Russia/Germany Work for Peace, U.S Wants War

The crisis in Ukraine has for the most part hogged the news since the end of last November. There was a lull after Putin bailed out Yanukovych by buying Ukrainian bonds and reducing the price of Gazprom's gas. Then protests fired up again on the Maidan, leading eventually to ascension of the neo-Nazis and Yanukovych skipping town. That was toward the end of February, February 21 to be exact. Since then it has pretty much been all Ukraine all the time. Crimea quickly broke off after the February putsch and joined the Russian Federation. For the last several months, the Ukraine's industrial east, the historically pro-Russian, Russian-speaking portion of the country has been the site of Maidan-like uprisings, culminating in Sunday's vote in favor of self rule by People's Republic of Donetsk. That's where we are.

Russia acknowledged the vote but called for negotiations:

This time, the Kremlin issued a statement saying only that it “respects the will of the population of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” and that the crisis should be resolved through dialogue between representatives of the easterners and the national government in Kiev.

That is from Neil MacFarquhar's "Russia Keeps Its Distance After Ukraine Secession Referendums." Though People’s Republic of Donetsk Denis Pushilin announced that his province wants to accede to the Russian Federation, Putin's strategy is based on working with Germany through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to get parties back to the bargaining table to deal with the only workable solution for a viable Ukrainian state -- federalization and neutrality; in other words, the sensible proposal that Russia has been floating all along.

Alison Smale, reporting from Berlin, talks about German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's trip to Kiev today to try to get the junta to negotiate:

Mr. Steinmeier met the acting prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, in Kiev and had plans to travel on to Odessa on the Black Sea, where a horrific fire killed some 40 people earlier this month, German diplomats said. 

“We support your efforts to launch a national dialogue, under Ukrainian ownership, here in your country, through round tables, at the central level and in the regions,” Mr. Steinmeier told a joint news conference with Mr. Yatsenyuk, Reuters reported. 

The trip was Mr. Steinmeier’s third to the country since February, when he and his French and Polish counterparts brokered an accord between demonstrators and President Viktor F. Yanukovych that fell apart when Mr. Yanukovych was ousted [by neo-Nazis] and fled the country for southern Russia. 

Germany has repeatedly pushed for a diplomatic solution in Ukraine while insisting that it would support tougher sanctions if Russia either invades or obstructs a scheduled presidential vote on May 25. Above all, German politicians have made clear, they seek an elected figure to deal with in Kiev. 

Mr. Steinmeier is also promoting a proposal to get the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 57-nation group that includes Europe and the United States as well as Ukraine and Russia, involved in disarming separatists, promoting dialogue and overseeing a free and fair election. 

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has assured his support, although Russia has also pledged to respect the referendums in eastern Ukraine that were condemned as illegal by the authorities in Kiev and by the West. 

Berlin has asked the veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the United States who now runs an annual security conference held in Munich each February, to coordinate a series of “round tables” intended to bring together all sections of Ukrainian society under the O.S.C.E. proposal. 

The terminology being used harks back to 1989, when Poland’s Communist rulers met representatives of the trade union Solidarity, and to the time when the Communists who ruled East Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel grew up, met dissidents. But German media questioned whether there is in Ukraine today even that minimum of national consensus that existed in Soviet bloc countries then.

Germany is the key here. Russia is working with Germany to avoid a Ukrainian civil war which would lead to a failed state that The Saker has dubbed "Banderastan." Working against peace is the United States. As in Syria, the U.S. prefers cracking a state open with non-stop violence. To get a sense of how this looks in the city of Slovyansk, read today's offering by C.J. Chivers and Noah Sneider, "In One Eastern City, Ukrainians Find Battle Hits Too Close to Home." The Ukrainian military is lobbing 120-mm mortars into neighborhoods:

Roughly midway through an hourlong gunfight that began just after midnight Sunday, six high-explosive mortar rounds narrowly missed the home of Yevgeny Kharkovsky and his wife, exploding around them on Yuzhnaya Street. 

One hit a few feet from their home’s east side. Another hit near the south side of the wall of their shed. A third landed on the shed roof. A fourth hit beside a row of beehives. Two more landed in their neighbor’s yard, blasting out windows there and at the next house down.

No one was wounded by the 120-millimeter shells that seemed to originate from a Ukrainian military position a little more than a mile to the southeast. But the near misses demonstrated a very real danger of the government’s effort to crack down on rebels controlling this city. Change the angle of a round’s descent, add or subtract a few yards, and one might have hit squarely on a house, killing civilians and igniting the kind of sustained fighting that has so far remained only a fear. 

“I couldn’t believe that there were explosions in my yard,” Mr. Kharkovsky said Monday, as intermittent gunfire could be heard at the nearby government position, where soldiers have been dug in for 10 days. Crossing himself slowly, Mr. Kharkovsky said he and his wife, Galina Kharkovskaya, had been lucky. He had been struck only by flying glass as windows were blown in. 

The close call on Yuzhnaya Street signaled a dangerous turn in the turmoil in eastern Ukraine.

Where is the outrage from Obama and Kerry? Remember during the major Maidan clashes in February they regularly scolded Yanukovych for allowing his security forces the use of weapons. Here, not a peep, when the coup government uses heavy weapons on civilians in their own homes. These people are not even protesting or violating a curfew; they're in their owns homes tending to their bees and their gardens.

It is obscene. Such hypocrisy does lasting damage to a state. Barack Obama is hollowing out the Democratic Party. It is going to be a tough row to hoe on down the line.

The Coming Collapse of U.S. Hegemony

Events seem to be moving in the direction of a big battle for control of Slovyansk city center. The junta military has established checkpoints surrounding the city, according to putschist interior minister Arsen Avakov. Since Avakov does a great job impersonating Joseph Goebbels, it is difficult to assess how strong these roadblocks are and how likely it is that junta troops will storm Slovyansk. But if they do, there is no doubt that the conflict in Ukraine will graduate to another level of violence.

Based on a reading of the blogs -- Moon of Alabama, The Vineyard of the Saker -- over the weekend, the sense out there is that Russia is being provoked by the United States to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to block European integration east with the Russia and China. A Russian invasion would force Europe to side with its North Atlantic partner in building up NATO military forces on Russia's border as well as severing trade ties with the Russian Federation. At this point, barring mass slaughter of civilians by the putsch government, it doesn't look like Russia is going to take the bait.

Energy supply is the obvious vulnerability in any plan to sever Europe from Russia. Andrew Higgins explores the current U.S.-generated fantasy of how Ukraine can achieve independence from Gazprom in "Kiev Struggles to Break Russia’s Grip on Gas Flow." The idea is that Slovakia has the pipeline capacity to reverse flow natural gas to Ukraine. But for some reason -- Higgins sees the baleful, corrupting influence of Vlad Putin at work -- the Slovak government has been slow to embrace the scheme. It is a long story. One has to read to the end to get to the obvious. Reverse flows depend on the agreement of all parties, meaning that Gazprom would have to sign off in it. Why would they do that?

Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom’s export arm, said he had no problem in principle with reverse-flow supplies to Ukraine but said such arrangements “require the agreement of all parties involved,” including Gazprom. 

“Normally, you can’t arrange a physical reverse flow without a new pipeline,” he added, indicating Gazprom’s opposition to the use of existing Slovak pipelines.

The main event over the weekend was the Friday massacre in Odessa. Federalist, pro-Russian protesters were attacked by Ukrainian nationalist soccer hooligans, chased into a building and the building was set on fire. Forty people died. Putsch prime minister Yatsenyuk in a gross perversion of common decency immediately blamed Russian provocation and police ineptitude. The Gray Lady dutifully echoed his words, even though video evidence and crime-scene reporting established that the slaughter was caused by Ukrainian nationalist mobs. Robert Parry, whose Consortium News web site does an excellent job keeping the February Ukrainian coup in proper perspective, asks, "Will Ukraine Be NYT's Waterloo?"

Andrew Kramer brings the Gray Lady back closer to what really happened in Odessa over the weekend with his "Ukraine’s Reins Weaken as Chaos Spreads":

Yanus Milteynus, a 42-year-old construction worker and pro-Russian activist, said he watched from the roof as the pro-Ukrainian crowd threw firebombs into the building’s lower windows, while those inside feared being beaten to death by the crowd if they tried to flee. 

“Some people jumped or tried to run away, but they chased them and beat them,” he said. Videos of the inferno, however, also show pro-Ukrainian activists trying to move scaffolding from a stage to the building, to rescue those inside. 

Only when the police managed to form a cordon to escort out those rescued by firefighters was he able to leave. If the roof caught fire before then, he said, “I would have stayed and sizzled like a sausage in a frying pan.” 

The conflict is hardening hearts on both sides. As the building burned, Ukrainian activists sang the Ukrainian national anthem, witnesses on both sides said. They also hurled a new taunt: “Colorado” for the Colorado potato beetle, striped red and black like the pro-Russian ribbons. Those outside chanted “burn Colorado, burn,” witnesses said. Swastikalike symbols were spray painted on the building, along with graffiti reading “Galician SS,” though it was unclear when it had appeared, or who had painted it. 

“The biggest thing they ever did to make me hate this country was sing the anthem,” Mr. Milteynus said. “I was going to die, and they sang the anthem. I hate them deeply.”

The United States will pay a large price for fomenting this coup in Ukraine. This is no Kosovo. In what increasingly looks like a desperate, reckless attempt to maintain its global hegemony, the USG is paving the way for its collapse. Democrats cannot win as a pro-war party. This means that Republicans will reap the reward. GOP national leadership will further fracture and discredit the country. Get ready. This is what is in store.

Fighting Begins in Slovyansk

Separatist forces in the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Slovyansk brought down two government helicopters on Friday, killing two of their occupants, the Ukraiainan Defense Ministry said, as government forces launched what was termed the “active phase” of an assault to dislodge militants. 

The military action drew a broadside of protest and indignation from the Kremlin, which said the assault had effectively destroyed “all hope” for a plan to defuse the growing tensions in Ukraine negotiated last month in Geneva by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union. 

Blaming the Kiev authorities, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Dmitri S. Peskov, told Russian news agencies: “The Kiev regime ordered combat aircraft to fire at civilian towns and villages, launching a ‘punitive operation’ and effectively destroying all hope for the viability of the Geneva agreements.” 

By early afternoon, military operations in and around Slovyansk appeared to have ceased, leaving the region in a state of tension. Moscow repeated its warning that it reserved the right to intervene to protect its interests and Russian-leaning residents of eastern Ukraine, but there were no signs of an imminent move across the border.

That report this morning comes from Neil MacFarquhar and Alan Cowell, "Clashes in Eastern Ukraine as Moscow Issues New Warnings." Yesterday Putin demanded that the coup government demilitarize eastern Ukraine and enter a dialogue to resolve the nation's conflict. A sensible path forward. Washington's puppets provided their nonsensical reply with the attack on Slovyansk. Moscow says that American mercenaries are rounding out the Ukrainian forces attacking Russian-speaking civilians:

The Russian foreign ministry and state-run media also repeated the accusation, again with no evidence, that there were “English-speaking officers” among the attackers. The foreign ministry said that American “mercenaries” could not be working in Ukraine without State Department approval. 

Mr. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, was speaking shortly after the Defense Ministry in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, acknowledged the loss of two military helicopters. The Ukrainian domestic-intelligence agency, S.B.U., said the apparent use of shoulder-fired missiles against one of the helicopters showed that the separatists had outside support.

If two helicopters were brought down in short order during the opening phases of the assault on Slovyansk this does not bode well for the putschists. The attrition required to reestablish control in the many cities and towns of the east would be too great. The presence of shoulder-fired missiles among the pro-federalization protesters means they have an answer to putschist armor.

There is no question this is being driven by planners in the United States. Once again, cracking a state open -- think Libya, think Syria -- with all the attendant death, destruction and instability is a preferable outcome for the D.C. smart set than coming to the bargaining table and negotiating a peaceful settlement.

Because coming to the negotiating table and bargaining in good faith would necessarily entail acknowledging the huge, legitimate interests Russia has in the region and the reality that Ukraine is a nation divided between the industrial, pro-Russian east and the ultra-nationalist west of what The Saker has termed "Banderastan." Any agreement is going to have to include federalization of Ukraine -- federalization and neutrality. The United States is not willing to accept this reality. So it is actively engaged in the destruction of the Ukrainian state. The putschists are willing accomplices because they came to power illegitimately. Isn't this obvious?

Putschists Admit Defeat in Donbass

One of the great Descendents songs from the 1980s is "Coolidge," which includes the line "You can only be a victim if you admit defeat."

Bear that in mind as you read today's story by Alison Smale and Andrew Roth, "Ukraine Says That Militants Won the East":

It is by now a well-established pattern. Armed, masked men in their 20s to 40s storm a public building of high symbolic value in a city somewhere in eastern Ukraine, evict anyone still there, seize weapons and ammunition, throw up barricades and proclaim themselves the rulers of a “people’s republic.” It is not clear who is in charge or how the militias are organized. 

Through such tactics, a few thousand pro-Russian militants have seized buildings in about a dozen cities, effectively establishing control over much of an industrial region of about 6.5 million nestled against the Russian border. 

Day by day, in the areas surrounding the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, pro-Russian forces have defied all efforts by the central government to re-establish its authority, and on Wednesday, Ukraine’s acting president conceded what had long been obvious: The government’s police and security officials had lost control.

“Inactivity, helplessness and even criminal betrayal” plague the security forces, the acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, told a meeting of regional governors in Kiev. “It is hard to accept but it’s the truth. The majority of law enforcers in the east are incapable of performing their duties.”

With Mr. Turchynov’s acknowledgment that a significant chunk of the country had slipped from the government’s grasp, the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to enter a new and more dangerous phase. Whether that amounts to the lasting dismemberment of Ukraine or hands control of the east to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, were among the many questions left unanswered after Mr. Turchynov delivered his stark assessment.

Note the red highlights I added to the copy above. The feckless conduct of the putsch government is going to be papered over in the West with heaping column inches of anti-Putinism. The prestige press and USG could boast no spectacular achievements of propaganda when it came to bestowing legitimacy on the putschist cabal in Kiev. So now that defeat is being openly acknowledged no effort will be spared to lay blame on the "evil Putin." Here is a sample from the same Smale and Roth story:

But so far that has not been necessary. Through stealth and misdirection, and in defiance of Western sanctions, Russia has managed to achieve its immediate goal of what Western and Ukrainian officials believe is rendering Ukraine so chaotic that it cannot guarantee order, mend its teetering economy or elect new leaders to replace Mr. Turchynov and the acting government installed after the pro-Russian president, Victor F. Yanukovych, fled in February.

Nothing sensible like the conclusion that coming to power by means of a coup does not lead to stability and full support from the citizenry. No, the poor patriots in Kiev were destabilized by the adroit wirepulling of Russia's new Rasputin.

But make no mistake. The putschists are in trouble, and it is of their and the West's own making. Yanukovych and the EU had a deal back in February that would have transitioned Ukraine to the kind of democratic gains the western part of the country wanted. But that was torpedoed by U.S. support of the Right Sector spearheaded putsch. You get what you get when you go with violence, something that U.S. policymakers cannot seem to grasp, ever.

As a side note, over at the Moon of Alabama, the blog announced the end is near for the putsch. Moon of Alabama has an excellent track record on declaring victory -- when Obama's missile strike was foiled at the end of last summer, when earlier this year Syria turned the corner on its foreign-funded jihadis, and now in Ukraine.

The Battle in Eastern Ukraine: Greystone vs.the Green Men

Well, the battle(s) to retake eastern Ukraine appear to be underway this morning. The Gray Lady's C.J. Chivers reporting from Donetsk, along with Andrew Higgins in Kiev and Alan Cowell in London, writes that the putsch interior minister Arsen Avakov is claiming victory in clearing the Mariupol city hall of protesters thanks to the vigilance of "civilian activists" (read: Right Sector goon squad) wearing masks and wielding baseball bats:

In his Facebook posting, Mr. Avakov said there had been “no victims” in the tussle for City Hall in Mariupol, but that bomb disposal experts were checking the building for explosives. 

The A.P. quoted Yulia Lasazan, a spokeswoman for Mariupol’s police department, as saying that roughly 30 masked men had used baseball bats to beat pro-Russia protesters after storming the building in the early hours of Thursday. 

The occupiers did not offer resistance, even though some of them were believed to be armed, The A.P. said, but called the police instead. 

Five people were taken to a hospital, Ms. Lasazan said. 

Ms. Lasazan said the police were controlling the perimeter and were negotiating with the remaining protesters, asking them to leave the building.

So Mariupol city hall has fallen to the putschists. While that is not goods news, Mariupol is not one of the critical protest zones in the east. Slovyansk is. And what is being reported there is that five pro-Russian protesters have been killed manning barricades that block entry into the city. The Wall Street Journal has the story, "Ukraine Says Up to 5 Militants Killed in East":

Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that up to five pro-Russian militants were killed and three roadblocks overrun outside an eastern city at the heart of a local insurgency, as Kiev restarted a military operation to regain control in the region. 

Also on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the use of military force against Ukrainian civilians would have consequences for the leadership in Kiev. He didn't elaborate on what they would be. 

"If the Kiev regime begins to use the army against its own citizens, that is, without a doubt, a very serious crime," he said. "This will certainly have an impact on those who make such decisions and on our bilateral relations." 

Mr. Putin didn't repeat his previous statements that Moscow reserves the right to defend ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine. There was no immediate indication that Moscow was preparing to use military force, though it has built up troops along the border with Ukraine.

There are a couple of questions here. First, if five died defending a few roadblocks at the edge of the city, what is the death toll going to be if an attempt is made to clear Slovyansk city hall? I would imagine it is going to be much higher. Judging from the video of a funeral service for a young man slain on Easter manning one of the barricades, Slovyansk is a city mobilized and solidly anti-putsch. The putschist special forces are going to be confronting enraged old women as well as armed men. This is a combination that routed the first "anti-terrorism" campaign last week. And recall then that Avakov had initially celebrated the success of securing an airfield at Kramatorsk before everything collapsed fantastically.

My assessment at the time was that the debacle the putschists experienced was proof that Russia was not going to allow a single victory for Kiev in the east. So that is the second question this morning: Does this assessment still hold? Will Russia allow the pro-Russian uprising in the Donbass to be rolled up by what is likely a U.S. mercenary-filled military force?

I don't see how Russia can. First, there is public opinion in Russia. For Putin to stand by as pro-Russian protesters are either killed or rounded up would be devastating to his standing domestically. Then there is the fact that if the putschists are successful in pacifying the east and completing their May 25 presidential election, predations against Russians are not going to magically cease. There is a strong chance they will accelerate. If Obama is willing to directly support the canard that the protesters in Donetsk were creating a system of registration for Jews, then there is little doubt that he will provide public relations assistance for the Kiev gang as they mop up the dissidents in the Donbass.

No, Russia has to act. And right now that looks like they are willing to match their "green men," their special forces, against whatever mercenaries the CIA has been able to piece together for the putschists. Call it Greystone vs. the Green Men. At this point I don't see a Russian ground invasion.

Putschists Announce Another Military Campaign To Retake Eastern Ukraine

Moon of Alabama has a timely, on-the-mark post this morning, "Ukraine: 'Anti-Terrorism' Campaigns Follow Visits From U.S.," where it is noted that, first, following a weekend visit by CIA Director John Brennan and, then, yesterday's cheerleading bagman appearance in Kiev by vice president Joe Biden, the putsch government has launched military assaults against pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine. The first one fell apart last week spectacularly due to a combination of peaceful protest, lack of motivation among the putschist armed forces and a sprinkling of Russian special forces, a.k.a., "green men." What has a changed in a week to make the putschists think that the outcome will be any different is hard to divine. It could be that as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the USG the gang in Kiev is just robotically following orders heedless of the disaster which awaits their completion.

The danger here is that with each military debacle the coherence of the Ukrainian state and the viability of its putschists erode to the point of no return. Then the May 25 presidential elections -- even with U.S. financing and management -- become pointless. This is an outcome the Obama White House wants to avoid at all costs. So it is likely that there will be a new wrinkle in the current putschist "anti-terrorism" campaign. Could it be that a CIA-managed mercenary army of ex-Navy SEALS and ex-Army Rangers will lead the attack? Who knows. Robert Parry over at Consortium News thinks a massacre of eastern Ukrainians is coming. I don't think Russia allows this to happen. I do think there are Russian special forces on the ground in the ten eastern cities under the control of protesters. The question then becomes, How does conflict between special forces, West vs. East, play out? Does it mushroom into a trade war that engulfs Europe?

U.S. Worried About May 25 Ukrainian Presidential Election

How many times since the February putsch have high-level U.S. officials made the trip to Kiev to fete the putschists? It is hard to count. Senator John McCain alone has made multiple trips, as has Secretary of State John Kerry. Then there was CIA Director John Brennan's visit shortly before the putschists' debacle of a military campaign in the east. Today it is VP Joe Biden's turn to pay tribute. Andrew Higgins and Alan Cowell have the story this morning, "Biden Urges Ukrainian Leaders to Fight ‘Cancer of Corruption’ ":

Mr. Biden’s remarks, during a visit designed to show high-level backing from the United States, came a day after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused the government in Kiev of flagrantly violating the international accord reached last week seeking to defuse the crisis in eastern Ukraine. Mr. Lavrov’s remarks were taken as a sign that Russia may be further preparing the groundwork for a military intervention. 

The Kremlin regards the interim authorities as a product of a Western-backed coup that seized power in late February after months of protests.

Mr. Biden met on Tuesday with the acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, and scheduled meetings with other officials. He will leave late Tuesday for Washington, a day after he arrived.

According to news reports, Mr. Biden told Ukrainian leaders that they had an opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, and that the United States stood ready to help end their dependence on Russian energy supplies, although the process would take time. 

He said that Kiev faced “humiliating threats” and daunting problems and, according to Reuters, described the presidential election scheduled for May 25 as the most important in the country’s history.

At this point there can be no mistake that the current putsch government of Ukraine is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States. This should never have been in doubt from the moment Victoria Nuland's "Fuck the E.U." telephone call was publicized. But events have been racing at a fast pace and sometimes it is hard to keep the truth in focus.

And the truth is Ukraine has been a long-sought prize of U.S. geopolitical strategists and power brokers, and they are not going to let it fall from their grasp even if this plumb turns out to be completely rotten and infested with maggots -- as it certainly is.

One of the immediate concerns of the United States is the legitimacy of the putschist May 25 presidential election:

Mr. Biden also warned Russia on Tuesday that “it’s time to stop talking and start acting” to reduce tension in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. He announced that Washington would provide a further $50 million to promote political and economic change, including $11 million to be spent on voter education, administration and oversight of the May 25 ballot. 

So far the putsch government in Kiev has not been able to convincingly display that it has control over the country, whether east, west or south. Right Sector goon squads are seemingly the only way the putschists can project power outside the capital. This is not the formula for a free and fair national election. Biden's announcement of aid earmarked for the election shows that there is a concern that if the putschists manage to bungle next month's ballot no amount of Western-supplied propaganda will be able to confer the thinnest patina of legitimacy on an illegitimate, anti-democratic junta.

As for Neil MacFarquhar's frontpage "Under Russia, Life in Crimea Grows Chaotic," it is nothing more than a litany of everyday aggravations residents of a jurisdiction that has recently switched nationalities will have to endure for a while: passports are difficult to secure, as apparently are yogurt, Big Macs and methadone; but no one is being gunned down by neo-Nazis or raped in the street.

The Obama Legacy: A New Cold War

The Geneva statement issued last Thursday has already unraveled. Early Sunday morning at a checkpoint outside of Slovyansk pro-Russian protesters came under fire. Three people have been reported killed and four wounded. The attackers are likely the neo-fascist group Right Sector. Andrew Kramer reporting from Slovyansk has the story, "Shootout Underscores Fragile Truce in Ukraine":

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday calling groundless the Russian ministry’s assertion that the attackers had been members of Right Sector. Right Sector also denied any involvement. 

“The Russian side must be reminded about their obligations under the Geneva agreement to bring all necessary influence to bear on separatists to clear illegally held buildings, unblock roads, lay down arms and prevent any bloodshed,” the Ukrainian statement said. 

Life News, a Russian tabloid television channel, reported that pro-Russian militants had found a business card of the leader of Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, among the belongings said to have been left behind by one of the attackers, along with guns and stacks of American dollars. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that “as a result of an attack by insurgents of the so-called Right Sector, innocent civilians have died.” It added that pro-Russian fighters had found “aerial photographs of that district” and Right Sector emblems in cars seized from the attackers. “The Russian side is indignant at this provocation of the insurgents, which shows the Kiev authorities’ unwillingness to rein and disarm the nationalists and extremists,” it said.

As to be expected, in order to divert attention from this brazen violation of the Geneva statement, the Obama administration peddled putsch government photographs that purportedly prove Russian special forces are directing the pro-Russian uprising in the Donbass. Andrew Higgins, Michael Gordon and Andrew Kramer have the story, "Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia":

“There has been broad unity in the international community about the connection between Russia and some of the armed militants in eastern Ukraine, and the photos presented by the Ukrainians last week only further confirm this, which is why U.S. officials have continued to make that case,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said Sunday. 

The question of Russia’s role in eastern Ukraine has a critical bearing on the agreement reached Thursday in Geneva among Russian, Ukrainian, American and European diplomats to ease the crisis. American officials have said that Russia would be held responsible for ensuring that the Ukrainian government buildings were vacated, and that it could face new sanctions if the terms were not met.

This is the U.S. attempt to shift the narrative away from Right Sector violence; it likely also prefigures another round of largely cosmetic sanctions directed at the Russian ruling elite. Also, make note. Whenever you see a story written or co-written by Michael Gordon, what you are getting is the official lie.

Going forward, what we are working our way towards, and the direction events have been moving since Crimea last month, is -- "How serious is the West about initiating a trade war with Russia?" We have heard a lot of talk from Obama and Kerry about costs, but so far those costs have been negligible. The conundrum facing the United States is that as soon as it really starts to walk the talk, that will be the time that prominent EU members -- like Germany and Italy -- begin to make noise about getting off the train. Europe's future growth is in the east not the west.

What seems apparent is that the White House is not going to abandon the putschists in Kiev. We are dealing with a parent's love of his child. This means that we can expect more deadly shenanigans from Right Sector goon squads, which will eventually lead to a thorough counterattack from the "green men."

This is not going to end well for either the putschists nor the Obama administration. What Obama must realize is that there is zero popular support for this New Cold War he is creating. This is not 1948 Berlin. The more he pursues it, the greater the chances of his legacy being one of infamy.

Russia Will Not Allow Any Putschist Victories in the Donbass

Yesterday ended with a lot of crowing in the Western media about the potent, measured display of force by the Ukrainian military in securing an airfield at Kramatorsk. The good news this morning is that "victory" by the putschists has already been reversed. This from a story this morning from Andrew Kramer reporting from Slovyansk, "Ukraine Is Said to Suffer a Setback in Bid to Confront Pro-Russian Militias":

The opening phase of what the Ukrainian government has called a military operation to confront pro-Russian militants suffered a setback Wednesday morning when six armored personnel carriers flying a Russian flag drove into town here and parked in the central square, Ukrainian news media reported. 

Pro-Russian militias commandeered the vehicles from the Ukrainian Army and went to the central square in Slovyansk, about 120 miles from the Russian border, according to the news reports. A crowd gathered to gape at the squat, tracked vehicles and at a red, white and blue flag flapping in the breeze. 

About 100 soldiers in unmarked green uniforms and bearing the equipment of professional infantry guarded the vehicles, but they showed no signs of allegiance other than the single flag. Some of the soldiers had grenade launchers slung over their shoulders.

If the vehicles were indeed seized from the Ukrainian Army, it was not immediately clear whether they had been taken by force or with the collusion of defecting Ukrainian troops. Either possibility, however, would signal an escalation by Russian-backed militants in eastern Ukraine.

Tsenzor.net, a Ukrainian news website, reported that militants seized the vehicles in a neighboring town, Kramatorsk, where the Ukrainians landed paratroopers Tuesday to secure an airfield, in what was intended to be a show of force. 

The Ukrainian general who commanded the military operation, Vasily Krutov, stood near armored personnel carriers outside the town and warned loudly that gunmen who did not surrender their weapons would be “destroyed.”

I must admit I went to bed last night feeling ill at ease, thinking that possibly Russia would stand aside as Ukrainian troops backed by neo-fascist irregulars would roll up the uprising in the Donbass. Sure, it was obvious what was going on -- a small, inconsequential action at a small, inconsequential airfield was being blown up out of all proportion to herald the legitimacy of the illegitimate putsch regime in Kiev. Nonetheless, I felt agitated; that is what information war is designed to do.

The presence of the "100 soldiers in unmarked green uniforms and bearing the equipment of professional infantry" is a clear statement that Russia is not going to allow even the smallest display of potency by the putschists in the east.

So it is to be expected -- though still a little surprising giving its vehemence and lock-step coordination with NATO pronouncements -- that you get a frontpage attack by David Herszenhorn, "Russia Is Quick to Bend Truth About Ukraine." It is not labeled "analysis," as is the protocol for the Gray Lady when she prints opinion pieces outside the editorial page; we are to accept Herszenhorn's attack on the Russian media as straight-up fact. (Elites in the West are obviously upset by Prime Minister Medvedev taking to Facebook to declare, as he did yesterday, that "Blood has been spilled in Ukraine again.")

What is going on here is the West's media monopoly is not what it once was. Daily newspapers, except for a few behemoths like the Gray Lady and Wall Street Journal, are dying if not already dead. Television network news is fading fast. It is a splintered informational world, and in this world Russia has proved an adept player. Hence the attacks on the Russian media by the New York Times. The same thing happened last month during the Crimea vote to join the Russian Federation. These attacks are necessary for the West because it cannot defend a violent, unconstitutional uprising in Kiev at the same time reject the same kind of uprising by pro-Russian Ukrainians in the Donets Basin.

NATO did its part by proclaiming that a military buildup will commence on its eastern boundary. According to Kramer:

In Brussels, the head of NATO said Wednesday that the alliance would strengthen its military presence along its eastern border in response to the developments in Ukraine. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, said that NATO would immediately send forces to the region as a deterrent. He did not specify how many troops or aircraft would be involved or what kind of assets would be deployed. 

Earlier this month, the alliance ordered an end to most military cooperation with Russia because of the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and its threatening military posture near eastern Ukraine.

Add to this a story, "General and Former Defense Official Urge Nonlethal Military Aid for Ukraine," by Michael Gordon published today and the horizon of the New Cold War stands clearly before us:

“Implementation of U.S. nonlethal military aid is seriously flawed and needs immediate correction,” Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Phillip A. Karber wrote in a copy of the report that The New York Times obtained on Tuesday. General Clark, who is retired, is the former NATO commander who led the alliance’s forces during the 1998 Kosovo conflict, and Mr. Karber is a former strategy adviser to Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

***

“The most important assistance currently needed to make the existing Ukrainian force as defensible as possible in the current crisis (between now and the elections of 25 May) is nonlethal equipment from the U.S.,” they wrote after a recent visit to Ukraine. 

The visit of General Clark, who ran for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and Mr. Karber took place in late March and early April. They traveled at the invitation of Ukrainian officials, and the trip was paid for by the Potomac Foundation, an American nonprofit research center. 

General Clark and Mr. Karber met with Ukrainian generals and defense officials, and Mr. Karber visited Ukrainian armored, mechanized and light infantry brigades on their northern, eastern and southern fronts. 

According to their assessment, which has been provided to Obama administration officials and lawmakers, Ukraine’s forces are facing a formidable military challenge. “The 1,000-mile-long front is three times the frontier that Ukraine’s modest armed forces are designed to handle,” they wrote. “Moreover, decade-long corruption has left their Air Force ill equipped, vulnerable and unready for modern air combat. 

“Russian occupation of Crimea has virtually destroyed Ukraine’s coastal defense from the south,” they wrote, adding that threats from other directions “divert Ukrainian political attention and disperse badly needed forces to the southwest and northwest.” 

Ukraine, they say, needs more aircraft, and more antiaircraft and antitank missiles. But it also has a dire need for nonlethal assistance.

Michael Gordon fails to mention that Wesley Clark, as NATO commander during the the Kosovo war, almost started WWIII when he ordered troops to attack Russia forces occupying Pristina airport. Fortunately for all of us British General Mike Jackson refused to comply with the order, saying, famously, "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you."

Direct military support and consultation will begin with nonlethal assistance and take off from there. The United States and Europe now have another Afghanistan. This one one is being called Banderastan.

Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War and Economic Collapse

The news this morning is that the Kiev putschists have finally begun there ballyhooed crackdown on restive eastern Ukraine. Andrew Kramer, reporting from Slovyansk, has the story, "Ukraine Says It Has Begun Military Operation in East":

After days of failing to enforce its own ultimatums, the Ukrainian government on Tuesday began what the president called a military operation to confront pro-Russian militants in the east of the country. 

The first indication that the operation represented more than just words this time was a modest Ukrainian military checkpoint established on a highway north of the town of Slovyansk, which has been controlled by militants since Saturday. 

Witnesses said a dozen armored personnel carriers parked on the highway flew Ukrainian flags about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, north of the town. There were no credible reports of confrontations with the well-armed and apparently Russian-backed forces in the town. 

“On Tuesday morning, in the north of Donetsk region, an antiterrorist operation began,” the Ukrainian speaker of Parliament and acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, told Parliament in the capital, Kiev. “It will be carried out in stages, and responsibly and in a balanced manner. The goal is the defense of citizens of Ukraine.”

So far this action by the putschists seems largely cosmetic. Slovyansk is completely under the control of pro-Russian protesters. Staying 25 miles outside the city is wise.

The Ukrainian troops were not moving by early afternoon on Tuesday. Ahead of them in Slovyansk, scores of armed men maintained their hold on the police and domestic security service building and the City Hall. They have barricaded the roads and, locals say, placed snipers on roofs.

And yet the town remained crowded with people milling about the streets and standing at protests in front of barricades, illustrating that an overly assertive Ukrainian military response could quickly lead to heavy civilian casualties and play into Moscow’s narrative that Russian-speakers are in need of protection.

The putschists are likely responding to counsel from the gargoyle-like CIA Director John Brennan who was recently weekending in Kiev. The thinking in the West is probably that the putschists have to demonstrate some sort -- any sort -- of ability to establish facts on the ground (even if these facts are merely cosmetic) prior to the scheduled four-party talks in Geneva this Thursday. The U.S. did its part by whispering about more sanctions, also cosmetic, to be applied against Russia. The main one discussed being a travel ban and/or asset freeze of Rosneft president Igor Sechin. Peter Baker Reports in "With Ukraine Tensions Mounting, U.S. Weighs New Sanctions Against Russia" that 

Targeting Mr. Sechin would aim directly at Mr. Putin’s inner circle. Rosneft, Mr. Sechin’s oil company, is deeply involved with Western firms. BP owns nearly 20 percent of the company, and ExxonMobil has multiple projects with Rosneft in Siberia, the Arctic, the Black Sea, Canada, Alaska and Texas. 

Lawyers at ExxonMobil are researching the impact of sanctions against Mr. Sechin. Given that they would apply to Mr. Sechin personally and not his company, some specialists said it might mean little more than a logistical hassle because he could not travel to the United States to meet with his ExxonMobil partners.

Baker's story also illuminates the confusion inside the beltway over Brennan's house call on the putschists:

Mr. Brennan’s decision to travel to Kiev, however, struck many in Washington as baffling. Russian television first reported over the weekend that the C.I.A. director had arrived in Kiev under an assumed name to direct operations there. The White House and the C.I.A. initially refused to comment but on Monday confirmed his trip. Mr. Carney said it was meant simply to foster “mutually beneficial security cooperation,” and he called Russia’s characterization “absurd.”

Some former intelligence officers privately criticized the visit, saying it only bolstered the conspiracies advanced by Russian officials that the C.I.A. was behind the Ukrainian unrest that toppled a pro-Moscow president in favor of a government oriented toward the West. 

But other C.I.A. veterans said there must have been a good reason for him to go because the White House would have known Mr. Brennan would be spotted. “It’s a well-thought-out decision that had to be weighed against playing right into Putin’s message,” said Milton Bearden, chief of the C.I.A.’s Soviet division during the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Should Ukrainian troops decide to attack Slovyansk I am sure that nestled among the soft civilian targets they would find some very efficient and hardened Russian special forces. Appreciation of this is no doubt the reason that two putschist ultimatums have come and gone without any enforcement activity.

Writing yesterday from Horlivka, Andrew Kramer explores the idea that Russian troops walk among the pro-Russian protesters in the Donbass in his "In Ukraine’s East, Russians Are Blending Right In." Based mostly on an online video and one interview with a pro-putsch Ukrainian in Sloyvansk, Kramer concludes that there is a heavy Russian presence to the protests. I'm sure he is right. Russia would be completely negligent if it did not have special forces on the ground milling around acting as an invisible shield to putschist violence. But Kramer's story is important because it validates the essentially popular nature of the uprising in eastern Ukraine:

All the same, an emphasis on a Russian military role discounts the genuine discontent among a portion of the population in eastern Ukraine. And some of the political and business elites of the Donets Basin, an industrial and coal-producing region in the east that is the base of support of the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, felt that they had much to lose after he was deposed in February.

The question at this point -- with a bank run on Monday that prompted the central bank to raise interest rates three percent, the hryvnia has lost 35% against the dollar in 2014 -- is will the putschists instigate an all-out civil war to obscure the inevitability of economic collapse?

One thing is crystal clear. The U.S. has created another mess.

NATO Brays, Putin Shows His Hand

Taking the "satellite" view of events in Ukraine this Friday, when the only story in the Gray Lady is David Herszenhorn's "Satellites Show Russian Forces Poised Near Ukraine," it should be apparent to all news consumers that now that the West has its neo-foot in Russia's front door there is no going back. We are experiencing, and have been for the last month, the first days of the New Cold War.

As for Herszenhorn's article about 40,000 Russian troops with all sorts of hardware massed on Ukraine's eastern border, it basically repeats the NATO press release built around satellite photos taken by a company called DigitalGlobe. No word is mentioned of Russian claims that the images actually capture drills conducted last August.

What is afoot here is the West providing flak for the putschists and there impending crackdown in Donetsk. With enough keening and braying coming out of Brussels, the hope emanating from Western capitals is that the Russians will stay on their side of the border when security forces led by the re-branded Blackwater (Greystone) mop up the retirees occupying government buildings. What a triumphant display of force by mercenaries and neo-Nazis will accomplish other than more unrest I know not.

Lavrov made a statement on Wednesday regarding the possibility of four-party talks at some point in the near future to take place in Geneva. But I wouldn't hold my breath:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on April 9 that the meeting on Ukraine should help foster equal dialogue in Ukraine. He said Russia would attend a four-party meeting on Ukraine with the United States, the European Union and the Ukrainian authorities only if it helped Kiev foster contacts with all political and regional forces inside the country. 

The West has suggested holding a meeting on the situation in Ukraine. “April was named as a tentative date,” he recalled and stressed that Russia’s position was simple. “This is an internal Ukrainian crisis, and those who are holding the reins of power in Kiev now must invite all regions, all political forces to start a dialogue on the constitution, on the language and all other aspects.

Lavrov said Russia had so far received no reply to its inquiries, including those concerning rumours that Kiev is planning to sell ballistic missile technologies. “We asked the Americans what they think about this. They keep silence,” the minister said. 

Another inquiry that remains unanswered was about reports claiming that personnel of the private American security company Greystone had been deployed in Ukraine. “They say: we see no reason for this to be true. What a strange answer. Why don’t you simply say: there is none of them there?” Lavrov said, adding that there were also other inquiries that had not been answered by the US authorities.

“If this meeting focuses on urging the Ukrainian authorities not to wait for the south-eastern regions to boil over, as is the case now, and on urging them to talk with these regions, we will join this call,” he said. 

Lavrov recalled that the new Ukrainian authorities had not visited the southern and south-eastern regions of the country even once since February 22 when they took power in Kiev. “They say: there is the Party of Regions and there are communists in the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] and that’s enough. But it’s not so because many regions think that those who sit in the Verkhovna Rada do not represent their interests,” he said. 

The minister said he did not know where the meeting could take place. “We want to understand the purpose of convening this meeting,” he said. 

If the organisers intend to urge the Kiev authorities to take care of the country, Russia will support it wholeheartedly. “But if they say: ‘take your seats at the table and give them cheap gas’, this is probably senseless,” he said. 

In discussing ways to resolve the Ukrainian crisis some time ago, Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry did not rule out a meeting between Ukrainian, Russian, EU and US officials.

Concerning that cheap gas, Putin released a letter he penned to European heads of state patiently explaining the next Russian moves if the West refuses to come to the bargaining table. Pre-payment will be required for future energy supplies if no effort is made by the putschists to whittle down some of the substantial debt Ukraine has accumulated:

The debt of NAK Naftogaz Ukraine for delivered gas has been growing monthly this year. In November-December 2013 this debt stood at 1.451,5 billion US dollars; in February 2014 it increased by a further 260.3 million and in March by another 526.1 million US dollars. Here I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in March there was still a discount price applied, i.e., 268.5 US dollars per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. And even at that price, Ukraine did not pay a single dollar. 

In such conditions, in accordance with Articles 5.15, 5.8 and 5.3 of the contract, Gazprom is compelled to switch over to advance payment for gas delivery, and in the event of further violation of the conditions of payment, will completely or partially cease gas deliveries. In other words, only the volume of natural gas will be delivered to Ukraine as was paid for one month in advance of delivery. 

Undoubtedly, this is an extreme measure. We fully realize that this increases the risk of siphoning off natural gas passing through Ukraine’s territory and heading to European consumers. We also realize that this may make it difficult for Ukraine to accumulate sufficient gas reserves for use in the autumn and winter period. In order to guarantee uninterrupted transit, it will be necessary, in the nearest future, to supply 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas that will be pumped into Ukraine’s underground storage facilities, and this will require a payment of about 5 billion US dollars. 

However, the fact that our European partners have unilaterally withdrawn from the concerted efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and even from holding consultations with the Russian side, leaves Russia no alternative.

In all of this, the Russian position is legal, rational, forward looking. What does the West stand for here? Subterfuge, violence, austerity. Apparently that is the only game the U.S. and its European toadies know how to play.

****

Going forward, I apologize about the spottiness of my usual Friday Hippies vs. Punks posts. Owing to a combination of busyness at work, the eruption of the New Cold War and gradual loss of physical conditioning, I haven't been able to devote the amount of time necessary to write the posts, which require aural immersion during the work week as well as some textual research.

Also, I have been meaning to begin a regular "Nihilism" post. Look for the first installment this weekend.

Until then I'll leave you with The Troggs song, "With a Girl Like You." Nihilism in simple form is the rejection of the Romantic world view. There is no loving embrace from the feminine; there is no bull's-eye for your arrow.

Impasse Likely in Negotiations on New Constitution for Ukraine

It is unclear at this point the next time Kerry and Lavrov will meet. The Ukrainian presidential election is May 25. The conventional wisdom, as polled in a story today by Neil MacFarquhar, "Russia Plotting for Ukrainian Influence, Not Invasion, Analysts Say," is that Putin and Lavrov want a new constitution in place prior to presidential elections. I'm not sure. It seems that a new constitution would have to be ratified by a referendum coinciding with national elections for a new parliament and regional governments. It is unlikely that this could take place prior to the end of next month.

MacFarquhar's story starts off well by giving a reasonably clear picture of what Russia is looking for in a new constitution:

[T]he Kremlin has made one central demand, which does not at first glance seem terribly unreasonable. It wants Kiev to adopt a federal system of government giving far more power to the governors across Ukraine. 

“A federal structure will ensure that Ukraine will not be anti-Russian,” said Sergei A. Markov, a Russian political strategist who supports the Kremlin. 

Russian officials have said they envision a system in which regions elect their own leaders and protect their own economic, cultural and religious traditions, including the forging of independent economic ties with Russia.

Why federalization is important actually receives a bit of an airing in today's offering from Andrew Higgins on Donetsk's Peoples Republic, "In Eastern Ukraine, a One-Building, Pro-Russia Realm Persists Despite Criticism":

The government installed after Mr. Yanukovych fled the capital on Feb. 21 ended the dominance of Russian-speaking politicians from the east of the country — most of whom had opposed the pro-European protests in Kiev that toppled Mr. Yanukovych — and shifted power sharply to Ukrainian speakers from western and central regions.

State-run Russian television, which is widely watched here despite efforts by officials in Kiev to block access, has fanned fears that this shift will bring discrimination and even persecution by nationalist extremists. The Ukrainian Parliament contributed to this anxiety by voting in late February to scrap a law that allows Russian to be used instead of Ukrainian in schools, courts and elsewhere in regions where it is widely spoken. The decision was quickly reversed but left fertile grounds for pro-Russian activists to plant seeds of alarm. 

Few Donetsk residents can cite concrete examples of how life has become worse as a result of the change of power in Kiev, but opinion polls show that the eastern regions take a dim view of Ukraine’s new order. A recent poll commissioned by the International Republican Institute showed that 72 percent of people in the Russian-speaking east think the country is going in the wrong direction, compared with only 36 percent in the Ukrainian-speaking west. 

East and west are also sharply divided on where their future should lie. Ninety percent of those polled in the west want Ukraine to enter an economic union with Europe, while 59 percent of easterners want to join a Russian-led customs union.

Clearly this is a country at odds with itself. The putschists solution so far has been to appoint pro-Western oligarchs to run the regional governments in the Russian-speaking areas; that, and gradually militarize the East with mercenaries and fascists. This is a recipe for more instability.

As I see it, federalization is the only hope for Ukraine going forward. A rump government composed of Fatherland Party retreads and oligarchs and neo-Nazis cannot keep the country together, even if the chocolate king wins in a landslide.

The two other key Russians demands for a new Ukrainian constitution are 1) neutrality a la Finland, and 2) official status for the Russian language. All these demands seem reasonable to me.

But the U.S. desires at some point in the not-to-distant future to include Ukraine in NATO. So neutralization is going to be a sticking point for Kerry and the putschists. That is why I anticipate more unrest. The putschists are fundamentally unstable. They cannot govern without distraction and crisis. Russia holds all the cards, not the least of which is Gazprom's energy portfolio. Time is on Putin's side, not the putschists. The putschists can only create more crises and hope the West will arrive to the rescue. Barring some sort of dramatic shift in the status quo -- like massive violence in the East -- all this adds up to impasse in the negotiations for Ukraine's new constitution.

Unrest in Eastern Ukraine Benefits Putschists

Since last month's accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop in Ukraine's industrial East. Something like the sound of a boot thudding on the floorboards is presently audible. Beginning Sunday pro-Russian demonstrators occupied government buildings throughout eastern Ukraine, principally the cities of Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkiv. The Kharkiv occupation has been rolled back by Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops, who, according to the Russians, are rife with Right Sector goons and mercenaries from the contractor formerly known as Blackwater. This is from today's story, "Ukrainian Troops Move to Reassert Control in East," by David Herszenhorn and Andrew Roth:

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responding to the deployment of Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops, issued a stern statement accusing the Ukrainian government of embedding within its forces in eastern Ukraine both nationalist militants from the group Right Sector and private American mercenaries from a company called Greystone. 

It said the American contractors were being disguised as members of a military unit called “Falcon.” 

Academi, a private American security company affiliated with Greystone that was once known as Blackwater, notorious for its military contracting work in Iraq, issued a statement in mid-March saying its personnel were not working in Ukraine, after similar allegations surfaced in the Russian press. 

The company did not immediately respond to the statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In Donetsk the protesters called for the formation of an independent republic and a referendum on secession. The occupations in Lugansk and Donetsk are under siege.

The message being sent in unison from the putschists in Kiev and their Western benefactors is that this outbreak in the East is from Russian orchestration:

While widely regarded as political theater that is supported, if not directed, by the Kremlin, the protests could help promote what analysts say is Russia’s primary goal of destabilizing the shaky government in Kiev, preventing it from drifting further into the West’s orbit and giving Moscow leverage over the country’s future ahead of presidential elections in May. 

The turmoil in eastern Ukraine also makes it extremely difficult for the provisional government in Kiev to begin putting in place austerity measures and financial overhauls required by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for an $18 billion loan package that the country desperately needs to avert a default on its debt. 

The protesters themselves may be trying to provoke a violent response from Kiev, analysts say, hoping to provide the pretext for a Crimea-like military incursion in a country that Moscow considers an integral part of historical Russia.

You'll notice that in making the case for Russian string-pulling, Herszenhorn and Roth actually produce an argument that points to the putschists being the main beneficiaries of turbulence in the East. The IMF mandates, likely not only to fire up the Maidan once implementation begins but also end any hope of keeping Right Sector on the reservation, can be put off as long as there is a crisis of potential invasion from Russia.

The Gray Lady's lede unsigned editorial today, "A Familiar Script in Ukraine," repeats the same contradiction: It starts off asserting Russia's initiation of the protests but then makes a persuasive case that the Russians couldn't be behind the building seizures because they have nothing to gain and a lot to lose:

Yet [Putin] must understand that the cost of invading eastern Ukraine would be much greater than the putsch in Crimea, both in damage to Russia’s already sagging economy and in the new Cold War that would surely arise. Ukrainians would not forgive the theft of an economically critical region; NATO would be re-energized; and opposition within Russia would also grow as isolation and potential recession shut off the freedoms and prosperity Russians were learning to enjoy.

One thing we have learned is that Russia, unlike the United States, is a rational actor. Clearly Putin knows the difference between Donetsk and Sevastopol. The Crimea operation was a slam dunk. Assimilating eastern Ukraine into the Russian Federation would be no such thing. This is obvious.

No, the Russians have been consistent here. Their bargaining position is -- 1) give the regions broad autonomy, and 2) no NATO inclusion for the Ukrainian state. The putschists, holding a terrible hand, facing painful austerity and economic collapse, are taking a page from the playbook of their Western benefactors -- when you have a problem, make it bigger.

Russia, as I see it, was content to wait unlike the billionaire chocolate oligarch Petro Poroshenko is elected president next month, at which point his seized Russian factory would be on the negotiating table as part of any deal.

The putsch regime is fundamentally unstable. The neo-Nazis can only be kept on the reservation as long as the Russian bogeyman is alive and kicking. Once austerity sets in all bets are off.

Despite Massive Propaganda Americans Don't Want Involvement in Ukraine

Before leaving work yesterday I saw a fundraising pitch based on Nate Silver's recent prediction that the Democrats will lose the Senate this fall. It is going to be tough for Democrats to generate any enthusiasm among their base when they are constantly saber rattling in Congress.

Today Obama is to deliver a speech in Brussels that will tack closely to themes that have proven to be a dud over the last couple of months. The floundering president will outline once again why Russia is a threat to "international norms," and he will remind Americans that the United States must stay fully engaged in Europe (as if we were reliving the days of the Berlin airlift).

But the American electorate wants nothing to do with it. This is driven home by the following paragraph from a story, "Obama Answers Critics, Dismissing Russia as a ‘Regional Power’," this morning by Michael Shear and Peter Baker:

In that poll [a survey by the Pew Research Center], conducted Thursday through Sunday, concern about Russia has increased recently, but only about a quarter of those surveyed said they viewed Russia as an adversary of the United States. About four in 10 said Russia is a serious problem, but about half said it is important for the United States not to get involved in the situation between Russia and Ukraine.

Take a moment to absorb that. After one month of panicked shrieking and constant demonizing -- really, as close as it gets to an all out information war in this country -- more than 50% of the public still says don't meddle in Ukraine. Granted, the numbers, due to the information war, have started to move in an anti-Russian direction, but nothing like the Obama administration can feel comfortable with after going all in with its strategy to vilify Putin.

Obama is weakened. I think at this point, what with Nate Silver's prediction and the president's inability to get his IMF overhaul bill through Congress along with the Ukraine bailout, there is no question that, absent some sort of bizarre, ahistoric turnaround, Obama is truly a lame duck. His approval rating languishes in the 40s, with those disapproving his performance registering over 50%.

Things are going to go from bad to worse. The New York Times is basically engaged in a blackout of news coming from inside Ukraine; it can only publish stories about "Russian provocation" in the eastern part of the country. What goes unmentioned is the turbulence within the putsch government. Ukrainian defense minister Ihor Tenyukh was dismissed the other day after troops failed to obey his command to fire on Russian forces in the Crimea. Tenyukh is a member of the fascist Svoboda party. Also going unreported in the Gray Lady is the murder of Right Sector leader Oleksandr Muzychko.

The Ukrainian putsch government is highly unstable. The Obama administration prefers that these facts are kept from the homeland; otherwise, the government has to answer for backing another failed state a la Libya. And so far "the paper of record" has proven largely compliant. Hopefully this will change.

But what will not change is the continuing hemorrhaging of the Democratic Party. Though there is no increase in popular support of the GOP, the Republicans will benefit and organized labor will shrink even smaller.

The Fable of Western Sanctions

Obama is in the Netherlands today to attend a G-7 meeting (G-8 minus an ostracized Russia). His goal will be largely confined to public relations gimmickry, to convey unity of purpose among the G-7 industrial nations towards "Russian aggression" in the Crimea. There is no unity of purpose. All one has to do is look at the graphic "How Much Europe Depends on Russian Energy" that was included in a story by Steven Lee Myers and Neil MacFarquhar this past Saturday to know that any sanctions Europe imposes on Russia will be window dressing only. Here's why: Germany, the largest economy in the Eurozone, imports 30% of its energy from Russia; the Netherlands, 34%; Sweden, 46%; Italy, 28%; Finland, 76%; Poland, 91%; Czech Republic, 73%; Lithuania, 92% -- and so on down the line.

The lede story today in the Gray Lady admits as much:

The other members of the Group of 7 economic partnership hardly have interests identical with those of the United States, and in many ways they are divided even among themselves, complicating any effort to draw a firmer line with Moscow. 

Mr. Obama’s sanctions, announced last week, were aimed at sowing pain among members of a Russian economic and political elite who owe their wealth and loyalties to Mr. Putin. But the sanctions were also targeted to minimize disruption to the global economy and to avoid further jeopardizing already meek Russian cooperation on issues like the war in Syria, Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East and North Korea. 

For European countries, the risk of wider conflict with Russia is even graver. Britain hosts Russian billionaires and their money; Germany gets about one-third of its energy from Russia and sells it machinery and cars; France is in the process of delivering sophisticated attack ships to the Kremlin; and Italy depends on Russia for some 28 percent of its energy.

The U.S. position boils down to lies and bluffs. First, the lies: Pretend the putsch that sent the elected Ukrainian president fleeing for his life is perfectly legal and that there is no precedent, like, say, the U.S. dismemberment of Yugoslavia, for Russian actions in the Crimea. Next, the bluff: Talk incessantly of serious economic consequences for Russia when clearly nothing of the sort is in the works.

It is both clumsy and obvious; it is simply embarrassing.

More proof of the crass nature of the Obama administration's information war is its fear-mongering the military exercises Russia is conducting on its Ukrainian border. Though fears of an incursion into eastern Ukraine have subsided with Russia agreeing to the presence of OSCE monitors, this salient fact is ignored; rather, war hysteria is played up.

The United States would be much better served by quieting things down. But apparently its leadership, beginning to realize that it is now responsible for a dysfunctional Ukrainian state, cannot accept the fact that its stewardship of the February putsch (Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Vicky Nuland's famous and oft-quoted "Fuck the EU") has turned into a punch bowl caked with turds.

Look to the East in Ukraine to Discern U.S. Intentions

At this point, with Joe Biden being trundled off to Poland and the Baltics to calm the former Soviet satellites, I am sure Obama wishes Ukraine would just disappear, at least for a while.

This morning, following Putin's speech announcing that Crimea will be accepted as a member of the Russian Federation and a pervasive sense of mirthful derision that has greeted the stentorian proclamation of  Russian sanctions by the U.S. and Europe, it is clear that the Western defense of the putsch in Ukraine has arrived stillborn.

The best riff on the sanctions dud is quoted this morning in "Putin Declares Crimea Is a Part of Russia" by Steven Lee Myers and Peter Baker:

The American sanctions targeted prominent Russian officials, but not those likely to have many overseas assets; the European list generally went after lower-level targets. As a result, the actions were met with derision and even mockery in Moscow. 

“This is a big honor for me,” said Mr. Surkov, once called the “gray cardinal” of the Kremlin and known as the architect of Mr. Putin’s highly centralized political system. He told a Russian newspaper that he had no assets abroad: “In the U.S., I’m interested in Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work.”

Obama warns that more sanctions are to come; that the lucrative Russian arms industry is next. But to truly harm Russia, sanctions would have to come from Europe and they would have to target Gazprom and/or Rosneft. There is no indication Europe will go in that direction:

Asked whether the European Union had failed to match tough words with strong actions, Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, told journalists: “The U.S. is from Mars and Europe is from Venus. Get used to it.” 

He noted that “Europe is closer and will therefore pay a bigger cost for sanctions against Russia.” He also pointed to Europe’s collective decision-making process. 

“In the United States, one man takes a decision on the basis of an executive order,” Mr. Sikorski said, “whereas in Europe, for these measures to be legal, we need a consensus of 28 member states.”

If round one in Ukraine went to the Nuland neocons and the Right Sector street fighters, round two goes to Russia. Now, with the clock ticking, the momentum has decidedly shifted  in favor of Putin and against the putschists in Kiev. Shortly, the International Monetary Fund will come forward with a bailout deal. I would imagine this will represent a significant challenge for the putsch government. The fiction floated by Western governments and their servile press is that the putschists have a popular mandate from the people; the truth is, the putsch only represents a minority. Once the austerity features of the IMF loan package are published, the putsch government should begin to fray.

Appreciation of this is probably what is motivating Kerry to consider previously dismissed Russian proposals for a constitutional overhaul of Ukraine to allow for federalization. As laid out the last couple of days on the Moon of Alabama blog ("Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands"),

There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a central government in a finlandized Ukraine. Putin had offered this "off-ramp" from the escalation and Obama has taken it.

Going forward, the West needs Russia to help solve the crisis it created in Ukraine. But I am not confident that the United States has the ability to act cooperatively at this point. The logic of U.S. hegemony is "If you don't get what you want, just make the problem bigger." Populate the planet with a series of failed states. Granted, Obama and Kerry took the off ramp in the run up to war against Syria; let's hope that was not just a one-off.

Proof that Russia is going to bide its time is found in a refreshingly unbiased story by C.J. Chivers and Andrew Roth about protests in the pro-Russian Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, "In Eastern Ukraine, the Curtain Goes Up, and the Clash Begins." We should be able to interpret the intentions of the U.S. going forward by the response to pro-Russian protesters in the east. If there is a harsh crackdown by the putschist-aligned security forces, we know that it is the U.S. sticking to script, trying to the make problem bigger.

Threat of EU Sanctions on Russia Already Falling Flat

After an ennui-drenched Friday, a wonderful weekend.

Saturday was spent throwing a football with a coworker's sons, marching and chanting for "$15 Now!" The speeches at the post-march rally were actually good/informative. James Bible, former head of the Seattle NAACP, spoke about the class warfare being waged on the poor. Then Kshama Sawant laid out the plan for dealing with plutocratic opposition to the $15/hr. minimum wage -- agreeing to a three-year phase in for small business and non-profits to neutralize the plutocrats' tactic of hiding behind small business and then full speed ahead on gathering signatures to bring the $15/hr. minimum wage to the ballot as an initiative. I topped off the day by streaming two good movies: Out of the Furnace (2013) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Both hard-luck stories.

Sunday I ran the annual St. Paddy's Day Dash, which I do every year. I enjoy the course, which is up 99 from Seattle Center until just before you get to the bridge over to Wallingford; then you turn around and come back to Seattle Center. I was worried my time would be worse than it was, but it wasn't, despite being waterlogged by a steady rain. The rest of the day after the morning race I relaxed. Good weekend.

And one of the reasons the weekend was so good, in addition to a welcome decline in number of the usual threats emanating from Great Satan's orifice, was the result of the referendum in Crimea went smoothly. According to a story this morning by Alan Cowell, "Lawmakers in Crimea Move Swiftly to Split From Ukraine":

The referendum — in which 96.77 percent of voters supported breaking from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation — was greeted as a triumph in Moscow on Monday, and lawmakers there promised to move quickly to adopt legislation to absorb Crimea into the Russian Federation. “Crimea returns to Russia!” a headline in Komsomolskaya Pravda said, while Nezavisimaya Gazeta declared that “Kiev lost Crimea.”

A member of Parliament announced that President Vladimir V. Putin would deliver an address to lawmakers on the situation in Crimea on Tuesday. Mr. Putin told President Obama on Sunday that the vote was legal and cited the independence of Kosovo — which Russia has not recognized — as the precedent for Crimea’s secession, the Kremlin said in a statement.

“The referendum was organized in such a way as to guarantee Crimea’s population the possibility to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination,” the Kremlin’s statement on the latest of a series of conversations between the two leaders said. 

Mr. Putin also continued to raise the issue of violence and protests in other parts of Ukraine, which have stoked fears that Russia could move forces beyond Crimea. He told Mr. Obama that “the current authorities in Kiev have so far failed to demonstrate the ability and desire to rein in the ultranationalist and radical groups that are destabilizing the situation in the country and terrorizing ordinary people, including the Russian-speaking population and Russia’s compatriots,” the Kremlin statement said.

The putschists in Kiev called up reservists (which they have done before, to little effect) and added another 20,000 to a new national guard being put together under the direction of the neo-Nazis in Right Sector.

Now the ball is in Brussels' court. So far the sounds emanating from the European bureaucracy are meek:

In Brussels, foreign ministers of European Union countries met on Monday to weigh a first response to Moscow’s unfolding strategy in Ukraine, including possible economic sanctions. 

One of the ministers attending the European Union meeting in Brussels, Sebastian Kurz of Austria, gave a strong indication that the punitive European measures under debate would not initially reach into the highest echelons of Russia’s powerful energy companies, which are close to the Kremlin.

In a radio interview, Mr. Kurz said Sunday’s ballot in Ukraine would trigger an array of measures including visa bans and the freezing of assets held by political and military figures who orchestrated Russia’s intervention in Crimea, Reuters reported. 

Asked whether the list would include the heads of the energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, as reported on Friday in Germany, Mr. Kurz replied: “This is not expected at this time.” 

He added: “I think picking business bosses indiscriminately would be a wrong step.” 

The foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, he said, would draw up a list of people to be subjected to the measures. The ministers have been reported to be trying to reduce a tally of up to 130 names to a smaller number.

Western tough talk on sanctions already appears to be falling flat.

But before we leave to discuss briefly the long, to-be-expected hand-wringing think piece about the tarnished luster of U.S. hegemony by David Sanger, a statement from British Foreign Secretary William Hague:

As he arrived in the Belgian capital on Sunday, Mr. Hague called the Crimea referendum “a mockery of proper democratic practice.”

But a lethally violent insurrection in a nation's capital that sent the elected president fleeing in order to avoid being lynched by neo-Nazis brandishing weapons from a looted armory, this is "proper democratic practice"?

Western rulers and their court ideologues have turned the world upside down in defense of unilateralism. This is on full display in the aforementioned David Sanger analysis, "Global Crises Put Obama’s Strategy of Caution to the Test." Sanger runs through the standard "Neocon vs. Realist" debate. There is not much to recommend taking the time to read it. Public opinion -- what the voters in the "Greatest Nation on Earth"™ think about endless warfare to police the entire planet -- rates only a brief, indirect mention out of a lot of column inches of copy:

Not surprisingly, the testing of administration policy at a time the president is politically weakened at home has sparked a critical question. Is it Mr. Obama’s deliberative, pick-your-battles approach that is encouraging adversaries to press the limits? Or is this simply a time when exercising leverage over countries that defy American will or the international order is trickier than ever, and when the domestic pressure to stay out of international conflicts is obvious to overseas friends and foes alike?

This is obviously the question to explore, but Sanger ignores it. How long can governing elites continue to act as if they exist in a free-floating cloud above the masses who elect them?