Aleppo and America’s Syria Policy

A Historical and Contemporaneous Context for American Policy on Syria

With Aleppo under indiscriminate heavy bombardment and siege by the Syrian regime and its allies, Russia, Iran, Iraqi Mobilisation Units and Hezbollah, the pitch of the chorus of voices blaming and shaming the U.S. for not intervening militarily in Syria to stop the bloodshed has reached a crescendo not seen since the days preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Whereas some critical views offered heartfelt appeals to salvage Syria as a state and a nation, others bluntly blamed the failed policies of the Obama Administration for the tragedy befalling Syria.

This debate over the Obama’s administration policy on Syria was put recently on display by Secretary of State John Kerry. In a meeting with a small number of Syrian civilians, Secretary Kerry confessed that he had lost an argument within the Obama administration to back up diplomatic efforts with the threat of using military force against the Syrian regime. He also added that Congress would never agree to the use of force. According to the New York Times, several comments made in the meeting “crystallized the widespread sense of betrayal even among the Syrians most attractive to Washington as potential partners, civilians pushing for pluralistic democracy.”

No doubt, this notion of American betrayal and culpability cast a pall over the reliability and essence of Washington’s role in the Middle East in general and in Syria in particular. On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that the American role in Syria, though not beyond criticism, has been more emotively criticized than cerebrally expounded, especially as it relates to American national interest. Herein lay the confusion over and frustration with American foreign policy. In fact, the American role in Syria cannot be fully understood without being contextualized in a framework of reference according to which American national interest is evaluated on the basis of the modern history of U.S.-Syrian relationship, the crisis of the Arab world and American war on terrorism, and the new dawning of a global reality.

The history of the U.S.-Syrian relationship is conflicted and had been grounded in ambivalence, making a potential U.S. military involvement in Syria hardly possible. As I have shown in Syria, United States and the War on Terror in the Middle East, U.S.-Syrian relations have been marked by antagonism and ambivalence, not limited to the Asads’ reign. In fact, U.S. overtures to Syria were not only shunned but opposed. The U.S., unlike Britain and France, entertained no colonial ambitions in the Middle East. The U.S. relationship with Israel and Syria started on an equal footing after World War Two. The U.S. recognized the independence of Syria before supporting the creation of the state of Israel. The support for Israel was not meant to serve either as a bridgehead to American influence or as an outpost of imperialism. Nor was it a ploy to dictate Syrian policies. The Cold War and Arab nationalist policies, which equated Israel with colonialism, opened the gates of the heartland of the Middle East to the rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The main objective of the U.S. was to check Soviet expansion in the region, which fed on Arab grievances against the Western powers and their support of Israel.

When in November 29, 1947 the UN General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab, with Jerusalem as a separate enclave to be administered by a governor appointed by the international organization, Syrian demonstrators attacked the U.S. legation in Damascus.  When in October 1950, the U.S., Britain, France, and Turkey formally proposed to Egypt the formation of a Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO), the purpose of which would serve to extend the containment of the Soviet Union to the heartland of the Middle East, Syrians denounced MEDO as an imperialist plot. Egypt’s refusal to enter MEDO and Syria’s opposition to it doomed it to failure. At the time, the U.S. had no special relations with either Syria or Israel. Its concern with containing the Soviet Union made it look at Israel and Syria through the prism of Cold War politics. When Western powers supported the Baghdad pact of 1955 as a means to counter the threat of communism, “progressive forces” in Syria, the Ba’th, the Democratic Bloc, and the Communists opposed the pact and consequently moved Syria in the direction of Egypt and the Soviet Union. This set the stage for the Middle East to become a ground of rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

No sooner, in July 1956, after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, the British, French, and Israelis led a joint attack on Egypt in late October, which was frowned upon by the U.S. This emanated from a cluster of complex considerations. Prominent among them was, on the one hand, the attempt to woo away Egyptian nationalists from the Soviet embrace and, on the other hand, the concern over taking action that could deepen the Soviet embrace. In his memoirs, Eisenhower emphasized the implications of the attack for Arab nationalism:

I must say that it is hard for me to see any good final result emerging from a scheme that seems to antagonize the entire Moslem world. Indeed I have difficulty seeing any end whatsoever if all the Arabs should begin reacting somewhat as the North Africans have been operating against the French.[i]

The U.S. compelled Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip, both captured during the Suez war. Syria, for its part, immediately supported Egypt when the three powers invaded it. At the height of the crisis, Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli flew to Moscow to seek political and military support. Clearly, despite the high ground the U.S. had achieved in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Suez crisis, the Syrians saw in the Soviet Union a protector that readily poured much needed economic and military assistance in perilous times. Similarly, U.S. expectations of appreciation from the Arabs for intervention in the Suez crisis in their favor turned hollow.

Consequently, the U.S. feared a total Soviet victory in the region. In January 1957, Dulles addressed Congress stressing that “it would be a major disaster for the nations and peoples of the Middle East, and indeed for all the world, including the U.S., if that area were to fall into the grip of international communism.” He added that the U.S. “must do whatever it properly can to assist the nations of the Middle East to maintain their independence.”[ii] The Eisenhower administration had its way when Congress passed the joint resolution in March 1957, henceforth known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, conceding to the administration request that

The president is authorized to…employ the armed forces of the United States as he deems necessary to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of any such nation or group of nations requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism.[iii]

The U.S. president sent Ambassador James P. Richards to the Middle East to inaugurate the new doctrine. Only Lebanon and Iraq endorsed the Doctrine. Syria refused to receive the Ambassador. Initially, Syria had rejected the Eisenhower doctrine on the grounds that intervention in the affairs of a nation over economic interests was a flagrant violation of the sovereignty principle; and that the American assertion that a power vacuum existed in the region was but a pretext for imperialist intervention and hegemony.[iv] By August 1957, the relationship between the U.S. and Syria sank to a new low when the Syrian government charged the U.S. with an attempt to overthrow it. The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a communiqué on August 19 announcing the discovery of the American plot. The communiqué emphasized that the goal of the Eisenhower doctrine was to seize the independence of Middle Eastern countries and offer them as easy prey to Zionism and imperialism. The U.S. rebuffed Syrian accusations, interpreting them as a “smokescreen behind which people that have the leftish leanings are trying to build up their power.”[v] Subsequently, the U.S. and Syrian ambassadors were declared personae non gratae in their respective host countries.

In 1963, the Ba’th party came to power through a coup d’etat. In order to support its militant attitude toward the Arab-Israeli conflict and its socialist domestic policy, the Ba’th government cooperated closely with the Soviet Union to obtain financial and military aid. By contrast, Syria’s relations with the U.S. continued to deteriorate. The U.S., however, held both Syria and Israel responsible for the growing violence along their borders[vi]. It called later on upon Syria to insure that its territory would not be used as a base for terrorism against Israel.[vii] Heightened tension along the Israeli-Syrian border contributed to the eruption of the June 1967 War, following which Damascus broke off diplomatic relations with Washington.

US-Syrian relations remained abysmal until Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, following the 1973 war, brokered the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement over the Golan Heights. Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy was arduous but important because it conveyed to Arab leaders and particularly to Syrian president Hafiz Asad that without American support there is no return to the status quo ante. This complemented the overall strategy of the Nixon Administration in the Middle East, which set out to demonstrate that the Soviet Union’s capacity to foment crises was not matched by its ability to resolve them.[viii] The underlying implications of the American strategy were to prod the Arab leaders to approach Washington for assistance in the peace process and to make manifest the Arab’s anachronistic concept of all-or-nothing approach towards Israel.

This uneasy rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria was carried on by the Ford and the Carter administrations, especially that the latter had made the reflection of American values in foreign policy one of its central themes. The realpolitik and elliptical approach to foreign policy, which had characterized the State Department under Kissinger, was to be replaced by an open foreign policy, substituting “world order” for “balance of power,” and placing Human Rights issues high on the Administration’s agenda. Not surprisingly, Carter’s quest for idealism in foreign policy clashed with his geopolitical realism, resulting in an ambivalence, which was reinforced by the divergent world views of his principal advisers.

Significantly, this brief evolution of U.S.-Syrian relations was seriously hobbled when Syria appeared on the US State Department’s “terrorism list” in 1979. Still, Washington maintained a belief in Syria’s key regional role and in its capacity to influence events in the region. This led to the emergence of Washington’s ambivalent attitude toward Damascus, which became first apparent in Lebanon and then a hallmark of US-Syrian relations until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ironically, the terrorism issue, which precluded the US from improving its relationship with Syria, became the issue responsible for bringing the two countries together.

At the same time, U.S.-Syrian relations, mainly in the 1980s, were affected by the Cold War and the complexities and harsh realities of the Middle East in general and Israel and Syria’s struggle for Lebanon in particular. Significantly, the Reagan administration launched a peace initiative following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. However, the American involvement in Lebanon suffered a painful blow when 240 U.S. marines died in a terrorist attack on their headquarters in West Beirut in October 1983. Though fingers were directed to Iran as the sponsor of the terrorist who carried out the suicidal attack, Syrian involvement could not be ruled out.

The U.S., backing its diplomacy with the threat of force, fired battleship guns (the carrier, New Jersey) on Syrian dominated Lebanese positions. Syria fired back and shot down two American war planes, which had engaged in an exchange of fire. This marked the first direct confrontation between Washington and Damascus. However, amid sharp division and opposition to the U.S. role in Lebanon within the Reagan administration, President Reagan chose not to escalate the skirmishes to a full war. Both complexities and treacherous realities of the Lebanese civil war and the Arab-Israeli conflict flew in the face of America’s policy in the region. The U.S. redeployed its troops to U.S. ships offshore and put the peace initiative on the back burner.

US relations with Syria remained ambivalent straddling the ground of sanctions and cooperation. Interestingly, Syria was the only country listed on the US State Department’s terrorism list with which Washington maintained diplomatic relations. The height of cooperation ensued when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and Syria participated in the US-led international coalition to extract Iraq from Kuwait. Consequently, US-Syrian relations warmed and Damascus became central to the Arab-Israeli peace process launched after the end of the Gulf War. Asad was hailed in the Arab world as Salahuddin, who wrested Jerusalem from the Crusaders, and the steadfast Arab nationalist leader. During the peace process, Asad helped build the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon at the expense of the legitimacy of the state. Arab leaders and many intellectuals applauded him.

Upon his assumption of power after the death of his father in 2000, Bashar Asad promised an era of political openness. Syrian intellectuals and quasi-civil society groups responded by what became known as the Damascus Spring. However, their call for pluralism and political and civil rights were soon muzzled. Clearly, the Syrian regime feared on his hold to power and decided to censor all socio-political activities. Syrian activism reemerged following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Notably, the activists’ call for reform was couched in the interest of safeguarding Syria from the spillover of the profound changes sweeping Iraq and by extension the region. No calls for removing Asad or his regime were declared. No less significant, reformers of all ideological stripes and backgrounds failed to unite. In hindsight, no time period during the modern history of Syria was more opportune to pressure the regime into making significant changes than in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Washington’s relations with Damascus swiftly deteriorated once Asad opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and then sank to a dangerous low when the Syrian regime helped Jihadists cross Syria into Iraq to fight U.S. troops. Yet, Arab condemnation of U.S. invasion of Iraq to remove a Ba’thi dictator stood in sharp contrast to the deafening silence of Arab condemnation of Syrian complicity in murdering U.S. troops. This attitude prevailed in Syria until the eruption of the rebellion against the Asad regime.

Simply put, Syria, throughout most of its modern history, did not support the U.S. Even during the peace process no relational structures were considered by either country to support a warm and/or mutually beneficial strategic cooperation or alliance between the two countries. Taking all this under consideration, one cannot fail but observe that American attitudinal role in Syria has been more or less affected by the history of this conflicted and ambivalent U.S.-Syrian relationship.

Second, for a nation fighting a war on terrorism whose ideology and praxis are mostly traced to the Middle East, it is arguably hardly possible for United States to entertain a role in Syria not associated with counterterrorism. Admittedly, the Obama administration has done serious mistakes, chief among them calling on President Asad to step down and creating a red line against the regime’s use of chemical weapons. Eventually, the U.S. did not back its words with action. At the same time, the U.S. relegated the political initiative to deal with the Syrian crisis to Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Whereas the first fanned the ideological and monetary support for the jihadists, the other paved for the Jihadists the route to Damascus. Yet, the U.S. has struggled to support moderate opposition groups. As it turned out, some of these groups have shifted their allegiance to al-Nusra Front or other Salafi-Jihadist groups, which are dedicated to killing Americans. In addition, can the moderate opposition be absolved of the tragedy befalling Syria? When the U.S. designated al-Nusra Front as a terrorist organization in November 2012, members of the Syrian opposition deplored the American act, asserting the indispensability of the al-Qaeda-affiliate group in fighting the Asad regime. This was a serious strategic mistake that helped further legitimize Salafi-jihadism within the Syrian revolution. Therefore, how could anyone blame the U.S. for the rise of Salafi-jihadism in Syria? Did the U.S. support, equip, train, or fund Salafi-jihadists? Did the U.S. prefer supporting Jihadists more than the moderate opposition? In fact, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait and UAE all supported various Islamists and Jihadists significantly more than the moderate opposition. No less significant, it is the Arab world, which applauded and hailed the violent and oppressive Asad regime, that supported the jihadists and helped bring Syria to its tragedy. Certainly, ISIS is the latest manifestation of an Arab world mired in deep social and political crisis.

Meanwhile, once the regime’s hold onto power had begun to teeter, despite considerable support from Iran and Hezbollah, Russia stepped in not only to save its old satellite capital but also to entrench itself in the Mediterranean basin as a bulwark against what it considers American hegemony. Strategically speaking, by helping the Syrian regime, Moscow would create in Western Syria a bastion of Iranian influence beholden to Russian power, while at the same time turning the Eastern Mediterranean into a Russian lake. No doubt, the entry of Moscow into the Syrian fay further complicated Washington’s maneuvers. Whereas Moscow came to the help of an old client, Washington has had reservations with certain predominant Salafi-jihadist group spearheading the opposition. And, if history is any guide, it is naïve to think that Russia would not pursue a Grozny-like campaign to ensure that its military involvement in Syria would not become ominously perpetual. This explains the forcible displacement of Sunnis from parts of Western Syria and the savagery with which Russia and its allies have pursued their campaign to seize full control of Aleppo.

Consequently, Washington found itself in a quandary. It ironically found itself on the same side with Russia and the Syrian regime fighting Salafi-Jihadist opposition groups while at the same time supporting the moderate opposition whose power paled in comparison to the Jihadists.  Expectedly, neither the Obama Administration, Congress, nor the US public support sending troops to an unfriendly land crisscrossed by jihadists on one side, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and Iraqi Mobilization units on the other. How could one expect the U.S. to attack the regime, even in a limited capacity, without potentially incurring the wrath and retaliation of its Russian, Iranian, Hezbollah and Iraqi allies, all of which are really running the deadly show? Similarly, should anyone expect that Salafi-jihadists will not jump at the opportunity of Washington striking at the regime to widen their sphere of influence and in the process slaughter non-believers? Or should anyone brush aside the possibility that the Iraqi mobilization units would use their partnership with the Iraqi government to attack the approximately 6000 American soldiers advising the same government? Or should American people forget the high pitched fictitious slogan that Iraqis would welcome Americans with flowers as liberators in 2003? Certainly, the U.S. is in an unenviable position in both Syria and Iraq, where American enemies vastly outnumber American friends! Nevertheless, The U.S. has been the largest donor of humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, and has sent dozens of U.S. troops to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition forces.

Speaking recently before the UN General Assembly, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon drew a bleak but accurate picture of the Syrian crisis: “Present in this hall today are representatives of governments that have ignored, facilitated, funded, participated in or even planned and carried out atrocities inflicted by all sides of the Syria conflict against Syrian civilians…Many groups have killed innocent civilians — none more so than the government of Syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees.”

This is the tragedy of Syria and, by extension, the tragedy of the Muslim world in the Middle East. Be that as it may, the U.S. should apply its soft influence to reach a permanent cease fire and end the slaughter and displacement of Syrians. No doubt dealing with Russia is exhausting and at times unproductive. But the reality of the world today is that the U.S. cannot force a cease fire as part of a settlement on its own without introducing a massive number of troops to eventually occupy Syria.  In his most recent book World Order, Henry Kissinger affirms that the main challenge for the twenty-first century is how to shape an international order in a world buffeted by violent conflicts, technological proliferation and radicalism. He adds that unless the major powers reach a new kind of accommodation about their global roles chaos would ensue. In other words, the United States would find it difficult to play the leadership role it had carried out in post-Cold War. Consequently, the United States confronts a paradox whereby it continues to be the undisputed global leader but in an often contested, sometimes uncertain global position. This is the international backdrop against which the tragedy in Syria continues to unfold.

More specifically, however, Syria as a nation is paying the deep price for the social, political and sectarian flaws in Arab society. Following the Arab defeat in 1967, the Syrian and Arab philosopher par excellence Sadek al-Azm wrote a book entitled Al-Naqd al-Thati Ba’da al-Hazima (Self-Criticism After the Defeat), in which he argued that the defeat of Arab armies was not brought about by the might of the Israeli army but rather by the flaws of Arab society. Today these flaws are deeper than ever!

Currently, the tragic reality today is that Aleppo is all but a foregone conclusion, for the city is essential to consolidate Russian-Iranian-Syrian regime control over Western Syria. It’s clear from Secretary Kerry’s statements that the U.S. will not go to war with Russia over Aleppo. But that does not mean that the U.S. and the international community should not apply significant pressure, including by proxy, on Russia and the Syrian regime to stop their indiscriminate warfare. This begs the essential question following the day after the likely fall of Aleppo: How to change the dynamics in Syria in favor of the moderate opposition without creating a bigger war and tragedy. Until a new American administration moves into the White House, this remains to be seen!

By Robert G. Rabil 

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.

DNR and LNR should be designated as international terrorist organizations

 

DNR and LNR should be designated as international terrorist organizations

 

Next month President of the United States Barack Obama will preside over a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. He will address the issue of “foreign fighters traveling to conflict zones and joining terrorist organizations”. The agenda itself seems to be a perfect description of the actions of the Russian military and mercenaries who now travel to eastern Ukraine to join LNR and DNR in their terrorist activities against the citizens and armed forces of Ukraine. The terrorists killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians and servicemen, wounded thousands, shot down up to a dozen helicopters and planes including the international flight MH17 with about 300 civilian passengers on board. How much more suffering should Ukrainian people and international community encounter before LNR and DNR are designated as terrorist organizations?