Russia blamed for bomb attack

[uhnope]

Source: Telegraph

Kyiv accused Moscow of sponsoring a terrorist attack on a peace march in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Sunday that left two dead and at least 10 wounded.

In the deadliest blast of a bombing campaign by pro-Russian separatists, an explosive device was thrown from a car toward marchers who were commemorating the deaths of more than 100 protesters in last year's revolution.

Amateur video footage posted on YouTube showed people scattering after the blast, while two marchers in camouflage shouted for a doctor to assist a man lying on the ground.

Ukrainian authorities said they had arrested four suspects shortly after the attack, claiming that the men had received training in a Russian city just across the border.

Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Russia+blamed+bomb+attack/10835164/story.html

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Putin's Kremlin is likely to turn to terrorism more and more if the ceasefire holds

[another_liberal]

1. The marchers were chanting that they wanted peace . . .

They were yelling that they wanted an end to Kiev's "anti-terrorism operation" (read as civil war) and a stop to the highly unpopular military draft. That is when the bomb was thrown at the marchers.

Seems like kind of odd timing for Russian agents to try and break things up just then, doesn't it? On the other hand, it would be exactly when some Right Sector fascist might want to toss a bomb and end the parade. Hmmmm?

[uhnope]

2. False flag conspiracy theory "they killed themselves to blame Russia" BS again?

just like the snipers at Euromaidan and how the Kremlin/RT/Putin apologists made up a CT to blame the protest movement for shooting themselves... calling Alex Jones

[newthinking]

4. No, it could have been any of the many extremists groups operating in Ukraine

the are warmongering groups aplenty there that don't like people in the east and don't want them to protest for peace.

[newthinking]

3. "Kyiv accused" - nuff said.

[uhnope]

5. yeah, it's not RT so it can't be true

lol

[newthinking]

6. More emotional whataboutary. Where was RT mentioned?

[Bugenhagen]

7. Well that doesn't make much sense

Why would they do that?

[pampango]

8. "Putin appears to fear that the Maidan’s successes in Ukraine could mobilize Russia’s opposition."

Since the revolution in Kyiv, the Kremlin has sharpened its campaign against domestic dissent.

The turning point in the Kremlin’s view of NATO and the EU—and the turning point in Putin’s foreign policy in general—came in December 2011, as tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets to demand clean elections and an end to Putin’s autocratic rule. This was the first serious threat to Putin’s hold on power, and he took it personally. The protests shifted the balance of power in the Kremlin toward more conservative forces, and led Putin to redefine his definition of the Kremlin’s security interests. Now, Putin realized, his greatest threat was not foreign powers, it was the middle class Russians who took to Moscow streets demanding political change.

Putin does not seriously fear a nuclear strike or a military invasion. Instead, Moscow opposes NATO expansion for the same reason it opposes EU enlargement: it knows that membership in NATO and the EU helps facilitate the establishment of stable, Western-style democracies. Such an outcome in Ukraine would encourage similar efforts in other post-Soviet states, reducing Russian influence. More worrisome to the Kremlin, it would provide a dangerous model for opposition movements within Russia itself.

Yet the most important strategy for staving off a Maidan in Moscow is to prove that political opposition in general—and ‘Western-style’ democracy in particular—leads to chaos. The Kremlin has used Ukraine to prove this point. Russian state-run TV portrays the Maidan protests as a Nazi takeover, and continues to claim that Ukraine is being overrun by fascists. When far-right presidential candidate Dmytro Yarosh won 1% of the vote in recent presidential elections, Russian TV reported polls suggesting he won 37%, underscoring the argument that protests feed radicalism.

But it is important to separate cause from effect. Putin’s media machine repeatedly argues that political opposition causes chaos, yet it is Russia that most aggressively stoked chaos in Ukraine -- from the annexation of Crimea, to the arrival of Chechen fighters in Donetsk, to Russians who have repeatedly destabilized Ukraine. Some see this as evidence that Moscow is willing to risk chaos in order to defend its core interests. The reality is that controlled chaos—which discredits Kyiv’s new government—suits the Kremlin perfectly. Without regular video footage of militants and explosions on the nightly news, it would be far harder for state TV to explain why the Maidan was so dangerous in the first place.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2014/09/what-putin-really-feared-ukraine

[Comrade Grumpy]

9. Chris Miller can pooh-pooh Russian concerns about NATO expansion all he wants.

The Russians see it differently.

[pampango]

10. He did not pooh-pooh it. He acknowledged it. You may disagree with the reasons

he gave.

The is much liberal opposition in Russia to Putin. It is logical that he does not want a stable democratic neighbor which an example of what a "Maidan revolution" can bring about. It would be interesting to see if Russia would have a problem with Ukraine joining the EU but not NATO.

The Russians see it differently.

Certain Russian politicians and media types certainly portray NATO as a military threat. That does mean that "Russian" agree with them.