Can Ukraine trust Trump NOT to provide Russia with intel that will help the Russian war machine? Obviously not
AFP news agency
✔
@AFP
#BREAKING Ukraine blocks popular Russian social networks
NOT a good decision....
Huge source of info on Russia's involvement in Ukraine thanks to locals in Eastern Ukraine sharing info on it.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-16-2017 at 08:07 AM.
Can Ukraine trust Trump NOT to provide Russia with intel that will help the Russian war machine? Obviously not
Donbas is part of a large Russian strategic campaign, which main goal is the new agreement with the West.
http://www.62.ua/article/1655522
ATO HQ: Russian forces seized new positions near Pisky
Jamestown: Moscow Spoils Every Opportunity to Improve Relations With US
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 65
By: Pavel K. Baev
https://jamestown.org/program/moscow...-relations-us/
The Kremlin continues to cling to hopes that it can build a rapport with the Donald Trump administration; those expectations copiously developed at the start of the year, only to succumb to one cold shower after another since then. Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s long-serving foreign policy aide, recently asserted that the “difficult legacy” left by the Barack Obama administration was gradually sorted out despite the resistance of “certain forces in the American establishment” (RIA Novosti, May 12). Yet, he could not refrain from warning about the “limits of Russia’s patience” regarding the diplomatic property “confiscated” by the United States in December 2016 (RBC, May 12). This bitter complaint reflects the depth of frustration in Moscow caused by the accumulation of new complications in Washington that block Putin’s plan for cultivating a beautiful friendship with the inexperienced but open-minded President Trump. This frustration results in Moscow pushing too hard for every opening in the frozen relations and in spoiling the few opportunities that come up.
Small gestures often matter a lot in a high-level diplomatic dance. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was obviously elated when his meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was followed by a meeting with Trump in the White House (Kommersant, May 10). But the Russians’ release of the photo of Trump and Lavrov smiling together at the Oval Office with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak was definitely a mistake (Newsru.com, May 11). Kislyak is implicated in several scandals involving key members of Trump’s election team, and investigations into these connections by the US Congress inevitably generate demands to punish Russia (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 11). Trump’s abrupt firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey overshadowed the moderately positive effect of Lavrov’s talks and was invariably interpreted in Moscow as triggered by the investigations of Russia’s interference in the elections (Novaya Gazeta, May 11). Mainstream commentators argue that the US president has launched a counter-offensive against “Russophobes” in his own administration, but some also point to his sensitivity to “image risks” related to Russia (RIA Novosti, May 12).
The theme Moscow seeks to establish as the central avenue for possible cooperation is the fight against the Islamic State (IS). Russia is trying to sell the US on its recent initiative to establish four “de-escalation zones” in Syria (see EDM, May 4). The plan is being presented as a step forward in bringing the disastrous civil war to an end, but it would ensure the continuation of Bashar al-Assad’s regime (Kommersant, May 6). Israel has already firmly rejected the Syrian de-escalation zones idea: it has asserted its intention to strike Hezbollah in every location where it poses a threat (Rosbalt.ru, May 11). For the Trump administration, meanwhile, the value of this Russian initiative for achieving Washington’s priority goal of defeating the IS in Raqqa is far from obvious (Gazeta.ru, May 12). The main problem is in fact Turkey, which is adamantly against supplying heavy weapons to the Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG), which are leading the offensive on Raqqa (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 12). Moscow is spinning its own intrigue with the Kurds (see EDM, February 17, 2016; February 15, 2017; April 25, 2017) but gives greater priority to restoring strategic relations with Ankara (Carnegie.ru, May 2). Nonetheless, Lavrov’s enticements are undercut by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s firm statement on confronting Russia’s “disruptive behavior” in Syria (Moskovsky Komsomolets, May 12).
McMaster, who is unequivocally defined in Moscow as an adversary, was actually speaking not only about Syria, but about Ukraine as well. On this latter issue, scant common ground can be found. Immediately after Lavrov’s visit, Trump met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin and called for making peace; the Kremlin refused to comment on the White House’s appeal (RBC, May 12). Lavrov and Dmitri Peskov, President Putin’s press secretary, seek to downplay the disagreements with the US regarding sanctions and the implementation of the Minsk commitments on Ukraine (RIA Novosti, May 11). This bracketing-out of the core problem can take the US-Russian rapprochement only so far, particularly as Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has called for increasing pressure on Russia to overcome the deadlock in Donbas (Newsru.com, May 12). As if a reminder about Moscow’s tough stance on the Ukraine conflict was needed, a US Navy P-8A Poseidon was aggressively intercepted by a Russian Su-30 fighter over the Black Sea, on May 9 (RIA Novosti, May 12).
An opportunity to prove that Russia could be a valuable partner for the US opened with the escalation of the North Korean crisis—but was inexplicably missed (see EDM, March 28). Russia was taken aback by the swift establishment of US-China cooperation, which became the main channel for managing this crisis. Moscow now hopes that the election of a more détente-leaning president in Seoul will deny Washington the means for applying military pressure on Pyongyang (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 11). Putin traveled to Beijing on May 14–15 to partake in the “One Belt One Road” forum with the hope that a short meeting with President Xi Jinping would re-energize the strategic partnership and remind China about Russia’s unwavering support (Kommersant, May 12). His speech about building a broad Eurasian partnership as a “civilizational project” omitted any mention of the US, while effusively praising Chinese contributions (Kremlin.ru, May 14). It is unclear how his appeal to abandon “militant rhetoric” and refrain from “mutual recrimination” might help in responding to yet another missile test by North Korea, alarmingly close to Vladivostok (Gazeta.ru, May 14).
Putin is clearly investing effort in upholding his international profile, meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But the yield on these investments is low and cannot compensate for such a major setback as the defeat of Russia’s favored candidate in the French presidential elections. His inability to make even a minor difference in the Korean crisis and his dependence upon the “brotherhood in arms” with Iran in the Syrian war will hardly contribute anything positive to Putin’s upcoming meeting with Trump, scheduled for the July G20 summit, in Hamburg. By then, the investigations into Russia’s interference in the US elections could take many new turns, and Putin may run out of diplomatic maneuvers designed to compensate for the damning evidence. Hopes to take advantage of Trump’s lack of experience and principles might finally dissipate and turn into anxiety that Washington will seek to punish Moscow.
Last edited by Azor; 05-16-2017 at 07:30 PM.
While the article reads nicely and is footnoted and quotes all...they missed the key answer facing them directly so to say....Originally Posted by Azor
Putin does not want to formalize anything with the US....he actually views the US is at war with the Russian state and wants the demise of Russia...via regime change.....Putin and his inner circle fully believe this and have stated such since 2006...
Besides Putin views the US has the main driven behind neo liberalism so why provide "the enemy" with anything that looks like a FP win in Russian US relations....
The recent Russian PR photo op in the WH was the example of a well thought through Russian info war success...
FOLLOWED by a US President basically committing treason when he revealed CODE WORD intel to the Russians in full listening range of a TASS reporter...
Heavy Russian shelling's and ground fighting from yesterday continues into this morning...still heavy and all along the Minsk ceasefire line....
Report of active MLRS in the North of Makiivka
VIDEO: Shelling yesterday near #Avdiivka
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCVDU_WFtBE#
Fierce fighting at #Spartak, N-W #Donetsk this morning: pic.twitter.com/WfVOYAZMzS
https://twitter.com/666_mancer/statu...19040/video/1#
http://liveuamap.com/en/2017/17-may-...-this-morning#
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-17-2017 at 09:07 AM.
Reference Russian shot down of MH17....
Novaya Gazeta publishes video appeal by Serhiy Tiunov for his former friend "Khmuryi" to get in contact over #MH17.
http://bit.ly/2rpI44I
BREAKING Putin's PA Vladislav Surkov met with Rinat Akhmetov in Donetsk on Feb 12th 2014. It was peak of Maidan.
https://twitter.com/lb_ua/status/864762928607764480#
KEY meeting....Girkin's coming in from Crimea was not some strange "accident"...and his starting the so called "separatist movement" is fake news....
Akhmetiov is a big supporter of the Russian mercenaries in eastern Ukraine...
Heavy artillery firing from #Makeevka. Incoming fire in #Avdeevka.
I forgot that you are the one and only Kremlinologist, and that all others including Baev, Galeotti and Goble are only correct when and where they concur with your opinions.
How Russia's invasion started: Satellite vid showing Russian army camps & artillery shelling Ukr positions
https://youtu.be/GVWPTqoVuks
#
Hard to say what triggered the heavy fighting this evening. Possible that it's related to recent seized positions by Russians near #Pisky.
Leer-3 in occupied-Donbas
https://informnapalm.org/en/russian-leer-3wf-donbas/#
Spyware "trap doors" can allow certain apps to function even if a cell phone is in off or airplane mode (Unknown if RU GRU use these)
Active Ukrainian troops should A) Turn their phone off B) Remove the SIM card. Better still, C) Leave it off far away from the frontline
Russian GRU electronic warfare geolocation specialists can locate a cell phone's digital footprint to accuracy of within 10-50 meters
Powered down or powered off? Cell phones continue to generate location metadata in both sleep (hibernation) & standby modes
GRU also use virtual towers (cell site simulators) that impersonate cell phone towers that a phone locks onto without user's knowledge
Russian airborne SIGINT platforms have electronics pods that scan large areas for metadata from wireless routers, computers, phones etc
Also possible to relay electromagnetic signatures of cell phones to guided missile platforms that home in on device by signal strength
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-17-2017 at 06:33 PM.
20:39 #Avdiivka: Heavy artillery is working, rolls across the whole town, but I guess the positions are 5-7km away fr/town. Hits not heard
21:15 #Yasynuvata: loud as hell
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-17-2017 at 06:28 PM.
Ukraine Survives Without Coal From Russia-Controlled Donbas
Jamestown Foundation: https://jamestown.org/program/ukrain...rolled-donbas/
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 67
By: Oleg Varfolomeyev
In spite of a blockade on shipments of anthracite coal from occupied Donbas to Ukrainian thermal power plants (TPPs) since this past winter, the country has thus far avoided blackouts. Moreover, Ukraine has managed to increase power generation by 2.1 percent year over year in January–April (Interfax-Ukraine, May 13). This was mainly thanks to heavy reliance on nuclear energy, but warm weather and lower consumption by industry also helped. Ahead of the next heating season, which kicks off in October, Ukraine is going to replace Donbas-sourced anthracite with imported coal, while also converting its thermal power plants to use alternative fuels.
Ukrainian nationalists began to block roads leading into the Moscow-backed so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) at the end of January, protesting against what they saw as profiteering from the war by Ukrainian tycoon Rinat Akhmetov at consumers’ expense. They claimed that the government agreed to pay for coal extracted at Akhmetov’s mines, located in the Russia-controlled areas, according to the so-called Rotterdam-plus formula, so it was as expensive as if it were shipped from the Netherlands (Zn.ua, February 17). Because of the blockade, Ukrainian TPPs were left without anthracite from the DPR and LPR territories, and the government warned in February that almost a third of Ukraine would face blackouts by April. Still, the protests gained momentum, and in March Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko banned all cargo traffic with the occupied eastern territories. As a result, five out of the six Ukrainian TPPs that used to burn anthracite stopped operations in April.
But even with many of its TPPs offline, Ukraine was not plunged into blackouts, thanks to a combination of factors. February and March were unusually warm, so less coal was used for heating. Industry also consumed less power because the Donbas blockade not only affected power generation, but also subdued output in metallurgy and the engineering industry. For example, after growth last year and in January, metal production plunged year on year by 4.3 percent in February and by 2.2 percent in March (Ukrstat.gov.ua, accessed on May 16). Also, thermal power was partially replaced with nuclear power, so the share of nuclear plants in power generation jumped from 52 percent in 2016 to 57 percent in January–April (Interfax, May 15). However, Ukraine cannot continue to heavily rely on nuclear reactors, as it will be necessary to shut them down for scheduled maintenance later in the year. Meanwhile, domestic power consumption is likely to grow, as the economy continues to expand.
To remedy this situation, Ukraine plans to increase coal imports, while adapting its TPPs to use lower-quality G-grade coal, which is extracted outside the occupied areas and can be easily imported, in place of anthracite. The Ukrainian government does not want to increase coal imports from Russia on principle, because of the war, so Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman suggested buying coal from as far as the United States, South Africa and Australia (Ukrinform.ua, March 21). However, that might be prohibitively expensive, given the transportation costs involved.
On April 25, Sakhnakhshiri, a company based across the Black Sea in Georgia, won a tender to deliver 700,000 tons of coal to Ukraine to the state company Tsentrenergo, which runs two of the five power plants stopped due to the coal shortage. Sakhnakhshiri is to deliver coal to Ukraine in May–December. However, there have been doubts about this supplier, showing the pitfalls Ukraine may encounter while looking for a replacement to Donbas anthracite. Sakhnakhshiri faced only one competitor in the tender, a little-known firm registered in Poland but linked to a Ukrainian citizen, whose bid price was only $38 higher than Sakhnakhshiri’s. So there was little or no competition (Liga.net, April 26). Furthermore, Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili said on his Facebook page on April 27 that Sakhnakhshiri might end up buying coal for Ukraine in Russia, and he questioned the transparency of the deal. Georgia, said Saakashvili, could not produce so much coal of the quality asked by Tsentrenergo. Coal bought from Russia may turn out to be coal that was originally shipped to Russia by the DPR-LPR authorities.
Meanwhile, both the government and Akhmetov’s DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, are working to convert their TPPs to G-grade coal. DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko said in an interview that one of his firm’s TPPs was currently being converted, and conversion of another plant was already planned (Epravda.com.ua, April 27). DTEK also began to buy anthracite from South Africa (Dtek.com, April 13). Energy Minister Ihor Nasalyk told a recent government meeting that power units at two of Tsentrenergo’s TPPs would use G-grade coal by the end of 2017. Along with the construction of new power transmission lines from nuclear plants and new hydropower units, this should allow Ukraine to replace about four million tons of Donbas anthracite in power generation, Kyiv hopes (Mpe.kmu.gov.ua, April 26).
Ukraine has learned to survive without natural gas purchases from Russia’s Gazprom. This year, it is learning to live without coal from the areas controlled by Russia-backed militants. This is vital for Ukraine’s highly energy-dependent industry, which is expected to increase production this year, supporting GDP growth for the second year in a row, after deep recession in 2014–2015.
Supports the following fact....coal being purchased from an proRussian leaning oligarch.....was being priced at 300 USDs per metric ton....coal now say from South Africa was recently purchased at 85 USDs...per metric ton..
A very good savings...
Interestingly enough...China has now offered Ukraine assistance in modernizing their coal industry...this is the backdoor into the Ukrainian agriculture ie grain industry...
Deportation, genocide, and Russia’s war against Crimean Tatars
http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/05/1...imean-tatars/#
5 WIA amid 52 enemy attacks by Russia's troops in Donbas over the last day.
Today we mourn the victims of criminal deportation of Crimean Tatars ordered by Stalin's Regime in 1944
Sources for Akhmetov's prices? What of the shipping costs from South Africa, the U.S., etc.?
Source..Ukrainian government four weeks ago....RSA price was landed in Odessa costs of 85 per ton....
The 300 price was overvalued as that was the cut the mercenaries took for themselves.....but it had to be still paid and the Ukrainian government knows this....
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