Brandon Turbeville / Activist Post & Dr. Paul Craig Roberts / Global Research – 2014-09-10 00:48:48
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/russia-negotiates-ceasefire-in-ukraine.html
Russia Negotiates Ceasefire in Ukraine: NATO Responds With Troops, Warships, and Sanctions
Brandon Turbeville / Activist Post
(September 9, 2014) — Only hours after Russian President Vladmir Putin managed to secure a fragile ceasefire between the Western-backed fascist regime in Kiev and the Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine, NATO has rewarded Russia’s efforts by shipping NATO soldiers into Western Ukraine, increasing the number of NATO navy vessels in the Black Sea, and leveling new sanctions against Moscow.
According to Reuters, Western Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and one of the main separatist leaders of Eastern Ukraine have agreed to order ceasefires on Friday, pending that an agreement is made on a new peace plan.
Reuters states:
Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales, Poroshenko said the ceasefire would be conditional on a planned meeting going ahead in Minsk on Friday of envoys from Ukraine, Russia and Europe’s OSCE security watchdog.
“At 1400 local time (0700 ET on Friday), provided the (Minsk) meeting takes place, I will call on the General Staff to set up a bilateral ceasefire and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will begin tomorrow,” he told reporters.
Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the main rebel Donetsk People’s Republic, said in a statement his men would also order a ceasefire, from one hour later, provided that Kiev’s representatives signed up to a peace plan at the Minsk meeting.
Still, the ceasefire is hanging by a thread. For instance, some rebel leaders view the ceasefire with extreme suspicion since other ceasefires allegedly initiated by Kiev have fallen apart or never actually taken place.
Reuters reports:
Rebels still expressed scepticism. Oleg Tsaryov, a senior rebel official, told Reuters the separatist truce would depend on the government providing guarantees, “because in the past we had some ceasefire agreements Poroshenko didn’t honor”.
A source close to Zakharchenko said government forces bombarded Donetsk within 15 minutes of Poroshenko’s announcement of the ceasefire plan: “We’ll see how the talks go tomorrow, but it won’t be easy. All this talk of truce amid more and more shelling.”
Former central banker and current Prime Minister of Western Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, flatly dismissed the ceasefire plan, calling it a trap. In addition, Western media outlets claim that the fighting on the ground continues in Ukraine. However, one would be justified in questioning the veracity of these reports given the track record of these operations and the obvious desire of Western media to discredit any Russian success in terms of ending the violence. On the other hand, given the track record of Kiev, ceasefire agreements do not have a great life expectancy.
There are wild cards, of course. Most notably, whether or not the Western fascists such as Right Sector will abide by the terms of the ceasefire deal. Indeed, this is one of the major concerns of the Donetsk Republic Prime Minister Zakharchenko.
Putin’s seven-point peace plan outline is as follows:
First, end active offensive operations by armed forces, armed units and militia groups in southeast Ukraine in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas.
Second, withdraw Ukrainian armed forces units to a distance that would make it impossible to fire on populated areas using artillery and all types of multiple launch rocket systems.
Third, allow for full and objective international monitoring of compliance with the ceasefire and monitoring of the situation in the safe zone created by the ceasefire.
Fourth, exclude all use of military aircraft against civilians and populated areas in the conflict zone.
Fifth, organise the exchange of individuals detained by force on an ‘all for all’ basis without any preconditions.
Sixth, open humanitarian corridors for refugees and for delivering humanitarian cargoes to towns and populated areas in Donbass–Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.
Seventh, make it possible for repair brigades to come to damaged settlements in the Donbass region in order to repair and rebuild social facilities and life-supporting infrastructure and help the region to prepare for the winter.
In response to the Russian-brokered peace deal, NATO has responded in a typical confrontational fashion.
Only hours after the ceasefire was announced, NATO and the United States announced that dynamic duo of destabilization was going ahead with planned military exercises in Western Ukraine that will see approximately 1,000 troops posted on Ukrainian soil.
Shortly ahead of the NATO meeting, Barack Obama stated from Estonia “that the US and NATO would not allow a foreign country to encroach on its friends. He said this after blaming Moscow for the political turmoil in Ukraine. He was a hair away from saying that the US would protect Ukraine from a Russian military attack.
If the NATO exercises were not enough to inflame tensions in the fragile country, four NATO warships are also set to enter the Black Sea this week. USS Ross, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, French Commandant Birot, Canadian HMCS Toronto, a Halifax-class frigate, and Spanish frigate Almirante Juan de Borbon are all set to enter the Black Sea before September 7.
As RT reports:
The Montreux Convention of 1936 states that warships of non-Black Sea states can stay in the Black Sea for no more than 21 days. It adds that the maximum deadweight of a non-regional warship in the area should not exceed 45,000 tons.
[…]
Despite the convention limits, NATO has managed to increase its presence in the region in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis by constantly rotating warships there. Russia does not approve of what it sees as muscle-flexing by the military alliance in its backyard.
In July this year, the grouping of NATO ships in the Black Sea reached nine vessels, setting a record for the post-Soviet period. Rounding out the provocative stance of Western leaders, the results of the NATO summit reveal the intention to impose yet more sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
According to the New York Times:
The extended European package, which was agreed to in principle by leaders, at a European Union summit meeting last week, would cover state energy and defense companies, said one British official who requested anonymity under government rules.
Restrictions on Russian banks would be extended, and there would be more measures against so-called dual-use equipment, particularly in the communications and aerospace sectors. The access of Russian banks to the European debt market would be further restricted and limited to shorter-term debt.
Clearly, the United States and NATO are not seeking a peaceful solution in Ukraine. If they were, they would be applauding the ability of Putin to secure a ceasefire and a reasonable roadmap to a sustained halt of hostilities. If the US and NATO were seeking peace in Ukraine, they never would have orchestrated the Euromaidan color revolution to begin with.
Still, as the American people buy Western propaganda hook, line, and sinker, those of us who have a grasp of current events seem doomed to be dragged ever closer to a direct confrontation with a nuclear world power. We can continue to ignore the facts and the political process now but, if such a confrontation ever happens, we will not be able to ignore it any longer.
Warning to the World:
Washington and Its NATO and EU Vassals Are Insane
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts / Global Research
(September 5, 2014) — Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination.
If we have “to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.” http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/how_to_solve_the_putin_problem.html
As the crazed Meyer illustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint. Jose Manual Barroso, installed as Washington’s puppet as European Commission President, misrepresented his recent confidential telephone conversation with Russia’s President Putin by telling the media that Putin issued a threat: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.”
Clearly, Putin did not issue a threat. A threat would be inconsistent with Putin’s entire unprovocative approach to the strategic threat that Washington and its NATO puppets have brought to Russia in Ukraine.
Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that if Barroso’s lie stands, Russia will make public the full recording of the conversation.
Anyone familiar with the disparity between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries knows full well that it would take the Russian military 14 hours, not 14 days, to take all of Ukraine. Just remember what happened to the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian Army when Washington set its stupid Georgian puppets on South Ossetia. The American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army collapsed under Russian counterattack in 5 hours.
The lie that Washington’s puppet Barroso told was not worthy of a serious person. But where in Europe is there a serious person in power? Nowhere. The few serious people are all out of power. Consider the NATO Secretary General, Anders Rasmussen. He was a prime minister of Denmark who saw he could rise beyond Denmark by serving as Washington’s puppet.
As prime minister he strongly supported Washington’s illegal invasion of Iraq, declaring that “we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Of course, the fool didn’t know any such thing, and why would it matter if Iraq did have such weapons. Many countries have weapons of mass destruction.
According to the rule that anyone who serves Washington is elevated, the cipher Rasmussen was elevated. The problem with elevating unprincipled fools is that they risk the world for their career. Rasmussen has now put the entirety of Eastern and Western Europe at risk of annihilation. Rasmussen has announced the creation of a blitzkrieg spearhead force capable of blitzkrieg attack on Russia.
What Washington’s puppet calls “the Readiness Action Plan” is justified as a response to “Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine.” Rasmussen’s “lightening spearhead force” would be instantly wiped out along with every European capital. What kind of idiot provokes a nuclear superpower in this way?
Rasmussen asserts “Russia’s aggressive behavior” but has no evidence of it. Russia has stood on the sidelines while Washington’s puppet government in Kiev has shelled and bombed civilian housing, hospitals, schools and issued a constant stream of lies against Russia. Russia denied the requests of the now independent eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine, former Russian territories, to be reunited with Russia.
As readers know, I regard Putin’s decision as a mistake, but events might prove me wrong and that is OK with me. For now, the fact is that every act of aggressive behavior is the result of the US and EU support of the Kiev nazis. It is the Ukrainian nazi militias that are attacking civilians in the former Russian territories of eastern and southern Ukraine. A number of regular Ukrainian military units have defected to the independent republics.
Yes, Nazis. Western Ukraine is the home of the Ukrainian SS divisions that fought for Hitler. Today the militias organized by the Right Sector and other right-wing political organizations wear the Nazi insignia of the Ukrainian SS divisions. These are the people that Washington and the EU support.
If the Ukrainian Nazis could win against Russia, which they cannot, they would turn on the stupid West, just as has the Washington-funded ISIS that the dumbshits in Washington unleashed on Libya and Syria. Now ISIS is remaking the Middle East, and Washington appears helpless.
William Binney, a former high level official in the US National Security Agency, along with colleagues from the CIA and military intelligence services, have written to German chancellor Merkel advising her to beware of Obama’s lies at the upcoming NATO summit in Wales. The US intelligence officials advise Merkel to remember Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” and don’t again be deceived, this time into conflict with Russia.
The question is: Who does Merkel represent? Washington or Germany? So far Merkel has represented Washington, not German business interests, not the German people, and not Germany’s interests as a country. Here is a protest in Dresden where a crowd prevents Merkel’s speech with shouts of “kriegstreiber” (warmonger), “liar, liar,” and “no war with Russia.”
My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: “Money, we give them money.” “Foreign aid?” I asked. “No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale, We bought them. They report to us.” Perhaps this explains Tony Blair’s $50 million fortune one year out of office.
The Western media, the largest whorehouse on earth, is desperate for war.
The editorial board of the Washington Post, now a trophy newspaper in the hands of Amazon.com’s billionaire owner, ran an editorial on August 31 that projected all of Washington’s (and the Post‘s) lies upon Putin. Amazon.com’s owner might know how to market products on the Internet, but he is hopeless when it comes to running a newspaper. His editors at the Washington Post have made his trophy a worldwide laughing stock.
Here are the mindless accusations against Putin from the WP:
Putin, bitterly resentful at the loss of power from the Soviet collapse, has “resurrected the tyranny of the Big Lie” in order to reconstitute the Russian Empire.
“Russian sponsored militias in Ukraine” are responsible for the “shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in July.” The “Russian state-controlled media” lied and misrepresented to the Russian people the party responsible for downing the airliner.
“In the absence of independent and free reporting, few Russians realize that Russian soldiers and armaments are in action in eastern Ukraine, albeit (as in Crimea) in uniforms and vehicles stripped of their identifying insignia and license plates. With no free media, Russians are left to fend for themselves against a firestorm of falsehoods.”
“Mr. Putin’s Big Lie shows why it is important to support a free press where it still exists and outlets like Radio Free Europe that bring the truth to people who need it.”
As a former Wall Street Journal editor, I can say with complete confidence that such extraordinary propaganda posing as an editorial would have resulted in the immediate firing of all concerned. In my days on the Congressional staff, the Washington Post was regarded as a CIA asset. Today the Post has sunk far below this status.
I have seen much media propaganda in my day, but this Washington Post editorial takes the cake. The editorial shows that either the editorial writers are completely ignorant or they are completely corrupt and also assume that their readers are completely ignorant.
If Russian military units were in action in eastern Ukraine, the situation would be precisely as Alexander Zakharchenko and Dmitry Orlov describe. Ukraine would no longer exist. Ukraine would again be part of Russia where it was for centuries prior to Washington taking advantage of the Soviet collapse to tear Ukraine away from Russia.
The question before us is: how long will Russia’s patience last with the West’s enormous lies and provocations? No matter how restrained Russia is, Russia is accused of the worst. Therefore, Russia might as well inflict the worst.
At what point will the Russian government decide that Washington’s mendacity, and that of its European puppets and corrupt Western media, render hopeless Russia’s efforts to resolve the situation with diplomacy and unprovocative behavior?
As Russia is constantly accused falsely of invading Ukraine, when will the Russian government decide that as Western propaganda has established that Russia has invaded Ukraine and has imposed sanctions and new military bases on Russia’s borders because of the alleged invasion, Russia might as well go ahead and rid themselves of the problem Washington has brought to Russia and invade Ukraine?
There is nothing that NATO could do about it if Russia decides that Ukraine in Washington’s hands is too much of a strategic threat to Russia and reincorporates Ukraine again into Russia where it has resided for centuries. Any NATO force sent would be instantly wiped out. The German population, remembering the consequences of war with Russia, would overthrow Washington’s puppet government. NATO and the EU would collapse as Germany departed the absurd construct that serves Washington’s interest at the expense of Europe.
Once this happens, the world will have peace. But not until.
For those who care to understand how the land of lies works, Washington’s puppet government in Kiev attributes the defeat of its military forces by the Donetsk Republic to the presence in the Donetsk army of Russian military units.
This is the propaganda that has gone out to western Ukraine and to the presstitute western media, a collection of whores that echo the propaganda without any investigation whatsoever. However, Kiev has a different story for the IMF. Kiev cannot receive IMF money with which to pay off its Western creditors if Ukraine is at war. Therefore, Ukraine tells the IMF the opposite story: Russia has not attacked Ukraine.
The Western media remains uninterested in any facts. Just the lies. Only the lies.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox “news,” Die Welt, the French press, the British press all plead: “please Washington give us more sensational lies that we can trumpet. Our circulation needs it. Who cares about war and the human race if only we can regain financial stability?”
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