The Situation in the Ukraine. #22

Big_Gazza wrote:

Militarov wrote:"International monitors say they have spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held Ukraine this week, possible evidence of Moscow's continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, reported that its monitors had seen a mobile TOS-1 'Buratino' weapons system for the first time. The Buratino is equipped with thermobaric warheads which spread a flammable liquid around a target and then ignite it. It can destroy several city blocks in one strike and cause indiscriminate damage. Only Russia produces the system and it was not exported to Ukraine before the conflict broke out, according to IHS Jane's Group and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which track arms exports.

The OSCE's findings are embarrassing for the Kremlin, which has turned down its rhetoric on Ukraine and shifted attention to Syria, where it has begun air strikes. The report comes before President Vladimir Putin holds talks in Paris on Friday with the leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine on the peace process. The Russian defense ministry did not reply to written questions from Reuters about whether Ukrainian rebels were supplied with the weapon or where it had been exported.

Russia denies its military is even in Ukraine. But there have been numerous signs that Moscow backed the rebels with troops and equipment. Reuters reporters spotted two burnt-out tanks last year which military experts identified as Russian army tanks in rebel-held territory. Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine, told Reuters by phone monitors had spotted the Buratino at a rebel training area in the village of Kruhlyk.



"We saw the weapon on that training ground," Hug said. "Both sides agreed a year ago to withdraw heavy weaponry from the line of contact. Having them near the line of contact is of course a concern as this weapon should be in storage and not be used." Hug said the weapons system was "indiscriminate and very destructive." The Popular Mechanics website called TOS-1 "hell on earth" for anyone it targeted.

According to IHS Jane's and the Stockholm Institute's unofficial arms transfers database, Russia has only exported the system to Azerbaijan, Iraq and Kazakhstan. Ukraine said it did not possess the Buratino. "We have not got them and we have never had it in service," Vladislav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told Reuters. "The Russian army has it. It was used against us in the area of Donetsk airport."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/02/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-idUSKCN0RW0UL20151002

I wont comment anything myself ill just say: "Hmm..."

sniff sniff... do I detect the tang of fresh bovine excrement?...

SturmGuard wrote:Falling for "equality, brotherhood" and "supernational" identity led to an anti-Russian revolution and war, under the leadership of people who openly called for destruction and dismantling of Russian nation, tradition and state. I can't help myself, I have to notice the irony of people calling themselves Russian patriots and nationalists while following a vehemently anti-Russian ideology. None of current Russian problems would be present had there been no Bolshevik revolution and rule. Socialist rule created anti-Russian policies, fabricated Ukraine in its present form and laid the groundwork for aggresive Ukrainization.

Soviet times are over, not short enough were they, and E.Europe particularly Russia paid a horrible
price. Such lessons are too pricy to be forgotten, and idealistic daydreaming without taking (human) reality into consideration will lead to similar tragedies. As in Rus principalities and revolutionary times, unity is the most valuable thing, and something your enemies target and want to exploit.

Just a foreigner's perspective, with similar country history.

Khepesh wrote:

SturmGuard wrote:Falling for "equality, brotherhood" and "supernational" identity led to an anti-Russian revolution and war, under the leadership of people who openly called for destruction and dismantling of Russian nation, tradition and state. I can't help myself, I have to notice the irony of people calling themselves Russian patriots and nationalists while following a vehemently anti-Russian ideology. None of current Russian problems would be present had there been no Bolshevik revolution and rule. Socialist rule created anti-Russian policies, fabricated Ukraine in its present form and laid the groundwork for aggresive Ukrainization.

Soviet times are over, not short enough were they, and E.Europe particularly Russia paid a horrible
price. Such lessons are too pricy to be forgotten, and idealistic daydreaming without taking (human) reality into consideration will lead to similar tragedies. As in Rus principalities and revolutionary times, unity is the most valuable thing, and something your enemies target and want to exploit.

Just a foreigner's perspective, with similar country history.

I'm not a Bolshevik and do not go with "internationalism" as, IMO, it is one of the midwives to the modern "political corrrectness" which is a disease that needs wiping out. I have posted before that the problems faced today were created by Lenin and Krushchev. However, I will not tolerate a return to what we see in this photo...

PapaDragon wrote:

Return???

It never left and never will.

Clans, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, communism, corporate rule... all different names for the same thing.

Solncepek wrote:Putin’s Global Game Changer

Contrary to the expectations of many experts who were predicting a “second Munich” from Vladimir Putin in New York, the Russian president made no grandiose proclamations during his address to the UN General Assembly. In fact, he was outwardly far milder than one might have imagined. By comparison, Obama’s emotional speech, which was replete with strident but unsubstantiated claims, seemed sad, and occasionally even comical. For example, there was a passage about the ouster of Assad, but then less than a day later the US position flip-flopped …

After the speeches, Putin and Obama sat down for a nearly two-hour conversation, after which the US president could not even rouse himself sufficiently to emerge to speak to journalists. The Russian president conducted an exhaustive press conference on his own.

What is the takeaway from those last three days in September, which, according to many observers, lay to rest the idea of a unipolar world?

First of all, the US is making profound changes in its attitude to Poroshenko’s regime in Ukraine, assembling a reserve set of “politicians” and revoking its green light for military action. Incumbent PM Yatsenyuk is more likely to be replaced by Sergey Lyovochkin, former head of ex-president Yanukovych’ administration and memner of “Opposition Bloc”. Given the pacification of Kiev and the Southeast in accordance with the Kremlin’s terms, the US withdrawal from Ukraine – and the withdrawal of Ukraine itself into the shadow of the world’s agenda – the US wager on the “Opposition Bloc” makes perfect sense.

The very next day in Minsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Leonid Kuchma confirmed that weapons of a caliber less than 100 mm. would be pulled back 15 km. behind the front line, which actually signifies an end to the hostilities. For the preceding seven months no one had been able to reach an agreement on this point. At the same time, Kiev admitted that it had committed war crimes in the Donbass: several stories on this topic appeared over the course of a single day in the Ukrainian media, from the admission that Oles Buzina had been killed by commandos from a special forces unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to an acknowledgment of crimes committed by “territorial” battalions. Obviously this would not have happened without an order from the American embassy. To this must be added the resignation of Evelyn Farkas, the Pentagon’s top official overseeing military relations with Russia and Ukraine. Ms. Farkas had held that position for five years. She will officially leave her post in late October. It should be noted that this senior official had insisted on retaliatory measures against Russia’s policy in Ukraine and had also facilitated the provision of financial aid to Kiev.

And all this occurred less than a day after Vladimir Putin’s speech in New York and his meeting with Obama. That means that all these events were the result of a deal. And in fact, these are only the first fruits. Clearly there is more to come. But the trend is clear – the US has acknowledged the legitimacy of Russian claims that Ukraine is within Russia’s sphere of interest.

russiajets-608903Second, the situation in and around Syria changed dramatically over the course of one day. The US is no longer insisting on Assad’s resignation. The US is not opposing Russian military involvement in operations against ISIL and is prepared to enter into immediate negotiations with Russia about the formation of a united front against terrorists. Russia’s air force launched strikes on ISIL strongholds after Assad asked Moscow for military assistance, and the Federation Council approved the use of the Russian air force against the terrorists in Syria. That would have been inconceivable even on the morning of Sept. 28. But only a day and a half later this was the reality, which is evidence of the dramatic change in the entire global geopolitical picture.

Time magazine had written about this just the day before.

   If Putin can get Obama to go along with his proposal as well, it would mark one of the greatest diplomatic triumphs of his 15 years in power.

This means Russia’s victory is now official. The only question is – victory over whom?

What I mean is – I would like to emphasize that this is not a victory over Obama, as many experts are simplistically trying to present it, but over a powerful supranational grouping, which uses the United States as a battering ram in order to plunge the world into a new Middle Ages. And this group’s reaction to the agreement between Putin and Obama quickly followed. Right out of the blue Hillary Clinton launched into a tirade of criticism against Obama. But she was not lambasting him over agreements with Russia on Syria and Ukraine, as one might have expected, but over a purely domestic issue – ObamaCare.

Leaving aside for the moment the content of his speech, which has already been picked over for quotes, let us try to answer the main question – why did Putin have to address the “international community” at all? Couldn’t he have just published an article in any international media outlet? The answer is very simple – for the same reason he had to help a flock of young Siberian cranes get to where they needed to go. The content of Putin’s New York speech takes a distant second to the psychological component of his message to the leaders of the world community and the global decision-makers in the West. Time will reveal the significance of that. But, looking at how the global picture evolved between Sept. 29 and 30, we can see that Putin really got through to the intended audience for his statements. And he was more than just heard – specific agreements have now been reached with Moscow regarding the first steps for getting out of the quagmire into which the backstage elites have led the world.

franco wrote:His copy must be different from the one that I read;
http://www.interfax.ru/world/471113

Khepesh wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

Return???

It never left and never will.

Clans, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, communism, corporate rule... all different names for the same thing.

Well, there will always be beggars, but in modern "developed" countries there is not what we see on that photo as a part of normal life as it used to be, where all working class people were permanently on the verge of poverty and maybe had accomodation tied to their employment, and if they lost their job they were literaly in the gutter. And these days the rich will not get away with having the poor tug their forelock and bow as these "gods" make their "majestic progress" in their carridges. A good sign of the times is, if you saw, a year or so ago when a priest tried to kiss Putin's hand, and Putin was shocked, almost disgusted that anybody would want to debase themselves with such nonsense.

Khepesh wrote:Novorossiya Raccoons found this by ukrops "historian" Viktor Berezyak. "Atlantis - The secrets of Ukranian ancient History". He says that Atlanteans were the original Ukranians, and also the Sumerians were really Ukranians. People believe this crap, and what is even more disturbing, and I think I wrote about this before, real and properly qualified ukrops historian, Sergei Yekelchuk, has tried to claim that a group of people from 40,000 years ago can be identified as "Ukranian". I don't think even North Korea is this mad, I don't think any country is this mad....

Khepesh wrote:Novorossiya Raccoons found this by ukrops "historian" Viktor Berezyak. "Atlantis - The secrets of Ukranian ancient History". He says that Atlanteans were the original Ukranians, and also the Sumerians were really Ukranians. People believe this crap, and what is even more disturbing, and I think I wrote about this before, real and properly qualified ukrops historian, Sergei Yekelchuk, has tried to claim that a group of people from 40,000 years ago can be identified as "Ukranian". I don't think even North Korea is this mad, I don't think any country is this mad....

SturmGuard wrote:Falling for "equality, brotherhood" and "supernational" identity led to an anti-Russian revolution and war, under the leadership of people who openly called for destruction and dismantling of Russian nation, tradition and state. I can't help myself, I have to notice the irony of people calling themselves Russian patriots and nationalists while following a vehemently anti-Russian ideology. None of current Russian problems would be present had there been no Bolshevik revolution and rule. Socialist rule created anti-Russian policies, fabricated Ukraine in its present form and laid the groundwork for aggresive Ukrainization.

Soviet times are over, not short enough were they, and E.Europe particularly Russia paid a horrible
price. Such lessons are too pricy to be forgotten, and idealistic daydreaming without taking (human) reality into consideration will lead to similar tragedies. As in Rus principalities and revolutionary times, unity is the most valuable thing, and something your enemies target and want to exploit.

Just a foreigner's perspective, with similar country history.

PapaDragon wrote:Return???

It never left and never will.

Clans, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, communism, corporate rule... all different names for the same thing.

Ukraine’s economy will contract 12 percent in 2015, according to the World Bank. This is an acute drop from similar estimates in April, when the Ukrainian GDP was predicted to fall 7.5 percent.

Inflation’s going to hit 23.4 percent in 2016, considering a hike in property taxes and expectations from business, said World Bank economist in Ukraine Anastasia Golovach.

The World Bank expects the external debt of Kiev to reach 153 percent of GDP in 2015 and 134.2 percent in 2016.

JohninMK wrote:I might be slipping but this is the first mention I have seen of the <100mm withdrawal timescale, up to 41 weeks!!!

At the same time a few days ago, Ukrainian security officials announced the beginning of the withdrawal of weapons, including tanks - T-64 and T-72, anti-tank guns D-48 and D-44 caliber 85 mm mortars 2B-9 caliber 82 mm from the contact line. The process of removal of weapons will be divided into two phases and will last 41 weeks.

http://fortruss.blogspot.no/2015/10/ukraine-moves-tanks-and-missile.html