Kiev prepares to use chemical weapons against eastern Ukraine by Wayne Madsen

Kiev prepares to use chemical weapons against eastern Ukraine

by Wayne Madsen

According to eastern Ukrainian sources who contacted WMR, the Ukrainian central government in Kiev has been stockpiling cylinders of toxic gas and canisters of other poisonous substances at an electrical plant in Slavyansk, a town in eastern Ukraine that remains occupied by Kiev troops. The Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, populated by mostly ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers, declared independence last year as the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The Ukrainian government, aided by neo-Nazi and Israeli mercenaries, as well as "Al Qaeda" and "Islamic State" veterans from Iraq and Syria, have been waging a war against the people of eastern Ukraine with military assistance from the United States and other NATO nations.

A source in Slavyansk reports, "There's chlorine in cylinders, in not less than five covered wagons and also in other containers with contents I know nothing about, labeled with words and signs "poison, "danger," and "do not touch without protection." The source added, "All of it was brought in under the guise of varnishes and paints, but I know the look of the packaging of both, and whatever was brought here last week has got nothing to do with it, it looks like a chemical weapon."

The report from the Donbas region also stated that the intelligence service of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) was informed by its sources inside the Ukrainian Security Service that Kiev plans to use the chemical weapons in eastern Ukraine and then blame the eastern Ukrainian separatists. The source with DPR intelligence said, "I think they will follow the suit of the militants in Syria, they [Kiev] will use it against their own soldiers and civilians, and blame us, following which they will invite foreign reporters, show the corpses, raising a worldwide scandal with demand that NATO forces bomb us."

A Ukrainian rail and road transportation industry source confirmed that the suspect canisters spotted in Slavyansk were, in fact, transported asdangerous cargo by the Ukrainian Security Service and Ukrainian military intelligence, with the full cooperation of Kiev and local authorities.

In Syria, Islamic State guerrillas and their allies used sarin and chlorine gas to attack civilians outside of Damascus and then blamed the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad for waging chemical warfare against his own people. The charge that certain governments have resorted to using chemical weapons, known as the "poor man's weapon of mass destruction," has been a favorite neocon propaganda tool employed against targeted leaders, including Assad, Libya's late leader Muammar Qaddafi, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and, possibly soon, the leadership of eastern Ukraine. In all these cases, the story of chemical weapons use was either totally false or was altered to show it was the governments that used the weapons and not U.S.-supported rebels.

Assad was accused of using sarin gas on to kill some 1300 civilians near Damascus, including children (above). In fact, it was the Islamist guerrillas that carried out the attack and another in Aleppo that killed 30 civilians. The Israeli media blamed Assad and the international media, pressured as usual by Israel's propaganda machine, blamed Assad. However, the neocon propaganda was so weak, President Obama opted not to commit U.S. forces to fight against Assad's government.

The intelligence chatter from eastern Ukraine indicates that the United States and its allies in Kiev are going to use, once again, a page from the WMD false flag playbook, previously employed in Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Iraq.

Kiev becomes the new center for mercenaries and brigands

Kiev becomes the new center for mercenaries and brigands 

by Wayne Madsen

Just as Bangkok became a nexus for U.S. special forces and other ne'er-do-wells during the Indochina War and San Jose, Costa Rica and Tegucigalpa, Honduras (called "Tegu City" by American mercenaries and special forces) were focal points for the covert U.S. contra war against the Sandinstas in Nicaragua, Kiev has joined their ranks by attracting a motley crew of U.S. and NATO active duty personnel, Western intelligence operatives, mercenaries from private military contractors, and neo-Nazis from across Europe.

In an exclusive report to WMR, one hangout for these soldiers of fortune and social misfits is located just a five minute walk from Maidan Square, where Assistant Secretary of State fort European Affairs Victoria Nuland handed out rolls during the U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" revolt against the democratically-elected president Viktor Yanukovych. Part of the reason the pub attracts international military and mercenary personnel is its close proximity to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where many U.S. and Western military personnel on temporary duty, reside. The free Wi-Fi also attracts Westerners eager to read their e-mail  from abroad. This tidbit should be of interest to the Russian external security service, the SVR.

O'Brien's Irish Pub is the place to go if one wants to associate with ex-military and police from around Europe and the United States now employed in "security" positions in Ukraine. There have been credible reports that as few as 300 and as many as 500 mercenaries of the private military company Academi, the former Blackwater, are in Ukraine fighting for the Western-backed government. Russian news reports claim the Academi mercenaries are actually paid by Greystone, Ltd., a Barbados-based subsidiary of Academi that was used by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to dodge corporate reporting requirements in the United States, as well as U.S. taxes.

The service and food at O'Brien's are poor but good service and the "English-style" baked beans, which are actually red kidney beans doused in ketchup, are definitely not the reason for going there. Like Rick's Café in Casablanca, O'Brien's is a favorite smoke-filled gathering place for Kiev's new international cadre of mercenaries and active duty types, most of whom appear to have never served a day of combat in their lives. Televised football matches attract a number of British soccer fans who have the appearance of "military types."


The Western-initiated civil war in Ukraine has attracted a number of mercs and other dodgy types to Kiev. Many hang out at Western-style pubs like O'Brien's [above].

The general impression is that if the "green" soldiers of fortune who belt down pints of Guinness at O'Brien's ever encountered the seasoned Russian-speaking separatist armies of the eastern Donbas region the Western amateur soldiers would be easily slaughtered.

And for turning Kiev into Eastern Europe's version of Bangkok or Tegu City, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. What is even more astounding is that the nomination came from the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Oslo, Julie Furuta-Toy. Below is the May 29, 2015, letter from the Zionist chairman of the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) Volodymyr Groysman to Furuta-Toy thanking her for her nomination of Poroshenko.

Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" Weapons Transport Makes Its Rounds by Wayne Madsen

Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" Weapons Transport Makes Its Rounds

In a repeat of the Central Intelligence Agency's globe hopping weapons transport cargo planes of the Iran-Contra scandal and the more recent Libyan rebel supply caper to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi, a Ukrainian Antonov AN-124 (tail number UR-82072) heavy lifter military transport plane, denoted as an "International Cargo Transport" and belonging to the "Antonov Transport Bureau," astonished residents around Belgrade's Nikola Tesla International Airport in Serbia when it landed there on January 28, 2015. The Ukrainian plane, the world's largest aircraft, was a rare sight at an airport in a country that generally supports Russia in its conflict with Kiev.

In September of last year, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that a number of NATO countries have agreed to deliver weapons to Ukrainian forces, which consist not only of regular Ukrainian troops but irregular battalions supported by billionaire Ukrainian-Israeli warlord Ihor Kolomoisky consisting of neo-Nazis, U.S. and other private military forces, and ex-Israel Defense Force personnel. At the time of the September 2014 NATO summit in Wales, Ukrainian presidential adviser Yuri Lutsenko said that the United States, France, Poland, Norway and Italy had agreed to supply weapons to Ukraine and Canada later revealed that it had also commenced weapons transfers to the Kiev putschist regime.

Ukraine's military forces have received so much NATO military aid and assistance and personnel, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that the Ukrainian Army is acting as NATO's "foreign legion." There are also credible reports that NATO has supplied the Kiev regime with deadly cluster bombs that are being used against the largely Russian-speaking civilian population of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.


Antonov AN-124 (UR-82072) military transport plane suspected of ferrying weapons to Kiev seen on January 29, 2015 at Belgrade airport.

The AN-124 that landed in Belgrade appears to have been ferrying weapons from a number of known NATO air terminals used for such purposes. After arriving in Bucharest, Romania on January 23, 2015 from the Italian island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Libya, the aircraft departed on January 23 for New Jersey in the United States. Lampedusa was a major staging base for NATO weapons supplies to Libyan rebels during the Western- and Islamist-inspired rebellion against the Qaddafi government. Bucharest has become a major base for NATO military support to Kiev.

On January 25, the Antonov departed Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey for Trondheim, Norway. On January 26, the Ukrainian transport plane left Trondheim for Prestwick Airport, Glasgow, Scotland. The plane departed Prestwick on January 28 and touched down the same day at Belgrade. Prestwick was a favorite transit hub used by the CIA for the rendition of detainees following 9/11.

The United States has positioned six storage units located in the mountains of Norway’s central Trøndelag region, the capital of which is Trondheim. U.S. military equipment, including tanks and armored personnel vehicles, are stored at two Norwegian Air Force stations in the area, one of them being co-located with Trondheim Airport Værnes where the Ukrainian Antonov landed on January 26.


Antonov (UR-82072) coming in for a landing at Nikola Tesla International Airport in Belgrade on January 28.

Ukrainian transport UR-82072 plane flight from Glasgow to Belgrade on January 28.
The Antonov's destination after it left Belgrade was Mombasa, Kenya via Athens. The plane was reported by Serbian sources to be carrying "special cargo" weapons. It is conceivable that UR-82072 dropped off in Athens for further shipment to Ukraine weapons loaded at NATO airports in Lampedusa, Glasgow, and Trondheim, as well as Serbian caches placed on board in Belgrade and, perhaps, U.S. weapons stored at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County, New Jersey, the Defense Department's Specialty Site for Guns and Ammunition, and Naval Weapons Station Earle, New Jersey. Both weapons bases are in close proximity to Newark Liberty International. The AN-124 is permanently based at Kiev's Gostomel Airport.


Helicopter being placed on board Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" weapons transport.
Ever since fighting broke out between Ukrainian forces and Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine, the mysterious Ukrainian AN-124 has been spotted around the world, likely picking up weapons. On June 18, 2014, it was seen at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport. Before that, it was seen on May 22, 2014 at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, in what may have been a refueling stop. On January 1 and 6, 2015 and November 23, 2014, it was spotted at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany; on July 2, 2014, it was Luqa International in Malta (Malta was another staging base for weapons supplies to anti-Qaddafi forces during the Libyan civil war); and on April 15, 2014 at Francisco Sa Carneiro Aiport, Porto, Portugal and a week later, on April 27, at Schwechat Airport in Vienna.

Kiev was hotbed of neo-Nazism even during Soviet times by Wayne Madsen

Kiev was hotbed of neo-Nazism even during Soviet times

by Wayne Madsen

The CIA archives contain an obscure newspaper article from the New York Herald Tribune, dated September 14, 1964 that points out that neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism ran rampant in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev even during the time of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This fact makes the current love affair between neoconservative Zionists like Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, and incoming Central Intelligence Agency director David Cohen and the neo-Nazi imbued government of Ukraine all the more perplexing.


Senator John McCain, the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is flanked by neo-Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnbok [right] and gives his very best "Heil Hitler" salute to protesters at Maidan Square in Kiev last year.

The neo-Nazism of the Ukrainian government was recently on full display when Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, known affectionately as "Yats" by Nuland, described the Soviet Red Army's move into Nazi Germany not as a "liberation" but as an "invasion." Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko recently awarded one of Ukraine's top medals to Belarusian Serhiy Korotkykh, a member of the far-right Russian National Unity party and founding member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Society (NSS) in Russia. Korotokykh has recently been engaged in a pogrom of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine as a member of the Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary unit financed and armed by Ukrainian-Israeli Zionist billionaire tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky.

The head of the Azov Battalion is Andriy Biletsky, a neo-Nazi activist who has switched his allegiance between the two main neo-Nazi parties, Svoboda and Right Sector. The alliance between Zionists like Kolomoisky and neo-Nazis like Biletsky must be viewed in the context of Ukrainian history where even Ukrainian Communist leaders during the Soviet Union expressed neo-Nazi sympathies in direct challenges to Moscow's wishes.

The Herald Tribune article describes the Ideological Commission of the Soviet Communist Party and Communist Party General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev as being furious over the 1963 publication by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences of an anti-Semitic publication, complete with Nazi-like caricatures, titled "Judaism Without Embellishment." That publication was followed in 1964 by another book published by the State Publishing House of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kishniev titled "Contemporary Judaism and Zionism," which expressed similar Nazi-like views to the Ukrainian book but without the Nazi cartoons.
 
Nikita Khrushchev [left], like Vladimir Putin, had to deal with neo-Nazis in Kiev.

Today, the ideological sons and daughters of the crypto-Nazis who proclaimed they were Ukrainian Communists are in power in Kiev. Their major support comes from neoconservatives like Nuland, Pyatt, and B'nai B'rith. In 1964, the latter organization rented a room in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York where B'nai B'rith president Label A. Katz condemned the Nazi-like policies of the Ukrainian Communist Party which his successors actively support today in pro-Western Ukraine.

It is not the Russian government that should stand accused before the international court of public opinion but the neo-Nazis of Kiev and their Zionist Jewish enablers in New York and Washington, DC.

"White Widow's" death in Ukraine proves ISIL-Kiev alliance by Wayne Madsen

"White Widow's" death in Ukraine proves ISIL-Kiev alliance

The recent killing by a Russian "volunteer" sniper of the so-called "White Widow," aka Samantha Lewthwaite, while she was fighting against Russian-speaking forces in eastern Ukraine, is the best evidence yet of Islamic State collusion with the Kiev government and Zionist Ukrainian tycoons like Ihor Kolomoisky. Lewthwaite was reportedly killed by Russian forces some two weeks ago in the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk.

Lewthwaite was serving as a sniper with the Aidar Battalion, which receives support from Kolomoisky, the billionaire Ukrainian-Israeli dual national governor of Dnipropetrovsk. Kolomoisky provides money and logistical support to several pro-Kiev paramilitary units. They include, in addition to the Aidar Battalion, "Blue Helmet" ex-Israeli Defense Force commandos,  the Azov Battalion, the Donbass Battalion, and the 2,000-strong Dniepr-1 (or Dnipro-1) Battalion. A number of neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists from the west of the country serve with the battalions in the east.

The white Northern Ireland-born Lewthwaite was the widow of one of the accused London transit bombers, Jermain Lindsey, hence her nickname "White Widow." Lewthwaite disappeared from England a few months after the 2005 London bombings. She surfaced again as the alleged commander of the Al-Shabaab-linked terrorist commando team that attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013, an attack that saw over 60 civilians killed. Lewthwaite's death at the hands of eastern Ukrainian Russians was reported by Moscow's Regnum news agency to have been "slow and painful."

Lewthwaite's death while fighting with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces in eastern Ukraine verifies reports WMR received in Iran that Ukraine was assisting ISIL forces in Syria. In September it was reported that Lewthwaite was in Syria helping ISIL volunteers train for suicide attacks. In turn, many Chechen members of ISIL traveled freely between Syria/Iraq and Ukraine through Turkey to fight against Russian-speaking forces in eastern Ukraine.

A recent phone call from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Russian President Vladimir Putin developed into a shouting match after Erdogan asked Putin to stop assisting the Bashar al Assad government in Syria. Putin, in response, accused Erdogan of facilitating the transit of ISIL guerrillas between the Middle East and Ukraine, many of them Chechen Islamist radicals wanted by Moscow for terrorist attacks in Russia. The killing of Lewthwaite by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine largely proved Putin's assertion of Ukrainian complicity with ISIL. Russian SVR intelligence, through agents associated with the autonomous Russian republic of Tatarstan who work in Turkey, may have been aware of Lewthwaite's transit to eastern Ukraine via Turkey after fighting with ISIL forces in Syria and/or Iraq. Lewthwaite reportedly received plastic surgery after the Nairobi attack to avoid capture.

After the attack, Lewthwaite escaped from Kenya on a South African passport. Lewthwaite was reported to have been killed in 2013 in Somalia during fighting between two factions of Al-Shabaab.


Lewthwaite's South African passport. Was it courtesy of Mossad's passport-alteration bucket shops?

The mere fact that Lewthwaite and her ISIL comrades were caught fighting in eastern Ukraine alongside Israeli, Ukrainian Jewish, and neo-Nazi western Ukrainians on behalf of the Kiev regime, represents additional proof of Tel Aviv's involvement with ISIL. A recent audio tape purporting to be a call by ISIL "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for ISIL to "erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere" originated from the Mossad-funded and Washington-based Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) group run by Rita Katz, a well-known Mossad operative. SITE is infamous for releasing unverified video and audio tapes from such Al Qaeda leaders as Osama bin Laden; Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri; and Adam Gadahn, aka Adam Pearlman, whose grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a member of the board of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The Zionist-owned media, which includes BuzzFeed, immediately called the story of Lewthwaite's killing in Ukraine a "fake story." Any news report that interferes with the Zionist-conceived "pseudo-reality" routinely sold to an unsuspecting world is always called fake by the Zionist media. BuzzFeed was funded by money from Ben Horowitz, the son of the king of neo-conservative political correctness on college campuses, David Horowitz. Ben Horowitz, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur, is a major funder of the American Jewish World Service.

THE ROVING EYE - Vanishing point … By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE            Vanishing point … By Pepe Escobar  First, passenger airliner MH370 vanished from Planet Earth. Then MH370 vanished from the news cycle. First, MH17 was shot down by "Putin's missile" - as Planet Earth was told. Then MH17 vanished from the news cycle. Where's Baudrillard when we need him? Had he been alive, the dervish of simulacra would have already deconstructed these two Malaysian planes as mirror images; from absolute vanishing to maximum exposure, then vanished again. They might as well have been abducted - and shot - by aliens. Now you seem them, now you don't. Black boxes, data recorders - everything MH17 is now floating in a black void. The British are taking forever to analyze the data - and if they have already done so, they are not talking. It's as if they were singing, I see a black box / and I want it painted black … void. The Pentagon, with 20-20 vision over Ukraine, knows what happened. Russian intelligence not only knows what happened but offered a tantalizing glimpse of it in an official presentation, dismissed by the "West". The best technical analyses point not to "Putin's missile" - a BUK - but to a combination of R-60 air-to-air missile and the auto-cannon of an Su-25. A reader led me to this fair assessment by former USAF and Boeing engineer Raymond Blohm: "With proper vectoring, a Su-25 need not be quite as fast as a Boeing 777 in cruise. It just has to get to a missile-firing position. Since the 777 was not maneuvering, it would be simple to pre-calculate when to get in a certain spot in the sky below the 777. From there, it's the missile that has the speed and altitude capability to hit the 777. (The R-60 is a very capable missile.) After the missile takes out an engine, both the 777's max speed and its max altitude are well within the Su-25 fighter's speed & altitude capabilities. Then, the Su-25 can show off its cannon power." Follow the engine wreckage. Follow the cockpit wreckage. Follow the motive. One cannot even imagine the tectonic geopolitical plates clashing were the Kiev regime to be deemed responsible. It would be the vanishing point for the whole - warped - notion of the Empire of Chaos's "indispensable" exceptionalism. So as MH370 totally vanished, the MH17 story must also totally vanish. The Dutch and the British might eventually come out and hold a high-profile press conference telling the world what His Master's Voice finally redacted. Still, one may count on certified, residual outrage, if not puzzlement, by a large number of grieving Dutch families. And one may count on certified outrage by Malaysia as a nation. As in Why Us? And not once but twice? Moscow, after deconstructing the "logic" of the ongoing Russia/Putin hysterical demonization, knows that whatever they say will be invalidated by the Orwellian Thought Police. Yet as much as His Master's Voice controls what the Dutch and the British might eventually reveal, Russia can counterpunch by leaking the crucial scenario to Malaysia. And Malaysia will talk. MH370 vanished as in a video game. MH17 was hit as in a video game. Now their respective narratives are being vanished. It's as if we are living a tiny rehearsal of the black hypothesis of post-history. Postmodernist star Jean-Francois Lyotard and later Flemish thinker Lieven De Cauter were the rarified few who dabbled in studying the black hypothesis. The black hypothesis is the ultimate dystopia - playing out in the cosmological time of the death of the sun, something like 4.5 billion years away. Basically this is about techno-science surviving the death of the sun and the death of humanity itself. So MH370 may have vanished into an antechamber of the black hypothesis. But MH17 is much more prosaic; it could have been just a false flag gone wrong. Thus, under Empire of Chaos's rules, it must also vanish. The question is whether global civil society will accept it - or has already entered its own vanishing point. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

NATO is desperate for war By Pepe Escobar

NATO is desperate for war
By Pepe Escobar 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is desperate; it is itching for a war in battlefield Ukraine at any cost. 

Let's start with Pentagon supremo, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has waxed lyrical over the Russian Bear's "threat": "When you see the build-up of Russian troops and the sophistication of those troops, the training of those troops, the heavy military equipment that's being put along that border, of course it's a reality, it's a threat, it's a possibility - absolutely." 

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu could not elaborate if it was "threat" or "reality", absolutely or not, but she saw it all: "We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border." 

In trademark, minutely precise NATOspeak, Lungescu then added that Russia "most probably" would send troops into eastern Ukraine under the cover of "a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission". And that settled it. 

Hagel and his remote-controlled Romanian minion Lungescu obviously have not read this or simply ignored its detailed explanation by Russian Air Force's spokesman: the "threat" or "build-up" happens to expire this Friday, the last day of Russian military exercises announced in advance. 

Fogh of War gets antsy
Right on cue, NATO secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen arrived in Kiev practically foaming war in his mouth, ready to lay down the groundwork for NATO's summit in Wales on September 4 when Ukraine, enthroned as a major non-NATO ally, could be projected to become, in lightning speed, fully NATO-weaponized. Moreover, NATO is about to seriously "build up" in Poland, Romania, the Baltics and even Turkey. 

But then all sorts of Khaganate of Nulands (as in Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs) derivatives started to spin out of control. One can imagine the vain Fogh of War vainly trying to regain his composure. 

That took some effort as he was presented with the spectacle of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - a certified oligarch dogged by dodgy practices - trying hard to evict the Maidan originals from the square in the center of Kiev; these are the people who late last year started the protests that were later hijacked by the Banderastan (as in Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan)/Right Sector neo-Nazis, the US neo-con masters. 

The original Maidan protests - a sort of Occupy Kiev - were against monstrous corruption and for the end of the perennial Ukrainian oligarch dance. What the protesters got was even more corruption; the usual oligarch dance; a failed state under civil war and avowed ethnic cleansing of at least 8 million citizens; and on top of it a failed state on its way to further impoverishment under International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment". No wonder they won't leave Maidan. 

So Maidan - the remix - has already started even before the arrival of General Winter. Chocolate King Poroshenko must evict them as fast as he can because renewed Kiev protests simply don't fit the hysterical Western corporate media narrative that "it's all Putin's fault". Most of all, corruption is even nastier than before - now with plenty of neo-Nazi overtones. 

With Fogh of War already fuming because "Russia won't invade", the pompously named "Secretary" of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, neo-Nazi Andrey Parubiy - who is the most likely candidate for having ordered the hit last month on the MH17 civilian aircraft - decided to step out; a certified rat abandoning a sinking ship move mostly provoked by the fact he did not get an extended ethnic cleansing overdrive in Eastern Ukraine, and had to endure a ceasefire. Poroshenko is not an idiot; after loads of bad PR, he knows his nationwide "support" is evaporating by the minute. 

Compounding all this action, a US missile cruiser enters the Black Sea again "to promote peace". The Kremlin and Russian intel easily see that for what it is. 

And then there's the horrendous refugee crisis building up in eastern Ukraine. This past Tuesday, Moscow during a UN Security Council meeting requested emergency humanitarian measures - predictably in vain. Washington blocked it because Kiev had blocked it ("There is no humanitarian crisis to end"). Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dramatically described the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk as "disastrous", stressing that Kiev is intensifying military operations. 

According to the UN itself, at least 285,000 people have become refugees in eastern Ukraine. Kiev insists the number of internal refugees is "only" 117,000; the UN doubts it. Moscow maintains that a staggering 730,000 Ukrainians have fled into Russia; the UN High Commission for Refugees agrees. Some of these refugees, fleeing Semenivka, in Sloviansk, have detailed Kiev's use of N-17, an even deadlier version of white phosphorus. 

When Ambassador Churkin mentioned Donetsk and Luhansk, he was referring to Kiev's goons gearing up for a massive attack. They are already shelling the Petrovski neighborhood in Donetsk. Almost half of Luhansk residents have fled, mostly to Russia. Those who stayed behind are mostly old-age pensioners and families with small children. 

Humanitarian crisis does not even begin to describe it; there's no water, electricity, communication, fuel and medicine left in Luhansk. Kiev's heavy artillery partially destroyed four hospitals and three clinics. Luhansk, in a nutshell, is the Ukrainian Gaza. 

In a sinister symmetry, just as it gave a free pass to Israel in Gaza, the Obama administration is giving a free pass to the butchers of Luhansk. And there's even a diversion. Obama was mulling whether to bomb The Caliph's Islamic State goons in Iraq, or maybe drop some humanitarian aid. He opted for (perhaps) "limited" bombing and arguably less limited food and water airdrops. 

So let's be clear. For the US government, "there might be a humanitarian catastrophe" in Mount Sinjar in Iraq, involving 40,000 people. As for at least 730,000 eastern Ukrainians, they have the solemn right to be shelled, bombed, air-stricken and turned into refugees. 

The new Somalia 
Moscow's red lines are quite explicit: NATO out of Ukraine. Crimea as part of Russia. No US troops anywhere near Russia's borders. Full protection for the Russian cultural identity of southern and eastern Ukraine. 

Yet the - real - humanitarian crisis (which Washington dismisses) is another serious matter entirely. Kiev's forces are not equipped for prolonged urban warfare. But assuming these forces - a compound of regular military; oligarch-financed terror/death squads; the neo-Nazi-infested "voluntary" Ukrainian national guard; US-trained foreign mercenaries - decide to go for mass carnage to take Donetsk and Luhansk, arguably Moscow will have to consider what NATO types spin as a "limited ground intervention" in Ukraine. 

NATO spinsters are foolish enough to believe that if Putin can disguise the intervention as a peacekeeping or humanitarian mission, he may be able to sell it to Russian public opinion. In fact Putin has not "invaded" because Russian public opinion does not want it. His popularity is at a staggering 87%. Only an - improbable - Kiev-perpetrated mass carnage would change the equation, and sway Russian public opinion. Considering this is exactly what NATO wants, Fogh of War will be working overtime to force his vassals to bring about such carnage. 

Still, considering the latest developments, what facts on the ground point to is the current oligarch dance in Kiev already unraveling - as in this example here. Moscow won't even have to bother to consider "invading". Meanwhile, Poroshenko's slow motion genocide in Eastern Ukraine, as well as his crackdown of Maidan remix in Kiev, will keep getting a free pass. All hail Ukraine as the new Somalia; a fitting Frankenstein created by the exceptionalist Empire of Chaos. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

THE ROVING EYE - Western plutocracy goes bear hunting By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Western plutocracy goes bear hunting By Pepe Escobar The post-Cold War status quo in Eastern Europe, not to mention in Western Europe, is now dead. For Western plutocracy, that 0.00001% at the top, the real Masters of the Universe, Russia is the ultimate prize; an immense treasure of natural resources, forests, pristine water, minerals, oil and gas. Enough to drive any NSA-to-CIA Orwellian/Panopticon war game to ecstasy. How to pounce and profit from such a formidable loot? Enter Globocop NATO. Barely out of having its collective behind unceremoniously kicked by a bunch of mountain warriors with Kalashnikovs, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now fast "pivoting" - that same old Mackinder to Brzezinski game - to Russia. The road map will be put in place at the group's summit in early September in Wales. Meanwhile, the MH17 tragedy is undergoing a fast metamorphosis. When the on-site observations by this Canadian OSCE monitor (watch the video carefully) are compounded withthis analysis by a German pilot, a strong probability points to a Ukrainian Su-25's 30 mm auto-cannon firing at the cockpit of MH17, leading to massive decompression and the crash. No missile - not even an air-to-air R-60M, not to mention a BUK (the star of the initial, frenetic American spin). The new possible narrative fits with on-site testimony by eyewitness in this now famously "disappeared" BBC report. Bottom line: MH17 configured as a false flag, planned by the US and botched by Kiev. One can barely imagine the tectonic geopolitical repercussions were the false flag to be fully exposed. Malaysia has handed out the flight recorders to the UK; this means NATO, and this spells out manipulation by the CIA. Air Algerie AH5017 went down after MH17. The analysis has already been released. That begs the question of why it is taking so long for MH17's black boxes to be analyzed/tampered with. Then there's the sanctions game: Russia remains guilty - with no evidence - thus it must be punished. The EU abjectly followed His Master's Voice and adopted all the hardcore sanctions against Russia they were discussing last week. Yet there are loopholes. Moscow will have reduced access to US dollar and euro markets. Russian state-owned banks are forbidden from selling shares or bonds in the West. Yet Sberbank, Russia's largest, has not been sanctioned. So Russia in the short and medium term will have to finance itself. Well, Chinese banks could easily replace that kind of lending. Don't forget the Russia-China strategic partnership. As if Moscow needed another warning that the only way to go is to increasingly bypass the US dollar system. EU nations will suffer. Big time. BP has a 20% stake in Rosneft, and it's already freaking out on the record. ExxonMobil, Norway's Statoil and Shell will also be affected. Sanctions don't touch the gas industry; now that would have propelled the EU's counterproductive stupidity to galactic levels. Poland - hysterically blaming Moscow for everything under the sun - gets more than 80% of its gas from Russia. The no less strident Baltic states, as well as Finland, get 100%. The ban on dual-use goods - civilian and military applications - will badly affect Germany, the top EU exporter to Russia. On defense, the UK and France will suffer; the UK has no less than 200 licenses selling weapons and missile launching gear to Russia. Yet the French 1.2 billion euro (US$1.6 billion) sale of Mistral assault ships to Russia will go ahead. Meanwhile, in the demonization front ... This is what Associated Press spins as "analysis" and distributes to papers around the world; a collection of cliches desperately in search of a thesis. Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center, faithful to who pays his bills, gets a few things right and most things wrong. David Stockman at least has a ball deconstructing the lies of the Warfare State. But the real thing is definitely Putin's economic adviser Sergei Glazyev. One of his key theses is that European business must be really careful to protect their interests as the US attempts to "ignite a war in Europe and a Cold War against Russia". This, though, is the ultimate bombshell - delivered by a cool, calm and collected Glazyev. Watch it carefully. A detailed reappraisal of what Glazyev has been saying for weeks now, mixed with some outstanding comments here leads to a inevitable conclusion: key sectors of Western plutocracy want a still ill-defined war with Russia. And journalism's Holy Grail - never trust anything until it's officially denied - confirms it. NATO's Plan A is to install missile batteries in Ukraine; that is already being discussed in detail in the run-up to NATO's summit in Wales in early September. Needless to say, if that happens, for Moscow, that's way beyond a red line; it implies a first strike capability at Russia's western borderlands. Washington's short Plan A, meanwhile, is to organize a wedge between the federalists in Eastern Ukraine and Russia. This implies progressive, direct funding of Kiev in parallel to building up, via American advisers already on the ground, and vast weaponizing, a huge proxy army (nearly 500,000 by the end of the year, according to Glazyev's projection). Endgame on the ground would be to seal the federalists off into a very small area. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshensko has been on the record saying this should happen by early September. If not, by the end of 2014. In the US, and a great deal of the EU, a monstrous grotesquerie has developed, packaging Putin as the new Stalinist Osama bin Laden. So far, his strategy on Ukraine was to be patient - what I called Vlad Lao Tzu - watching the Kiev gang hang themselveswhile trying to sit down with the EU in a civilized manner working for a political solution. Now we may be facing a game changer, because the mounting evidence, which Glazyev and Russian intel relayed to Putin, points to Ukraine as a battlefield; a concerted drive for regime change in Moscow; a concerted drive aiming for a destabilized Russia; and even the possibility of a definitive provocation. Moscow, allied with the BRICS, is actively working to bypass the US dollar - which is the anchor of a parallel US war economy based on printing worthless pieces of green paper. Progress is slow, but tangible; not only the BRICS but BRICS aspirants, the G-77, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the whole Global South is absolutely fed up with the Empire of Chaos's non-stop bullying and want another paradigm in international relations. The US counts on NATO - which it manipulates at will - and mad dog Israel; and perhaps the GCC, the Sunni petro-monarchies partners in the Gaza carnage, which can be bought/silenced with a slap on the wrist. The temptation for Putin to invade Eastern Ukraine in 24 hours and reduce the Kiev militias to dust must have been super-human. Especially with the mounting cornucopia of dementia; ballistic missiles in Poland and soon Ukraine; indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Donbass; the MH17 tragedy; the hysterical Western demonization. A bear with limited patience But Putin is wired for playing the long game. The window of opportunity for a lightning strike is gone; that kung fu move would have stopped NATO in its tracks with a fait accompli, and the ethnic cleansing of 8 million Russians and Russophones in Donbass would never have developed. Still, Putin won't "invade" Ukraine because Russian public opinion doesn't want him to. Moscow will keep supporting what is a de facto resistance movement in the Donbass. Remember: in give or take two months, General Winter starts to set in those broke, IMF-plundered Ukrainian pastures. The leaked German-Russian peace plan will be implemented over Washington's collective dead body. This New Great Game, to a great extent, is also about preventing Russia-EU economic integration via Germany, part of a full Eurasian integration including China and its myriad Silk Roads. If Russia's trade with the EU - about US$410 billion in 2013 - is due to take a hit because of sanctions, then that also spells out a Go East movement. Which implies a Russian fine-tuning of theEurasian Economic Union project. No more a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok - Putin's original idea. Enter the Eurasian Union as a brother in arms of China's myriad Silk Roads. Still, this spells out a strong Russia-China partnership at the heart of Eurasia - and still this is absolute anathema to the Masters of the Universe. Make no mistake, the Russia-China strategic partnership will keep evolving very fast - with Beijing in symbiosis with Moscow's immense natural and military-technological resources. Not to mention the strategic benefits. A case could be made this has not happened since Genghis Khan. But it's not like Xi Jinping is pulling a Khan to subdue Siberia and beyond. Cold War 2.0 is now inevitable because the Empire of Chaos will never accept Russia's sphere of influence in parts of Eurasia (as it doesn't accept China's). It will never accept Russia as an equal partner (exceptionalists don't do equality). And it will never forgive Russia - alongside China - for openly defying the creaking, exceptionalist, American-imposed order. If the US deep state, guided by those nullities who pass for leadership, in desperation, goes one step beyond - it could be a genocide in Donbass; a NATO attack on Crimea; or worst case scenario, an attack against Russia itself - watch out. The Bear will strike. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE It was Putin's missile! (they claim) By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE It was Putin's missile! By Pepe Escobar And here's the spin war verdict: the current Malaysia Airlines tragedy - the second in four months - is "terrorism" perpetrated by "pro-Russian separatists", armed by Russia, and Vladimir Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up. Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton said so. Because batshit crazy Samantha "R2P" Power said so - thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post. [1] Because Anglo-American corporate media - from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) - said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place. Right off the bat they were all lined up - the invariably hysterical reams of "experts" of the "US intelligence community" literally foaming at their palatial mouths at "evil" Russia and "evil" Putin; intel "experts" who could not identify a convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the Iraqi desert to take Mosul. And yet they have already sentenced they don't need to look any further, instantly solving the MH17 riddle. It doesn't matter that President Putin has stressed the MH17 tragedy must be investigated objectively. And "objectively" certainly does not mean that fictional "international community" notion construed by Washington - the usual congregation of pliable vassals/patsies. And what about Carlos?  A simple search at reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200 kilometers north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysia Airlines in the previous days - and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication MH17 received from Kiev air control tower? Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever. It won't happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation on why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion. The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has confirmed that a Kiev-controlled Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational near the MH17's crash. Kiev has deployed several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers; these are all perfectly capable of bringing down jets flying at 33,000 ft. Radiation from a battery's Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla (a village some 30km south of Donetsk) was detected by the Russian military. According to the ministry, the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery which was at a firing distance from MH17's flight path. The tracking radar range on the Buk system is a maximum of 50 miles. MH17 was flying at 500 mph. So assuming the "rebels" had an operational Buk and did it, they would have had not more than five minutes to scan all the skies above, all possible altitudes, and then lock on. By then they would have known that a cargo plane could not possibly be flying that high. For evidence supporting the possibility of a false flag, check here. And then there's the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev's tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit - not a cipher; for others, he's never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account - not accidentally - has been shut down, and he has disappeared; his friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online - and now copies and an English translation are available. These are some of his crucial tweets: "The B777 was escorted by 2 Ukrainian fighter jets minutes before disappearing from radar (5.48 pm)" "If the Kiev authorities want to admit the truth 2 fighter jets were flying very close a few minutes before the incident but did not shoot down the airliner (5.54)" "As soon as the Malaysia Airlines B777 disappeared the Kiev military authority informed us of the shooting down. How did they know? (6.00)" "Everything has been recorded on radar. For those that don't believe it, it was taken down by Kiev; we know that here (in traffic control) and the military air traffic control know it too (7.14)" "The Ministry of the Interior did know that there were fighter aircraft in the area, but the Ministry of Defense didn't. (7.15)" "The military confirm that it was Ukraine, but it is not known where the order came from. (7.31)" Carlos's assessment (a partial compilation of his tweets is collected here http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/spanish-air-controller-kiev-borispol-airport-ukraine-military-shot-down-boeing-mh17/ ): the missile was fired by the Ukraine military under orders of the Ministry of Interior - NOT the Ministry of Defense. Security matters at the Ministry of the Interior happen to be under Andriy Parubiy, who was closely working alongside US neo-cons and Banderastan neo-nazis on Maidan. Assuming Carlos is legit, the assessment makes sense. The Ukrainian military are divided between Chocolate king President Petro Poroshenko - who would like a d?tente with Russia essentially to advance his shady business interests - and Saint Yulia Timoshenko, who's on the record advocating genocide of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. US neo-cons and US "military advisers" on the ground are proverbially hedging their bets, supporting both the Poroshenko and Timoshenko factions. So who profits?  The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in Eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin. As for Kiev, they'd have the means, the motive and the window of opportunity to pull it off - especially after Kiev's militias have been effectively routed, and were in retreat, in the Donbass; and this after Kiev remained dead set on attacking and bombing the population of Eastern Ukraine even from above. No wonder the federalists had to defend themselves. And then there's the suspicious timing. The MH17 tragedy happened two days after the BRICS announced an antidote to the IMF and the World Bank, bypassing the US dollar. And just as Israel "cautiously" advances its new invasion/slow motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Malaysia, by the way, is the seat of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which has found Israel guilty of crimes against humanity. Washington, of course, does profit. What the Empire of Chaos gets in this case is a ceasefire (so the disorganized, battered Kiev militias may be resupplied); the branding of Eastern Ukrainians as de facto "terrorists" (as Kiev, Dick Cheney-style, always wanted); and unlimited mud thrown over Russia and Putin in particular until Kingdom Come. Not bad for a few minutes' work. As for NATO, that's Christmas in July. From now on, it all depends on Russian intelligence. They have been surveying/tracking everything that happens in Ukraine 24/7. In the next 72 hours, after poring over a lot of tracking data, using telemetry, radar and satellite tracking, they will know which type of missile was launched, where from, and even produce communications from the battery that launched it. And they will have access to forensic evidence. Unlike Washington - who already knows everything, with no evidence whatsoever (remember 9/11?) - Moscow will take its time to know the basic journalistic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving the truth and/or disproving Washington's spin. The historical record shows Washington simply won't release data if it points to a missile coming from its Kiev vassals. The data may even point to a bomb planted on MH17, or mechanical failure - although that's unlikely. If this was a terrible mistake by the Novorossiya rebels, Moscow will have to reluctantly admit it. If Kiev did it, the revelation will be instantaneous. Anyway we already know the hysterical Western response, no matter what; Russia is to blame. Putin is more than correct when he stressed this tragedy would not have happened if Poroshenko had agreed to extend a cease-fire, as Merkel, Hollande and Putin tried to convince him in late June. At a minimum, Kiev is already guilty because they are responsible for safe passage of flights in the airspace they - theoretically - control. But all that is already forgotten in the fog of war, tragedy and hype. As for Washington's hysterical claims of credibility, I leave you with just one number: Iran Air 655. Notes: 1. Missile Downs Malaysia Airlines Plane Over Ukraine Killing 298, Kiew Blames Rebels, Washington Post, July 18, 2014. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Ukraine SITREP - THE VINEYARD OF THE SAKER - A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE VINEYARD

Ukraine SITREP May 20th, 16:28 UTC/Zulu: deliberate chaos

I think that we can all agree that the situation in the Ukraine is one of total chaos.

• Renat Akhmetov, the local oligarch-mobster, had declared that his companies will go on a "warning strike" for 3 hours per day because Akhmetov was angered that the authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) had taken over the control of the railways which resulted in losses for his company.
• One of the officials of the DRP reacted to Akhmetov's threat by declaring that the DRP authorities have begun the process of nationalization of the companies located on the territory of the DRP, in other words, Akhmetov's holdings.
• The military forces of the neo-Nazi junta have begun shelling several cities in the eastern Ukraine destroying several buildings
• The military commander of the DRP forces, Igor Strelkov, has made a poignant and blunt appeal for a much bigger mobilization of men, especially officers, in the volunteer forces defending the DRP against the junta's military.
• Ukrainian death-squads have, yet again, kidnapped a team of Russian reporters, this time of the TV station LifeNews, accusing them of being the "information-component" of a terrorist movement.
• The Russian government has indicated that the military forces which had been on maneuvers had returned to their bases.  NATO denied that.
• The Russian military has completed the building a network of pipelines which are now fully supplying Crimea with fresh water.
• The leader of the Ukie Nazis, Iarosh, has announced that if he is elected he would launched a guerrilla war in Crimea.

So what is really going on?

I think that while it is premature to make grand conclusions and predictions, we can begin by agreeing on a number of basic facts. 

First, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the junta in Kiev is clearly provoking Moscow in every possible way.  If one could maybe see some marginal and far-fetched military rationale for the kind of random artillery strikes the Ukies are unleashing on Slavianks, Kramatorsk and other cities, the arrest of the LifeNews news-crew makes no sense at all.  They were put on their knees, beat up, held with their faces to the ground - all on video which was then "leaked" to Youtube as if the death squads were provoking the Kremlin with a "what are you gonna do about it?" message/

Second, I believe that the appointment of Biden's son to the board of directors of the main Ukie energy company whose concessions are all in the eastern Ukraine is also a way of further provoking the Kremlin.

So why would the junta do all this?

First, I think that it is reasonable to accept as an axiom that the freaks in Kiev don't "decide" anything at all.  They just take orders from the USA and execute them.  We saw that clearly during Biden's recent trip to Kiev when he had a meeting with the junta's "government" which he - Biden - "chaired" sitting at the head of the table (yet another deliberate in-your-face provocation).

Second, the US knows that the eastern Ukraine is lost, and they are absolutely correct.  Even if we fully believe what Strelkov says (more about that later), there is no doubt that the vast majority of the folks in the Donbass hate the neo-Nazi freaks in Kiev and that they do not want a common future with the rabid Galicians from the western Ukraine.

So if plan 'A' was to seize all of the Ukraine, put a pro-US neo-Nazi and hysterically russophobic regime in power, and take over Crimea for the US/NATO, plan 'B' is simpler: provoke Russia into a military intervention in the eastern Ukraine.  While the Russian military could easily take under control all of the Donbass and even all the lands to the Dniepr river as the proverbial hot knife through butter, the political benefits for the AngloZionist Empire would be immense:

1)  A new Cold War with Russia justifying the existence of NATO.
2)  Cutting-off Russia from the EU market (including energy).
3)  Blaming Russia for the Ukie economic collapse.
4)  Justifying a major surge in US/EU military budgets to "protect Europe".
5)  Isolating Russia internationally, especially at the UN.
6)  Declare Putin a "new Hitler" (what else?) and allocate billions for regime change in Russia.
7) Use the crisis to bring Europe to heel to the AngloZionist "master"
8) Impose Iran-like sanctions on Russia to try to hurt it economically
9) Justify a US/NATO move into western Ukraine and the creation of a new Korean-style demarcation line along the Dniepr with the free and civilized "West" on one side, and the "freedom hating and imperialist dictatorial Russian Asiatic hordes" on the other.
10)Blame the EU economic collapse on the 'Russian threat'

I would argue that for the AngloZionists plan 'B' is almost better than plan 'A'.  For one thing, plan 'B' makes it possible to blame Russia for anything and everything conceivable on Russia.  We have already seen this tendency in the absolutely ludicrous warning that should the Presidential elections next Sunday in the Ukraine fail - Russia would be sanctioned for it.  Next I propose to slap some major sanctions on Russia if there is an earthquake in San Fransisco or if there are riots in Paraguay...

Also, while plan 'A' was really a very long shot, plan 'B' is already working.  Let me give you an example: the Russian media.

For those who cannot follow the Russian media, especially the Russian TV, it is hard to image the degree of openly expressed *rage* at the developments in the Ukraine.  Some folks who are naturally inclined to see the "hand of CIA" in everything are even arguing that the "US-controlled" Russian media has been tasked by Langley to stir up Russian public opinion to such a degree as to force Putin to agree to an intervention in the Ukraine.  According to this thesis, if Putin does not order a Russian military intervention, he will face a major crisis and his popularity will crumble under the waves of outrage from the Russian population.  This is a neat and elegant theory.  It is also wrong (thank God!).  The fact is that Putin's popularity has soared over his handling over the Ukrainian crisis as shown by the screenshot of a recent TV report.

January 2014 - May 2014

Here we are dealing with a huge cultural difference between Russians and western people, especially Anglos: Russians are *very* weary of war.  They will accept it and they will even accept to die in a war, but only one in which the moral issue is really clear-cut like during the 2nd Chechen war, 08.08.08 or the Russian intervention in Crimea.  In all three of these cases the first and foremost consideration to support or oppose the Russian military intervention was a *moral* one.  While public opinion is gradually shifting towards a support for a Russian military intervention in the Ukraine (most public opinion polls suggest that Russian would back one), the military itself and even the Kremlin are weary of falling into the AngloZionist trap of plan 'B'.

Emotions are strong, but emotions should not decide of war and peace issues.  In the 2nd Chechen war, in 08.08.08 and in Crimea emotions were sky-high, but the decision to use military force was taken on pragmatic, rational and carefully measured reasons, not just an surge of outrage.  As I said it many times, when threatened, Russians to not get angry, they concentrate.  This is what is happening now.

Coming back to the media, another very interesting phenomenon is taking place: high visibility Russian Jews are clearly in the lead of the movement to take action (though not necessarily a military one) against the Junta.  Very well-known Jewish personalities like Vladimir Soloviev, Alexander Gordon, Roman Ratner (current head of the Alia battalion, an Israeli special forces battalion compose of Russian Jews), Avigdor Eskin and many others.  While rabid Jew-haters will dismiss this under the usual list of pretexts having to do with Jewish hypocrisy, playing both sides, etc. I personally believe that this is truly an expression of the loathing that Russian Jews have for Ukrainian neo-Nazis.  I would add that it is pretty clear to me that most Russian nationalists also believe in the sincerity of these Jews and welcome them in a struggle against a common enemy.  Does that mean that from now on there will be a long and uninterrupted "love fest" between Russian and Jewish patriots?  Most definitely not.  The list of outstanding issues of very strong disagreement and even opposition is huge, but this is an interesting "temporary cease-fire" if you want, a typically Russian (and Jewish!) way of keeping priorities straight and agreeing to a temporary tactical alliance against a common foe.  Furthermore, there are a lot of Russian Jews who have always felt a sincere and strong love for Russia and the Russian people (if only because a lot of them came from mixed marriages) and who welcome the opportunity to not have to chose between both sides and to be both patriotic Jews and patriotic Russians.  I know, to some this sill sound extremely naive.  But I personally have known many such Russian Jews, in Israel, Europe and Russia, who really did have a double-loyalty, but one which openly *added* two sincerely loyalties.  Of course, some felt more Jewish than Russian, but others felt more Russian than Jewish.  These matters are subtle and complex, not as black and white as some kneejerk Jew-haters would want them to be.  As the Russian expressions goes "the East is a subtle realm" and both Russians and Jews are first and foremost folks of the East, not of the West.

Coming back to what I call the AngoZionist plan 'B', we now can understand the Russian stance: not to be pulled in or, if that is impossible, to be pulled in as last as possible.  Why?  For a few basic reasons:

1) To have as clear-cut a moral case as possible.
2) To give time to world public opinion to realize that it is being lied to by the western corporate media (that already seems to be taking place, if slowly).
3) To maximize the support for such an intervention in the eastern Ukraine.
4) Because time is very much on the Russian side, to give every opportunity to the junta freaks to further commit blunders.
5) Because a victory of the DRP forces is still possible

At this point I want to get the the military balance on the ground in the Donbass.  To sum things up.

A very large Ukrainian force is currently deployed in the eastern Ukraine.  It is opposed by a very small force of volunteers.  There are two reasons why this conflict has not been settled in 24 hours.  First, the vast majority of the Ukrainian military personnel does not want to fight.  Second, the threat of a Russian military intervention is real and, I would add, has nothing to do with the forces allegedly deployed at the Russian-Ukrainian border.  Let me explain this as the corporate media is completely missing this.  Let me give you an example of what could happen.

Let's us assume that a few multiple-rocket launcher batteries around, say, Slaviansk suddenly decided to get serious and open up with a sustained artillery barrage similar to the one the Georgians unleashed on Tskhinval in the first hours of the 08.08.08 war.  In response to that, Russia would not need to send armor and troops across the border.  Putin could order missile and air-strikes which could literally obliterate the offending Ukrainian artillery units in a matter of *minutes* (one single Iskander missile armed with a fragmentation or fuel-air explosive warhead could do the job!).  Unlike the western reporters (which is a misnomer, they should be called "parroters" because they parrot the government lies), the Ukrainian military commanders all fully realize that they are all very much within reach of enough Russian firepower to send them all the a better world in minutes.  Would you want to obey orders to shell Slaviansk while knowing that there is a bullseye painted on our exact position by many Iskander missile operators and that if the Russians fire it, you will neither see, nor hear it coming (not even on radar)?

All the reports on the ground concur to say that while the various Ukrainian death squads (the "National Guard", the Dniepr and Dniester battalions, the various oligarch-owned death squads, etc.) are extremely hostile and even shoot civilians for fun, the Ukrainian military is mostly shy or even pretty friendly to the locals.  Here is what is happening really:

Ukrainian death squads are far more busy dealing with the Ukrainian military than with the Donbass forces.  For one thing, this is easier and safer for them (like all death squads, they are staffed with lunatics, perverts and cowards): why risk your life fighting some pretty motivated folks when you can instead bully regular military commanders to do the fighting for you?  As for the Ukrainians, they cannot openly defy these orders, but they can make darn sure that they are minimally executed. 

Furthermore, by all accounts, the death squads get all the support while the regular military forces are under or not paid at all, they are under fed, under equipped, they have little or not medical support and the logistics are plain horrible.

In fact, Igor Strelkov admits this in his address.  His concern is that with the gradual escalation the already small forces of volunteers is having to shoulder am immense effort while hundred of thousands of men, including military trained ones, are sitting at home and sipping beer.  Is that really true?

I believe that this is indeed very true.  There are many reasons for this state of affairs.

To begin, an entire generation of Ukrainians have been raised in abject passivity.  "Work, shut up and mind your business while we fleece you" was the order of the day under the various oligarch-controlled regimes of the "independent Ukraine".  Second, there are not one or two but at least THREE local powers in the Donbass right now: the local mobsters, the Kiev junta and the local resistance.  This creates a huge confusion were many people are both afraid and do not want to get burned.  Third, most people clearly that Russia will solve the problem for them and think "we will vote for sovereignty, and the Russians will come to liberate us sooner or later".  And never forget that that there are death squads operating all over the Ukraine right now.  The purpose of massacres like the one in Odessa or Mariupol is to terrify the locals by showing how ruthless and murderous you are and it works (death squads are of the most time honored traditions of the Empire!).  So it is all well to sit in the safety of my house in sunny Florida and wish that the folks in the Donbass would take up arms, except for my wife and family are not threatened.  My house will (probably) not get assaulted at night by man in black, and I am unlikely to be disappeared, tortured and murdered.   This also applies to most of the readers of this blog.

Of course, Strelkov clearly sees where all this is heading (escalation) and he is concerned that the currently small resistance will not be able to cope with a constantly growing junta escalation: it all began with baseball bats, the they switched to Molotov cocktails, then handguns, assault-rifles and machine guns.  Now they have already used mortar and artillery fire.  We have confirmed reports of helicopter-fired unguided missile attacks and this morning I got a report of a Sukhoi attack.  Add to this oligarch-paid death squads and you clearly will see what has Strelkov so worried and, let's face it, disgusted with the passivity of the locals.

But keep in mind that even if his appeal is not heeded, and even if the key cities are re-taken, the Donbass is already lost. In fact, the latest report out of Kiev says the Ukie rump-Rada has adopted a memorandum stating that "Ukrainian troops deployed in the country’s east should immediately return to their bases".  Now, I am not holding my breath (Uncle Sam will never agree), but who knows what might happen (maybe the Germans are getting involved now?).  I believe that nobody really knows.

There are simply too many variables to confidently state that this or that will happen.  Heck, we are not even sure of what has already happened!  This is an extremely chaotic situation in which most unpredictable things could happen (for example, an oligarch could e bought by Moscow or a resistance figure could be bought by the USA - it really could go either way).  The fact is that with the notable exception of true believers (on both sides), the vast majority of Ukrainians are still in the "what is in it for me?" mode.  Again, this is in no way different form the position of most Russians in 1917, 1991 or 1993.  While this kind of apparent passivity has nothing to do with some "lack of democratic culture in the past of these societies which only recently were feudal" and all the rest of the garden variety western racism supremacist, it is a direct result of a profound alienation with, and suspicion of, the elites.  These folks just so Yanukovich hand power to neo-Nazis and run abroad!  They have been burned over and over again.  And, this is crucial, there is no Ukrainian Putin to follow.

When Putin came to power in Russia it took less than a month for the armed forces to feel that "this guy as got our backs".  It took the rest of the population a little longer, but now the vast majority of Russians actually trust Putin.  Whom should they trust in the Ukraine or even in the Donbass.  Figure which appeared just a few weeks ago and which nobody really knows or figures which are known for decades for being thief, crooks and pathological liars?

Whom would you trust if you were living in Donetsk or Lugansk?

Would you risk your life and the life of your family on such a choice?

Exactly.

So while I understand the frustration of Strelkov (and most of us!) with seeing a territory with millions of people defended by only a few hundred courageous men, and while I also catch myself getting enraged in discussed with the news out of the Ukraine and day-dreaming about Polite Armed Men in Green obliterating the Ukie death-squads, I also understand why this has been and will continue to be a slow process: it is simply too fluid and too rapidly shifting to take any premature or rash decisions.

The AngloZionists are desperately trying to trigger an over Russian intervention, and there is a pretty good chance that they might succeed, no doubt, but the good news is that time is running out fast, very fast, soon the economic crisis is going to start really biting and the unrest will spread far beyond the Donbass.

As for the Presidential elections next Sunday, they are going to be such a mega-farce that it serve no other purpose than to maybe give NATO a justification to move forces into the western Ukraine at the "request" of the new President.  Will the West recognize this election?  You betcha it will!  As Vladimir Soloviev put it on Sunday, "even if there will be only one candidate and one person voting, the West will call these elections free and fair".  But for the people of the Ukraine this will be a self-evident farce which will only alienate them further, including the neo-Nazis.  In fact, Yulia Timoshenko (who, by the way, seems to have gone completely insane) has even declared that if the billionaire oligarch Poroshenko is elected (as all polls seem to suggest) she will launch yet another revolution with Maidan and all.

Following the example of the Ukraine, not it is "Banderastan" which is committing national suicide and that entire house of cards will be coming down soon (unless a last minute effort by Germany helps delay or stop this, but I am not holding my breath).  We all need to show some patience now.

Sorry for the very long SITREP, but I have to cover a lot of ground.

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker