Ukraine - update - 03/18/2014

Russia Confirms Troop Build-Up Near Ukraine; Warns West, More Sanctions "Absolutely Unacceptable"

Zero Hedge

18 April, 2014

For the first time, Russia has confirmed that it has built up its military presence on the Ukrainian border (according to Agence France Presse). On the heels of the de-escalation and the West's threat of tougher sanctions (if Russia failed to abide by the new 'deal'), Kremlin spokesman Dmirty Peskov told Rossiya TV that "we have troops in different regions, and there are troops close to the Ukrainian border. Some are based there, others have been sent as reinforcements due to the situation in Ukraine." Reuters also reports that Washington statements "are unlikely to help dialogue," and further sanctions would be "absolutely unacceptable." It seems the 'deal' has done little to calm anything but the US equity market as Peskov blasted "You can't treat Russia like a guilty schoolboy."

The Daily Mail's latest update on suspected (now confirmed) Russian troop build-up

As Al Arabiya reports, a Kremlin spokesman confirmed Friday that Russia has built up its military presence on the Ukrainian border, Agence France Presse reported, as the United States warned that Moscow would face tougher sanctions if it failed to abide by a new international deal on Ukraine.

"We have troops in different regions, and there are troops close to the Ukrainian border. Some are based there, others have been sent as reinforcements due to the situation in Ukraine," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Rossiya 1 television, AFP reported.

...

Peskov said Russia would not be the only party held responsible for implementing the agreement on easing tensions in Ukraine, according to AFP.

 

He added that threats of further sanctions by Washington were "absolutely unacceptable.”

 

"Our Western colleagues are trying to push responsibility [for implementing the deal] toward our side. But it must be underlined: it is a collective responsibility," Peskov said.

Reuters adds that President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said, "Statements like those made at a high level in Washington that the United States will follow in detail how Russia fulfils its obligations ... are unlikely to help dialogue,"

"You can't treat Russia like a guilty schoolboy who has to put a cross on a piece of paper to show he has done his homework," Peskov said in an interview with Russia's First Channel. "That kind of language is unacceptable."

Russia's Foreign Ministry accused U.S. officials of seeking to whitewash what it said was the use of force by the Ukrainian government against protesters in the country's mainly Russian-speaking eastern provinces.

"The blame for the Ukrainian crisis and its current aggravation is unreasonably being placed on Russia," the ministry said in a statement.

"The American side is once again stubbornly trying to whitewash the current actions of Kiev's authorities, who have embarked on a course for the violent suppression of protesters in the southeast who are expressing their legitimate indignation over the infringements of their rights."

De-Escalation off...

Girls only! Ukraine imposes travel restrictions on Russian men

Russian men aged 16 to 60 entering Ukraine without their families will only be allowed in if they have close relatives or an invitation, according to Ukrainian officials. Previously, all Russians could travel to Ukraine with just their internal IDs.

Kiev promises Russian language status choice as military op enters ‘inactive phase’

Kiev has promised to let the regions decide on the status of any languages on their own, calling for “peace and unity.” Troops remain in eastern Ukraine, although the military operation has been rendered “inactive.”

RT,

18 April, 2014

Ukraine’s coup-imposed acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchytsa on Friday confirmed that the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” is continuing in eastern Ukrainian, despite the calls for de-escalation of the crisis stated in the four-side April-17 agreement between Ukraine, Russia, the US and the EU.

“The operation continues and its intensity will now depend on practical implementation of the agreements, return of seized buildings and surrendering of arms,” Deshchytsa told journalists at a briefing.

The Kiev authorities are expecting that the illegal armed groups will act in accordance with the treaty and “use the chance given to them by the Ukrainian government,” Deshchytsa was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

However, the operation will for now enter an “inactive phase,” Ukrainian Security Service spokesman, Marina Ostapenko, told the local Ligabusinessinform agency.

“In connection with Easter holidays and with the Geneva agreements, the work is currently in inactive phase. The command staff are working, and re-planning is in progress,” Ostapenko said.

Promises of peace

Coup-imposed Ukrainian acting President Aleskandr Turchinov and Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk appeared in a televised address on Friday, calling for “national unity” and urging all to “refrain from violence.”

“The Ukrainian government is ready to carry out thorough constitutional reform, which will define the authority of the regions,” Yatsenuk said.

Local authorities in Ukrainian regions “will decide on their own” about whether to grant the Russian language or any other languages official status in the regions, Turchinov added.

Deshchytsa said Ukrainian constitutional reform was discussed in Geneva on Thursday, although no details of the discussions were reflected in the text of the treaty.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) looks on as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (2nd R) starts a quadrilateral meeting in Geneva, between representatives of the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and the European Union about the ongoing situation in Ukraine April 17, 2014. (Reuters/Jim Bourg)

The issues of the country’s federalization, for which eastern Ukrainians are pushing, and the regional status of the Russian language, were in the focus of the talks.

The official said no consensus on the issues was reached, but added that “we must continue working with Russia, with the support of our international partners to find a solution to these questions.”

Meanwhile, the OSCE mission on Ukraine has been ordered to start its work. According to the April-17 Geneva treaty, the mission is to play “the leading role” in de-escalating the political crisis in Ukraine.

“In Vienna, despite the Easter holidays, the work has started, the mission on Ukraine has been ordered to start acting immediately,” Russian OSCE envoy Andrey Kelin told Itar-Tass on Friday. Deshchytsa later said the mission is already working in eastern Ukraine.

‘You disarm first’

The joint Geneva statement on Ukraine on Thursday called for “immediate implementation of de-escalation measures,” including the disarmament of all illegal armed groups, vacation of illegally seized buildings, occupied streets, squares and other places in all Ukrainian cities and towns.

The statement stressed that “all sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions.”

On the ground in the volatile eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region, the agreement was largely welcomed. However, the local protesters doubted that the Kiev coup-imposed authorities will be keen to follow its calls.

The Geneva agreement “should partly calm down the population,” believes the Donetsk city mayor, Aleksandr Lukyanchenko, adding that it will only work if “all sides” of the treaty adhere to it.

“Speaking of concerns that the south-east will be seized by another country – our neighbor’s [the Russian] government has once again confirmed that it is not going to happen,” Lukyanchenko stressed.

A senior representative of the local Communist Party (KPU) in Slavyansk, which has been in opposition to the coup-imposed Kiev government and supports the federalization of the country with wider powers for the regions, told RIA Novosti that the protesters view the treaty positively and “are ready for compromise.”

However, he added that people are concerned with different interpretations of the agreement.

We watched [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, we are quite happy with what he has said. But the Ukrainian side has interpreted the agreements in an absolutely different way,” KPU’s Anatoly Khmelevoy told the agency on Friday.

“It will not take long to disarm, to dismantle the barricades – but where are the guarantees? [The Kiev authorities] need to reach out to us. The talks of preparing a referendum – we still see no steps in this direction. We need to trust each other, for that we need to sit down at the negotiation table – but no one has so far invited us to talk,” Khmelevoy said.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic meanwhile said it will not follow the treaty’s calls until Kiev starts doing so. Speaking to Itar-Tass, the republic’s chair, Denis Pushilin, said that the Kiev authorities are “refusing to pull back the troops from the territory of the Donetsk Region, and in those conditions it is impossible to talk of compromise.”

Kiev “must vacate the seized buildings, disarm the illegal armed groups – the National Guard and the Right Sector – and free all the political prisoners,” Pushilin stressed. “After that, we will be ready for dialogue.”

However, speaking to journalists on Friday, the coup-imposed Ukrainian foreign minister said that Kiev activists do not have to quit Independence Square (Maidan) because it has been occupied “legally.”

Deshchytsa stressed that the amnesty law for eastern Ukrainian protesters, which Kiev says has already been tabled for a vote in the Ukrainian parliament (the Verkhovna Rada), will only be applied after “complete disarmament” of the protesters in the region and total vacation of administrative buildings.


Op-Ed

The thing which everybody seems to be missing

Vineyard Saker,

18 April, 2014

Okay, I decided to squeeze in one more post before taking time off for Holy Paskha, this is well worth it.

Some of you have asked about China's role in all this, in what the real interests of the USA are, how the EU is positioning itself and what Russia does or does not want. And, somehow, bogged down by the minutiae of the unfolding events I managed to never mention something which Putin, Lavrov and many other top Russian politicians have repeatedly said:

What is happening today before our eyes is the end of one international system and the birth of a qualitatively different one.

Interestingly, Putin has declared that for him the point of no return was reached when the USA and its allies at the UNSC and NATO clearly and grossly twisted the intention of the UNSC on Libya and "upgraded" what should have been a "no fly" zone to a free-fire zone to attack and bomb Libya [of course, it was pretty darn clear to Putin that the "all necessary means to protect civilians" of the resolution was an open ended invitation for the AngloZionists to "interpret" it in any way they wanted; now his says that Russia was "lied to" in order to not blame Medvedev for walking into a 10 foot wide hole. But that is irrelevant here]. Putin says that from then on he had acquired the conviction that the West could not be negotiated with and had to be simply stopped. Then Syria happened: for the first time since the end of WWII the USA had decided to do something and was stopped by an outside power in the most humiliating way possible.

The Russian stance on Syria was an overt challenge to US world hegemony. It was clearly understood as such in Washington and now, following the crisis in the Ukraine, the Russians have openly admitted this.

So this is the real stake of the civil war in the Ukraine: for the USA it is to punish Russia for daring to challenge the world hegemon; for Russia it is to unseat this hegemon and replace him by a multi-polar international system in which sovereign countries act within the bounds of international law. You could say that even though most of the Security Council is vehemently opposed to that, Russia is trying to show to the world that the USA does not own the UN and that it only represents 1/5th of the P5 and 1/15th of the UNSC.

The West has slouched into a position of total submission to the USA and its domination tools over Europe: the EU and NATO. The central Europeans have even volunteered to become a US protectorate, a territory to house US missile systems and secret CIA prisons.

With the exception of Iran and Syria, the Arab and Muslim world has sold out, some to the USA, others to Saudi Arabia, most to both at the same time. Latin America tries hard, but is still heavily dependent on the USA while Africa just wants to survive the best it can. As for Asia, some parts are as sold out as Europe (Japan, Korea), others are trying to keep a low profile, while China is clearly quietly standing behind Russia but in an externally undeniable way even though China stands to benefit more than any other country on the planet from a change in the international order.

The Russians would have much preferred to wait, to buy time, but the US determination to punish it for daring to oppose it on Syria literally forced them to fold and surrender or openly accept the US challenge and stand firm.

I will repeat that again and again - Putin had no other choice.

And now that this is all in the open, you can be absolutely sure that Russia is not playing to return to the status quo ante. With an amazing candidness both Putin and Lavrov have openly spelled out their goal on Russian TV (Lavrov on the show "Sunday Evening with Vladimir Soloviev" and Putin on during his 4 hours long Q&A yesterday).

So this is the Russian end-goal: to unseat the USA from its role as a world hegemon. And that goal implies a much longer, bigger and more sustained effort that just force the freaks in Kiev to the negotiating table. Among other things, this goal implies that Russia must:

Force the Europeans to fully realize the outrageous price they are paying for being the obedient and silent vassals of the USA and slowly drive a wedge between the USA and Europe.Force the USA to admit that it does not have the military might to punish or, even less so, "regime change" anybody they don't like.

1) Force the Europeans to fully realize the outrageous price they are paying for being the obedient and silent vassals of the USA and slowly drive a wedge between the USA and Europe.

2) Force the USA to admit that it does not have the military might to punish or, even less so, "regime change" anybody they don't like.

3) Encourage China and other Asian powers to openly stand with Russia in demanding that international law be adhered to by the West.

4) Gradually replace the dollar with other currencies in international trade and thereby slow down the financing of the US debts by the rest of the planet.

5) Create the conditions for Latin America and Africa to be able to make choices about its future and replace the current monopoly enjoyed by the West in setting the terms of North-South relations.

6) Present another civilizational model which openly reject the current Western paradigm of a society run by small and arrogant minorities.

7) Challenge the current liberal and capitalist economic order embodied in the Washington Consensus and replace it by a model of social and international solidarity (call it "21 century socialism" if you want).

All of the above can be summed up in one word: re-sovereignization.

Since he got elected, Putin mentioned many times the need for a re-sovereignization of Russia. The Ukrainian crisis has forced him reveal the real end goal of his agenda: to re-sovereignize the entire planet.

This is a tall order and it will take many years, possibly decades, to achieve this goal, though my personal feeling is that the total incompetence and infinite arrogance of of the 1%ers plutocrats which rules over the western world will continue to accelerate that process.

The big question now is this: can the AngloZionist Empire follow the example of the Soviet Empire and collapse without triggering a massive bloodbath on its way down?

There will be violence, for sure, as has been with the former Soviet Union. But if we can avoid a global conflagration or even a large scale massive war then that would have to be considered as success because it is when they collapse that empires become the most dangerous and unpredictable.

I hope that the above answers many of the questions which have been posted here.

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker

PS: I just got this amazing video of a woman stopping a APC in Kramatorsk with her bare hands. I guess she could be seen as a symbol of what Russia wants to do with the AngloZionist Empire:

'Beat Reporting': Female Russian journo 'kicked' over coverage of chaotic base siege in Ukraine

More than ten thousand Russians have already been denied entry to Ukraine recently - including dozens of journalists covering the crisis. Two Russian journalists say they were detained and beaten by Ukrainian troops in the aftermath of protesters' attempts to seize a military base in the southern city of Mariupol. Life-news reporter Kristina Babayeva told RT what happened to her

Pro-Russian separatists defiant as Ukraine peace moves flounder

Occupations of public buildings across eastern Ukraine continue as separatists accuse Kiev of violating Geneva deal

the Guardian,

18 April, 2014

International attempts to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine were floundering on Friday as separatist groups in the east declared that they had no intention of leaving occupied buildings and accused Kiev of violating an agreement reached in Geneva on Thursday.

Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the United States struck a diplomatic deal in the Swiss city, following seven hours of talks, that was supposed to see illegal groups withdraw from municipal buildings and hand in their weapons.

Twenty-four hours later there were no signs that any of the anti-government groups were preparing to budge. Instead, protest leaders said they would continue their occupations until their demands were met. A rebel militia seized an administration building in Seversk, a small town outside the regional capital Donetsk.

At a press conference on Friday Denis Pushilin, the self-styled leader of the "Donetsk People's Republic", said his supporters would stay put until a referendum on the region's future status was held. He dismissed the current pro-western government in Kiev as illegitimate. "We will continue our activity," he declared.

Pushilin said no meaningful de-escalation was possible while Ukraine's interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and president Olexsandr Turchynov were still in their jobs. "We understand that everyone has to leave buildings or nobody does. Yatsenyuk and Turchynov should vacate theirs first," he said.

Moscow's envoy to the European Union reiterated this position, telling Russian state television that authorities in Kiev had "incorrectly interpreted" the Geneva deal. He said Ukraine's new leadership mistakenly believed that the deal "only applies to the eastern and southern provinces" when it also applied to "the ongoing occupation of Maidan [Independence Square in Kiev]".

Pro-Russian separatists grabbed a string of public buildings across eastern Ukraine a week ago. The militia units – some of them similar to the armed "little green men" who appeared in Crimea in February – have occupied them ever since. Nato says the separatists include professionally trained undercover Russian soldiers. Moscow denies this.

In Kiev, Ukraine's acting foreign minister Andriy Deshchytsia said the next few days would demonstrate whether Russia actually intended to implement the Geneva deal, signed by Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. "I don't know Russia's intentions. But minister Lavrov did promise that they want to de-escalate. So we will see in a few days if it was [a] sincere promise and sincere participation."

The separatists, however, seem in little mood to give ground. Pushilin said Kiev had already violated the Geneva accord by refusing to pull its military units from the east of Ukraine. "They have not withdrawn their forces out from Slavyansk," he said. Beleaguered Ukrainian troops occupy a rustic aerodrome close to Slavyansk, north of Donetsk, and neighbouring Kramatorsk. On Wednesday they suffered the ultimate humiliation when armed separatists, seemingly led by Russian officers, seized six armoured vehicles from them and drove off.

Pushilin delivered his anti-Kiev message to Russian state television, which had turned up to interview him. He was speaking from the 11th-floor of Donetsk's regional administration building, now a sprawling camp of anti-government and anti-western protest.

Pushilin describes himself as the "people's governor". He appeared to be reading from a carefully-drafted script. Several media advisers sat nearby. He told Russian television that Kiev was denying the local population access to insulin and withholding desperately needed medical supplies. He asked ordinary Russians to donate money to a numbered account with Russia's Sberbank to help the cause.

A local businessman, Pushilin and other deputies from the "Donetsk People's Republic" are entirely self-appointed. Their key demand is a referendum on federalisation by 11 May, two weeks before presidential elections. It is unclear what questions might be included.

Their goal is to create an autonomous eastern republic separate from Kiev. After that most want the new republic to join the Russian Federation, in imitation of Crimea annexed by Moscow last month. Kiev says Pushilin and other separatist leaders are under the control of Russia's spy agencies.

Visiting Donetsk on Friday, Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko denounced Russian interference and said that Russia's special forces had been highly active across the east of the country. She said she was in Donetsk to negotiate with pro-Russian protesters, conceding that Ukrainian and Russian speakers now had to make "compromises" if a solution to the crisis was to be found. She said this compromise could be achieved if Russia withdrew its agents from eastern Ukraine but warned of violence if it did not.

Tymoshenko – whose pro-western party dominates the new government – said that she was creating a "resistance movement" militia to fight for Ukraine's territorial integrity. This would be an armed force made up of volunteers with military experience, she said: "We will do everything to restore harmony and peace in our country and to stop aggression. But if it doesn't happen we are ready to defend ourselves … with weapons in hand."

Tymoshenko ruled out holding a regional referendum, saying that it didn't match constitutional requirements, and adding that Kiev "can't recognise it". "We don't want anyone to demand that Ukrainians vote in a referendum under the barrels of Russian weapons," she said.

De-Escalation Off: US Deploys Troops To Poland

Zero Hedge

18 April, 2014

So what part of "All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions," did the US not understand when they decided that deploying troops to Poland was in keeping with the four-party deal? As WaPo reports, Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine.

Via The Washington Post,

Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine.

That was the word from Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details.

There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play a leading regional role, “under U.S. patronage,” he said.

So is that an escalation? or a de-escalation? or is it different when the US moves troops towards another nation's borders?

As a reminder, we noted in December, Russia's placement of tactical nuclear-capable weapons near the Polish border which at the time sent a very clear message of escalation (despite the, at the time, lack of New Cold War headlines). 

We wrote at the time,

Russia quietly has come through on its threat issued in April 2012, when it warned it would deploy Iskander missiles that could target US missile defense systems in Poland. From RIA at the time:

Moscow reiterated on Tuesday it may deploy Iskander theater ballistic missiles in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad that will be capable of effectively engaging elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Poland.

NATO members agreed to create a missile shield over Europe to protect it against ballistic missiles launched by so-called rogue states, for example Iran and North Korea, at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2010.

The missile defense system in Poland does not jeopardize Russia’s nuclear forces, Army General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said. 

“However, if it is modernized…it could affect our nuclear capability and in that case a political decision may be made to deploy Iskander systems in the Kaliningrad region,” he said in an interview with RT television.

“But that will be a political decision,” he stressed. “So far there is no such need.”

Looks like a little over a year later, the "political decision" was taken as the need is there. But why does Russia need to send a very clear message of escalation at a time when the Cold War is long over, when globalization and free trade, promote game theoretic world peace (or "piece" as the Obama administration wouldsay), oh, and when Russia quietly has decided to reestablish the former USSR starting with the Ukraine.

We'll leave the rhetorical question logically unanswered.