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U.S. Military Exercise in Ukraine on Friday

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COMMENT: As a Forbes arti­cle notes, despite a Russ­ian-nego­ti­at­ed cease-fire in Ukraine, U.S. mil­i­tary forces will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in a NATO exer­cise in Ukraine. Some thoughts in this regard:

  • The OUN/B heirs in Ukraine have shown an incli­na­tion toward provo­ca­tion. Might U.S. forces in Ukraine be attacked by “pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratist rebels”? IF that is the case, might Russ­ian intel have got­ten word of such intent, and/or might they have uncov­ered this after inves­ti­ga­tion of such an inci­dent? Might this have played a role in Putin’s abil­i­ty to pre­vail on the rebels to stand-down, for the time being?
  • As not­ed in the Forbes arti­cle (ref­er­enc­ing a Spiegel arti­cle), the NATO “Drang Nach Osten” toward Rus­si­a’s bor­der is in direct vio­la­tion of an agree­ment between the U.S.S.R. and the West.

“Hours After Rus­sia Suc­ceeds with Cease Fire, U.S. Mil­i­tary Heads to Ukraine” by Ken­neth Rapoza; Forbes; 9/3/2014.

Okay, now you’re ask­ing for it.

Wash­ing­ton is going ahead with a planned mil­i­tary drill in West­ern Ukraine just hours after Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin was able to con­vince pro-Rus­sia sep­a­ratists to stand down in their fight with the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary in the east­ern oblasts of Donet­sk and Luhan­sk.  This mil­i­tary drill does not bode well for Friday’s cease-fire dis­cus­sion in Min­sk, Belarus between the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment and the sep­a­ratist lead­ers who will demand auton­o­my from Kiev.

Accord­ing to a Reuters report on Tues­day, prepa­ra­tions are under way for a joint mil­i­tary exer­cise this month with more than 1,000 troops from the Unit­ed States and its allies ship­ping into Ukraine for the rough­ly three year old Rapid Tri­dent pro­gram, part of Ukraine’s mil­i­tary tilt towards NATO. . . .

. . . . Anti-war jour­nal­ist John Pil­ger wrote in The Guardian back in April that the mil­i­tary exer­cis­es with Ukraine were part of Washington’s “Man­i­fest Des­tiny” — a long­stand­ing ambi­tion to dom­i­nate the Eurasian land­mass from Chi­na to Europe, a land­mass that Rus­sia con­trols, at least in part, due to its ener­gy resources.

Since the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union in 19991, NATO has sur­round­ed Rus­sia with mil­i­tary bases, reneg­ing on a promise by Ronald Rea­gan to the Sovi­et pres­i­dent Mikhail Gor­bachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east”. In the for­mer Sovi­et Cau­ca­sus, NATO’s mil­i­tary build-up is the most exten­sive since World War II, Pil­ger wrote.

 

 

 

Discussion

2 comments for “U.S. Military Exercise in Ukraine on Friday”

  1. Now Kiev wants to dis­pose of the Nazi bat­tal­ions — anoth­er “Night of The Long Knives”?

    Wash­ing­ton’s Blog

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/state-battle-eastern-ukraine.html

    (Excerpt)

    “all the signs are that the JRF [Jun­ta Repres­sion Forces] have reached their break­ing point: this is the moment when a mil­i­tary force sud­den­ly and com­plete­ly col­laps­es, like a dam which blows out under the pres­sure of water. The JRF is not retreat­ing on one, two or even three direc­tions, it is retreat­ing every­where (except north of Lugan­sk). Entire bat­tal­ions are leav­ing the front under orders of their bat­tal­ion com­man­ders and with­out the approval of the Jun­ta lead­ers. At least one such bat­tal­ion com­man­der is already being judged for deser­tion. The entire Ukie [Ukrain­ian Gov­ern­ment] lead­er­ship seems to be in a pan­ic mode, espe­cial­ly Yat­se­niuk and Kolo­mois­ki, while the Nazis are mad as hell at the Poroshenko admin­is­tra­tion. There are con­stant rumors of an anti-Poroshenko coup by out­raged Nazi nation­al­ists. And then, there are the absolute­ly stag­ger­ing Ukrain­ian loss­es.. …

    And this from ITAR-TASS

    http://en.itar-tass.com/world/748477

    (Excerpt)

    “WASHINGTON, Sep­tem­ber 07,/ITAR-TASS/. Fight­ers of Ukrain­ian vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions that were encir­cled out­side the city of Ilo­vaisk in late August are accus­ing the Kiev gov­ern­ment of not sup­port­ing them and threat­en to change the regime, For­eign Pol­i­cy mag­a­zine said in an arti­cle pub­lished on its web­site on Sat­ur­day. The mag­a­zine cor­re­spon­dent met some of the fight­ers.

    Over 800 ser­vice­men killed in army oper­a­tion in east­ern Ukraine — spokesman
    “The army did­n’t come to help us we were in the cor­ri­dor for two days and they did­n’t come to help us, and that’s the worst part”, said a fight­er from the Don­bass vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion.

    “All the bat­tal­ions brought to Ilo­vaisk think the gov­ern­ment betrayed us to destroy the vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions. The gov­ern­ment fears us and wants to con­trol us”. “All the bat­tal­ions brought to Ilo­vaisk think the gov­ern­ment betrayed us to destroy the vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions. The gov­ern­ment fears us and wants to con­trol us,” he said

    The defeat at Ilo­vaisk and a series of sim­i­lar loss­es across east­ern Ukraine in recent weeks are part of what pres­sured Ukraine to head to the bar­gain­ing table for a cease-fire and peace plan nego­ti­at­ed on Fri­day.”

    Posted by Swamp | September 7, 2014, 10:36 am
  2. From NBC News:

    Ger­man TV Shows Nazi Sym­bols on Hel­mets of Ukraine Sol­diers

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/german-tv-shows-nazi-symbols-helmets-ukraine-soldiers-n198961

    Posted by Swamp | September 21, 2014, 12:52 pm

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