Crisis in the Ukraine

[plawolf]

My apologise to you wolfie and everyone else. I missed that earlier but have now removed all copies of the link.

I know it is frustrating that very informative video cannot be posted because they also contain extremely graphic images of fallen soldiers. This is though a family orientated forum and so no stuff of nightmares please.

I am sure a dozen copies of this particular video will be posted in the Ukraine and general Ghoul sections of Liveleak.

Not your fault mate, you can't catch them all.

 

[delft]

I just read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's article about the economic concequences of developments in Ukraine:

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and some of the 774 comments. I was amazed to see how many of them didn't believe the Kiev/US/EU version of the events.

 

[Janiz]

and some of the 774 comments. I was amazed to see how many of them didn't believe the Kiev/US/EU version of the events.

I will burst the bubble you're living in - they hire armies of paid commentators in every European country (maybe aside from Scandinavia )

 

[delft]

From Zerohedge:

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Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House "Can't Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destroyed By Kiev"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/15/2014 23:07 -0400

While today's trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let's recap:

Yesterday afternoon, two UK reporters working for the Guardian and Telegraph, supposedly located by the border in east Ukraine, reported that they were "eyewitnesses" as a convoy of military trucks crossed the Russian border into the breakaway Donetsk republic, aka Ukraine. While there have been photos of the military trucks that have accompanied the Russian humantiarian convoy on Russian territory, there has so far been no proof, aside from said eyewitness reports, confirming Russian military vehicles entered or were in Ukraine.
This morning Ukraine military’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, shocked the world when newswires reported that Ukraine forces had attacked an armed convoy from Russia, and "destroyed" a part of it. This was subsequently reiterated by the president of Ukraine himself who said that "the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of that machines had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night", and by the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia last night, adding that “what we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time." Alas, as in the case above, just more verbal reports, with zero actual evidence.
Shortly thereafter, Russia responded when the Russian defense ministry said that there was no Russian military column that crossed into Eastern Ukraine, and that the above reports are based on "some fantasies."

This is where the breakdown of logic occurs, because for Russia to make such a formal statement it clearly implies that Russia believes there is no evidence of destruction of a Russian convoy in Ukraine territory, something which obviously would exist if indeed as Ukraine's president had claimed, the "majority of the machines had been eliminated."

If true, it also implies that either Ukraine had fabricated the entire story, and certainly the part about the destruction of the convoy and by extension that Russians had ever entered into East Ukraine. Furthermore, that would also suggest that the reports of the British reporters were also a fabrication.

Unless, of course, there is evidence, in which case the credibility of the both the Guardian and Telegraph reporters can be preserved, Ukraine can not be accused of fabricating a story to suit what some may say its own warmongering ambitions, and the onus is on Russia to explain why it lied about there being no invasion.

More to the point, the onus is on Ukraine to present some evidence, in fact any evidence, of a destroyed Russian military convoy instead of merely building upon a story conceived by the two UK media outlets, because if Ukraine indeed has no evidence, then its story falls apart and what's worse, the credibility and reputation of its government, of NATO and certainly of the UK press would be in tatters.

So what other possibility is there? Well, one that is all too unpalatable for Ukraine, namely that in its excitement to blow something up, it may have well destroyed some of its own military vehicles. A possible lead to such a turn of events comes from this Interfax report citing the leadership of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic.

The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic has dismissed the Ukrainian government's statement on destroying a convoy of what appeared to be Russian armored vehicles in eastern Ukraine.



"We haven't received any armored vehicles from Russia. No Russian units, including Russian armored vehicles, have crossed the border. Hence, no Russian armored vehicles could have been destroyed," DPR First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin told Interfax on Friday evening.



Purgin claimed that, on the contrary, the militias destroyed about 100 Ukrainian armored vehicles.



"A lot of Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed today, 7 at one place, 12 at another. And the same all over the DPR territory. A total of about 100 of them," Purgin said.

The implication is clear: while 100 or so Ukraine armored vehicles may or may not have been destroyed, one wonders if indeed the Ukraine army was responsible in "aiding" the separatists with what would appear to be a friendly-fire incident?

But perhaps the most damning evidence comes from none other than the White House itself, which according to CNN just admitted that while it accuses Moscow of "incursions" it can't confirm the convoy was destroyed by Kiev.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Analysis: Ukraine Attack on Convoy Sends Tough Message
Aug. 16, 2014 - 01:04PM | By OREN DORELL, USA TODAY

A Ukrainian attack on a suspected convoy of Russian military vehicles sent Moscow a tough new message: Ukraine's military is more confident about protecting its territory, and a full-scale Russian invasion could be prolonged and bloody.

If the convoy is confirmed to be Russian military vehicles, the attack Thursday night would mark the first time in the five-month war in the country's east that Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed directly.

"I can't recall Ukrainians firing on a column coming in from Russia," said Ian Brzezinski, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy under President George W. Bush. "This is a military beginning to stand on its own two feet."

Western journalists, including a reporter for The Guardian newspaper in London, reported seeing the column enter Ukraine from Russia through a break in a barbed-wire border. The reporters said they stumbled into it while following a Russian aid convoy headed for the Ukrainian border.

The aid convoy consisted of 262 military trucks, most of them painted white and each manned by three former Russian military personnel, according to a report by National Public Radio. When Ukrainian officials began inspecting the trucks Friday, many of them turned out to be mostly empty, according to the BBC.

On Saturday, those trucks remained idled near the border as complicated procedures, involving documents from the Red Cross about what is aboard the vehicles, dragged on for Ukraine border guards and customs agents to approve the cargo.

In February, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine without any resistance. Since then, the Ukrainian military has become a significant fighting force, as demonstrated by the attack on the convoy and its recent successes against pro-Russian separatists in several eastern Ukraine cities.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to ramp up the fight with Ukraine, he risks long-term consequences, loss of life and battlefield deaths, Brzezinski said. Ukraine's military is no match for Russia, but it has passion on its side to defend its territory. Even Ukrainians in the east have not embraced the rebellion.

"Russia now knows it's not going to be able to just walk into east Ukraine and seize it like it did in Crimea," he said. "Ukrainians will fight and fight and fight."

Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow until February, wrote on Twitter that if Ukrainian forces destroyed a column of regular Russian military forces, "then this has escalated in a major way."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told British Prime Minister David Cameron that "the majority" of the Russian armored column had been destroyed by the Ukrainian artillery" Thursday night, according to a statement from Poroshenko's office.

Russia's defense ministry denied Friday that any military force crossed its border into east Ukraine and called the Ukrainian report "some kind of fantasy."

Damon Wilson, who served as a Russia and Ukraine expert under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, says Putin is trying to sow confusion while continuing to deny Western claims that Russia is behind the unrest in eastern Ukraine.

"His rebels are in trouble and he's got to do something," Wilson said.

Ukrainian troops have surrounded and besieged the eastern cities of Donestsk and Luhansk, the last remaining separatist strongholds, where separatist fighters "are trying to burrow into the civilian population," Brzezinski said.

Ukraine has proceeded slowly in part to limit civilian casualties, adopting a "slow strangulation approach" with "the hope that separatists accept that they will lose," he said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Note: I underlines and boldened to emphasise

 

[Jura The idiot]

I got up about half hour ago and fortunately I first checked what happened on the ground yesterday before looking here, otherwise from most of the newest posts here I might get an impression that Ukraine is doomed
the photo-gallery from retaken Vuhlehirs'k (a small town, but the railroads junction:

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pictures from a main stream server, nothing Rated R:

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But I'm not cheering now! I have no idea what the outcome of the conflict will be!

 

[Dannhill]

The rebels don't have the luxury of manpower and equipment to hold every village so the govt forces and pick and choose which town they want to "liberate". The govt forces only have problem when they and the rebels meet at the same time at the same place. The rebels are fighting very much a guerilla style warfare to draw in govt forces and then try to cut off the roads at the back of the force.

That should be pretty obvious by now.

I got up about half hour ago and fortunately I first checked what happened on the ground yesterday before looking here, otherwise from most of the newest posts here I might get an impression that Ukraine is doomed
the photo-gallery from retaken Vuhlehirs'k (a small town, but the railroads junction:

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pictures from a main stream server, nothing Rated R:

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But I'm not cheering now! I have no idea what the outcome of the conflict will be!

 

[Jura The idiot]

... The govt forces only have problem when they and the rebels meet at the same time at the same place. ...

Looking at the photo-gallery I just posted in http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members-club-room/crisis-ukraine-38-6939.html#post300891 makes me wonder if the two forces met in Vuhlehirs'k, Ukraine

 

[Dannhill]

I doubt they met there.

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I understand the Ukraine govt has a habit of shelling civilian areas regardless of the absence of rebel forces in the area. Where are the pics of destroyed rebel vehicles and dead rebel fighters?

Looking at the photo-gallery I just posted in http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members-club-room/crisis-ukraine-38-6939.html#post300891 makes me wonder if the two forces met in Vuhlehirs'k, Ukraine

 

[Jura The idiot]

I doubt they met there.

...

I'm not going to argue here, so you may have the last word: Don't you think the area held by Separatists is shrinking? It appears to be the case even by looking at (the links which were posted in this thread)

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Now I'll go for walk to woods in Prague (yes, we have them here! several square miles in several parts of the town). Cheers.