinking, maybe they were drunk or terrified to tell Poroshenko that this was a suicidal mission (most likely he was too drunk to care anyway), but the fact that they could even imagine that three old boats could somehow sneak around the Crimean Peninsula and then covertly pass under the Kerch bridge is just amazing (as is the fact that the crews …

US Military Contractor Is Hiring Personnel To Support Classified ‘Contingency Operations’ In Ukraine

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by SouthFront, November 29, 2018 A US contractor accidentally revealed a US military specialist deployment in the combat zones in Ukraine via an Job Advertisement on LinkedIn. Similarly to the Atlantic Council’s report on independence of Eastern European countries, as well as the meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, the posting comes days before the escalation in the Sea of Azov. Mission Essential is a government contractor, which primarily serves intelligence and military clients. It began as the US government’s leading provider of translation and interpretation services. Screenshot provided in case the advert times out or is “accidentally” taken down: The preemptive job advert was posted on November 16th and seeks “linguist candidates who speak Ukrainian to provide foreign language interpretation and translation services to support classified Contingency Operations in support of the U.S. Military in Ukraine.” The formal place of work is Mykolayiv, Ukraine. The port city is also significant, because that is where the US “logistical” naval facility is currently under construction. The advert also …

DISCUSS: the “Kerch Strait crisis”

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Today, Sunday November 25, an incident happened in the Black Sea that threatens to seriously escalate the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Details are still unclear but it seems vessels of the Ukrainian navy were fired upon by Russian ships near the Kerch Strait and some Ukrainian service men were injured. Russia says the Ukrainian vessels were behaving in a “dangerous” manner and ignoring “legal demands to stop” . Ukraine claims they were simply attacked without any provocation while attempting to legally navigate the Kerch Strait en route to Mariupol. It appears the Ukraine government may use the incident to impose martial law. How helpful of the Russians to go ballistic for no reason (according to Alec and the MSM) and give #Poroshenko an excuse to declare martial law just when he needs one… https://t.co/5zGuM6VAfH — OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) November 25, 2018 NATO is responding predictably so far #NATO is closely monitoring developments in the #AzovSea & #KerchStrait, & we are in contact with the #Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint & de-escalation. Read my …

US Switching to Ukraine as Location to Start World War III

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Eric Zuesse The United States Government is now treating Ukraine as if it were a NATO member, and on September 27th donated to Ukraine two warships for use against Russia. This is the latest indication that the U.S. is switching to Ukraine as the locale to start World War III, and from which the nuclear war is to be sparked against Russia, which borders Ukraine. Here is why Syria is no longer the U.S. alliance’s preferred choice as a place to start WW III: On September 4th, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly threatened Syria, Iran and Russia that if they exterminated the jihadists in Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, then the U.S. might launch a full-scale invasion against Syria, Iran and Russia in Syria. Either the U.S. or Russia would then quickly escalate to nuclear war so as not to lose in Syria — that would be the conventional-war start to World War III. The leaders of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Syria (Putin, Rouhani, Erdogan, and Assad), agreed in two meetings, one on September …

Capt. Paul Barril: “We know who killed Alexander Zakharchenko.”

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In this interview Captain Paul Barril, ex-GIGN officer and counter-terrorism expert, who was allegedly making plans for a visit to Donetsk to meet its leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, makes some shocking claims about the latter’s murder (translated from the French).

Kiev’s Ivan Kudrya Street to become John McCain Street

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Alex Boxman Pyotr Poroshenko’s recent proposal to change the name of Kiev’s Ivan Kudrya street to John McCain Street betrays the hidden Nazi agenda among Ukraine’s junta. Ivan Kudrya was Soviet Kiev’s hero during the fight against the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War (Second World War). He was an essential figure in the Kiev Resistance: he blew up a movie theatre full of German soldiers, derailed trains and when caught, was tortured and killed by the Gestapo. He also fought against the Western Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi collaborators. Their descendants and followers now, those who want to “cleanse” Donbass and pro-Russian South-Eastern Ukraine, want to remove his name (along with the memory of that anti-fascist resistance) from Ukraine’s history books, which they are re-writing. This time they have gone as far as suggesting that had the Germans not been “provoked” by the Resistance (and people like Ivan Kudrya) then tragedies such as Babi Yar (where the German Nazis killed 150 thousand Jews) supposedly wouldn’t have happened, as the Nazis wouldn’t have had to retaliate! …

The Welsh Orchestra Defying the Ukrainian Coup Regime

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A Welsh brass band has been touring Crimean venues this month. This is totally unacceptable, according to the Kiev-based government of Ukraine – installed after the 2014 coup. Quite why these ten individuals playing traditional music in theatres around Crimean cities is so distasteful remains a mystery. For our part, it seems an innocent enough exercise, and perhaps a nice way to celebrate a peculiarity of history that ties Wales to that part of the world. The Ukrainian government felt strongly enough about it to “take steps”. First, the Ukrainian ambassador to Britain wrote to the organization, requesting they cancel the tour: They also tweeted about it: …and wrote to the Foreign Office, who in turn wrote to Symphoninc Brass Wales: Quite why two different national governments felt the need to pressure a small group of people from travelling to a perfectly safe part of the world, we do not know. Certainly it was nothing to do with risk. And what kind of PR coup does a small orchestra – only 10 pieces – really …

Ukraine’s anti-Roma pogroms ignored as Russia blamed for far right resurgence

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Max Parry Last month, former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a lecture at Trinity College Dublin made remarks condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin, blaming him for the resurgence of far right politics in the European Union and United States. Clinton stated that Putin… …has positioned himself as the leader of an authoritarian, white-supremacist and xenophobic movement that wants to break up the EU, weaken America’s traditional alliances and undermine democracy. We can see this authoritarian movement rippling out from the Kremlin, reaching across Europe and beyond. It’s emboldening right-wing nationalists, separatists, racists and even neo-Nazis.“ Before addressing the deceitfulness of her comments, the one part of them that is true needs to be recognized. At this point, it is universally acknowledged that there is a significant revival in far-right and neo-Nazi political activity being experienced in America and across the EU. It is also increasingly present in other countries such as India and Turkey, and even Brazil’s current leading candidate for President is being called a fascist. However, …

Meanwhile in Ukraine….

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In one of the largest, if not the largest, Neo-Nazi demonstration in Europe since WW2, 20,000 fascists and their supporters marched through the streets of the Ukrainian capital celebrating the birth of Stepan Bandera 01.01.1909 founder and leader of the ultra-nationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) commanded by Roman Shukhevych. This organization which along with the equally collaborationist outfit, the 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division Galicia 1, were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and Russians during the ethnic cleansing which began in Lviv with a pogrom of the city’s Jews a week after the German invasion in 1941, and in the western Ukraine between 1943-45.

How the U.S. Government Lies About Syria & Ukraine

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Eric Zuesse From the moment it took power in the U.S. in 2009, the Barack Obama Administration was angling to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. And then, by the time of December of 2012, Obama’s team were relying mainly on Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch to lead the tens of thousands of the U.S.-Saudi alliance’s boots-on-the ground ‘moderate rebels’ in this overthrow-Assad war, fighters who have actually been fundamentalist Sunnis recruited from all over the world to come to Syria in order to replace the secular President of Syria, the Alawite Shiite, Assad. Propaganda in the U.S. portrays U.S. Government policy as being driven by a concern for the welfare of the Syrian people: to ‘protect their human rights’ — not to overthrow a government that refuses to cooperate with U.S. oil companies and other corporate interests in the U.S. But even with the anti-Obama Donald Trump in the White House, there has been nothing really new about any of this U.S. Government scam, any of this attempted-but-never-publicly-acknowledged conquest against the Syrian people. The U.S. Government …

WATCH: “NYC to Donetsk & back” – a new film

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Russian-American actor Peter Von Berg (of the FX series The Americans) goes on a journey from his home in NYC to the Donetsk People’s Republic to explore the gap between the image proffered in the American media and the reality as experienced by the people who live there. This film is essential watching

Who is Fancy Bear and Who Are They Working for?

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by George Eliason, Donbass Just one other thing…. Have you heard of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear? Of course, you have. And we’ve heard time and again that these Russian groups are hacking us like there is no tomorrow. It’s like they invented the Internet or live in the Matrix or something. And we know who the hackers are except we can’t figure out if it’s them or not. If we could, they would be arrested, wouldn’t they? After all this fuss and commotion, after setting the expectation so high, after telling the world that these hackers are so dangerous to Democracy (with a capital D) and having in-vest-i-gations, can we rest while they run around like free-range chickens? Dimitry Alperovich and Crowdstrike told us making an identification is as easy as putting a Ruskie sounding label on the hackers and taking a $100,000,000 (100 million) investment in the company from Google. They can’t be wrong, just Google it. Except, the whole point of having a cool sounding hacker kind of nickname is nobody knows …

MH17: “New evidence”, same issues

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Nearly four years since the incident, and over two years since they last reported any progress, the MH17 Joint Investigative Team (JIT) have held a press conference. To underline their previous position – they still think Russia did it. The timing of this statement could be seen as very politically convenient for the NATO allies and the Kiev regime. The West would have you believe that the proximity to the World Cup is purely coincidental. Whilst those suggesting that this is a great cover for Ukraine’s renewed shelling of separatists regions in the Donbass will surely be dismissed as “apologists” or “cynics”. None of that is really the issue though. Whether they truly have “new evidence”, or whether this is just a rehash of discredited Bellingcat nonsense, is immaterial. If the politically convenient timing is a coincidence or a stunt does not matter. The most important point is that the JIT is fatally and irredeemably flawed. The JIT, made up of investigators from Australia, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Ukraine…but not Russia, has obvious credibility problems …

Propornot 2 — Setting Up the Atlantic Council for Lawsuits

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by George H. Elias, Donbass Early in 2018, I pulled back the veil Propornot hid behind and disclosed the groups behind the smear site.  Propornot is a product of the Atlantic Council’s backers.  It is a symptom of the ongoing Information War.  People in the groups behind it are waging to destroy Press Freedom in the US by branding dissenting voices as objects of ridicule at best and enemies of the state at the worst. Below, you’ll see the results of yet another website scan, as well as circumstantial evidence showing the InterpreterMag and the Atlantic Council, are responsible for Propornot. The lawsuits are starting and because of the damage Propornot’s lists have done, will trickle down to the InterpreterMag staff,  the Atlantic Council, and their backers at some point. For those that don’t know, the Atlantic Council is brought to you by the Central and Eastern European Coalition (CEEC), the Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA), and the Ukrainian World Congress(UWC). Between these three organizations, there is a constituency of 20 million voting ultranationalist …

The Downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 & the New Cold War with Russia

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by Prof. Kees van der Pijl On 17 July 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine, a few minutes before it would have crossed into Russian airspace on its journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The incident, killing all on board, occurred six months after Ukrainian ultra-nationalists had seized power in Kiev with Western support, triggering the secession of Crimea and a Russian-Ukrainian insurgency in the Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk provinces). In my forthcoming book Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War. Prism of Disaster (Manchester University Press, June), which will also come out in a German translation with PapyRossa in Cologne and a Portuguese one with Fino Traço publishers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, I challenge the Western narrative on what happened that day. Recent events, such as the alleged gas incident in Douma (Syria), the assault of father and daughter Skripal in Salisbury, as well as the accusations of systematic doping of Russian athletes, confirm one of the book’s basic conclusions: Moscow is being accused of misdeeds of all …

Democrats ‘Outraged’ by Charlottesville Convince Trump to Arm Neo-Nazis in Ukraine

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The right-wing extremism in Ukraine is acceptable to downplay because they share a common enemy in Russia. Any attempt to reveal the nature of the current regime in Ukraine is mechanically dismissed as “Russian propaganda”, concealing the very real fascist elements that have been weaponized by the west to achieve its foreign policy interests in the new Cold War against Russia.