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Putin:
Ukraine army is NATO legion aimed at restraining Russia
The
Ukrainian army is essentially a ‘NATO legion’ which doesn’t
pursue the national interests of Ukraine, but persists to restrict
Russia, President Vladimir Putin says
26
January, 2015
“We
often say: Ukrainian Army, Ukrainian Army. But who is really fighting
there? There are, indeed, partially official units of armed forces,
but largely there are the so-called ‘volunteer nationalist
battalions’,” said
Putin.
He
added that the intention of Ukrainian troops is connected
with “achieving
the geopolitical goals of restraining Russia.” Putin
was addressing students in the city of St. Petersburg.
According
to Putin, the Ukrainian army “is
not an army, but a foreign legion, in this case a foreign NATO
legion, which, of course, doesn’t pursue the national interests of
Ukraine.”
Kiev
has been reluctant to find political solutions to the crisis in
eastern Ukraine and only used the ceasefire to regroup its forces,
the president stressed.
“Unfortunately
official Kiev authorities refuse to follow the path of a peaceful
solution. They don’t want to resolve [the crisis] using political
tools,” Putin
said, adding that first Kiev authorities had first used law
enforcement, then security services and then the army in the region.
“It
is essentially a civil war [in Ukraine]. In my view, many in Ukraine
already understand this,” Putin dded.
NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has reacted to President Putin’s
words, calling his statement“nonsense.”
"The
statement that there is a NATO legion in Ukraine is nonsense. There
is no NATO legion,"Stoltenberg
told reporters.
Already
tense situation in eastern Ukraine gone downhill in past 2 weeks. The
escalation of violence came after a controversial incident at a
Kiev-controlled checkpoint near the town of Volnovakha, where 12
passengers were killed on January 13.
Local residents inspect their home,
which was damaged by shelling in the village of Sartan, near
Mariupol (Reuters / Nikolay Ryabchenko)
Kiev
and the militia blamed each other for the incident.
Following
escalation, Kiev ordered “massive
fire" on
militia-held regions on January 18. The self-proclaimed Donetsk
republic’s leader accused Kiev of trying to restart the war.
Violent
confrontation between Ukrainian army troops and rebels reached its
climax last week, when Mariupol in the
Donetsk
Region was shelled. At least 30 people were killed and over 100
wounded.
Kiev
and militia troops traded blame, with rebels insisting they didn’t’
have weapons close enough to the city to carry out such a deadly
attack.
READ MORE: New sanctions against Russia are economic blackmail – Kremlin
Western
countries reiterated accusations of Russia backing the rebel forces,
and so being partly responsible for violations of the Minsk
agreement. They called for more sanctions against Moscow.
On
Monday, US President Barack Obama promised the United States would
examine options to "ratchet
up the pressure on Russia" on
the Ukraine issue.
At
the same time, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Washington
has "more
tools" available
to increase pressure on Russia.
"I
think we have seen that the sanctions work to create real stress in
the economy. We have more tools. I am not today going to enumerate
what the tools are but we have more tools," Lew
told a news conference in Brussels.
Polish
President Bronislaw Komorowski also called on the EU to consider
imposing tougher sanctions on Moscow, saying: "The
response of the Western world should be very firm.”
Germany's
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier also hinted at further
restrictions, adding that "an
attack or a broad offensive on Mariupol would be a qualitative change
in the situation to which we would have to react.”
Vladimir
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov called fresh threats of
anti-Russian sanctions “an
absolutely destructive and unjustified course that would eventually
prove to be shortsighted.”
“Instead
of stepping up the pressure on those who refuse to start a dialogue
and to solve the conflict in a peaceful way, we hear they want to
resume this economic blackmail against Russia,” Peskov
noted in his statement.
Mariupol
spotter ‘confession’ another fake by Kiev – Russian Defense
Ministry
An internet
video reportedly showing the confession of a man saying he was a
spotter in the deadly shelling of Mariupol is just another
low-quality fake created by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU),
the Russian Defense Ministry said.
26
January, 2015
The
ministry also hinted that closer examination of the footage actually
points to the fact that Ukraine forces were responsible for the
bombardment.
The
video was published on the internet on Sunday, one day after shelling
in the eastern Ukrainian port city killed at least 30 people and left
another 100 injured.
“The
SBU needed 24 hours to force this story out of a man, which – as we
see in the clip – is read by the detainee from a piece of paper
located left to the screen,” the
statement by the Russian Defense Ministry said.
In
the video, the person – identified by the SBU as Valery Kirsanov –
says he has been working as a spotter for the self-defense forces of
the Donetsk People’s Republic since being contacted by a rebel unit
commander nicknamed Pepel (“Ash”) two weeks ago.
During
this period, the man in the video said that several checkpoints of
the Ukrainian military were shelled after he sent their coordinates
via text messages to the rebels.
According
to Kirsanov, Saturday’s shelling was also performed according to
his sighting, but the militia’s artillery missed the checkpoint on
Taganrogskay Street, which they were aiming for.
“They
were supposed to ‘do the work’ during the night, but they did it
in the morning, at around 8:00 AM. I went to see how things were
there and told Pepel that they were a kilometer off the mark,” he
said in the video.
There
is also a cut closer to the end of the footage, after which the
detainee adds that Pepel is actually“an
officer of the Russian army in charge of an artillery
battalion” which
shelled Mariupol, located in the Donetsk region, on Saturday.
The
Russian Defense Ministry stressed that “the
knowledge of the nicknames of his contacts (Pepel and another rebel
commander he mentioned), their passport details, citizenship, and the
composition of their subordinate forces and weaponry makes Kirsanov
at least a resident agent, not some appointed spotter.”
“This
whole story would be more in place in a spy novel,”
the statement said.
The
ministry also pointed out “a
notable inconsistency, which the SBU...neglected for some
reason” while
crafting its video.
“At
1:42 of his ‘confession’ video, Kirsanov said that he sent his
contacts the coordinates of a stationary checkpoint of Ukrainian
troops in Vinogradnoe village...At 2:22 of the clip, when answering
the question: ‘From where did the fire come?’ Kirsanov said with
confidence: ‘From the direction of Vinogradnoe.’ In other words,
from the direction where the Ukrainian military checkpoint was
stationed,” the
statement said.
The
Defense Ministry also pointed out that Vinogradnoe is located 3.5
kilometers away from the shelled residential areas in Mariupol, which
is just about the minimum range of Grad missile launchers, which were
allegedly used in Saturday’s bombardment.
“Further
comments on this fake – or as one may call it a 'self-disclosure
session' – by the SBU would be excessive,” the
statement concluded.
Kiev’s
troops and Donbass militia forces are locked in renewed hostilities
in southeastern Ukraine after a shaky ceasefire reached by the sides
in September utterly collapsed.
The
Ukrainian military launched a massive offensive in mid-January, but
failed to gain ground despite employing tanks, artillery, and
aviation.
The
Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military
operation in the southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, after the
regions refused to recognize the country’s new coup-imposed
authorities.
The
death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over
10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimates.
Jen
Psaki lies for a living
Psaki
Calls Allegations About US Private Army in Ukraine 'False'
US
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki called allegations over US
troops or mercenaries operating in Ukraine false.
27
January 2015
WASHINGTON,
January 27 (Sputnik) — Allegations that US private army or
mercenaries operate with the Kiev government are incorrect, US State
Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Monday during a press
briefing.
“There
have been rumors, which my understanding they are false,” Psaki
told journalists when asked about US private army operating in
Ukraine, referring to recent videos depicting English native speakers
patrolling streets of Mariupol, a city in the southeast of Ukraine.
The
first uniformed armed man speaking English was accidently recorded on
the video by the Mariupol News Service. He refused to comment on the
correspondent’s question and quickly went away with the words “Out
of my face, out of my face, please.”
Ukrainian
servicemen get inside armoured personnel carriers (APC) during a
ceremony to hand over weapons, military equipment and aircraft to the
army at a firing range outside Zhytomyr January 5, 2015
The
other video depicts a uniformed man scouting the area for unexploded
ordnance, following Saturday’s heavy shelling attack, which claimed
at least 30 lives. The videos raised questions about the alleged
involvement of foreign military contractors in the Ukrainian
conflict.
“There
are no [US] troops operating [in Ukraine], there was also an
accusation that there is a NATO legion in Ukraine…there have been a
range of rumors out there which are inaccurate,” Psaki underscored.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin on Monday called Ukraine’s army “a
NATO-controlled foreign legion, which is not serving to protect
Ukraine’s national interests.”
Currently,
the US officials are claiming that they are providing exclusively
non-lethal support to Ukraine, as well as military advice. Last
Tuesday the US Ambassador to Ukraine announced that the US Congress
allocated $75 million to support Ukrainian defense sector in 2015, in
addition to $119 million it had already provided in 2014
It
is not the first time that Ukraine’s nationalist forces are
attacking religious holy sites with full appeasement on the part of
the Kiev authorities, the Foreign Ministry says
“A
channel’s representative has suddenly blamed the Crimean
authorities for standing behind the search raid," Dmitry
Polonsky, Crimea’s vice-premier, said
As
a military political organization, NATO will not supply lethal
weapons to Ukraine
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