Related: Putin Places a Phone Call
What's funny is the one-sided coverage from the discredited war media:
"Russia pulls back a battalion from Ukraine border" by Laura Mills and Vladimir Isachenkov | Associated Press April 01, 2014
SIMFEROPOL, Crimea — Russia said Monday it was pulling an armored battalion of about 500 troops away from the Ukrainian border but kept tens of thousands in place, prompting a worried response from the Kiev government about what the United States warned was still a ‘‘tremendous buildup.’’
That anything like a "final withdrawal?"
Russia moved quickly to strengthen its economic hold on Crimea, with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev arriving in this newly annexed peninsula with promises of funds for improved power supplies, water lines, education, and pensions for the elderly.
Russia’s takeover of the strategic Black Sea region, its troop buildup near Ukraine’s border, and its attempts to compel constitutional changes in Ukraine have markedly raised tensions with the West and prompted fears Moscow intends to invade other areas of its neighbor.
That's what the West has done with the coup. The spin is making this stuff unreadable.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a phone call Monday that some troops were being withdrawn from the Ukraine border, Merkel’s office said. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the action but did not say whether it signaled the start of a broader pullback.
The United States reacted cautiously to the troop movement, with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel saying that tens of thousands of Russian forces still remained along the Ukrainian border, a situation he called ‘‘a tremendous buildup.’’
The new government in Ukraine said the action only increased its uneasiness about Russia’s intentions.
‘‘We have information that Russia is carrying out incomprehensible maneuvers on the border with Ukraine,’’ Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevgen Perebyinis said. ‘‘Troops in some places are moving backward, some of them are moving forward.
“Which is why, obviously, we are worried by these movements of armed forces. We have no clear explanation from the Russian side about the aim of these movements.’’
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Secretary of State John Kerry also discussed Ukraine by phone Monday, a day after holding talks in Paris, the ministry said.
A senior US official said Lavrov had promised Kerry that a division of Russian troops would be pulled back; a division generally consists of thousands of troops.
‘‘Now there have been reports of possible drawdowns of Russian military forces from the border. We haven’t seen that yet, but if they turn out to be accurate, that would be a good thing,’’ said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Concerns of a possible invasion of eastern Ukraine were stoked by....
We can all see who is stoking it.
To keep its influence over eastern and southern Ukraine, Russia has pushed for Ukraine to become a federation where regions would have broad powers. The United States says it is up to Ukrainians to determine the structure of their government, not Moscow.
Medvedev said Russia will create a special economic zone in Crimea — a peninsula of 2 million people — that will create incentives for business with lower taxes and simpler rules. Russia will also seek to develop the region as a top tourist destination.
Medvedev particularly emphasized the need to ensure a stable power supply for the peninsula. Crimea currently gets about 80 percent of its electricity and a similar share of its water from Ukraine, and power cutoffs last week raised fears that the Ukrainian government could use energy as a weapon to bargain with Russia.
Were Russia to do that and cut off the gas to Europe the new$paper would be screaming about it!
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Ever be talking to someone on the phone and get tired of them going on and on and on?
"US, Russia fail at solution on Ukraine crisis; Troops pullback urged by Kerry; two sides agree to continue talks" by Michael R. Gordon and Neil MacFarquhar | New York Times March 31, 2014
PARIS — US officials said Secretary of State John Kerry’s strategy in the four-hour meeting was to make the case....
Kerry’s meeting with his Russian counterpart, which was held at the stately residence of the Russian ambassador here, was arranged after President Vladimir Putin of Russia called President Obama on Friday to discuss the latest US proposal to resolve the crisis.
Both sides appeared eager for the meeting to occur. For the Americans, even a hint of progress might provide the space and time to search for a political solution.
After they spent so much time and effort stirring things up? What they want is their illegal government installed by coup to be universally recognized.
For the Russians, the appearance of flexibility could aid its effort to stop the West from imposing tougher sanctions over Crimea and to discourage NATO’s interest in taking more resolute steps.
Just an appearance, it isn't real. Quit talking slop!
NATO foreign ministers are to meet Tuesday and Wednesday to decide how to bolster the alliance’s military posture, reassure Eastern European members, and assist Ukraine, whose dilapidated military is no match for that of the Russians.
This really is about rescuing NATO.
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Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as the US ambassador in Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, said, “Some diffusion of power from Kiev to provincial capitals to deal with regional issues would likely promote more efficient, effective, and accountable governance. But we should be leery of the Russian position. Moscow does not care about more efficient governance; it wants to create opportunities to meddle in Ukraine’s internal politics.”
Well, he is RIGHT about CENTRALIZATION being a BAD IDEA; however, he is wrong about meddling. Russia would never even have been in Crimea had the West not meddled in Ukraine.
According to the Russian plan put forward early this month, Ukraine’s political system would be federalized. Under that system, governors would be elected, Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov said in an interview on Russian television before the meeting with Kerry. And the regions they governed, he added, would have “wide powers” to set economic policy, organize education, and establish “economic and cultural ties with neighboring countries.”
Lavrov said Moscow did not believe that the single-state model worked in Ukraine, but he denied the widespread accusation that Russia wanted to use a federal form of government to carve up the country.
“Federalization does not mean, as is feared in Kiev or other places, an attempt to split Ukraine,” the Russian minister said. “But only an agreement to respect each region, its traditions, its customs, its culture, and its language — only this will secure the unity and stability of the Ukrainian state.”
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The Russian plan would formally ensure that the country could never “be part of any bloc” like NATO.
That's a non-starter.
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Time to say goodbye and hang up.
