UPDATED: Russia Pulls Its Troops From Ukraine Border, Putin Says

[DonViejo]

Source: New York Times

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Wednesday that Russian troops had pulled back from Ukraine border, and he urged separatists in eastern Ukraine to postpone their May 11 referendum.

“We were told constantly about concerns over our troops near the Ukrainian border,” Mr. Putin said after meeting with the Didier Burkhalter, the president of Switzerland and current head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. “We have pulled them back. Today they are not at the Ukrainian border but in places of regular exercises, at training grounds.”

Russia positioned 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border soon after protesters in Kiev pushed President Viktor F. Yanukovych from power on Feb. 28. His willingness to send Russian forces under cover into Crimea and his subsequent annexation of the peninsula raised fears that he might do the same in southeastern Ukraine.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/Putin-Russia-Ukraine.html?emc=edit_na_20140507

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Putin calls for postponement of autonomy referendum in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday appeared to take conciliatory steps to ease tensions in Ukraine, calling for pro-Russian separatists to postpone a planned weekend referendum that could exacerbate violence, and saying that a May 25 presidential election that the Kremlin had previously questioned was now “a movement in the right direction.”

The remarks were a significant shift in tone after weeks in which Putin and other top Russian officials had taken a hardline approach to the acting government in Kiev that took over after former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled his office after months of protests.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ukraine-launches-push-on-coastal-city-as-diplomats-seek-way-out-of-chaos/2014/05/07/0a62c9ea-d5ba-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_story.html

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UPDATE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says there is “no evidence” that Russia has withdrawn troops from its border with Ukraine.

The comments from White House spokesman Josh Earnest came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin (POO’-tihn) said his country had pulled troops back from the border. Earnest says the White House would welcome a “meaningful and transparent” withdrawal if it were to take place.

Putin also urged insurgents in southeastern Ukraine to postpone their planned referendum Sunday on autonomy. Earnest said the U.S. believes the referendum should be canceled, not postponed.

Russia has had about 40,000 troops positioned on Ukraine’s border for several weeks. The U.S. says those forces are there to stir up instability in Ukraine, not for regular training exercises.

###

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/us_no_evidence_of_russia_pulling_troops_back/

[flpoljunkie]

1. What say you now, John McCain?

What will you and your sidekick Lindsay Graham find to criticize about Putin's latest move? Something, I am sure.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Russia's Putin tells OSCE chief ready to discuss Ukraine crisis solution

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was ready to discuss a way out of the Ukrainian crisis with the head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

"I know that you have your own proposals, your ideas of how to find a way out of the situation (in Ukraine) that has occurred. Our position is known too," Putin said ahead of talks with Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for 2014 and Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

"Let's try to analyse the situation and seek ways out of this crisis."

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/ukraine-crisis-putin-osce-idUKL6N0NT46Q20140507

OSCE to propose to signatories of Geneva statement roadmap on Ukraine in next few hours

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/osce-to-propose-to-signatories-of-geneva-statement-roadmap-on-ukraine-in-next-few-hours-346734.html

[Adrahil]

6. Good. Hopefully we can avoid a huge clusterfuck in Ukraine.

[Schema Thing]

3. Fox News: Putin bravely shows strength through diplomacy, while Obama just "talks".

"in one of the most courageous acts of admitting-you-were-wrong (especially hard and therefore brave for the more masculine), Russian president Vladimir Putin today pulled back from...."

[okaawhatever]

43. Oh God. How pathetic. Fox is evil. nt

[freshwest]

57. Derp! Diplomacy is Talking, Sarah! Read a book, ya grifter queen! Disgusting. n/t

[The Magistrate]

4. An Encouraging Development, Sir

If Putin is actually standing down, and instructing his operatives in the Donets to do the same, this thing could end better than it was looking like it might.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Odd, but we'll see how it plays out.

Can't say I'll ever trust anything that man does. Perhaps he thinks he's getting good mileage out of his militants (likely infused with Russian military agents) and he doesn't need the regulars just yet.

Or maybe his heart just grew three sizes that day.

[Adrahil]

7. Yeah, I don;t trust the lying bastard either, but...

If we want a peaceful resolution, then we have to give it a go sometime.

[KoKo]

18. Oh My....You would make a great diplomat....

Great way to find solutions. Make sure that "Lying Bastard" is the first greeting to your opponent when you seek a peaceful resolution over a dispute and move on from there.

No doubt about it...that is sure to win hearts and minds to your point of view.

[Adrahil]

20. There's a reason I'm not int he foreign service.

And Putin IS a lying bastard, as you'd surely acknowledge.

[KoKo]

30. No...No more than any other politician who has their moments..including our own.

[giftedgirl77]

12. ....

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. I trust there's a sarcasm tag there to be found.

But yeah, he likes cats.

[ballyhoo]

16. I prefer this one, Carcetti. You'll understand

when you get older.

[NuclearDem]

22. I swear to God this has to be performance art.

If so, well played ballyhoo, you got me.

[ballyhoo]

26. Nothing has really changed. He's

just moved back to the other option of the Federalism with a good gambit with the moving the troops back. I think Xolodno below has the best comment on what he might be doing. Right now, I am much more interested the Internet vote next week. It's nice to be interested in world affairs and all, but we live here and are in the middle of a takeover. I still think we can have an effect on the Internet vote. I'm ready for battle; I even ordered a new printer for more graphics that I'll get out to some people. We have to win that battle. It is probably not something you follow, but I do.

[okaawhatever]

44. For the sarcasm tag, go to smilies after the very last smilie there is a small rectangle with 3 dots

click on that and more will appear including the sarcasm tag. There is also the vomit tag, the WTF tag, the hiding behind the couch tag and the fist bump tag. Here are the ones you've been missing

[freshwest]

58. Too much work! Just type :sarcasm: in the message box:

[okaawhatever]

60. Ahhh...didn't know that thanks for the tip. nt

[Bosonic]

15. Get in line behind Seagal, Romeo

Last edited Wed May 7, 2014, 12:58 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/28/steven-seagal-vladimir-putin-ukraine

[freshwest]

59. Well, there is one thing wrong with that picture. Seagal actually likes Sheriff Joe of Maricopa...

And he's put out the idea he wants to run for Governor of AZ with Joe as campaign manager. Seagal is not the only one who appreciates the cuddly Putin:



Depardieu gave up his French citizenship to become Russian over taxes. I'll bet Seagal is in the same camp as Gerard on issues like that.

Former German Chancellor Schröder is also best buds with Putin and supported the Russiana actions in South Ossetia:

http://www.dw.de/image/0,,17601782_404,00.jpg



http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.587998.1398765279!/image/276225165.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_640/276225165.jpg

Not all Germans agree with him. And Chancellor Merkel is said to not be as friendly to Putin.

Henry Kissinger is old friend of Putin, too, or so it's alleged:



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/world/europe/henry-kissinger-to-meet-with-vladimir-putin-in-russia.html?_r=0

They're not the only ones:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/vladimir-putin-enjoys-bromance-german-chancellor-gerhard-schroeder/story?id=23513126

Alex Jones and the rest of the Pauliban have spoken highly of Putin. I think we will be seeing a lot more of Putin and we might as well get used to seeing that baby face.

[NuclearDem]

21. Uh...what?

His moral standards?

Surely you don't mean his repression of the LGBT Russians and jailing dissidents. Good God man!

But I'm sure he adopted a Kitteh running through the ruins of Grozny.

[ballyhoo]

23. No, I don't mean that. He is now showing more leniency in

in LGBT matters. We could talk for days about this but we are on different vectors. But if you are talking about the Pussy Riot crackdown, I saw the entire thing.

[NuclearDem]

24. "Leniency"?

Was that before or after his thugs forced Moscow's largest gay nightclub to close?

[ballyhoo]

28. Leniency has to be slow and methodical or one finds

himself out of office and unable to move leniency forward or anything else. Here again, it's very hard to do a point:counterpoint with you here, but at least you are succinct in thought and not trying to score extraneous victories. We need to have a roundtable about this stuff, where thoughts are not suppressed. Then and only then will truths and real fixes emerge.

[NuclearDem]

35. I have no interest in a round table with someone that calls Roma

"drugged-out g*****s" and "unsavory people."

[ballyhoo]

39. Good.

[EX500rider]

46. "I saw the entire thing."

I doubt anybody saw the "entire thing"

Which part, the arrested at the church for naughty singing or the whipped by Cossacks during the Olympics?

[The Magistrate]

47. How Often Must We Recall, Sir, That....

[The Magistrate]

33. Like You, Sir, He Is All That And a Bag Of Chips....

Your record, for those not yet familiar with it, of hate-site links and endorsements of ethnic cleansing directed at Roma....

First link to hidden post, second to jury results.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014787623#post7

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014787623#post10

And again, first to hidden post, second to jury results:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014797263#post48

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014797263#post52

As a bit of icing on the cake, we have a ringing endorsement of ethnic cleansing aimed at Roma, here:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014790244#post13

And now, with "he maintains a morality that suits the greatest percentage of his people" we find you endorsing persecution of gays and lesbians, laws against 'homosexual propaganda', police tolerance of gang attacks on gay people, among other things.....

[Xolodno]

8. He's got what he wants....

The loss of life of Pro-Russia protestors, a Ukrainian Military crackdown, tragedy in Odessa, etc. is going to create a strong sentiment against the current "government" and any party/group giving its blessing.

People in the east who may not have liked Yanu and open to voting a pro west candidate at this point are not going to as they now see the west as even worse.

And if the east has an unusual "low turn out", its candidates or pro-Russia voters shown getting beaten or the west has an unusual "high turn out"....its going to be pretty hard for the US to say with a straight face that the elections were legit.

[ballyhoo]

19. Yep

[bemildred]

25. A good move works in many ways.

He demonstrates control, he gets to play the peacemaker, he keeps the initiative.

I'm waiting for the western response to this. Should be interesting.

Perhaps everyone will now come to their senses.

[ballyhoo]

31. Just got this in. Right given guns and equipment and are terrorizing

[bemildred]

32. Whut? nt

[ballyhoo]

34. Got a PM on it so I haven't

explored it yet. If you do and can put together a narrative on what this means in conjunction with Putin's pulling troops back, please let me know. Is this just more forced abstract preparation for a delayed vote or what?

[bemildred]

38. Please see post #32. nt

[ballyhoo]

40. Okay. Don't understand your

answer but that's okay.

[wyldwolf]

9. curse that ungodly Obama foreign policy!

[TwilightGardener]

10. He thinks the damage to Ukraine has been done--and is politically fatal in terms

of a unified country. So now a little feel-good stunt before the upcoming elections finish ripping the country apart and some republics go his way. That's my guess.

[Iliyah]

14. And or sanctions are working as well as a threat to find "gas" elsewhere

ya'think? Money talks and bullshit walks.

[ballyhoo]

17. Or he's closed a deal with the Chicoms and

the Western threats are meaningless.

[uhnope]

41. so in addition to racist slurs in supporting genocide, being pro-war, & dictator worship

you dabble in CT?

The phrase "nobody in their right mind" becomes more and more appropriate.

[pampango]

27. Indeed, Big Money in Russia seems plenty happy about Putin's proposal.

Moscow Pulls Troops Back From Ukraine Border, Putin Says; Russian Stocks, Ruble Rise

Russian stocks and bonds rallied the most in seven weeks and the ruble gained as President Vladimir Putin said he was pulling troops away from the Ukrainian border while urging separatists to delay a referendum to ease tension.

The Micex Index jumped 3.4 percent to 1,363.48, the biggest increase since March 18. Yields on ruble-denominated debt due in February 2027 fell 33 basis points to 9.14 percent. The currency strengthened 1.1 percent to 41.2461 against the central bank’s target dollar-euro basket at 6 p.m. in Moscow when the central bank ends open-market operations. Ukraine stocks, bonds and currency gained.

Investors are reacting to a shift in rhetoric that may lower the likelihood the U.S. and European Union will impose further sanctions on Russia. Putin called on separatists in southern and eastern Ukraine to postpone votes over regional autonomy planned for May 11 and said the country’s presidential election set for later this month was a step in right direction.

“The markets are cutting the probability of sanctions in the near future,” Vladimir Miklashevksy, a strategist at Danske Bank A/S in Helsinki, said by e-mail. “The ruble is celebrating.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-07/russian-bonds-climb-as-fresh-talks-call-attracts-bargain-hunters

[bemildred]

29. US: 'No evidence' of Russia pulling troops back

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House says there is "no evidence" that Russia has withdrawn troops from its border with Ukraine.

The comments from White House spokesman Josh Earnest came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin (POO'-tihn) said his country had pulled troops back from the border. Earnest says the White House would welcome a "meaningful and transparent" withdrawal if it were to take place.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNITED_STATES_RUSSIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-07-12-25-25

[The Magistrate]

36. Indeed, Sir: I Will Await Confirmation Before Popping Any Corks....

[bemildred]

37. Yeah, it will take a while. nt

[EX500rider]

42. Are these the same troops he recently claimed WEREN'T at the border? lol

[Tommy_Carcetti]

45. That's the weird thing.

Putin claimed he wasn't massing troops at the Ukrainian border. And the Russian supporters and useful idiots all raised claims that the US was faking intelligence to show Russian troops that weren't there. And now Putin says he's pulling them back, without having previously acknowledged their existence.

And then there was Crimea, who shortly after Yanukovych having fled the country, was besieged by mysterious men in camouflage with Russian weapons. Putin swore those were local forces and not Russian military. After Crimea's (questionable and rushed) plebiscite and annexation into the Russian Federation, Putin then congratulates the Russian forces in Crimea that he had previously denied being Russian forces.

Now you have Eastern Ukraine, with similar men in camouflage mixing in with armed militants hostile to the Ukrainian government. Putin has denied that these are Russian......Do you sense a pattern here?

I'd really like to say Putin's acting in good faith here. But everything I know about the man, and his poetic waxings on Novorossiya refuse to allow me to believe anything the man says.

[uhnope]

48. a return to normal dictatorship, a retreat from warmongering insanity?

Let's hope the various pressures have made Putin rethink his New Russia empire dreams

[jakeXT]

49. Fear of Gleiwitz ?

Ukrainian forces prepare provocation against Russia in Donetsk

Russian military uniforms and fake IDs of Russian officers have been taken to the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk to stage an attack on Ukrainian border guards, a Ukrainian law enforcement official told RIA Novosti Tuesday on condition of anonymity. "The task is to stage an attack on Ukrainian border guards by people dressed in Russian military uniforms and make a video of it," he said.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_06/Ukrainian-forces-prepare-provocation-against-Russia-in-Donetsk-source-3670/

[The Magistrate]

50. It Is Not So Much The Lying, Sir, As The Lack Of Respect Shown By the Liar

Lies of this grade can be told only by people who have a blank contempt for the people they are addressing, people who are certain they are speaking to an audience of people who would have to gain considerably in intelligence to be rated as blithering idiots....

[jakeXT]

51. Unidentified assailants attempt to seize crossing point on Russian-Ukrainian border

A group of armed men wearing black uniforms attempted to seize control of a customs checkpoint on the Ukrainian side of the border between Ukraine and Russia, the head of the Russian Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov said Thursday, RIA Novosti reports.

"A provocative act took place at the Izvarino customs checkpoint on the Russian-Ukrainian border," Andrei Belyaninov said.

"A group of unidentified people wearing black uniforms and St. George ribbons set the customs office on fire and fled the scene," Belyaninov said.

Izvarino border crossing point is located in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, which has recently become a hotbed of a violent standoff between the Kiev regime and pro-federalization supporters.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_08/Unidentified-assailants-attempt-to-seize-crossing-point-on-Russian-Ukrainian-border-1296/

[The Magistrate]

52. So? You Imagine This Is Some 'False Flag' Action, Sir?

On what grounds?

[jakeXT]

53. Standard MO in history ? /nt

[The Magistrate]

54. Which It Is Not, Sir

Only a person who knows very little history would think so. The handful of examples you are likely now to trot out are remembered precisely because they are rarities, not general practice.

[jakeXT]

55. History and not history books written by people associated with intelligence services

But the most important link between intelligence services and the Reichstag fire came in the form of a man named Fritz Tobias, who from the 1950s to the 1970s was a senior official of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the West German federal state of Lower Saxony. Earlier, in the 1940s – by his own account at least – he had served as a “scout” for the British Secret Intelligence Service. This meant that, while working on a “denazification” tribunal, he was supposed to keep his eyes open for former Nazis who might be useful to the British.

In 1951 Tobias started devoting his spare time – by his account, only his spare time – to research on the Reichstag fire. By the late 1950s his work was already becoming known, and, to some German officials, somewhat troubling. Tobias could and did use the powers of his office to get information. He was able to get access to classified documents that were closed to the public, and on at least one occasion he brought a prosecutor along with him to question a retired judge who had evidence to give about the fire. Was this all really just a spare time project? In the early 1960s, when Tobias’s lengthy book on the Reichstag fire was published (lengthy in German anyway – the English translation cut it by about half), Tobias used agents from the Office for Constitutional Protection to threaten academic historians who disagreed with his arguments, and blackmailed the director of a prestigious institute with classified documents revealing that director’s Nazi past. There seems at least a possibility that Tobias’s work was really an official commission. When asked about this while testifying in court in 1961, Tobias declined to answer because of his duty to maintain official secrets.
- See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2014/02/spies-burning-reichstag-hidden-history/

[The Magistrate]

56. Gee --- That Is A News-Flash, Sir

And one of the cases it was expected you would cite....

[Igel]

61. Occam's is handy.

This is not the first raid of its kind in the last few weeks. People seem to be attacking anything or anybody that could be a "fascist." Some are killed. But there's no compunction about shooting people because they're bad and out to kill you and rape your daughters. Even if they live in the area and have for a while, and otherwise show no signs of being "fascist" except that they wear the same uniform or hold the same job the did 8 months ago when they weren't "fascist."

St. George ribbons are also fairly standard fare in this part of the country. And they tend to be worn by exactly the same people that would go around attacking anything or anybody that could be a "fascist," because Russia 24 told them that there are lots of fascists in the woods and everybody working for the Neonazi Jews in Kyiv are fascists.

So we have two non-uncommon occurrences that have a tendency to co-occur. The only thing novel about this event is that it was reported in English.

The attorneys' general offices that were shot at or taken over (even briefly), the police station that had its bullet-proof vests taken when the militants couldn't find the policemen's guns (they'd be confiscated in a previous raid), the ODA buildings that were taken over today ... barely worth mentioning. As were the attempts to get miners to side openly with the DPR, or the temporary closing of the Firtazh 'Styrol' and 'Nitrogen' plants because Andreevtsa or Goril'tsa, whichever berg was the object of the latest take-overs, is viewed as too unstable.

You also don't hear about the elected officials that wind up dead, sometimes tortured first; the jewelry stores knocked over, etc., etc. With all the policemen's weapons confiscated by the "militants", who have no interest in petty or not-so-petty crimes (except to commit them), things are a bit out of hand in some places.

[jakeXT]

62. The founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine tells me the attack came from Russia

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy has said that gunmen attacked a border unit on the border of Luhansk and Donetsk regions early on Thursday.

"Tonight an attack was carried out on a border unit on the border of Donetsk and Luhansk regions from the Russian Federation," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

He noted that law enforcement officers had rebuffed the attack, but the situation itself shows that statements by the Russian president on the withdrawal of troops from the border "have nothing to do with reality."
http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/204004.html

The man facing down Putin's aggression as secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council is Andriy Parubiy. He oversees national security for the nation having previously served as security commandant during the anti-government protests in Kiev.

Parubiy was the founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a fascist party styled on Hitler's Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.

The Social National Party would go on to become Svoboda, the far-right nationalist party whose leader Oleh Tyahnybok was one of the three most high profile leaders of the Euromaidan protests - negotiating directly with the Yanukovych regime.
http://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right