Ukraine Update March 26

Russian Sanctions: Russian Government Dumps iPads, Switches To Samsung

If Steve Harper had not been acting like a jerk, they might have turned to Blackberry, which offers better security than either Apple or Samsung.

Russian stock market up 40% since March 14, pre-Crimea referendum low

Obama's Maidan activist friends — traitors, bandits, snakes, and murderers — turn on one another

Russia to create national payment system to rival Visa, Mastercard

American sanctions are Obama's way of making the global banking system a bit more competitive.

Ukraine agrees to 50% gas price hike amid IMF talks

But don't worry folks, your friend John, Dobbin Kerry's has given you enough to cover the increase for over a month. Well it's not a gift, it's a loan. Well, not exactly a loan, more a loan guarantee, so make sure you pay it back.

Barack Obama has called on Russia to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine or face more sanctions

Like, we started this whole thing by installing a Nazi-backed Russophobic government in Ukraine in place of the legitimate, democratically elected Russia-friendly regime, so now you Hitler Putin person have gotta de-escalate or we'll hit you again. Like, grovel man, grovel.

This is what counts as diplomacy by the expansionist American Empire.

Zero Hedge: What Happens If A US President Stops Speaking, And Nobody Claps

Ukraine wants closer military ties with U.S. and NATO after Crimea annexation

Which is to say the expansionist, Hitlerite US/NATO empire wants to assimilate Ukraine before continuing Eastward. Making way for the New Fascist World Order is what O'Barmy means by de-escalating the crisis: get out of our way.

Siemens 'to invest long-term in Russia'

America's spokesperson provocateurs:


NEO: Beware the Sheep with Fangs

Zero Hedge: Ukraine Only Has Enough Gasoline For A Month

Larissa Smirnova: Six Questions About Russia, Crimea, and Ukraine

Zero Hedge: Dear Ukrainians, Your Gas Bill Goes Up By 50% On May 1, Have A Nice Day

Simon Jenkin: Crimea: all this virile cold war talk won't force Vladimir Putin to slink back

John Mearsheimer: Getting Ukraine Wrong

Slaughter of Ukrainian Ultranationalist Olexander Muzychko Signals Split in Maidan Leadership

Moscow Slams Closure of Russian TV in Ukraine

West, Russia signal line drawn in Ukraine crisis

What, they're just gonna let that Hitler Putin person get away with the annexation of the Sudetenland or whatever the Hell with no more Churchillian rhetoric from Stevie Harper, the Mighty Mouse of the North? Shame.

Right Sector Thug Surplus to Requirement


Itar-Tass: Ukraine to deploy foreign mercenaries to suppress (oppress?) ethnic Russians

Zero Hedghe: "Anarchy" Returns To Ukraine As Ultra-Nationalist Leader Killed By Police

Pepe Escobar: How Crimea plays in Beijing

...the UN Security Council itself is a joke, with US ambassador Samantha "Nothing Compares to You" Power - one of the mothers of R2P ("responsibility to protect") - carping on "Russian aggression", "Russian provocations" and comparing the Crimean referendum to a theft. Oh yes; bombing Iraq, bombing Libya and getting to the brink of bombing Syria were just innocent humanitarian gestures. Samantha The Humanitarian arguably gives a better performance invoking Sinead O'Connor in her shower.

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin was polite enough to say, "these insults addressed to our country" are "unacceptable". It's what he added that carried the real juice; "If the delegation of the United States of America expects our cooperation in the Security Council on other issues, then Power must understand this quite clearly."

Samantha The Humanitarian, as well as the whole bunch of juvenile bystanders in the Obama administration, won't understand it. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov gave them a little help; Russia didn't want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to "raise the stakes", but if the US and the EU continue with their sanctions and threats, that's what's going to happen.

Ukraine and Detroit: How Different?

Daily Mail: Russia demands parts of Ukraine are given regional autonomy as NATO condemns build-up of forces on the border

Daily Mail: The weapons used by our Nazi friends in Kiev that brought down the democratically elected government of Ukraine

Alaska back to Russia Petition approaches 24,000 signatures this AM

Global Research: Ukraine: The Corporate Annexation. “For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It’s a Gold Mine of Profits”

Patrick Buchanan: Putin Crazy Like a Fox

... if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.

Which in the estimation of this blogger explains the extraordinarily high regard in which Putin is held, not just in Russia, but in Europe and America. The European peoples are being systematically genocided by their own ruling elites, and payback could come any time now. It is not Russia that is most likely to collapse like a house of cards as that old psychopath Senator MacCain seems to think, but the American Empire that currently occupies and seeks to destroy the European peoples.

See also: Universal Genocide and the New World Order

Mish: Ukraine's currency collapse

NYTimes: For Ukraine Military in Crimea, Glum Capitulation and an Uncertain Future

As usual, suavely written misdirection by the NYTimes. Capitulating to the Russians offered Ukrainian service-men the chance of enlistment in the Russian armed forces without loss of rank and with double pay. What's to be "glum" about that? No wonder 18,000 Ukrainian service men out of a total of 20,000 in Crimea opted to remain in Crimea, which is the place that most of them call home.

Washington Times: Obama threatens harsher sanctions on Russia — if Russia "seizes" more territory

That's a bit rich after Obama's Nazti friends in Kyiv "seized" the whole of Ukraine.

But, whatever. It looks increasingly as though there was, if not a deal, a realization in Washington, that if Nazi-NATO grabbed Ukraine, Russia would have Crimea back. How else explain why, with at least 20,000 troops in Crimea to match Russia's 16 - 22,000 (as allowed by treaty), the forces of the Ukrainian rebel government fired not a single shot to prevent the referendum and the subsequent re-absorption of Crimea into the Russian Federation?

Zero Hedge: Russia Prepares Mega-Deal With India After Locking Up China With "Holy Grail" Gas Deal

Or as Putin might say, Frack the EU, let them produce their own gas.

Stevwe Weissman: Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

Jim Dean: Ukraine’s Ku Klux Klan – NATO’s New Ally

CBS: 61 percent of Americans think the U.S. has no responsibility for events in Ukraine

65 percent of Americans do not think the U.S. should provide military aid and equipment to Ukraine in response to Russia's actions

CBC: Ukraine in talks with IMF for $15-20B loan package

Having spurned Russia's offer of $15 billion, Ukraine now has to accept a loan with binding conditions and strict supervision from the IMF.

Shanghai Daily: Russia denies mobilizing troops near Ukrainian border

Zero Hedge: US Prepares To Provide A Billion To Ukraine As Detroit Plans Mass Water Shutoffs Over $260 Million

BBC: Ukraine far-right leader Muzychko dies 'in police raid'

Now the Nazti scum have done their work in ousting the legitimate government in Ukraine, time to wipe them out? More about Muzychko's death, which he predicted only days ago, from RT.

Afghanistan Recognizes Crimean Union With Russia

In a snub to its Western backers, Afghanistan joined Syria and Venezuela this weekend to become one of the few countries to publicly support Russia's recent annexation of Crimea (TOLO News). On Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office released a statement saying: "[W]e respect the decision the people of Crimea took through a recent referendum that considers Crimea as part of the Russian Federation"

Ingrates. We waged war in their country for more than a decade to make them democratic now they refuse to ignore the democratic will of the people of Crimea when it suits us.

Russian sanctions Cause Canadian businesses Pain

Theodore Dalrymple: Why Europe Sleeps: It has no appetite for conflict with Putin

It is not only cleanliness, but concision that is next to godliness. In theory, then, Twitter should promote near-godliness, for it encourages people to express their thoughts in few words. A good example of such admirable concision was the tweet from Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, reproduced in the electronic version of Le Monde on March 19, 2014: “On the one hand we cannot imagine delivering arms to Russia, on the other there is the reality of employment” (the French have a $1.7 billion deal to build a miniature aircraft carrier for the Russians). This will hardly have Russian president Vladimir Putin quaking in his shoes; on the contrary, it will set him laughing and reassure him that he can mock Western Europe to his heart’s content.

Thank Goodness Romney Isn’t President

Look to Solidarity, Not Sudetenland

Among the less helpful historical analogies that have been rolled out by neoconservative publications such as National Review, the New Republic, and the Washington Post since the onset of the Crimean Crisis are comparisons between what is happening now in Ukraine and what occurred three quarters of a century ago during the Munich Crisis. While anyone possessed of even a modicum of education understands that analogies to Munich serve more to obscure rather than clarify, it should hardly need stating that Vladimir Putin, unlike Hitler, is not an unhinged geopolitical revisionist who harbors a desire to re-make Europe to fit some demonic plan. And yet the tenor of the American media’s coverage of the man actually demands that it be said.

 A Coup in Crimea—or in Russia?

... Several days ago, a delegation of senators led by John McCain decamped to Kiev, where they issued the expected statements about freedom and democracy. McCain promised bipartisan support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity”—meaning Crimea belongs to Ukraine—and against “Russia’s baseless violation of these principles and efforts to divide the country.” He promised to lobby for long-term American military assistance to Ukraine. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy promised to “deliver a blow” to Russia to make clear the price to be paid for “aggression.” Dripping patronizing scorn, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake reminded Russians, “This is not your grandfather’s war.”

It’s not simply senators, of course. John Kerry lectures Putin about being stuck in a 19th-century mindset while condescendingly offering him an “off-ramp”—a face-saving way to allow the Western alliance to move right up to Russia’s borders. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton tells reporters that she is “trying to send the strongest possible signals to Russia … trying to ensure that they understand the seriousness of the situation.” But who is it really who fails to “understand the seriousness?” The senators who parachute into Kiev for a frisson of media coverage or the Russians who gag when the United States tries to push NATO down their throats, contradicting assurances given to Moscow as the Soviet Union broke up? As John Mearsheimer pointed out in an important Times op-ed:

Washington played a key role in precipitating this dangerous situation, and Mr. Putin’s behavior is motivated by the same geopolitical considerations that influence all great powers, including the United States.

What is the goal of the West here? If you listen to some, it is to provoke Maidan-type demonstrations in Moscow, to overturn Putin. National Endowment for Democracy’s chief, Carl Gershman, one of the major dispensers of the “pro-democracy” money being spread about in Kiev, warned last year that Putin risked losing not just his “near abroad” but Russia itself. “Dear Vlad,” McCain tweeted two years ago, “Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you.”...

Canada Pays Lip Service to Ukraine Neo-Nazi Government. The Ghosts of Baby Yar

Canada’s support [for Ukraine's violent coup d'état] is a continuation of its historical support for Ukrainian war criminals guilty of genocide at the end of WWII, but unprosecuted to further their uses to anti-Soviet policies. The Harper government is championing a political structure with its roots in Babi-Yar. Babi Yar is not an example of fascism, it’s an example of the extremes of Nazism and an inhumanity Europe has been teaching the New World for half a millenium.

Harper’s swift support of a neo-Nazi beachhead far more advanced than the inroads Golden Dawn has made in Greece, or Jobbik in Hungary, may suggest to Canadians that there is something very abnormal about Canada’s current political norm.

Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”