Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia

[thorbiorn]

On Sibel Edmonds' site _http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/ I found a link to a talk by Rick Rozoff April 12:

Labor Beat: NATO, Ukraine and U.S. Imperialism _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M9Fx_vep54&feature=youtu.be
In 13 minutes he outlines the situation with NATO in very clear terms. NATO has been very focussed on encircling Russia.

Rick Rozoff has also done an audio interview with Voice of Russia:
NATO Includes All Former Fascist Powers In Europe
_http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/audio-interview-nato-includes-all-former-fascist-powers-in-europe/ The title kind of speaks for the subject of how the US/EU could support the right wing in Ukraine.

Then I watched parts of the video on _http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/04/11/bfp-roundtable-video-5-our-takes-on-nato-russia-turkey-the-new-cold-war/ Sometime in this video talk between four journalists, Sibel Edmonds is saying that quite a bit of RU-NATO tension has been motivated by the defense having been told they should expect budget cuts and thus they are looking for reasons to exist. With the new cold war propaganda they can convince the people to pay the bills. I think this could be a useful strategy since there was this article on SOTT: _http://www.sott.net/article/276888-Americans-fed-up-with-governments-wasteful-spending-on-military-jingoism-and-adventurism

 

[Nević Nenad]

There is so called South East European Times (CIA of course :) ) which had story few days ago how broadcasting for Ukrainian minority in Serbia being made (there are couple of thousands of Ukranian minority living in Serbia). It says: "Ukrainian TV show 'tells truth' to Serbian audience". Which of course made real anger in comments and on facebook (at least while they was approving comments :) )

Comments are interesting, in serbian and english, of course in serbian little bit more "descriptive"

_http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/audio_story/2014/04/10/audio_story-06

 

[Siberia]

Maybe it is not related to the "Ukraine explosion; chemical or nuclear", but fwiw (my translation):

Four people killed in gas station explosion near Kiev

RBK 22.04.2014, Kiev 13:36:01

Four people were killed in the gas station explosion at Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, Kiev Region. Six people were taken to hospitals, says RBK-Ukraine quoting press service of the Kiev Regional State Administration.

The station exploded at 8:40 in Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky. One woman is seriously injured and is under surgery now. Over 100 rescuers are working at the site.

The rescuers suggest two versions of possible causes: station design defect or fire safety violation.

The news is only in Russian, I couldn't find it in English yet. Russian sources:
http://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/20140422133601.shtml
http://news.rambler.ru/24697606/ (with a photo)

 

[thorbiorn]

On a youtube channel called Caspian Report _http://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos,

A young Azerbaijani man, Mis Sirvan _https://www.facebook.com/#!/CaspianReport, has published a number of short reports on geopolitics and history. I looked around on his FB, and he claims in the reply to a viewer that he works a few hours a week in his sparetime and that he is not funded.

Whereas his insight into the American emperial powerplay is sometimes lacking, as seen in his report on "Venezuela's protests explained" on _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx6DjsqbFN8, he does nevertheless bring forth many interesting perspectives, perhaps because his position in southern Caucasus gives him a very different lense through which to observe.

The follwing is about Russia and the rationale of its policies

http://<iframe width="640" height="...ge" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

"Will Russia become a superpower? Part 1/2"

Part two can be found here _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMv9EvthOrQ , or maybe it shows up on the tube when you have finished watching the first part. It goes more in detail about the internal dynamics of Russia.

"Understanding the Russian mindset" has some of the same and a few other details _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE6rSljTwdU

Then there is "The Strategic importance of Ukraine": _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6jHhzj08yQ
In this he claims that the main agitator of the EU involvement with Ukraine is Poland and says that the US involvement is minimal. My comment: while evidence confirms Poland has been very involved, it is not true that US has been minimally involved. In fact if one goes back to an earlier video from 2011 "United States and the world after 9/11" _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtM-i_hhNyk he says that the US and Poland will coorperate more in the future and it seems that with Ukraine their interests coincide to a great extent.

Several of his videos have been translated into Russian and German, if you need.

Considering that the videos are done by an Azerbaijani, may I invite you to watch his presentation of his country: _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tHTZIoUuJI I did not know for example that the founder of Zorastrism was from there.

 

[Corvus]

I looked around on his FB, and he claims in the reply to a viewer that he works a few hours a week in his sparetime and that he is not funded

I also say I can fly, do you believe me? From what I saw because I came across his videos before is that he has many videos - almost 100 on his chanel, so he is very talanted to being able to make so many videos with few hours every week plus research included.

Part two can be found here _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMv9EvthOrQ , or maybe it shows up on the tube when you have finished watching the first part. It goes more in detail about the internal dynamics of Russia.

He says Russia is only a regional power and about China he said that it is not even at that level. From what I know having many nukes and large military, population makes you so, at least at regional level. His thinking is more prone to geopolitical thinking of 19th century, this country aligns with that and sourands that other, blocks her, makes her prone to invasion, etc... does not coprehend that things changed, if you are going to do that other big countries would get involved not mentioning it would not be only conventional war but include nukes, one nuke can wipe great deal of whole country so numbers and conventional warfare does not play such a significant role, that is if you assume it would be allowed by higher power. And in the firstplace who says Russia or China want to be superpowers(That is in his definition: controling and subverting other nations like US which he indirectly points out)?

Whereas his insight into the American emperial powerplay is sometimes lacking, as seen in his report on "Venezuela's protests explained" on _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx6DjsqbFN8, he does nevertheless bring forth many interesting perspectives, perhaps because his position in southern Caucasus gives him a very different lense through which to observe.

He seems better said like paid schill, diminishing countries like Russia and China like almost non important world players, giving the notion of all mighty invincible west and US, that wind is not changing curse, trying to give image of his neutrality and objectivity. He says Euro-Asian union is dominated by one country - Russia unlike the EU, that made me laugh. Also he is implying that Russia is becoming "authorative, cracking freedoms", which is ok because it has no other choice. Check this video about Chechens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGIxJl-G9Rg

He somewhat forgot to mention Saudi and US influence. Mentions Russian war crimes but does not mention Chechen war crimes. And his remark that majority of Chechens were sufis before but because injustices in war turned wahabist is joke. But what to expect, he is in the end from Azerbeijan like said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jq0damMgUU

I came across his videos first when founding his history video about islamic conquest of Persia, but it seems videos like that are designed for those naive and who have lack of history knowledge in politics and military. In this video he is biased but it is normal because he is muslim and is in itself laughable for not including some historic contexts while excluding others or mitigating them. I found one video from iranian tv where they read response of their persian king to arab ultimatum to convert to islam, this is only letter version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daDZyBSlicQ

Maybe it could be posted on his fb wall, it was very insightful in that part about their deeds.

 

[Yozilla]

Turchi (acting Ukraine president, otherwise a baptist pastor) restarting anti terrorists campaign after Biden's visit:

_http://news.sky.com/story/1246878/ukraine-to-restart-anti-terrorism-operation

 

[Nević Nenad]

Turchi (acting Ukraine president, otherwise a baptist pastor) restarting anti terrorists campaign after Biden's visit:

_http://news.sky.com/story/1246878/ukraine-to-restart-anti-terrorism-operation

Ukrainian "government" themselves seems not to be so active and violent. They need push here and there from their masters. I think that the card tower will collapse soon. After that the USA are going down, maybe very slow at the first time but more rapidly in time. In fact, the fall is probably already in the move.

Maybe I am wrong but I see it in this way: if something is unnatural and majority of humanity feels it and don't like it, however unconscious that is, the joint energy with the help of the universe will get that in balance. Of course it is very slow process. But consider how much US and the "western powers" reputation declined just since the last summer, Syrian crisis and British MP George Galloway speech in UK parliament. And that was only few months ago, in historical terms, just in a blink of an eye.

 

[Yozilla]

Ukrainian "government" themselves seems not to be so active and violent. They need push here and there from their masters.

Their choice is to play bully role - democracy enforcers ... But few in Ukraine seem to feel them and they suddenly found themselves alone and afraid - so decided to call Berkut back:

_http://rt.com/op-edge/154248-kiev-government-needs-berkut-help/

 

[angelburst29]

Putin to be honored with a special Commemorative Coin.

Russia: Special Putin coins mark Crimea annexation
_http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27117241

The company refers to the new coin as "1kg of nobility"

Commemorative coins bearing an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin are being minted at a Russian factory to mark the Kremlin's takeover of Crimea, it appears.

Putin's face is on one side of the 1kg (2.2lb) coin while the other shows a map of the Crimean Peninsula, Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda reports. Factory director Vladimir Vasyuhin explains that by bringing the Crimean peninsula "back home", Putin had "demonstrated the qualities of a wise strategist and politician". In March, Russia formally took over control of Crimea from Ukraine, despite international sanctions.

The limited edition of 500 silver coins has been called The Gatherer of Russian Lands - a phrase traditionally associated with Ivan III - better known as Ivan the Great - who significantly expanded Russia's territories during his rule. The coins haven't been priced yet - some of them may be sold, although they won't be used as currency - and the factory says it is planning to present some of them to the Russian leadership.

This isn't the first time Putin has been featured on a coin, Russian website Snob.ru says. Ironically, in 2006 Ukraine launched a coin featuring the Russian president, marking 10 years of its national currency, the hryvnia. The coin was encrusted with precious stones and cost $500 (£300).


In other news,
Russian Su -24 scores off against the American "USS Donald Cook"
_http://indian.ruvr.ru/2014_04_21/Russian-Su-24-scores-off-against-the-American-USS-Donald-Cook-5786/

Russian Sukhoi Su -24 with the newest jamming complex paralyzed in the Black Sea the most modern American combat management system "Aegis" installed on the destroyer "USS Donald Cook". Pavel Zolotarev, Deputy Director, Institute of USA and Canada, shares details about this version which is being actively discussed in the Russian media and by bloggers.

US destroyer "Donald Cook" with cruise missiles "Tomahawk" entered the neutral waters of the Black Sea on April 10. The purpose was a demonstration of force and intimidation in connection with the position of Russia in Ukraine and Crimea. The appearance of American warships in these waters is in contradiction of the Montreux Convention about the nature and duration of stay in the Black Sea by the military ships of countries not washed by this sea.

In response, Russia sent an unarmed bomber Su- 24 to fly around the U.S. destroyer. However, experts say that this plane was equipped with the latest Russian electronic warfare complex. According to this version, "Aegis" spotted from afar the approaching aircraft, and sounded alarm. Everything went normally, American radars calculated the speed of the approaching target. And suddenly all the screens went blank. "Aegis" was not working any more, and the rockets could not get target information. Meanwhile, Su-24 flew over the deck of the destroyer, did battle turn and simulated missile attack on the target. Then it turned and repeated the maneuver. And did so 12 times.


After the incident, the foreign media reported that "Donald Cook" was rushed into a port in Romania.

There all the 27 members of the crew filed a letter of resignation. It seems that all 27 people have written that they are not going to risk their lives. This is indirectly confirmed by the Pentagon statement according to which the action demoralized the crew of the American ship.

 

[H-KQGE]

Wow to the "Putin coin" & the irony of the Ukrainian one, & wow to the "Donald Cook affair." Now if only more crews & troops would hand in a resignation letter... do they even allow that?

 

[Siberia]

In response, Russia sent an unarmed bomber Su- 24 to fly around the U.S. destroyer. However, experts say that this plane was equipped with the latest Russian electronic warfare complex. According to this version, "Aegis" spotted from afar the approaching aircraft, and sounded alarm. Everything went normally, American radars calculated the speed of the approaching target. And suddenly all the screens went blank. "Aegis" was not working any more, and the rockets could not get target information. Meanwhile, Su-24 flew over the deck of the destroyer, did battle turn and simulated missile attack on the target. Then it turned and repeated the maneuver. And did so 12 times.

Yes, angelburst29, this news has already been discussed in this thread earlier, thanks. These are our Siberian planes, they are produced and tested here, in Novosibirsk. I often watch them maneuvering, and it is really impressive. You can watch them on YouTube too.

But what also worth mentioning here is the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant. As far as I can see, our plant is about to lose one of its big customers: Ukraine. And this seems worrysome, if you read the articles below.

World Nuclear News, 11 April, 2014

More Westinghouse fuel for Ukraine

Ukraine's national electricity utility Energoatom has extended its nuclear fuel supply contract with Westinghouse through to 2020. The country primarily sources its nuclear fuel from Russia.

[...]

Under a US-Ukrainian initiative to reduce Ukraine's dependency on Russia for fuel, in 2005 six Westinghouse fuel assemblies were placed into the reactor core of unit 3 at the South Ukraine plant, together with Russian fuel, for a period of pilot operation. A reload batch of 42 fuel assemblies was provided by Westinghouse in mid-2009 for a three-year period of commercial operation at three units of the South Ukraine plant with regular monitoring and reporting.

However, these trials were deemed unsuccessful, with Energoatom claiming manufacturing defects in the fuel led to a lengthy unscheduled outage at two of the units, while Westinghouse said that errors had been made during fuel loading.

Read more at: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-More-Westinghouse-fuel-for-Ukraine-1104144.html.

And here is how Russia comments on this new contract (on the same day):

Nuclear disaster and collapse of energy industry in store for Ukraine

Pravda.ru, April 11, 2014

Ukraine may soon experience a nuclear disaster and collapse of the energy industry. All this may happen because of the American fuel that Ukrainian officials intend to use at nuclear power plants, in spite of the fact that nuclear plants in Ukraine were built to operate specifically on Russian energy sources.

Ukrainian corporation Energoatom is ready to sign a contract for the supply of American nuclear fuel - Westinghouse. The contract can be signed already next week. The fuel is planned to be used for three reactors. The contract will be concluded through 2020; the deal is evaluated at about $100 million. It may seem to be a normal procedure, but the history of relations between Westinghouse and Ukrainian energy companies was complicated and dramatic.

Prior to 2011, all nuclear fuel to the country was supplied by Russian company TVEL {our Novosibirsk plant}. Afterwards, the contract to supply fuel for three power-generating units was signed with Westinghouse. A year later, problems began. The material of the housing of the rods, in which uranium fuel tablets were placed, turned out to be of poor quality. When repairing the reactors of the South-Ukrainian NPP, specialists discovered that so-called fuel assemblies lost geometry and began to bend. Experts concluded that the power units could come out of order at any time.

"The Ukrainian NPP reactors are of the Russian (Soviet) project. They were designed for the fuel that Russia makes in the town of Elektrostal. The use of fuel assemblies of the US production does not fit under the Russian project," deputy chairman of the International Union of Veterans of Nuclear Energy and Industry, Yevgeny Akimov said.

It was Russian specialists who had to solve the problem: the reactors were switched back to TVEL's fuel. Ukraine's nuclear control department banned the further exploitation of Westinghouse due to insecurity and violations of technical requirements. The Ukrainian budget lost $175 million, but it was not the money that was at stake.

Nuclear energy provides for a half of all electricity in Ukraine. There are four operating nuclear power plants in the country, with 15 generating units in total. On the number of reactors, the country comes tenth in the world and fifth in Europe. Experts are certain that the use of questionable technologies, especially in a hurry, without thorough legal and technical preparations, may lead to lamentable consequences to Ukraine's neighbors.

"We are positive to any competition, and we have always won competition before. There is another important thing here. The nuclear industry safety has absolute priority. Therefore, a key requirement is to ensure all decisions should be made on the basis of weighted, thought-out and primarily technological conditions. Commercial conditions are secondary. Political aspects should not interfere in this: if a decision is made for political reasons, then it poses a serious threat," said General Director of Russia's State Corporation Rosatom, Sergey Kiriyenko, vesti.ru reports.

Noteworthy, the Czech Republic refused from Westinghouse for safety reasons as well, after unsealed fuel elements were found at NPP Temelin. As for Ukraine, Russian experts are convinced that a special commission of the IAEA should evaluate possible threats before Westinghouse could start shipments.

See at: http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/11-04-2014/127335-ukraine_nuclear_disaster-0/.

I just hope so much that the C's "Ukraine explosion; chemical or nuclear" is NOT related to this, because otherwise this can be very dangerous. :(

This prophecy of theirs is just stuck in my mind, I thought maybe it related to the recent gas explosion near Kiev (of which I mentioned earlier). But when I heard this news on TV yesterday, I realized that the threat can be much more serious.

 

[thorbiorn]

Regarding Siberias post above, which showed some concern for the nuclear safety in Ukraine with American fuel, I wished to find out where the nuclear plants are located. According to _http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-T-Z/Ukraine/ which has a lot of other information on nuclear energy in Ukraine, there are four active nuclear power station as shown in this map:

Explanation of the map: On the map there are five flags, the one in Kiev represents that the main office of Energoatom, the company that runs the plants, the other flags are nuclear power plants. Next to the other four flags there are small circles filled with orange colour or half filled. If they are filled it denotes a large reactor, if half filled it is a smaller reactor. What is missing from the picture is the Tjernobyl plant north of Kiev which is still radioactive, but not operating.
To get an idea of how the reactors are located in relation to the population, the next picture shows the population density in Ukraine which averages around 75 per square kilometer:

This map is not useful to show the size of the city population if it is very dense.

The last picture shows the importance of nuclear energy for electricity production in Ukraine. Almost half of the electricity comes from nuclear power:

It also shows that the consumption dropped sharply after the collapse of the USSR, which reflects the changed economic situation.

By the way in two days, on the 26th of April, it will be the 28th anniversary of the Tjernobyl explosion.

 

[Minas Tirith]

This doesn't look too good :/

CNN trying to explain to its viewers today WHY the US is taking part in this, and I am sure quite a few Americans wonder why the US is fussing around there in person at all:

Some of those countries include the Baltic states and Poland, which, like the United States, are part of NATO. The treaty that defines this alliances states that if any one NATO member "is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked."

As a result, the United States and its NATO allies are publicly stepping up involvement in places like Poland to dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from thinking that advancing into these countries is an option, according to Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Didn't see any troops in the Georgia-Russian crisis.

The U.S. reportedly did consider a military response in August 2008, but ultimately settled for a far more passive role supporting and encouraging the Georgians. “I don't see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation,” then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said late in the fighting. “Is that clear enough?”
The transcript of Gates’ comment notes the Pentagon press corps’ laughter.

So does this look staged now, indeed.

(Haven't read the full thread yet, sorry, if I repeated something )

M.T.

 

[Mike]

Things don't look good right now - moving closer to war of some kind, just from reading the last few posts at http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/ Besides the US and West in general being run by psychopaths, etc and war being profitable I was thinking that there may be a bigger reason the US seems to want confrontation:

The scary thing when you look at the bigger picture is that US and the bankrupt West in general may be mad enough to push for a wider war due to what they possibly face economically and financially. If the West is truly running out of Gold (see link below) that has been swallowed up in recent years by China and others but the process has kept the system in check and kept it from fully collapsing, then they may want a wider war to cover the inevitable big economic problems.

They may be pushing for it! That way they can have an external enemy in Russia, etc to point the finger at for all the problems that were caused and carried out by those in the elite classes and the minion politicians below. If war breaks out, then a clampdown on everything in the US would seem to be the result.

Turk - Western Central Banks To Run Out Of Gold This Year:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/4/23_Turk_-_Western_Central_Banks_To_Run_Out_Of_Gold_This_Year.html

This situation has been years in the making. I liked and learned a lot from reading this in terms of what seems to be beneath the surface in terms of oil, economics, finance and gold:

http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2014/02/think-like-giant-3.html

 

[Laura]

Hmmm... the whole thing reminds me of a "suicide mission" on the part of the US. You know, like a group of rebels that know they've been exposed, have NO hope of surviving, and decide to go out in a "blaze of glory" AKA "The Sampson Option". Another model is the psychopath who cannot stop even with all the warnings in the world.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can see no rational basis for ANY of the US's decisions.