Kiev Burning

[JesseMartin]

Part of me wants to say, "This is insane, why doesn't another country do something about this?". But then the other part of me realizes that's probably the same thing lots of other people say and feel about some of our not-so-secret actions in the past, and the answer is that nobody wants World War 3 so they just roll with it and pray we (and Russia) leave them alone. For instance, the last time we "secretly" got involved in a big way, wasn't it helping out Afghanistan rebels against the then-USSR? That turned out really great. Of course there are probably a ton of covert actions that we don't know about that have worked out just fine, but probably none at quite the scale of the Afghanistan fun.

[All About UNT]

Part of me wants to say, "This is insane, why doesn't another country do something about this?". But then the other part of me realizes that's probably the same thing lots of other people say and feel about some of our not-so-secret actions in the past, and the answer is that nobody wants World War 3 so they just roll with it and pray we (and Russia) leave them alone. For instance, the last time we "secretly" got involved in a big way, wasn't it helping out Afghanistan rebels against the then-USSR? That turned out really great. Of course there are probably a ton of covert actions that we don't know about that have worked out just fine, but probably none at quite the scale of the Afghanistan fun.

Hell yeah. When John Rambo drove that tank into the helicopter in order to kill the KGB Colonel....I never felt more proud to be an American

[H-towngreen]

Thanks for the updates Cerebus. Keep'em coming

[Cerebus]

Alright. Been really busy, and it's been hard to stay up to date on everything. I'll probably only post when something significant happens. Like this:

University of Copenhagen: Satellite image research proves Russian artillery strikes into Ukraine

A University of Copenhagen scientist has been developing a new method in his spare time that has wide political implications. It shows that artillery systems were fired from Russia during the Ukrainian conflict in 2014. A fact previously denied by the Russian government

[Cerebus]

PBS: Putin Way

FRONTLINE investigates the accusations of criminality and corruption that have surrounded Vladimir Putin's reign in Russia. Tracing his career back over two decades, Putin's Way reveals how the accumulation of wealth and power has led to autocratic rule and the specter of a new Cold War.

Starting with Putin having apartment buildings blown up in order to come to power and start a war with Chechnya, going on to how he amassed wealth, crushed or killed anyone who stood in his way, and more or less restarted the Cold War.

ETA: One of the most striking facts from this documentary is that the average Russian is less wealthy that the average Indian.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

BBC: Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead

A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say.

---

President Putin has assumed "personal control" of the investigation into the killing, said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Investigators said the murder could have been "a provocation aimed at destabilising the country".

[UNT90]

Lol. I'm sure Putin will direct the investigation. Direct it far away from his very own involvement.

[Cerebus]

Belfast Telegraph: Boris Nemtsov- 'I'm afraid Putin will kill me,' Russian opposition politician said weeks before being shot dead

Speaking to Russia's Sobesednik news website on 10 February, Boris Nemtsov said: "I'm afraid Putin will kill me. I believe that he was the one who unleashed the war in the Ukraine. I couldn't dislike him more."

Friends said he had received anonymous death threats over the internet.

"Boris periodically received anonymous threats on social networking sites...Boris was worried," said opposition politician Ilya Yashin.

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Another opposition figure, Ksenia Sobchak, said Mr Nemtsov had been preparing a report on the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

Nato and Western allies have presented what they claim is evidence that Russia has sent troops and weapons to back separatists fighting the government in the east but the Kremlin has continually denied the accusations.

[Cerebus]

Radio Free Europe: Boris Nemtsov 'We Must Free Russia From Putin'

Slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was looking ahead to a planned March 1 opposition rally, though in an interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service earlier this month, he portrayed the demonstration as just a first step in a long struggle.

"If you think that [authorities] would run away on March 1 in fright, they will run away if we get a million [people]," he said in the February 3 interview. "But in order to get a million, we need to first have a successful march on March 1."

Nemtsov said the most important goal of the march was to stop the war in Ukraine.

[FirefightnRick]

"We're gonna need a bigger gulag..." #BorisNemtsov pic.twitter.com/dKLUCeuDo2

— The KGB (@DietKGB)

March 1, 2015

Rick

[UNT90]

I wonder if we would have support on here for propping up Putin if Russia devolved into a state of civil war.

[All About UNT]

I wonder if we would have support on here for propping up Putin if Russia devolved into a state of civil war.

Oh I doubt that very much.

To add to the wonderful job Cerebus has been doing to update this forum and make a comprehensive list of seemingly valid articles on the situation in the Ukraine.... I have compiled a list of sites and sources that can give you all the details you could want on the situation in UKR. It was this forum that has led to my daily following of the situation and infatuation with updates from sources on the ground.

Here are a list of Twitter Feeds that I have been following who update on a multiple times a day basis:

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress a Kiev sponsored twitter feed that obviously shows one side of the story

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM an online reporter from Portland who has been involved in witnessing the battles at the Airport, Pisky and Debaltseve (among others)

https://twitter.com/StateOfUkraine another pro-Ukraine reporting site that draws quite a bit of attention on Twitter with their feeds and daily situational updates

https://twitter.com/noclador another European online reporter out of Kiev

https://twitter.com/GrahamWP_UK A paid shill by the DNR and Russia who is from the UK. Can't stand this guy but he does shoot a lot of video from the Russian side that makes following him sometimes worth it. He gets access to ALL of the hot spots of late.

https://twitter.com/Conflict_Report One of my favorite feeds to follow...very detailed and very good at giving situational awareness in each hotspot. Has a site at http://conflictreport.info/ where he writes articles on both Syria and Ukraine

https://twitter.com/Liveuamap shows the daily map of the entire region and where each incident occurred. Was crucial in getting a birds-eye view of the deteriorating situation in the Debaltseve pocket. http://liveuamap.com/ Remember... this map is updated daily

https://twitter.com/MoscowTimes An opposition Russian site

https://twitter.com/GeoffPyatt The US ambassador to the Ukraine....surprisingly very active on Twitter

https://twitter.com/andersostlund A Swede who reports on the Ukraine

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko a UKR Army press officer...fully embedded in the shit and barely made it out of Debaltseve. Take his info with a grain of salt

https://twitter.com/RobPulseNews another investigative reporter who puts out really solid material

And this guy..... who could be the most analytic minded person involved in reporting the news in Ukraine. He geolocates trajectories of bombs and mortars and claims (with some validity) to have located the exact launch location of the missile that took out the MH17 flight. His reports are hard to argue with. http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.com/

More into video watching? This Youtube channel has about everything you could want and many in English subtitles (mainly from the Russian side) https://www.youtube.com/user/wintersodomy/videos The translations are seemingly accurate from the Ukrainian standpoint so they can be trusted for the most part.

[UNT90]

I doubt it, also, but could you imagine if it did? One of the world's 3 superpowers in civil war? The obvious and immediate concern would be who controls the nukes.

Russia's military is far too powerful for a full revolution to happen, but it will be interesting to watch to see if any internal pressure is exerted on Putin, who is still popular with the average Russian.

[H-towngreen]

That's a hell of a turnout

[All About UNT]

I doubt it, also, but could you imagine if it did? One of the world's 3 superpowers in civil war? The obvious and immediate concern would be who controls the nukes.

Russia's military is far too powerful for a full revolution to happen, but it will be interesting to watch to see if any internal pressure is exerted on Putin, who is still popular with the average Russian.

Scary to imagine for sure but the haves vs. the have nots in Russia has always been an issue. Such is the reason that it was the optimal place to at least attempt trying out communism.... the people are passionate, poor and constantly downtrodden by their rulers (no matter what type of government is in power). As far as their military is concerned remember that it was the military that sided with a more democratic Yelsin in 93' when things came really close to going full on Civil War. I mean... tanks shelled the Russian White House!

[Mean Green 93-98]

Here's an interview with Garry Kasparov pointing to evidence for a Kremlin murder of Nemstov: http://news.yahoo.com/video/friend-murdered-putin-enemy-describes-110000455.html

To sum up:

1. The security and video surveillance of the area are "like Fort Knox"--there is no way there wouldn't be witness and video evidence.

2. A snowplow and another vehicle pull up at just the right time to block the scene from view.

3. Authorities immediately hosed down the crime scene afterward, instead of leaving it intact, as any competent law enforcement agency will do--when they actually want the crime solved.

[Cerebus]

[Cerebus]

A bunch of good links...

[Green P1]

What do y'all think about the false flag on this sweet Putin job? I figured this board would have been nutty enough to discuss it already.

[All About UNT]

What do y'all think about the false flag on this sweet Putin job? I figured this board would have been nutty enough to discuss it already.

Is it too obvious for it to be Putin? I mean... if a lot of people start thinking that then the goal (if it was by Putin's order) would be accomplished. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a group of nationalists who acted on their own either.

[UNT90]

Is it too obvious for it to be Putin? I mean... if a lot of people start thinking that then the goal (if it was by Putin's order) would be accomplished. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a group of nationalists who acted on their own either.

The problem is where it occurred, who has tight control on that area, and what happened immediately before and after the shooting.

The problem is Putin has zero credibility and has said he is personally in charge of the investigation, so you can't trust anything that the "official" investigation determines.

I have no doubt that Putin will probably arrest someone for this murder that very well may be a leader of a nationalist group. A leader that Putin feels is a little too charismatic and has a little too much power for Putin's liking.

2 birds, one stone.

Edited March 3, 2015 by UNT90

[All About UNT]

The problem is where it occurred, who has tight control on that area, and what happened immediately before and after the shooting.

The problem is Putin has zero credibility and has said he is personally in charge of the investigation, so you can't trust anything that the "official" investigation determines.

I have no doubt that Putin will probably arrest someone for this murder that very well may be a leader of a nationalist group. A leader that Putin feels is a little too charismatic and has a little too much power for Putin's liking.

2 birds, one stone.

Good point but we don't even know if anyone heard the gunshots. Just because it's by the Kremlin doesn't mean that 50 guards appear at the slightest disturbance. Releasing the video tapes ASAP would be a great move on "innocent Putin's" behalf. The longer they delay the more suspect it looks

[UNT90]

The only way Putin could come out of this with any credibility is if he brought in an opposition leader to be informed of every aspect of the investigation to ensure that it is a real investigation conducted without bias.

But even if Putin did this and was totally innocent, it would give the opposition leader that was brought in the opportunity to scream foul for political gain.

We will never know what really happened.

[Cerebus]

Is it too obvious for it to be Putin? I mean... if a lot of people start thinking that then the goal (if it was by Putin's order) would be accomplished. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a group of nationalists who acted on their own either.

As a long time Putin follower I have to say there is a long line of political assassinations that point directly back to Putin. This one more or less follows the pattern. Being an Internationally know critic of Putin (Kasparov) is safe, being a local critic of Putin (mothers of dead soldiers) is a good way to get visited by goons, being a national critic of Putin is a good way to end up dead.

WSJ: Putin’s Culture of Fear and Death

Four bullets in the back ended his life in sight of the Kremlin, where he once worked as Boris Yeltsin ’s deputy prime minister. Photos showed a cleaning crew scrubbing his blood off the pavement within hours of the murder, so it is not difficult to imagine the quality of the investigation to come.

Vladimir Putin actually started, and ended, the inquiry while Boris’s body was still warm by calling the murder a “provocation,” the term of art for suggesting that the Russian president’s enemies are murdering one another to bring shame upon the shameless. He then brazenly sent his condolences to Boris’s mother, who had often warned her fearless son that his actions could get him killed in Putin’s Russia.

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Boris was a passionate critic of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine and was finishing a report on the presence of Russian soldiers in the ravaged Donbas region, a matter that the Kremlin has spared no effort to cover up. But the question “Did Putin give the order?” rings as hollow today as when journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in 2006, the same year that Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London—or when a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine last year.

Certainly the arrogance of the assassins is a notable clue. They could have chosen many dark and out-of-the-way places along the same route Boris took but instead sent a message by selecting a prominent and heavily surveilled spot. Opposition leaders are always watched closely by Russia’s security services before public rallies—Boris had been planning a protest against the Ukraine war on Sunday—so how could these trained bloodhounds not notice that someone else was following him?

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We cannot know exactly what horror will come next, only that there will be another and another while President Putin remains in power. The only way his rule will end is if the Russian people and the elites understand that they have no future as long as he is there. Right now, no matter how they really feel about Mr. Putin and their lives, they see him as invincible and unmovable. They see him getting his way in Ukraine, taking territory and waging war. They see him talking tough and making deals with Angela Merkel and François Hollande. They see his enemies dead in the streets of Moscow.

Statements of condemnation and concern over the Nemtsov murder quickly poured forth from the same Western leaders who have done so much to appease the Kremlin in recent days, weeks and years. If these leaders truly wish to honor my fearless friend, they should declare their support for the many tens of thousands of marchers who turned Sunday’s protest rally into a funeral procession. Western leaders should declare in the strongest terms that Russia will be treated like the criminal rogue regime it is for as long as Mr. Putin is in power. Call off the sham negotiations. Sell weapons to Ukraine that will put an unbearable political price on Mr. Putin’s aggression. Tell Russian oligarchs, every one of them, that there is no place their money will be safe in the West as long as they serve the Putin regime.

[UNT90]

As a long time Putin follower I have to say there is a long line of political assassinations that point directly back to Putin. This one more or less follows the pattern. Being an Internationally know critic of Putin (Kasparov) is safe, being a local critic of Putin (mothers of dead soldiers) is a good way to get visited by goons, being a national critic of Putin is a good way to end up dead.

WSJ: Putins Culture of Fear and Death

Putin's actions are scarily reminiscent of one Adolph Hitler, with the only thing missing being a "group" within his nation to blame for all national problems. The intimidation with which he approaches politics within his own country is very reminiscent of Hitler's dealings with the Reichstag prior to its disbandment.

Putin's seizure of parts of the Ukraine are startlingly similar to Hitler's seizure of the Rhineland, complete with a lack of meaningful response from Europe and a neutered US President. It will be interesting to see where we are in another 5 years.

I suspect very soon that Putin's advasaries will simply start disappearing off the street for a place in an unmarked grave or a Siberian prison.