Human rights advocate Harry Wu dies

The great human rights advocate Harry Wu sadly has passed away. Here is how Wu is commemorated by the Washington based Laogai Research Foundation, which he founded:

It is with great sadness that the Laogai Research Foundation announces the passing of its founder, Harry Wu, who died in Honduras this morning at the age of 79. Mr. Wu was vacationing with friends when he passed away.
Harry Wu was a Catholic and a well-known presence on Capitol Hill for his defense of people who suffered in China’s brutal Laogai camps. The Laogai are China’s forced prison labor camps that began under Mao and continue in China today.
While a college student, Mr. Wu was sentenced to 19 years in China’s Laogai after being labeled a counter-revolutionary for speaking out against the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary.
Harry Wu was released in 1979 and came to the United States in 1985 with just $40 in his pocket. Since then, he traveled back to China multiple times to further investigate Laogai camps and promote human rights developments in China. Mr. Wu founded the Laogai Research Foundation in 1992 to gather information and raise public awareness of the Chinese Laogai.
In 1995, Chinese authorities arrested and charged Mr. Wu, then a US citizen, with "stealing state secrets" in retaliation for his efforts to expose human rights abuses in China, among them his participation in a CBS 60 Minutes segment documenting China's vast labor camp system. A Chinese court subsequently sentenced him to another 15 years in prison. Due to the tireless efforts of US politicians, human rights activists, and diplomats, Chinese authorities deported Wu just prior to the beginning of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which Hillary Clinton attended in 1995.
Harry Wu was the author of many books including “The Chinese Gulag”, “Bitter Winds”, and “Troublemaker.” He dedicated his book “Troublemaker” “To the Chinese people who have suffered, who have left, who have stayed; someday soon, no more Laogai.”
Harry Wu spoke out for international labor rights and religious freedom, and against the death penalty, forced organ harvesting, and China’s brutal one-child policy. Harry Wu was a great supporter of the Dalai Lama, a Free Tibet, and 2010 Nobel Prize Honoree Liu Xiaobo.
In 2008, Harry Wu opened the first Laogai Museum in Washington, DC. Mr. Wu was the recipient of many international awards and honors.
Harry Wu is survived by his son, Harrison, and his former wife, Ching Lee. He was beloved by many.

Communist China tortures lawyers

Communist China´s human rights violations should not be forgotten!

Beijing prosecutor and lawyer Tang Jitian was on the grounds of a Chinese black jail last year, investigating a case, when local police officers handcuffed and attacked him.

 

“I was first strapped to an iron chair, slapped in the face, kicked on my legs, and hit so hard over the head with a plastic bottle filled with water that I passed out,” Tang said to Amnesty International of his sudden detention. Three other lawyers with him received the same treatment that day.

 

Under the ever-tightening censorship policies of China’s central government, human rights activists and lawyers in the country have found themselves subject to a brutal, sweeping crackdown this year. On Nov. 12, human rights organization Amnesty International released a new report that tells Tang’s chilling story—as well as dozens of others from lawyers who’ve also been assaulted by the Chinese government.

 

These personal accounts come to light at a crucial time: Next week, China will answer questions from a United Nations anti-torture committee at a conference in Geneva—the UN’s fifth probe into the country’s torture practices.

Russian journalist: Putin´s 15 years have been "a monumental moral catastrophe"

Kashin to Putin: "Whoever comes after you will have to create Russia
 all over again, from scratch."

Oleg Kashin, one of Russia´s most prominent independent journalists, who in 2010 was nearly killed in an attack, has written an open letter to Vladimir Putin and his puppet Dmitry Medvedev, which should be read by all the western leaders who are eager to co-operate with the Russian dictator:

But don’t flatter yourself: the last 15 years haven’t been a revival for Russia, and the country hasn’t risen from its knees. This time has been a monumental moral catastrophe for our generation. And both of you, Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev, are personally responsible for it.
In Russian society today, even obvious questions about good and evil have become impossible. Is it OK to steal? Is it OK to cheat? Is murder ethical? With each of these questions, it’s become customary in Russia now to answer that things aren’t so simple. All your good works have left the nation demoralised and disoriented.
But you carry on, managing your problems without even realising that you’re digging the hole yourselves. “Things aren’t so simple” is what the angry crowd will tell you in unison, when it comes time for you to run away. I suspect that you’re afraid of this crowd, but just remember that it was you who created it, and you’ve got nobody to blame but yourselves.

Having cut yourselves and your elites off from society, you’ve also cut yourselves off from reality. There’s a wall separating you from the rest of us, and everyone on our side shudders each time the next one of your goons decides to show what a thinker he is by stepping up to a podium and talking about how the population is being controlled by computer chips, about the “Euro-Atlantic conspiracy,” or about how the Americans are weaponising cellular research.

Whoever comes after you will have to create Russia all over again, from scratch. This is your only service to history– what you’ve spent 15 years achieving. Your favourite justification for all this (the only one, there are no others) are the troubles of the 1990s, but it’s important to understand that you preserved and strengthened everything about this period that we’ve come to hate today. You didn’t fix anything. You only made it all worse.

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"?!!

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

Vladimir Putin - "A common criminal dressed up as a Head of State"

 "A common criminal dressed up as a Head of State"

Yes, Vladimir Putin is nothing but a "common criminal dressed up as a Head of State":

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “common criminal dressed up as a Head of State” who ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to stop him exposing him, the inquiry heard.

The former spy was murdered for trying to reveal Putin’s close links to organised crime and a cabal of crime lords who prop up his corrupt regime, it was claimed.

Ben Emmerson QC, representing the Litvinenko family, said the trail behind the “act of unspeakable barbarism” led directly to Putin’s door.

He said Russia was a “Mafia state” where the Kremlin and Russian organised crime syndicates were “indistinguishable”.

Mr Litvinenko could even show crimes committed or authorises by Mr Putin personally, it was claimed.

And the seeds of hatred Putin had towards his former agent which would eventually lead to the murder were first sown in clashes more than eight years before, the inquiry heard.
Putin was a “ruthless and deadly enemy” and “we find Mr Putin's fingerprints as clearly as we find the traces of nuclear material in the forensic evidence”, he said.
In his opening statement to the inquiry, Mr Emmerson said: "Vladimir Putin should be unmasked by this inquiry as nothing more or less than a common criminal dressed up as a Head of State.

Read the entire article here
 

An excellent documentary: "Putin´s Way"

 This excellent documentary on Vladimir Putin and the mafia state he has created is highly recommended:

The documentary does not address the question about how the free world should react to what has happened in Putin´s Russia, but in a separate interview Walter Clemens, professor emeritus of political science at Boston University and an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, gives his well founded opinion:


What should the international community do about Mr. Putin?

CLEMENS: He should be indicted and brought before the International Criminal Court. Putin is probably guilty of all types of transgressions the court is authorized to prosecute—genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. As Russia’s president or prime minister, Putin dispatched Russian armed forces against the peoples of Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine while keeping them in a province of Moldova. His troops killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Chechens, split off South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, and watched as South Ossetians carried out ethnic cleansing of Georgian villages. Putin’s forces have seized Crimea, putting Tatars as well as Ukrainians at risk. Putin has fomented separatism in eastern Ukraine and sent several thousand Russians to fight alongside the separatists. He may not have intended for his proxies to shoot down a Malaysian airliner, but he provided the equipment and training that permitted them to do so and kill nearly 300 civilians. When weapons based in Russia strike targets inside Ukraine, however, there is no doubt about Putin’s intentions.

Vladimir Putin named most corrupt Person of the Year

"Putin has been a finalist every year so you might consider this a lifetime achievement award. He has been a real innovator in working with organized crime. He has created a military-industrial-political-criminal complex that furthers Russia’s and Putin’s personal interests. I think Putin sees those interests as one and the same."

Another well deserved award for Vladimir Putin:

Vladimir Putin has been named the 2014 Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an award given annually to the person who does the most to enable and promote organized criminal activity.
Putin was recognized for his work in turning Russia into a major money-laundering center; for enabling organized crime in Crimea and in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine; for his unblemished record of failing to prosecute criminal activity; and for advancing a government policy of working with and using crime groups as a component of state policy.

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.

Vladimir Putin´s press conference on December 18, the birthday of Joseph Stalin

Putin:
"What [The West] is trying to do is chain the bear, take out his claws...what we're trying to do is maintain our sovereignty and independence."

Vladimir Putin has today, on the birthday of Joseph Stalin, held a televised press conference.
The leader of the world´s foremost thugocracy carefully followed the advice of another Russian leader, Vladimir Lenin, when answering questions: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth".

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.

Anne Applebaum on Putin and his KGB cronies: "theft on a grand scale"

 "European politicians as high-ranking as Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi—all have been well compensated, directly or indirectly, for offering their support."

If you only read one article about the mafia state that Vladimir Putin has created, this is the one to read:

In place of a genuine media and a real civil society, Putin and his inner circle slowly put into place a system for manufacturing disinformation and mobilizing support on a new and spectacular scale. Once the KGB had retaken the country, in other words, it began once again to act like the KGB—only now it was better funded and more sophisticated. Today’s Russian “political technologists” make use of their state-owned media, including English-language outlets such as the TV news channel Russia Today; armies of paid social media “trolls” who post on newspaper comment pages, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites; fake “experts” whose quotes can be presented with fake authority; and real experts to whom Putin’s officials have granted special access, or have simply paid. Former Western ambassadors to Moscow, businessmen who have been recruited to Russian company boards, European politicians as high-ranking as Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi—all have been well compensated, directly or indirectly, for offering their support. --


Indeed, in the months since Putin’s invasion of Crimea, it has become fashionable to suggest that the harder-line face that Putin has more recently shown to the world is somehow, once again, the West’s “fault,” that we have provoked Russia into autocratic behavior through our talk of democracy in Ukraine or that—once again—the “reform process” was somehow brought to a halt because the Russians felt threatened by the expansion of NATO or by Western policy in the Balkans.
But after reading Dawisha’s book, and after absorbing the implications of the stories she has so carefully pulled together from so many sources, it is simply not possible to take this argument seriously. Since 2000, Russia has been ruled by a revanchist, revisionist elite with origins in the old KGB. This elite had been working its way back to power since the late 1980s, using theft on a grand scale, taking advantage of the secrecy provided by Western offshore havens, and cooperating with organized crime.
Once in power, the new elite sought to maintain control using the same methods that the KGB always used to maintain control: through the manipulation of public emotion, and by undermining the institutions of the West, and the ideals of the West, in any way that it can. Based on its record so far, it has every reason to expect continued success.

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 ...

Garry Kasparov: "Putin’s bargaining power has been greatly overestimated"

Garry Kasparov´s speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum should be compulsory reading for European and American leaders:

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it made perfect sense to integrate, to “engage”, with the morally and economically impoverished countries emerging from the Communist Dark Ages. But even after the European Union and NATO were expanded to their logical limits, the West continued to engage with authoritarian nations and leaders who wanted nothing to do with human rights and free markets within their own borders. Countries like Putin’s Russia and China received the economic benefits of engagement with the free world, but never ceased their crackdowns on civil society at home.

[SLIDE: ‘ENGAGEMENT’ PHOTOS: PUTIN WITH SCHROEDER, BERLUSCONI, LIPPONEN G8,]

Putin in particular has been very successful using the free world’s open borders, open press, and open political systems to his advantage. Just a note, that if not for Putin’s blatant aggression in Ukraine the so-called G-8 Summit would have taken place in Sochi last summer. Putin and his representatives have put many prominent Western politicians on his payroll, held fundraisers for political parties, brought influential western companies and executives into his network, and flooded western banks and markets with the easy cash they love, paid for with their own oil and gas money. However, Putin’s bargaining power has been greatly overestimated.

[SLIDE OIL & GAS IMPORT-EXPORT CHARTS]

The free world still has many advantages in this fight, and could have all the leverage it needs, if only it had the courage to use it. The EU, for example, gets only a third of its oil and gas from Russia. Substantial, and in many ways shameful, since it has been clear for years that Putin is not a reliable partner. Russia’s annexation of Crimea took place in March and Europe did nothing for seven months to find an alternative to Russian gas. And of course Norway could be one of the options! Today we still hear that “Europe could freeze” if Putin cuts the gas supply. But Russia exports over 80% of its oil and gas to the EU! Over 80%! Who has the leverage here? By boycotting or taxing those exports, or even making a credible threat to do so, Europe could cripple the cash flow that keeps Putin and his gang in power.
There are other powerful measures that could be employed. Russia’s hundreds of billions of dollars in cash reserves kept in Europe and the US could be frozen, as Iran’s were in 1979; Russian state corporations can be stripped of their cash flow; and Putin’s oligarchs’ assets can be seized to create a rift between the Godfather and his lieutenants. Total isolation is not possible today, but the free world must break all forms of dependency on dictatorships. Engagement with dictators has failed.

[SLIDE OF HEADLINES ABOUT PUTIN’S LOBBYING AND PROPAGANDA IN THE WEST]

This failed engagement policy of the West has given Putin something the Soviet leaders never dreamed of: an open frequency for propaganda and lobbying, and open markets for their natural resources and cash. Russia and China have channels on Western cable TV and teams of influential lobbyists in every capital. But sellers need buyers. Pipelines cannot easily be redirected. Russia’s ruling elite and their families have no desire to live in the country they have so effectively looted and ruined.
So the free world holds the winning cards in this game of geopolitical poker, but keeps folding its hand whenever Putin bluffs – and he does so regularly and successfully. A dictator knows what he must do to stay in power: he must look strong; he fights to survive. Democratically elected leaders are more worried about the next poll, the next election, or passing on tough decisions to their successors. Conflict and sacrifice aren’t winning campaign issues. Western leaders complain about jobs that could be lost from a confrontation, but how many jobs will be lost from global instability when dictators go unchallenged?
But we must fight – now, or later. If we have learned anything about dictators it is that they do not go away on their own. Putin is not a nightmare that goes away when you open your eyes! The longer we wait, the harder it will be. The price keeps going up every day. There is never a safe and easy solution. Sanctions can be effective, but they must be strong enough and fast enough to deter.
Read the entire speech here

Obama is ready for another "reset" with Russia´s criminal dictator Putin

This was to be expected: Suddenly Putin´s aggression against Ukraine is (in reality) forgotten. Barack Obama, one of the weakest US presidents ever, is offering the corrupted and criminal dictator another "reset" (even if his administration is not using the word). It will not take long before the former KGB agent is again welcomed and embraced by the "leader of the Free World":

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that the United States and Russia had agreed to share more intelligence on the Islamic State, as he sought to lay the basis for improved cooperation with Moscow.

Just six months ago, Obama administration officials suggested that their goal was to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin following Russia’s decision to annex Crimea and provide military support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.

But Mr. Kerry made it clear that he would welcome expanded cooperation with Mr. Putin after a meeting here with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.

While nobody on the American side said the United States was undertaking another “reset” — the term the Obama administration used to describe its early attempt to improve ties with Russia — the tenor of Mr. Kerry’s comments suggested that the State Department was pursuing a new tack.

“It is no secret that the United States and Russia have had our differences over Ukraine,” Mr. Kerry told reporters. “We came together today in order to try to focus on those issues where we can find the capacity to be able to make a difference to other countries, to the world in general, and certainly to the relationship between Russia and the United States.”

 

Read the entire article here

 

It is time to teach the liar Putin a lesson

Vladimir Putin - a criminal liar.

"Russia has nothing to do with the war in the Ukraine - it only sends the separatists tanks, missiles and paratroopers."
Berthold Kohler
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Russian soldiers fight in the Ukraine, Moscow leads a secret war against the neighboring country. It's time to call a spade a spade."
Die Tageszeitung


Time magazine:

Putin’s persistent denials of Russian involvement have started to crack, eroded by a growing body of proof that Russian soldiers are in fact fighting and dying in eastern Ukraine. The evidence suggests a new level of Russian involvement in the war, not merely funneling weapons and volunteers across the border to the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, but sending regular Russian ground forces on missions into Ukrainian territory. The inevitable result of that escalation has been a growing Russian casualty count, and the funerals and panicked relatives of Russian soldiers have been hard to sweep under the rug. Soon they are likely to force Putin either to come clean and admit his country’s intervention in Ukraine, or to face the growing public resentment over his denials.

It is time for the West to teach the liar Vladimir Putin a lesson!

David J. Kramer is right: "The last thing we need is a renewed search for accommodation with Putin"

David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House, has written an excellent article about the dangerous dictator Vladimir Putin. Here are the last paragraphs of Kramer´s article:

Russia’s military doctrine from 2010 cites as Russia’s top “external military danger” the enlargement of NATO and its military infrastructure “closer to the borders of the Russian Federation.” The reality, of course, is that Russia’s most secure and stable borders are with those countries—Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Norway, and Finland—that are members of NATO and/or the European Union.
Citing this history is not to suggest that Putin is all rhetoric and no danger. On the contrary, a paranoid Putin is very dangerous for Russia’s neighbors and for internal critics. Just ask Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, or Estonia, the victim of a Russian cyberattack in 2007, or Moldova, which has endured trade cutoffs, or Ukraine today.
At the end of the day, Putin wants to destabilize Ukraine and other neighbors to make them unappealing to the West. Putin fabricates a threat to ethnic Russians in Ukraine to justify his invasion; the reality is there were no such threats, but more importantly he doesn’t give a damn about their welfare. After all, he doesn’t care about the rights of Russians living in his own country as evidenced by his nasty crackdown on human rights there and the import food ban. Whether Ukraine creates a federal model or some other form of governance is of no interest to Putin; fomenting chaos and separatism in Ukraine are his main objectives.
This is why calls by some commentators for Western leaders to “explore a quiet compromise” with Putin over the crisis in Ukraine and to “understand the Russian leader’s concerns, his demands, his ideas for possibly de-escalating the situation”are pointless, even counterproductive. Putin is not interested in de-escalating unless that would help him with his number one priority: staying in power.
Indeed, Putin is willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power, including, it appears, invading Ukraine under the phony pretext of a “humanitarian intervention.” Making matters worse, through his control over television programming, Putin’s propaganda has tapped into an increasingly ugly mood among Russians (see this “Bike Show” over the past weekend in Sevastopol) that will be hard to tamp down—and may even spin beyond Putin’s control. This makes Putin, and now even Russia, a serious threat. To deal with this challenge requires even tougher sanctions, including adding Putin himself to the sanctions list, and the provision of military assistance by which Ukraine and other neighbors—and not just NATO members—can defend themselves. The last thing we need is a renewed search for accommodation with Putin.

What made Obama say that "It´s not a new Cold War"?

One wonders why Barack Obama felt a need to say this:

"It's not a new Cold War," Obama told reporters. "What it is, is a very specific issue related to Russia's unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine can chart its own path."

So, everything is fine, except for "the specific issue" of Ukraine!?

British ambassador to the United States (rightly) calls Putin a thug and a liar

Sir Peter Westmacott: This man is a thug and a liar

Kudos to Sir Peter Westmacott, the British ambassador to the United States, who´s characterization of Vladimir Putin is spot on:

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is a “thug” and a “liar”, one of Britain’s most senior ambassadors has said, as the EU prepares to approve tough new sanctions against Moscow.

Sir Peter Westmacott said the West’s increasingly firm response to Russia was beginning to have an impact on the Kremlin.

The British ambassador to the United States said Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine was starting to look like “the wrong call”.
 

Europe finally gets tough with "erratically" behaving Putin?

Finally some good news from Europe:

After weeks of ignoring American demands to get tough with Moscow expectations are rapidly rising in Washington that Europe will agree a significant package of new sanctions as early as this Tuesday.

As recently as last Friday night, sources in Washington involved in tracking the negotiations were deeply pessimistic that a divided Europe could muster the collective political will to impose meaningful economic pain on Moscow.

However the mood in Europe is understood to have changed radically over the weekend after Mr Putin failed to return several phone calls from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

A separate western diplomatic source cited worrying Russian reports that Mr Putin was now behaving "erratically" in meetings and noted that he had failed to offer any last-minute concessions to mollify and divide Europe, as in the past.

The "erratic" dictator in is clearly in need of some kind of professional help. Hopefully there are some sane forces in Moscow who will be able to provide it ...

Meanwhile, there is an urgent need for tougher sanctions.