Elusive Muscovite with three names takes control of Ukraine rebels
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - He is a man with three names, sought by Ukrainian intelligence as the top Russian operative in the separatist east. He moves through the streets in a black Mercedes, his face with pencil moustache hidden behind tinted windows, and his aim is to "destroy" Ukrainian forces that venture onto his territory.
In a leaflet distributed this week in the rebel Donetsk region, "Colonel Igor Strelkov" assumed command of all rebel forces there and called for Russian army help to ward off what he calls the threat from the Kiev "junta" and from NATO.
To Kiev and its Western allies, Strelkov is living proof that Moscow is behind the uprising in eastern Ukraine, despite its denials, and trying to replay the scenario that saw it seize the Crimea province in March.
The separatists have said little about his identity. He is known to the fighters he commands as "Strelok" - "the Shooter". Kiev says he is actually an agent of Russia's GRU military intelligence. Residents of a Moscow suburb say he is a mild-mannered neighbor they have known for years as Igor Girkin.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/15/us-ukraine-crisis-commander-insight-idUSBREA4E06E20140515
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Bosonic
(3,746 posts)PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)..the GRU are a tough bunch. If he fails, the Conveyor waits for his return.
okaawhatever
(9,453 posts)Bosonic
(3,746 posts)As Kiev struggles to wrest back control of east from pro-Russia fighters, irregular units of 'Ukrainian patriots' are stepping in.
The men, dressed in irregular fatigues and with balaclavas pulled over their heads, fingered their Kalashnikovs nervously and jumped at every unusual sound. Eager to aid their country's military struggle, the so-called Donbas volunteer battalion was ready to fight, but appeared to be short on training.
The battalion commander, Semyon Semenchenko, a 40-year-old from Donetsk with a degree in film-making, insisted that he and all his men had combat experience, from the Ukrainian or Soviet armies. They are all volunteers, receiving zero salary from either the state or oligarchs, he said, claiming they live off their own savings and donations from patriotic Ukrainians, who transfer them money after reading about them on social media.
"Our state needs defending, and we decided that if the army could not do it, we should do it ourselves," said Semenchenko, during a meeting with the Guardian outside the town of Mariupol, where his men were based and offering support to regular units of the Ukrainian army in their fight against armed separatists in the region.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/ukraine-civil-war-fears-mount-volunteer-units-kiev-russia
freshwest
(53,661 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)I wonder if the Russians are beginning to see a destabilized Ukraine as not a good thing.
Putin may be a canny operative, but his long term strategic thinking kind of stinks.
MBS
(9,688 posts)On the one hand, I have no doubt that he and his minions have actively fomented the annexation and destabilization activities. On the other hand, it does seem to be developing an especially dangerous momentum of its own. .
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)Don are you there. (Fontaine )
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)No corroboration - just fantasy.
What next? Carmen San Diego running the Eastern supply chain? Afterall, Igor Igoravitch is from her gang!
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)(Reuters) A senior rebel commander in Ukraine's separatist eastern region has threatened an onslaught on Ukrainian military checkpoints if they are not withdrawn on Thursday, according to a video posted on the Facebook page of a rebel politician.
Sergei Zdrilyuk, dressed in military fatigues, clearly tired and sometimes mixing his words, said he had covert groups in place. "I am ready to draw the first blood myself."
In the 30-minute video, he moved from military strategy and strengths to problems with a rival fighting unit and, in a reference to his Ukrainian home, troubles with his mother's flock of geese.
The eastern rebellion by pro-Russian separatists has shaken Ukraine and pushed Western powers into a Cold War-style confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they accuse of destabilising Ukraine.
MBS
(9,688 posts)Somehow, his palpable nervousness makes it even more scary to me.
Here's a version with English subtitles. .
freshwest
(53,661 posts)MBS
(9,688 posts)and complete, too, with only trivial omissions from speech (such as middle name (Ivanovich)-- of Strelkov, even though soldier stated it. )
Though by destroy "everything", I thought (maybe , hoped?) the soldier meant all the Ukrainian military personnel and their equipment, not whole towns. (Of course, if the violence gets worse, whole towns WILL be affected).
Anyway, the 24-hour deadline seems to have passed by now, yes?
The "no negotiations" line is all too familiar. The Putinistas and the Republican Congress and Bundy-ites are getting kind of blended in my brain. They really are the same human type.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Don't know if that's a browser problem or coding on their site or what, but it doesn't work.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)and as any of the unsourced statements about him (in the part I can read) are true...
Those insidious possible Muscovites possibly in Ukraine!
Why can't they just say up-front that they're involved in Ukrainian operations, like the FBI, CIA, and State Department do about their direct co-management of the Kiev government?
This guy should do away with the confusion and just put up a website in his own name, in which he publishes the logos of his sponsors, like the leader of the Kiev coup government, Yatsenyuk. "Yats" is not ashamed to tell the world that he's run by NATO, State Department, CIA ("NED" , Wall Street, Swedbank, etc...
Partners of the Ukrainian coup d'etat prime minister... http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024946300
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)Nope, not in the mood to kick your post right now. Maybe later. Perhaps you ought to consider editing the title, though, given your admissions.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)to the discussion of your OP.
You know, this totally rock-solid story you've posted here, from a Mainstream News Source, about how some unnamed people said some guy under some name, or wait, the same guy but under another name, might be a guy in Ukraine, and how whoever he is, he is very bad, and actually from Moscow, we think, thus proving something!
I felt sorry for you, so I decided to point you at an example of an actual guy working for foreign interests in Kiev, currently in the role of a prime minister imposing an IMF austerity program to help the people there.
Partners of the Ukrainian coup d'etat prime minister... http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024946300
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)All I saw was some snark about how the article was unsourced (although there were plenty of names and attributable quotes contained within)...and then you pimped out your OP about the coup that you can't show was a coup.
No, I don't feel like kicking your OP right now. Come back later, Jack.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I see Reuters is auditioning for the role of a "Zarqawi" who may serve for blaming every act of violence from any side in the Ukraine henceforth. He may or may not exist, he may or may not be all of the different people and names claimed.
The important thing is what the intelligence services of the current Ukraine government believe -- I guess they would be under the current Secretary of National Security and Defence, Andriy Parubiy of the Svoboda party (quasi-Nazi, neo-fascist, hyper-nationalist)?
That's an interesting choice for the most important ministry, don't you think? Svoboda also has the deputy prime minister.
Come on, explain to us what a quasi-Nazi party is doing running the power positions in the Yatsenyuk coup government?
Keeping in mind that last year the World Jewish Congress asked the EU to consider banning Svoboda, alongside the more famous (until now) openly Nazi Golden Dawn of Greece.
Funny thing that Svoboda and Golden Dawn don't like each other. They may disagree about which is the real Nazi and which a mere Zionist deception, but the World Jewish Congress should know Nazis when they seem them. I'll trust their opinion.
The ultimate source for the story posted in the OP is a ministry run by a minister from a quasi-Nazi, neo-fascist party!
But that's okay - the guy at the top of the government isn't a Nazi. He's working for the State Department, CIA and NATO, and imposing an austerity plan demanded by the EU and IMF so he's okay! Not at all ideological - just a humble servant of economic necessity.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)So with the scorecard, we are up to: Victoria Nuland, Arseny Yatsenyuk, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the IMF, the CIA, the EU, the US Department of State, Svoboda, John McCain, the New York Times, Geoffrey Pratt, various oil conglomerates, USAID, Reuters.....am I missing anyone else? All of them got together to do....err, something....and a coup took place in Ukraine to oust Yanukovych, but you don't know how it happened, just that it really, really honestly did happen, no, honestly, it did!
I don't know if you are aware, but Ukraine has a parliamentary system, which is common in countries that--unlike ours--have more than two dominant political parties. And in parliamentary systems, various parties form strategic--yet not necessarily ideological--alliances to form a majority. And part of the payoff in the parliamentary system is that if a coalition gets the majority and control of government, they share the various cabinet positions, typically proportionally to their numbers in the coalition.
So right now, Svoboda--as part of a coalition under the parliamentary system--has a grand total of 3 seats in the Ukrainian cabinet. Out of 21.
And given that the Svoboda party's candidate for the May 25th elections is currently running with a huge total of 1.5% in the polls, it can't be said that Svoboda fever is racing across Ukraine.
You folks have made Svoboda out to be quite the paper tiger, haven't you?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)media corporation might broadcast propaganda? Only RT is capable of that. Reuters, CNN... these always only broadcast the truth. With integrity, etc. etc.
Of course I didn't say Reuters is "in on it," that is your lame attempt at strawmanning. Also, you pretend to be obtuse. When it comes to Putin and Russians, you have no trouble seeing coordinated action. When it comes to Western or Kiev-government institutions, you act as if they don't exist and collaborate within a system. They all just float freely and know nothing of each other. How absurd to think otherwise!
In this case, Reuters has acted as a faithful stenographer in passing on claims from the Kiev government's intelligence agencies. Routine work for corporate news.
I have pointed out, correctly, that the Kiev intel agencies are currently being run by a neo-fascist party.
The three Svoboda ministries "out of 21," as you happen to say, include power positions: deputy prime minister and secretary of security and defense.
If the U.S. cabinet had a fucking NAZI in charge of the Pentagon, I would think this was noteworthy and alarming, even if all of the other cabinet members were not Nazi. Golly.
I certainly hope the polling for Svoboda holds up and they are soon out of power.
Until they are out of power, however, guess where they are?
IN POWER!
They are IN CHARGE of the fucking DEFENSE ministry.
This is the government you support. This is the government the CIA, FBI, State Department and administration are currently going to bat for. A government with a neo-fascist in charge of the security forces.
You can't spin this reality, and the more you try, the more you discredit anything you have to say here.
The neo-fascist party, Svoboda, holds the ministry conducting the Kiev government's violent crackdown against the anti-government protesters in the East.
You may think it's excusable that open fascists should be allowed into a parliamentary coalition to gain a majority. (For a banker's party to impose austerity, no less!)
Or that they should be put in charge of the security forces! I do not.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)Svoboda could be Satanists who drink the blood of babies, and it wouldn't change the fact that you have no evidence to show that there was a "coup"--Western led or otherwise--on Yanukovych.
I mean, it works initially. No one with half a brain likes neo-Nazis. And neither myself nor many Ukrainians care for Svoboda (the political party, that is; not the weekly newspaper published by the Ukrainian American association that coincidentally has the same name).
So you throw out easy targets to criticize to distract from your flimsy argument for your main point, which is that supposedly there was a western-sponsored coup of the Ukrainian government in February 2014.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)for distracting from the nature of the present government in Kiev.
You are incapable of answering simple questions:
1) Is the defense and security ministry currently run by a leader of the neo-fascist Svoboda party? Yes or no? Is a Svoboda-run ministry organizing the crackdown on the uprising in the East?
2) Is the Yatsenyuk government imposing an EU-IMF austerity plan without bothering to wait for the election of a potentially legitimate government?
3) Does Yatsenyuk list NATO, State Department, NED and Western financial institutions as the partners of his foundation? Isn't this unusual and highly indicative in the consistency with which it shows sponsorship by a foreign nation?
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)....and the government that followed this "coup" was illegitimate and everything it now does is thus also illegitimate. So who was the subject of your alleged "coup"? Yanukovych? Understand? He's pretty much the keystone of your entire position. Your Pee-Wee Herman-esqe deflection is showing.
Sigh. Since I actually have no problem answering questions (something you really ought to consider doing yourself), I'll humor you. But I'm telling you now, nothing that your asking proves anything of substance as it relates to your ultimate position that there was a coup.
1. Actually, no. If you are referring to Andri Parubiy, the Secretary of the National Security of Defense Council in Ukraine, he had been a member of Svoboda until the mid 2000s, when he joined the Our Ukraine Party and then subsequently the Batkivschyna party. The cabinet level Ministry of Defense is run by a gentlemen named Mykhailo Koval, who as far as I know is not a member of Svoboda. Whether Parubiy remains in his current position will probably be determined by whoever wins the elections on May 25th. And none of this has anything to do as to whether or not Victor Yanukovych was the subject of a western sponsored coup, so....
2. While Ukraine had actually been the recipient of IMF funding long before Yanukovych left the country, it is true that the interim government has agreed to monetary loans from the IMF and the EU. What the effects of these loans may be remains to be seen. Since the onset of the Maidan protests, association with the EU was considered by most Ukrainians to be preferable to association with Russia and its offer of economic health based on long-standing historical reasons. Again, none of this proves that what happened in February 2014 was a western sponsored coup against Yankovych.
3. Sure. The west likes Yatsenyuk. Yatsenyuk likes the west. If you want to claim that is "unusual", go ahead. I personally doubt it's anything that's probably unprecedented. I'm sure you want to claim that there was a motive for a western sponsored coup because the US thought Yatsenyuk was "our guy". But the mere desire to see someone in power does not necessarily mean anyone from the west took active steps to overthrow an existing regime and install him into power. Your argument is akin to a prosecutor in a murder case walking up to the jury and saying, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, our evidence shows that three months before the murder, the Defendant and the victim got into an argument. Three months later, the victim was dead. We rest our case." So if Yatsenyuk was "our guy", how'd we move Yanukovych out and put Yatsenyuk in? Given the video evidence, there's nothing to suggest that Yanukovych was forcibly removed from power. The worst thing Yatsenyuk might be accused of being is a political opportunist, but nothing shows he was actually a usurper.
You've constantly hit on things on the run-up to the regime change which you claim is evidence of US meddling in Ukrainian affairs and a desire to see politicians friendly to the West in charge. And after the regime change, you've harped upon all the things the so-called "illegitimate" Ukrainian government has done and how horrible you claim those things to be (many of your claims are either half-truths or outright lies, but that's a whole other subject). But you've never, ever described how this so-called "coup" actually happened. And I doubt you ever will.
The thing is, if Yanukovych had never left office and was still in power and somehow he was doing everything you now accuse the interim government is doing, I honestly doubt you would have cared because there'd be no sexy "coup" to talk about. There are countries that are likely doing things 10 times worse than what you accuse the interim government of doing, and I doubt you really are paying much attention to them. The only reason I think you are interested in Ukraine was because there was a high profile regime change, and in your conspiracy minded head you thought that the US had to be involved in it. As if Ukrainians were brainless automatons incapable having a say in their own affairs on what happens in their country.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)This is what they do in Parliament...
Svodoba...
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)I've just recognized they are a rather small part of the political picture in Ukraine, and don't seem to be gaining any real traction from the people, even post-Maidan.
For everything, a proper perspective is warranted.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Of course they're gaining traction. By brute force both in the streets and within Parliament. What difference does it make that the average Ukrainian doesn't want them? They're getting them regardless. A small far right faction arose in the west and has flooded into the east where they get what they want by pounding it into people. Svodoba has control of significant seats in the administration including deputy prime minister and the head of the country's defenses. With Svodoba having control of the nation's security how can they NOT be significant? What difference does it make if they're a small faction within the government when they've been seizing the control they've gotten and with brutal tactics? Jesus, as soon as a Parliamentary member brings up the problem of their atrocities in Parliament Svodoba thugs rip him out from behind the lectern and beat him up right there in Parliament! And this isn't significant? They're just a bitty little party that doesn't have any power? Christ.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)And Svoboda is Svoboda is Svoboda.
Without any substantial public support, what's of it?
Critics of the Maidan protests and the resulting interim government have created quite the paper tiger with Svoboda, and have made good use of clips of Svoboda behaving badly without any understanding of either the parliamentary system or the extent the party actually extends in Ukraine.
(And for the record, contrary to what you say, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine is not a current member of Svoboda).
"Svoboda" and "neo-Nazi' are just deflections that Maidan opponents thrown out when are challenged to provide evidence of the supposed "coup" that never actually took place in Ukraine, or when supporters of pro-Russian separatists are used to justify those parties' actions. But in the end, they were a minority party when Yanukovych was in power, they are a minority party, and they'll continue to be a minority party in the future.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)in the middle of a crackdown, in conditions nearing an ethnic-based civil war...
small part of the political picture!
proper perspective!