NATO Vows Support For Ukraine Against Russia's "Aggressive Actions"

Just a few short days after President Trump"s "relative" rapprochement with Russian President Putin, his "allies" in NATO have stepped up the rhetoric in a very sensitive area for Putin, as NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg pledged support for Ukraine during a visit to Kiev on Monday.

As Military.com reports, Ukraine and the West accuse Moscow of smuggling weapons and troops across the porous border in support of the separatists, a charge has repeatedly denied.

"Russia has maintained its aggressive actions against Ukraine, but NATO and NATO allies stand by Ukraine and stand on your side," Stoltenberg said at the NATO-Ukraine Commission session in Kiev.

"Russia must withdraw its thousands of soldiers from Ukraine and stop supporting the militants," he added during a press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine and Russia"s annexation of Crimea in 2014 have driven ties between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.

"We are also here to demonstrate NATO"s solidarity with Ukraine and our firm support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of your country," Stoltenberg said.

"NATO allies do not and will not recognize Russia"s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea."

The NATO chief"s trip came a day after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a maiden visit to Kiev and urged Moscow to take the "first step" to ease the conflict in Ukraine"s east.

Ukraine sees NATO accession as a way to bolster its defenses against former master Moscow. In June, Ukraine"s parliament voted to back attempts by the nation to seek membership of the 29-member bloc. It approved legal amendments enshrining membership in NATO as a foreign policy priority.

Poroshenko explained that embattled Ukraine was eager to join the bloc, but painful political and economic reforms need to be implemented before the country was ready to lay out its claims on membership.

"We are determined to reforms... to meet the membership criteria," Poroshenko told journalists.

"NATO will continue to support Ukraine on the path towards closer relationships with NATO," Stoltenberg added.

But the Kremlin has long been angered by NATO expansion into what Moscow views as its sphere of influence in the former Soviet region.

"It (Ukraine"s rapprochement with NATO) will not contribute to the strengthening of stability and security on the European continent," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

However, Kiev has yet to officially apply to start the lengthy and politically challenging process of joining the US-led alliance.

Tillerson Vows Forever Sanctions on Russia

(image: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters)

According to acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner, Tillerson spoke to (illegitimate US-installed putschist) Ukraine (puppet) president Petro Poroshenko on Monday.

He reiterated Washington’s firm commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity – saying sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine and fully implements its Minsk agreement commitments.

Fact: The Republic of Crimea is sovereign Russian Federation territory. The overwhelming will of its people by national referendum wants it no other way.

Fact: In February, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “Crimea…belong(s) to the Russian Federation. We don’t give back our own territory.”

Fact: Russia and Donbass freedom fighters alone observe Minsk terms. Kiev putschists consistently violate them unaccountably.

Fact: As ExxonMobil CEO, Tillerson opposed sanctions, calling them counterproductive and ineffective.

On Monday after meeting with Sergey Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called Russian and EU strategic partnership “surreal” with sanctions in place.

The “full implementation of the Minsk Agreements by all sides” is a precondition for lifting them, she said – a pretext for maintaining them. Kiev is a serial violator.

Lavrov blasted its regime, saying “(t)he apparent sabotage by (its) leadership of everything that is written in the Minsk agreements should meet some (responsible) reaction from those who patronize this” rogue state.

Kiev ignores its responsibility under Minsk, pursuing its own agenda – with support and encouragement from Washington and key European nations.

Why is Russia sanctioned for observing Minsk, not Kiev despite its daily violations, Lavrov asked?

EU states are subservient to US imperial interests – maintaining a permanent state of war in multiple theaters, supporting putschists running Ukraine.

The Election Interference We Should Be Talking About Wasn’t Done by Russia

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed) On  February 7, 2014, the BBC published a transcript of a bugged phone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The media reports that followed the leak distracted audiences from the actual content of the phone call, focusing instead on Nuland’s crass statement, “Fuck the EU.”

If the media had done its job, a simple analysis of the phone call would have revealed something wholly controversial about the Ukrainian crisis: the U.S. was handpicking who they wanted to form Ukraine’s government after its former president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted from power.

“Good. I don’t think Klitsh should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nuland said in the call.

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Pyatt responded:

“Yeah. I guess… in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok, the other opposition leader] and his guys and I’m sure that’s part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating on all this.”

Nuland added:

“I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in… he’s going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not going to work.”

According to a cable obtained by Wikileaks, Yanukovych’s successor, Petro Poroshenko, previously worked as a mole for the U.S. State Department. The State Department even referred to Poroshenko as “our Ukrainian insider.” He currently has a 17 percent approval rating.

What this amounts to is tangible and credible evidence that the U.S. interfered or attempted to interfere in a government that borders Russia in order to remove a pro-Russian leader and replace him with a very well-established American puppet. History shows that Ukraine is no exception to this American habit, as there is documented evidence to show the U.S. has interfered overtly and covertly in the governments of Guatemala, Congo, Dominican Republic, South Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, to name a few.

These are undisputed facts of history. In fact, these events are so common that no one seems to give the incidents so much as an afterthought. Despite this evidence, the media is unironically claiming it was Russia that interfered in American politics to promote a pro-Russian candidate and have him take control of the White House.

Since Trump was elected at the end of 2016, we have seen story after story, headline after headline, and rabbit hole after rabbit hole alleging that somehow, Russia was able to “hack” the election and bolster support for Trump, which eventually culminated in Trump’s victory.

So, let’s review the evidence for these claims.

There is none — and if there is, it still hasn’t been made public.

Is there a leaked phone call of Trump and/or Putin? No.

Considering the CIA and other intelligence agencies’ long reach and incredible resources, is there any evidence to show Russia hacked the election — or that they interfered at all with a view of promoting Trump?

No.

This is a direct quote from BBC on this topic from as recently as last week:

“So far, no single piece of evidence has been made public proving that the Trump campaign joined with Russia to steal the US presidency – nothing.”

No one even seems to be remotely concerned with the illogical and overly imaginative effluvium contaminating this story. Clinton’s election campaign had the backing of 57 of America’s 100 largest newspapers. Globally, she had the backing of 500 outlets; Trump had the support of a mere 26. The Clinton Foundation received substantial donations from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two known financial supporters of the terror group ISIS. Even the New Zealand government donated millions of taxpayer dollars to Clinton.

Despite this overwhelming worldwide support, anti-Russian conspiracy theorists are convinced Russia was somehow able to hack the election and portray Hillary Clinton as an untrustworthy, pathological liar — and as a result, gift the election win over to Trump.

But Clinton earned her detestable reputation all by herself — without Russian interference. Further, it was actually Clinton’s election strategy to “elevate” Trump in the first place, not Russia’s. This, in essence, gave him free airtime and ultimately underestimated how popular he was going to be with the American public.

Finally, Clinton still won the popular vote by a considerable margin. Did the Russian strategy of “hacking” the election and boosting Trump factor this into account, as well? Was Russia able to strategically generate the support required from each of the states needed to win the election and discount the popular vote? How would that have even worked?

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that if the DNC hadn’t purposely killed Bernie Sanders’ campaign, Trump would never have won the election in the first place. Russia did not kill Sanders’ campaign — Clinton’s backers did. Even now, a recent poll conducted by Fox News suggests Sanders is currently the most popular American politician.

And what does promulgating this particular narrative achieve in the long run? As Foreign Affairs notes, the propaganda does not always work in favor of those who perpetuate it:

“It seemed clever when Hillary Clinton pounced on Trump as ‘Putin’s puppet.’ But apparently it didn’t resonate much with ordinary Americans, who elected Trump, and neither does the pettiness and demonization of Putin resonate with ordinary Russians.”

Even now, as former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has offered to testify before the House and Senate intelligence committees in exchange for immunity from prosecution, the narrative still retains a non-story quality to it. Consider this excerpt from Vox:

“The implication is that Flynn has vital information about the ties between Trump and Russia, and that he did some questionable stuff while working for the Trump team. Thus, it would be in the public’s interest for Congress to grant Flynn immunity so he could explain what he did — and how many others in the campaign were involved.

“Here’s the catch: We have no idea what, if anything, Flynn actually has.” [emphasis added]

The irony of Michael Flynn’s position is that the intelligence community actually ousted him from Trump’s government.

Beware a lack of evidence of Russia’s non-interference, though — Putin is the real enemy. The CIA, on the other hand — the entity that has considerable, documented reach to interfere in countless governments across the globe, as well as the reach to interfere in its own government — well, they don’t pose a threat to anyone.

Opinion / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Russia Denies Shooting at Ukrainian Military Plane In Black Sea

With the US State Department in a state of protracted hiatus for the time being, tensions are again rising between Russia and Ukraine, and especially in East Ukraine, where over the past few days the number of soldiers killed in an offensive by pro-Russian separatists has reportedly risen to seven, Ukraine"s military said on Monday, in the deadliest outbreak of fighting in the east of the country since mid-December.

The clashes between Ukraine"s military and the pro-Russian separatists coincide with U.S. President Donald Trump"s call for better relations with Moscow that has alarmed Kiev while the conflict in its eastern region remains unresolved. According to Ukraine sources, the rebels began attacking government positions in the eastern frontline town of Avdiyivka on Sunday. Five soldiers were killed and nine wounded on Sunday and two more were killed on Monday, they said.

"The situation in the Avdiyivka industrial zone is challenging. The enemy continues to fire at our positions with heavy artillery and mortars," Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told a regular daily briefing. Naturally, since the media on both sides is clearly biased in its coverage, it came as no surprise that both local separatists news agencies, and Russia, denied escalation had occurred.

In the meantime, it appears that whether real or fabricated, the push to escalate another conflict is building, and on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that a Ukrainian An-26 transport plane came under rifle fire from a Russian drilling rig while flying near the Odessa gas field in the Black Sea. The plane was allegedly involved in drill over Black Sea, and was flying in Ukrainian air space.

"A Ukrainian transport plane came under fire today while flying over the Ukrainian maritime economic zone during a training mission. The crew members were not injured," Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak reported to President Petro Poroshenko as cited by Poroshenko"s press secretary Svyatoslav Tsegolko.

Moments later, as expected, the Russian Black Sea Fleet categorically denied these claims.

"All Ukrainian claims of the alleged shooting at the An-26 plane are absolute lies," an official from the Black Sea Fleet"s headquarters said in a statement. According to the statement, the Ukrainian An-26 military plane carried out on Wednesday afternoon two provocative approaches at extremely low altitude to Russia"s Tavrida and Crimea-2 drilling platforms.

"During the plane"s second approach, a security guard at one of the platforms fired four signal flares to prevent a possible collision of the plane with the platform"s mast," the official stressed.

The news comes amid the joint naval drills of the seven North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states with the Ukrainian Naval Forces in the Black Sea, which started on Wednesday.

Moreover, the situation near the industrial town of Avdiivka and neighboring Yasynuvata has been tense for several days, with civilians being deprived of running water, central heating and electricity. The Ukrainian forces and Donbass militia are accusing each other of being responsible for escalation of fighting.

With the ongoing political power vacuum in the US, it is a possibility that the dormant conflict between Russia and Ukraine is rekindled in the coming days.

Ukraine's Problem Is Ukraine

Submitted by James Durso via RealClearDefense.com,

Ukraine’s government has hired Washington lobbyists to fix its problems with the Trump Administration, but would do better to fix its internal problems, instead.

Ukraine’s problems are in four categories: a structural problem caused by the multiple overlapping entities involved in military strategy and procurement; the absence of a unified strategic vision for ordering equipment and supplies; a “Fifth Column” of pro-Russian officials; and a staggering corruption that divides the self-interest of the elites from the national interest.

A recent Rand study highlighted the deficiencies in the command structure of Ukraine’s security sector.  Defense procurement particularly has several overlapping structures with no clear lines of authority or unity of command.  The President, Prime Minister, Defense Ministry, General Staff and the infamous state-owned defense company, Ukroboronprom, compete against and undercut one another.  Each entity produces its own wish list, driven more by impulse than strategy, and each entity has separate financial controls, opening the door to insider dealing and corrupt sales of government property.

In Ukraine, citizens are played for suckers: local militias fight to preserve home and liberty, while the leaders focus on procedure, personal prestige, and offshore bank accounts.  Ukroboronprom is infamous for selling arms to the black market, and domestic contracts are given to factories indirectly owned by President Petro Poroshenko, who still hadn"t divested his business interests as he promised to do when he took office in 2014.  

However, Ukraine’s political leaders are not fiddling while their country burns, they are busy stealing their military budgets -- nearly half, in the estimate of a former Ukrainian senior military officer who requested not to be identified.  They reason that when the rest of Ukraine is swallowed up by Russia, they will have a well-funded Plan B.  

But it is not just the corruption that’s the problem.  The system is plagued with inefficiency and lack of commitment.  In 2015, at a time when the Ukrainians were complaining about the cost of spare tires and repairs, the U.S. government was prepared to ship them over 150 Humvees, along with spare parts and training - over $300 million worth of equipment.  However, the government of Ukraine refused to spend $600,000 to pay the shipping cost.

Complicating these issues is the presence of the Russian Fifth Column.  Many of the senior leadership -- military as well as political -- are loyal to President Putin, and they work actively to undermine Ukrainian independence.  For them, corruption is a political tool as well as a means of personal enrichment. (That Plan B, again.)

The Ukrainian leadership can control their future only if they persuade the U.S. they are worth the effort.  They need to make rapid and radical changes: abolish Ukroboronprom, let the Ministry of Defense focus on administration and procurement, and have the General Staff make the strategic decisions that drive supply requests.  Moreover, it is time for President Poroshenko, the Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff and their deputies to put Ukraine’s interests above their own, resign their positions, and let someone who cares about defending Ukraine manage the defense effort.

If Ukraine’s leaders do not stop the corruption, the inefficiency, and the ridiculous turf battles, they will no longer have a country to loot, which may be what it takes to get their attention.  The incoming Trump Administration and the Congress should condition aid on reform and transparency, as suggested by Rex Tillerson in his confirmation testimony in the Senate.  Honest Ukrainian patriots should embrace those conditions, force out the kleptocrats, and lead the reform.  

Ukraine should be able to preserve its territorial integrity and freely choose allies and trading partners.  However, its leaders must show they are serious about meeting Western standards of governance: make their case for continued aid, and show how the aid will be used.  This will be far more effective than the recent misguided attempts of the Poroshenko government to meddle in the U.S. elections.  They need to make the same case to NATO and show that they are ready to become a responsible member of the West. Unless they do, Trump and his advisors will treat Ukraine like a bad investment and walk away.  In fact, they may even press for investigations into what has happened to all the American aid and insist on repatriating it to either the U.S. or the Ukrainian people.  Ukraine’s future is in Ukrainian hands.