Ukraine Separatists Grant Putin's Appeal for Safety Corridor
Source: The Moscow Times / Reuters
Reuters, Aug. 29 2014 10:17
A leader of separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, Alexander Zakharchenko, said on Friday he had agreed to open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukraine troops, answering a request from President Vladimir Putin.
"We are ready to open up a humanitarian corridor," Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told Rossiya 24 TV, adding that troops would have to leave behind their heavy armored vehicles and ammunition.
In a statement published on the Kremlin website in the early hours of Friday, Putin who congratulated the separatists with their "significant success" called for a safety corridor to let Kiev government forces leave the region.
"I call on the militia forces to open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukraine servicemen in order to avoid pointless victims, to allow them to leave the fighting area without impediment, join their families..., to provide urgent medical aid to those wounded as a result of the military operation," he said. ...
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/ukraine-sepratists-grant-putin-s-appeal-for-safety-corridor/506097.html
Associated Press By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
MOSCOW (AP) Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on pro-Russian separatists to release Ukrainian soldiers who have been surrounded by the rebels in eastern Ukraine.
https://news.yahoo.com/russias-putin-calls-release-ukrainian-pows-052936462.html
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)that Ukrainian soldiers fled to Russia, were welcomed there, offered asylum but also let go back home if they wanted. And the "rebels" had already agreed to peace talks in June.
... The main condition for a cease-fire is the Ukrainian army doing exactly the same. A cease-fire has to be reciprocal, the self-proclaimed republics prime minister, Aleksandr (Oleksandr) Zakharchenko told the agency. We are always ready for a temporary truce to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe that has already struck Donbass from getting worse.
The terms for talks on a permanent settlement are, he said, complete withdrawal by the Ukrainian army from the Donetsk peoples republic and participation in negotiations by officials from Ukraine. At the same time, do not confuse a temporary cease-fire and negotiations In the past there have only been informal consultations with a kind of contact group with no official status and the cease-fire agreement wasnt observed by the Ukraini! ans. No negotiating has taken or is taking place. As long as the Ukrainian army continues combat operations there cannot be a cease-fire and the republic will continue to fight.
http://russialist.org/interfax-separatist-leader-in-ukraine-sets-out-terms-for-peace-talks/
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)"The condition for opening talks is that we get everything we want."
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)LOL, that ain't gonna happen.
reorg
(3,317 posts)and withdraw so that the DPR can be sure they'll not start shooting again during the negotiations. Poroshenko has announced ceasefires again and again, but was either unable or unwilling to see them through even while OSCE obervers were trying to visit the MH17 crash site.
The government's precondition for "negotiations" (over some kind of decentralisation) is that the "terrorists" raise the white flag, lay down their weapons and submit to the jurisdiction of the central government.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Will not happen.
I think this end with either to defeat of the rebels, or Russia intervening overtly and securing the "DPR" as an "independent" nation. Looks like option 2 right now.
reorg
(3,317 posts)and demands can change if the counter-demands are flexible, too.
Right now it looks as if the DPR is gaining ground, so maybe accepting the Russian offer to send peace-keepers is not such a bad offer for Ukraine right now. If they are willing to stop the destruction and the killing.
It looks to me, though, as if it were the US and not the Ukrainian government which is setting the tone. Demanding this, pointing out that, don't they have enough problems with the follow-up of previous peace-bombings, illegal invasions and occupations?
VanGoghRocks
(621 posts)Dien Bien Phu. The brave defenders of the Ukrainian Air Force will keep the valiant forces of the Ukrainian Army resupplied by air.
Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)That's a term fondly used by Russian ultra-nationalists, the sort of people who'd be called fascists if they lived in any other country in Europe.
They're going to Odessa. That's the goal. The problem with this is that once they cross from Donetsk to the rest of Ukraine, they no longer even have the fig leaf of a "referendum" to justify the action. Of course by now it's pretty obvious what this is, so I guess that really doesn't matter anymore.
Between Transnistria, which they are looking to hook up to, and Georgia and their little "republics", it's pretty obvious his long term goal is the reimposition of Russian rule over as much of the old USSR as he can get away with. Some student asked him about the allegedly rough treatment Russians got in Kazakhstan today, so I guess they should start watching their borders a little more closely too.
The word for this is "revanchism". See below:
Revanchism is linked with irredentism, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation-state. Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a nation with a nation-state, often mobilizing deep-rooted sentiments of ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside of the state where members of the ethnic group live, while using heavy-handed nationalism to mobilize support for these aims. Revanchist justifications are often presented as based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory since "time immemorial", an assertion that is usually inextricably involved in revanchism and irredentism, justifying them in the eyes of their proponents.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revanchism
What Putin is doing exactly follows that definition.
I've read a lot of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others, and I don't recall the above being a part of what they were advocating. I might be mistaken on that, of course, but I don't think so.
Xolodno
(6,382 posts)Putin: I will give up Novorossiya if you decentralize the area, to ease the populace of course....And, recognize the Crimea Annexation.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)She oversees the social and health policies of the government, and said that Russia and Ukraine had a bilateral agreement allowing citizens to receive pensions in another country if the need arises. We will pay the pensions to the refugees, Golodets told reporters. She declined to expand on the approximate number of future recipients saying that the number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia was constantly growing.
The deputy PM also told reporters she estimates about 50,000 Ukrainian children will start attending Russian schools at the beginning of the new academic year on September 1.
Earlier this month the United Nations released a report estimating the number of Ukrainian refugees in the Russian Federation at 730,000. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that this number was nearing 1 million. ...
http://rt.com/politics/183564-ukraine-russia-pensions-refugees/
reorg
(3,317 posts)English subtitles by catherina_news
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)joshcryer
(62,265 posts)If Catherina is posting it, fine, but you are promoting it by posting the video which links it.
Doesn't surprise me though.
reorg
(3,317 posts)unfortunately, it's in German. The guy to the left is Willy Wimmer, a former close advisor of Chancellor Kohl, present during all international conferences the Germans participated in during the late eighties and early nineties. You were probably too young at the time to understand what was going on, but this was the most right-wing government Germany had since the sixties. The interviewer is a young liberal who dropped out of the mainstream media (former up-and-comer in major TV stations).
They are talking about an event commemorating the beginning of the First World War, held by the Left Party, where they participated. The Left Party is led by the former GDR Communists Gregor Gysi and Sarah Wagenknecht who to this very day demand the disintegration of NATO. You'd be surprised on how many things these prominent, intelligent and articulate people from the relatively extreme German Right and the relatively extreme German Left agree these days.
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)It is somewhat odd that the US is progressinve but EU is regressing in that vein (don't get me started on Russia which is pretty much going in the entirely opposite direction for a UNSC state).
reorg
(3,317 posts)But I don't have time to explain right now, maybe later.
reorg
(3,317 posts)Do you have any comments on the fact that up to 10000 Ukrainian soldiers are currently encircled, fighting for survival although they've been offered a way out? Their boss, "our insider", has commanded them to keep fighting and die.
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)As you are remiss to point out every third or so post to me, I covered an event in Libya, which went on for half a year. I covered this event daily. I spent my entire free time covering this event. Every single day I saw absurd reports very similar to the claims in that video. Very similar. Interestingly, the poster you claim posted the video would make similar, absurd, completely unrealistic, completely bizarre claims like that.
I have read many many reports. One was that there are 30,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers, a completely unsupported and asinine comment, but it was posted quite frequently on pro-Russia feeds. A common rule of thumb in war is that for every 1 man killed 3 are injured. That means you would have something around 120,000 casualties, with 90,000 soldiers in hospitals. Mothers, fathers, wives, they would all be missing these people. We're talking a huge chunk of the population. There's no way that is covered up.
Most of the losses are happening to disparate militias. Those in the anti-Russian blogosphere are concerned about this because those guys are volunteers, and it is felt that this is hurting the ATO efforts (the militas are probably Right Sector, Sovoboda types). Also, most information comes out from these guys, guys flying in from other areas of Ukraine or even other EU countries to "play war." So as these militas get wiped out by the rebels, there's less and less information to be gained about ATO ops.
As far as UA losses they tend to be low, they surrender when they can, the rebels take what they can, and the UA regroups. When the UA advances, the rebels are taken aback because the UA isn't aggressive that much. The UA takes back stuff, and the cycle repeats. It is a basic land war between two different groups, and the government in Kiev isn't supporting the militas because they're not technically sanctioned to be funded (no doubt at this point the US just doesn't want any groups outside of command and control to have any kinds of weapons or material support).
As far as captured equipment, the UA captured their first T72-B3 just a few hours ago which indicates that UA are advancing today on Donetsk. Now, of course, you will hear today that the rebels are making massive advances, that the Russians allowed UA forces to be freed and that may well be true. It is a smart gambit to send the less hardened fighters to the border, let them get shelled, and then have them surrender. Then Russia gets a PR stunt, some of them stay in Russia, others return to fight because they recognized that Russia was the one shelling them after all. So it's not a big deal, but it will be bigger news than the Donetsk surge today, if it happens.
The fog of war is very real, and you perpetuate it by posting such an unsupportable claim. There is still a gap in Novyi Svit and if they feel that they are surrounded they can bug out pretty easily. It was actually quite clever of the UA forces to cut a wedge there and take over the bridge and towns there. The most important thing will be encircling Donetsk because it will be a good morale boost and the rebels will likely flee like they did Slovyansk.
White doves painted with the words "No War" near Mariupol. The gambit to take Mariupol won't succeed, if it was even real or just a ploy...