Kiev Burning

[Cerebus]

Look, we all know that the real debilitating sanctions would come from the EU, the good thing is that not only is the evidence so clear cut but the cover is so ham handed as to be offensive. It will take weeks but there is a real chance, and that chance will just grow as Putin and his people continue to fumble things, that some hard sanctions will be coming down the pipeline.

Bloomberg: France Prepared to Cancel Warship Sale to Russia

“Can the rest of the contract be honored?” Hollande told reporters in Paris about the second warship part of a contract with Russia. “That will depend on Russia’s attitude.”

EU foreign ministers are meeting today in Brussels to consider further sanctions punishing Russia in light of evidence that separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down a Malaysian airliner last week with 298 passengers on board. The sanctions described by Hollande would need to be decided at the level of national leaders, so no such decision would come today.

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“With so many European Union citizens lost in the Malaysian Airlines crash, it is hard to see how the French Mistral deal can go ahead,” Timothy Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank Plc in London, said in an e-mail before Hollande made his remarks. “The British seem prepared to stomach enhanced financial sector sanctions, which the French had argued that they had to see before pulling the Mistral deal.”

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A further step -- which has been the source of dispute within the EU -- would be Level 3 sanctions that apply to entire economic sectors such as the defense, banking and energy industries. While hitting Russia harder, those measures would also have a greater cost to the European nations.

[Cerebus]

NBC- MH17 Evidence Tampered With on 'Industrial Scale': Australia PM

Evidence at the MH17 crash site has been widely tampered with as part of an apparent cover-up attempt, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Tuesday. "After the crime, comes the cover-up. What we have seen is evidence tampering on an industrial scale and obviously that has to stop," Abbott told reporters in Canberra. "It's not an accident. It's a crime."

[Cerebus]

Pro Russian separatist with a captured BUK system in the background. This was posted to a Russian social media site on 6/25.

[Cerebus]

NBC: MH17 Wreckage Has Been 'Hacked Into' With Saws, OSCE Says

Large pieces of the downed Malaysia Airlines jet have been "hacked into" with diesel-powered saws, international monitors at the crash site said Tuesday. The limited access granted to experts and alleged tampering by pro-Russia rebels controlling the region has outraged the leaders of countries including the Netherlands and Australia, who are eager to repatriate the victims' remains. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has officials at the scene, reported damage that did not appear to be linked to the missile strike. "The rear part of the aircraft, one of the biggest intact pieces, has definitely been hacked into," OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said.

So what are they trying to hide? Probably parts such as this that show clear shrapnel damage:

American AD missiles use a continuous or chained rod warhead. Russian systems use HE wrapped in pre scored metal tubes that shear into diamond shaped shrapnel:

[Cerebus]

https://twitter.com/EuropeUkraine/status/491540456497758209

[Cerebus]

More possible shrapnel damage:

Следы от российского Бука вблизи. #MH17 #MalaysiaAirlines #Boeing777 pic.twitter.com/PMfHzHAgcO

— ЄВРОМАЙДАН (@euromaidan)

July 22, 2014

Edited July 22, 2014 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

NYT: Jet Wreckage Bears Signs of Impact by Supersonic Missile, Analysis Shows

A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. Riddled with these perforations and buffeted by a blast wave as it flew high above the conflict zone, the plane then most likely sheared apart.

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“The perforation holes that are visible indicate that they are consistent with a foreign object entering from the exterior of the aircraft to the interior of the aircraft, given the contour of the aluminum around a majority of the perforations as well as the visible blistering of the paint around some of the holes themselves,” Reed Foster, an analyst at IHS Jane’s, wrote in an assessment provided to The Times.

He added: “Most of the smaller holes look to be caused by a high-velocity projectile, as opposed to simple shearing or tearing caused by the forceful separation of the panel from the airframe.”

Mr. Foster also noted that the shrapnel damage was different from what he would expect after an aircraft engine explosion, which could cause “longer, thinner, oblique tears across the aircraft skin.”

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The SA-11 is large and far-reaching: Roughly 18 feet long and 1,500 pounds before launch, according to an American ordnance document, its missiles can travel tens of thousands of feet into the air. Much of each missile’s weight is taken up by the fuel required to propel the weapon to supersonic speeds, and to give it its altitude and range.

But behind each missile’s antenna and guidance system is a warhead packed with 46 pounds of high explosive.

[Cerebus]

Head of the Dutch forensics team Jain Tuinder: Train arrived in Kharkiv today with 200 bodies, significantly less than claimed by rebels.

— Kevin Bishop (@bishopk)

July 22, 2014

Bodies still missing x #MH17 via BBC's @Richardgalpin Dutch forensic team says train carrying bodies x #MH17 has 200 bodies; rebels said 282

— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford)

July 22, 2014

Dutch forensics team in #Ukraine says will hv to search again for bodies from #malaysianplanecrash #MH17 + won't leave til all remains found

— Richard Galpin (@RgalpinBBC)

July 22, 2014

[Cerebus]

What are your thoughts about if Merkel will back up her last chance rhetoric?

#Merkel, via Spox, calling for speedy EU sanctions against #Russia.

— Charles Hawley (@charles_hawley)

July 23, 2014

Wow, sharp words from German Foreign Ministry spokesperson: "#Russia has promised a lot and delivered nothing. We've had enough." #MH17

— Charles Hawley (@charles_hawley)

July 23, 2014

[Cerebus]

Live feed from NL TV showing arrival and military escort of MH17 victims.

[Cerebus]

So despite not having any missile systems (as the Russians claim), the "separatists" manage to knock down two Su-25s today:

Fighter jets downed near #MH17 site by missile from Russia - Ukraine's Nat'l Security Council @NSDC_ua stmt https://t.co/5BsYJAU73a

— Maxim Eristavi (@MaximEristavi)

July 23, 2014

[Cerebus]

Prospect Mag: Russian incompetence is to blame for the downing of Flight MH17

Putin’s disasters all come back to this—the inability of the Russian state to deliver reliable government, without accidents, or these horrific screw ups. In 2010 various global governance and corruption indicators showed that Russia was almost as corrupt as Papua New Guinea, with the property rights of Kenya, as easy to do business in as Uganda, and as uncompetitive and monopoly ridden as Sri Lanka.

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Putin’s rule has been punctuated by tragedies: from the sinking of the Kursk submarine (2000), to the Nord-Ost theater siege (2002), and the Beslan school massacre (2004), all well known in the West. Then there are those accidents that are painfully remembered in Russia, such as Sayano–Shushenskaya power plant explosion (2009), and the deadly Moscow smog and rampaging forest fires (2010).

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Right up until that fireball crashed and erupted in a sunflower field, Russian forces had been running a remarkably successful undercover war. Those the media referred to as “rebels,” were almost all commanded by undercover Russian officials, armed almost fully by the Russian army, reinforced by Russian mercenaries and brigades of Chechen and Ossetian reinforcements.

To put it simply, these “rebel” armies, are one of the largest Russian military intelligence operations in a generation. But, it would seem, despite being armed with sophisticated rocket launchers, they were unable to tell the difference between a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet and a Ukrainian military transport plane. This is because, out in the field, the Russian army’s special operation forces (who are supporting the separatist rebels) have been unable to combat the corruption, incompetence and incoherence which brought about the military bungles in Beslan a decade ago when Russian military stormed the besieged school causing horrific chaos and the loss of 334 lives.

[Cerebus]

MSN: Russian Billionaires in ‘Horror’ as Putin Risks Isolation

Russia’s richest businessmen are increasingly frantic that President Vladimir Putin’s policies in Ukraine will lead to crippling sanctions and are too scared of reprisal to say so publicly, billionaires and analysts said.

If Putin doesn’t move to end the war in Ukraine in the wake of last week’s downing of a Malaysia Air jet in rebel-held territory, he risks becoming an international outcast like Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, whom the U.S. famously labeled Europe’s last dictator, one Russian billionaire said on condition of anonymity. What’s happening is bad for business and bad for Russia, he said.

“The economic and business elite is just in horror,” said Igor Bunin, who heads the Center for Political Technology in Moscow. Nobody will speak out because of the implicit threat of retribution, Bunin said by phone yesterday. “Any sign of rebellion and they’ll be brought to their knees.”

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While the EU has so far imposed less punitive measures against Russia than the U.S. because of opposition from countries such as Italy and Austria, the U.K. and the Netherlands are leading the push for bolder action at a meeting of foreign ministers tomorrow. Most of the victims aboard the plane, 193, were Dutch; 10 were British.

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“The threat of sanctions against entire sectors of the economy is now very real and there are serious grounds for business to be afraid,” Mikhail Kasyanov, who served as Russia’s prime minister during Putin’s first term as president, from 2000 to 2004, said by phone from Jurmala, Latvia. “If there will be sanctions against the entire financial sector, the economy will collapse in six months.”

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All this war and talk of war has the country’s business elite “living in a state of fear” and trying to get their money out of the country, Kryshtanovskaya said by phone.

Alexander Lebedev, a former billionaire who owns the U.K. Independent and Evening Standard newspapers, said he’s deeply pessimistic that Russia will ever repair its relationship with the U.S. and its European allies.

“The clock has moved back to the 1980s,” the height of the Cold War, Lebedev, who served as a Soviet intelligence officer in London, said by phone. “But in the 1980s, the two sides contained each other. Now we have a war, so it’s worse.”

[Cerebus]

Moscow Times: Russian Inmates to Build Bridge to Crimea

Russia's Federal Penal Service said that the country's inmates would soon be contributing to public works including the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge to Crimea and a cleanup operation in the Sochi region, the Kommersant newspaper reported Wednesday.

[Cerebus]

So despite not having any missile systems (as the Russians claim), the "separatists" manage to knock down two Su-25s today:

Ukraine security council says according to preliminary information, missiles that brought down two fighter jets were fired from Russia.

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters)

July 23, 2014

[Cerebus]

I know I post a lot, but don't let this get lost in the torrent, this is big:

CNBC: Poland: Tougher Russia sanctions set for Thursday

The European Union could push through "phase three" sanctions against Russia as early as Thursday this week, the foreign minister of Poland told CNBC, if EU leaders get the legal sign-off from their parliaments.

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The EU has threatened more severe measures before, without being able to find consensus, however Sikorski said the probability of phase three sanctions getting pushed through is "quite high" this time.

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New financing operations in the Russian Federation by the European Investment Bank will be suspended and member states will coordinate with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to adopt a similar position.

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"France does have a problem, the current French president inherited this contract from his predecessor and I understand its cancellation would be very expensive, but there are things that France can do to show that it is committed to stopping the Russian meddling in Ukraine," he added.

[Cerebus]

#MH17 crash site completely unsecured today. No militia watching over, no investigators. But many TV reporters filming stand-ups amid debris

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM)

July 23, 2014

Dutch government seriously thinking about sending army and police to secure the #MH17 area in #donbass #Ukraine

— Pierre Crom (@PierreCrom)

July 23, 2014

[Cerebus]

Reuters: Ukraine rebel commander acknowledges fighters had BUK missile

In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, acknowledged for the first time since the airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday that the rebels did possess the BUK missile system and said it could have been sent back subsequently to remove proof of its presence.

Before the Malaysian plane was shot down, rebels had boasted of obtaining the BUK missiles, which can shoot down airliners at cruising height. But since the disaster the separatists' main group, the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, has repeatedly denied ever having possessed such weapons.

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"That BUK I know about. I heard about it. I think they sent it back. Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence," Khodakovsky told Reuters on Tuesday.

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Khodakovsky said it was widely known that rebels had obtained BUKs from Ukrainian forces in the past, including three captured at a checkpoint in April and another captured near the airport in Donetsk. He said none of the BUKs captured from Ukrainian forces were operational.

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"I’m not going to say Russia gave these things or didn’t give them. Russia could have offered this BUK under some entirely local initiative.

In effect, he is saying:

1) the BUK in the area was not one of the captured ones because they were in un-usable condition. This makes sense since if you read back to the thread as hostilities first started, Ukraine had grossly neglected their military and most of their equipment was in deep storage state.

2) The BUK system came from Russia. This is important because it means that the crew manning it wasn't ethnic Russian Ukrainians, or even Russian "green men", but regular Russian army troops.

3) The BUK system was shuttled back to Russia as soon as possible to hide it's involvement.

These allegations are huge. I don't know if there is enough evidence to back his claims, but if they are true they would explain why Russia has gone into overdrive on misinformation and why they have denied access to the site and had the crash evidence disturbed.

There is a really big difference between "we trained some rebels and those idiots shot down and airliner and we are very sorry" and "we pretended to be rebels and a Russian regular army unit shot down the airliner."

[Army of Dad]

https://twitter.com/Reuters/statuses/491973075400155136

This represents a serious escalation, does it not?

[Army of Dad]

https://twitter.com/PierreCrom/statuses/491961747033841664

Hmm, what happens if they are attacked while there? What are our treaty obligations?

[Cerebus]

This represents a serious escalation, does it not?

If you believe the Ukrainians this is not the first time. With the amount of surveillance that is going on over the area since MH17 you would think the Russians would have to be idiots to do this now.

[Cerebus]

Hmm, what happens if they are attacked while there? What are our treaty obligations?

The UN passed a resolution on Monday demanding access to the area for investigative purposes. Ukraine has officially handed over the stewardship of the international investigation to the Dutch. The Dutch are talking about securing the area underneath the UN resolution as the head investigators.

Kicking it up a couple dozen notches is that they are full members of NATO as well. "Separatists" attacking them opens up an enormous can of worms. Russian regular army attacking them and I guess we start the draft.

Like I have said before, Putin's not that crazy. Besides they have had several days to remove as much incriminating evidence as possible already.

[Cerebus]

US DOD: Russia Continues to Arm, Train Separatists

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2014 – Despite questions about its possible role in last week’s downing of a commercial airliner over Ukraine, Russia continues to arm and train pro-Russian separatists in the region and has dispatched more than 100 additional pieces of military equipment across the border in recent days, a Pentagon spokesman said today.

“We know that they sent, for example, last week a column of over 100 vehicles which included tanks, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems,” Army Col. Steve Warren said, adding that these actions are consistent with Moscow’s behavior in eastern Ukraine for several months.

[Cerebus]

CNN - U.S.: Russia’s ‘actions, incredibly, are heading towards escalation of the crisis’

“The fact is, we have worked through every diplomatic channel available to us. We have exercised economic leverage,” Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said.

“But so far, and sadly – although there have been occasional positive statement from Moscow – the actions are going in the wrong direction at this point. The actions, incredibly, are heading towards escalation of the crisis.”

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Indeed, he said, “most of the leaders of the Donetsk republic today are Russian citizens; they’re Russian passport holders. Several of them are Russian intelligence operatives.”

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Michael McFaul, who very recently stepped down as the American envoy to Moscow, has been weighing in on the conflict in a way he could not when he was held to the diplomatic protocol befitting an ambassador.

“West has to stop trying to change Putin's mind, and focus more on helping Ukraine succeed, including on the battlefield,” McFaul tweeted. “If Putin can arm rebels, why can't we arm Ukraine?”

[Cerebus]

Inadia Times: Russia pressures Ukraine not to sign European Union association pact

Russia heaped pressure on Wednesday on Ukraine not to ratify a trade pact with the European Union, suggesting Kiev could face a total ban on its food exports. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow was holding talks with the EU and its partners in a customs union which links several ex-Soviet states but "under certain circumstances we would be forced to take protective measures."
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Kiev's signing the EU deal was a bitter pill to swallow for Russia which wanted Ukraine to join its own trade bloc, and Moscow has expressed concern that it could see a flood of re-exported EU products. An official of Russia's veterinary inspection service said that if Ukraine begins to implement the EU agreement it will stray from its previous practices agreed with Russia.