Prosvirnin tells @tvrain that the police raid of his home is part of the Kremlin’s new strategy to “cram” Novorossiya back into Ukraine.
???????????
The BBC in Kiev
Post 2356When the Maidan and then Crimea episodes happened the BBC (all parts) had a large team based in Kiev, some expats, some locals. Those numbers may have dropped since then, due mainly to budget cuts and concerns over health & safety.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
davidbfpo
So was the Russian FM lying again as he had often in the past year????
Russia FM Lavrov said DNR, LNR ready to hold elections Oct 25 per #Ukraine law, but DNR leaders now say elections Oct 18 per own rules
Many skeptical about Lavrov's statement. #Russia now has chance to use influence with DNR, LNR & show it's not just empty posturing.
Kremlin approves fake elections in occupied Donbas. Minsk 2 is dead! https://twitter.com/ukrpravda_news/s...15060736499712 …
AND Obama's strategic strategy for the Ukraine has worked wonders again....??
A very interesting idea that one never hears much about from US media sources and or the MSM.
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/09/1...led-by-russia/
2015/09/17 • Analysis & Opinion
How the UN was fooled by Russia
Article by: Oleksandr Merezhko
At the UN Security Council Russia, represented by Mr. Churkin, while keeping a self-important air, in fact taunts Ukraine, blocking all important decisions by using the right of veto (for example, after the annexation of Crimea). The discussion on launching a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine will be obstructed in the similar fashion. It is not possible to exclude Russia from participation in the discussion and voting on Ukrainian issues on the ground of being a transgressor in the conflict, and Russia cannot be expelled from the Security Council – the UN Charter will not allow it. But there is one judicial mechanism that Ukraine can use to negate Russia’s veto power.
In 1991 Russia declared itself a successor-state of the USSR, and took its place in the UN Security Council. But, legally speaking, all former Soviet republics which are now independent states could be regarded as the USSR’s successor-states.
The difference between the succession and continuation is that in the first case occurs a transfer of rights and obligations from one state to another state. In the second case – we are talking about the state which changed, for example, its name, some borders, political system, but at the same time retained its identity.
Take Ukraine as the case. Ukraine exists as a state since the year of 1917. It changed the name: used to be Ukrainian Soviet Republic, now Ukraine. In the course of time its constitution, political order, some borders changed. But the core identity remained intact.
In Russia’s case the opposite is true. USSR and Russia are two different subjects of international law. In 1991 the USSR had ceased to exist. This is why logically and legally Russia cannot be a ‘continuation’ of the state that ceased to exist as a geopolitical entity. By taking place of the USSR in the UN Security Council Russia grossly violated the UN Charter. If one will read the relevant documents, only USSR is referenced there, and not a word about Russia.
According to the UN Charter, Russia should have appealed to the UN General Assembly and Security Council to start the membership application from scratch. For example, Serbia was forced to take this path after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Even though Serbia was a part of the Federation of Soviet Republics of Yugoslavia (FSRY), no one took it for the whole FSRY. It did not happen in the case of Russia.
In 1991 the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – an aggregate of former Soviet Republics – approved the resolution to support Russia’s bid to take over the USSR’s membership in the UN, including the membership in the Security Council and other international organizations. Then Yeltsyn simply sent the UN a notification that ‘we are just, you know, taking the USSR’s place’. No one protested (this is a separate question – why), and this can be the only justification for Russia’s objections, should its membership in the UN be declared unlawful.
There is a legal subtlety that annuls the validity of the above mentioned CIS resolution. An agreement of CIS heads of states is a political decision, not an international treaty. It must not contradict the UN Charter (article 103), and cannot be regarded as a legal ground for Russia’s membership in the UN.
Some Russian authors also concede that the CIS decision was a political one, but argue that at the time that was an only possible solution, that someone had to take over the USSR’s responsibilities etc. But those are not legal arguments. The UN Charter was violated, and this is the most important consideration.
This is why now Ukraine can and should rescind its decision to support Russian membership in the UN as the successor of the USSR, and the situation should return to the ‘status quo ante’. E.g. the question on who should take the place of the USSR in the United Nation should be re-opened. This, by the way, should also open path to the Security Council’s reform.
In short, if our diplomats will show the willpower, decisiveness, methodical approach, and see this matter to its end, we will be able to restore the international rule of law, and kick out the aggressor from the UN. It will give a huge relief to the other nations, who are also harassed by this impostor.
New Russian MLRS weapons system being used in their major exercise----
Grad-K's (2B26) at Ashuluk range during 'Tsentr-2015'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ETyKpPa-j0 … pic.twitter.com/zEw5A4ZPk4
Appears that when a Russian sub is on the move it is always followed by a sub rescue vessel---do they not trust their own ship builders or their naval captains OR both?????
Russian Navy Submarine Rescue Ship Pioneer MOSKVYY Cls Sayaniy followed Novorossiysk up the @Bosphorus pic.twitter.com/km3GDpe2Wp
Latest batch of Project 636 submarines, like Novorossiysk, are to be based in the Black Sea. Russian made batteries / pic.twitter.com/oSmWIHVyVO
russiannavy new addition to #blacksea fleet
pic.twitter.com/1lTNK2cL8i
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 02:35 PM.
Number of Russian naval units passing the Bosphorus have virtually doubled in the last four weeks.
Frequency of passages nearly doubled during the last 4 weeks pic.twitter.com/kEN5pXtaW0
????????????--why the sudden upturn
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/a...ay/530791.html
Russia Using Syria to Overshadow Ukraine, Analysts Say
By Ivan Nechepurenko
Sep. 15 2015 20:11
The recent flood of media reports claiming that Russia is boosting its military presence in Syria has detracted international attention from the Ukraine conflict in what analysts say is likely a deliberate ploy on Moscow's part.
This month, for the first time since 2013, the topic of Russia-Syria has firmly overshadowed that of Russia-Ukraine both on Google Trends and Twitter activity graphs.
Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after mass protests led to a change of government in Kiev, Russia-West relations have been dominated by the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine and the armed conflict in its east.
Western countries have imposed sanctions against Russia and accused it of supporting separatists fighting government troops in eastern Ukraine. Russia insists a peace process in Ukraine can only be achieved if the Kiev government engages with representatives of the self-proclaimed people's republics in the war-torn east.
But as a sweeping refugee crisis has hit Europe, followed by reports that Russia has been establishing a forward operating base in the Syrian Alawite stronghold of Latakia, the Ukraine crisis has faded into the background.
“Syria is a bigger problem for the West, so Russia can use the uproar about it to camouflage what is happening in Ukraine,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst.
“It is clear that for the Kremlin, there isn't a good exit strategy from the conflict [in Ukraine's east]. Syria is a good way to distract attention while the Ukraine situation is frozen,” Oreshkin said in a phone interview.
Changing Trends
On Monday, 16,627 tweets were posted on the topic of Russia and Syria, while only 1,074 tweets mentioned Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. In previous months, that picture was drastically different, with Ukraine well above Syria in Twitter coverage. The data was acquired via the Topsy Twitter search and analysis service on Tuesday.
Google Trends, a tool that measures the level of public interest in a topic by analyzing search requests, shows a similar picture: So far this month, interest in Russia-Syria has far surpassed interest in Russia-Ukraine.
Looking at media coverage, the same trend becomes evident. While there were 102,000 news stories on the topic of Russia and Ukraine in the past month, 690,000 stories were devoted to the subject of Russia and Syria in the same period, according to data from the Google News search engine.
Russia's pro-Kremlin media has also been shifting its attention away from Ukraine and focusing on Syria, the BBC reported last week.
Two prominent war reporters who were posted in eastern Ukraine have been transferred to Syria: Semyon Pegov, who works for LifeNews, a private TV station widely believed to have links to the security services, and Yevgeny Poddubny, who works for the state-run VGTRK radio and television company, the BBC reported.
“The Kremlin does not want to talk about the issues that the West is worried about, such as Ukraine. So it is looking for something that could change the agenda,” said Vasily Gatov, a visiting fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
“So there is an attempt to divert public attention away from Ukraine — Syria is just one of the options,” he said in written comments.
Developments on the Ground
Military activity in the rebel-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine has been substantially downscaled in direct correlation to public interest and media coverage this month.
“We know where Russians and their proxies are still hiding weapons, their tanks and their artillery. For now the order has been given to cease fire, but for how long?” Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko told The Independent newspaper in an interview published Sunday.
Speaking to a number of Ukrainian television stations on Sunday, Poroshenko said that not a single breach of the cease-fire had been recorded in the past two days.
“Ukraine has not had this for 18 long months,” said Poroshenko in the interview, broadcast by 112 Ukraine TV.
On Monday, Poroshenko ordered the postponement of a new wave of army mobilization after the cease-fire in the country's east continued to hold, TASS news agency reported.
Uncertainty Mounts in Syria
Regarding Syria, on the other hand, a slew of reports continue to allege an increased Russian military presence. Two unidentified U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday that Russia has positioned about half a dozen tanks at an airfield in Syria.
“We have seen movement of people and things that would indicate that they plan to use that base there, south of Latakia, as a forward air operating base,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told journalists at a news briefing, as quoted by Reuters.
Russia has insisted that nothing has changed in its military assistance to Syria, which it says is vital to the fight against the Islamic State and other extremist groups in the country. Speaking in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin reiterated that stance.
"We are supporting the government of Syria in the fight against terrorist aggression, [we] are offering and will continue to offer it necessary military-technical assistance," Putin said in a speech at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
"Without the active participation of the Syrian authorities and the military, it would be impossible to expel the terrorists from that country and the region as a whole, and to protect the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Syrian people from destruction," he said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's website.
Earlier this month, Putin said that Russia was “looking at various options,” when asked if there was any chance of Russian troops participating in a military operation in Syria as part of a coalition.
Russia is revamping the Latakia airfield in order to make sure it can receive flights from Russia carrying weapons bought by Syria and humanitarian aid, an unidentified representative of the Defense Ministry was cited as telling the Vedomosti business daily Monday.
Syria has already served as an avenue for cooperation between Russia and the West. In 2013, Putin brokered a deal for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons that prevented U.S. military involvement in the conflict.
The effort was short-lived, however, as it was followed by the Ukraine crisis that erupted just a few months later.
The heartburn coming from the social media side is that all of the BBC reporters first went into occupied zone then called the fighting a "civil war" which they still do and then leave back to Moscow via the occupied zone very rarely coming into Kyiv nor have they done much reporting from the UAF side.
And there is not a office at all in Kyiv when other western media have outlets there.
Secondly two articles went sent into the 24 hour news cycle critical of the Ukraine even in the face of social media pointing out they were Russian fakes and BBC did not retract them.
Lastly there is a current feeling that with the massive Russian clamp down on any reporting out of Moscow that does not reflect what Russia wants one will lose their residence visas--there is some truth to that assumption.
BBC has an interesting question to answer--why are they not in Kyiv as a major news outlet OR will that presence be viewed by Moscow as anti Russian thus revoking their visas??
This is an example of one of the BBC reporters comments in his article----and it is not slanted???
BBCNews ... and dismisses reports of Russian Army troops in Ukraine as "allegations" which are "denied by Moscow" ...
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 07:04 PM.
Soviet Gen.I.#Chernyakhovsky is executioner ofPL National #Army: pic.twitter.com/B1sZUmkrJA
Troops from Kazakhstan and Nicaragua(!) taking part in Exercise Tsentr-2015 http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20150914/1249995275.html …
Photo of Russian military police commandos at strategic exercise Center-2015
Read more at: http://defence-blog.com/army/photo-o...nter-2015.html … pic.twitter.com/8lIbkg4xHA
TASS: #Russia to test automated electronic warfare force control system in Center-2015 drills - http://tass.ru/en/defense/821451 …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 06:53 PM.
Abroskin: This evening militants shelled one of the neighborhoods of Krasnohorivka from a tank
https://m.facebook.com/Vyacheslav.Ab...01027266856609 …
Lithuania issues #Russia dip note for interrupting navigation in her exclusive econ zone http://m.baltictimes.com/article/jcms/id/135786/ … pic.twitter.com/TvjpouZSDp
Russia still absolutely not fulfilling Minsk 2----
Amb Baer: There have been massive restrictions on @OSCE_SMM access in separatist-controlled territory in #Ukraine http://goo.gl/mMGJTF
Air Force Freak
@AlRFORCEFREAK RUAF SW bomber voice net active. At least one bomber in contact with ground control.
c/s STUPEN acting as relay for c/s TABLITSA and c/s 63917
This is an interesting development--there has been recently no such activity by the Russian AF.
https://en.informnapalm.org/drilling...-paratroopers/
Drilling Rigs of ‘Chernomornaftogaz’ Were Captured By The Russian 104th Regiment’s Paratroopers
Another OSINT investigation discloses evidences that the servicemen of the 104th paratrooper regiment of the 76th paratrooper division of Russia’s airborne forces took part in the capturing the ‘Chernomornaftogaz’ company.
It will be recalled that Yuriy Prodan, the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine, stated in the exclusive interview for UNIAN that the drilling rigs were taken under the control of ‘men in green’ armed with AKs. The Ukrainian information agencies used to call them as ‘separatists’ (in Russian).
The fact that the ‘separatists’ belonged to the regular forces of the neighboring aggressor-state was realized pretty fast. But the information about the exact involved military units has not been made public until today.
Recalling the eighteen months old event is caused by finding the relevant photo proofs and information during our new OSINT investigation.
A profile of Ivan Kozlov, a ‘veteran of the Crimea annexation’, was found in the VK social network (photo album archive, contact list archive). As for 2014, he was a serviceman of the 104th paratrooper regiment of the 76th paratrooper division of Russia’s airborne forces. Kozlov’s album has a set of pictures uploaded in December, 2014, where the operation of capturing the Crimea (including the ‘Chernomornaftogaz’ infrastructure) is shown.
Here are the screenshots with the facts which led us to the conclusions we have made.
Kozlov’s album also stores the photo where he poses with Aleksandr Osipov, his brother-in-arms from the 104th regiment, who died in Donbas in August of 2014, carrying out criminal orders issued by his Russian command. Osipov’s recon unit got under the Ukrainian artillery shelling. He was buried without pathos and honors near Pskov, in Vybuty village cemetery on August 24, 2014 (reported by LJ ‘Potsreotizm’ on September 11, 2014).
Reference information:
• the 104th guards paratrooper regiment (military unit No. 32515) is a part of the 76th guards paratrooper division, the unit whose ‘Ukrainian assignments’ have been disclosed by InformNapalm informational scouts for several times. The home base of this military unit is the village of Cherekha, Pskov Oblast, Russia. As you can remember, 2 servicemen from this unit were captured by the Ukrainian forces in the end of August, 2014.
•‘Chernomornaftogaz’ is a part of the National Joint Stock Company ‘Naftogaz of Ukraine’ and specializes in petroleum and natural gas exploration in the areas of Black and Azov seas. On the Crimea annexation moment ‘Chernomornaftogaz’ owned 17 production fields (11 gas fields, 4 gas condensate fields and 2 oil fields). The total ultimate reserves of all the fields are estimated as: gas – 58.56 billion cub. m, gas condensate – 1.231 million tonnes, oil – 2.53 million tonnes.
Risks in the Baltics are increasing: Lithuania Issues Note to Russia Over Baltic Sea Conduct http://www.baltictimes.com/lithuania...e21im4.twitter …
BRKNG Today: #BBC blocks me asking WHY they call Russian aggression "the civil war in Ukraine"
FREEDOM of speech?
Yes. A Russian tank in Donetsk tonight.
@NDRSKG @el_roosevelt pic.twitter.com/So9gDpvHXs
Identification markings ae painted over
21:47 #Butovka mine area @rechnikato 1/2hr ago there was shooting, 5 RPG shots and something boomed strongly. Now quiet
#Donetsk Abakumova @hyeva_maryinka [fb?]
At 19:00 it ceased, smoke on the horizon. Since 19:10 it started over
#Donetsk Abakumova @hyeva_maryinka [fb?] "Since 16:00 rumble is audible towards #Staromykhaylivka, #Borysivka. "
19:37 #Donetsk @papandopoolo Wow, BMPs, SPGs and tanks, rehearsal indeed on Artema St
19:08 #Donetsk @papandopoolo "In Lenina Sq kind of parade rehearsal, Artema St is cordoned off, what will we celebrate?"
#Donetsk @666_mancer [vk]
18:18 Krasniy_Horodok booms to the utmost
18:41 Svobody Sq: loud rumble too. At us?
- Fr/us&one hears them flying
10:25am #Izvaryne @MedicNiko About 40 'aid convoy' trucks passed. Mobile communication down
#Donetsk, Lenina Sq: RUS tanks, another parade rehearsal? @666_mancer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRGOdIIJzwU …
Militants shell Krasnohorivka outskirts
http://www.unian.info/war/1127058-mi...outskirts.html … pic.twitter.com/u8Vb5KgETB
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 07:42 PM.
VIDEO #Ukraine developed rapid AK gun magazine loader "Podavach" in operation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkVYvlHHC4 …
pic.twitter.com/4wXccwauX8
U.S. Mission to OSCE ✔ @usosce
We look to #Russia to condemn misguided separatist statement about staging sham polls on Oct. 18 - http://1.usa.gov/1P3DuhG
Rally with fake IPDs took place in #Kyiv. http://novosti.dn.ua/details/259820/ Isn't there anyone happier to fake? pic.twitter.com/Hz1erBCmZK
Lot's of #Russia|n equippment in #Donetsk tonight: https://twitter.com/666_mancer/statu...09052425748482 …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 08:42 PM.
23:25 #Avdiivka @tiamat007 Intermittent small arms and heavier weapons shooting sounds in #Butovka shaft direction at 23:00 & 23:15
Donetsk Abakumova @hyeva_maryinka As of 21:00 it ceased, just seldom far automatic arms' bursts
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 09-17-2015 at 08:58 PM.
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