tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78965839809571145772024-03-12T18:13:50.138-07:00Bordering on LunacyEuan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-31941139120935293482015-05-22T17:12:00.001-07:002015-05-22T17:19:19.621-07:00The Problem with ‘Allegedly’<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">allegedly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">əˈlɛdʒɪdli/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">adverb</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">used to convey that
something is claimed to be the case or have taken place, although there is no
proof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sick of the word “allegedly.” In the context of Russia’s
involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, its nine letters just spell out
misrepresentation, confusion, and unjustified doubt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We see “allegedly” used in Western media reports, for
instance, in conjunction with Ukraine’s claims that it has detained two Russian
soldiers from a military intelligence unit operating in Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“We have to use ‘allegedly’, because we don’t have 100%
proof,” a Western journalist says, when asked about the use of the word when
reporting the story of the capture of the Russian soldiers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But the problem with “allegedly” in this context is twofold
– first, it does not adequately convey the probability of the claim being true,
and second, it says nothing of the credibility of the source throwing doubt on
the claim.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Allegedly” is a lazy word, which semantically attributes a
0.5/0.5 probability to any claim to which it is applied. It has the potential
to be abused. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To illustrate this in an absurd way, it’s quite true to say
“Allegedly, the British royal family are shape-shifting Lizard People.” Some people have actually claimed this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But note that nothing in this claim tells us anything about
the probability of the claim being true, or about the credibility of the person
making the claim, or even their identity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Thankfully, in this case we know from other information
available to us (well, most of us), that the claim is highly unlikely to be
true, and the person making such a claim is most probably a loonie, whose
claims do not need to be taken seriously.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in the case of Western reporting of events in Ukraine,
such as the capture of the two Russian special operations soldiers on May 16,
the word “allegedly” is used too freely, seemingly without regard to the
probability of the claim of their capture or identity as serving Russian soldiers
being true, or to the credibility of the source of the doubt being thrown on
the claim – the Kremlin.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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In fact, there is a mountain of already-available evidence
that the claim that Ukraine has captured two members of a team of Russian special
operations soldiers on its soil is true - with a probability more like
0.95/0.05.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
True, the individual pieces of evidence that make up this
mountain cannot each be proved with 100% certainty to be true, but taking all
of the pieces together there is an overwhelming body of circumstantial evidence
that Russia is directly participating in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and
this renders the “alleged” capture of two of Russia’s commandos on Ukrainian
soil very highly likely. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It should be reported as such. Not just "allegedly."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for the credibility of the source making the counter
claim – the Kremlin – it is not adequate merely to report this counter claim
without making some reference to the credibility of the source.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a matter of record and fact that the Kremlin, more
specifically Russian President Vladimir Putin, has lied about Russia’s military
involvement in Ukraine (recall Crimea). There is a great deal of evidence that
the Kremlin is conducting a covert war in the east of Ukraine, in order to
destabilize the country and keep it within Russia’s orbit. So Russian denials
of the involvement of their military in the fighting in eastern Ukraine should
be reported as scarcely credible.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus it is quite wrong at this point to use the word
“allegedly” when reporting the recent capture of the Russian soldiers in
Ukraine – there is not actually much doubt that these soldiers are indeed
serving members of the Russian military, engaged in a Kremlin-orchestrated
covert war against Ukraine. Neither should the reader of news reports be left
in any doubt about the credibility of the Kremlin’s claims – they are not
credible, and have been proved not to be credible many times.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So drop “allegedly.” This lazy word can’t do the work needed
to properly inform news readers about what is actually happening in Ukraine.
Its flabby semantics are of use only to Kremlin propagandists. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-72221558262860183722014-11-12T06:23:00.001-08:002014-11-12T06:27:09.735-08:00Time to Use the ‘I’ Word<h2 style="background-color: white; color: #2a3643; font-family: OpenSans; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 7px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">
When NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove said on Wednesday that the alliance has for the past two days observed large columns of Russian military vehicles crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine, he picked his words carefully.<span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; display: inline-block; height: 1px; margin-left: -1px; overflow: hidden; width: 1px;"><br />Read more on UNIAN:<a href="http://www.unian.info/politics/1008454-time-to-use-the-i-word.html" style="color: #288ce4; outline: none; text-decoration: none !important;">http://www.unian.info/politics/1008454-time-to-use-the-i-word.html</a></span></h2>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #2a3643; font-family: OpenSans; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“We saw columns of Russian military equipment, primarily Russian tanks, artillery, Russian air defense systems and combat troops, entering into Ukraine," Breedlove told Agence France Presse at the sidelines of a security conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Breedlove is a military man, a fine general, who with his comments in the past has shown that he is fully aware of what is going on in eastern Ukraine. But he is also a politician of sorts – you don’t get to his position without being politically savvy. So he was careful not to use the word “invasion.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
In fact, Western politicians, particularly in the United States, have over the past few months been studiously avoiding letting this word slip their lips when commenting on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“Incursion” was a favorite substitute.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
But now it’s time to call things what they really are. Russia used soldiers in unmarked uniforms and unmarked military vehicles in Ukraine in March, when it invaded and then annexed Crimea. Over the past few days even the observers of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe - whose apparently inability to spot Russian T-72B tanks roaring along the roads of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions has become something of a grim joke in Kyiv over the past few months – even they have reported large columns of unmarked military vehicles moving into the areas of Ukraine seized by Russian-backed militants.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
It should be quite clear now to all in the West what is going on – it’s an invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The West, by failing to take a firmer stand against Russian aggression at the start of the Ukrainian crisis in March, has encouraged the aggressor, the bully Russia, to continue its attacks, which now threaten the very existence of the Ukrainian state as we have known it since 1991.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
This is not, of course, the conventional type of invasion we’re all familiar with from the history books – a vast army sweeping into territory with overwhelming force, but rather a slow, steady, careful, stealthy takeover of another European state by an aggressive neighbor, using new tactics that combine covert military operations with brazen information manipulation, and a torturing of the meanings of words that would make Orwell shudder.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
It should also be clear by now what Russia’s ultimate aims are, even though the West has not been sure how, when or even if, Russian President Vladimir Putin would go about achieving them. Having seized Crimea, Russia desperately needs a land corridor from Mother Russia to support the peninsula, and that corridor can only be the southern and eastern portion of Ukraine. The Russians even went as far as to invent another country, "Novorossiya” to justify their land grab.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Another probable aim of Russia is to dismember Ukraine, absorbing one half, and turning the rest into a supine client. By eliminating a politically independent Ukraine, the Kremlin is also less threatened by rebellious Ukrainians exporting their popular revolution to Russia, threatening its grip on power.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Even if it were the case that the West was not concerned for the fate of Ukraine, and were willing to see it torn in two for the sake of appeasing the Russian bear, it would still only be fair to Ukrainians for the West to acknowledge that “invasion” is the best-fitting word to describe what the country is being subjected to now.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
It’s time for the West to use the “i” word.<span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; display: inline-block; height: 1px; margin-left: -1px; overflow: hidden; width: 1px;"><br />Read more on UNIAN:<a href="http://www.unian.info/politics/1008454-time-to-use-the-i-word.html" style="color: #288ce4; outline: none; text-decoration: none !important;">http://www.unian.info/politics/1008454-time-to-use-the-i-word.html</a></span></div>
</div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-8724652972657519302014-10-08T11:45:00.001-07:002014-10-08T11:48:07.743-07:00The Birth(day) of a Dictator<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone in the country was happy on the day of the Great
Leader’s birthday - it had even been suggested that the day be made a national
holiday. Songs were composed for him, art featuring him was exhibited (though
some intellectuals quietly sniffed at its vulgarity), masses of kitsch
souvenirs depicting him were sold, and a huge parade was staged for him. There
was no doubt that he was genuinely popular among the people, and state
propaganda merely had to amplify their adulation to a crescendo. However, due
to his military aggression against neighboring states, he was not now well
liked abroad, and no major foreign dignitaries came (or were invited) to attend
any events in celebration of his birthday.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although the above paragraph describes the events of April
20, 1939 – the 50<sup>th</sup> birthday of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler - it
is also, depressingly and worryingly, an exact fit for the events of October 7,
2014 – the 62<sup>nd</sup> birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many
lines have been written in recent months about the parallels between the
regimes of Hitler and the Russian leader, but the resemblances bear repeating.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March
2014 can be compared to the annexation, or Anschluss, of Austria by the Third
Reich in March 1938. Both involved near-bloodless military takeovers of a
neighboring territory, capped by referendums that produced incredibly high
votes in favor of the move. There are
also similarities between Germany’s occupation of the Sudetenland and the
creation by Russia of a frozen conflict in border areas of Ukraine – in
September of 1938 and in September of 2014 the leaders of the countries that
had been threatened by their aggressive neighbors were pressured by the Western
powers to reach agreements with their enemies, which by October 1938 and
October 2014 had resulted in the effective loss of control of part of their
countries’ territories. In both cases, the argument put forward by the
aggressor was that since certain citizens of these territories spoke the same
language as the aggressor nation, the aggressor had a right to “defend these
citizens’ interests.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For Hitler’s defiant march into the Rhineland and annexation
of Austria, we have the Putin’s carving up of Georgia and annexation of Crimea.
In both cases, there was a weak response from the democratic counties to the
aggressor nations. In the case of Hitler, the weakness and appeasement of the
West encouraged more aggression, which ultimately led to the bloodiest war in
history. What will be the case with Putin? The signs do not look good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Donetsk Airport, a key military objective of the militants,
has been under attack by them practically every day since the “ceasefire” was
supposed to come into force on September 5. The militants have made only token
efforts, in a few less militarily important areas of the front, to pull back
their artillery by the 15 kilometers demanded by the Minsk agreement. In other
areas they have instead moved forward and taken new ground. They have expended
copious quantities of ammunition, men and resources on their attacks on
Ukrainian forces at Donetsk Airport and other hot spots. It can reasonably be assumed
that bullets, shells, grenades, antitank guns, artillery pieces, APCs and T-72
tanks do not grow on trees in the Donbas – the militants are obviously being
supplied from across Ukraine’s border with Russia, which is still open. It is
inconceivable that the Russian government has also lost control of its side of
the border, so the resupplying of the militants can only be being achieved with
Moscow’s approval and continuous support. Yet there is no outcry about this from the West,
no call for the new round of fierce, stinging sanctions that these actions of
the Kremlin have surely earned for Russia. Instead, there is talk in Washington
of easing the present, flaccid sanctions, if Putin will but observe the clauses
of the Minsk Agreement - even though he has conspicuously failed to do so thus
far. The issue of Crimea is now all but forgotten.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, in Russia, as in Germany in the late thirties,
the leader is building up his armies, trying to recapture the military might
and glory of former times. Nationalist passions are being stoked in the
population, and the Kremlin’s own, self-imposed sanctions are engendering a siege
mentality in Russian society. Enemies from inside and outside the state are being
created – national traitors and Ukrainian “fascists.” Religious bigotries
dressed up as “conservative values” are encouraged, as is the myth of Russian
cultural exceptionalism. Where Hitler had the Jews as his principal enemies,
Putin has “Eurogays” and other degenerate Westerners with their depraved
lifestyles (although Jews are also commonly thought by Russia’s credulous public
to be the ones behind Western imperialistic conspiracies intended to undermine
Mother Russia.) A continuous stream of hatred and lies blares from the
monophonic loudspeakers of the Russian state propaganda media, which produce no
themes or variations other than those arranged by the Kremlin. The raucous, brash, gaudy, crass current events in Russia sound and look horribly familiar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It looks like a dictatorship
is being born. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-29266759547285464322014-09-24T12:08:00.001-07:002014-09-24T12:08:21.942-07:00A New Kind Of War<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, about the different approaches
taken by the Americans and the Russians to a simple problem. At the height of
the Cold War, during the space race, the Americans were having problems using
their pens for checklists in zero-G spaceflights – the ink wasn’t flowing
correctly to the nib. A committee at NASA was formed, a design for a new type
of pen agreed, a project started, a contractor to produce the pen selected, and
millions of dollars spent all along the way.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Russians decided to use pencils.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />This straightforward difference in mentality and approach
has now been extended by the Russians to their techniques of warfare. While the
United States has spent trillions developing the best tanks, aircraft, smart bombs,
missiles, ships and submarines, Russia, with some cunning and relatively cheap
tactical tweaks, has all but rendered the West’s advantage in conventional
warfare redundant, as its annexation of Crimea and land grab in eastern Ukraine
has demonstrated. It must be admitted that the West, and more specifically and worryingly
NATO, has been found to be impotent in the face of Russian military aggression.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />None of the four components of the new Russian style of war,
dubbed Hybrid Warfare, are innovations in themselves. These components - the military,
the political, the economic, and the informational - have long been present in
the field of conflict. What <i>is</i> new is the way in which the Russians have seamlessly
blended them into a tactical doctrine that guides their actions. They have also
enhanced the informational component in ways that could not even have been conceived
before the advent of the Internet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />The political component is the one we are most familiar with
from the Cold War. Stony faces at the Security Council. Political pressure
being exerted on allies and foes. Both sides are long practiced in the arts of
superpower diplomacy, and neither has any particular advantage in this area.
Observers of UN meetings have already noted the return of a chilly Cold War atmosphere
at UN headquarters since the Ukrainian crisis erupted. But with the fall of the
Soviet Union, a lot of the governments of the West, wrongly assuming that the
threat from Russia was history, let their Russian desks get dusty, and
neglected the science of Kremlinology. As a result, the West has realized with
a jolt that it cannot fathom what Vladimir Putin is up to. We don’t understand
the Russians anymore. We stopped thinking of them as enemies, but it seems they
never did so of us.<br />
<br />
The long shadow of the bomb hangs over the military component. No side will
risk all-out war for fear of any conflict escalating into a nuclear exchange. The
West, as noted, retains its advantage in conventional weapons and technology.
But Russia has used subterfuge, and covert operations by special forces, to
achieve a spectacular military success in the virtually bloodless takeover of a
prized chunk of Ukrainian territory – Crimea. By escalating its confrontation
with the West step by step, the Kremlin never puts its foes in a position in
which a conventional military response would be feasible or appropriate. The
Russians have also demonstrated the ability to use a wide range of tactics, and
adapt them to the situation as it evolves. We probably won’t see the Little
Green Men of Crimea again – they would probably be shot on sight if they turned
up, for example, in eastern Estonia (or at least one hopes so), but Russia no
doubt has many other tricks up its sleeve. The use of a massive “aid convoy” to
provide a logistical support resource for the Russian military in eastern
Ukraine was another such trick. There was impotent outrage when the first
convoy barged into Ukraine on August 22, in flagrant violation of Ukraine’s
sovereignty, but sanctions threats and dire warnings by the United States that
it would see the convoy’s unauthorized crossing into Ukraine as an “invasion”
proved to be nothing but hot air and bluster. Now Russia is readying a fourth
convoy. We’ve got to the point that Russia can send hundreds of trucks into
Ukraine, unchecked, unsupervised, carrying only the Russians know what, without
a whimper of complaint from the West. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Then there is the economic component. Russia has actually been
using economic warfare on Ukraine for a number of years, but now the NATO countries
of the European Union are in the Kremlin's sights, and are at a clear disadvantage. The EU imports around 30% of
its natural gas from Russia (half of that coming through the Ukrainian gas
transit system.) Germany and Italy consume about half of these Russian gas
exports. The implications of Russia’s controlling the supply of such an amount
of the raw energy supplies of large Western democracies are obvious, and will
not be dwelt upon here. The economic sanctions threatened and imposed by the EU
and the United States in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine have so far
had no effect in influencing Russia’s actions. Indeed, the issue of the
annexation of Crimea, which saw Russia wreck the post-war international order
in a matter of days, now seems to have slipped off the agenda completely. Now that
Russia appears to have succeeded in setting up a frozen conflict in the east of
Ukraine, and the fighting appears to be winding down, at least slightly, the EU
is even considering reviewing its package of sanctions against Russia! It
appears that Russia correctly guessed that the EU was too weak, divided, and
self-interested to impose and maintain for the time required the kind of
economic sanctions that would make the Kremlin back down. Meanwhile, Russia has
imposed sanctions on the EU that have a direct impact on Russia’s own
population – restrictions on imports of EU goods and foods. The message is
clear: “We can take the pain of your sanctions, and we don’t mind hurting our
own population – we’ll just tell them it’s all the West’s fault, that they’re
our enemies, and they’ll rally around us.” The West’s sanctions could work, but
they’d have to be a lot tougher, long-lasting and also be of the kind that
would also inflict damage to Western countries’ own economies. The West has no stomach
for such sanctions, and Russia knows it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Lastly, the informational component: Here Russia has been at
its most deviously brilliant. By using its tight control over the Russian
media, the Kremlin has been able to shape the narrative underlying the whole
Ukraine crisis by creating an interlocking series of myths that not only win
the hearts and minds of the Russian public, but also appeal to left- (and
right-) leaning elements in the West and elsewhere around the world who have a
visceral dislike of the United States and its foreign policy. The main myths
are that it was the EU and the West that started the Ukraine crisis (while it
was actually a popular revolution sparked by Russia’s own meddling in Ukraine’s
internal affairs); that Kyiv was taken over by a fascist junta; that Russian
speakers in eastern Ukraine were under some sort of threat and required
protection; and that the fighting in Ukraine is a purely internal conflict
(although it was actually fomented by Russia). Russian officials and
journalists are prepared to utter, without a blush, the most blatant lies in
order to support these myths, in a way that simply flummoxes the Western media
(who are also baffled over how to report the obvious but infuriatingly
difficult to prove involvement of Russian troops, tanks and artillery in the
fighting in the east of Ukraine.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The information component also includes the innovative use
of hacking (Estonia has suffered Russian attacks on its modern e-government, and
there is circumstantial evidence that Russia may have tried to interfere in
Ukraine’s May 25 presidential election by infiltrating the central election commission’s
servers.) Moreover, as Western newspapers like the UK Guardian have found,
Russia is able to call on an army of Internet trolls to disrupt, confuse, and
mold public discourse in the West in matters pertaining to Ukraine, spreading
misinformation in support of Russia’s myth narrative. We can be quite sure that
Russia has even more capabilities to attack the West via the Internet, such as clogging
up the banking system, attacking utilities operating systems, and
stealing valuable data. It is not known yet whether the West has any way of
countering such attacks, or responding in kind. But the Russians are clearly
taking no chances: President Putin recently held a meeting on ways to cut the
Russian part of the Internet off from the rest of the Web.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />All of these components have been used together, in an
integrated fashion, to support one another. As special ops forces moved in to
seize buildings in eastern Ukraine, Russia threatened to cut off gas supplies to
the country (which it did in May), its diplomats in the UN lied shamelessly about
Russia’s involvement in the conflict, and Russian media and Internet trolls
howled and snorted if it was suggested that Russia might be behind the so-called
rebellion in the Donbas, all the while spreading misinformation about Ukraine
and the Ukrainian government to the Russian and Western public alike. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />This is a new kind of war. It is aggressive and offensive
(in both the main meanings of the word). New methods will have to be devised to
defend against it, or the Russian advance into territories it once ruled in an
empire will not stop in eastern Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-3647446844778768392014-09-08T13:24:00.002-07:002014-09-08T22:51:49.120-07:00How Russia Defeated Western JournalismDo you think that the government in Ukraine was overthrown in a violent, Western-backed putsch, and the new government in Kyiv is dominated by far-right radicals? Do you suspect that the downing of MH17 was orchestrated by a Kyiv "junta" to garner support for military intervention in Ukraine by the West? Do You think that there has been no armed intervention by the Kremlin in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, with tanks and mercenaries and regular units of the Russian army, and that the war is a purely domestic Ukrainian affair? Do you think that the volunteer battalions fighting on the behalf of the Kyiv government are, to a man, neo-Nazi fascists, hell-bent on subjugating the people of eastern Ukraine, and forcing them to speak Ukrainian rather than Russian?<br />
<br />
Then you've been hoodwinked by Kremlin propaganda.<br />
<br />
Don't feel too ashamed though: you've been misled by the most sophisticated propaganda machine that the world has ever seen - one that attacks, undermines and emasculates a key source of information that you may rely on: the Western media. As a small part of that media, I'm partly to blame for your being misled, so I owe it to you to explain as best I can how this happened.<br />
<br />
The Kremlin propagandists have achieved this propaganda coup in three ways:<br />
<br />
1. Undermining the credibility of Western journalism, or the journalism practiced in democracies. In Russia, and other autocratic regimes, the media serve the purposes of the state. There is no conception of the media as a "Fourth Estate" that is in effect as separate and equal part of government, performing an overseeing role that protects democracy. Why should the media perform such a role when there is no democracy to protect? Instead, in authoritarian states, the media are an arm of government, a propganda appendage, who pass only the government-approved message. By extension, it is assumed, wrongly, by the people who live under autocratic regimes, that the Western media serve exactly the same role. The reporting of Western journalists is thus undermined, with journalists being equated to agents of their governments, and thought of as nothing better than propagandists or spies. This wooly thinking even infects the well-meaning but naive liberal left in the West, who (rightly) distrust their own governments, but (wrongly) won't believe their own media. Meanwhile, the "journalists" of an authoritarian state like Russia can be found in places like Ukraine advancing the goals of their state through their "reporting."<br />
<br />
2. Understanding and expoliting the "Golden Rules" of journalism. The Kremlin propagandists know very well that Western journalists value their integrity, and that none of them wants to compromise it. None of them wants to make an error that will dent their reputation, and thus their career. The Kremlin propagandists know that Western journalists are risk-averse when it comes to reporting - they know that while each one of them is desperate to get the story FIRST, it must also be CORRECT. Mistakes will haunt you long after the story has broken and the brief glory of the breaking story has faded. This risk-aversion can be expolited by simply tearing off the shoulder patch of a Russian soldier. Western journalists can no longer report "Russian soldiers are in the process of annexing Crimea." They can't identify the soldiers for sure - they can't risk being wrong, even though it's completely obvious, even to themselves, who these soldiers are. Ditto unmarked Russian T-72 tanks in Ukraine. They can't report what they know personally to be the truth.<br />
<br />
3. Setting up "alternative media" that pretend to be paragons of Western media values. The Russian Kremlin propaganda channel RT (formerly Russia Today) has been set up to promote the Russian government's propaganda in a way soothingly familiar to a Western audience. It employs young, pretty, cash-hungry journalists from Western countries, who are almost entirely lacking in a sense of journalistic ethics, to mouth the word of the Kremlin in a way that sounds acceptable to a Western audience. When presented with a channel like RT, a Westerner might assume that this is a bona fide news organization, that follows the rules of Western journalism, when in fact it is a propaganda machine that will not hesitate to promulgate the most absurd and outrageous lies in the interests of its masters, and will only retract them, in an insincere face-saving exercise, if it steps so far beyond the bounds of the credible that it cannot even convince its own fact-challenged staff that it was reporting accurately. <br />
<br />
Absurd though it seems, these are the reasons I cannot tell you on the radio tonight some things that I know personally to be true: There never was a rebellion in Ukraine: it was fomented by Russian intelligence operatives - most people in eastern Ukraine never supported the separatists. The reason the Ukrainian army has suffered reverses in the last two weeks is because Russia sent in massive quantities of men and materiel to stop the "rebels" from losing. MH17 was almost certainly shot down by a BUK anti-aircraft missile, operated by Russians. And the "ceasefire" is almost certainly a ruse to wrong foot the West and the Ukrainian government into lowering its guard ahead of further Russian intervention in Ukraine, and then further afield.<br />
<br />
I can't tell you all that because the Kremlin propagandists will assault my every claim with obfuscation, confusion and denial, and their account will be broadcast in the Western media, who "seek the other side of the story," and give it equal airtime, as if this other side of the story is not the outright lies and propaganda that it actually is.<br />
<br />
That is why Russian propaganda has defeated Western journalism. Now: what are we going to do about it?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-76397953601899954102014-08-28T01:17:00.000-07:002014-08-28T05:18:29.243-07:00The Return of the Little Green Men<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">One of the problems of Western journalism,
which Russia uses to its great advantage, is its apparent inability to identify
a spade as a spade unless it is witnessed by three independent sources.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Even after the capture of 10 Russian
soldiers on Ukrainian soil on Monday, the BBC on Wednesday night, in its
flagship World Service Newshour program, was referring to the troops who
crossed the Russian border and took control of the town of Novoazovsk on
Wednesday as "pro-Russian rebels."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Even if they were "rebels", the
reports failed to note that this well-armed force would have had to cross
Russian territory, with the connivance of the Russian authorities, to have
opened up a new front outside of the small, and until recently shrinking, patch
of ground that the anti-Ukrainian fighters previously held. It is implausible
to conclude that Russia did not support this escalation of the conflict. So why
was this not reported?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Well, in Crimea, as Russia discovered (or
actually understood quite well beforehand), the Western press was loath to draw
conclusions from second-hand and circumstantial evidence, probably for fear of
making an error. President Vladimir Putin and his generals used this fact to
effect a brazen takeover of the territory of another state. They have used the
same tactics of subterfuge and covert action to foment a "rebellion"
in the east of Ukraine. And they are using it again now to spread the war in
Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />We saw this excessive journalistic caution
again on August 17, when journalists from the UK newspapers the Guardian and
the Telegraph, Shaun Walker and Roland Oliphant, witnessed a column of Russian
APCs furtively violating the Ukrainian border at dusk. Even then, they could
not conclude the obvious – that that these were Russian reinforcements off to
prop up the teetering "rebel" defense in Luhansk and Donetsk – not
having seen this for themselves. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Why is this such a problem? Remember the
MH17 atrocity, when there was also a great deal of circumstantial evidence, but
no direct eyewitness reports, that the anti-Ukrainian forces shot down a civil
airliner? There was nevertheless a huge public outcry at this awful news of the
horrible deaths of nearly 300 people, including 80 children, and this outcry
undoubtedly caused the Western governments whose citizens had been killed to
take a firmer stand against Russia, introducing stricter sanctions. Western
governments, being democracies, have to have an eye on public opinion, as their
positions depend on it. Public opinion, in turn, is molded by the media. The
media thus have a great responsibility to provide correct information to the
public, as this will indirectly have an effect on government policies in a
democracy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />But the BBC, in continuing to refer to the
troops who invaded Novoazovks as "pro-Russian rebels" is not
providing correct information to the public in the UK, (and given the wide
reach of the World Service, the public in many other countries), about the true
state of affairs in Ukraine. The troops who invaded Novoazovk are Russian
regular soldiers, and there is a great deal of evidence that this is so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />First, the troops, according to several
eyewitness reports, are dressed in unmarked Russian-issue military uniforms.
They carry Russian-issue weapons. They are masked and wearing goggles, as in
Crimea. They refuse to speak to reporters (for fear of people hearing their
"Russian" Russian accents). They are supplied with Russian military
field rations – which they swap with the locals for more palatable fare.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Next, these troops are equipped with T-72B
tanks with reactive armor – these tanks are not in the Ukrainian arsenal: they
could not have been stolen from Ukrainian arms depots, they could only have
come directly from the Russian military.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Moreover, some of these troops have already
been captured, and videos of their interrogations are available on YouTube. The
BBC employs several native speakers of Russian as journalists. It is quite
possible for them to identify these men as Russian by their speech. Even Russia
has admitted that they are Russian troops, but claimed they strayed a dozen
miles into Ukraine "by accident." But is it really plausible that
some of Russia's finest troops are incapable of reading a map correctly? Why is
the media not asking such questions on behalf of the public?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Instead, we simply get interviews with
Russian officials – proven liars – <br />presented as "the other side of the
story" as if what they had to say had the slightest credibility after what
happened in Crimea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />There is no doubt that the Little Green Men
are back, and have now invaded mainland Ukraine. As before, the Western
governments will probably try to ignore this, for fear of getting involved in
"a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know
nothing," to quote the wretched appeaser Neville Chamberlain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />It is the duty of the media not to allow
them to do this, to correctly report the real situation in Ukraine to the
Western public, so that the public will in turn bring pressure to bear on their
governments to make the correct response. The West's cautious approach to Putin
has failed. It failed to stop him after his annexation of Crimea, and its
continued use as a policy will fail to stop the destruction of the current
Ukrainian state, which is most probably one of Putin's aims. The West's calls
for Russia to "de-escalate or else" have proved useless, because
Putin has continued to escalate and the West has never come up with a
meaningful "else." Putin will escalate and escalate. He will not stop
until he achieves his aims or is actively prevented from doing so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />It's time for the media to call the
situation what it is – a direct invasion of Ukraine by Russia – and for the
West to take action to stop Putin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />Otherwise, Western journalists could soon
be reporting the arrival of the Little Green Men in Moldova, or Estonia, or
Latvia, or Lithuania. </span></div>
<br />
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-44808887708342803252014-08-15T04:41:00.001-07:002014-08-15T04:41:26.428-07:00Russia's 'aid convoy' trucks: Trojan Horses, or Trojan Mules?
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Courtney Weaver of
the Financial Times, who has been traveling with the Russian "aid
convoy," has been taking a look inside the Russian trucks said to be
carrying aid to the Donbas. Unsurprisingly, many of the ones she looked at were
mostly empty. See her pictures at https://twitter.com/courtneymoscow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Why unsurprisingly?
Because the amount of aid Russia said it was sending (about 2,000 tonnes) did
not tally with the amount of tonnage the nearly 300 trucks of the convoy were
capable of hauling. Even accounting for backup trucks in case of breakdowns,
less than 100 trucks would have been needed to carry the declared tonnage (at
25 tonnes per truck, only 80 trucks required.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Russian convoy
drivers told Weaver the trucks were lightly loaded in case there were
breakdowns, and loads had to be repacked from a broken down vehicle into
another one in the convoy, but as far as we know all the trucks made it from
Moscow to Rostov region without problems, so this seems excessive and unlikely.
For comparison, Ukraine's aid convoy of 75 trucks carried to the Donbas 800
tonnes (just over 10.6 tonnes per truck), in a convoy of much lighter trucks
than the heavy 10-wheeler Kamaz trucks sent by the Russians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Why then, do the
Russians need all that extra space?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">As far as I can
see, there are two most likely reasons for Russia sending this amount of trucks
to the Donbas area – an optimistic one, and a pessimistic one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">The optimistic one
is that the Russians intend to carry out of the Donbas a great deal more than
they hope to bring in – a load of weapons, supplies and fighters - in a covert
withdrawal of Russia's proxy army from Ukraine. This would be a face-saving
withdrawal for the Kremlin, allowing the Russians to claim that their troops
were never in eastern Ukraine, and the war was a purely Ukrainian internal
conflict. Russia, in that case, would not have suffered a military defeat at
the hands of Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">The pessimistic one
is that Russia is deploying a large supply facility to the war region, which
will be used to support a large-scale military intervention in eastern Ukraine,
perhaps as part of its long-feared "peacekeeping" intervention, or
even an all-out open invasion of the east and south of Ukraine. The deceptive
nature of the deployment of such a logistics vehicle group would fit in well
with the new Russian military tactics of Hybrid War, which seamlessly blends
the use of stealth, deception and disinformation when preparing for and
implementing an attack on another country. Further support for this scenario is
the fact that the Russians are still sending armor into Ukraine to support
their proxy army in Luhansk and Donetsk – as eye-witnessed by the Western media
for the first time on the evening of August 14. It does not appear that the
Russians are scaling down their military operation in eastern Ukraine – rather the
opposite seems to be the case.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Russian
military's Hybrid War tactics are at least as revolutionary as the Wehrmacht's
Blitzkrieg from the Second World War, but thankfully each time such tactics are employed
they become less effective, as ways are thought up to counter them. (Germany's
Blitzkrieg only really worked properly once, during the Fall of France in
1940.) We are all now on the look out for Little Green Men, and hopefully
becoming more immune to the Kremlin's lies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Nevertheless, we
should still be wary: the fact that the Russian "aid convoy" presents
us with puzzles could well be an indicator that it is indeed a Trojan Horse -
not all that it seems – although it might be more accurately described as a Trojan
packhorse. Ukraine should be very leery of allowing such a potentially
dangerous dual-use "aid" convoy onto its territory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Better to be on the
safe side, and keep it out.</span></div>
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-62348947462767804662014-08-11T15:11:00.001-07:002014-08-12T02:52:20.106-07:00Timeo Danos et dona ferentes"I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts." So said the Trojan priest Laocoön, when he saw the great wooden horse built before the gates of the besieged city of Troy by the armies of Agamemnon, as related by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid.<br />
<br />
Quite why the Trojans, starving after the ten-year siege of their city by the Greeks, should have been so enamored of a large wooden horse as to raise it onto wheels and draw it through their city's gates is not explained in Virgil's Aeneid or Homer's Iliad, but there are some prosaic theories.<br />
<br />
One of the more interesting ones is that the horse had not been constructed merely of wood, but was a wooden frame to which had been attached great quantities of provisions - amphoras of wine, baskets of fruit, loaves of bread, joints of meat and so forth. The Trojans, starving as they were, could not resist this supposed gift of the Greeks, and despite the warnings of Laocoön, they dragged the horse into their city and began to feast joyously on the food and wine that had been nailed to the Greek offering.<br />
<br />
But within this food hoard a single Greek soldier had been hidden, whose task was to unbar the gates of Troy once the Trojan feast was over and their guards had fallen into a drunken stupor. This he did; the Greeks streamed into Troy, razed it to the ground, and the rest, as they say, is history.<br />
<br />
According to the above theory, the Greeks brought war to Troy, and then destroyed their enemies with a feigned humanitarian gesture. The parallels with today's offers of humanitarian aid from the Kremlin for the besieged Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" are so obvious that already Trojan Horse memes are galloping across the Ukrainian part of the Internet. The Russians have been calling for humanitarian intervention - brought, of course, by Russian peacekeeping forces - since their proxy army in Donetsk and Luhansk began to be forced back from the territories they had occupied since mid April.<br />
<br />
To allow the Russians to make such a "humanitarian gesture" in the Donbas would be a folly on a par with that committed by the people of Troy.<br />
<br />
<span id="goog_929433824"></span><br />
There was no such entity as Russia when Virgil penned his famous phrase about the Greeks, so I can't give a Latin paraphrase of his words with regard to the Russians. But my English version carries across both the meaning, and a warning that the Ukrainian government should heed when Russia proposes sending a humanitarian convoy into eastern Ukraine: "I fear the Russians, even when they bear gifts."Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-10521789081138516882014-08-05T06:52:00.000-07:002014-08-05T09:14:08.091-07:00Mr. Putin and the News CycleThe gaze of the Western media is brief, but intense. When the latest international crisis erupts, it is subjected to detailed scrutiny - for a while. Then another big story breaks, in another far-off location, and the searchlight of media news cycle attention sweeps off to that place. Meanwhile, former trouble spots recede into the shadows.<br />
<br />
This is difficult to appreciate when you're actually located in one of these trouble spots, like Ukraine, and the local news is filled with the news of the crisis all the time. Only when you leave the country does the short attention span of the Western media become starkly apparent. Abroad, you strain to hear the latest news from the east, and every international news broadcast is a disappointment.<br />
<br />
This is understandable, as there are lots of trouble spots in the world, and lots of disasters, crises and catastrophes for the roving eye of the media to focus on - we can't expect the world to have a unique concern for the particular problems that concern us the most.<br />
<br />
But this is something Russian President Vladimir Putin also seems to understand well. If the spotlight of international media attention falls on his doings in Ukraine, he freezes like a fox caught in headlights. Once the light moves on, he slinks off again in the darkness to continue to pursue his objectives. <br />
<br />
We saw this after the annexation of Crimea in March: once the echoes of the outcry against that blatant abrogation of the international order had died away, Putin in April started to work on the destabilization of eastern and southern Ukraine. When the drama of the Ukrainian presidential elections in May put Ukraine back in the spotlight of international media attention, Mr. Putin appeared to draw back from the brink of invasion with his "peace keepers" - who are, by all accounts available on Russian Facebook clone Vkontakte, hell-bent on restoring "order" to eastern Ukraine.<br />
<br />
But by June the news cycle had moved on, Ukraine faded from view, and Putin began to implement the next stage of his "Novorossiya" project - to neutralize the Ukrainian forces' airpower advantage by supplying his proxy army in the east with sophisticated means to bring down Ukrainian warplanes - namely the BUK-M "Gadfly" surface-to-air missile system. He also pushed fresh troops and armor into the combat zone to counter the Ukrainian army's successes on the ground.<br />
<br />
But a tragic consequence of Putin's pernicious plans - the downing by the insurgents, apparently in error, of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 - again brought the keen attention of the international media down on eastern Ukraine in mid to late July, and Putin was again forced to freeze, and adopt the aspect of the reasonable man of peace. Kremlin rhetoric was softened - Kyiv's government was no longer referred to as "the junta" and calls for a ceasefire came every day from Moscow.<br />
<br />
But now it is August, Ukraine has slipped down the order on the news bulletins, and Putin is again moving forward with his schemes. His troops are being reinforced on the eastern border, trainloads of armor have been sent into Belarus to menace Ukraine's northern frontier. There are reports that Russian fighting machines bearing Russia's "MC" peacekeepers symbol are gathering near Ukraine's border. Putin's proxy army in eastern Ukraine is all but beaten, its two main strongholds, Donetsk and Luhansk, are cut off from each other and surrounded, and if no help comes from Russia, they will be forced to surrender. Yet Ukraine's military success ironically brings fresh danger to the country, and Putin appears to be positioning himself for his next move - open military intervention.<br />
<br />
As Ukraine again drops out of the international news cycle, what will September bring? The Western media excel at bringing us news of events after the fact. When Ukraine again hits the headlines, I'm very much afraid it will be because Russian troops are streaming across the border to occupy Luhansk and Donetsk.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-82294572441161198882014-07-20T06:41:00.003-07:002014-07-20T07:52:17.157-07:00Putin’s Next Move<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Ukraine has been thrust into the center of world media
attention by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. This atrocity may
have finally forced the international community to take the threat of Russia’s
actions in the east of Ukraine seriously. Predictably, after the incident, the
Kremlin’s propaganda machine went into overdrive, pumping out incredible
nonsense such as Ukraine’s government ordering the shooting down of the
aircraft in the mistaken belief that it was the Russian presidential plane
carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin back to Moscow from Brazil. This and
other equally bizarre conspiracy theories have since been lapped up by pro-Russian
useful idiots and regurgitated all over the Internet. So the first thing
to do, in speculating about what the Russian leader's next move might be, is to return to
the real world and review what we know with reasonable certainty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
MH17 was shot down by a powerful ground-to-air missile
system, and the aircraft broke up in the air, as we know from the large debris
field of four to six square miles (at least). The only other likely cause of
such destruction would have been a bomb on the aircraft, and there is no
indication that there was one. In contrast, there is every indication that it
was indeed a missile that shot down the plane – this was the early view of the
Ukrainian authorities, who identified the weapon as a Buk-M or “Gadfly”
anti-aircraft missile system, which was later corroborated by U.S. intelligence
sources, who identified the trajectory and impact point of the missile using
satellite date. <br />
<br />
The Russian-led insurgents certainly had a Buk-M missile system
(there are recent photos and videos of such systems in insurgent-held territory,
and phone intercepts of insurgents discussing its deployment with their Russian
handlers.) The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) also released damning phone
intercepts of the insurgents reporting to their Russian superiors, in shock,
that they had mistakenly shot down a civilian airliner. The SBU later released
video it said showed the Buk-M system, on a trailer and minus one missile,
being towed out of the area in the direction of Russia in the early hours of
July 18, the morning after the shooting down of MH17. <br />
<br />
It is also a fact that the
Russian-led insurgents have been shooting down aircraft regularly – they may
also have used the Buk-M system to down a Ukrainian air force An-26 transport aircraft
a few days before the MH17 atrocity. From the initial reports by the
insurgents, it is clear that they believed they had shot down another An-26 –
the Russian insurgent commander Igor Girkin bragged about it in a blog post
soon after the attack - the post was removed when it became clear that a
civilian airliner had in fact been downed. The insurgents also removed a picture
of a Buk-M tweeted a few days earlier from Twitter.<br />
<br />
Thus, from the best
evidence we have so far, it seems MH17 was shot down by a Buk-M system,
probably supplied by Russia (the Ukrainians insist they had full account of all
their missiles, and any systems captured by the insurgents were unusable, their
warheads having been disabled in March.) There is mounting evidence that Russia
is directly involved in supporting the insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and is
ultimately responsible for the shooting down of MH17.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Given all that, what is Putin’s next move likely to be? Here
are some possible options:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
1) End all support for insurgency, pull Russian mercenaries,
weapons, tanks, artillery, rocket systems out of Ukraine, and prevent any flow
of more mercenaries and supplies into eastern Ukraine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Effect: Without continual resupply and reinforcement from
Russia, the insurgents will be unable to resist the Ukrainian military, and the
insurgency will start to collapse. The insurgents will put up a desperate fight
in their last strongholds, and civilian casualties and destruction of
infrastructure are unfortunately inevitable before they are defeated. Ukraine
will, however, eventually regain control of all of Luhansk and Donetsk,
including the border region, and further Russian attempts to destabilize the
area will be much harder to implement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he’d do it: This would immediately take Western pressure
of Putin, and he’d be able to cast himself in the role of peacemaker, with the
chance of rehabilitating his image internationally, and warding off the threat
of further sanctions that actually hurt Russia’s economy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he wouldn’t: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
would be seen in Russia as a serious defeat for Putin – a humiliation, and
Putin does not like to be humiliated. Also, everything Putin has done so far
indicates he does not much care about his international image – he’s much more
concerned about his domestic image, and he wants to look strong and resolute, not
weak, humiliated and defeated. In addition, ending the east Ukraine escapade
might let Crimea slip back onto the agenda, and Putin himself might face more emboldened
opposition in Russia itself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
2) Ignore all Western pressure and threats of sanctions, and
go for an all-out invasion of eastern Ukraine, carrying out some false-flag
operations as an excuse to send in first a large peacekeeping force, and then
later push in regular troops to take over an area encompassing at least,
Zaporizhia, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Odesa oblasts, and possibly Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk
oblasts as well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Effect: The modern state of Ukraine would cease to exist –
it would consist only of a landlocked rump state of western and central
Ukraine, severely weakened, and no longer a “threat” to Russia. (Indeed, after
a period Russia might start to meddle with the affairs of the remaining
independent part of Ukraine.) Russia would gain control of one or more likely
two vassal statelets (the Donbas Republic of Luhansk and Donetsk – and maybe
Kharkiv – oblasts, and the state of Novorossiya, consisting of Zaporizhia,
Kherson, Mykolayiv and Odesa oblasts, and possibly Dnipropetrovsk oblast as
well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he’d do it: This would be a spectacular win for Putin,
ticking some great big strategic and domestic policy boxes. Russia would
effectively expand its borders to the Dniester River in the west, and would gain
a vital land border with Crimea. A new scale would have to be devised to
measure Putin’s public popularity at home, the West would suffer a humiliating
defeat that could even cause serious strains in Nato (especially when the
Baltic states started to bay for iron-tight security guarantees). Moreover,
Putin would have a free hand to turn his attention to other land-grab projects
in Central Asia and perhaps even Belarus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he wouldn’t: The Russian people themselves appear to be
against a full invasion of Ukraine, although for the Kremlin propagandists and
opinion managers this is not a huge problem. A bigger problem is the reaction
of the West, which would definitely be against it. Putin could probably count
on dithering and hot air from the EU in the face of a full invasion of Ukraine,
but the U.S. reaction would be much firmer and more dangerous. The new state of
Western Ukraine would de facto become another U.S. ally on the borders of “Russian
land,” which would no doubt be well supplied with enough weapons to ward off
further Russian expansion. Western Ukraine could even opt to conduct a partisan
war in an attempt to regain its lost territory (as it would be entitled to do
under international law.) The situation in the conquered territories could end
up being as much of a mess as the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics are
now, except over a vastly broader area. Russian soldiers would regularly return
to the Motherland in “200’ convoys.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
3) After waiting for a bit for the media frenzy to die down
and the West to get distracted by some other big news, continue support for
insurgency, with more regular Russian troops and military equipment, beat back
Kyiv’s advance, move in a long-prepared peace-keeping force (which seems to
have been part of the original plan). Attempt to gain control of most of
Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Effect: Kyiv will probably be forced to accept a ceasefire
on terms better for Russia and the insurgents. Ukraine will lose
control of most of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, which will merge and turn into
a quasi-statelet on the lines of Transdniestria or Abkhazia. A long-term “frozen
conflict” will be up and running, causing headaches for Kyiv and acting as a
useful lever of influence for Russia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he’d do it: This would be the repeat of a
tried-and-tested plan for the Kremlin, which has worked well for the Russians
in Moldova and Georgia. Ukraine will be weakened over the long-term, Crimea
will be safe, and eventually it will be back to business as usual with the West.
It would be nothing but a win for the Kremlin, and Putin personally. To deal
with the immediate problem of the airliner atrocity, Russia will try to obfuscate
the investigation into the airliner atrocity in every way it can, float absurd
conspiracy theories, and lay a smokescreen so thick that the shooting down of
MH17 becomes a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists for decades to come.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Why he wouldn’t: There’s no certainty the media frenzy <i>will
</i>die down, as more and more evidence of direct Russian involvement in the
shooting down of MH17 comes to light. While there’s no danger of Putin himself
being sent to The Hague, captured insurgents or Russians being put on trial in
the International Court would not look good for Russia, and by extension, Putin
himself, and he doesn’t want anything to undermine his support at home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Option 3 is probably the one Putin would go for. That’s why
it’s absolutely vital for the West to keep up the pressure on Russia, push for
a proper investigation into the shooting down of MH17, with the trial (even in
absentia) of those responsible for firing the missile, and realistic threats of
painful sanctions if the Russians don’t cooperate – at the very least the
Mistral helicopter carrier deal with France should be scrapped. Determined Western pressure could
force Putin to take option 1, which would be the best outcome for Ukraine and
the rest of the world, and, ultimately, the best for Russia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Putin is on the hook now. The West must not allow him to
wriggle off it.</div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-11102536309643684962014-07-14T04:10:00.000-07:002014-07-14T08:25:24.969-07:00Russia tried to invade Ukraine last weekend, and we didn't even notice<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The fog of war is notorious for obscuring
our view of military operations, but it must be rare in the annals of human
conflict for a nuclear-armed superpower to attempt to invade a large European
country without anyone apparently noticing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But that's apparently what happened on the
night of July 12-13, if the Ukrainian authorities are to be believed (and they
are generally a rather more reliable source than their counterparts in Moscow.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">According to Kyiv, a large column of
Russian armor (estimates ranging from 100 to 200 vehicles) was halted by
Ukrainian air strikes as it attempted to cross from Russia into Ukraine's
Luhansk oblast, the southern portion of which is still under the control of the
Russian-led insurgent forces. The Ukrainian authorities say part of the column
was destroyed, and the rest abandoned its attempt to enter Ukraine. Moreover,
the Ukrainian armed forces said that this column was just one of several
Russian attack groups that were moving on Ukraine, openly, under the Russian
flag. It added that Ukrainian forces were attacked from Russian territory by
artillery and Grad multiple rocket launchers. The Russian actions were deemed
by the Ukrainian military as a military invasion of the territory of Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Yet there has been not a peep about this
dramatic escalation of the war in Ukraine in the Western media, probably
because of the difficulty of independently verifying such reports, given the
complex, confused, and frankly dangerous situation in eastern Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Nevertheless, there had been warning signs
for a number of days prior to this incident that the Russians might be planning
an invasion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">British-Ukrainian journalist Askold
Krushelnysky reported on July 9 in an article entitled "A Dreadful
Inexorability" in the National Review Online that "serious
sources" in the Russian government had informed him that Russian President
Vladimir Putin was planning a peacekeeping intervention in Ukraine in "the
next few days." We might have witnessed (or rather failed to witness)
precisely that over the weekend, though luckily the attempt appears to have
been thwarted by Ukraine's military. Krushelnysky also claimed that senior
Russian diplomats had informed the German government that Russia would press on
with its plans to intervene in Ukraine even if the EU did finally decide to
impose its third wave of sanctions. In addition, Krushelnysky said Russian
military vehicles with peacekeeping markings have been stationed close to
Russia's border with Ukraine, and that MPs from Russia's lower house of
parliament, the Duma, have been ordered to stay in the vicinity of Moscow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">These claims have been backed up by Dmitry
Tymchuk, of the Information Resistance group in Ukraine, who has connections
with the Ukrainian military and who had proved to be a reasonably reliable
source in the past. Tymchuk, in a posting made on the morning of July 14, said
that Ukraine was effectively being invaded by Russia. He also warned that he
had it from several sources that Russian special forces were planning to insert
themselves in the insurgency zone in Ukraine on July 15, although the Ukrainian
defense authorities said they had no information confirming this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Together with the multiple reports of
Russian armored columns with peacekeeping markings, and the recent
well-documented incidents of Russian tanks, APCs and artillery pieces being
allowed through the border by Russia into the insurgency zone in Ukraine, this appears
to be the continuation of Putin's "frog-in-a-pot" strategy of
gradually turning up the heat on the hapless and unwary frog (Ukraine), until
it is cooked (invaded, dismembered).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And over the weekend we may have seen Putin
give another tweak to the burner – Russia claimed that Ukraine had shelled a
town across the border in Russia itself, killing a man and seriously injuring two
women. Ukraine denied being responsible, and claimed that the Russian-led
insurgents had engineered the incident themselves to provide justification for
Russia to stage an open invasion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Given the covert nature of Russia's
military operations against Ukraine, and the previously mentioned difficulty of
establishing the truth or falsehood of claimed incidents in the war zone, it's
impossible to say for certain who was responsible for shelling Russian
territory. But as Ukrainian forces close in on the insurgents' strongholds of
Luhansk and Donetsk, it's highly probable that we will hear of more such
incidents - any of which, the Ukrainian authorities worry, could be used by
Moscow as the pretext for an open invasion of Ukraine by Russia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It's to be hoped that in the future, with
the benefit of hindsight, Ukraine and the rest of the world will not ruefully
have to admit that "all the signs were there – we should have seen it
coming, but we didn't notice."</span></div>
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-57886835862783719762014-07-03T06:11:00.000-07:002014-07-03T07:10:02.907-07:00How to Win the War<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is no weapon of war that is not
vulnerable to another type of weapon: artillery, while devastating against mass
concentrations of infantry, is vulnerable to attack from the air. Tanks and
armor, which can punch through a front and encircle enemy forces quickly, can
still be destroyed by a single soldier armed with a modern anti-tank weapon.
Aircraft, which can engage a range of targets on the ground and in the air, can
themselves come under fire from enemy fighter aircraft, surface-to-air
missiles, or, again, a single soldier equipped with a portable anti-aircraft
missile system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Entire armies too have their
vulnerabilities: the German army was unprepared for the Russian climate. The
English at Bannockburn were defeated by their own arrogance and overconfidence,
and the French army was defeated in a few weeks in 1940 by its own decrepit,
incompetent and defeatist generals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Moreover, all modern armies share a
weakness that will cause their defeat if an enemy can exploit it: they are vulnerable
to the disruption of their logistics and lines of supply. Without a constant
flow of ammunition, food, weapons, equipment and reinforcements, any
conventional fighting force will soon grind to a halt. Even if command and
control – another prime target for disruption by an enemy – are still fully
functional, there is not much a soldier who has no bullets for his gun can do
but surrender, no matter what his orders are, once he is encircled by an enemy
who has an ample supply of ammunition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps the most famous example of the
failure to achieve such an encirclement in the history of modern warfare
occurred in June 1940 in northern France and Belgium. The Panzer divisions of
Nazi Germany punched through the allied (at that time Britain and France) lines
in the hilly and forested Ardennes region, which the allies had wrongly thought
impassible to a large armored force, and swept headlong west and then north to
cut off the French and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The allies, who
had expected the Germans to take their traditional invasion route through
Flanders, moved forward, as according to their plans and expectations, to meet a more conventional
and slow moving force (Army Goup B under Colonel-General Fedor von Bock), which
was advancing through the Low Countries and was intended by the Germans to draw the allies forward into a pocket that would
be closed by the Panzer divisions of Army Group A, commanded by Colonel-General
Gerd von Rundstedt, which was already racing around the allies' rear. For a reason that puzzles
historians to this day, Adolf Hitler gave the order (or rather confirmed an
order given by Rundstedt) to halt the advance of his Panzers at this crucial
time (perhaps wanting to give them time to rest and refit before turning south
to attack the heart of France, or perhaps to give Hermann Goering, the head of
the Luftwaffe, the chance of glory in destroying the allied armies from the
air). This gave the British the chance to evacuate the bulk of the BEF (almost
340,000 soldiers) from the port and beaches of Dunkirk, although 35,000 French
who were left behind guarding the British retreat were captured. Had the BEF
been encircled and trapped in France, the British would have faced a disaster,
with no army left from which to rebuild, and Churchill would have been forced
to come to terms with Nazi Germany. If that had happened, the world would be a
very much different place today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Looking at a map of the present conflict
zone in eastern Ukraine, the rebel forces, as the Allies did in 1940, appear
ripe for encirclement. Rebel-held territory extends like a fat thumb into the
middle of the Donbas in southern Luhansk and northern Donetsk oblasts, with the
base of the thumb being a short stretch of the Ukrainian border with Russia in
the east. It is through this border that the rebels have been supplied, for
several weeks now, with men and matériel – up to and including armored
personnel carriers and even tanks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The task facing the Ukrainian forces is thus
to push along the border, north from Donetsk and south from Luhansk, to sever
this thumb from the hand that sustains it. Once cut off from their supplies,
the rebel force will start to wither. Ukrainian troops can continue to squeeze
the pocket in which the rebels will have been trapped, forcing them to expend
ammunition and lives, or they can simply wait for the force to collapse in on
itself, and move in to mop up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It's really that simple. The only conceivable
reason that Ukraine has not yet done this is that it lacked a sufficient number
of men. But Ukrainian forces are now becoming stronger, while the rebels are
weakening. The task of closing the pocket along the border should be given to
the regular army, while the volunteer battalions that have been raised since
the beginning of the hostilities in the east should be given the job of holding
the perimeter around the rebel territory, and perhaps advancing opportunistically
as the rebels withdraw and consolidate (as they inevitably will have to as
their supplies and manpower run low).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is one important nuance: Ukraine
should also impose a no-fly zone over the rebel-held zone. This might seem
counter-intuitive, given the fact that the Ukrainians have access to air-power
and the rebels do not, (and air-power has already granted a significant advantage
to Ukrainian forces in several engagements), but once encircled the rebels will
only have the option of being supplied by air. If Ukraine declares a no-fly
zone, it will gain a number of other advantages in return. First, its weakened
air forces will be less exposed to attack and losses, and Ukraine will have to
maintain as strong an air force as possible given the threat of a more open
attack by Russia. Second, if the air force is not operating over rebel areas,
it will be harder for the rebels and Russia to claim attacks on civilian areas
are being made by Ukraine from the air (some sort of monitoring of the no-fly
zone, perhaps by the OSCE, will also be required). Third: any flights made by Russian
military aircraft or even civilian helicopters intended to supply the rebels
will be open to attack by Ukraine – if it's in the air, shoot it down.
Ukraine's own forces in the area can be supplied by road and rail rather than
by air.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The last, but perhaps the most important
point is this: to achieve a military victory, the one thing Ukraine <i>must not do</i>
is agree to another ceasefire. That would simply allow the rebels to regroup,
resupply and reinforce. That would be a disastrous mistake, comparable to Rundstedt's
in 1940, which ultimately led to defeat.</span></div>
<br />
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-81264631719559134432014-06-13T07:22:00.001-07:002014-06-13T07:22:22.072-07:00Putin's Frog-in-a-Pot War
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There's an anecdote about a frog in a pot
of water that goes like this: If you put a frog in a pot of hot or boiling
water, it will immediately jump out (or die). But if you put it in a pot of
cold water, and then gradually heat it, the frog won't notice the change in
temperature until it's cooked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I'm not sure if that's actually true or
not, but it's a useful metaphor for the type of warfare Russian President
Vladimir Putin has now unleashed on Ukraine. The idea is that people tend not
to notice very gradual change, and if the process is carefully managed, people
can be taken from one state of affairs to another, quite different one, without
them even noticing exactly how or when they got there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Ukraine is now at war. Part of its territory
has already been annexed. Its soldiers are being killed by foreign fighters,
armed and equipped from abroad, and sent to the country to seize key
administrative buildings, military facilities, and even entire, strategically
placed towns. Ukraine has lost control of its eastern border, and foreign tanks
and troops are roaming one of its eastern provinces. All this has happened in the last four months.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But so gradual has this change in the state
of affairs in Ukraine, that there are some who would not even recognize that
Ukraine <em>is,</em> in fact, at war with Russia. It's even difficult to say when this
war broke out: was it with the annexation of Crimea, or with the appearance of
the "little green men" in the peninsula? Was it, as some believe,
when Russian special forces were allegedly sent to steady the Yanukovych regime
as it was rocked by public protests, and activists began to be abducted,
tortured and killed by men speaking "<em>chistiy</em>" (or Russian-accented)
Russian?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What we can say is that things have
definitely been going badly for Ukraine since late February, and things are
still going from bad to worse. Few would have thought, in those dreadful days
after the ouster of Yanukovych, that Ukraine would soon lose Crimea to Russia -
but it did. Then there were the anxious last two weeks of March, when it seemed
that mainland Ukraine might be invaded. Then in mid April the "little
green men" turned up in the Donbas, and buildings started to be seized,
and the hitherto unremarkable town of Sloviansk became the center of a
pro-Russian rebellion, and a humiliating thorn in the side of the weak and
disorganized Ukrainian armed forces. Abductions and killings, of journalists
and activists, became commonplace. We learned the names of some of the Russian
mercenaries behind the seizure of parts of the Donbas. Then a battalion of Chechen
fighters appeared, and tried to take over Donetsk airport. The bodies of
Russian mercenaries began to be sent back to Russia openly. And now tanks,
stolen from Ukrainian bases in occupied Crimea, are being openly driven around
towns in the east.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This evolution of circumstances, this
gradual turning up of the heat, did not happen naturally – every major event,
from the theft of Crimea to the deployment of Chechen fighters and tanks in the
Donbas, has been carefully, artificially crafted and managed by Russia. Putin,
an old KGB colonel, is conducting this war with lies, propaganda and
subterfuge, and is very carefully and gradually raising the temperature for
Ukraine. Little by little he adds new outrages, or mixes in a new ingredient ("little
green men", Chechens, tanks), to the pot of war in which he is stewing his
neighbor. Sometimes he turns one burner down at little – perhaps a small
redeployment of troops from the border – while tweaking up another slightly -
say by threatening to cut off gas supplies. He calls for peace talks and for
Kyiv to stop its anti-terrorist operation in the east, while at the same time letting
more and more armed men cross the Russian border into Ukraine. But at all times
he is gradually raising the temperature of the conflict.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Putin has proved difficult to predict, but
perhaps, given what we have seen of his tactics in the last few months, we can now
make a cautious prediction: he will continue to conduct this new type of war,
his Frog-in-a-Pot war, until he achieves his aims, or until he is stopped.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Putin has himself alluded to what these
aims might be: the dismemberment of Ukraine and the establishment of a new,
Kremlin vassal state on the territory of Ukraine's south and east, which he
refers to as Novorossiya. He thinks in terms of maps, and it irks him to see
Transdnistria (Moscow's vassal state in Moldova) and his newly conquered Crimea
cut off from Mother Russia. The solution to him is to take a swathe of
Ukraine's south and east, linking all his isolated possessions (and that goes
for Kaliningrad as well: Latvia, Belarus, beware!). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So there probably won't be an all-out
attack and invasion of Ukraine by Russia – a swift, decisive sweep into enemy
territory of the type we have seen in conflicts past. Instead, the situation in
Ukraine will slowly deteriorate, until one day Kyiv will wake up to the
realization that it has lost control of half of its territory, perhaps without
even a single major battle being fought.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">However, that's assuming everything goes
Putin's way, and the frog doesn't manage to escape being cooked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Putin's plans can be foiled if Ukraine can get
his hands off the burners. That means, first of all, securing the border.
Although some progress is reported to have been made, Ukraine has yet to prove
that it has the strength to establish firm control over its frontier with
Russia. But the border must be closed, and kept closed, to stop weapons and men
from Russia getting into Ukraine to cause more and worse havoc. The
anti-terrorist operation must not be stopped, no matter how Moscow protests. If
there is any halt, Russia will simply use the opportunity to consolidate its
position in the Donbas before starting to make mischief anew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Next, Ukraine must continue to press for
tough sanctions from the West against Russia – sanctions that don't just have
teeth, but sanctions with six-inch razor-edged fangs that can slice and rip
into Russia's exposed and vulnerable financial system, and its flabby industry,
doing them some serious, painful injury. Wars cost money to prosecute, and the
less of it available to Russia the better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At the same time, Ukraine must work to
reduce its dependency on Russian gas, and make sure it pays a fair price for
the reduced amount it will still have to buy in the near term. For that, it
will need firmer backing from the countries that consume 50% of Russia's gas exports
to the EU (50% of which is delivered through Ukrainian transit pipelines) –
Italy and Germany.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Russia's unfair actions in its undeclared trade
war with Ukraine, which has already been going on for nearly a year, must be referred
to the WTO, and trade sanctions applied and enforced by that organization.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">On the diplomatic front, Ukraine must do
everything it can to highlight Russia's international isolation from the
civilized world and its disgraceful position as the leader of a motley pack of
rogue states. Russia must pay a diplomatic price in the United Nations for its aggression.
Little has been achieved on this front since the General Assembly vote condemning
Russia's annexation of Crimea, and that was in March.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The black propaganda campaign waged by
Russia against Ukraine must be more strenuously opposed. All too often,
ridiculous and outrageous lies spewed by the Kremlin-controlled Russian media end
up being parroted by "useful idiot" leftist commentators in the Western
media, distorting Western perceptions of what is actually happening in Ukraine.
Moscow has an army of Internet trolls dedicated to bending Western public
opinion in the direction it wants. Ukraine has to counter this with its own
army of troll slayers. Public initiatives such as <a href="http://www.stopfake.org/">www.stopfake.org</a> are doing great work, but
more needs to be done at the government level in Ukraine to counter the
falsehoods emanating from the Russian media.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">All of the above, and more, have to be done
to douse Russia's smoldering aggression, and stop the frog getting cooked. In
future, for the frog to escape the pot once and for all (meaning ensuring
Russia can never again threaten Ukraine's very existence as a state), a whole set
of other measures will need to be taken, such as rebuilding and reequipping
Ukraine's army, integrating the country's economy with that of the European
Union, and healing the raw wounds Putin has torn in Ukrainian society by artificially
fostering divisions and mistrust between east and west.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But before all that, Ukraine first has to recognize
that it is indeed a frog in a pot, and that the heat is rising.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-10420659901593100642014-06-04T12:58:00.002-07:002014-06-04T13:03:53.490-07:00Ukraine Is Not Just A Country Now – It’s An Idea<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->Something extraordinary happened in the frigid streets of
Kyiv during the last winter. Amid the cracked cobblestones and the snow-packed
bags of the barricades, between the lines of police and protesters, a national
idea began to crystallize.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That idea was soon articulated in the Maidan slogan “Ukraina
– tse Yevropa.” The grammar of this phrase is telling. It does not mean “Ukraine
is part of Europe” but “Ukraine IS Europe.” It is the idea that Ukraine not
only aspires to the principles that the EU is supposed to espouse – democracy,
the rule of law, fairness and equality – but that after a generation of
independence, these principles (which indeed have long been understood and to some
extent practiced in the past in Ukraine) have now been sufficiently inculcated
in Ukrainian society for the country to finally shrug off the legacy of
Soviet-style government, and take its rightful place in the ranks of “normal”
European countries. It is the idea that Ukraine itself embodies “Europeanness.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a powerful idea, and so, of course, a threatening one
to those who do not share it. Within Ukraine, it meets most resistance from the
people of the east, many of whom still yearn for the stability of the Soviet era.
Further to the east, in Russia, with its “managed democracy,” the idea is an anathema.
One of the core elements of this idea, the principle of the Maidan – that any
people have it within their power, without help from outside, to overthrow an
autocratic regime - is a very menacing one for those who love, and live by, authoritarianism.
That is why the Maidan movement is vilified in Moscow, and the Kyiv government is
branded fascist – the most frightful mark Moscow can brand a foe with, as the
Russian psyche still bears severe scars from the experience of its “Patriotic
War” against Nazi Germany.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even in the West, there are some who also quibble at the
idea of Ukraine becoming a fully-fledged European state. Stuck with 19<sup>th</sup>
and 20<sup>th</sup> century geopolitical memes that insist that Ukraine was,
is, and will forever be a buffer state between Europe proper and Russia, they
want to embrace Ukraine’s European aspirations but at the same time keep the
country at arm’s length, fearing the Kremlin’s anger at interference in Russia’s
sphere of influence.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such fears are overblown. In reality, Ukraine need be no
more of a buffer state than is Finland, or the Baltic countries – all of whom
share a border with Russia. Of course, Ukraine can never escape its geography,
but it can escape its history. It will always be neighbors with Russia, but it need
not in future be in its thrall, as it has been in centuries past. Proof of this
can be seen in the painful but rapid cleansing process the Ukrainian body
politic is currently undergoing. The criminal gang that ran the country from
2010 is on the run – the country’s fourth president will never be able to set
foot in Kyiv again, or so it is to be hoped. His Party of Regions has been
gutted, and its leaders in exile or in the sights of the prosecutor general. A
new, Western-oriented president has been elected with a convincing mandate. Ukraine,
in the space of just six months, has greatly changed.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is only one thing now that can stop Ukraine shedding
its old Soviet skin and emerging as a European <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>state – the Moscow-backed insurgency in the
east. But all is far from lost on that front. While it is true that the country’s
easternmost oblasts are currently wracked with lawlessness and violence, Kyiv
has managed to contain the separatists, preventing the spread of instability to
other vulnerable regions, and even managing to turn back the secessionist tide
in Kharkiv oblast. The anti-terrorist operation, despite some setbacks and a
dreadful cost in lives, is gaining momentum and winning back ground. If control
of the borders in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts can be restored, the insurgents
will be surrounded, and their rebellion slowly strangled.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But after winning back the land in the east, Kyiv will then
have to win back the minds of the people in the east, which have been deliberately
and systematically poisoned against it. To do that will require those in the
eastern regions to become properly acquainted with the national idea that has
formed in the rest of Ukraine.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This need not be as hard as it might sound. Whenever the
people of the east are asked whether they want to remain as part of Ukraine,
the majority say “yes” (this was even the case in Crimea.) They are as sick of
the corruption, the money-politics, the stagnation and the despair that has
plagued Ukraine since independence as everyone else in the county is. It’s just
that to cure it, they looked to the past, to the Soviet system, rather than to
the future, to Europe. It will take time to turn them around, but it can be
done.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So long after the last shots are fired in the Donbas
insurgency, Ukraine will still be battling away to win back the hearts and
minds of its eastern population. It will need its new national idea to bind its
wounds and draw out the venom pumped into it by Russia. It will need the European
Union to nurture the country’s Europeanness with financial and political
support. Brussels must provide this, not just because the fractious EU itself also
needs Ukraine’s national idea to maintain its own unity, but simply because now
Ukraine IS Europe: it is an idea, and as the Ukrainians have shown, it is an
idea that people will fight for.</div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-75885841501868916192014-05-30T05:06:00.000-07:002014-05-30T05:06:03.262-07:00Time For Some Blunt Words To Russia
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">When the 10th century Prince of Rus Sviatoslav
I resolved to crush a neighboring tribe of eastern Slavs, the Vyatichi, he
issued history's most curt, aggressive, direct and unambiguous declaration of
war.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">His quite undiplomatic four-word note to
the chiefs of the Vyatichi read "</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: RU;">Х</span><span lang="EN-US">ощю на вы ити" (<i>Khoshchiu na vy iti</i>)
or "I'm coming to have at you." He was as good as his word, and after
defeating the Vyatichi he forced them to pay tribute to Rus, rather than to a
rival power, the Khazars, as they had before. (Incidentally, according to
contemporary descriptions of the prince, the blue-eyed, blond-haired Sviatoslav
wore a long mustache, a side lock on his shaven head, a single golden earring, and
a white <i>vyshyvanka</i> embroidered shirt. If he could somehow have been
magically resurrected and brought to Kyiv in the early months of 2014, he would
have had no difficulty in recognizing on which side of the barricades were
standing the descendants of his <i>druzhina</i>, or war-band).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now war has again come to the lands that
Sviatoslav once ruled, although no such clear declaration of it as his has yet
been made. Russia's declaration of war has instead been made in the form of the
actions it has taken since the toppling of the corrupt government of former
President Viktor Yanukovych by the Ukrainian people in late February this year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">First we saw the appearance of the
"little green men" - soldiers in unmarked uniforms carrying Russian
weapons and equipment - surrounding key facilities in Crimea. Despite the
Kremlin's denials, it was obvious to the rest of the world that these soldiers were
Russians. After a hasty, rigged, pseudo referendum, Russia helped itself to a
portion of Ukraine's territory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Next, similar formations of soldiers began
to turn up in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine, taking over, with military
efficiency, administrative and security facilities over a swathe of the Donbas.
Again there were denials of involvement from Moscow, but through the work of
journalists and the Ukrainian security services we now even learned some of the
names of Ukraine's Russian invaders.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">They included former Russian intelligence
officer Igor Girkin, his bearded associate Aleksandr "Babai" Mozhaev,
Cossack Evgenii "Dingo" Ponomarev, and Vladislav "Berkut-Kobr"
Tkachenko (who, by the way, has a distasteful penchant for dressing himself up
in Nazi-era German military uniforms). The Russian presence in the east was now
undeniable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then in late May we saw the addition of another
unwelcome ingredient to the cup of war mixed by Moscow in the Donbas – Chechen fighters
from the former Vostok Battalion, a Russian <i>spetsnaz</i> special forces
formation. Dozens of them were killed on May 26, when they tried to seize Donetsk
airport, and their remains were quickly transported back to Russia, but enough of
them remained alive to stage on May 29 what looked very much like a coup
against the leaders of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic."
Russia now seems to have taken ownership of the mess it has created in eastern
Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This all adds up to a wordless yet
unequivocal declaration of war by Russia against Ukraine. By flooding the
Donbas with men and matériel, and retaining significant numbers of troops on the
border, Russia threatens to further annex parts of Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The danger now facing Ukraine is stark. But
as per usual, the Western response has been frustratingly flaccid. When are we
going to hear from Western capitals the announcement of a fresh round of
painful sanctions against the Russian regime? So far there has been silence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What is required is immediate support for
Ukraine, in the form of copious quantities of non-lethal military supplies,
backed up by a sanctions regime that finally bares some teeth. If this is not
forthcoming, then the situation in Ukraine, and perhaps beyond, is only going
to get worse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Russian President Vladimir Putin is an old
Cold Warrior who fights his battles by means of covert action and subterfuge, with
lies and propaganda, and he will never openly declare his hostile intentions.
But there can be no doubt that if his plans succeed in Ukraine he will be
"having at" another of his perceived foes soon. If the West wants to
prevent another war in Europe, it must, in words as blunt as Sviatoslav's, tell
Putin that Russia's warmongering is to end in eastern Ukraine.</span></div>
<br />Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-80968192627408162742014-05-21T23:50:00.000-07:002014-05-22T07:44:27.648-07:00Get Ready For The Big One<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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With the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine now only
days away, there is growing evidence that the Ukrainian government may be ready
for a decisive final battle to eliminate the armed separatist rebellion in the
Donbas once and for all.<br />
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The government’s anti-terrorist operation appears to have
been taking a heavy toll on the rebels and their foreign mercenaries as of
late, both in terms of casualties and in morale. In the past week perhaps more
than one hundred rebels have been killed, with Ukrainian forces’ losses at
about 25 – the Ukrainian defense ministry yesterday said that between 50 and
100 bodies of rebels killed in recent fighting are piled up in the morgues of
Sloviansk, and that the rebels planned to move them out of the country by establishing
a corridor through the Ukrainian border that would also allow reinforcements to
gain entry to Ukraine.<br />
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Possible evidence of the rebels’ attempt to put such a plan
into effect came last night, when there was fierce fighting between a group of
rebels and Ukrainian border troops at Stanichna Luhanska on Ukraine’s border
with Russia in Luhansk region. The border troops repelled the attack.<br />
<br />
Then there are the recent pronouncements by the rebels, notably one by the bearded Russian mercenary
“Babai,” who appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for aid, and a
corridor to be set up to resupply the rebels, and Russian insurgent commander
Igor Girkin, who complained of a lack of support from the local population. These
could well be signs of a collapse in morale among the terrorists; there have
also been numerous reports of infighting between rebel groups.<br />
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On top of that, reports and videos have emerged in recent
days demonstrating that the people of the east of Ukraine have tired of
supporting their armed Russian guests - not that they ever even fully supported them
at all.<br />
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Interior Minister Arsen Avakov also yesterday gave the green
light to the commanders of the government’s anti-terrorist operation to move
into the final phases of the plan. That would imply an attack soon on the
rebels’ last strongholds in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Once those nests of armed
rebellion are cleared out, there is nowhere else for the mercenaries to go but
back to Russia – if they survive the fight.<br />
<br />
Such an operation would be perilous and would definitely involve loss of life
on both sides, and probably casualties among the civilian populations of these
occupied towns, but the government may feel it now has a decisive edge over the
rebels, and that a final battle would allow it to secure control over the restive
eastern regions in time for polling day on Sunday. <br />
<br />
If so, we can expect a strong attack on Sloviansk in the coming days. Get ready
for the big one. </div>
Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-54548173704522854692014-05-18T13:00:00.000-07:002014-05-18T13:41:32.971-07:00Running Out of Steam?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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For several weeks after the Donbas separatism movement
erupted in early April, (seemingly out of nowhere, but as we all know actually
out of Russia), the insurgency in eastern Ukraine seemed like a runaway steam locomotive
hurtling inevitably towards the maiden of Ukrainian unity lying bound
helplessly on the tracks.<br />
<br />
We buried our faces in our palms as building after government building in
Donetsk and Luhansk was occupied by a few dozen armed men, while the police either
waved the occupiers in with a welcoming wink or shrugged and shuffled off with
an impotent “my job’s not worth this” expression.<br />
<br />
We tore our hair out as we watched Ukrainian troops being surrounded, disarmed,
and dis-armored-personnel-carriered by small crowds of civilians covering for
tiny bands of well-armed men. It seemed like a few dozen insurgents and a
motley rent-a-mob of disaffected Russian-propaganda-brainwashed easterners
could hold the country to ransom while setting about its dismemberment.<br />
<br />
But what a change a month can make. In the two weeks or so since the government’s
crassly named “Anti-Terrorist Operation” finally got into gear, the runaway
train of separatism seems to have lost much of its steam. From their public
pronouncements, it seems the rebels are getting desperate: Just a few days ago,
the rebel second-in-command issued a rambling statement, with Hitlerian
overtones, threatening to carry out a scorched-earth policy within 24 hours if
the government’s forces didn’t withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk. The day-long
deadline came and went, and the government responded only by beefing up its
forces and pressing forward, capturing back more ground, and killing perhaps
dozens of rebels.<br />
<br />
The threatened response from the rebels failed to materialize, and a recent video rant by the rebels’
commander-in-chief, Igor Girkin (a.ka. “Strelok”) shows us why: The armed
separatists simply don’t have much support from Ukrainians living in the east.<br />
<br />
The rest of us have long known about that from the polls, of course, which have
regularly shown that only a small minority of the Ukrainians in the eastern
regions support these lands’ secession from Ukraine, and that fewer still want
to feel the clawing, freedom-suffocating bear hug of union with Mother Russia. <br />
<br />
However, this well-known fact seems to be only just dawning on the leader of
the eastern rebels. In his video address, Girkin lamented that only a few of
the men of Donbas were willing to take up arms for the cause, and those that
did were mainly over 40. Seemingly in despair at the deficit of virility in young
Donbas Man, Girkin instead appealed to the women of the east to join him,
noting gallantly that although they were obviously not officer class, at least
they were better than nothing.<br />
<br />
I have no reason to disparage the fighting spirit of the Ukrainian female (having
been married to one and seen her in action at close quarters), but Girkin’s
appeal seems to have missed the point: It’s clear that easterners, both male
and female, are quite prepared to fight for the things they believe in - it’s
just that not many of them believe in separatism. Rather than questioning
manhood in Ukraine’s east, Girkin should be questioning the wisdom of the
Kremlin-inspired adventurism into which he, and a few other Russian nationalist
mercenaries, have been conscripted. <br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">P.S. This week’s Russian Propaganda Snigger
comes from the British so-called journalist, blogger and RT correspondent
Graham Phillips. Our intrepid reporter stumbled into a tripwire flare, but
immediately filed a report that he had been shot at by Ukrainian troops. It is
a rare occasion indeed that one can make an idiot of oneself and then
immediately sell the story to the Russian state media. You can watch the
bumbling fool here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au2iBlf3GFA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au2iBlf3GFA</a>.
Check out the “Oi! Oi! Oi!” cries Phillips gives for the benefit of the great
Russian public at the end of the clip. Such histrionics might not advance his
journalistic career outside of Russia, but he at least has a slim chance of a BAFTA award.</span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-15172644045716769952014-05-15T13:05:00.004-07:002014-05-15T13:14:47.135-07:00Reflections ahead of the presidential elections<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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With the presidential elections in Ukraine only ten days
away, there are a few questions still up in the air, with not much sign of them
hitting the ground before polling day. Here are some of them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will the elections be able to go ahead at all? <br />
<br />
There may be some cause for optimism here: The Verkhovna Rada today (May 15) passed
an election law that would allow the election results to be validated even if
some regions or districts were not to provide a return. Although Donetsk region
and Luhansk region are still not fully <span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:dell" datetime="2014-05-15T22:44"></ins></span>under the control of the
government, and an active campaign by the separatists to thwart the
presidential poll is underway, this could still allow Kyiv to claim to have
elected a legitimate president on May 25 - if there is unimpeded voting in the
rest of the country. Of course, the separatists, even after a legitimate vote,
could continue to claim that their part of the country is still not adequately
represented, but from a legal point of view the result would stand. All the
same, there is still a significant risk that up to 15% of Ukraine’s electorate
(in Donestk and Luhansk) might be disenfranchised by the chaos in the east of
the country. While that wouldn’t necessarily derail the vote, it would
guarantee political problems further down the track. Of course, if violence of
the scale seen in Odesa and Mariupol recently were to erupt all around the
country, there would be little chance of holding a credible vote, but the
security gains made by the government in recent days give hope that order, if
not the law, will be maintained on polling day in most of Ukraine.<br /><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who are the easterners going to vote for? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Even if they do make it into the voting booth, people from
the east of Ukraine might have problems choosing whose name to tick: The
front-runners are all from the other camp, and the candidates from the east are
a mixed bag of freaks, losers and clowns. Realistically, the only option they
have is the odious turncoat Serhiy Tighipko, who has allegedly<span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:dell" datetime="2014-05-15T22:47"> </ins></span>been
polling better than Tymoshenko recently. But nationally he is still wallowing
in single digits, and has no chance of making it past the first round, far less
taking up residence in Bankova. The next president will not be from the east,
and there won’t be an opportunity to make sure the eastern regions can send their
own to Kyiv until the next elections to parliament.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will the vote be fair? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Front-runner Petro Poroshenko, according to Ukrainian
political expert Ivan Lozowy, has long been salting the electoral-campaign well
by commissioning polls that invariably place him at the head of the pack, creating
the impression among the voting public that the chocolate juggernaut is
inevitably destined to come to rest with a comfortable splat behind the big
desk in the Presidential Administration. That said, the vote itself should be
fair, given that more than 1,000 international observers have been parachuted
in to keep a close eye on the vote itself. All the same, Ukraine has virtually
no democratic tradition, and the Yanukovych presidency showed how easy it was
to reverse the fair voting gains that were made after the Orange Revolution.
And with disorder liable to break out anywhere in the south or east, the vote
count could be even more problematic than usual. Ukraine’s arcane voting
system, with its “wet stamps” and outrageously biased local electoral commissions,
has so many weak links that any number of breaks could appear between the
polling booth and the final tally. Remember the five “problem districts” that
couldn’t return a result for months after the 2012 Rada elections? Such
problems could be repeated anywhere across the south and east of the country if
there is a determined campaign by pro-Russian activists to disrupt the vote.
Disputed vote counts, forged stamps, stuffed ballot boxes, ballot boxes being
blown up… the possibilities are tiresomely endless.<br />
<br />
Will Russia scupper the vote?<br />
<br />
No matter how we might pout and fume about the influence Big Brother next door
has on Ukrainian politics, this question has to be addressed. Russia has
refused to recognize the legitimacy of the current interim Ukrainian government,
even though it was elected by a parliament with a full mandate and in keeping
with all the procedures foreseen in the Ukrainian constitution. Russia will
have a harder task proving its case if an orderly vote goes ahead on May 25, so
we can expect Moscow to do its damnedest to throw the whole poll into doubt.
The very worst thing the Kremlin could do is send its tanks in on May 25, but
it is more likely, militarily, that Moscow will be content just to hold some
threatening exercises on the border, as it has already said it will do. Inside Ukraine,
Russia will try to cause as much trouble as it can by bombarding Ukraine’s
Russophone population with propaganda suggesting that the vote itself is
illegitimate – expect the Russian media to reach new levels of anti-Kyiv hysteria
in this regard in the days before the vote. Acts of voting sabotage can be expected
in Donetsk and Luhansk, and maybe in Odesa, Mykolayiv, Zaporizha and Kherson –
the oblasts of “Novorussia” – a territory Putin has his greedy eyes on. The
tiniest incident or problem will be gleefully recorded by Russian reporters, blown
up out of all proportion, and then given massive coverage by RT. This is
probably the biggest threat to the vote in Ukraine: that it will be free and
fair, but undermined and made less credible in the eyes of the world by a
massive onslaught of Russian media troll commentary, negative news hype, and
outright lies. With its new style of warfare, Russia has shown that the pen,
while not necessarily mightier than the sword, can be used in handy combination
with a threatening blade to conquer first minds, and then territory. <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-60915958806630768782011-08-17T05:34:00.000-07:002011-08-17T05:53:13.237-07:00The Dilemma<span lang="EN-US">It's gone three in the morning now, and I can't sleep. It must have happened about; maybe four-and-a-half hours ago, and I just thought to myself, "Well, there's nothing I can do about it." So I decided to go to bed. I slept a bit, but then I started to toss and turn, and now I can't sleep for my dilemma.</span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">You see, I live alone on the top floor of a crumby old Stalin-era apartment building in Kiev. It's a one-room apartment (or "kvartira" as it's called in Russian) consisting of a small living room-cum-bedroom, a cramped kitchen, and a tiny toilet/bathroom. The latter seems to have been designed to double as a sauna in summertime, as a hot-water pipe snakes across one entire wall. It's useful for drying clothes and towels, but it turns the bathroom into a sweatbox when the temperature outside is above 30 degrees Celsius.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">The one redeeming feature of the flat is its small, open-air balcony. True, the concrete floor is set at an alarming slope, and the sparse metal bars that support the waist-level, sunlight-degraded plastic handrail are badly rusted. True, you can see the ground 70 feet below through the gap between the floor and the asbestos panels that have been roughly tied with plastic to the handrail supports - apparently in a vain effort to inspire some confidence in the structure. True, the concrete slab that protrudes from the side of the building seven feet directly above, which forms my balcony "roof", regularly drops chunks of itself onto the floor below. But nevertheless, I like the place: It faces south, I can grow plants there in summer, and I even have a small metal barbecue there for cookouts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">For a building with 169 apartments, it's a pretty lonely place. I'm on nodding terms with a few of the neighbors on my floor, but everyone keeps themselves to themselves. I've exchanged perhaps a dozen words with my neighbors in the eight months since I moved in.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">I did have one "friend", however, who would meet me nearly every day on the short trudge along the hallway from my door to the elevator – a cat with long, sandy hair, whom I imaginatively named "Sandy." I can't decide whether Sandy was male or female, as the telltale parts of his or her anatomy were obscured by riotously fluffy fur, and he or she was never inclined to grant me a closer inspection of his or her hindquarters – I still have some quite deep wounds on my hands. I suspect Sandy was male, judging by the animal's size, but he or she didn't have the broad face of a tomcat. So I gave the animal the gender-neutral name of Sandy, and will use the pronoun "it" from now on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">Sandy obviously wasn't a street cat. I would only ever see it on my floor, it was friendly and playful in human company, and its long sand-colored fur was always clean and well groomed. It must have lived in one of the apartments on my floor. However, in the time since I'd moved here I'd seen it being admitted at more than one door, and pretty soon it would come into my apartment too, if it met me coming home in the evening. I guess it was a "shared" cat, which has an official owner, but is quite happy to spread itself around to gain extra attention and food.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">At first I was wary, and followed Sandy as it sniffed its way around my flat – I didn't want it marking its territory, if it was indeed a tomcat. But after a few inspection visits, I was happy to let Sandy get on with whatever it wanted to do unattended, while I pottered around or sat in front of my computer. I quite liked the company, to tell the truth, and I didn't see any harm in it; well, not until this evening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">Sandy met me, as it quite often did, as I came home from work this evening, and did its irritatingly endearing trick of running beside you and then trying to rub itself against your lower leg, causing you to stop every few steps to avoid squashing the beast. That reminds me: I still have some long sandy-colored cat hairs on my jeans. I must remember to get rid of them before morning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">When I got to my door, Sandy twined itself around my feet and waited expectantly as I got out my keys and fumbled with the dodgy lock. As soon as door swung open, Sandy trotted in to perform its inspection, and I flicked on the light, locked the door behind me, and started to pull off my boots. It had been a sweltering hot day, and the brickwork of the apartment had soaked up the warmth and conducted it into the interior of the kvartira, so the next thing I did was open the balcony door to let in the evening breeze.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">Then I set about preparing my evening meal, listening to the BBC news streamed over the Internet, through my wireless router and into my phone. I forgot about Sandy, and anyway, when it wanted out, I knew it would sit by the door and mew. I wasn't worried.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">After eating, I sat myself down before the computer and was soon engrossed. But as I browsed, a nagging feeling started to tug at my consciousness. After a few minutes, the feeling suddenly leapt in front of my attention, waving its hands and shouting, "Where's Sandy?"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">I don't know if you're one to believe in simple coincidences - two or more events that happen at the same time that you feel could somehow be connected, but are actually just the workings of randomness. According to the laws of probability, bizarre coincidences happen all the time, and are a lot more common and, indeed, probable, than most people think. I actually knew that, but I have to admit that the coincidence I'm coming to shook me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">I looked slowly around, and then got up. First to the kitchen – no Sandy. Bathroom – no Sandy. Back to the living room – no Sandy. To the balcony…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">The coincidence was that <em>just at the very second</em> I got to the balcony door, I caught sight of what looked like a fat, sandy-haired rodent whip out of sight in the gap between the balcony floor and the asbestos panels fixed below the handrail. For a fraction of a second I thought I had a hamster problem, but then came a rapid series of sounds that announced that the problem was worse than that: First came a swish of tree leaves, followed almost immediately by a sharp cracking of branches, and then an ugly, furry thud. Then silence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN-US">So there's my dilemma. I'd like to pretend this never happened, of course, but my conscience won't let me sleep now. It wasn't my fault, but now I either have to go and fetch the mangled remains of a fall-death cat from <em>directly below my balcony</em>, and try to find the animal's owner, or leave them there and face the possibility of my neighbors drawing some conclusions, none of which are likely to place me in a good light.</span></div>Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-20359362729267447422011-08-01T22:24:00.000-07:002011-08-01T23:09:26.475-07:00The Great Einstein<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O2RNlu0DAUA/TjeKROySIpI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/EY0VU9dxChQ/s1600/220px-Niels_Bohr_Albert_Einstein_by_Ehrenfest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O2RNlu0DAUA/TjeKROySIpI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/EY0VU9dxChQ/s1600/220px-Niels_Bohr_Albert_Einstein_by_Ehrenfest.jpg" t$="true" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr were together at Paul Ehrenfest’s home in Leiden in December 1925. The three friends were relaxing in the drawing room after enjoying an excellent meal, which Ehrenfest, a skilled cook, had prepared himself. Bohr sipped his port, gave a great sigh of satisfaction and complemented his host on the quality of the roast lamb they had just enjoyed together.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I must say, you are a master chef,” said Bohr to Ehrenfest. “That lamb was absolutely delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted such a fine roast, and lamb is such a difficult meat to cook well. You must tell me how you managed to ensure the meat was both tender and succulent throughout the whole joint. There was not a bit of it that was dry or overdone!”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ehrenfest shot a shrewd glance at Bohr, and said, “I think the secret is to keep the heat constant throughout the entire cooking process, which itself must proceed very slowly.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The three men sat deep in thought for a while. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Presently, Ehrenfest rose and drained his glass. He excused himself, telling his friends that an idea had just occurred to him. He left the room in search of paper and pen. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">After their host had left the drawing room, Bohr turned to Einstein, who was lighting his after-dinner pipe. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Albert,” said Bohr, “Are you not concerned over the antics of Herr Hitler and those brown-shirted ruffians of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party? It seems to me they present a grave threat to young Weimar Republic. Herr Hitler openly disparages the very idea of democracy, and proposes a one-party state. Do you think Hitler will come to power in Germany?”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Einstein first took a few thoughtful puffs on his pipe. Then he ruffled his unruly hair, and said, “It really depends on how you look at it: Power might well come to <em>him</em>.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bohr looked somewhat exasperated. The two of them lapsed into a silence, which for a while was broken only by gentle sipping sounds as they finished their glasses of port. However, after a few minutes, Bohr pressed on, as he valued his great friend’s opinion.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“But are you not in the least concerned over the way things seem to be going?” Bohr said. ”I have read some of the nonsense that that upstart Austrian corporal is spouting about ensuring the racial purity of the German nation. You’re Jewish, Paul’s Jewish, and although I’m not German I’m half-Jewish. In what direction is Hitler’s movement going? In matters related to the Jewish Question, do you know his position?”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Einstein leaned back in his comfortable armchair, and, stretching his right hand back behind his shoulder, rubbed the nape of his neck in luxurious contemplation. Then he turned to Bohr and gave the younger man a gentle smile.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I think it’s very difficult to give a 100-percent certain answer to either of those last two questions, and I quite definitely couldn’t answer them both at the same time,” he said.</span></span></div>Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7896583980957114577.post-82092286040939603952011-07-28T14:36:00.000-07:002011-07-28T14:36:41.718-07:00On the Edge<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ukraine is said to take its name from the Slavic for "on the edge."</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have no idea if that's true. But living in Ukraine in 2011, it certainly <em>seems</em> true. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This place has got me on edge, anyway. Right now, we in Ukraine are being treated to a spectacle that appears to be bordering on lunacy - the trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymosheno, who is guilty, apparently, of the heinous crime of <em>being in government when Viktor Yanukovych wasn't president of Ukraine.</em></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Guilty as charged!" I hear you cry, but actually things are a bit more complicated than that. We have to delve into years of oily, mucky, dealings with filthy lucre to discover anything like the truth, and pass great quantities of gas in the process.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The whole problem, in fact, lies in who was passing gas, at what time, to whom, and at what price.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yulia Tymoshenko is up before the beak for signing contracts with Russia for the supply of gas. You might not think that is a grave crime, but apparently she didn't get a good enough price, lost Ukraine UAH 1.5 billion (about $200 million), and did so under duress, because of the pressure of debts she built up when she was Ukraine's "Gas Princess." </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Tymoshenko, you see, used to run an outfit called United Energy Systems of Ukraine. Now read carefully: This is what you do if you want to make a huge amount of money out of a former Soviet Republic that has the largest gas transport system in Europe. <em>What you do is insert your private company at the gas output nozzle of Russia, inhale deeply, and fart out some gas on the western border of Ukraine, while charging a grossly inflated price.</em></span><br />
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<em><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Before you get too excited about this sure-fire money-spinning business opportunity, I have to tell you that Tymoshenko and her old chum Pavlo Lazarenko (another former Ukrainian prime minister who, incidentally, also faces legal problems right now), beat you to it. Some years ago, in fact. Moreover, other people have since inserted themselves at the Russian gas nozzle, and in Ukraine, they’re much better politically connected than Tymoshenko ever was, or you will ever be.</span></em><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Nevertheless, the legacy of these gassy shenanigans is now catching up with Tymoshenko, who, while no doubt being a beautiful, braided beacon of democracy, still carries more than a whiff of dodgy dealings about her. That’s a shame, because what with the importance of gas supplies to the European Union, nobody in the West is going to raise a stink about the obvious political repression now going on in Ukraine.</span>Euan MacDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12550600911726562487noreply@blogger.com0