Russia: Other Points of View

Czech President goes to Moscow to Celebrate Winning of WWII -- May 9

Friends, 

Finally, one after another persons in powerful positions (or former powerful positions) are beginning to make independent decisions and speak up for democracy, for refusal to be arm twisted, for right human relations in our 21st century.  I continue to hope that more will come forward and stand up for right policy in international relations.  If so, a potential cataclysm may be averted. 

Vlad Sobell, wrote the article below.  He is a truly great human being of integrity whom I've known for years.  Vlad, as an18-year-old Czech, fled the USSR and communism and made his way to freedom in the West where he became an expert USSR/Russia analyst and journalist.  He has been watching in despair as a "reverse iron curtain"  has begun cutting Russia off from the rest of the world. 

Vlad stopped writing a year or so ago, believing that nothing could change the situation between the West and Russia --- and today this article appears  describing his feelings and thoughts  about Czech President Zeman's making the unpopular choice to go to Moscow to celebrate the winning of WWII against the Nazis.  Unfortunately other heads of state are choosing to stay away.

Sharon

Published on Russia Insider News (http://russia-insider.com)

The Czech President's Lone Stand against US Bullying

Vlad Sobell lives in Prague and teaches political economy to university students both there and in Berlin 

President Zeman’s demarche banishing the US Ambassador Andrew Schapiro from the Prague Castle is a welcome sign that at least some European leaders have drawn the line at Washington’s imperial-like bullying. After all there are limits to what they are prepared to tolerate. It is also an urgently needed reminder to Washington that some European leaders take seriously the values of democracy preached by America: genuine democracy is incompatible with the renewed Soviet-style practice of passing down instructions on how the foreign policy of putatively sovereign nations should be conducted. Although Zeman’s political role in the Czech Republic is honorary (rather than executive), it is to be hoped that the US political class will take notice and interpret his “disobedience” as proof that not everyone in Europe is ready to be pushed around without so much as a murmur.

Let’s briefly consider the most recent events providing the background to the spat – namely Moscow’s reclaiming Crimea. The peninsula was Russian from 1783 onwards, with the vast majority of its residents being Russophone. It was handed over to Ukraine by a totalitarian dictator, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1954 when he needed to strengthen his hand in Kremlin power struggles. Of course the Communists would not have dreamt of conducting a referendum the way Putin did – paying heed to legality certainly was not their style.

Fast forward to February 2014, when, in another illegal act, Kiev fell under the sway of a virulently anti-Russian US-backed regime. Anticipating trouble, the Kremlin swiftly responded by re-claiming Crimea. Would any self-respecting power risk the unleashing of terror on its fellow nationals by far-right “punishers”, not to mention the inevitable transfer to NATO further down the road of the Russia-leased Sevastopol naval base? We saw how Britain, with US support, acted to reclaim the Falkland Islands in 1982 (after they had been annexed by an Argentine fascist junta), eventually declaring its inhabitants British citizens. By reintegrating Crimea with Russia, Putin (like Mrs Thatcher) corrected a historical wrong and respected the publicly declared wish of the overwhelming majority of the territory’s current population.

AMERICA GETTING RUSSIA WRONG

by Mat Rodina

Global Research News

American politicians in particular and European politicians in general are some of the most ignorant fools when the issue comes to anything outside their own borders. When it comes to Russia, it is an engima wrapped in a mystery…but only because, no one has every bothered to try to understand Russians, Russian history  and the Russian world view.

One important historical fact about Russia is that Russia is a unique civilizational empire built upon defense not offense. What this means is that historically, Russia does not start the wars, or series of wars (though it may strike first in a confrontation that is punctuated by a series of wars). In Russian history, Russian leaders, since Russia’s baptism to Orthodoxy, have tried hard to avoid war with our neighbors, though just about every time this has failed. In parallel, as much as we do not like war, and in Orthodoxy killing in combat is still a sin as we do not have the heresy of Just War, we are very very good at killing and destroying. A paradox, but it is the reality.

This was so profound that in the summer of 1914, the Tsar Nicholas II, when war was eminent, even haulted mobilization to try and defuse the situation one more time and talk the Austrians and Germans out of what would become the great tragedy of early 20th century.

The problems with modern, and in truth historical, Western politicos is that these guys are absolute fools with no understanding of the Russian psyche and are sure to be the cause of WW3, be it intentional or accidental. They are projecting their psyche onto Russians.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

PUTIN'S DISAPPEARANCE. Western media outlets, governments and “experts” beclown themselves. Again.

CRIMEA, THE WAY HOME. Крым Путь на Родину. Here it is with English subtitles. Watch it: Korsun showed Crimeans what was coming, Berkut provided a seed crystal for self-defence and taught them how to recognise and suppress a “spontaneous” demo (go to 41).

WESTERN VALUES™ PART 1. Andrei Babitsky, once a certified hero journalist speaking truth to Putin, has been fired. It's not enough to be 99% anti-Putin, it must be 100% all the time. Read this.

NEMTSOV MURDER. Remember that? The investigators stick to their story: Dadayev did kill him; ordered by Adam Osmayev, commander of Jokhar Dudayev Battalion in Kiev forces, to embarrass Putin. This raises the possibility that the Charlie Hebdo connection was just the hook to get Dadayev to do it.

SNOWDEN. The German Vice Chancellor says Washington threatened to cease sharing intelligence if Berlin offered him asylum or allowed him to travel there. Deduction: if Germany was threatened, so was everyone else. We know that the Bolivian President's plane was forced down (so much for Obama's promise). Evidently, a lot of pressure was applied. One country refused to knuckle under. What do you suppose that has to do with current events?

RUSSIAN ECONOMY. Piece here from a rational observer. Not too bad but wait and see. Another agreeing.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR. The German Foreign Minister told US Secretary of State John Kerry “it’s far too early to pat our shoulders and take pride in what we have achieved” in Ukraine. Thousands dead and maimed, immense property damage, economic ruin, oligarch wars, neo-nazis, war talk. Much too early.

WESTERN VALUES™ PART 2. Turns out that the Clinton Foundation got lots of money from a Ukrainian oligarch. No effect on policy of course.

MINSK II. Kiev has broken it. Item 4 called for “a dialogue” “on modalities of conducting local elections”. Instead the Ukraine parliament passed a law saying that elections can only begin after the areas are returned to Kiev's control. No dialogue there. By the way, read the agreement: Moscow is required to do nothing, Kiev much. So when the WMSM tells you Moscow has broken it, as it will, ask yourself what part of the agreement it's broken. A resumption of war is likely, and the end result will be the same. But this time, I expect Moscow to really intervene (why bother with another agreement Kiev won't keep?) And, when it does, there will be no need for blurry satellite photos and reporters who forgot their smart phones. But, should the oligarch war get violent – see below – there will be no requirement.

OLIGARCH WARS. Have started. Still very murky but here is what we know. Ihor Kolomoysky is someone your media outlets have not told you much about: an oligarch, funder of many private armed formations, suspected of many atrocities (MH-17 shootdown?), he was appointed Governor of Dnepropetrovsk in the new oligarch-free European-style Ukraine and hailed as a patriot by the ever-accommodating WMSM. Parliament passed a law that would have reduced his control of certain oil companies. He sent armed men to take over two head offices. Poroshenko said no more private military organisations would be tolerated. Yesterday he dismissed him as Governor of Dnepropetrovsk. Not over yet; in theory Kolomoysky has a lot of armed forces that answer to him. WMSM and State Department spin will be entertaining to watch.

“DRAGOON RIDE”. The brainchild of the excitable General Hodges, a US army column will travel through several east European countries: “to assure those allies that live closest to the Bear that we are here”. Ludicrous: a cavalry squadron, an insignificant light force, will probably only make people nervous. There should be some amusement as it proceeds through the Czech Republic: the locals have been warned not to throw vegetables at it and the Czech Army will escort it. Moscow will only be more contemptuous. And that's assuming there are no embarrassing breakdowns, lapses in discipline, traffic accidents, protests etc.

“PUTIN'S INFORMATION WAR”. No wonder the West is having trouble selling its story: “The product they’re selling is not very attractive overseas”. “if you're going to say someone is a poisonous liar who traffics in conspiracy theories, then you should show that. That the Post doesn't seem to feel the need to do so either means the evidence isn't there, or that the burden of proof is very low when it comes to official enemies”. Western governments wouldn't be whining unless they knew their story was failing.

Ukraine's Poison Pill to ruin Minsk 2 Ceasefire

Friends, again one of America's two most trusted investigative journalists explains below why the Minsk-2 ceasefire in Ukraine will break down.  It is not Russia's fault, but Russia will be blamed for it. Read and see what to expect next.  

This is disturbing,

Sharon

Ukraine's Poison Pill for Peace Talks

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/19/ukraines-poison-pill-for-peace-talks/

Exclusive: The Ukraine government’s latest maneuver – undermining the Minsk-2 agreement with a requirement for a rebel surrender – is likely to drive the country back into a full-scale civil war and push the U.S. and Russia closer to a nuclear showdown, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

By adding a poison pill to legislation implementing the latest Minsk agreement, the Ukrainian government has effectively guaranteed a resumption of the civil war, which U.S. hardliners and the mainstream U.S. media will no doubt blame on ethnic Russian rebels and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The U.S. media has focused on the so-called Minsk-2 agreement’s cease-fire component, first claiming it was being sabotaged by the rebels and Russia but now acknowledging that it is shaky but relatively successful. But the larger point of Minsk-2 was that it would provide for a political settlement of the civil war by arranging talks between Kiev and authorities in the east that would lead to giving those areas extensive self-rule by the end of 2015.

But the implementing law that emerged this week from the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev inserted a clause requiring the rebels to first surrender to the Ukrainian government and then letting Kiev organize elections before a federalized structure is determined.

The Minsk-2 agreement had called for dialogue with the representatives of these territories en route to elections and establishment of broad autonomy for the region, but Kiev’s curveball was to refuse any talks with rebel leaders and insist on establishing control over these territories before the process can move forward, in effect requiring a rebel capitulation.

NATO General Breedlove's Comments considered "Dangerous Propaganda"

Dear Friends,

Germany's largest and respected newspaper, Der Spiegel, has spoken out about the misinformation being given by NATO's Commander General Philip Breedlove.  Please read carefully this highly unusual article written by the Spiegel staff.

We must do something to reign in the war makers in our own country.

More to follow,  Sharon 

The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." 

Breedlove's Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine

By SPIEGEL Staff

March 06, 2015 – 07:47 PM

Top NATO commander General Philip Breedlove has raised hackles in Germany with his public statements about the Ukraine crisis.

US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either. 

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.

On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day."

German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

Demonization and America

Friends, when ever in America have we seen this sort of demonization? Russian friends, are you seeing similar media in Russia about the US?

This seems utterly sick to me.  When children get into rants and rages about others, we talk them down.

Is there no one to interfere with this sort of insane crafting of photos and purulent misinformation?

Even UK and European newspapers are commenting on it.

Have we as a nation ever vilified others in this manner––and what does this mean for our country?

Some of our strongest allies and leaders have far worse records than Russia or Putin.

Why are our current policy makers taking this course?

Why are they so invested in Ukraine, a country in which we have never been involved at all.

Please resend this email to your friends, colleagues and family members.

Ask them what they make of this. 

This is not in keeping with who we are as a nation, or as a sophisticated population.

This is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our democracy.

Somehow, we must create a groundswell of good American citizens who reject these behaviors.

Otherwise the consequences for us, our children and our grandchildren -- and the whole nation will be dire.

Nothing good can come from this continuous vicious diatribe which can only lead to war.

Do we need another war?

Can we start the discussion with friends and colleagues? 

Are people already so loaded with this type of vitriolic rant that they aren't open to other points of view?

Can we create town hall meetings to discuss these issues?

Can we speak at our churches and synagogues?

The article below comes from the UK. They among others in the world are questioning our mentality. 

Your thoughts please,     Sharon

 

The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war

March 5, 2015 

By Seumas Milne, The Guardian, March 4, 2015

Politicians and the media are using Vladimir Putin and Ukraine to justify military expansionism. It’s dangerous folly.

A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, the “Russian threat” is unmistakably back. Vladimir Putin, Britain’s defence secretary Michael Fallon declares, is as great a danger to Europe as “Islamic State”. There may be no ideological confrontation, and Russia may be a shadow of its Soviet predecessor, but the anti-Russian drumbeat has now reached fever pitch.

And much more than in Soviet times, the campaign is personal. It’s all about Putin. The Russian president is an expansionist dictator who has launched a “shameless aggression”. He is the epitome of “political depravity”, “carving up” his neighbours as he crushes dissent at home, and routinely is compared to Hitler. Putin has now become a cartoon villain and Russia the target of almost uniformly belligerent propaganda across the western media. Anyone who questions the dominant narrative on Ukraine – from last year’s overthrow of the elected president and the role of Ukrainian far right to war crimes carried out by Kiev’s forces – is dismissed as a Kremlin dupe.

That has been ratcheted up still further with the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. The Russian president has, of course, been blamed for the killing, though that makes little sense. Nemtsov was a marginal figure whose role in the “catastroika” of the 1990s scarcely endeared him to ordinary Russians. Responsibility for an outrage that exposed the lack of security in the heart of Moscow and was certain to damage the president hardly seems likely to lie with Putin or his supporters.

But it’s certainly grist to the mill of those pushing military confrontation with Russia. Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine this week to bolster the Kiev regime’s war with Russian-backed rebels in the east. Not to be outdone, Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. As 20th-century history shows, the dispatch of military advisers is often how disastrous escalations start. They are also a direct violation of last month’s Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany, that has at least achieved a temporary ceasefire and some pull-back of heavy weapons. Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.

But NATO’s hawks have got the bit between their teeth. Thousands of NATO troops have been sent to the Baltic states – the Atlantic alliance’s new frontline – untroubled by theirindulgence of neo-Nazi parades and denial of minority ethnic rights. A string of American political leaders and generals are calling for the US to arm Kiev, from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, to the new defence secretary, Ashton Carter. For the western military complex, the Ukraine conflict has the added attraction of creating new reasons to increase arms spending, as the US army’s General Raymond Odierno made clear when he complained this week about British defence cuts in the face of the “Russian threat”.

Putin’s authoritarian conservatism may offer little for Russia’s future, but this anti-Russian incitement is dangerous folly. There certainly has been military expansionism. But it has overwhelmingly come from NATO, not Moscow. For 20 years, despite the commitments at the end of the Cold War, NATO has marched relentlessly eastwards, taking in first former east European Warsaw Pact states, then republics of the former Soviet Union itself. As the academic Richard Sakwa puts it in his book Frontline Ukraine, NATO now “exists to manage the risks created by its existence”.

Is Nemtsov’s Murder a Replay of Kirov’s?

by Jack Matlock

www.jackmatlock.com

Responding to the shock of the gang-style execution of Nemtsov in Moscow, Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev, speaking at Tufts University yesterday, said that it reminded him of the Kirov assassination, and predicted that the effect on Russian politics might be of comparable magnitude. I did not have the opportunity to question him directly about what precisely he had in mind, but I gathered from his other remarks that he believes the crime was prompted by a struggle for power within the Putin regime. After all, Stalin used the Kirov murder to launch the infamous purges that reached their height in the trials of 1938 and is widely suspected of having arranged the murder himself.

Russian politics for some time has resembled the proverbial dog fight under a rug, despite the image promoted by the regime of a seamless and efficient “vertical of power.” In some important respects, the killing of Nemtsov does not resemble the killing of Kirov. Kirov was one of Stalin’s closest associates and, in effect, his viceroy in Leningrad. Nemtsov was, on the other hand, a prominent and active oppositionist. A direct point-by-point comparison of the two murders would be absurd. Vladimir Putin does not need to arrange the murder of a prominent oppositionist in order to purge elements he considers unreliable in his own government.

Many persons at the Tufts symposium assumed, upon hearing the shocking news, that Putin himself ordered the assassination and did so as a stern warning to other would-be oppositionists. This was a natural reaction for anyone who assumes that Putin exercises the sort of total control of Russia that Stalin once did of the Soviet Union. It identifies a motivation that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands

Friends, mainstream media continues to give us a one-sided view of the dangerous situation in Ukraine. Few experts have written books on the topic, probably because they could be outdated before printed (fortunately, blogs and investigative news services are providing new facts daily).  At last, a legitimate Russian expert and author, has published a book in the midst this kaleidoscopic war––it gives legitimate accounts of both sides.  Read Steele's analysis of the book. Of itself it gives much of what we need to know and remember about the Ukraine situation today.

Sharon

 

The Guardian

February 19, 2015 

A new book, "Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands" by Richard Sakwa is reviewed  below - At last, a balanced assessment of the Ukrainian conflict - the problems go far beyond Vladimir Putin

By Jonathan Steele

Jonathan Steele is a former Guardian Moscow correspondent, and author of Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. 

[Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Frontline-Ukraine-Borderlands-Richard-Sakwa/dp/1784530646/ref=sr_1_3?s=tradein-aps&srs=9187220011&ie=UTF8&qid=1424617689&sr=8-3&keywords=sakwa]

When Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's prime minister, told a German TV station recently that the Soviet Union invaded Germany, was this just blind ignorance? Or a kind of perverted wishful thinking? If the USSR really was the aggressor in 1941, it would suit Yatsenyuk's narrative of current geopolitics in which Russia is once again the only side that merits blame. 

When Grzegorz Schetyna, Poland's deputy foreign minister, said Ukrainians liberated Auschwitz, did he not know that the Red Army was a multinational force in which Ukrainians certainly played a role but the bulk of the troops were Russian? Or was he looking for a new way to provoke the Kremlin?

Faced with these irresponsible distortions, and they are replicated in a hundred other prejudiced comments about Russian behaviour from western politicians as well as their eastern European colleagues, it is a relief to find a book on the Ukrainian conflict that is cool, balanced, and well sourced. Richard Sakwa makes repeated criticisms of Russian tactics and strategy, but he avoids lazy Putin-bashing and locates the origins of the Ukrainian conflict in a quarter-century of mistakes since the cold war ended.  

Ambassador Jack Matlock's presentation to the National Press Club

This transcript appears in the Febuary 20, 2015 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Former Ambassador to USSR Matlock
 Lambasts U.S. Policy on Russia

[PDF version of this transcript]

Jack Matlock, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-91, was the featured speaker at an event sponsored by the Committee for the Republic, at the National Press Club in Washington Feb. 11. Here is a transcript of his opening remarks. A video is available on YouTube.


The last quite a few years, we have been basically living outside the Washington Beltway. It's always nice to come back and see friends, though I must confess that I'm sometimes puzzled, sitting out in the boondocks, at what goes on here. Because there seems to be group-think about many things in foreign policy—it affects both the media and those in the government—that to me, I find more and more difficult to comprehend.

I didn't understand that they wanted me to talk for 20 minutes—I prepared something that I hoped I could say in 40. So, what I'm going to give you is a barebones summary of how I view the situation, and what I think we should be seeing about it, and expect you to ask me questions so that I can actually expand a bit on the details.

I think we're in a very dangerous situation right now, in regard to Russia, over Ukraine. Six months ago, a year ago, when people were talking about Cold War II, I said, this is silly; this is not Cold War II. The Cold War was about a worldwide confrontation over ideology; it was about communism, and the conflict with communism. And it occurred all over—Latin America, Africa, Asia.

INSIDE PUTIN’S HEAD: The Crisis in Russia and Ukraine and Worst-Case Putin Scenarios

by Gordon Hahn

www.gordonhahn.com

Introduction

The present Russian-NATO proxy war in Ukraine along with the Russian-Western economic cold war could destabilize Russia’s political metastability and even topple Putin and his system. Assume for a moment that Putin really is pushed into a corner. Imagine Putin’s foreign reserves begin to run out cutting into his popularity, and/or he loses his battle with the West over Ukraine because of Russia’s economic weaknesses in conditions of falling oil and natural gas prices and Western sanctions. Political and economic crises mount, and the foundations of his system begin to shake. Putin the winner has become Putin the disappointing loser.

The regime elite begins to split; some defect to the opposition. The latter begins to mount successively larger and more turbulent demonstrations led by a Maidan-like mix of democrats, angered by economic dislocation, and ultra-nationalists, disgruntled by a failure to annex or protect the Donbass. All this reaches a crescendo – a perfect storm – in the runup to, during or just after the 2018 presidential election. It is around elections when corrupt authoritarian systems are often challenged because of limited levels of public trust in the electoral process. The emperor has no clothes.

In such a situation how would Putin and his political order likely react? What would his options be and which among them would he most likely choose? In short, what would Putin try to do to salvage his rule?

Although Putin is not an ultra-nationalist dictator or would-be imperialist, he is likely to err on the side of increasingly authoritarian and expansionist measures to protect his power and system, which he regards as necessary to achieve the growth of Russian power. Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to maintain Russian influence in Ukraine. Therefore, if pushed into a corner in Ukraine, internationally, or at home, Putin is likely to crackdown on domestic opposition and foreign economic and political elements inside Russia and undertake high-risk foreign policy measures like the Crimea annexation in order to save face. If Putin overreaches, the West overreacts, or a ‘black swan’ event occurs at such a pivot point, war with the West – perhaps a second Crimean war – would be at hand.

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