Ukraine - from the Saker

July 26th combat SITREP by Juan

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/july-26th-combat-sitrep-by-juan.html

1. Fighting in The Cauldron continues. самообороны (self defense forces) continue to reinforce against the ukes surrounded in The Cauldron. Today the border crossing at Marinovka was secured. The orks in The Cauldron are now completely surrounded and cut off.

2. Almost 100 Ukes in The Cauldron have run for the Russian border and crossed in to Russia. самообороны are not happy that these terrorist ukes who were perfectly happy to terrorize and shoot innocent civilians have run to Russia, their 'hated enemy', for safety when they had to fight real soldiers. By international law the ukes must be interned for the duration of the conflict and their possible involvement in war crimes investigated.

3. Moral in Army of Novorossiya is very high. In the attached video you can see the special bond that forms between men who have fought together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-xTX0_QRsM

4. The Ukes are again using white phosphor arty shells, in direct defiance of international law and Geneva Convention which Ukeland signed almost 20 years ago banning the use of white phosphor bombs and artillery shells.

5. Lugansk and Donetsk cities proper are being shelled daily and nightly by MLRS and arty, the largest of arty is 20.3 cm howitzers. That's 8" guns for you who are not metric familiar.

6. One of the identified killers from the Odessa Trade Union Building massacre has been captured by самообороны 3 days ago near Lugansk.

7. A group of Uke mothers are trying to arrange an exchange of Uke held prisoners for their sons trapped in The Cauldron. Past experience has shown that prisoners released by самообороны have immediately gone back to their units and continued to fight самообороны. Perhaps the mothers should have raised their sons a bit better so the sons would not be fighting their own brother citizens in a civil war.

8. The rumors of Russian units crossing the border to Novorossiya with dozens of armored vehicles and many soldiers are patently false. There are no serving Russian soldiers in Novorossiya nor has Russia provided large numbers of armored vehicles or artillery. Novorossiya has captured what they have from Uke units.

9. Information of large contingents of Polish volunteers serving with Uke units are unconfirmed. Polish ID and equipment was found at the sight of the IL shoot down but no bodies were located at that time.

10. Information has been found implicating the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, of being involved extensively in the planning and execution of false flag 'terrorist' operations in Ukraine to be blamed on Novorossiya. This is the same Geoffrey R. Pyatt who was extensively involved in the coup d'etat that installed the current illegal government in Ukraine. The information is not 100% confirmed at this time. Further investigations are being done concerning this information.

11. Extensive partisan actions are extant in the occupied areas of Novorossiya. Almost daily, and nightly, attacks are being made on Uke units in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Selemovka and other occupied areas.

12. Partisan activities are frequent in Kharkov Oblast and in the Mariupol district of Novorossiya. Sabatoge of Uke AFV's is also becoming more common in the Kharkov area. Refurbished tanks and BTR's seem to frequently have inoperable motive and sighting systems. One T64 tank is known to have had a catastrophic failure of the main gun breech system on firing it's first round resulting in the loss of the tank commander and gunner.

13. The humanitarian situation in some areas of Lugansk and Donetsk Cities proper and outlying cities and towns is serious. No water, no electric, no sewage, no gas. Shops and magazines are closed, food is difficult to obtain.

14. The Ukes will close all borders with Russia by 01 August. This will make the refugee situation worse. The only way out will be the perilous journey from Donetsk to Lugansk and thence to the borders with Russia. The southern route to Krimea will to all intents and purposes cease to exist.

15. The political situation seems to be worsening. Rumor of the demands to allow Australian and Dutch 'police' to secure the shoot down area of MH17 are extant. It would be foolish for the Army of Novorossiya to accede to these demands. This would be the NATO 'foot in the door' and will lead to an extensive NATO presence in Ukraine. This presence will lead to war between Russia and NATO. Is this July 2014 or July 1914?
 
16. The airports in Lugansk and Donetsk are still in the hands of the Ukes. They are surrounded and under attack with some of their best units relegated to static defense. It is expected that with the elemination of The Cauldron the pair of aerodromes are next to be crushed.

17. Confirmed reports of one hospital in Kharkov receiving 50 to 60 wounded Uke troops a day. Note, that is just one hospital. It is possible that the Ukes are not telling the truth about their losses.

18. Just in, confirmed reports of more Uke troops in The Cauldron running for the Russian border. Number is reported to be in excess of 200, unit unknown.

19. Army of Novorossiya will not win every engagement they are involved in. Casualties will increase as the army attacks the uke occupiers. You will notice from the video attached that many of the Novorossiya Army soldiers are not young. Many are veterans who have decided to serve for Novorossiya. As has been stated, 'Freedom' is not free. The cost in blood and tears is very high. That cost will be paid and the reward will be Freedom. Of this I have no doubts.

The EU bestows its highest honor on Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/the-eu-bestows-its-highest-honor-on.html

Yesterday, the EU published it's newest list of individuals and companies included in its anti-Russian sanctions list.  The latest list include Mikhail Fradkov, the Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service SVR, Alexander Bortnikov, the Director of the Russian Federal Security Service FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council and Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnia.

Previously, the EU had already "recognized" the outstanding service of Igor Sergun, the Commander of the Russian Military Intelligence Service (GRU) who was also included in its sanctions list.  But what did Ramzan Kadyrov do to deserve to me included in such distinguished company?  According to the EU, he

made statements in support of the illegal annexation of Crimea and in support of the armed insurgency in Ukraine. He stated inter alia on 14 June 2014 that he ‘will do anything to help revive Crimea’. In that context, he was awarded the medal for ‘the liberation of Crimea’ by the Acting Head of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for the support he provided to the unlawful annexation of Crimea. In addition, on 1 June 2014 he expressed his readiness to send 74 000 Chechen volonteers to Ukraine if requested to do so.

The EU makes it sound like Kadyrov is guilty of nothing else but crimethink.  But, of course, this is not quite true.  We can all be sure that Kadyrov, just like the other four outstanding anti-Nazi heroes honored today, did much more to protect the culturally Russian people of the Ukraine from the ethnic cleansing policies of the junta in Kiev.  Maybe he should get yet a second medal of "Hero of Russia"? :-

As somebody who remembers the Cold War very well, who spent most of his life fighting against the KGB (in both my professional and private lives) and who remembers the truly satanic horrors of the wars in Chechnia, it is amazing to now see the heads of the Russian security and intelligence services being thus "honored" by the EU alongside the President of Chechnia.  True, it is also sad for me to see how low Europe has fallen to sanction those who did the most to fight a illegal, racist and terrorist regime in Kiev.  For seven decades the West European elites have passed all sorts of laws banning the free investigation of the "Holocaust" under penalty of incarceration, for seven decades they have been completely paranoid and looking for even minute signs of possible "neo-Fascism" in various right-wing parties and for seven decades they have solemnly nodded their heads in heartfelt agreement with the warning of Brecht "the belly where from the filthy beast came out is still fecund".  And now it turns that that this "belly" is them!  Not only are the western democracies the belly from which the filthy beast came out, but ex-KGB types and former Chechen insurgents are now at the forefront of the struggle against this beast, and for self-determination, international law, human rights and freedom.

Amazing, no?

And does this not beg a disturbing and painful question for me and maybe many of you also: who/where was the real 'Evil Empire' in the 1983?

The Saker

Russian Ministry of Defense accuses Ukies of using White Phosphorus on civilians

The parallels with Gaza are really becoming uncanny:

(Please Click the "captions" Next to settings wheel for English subtitles) 

The “friendly” Mr. Steinmeier

by Dagmar Henn

There can be no doubt, western media are full of propaganda. The claims that are in the centre of this propaganda, are almost identical. They are:

1. The crash is the fault of the Militia.
2. The Militia obstructs the investigations
  a. the Militia confines access to the site of the crash
  b. the Militia does not confine enough access to the site.
  c. they take away the bodies of the deceased too fast.
  d. they do not take away the bodies fast enough.

With the German medias, it is not just the lower end of the newspapers that feels the need of using manipulative language.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) shows us convincing proof for this assertion. On the 21st. of July they published their article, “Fighting for Truth”, starting it with these words: “Specialists from the Netherlands inspect the victims of the airplane-crash in Eastern Ukrainia. People in the area don't want to hear about any guilt on the part of the separatists. They rather believe in weird rumours and Russian television.”

Implicated assertions are one of the favourite tools of propaganda. The articles of the German news medias (and, unfortunately, not only news media texts), are full of them these days. In the introduction above, only the first sentence would pass the set of rules of journalistic scrutiny and integrity. With the second sentence the manipulative part starts: it is contrived to provoke distaste for the inhabitants of the area. In the third sentence, the implicit verdict is cast: Russian television is put on the same level as “weird rumours”, and both are set in opposition to the afore-mentioned “guilt of the separatists”.

They continue on this level. “The heavily armed rebels” that accompany the forensic team from the Netherlands, are furbished with “German shepherd dogs, machine-guns, anti-tank-weapons and sunglasses and tattoos on their upper arms” – clearly, these are dangerous people. Looking into the cooling-cars, into which the recovered dead bodies have been brought, as is customary in such disasters, reveals “in the darkness of the cars...black objects ...shapeless carrier bags, thrown down upon the metal screen of the floor in an disorderly fashion, one next to the other, one above the other.” It would be superfluous to comment explicitly upon lack of respect for the dead. “Thrown down upon the metal screen of the floor in a disorderly fashion, one next to the other, one above the other” – what do you expect from heavily armed tattooed people!

Even commentaries that completely contradict this picture are integrated into the tale without any fuss. “Later the speaker of the team from the Netherlands, Pieter van Vliet, said that the storage conditions of the dead are “good”. He did not expatiate on this. The corpses are lying around in a disorderly fashion. But it seems here that what is important is the cooling, and the cooling works.”

Even this forensic specialist from the Netherlands is not immune from being, very casually, used as a liar or even – check for the very fine meanings between the lines here – a collaborator.

You can find this very same bias in all of the German printed medias, in a big way, from the very distinguished papers to the popular boulevard press, whether they pose as conservative, supposedly leftist or just plain cheap and crappy (Bild). The propagandistic agenda, which we find in almost all of the western media landscape these days, is packaged in dense clouds of sentiments, feelings and apprehensions, surrounded by subtle denunciations and has been launched in a very obvious emotional direction.

And today's BILD newspaper stays in exactly that pattern: “The train is stationed inside the company terrain, behind high gates. Isolated in this way from the public, a dignified examination of the human remains is possible – very different from what the pro-Russian rebels are doing, in the middle of the fields on which the plane has crashed.”

Implicit accusations, a strong emotional contrast, every detail is loaded with emotional connotations.

“The screened-off area of the factory as a supportive dwelling” is contrasted with “the middle of the fields”, which suggests a helpless state of exposition, which, by adding a completely useless piece of “information”, “the pro-Russian rebels”, gains a clearly defined culprit – how could it be otherwise? The use of the unusual definition “pro-Russian rebels” has certainly been decided upon because of its sound, because multiple repetitions of the r sound evoke words and ideas behind them, such as “Russian” and menacing...

Just the normal tools of propaganda?

No, most European medias certainly touch on the very coherent motives of propaganda, but they don´t try to slip it into the readers´ minds. They certainly construct a picture of the enemy, with the manipulative use of information and statements which they distribute or suppress, but they do not load them to such an emotional degree and do not use every opportunity to denunciate. As mentioned before, the first example is from a very distinguished daily newspaper, which gives you the impression that the German press has worn out its democratic phase and ditched it like an old jacket.

But it is not only the media that use this old pattern. The German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, who is often seen as an intermediary voice (and, according to the magazine FOCUS, is currently eager to shed his image as Putin-sympathetic), in his statements about the crash of MH 17, follows the same patterns. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag he said (citing from the Tagesschau transscripts):

Steinmeier refrained from accusations or recriminations for the crash. In the end, there is really no big difference if “the shoot-down was done fully intentionally or was a terrible mistake”. Whoever uses “such weapons”, accepts “the possibility of a disaster”.

There is ample reason to be preoccupied that the “Russian” separatists, “even now, after this horrible disaster, will continue to thoroughly neglect the basic rules of our civilization”, Steinmeier said.1

This statement is rife for publication in handbooks of political propaganda. It is very important to realize, how far it is going and to discern the implicit signals and messages. Because the deeper meaning here is very different from what Cameron said, “if the separatists are guilty, Europe has to put its fist firmly down upon the table”. In the same way, Steinmeier's negotiations in February contained the implicit message that Swoboda and the right sector should be allowed to come to power. It is very important not to be deceived by the fact that Steinmeier bears a label that means social democrat. He honours the basic ideas implied by that as much as does his comrade Sarrazin.2

To start with, Steinmeier builds himself a position of moral superiority, by “abstaining from laying blame” – something he is not really doing, after all, but by the time we notice that, he has already made his point. He paints himself as a prudent person. That increases the value of what he is about to say. Finally, he takes care that there is ample room to wiggle (after all, the facts are anything but clear!), by making the statement that “it does not matter if the shoot-down happened fully intentionally or was a terrible mistake.” It seems obvious that he knew how unstable and ambiguous the American claims really were...

Emotional manipulation starts with the use of the words “such weapons.” He leaves things unsaid, open to interpretations we carry sub-consciously with us, which everybody will fill with the pictures and projections that scare him most. It is to be supposed that only a few were thinking of anti-aircraft-units BUK M-1 – but rather something in the form of a mushroom (which was used to re-activate long-forgotten remnants of the cold war); an additional amplification of this sentiment came with his phrase of “the possibility of disaster.”3

The real message, however, comes in the last sentence. The “Russian separatists” (look here – not “pro-Russian”, they have now magically transformed into real blood-and-bone Russians!), “thoroughly neglect the basic rules of our civilization”; barbarians, in other words, savages, cannibals,Untermenschen...

Another phrase by Steinmeier in connection with the crash underscores this direction even more: “those who are responsible for this have forfeited any rights for concerns of their own in the name of human rights and humanity.”

No more rights for human treatment and behaviour towards them.

These are exactly the same kind of statements that we can hear from Kiev. Cameron's statements are aggressive, but still completely in line with demands and insistence on sanctions. In comparison, even the hoarse outcries for “NATO-involvement” are more or less harmless. The version from Kiev is easy to discern, because of the open and unambiguous use of the key words. Steinmeier has produced a masterpiece of vicious propaganda, which puts the idea of the Untermensch in the head of the reader, without ever mentioning it himself. That, my friends, is the difference between a master and an apprentice!

The use of propaganda is so widespread and so dense, that these statements by Steinmeier in no way stand out as anything exceptional. After all, no German newspaper did have any problem with the announcement of Poroschenko, to kill hundreds separatists for every dead Ukrainian soldier. On the contrary, it was distributed with obvious contentment and approval. But Steinmeier does not promote sanctions here. This is propaganda for war, it outlines the type of war and it sanctifies any and all crimes of the Kiev junta, as far as Berlin is concerned.

He suggests “a way out of this” to the Russian government: to let go completely (and one-sidedly) of the two republics. “Moscow now has a chance, maybe its very last chance, to show that it is really and seriously interested in a solution.”

This is not diplomacy any more, this is an open threat. It seems to me that Putin must have outlawed the opium trade.Notes:

1 As the second translation, „thoroughly neglect...“ is better it should be used here as well.It comes close to the original pathos. 
2 A friend remarked noone outside Germany would know who Sarrazin is. Perhaps I should add a footnote? 
3 It´s the same quotation. And „outrage“ isn´t as open as disaster or catastrophe. 

Flight MH-17 Black Box Reveals "Massive Explosive Decompression"

Zero Hedge,

25 July, 2014

While it was already reported that the black boxes of flight MH 17 were supposedly not tempered with, despite early propaganda attempts via planted YouTube clips to claim otherwise (clips which have since disappeared replaced by other propaganda), the question of what the data recovery team operating in London would find was unanswered, until earlier today when CBS reported that "unreleased data" from a black box retrieved from the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine show findings consistent with the plane's fuselage being hit multiple times by shrapnel from a missile explosion.

"It did what it was designed to do," a European air safety official told CBS News, "bring down airplanes."

The official described the finding as "massive explosive decompression."

Of course none of this is surprising, and has been widely known from the beginning: it was also widely known that the black box would provide no additional information on the $64K question: whose missile was it, and was it a missile launched from the ground or an air-to-air missile fired by a fighter jet.

Perhaps a better question is who is leaking the "unreleased data" and what propaganda is it meant to achieve in what is, as we said a week ago, nothing but a propaganda war on both sides.

As for the real questions the "released" black box data should reveal, they remain as follows:

i) why was the plane diverted from its traditional flight path; and

ii) what was said between the pilots and air traffic control in the minutes before the crash.

Recall that the Ukraine secret service confiscated the ATC conversation logs a week ago, and the fate of said conversations has been unknown ever since, something that Malaysian Airlines revealed to the public promptly after its other, just as infamous plane anomaly, flight MH 370 disappeared forever from radar.