Pretty much all my sources confirm that the junta in Kiev has launched an attack on the city of Slaviansk. Most sources say that only SBU and Right Sector forces are involved, though other source report that the “special forces” (no details) seen on the airport near Slaviansk are also participating. My personal take is that at most the military is providing some support, but that the real fighting is
Listening to Lavrov today I came to the conclusion that the regime in Kiev was indeed about to try to attack the eastern Ukraine. It’s not only Lavrov, the Russian Internet is on “red alert” and chock-full of rumors and speculation about an imminent attack. This begs a number of questions:1) Why would the junta in Kiev so overtly renege on the Geneva agreement?2) Why would it attack when the
First, I have to apologize but the lack of time does not allow me to reply to all your comments. I had to pick some and leave other out. Here we go:@Tom Burnett: That’s it. I am tired of hearing you refer to America as an ‘AngloZionist’ empire and me and my countrymen as AngloZionists”.What a stupid comment to make! First, I never referred to you or any Americans as
There are many theories out there about what exactly caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some say that it is Ronald Reagan with his Star Wars program. Others say that this is the war in Afghanistan or the Polish union Solidarnosc. Other popular theories include the failure of the Soviet economy, the drop in oil prices, the inability to produce consumer goods, the yearning of many Soviets for western-style
Dear friends,Thank you all for your inputs. By general consensus, the new moderation and comments policy is now adopted. I will post a note about that in the left sidebar.Now, back to business (-: finally! :-)Cheers,The Saker
Dear friends,The following comments moderation policy has now been adopted:1. Comments must contribute to the interest of a thread, a post or of the blog. Just venting or totally inane comments will not be allowed.2. Comments must be respectful. Criticisms are welcome, but they must be fact based on logically outlined. Name calling does not qualify.3. Off-topic comments are allowed, but have to offer something of interest to the readers.
The situation in the Ukraine continues to be characterized by complete chaos and a gradual and steady strengthening of the resistance in the East.Following the attack by pro-regime forces on a resistance checkpoint in Slaviansk over the week-end Foreign Minister Lavrov has accused the revolutionary regime in Kiev of breaking the terms of the accord.One could argue that this attack was decided by the Right Sector (that is the conclusion
Dear friends,I realized that I was missing on a good opportunity here to involve some correspondents from the USA.While I myself currently live in the USA, I think that I might very much need the help from US correspondents, but not from this or that state or region, but from different specializations.While it makes little sense to compare Fox News in San Diego and Boston, the USA can be very
Dear friends,A few days ago I posted an idea to create a network of “Saker correspondents”. Here is what I wrote: I think that it might be extremely useful to create a group of “correspondents” of this blog. Here is what I mean by that:I need local folks to go through the local Internet resources (not the big national news, those I parse myself) to seek out interesting stuff and
Dear friends, I have decided to take the opportunity of a lull in my Sunday afternoon to seek your advice as to what to do about my comments policy.After quite a few years of relative obscurity, this blog has seen a sudden and massive explosion in readership. For years I was getting about 1000 visitors per week, now it regularly gets over 20’000 visitors per day from literally all over
Okay, I decided to squeeze in one more post before taking time off for Holy Paskha, this is well worth it.Some of you have asked about China’s role in all this, in what the real interests of the USA are, how the EU is positioning itself and what Russia does or does not want. And, somehow, bogged down by the minutiae of the unfolding events I managed to never mention
The Guardian published the full text of the Geneva Statement. This is what eight hours of negotiations produced: The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens. All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-semitism. All illegal armed
Yesterday Putin had a four hour long Q&A on Russian TV. I will not post it here, but one reply by Putin is really interesting. See for yourself:Q: MARIA SITTEL: More from anxious pensioners. “If the West refuses to purchase gas from Russia, how will that affect people’s well-being, especially that of pensioners?” – Lyudmila Budarina, Tambov Region. A: VLADIMIR PUTIN: I have to say that oil and gas revenues
Ok, first the necessary caveats:1) Kerry and Lavrov already had a deal on Syria, also made in Geneva, but then the USA reneged.2) The EU also had a deal on the Ukraine with Yanukovich, who was overthrown literally the next day.3) The USA, NATO and the EU have lied, cheated, mis-represented, twisted and simply betrayed pretty much every promise which they made to Russia ever since Russia freed itself from
Important:make sure to also listen to the press conference by John Kerry gave in another room (to signal that the US and Russia are really enemies I suppose) at the same time. Click here to listen to it. The video is choppy and “jumps”, blame the US State Department or YouTube, not me. If I get a clean one I will post a link to it here below.
I am trying to make sense of what is going on. But so far, this looks like more of the total, absolute terminally insane chaos which we saw in the first 2 days of the Ukrainian civil war. See for yourself:First a deal between the the USA and Russia (-: well, officially they seriously refer to it as the Ukraine, EU, US, Russia agreement :-) is announced. Specifically, the deal
Dear friends,With almost 20’000 readers literally spread all over the world, I have decided to follow a very good suggestion posted by ‘anonymous’ and switch this blog’s timestamps to universal time aka Zulu time aka GMT. Sticking to the one I previously used (EST) is really inadequate and parochial. Also, since most of the world does not use the stupid AM/PM convention, I will be using the so-called “military time”
I have been listening to a long monologue by Yulia Timoshenko on the Ukrainian TV and I am left speechless. Here is what she says: (summary, not exact quote) The Russians have sent in their agents to attack the authorities in the eastern Ukraine and seize the weapons caches to then give them to their sympathizers. What the Russians want is to scare us to accept their plan: to turn
