Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia

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Read an article by Roger Annis on Ukraine that brings up a bit about the Ukraine Human Rights Monitoring Mission (or HRMMU). This comes out of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) headed by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein (you can read about him here http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/HighCommissioner.aspx ), who started (September 2014) following the beginning of the unrest and eventual coup.

Here is Roger's article: http://rogerannis.com/united-nations-human-rights-ideologues-issue-report-condemning-crimea/

SEPT 25, 2017–The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has today issued a 48-page report {there is a link for the Pdf} purporting to analyze the state of human rights in Crimea. The report covers the period from February 2014 to September 2017. It largely consists of a litany of twisted and factually false assertions against Crimean and Russian authorities.

The UN office accepts the legality of the February 21, 2014 coup in Ukraine, it rejects the results of the March 16, 2014 self-determination vote in Crimea, it condemns the self-defense actions of the population of eastern Ukraine in resisting the coup, and it calls Crimea a territory “occupied” by Russia. Hence, this report on Crimea and similar, earlier reports by the same UN agency on Ukraine are largely exercises in filling in the blanks of a pre-determined script. Western journalists will read the first few pages of the report and then fire off their scripted stories of ‘Russian annexation’ accompanied by ‘human rights abuses’.

A few hesitant criticisms of Ukraine are thrown into the report for the sake of appearance of ‘neutrality’, but it’s all very polite. Here, for example, is how the report describes in its executive summary the cutting of water and electricity supply by Ukraine to Crimea in 2014 and 2015, respectively:

The right of the Crimean population to an adequate standard of living has been affected [sic] by measures taken by Ukrainian authorities or implemented on mainland Ukraine, including the interruption of water and energy supplies to the peninsula. Under international humanitarian law, the Russian Federation as the occupying power is obliged to ensure to the fullest extent of the means available to it sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population. At the same time, this does not exonerate Ukraine from its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights not to interfere with the enjoyment of the rights it enshrines, and from respecting the requirement under international humanitarian law to ensure that the basic needs of the population continue to be met under conditions of occupation [sic].

This is the latest in many reports produced by the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). It was established by the OHCHR in March 2014 upon the request of the UN Secretary General, acting on a request by the post-coup government in Ukraine (the government was no doubt counselled on this request by its international advisors).

Three articles by me in 2014 and 2016 analyze the methods and outcomes of previous such reports on Ukraine by the OHCHR and by the broader human rights industry. You can read those articles at the weblinks listed below.

The OHCHR is not an independent agency; it acts at the behest of the large Western countries. One need only look at Haiti for proof. For the past 13 years, the UN Security Council has conducted a violent and illegal military occupation of Haiti. The occupation is directed by the U.S., Canada and large countries of the EU, with Brazil given an outsized role in day-to-day military operations.

A large number of foreign countries contribute foot soldiers to the military occupation of Haiti through national military contingents operating in the name of the UN. Not only does this provide invaluable military experience in patrolling and containing civilian populations, these foreign countries are well paid by the UN to do so, allowing them to purchase military equipment that might otherwise be difficult to finance.

The criminality of the UN-OHCHR operation in Haiti went on full display in October 2010 when UN soldiers from Nepal introduced through reckless neglect the cholera bacterium into Haiti’s largest river system. The ensuing epidemic killed more than 10,000 Haitians, infected hundreds of thousands and overwhelmed Haiti’s weak and fragile medical services (largely furnished by charities at the best of times). One would expect the UN to make reparations for the cholera disaster it caused, but one would be naive in assuming this. Haitians together with U.S. legal advocates have bitterly fought the office of the UN Secretary General, demanding that it accept responsibility for the actions of its Haiti occupation regime. Finally, in December 16, 2016, Ban Ki-Moon ‘apologized’ for the cholera epidemic and promised financial compensation. Haitians are still waiting for the promised compensation.

Are there human rights violations in Crimea? I’m not aware of a single country in the world that can claim to have a perfect record. But this UN report on Crimea, like previous such reports on Ukraine, manipulate facts and interpretations to create the illusion that, yes, things are very bad in Crimea; all the while positively downplaying comparisons to Ukraine, where the situation is far, far worse. Thousands of people have died in Ukraine from a cruel civil war being waged by the right-wing regime in power in Kyiv. Several million people have been displaced from their homeland by that same war. ‘So what?’, respond the human rights bright lights of the UN. ‘What about Russia,’ they parrot.

This continues with a further six point 'Discussion on Crimea' from that link.
 
voyageur said:
As painful as it is, here we have Poroshenko's brief fireside chat with Canada's PM; you can see Freeland' red dress just out of camera, and she knows a thing or two about the Ukraine, always at the ready to advise. Given Freeland's background, I'm trying to decide if she is a CISIS spy or a deeper CIA spy given her grandad likely came in through the Paperclip program. I mean, how did she end up being the Foreign Minister, displacing other career educated diplomats in the process without pressure being applied? Pure conjecture though, a digression, and maybe she is who she says she is, whatever that is.

Looks like Chrystia Freeland is carrying on "the generational Family Tradition"?

Chrystia Freeland apparently blames Russian disinformation for her grandfather's Nazi editorials that described Poland as 'infected by the Jews'

Why Is This Canadian Foreign Minister ‘Proud’ of Her Family’s Nazi Past? 03/22/17
http://observer.com/2017/03/chrystia-freeland-foreign-minister-canada-nazi-grandfather/

When asked at a press conference on March 6 about the allegations that her maternal grandfather was a Nazi collaborator, Chrystia Freeland, newly appointed Foreign Minister of Canada, former journalist and a writer, a master of words, found only clumsy sentences to deliver what would have earned no more than a ‘C’ in a high school debate class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tvdGstGSTY (15:48 min.)

“It’s no secret that Russians do not like you and banned you from the country,” began the question. “Recently, there has been a series of articles in pro-Russian websites about you and your maternal grandparents, making accusations that [your grandfather] was a Nazi collaborator. I’d like to get your view—is this a disinformation campaign by the Russians to try to smear you and discredit you, which they have a tendency to do?”

With a poorly-camouflaged expression of pain on her face, Freeland replied:

“It’s public knowledge that there have been efforts—as U.S. intelligence sources have said—by Russia to destabilize the U.S. political system. I think that Canadians and indeed other Western countries should be prepared for similar efforts to be directed at us. I am confident in our country’s democracy and I am confident that we can stand up to and see through those efforts.”

“I don’t think it’s a secret,” she continued, “American officials have publicly said—and even [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel has publicly said—that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn’t come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada. I think that Canadians and indeed other Western countries should be prepared for similar efforts to be directed at them.”

What? Angela Merkel? Was her grandfather a Nazi collaborator or wasn’t he? Freeland dodged the question.

As The Globe and Mail reported, when asked to refute the allegation, her office responded: “People should be questioning where this information comes from, and the motivations behind it.”

While the story created a storm of Canadian press, apart from The Washington Post and Bloomberg, U.S. media shied away.

Freeland, a former Canadian journalist of Ukrainian descent, has authored two books on corrupt Russian oligarchs—surely, her books on the Ukrainian oligarchs who flushed her beloved Ukraine down the toilet are on the way. She speaks Russian fluently, and understands Russian culture—including Russian politics. So, she certainly could have mustered a better answer to shrug off the uncomfortable questions about rumors of her grandfather’s collaboration with the Nazi regime in WWII Poland.

This meme, shorter and better seasoned than her actual response, would have worked: “You are Sourkovskaya propaganda!”

The term, overwhelmingly popular in Russian political newspeak, has origins in the name of Mr. Vladislav Sourkov, Vladimir Putin’s personal advisor and at one point a major Kremlin ideologist. It means “Sourkov’s propaganda,” of course, and first surfaced in 2011, when journalists from a pro-Kremlin television network tried to break into the office of opposition NGOs, demanding an interview from its representative.

Fighting off the aggressive guests armed with microphones and cameras, the opposition employee gave only one explanation for his refusal to be interviewed.

“You are Sourkovskaya propaganda!” he said more than 80 times in a 5-minutes span.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr983sORe3M (6:36 min.)

“You are Sourkovskaya propaganda” is the pathetic last line of defense for righteous politicians against the evil reality of stubborn questions that will not evaporate.

But first: Is it such big news that politicians of the Canadian Foreign Minister’s level have relatives that collaborated with Nazis during WWII?

Recent history is replete with examples of world leaders with similar skeletons from their relatives’ Nazi or Soviet past.

Former Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand, despite strong electoral support, dropped out of last year’s presidential race when it was revealed that her father, during the WWII, fought on the side of Nazis in the 19th Latvian SS Division. He had a rank of SS Untersturmfuhrer and received two Iron Crosses from Nazi military authorities. Kaljurand said she never knew her father—and never said she was proud of him.

Russian media revealed that the father of Olexandr Turchynov—former Prime Minister of Ukraine, former Acting President of Ukraine and current head of the Council of National Security of Ukraine—was a member of the Nazi punitive auxiliary police battalion, responsible for annihilating a number of villages in Russia. After the war, Turchinov’s father was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in Siberia, but in 1955, just five years later, was released during Khrushchev’s thaw. Ukraine ignored the news and Turchynov never responded to this example of Sourkovskaya propaganda.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė had insisted her father, Polikarpas Grybauskaitė, was a firefighter after the war when, in fact, he served Stalin’s dreaded NKVD—which is nothing to be proud about in Lithuania.

In 2014, when a book on Grybauskaitė’s past came out—sealing her nickname Red Dalia—her subordinates called it an “informational attack against Lithuania by the people connected to Kremlin.”

The revelation of Grybauskaitė’s father’s work for NKVD, Stalin’s dreaded secret service, didn’t lead to impeachment because the notion of Sourkovskaya propaganda had been introduced by that time.

Parents and grandparents—not children—should be responsible for these crimes. But, more often than not, they get away with them.

Kurt Waldheim, oberleutnant of the Nazi Wehrmaht, bearer of the Iron Cross, became President of Austria and the fourth General Secretary of the UN. All of his life he lied about his role in WWII, later admitting he “made mistakes” and asking for forgiveness in his posthumous latter.

At 79, after hiding his secret for all of his life, German novelist and Nobel Prize Laureate Gunter Grass admitted that at the age of 17 he joined Waffen SS and was a member of the Nazi party during the war. This fact “oppressed” him, he said, the “disgrace” later became “a burden.” The revelation ended “Grass’s moral authority” in Germany and around the world.

Pope Benedict XVI had to resign—the first Pope to do so since 1415! A lot of people in his flock could not forget that, in his youth, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was a member of Hitler Jugend and wore a Wehrmaht uniform during the war.

Lech Wałęsa, ex-President of Poland and leader of the Solidarity movement—another Nobel Prize Laureate—vehemently denies he was a KGB agent with the operative nickname ‘Bolek,’ though recently-discovered documents state otherwise. The list goes on.
http://www.pch24.pl/stanislaw-michalkiewicz-o-ujawnionych-dokumentach--zemsta-kiszczaka-zza-grobu,41312,i.html

Michael Chomiak, grandfather of Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, was no a Gunter Grass—though he had a direct relation to publishing.

Born Mykhailo Chomiak, he fled his Polish hometown of Lviv for another Polish town, Cracow, in 1939—right before Stalin’s annexation of this part of the country. His granddaughter claims he was smart enough to foresee what Stalin’s regime would do in his motherland Ukraine.

To make a long story short, Chomiak preferred Hitler’s regime to Stalin’s.

But does that make him a Nazi collaborator, or is this all a bunch of Sourkovskaya propaganda?

Here’s a fact: after Hitler ‘reunited’ Poland in the beginning of WWII, Chomiak chose not to return to his beloved Lviv which he missed so much, but to remain in Cracow. There, from 1940 to 1944, he served as editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian Nazi newspaper, under the command of Hans Frank (Governor-General of Poland, Nazi lawyer, executed at the Nuremberg Trials). Chomiak’s direct supervisor was none other than Emil Gassner, head of the press department in Nazi-occupied Poland.

During WWII, in occupied Poland, the Nazis entrusted Chomiak with this position, editing Krakivski Visti (Cracow News). His office and printing presses had been taken from the Jewish owners of the Nowy Dziennik newspaper, who were sent to the extermination camps.

It was a lot of work for Chomiak, but he didn’t have to start from scratch—thanks to the confiscated (Jewish) resources. In the beginning of 1940, the newspaper printed just two issues a week, increasing later to three, and then, after much organizational effort on Chomiak’s part, became a daily.

His Nazi bosses settled Chomiak comfortably in an apartment in Crakow that had been “freed” from its previous Jewish owners.

Krakivski Visti spread Nazi propaganda for five years, praising Adolf Hitler and Governor-General Hans Frank on behalf of the “Ukrainian people,” and spitting venom against Jews, Poles and Russians.

“With the great joy, the Ukrainian population welcomes the establishment of just German order, the representative of which they have found in you, dear Mr. General Governor,” wrote Krakivski Visti on November 1, 1940. “This happiness has been expressed by Ukrainian people not only with flowers that German soldiers that entered our region were covered with, but also with the sacrifices with blood that the fight against Polish usurpers demands.” Ukrainians were ready for a “happy cooperation” with the Nazis, the newspaper claimed—happy to help with the “establishment of plans of the new order in Europe,” Mykhailo Chomiak’s newspaper printed.

In 1943 and 1944, Krakivski Visti hailed the formation of the 14th Waffen SS Division Halychyna, composed of Ukrainian volunteers, fighting against partisans and annihilating civilians. Krakivski Visti welcomed the “German bombs falling on London that created a lot of heavy house fires.” The “bombing of industrial plants in Birmingham, Coventry, the port of Liverpool was good,” it reported with enthusiasm.

Editor-in-chief Chomiak undoubtably approved of the Nazi’s campaign to exterminate the Jews. According to The Globe and Mail, Prof. Himka, a relative of Freeland, “acknowledged that Mr. Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator,” although he pointed out that “the Germans made the editorial decisions to run anti-Semitic articles and other Nazi propaganda.”

After a mass shooting of Jews in Kiev at Babi Yar, Krakivski Vesti wrote that the city was better without the Jews. “There is not a single one left in Kiev today, while there were 350,000 under the Bolsheviks,” the newspaper reported with satisfaction. The Jews “got their comeuppance.” Without Jews, Kiev became “beautiful, glorious.”

Editorials described Poland as “infected by the Jews.” All in, about 25 percent of the newspaper’s content was devoted to Nazi propaganda—anti-Semitic, but also anti-Polish and anti-Russian.

In Canadian newspapers, some supporters of Freeland and her grandfather—especially those of Ukrainian descent—paid attention to the fact that Mykhailo Chomiak never personally signed any story published by the Krakivski Visti. But if he was smart enough to foresee the consequences of Stalin’s occupation of Lviv when he ran to Nazi-occupied Cracow, he was smart enough not to sign any story in his paper. Foreseeing his next possible run—out of Cracow—Chomiak wouldn’t have wanted to risk, one day, being held accountable for them.

There is no doubt Chomiak was very good at what he did for the Nazis in Krakivski Visti—otherwise, why would he be taken to Vienna, together with his family, in 1944 with the retreating Nazi army? German recourses were scarce—and they spent them on Chomiak.

He did not stay in Cracow to join Polish resistance. In Vienna, he continued to publish the newspaper. From Vienna, with the help of his retreating Nazi bosses, he resettled in Bavaria. For the third time, he chose Hitler over Stalin. And, by that point, wasn’t Stalin an ally of the United States?

It was in Bavaria that Chomiak surrendered to Americans and, three years later, immigrated to Canada to reunite with his sister. The “quiet Canadian” never told his relatives about his work for Nazis. The truth came out only after his death in 1984, when his private papers were found in the attic of his house.

“Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland that vilified Jews during the Second World War,” The Globe and Mail reported.

Some say Chomiak’s past has nothing to do with Freeland and the whole thing was blood libel orchestrated by Russians.

But, having known for more than 20 years about her grandfather’s past, why has Freeland been portraying him as a victim of both Stalin and Hitler?

On 24 of August, 2016, a day after Black Ribbon Day, commemorating victims of both Stalinism and Nazism, Freeland Tweeted the following: “Thinking of my grandparents Mykhailo & Aleksandra Chomiak on Black Ribbon Day. They were forever grateful to Canada for giving them refuge and they worked hard to return freedom and democracy to Ukraine. I am proud to honour their memory today.”

Unlike Gunter Grass, Mykhailo Chomiak never apologized for his collaboration with the Nazis.

And his granddaughter, the Canadian Foreign Minister, should not be doing it for him. Rather, she must make two things clear: On what grounds does she consider him to be a victim of Nazis and Stalin? And what part of his past is she so proud to honor?

As far as Kremlin Sourkovskaya propaganda is concerned, yes—a number of Russian media outlets republished The Washington Post story following Freeland’s ill-fated press-conference. Otherwise, there has been deafening silence…

This is most likely because Russians are now busy digging into their NKVD-KGB archives, hoping to find a dusty Nazi party card inscribed with the name Mykhailo Chomiak.
 
angelburst29 said:
Looks like Chrystia Freeland is carrying on "the generational Family Tradition"?
This is most likely because Russians are now busy digging into their NKVD-KGB archives, hoping to find a dusty Nazi party card inscribed with the name Mykhailo Chomiak.

The thing about her, and people can't be judged by what their grandparents did or did not do, is the cover up - the redirection she employed (with the help of the media). Not to mention her words at every opportunity to support the unsupportable in what has and is being done. One can well surmise that the Canadian files are ripe with the backstory, so why is Ms. Freeland allowed to participate at the highest levels?

As for old archives, John Helmer offers up a great deal of old documentation, and as well, Polish intelligence up to the late 1980's was actively searching for grandad Chomiak - the whole time the Canadian's had him salted away in the grasslands of Alberta with out a word said, and Polish intelligence must have been asking.

What history will write of this I don't know.
 
Canada may soon have increased role with Ukrainian Armed Forces
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/canada-may-soon-have-increased-role.html

The head of the General Staff of the Supreme Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Muzhenko, stated that "Canada is close to adopting an important political decision on military assistance to Ukraine."

"What we need requires appropriate political decisions. This question hangs in the air, and we hope that in the near future it must descend to earth and materialize." said Muzhenko.

According to him, this issue was raised during a meeting with the Chief of the Defense Staff of Canada, General Jonathan Vance.

"I had a bilateral meeting with the Chief of Defense of Canada, during which we talked about the provision of assistance from Canada in all areas, including psychological rehabilitation and the increase in the number of Canadian soldiers conducting training in Ukraine."

"We proposed certain areas of cooperation, they will process them and state by how many persons they will be able to increase their mission in Ukraine." Muzhenko stated.


Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in an interview with CBC that he has asked the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to transfer satellite images of the Russian-Ukrainian border to the country's armed forces.

Poroshenko asks Canada for satellite imagery of Russian - Ukrainian border
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/poroshenko-asks-canada-for-satellite.html

It is noted that earlier Ukraine already made such a request to the former Canadian government, when Poroshenko persuaded former Prime Minister Stephen Harper to transmit images from the Radarsat-2 satellite in 2015. The program of assistance ended in the spring of 2016. At that time, only images of "internationally recognized territory" were available to Ukraine.

According to the channel, "Poroshenko said he urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to provide his country with high-tech images of the Ukrainian-Russian border from the Canadian satellite."

"Since this can provide us with effective assistance in the implementation of the Minsk agreements, in obtaining evidence that Russia moved its tanks, artillery systems, launch systems for several missiles" - the television channel quotes the Ukrainian president.

(Comment Question is ... If the Harper government gave Poroshenko satellite assistance from March 2015 - spring of 2016 (I'm assuming a yearly contract) was there a "prior arrangement" of the same ... for 2014 ... during which the July 17, 2014 Malaysian Flight 17 crashed in Ukraine? Was the satellite used by Poroshenko to track and shot down Flight 17 before it reached the Russian Border? )


Explosions are heard at Ukraine’s biggest munitions depot in the village of Kalinovka near the city of Vinnitsa, a police spokesman said on Tuesday according to TASS.

VIDEO: Explosions seen coming from Ukraine's largest munitions depot Wed. September 27, 2017
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/video-explosions-seen-coming-from.html

"The police received a telephone call about the sounds of explosions at about 22:00 local time," National Police Spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo told Ukrainskaya Pravda.

"Later, it was established that artillery shells are exploding at an army unit. Now, law enforcers jointly with rescuers are evacuating people from neighboring villages," the spokesman continued.

The Kalinovka munitions depot holds 188,000 tonnes on munitions, including missiles for Smerch and Uragan multiple missile launcher systems, on an area of 60 hectares, TASS explained.


The fire at the munition arsenal near Vinnytsia could have been organized by the Ukrainian authorities themselves, and not only to hide the theft of the army. This assumption was made in a conversation with a serviceman of the Dnieper Army, a volunteer from Odessa Igor Nemodruk.

Who blew up the ammunition arsenal in Vinnytsia?
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/who-blew-up-ammunition-arsenal-in.html

"My personal opinion - they undermined the warehouse themselves. And here are two motives. The first is arson in order to hide theft. The second motive of a higher level is the preparation of public opinion for the fact that they need to negotiate with the Donbass.

Poroshenko did not achieve anything with his last trip. And in order to save himself, he needs to make some kind of non-standard move. To unleash a full-scale war is death for him. Leaving the situation like it is now - too, will not lead to anything good, because Saakashvili and the opposition are preparing to overthrow him.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that he is now preparing such a move, which is, say, to negotiate with the republics of Donbass. And here it is convenient to say: see, our warehouses have exploded, there are no shells, let's agree on something quick.

This explosion could also kill two birds with one stone - concealment of theft and preparation of public opinion for the fact that the war needs to end somehow," he summed up.


Translator's summary: Were the arms depots blown up to hide that the contents had been sold off? -- Quite different from the official blame on "Russian provocations."

Savchenko links armory fires to the arms trade
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/savchenko-links-armory-fires-to-arms.html

Savchenko linked the fire near Vinnitsa with the arms trade. The deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Nadezhda Savchenko, believes that a fire in the ammunition depots near Vinnitsa could been organized to hide Ukraine's links with the weapons trade.

"We are talking about the following, we see a lot of warehouses in Ukraine, which have been blown up. How they are blown apart, an investigation will establish, but these warehouses have been getting emptied for a long time by the arms trade. Now that all these warehouses are exploding, we need to analyze what was in theм," she said.

In this context she recalled in this the report of the international human rights organization Amnesty International, which referred to Ukraine's involvement in the illegal supply of arms to Southern Sudan. "We ought not overlook at the fact that warehouses could be half empty, so they are destroyed," she added.


The decision to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine is now in the White House. This was announced by the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff of the US Armed Forces, Joseph Dunford, at a hearing in the Senate.

White House to make a call on lethal weapons for Ukraine
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/white-house-to-make-call-on-lethal.html

However, he did not name the timing of the final decision of the White House. "The US Department of Defense and the State Department have officially recommended giving lethal weapons to Ukraine," said Sen. Roger Wicker during the hearing. "In my opinion, from a military point of view, Ukraine needs additional opportunities to protect its sovereignty."

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze said that the issue of providing lethal weapons to Ukraine still has support at the level of heads of departments and ministries of the United States of America.


Veterans of the Ukrainian "Anti-Terrorist Operation" from the 92nd mechanized brigade have received 159 orders for the transfer of ownership of land in the Kharkov region.

Ukrainian soldiers receive plots of land from the government
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/ukrainian-soldiers-receive-plots-of.html

The soldiers of the Armed Forces will receive plots in the settlements of Malinovka and Kochetok. It is noted that veterans of the "ATO" will create horticultural cooperatives in the areas obtained.


A deputy from Bloc Poroshenko scored a knockout on a colleague from the Fatherland Party. Vladislav Khakhulin, MP of the Kiev Oblast Council from the Fatherland Party was hospitalized as a result of a fight during the meeting.

MMA at Kiev Regional Council: Deputy lands a right hook and scores a knockout; loser hospitalized with broken jaw and concussion Sept. 26, 2017
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/mma-at-kiev-regional-council-deputy.html

This was reported by the deputies of the Oblast Council.

"Just now, during the session of the Kiev Oblast Council, there was an attack of deputies from the BCP on a deputy from BYUT, Vladislav Khakhulin. He is now unconscious," - said Oleg Kischuk, deputy from the Fatherland Party.

He said that the scuffle arose when the chairman of the Regional Council, after a long discussion, put the agenda to the vote.

"Several MPs from the BCP jumped out and began blocking the rostrum. Vitaly Karlyuk, an MP from the BCP, approached the chairman of the council, rudely pulled out the microphone; deputy Khakhulin came out to him and asked him not to touch his head. However, Karlyuk simply beat him up. Khakhulin fell. According to doctors, he has a broken jaw, concussion, and missing teeth," Kishchuk said.

He added that the deputy was taken unconscious to the medical center, by ambulance.

"The meeting did not continue. It just closed. There was such a scream, the governor blamed everyone and everything. Therefore, they simply closed it," said Kishchuk.

He added that the Fatherland Party will appeal to law enforcement agencies with a demand to bring to justice a deputy who beaten his colleague and governor "because he must be responsible for his faction."

As the chairman of the regulatory commission, Roman Tytykalo, explained, the outrage of the MPs from the BCP was caused by the fact that the chairman of the Regional Council did not put their draft to the vote.

"Deputies from the BCP initiated the consideration at an extraordinary session of approving the regulations of the Regional Council. But the chairman did not put this issue on the agenda but put the agenda up for approval without inclusion of this issue.

This aroused the indignation of some MPs from the BCP. Karlyuk went to the presidium, snatched the microphone on Anna Starikova's table (the chairman of the Regional Council - ed.), At that moment someone rushed to protect Ms. Starikova. The deputy began to make a remark to Karlyuk, who landed a right hook on the left side of Khakhulin's skull. He fell. Preliminary diagnosis: broken jaw, concussion," said Tyutykalo.

He added that an ambulance and the police were called to the Kiev Oblast Council. Only one deputy suffered in the clash. The Standing Committee will also prepare an appeal to the police in order to bring Deputy Karlyuk to justice.


Oleg Nemensky, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said on on Thursday that Ukrainian authorities are intentionally watering down the level of secondary education throughout the country in order to cut back emigration.

Ukraine's new education law is part of Kiev's de-Russification process - expert
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/ukraines-new-education-law-is-part-of.html

"The adopted law on education will drastically worsen the level of education in Ukraine," said Nemensky.

"It envisages a slump in the level of secondary education, the number of compulsory subjects would be more than halved and disciplines are to be merged which will certainly prevent Ukrainian pupils from having sufficient level of knowledge to enter higher educational institutions of Europe or Russia," he said. He also claimed that the law is for the "total ethnocide, depriving Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population of all cultural and ethnic rights."

"The West is ready to put up with this violation of the rights of the Russian-speaking population as long as the process of de-Russification continues," he said. "In fact, the law on education will be implemented only with regards to the Russian-speaking regions, it won’t be put into practice for the Hungarian population in the Trans-Carpathian region and the Romanian population of Bucovina. The European Union has already confirmed that it is ready to accept these conditions," he said.
 
In Odessa, an open meeting of Saakashvili's "New Forces Movement" has concluded. In his speech, the politician proposed to go to Kiev on October 17 to remove the bandit leadership.

Saakashvili in Odessa promises to go to Kiev and clean house
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/saakashvili-in-odessa-promises-to-go-to.html

"Cut off the head of the octopus," said the ex-head of the Odessa Regional State Administration.

The meeting took place at the monument to Duke de Richelieu [first mayor of Odessa -- tr]. Saakashvili promised that he would build a new Odessa. He also once again called the city council, headed by Mayor Gennady Trukhanov, goons* and bandits.

A total of 500 people came to the meeting. Opponents of Saakashvili tried to disrupt it, but the police did not allow them to break through to the supporters of the politician.

On September 20, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Lutsenko said that Saakashvili must pay a fine for illegally crossing the state border of Ukraine.

Recall that on September 25 Saakashvili announced his intention to "remove" all members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine during the meetings scheduled for October 17 in the Ukrainian capital.


President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has instructed to sue Russia for causing "environmental damage" during the construction of the bridge to the Crimea. The press secretary of the head of state, Svyatoslav Tsegolko, wrote about this on Twitter.

Poroshenko to sue Russia for construction of Crimean bridge
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/09/poroshenko-to-sue-russia-for.html

"The president has ordered to sue Russia because of environmental damage from the construction of the Kerch bridge." - wrote Tsegolko, without specifying the details of the issue.


"The peacekeeping mission is not a panacea for restoring peace and stability, just one of the mechanisms", explained the first deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, the representative of Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Tripartite Contact Group Irina Gerashchenko.

Kiev: No Russians allowed among Donbass peacekeepers
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/kiev-no-russians-allowed-among-donbass.html

According to Gerashchenko, Ukraine has insisted on peacekeepers from 2015, but only now this initiative has starting to gain supporters. The mandate of the mission should extend to the entire occupied territory right up to the Ukrainian-Russian border so that peacekeepers control this border.

The mission should also include the accompaniment of peacekeeping processes, monitoring support, assistance in de-occupation, de-escalation and demilitarization of the region.

At the same time, Gerashchenko insisted that there should not be Russians in the peacekeeping mission.
 
More than 200 soldiers from the New York Army National Guard departed Monday for a nine-month mission to Ukraine.

Over 200 Soldiers From New York Army National Guard Heading For Nazi Ukraine On A Nine Month Mission
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/over-200-soldiers-new-york-army-national-guard-heading-nazi-ukraine-nine-month-mission

The soldiers — most of whom are from 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry Regiment, stationed at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in Niagara Falls, New York — will join the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine, according to a press release from the New York Division of Military and Naval Affairs.

Also deploying with the group are soldiers from the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team headquarters and other National Guard units from across New York.

The training group teaches tactics and staff work to five Ukrainian army battalions at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, near Yavoriv, Ukraine. They are joining troops from Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom on the training mission.

While this mission to provide training and support for Ukraine’s armed forces supports our Army’s engagement in Europe, our real success will be built on the efforts of our Army Guard soldiers and leaders who again answer the call,” said Col. Dennis Deeley, commander of the training element.

The training will focus on defense and security missions, according the press release. Other units are also working to modernize the Ukrainian Army’s doctrine. The ultimate goal is to mirror the training U.S. Army units receive at places like the National Training Center at Fort, Irwin, California, prior to combat deployments, according to the press release.

The soldiers flew to Fort Bliss, Texas, Monday. They will then continue to Germany for a month of pre-deployment training at the 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, according to the press release.

The New York National Guard soldiers will replace those from the Oklahoma National Guard’s 45th Brigade Combat Team who have been in Ukraine since January.


The destruction of the ammunition depot near Vinnitsa could having been carried out by the Ukrainian authorities or their Western partners.

Americans suspected of involvement in ammunition depot bombing
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/americans-suspected-of-involvement-in.html

This opinion was voiced by the military expert Lieutenant-General Yuri Netkachev in the commentary of the "Nezavisimaya Gazeta".

The publication notes that, in addition to helping Kiev in armament, the United States and its allies intend to help in the reconstruction of the country's ammunition industry.

In connection with a series of explosions that have recently occurred in ammunition depots in Ukraine, this looks very relevant. According to Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Yuriy Brovchenko, negotiations on the construction of factories for the production of ammunition are already being conducted with a number of foreign partners from NATO countries," the newspaper writes.

"In explosions at artillery warehouses near Vinnytsya, Kiev accused Russian saboteurs," Netkachev recalled. - However, this could be done by the new NATO allies of Ukraine, and maybe by the Ukrainian authorities themselves, in order to launch the production of ammunition in this country according to the standards of the alliance. Why do they need Soviet second-hand weapons if NATO offers its own and almost for nothing. "


In the course of search operations conducted by the Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of Donetsk, a network of agents was identified, the members of which were assigned by the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Network of secret service agents neutralised in Donetsk
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/network-of-secret-service-agents.html

"On September 23, 2017 in Donetsk an attempt was made to assassinate one of the high-ranking officials of the Donetsk People's Republic. As a result, the Ministry of State Security of the Donetsk People's Republic identified and neutralized an agent network, whose members, on the instructions of the Security Service and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, carried out a series of resonant crimes, including terrorist acts in the territory of the People's Republic of Donetsks and the People's Republic of Lugansk.

In addition, the operational staff revealed a system of caches, secret apartments, communication channels and the transfer of special resources designed to commit sabotage and terrorist acts, as well as the ways of illegal penetration and reconnaissance groups into the territory of the self proclaimed republics. All agents are in custody.


The Ukrainian military has strengthened the position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces under Mariupol with tanks and armored vehicles.

Ukrainian army strengthening at Mariupol, tanks are being transferred
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/ukrainian-army-strengthening-at.html

This was announced today by the deputy commander of the operational command of the Democratic People's Republic of Donetsk, Eduard Bazurin.

"According to our intelligence, the Ukrainian armed forces continue to strengthen their positions and accumulate armored vehicles near Mariupol. Four tanks of T-64BV and five BMPs were transferred to this region," said Basurin.

In addition, according to intelligence, Ukrainian servicemen continue to mine the territory adjacent to the villages of Pavlopol and Pishchevik in the southern sector of the front.

"Mining occurs using improvised explosive devices without mapping the minefields. All this poses a threat both to the civilian population and military personnel" the deputy said.

A reminder, that DPR reconnaissance regularly records the transfer of military equipment by Kiev to the conflict zone. At the same time, according to the Set of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements of February 12, 2015, the arthurium with calibers over 100 mm should be separated from each other by 50 km, MLRS - by 70, the reactive systems "Tornado", "Uragan", "Smerch" and missiles "Point" for 140 kilometers.
 
So, lockstep with the U.S., Canada's Magnitsky bill has one more hurdle to pass, and by the looks of the approval House of Commons voting margins below, it will not take long to clear the senate, All so sad and pathetic - the statuesque these days.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-russia-magnitsky-bill-1.4321562

Bill passes unanimously in late Commons vote Wednesday with 277 for and 0 votes against

snip said:
The bill, approved by the House of Commons Wednesday, was inspired by the case of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in 2009 after a year in a Russian jail.

"Should Bill S-226 be passed by the Senate and receive royal assent, it will enable Canada to sanction, impose travel bans on and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations and significant corruption," Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement after the vote.

"This will ensure that Canada's foreign policy tool box is effective and fit for purpose in today's international environment. It will also provide a valuable complement to our existing human rights and anti-corruption tools."

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Wednesday that "any anti-Russian actions by the Canadian authorities will not be left without an adequate response."
 
voyageur said:
So, lockstep with the U.S., Canada's Magnitsky bill has one more hurdle to pass, and by the looks of the approval House of Commons voting margins below, it will not take long to clear the senate, All so sad and pathetic - the statuesque these days.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-russia-magnitsky-bill-1.4321562

Bill passes unanimously in late Commons vote Wednesday with 277 for and 0 votes against

snip said:
The bill, approved by the House of Commons Wednesday, was inspired by the case of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in 2009 after a year in a Russian jail.

"Should Bill S-226 be passed by the Senate and receive royal assent, it will enable Canada to sanction, impose travel bans on and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations and significant corruption," Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement after the vote.

"This will ensure that Canada's foreign policy tool box is effective and fit for purpose in today's international environment. It will also provide a valuable complement to our existing human rights and anti-corruption tools."

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Wednesday that "any anti-Russian actions by the Canadian authorities will not be left without an adequate response."

I think, NATO was pushing Canada to take this step and to show alliance to Ukraine because Canada is a NATO ally?

Moscow will symmetrically add new names to blacklists in case the sanctions pressure increases, Russian Foreign Ministry’s Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Russia not to leave without response Canada’s steps under Magnitsky law — ministry
http://tass.com/politics/968960

"Mostly, the bill has been copied from the US odious Magnitsky Act and will result in further derailing of Russian-Canadian relations, since it directly aims to impose sanctions on Russian nationals," Zakharova said. "Nothing good will come out of this policy. Any anti-Russian steps of Canada’s authorities will not be left without an appropriate response."

"We are warning again that following an increased pressure on us and proceeding from the principle of reciprocity, we will be symmetrically adding to the lists new names of Canadian dignitaries who are banned entry to Russia," she added.


Poroshenko has introduced to Verkhovna Rada the draft law "on establishment of conditions for peace settlement in separate areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions"

Ukraine’s president suggests Verkhovna Rada should prolong Donbass special status
http://tass.com/world/968996

Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko has introduced to Verkhovna Rada the draft law "On establishment of conditions for peace settlement in separate areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions" that prolongs the region’s special status for one year, a document published on the parliament’s website on Wednesday states.

"The special order of local self-governance in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions is imposed on a temporary basis, for a term that will expire one year after the day of enactment of Ukraine’s law ‘On establishment of necessary conditions for peace settlement in separate areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,’" the draft law says.

The draft law stipulates introduction of a corresponding amendment to Article 1 of the law "On the special order of local self-governance in separate areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions" (the law on the Donbass special status) that was adopted on September 16, 2014, and that expires on October 18, 2017.

According to the draft law, extension of the special status is chiefly aimed at establishment of "necessary conditions to deploy UN peacekeeping operations in separate areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions."

The draft law has an "urgent" status and is to be studied by the parliamentary committees and Verkhovna Rada members as a matter of priority.


The identity of one of the two captured Russians in Syria has been confirmed by a friend. According to him, Roman Zabolotny, who was previously recognized as such, is a member of the Cossack society, from Rostov-on-Don.

Russian hostages in Syria identified as former Donbass defenders
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/russian-hostages-in-syria-identified-as.html

The friend of Roman Zabolotniy recognized him in the video published by ISIS militants. According to him, Zabolotny was sent to Syria with a private military company, Wagner.

"The last time we spoke was just before he left for Syria. He came from Rostov-on-Don to Wagner PMC in Molkino on July 3, on his birthday. From there he called me and invited me to celebrate. I arrived, and then he told me that he was in fact on his way to Syria," Zabolotnyi's friend said, who wished to remain anonymous.

"Roman mentioned that the job pays 300 thousand rubles a month ($5, 200 USD) - and he's a chef by profession - you won't get that much anywhere for such work. He called me and our mutual friends, but no one wanted him to go" the source said.

Wagner private military company is officially sanctioned by the US.

Earlier Zabolotny also traveled to the Donbass through Wagner. "I know that he served as a contractor with Russians," confirmed the prisoner's friend.

The second captive Russian, Grigory Turcanu, was identified by his brother Roman. According to Roman Turcanu, the video distributed by the militants is not staged. He also said that his brother, taken prisoner, went to Syria in May of this year through Wagner PMC, and was not officially employed as a Russian soldier by the Ministry of Defense.

Turcanu, as Zabolotny, also served in the Donbass. He was there twice, the first time in 2014.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, commenting on the situation of Russians in captivity of ISIS militants, said that the work is complicated by the fact that the terrorist group "did not make any demands for the release of hostages". There is little progress on their release.

As a reminder, on October 3, a video recording appeared, in which two men speak in Russian, saying that they have been captured in Syria. This occurred during the counteroffensive of ISIS near the settlement of Ash-Shulaa. Their current fate is unknown.


The deputy of the city duma of Rostov-on-Don, Anatoly Kotlyarov, said that Russian Roman Zabolotny, who was captured by the terrorists of the "Islamic state", has been killed.

Updated: One Russian hostage has been killed by ISIS
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/updated-one-russian-hostage-has-been.html

Kotlyarov said that he received this information from a reliable source.

"This is a source from the volunteer movement, directly connected with the Vjun (Zabolotniy's call sign), the movement is monitoring information on all volunteers from Russia on the territory of Syria and Donbass ... I wish they were wrong, but so far the worst fears regarding his fate are confirmed," he said.

Earlier, the terrorist organization published a video with alleged Russian servicemen who were taken prisoner by them.

One of them is Roman Zabolotny, a native of the village of Dawn of the Aksay district of the Rostov region. The man was identified by the chief of staff of the regional Cossack organization, Ivan Vasilenkov. Deputy Chairman of the Committee on the CIS, Eurasian Integration and Compatriots Affairs Victor Vodolatsky confirmed that Zabolotny participated in the "Cossack movement".

What is happening with the second soldier, Grigory Surkanov is unknown.


An Active high-ranking employee of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Lieutenant-Colonel Roman Labusov has defected to DPR.

Breaking News: High Ranking Agent Of The Ukraine Junta Security Service "SBU" Has Defected To Donetsk Republic, Want's The Killing To Stop !
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/breaking-news-high-ranking-agent-ukraine-junta-security-service-sbu-has-defected-donetsk

“I’m an SBU Lieutenant-Colonel; I was in charge of encryption and document communication, I have defected to this side in order to expose the criminal activity of Ukraine’s leadership,” Labusov said at a news conference in Donetsk on Thursday.

According to Donetsk News Agency information, Labusov was born in Donetsk; he worked at an SBU department in Donetsk Region. He has served in Mariupol since 2014.

The SBU officer explained his defection by his loyalty to the oath which commits the serviceman to act in the interests of Ukrainian citizens. “What is happening now? Ukrainian servicemen who have taken the oath kill Ukrainian citizens. Who are they if they do it?” Labusov said.



The defense team of Saakashvili, who has been deprived of his citizenship, asks the court to oblige the Main Directorate of the Ukraine Migration Service in the Lviv region to consider his application for asylum.

Saakashvili, wanted in Georgia, seeks Ukrainian political asylum
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/saakashvili-wanted-in-georgia-seeks.html

As one of Saakashvili's lawyers Markiyan Galabala noted, on September 11, Saakashvili personally applied to the State Migration Service to obtain the status of a person in need of additional protection.

"He applied with the appropriate application, applying for the status of a person in need of additional protection. No other statement was made by Saakashvili," Galabala said.

The defender clarified that the legal procedure for obtaining political asylum has a different terminology.

"It is the status of a person in need of additional protection, which is the legal name of this status and the legal name of this procedure," the lawyer added.

At the same time, the lawyer stressed that the migration service had to reply within 24 hours, but there was no reaction to the lawyer's requests. Saakashvili's defense intends to appeal their lack of action in court.

Recall that on September 5, Ukraine received an official request from Georgia to search for, take into custody, and extradite Saakashvili. Today it became known that Saakashvili's extradition will not take place, at least within the next few weeks.

On July 31, the Georgian Ministry of Justice expressed hope that with the return of former President Saakashvili to Ukraine, the authorities of the country could begin the process of returning him to Tbilisi.

Saakashvili illegally entered Ukraine on September 10. Following his return, a series of arrests of his supporters followed.
 
The economy of Ukraine may be the final straw to break...

2019 Could Be a Very Bad Year for Ukraine

When Russia stops using Ukraine as a transit country for energy exports a major hole will open in the Ukrainian economy which the EU and the US are not prepared to fill

Yes, 2019 matters ...

For several years, Russia has been warning—consistently and clearly—that it intends to stop using Ukraine as a transit country for sending its energy to Western markets. If this happens, a major hole will open in the Ukrainian economy which Europe and the United States do not appear to be prepared to fill.

Consistently, I am amazed at analysts who produce pages of plans about how to reorient Ukraine's geopolitical focus Westward and embed Ukraine in the security architecture of the Euro-Atlantic world, yet assume that Ukraine's economic relationship with Russia will continue unabated. In the 1990s, this was not an unreasonable assumption, because Russia had no choice but to rely on existing Soviet-era infrastructure networks and had no wherewithal to construct alternatives.

Thus, the economic-security balance that had emerged after the fall of the USSR—where Russia needed to sustain Ukraine (notably with below-market price energy) in order to guarantee that it could sell the rest at much higher prices to paying European customers—made sense.

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It was not always going to be sustainable, and we saw how both Russia and the Baltic States, for their own security interests, moved to alter this implicit bargain: the Baltic States started by developing alternative sources of supply and taking the very painful short-term steps to reform their economies away from the narcotic of lower-cost Russian energy and raw materials. Russia, for its part, after it became clear that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia would enter both NATO and the EU, developing an entirely new northern export infrastructure based out of the St. Petersburg region that allowed Russia to stop its dependence on Baltic access.
Both Ukrainian prime minister Yuliya Timoshenko, heroine of the Orange Revolution, and President Viktor Yanukovych, the villain of both the Orange and Maidan revolutions, realized Ukraine's peril, and both attempted to negotiate long-term agreements with Moscow that would incentivize Russia to keep using Ukraine as a transit country and would make it cheaper for Russia than constructing new bypass lines to the north and south of Ukraine. Yanukovych threw in a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea to sweeten the deal (and to derail efforts to shift the fleet to Novorossiisk in the Kuban).

After the Maidan revolution, however, Russia again began to accelerate its plans to end Ukrainian transit. Despite Western sanctions, European Union regulatory efforts, and a short-term spat with Turkey after a Russian fighter jet was shot down on the Turkish-Syrian border in late 2015, these efforts have not ceased. Russia has been steadily announcing that it plans to shift its export routes by 2019.

Ostensibly, this is not a problem for Ukraine, which has dramatically demonstrated its ability to buy gas, oil and coal from non-Russian sources—with gas being shipped in from European partners to the West and a shipment of U.S.-produced coal arriving in country. But these alternatives are more expensive for a struggling economy—and the real shock will come when Russian transit fees cease. The Ukrainian state energy company will be left with a network of lines, storage depots and pumping stations which will need to find new customers.

Perhaps some energy from the Caucasus could be sent via the Odessa-Brody route from the Caspian to Europe, but that will not produce enough replacement income. Ukraine may be able to increase its own domestic energy production, but foreign firms will not want to invest until there is a durable peace settlement in the east and the Crimea question is settled.

On top of that, the Ukrainian government cannot repeat some of its shenanigans of the last decade by imposing all sorts of unreasonable conditions on foreign energy firms (among them, to sell large amounts of energy at low prices to domestic interests). There is also the risk that once Russia stops using Ukraine as a transit country, the ongoing conflict could expand. It is remarkable that Eastern Ukrainian separatism somehow did not appear in those parts of the country where the gas pipelines run—but could that change after 2019?

The response of the European Union commissioner in charge of energy matters, Maros Sefcovic, is to try to continue to compel Russia to use Ukraine as a transit country. But this strategy appears to be doomed to failure.

Turkey no longer has any incentive to do the EU's work for it, and, after President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed that the rapid completion of the Turkish Stream line is a priority for his country, both to guarantee his country's ability to receive Russian energy that does not have to transit Ukraine, and to be able to position Turkey as a replacement transit country for Russian energy to reach southern and central European markets.

No matter her personal dislike for Putin or her distrust of Kremlin motives, German chancellor Angela Merkel is also committed to protecting Germany's energy security—and Germany's investments in Russian energy projects—by seeing the doubling of the Nord Stream line fulfilled on schedule.

Although the new sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress contain provisions that would impact the ability of Western banks to finance these new lines, European firms may take a page out of French energy conglomerate Total's playbook when, after initial EU sanctions were imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, it chose not to withdraw from its profitable Yamal gas project but instead turned to Chinese sources of finance.

As a further backup to plans to bypass Ukraine, Gazprom is also mulling increasing sales to Azerbaijan—which would reflect an indirect, backdoor way to reach Europe, because Russian gas sold to Azerbaijan could allow Azerbaijan to increase shipments to Europe (and be able to augment deliveries) through the Trans-Anatolian line.
(On a separate note, the need for that line to operate at full capacity will present an unpleasant geopolitical choice for the United States—not using Russian gas increases the likelihood Azerbaijan might want to open access to the line to Iran, giving Tehran new markets and an un-blockadable access to European markets, or the U.S. would have to be prepared to engage in a "Great Game" with China over whether Turkmenistan's gas keeps flowing east to Beijing or is redirected west).

All of this suggests that a "relax, don't worry" approach on the part of Western analysts who assert that Russia's plans can be blocked is not warranted.

We have a clear deadline: 2019, when the new lines are expected to be finished and the current Ukraine-Russia gas transit contract expires. Now is the time to consider the policies that would be needed to secure and promote Western interests—and not to assume that Russia will keep footing the bill.
 
About 70 Ukrainian miners blocked traffic between Kiev and Warsaw. The border service asks travelers to choose other checkpoints to cross the border.

Protesting Ukrainian Miners Block Road Traffic Near Polish Border - Border Guard
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710091058073105-ukraine-miners-protest-poland-border-block/

The protesters demanding that their unpaid wages be given, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said.

"On October 9, 2017, a peaceful protest by Novovolynsk miners began near the Ukrainian-Polish border on the M-07 international highway Kiev-Kovel-Yahodyn border checkpoint," the border service said in a statement.

About 70 people are continuously moving across a crosswalk some two kilometers (1.24 miles) from the Yahodyn checkpoint, therefore blocking the road between Kiev and Warsaw, according to the agency.

The protesters reportedly told the police that they were ready to allow passenger cars to pass, but that truck traffic would be completely blocked.

According to the Ukrainian news agency UNN, the miners are demanding to be paid their wages for the past two months in the total amount of 4.5 million Ukrainian hryvnia ($170,000).


"The presence of 129 instructors from the USA, Canada, Turkey, Algeria, Lithuania, Latvia, Great Britain coordinating Nazi Ukrainian units has been revealed.

The Proud DPR Army And Intelligence Section Have Spotted Over 900 Mercernaries, Paid Killers On The Front Lines Ready To Exterminate Our Women And Children Of Donbass
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/proud-dpr-army-and-intelligence-section-have-spotted-over-900-mercernaries-paid-killers-front

The number of foreign mercenaries fighting on the Nazi Kiev’s side in Donbass has reached 900, DPR Intelligence data shows.

“DPR Intelligent data shows that foreign instructors and mercenaries are still present in the so-called ATO zone,” DPR Operations Command said.

The presence of 129 instructors from the USA, Canada, Turkey, Algeria, Lithuania, Latvia, Great Britain coordinating Ukrainian units has been revealed. On Donetsk and Mariupol axes groups from Georgia and Hungary have been spotted.

“Georgian national legion and Hungarian Madyar battalion are comprised of 500 people in total,” the DPR Command said.
Moreover, nearly 260 soldiers from Poland and Lithuania are fighting against DPR.

Article 10 of the Package of Measures dated 12 February 2015 prescribes the sides to pull out all foreign armed formations, military equipment and mercenaries under the monitoring of the OSCE SMM.

On Friday, October 6, Ukrainian parliament has adopted the law on “establishing conditions for peace settlement of the situation in separate regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions”, which prolongs Donbass special status for one more year. Nevertheless, Rada said the withdrawal of all “unlawful armed groups and military equipment, fighters and mercenaries” from Donbass was a condition to enacting the law on the region’s status.
 
I came across a couple of interesting articles on Sputnik describing the experiences of a delegation of Norwegian politicians and business people in Crimea. The last article talks about their plans of attempting to change the views of the West on the situation in Crimea. This is most likely easier said than than as the mainstream media isn't very likely to report on their experience or publish their stories. Nevertheless this was an interesting read.


6 October 2017L https://sputniknews.com/russia/201710061058020094-crimea-nice-place-peace/

Head of Norway's Delegation on Crimea: 'Nice Place Where People Live in Peace'

While European countries are keeping sanctions against Russia amid its reunification with Crimea, more and more EU residents are eager to come to the peninsula and see the local situation with their own eyes.
People in Norway were very positive about seeing Crimea, and "this is how our diverse team was formed," the head of the Norwegian delegation that is currently paying a weeklong visit to Crimea, Hendrick Weber, told Radio Sputnik.

The delegation includes representatives of different professions and backgrounds, whose main goal is to show their compatriots that Crimea is "a nice place, that people are living in peace and that there is no war here," Weber said.

"Some people are doctors from the health sector, some others are businessmen and one woman was working in the national library in Oslo," he continued.

This is not the first time Weber has visited Crimea. The Norwegian had come to the peninsula last year as part of the German delegation and liked the place so much that he decided to come back.

"When I was here last year, after I came back to Norway I wanted to try to make an article for a newspaper to tell people about what is really going on in Crimea. But I found out that I got no answer, no reply from any newspaper or TV station. After four months, we found a small newspaper: they wanted to [publish] our article. And after this publication, I got in contact with many different people and they were very positive about seeing Crimea. They wanted to see with their own eyes what is going on here," Weber said.

While visiting the Artek summer camp, Weber said that it's important to develop connections between Russian children and teenagers from other countries.

According to him, the dialogue is very important in order to overcome possible conflicts and misunderstandings in the future.
This is the first time that a large delegation of politicians and businessmen from Norway has come to Crimea since the peninsula reunified with Russia.

In late September, Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Georgy Muradov said that over 100 foreign delegations, along with prominent political and public figures, had already visited Crimea over the past year and a half.



9 October 2017 https://sputniknews.com/russia/201710091058070088-norway-delegation-crimea-visit-cooperation/

Norway’s Delegation Seeking Cooperation With Crimea After Visiting Region

A Norwegian delegation comprising 11 Norwegian politicians and businessmen has underlined the necessity of signing an agreement on cooperation with Crimea after a week-long visit to the peninsula.
SIMFEROPOL (Sputnik) — A Norwegian delegation has expressed its willingness to cooperate with Crimea and establish friendly relations with the Russian region after paying an official visit to the peninsula, member of the Crimean parliament Yury Gempel told Sputnik on Monday.

The delegation comprising 11 Norwegian politicians and businessmen, as well as two German lawmakers, started its week-long visit to the peninsula on Thursday.

"They [the delegation] have underlined the necessity of establishing partnership and friendly ties with Crimea. The Norwegians visited Crimea and said that an agreement on cooperation should be signed," Gempel, who is a deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Interethnic relations, said.

The delegation spoke in favor of cooperation after the members had the chance to meet the locals and see the real state of affairs in the region, according to the official.

The delegation's visit agenda includes a meeting with Crimean parliament speaker Vladimir Konstantinov and local government, as well as a visit to the international children's camp Artek and to the regional children's hospital.

In late September, Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Georgy Muradov said that over 100 foreign delegations alongside prominent political and public persons had visited Crimea over the past year and a half.

Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, when 97 percent of the peninsula's residents voted in favor of the move in a referendum. Despite this, the reunification was not recognized by the majority of the Western countries, including EU member states, which subsequently imposed economic and political sanctions on Moscow. Moscow has repeatedly said that the referendum was conducted in compliance with international law.





10 October 2017: https://sputniknews.com/russia/201710111058122480-russia-crimea-norway-delegation/

Head of Norway’s Delegation Says No Human Rights Violations Found in Crimea

A delegation of businessmen and politicians from Norway has not found any cases of human rights violations during their visit to Russia’s Crimea region, Hendrik Weber, the head of the delegation, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

SIMFEROPOL (Sputnik) – The delegation, which included 11 politicians and businessmen from Norway, as well as two German lawmakers, started its week-long visit to Crimea on Thursday. In late September, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Office (OHCHR) released a report, claiming that human rights violations in Crimea had multiplied since the peninsula’s reunification with Russia in 2014.

"We have been looking and searching, but we have not found anything, because there are none of them," Weber said, referring to the cases of human rights violations.

The delegation’s head noted that he is not afraid of sanctions which he may face over the Crimea visit as telling the truth to people about the real state of affairs in the region is more important.

"Some may say that we are doing propaganda and there was a joke that we would be labeled as agents of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but we are not afraid of that, because it is public diplomacy work, related to telling the truth about what is happening in Crimea, it is very important. We will initiate a discussion in Norway, but I am afraid that it won't be easy," Weber, who is also the head of Norway’s public diplomacy organization, said.

The delegates met with Crimea’s officials and residents to learn their vision of situation in the peninsula.
Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, when 97 percent of the peninsula's residents voted in favor of the move in a referendum. Despite this, the reunification was not recognized by the majority of the Western countries, including EU member states, which subsequently imposed economic and political sanctions on Moscow. Moscow has repeatedly said that the referendum was conducted in compliance with international law.




11 October 2017: https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710111058143387-russia-norway-crimea-occupation/

Norwegian Delegation Plans to Change West's Perception on 'Occupation' of Crimea

After a visit to Crimea, a Norwegian delegation of businessmen and politicians plans to launch a media campaign against labeling Crimea an occupied territory, delegation head Hendrik Weber told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"After returning home, we will continue our work and develop relations between Russia and Norway. We will write articles and use our resources to convince people that Crimea is not an occupied territory. People often say that Russia annexed Crimea, but are against it and we will show that Crimea is a part of Russia," Weber underlined.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian delegation met with Crimea’s residents and learned about their unwillingness to return to Ukraine. The delegation, comprised of 11 Norwegian politicians and businessmen, and two German lawmakers, started its week-long visit to the peninsula on Thursday.

Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, when 97 percent of the peninsula's residents voted in favor of the move in a referendum. Despite this, the reunification was not recognized by the majority of the Western countries, including EU member states, which subsequently imposed economic and political sanctions on Russia. Moscow has repeatedly said that the referendum was conducted in compliance with international law.
 
There was:
_http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/kiev-protests-maidan-30-or-new.html said:
Kiev Protests: Maidan 3.0 or a New Opposition?
October 18, 2017 - Fort Russ -
By Eduard Popov - translated by Jafe Arnold -
The last few days in the Ukrainian capital have been, to say the least, once again restless. Celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Nazi Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the military wing of Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists which collaborated with the Nazis, have gradually escalated into street confrontations between the opposition and the ruling regime.

On Tuesday, October 17th, the ex-President of Georgia and ex-Governor of the Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili, also plunged into the fray by gathering a so-called “anti-corruption rally,” which observers have suggested gathered around 4-5,000 people.

The demonstrators' ranks have included supporters of Saakashvili’s “New Forces Movement,” Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, Lvov mayor Sadovy’s “Self-Help”, as well as militants from the neo-Nazi Svoboda and National Corps (the political wing of the Azov Regiment), and other organizations.
[...]
Just as in the 1920’s when a 100,000-strong Reichswehr was created which instantly allowed for the German army to be expanded, so today is a new opposition being founded to be capable of bringing out millions into the streets. This new opposition has two powerful human resources: (1) city and village dwellers discontent with high and still rising utility costs, and (2) ATO veterans. There can be no doubts that the new revolutionaries are working on both fronts. Since October 1st, gas prices have risen 9%, utility fees are sharply increasing, and the number of unhappy and discontent civilians is only growing. This is just what Saakashvili and co. need and want.

So, will there be a Maidan 3.0? This question is not one of possibility, but of time. Of course, a Maidan is possible if Washington wants to give the green light to replace one of their "bastard sons" with another, i.e. replace the Poroshenko regime with Saakashvili’s collective. But today I see no urgent need for such. Nevertheless, the mechanism is being created, a social basis for revolution exists, and the oligarch-president Poroshenko is keeping his balance. Thus, only the future will show in which direction the pendulum will swing.
_http://alternatio.org/events/all/item/54055-era-straha-poroshenko-siloviki-ne-budut-zaschischat-vlast said:
The era of fear Poroshenko. Law enforcers not to protect the power 18 Oct 2017
Yesterday's protests at the Verkhovna Rada showed that President Poroshenko should not rely on the security forces. About this on their page Facebook writes the former speaker of the SBU and the adviser to the interior Minister of Ukraine Stanislav Rechinsky.

"I think that for Poroshenko today the era of his personal fear, which will end only with the end of his political life and possibly emigration. Because the most important thing today was how the security forces responded to the protesters. Almost did not react. That's all changed. Even if the order, which I highly doubt, not wanting to be substituted whether it be for chocolate, whether it's for someone else. Doesn't have the "elite dogs" Yanukovych is ready for allowance and status to beat and kill. The deputies of BPP (the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko - ed.) should think about his future. The immunity for them is long over in fact. However, in the case of Birch, it ended and the NF (National front - ed.). And can already and for all the deputies".

Former speaker of the SBU I am sure that most MPs now no protection is better not to go.

"Today is useful for Poroshenko. Judging by his turns of phrase like "my army", "my plan", "I,I,I....." — he developed a Messiah complex. As of today, will destroy, I hope this complex. Let me remind you "king" that he actually chose not for love or respect, but out of necessity. Because there is someone to vote for full statehood. Quite a sham marriage and don't need to fantasize. The best time and quietly walk away" — sums up Rechinsky.

Source: alternatio.org
Chaos continues, and the conflict in Donbass too. If you are on Twitter check out _https://twitter.com/MauriceSchleepe In the past 24 hour there has been 9 violations and the use of 83 mm and 120 mm mortars
 
Five people were killed and six more injured in the accident, according to preliminary data by local police.

SUV Rams Into Crowd of People in Ukraine's Eastern City of Kharkiv Warning: The video below contains graphic images.
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710181058355355-suv-kharkiv-crowd/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd9e8-SbVi8 (0:48 min.)

A Lexus SUV has rammed into a crowd of people in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine, according to reports by local law enforcement. Five people were killed and six injured in the accident, which took place at Sumskaya St.

​"According to preliminary data, 11 people were injured — five people were killed, six were injured with various degrees of severity," the local police said in a Facebook post.

According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the SUV was thrown on a pedestrian walk after collision with another car. Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, said the Lexus collided at high speed with a Volkswagen after running a red light, and was flipped into the street, where dozens of people were walking. The Lexus driver was arrested at the scene.

According to updated reports, at least six people were killed in the accident.


Mass protests in support of the opposition that broke out in the center of the Ukrainian capital three days ago have turned into violent clashes with police.

Police Use Tear Gas to Disperse Protesters Near Verkhovna Rada in Kiev (VIDEO)
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710181058353985-police-tear-gas-protesters-kiev/

Kiev police chief Andriy Kryshchenko said police officers used tear gas in a clash with protesters in front of the Verkhovna Rada building in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday. He noted that police used force in several cases adding it was made in line with the Ukrainian laws.

According to previous reports, at least 11 protesters were arrested in the course of the unrest.

The rally on Tuesday, during which protestors called for President Petro Poroshenko to resign, lingered as people decided to set up several tents and stay in front of the parliament. The protests were called for by the former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was stripped of both Ukrainian and Georgian citizenship but managed to cross Ukraine's border.

The political pressure is mounting as protesters have put forward three main demands: to strip lawmakers of their immunity, to establish an anti-corruption court and to change the electoral system in order to allow independent lawmakers to enter Parliament.

President Petro Poroshenko tried to ease tensions by introducing a bill which presupposes the elimination of the lawmakers' immunity starting from 2020. However, this move was perceived solely as a sign that the current government is not willing to meet the demands of the people gathered outside the Parliament.


The criminal cases have been launched as mass protests in the center of the Ukrainian capital turned violent with police officers clashing with protesters.

Four People Injured at Kiev Rally, Three Criminal Cases Launched - Police
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710181058344692-kiev-rally-clashes/

The press service of Kiev's police force reported that "four people, including one police officer, were injured on October 17, 2017, during mass events near Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada."

According to Kiev police, the officer and a 64-year-old resident of the Ivano-Frankivsk Region were hospitalized, while two others received medical treatment on the ground.

The police said that three criminal cases had been launched for "assault of a law enforcement employee," "vandalism," and "robbery." No one has yet been detained in connection with the cases.

About 3,000 law enforcement agents were deployed to the streets of Kiev on Wednesday.

The police said that participants of the demonstrations would be checked at special checkpoints and with metal detectors.

A mass rally, organized by representatives of various political forces, including nationalist movements, was held near Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday. The clashes between protesters and police broke out later in the day.

Artyom Shevchenko, the spokesman for Ukraine's Interior Ministry, has stressed that the police would not use force so long as the protests remain peaceful.


Finland has seen a dramatic rise in foreign construction workers after steps to facilitate the employment of staff from outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Ukrainians, in their pursuit of the European dream, reportedly lead the field.

European Dream: Ukrainian Builders Flood Finland After Easing of Job Rules
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201710181058340626-finland-employment-ukraine/

The steps by southern Finland's most densely populated region of Uusimaa to simplify the employment process for non-EU construction workers has resulted in an upsurge in applications from Ukrainian job seekers, outnumbering their colleagues from Russia and Southeast Asia.

So far this year, the number of job applications in Uusimaa has risen by roughly 20 percent. Between January and September this year, Uusimaa employment offices have processed over 6,100 work permit decisions, fully or partially approving 5,200 of them. By contrast, some 7,000 work applications were issued in 2016, Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported.

Ukrainians constituted the largest work-group from outside the EEA (which constitutes all of the EU, Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein), totaling more than 1,400 and outnumbering Russians (900), Filipinos, Vietnamese, Chinese and Thais (about 300 each).

Olli Sorainen, a senior adviser at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, attributed the rise in job applications to an overall return to economic growth after many years of stagnation.

The ELY Center for Economic Development indicated that Finland should prepare itself for an influx of foreign workers in such areas as cleaning and logistics, should the simplification of the labor legislation persist. At present, the ELY is considering lifting similar restrictions in the hotel and restaurant sector as its next step, despite domestic unemployment.

There seem to be unemployed people in this sector, but employers still say they have a hard time finding staff," Kari Koivisto of the Uusimaa employment office said.

Sorainen noted that a rule requiring companies to try and find Finnish residents to fill vacant positions has been lifted before on a regional basis, when companies complained of labor shortages. It should be also noted that the rising number of applicants included rejected asylum seekers who came during the surge of late 2015 and are now seeking work-based residence permits.

Finnish trade unions are opposing the simplification, insisting that innovations will not have a better impact on the labor market of the Nordic country. Finland's unemployment rate reportedly climbed to 10.5 percent in April, before falling to 7.5 percent in August this year.

At the same time, 15 percent of employees in southern Finland work illegally, as opposed to only 6 percent of the labor force in the rest of the country. The majority of the illegal workers are employed in public catering, cleaning and building, the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat reported earlier this year.

The Ukrainian community in Finland is young and not particularly numerous, having mostly formed during the post-Soviet years. According to Ukraine's Embassy in Helsinki, the Ukrainian diaspora consists of about 5,000 people.

Following the 2014 Maidan coup, Ukraine has amassed more IMF debt than Greece and is struggling to reduce this financial burden by implementing hyper-austerity, which involves drastic cuts in public spending. At present, the unemployment rate in the country hovers at around 10 percent amid a struggling economy and galloping inflation. In 2016 alone, over a million Ukrainians traveled to neighboring Poland seeking work.

Contrary to the popular belief, the recent waiver of the EU's visa requirements for Ukrainians only applies to tourist trips, without giving them the opportunity to work or study.


In Finland, summer means an abundance of berries. In recent decades, the Nordic country has relied mostly on foreign labor to reap this harvest. Lately, however, Finland's berry-picking workforce has undergone a drastic change, with Ukrainian laborers replacing Thais, which were known to have dominated the business before.

Fruits of Freedom: Ukrainians Replace Thais as Finland's Berry-Pickers
https://sputniknews.com/art_living/201708011056065404-ukrainian-berry-picking/

Finland's state program to entice refugees to pick berries is not going as successfully as planned, and seasonal foreign workers have continued to rule the market. Thai workers have been arriving in Finland to gather fruit since 2005 and have played a large role in this trade. In recent years, though, Ukrainians have become increasingly competitive in this business.

However, there are major differences between Ukrainians' and Thais' work routines. While Ukrainians prefer to work on farms, Thais fancy collecting wild berries. Another contrast involves wages, as Ukrainians in the strawberry fields make double the wages of Thais in the forest, Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this year has seen a sharp drop in the number of Thais willing to take a long trip to Northern Europe to work in challenging conditions for uncertain rewards. Additionally, the Thai government specifically issued a warning to potential pickers that they might actually get swindled in Finland, in addition to experiencing poor working conditions and chilly summer weather, the Finnish daily Savon Sanomat reported.

​According to Olli Sorainen, a senior official at the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, this was the first time that potential berry pickers have been warned by Thai officials.

"There is some grain of truth in some of the claims, but I believe they were expressed in an unnecessarily colorful manner," Olli Sorainen told Savon Sanomat.

According to an estimate by Yle, Thai pickers coming to Finland for two-three months in the summer work for around 5-7 euros an hour, depending on their harvest; for comparison's sake, cleaners earn around €10 per hour. Berry-picking generally involves 12-15 hour work days and Thais spend roughly €1,000 during their stay, which means that the most successful pickers may earn around €5,000 over 70 days, while the unlucky ones could actually lose money.

The pickers' status as entrepreneurs, however, saves the berry firms a lot of money, as the cost of social insurance and pension payments would make many firms unviable, Arctic International CEO Janne Naapanki argued. If guaranteed an hourly wage, pickers might get lazy, spending time in the forests rather than picking berries, he contested.

Interior Ministry official Harri Sivula said that nothing is being done to improve the lot of forest-based pickers.

"Thais come here voluntarily," Harri Sivula told Yle. "There's no political pressure to resolve the issue. This is not a big problem in society," he added.

On strawberry farms, the situation is completely different, as pickers, mainly from Ukraine, enjoy contracts and a wage of around €11 an hour. Additionally, working time is limited to 40 hours per week, and any overtime is paid.

The influx of Ukrainians may be considered as a token of the country's ailing economy. Following the 2014 Maidan coup, Ukraine has amassed more IMF debt than Greece and is struggling to reduce this financial burden by implementing hyper-austerity, which involves drastic cuts in public spending. At present, the unemployment rate in the country hovers at around 10 percent amid a struggling economy and galloping inflation.
 
Heavy Movement Of Nazi Ukraine Tanks And Artillery Pieces Spotted By Donetsk Republic DPR Intelligence, Poroshenko's Guns Arriving In Kurakhovo, 20 Km West Of Donetsk
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/heavy-movement-nazi-ukraine-tanks-and-artillery-pieces-spotted-donetsk-republic-dpr

Nazi Ukraine Army has brought up about 15 tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces to Kurakhovo (20km west of Donetsk), according to DPR Operations Command commander Col. Eduard Basurin.

“Our intelligence reports six tanks, eight self-propelled Gvozdika and two Akatsia howitzers arriving in Kurakhovo,” he said pointing out to the rising number of UAVs missions in the area of Maryinka.

Basurin reported that 16 townships in DPR had been targeted in the 24 hours, two civilians had been injured in Trudovskiye, western Donetsk.

“The order to open fire on civilians has been issued by the commander of the 92nd separate mechanized brigade of Nazi Ukrainian army, criminal Kokorev. His unit is responsible for dozens of civilian casualties and hundreds of destroyed households.”

DPR military reported 50 Kiev’s violations of the ceasefire in the last 24 hours. The DPR representation the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the ceasefire counted over 1,070 rounds fired at the Republic.


More Nazi Ukraine Junta Heavy Guns On The Move, Spotted By DPR Intelligence, Tanks And Rocket Artillery Heading Towards Debaltsevo, Also Four MLRS Grad Spotted Near Kodema.

According To The JCCC , Nazi Kiev Regime is building up forces in the Debaltsevo area
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/more-nazi-ukraine-junta-heavy-guns-move-spotted-dpr-intelligence-tanks-and-rocket-artillery

Nazi Kiev Forces have brought up tanks, rocket artillery, artillery and other military equipment to Debaltsevo area, said DPR representative at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) Ruslan Yakubov.

“Tanks and self-propelled howitzers have been recorded arriving to Mironovskiy township; a convoy of fours MLRS Grad systems and four Kamaz trucks has been spotted in the vicinity of Kodema; eight tanks and self-propelled howitzers and six Ural vehicles have bben seen outside Semigorye,” he said.

Earlier DPR intelligence reported 15 tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces deployed to Kurakhovo (20km west of Donetsk).

DPR intelligence reports Nazi Kiev’s regular deployment of military equipment to the conflict zone. Under The Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements signed by the Contact Group on February 12, 2015, the sides have to withdraw their artillery systems of 100 mm caliber or more to a distance of 50 kilometers apart from each other, multiple launch rocket systems Tornado, Uragan and Smerch to a distance of 70 kilometers and Tactical Missile Systems Tochka to a distance of 140 kilometers. The Attachment to the Minsk Agreements signed in September provides for the parties’ withdrawal of their artillery systems of a caliber less than 100 mm, as well as tanks and mortars. Despite the accords,the Ukraine Junta regularly shells DPR areas.


As we have reported earlier from the madness of the Poroshenko Regime along with NATO, the heavy bombing in the last 24 hours was the most severe, the heavy toll taken by the civilians especially the children during the School Ceasefire, tragedy occured this evening as Ukraine Junta Forces bombed the town of Trudovskiye , western part of Donetsk Petrovskiy District , a civilian was seriously wounded.

Nazi Ukraine Forces As Well As Elements From NATO Are Bombing The Town Of Trudovskiye
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/nazi-ukraine-forces-well-elements-nato-are-bombing-town-trudovskiye-elderly-man-has-been

According to DPR Representative Ruslan Yakubov Of The JCCC, Joint Centre For Control And Coordination, this evening around 7:30pm ( 1930), a Maryinka Based Army Unit Of The Ukraine Junta opened fire , targeting and bombing the Neighborhood of Trudovskiye . An elderly man was seriously wounded by a 82mm Mortar shell.

Emergency response teams are having difficulty arriving at the scene due to the reckless yet criminal attack on the area by the Nazi Ukraine Forces, knowing very well civilians and emergency crews would be arriving to help the victim !

Brave DPR Soldiers have taken the lead and are evacuating the man as we are reporting. And repeat, bombing is still continuing by Ukriane Junta Forces as well as elements from NATO.


The last few days in the Ukrainian capital have been, to say the least, once again restless. Celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Nazi Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the military wing of Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists which collaborated with the Nazis, have gradually escalated into street confrontations between the opposition and the ruling regime.

Kiev Protests: Maidan 3.0 or a New Opposition?
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/kiev-protests-maidan-30-or-new.html

On Tuesday, October 17th, the ex-President of Georgia and ex-Governor of the Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili, also plunged into the fray by gathering a so-called “anti-corruption rally,” which observers have suggested gathered around 4-5,000 people.

The demonstrators' ranks have included supporters of Saakashvili’s “New Forces Movement,” Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, Lvov mayor Sadovy’s “Self-Help”, as well as militants from the neo-Nazi Svoboda and National Corps (the political wing of the Azov Regiment), and other organizations.

The action’s participants have demanded that the immunity of Verkhovna Rada deputies be restricted, laws be adopted for an anti-corruption court, and new electoral rules be deliberated. Strangely by coincidence, President Poroshenko yesterday proposed to parliament a bill abolishing parliamentary immunity. Thus, Poroshenko has remained true to his style of politics which centers on seizing the initiative from competitors and stealing opponents' slogans. Poroshenko’s spin doctors have clearly learned the lessons of the October Revolution, when the Bolshevik leader Lenin “stole” the “Decree on Land” from the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries. No matter, however, as to this day such an approach has borne fruit not necessarily for Ukraine, but for Poroshenko himself. To recall, Poroshenko has “stolen” the glorification of Bandera and Shukhevych, the blockade of Donbass, and the concept of a “One country, one nation, one language, one church” cultural-linguistic policy from Ukraine’s Nazis.

The slogans voiced by the new opposition clearly do not evoke a new, fully-fledged Maidan. Moreover, Ukrainian “revolutionaries” have yet to throw new slogans to the masses capable of exciting the people through social networks and TV screens to once again overthrow the government in Kiev. During the Euromaidan, such slogans were “Out with the gang!” and “Ukraine is Europe!” This new Maidan - if this action indeed claims the status of such - thus pales in comparison to Maidan 1.0 and Maidan 2.0, and lacks some of the essential attributes of an “online revolution.” For example, the Euromaidan was supported by practically all central TV channels, whereas now Ukrainian TV is almost exclusively controlled by the regime.

The main difference between the ongoing protests and the previous "revolution", however, is to be found in another aspect. Four years ago, crowds of people took to the streets for the sake of some kind of alternative, no matter how dubious or stupid. Today, it is difficult to see any alternative to the current government in the actions of the new revolutionaries. All the above-mentioned parties currently have or have had parliamentary seats, such as Svoboda, and all of these forces and their leaders are the same ones who waged the “Revolution of Dignity” four years ago. If they didn’t gain anything then, then they can only blame themselves, and not only President Poroshenko.

What alternative do the current protesters besieging parliament propose? Eurointegration? Since January 2016, Ukraine has “enjoyed” the Free Trade Zone Agreement with the European Union, yet still the EU shows no signs of letting Ukraine further in the door. Eurointegration for “European Ukraine” stops here. So what about “out with the gang?” In terms of corruption, contemporary Ukraine far surpasses the pre-revolution level. Maybe further Nazification? The acting government is already moving evermore forward with Nazifying language and education laws. Thus, the new revolutionaries have nothing fundamentally new to demand that hasn’t been incorporated into the slogans and program of the regime.

What’s more, the current government, which comprises none other than the people and forces who seized power in the coup d’etat “revolution” four years ago, has learned the mistakes of its predecessor. In an interview with Radio Sputnik yesterday, I pointed out how Poroshenko is afraid of dispersing protests, and is instead sending “aunts,” or “civil activities” hired by the authorities into their midst. But best of all, Poroshenko is trying to “ignore” the protests altogether. It indeed looks like the regime is seeking to take this course. Today, for instance, General Prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko stated that there will be no demolition of any tent towns erected by protesters.

If all goals are contained in the old slogans and all the moves by the revolutionaries are anticipated by the government in advance, then why organize a new revolution? I think that we have already seen something similar before. Two parliamentary parties that form the core of the new, rather large opposition have besieged the Rada. To speak like Vladimir Putin, they are “not befriending Saakashvili,” but merely standing against Poroshenko. This action is thus nothing more than a test of strength, a training and breeding ground for a new opposition bloc including everyone from extreme Nazis to Lvov businessmen claiming respectability.

Just as in the 1920’s when a 100,000-strong Reichswehr was created which instantly allowed for the German army to be expanded, so today is a new opposition being founded to be capable of bringing out millions into the streets. This new opposition has two powerful human resources: (1) city and village dwellers discontent with high and still rising utility costs, and (2) ATO veterans. There can be no doubts that the new revolutionaries are working on both fronts. Since October 1st, gas prices have risen 9%, utility fees are sharply increasing, and the number of unhappy and discontent civilians is only growing. This is just what Saakashvili and co. need and want.

So, will there be a Maidan 3.0? This question is not one of possibility, but of time. Of course, a Maidan is possible if Washington wants to give the green light to replace one of their "bastard sons" with another, i.e. replace the Poroshenko regime with Saakashvili’s collective. But today I see no urgent need for such. Nevertheless, the mechanism is being created, a social basis for revolution exists, and the oligarch-president Poroshenko is keeping his balance. Thus, only the future will show in which direction the pendulum will swing.
 
Ukrainian officials now don't try and conceal that NATO are operating in Ukraine
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/ukrainian-officials-now-dont-try-and.html

Top Ukrainian military officials did not try to conceal the fact that the West is training their troops in order to have an army ready to attack Russia.

Every three months 700 Ukrainian servicemen undergo the training.

450 military instructors from NATO countries are working in Ukraine, according to the 1st deputy of the Minister of Defense Ivan Rusnak.

He presented the figures at a committee hearing on Ukraine's approximation to NATO standards, reports Ukraiinski novyny resource.

"At present 450 instructors from seven countries of the Alliance are in Ukraine.

They work with our servicemen on our proving grounds and in training centers", Rusnak said.

As korrespondent.net reported, nine Ukrainian battalions are already compatible with NATO troops. This information was publicized by the Head of the General Staff Viktor Muzhenko.


Nazi Kiev have deployed three sniper teams armed with US rifles to Donetsk area

Very Interesting, Three Fascist Ukraine Sniper Teams Armed With U.S. Barrett Rifles Have Joined The Notorious Nazi Group Right Sector (Pravyi Sector) And Spotted In The Vicinity Of Maryinka, West Of Donetsk
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/very-interesting-three-fascist-ukraine-sniper-teams-armed-us-barrett-rifles-have-joined

The Ukraine Junta Army command has deployed three sniper teams armed with US caliber rifles to Donetsk area, according DPR Operations Command Col. Eduard Basurin.

“Activation of sniper teams is reported all along the contact line. According to information available to us, three sniper teams have arrived to the positions of Pravyi Sector group (Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian nationalist political and paramilitary group of neofascist ideology) in the vicinity of Maryinka (west of Donetsk); snipers are armed with Barrett rifles of 12.7mm caliber,” Basurin said.

In addition, 20 Ukrainian tanks and artillery pieces have been spotted by DPR intelligence in the vicinity of the contact line.


Alyona Zaitseva, the 20-year-old daughter of the Ukrainian multi-millionaire energy tycoon Vasily Zaitsev, has killed at least six people, schoolgirl including, after jumping a red light at a pedestrian crossing.

Ukraine: Oligarch's daughter kills six people, schoolgirl including, after "jumping a red light"
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/ukraine-oligarchs-daughter-kills-six.html

According to police, whole carnage was in the streets of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv when her speeding Lexus struck a VW Touareg on Wednesday.

The Lexus completely overturned and landed on its wheels before mowing down people that were waiting on the pavement at a pedestrian crossing.

The dead included a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Several people were also wounded. Among them was a seven months pregnant woman who is said to be in a highly critical condition.

According to one of the eyewitnesses, the whole scene looked like a war zone.

Right after the crash, Zaitseva's armed bodyguards drove up in two jeeps to protect her from the angry crowd, rather than helping the wounded.

Zaitseva, who remained uninjured, was initially detained for three days. If convicted, she might spend up to ten years in prison.


The first hearing on resonant road traffic accident on September 18 on Sumskaya St. That day 5 people perished and six more were taken to the hospital.

Girl from racing in Harkov has been already detained
http://nrt24.ru/en/news/girl-racing-harkov-has-been-already-detained

Anna Zaytsevo of 20 years, student of 3rd course from the faculty of advertisement anв PR caused the accident. Now she does not have the right to go out on bail before the trial.

‘It was pointed out that the girl cried all the time and she said ‘Perished people is the only thing I think now, I have a hope that their families will let my parents to help them’, said the killer of five people.
 
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