In Russian:
Considering this site is Kremlin-supported, this story may be a sign of some deescalation plans. Or not. http://politrussia.com/society/vse-u...hchiy-val-872/ …
'Truce' in #Shyrokyne is already over according to Azov tweet. Machine gun fire and mortar fire ongoing. Whats next?
https://twitter.com/Polk_Azov/status/590176408221134848 …
Ukrainian Security Service detained a "Vostok" grouping militant who planned terrorist attacks in #dnipropetrovsk. pic.twitter.com/awaeDtRTDK
#Putin apparently paid some of the #Russia(ns) NOT IN #Ukraine #Donetsk with Rubles. http://translate.googleusercontent.c...c_SVM7auVh2YLw … #Luhansk pic.twitter.com/9X81FNKSSc
The JCCC reports of a mortar skirmish underway near #Donetsk
Also increasing reports again of fighting around #Donetsk this afternoon. Airport area and #Pisky under fire.
Interesting Russian stats: only 10-12% of the influx of refugees from Donbass chose to stay there.
In Russian:
Considering this site is Kremlin-supported, this story may be a sign of some deescalation plans. Or not. http://politrussia.com/society/vse-u...hchiy-val-872/ …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-20-2015 at 04:29 PM.
Russia ramping up its military presence in the Arcticpic.twitter.com/j66dk3mSIG
Neither side wants to give up the fight for Shirokino. DNR wants Mariupol & many in Ukraine know ithttp://bit.ly/1IxUTvy
#Militants tanks have fired at #Azov positions at #Shyrokyne; 120 mm mortars shelling #Shyrokyne and #Berdyanske
DNR Head Zakharchenko Calls Ukrainian Demilitarisation Proposals 'Schizophrenia' http://bit.ly/1IxUTvy
Russia sends 50 trucks, 20 APCs, and 40 wagons of military equipment into Donbas - read on- http://uatoday.tv http://uatoday.tv/politics/russia-se...as-422419.html …
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-20-2015 at 10:48 PM.
And the shellings start again today:
20:35 #Horlivka Kurganka @xy_gorlov4an: Sounds of battle for about half hour
20:19 #Horlivka the center @15SVET15: Outgoing mortar fire and grenade launchers for an hour already
#Donetsk @Serzzze
19:55 #Donetsk @HeleneHelene5: 'I heard UAV sound over loosely Azotny/Smolyanka, they started fire at it at once'
19:46 @Newrashkineits: 'Here come #Grad|s'
19:53 @ludkubamailru: 'I thought they seemed to me, we grew unaccustomed'
19:50 @GirkinGirkin: 152mm RUS howitzers started to shell
19:45 #Donetsk the center @98760333: Volleys in the northwest
#Donetsk 19:46
MSTA-B 152mm artillery firing.
- via @felixsteal
19:23 21st CPSU council culture palast: heavy louds
19:23 Smolyanka/Krasny Pakhar: sporadic booms and shots
19:23 @relictDon: various caliber battle distant sounds in the NW
19:11 "Moscow" @Serzzze: distant heavy volleys
19:02 DOK: volleys in NW
19:04 Lavrinka: dull distant volleys in the north
19:06 Azotny:single loud heavies
18:47 City: Singles, heavy
18:56 railway hospital: dull distant booms
18:56 Bakiny: dull distant volleys
18:56 Kyivsky ds @UrriKara4en: Active various battle sounds loosely from NW
18:49 Leninsky ds: A single was heard
During mortar attack on #Pisky this evening, two #Ukraine soldiers of the 93th mechanised brigade killed, one injured.
Via @zaytsev126
GRADs and 152mm howitzers are working around #Donetsk this evening according to reports from locals
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-20-2015 at 10:49 PM.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/la...LzQ1Hc.twitter
Lawmakers struggle for upper hand in global information war
By Charles Hoskinson | April 20, 2015 | 5:00 am
Russia's use of information as a weapon of war has helped the Kremlin eat away at Ukraine's territory and undermine the NATO alliance in Eastern Europe.
Now, with China and the Islamic State adopting many of the same tactics, lawmakers say it's time for the United States to up its game to counteract them.
"The United States needs its own strategy to deal with this and we need it now," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. "This can't come soon enough."
Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and panel Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., plan to introduce legislation to counter the Kremlin's global campaign by revitalizing the Cold War-era structure of U.S. international broadcasting, which Royce said is currently just "a thimble of journalistic credibility in an ocean of Russian-driven news distortion."
A previous effort by the two foundered last year on concerns it would turn respected names such as the Voice of America into propaganda outlets, but the problem has become more urgent since then, spreading across the globe.
In the past few years, Russian state media have vastly expanded into the global arm of a campaign of psychological and information warfare that has become an integral part of the Kremlin's military strategy. That became evident last year as Russia began its campaign to seize territory from Ukraine, with Russian media reports playing a major role in building support for Russian-backed rebels there.
"During the war in Ukraine, the Russian-funded television channel RT was mobilized as a weapon," said Liz Wahl, a former RT anchor who famously resigned on the air in March 2014 at the height of the crisis over Russian occupation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula.
She said the channel's managers actively seek to spread disinformation and promote conspiracy theories to create confusion in the minds of viewers. RT also actively seeks out extremists and provides a space for them to air their views in the mainstream of political discourse, she said.
"They shape the discussion whether we like it or not," Wahl said.
Russia's information warfare is part of a strategy to defeat Western society by exploiting its openness, since Kremlin military planners have concluded NATO is too strong to confront with force, said Peter Pomerantsev, a British television producer and author of a book about modern Russia, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible.
"The age of information is becoming age of disinformation," Pomerantsev said. "In the 21st century wars might be decided by whose storyline wins, not what happens on the ground."
And not only has Russia's information network gone global, it has become a model for other U.S. adversaries, taking both military and political leaders by surprise. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, called Russia's efforts in Ukraine "the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare."
China has followed suit, expanding its state-controlled media across the globe, including into the United States, while at the same time keeping a tight rein on what its own citizens can see.
And the Islamic State has a slick Internet propaganda campaign aimed directly at convincing Muslims in the West that the time has come for a global caliphate ruled by Islamic law. The group's social media presence has resisted efforts to defeat it, inspiring like-minded people in the West to commit acts of terrorism and providing a steady stream of recruits, including from the United States and other Western nations.
Meanwhile, a group of retired U.S. military officers found in a report released March 10 that Hamas, the Islamist terror group that controls the Palestinian territory, was able to skillfully use modern technology and sophisticated media tactics to gain the strategic advantage in its 2014 conflict with Israel, in spite of Israeli tactical successes.
The report for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs recommended that the U.S. military adapt its training and planning to deal with such conflicts, including more sophisticated information operations aimed at preventing attempts to delegitimize its actions in international public opinion.
Royce and Engel's legislation would move U.S. policy in that direction, overhauling the current structure that places the operations of all government-funded international media under the control of a Broadcasting Board of Governors. Instead, their proposal would divide responsibilities, with Voice of America charged with reporting on U.S. policy and other global news, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty targeting audiences inside Russia and other repressive regimes.
The proposal also would provide dedicated funding and reduce bureaucracy so more money can be spent on disseminating information, which, Royce noted, would be produced in accordance with accepted journalistic practices.
"Our international broadcasting is in disarray," Royce said. "The journalists of the BBG risk their lives reporting from the front lines across the world. They deserve better support. And the American people need much more from this agency if we're going to respond to the rapidly evolving media environment and better secure the long-term security interests of the United States."
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-20-2015 at 07:05 PM.
The Russian FM Lavrov is on another “rant” again against the Ukraine ALL the while not admitting Russia and her mercenaries have totally failed at implementing anything from Minsk 2.
Seems that he forgot the US stated a number of times the Ukraine can indeed fire back to defend itself—but as usual for Russia it is all the Ukrainians fault BUT it is a Russian Minsk 2 violation tonight when the MRLSs are firing from a zone where they were to be withdrawn from.
AND again he is lying as the OSCE has both confirmed the mercenaries have not pulled back their heavy weapons, have in fact been conducting the most shellings and Lavrov AGAIN fails to mention the constant flow of Russian troops, weapons, fuel and munitions they just keep on sending into the Ukraine.
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: As the @OSCE observers acknowledge, in a number of cases the #Ukrainian armed forces fire first, and then receive fire in return
Another Russian falsehood muttered by the Russian FM today—seems he thinks the Russian mercenaries are not firing BM21/27s/30s tonight in the Donetsk region?
Seems that he forgot the US stated a number of times the Ukraine can indeed fire back to defend itself—but as usual for Russia it is all the Ukrainians fault BUT it is a Russian Minsk 2 violation tonight when the MRLSs are firing from a zone where they were to be withdrawn from.
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: The more Kiev tries to derail #Minsk2, the more reasons the West creates to continue its pressure on #Russia
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: If we look at who's honouring the Minsk Agreements, we'll see that Kiev is responsible for hindering the process more than others
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: There are many other factors indicating a desire to find a pretext for derailing the Minsk Agreements
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: Take the laws on “decommunisation” and glorification of #Nazi henchmen. They want people in western #Ukraine to forget about #May9
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: One only has to read the text of the #Minsk2 agreements to see the commitments made by #Ukraine
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: So far nothing has been done on the issue of decentralisation #Ukraine
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: This law was supposed to be introduced in coordination with the representatives of Lugansk and Donetsk, but this was not done
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: For example, the law on the status of Donetsk and Lugansk was adopted in Kiev in gross violation of its commitments made in Minsk
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: The Minsk Agreements are being violated and the #Ukrainian government is predominantly at fault pic.twitter.com/cYEbKp8qbs
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-20-2015 at 10:49 PM.
Seems the Russian FM Lavrov is having a really hard time with the truth---all of the below comments are violations of Minsk 2 from the Russian side.
Is this the end for #Minsk agreements? Lavrov sounds like he's pulling the plug... Prelude to #Mariupol offensive? https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/statu...36448097497090 …
OSCE confirms that GRAD missiles which hit #Avdiivka on Saturday came from the RU-occupied territoryhttp://inforesist.org/obse-avdeevka-...rij/?_utl_t=tw …
Fighting resumes in #Shyrokyne just outside #Mariupol after 65 hrs of quiet ► http://goo.gl/4817ci pic.twitter.com/2Kc83ROpAN #Ukraine #Russia
Russian tanks joined The battle in #Shyrokyne. Russians are also shelling w 120-mm mortars #Shyrokyne and Berdyanske.
@Guderian_Xaba Azov guys say they are responding to the attack only with light mortars and small arms...
#Ukraine,#Donbas,Russians are still using Grad launchers and are arming from #Russia.http://www.defence24.pl/news_tzw-sep...ni-przez-rosje … #Ukraina pic.twitter.com/T9rFGJMKyj
BREAKING: #Russia|ns using GRAD or Uragan MLRS in #Donetsk tonight
http://www.62.ua/news/803841
#Luhansk. More #tanks on the Russian hybrid #army “Transpele” basehttp://nplm.in/ayc pic.twitter.com/Hj8eQETh69
#RussianArmy Collects ‘Scrap’ of #Novorossiya #Ukraine @en_informnapalm https://en.informnapalm.org/russian-...f-novorossiya/ … pic.twitter.com/uwtlUSAebP
NSDC of Ukraine ✔ @NSDC_ua
50 trucks & 20 IFVs with military personnel crossed Russia-Ukraine border.
СММ ОБСЄ в Україні @OSCE_SMM
Latest from SMM to Ukraine: Fighting took place in and around Shyrokyne, forcing the SMM to temporarily withdrawhttp://bit.ly/1DEGjkX
The war is just beginning: a "minor" Russian ammunition stockpile right on Ukraine's borderhttps://informnapalm.org/8083-prygor...tsy-s-ukraynoj … pic.twitter.com/tL5u7McANg
Ukr sources report that Russia's militants _mined_ the dead body of an Azov volunteer; was de-mined only w/ OSCE help http://zaxid.net/news/showNews.do?te...jectId=1348551 …
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-20-2015 at 10:53 PM.
One of LifeNews's most trusted Ukraine-bashers detained with fascist insignia, books and Hitler portraits. pic.twitter.com/VkHke1GAl5
Russian police claim they've raided "Hitler's birthday party" in Moscow. Just what prevented them from raiding the fascist forum in St Pete?
Important remarks by Kyle Parker in DC on how the collapse of rule of law in Russia has led to warhttp://upnorth.eu/how-the-collapse-o...war-in-europe/ …
#Russia’s nuclear threats,... are the hallmark of a weak country in economic, demographic & political decline. http://www.project-syndicate.org/com...XKWw9zYrkem.99 …
#Ukraine has stopped paying for the provision of Russian electricity to the anti-terrorist operation zone. http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2015/04/20/7065290/ …
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-20-2015 at 10:51 PM.
The entire Russian Foreign Ministry is having a nervous breakdown today--this is referencing the 173rd training the Ukrainian National Guard.
Mental state of #Russia in four tweets from Ambassador Yakovenko
1.Delusion
2.Victim mentality
3.Lies
4.Projection
pic.twitter.com/n1Cc7jyPau
http://tomnichols.net/blog/2014/09/0...#ixzz3XszwYY5U
Here's How Putin Might Use The Nuclear Weapons He Keeps Talking About
The War Room
Tom Nichols
Sep. 2, 2014, 11:42 AM
Tom Nichols is a Professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, and a senior associate of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
I don’t miss the Cold War, but apparently Russian President Vladimir Putin does. Either that, or he’s now clinically insane.
There aren’t a lot of other explanations for Putin’s nuclear chest-thumping in the past week or so.
So far, it’s vintage Putin: swaggering braggadocio about Russia’s nuclear status that isn’t actually linked to a specific threat, but with enough dots to connect that any foreign observer can take his meaning.
Like the mobster he is, Putin never directly threatens, but instead talks in circles, sort of the way a loan shark explains the many ways you could have an “accident” if you don’t pay up.
This isn’t as new as it looks. The Soviet and later Russian militaries have always been obsessed with nuclear weapons — yes, even more than the Americans — but mostly, in the last few decades, to compensate for the pitiful state of Russian conventional forces. Apparently, nuclear deterrence has now reverted back to Cold War dice-throwing.
So what, exactly is Putin on about? Let’s look at this seriously for a moment, as if Putin isn’t a gangster or a lunatic. Is there actually a strategic logic to the use of a nuclear weapon anywhere in this current crisis?
Russian commentator Andrei Piontkovsky thinks that Putin, at least, believes there is. As Paul Goble reports:
Clearly, [says Piontkovsky], Putin does not seek “the destruction of the hated United States,” a goal that he could achieve “only at the price of mutual suicide.” Instead, his goals are “significantly more modest: the maximum extension of the Russian World, the destruction of NATO, and the discrediting and humiliation of the US as the guarantor of the security of the West.”
To put it in simplest terms, Piontkovsky continues, Putin’s actions would be “revenge for the defeat of the USSR in the third (cold) world war just as the second world war was for Germany an attempt at revenge for defeat in the first.”
If Putin is the old-school Soviet thug I now think he is, then his notional plan will look something like this:
1. Provoke a crisis within the current crisis. There are rumors, for example, that the shootdown of MH17 was actually supposed to be the shootdown of a Russian airliner that could then be used as a pretext for invasion. That’s a little too clever for me, but imagine a sudden Russian lunge toward, say, Odessa, and the US and UK take the recent advice of Ben Judah in the New York Times and send troops to hold the airport there. Now we have exactly the NATO-Russia standoff for which Putin has been striving for months.
2. Get some Russian soldiers killed. Make sure it looks right on RT, preferably with Ukrainian soldiers using Western weapons. (Or better yet, with NATO soldiers returning fire on innocent Russian “peacekeepers” and “aid convoys” or whatever idiotic ruse Putin uses the next time.)
3. Use a nuclear weapon. NATO shatters as everyone west of Warsaw loses control of their bladders.
I’m not saying this is a good plan, but it might be the one Putin and his cronies are considering.
Of course, this is pure crazy talk on many levels.
The Consequences Of Using Nuclear Weapons
First, I can’t figure out how even Putin thinks he secures the future of Russia by becoming the first nation since 1945 to use nuclear weapons. If the Russian president’s goal is to make the world forget about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, place a permanent stain on the word “Russia” for all time, and unite the entire planet against his still-poor, still-weak country, then he is not only unhinged, he’s just plain stupid.
There are other considerations, of course. Exactly what does Putin think he’s going to hit with nuclear weapons? A NATO base in Poland, perhaps? A UK submarine pen? A US ICBM base in Wyoming? This is one of those ideas that probably sounded good after that fourth vodka at 3 am in the Kremlin, hanging out with the boys and getting a shoulder rub from Alina Kabayeva.
Indeed, you can almost see it: jackets open, ties loosened, cigarette smoke hanging in the air, the clink of glasses, the generals and the spooks sitting around smugly talking about NATO having a collective pants-browning over the display of Russian nuclear might.
Unfortunately (for them) it’s not 1974. It doesn’t work that way. No matter how Putin’s team or his courtiers in the Russian media try to spin the story, the first use of a nuclear weapon is still the first use of a nuclear weapon. Russians, raised on the idea that only the bad guys would ever use nukes first, will know exactly what happened. And then they will wait for the cloud of fallout to hit them — as it will within a few days if the target is in European NATO.
And some of them — especially the smarter ones who are already trying to get the hell out of Russia — will wonder why their lives and futures are being sacrificed for the sake of the memory of a country that ceased to exist while they were still toddlers.
A Russian Pariah State
How any of this helps Russia is beyond me. Even if the exchange stops at one weapon — and I don’t think any U.S. President needs to retaliate by adding yet more poison to the planet, but that’s just me — Russia will forever be contained by the international community as the Worst Country In The World.
Of course, if Putin thinks the exchange will stop with one weapon, then he’s the most confident gambler since Hitler in 1936. (I’d also bet that the Chinese are probably rooting for Putin to get off the leash and go nuts, because it will allow them to finally get the stink of Mao Zedong’s crazy off of them and make it stick forever to Moscow.)
If the exchange doesn’t stop at one weapon, then the rest is irrelevant, and you and I will likely not be sitting here calmly reading and reflecting on international affairs.
Putin isn’t going to live forever, and after using a nuclear bomb his successors will have two choices: either revert to complete Soviet-like isolation and self-sufficiency in world that will forever hate Russia (and live off pickled herring and apple juice for another century) or abjectly throw the Russian Federation on the mercy of international opinion, and engage in prolonged atonement that would almost certainly require demilitarization of the Russian state and war crimes tribunals for the surviving leaders and generals.
I used to think the chance of any of this was about zero. But of course, that’s the problem with “about zero:” it’s not actually “zero.” Anything that’s not impossible has a finite chance of happening. Putin’s provocations might have only a million to one shot of producing a nuclear event, but if he tries those provocations a million times…well, you do the math.
I keep waiting for cooler heads to prevail in Moscow and thought this might have reached some kind of resolution over the summer. But that was 2500 Ukrainian deaths — and one innocent airliner — ago.
Still, I’m used to Soviet…er, sorry….Russian leaders talking about nuclear weapons, and so I’m assuming this is business as usual, circa 1980. But the fact that Putin is willing to throw away Russia’s future for the sake of a Soviet past means that this crisis is not close to being over. It also means that there is no way to deal with this crisis through negotiation: if Putin is so locked in the past that he thinks he can make nuclear threats, he’s not likely to change course now.
I also worry about one more thing, on our side rather than theirs. Putin is taking huge risks based on the idea that Barack Obama is the weakest American president in modern history. The Kremlin has plenty of reason to think so, especially after the graceless powder we took in Syria a year ago. There is no question that President Obama is among the least, uh, decisive leaders the White House has had in a long time, but even weak Presidents can only be pushed so far.
I worry that Putin, like other Soviet — sorry again, Russian, I mean Russian — leaders thinks that America is as leader-centered as Russia is, and will not understand that at some point the American foreign policy establishment will create a response that will totally surprise the Kremlin. That’s how major wars get started, but it’s not clear that Putin knows this, or cares.
Great social media open source analysis on the Russian Army withdrawal back to Russia after invading the Ukraine in August 2014.
After Ilovaisk ambush Russian Army retreated with big smoke screen back to Russia
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.co.uk/2...volunteer.html …
@finriswolf pic.twitter.com/nodUCWxleA
#Russia|ns gathered a huge amount of ammunition near border #Ukraine.http://www.tvn24.pl/walki-w-donbasie...,534938,s.html … via @KuczynskiG pic.twitter.com/D08DXIF0Qt
To understand Putin and the inner circle currently around him one must understand the mindset that is currently in vogue in Russia.
This is a translation taken from a Russian mercenary interrogation of a Ukrainian Army officer captured in the fighting at the Donetsk Airport--to refresh the UA and volunteer BNs were basically surrounded and held out for 242 days beating the Stalingrad record of 181 days.
Then after repeatedly defeating all mercenary attacks the Russian Army sent in their Spetsnaz and GRU units that under the guise of picking up dead Russians basically blew up the remaining defensive position killing over 60 or so and taking over 40 POWs a COL from the 93rd Airmobile Bde was also captured AND has not been returned under the Minsk 2 POW exchanges that the Russians have broken off after not fully exchanging all known POWs--there is a tad of factual reporting that the mercenaries have moved a number of the POWs to Russian soil.
Help #OlegKuzminyh go back home to family
90 days captive
pic.twitter.com/hbV7ftvg1t
NOTE: captured and verified alive but not exchanged as per Minsk 2
USConsulateFrankfurt @usconsfrankfurt
RT @usosce: We once again reiterate our call for #Russia and separatists it backs to release all #Ukraine hostages: http://1.usa.gov/1aDpvjJ
The term "Cyborgs" was given to them for holding out against impossible odds--this term is now locked into Ukrainian military history, gave them a sense of pride after so many defeats and basically tied the Russian mercenaries for months in knots and extremely high loses.
NOTE: Amnesty International has finally started talking about the mercenary executions and torture of Ukrainian POWs--after months of resisting the video footage and photos coming via social media sources and voice intercepts from the Ukrainian State Security SBU.
Well worth the reading ----
Translation of Interview/interrogation with POW Cyborgs.
I'm filming video. If I get permission from the command after approving the video, it will be published, that is, I shall be permitted to publish it. You have an opportunity to make it known to your family that you're alive. Because you [the Ukrainian commanders] never admit casualties, you [soldiers] just disappear, as the phrase goes, if there is no body - there is no case. Where you went, tell me?
- I went for the guys at the airport to pick up the dead and bring them to Konstantinovka, and I did not know where to go next.
Which terminal at the airport?
- The new one, where our guys were.
So, how many stiffs there?
- I was told there were about 80 people there.
Eighty dead?
- No, I was told there were 80 people there.
How many dead?
- More than 60%, I was told.
Sixty percent?
- Yes.
That is, more than a half?
- Yes.
More than 50, then? Of 80 people?
- I did not even know who there actually fought. I was told that there were our guys from the 90th battalion, that they were being shelled, that the airport floors were already occupied, that moskals began to occupy the floors, and that at night they [the guys from the 90th battalion] were going to yield up the airport.
At night we were going to occupy the airport?
- Rather, in the morning, as it was night when we were told this. Then, in the morning, we were lined up and were told to go to pick up the guys, the dead, because there <...> had been killed...
Speak, speak.
- We seated <...> [...into three MT-LB armoured tracked vehicles?], there were nine of us. Everyone just had to come down, bring [the dead] to the car, load them into the ML-LB's, there were also special <...> [devices?] for the dead, the wounded, to pick up them all. We drove, that's what I remember, then the shelling begun, closer, closer, then bullets started to strike at the car armor, then the driver abruptly stopped the car, screamed "Knocked out, all get off!" We jumped down, it was fog, there were some broken frames at the left side. We all rushed into some room, no one knew where were they, where was the terminal, where were those floors, whom to pick up, whom to load.
Now the question to you solely for this recording. Can I call myself a good cop? Well, you see, you're quite shabby, I did not... or it was I who?..
- I've said what I knew <...>
No, I mean did I beat you?
- No.
How am I talking to you?
- Humanly.
Humanly. You see, my goal is not to make fun of a captured ukrop (I've always differentiated you [the Ukrainians] into Bandera's followers, ukrops and Ukrainians), I'm not an invited guest, my mother was from Shakhtersk, my father was of the Dnieper region, and then they went to the Crimea, their parents. I'm here, I know what I'm doing. And you hear my accent, don't you?
- Yes, of course.
Well, I see.
- <...> me too <...> the first time we were brought <...> I do not know where <...> I've never seen the first emplacement, the guys said "Here is your Ukrainian passport". Then they started talking...
I do not conceal anything. I yell at each corner that I'm a volunteer from Russia, it's no secret. I'm explaining to everybody that I have come to defend my historic homeland. My mother asks me, "If you're going to pass by my village, under Shakhtersk, make a picture of my home, I just wonder what happened to him." I'm not on a visit here, and I assure you that a large part, if not the largest, of those who came here from Russia, have their grandparents here. In Russia, for example, according to opinion polls, a third part of Russian citizens - not immigrants, but citizens - claim that they have their grandparents in Ukraine. It means - what? How do you think?
- It's kinda one country ...
Can this mean that a third part of the citizens of Russia are -
- ...the Ukrainians?
Yes.
- Sure it can.
How can a country...
- If you even take the Ukrainians, how many of them are all over Europe, that is the same thing here, more than half, well, a third part for sure.
So, I'll make a pause, I do not want to lose the video track, it does not download well in HD quality.
* * *
INTERROGATORS:
- ...We'll publish it [video], your family will take a look at it.
- You'll be a hero...
- You'll be a hero, known all over the country...
- Well, wait, now in a serious way. From jokes to business. You will be a hero. You're one of the military officers - in my opinion, the only one, the first one - in the history of Ukraine, who has military honor. Every officer, of any army, would consider it an honour when the enemy show mercy to him and allow him to shoot himself. Any country. And the Japanese, how they called it?
- Harakiri?
- Bushido? no, I don't remember.
- Seppuku? it's when he jump...
- Let's go back 70 years ago. Any German officer would take the gun. Yes, it's the Nazism, it's a lousy fascist, but he would take the gun. Any Soviet officer would take the gun. That's time when people had a notion of the officer's honor. And now ...
- Well, give the gun?
POW:
- My country won't appreciate it.
INTERROGATOR:
- But you're at war for it!
POW:
- It sent me to slaughter.
INTERROGATORS:
- But you denied it...
- And what, it's the family who will appreciate. Everybody will admire you, tell to your mom: "Look, what a son you had, a true hero!"
- There will be a street named after you.
- They will meet your coffin on your knees.
- "Right Sector" will...
- Kiss your ass.
- ...set up a monument to you, as a hero of Ukraine.
- Well, give the gun?
POW:
- No.
INTERROGATOR:
- I promise: no one will interfere. OK?
POW:
- No.
INTERROGATORS:
- Why no? Afeared?
- Tell us the reason, why.
POW:
- I don't want to die.
INTERROGATOR:
- "Don't want to die"? or "Don't want to die for..."?
POW:
- Don't want to die for the country that betrayed me.
INTERROGATOR:
- Do you really think you still have the homeland? We all were betrayed in the Maidan Square - both you all and we. When Maidan was taking place, we were working hard at the mines, factories. You were probably also doing something?
POW:
- Yes.
INTERROGATOR:
- Worked, right?
POW:
- Yes.
INTERROGATOR:
- And guys who stood there [in the Maidan square], "Berkut", were burned and beaten with chains, did you see that?
POW:
- In the news.
INTERROGATOR:
- Did see it in the news?
POW:
- Yes.
INTERROGATOR:
- Well, and how? There were guys like you, officers like you. They stood and did not fire a shot. And were beaten. Did not it offend you for the army?
POW:
- It offended me that the authorities allowed them to do so, allowed to do so to them. <...>
INTERROGATOR:
- Well, why you then went to serve to this country? The country that had trampled into mud the officers, the soldiers. They are like you.
POW:
- I had been mobilized.
INTERROGATOR:
- Mobilized... you coward ass. Coward ass, hear? You're a ####, not an officer.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-21-2015 at 08:03 AM.
There has been a number of social media comments on the apparent one sided reporting by Russian Forbes magazine to the straight forward accusation they are part and parcel of the Russian informational warfare--there is some truth to that accusation.
Recently Russia Forbes "carried an exclusive report" out of Moscow that turned out to be blatantly false--never published a retraction nor apologized.
Russian Forbes Journalist Orhan Dzhemal Detained, Interrogated at RU Border After Trip to LNR http://www.interpretermag.com/russia...-21-2015/#7990 … pic.twitter.com/qYDP5XWIQc
AND now their reporters turn up inside Russian mercenary held territory without the required Ukrainian entry visa for journalists and he wonders why he was stopped???
So a US media outlet is working with the Russian info war side of the house--their Russian outlet seems to need some "oversight" from the mothership???
Appears we are just about two or so weeks away from the Russian Spring Offensive probably tied to the 9 May celebrations. some had predicted the 15/16 April and in fact a mercenary mini offensive is underway starting in that timeline.
Mercenary shellings using tanks, MRLSs and heavy artillery ALL in violation of Minsk 2 have picked up over the last 4-5 days, ground attacks using infantry and tanks also picked up in the same timeframe and still continue through today ANd heavy Russian resupply runs have massively increased in the same timeline especially more tanks.
AND now the OSCE confirms mercenary pullout of Minsk 2 depot their heavy weapons followed by the Ukrainian side as they are seeing the same indications of an offensive coming at them.
OSCE says withdrawn militant weapons missing from storage, spots Ukrainian weapons moving
http://www.unian.info/war/1069506-os...ns-moving.html … pic.twitter.com/1AfBsyADZJ
#DPR leader sees increasing frequency of shooting incidents as Ukrainian offensive's prologue - Interfax
NOTE: as is standard Russian propaganda--when they state something it means directly the opposite--here an alleged offense by the Ukrainians YET the mercenaries have been in a mini offensive for now over five days.
#BreakingNews
Russian forces escalates their assault on #Shyrokyne over the morning, now using tanks, trying to storm the Ukrainian front
Video of #Russia|n tanks loaded on train in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, #Rostov in #Russia, probably moving to #Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmJkKS
Tanks being prepared to enter Ukraine from Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, #Rostov #Russia via railroad.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRM...7oc1oj4-ZbK2fw … pic.twitter.com/JDasVLnNbj
@ZombieTVonline local Russians in comments say "there are so many tanks" and "To Ukraine
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-21-2015 at 08:50 AM.
AZOV: Pavlopil & Pyshchevyk (no soldiers there) shelled with mortars last night by Russianshttps://vk.com/batalion.azov?w=wall-72444174_6363
#News
Very interesting announcement by #Azov about #Pavlopil and #Pyshchevyk, which were under Rus mortar fire today
#Russia|ns shelled #Shyrokyne with 120mm mortars this morning & now try to storm it with tanks + infanterie units. At least 2 attackers KIA
All started with 120 mm mortars at 5:15,escalation of mortar attacks around 8:00 and tanks since 8:25.
#Azov reports deaths among the enemy.
Latest from SMM: Summary Table of #Ceasefire Violations, 19 April 2015. Download here:
http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/152156 … pic.twitter.com/DxAsmnljQH
Kremlin ‘seeks replacement for Zakharchenko’
http://www.unian.info/war/1069522-kr...harchenko.html … pic.twitter.com/IY2JqsG0jN
UNIAN: Kremlin seeks replacement for war-criminal Zakharchenko. Mozgovoy possibly successorhttp://www.unian.info/war/1069522-kr...harchenko.html … pic.twitter.com/C3120TgKUT
Ex-Czech Minister for Foreign Affairs declares that Putin will not stop until he controls all of Ukraine. http://www.unian.net/politics/106951...id-chehii.html …
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-21-2015 at 08:49 AM.
Rus proxies keep firing from 120mm weapons. Also fired from BMP at Ukr near Avdiivka, twice from tank near Shyrokynehttps://www.facebook.com/ato.news/posts/984652248212248 …
NATO head says Russian military rhetoric now mentions nuclear weaponshttp://www.unian.info/world/1069509-...r-weapons.html … pic.twitter.com/q2HkHjf0Vk
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-21-2015 at 09:18 AM.
A major indicator of an impending Spring offensive--just in:Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Kasyanov: Militants tag equipment for identification from the air http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/21-apri...identification … via @InfoResist pic.twitter.com/gKMPYN5Lyv
Kremlin ‘seeks replacement for Zakharchenko’
21.04.2015 | 10:42
The days of the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic militant organization, Oleksandr Zakharchenko, are numbered, and the Kremlin is actively looking for a replacement, with a militant named Mozgovoy a possible contender, Deputy Head of the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions Colonel Valentyn Fedychev said on Monday, according to the press service of the Donetsk Regional State Administration.
REUTERS
"The fate of the leaders of terrorists that Moscow removes from their militant offices is prison at best. Zakharchenko is afraid of this, and is bending over backwards to prove to his Kremlin masters his endless dedication and his willingness to perform the dirtiest instructions of his handlers," Fedychev said.
"One of such Kremlin tasks is to find and fabricate evidence of gross violations of the Minsk agreements by Ukraine. For this purpose, for more than a week this leader-loser has surprised the world every day with his sensational [claims about] the [coming] storming of Donetsk by Ukrainian armed forces," he said.
Fedychev said Zakharchenko “has tried to do everything to provoke an offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces, but the Ukrainian ‘fascists’ have not moved from their positions and have fired on militants only in extreme cases.”
"Zakharchenko ordered the firing of Grad rockets on the town of Avdiivka from the territory of the town of Yasynuvata. The militants launched [rockets] from two units simultaneously and fired 14 rounds," Fedychev said.
"The militants of Zakharchenko fired 122mm artillery systems directly from Donetsk. They also fired guns and tanks from the territory of the Donetsk airport, and they fired tanks from the village of Zhabunki," he added.
According to Fedychev, Zakharchenko is showing complete unwillingness to take even a few steps to establish peace in the Donbas.
Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/war/1069522-kr...harchenko.html
This unit is exactly one of the reasons the Russian operations have dragged on and on and virtually gained no territory other than when the entire Russian Army of over 12K is thrown into the fight.
They have been in constant fighting from the very beginning first as a volunteer BN along with several other volunteer BNs which carried the fighting through to August this year and now as part of the Ukrainian National Guard.
http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/20/tw...-to-the-death/
Two Weeks to Make a Soldier: A Ukrainian National Guard Unit Trains to ‘Fight to the Death’
Nolan Peterson / @nolanwpeterson / April 20, 2015
KYIV, Ukraine—At its training camp on the outskirts of Kyiv this past weekend, the Ukrainian National Guard Azov Regiment held its Spartan Test—a grueling three-hour rite of passage meant to test the mental and physical strength of both new recruits and battle-hardened veterans.
The ordeal is the capstone to a two-week-long whirlwind military training program, after which many recruits travel to the front lines for the first time. The regiment, which began as a civilian volunteer battalion after the Maidan revolution last year, is stuck balancing the competing interests of building a military unit from scratch while sustaining continued combat operations.
With little time or resources available to mold civilians into soldiers, the Azov Regiment’s training program focuses on developing the most essential skills and traits necessary to keep soldiers alive.
The director of the program is Mikael Skillt, a 38-year-old Swedish sniper who has been fighting in Ukraine for 14 months. Skillt said that pushing a recruit to his mental and physical limit is an effective way to predict how he will react under the pressures of combat.
“We put them through stress tests to induce panic, and we see how they handle themselves,” Skillt said. “We have to see how they react to stress before we send them into combat.”
Along with a small cadre of Azov combat veterans chosen to be instructors, Skillt uses techniques such as burying soldiers alive for up to 20 minutes, pepper spray and water boarding to induce panic in the recruits.
Each class starts with about 50 trainees, and the attrition rate is about 10 percent. The most recent class began with 55 recruits, 50 of whom completed training this past weekend. One of the dropouts was a French paratrooper, Skillt said.
The Spartan Test is a series of physical challenges—including a 10-kilometer run, obstacle course and wrestling match—all of which recruits must complete in under three hours.
Forty soldiers, comprising both recruits and soldiers returned from the front (as well as four Russians) participated in Saturday’s Spartan Test. Only 23 finished.
“All 40 will go to the East,” Skillt said. “But 23 will go a little taller, a little prouder.”
The Spartan Test is a rite of passage for the Azov Regiment. Its completion is not a prerequisite for front-line service, but a source of pride within a unit that eschews traditional military chains of command and calls its organizational structure a “brotherhood.” Those who successfully complete the Spartan Test receive a pin and are eligible for specialized training programs like sniper school.
The Azov Regiment comprises foreign fighters from 19 different countries, including two Americans currently serving in the unit, according to Azov personnel. Because the rules of the most recent cease-fire ban the use of foreign fighters on both sides of the Ukraine conflict, most of Azov’s foreign soldiers have either returned home or left the battlefield to continue serving as trainers.
The Kyiv training camp is in an abandoned industrial park on the city’s outskirts. The owners of the property allow the Azov Regiment to use a section of the facility in exchange for protection against looters. The Azov camp is basic, with instructors living in residential trailers similar in size and shape to the Containerized Housing Units (CHUs) the U.S. military used on bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. And while the camp is within Kyiv’s city limits, the area has been designated a special “tactical area,” allowing for live-fire training under special circumstances.
The makeshift camp was a flurry of activity this past weekend. Girlfriends and other supporters came out to cheer on Spartan Test participants while local volunteers were busy constructing camp facilities. After the event was over, there was a cookout sponsored by civilian supporters of the regiment.
“It helps morale to see this kind of civilian support,” Skillt said.
Skillt is a former sniper in the Swedish military. While he has received media coverage in the past for his alleged far-right political ideology, he said images of Ukrainian protestors being gunned down by snipers in Kyiv during the 2014 Maidan revolution spurred him to fight in Ukraine.
“I don’t hate Russians, only Putin,” he said.
The Azov Regiment has also come under scrutiny due to accusations of promoting Nazi ideology, with many pointing to the similarity of the group’s symbol to the Nazi Wolfsangel.
The regiment has downplayed the claims, calling them Russian propaganda. Skillt acknowledged that some of Azov’s members held far-right political beliefs, but said they were not representative of the group as a whole.
“All of them are willing to die for their country,” Skillt said. “Does their support mean any less if they are nationalistic?”
Skillt joined the Azov Regiment when the unit was still a civilian volunteer battalion with 120 soldiers—only two of whom had any military experience.
“We were a rough bunch,” he added. “At first we just had shotguns and other small arms.”
“In the beginning we only had pistols,” said Ivan Kharkiv, an Azov Regiment soldier in an earlier interview with The Daily Signal. “Now the National Guard gives us all we need.”
“We need weapons,” he added. “But instructors are more important.”
The unit was officially incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard earlier this year, tightening government oversight on combat operations and training. Soldiers now receive a salary and government benefits for their service, and the government has also begun to equip the Azov Regiment with armored fighting vehicles and tanks.
The unit is still mostly autonomous, however. It retains control of its own training program and still independently plans and executes its combat operations in most circumstances. And unlike regular Ukrainian military units, which are heavily composed of draftees, Azov’s soldiers are volunteers.
Skillt said the volunteer mentality has made Azov more effective than most regular army units, despite its equipment and weapons shortfalls, and reliance on civilian donations for funding.
“I think this is how it was in World War II in America,” Skillt said. “Ordinary people who would never have been in the military under normal circumstances are ready to die for their country. These guys would do anything for their brothers; you will never see them running away from a fight.”
The unit currently has about 1,000 soldiers and is training 50 new personnel every two weeks to achieve its desired force strength of 1,200, which is the benchmark required by the Ukrainian government for additional armored equipment delivery.
The unit’s rapid growth has spurred its ad hoc training program, which Skillt was tapped to organize due to his prior military experience and performance on the battlefield.
“We’re not some fancy military school like West Point,” Skillt said. “It’s all beta testing, basically.”
Despite its manpower goals, Azov remains selective about its recruits. Some are turned away for psychological reasons, and with the help of the SBU (Ukraine’s equivalent of the FBI) background checks are completed to weed out potential Russian spies.
One of the key challenges of creating soldiers from scratch in two weeks is educating them with the discipline and knowledge to operate according to the laws of war, as well as within the terms of the Feb. 12 cease-fire. In the opening months of the war, when Azov was not under formal government oversight, the group’s conduct in battle was self-policed according to a “warrior code.”
But a string of separatist executions of captured Azov soldiers has left many on the Ukrainian side with little faith in their chances of survival if taken prisoner. In one instance, Skillt described, separatists forced a captured Azov soldier to call his grandmother on his cell-phone so that she could listen to his execution.
“Now there is no surrender,” Skillt said. “If we are wounded we fight to the death.”
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-21-2015 at 09:02 AM.
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