29 March 2014 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Problem of Ukraine: It’s Important to Make US Cooperate on Equal Terms
29.03.2014 | 00:00 | Pavel DMITRIEV
Crimea has become part of Russia. The first hysterical reaction of US is over, now it starts to seek more balanced approaches. The policy of imposing sanctions against Russia has proven to be ineffective. Russia has become part of world economy in recent years and its contribution is enough to make the sanctions backlash. Now the West’s policy on Ukraine and Russia has started to acquire new traits… The Obama’s administration is ready to put up with the fact that Crimea becomes part of Russia in exchange for Russia’s refusal to defend its vital interests in Ukraine, including in the south-eastern part of the country…
What Hague Summit Never Mentioned
29.03.2014 | 00:00 | Viktor BURBAKI
58 world leaders took part in the Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague on March 25 focusing on reducing the amount of dangerous nuclear material in the world that terrorists could use to make a nuclear weapon… Ukraine has accumulated 4500 tons of spent fuel kept near reactors in temporary storage sites. The capacity is limited and the storage conditions are not up to safety standards. The spent material contains totally 12 tons of plutonium (enough to produce 1000 nuclear warheads). There are no contemporary spent fuel storages in Ukraine now. It makes the situation critical… As the «national revolution» proceeds, the sites can become a «doomsday weapon» at any time. It will affect Russia and the whole of Europe. For how long can this problem be ignored?
From Kosovo to Crimea
28.03.2014 | 07:53 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
…The Crimea’s self-determination is not the first time the «Kosovo precedent» exerts impact on the events in the post-Soviet space. As diplomats in Brussels say, the recognition of Kosovo by the West to large extent influenced the decision of Mikheil Saakashvili, then President of Geor-gia, to unleash war in South Ossetia in 2008 to do away once and for all with the «Kosovo of his own». The result is well known. South Ossetia and Abkhazia implemented their right to self-determination and were recognized by Russia… The Russia’s success in Crimea shows the world has really changed. The independence of Kosovo has turned to be a pyrrhic victory for the West…
Washington and Riyadh a Step Away from a «Final Solution» to the Syrian Issue
28.03.2014 | 00:40 | Igor PANKRATENKO
Recently the Syrian issue has flared up once more. Heated discussions in American political circles and emotional speeches from participants of the Arab League conference in Kuwait March 25-26 are not a discussion of plans for the peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict; they are a debate about which method for capturing Damascus and overthrowing President al-Asad will be most effective… Now Americans see Syria as a way to get «revenge for Crimea» and the capture of Damascus as an opportunity to deprive Moscow of all its positions in the Middle East… Obama is to visit Riyadh March 28-29. At the end of the week it will apparently become clear what path al-Asad’s opponents have chosen for the «final solution» to the Syrian issue.
A Decisive Turnaround in the Syrian War: Al-Assad’s Victory in the Qalamoun Valley
28.03.2014 | 00:32 | Dmitry MININ
Against the background of what is happening in and around Crimea, the war in Syria has been somewhat relegated to the sidelines of world politics. In the meantime, the country has experienced some extremely important events in the last few days that have spoiled the mood of the White House even further. The Syrian army has cleared the Qalamoun region of opposing forces, which is strategically as important as the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan… There is also a growing danger that confronted with the ultimate defeat of al-Assad’s opponents, Washington may take advantage of Russia’s absorption in the Ukrainian crisis and opt for military intervention in Syria…
Western Unity Against Russia a Masterpiece of Illusion
27.03.2014 | 08:46 | Finian CUNNINGHAM
…Russian security measures on its border with Western-destabilized Ukraine and in the constitutionally reunited southern province of Crimea are distorted as monstrous acts of aggression. Russia’s legitimate cautionary national security measures are presented as an evil specter threatening to «splinter Europe» – in the words of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. This cartoon-like portrayal is bereft of salient facts, facts that are known to the public from its access to alternative news media… The trouble for Washington and its elite European allies is that the wider public is not buying this hackneyed narrative. The wider public rightly see US-led NATO aggression and lebensraum in Europe as the problem, not alleged Russian expansionism…
Ukrainian Junta and Maidan
27.03.2014 | 00:00 | Alexander GAPONENKO
The newly installed regime in Kiev does not control the situation neither in the country, nor in the capital… Militants are waiting for orders to stage the next coup, until now then they are just killing time looking for something to do. At nights they settles the scores among themselves, the sounds of shootings are heard in the city. More people come to join their ranks. Sometimes they burn and damage building in the heart of the city… Militants desecrate synagogues, beat up Jews and bully Russian speakers. Memorials are destroyed, now it’s museums’ turn. They have greatly damaged the History Museum located on Kreschatik Street (the most famous and one of the busiest streets in Kiev) plundering ancient Slav and Scythian glass-ware, ornaments made of gold, silver, bronze and copper, ancient furniture and unique icons and paintings. The door guarding the accommodation where 250 thousand museum samples were stored was broken wide open, ancient stones and bones scattered around the floor along with the fragments of statutes…
NATO Intensifies Activities to Counter Russia
27.03.2014 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
Ukraine. Recalling Night of Long Knives
26.03.2014 | 00:00 | Olga SHEDROVA
Historic parallels are a risky thing, but the similarity between the past and out times is stunning. The Kiev junta – Maidan armed groups relationship and the bloody events known in the history of Germany as the Night of Long Knives are by and large the same stories… Ukraine is at the initial stage of standoff between «formal» structures and the formations of self-confident stormtroopers. Perhaps Yarosh will succeed in staging a coup, something Röhm failed to do. In its turn, the junta will take advantage of contradictions within the Nazi ranks to cement its positions and bring a new «Führer» to power… The further scenario is almost predetermined, whoever wins the internal strife, its common Ukrainians who will suffer. Those days in Germany an average citizen was doomed to suffer no matter if it was Hitler or Röhm who grabbed the power. Only the repetition of 1945 can save the country…
Hatred Towards Russians Boiling Over or Yulia Timoshenko «Gone Fishing»
25.03.2014 | 14:55 | Boris NOVOSELTSEV
Yulia Timoshenko is back into politics. Her phone conversation with Nestor Shufrych, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (their close personal ties are an open secret), was uploaded on YouTube on March 24. A part of the recorded talk was devoted to Crimea… She spoke Russian (her native tongue) and suggested that it was “about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn katsaps» (katsap is a Ukrainian word used to refer to the Russians in a negative tone). The conversation leaves no doubt about the fate of Russians if Timoshenko is elected President. Shufrych told her about his fellow MP asking him, “What should we do now with the 8 million Russians that stayed in Ukraine? They are rogues!» Timoshenko, who is known in the West as a “beacon of democracy» and a «prisoner of conscience», says, “Use nuclear weapons against them»…
Voices of Rationality on U.S. – Russian Ties Rise to the Surface
25.03.2014 | 04:00 | Wayne MADSEN
To listen to the endless cacophony from American global interventionists who are regularly booked on the major American news networks to spew their neo-Cold War rhetoric, one might think that we are back in the 1960s during the dark days of fractious U.S.- Soviet relations. However, there are a growing number of voices in the United States who do not want to play the game of the neo-conservatives and “set back” the clock of Washington-Moscow relations to the Cold War era. One of the voices of sanity is Dr. Stephen F. Cohen of New York University and Princeton and a veteran expert on Russian affairs… Jack Matlock, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow from 1987 to 1991, feels that Ukraine is better off without Crimea… The assumption of control by extreme nationalists and neo-fascists of Ukraine’s national security, defense, and justice elements has longtime Washington newsman and political observer John Edward Hurley…
Eyes Wide Shut. Ukraine Today
25.03.2014 | 00:00 | Andrey GANDJA
Watching the events taking place in Ukraine today, I recall the Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, the film I believe to be a real masterpiece. The story follows the adventures of Dr. Bill Harford, who does not know if he lives in real world or it’s just a dream. That’s what is happening with the ruling group in Kiev which perceives as reality only the information than meets their wishes. The hired media outlets instill this perception in the society. One day the people will bounce back and see the real world. Then it may be very painful to realize that those who yesterday called themselves the government have left the country deceived, devastated and divided…
NATO Aggression on FRY-15 Years Later
24.03.2014 | 22:40 | Marina RAGUSH
On March 24th 1999, NATO began its aggression of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Mission ‘Allied Force’ gathered the most powerful countries of Western civilization. They manifest all the power and disproportionate force mainly on innocent civilians and nonmilitary targets. Bombing destroyed around 1 026 civilian facilities, industrial sites and energy installations were destroyed: bridges, radio and TV stations, National broadcasting network RTS, 19 hospitals, 20 health care buildings, 18 kinder gardens, 69 primary and secondary schools, 29 monasteries, 35 churches were damaged. Human casualties during aggression on FRY: about 2000 civilians, 599 soldiers, 172 policemen have died…
Remembrance
24.03.2014 | 20:27 | Nenad BLAGOJEVIC
…We, the Serbs, who listened, during 78 days and nights, sirens and watched uninvited ones flying sky, we have no rights to forget that during over 30,000 flights of the most powerful global forces back then, they throw more than 20,000 tons of bombs and over 600 cruise missiles. Those 3000 innocent souls were killed, among them 79 children. We mustn’t forget that 280, 000 Serbs left Kosovo and Metohija then, and 800,000 Albanians settled on Serbian Holly ground. We must never erase the face of innocent Ljiljana Spasic which «Angel of Mercy» took away in the seventh month of pregnancy. Strength of the nation lies in its remembrance…
Ukraine: Dayton Accords Once Again?
24.03.2014 | 00:00 | Olga SHEDROVA
The armed coup staged in Kiev, that made Neo-Nazi groups come to power, put Ukraine on the brink of collapse. The events unfold according to traditional pattern of conflict escalation with mass violations of human rights, ethnic cleansing, resistance in some regions, complete anarchy, divisions in the ranks of power agencies and field commanders going on a rampage. The United States and the European Union are rendering aid to the ultranationalist junta. The reunification of Crimea with Russia shows, among other things, that the coercive Eurointegartion of Ukraine has failed. Only an international solution still to be found could lead the country out of the crisis…
US Drones to Deploy in Central Asia
24.03.2014 | 00:00 | Dmitry POPOV
On February 16 the Los Angeles Times reported that the Obama administration is making contingency plans to use air bases in Central Asia to conduct drone missile attacks in northwest Pakistan in case the White House is forced to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan at the end of this year without having an agreement of the status of forces… The implementation of United States plans to deploy drones in Central Asia will expand the US military presence in the region and create conditions for conducting secret operations using unmanned aerial vehicles while negatively affecting the regional balance of forces.
Crimea is Russia. What the Germans Think
23.03.2014 | 00:00 | Natalia MEDEN
In a March 18 speech on the signing of the treaty for the entry of Crimea and Sevastopol into the Russian Federation, the Russian president directly addressed the German people, drawing a parallel between today and the reunification of Germany. Pointing out that the USSR supported «the sincere, unstoppable desire of the Germans for national unity», President Putin expressed the hope that «the citizens of Germany will also support the aspiration of the Russians, of historical Russia, to restore unity»… The majority of Germans who are discussing this important international event on Internet forums are making more neutral remarks, but express understanding for Russia’s actions…
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The New Dark Age 