Ukraine: Russian aid convoy is a ‘direct invasion’
By MSTYSLAV CHERNOV | 18 minutes ago |URALO-KAVKAZ, Ukraine (AP) — Russia sent dozens of aid trucks into rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Friday without Kiev’s approval, saying its patience had worn out with the Ukrainian government’s stalling tactics. Ukraine called the move a “direct invasion.”
The white-tarped semis carrying food, water, generators and sleeping bags sent from Moscow are intended for civilians in the city of Luhansk, where pro-Russian separatists are besieged by government forces. Shelling of the city has been ongoing for weeks, cutting off power, water and phone lines and leaving food supplies scarce.
In the past few days, Ukraine says its troops have recaptured significant parts of Luhansk, the second-largest rebel-held city, and suspicions are running high that Moscow’s humanitarian operation may instead be aimed at halting Kiev’s military momentum. Fierce fighting has been reported both around Luhansk and the largest rebel-held city, Donetsk, with dozens of casualties.
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Valentyn NalyvaichenkoUkrainian Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told reporters in Kiev on Friday that the Russia move was a “direct invasion” which “happened for the first time under the cover of the Red Cross.”
Sources reporting from a slight different accent …
Ukraine accuses Russia of “direct invasion”
CBS/AP | August 22, 2014, 5:17 AM |IZVARYNE, Ukraine (CBS News) — Russia unilaterally sent an aid mission into rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Friday, saying its patience had worn out after a week of delays it blamed on the Ukrainian government, which called the move a “direct invasion.”
Trucks loaded with water, generators and sleeping bags are intended for civilians in the city of Luhansk, where pro-Russian separatist fighters are besieged by government forces. Shelling of the city has been ongoing for weeks. The relief supply mission proceeded despite both sides in the conflict ignoring pleas for a cease-fire, and without permission from Kiev.
The convoy was ordered to move unilaterally by the Russian Foreign Ministry after the ministry accused Kiev of delaying the humanitarian goods unnecessarily. “The Russian side has decided to act,” said a statement on the ministry’s website. “Our column with humanitarian aid is starting to move in the direction of Luhansk.”
Intelligence Chief: 100 Russian Officers Are Leading Ukraine’s Uprisings
By James Rupert and Irena Chalupa | April 22, 2014 |Ukrainian Security Agency Seeks to Arrest Russian Army Colonel Coordinating Subversion
As many as one hundred Russian military intelligence officers and special forces troops are leading the seizures of towns and local governments in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, the Ukrainian intelligence chief said today in his first public account of the crisis.
Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, has spent years building covert networks that its officers now are using to help seize cities such as Slaviansk and Kramatorsk in the north of Donetsk, said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the head of Ukraine’s State Security Service (the Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy, or SBU). Nalyvaichenko, a career diplomat and security official, gave one of the broadest descriptions of the conflict by a Ukrainian official during an online discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.
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Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, director of the Security Service of Ukraine (by its Ukrainian initials, SBU), speaks at his agency's headquarters (above). He told the Atlantic Council in a video discussion (below) that his agency has arrested Russian officers leading uprisings in eastern UkraineUkrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks @Atlantic Council plus Q&A session – March 12, 2014 [Must see and listen to the spin from the new PM, unbelievable – Oui]
Atlantic Council’s Full Coverage of the Crisis in the Ukraine
MH17 rebels meant to down Aeroflot plane ‘to justify invasion’
By Will Stewart | Daily Mail | Published: 22:22 GMT, 9 August 2014 |Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Russian-backed fighters were supposed to take down a Russian airliner flying over Pervomaiskoe, west of Donetsk, to give Putin a reason for invasion. The head of Ukraine’s secret service has claimed rebels intended to down a Russian airliner to give Vladimir Putin a pretext for invasion – but blasted Flight MH17 out of the sky by mistake.
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Got it wrong? Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claims pro-Russian rebels targeted the wrong civilian airliner (Atlantic Council)Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Russian-backed fighters were supposed to take their BUK rocket launcher – which had been transported across the Russian border – to a village called Pervomaiskoe in Ukrainian-held territory west of Donetsk. Instead, they mistakenly positioned it in a rebel-controlled village of the same name to the east of the city.
How many days until the Kiev junta falls in its own sword?
German business community are putting extreme pressure on Berlin and Angela Merkel to come to a political solution for the Ukrainian crisis and refuse to be Obama’s lap dog. See the recent attempts to come together for talks which have all been undermined by Kiev. There will be a first top summit with both President Peroshenko and President Putin in Minsk, Belarus next week.
Wall Street market has reached new highs yesterday (S&P 500 Index) and the European are getting hit by the US advocated sanctions on Russian which have been countered by Russia with limiting imports of ‘enemy’ states which support the sanctions dictated in Washington and Brussels.
Europe is not a ‘union’ nor united on NATO policy, the business leaders are the first to revolt, the masses have been gone over with pro-west propaganda. Interesting days, as a panel discussion on Deutsche Welle just summarized.
MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) – Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), provided the personal files of Ukrainian special service officials to the CIA during his tenure as head of the Ukrainian Security Service in 2006-2010, Oleksandr Yakimenko, who has recently left the post of head of the Ukrainian Security Service, said.
“CIA officials worked in the Ukrainian Security Service under Nalyvaichenko. The personal files of SBU officials were provided to them,” Yakimenko said in an interview aired on Rossiya 24 television.
Nalyvaichenko was under investigation, which was “never completed,” Yakimenko said.
As the official Dutch Safety Board remained silent, their website was in Dutch only (until today) and the team of experts stayed in Kiev and Kharkiv, they did not travel to the crash site …
The following countries have contributed (to a greater or lesser extent) to the international investigation team into the crash of flight MH17: Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Indonesia. The ICAO and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) also contributed to the investigation as organisations. The leadership of the investigation rests with the Dutch Safety Board, which will publish both the preliminary and final report. The countries that have a formal role as participants in the investigation under the ICAO agreement will be given access to the draft reports, and may provide feedback. The country leading the investigation may offer other countries access to the draft reports at its discretion.
The rebels handed the flight-data recorders over to Malaysian officials at a ceremony in Donetsk/Pic:AP
The Ukrainian armed forces did not heed the Security Council resolution, instead pushed forward with an advance on Donetsk and thereby blocking the crash site from any further investigation, see my earlier diaries. The Dutch chickened out, on August 11 as PM Abbott paid a visit to Dutch PM Mark Rutte in The Hague/Eindhoven.
Earlier I saw a fleury of communications/contacts with Ukraine officials on July 28, 2014. Remember the non-aligned Malaysia had 133 pair of boots on the ground at the crash site and handed their report to the Dutch on Sat. July 26. As we have seen, studying the evidence of the wreckage it can be determined whether a SAM or an air-to-air missile plus 30mm rounds were registered as the obvious cause of the crash.
From the few English comments at the DSB site, we learn there was a preliminary report distributed to all nations concerned as per August 16 – Malaysian minister of Transport Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai stated.
In recent weeks, an international team of some 25 aircraft accident investigators has collected as much investigation information as possible in Ukraine. Since it is not necessary to stay in Ukraine any longer to analyse the information and write a report on the preliminary findings, the team has relocated to The Hague to continue its work.
The team’s efforts will initially focus on the report of preliminary findings, which the Dutch Safety Board aims to publish in a few weeks’ time. The report will contain the first factual findings arising from the investigation based on various sources, such as the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder (the black boxes), air traffic control data, radar and satellite images. This data is currently being compared and will subsequently be analysed.
[Source press statement DSB on August 11]
Other followers waiting for any substantial information from the DSB are just as skeptical, posting the report will become available when the fighters in Luhansk and Donetsk have surrendered. When the war is over and the facts on the ground are irreversible. In the message, Ukraine is sending 1,500 troops to Transcarpathia to surpress unrest with Hungary.
○ Dutch review energy ties with Russia after MH17 crash
Cross-posted from my earlier diary – Was Malaysia MH-17 Downed by Su-25 Fighter Planes?
Ukr Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement
An echo of the voices from Tel Aviv when the humanitarian Gaza Freedom Flotilla was attacked. The world more or less yawned when nine humanitarians were killed, dozens wounded, and the ships were impounded and the participants detained.
humanitarian aid are not directed toward the US, which worries about neither its own hypocrisy nor its own depravity, nor primarily toward Europe–though the hope that Europe may yet step back from the abyss is remains a glimmer.
The main message is for Asia and the global south, who are considering how much abuse at the hands of a cruel and lawless self-proclaimed hegemon remains acceptable.
For whatever reasons (Russian survival in the face of NATO obviously being one of them) Putin is setting an example of lawful and humane behavior. It may be calculating, but it may not be merely calculating, and this is a distinction that is very important outside the anglosphere.
Thus the Ukraine and the US are screaming.
You can argue that the manner in which the Russians are doing this is manipulative, but the fact is that it is US aggression that has boxed the US into the corner of defending the mass murder of civilians by universally illegal weapons (white phosphorus, and so on), and the US has boxed itself in willingly. No one forced the US to fund and direct war crimes and crimes against humanity–It was a free, willing choice.
Which is exactly what Putin is now setting on display for the world.
The difference between the truck convoy and the Palestinian flotilla is the strategic stakes. Russia really has no choice now, but to fight for its survival, despite risks.
They already know what defeat would look like, having lived through it once already, and nearly becoming a failed state.
–Gaianne
This has nothing to do with impressions Russia wants to make on Asia or the global south. And what is Russia doing here that is manipulative?
The US has turned the Ukraine into a festering wound in Russia’s side, and with the coup, Russia has finally been forced to address this problem.
Russia is trying to build a coalition of powers in Asia and in the southern hemisphere that will be able to withstand the hostile moves of the US. China is totally on board with this.
There are two issues:
(1) As the lawless behavior of the US in pursuit of profits for its oligarchs increases, at what point does that behavior become intolerable? The sooner southern nations decide to protect themselves from petrodollar machinations, the sooner such a coalition can be built. The recent attack by the US on the economy of Argentina through the actions of Paul Singer and his hedge fund and the New York court system displays the urgency of the matter. But the global economy is a web of dependencies that makes protection from American predation difficult. In the Argentine case, the Argentinians can not even negotiate with their bond holders (for any terms whatever) unless the US permits it, because the bonds are physically held in a US bank.
(2) For an alternative to the petrodollar to be built the coalition of countries must learn to trust each other, and this can only be done by proven lawfulness. This means accepting laws that are commonly considered fair, and abiding by them. This means that at this time, Putin not only has to appear fair, he has to be fair. Unlike for the Americans, simple force will not serve. For example, Russia had the physical means to send the humanitarian caravan into Novorossiya immediately, but it took a week for the Ukrainians to prove their bad faith and thus to show that it was fair for Russia to send the caravan in in a situation that would otherwise amount to meddling.
All of this is directed to the nations of Asia and the Global South that Russia hopes to bring into the coalition. Hope is also held out to Europe, though that remains a mere glimmer.
That said, the background for all of this is that American actions are becoming more desperate as the much-touted, “Saudi America” fracking bubble is on track to pop within a year.
–Gaianne
Thank you very much for clarifying your position. I agree with everything you say.
I think that is exactly right.
I personally don’t think that Russia needs to prove its lawfulness to non-NATO countries. I think that, other than trying to combat Ukrainian fascism, what is behind Russian actions with respect to the former Ukraine is to show western Europeans that Russia now represents Western civilization, whereas the Anglosphere offers nothing but barbarism.
From linked article Kyiv Post on Facebook:
“The most interesting thing over the past 24 hours was the Russian military convoy passing through the border into Ukraine, witnessed and photographed by Western and even Russian media outlets.
And, more remarkably, has been the muted reaction from the West and indeed from the Western media. Some 4-5 weeks ago, the White House PR machine would have been going into overdrive, and warning of new sanctions iterations in the pipeline unless Russia “de-escalated.” Thus far nothing we have seen next to nothing of note.”
Feeds into my sensing the rhetoric has toned down due to overwhelming evidence of downing MH-17 pointing to Kiev renegade right-wing forces with UBS complicity. Has someone leading the Ukrainian AF been sacked recently?
Interesting to view small summit last weekend between France, Germany, Russia’s Lavrov and Ukraine’s Klimkin in Berlin. Perhaps a breakthrough … or a reset from an earlier summit on July 2, 2014 ‒ agree on cease-fire path ‒ before the event!
Additional reporting fron Germany by Deutsche Welle …
German business leaders are pressuring the CSU/CDU and Angela Merkel to solve the Ukrainian crisis by diplomacy [what an ancient term]. There have been talks between FM of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. There is a summit planned in Minsk which will be attended by Perochenko and Russia’s president Putin. There should be a cease fire plan worked out by then.
○ Ukraine’s Coup d’ État – George Marshall, OSS, Bissell and Gladio
○ NATO Policy: A Return to Deterrence
From Ray McGovern at ConsortiumNews
And westerners are perplexed by the seeming sensitivity of Russian-Ukrainians and Russia to the rise of fascist/Nazis within the UKR government and militias.