garneringrightideas ‏@garneringrighti 7m
How #Flexible will #Obama be when #Russia invades #Ukraine?


Chances of War Growing Between Russia and Ukraine

by John Galt
March 23, 2014 14:20ET

From ABC News and the Sunday morning talk show This Week with George Stephanopoulos earlier today:



Disturbing? Quite. The Russians have essentially imprisoned the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force in Crimea, seized several warships including the only submarine in the Ukrainian fleet, and positioned even more troops on Russian-Ukrainian border than were there ten days ago. In fact, according to a BBC News report, the Ukrainian command ship, the Slavutych was seized after a two hour confrontation in the port city of Sevastopol:



Russian troops storm Ukrainian bases in Crimea



Russian forces appear to be stepping up their efforts to push all Ukrainian forces out of the region.

In another development, Ukraine’s warship Slavutych has been seized.

The command vessel was seized by Crimean “self-defence” units and Russian troops after a two-hour assault in Sevastopol, a Ukrainian defence spokesman said.

The BBC’s Ian Pannell in Belbek says the Ukrainian troops on the peninsula feel beleaguered and abandoned by their commanders.

This however, is not the end of the Crimean conflict with the Ukraine and the West, but apparently the start of something much more dramatic:

NATO says Russia has big force at Ukraine’s border, worries over Transdniestria

For my readers wondering where Transdniestria is and why it will become a critical piece of the puzzle regarding Moldova and the Ukraine along with the Russian government’s warning that it will protect Russian citizens wherever they reside, the article from Asharq Al-Awsat linked above provides some insight:





NATO’s top military commander said on Sunday that Russia had built up a large force on Ukraine’s eastern border and he was worried Moscow may be eying Moldova’s mainly Russian-speaking separatist Transdniestria region after annexing Crimea.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, voiced concern about Moscow using a tactic of snap military exercises to prepare its forces for possible rapid incursions into a neighboring state, as it had done in the case of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

Russia launched a new military exercise, involving 8,500 artillerymen, near Ukraine’s border 10 days ago.

Breedlove said the Russian tactic should lead the 28-nation Western military alliance to rethink the positioning and readiness of its forces in eastern Europe so that they were ready to counter Moscow’s moves.

“A snap exercise puts an incredible force at a border. The force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready,” he said, speaking at an event held by the German Marshall Fund, a think tank.

“You cannot defend against that if you are not there to defend against it. So I think we need to think about our allies, the positioning of our forces in the alliance and the readiness of those forces…such that we can be there to defend against it if required, especially in the Baltics and other places.”

Why is NATO so nervous about this threat? The article continues with this key statement:

He voiced concern that Russia could have Transdniestria in its sights after Crimea, saying that, in Russia’s view, the separatist region of Moldova was the “next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated.”

Some of the elements of the Crimea scenario are also present in Transdniestria, which lies on Ukraine’s western border but is just a few hundred kilometers from Crimea.

“There is absolutely sufficient [Russian] force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transdniestria if the decision was made to do that and that is very worrisome,” Breedlove said.

The military understands that there is nothing NATO could do about war erupting in the Ukraine or Moldova nor is their sufficient political will to engage the Russians at any level to stop their current course of action.

Meanwhile, the propaganda war continues with protests in Odessa staged by pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian demonstrators hitting the streets of the strategically crucial city of Odessa. The Voice of Russia did not miss this opportunity to encourage more action by pro-Russian citizens in the Ukraine:

Thousands of Odessites protest against coup d’etat and political repressions in Ukraine



If a shooting war does begin, especially in the Transdniestria region near Moldova, look for the Russian military to seize Odessa as one of the first major actions to neutralize the remaining elements of the Ukrainian Navy and to start the process of completely encircling the beleaguered Ukrainian military and government. The week ahead will be a major test to see if NATO is nothing more than a modern day version of the League of Nations or even weaker than that.


Finance News ‏@ftfinancenews 2h
Visa and MasterCard resume Russia payments
http://on.ft.com/1eBVSOV


Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 2h
Power outage in Crimea?
Seems like a reasonable pretext for Putin to go into Eastern Ukraine!
Steve Komarnyckyj ‏@SteveKomarnycky 1h
Self inflicted power cuts in Crimea may be used as pretext
by Russia for moving into Ukraine to protect utilities infrastructure
^^^Or is this the reason?

Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 3h
Chinese Crimea brewing? Big protests underway in Taiwan!
 Tom Nichols ‏@TheWarRoom_Tom 1m

So the Crimean PM who was all hot to have #Russia take over is now bitching that #Ukraine is cutting amount of power it supplies. #naglost


Діяти ‏@diyatyorg 51s

New turn in #CrimeaCrisis: Ukraine cut #Crimea's electricity supply in half, several towns are blacked out. #Ukraine #Russia


John King ‏@jmkfire 40s

@MVDatsenko 4) #Crimea hasn't paid the bill. Remember you broke away from #Ukraine. No more free stuff. Gotta pay for services now.


resistance ‏@arabresistance 1m

BREAKING: #Ukraine state energy company lowered energy supply to #Crimea by 50%. Many cities without electricity. #Kiev #Russia #


What Flash Mobs do in Odessa:

irysia ‏@irysia_blog 2m

Sent chills down my spine. Flashmob in market of #Odessa plays Ode to Joy, Beethoven's anthem for Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ6SAwPD-ss#t=15 … #Ukraine



Natalia Melnychuk ‏@pravolivo 17s

Polish, Hungarian and Romanian MFAs got letters from Russian State Duma w/ offers to grab 7 western #Ukraine regions. http://www.tvp.info/14506221/duma-do...zielmy-ukraine …
http://www.tvp.info/14506221/duma-do...zielmy-ukraine

ian bremmer ‏@ianbremmer 4h
Ukraine Crisis Losers: US, EU, #Ukraine, Russia, Global Economy

Winners: China, Iran

Аlexei Marouthis ‏@Marouthis 5h
Российских войск на территорию Украины точно нет, а вот западные военные
инструкторы есть
"Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine do not have one, but Western military
instructors have"
pic.twitter.com/xzGRdkimVC



How Erik Prince, Founder Of Blackwater, Will Help China Subjugate Africa
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...bjugate-Africa

Secret Us Hit Squads Murdering People All Over The Globe
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...Over-The-Globe



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...der-warns.html

Russian troops poised to 'run' into Moldova, Nato commander warns
A pro-Russian enclave of Moldova could be Moscow's next target after Crimea, Nato warns



By Colin Freeman
12:52PM GMT 23 Mar 2014
Comments 1206

Fears that Russia could claw back a second chunk of former Soviet territory in Europe grew on Sunday night after Nato warned that Moscow’s troops were poised to move into a pro-Russian enclave of Moldova.

Nato’s top commander said that Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s eastern border were well placed to take Transdniester, a Russian-speaking enclave that has declared independence from the rest of Moldova.

About a third of Transdniester’s half-million people are ethnic Russians, many of whom want to return to rule from Moscow. To this day, the streets of the capital, Tiraspol, are decked out with statues of Lenin and other symbols of the Soviet Union, of which Moldova was a member until its break-up in 1991.

US Air Force Gen Philip Breedlove, who is Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe, said that gave President Vladimir Putin a pretext to send troops in there as a “protection” force for ethnic Russians, just as he has done in Crimea.
__

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__

“There is absolutely sufficient [Russian] force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transdniester if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome,” he said at a meeting in Brussels hosted by the Marshall Fund, a German think tank.

Gen Breedlove’s comments came as Ukraine’s new pro-Western government said it feared that Russia planned further military annexations of the east of the country. On Saturday, Russian forces attacked another Ukrainian military base in Crimea, as part of their drive to force Ukrainian troops out the peninsula.

The commander of the base, Col Yuli Mamchur, is now in Russian custody, prompting accusations last night from the Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, that he had been “abducted”.

Meanwhile, Andriy Parubiy, the head of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, issued a dire warning of the Kremlin threat at a mass rally in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. “The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine,” he said. “His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment.”

His words were echoed by Tony Blinken, the US deputy national security adviser. He said that, while the Russian troop build-up was probably just for show, “it’s possible that they are preparing to move in”.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, also warned of the huge repercussions of Russia’s attempt to redraw national borders in Europe, describing it as a “Pandora’s Box”.

A statue of Lenin outside Tiraspol's Parliament building (Julian Simmonds)

Russia’s defence ministry boasted yesterday that its flag was now flying over 189 Ukrainian military installations on the Crimean peninsula.

At a Ukrainian base at the Crimean port of Feodosia, marines were negotiating to hand over to Russian forces. “Our only issue is that we want to leave this place with honour, weapons and vehicles,” one Ukrainian soldier said.

Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow’s ambassador to the European Union, insisted yesterday that Russia had no intention to move troops outside Crimea, but Nato feels that the Kremlin’s ambitions may go well beyond just Ukraine. An incursion into Transdniester would bring a Russian territorial dispute close to the doorstep of the European Union.

Since it fought a brief separatist war to break away from Moldova in 1991, Transdniester has been home to “peacekeeping” garrison of about 1,000 Russian troops. Until now, the Kremlin has treated the enclave as being too small to be worth incorporating into the Russian Federation and has officially recognised Transdniester as being part of Moldova. But events in Ukraine may have shifted Moscow’s calculation.

Recently, the speaker of Transdniester’s parliament urged Russia to incorporate the region. Gen Breedlove said he suspected that the Kremlin now viewed the enclave as the “next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated”.

He warned: “The (Russian) force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready.” He did not specify how the Russian forces would get there. Transdniester is landlocked, and a conventional ground operation would require Russian troops to travel through much of western Ukraine. However, Russian forces based in the eastern side of the Black Sea and Crimea might be airlifted.

Moldova, a nation of five million people, is Europe’s poorest.

It has ambitions eventually to become part of the European Union and is currently negotiating a free-trade agreement with Brussels, similar to the one that Ukraine’s now-ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, abandoned last November under pressure from the Kremlin.

Signing the agreement would take Moldova firmly into the European fold, but Transdniester’s unresolved status would make full membership of the EU or Nato more complicated.

Some analysts believe the Kremlin therefore has a direct vested interest in fomenting trouble in the region.

Mike Truman ‏@mike_truman 6m

#Ukraine not worth one drop of US sweat. @DutchDL @KWaters10 @jensan1332 @Mike_USPatriot @hankishtwit @LotusSLeo @LeMarquand @ladydonnalands


Shai Franklin ‏@shaifranklin 2m

#Ukraine's gas broker, arrested in #Vienna, may reveal corrupt details of #Putin & #Gazprom: http://ow.ly/3irEnh @theage #Russia


Joseph Maloney ‏@MJoemal19 6m

#Ukraine being used by Obama to pay off China's interests in the IMF. Legarde and Min. http://washex.am/1pkxKBX#.Uy9tTG66rnE.twitter … "Big Oil' Exxon in Black Sea

http://washingtonexaminer.com/articl...G66rnE.twitter

Euromaidan ‏@InfoEuromaidan 3m

It's how shops in #Ukraine help customers to avoid buying Russian goods by accident http://ow.ly/2EYE93


Interpreting Putin's Decision


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2014 20:47 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...utins-decision

Submitted by Wei Zongyou* via The Diplomat,

People around the world were astounded by Vladimir Putin’s rapid decision to
annex Crimea in response to the latter’s referendum to secede from Ukraine
and join Russia, which Kiev and the West view as illegal. The decision also drew
worldwide criticism and vehement condemnation by the West and Ukraine, and
triggered a second wave of economic sanctions from the United States, and soon
afterwards Europe. Relations between Russia and the West are at their chilliest
since the end of the Cold War.

So why has Putin risked Russia’s economic welfare and political space to swallow
Crimea, push Ukraine out, and alienate the entire Western world? Is Putin
“in another world” as German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed he is?
In my opinion, there are at least two considerations behind Putin’s decision.

The first is the realist, geo-political consideration. In Putin’s world, since the
collapse of the former Soviet Union, Russia has lost nearly one fourth of its
geography, one half of its population, and more than half of its GDP. Among the
“lost” territories are those that are strategically important or militarily advanced,
such as Ukraine and the Baltic states. With the eastward expansion of NATO,
and the integration of former Soviet satellite states and republics in Eastern Europe
and the Baltics into Europe, the traditional buffer zone between Russia and the West
is increasingly squeezed and Russia’s space for strategic maneuvering becomes
smaller with each year. When Russia craved for entry into the West, this might not
have been particularly worrisome or embarrassing for Moscow. But since Russian
leaders decided long ago that joining the West was neither particularly helpful to
Russia’s political standing nor particularly attractive in terms of economic gains,
it has begun to view the expansion of the West at its own strategic expense
as both ill-intentioned and threatening.

Ukraine holds a unique position in Russia’s geo-strategic consideration. First,
it is crucial territory in the passage of Russia’s oil exports to Europe.
Each year more than one third of the oil Russia ships to Europe travels via
the Ukraine pipeline. Second, Crimea gives Russia’s Black Sea Fleet access
to the Black Sea. If the pro-West Kiev government were to have decided to end
its lease to the Russian naval base in Crimea, Russia would have lost its strategic
gateway to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Third, Ukraine is deemed
the most crucial member of Russia’s Eurasia Union project, an economic and strategic
plan to closely connect Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Central Asia. If all goes
according to plan, this union will integrate these former Soviet republics and now
independent countries economically, politically, and diplomatically with Russia,
and go some way to restoring the glory of the Soviet empire at its peak.
The “coup d’état” in Kiev and the political orientation of the new government
put all these things in jeopardy, if Russia remains disinterested and passive.

The second consideration is more psychological in nature. Following the end
of Cold War, embracing the West was the first priority of Russian foreign policy.
But to Moscow’s dismay, it found that the West still harbored strong reservations
and considerable distrust. Years spent courting and wooing provided little of what
Russia craved most: equal membership in the West and economic prosperity.

Though Russia became part of the exclusive G8, it never enjoyed the full status
and say of the other seven members, always remaining an “other.” Economically,
the shock remedy proposed by the West and faithfully implemented by Boris Yeltsin
didn’t bring the expected economic benefit. Instead, it took Russia’s economy into
freefall, leaving the average Russian worse off than before. Russia’s look West
ended in humiliation and disaster.

It was Putin who saved Russia from its miserable condition. He readjusted both
Russia’s domestic and foreign policies, and distanced the country from the West,
instead seeking opportunities to resurrect past Soviet glories. As the Russian
economy improved, the West found that its time was passing. The 2008 economic
crisis hit the U.S. and Europe hard and they found themselves more reliant on the
emerging powers, Russia included. It is Britain, France, and even Germany who are
now busy appealing to Russian oil bacons to buy more and invest more. The balance
of power between Russia and the West has shifted. The small war in Georgia in the
summer of 2008 only strengthened this trend and the response from the West
impressed Russia greatly: Europe is rotten and the U.S. has become too weak to
lead. Then came the Arab Spring and the Syria crisis. In the former case, the U.S.
“led from behind,” and in the latter it was Russia that decided the course of the
Syria civil war.

Russians, and especially Putin learned a hard lesson from the post-Cold War
romance with the West: For all the talk of democracy and freedom, the fact
remains that the strong dictate to the weak.

With Europe rotten and United States weakened, a resurgent and confident Russia
will definitely not let a geo-strategically important former Soviet republic fall entirely
into the West’s camp. By annexing Crimea, Putin not only secured Russia’s naval base
and its strategic gateway to the Black Sea, he also sent a powerful message to
Ukraine and the West:
Ignore Russia’s legitimate strategic concerns at your own peril.


* Wei Zongyou, is Professor and Vice Dean of the Institute of
International and Diplomatic Affairs, Shanghai International
Studies University, Shanghai, China. His main research
interests cover Sino-U.S. Relations, american foreign policy,
humanitarian intervention and R2P.