WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2016 — Defense Secretary Ash Carter today said the United States and its allies remain committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity during his bilateral meeting with Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak at the U.N. Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial in London, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a readout of the meeting.
Carter is in London as part of a three-day trip to the U.K. and Norway. The two leaders discussed the fragile ceasefire between the Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, Cook said. Carter emphasized that the United States, together with its allies, remains committed to the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements in support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, the press secretary said.
As a demonstration of continued U.S. support for Ukraine, Carter and Poltorak co-signed a bilateral partner concept, a document that provides a framework for the United States and Ukraine to enhance the defense capacity of Ukraine's forces, advance critical Ukrainian defense reforms, improve resource management processes and boost defense technology cooperation, Cook said. (DoD)
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The most visible sign of this new agreement is the appointment of retired General Abazaid as special advisor to Ukraine’s defense minister. According to the Military Times, Abazaid’s mission is “to strengthen democratic civilian control of its military, take on corruption and put in place other reforms.” In other words, he is to find a way to turn the depraved, atrocity committing Nazi scumbags masquerading as the Ukrainian national guard into something more presentable to the Western public. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig… or a basket of deplorables. He’s not alone in this endeavor. In May, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary general, was put in place as a “non-staff” adviser to the Ukrainian President.
This agreement also moves the Washington-Kiev relationship from its current ad-hoc status to a formalized five year plan. More aid is already flowing to Kiev. Our Congress has allocated 335 million dollars in military aid and McCain is working on getting another 500 million for Kiev. Ten AN/TPQ-49 counter-mortar radars and four AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radars were handed over in July. Exercise equipment and other amenities are flowing to the training areas in western Ukraine for the comfort of U.S. trainers. We are in this for the long haul.
What does this look like to the Russians and the separatists governments in Donetsk and Lugansk? South Front offers a good summary of the current situation. I strongly recommend you watch the video presentation. The conclusion of this South Front report is as follows.
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The developments in Ukraine indicate that US-backed Kiev regime is actively seeking to find a cause to escalate the situation in the region and has already prepared a significant military force for this. Amid the military and diplomatic setbacks in Syria under the pressure of Russian-Syrian-Iranian alliance, the United States, mostly the so-called “Hillary block” of military and diplomatic establishment, is now need to create a hot point in Europe in order to draw the Russian attention from the Middle East and unite again the dispersed allies under own rule. Pursuing the political goals of its foreign sponsors, Kiev will continue to provoke the militia forces in the Donbass region and if this fails to elicit a full-scale military response, will probably attempt further terror attacks on Russian soil. (South Front)
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The “Hillary block.” That should give us pause. Both Nuland and Pyatt (now replaced by one Marie L. Yovanovitch) worked for HRC and were instrumental in creating the crapfest in Kiev. Their influence and capacity for creating further mayhem under a Clinton Administration will only be enhanced.
But wait. Won’t the level-headed Putin just take all these provocations for the sake of world peace? I’m convinced he will, but only to a point. You may be able to poke a bear with a stick and get away with it. But you keep at it and you’ll be lucky to only lose your arm. I’m also convinced that the ethnic Russians in the DPR and LPR are the cubs of Mother Russia. And we all know what happens when you mess around a mother bear’s cubs.
What do the cubs have to say about this? The deputy commander of the DPR operational command, Eduard Basurin, stated that a change in the present government in Kiev and the creation of a confederation in accordance with the Minsk II Agreement is necessary for peace in the region. The DPR has no intention of backing down. Nor does the LPR.
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Just before the announcement of the [1 September] ceasefire, LPR head Igor Plotnitsky also stated that establishing a ceasefire in Donbass can only be guaranteed by a change of government in Ukraine. “No pressure, whether from the West, East, North, or South, is capable of forcing Kiev to permanently cease firing…Only a complete dismantling of the current regime in Kiev and a deep program for de-Nazifying Ukraine, as in Germany in 1945, can establish a lasting peace in Donbass. The sooner the West realizes this, the less time and money this will take,” Plotnitsky said. (Fort Russ)
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We can only surmise exactly where Putin draws the line in this matter. I’d rather not be in the position where I find out exactly where Putin draws that line. I prefer it to remain one of life’s mysteries. I will leave you with these words from Alexey Chesnakov. He is not currently a member of the Russian government, but he recently held fairly high level positions in Putin’s Administration. I would consider him part of the Moscow in-crowd. How widely these views are shared, I don’t know. I’d prefer that also remains one of life’s mysteries.
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If the Ukrainian authorities, instead of fulfilling the Minsk agreement, continue their aggressive rhetoric against Russia, and carry out repression and discrimination of the Russian population, the Russian authorities will be forced to dismember the former Soviet republic.
This was said at a press conference in Moscow, said political analyst Alexei Chesnakov, leader of the Center for Political Studies.
"If Europe will not put in effort to pressure on Kiev, this will mean the potential resumption of hostilities. For Russia, our fundamental concern is the implementation of the agreements that have been signed in Minsk on 12 February, 2015. This will ensure that the Donbass republic will have autonomous status. ", he stated. "As an expert, I can see what is happening in Ukraine itself. If Ukraine continues to increase aggressive rhetoric in relation to the Russian Federation, to take Russia as an enemy, if the Ukrainian government will make laws that toughen its stance towards Russians, then of course for Russia it is most probable there will be no other choice than to demand in fact any, by any means, the disintegration of Ukraine and its transformation beyond a federal state, into a union of states, or several independent states.” (Fort Russ)
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Sweet dreams, all.
TTG
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