Ukraine

[Wraith]

https://twitter.com/CanadaNATO/statu...927361/photo/1

[katsung47]

Captured Kiev soldiers, militaryhardware on display in Donetsk

August 25 2014



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb5n...O6EbykFaB4wQZD

[katsung47]

Pictures of victims died from their owngovernment force. News censored by West main stream media.
Our ‘Enemies’ in Ukraine Speak

By Eric Zuesse

GlobalResearch, August 22, 2014

America’s‘news’ media do not let the victims of Ukraine’s civil war — the people who aredying and being driven out from the southeastern regions of that country by thenew Ukrainian Government — speak, and tell their story.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/our-ene...-speak/5396967

[earthJoker]

Captured Kiev soldiers, militaryhardware on display in Donetsk

Well, so much about the Geneva convention.

[katsung47]

Well, so much about the Geneva convention.

Much better than a massacre.

Russian NGOs demand investigation ofmassacres near Ukraine's Donetsk

September 24,
Many of thevictims are said to have been shot in the head at point-blank range
MOSCOW,September 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian non-governmental organizations are demandinga comprehensive investigation of the mass graves containing bodies of civiliansnear Donetsk. Local militias found the graves on September 23. Many of thevictims are said to have been shot in the head at point-blank range. Just twodays ago that territory had been under the control of Kiev’s forces. Now itwill be explored most thoroughly. Militias say they have discovered othergraves, too, which will remain unexcavated for the time being.

http://en.itar-tass.com/world/751011

[earthJoker]

Much better than a massacre.

No it's only less worse. Now do we start to accept crimes as long as other people do more serious crimes?

[Loki]

Next thing you know the Russians are going to want an investigation over the mass graves at Katyn.

[earthJoker]

Yeah, right after the referendum for an independent Chechen Republic.

[Loki]

And now the Russian FM is blaming America for the worsening relations. Apparently we shouldn't complain about Russia conquering stuff.

[BalticSailor]

Russia conquering stuff.

The correct term is "liberating", comrade!

[Ominous Gamer]

liberate!

[earthJoker]

TV uses crash pictures in 'mass grave' reports

The website of Russian TV channel REN TV has been using images of victims of the MH17 Malaysian airline disaster to illustrate reports about the alleged discovery of "mass graves" in east Ukraine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/monitoring/russ...s-grave-report

[katsung47]

Losing Credibility: The IMF’s New ColdWar Loan to Ukraine

September 9,2014

By MichaelHudson

In April 2014,fresh from riots in Maidan Square and the February 22 coup, and less than amonth before the May 2 massacre in Odessa, the IMF approved a $17 billion loanprogram to Ukraine’s junta. Normal IMF practice is to lend only up to twice acountry’s quote in one year. This was eight times as high.

Four monthslater, on August 29, just as Kiev began losing its attempt at ethnic cleansingagainst the eastern Donbas region, the IMF signed off on the first loan ever toa side engaged in a civil war, not to mention rife with insider capital flightand a collapsing balance of payments. Based on fictitiously trouble-freeprojections of the ability to pay, the loan supported Ukraine’s hernia currencylong enough to enable the oligarchs’ banks to move their money quickly intoWestern hard-currency accounts before the hernia plunged further and was wortheven fewer euros and dollars.
http://michael-hudson.com/2014/09/lo...an-to-ukraine/

[RandBlade]

Trading with a hernia currency must be such a pain in the ass.

[katsung47]

"Inan Oct. 8 presentation given to members of the parliamentary control committee,the Bundestag body responsible for monitoring the work of German intelligence,BND President Gerhard Schindler provided ample evidence to back up his case,including satellite images and diverse photo evidence. The BND has intelligenceindicating that pro-Russian separatists captured a BUK air defense missilesystem at a Ukrainian military base and fired a missile on July 17 thatexploded in direct proximity to the Malaysian aircraft, which had been carrying298 people."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur... 97972.html

Thisis disinformation from west intelligence to meddle the water. It's not an AK-47rifle. It's a system need a well trained professional team to operate. Do youthink the pro-Russia militia shot it by pushing a button?

The

Buk is a mobile, radar-guided surface to air missile (SAM) missile system withall four main components — acquisition and targeting radars, a command element,missile launchers, and a logistics element — mounted on tracked vehicles



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

[katsung47]

Soros Admits Responsibility for Coup andMass Murder in Ukraine

Colorrevolution collaboration began soon after engineered fall of Soviet Union
by Kurt Nimmo| Infowars.com | May 27, 2014

George Sorostold CNN’s Fareed Zakaria over the weekend he is responsible for establishing afoundation in Ukraine that ultimately contributed to the overthrow of thecountry’s elected leader and the installation of a junta handpicked by theState Department.

“First onUkraine, one of the things that many people recognized about you was that youduring the revolutions of 1989 funded a lot of dissident activities, civilsociety groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doingsimilar things in Ukraine?” Zakaria asked Soros.

“Well, I setup a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And thefoundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part inevents now,” Soros responded.
http://www.infowars.com/soros-admits...er-in-ukraine/

[Khendraja'aro]

Seems as if Russian apparatschiks are unable to pay professional people to do photoshopping.

I mean, seriously:

- They get the size wrong (either the satellite was 20 km above ground or the plane 1 km long)
- No fighter pilot in their right mind would shoot a missile this close (unless they were suicidal)
- The logo of the Boeing is in the wrong place
- The fighter is supposed to have been a Su25. Problem No. 1: That's a ground fighter and as such, not equipped for flying at great heights. The pilot would have had to hold his breath for a very long time. Problem No. 2: The silhouette is wrong for a Su25. Not to mention that a 777 is actually faster than a Su25
- They used a composite of different satellite maps

[katsung47]

The bodies of 286 women who had beenraped have been discovered in the city of Krasnoarmeisk where Ukrainianvolunteer battalion was based.

© AP Photo/ Dmitry Lovetsky

12:21 31/10/2014
DONETSK,October 31 (RIA Novosti) – The bodies of 286 women have recently beendiscovered in the eastern Ukrainian city of Krasnoarmeisk while almost 400women between the ages of 18 and 25 are still listed as missing, AlexanderZakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republicsaid Friday.

"Around 400 women between the ages of 18and 25 have gone missing in Krasnoarmeisk where Ukrainian forces Dnepr-1 wasbased. The bodies of 286 women around Krasnoarmeisk who had been raped have beendiscovered," Zakharchenko said at a meeting with students from DonetskNational Technical University.

http://en.ria.ru/world/20141031/1948...g-in-East.html

[katsung47]

Is The Breakup Of Ukraine Inevitable?
11/12/2014

Ukraine is thevery definition of the word “inevitable” — that which cannot be avoided. Ukraine is going broke. It may lose more ofits territory. Investors are running for the door, betting that things aregoing to get worse. All of this is nowunavoidable

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoz...ne-inevitable/

[katsung47]

Yanukovich wasaccused of pro-Russia. But in his regime, the gold reserve of Ukraine reached40 tons high. He was still for the interest of Ukraine. What about Poroshenko?

Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone:"There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault"

Submitted byTyler Durden on 11/18/2014
Back in March,at a time when the IMF reported that Ukraine's official gold holdings as of theend of February, so just as the State Department-facilitated coup againstformer president Victor Yanukovich was concluding, amounted to 42.3 tonnes or8% of reserves...

... andnotably under the previous "hated" president, Ukraine gold's reserveshad constantly increased hitting a record high just before the presidentialcoup...

... wereported of a strange incident that took place just after the Ukrainepresidential coup, namely that according to at least one source, "in amysterious operation under the cover of night, Ukraine's gold reserves werepromptly loaded onboard an unmarked plane, which subsequently took the gold tothe US." To wit:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-1...-its-gold-gone

[earthJoker]

Looks like we can just watch Russia to lose the next economic war just as we speak, live on TV, in color.

[Loki]

Times like these make me particularly happy to know that we live in a capitalist world.

Edit: Hah, it seems the freefall wasn't caused by the systemic factors but rather by old-fashioned Russian corruption:

"According to analysts, the ruble’s fall on Monday was sparked by word of an opaque deal involving the central bank and the state-controlled oil company, Rosneft. The well-connected business executive running the company, Igor I. Sechin, a longtime associate of Mr. Putin, had apparently persuaded the central bank to effectively issue billions of new rubles to his company to help cover debts."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/bu...est-rates.html

[Hazir]

So, the Russian Central bank was both defending and weakening the Ruble at the same time?

[earthJoker]

So, the Russian Central bank was both defending and weakening the Ruble at the same time?

I must have missed that part. Ah, yeah, the interest rising, huehuehue.

[wiggin]

So, the Russian Central bank was both defending and weakening the Ruble at the same time?

It actually makes sense. The ruble currently is free-falling not because of an imminent devaluation/default/crisis, but because of a perception problem. Russia still has oodles of hard currency reserves and plenty of policy flexibility to cover imports. The ruble's problems in recent weeks have been tied to concerns that without thoughtful changes to the (currently bloated) budget or a truly independent central bank, the state will run into problems down the line because of dramatically lower oil revenues and Western sanctions... but those concerns are not immediate.

Simultaneously, there are real concerns that a few of the big Russian state-backed energy firms (e.g. Rosneft, Gazprom, etc.) have short term funding crunches due to sanctions and oil prices. Dumping a few billion dollars into these firms won't materially change Russia's ability to finance imports in the short term (or dramatically expand the money supply), but it will allow those firms to limp along while they are largely deprived of Western capital to roll over debt. However, that action itself is a signal to markets, and would affect the perception problem the ruble has right now, which is pricing medium term issues into markets immediately.

So the basic idea makes sense - announce monetary tightening on a dramatic scale to scare markets into thinking the central bank is serious about stemming inflation (in theory, no one should ever fight an independent central bank) - this helps address the perception problem in the short term. Meanwhile, address the immediate short-term issue of big energy firms running out of financing by quietly lending them a few billion dollars. It increases the money supply, yes, but that effect is small compared to the perception impact of appearing desperate. If you can keep in quiet, the overall effect will be to save those critical companies from default while still tightening policy and sending a stern message to markets.

Only problem is that we all know that the central bank isn't independent, we also know that Putin is acting irrationally from an economic perspective and has political challenges that will make it difficult to fix Russia's medium term problems without a very public humiliation/climb down/etc. And it also was pretty hard to keep a few billion dollars of financing for energy firms quiet, since that kind of money isn't likely to come from non-domestic sources any more.

In a less fucked up country, though, it might have worked. Then again, you wouldn't even need to try.

[earthJoker]

Karma is a real bitch, not even the winter is on Russia's side.

[RandBlade]

Russia may have oodles of foreign currency reserves now but it is burning through that and its unsustainable. When a position is unsustainable the markets will react accordingly.

If the price of oil returns to above $100 a barrel then Russia will be OK despite western sanctions. But if the price of oil remains at today's levels then in 12 months time Russian reserves will not be looking so healthy at all. The crisis won't be what happens in 2015 but in 2016 if nothing changes between now and then.

That is the cost of being a tin pot dictatorship relying upon commodity exports to bankroll your nation. Russian corruption has sabotaged the non-oil based portions of its economy and it can not handle this situation indefinitely.

[Hazir]

It actually makes sense. The ruble currently is free-falling not because of an imminent devaluation/default/crisis, but because of a perception problem. Russia still has oodles of hard currency reserves and plenty of policy flexibility to cover imports. The ruble's problems in recent weeks have been tied to concerns that without thoughtful changes to the (currently bloated) budget or a truly independent central bank, the state will run into problems down the line because of dramatically lower oil revenues and Western sanctions... but those concerns are not immediate.

Simultaneously, there are real concerns that a few of the big Russian state-backed energy firms (e.g. Rosneft, Gazprom, etc.) have short term funding crunches due to sanctions and oil prices. Dumping a few billion dollars into these firms won't materially check ange Russia's ability to finance imports in the short term (or dramatically expand the money supply), but it will allow those firms to limp along while they are largely deprived of Western capital to roll over debt. However, that action itself is a signal to markets, and would affect the perception problem the ruble has right now, which is pricing medium term issues into markets immediately.

So the basic idea makes sense - announce monetary tightening on a dramatic scale to scare markets into thinking the central bank is serious about stemming inflation (in theory, no one should ever fight an independent central bank) - this helps address the perception problem in the short term. Meanwhile, address the immediate short-term issue of big energy firms running out of financing by quietly lending them a few billion dollars. It increases the money supply, yes, but that effect is small compared to the perception impact of appearing desperate. If you can keep in quiet, the overall effect will be to save those critical companies from default while still tightening policy and sending a stern message to markets.

Only problem is that we all know that the central bank isn't independent, we also know that Putin is acting irrationally from an economic perspective and has political challenges that will make it difficult to fix Russia's medium term problems without a very public humiliation/climb down/etc. And it also was pretty hard to keep a few billion dollars of financing for energy firms quiet, since that kind of money isn't likely to come from non-domestic sources any more.

In a less fucked up country, though, it might have worked. Then again, you wouldn't even need to try.

I understand what you mean but that's not flooding the market with Rubles but accommodation of a need for foreign currency by big companies with close ties to the state. It reduces the need to dump rubles in the market and thus should have shored up the Ruble.

[Loki]

It also discredits the central bank as an independent institution.

[Hazir]

It also discredits the central bank as an independent institution.

It's a bit silly to say that if the bank is merely executing its core mandate and does so in a slightly unorthodox way that shields part of its foreign currency reserves from the risk of an uncontrolled collapse of the currency. The independence of a central bank isn't proven by handing over billions of dollars to the 21st century of George Soros.