LA Times: Russia sends tanks and troops into Ukraine, seizes a strategic town

[JMS]

Flip side of that, though, is . . . If the vote had gone the other way, then would we now be sending troops to those countries, to fight the Russian Army?

 

If you think Putin is crazy enough to go against the US then yeah.. We'd be in Moscow right now arresting Putin and the entire Duma...

 

However No serious defense analyst thinks Russia is crazy enough to directly confront the United States.   Let me explain it to you..

 

Russia has dramatically increased their defense spending since Putin came into power in 1999 replacing Boris Yetsin, and he's dramatically increased it further in just the past few years...  ( See below ).

 

 

 

So In fiscal year 2000 it's projected his defense budget has gone up about 500%...  Pretty great commitment to "defense" has Putin...

 

 

Now you compare that to the United State's budget which has been $640 Billion  or about 7x the Russian defense budget is at it's greatest...  And our defense dept didn't suffer the dramatic decade of decline Russia's did....  

 

We are more than a match for Russia today, and everybody knows that including Russia...   The only reason Russia is indulging their homicidal and aggressive nature is we have telegraphed to them we don't care....  We won't oppose them.   Which means when we ultimately do fight Russia,  Russia will be larger, stronger, and better armed than they are today when we prefer to look the other direction...

 

It's no coincidence Putin is talking about bifurcating Ukraine just days after Obama said the US would not commit any military forces to defend or deter Russian aggression.

 

 

Putin Urges Talks on Greater Autonomy for Eastern Ukraine

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Sunday called on Ukraine to begin talks on “the statehood” of that country’s rebellious southeast, a vague and provocative turn of phrase used by Mr. Putin as he demanded that the Ukrainian government negotiate directly with pro-Russian separatists.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/world/europe/ukraine.html?_r=0

 

 

As for being Afraid of Russia's nuclear arsenal..  sure we should be concerned,  but that's a two way street.   If Russia isn't concerned by our nuclear deterrent then we frankly are already lost.    All the appeasement in the world will not keep us safe if we set policy on the premise that we are more afraid of an aggressor Russia than they are of us.

[visionary]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamelder/vladimir-putin-isnt-going-to-stop?utm_term=3rl4ezk#1s758bt

Vladimir Putin Isn’t Going To Stop

 

Wreaking havoc in Ukraine is just the beginning.

 

On Friday night, a local lawmaker left his home in the northern Russian city of Pskov when he was attacked from behind by three men and beaten unconscious only to wake up, bloodied, in a hospital hours later. The lawmaker, Lev Shlosberg, had been leading an investigation into the mysterious burials of several members of the Pskov-based 76th Airborne Division, who were rumored to have died fighting in Ukraine. Journalists who attempted to reach the cemetery days earlier were also attacked.

 

TV Rain, one of Russia’s last remaining independent news outlets, has interviewed Russian servicemen taken prisoner in Ukraine. The Soldiers Mothers Committee, an NGO that focuses on human rights abuses in the Russian military, says it has counted 400 cases of dead or wounded Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Yet Russian dissidents still feel the need to pen essays beseeching the West to understand that a war is underway.

 

The game of “when will Russia invade Ukraine” began in May and continued over several months with fits and starts. Now that it is actually happening — military hardware has been spotted crossing the border; Russian soldiers are coming home in body bags — the world is at a loss. The European Union is riven by internal divisions fostered, in part, by Russia, while the Obama administration behaves as though nothing has really changed. “It’s not really a shift,” President Barack Obama said on Friday, when asked about recent developments in Ukraine. That’s either willful blindness or a serious misreading of the situation.

 

After weeks of successes in winning back rebel-held territory — often with its own brutal bombardment of civilian population centers — the Ukrainian army now faces real pushback from the separatists, thanks to Russian reinforcements.

 

Russia watchers are now trying to figure out Vladimir Putin’s grand strategy. Is he trying to foster chaos of the type that plagued the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, in order to leverage his position at the negotiating table? Does he want to see another “frozen conflict” — of the type that already afflicts several other former Soviet republics, like Moldova with Transdnistria or Georgia with South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Does he want to follow his own Crimean model and make East Ukraine — namely the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk — part of Russia?

Which is to say, those who think Putin will stop in Ukraine are misguided. His nationalism appears to be growing by the day, but it has old roots. Many were confounded when Putin embraced Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident writer best known in the West for exposing Russia’s network of labor camps in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. But later in life, working off the same deep Orthodox faith that once sustained him as an opponent to the atheist Soviet regime, he turned to a Slavic nationalism that once had him appear sorely out of touch, but today increasingly fashionable. In a 1990 essay called “Rebuilding Russia,” he urged the creation of a Slavic state built on Russian Orthodoxy. It would encompass Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and northern Kazakhstan.

 

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/145630

PM: Australia to Match EU on Russia Sanctions

 

Australia will toughen its sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine so they match those of the European Union, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday.

 

Australia already has some sanctions against Russia, but Abbott said these would be tightened as a result of Moscow's persistent and deliberate violation of its neighbor's sovereignty.

 

"Australia will lift its sanctions against Russia to the level of the European Union," Abbott told parliament in Canberra.

 

"There will be no new arms exports, there will be no new access by Russian state-owned banks to the Australian capital market, there will be no new exports for use in the oil and gas industry, there will be no new trade or investment in the Crimea.

 

"And there will be further targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against specific individuals."

[JMS]

Which is to say, those who think Putin will stop in Ukraine are misguided. His nationalism appears to be growing by the day, but it has old roots. Many were confounded when Putin embraced Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident writer best known in the West for exposing Russia’s network of labor camps in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. But later in life, working off the same deep Orthodox faith that once sustained him as an opponent to the atheist Soviet regime, he turned to a Slavic nationalism that once had him appear sorely out of touch, but today increasingly fashionable. In a 1990 essay called “Rebuilding Russia,” he urged the creation of a Slavic state built on Russian Orthodoxy. It would encompass Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and northern Kazakhstan.

 

 

I remember Solzhenitsyn.   He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970,  but didn't go to collect the award because he didn't think the Soviet Union would let him back in... Deported from the Soviet Union in 1974 because the KGB found the manuscript to his new novel Gulag Archipelago.   When he was deported, he was a hero to the west.     In 1978, living in exile, he was invited to Harvard to give the commencement speech.     He shows up,  gives one of the greatest speeches of all time,  least I've heard a few professors categorize it that way,  only he doesn't talk about the evils of the Soviet Union,  he talks about the evils of the West. " If I had been speaking in the East today, I would have concentrated on the abuses of the East, but since I am addressing a western audience I will rather concentrate on the abuses of the West.."     Then he proceeded to rip the west a new one in front of the Harvard Crowd...

 

It's a great read, and now nearly 40 years latter,  he got a lot of if right...

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/01/russian-tank-battalion-rebels-gains-eat-ukraine-kiev

'Russian tank battalion' helps rebels make gains in east Ukraine, Kiev claims

 

Pro-Russia rebels are making decisive gains against Ukrainian forces in the east of the country, a turning of tides on the battlefield that Kiev says is due to Moscow providing direct military support.

 

The Ukrainians suffered fresh losses on Monday, abandoning the airport in the key city of Luhansk after it came under attack by what Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko claimed was "a Russian tank battalion".

 

There were also reports of fighting at Donetsk airport, while the Ukrainian army and volunteer battalions reported heavy casualties in recent days as they attempt to retreat from encirclement in the town of Ilovaysk.

 

The fighting on the ground overshadowed tentative efforts to bring the adversaries to the table in Minsk, where rebels reportedly indicated that they might be prepared to forswear outright separation from Ukraine in return for the largest measure of autonomy and self-determination.

 

The rebels have previously declared themselves independent statelets, but Russian agencies reported on Monday that they were putting forward a range of demands on regional self-determination and Russian language status in return for which they would be willing to discuss "the preservation of the united economic, cultural and political space of Ukraine".

 

Kiev is unlikely to give into demands from the rebel leaders but the change of tone shows that having boosted the rebels militarily, Moscow may be looking for a compromise solution that still gives it sway over swaths of Ukraine. Even if the sides did agree, it is unclear whether all the units fighting on both sides would accept a compromise.

[visionary]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11069070/I-can-take-Kiev-in-two-weeks-Vladimir-Putin-warns-European-leaders.html

I can take Kiev in two weeks, Vladimir Putin warns European leaders

 

Vladimir Putin has boasted to European leaders that his forces could sweep into Kiev in two weeks if he wanted.

 

The Russian president reportedly made the threat to the European Commission president during talks on the Ukraine crisis.

 

Mr Putin told Jose Manuel Barroso: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks,” Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported, implying this could be the result if the EU stepped up sanctions against Russia.

 

His comments, relayed by Mr Barroso to colleagues at last weekend’s EU summit, emerged as Nato announced it would build a new “spearhead” rapid reaction force of up to 4,000 troops that can be flown into eastern Europe in 48 hours to respond to possible Russian aggression.

 

The EU’s new head of foreign policy, Federica Mogherini, also warned there was no military solution to what is now Europe’s biggest crisis in decades.

[Larry]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11069070/I-can-take-Kiev-in-two-weeks-Vladimir-Putin-warns-European-leaders.html

 

I can take Kiev in two weeks, Vladimir Putin warns European leaders

 

Dang, the Russian Army has slipped.

I remember when it was pretty much assumed that they could take Munich in two weeks.

[JMS]

I can take Kiev in two weeks, Vladimir Putin warns European leaders

 

 

[DCSaints_fan]

I can take Kiev in two weeks, Vladimir Putin warns European leaders

 

By himself.   Shirtless.   With only a AK-47, extra clips, and a bottle of vodka.

[Elessar78]

By himself.   Shirtless.   With only a AK-47, extra clips, and a bottle of vodka.

Gotta have something to celebrate with right? 

[Harwich Hog]

I think continued sanctions are the best way forward here. Putin is essentially at the top of a large Oligarchy that dominates the Russian economy. The good thing is none of these Russian Oligarchs particularly like Russia and have a lot invested outside the country. Sanctions and restrictions on these oligarchs are bound to have an effect on Putin. What good is Kiev to Putin if the result is him being ousted by his mates for not protecting their interests?

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/europe/obama-to-visit-estonia-to-reassure-baltic-allies-over-russia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld

Obama to Visit Estonia to Reassure Baltic Allies Over Russia

 

With concerns rising about Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, President Obama will use a visit to neighboring Estonia on Wednesday to reassure fretful allies that the United States and Europe are serious about defending them from a newly aggressive Russia.

 

Just over a year after Mr. Obama told Baltic leaders at the White House that NATO’s commitment to their security was “rock-solid,” his visit to Estonia is an effort to reinforce that message, while telegraphing to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he should refrain from further meddling in the region.

 

On the eve of a NATO summit meeting in Wales where members are expected to endorse a rapid-reaction force capable of deploying quickly to Eastern Europe — their most concrete response yet to Russia’s stealth military intervention in Ukraine — Mr. Obama is seeking to solidify assurances to the alliance’s new front line, including nations with large Russian-speaking populations, that no member is too small to be protected.

 

The president said last week that his stop in Estonia was intended “to let the Estonians know that we mean what we say with respect to our treaty obligations.” It will include a meeting with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who has been outspoken about calling for a firmer Western response to Mr. Putin, as well as Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, and the president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite.

 

Mr. Obama “wants to send the signal that these three Baltic states are as central and important to the way we look at European security and defense as any other NATO member, that there’s no difference between Estonia or Great Britain when it comes to the security of Estonia or Great Britain,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a former ambassador to NATO who is now the head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/02/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0GX21720140902?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Ukraine rebels say they are poised to recapture Donetsk airport

 

EU officials proposed sanctions on Tuesday to starve Russian firms of cash as punishment for Moscow's role in Ukraine, where rebels said they were storming Donetsk airport, potentially their biggest prize since turning the war's tide last week.

 

Western countries accuse Moscow of sending armored columns of troops into Ukraine, where the momentum in a five-month war shifted last week decisively in favor of pro-Russian rebels, who are now advancing on a new front towards a major port.

 

Russia denies its troops are involved in fighting on the ground, in the face of what Western countries and Ukraine say is overwhelming evidence.

 

According to the United Nations, the war, in which pro-Russian separatists are fighting to throw off rule from Kiev, has killed more than 2,600 people and driven nearly a million from their homes in east Ukraine.

 

Rebels in Donetsk, the biggest city under their control, said they were close to recapturing its airport from Ukrainian troops who had defended it since capturing it two months ago.

 

"The airport is 95 percent under our control. Practically, we are holding it by now. Some remaining Ukrainian troops need to be cleared," said Aleksandar Timofeyev, a leader of one of the main rebel units in Donetsk. "The Ukrainian army is retreating. It's more of a flight by now. Reasonable ones give up their weapons and go. Others stay in the ground for good."

 

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/thisisandrej

[visionary]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2014/09/polands-intellectuals-appeal?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/fromdanzigtodonetsk

Poland's intellectuals appeal From Danzig to Donetsk

 

SEVENTY-FIVE years after the start of the second world war, the West seems to capitulate again to aggression, say Polish intellectuals.

 

In an appeal, signed today, the anniversary of the start of the war, in Gdańsk (pictured in 1939, when it was called Danzig, just after the outbreak of the second world war), published in Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily, La Libre Belgique, a Belgian daily, Die Welt, a German daily, Le Monde, a French daily, and Ukrainian media, they exhort Europe not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The signatories are: Władysław Bartoszewski, Jacek Dehnel, Inga Iwasiów, Ignacy Karpowicz, Wojciech Kuczok, Dorota Masłowska, Zbigniew Mentzel, Tomasz Różycki, Janusz Rudnicki, Piotr Sommer, Andrzej Stasiuk, Ziemowit Szczerek, Olga Tokarczuk, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Magdalena Tulli, Agata Tuszyńska, Szczepan Twardoch, Andrzej Wajda, Kazimierz Wóycicki, Krystyna Zachwatowicz.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/paris-suspends-delivery-warship-russia-over-ukraine-162258553.html;_ylt=AwrTWfxVQgdUCRIAsQXQtDMD

Paris suspends delivery of warship to Russia over Ukraine

 

France said Wednesday "conditions" were not in place to deliver the first of two Mistral-class warships to Russia, a move planned later this year that has sparked controversy given the crisis in Ukraine.

 

"The President of the Republic declared that, despite the prospect of a ceasefire which still remains to be confirmed and implemented, the conditions for France to deliver the first warship are not to date in place," Francois Hollande's office said in a statement, on the eve of a major NATO summit.

 

The situation in Ukraine is "serious... the actions taken recently by Russia in Eastern Ukraine go against the foundations of Europe's security," added the statement, issued after a meeting of France's defence council.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kremlin-says-putin-and-poroshenko-share-views-on-how-to-end-crisis-in-ukraine/2014/09/03/c9958dac-8ab0-4c7c-a920-c378270e4fa8_story.html?utm_content=buffer84470&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Putin says he and Ukrainian president agree on outlines of a peace deal

 

The leaders of Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday that they had agreed to the outlines of a plan to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined a seven-point plan for a peace settlement that appears to entrench the territorial gains of Russian-backed rebels in the east by requiring a large-scale Ukrainian military pullback and the presence of international observers to enforce a cease-fire. He said he hoped that a formal agreement could be reached as early as Friday.

 

Kiev did not immediately confirm that it had signed on to the details of the “Putin plan,” as it was dubbed by the Kremlin, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that “the first task is peace.”

 

He said Wednesday: “I spoke to President Putin about how we can stop this horrible process. There is no denying that the deaths of people must end.”

 

The apparent inching toward a resolution came as President Obama said in a speech in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, that NATO and the Baltic states “must continue to stand united against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.” Charging that Putin has ignored opportunities to resolve the crisis in Ukraine diplomatically, Obama said that “Russia’s actions in Ukraine are weakening Russia,” and he added pointedly that “the door to NATO membership will remain open” to countries that meet the alliance’s standards.

But Putin’s demands could be difficult for Poroshenko to meet, since the Ukrainian leader is under heavy domestic pressure not to surrender Ukraine’s industrial heartland to the rebels.

 

In a measure of the political unpopularity of any deal with Russia, even a Poroshenko ally, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said Wednesday that Putin’s plan would “destroy Ukraine and bring back the Soviet Union.”

 

Poroshenko also does not maintain full control over pro-Kiev volunteer militias that have been fighting the rebels alongside the regular army. They may be inclined to keep fighting despite instructions from Kiev.

 

Putin said that after an initial cease-fire, the Ukrainian government should withdraw its forces out of range of the current combat operations in southeastern Ukraine and commit to allowing international observers into the region to ensure that no further hostilities take place.

 

He also called for corridors to be opened to allow humanitarian aid into the war-torn regions, for a full exchange of prisoners of war, for an end to combat aircraft operations and for repair brigades to be allowed to restore damaged infrastructure in the region.

 

The Russian president specified no conditions regarding the political status of the territories seized by rebels. But the proposal would apparently leave rebels in control of the key cities they have seized while a final settlement was discussed, thus freezing the conflict in a manner similar to what has happened in other disputed territories, such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova. Those contested regions are administered by pro-Russia groups but have little international recognition.

 

 

https://twitter.com/markmackinnon

NATO folks telling me they now believe 3,000-plus Russian troops inside Ukraine, and more than 100 tanks. Not much optimism over ceasefire.

1:03 PM

[visionary]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/03/moscows_next_victim?utm_content=buffer214ff&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Moscow's Next Victim

 

Moldova could be the Kremlin's next target. But Europe isn't ready to come to the rescue.

 

Note This article is an abridged version of the Legatum Institute's longer case study, "Moldova: The Failing Champion of European Integration."

 

Recently, I ran into Moldova's prime minister, Iurie Leanca, while walking with my two-year-old daughter in the center of Chisinau. The prime minister was walking down the street with just a few bodyguards, as he often does, and I introduced him to my daughter. "This is the man who runs our government," I said.  The prime minister responded with a sad smile, "This is the man who wants to do something and fails."

 

This sad smile says it all. On the face of it, Moldova is the fastest-reforming, most pro-Western country on Europe's eastern border, the "champion of the Eastern Partnership" in the words of one official. Yet the reality inside the country is far from clear-cut.

 

When the Alliance for European Integration replaced the Moldovan Communist Party at the head of the government in 2009, many believed that the benefits of EU membership were in reach. Western leaders began working diligently with their Moldovan counterparts, and Moldova received more than $670 million in aid from the European Union. With this support, the country conducted full and on-time reforms of its judiciary, law enforcement, borders security system, and infrastructure, prompting some impressed EU officials to speak of a Moldovan success story.

 

The reality on the ground, however, is that Moldova has yet to escape from Russia's geopolitical influence. Endemic corruption is impeding the development of public institutions. Euro-skepticism is increasing, as a result of shallow leadership and feuding among the ruling coalition. The economy is distorted by monopolies. The judiciary and the media are compromised. Support for Russia's Customs Union is growing and territorial conflict in Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova, threatens to tear the country apart.

[visionary]

http://www.interpretermag.com/moscow-confines-ukrainian-officer-in-notorious-serbski-institute/

Moscow Confines Ukrainian Officer in Notorious Serbski Institute

 

In an action that recalls some of the worst behavior of Brezhnev’s times, the current Russian government has sent a Ukrainian officer it seized and illegally transferred to Russia for “forensic psychiatric evaluation” at Moscow’s Serbski Institute where Soviet-era dissidents were infamously treated for “sluggish schizophrenia.”

 

That has prompted a group of Ukrainian psychiatrists to issue an appeal to the international psychiatric community to come to her defense, the same tactic human rights activists used 40 years ago when the Soviet authorities incarcerated and maltreated dissidents like Petr Grigorenko, who spoke out on behalf of the Crimean Tatars.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/obama-commitment-eastern-europe-russia-nato/379581/

Obama Just Made the Ultimate Commitment to Eastern Europe

 

No U.S. president since Reagan has used such forceful language against Russia.

 

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera

The U.S. is preparing more sanctions against Russia as are the European nations according to Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes

1:18 PM 

[JMS]

Obama Just Made the Ultimate Commitment to Eastern Europe

 

No U.S. president since Reagan has used such forceful language against Russia.

 

http://www.theatlant...ia-nato/379581/

 

It's too bad Ukraine wasn't admitted to NATO back in 2008 when Bush proposed it.

 

One by one, President Obama repudiated the lies Vladimir Putin has told about Ukraine: that the Ukrainians somehow provoked the invasion, that they are Nazis, that their freely elected government is somehow illegal. He rejected Russia’s claim that it has some sphere of influence in Ukraine, some right of veto over Ukrainian constitutional arrangements. And he forcefully assured Estonians—and all NATO’s new allies—that waging war on them meant waging war on the United States. “[T]he defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London," Obama said. "Article 5 is crystal clear. An attack on one is an attack on all. So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who'll come to help, you'll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now."

[visionary]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/06/anatomy_of_a_bloodbath_ukraine_volunteer_battalions_ilovaisk_donetsk?utm_content=buffered594&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Anatomy of a Bloodbath

 

Ukraine's volunteer fighters who survived the massacre at Ilovaisk describe a harrowing escape -- with no help from the army that claimed to have their backs.

 

PROPETROVSK, Ukraine — It was a textbook ambush, fighters say, on volunteer militias who'd been practically abandoned by the Ukrainian army that was supposed to support them.

 

The late August massacre of volunteer troops leaving the strategic town of Ilovainsk through what they'd been promised was a "humanitarian corridor" was one of the bloodiest single episodes so far in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, leaving at least 100 dead. The conflict has now killed at least 2,600 people.

 

But in the days since, in interviews, volunteer fighters who escaped the bloodbath also described the battle as a turning point -- one that revealed the lack of communication and trust between the three dozen volunteer battalions that have sprung up to assist Ukraine's run-down military and the army leadership, which has been beset by complaints that it has treated the volunteers as cannon fodder.

Battalion fighters soon captured a school building where they slept in the hallways and classrooms between vicious bouts of close-quarters urban combat, they said. The railroad tracks, which split the town in two, became the front line between the Kiev's forces and pro-Russians. There was no electricity, and the fighters drew water from nearby wells. Mark Paslawsky, the only known American to fight in the eastern Ukraine conflict, was killed in the early stages of the battle.

But the battalions' advance into Ilovaisk became a death trap. And on Aug. 23, Ukrainian Flag Day, the trap was sprung.

 

Separatist forces started to shell the school in the afternoon with mortars, howitzers, and Grad launchers, an inaccurate but devastating weapon that can fire more than three dozen incendiary rockets at a time, Frannik said. "The circle started to close," said Frannik. By Ukrainian Independence Day, on Aug. 24, the shelling was coming from three sides. A defense ministry official has said the Russian attack started then, and pro-Kiev analysts first began reporting attacks by Russian tanks in the area that same day. Volunteer battalion members said that they captured Russian soldiers in the area.

 

The volunteer militias were poorly-equipped. Donbass Battalion fighter Igor Kanakov, a former army medic, described using tampons to stanch wounds, and trying to make 40 vials of anti-shock medication last among almost 300  soldiers. 

On Aug. 29, Vladimir Putin called on rebels to open a humanitarian corridor for trapped Ukrainian fighters to leave Ilovaisk alive. Dnipro Battalion commander Yury Bereza, who  suffered shrapnel wounds in Ilovaisk and spent three days walking through the fields to escape, said he negotiated with Russian commanders to let them out in exchange for releasing Russian prisoners. But the corridor would turn out to be another trap. 

 

Lyudmila Kalinina, one of the Donbass Battalion's five women volunteers, was one of the fighters to who made it out. Speaking from her hospital bed, where she was being treated for shrapnel wounds, she said she was driving a truck full of soldiers out of Ilovaisk when her convoy suddenly came under artillery fire. The volunteers ran for cover but orders came in over the radio demanding they return to their vehicles. After a lull, the convoy began moving again, only to come under even heavier shelling. 

 

Kalinina said she saw a fiery streak fly into the vehicle in front of her before it exploded. The fighters ditched vehicles in the corn field and ran into a village. As machine-gun and sniper fire tore into them, they took shelter in local houses and started to shoot back.

[visionary]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ukraine-cease-fire-appears-hold

APPARENT SHELLING HEARD OUTSIDE UKRAINIAN PORT

 

Witnesses in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol are reporting sustained explosions outside the city and a volunteer battalion of Ukrainian fighters says Grad rockets are being fired at its positions.

 

The reports Saturday night come little more than a day after Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist rebels signed a cease-fire after more than four months of fighting in the country's east.

 

The cease-fire had appeared to largely been holding during much of the day.

 

But late Saturday, witnesses in Mariupol told The Associated Press by telephone that heavy explosions were coming from the city's eastern outskirts, where Ukrainian troops retain defensive lines against the rebels.

 

 

https://twitter.com/RolandOliphant

Eastern checkpoint hit. Tank just went straight into town don't know whose

4:38 PM

 

Those were Ukrainian tanks pulling back into city

4:43 PM

 

Eastern checkpoint and nearby petrol station in flames. Local guess artillery, not mortars or grad.

5:07 PM

 

No shelling for a while. Lots of flames on the novoazovsk road out if town.

5:24 PM

 

 

https://twitter.com/markito0171

Ukraine official separatist Donetsk twitter account @press_dnr: we are taking over city of Mariupol now 

5:20 PM

[DaGoonie55]

so much craziness in this world right now.

[visionary]

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-unveil-russia-sanctions-ukraine-truce-teeters-092616799.html;_ylt=AwrBEiSY5Q1UBQoASVTQtDMD

Poroshenko visits flashpoint city as EU meets on Russia sanctions

 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited a flashpoint eastern city Monday where sporadic fighting has rattled a three-day-old ceasefire between government and rebel forces.

 

The highly-symbolic trip to the strategic port of Mariupol came just as EU officials called a new meeting to decide on fresh sanctions against Moscow should the truce fail.

 

The pro-Western leader donned a military uniform for his first wartime visit to a city whose fall to the rebels would open a route between Russia and annexed Crimea, and cut off Ukraine from its southeastern coastline.

 

He vowed that Mariupol, the only major city in the eastern conflict zone still under government control, would remain part of Ukraine.

 

And in what appeared to be comments directed at both the rebels and Russia, he said: "It is impossible to win the conflict just by military means."

 

"The more we increase the pressure, the more Russian troops are on our territory," he said in English.

 

"Withdraw foreign troops and close the border and within a week we (will) find a compromise," he said in his most substantive comments since Friday's ceasefire was signed in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

 

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/144839.pdf

Statement by the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy on further EU restrictive measures against Russia 

 

A package of further restrictive measures against Russia has been adopted by the Council today 

(through written procedure), deepening the targeted measures of 31 July. The sanctions aim at 

promoting a change of course in Russia's actions destabilising eastern Ukraine and come in the 

wake of the European Council of 30 August, which condemned the increasing inflows of fighters 

and weapons from the territory of the Russian Federation into Eastern Ukraine and the aggression 

by Russian armed forces on Ukrainian soil. 

 

The entry into force through the publication in the Official Journal will take place in the next few 

days. This will leave time for an assessment of the implementation of the cease-fire agreement and 

the peace plan. Depending on the situation on the ground, the EU stands ready to review the 

agreed sanctions in whole or in part. 

[visionary]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100285754/how-bulgaria-and-interpol-are-helping-vladimir-putin-imprison-european-citizens/

How Bulgaria and Interpol are helping Vladimir Putin imprison European citizens

 

Today an innocent man called Nikolay Koblyakov will appear in front of a Bulgarian judge in a desperate effort to fend off an unscrupulous attempt by Vladimir Putin to deport him to Russia.

The world knows very little of Koblyakov, but his story gives us a terrifying glimpse into how Putin is opening another front in his campaign of intimidation against the states of eastern Europe.

 

His latest target is Bulgaria. None of its territory has ever belonged to Russia. It has no common frontier with Russia, and there is no Russian-speaking population there in need of Putin’s “protection”.

His designs on it are based on naked power. Bulgaria is part of Nato and of the EU, but it is the poorest member and totally dependent on Russian energy.

 

In May several fellow EU members expressed fears that Bulgaria was about to make a decisive and irrevocable tilt towards Russia. The BND (the German Foreign Intelligence Service) has voiced similar concerns that Russia is increasing its influence in Bulgaria so as to use it as a “political beachhead” to penetrate the European bloc.

 

Of late, Bulgaria has opposed the EU's increasing sanctions on Russia and has passed a law to enable Russia’s Gazprom to avoid long-established EU competition law for the Bulgarian segment of its new pipeline.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/09/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-sanctions-idUSKBN0H40V320140909

Russia will protect sanctioned firms, PM Medvedev tells Novatek

 

 Russia will continue to support its companies under Western sanctions, irrespective of their ownership structure, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

 

"This is the government's responsibility - to protect Russian business if it is facing unfair and unlawful actions by foreign states or foreign companies," Medvedev was quoted by news agencies as telling Novatek CEO and co-owner Leonid Mikhelson.

 

Novatek and its other co-owner, Gennady Timchenko are under U.S. sanctions for Moscow's policy on Ukraine. Novatek leads the Yamal-LNG project that has an estimated cost of $27 billion. The project should become Russia's second plant to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG).

 

Medvedev did not say, however, if Novatek or Yamal LNG will get any state aid as a result of the sanctions. A number of Russia's companies, including state oil giant Rosneft, have already asked the government for the help.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/09/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-canada-warship-idUSKBN0H40CW20140909

Russia denies military planes approached Canadian warship

[alexey]

Yes Russian government will gladly help Russian companies who are not yet owned by members of the Russian government.

And we thought that buying oil from Saudis was bad?

Maybe this is Russia's plan to combat climate change by forcing the west to invest in alternative energy

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/us-ukraine-crisis-usa-sanctions-idUSKBN0H627C20140911?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Exclusive: U.S. to sanction Sberbank, tighten limits on other Russian banks - sources

 

The United States plans to sanction Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, and to further limit other Russian banks' access to U.S. capital to punish Moscow for intervening in Ukraine, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

 

The sanctions are the latest by the United States and the European Union following Russia's annexation of Crimea in March and what the West sees as an effort since to further destabilize Ukraine by backing pro-Russian separatists with troops and arms.

 

Washington and European Union plan to impose new sanctions on Russia's defense, energy and financial sectors on Friday despite a fragile truce in eastern Ukraine and what Ukraine's president has described as the withdrawal of most of Russia's forces.

 

The U.S. sanctions appeared designed to keep up pressure on Russia, which denies sending troops into eastern Ukraine despite what Kiev and its Western backers say is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Moscow also denies arming the separatists.

 

In July, the United States effectively cut off five Russian financial groups - VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Bank of Moscow ., VEB and Russian Agriculture Bank - from U.S. equity and debt markets by barring U.S. persons from "transacting in, providing financing for, or otherwise dealing in new debt of longer than 90 days maturity or new equity."

 

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government planned on Friday to apply the same essential sanction to Sberbank and to tighten the restriction for all six banks by barring U.S. persons from dealing in their new debt with a maturity of more than 30 days.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0H61O720140911?utm_source=twitter

New sanctions against Russia to take effect on Friday

 

European Union governments agreed on Thursday that new sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis will take effect on Friday but held out the prospect of cancelling some - or even all - of them next month if they believe a peace plan is working.

 

Russia's foreign ministry said the approval of new penalties showed the European Union had "made its choice against" the peace roadmap, which is aimed at ending the worst confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

 

Western powers have accused Russia of sending tanks and troops into eastern Ukraine to prop up a rebellion by pro-Moscow separatists - a charge denied by the Kremlin which has responded with its own sanctions and threats of more retaliation.

 

After EU ambassadors gave the go-ahead to the new sanctions, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said EU officials would conduct a review before the end of September of how the truce agreed last week between Ukraine government forces and rebels was working. If Russia was complying, some or all sanctions could be lifted.

 

"If the situation on the ground so warrants," he said, officials may submit to EU leaders "proposals to amend, suspend or repeal the set of sanctions in force, in all or in part".

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/14/us-ukraine-crisis-heletey-idUSKBN0H90PP20140914?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

NATO countries have begun arms deliveries to Ukraine: defense minister

 

Ukraine's defense minister said on Sunday that NATO countries were delivering weapons to his country to equip it to fight pro-Russian separatists and "stop" Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Valery Heletey told a news conference he had discussed weapons deliveries in bilateral meetings with NATO defense ministers during a NATO summit in Wales on Sept. 4-5.

 

NATO officials have said it will not send "lethal assistance" to non-member Ukraine but member states may do so.

 

Earlier this month, a senior Ukrainian official said Kiev had agreed on the provision of weapons and military advisers from several members of the U.S.-led alliance. Four of the five countries named, including the United States, denied this.

 

"We reached agreements in closed talks, without media, about ... those weapons that we currently need," said Heletey, who said Ukraine needed weapons "that could stop Putin".

 

"I have no right to disclose any specific country we reached that agreement with. But the fact is that those weapons are already on the way to us - that's absolutely true, I can officially tell you," he said.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/14/us-russia-crimea-elections-idUSKBN0H90RP20140914?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Crimean critics call foul as region votes in first Russian election

 

Six months after Russia annexed Crimea, residents of the Black Sea peninsula cast their first votes in a Russian election - an election many of them are calling unfair and undemocratic.

 

Campaigning before Sunday's local and regional elections was characterized by favoritism towards the ruling party loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin and repression of its opponents, according to residents in Crimea who spoke to Reuters by telephone.

 

Crimean politics has come to resemble the Soviet political landscape since Russia annexed Crimea in March, said Andrei Brezhnev, who leads new Communist Party of Social Justice, and is the grandson of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

 

"Now we have no political competition either," he said.

 

His party is competing in the regional parliamentary race and in a poll for one of the main cities, Sevastopol. People had been forced to sign up for membership in the pro-Putin United Russia Party before the vote, he said.

 

"About two months ago everybody, wholesale, was forced to 'voluntarily' sign up for membership in United Russia here - officials, heads of local administrations, shops directors, medical workers," he said. "Suddenly, in three months everything became United Russia here."

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/world/europe/election-victories-strengthen-putins-grip-around-russia-and-crimea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld&_r=0

Election Victories Strengthen Putin’s Grip Around Russia and Crimea

 

Candidates loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin appeared to be headed to overwhelming victories on Sunday in regional and local elections across Russia, according to preliminary results, including in Crimea, and the special district of Sevastopol, where the first voting was taking place since Russia’s invasion and annexation of the peninsula last spring.

Wide public support in Russia for the annexation of Crimea has sent Mr. Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketing to more than 85 percent, and that in turn has helped strongly lift candidates loyal to him in the regional and local elections on Sunday, in which voters chose the leaders of 30 of the country’s regions, and members of 14 regional legislatures.

 

Opposition figures in Crimea and elsewhere said that the elections this year were also characterized by heavy-handed tactics intended to deny unapproved challengers any chance of gaining traction.

 

In Crimea, some opposition figures said there had been heavy pressure for people to join the United Russia party, while the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic, Muslim minority group, had called for a boycott of the elections. Crimean Tatar leaders have accused the Russian authorities of rights abuses and a campaign of intimidation, including raids on at least four religious schools.

 

Meanwhile, changes in election laws signed by Mr. Putin in February ended up knocking out a number of anti-Kremlin candidates who had hoped to run for the Moscow City Council, including several who were allied with Aleksei A. Navalny, the opposition leader. Mr. Navalny ran a surprisingly strong campaign for mayor last year but lost and has been under house arrest in connection with prosecutions largely viewed as political retribution.

 

Among other changes, the law imposed stricter requirements for independent candidates to collect thousands of nominating signatures.

 

This year’s heavy-handed tactics were in addition to the Kremlin’s customary domination of virtually all television media in Russia, and the enormous political and financial resources that are made available to candidates loyal to Mr. Putin’s government. The pressure also showed that Mr. Putin, given the unrest in neighboring Ukraine, was taking no chances, even at a time when nationalist fervor in Russia seems to be running high.

 

Many of the governor’s races being decided on Sunday involved incumbents who were chosen by the Kremlin under a previous system of presidential appointments, and who resigned specifically to force early elections that they were heavily favored to win. After they resigned, Mr. Putin simply designated them to continue in an acting capacity until Sunday’s vote effectively confirmed and extended their terms in office.

 

[JMS]

Today....

 

How do you like those apples Vladimir !!   The beuty is we aren't doing anything to him...  it's all the free market, as capital flee's his boarders ( including his own )... and there are no replacement investment dollars to be had at any price...

 

38 Rubles to the dollar,  Ruble at historic Lows against Dollar/Euro !!!   holy moly

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moscow warns against panic as ruble plunges to historic lows

Moscow (AFP) - Russian authorities told people not to panic on Tuesday as the battered ruble plunged to record lows, floored by tensions with the West over Ukraine, new sanctions and falling oil prices.

The national currency fell to 38.82 rubles per dollar after weakening on Monday to below 38 against the dollar for the first time.

...

"The latest drop means that the ruble has now fallen by 15 percent against the dollar since the start of the year, the biggest fall of any major emerging market currency with the exception of the Argentine peso."

....

Andrei Nechaev, a professor at Moscow's Plekhanov University of Economics, said the jump from 36.5 rubles to 38 rubles against the dollar in a matter of days reflected a mood of panic on the currency market, which would likely continue.

"I don't think it will reach 40 rubles so far but 39 is pretty realistic," he said.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/ruble-plunges-sharply-against-euro-dollar-110647010.html

I know Russia was pumping billions and billions into their capital markets to try to support the ruble... I guess they gave up, or figured out they didn't have enough money without friends... Oh that's gottah hurt!!!