NATO Officials Say Russian 'Fake News' Seeks to Undermine Alliance
http://ow.ly/gKf43098J4J
NATO Officials Say Russian 'Fake News' Seeks to Undermine Alliance
http://ow.ly/gKf43098J4J
Azor....I keep going back to the ever increasing Russian slow stepped economic collapse as a major need to get the sanctions lifted....
Russians are eating less meat, fish, sugar and dairy now, with food prices having doubled.
http://nyti.ms/2kAgwtV
They are now back to about the Soviet 1975-78 economic range....
Feb20 Lavrov's Ukraine ceasefire within
X-mas ceasefire within
Sep01 ceasefire within
Minsk2 ceasefire within
Minsk1
Russian neo-imperial military expansion.
Russia illegally occupies these regions.
NOW go back and overlay these occupations and notice just how if one draws a connecting line to them it reestablished the old Soviet Union borders...
A Comparative Guide to Russia's Use of Force Measure
https://warontherocks.com/2017/02/a-...e-invade-once/
Selected Excerpts:
Look at the battlefields in Ukraine and you will find what was essentially an unreformed 1980s Soviet Army (Ukraine’s), engaged in artillery and tank duels against a proxy force that Russia supplied with comparable 1980s Soviet equipment. Indeed, in the early phases of the conflict when Moscow sought to retain the veneer of deniability, they supplied only that which could be plausibly captured from Ukrainian forces. Actual Russian forces use capabilities that are head and shoulders above what Ukraine is able to field. The Russian approach has been to supplement proxy forces with regular units as necessary, and to the minimum extent possible...
...In Ukraine, the Kremlin was seemingly attempting the ridiculous, trying to use a tiny amount of force to regain a say over the strategic orientation of the largest country in Europe. Russia lacked the force, the money, and the military experience to attempt any large-scale operation. Yet, they coerced Kiev into giving up Crimea without a fight. Later, Moscow got Kiev to sign the Minsk agreements which locked them into Russian terms for settling the conflict. Russia did even better with Washington, often convincing prominent Hill leaders like Sen. John McCain and the op-ed commentariat that a large military campaign was in the offing to establish a “land bridge to Crimea.”
Every few months, the newspapers still ring with expectations of a Russian offensive. Like Pavlovian conditioning, Russia barely has to move a few units around and watch a Western media fueled panic. Moscow has trained the West so well that if every Russian soldier were to depart Ukraine, or Syria, there would be immediate concern that it is only to invade elsewhere (perhaps a “land bridge to Kaliningrad”).
It would be fair to observe that since the signing of Minsk II, the politics have bogged down, and Russia’s coercive credibility has slowly faded. Ukraine’s confidence on the battlefield seems to support this perspective. Nobody has established sufficient leverage over anyone in that conflict. Moscow appears to be playing a waiting game in Ukraine, eroding Kiev’s support among Western countries. Still, if Minsk II continues to go nowhere, it is quite probable that Russia will reapply a brief but hefty dose of force this year...
Dueas and Kofman: Options for Ukraine
I have attempted to discuss the options for Ukraine to deal with the Russian invasion, based upon the suggestions put forth by Dueas in Counterinsurgency Options for Ukraine
and Kofman's analysis of Russian policy in A Comparative Guide to Russia's Use of Force: Measure Twice, Invade Once.
Firstly, it is crucial for Kiev to fight for support in the West, namely the European Union, NATO and the United States. This means that the sanctions must remain.
Secondly, Kiev needs to make Putin feel threatened, and what truly scares him is peaceful popular revolts (as in East Germany in 1989, Russia in 1991 and Ukraine in 2013-2014) and guerrilla warfare (as in Afghanistan from 1979-1989 and Chechnya from 1994-1995).
How to accomplish this?
- Reach out to pro-Ukrainian Ukrainian citizens in both Donbas and refugees from the war in Russia in order to provoke popular demonstrations against the war and to develop guerrilla networks in both. According to the Russian government, there are 2.7 million Ukrainian refugees in Russia, which is a large enough pool to raise a resistance movement of 30,000 and an active guerrilla force of at least 2,000, which should be able to inflict Russian deaths on the order of over 200 per year.
- Allow for anti-Kadyrov Chechens to have sanctuary in Ukraine and use it as a base for organizing armed resistance to his faction.
- Allow Crimean Tatars to use Ukraine as a base for armed resistance in Crimea.
- Allow Ukraine to become a sanctuary for non-ethnic Russian separatists from the Russian Federation, as well as Russian dissidents.
- Focus on capturing Russian soldiers and operatives and concentrating media attention on them (in addition to Russian KIAs) for distribution into Russia.
Third, Kiev needs to find a mechanism for accepting the loss of Crimea, which it won't get back, without accepting Russia's annexation. Perhaps Kiev can suggest a UN or OSCE-monitored referendum in Crimea on being part of Russia, with Russian forces confined to their barracks.
Lastly, Kiev requires socio-economic and political restructuring in order to allow for free, transparent and fair commerce and democracy to flourish. Kiev needs both the financial and structural aspects of a "Marshall Plan", but I doubt that the European Union will be in a position to provide this necessary support, either on the financial or advisory side.
Therefore, Kiev needs to establish separate security and economic ties with Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states and possibly Hungary. This could be an Intermarium that is separate from the EU and NATO, and while it would not provide a separate free trade area or collective defense area, it would provide a bridge for Ukraine to the West.
Moreover, the benefit to the NATO/EU members of establishing an Intermarium with Ukraine would be that the EU and NATO seems less and less interested in its eastern flank, and in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years, there may be no probability that Italy, Spain, France or Germany would come to the rescue of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland.
I think that you are exaggerating the economic damage. Russia remains well ahead of where it was during the Yeltsin era. Peak to trough, it looks bad, but Russia is doing relatively well, albeit at a lower level than the 2009-2014 period.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Certainly, Russia is more vulnerable to commodity price fluctuations, given that 60% of its exports are commodities compared to 47% for Canada. Both are roughly equally dependent upon exports for their GDP (30%), however, the European Union is far more dependent upon exports (43%), especially Germany (47%).
Azor.....as probably the only commenter here at SWJ who has experienced...travelled and camped the former Soviet Union in the early 70s at the height of the Cold War Era.....rancid butter was a luxury item...bread while and when available a luxury item and eggs were almost existent the society held together due to the images of WW2 and their struggle to survive from then.....supported by a heck of a lot of propaganda....
BUT today is far different they know what the West has for a living standard...they have traveled it as tourists....they know what products are available....and on and on and on....
Old saying tourism educates comes to mind....
I could have posted for the last two years pictures of the Russian roads that make the old US settler trails of the 1800s with their horses and wagons look like modern three lane super highways...compared to what is now in Russia...
When though even propaganda cannot eliminate the pictures of the living conditions in the West as compared to those known in current Russia...combined with ever increasing wild strikes due to no salaries being paid for months....increasing fuel costs...increasing food costs reaching level of the 1980s....and their realizing that the sanctions will remain in place ...it is starting to wear on the common Russian Six Pack Joe on the street.....lemons are lemons and when they increase in price by 500% or become rare then they take notice...
When they see that over 300 Russian banks have failed largely due to oligarch corruption and Ponzi schemes and their savings in those banks are gone...and the list goes on..and the exchange rate is still relatively high for those Euros and USDs they need for travelling.
Russians are a strange lot....there is a large Russian migr community in Berlin....here because of the living standards...crime families...students....businesses tied to gangs and export businesses....also tied to corruption and gangs.
Now day to day they are voicing complaints about what is ongoing in Russia BUT when the Mother Russia propaganda calls they respond as a block against whomever the propaganda says they should attack...
THEN you see them driving massive black Audi Q7 SUVs or MB SUVs and travel back and forth to Russia living the good life between the two....BUT that is not the majority of Russians who now can no longer afford their two vacations a year in Europe before Ukraine and Crimea....
So yes I do stand by the economic observations....
Key observation...they are even running out of things to export for cash....I live near one of the main European intra connecting highways between East and West Europe...on any given day one might have seen before Crimea and Ukraine 500 Russian trucks per day on the roads....right now one is lucky to see say 100-150....that is how far off their exports are....and most of those are carrying semi finished products to be used in further building of German end products coming from German built factories as part of the global logistics just in time delivery system....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 02-19-2017 at 04:03 PM.
Russian TV shows "vodka" being pumped into Mi-28 helicopter. "Missiles won't fire without it." (Is this what they mean by Spirit of Russia?)
Zakharchenko, leader of Russian proxy forces in Donetsk, effectively declares he is not bound by the Minsk agreement.
Quasi Russian annexation is now complete.....Minsk 2 is truly dead in the water now...as Putin will not reverse his recognition of mercenary issued documents....
Azor......
Russian State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milonov caught shopping for embargoed fish in Finland
http://ow.ly/TZ9J30967TY
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