U.S. Ships 50 Bradley Tanks to Ukraine: Europeans Are Furious Washington's Blog

Eric Zuesse

Apparently, Obama, though he says he hasn’t made up his mind about whether to send weapons to Ukraine, actually has and is. He now seems to be quietly trashing the spirit though no provision in the Minsk II truce that was arranged by Merkel, Hollande, Putin, and Poroshenko, and signed by the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, and both of the rebelling former parts of Ukraine, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. Obama now appears to be sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and thus assisting Ukraine to resume attacking the DPR & LPR.

Even conservative Europeans are expressing outrage. Followers of Italy’s Sylvio Berlusconi, and even the leader of Austria’s anti-immigrant “Freedom Party,” are shocked and appalled by this Obama action.

Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, posted online a photo alleged to be of Bradley tanks now on rail-cars in Linz Austria en-route to Ukraine; he estimated 50 of them.

Complete story at - U.S. Ships 50 Bradley Tanks to Ukraine: Europeans Are Furious Washington's Blog

The Economist has a funny sense of European values — RT Op-Edge

In the same week that The Economist lauded Ukraine's "commitment to European values," Kiev's current regime kicked out Euronews. Who do they think they are kidding?

Ah, The Economist. Without question, it’s is the best informed news magazine in the world… except on subjects I know something about. Take Ukraine for instance, throughout the country's current crisis, The Economist has been weaving a web of fantasy to its readers. The narrative has continuously blamed Russia for all Ukraine's misfortunes while painting its post-Maidan oligarchic rulers as being somewhere near God's right hand.

After wholeheartedly backing last year’s coup, the windy weekly has been unwilling to admit the severity of Kiev’s economic malaise. Instead, it has maintained the pretence that throwing money at its pro-NATO regime will solve all its problems. Anybody who knows the first thing about Ukraine acknowledges that the lion's share of the dough would be pilfered.

The problem is that a great number of the Western world’s most powerful people take The Economist seriously. The magazine appears both authoritative and credible, and never misses a chance to emphasize its own importance. However, this is “lipstick on a pig” territory. On subjects I’m reasonably informed about (Ireland, Europe, Britain, the ex-USSR for example), The Economist is more often wrong than right. Viewed through that prism, I’m extremely skeptical of the rag’s accuracy on topics I know little of.

In 2005, The Economist announced that Ireland had the highest quality of life in the world. I clearly remember reading the edition in downtown Dublin and that my first thought concerned the quality of the drugs the magazine’s editors were taking. Oddly, I'd penned a column a week earlier for the Ireland On Sunday newspaper predicting a deep recession for my homeland, which was rapidly losing its industrial base as credit-fuelled property madness raged.

Two years later, Ireland’s economy collapsed and a half decade of misery began. Incidentally, the periodical currently lists Melbourne as the best place to reside on earth. If you are in Melbourne right now, given The Economist’s track record, it’s probably best to emigrate before the inevitable happens.

Complete story at - The Economist has a funny sense of European values — RT Op-Edge

The Vineyard of the Saker: From Napoleon to Adolf Hitler to Conchita Wurst

The EU met again and, with the Greek vote, they prolonged more sanctions on Russia. In the meantime, the EU-backed junta is continuing to kill scores of civilians in Novorussia every day. And while for "Charlie", we saw millions in the streets, nobody seems to care. Worse, the EU is backing the Nazis murderers (I won't even mention the USA).

This is tragic in more then one way. Of course, this is tragic for the people of Novorussia, but it is no less tragic for the Ukrainian people how now are living under a Nazi regime with no foreseeable hope for change. This is also tragic for the Russian people who are suffering the economic consequences of the sanctions. And, of course, this is tragic for the people of Europe who are also suffering from these (self-defeating) sanctions. But there is something else happening which might have very long lasting consequences.

For three centuries the Russian elites were more or less split into two camps: pro-western and anti-western. Of course in those days, "West" meant western Europe, not the USA or central Europe.

Russia's European "friends" - a short reminder

The pro-European camp was formed by the new elites created by Czar Peter I to impose his reforms on the Russian people, and by the late 19th early 20th century, the pro-western camp was almost in total control of Russia. Then, the Soviet era more or less blurred these categories as ideology became central. While one could argue that the Trotskists were de-facto pro-western, they were such a small subset of the Bolshevik party which itself was such a tiny part of the Russian population that I don't think we can speak of pro-western factions inside the Bolshevik or Communist party. Not even Khrushchev, certainly the worst leader the USSR ever had, was really pro-western. I think that the first pro-western Soviet leader was also the last one, Gorbachev. But after 1991, the vast majority of Russians, tired of ideological tensions, tired of a Cold War they did not want, tired of being seen as the enemies of Europe sincerely desired to become part of the West and finally set aside the past.

We all know what happened then. For a full decade, the West maintained a degenerate regime of oligarchs, CIA puppets and thugs in power while NATO advanced on all fronts. Instead of the promised "democratic lovefest", Russia was plundered, humiliated, ridiculed, and fully colonized. In truth, from 1991 to 1996 Russia became Uncle Sam's "poodle", a thoroughly dysfunctional society run by freaks very similar to the ones sitting in Kiev today. By 1996 the situation became so bad as to be really explosive and Uncle Sam had to tread more carefully, with less visible arrogance, but it took the coming to power of Putin to really begin to reverse that trend. The period between 1991 and 1996 saw Russia suffer from human and material losses fully comparable to the kind of losses one would expect from nuclear war. During those years, the Russian society began noticing a strange lack of friendliness from the West: for all the back-slapping and lofty promises of partnership, the West (US and EU) gave a standing ovation the Chechen Wahabis even though they were at least as crazy and bloodthirsty as ISIS is today. Likewise, the US and EU broke all of their international obligations and jointly attacked both Yugoslavia and Serbia. Russians were aware of that, but they still held a general sympathy for Europeans who were mostly nice, polite, apparently well-intentioned people. Besides, one could always blame all these bizarre policies on the "legacy of the Cold War" cop-out. Finally, Eltsin and Milosevic were jerks, no doubt about that, and Russia was weak and, frankly, ugly. So most Russians kind of understood that the US and EU did not feel to kindly inclined towards Russia.

In a futile attempt to "behave", Russians tried hard to be "nice" and "hyper-democratic". They let the Latvians introduce apartheid, they agreed on sanctions against Iran, they saw NATO gradually encircle Russian with military bases and warships and they saw the US treat Russia with open contempt. In response, Russia made some rather vapid protests, participated in useless negotiations and let the USA spend 5 billions dollars in the Ukraine and even overturn elections.

In exchange for a total Russian submission, the West eventually "generously" agreed to stop supporting the Chechen Wahabis who had been defeated by the joint efforts of Vladimir Putin and Akhmad Hadji Kadyrov (and his son, Ramzan) anyway. Then, right when the hopelessly pro-western Dmitri Medvedev came to power and the hopes for the further subjugation of Russia were at an all time high, Saakashvili blew it all by listening to US Neocons and attacking South Ossetia. And here, for the very first time, Russia said "niet" and proceeded to smash the Georgian military even though the local force ratio were very much in the favor of Georgia and the Georgian forces better equipped. The US and NATO backed Georgian military, which some "experts" had referred to as a "tough nut to crack" for the "corrupt Russian military" but which was nevertheless destroyed in all of three days. And then, suddenly and for the first time, western politicians began to doubt their own propaganda: the quasi instantaneous defeat of Georgia, the lightening fast mobilization of the Black Sea fleet and the fact that the Russian Air Force achieved air superiority just 2 days after suffering some very humiliating initial losses, all that left a very bad taste in the mouths those who had believed in western military superiority myths.

Day after day, love turns gray, like the skin of a dying man (Roger Waters)

In Russia, however, this was also left a very bad taste. While the overwhelming majority of Russians had no hostility towards Georgia or the Georgian people, Russians simply could not understand two basic things:

a) How could the people in the West even seriously suggest that Russia was the aggressor when the Georgia attack was broadcast live TV?
b) How could the people in the West support such an obvious psychopath, scumbag and freak like Saakashvili?

Later we saw the West openly betray Russia at the UN over Libya only to immediately to turn to Syria with exactly the same intentions. At least the USA defended their own national interests (as their 1%er deep state understood it). But Europe? Why was France taking center stage in Libya and Syria? What was going on? What was wrong with these people?

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: From Napoleon to Adolf Hitler to Conchita Wurst

Kiev Planning Full-Scale War on Donbas

What's ongoing should scare everyone. State-sponsored terror threatens Europe.

Initiated post-Paris killings. On the pretext of fighting nonexistent homegrown terrorism. At the same time, MSM ignore Kiev's ceasefire hoax.

Ongoing dirty war rages in Europe's heartland. Donbas residents attacked. Civilian neighborhoods shelled. Killing defenseless men, women and children in cold blood.

Kiev continues mobilizing for escalated conflict. On January 16, Itar Tass headlined "New spate of drafting to Ukrainian Armed Forces (for) full-scale war in Europe."

Saying increased mobilization "testifies to Kiev’s plans to suppress resistance in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics by force."

According to Academy of Geopolitical Problems president Konstantin Sivkov:

"Yet another drafting to the Armed Forces declared in Ukraine now proves that all the talking about willingness for peace in the southeast of the country on the part of president Petro Poroshenko is little more than a cover-up aimed at getting a pause prior to a major offensive on the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics."

"At present, the Ukrainian Army doesn't have enough manpower or resources to guarantee victory over the self-defense forces but Poroshenko obviously hopes to accumulate enough strength and to destroy the rebellious republics by spring."

Unanimously passed US Ukraine Freedom Support Act (UFSA) of 2014 authorizes lethal and non-lethal aid.

Besides what Washington already supplies. Covertly since conflict began. Including stingers, anti-tank missiles, anti-armor weapons and other heavy weapons.

Britain supplies weapons and munitions. So do other NATO countries. According to Sivkov:

"There’s hardly any doubt as regards Kiev's craving to regain control over Donbas through the use of arms, since the region concentrates the biggest manufacturing potential and natural resources - mostly coal - found in Ukraine."

"…Donbas and Novorossia…make up a buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine, while the American masters of the incumbent Kiev rulers need to eliminate that buffer zone by fair means and foul and to turn it into a springboard for destabilizing Russia."

"These plans of the Kiev government, which is drawing on Washington's support, (involve) full-scale war in the center of Europe."

Complete story at - Kiev Planning Full-Scale War on Donbas

Wall Street Journal: Brinkmanship Returns to Eurozone | Ukraina.ru

Western sanctions on Russia and its response measures were partly responsible for the united Europe to stick in the crisis in 2014 despite analysts’ predictions

Europe has probably never been so close to disintegration as it is now, The Wall Street Journal writes.

The eurozone was presumably to get out of the debt crisis that year, the year when the economic growth would come back alongside with consumer confidence and new jobs. But things went the wrong way in 2014, the newspaper notes.

The Ukrainian crisis and western sanctions on Russia which had a particularly negative effect on German companies are not the only contributors to the current situation. The Wall Street Journal also marks slower economic growth in China and in other emerging economies.

Besides, reforms and austerity policies failed to solve structural problems of many European economies. Thus, Spain, Portugal and Greece are already weary of such changes. Budget cuts in France and Italy had to be restrained under the pressure from the opposition, the newspaper claims.

Complete story at - Wall Street Journal: Brinkmanship Returns to Eurozone Ukraina.ru

The Vineyard of the Saker: Free Fall of the Ruble – A brilliant ploy of Russian economic Wizards? Who’s chess game?

The propaganda drums tell you Russia is helpless because the world has lost the last bit of confidence in President Putin – of course. Regime change is on the agenda. Mr. Putin must be blamed as the culprit, hoping to discredit him with his people. He is leading Russia into a deep recession; the worst since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The mainstream media show you interviews with average mainstreet Russians saying they have lost all their savings, their salaries and pensions are worth nothing anymore and they don’t know how to survive this coming calamity.

In reality, at least 80% of the Russian population stands solidly behind Vladimir Putin. He has brought them universal education, health care and fixed infrastructure that was decaying after the fall of the Soviet Union. President Putin is literally revered as a hero by the vast majority of Russians – including the country’s oligarchy.

In fact, nobody in the western economic system these days is dealing in rubles. In short-sighted connivance with Washington, the treasuries of the western vassals are releasing their ruble reserves – which Russia does not buy, thereby flooding the market. Russia not only has large dollar reserves, plus the ruble is backed by gold, a fact consistently omitted in the MSM. For now, Russia prefers to let the ruble plummet.

Under another ‘arrangement’ by bully Obama, Middle Eastern oil producing puppets like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are overproducing and flooding the market with petrol and gas, thereby driving the price down to the ostensible detriment of Russia and Venezuela, both countries where Washington vies for regime change. A double whammy thinks Washington, buying kudos with the stooges. The sheiks that control their energy output apparently have been promised enough goodies from Washington to bite the bullet and take their own losses.

Russia needs rubles. That’s her currency. That is the currency Russia needs for future trading – detached from the western monetary system.

When Russia deems that her currency has reached rock-bottom, she will buy back cheap rubles in the market with massive amounts of dollars. Russia may then flood the western market – with dollars, and by now we know what that does to a currency – and simultaneously buy back rubles from the West. A brilliant move to reestablish Russia’s currency in a new emerging monetary system – which Europe would be welcome to join, but willingly, no by Washington style arm-twisting.

Is this another precursor to war? A nuclear confrontation or Cold War II? – Precursor to a false flag attempting Moscow to fall into the trap? - Not necessarily. Russia is playing a clever chess game, diplomacy at its best. Instead of sabre rattling – Russia is coin rattling. It might lead to a western financial fiasco early in 2015 for the dollar and euro denominated economies. And the winner is…?

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, the Voice of Russia, now Ria Novosti, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.
Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Free Fall of the Ruble – A brilliant ploy of Russian economic Wizards? Who’s chess game?

Prominent German Signatories – Open Letter: Another war in Europe? Not in our name! | War Is A Crime .org

Letter published first in the german newspaper DIE ZEIT on December 5th, 2014

https://cooptv.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/very-prominent-german-signatories-another-war-in-europe-not-in-our-name/

Nobody wants war. But North America, the European Union and Russia are inevitably drifting towards war if they do not finally halt the disastrous spiral of threat and counter-threat. All Europeans, Russia included, jointly hold responsibility for peace and security. Only those who do not lose sight of this goal are avoiding irrational turns.

The Ukraine-conflict shows that the addiction to power and domination has not been overcome. 1990 at the end of the Cold War, we were all hoping for that. But the successes of the policy of detente and the peaceful revolutions have made us sleepy and careless, in the East and the West alike. For US-Americans, Europeans and Russians the guiding principle to banish war permanently from their relations has been lost. Otherwise, the for Russia threatening expansion of the West to the East, without simultaneously deepening cooperation with Moscow, as well as the illegal annexation of the Crimea by Putin, can not be explained.

In this moment of great danger for the continent, Germany has a special responsibility for the maintenance of peace. Without the will for reconciliation from the Russia people, without the foresight of Mikhail Gorbachev, without the support of our Western allies and without the prudent action by the then Federal Government, the division of Europe would not have been overcome. To allow German unification to peacefully evolve was a great gesture, shaped by reason from the victorious powers. It was a decision of historic proportions.

From overcoming the division in Europe a solid European peace and security order from Vancouver to Vladivostok should have developed, as it had been agreed to by all 35 Heads of State and Government of the CSCE Member States in November 1990 in the “Charter of Paris for a New Europe”. On the basis of agreed established principles and through first concrete measures a “Common European Home” was supposed to be established, in which all the States concerned should have equal security. This post-war policy goal has to this day not been redeemed. The people of Europe have to live again in fear.

We, the undersigned, appeal to the federal government of Germany to assume their responsibility for peace in Europe. We need a new policy of détente in Europe. This is only possible on the basis of equal security for all with equal and mutually respected partners. The German government is not following a “unique German path”, if they continue to call, in this stalemated situation, for calm and dialogue with Russia. The Russians’ security requirements are as legitimate and just as important as those of the Germans, the Poles, the Baltic States and Ukraine..

We should not look to push Russia out of Europe. That would be unhistorical, unreasonable and dangerous for peace. Ever since the Congress of Vienna in 1814 Russia has been recognized as one of the global players in Europe. All who have tried to violently change that have failed bloody – the last time it was the megalomaniac Hitler’s Germany that set about a murderous campaign to conquer Russia in 1941.

We call upon the Members of the German Bundestag, delegated by the people to deal appropriately with the seriousness of the situation, to attentively preside over the peace obligation of their government. He, who props up a bogeyman ascribing blame to one side alone, exacerbates tensions at a time when the signals should call for de-escalation. Inclusion instead of exclusion should be the leitmotif for German politicians.

We appeal to the media to comply with their obligations for nonbiased reporting, more convincingly, than they have thus done. Editorialists and commentators demonize whole nations, without crediting their history. Every able foreign policy journalist will understand the fear of the Russians, since NATO members in 2008, invited Georgia and Ukraine to become members of the alliance. It’s not about Putin. State leaders come and go. What is at stake is Europe. It’s about taking away the people’s fear of war. Towards this purpose, a responsible media coverage based on solid research can help a lot.

On October 3, 1990, on the Day to Commemorate German Reunification, German President Richard von Weizsäcker said: “The Cold War is overcome; freedom and democracy will soon be put in place in all countries … Now they can conduct their relationships within a compact and secure institutional framework, from which a common life and peace order can arise. For the people of Europe a completely new chapter in their history begins. The goal is a Pan-
European project. This is a huge challenge. We can archive it, but we can also fail. We face the clear alternative to unite Europe, or in line with painful historical examples, to fall back again into nationalist conflicts in Europe. “

Until the Ukraine conflict we thought we here in Europe were on the right track. Today, a quarter of a century later, Richard von Weizsäcker’s words are more relevant than ever.

Signatories

Mario Adorf, Actor
Robert Antretter (Former Member of German Parliament)
Prof. Dr. Wilfried Bergmann (Vice-President Alma Mater Europaea)
Luitpold Prinz von Bayern (Königliche Holding und Lizenz KG)
Achim von Borries (Regisseur und Drehbuchautor)
Klaus Maria Brandauer (Schauspieler, Regisseur)
Dr. Eckhard Cordes (Chair of Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft)
Prof. Dr. Herta Däubler-Gmelin (Former Federal Minister of Justice)
Eberhard Diepgen (Former Mayor of Berlin)
Dr. Klaus von Dohnanyi (First Mayor der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg)
Alexander van Dülmen (Vorstand A-Company Filmed Entertainment AG)
Stefan Dürr (Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter und CEO Ekosem-Agrar GmbH)
Dr. Erhard Eppler ( Former Federal Minister for Development)
Prof. Dr. Dr. Heino Falcke (Propst i.R.)
Prof. Hans-Joachim Frey (Vorstandsvorsitzender Semper Opernball Dresden)
Pater Anselm Grün (Pater)
Sibylle Havemann (Berlin)
Dr. Roman Herzog (Former President of Federal Republic Germany)
Christoph Hein (author)
Dr. Dr. h.c. Burkhard Hirsch (Former Vice-President of Federal Parliament)
Volker Hörner (Akademiedirektor i.R.)
Josef Jacobi (Biobauer)
Dr. Sigmund Jähn (Former Astronaut)
Uli Jörges (Journalist)
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Margot Käßmann (ehemalige EKD Ratsvorsitzende und Bischöfin)
Dr. Andrea von Knoop (Moskau)
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Krone-Schmalz (Former Correspondent ARD in Moskau)
Friedrich Küppersbusch (Journalist)
Vera Gräfin von Lehndorff (artist)
Irina Liebmann (author)
Dr. h.c. Lothar de Maizière (Former Minister-President)
Stephan Märki (Intendant des Theaters Bern)
Prof. Dr. Klaus Mangold (Chairman Mangold Consulting GmbH)
Reinhard und Hella Mey (Liedermacher)
Ruth Misselwitz (evangelische Pfarrerin Pankow)
Klaus Prömpers (Journalist)
Prof. Dr. Konrad Raiser (eh. Generalsekretär des Ökumenischen Weltrates der Kirchen)
Jim Rakete (Fotograf)
Gerhard Rein (Journalist)
Michael Röskau (Ministerialdirigent a.D.)
Eugen Ruge (Schriftsteller)
Dr. h.c. Otto Schily (Former Federal Minister of the Interior)
Dr. h.c. Friedrich Schorlemmer (ev. Theologe, Bürgerrechtler)
Georg Schramm (Kabarettist)
Gerhard Schröder (Former Head of Government, Bundeskanzler a.D.)
Philipp von Schulthess (Schauspieler)
Ingo Schulze (author)
Hanna Schygulla (actor, singer)
Dr. Dieter Spöri (Former Federal Minister of Economy)
Prof. Dr. Fulbert Steffensky (kath. Theologe)
Dr. Wolf-D. Stelzner (geschäftsführender Gesellschafter: WDS-Institut für Analysen in Kulturen mbH)
Dr. Manfred Stolpe (Former Minister-President)
Dr. Ernst-Jörg von Studnitz (Former Ambassador)
Prof. Dr. Walther Stützle (Staatssekretär der Verteidigung a.D.)
Prof. Dr. Christian R. Supthut (Vorstandsmitglied a.D. )
Prof. Dr. h.c. Horst Teltschik (Former Chancellor advisor for Security and Foreign Policy)
Andres Veiel (Regisseur)
Dr. Hans-Jochen Vogel (Former Federal Minister of Justice)
Dr. Antje Vollmer (Former Vice President of the Bunderstag)
Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter (Bischöfin Lübeck a.D.)
Dr. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (scientist)
Wim Wenders (Regisseur)
Hans-Eckardt Wenzel (songwriter)
Gerhard Wolf (Schriftsteller, Verleger)

Complete story at - Prominent German Signatories – Open Letter: Another war in Europe? Not in our name! | War Is A Crime .org

A Bad Gas Deal For Ukraine As Europe Looks After Its Own Interests

NoBC4U Note: Fancy that. The EU is finally looking out for their own interests (maybe) instead of blindly doing whatever the USA demands. Who'd have thunk?

The BBC headline tells it all: Russia-Ukraine gas deal secures EU winter supply (via Ukraine). European officials also confirmed the message of the headline. Commission President Manuel Barroso triumphantly declared: “There is now no reason for people in Europe to stay cold this winter,” and European Union energy chief, Guenther Oettinger, announced he was confident that Ukraine would be able to afford to pay for the gas it needed (Says who?). Where are Ukraine’s expressions of gratitude and relief? They are lacking for good reason.

It turns out the month-long negotiations over Ukraine’s gas dispute with Russia were really about securing Europe’s Russian gas. Ukraine was only a side issue. Russia’s incessant propaganda that Europe itself was threatened by Ukraine’s gas cutoff dominated the discussion. Europe pushed Ukraine into a bad deal to protect itself.

What did Ukraine get out of the deal? It received the go-ahead to transfer some one third of the financial assistance it is receiving from the IMF and European Union to pay for the Russian gas, diverting scarce funds from its desperate defense, infrastructure, and reform needs. Ukraine gets to pay Russia one of the highest gas prices in Europe ($378 versus the $304 European average), and there appears to be no agreement as to how much of this gas goes to the gas-guzzling heavy industry of the Donbass, occupied by pro-Russian rebels. Kiev, by the way, has been virtually cut off from Donbass coal and has to buy elsewhere.

Europe has agreed that Ukraine should buy natural gas at high prices just at a time when Ukraine was taking significant steps towards developing interconnections with European suppliers and getting serious about cutting back on its high per capita natural gas use.

Complete story at - A Bad Gas Deal For Ukraine As Europe Looks After Its Own Interests

Russian news: Novorossiya Stabilises as Ukraine Disintegrates - Russia Insider

The EU-Asia Summit in Milan, Italy, delivered little, if any, tangible progress to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. Relations between Russia and Ukraine’s major European allies remain just a few degrees above a new Cold War-style ice age. And with only a preliminary gas deal achieved between Kiev and Moscow this may be quite literally true for Ukrainians as winter approaches.

Agreements achieved in Minsk between Russia and Ukraine and between Kiev and the separatists over a military de-escalation, the withdrawal of combat troops, and the establishment of a buffer zone have made some incremental progress, but a ceasefire that was meant to have been in force since September 5 has been frequently breached – in particular during the protracted battle between separatists and Ukrainian forces for the airport in Donetsk.

The official death toll of the conflict now stands at almost 4,000 (the real figure is likely to be significantly higher), while refugees and internally displaced people number in the hundreds of thousands.

To all intents and purposes, Ukraine has quickly become Europe’s most fragile state. Unable to exert effective control over its two easternmost regions, and with a free-falling economy heavily dependent on IMF support (projected to be US$19 billion over the next year), the country is now heading into parliamentary elections scheduled for October 26.

In advance of the polls, a lustration law (which seeks to “purify” Ukraine from any remnants of the past) has just come into effect, and tensions between the various contending parties are increasing as voters become more and more disaffected.

All this shows how, instead of helping to resolve Ukraine’s long crisis of state weakness, the events of the past year have greatly exacerbated it.

Complete story at - Russian news: Novorossiya Stabilises as Ukraine Disintegrates - Russia Insider

Sanctions rebound to hit Europeans

By Brian Cloughley

The Financial Times commented on August 10 that in reaction to the chaos in Ukraine, "Western policy has become a mere knee-jerk escalation of sanctions", and for once the FT has got it right about foreign affairs. The US and its disciples in Europe and Australia have imposed sanctions on Russia for its alleged interference in Ukraine, which has got nothing whatever to do with the US or anyone else. And Russia, understandably, is answering back.

In spite of there being no proof whatever produced by the West's intercept spooks and other sleuths there is no doubt that Russia has been involved in Ukraine, finding out about and even trying to influence its policies - just as the US is spying on and trying to influence domestic policies in almost every country on this blighted globe and has recently given Ukraine its special attention.

The difference between the activities of the US and Russia is that Ukraine is right next door to Russia, and many of its eastern-located citizens are of Russian origin and speak Russian and think Russian and feel that their cultural roots are Russian and want to belong to Russia, just as their entire country did until 23 years ago.

On the other hand, Washington considers it has the God-given right to listen to everyone's private deliberations and tell every nation in the world how to run its affairs and if necessary to enforce this by military intervention. The fact that such military fiddling proved utterly catastrophic in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya is neither here nor there. The next frontier is Ukraine.

And poor decrepit leaderless old Britain, socially confused and morally collapsing, tries to combat what it sees as world chaos by following the example of its erratic mentor in applying sanctions on Russia, a country whose amity it would be well-advised to seek.

Complete story at - Asia Times Online :: Sanctions rebound to hit Europeans

Europe Blinks - May Cancel Russian Sanctions | Zero Hedge

It appears the pain that Europe is already suffering post-Russian sanctions, is too much to bear (as we explained here). While NATO admits it saw Russian military forces cross the Ukraine border, European leaders, after discussions on widespread 'aid' for nations suffering from Russia's food ban, have said they are 'ready to review Russia sanctions' if the situation stabilizes. Furthermore, snubbing Washington, European leaders said they do not want to impose more sanctions on Russia. Obama alone again?

As Bloomberg notes,

EU ready to review Russia sanctions if situation in eastern Ukraine clearly stabilizes, although measures were in part imposed over annexation of Crimea, Interfax says, citing interview w/ EU envoy to Russia Vygaudas Usackas.

Sanctions not goal unto themselves

EU doesn’t want to impose more sanctions on Russia

EU hopes Russia will hand over humanitarian aid to Ukraine in compliance w/ intl law

EU hasn’t decided on suing Russia in WTO, ready to defend interests

Complete story at - Europe Blinks - May Cancel Russian Sanctions | Zero Hedge

Europe Teeters On The Edge - The Automatic Earth

What did I call yesterday’s article again? Oh, that’s right, I called it Europe’s Tumbling, Who’s To Blame?. Well, I’m not a seer, or clairvoyant, but I might as well have used that exact same title again today. Because the same theme plays out again. In an piece initially called Europe’s Recovery Menaced by Putin as Ukraine Crisis Bites, later renamed Draghi Outlook Menaced by Putin as Ukraine Crisis Bites (what’s not to love), Bloomberg spills it all:

The crisis in eastern Europe is showing signs of disrupting Mario Draghi’s economic outlook. Evidence is building that the conflict in Ukraine and European Union sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia are undermining a euro-area recovery that the European Central Bank president already describes as weak. With the ECB expected to keep interest rates on hold near zero today and refrain from any new policy measures, Draghi is likely to face questions on how he plans to keep the economy on track.

The ECB may have few tools left to mitigate the impact of political turmoil that European companies from Anheuser-Busch InBev to Siemens say is hurting their business. A volley of measures introduced in June will take time to work, and policy makers have so far shied away from wheeling out a full-scale asset-purchase program. “The euro-zone recovery is very fragile and the macro situation fluid,” said Andrew Bosomworth, managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Munich. “Expect Draghi to elaborate on spillover risks from the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”

Note that this was first published before Russia announced its sanctions on the west, and before Draghi held a speech in which he said … nothing much at all. Here’s Russia’s sanctions:

Russia Bans Food Imports From EU, US, Canada, Australia (Guardian)

Russia has banned fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy imports from the US, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway, Russia’s prime minister told a government meeting on Thursday. Dmitry Medvedev said the ban was effective immediately and would last for one year. Russian officials were on Wednesday asked to come up with a list of western agricultural products and raw materials to be banned. The agriculture minister, Nikolai Fyodorov, said on Thursday that greater quantities of Brazilian meat and New Zealand cheese would be imported to offset the newly prohibited items.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve of course always suspected that all Kiwi’s are nothing but a bunch of closet Hobbit commies. And now we have what looks a lot like proof: New Zealand stands to profit handsomely from the sweeping Russian ban of US and EU food products, along with China, Brazil, Turkey.

Complete story at - Europe Teeters On The Edge - The Automatic Earth

Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom | Deborah Orr | Comment is free | The Guardian

The International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.

Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in "the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF, put the interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.

The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.

Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the philosopher John Gray has said all along.

The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State. Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and faceless, to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free market up and running again.

Complete story at - Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom | Deborah Orr | Comment is free | The Guardian

‘Every state has right to be different’: Top 10 takeaways from Putin's foreign policy speech — RT News

Vladimir Putin said that the Western powers should allow countries around the globe “to live at their own discretion, not under someone’s haunting dictation.” Here are the Top 10 quotes from the president’s meeting with Russian diplomats.

‘Non-interference principle must be fit into European realities’

Western interference in Ukraine led to catastrophic consequences for the country, Putin said, suggesting measures to prevent the repetition of a similar scenario in other countries on the continent.

“The task is to fit the traditional principle of non-interference into modern European realities, initiating a serious international discussion of the issue. We all need some kind of a safety net in Europe, so that the Iraqi, Libyan, Syrian and Ukrainian precedents won’t turn into a contagious disease.”

Complete story at - ‘Every state has right to be different’: Top 10 takeaways from Putin's foreign policy speech — RT News

Ukraine and the Rise of Euro-Fascism | Global Research

Current events in Ukraine are guided by the evil spirit of fascism and Nazism, though it seemed to have dissipated long ago, after World War II. Seventy years after the war, the genie has escaped from the bottle once again, posing a threat not merely in the form of the insignia and rhetoric of Hitler’s henchmen, but also through an obsessive Drang nach Osten policy.

The bottle has been uncorked, this time, by the Americans. Just as 76 years ago at Munich, when the British and the French gave Hitler their blessing for his eastward march, so in Kiev today, Washington, London and Brussels are inciting Yarosh, Tyahnybok, and other Ukrainian Nazis to war with Russia. One is forced to ask, why do this in the 21st century? And why is Europe, now united in the European Union, taking part in kindling a new war, as if suffering from a total lapse of historical memory?

Answering these questions requires, first of all, an accurate definition of what is happening. This, in turn, must start with identifying the key components of the events, based on facts. The facts are generally known: Yanukovych refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, which Ukraine had been under pressure to accept. After that, the United States and its NATO allies physically removed him from power by organizing a violent coup d’état in Kiev and bringing to power a government that was illegitimate, but fully obedient to them. In this article, it will be called “the junta.”

The goal of this aggression was to gain acceptance of the Association Agreement, as is evidenced by the fact it was indeed, prematurely, signed by the EU leaders and the junta only a month after the latter had seized power. They reported (the document bearing their signatures has not yet been made public!) that only the political part of the agreement has been signed, the part that obligates Ukraine to follow the foreign and defense policy of the EU and to participate, under EU direction, in settling regional civil and military conflicts. With this step, adoption of the Agreement as a whole has become a mere technicality.

In essence, the events in Ukraine mark the country’s forcible subordination to the European Union — what may be called “Euro-occupation.” The EU leaders, who insistently lecture us on obedience to the law and the principles of a law-based state, have themselves flouted the rule of law in this case, by signing an illegitimate treaty with an illegitimate government. Yanukovych was ousted because he refused to sign it. This refusal, moreover, needs to be understood in terms not only of the Agreement’s content, but also the fact that he had no legal right to accept it, because the Association Agreement violates the Ukrainian Constitution, which makes no provision for the transfer of state sovereignty to another party.

According to the Ukrainian Constitution, an international agreement that conflicts with the Constitution may be signed only if the Constitution is amended beforehand. The U.S.- and EU-installed junta ignored this requirement. It follows that the U.S. and EU organized the overthrow of Ukraine’s legitimate government, in order to deprive the country of its political independence. The next step will be to impose their preferred economic and trade policies on Ukraine, through its accession to the economic part of the Agreement. Furthermore, although the current Euro-occupation differs from the occupation of Ukraine in 1941 in that, so far, it has occurred without an invasion by foreign armies, its coercive nature is beyond any doubt. Just as the fascists stripped the population of occupied Ukraine of all civil rights, the modern junta and its American and European backers treat the opponents of Euro-integration as criminals, groundlessly accusing them of separatism and terrorism, imprisoning them, or even deploying Nazi guerrillas to shoot them.

Complete story at - Ukraine and the Rise of Euro-Fascism | Global Research

A Matter of Principle: The True Aims of the Terror War

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD

TUESDAY, 10 JUNE 2014 16:29

The moral insanity of the Terror War continues to spawn more violence, more extremism, more repression, more injustice, and the total subversion of the "Western values," all of which it is ostensibly designed to defend.

A new piece by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent provides a grimly illuminating look at this insanity in action on a specific front: Syria. It's worth reading in full, but here is an excerpt:

The Syrian war has turned into a Syrian version of the Thirty Years War in Germany four centuries ago. Too many conflicts and too many players have become involved for any peace terms to be acceptable to all.. … It has become increasingly obvious over the past year that al-Qa’ida type movements, notably Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, have come to dominate or can operate freely in a great swathe of territory across northern Iraq and northern Syria. This gives Isis a vast hinterland in which it can manoeuvre and fight on both sides of what is a largely nominal Syrian-Iraqi border. …

Europeans have not yet woken up to the significance of these anarchic zones opening up on the shores of the Mediterranean in Syria and Libya. This is because the threat has been largely abstract but it is getting less so with the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels by a French jihadi who had been in Syria. US and European politicians do not want to explain why, 13 years after 9/11, when the “war on terror” was supposedly launched, thousands of al-Qa’ida militants have been able to carve out enclaves so close to Europe.

US and European politicians won't explain it because any honest explanation would expose the emptiness at the core of all their proffered reasons for the Terror War. They can't explain it because the Terror War system -- including the increasing militarization and repression in their own countries -- has now become organizing principle of Western society. Or rather, it is the latest incarnation of what has been the guiding principle of Western society since World War II: organizing society and the economy around war, either active war or the ever-present "threat" of war (assiduously exaggerated -- or even manufactured -- at every turn). For government and big business, the immense power and profit and control they inevitably accrued from conducting total war on a global basis was far too enticing to give up once the war was over. The full mobilization of society's resources for war simply carried on; indeed, was expanded and amplified.

However, the war also had a life-transforming impact on many of its survivors. The savagery and loss -- and the class-effacing comradeship -- they had experienced during the war imbued millions of people with a burning desire to change society for the better, to do away with the poverty and injustices of the past, and build a better, more decent, more peaceful world. This spirit is evoked with remarkable power in a new book, Harry's Last Stand, by Harry Leslie Smith, a 91-year-old WII veteran enraged to see the neoliberal extremists that have held sway in the US and Britain for more than 30 years sweeping away the progress toward a more just society that his generation tried to build on the ruins of the war. (Some of Smith's writing can be found here and here.)

Complete story at - A Matter of Principle: The True Aims of the Terror War

Yanis Varoufakis: Europe’s Crisis –The Rise of the Ultra-Right is the Left’s Fault

10 June 2014 — Yanis Varoufakis

Europe’s appalling handling of a euro crisis that was always going to happen, given its faulty architectural design,[1] has triggered an electoral result in the recent European Parliament elections that is a clarion warning that Europe is decomposing. And it is decomposing precisely because of the Left’s spectacular failure to intervene both during the construction phase of Europe’s economic and monetary union and, more poignantly, after the latter’s crisis had begun.

The international press has summed up the 2014 European Parliament election outcome as a sign that the economic crisis plaguing Europe has caused voters to be lured by the two ‘extremes’, meaning the ultra right and the extreme left. This is a verdict that the European elites, whose shenanigans are responsible for Europe’s deconstruction, are comfortable with. They see it as evidence that, despite ‘some errors’, they are on the middle road, with some wayward voters straying off the ‘right’ path both to the left and to the right. And they hope that, once growth picks up again, the ‘strays’ will return to the fold.

This is a misrepresentation of current economic and political reality. Europeans were not lured by the two extremes. They drifted to one extreme: that of the racist, xenophobic, anti-European right. Extreme, anti-European, leftwing parties saw no surge in their support anywhere in Europe.[2] For four years now, European institutions are the field on which incompetence and malice compete with one another in a bid to win the prize for the most inconspicuous obfuscation of the truth: (a) that the Eurozone’s construction was faulty; and (b) that, once the never-ending crisis had began, the elites were solely interested in shifting banking losses from the banks’ asset books onto the shoulders of the weaker citizens.

If the financial sector has been stabilised, it is because the combination of massive central bank liquidity and stringent austerity propped up finance, shielded bankers (without cleansing the banks), and reflated many of the burst bubbles. And this at the cost of untold damage on Europe’s real economy, social fabric, and democracies. The interesting question, however, is: Why has the Left not benefitted from the trials and tribulations of the Eurozone’s neoliberal design and from the great pain inflicted upon the majority by the neoliberal ‘cure’?

Complete story at - Yanis Varoufakis: Europe’s Crisis –The Rise of the Ultra-Right is the Left’s Fault

The Vineyard of the Saker: Making sense of Obama's billion dollar hammer

You probably heard it by now: Obama has pledged a billion dollars to what my "beloved" BBC called "European security". The official name for this initiative is the "European Reassurance Initiative". You see, Obama and the BBC apparently believe that Europeans are really terrified and that they believe that the Russian tanks might roll into Warsaw, Athens, Rome or Lisbon at any time. The good news is that Uncle Sam is here to reassure them that he will let no such thing happen and that this additional 1 billion dollars will deter the Russian Bear.

Have you ever read something more ridiculous?

So what is really going on here?

There is a wonderful American expression which says that "to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail". Well, to Obama, the EU and the Ukraine sure do look like nails because the only instrument the USA has used in its foreign policy for many decades now is a "hammer" composed of money and guns. But let's backtrack for a second.

I submit that the US policy in Europe is nothing short of a total failure. Not only has the US-instigated coup in the Ukraine turned into a full-spectrum disaster, but the latest elections in Europe clearly show that the European public is becoming more anti-EU and more anti-US. In fact, since the EU is nothing more than a US instrument of colonial domination over Europe, being anti-EU is being anti-US. Bernard-Henri Levi, the hyper-Zionist clown who fancies himself a "philosopher" and who is the darling of the European elites, once said that "anti-Americanism is a metaphor for anti-Semitism". To paraphrase him I would say that "anti-Europeanism is a metaphor for anti-Americanism" (at least if by "Europe" we understand that trans-national horror known as the EU and not the "Europe of the fatherlands" which de Gaulle, a true patriot of France and Europe, had called for). And the folks in DC understand that too, they are not stupid. Worse of all for them, time is running out and the situation on the ground is getting worse and worse not by the day, but by the hour. France, in particular, might explode literally any day.

But the real problem is not in Europe or in the Ukraine, it is in the USA. The US leadership, clearly intoxicated on imperial hubris and 1% class arrogance, has simply forgotten Bismark's motto that "politics is the art of the possible" and this is why instead of seeking some kind of best possible compromise leading to the best possible outcome, they are holding on with a desperate death-grip to an impossible outcome: a Europe run by the EU and a unitary state of Banderastan on the border with Russia. That ain't gonna happen, of course. In fact, the harder the US pushes for such an outcome, the less likely it is to ever become reality. No need to read Hegel to understand that - a quick look at the recent events in Europe clearly shows that the AngloZionist imperial design for the ATTU (Atlantic to the Ural) zone is going nowhere and will end up in an embarrassing meltdown.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Making sense of Obama's billion dollar hammer

Europe and Ukraine: A tale of two elections — RT Op-Edge

Circumstances surrounding the European and Ukrainian elections were far from being a mere coincidence.

The regime changers in Kiev decided to hold a presidential election on May 25, the same day as European Parliament elections, in order to demonstrate their desire to follow a European-centric foreign policy.

Talk about two elections somewhat joined at the hip! In the end, the Ukraine election did actually represent European foreign policy in action – manifested in regime change leading to the specter of civil war.

Few in Europe would have noticed how this process is so far away from “democracy” –instead enshrining intolerance and an ideology of blind confrontation, as represented by this “debate” in Kiev driven by a clueless Yale historian.

Key facts that should be understood are how the West ignored the Odessa massacre, as well as the detention of Russian journalists; and how the West dismissed the aspirations of eastern and southern Ukrainians as the work of “pro-Russians” or “terrorists.” These people simply became objects of repression - fully supervised by the West, with now the whole regime change theatre of the absurd in Kiev legitimized through an election charade.

Way beyond the established fact of an Atlantic push against Russian western borderlands, Ukraine remains a catfight of local oligarchies. No wonder the new Ukrainian president is also an oligarch; the 7th wealthiest citizen in the land, who owns not just a chocolate empire, but also automotive plants, a shipyard in Crimea and a TV channel. The only difference is that he’s a NATO oligarch

Complete story at - Europe and Ukraine: A tale of two elections — RT Op-Edge

Putin’s Threat Just Stunned U.S. and Europe

Today former US Treasury official, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, warned King World News that the threat made by Putin today just stunned the United States and Europe.  Dr. Roberts also discussed how the threat unfolded today at the International Economic Forum in Russia.  Below is what Dr. Roberts had to say in this powerful interview.

Eric King:  “Dr. Roberts, there is this International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg (Russia).  I know the U.S. has pulled out, but does the high level of attendance, despite Washington’s pressure, indicate fading U.S. influence?”

Dr. Roberts:  “Yes.  One of the advisors to Putin had publicly complained that Washington had put unprecedented pressure on American and European countries not to attend.  But it turns out that present at this forum, which began yesterday and continues today and tomorrow, there are official delegations from 62 countries, and the CEOs of 146 of the major companies in the world….

“Last year trade deals were made that totaled $263 billion — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars.  And I suspect that there will be an equal success in trade deals this year.  For example, the heads of BP, Total (SA), Shell, Exxon, Phillips, Caterpillar, they’ve all gone to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, despite Washington’s pressure.

So what we are seeing is that it’s OK to cooperate with Washington’s absurd foreign policy, until it starts to effect the bottom line.  (Laughter ensues).  If it affects the bottom line, the Germans (as an example) aren’t so interested.  You may have seen that the French have said they are going to continue their military sales to Russia, regardless of Washington.

Complete story at - Putin’s Threat Just Stunned U.S. and Europe

Audio interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts