Add together the cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk and you don’t reach the economic output of Dundee. World domination it isn’t. Unfortunately both in the Kremlin and on Capitol Hill they, and their satraps, think it is. Neither side cares at all about the millions of ordinary people in the zone of potential conflict.
The spiral of death in Ukraine is very worrying. Following the tragic deaths in Odessa, the ball is very much in Putin’s court. His bluff has very much been called. We will now learn whether he was stoking clashes in Eastern Ukraine and massing forces on his border in order to give a pretext for invasion – which pretext he now has – or in order to destabilize and intimidate Kiev into moving away from relationships with the EU.
This has been a discussion of the deaf even more within intellectual circles in the West than between Washington and the Kremlin, where at least the Machiavellians understand full well what they are doing. But their followers either, on the one hand, deny that there are any far right elements on the Ukrainian side or any CIA assistance, or alternatively deny that there are many millions of ordinary Ukrainians who genuinely want to be at peace in their own country and move towards the EU. They either claim that all the separatists are Russian agents and deny the genuine minority population which yearns for the Soviet Union or Russia, or they deny the existence of Russian agents and special forces in Ukraine, and that most of the Russian nationalists are every bit as right wing and appalling as the equivalent tendency on the Ukrainian side.
First, some history. The Ukrainian people really do exist. They have been a subjugated people for centuries, most lastingly by the great Polish-Lithuanian Empire and then by the Russian Empire. That does not mean they did not exist. Consider this: until 1990 there had not been an independent Polish state for over two hundred years, except for a fleeting twenty years between the two world wars. Yet nobody doubts the Poles are a real nation. I shan’t start on Scotland again …
None of modern Ukraine was Russian until the 18th century, when the expansion of the Russian empire and decline of the Polish took in these new colonies. As Putin famously remarked, it was called New Russia. Yes, Vladimir, note it was New. That is because it was a colony. Just like New York. Because it was called New Russia gives you no more right to it than the Channel Islands have to New Jersey. Ukraine had been Russian seven hundred years before its 18th century reconquest, but that population had migrated to Muscovy.
The expansion of the Russian Empire was exactly contemporary with the expansion of the British and American Empires, and other bit players like the French. Like most of the American, most of the Russian Empire was a contiguous land mass. The difference between the Russian and British Empires, on the one hand, and the American Empire on the other, was that the Russians and British did not commit genocide of the existing populations. The difference between the Russian and the British Empires is that the British gave almost all of theirs back in the post-colonial period (a process that needs to be urgently completed). Russia gave back much of her Empire at the fall of the Soviet Union, but still retained a very great deal more than the British. It is to me inarguable that, in a historical perspective, Putin is attempting to recover as much of the Russian Empire as possible, including but by no means solely by the annexation of Crimea and his actions in Ukraine.
Crimea, incidentally, had maintained its own independent existence as the last remnant of the Mongol Horde right up until the 19th century. Despite the Russian colonisation of Crimea in the 19th century, it still had a majority Tatar population until the 1940’s, when Stalin tried his hand at genocide on them. The Tatars were branded Nazis. Opponents of the Russian Empire are always “Nazis” or “Jihadists”. The deportation of the Tatars from Crimea was only twenty years before the British did the same genocide to a smaller people in Diego Garcia. I call for the restitution of both. Those who call for the restitution of one and not the other are appalling hypocrites.
Equally hypocritical are those who call for a referendum on Russian union for East Ukraine, but not for referenda on independence for Dagestan and Chechnya. It is an irony insufficiently noted, that in Russia to call or campaign for the separation of any part of the state is a crime punishable by up to 22 years’ imprisonment. There are over 7,000 people from the Caucasus imprisoned under that law.
There is absolutely no movement among the large minority Russians of the Baltic States to rejoin Mother Russia, because living conditions in the EU are just so much better. As I have blogged before, it is undeniably true that living conditions for ordinary people in Poland have vastly improved as a result of EU membership, and are much better than in Ukraine – or Russia.
GDP per capita figures for Russia look quite good, but do not give a true reflection of living standards because of astonishing levels of inequality of wealth. This is very bad in the West, and getting much worse rather rapidly, but is nowhere near as bad as in Russia which is the most viciously capitalist state in the world, made worse by its commodity dependency. The Russian economy is completely non-diversified, manufacturing and services are miniscule and it is overwhelmingly a raw commodity exporter in energy, metals, grain etc. That leads to extreme concentration of profit and a lack of employment opportunity. Combine that with mafia state corruption and you have the oligarchs’ paradise. Russia is a gangster state. On top of which, if I were a Russian who campaigned against the Russian government in the same way that I do against my own, I would be dead.
The desire of ordinary Ukrainians to join the EU one day, and move closer to it now, is understandable and indeed commendable. It was also the desire of Yanukovich. Those who claim Western pressure on Yanukovich forget – or choose to ignore – that Yanukovich’s government had actually, quite independently and voluntarily, negotiated the EU co-operation agreement and were on the point of signing it, when Yanukovich was summoned to Moscow by Putin and informed that if they signed the agreement, the energy supplies to Ukraine would immediately be cut off in mid-winter and debt called in.
That is a fact. It was not illegal for Putin to do that; it was perhaps even legitimate for those who believe in a Machiavellian approach to great power politics. Yanukovich temporized, between a rock and a hard place. Ukraine seemed to be at a key moment of balance, hung between the EU and Russia. The capital being in West Ukraine and overwhelmingly ethnic Ukrainian, pro-EU crowds started to build up. Then things started to get wildly out of control.
Were western governments encouraging pro-western groups in Ukraine? Yes, that’s their job. Did this include covert support? Yes. Were the Russians doing precisely the same thing with their supporters? Yes, that’s their job too. Did the Americans spend 5 billion dollars on covert support? Of course not.
Victoria Nuland claimed in a speech America had put 5 billion dollars into Ukraine. I used to write those kind of speeches for British ministers. First you take every bit of money given by USAID to anything over a very long period, remembering to add an estimate for money given to international projects including Ukraine. Don’t forget to add huge staff costs and overheads, then something vast for your share of money lent by the IMF and EBRD, then round it up well. I can write you a speech claiming that Britain has given five billion dollars to pretty well anywhere you claim to name.
The problem is that both the left and right have again, equal but opposite motives for believing Nuland’s bombast about the extent of America’s influence on events. I have been in this game. You can’t start a revolution in another country. You can affect it at the margins.
A military coup you certainly can start. One thing we don’t really know nearly enough about is what happened at the end, when Yankovich had to flee. The Maidan protestors would never have caused a government to fall which retained full control of its army. The army can fail the rulers in two ways. First is a revolutionary movement among normal soldiers – the French revolution model. Second is where the troops remain disciplined but follow their officers in a military coup. The latter is of course a CIA speciality. More evidence is needed, but if this is the second model, it is unusual for it not to result in military control of government. Egypt is the obvious current example of a CIA backed coup.
After Yanukovich we had entered the world domination game. Putin seemed to have lost. The annexation of Crimea was a smart move by Putin in that game, because there probably is a genuine small majority of the population there who would like to join Russia. I have no doubt whatsoever that Putin himself does not believe the 93% for a moment. As I said, the Machiavellian players of world domination are realistic; it is their purblind followers on either side who buy their propaganda.
The Kiev government and the West should have conceded Crimea before Putin moved his troops into it. The sensible thing for the new Kiev government to have done would have been to offer a referendum in Crimea itself, under its own auspices. That would have got the most hardline pro-Russian voters out of the country for good. But by that time, everyone had gone into Macho mode, which is where we still are.
None of the remaining provinces would opt to join Russia given the choice. There is no shortage of existing and historic opinion poll evidence on that. Crimea was the only province with an ethnic Russian majority. The Eastern provinces have Russian speaking majorities, but most are ethnic Ukrainian. I base ethnicity here purely on self-identification in census (and, as I have repeatedly explained, absolutely everybody in the former Soviet Union knows precisely what is asked in the questions of Gradzvanstvo and Narodnosch). Just as some Welsh people speak English, some Ukrainians speak Russian but do not consider themselves Russian. Putin’s frequent references to the Russian-speaking peoples coming back to Russia are as sinister as if we started talking of re-uniting all the English speaking people in the world.
As almost always with colonies, the minority ethnic Russian populations in the East of Ukraine are more concentrated in urban areas. Hence it has been possible in regional capitals to mobilise gangs of disaffected and unemployed Russian young men (in view of Ukraine’s basket case economy there are plenty), and with a slight stiffening of Russian forces take control of town centres. There is a significant minority, and possibly a majority in town centres, willing to support. It is, I think, extremely important to understand that the thugs on both sides are very unpleasant. I have the particular experience of relations with a lot of Uzbeks, and the incidence of racial attacks by Russian nationalist thugs within Russia itself is absolutely horrifying and almost completely unreported. The swastika is a popular symbol among young macho men throughout all of former Eastern Europe including Russia. I absolutely guarantee you that an equally significant proportion of the pro-Russians who have been attacking anyone who tries to show support for Ukraine within Eastern Ukrainian cities, are no more and no less right wing, racist and vicious than the appalling Pravy Sektor thugs included on the other side. We have plenty within the EU – there is a serious problem, for example, with the official encouragement given to commemorations of pro-Nazi forces within the Baltic states which often have a distinctly neo-Nazi tinge.
Putin’s campaign of controlling the urban centres appears to have gone wrong in Odessa, which is simply too large for the numbers of available young men armed with baseball bats to take control. The pro-Russians were badly beaten in precisely the same street fighting they had been winning elsewhere. The culmination of this was the terrible fire and deaths. My expectation is there will not be many women, children or old people among the dead, but also there will not be many non-Ukrainian nationals. I expect these will prove to have been local Russian young men.
Putin now has a real problem. His own rhetoric has indicated that he will sweep in and defend these Russians, but there is one thing anyone with half a brain should have worked out by now. The ruling 1%, the ultra-wealthy, in both Russia and the West are so interconnected with each other that they are playing the game of world domination while trying at the same time to make sure nobody super-rich really loses his money. Hence the strange obviously bogus sanctions regimes. Real stock market disruption and confiscation of corrupt assets would be difficult to avoid if the tanks start rolling in earnest. We may be saved from utter disaster by the sheer scale of global corruption, which is a strange conclusion.
I would like to think the awful deaths of the last few days would lead both sides to step back from the brink. The time has come for a peacekeeping force. Negotiations should be held urgently to make the Kiev interim government more inclusive of opposition elements from the East – and they must oust the far right at the same time. The UN Security Council should then send in UN peacekeepers, which must include both Russian and western forces in close integration, to keep the peace while genuine elections are held. I can see no other way forward which does not risk disaster.
“I get accused, together with Russia Today, of never criticising the Russian government. Well here is one link to a new Russian bill to which I am totally opposed and if introduced here could well be used to close down this blog. (I know it has already been closed once). This kind of law is repressive.”
Of course all this has been extensively reported in Mr Goss’s beloved MSM
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/04/netanyahu-continues-vicious/#comment-454248
Habba
I think you’ll find that the effect of more joints is deceleration.
Resident Dissident
“I think you’ll find that the effect of more joints is deceleration.”
____________________
You’re probably right, but would you not agree with me that we should seek confirmation from the Expert himself?
Assuming of course he’s got the energy to reply after all that bad-mouthing of Craig he indulged in on Squink’s blog yesterday (the General Thread)….
I have to be selective on links I read RD. Thanks for posting that. Was this one posting on MSM?
http://rt.com/politics/russian-patriotism-party-protection-073/
Take no notice of the epithets Ben. Normal for the course.
“This kind of law is repressive.”
I agree 100 per cent, John.
I take notice only when misrepresetnation requires; which is, come to think of it, most of the time, Mary.
They have nothing to offer except as hecklers, disrupting a public meeting.
Craig; Please take some time to link Sevastapol to the Ukraine, then over to Tartus.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930214000824
“”A large number of terrorist Takfiri fighters in Syria, who bear Saudi and Chechnian nationalities and receive financial and military backup from the Saudi intelligence agency, have been transferred to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on several planes to help the Ukrainian army in its fight against the pro-Russian population,” an Arab security official told FNA on Sunday on the condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the issue.”
Takfiris are the bastards beheading the population.
I don’t really understand the new rules for comments, so my hope is that insider perspective doesn’t qualify as shit.
http://www.wildwildleft.com/diary/3183/postcards-from-the-ukraine
Diane Gee :: Postcards From the Ukraine
I was in line behind a tall, grey haired man, still strong of build despite his well past retirement age. He was saying how the US should stay the hell out of the Ukraine, and that Russia was right. Never one to pass a random public political discussion, I heartily agreed. She started to say, “No, no, the US does good…” When he brought up our aggression vs Russia’s, and I cited the number of bases to support him. We have over a thousand not on US soil, they have 7. He was on his way out and said, “Fuck the US,” by way of leave.
As I approached, she said, “You don’t understand. Russia plans on taking everything over again,” going on to name countries, mostly in the West. I said, but the new, illegal government are Nazis, they want to outlaw speaking Russian and perhaps deport anyone who is ethnically Russian. She sneered, “Is Ukraine! They should be only Ukrainians! They should speak our language or get out! The new leaders are good and right. Ukraine for Ukrainians!”
I asked, pointedly, “If the Crimeans want to be independent and allied with Russia, why should the US interfere? I mean, look at all the places we have invaded and made war on, and Russia hasn’t to anyone.”
She looked up defiantly, “The US only does war for GOOD! Everywhere, they bring freedom.”
I was now staring open jawed and aghast. “You really don’t believe that do you? So we should back Nazis who want to deny Jews and Russians their freedom in their own country and that is for good?”
By now, another customer had walked up, my order was paid for and bagged, so we couldn’t politely continue. She just curled her lip and whispered with a growl, “The Nationalists are good. Ukraine is for Ukrainian only. I am from there, I know how all those others ruin everything.” She spit ‘others’ with a venom that made me shudder. Her hatred of Russians and Jews so palpable as to my picturing her slamming the door on a gas chamber. So much for that sweet old Uke lady.
Well it’s far better that Craig’s posting away and gosh – saying things some people disagree with than being completely silent as the blog was for quite some time.
Anyway be sure and keep up the monitoring at squonk. You wouldn’t want to miss anything 🙂
The world’s most expensive flat has reportedly been sold in London for £140m.
According to Property Week, the penthouse in the One Hyde Park development was snapped up by an eastern European buyer.
The unnamed individual, whose identity is being closely guarded by the developers, is kitting out the unfurnished flat to their own tastes and needs. The end result of this could push the end price up to £160m.
Before this purchase, the most expensive flat was sold for £136.4m to Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. It was also in the One Hyde Park development, which has 80 apartments.
/..
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/one-hyde-park-sells-worlds-most-expensive-flat-140m-london-1447022
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinat_Akhmetov
AA; Our haven could use a tit-mouse or a dirty rat, just so it seems homey. 🙂
All very disturbing. All that propaganda by the BBC etc. in English that none of us, including I suspect the newsreaders has been lapped up by the Western Ukrainians and now there’ll be a civil war.
The latest propaganda I’ve heard harks back to Bush/Blair and the start of sanctions against Iran…
with Israel replaced by Ukraine and Iran replaced by Russia. I kid you not:
“Putin wants to wipe Ukraine off the map”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2620258/Putin-wants-wipe-Ukraine-map-says-Kiev-Countrys-interim-prime-minister-blames-Moscows-secret-service-fire-killed-dozens.html
Is the Mark MacDougall who refused to testify in the Dahdaleh case below the same Mark McDougall that acts for the Ukrainian oligarch Akhmetov in his litigations?
‘Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith must determine whether an Akin Gump partner, Mark MacDougall, committed serious misconduct during the high-profile trial of Victor Dahdaleh, a British-Canadian “power broker”.
Mr Dahdaleh was acquitted in December of charges that he bribed a senior member of the Bahraini royal family in exchange for $3bn of contracts for companies he represented, including Alcoa, the US aluminium manufacturer.
Mr MacDougall flew back to the US during the trial rather than give evidence for the Serious Fraud Office, as was expected. The court heard on Thursday that this was because he had concerns over breaching legal privilege attached to a parallel US civil case where Alba, the Bahraini aluminium champion and his client, is suing Mr Dahdaleh.’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a0bb038-aace-11e3-be01-00144feab7de.html#axzz30satxByc
‘When dealing with public criticism and allegations concerning his past, Akhmetov has utilized a notably well-stocked PR and legal team to protect his image and name. His team often contests reports on him that they consider to be libelous, scandalous, or inaccurate. To date, his legal team has obtained many retractions, apologies, and libel settlements. Critics accuse Akhmetov of going beyond protecting his name, but rather fear mongering investigative journalists. As many court cases occur in London for its lax free speech laws, critics accuse Akhmetov and his legal team of abuse of libel tourism. In January 2008, Akhmetov won a London libel court case “for damage to his reputation” for such claims, while several other claims about an alleged “criminal past” have been retracted by the media.
In a statement issued by Akhmetov’s lawyer Mark MacDougall, “Akhmetov has done a lot of work to protect his good name from false accusations, which might hurt the reputation of his family and business. As the result of it, many publications in Ukraine and other European countries had published retractions and apologies… [and] admitted that their claims are false. We think that these facts speak for themselves”.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinat_Akhmetov#Disputes_in_the_media
No! Help! Please – not him.
Hague vows help for Ukraine crisis
William Hague has attempted to reassure Ukraine that Britain is offering “practical help” to deal with the raging crisis as he begins a tour of former Soviet states.
http://home.bt.com/news/worldnews/hague-vows-help-for-ukraine-crisis-11363899241905
Look at those eyes. They say a lot.
The other day he was promising more ‘aid’ for the rabble rebels in Syria.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/gifting-of-equipment-to-syria–2
Jarba is now off to the US to meet Kerry for weapons. Also setting up a mission in the US.
http://www.maannews.net/ENG/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=694688
Habbabkuk – You’re missing the point. I’m saying that the situation in the E.U. is getting worse, isn’t the utopia that we try to convince Eastern Europeans it is, and adding more bankrupt, IMF beholden countries to this already credit-dependent “household” will come to no good end. The Greeks, or anyone else for that matter, will struggle to find jobs anywhere before long. Ukraine’s industry is largely in service of the Russian economy. It’s not like Ukrainian goods are sold in Western Europe and they won’t be. That’s why an economic arrangement Russia would seem to be the most sensible of options, rather than debt slavery to the West.
@Mary: It’s British jobs for British workers. As started by Margaret Thatcher and perpetrated by every subsequent administration. A reporter once asked David Cameron how he slept at night, which seemed to throw the prime minister almost as much as the famous “Have you got blood on your hands, Prime Minister”, addressed to Tony Blair in Japan post-Kelly.
Speaking of Japan, I wonder what Japanese citizens think of the country that dropped two atom bombs on them being encouraged by their own government to enter a military alliance.
Who are these Banderists?
http://hnn.us/article/122778
“On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honored Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honor, “Hero of Ukraine.” The Soviet KGB assassinated Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist-in-exile, in 1959. Many Ukrainians, including Ukrainian émigré groups in Canada, pressed Yushchenko to grant the honor, which, according to one statement, “would restore justice and truth about the Bandera and the…struggle for liberation that he headed.” To this day, many Ukrainians view Bandera as a martyred freedom fighter.
As an uncompromising leader of the militant, terrorist branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Bandera became a Nazi collaborator who lived with his deputies under German protection after World War II began. In preparation for the attack on the USSR, the Nazis recruited Bandera’s followers to act as Ukrainian-speaking policemen and to serve in two Ukrainian volunteer army battalions. By working with the Nazis, Bandera hoped to free Ukraine from Soviet rule and establish his own government there. An independent Ukraine, Bandera promised, would remain friendly to Germany.
Historian Karel Berkhoff, among others, has shown that Bandera, his deputies, and the Nazis shared a key obsession, namely the notion that the Jews in Ukraine were behind Communism and Stalinist imperialism and must be destroyed. “The Jews of the Soviet Union,” read a Banderist statement, “are the most loyal supporters of the Bolshevik Regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine.” When the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941 and captured the East Galician capital of Lvov, Bandera’s lieutenants issued a declaration of independence in his name. They further promised to work closely with Hitler, then helped to launch a pogrom that killed four thousand Lvov Jews in a few days, using weapons ranging from guns to metal poles. “We will lay your heads at Hitler’s feet,” a Banderist pamphlet proclaimed to Ukrainian Jews. – See more at: http://hnn.us/article/122778#sthash.TOJTbnik.dpuf“
If the massacre at Odessa (unofficial death toll much greater than 46) the work of Banderists? If Yushchenko had wanted to reduce the fascist vote, he would surely have called what happened in Odessa “the true face of fascism”, and used it to kill the ideology stone dead for all the Ukrainian people. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t… and now I realise why.
Now a British Journalist in Ukraine daring to work for RT has a bounty on his head:
http://rt.com/news/156892-ukraine-radicals-bounty-journalist/
That journalist is Graham Philips… and others are being targeted.
The George Orwell quote comes to mind:
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Excellent article here by Robert Parry, showing how the official narrative on Ukraine (Putin is to blame for everything) is fraying at the edges-
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/04/another-nyt-sort-of-retraction-on-ukraine/
X posting from Squonk…
People are dying in the Building….
and we get This …. Camera Lies – DONT Think so
http://www.globalresearch.ca/%E2%80%8Bradicals-shooting-at-people-in-odessas-burning-building-caught-on-tape/5380535
And with a warning…. This –
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-neo-nazi-thugs-supported-by-kiev-regime-killed-odessa-inhabitants-photographic-evidence/5380504
From the Munk debate with Greenwald.
Dershowitz:
” We are in danger; we have to compromise. Getting killed by terrorism is oh so different from getting struck by lightening. In fact, the reason for compromising on our liberties is that WE WILL LOSE THEM ALTOGETHER IN THE NEXT ATTACK If we do not. No, we do not know if we can prevent the next attack, or the one after that, etc., but we have to compromise anyway.”
He is the harbinger. He is privvy, and should know this to be true (my emphasis above). Of course we know this already, but confirmation is like gold.
LIBYA’S DOING WELL:
Sara, the daughter of the late President of the World Jewish Congress and President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Edgar Bronfman has an interesting fiance, Basit Igtet:
Wikipedia: Sara Bronfman
Sara Bronfman, humanitarian and human rights activist (born 1976) is the daughter of the billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman, Edgar Bronfman Sr…
Sara Bronfman first became involved in aiding Libya after traveling as a delegate with the The Independent Libya Foundation (ILF) in November 2011, during the Arab Spring and after the death of Muammar Gaddafi. The delegation was headed by ILF president and founder Basit Iglet and consisted of multiple humanitarian experts, including Adam Hock and Joseph Hagin. They toured Post-Gaddafi Libya and presented their “multi-phase re-integration program,” which was accepted by the local authorities of Benghazi, who were appointed by the Libyan National Transitional Council.
She has been involved with the U.S.-Libya Chamber of Commerce since its founding in November 2011 with the purpose of developing viable economic links between American and Libyan enterprises…
Sara Bronfman is also involved with the Canada-Libya Chamber of Commerce, which was founded on March 12, 2012.
???Bronfman and fiance Basit Igtet are the inaugural president and chairman of the board respectively…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Bronfman
Igtet was appointed as a Special Envoy to the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) on 4 September 2011 but now has bigger plans!
9 April – Abdul Basit Igtet To Stand For The Presidency Of Libya
(ANTARA/PRNewswire) — Abdul Basit Igtet, the businessman and author of “A Plan for Libya”, confirmed today that he will stand for the post of President of Libya. Mr. Igtet commented…
http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/93594/abdul-basit-igtet-to-stand-for-the-presidency-of-libya
Perhaps a little late for this thread but Craig implied that those killed in the Odessa fire were just a bunch of young male fanatics who more or less asked for their fate. Here is a list of the victims: http://www.unian.net/politics/914899-stali-izvestnyi-imena-36-pogibshih-v-stolknoveniyah-v-odesse.html
ToivoS
Up thread…. @ me
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-this-town-loves-going-to-war/
Why ‘This Town’ Loves Going to War
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27247428#TWEET1117432
Ukraine reinstates conscription as crisis deepens
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/25229/53/
German Paper: Kiev flooded with CIA, FBI Agents
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/obamas-new-ukraine/
A Russophobic, Failed State Ruled by Fascists
Obama’s New Ukraine
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38401.htm
The Politics of Red Lines
Putin’s takeover of Crimea scares U.S. leaders because it challenges America’s global dominance.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/inside-the-fanciful-world-of-stratfor/
Robert D. Kaplan’s Geopolitical Bunkum
Inside the Fanciful World of Stratfor
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/why-the-us-blew-a-chance-to-reconcile-with-iran/
Manufactured Threats
Why the US Blew a Chance to Reconcile with Iran
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/afghanistan-a-nightmare-of-failure/
No Good Men Among the Living
Afghanistan—A Nightmare of Failure
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/05/foreign-jihadis-in-syria-pledge-their-own-911/
Ambitious al-Qa’ida-Type Groups Now Control an Enormous Area
Foreign Jihadis in Syria Pledge Their Own 9/11
Turkey’s next door to Europe.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/europe/turkey-cyprus/turkey/230-the-rising-costs-of-turkey-s-syrian-quagmire.aspx
The Rising Costs of Turkey’s Syrian Quagmire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9OVqVFL5tY
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/the-united-states-desperate-solutions-for-not-sinking-alone/
The United States’ Desperate Solutions For Not Sinking Alone
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38389.htm
This Land Isn’t Your Land, This Land Is Their Land
An Empire in Decline (City by City, Town by Town)
ToivoS. 2 13 am
Thanks.
I could’nt get that article in English. Google Translate gives this for the title, “Became Famous names of 36 of the victims in a collision in Odessa”
Maybe RD or another expert can let us in on the nuances of the Ukrainian Language and explain how this is not what it looks like.
Considering those figures came from this kind of source what are the chances that even these numbers and details are deliberate underestimations?
From the same organisation, “UNIAN talked with odious former PM from the Party of Regions about those behind separatist riots in Luhansk, a role of Alexander Yefremov in these events, local police inaction and outcome of the rule of the Party of Regions for the area.”
If you think I am being over-suspicious here’s the full English language Unian article. If the man said these things, what could be his reasons, evidence or fear? You choose.
Vladimir Landik: What is happening in Luhansk is a terrorist attack, and it mut be suppressed.
And we’re expected to regard RT as so untrustworthy that we should’nt even check it out,
http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-army-operation-680/
Just imagine what we would be witnessing if UNIAN Information Agency discovered crowd-sourced video.
Re crowd sourced video. Here’s Unian’s equivalent to RT’s Breaking News from East Ukraine. It is also their homepage.
http://www.unian.info/
EU expansion hurt the people of the EE countries. You must have swallowed the propaganda.
Does this look like berter off to you?
“a region with among the highest poverty rates in Europe and where more people are leaving than arriving.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-29/polish-300-billion-aid-package-hides-eu-expansion-flaws.html
Polish $300 Billion Aid Package Hides EU Expansion Flaws
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/01/pola-a01.html
Report: Thousands of Polish children go hungry
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2913&context=ilrreview
Social Failures of EU Enlargement: A Case of
Workers Voting with Their Feet. By Guglielmo
Meardi
http://consortiumnews.com/ 2014/04/02/ukrainians-get- imfs-bitter-medicine/
Ukrainians Get IMF’s Bitter Medicine
April 2, 2014
Exclusive: Though lacking legitimacy from national elections, Ukraine’s coup regime has approved a harsh IMF austerity plan that hits Ukraine’s “99 percent” the hardest and asks little from the country’s “1 percent,” including the corrupt “oligarchs,” reports Robert Parry.
http://www.nakedcapitalism. com/2014/04/imf-imposing- tougher-austerity-conditions. html
IMF Imposing Even Tougher Austerity Conditions on New Loans