Ukraine Revolt/Civil War News, Reports, Data, etc.

Does anyone know what she is saying? Why is Nicholas II a talking point?

oh that's something weird to the point I don't know if to post ... she says she quotes (since 01:00 on the vid) N. II "I'd sacrifice anything to save Motherland" (but I didn't find such a quote on yandeks.ru using "Николай II цитаты" -- there're many other sayings by him available there) who was slaughtered by Reds together with his family
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delft

Brigadier
From the BBC website:
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2 January 2015 Last updated at 09:36 GMT
Ukraine nationalists march in Kiev to honour Bandera

Ukrainian nationalists have marched through Kiev to honour the World War Two anti-Soviet leader Stepan Bandera.

At the rally far-right leader Oleh Tyahnybok, who heads the Svoboda party, urged the authorities to return "Hero of Ukraine" status to Bandera.

Many Russians revile Bandera, born on 1 January 1909. President Vladimir Putin has called him "Hitler's accomplice".

Russia says it supports separatists in eastern Ukraine because of a neo-Nazi threat to ethnic Russians.

WWII echoes

Marchers carried the nationalist flags of Svoboda and the Right Sector - both movements which helped to topple ex-President Viktor Yanukovych last February, who was an ally of Moscow.

Some marchers also wore World War Two nationalist uniforms. Turnout at the rally was estimated at 2,500.

Russia says some Russian TV journalists were assaulted at the Kiev march.

Two women reporters with the pro-Kremlin TV channel LifeNews were "attacked" by masked assailants, who smashed their camera and stole a mobile phone, the Russian foreign ministry said.

"This is the latest glaring instance of the media being persecuted in Ukraine for doing their job," ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

A man has been arrested in connection with the incident, Ukraine's Unian news agency reports.

Bandera is a controversial figure in Ukraine. His "hero" status was revoked by Mr Yanukovych.

Despite leading anti-Soviet resistance fighters, Bandera was arrested and jailed by the Nazis during the war. He was assassinated by a Soviet KGB agent in Munich in 1959.
Notice how the word 'attacked' deserve quotation marks.
 
background: http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members-club-room/ukraine-revolt-civil-war-9-7103.html#post316672
Field Commander "Batman" with his five bodyguards killed by Separatists' Police in
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yesterday (officially while resisting arrest, accused of kidnapping and torturing 13 local citizens:
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"Cassad" insinuates some other reason(s):
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and presents graphic pictures -- the discussion there contains the highest number of posts I've ever noticed below his blogs)

EDIT
story by rusvesna.ru:
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Dannhill

Junior Member
Better late than never. A rational piece rarely found in Washington post on Ukraine.

Rethinking the cost of Western intervention in Ukraine

By Katrina vanden Heuvel November 25, 2014
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recently cautioned Americans against intervention fatigue: “I think there is too much of ‘Oh, look, this is what intervention has wrought’ . . . one has to be careful about overdrawing lessons.” Say what? Given the calamities wrought in Iraq, Libya and now Ukraine, one would think that a fundamental rethinking and learning of lessons is long overdue. The United States needs a sober look at the actual costs of supposed good intentions divorced from realism.

Power’s comments come as Ukraine marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Maidan Square demonstrations in Kiev, surely an occasion for rethinking and changing course. One year after the United States and Europe celebrated the February coup that ousted the corrupt but constitutionally elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, liberal and neoconservative interventionists have much to answer for. Crimea has been annexed by Russia. More than 4,000 people have lost their lives in the civil war in Ukraine, with more than 9,000 wounded and nearly a million displaced. This month, the Kiev government acknowledged the de facto partition of Ukraine by announcing it was ending all funding for government services and social benefits including pensions and freezing all bank accounts in the eastern districts that are in revolt. The Ukrainian economy is near collapse with nowhere near the billions needed to rebuild it at hand. How Kiev or the cut-off eastern regions will provide heating and electricity to their beleaguered people as winter approaches remains to be seen.

The European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Russia, with threats of more to come. Many observers have rightly suggested that we are witnessing the beginnings of a new Cold War. U.S. and NATO forces are being dispatched to buck up the purportedly nervous Baltic nations, now part of NATO’s security guarantee. Meanwhile, the sanctions have added to Europe’s economic woes. Vladi*mir Putin’s popularity has soared within Russia, even as the nation’s economy has suffered. European unity has begun to fray, with several countries worried about the effect of sanctions on their own economies, and officials questioning the sanctions’ effectiveness.

The U.S. government and the mainstream media present this calamity as a morality tale. Ukrainians demonstrated against Yanukovych because they wanted to align with the West and democracy. Putin, as portrayed by Hillary Rodham Clinton among others, is an expansionist Hitler who has trampled international law and must be made to “pay a big price” for his aggression. Isolation and escalating economic sanctions have been imposed. Next, if Senate hawks such as John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have their way, Ukraine will be provided with arms to “deter” Putin’s “aggression.”

But this perspective distorts reality. Although there is no question that Russia has contributed to the tensions in the region, what has unfolded was predictable and preventable. As experts such as Princeton University and New York University professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen have argued, the West should have understood that an attempt to bring Ukraine into an exclusive arrangement with the E.U. would spark deep, historical divisions within the country and itself and provoke a Russian reaction. (Disclosure: Cohen and I are married.) In fact, as University of Chicago professor John J. Mearsheimer concludes in Foreign Affairs, “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis.” In the face of Russian warnings and despite agreements to the contrary, over the past two decades the United States has expanded NATO to Russia’s border. The E.U. has similarly grown, seeking to incorporate Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics into its economic and political sphere. The Russians have warned repeatedly that they consider expansion of NATO a threat and have clearly drawn the line against trying to incorporate the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.


Recently, 91-year-old former secretary of state Henry Kissinger has seconded this counterargument and perspective on the crisis. In an interview in leading German magazine Der Spiegel, which inexplicably received little attention in the U.S. media, Kissinger argued forcefully that the annexation of Crimea “was not a move toward global conquest.” He disputes Hillary Rodham Clinton’s charge that Putin is like “Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.” Kissinger holds the West partially responsible for escalation and the deteriorating situation, suggesting that Europe and the United States underestimated the “special significance” of Ukraine for Russia. “It was a mistake not to realize that.”

Kissinger notes that while the West need not and should not recognize the annexation of Crimea, “nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine. That’s a fact of life.” On the other hand, Kissinger points out that Russia is a vital U.S. partner in resolving crises from Iran and Syria to the dangers of nuclear arsenals. He suggests that the West might weigh those real security concerns before more posturing and escalation over Ukraine.

It is a measure of how extreme the prevailing political-media narrative on Ukraine is that Kissinger now sounds like a dissident. He is urging prudence as opposed to the liberal-neocon interventionists. The United States should want Ukraine to retain its independence and to be able to make its own choices on how it runs its economy. But before Washington further escalates the crisis there and ramps up a new Cold War, it needs to understand both the limits of our power and the horrific humanitarian costs of ignoring those limits.

No one will fight for eastern Ukraine except the Ukrainians and presumably the Russians. Ukraine needs to find a way to live with Russia in peace. NATO should reassure the Russians and caution the Ukrainians by announcing it will not expand to Ukraine, or for that matter, to Georgia. The E.U. should engage Putin in how to settle the crisis, doubling down on the cease-fire the Russian leader helped broker, not escalating the conflict. The hawks should stand down.The human costs are already mounting. It is utterly irresponsible to destroy a country in the name of supporting it, as is happening in Ukraine. Samantha Power has it wrong: Americans aren’t tired of humanitarian intervention; they are tired of its consequences. It is time for taking a sober look at the misconceptions that got us here.

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Dannhill

Junior Member
Funny thing is happening over at the Washington Post. They are starting to write about some truths. Although they still commit the usual faux pas of insisting on the mythical "Russian offensive". As if these ultra rights could really stop a real Russian combat force. Strange to read how some can describe a catastrophic military defeat as a victory by brave defenders against a Russian juggernaut and stopping it in its tracks. Seems the west really doesn't know about the Donbass cauldrons and the headlong flight by both Kiev army and their volunteer battalions, finally stopped running when Putin reined in the militias with the Minsk Accord.
But at least it's a start by taking a hard look and telling US readers that Kiev is using fascists who they have lost total control over now.

Warlords and armed groups threaten Ukraine’s rebuilding

By Adrian Karatnycky December 30, 2014
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he co-directs the “Ukraine in Europe” initiative.
Kiev is abuzz with creative reforms in governance, major anti-corruption initiatives and budgetary clawbacks against rent-seeking oligarchs. Civic activism is on the upsurge, and a new government team — populated with many foreign-born and Western-educated ministers — is largely free from the control of the country’s super-rich, who dictated policy in the past.

In recent months, Ukraine’s defenses have strengthened since the Russian takeover of Crimea and the eastern industrial Donbas region. Ukraine’s security service, formerly riddled with corruption and Russian infiltration, has rebuilt its leadership. Combat readiness has improved and weapons production is on the rise, as are the refurbishment and modernization of tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. With winter in full swing, the danger of a major Russian offensive has faded.

In many ways, Ukraine is intelligently addressing its key challenges: restructuring the national budget to avoid default and meeting the military threat posed by Russia. Despite such important progress, however, a new threat is emerging: independently operating warlords and armed groups.

After the collapse of the Yanukovych regime in February and subsequent Russian aggression, Ukraine’s new government was saddled with an ill-prepared military and required the help of thousands of volunteers. These volunteer fighters were motivated by a patriotic desire to protect their homeland. Many were veterans of the Maidan civic protests. The fighters were mainly supported by grass-roots financing from civic initiatives and small and mid-size businesses.

A minority of the fighters were ideologically motivated members of far-right movements. These included the ultra-conservative Right Sector and the notorious Azov brigade, whose members had been shunned during the Maidan protests because of their white-supremacist, anti-democratic views. Other volunteer brigades, such as the Dnepr-1, were recruited by business oligarchs, who financed them and commanded their loyalty.

During the spring and summer, many of these volunteer forces exhibited remarkable courage and helped stem the Russian-backed offensive. In the months that followed, most were integrated into the interior or defense ministries as special-status units.

But now several of these units, especially those linked to oligarchs or the far right, are revealing a dark side. In recent months, they have threatened and kidnapped government officials, boasted that they will take power if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fails to defeat Russia, and they served as armed muscle in illegal attempts to take over businesses or seize local governments.

In August, members of the Dnepr-1 battalion kidnapped the head of Ukraine’s state land fund to prevent him replacing an official deemed inimical to business interests. On Dec. 15, these volunteer units interdicted a humanitarian convoy destined for the Russia-controlled Donbas, where a major emergency is emerging.

On Dec. 23, the Azov brigade announced that it was taking control of order in the eastern port city of Mariupol, without official approval from local or national officials.

Government prosecutors have opened 38 criminal cases against members of the Aidar battalion alone.

A pattern of blatant disregard for the chain of command, lawlessness and racketeering is posing a growing threat to Ukraine’s stability at a critical juncture. Concern about volunteer groupings is widely shared in the Poroshenko administration, which reportedly raised the question of dealing with these dangers at a meeting in November of his National Security and Defense Council.

Most alarming, however, is the role of Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov. Instead of reining in these fighters, conducting background checks on their records and reassigning those who pass muster, he instead has offered them new heavy weapons, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, and given them enhanced brigade status. Amazingly, in September he even named a leader of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade to head the police in the Kiev region.

Equally worrying is the activity of Ihor Kolomoyskyy, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Kolomoyskyy, who played a crucial and widely respected role in stabilizing his East Ukrainian region, is now flouting central authority by interdicting aid convoys headed to the Donbas and permitting brigades he finances to engage in activities that contravene the law.

What can be done? Poroshenko clearly wants this problem resolved but has been reluctant or unable to act. For him to succeed will likely require coordination with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who has also been slow to address the threat, possibly because Avakov is one of his key political allies.

Western donors, however, must make countering incipient warlordism a top priority and press Ukraine’s leaders to reassign qualified members of the volunteer brigades into regular militia and military units.

Ukraine’s elected leaders can no longer sweep this emerging threat under the rug for fear of stoking resistance or stirring up negative international headlines. Ukraine faces many challenges, but it is heading in the right direction. Nipping the problem of warlordism in the bud can only add to the country’s strength and resilience.

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SampanViking

The Capitalist
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Funnily enough, the BBC Website hosted a similar piece in the bowels of its Europe section in early Dec.
They bury the odd article here and there but still play the HMV bullhorn for their headlines. Then they try and claim "balance".

There is though a very instructive story to the events of late August when the DPR militia broke through the Southern Lines and and started to encircle the whole the Southern Front. When Kiev started to shout and scream about a Russian Invasion, they obviously forgot to tell their commanders in the field that it was just a smoke screen.
When the front line units of the Punitive Mission heard their political masters they believed them and we saw the incredible rapid disintegration of the whole southern front.

In short, the one time that the the pro Kiev forces did believe the Russian Army was coming, they could not bug out quickly enough.
 

delft

Brigadier
Funny thing is happening over at the Washington Post. They are starting to write about some truths. Although they still commit the usual faux pas of insisting on the mythical "Russian offensive". As if these ultra rights could really stop a real Russian combat force. Strange to read how some can describe a catastrophic military defeat as a victory by brave defenders against a Russian juggernaut and stopping it in its tracks. Seems the west really doesn't know about the Donbass cauldrons and the headlong flight by both Kiev army and their volunteer battalions, finally stopped running when Putin reined in the militias with the Minsk Accord.
But at least it's a start by taking a hard look and telling US readers that Kiev is using fascists who they have lost total control over now.

Warlords and armed groups threaten Ukraine’s rebuilding

By Adrian Karatnycky December 30, 2014
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he co-directs the “Ukraine in Europe” initiative.
Kiev is abuzz with creative reforms in governance, major anti-corruption initiatives and budgetary clawbacks against rent-seeking oligarchs. Civic activism is on the upsurge, and a new government team — populated with many foreign-born and Western-educated ministers — is largely free from the control of the country’s super-rich, who dictated policy in the past.

In recent months, Ukraine’s defenses have strengthened since the Russian takeover of Crimea and the eastern industrial Donbas region. Ukraine’s security service, formerly riddled with corruption and Russian infiltration, has rebuilt its leadership. Combat readiness has improved and weapons production is on the rise, as are the refurbishment and modernization of tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. With winter in full swing, the danger of a major Russian offensive has faded.

In many ways, Ukraine is intelligently addressing its key challenges: restructuring the national budget to avoid default and meeting the military threat posed by Russia. Despite such important progress, however, a new threat is emerging: independently operating warlords and armed groups.

After the collapse of the Yanukovych regime in February and subsequent Russian aggression, Ukraine’s new government was saddled with an ill-prepared military and required the help of thousands of volunteers. These volunteer fighters were motivated by a patriotic desire to protect their homeland. Many were veterans of the Maidan civic protests. The fighters were mainly supported by grass-roots financing from civic initiatives and small and mid-size businesses.

A minority of the fighters were ideologically motivated members of far-right movements. These included the ultra-conservative Right Sector and the notorious Azov brigade, whose members had been shunned during the Maidan protests because of their white-supremacist, anti-democratic views. Other volunteer brigades, such as the Dnepr-1, were recruited by business oligarchs, who financed them and commanded their loyalty.

During the spring and summer, many of these volunteer forces exhibited remarkable courage and helped stem the Russian-backed offensive. In the months that followed, most were integrated into the interior or defense ministries as special-status units.

But now several of these units, especially those linked to oligarchs or the far right, are revealing a dark side. In recent months, they have threatened and kidnapped government officials, boasted that they will take power if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fails to defeat Russia, and they served as armed muscle in illegal attempts to take over businesses or seize local governments.

In August, members of the Dnepr-1 battalion kidnapped the head of Ukraine’s state land fund to prevent him replacing an official deemed inimical to business interests. On Dec. 15, these volunteer units interdicted a humanitarian convoy destined for the Russia-controlled Donbas, where a major emergency is emerging.

On Dec. 23, the Azov brigade announced that it was taking control of order in the eastern port city of Mariupol, without official approval from local or national officials.

Government prosecutors have opened 38 criminal cases against members of the Aidar battalion alone.

A pattern of blatant disregard for the chain of command, lawlessness and racketeering is posing a growing threat to Ukraine’s stability at a critical juncture. Concern about volunteer groupings is widely shared in the Poroshenko administration, which reportedly raised the question of dealing with these dangers at a meeting in November of his National Security and Defense Council.

Most alarming, however, is the role of Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov. Instead of reining in these fighters, conducting background checks on their records and reassigning those who pass muster, he instead has offered them new heavy weapons, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, and given them enhanced brigade status. Amazingly, in September he even named a leader of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade to head the police in the Kiev region.

Equally worrying is the activity of Ihor Kolomoyskyy, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Kolomoyskyy, who played a crucial and widely respected role in stabilizing his East Ukrainian region, is now flouting central authority by interdicting aid convoys headed to the Donbas and permitting brigades he finances to engage in activities that contravene the law.

What can be done? Poroshenko clearly wants this problem resolved but has been reluctant or unable to act. For him to succeed will likely require coordination with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who has also been slow to address the threat, possibly because Avakov is one of his key political allies.

Western donors, however, must make countering incipient warlordism a top priority and press Ukraine’s leaders to reassign qualified members of the volunteer brigades into regular militia and military units.

Ukraine’s elected leaders can no longer sweep this emerging threat under the rug for fear of stoking resistance or stirring up negative international headlines. Ukraine faces many challenges, but it is heading in the right direction. Nipping the problem of warlordism in the bud can only add to the country’s strength and resilience.

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Most of the article is still phantasy as noted by several comments published below it. But it still might be usefull for WaPo to show that the official story is daft.
 

Mr T

Senior Member
It's really disgusting that US still supports nazi ideology

Ah, but that article you cited is hugely out of date. Even if we agree that Svoboda is a neo-Nazi party (as opposed to just being right-wing), it only has 6 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament. It lost the vast majority of its seats in the recent election, which kind of undermines Putin's position about neo-Nazism being a significant/controlling force in Ukrainian politics since Yanukovych was booted out of power. When the Ukrainian people were given a choice, Svoboda lost out.

Also, we should remember that Svoboda made its political breakthrough when Yanukovych was in power (i.e. 2012). Arguably he's responsible, as it happened on his watch. The question is, why wasn't Russia sounding alarm bells over Ukrainian "neo-Nazism" in 2012? Surely that would have been the time to intervene in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Guess who is behind recent shutdown at Ukraine's Zaporozhye Nuclear reactor ? Surprise, surprise ...
MWpkPs8.jpg

Apparently it's US fault.

Oh wow, thanks for that. What an obvious fraud. Not one comma, spelling out 90%, largely gibberish and the signature is just the name. Can't Kremlinbots at least get someone fluent in English to fake documents?

Good spot, mate!
 
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