Mon Sep 17, 2018 - Russia: Serial Numbers of Missile That Downed MH17 Show It Was Produced in 1986, Owned by Ukraine
Farsnews
Sun Sep 16, 2018 - Flightpath of US High-Altitude Drone Near Crimea Revealed by Tracking Website
Farsnews
A US military high-altitude Global Hawk drone has reportedly been spotted flying an hours-long spy mission over Eastern Ukraine and off the shore of Crimea along with another American surveillance plane.
The RQ-4 Global Hawk cruised over war-torn Eastern Ukraine before coming within 40km of the Crimean coast. PlaneRadar website, which tracks military flights worldwide, reported the mission in a series of tweets on Saturday, RT reported.
It is understood that the unmanned aircraft took off at around 9:00am GMT from a US Navy installation at NATO Base Sigonella in Sicily, Italy.
After traversing skies over the east of Ukraine, the Global Hawk headed for the Black Sea, where it was joined by a P-8 Poseidon spy plane.
Built by Northrop Grumman, the RQ-4 Global Hawk is used to gather high-resolution imagery over target areas. It is said to be able to survey as much as 100,000 square kilometers of terrain a day, which is an area roughly the size of South Korea or Iceland.
The P-8 Poseidon, developed by Boeing, is an anti-submarine warfare plane deployed for shipping interdiction and early warning missions. Its weapons systems include torpedoes, depth charges, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and others munitions.
This is not the first time that US spy drones were detected near the Russian coast. Last year, Russian armed forces reported that US and NATO air patrols have become increasingly common in international airspace near Russia’s territory. In many cases, Russian fighters have been scrambled to intercept suspicious planes.
On certain occasions, this led to dangerous mid-flight encounters. In January of this year, a Russian Su-27 Flanker jet forced an American Lockheed EP-3 surveillance plane to abort its mission over the Black Sea.
While the Pentagon called the Russian pilot’s maneuvers “unsafe”, Moscow hit back, saying there was no emergency situation in the skies.
Sep 16, 2018 - Former Ukrainian Minister: ‘If Russia didn’t have nukes, NATO would have reduced it to dust’
Former Ukrainian Minister: 'If Russia didn't have nukes, NATO would have reduced it to dust' - Fort Russ
The former Ukrainian economy minister said that one could “reduce Russia to dust”. Political scientist Vladimir Kireev has expressed his opinion on why Ukrainian politicians allow themselves to make such aggressive statements.
Former Ukrainian economy minister Viktor Suslov says it is possible to “reduce Russia to dust” if the country does not have nuclear weapons. The politician made this statement in an interview with channel 112 Ukraine when he talked about the Vostok 2018 maneuvers.
According to the former minister, Russia’s military exercises are intended to prevent other countries from having military conflicts with it.
“If Russia were not a nuclear power, everything would have been solved in a much simpler way: NATO would have reduced Russia to dust a long time ago, so they demonstrate their muscles to show that this would hardly stand, at least, today,” Suslov said.
Without pointing to the counter-factual and a-historic nature of such a claim, this expert had the following to say. Political scientist Vladimir Kireev highlighted his unwarranted aggression.
“I would like to draw attention to the aggressive nature of the statements of Ukrainian politicians, because on the part of Russia, the representatives of the country, there are no harsh and aggressive statements regarding Ukraine. At the level of the State administration system of Ukraine there is the desire to express this aggressiveness,” opines the analyst.
For him, it is incorrect to compare the relatively modest military capabilities of Ukraine with those of Russia, which are not equivalent: both the experience of the Russian military, the responsibility of the leaders are greater, and the potential of the Russian military industry cannot be compared with the Ukrainian.
“This is a question that arises: to what extent are such statements independent? Because they appear in the aftermath of statements by Western leaders, including those who want to attack Syria. This reveals that Ukrainian politicians do not act independently, and their words are part of the Western strategy to trigger a conflict with Russia,” said Vladimir Kireev.
Vostok 2018 maneuvers are taking place between 11 and 17 September in the Russian Far East region and adjacent Pacific waters. In addition to Russia’s land, sea and air forces, troops from China and Mongolia also participated in one of the exercises, giving an international character to the maneuvers.
Sep 16, 2018 - DELUSIONS: Poroshenko thinks ineffective year-old ‘association agreement’ with EU is ‘victory over Moscow’
https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/09/d...ion-agreement-with-eu-is-victory-over-Moscow/
The Ukrainian president, Pyort Poroshenko, described the year old agreement of association between Ukraine and the European Union as a “victory over Russia”. The Ukrainian leader made such a statement during the forum of the international organization Yalta European Strategy that took place in Kiev.
These remarks come as Poroshenko looks for reasons that voters should re-elect him in upcoming elections.
“I can see that we have defeated Russia, and for more than a year the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union has entered into force. The EU’s share of exports ranges from 42 to 43%, rapidly approaching 50% which considerably offsets the losses caused by Russia,” Poroshenko wrote on his Twitter account.
Over the past few years Kiev has been pursuing a policy of replacing imports of Russian-made products. Meanwhile, data from the Russian Federal Customs Service previously indicated that the volume of trade between Russia and Ukraine in the period between January and May 2018 was $5.838 billion, with an increase of 28.7% over the previous year. In addition, according to the State Statistics Office of Ukraine, Russia is the largest investor in the Ukrainian economy, having contributed with 36% of all foreign investment in Ukraine.
It is worth noting that not all Ukrainian politicians share Pyotr Poroshenko’s enthusiasm for association with the EU. For example, Supreme Rada deputy Vadim Rabinovich said that the free economic zone with Europe only brought losses to the Ukrainian economy, while the suspension of economic relations with Russia, with which trade “grows every month,” may result to Ukraine in catastrophic consequences.
After anti-Russia coup forces came into power in Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Kiev rapidly deteriorated. This provided the opportunity for Crimea to reunite with Russia as the people of the peninsula sought to escape the aggressive anti-Russian stance adopted by the coup forces in Russian-majority regions of Ukraine. This in turn also saw conflict emerge between the Ukrainian military and the Russian minority of Lugansk and Donetsk.
The reality is that Merkel has made it clear that there are no plans for Ukraine to ever be a member of the EU. The association agreement gives everything the EU needs from Ukraine’s failed economy, and requires none of the obligations in return. This was the result of the 2014 coup, and since then, Ukraine’s economy has gone into a free-fall, with millions of Ukrainians having permanently left the country over the course of the past four years, and this figure does not include millions who left directly as a product of the armed conflict which was triggered as a result of the US backed/forced color revolution.