boneyard bill
Veteran Member
Frankly, US policy in Ukraine remains utterly bewildering. The latest incident is the closing of air space in Ukraine and Romania to prevent the Russian Deputy Premier from leaving Moldava. While Ukraine might have been acting on its own, it hard to imagine that Romania would have done so without heavy US prompting.
Presumably, the move was made as part of the US sanctions regime which includes Deputy Premier Rogovin.
An international incident was avoided in this situation only by the Russian Military Commission which was able to locate an alternative route to allow the Deputy Premier to escape.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...epts-airplane-carrying-russian-deputy-premier
While financial sanctions were well-known, restrictions on air travel are unexpected especially since Rogovin was allowed to fly into since the sanctions were imposed.
That the US would impose such sanctions on the travel of a Deputy Premier shows clearly that the US has no interest in negotiating with Russia over Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators in the port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine and blew up a building being defended by protestors killing at least 20 people. This follows on the heels of a previous attack in Odessa that killed more than 40 protestors.
Even though the US government had warned the Yanukovich regime against using armed force against armed protestors in the Maiden, there have been no warnings issued to current Ukrainian government against shooting unarmed protestors.
The "troops" employed in this exercise are forces from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry so it seems clear that the Ukrainian government does not trust its own military forces which is reasonable enough since they have tended to defect when they were called upon.
It is reported that the US government has urged the Kiev government to take over the East militarily although I don't know if the State Department has acknowledged that fact. What is known is that the current IMF aid package to Ukraine is conditional on the Kiev government controlling the East.
But the upshot of this is that the US is practically begging Putin to intervene. It has been Russian policy ever since the breakup of that Soviet Union that they have reserved the right to intervene in defense of Russian-speaking people in the former Soviet Republics. This goes back to Yeltsin and is not an innovation the Putin recently invented.
Putin, however, has suggested a federated Ukraine as a way of preserving the security of Russian speakers while still allowing the Kiev government to function on a limited basis in the East.
So we are provoking the Russians to intervene in East Ukraine at the same time that we are closing off diplomatic channels to Russia.
What is the sense of such a policy? There is no chance that we could prevail against Russia in a limited engagement on their borders and, in any case, even a limited engagement would risk nuclear war.
So what on earth is the point of our policy?
http://news.antiwar.com/2014/05/09/ukraine-troops-kill-20-in-mariupol-blow-up-police-station/
Presumably, the move was made as part of the US sanctions regime which includes Deputy Premier Rogovin.
An international incident was avoided in this situation only by the Russian Military Commission which was able to locate an alternative route to allow the Deputy Premier to escape.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...epts-airplane-carrying-russian-deputy-premier
While financial sanctions were well-known, restrictions on air travel are unexpected especially since Rogovin was allowed to fly into since the sanctions were imposed.
That the US would impose such sanctions on the travel of a Deputy Premier shows clearly that the US has no interest in negotiating with Russia over Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators in the port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine and blew up a building being defended by protestors killing at least 20 people. This follows on the heels of a previous attack in Odessa that killed more than 40 protestors.
Even though the US government had warned the Yanukovich regime against using armed force against armed protestors in the Maiden, there have been no warnings issued to current Ukrainian government against shooting unarmed protestors.
The "troops" employed in this exercise are forces from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry so it seems clear that the Ukrainian government does not trust its own military forces which is reasonable enough since they have tended to defect when they were called upon.
It is reported that the US government has urged the Kiev government to take over the East militarily although I don't know if the State Department has acknowledged that fact. What is known is that the current IMF aid package to Ukraine is conditional on the Kiev government controlling the East.
But the upshot of this is that the US is practically begging Putin to intervene. It has been Russian policy ever since the breakup of that Soviet Union that they have reserved the right to intervene in defense of Russian-speaking people in the former Soviet Republics. This goes back to Yeltsin and is not an innovation the Putin recently invented.
Putin, however, has suggested a federated Ukraine as a way of preserving the security of Russian speakers while still allowing the Kiev government to function on a limited basis in the East.
So we are provoking the Russians to intervene in East Ukraine at the same time that we are closing off diplomatic channels to Russia.
What is the sense of such a policy? There is no chance that we could prevail against Russia in a limited engagement on their borders and, in any case, even a limited engagement would risk nuclear war.
So what on earth is the point of our policy?
http://news.antiwar.com/2014/05/09/ukraine-troops-kill-20-in-mariupol-blow-up-police-station/
