Johnson's Russia List
2015-#69
7 April 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

In this issue
 
  #1
Kyiv Post
April 7, 2015
A group of lawmakers wants Yatsenyuk corruption charges investigated
by Alyona Zhuk

A group of lawmakers blocked the parliament's rostrum in the morning of April 7 to demand a probe into the work of the Cabinet and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Serhiy Kaplin, a member of Ukrainian parliament representing Petro Poroshenko Bloc, also initiated a rally in front of the parliament, where people could sign a petition to create a temporary investigative commission in parliament. He said more than 20,000 signatures have been collected so far.

Volodymyr Groysman, the parliament's speaker, said the demand will be discussed at a session of a parliamentary committee the following day, and the issue might then be included into the agenda on April 9. The deputies unblocked the rostrum after his statement.

Andriy Illenko, an independent lawmaker, warned that the rostrum would be blocked again if the parliament fails to move on the creation of the investigative commission.

The idea of creation of this temporary commission first came about after the dismissal of the head of the State Financial Inspection of Ukraine Mykola Gordienko, who accused the government in stealing Hr 7.5 billion. The inspection is a controlling agency under the Cabinet designed to track the use of public finances.

On March 18 Gordienko asked Prosecutor General's office to check the activities of the government, which he accused of preserving many corrupt schemes left over after Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. He also asked to suspend Yatsenyuk as prime minister for the duration of the investigation.

Victor Shokin, Ukraine's prosecutor general, in a televised interview later that month said that his office had started criminal proceedings based on these accusations. He also said that Yatsenyuk has agreed to give "any testimony on these issues."

Meanwhile, the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service conducted an internal investigation against officials at the State Financial Inspection and found numerous violations of law that led to the dismissal of Gordienko. The agency essentially has the functions of a human resources center and controller in the government.

"I thank Yatsenyuk that he fired Gordienko," Kaplin wrote on his Facebook page. "Now he can take part in the investigation of the Cabinet's crimes. At last we will find out, if Yatsenyuk is a saint."

Yehor Sobolev, the head of Ukraine's committee on preventing and combating corruption, told the Kyiv Post that the committee will hold a hearing about the Gordienko's case on April 8, which Gordienko was expected to attend.

"He said that the government had stolen Hr 7.5 billion. That's a serious accusation, and we need either to confirm it, in which case the officials should resign and go to jail, or to prove it to be false, and then Gordienko must take the consequences," Sobolev said.

Asked to comment on the need to create a special parliament commission to conduct the inquiry, Sobolev said that "the more commissions, the more openness, the more public discussions of any allegations, the better."

"However, we shouldn't overestimate the special inquiry commission as a tool," he added. "In previous parliaments it turned at best into PR for a person chosen to lead it."

Sobolev said that if the commission is created, every faction should delegate a representative to it.

According to Kaplin, the future members of the commission will be, among others, independent lawmakers Boryslav Bereza, Volodymyr Parasyuk, Andriy Illenko, and himself.

But Kaplin's position on the need to investigate Yatsenyk is not shared by all of his faction. "The position of deputy Kaplin does not reflect the position of Petro Poroshenko's Bloc," faction leader Yuriy Lutsenko said. "We will try to explain to him that there is no need to use a hammer to kill a mosquito on the forehead of your interlocutor."


 
#2
Kiev security forces mass as crowds demand PM quits

KIEV, April 7. /TASS/. More than 2,500 police officers and Ukrainian National Guard servicemen have been mobilized to protect Kiev downtown government buildings, security sources said on Tuesday.

Deployment comes amid reports of around 700 protesters gathering outside the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) demanding Prime Minister Yatsenyuk's resignation.

Demonstrators have pitched around 20 tents there, one inscribed "Temporary investigative commission against the corrupt government".

A police statement said security forces had been sent "to protect government agencies - the presidential administration, parliament and cabinet buildings, adjacent areas and the city center."
 
 
#3
Political tricks let Ukraine's officials divert attention from falling ratings - expert
A collapse of Yatsenyuk's ratings from 22% to 4% make him resort to political tricks, like spiraling up anti-communist hysteria in a bid to divert attention from destructive actions of the authorities

KIEV, April 6. /TASS/. Ukraine's top officials are indulging in political gimmicks to divert public attention from their destructive actions sending their ratings all the way down, a Ukrainian expert said on Monday.

"A catastrophic collapse of (Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk's ratings from 22 to four percent and the falling ratings of other top officials makes him resort to political tricks, such as spiraling up anti-communist hysteria in a bid to divert public attentions from destructive actions of the authorities," Andrey Zolotarev, the head of the Third Sector Center, told a news conference.

The current media frenzy around extermination of communist ideology on the backdrop of 'cannibal' tariffs for utility services proves that the authorities are being guided by the if-we-cannot-give-bread-we-will-give-circuses principle, thus finishing off people not only materially but also morally.

In the meantime, Ukraine's Security Service has been interrogating Ukrainian Communist leader Petro Simonenko, whose legal status - either that of a suspect or a witness - has not yet been determined, according to the Security Service's spokesperson Elena Gitlyanskaya.
 
 #4
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Putin Refused Poroshenko's Offer to 'Take Donbass' - Forbes
By Ivan Nechepurenko

President Vladimir Putin in February turned down an offer from his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to "take the Donbass" - the area in the country's east that is currently partly controlled by pro-Russian insurgents - and asked Poroshenko whether he was "out of his mind," Forbes magazine reported Monday.

Putin reportedly told a closed-door meeting with senior board members of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on March 19 that Poroshenko had offered him eastern Ukraine's Donbass region - which includes the war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk regions - at peace talks in Minsk at which a cease-fire was agreed in February, according to an unidentified source cited by Forbes who participated in the meeting.

According to the source, Putin recounted the overnight Minsk negotiations, saying: "[Poroshenko] told me directly: 'Take the Donbass.' I replied: 'Are you out of your mind? I don't need the Donbass. If you don't need it, declare it independent,'" Forbes reported.

The source said Poroshenko had asked Putin to take financial responsibility for the region. Putin replied that would only be possible if the Donbass joined Russia and that as long as the region remained part of Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities were tasked with such matters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday declined to comment in detail on the Forbes report, saying only: "It isn't right that some participants of this event [the board meeting with Putin] spoke about the content of their conversation with the president. Let it be on their own consciences, whether they told the truth or not," Interfax news agency reported.

The head of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, said Monday the comments published by Forbes were "a distortion" of Putin's words, RIA Novosti reported.

"The topic of discussion was relations between Russia and Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk agreements, but I am not going to repeat [Putin's] words. ... [The Forbes report] is an incorrect interpretation," Shokhin said.

A spokesman for Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Yevhen Perebyinis, blamed a linguistic misunderstanding for the report, apparently suggesting Poroshenko had spoken in Ukrainian and Putin had misunderstood him.

"Poroshenko did not tell Putin to 'take the Donbass' but told him to 'get out of it,'" Perebyinis said Monday on his Twitter account.

The senior board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs consists of 26 executives of Russia's top companies, as well as board head Shokhin.

During a news conference a day after the meeting with Putin on March 20, Shokhin said the participants had discussed economic issues but did not mention any discussion of the situation in Ukraine.
 
 #5
RIA Novosti
April 6, 2015
Putin's remarks on Ukraine were distorted, says Russian business union head

Aleksandr Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE), has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's remarks during a meeting with the union's administrative office have been distorted in an article by Forbes magazine, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 6 April.

According to Forbes, Putin told participants in the meeting that his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, had suggested that the Russian leader "take Donbass [region of east Ukraine]", and that Putin had replied: "Have you gone mad? I do not need Donbass. If you do not need it, then declare its independence." Forbes cited one of the meeting's participants, who, it said, wished to remain anonymous.

"It is a fact that Vladimir Vladimirovich's words have been distorted. He was talking about Russia's relationship with Ukraine, the fulfillment of the Minsk accords, but I am not going to relay his words... [ellipsis as received] This is a false interpretation, and I do not intend to comment or relay his words," Shokhin said, adding that the meeting with Putin had been closed, and that "those who share sensations with journalists act, mildly speaking, improperly".

Shokhin added that this incident marked a betrayal of the RUIE, according to a separate report published by RIA Novosti the same day.

"After such a leak I will not be able to insist on closed meetings; one of my colleagues has strongly betrayed the RUIE, the RUIE office and our relationship with the presidential administration. Let it remain on their conscience," Shokhin said.

"As it turns out, everybody will have to bear responsibility for one of our colleagues," he added.
 
 
#6
Interfax-Ukraine
Ukrainian diplomat says president did not offer Donbass to Putin

Kiev, 6 April: The spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Yevhen Perebyynis, has said that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko could suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin stop military and other support for illegal armed groups in Donbass.

"'Go away from Donbass' does not mean 'take Donbass' but exactly the opposite," the spokesman wrote on Twitter.

Earlier Russian Forbes quoted a source as saying that at the meeting with businessmen on 19 March, Putin said that Poroshenko allegedly offered him to "take" Donbass, whereas Putin said he did not need it and advised the Ukrainian president to recognize Donbass's independence or pay pensions and other social benefits to its residents.
    
 #7
Interfax
April 6, 2015
Poroshenko ready for referendum on Ukraine's state system

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he is ready to hold a referendum regarding Ukraine's state system.

"I am ready to launch a referendum on the issue of the state system, if you see a need for that," Poroshenko said at a meeting of the constitutional commission in Kiev on Monday.
Poroshenko earlier said he is ready to hold a referendum regarding the state system of Ukraine, but said that "almost 90 percent" of the population oppose federalization and that Ukraine will not agree to any form of pressure on this issue.

Poroshenko said the idea of federalization is "like an infection, like a biological weapon that they are trying to force on Ukraine from abroad."

"They are trying to use it to hurt Ukraine and destroy our unity because it's the only model that can now be used to destroy the unity that Ukraine is demonstrating in the war," Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko said he is convinced that the people of Ukraine will not let that happen. "At first, when they hoped that federalization would work, they had absolutely different plans. When Ukraine united, they began the aggression against us and went to war with us, trying to cultivate federalization with iron and blood. I will not let that happen, the people of Ukraine will not let that happen," he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President said that Ukrainian will remain the only state language in the country. "I would like to remind you so that everyone remembers this as a prayer: the Ukrainian language is and will remain the only state language of Ukraine," he said.

"Some one and a half years ago, society was evenly divided on the issue of one or two state languages. Now over three-quarters of Ukrainian people are firmly convinced that there should be one language and that it is the backbone that holds the nation together," Poroshenko said.

 #8
Interfax
April 6, 2015
Ukraine's rebels say unitary state, single language "unacceptable"

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's statements on maintaining the unitary system of state governance and the Ukrainian language remaining the only state language in the country are unacceptable and contradict the Minsk Agreements, Andriy Purhin (Andrey Purgin), the speaker of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) people's council, has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 6 April.

"These are absolutely unacceptable things. Everything that they are saying and doing does not comply with the Minsk Agreements, which were so hard to achieve during the meeting of the 'Normandy Four' [Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany]," he said.

Purhin said that no representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics were present at the session of the constitutional commission in Kiev.

"We have not received invitations and none of our representatives are there," he said.
 #9
New York Times
April 7, 2015
Ukrainian Leader Is Open to a Vote on Regional Power
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

MOSCOW - President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine on Monday denounced calls for "federalization" of the country, which Russia has endorsed as a way of granting political autonomy to the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Establishing greater local autonomy and governmental authority is widely viewed as crucial to settling the nearly yearlong war in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and it was a central plank in a cease-fire accord signed in February. But there are fierce disagreements over how to shape those powers, and how far they would extend.

Speaking at the first meeting of a commission charged with developing amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution, Mr. Poroshenko described federalization as tantamount to breaking apart the country, and said he was so certain Ukrainians would reject the idea that he was willing to put it to a national referendum.

"Why do I dwell in great detail on the idea of federalization?" Mr. Poroshenko said. "Because it is like an infection, a biological weapon, which is being imposed on Ukraine from abroad. Its bacteria are trying to infect Ukraine and destroy our unity."

Leaders of the self-declared people's republics in Donetsk and Luhansk have complained bitterly in recent weeks that Mr. Poroshenko and other officials in Kiev, including members of Parliament, were refusing to take the necessary steps to carry out the political provisions in the cease-fire agreement, which was signed in Minsk, Belarus.

In his speech to the new 72-member constitutional reform commission, Mr. Poroshenko said Ukraine would press ahead with its own plan for "decentralization" of governmental authority, modeled after an effort in Poland.

Referring obliquely to Russia and the Russian-backed separatists, he said: "They started an aggression, they went to war, trying to impose federalization with iron and blood. I will not allow this to happen. Ukrainian people will not allow it to happen."

He added: "For those who wish to put forward the thesis of federalization and cast it as a debate, we have the ultimate tool - a referendum. And as to me, I'm ready to hold a referendum on the state structure of Ukraine, if you find it necessary."

In his speech, Mr. Poroshenko spoke of the historical importance of Pylyp Orlyk, a Cossack nobleman and Ukrainian hetman, or leader, in exile who in 1710 wrote the Bendery Constitution. Many scholars believe it was the first to codify the separation of powers among the executive, the legislature and the judiciary as a democratic standard.

Mr. Poroshenko urged the head of the constitutional commission, Volodymyr Groysman, who is the speaker of Ukraine's Parliament, to seek input from the Opposition Bloc, the one minority faction in the legislature. It includes former allies of President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was ousted last year after huge street protests.

"I would like very much, and believe it is possible, for the commission to become a unifying platform of all political forces, society, domestic and international experts in working out such important constitutional initiatives required by our society," Mr. Poroshenko said.

In eastern Ukraine, however, it was clear that Mr. Poroshenko was falling short of that goal. Separatist leaders noted that they had not been invited to join the commission on constitutional changes, and they took issue with Mr. Poroshenko's remarks, including his insistence that Ukraine would remain a "unitary state" and his declaration that Ukrainian would remain the country's only official language.

"These things are absolutely unacceptable," Andrei Purgin, head of the Donetsk People's Republic, told the Interfax news agency. "Everything they now say and do contradicts the Minsk agreements that took so much work to achieve."

As for the commission and the constitutional amendment process, Mr. Purgin told Interfax: "We did not receive any invitations. We don't have any representatives there."
 
 #10
Analysts: Ukraine's constitutional reform is one year late
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Ukraine could have avoided both the civil war and economic collapse, had the authorities in Kiev launched a constitutional reform matching the interests of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas a year ago, polled experts have told TASS.

At the end of February 2014, immediately after power in Ukraine changed hands, the Verkhovna Rada voted for a bill declaring Ukrainian as the sole state language, while Russian was given the status of a regional language. Although the Ukrainian president has not signed the bill into law, the proposed controversial piece of legislation sparked unrest in the southeast of the country. On April 15, Kiev launched what it called an "anti-terrorist operation", which has now ended in utter failure. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, by the end of March 2015 the hostilities had claimed 6,083 lives and left 15,397 people injured. The United Nations has registered 1,178 million refugees, with the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on April 1, 2014 standing at 6.568 million.

Last May, referendums in the southeast of Ukraine proclaimed the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. By coincidence, exactly one year after Donetsk and Lugansk shrugged off Kiev's control President Pyotr Poroshenko on Monday, February 6 declared the beginning of a constitutional reform.

The director of the Globalization Problems Institute, Mikhail Delyagin, argues that the constitutional reform in Ukraine is at least one year late. "Moreover, the country's decentralization which the head of state has proposed in reality is deceit, just as many other fine intentions proclaimed by the authorities in Kiev," says Delyagin, a member of the international discussion club Valdai. "The constitutional reform promises no real local self-government rights to the regions in question. Naturally, the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics do not support it," Delyagin told TASS.

"The main result of this year for Ukraine is naked-clear. Attempts to suppress the legitimate demands of the population in the southeast with military force, in fact, a variety of Nazism, has proved loss-making economically. In January through March Ukraine's inflation sky-rocketed. Kiev predicts this year's economic slump of 5.5%, but in reality the economy will be down by more than 10%, as follows from Kiev's official statistics. Kiev's analysts are not to be trusted. The authorities in Kiev say the work load on the Donetsk airport in 2014 declined by 70% But the whole world knows that nothing but ruins is now left of the once busy air hub," Delyagin recalls.

He suspects that the constitutional reform talk is just a ploy, a cover-up of preparations for resumption of combat operations against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. Of late, the Ukrainian military stepped up the bombardments of Donetsk. In order to keep at bay the frustrated 35-million population who see no economic prospects for themselves Kiev has just one resource left - going ahead with the so-called 'anti-terrorist operation' in an attempt to excuse its current policies," Delyagin believes.

The head of the international development directorate at the Institute of Modern Development (INSOR), Sergey Kulik, says the military crackdown on Ukraine's southeast has had a multiple effect: heavy casualties, large-scale destruction in Donbas and the collapse of the Ukrainian economy. The hostilities have kept foreign investors away from Ukraine. The tranches the IMF and the European Union have agreed to grant are way below Kiev's real needs. The country's gold and foreign exchange resources have dwindled as war spending has soared. In fact, the country is bankrupt," Kulik told TASS.

"In February 2015 the International Monetary Fund agreed to extend a loan of $17.5 billion over a period of four years, but the country remains on the brink of default. After the government coup in Kiev in February 2014 that propelled the current authorities to power Ukraine has managed to get only three billion dollars of the $15 billion Russia had promised," he recalled.

"The West is unable to cope with the task of settling the crisis in Ukraine and preventing the country's economic collapse on its own, without Russia's participation," he went on to say. "This explains why Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande came up with the idea of concluding the Minsk Accords and why in Brussels the possibility is being explored for cooperation between the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Community," Kulik explained.

"Ukraine is fragmented: there is the ruling establishment and the people. Their interests are different," the director of the Center for Military and Political Studies at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, Aleksey Podberyozkin, has told TASS. "For fly-by-night rulers last year was an excellent chance to build up personal wealth. The former governor of the Dnepropetrovsk Region, Igor Kolomoisky, is an example. In the meantime, the living standards of Ukraine's population have slumped by two-thirds. The country has experienced deindustrialization, and with the exodus of able-bodied and draft-age population to Russia and to Europe Ukraine has developed a distinct depopulation trend. Moreover, even the rather artificial entity called the Ukrainian citizens has ceased to exist," Podberyozkin said.

"Geopolitically the United States, which provoked the government coup in Kiev, had attained its aims by creating a trouble spot near Russia's border and a sanitary cordon between Russia and the European Union," he concluded.
 
 #11
Kiev's pressure 'alienates' people in east Ukraine - poll

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. Economic and transport blockade of east Ukraine's self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic will only drive a wedge between people in the war-torn east and the rest of Ukraine, suggests a recent opinion poll conducted in the region.

Alexander Protsenko, head of the "Special Status" Center for Sociological Research, told the Luhansk Information Center news agency on Monday: "In February and March, we asked the residents of the Luhansk People's Republic the same question - 'What do you think the economic and transport blockade of Donbas [region of east Ukraine] imposed by the authorities in Kiev might lead to?'"

"Respondents were unanimous. More than 93% of those polled said 'this will only embitter people and alienate Donbas from Ukraine'," Protsenko said, noting that Kiev's actions did not help to reduce tension or de-escalate the conflict.

"On the contrary, the blockade only drives a wedge between the residents of Ukraine and Donbas. One gets the impression that this is actually the main goal of imposing it, and not security concerns," he said.

Protsenko added that April 6 was a very important day for the Luhansk republic, marking one year since the population of Ukraine's south-eastern regions opposing the February 2014 coup in Kiev took decisive action that resulted in the proclamation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.

"A year ago today, the cup of people's patience overflowed. People needed to feel somehow protected," he said. "Then the takeover of the SBU [Ukraine's state security service] building happened marking a turning point in the protest movement in Ukraine's south-east."
 
 #12
AFP
April 6, 2015
Ukraine far-right leader made army advisor in move to control militias
By Claire Rosemberg

KIEV (AFP) -  The controversial leader of Ukraine's ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor paramilitary group, which is fighting pro-Russian rebels alongside government troops, was made an army advisor Monday as Kiev seeks to tighten its control over volunteer fighters.

Coming on the anniversary of the start of fighting in Ukraine, the move marks a key step in government efforts to establish authority over the several private armies that share its goal of crushing pro-Russian separatists in the east, but do not necessarily operate under its control.

While some such militias answer to the interior ministry and receive funding, the powerful Pravy Sektor or "Right Sector" militia, which currently claims 10,000 members including reservists -- but will not say how many are deployed at the front -- had until now refused to register with the authorities.

Its posture is expected to change following Monday's announcement by the defence ministry of the appointment of its leader, Dmytro Yarosh, a hate figure in Moscow who was elected to Ukraine's parliament last year, as advisor to the army chief of staff Viktor Muzhenko.

"Dmytro Yarosh will act as a link between the volunteer battalions and the General Staff," armed forces spokesman Oleksiy Mazepa told AFP.

"We want to achieve full unity in the struggle against the enemy, because now our aim is the cooperation and integration of volunteer battalions in the armed forces," he added.

Asked whether the appointment might anger the West, political analyst Taras Beresovets said becoming army advisor "does not make him an influential person in the armed forces."

"I do not remember hearing official criticism of Yarosh or the 'Right Sector' by any country except Russia," he added.

'Morale' advantage

Many militia groups have been fighting on both sides of the frontline in Ukraine since the war began a year ago this week, and the issue of control is key to avoiding rights violations and keeping armed groups from going rogue.

Pravy Sektor are highly-trained and known for their tough discipline and their ban on drinking alcohol. The group dates back to the street fighting during the Maidan protests in Kiev and has sent units to some of the hottest flashpoints on the frontline in Ukraine's year-long war.

"Volunteer battalions are weaker than armed forces units in terms of technical equipment," Sergey Zgurets, a military expert at the Defense Express consultancy, told AFP. "But they have the advantage in terms of morale."

President Petro Poroshenko has been working hard to bring up to strength the regular army, which now numbers 184,000 and is to swell to 250,000. Efforts are being made also to increase defence production.

Yarosh is widely reviled in the separatist east and Russian media as a far-right bogeyman and is wanted by the authorities in Moscow on an international warrant for "incitement to terrorism".

He was injured in January in fighting around Donetsk airport, which finally fell to the separatists after months of combat.

A spokesman for the nationalist hardliner told AFP that Pravy Sektor would remain independent from government control but would now receive funds from the defence ministry.

"Our combatants will be well-armed from now on as up until now equipment was supplied by volunteers," said Artem Skoropadskiy.

Pravy Sektor, which includes a political party that was founded in March last year as well as its military battalions, "is nationalist not fascist", Yarosh once told AFP in an interview.

It rose to prominence during the Maidan protests and claims roots in the controversial legacy of Ukraine's World War II nationalists, who for a time collaborated with the Nazis against the Soviet Union, then fought against the Nazis.

Yarosh won more than 120,000 votes in May 2014 presidential elections and was elected to parliament with around 27 percent of the vote in the seat he contended.
 
 #13
www.rt.com
April 7, 2015
'Kiev govt owes its existence to Maidan extremists, not voters'

The appointment of neo-Nazi leader Dmitry Yarosh as an advisor to Ukraine's Chief of Staff is not a surprise as the Kiev government knows it owes its existence to the Maidan fighters not voters, political analyst Dmitry Babich told RT's In the Now.

RT:The leader of the extremist Right Sector group Dmitry Yarosh has been appointed as an advisor to Ukraine's Chief of Staff. What do you make of this appointment?

Dmitry Babich: It's not a surprise to me because basically he became an advisor to the Minister of Defense. But let me remind you that in the beginning of the new Kiev regime the first Defense Minister was a member of the Svoboda party, formerly known as the Social-National Party of Ukraine. I think you understand that "social-national" is a euphemism for national socialist. The Prosecutor General in Ukraine in the new regime was a member of the Svoboda party. Four ministers were members of the Svoboda party. So, basically it is still a very radical nationalist regime. The fact that the Right Sector did not win many votes at the parliamentary elections does not mean much, because a lot of its representatives made it to the Rada through other parties. For example the founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine, Andrey Parubiy, is now the vice speaker of the Ukrainian parliament. So these people hold important positions.

RT: What message is the Ukrainian government sending by this appointment?

DB: This government owes its existence to people like Yarosh and Parubiy. Yarosh was the iron fist of the Maidan revolution. Basically he headed the people who took hold of the Presidential administration and of the building of the Rada. After that attack suddenly the Rada started to vote in a completely different way for obvious reasons. Andrey Parubiy was the commander of Maidan. So this new government understands very well that it owes its existence not to the voters but to the fighters of Maidan. And Yarosh and Parubiy were the leaders of the fighters of Maidan.

RT: What about Western partners, are we going to see any reaction from them?

DB: Let me remind you that initially the Western press was very negative about the Right Sector. The narrative was that Maidan is good but there are some bad people from this small Right Sector group which spoil the whole picture. Now the West stopped talking about it. I would like to point your attention to the fact that there was not a single word of criticism against Mr. Poroshenko, despite all the killings in Eastern Ukraine, despite the fact that he cut off 4 million people in Eastern Ukraine from the banking system, he doesn't pay them pensions and public sector wages and we didn't hear a single word of criticism from the West.

RT: According to the latest news, federalization is pretty much not going to happen in Ukraine. What does it mean for the Minsk agreement?

DB: It's a huge danger to the Minsk agreement because let me remind you that according to these agreements Ukraine should control its Eastern border with Russia only after elections are held in the rebel regions, only after the normal economic life is restarted between the rest of Ukraine and these regions and only after the Ukrainian Constitution is changed. Before the end of the year Ukraine should have a new constitution with, it's written in the Minsk agreements, some special status for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. What Poroshenko said [on Monday] was "We are not going to federalize Ukraine, 90 percent of the Ukrainian people don't want it," he said "I know it, we can hold a referendum, but I know for sure 90 percent of people are against it." And the head of Ukrainian National Security Council, Mr. Turchinov, said and I quote "We are not going to feed separatists." So there will be no resumption of pension payments and the public sector payments in the Eastern regions. About two weeks ago, the Ukrainian Parliament announced that Donetsk and Lugansk were occupied territories, so much for the Minsk agreements which presupposed that the Ukrainian Parliament would within 30 days after signing the agreements give special status to these regions. So the Ukrainian side didn't fulfill any of its obligations under the Minsk agreements and the West doesn't criticize them for that. But I'm sure the West will criticize Russia and the rebel regions for not fulfilling their part of the obligations. Although I think it's impossible to fulfill what Russia and Donetsk and Lugansk have agreed to impose on themselves until there is a real change in the way Ukraine is run.
 
 #14
AFP
April 7, 2015
On anniversary of Ukraine war, shelling still shattering lives

Maria Gladchenko stood by the smouldering ruins of her home after the conflict in east Ukraine that began a year ago once again tore through her neighbourhood.

"There's nothing for us to do now but start our lives over," the 60-year-old retired school teacher sighed, pointing to the burnt-out remnants filled with the stench of fire.

It was the third shell in a year to hit the house, located near the flashpoint Donetsk airport in separatist-held eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian rebels are fighting government forces.

"Around here the ceasefire was never respected," she said, referring to a February truce between the two sides that has largely held despite isolated clashes, notably in this part of Ukraine's former industrial heartland.

"There is endless firing, sometimes heavier than others. Last night at first it seemed a long way away and then it got closer. Around 9 p.m. a shell hit the roof and fire spread very quickly," Gladchenko said.

Her eyes brimming, she says she and her husband may be alive but have lost everything they owned.

"We couldn't save a thing and now we can't live here anymore."

More than 6,000 people have died since pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine seized government buildings on April 6, 2014, sparking a conflict that has divided the country in two and triggered an economic and humanitarian crisis.

'Shooting never ceased here'

The Gladchenko house is on Velozavodskaya street, not far from the railway station and the once state-of-the-art airport, a zone where pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian troops a few kilometres away trade fire on a daily basis despite the February truce.

On Monday, a dozen neighbours who came by to help the couple in despair were removing the household's smoking remains, charred beams, the carcass of a bed, twisted bits of metal, as monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) looked on.

"The firefighters turned up very quickly but it took them four hours to put out the blaze. They carried on even when the shelling continued. They said our house was destroyed by an incendiary shell," Maria Gladchenko said.

"In November a shell hit our house. Then on January 11 another one fell in our garden," she added.

The walls of the house and those around carry traces of the shellings while windows shattered by fire are plastered in cardboard or sheets of plastic.

AFP reporters in Donetsk say shooting has intensified around the city in the last days, especially at night. Artillery fire could be heard throughout much of the evening and until after midnight overnight Sunday to Monday.

Viktor Tsolodobnikov, a retired engineer aged 70, was one of the neighbours who popped in to offer sympathy to the Gladchenkos.

"It's hard for us to believe in this ceasefire! The shooting has never really ceased here, and in the last days it's become worse than usual," he said.

"But after months of bombings in our district we've learnt at least one thing: we now know the difference between cannon fire, tank fire and Grad missiles. It'll probably come in useful for a good while yet," he said.
 
 #15
Bloomberg
April 7, 2015
Soviet-Era Survival Instincts Kick in for Ukrainians
By Yulia Surkova

Deep behind rebel lines in eastern Ukraine, cash machines on garbage-covered streets have long run out of bills and residents are turning to fixers to survive.

A pro-Russian insurgency that erupted a year ago has killed more than 6,000 people, with economic desperation permeating what was once Ukraine's industrial heartland. Residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which have become a geopolitical battleground, struggle with even mundane tasks.

Hemmed in by travel curbs, residents of one village near the separatist stronghold of Luhansk were left short of options when rebel handouts dried up. Lidiya, 61, now pays a local middleman to ferry her pension across the front line from a bank in government-controlled Kharkiv.

"People queued for days to get money from the rebels and some fought each other," said Lidiya, who lives off food grown in her garden in the town of Petrovskoe, 63 kilometers (40 miles) from Ukrainian territory and declined to give her last name for fear of reprisal. "They had to fire shots into the air to make everyone leave once the cash ran out."

Life inside Ukraine's pro-Russian breakaway republics hinges on a shadow economy flourishing amid the cease-fires, embargoes and severed supply lines of a yearlong war. The shortages underscore the difficulties the Kremlin-backed rebels face to establish a semblance of normality and cement their rule. They also highlight the war's mounting costs as the government in Kiev starts debt-restructuring talks.

In Limbo

"The conflict has wiped off relatively comfortable living standards achieved in the last two decades," Lilit Gevorgyan, a senior analyst at the IHS Global Insight Inc. research company in London, said by e-mail. A persisting stalemate may trigger mass migration amid a "slow and painful" recovery, she said.

For now, Soviet-era survival instincts are kicking in as businesses sprout up to fetch cash, medicines and diapers from government-held areas. Couriers skirt roadblocks and burnt-out tanks to feed demand.

While a February truce helped reduce the thunder of artillery, Ukrainians in the areas run by insurgents face a battle to access money and food staples. The government in Kiev now requires people to carry travel passes to keep the separatists at arm's length, which has left many citizens stranded and worsened an already acute humanitarian crisis.

'Drastically Worsened'

The situation continues to deteriorate, according to the United Nations, with access to benefits and services cut off since December in rebel territory. "This has drastically worsened the plight of people living there, seriously affecting access to basic services and food," the UN said March 13.

Ukraine is simplifying procedures for humanitarian-aid imports, Social Minister Pavlo Rozenko said Tuesday.

It takes about a month to get papers to enter territory controlled by the government. For those without a pass, the array of options is outlined on fliers pasted to wooden notice boards at bus stops and via social networks.

Some try bribes. The going rate is as much as 25,000 hryvnia ($1,100), according to Konstantin, who declined to give his last name to avoid prosecution. Cash doesn't always work, though, as Konstantin said his truck filled with vodka, cigarettes and food got stuck at a checkpoint as the shooting of a secret-service officer sparked a crackdown.

"Everyone I ask to help says I can forget about the truck," Konstantin said.

'Really Hungry'

In Donetsk, the conflict zone's biggest city, businessmen lean on contacts at border checkpoints to shuttle clients in minibuses 65 kilometers to Konstantynivka, on Ukrainian territory. There they can withdraw cash and visit local shops for products from antibiotics to baby food.

While markets and stores are open in Donetsk, other cities like Debaltseve, the site of a weeks-long siege, are afflicted by shortages. That means humanitarian aid is spread thin, according to Dmitry Filimonov, who said he recently collected $2,000 worth of donations from Moscow and Kiev. The breakdown of local services also makes it difficult to get supplies to those who need them the most, he said.

Aid is "distributed in the center and people living on the outskirts just don't get to it in time because city transport isn't working," said Filimonov, 32. "We brought 130 packages of food to Debaltseve and a long line appeared near our bus in minutes. Those people were really hungry."

Pension Tours

A special service geared toward the elderly is pension tours that whisk them off to Ukrainian banks to get monthly payments of 1,500 hryvnia, charging about 300 hryvnia.

The charges are high because of the cost, according to Oleh, who drives 36 hours from Petrovskoe to reach Ukrainian territory via Russia and re-register pensioners for 2,000 hryvnia each. Before the fighting started in the aftermath of President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea last March, the trip took 4 hours.

"I have to pay penalties for crossing the border illegally," said Oleh, who declined to give his last name because of the nature of his business. "We're looking now for the best routes."

The new businesses sometimes run into opposition.

Mariupol, under government control, is a hot spot where couriers show up clutching stacks of bank cards to withdraw cash. Donetsk coal mines often select one employee to make the journey and collect wages for his colleagues. Some wind up clashing with frosty locals who don't welcome the trips, according to 31-year-old Eduard Horlov.

Throwing Punches

"Once every two weeks, Mariupol steel workers get paid at the same time as buses arrive from Donetsk carrying people to take out cash," said Horlov, a locksmith. "You see lines of 50 to 100 people at ATMs and there are can be scuffles."

For those who're able, the shadow economy is a lifeline. Far from being angry at the fees, there's gratitude at not being completely cut off.

"It costs a lot for me, of course" said Petrovna from Petrovskoe, who paid 1,000 hryvnia to arrange for her pension to be re-registered in another town. "But I can't do it myself. It's good there are people who're dealing with this."
 
 #16
www.opendemocracy.net
April 7, 2015
Life behind the blockade in the Donetsk People's Republic
The closure of the border between Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic has divided communities, leaving people short of food and medicines.
By Anna Yalovkina
 
In January, after spending months trying to secure Donetsk's airport, the Ukrainian authorities closed off all roads into the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). Now residents of the towns and villages along the front line are totally cut off from one another. You can visit 'the other side', but you need a special permit, which takes both time and money to acquire.

Ukrainian law now forbids the entry of any goods into the DPR, but small consignments are getting through, thanks to the unofficial 'duty' paid to the Ukrainian troops.

The bureaucratic nightmare

Ukrainians wanting to visit the DPR need to go to the small village of Novosilka, which, in the two months since the beginning of the blockade, has become something of a boomtown. Novosilka is located some distance from all the large towns and cities of the region (90km from Donetsk), and getting a permit takes a whole day. The Ukrainian army checkpoint closes at 6pm, so if you get your pass at 5pm and then have to wait in a queue for half an hour, you risk being turned back and having to find somewhere in the village to spend the night.

There are two queues outside the permit office at Novosilka's police station. The short one is for journalists (our group still had to wait four hours for our permits to be processed), and the longer one is for ordinary members of the public, who have to wait even longer. Most of the people in this queue live in separatist-held areas, and cross the border to collect their Ukrainian pensions and benefits or hole up with relatives when fighting breaks out. And even if they manage to get their permits on the day they arrive, they might still have an unpleasant surprise at the Ukrainian checkpoint.

I certainly did - the troops, invoking some emergency situation, turned our car back, saying that they were letting no one through that day. We were forced to make a detour to another border crossing, got stuck in a long tailback, and were the last people to get through that day. The people behind us had to find beds in Novosilka or sleep in their cars.

... and how to avoid it

Bureaucracy traditionally generates corruption. The local people resort to various means to speed up the permit process, as do the truckers trying to transport food and medicines into the DPR. People told us in confidence that a bribe of 1,000 Hryvnia (�29) would get you your permit immediately. Getting back is also a problem - you have to exit from the DPR at the same checkpoint as where you entered.

In fact Ukrainians have little need to visit the DPR, apart from students studying there. Sasha, from Svitlodarsk, near Debaltseve, complained to us that his sister couldn't return after the New Year vacation: 'She is at university in Donetsk and hasn't been able to go back since January, so she's having to give up her course'.

Most of the people affected by the border closure are residents of Novorossiya (the name preferred by the separatists for the 'Peoples' Republics' of Donetsk and Luhansk) who need to collect their pensions and benefits from Ukraine. To get a travel permit, they have to travel to Donetsk and pay a lawyer to take their personal papers across the border, for which they pay 170 Hryvnia in advance and 180 afterwards. This is the equivalent of just �10. But for someone living on a pension (usually 70% of one's previous salary) at a time when the value of the Hryvnia has been falling, this is real money.

'There are terrible queues for these lawyers', Lyudmila, who lives in the border town of Dokuchayevsk, told me. 'And the price they charge is too high. But we don't have any choice - it's the only way to get our pensions'.

Lyudmila's neighbour Alyona has encountered a new problem: 'I went to the lawyers' office yesterday and they wouldn't even accept my papers. They said they weren't issuing permits anymore because the Ukrainians were introducing an electronic permit system and you have to go to Mariupol to get one. I've no idea how that works.'

Shortages

The permit system has also hit business. The blockade of the DPR and LPR has officially stopped all deliveries of food products, consumer goods, fuel and medical supplies into the area. Prices for pharmaceutical products have shot up and pharmacy shelves are bare. A customer in one Donetsk chemists was looking for hydrogen peroxide and iodine, two popular products, but couldn't find either. 'Supplies dried up at the start of March. Everything you see on the shelves is old stock', Irina, the pharmacist, told us.

Some things are still coming through, however. The Parallel service station chain still receives gas and petrol from Ukraine, but at a price. Parallel's head office in Ukraine has been unable to come to any agreement with the authorities, but fuel and goods for sale at its forecourt shops get through the border 50% of the time - in small consignments and for a large 'fee'. Sergei, the manager of one service station, told us that in the 'good times' when goods were passing freely across the border, there would be 30 tonnes of fuel delivered every three days, with sales of 10-14 tonnes a day. Now they can expect a consignment of 2-3 tonnes once every ten days. But demand has also dropped: many people have left the self-proclaimed republics, and they are only selling somewhere between 700 litres and four tonnes a day.

'Deliveries are pretty infrequent now', says Sergei. 'Most of the tankers get turned back at the border. Some stuff gets through with the help of bribes, but only in small quantities. We have about 80 stations in the DPR and LPR, and they are all making a loss. I don't know if we'll start buying fuel from Russia rather than Ukraine - I don't take these decisions. Our head office is on the other side, so that's where they need to sort it out.'

The situation with food and consumer goods is more difficult. According to Yelena Samokhina, the DPR's Minister for Economic Affairs, the availability of food imports from Ukraine has fallen to a catastrophic low: since the beginning of the blockade she has had only 1.5m tonnes of food for distribution.

But things are looking up: the DPR is increasingly sourcing supplies in Russia. 'In the first half of March we imported 736 tonnes of food products from Russia, whereas the previous month it was 471 tonnes and in January even less - just 127 tonnes. So in the space of three months we have completely turned our import strategy around, and now we get the majority of our goods from Russia.'

However, both Samokhina and her Transport counterpart Semyon Kuzmenko admit that this change of direction will mean a steady rise in prices (Russian goods are 40% more expensive than those from Ukraine). 'At the moment we are in talks with Russia, trying to reach an agreement about sourcing foodstuffs in Russia more cheaply', Samokhina added.

Samokhina also assured us that when local factories and businesses, currently working at only 40% capacity, were up and running at 100%, the area would be totally self-sufficient. But for now they still need to buy certain essentials from Ukraine, especially salt and sugar.

Truck drivers have become smugglers

Truck drivers were happy to tell us how large a bribe they had to pay to bring goods through a checkpoint. According to one of them, Sergei, border troops take an average of 1000 Hryvnia (�29) per tonne carried. So if your truck has 20 tonnes of freight, it will cost you 20,000 Hryvnia (�578).

'Take vodka', added Aleksandr, another driver. 'It costs six Hryvnia a litre. So a truckful will cost a minimum of 100,000 Hryvnia to cross. And that's if you're lucky. Otherwise you'll be left parked beside the checkpoint for a couple of days and then sent back where you came from'.

At the moment, Donetsk is awaiting the arrival of two trucks with medical supplies from Mariupol, which have been stuck at a checkpoint for several days.

Small shopkeepers told us that the Ukrainian goods on their half-empty shelves are old stock - they have usually had nothing from the other side since the start of March, when Ukraine's Security Services began to keep a closer watch on illegal traffic and crack down on the smugglers.

'You just have to look in the shops - there are hardly any Ukrainian products on sale and those that are, are old stock', said the shop manager we spoke to at the Parallel service station; and it was the same story everywhere, especially outside Donetsk city.

Security police are increasingly to be found reinforcing the border troops at checkpoints, charged with foiling attempts to bring contraband goods across, and this situation can frequently lead to clashes between the two forces. On 21 March, for example, a member of the Security Service was killed in the town of Volnovakha - his supposed assailant a soldier from the Dnipro-1 battalion. The Ukrainian police have established a connection between the murder and the smuggling of contraband goods into the DPR.

Coal supplies are still moving

The one commodity that is still crossing the border freely, despite the blockade, is coal. Most of Ukraine's power stations run on anthracite and T grade coal, which is only mined in the Donbas, so mine owners and oligarchs have come to an agreement with Kyiv about continued supplies from the DPR; and Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov's company DTEK is still buying coal and even exporting it to other parts to Europe through Ukraine.


The Komsomolets Donbassa ('Donbas Young Communist') mine in the small town of Kirovske has been sending coal supplies daily to the village of Trypillia, 40km from Kyiv, since 14 March, along one of the few still functioning stretches of railway. Until then, Komsomolet's coal was going to Starobesheve, in the DPR.

'After the Ukrainian army left, we got back to work on 1 November', the mine's traffic manager Dmitry Stavrunov told us. 'But we couldn't start getting coal out again until 16 January - the troops had flooded the quarry, destroyed the buildings and taken all the plant with them when they left. And it took us all that time to get the mine working again. Another problem was sourcing timber for supports underground, but we've been able to buy some from Ukraine.'

When we spoke to Stavrunov, the mine was only working at half capacity, but was due to move to full capacity on 23 March. 'I don't know what the agreement was between the bosses ... they're planning an output of 4000 tonnes - which was what we were producing in the old days. There's no problem with the transportation; they send us the payment in the morning and the coal goes off in the evening. Our miners have even begun to get paid again, though admittedly we've only just paid them for November'.

Still, not long ago all the railway lines were torn up and, at the same time, anthracite exports from the LPR stopped: all the coal from its mines now goes to local power stations. The main functioning railway line is the one carrying coal to Ukraine - without any bribes or informal 'customs duties', because of the government agreement.

In other words, the DPR authorities are happy to cooperate with Ukraine when big money and oligarchs are involved. The question remains whether the self-proclaimed republic can reach an agreement with Kyiv about the supply of essentials for ordinary people. Otherwise, the residents of separatist held areas will have to go on forking out for expensive Russian food or equally pricey goods smuggled from other parts of Ukraine.
 
 
#17
Voices of Ukraine
http://maidantranslations.com
April 7, 2015
Dmitry Tymchuk: A few words about the current situation in the ATO zone

Dmitry Tymchuk, Head of the Center for Military and Political Research, Coordinator of the Information Resistance group, Member of Parliament (People's Front)
Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine

A few words about the current situation in the ATO zone:

The current lack of large-scale offensive action on the part of Russian-terrorist troops in Donbas, as well as the lack of activity on the part of Ukrainian troops under the Minsk Agreements, have resulted in the lowered attention of the Ukrainian society towards the events in the ATO zone. That is only to be expected. However, based on the events at the start of this year [2015], we are well aware what lies at the end of such [quieter] periods.

Therefore, here are some comments on the current situation:

1. Concerning the future advance of the terrorists.

We don't know when Russian-terrorist troops will become a full-scale offensive. The leaders of the "DNR" [Donetsk People's Republic] and the "LNR" [Luhansk People's Republic] are also unaware of that. As seen from the events around the time of the Ilovaisk tragedy and the Debaltseve springboard battles, the decisions made in Moscow are communicated to the terrorists as last-minute orders.

However, even as of this time, three main strike groups of Russian-terrorist troops have ALREADY been formed; the enemy is actively scouting out the positions of Ukrainian troops (using any means from sabotage and reconnaissance groups to radio intelligence); and on the tactical level, the terrorists are trying to create a 'configuration' of the front line that would be convenient for them, by attempting to squeeze out our troops from their positions in several sectors at once (Avdiivka, Shyrokyne). We observed a similar situation late last year - and early this year, it resulted in the loss of the Debaltseve springboard. Therefore, the facts are that Ukraine must be ready for a full-scale offensive even today.

2. Concerning the current processes in the "DNR" and the "LNR."

At this time, the insurgents (or rather, representatives of the Russian [military] command, the FSB [Federal Security Service], and the GRU [Main Intelligence Directorate] of the Russian Armed Forces, currently supervising insurgents in Donbas) have the following tasks:

- complete the roundout of "DNR" and "LNR" formations, making the "final touches" to the strike groups formed in the following sectors: Donetsk and Artemivsk (the most powerful terrorist group was concentrated in this area, on the base of the "Horlivka garrison," able to act in two operative sectors: southwest and north), north of Luhansk oblast (sectors of Shchastya and Stanytsia Luhanska); and the Seaside (Mariupol) sector.

- create a single structure of terrorist formations, with a single command system (the "administrative" separation of the "DNR" and "LNR" does not matter in this instance; nominally, each "terrorist republic" has its "army corps," but both of them are subordinated to a single command). The main task here is to join all gangs in Donbas under a single command. The mechanism for a single command of the troops has already been tested during the Debaltseve springboard battles (January - February 2015), where an offensive with a singular purpose was carried out using the "DNR" forces (advancing from the northwest and south) as well as the "LNR" forces (advancing from the southeast and east).

- create a single system for logistics support of both "army corps" using resources delivered from Russia. The intermediate "hubs" used to distribute these resources are already functioning as part of this system; the resources are delivered via two main routes (we nominally call them "northern" and "southern" routes). The insurgents' current efforts to increase the capacity of the railway points in Ilovaisk and Debaltseve are aimed at creating this single supply system.

- create a single system for personnel training. Nominally, this system consists of two components: training camps in Russia and in the occupied Crimea (the main centers are in Rostov-on-Don (Russia) and Perevalne (Crimea); in the latter case, trained personnel is transferred to Donbas through [Russia's] Rostov oblast); and training centers created by Russian [military] specialists in the "DNR" and "LNR" territories.

The first component is aimed at training traitors in Crimea and mercenaries from Russia. In this aspect, the trend is rather bleak for Putin. While last year, the majority of mercenaries deployed to Donbas had served in special force units and had armed combat experience, this year, training centers are grabbing everyone they can find. More and more mercenaries are "cannon fodder" who have not done even compulsory military service, let alone setting foot in active war zones. Russia may be vast, but the human resource is not endless, and there are less fools every day.

The second component's effectiveness is also dubious. Experience shows that most of the local insurgents in Donbas are gentlemen not burdened by intellect, and even the efforts of the best Russian instructors may not be enough to turn them into competent soldiers. Combined with the shortage of [qualified] Russian mercenaries, this renders the Kremlin's task of enabling the "DNR" and "LNR" to conduct serious military operations without the help of the regular Russian army impossible. A rather unpleasant turn of events for Putin.

3. Concerning the presence of Russian troops in Donbas.

After the Debaltseve operation in February of this year [2015], we are observing a rapid decrease in the strength of regular Russian forces in Donbas (in the form of battalion and company technical groups, formed on the basis of different units and divisions of the Russian Armed Forces). Most of the Russian military servicemen active [in the region] right now are members of the GRU's sabotage and reconnaissance groups, or acting as military instructors in training centers and officers in command bodies. The same picture was observed in September, after the Russian-terrorist Ilovaisk operation.

The algorithm is obvious: during large-scale offensive action that the insurgents cannot conduct on their own, Russia quickly brings in their units to Donbas to bear the brunt of the combat missions. After the end of the operation, the troops are withdrawn, and only the necessary minimum remains in Donbas.

Therefore, when we evaluate the potential of Russian-terrorist troops, in particular in the north of Luhansk oblast and in the Seaside [Mariupol] sector (theaters of war in proximity to the Russian border), we must firstly take note of the Russian troops stationed in the borderland regions of Russia opposite these sectors. At this time, the majority of Russian battalion tactical groups is indeed concentrated in these borderland regions. Let us draw the conclusions.

Source: Dmitry Tymchuk FB
 
 #18
An Interview with Al Jazeera
March 28, 2015
Concerning Far Right Militia and Paramilitary Battalions and Other Formations in Ukraine
By Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D. University of Ottawa

Q: My story focuses on the St. Mary's Battalion, a small volunteer Christian militia group in Ukraine. Like a lot of the other militia groups here in Ukraine, the battalion appears to operate  slightly out of the government's control. What difficulties does the Ukrainian government have in controlling these volunteer militia groups?

The Ukrainian government tries to put all such volunteer regiments, battalions, and other armed units under its control. But the government control is either nominal or absent, and these militia and paramilitary formations are often de facto controlled by far right political parties and organizations or oligarchs who fund these formations. While the St.
Mary's battalion is under formal command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it is de facto led by the far right Bratsvo  party headed by Dmytro Korchynsky. The same concerns such volunteer regiments and  battalions as Azov, Dnipro, Donbas, and Sich. They have formal subordination to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But from the start of their formations, Azov, Dnipro, and Donbas remain under de facto leadership of radical nationalist or neo-Nazi organizations. The Right Sector played a key role in the formation of Dnipro and Donbas battalions. Azov was organized and led by the neo-Nazi Social-National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine, its paramilitary wing. The battalion Sich was organized by the radical nationalist party Svoboda and C14, a neo-Nazi group affiliated with Svoboda, although this unit is under formal jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Aidar battalion, which is nominally subordinated to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, was formed by the Maidan Self-Defence, and one of its platoons was led by a neo-Nazi group of football ultras, called White Hammer, which belonged to the Right Sector during the Euromaidan.

Similar militia or paramilitary units, which were organized by the Right Sector and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, function without any formal subordination to the central government of Ukraine. President Poroshenko recently demanded that such formations disbanded. But Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, publicly refused to do so with the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps, which was organized by his radical nationalist party. Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch who financed the Dnipro battalion and some other such formations, in an intercepted telephone call with the head of Naftogaz, threatened to use these formations to settle disputes with this state oil and gas company. He deployed members of this unit during his recent attempt to seize state-owned Ukrnafta company in downtown Kyiv. Only the direct interference of the US government, specifically a call by US Vice President Joe Biden to the Prime Minister of Ukraine, forced Arsenii Yatseniuk and his Minister of Internal Affairs to back Poroshenko in the conflict with Kolomoisky over Ukrnafta and subsequent decision by Kolomoisky to back down from the open confrontation.
 
The US government interference in this conflict also likely explains an order by Ihor Palytsia, an oligarch associated with Kolomoisky, to withdraw such militia and paramilitary formations from Odesa and to stop financing a similar unit in Lutsk in Western Ukraine. But there are no such reports that the Palytsia's foundation stopped financing the Right Sector members from the Volyn Region serving in the Azov regiment.

Q: How important are the volunteer militias to Ukraine in the war in the Donbass? The commanders at St. Mary's say they will refuse to honor any peace deal between Ukraine and the  separatists or Russia. In your opinion, do you feel that volunteer militia groups like St Mary's have the potential to be a threat to Ukraine's national security in the future?Anything more you would like to add is welcomed.

These militia and paramilitary formations have ability and desire to break the current shaky cease-fire and to continue the full-fledge civil war in Ukraine. They played a crucial role in the start of this civil war in the first place, and media reports indicate that the Azov Regiment and the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps are involved in armed clashes with separatists in Shyrokino near Mariupol. While the numerical strength and armament of these units are much less compared to the Ukrainian Army, their motivation to fight is much stronger. The militia and paramilitary units are composed from volunteers, and large proportions and of their commanders and members are members and sympathizers of radical nationalist and, to a lesser extent, neo-Nazi organizations. However, these formations suffered a number of defeats from Russian-backed separatists in clashes in the Donetsk airport and the Debaltsevo area past winter and also from regular Russian units in the Illovaisk area in August of 2014.

These militia and paramilitary formations under the leadership of the far right organizations also have capacity to overthrow the Ukrainian government, and many of their leaders and members openly voiced such threats. Many commanders and members of these militia and paramilitary units and associated radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations played a key role in violent attacks of the presidential administration on December 1, 2013, the Ukrainian parliament in the end of January and on February 18, 2014 and in the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government. Dmytro Korchynsky, who de facto leads the St. Mary's battalion, personally  participated in the attempt to storm the presidential administration on December 1. It is noteworthy, that his involvement in this attack was used at that time by the Euromaidan leaders, such as Petro Poroshenko, and even by some academics to claim that this violent attack was a  provocation by the Yanukovych government or even Russia.

My academic study of the Maidan massacre indicates that some of the former or current commanders and members of these militia and paramilitary formations along with the Right Sector and Svoboda played crucial role in the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government. Various evidence indicates that they were involved in various capacities in the massacre of the Euromaidan protesters and the police on February 20, 2014. For example, such evidence, including videos, suggests that one group of "snipers," who shot at the police from the Music Conservatory building and then at the police and protesters from the Hotel Ukraina, were from the special Maidan company under the command of Volodymyr Parasiuk. Parasiuk served as a company commander in the Dnipro battalion before he was elected to the Ukrainian parliament last October. Some media reports indicate that two
Maidan "snipers," including the one who was interviewed in a recent BBC investigative story of the Maidan massacre, served or currently serve in volunteer battalions in Donbas.
 
 #19
Russia Insider/Liva
http://russia-insider.com
April 7, 2015
Why Ukraine Civil War Continues: Kiev Will Only Accept Rebel Surrender
East Ukraine is in no mood to accept unconditional surrender, but that is all the government in Kiev is actually offering - despite promising something else in Minsk
By Victor Shapinov (Liva - Ukrainian internet magazine)
 
Prefers bloody civil war to taking responsibility for the smallest concession to Donbass
Liva ('The Left'): Internet Journal is a left-wing Ukrainian internet magazine.

This article originally appeared at Liva (http://liva.com.ua/obliged-impossible.html)

There is a Latin proverb which says, Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur - "No one is obliged to do impossible things." It looks like the Kiev authorities are not familiar with this ancient wisdom. Or, conversely, too familiar. Turning the very meaning of the Minsk-2 Agreement on its head, the Kiev side is trying to oblige the rebels of Donbass to do impossible things, putting the choice: either complete surrender on Kiev's terms, or continuation of the fratricidal war.

This is the tug of war over implementation of the Minsk-2 agreements. Yesterday, the leadership of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) demanded that their representatives finally be included in the discussion of constitutional reform. "All matters relating to elections and constitutional reform, according to the terms of the agreement, should be agreed with us. As prescribed by the terms of the agreement, representatives of the DPR and LPR will necessarily participate in the decision-making in the tripartite contact group," DRP envoy Dennis Pushilin told Interfax.

Kiev's position on negotiations has led to the virtual collapse of the agreement. And it's not even about the 800 ceasefire violations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) recorded in the Donbass region. After another necessary respite following their military defeat, Kiev is seeking to prevent the move to political dialogue by imposing unacceptable and inappropriate conditions, which contradict the Minsk-2 Agreement.

One such condition, of course, is holding local elections in the "special territories" under the existing laws of Ukraine. This formulation, in particular, means that the composition of election commissions will be formed in Kiev, in large part by representatives of the parliamentary parties in the Verkhovna Rada [parliament]. Can you imagine what supporters of Lyashko and Yatsenyuk will count in the "special territories"?

But this is a trifle. Because it's not just about how to better push the People's Republics into the legal sphere of Ukraine. Perhaps this is what Kiev strategists saw as the outcome of the Minsk Agreement, but it's not what was agreed to.

In order to end the civil war - "hot" in Donetsk and Lugansk, "cold" in Odessa and Kharkov - we need a national dialogue. Everyone understands that the leadership of the DPR and LPR is now in negotiations with Kiev not only on behalf of the residents of parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions called "special territories", but also to some extent for a good half of the Ukrainian population, which disagrees with what has happened in the country since the coup d'etat in February 2014.

And the Kiev authorities disrupt the agreements precisely because they are afraid of this half of the population that has not accepted the Maidan and its results. After all, if you give "voice" to representatives of the victorious uprisings in the Donbass, then their "voice" would require the participation of those involved in the suppressed uprisings in Odessa and Kharkov. And something tells me that the "silent majority", suffering from rising prices and tariffs, would not be on the side of the Kiev authorities in this dialogue.

There is another important factor in the failure of the agreement. This is the position of the United States. As we have seen in the conflict between Kolomoisky and Poroshenko, the United States decides internal conflicts of the Ukrainian authorities. The USSR rightly called such relations "puppet regimes". And the U.S. administration is hardly interested in resolving the civil war at the moment, especially given the strong pressure on Obama from Republican (and not only Republican) "hawks" on the issue of Ukraine.

In general, you always want to be an optimist when it comes to war and peace, but it seems that war is inherent in the social nature of this Ukrainian regime, and lasting peace will be established only when a new leadership takes power in Kiev.
 
 
#20
Ukraine challenges oligarchs' grip on energy companies
April 7, 2015
By Richard Balmforth and Natalia Zinets

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's judicial authorities launched actions on Tuesday challenging tenders that gave big businessmen control over key power companies under ousted president Viktor Yanukovich in a new move by the government to curb the influence of the so-called oligarchs.

The legal actions targeted the 2012 and 2013 sell-offs of electricity-generating companies in eastern Ukraine to holdings of multi-billionaire Rinat Akhmetov and a close associate, and of a power distributor in the west of the country.

State assets in Dniproenergo and Donbasenergo, which feed the national power grid, and one of the main power distributors in the Zakarpatya region, were sold off for low prices in non-competitive tenders in which only a few favoured participants took part, the general prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"These privatisations ... were drawn up in such a way as to artificially create the conditions for acquisition of the state assets by specific individuals which significantly narrowed down the circle of potential purchasers," it said.

The move against Ahmetov, Ukraine's richest man who made a multi-billion dollar fortune in steel and energy in the early days of independence, and other oligarchs close to the disgraced Yanukovich, appeared to be part of concerted moves by the pro-Western leadership to end cronyism and break the influence of the super-wealthy on political life.

President Petro Poroshenko fired an opening shot by sacking tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky as governor of Dnipropetrovsk region late last month for sending armed men into the Kiev offices of Ukraine's state-owned oil pipeline operator, Ukrtransnafta, after a move to bring in legislation that will put a brake on his commercial interests in the oil industry.

"DE-OLIGARCHISATION"

Poroshenko, who is under pressure from Western financial institutions and potential donor governments to clean up Ukraine's act in exchange for bail-out money, has since announced a campaign to clip the wings of oligarchs who use their wallets to buy influence in parliament and government.

He appears to have set his sights on breaking up their dominance of the gas industry, which has been the battleground for competing oligarch interests ever since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Some deputies are pushing for legislation that will curb the power of another tycoon, Dmytro Firtash, the owner of Group DF.

Though his star has waned since he was arrested in Vienna a year ago at the FBI's request on charges of bribery, Firtash still controls an empire, built up under Yanukovich, in which he has huge control over Ukraine's regional gas distribution network.

"They (the oligarchs) want chaos, not order. I want the de-oligarchisation of the country," Poroshenko told Channel 5 television on Saturday, emphasising the need for transparency to dispel the murkiness of Ukraine's business life.

Akhmetov's DTEK company paid $147 million for 25 percent of Dniproenergo's state assets in 2012, two years after Yanukovich was elected, to boost his extensive holdings in the energy and steel sectors.

Control over Donbasenergo went to Ihor Gumenyuk, a friend of Akhmetov's and member of Yanukovich's Regions party, in a tender in 2013 in which his Energoinvest Holding snapped up 61 percent of the state share for $90 million.

Half of the state share in the Zakarpatya power distributor was sold off in early 2012 for about $18 million, only slightly above the opening price, to a company run by Russian businessmen.
 
 #21
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
IGOR KOLOMOISKY'S SNOW JOB - CYPRUS MONEY-LAUNDERING UNIT RESPONDS TO UKRAINIAN REPORTS, KOLOMOISKY IN US NEGOTIATIONS
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Notenotes, photos and links here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13082#more-13082]

The Cyprus Government's unit for combating money-laundering will consider an investigation of Igor Kolomoisky if it is requested by the Ukrainian or US Governments, Eva Papakyriacou revealed on Tuesday. Papakyriacou is the head of the unit, whose acronym, following the Greek, is MOKAS [1].

She declined to say if there has been a request for investigation, either by a foreign government, or by the Cyprus government agencies responsible for Kolomoisky's Cyprus passport, or the source of funds of his Privatbank group in Cyprus. "All the information possessed by MOKAS is confidential," Papakyriakou said. "However, it is noted that the source of funds is checked by the Banks and the Supervisory Authority for Banks is the Central Bank."
The Cyprus reaction follows disclosures by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) that through last week, Privatbank, which Kolomoisky controls, has received UAH9.9 billion ($416 million) in loans to prevent the bank's insolvency. The money is being paid out every two weeks. The NBU's reason, according to a release [2] of April 3, is "to support the liquidity of the bank [and] to ensure timely fulfillment of obligations to depositors - natural persons." The NBU says that in return for the bailout, it now indirectly owns, and also controls Privatbank, through collateral amounting to a "significant share in the banking institution." Also, according to the central bank [3], it is dictating how its loan money must be spent by the bank - "exclusively to meet [its] obligations to individuals."

The NBU has also reacted to reports in the Ukrainian media that more than $1 billion in state and International Monetary Fund (IMF) cash which Privatbank received last year has been transferred by Kolomoisky to the bank's Cyprus subsidiary, and to associated Cyprus companies which Kolomoisky also controls. On March 27 NBU issued a notice claiming [4] "the National Bank of Ukraine sees no reasons for the clients and partners of the bank to have concerns over the misleading information about this financial institution's performance that circulated in the media."

PapakyriacouPeriodic reports [5] by Papakyriacou (right) in Nicosia indicate that MOKAS has been accelerating the opening of its investigations since 2009. That year MOKAS reported 852 investigations. In 2013 the number had almost doubled to 1,513. The unit, which began operating in 1997, includes representatives of the Attorney-General, the Cyprus police, and Customs. MOKAS, according to Papapkyriacou, "conduct[s] investigations when there are reasonable grounds for believing that a laundering offence and a terrorist financing offence has been committed." The European Union's Moneyval Committee and the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) coordinate with MOKAS.

Kolomoisky is identified in Cyprus as a Politically Exposed Person (PEP). Under the regulations of the Central Bank [6] of Cyprus this carries "enhanced risks especially if the potential customer seeking to establish an account is a politically exposed person ("PEP"), a member of his immediate family or a close associate originating especially from a country which is widely known to face problems of bribery, corruption and financial irregularity." A PEP is defined as "a senior figure in the executive, legislative, administrative, military or judicial branches of a government (elected or non-elected), a senior figure of a major political party, or a director/senior executive of a government owned corporation. It includes any corporate entity, partnership or trust relationship that has been established by, or for the benefit of, a politically exposed person."

Kolomoisky's status in Cyprus, said Papakyriacou, is "under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior." Kolomoisky himself has admitted he holds a Cyprus and an Israeli passport, in addition to his Ukrainian document. This is what he said last October [7] - see minute 1:34-35. According to Ukrainian critics [8], Kolomoisky has broken Ukrainian law by holding multiple passports.

The Cyprus Ministry of Interior [9] and the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA), confirmed today that they cooperate to manage a naturalization and passport scheme for wealthy individuals meeting a €5 million investment target in Cyprus, plus a residence costing not less than €500,000, and payment of €100,000 in income tax. The current regulations can be read here [10].

A CIPA source said his agency's "mission is to promote Cyprus as an attractive investment destination. In other words, we act as the marketing branch of the country in the field of FDI [foreign direct investment]. [CIPA] has nothing to do with the process of reviewing, approving/disapproving of citizenship applications."

The Interior Ministry was asked in what year Kolomoisky's passport was issued, and whether, after the naturalization is granted, there is a compliance check of the residency and financial rules. At press time there has been no response.

The Cyprus interest in investigating Kolomoisky compounds his problems with the federal Swiss authorities, who have refused to renew his residency permit in Geneva; this expired late last year. For more, click [11]. Fresh Swiss media reports [12] add that the investigation of Kolomoisky has been going on in Berne and Geneva for "more than three months".

Kolomoisky's Israeli passport, according to US Government records [13], was issued on October 5, 2005. His residential address was given at the time as 48 Galei Tchelet Street, in Herzeliya, a seaside suburb of Tel Aviv.

Over the weekend Kolomoisky was reported by Ukrainian and Russian sources to be in the US, together with his family. There has been no independent confirmation, and no direct sighting. At its headquarters in Dniepropetrovdsk, Privatbank refuses to confirm Kolomoisky's whereabouts. The reported reason for his American trip is to attend the national college basketball finals in Indianapolis. Kolomoisky has been a financier of Ukrainian basketball in the past [14].

On Kolomoisky's visa status in the US, US sources differ from Ukrainian sources. The former claim Kolomoisky has "no trouble" in obtaining a business visa to visit the US because he owns "substantial" assets in the country, most of them based in Miami, Florida. Ukrainian sources claim Kolomoisky has been under investigation by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the past, and that his current visa is a temporary, restricted one. In Kiev it is believed Kolomoisky is asking US officials for a new haven for himself, his family, and his assets.

The US State Department does not confirm visa details for individuals. The last State Department reference to Kolomoisky was on March 25 [15], when the Department spokesman defended Kolomoisky's dismissal from the post of Dniepropetrovsk governor as "an internal matter for Ukraine. Governors in Ukraine are appointed by the president. Removing a governor from power is well within the authority of President Poroshenko, and obviously, as we've seen from reporting, that's the case here." Kolomoisky himself was not criticized. "We've seen conflicting reports about armed men entering certain businesses partially owned by Mr. Kolomoisky. Mr. Kolomoisky and the Ukrainian Government have stated these individuals were private security guards for him. I don't have any additional confirmation or details for you." For more on the dismissal, read this [16].

US media reports have grown more hostile towards Kolomoisky. On April 2 the New Yorker published [17] a review of the circumstances of Kolomoisky's dismissal by Sophie Pinkham, a graduate student and former employee of one of George Soros's organizations in Ukraine. She concludes that "many Ukrainians see that Kolomoisky is a patriot only when patriotism is in his own best interest."

US litigation records reveal that Kolomoisky controls a group of manganese refining and ferromanganese and silicomanganese trading companies in the Felman group, also known as Georgian American Alloys and as Optima Acquisitions. In a 2013 proceeding [18] before the West Virginia Public Service Commission, lawyers for Felman admitted the group was "owned by a single individual" (Kolomoisky) through a Cyprus entity called Haftseek Investments; that was in turn owned by Divot Enterprises of Nevis, West Indies. The Felman group was also tied to Kolomoisky through a $35.1 million loan from PrivatBank at 12% for three years; and another loan from Haftseek. Most of the financial data are redacted in the West Virginia disclosure, except for two things - a calculation that $98 million had been invested in the group as of 2009; and that the Felman group companies were running at a loss in 2010 "and [for] the foreseeable future".

Not loss-making, separate US court records show, were the Cyprus companies - Athina Investments, Varkedge Limited, and Wisewood Holdings, also owned by Kolomoisky - through which he held shares in the Nikopol manganese refinery in Ukraine, one of the suppliers of manganese to the Felman group.

Kolomoisky is reported in the West Virginia documents as "an ultimate major shareholder in Privat Bank but is not considered a controlling shareholder of the Bank."

To support asset claims in arbitration and litigation in London, rival Dniepropetrovsk oligarch and pipemaker, Victor Pinchuk, won a federal US court order [19] in September 2013, allowing Pinchuk to issue subpoenas and compel the disclosure of Felman company financials and details of Kolomoisky's American businesses. Kolomoisky's lawyers appealed, and the disclosures have not proceeded. For the story of Pinchuk's London claim, read this [20].

Through his US holding called Optima Acquisitions [21] Kolomoisky also owns a group of specialty steel producers in several US states - Optima Specialty Steel, Warren Steel Holdings, Steel Rolling Holdings, Michigan Seamless Tube, Niagara Lasalle, and Kentucky Electric Steel. A recent Moody's rating report [22] is critical of the steel group's $175 million in debt, and warned that its future is likely to be lossmaking.
 
 
#22
IMF
www.imf.org
April 7, 2015
The Case for Supporting Ukrainian Economic Reforms
By David Lipton
First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Peterson Institute

As Prepared for Delivery

Good morning. Thank you, Adam, for your kind introduction. I am very pleased to return to the Peterson Institute today. We always appreciate your willingness to provide a setting for informed discussion of global economic issues.

While the IMF Spring Meetings are just around the corner, we are not here to talk about the global economy. Rather, our focus today is Ukraine. Going into the meetings, many will want to have a clear picture of the situation in that country as they seek to understand the risks facing the world, and Europe in particular.

This audience is fully aware of the importance that the IMF places upon helping Ukraine to achieve financial stability and a return to growth. Less than a month ago, the Fund approved $17.5 billion of financing to Ukraine as part of a four-year program under our Extended Fund Facility. The goals of this program are simple, yet challenging: to stabilize Ukraine's deeply destabilized finances; to restore growth that has been stagnant for several years; and to support the long-overdue modernization that has lagged behind peers in the region since independence 23 years ago.

I know some have questioned the Fund's decision to support Ukraine-including here in Washington-and have doubts about the government's commitment to reform after so many years of delay. So I would like to lay out for you today what Ukraine faces, how the authorities are aiming to address their problems, and why the IMF stands with Ukraine in this time of economic crisis. I would like to do this by reviewing three themes:

* The uneven evolution of Ukraine's economic transformation since achieving nationhood;
* How a set of serious, but manageable economic difficulties descended into full-blown crisis in the face of the confrontation in the country's eastern region;
* And Ukraine's response to that crisis-both the immediate efforts to stabilize the situation and the longer-term program to restore growth and transform the economy.

Ukraine - The Past

So let's begin by talking about how Ukraine has reached this turning point.

Ukraine generally enters the global news cycle when it is the story of the day: independence in 1991; the Orange Revolution a decade ago; the Maidan protests early last year; and then the conflict with Russia. Of course, what happens when the world is not watching is often just as important.

Sadly, Ukraine since independence has been a story of too many lost opportunities and too much disappointment; economic mismanagement and half-hearted reforms holding back growth; corruption and oligarchy undermining the market economy; and episodes of voter fraud and abuse of power undercutting democracy. The comparison with many other countries in Central and Eastern Europe is striking. Since 1991, Ukraine has had spurts of growth, but has not been able reach a point where reform truly took hold. Ukraine's per capital income at independence was higher than Poland's; in 2013, even before the current crisis erupted, the standard of living had fallen more than 60 percent behind Poland. During this interval, Ukraine entered into eight IMF programs, none of which achieved the objective of prompting sustained reform.

After the most recent 2009/10 program, which ended unsuccessfully, Ukraine's macroeconomic problems intensified. For several years, wages and costs rose, but productivity did not. Eventually competitiveness had slipped so much that GDP stopped rising and exports stagnated. Budget imbalances and gas sector deficits widened enough to add another drag on growth. In early 2013, I visited Kiev to urge the government to address these issues and to warn that Ukraine was slipping toward crisis. Action then might have been possible without crisis and destabilization, but there was not the political will.

Now, Ukraine has the political will, but it has to contend with full-blown economic and financial crisis. And for the first time in a long time a political window of opportunity has opened. The country has elected leaders who are approaching economic policy making with purpose and commitment. President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk are in sync on the main economic issues. And they can call on a more united political class and general public, now more ready to accept changes they had resisted before.

But since taking office, the government has faced a dangerous and rapidly deteriorating economic situation. Last year's sharp output decline was driven in large measure by the loss of Crimea, the conflict in the Donbass, and a deep recession elsewhere in the Eastern part of the country. As a result, industrial production and construction, retail sales, and household income all have fallen. Unemployment is approaching double digits. Uncertainty has deterred investment. In the fourth quarter of 2014, GDP contracted 14.8 percent from a year earlier.

Ukraine's financing needs surged. The conflict imposed direct costs, both in terms of output losses and budgetary deterioration. But there also were indirect costs as uncertainties hit the finances of banks and the public sector, and as the foreign exchange market became destabilized. Exports were hit hard by the disruption of trade with Russia and low international prices for grains and steel, major exports. External private financing dried up and capital outflows accelerated. Foreign exchange reserves declined and the exchange rate depreciated sharply. The hryvnia lost two-thirds of its value in the past 15 months. Inflation spiked above 40 percent, reflecting the depreciation but also rising energy prices.

The banking system has come under extreme stress because of fundamental weaknesses in some institutions, but also due to more general financial uncertainty. Deposits fell by 28 percent by end March of this year-and nonperforming loans soared to nearly 20 percent of all loans at the end of 2014. Profitability and liquidity were squeezed, and several banks failed.

The government tried to keep a lid on this very difficult situation. The budget stayed well within its 2014 deficit target. Measures were taken to stabilize the banking system. And governance and structural reforms were initiated. However, the escalation of the conflict in August 2014 and again early this year led to a significant loss of confidence and further disrupted economic activity. Despite gas price increases, the burden of supporting the state-owned energy monopoly Naftogaz and funding energy subsidies equal to more than 7 percent of GDP threatened to drown the government in red ink.

Ukraine - The Present

Following this deterioration, it became increasingly clear that Ukraine's balance of payments and adjustment needs were more than what could be achieved under the original two year stand-by agreement with the IMF. Responding to the challenges, the government put together an impressive reform blueprint building on its existing macroeconomic program and extending its structural reform effort. The IMF has supported this with a new program approved by the Executive Board on March 11.

From a financing standpoint, the objective of the program is to cover Ukraine's external financing needs, estimated at about $40 billion over the next four years. While large-equal to nearly one-third of estimated 2014 GDP-most of it is already pledged by the international community, and the rest will take the form of a debt operation under discussion with creditors. This financing will help triple Ukraine's official reserves to about $18 billion at the end of this year from just $5.6 billion before agreement was reached with the Fund. Reserves then should reach $35 billion by end-2018-slightly more than 100 percent of the Fund's reserve adequacy metric. This will be an important boost to confidence and should cushion the economy against future external shocks.

This is exactly where IMF financing under the new program is so important. But to release that financing, we needed to see a clear path out of the crisis-and a demonstrated willingness to follow it.

The first economic goal of the program is to stabilize Ukraine's finances:

That began with the task of restoring stability to the foreign exchange market. By anchoring the program with appropriately tight monetary targets and temporary administrative measures, the hryvnia has stabilized. Using a monetary anchor is the same approach used decisively during the Asian financial crisis and in other successful stabilizations. Recently, the drain on reserves has reversed. With the financing that is already pledged, reserve cover for imports is likely to reach three months by June compared with less than one month's cover before the IMF agreement. This will result from front loaded Fund disbursements, and bilateral loans and swaps now being arranged.

In addition, a tight monetary stance supported by other policies will help inflation recede toward single digits by end 2016 once the one-off effects from depreciation and gas price hikes subside.

Stabilization will also be supported by addressing the uncertainties that come from Ukraine's onerous debt burden. The talks that the government is conducting with its creditors to restructure external debt are aimed at that objective. Public and publicly guaranteed debt is projected to peak at 94 percent of GDP in 2015. The aim of the restructuring would be to secure $15 billion in additional financing over 2015-18 to bring debt below 71 percent of GDP by 2020, and avoid bunching the repayment schedule after the Fund-supported program ends.

Ukraine - The Future

But stabilization alone is not enough to address the crisis. Ukraine also needs to restore growth.

The crucial challenge is to restore the competitiveness that was undermined by an overvalued exchange rate. The combination of exchange rate depreciation and flexibility at the hryvnia's new level is an important step. It is creating the basis for Ukrainian businesses to compete again on international markets.

Similarly, the spending constraints built into the Ukrainian program should restrain the deficits that were crowding out the private sector. This means both the public deficit and the quasi-fiscal deficit imposed by Naftogaz. This, too, is essential to restoring competitiveness.

Here, action on energy prices has been essential. As I've indicated, the government has significantly increased household gas prices and heating tariffs. This is important because Ukraine's gas prices have stood at or below 20 percent of cost recovery. That is well below other energy-importing countries in the region. The remaining 80 percent of costs has added to the broad public sector deficit, and this will now end. To keep this reform from hurting vulnerable members of society, new and strengthened targeted programs are being put in place.

The final step to restore growth is to bring the banking system back to health. The government is working to resolve insolvent banks, including through recapitalization and liquidation. Recapitalization needs are provided for in the program architecture. Going forward, the government will also see that large financial institutions are kept well capitalized by their owners. This should help to reopen the taps to provide sustainable levels of credit to the business community and consumers.

These are all important measures that must be put in place this year. But there are also long-term challenges if Ukraine is to achieve sustained growth into the future and reach a level of development on par with its more successful neighbors. These are the structural reforms needed to create a modern economy that can give renewed confidence to the business community and the general public, and attract needed investment.

For example, there are key structural impediments in the banking system. These include an ownership structure that too often funnels excessive lending to insiders-often with sweetheart deals. The government is starting to address this issue with a strengthened regulatory and supervisory framework intended to bring the banking system into line with international best practices.

There are also a set of needed reforms affecting the business climate. Key policy measures in these areas relate to governance: deregulation and reform of tax administration, transparency, and reforms of state-owned enterprises. Central to this effort will be an independent audit of Naftogaz's receivables, and a restructuring of the company to separate its transmission and distribution arms.

Finally, nothing is more important than a commitment to tackle corruption. As much as any other grievance, it was this problem that brought the Ukrainian people into the streets during the Maidan protests. The government is addressing the issue with strengthened anti-corruption legislation and measures to enhance the effectiveness of the judiciary. It is also worth noting the recent steps to curb the influence of Ukraine's oligarchs.

This is an expansive and complex reform effort. Clearly, it will take time and effort to achieve. It is also inevitable that questions will arise about whether the agenda will continue to have the support of the Ukrainian people, particularly those who have been hardest hit by the crisis.

I am impressed that the government has taken steps to address the most vulnerable. Total spending on social assistance programs will reach 4.1 percent of GDP this year, an increase of 30 percent from 2014. Assistance with energy bills-which I mentioned earlier-will in fact quadruple from 6 billion hryvnia in 2014 to 24 billion hryvnia in 2015. Meanwhile, unemployment benefits will rise 15 percent. All this is essential, but at the end of the day it will be sustained and equitable growth that will be most beneficial to the Ukrainian people.

So what about the risks? There is no point in glossing over the situation on the ground in Ukraine. If the conflict in the East of the country intensifies-and we all certainly hope it won't-then one has to be concerned about the sustainability of the expected recovery. So we can only urge Ukraine and Russia to work with all parties to continue the peace process.

Here in Washington, we are already hearing from critics who question the wisdom of supposedly putting Fund resources at risk in such an uncertain situation. There is only one answer. The Fund's job is to support members in crisis provided they are trying to put themselves right.

That goal may be hard, but it is not unrealistic. To achieve it, Ukraine must pursue its reform program, and the international community must support that effort. The government has the right plan and the determination to follow through. The program has the backing of the Ukrainian people. So it is only right that we are standing with them. Thank you.
 
 #23
Sputnik
April 7, 2015
Ukraine's Civil War: First Hand Account of Policeman Betrayed by Generals
[Graphics here http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150407/1020568214.html]

A year after the Ukrainian authorities launched their "anti-terrorist operation" in the east, Ukrainian media has revealed a first-hand account from a former Ukrainian policeman: pro-Ukrainian forces were left disoriented, without orders from Kiev and were then betrayed by their generals, accused of sympathizing with the pro-independence fighters.
Almost a year ago, the then-acting President of Ukraine Olexander Turchynov announced the start of an "anti-terrorist operation" against pro-independence fighters in the east of the country.

He then told parliament it was being conducted "stage by stage, in a responsible... manner".

The Ukrainian news web-site LB.ua has published a first-hand account from a former Ukrainian policeman, who at the time was serving in the northernmost town of the Donetsk region, Krasny Liman.

The law officer said that pro-Ukrainian servicemen were left there in chaos, disoriented, without any commands arriving from Kiev. When the pro-independence fighters eventually took over their town, the generals betrayed them by accusing them of sympathizing with the eastern independence supporters.

'If a Firm Order Came at the Start of the conflict, We Could Have Defended the Territory as Pro-Ukrainian or, If Such a Command Came in, Handed Over the Control to the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).'

"Why is my fate decided by people who are too scared to give any firm orders, just warming their generals' seats? God forbid that we could have made any decisions which would result in them losing their heads." the website quotes the serviceman as saying without disclosing his name."

"Why did nobody bring us together and give us firm orders?" he questioned.

"The officer said that if the head of the local police department had been given any commands, (all servicemen rely on orders coming through the chain of command) he would have been able to mobilize the law officers in the area. If this had happened at the start of the conflict, then they could have defended the territory as pro-Ukrainian or, if such a command came in, handed over the control to the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR)."

But no orders arrived of any kind. The police were left to their own devices, in the middle of the chaos, with no direction from above as the Generals hedged their bets on the outcome.

'Cowardly Generals Were Simply Waiting to See Who Was Going to Win'

The officer said that the cowardly Kiev-based generals simply sat waiting to see who was going to win before sending an "official order". When the pro-independence fighters took over and the "anti-terrorist operation" was launched, they blamed the servicemen in the field for sympathizing with the fighters.

"Those b******s sacked the last sergeant on the site, who was simply unable to make any decision and who to the last was waiting for at least any command to start acting," he said. "And the top, as always, are all 'golden'. If you dismiss people in the field, you should dismiss the top as well."

'I Didn't Hear a Word in Russian'

The fighters who took over the town were 100% local, the officer said. Some of the fighters were later identified by the police.

"And later, when I had to deal with them," he added," I didn't hear a single word in Russian. Those were locals and not even from far away, but from the nearby vicinity."

The authorities, however, seem not to care and continue to stubbornly persist in the myth of Russian troops in the area.

Witch-Hunt for 'Social Separatists' Launched in Slavyansk

Meanwhile the Ukrainian authorities in the city of Slavyansk, not far from Krasny Liman, have taken much trouble to find "social separatists" in the area. They started handing out leaflets to local residents to help identify who they are looking for. Local residents are advised to inform on those who match the guidelines set out in the leaflet.

Amongst other valuable advice, the guidelines offer the following information: "Separatists are those who campaign against mobilization or who are waiting for Putin to arrive. The punishment is imprisonment from 7 to 12 years."
 
 
#24
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
April 7, 2015
Controversial Ukrainian-born pianist dropped from TSO concerts
By ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has cancelled appearances this week by Ukrainian-born piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa, apparently because of tweets she posted that were hostile to the current Ukrainian government.

A terse statement by TSO president Jeff Melanson said Ms. Lisitsa was let go over "ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets."

Mr. Melanson, who refused requests for an interview, issued his note after Ms. Lisitsa revealed the incident on Monday morning in a long, impassioned note linked to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

"Someone in the orchestra's top management, likely after the pressure from a small but aggressive lobby claiming to represent the Ukrainian community, has made a decision that I should not be allowed to play," she wrote, referring to her scheduled TSO performances on Wednesday and Thursday. "I don't even know who my accusers are, I am kept in the dark about it."

Her Twitter statements have outraged prominent members of the Ukrainian-Canadian community, which broadly supports the current government. "Ms. Lisitsa has been engaged in a long campaign on social media belittling, insulting and disparaging the people of Ukraine as they face direct military aggression at the hands of the Russian Federation," Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, said in an e-mail exchange. Ms. Lisitsa did not respond to requests for an interview on Monday.

Ms. Lisitsa's tweets about the Ukrainian regime have included some harsh comparisons with Nazi Germany, sometimes laced with morbid comedy. "In a new European Ukraine, the camps will give the subhumans [ethnic Russians] condemned to gas chambers an opportunity to offset their carbon footprint," she says in one.

Ms. Lisitsa is an ethnic Russian who was born in Ukraine and speaks Ukrainian (she now lives in North Carolina). Her tweets are strongly supportive of the Russian minority in Ukraine, but she seems to oppose the civil war.

"The worst thing that can happen to any country is fratricidal war," she says in her statement, "people seeing each other, their neighbours as enemies to be eliminated."

"You might find some of [my tweets] offensive," she says, "[but] satire and hyperbole are the best literary tools to combat the lies."

Mr. Grod said he supports the TSO's decision. "Most disturbing are Ms. Lisitsa's false allegations that the government of Ukraine is 'Nazi,' and stating that the Government of Ukraine is setting up 'filtration camps,'" he said. "These are only a few examples of the hateful opinions that Ms. Lisitsa has shared through her Twitter account."

Adrian Bryttan, a writer for the Edmonton-based Ukrainian Weekly, lambasted Ms. Lisitsa in an article in December, for "anti-Ukraine hate speech." He pointed to tweets in which she had said the country was "a society sunk beyond redemption," and which "owned a proud and long history with Russia, threw it away and invented myths." He ended his article by saying: "Ukrainian communities might be interested to greet Ms. Lisitsa at her upcoming concerts ... with the Toronto Symphony."

It is not clear what harm the TSO expected if Ms. Lisitsa performed. Soloists never speak from the platform unless invited to do so by the conductor. The work she was to perform, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, has no political subtext. Valery Gergiev, who has conducted the orchestra without incident, is a well-known supporter and confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Gergiev was dropped from a Poland-themed festival concert in Germany in November, apparently after a complaint from the Polish embassy.

The TSO's record on freedom of speech was tarnished in 1951, when six players were refused visas for a U.S. tour over alleged communist sympathies. The orchestra replaced "the Symphony Six" for the tour, and at the end of the season did not renew their contracts. Two TSO board members resigned in protest.

The Symphony Six did not have access to social media, where Ms. Lisitsa has a formidable presence. A YouTube video of her performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata has more than nine million views. Her career was built in part on her Internet following. Three years ago, a Google Analytics report on her social-media heft clinched her a sold-out show at London's Royal Albert Hall that 100,000 people streamed online.

The TSO's Facebook page was flooded on Monday with messages of support for Ms. Lisitsa and a few more critical responses. Twitter responded with a hashtag - #letvalentinaplay - and a barrage of tweets in her support. One came from Bravo Niagara!, which presented Ms. Lisitsa in recital in St. Catharines, Ont., on Sunday night. "In defence of freedom of speech, #letvalentinaplay," it reads. "Music can't be silenced!"

Some in her corner argue for no more than her right to offend without being punished professionally.

Ms. Lisitsa wrote that the TSO, which offered to pay her entire fee for the cancelled shows, threatened reprisals if she went public about the reason. "If they do it once, they will do it again and again, until the musicians, artists are intimidated into voluntary censorship," she wrote. Her replacement for the concerts is Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear.

"As one of Canada's most important cultural institutions," Mr. Melanson's statement says, "our priority must remain on being a stage for the world's great works of music, and not for opinions that some believe to be deeply offensive."
 
 
#25
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Ukraine to Help Russia Launch Space Rockets Despite Ban on Defense Cooperation

Ukrainian rocket manufacturer Yuzhmash has agreed to service two launches of a Ukrainian-built rocket from the Russia-controlled Baikonur cosmodrome, despite Moscow's moves to curtail space cooperation with Kiev, newspaper Izvestia reported Monday, citing the company's general director.

With Russia and Ukraine at loggerheads over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Yuzhmash had previously not responded to Russian requests to provide technical and operational support for two Zenit rocket launches from Baikonur, an unidentified Russian space program source told Izvestia.

But the silence has now ended. Yuzhmash general director Sergei Voit told Izvestia, "We have received all of the necessary permits from the Ukrainian government required to send a team of technical specialists to service a launch of a Zenit rocket from Baikonur this July."

Zenit is a light space rocket that is built by Yuzhmash with a large number of components supplied by Russian space firm RSC Energia.

Since Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine last year, the two countries have been working to decouple their Soviet-era defense industries to decrease mutual reliance, and Moscow has sought to cut off space industry ties with Ukraine. A Roscosmos spokesperson in February said Russia would stop buying new Zenit rockets and switch to Russian-made alternatives.

Also in February, Russia unilaterally announced its withdrawal from the Dnepr rocket program - a joint Russian-Ukrainian project to convert Soviet-era nuclear missiles into peaceful commercial space rockets. Roscosmos unilaterally pulled out of the program in February
 
 #26
OffGuardian
http://offguardian.org
April 4, 2015
Tim Garton Ash: "Ukraine is a toxic failure - but let's blame Putin."
By BlackCatte

The reframing of recent history is a venerable practice long used by governments and corporations to cover their various acts of monstrosity, greed, duplicity or cowardice, and to rewrite defeat into victory. Unfortunately the emergence of the internet and instant information dissemination has made this ancient system largely useless. But our betters have not really wised up to this yet. They still think they control the flow of information as they did 20 years ago, and they believe that by planting their Revisionist Histories in compliant organs like the Guardian they are successfully erasing the real past. The results are often comical, and always instructive. They give us insights into the variously idiotic, ignorant and disturbed thinking currently in vogue in the corridors of power.

Tim Garton Ash, for example, in his latest Ministry of Information piece for the Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/03/ukraine-save-itself-vladimir-putin-oligarchs]has been assigned the almost impossible task of creating a fairly major paradigm-shift, made necessary by the recent standoff between billionaire gangsters in Kiev. The MSM did its best to suppress these ugly goings-on, but they leaked out via Russian news channels and the alt media. So, since it's no longer possible to ignore the turf wars or the lawlessness underpinning them, the Official Story needs to absorb this bit of unavoidable reality and try to reframe it in a way that doesn't effect major damage on its own narrative. Not an easy job, when the entire moral basis of the "Maidan Revolution" and the entire justification for the coup that removed Yanukovych was that it was putting an end to oligarchical misrule. Tim is not a clever writer, but this task would be beyond someone far more gifted. The result makes great reading.

Tim eases us in with some gauze-lensed diversionary sentiment about Mustapha Dzhemilev, "diminutive, soft-spoken 71-year-old leader of the Crimean Tatars, gentle on the outside, hard as steel within", who is a member of Poroshenko's parliamentary party (Hmmm...I wonder how he feels about the fact several of his current colleagues in the government want a "clean nation, not like under Hitler, but... a little bit like that" because I am pretty sure this racist Utopia does not include Tatars any more than Jews, Poles, Hungarians or Russians). Tim contrasts this by quoting another Rada MP, US-educated Hanna Hopko (of the "centre-right" "Self-RelianceParty") on her reassuringly rational belief that "our willingness to die," makes Ukraine "a political nation". The message here is clear, Tim tells us:

"Two very different life stories, but one and the same message: steely determination that Ukraine should become a sovereign, modern European country."

Absolutely - the cornerstone of all stable social systems has to be exploited minorities and young women with a death-wish. Just add the casual "non-personhood" assigned to every Ukrainian who doesn't share this vision, throw in a few nazis and democracy is as good as won. But Tim is just warming up, it's after this he pulls the bait and switch which is the real point of his piece - from celebrating the wonderful renaissance that is Ukraine, to telling us it's actually a piss-stained, graft-infested hell-hole.

"This is a story we largely miss. In Berlin, Washington or Brussels we say "Ukraine", but within 30 seconds we are talking about Putin, Nato and the EU. So let us consider, for once, the struggle for Ukraine, by Ukrainians, inside the majority of its territory still actually controlled by Ukraine. Even if there were no war, this would be a daunting task, for there is a breathtaking scale of corruption and oligarchic misrule, which has deformed the state ever since it gained formal independence nearly a quarter of a century ago.

"The deputy finance minister says the grey or black economy may account for as much as 60% of the country's economy. One example: we are told that of the 20,000 kiosks that are dotted along the streets of Kiev, selling various goods, only 6,000 are properly registered and pay some taxes. The other 14,000 may pay bribes and protection money, but not taxes. Who controls them? Well, we are told, it's often public prosecutors (who are numerous, and have extraordinary powers), police officers or judges. Here is a state so intravenously corrupted that those who should be its doctors are its poisoners. Perhaps we might call the radioactive poison in its bloodstream Ukrainium."

Ha! "Ukrainium". Nice. But once the uproarious laughter subsides we're left with some annoying little anomalies. For example, Tim's quite right, this is a story "we largely miss."

You know why, Tim? Because you've all be claiming it isn't true, remember?

I mean, forgive the confusion, but are you now saying Ukraine, post-Yanukovych, is not after all free and happy and run by non-oligarchs for non-oligarchs? Then why have you been insisting it was? And if that was just a misunderstanding and isn't even slightly true, and if we're not even pretending any more, then what are we doing in Ukraine at all? Why has the west spent so much money and risked world peace just to replace one set of corrupt goons with another? Why are we currently debating whether to send these mobsters lethal weapons? Is the west now openly admitting to supporting robber-barons? Are we coming clean about sending advisors to train neo-nazis and mercenaries in the private armies of rival hoods?

Aren't these things we should be talking about, Tim?

Err...no. Tim doesn't think so. What Tim thinks we should be talking about are the two "D-words" (de-oligarchisation and de-shadowing) which promise to magically fix all the nasty things once that "independent anti-corruption bureau" the Rada is setting up really kicks in (no, come on, don't laugh). In fact Tim doesn't even want us to notice the huge admission being made or the failures that make it necessary. He just wants us to move seamlessly into the latest reality built for us and live in it, uncomplaining. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Ukraine has always been a corrupt hell hole. Now let's just glide on to the real point which is of course that all this corruption, which we previously claimed had been erased along with Yanukovych, but now claim...actually, errr...wasn't, is all Vladimir Putin's fault.

"...we must understand that Putin is unlikely to be content with just a 'frozen conflict' in eastern Ukraine - which many here in Kiev privately describe as the least worst option for now. He wants a simmering conflict, one that ensures the whole of Ukraine remains a weak, unstable, dysfunctional state."

Well, ok, not all his fault - but heck, he likes it that way, because...well, Tim doesn't tell us why, but he just does ok? Because Putin is evil. And evil people hate our freedoms. Which is why - when you think about it - this stinking cesspool of graft and lies, incompetence and racial hatred is NOTHING TO DO WITH US AND, REALLY (when you look at it right), JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF RUSSIAN AGGRESSION.

And which of course also more or less excuses our continued plan to keep supporting it with money, troops and probably guns, even to the point of igniting WW3.

Well, Tim and his masters apparently think so. Or at least they want us to think so. They can only hope their target audience don't read anything but him, and Soros, and Shaun Walker. But sadly the comments reveal the forlornness of such a hope. Lamentably, as usual, it's BTL the real journalism happens. Let's conclude by sharing some of it.

 
 #27
Kyiv Post
April 7, 2015
Ukraine's secret weapon
By J. Michael Waller
J.Michael Waller is a senior analyst with Wikistrat. His book, Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today (1993) warned that failure to uproot the old Soviet secret police would allow the security apparatus to take control of Russia.

Like no other country, non-aligned Ukraine has an untapped capability to defend itself against Russian aggression - with or without support from the West.

It's an old idea that doesn't require guns or bombs. All that it needs is the will to harness the aggressor's internal vulnerabilities. While Russia is militarily far stronger than Ukraine, it shows signs of much greater weakness inside its borders.

Ukrainians know Russia's political cultures, national fears and paranoias, socioeconomic divides, and other vulnerabilities that are ripe for adroit strategists to exploit.

By making war against Ukraine, RussianPresident Vladimir Putin has broken the surface tension that, so far, has heldthe Russian Federation together. In its own defense, Ukraine has the capabilityto attack the Putin regime's internal power base.

This doesn't mean fomenting horrible civil wars within the Russian state. To the contrary. It means showing solidaritywith the peoples of Russia.

The assassination of top Putin opposition figure Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin, and the public outcry, shows that the time to act is now.

In its own special way, Ukraine can magnify the many voices inside Russia that, together, form the disorganized nucleus of a movement that could do to Putin what the Maidan movement did to the pro-Moscow regime in Kyiv one year ago.

Many ordinary Russians resent and fear the growing political repression and unchecked corruption under Putin's mafiocracy. Some brave cruelty and imprisonment for brief acts of defiance. Censors are powerless to stop the viral spread of a popular protest video calling for a"Russian Maidan" movement against the Kremlin's "totalitarian monster."

Conditions are developing for a national anti-war movement. Russia's ethnic minorities are aware of how their sons are singled out to serve as combat forces to fight Putin's war against Ukraine. Recently, in the Siberian enclave of Tyva, a local former lawmaker called on the governmentsof all ethnically non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation to stop local recruitment for the war.

Ukraine should exploit this issue. No armycan accomplish its objectives with a robust anti-war movement at home - especiallywhen that movement is integrated with a global diplomatic offensive and an influence campaign directed at the combat troops themselves.

On the home front, Ukraine can reach out to those soldiers in their native languages. It can devise ways to help them rebel against their commanders, desert with dignity and safety to welcoming Ukrainians, and enjoy freedom and protection until they can return home.

If supporting a Russian Maidan and anti-war movement won't result in Moscow recalling its forces, Ukraine has the abilityto go much further.

Ukraine can become a platform for leaders and movements across Russia's 11 time zones that are seeking autonomy - and even independence - from Moscow.

Some of those voices are ethnic Russians in the country's far-flung cities and regions that suffer from economic and demographic collapse. Many realize that they would be better off with federalist-style autonomy.

That autonomy would threaten Putin's controlcomplex. It would allow rival political factions to flourish. It would requireMoscow to cater to the regions' deepening social demands by diverting cash fromthe central regime and its offensive weapons modernization, and back to the people.

Siberia has achieved significant autonomy,with the fearsome potential to cede more than half of Russia's territory to Chinese influence and economic domination. For some Siberians, autonomy is not enough. They seek independence from Russia.

Within Siberia and the Russian Far East,movements grow along ethnic and regional lines, as Paul Goble chronicles in his"Windows on Eurasia" blog. A Buryat Mongol independence movement around Irkutsk identifies heavily with neighboring Mongolia. In the Sakha Republic, a region almost as large as India in the Russian Far East, an awakening of the Yakut people has begun. Some Russian thought-leaders are urging European-style plebiscites, like those of Catalonia and Scotland, for independence.

In the Caucasus, ethnic Chechens and others have long sought autonomy or independence, and have already volunteered to help Ukraine. Some have given their lives. Many of these minority groups identify with one another, with Muslim Chechens aiding Orthodox Christian Georgians and vice-versa.

In Russian-occupied territory across the Black Sea, leaders of the Crimean Tatar nation are calling for Russia to leave their homeland and return it to Ukraine. Kaliningrad, the decaying Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania whose legal status was never resolved after WorldWar II, might well be settled by plebiscite.

All this human capital is Ukraine's secret weapon to push back the invaders - while showing solidarity with ordinary citizens of the Russian Federation who, like Ukraine, suffer under Kremlin abuse.

The key is for Ukraine to serve as the sponsor, integrator, and magnifier of Russia's voices for freedom and autonomy.That is Ukraine's secret weapon.
 
 #28
New York Review of Books
April 6, 2015
Ukraine: Two Poets in the War
By Tim Judah
Tim Judah is a correspondent for The Economist. For The New York Review he has reported from, among other places, Afghanistan, Serbia, Uganda, and Armenia.

Some Ukrainians have been angry about my recent report in this space, especially about the title, "Ukraine: Divided and Bitter." It is wrong to say that Ukrainians are divided, someone curtly retorted on Twitter, because in fact they have never been as united as they are now. In general terms, most Ukrainians are more united than ever and many say that Vladimir Putin and the war have done more to strengthen Ukrainian patriotism than anything since independence in 1991. But it is impossible to ignore that the conflict is by now not only a matter of aggression by Russia but also a civil war in the east. It is no good citing old opinion polls of what Ukrainians thought before the war and assuming that their views haven't changed.

Take the poets Olena and Anna. Before Ukraine's recent upheavals, Olena Maksymenko, a tall twenty-nine-year-old from Kiev, loved to write and visit other countries. "I traveled a lot, in the Caucasus, Georgia, Mongolia, Baikal. I was also interested in ancient history, archaeology and mythology." Not many Ukrainians are travel journalists and poets, but Olena was carving out a nice career and name for herself as both.

But something changed for Olena with the Maidan revolution, which began in November 2013. Like so many other middle-class and educated Ukrainians, all she wanted was for Ukraine to be a normal European country. Since 1991, it had continued to linger in the twilight zone between Russia and the rest of Europe, all the while crushed under a culture of economic and political corruption that had impoverished a country that should be rich. So when president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign long-negotiated agreements with the EU, Olena joined the protests. Her poems became political and she read them from the stage on the Maidan in Kiev.

Then, in March, 2014, soon after the fall of Yanukovych, she went to Crimea, which one week later would hold a referendum on joining Russia. Close to the border between Crimea and the mainland of Ukraine she was detained by men she described as "just guys with guns." They were, she said, Cossacks, Berkut (the name of the former Ukrainian riot police, many of whom had been called up from regions loyal to Yanukovych to try to control the protesters at the Maidan), and Russian soldiers. They threatened to kill her. They pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger, though it was not loaded, hit her, and chopped some of her hair off. "They said I was an agent of the USA and they tried to get information from me about other journalists. Three days later, I was released," she told me.

When she came back from Crimea she discovered that one of her best friends, also closely involved in the Maidan, had committed suicide. By chance this moment in her life coincided with a writers' residency she had won, organized before the revolution, in Latvia. While she was there, a whole novel about her friend and about the Maidan events just poured out. Then she trained to use a gun and fight but discovered that only women with the right connections were being allowed to go into combat on the Ukrainian side. "If there is a choice between a woman who has military training and a man who doesn't they will choose the man," she said. Women like her, she complained, were being shunted into cooking or paper-shuffling jobs. This made her an angry woman, she told me.

We travelled together to the Pervomais'ke, a small government-held town cum suburb of Donetsk, close to its airport. (This is not the same place as the rebel-held Pervomaysk I described in my last piece here.) She was attached to a group of volunteer medics who have set up a first aid center for Ukrainian soldiers injured on the front in a former hotel. Standing behind the hotel reception desk was Oleksiy Reznikov, aged twenty-two, who had a shelf of small bottles of different colored inks behind him and above his Kalashnikov. He was the frontline tattooist. "This is a war we need to fight and everyone needs to find their niche," he told me. Soldiers and medics were having him tattoo them with their blood groups and nicknames, and some with patriotic Ukrainian themes and symbols. "It raises morale," he said.

We could hear fighting, but for the time being hostilities have significantly tapered off as a result of the February 15 ceasefire. Bored, Olena was filing stories and collecting more that might appear in another novel. From her childhood she told me she had thought that it would be amazing to be a war correspondent and go cover conflicts in other countries. "But unfortunately the war came to me."

A few days later, in Donetsk, I met Anna Iureva, another poet, aged eighty-seven, whose now abandoned house was only a few minutes walk from the hotel-cum-field hospital in Pervomais'ke. Donetsk is the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, and together with neighboring Lugansk, makes up the would-be state of Novorossiya, or "New Russia." Without support from Russia, which many people here look to as a savior, the region would almost certainly be retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Anna is a tiny, sprightly grey-haired lady. She told me that as a schoolgirl she had written poems, but that because she had been the youngest of eleven, her parents could not afford to give her much of an education. For the last eight months she and her family have lived in a dingy nuclear bomb shelter. Since the ceasefire, most of the people who stayed here have gone home but some, like Anna and her family, have not.

Now, bored, and unable to sleep at night, she has begun to write again. A poem called "Fighters" begins:

You are fighters of our country
Our husbands, brothers and sons
Liberators of our country
You are going to fight, not for the sake of honor
But for the State of Novorossiya

Then the poem refers to Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's president:

Poroshenko decided to give mines, factories and land to the West and then flee abroad
And they destroyed so many towns thinking they were winning
But now they are wiping away tears and snot
They are wondering where to flee, and how to cover their bloody tracks

And finally:

You have to pay with your own life for everything that was destroyed
Oh God, bless the fighters going into battle
Save them from any evil
And bring them home alive

Anna said she would like to go home but "fighting is constant there," and anyway, she did not want to return while Pervomais'ke was still under Ukrainian control. "They did a lot of harm to us," she said. "How many people have they killed? How many homes have they destroyed?" Then she took me into a side room where her family and others slept in cramped bunk beds. It was incredibly hot; her forty-three year-old granddaughter, who has Down's syndrome, was sitting right in front of a fan heater. Anna showed me a tin, with oil and wick, which they used for light when the electricity went off, because they had run out candles. She said it gave off a horrible, choking smoke.

For now, Ukraine's forces are not strong enough to retake what they call the "occupied territories." And the rebels, even with Russian support, are not strong enough to take more territory from the government they refer to as the "fascist junta." Before the war there was no oppression of Russians and Russian-speakers here, as is often claimed now, not least because President Yanukovych, who came from here, and his Donetsk clan actually dominated the whole country. Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians coexisted peacefully and for many here the distinction was fluid anyway.

But since the war began, hundreds of thousands have fled from the region under rebel control. Middle-class people, tending to be more pro-Ukrainian, have moved west into Ukrainian-controlled territory while others, especially those with family and connections in Russia, have gone there. Among those who remain are many proud of their working-class and Soviet heritage who see Russia as their motherland. Many older people, less willing or able to flee, are increasingly embittered by their fate and blame the Ukrainian government for making it hard even to access their meager pensions.

Like it or not, the fighting of the past year has changed the people of eastern Ukraine. The Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics are emerging as real political entities just like others in post-Soviet breakaway regions, and Serb areas in the former Yugoslavia did. In Croatia a Serbian would-be breakaway state was swept away by war, and most of its people fled, but in Bosnia, a Serbian entity exists today as a semi-independent, quasi-state. People live side by side in Bosnia, but don't have much to do with one another. This, quite possibly, could be the fate of Ukraine and its east, but Anna says that if her home remains under Ukrainian control then eventually, "in the worst case," she and her family will see if they can make a new home somewhere in Russia.

In Kiev, a senior security official told me that even though Ukraine had of course become an independent state when the Soviet Union had collapsed, this was not something that Ukrainians had fought for. Now, he said, they were fighting "a classical war" of independence. "We have to force, or persuade the Russians to consider us a separate people, entity and state." He added, "but wars of independence have a second step and that is a war for borders."

Anna and Olena-one an eighty-seven year old bomb shelter poet, the other a poet determined to put down her pen and get a gun-may not be typical. But with the changed social structure of the rebel-held territories and the flight of middle-class and younger people, it is not just the supporters of Ukraine who think they are fighting a war of independence. Both sides do-and both are fighting for their borders.