Kiev Burning

Cerebus · July 28, 2014

Reuters: Pushing locals aside, Russians take top rebel posts in east Ukraine

Vladimir Antyufeyev was named "deputy prime minister" by Borodai on July 10, one of several native Russians to have taken charge of the separatist rebellion in Ukraine's eastern regions.

Joining Borodai and rebel commander Igor Strelkov, Antyufeyev's arrival underlines a change at the top of the separatist movement, highlighting Moscow's involvement in the conflict, Western officials say. The Kremlin denies any involvement.

"There has been a dramatic change in the leadership of the Donetsk People's Republic over the past weeks, which certainly gives the impression of a much more hands-on Russian directive role," said Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Kiev. "These individuals are in regular touch with authorities in Russia."

Ukrainian-born rebel leaders have been eased out, causing rifts among increasingly nervous separatists since a Malaysian airliner was downed over rebel-held territory just over a week ago.

Antyufeyev replaced Donetsk native, Alexander Khodakovsky, as the top security person in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. Denis Pushilin, another local once titled the republic's president, was dismissed.
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Antyufeyev, also known as Vadim Shevtsov, has a history of supporting pro-Russian separatist movements in the former Soviet Union, and brings a tough discipline and doggedness to the campaign in eastern Ukraine.

The balding, 63-year-old says he "fought national fascism" by supporting separatists in the pro-Russian region of Transdniestria in neighboring Moldova, and in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.

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Though Borodai insists the separatists' weaponry comes from depots they overran while seizing territory, he admits "volunteers" from Russia keep on reinforcing the rebels' ranks.

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"There will be more and more people from Moscow in the DNR (Donetsk People's Republic)," said Borodai, flanked by Strelkov and Antyufeyev.

The stout Borodai denies having ever worked for the Russian security services though admits knowing many people there because of his past work as a "professional political expert."

He and Strelkov say they first met in 1996 in the Russian region of Chechnya, where Moscow has waged two wars against Islamist separatists since 1994. Borodai says Strelkov has long been his "very good acquaintance".

Both said they served in Transdniestria and, more recently, in Crimea. The West says they were aides to the pro-Russian separatist leader of the Black Sea peninsula who was instrumental in Moscow's annexation earlier this year.

Cerebus · July 28, 2014

Folks, if you don't feel like commenting, at least up vote the stories you enjoyed reading. It gives me some sense of feedback.

Army of Dad · July 28, 2014

Folks, if you don't feel like commenting, at least up vote the stories you enjoyed reading. It gives me some sense of feedback.

I can't do it from my phone right now, but rest assured I'm reading them all, and I really appreciate the info.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Quoner · July 28, 2014

I can't do it from my phone right now, but rest assured I'm reading them all, and I really appreciate the info.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah - phone makes it hard to vote and show support, but you're doing a heck of a job.

Cerebus · July 28, 2014

Ukrainian forces are now clearing Avdiivka, a northern suburb of #Donetsk #Ukraine. Russian fighters are reportedly fleeing south.
— Ukraine Reporter (@StateOfUkraine)
July 28, 2014

The war seems to have come to the villages where #MH17 fell today. Can't get there. Heavy fighting all around. http://t.co/PBHvUmgygc
— Paul Sonne (@PaulSonne)
July 28, 2014

Cerebus · July 28, 2014

WSJ: Ukraine Reports Heavy Fighting Around Malaysia Airlines Crash Site

Kiev Seeking to Cut Off Rebel Stronghold of Donetsk

The military has been making fast gains in recent days near the downed plane and appears to be steadily narrowing the rebels' position, threatening to split their territory in two, with the key cities of Donetsk and Luhansk cut off from each other.
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Col. Lysenko said the government hadn't violated a pledge it made last week to stay out of a 40-kilometer-diameter circle around the crash site, and accused rebels of firing on the site in an effort to destroy incriminating evidence.
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Alexander Borodai, the self-proclaimed prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, left the rebel-held territory for Moscow on Monday, triggering speculation that separatist leaders were abandoning the almost-surrounded city.
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Later in the day, rebel military commander Igor Girkin, a Russian citizen better known under his nom de guerre, Igor Strelkov, held a hastily arranged press briefing in Donetsk that seemed designed in part to prove that top separatist leaders hadn't all left town.

Mr. Strelkov said Ukrainian forces had deployed "an usual quantity" of armor, and said the rebels had killed "mercenaries of the negroid race" driving Ukrainian tanks in a battle near the Russian border. The claims could not be independently confirmed.

UNTFan23 · July 28, 2014

I thought this article was interesting:

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/here-s-why-russia-s-military-is-now-directly-attacking-ukraine#.U9aFkH3W6HQ.facebook

Cerebus · July 28, 2014

I thought this article was interesting:

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/here-s-why-russia-s-military-is-now-directly-attacking-ukraine#.U9aFkH3W6HQ.facebook

Tag. You're now in charge of this thread. See ya later suckers!

#CanNotBelieveHeFellForIt

#WhatAmIGoingToDoWithAllThisFreeTime

UNTFan23 · July 28, 2014

Tag. You're now in charge of this thread. See ya later suckers!

#CanNotBelieveHeFellForIt

#WhatAmIGoingToDoWithAllThisFreeTime

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

I can't do it from my phone right now, but rest assured I'm reading them all, and I really appreciate the info.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah - phone makes it hard to vote and show support, but you're doing a heck of a job.

Thanks for the feedback and +1's everyone. I know some people are loathe to post in this thread because 1) they see the usual suspects try to partisan circle jerk everything up, and 2) They then see me lose my mind and yell at them. Rest assured if you aren't a usual suspect that you will receive quite a bit of latitude before I even think of yelling at you.

Even if you don't feel like posting anything, the +1's do let me get a sense of people reading the material and it makes it worth my time to do it.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

Russia steps up the rhetoric:

Russia views UN Security Council’s decision to block Moscow-backed draft statement on #MH17 jet crash as attempt to protect Kiev – FM
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt)
July 29, 2014

Moscow demands Kiev stop shelling Russia’s territory and ensure security of @OSCE observers http://t.co/DdTisdzI7Z
— MFA Russia (@mfa_russia)
July 29, 2014

#Russia now accusing #Ukraine of "war crimes" and urging #Kiev to stop "war against its own people." http://t.co/r1ED5MwkIu
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM)
July 29, 2014

Edited July 29, 2014 by Cerebus

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

Russia steps up the shooty shooty bits:

#Russia is continuing to concentrate offensive forces all along the border with #Ukraine, says @NSDC_ua spox Lysenko. pic.twitter.com/gtxihrgKX0
— Viktor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko)
July 29, 2014

Russian forces near the Ukraine-Russia border are currently changing their positions #Donbass
— NSDC of Ukraine (@NSDC_ua)
July 29, 2014

29 KA-52 helicopters and 2 military jets have been based in Valuyka airport (18 KM from the Ukrainian border), it has been discovered.
— NSDC of Ukraine (@NSDC_ua)
July 29, 2014

Latest official ATO map of the fighting in Eastern #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/y4Y2soagmZ
— Conflict News (@rConflictNews)
July 29, 2014

Edited July 29, 2014 by Cerebus

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

BBC: EU set to widen sanctions on Russia over Ukraine

Europe's leaders did not want to move to economic sanctions but they were moved by two considerations: the outrage at the way investigators have been blocked from access to the crash site of the downed plane and, secondly, the fact that Russia, since the incident, has been allowing heavy weapons across the border into Ukraine.

The calculation in Europe is that it had to act for its own credibility and that it may have to go further to ensure that President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle understand that their actions carry consequences.

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Meanwhile, Russia's foreign ministry has dismissed the latest UN human rights report on the Ukraine conflict as "unobjective and even hypocritical".

The UN's human rights chief warned on Monday that the downing of MH17 may be a "war crime".

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

BBC: EU squeezes Russia

Europe's leaders are trying to put pressure on President Putin but they remain keen to limit the damage to their own economies. But this time around there will be pain. Over the past 10 days EU ambassadors have been working to ensure that the pain is shared.

The City of London will lose some business. How much? It is hard to say, but it might run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Germany has the largest share of exports of high-technology equipment.

France's arms exports are valued at nearly ten times those of the UK.

Only two weeks ago Germany and Italy and some other countries were resisting moving to what they call Tier Three economic sanctions. They were not prepared to damage fragile eurozone economies which have seen industrial production slide in recent months.

So what changed? Chancellor Angela Merkel believes she has personally been deceived by the Russian president and he cannot be trusted. But Germany has made a wider calculation that unrest in eastern Ukraine risks destabilising a region close to the heart of Europe.

So this weekend the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble pointed out that "an erosion of peace and stability would be the biggest danger to economic development". So he made the case for more sanctions.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

More Russian Wackiness!

BBC: Russia 'violated 1987 nuclear missile treaty', says US

Russia tested a ground-launched cruise missile, breaking the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed in 1987 during the Cold War, the US said.

A senior US official did not provide further details on the alleged breach, but described it as "very serious"

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A senior US official, who was not named, said in a statement that the testing of the missile was "a very serious matter which we have attempted to address with Russia for some time now".

"We encourage Russia to return to compliance with its obligations under the treaty and to eliminate any prohibited items in a verifiable matter," the official added.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

Who would want to hide anything from Uncle Putin? Capitalist dogs, that's who!

BBC: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

Russia has offered 3.9m roubles ($110,000; £65,000) in a contest seeking a way to crack the identities of users of the Tor network.

Tor hides internet users' locations and identities by sending data on random paths through machines on its network, adding encryption at each stage.

The Russian interior ministry made the offer, saying the aim was "to ensure the country's defence and security".

The contest is only open to Russians and proposals are due by 13 August.

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Earlier this month, Russia's lower house of parliament passed a law requiring internet companies to store Russian citizens' personal data inside the country.

Russia has the fifth-largest number of Tor users with more than 210,000 people making use of it, according to the Guardian.

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Tor was thrust into the spotlight in the wake of controversy resulting from leaks about the National Security Agency and other cyberspy agencies. Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the internal memos and who now has asylum in Russia, uses a version of Tor software to communicate.

Documents released by Mr Snowden allege that the NSA and the UK's GCHQ had repeatedly tried to crack anonymity on the Tor network.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

Moscow Times: 'Ukrainian Rebels' Aren't Ukrainian or Rebels

Igor Strelkov, considered commander-in-chief of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), maintains Russian citizenship. In addition to having a Russian intelligence background, either in the Federal Security Service or the Main Intelligence Directorate, Strelkov loves to re-enact famous Russian battles and appears to see himself in the tradition of Russian tsarist officers.

Alexander Borodai, meanwhile, carries the self-appointed mantle of prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic. He sought to speak on behalf of the separatists last week, handing off the black boxes from MH17 that he and his troops had found, swaggering as Malaysian officials referred to him as "his excellency." And yet Borodai is simply another Russian, an interloper rather than an local.

And then there's Vladimir Antyufeyev, the new deputy prime minister in eastern Ukraine. Antyufeyev carries a peculiar, disconcerting legacy. Before coming to Ukraine he held security roles in the breakaway states of Transdnestr and Abkhazia, pro-Russian separatist regions in Moldova and Georgia respectively. Like Putin, Strelkov and Borodai, Antyufeyev is a Russian citizen.

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Mercenary Uzbeks have been observed multiple times among the fighters, and there are unconfirmed reports of Kazakhs acting on behalf of the rebels. A reporter from Radio Free Europe even went so far as to pose as an Uzbek interested in volunteering. Recruiters for the DPR in Moscow replied that they would heartily welcome the volunteer, but that the lack of a Russian passport could pose a problem. The lack of Ukrainian citizenship? Not so much.

The Vostok Battalion, among the more professional of the various armed brigands, made headlines when its Chechen fighters first appeared in eastern Ukraine. Ossetians, likewise, have been spotted fighting in what they hope will be Novorossia.

Although some are undoubtedly motivated by mercenary inclinations, many non-Ukrainians are there for more than money. An Armenian citizen recruited through the separatists' Moscow office, who has since left the ranks of the separatists, said that he was "fighting for [the Soviet Union]." A Turkmen national, swathed in Soviet regalia, was filmed a few days later saying much the same thing. Those leading and arming the invasion force are not fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities or for democratic self-determination, values that ethnic Russians native to eastern Ukraine might reasonably fight for. They are fighting for a nostalgic vision of empire.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

news.com.au: Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta prints front-page apology for MH17 disaster in Dutch

The paper has deviated from the official line coming out of the Kremlin, by attributing the source of the attack on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 at the hands of the Russian separatists.

“Forgive Us, Netherlands’’ was the bold headline above a sombre photograph of the convoy of hearses that transported the first of the bodies across The Netherlands from Eindhoven to Hilversum for forensic analysis.

The paper — which was set up by the former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbechev from money he received as part of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize — is highly regarded for its critical coverage of Russian politics.

But the investigations have come at a heavy price, with four of its journalists murdered since 2001.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

Russian soldier screws up and posts on VK (Russia's Facebook) photos showing him and other Russian troops transporting heavy Grad missile systems into Ukraine. Post's have now been deleted.

Pardon the poor translation:

IR:Russian soldiers boast the enormous columns "Grad" they travel to Ukraine

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

The Globe and Mail: Canadian PM: Our duty is to stand firm in the face of Russian aggression

While the grim work of identifying victims’ remains and tracking down the perpetrators of this appalling crime is just beginning, the world can be certain of one thing: There can be no weakening of our resolve to punish the Putin regime for threatening the peace and security of eastern and central Europe.
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Although we may refer to militants in eastern Ukraine as “pro-Russian separatists,” we are not confused by who, and what, they really are: an extension of the Russian state.
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Russia’s aggressive militarism and expansionism are a threat to more than just Ukraine; they are a threat to Europe, to the rule of law and to the values that bind Western nations. Canada will not stand idly by in the face of this threat.

Army of Dad · July 29, 2014

Russia steps up the shooty shooty bits:

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/statuses/494065641771794432

https://twitter.com/NSDC_ua/statuses/494072394546294785

https://twitter.com/NSDC_ua/statuses/494075692988911616

https://twitter.com/rConflictNews/statuses/494056695673663489

This kind of feels like the Russians are trying to draw the Ukrainian forces towards the border so they can try to encircle/destroy the bulk of the Ukrainian forces when/if the Russians launch a full scale cross border attack.

Cerebus · July 29, 2014

This kind of feels like the Russians are trying to draw the Ukrainian forces towards the border so they can try to encircle/destroy the bulk of the Ukrainian forces when/if the Russians launch a full scale cross border attack.

Maybe Putin just read a history of the Korean War?

Cerebus · July 30, 2014

Reuters: Moscow fights back after sanctions

The worst confrontation between Moscow and the West entered a new phase this week since the United States and European Union took by far the strongest international steps yet against Moscow over its support for Ukraine's rebels.

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Moscow called the sanctions "destructive and myopic" and said Europe and the United States would suffer. On Wednesday it banned imports of Polish fruit and vegetables and said it might expand the ban to the entire EU. Russian banks said they would seek financing in Asia. Novatek, a big Russian gas company that works with French firm Total, said it was studying the impact of sanctions on its international joint ventures.

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"Russia's actions in Ukraine and the sanctions that we've already imposed have made a have made a weak Russian economy even weaker," U.S. President Barack Obama said in Washington on Tuesday. "If Russia continues on this current path, the costs on Russia will continue to grow."

German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the measures would hurt the European economy but would hurt Russia more. The price was worth paying, he added: "At a time of war and peace, economic policy is not the main consideration."

The Russian Central Bank said it could support banks that were hit by sanctions. Russia's second-largest bank, VTB, said it would find funding outside of the EU and United States, using currencies other than euros and dollars.

But bankers said Russian firms had been effectively frozen out of global lending, and not just in the West, leaving the Russian state as their only source of funding.

"Right now, all banks are acting the same. No group is any more cautious or sanctions aware: It's all too important. Asian banks are the same as European or U.S. banks in this respect," a London-based banker at an Asian bank said.

A banker said VTB had been unable to find a lender for a $1.5-$2.0 billion (890 million-1.18 billion pounds) refinancing loan since a previous round of U.S. sanctions on July 16. VTB declined to comment.

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Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the rebels were digging in for battle near the crash site: "They have brought a large number of heavy artillery there and mined approaches to this area. This makes impossible the work of international experts trying to start work to establish the reasons behind the Boeing 777 crash."

Despite what the West says is increased armaments for the rebels, government troops have advanced since the start of the month, when they pushed the rebels out of their best-defended stronghold, the town of Slaviansk. Since then, Western countries say thousands of Russian soldiers have returned to the border from which they had withdrawn weeks ago.

TL;DR:

Cerebus · July 30, 2014

#Russia FM Lavrov says Moscow's proposed UN Security Council to adopt resolution on deployment of Russian peacekeepers to secure #MH17 site.
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM)
July 30, 2014

Cerebus · July 30, 2014

Guardian: vast majority of Russians believe Ukraine downed plane, poll finds

Independent survey discovers 82% of Russians blame Kiev for downing Malaysia Airlines aircraft with loss of 298 lives

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According to a poll conducted by the Levada Centre, an independent Russian research organisation, 82% of Russians surveyed blame Ukrainian forces for downing the plane. Of 1,501 respondents surveyed in Russia's six biggest cities, 46% said they believed a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile was responsible, and 36% said a Ukrainian warplane had shot it down. Only 3% believe the rebels in eastern Ukraine were responsible for shooting down the plane. Sixteen per cent said they didn't know. Levada said respondents were allowed to give multiple reasons, but the majority picked one answer.

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The Levada Centre sociologist Denis Volkok said state-controlled TV news was largely responsible for forming public opinion on MH17, noting that 94% of Russians relied on this source for information on events in Crimea and Ukraine.

"A different reality has been created on television, where there are different theories, different history, different images, which equate the Ukrainian forces with fascists," Volkov said.