Crisis in Ukraine

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WikiLeaks: US cables which refer to the billionaire President-elect as a “disgraced oligarch.”

The US was among the first states to congratulate Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko. Yet real US opinions of the new president are more complicated, as revealed by WikiLeaks cables which refer to the billionaire as a “disgraced oligarch.”

For years, the US was keeping an eye on the Ukrainian billionaire and former foreign minister. Between 2006 and 2011, Poroshenko's name was a direct or indirect subject of hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks.

A simple search for ''Poroshenko'' on WikiLeaks' website gives at least 350 documents mentioning his name. But some of the descriptions provided by US diplomats are far from complimentary.

Poroshenko is not new to politics, having occupied various prominent posts in Ukraine in the past.

The majority of the negative characteristics were given to Poroshenko by US diplomats between 2006-2009 - the years he served as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada and council chair of the National Bank of Ukraine.

John Edward Herbst (AFP Photo)

John Edward Herbst (AFP Photo)

For example, in a cable dated February 16, 2006, US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst describes Poroshenko as a “disgraced oligarch.”

''[Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister] Konstyantyn Hryshchenko claimed that Poroshenko appeared to be working hard to scuttle a possible deal between Yushchenko and Yanukovich, because such a coalition would likely freeze out the disgraced oligarch. End summary,'' he said.

In another cable dated May 26, 2006, deputy chief of the US mission in Kiev Sheila Gwaltney addressed the Department of State describing 'Poroshenko as “tainted by credible corruption allegations.”

Then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was one of the people behind the corruption accusations. Poroshenko was then one of Viktor Yushchenko’s close allies during the Orange Revolution.

A series of US diplomatic cables shows the Poroshenko-Tymoshenko rivalry, revealing that he would stop at nothing in order to get back at Tymoshenko for accusing him of public corruption.

Beginning with 2009 - the year Poroshenko became a Ukrainian foreign minister - US descriptions began to turn around, with personal characteristics becoming more favorable.

In a cable dated October 9, 2009 US interim charge d’affaires to Ukraine James Pettit described him as a “wealthy businessman with broad political connections, calling for increased European integration and more pragmatic relations with Russia.”

Later, cables talked about Poroshenko developing pro-Western views.

US Ambassador John Tefft’s report from February 17, 2010 said that it was Poroshenko who recommended that then-President Viktor Yanukovich make his first visit to Brussels instead of Moscow.

Poroshenko “urged the US not to read too much into language in Yanukovich's speeches favorable to Medvedev's [the then Russian president] proposal for new security architecture.” The note added that Poroshenko insisted “NATO membership remains an aspiration, albeit a distant one.”

When asked about Poroshenko’s thoughts about the cables, the president-elect’s press secretary Irina Friz told Kommersant newspaper that “he did not read them.”

Petro Poroshenko (L) with Yulia Tymoshenko (R), Kiev, 06 July, 2006. (AFP Photo / Genia Savilov)

Petro Poroshenko (L) with Yulia Tymoshenko (R), Kiev, 06 July, 2006. (AFP Photo / Genia Savilov)

Poroshenko already has a meeting scheduled with Barack Obama, after the US president expressed his readiness to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart while on his European tour. The meeting is scheduled for June 3, according to Kommersant.

The Ukrainian leader is one of the country's richest businessmen. He has been dubbed the 'Chocolate King' because of the fortune he has made in confectionery, which is worth more than US$1.3 billion. Poroshenko also unofficially controls Ukraine’s Channel 5.

Poroshenko officially won the election as he received 54.7 percent of the votes, the country's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced Thursday.

The president-elect's main competitor, Yulia Tymoshenko, was a distant second, with just 12.81 percent of the votes, according to exit polls.

The inauguration ceremony for the new Ukrainian leader is scheduled to be held sometime between June 8-10.

Meanwhile, Kiev intensified its military operation in the eastern regions of Ukraine in the run-up and following the election, escalating the conflict further.

http://rt.com/news/162396-wikileaks-cables-us-poroshenko/
 
Breaking news

Naftogaz agrees to pay $786mn of gas debt to Russia – Energy Commissioner

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Naftogaz agrees to pay $786mn of gas debt to Russia – Energy Commissioner
Published time: May 30, 2014 15:20


Ukraine has agreed to pay $786 million of its $3.5 billion gas debt to Russia, the European Union Energy Minister Oettinger said in Berlin on Friday.

RT
 
The State Department’s Ukraine Fiasco

May 24, 2014

Exclusive: The State Department’s handling of the Ukraine crisis may go down as a textbook diplomatic fiasco, doing nothing to advance genuine U.S. interests while disrupting cooperation with Moscow and pushing Russia and China back together, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

American diplomacy, by definition, is supposed to advance the national interests of the United States, not contribute to international crises that undermine those interests. Yet, by that standard, the U.S. State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry have failed extraordinarily during the current Ukraine crisis.

Besides ripping Ukraine apart – and getting scores of Ukrainians killed – the U.S.-supported coup in February has injected more uncertainty into Europe’s economy by raising doubts about the continued supply of Russian natural gas. Such turbulence is the last thing that Europe’s fragile “recovery” needs as mass unemployment now propels the rise of right-wing parties and threatens the future of the European Union.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addresses Yale University graduates on Class Day in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 18, 2014. Kerry himself is a 1966 Yale graduate. (State Department photo)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addresses Yale University graduates on Class Day in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 18, 2014. Kerry himself is a 1966 Yale graduate. (State Department photo)

Any new business downturn in Europe also would inflict harm on the U.S. economy, which itself is still clawing its way out of a long recession and needs a healthy Europe as an important trading partner. But the crisis in Ukraine, spurred on by Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and other anti-Russian hardliners, is now complicating the U.S. recovery, too.

There’s also the problematic impact of pulling Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and locking it into Europe’s: the scheme would shift the financial burden for Ukraine’s impoverished population of 45 million people onto Europe’s back, even as the EU is straining to meet the human needs of the jobless in Greece, Spain and other countries devastated by the Great Recession.

One of Ukraine’s principal exports to Europe has been low-wage Ukrainian workers, including participants in the criminal underworld, most notably prostitution. The willingness of Ukrainians to take the lowest-paying jobs across Europe has exacerbated the Continent’s unemployment situation and is sure to become an even bigger problem if a bankrupt Ukraine is more fully integrated into Europe.

The State Department’s endless stoking of tensions between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin has caused other complications for U.S. foreign policy, including what is emerging as a historic rapprochement between China and Russia, a coming together highlighted by the signing of a major new gas deal on Wednesday.

The $400 billion pact means that Putin, in effect, has countered U.S. efforts to use limited U.S./EU sanctions to isolate Russia by deftly playing the China card and aligning the two emerging countries as an economic and political counterforce to American dominance.

Though the natural gas deal has been in the works for months, the Ukraine crisis provided the urgency to get the agreement signed. The crisis also provided the impetus to solidify the closer geopolitical bonding between China, the world’s ascending economy, and Russia, its resource-rich neighbor.

The two longtime adversaries, who faced off as communist rivals during the Cold War, have joined together recently as a bloc on the United Nations Security Council to block Western initiatives on Syria, for instance. That means that instead of isolating Russia at the UN, the State Department’s hawkish approach to Ukraine has had the opposite effect. Russia now has a new and powerful ally.

The Ukraine crisis could inflict other collateral damage on President Obama’s initiatives toward resolving thorny disputes around Syria’s civil war and Iran’s nuclear program. In both areas, President Putin provided important assistance to President Obama in securing agreements: Syria to surrender its chemical weapons and Iran to accept constraints on its nuclear activity.

Though the Russians have not pulled out of those U.S. collaborations yet, the strains over Ukraine – if they are not eased – could undermine valuable cooperation toward reaching resolution of those two complicated and dangerous Mideast problems.

Pouring Fuel in the Fire

Yet, even as President Putin and other Russian leaders have tempered their rhetoric regarding Ukraine in recent weeks, the U.S. State Department continues to talk tough, bombarding Putin with both warnings and insults.

Typical were the comments in the lead story of the Washington Post on Saturday with writer Karen DeYoung quoting State Department and other U.S. officials berating Putin despite his conciliatory remarks about his willingness to work with the new Ukrainian government that will emerge from a disputed election on Sunday.

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She wrote: “Western governments express deep uncertainty at what Russia will do, and it was symptomatic of their equally deep mistrust of Putin that few took him at his word [about working with the new government]. U.S. officials parsed his language as leaving a hole big enough to drive a brigade of Russian soldiers through.”

The Post quoted the harsh rhetoric emanating from State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, who told the Russians: “Pull the rest of your troops back. … Put your money where your words are. Come on.”

DeYoung herself termed the Russian military deployment along Ukraine’s eastern border “threatening,” but didn’t mention the Russian rationale for the initial deployment, as an effort to deter the slaughter of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who objected to the violent overthrow of their elected President Viktor Yanukovych. This context of what’s happening in eastern Ukraine is almost always missing.

Instead, the major U.S. news media, particularly the New York Times, has made great fun by mocking Putin as a liar for saying that, first, he had ordered Russian troops to pull back from the border, and then that he ordered some to return to their bases. The Times conflated these two different statements as one and then favorably quoted NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as saying there was no evidence of a Russian pullback. Gotcha, another Putin lie!

Yet, while showing their trust in Rasmussen’s honesty and forthrightness, the Times and other mainstream outlets haven’t bothered to inform their readers that this was the same Anders Fogh Rasmussen who as Danish prime minister last decade was a staunch supporter of the Iraq War and a gullible believer in President George W. Bush’s claims about Iraq’s non-existent WMD.

For instance, Prime Minister Rasmussen declared, “Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think, it is something we know. Iraq has itself admitted that it has had mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, but Saddam won’t disclose. He won’t tell us where and how these weapons have been destroyed. We know this from the UN inspectors, so there is no doubt in my mind.”

Pretty much everything in that statement was wrong — and Rasmussen appears to have been wrong, too, about Russia’s pullback of troops, which has now been confirmed, at least in part, by the Pentagon. But, for days, the Times let Rasmussen, in effect, call Putin a liar without any independent checking, just one more sign of the long pattern of U.S. media bias against Russia during the Ukraine crisis. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Twisting Putin’s Words on Ukraine.”]

Blaming Russia

In line with that bias pervading the mainstream U.S. media for months, the Post’s DeYoung added her own inflammatory rhetoric, stating “if Russian-inspired violence breaks out, it could be the start of far more serious and widespread international upheaval.” All violence, it seems, must be “Russian-inspired.”

DeYoung is presumably referring to the resistance in eastern Ukraine against the imposition of the coup regime’s authority. The U.S. media has repeatedly treated these ethnic Russians in the east as Putin’s “minions,” being armed and directed by Russian special forces although no evidence has emerged to support that allegation.[See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Retracts Russian-Photo Scoop.”]

But DeYoung’s characterization of “Russian-inspired violence” fits with Official Washington’s “group think” that has treated the Ukraine crisis as instigated by Putin supposedly so he can begin reclaiming territory lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

But the evidence clearly indicates that the uprising in Kiev was driven by a mix of popular dissatisfaction with Yanukovych, Western support and encouragement for the disorders, and violent neo-Nazi militias that despise the ethnic Russians in the east and spearheaded the Feb. 22 putsch that drove Yanukovych from office.

Still, the U.S. mainstream media has insisted on whitewashing the neo-Nazi brown shirts because their key involvement complicates the preferred American narrative of white-hat idealistic protesters taking on black-hat Yanukovych, backed by even blacker-hat Putin. Any reference to the well-documented role of neo-Nazis militias in the putsch is dismissed as “Russian propaganda” or the “Russian narrative.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Inconvenient Neo-Nazis.”]

So, instead of a balanced account, the American people have been fed Official Washington’s “group think” of some master conspiracy engineered by Putin that requires your believing that Putin first orchestrated the EU’s reckless association offer to Ukraine last year, then got the International Monetary Fund to insist on draconian austerity measures which Yanukovych rejected, then arranged the angry demonstrations at the Maidan while also secretly training neo-Nazi militias in western Ukraine to provide the muscle to carry out the February putsch – all the while pretending that he was trying to save Yanukovych’s government and appearing to be distracted by the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Of course, this grand conspiracy theory never made any sense and also lacked any evidence. What really happened was that neoconservatives in and around the State Department and Congress fed the flames of western Ukraine’s discontent against Yanukovych’s government that had been elected primarily with votes from the southern and eastern ethnic Russian sections.
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The Neocon Role

There were, of course, legitimate complaints about Ukraine’s pervasive political corruption, which has been an endemic problem since the hasty privatization that followed the Soviet collapse in 1991 and turned Ukraine into a country dominated by a handful of extremely wealthy oligarchs.

But the evidence is clear that powerful neoconservatives in Washington, including some still ensconced at the State Department, helped organize U.S. support for the protests that led to Yanukovych’s ouster.

In late September, the neocons were furious over Putin helping Obama find a way out of an impending U.S. attack on Syria, an intervention that the neocons hoped might notch another “regime change” on their belts. So, their focus quickly turned to driving a wedge between Putin and Obama, with Ukraine becoming that wedge.

Carl Gershman, a leading neocon and longtime president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries.

The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard. “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

In furtherance of these goals, NED funded scores of projects in Ukraine, training activists, financing “journalists” and organizing business groups, according to NED’s annual report.

After Yanukovych rejected the IMF’s terms for European association as too drastic – because they would hit the already hard-hit Ukrainian people even harder – his removal from power became the State Department’s goal, as Assistant of State Nuland urged on the demonstrators in the Maidan by passing out cookies and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”

Sen. John McCain, a leading neocon hawk, also showed up in Kiev to rally the protesters, speaking next to a Svoboda party banner honoring World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera whose paramilitary force helped exterminate Jews and Poles. Bandera is a hero to the right-wing nationalists in western Ukraine though despised by the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.

In an intercepted phone call, Nuland was caught telling U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt that her preference to replace Yanukovych was Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom she called “Yats.” After the Feb. 22 coup, Yatsenyuk emerged as the new prime minister with the neo-Nazis gaining control of four ministries, including the office of national security headed by neo-Nazi Andriy Parubiy. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine, Through the US ‘Looking Glass’.”]

One of Yatsenyuk’s first moves was to approve the IMF austerity plan, while Parubiy incorporated some of the neo-Nazi militias into the National Guard and dispatched them as storm troopers to confront the resistance to the coup regime in the east.

Amid all the political chaos and violations of the Ukrainian constitution (which was ignored in the abrupt impeachment of Yanukovych), Crimea arranged a hasty referendum which showed some 96 percent support for seceding from Ukraine and rejoining Russia, a request that Putin and the Russian government accepted.

Typically, the New York Times and other major outlets summarize the Crimean switch as a Russian “invasion” with Putin supposedly dispatching troops to seize control of the peninsula with the help of a “sham” referendum.

Almost never does the U.S. press note that the Russian troops were already in Crimea under an arrangement with Ukraine allowing Russians to maintain their historic naval base at Sevastapol. The vote also clearly reflected the popular will of the Crimean people given their historic ties to Russia and the chaos in Ukraine.
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Medvedev’s Comments

“We did not annex any part of Ukraine,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told Bloomberg News this past week, “The population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea held a referendum and voted for self-determination and for joining Russia in accordance with the existing procedure. And that’s what they did.

“They started by proclaiming independence and after that, they asked to join Russia. We satisfied their request. The Russian Constitution was amended so that Crimea could join Russia as the result of a popular vote. Crimea is a special and unique story.” That was a reference to Crimea being a longtime part of Russia.

Regarding any other parts of Ukraine, Medvedev added, “Any conjectures about Russia wanting to annex some territories are mere propaganda. … It is essential to calm tensions in Ukraine. We all see what’s happening there: the situation is nothing short of a civil war, as a matter of fact. This is what we should all be thinking about.”

Pressed by Bloomberg’s Ryan Chilcote on guaranteeing that Russia would not accede to requests from Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Medvedev responded, “we (I’m referring to all those who sympathize with Ukraine – European countries and as far as I understand, the United States and, of course, Russia, which is the closest to Ukraine) should do all we can to de-escalate tensions – a measure that everyone is talking about now.

“In other words, we should do everything to stop the spread of civil war on Ukrainian territory. As for the positions of people in Lugansk, Donetsk and other [eastern] parts of Ukraine, our stance is simple – their positions deserve respect. If they hold some referendums, we should understand what they want and why they express such views.

“So in the future, the main point is to make sure that Ukraine’s central, de facto authorities and those who live in these parts of Ukraine establish a fully-fledged dialogue based on mutual respect and understanding, a dialogue that takes into account the position of eastern Ukraine. This would ease tensions; otherwise the conflict will continue, and we will most likely hear the same appeals [for secession] that were discussed at the referendums.”

Medvedev added: “Let our partners in the dialogue, namely the EU and the United States, guarantee us something, for example, that they won’t interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs. Let our Western partners guarantee us that they won’t lure Ukraine into NATO, that the Russian language won’t be prohibited in eastern Ukraine, and that some senseless movement such as the Right Sector won’t start killing people there. Let our partners guarantee this.”

The key Ukraine question now is: Can Putin and Obama overcome Official Washington’s chest-thumping hysteria and deescalate the violence — along with the rhetoric — for the good of all rational parties in the dispute?

I’m told that Putin, though stung by Obama initially joining the anti-Russian stampede, has begun working again with Obama toward the goal of a possible summit meeting in Normandy on June 6 during the ceremonies honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Yet, even if the pieces of a shattered Ukraine can be glued back together, one still has to wonder why the U.S. State Department and other parts of Official Washington undertook this provocative project in the first place: contributing to the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government, violently destabilizing the country, heightening tensions with Russia, stirring up new threats to the EU and U.S. economies, and pushing Russia and China back together.

It may be understandable at some level that the still-powerful neocons saw the Ukraine wedge as a useful tool in splintering the Putin-Obama cooperation that had eased tensions over Syria and Iran – two of the neocons’ top targets for “regime change” – but it remains a mystery how anyone could think that the Ukraine adventure has served U.S. national interests.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
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Nice propaganda.

Here's less biased info:

2014 Crimean crisis

2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine

2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

The following speech by Mikhail Gorbachev to the Politburo in November 1987 was reported by Sir William Stephenson (the man known as Intrepid), who was head of the Combined Allied Intelligence Operations during WWII:

"Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost and perestroika and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal change within the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and to let them fall asleep. We want to accomplish three things: One, we want the Americans to withdraw conventional forces from Europe. Two, we want them to withdraw nuclear forces from Europe. Three, we want the Americans to stop proceeding with Strategic Defence Initiative."

The following speech was made by Dimitri Manuilski to the Lenin School for Political Warfare in the 1930's:

"War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in 30 to 40 years. To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we will smash them with our clenched fist."

Nikita Khrushchev in a speech to the Supreme Soviet on January 14,1960:

"The Soviets intend to conceal vast 'reserves' of missiles and warheads, hiding them in places throughout the expansive Soviet Union where the 'imperialists' could not spot them. Later, they could be launched ... in a nuclear war."

Here is a quote by Vladimir Lenin:

"The capitalists of the world and their governments, in the pursuit of conquest of the Soviet Market, will close their eyes to the indicated higher reality, and thus will turn into deaf, mute, blind men. They will extend credits, and giving us the materials and technology we lack, they will restore our military industry, indispensable for our future victorious attack on our suppliers. In other words, they will labor for the preparation for their own suicide."

In another talk by Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1987:

"In October 1917, we parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, the world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road."

General Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of KGB, speaking at anniversary celebration of Lenin's 1917 Revolution in November 1989:

"In military affairs, perestroika and modernization of Soviet technology under the new economic thinking and more open East-West trade will help increase the military might of our country ... Soviet disarmament proposals act as solvents to 'disarm' the military - industrial complex of NATO."

http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr46/cr46pg24.asp
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http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...in-Ukraine?p=12736449&viewfull=1#post12736449

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...in-Ukraine?p=12736775&viewfull=1#post12736775

Here's some cartoons also, https://www.google.com/search?biw=1...=isch&sa=1&q=putin+soviet+union+cartoon&btnG= which goes down well with a spoonfull of this: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/379375-Russia-Putin-advances-Eurasian-Union
 
Media Foreign Agents Bill Brought to Russian Duma
May 30 2014

A bill registered with the Russian State Duma aims to force media outlets with funding from abroad to register as foreign agents.

The proposed law follows similar legislation aimed at non-government organizations enacted in 2012. That law has been widely condemned by human rights organizations, with Amnesty International describing it as "the Russian government's assault on independent civil society."

A bill widening the "foreign agent" net to include any news outlet that receives more than 25 percent of its funding from abroad and engages in political activities was registered in the Duma on Thursday by a group of lawmakers that includes the Liberal Democrat Mikhail Degtaryov and United Russia's Yevgeny Fyodorov.

A similar measure was previously submitted in late 2012 with a threshold of 50 percent foreign funding. The bills authors' withdrew that project in January 2014, however, and said they would lower the figure in response to Ukraine's political crisis, which they blamed on foreign-funded media.

Following the introduction of the foreign agent law for NGOs in 2012, many organizations receiving foreign funding have refused to register with the Justice Ministry as foreign agents, a term often used during the Cold War to target dissenters, and fought the classification in court.

On Wednesday, Russia's upper house of parliament approved amendments to the law that would allow the Justice Ministry to include organizations on the foreign agents register without a court order.

A date for the media foreign agent bill's first reading has not yet been set.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/...ents-bill-brought-to-russian-duma/501214.html
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;)
 
Ukraine Sends $786M Gas Payment to Russia Ahead of Monday Talks

BERLIN — Ukraine has told Russia that a $786 million partial payment for back gas bills was on its way to Moscow, clearing the way for further talks on Monday, European Union mediator Guenther Oettinger said.
The partial payment on a bill that Russia says could exceed $5 billion by next week also averted an immediate threat that Russia would stop supplying gas to Ukraine if it fails to make advance payments.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak welcomed the news that Ukraine said it had transferred funds to Moscow from Kiev via a New York bank on Friday afternoon but said Russia would wait for confirmation that the payment has arrived in Moscow.
"We haven't quite reached an agreement yet, but we had some important stepping stones that make a package solution look possible," Oettinger said on Friday after a three-hour, three-way meeting in Berlin. He hoped to have a deal by June 3.
"The money was transferred from Kiev to a bank in the United States and then sent from New York to Moscow — a fascinating journey," Oettinger said, noting the reason for the detour via New York was because energy bills are settled in dollars.
"Provided the money arrives in the Gazprom account in Moscow as planned on Monday morning, both sides said they would continue the talks in Brussels at 2 p.m. on Monday," he added. He said Monday's talks would focus on a "package deal" linking payments to the market prices that Ukraine has been seeking.
The EU Commission, the bloc's executive, brokered three rounds of talks in Berlin in the last two weeks following Moscow's threat it would stop supplying Kiev with gas if it fails to make a pre-payment for June supplies by June 2.
The danger of that escalation appeared to dissipate on Friday with the partial payment from Ukraine, which Oettinger had been urging all along. The German is also trying to persuade Gazprom to sell gas to Ukraine at levels around market prices.
Highest in Europe
Gazprom has said Ukraine's debt for gas supplies will have risen to about $5.2 billion by June 7 unless Ukraine begins to pay it off, while Ukraine has countered that Gazprom owes it natural gas because of Russia's seizure of Crimea.
Ukraine wants to change the terms of a 2009 contract that locked Kiev into buying a set volume of gas, whether it needs it or not, at $485 per 1,000 cubic metres — the highest price paid by any client in Europe.
Moscow dropped the price to $268.50 after then-President Viktor Yanukovych turned his back on a trade and association agreement with the European Union last year, but reinstated the original price after he was ousted in February.
Ukraine insists on a price of $268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters while Russia stands by its demand for $485. Oettinger is trying to get the two sides to agree in the middle. The average gas price paid by European customers to Gazprom lies around $370.
"It was a constructive round of negotiations," Novak told reporters at a news conference in Berlin as Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller watched on from the front row. "At 4:15 p.m. today the Ukraine side said the first payment of $786 million was made.
"That's what the Ukraine party said," he said, adding at one point he had no proof of the payment. "The funds have not yet been received by Gazprom. By the rules of the bank, confirmation cannot be given until Monday. Thus, we agreed once the money is received and confirmed, we'll continue the talks."
Novak, clearly relieved that a payment was on the way, sounded conciliatory on Ukraine's demands for the proposed package deal.
"There will be package negotiations to settle the situation for both future deliveries and the remaining debts," Novak said. "We are prepared to show goodwill to settle the situation."
Ukraine Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said he was pleased that his Russian counterparts had expressed a willingness to discuss the package solution.
"Gazprom has confirmed they are hopeful we can have a package deal," said Prodan. "This is a good signal forward. We hope further talks can be constructive."
Oettinger said the $786 million paid on Friday was for February and March gas bills. Oettinger said other months since last November had not yet been paid.
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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/busin...t-to-russia-ahead-of-monday-talks/501218.html
 
Repatriating Dead Russians From Ukraine

“The factory is closed! No one is here,” shouted a large, peroxide-blond in military fatigues, to anyone who approaches the firmly closed metal gate.

Sheets of rain cascaded down, but the crashing storm did not manage to clear the stench of death from the afternoon air.

Inside the rebel-commandeered ice cream refrigeration complex in Donetsk, behind a stack of wooden crates, young men and medics in green scrubs were at work preparing disfigured corpses for their final journey home. Some had to be pieced back together.

The gruesome task took several hours to complete.

Against a garish backdrop of brightly-colored vans and cartoon ads, the workers neatly stacked their precious cargo onto the back of a truck. A last journey will be made in this makeshift ambulance put together by the rebels, hastily whitewashed and painted over with a red cross and “200”— Soviet-era military code for their dead.

Each casket is marked with the red, black, and blue flag of the DPR — Donetsk People’s Republic. But the 30 men stretched out in these coffins are not from the fledgling rebel-state they laid down their lives for; they travelled here from Russia.

Most are believed to have been killed in the fierce battle between rebels and Ukrainian military for control of Donetsk airport after a Kamaz military truck transporting the wounded was hit by sniper fire, scattering body parts on the highway.

These deaths, and the repatriation of the bodies back to their motherland across Ukraine’s eastern border, mark a significant turning point in the spreading crisis that has gripped the country.

Despite Moscow’s persistent rejection of Russian men fighting in Ukraine’s east, it is now undeniable they are here.

Paperwork shown to VICE News confirmed that at least some of the dead being transported across the border were, as claimed by the rebels, Russians.
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https://news.vice.com/article/ice-c...-bear-repatriating-dead-russians-from-ukraine
Read the rest. An article about returning some dead Russian invaders back to their own country.
 
PaulaSlier_RT ‏@PaulaSlier_RT

People stomping on #Roshen sweets from #Poroshenkos factory #Lenin square

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Nigel Farage is another of Moscow’s darlings as Putin backs Right

His glee this week hasn’t been heavily reported in Britain. He isn’t even in Europe.

For Vladimir Putin, the dismantling of the EU structure means getting rid of a club he cannot join, a threat to regional economic dominance for the Russian Bear, and ending the encroachment on lands considered to be Russia’s natural sphere of influence.

The gap between exiting the EU and seeing it completely destroyed and at the economic mercy of Moscow is not one that seems to worry Ukip however. Its candidate for Newark Roger Helmer, along with Mr Farage, deputy leader Paul Nuttall, Gerard Batton and William Dartmouth, have made the party the darling of Moscow with regular appearances on the state-owned Russia Today news channel

It might seem fanciful to think of the Russian premier as a Bond-esque “Dr Niet” figure, chuckling demonically in the wings as the dominoes he positioned fall into place one by one, but it is not far from the truth.

Putin has publicly declared his vision of a functioning Eurasian Union spanning from Lisbon to Vladivostok which would place Moscow at its hub.

So the Kremlin has been systematically building bridges with far right parties across Europe.

In Hungary the fascist Jobbik party, which prides itself on its Nazi-type uniforms, anti-Semitic rhetoric and hatred of the Government’s “Euro-Atlantic connections”

rode last week’s whirlwind to emerge as the nation’s third most powerful party.

That success is concerning for the nation’s Jewish population.

“When a far Right party crosses the 20 per cent threshold that means they are a serious political force,” said anti-Semitism researcher Robert Wistrich of the Hebrew University.

Jobbik’s leader, Gabor Vona, is no stranger to Moscow. In May 2013, he was invited to address Moscow State University, and met with several Russian Duma leaders including Ivan Grachev, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Energy, and Vasily Tarasyuk,, deputy chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources and Utilization. Afterwards, it boasted on its website that the visit heralded a major “breakthrough” which made it “clear that Russian leaders consider Jobbik as a partner.” It is widely held that Vona ‘s campaign was partly financed in Rubles.

Unsurprisingly, Vona hailed the recent referendum in Crimea “exemplary.”

Unsurprisingly too, Vona has stated he wants Hungary to leave the EU and join a Eurasian union instead.

Bulgaria’s far right Ataka party is also a friend to Moscow, and documents revealed on Wikileaks laid the relationship bare. Party leader Volen Siderov called for Russia’s accession to the EU, and for the Government to “recognise the results from the referendum for Crimea’s joining to the Russian Federation.”

It is not just an Eastern European problem, however.

In Greece, Government attempts to rein in the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn party by stripping its members of political immunity and sending its leader Nikos Michaloliakos to jail failed to stem its popularity. Last week it romped through the elections with three MEPs on their way to Brussels.

Michaloliakos has always been open about his links to Russia and reportedly even received a letter of support from Kremlin advisor Alexander Dugin, the brains behind the Eurasian Union vision. According to Golden Dawn’s website, Michaloliakos “has spoken out clearly in favor of an alliance and cooperation with Russia, and away from the ‘naval forces’ of the ‘Atlantic.’”

In France, triumphant Marine Le Pen has publicly stated her vision of a Europe of independent nation states controlled by a tripartite axis between Paris and Berlin and Moscow.

In 2013, the National Front leader was invited to Moscow by State Duma leader and Putin friend Sergei Naryshkin. She also met with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Topics for discussion included EU enlargement and gay marriage.

The party recognised the results of the Crimea referendum and stated in an interview with Voice of Russia radio that, “historically, Crimea is part of Mother Russia.”

It was also in 2013 that Nigel Farage met Russia’s London Ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko. Two years before, Russia successfully boasted that its controversial elections had been monitored by a British MEP. It was less vocal that the identity of the MEP was BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Since then, six Ukip’s MEPs have made appearances on Russia Today, with Farage making almost monthly appearances on the state sponsored news channel.

As with the other right wing parties courted by Moscow, Farage has publicly defended Putin’s Ukraine stance, and has declared the Russian premier the world leader he most admired “as an operator”.

Last night Paul Nuttall rejected any notion of Ukip joining a extreme right pact in Europe, adding: “It’s true that we’ve appeared on Russian television a lot, me included, but you have to remember that three years ago we couldn’t get a look in here in the UK.”

Ukraine is a classic example of how Putin is using right wing parties to lobby for support in Europe, said Anton Shekhovtsov, of UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

“There is no doubt that the Kremlin uses the European far right. And it means more pressure being put on Ukraine," said the Ukrainian national.

“As things are, Russia cannot compete with the EU in terms of economy, human resources, capital and IT– it's only chance to dominate is if Europe is reduced to separate nation states. “

While direct financial backing is difficult to prove, there is little doubt that Moscow is holding the purse strings.

“Ideally, Moscow would like to be funding mainstream politicians, but this is expensive and difficult. It is much easier to focus on MEPs where restrictions are more nebulous,” he said.

"Though I believe Russia has been paying these extreme right parties handsomely for lobbying its interests in Brussels.”

Prof Mitchell Orenstein, head of the Department of Political Science at Northeastern University in Boston, called for European leaders to investigate external funding of right-wing parting.

“I really do not believe Putin's challenge to Europe is being taken seriously enough. Brussels must begin looking at how these parties are being funded.

“Putin’s position regarding the Ukraine is one thing, but when it comes to the rest of Europe, he doesn’t need to resort to land-grab tactics. He can just sit patiently on the sidelines and watch as the far right tries to dismantle the EU once and for all."
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http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/47...her-of-Moscow-s-darlings-as-Putin-backs-Right
 
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