Goodbye, Poroshenko: Armed Volunteer Battalions Heading for Kiev

The Ukrainian Vesti newspaper says the troop movement might be linked with the situation around Dnipropetrovsk Region governor Igor Kolomoisky

(TASS - russian news agency) UKRAINE WAR Tue, Mar 24 2015




A soldier of Ukrainian Donbas battalion


KIEV, March 23. /TASS/. Armed volunteer battalions are pulling in to Kiev, the Vesti newspaper reported on Monday.

"Yesterday, soldiers of a number of battalions were pulled out from the front and are heading for Kiev with arms. There is no information about the purpose of this move," Vesti said, adding that it might be linked "with the situation around [Dnipropetrovsk Region governor Igor] Kolomoisky."

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said earlier on Monday that none of the Ukrainian governors will be allowed to have private armies any longer.

Ukrainian Security Service Chief Valentin Nalivaichenko said earlier that some high-placed officials in the Dnipropetrovsk regional administration maintained armed formations that were actually bandit groupings.

The topic of armed groupings in Ukraine has surfaced after armed men from a security company presumably related to Kolomoisky placed the building of Ukrnafta state-owned oil and gas extracting company "under their guard."

On March 19, Ukrtransnafta’s (another company owned by Igor Kolomoisky) supervisory board dismissed Alexander Lazorko from the post of the company’s board head and appointed Yuri Miroshnik acting chairman of the board. Later reports said that the building of the company was seized by "gunmen led by Kolomoisky." However, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that Kiev’s law enforcement agencies took Uktransnafta’s premises under control.

According to media reports, in April-May 2014 Ukrtransnafta pumped 675,000 tons of process oil from the county’s trunk pipelines without permission of the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy and Coal Mining. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk demanded then that the law enforcement agencies initiate criminal proceedings and prosecute those responsible for illegal siphoning off of oil.

Top Russia Scholar Stephen Cohen: War between NATO and Russia a Real Possibility

Damir Marinovich Sun, Mar 22





STEVEN COHEN "WE ARE IN DEEP TROUBLE..."




Professor Stephen Cohen is one of the most respected authorities on Russia among American and Western scholars. He is an American scholar of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University. His academic work concentrates on modern Russian history and Russia's relationship with the United States.


The key points of Cohen's extraordinary speech:

• The possibility of premeditated war with Russia is real; this was never a possibility during Soviet times. 
• This problem did not begin in November 2013 or in 2008, this problem began in 1990's when the Clinton administration adopted a "winner-takes-all" policy towards post-Soviet Russia. 
• Next to NATO expansion, the US adopted a form of a negotiation policy called "selective cooperation" - Russia gives, the US takes. 
• There is not a single example of any major concession or reciprocal agreement that the US offered Russia in return for what it has received since the 90s. 
• This policy has been pursued by every president and every US Congress, from President Clinton to President Obama. 
• The US is entitled to a global sphere of influence, but Russia is not entitled to any sphere of influence at all, not even in Georgia or Ukraine. 
• For 20 years Russia was excluded from the European security system. NATO expansion was a pivot of this security system and it was directed against Russia. 
• Putin started as a pro-Western leader, he wanted partnership with the US, provided helping hand after 9/11 and saved many American lives in Afghanistan. 
• In return he got more NATO expansion and unilateral abolition of the existing missile treaty on which all Russian security was based. 
• Putin is not an autocrat, he's maybe very authoritarian as an ultimate decider, but he is answerable to other power groups. 
• Putin is not anti-Western, or as Khodorkovsky said, he is more European than 99 percent of Russians. He has become less pro-Western and particularly less pro-American. 
• Since November 2013, Putin has became not aggressive but reactive. For this he has been criticized in circles in Moscow as an appeaser (that is, soft, not tough enough). 
• We (opposing academics) don't have effective political support in the administration, the Congress, political parties, think tanks or on university campuses. This is unprecedented situation in American politics. There's no discourse, no debate and this is failure of American democracy. 
• There is ongoing extraordinary irrational and nonfactual demonisation of Putin. No Soviet leader was so personally vilified as Putin is now. 
• The solution is federation to unite Ukraine without Crimea, which is not coming back, free trade with both the West and Russia and no NATO membership for Ukraine. 
• This guarantees must be in writing, not oral promises like they gave to Gorbachev, and must be ratified by the UN. 
• The Kiev regime is not a democratic one, but an ultra-nationalistic one. Poroshenko is a diminishing president. 
• Unless the Kiev regime changes its approach to Russia or unless the West stops supporting Kiev unconditionally, we are drifting towards war with Russia.

SAME AUTHOR

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Leading American Scholar John Mearsheimer: The West Blew It Big Time and Irreversibly Endangered European Security

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Ukraine's Neo-Nazis Are the Most Dangerous in Europe

UK Opposes Return of Russian Business from Offshore

RUSSIA INSIDER
http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/23/4825

The Russian President warned businesses that the West may attempt to prevent the return of capital repayments to Russia

(Izvestia)

This article originally appeared at Izvestia.  Translated for RI by Alexei Shestyan

---

On 19th March, President Vladimir Putin stated in an address at the conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, that a plan for the decreased reliance of offshore business could be met with opposition from a number of countries – although they as yet remain nameless. As Izvestia understands, the jurisdictions in question are primarily those under the control of the United Kingdom.

"So this is the situation: there is some, I would say, rather alarming information emerging from some countries suggesting that there may be attempts to prevent capital repayments to Russia. This may be due to the restrictions placed on the usage of such capitals, which are in foreign jurisdictions. But it’s worth bearing in mind." - President Vladimir Putin

As explained by a high-ranking conference participant, the issue was discussed at meetings of the government and Kremlin, and information about the potential blocking of the transfer of offshore business in the Russian jurisdiction came from the Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

"In general the blocking of these funds can occur in those districts generally controlled by the United Kingdom. Here we are not excluding the fact that the British government may be taking steps to counter the withdrawal of funds into the Russian jurisdiction. This can be done not just by ‘blocking’ but by using delaying tactics to drag out the process." - noted an Izvestia source.

According to the Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights Boris Titov, the threat of asset lock does exist, as Russian citizens are now under scrutiny from foreign governments as a result of sanctions.

"Blocking and complicating the process of transferring assets into the Russian jurisdiction is possible. The EU countries in this regard, have a less aggressive policy towards Russia. I do not want to point fingers at territories. It’s offshore countries that are controlled largely by Britain and are a part of the Anglo-Saxon world." - Boris Titov.

The Head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin explained:

"Russian citizens withdrawing large sums of money in some jurisdictions or other, may also face questions...These are Britain, BVI (British Virgin Islands) and other islands, under the control of the Crown. This is not a special measure against Russia in the period of sanctions; it is a struggle for preventing capital outflow. We are fighting for the repatriation; they are struggling with the outflow. In this regard, even if it is not a special action against holders of Russian money, a large-scale amnesty of capital and incentives for the return of capital in Russia, will be a cause of concern for the authorities. Vladimir Vladimirovich [President Putin] in this case is not intimidated by saying that if you do not repatriate, you will be in for hard times."

EIR: GERMANS RAISE THE ALARM

http://larouchepub.com/other/2015/4212putin_warns_west.html
This article appears in the March 20, 2015 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

GERMANS RAISE THE ALARM

Putin Warned West of Nuclear Showdown over Crimea

by Jeffrey Steinberg
[PDF version of this article]

March 15—A documentary film, aired on Russian state television over the weekend of March 14-15, confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was prepared to put his nation's strategic nuclear forces on alert, following the Western-engineered neo-Nazi coup d'état that overthrew Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Putin was interviewed for the documentary, which has been in preparation for eight months. He told an interviewer that he warned U.S. and European leaders to stay out of the Crimea, following the overthrow of Yanukovych, and he concluded that his warnings avoided a global war.

According to the Bloomberg News account: "We were ready to do that," Putin said, when asked in the film about Russia's takeover of Crimea, if the Kremlin had been prepared to place its nuclear forces on alert. The Russian leader said he warned the U.S. and Europe not to get involved, accusing them of engineering the ouster of the Russian-backed Ukrainian President. "That's why I think no one wanted to start a world conflict."

Putin added that, prior to the ouster of Yanukovych, he himself had not contemplated Crimea's return to Russia; however, once he concluded that the Obama Administration had played a pivotal role in the Maidan coup in Kiev, in which self-identified neo-Nazis took part, he had an obligation to support the wishes of the Russian-majority population of Crimea.

These revelations on how close the world came to a nuclear conflict a little over a year ago, come as two prominent German statesmen have come forward to warn against the danger of such a war, should the Obama Administration and its NATO allies, go forward with a new phase of provocations, including arming the Ukrainian regime.

The Imminent Threat

European heads of state will be meeting in the coming days to review the existing sanctions against Russia, imposed as punishment for the "annexation" of Crimea, and Moscow's alleged military involvement in the continuing conflict in eastern Ukraine, with some Western leaders saying that they want to link the lifting of sanctions to the full compliance of Russia in the Minsk II deal. In fact, there has been significant compliance by the Donbas militias in pulling back weapons in the Donbas region, while sabotage of the accords is coming from the Kiev regime.

On March 15, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko went on TV to claim that 11 European Union countries have agreed to provide arms to his country. The claim of EU weapons sales is not necessarily credible, as Poroshenko did not name the countries, and only four countries—the U.K., Finland, Poland, and Lithuania—have publicly announced such sales.

Also heating up tensions has been the intensive deployment of NATO forces for exercises along Russia's western border, especially in the Baltic and the Black Sea regions. Russian officials have warned that they will be forced to respond in some way.

It is precisely the arming of Ukraine that has prompted some key European figures to come out demanding a halt to any such plans, and instead, a concerted effort to restore diplomatic cooperation with Russia.

Steinmeier and Schmidt Speak Out

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in Washington from March 11-13, meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and leading Members of the Senate, demanding a de-escalation, starting with the cancellation of any plans to arm Ukraine.

In a highly unusual speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on March 12, Steinmeier called for the normalization of ties with Russia, while directly opposing the arming of Ukraine:

"If you increase the arms to Ukraine, Russia will simply provide the separatists with more weapons, and the balance of forces would remain the same, but at a much higher level. This would lead to a new phase that could get out of control. It could lead to a direct conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and no one, particularly Ukraine, would benefit from that."

Steinmeier's remarks were amplified the same day by former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, in an interview with the mass-circulation daily Bildzeitung, in which he warned that the conflict in Ukraine might escalate "even into a real hot war" in Europe, if the provocations against Russia were not halted.

Lyndon LaRouche hailed both the Steinmeier and Schmidt warnings as critical interventions prevent global thermonuclear war. He warned that President Obama's continuing provocations had reached the point, where his removal from office might be the only basis for averting global catastrophe.

Targeting China

The Obama provocations have extend beyond Russia to target China. A number of widely circulated media reports in recent weeks claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping is conducting a Maoist-style purge of all opposition forces, and that his actions will bring about the collapse of the Chinese economy and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

A broadside against President Xi was published March 6 in the pages of the Wall Street Journal by David Shambaugh, under the provocative title "The Coming Chinese Crackup," with the subhead "The endgame of communist rule in China has begun, and Xi Jinping's ruthless measures are only bringing the country closer to a breaking point." Scores of articles have appeared since the publication of the Shambaugh article, and the propaganda assault coheres with the Obama Administration's Air-Sea Battle doctrine, which promotes a containment of China that could include the use of high-precision, high-power conventional weapons to knock out Chinese nuclear second-strike capacities.

The Iran Front

While the Obama Administration has concentrated its war provocations on the Russian and Chinese fronts, President Obama remains committed to a deal with Iran, through the ongoing P5+1 (the UN Permanent Five plus Germany) negotiations. The President has very little to show for his legacy in office for two terms, and the deal with Iran is his last, best chance for some meaningful accomplishment in the foreign policy domain. Secretary of State Kerry is now in negotiations with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Javed Zarif. There is a March 24 deadline for reaching an agreement-in-principle, to meet the July final deadline for a signed agreement.

The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dead-set against any deal with Iran, and the Israel Lobby in Washington, led by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), is heavily lobbying Congressional Republicans to wreck any chance of a final deal. Forty-seven Republican Senators last week wrote to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, warning that any deal that Obama strikes with Iran will have to be acceptable to Congress, or it will be written off in two years, if a Republican is elected President.

The Republican letter, in itself, was a bluff—Congress cannot weigh in on the deal, which is not a treaty requiring Senate approval. But by all recognized standards of international law, the agreement—if reached—would be binding on future U.S. administrations. The impact of the GOP action was to bolster opposition by ultra-conservative Iranian factions, who equally oppose a deal. In the view of the Iranian hardliners, no deal with the U.S. is reliable, because Washington will never grant Iran the status it deserves as a regional power, on a par with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

One indication of the impact of the GOP letter inside Iran was the election for the new head of the Assembly of Experts, the powerful body that oversees the selection of a new Supreme Leader and has final oversight on the Supreme Leader's actions. In the vote last week, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former President and key backer of President Hassan Rouhani in promoting a P5+1 deal, was defeated by a hardline cleric, Ayatollah Yazdi, a former Justice Minister. If Khamenei tilts significantly to the hardline stance, all bets are off on a final P5+1 agreement.

If no deal is reached between Iran and the P5+1, it becomes only a matter of time before war between the U.S. and Iran breaks out, an outcome that would be precisely that desired by the Netanyahu gang in Israel.

In the March 17 Israeli elections, Netanyahu is in the fight of his life to retain power. His defeat would fundamentally change the political landscape in the region and open the prospect for a revival of the peace initiatives of the Bill Clinton Presidency.

From Ukraine to the Middle East to the Pacific Far East, the world stands at the brink of war or peace, chaos or development. The British and their Obama White House are out to wreck any possibility of stability, particularly if it involves creating further opportunities for the BRICS nations to extend their development plans. This is the number one factor driving the world to the edge of global war.

Pandora TV: I am Italian - Donbass - truth on Ukrainian crisis

Truth on Ukrainian crisis in English and Italian

Truth on Ukrainian crisis (in italian)

In German by German journalist from Donbass

http://infopolk.ru/1/A/node/31461#851e8031-d0d3-98bf-ba35-7d3358dee3c8

Latest news on Minsk Agreements

Ministry of Defence: KIEV ordered not to let the UN observers to the positions of the Ukrainian forces

According to the Ministry of Defence of the Donetsk Republic the illegitimate ukrainian military formations have got orders to sabotage the work of the UN Monitoring Mission. This information came from the Ministry of Defence Deputy Minister Eduard Basurin.

"It came to our knowledge yesterday from a defector, who joined the insurgent forces, that commanders (of the pro-Ukrainian forces) in the operation zone have got orders under any pretences not to let the UN military observers close to the locations of their heavy weaponry and military vehicles".

Under these orders of the ukrainian authorities it is also recommended to collect personal information of the observers of the UN Monitoring Mission, schedule of their work, brands and registration numbers of their vehicles. "All the received information is transferred to the headquarters of the Anti-insurgent operation, where measures to block the work of the UN observers are undertaken." – stressed E. Basurin.

Speaker for the Donetsk Ministry of Defence also added that, according to the radio captures, the Ukrainian part is thus trying to cover up their violation of the Minsk Agreements.

"These radio captures give clear evidence that the Ukrainian forces are not going to withdraw heavy military vehicles and armory from the forefront locations. More over, they are covering them up and deceiving the US Monitoring Mission", marked E. Basurin.

Date of publication: 03 Март 2015, 21:00


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