Human Rights Watch: Donetsk Prisoner Parade is a War Crime

On the 23rd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, August 24th, militants in Donetsk paraded a few dozen Ukrainian prisoners down the city’s main thoroughfare, grimly mocking a military parade in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. A few hundred onlookers jeered, cursed, spit, and threw vegetables at the hand-cuffed and head-bowed prisoners. Trucks followed them, symbolically cleaning the street behind them by spraying water on the asphalt.

 

The spectacle wasn’t just gut-wrenching and humiliating; it might also be a war crime, according to human rights activists.

 

This wasn’t the first time that pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists have humiliated and abused Ukrainian citizens. International non-governmental organizations have already accused the armed pro-Russian groups of serious human rights abuses. In July, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine reported that Russian-supported militants have committed abuses such as unlawful abductions, torture, and extrajudicial executions. The report also stated that pro-Russians forces have used civilians as shields, purposely placing themselves in populated areas next to civilians. Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, the head of the UN mission to Ukraine, Armen Harutyunyan, stated that the “armed [pro-Russian] groups are placing themselves among populated zones, and this is increasing the number of civilian casualties.” The UN findings were excoriated by the Russian government, which accused the international organization of biases. Now, following the humiliating parade of captured Ukrainian servicemen in Donetsk, human rights organizations are again accusing the pro-Russian militants of committing war crimes.

 

Ole Solvang, a senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on the HRW website that the Donetsk incident is a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ common article 3, which prohibits the humiliating treatment of prisoners. “This parade is a clear violation of that absolute prohibition, and may be considered a war crime,” he wrote.

 

Article 3 of the Geneva Convention delineates the laws of war in “the case of armed conflict not of an international character.” The International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations have referred to the conflict in Ukraine as a non-international internal conflict, even while the Ukrainian government and its Western supporters have said that the war is an international one because of Russia’s direct participation and support for hostilities. Clause 1 of Article 3 clearly states that “persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms,” cannot be subject to “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” To a fair observer the parade of unarmed and surrendered prisoners were almost certainly victimized by “humiliating and degrading treatment.”

 

The parade was not only deeply humiliating, which is already a war crime in of itself, but also potentially dangerous in that it exposed the captured servicemen to potential vigilante violence. The Russian government is apparently unfazed by the display. Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, remarked that he saw nothing disturbing in the parade. “I have not seen anything that even resembled close to mockery,” he said, before deflecting attention to Russian accusations of war crimes by Ukrainian nationalist group Pravyi Sektor [Right Sector - Eng].

 

This week, the New York Times also showed to the world the mistreatment of a local Donbas woman accused of allegedly spying for the Ukrainian army. Militants in Donetsk wrapped the middle-aged woman in a Ukrainian flag and tied her to a sign post. A passer-by was photographed kicking and spitting at her. Others reportedly treated the victim the same way, blaming her for the killed civilians in the city.  A pro-Russian militant hinted that she would deserve whatever might happen to her.

 

The uncomfortable reality is that these abuses and war crime violations are likely to increase in severity as long as the war continues unabated. Following the failure of the peace talks in Minsk, a renewed Russian-supported offensive, and the capture of uniformed Russian servicemen on Ukrainian territory, the prospect of peace seems further and further away.   Fear begets violence, and the longer the war drags on people will increasingly succumb to dehumanizing others. The militants will continue to blame spies, traitors, and a fifth column. Ukrainian forces will continue to fight and become increasingly hardened themselves. The militants’ actions in recent days are meant to accelerate this process and make peace and reconciliation insurmountable. Public militant abuses of captured Ukrainian servicemen and civilians are designed to harden and divide Ukrainian society as a whole, driving Ukrainians to blame the Donbas as a whole rather than the relatively small number of perpetrators. Although the aims and outcomes of the ongoing direct Russian invasion of southeastern Ukraine are still unclear, the current escalation bodes extremely poorly for a speedy conclusion to the conflict, despite the deepest level of concern of the West. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian civilians continue to suffer.

WAR CRIME BY PUTIN'S SS THUGS !

 

 Held at  Gunpoint, by Putin's Thugs, thrown burning cigs at Ukrainian  POW says goodbye to loved ones.

My View - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demands a decisive response

 

PermalinkLet’s be clear: Russia has invaded Ukraine. We can debate the reasons. But we can no longer debate the fact. Nor can we stand by and do nothing. It is time for the United States and Europeans to act. This weekend’s European Council meeting in Brussels and next week’s Nato summit in Wales should be devoted to forging an effective, and lasting, response.

 

Numerous reports from southeastern Ukraine make clear that Russian military forces are operating in Ukraine in ways that can only be described as an invasion. Russian artillery, long used to fire against Ukrainian forces from the Russian side of the border, is now firing from inside Ukraine. Russian tanks and armoured vehicles are rolling along Ukrainian roads. Russian airborne troops, captured by Ukrainian forces, openly admit that they had been sent there to disrupt Ukraine’s effort to retake control of its territory.

 

Why Russian President Vladimir Putin chose this moment to escalate is not immediately clear, but none of the plausible reasons offer any solace. At the least, the overt use of Russian forces is meant to forestall the defeat of the Russian-supported rebels in eastern Ukraine. In recent weeks, government forces were regaining significant ground in the east. Opening up a new front further south could force the Ukrainian military to shift its attention from the rebel-held areas and thus enable the rebels to strengthen their positions.

 

The Russian military effort is probably designed to establish effective control of key parts of Ukraine. The invasion route and focus in southeast Ukraine is consistent with an effort to establish a land route to Crimea, which since the illegal Russian annexation last March has been reachable only by sea and air. It is also consistent with an even more nefarious goal – establishing a territorial link between Russia and the Russian occupied Transnistria region in Moldova.

 

One thing should be clear. This is not about trying to influence Ukraine’s alignment with the west, as Mr Putin’s apologists continue to claim. For Mr Putin, the issue has never been whether Ukraine will have an economic relationship with the EU or be a member of Nato. To him, the issue is whether and how Russia can effectively control Ukraine.

 

The Russian invasion of a neighbouring country poses a serious threat not only to the European security environment, but to global order. If there is one principle that has undergirded that order since 1945 it is that states do not seize territory by force. That principle was blatantly violated in March, and it is again being violated today. At this point, calls for a ceasefire, for de-escalation, or a return to the negotiating table play right into Mr Putin’s hands. Instead, we need to take actions that will lead Moscow to withdraw its military forces from Ukraine and halt its support of rebel forces, and allow Kiev to retake complete control over all of Ukraine’s territory

.

Fortunately, over the next few days the leaders of EU, the US and Canada are slated to meet in Brussels and Cardiff, giving them the opportunity to decide on steps that can help bring about this result. These should include:

• First, a clear commitment by all 28 Nato allies to bolster their capacity to defend all of Nato’s territory. That requires an explicit guarantee by all 28 to halt a decade-plus of cuts in defence spending and begin to make the investments necessary for their security. It also requires a significant, forward presence of Nato air, sea, and land forces in central and eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic States. Such a presence needs to be visible and persistent, and should remain in place for as long as required.

• Second, western countries need to supply the Ukrainian military with advanced weapons and a steady supply of intelligence to bolster its ability to defend its territory. Concern that such assistance could be provocative to Moscow ignores the fact that it is Russia that has invaded Ukraine, and that Moscow can put a halt to the assistance by withdrawing its troops and end support of rebel forces.

• Finally, the EU and the US need to impose full-scale economic sanctions. That means real, Iran-style financial sanctions, including freezing Russian assets overseas and denying Russia access to the international financial system. It also means an immediate end to any arms deliveries to Russia, including those already under contract such as the French Mistral assault ships. And it means and end to any technical or financial support for Russia’s energy sector.

We are at a defining moment. If we ignore or prevaricate about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Putin will succeed in upending the European order at a grave cost to Europe’s security. If we act decisively, and act now, Mr Putin will fail in his effort to seek Russian control over Ukraine and the territory of the former Soviet Union and Europe will again be secure.

Putin's Cherished Deniability Is Shattered

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the ability to deny Russia's involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine has always been of utmost importance. The Kremlin has stressed that it is not a party to the fighting, and that all it wants from Ukraine is peace and a few trade concessions. Deniability, however, is fast eroding. Despite increasingly surreal disavowals from Moscow, it is now apparent just how invested Putin is in the conflict's outcome. That investment terrifies Europe and the U.S., which have no desire to match it.

 

During talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last night, Putin reiterated his tired message that Russia "cannot talk substantively about a ceasefire, about any agreements between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk -- this is none of our business, it's the business of Ukraine itself." The assertion rang more hollow than usual, however, amid published photographs of Russian troops captured in Ukraine and furtive hometown burials for Russian paratroopers killed there.

 

One such burial, of two soldiers, took place in the village of Vybuty near Pskov in northwestern Russia, where an airborne division is based. Efforts to conceal the deaths produced a fiasco. Though the wife of one paratrooper had reported his death on the Vkontakte social network, when a reporter, Ilya Vasyunin of the Russian Planet website, called the wife's phone number, a woman who answered stated that the paratrooper was alive and well. Two reporters, from Russian Planet and TV Dozhd, who visited the cemetery where the two fresh graves had been seen were immediately attacked by men in black tracksuits. Local journalists, however, succeeded in photographing the graves.

 

According to the independent TV Dozhd, the soldiers' names and wreaths have been removed from the graves.

 

There are other reports of paratrooper funerals, which are hard to conceal. Soldiers have grieving families who do not necessarily share the authorities' desire for deception. In any case, Ukrainian troops have captured some Russian paratroopers. For the first time since the conflict began in March, they were able to record interviews with them.

 

What the paratroopers said is immaterial given the circumstances under which they were questioned. What matters is that Moscow has admitted that they are Russian servicemen. The Russian defense ministry said the soldiers had been "patrolling the Russian-Ukrainian border and probably crossed it inadvertently in an unmarked area. As far as we know, they did not resist when they were captured by the Ukrainian military."

 

That explanation was also cited by Putin, who pointed out, truthfully, that Ukrainian soldiers had also crossed into Russian territory and been sent back. The response might have sufficed to extend the deniability game if not for the soldiers' deaths, and the efforts of other soldiers' relatives to track down their loved ones supposedly taking part in military exercises near the Ukrainian border. The mother of one paratrooper, Lyubov Maksimova, gave a press conference Tuesday in which she apologized to Ukraine in the event her son had caused any harm.

 

In other words, if Russian paratroopers previously had blundered into Ukraine because border markings weren't visible, they've made a habit of the mistake. In the process, some are getting killed. The captured Russian paratroopers, meanwhile, had ridden in unmarked vehicles without Russian insignia -- a wholly unnecessary subterfuge had they simply been patrolling their own border.

 

The involvement of Russian airborne troops in the conflict appears to be a recent phenomenon. Ukrainian servicemen had never captured regular Russian soldiers before, and reporters in the conflict zone had only seen nationalist volunteers and some Chechen fighters helping out the Ukrainian separatists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The flow of Russian weapons into the area was documented, and the participation of instructors from Russian intelligence strongly suspected, but that was the extent of it until this week.

 

Now, with the rebels being hammered by the Ukrainian army, such support is presumably no longer enough. Unwilling to surrender the fight, Putin is surrendering his cherished deniability instead.

European and U.S. leaders are nevertheless careful not to call this a Russian-Ukrainian war. Nor has the first credible evidence of Russian troops engaged in eastern Ukraine led to calls for further economic sanctions. To call Putin's increasingly obvious bluff would necessitate supporting the Ukrainian side, possibly with military aid. No one is prepared to do that.

 

Even Poroshenko is talking only of "stopping the supply of equipment and armaments to the fighters," lest he saddle his supporters with uncomfortable truths. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, unofficially charged with pacifying Ukraine, is probably right in counting on Poroshenko and Putin to work out some kind of deal. Further escalation could spell disaster for both men. Eventually, they will have to figure out how to stop.

WHY RUSSIAN'S ARE NOT FIT TO BE PART OF THE HUMAN RACE

As Peace Talks Approach, Rebels Humiliate Prisoners In Ukraine

 

 This Blond Piece of Shit is a Russian Whore

 

On the sidewalk of a busy street beside a checkpoint, a bearded gunman wrapped a woman in a Ukrainian flag and forced her to stand, sobbing in terror, holding a sign identifying her as a spotter for Ukrainian artillery. 

“She kills our children,” it read.

Because the woman was a spy, said the gunman, a pro-Russian militant, everything that would happen to her would be well-deserved.

Passers-by stopped their cars to get out and spit, slap her face and throw tomatoes at her.

Her knees buckled.

She struggled to mumble in protest of her innocence and to shake her head in denial. 

This theatrical scene of abuse unfolded a day after the rebel movement had paraded Ukrainian prisoners of war down a main thoroughfare here at bayonet point, then dramatically washed the pavement behind them.

The public humiliation of prisoners came as the presidents of Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet for peace talks in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on Tuesday.

The taunting and provocation appeared to be aimed at dissuading the Ukrainian government from accepting a settlement that might forestall a broader Russian intervention, a development that separatists here are banking on as their military fortunes wane.

Further muddying the prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough, Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of opening a new front in the war by sending an armored column across the border from Russia south of the Ukrainian lines that surround the rebel capital, Donetsk.

The Russian government dismissed the accusation and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow, said that Western governments should not expect Russia to make all the concessions in a settlement and that Ukraine, too, would have to compromise.

The Ukrainian military said 10 tanks and two armored infantry vehicles manned by Russian soldiers disguised as separatist fighters had crossed the border near the town of Novoazovsk and engaged in combat with Ukrainian border guards.

The claim could not be independently confirmed.

Also on Monday, Russia announced it would send a second convoy of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine across a border area controlled by pro-Russian separatists; Ukrainian officials say the movement of goods is calculated to undermine the country’s sovereignty.

The drama that played out on the streets of Donetsk Monday seemed sure to ratchet up tensions.

A military unit of Russian nationals from the region of North Ossetia, in southern Russia, held the woman at a checkpoint in a roundabout in Donetsk known as “the Motel,” for a nearby hotel.

The men, smiling and gesturing toward the woman, waved over cars for drivers to observe or take part.

“We should hang you on the square,” one woman in the crowd yelled, then walked up and spat in the face of the victim, then kicked her in a thigh, causing the woman accused of spying to stagger back.

The gunmen looked on.

At times, the pro-Russian soldiers posed beside the crying woman to take selfies on their smartphones, or playfully twirl her hair with their fingers.

At one point, a fighter walked a few paces back, crouched in the street and aimed a Kalashnikov rifle at the woman in a mock execution.

The woman shut her eyes.

“Open your eyes, stand up straight!” another of the gunmen yelled.

A call placed by The New York Times to an aide for a senior separatist commander informing him of the abuse resulted in the rebel soldiers at the checkpoint briefly detaining the journalists.

The aide, who uses only the nickname The Georgian, sent a car with gunmen to extricate the suspected spy and journalists from the Motel.

The two groups of gunmen agreed to release the journalists, but were not able to agree on handing over the woman.

After the discussion, the captors drove her away to an unknown location.

The man known as The Georgian, who is a member of the Vostok Battalion, which consists of mostly local Ukrainians, said the Ossetian volunteers at the Motel checkpoint do not report to Ukrainian commanders, so nothing further could be done.

He said he condemned the abuse.

At the peace talks in Minsk, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine will be joined by representatives of the European Union and the Russia-led Customs Union, including the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Although the talks offer some hope for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, both Putin and Mr. Poroshenko are under strong pressure from nationalists at home to press on militarily.

Oleh Voloshyn, a former Ukrainian diplomat, said in a telephone interview from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, that Mr. Poroshenko will use the summit meeting to ask Putin to halt the flow of Russian volunteers and military hardware across the border and may offer, perhaps in private talks or via subordinates on the sidelines, autonomous status for portions of eastern Ukraine in exchange.

The Ukrainian government, however, will not accept any legitimization of the main rebel group here, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Voloshyn said, particularly after the public abuse of prisoners.

“After yesterday’s parade of prisoners of war, the sympathy toward the people of the Donbass is low in other regions in Ukraine,” he said, making it politically difficult for Mr. Poroshenko to negotiate, something that factions in the separatist movement intent on drawing in Russian peacekeepers want, Mr. Voloshyn said.

“Most Ukrainians want peace. But if it comes to a choice between total humiliation and war, they will choose war.”

In Moscow, Lavrov, the foreign minister, was questioned about the parade held Sunday in which prisoners of war from the Ukrainian Army were displayed.

Researchers with Human Rights Watch said the parade violated Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment against prisoners of war.”

Lavrov said the parade did not appear to meet that standard.

“I saw a picture of this parade,” he said.

“I did not see anything close to abuse.”

Russia Claims Soldiers Captured By Ukraine Crossed Border By Accident

The Russian government claims that a group of soldiers captured in eastern Ukraine had crossed the border by accident.

pro-Russian missile launcher as it drives in the town of Krasnodon.

Ukraine announced Tuesday that it had captured ten soldiers in the area of Amvrosiivka, near the Russian border in the Donetsk region.

The region has been torn apart by fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatists who declared independence in the region in April.

The Facebook page for the anti-rebel operation -- which includes the military, the national guard and Interior Ministry forces -- said the soldiers are from a Russian paratrooper division.

The posting did not give details of how the capture took place.

Footage of five of the captives was also posted on the page and showed men dressed in camouflage fatigues.

One of the soldiers said they had been told they were being mobilized to take part in military exercises, The Associated Press reports.

Another soldier, who identified himself as Ivan Melchyakov, listed his personal details, including the name of the paratroop regiment he said is based in the Russian town of Kostroma, located on the Volga River northeast of Moscow.

"I did not see where we crossed the border," he said, according to Sky News.

"They just told us we were going on a 70-kilometer (43-mile) march over three days. 

"Everything is different here, not like they show it on television," Melchyakov continues.

"We've come as cannon fodder."

The BBC reported that another captive, who gives his name as Sgt. Andrei Generalov, said "Stop sending in our boys. Why? This is not our war. And if we weren't here, none of this would have happened."

Ukraine's Defense Minister seized on the capture, the first such event claimed by authorities, as proof that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine alongside the separatists.

"Officially they are at exercises in various corners of Russia," Valeriy Geletey said, according to Sky News.

"In reality, they are participating in military aggression against Ukraine and their families know nothing about their true fate... I am addressing the relatives of Russian servicemen. Find out immediately where your loved ones are. Take them out of Ukraine, where they are being forced to die."

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed source in the Russian Defense Ministry as saying the soldiers were patrolling the border area and probably crossed the border inadvertently.

The confrontation came to light hours before talks between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko were due to begin in Minsk, Belarus.

The news is likely to add more tension to an encounter that was already highly unlikely to succeed in bringing an end to the conflict.

The United Nations has estimated that more than 2,000 people have died since the conflict began, while 330,000 are believed to have fled the area.

NATO has claimed that Russia has tens of thousands of troops positioned in areas near the Ukrainian border, leading to persistent concerns that Russia could be preparing an invasion.

Russia has denied that it has any intention of invading eastern Ukraine, and has also pushed back against accusations from Ukraine and Western nations that it has provided military support and training to the separatists or fired artillery into Ukraine itself.

Meanwhile, towering columns of smoke rose Tuesday from outside a city in Ukraine's far southeast after what residents said was a heavy artillery barrage.

It was the second straight day that attacks were reported in the vicinity of Novoazovsk, which is in eastern Ukraine's separatist Donetsk region but previously had seen little fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels.

Local residents, some hastily packing up in order to flee, told The Associated Press it was not clear what direction the firing had come from.

Ukrainian officials on Monday said artillery was fired from the Russian side of the border.

A Ukrainian soldier who declined to give his name suggested that Tuesday's shelling could have come from rebels aiming to take out a Ukrainian rocket launcher.

Before Peace Talks, Ukraine Says It Holds Russian Troops

Ukraine released video footage Tuesday of what it said were 10 captured Russian soldiers, raising tensions as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, for talks later in the day with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine.

Captured Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Russia has consistently denied supporting pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the video will step up pressure on the Kremlin to clarify its role in the fighting there.

In earlier peace talks between lower-ranking officials, Moscow’s position has prevented discussion of what Ukraine regards as the key to stopping the conflict — a Russian willingness to acknowledge, and halt, its support for rebels holed up in the eastern cities of Luhansk and Donetsk.

“It makes it very difficult to negotiate anything when Putin says he is not involved,” Michael A. McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Moscow and now a professor at Stanford University, said in a telephone interview.

Ukrainian forces have made steady progress in recent weeks against the rebels, driving them from a number of towns and villages, but the government says the advance has been slowed by an accelerating flow of arms and fighters from Russia to support the rebels.

After repeated accusations of Russian involvement that were not backed by any solid evidence, Ukraine on Tuesday released videos of men who, under interrogation, identified themselves as Russian soldiers captured on Ukrainian territory.

The men, who gave their names and military serial numbers, said they had been sent to Ukraine by their superiors after initially being told they were going on a training exercise. 

The videos surfaced on the Facebook page of Ukraine’s so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation, just hours before Putin was due to meet Mr. Poroshenko and senior officials of the European Union in Minsk.

The meeting between the two presidents, the first since a brief encounter in June, would not end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, analysts said, but should at least open the way for future talks.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who visited Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, over the weekend, dampened expectations for the Minsk meeting.

It “certainly won’t result in the breakthrough” that Germany and others were hoping for, she told a German newspaper.

The videos released by Ukraine may make it more difficult for the Kremlin to stick to its approach of simply denying that it has any hand in the fighting.

“Everything was a lie. There were no drills here,” one of the captured Russians, who identified himself as Sergey A. Smirnov, told a Ukrainian interrogator.

He said he and other Russians from an airborne unit in Kostroma, in central Russia, had been sent on what was described initially as a military training exercise but later turned into a mission into Ukraine.

After having their cellphones and identity documents taken away, they were sent into Ukraine on vehicles stripped of all markings, Smirnov said. 

RIA Novosti, a state-controlled Russian news agency, quoted an unnamed source from Russia’s defense ministry as saying the men had crossed into Ukraine by accident.

“The soldiers really did participate in a patrol of a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, crossed it by accident on an unmarked section, and as far as we understand showed no resistance to the armed forces of Ukraine when they were detained,” the source said.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian military, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, disputed that account and accused Russia of sending the soldiers across the border on a “special mission,” Reuters reported.

Dmitri Trenin, an expert on Russian foreign policy and the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, predicted that Russia would persist with its denials but might be willing to quietly abandon its support over time as it shifted to other ways to pressure Kiev.

“There is no solution to the Ukraine issue any time soon,” Mr. Trenin said in a telephone interview from Moscow.

Russia has already cut off gas supplies to Ukraine, complaining that it has not been paid for previous deliveries, and energy shortages will grow increasingly painful for Ukraine as winter approaches.

Moscow’s long-term goal, Mr. Trenin said, is not to force Ukraine to recognize the rebels’ self-declared states but to ensure that Ukraine never joins NATO or allows Western troops on Ukrainian territory.

That goal could be accomplished, he said, by forcing Ukraine to make constitutional changes that would give eastern regions an effective veto over key decisions by the government in Kiev.

“We are still at the early stages of this monumental struggle,” he said.

“The eastern rebels may lose their battle and Putin may be willing to accept this as a tactical move. But he is not ready to accept defeat of Russia’s policy in Ukraine.” 

Time for Obama to get some balls, become a REAL President and a World Leader

As Ukraine's standoff with Russia over its support of pro-Russian separatists escalates, President Obama must decide how the USA can prevent the conflict from spinning out of control.

 

While Obama has been quietly letting Germany take the lead on the diplomatic front up until now, what he and his deputies communicate at talks Tuesday between Ukraine, Russia and European leaders in Belarus could play a pivotal role in whether Russia succeeds in disabling Ukraine's economic recovery and permanently destabilizing Europe's second-largest country.

 

Phillip Karber, who has briefed the White House and Congress on the Ukrainian military's needs in its fight against separatists, says the USA should provide Ukraine with Predator drones to help stem the flow of armored reinforcements that have crossed from Russia.

 

"For every battalion of combat material or troops the Russians send into Ukraine, the U.S. should send a team with a MQ-9 Predator," said Karber, who is president of the Potomac Foundation, a think tank. "(The Predator) is not only very effective against dispersed armored vehicles, but greatly reduces collateral damage that comes from ground-attack aircraft."

 

On Friday, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Moscow has sent Russian-manned artillery units into Ukraine in recent days and was using them to shell Ukrainian forces as part of a "major escalation" of Russian involvement in the disputed region.

 

Russia continues to deny that it is supplying weapons and other military aid to the separatists in Ukraine, with the Russian foreign ministry calling Rasmussen's statement "another lie" on Saturday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

 

Other analysts warn dramatically increasing military aid to Ukraine risks a rapid Russian escalation that the USA could not match.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin — who has at least 10,000 troops on Ukraine's border, according to NATO — "can escalate more with less cost" than the USA can, says Bruce Jones, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. That "could create a much more intensive war with high costs for Ukraine."

 

Instead, Obama has taken a measured approach that includes providing Ukraine with U.S. intelligence support, military training and advice while gradually imposing sanctions that hurt the Russian economy without causing it to collapse, Jones said.

 

However, Jones says the president hasn't done a good job of explaining that approach to the American public and the international community.

 

"Obama hasn't made it clear he's willing to escalate if Putin does," Jones said. "That lack of certainty Putin can exploit. If he's not certain we will escalate, for him the risk of escalating is less."

 

The USA needs to make clear that it will do whatever it takes to help Ukraine regain control of its territory in the east, says Janusz Bugajski, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank.

 

"We don't want another divided state in Europe in which Russia can pull the strings and keep it unstable," Bugajski said. "If it's come to the point the Ukrainians can't take back their territory … then I think it's time to help the Ukrainians regain the initiative."

 

That should also guide whether the USA continues to let Germany take the lead in negotiations after Tuesday's talks, Bugajski said.

 

"The bad outcome is if the Germans and Europeans with Russia somehow push Kiev to accept a peace deal or cease-fire that acknowledges the existence of this rebel enclave, then it's time for the United States to step in because that would be the worst-case scenario."

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a cease-fire during her visit Saturday to Kiev, where she met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

 

"The significance of my visit is that the German government (believes) that the territorial integrity and well-being of Ukraine is essential," Merkel said, according to German newspaper Deutsche Welle.

 

Poroshenko pledged that Ukraine "will do everything for this to happen but not at the expense of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine."

 

Tuesday's talks follow the entrance and exit of a Russian aid convoy into Ukraine, a move that drew international condemnation and a threat by the White House to increase sanctions if the trucks did not leave immediately.

A 24-Step Plan to Resolve the Ukraine Crisis

Vladimir Putin may be meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko for peace talks in Belarus on Tuesday, but the conflict between the two countries, and more broadly between Russia and the West, is in fact escalating, with Russia most recently sending aid convoys and apparent military equipment and armored vehicles into Ukrainian territory. Since April, fighting between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian rebels has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced around 360,000 more. Kiev accuses Moscow of directly and indirectly violating its sovereignty and waging war against it; Moscow accuses Kiev of violently repressing Russian-speakers and creating a humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine. 

 

In an effort to break the impasse, a group of American and Russian experts and former officials—including an ex-director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service and a top Russia advisor to George W. Bush—recently met on an island in Finland. Working privately, in an approach known as “Track II diplomacy,” they developed a plan for a possible high-level diplomatic discussion on resolving the crisis in Ukraine. In a climate of intensifying hostilities, their ideas—among others, establishing a UN-authorized peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, granting amnesty to combatants who have not committed war crimes, and respecting Ukrainian legislation on the country's "non-aligned" status—chart a path to peace.

The Ukraine crisis remains in a highly dangerous phase. Escalating violence on the ground in Ukraine and fears of a descent into a more intense confrontation between Ukraine and Russia have focused the world’s attention.

Despite these tensions, there is reason to believe that all the major parties to the dispute are open to a non-military solution if satisfactory terms can be devised. However, finding those terms has not been easy. A bitter information war obscures ground truth, deepening the gulf between Russia on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other. Voices on each side exaggerate the objectives of the other. Meanwhile, the challenges of reconciliation and building a stable, prosperous Ukraine mount the longer the violence continues. People in eastern Ukraine, whatever their political allegiances, suffer, most the innocent victims of disputes and policies in which they have little voice.

The Ukraine crisis will ultimately end with a diplomatic solution. The only question is how much devastation will occur, and how many future grievances will be born and nurtured, before diplomacy will be able to resolve the crisis. As always, a diplomatic solution will require all sides to make concessions and to focus on their essential needs, not on ideal outcomes or unconditional victory.

We are not privy to the confidential discussions between our governments. It would help whatever diplomacy may be underway if the public debate in both Russia and the West were focused not so much on fixing blame and stoking passions as finding ways to reduce the risk of further escalation and end the crisis. In that spirit, a group of high-ranking Russian and American experts with strong experience in executive and legislative branches of power and analysis of international relations—with the generous support of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO)—recently met outside Helsinki on an island retreat called Boisto to consider the Ukraine crisis and a way forward. What follows is the fruit of that session: a set of issues for a high-level U.S.-Russian dialogue, which should be part of a larger discussion that must include Ukrainian as well as European representatives. The issues could become a framework for resolving the crisis. We think it especially notable that the group focused part of its efforts on the terms for an enduring and verifiable ceasefire with significant international participation. Obviously, much tough diplomacy would be required to reach agreement on all the issues. But it is time to reinforce the diplomatic effort, starting with a ceasefire, as outlined here.

BOISTO AGENDA

Elements of an Enduring, Verifiable Ceasefire

1. Ceasefire and ceasefire-monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
2. Formation and deployment of a UN-authorized peacekeeping mission under Chapter 7 of the UN charter
3. Withdrawal of regular Russian and Ukrainian army units to an agreed distance from conflict zones
4. Removal of Ukrainian National Guard units from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions
5. Establishment of effective border control and halt of illegal trans-border transit of military equipment and personnel
6. Agreed limits on significant armed-forces concentration in the vicinity of the Russian-Ukrainian border
7. Confidence-building measures under OSCE auspices
8. Verified demilitarization of illegal armed groups on both sides under OSCE auspices
9. Formation of new Ukrainian law-enforcement forces in the conflict zone

Humanitarian and Legal Issues

10. Return of and humanitarian assistance for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs)
11. Compensation for property losses and reconstruction of housing and commercial property
12. Credible investigation of crimes committed during the crisis
13. Amnesty for combatants not involved in war crimes during the hostilities

Economic Relations

14. Preservation of Russian-Ukrainian economic relations, including defense-industry cooperation in view of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) and other arrangements
15. Enhancement of energy-related infrastructure and transportation networks
16. International measures against illegal siphoning of gas transit
17. Mutual guarantees for current status of labor migrants

Social and Cultural Issues

18. Protection of the status of the Russian language and of traditional cultural ties between Russia and Ukraine
19. Free access to mass media and television, including Russian mass media and television

Crimea

20. Discussion of the settlement of legal issues pertaining to the status of Crimea
21. Guarantee of uninterrupted water and energy supplies
22. Protection of the rights of ethnic minorities
23. Discussion of access by Ukrainian companies to development of offshore oil and gas reserves

International Status of Ukraine

24. Mutual respect for the non-bloc status of Ukraine as stipulated by Ukrainian legislation

* * *

BOISTO WORKING GROUP

American Participants

1. Thomas Graham–Co-chair of the Boisto Group; managing director of Kissinger Associates; former special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff (2004–2007)
2. Andrew Weiss— Co-chair of the Boisto Group; vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs on the National Security Council staff (1998–2001)
3. Deana Arsenian—Vice president of the International Program and director of the Russia Program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York
4. Rajan Menon—Anne and Bernard Spitzer professor of political science in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York/City University of New York
5. Robert Nurick—Senior fellow at the Atlantic Council
6. Jack Snyder—Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations in the Political Science Department at Columbia University

Russian Participants

1. Alexander Dynkin—Co-chair of the Boisto Group; director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO); advisor to the prime minister of Russia (1998–1999)
2. Aleksey Arbatov—Head of the Center for International Security at IMEMO; deputy chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation (1995–2003)
3. Vyacheslav Trubnikov—Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary; member of the IMEMO board of directors; director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (1996 – 2000); first deputy minister of foreign affairs of Russia (2000–2004); four-star general, awarded with Hero of the Russian Federation medal
4. Victor Kremenyuk—Deputy director of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies
5. Artem Malgin—Vice rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University)
6. Feodor Voitolovsky—Deputy director of IMEMO
7. Andrey Ryabov—Editor in chief of the World Economy and International Relations monthly journal

 

 

Funeral & Burial of Americian Volunteer who Died for Ukraine

Please Click above

CARGO 200 - From Ukraine to Russia

By Maria Turchenkova, photojournalist

Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine

 

At the border in Uspenka [Luhansk Oblast] it is quiet.

 

There is no traffic in the direction of Russia, and now the border guards, who were bored only five minutes ago, are inspecting a semi-trailer truck with great surprise, a truck with red crosses and the number “200” on the sides. They slowly walk around it from different directions, photographing it on their phones, while the customs official checks the paperwork for the cargo. The procedure is proceeding formally, but there is a feeling of tension from not understanding where this cargo came from and who exactly sent it. The driver, Slava, cannot explain anything–this morning “people whom he could not refuse” asked him to drive the truck to Russia and said only that it was important.

 

I glance over an officer’s shoulder, “Donetsk Regional Bureau of Forensic and Medical Expertise.

This paper certifies that neither the corpse of Mr. Zhdanovich, Sergei Borisovich, DOB 1966, nor the coffin contain any items whose movement across the state border of Ukraine is prohibited.”

 

 

There are thirty-one such certificates, one for each of the coffins that were sent inside this refrigerated truck from Donetsk two hours ago.

 

A column of three vehicles (a car with police officers, the truck itself and another car–driven by us journalists) departed from the city just before evening, and by the time we reached the border, it was already dark. The faces of the border guards flicker in the torch lights, and no one wants to talk, everyone is simply waiting for the inspection to finish, while not taking their eyes off the semi.

 

Cargo 200.

Inside the truck there are 31 coffins, marked with Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] stickers, with Russian citizens who had died in Donetsk during the battle at the airport on May 26. Rumors about Russians participating in the battles in Donetsk Oblast had been circulating from the very beginning of the hostilities in April, but no one ever saw them live.

 

The battle at the Donetsk airport (the airport is still controlled by the Ukrainian side, despite the fact that the city is the center of the self-proclaimed DPR) has become the most tragic in the whole period of the ATO in Donbas–the exact death toll is still unknown, but according to various sources it is at least 50 people.

 

The next day, a pile of dead bodies in camouflage were shown to reporters. They were lying on the blood-stained floor in the basement of the morgue of the Kalinin hospital in the center of Donetsk. Many were mutilated, some were decapitated, limbs were missing. They were the bodies of those who were in the KAMAZ with the wounded that came under fire in the vicinity of the airport on the day of the battle. The morgue staff worked continuously, chain-smoking right in the building. Breathing inside and within a 50 meter radius of the entrance was simply impossible due to the caustic putrid smell.

 

The morgue ran out of room, so at some point activists of the DPR drove up two refrigerated trucks for transporting produce, into which some of the victims were loaded. The drivers of the trucks stayed there at the morgue smoking one cigarette after another. According to them, armed insurgents stopped them on the road and said only, “We need the vehicle.” And now, with their refrigerators loaded with corpses, they were simply waiting for the vehicles to be released.

 

 

On Tuesday locals started coming by to identify the dead. Someone was looking for missing relatives; others came to look at the lists which were not there. Searching for the right body inside the truck, where corpses were piled one on top of another, was impossible. So, to those who wanted to recognise their relatives, the morgue staff offered photographs which were taken by the criminologists. On Wednesday it became known that in this way only two bodies had been identified–the dead turned out to be Donetsk residents Mark Zverev and Edward Tyuryutikov.

 

Who the other bodies belonged to was not known until Wednesday evening. The mystery was solved in the most unpredictable way.

 

At the end of the day, while we met with colleagues in a hotel café for supper, we were approached by a man close to Alexander Borodai, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. He said that the next day a column of two trucks with bodies would depart from Donetsk to Russia, and asked the journalists for a favor: to accompany them to the border. He promised to report in half an hour where exactly they would be driven to and who would accompany the cargo, and he asked us to give him an answer at that time whether or not we would agree to go. We were stunned by what we heard.

 

This was the first admission that Russian citizens are dying in the battles in Donbass. Only two weeks ago in the social networks, rumors were being spread that the bodies of Russians killed in battles in the East were secretly being transported across the border to Russia. But nobody in the DPR confirmed it, and they definitely did not advertise it.

 

Now the leadership of the DPR was asking correspondents to both cover this event and to accompany the convoy, probably expecting an attack from the Ukrainian security forces and hoping that they would not touch the column in the presence of journalists.

 

It was completely unclear how this move by the leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic could be correlated with statements from Moscow, where they were insisting on a “people’s struggle” in Donbass and denied the participation of Russian citizens in the conflict, and what reaction could be expected to this from the Kremlin.

 

In the end we decided to go, and rumors about the upcoming event quickly spread through the hotel.

The next morning, about a hundred journalists from the international media had gathered at the morgue. Among them were cameras from Perviy Kanal and Russia 24, which would later not report a single news story regarding this event.

 

Along came Alexander Borodai and Denis Pushilin, the self-proclaimed speaker of the Supreme Council of the DPR. They stood apart from each other, each with their own ring of armed guards, each separately talking to the journalists. They said the same thing: that they were sending “Cargo 200,” with Russian volunteers who had come to support the struggle of the DPR insurgency, back to Russia and that they did not want any provocations. So, the truck would travel without an armed escort.

 

Multi-colored coffins which, as reported by activists of the DPR, had been gathered from around all of Donetsk, were set out at the morgue entrance, and the journalists wondered whether or not the bodies were already inside. The departure of the column was originally planned for one in the afternoon, and for about four hours the journalists simply waited while the coffins were loaded into the truck. However, the more time passed, the less realistic it seemed that the departure would actually go ahead. Morgue staff went round with lists of names of the dead and for a couple of moments even showed them to the journalists, they but did not allow [anyone] to look carefully or take photographs.

 

 

Besides the press, there were also employees of the Kalinin hospital, on the territory of which the morgue was located, who were watching the scene with curiosity along with the relatives of the identified local Mark Zverev, who came to say their farewells. None of the activists from the DPR or residents of Donetsk came. Nobody took this final opportunity to say farewell to the “volunteers who came to the defence of the Russian people.” Despite the large gathering of the press, the event still seemed like a secret, a tragedy, which would be mourned only across the border.

 

The loading of the coffins into the truck began. Immediately reports started coming in that the Vostok Battalion (one of the units of the insurgents, which had become the main power in Donbas) was clearing the city administration building of DPR activists. Pushilin and Borodai left in a hurry, many journalists, as soon as the coffins were loaded, also rushed to the city center. Later they released reports that the bodies of dead Russians were loaded up by the morgue and sent across the border.

 

 

But the coffins that left the morgue were empty.

 

It seemed that each new twist in this story was transforming it into a script for a surreal movie.

 

As it turned out, the bodies of the dead had been transferred the day before from the morgue to refrigerators at an ice cream factory. That was where they were supposed to be put into coffins and prepared for transport to Russia. The truck with the coffins drove to the factory grounds, and the gates were shut. In a secluded corner, fenced-off by wooden pallets from the prying eyes of the factory workers, the activists hastily carried the bodies out from the refrigerated chamber, gathered body parts, put the remains into black bags, then into the colorful coffins, smoked, looked around, and loaded the coffins into the semi. At the same time, other activists painted the sides and roof of the truck with red crosses and the digits “200.”

 

 

Three colleagues and I followed the truck with the coffins from the morgue, and we turned out to be the only ones for whom this story was interesting and important. Our interest aroused respect among the DPR activists. They allowed us to be present while they loaded the bodies and let us photograph the bodies of the dead.

 

One woman said to me that she hoped the Ukrainian soldiers and “Right Sector” would show humanity and let the truck pass by safely, that “they were fascists, but they must have something human in them.” I asked if she would go along with the convoy. She looked me in the eye, “What, do you want me to be killed?”

 

 

We still did not know how we would go and could not imagine what would happen on the road. It was already evening. We started to worry how we were going to return to Donetsk. There was a curfew in the city, and after 10:00 PM the streets were virtually empty. It becomes unsafe at checkpoints and on the roads at night, especially for journalists, who are constantly suspected there of disloyalty or espionage. And then, you never know in which areas shooting might begin. We decided to follow the truck until it started to get dark.

 

I mentioned this to one of those responsible for the truck’s departure. And suddenly he offered to leave the vehicle there overnight and postpone the departure until morning, when we could definitely make it to the border. It became clear that for some reason they did not want to set off without us journalists.

 

This added to our alarm, but we decided to simply hope that we would make it before dark and act according to the situation.

 

Around seven in the evening, all bodies had been loaded into the semi, and the coffins were sealed. The activists washed their hands and lit cigarettes. Nameless Russian volunteers who came to “protect Russians” in the East of Ukraine, were accompanied by silence on their last journey home in a refrigerated truck from an ice cream factory. In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, they did everything that they considered proper for the Russians who were killed there. A DPR sticker on the coffin was supposed to tell relatives about their exploits in the Donbas. The war continues, and the activists diverge to their checkpoints.

 

We drove along the streets of Donetsk, people indifferently glanced at the sides of the truck, rushing about their business. All activists had been expelled from the regional administration building in the centre of Donetsk, and the barricades had been dismantled. It was getting dark.

 

On the open road, the truck gained speed, without stopping at insurgent checkpoints or slowing down in populated areas. We drove towards Uspenka. Four kilometers away from the border the truck stopped at a Ukrainian military checkpoint. The soldier routinely approached the cabin, and the driver handed him the documents for the cargo…

 

 

As soon as the soldier realised what was inside, his movements instantly became sharp, his voice loud. He called other soldiers; they surrounded the car, pointed their assault rifles with safety off at the doors of the semi, and ordered the driver to open them. For a long time, the soldier did not believe his eyes, staring first at the papers for the cargo, then at the coffins inside the truck. He did not know what to do with this. The soldiers noticed our car, we suspiciously stood some distance away from the truck, observing. Now they pointed their guns at us, but after being satisfied that we were journalists, they returned to the truck.

 

“Where are the coffins from?” the soldier asked the driver.

 

“From Donetsk.”

 

“Who sent them?”

 

“I don’t know, I only got the loaded vehicle and am driving it to the border.”

 

Everything was clear anyway. The soldier did not ask any more questions, checked the documents, and ordered the driver to stand on the side of the road beyond the checkpoint. The police officers, who were in the first car, came out and said something to the soldier, and the truck passed without any additional checks.

 

 

We ended up at the border when it was already dark.

 

Nobody was warned that a special cargo would pass through border control. The border guards mechanically checked the documents and the vehicle according to their instructions. They waved the truck through without emotion, as they would wave through a truck with sacks of potatoes.

Nobody agreed to show us lists of the dead in the end, but we did see some names on the certificates for the corpses.

 

Mr. Zhdanov, Sergei Borisovich, born in 1966. Information about him had already appeared on the social networks. In the VKontakte group “Afghanistan. Nothing is forgotten, no one is forgotten,” it was written that he was a retired instructor from the Russian FSB Special Forces Center, a veteran of Afghanistan and Chechnya. It is also reported that on May 19 he arrived in Rostov-on-Don for military drills and was killed on May 26 in Donetsk.

 

We could not find anything on Yuri Abrosimov, born 1982, whose certificate we also saw on a corpse.

 

Some Internet resources mention some Alexander Vlasov and Alexander Morozov, also citizens of Russia, killed at the airport in Donetsk. In the comments they are ranked as heros, called fighters against fascism, and readers are urged to take up their cause, to “forsake the comfortable life and unite to fight the Nazis.”

In the social networks a letter is also being distributed called the last entry of Alexander Vlasovon his VKontakte page, which is impossible to verify, because later re-posts indicate that the original page has been deleted.

 

The letter reads as follows, “I had to leave the other day for Sloviansk, me and two of my friends. I told my mother, explained it all to my wife, wrote my will, just did not have time to pay all my debts…prepared the family for a month. In that time, I found corridors through the border, and people who were not indifferent to me. At the crossing we were to receive assault rifles, a machine gun for me because of my size and strength, equipment, and so on.” Later it is written that, “…the channel through Rostov was closed, one MP helped out, but it just happened that way…the second was shut by the SBU of Ukraine.” Regarding the reason for his decision to go to Donbas Alexander writes, “Odesa broke me, and this whole situation. I am a big guy. I cannot sit behind a woman’s back and hide behind work and children.”

 

When you are in Donetsk, you realise that the information war being waged by the Ukrainian and Russian media has completely erased the line between reality and understanding from both sides of what is actually happening in the East of Ukraine. Only the victims of this war remain real. Not a single one of the domestic federal TV channels, which for months pushed the idea of genocide of Russians in the East of Ukraine and domination of Nazis in the West, reported the fact that 31 Russian citizens died in Donetsk on May 26. They did not explain for what feat they died, how they ended up in this war, who opens the “channel through Rostov,” who distributes firearms, and who meets the coffins with the DPR stickers. In the Ukrainian media the dead were named mercenaries and terrorists.

 

The story of the first “Cargo 200,” sent from Donbas to Russia, ended for us and for our colleagues on the border in Uspenka. And we were the only ones who accompanied the Russians, killed in the battle for the Donetsk airport, home from Ukraine.

Poland knows about Russian ‘humanitarian convoys’. It didn’t let one in.

Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas, Polish journalist and former diplomat, writes that Poland has also been through a ‘humanitarian convoy’ crisis.  It came through it unscathed by refusing to allow the convoy in.  Georgia was less fortunate.

 

Kostrzewa-Zorbas explains that the Soviet tactics used in 1991 to get into Poland through camouflage, distortion of reality and psychological pressure were similar to those now seen in Ukraine.  it would be easier, he suggests, to counter what he calls the Russian military operation “humanitarian convoy” if politicians, as well as public opinion in Ukraine, in the EU and NATO remembered that the Soviet Union tried the same thing on with Poland and that Poland won.

 

The Soviet Union was ignoring Poland’s demands made in September 1990 to withdraw Soviet troops from its territory.  In retaliation, Poland blocked the evacuation through its territory of Soviet forces from former GDR [East Germany]. This put the USSR in danger of breaching its agreement to remove its troops from Germany following the latter’s unification.

 

The strategy worked, and quickly at that.  The author’s implied cause and effect in saying that therefore Poland has no Russian army, but is in NATO and the EU could probably be argued, however Poland certainly withstood Soviet pressure with style.

 

The Soviet government announced that a huge convoy of ‘humanitarian aid’ for people in the USSR was being sent via Poland from the former East Germany.  This convoy would be made up of 200 Soviet military trucks accompanied by armed soldiers under military leadership. This was said to be the first of hundreds of such convoys. 

 

Poland stated that it would not allow an armed military column disguised as a humanitarian convoy. The Soviet communist party official paper Pravda then accused it of a lack of Christian love for its neighbour and Soviet diplomacy went all out to present Poland as heartless and cruel.  The ploy appeared to be working with  western diplomats, media, churches and other organizations coming out in defence of the poor suffering Soviet people to whose plight Poland was supposedly indifferent.

 

Poland did not back down.  It offered to allow the so-called humanitarian aid to be transported by Polish railway as cargo with no soldiers, and no military status. The author said that at that point the convoy disappeared, and that it’s not even certain whether it actually existed. “Only the Soviet Army existed for certain”.

 

Russia’s so-called ‘humanitarian convoy’ disappeared from site on Wednesday after Kyiv made it clear that it would not allow the trucks to pass into Ukraine without being checked by Ukrainian and International Red Cross officials and reloaded.  It would be nice to see this as a repetition of the Polish experience, unfortunately the analogy with Georgia in 1993 seems more immediate.  On that occasion Russia used just such a convoy to get military supplies into the Akhazian city of Tkvarcheli, which Georgian military forces were holding under siege.  Russia also used rhetoric about humanitarian concerns to justify its war with Georgia in 2008.

 

The near three hundred military trucks painted white were supposed to be heading to the Kharkiv oblast border crossing, however whether this was ever genuinely planned as the border crossing point seems doubtful.  The trucks’ whereabouts on Wednesday night are unclear, though it seems likely that they will try to cross the border into Ukraine in the Luhansk oblast.   

 

It is very much to be hoped that satellite pictures are recording exactly what is happening with these trucks and their load, and that even if the information is not made public, it will be communicated to those world leaders who may still have levers of influence on Russia.  Whatever the latter is playing at, this has long ceased to be a game. 

Macabre Convoy: Cargo 200 from Ukraine to Russia

There is more and more evidence that Russian soldiers are fighting – and dying – on Ukrainian territory, and that the so-called ‘humanitarian convoy’ may have been used to take the dead back to Russia, including paratroopers from Pskov killed near Luhansk

 

A day of mourning has been declared in the Russian city of Pskov on Aug 26.  This comes five days after the Ukrainian armed captured two armed personnel carriers and reportedly discovered documents identifying men as paratroopers from the Pskov airborne brigade No. 74268.  It has long been known that a large number of Russian mercenaries, as well as some supporters of the Russian neo-fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin are fighting against the Ukrainian army. This, however, was the first serious evidence that Russian military personnel are also involved. 

 

Reports at the time, such as Kyiv Post’s “Ukraine gets new evidence of Russian soldiers fighting on its turf” were vehemently denied by Russia’s defence ministry, though no credible explanation appears to have been offered for the large number of documents found.  These included the passport of Nikolay Krygin from Pskov and a journal with the names of other soldiers presumably also engaged in the military action.   

 

The information provided in a blog by Yelena Vasilyeva at Ekho Moskvy has all been reported by other sources, including Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.  In her article entitled “Cargo 200 from Ukraine to Russia”, Vasilyeva notes that the authorities are claiming that several paratroopers from the Pskov airborne division were killed by stepping on a mine during training at the shooting range near Pskov.  There are only rumours about the number of men killed, some say ten, others fifteen.  

 

The dates don’t add up

 

The Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu is reported to have gone to Pskov on Aug 22.   Information about the deaths of the Pskov paratroopers came after this date, reason to believe that paratroopers had been in eastern Ukraine, and reports that a large number of women in Pskov were in black – before his visit. 

 

Shoygu was expected to take part in a ceremony handing out the Suvorov order to members of a Pskov paratrooper division.  

 

The Suvorov Order is awarded for military action.   Whether this was action in eastern Ukraine or in the Crimea is not clear, but it was not for helping farmers with the harvest.  Vasilyeva is adamant that the order cannot be awarded in peacetime.  President Vladimir Putin’s decree No. 571 from Aug 18, 2014 regarding the awards, she says, “is official documentary confirmation that Russian Federation military forces have launched and are waging war against Ukraine on its territory.”

 

Vasilyeva writes that most people in Pskov, and in other cities, are so brainwashed that they are convinced that Ukraine has been destroyed, bombed to hell by the Ukrainian military with the help of the Americans and NATO.  They are genuinely grateful to Putin believing that he has not brought Russian soldiers into Ukraine and “has saved thousands of innocent lives and Russian soldiers”. 

 

Vasilyeva reports that the bodies of paratroopers have been returned to Pskov in white KAMAZ trucks.  The only white Russian military trucks are those which gained world attention over the last weeks when Russia announced that it was sending a ‘humanitarian convoy’ to Ukraine.  Not only were the contents of many of the trucks not checked, but the trucks entered Ukraine illegally and were accompanied only by Kremlin-backed militants.  As a likely load on their way back, “freight 200” [the code number for bodies] had seemed possible.  Vasilyeva writes that information finally started seeping through all social networks, despite efforts by the security service to remove posts.  According to the author, the morgue in Rostov (Russia) is overfilled with bodies. 

 

A Facebook group has been formed entitled  “Cargo 200 from Ukraine to Russia” on which people try to gather all information available about contracted and conscripted soldiers killed in Ukraine.

 

The starkest message reads: “Russian: Is your son, brother, friend serving in the army, especially the paratroopers.  CONTACT HIM URGENTLY!  MAYBE HE’S ALREADY BEEN KILLED?  After all the Russian army is so very definitely “not fighting” on Ukrainian territory!.”   

 

Is there proof? Incontrovertible evidence is always difficult to find and none of the details above can be confirmed.  They do, however, coincide with numerous reports, together with video footage, from witnesses in Ukraine.  These are backed up by Polish television and the viewings by many journalists who were following the so-called humanitarian convoy, including two UK journalists who saw military vehicles cross the border. 

 

The use of “military personnel” has also been confirmed by NATO and the USA.  Neither they nor Germany and France seem in a hurry to broadcast this too loudly, doubtless fearing the consequences.

With a number of tanks reliably reported to have crossed into Ukraine on Monday morning,

Ukrainians, Poles and the Baltic republics are, on the contrary, all too well aware of the consequences of continued western failure to do more than express strong concern.  

Putin wants to open “second front” by Sea of Azov

The activities of terrorists and Russian soldiers on the Sea of Azov Coast in Ukraine are evidence of Putin’s desire to create a corridor from the Donetsk People’s Republic  (DNR) to Russia in order to rescue the terrorist republic.

 

On Ukraine’s Independence Day, Putin’s terrorists reported “significant progress” on the front. In particular, Putin’s mass media widely distributed reports on the capture of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk Oblast and the village of Telmanovo in the Donetsk Oblast, as well as the advance on Mariupol and Novoazovsk.

 

Subsequently, the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation) press center denied this information. However, the terrorist’s attempt to become more active is real. Specifically, an attack on the village of Olenivka has been reported, which is on the H20 highway  that connects Donetsk and Mariupol. At the same time, Russian troops from Russian territory fired on the border crossing point of Novoazovsk and Amvrosiyivka.

 

In fact, access to the Sea of Azov in the Novoazovsk and Mariupol area is vitally important for the DNR terrorists because it enables them to take advantage of yet another gap in the Ukrainian-Russian border — both on land (Novoazovsk checkpoint) and by sea. If the terrorists secure their hold on the Azov coast, Putin will be able to deliver DNR reinforcements directly by sea from occupied Crimea.

 Despite the fact that large sections of the border are not under Ukraine’s control and are being used to supply the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), the Donetsk terrorists are almost cut off from Russian supplies.

 

However, it is more likely that today’s announcement on progress in gaining access to the Sea of Azov are more wishful thinking than reality. Similar declarations are intended to spoil Independence Day celebrations for Ukrainians, to raise the morale of the terrorists, whose chances to hold on to conquered territory without direct Russian military intrusion are still rather bleak, and to demonstrate to average Russians, who believe only their own media, that the state of affairs in the “Novorossiya” project is not that bad. The last reason is particularly relevant in light of the Russian scandal regarding the destruction and disappearance of the Pskov paratrooper division in the Donbas.

 

 (Russia’s Pskov Airborne Assault Division was destroyed on August 21 by the 24th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Shtorm battalion from Odesa — Ed.)

 

It is also worth noting that there is no good evidence currently that Mariupol is under threat of terrorist occupation. The entire course of the war in the Donbas has progressed according to the same scenario. First a city, unable to defend itself due to a demoralized and disloyal police, would be seized with the help of Russian mercenaries and terrorists. Then terrorists would occupy the seized territory and fend off advancing ATO forces as much as possible while destroying local residents and infrastructure. The only thing that still enables the terrorists to hold on to their positions is the constant flow of Russian equipment and manpower and the shelling of Ukrainian forces from across the border.

 

However, the situation in the Donbas has changed somewhat over the past several months. The local population, which initially supported DNR and LNR, has understood exactly what  the “Russian Spring” brings to the Donbas: murders, kidnappings, torture, robbery, hunger and poverty. Therefore, it is unlikely that the terrorists, who are being squeezed from practically all sides and who have been fighting back all this time while hiding behind civilians, would have the capabilities to fundamentally change their tactics and deploy a massive offensive to take control of new cities, where residents now definitely do not support them and would do everything possible to prevent their arrival.

 

On August 25, Ukrainian  media, citing a Ukrainian border guard, reported on the intrusion of Russian military equipment near Novoazovsk. ATO spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi does not yet have confirmation for this information.

 

Meanwhile, the deputy commander of the Azov  defense battalion Ihor Mosiychuk stated that fighting is taking place near Novoazovsk and that terrorists have received reinforcements from Russia. He believes the militants are mounting an offensive on Novoazovsk and Mariupol.

 

Later, the ATO press center confirmed that a column of Russian armored vehicles attempted to break through in the vicinity of the Shcherbak-Novoazivsk population centers, but that they were largely blocked. At the National Security and Defense Council it was announced that ATO forces are controlling the road between Novoazovsk and Mariupol.

 

According to the National Guard, ATO forces destroyed two terrorist tanks near Novoazovsk.