Only hours after Russian President Vladmir Putin managed to secure a fragile ceasefire between the Western-backed fascist regime in Kiev and the Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine, NATO has rewarded Russia’s efforts by shipping NATO soldiers into Western Ukraine, increasing the number of NATO navy vessels in the Black Sea, and leveling new sanctions against Moscow.
According to Reuters, Western Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and one of the main separatist leaders of Eastern Ukraine have agreed to order ceasefires on Friday, pending that an agreement is made on a new peace plan.
Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales, Poroshenko said the ceasefire would be conditional on a planned meeting going ahead in Minsk on Friday of envoys from Ukraine, Russia and Europe’s OSCE security watchdog.
“At 1400 local time (0700 ET on Friday), provided the (Minsk) meeting takes place, I will call on the General Staff to set up a bilateral ceasefire and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will begin tomorrow,” he told reporters.
Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the main rebel Donetsk People’s Republic, said in a statement his men would also order a ceasefire, from one hour later, provided that Kiev’s representatives signed up to a peace plan at the Minsk meeting.
Former central banker and current Prime Minister of Western Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, flatly dismissed the ceasefire plan, calling it a trap.
In addition, Western media outlets claim that the fighting on the ground continues in Ukraine. However, one would be justified in questioning the veracity of these reports given the track record of these operations and the obvious desire of Western media to discredit any Russian success in terms of ending the violence. On the other hand, given the track record of Kiev, ceasefire agreements do not have a great life expectancy.
There are wild cards, of course. Most notably, whether or not the Western fascists such as Right Sector will abide by the terms of the ceasefire deal. Indeed, this is one of the major concerns of the Donetsk Republic Prime Minister Zakharchenko.
In response to the Russian-brokered peace deal, NATO has responded in a typical confrontational fashion. Only hours after the ceasefire was announced, NATO and the United States announced that dynamic duo of destabilization was going ahead with planned military exercises in Western Ukraine that will see approximately 1,000 troops posted on Ukrainian soil.
Shortly ahead of the NATO meeting, Barack Obama stated from Estonia “that the U.S. and NATO would not allow a foreign country to encroach on its friends. He said this after blaming Moscow for the political turmoil in Ukraine. He was a hair away from saying that the U.S. would protect Ukraine from a Russian military attack.
If the NATO exercises were not enough to inflame tensions in the fragile country, four NATO warships are also set to enter the Black Sea this week. USS Ross, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, French Commandant Birot, Canadian HMCS Toronto, a Halifax-class frigate, and Spanish frigate Almirante Juan de Borbon are all set to enter the Black Sea before September 7.
The Montreux Convention of 1936 states that warships of non-Black Sea states can stay in the Black Sea for no more than 21 days. It adds that the maximum deadweight of a non-regional warship in the area should not exceed 45,000 tons.
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Despite the convention limits, NATO has managed to increase its presence in the region in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis by constantly rotating warships there. Russia does not approve of what it sees as muscle-flexing by the military alliance in its backyard.
In July this year, the grouping of NATO ships in the Black Sea reached nine vessels, setting a record for the post-Soviet period.
Rounding out the provocative stance of Western leaders, the results of the NATO summit reveal the intention to impose yet more sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
Clearly, the United States and NATO are not seeking a peaceful solution in Ukraine. If they were, they would be applauding the ability of Putin to secure a ceasefire and a reasonable roadmap to a sustained halt of hostilities. If the US and NATO were seeking peace in Ukraine, they never would have orchestrated the Euromaidan color revolution to begin with.
Still, as the American people buy Western propaganda hook, line, and sinker, those of us who have a grasp of current events seem doomed to be dragged ever closer to a direct confrontation with a nuclear world power. We can continue to ignore the facts and the political process now but, if such a confrontation ever happens, we will not be able to ignore it any longer.
Summer is over and many Europeans may have to keep warm this coming winter by thinking about their summer holidays while wrapped in blankets, praying for a short winter or for the world to come to its senses. It both cases, they may well be disappointed.
The never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, mayhem in Libya, uncertainty in the Gulf and a war in Ukraine are all going to take a toll on the energy supplies this winter.
Russia sold 86 billion cubic meters of gas last year, all of which passed through Ukraine. Given what’s happeningthere now, it is highly unlikely that the Russians would allow their gas to transit a country they are (unofficially) at war with. Just as it is unlikely that Ukrainians would allow Russian gas access through its territory.
Result? Many cold Europeans, many angry Europeans and many very pissed off Europeans. Many Europeans will have to make do without enough gas to heat homes, offices and factories. That’s a bad prospect in northern European countries, where winter is no laughing matter. Winter defeated the armies of both Napoleon and Hitler.
And what does history tell us about cold, angry, pissed-off Europeans? Well, whenever two opposing camps got cold, angry and pissed off enough at each other in the past, they typically went to war.
War in Europe? In our time?
It’s not impossible. If current trends continue, it is not at all impossible. Here’s why:
1. Mounting tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine -- a situation that is very likely to worsen as the United States and European Union tighten sanctions on Moscow.
2. NATO forces edging dangerously close to Russian forces.
3. The spread of the violence and reach of the Islamic State. Besides the havoc they are creating in the region, there is the added threat of hundreds, if not thousands, of their supporters who have learned how to fight in Syria and Iraq returning to their home countries in Europe.
4. Turkey, which in recent years has played a stabilizing role in the region, is moving today in a different direction that could well lead to a new point of conflict. From jumping head first into the Middle East conundrum under former prime minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s new prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, started off by possibly igniting a new fight when he announced -- much to the pleasure of Azerbaijan, and certainly to the dismay of Armenia -- that “the liberation of occupied Azerbaijani lands would be a strategic goal for Turkey.”
These remarks refer to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and outlying areas that have been occupied by Armenia since a violent conflagration around the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Armenians and Azerbaijani troops have been engaging in exchanges of fire on a daily basis over the past few months.
5: Mounting tension between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and an unnamed former Soviet republic in the region that Iran says allowed Israel to launch a drone from its territory to spy on Iran. Tehran has promised a stern response. The country in question is thought to be Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkmenistan.
6. Continued mayhem in Libya, where the political turmoil is affecting the flow of oil and gas to Europe.
7. The continued state of unrest in Israel/Gaza and the surrounding area.
All these points of conflict are complicating Europe’s search for more reliable sources of energy. Europe is hoping to solve its gas shortage problems by purchasing Azerbaijani gas, but it’s unrealistic to depend only on Azerbaijani gas, since Europeans would be at the mercy of interruptions to gas and oil flows from this South Caucasus country.
What Europe desperately needs is a source of energy that with not be interrupted by conflict or politics, that can be delivered via pipeline or by sea, but will not need to transit through sea lanes in areas of conflict.
And although EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettingersaid last week that he is not worried about gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine, that show of confidence did not stop him from going to Moscow to plead Europe’s case with the Russians.
So where does that leave the Europeans other than out in the cold? Trend energy analyst Vagif Sharifov believes the new bonanza of natural gas lies in the Arctic, where more than 1,500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found.
But polar drilling comes with a high cost and huge challenges. Europe might need to keep looking.
'Expansionism And Destabilization': Russia Lashes Out Over NATO Spearhead Force In E. Europe
Moscow has accused NATO of using the Ukrainian crisis as a “pretext” to “push its military presence closer to Russia’s borders,” and says that plans for a new rapid response force will sabotage the peace process in eastern Ukraine.
“The [expansion] plans have been harbored by NATO for a long time, and recent events have served as a pretext to put them into action,” said a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, following the wrapping up of the NATO summit in Wales.
“Together with the rhetoric at the summit, and the planned military exercises before the end of the year, this will increase tension, destabilization the nascent peace process, and further widen the division in Ukraine,” the ministry’s statement said.
“The above is also testament to NATO’s unconditional support for the extremists and neo-fascists in Kiev, including the Right Sector political movement,” it stressed.
During the two-day summit, the 28 NATO member states instituted the creation of a rapid response unit numbering at least 4,000. It could be deployed in Eastern Europe – where it will be based – in less than 48 hours.
The primary stated reason for the initiative is “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”
“The above is also testament to NATO’s unconditional support for the extremists and neo-fascists in Kiev, including the Right Sector political movement,” it stressed.
During the two-day summit, the 28 NATO member states instituted the creation of a rapid response unit numbering at least 4,000. It could be deployed in Eastern Europe – where it will be based – in less than 48 hours.
The primary stated reason for the initiative is “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”
Russia’s NATO envoy, Aleksandr Grushko, also denounced NATO’s policy, suggesting that the alliance was engaged in “Cold War thinking,” and risked undermining the landmark 1997 treaty in which Moscow and Brussels officially proclaimed that they were no longer “adversaries.”
In a TV interview, Grushko said that NATO was “flexing its muscles,” and pointed out that an increased presence of NATO vessels in the Baltic and Black Sea would destroy the recently built-up level of trust in what were once the potential flashpoints in the standoff.
In a TV interview, Grushko said that NATO was “flexing its muscles,” and pointed out that an increased presence of NATO vessels in the Baltic and Black Sea would destroy the recently built-up level of trust in what were once the potential flashpoints in the standoff.
Grushko also called the planned NATO-Ukraine exercises a “provocation” because “foreign troops will appear in a country that is fighting its own people.”
“NATO must play no role in the Ukrainian conflict,” the official told Rossiya-24 network.
He also accused the US of “trying to unload the financial burden of maintaining NATO onto its allies.”
Kiev, E. Ukraine Militia Agree On Ceasefire Starting 1500 GMT Friday
Kiev officials and representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics in southeastern Ukraine have agreed to a ceasefire, as the contact group met behind closed doors in Belarus.
The two sides accompanied by representatives of Russia and the OSCE were meeting in the Belorussian capital, Minsk, in an attempt to end the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is now in Wales for the NATO summit, has confirmed the ceasefire agreement on his Twitter account.
He has ordered the pro-government forces to stop military actions starting 6 pm local time (15:00 GMT), as stated in the protocol.
“I give the order to the chief of the General staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to cease fire, starting from 18.00 [local time] on September 5,” Poroshenko's statement says.
He has called on both the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the OSCE to provide international monitoring of compliance with the bilateral ceasefire.
“We must do everything possible and impossible to stop bloodshed and put an end to people’s suffering,”the president said in a statement posted on his official website.
He also expressed hope that both sides would follow the protocol.
At 15:00 GMT, Ukraine's National Security Council (SNBO) reported that its troops had halted all military actions.
“According to the decision of the President of Ukraine and the order of the chief of the General staff of the military units of Ukraine, troops in the area of anti-terrorist operations ceased fire at 15.00 GMT,”Lysenko said.
Rebels’ forces have also issued the same order.
“In the execution of the Minsk agreements we stopped fighting at 18:00. This decision has been communicated to all departments,” RIA Novosti reported.
“In the execution of the Minsk agreements we stopped fighting at 18:00. This decision has been communicated to all departments,” RIA Novosti reported.
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