28 Thursday May 2015
War robs you of everything including your humanity. After the war, things are never like they used to be – it takes several generations to eradicate or simply to forget its tragic consequences.
However, all the valuable things, including peace, have their price. Most Europeans naively believe that it’s been paid by their grandparents and great-grandparents during WWI and WWII, but the truth is that this valuable thing is extremely fragile and requires continuous work to keep it alive.
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11 Sunday Jan 2015
It’s one of the greatest war crimes of modern times – and the truth still hasn’t been told. On July 17th 2014 at about 16:20 local time, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers died, including many children. Who fired the missile? Over several months the Berlin-based investigative newsroom CORRECT!V has gathered facts, investigated in eastern Ukraine and Russia, and found witnesses to the missile launch. The investigation unveiled a clear chain of evidence. MH17 was downed by a ground-launched BUK missile – launched by a unit of the 53rd Russian Air Defense Brigade from Kursk. The brigade unit, tasked with protecting Russian tank units, was operating in mid July on Ukrainian territory without displaying national emblems.
https://mh17.correctiv.org/english/ – 1/9/2015.
21 Sunday Dec 2014
I was perplexed by how the Russian people could possibly support and not be outraged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But I live in Denver, and I read mostly U.S. and European newspapers. I wanted to see what was going on in Russia and Ukraine from the Russian perspective, so I went on a seven-day news diet: I watched only Russian TV – Channel One Russia, the state-owned broadcaster, which I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years – and read Pravda, the Russian newspaper whose name means “Truth.” Here is what I learned:
Related on BackChannels: Russian Section.
http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/russia-controls-internet/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia#Status
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
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18 Thursday Dec 2014
Posted in Islamic Small Wars, Ukraine
The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) split off from Al Nusra in 2013 as the Syrian Civil War progressed. Geopoli.info has extensively documented its origins, where its fighters come from, parties that benefit from its action, unholy alliances and Russian-speaking commanders. In June 2014, as ISIS was making gains in Iraq, getting widespread publicity we came across a video from Eastern Ukraine – introducing “Islamic state of Donbass and Lugant” (“Lugant” is made up of words “Lugansk” and “Levant”) in Eastern Ukraine.
http://geopoli.info/?p=867 – 12/1/2014 – video included.
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28 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in Iran, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine
Tags
The number of political groups that are inclined to support Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is growing, both in the ruling parties of the European countries and in the opposition; from Hungary’s Victor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party to the far-right opposition parties that are performing spectacularly well in national elections, such as Marie Le Pen and her Front National of France. Sympathy and support also comes from Hungary’s Jobbik radical nationalists, the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn, Austria’s Freedom Party, and Italy’s Lega Nord, just to name a few.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/-sp-ukraine-russia-europe-andrei-sannikov – 10/28/2014.
I would expect Russo-Iranian methods in the development of power and wealth to expand until stopped cold. The interior mythology in both units, to be clinical about it, have zero incentive to stall or stop aggression on the basis of the political accommodations and levers owned by others. That implacable will may be buttressed by an equally sociopathic view of humanity. For evidence of that in addition to Ukraine (and how Yanukovych milked it): Bashar al-Assad’s behavior in Syria.
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04 Thursday Sep 2014
Tags
Earlier today, I slugged a post — the “link” that follows this — “Mariupol Under Fire”, which related articles I went a seeking. I wasn’t too far off the mark:
http://www.france24.com/en/20140904-russia-ukraine-donetsk-mariupol-ceasefire/ – 9/04/2014.
However, what I ended up doing was scraping and posting news clips, and “Mariupol” was forgotten, except in the slugged title and on Twitter. My apologies then to those who today had been seeking similar data on the appearance of Russian military assets in the Ukrainian battle space.
Now, the slug that Twitter treated as a header as turned true!
Or more true than was suggested earlier. The following is about an hour old from the Los Angeles Times:
“It is a totally new game,” said Oleg Odnorozhenko, deputy commander of the volunteer Azov Battalion, adding that the city’s fighters are now certain they are being attacked by regular Russian army troops, not just mercenaries and homegrown separatists.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-russia-mariupol-20140904-story.html – “Russian troops attacking Mariupol, Ukrainian militia leader says.’ – 9/4/2014.
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07 Monday Apr 2014
Bloomberg: “Ukraine Accuses Russia as Protests Seize Offices in East.” 4/7/2014.
Bloomberg: “Putin Stirs Azeri Angst That Russia Is Set to Extend Sway.” 4/6/2014.
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President Vladimir Putin, condemned by NATO for annexing Crimea, is now defying the U.S. in Syria by sending more and deadlier arms to help Bashar al-Assad score a string of advances against insurgents, military experts say.
Bloomberg. “Putin Defies Obama in Syria as Arms Fuel Assad Resurgence.” 4/3/2014.
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In the middle east, I have for a while characterized the western opposition as “Putin-Assad-Khamenei”; for eastern Europe, I now may blurt “Putin-Napoleon” (in lieu of “Putin-Yanukovych”), for the “vertical of power” appears to be spreading horizontally and quickly using predictably feudal (one almost hears, “Deploy the thugs”) methods.
Putin behind the curtain in Syria has reportedly improved the qualities of arms reaching the Assad regime with the intention of discouraging continued resistance in a convincing way. In Ukraine, The Bear has squatted on Crimea and made camp sufficient to throw around some weight:
A new, leaner and meaner Russian Army has been on display in Crimea and war-gaming on the Ukrainian border over the past month or so. Its vanguard is now made up of just a few elite divisions of highly-motivated, well trained, and fully equipped volunteer soldiers, capable of deploying swiftly anywhere in the former Soviet Union on the Kremlin’s command.
Christian Science Monitor. “Russia debuts new, sleek force in Crimea, rattling NATO.” 4/3/2014.
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02 Wednesday Apr 2014
NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries. They share the goal of overcoming the vestiges of earlier confrontation and competition and of strengthening mutual trust and cooperation. The present Act reaffirms the determination of NATO and Russia to give concrete substance to their shared commitment to build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe, whole and free, to the benefit of all its peoples.
27 May. 1997 – Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation signed in Paris, France
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Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said earlier he would be satisfied if NATO located two heavy brigades in Poland, said on arrival at the NATO meeting that he would welcome any NATO forces being stationed there.
Germany’s Steinmeier said the basing of a significant NATO force in Poland would not be completely in line with a 1997 treaty on NATO-Russian cooperation.
“NATO suspends cooperation with Russia over Ukraine crisis” BY ADRIAN CROFT AND SABINE SIEBOLD, BRUSSELS, Reuters, Tue Apr 1, 2014 7:32pm EDT
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. . . Vladimir Putin has been grasping for a narrative that could legitimize a second decade of his rule.
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Yet, as the portrait of Peter the Great hanging in his office testifies, Putin views himself as a modern day czar, finding threats to his empire intolerable. Seeing himself and Russia as one and the same, Putin is a consummate narcissist whose every move is calculated to protect his image and goals, which are severely threatened by the current crisis.
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In 2011, $84 billion of capital fled Russia, and another $33 billion was taken out of the country in the first quarter of 2012, even though the Russian economy is growing and the rest of the world is in a downturn. This money mainly belongs to bureaucrats, siloviki and other mafiosi. These beneficiaries of the mafia state don’t trust their own system, nor do most of them want to live in Russia.
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Putin’s Russia: where is it going to go?
Most unfortunately, Putin’s Russia has already gone to Syria where it will be associated with Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression of what began as a children’s protest representing a true people’s revolution. True to form in that theater, political ingenuity and a sociopath’s sadism have managed to cast as the main players Assad’s secular-leaning kleptocracy against a motley cloud of al-Qaeda associates with, this from a refugee of the war, the complicity of the regime.
Leave The People of Syria out of it: Putin-Assad-Khamenei have rigged the war that makes them before their own eyes glorious.
Next smart move: responding to another people’s revolution against authoritarian kleptocracy, Putin’s Russia, hiding in insignia-stripped uniforms behind a mighty fortress of unfounded assertions about Ukraine, has planted its field boots in Crimea.
No news there.
However, the swipe of the Bear’s paws in the middle east and in eastern Europe, the essential anomic character of Putin’s calculations on top of ambition, and whatever personal demons might have assailed him on the way to becoming the Godfather of Post-Soviet Russia, have ensured the Russian president’s enmity with the world itself — and the world would seem to be waking to the necessity of defending its interests.
BackChannels: “Anthropolitical Psychology”.
Gregory, Paul Roderick. “Want Putin’s Attention on Ukraine? Follow His Money.” Forbes, March 3, 2014.
Kasparov, Gary. “On Ukraine, Obama’s Munich Moment.” Time Magazine, April 1, 2014.
Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the NPT.
Pro-west propaganda on LiveLeak: “Vladimir Putin: The Last Emperor” – 8/25/2013.
Remnick, David. “Putin’s Nightingales.” The New Yorker, April 2, 2014.
Reporters Without Borders. “Russia”.
RT. “Russian Duma denounces Black Sea Fleet deal with Ukraine.” March 31, 2014.
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