Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia
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angelburst29
The Living Force
Hackers used malware to confuse utility in Ukraine outage - report
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-cybersecurity-attack-idUSKCN0UO00W20160110
Hackers likely caused a Dec. 23 electricity outage in Ukraine by remotely switching breakers to cut power, after installing malware to prevent technicians from detecting the attack, according to a report analyzing how the incident unfolded.
The report from Washington-based SANS ICS was released late on Saturday, providing the first detailed analysis of what caused a six-hour outage for some 80,000 customers of Western Ukraine's Prykarpattyaoblenergo utility.
SANS ICS, which advises infrastructure operators on combating cyber attacks, also said the attackers crippled the utility's customer-service center by flooding it with phone calls to prevent customers from alerting the utility that power was down.
"This was a multi-pronged attack against multiple facilities. It was highly coordinated with very professional logistics," said Robert Lee, a former U.S. Air Force cyber warfare operations officer who helped compile the report for SANS ICS. "They sort of blinded them in every way possible."
Experts widely describe the incident as the first known power outage caused by a cyber attack. Ukraine's SBU state security service blamed Russia, and U.S. cyber firm iSight Partners identified the perpetrator as a Russian hacking group known as "Sandworm."
Ukraine's energy ministry has said it will hold off on discussing the matter until after Jan. 18, following completion of a formal probe into the matter.
The utility's operators were able to quickly recover by switching to manual operations, essentially disconnecting infected workstations and servers from the grid, according to the report.
SANS ICS said on its blog it had "high confidence" in its findings, which were based on discussions and analysis from "multiple international community members and companies". (ics.sans.org/blog) The report's authors declined to identify those sources.
U.S. critical infrastructure security expert Joe Weiss said he believed the report's findings would be validated. "They did a phenomenal job," he said.
There is strong interest in the outage because of concerns that similar techniques could be used to launch more attacks on power operators around the globe.
"What is now true is that a coordinated cyber attack consisting of multiple elements is one of the expected hazards (electric utilities) may face," SANS ICS Director Michael Assante said in a blog.
We need to learn and prepare ourselves to detect, respond, and restore from such events in the future," said Assante, former chief security officer of the quasi-governmental North American Electric Reliability Corp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-cybersecurity-attack-idUSKCN0UO00W20160110
Hackers likely caused a Dec. 23 electricity outage in Ukraine by remotely switching breakers to cut power, after installing malware to prevent technicians from detecting the attack, according to a report analyzing how the incident unfolded.
The report from Washington-based SANS ICS was released late on Saturday, providing the first detailed analysis of what caused a six-hour outage for some 80,000 customers of Western Ukraine's Prykarpattyaoblenergo utility.
SANS ICS, which advises infrastructure operators on combating cyber attacks, also said the attackers crippled the utility's customer-service center by flooding it with phone calls to prevent customers from alerting the utility that power was down.
"This was a multi-pronged attack against multiple facilities. It was highly coordinated with very professional logistics," said Robert Lee, a former U.S. Air Force cyber warfare operations officer who helped compile the report for SANS ICS. "They sort of blinded them in every way possible."
Experts widely describe the incident as the first known power outage caused by a cyber attack. Ukraine's SBU state security service blamed Russia, and U.S. cyber firm iSight Partners identified the perpetrator as a Russian hacking group known as "Sandworm."
Ukraine's energy ministry has said it will hold off on discussing the matter until after Jan. 18, following completion of a formal probe into the matter.
The utility's operators were able to quickly recover by switching to manual operations, essentially disconnecting infected workstations and servers from the grid, according to the report.
SANS ICS said on its blog it had "high confidence" in its findings, which were based on discussions and analysis from "multiple international community members and companies". (ics.sans.org/blog) The report's authors declined to identify those sources.
U.S. critical infrastructure security expert Joe Weiss said he believed the report's findings would be validated. "They did a phenomenal job," he said.
There is strong interest in the outage because of concerns that similar techniques could be used to launch more attacks on power operators around the globe.
"What is now true is that a coordinated cyber attack consisting of multiple elements is one of the expected hazards (electric utilities) may face," SANS ICS Director Michael Assante said in a blog.
We need to learn and prepare ourselves to detect, respond, and restore from such events in the future," said Assante, former chief security officer of the quasi-governmental North American Electric Reliability Corp.
French Delegation Visits East Ukraine, Talks About Horrors of War
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160113/1033082912/french-delegation-donbass-war.html
Ukrainian, German and French presidents discuss implementation of Minsk agreements
http://tass.ru/en/world/849424
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160113/1033082912/french-delegation-donbass-war.html
Ukrainian, German and French presidents discuss implementation of Minsk agreements
http://tass.ru/en/world/849424
angelburst29
The Living Force
An article on the Fort Russ website is claiming that parts of Ukraine are in the mists of a full blown Flu epidemic .
Flu Epidemic in Ukraine: A U.S Bioweapon of War
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2016/01/flu-epidemic-in-ukraine-us-bioweapon-of.html
15th January, 2016
[...] And here on the Internet appeared the information about the impending flu epidemic already in South Korea, and the Ukraine:
"Over three weeks in Odessa, 15 people died of flu and its consequences, in Vinnytsia region — 7, in the occupied Kramatorsk — 17. Kiev confirmed only two deaths from flu, but the situation in the capital is close to peak. The official number of cases in Ukraine in just one day, January 11, reached five thousand. Doctors say that the challenges have grown 2-3 fold. All the same symptoms: very high fever (above 39 degrees) and cough. Authorities say quarantine in schools and kindergartens can be setup in the near future".
Disappointing statistics were published and the Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Health Irina Sysoenko: "Today, the flu affected 5.7 per cent of the total population. Of these, 70 percent are children, pregnant women. The greatest number of cases are in Vinnytsia, Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Kyiv region. In comparison with last year the number of fatalities increased by 10 percent. In Odessa 28 patients died, in Vinnytsia – 25". The MP advised citizens not to self-medicate and named the reasons for the increased number of deaths: "Low level influenza vaccination, self-medicated people, as well as lack of primary health care, including the insufficient number of medicinal products at medical institutions".
"We haven't reached the epidemiological threshold. This is the usual peak for influenza season," – Ukrainian-Georgian Minister Kvitashvili said on January 12th. This reassurance does not prevent a comparison with the Ukrainian population of Poland during the same epidemiological period from October to early January when just five people died from the flu, the same as in Kyiv.
In Kiev from the 16th January, there will be a quarantine in educational institutions and health care, as well as restrictions on holding public events.
Vinnytsia, Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Kyiv region... In Russia the flu this year didn't come from the East and from the South-West, Ukraine...
In the summer of 2015 our activists sounded the alarm about a strange laboratory located in many cities of Ukraine, published on American money, and Americans, as you know, ain't no charity. Then what is being develops in these labs?
The alarm was caused by community members on the information about the level of data security labs have been assigned a level three (of the four, the fourth - the maximum). This suggests that these laboratories can produce bioweapons and their level of safety is equated to military installations.
For example, in Kharkov, just 800 metres from residential areas of the town of Merefa and 25 km from the Kharkov, despite the lack of permits, the American company Black & Veatch, which is among the contractors of the U.S. Department of Defense, undertook the construction of a biological laboratory that has the potential to develop biological weapons. Officially this is called "Central reference laboratory", according to information from local residents, Ukrainians do not work in the laboratory as overseas experts are imported. Also there are reports that if the laboratory were to open a "Depository" for storage of hazardous biological materials, including, for example, pathogenic strains of plague, anthrax and other diseases, they are of interest not only to biologists, but also the military.
Today this information is particularly disturbing. Not to mention a strange epidemic in Ukraine, which began with the coming to power "orange". Recall that in 2009, during the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a fellow member of A. Turchynov, the country was raised the hype around the flu, which was named "pork". And it is against public in Ukraine under President Viktor Yushchenko since 2005, in coordination with the US defense Department biological laboratories
Why the biological laboratory was created in Ukraine becomes clear only now, in light of the information that the United States is going to have a biological weapons attack in Syria. So, in this article the IEE expert Henry Kamens notes that American strategists have found a way out of the Syrian conflict, delegating their decision to the Turkish authorities, by organizing a "full-scale biological attack." According to the author, "The anthrax spores, which will presumably be used to attack, will be delivered to Syria from Georgia, where there are a large number of American laboratories conducting experiments not only on dangerous viruses, but also over the Georgian population".
But now the same lab is working in the territory of Ukraine, and it is a more secure foothold not only for the development of biological weapons, but also to conduct experiments on human beings. In the context of the civil war and general turmoil that has engulfed the country, as in troubled waters, it is very convenient to catch fish.
So, the Kharkov laboratory in Merefa is not the first and not the only but the biggest. Thus, during the fierce summer scandal of 2015 of the biological laboratory located in Kherson, it became known that the lab was built within the framework of the signed agreement under Yushchenko in 2005. The agreement was between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense on the cooperation in the field of prevention of proliferation of technology, pathogens and expertise that could be utilized in the development of biological weapons. This was reported in the official response of the state sanitary and epidemiological service of Ukraine on 6th November 2015.
Also it should be recalled that in 2010, on the basis of the Odessa anti-plague scientific research Institute named after Mechnikov (in the presence of the then Ambassador in Ukraine John Tefft) a similar biological center was opened, licensed for work with strains that are used in the creation of biological weapons.
Also parts of this project were built from scratch in the laboratories in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Uzhgorod, Kherson.
So what is behind Ukraine's looming epidemic of flu?
Is it not a recurring epidemic of the"swine flu" that broke out in 2009. As was so deftly described in the prophecy of A. Turchinov about the end of the world, is it a new round of tensions in the Ukrainian society by the method of "controlled chaos" with a new kind of biological weapons?
Meanwhile the statistics of the disease of influenza in Ukraine are underestimated tenfold to conceal the true state of affairs from the public, instead of implementing preventive measures.
Public shouldn’t panic over swine flu outbreak in Ukraine, says health minister
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/public-shouldnt-panic-over-swine-flu-outbreak-in-ukraine-says-health-minister-405788.html
Jan. 13, 2016 - The public shouldn’t panic over the recent outbreak of the deadly H1N1 swine flu outbreak in Ukraine, but take more precautions to protect their health, Ukrainian Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili said at a cabinet meeting on Jan. 13.
Earlier Ukrainian media reported that an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus has killed more than 50 people in towns and cities across Ukraine.
“We haven’t exceeded the epidemic threshold, and every year January is the peak of the flu season,” Kvitashvili told ministers during the televised cabinet session.
He said most of those who had died had sought treatment too late - six or seven days after becoming ill. He said people suffering from a high temperature should immediately consult a doctor, and not attempt to self-medicate, as some common over-the-counter flu treatments would not be effective after 48 hours.
Writing on her page on Facebook on Jan. 12, Samopomich lawmaker Irina Sysoyenko, the deputy chairman of the health committee of the country’s parliament, said the areas worst affected by the flu included Kyiv city and oblast, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, and Odesa.
“As of today, 5.7 percent of the population is ill with the flu,” Sysoyenko wrote. “Of these, 70 percent are children and pregnant women.
“Compared to last year, the number of deaths (from flu) has increased by 10%. In Odesa, 28 people have died from flu, and 25 (have died) in Vinnytsya.”
She said Ukraine’s Health Ministry had determined that most of the deaths had occurred because people ill with the flu – mainly the dangerous H1N1 strain – had delayed seeking treatment, and that urgent work was required to educate the population on how to respond to the outbreak. Five of those who had died in Vinnytsya had been infected with a less dangerous Influenza B virus strain, she said, adding that the Health Ministry was investigating why these deaths had occurred.
Russian Health Ministry announces about flu epidemic
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/832441/
Flu Epidemic in Ukraine: A U.S Bioweapon of War
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2016/01/flu-epidemic-in-ukraine-us-bioweapon-of.html
15th January, 2016
[...] And here on the Internet appeared the information about the impending flu epidemic already in South Korea, and the Ukraine:
"Over three weeks in Odessa, 15 people died of flu and its consequences, in Vinnytsia region — 7, in the occupied Kramatorsk — 17. Kiev confirmed only two deaths from flu, but the situation in the capital is close to peak. The official number of cases in Ukraine in just one day, January 11, reached five thousand. Doctors say that the challenges have grown 2-3 fold. All the same symptoms: very high fever (above 39 degrees) and cough. Authorities say quarantine in schools and kindergartens can be setup in the near future".
Disappointing statistics were published and the Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Health Irina Sysoenko: "Today, the flu affected 5.7 per cent of the total population. Of these, 70 percent are children, pregnant women. The greatest number of cases are in Vinnytsia, Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Kyiv region. In comparison with last year the number of fatalities increased by 10 percent. In Odessa 28 patients died, in Vinnytsia – 25". The MP advised citizens not to self-medicate and named the reasons for the increased number of deaths: "Low level influenza vaccination, self-medicated people, as well as lack of primary health care, including the insufficient number of medicinal products at medical institutions".
"We haven't reached the epidemiological threshold. This is the usual peak for influenza season," – Ukrainian-Georgian Minister Kvitashvili said on January 12th. This reassurance does not prevent a comparison with the Ukrainian population of Poland during the same epidemiological period from October to early January when just five people died from the flu, the same as in Kyiv.
In Kiev from the 16th January, there will be a quarantine in educational institutions and health care, as well as restrictions on holding public events.
Vinnytsia, Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Kyiv region... In Russia the flu this year didn't come from the East and from the South-West, Ukraine...
In the summer of 2015 our activists sounded the alarm about a strange laboratory located in many cities of Ukraine, published on American money, and Americans, as you know, ain't no charity. Then what is being develops in these labs?
The alarm was caused by community members on the information about the level of data security labs have been assigned a level three (of the four, the fourth - the maximum). This suggests that these laboratories can produce bioweapons and their level of safety is equated to military installations.
For example, in Kharkov, just 800 metres from residential areas of the town of Merefa and 25 km from the Kharkov, despite the lack of permits, the American company Black & Veatch, which is among the contractors of the U.S. Department of Defense, undertook the construction of a biological laboratory that has the potential to develop biological weapons. Officially this is called "Central reference laboratory", according to information from local residents, Ukrainians do not work in the laboratory as overseas experts are imported. Also there are reports that if the laboratory were to open a "Depository" for storage of hazardous biological materials, including, for example, pathogenic strains of plague, anthrax and other diseases, they are of interest not only to biologists, but also the military.
Today this information is particularly disturbing. Not to mention a strange epidemic in Ukraine, which began with the coming to power "orange". Recall that in 2009, during the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a fellow member of A. Turchynov, the country was raised the hype around the flu, which was named "pork". And it is against public in Ukraine under President Viktor Yushchenko since 2005, in coordination with the US defense Department biological laboratories
Why the biological laboratory was created in Ukraine becomes clear only now, in light of the information that the United States is going to have a biological weapons attack in Syria. So, in this article the IEE expert Henry Kamens notes that American strategists have found a way out of the Syrian conflict, delegating their decision to the Turkish authorities, by organizing a "full-scale biological attack." According to the author, "The anthrax spores, which will presumably be used to attack, will be delivered to Syria from Georgia, where there are a large number of American laboratories conducting experiments not only on dangerous viruses, but also over the Georgian population".
But now the same lab is working in the territory of Ukraine, and it is a more secure foothold not only for the development of biological weapons, but also to conduct experiments on human beings. In the context of the civil war and general turmoil that has engulfed the country, as in troubled waters, it is very convenient to catch fish.
So, the Kharkov laboratory in Merefa is not the first and not the only but the biggest. Thus, during the fierce summer scandal of 2015 of the biological laboratory located in Kherson, it became known that the lab was built within the framework of the signed agreement under Yushchenko in 2005. The agreement was between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense on the cooperation in the field of prevention of proliferation of technology, pathogens and expertise that could be utilized in the development of biological weapons. This was reported in the official response of the state sanitary and epidemiological service of Ukraine on 6th November 2015.
Also it should be recalled that in 2010, on the basis of the Odessa anti-plague scientific research Institute named after Mechnikov (in the presence of the then Ambassador in Ukraine John Tefft) a similar biological center was opened, licensed for work with strains that are used in the creation of biological weapons.
Also parts of this project were built from scratch in the laboratories in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Uzhgorod, Kherson.
So what is behind Ukraine's looming epidemic of flu?
Is it not a recurring epidemic of the"swine flu" that broke out in 2009. As was so deftly described in the prophecy of A. Turchinov about the end of the world, is it a new round of tensions in the Ukrainian society by the method of "controlled chaos" with a new kind of biological weapons?
Meanwhile the statistics of the disease of influenza in Ukraine are underestimated tenfold to conceal the true state of affairs from the public, instead of implementing preventive measures.
Public shouldn’t panic over swine flu outbreak in Ukraine, says health minister
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/public-shouldnt-panic-over-swine-flu-outbreak-in-ukraine-says-health-minister-405788.html
Jan. 13, 2016 - The public shouldn’t panic over the recent outbreak of the deadly H1N1 swine flu outbreak in Ukraine, but take more precautions to protect their health, Ukrainian Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili said at a cabinet meeting on Jan. 13.
Earlier Ukrainian media reported that an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus has killed more than 50 people in towns and cities across Ukraine.
“We haven’t exceeded the epidemic threshold, and every year January is the peak of the flu season,” Kvitashvili told ministers during the televised cabinet session.
He said most of those who had died had sought treatment too late - six or seven days after becoming ill. He said people suffering from a high temperature should immediately consult a doctor, and not attempt to self-medicate, as some common over-the-counter flu treatments would not be effective after 48 hours.
Writing on her page on Facebook on Jan. 12, Samopomich lawmaker Irina Sysoyenko, the deputy chairman of the health committee of the country’s parliament, said the areas worst affected by the flu included Kyiv city and oblast, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, and Odesa.
“As of today, 5.7 percent of the population is ill with the flu,” Sysoyenko wrote. “Of these, 70 percent are children and pregnant women.
“Compared to last year, the number of deaths (from flu) has increased by 10%. In Odesa, 28 people have died from flu, and 25 (have died) in Vinnytsya.”
She said Ukraine’s Health Ministry had determined that most of the deaths had occurred because people ill with the flu – mainly the dangerous H1N1 strain – had delayed seeking treatment, and that urgent work was required to educate the population on how to respond to the outbreak. Five of those who had died in Vinnytsya had been infected with a less dangerous Influenza B virus strain, she said, adding that the Health Ministry was investigating why these deaths had occurred.
Russian Health Ministry announces about flu epidemic
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/832441/
Odessa Gov. Saakashvili Publishes Positions of Kiev Forces in Donbass
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160119/1033350433/ukraine-odessa-region-forces-donbass.html
Ukrainian military said about 47 shelling of its positions in the Donbas
http://www.interfax.ru/world/490238
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160119/1033350433/ukraine-odessa-region-forces-donbass.html
Ukrainian military said about 47 shelling of its positions in the Donbas
http://www.interfax.ru/world/490238
angelburst29
The Living Force
angelburst29 said:
Swine flu virus spreads across Russia
http://tass.ru/en/society/850555
The weekly flu and acute respiratory infection epidemics threshold has been exceeded in 13 Russia regions.
MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Epidemics of acute respiratory infections and flu is spreading across Russia, with the bulk of cases being caused by A(H1N1) strain, popularly known as swine flu and fraught with serious complications, the chief of Russian consumer rights watchdog said on Tuesday.
"In early December, A(H1N1) strains accounted for four percent of the overall flu cases. The figure grew to seven percent after December 15 and to 24% by January 4. As of today, the occurrence of swine flu strains is 42%," Anna Popova, who is Russia’s chief sanitary doctor, told a news conference. According to Rospotrebnadzor statistics, the weekly flu and acute respiratory infection epidemics threshold has been exceeded in 13 Russia regions. "Threshold excess figure vary in a range from 11 to 135% It happens every year, so there is nothing untypical about it," she noted. The epidemics threshold among children under two has been exceeded in 17 Russian regions, among pre-schoolers - in 12 region, among schoolchildren - in eight regions, and among adults - in seven regions. Earlier, Popova told TASS this flu virus is responsible for swift development of serious complications. She said that certain groups of population were at particular high risk for life-threatening problems from swine flu, such as children under five, people older than 65, pregnant women, people having diabetes or other chronic diseases.
The flu epidemic is expected to peak in late January and February, Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.
The Nation
U.S. Gives Green Light to Arming and Training Nazis in Ukraine
http://www.thenation.com/article/congress-has-removed-a-ban-on-funding-neo-nazis-from-its-year-end-spending-bill/
January 14, 2016
Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.
n mid-December 2015, Congress passed a 2,000-plus-page omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2016. Both parties were quick to declare victory after the passage of the $1.8 trillion package. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters “we feel good about the outcome, primarily because we got a compromise budget agreement that fought off a wide variety of ideological riders.” The office of House Speaker Paul J. Ryan touted the bill’s “64 billion for overseas contingency operations” for, among other things, assisting ”European countries facing Russian aggression.”
It would be safe to assume that one of the European countries which would stand to benefit from the omnibus measure—designed, in part, to combat “Russian aggression”—would be Ukraine, which has already, according to the White House, received $2 billion in loan guarantees and nearly $760 million in “security, programmatic, and technical assistance” since February 2014.
Yet some have expressed concern that some of this aid has made its way into the hands of neo-Nazi groups, such as the Azov Battalion. Last summer the Daily Beast published an interview by the journalists Will Cathcart and Joseph Epstein in which a member of the Azov battalion spoke about “his battalion’s experience with U.S. trainers and U.S. volunteers quite fondly, even mentioning U.S. volunteers engineers and medics that are still currently assisting them.”
And so, in July of last year, Congressmen John Conyers of Michigan and Ted Yoho of Florida drew up an amendment to the House Defense Appropriations bill (HR 2685) that “limits arms, training, and other assistance to the neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the Azov Battalion.” It passed by a unanimous vote in the House.
And yet by the time November came around and the conference debate over the year-end appropriations bill was underway, the Conyers-Yoho measure appeared to be in jeopardy. And indeed it was. An official familiar with the debate told The Nation that the House Defense Appropriations Committee came under pressure from the Pentagon to remove the Conyers-Yoho amendment from the text of the bill.
The Pentagon’s objection to the Conyers-Yoho amendment rests on the claim that it is redundant because similar legislation—known as the Leahy law—already exists that would prevent the funding of Azov. This, as it turns out, is untrue. The Leahy law covers only those groups for which the “Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” Yet the State Department has never claimed to have such information about Azov, so funding to the group cannot be blocked by the Leahy law. The congressional source I spoke to pointed out that “even if Azov is already covered by Leahy, then no there was no need to strip it out of final bill.” Indeed, the Leahy law cannot block funding to groups, no matter how noxious their ideology, in the absence of “credible information” that they have committed human-rights violations. The Conyers-Yoho amendment was designed to remedy that shortcoming.
Considering the fact that the US Army has been training Ukrainian armed forces and national guard troops, the Conyers-Yoho amendment made a great deal of sense; blocking the avowedly neo-Nazi Azov battalion from receiving US assistance would further what President Obama often refers to as “our interests and values.”
That neo-Nazis (or neo-fascists, if you prefer) are a distinctly minority taste in Western Ukraine, is clear and is not in dispute. Of late, however, there have been troubling signs that they may become a force to be reckoned with. According to The Jerusalem Post, in Ukrainian municipal elections held last October, the neo-Nazi Svoboda party won 10 percent of the vote in Kiev and placed second in Lviv. The Svoboda party’s candidate actually won the mayoral election in the city of Konotop. Meanwhile, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in November that Azov operates a boot camp that exposes children to “the regiment’s far right-wing ideology.”
Whether White House spokesman Josh Earnest was referring, in part, to the Conyers-Yoho amendment as one of those “ideological riders” the administration fought to defeat is unclear. What is clear is that by stripping out the anti-neo-Nazi provision, Congress and the administration have paved the way for US funding to end up in the hands of the most noxious elements circulating within Ukraine today.
Stephen Cohen: Ukraine Situation More Dangerous than Middle East!
Published on Sep 2, 2015
https://youtu.be/RbvswyISpQ0
The Distortions of Truth
Viewer Discretion Advised
Great Documentary - War in Donbass: Circles of hell (2nd part)
Published on Jan 19, 2016
https://youtu.be/UZNIXkhaj9o
U.S. Gives Green Light to Arming and Training Nazis in Ukraine
http://www.thenation.com/article/congress-has-removed-a-ban-on-funding-neo-nazis-from-its-year-end-spending-bill/
January 14, 2016
Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.
n mid-December 2015, Congress passed a 2,000-plus-page omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2016. Both parties were quick to declare victory after the passage of the $1.8 trillion package. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters “we feel good about the outcome, primarily because we got a compromise budget agreement that fought off a wide variety of ideological riders.” The office of House Speaker Paul J. Ryan touted the bill’s “64 billion for overseas contingency operations” for, among other things, assisting ”European countries facing Russian aggression.”
It would be safe to assume that one of the European countries which would stand to benefit from the omnibus measure—designed, in part, to combat “Russian aggression”—would be Ukraine, which has already, according to the White House, received $2 billion in loan guarantees and nearly $760 million in “security, programmatic, and technical assistance” since February 2014.
Yet some have expressed concern that some of this aid has made its way into the hands of neo-Nazi groups, such as the Azov Battalion. Last summer the Daily Beast published an interview by the journalists Will Cathcart and Joseph Epstein in which a member of the Azov battalion spoke about “his battalion’s experience with U.S. trainers and U.S. volunteers quite fondly, even mentioning U.S. volunteers engineers and medics that are still currently assisting them.”
And so, in July of last year, Congressmen John Conyers of Michigan and Ted Yoho of Florida drew up an amendment to the House Defense Appropriations bill (HR 2685) that “limits arms, training, and other assistance to the neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the Azov Battalion.” It passed by a unanimous vote in the House.
And yet by the time November came around and the conference debate over the year-end appropriations bill was underway, the Conyers-Yoho measure appeared to be in jeopardy. And indeed it was. An official familiar with the debate told The Nation that the House Defense Appropriations Committee came under pressure from the Pentagon to remove the Conyers-Yoho amendment from the text of the bill.
The Pentagon’s objection to the Conyers-Yoho amendment rests on the claim that it is redundant because similar legislation—known as the Leahy law—already exists that would prevent the funding of Azov. This, as it turns out, is untrue. The Leahy law covers only those groups for which the “Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” Yet the State Department has never claimed to have such information about Azov, so funding to the group cannot be blocked by the Leahy law. The congressional source I spoke to pointed out that “even if Azov is already covered by Leahy, then no there was no need to strip it out of final bill.” Indeed, the Leahy law cannot block funding to groups, no matter how noxious their ideology, in the absence of “credible information” that they have committed human-rights violations. The Conyers-Yoho amendment was designed to remedy that shortcoming.
Considering the fact that the US Army has been training Ukrainian armed forces and national guard troops, the Conyers-Yoho amendment made a great deal of sense; blocking the avowedly neo-Nazi Azov battalion from receiving US assistance would further what President Obama often refers to as “our interests and values.”
That neo-Nazis (or neo-fascists, if you prefer) are a distinctly minority taste in Western Ukraine, is clear and is not in dispute. Of late, however, there have been troubling signs that they may become a force to be reckoned with. According to The Jerusalem Post, in Ukrainian municipal elections held last October, the neo-Nazi Svoboda party won 10 percent of the vote in Kiev and placed second in Lviv. The Svoboda party’s candidate actually won the mayoral election in the city of Konotop. Meanwhile, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in November that Azov operates a boot camp that exposes children to “the regiment’s far right-wing ideology.”
Whether White House spokesman Josh Earnest was referring, in part, to the Conyers-Yoho amendment as one of those “ideological riders” the administration fought to defeat is unclear. What is clear is that by stripping out the anti-neo-Nazi provision, Congress and the administration have paved the way for US funding to end up in the hands of the most noxious elements circulating within Ukraine today.
Stephen Cohen: Ukraine Situation More Dangerous than Middle East!
Published on Sep 2, 2015
https://youtu.be/RbvswyISpQ0
The Distortions of Truth
Senators Ted Cruz, Jack Reed on Ukraine Crisis
Published on Apr 30, 2014
https://youtu.be/t90MxSgIbfk
Joe Biden english speech in Ukraine's parliament in Kiev
Published on Dec 8, 2015
https://youtu.be/_x9mT9jfzvw
Viewer Discretion Advised
Great Documentary - War in Donbass: Circles of hell (2nd part)
Published on Jan 19, 2016
https://youtu.be/UZNIXkhaj9o
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