Related: Russian Tanks Roll Into Ukraine
They rolled them in and then rolled them right back out again!
"Seizure of observers raises tension in Ukraine" by Griff Witte and William Booth | Washington Post April 27, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — International negotiators rushed to eastern Ukraine on Saturday to seek the release of European military monitors who were captured Friday and promptly branded ‘‘spies’’ by the pro-Russian militia that seized them.
The detention of the monitors instantly raised the stakes in an already fraught drama pitting the Ukrainian government against motley bands of separatists who have overtaken city halls across the country’s eastern half.
I'm sick of the one-sided bias of the CIA's favorite paper, sorry. Has me calling my own retreat.
Although the standoff in Ukraine has for months been a proxy fight between Russia and the West, the imprisonment in a makeshift separatist jail of military officers from NATO countries threatens to draw the West more directly into the conflict.
What were they doing in eastern Ukraine?
Russia said Saturday that it would do all it could to win the release of the detained men, who include a total of eight military monitors from Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden as well as five Ukrainian military escorts.
But as of Saturday night, leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the city of Slovyansk remained adamant that they had no intention of freeing the officers, accusing them of espionage. Ukrainian officials said they feared that the men would be used as human shields.
Sigh.
I am retreating from this slop because I no longer am putting forth the energy to respond to this rank rot.
Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the self-appointed ‘‘people’s mayor’’ of Slovyansk, said the detained observers were found with maps suggesting they were carrying out a spying mission, and said they might be released in exchange for jailed pro-Russian activists, the Associated Press reported.
Unlike the self-appointed, U.S.-backed, coup-installed, illegal regime in Kiev, right?
The standoff raised fresh questions about the ability of any government — whether Ukrainian or Russian — to control events in a region where security is perilous, and where shadowy militias hold growing sway.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring events in Ukraine and trying to broker local peace deals, said it would keep its monitors out of Slovyansk until further notice, and that it was carefully watching conditions in other cities.
‘‘It’s a very fluid security situation in a lot of these areas,’’ said Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the OSCE monitoring mission here. ‘‘We’re definitely taking more precautions.’’
Bociurkiw said that OSCE monitors had visited Slovyansk this past week, and they had met with the pro-Russian activists who took over the city’s government buildings this month. ‘‘It was tense, but there was an understanding achieved,’’ Bociurkiw said.
The detention of the monitors Friday, Bociurkiw said, was ‘‘entirely unexpected.’’
The detained men are military officers who also were here under OSCE auspices, but under a separate mission from the civilian observers.
?????
Sure SMELLS like GLADIO SPIES and PROVOCATEURS to ME!
OSCE dispatched a team to eastern Ukraine on Saturday and was leading negotiations aimed at securing the monitors’ release, according to officials from OSCE and from Germany, which led the mission.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to discuss the situation Saturday, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Steinmeier’s spokeswoman declined to discuss the call.
The standoff comes at a critical time in Western decision-making over how hard to punish Russia for its meddling in Ukraine.
Oh, it is Russia that is meddling, huh?
In a statement released Saturday morning, the Group of Seven announced that it would impose new sanctions against Moscow, and officials indicated they could come as early as Monday.
Who cares?
Germany, which has extensive economic ties to Russia, has led the call in the West for restraint in dealings with Moscow. But the detention of the officers, including four Germans, in Slovyansk could alter that.
Then again, it could not.
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And while Russia moves out the U.S. moves in:
"After Russian moves in Ukraine, NATO reassurances ease fears in Baltics" by Griff Witte | Washington Post April 27, 2014
LONDON — For decades, NATO has expanded inexorably outward, taking on new members and new missions that have carried it far beyond its original mandate in Western Europe and deep into the former Soviet sphere.
Almost makes one wonder why it was not dissolved.
But Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has sent shivers down the spines of Eastern European countries from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south. NATO’s newest members have been left feeling vulnerable and wondering whether the world’s most powerful military alliance is truly committed to their defense.
Concerns have been especially acute in the Baltics, where nations that were once part of the Soviet empire now stare out across the Russian border and fear that they could be next on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hit list.
I'm only doing this so you, the reader in other regions of the country and world, can see the absolute rank rot propaganda served up by the AmeriKan media and regional flag$hit, and so you know that THESE AMERIKAN AGGRESSIONS are WITHOUT MY CONSENT and I preemptively condemn my criminal government.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — like Ukraine — have significant Russian-speaking populations, people who Putin has suggested should, by all rights, be living in Russia. Unlike Ukraine, the Baltic nations are part of NATO, having joined in 2004. But NATO has long resisted placing much of a footprint in the Baltics, concerned that doing so would jeopardize ever-precarious cooperation with Moscow.
Now that that cooperation is on life support, NATO has begun to pivot, announcing that it plans to substantially boost its air, sea, and ground presence in the Baltic states.
WWIII soon.
The decision has brought some relief in the lightly defended Baltics, but also questions about why NATO did not act earlier to try to deter Russia with a more robust show of strength on its eastern flank.
‘‘Of course, we always wanted to see a more permanent presence from our NATO allies here. But before, it was not considered so urgent,’’ Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said. ‘‘Now, the circumstances have changed.’’
Related(?): Estonia prime minister to step down
Paet said that as part of NATO’s renewed commitment to the Baltics, NATO warplanes would, for the first time, regularly police the skies from an Estonian air base. Other measures are still under discussion, he said, including the stationing of US ground forces in his country.
After recent meetings with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said he expected more military cooperation with the United States.
US Army troops arrived in Poland last week to begin what will be a series of military exercises in four countries across Eastern Europe in a move to bolster allies.
Look who is ESCALATING things!
Until now, NATO has been deliberately vague about plans for the positioning of its ground forces in Eastern Europe, a strategy that is in part intended to keep Moscow guessing but also reflects the lingering divisions with NATO over how far to go in provoking the Russian bear.
At least they admit they are the provocateurs.
For years after the tiny Baltic nations joined the alliance, NATO stalled in developing plans for how to defend its newest members. The alliance also avoided training exercises in the Baltics, out of deference to Putin’s complaints that NATO was reaching too far into his orbit. The defense plans were drawn up only after Russia entered Georgia in 2008.
After Georgia attacked South Ossetia, and Putin's complaints are valid.
Baltic officials say they do not believe that Russia is planning operations in their countries like the one in Ukraine, and they cite the threat of a NATO response as a key reason. But there is no question that Baltic officials are deeply apprehensive about what could happen if Russia succeeds in breaking off even more of Ukraine.
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And those new sanctions?
"Sanctions revive search for secret Putin fortune" by Peter Baker | New York Times April 27, 2014
Maybe you should check Switzerland. That's where all the Wall Street looters send theirs.
WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration imposed sanctions on individual Russians last month in response to Moscow’s armed intervention in Ukraine, one of the targets was a longtime part-owner of a commodities trading company called the Gunvor Group.
His name, Gennady N. Timchenko, meant little to most Americans, but buried in the US Treasury Department announcement were a dozen words that President Obama and his team knew would not escape the attention of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
“Putin,” the statement said, “has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.”
For years, the suspicion that Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists, and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it.
Meaning it either is not there, and quite frankly, I really don't give a $hit. Putin being corrupt isn't a reason to go to war with Russia.
How about going after the looters who cleaned out America first?
Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history.
I sometimes wonder if the NYT gags on the pile of shit it presents as news. The over-the-top, jump-the-shark hyperbole is suffocating.
For all the rumors and speculation, though, there has been little if any hard evidence, and Gunvor, for its part, has adamantly denied any financial ties to Putin.
And I get a whole article implying there is!
But Obama’s response to the Ukraine crisis, while derided by critics as slow and weak, has reinvigorated a 15-year global hunt for Putin’s hidden wealth.
Maybe he buried it.
Now, as the Obama administration prepares to announce another round of sanctions as early as Monday targeting Russians it considers part of Putin’s financial circle, it is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money, and that he could ultimately be targeted directly or indirectly.
What did they do, call over to the NSA?
“It’s something that could be done that would send a very clear signal of taking the gloves off and not just dance around it,” said Juan C. Zarate, a White House counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush who helped pioneer the government’s modern financial campaign techniques to choke off terrorist money.
Now Putin is a terrorist, and why is Zaudi money still flowing to Al-CIA-Duh?
So far, the US government has not imposed sanctions on Putin himself, and officials said they would not in the short term, reasoning that personally targeting a head of state would amount to a “nuclear” escalation, as several put it.
But officials said they hoped to get Putin’s attention by targeting figures close to him like Timchenko, and other business magnates like Yuri V. Kovalchuk, Vladimir I. Yakunin, and Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.
Putin’s reported income for 2013 was just $102,000, according to a Kremlin statement this month. Over the years, he has crudely dismissed suggestions of personal wealth.
How much Putin cares about money has long been a subject of debate both in Russia and in the West. On government payrolls since his days in the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, Putin to many seemed driven more by power and nationalism than by material gain. With access to government perks like palaces, planes, and luxury cars, he seemingly has little need for personal wealth.
I'm sick of this pot-hollering-kettle crap media, sorry.
“If he really does have all that money salted away somewhere, why?” asked Bruce K. Misamore, who was the chief financial officer of Yukos Oil before the Russian government imprisoned its top shareholder, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, and seized its assets. “What good does it do him? Is it just ego? Presumably, it’s not to pass it down to heirs.”
And yet, some have drawn attention to what appear to be expensive watches on his wrist and the construction of a seaside palace that the Kremlin denied was being built for Putin.
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Also see: Moscow's Next Move
Putin is on the timer.
I'm now ordering a full retreat from the Globe for the night.
