Western media are constantly reporting a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine as an undisputed fact. That no one ever sees these troops is just one of life’s little mysteries, as seemingly ever article just shows a couple of pictures of single unidentified camouflage vehicles or a handful of random people with the caption “pro-Russian separatists.”
DW.de is going for the gold with their latest “evidence mounting” about Russian troops today, which reports some putative fighters from the eastern Ukrainian rebel factions were miners who claimed they’d been paid by the Russian government.
Even if we take this claim as absolute fact, calling out-of-work miners who are paid to fight “troops” is a big stretch, and calling Ukrainians “Russians” is an even bigger stretch.
Though there have been cases of actual Russians with actual military backgrounds going to eastern Ukraine to fight, these are isolated cases, and the ongoing claims of direct Russian military involvement remain unproven.
If we’re using this standard set by this claim, we might as well call Ukraine’s military “US troops,” since the US helped bankroll the bailout of the Ukrainian government, and has been providing military aid to them.
This must be one of those articles created by the CIA and then passed on to German "journalists" to distribute under their name.
I'm sorry, Jason, but come on: when you see a line of twelve identical heavy trucks pulling twelve identical heavy guns- where do you think the "rebels" got those? From Ukrainian government stocks that happened to be in Eastern Ukraine? All those tanks, all those antiaircraft missiles- the ones that have completely stopped the Ukrainian Air Force (remember them?) from flying at all?
You can't buy those things at Walmart.
How come the rebels who used to be wearing suspenders and carrying shotguns have been replaced by a whole lot of guys in identical uniforms carrying the latest and greatest?
Don't get me wrong, I believe Putin has every right and every reason to be doing everything he can to oppose NATO's march to the East. I think he's a smart guy who is only doing all this because he was forced to.
My best evidence is what happened in Georgia. After the Georgian army ran away (stripping off their uniforms as they ran) he could have simply occupied the country and kept it. If he was interested in reconstituting the old Soviet Empire that would have been a fine place to start.
But instead he called the troops right back to the start line.
But that doesn't mean he's not also doing a fairly smart thing in Ukraine: feed in as many Russian troops and Russian equipment as it takes to win, while lying about it. Why not?
If you grant that he can't afford to lose Ukraine- and I believe he can't- why would he not do this? Of course he would do this.
Of course there are Russian troops all over Eastern Ukraine. Putin would be an idiot if there were not.
And he's not an idiot.
1) If the Russians were sending tanks and artillery over the border there would be real images of it rather than fake ones.
2) if one intact artillery battery is enough evidence for you to draw such a definite conclusion you are setting the bar far too low. Military depots, army defections and considerable amounts of captured equipment would add up to a lot of materiel and don't forget that the Donbass is a heavy industrial centre.
As you said yourself, Putin is NOT an idiot, he will certainly be providing some support to the rebels but he is going to be subtle about it.
“where do you think the “rebels” got those?”
Ukraine was a major producer of weapons for the Warsaw pact; it still an important manufacturer of military equipment.
At the time of the Warsaw pact, Ukraine was a second-line staging area for a mobilisation by the communist armies in case of a major conflict, with huge — and I mean huge — stocks of military equipment pre-positioned so that they did not have to be transported all the way from far away Russian production plants. That equipment was stored in the safety of unused mines — in the Donbass…
So yes, the rebels had just to scour Ukrainian caserns and old, barely secured depots to find plenty of weaponry — often old, but given the Russian quality, quite serviceable.
And that's not even considering all the materiel dropped by the trained "Ukrainian military" as they ran for home.
If they hadn't put the tanks in their pockets, they wouldn't have dropped them, now would they? And that allowed Putin to score the biggest military triumph since Hitler won WWII!
Obama referred to the Kyiv troops as 'pro-American' forces in a TV interview a week or so ago. a salient slip of the tongue. But given that he also stated that the US had "brokered" a change in Ukraine, so what?
I'd love to have a reference to Obama mentioning 'pro-America' forces!
Hasn't Mr Ditz been calling Ukrainians "Russians" since the very start? His whole thesis is that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are really Russians and want nothing more than to be annexed to Russia. Of course, the very fact that he is so defensive about this suggests that Putin is in deep trouble in his Ukrainian "Sausagestan". That suggests also that he really needed a workable ceasefire and that maybe, just maybe, he now wants to withdraw his mercenaries while pretending they were never there in the first place.
Still living in a fantasy world I see. Still, as I said before, I would much rather see you here, where people tend to have critical faculties than somewhere where you might do some harm.
Ethnography lesson: Ukraine, like Russia, is home to many ethnic groups, among them – ethnic Russians, who are perhaps 30-35% of Ukraine's current population and a large majority in many eastern regions. Sorry to be a pedant, but I think this issue has never been fully explained and is often something that the west can't understand.
It's a fact. But Ukraine is a sovereign country. There are ethnic Russians in many other countries around the globe, Baltic states for example, even in the U.S. and Canada. Putin does not have any rights to invade Ukraine.
Just imagine for a moment that China (say) had spent $5,000,000,000 meddling in the internal politics of Mexico, orchestrated a coup in which rabid US haters were installed into government, vowed to put chinese nukes on the US border and then declared that any of their citizens that opposed them were 'terrorists' and attacked them with heavy weapons. Would (or could) the US ever let that stand?
This whole Ukrainian fiasco is intended to drive a wege between the Russian Federation and the EU. The US opposed the building of a gas pipeline between the two in the first place, the reason being that if the RF and the EU are on good terms it becomes impossible for the US to dominate the Eurasian continent, the US doctrine being that they have a right to dominate the world because the sun shines out of their a$$es (or something like that)
This fiasco has unrealistic and unethical goals, it cannot end well and could quite possibly lead to WW3, the end of technological civilisation and very likely the extinction of the human race.
Is this Obama's Final Solution for the ''white' race''?
When Obama came to power, it was like a black imperial presidency.
Everything he wants and any information, planning, policies and strategies come from the ''white'' officials (aka eunuchs in this case) surrounding him. He is thus controlled by the ''whites'' and has no choice but to continue the agenda set forth by the neo-cons and the hawks in Washington.
The eunuchs now control the emperor!
The emperor is a puppet?
Does the emperor not resent this or does he have his own private and personal plan?
Obama may have his own personal agenda as he approaches the end of his presidency.
Obama was born a Muslim and a black ethnic African (Kenyan) at that.
Is he trying to take revenge on the ''whites'' who had previously turned millions of Africans into slaves in the United States and that American ''whites'' have slaughtered millions of Muslins in the Middle east and elsewhere?
By provoking Russia and initiating a Nuclear War with Russia, Obama would have wiped out all the ''whites'' in Europe and the United States!
Is that his insane desire before the end of his presidency!?
Is this his last laugh on the "whites"?
Is this his personal revenge?
Of course , unlike what the Western mainstream media and some scientists claimed, that in a nuclear confrontation, Mankind will cease to exist. This is of course not true. Many in Asia, Africa and South America will still survive. But Europe and North America will essentially be reduced to radioactive dusts. And of course in a nuclear war with Russia, the United States will also nuke China simultaneously. Essentially about one to two billion peoples will die. There is still life for the remaining billions on planet earth. And there will be also many mutants too after that!
Thus the question remains:
Is Obama planning and implementing his Final Solution for the "Whites" in Europe and the United States!?
Obviously this person has lost their way to redstate.com.
Ditz Mr.Jason write more, give us the truth or articles or and I admired him
There is a lot of double talk… Like what about the 7 or 8 Ukrainians who are pro- dialogue with the East all getting shot since January.. There have been repeated threats to Ms. Natalya Vitrenko of the Popular Socialist Party… Other pro-Russian Ukrainians are in jail. They are for the unity of the Ukraine, but feel there must be a federalist framework so that Donetsk and Lugansk can join the Ukraine again… And that is a crime apparently with the death penalty.