Just another in my get-a-war-going series:
"Russia threatens retaliation as Ukraine’s military returns to action" by William Booth and Michael Birnbaum | Washington Post April 24, 2014
HORLIVKA, Ukraine — Russia warned Wednesday that it was prepared to retaliate against any attack on its citizens or interests in Ukraine, as the Kiev government resumed military operations against pro-Russian militants in the eastern part of the country.
The escalation came as US paratroopers landed in Poland to begin training exercises intended as a sign of support for American allies in the region.
‘‘If we are attacked, we would certainly respond,’’ Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in Moscow in an interview with the RT television network, recalling the five-day war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, when Moscow acted to protect pro-Russian secessionists in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.
‘‘If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians, have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia, for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in accordance with international law.’’
‘‘Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation,’’ Lavrov said. He also accused the United States of directing the actions of the Ukrainian government in a ‘‘hands-on manner,’’ noting that Ukraine had ordered Wednesday’s military action only after a visit from Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday.
Think there is a connection?
The declaration from Lavrov — which echoes warnings given by the Russian government before Moscow’s annexation of Crimea last month — followed the discovery in eastern Ukraine of the body of a local politician who supported Ukrainian unity. He had been tortured and dumped in a river after being kidnapped last week, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday.
‘‘The terrorists who effectively took the whole Donetsk region hostage have now gone too far,’’ Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said after officials identified the stabbed and bruised body of Volodymyr Rybak. His body and that of another man — so far unidentified — were found Saturday near Slovyansk, a city that international observers say is controlled by armed pro-Russian activists.
‘‘These crimes are being committed with the full support and connivance of the Russian Federation,’’ Turchynov said.
We don't know that, and the last source I would believe is some U.S.-appointed puppet.
Rybak was kidnapped Thursday by four men in military uniforms who hustled him into a vehicle outside City Hall in Horlivka, a depressed industrial and mining city 26 miles northeast of regional capital Donetsk. Rybak, a local council member, had tried to lower the flag of the ‘‘Donetsk People’s Republic’’ at City Hall and replace it with the Ukrainian flag.
Rybak’s wife, Elena, said in an interview soon after her husband was taken that she feared the worst. ‘‘He was a police and knows how to defend himself,’’ she said. ‘‘He would not have gone anywhere without a fight.’’
She and her adult son identified Rybak’s body Wednesday.
Vasilii Mirozhnik, who knew Rybak well at City Hall, said, ‘‘He was a regular guy, a popular guy, with strong opinions, always fighting for justice.’’
Oh, is that what cops do? I thought they just oppressed and murdered people.
Mirozhnik wore a Ukrainian flag pin on his lapel. Asked about it, he said, ‘‘Why not? It’s my country. I am proud of it.’’
For many residents here, the flag they fly — Ukrainian or Russian — is of profound importance. In the past few days, people who want to remain in a united Ukraine — though with more self-government and say-so over budget issues — have begun to assert themselves in rallies and flash mobs organized over social media.
Proving that the coup has been a contrived effort by the West from the beginning.
Flash mobs, huh? Paid to be there, right?
There has been a rise in reports of beatings, disappearances, and detentions in recent days.
CIA must have rendition teams in the area.
On Tuesday, the police chief of Kramatorsk was taken out of his station by armed men, the deputy mayor was beaten, and the city’s security service building was occupied.
The Kyiv Post newspaper reported Wednesday that 12 people have been kidnapped over the past week in Slovyansk and Horlivka.
‘‘It’s chaos,’’ said Yurii Zhuk, a fellow deputy on the Horlivka City Council with Rybak. He said he did not know who kidnapped and killed Rybak. ‘‘They’re outsiders,’’ he said. ‘‘Radical elements.’’
Zhuk said that ‘‘the police were useless.’’ In a video taken right before Rybak was kidnapped, police officers in blue uniforms are visible in the crowd. ‘‘They’re demoralized,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re divided.’’
Several Ukrainian reporters have been arrested. And an American journalist, Simon Ostrovsky, who works for Vice News, has been detained since Tuesday morning in Slovyansk. The leader of the pro-Russian forces in Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said Wednesday that Ostrovsky had been detained by ‘‘self-defense forces’’ in the city, Interfax reported. ‘‘According to our information, he is an informer for Pravy Sektor,’’ the right-wing Ukrainian nationalist organization, Ponomaryov told the news agency.
Unfortunately, I also see western reporters as nothing but spies now. It's their NOC.
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I hope you can understand why I'm tired of the war propaganda, folks, be it the WaPo or the NYT.
"Ukraine renews skirmishes with separatists" by C.J. Chivers, Neil MacFarquhar, and Andrew Higgins | New York Times April 25, 2014
SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — Defying warnings from Moscow not to confront pro-Russian militants entrenched in towns across eastern Ukraine, government forces Thursday revived a stalled operation to regain control by force but had little to show for their efforts other than Russian military drills on Ukraine’s border and heightened alarm about Moscow’s next move.
I thought I would add to it with my post title. Maybe it will be true by tomorrow morning.
Russia has repeatedly denied having a hand in the unrest convulsing eastern Ukraine or any intention to invade.
You know, like Bush did before invading Iraq.
But an announcement Thursday by Moscow that it would immediately start military maneuvers along the border with Ukraine, and a threat by Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, of unspecified consequences as a result of what he called a “serious crime,” signaled a combustible new phase in a geopolitical battle set off by the overthrow of Ukraine’s government in February.
The day’s events also buried already feeble hopes that a deal reached last Thursday in Geneva by diplomats from the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States might calm a crisis that has stirred fears of a wider conflict on control of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that straddles a volatile fault line between Europe and Russia.
Like anyone took that deal seriously. US was undermining it before it was even signed.
In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russia on Thursday night that it would face additional economic sanctions if it failed to carry out that agreement. “The window to change course is closing,” he said.
Sanctions could be announced as soon as Friday if the Russians do not respond, said one senior administration official who asked not to be identified while discussing internal planning.
In his most detailed accusation of Russian interference to date, Kerry said that US intelligence services had concluded that Russia’s “military intelligence services and special operators are playing an active role in destabilizing eastern Ukraine.”
I'm sorry, but the IRAQ LIES he voted for have SPOILED anything that U.S. intelligence services conclude. I mean that is an absolute laugher!
“Some of the individual special operations personnel who were active on Russia’s behalf in Chechnya, Georgia, and Crimea have been photographed in Slovyansk, Donetsk and Luhansk,” Kerry said. “Some are even bragging about it by themselves on their Russian social media sites.”
Vyachislav Ponomaryov, the de facto mayor of Slovyansk, who was installed by pro-Russian militants, said Tuesday that armed men had come to his town from outside Ukraine but insisted they were friends and volunteers, not Russian special operations forces.
On Thursday Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, said drills would begin immediately involving troops in southern and western Russia, the areas surrounding Ukraine. The drills, which would also involve the air force, will include flights along the border, Shoigu said at a meeting of Russia’s top military council.
Related: Pentagon says Russian jets violated airspace
I don't believe the Pentagon, but even if I did I notice they never gripe about Israel's daily violations of Lebanese airspace.
“We have to react to such developments,” he said of the Ukrainian attacks, declaring that Russia had a duty to stop “this military machine.”
It's the WWIII narrative of history and I'm recording it now.
However, the most violent Ukrainian operation on Thursday, against checkpoints north of Slovyansk, a small eastern city, raised fresh questions about the competence of Ukraine’s forces and the interim government’s thinking.
Then we will just have to send U.S. soldiers to Ukraine, huh?
With armored vehicles and helicopter support, Ukrainian troops attacked crudely built checkpoints on a narrow access road. After a brief round of fighting, the forces — which the government said were a mix of regular infantry and Interior Ministry troops — withdrew, leaving rubble and burning tires behind.
The Ukrainian news media reported late Thursday that the government had decided to suspend its“antiterrorist operation” against the separatists, with The Kyiv Post quoting an official as saying this was because the risk of Russia’s invading had “grown sharply.”
So they pleased Biden while he was there, but as soon as he left.... !!!!
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, according to local news media, demanded that Russia explain the purpose of its military exercises within 48 hours.
With relations between Moscow and the West at their most distrustful and tense since the height of the Cold War, Russia’s defense minister, Shoigu, cited not only the unrest in Ukraine in his announcement of military drills but also NATO’s planned exercises in Poland and the Baltic States.
Oh, but those are okay and do not threaten anyone. I can't imagine why anyone would not trust in NATO's altruism.
Ukrainian officials teetered between declarations of determination to purge rebels from the east and alarm that Moscow might try to protect its separatist proxies in a military push.
Purge is a charged word to use considering it is Russia.
Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchinov, accusing Moscow of coordinating and backing “armed killer-terrorists” responsible for attacks since April 6 on government sites in at least 10 towns, said in a statement “we will not yield to the threat of terrorism and will continue to take measures to protect the life of our citizens.”
The Ukrainian authorities said that up to five pro-Russian activists died in fighting near Slovyansk.
Who are the terrorist killers again?
Ponomaryov, however, said that one pro-Russian separatist was killed and one wounded. He identified the dead man as Alexander V. Lubenets, and said the Ukrainian assault had involved as many as 150 troops and had been stopped in part by a minefield that separatists had laid.
Poor Lubenets only gets one phrase while Rybak got half an article.
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The man who gave the order for tanks to move:
"Court extends house arrest for Putin foe" Associated Press April 25, 2014
MOSCOW — A Moscow court decided Thursday to keep Russian opposition leader and anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalny under house arrest rather than send him to jail pending trial.
The ruling came as a surprise to many of Navalny’s supporters, who had predicted that President Vladimir Putin — riding on 80 percent approval ratings after annexing the Ukrainian Black Sea region of Crimea in March — would have no qualms about putting Russia’s top opposition figure behind bars.
Related: Jews Defend Nazis in Ukraine
Plans for world domination makes strange bedfellows.
Instead, the court ruled Thursday to extend Navalny’s house arrest, which began in February, for six months.
Related: Under Arrest at Russia House
Navalny is already serving a suspended sentence for an embezzlement conviction last summer, when he was nearly jailed but released at the last minute, allowing him to participate in a Moscow mayoral campaign. As convictions against him mount, each case makes it more likely that his suspended sentence will be turned into a real one.
On Tuesday, Navalny was fined $8,400 for slandering a lawmaker. He has also appeared in court for several administrative cases this year.
In the current case, Navalny and his brother Oleg are accused of defrauding the Russian unit of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher and embezzling $870,000 from the company. Yves Rocher has sent a letter to investigators saying the company suffered no damage in the deal.
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Also see:
North Korea Sunk South Korean Ferry
Iran Executes Jewish Rabbi
Plenty of other places where wars can be started, and I think that will be my focus tomorrow.
