Baltic Countries to Designate Russian Groups as Terrorists

The Baltic states are prepared to recognize the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” in Ukraine as terrorist organizations, diplomats in Kyiv announced, according to the Baltic Times.

“The Latvian Foreign Ministry has already stated that it is prepared to do this,” Latvian Ambassador to Ukraine Argita Daudze said during a press briefing in the Ukrainian capital.

The Estonia and Lithuanian ambassadors to Ukraine also said that they support recognizing the two groups as terrorist organizations.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office designated the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” as terrorist organizations on May 16, according to Ukrinform. Last week, 19 US senators requested that President Barack Obama declare the Donetsk and Luhansk groups as terrorist organizations.

The more governments, global organizations and legislators that sign on to this campaign the better it will be for Ukraine and perhaps the sooner Russia will withdraw its terrorists from Ukraine.

Russia’s Crocodile Tears

Under the pretext of being distressed about the humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine, Russia convened on Tuesday an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council in hopes of securing a resolution that would allow peacekeepers to enter Ukraine and save the downtrodden people.

Indeed, the living conditions in Luhansk and other eastern Ukrainian cities are horrendous. No water and utilities not to mention dead bodies and destruction. All of which have been caused by Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Fortunately, the UN Security Council did not support Russia and Moscow again failed in its gambit to get a legal pretext for sending its troops into Ukraine.

Members of the Security Council pointed out to Vitaliy Churkin, Russia’s envoy and president of the Security Council, that Moscow is the cause of the humanitarian crisis and devastation, which will continue until Russia withdraws its soldiers and mercenaries from Ukraine.

In his statement, acting Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Oleksandr Pavlychenko, directly said the real cause behind the crisis in Donbas is the activity of Russia-supported illegal armed groups.

Pavlychenko also called on Russia to establish control over its border, he said.

“If Russia is really interested in the stabilization of the situation, we offer a few easy steps: to stop sending mercenaries and ammunition to Ukraine, to establish effective control over the border to prevent the infiltration, and withdraw all military and paramilitary formations from the east of Ukraine,” he said.

Pavlychenko announced that “Russia continues shelling at the Ukrainian army’s positions from Russian territory, while the number of [Russian] troops at the border [with Ukraine] is building up,” he said.

He also noted that the Ukrainian government follows all the recommendations by the UN.

“The government of Ukraine gives due consideration to all recommendations by the United Nations, there is no humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and the situation is manageable,” he said.

The Ukrainian government ensures the fulfillment of all social obligations, including retirement payments, social benefits, salaries, to the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, except for some towns which remain under control of the terrorists, Pavlychenko added.

Gratefully, the United Nations has again shunned Moscow’s ruse to blame others for its aggression and violence.

Russia’s Appetite for more Countries

It’s not merely Ukraine. According to the UK’s Independent, Andrej Illarionov, Putin’s chief economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, the Russian leader seeks to create “historical justice” with a return to the days of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin. What The Torn Curtain 1991 has referred to as Russia’s manifest destiny.

Speaking to the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Illarionov warned that Russia will argue that the granting of independence to Finland in 1917 was an act of “treason against national interests.”

“Putin’s view is that he protects what belongs to him and his predecessors,” Illarionov said.  “Parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership.

He added: “The West’s leaders seem, from what they say, entirely to have forgotten that there are some leaders in the world who want to conquer other countries.”

Thanks to Putin, Russia must not be allowed to return to the G-8. Seven is quite adequate. Russia’s global activity must also be curbed until it demonstrates that it deserves to sit at the same table with other civilized countries.

Russian War Threat Escalating

Russia is again increasing the number of troops and military on the border with Ukraine. With its mercenaries and troops already waging war inside Ukraine, this latest escalation is causing concern in Kyiv and other world capitals.

Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, on Tuesday warned the risk of invasion by Russia into Ukraine has intensified. “We have reasons to believe that the threat of a direct intervention is certainly bigger than a few days ago,” Tusk said, citing intelligence received in recent hours, at a press conference.

Tusk added the West doesn’t have a clear answer ready if Russian forces do enter the country. He was quoting as replying to his own observation by saying that he would react the same way if he was confronted by a rabid dog.

Russia has massed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian mission to invade, NATO confirmed on Wednesday, expressing its starkest warning yet that Moscow could soon mount a ground assault against Ukraine.

“We’re not going to guess what’s on Russia’s mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground – and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine’s eastern border,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement. Russia could use “the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine,” she said.

In the wake of this escalation, US officials joined the chorus of governments warning Russia not to proceed.

The threat of an incursion is “reality,” US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters in Germany on Wednesday.

“It’s a reality, of course it is,” Hagel said at the headquarters of the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. “When you see the buildup of these troops, the sophistication and training of these troops, the heavy military equipment that’s being put on the border, of course it’s a reality and it’s a possibility.”

The current Russian troop build-up on the border is not the first time Russia has sent forces there. NATO estimated Russia had as many as 40,000 troops in place in the spring before Putin pulled them back in June.

So why is the world waiting? The US and Ukraine’s allies must not let their attention divert from this danger. Even one step across the border by Russian forces must be met with universal retribution and condemnation.

Decolonization of Russia

The unexpected announcement by Siberians that they have launched a quest for independence, sovereignty and self-determination from Russia is a welcome development that bodes well for the pursuit of global democracy.

Today Russia is the last colonial empire on earth, still enslaving dozens of nations and ethnic groups.

From small beginnings around Moscow, over more than a millennia Russia has expanded in three directions, from what is today Germany to the Black Sea and the Pacific Ocean – a distance of 14 time zones.

Russia expanded with the help of weapons and fire and kept its colonies intact the same way. Blood flowed freely in the Russian empire – regardless if it was tsarist, communist or now federalist.

However, fortunately, humankind’s quest for independence and freedom knows no bounds and slowly the captive nations began to break free of Russia. First the so-called Eastern European satellite countries left the Soviet Russian empire in the 1970s and then the so-called soviet republics began to declare their independence that contributed to the implosion of the Soviet Russian empire in the early 1990s.

It seemed as if the iron curtain was finally torn down. However, remaining inside the latest version of the Russian empire are dozens of nations, peoples and ethnic groups, still hoping for wind of freedom to leach into their lands.

The latest major crack in Russia’s prison of nations came this week with the revelation that Siberians are seeking self-determination from Russia and this reportedly is adding to the Kremlin’s headaches.

Siberia – a land that conjures images of desolation, frigid temperatures and concentration camps. However, it also offers the potential of virtually boundless untapped natural resources and a vital defense outpost for Russia’s eastern flank on the Pacific Ocean.

Undoubtedly, Putin wouldn’t want Siberia to go the way of the other captive nations on his watch.

Earlier this week Siberians, who have already designed their own national flag based on the design of the “Stars and Stripes,” planned to hold an independence march on August 17 in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city, but Moscow quickly put an end to that plan. While advocating separatism in Ukraine, Moscow again emphatically showed that it will not tolerate secessionists inside the federal Russian empire.

BBC and other western news outlets working in Russia had interviewed the leader of the Siberian movement, Artyom Loskutov, and they were quickly reprimanded and threatened for such an audacious concept. Russia’s media monitor Roskomnadzor insisted that BBC delete the interview from its web or face possible expulsion from Russia. Fortunately, the broadcaster didn’t succumb to Moscow’s bullying.

UK’s Guardian reported that Russia’s prosecutor general issued warnings to 14 media outlets covering the protest under the country’s extremism law, and blocked an event page for the march on Russia’s most popular social network. The editor of Slon.ru, which was forced by the prosecutor general to remove an interview with Loskutov, later argued in a Facebook post that the article did not violate the extremism law because it did not name a specific time or place. It also noted that the activists had not yet been given permission for the march.

The Novosibirsk mayor’s office earlier this week reportedly denied permission to hold the march “in order to ensure the inviolability of the constitutional order, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian Federation.” Under that law, Moscow will curtail human rights of all citizens.

Loskutov, a young artist known for organizing an annual absurdist rally called Monstration, told the Guardian that the activists had re-applied for permission to hold a March for the Inviolability and Observation of the Principles of Federalism.

Loskutov was quoted as saying the Novosibirsk protest was meant to both ridicule the Kremlin’s hypocrisy on self-determination in Ukraine and to raise the issue of Siberia’s delayed development. Most of Russia’s oil and gas output comes from western Siberia, but the region lags behind Moscow, St Petersburg and some southern areas in quality of life ratings, he said.

“It’s using the rhetoric that our government and their propaganda use,” Loskutov explained. “They decided to tell us how great it is when some republic moves for self-determination. Okay, well let’s apply this to other regions. Can Siberia allow itself this same rhetoric? It turns out it can’t.”

Andrei Piontkovsky, a liberal Russian political analyst, correctly observed to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that by encouraging separatism abroad Russia may have “shot itself in the foot” at home. He said Russians may begin to ask “Why can there be separatism in Donetsk, and if that's fine, why can't there also be separatism in Russia, in Siberia?”

We wish Siberians God speed with their quest. We hope that the freedom-minded idea that Loskutov is propagating will permeate throughout Russia and cause Russians and non-Russians alike to wonder “why not us?” and thereby chip away at the Russian empire.

USA Offers Military Aid to Ukraine

The United States has finally understood the dire situation that Ukrainian military units are facing in the war with Russia. The regular Ukrainian Armed Forces, the National Guard of Ukraine and volunteer paramilitary units have been bravely engaging Russian terrorists in eastern Ukraine with surprising combat victories. Some have even said that the battle for Donetsk will be the Russians’ Rubicon.

That is heartwarming. However, to win the war against Russia, with its vast military arsenal, Ukraine will need more than Washington’s best wishes and support. It will need hands-on help.

Last week, the Pentagon decided to send equipment and aid to Ukraine including armored vehicles and increased training.

USA Today quoted Eileen Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman, who said the help includes armored personnel carriers, cargo and patrol vehicles, binoculars, night vision goggles and small patrol boats. The equipment is valued at $8 million and follows a similar $7 million package of equipment shipped in April. Vice-President Biden confirmed this in a telephone call to President Poroshenko.

Earlier the Pentagon had announced a proposed $19 million aid package to help train the National Guard of Ukraine. The money will help train four companies of guardsmen and a headquarters element, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said. The proposal requires congressional approval and would begin in 2015. Trainers would come from US forces in Europe or the California National Guard, which has partnered with Ukrainian troops in the past. Hopefully Congress will approve the package as soon as it returns from vacation.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a strong supporter of Ukraine, acknowledged that Ukraine’s military is making progress in pushing back Russian mercenaries. He urged the White House to authorize shipments of anti-tank weapons.

Washington cannot shirk its responsibility to help Ukraine in its uneven war with Russia just as it didn’t turn its back on France and England during World War II. Yes, what Russia is doing is the same that Nazi Germany did 75 years ago.

The Senate is not standing aside of this campaign to help Ukraine. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), along with 18 senators, sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the US designate the main pro-Russian organizations of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) under US Law. This would be a major slap in Russia’s face, acknowledging that it launched this terror campaign against Ukraine.

According to the State Department, the FTO designation “impacts travel related to terrorist organizations, makes it a crime to provide material support to terrorist organizations, and freezes the financial accounts of terrorist organizations in US financial institutions.” Currently, 52 organizations are designated as FTOs, including such nefarious actors as Al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah. The designation could have a significant impact on Russian interests in the United States if the US determined them as providing “material support” to the rebels.

“Russia should pay a heavy price for its invasion of Ukraine and support of the terrorist groups that shot down MH17,” Kirk said. “The designation of the separatists as terrorists under US law is overdue, and I call on the President to take this step immediately so we significantly raise the costs for Putin for his violation of international norms and Ukraine's sovereignty.”

Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John Barrasso (R-WY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Dan Coats (R-IN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Johnny Isakson (R-GF), Ron Johnson (R-WI), John McCain (R-AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KN), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) also signed the letter.

If your senator is not on board, contact his or her office and insist that he or she joins the campaign.

Unfortunately, President Obama continues to misunderstand Ukraine’s situation. He fails to recognize that the Russian war with Ukraine was inevitable because Russia’s manifest destiny is global domination, which also threatens the United States.

Last Friday Obama naively told Putin that the US merely remains deeply concerned that Russia is ramping up support for pro-Russian terrorists in Ukraine. Russian mercenaries are indiscriminately targeting and killing civilians and soldiers and the White House is concerned.

“I indicated to him, just as we will do what we say we do in terms of sanctions, we’ll also do what we say in terms of wanting to resolve this issue diplomatically if he takes a different position,” Obama told reporters later.

Putin must have been laughing hysterically on the other side of the phone conversation.

The Ukrainian nation, after enduring centuries of abuse, persecution, murder and another war with Russia does not deserve the insult of a diplomatic solution. Russia must be subdued, defeated and expelled from Ukraine. It must be forced to sign an internationally guaranteed treaty with Ukraine stating that it will never again invade Ukraine.

A note of acknowledgment about Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine. His task is to meet with reporters, explain what happened on the battlefront and answer their questions. His balanced, informed, knowledgeable, professional behavior infinitely boosts his credibility and the righteousness of Ukraine’s cause. Good job, Colonel!