Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (Formerly: Democratic Malaise Draws Ukraine Eastwards)

[American Patriot]

Ukraine's leader: 1-week cease-fire starts now

By DAVID McHUGH and MARKO DOBRNJAKOVIC, Associated Press | June 20, 2014 | Updated: June 20, 2014 12:03pm

• Photo By Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
  A woman carries her belongings heading to the Ukrainian-Russian border checkpoint in Izvaryne as she leaves Ukraine, Friday, June 20, 2014. Some Ukrainians are leaving amid fighting in eastern Ukraine. Clashes between government forces and pro-Russia rebels flared ahead of the publication of a presidential peace plan that includes a unilateral cease-fire.

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko orders his forces to cease fire and halt military operations for seven days against pro-Russia separatists in the country's east — the first step in what he hopes is a concrete plan to end the conflict that has cost more than 350 lives.
Poroshenko said troops would still return fire if attacked.
Poroshenko spoke during his first trip as president to the troubled east. He met with residents of the town of Syvatogorsk in the separatist Donetsk region.

[American Patriot]

' Nine People Feared Dead After Self-Defence Forces Shoot down Ukrainian Army Helicopter'

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#AceWorldNews – UKRAINE – June 24 – Nine people are feared dead after self-defense forces in the Donetsk region shot down a Ukrainian army helicopter, which was used for transporting military cargo, a Kiev spokesman said.


​The Mi-8 helicopter was downed “at about 5 pm local time at Karachun Mountain near Slavyansk by a rocket fired from a portable air defense system,”eastern Ukraine military operation spokesman, Vladislav Seleznyov, wrote on his Facebook page.
“There were nine people aboard the helicopter. According to preliminary information, all those aboard died in the crash,” he said, adding that the helicopter was returning to a Ukrainian checkpoint after a cargo delivery mission.
The self-defense troops, who fired the missile, escaped to the nearby village of Bylbasovka, Seleznyov wrote.
The Ukraine’s National Guard fighters told the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper that the Mi-8 helicopter was downed during takeoff from Karachun Mountain (a strategic high point near Slavyansk where the Ukrainian army’s artillery is deployed).

I saw a column of black smoke west of Ukrainian base at Karachun outside #Slavyansk, likely the Mi-8 helicopter rebels reportedly shot down
— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) June 24, 2014

The place where the shot came from has been established, with troops currently being deployed there, the source in the National Guard added.
The Ukrainian forces continued shelling the village of Semyonovka on the outskirts of Slavyansk on Tuesday night and during the day, the self-defense forces of the People’s Republic of Donetsk told ITAR-TASS news agency earlier.

#ANS2014

[American Patriot]

‘ Camera Crew of Russia’s Channel One Comes Under Fire Near Besieged City of Sloviansk ‘

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#AceWorldNews – UKRAINE (Sloviansk) – June 24 – A camera crew of Russia’s Channel One has come under mortar fire near the besieged city of Sloviansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region; no journalists have been injured, the TV channel’s website reports on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, a crew from Russia’s Channel One was caught in the shelling outside Slavyansk; the journalists luckily avoided injury.
Also, fighting is currently underway in the suburbs of the city of Donetsk, said Aleksandr Boroday, prime minister of the People’s Republic of Donetsk.
“Artillery and armoured vehicles are being used,” he told RIA-Novosti news agency, adding people have already been killed and injured in the fighting.
It is unclear who opened fire and whether there were any casualties or destruction, it added.
Following the tragic events, authorities in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, were challenged to ensure safety for news professionals working in that country’s armed conflict zones.
#ANS2014

[American Patriot]

Kerry demands Russia disarm protesters in Ukraine in hours

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Jean
Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:34PM GMT


US Secretary of State John Kerry demands that Moscow take action within “hours” to disarm the pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

“[It is] critical for Russia to show, in the next hours literally, that they are moving to help disarm the separatists, to encourage them to disarm, to call on them to lay down their weapons and being to become part of a legitimate political process,” Kerry said Thursday in Paris after a meeting with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.
Kerry’s remarks come a day before an uneasy ceasefire is due to end in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Protest leaders in those regions have declared independence while the West accuses Russia of fomenting unrest.


The top US diplomat warned that Moscow could face additional sanctions if the situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate.


“We agree that [further sanctions] need to be ready, but our preference is not to have to be in sanctions mode. We would like to see a cooperative effort between the US, Europe, Russia and Ukraine and we are going to try to encourage that as much as we can,” Kerry stated.


On Thursday, European Union leaders will begin a two-day summit in Brussels to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine and might be considering further sanctions against Russia.


US officials say the US and its European allies have finalized a package of sanctions to target key sectors of the Russian economy as early as next week.


Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko also urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to back “with deeds, not words” his 15-point peace plan for Ukraine.


In a phone call with the leaders of Germany and France on Wednesday, Putin and Poroshenko discussed ways to maintain the shaky ceasefire.






---------

Maybe I should post this in the World War III thread?

[American Patriot]

Dangerous Crossroads: US, NATO Deliver Fresh Ultimatums to Russia over Ukraine

27 Friday Jun 2014
Posted by Mary W. in NATO, New World Order, Politics, Russia, State Department, Tyrannical Government, Ukraine, United States, World At War
≈ Leave a comment

Tags
Ceasefire, Foreign Policy, Humanitarian Crisis, John Kerry, Kiev regime, ratchet up confrontation, US NATO war agenda, US Secretary of State

Speaking in Paris Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a fresh ultimatum to the government of Russia, warning that it had to demonstrate “within hours” that it is acting to end the revolt in eastern Ukraine against the Western-installed government in Kiev or face the consequences.
“We are in full agreement that it is critical for Russia to show in the next hours, literally, that they are moving to help disarm the separatists,” Kerry said. He added that “the European Community will be meeting on their component of the sanctions. We all agree that they need to be ready.”
Kerry’s warning came in the context of a NATO foreign minister’s meeting that wrapped up in Brussels Thursday and a European Union summit scheduled for today in the Belgian city and World War I battle site of Ypres.
The US Secretary of State delivered his remarks alongside French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was clearly acting on a somewhat different agenda, not to mention timetable. Fabius spoke of a “de-escalation” in Ukraine and of commitments that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made the day before in a four-way telephone conference that included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. France, he said, hoped that Russia’s promises would be fulfilled “in the coming days.”
While Washington is manifestly seeking to ratchet up the confrontation with Russia, the Western European powers are showing somewhat less enthusiasm for such an escalation. Meanwhile, it is far from clear that there has been any “de-escalation” of the situation on the ground in Ukraine, which is turning into a major humanitarian crisis, largely ignored by Western governments and media.
A so-called ceasefire announced by Poroshenko last week has in practice functioned as an ultimatum to the forces that have declared themselves independent from the Kiev regime in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to lay down their arms or be “destroyed.”
The separatists in eastern Ukraine have reported continued attacks, including air strikes and artillery barrages against Slavyansk and other civilian population centers throughout the so-called ceasefire. Meanwhile, the Kiev regime has also reported troop losses, including nine soldiers killed in the downing of a military helicopter. Kerry charged Wednesday—with absolutely no evidence—that the weapon used to bring down the copter had been supplied by Russia, an accusation that Moscow denied.
Increasingly desperate conditions in the east and fear that the formal end of the ceasefire on Friday will spell a violent escalation of the US-backed government’s military offensive has sent a wave of refugees toward the Russian border.
“There are still lots of people in Slavyansk—moms, kids and elderly people,” an aid volunteer in Slavyansk told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. “They’ve run out of money as they haven’t received any for more than two months. The town has been left without water or electricity. There is no gas in some districts. Famine may break out soon. People should be evacuated.”
Residents of Slavyansk reported that families attempting to leave the city had been turned back at checkpoints manned by the National Guard, the ranks of which have filled in large measure with members of the Right Sector and other neo-fascist and extreme nationalist elements who spearheaded the Western-backed coup that ousted Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.
Nonetheless, the Associated Press reported, “Thousands of Ukrainians in cars stuffed with belongings lined up Thursday at the eastern border to cross into Russia, with some saying they felt betrayed by their government and vowing never to return.” Russia’s migration service reports that 90,000 Ukrainians had crossed the border seeking refuge since the fighting began.
Talks are to be held today between rebel leaders and representatives of the Ukrainian regime, Russia and the EU on a possible extension of the so-called ceasefire.
On Wednesday, the NATO ministers’ conference approved a package of additional military support for the Ukrainian regime that was said to include aid areas such as logistics, command and control and cyber defense. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen voiced unqualified support for Kiev, declaring it had “a clear vision for rebuilding its defense and security sector and a clear strategy for resolving the crisis.”
For its part, Russia denounced the NATO move as a further provocation. NATO had set a “provocative course to build up Ukraine’s military potential which has been used, as we know, against civilians in the southeast of the country,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday. “Under the pretext of the events in Ukraine, [they] are pushing for the escalation of military-political tensions near the Russian border,” she added.
The Russian government has taken a number of steps to defuse the confrontation, including the rescinding Wednesday of legislation passed in March granting Putin the power to intervene in eastern Ukraine in defense of its ethnic Russian population. The Putin government
has also pulled troops back from the border, recognized Poroshenko as Ukraine’s president and conducted talks with him on a so-called peace plan. Moscow’s climb-down is directed in large measure at protecting the interests of the country’s billionaire oligarchs, whose wealth is tied closely to the West. Nonetheless, Washington has shown no inclination to turn from a policy of confrontation with—and military pressure against—Moscow.
It seems unlikely that the European Union summit will decide on the kind of “sectoral sanctions” favored by Washington, which would target whole areas of the Russian economy such as energy, defense and finance. The EU does nearly 12 times as much business with Russia as the US and is dependent upon Russia for 30 percent of its gas. Any sweeping measures against the Russian economy could well throw the EU’s own economies into deeper crisis.
Citing American officials, the New York Times reported that even Washington has rejected “Iran-style sanctions” for fear of “disrupting global markets.” The Financial Times of London reported Thursday that, based on draft documents it had seen, the EU is preparing only to warn Moscow that it could face unspecified “targeted measures” if events in Ukraine merited them.
There have also been rumblings within the US corporate and financial establishment over the proposed sanctions. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturing took out joint newspaper ads in the US press warning against “a course of sanctions that history shows hurts American interests’’ and “would harm American manufacturers and cost American jobs.’’
Particularly concerned are big energy conglomerates that are looking to Russia as a major source of profits. Companies like Exxon and Halliburton stand to lose out on lucrative contracts to European rivals such as Total and Schlumberger if the Obama administration were to impose unilateral sanctions.
Nonetheless, there are indications that the US ruling political establishment is prepared to press ahead with the confrontation with Russia, which Washington views as a significant obstacle to its drive to assert hegemony in Eurasia.
“There are times where our foreign policy interests trump individual mercantile interests, and now is one of those times,” Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican on the banking and foreign relations committees, told Bloomberg News.
Read more at Global Research

[Avvakum]

• News
• World news
• Ukraine

Ukraine army regains control of Slavyansk

President Petro Poroshenko orders national flag to fly over rebel stronghold after armed pro-Russian separatists flee

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• Chris Johnston and agencies
  
• theguardian.com, Saturday 5 July 2014 07.13 EDT
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A Ukrainian forces serviceman guards their position at a checkpoint near Slavyansk, Photograph: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images

Ukrainian troops have regained control of the key eastern city of Slavyansk from pro-Russian rebels in what could mark a turning point in the country's three-month battle to maintain its independence.
The city, which houses one of Ukraine's largest weapons storage facilities, fell to the insurgents on 6 April and had become a stronghold for pro-Russian separatists.
Petro Poroshenko, who was elected president in late May after vowing to quickly resolve Ukraine's worst crisis since independence in 1991, ordered his forces to raise the national flag over the city.
"Local residents are handing over [to government forces] the weapons abandoned by the rebels," he said. "This is the disarmament I was talking about when I unveiled my peace plan for resolving the situation in the east."
Government forces began a fresh offensive against the rebels earlier this week after Poroshenko allowed a ceasefire agreement to lapse. The separatists lost one tank and one other armoured vehicles as they tried to break through Ukrainian lines, prompting them to flee Slavyansk to Kramatorsk, 12 miles south of the city.
Volodymyr Pavlenko, the self-appointed separatist mayor of Slavyansk, said: "The fighters have left. The Ukrainian army is not yet in Slavyansk. There are no authorities in the town."
Aleksandr Borodai, a leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said: "Due to the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy our men were forced to abandon their positions."
Kolya Cherep, a Slavyansk resident, said the departure of the fighters came as a surprise. "This morning I saw that there were no fighters in front of the town hall then I saw that there were none manning the barricades in town," she said.
Ukraine, which has lost more than 200 soldiers since the conflict began, has focused much of its military might in and around Slavyansk, which had been home to about 130,000 people. The city has been abandoned by about half its residents since fighting broke out and is largely cut off from water and power supplies.
Clashes in the economically important border regions of Lugansk and Donetsk have also escalated since the ceasefire agreement lapsed.
Poroshenko on Friday called for immediate talks with rebel commanders and Russia aimed at stemming the violence that has killed more than 470 people.
However, the president's request has yet to be confirmed by either Moscow or mediators from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Kiev has balked at the idea of holding peace talks in Donetsk, where Russia maintains widespread influence, but the insurgents refuse to travel to Kiev or EU member countries for fear of being arrested.

[American Patriot]

This speaks volumes about what the world thinks of us....


Ukrainian journalist: “Let’s borrow from the US Constitution, they’re not using it anymore”

By wkchild on July 6, 2014 • ( 2 )
Source: Sovereign Man

In the fall of 1239 AD, Batu Khan and his Golden Horde were making great progress in their rapid advance into Europe.


The Mongol Empire was in the midst of global conquest, and Batu’s army had been devastating cities across the Russian plain. He stopped briefly after taking Chernihiv (in northern Ukraine) and sent his cousin Mongke with a vanguard force to probe Kiev, the capital of Kievan Rus.


At the time, Kievan Rus was one of the greatest powers in Europe, forming a loose federation of Slavic principalities that stretched from the Black Sea to the White Sea. Kiev had been founded nearly eight centuries before, and by 1239 it was a grand capital with some 50,000 inhabitants. Mongke was quite taken with it. And, not wanting to destroy it, he sent an emissary to discuss terms for their surrender.


Apparently Kiev’s Prince Mikhail had just watched the movie 300… because he put the Mongol emissary to death.


Now, if I could paraphrase the Princess Bride, history gives us a couple of very clear rules– (1) Never get involved in a land war in Asia; and (2) Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.


But only slightly less well-known is this: (3) Never slight a guy named Batu Khan, especially when his army is called the ‘Golden Horde’.


Batu responded to Mikhail’s poor manners by laying waste to the city. Martin Dimnik’s work “The Dynasty of Chernigov” describes the carnage in gruesome detail, saying that people “drowned in a pool of blood.”


To their credit, though, the Kievans fought bravely. They lacked the Mongolian weaponry and tactics, but they fought with sticks and knives… hand to hand, house to house, man to man.


Resistance is in their DNA. So it’s no surprise that, several centuries later, people were out in the streets fighting against their own government. Sticks and knives, once again, againt tanks and automatic weapons.
Read More @ SovereignMan.com

[American Patriot]

Bereaved father's open letter to Vladimir Putin: Many thanks, my life is ruined

Dutch father who lost his only child writes to Vladimir Putin to give a detailed account of the 17-year-old's life plans

Elsemiek de Borst, left, was killed on Flight MH17








Jonathan Pearlman

7:00AM BST 21 Jul 2014




A Dutch man who lost his only child on MH17 has written a letter to "Mr Putin" and outlined the life that his 17-year-old daughter planned to lead.



Hans de Borst, whose daughter Elsemiek de Borst was killed along with her mother, said the 17-year-old planned to finish high school and become an engineer.



In a grief-stricken open letter that went viral after being posted on social media sites, he signed off as "Hans de Borst – whose life is ruined".



"Mr. Putin, Many thanks to the Separatist leaders of Ukrainian government for the murder of my dear and only child, Elsemiek," he wrote.



"Elsemiek would next year take her final exam, along with her best friends Julia and Marina, and she did well in school. She then wanted to go to TU Delft to study engineering, and she was looking forward to it! She is suddenly no more! From the air she was shot in a foreign country where a war is going on."



Elsemiek de Borst was set to enter her final year of high school in The Hague and was reportedly travelling with her mother, brother and stepfather to Malaysia for a holiday.
"Gentlemen of the above, I hope you're proud of including her and her young life was shot up too, and you can look in the mirror!" Mr de Borst wrote.


"Thanks again. Sincerely, Elsemiek's father, Hans de Borst from Monster, whose life is ruined."


Of the 298 people who died on MH17, which was attacked – apparently by pro-Russian separatists – while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, 193 were Dutch citizens.

[American Patriot]

UN Resolution demanding cease fire right now, open crash site to investigations, expect full cooperation.

(No one else, including me, expects anything other than a bunch of asshole cossacks to respond with more gun fire).

[American Patriot]

Experts on TV don't believe this will change anyone's behavior, nor will anyone get in there and make a determination of who did what to whom.

[vector7]

Ron Paul Is Putin's New Best Friend

The former congressman from Texas is making a better argument for shielding the Russian president from blame than Kremlin TV.

By Lucia Graves

• Follow on Twitter

July 21, 2014

It used to be that blaming America for crisis abroad was largely the province of liberals. That folk wisdom appears to be changing—just ask Ron Paul. In the days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the former House member has been quick to attack the West and President Obama for pointing any fingers in the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Just days after the tragic crash of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine, Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster. It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said," Ron Paul wrote in an editorial Sunday.

"President Obama held a press conference to claim—even before an investigation—that it was pro-Russian rebels in the region who were responsible. His ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, did the same at the U.N. Security Council—just one day after the crash!"

Related Story: Inside Rand Paul's Jewish Charm Offensive

Paul's argument, which he first made in a Friday television appearance, was quickly picked up by the Kremlin-funded English language outlet Russia Today. And on Monday, the Permanent Mission of Russia to NATO, a group tasked with facilitating cooperation between Russia and NATO, tweeted out his column.

Ron Paul: Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster http://t.co/DjGLkpkbFE
— Russians at NATO HQ (@natomission_ru) July 21, 2014

It's easy to see why they liked the piece. Politically, it's a much sounder line of argument for protecting Russia from blame than what's being reported on Russian TV (much of which is funded by the Kremlin), where conspiracies theories abound. One report promotes the idea that the airliner was already full of corpses when it took off from Amsterdam. Another claims the tragedy was somehow mysteriously the result of the Ukrainian military confusing MH17 for Putin's presidential plane.

"Watching some of these Russian newscasts, one comes away with the impression of a desperate defense attorney scrounging for experts and angles, or a bad kid caught red-handed by the principal, trying to twist his way out of a situation in which he has no chance," Russia expert Julia Ioffe wrote in The New Republic.

Not that any of the outlandish coverage is particularly useful to Putin. As David Remnick recently wrote, Putin has become something of a victim of his own propaganda machine. The wild exaggeration on nightly broadcasts has "become a problem for Putin, because this system cannot be wholly managed," Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Putin adviser, told Remnick of the Russian media. "The news programs have 'overheated' public opinion and the collective political imagination."

Never mind that Secretary of State John Kerry, in his blanket appearances on the Sunday talk shows, was careful not to directly blame Putin for the disaster, noting that "culpability is a judicial term." Kerry did note an "enormous amount of evidence" suggesting that Russia provided the separatists in eastern Ukraine with the weapons used to shoot down the airliner last week. He did, however, assign the Kremlin some blame for fueling conflict in eastern Ukraine and arming separatists with military equipment.

But that didn't dissuade Paul from attacking American officials for (supposedly) jumping to conclusions. After outlining everything that Western media outlets, in their "rush to repeat government propaganda" have ignored, Paul posited that "the real point is, it's very difficult to get accurate information."

"Is it so hard to simply demand a real investigation?" Paul asks. He also, in his Friday interview on NewsMax, drew parallels between the Russian-made missile system's alleged connection to Thursday's attack and the capture of US-made weapons by Islamist insurgents in Iraq, arguing where the missiles were originally manufactured is relatively meaningless.

"That may well be true, but guess what, ISIS has a lot of American weapons," said Paul. "We sent weapons into Syria to help the rebels and al-Qaida ends up getting it—it doesn't mean that our American government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American weapons."

"So who gets the weapons is a big difference between how they got them and what happened and what the motivations were," Paul added. "So even if it was a Russian weapon—that doesn't mean a lot."

Putin's own talking points have been more subdued. In an address published online overnight, the Russian president called for an international investigation of the crash site, adding, "Russia will do everything possible to shift the current conflict in the east of Ukraine from today's current military stage to the state of discussion at the negotiation table."

With his cool, dispassionate rhetoric, Paul seems to be just about the best voice for Putin's interests anywhere—and better, surely, than Kremlin TV. (Paul is a more respected source, in America anyway, and his defense of Putin isn't grounded in conspiracy theories.) Still, he may have to compete with Allen West for the title of Putin's new best friend.

[American Patriot]

Told ya Ron was a nut job.

[American Patriot]

Two Ukraine jets shot down just a couple hours ago.

[American Patriot]

2 Ukrainian jet fighters shot down in rebel-held region

Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY 8:31 a.m. EDT July 23, 2014

(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down Wednesday in the eastern regions of the country that are controlled by Russian-backed separatists, according to Ukraine's defense ministry.


Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky said the Sukhoi-25 fighters were downed in an area called Savur Mogila, according to the Associated Press and Reuters.
The spokesman said each jet could have been carrying up to two crew members.


The plane shootdowns were the first over eastern Ukraine since a Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 298 people went down last Thursday, killing everyone aboard. U.S. officials say Flight MH 17 was apparently brought down by a surface-to-air missile.


A similar SU-25 jet was shot down on July 17, the night before the MH 17 crash, by an air-to-air missile along the country's border with Russia, according to Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's national defense and security council.

[American Patriot]

It is becoming apparent the Russians are doing this shit


Ukraine says missiles from Russia may have shot down 2 military jets

A 2007 photo shows two Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jets, the type of plane that Ukraine says was shot down over the eastern part of the country on Wednesday. (Sergey Popsuevich / EPA)

By Steven Zeitchik contact the reporter

RussiaUkraineDefensePoliticsGovernmentCrimeMalaysia

Ukrainian officials say missiles that shot down two military planes may have been fired from Russia


Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that two military jets have been shot down in the eastern part of the country, and the missiles that downed them may have been launched from Russia.
There was no immediate response from Russian officials. The state-run Itar-Tass news agency reported that the planes were shot down by a separatist militia.

Story So Far

Related story: 13 things you need to know about Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Christine Mai-Duc, Paul Olund

The pilots of the Su-25 fighter aircraft ejected from the planes, the Ukrainian government said, but their whereabouts are unknown. The incidents occurred near the Russian border, in a part of the country where the government is waging a battle against pro-Russia separatists.
However, at an afternoon security briefing, a Ukraine defense spokesman said the military believes that the missiles that brought down the planes came not from separatists in Ukraine but from the Russian side of the border.
"They were downed not by terrorists," said Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, using the government's term for the separatists. "‎According to our preliminary information it was done from across the border."

lRelated

Europe

Bodies of Malaysia jet victims arrive in Netherlands

See all related
8

Lysenko cited the fact that the planes were flying‎ at an altitude of more than 15,000 feet as part of the evidence that the missiles that brought the aircraft down couldn't have come from separatists.
Asked if this contradicted the government's belief that separatists had access to just such a capability in bringing down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was flying at twice that altitude, Lysenko said, "This is just based on preliminary data" and did not elaborate further, saying only that "an investigation is being arranged."

Caption Repatriation of bodies from Kharkiv Aiport DAVE HUNT / EPA
A ceremony for those killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash before victims' bodies are loaded onto a Dutch C130 aircraft at Kharkiv Aiport in Ukraine on Wednesday.

Caption Minute of silence OLAF KRAAK / EPA
Flight attendants at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands observe a moment of silence for Flight 17 as victims' bodies begin arriving at the airport.

Caption Flight MH17 wreckage Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press
Malaysian investigators along with members of the OSCE mission in Ukraine, examine a piece of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the village of Petropavlivka in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday. The crash site,in territory held by pro-Russia separatists accused by the Ukrainian government...

Caption Flight MH17 wreckage Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press
Children walk past a piece of wreckage in Petropavlivka village in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Caption Flight MH17 wreckage Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press
Investigators examine a piece of the downed aircraft in Petropavlivka in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday. Independent military analysts said Wednesday that the size, spread, shape and number of shrapnel impacts visible in an AP photograph of a piece of the wreckage all point to a missile system...

He said the military still did not know the whereabouts of the pilots.
The news comes less than a week after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by a missile suspected to have been fired by separatists.
The pro-Russia paramilitary units have been firing at jets above eastern Ukraine airspace in recent months, bringing down two military transport planes in the days before the Malaysia Airlines disaster. But, if confirmed, the attack Wednesday would be the first strike in the area since the downing of the commercial jet.

cComments

• Well if the Russians didn't do it and the Separatists didn't do why can the Ukraine President ask us to send in Stealth Bombers and take out the strangers running around the area shooting stuff. The Russians and Separatists can't complain if we kill nasty phantoms?
  Beep Tomkens
  at 7:02 AM July 23, 2014

Add a comment See all comments
22

The planes were shot down near Saur Mogila, Lysenko said, a town in the southeast corner of the country just west of the Russian border.
The separatists have denied any involvement in the Malaysia Airlines strike, and Russia has denied supplying them with the weapons systems required for such an attack. However, the U.S. and other nations believe that Russia has been providing the separatists with surface-to-air missiles, including the kind suspected in the Malaysia Airlines downing, and have demanded that Moscow halt support of the breakaway group.

[American Patriot]

Australia Readies 50 Police to Send to Ukraine

CANBERRA, Australia — Jul 24, 2014, 4:17 AM ET
By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press








Australia has sent 50 police to London in anticipation of deploying them to Ukraine to secure the Malaysian plane crash site as part of a proposed U.N. team, the Australian prime minister said Thursday.


Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he accepted "there is potential for difficulty" in deploying police in an area of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists who are suspected to have shot down the airliner.


Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she was traveling with her Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans to Kiev to seek a memorandum of understanding with the Ukraine government that will allow international police to secure the crash site, Abbott said.


"We are ready to deploy Australian police to Ukraine to help secure the site as part of an international team under United Nations authority," Abbott told reporters.


He said that the task of the international police team would be to ensure a full and thorough search of the site so that all victims' remains were recovered and sent to the Netherlands for identification.


Abbott said he had personally spoken overnight with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin about the need to secure the site where Malaysia Airlines plane was downed by a surface-to-air missile last week. All 298 passengers and crew were killed.


Bishop presented an Australia-sponsored resolution to the U.N. Security Council that passed unanimously on Monday demanding that rebels cooperate with an independent investigation and allow all remaining bodies to be recovered. The first bodies of the crash victims arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday and a second airlift was planned Thursday.


Australian hopes that Russia's support for the resolution will influence the rebels to obey it.


Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he regretted that Malaysian victims of the disaster could not be sent home before the end of Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

[American Patriot]

Oh oh.

The US State Department just accused Russia of "firing artillery into Ukraine" - FROM RUSSIA.

[American Patriot]

FNC attempting to get verification of actual Russian military involved in this incident.

If it is true....

If the Russian military fired on the Ukrainians....

Then... we have several treaties in place, and it becomes "an act of war".

Congress can act on this once information is verified in the intelligence community. The President will have NO CHOICE but to set up and order a military response as required.

This, boys and girls is what is commonly called "Cold War escalation into a hot war".

[American Patriot]

Signs that heavy artillery being used.

Also, note this is why the Russians protested the sensors and other things we had there.

They didn't want their troops monitored, or their people watched.

Separatists shoot down a plane, Putin says "take it easy", and now they are blowing up military targets over in Ukraine - all the way from Russia.

This shit is getting real. People sitting with me here agree - this is "very bad".

[American Patriot]

Two fighter jets were taken out yesterday - and RUMOR has it, they were shot down by Russian pilots and Russian military aircraft.