Johnson's Russia List
2015-#111
5 June 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
Christian Science Monitor
June 4, 2015
War flares in Ukraine. Who's lighting the fuse?
President Poroshenko claimed today that Russian forces are set to invade Ukraine. But the spark that ignites new fighting may actually prove to be domestic.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - Four months ago, the signing of a cease-fire put a halt to all-out fighting in eastern Ukraine. While fighting never completely stopped, the cease-fire eased it sufficiently that major powers who backed it could turn their attention to other global problems, such as an Iranian nuclear deal.

But today, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told his parliament that Ukraine is facing the "colossal threat" of an imminent, all-out Russian invasion.

So, are the Russians coming? Not quite. While the threat of a return to war is very real, thanks to spiking violence in eastern Ukraine, the instigators look more likely to be Kiev and the rebels, not Moscow or the West.

Recommended: How much do you know about Ukraine? Take our quiz!
Experts say that both sides in Ukraine's thawing civil war feel they have lost the attention of their war-weary foreign supporters. In which case, a return to open combat could be the best way to achieve their goals - and avoid hard political and economic realities both sides would prefer to ignore.

War weary

"Ukraine's military needs to get ready for a new enemy offensive, as well as a full-scale invasion along the entire border with Russia," Poroshenko told Ukraine's parliament in his annual state-of-the-nation address. He said there are at least 9,000 Russian troops already in Ukraine, and growing indications that Russia's regular forces are massing on the frontier.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that, and suggested Poroshenko is trying to influence the upcoming meeting of the Group of Seven summit this weekend, as well as an upcoming European Union meeting that will discuss renewing sanctions against Russia. "We have often seen Kiev heating up tensions amid big international events, and that appears to be the case here," he said.

It's a rhetorical duel that has played out many times, especially since Poroshenko took power last year, precipitating an escalation in fighting in the east.

But there is also a sense that the big powers who sponsored the accord, primarily Russia, Germany, France, and the US, are growing weary of the conflict. As a result, they may have agreed among themselves that it should be "frozen" for the time being.

No more Novorossiya?

Nonetheless, fighting is spiking in devastated eastern Ukraine to levels not seen since the adoption of the ceasefire, known as Minsk-II. Pitched battles are said to be underway around the government-held town of Maryinka near the rebel capital of Donetsk, with international monitors on the ground reporting that both sides are bringing their heavy weaponry back to the front line - in defiance of the ceasefire terms.

"The pressure for renewing the war is coming from Kiev and the rebel republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and not from external sources," says Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs correspondent with the pro-business Moscow daily Kommersant. "Both sides are hostages to the situation, and deeply dependent on outside powers for support. Both feel their sponsors are prodding them in directions they don't want to go. One card they can always play is to intensify the fighting, which will bring the world's attention back to them and further polarize relations between Moscow and the West."

The rebels feel that the Kremlin has abandoned its support for Novorossiya, a hypothetical enlarged pro-Russian Ukrainian state that would encompass all of the Russian-speaking south and east of Ukraine.

The word "Novorossiya" has indeed dropped from the vocabularies of top Russian officials. Oleg Tsaryov, speaker of the self-styled "parliament of Novorossiya," declared it on hold last month because Moscow now views the idea as a violation of the Minsk agreement, which envisages negotiations between the rebels and Kiev to restore an integral Ukrainian state.

"The rebels know that the Kremlin can't afford to ignore them if full-scale war erupts again. Instead of being a frozen conflict, forgotten by the world, it will suddenly become hot and urgent again," says Mr. Strokan. "The Russian public would not accept the rebels being sold out. So everything, including Novorossiya, might be back on the table."

The pain of corruption and reform

For Kiev, renewed warfare offers a way to change the subject from Ukraine's collapsing economy and faltering reforms. Opinion polls show declining faith in leading politicians; almost 60 percent of Ukrainians disapproved of Poroshenko's performance in a March survey.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk fares even worse in the polls, with nearly 70 percent disapproval. "Yatsenyuk has lost even more support that Poroshenko, because the population associates him with economic crisis, unemployment, low salaries, and skyrocketing cost of living," says Anton Grushetsky, an expert with the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's leading public opinion agency.

Experts say even a limited upsurge in the war could quell growing domestic criticism, end any discussion in Europe of relieving sanctions on Russia, and perhaps strengthen Western resolve to provide financial and even military aid to Ukraine.

"Poroshenko has every reason to switch the conversation from economic reforms and the struggle against corruption," says Vadim Karasyov, director of the independent Institute of Global Strategies in Kiev. "As long as he is seen as the main one standing up to Russian aggression in the east, he can dodge a lot of criticism about other things."

 #2
DPR says Ukraine deploying heavy weapons near engagement line

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. Reconnaissance services of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) have reported more episodes of Ukrainian heavy weapons' presence in the vicinity of the engagement line in Donbas, DPR defence ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said on Friday.

"DPR reconnaissance agencies have reported heavy weapons' deployment in Dzerzhinsk. Apart from that, they reported deployment of up to 15 multiple rocket launcher systems in the settlements of Sukhaya Balka, Velikaya Novoselka and Ugledar," the Donetsk News Agency quoted him as saying.

Earlier on Friday, speaker of the DPR legislature Andrei Purgin said Ukraine had re-deployed practically all of its heavy weapons previously withdrawn under the Minsk agreements to the disengagement line. "The conflict is escalating. The situation is very hard, including in psychological terms. Kiev has returned all heavy weapons which used to be pulled out to positions near the disengagement line. We have returned to a situation before February 12," he told the Donetsk News Agency.

He said that protraction of political negotiations was the root cause for the worsening situation in Donbas. "We should admit that the political process has become so protracted and uncertain that it has stopped influencing the military situation. The military situation is developing all by itself while the political process is standing idle," Purgin said adding that resolute and decisive political steps had to be taken in the near future to end the current situation.

A peace deal struck on February 12 in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people's militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release. The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U.

Nevertheless, in recent days populated localities in the Donetsk People's Republic have come under intensive shelling from the positions of the Ukraine army, which is using heavy artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems (MRLS).
 
 #3
Antiwar.com
June 5, 2015
Ukraine's Tragicomedy
Made in the USA
By Justin Raimondo

Remember that "imminent" Russian invasion of Ukraine that was supposed to take place over a year ago? Well, it's still "imminent"!

President Poroshenko has just announced that the Russians are about to undertake a "full-scale" invasion of his country and that therefore the military budget must be increased, while "traitors" who refuse to be drafted - and who persist in criticizing his government - must be dealt with harshly.

While demonstrators ring the Parliament almost daily in Kiev, Poroshenko beats the war drums to drown out their protests, citing the "colossal threat" posed by that ever-imminent Russian blitz. Of course it's just a coincidence that the upcoming G-7 summit - from which the Russians are being pointedly excluded - is sure to feature the familiar war propaganda aimed at the Kremlin.

While the Western media is giving us the usual pro-Kiev spin, echoing Poroshenko's accusations that renewed fighting was started by the rebels, the OSCE monitors tell a different story: apparently the fighting began with shelling of rebel-held villages by the Ukrainian army, with at least 19 killed. If you click on the OSCE link, note two interesting facts: 1) The monitors insist on putting scare quotes around all mentions of the rebel entities and official titles, and 2) The report also describes a number of protests in government-held territory, mostly directed against official corruption and soaring prices. The natives are getting restless.

In Ukraine, where tragedy and comedy are inextricably linked, there's never a dull moment: the latest tragicomedy is the news that Poroshenko has appointed former Georgian strongman Mikheil Saakashvili as the new governor of Odessa. Saakashvili and his gang were forced to flee Georgia when they were kicked out of office by outraged voters. Saakashvili fled the country when charges linked to his violent 2007 crackdown on street protesters were brought against him. He was also charged with embezzling government funds for his own personal use. The New York Times details the charges, including:

"[U]sing public money to pay for, among other things, hotel expenses for a personal stylist, hotel and travel for two fashion models, Botox injections and hair removal, the rental of a yacht in Italy and the purchase of artwork by the London artist Meredith Ostrom, who makes imprints on canvases with her naked, painted body. ...

"Mr. Saakashvili is also accused of using public money to fly his massage therapist, Dorothy Stein, into Georgia in 2009. Mr. Saakashvili said he received a massage from Ms. Stein on 'one occasion only,' but Ms. Stein said she received 2,000 euros to massage him multiple times, including delivering her trademark 'bite massage.' 'He gave me a bunch of presents,' said Ms. Stein, who splits her time between Berlin and Hoboken."

US aid continues to pour into Ukraine, a portion of which will doubtless include more "massages" for the new governor of Odessa. Also pouring into that war-torn country are US military "advisors." Their mission is to train Ukraine's army of conscripts and neo-Nazi volunteers, who have been pathetically inept when faced with the determined residents of east Ukraine.

While the Poroshenko regime continues to arrest dissident journalists, jail "draft-dodgers," and drive out opposition politicians (many of whom have "committed suicide" under very dicey circumstances), the intrepid defenders of Ukrainian "democracy" in America and Europe plumb for a confrontation with Russia.

New York Times columnist and unapologetic Iraq war supporter Roger Cohen is the latest entry in the Putin-is-Hitler sweepstakes, comparing the scheduled 2018 World Cup in Russia to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and bewailing the West's ongoing defeat in Ukraine. There was no mention of Munich in his overwrought polemic, but I'm sure that was just an oversight.

Meanwhile, in spite of the widely-condemned Russian "aggression" in Crimea, there is still not even a hint of rebellion by its inhabitants: perhaps this has something to do with the history of the region, which was Russian from the time of Catherine the Great up until when Nikita Khrushchev handed it over to Ukraine in 1951, during the Soviet era.

Unlike tranquil Crimea, east Ukraine is in blood-stained turmoil, with the inhabitants refusing to buckle under to rule from Kiev. This may have something to do with the merciless pounding they have taken from the Ukrainian military, which has murdered thousands of civilians in aerial bombardments of cities and towns. Kiev's attitude toward its citizens in the eastern part of the country was succinctly summed up by Poroshenko, who famously declared:

"Our children will go to school, to kindergarten, while theirs' will hole up in basements. This is how we will win this war!"

His statement has got to be the first time in recorded history that a government leader has boasted about targeting children in wartime.

Poroshenko and his US backers are determined to sink the Minsk accord, brokered by the Germans, which has kept a shaky truce intact until now. But with the internal political and economic situation in Ukraine coming to a boil, and Kiev's rapidly ballooning debt threatening to bring down the regime, Poroshenko needs a diversion - a new external "crisis" - to bring in more Western aid and direct rising popular anger at the Russian bogeyman.

Although I don't know how much credence to give to these hacked emails, supposedly between billionaire George Soros and Poroshenko, it's not exactly shocking if the former is indeed lobbying the Federal Reserve to swap out Ukraine's burgeoning debt. We always knew US taxpayers would foot the staggering bill.

Soros has long been a major player in the Balkans, acting to counter Russian influence, protect his own considerable investments, and gin up conflict wherever he can. He was a major source of funding for pro-war front groups during the Kosovo war, and he's playing the same role these days. As a major source of money for the Democratic party, Soros is bound to have a decisive influence over the restored Clinton administration - and this will be a point of unity between the two major parties, as the neocons in charge of the GOP have also been agitating for a showdown with Putin.

The major threat to Poroshenko's government isn't the Russians, or the easterners, but his own people, who are chafing under the burden of imposed austerity and suffering greatly. With the outright fascists like Right Sector and its allies waiting in the wings, Poroshenko's Western backers would be loath to accept his probable successor should the "Chocolate King" fall.

That's why, as I noted here, they're ginning up yet another manufactured "crisis" in neighboring Macedonia, where Western NGOs are agitating for regime change in order to block the proposed Russian pipeline that will bring natural gas to European markets. The goal is to isolate Russia, both economically and politically, and eventually move the West's regime change operation into the Russian heartland, restoring the rule of the oligarchs - their oligarchs, as opposed to Putin's - and silencing the Russian leader's trenchant critique of US hegemonism.

This policy is entirely contrary to our real national interests, which are not served by starting a new cold war with Russia. The Russians, after all, face the same threat we do: Islamic terrorism has torn apart the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, reaching into Russia itself to wreak death and destruction. Yet we have favored the Islamists, openly supporting their Chechen branch, just as we're funding and arming Islamist rebels in Syria - all in the name of "democracy," of course.

It's a suicidal policy, one that has no rational explanation or justification: but then again, that's nothing new when it comes to understanding Washington's motives.
 
 #4
Salon.com
June 3, 2015
We are the propagandists: The real story about how The New York Times and the White House has turned truth in the Ukraine on its head
A sophisticated game of manipulation is afoot over Russia: power, influence and money. U.S. hands are not clean
By PATRICK L. SMITH
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

A couple of weeks ago, this column guardedly suggested that John Kerry's day-long talks in Sochi with Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, looked like a break in the clouds on numerous questions, primarily the Ukraine crisis. I saw no evidence that President Obama's secretary of state had suddenly developed a sensible, post-imperium foreign strategy consonant with a new era. It was force of circumstance. It was the 21st century doing its work.

This work will get done, cleanly and peaceably or otherwise.

Sochi, an unexpected development, suggested the prospect of cleanliness and peace. But events since suggest that otherwise is more likely to prove the case. It is hard to say because it is hard to see, but our policy cliques may be gradually wading into very deep water in Ukraine.

Ever since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, reality itself has come to seem up for grabs. Karl Rove, a diabolically competent political infighter but of no discernible intellectual weight, may have been prescient when he told us to forget our pedestrian notions of reality-real live reality. Empires create their own, he said, and we're an empire now.

The Ukraine crisis reminds us that the pathology is not limited to the peculiar dreamers who made policy during the Bush II administration, whose idea of reality was idealist beyond all logic. It is a late-imperial phenomenon that extends across the board. "Unprecedented" is considered a dangerous word in journalism, but it may describe the Obama administration's furious efforts to manufacture a Ukraine narrative and our media's incessant reproduction of all its fallacies.

At this point it is only sensible to turn everything that is said or shown in our media upside down and consider it a second time. Who could want to live in a world this much like Orwell's or Huxley's-the one obliterating reality by destroying language, the other by making historical reference a transgression?

Language and history: As argued several times in this space, these are the weapons we are not supposed to have.

Ukraine now gives us two fearsome examples of what I mean by inverted reason.

One, it has been raining reports of Russia's renewed military presence in eastern Ukraine lately. One puts them down and asks, What does Washington have on the story board now, an escalation of American military involvement? A covert op? Let us watch.

Two, we hear ever-shriller charges that Moscow has mounted a dangerous, security-threatening propaganda campaign to destroy the truth-our truth, we can say. It is nothing short of "the weaponization of information," we are provocatively warned. Let us be on notice: Our truth and our air are now as polluted with propaganda as during the Cold War decades, and the only apparent plan is to make it worse.

O.K., let us do what sorting can be done.

Charges that Russia is variously amassing troops and materiel on its border with Ukraine or sending same across said border are nothing new. They are what General Breedlove, the strange-as-Strangelove NATO commander, gets paid to put out. These can be ignored, as most Europeans do.

But in April a new round of the escalation charges began. Michael Gordon, the New York Times' reliably obliging State Department correspondent, reported in a story with a single named source that Russia was adding soldiers and air defense systems along its border.

The sources for this were Marie Harf, one of State's spokespeople, and the standard variety of unnamed officials and analysts. Here is how it begins:

"In a sign that the tense crisis in Ukraine could soon escalate, Russia has continued to deploy air defense systems in eastern Ukraine and has built up its forces near the border, American officials said on Wednesday.

"Western officials are not sure if the military moves are preparations for a new Russian-backed offensive that would be intended to help the separatists seize additional territory."

"Could," "has continued," "not sure," "would be." And this was the lead, where the strongest stuff goes.

Scrape away the innuendo, and what you are reading in this piece is a whole lot of nothing. The second paragraph, stating what officials are not sure of, was a necessary contortion to get in the phrase "new Russian-backed offensive," which was the point of the piece. As journalism, this is so bad it belongs in a specimen jar.

Context, the stuff this kind of reporting does its best to keep from readers:

By mid-April, Washington was still at work trying to subvert the Minsk II ceasefire, an anti-Russian assassination campaign was under way in Kiev and the Poroshenko government, whether or not it approved of the campaign, was proving unable, unwilling or both to implement any of the constitutional revisions to which Minsk II committed it.

A week before the April 22 report, 300 troops from the 173rd Airborne had arrived to begin training the Ukrainian national guard. The Times piece acknowledged this for the simple reason it was the elephant in the living room, but by heavy-handed implication it dismissed any thought of causality.

Given the context, I would not be at all surprised to learn that Moscow may have put air defense systems in place. And I am not at all sure what is so worrisome about them. Maybe it is the same reasoning Benjamin Netanyahu applied when Russia recently agreed to supply Iran with air defense technology: It will make it harder for us to attack them, the dangerous Israeli complained.

Neither am I sure what is so worrisome about Russians training eastern Ukrainian partisans-another charge Harf leveled-if it is supposed to be a mystery why American trainers at the other end of the country prompt alarm in Moscow.

Onward from April 22 the new theme flowed. On May 17 Kiev claimed that it had captured two uniformed Russian soldiers operating inside Ukraine. On May 21 came reports that European monitors had interviewed the two under unstated conditions and had ascertained they were indeed active-duty infantry. This gave "some credence" to Kiev's claim, the Times noted, although at this point some is far short of enough when Kiev makes these kinds of assertions.

On May 30-drum roll, please-came the absolute coup de gr�ce. The Atlantic Council, one of the Washington think tanks-its shtick seems to be some stripe of housebroken neoliberalism-published a report purporting to show that, in the Times' language, "Russia is continuing to defy the West by conducting protracted military operations inside Ukraine."

Read the report here. It's first sentence: "Russia is at war with Ukraine." [http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/reports/hiding-in-plain-sight-putin-s-war-in-ukraine-and-boris-nemtsov-s-putin-war]

"Continuing to defy?" "At war with Ukraine?" If you refuse to accept the long, documented record of Moscow's efforts to work toward a negotiated settlement with Europe-and around defiant Americans-and if you call the Ukraine conflict other than a civil war, well, someone is creating your reality for you.

Details. The Times described "Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine" as "an independent report." I imagine Gordon-he seems to do all the blurry stuff these days-had a straight face when he wrote three paragraphs later that John Herbst, one of the Atlantic Council's authors, is a former ambassador to Ukraine.

I do not know what kind of a face Gordon wore when he reported later on that the Atlantic Council paper rests on research done by Bellingcat.com, "an investigative website." Or when he let Herbst get away with calling Bellingcat, which appears to operate from a third-floor office in Leicester, a city in the English Midlands, "independent researchers."

I wonder, honestly, if correspondents look sad when they write such things-sad their work has come to this.

One, Bellingcat did its work using Google, YouTube and other readily available social media technologies, and this we are supposed to think is the cleverest thing under the sun. Are you kidding?

Manipulating social media "evidence" has been a parlor game in Kiev; Washington; Langley, Virginia, and at NATO since the Ukraine crisis broke open. Look at the graphics included in the presentation. I do not think technical expertise is required to see that these images prove what all others offered as evidence since last year prove: nothing. It looks like the usual hocus-pocus.

Two, examine the Bellingcat web site and try to figure out who runs it. I tried the about page and it was blank. The site consists of badly supported anti-Russian "reports"-no "investigation" aimed in any other direction.

I look at this stuff now and think, Well, there may be activity on Russia's borders or inside Ukraine, but maybe not. Those two soldiers may be Russian and may be on active duty, but I cannot draw any conclusion.

I do not appreciate having to think this way-not as a reader and not as a former newsman. I do not like reading Times editorials, such as Tuesday's, which institutionalizes "Putin's war" and other such tropes, and having to say, Our most powerful newspaper is into the created reality game.

A few things can be made clear in all this. Straight off the top it is almost certain, despite a logical wariness of presented evidence, that Russia has personnel and weapons deployed along its border and in Ukraine.

I greatly hope so, and whether they are on duty or otherwise interests me not at all.

First of all, it is a highly restrained approach to a geopolitical circumstance that Moscow recognizes as dangerous, Washington does not seem to and Kiev emphatically does not. In reversed circumstances, a troubled nation would have long back turned into an open conflict between two nuclear powers. Fig leafs have their place.

I have written before on the question of spheres of influence: They are to be observed if not honored. Stephen Cohen, the Russianist scholar, prefers "spheres of security," and the phrase makes the point plainly. Russia cannot be expected to abandon its interests as Cohen defines them, and considering what is at issue for Moscow, the response is intelligently measured.

Equally, Moscow appears to recognize that without any equilibrium between the Russian-tilted east and the Western-tilted west, Ukraine will be a bloodbath. Irresponsible as it has proven, and with little or no control over armed extreme rightist factions, Kiev cannot be allowed even an attempt to resolve this crisis militarily.

One has to consider how these things are conventionally done. I had a cousin who piloted helicopters in Vietnam long ago. When we spread the conflict to Laos and Cambodia he flew in blue jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers and without dog tags. "If you go down, we don't know you," was the O.D.

A directly germane case is Angola in the mid-1970s. When the Portuguese were forced to flee the old colony, the CIA began supplying right-wing opportunists in the north and south with weapons, money, and agency personnel. Only in response did Cuba send troops that quickly proved decisive. I remember well all the howls of "aggression"-all of them hypocritical rubbish: American efforts to subvert the movement that still governs Angola peaceably continued for a dozen more years.

The Times editorial just noted is headlined, "Vladimir Putin Hides the Truth." This is upside-down-ism at its very worst.

It is not easy to put accounts of the Ukraine crisis side by side to compare them. Think of two bottles of unlabeled wine in a blind taste test. Now read on.

I do not see how there can be any question that Moscow's take on Ukraine and the larger East-West confrontation is the more coherent. Read or listen to Putin's speeches, notably that delivered at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Davos variant, in Sochi last October. It is historically informed, with a grasp of interests (common and opposing), the nature of the 21st century environment and how best outcomes are to be achieved in it.

Altogether, Moscow offers a vastly more sophisticated, coherent accounting of the Ukraine crisis than any American official has or ever will. This is for one simple reason: Neither Putin nor Lavrov bears the burden American officials do of having to sell people mythical renderings of how the world works or their place in it.

Russia's interests are clear and can be stated clearly, to put the point another way. America's-the expansion of opportunity for capital and the projection of power-must always remain shrouded.

The question of plausibility is a serious imbalance, critical in its implications. In my view it accounts for that probably unprecedented propaganda effort noted earlier. It has ensued apace since Andrew Lack, named in January as America's first chief propaganda officer (CEO of the new Broadcasting Board of Governors), instantly declared information a field of battle. A war of the worldviews, we may call it.

This war grows feverish as we speak. In the current edition of The Nation, a journalist named James Carden publishes a remarkable piece detailing the extremes now approached. I rank it a must read, and you can find it here.

Carden's piece is called "The New McCarthyism," and any reader having a look will know well enough why our drift back toward the paranoid style of the 1950s is something we all ought to guard against. A great deal of this column would be banned as "disinformation." Whatever your stripe, I urge you to recognize this as serious.

The focus here is on a report called "The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money." It is written by Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss. It is published by an Internet magazine called The Intepreter, as a special report sponsored by the Institute for Modern Russia.

Credential problems galore. Weiss is an "expert" on flavors of the month, a main-chancer who sat at the late Christopher Hitchens' feet and inhabited a think tank in London before taking the editor's chair at The Interpreter. Pomersantsev was a TV producer in the most decadent corners of the Russian media circus, wheeling against it all only when he lost out. Now he is a darling of our media, naturally.

Both, most important, seem to carry water for Michail Khodorkovsky, the oligarchic crook whom Western media, from the Times on down, now lionize as a democrat because he and Putin are enemies. Khodorkovsky funds the Institute for Modern Russia, based in New York. The IMR, in turn, funds The Interpreter.

Got the fix? Ready to take this report seriously, are we?

Astonishingly enough, a lot of people are. As Carden reports, Weiss and Pomerantsev cut considerable mustard among the many members of Congress nursing the new Russophobia. Anne Applebaum, the prominent paranoid on all questions Russian; and Geoffrey Pyatt, Obama's coup-cultivating ambassador in Kiev: Many weighty figures stand with these guys.

Carden lays out his thesis expertly. Putin's weaponization of news makes him more dangerous than any communist ever was, "The Menace of Unreality" asserts, and he must be countered. How? With "an internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation."

"Media organizations that practice conscious deception should be excluded from the community," Weiss and Pomerantsev write-the community being those of approved thought.

No, Carden is not kidding.

It may seem odd, but I credit Weiss and Pomerantsev with one insight. The infection of ideology now debilitates us. Blindness spreads and has to be treated. But there agreement ends, as I consider their report to be among the more extreme cases of the disease so far to show itself.

You can follow the internal logic, but I would not spend too much time on it because there is none once you exit their bubble. There is only one truth, the argument runs, and it just so happens it is exactly what we think. There is no other way to see things. All is TINA, "there is no alternative."

It would be easy to dismiss Weiss and Pomerantsev as supercilious hacks, and I do. But not the stance. They say too clumsily and bluntly what is actually the prevalent intellectual frame, a key aspect of the neoliberal stance. TINA, the argument Thatcher made famous, applies to all things.

To say "The Menace of Unreality" advocates a kind of intellectual protectionism is not strong enough. Their idea comes to the control of information, which is to say the control of the truth. And if you can think of a more efficient way to define the production of propaganda, use the comment box.

Fighting alleged propaganda with propaganda: This is upside down for you. It is what we get when people make up reality for us.
 
 #5
Der Spiegel
June 4, 2015
'Bellingcat Report Doesn't Prove Anything'
Expert Criticizes Allegations of Russian MH17 Manipulation
Interview Conducted By Benjamin Bidder

The research group Bellingcat has accused Russia of manipulating satellite images from the MH17 disaster. But German image forensics expert Jens Kriese has criticized the analysis. He says it is impossible to say with any certainty whether Moscow is lying.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bellingcat made headlines around the world this week when it claimed on Sunday night it had proven that Russia's Defense Ministry conducted forensic manipulations. The allegation is focused on images of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flt. MH17 in eastern Ukraine last spring.

Kriese: The term "forensic analysis" is not a protected one. From the perspective of forensics, the Bellingcat approach is not very robust. The core of what they are doing is based on so-called Error Level Analysis (ELA). The method is subjective and not based entirely on science. This is why there is not a single scientific paper that addresses it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What's the hitch?

Kriese: Forensic scientists use computer procedures that allow for the clearest possible conclusions: Has it been manipulated -- yes or no? Contrary to what Bellingcat claims, Error Level Analysis does not provide clear results. The conclusion is always based on the perspective of humans, on their interpretation.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What does the method entail?

Kriese: It attempts to determine compression artifacts. Those are the small deviations created when a photo is saved in JPG format -- differences from the original. It is possible to depict them in color. But: The final decision on whether a manipulation has occured or not is then still a personal decision made by the viewer. One has to decide whether variations should be attributed to manipulations or are they normal and could be attributed to clouds, for example?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you consider the Russian satellite images to have been manipulation?

Kriese: That's not the right question. We are not talking about satellite images here. We only know the version published by Moscow. That is a satellite image that has been prepared for use in a presentation.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bellingcat has come to the conclusion that they were edited using Photoshop.

Kriese: That's an erroneous interpretation. They claim that the metadata shows that the images were processed using Photoshop. Based on that they are concluding it was the clouds that were likely added in order to conceal something. The truth is that the indication of Photoshop in the metadata doesn't prove anything. Of course the Russians had to use some sort of program in order to process the satellite image for the presentation. They added frames and text blocks in order to explain it to the public. The artifacts which have been identified could be a product of that -- or also a product of saving multiple times in JPG format.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bellingcat says its findings are based on the use of the analysis tool FotoForensic.com, a website.

Kriese: And its founder Neal Krawetz also distanced himself from Bellingcat's conclusions on Twitter. He described it as a good example of "how to not do image analysis." What Bellingcat is doing is nothing more than reading tea leaves. Error Level Analysis is a method used by hobbyists.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How could one really test whether the satellite images have in fact actually been manipulated?

Kriese: That is very difficult. Ideally it would require the original documents, the satellite images themselves or perhaps even the raw data. The Russians have them.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can't raw data also be manipulated?

Kriese: That is laborious. Other methods are more effective. There's an entire discipline exploring how image manipulation can be concealed. It is called anti-forensics. It allows photos to be sharpened after they are taken or to be edited with blur filters. Ninety percent of the time, ambitious bloggers like Bellingcat get nowhere.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So how is it even possible to uncover falsifications?

Kriese: Most are created under time pressure, which leads to small mistakes. But no one would be reckless enough to use Photoshop of all things and then not clean up the metadata. There are very different variants, and I think the intelligence services know a few of them.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Satellite images are often used as proof of events in the Ukraine crisis, even by NATO. Are they even meaningful?

Kriese: It is easy to claim to amateurs that one can see this or that. But just think about the US images of the alleged poison gas facilities in the Middle East. There's a similar point at Bellingcat: In one of the photos, a growing spot can be seen. It's allegedly an oil puddle next to a vehicle. But does one consider that to be plausible? I think it depends on whether a person wants to believe it or not.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What's your personal conclusion about the satellite images?

Kriese: The first thing to die in war is the truth. Each side likes to throw random smoke bombs. There is no way of knowing if the images show what Moscow is claiming. What one can say, however, is that this "analysis" has achieved nothing besides raising awareness of Bellingcat.
 
 #6
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
June 4, 2015
By Relying on Bellingcat the Western Media Is Setting Itself up for a Fall
By treating an amateur blog as an expert on highly technical issues that require opinions from specialists the Western media shows extreme bias and poor judgement
By Alexander Mercouris
Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law.

In my recent discussion of Almaz-Antey's presentation on the shooting down of MH17 I made certain comments concerning a report recently published by the British Bellingcat blog.

That report sought to cast doubt on the Russian satellite imagery that shows a Ukrainian BUK missile launcher in the location from which Almaz-Antey says the BUK missile that shot down MH17 was launched.

I said that since Bellingcat were enthusiastic proponents of the alternative theory that the BUK missile was launched by a militia controlled BUK missile launcher located at Snizhnoe, any report on the subject published by Bellingcat had to be treated skeptically.

I also said that the mere fact that the satellite imagery showed some evidence of retouching did not appear to me to be in any way sinister or to cast doubt on the value of the imagery as evidence given that it was produced for presentation at a press conference and not as evidence to one of the two inquiries investigating the tragedy.

It seems I may have been altogether too generous to Bellingcat.   

Comments I have seen have now comprehensively trashed its report, going far beyond the points I made and raising serious questions as to the report's methodology and the qualifications of its authors.  

Here is one particularly scathing example written by someone who (unlike the authors of the Bellingcat report) seems to be actually qualified in this area.

That the Western media has given such phenomenal weight to Bellingcat is one of the most extraordinary aspects of the whole MH17 affair.  

The Financial Times was at it again when it published on 2nd June 2015 a brief article on the Almaz-Antey presentation, which contained the extraordinary sentence: "Other military experts have dismissed satellite pictures presented by Moscow to back up its Zaroshchenske claim."

The "military experts" in question are of course Bellingcat, who are the people who "have dismissed satellite pictures presented by Moscow to back up its Zaroshchenske claim".

As the debacle of the latest Bellingcat report shows, Bellingcat are not experts on anything and there is no justification to call them that. Certainly they are not "military experts".

More seriously, there is absolutely no justification for giving their opinions equal weight to those of a company like Almaz-Altay - the world leader in surface to air missile technology - as the Financial Times appears to do.

In my article (BUK Manufacturer Almaz-Antey Speaks Out on MH17 Tragedy, Russia Insider, 2nd June 2015) I said that one of the perils of amateur investigations is that they throw up false leads, which waste the time and effort needed to refute them.  

This is precisely the situation we are in with Bellingcat.

As for the Western media, if it continues to rely on Bellingcat as its technical adviser on these difficult questions, then it is setting itself up for an epic fail. 
#7
Kyiv's Buk claims in Ukrainian army like saying there is no water in sea - Russian Defense Ministry

MOSCOW. June 5 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry has called "a lie" the allegation by Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Ihor Smeshko that there are no Buk surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

"The claim by the Ukrainian presidential advisor is absolutely absurd. Such a blatant lie coming from a high-ranking official is simply improper. The allegation that Ukraine has no Buk systems is tantamount to an assertion that there is no water in the sea," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Friday.

He cited a number of examples when Kyiv officials said the Ukrainian army did have Buk SAM systems.

"I will cite just a few pieces of evidence out of a hundred of existing ones: in early June all Ukrainian media outlets reported, citing the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces anti-aircraft missile troops, Maj. Gen. Dmitry Karpenko, that the 'the state company UkrOboronServis signed an act of acceptance of a repaired Buk-M1 SAM system and that Ukraine's first repaired Buk-M1 will enter service very soon," Konashenkov said.
 
 #8
www.rt.com
June 5, 2015
US knowingly conceals E. Ukrainian ceasefire violations by Kiev - leak
[Photos here http://rt.com/news/265089-us-kiev-ceasefire-leak/]

The US and its Western allies are well aware of all the ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine but, deliberately turn a blind eye to Kiev's actions, hackers said after obtaining the emails of top Ukrainian official overseeing the truce.

The anti-Kiev hacktivist group, CyberBerkut, claims to have hacked the emails of Major-General Andrey Taran, Chief of the Joint Centre for Ceasefire Control and Coordination in Ukraine.

The correspondence contained satellite images proving multiple violations of the Minsk peace agreements between Kiev and the rebels by the Ukrainian military, they said.

Image from cyber-berkut.orgImage from cyber-berkut.org

The pictures, dating March, April and May 2015, showed Kiev's heavy artillery stationed in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

Ukrainian 100-millimeter field artillery guns, 122-millimeter D-30 and 2S1 Gvozdika howitzers, 152-millimeter Hyacinth-S howitzers and Grad multiple rocket launchers were placed less than 20 kilometers away from the contact line, CyberBerkut said.

Image from cyber-berkut.orgImage from cyber-berkut.org

According to the Minsk ceasefire agreement signed in February, both sides were to pull-out of all heavy weapons and create a security zone from 50 to 140 kilometers, depending on the range of the guns.

The hacktivists stressed that Washington knew of the violations by Kiev as the hacked emails came from a staff member of the US Embassy in Ukraine, Tetyana Podobinska-Shtyk.

"[I am] sending you pictures which can become a serious problem for you! Think about how you can explain them, if the [OSCE] monitoring mission obtains them. Consult the team leader and think about a possible action plan, how you can justify them or present them as fake," Podobinska-Shtyk wrote in a hacked email.

The Minsk peace deal, which was brokered by the leaders of Russia, Germany and France, led to a significant decrease in fighting in eastern Ukraine, which saw over 6,000 killed since April 2014.

But large-scale fighting resumed in the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) on Wednesday, with Kiev and the rebels putting blame on each other for violating the ceasefire.

According DNR officials, the shelling by Kiev forces on June 3 saw 19 people, both civilians and militiamen, killed and over a hundred injured.

 #9
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
June 4, 2015
CHATHAM HOUSE RULE - PROPAGANDA IS WHAT COMES OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MOUTHS, AND POCKETS
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Photos, footnotes, and links here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13537]

The scaffolding is going up around the walls of Chatham House in London - we shall not see it dismantled again in our lifetime. Not even if the Royal Institute of International Affairs says it is doing no more than a repaint job.

According to a fresh report from inside the building, issued on June 4, it's time to strike at Russia with "defensive strategic communications and media support...promoting truthful accounts of Western policies and values... through EU and NATO cooperation."

In the City of London this is known as talking one's book. On Madison Avenue, in New York City, it's called advertising. Chatham House is applying for money for former British government officials to write reports to US, British and NATO intelligence agencies for the job of winning over, or neutralizing, those who are victims of Russian disinformation because they don't believe what the US, British and NATO intelligence agencies have been telling them. The more incredible this proposition sounds, the more urgently Sir Roderic Lyne and Sir Andrew Wood and several other Chatham House apparatchiki say they need the money.

Entitled "The Russian Challenge", the Chatham House report runs to 72 pages. Signing it as authors are six associates of the house - Keir Giles, Philip Hanson (below, left), Roderic Lyne (centre), James Nixey, James Sherr and Andrew Wood (right). Except for Nixey, the authors have held British government positions related to security, intelligence and war. Hanson says he served for a time at the US government radio, Radio Liberty. Lyne and Wood were British ambassadors to Russia between 1995 and 2004; they are also on retainer for companies doing business in Russia. Their report can be read here [1]. [http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWood.pdf]

Propaganda - that's to say, the word - appears twice, meaning what the Russian government claims. Thus: "Patriotism and propaganda may for a while obscure economic failure (Putin has taken to making Orwellian boasts: 'Our produce is of course much better and healthier' but they do not put bread on the table." And: "The West should also explain its policies towards Russia, including of course those affecting Ukraine, to Russia's post-Soviet neighbours - and to China. They deserve to hear directly how the West understands the position, and how Western countries propose to proceed. At the least, Russia's propaganda effort needs to be balanced in this way."

The word false appears six times. It's a synonym for Russian. It refers to things Russians believe or do, or else want others to think they mean. For example: "By either undermining the will or support for deterrent measures, or creating an entirely false impression that Russia is justified in its actions, Russia adjusts key variables in the security calculus, reducing the risk inherent in any future assertive action against its neighbours". And: "The current Kremlin may want to develop the false promise of a separate, self-sufficient and introverted Russia dominating the former Soviet space." And: "As noted over the Russian interpretation of NATO's intentions in Crimea, such false perceptions are nevertheless a reality to the Russian leadership."

Truth, the word again, is much more frequent, appearing 12 times. It means what Chatham House authors say it is. For example: "[President Vladimir] Putin is a fundamentally anti-Western leader whose serial disregard for the truth has destroyed his credibility as a negotiating partner." "Western societies put faith in their own independent media to arrive at and report the truth thanks to their relative freedom." And: "while truth is supposed to be a fundamental requirement of Western communications strategies, Russian campaigns need not even remotely resemble the truth to be successful."

The capstone of the case for Chatham House truth against Russian falsehood appears in this analysis of the transformation of Crimea in March 2014, followed by the destruction in eastern Ukraine of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. According to Keir Giles, "Western media organizations were entirely unprepared for a targeted and consistent hostile disinformation campaign organized and resourced at state level. The result was an initial startling success for the Russian approach in the early stages of operations in Crimea, where reports from journalists on the ground identifying Russian troops did not reach mainstream audiences because editors in their newsrooms were baffled by inexplicable Russian denials....A key example of this approach followed the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. Four days after the crash, by which time it was already clear that Russia held ultimate responsibility for the tragedy, the Russian Ministry of Defence held a press conference to present explanations absolving Russia.231 The scenarios presented were diverse and mutually contradictory, and did not stand up to the briefest examination by experts with even basic knowledge of the aircraft and missile systems claimed to have been involved.232." (See page 47.)

Read this again slowly: "four days after the crash...it was already clear that Russia held ultimate responsibility for the tragedy."

In footnote number 232 evidence should have followed for readers to understand the expertise leading Chatham House to its conclusion so swiftly after the aircraft downing. But footnote 232 turns out to be a selfie. Giles (right) is citing a 10-paragraph posting on the Chatham House website [2] on July 24, 2014, by himself. This summarizes two widely publicized briefings by US and Russian intelligence, adding no evidence from another source, and concluding with the opinion: "The story of the crash presented by Russian domestic media is unrecognizable from what has been established as fact so far... In the case of Flight MH17, the truth is the last thing Moscow needs." A box for feedback is provided, but it is empty.

In the war of truth against falsehood the case of MH17 is important. But Giles and Chatham House are saying the truth was "already clear" after they had investigated from their London headquarters for 96 hours. When asked to clarify his expertise and evidence Giles turns out to be less than clear. Chatham House reports Giles as starting his "career...in aviation in the early 1990s, working with Soviet military and paramilitary aircraft in Crimea." The Chatham House spokesman says he doesn't know if Giles had service rank nor in what organization he served.

Giles explains his involvement in Soviet military aircraft came through "a private company called Russ-Sky. I was its co-director." When asked what organization engaged Russ-Sky, and to whose air force, Russian or Ukrainian, the aircraft belonged, Giles replied: "(1) none, and (2) neither! They still had Soviet stars and CCCP registrations."

Russ-Sky is listed [3] as having been founded on March 4, 1992, by Giles and Anthony Christopher Batchelaar. It later dissolved. According to Giles, he was working on military aircraft in Crimea before 1992, but he refuses to say if he was engaged by the Ukrainian air force or by someone else. He denies he was working with the Russian military command on Crimea.

Giles went on to be an analyst at the UK Defence Academy, reporting through the Joint Services Command and Staff College to military operations and intelligence units. His unit claims [4] credit for "notable predictions...the succession of Vladimir Putin by Dmitriy Medvedev as Russian president, and the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia." When Giles's unit was disbanded inside the UK government, the work was outsourced to his private consultancy called the Conflict Studies Research Centre [5].

In military recruitment it's standard operating procedure for soldiers to be tested for their physical and cognitive capacities. Flat-footedness is a disqualifier, so is blindness. If a soldier was as clear-sighted as Giles claims to be on the MH17 crash, would his vision qualify him for combat? This isn't an argument over what Giles says the causes were. It's a diagnosis of the visibility of the evidence of what isn't clear, almost a year after the event. For more of that, read this [6].

Chatham House is making the case that it is fit for service in information warfare against Russia. Intelligence analysts working for commercial due diligence companies in London say the Giles report is blind. A well-known London banker who has been asked to raise corporate money for Chatham House says the institution is discrediting itself on Russia. "It should stand above this sort of thing," he adds.

The institutional motto at the close of "The Russian Challenge" is: "Independent thinking since 1920". The date at the end is eccentric - how truthful is the adjective at the start? Independent of what?

In the UK and US tax codes, Chatham House is a charity. In the organization's chart of its revenues, 30% comes from government and another 26% is paid by corporations with national affiliations. For the full list of names, click [7] to open. The Russian Embassy in London is one of the listed members.

Just over half the income of the organization is raised for area or topic-specific research, producing reports like "The Russian Challenge". Lyne is both a co-author of the report, and deputy chairman of the Chatham House Council; that makes him one of the senior executives in charge of governance, money-raising, and expenditure. Lyne is the only Russia hand on the organization's executive.

Lyne has money-making ties of his own to Russia. He is a non-executive director [9] of the goldminer, Petropavlovsk Plc, which pays him �92,000 per annum; he also supervises [10] the remuneration of everyone else in the company. Lyne has been on the Petropavlovsk board, or its Aricom Plc predecessor, since 2006. Over that period the London Stock Exchange-listed company has dwindled in market value from more than �15 billion to less than �200 million today. The catastrophic loss of market confidence has been accompanied by a series of controversies which can be followed here [11]. As a non-executive director ultimate responsibility isn't Lyne's. For an exercise in truth-telling which Lyne is endorsing at Chatham House, the Petropavlovsk prospectuses deserve close examination [12].

A review of UK and US nationals sitting on the boards of Russian corporations since the introduction of sanctions against Russia puts Lyne among several dozen who continue to demonstrate their, er independence of the sanctions policy [13]. In his Chatham house report, Lyne says he's in favour of "their duration as well as severity. Until the issue of the violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity is fully addressed, sanctions should remain in place."

For financing Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia programme, several types of sponsors are identified on the website [14]. Some subscribe to attend events to rub shoulders with those with whom they do business, or would like to do business. The heavier hitters, though, are George Soros's Open Society; the RAF Molesworth airbase; the UK Foreign Office; five international oil companies; and AIG, the US insurance company. AIG's record [15]in the truth-telling department is more famous than most because it was investigated by the US Congress.

RAF Molesworth is an interesting sponsor for Chatham House to have in light of the Giles report's evidence on what caused the MH17 crash. It sounds like an airbase, which once it was when the enemy was the Germans. Now the enemy is the Russians, and RAF Molesworth is a nonflying, warfighting branch of US and NATO intelligence.

Molesworth [16], according to the official literature, is home to three Major Command (MAJCOM) branch sites: the United States European Command (USEUCOM) Joint Intelligence Operations Center Europe Analytic Center (JAC), United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) Intelligence and Knowledge Directorate-Molesworth (J2-M), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Intelligence Fusion Centre (IFC). The role of the JAC is to process and analyse military information from a variety of sources for the benefit of the United States and NATO. The JAC reports to the Director of Intelligence (J2), Headquarters, United States European Command, in Stuttgart-Valhingen, Germany.

In January the BBC reported [17] a Pentagon plan to end its RAF Molesworth lease and move communications and flight support units closer to the war fronts. It isn't clear where the intelligence operations will be deployed next. For waging the good war, at a good price, Chatham House is reporting its hand is up.


 
 #10
Rada TV (Kyiv)
June 4, 2015
Ukrainian president says NATO issue still splits nation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that joining NATO is a priority for Ukraine, but it is not timely to raise this issue, as it still has a lot of domestic and foreign opposition.

He is delivering his annual address to parliament, broadcast live by the parliamentary TV channel Rada and several other nationwide broadcasters.

"Today, according to opinion polls, the number of those who favour joining NATO for the first time in history is higher than of those who oppose it," Poroshenko said.

"Nationwide, we would easily win the referendum for joining NATO. But there are several objective buts here," he added.

"Domestically, this is one of the few questions that still has substantially different approaches across the country's regions," Poroshenko said.

"Abroad, many our friends and partners are not very happy about such rapid and fundamental changes in public opinion. They are not inclined to open the NATO door for us right now. I'm talking about reality, not paperwork. This is the truth I have to tell the country in a straightforward manner, without any diplomatic tricks," he said.

"We are not going to look back at Moscow in any way on this matter. We will be guided exclusively by the opinion of the Ukrainian nation. But it will be very difficult to ignore the opinion of our partners," he said.

"The right to take the final decision in this sensitive and extremely important matter lies exclusively, I stress it again, exclusively with the Ukrainian nation, at a referendum. But I will not let this issue destabilize the country. Today, the unity of the country for me and for all of us is of utmost importance," Poroshenko said.
 
 
#11
The National Interest
June 5, 2015
Saakashvili and the Stanislavski School of Governance
An opinion from Tbilisi.
By Tedo Japaridze
Tedo Japaridze is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of Georgia. He was Georgia's ambassador to the United States. He was also national security adviser to Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and was Mikhail Saakashvili's first Foreign Minister. This essay is not an official statement and represents his personal opinions.

Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has made a career of being at the right place, at the right time: making the audition, taking the part, acting the role, and even having a word with the director if need be. Now he's done it again. The Kiev government has appointed him Governor of Odessa, a move that, as a sovereign government, it's perfectly entitled to make but also one that is likely to antagonize the predominantly Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.

As remarkable as the appointment may seem, a glance at his record suggests that it is consistent with his adaptability. Saakashvili studied law and human rights in Europe and the United States, learning the rituals of normative approximation. He mastered Russian when that was the ladder to power; he mastered English when times changed. He speaks five languages, not least Ukrainian. During nine years in power, he acquired quite a few friends in very high places. The bottom line: when lights focus on Ukraine, he will be ready and will put on a good show.

His repertoire is quite expansive. He is among the youngest presidents in the world; the aggressive reformer; the defender of Western civilization; the pro-Western ex-president of the small former Soviet country in self-imposed exile; the Tufts academic; Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko's chief lobbyist; and now the Governor of Ukraine's sixth most populated region, Odessa, 200 kilometers from the annexed Crimea and the Russian-supported breakaway region of Transnistria, in Moldova.

For the first generation of Georgian statesmen, Saakashvili was the face of the future. We had set out not only to create "a state" that would be little better than a personal fiefdom of power, but a new kind of state, with options and real opportunities. As Georgia had been one of the most economically and socially devastated successor states of the former USSR, we needed a lot of attention to achieve that. We needed the world to see us in terms not of what we were-- but of what we could become.

Like Ukraine today, Georgia was torn apart, through smaller or greater civil wars. And people were craving for a steady hand that would stop all petty power games. A leader of our own, but not quite: Saakashvili was in the right place at the right time. The name of the game was not being a democrat wanting to embody the will of the people nor merely a westernized reformer. It was about being both at the same time: on the one hand, being the no nonsense heavy handed Soviet leader ready to stand above all chieftains with a heavy hand; on the other the westerner who would speak rule of law with Georgians. It was being different things, at different times, for different people.

It was about being Soviet and post-Soviet at the same time. Saakashvili controlled the security forces; raided media outlets; controlled anyone making over couple of thousand of dollars; "convinced" anyone with a little bit more wealth in the country to "make a donation", often in the context of a plea bargain agreement, with an explicit "or else"; he used torture in prisons and there were, as some say, even targeted killings of foes. That was the local chieftain Saakashvili, who did what must be done.

There was also the central stage: Saakashvili heroically fought corruption, dismissing the whole police force and building a new corps from scratch. The man who created an easy fire, easy hire environment (for foreign investors). And he tirelessly - some would argue even recklessly - fought Russia; not to win against Russia, but to be seen fighting. In many respects, President Saakashvili often fought a good duel against President Putin. The President of a small "post-Soviet" or "Near Abroad" state dared to call Putin a liar, "Liliputin"; and Putin obliged him by threatening to "hung him by the balls." Each supported the other's act.

For those following Georgia closely, it looked like a surrealistic place where Jonathan Swift's and George Orwell's fantasies intersected and when these two are taken together the tears trump that laughter. Nonetheless, too many people had endorsed the President to change their tune.

Not appearing to fail is the main secret of what might be called the Stanislavski School of Governance. Saakashvili did not lose the war with Russia in 2008; he defended the West! He did not lose the elections of 2012; he graciously conceded defeat! He did not run away from the rage of the people he had tortured; he was in "self-imposed" exile! He believed in rule of law, that is, for the rest of us. If it is a matter of perception, Saakashvili will perform; if he fails, make no mistake, it is Odessa that will have failed. A leader who is not prepared to assume the responsibility of his failures is dangerous, because he is ultimately reckless.

Times have changed. Ukraine in 2015 is not the Georgia of the early 2000s.W hat happens on the ground matters more and is contested more. Russia's economic crisis, a Russian speaking population, an ongoing civil war, a provocative Saakashvili few kilometers from Tiraspol and Crimea, could catalyze conflict. This is no place for bravado politics. It pains me even to make these observations as I'm not trying to score points against Saakashvili. My true concern is over Ukraine's future as it also has implications for Georgia's independence as well as Moldova's.

Unfortunately, westerners and even strategic partners, like Ukraine, continue to believe in Saakashvili. Washington warns us against prosecuting those charged with criminal offenses while in office under Saakashvili. European Christian Democrats continue to lionize him as a precursor of post-Soviet democracy. And now the worst insult of all, leading Kiev politicians appointed a person who is afraid to come home to face criminal charges--as the governor of an important region, with a large concentration of Russian speakers.

Georgia will survive Saakashvili's latest maneuver. But will Ukraine be as lucky?  Does it intend to outfit Saakashvili with a rubber stamp legislature, as he enjoyed in Georgia? Will he be authorized to conduct raids on opposition headquarters or take over opposition television and radio stations, as was his method of suppressing dissent in Georgia? Will they accept his use of imprisonment, torture, confiscation of private property and even murder to build the sort of authoritarian state he constructed in Georgia?  And above all, does Ukraine wish a region with a large Russian-speaking minority to be governed by a person who had so often expressed his hatred for President Putin and the Russian Federation?

If Saakashvili has really given up his Georgian citizenship, we in Tbilisi may even have reason to celebrate this sad mistake, but whether Ukrainians will is another matter.
 
#12
Analysts blame Kiev for flare-up of hostilities along disengagement line in Ukraine
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. Hostilities flared up along the line of disengagement in Ukraine's Donetsk Region earlier this week. The conflicting parties blame each other for the renewed fire exchanges. The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic has dismissed the rumors it had launched a massive offensive against the positions of the Ukrainian military. Kiev has accused Russia of disrupting the Minsk Accords and demanded putting pressures on the militias.

Over the less than four months since the conclusion of a second truce in Minsk combat operations in Donbas have not stopped altogether for a single day, but the hostilities that erupted late at night on Tuesday were so strong that many analysts started wondering if it was a temporary aggravation or evidence a full-scale war is underway again.

The leading research fellow of the Social Sciences Institute at the presidential academy RANEPA, Sergey Bespalov, believes that Kiev is hardly interested in a resumption of large-scale combat operations, but at the same time it would like to make the militias and Russia, allegedly present behind all of their actions, look as the ones responsible for the current aggravation. By doing so it pursues very certain aims.

"Foreign sponsors have to be addressed with a reminder from time to time that Ukraine is a warring country and deserves continued assistance," Bespalov told TASS. "It is very desirable to draw the attention of G7 summit participants and to make Ukraine a key theme. Besides, the European Union will soon be considering the question whether to prolong the sanctions against Russia. Kiev would like to rule out a situation where the question of easing or lifting sanctions might be raised."

"The main reason behind the aggravation is Kiev's refusal to comply with the Minsk Accords," the director of the CIS Countries Institute, Konstantin Zatulin, told TASS. "Kiev is responsible for it first and foremost. Also, one should remember that in this situation provocations have become more frequent. Who was the first to attack is a very practical question, but the outcome could have been different. Nothing of the sort could have happened without a decision by the Ukrainian leadership. Surely it was not a spontaneous improvisation," he said.

Zatulin sees no reasons for linking the current events with the international context.

"In the existing situation it could have happened any moment. The authorities in Kiev are balancing on the brink of a civil war in order to maintain hysteria in society and to quash any manifestations of social protest."

"The current clashes are unlikely to result in a major war. Everything will be over before long," an expert at the Centre of Political Technologies, Georgy Chizhov, told TASS.
 
 #13
Sputnik
June 5, 2015
Right Sector vs. Gays: Leader Pledges to Defend Ukraine From LGBT Invasion

The Right Sector nationalist group has found a new enemy to cross swords with - a looming LGBT pride march in Kiev. The leader turned the tables on Europe for the moral decay of the Ukrainian nation.

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh lashed out at the so called "March of Equality" of LGBT representatives slated for June 6 in Kiev, scolding the inculcation of "sex perversions" instilled into the Ukrainian society by Europe.

Yarosh pointed out that LGBT members picked the right moment to undermine the moral pillars of Ukraine, when the military conflict in Donbass has erupted yet again and society has had to stay as united as ever.

"The LGBT are building up their activities. Even now, when the fighting in the East has intensified, they plan a series of measures including their "mini gay parade" - "March of Equality". It's not just an activity aimed at moral decay of the Ukrainian people, but also a spit on the graves of those who died fighting for Ukraine, and on the living defenders of the Homeland, too," Yarosh wrote on his Facebook page.

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing and Gay Dictatorship         

The Right Sector leader blamed LGBTs for having a deceitful and insidious nature:

"They position themselves as defenders of "innocent victims" who suffer from "homophobia". But in deed and not in name, they practice a very aggressive ideology that does not tolerate dissent."

The hard-boiled nationalist anticipated that cunning LGBT members would try to lobby "severe, totalitarian laws" in Ukraine and suggested that his Facebook post would be punishable.

Yarosh Accuses Europe of Stirring Up LGBT Ideology to Grab Power in Ukraine

The leader of the Right Sector, one of the most active participants of the Euromaidan last year, suddenly blasted Europe for inciting LGBT sentiments in Ukraine. According to him, "the West exerts serious pressure on the current Kiev power to force it to inculcate the LGBT ideology more actively. Let's think now, does Ukraine need such Eurointegration, when someone gives their law to us?"  Yarosh charged France and Germany with supporting Ukraine's enemies. "We are fighting for our freedom not to get someone abroad to rule us," he said.
Yarosh concluded that Ukraine should seek a union with Poland, Romania and the Baltic States.

"A slavish idolatry before the colossus with feet of clay - the EU as a whole - won't give us anything good."

Right Sector's New Holy War

Dmytro Yarosh pledged to fight away the gay invasion of Ukraine.

"We have enough work to do, but the actualities make us pay our attention to this evil", and "impede the plans of the haters of the Homeland, morality and traditional views of humans."

On May 4 Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko called on the organizers of the "March of Equality" to abstain from conducting the event.
According to Gordon.ua, Right Sector fighters in Kiev earlier promised to make every effort to "prevent that obscene orgy."

Ukraine's General Staff reacted to the controversial march, too. Enlistment officers may visit the march and hand in draft notices to the activists, UNN reported.

The Right Sector is an extremist union of Ukrainian nationalists who are infamous for numerous atrocities, including the Odessa massacre on May 2, 2014, in which 48 people were killed.
 
 #14
Russia Without BS
http://nobsrussia.com
June 5, 2015
Curriculum Vitae
By Jim Kovpak
I'm an American living in Moscow. I first visited Russia in 1999, then moved back in 2006. I've been in here since then. My interest in Russia and the Soviet Union goes back to early childhood. I have been studying Russian, Soviet, and Eastern European history, among many other historical subjects, for roughly 15 years. I have been published in The Moscow Times, Open Democracy, RUSSIA! and invited as a guest on Sky News. I also have a Youtube channel and I host the Russian Tuesday podcast.
[Links here http://nobsrussia.com/2015/06/05/curriculum-vitae/]

After one of the most idiotic "dialogues" I've ever had with an OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) apologist, I think it's time for a quick summary to lay my cards on the table, so-to-speak.

One feature of the Ukrainian crisis, going all the way back to the first Maidan riots, was the sudden explosion of insta-experts in regards to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (which would become the militant wing of the OUN-B organization after a hostile takeover by the latter), and figures such as Stepan Bandera. Many of those people clearly never heard those terms before Maidan, and can say little about them beyond the fact that they were "Nazis." As such, many pro-Ukrainian people, often out of ignorance or simplistic, binary thinking, have a tendency to assume that anyone who condemns these organizations or their rehabilitation must be a pro-Kremlin dupe who learned everything they know about Ukrainian nationalism from Russian media in late 2013.

I cannot speak for others but let me point something out about myself. I first started reading about Stepan Bandera, the OUN, and the UPA, when I was 19, i.e. over a decade ago. I will not pretend that my reading in those days equates to scholarly study, but on the other hand in my foolish younger years I held a very right-wing world view and my die-hard anti-Communist beliefs at that age gave me a sympathetic view towards unsung "heroes" against "Bolshevism." The literature I was reading was also written either by people in touch with the Ukrainian emigre community or those highly sympathetic to it, to the point of what I'd later find out to be open political bias.

What is more, around that age and for several years after, I devoted a great deal of time and energy to the study of obscure nationalist and pro-Axis organizations and military units in the interwar period and during WWII, particularly those from Eastern Europe. This involved a great deal of scrutiny toward movements in the Soviet Union, specifically those involving Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. Again, while I wasn't exactly publishing my own peer-reviewed texts on the subject, I spent a great deal of the little money I got from my $9-an-hour job on a number of rare books covering these subjects (either out of print tomes like David Littlejohn's Foreign Legions of the Third Reich or books from Axis-Europa Publishing), and I to a considerable extent I tracked down and read a number of primary sources on the topic of Axis collaborationist organizations and their military detachments. Over the years I stopped studying that topic for a number of reasons, one of them being the often apologetic tone one finds in works about the Axis on the "Eastern Front." As such, I may be rusty these days, but I'm quite confident that my knowledge about Axis collaborators and fascist movements of the interwar and WWII period is head and shoulders above your average student of history. I can, and if necessary will, bury an opponent under an avalanche of obscure acronyms, unit designations, and historical figures if anyone doubts my background in these topics.

This isn't simple boasting or a claim to authority. I am merely trying to point out that not only did I just learn the terms OUN, UPA, or Bandera in late 2013, but I also have had no need to turn to Russian sources, particularly post-Soviet Russian sources, when it comes the Ukrainian nationalist movement. I have read one supposedly scholarly piece on the topic in Russian, which cited secrete NKVD documents. The main thrust of these documents, however, was only the topic of UPA fighters who worked for the NKVD to hunt down their former comrades. Beyond this, all my info on the OUN and UPA comes from a variety of non-Russian scholars, many of them from Western countries and who demonstrate a far greater concern for objective research compared to their counterparts in Ukraine or Russia. I do not rely on Russian sources because I simply have no need to.

Obviously because the topic of the OUN and UPA has once again come to the foreground, I have had to "hit the books" so to speak, and so now I've been reading up on the works of David Marples, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Per Anders Rudling, John Paul Himka, and the classic Cold War-era work on Ukrainian nationalism, aptly titled Ukrainian Nationalism, by John Armstrong. Anyone suggesting that these scholars were or are agents of the Kremlin is either totally ignorant about the field of Ukrainian/Holocaust studies outside of Ukraine and the emigre community, or they are a political fanatic who shares the same conspiratorial worldview as Holocaust deniers, Russian imperialists, and so on. If you want to see a good example of how hysterical Bandera cultists can be, check out the one-star review for Rossolinski-Liebe's scholarly biography of Stepan Bandera. Incidentally I've been reading that book since early May and anyone trying to claim it is propaganda or some kind of hit-piece has clearly never bothered to read the book and examine its wealth of sources.

In the bizarre fantasy world of OUN fans and Bandera cultists, the entire globe was seamlessly controlled by the NKVD, KGB, and now the FSB. The Polish 2nd Republic, which documented the ideology and practices of the OUN in the interwar period, was apparently controlled by the NKVD. The NKVD fabricated the entire Senyk archive, given to Poland by Czechoslovakia for use in the Warsaw and Lviv trials against Bandera and the OUN in 1935 and 1936. All those trial records, in which defendants were routinely recorded giving fascist salutes while using the slogans "Glory to Ukraine!", "Glory to the heroes!", were fabricated by the NKVD too. But we're nowhere near the bottom of the rabbit hole just yet.

Of course the NKVD easily managed to destroy any and all German records of the fierce, epic battles between Axis and Wehrmacht forces in Western Ukraine and the UPA after 1941. Then they managed to somehow fabricate the lie that the organization was legalized by the Germans and continued collaboration with them in 1943. All those Polish and Jewish eyewitnesses who testified to the crimes of the OUN or its supporters during that time? Liars! Most likely paid by the NKVD, then later KGB, and if any are alive today surely the Kremlin has them on the payroll! Oh yeah, the American CIA, which has a large amount of internal correspondence on Bandera and other UPA figures and their wartime activities, was also controlled by the KGB in the 1950's.

Oh and that ethnic cleansing against Poles in Volyn of 1943? Well that doesn't count as genocide because some of the Poles managed to form small self-defense units against the UPA. At least this is what fraud UPA "scholar" Volodymyr V'iatrovych" has tried to claim, among many other false narratives. And speaking of UPA scholars, please pay no attention to the common appearance of flat-out Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites in their ranks! If you point them out, you're just a shill of the Kremlin! Enjoying your blood rubles, are you?

So in conclusion, if you ever read anything about the OUN or UPA which points to their atrocities or in any way fails to present it as a liberal democratic movement for the liberation of Ukraine which fought against Hitler and Stalin equally, you can be sure that material was obviously written by a paid-Kremlin hack, based on sources forged by the NKVD and KGB. David Marples? Kremlin agent! Timothy Snyder? Obvious Communist and Kremlin agent! Can't you see it's a worldwide conspiracy, run by Russia, against Ukraine?! They control everything!

If you think that's just hyperbole, you obviously haven't dealt with these people the way I have. That's really just a condensed version of years of interaction with these fanatics. What gets me is that Russians will almost always get called out on their revisionist bullshit, including the rare occasions when they are actually right (albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons). On the other hand, so many pro-Ukrainian journalists and activists have failed to apply the same defense of critical thinking when it comes to their side.

I cannot speak for their motives, though I have my suspicions. I think most of the time it is a simple matter of not attributing to malice that which, in this case, can easily be attributed to ignorance. Few individuals,however educated, have any substantial knowledge of Ukraine, let alone the UPA and OUN. What is more, even fewer people have real intimate knowledge of far right movements or the techniques of Holocaust denial. Pretty much every technique or counter-argument I've seen from Bandera fanatics I've seen used by Holocaust deniers or supporters of other European wartime fascist movements: "Those documents were forged! That's Communist propaganda! The Communists did that and blamed it on us! What about the crimes of the Communists?! ad infinitum." Anyone well versed in the world of Holocaust denial will quickly see Bandera apologetics for what they are, but sadly that list of people most likely doesn't include many journalists or Russia experts these days.

I think I have made it clear dozens of times that I support Ukraine as a nation and its territorial integrity, without reservation. Unfortunately there are many people inside and outside of Ukraine who believe that doing so, indeed simply being Ukrainian, requires one to make obeisance to the cult of Bandera, the OUN, and the UPA. These people want to join a political ideology to the Ukrainian identity itself, which I must say in many ways is even worse than Russia's state-sponsored ideology. Here a variety of conflicting historical narratives and worldviews are basically tolerated so long as they don't challenge the power structure. If Ukraine fails to win its struggle for true independence and freedom, it will be because of these backward reactionaries with their minds stuck in the past who insist that Ukraine and its history belong to them.

Is the condemnation of the OUN, UPA, and the Bandera cult truly anti-Ukrainian? Nonsense- those organizations and their leaders actually killed far more Ukrainian and Polish civilians than German occupiers or NKVD troops. They never garnered the the support of anything more than a tiny fraction of Ukrainians, even in area where they were most active. By opposing the OUN and its associated figures I am doing nothing more anti-Ukrainian than did the vast majority of Ukrainians throughout history. The very fact that successive Ukrainian governments and the emigre movement have only been able to popularize the OUN and UPA via vast falsification of history, re-branding the organization and its ideology, weaving conspiracy theories about a world controlled by the Kremlin, and using the war as an opportunity to legislate their ideology on the country as a whole stands as damning testimony against the idea that Ukrainian identity must be linked to this vile organization that should have been chucked in the dustbin of history long before any discussion of Soviet symbols took place. If this organization and its heirs had any just claim to Ukraine, their massive propaganda efforts and legislative fiat would never have been necessary.

Honestly I think that the only solution to this problem is for more Ukrainian-sympathetic Westerners and foreigners to educate themselves on these topics so they can stand up to the rehabilitation of this movement. History isn't exactly a hard science but it does share some key features. If we reject evolution in favor of creationism, we have no logical reason for trusting traditional science when it comes to computers or aircraft.  In a similar vein, if we accept this revision of history, then we have no ground to stand on to condemn Russia's own historical revisionism.  We would have to accept the denialist claims of any number of academic cranks from Eastern Europe, peddling apologetics for the Croatian Ustase, the Slovak People's Party, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, and so on. Hell, we might as well start accepting apologetics for Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at that point. Once you say we're going to stop applying the laws of critical thinking in this one case, it's unlikely that you're going to find a sound argument for applying them again on another topic. At that point you might as well admit to either severe laziness or a concrete agenda.

What is more, foreigners and other Ukrainian well-wishers need to call each other out when they see people justifying myth-making, actually let's just call it what it is- Holocaust denial, in Ukraine. No, it will not "build cohesion"; it divides society. It does not aid Ukraine's struggle against Russia; it has done nothing but play perfectly into the Kremlin's hands for years. Ukraine's new laws do not ban "totalitarian" ideologies and symbols; they make a false equivalence between Communism and a particular form of fascist ideology, while totally letting another fascist ideology off the hook and even suppressing any support of real history on this topic.These kinds of excuses need to be nailed down whenever they crop up.

Lastly, I have over the years come to realize that there are two ways I can look at these situations. As a person of Ukrainian heritage and as an American. As the latter, I am saddened to see how our nation's history has been dominated by the losers of our Civil War. A ruthless tyranny ruled by slave owners was re-branded as a unique "culture," the loss of which we are supposed to lament. We are taught to divorce slavery from that society, to the point that many Americans not only cannot articulate the causes of the American Civil War, but in fact many educated and seemingly liberal or "progressive" people repeat the lie that it was not about slavery. Our first black president, against the advice of scholar James M. MacPherson, laid a memorial wreath at a monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers in 2009. I dare say that in many ways, the "Lost Cause" dominates the victorious, just cause in American history. While it is obviously not the sole cause, this neo-Confederate and essentially white supremacist historical narrative plays a key role in underpinning systemic racism in America today. In a sense, the United States seems as if it lost its Civil War.

Today I see the red and black flag of the OUN in Ukraine as the equivalent of the Confederate battle flag in the US, and the rehabilitation of figures like Bandera or Shukhevych is akin to the laudatory praise lavished on Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest. Just as American whites have been convinced by Hollywood and revisionist propaganda to identify with the South in spite of the fact that the majority of whites obviously fought for the morally right, Union side, Ukrainians are being taught that they should identify with a fascist movement that never had anything close to popular support among Ukrainians, who overwhelmingly supported the allied cause and aided in the destruction of fascism.

If Ukraine has losers for heroes, it will lose. It is as simple as that. We Westerners are doing the country no favors by excusing actions that we routinely condemn when they take place in Russia. As I have said dozens of times before- either Ukraine actually stands for progressive, free, and democratic values, or it can basically remain a poor, Little Russia. Westerners and advocates of "European values" (not my term) need to stop letting the Ukrainian government have its cake and eat it too, by proclaiming commitment to freedom and democracy while engaging in the same kind of myth making and censorship so commonly associated with Moscow.
 
 
#15
Kyiv Post
June 5, 2015
Poroshenko: Ukraine will retake Crimea, strengthen its border with Russia
by Olena Goncharova

Unlike the June 4 state of the nation address, Petro Poroshenko put Crimea front and center at his third news conference as president today on June 5.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv outdoors during a breezy, sunny afternoon - ex-President Viktor Yushchenko was last president to venture outside to speak to journalists in 2009 - he said Ukraine will maintain diplomatic pressure to keep sanctions imposed on Russia.

Crimea is a "key priority" and making it a part of Ukraine is an "unbelievably difficult task," he said, explaining its importance and why he didn't want to "briefly" mention the peninsula during the state of the nation speech.

"We will do everything to return Crimea to Ukraine," Poroshenko said.

He stressed that the country will continue working with international allies to maintain sanctions on Russia for taking over the peninsula in March 2014. "It is important not to give Russia a chance to break the world's pro-Ukrainian coalition," Poroshenko said.

Repeating what he told parliament the previous day, Poroshenko outlined his goal of distributing administrative powers and functions to regional and local governments, the priority of removing prosecutorial immunity from judges and lawmakers, and having open party lists during elections.

Scheduled for Oct. 25, the local elections would be another test for Ukraine's democracy. They should stabilize the situation in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, he added. The easternmost region, known as Donbas, will remain a part of Ukraine, he said.

Poroshenko also warned that the number Russian troops positioned in Ukraine and near the country's border is the highest since August 2014, when one of the bloodiest battles for the strategic city of Ilovaisk took place.

Ukraine's army was defeated while advancing on the Donetsk Oblast city last summer when thousands of Russian troops, backed by advanced armor and artillery, joined the battle, leading to the first peace agreement in September. Although the Defense Ministry said 108 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, a Newsweek report on the battle stated "hundreds" had died.

Russia started another military offensive two days ago with an assault on the western Donetsk suburb of Maryinka. At least four Ukrainian servicemen were killed in the battle. Poroshenko cited the attack -complete with Russians using banned tanks, artillery and multiple-rocket launch systems, as additional evidence that Russia is violating the second peace deal brokered in February.

The president said he would do everything possible to accelerate the process of deploying peacekeepers to Donbas.

"A United Nations support office will be opened in Ukraine and their first task will be to study the possibility of deploying peacekeepers," Poroshenko said.

He also addressed his critics.

He continues to own the Roshen confectionary factory, his largest asset, and a number of other companies in violation of Ukraine's constitution. Poroshenko said he will transfer his share in Roshen to a trust with Rothschild, a private financial advisory group.

He hired Rothschild to search for potential buyers as well, and the group conducting legal and financial due diligence on his assets. There are obstacles to selling his assets in Russia as the country seized the property of his confectionary factory in Lipetsk.

Poroshenko also promised to monitor an ambitious construction project started in early September that aims to tighten security along the Russian border, which stretches along 2,295 kilometers.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said defensive structures will include ditches, test-track lanes, vehicle-barrier trenches and optical surveillance towers to detect troop and vehicle movement from the Russian side.

The results so far of the construction weren't "satisfactory," according to Poroshenko. However, he said that the project was revised and the problems have been taken into account.
 
 #16
Russia Insider/Odnoko
June 4, 2015
It's Just a Question of Time Before War Resumes in Ukraine
But this time around it is likely to engulf the whole country
By Rostislav Ishchenko

The text below is an excerpt from a longer essay from Rostislav Ishchenko, a prominent Russian commentator.

This article originally appeared at the Russian website Odnako. It was translated by Eugenia at The Vineyard of the Saker.

The civil war in Ukraine is taking on several forms, and it is only a matter of time before it intensifies. Ukraine is not able to escape this fatal funnel by itself. The Nazis will not let the government reach a compromise with Novorossia. Novorossia will not live quietly with the Nazi government. There are no resources to alleviate the social problems. The Ukrainian leadership is inadequate and poorly understands what in reality is happening in the leftovers of the Ukrainian economy or who and how determines the country's politics.

An attempt to resolve the conflict internally would, because of a relative balance between the opposing sides, lead to so many casualties that the neighbors would not be able to remain uninvolved, not least because millions of refugees would be pouring over the borders.

In order to avoid the development of the conflict according to the worst scenario, an external power willing to take on the responsibility for disarming the sides of the conflict and for the financial and economical support of Ukraine to restore its economy is required. Presently, there are no volunteers to perform such charity. Taking into account the political situation in Ukraine (split, full of hatred, armed to the teeth society) as well as its economic conditions, the benefactor would run a risk of overstraining himself by carrying the Ukrainian load.

Inadequacy of the Ukrainian elite, its irrational belief in the willingness of the West to solve the Ukrainian problems at the expense of the West put the state in the position when its speedy self-liquidation is the only logical way of development of the the current situation. Conversely, preservation and restoration of the Ukrainian statehood, even within diminished territory, appears less probable or even improbable. To come to pass, this option would require a miracle that would change all the factors now at play. Based on the religious faith in miracles, this may appear possible, but from the position of the political analysis, the probability of it is so low that it should not even be considered.

Impossible to cancel the war

And the last argument, possibly, the most unpleasant for citizens of Ukraine still believing in the possibility of the revival of their country. The country could be saved if at least one of the global players were interested in prolonging its existence. Of course, listening to the diplomats and state leaders, one could easily believe that the whole world dreams of nothing else but of the revival of Ukraine and restoration of its territorial integrity. But as we know, diplomats use the language to hide their thoughts, and the true position of a state is never spoken of openly (otherwise, there would not be any need to maintain the intelligence and counterintelligence agencies). We can only judge the true goals and intentions of a state by its actions.

First, between August and December of 2014 in Donbass an army had been formed to replace the disparate groups of militia. The army well trained and equipped was clearly excessive for the defense of those stubs of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions now controlled by the armed forces of Novorossia. We could, of course, believe that the militiamen found tanks, guns, self-propelled heavy artillery units, multiple rocket launchers, and other nice things in the Donetsk steppe. They had not noticed these things there from April to August and then all of a sudden - rich harvest: everyone who ever gathered mushrooms knows that such a thing can happen.

One could also believe that thousands of instructors (from sergeants to complete regiment headquarters) necessary to create an effective military structure just simply came from different countries following their hearts (which does not happen in this world). It is even possible to believe the weapons were found and that the instructors came not only in the required numbers but also with required specializations. However, spare parts, ammunition and GSM in quantities sufficient for the intense fighting still had to be supplied by someone.

The minimal approximate size of the armed forces of Novorossia is 35 thousands (about three divisions at the time of the Great Patriotic War). To conduct regular military operations (and to support the civil population, at least, at the level of subsistence) the supplies should reach hundreds of tons a day. For comparison: 6th Army of Paulus at Stalingrad at the beginning of the encirclement, according to the calculation of the German command, required 600 tons a day of supplies only to maintain it battle ready. Paulus thought that the minimal requirement was 800 tons. At the moment of encirclement, Paulus commanded up to 240 thousands soldiers (possibly, 30 thousands of Romanians were not counted by the German command).

That is, whatever the patriots-alarmists say, in Novorossia an army has been created in a shortest time clearly excessive for the defense of the controlled territories. Such army could not have been organized without Russia's help. Russia is obviously not inclined to spend money and resource (that are not unlimited) without good and sufficient reason. If an army capable of attacking is being formed, it means it will attack.

Second, if Russia and Russia-friendly media at every corner repeat how trustworthy Poroshenko is and how he would establish the federalized Nazi-free Ukraine at any moment, then, considering the actual situation in Ukraine, where neo-Nazi and his colleague in power regularly accuse Poroshenko of betrayal, it appears that Petr Alekseevich is been led to the slaughter, while Russia is readily furnishing his opponents with the arguments for the coup.

Third, if OSCE, EU, and American satellites all fail to see the Russian soldiers in Ukraine or to observe anything but humanitarian convoys crossing the border (what caused multiple hysterics in Kiev), then this is because they do not want to see. After all, when the Americans or Europeans want to notice something, then they see even thing that are not there, like weapons of mass distraction in Iraq, referendum in Kosovo, or Russian fault in the catastrophe of the Malaysian airplane near Donetsk.

In other words, knowing that the army has been organized in Novorossia much stronger than the one that defeated the Ukrainian army in August, and that this army sooner or later would start an offensive, the EU and US absolutely ignore the opportunity to accuse Russia of arming one side of the conflict. Furthermore, our Western "partners", by deciding to provide Ukraine with military aid (including weapons), offer Moscow an opportune to legalize its own participation in arming Novorossia.

Fourth, the US is pushing Kiev to the escalation of the armed conflict knowing full well that any more or less serious Kiev offensive would be used by Novorossia to inflict yet another catastrophic defeat on the Ukrainian army. Washington also understands that the next catastrophe would be the last - even if the militia lacked the numbers to occupy the whole territory of Ukraine at once, a coup in Kiev and subsequent free for all anarchy on the territories not controlled by the Novorossian militia would become inevitable. In any case, there would not be any Ukraine (united or split).

In other words, everybody is preparing for the war with the full understanding of the outcome of that war. The maneuvers of the actual players in the conflict hiding behind the leaders in Kiev, Donetsk, and Lugansk are aimed at being able to convincingly blame the opponent for the renewal of the fighting, its inevitable escalation and increased gore.

Yes, Moscow and Brussels do not need the war in Ukraine. Yes, it would be desirable to find a peaceful solution. But because Washington is intent on fighting, and Kiev has no choice but to fight, the start of the second phase of the civil war in Ukraine could be postponed, the army of Novorossia could be prepared so that to avoid officially deployment of the Russian army, but the war cannot be canceled.

London and Paris wanted the USSR to battle with Germany in 1939. Stalin wanted to delay the start of the war until at least May of 1942 (by that time the Soviet army was expected to complete the rearmament). The war started in 1941. Obviously, Putin would be happy to postpone the conflict until 2017. By that time there would be a good chance to gain control over Ukraine without the escalation and without more losses. It is equally obvious that the US would have preferred Russia to start fighting in April-May of 2014. It seems that Russia managed to avoid getting directly involved in the conflict but this will have to be paid for by a full-scale (from Lvov to Kharkov and from Kiev to Odessa) civil war in Ukraine in 2015.

The return of the Empire

The last question of possible interest to us: what will happen to Ukraine as a result of the war? Nothing. There will not be any Ukraine. The very fact that with Moscow's help adequate governments structures in DPR and LPR still have not been created indicates that these republics are not needed. Novorossia remains a geographic and historic term but is not becoming a political reality. The army was needed - it had been organized, whereas the government structures are not needed - and they have not emerged. This means that Novorossia is not planned.

The patriots-alarmists then draw the conclusion that Novorossia is being betrayed to Kiev. But if, as we have shown above, Kiev itself is betrayed, and self-liquidation of the regime is simply a question of time and not of principle, and we are talking about a short period of time here, then who would Novorossia be betrayed to?

It will be betrayed to nobody, and nobody will be creating it. What does Russian need a new Ukraine in the guise of Novorossia for? Russia also does not need any "buffer state" between the EAEU and EU. It would only get in a way. Anyhow, Russia has a border with NATO countries (Norway, Estonia, Latvia). Russia needs the entire Ukraine or almost entire Ukraine. It is now obvious not only to Moscow but also to Brussels that this territory is incapable of independent development and is only a source of problems. That is why Novorossia as a federal region (as well as Malorossia) is possible whereas as an independent state (independent states) it is not.

The world does not have any more money for independence, be it Ukrainian, be it Novorossian - it is as simple as that.

It is time for the Empire to return to its natural borders (at the very least, in the south-west).
 
 #17
Moscow Times
June 5, 2015
Russians Hope Worst is Over as Inflation Slows in May

Russian inflation slowed in May for the second month and the price of key foodstuffs began to fall, official data showed, signaling that the worst of a painful inflation spike may have passed.

Consumer prices were 15.8 percent higher in May than in the same month a year earlier, down from the 16.4 percent annual inflation rate in April, according to data published by the Rosstat state statistics agency Thursday. Prices rose by 0.4 percent over the month.

Driven by a rapid devaluation of the ruble that has raised the cost of imports, the annual inflation rate raced from 8.3 percent in October to a 13-year high of 16.8 percent in March, eroding Russians' incomes and spurring a near 10-percent year-on-year contraction in consumer spending in April.

As inflation surged, the Russian economy contracted by 1.9 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period in 2014, according to Rosstat.  

Helping slow inflation in May was a drop-off in food price rises, which have outpaced overall inflation since Moscow last August banned imports of a range of foods from the West in retaliation to sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis. Overall food prices were 20.2 percent higher in May than a year before, but the cost of food rose by only 0.1 percent over the month, and the price of basic products such as eggs, sugar, fruit and vegetables fell in May.

The data appeared to confirm predictions by the Central Bank that inflation would slow sharply after the second quarter and open the door to further cuts in the bank's benchmark interest rate, currently at 12.5 percent.

But Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina on Thursday dampened hopes of a swift interest rate cut, saying the risks to the Russian currency of unstable oil prices and a strengthening dollar were too high.

"Too quick a reduction in rates in these conditions could lead to a new wave of destabilization on the currency market and a spike in inflation," Nabiullina said at a banking conference in St. Petersburg, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The Central Bank has said it expects inflation to fall to 12 percent by the end of 2015, and to 4 percent in the medium term.
 
 #18
Interfax
June 4, 2015
Russia's economy doing well but not out of the woods - Central Bank chief

Russia's economy is doing better than expected but it still faces dangers and "crisis phenomena", the head of the Central Bank said on 4 June, acknowledging the impact of "external factors".

"Current figures for the economy have proven better than economists expected but it is early to say that all the crisis phenomena have passed," Elvira Nabiullina told a banking conference, as reported by Interfax news agency. "The risks have softened but they are the same and we have to be aware of them."

She identified those risks as long-term structural limitations within the economy, which have been joined by "cyclical recessionary factors caused by acute changes in the external environment".

The financial system and balance of payments have adapted to the "new conditions" but that does not apply to the economy as a whole, Nabiullina said. "External factors remain fairly unfavourable. Oil prices have gone up but even if they settle as the current level they will be one-third lower than the average for the past five years," she told the conference. "On top of that, prices for other traditional Russian export products are going down."

It will take time to adapt the economy to the new conditions and restore sustainable growth, and this "will depend on the external environment changing but more than that on the rate of structural reform", she said. The positive scenario would be larger processing and service sectors with higher productivity, while the negative scenario would be the oil price stabilizing and the economy retaining its old structure with low productivity and growth of 1 to 2 per cent.

"Both scenarios are possible," she said, but the Central Bank will use its monetary-policy and regulatory powers to encourage the positive one.
 
 #19
Russia proves it can feed itself - Medvedev

ROSTOV-ON-DON. June 5 (Interfax) - Over the ten months after it introduced the embargo on food from the European Union, Russia has proved that it can feed itself on its own, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

"The past ten months, from the moment the special economic measures were introduced, have shown or proved, if you will, the main thing: Russia is capable of feeding itself," he told the first all-Russian food security forum.

"This is a fact, which today has to be reckoned with even by those who had ideas of their own in other countries, and all our skeptics who thought a country such as Russia would be importing huge amounts of food for a long time yet," Medvedev said.

In addition, this fact will also be reckoned with by those who would like to cooperate with Russia but has been missing out on big opportunities on Russian market because of the sanctions, he said.
 
 #20
www.rt.com
June 4, 2015
Western sanctions have no significant effect on oil production in Russia - Novak to RT

In an exclusive interview with RT, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak talked about the prospects for technology intensive oil production in Russia and the world, and discussed investment in the Russian oil and gas industry.

RT: Despite oil prices going down, the number of tight oil rigs is decreasing at a slower pace than expected. In some cases, the companies were able to cut down production costs and increase production while using fewer rigs. Based on this, experts are drawing the conclusion that the price war in the oil market is only beginning. Do you agree with this assessment and what is your vision of the future in the tight oil production industry?

Alexander Novak: There is no price war. There is a market, there is demand and there is supply. That's what determines the price. We shouldn't forget about market cycles, either. Prices dropped because the large inflow of investment into the industry generated a large number of expensive projects while the prices were still high, and that drove up production to the level to where supply exceeded demand. Tight oil production is a technology intensive process, compared to regular oil. That means that when prices plummet, investment runs low. And this was exactly our expectation. Back in autumn, we projected that it would take 6 to 9 months for this process to gain momentum, and after that investment would start dwindling and tight oil production would go down. If we look at the USA, we see that in May production results showed a decline compared to the previous month's performance for the first time. As for the number of tight oil rigs going down, that's a natural process. I think we can safely say that their number decreased about 2.5 times - from 1,600 down to 600. That certainly means we are looking at an outflow of investment - although, on the other hand, many tight oil producing companies are working actively on increasing their efficiency, bringing down production costs, and finding new ways of tapping the old rigs and implementing new technologies. This stimulates cost optimization, and that's the reason why I think tight oil will be quite competitive on the market next to regular oil. That is especially true since, with time, the share of technology intensive oil production will only grow. If today's volumes can be assessed at about 23%, by the year 2040 we'll be looking at 56%. According to our projections, by 2040 a total of 65 million barrels of tight oil will be produced - that'll be offshore oil, shale oil, bituminous sands oil, deep sea oil.

RT: OPEC has announced that its strategy aimed at ousting shale oil from the oil market has proven effective. Will Russia do anything to affect shale oil production? What means are available to that end?

AN: None of the parties have taken specific measures for that purpose. Essentially, we are all competing in a market where supply exceeds demand. As a result, costly and inefficient projects are becoming obsolete. And shale oil has its own expensive projects, as well as economical ones, with prices ranging between $20 and $100 per barrel. According to our assessment, shale oil ventures must go out of business once the average price drops to some $50-60 per barrel. Right now, we've got a borderline price, which seriously affects the supply and demand ratio and outflow of investment.

RT: Russian companies have also started up some shale oil production projects. Considering today's oil prices, is investment in such projects in Russia justified? What is the price level that would make shale oil production in Russia cost-efficient?

AN: It is true that we encourage tight oil production - we prefer to call it tight oil rather than shale oil. We are talking about oil-bearing strata such as the Bazhenov formation and the Achimovo formation. They have huge oil reserves, but we are saving them for long-term development, for the future. We are working on creating favorable tax conditions. In Russia, production costs are quite low, and the tax burden is quite significant given our legislation. That means that any tax breaks are sure to stimulate production. As of today, all the projects involving Russian companies are still active. Due to the sanctions imposed against the tight oil production industry, a number of overseas partners chose to step out of some projects. However, this has had no significant influence on the production of this type of oil, and our domestic companies keep up their work.

RT: Russia's energy strategy relies on significant growth in production through developing new fields. What are the plans concerning investment in new fields with the price that we have now? Will the level of investment stay the same or should we expect reduced production?

AN: We are adjusting the strategy at the moment, taking into account the current situation on the market and lower prices. It is hard to give any long-term prognosis, but we understand that in the next couple of years the price will stay low, like it is today, or maybe just a little higher. So the strategy has been adjusted, but the price of oil in dollars is not the only factor here. There are also our domestic economic policies, government incentives, and ruble's exchange rate against the dollar. As of now I can tell you that in 2015 we've seen no significant reduction of investment into the oil and gas industry. For us, the lower price was balanced out when the ruble dropped against the dollar. So we have to consider all these factors.

RT: You've talked about the possibility of building a gas pipeline in India. What is Russia's potential on the Indian energy market?

AN: There's a lot of potential. At the moment India consumes very little gas, but its large population needs modern energy consumption services. In my view, India will grow faster than any other country in the world economically as well as in terms of energy consumption. Therefore there's a large potential for both pipeline gas supply and LNG gas supply.

RT: Do these closer relations with India and China indicate that Russia has a new energy doctrine?

AN: This doctrine is not really new, because the Russian president and the head of the government set the objective a long time ago. They tasked us with initiating and developing trade and economic relations with Asia Pacific countries. Energy is one of the components here, and we have been working on a number of such projects with China and India for a few years now. Our intergovernmental commissions have designated working groups. There are many projects in oil and gas, the coal industry, and electrical energy. So I think we consider these countries big markets with great potential, so we need to work together with our partners. These countries are interested in a safe and stable energy supply, in doing joint projects, and we are interested in developing our eastern regions, that can work with our neighbors, develop natural resources, contribute taxes, and create jobs exporting energy as well as technology to Asia Pacific.

RT: Countries that are not OPEC members are starting to play a major role. Where do you see that?

AN: Let me give you an example. Countries that did not produce their own resources before and had to buy energy could not influence the market, because the exporters were the ones initiating and controlling all market activity. But now, with new technologies, more countries are producing energy, reducing imports and demand. We can see this in the US, where in the last few years oil production grew from 4 million barrels a day to 8 million barrels a day. This is a big jump, which reduced their import demand significantly. So they produce more, they can cover more of their needs, and this way they are influencing international markets, because there is now extra oil, the amount that used to go to this importing country. So when some countries suggest that we reduce our oil production together, it means that this is not a long-term solution, which will not benefit the oil and gas market in any way. Prices will go up, so the importing countries will be able to increase their domestic production, which will only hurt the market further, upsetting the supply and demand balance. So the best scenario in this situation is going with the market, when the price is based on the supply and demand balance, and reflects the real situation with investment that would be beneficial at this price. And this is exactly how the oil market is developing at the moment.
 
 #21
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
June 5, 2015
Artistic expression under threat as conservative tide grows in Russia
Russia is witnessing a worrying increase in attacks on avant-garde art. A series of recent bans on dramas and plays and several cases of state interference after complaints from members of the Orthodox Church indicate that the country is in danger of slipping into another era of artistic censorship.
Marina Shimadina, special to RBTH

Earlier this year, Russia was shaken by an event the like of which it had never seen before - the director of an opera was taken to court by an Orthodox cleric.

Timofei Kulyabin, whose version of Wagner's opera Tannhauser was being staged at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, was accused by Metropolitan Tikhon, the head of the Orthodox Church in the region, of "improper use of religious symbols" and offending the rights of believers.

Kulyabin had adapted the plot of opera Tannhauser to the modern era, making the knight Tannhauser a film director shooting a film about Christ in Venus's grotto. The court acquitted Kulyabin, but nevertheless, the Ministry of Culture decided to dismiss theater producer Boris Mezdrich, despite protests from prominent Russian cultural figures.

The Tannhauser case is a worrying example of the increasing degree to which the state and the religious community are now interfering in the cultural sphere in Russia, often using legislation passed in the wake of the Pussy Riot scandal of 2012, in which three members of the controversial feminist punk group performed a song protesting about the complicity of church and state in modern Russia in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. Following the incident, for which Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were sentenced to two years in prison for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," a law was passed making it a criminal offense to publicly insult the feelings of religious believers.

In the days of the USSR, government propaganda was clear in defining the borders of what was permissible. Productions of Soviet dramas and Russian classics were welcome, and the only "correct" approach was the Stanislavsky method. Dissident theaters were closed and some directors, such as Vsevolod Meyerhold, were shot.

Even during Khrushchev's "thaw" the productions from the famous Taganka Theater were banned, while director Yuri Lyubimov was labeled as "anti-Soviet" and deprived of citizenship. During the perestroika era a wave of freedom flooded Russia: Foreign theaters embarked on tours of the country, while directors started staging western literature and contemporary dramas, modernizing the theatrical language.

Recently, it seems that conservative political moods have been trying to return the country to the times of stagnation. State cultural institutions are being formed in accordance with the new official ideology. And even though the Russian Constitution forbids censorship, in practice the situation is completely different.
 
The theater that will not drown

A vivid example of political pressure is the persecution of Moscow's independent Teatr.doc. The theater has staged a number of provocative plays: one on lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after exposing a huge fraud case involving Russian officials, and a satirical work by Dario Fo, BerlusPutin.

At the end of last year the theater was evicted from its tiny basement. Letters of support, including one from British playwright Tom Stoppard, did not help. But the theater did not give up: It found new premises and came out with the play The Bolotnaya Affair, about the ever-expanding case against demonstrators arrested after public unrest in Moscow in 2012. The premiere again attracted the attention of the police and the authorities ordered a series of inspections.

The authorities have also been paying attention to the Gogol Center, headed by well-known director Kirill Serebrennikov. Law enforcement agencies examined his production of Zakhar Prilepin's Otmorozki, a work about young revolutionary groups, for elements of extremism. Later the government prohibited the screening of a British documentary film on Pussy Riot.

Watch out, religion!

In the atheistic USSR books, films and plays on religious themes were banned. Andrei Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev remained "on the shelf" for over 20 years. In contemporary Russia the situation has made a 180-degree U-turn: For "offending religious sentiment" the artist can now even be punished with a jail term.

"Russia's status as a secular country is determined by the constitution," said Andrei Zvyagintsev, director of Russian Oscar nominee Leviathan. "In Russia the church is separated from the state and cannot interfere in affairs that are not related to its immediate responsibility before the people."

The Tannhauser affair of early 2015 generated an epidemic of religious protests. In Izhevsk a clergyman was outraged by the grotesque characterization of a pope in the production of Pushkin's Blizzard and filed a complaint with the municipal administration. In Moscow, Orthodox activists attacked Konstantin Bogomolov's production of The Ideal Husband at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater by leaving a pig's head at the door of the theater.
 
Fascist tendencies

Recently, in Moscow a one-day exhibition called The Lower Depths was organized containing provocative photographs from various productions of Gorky's play of the same name. The exhibition was created to discredit contemporary theater and in particular to focus the audience's attention on the production costs.

Commenting on the exhibition, Kirill Serebrennikov described it as "an act of China's Red Guards," a reference to the paramilitary organization responsible for enforcing China's Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedung. "Textually it is similar to the Degenerative Art Exhibition organized in Nazi Germany. It has the same semantics: an exhibition of shame. They use the same measure of systematic discredit that Fascist Germany did: first a massacring article in the press, then visual agitation - posters, signs reading "Jewish propaganda" in the theaters and universities, the Degenerative Art Exhibition, and later there will be camps, shootings...

"It's the same here: an article, a report on TV, an exhibition... They don't understand that they are compromising themselves, that they are acting in the same way as those who they incriminated at Nuremburg."
 
 #22
Moscow Times
June 5, 2015
Rare Russian Bastion of Independent Media Suffers Identity Crisis
By Ivan NechepurenkoJ

As several top commentators publicly severed ties with Ekho Moskvy, experts speculated that the editorial policies of Russia's leading independent radio station have shifted to accommodate a changing society, not to do the Kremlin's bidding.

A number of prominent opposition-minded analysts, economists and literary figures have announced in recent days that they will no longer allow their work to be published on Ekho Moskvy's website, citing their indignation with a series of increasingly incendiary blog posts by chief editor Alexei Venediktov's personal assistant Lesya Ryabtseva, who is as unfledged as she is outspoken.

Over the past few months, 23-year-old aspiring journalist Ryabtseva has made a name for herself by pushing the envelope, often by liberally heaping crass criticism on respected figures that have generally enjoyed a great deal of deference, particularly within the confines of Ekho Moskvy and other sources liberal media.

But youthfully hyperbolic though Ryabtseva's posts on Ekho Moskvy's blogs may have been, they have proven popular by new media standards, attracting hundreds of thousands of clicks, and provoking heated debate across Russia's most popular social networks.

In her most recent post, Ryabtseva set her sights on former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov - decrying his "cowardice." His crime: canceling a scheduled interview with Ekho Moskvy upon learning it would be conducted by the 20-something assistant.

Kasyanov served as prime minster under President Vladimir Putin between 2000 and 2004, but has since become a vocal Kremlin critic.

"If you, politician, are pissing your pants at the prospect of not being able to choose which journalists [will interview you], you're essentially admitting that [journalists] are better than you," Ryabtseva wrote Wednesday of Kasyanov's refusal.

"If you, politician, are pissing your pants at the prospect of uncomfortable questions and abrupt answers ... you certainly should not remain in politics," she wrote. Throughout the post, she referred to Kasyanov using the familiar form of "you," a practice generally reserved for children and close relations. In addressing politicians, the formal use of "you" is generally preferred.

Citing the latter excerpt from Ryabtseva's recent post, Boris Akunin - one of Russia's most revered contemporary novelists, and a popular political blogger - announced he would no longer allow Ekho Moskvy to publish his writings.

"This [excerpt] means that Ekho is not for someone like me. I understand there should be a 'wide spectrum of opinion,' but this [excerpt] has no relation to opinions. It is simply revolting," Akunin wrote in a statement published to his Facebook account.

Ekho Moskvy's website strives to aggregate the most insightful, trending posts produced by Russian-language bloggers. Being one of the most popular media websites in Russia, this platform offers bloggers the opportunity to multiply their readerships.

But despite the benefits that come with heightened visibility, such prominent commentators as economist Konstantin Sonin, opposition blogger Andrei Malgin and media expert Oleg Kozyrev followed Akunin's lead, refusing to allow their works to be published by Ekho Moskvy going forward.

These departures are not unprecedented.

In an earlier post, Ryabtseva referred to the members of Russia's political opposition as a group of "merciless - and at the same time spineless - jerks who lie to themselves."

In another, she griped: "At work we are surrounded by morons, who neither know nor understand anything."

Interpreting these rants as personal attacks directed at him, Ekho Moskvy's founding editor Sergei Korzun announced his own resignation from the station in May, citing what he described as its deterioration of journalistic standards.

Speaking with The Moscow Times on Thursday, Kozyrev speculated that perhaps Venediktov has not been crying himself to sleep at night over the slew of recent resignations and severed ties. Rather, it may all be part of an elaborate PR campaign, Kozyrev suggested.

"I think he may be doing all this in a bid to bolster Ekho Moskvy's popularity," Kozyrev said in a phone interview.

Still, he expressed doubts about the likelihood of success in this scenario. "I don't understand how you can increase your readership by attacking your core audience," he said.

In the eyes of Vasily Gatov, visiting fellow at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the terse diplomatic standoff with the West that followed, the views of Russian society on a whole have shifted, and Ekho Moskvy is simply ambling to adapt to these changes.

"It is possible that the power of the 86 percent [President Vladimir Putin's latest approval rating, according to a recent Levada Center poll] has become too strong to ignore, so Ekho Moskvy is endeavoring to adapt to the new situation, and to move more toward the mainstream," he told The Moscow Times.

"On the other hand, in the absence of fresh, new ideas [owing to a brain drain and a lack of competition] these efforts to adapt to the majority are playing out in a very odd manner," he said.

In an apparent bid to assuage the increasingly wary public, Venediktov apologized to "our readers and website visitors who may have felt hurt by the blog posts."

"I urge [everyone] to remember that sometimes tone can override subject matter," he said in a blog post of his own on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Ryabtseva does not seem to be cowering in a fit of remorse. During an interview last week, a journalist with Snob magazine told Ryabtseva that her blog posts were "ignorant trash devoid of any meaning." The 23-year-old brushed off the jab, assuring her interviewer that "everybody reads [her blog posts] anyway."

Ekho Moskvy has long been championed as the last bastion of the free and impartial press in Russia. In his 2008 profile of the station, David Remnick, editor-in-chief of The New Yorker magazine, said it was his primary source of Russian news and analysis. And fans have often lauded the station for its capacity to highlight the true zeitgeist of modern Russia.

It has earned its share of powerful enemies along the way. Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Russia's predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya, referred to Ekho Moskvy in January as "the mouthpiece of anti-Islam" and threatened to "call Venediktov into account."

But it has likewise made some powerful friends. Over the years, Venediktov has developed a personal relationship with Putin, enjoying privileged access to Russia's most powerful man.

Nevertheless, Venediktov has long maintained that the only reason he enjoys the luxury of freedom is because the radio station has turned a profit for its main stakeholder, state-run gas giant Gazprom.

Despite the imperative of profits, speaking with The New Yorker back in 2008, Venediktov expressed the goal of not being subsumed by the mainstream.

"We are a radio of influence, rather than a mass radio station," Venediktov told Remnick at the time. "If you want to be a mass station, a crowd-pleaser, then we should probably be paying more attention to the life of Paris Hilton. But if we did that then those who are listening to us would not be listening. We'd lose them."

Critics of the current state of affairs at the station fear that is precisely what has happened: Ekho Moskvy has shifted its priorities, preferring the likes of Paris Hilton to influence.

Over the course of its 25-year history, Ekho - as it is often referred to among the Russian intelligentsia - has become the center of gravity for Russian liberals, the only thing capable of uniting this divergent group of dissidents whose primary weakness has been an inability to form a consolidated political force.

If this magnet loses its pull, the Russian opposition faces further fragmentation.
 
 #23
Sputnik
June 5, 2015
G7 Summit Without Russia: Problem for the West, But Not for the Kremlin

Moscow's absence at the G7 summit in Germany does not mean that Russia is politically isolated in the world. Moreover, it helps the Kremlin to pursue a more independent policy, die Zeit wrote.

The proximity to the Western world is no longer an absolute value for modern Russia, the German newspaper wrote.

Moscow seeks to follow a sovereign foreign policy and is not willing to impose itself on Western countries, the article said, referring to the upcoming G7 summit, which will be held in Germany on Sunday without the participation of the Russian leader.

"Will the Russian President sit on Sunday in the Kremlin and grieve about the fact that the G7 leaders met in the Elmau castle without him? Unlikely. The days when the Russian President wanted to just stand next to his Western colleagues are over," the newspaper wrote.

According to die Zeit, for Russia, the Western world has lost its 'absolute brilliance' that was so evident after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia became disillusioned with Europe and the United States due to their hypocrisy and indecisive policies, the article said.

Russia's current position has nothing to do with the world's isolation, the newspaper wrote. European leaders, including Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, regularly visit Russia. In a few days, Russian president Vladimir Putin is expected to visit the Russian pavilion at the international exhibition "EXPO-2015" in Italy. In the Vatican, he will have a private meeting with Pope Francis.

"Let's agree that loneliness and isolation look a little bit different," the article said ironically.

Russia is also expanding its contacts within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and maintains fruitful cooperation with Asian countries. With this regard, the Kremlin's non-participation in the G7 summit is just a little episode in its foreign policy activities, Die Zeit noted.

The newspaper also stressed that the current situation could be beneficial for the Kremlin as the latter will gain more freedom in conducting its own independent policy.
 
 #24
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
June 5, 2015
The US, Russia may be closer together politically than many people think
Russia Direct sat down with Andrei Korobkov, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University, to discuss the odds of improving U.S.-Russia relations after the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States.
By Pavel Koshkin

Even though it is too early for many to discuss the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and its ultimate impact on America's foreign policy toward Russia, political science experts are preoccupied by these questions, possibly, because there is still a hope that the countries will finally find common ground.

This was the starting point of the interview Russia Direct conducted with Andrei Korobkov, a professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He sheds light on the question of what the end of Barack Obama's presidency in the U.S. will mean for Russia and why media narratives about Russian President Vladimir Putin are misleading and over-simplified.
     
RD: Recently, the Kremlin's spokesperson told NBC that he hopes that after the next American president is elected, there might be a new reset between Russia and the U.S. What is your assessment of this?

Andrei Korobkov: The U.S. is now facing a very difficult period with the start of the 2016 presidential campaign. Most Republicans are likely to compete from the point of view of their intransigent positions toward Russia, no matter what the real consequences will be. The only exception is Rand Paul, who suggests an isolation policy and is reluctant to be involved in any foreign policy gambles, including Ukraine. Hillary Clinton is tougher on Russia and dislikes President Vladimir Putin, so we should expect anti-Russian rhetoric to be fueled during the upcoming pre-election campaigns.

So, we cannot rely on a new reset now. However, there are shifts, they are paradoxical and interesting. There has been the trend of decreasing interest in Russia for the last 20 years, with the closures of Russian language programs, de-funding of research in Russia Studies [Title VIII program - Editor's note], and the resignation of officials from intelligence agencies and U.S. State Department.

But recently, the Congress decided to resume the Title VIII program, which finances research in the field of Russia and post-Soviet Studies. Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean that the U.S. attitude toward Russia will be friendly, but, at least, there will be more interest and more organizations that deal with this region.           

RD: In this context, many admit that Obama is more flexible toward Russia and, in reality, more convenient to work with for the Kremlin.

A.K.: Yes, yet we should keep in mind that he is also a tough and very realistic politician, who - despite all stereotypes and the perception of him as a person who came out of the left wing civil rights movement - he is conducting a cynical policy when it comes to many issues and looking at them from the point of view of the balance of power.

However, as a pragmatist, Obama is much more beneficial for Russia than any other presidential candidate of the current campaign. So, after the 2016 presidential campaign, changes are highly likely to be negative of any new change in thinking about Russia.

RD: Maybe, Obama seeks to leave a good foreign policy legacy after his presidential tenure in order not to be remembered as the president of a new Cold War, right?

A.K.: Yes, he radically changed the U.S. policy to Cuba. In another radical move, he tries to reassess America's foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly, U.S. relations with Iran, Israel and even the major Arab partners, including Saudi Arabia.

The signal which he is sending indicates that there are no certain guarantees for his partners. In addition, Obama didn't show any initiatives during the "color revolutions" in the Middle East. In fact, Europeans pushed him in Libya. He resisted the direct use of force in Syria, because he does understand from the realistic standpoint that anybody who will come after Assad is highly likely to be much worse. In this case, it might turn out that nobody comes after Assad and Syria will become a failed state.  

RD: Does Obama do his utmost to prevent the delivery of lethal arms to Ukraine? Or is he no game-changer, with a greater role for Republicans in the U.S. Congress now?

A.K.: The final decision will be taken by executive power, even though there are concessions to such Republicans as Senator John McCain, who is actually not taken very seriously even by his colleagues. After all, he has proposed to bomb more than a dozen countries in recent years to bring order and peace there.
The Obama administration is not eager to supply Ukraine with weapons, with Germany and other European countries exerting pressure on Washington, because they are really afraid of American weapons being sent to Ukraine. That's why a lot of buzz around it has so far been political rhetoric.

RD: Given the Kremlin's role in provoking the Ukrainian crisis and worsening U.S.-Russia relations, how do ordinary Americans see Russian President Vladimir Putin now?

A.K.: Regardless of stereotypes, Putin's popularity has received a great deal of boost in the U.S. recently. Oddly enough, his popularity has seen an increase both among the right (who hate Obama and perceive Putin as anti-Obama, a strong and aggressive leader, the symbol of power) and the left (who respond with pleasure to the fact that Russia violated Ukraine's territorial integrity and, in this context, point a finger to U.S. policy in Iraq as a rebuke). And it's pretty unusual. Even during the Cold War period we haven't seen such a trend, when a leader of the other country is becoming popular, even though his policy contradicts American values.    

RD: But doesn't this contradict the fact that Putin's image, created by the U.S. media, is rather negative? How can he be popular when the American media criticizes him?

A.K.: Yes, it is true. It looks a bit controversial. Since the time of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, there hasn't been such a personalized campaign against Soviet or Russian leaders like the campaign against Putin. But, ironically, it frequently backfires, because, again, the media created a halo of power, which many Americans respect, just like Russians. Even now Ronald Reagan [who is associated with power among ordinary Americans] remains one of the most popular U.S. presidents.   

RD: You teach American students. How do they perceive Russia and Putin, particularly?

A.K.: The trend is a bit ironic, because among my students are many military officers who are sent by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps to get Master's degrees. And Putin is very popular among some of them, because they just perceive him as a strong leader. Such a trend is also common in the conservative South, where I am teaching.

RD: Ok, you say that Putin is popular among conservatives and the military, yet there are a lot of Americans don't seem to like Putin. In 2014, 63 percent of Americans saw Putin in an unfavorable way, with only 19 percent viewing him favorably. And this trend doesn't change today. Some U.S. experts even warn against the rise of a new McCarthyism in the U.S. amidst increasing anti-Russian sentiments. Is it possible from your point of view?

A.K.: It is a very difficult question and it is related to several different problems. First, McCarthyism appeared in the U.S. in response to the end of the [anti-Hitler] alliance between the Soviet Union and the West and the necessity to kill sympathies to a former ally that was becoming a rival. This process likewise reflected what was going on in the Soviet Union, including the campaign against cosmopolitans and all those who had been in contact with the West.
Even though it [McCarthyism] was not as cruel as the political purges in the Soviet Union, it also was tough. It hit two groups of the American elite: people who worked in the U.S. Department of State and were dealing with foreign policy as well as those engaged in propaganda, including Hollywood folks and journalists.

Today, there is no such situation, because there is no need to kill sympathies toward Russia, because, objectively, there wasn't this sympathy. In addition, Russia is not the main rival for Americans. They are preoccupied by China, the Middle East or non-state actors that are more decentralized. Yet the process of demonization is certainly going on. But, again, ironically, it brings about opposite results, because it boosts Putin's publicity and increases the interest toward Russia.

RD: There is an opinion that Russia and the U.S. are hardly likely to see eye-to-eye because of their different interest and, most importantly, values: While the U.S. tends to be liberal and democratic, Russia is rather conservative. Do you agree such clash of values is the reason of differences between the countries?

A.K.: First, America is a very conservative country. One should not judge America by watching Hollywood movies. On the contrary, there are a lot of parallels, especially, between the America South or Midwest, on the one hand, and Russia and its regions. Actually, they have the same or very close psychology. I warn against exaggerating these differences, because we have rather more similarities.

We should use it in our favor. Moreover, for the last two decades, when a number of protestant churches in the U.S. started changing their positions on homosexuality and accepted same-sex marriages, a significant number of conservative and religious American turned to Orthodox Christianity, because it is one of the most conservative Christian branches.       

RD: Despite recent U.S. attempts to restore diplomatic negotiations with Russia (I mean the visits of American high-profile officials - John Kerry and Victoria Nuland), a lot of experts are very skeptical about these overtures. They don't see it as a game changer because of an increasing gap in interests and values. If so, if such diplomacy doesn't work, what should Washington and Moscow do to repair the damaged relations?

A.K.: Actually, I believe that it is not only a symbolic visit, but also it can lead to a practical solution, because there is a series of fields where the United States needs Russia's support. This includes the ISIS threat, North Korea and Iran. There are many problems which are impossible to resolve without working with Russia. That's why I see this visit as a breakthrough, an attempt to improve U.S.-Russia relations without creating a buzz about it.
 
 #25
Sputnik
June 5, 2015
Library in Memory of American Historian of Russia Opens in St. Petersburg

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The memorial library to honor the legacy of the US professor of Russian history and culture Richard Stites has opened in St. Petersburg, Russia, according to a press release by Russian National Research University's Higher School of Economics.

"It is a symbolic event of international cooperation in the sphere of culture and scholarship, emphasizing Richard Stites' legacy... who did so much to promote a wider European comparative perspective in Russian history," the press release said on Thursday.

The library was established with donations from the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History at American University in Washington, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Washington, DC and the Department of North America of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

The library is housed at the St. Petersburg Campus of the Higher School of Economics. It contains more than 1,500 volumes on history, social sciences and the humanities, as well as English translations of the works of Russian philosophers, historians and publicists, according to the press release.

"It is symbolic of Richard Stites' profound love for Russia that his unique collection is now available to students and specialists both in the United States and Russia," Carmel Institute Director Anton Fedyashin said.

Richard Stites was a historian of Russian culture and professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He wrote several books on Soviet popular culture and the women's movement in Russia.

Stites work made significant contributions to the development of comparative global and European history by demonstrating the place and role of Russia in historic events, according to the press release.
 
 #26
Subject: Announcement: Committee for East-West Accord
Date:     Thu, 4 Jun 2015
From:     James Carden <[email protected]>

Announcing the launch of the Committee for East-West Accord and its official website, Eastwestaccord.com
 
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
 
Today I am pleased to announce the creation of the new Committee for East-West Accord, a nonpartisan, tax-exempt educational organization of American citizens from different professions - business, academia, government service, science, law, and others - who are deeply concerned about the possibility of a new cold war between the United States/Europe and Russia.
 
The Committee is new but not without a distinguished predecessor. Its name derives from The American Committee on East-West Accord, a pro-detente organization founded in 1974 by illustrious Americans - among them, CEOs of multinational corporations, political figures, educational leaders, and policy thinkers such as George F. Kennan
 
The primary mission of the Committee is to promote such discussion about East-West relations and thus to create broad public awareness of the new dangers and of ways to end them. The Committee encourages open, civilized, informed debate of all the related issues, current and past, among Americans with different, even opposing, positions, perspectives, and proposals.
 
Please visit us at Eastwestaccord.com
 
James Carden
Editor, ACEWA

-----

Mission Statement of The American Committee for East-West Accord

The American Committee for East-West Accord is a nonpartisan, tax-exempt educational organization of American citizens from different professions - business, academia, government service, science, law, and others - who are deeply concerned about the possibility of a new (potentially even more dangerous) cold war between the United States/Europe and Russia. Our fundamental premise is that no real or lasting American, European, or international security generally is possible without essential kinds of stable cooperation with Russia.

Since early 2014, we have therefore watched with growing dismay as East-West cooperation created over decades - in diplomacy, arms control, economics, energy, education, science, space, culture, even in preventing nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and environmental threats - have been heedlessly discarded or gravely endangered. While experts warn of an unfolding new nuclear arms race, and with it the risk those weapons may actually be used, there may already be less East-West cooperation than existed during the latter decades of the preceding cold war.

The primary mission of the Committee is to promote such discussion about East-West relations and thus to create broad public awareness of the new dangers and of ways to end them. The Committee encourages open, civilized, informed debate of all the related issues, current and past, among Americans with different, even opposing, positions, perspectives, and proposals. And the Committee seeks to do this in as many ways as possible, including an informational website for engaging individuals and other groups; sponsoring or cosponsoring public events in Washington, at universities, and across the country; and in the national media, including social media.

The Committee's Initial Proposals

At this perilous moment, in mid-2015, the Committee urges that the governments most directly involved in the crisis take the following mutual steps:

-  The Obama Administration should formally join the "Normandy Four"

-  The U.S., NATO and Russia should reactivate the NATO-Russian Council

-  Washington and Moscow should restore the provisions of the 1991 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

-  Moscow and Washington should take all necessary steps to preserve the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)

-  Washington and Moscow should protect educational and related exchange programs