Weak OSCE observers in Ukraine only in action during banking hours - without binoculars!

The Putin sponsored war against Ukraine goes on uninterrupted, while the OSCE cease-fire observers - nicknamed the "deaf, dumb and blind" by locals - limit their weak presence to banking hours:

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As the afternoon shadows grow long, nocturnal creatures begin to stir. A stray cat rises from a nap, stretches and trots off to hunt. Overhead, swallows swoop and screech in the deepening twilight.

Soon, the human inhabitants of this town in eastern Ukraine set about their evening rituals.

Green-clad soldiers strap on their helmets and load their guns, while white-clad European cease-fire observers pocket their notebooks, climb into their cars and drive away. And then the fighting starts.

This improbable routine between soldiers and monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays out nightly, illustrating the glum quagmire of the Ukraine war, now entering its third year.

“I never see them here at night,” said Tatyana Petrova, whose apartment looks over a parking lot that is a frequent listening post for the monitors. “In the evening, I look out and they are gone, and then the concert starts.”

--
“We call them deaf, dumb and blind,” said the Ukrainian military nurse who ordered the observers out of her field hospital. She offered only her nickname, Romashka, a typical practice for soldiers here. “They know nothing. They see nothing. They are too soft.”

On a recent afternoon in Avdiivka, whose prewar population of 35,000 people has decreased by about half, monitors wrapped up at the close of business at 5 p.m., as usual. By and large confined to their hotels after dark, monitors say they pass the time watching television, surfing the internet or chatting with colleagues. They can listen for violations from inside the hotels.

The Russians even have forbidden the "deaf, dumb and blind" to use binoculars! :

Emblematic of the group’s weak hand, one key mission of observers stationed at two crossing posts on the Russian-Ukrainian border has conceded to Russian pressure not to use binoculars, lest the observers observe too much.

Read the entire New York Times article here.

Edward Lucas on the claims that the Ukraine crisis was NATO´s and EU´s fault

A number of foreign-policy expterts have blamed NATO and the EU for the crisis in Ukraine. Edward Lucas looks at how the predictions made by political scientist John Mearsheimer and others have fared:

The Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault. That has been the contention of a slew of foreign-policy experts, notably the distinguished political scientist John Mearsheimer, who wrote a much-quoted piece in Foreign Affairs in August last year called “The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”

For those who missed it, Mearsheimer blamed the crisis in Ukraine on NATO enlargement, saying that Russia had adamantly opposed it (which is not true); that it breached undertakings given to the Soviet Union (also false); and that Putin feared that the “coup” against Yanukovych was a prelude to a NATO base in Crimea (also untrue).

Mearsheimer also argued that the EU had been “marching eastward” and therefore provoking Russia and that the West was recklessly promoting democracy with the aim of turning Ukraine into a “Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep.”

The counter-arguments to this are well known. The biggest is that they remove from Ukrainians and others any say in their own future. They are just counters in a board game played by others. As Mearsheimer argues, might is right and countries Ukraine’s position just have to get used to it.

That is both inaccurate and morally dubious (given how much the countries of the “bloodlands” have suffered in the past century). It is right to say that Russia, not the West, gets to decide what constitutes a threat to Russia. We can’t help it if Russia’s ex-KGB regime is afflicted by paranoia. But if Russia’s threat-perception becomes the paramount and unchallenged factor in regional security, we are in effect assenting to a new Yalta.

Read the entire article here

Leslie Gelb as Putin´s useful idiot

Vladimir Putin can still count on a number of useful idiots in the US. Leslie Gelb (former correspondent and columnist, former senior Defense and State Department official) is one of them. In his view the US and Europe are solely to blame for Putin´s aggression in Ukraine. And, indeed, the Baltic states should never have been allowed to join NATO!

Here are a couple of excerpts from Gelb´s latest "research":

Over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, NATO conferred membership upon much of Eastern Europe. In many cases, this was a sound strategy for the West, Russian resentment notwithstanding. The alliance, however, pushed its advantage provocatively far. It extended its protective wing up to Russia’s borders in the Baltic states.
---

When some neighbors rejected Russia in favor of the West, Moscow chose force. In Georgia, Russia solidified control over the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A democratic uprising in Ukraine triggered Russian support for revolts in Ukraine’s eastern provinces and the annexation of Crimea.
At some point over the last quarter century, Washington might have realized that the Kremlin was not going to sit around and wait for the West to determine Russia’s fate. Russia’s leaders countered with what came naturally to them—military power—to ensure they would shape their own future.

"Wait for the West to determine Russia´s fate"?!!

Canada´s PM Stephen Harper: There is no return for Putin´s Russia to G7

While Barack Obama has been strangely silent on this, Canada´s PM Stephen Harper hits the right note:

"I don't think Russia under Vladimir Putin belongs in the G7. Period," Harper told the Associated Press. "Canada would very, very strongly oppose Putin ever sitting around that table again. It would require consensus to bring Russia back and that consensus will just not happen."
The G7 suspended Russia from the grouping of leading industrialized nations following its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea last March, but has not ruled out a possible return under changed circumstances.
Harper, who is to visit Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk before heading to Bavaria for the G7 summit, said there was no room for conciliation with the Kremlin in light of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its alleged support of pro-Russia separatists fighting government troops in eastern Ukraine.
"This is a country that has shown a willingness to invade its neighbors, to actually seize territory that does not belong to it, and so I don't think we should take this escalation of a hostile military posture lightly. It needs to be treated seriously," said Harper, whose country is home to more than one million people of Ukrainian heritage.

Boris Nemtsov RIP

Boris Nemtsov RIP

The shooting, on a bridge near Red Square, under the towering domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, ended Mr. Nemtsov’s two-decade career as a champion of democratic reforms, beginning in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, and just days before he was to lead a rally to protest the war in Ukraine. --

He is by far the most prominent public figure to die in such a fashion, though just one in a string of murders of opponents of Mr. Putin, most notoriously the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the human rights researcher Natalia Estemirova and the security service defector Aleksandr V. Litvinenko. And while low-level criminals have been detained in some cases, the investigations in Russia never traced back to those who ordered the murders.

Read the entire NYT article here

Finally: UK and US to send military personnel to train the army of Ukraine

Finally at least some action in the right direction after Merkel´s disastrous Minsk 2:

British military personnel are to be sent to Ukraine in the next few weeks to provide advice and training, says Prime Minister David Cameron. --

Mr Cameron said he would push for more sanctions on Russia if the separatists failed to observe the truce.

The prime minister told a House of Commons committee that up to 75 British soldiers divided into four teams would go to an area well away from the conflict zone to provide medical, logistics, intelligence and infantry skills. --

In a statement, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the move was a result of "continued Russian-backed aggression".

The United States has already said it is planning to send a battalion of soldiers to train three Ukrainian battalions.

Bellingcat: "artillery attacks on Ukrainian territory and against Ukrainian forces originated from the territory of Russia"

There is clear evidence that heavy Russian artillery, based on the Russian side of the border, has played a crucial role in the fighting in Ukraine:

Ukrainian armed forces positioned near the Russian-Ukrainian border were attacked by artillery fire in the summer of 2014. Between 9 July and 5 September 2014, the Ukrainian Border Service and the National Security and Defense Council reported more than 120 artillery attacks from Russia. Russian officials, however, have denied the existence of any artillery attacks on Ukraine originating from its territory.
The pressure of sustained artillery attacks through early August led Ukrainian armed forces to lose control of hundreds of kilometers of border territory. Google Earth satellite images of eastern Ukraine from July, August, and September 2014 have enabled the Bellingcat investigation team to find evidence of these artillery attacks, determine their origin, and compare them with local sources.
After reviewing and analyzing these satellite images as well as videos from social media, local media reports, and the shifting maps of the ongoing conflict, the Bellingcat investigation team has determined that there is compelling evidence that artillery attacks on Ukrainian territory and against Ukrainian armed forces originated from the territory of Russia.

Merkel as Ukraine "peacemaker": "When Germans speak about defense, nobody listens, especially not the Russian president"

Anne Applebaum is spot on in her description of Angela Merkel´s Germany:

Since the Second World War, Germany has had no serious foreign policy record and no cadre of diplomats accustomed to solving foreign crises. Germany has no army to speak of either: At a recent NATO exercise, German troops were so badly equipped that they used broomsticks instead of guns.

When Germans speak about defense, nobody listens, especially not the Russian president.

The Ukraine crisis actually began because Ukrainians demonstrated — and risked their lives — in hopes of drawing closer to the European Union. But although the union theoretically has a foreign policy function, in practice it barely exists, not least because Germany first weakened it and now ignores it. But even without the European Union, Germany could have created a Western contact group for Ukraine — including the United States and perhaps Britain, France, Poland or the Netherlands — that would have had real defense capability and real foreign policy clout. --


 Merkel has put her personal stamp on a cease-fire agreement she cannot enforce — and if it fails, there is no Plan B. She has, it is true, hinted at one: Ukraine could give up its eastern provinces, build a “Berlin Wall” around them in the form of a demilitarized zone, tighten its borders and gain time to rebuild its state. But for that plan to work in the longer term, the West would have to treat the rest of Ukraine like it once treated West Germany, reinforcing it economically, politically and militarily, in order to deter Russia.

Right now, there is no sign that Germany or anyone else is prepared to do that. Instead, Ukraine will lose control of the Donbas industrial heartland to Russian proxies whom Russia can then use to further destabilize the Ukrainian state, perhaps to take more territory, perhaps to threaten NATO. The Russian president is limited by his failing economy — but then, thanks to the Greek crisis, Europe may soon be limited by its failing economies, too.

Time for Obama to act - Ukraine needs lethal weapons

The latest from Ukraine:

Russia-backed separatists say they have gained control of a key rail hub in eastern Ukraine.

The Donetsk News Agency, a rebel mouthpiece, quoted the rebel's so-called defense ministry as saying on Tuesday that their forces have pushed government troops out of Debaltseve and are now controlling a large part of it.

Fierce fighting on Tuesday, two days after a cease-fire was announced for eastern Ukraine, appeared to be focused on Debaltseve, which both sides claim is on their side of the cease-fire line.

Government troops and the separatists were expected to begin withdrawing heavy weaponry from the front line on Tuesday but Associated Press reporters saw no sign of that on the ground.

Putin's and Merkel´s "cease-fire" was of course never going to work. Time for Obama to act! Ukraine needs lethal weapons in order to stop dictator Putin´s aggression.

Even Lukashenko agrees that Putin is fighting "a dirty, unfair war" in Ukraine

Even Alexander Lukashenko knows what Putin is up to:
 Julia IoffeVerified account ‏@juliaioffe 14h14 hours ago           

Poroshenko: "He's fighting a dirty, unfair war.

" Lukashenko: "I know, I know. And everyone got that." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFY5tLaBJpI&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop … via @KSHN

Roger Cohen in the New York Times: "It´s time to get real over Putin"

Roger Cohen, writing in the New York Times, is spot on:

It’s time to get real over Putin. He has not poured tanks and multiple-launch rocket systems over the Ukrainian border because he is about to settle for anything less than a weak Ukraine, sapped by low-level conflict in the Donetsk region, a country with its very own pro-Russian enclave à la Abkhazia or Transnistria, firmly within the Russian sphere of influence: the symbol of his definitive strategic turn away from closer cooperation with the West toward the confrontation that shores him up as oil prices and the currency plunge. He will not let Ukraine go.

There is a language Moscow understands: antitank missiles, battlefield radars, reconnaissance drones. Bolster the Ukrainian Army with them and other arms. Change Putin’s cost-benefit analysis. There are risks but no policy is risk-free. Recall that Ukraine gave up more than 1,800 nuclear warheads in exchange for that bogus commitment from Russia back in 1994 to respect its sovereignty and borders. Surely it has thereby earned the right to something more than night-vision goggles. The West’s current Ukraine diplomacy is long on illusion and short on realism. Two plus two equals four, in war and peace.

Merkel and Hollande as Putin´s useful idiots

Putin´s useful idiot

Angela Merkel and François Hollande seem to be happy acting as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin´s useful idiots. Fortunately, leading US representatives point out what their "peace initiative" in reality is: “Moscow bull****”.

A rift between Europe and the US over the Ukraine crisis appears to be growing after senior American figures reportedly compared the peace initiative by Angela Merkel and François Hollande to appeasement of Hitler in the run-up to the Second World War.

In a meeting attended by General Philip Breedlove, Nato’s military commander, and Victoria Nuland, the US’s most senior European diplomat, Angela Merkel was described as “defeatist” for her opposition to arming Ukrainian forces, according to details leaked to Bild newspaper.

Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande’s peace initiative was dismissed as “Moscow bull****” at the meeting of American delegates to the Munich Security Conference, held behind closed doors at the conference hotel.

Senator John McCain reportedly compared the initiative to the Munich Agreement in 1938 between Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time, and Adolf Hitler, which allowed Nazi Germany to annexe the Sudetenland.

“History shows us that dictators will always take more if you let them,” Senator McCain allegedly said. “They will not be dissuaded from their brutal behaviour when you fly to meet them to Moscow – just as leaders once flew to this city.” The reported remarks came as a new peace summit to be held in Minsk on Wednesday was announced, following a phone call between Mrs Merkel, Mr Hollande, Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president.

Putin more interested in Sochi ice show than in meeting "peace makers" Merkel and Hollande

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Friday gave two hours of his time to "peace makers" Angela Merkel and François Hollande, who travelled to Moscow without any real peace plan. Then Putin´s press service announced that the dictator has more important things to do - to attend an "anniversary ice show" celebrating the one year anniversary of the most corrupted Winter Olympics ever:

According to European diplomats, Putin had suggested reviving the Minsk agreement but with different ceasefire lines that recognised the territorial gains made by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. But that suggestion was rejected by Kiev.
The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the talks involved just the three leaders without delegations, aides or experts. Despite the late start, there seemed little chance of the talks going to a second day, as Putin’s press service announced he would spend Saturday in Sochi at an “anniversary ice show” celebrating one year since the start of the Winter Olympics. He said the three leaders would hold a four-way phone-call with Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko on Sunday to discuss the proposals.
As the day went on it became increasingly clear that Merkel and Hollande had come to Moscow without a comprehensive plan. Instead, they had a response to proposals Putin sent them in letters earlier in the week, in which he envisaged an expansion of territory under rebel control.

There seems to be no limits to the naivity of the German and French leaders.

Russia continues its aggression against Ukraine - EU is waging war against global warming

A European country, Ukraine, is being invaded by the the forces of an evil dictator, Vladimir Putin.

What is the the European Union - the self-proclaimed "soft superpower" - doing?

Answer:

The EU foreign ministers are wasting their time - and taxpayers´ money - on a huge "preventive diplomacy" campaign, "aimed at preventing future violent conflicts through cooperation and dialogue":

Europe is launching a major diplomatic push for an ambitious deal on global warming, mobilising A-list celebrities and tens of thousands of diplomats to exert “maximum pressure” on key countries in international climate negotiations.
The EU plan, endorsed by ministers on Monday in Brussels, will see 90,000 diplomats in over 3,000 missions lobbying to win new pledges on carbon cuts from countries ahead of a crunch UN climate summit in Paris this December.
European stars, of a calibre of US public figures such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore, will front a push to make climate action a “strategic priority” at G7, G20 and Major Economies Forum summits.
The action plan, seen by the Guardian, calls for a ‘Climate Action Day’ in June and a ‘100 days to Paris countdown’ event later in the year.
The aim is to raise the EU’s profile and cement alliances by winning new pledges for greenhouse gas cuts – intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) in UN jargon, the backbone of any deal in Paris – before June at the latest.
“The EU has enormous soft power and we must use that to push for an ambitious agenda in Paris,” the Danish foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told the Guardian. “I have urged my colleagues to commit to including climate diplomacy in their activities in the run up to COP21 [the Paris summit] – and the EU’s foreign service to work more on this. We should focus our efforts on the major growth economies and climate financing.”
A UK government spokesman described the diplomatic blitz as “a welcome step to ramp up European climate diplomacy globally”.
The action plan cites climate change as “a key element of preventive diplomacy,” aimed at preventing future violent conflicts through cooperation and dialogue. It also goes further than past EU communications, describing climate change as “a strategic threat affecting natural resource availability, economic stability and hence overall national and regional security”.

Of course the EU foreign ministers and their bosses are also going to adopt some new meaningless statements, and possibly even soft sanctions due to the continuing Russian aggression, but the clear priority of this "enormous soft power" will be to conduct a (senseless) propaganda war against irrelevant "climate change".

The EU´s foreign policy chief ready for appeasement with Russia

The EU´s foreign policy chief, Italian Federica Mogherini, appears to be ready for appeasement with regard to Putin´s Russia. Hopefully Mrs Merkel will stop her!

BRUSSELS - Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has said the bloc should launch a new “debate” with Russia aimed at ending the “confrontation” over Ukraine.
She told Italy’s La Repubblica daily on Saturday (27 December): “The current situation is very difficult for Russia. It would be in its interest to contribute to ending the conflict. At the same time, we all know that Russia plays an important role not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria, Iran, the Middle East, Libya”.
“We have to open a direct debate with Moscow on our mutual relations and the role that Russia can play in other crises”.
She noted that Ukraine and the US also want a way out.

Anna Netrebko - A loyal member of the Putin fan club

The highly overrated Russian soprano Anna Netrebko has again confirmed her credentials as a loyal member of the Putin fan club:

The Russian-Austrian opera soprano Anna Netrebko has given support to east Ukrainian separatists, posing with one of their top political leaders and holding up the flag of Novorossia, a self-declared amalgamation of territory that is seeking independence from Kiev.
Netrebko, who holds dual citizenship, was pictured with the flag during a press conference in St Petersburg over the weekend, where she announced she was donating 1m roubles (£12,000) to the Donetsk Opera Theatre.

Gorbachev blames the west and lauds dictator Putin

Mikhail Gorbachev accuses the west and does not have a critical word about Putin´s blatant aggression in Ukraine:

The 83-year-old former leader has accused the west – particularly the US – of “triumphalism” after the collapse of the communist bloc.
Gorbachev called for new trust to be built through dialogue with Moscow and suggested the west should lift sanctions imposed against senior Russian officials over its actions in eastern Ukraine.
Before arriving in Berlin, he gave pointed backing to Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying the Ukraine crisis offered an “excuse” for the US to victimise Russia: “I am absolutely convinced that Putin protects Russia’s interests better than anyone else.”
In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Gorbachev admitted that Putin was not above criticism, but he said he did not want others to pick on the Russian leader.

As they say in Finland, "A Russkie is always a Russkie, even when fried with butter".

Gorbachev apparently wants to secure himself a first class ticket in Putin´s thugocracy when it is time to leave ...

Plummeting oil prices will weaken Putin´s Russia

Oil prices are plummeting. They have gone down as much as 20% since June. This - together with Western sanctions - weaken Vladimir Putin´s chances to continue his policy of aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere:

Lower oil prices could have lots of knock-on effects around the world. Take Russia, which depends on oil sales to bring in foreign currency. The Russian government has set its three-year budget with the expectation that oil prices would stay at $100 per barrel. A sustained fall in prices could cripple the Russian economy and run up deficits.

Indeed, some energy analysts are starting to wonder if an oil crash might even force Russia to pull back in Ukraine and elsewhere. And on Tuesday, the Russian finance minister warned that the country could no longer afford a multibillion-dollar upgrade to its armed forces that had been approved by President Vladimir Putin

Read the entire article here

Garri Kasparov on Putin: “the most dangerous man in the world”

Western leaders should listen to what Garry Kasparov has to say about Russian dictator Vladimir Putin:

Garry Kasparov, the world’s most renowned chess master, has branded Vladimir Putin “the most dangerous man in the world” in a passionate interview with Yahoo News, in which he stressed that the Russian President is more dangerous that Islamic State (ISIS) and “all the Al-Qaedas in the world”.

Asked if Islamic State or Putin were a bigger threat to global stability, Kasparov responded with “Of course Putin… Of course Putin!”

“Because Putin cannot be defeated militarily,” he explained. “The war with ISIS can be won on the ground. It is very clear that if America decides to eliminate ISIS, they will turn it into dust in 24 hours!” --

 

Russia’s nuclear arsenal gives Putin an “ability to create instability - a thousand times bigger than all the Al-Qaedas of the world,” Kasparov also said.

“Putin wants to stay in power at any cost and for him to stay in power he needs to create global instability. I would not be surprised if he starts blackmailing the world with nuclear armageddon because for him there is no life if he loses power.”

 

Of course Kasparov is right about Putin, and Obama, Merkel and the rest understand how dangerous the man is. But because unstable Putin is in charge of a large nuclear arsenal, they are too scared to take the action needed ...

Walter Russell Mead on EU: "The price for two decades of policy incompetence is goind to be high"

Walter Russell Mead is right:

Putin is dancing on the face of the West, and in Tehran, Beijing and across the world, the message is clear: Western statesmen are not serious, they don’t think before they act and they don’t mean what they say.
Ukraine continues to pay the penalty for standing up to Russia at the instigation of a ditzy, incoherent and vainglorious EU. History’s contempt for this generation of european leaders—authors of the euro disaster, disarmers of Europe as threats grew to the east and the south, creators of the worst mass unemployment in Europe since the depression—will be harsh and deep. The price for two decades of policy incompetence is going to be high, and the bill is already coming due.