German MDs' OK Diagnosis of Savchenko Dubious

A couple of days ago Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian army pilot and member of the European parliament who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a Russian jail, was examined by German and Russian doctors but their favorable conclusions are deemed dubious due to a diabolical Russian-German conspiracy.

Interfax quoted a Russian official as saying about the Ukrainian aviator: “A council of Russian doctors has once again examined the arrested Ukrainian military service member, Nadia Savchenko, and concluded that her health condition is satisfactory, says Kristina Belousova, a spokeswoman for the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN).”

Savchenko, 33, who appears in court in a white t-shirt emblazoned with large Tryzub, trident – the national symbol of Ukraine, has become the subject of a worldwide defense campaign, which includes variations of the Twitter hashtag #FreeSavchenko. She was captured by Russian troops in eastern Ukraine and has been illegally incarcerated in a Russian prison since July 2014. Savchenko has been on a hunger strike for more than 70 days and her lawyer and doctor fear that she may fall into a coma because her sugar level, blood pressure and body temperature are dangerously abnormal.

Concern about her welfare is rising, Halya Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (www.khpg.org) observed, because of the underhanded secrecy about her condition and the doubtful nature of the examining team’s conclusions. Coynash wrote that Vladimir Putin and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had reached a secret agreement to cover up Savchenko’s health. Historically, Russians and Germans are known for reaching secret pacts such as the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement that divided Europe between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany at the start of World War Two.

“While Ukrainian doctors are refused permission to examine Nadiya Savchenko, Russia’s Penitentiary Service continues quoting anonymous ‘German doctors’ whose anonymity would seem to be part of a secret agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.  Since these ‘German doctors’ are reported to have agreed entirely with the conclusion of the Penitentiary Service and found Nadiya Savchenko’s state of health to be ‘satisfactory,’ this secrecy raises some very serious questions about Germany’s role in the ongoing detention of the Ukrainian MP and delegate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,” Coynash wrote in her column on the group’s website.

Savchenko is demanding that she be examined by an international group of specialists, including a cardiologist, because she doesn’t have confidence in the doctors that checked her.

“Repeated attempts on Thursday afternoon (February 19) to gain confirmation or denial from the German Foreign Ministry of the assertions made by Deutsche Welle’s Russian Service were unfortunately unsuccessful.  DW states that the ‘German doctors’ were examined as part of an agreement behind the scenes in Minsk between Steinmeier and Putin.  No details are given since the Russian side demanded ‘total silence,’ however the Foreign Ministry has not confirmed the information issued earlier about Savchenko’s health.

“It remains, however, silent about the visit, which is the only examination by non-Russian doctors of Nadiya Savchenko whose condition after over two months on hunger strike must arouse grave concern. 

This is extraordinary given that Ukrainian doctors from the official Feofaniya Clinical Hospital were on Feb 18 refused permission to examine Savchenko,” Coynash continued.

Savchenko’s release was included as a prerequisite of the Minsk 2 accords that were to bring a ceasefire to Ukraine but Russia not only violated the ceasefire but also said it would not release her and the other political prisoners and prisoners of war.

“Western governments and PACE (Parliamentary Assembly and Council of Europe) officials have all repeatedly expressed ‘grave concern’ over Nadiya Savchenko’s hunger strike and detention.  They have been disappointingly silent in recent days over this first flagrant violation by Russia of the commitments made in the Minsk 2 agreement. 

“When this silence includes information of critical importance regarding Savchenko’s health, Germany’s insistence on ‘diplomatic solutions’ looks very hollow and suspect at best.

“Defense lawyer Nikolai Polozov reported on Thursday that Savchenko has refused to have any more glucose injections. He told Radio Liberty that the tubes they have inserted have led to an inflammation of the veins, making it impossible to insert any more. The prison staff proposes giving her some kind of ‘protein drink.’  She is refusing to take any food at all, and has stated clearly that she would view any attempt to force-feed her as a form of torture,” Coynash wrote.

At this time, the need for supportive, conscientious doctors to examine Savchenko is critical. Ultimately, she must be released from Russian illegitimate imprisonment.

The US Senate adopted on February 14 a resolution demanding that Moscow immediately release Savchenko. The resolution condemns the Russia for unlawfully jailing Savchenko, calls on the US, Europe and international community to support efforts to free her and other illegally detained Ukrainian citizens, and expresses solidarity with the Ukrainian nation.

The UN Human Rights Office is reportedly preparing a separate appeal on behalf of Savchenko, noting that she has been on a hunger strike for 70 days and that her condition is deteriorating. It is to call on Russia to release her on humanitarian grounds.

“An international team of doctors is needed now, as well as clear and unequivocal reaction to Russia’s failure to comply with the Minsk 2 agreement,” Coynash concluded.

Savchenko’s case must be first on the global to-do list of humanitarian issues.

My interview with Halya Coynash about human rights will appear in a subsequent blog.

#FreeSavchenko (Support Nadiya and use it in your tweets)           

Roundup of Editorials & Columns about Russo-Ukraine War

For more than a year, at least since Maidan 2, the national revolution that ousted Russia’s minions in Ukraine led by Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine has been in the forefront of global news coverage. International interest in Ukraine further increased thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by way of Crimea and shortly afterward the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Traditional and new media have been filled round the clock with stories of Ukrainian heroism and death in the face of Russian crimes and brutality.

Despite the Kremlin’s denials, most everyone, except for the Russian media which has come to be ridiculed and disbelieved for disseminating bald-faced falsehoods, has accepted that Russia and President Putin launched the invasion and war with dual goals of keeping Ukraine from acceding to the European Union and, God forbid, NATO, and ultimately re-subjugating Ukraine.

Beyond the supportive Ukrainian news media, coverage of the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-15 has tended to present Ukraine’s case as a former captive nation that is again feeling the imperial wrath of Russia. However, there have been examples of an abuse of the newsroom principle of balanced reporting. With the absence of stories from enemy’s perspective during World War II, does that mean that the news media of the day presented Nazi Germany in an unfavorable, prejudiced light?

There were disturbing examples of war correspondents writing articles from the standpoint of Russian soldiers and mercenaries. There were also stories that seemed to present equal culpability in today’s degeneration of peace and stability in the region. Fortunately, these incidents were not nearly the majority.

Editorials and pundits’ columns showed sympathy for Ukraine even while opposing arming Ukraine with lethal weapons and pointing out that Vladimir Putin was the victor of Minsk 2. Other publications came out strongly in support of a Ukrainian victory over Russia, arming Ukraine with lethal weapons, intensifying sanctions against Russia and Russians, and opposing Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov.

In this vein, a column’s headline in the New York Post painfully summarized Ukraine’s situation: “The Rape of Ukraine; America Stands By.”

Some editorials and columnists painted Putin as a latter-day Stalin though that pejorative description has more meaning in the free world than it does in Russia, where he is still revered; and they warned against Russian expansion beyond Ukraine, into the Baltics or Poland. Editorialists returned to the war in Ukraine a few times even in the course of a week, occasionally adjusting their positions.

The following are excerpts from an assortment of editorials and columns in American periodicals and news agencies.

Bloomberg

Putin's Ukraine War Is Back

The fighting in Ukraine has returned to an intensity not seen since last summer, and the government claims Russian weapons are once again streaming across the border to support the rebels. So it is a curious moment for the European Union's top foreign policy official to bring up the prospect of normalizing relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Instead, the EU should be bracing to make sure that every member supports sanctions, because unanimity will be needed to extend them in March when they begin to expire…

… Everybody wants to see the sanctions removed someday. Yet to do so before Putin withdraws Russian troops from Ukraine and its border, and before that border is put under the control of international monitors, would be to waste the pressure already applied. It would also put significant trust in Russia's good faith -- even though there's been little evidence lately that such trust is warranted.

Russia continues to support the separatists militarily while lying about it. Putin says he wants peace and even sent a letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposing that both sides withdraw heavy artillery from the front lines. Yet this offer came only after a rebel assault had driven Ukrainian forces from the fiercely contested Donetsk airport and Ukrainian tanks were smashing their way back in. A withdrawal at that point would have consolidated the gains of pro-Russia fighters, so Poroshenko refused, as Putin knew he must…

… Putin seems always to assume the EU will be too weak and disunited to say no to him. By imposing economic sanctions, Europe's leaders surprised him. Until Putin puts a full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine on the table, the EU has to maintain its unanimous resolve. 

Bloomberg, January 20, 2015

Why Arming Ukraine Will Backfire

… Ukraine is already buying weapons from other countries in the region, but if anything can stir the Russian people to accept an open war with fellow Slavs in Ukraine (so far they don't), it is the idea that they would be fighting not Ukrainians but NATO, the military alliance they have grown up believing was bent on their destruction. A U.S. intention to provide only "defensive" weapons may be an important distinction in the U.S., but it's meaningless in Russia. Anti-tank weapons and even radar that allows Ukraine's military to locate and strike enemy artillery positions will still kill Russian soldiers. They would be perceived by ordinary Russians as offensive weapons, even without help from Russia's inflammatory propaganda machine.

These are large risks that can't be waved away. If the goal of military assistance is not to defeat Russia and its proxies, but to pressure Putin, then the weapons would have to be accompanied by a plausible diplomatic track. Yet the law that President Petro Poroshenko signed in December to end Ukraine's neutral status and set a course for membership in NATO has removed the minimum requirement for diplomacy leading to peace.

The U.S. and its allies should make clear to Ukraine that its NATO ambitions are unrealistic. Right or wrong, the alliance doesn’t want Ukraine, and Russia sees its membership in NATO as a red line. So long as that’s the case, the U.S. should stay out of eastern Ukraine.

Bloomberg, February 3

Putin Can't Have the Last Laugh in Ukraine

Say this much for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: His comments Saturday on his country’s role in Ukraine were so absurd that they united Europe. Now the challenge is to turn that laughter and derision into something more constructive…

… In the U.S., meanwhile, and in several ex-Soviet-bloc states in Europe, there is growing sentiment to supply Ukraine with defensive weapons in order to counter advances by Russian-supported separatists. Lavrov's delusions effectively undermine the logic of this position. If Russian President Vladimir Putin sees everything that has happened in Ukraine in the last year as part of a U.S. and NATO plot against Russia, then a U.S. or NATO arms program is unlikely to cause him to rethink either his position or his strategy.

That might happen if Putin believed the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were ready to do whatever it takes to defeat him in Ukraine. But he knows they aren’t.

Part of the problem is that the West is deluding itself, too -- about the level of commitment necessary to drive Russia out of Ukraine. A failure to recognize this could result in the worst of all worlds: a Russian invasion that leaves Ukraine dismembered and deep fissures both within the EU and between the EU and the U.S…

… A stronger commitment to spend whatever it takes to keep Ukraine financially solvent while defending itself is just as important, accompanied by a promise from Ukraine that it will not join NATO. In return, Putin should be required to withdraw Russian troops, allow an international force to seal the border and accept that Ukraine gets to choose its own government and trading partners.

These are the kinds of issues that should be on the table as representatives from Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine meet later this week in Minsk, Belarus. If the U.S. and Europe instead split over whether to give Ukraine anti-tank weapons, or insist on continuing an unproductive debate about just how warped Lavrov's worldview is, then Putin will get the last laugh.

Bloomberg, February 8, 2015

Chicago Tribune

Stop Stalling. Arm Ukraine.

… Putin likely won't be satisfied with last year's conquest of Crimea, one vital component of Ukraine. He wants a larger chunk of Ukraine if not other lands as well. He seeks to recapture Soviet glory. Stoking the conflict in eastern Ukraine keeps the pressure on the West-leaning Ukrainian government. It undercuts the democratically elected leaders there and sends a shiver through other Russian neighbors.

Putin isn't deterred by the tough economic sanctions that the European Union and the U.S. have imposed. Nor is he slowed by the tumbling price of oil and his country's crumbling economy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's scolding hasn't stopped him. His domestic approval rating is stratospherically high. (Then again, what would you say to a Russian pollster about the ruthless Putin?)

Putin dares the West to deliver on its threats of deeper sanctions. So far, it hasn't. In its last meeting, the EU extended current sanctions but showed little appetite to ratchet up the pressure.

So Putin leans in. He'll stop meddling in Ukraine only when the cost exceeds his ability to pay.

Strength is a currency Putin respects. The West has to arm Ukraine to punch back.

Chicago Tribune, February 4, 2015

Los Angeles Times

U.S. Giving Ukraine a Defensive Military Boost

… Fearful of provoking a new Cold War with Russia, the Obama administration has for months resisted pleas that it provide weapons to the government of Ukraine. This page has supported that cautious policy, worrying that military assistance to the government in Kiev would seem to create a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia.

But the collapse of a cease-fire and recent gains by Russian-supported separatists are causing U.S. officials to question their policy of relying on economic sanctions to alter Russian behavior. There are good reasons for such a reconsideration…

… There is no guarantee that arming Ukraine will succeed in persuading Putin to change course, but we believe the administration should make the effort. In doing so, however, the administration must strive to preserve a united front on economic sanctions with European nations such as Germany that choose not to provide military aid. It also should continue to encourage negotiations on the political future of Ukraine.

Finally, the U.S. must emphasize why it is acting: not to move a pawn on what Obama once called a "Cold War chessboard" but to support the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine and every other nation in Europe. If Russia wants a respectful hearing for its views about the future of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, it will commit itself to the same principles.

Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2015

Ukraine Agreement could Vindicate Use of Sanctions

Assuming it doesn’t unravel — a big assumption — the agreement on the future of Ukraine announced last week is preferable to the continuation of a conflict in which 5,000 people have died and nearly a million have been displaced. The deal, negotiated by Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, calls for a “comprehensive” cease-fire and envisions a political settlement that would preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity while granting some autonomy to pro-Russian regions of the country…

It’s crucial that all parties to this agreement abide by its provisions, which also include the withdrawal of heavy weapons, amnesty for separatists and new political arrangements, beginning with interim self-rule for areas in Donetsk and Luhansk. From the standpoint of Ukraine’s sovereignty, the most important provision is the requirement that foreign troops be withdrawn. Bizarrely, Russia agreed to this provision even as it continued to maintain that its forces never crossed into Ukraine…

If Russia is now willing to cease its military subversion in Ukraine in exchange for autonomy for pro-Russian regions, that’s a positive development. It is also, arguably, a vindication of economic sanctions. But, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, the agreement offers a “glimmer of hope,” not a guarantee, that this conflict will be resolved peacefully.

Los Angeles Times, February 13

New York Post

The Rape of Ukraine; America Stands By

By Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama touted his Ukraine strategy as a demonstration of “the power of American strength and diplomacy.” Word of this stirring success has yet to reach the Kremlin.

While President Obama praised his mastery, Russia’s troops and associated thugs were pressing ahead with the on-and-off invasion of Eastern Ukraine that has seized roughly another 200 square miles of territory the last few months…

… Russian President Vladimir Putin believes in the power of lies and brute force and implicitly asks, in the spirit of Joseph Stalin, “How many divisions do international norms have?” …

… To lend a symbolic poignancy to the end of the Minsk agreement, pro-Russian forces shelled the city hall in the Ukrainian town of Debaltseve that had served as the cease-fire control center under the Minsk agreement.

Give them credit, Putin’s minions leaven their murderous disregard for civilian life with a perverse sense of humor…

… The Ukrainian government wants to defend its territory and had some success at it last August, before regular Russian military units entered the fight.

It is a democratically elected government that is determined to make itself part of the West and is getting dismembered for the offense of replacing a Putin-style kleptocrat…

… There is no appeasing Putin. Frankly, there is no directly stopping him, either. It is only possible to raise the costs to him of his war, including the military costs.

If we won’t provide military materiel to Ukraine now, we deserve the contempt with which Putin regards us.

New York Post & Columbia Tribune, February 2, 2015

The New York Times

Making the Ukraine Cease-Fire Stick

The last cease-fire negotiated in Minsk, in September, quickly unraveled, and the new one is very limited, leaving hard problems to be settled in coming weeks and months. And in the end, it is still for Mr. Putin to decide whether this is to be a real step toward peace or just another cynical feint in his campaign to dismember Ukraine.

Mr. Putin won a lot in Minsk. The fact that the cease-fire is to start on Sunday — and not immediately, as the Ukrainians wanted — gives the Ukrainian separatists a couple more days to press their siege on Debaltseve, a key rail hub where thousands of Ukrainian troops are surrounded, and in their attack on the Black Sea port of Mariupol. If the cease-fire does take hold, which is far from certain, both sides are to pull their heavy weapons out of range of each other. Then the deal requires both sides to withdraw “foreign” fighters and equipment, though Mr. Putin has never acknowledged the obvious presence of Russian forces and weapons in eastern Ukraine.

On the political side, the agreement says Ukraine can recover full control over its border with Russia by the end of 2015, after local elections in rebel-held areas and constitutional changes that would give these areas considerable autonomy. The degree of self-rule for pro-Russian regions of eastern Ukraine is at the core of any sustainable settlement, but the negotiations will take place while Russia remains free to move men and equipment over the border.

In short, the deal is a bitter pill for Mr. Poroshenko. But he was right to accept it, and Ms. Merkel and Mr. Hollande were right to press it…

What remains incontrovertible is that Ukraine is Mr. Putin’s war. Mr. Putin has been offered a far better deal than he deserves. Now it is imperative for the West to keep his feet to the fire; there should be no easing of sanctions until he demonstrates a willingness to live by the agreements reached in Minsk. And if he does not, there should be no doubt of more sanctions.

The New York Times, February 13, 2015

Western Illusions over Ukraine

By Roger Cohen

The most difficult thing for a communist, it has been observed, is to predict the past. I was reminded of this as I listened to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in full Soviet mode at the Munich Security Conference, suggesting that after World War II it was “the Soviet Union that was against splitting Germany.”

People laughed; they guffawed. Germans recall the Soviet clamp on the east of the country and the Berlin Wall. But in a way Lavrov was right: The Soviet Union would have been quite happy to swallow all of Germany, given the chance.

Today, in similar fashion, President Vladimir Putin’s Russia would be quite happy to absorb all of Ukraine, which it views as an extension of the motherland, an upstart deluded by the West into imagining independent statehood…

… In fact, the Russian annexation of Crimea tore up by forceful means “the territorial integrity” and “political independence” of Ukraine, in direct violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. It also shredded Russia’s formal commitment under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 to respect Ukraine’s international borders. The “nationalistic violence” that has again raised issues of war and peace in Europe stems not from Kiev but from Moscow, where Putin has cultivated a preposterous fable of encirclement, humiliation and Western depredation to generate hysteria and buttress Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine…

… The Russian leader has invoked history the better to turn it into farce. He has persevered in the nonsense that all the Russian forces and matériel in eastern Ukraine are figments of the world’s imagination.

The New York Times, February 9, 2015

Newsday

Crisis in Ukraine

The spinning wheel of foreign crises these last few weeks has landed mostly on the Islamic State group and the Middle East. But Vladimir Putin’s continuing attempts to conquer Ukraine are back on top after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande made an emergency trip on Friday to meet with the Russian president.

The two leaders have failed to persuade Putin to stop his aggressive moves to annex several regions of the former Soviet satellite. And heavy fighting has caused more than 1.5 million people to flee their homes….

… As Ukraine fights to survive, there are likely to be more economic sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as demands in Washington that more weaponry be sent to the beleaguered Ukrainian army.

Escalation is likely, peace is not.

Newsday, February 6, 2015

Standard-Times

West Dithers while Ukraine Struggles

… In the meantime, while the West is assessing and considering, the government and the rebels, with covert help from Moscow, are waging a bloody battle over the city of Debaltseve, a rail and road hub, control of which would unify the two rebel-held areas.

That would make eastern Ukraine effectively a semiautonomous region subservient to Moscow, joining the other cowed ministates — Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Moldova, Crimea — with which Moscow is padding its border.

Chancellor Merkel is in Washington this week and Secretary of State John Kerry is in Kiev. This may be the week that decides whether Ukraine remains whole and democratic — unless, of course, the leaders of the West decide more "assessments" are needed.

San Angelo Standard-Times, February 5, 2015

Star Tribune

Send Ukraine Defensive Arms

The United States and other NATO nations should send lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine to help that country better protect itself against Russian-backed rebels, as well as to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that his illegal, immoral aggression will not go unchecked by the West.

To be sure, Western nations have taken Putin’s moves seriously and have responded with relatively effective economic sanctions. Combined with the collapse of the price of oil, the sanctions have sent the Russian economy reeling.

But clearly this is not enough. The separatists, aided by Russian troops that NATO estimates at up to 1,000 and Ukraine estimates at up to 9,000, are on the march. The results are tragic…

… This isn’t only about Ukraine. Putin has menaced neighboring nations with his revanchist policies, and the West’s current timid course may embolden him to make a military miscalculation that could spark a broader war, especially if he moved on Baltic members of NATO…

… Russia is counting on the West to hesitate. The West cannot afford to. It should consider levying even stricter sanctions. And just as the United States and the European Union tried to deter Russia and the Ukrainian separatists economically, it should do so militarily by sending lethal defensive aid, giving the preferred method of crisis resolution, diplomacy, a fighting chance.

Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 2, 2015

Peace Talks in Ukraine are the Best Way Forward

There’s no “winning” strategy for dealing with Russia’s unrelenting incursions into the Ukraine — just a choice between greater and lesser evils.

Armed escalation, with Western powers providing modern weapons to Ukraine, seems particularly fraught with peril. Yet the status quo won’t do…

… But given the Ukrainian government’s weakness and the limited alternatives available to the West, an agreed upon end to the fighting — even with disappointing conditions — remains the best way forward…

… Nothing else has worked so far. Economic sanctions imposed almost a year ago, as Putin seized the Crimea, have sapped Russia’s economic growth, set the ruble on a downward slide and slammed its entrepreneurial class. An unexpected plunge in oil prices escalated this damage, and Russia has been repeatedly snubbed on the global diplomatic stage. But none of that has changed Putin’s behavior or halted Russian-back attacks in Ukraine. And there’s no indication of when it might.

The threat of facing Ukrainian forces carrying sophisticated weapons supplied by the United States opens another channel for applying pressure on Putin. Whether such an escalation should be more than a threat — and actually carried out — requires further evaluation, especially in light of opposition from Merkel and other Western powers. For now, it’s at least a useful bargaining chip toward obtaining a less-miserable outcome for Ukraine.

Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 10, 2015

Tampa Tribune

Obama's Ukraine Choice

If President Barack Obama follows the advice of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he'll do so knowing that prominent Republicans strongly disagree with Merkel's no-arms approach to the crisis in Ukraine.

Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker (chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee) have all supported sending lethal weapons to help Ukrainians thwart the separatists seeking to oust the government from the eastern part of the country.,,

… In short, political and military objectives aside, many Ukrainians are seriously suffering the consequences of conflict.

Should Obama accept Merkel's advice to stick with sanctions and other nonlethal tactics, he'll face criticism in the Senate. His tendency to want to avoid conflict may be supported by a war-weary public but has not proved particularly successful, particularly in Iraq, which the president was too eager to abandon…

… The president must be mindful of these domestic divisions as he decides what would be the best U.S. contribution to the international effort to aid the Ukrainian government. There's urgency involved. More than 5,000 civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and pro-separatist fighters have been killed since the separatist campaign began in earnest.

The Western nations need to persuade Putin to belatedly honor the September agreement that called for a cease-fire and the removal of Russian troops and weapons from eastern Ukraine.

He, more than anyone, holds the fate of Ukraine in his hands.

Whatever Obama's decision, it will be difficult and eventful. But his decision won't be as crucial as Putin's.

Tampa Tribune, February 10, 2015

USA Today

Arm Ukraine to Deter Putin: Our View

For most of the past year, Russian President Vladimir Putin's stealth invasion of Ukraine has been out of the spotlight, overshadowed by the sudden rise of the terrorist group Islamic State. But Russia, with nuclear arms and Putin's czarist ambitions, has always posed the greater threat, and it is becoming glaringly obvious that the West's strategy of deterring Putin with economic sanctions is failing…

… Left undeterred, there is no reason to believe Putin will stop there. He has already menaced Latvia and Estonia, both Baltic nations are members of NATO, obligating the U.S. to defend them if they're attacked.

The purpose of arming Ukraine is to pre-empt that threat and to preserve the post-Cold War security order Putin seems bent on destroying…

… As the cost of war rises, and as Russia's economy continues to sink under the weight of sanctions and falling oil prices, the more likely it is that Putin's popularity, built on stoking nationalist passions, will dissipate — a prospect he cannot easily ignore.

To further counter Putin's ambitions, the U.S. should beef up NATO and put at least a tripwire force into the Baltics. But sending arms to Ukraine is something that can be done quickly if Obama chooses to do so, as he should.

Sanctions were the right first step, but they have failed. The choices now are to increase the costs for Putin or to appease him. That should not be a hard choice to make.

USA Today, February 4, 2015

The Wall Street Journal

Putin’s Latest Victory

The Minsk accord ratifies a Russian satrapy in Ukraine

The last time the Kremlin signed an agreement to end the war in Ukraine—as recently as September—it promised to withdraw “military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries” from the war zone, ban offensive operations and abide by an immediate cease-fire. In exchange the Ukrainian government granted unprecedented political autonomy to its rebellious eastern regions.

Moscow and its proxy militias in Ukraine have been violating the so-called Minsk Protocol ever since. Russian troops and equipment have poured across the Ukrainian border to support the separatists. Together they have seized an additional 200 square miles of territory, rained deadly rocket fire on the port city of Mariupol and encircled thousands of Ukrainian troops defending a strategic railway link in the village of Debaltseve…

… Then again, nobody should be surprised if this cease-fire collapses as quickly as the last one did. The eagerness with which France and Germany proved willing to renegotiate a cease-fire that Mr. Putin had already broken only shows that future violations will carry no real price. So he will continue to alternate between brute force and fake diplomacy, as his political needs require.

Having ratified a rump Russia in Ukraine, Europe and the U.S. should be planning to deter Mr. Putin’s next move. That would mean broader sanctions to exacerbate his economic troubles at home, as well as arming Ukraine to raise the cost to Mr. Putin when he next breaks the cease-fire.

This would include forward NATO deployments in the Baltic states that would complicate an attempt to stir ethnic Russian populations in those former Soviet satellites. And it would include more efforts to export U.S. natural gas to Europe to reduce Mr. Putin’s energy leverage over neighboring states.

Instead the West is likely to use the cease-fire as an excuse to do little or nothing. Mr. Putin will consolidate his latest victory, survey the European landscape for weak spots, and make another move before America gets a new President who might do more to resist his conquests.

The Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2015

The Washington Post

Ukraine needs Strong Western Support to Fend off Russia’s Aggression

Though President Obama has yet to agree, proposals that the United States supply Ukraine with defensive weapons have already had a tangible impact. On Friday, they prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande to rush to Moscow in what looked like a long-shot attempt to broker a peace deal with Vladi­mir Putin…

… Other than the talk in Washington about arms supplies, the West has given Mr. Putin no incentive to drop his new offensive, which appears aimed at expanding the territory held by Russian proxies to the point where it can become a de facto statelet, like those Moscow has set up in occupied areas of Georgia and Moldova. European Union leaders and the Obama administration have discussed new sanctions, but so far those have been limited to individuals. Steps that might inflict significant further damage to the battered Russian economy, such as the exclusion of its banks from an international payment system, remain off the table…

… Yet to push Mr. Poroshenko toward such an accord while denying him the means to resist an invasion gives him few alternatives other than to capitulate to the Kremlin.

There’s nothing wrong in talking with Mr. Putin, provided that the West’s message is clear. Russia should be required to withdraw all its forces and equipment from Ukraine, reestablish the border under international monitoring and cease its support for a separatist statelet — or face a significant escalation of economic sanctions and a Ukrainian army with better weapons.

The Washington Post, February 6, 2015

The Ukraine Cease-fire Does Little to Restrain Mr. Putin

It was far from clear Thursday if a new accord on Ukraine would last long enough for the implementation of its first and most tangible provision, a cease-fire set to begin Sunday. If it does, Ukrainians may be spared, at least temporarily, the deaths of more soldiers and civilians and the loss of more territory to Russian aggression. However, the deal brokered by German and French leaders with Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin does little to restrain his ambition to create a puppet state in eastern Ukraine that could be used to sabotage the rest of the country. In fact, in the unlikely event that its terms are fully carried out, the pact would enable his project…

… In exchange for the promise of a “deescalation” that was their overriding goal, the European leaders induced Mr. Poroshenko to accept terms that give Mr. Putin a veto over any final political settlement in eastern Ukraine — and permission to continue violating the country’s sovereignty in the meantime…

Mr. Obama was content to stand back while Germany and France struck the deal, and the State Department quickly endorsed it. The administration rightly said that it would consider easing existing sanctions on Russia only when the agreement is “fully implemented,” including “the withdrawal of all foreign troops and equipment from Ukraine [and] the full restoration of Ukrainian control of the international border.” But without additional economic and military pressure, Mr. Putin will never meet those terms.

The Washington Post, February 12, 2015

Ukraine Sold down the River, Again

By Jennifer Rubin, Right Turn blog for The Post

It is not often Europe gets to throw a country to the wolves twice. But that’s precisely what the European Union — quickly applauded by the Obama administration — has done with regard to Ukraine. To call it a “truce” is a farce…

… It is not hard to see why our allies are so unnerved and aggressors are so emboldened. Congress can vote sanctions on Iran. It can vote for aid to Ukraine or to Syria, but ultimately it is the commander in chief who must follow through and present a believable threat to rogue regimes. The president has not the will nor the ability to do so. We’ll see aggressors grab whatever they can get (nukes, territory) in the next two years while there is a U.S. president who lacks the will to stop them.

The Washington Post, February 12, 2015

Russia should be Prosecuted for Its Crimes against Humanity

By Paul Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2009, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

…There is also consensus that Russian activities in Ukraine are destabilizing European security and have violated numerous international legal norms.

Unfortunately, a robust, punitive Western response, deterring Moscow from future misconduct, has been lacking. Even worse is that the West has proven unable to distinguish different types of Russian misconduct, much less to deal with them in a differentiated fashion.

Russia’s grave violations of international humanitarian norms, especially the law of armed conflict, should be a main target of Western criticism, drawing a decisive response. That response should come not only in the form of diplomatic and economic sanctions but also include investigations and prosecutions at the International Criminal Court at The Hague...

Hence, the court’s failure to take action against Moscow’s war crimes casts doubt on its integrity. This is particularly poignant because the ICC was created to ensure that war criminals would not be accorded immunity and that purely legal imperatives, rather than politics, would drive prosecutorial actions. As such, the ICC’s inaction should be of grave concern to European states and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, particularly the International Committee of the Red Cross, which have been the primary movers in the Rome Statute negotiations.

Failure to call Russia to account will only embolden Moscow to continue on its course of action. Pragmatic and legal imperatives call for a course correction. This is a rare circumstance in international affairs, and it’s one not to be forfeited. As European leaders continue to consider how to deal with Russia’s aggression, the ICC investigation of Russian war crimes should be at the top of the agenda.

The Washington Post, February 12, 2015

A Cynical Ukraine Cease-fire is better than none

Friday morning's cease-fire agreement for Ukraine is horribly flawed, yet far better than the alternative: Without it, the country would continue losing lives, territory and hope for a more stable and prosperous future — whether or not the U.S. sends arms…

… Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was negotiating from a far weaker position. But this agreement at least creates a framework for his country to regain control of the Russian frontier, ensuring that Ukraine can remain whole and free…

… Unfortunately, though, in a clear concession to Putin, the agreement turns re-establishing the border into a process that will take at least until the end of the year, after the separatists have consented, the two regions have held elections, and Ukraine has adopted a new constitution. Until then, Russia may continue to supply the rebels with weapons and troops as needed, until it gets what it wants from the government in Kiev…

… The U.S. and the European Union will need to add their support by supplying more money, more technical support for reform-minded ministers in Kiev, and continued pressure on Putin to abide by the cease-fire and get the border sealed.

After last September's agreement was reached, Western leaders let down their guard, even proposing to end economic sanctions against Russia. They cannot afford to make the same mistake this time. The new cease-fire is welcome, but it is at best the beginning of a process to achieve peace in Ukraine.

The Washington Post, February 15, 2015

Faulty Minsk Truce Accords for Intimidated Ukraine

The road to a ceasefire in the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-15, as well as the return to peace and stability in Ukraine and the region, is troubling because of its injustice and hypocrisy.

Ukraine was hogtied and dragged to the negotiating table by three frightened countries – Great Britain, France and Germany, and the invader, perpetrator and criminal – Russia. When has a lawbreaker been summoned as an equal in negotiations regarding a settlement of its crimes against a violated country? Ukraine was also coerced into considering a pre-mature truce by the flawed opinions of pundits, analysts and others that opined it’s time for the Russo-Ukraine War to end regardless of where is the front line and for the combatants to live side-by-side peacefully. Everyone naively believes their lives will then return to normal.

On Thursday the participating parties signed another defective 13-point truce agreement, which will begin on Sunday, February 15, and Russia will surely violate this one as it did the previous truces along with other global treaties and accords that it had agreed to.

The number of countries supporting Ukraine such as USA, Great Britain, Canada and Australia has been encouraging. Sadly, the abundant press coverage and fraternity of pundits have tended to treat Ukraine and Russia equally in their coverage, going even so far as to attempt to write from the points of view of Vladimir Putin, other Russian leaders and Russian terrorists.

The news writers focused on the war, which has claimed more than 5,000 Ukrainian lives, as if it were an unrelated slice of history stemming solely from Putin’s regime rather than the national destructive mentality with its roots in Russian antiquity. The absurdity of inviting Russia to the peace talks was never addressed leading me to believe that none of the writers have ever studied the Allies’ view of their arch enemy of the time, Nazi Germany with its dictator Adolf Hitler.

Case in point from Bloomberg News: “And after marathon talks they produced a cease-fire agreement that – if implemented – might stop the fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“But even if it does that, the agreement does little to address the real issue at the heart of the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow: Ukraine’s future political direction.”

This narrow-minded opinion states that future political direction of the region and its independent states is based solely on Russia’s view only of Ukraine’s course. That type of thinking has also been ingrained in the capitals of the free world countries since the days of the tsars: What will Moscow do about Kyiv’s future?

Others have observed that Russia, which has denied being involved in the war even in the face of photo evidence, is winning the war with Ukraine and consequently Kyiv does not deserve lethal military aid that would enflame Russia. Actually, despite Russia’s advances, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, National Guard and volunteer battalions have been better than holding up their own against a non-plundered, well-funded Russian military machine.

In the absence of a global coalition mobilized to defeat Russia just like the world did against Nazi Germany 70 years ago, today’s leaders should at least force Russia to unconditionally cease the war that it launched and is waging without regard for its proclaimed reason for igniting it – its deceitful assertion that it is defending the language rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine.

Twelve months ago Russia invaded without legal or moral pretext Ukraine on two fronts: southern via Crimea and southeastern via the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Consequently, there is only one issue to deal with: Russia is the guilty party and it must relent before the world can return to peace and stability. The USA, Great Britain, France and Germany must focus on resolving this crime by forcing Russia to unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine. War reparations seem to be beyond consideration today but demands for them are not without precedence.

The superfluous Minsk accords are similar to the 12-point version signed last fall. Both are intended to force Ukraine into making unjust and questionable concessions to Russia and its terrorists in Ukraine.

It calls for Ukrainian armed forces and Russian terrorists to withdraw heavy weapons and troops by the start of the ceasefire on February 15. It states that “Militant forces are to withdraw from the demarcation line established by the 19 September 2014 Minsk memorandum” without specifically stating that they must withdraw to a safe buffer zone in Russia.  

It calls for the release of prisoners of war – called hostages and detainees in the document. Supporters of Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian army pilot that was kidnapped to Russia and incarcerated, and has become the subject of a worldwide defense campaign #FreeSavchenko, immediately raised hopes that she may be included in that group. While well wishes are warranted, all sides should understand that she is not the reason for the war nor the goal of the peace process but only a consequence of it. Her freedom should not take our eyes of the real goal – Russian expulsion from Ukraine.

The most unwarranted points pertain to the administrative future of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Russia’s ultimatum for autonomy for Luhansk and Donetsk was quickly quashed by President Poroshenko. He was quoted as adamantly declaring that autonomy is not under consideration and that Russian demands are unacceptable.

“It wasn’t easy – we were presented with various unacceptable conditions,” Poroshenko was quoted as saying. “We rebuffed all ultimatums.”

Answering journalists’ questions whether the autonomy of the oblasts has been discussed, Poroshenko noted that despite rigid insistence, he didn’t support the autonomy status. “Broadening of powers of the Ukrainian regions will take place solely under the constitutional amendments on decentralization. We didn't yield to any compromise on federalization,” he said.

As he did last fall, Poroshenko again agreed to review the two oblasts’ administrative structure in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine but without specifying what will happen to them. Putin, Russian observers, some journalists and others interpreted this as meaning that the oblasts may be granted autonomy, which is illegal according to Ukrainian laws and would be dangerous for the indivisibility and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The three non-combatant countries party to the truce agreement should consider how they would react if Bavaria, Northern Ireland or Normandy unexpectedly began a war for their independence.

President Poroshenko’s position on this point, at least, was beyond reproach.

Luhansk and Donetsk have no more rights or privileges to demand independence or autonomy than do the Lviv and Ternopil oblasts or New York or California in the USA. Perhaps there should be a discussion about America-styled states-rights issues but that should be undertaken in a calm atmosphere after Russia has withdrawn to a safe region beyond the border of Ukraine and has stopped instigating local hotheads against Kyiv.

While Kyiv is officially calling Crimea occupied Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula was not mentioned in the ceasefire treaty. Has everyone forgotten about it or just temporarily shunted it aside? Leaving Crimea off the table will make it difficult to resurrect the issue of returning it to Ukraine later.

Another intolerable and offensive point in the treaty reads: “An amnesty must be introduced to prevent prosecution or punishment for those connected with events in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.” Absolutely not.

Russian terrorists – soldiers or mercenaries – who murdered, harmed and raped civilians must be brought to justice regardless of this agreement. Those who downed the Malaysian airliner must also be brought to justice. Amnesty for criminals and mass murderers must not be sanctioned.

These accords have turned Ukraine, the aggrieved victim of Russian aggression, into the criminal and forced it to agree to groundless terms to satisfy and absolve Russia.

Furthermore, the agreement offers more proof that the non-combatant participants were prepared to placate Russia at the cost of Ukraine’s interests. Ukraine was made to bear sole responsibility and culpability for being invaded by Russia.

And what is Russia’s punishment? What has it agree to do? Absolutely nothing. Moscow got away scot-free, which will certainly make its quest for world domination more audacious. The free world has been revealed as a paper tiger.

An incorrigible, unrepentant, invincible Putin and Russia will not be restrained from penetrating Ukraine with its terrorists up to the Polish border and then beyond, as many political analysts have warned.

The negotiations were still ongoing when Col. Andriy Lysenko, the Ukrainian military spokesman, announced that some 50 tanks, 40 missile systems and 40 armored vehicles have crossed overnight into east Ukraine from Russia via Izvaryne border crossing into the Luhansk region.

“The enemy continues to strengthen its forces in the most dangerous areas, especially in north-east Luhansk region and in the direction of Debaltseve,” Lysenko said, referring to a strategic transport hub that has been the focus of heavy fighting in recent weeks.

Other reports have Russian terrorists donning Ukrainian military uniforms in preparation for new battles.

The ink was still drying when the European Union indicated that in view of the ceasefire agreement they would consider relieving sanctions against Russia. A US Statement Department spokesperson also said that while in its view Russia is not absolved of its aggression, it will nonetheless look closely at the sanctions based on the truce agreement.

Just like freedom for prisoners of war isn’t a goal of the peace process, neither is the mere conclusion of a truce agreement. Ukraine’s advocates must maintain a hardline against Russia and avoid any hint of lifting sanctions against this terrorist state.

President Obama’s comment earlier this week was laudatory compared with his earlier remarks. In a one-on-one conversation Tuesday, Obama personally and rather undiplomatically warned Putin that unless an acceptable peace deal is reached in talks in Minsk, Russia will face increased costs for its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and its continued support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Truce is a half-step toward a higher goal, which must not fall to the wayside. Ukraine and the Ukrainian people deserve peace and stability a quarter of a century into its latest attempt to build a sovereign, independent, democratic and unitary state. They also deserve a life without Russia breathing down its neck. Unfortunately, with subterfuge, sabotage, persecution, repression, murder and war, Russia has perennially violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and border.

Peace and stability will return to the region after the following points are met:

1. USA and the free world must arm Ukraine so it can subdue the Russian terrorists;

2. USA and the free world must stop intimidating Ukraine into accepting unjust terms;

3. Ukraine must not be forced to cower while the free world ponders its next steps;

4. Russia must be exposed as the terrorist state that it is;

5. Sanctions against Russia must not be lifted while Russian terrorists are on Ukrainian land;

6. Russia must be forced to unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine to a safe region in Russia far from the Ukrainian border;

7. Russia must stop instigating its hothead sympathizers against Kyiv.

Anything short of this and Ukrainians can expect more bullying and terrorism from Russia.

Draft Dodgers and Oligarchs’ War

In recent blogs, posts and tweets, I wrote about the disturbing revelation of draft dodgers in Ukraine. With their homeland in a life-and-death war with Russia, young men are using every opportunity to avoid enlisting in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, instead choosing life in the near or far diaspora as a way of saving themselves.

What was most startling about this news was that the young men come mostly from western Ukraine, the heart of patriotic, nationalistic Ukraine that in the past proudly sent its heroic boys to fight for and defend Ukraine’s sovereign independence.

I first read about Ukrainian draft dodgers on a reliable Ternopil-based news website. The local draft board had raised a warning about the high number of young men who had refused to report for military duty, despite appealing to their sense of patriotism. The official noted that the potential recruits decided to avoid the issue by hightailing to any one of the diaspora communities around the world through Ukraine’s porous border with its eastern European neighbors. From there to the USA, Canada or elsewhere is not a great complication because most families in western Ukraine have relatives in the diaspora who will be cajoled into providing them with necessary documents.

Thinking that these young men are consciously abandoning Ukraine in its time of dire need, I suggested that they should be greeted with white feathers in New York City, Chicago, Toronto or other towns.

However, a few days later I read in the same Ternopil website that the issue has not simply been escaping from Ukraine to avoid military service. Sounding somewhat akin to conscientious objectors, these unwilling conscripts were expressing their disdain for draft corruption and favoritism of the elite, while denouncing the 12-month-old war with Russia as an oligarchs’ war. I inquired with urban and rural Ternopil residents and learned that contrary to the early bravado of enlisting and fighting the heathen Russians, today young men are reluctant to enlist because, as they charged, “the oligarchs aren’t fighting, they’re only mobilizing the underprivileged.” Rural residents have even blocked draft board officials’ access to their towns and villages.

“The oligarchs aren’t going to fight, the deputies (parliamentarians) aren’t going to fight, their sons aren’t going, nobody is going. Only the children of the poor from the villages are being mobilized, those who can’t buy their way out,” an angry resident of Ostapye was quoted as saying.

This is an incredible turn of events in Ukraine, which has undergone a major political and national transformation since the second Maidan that ousted corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian band of thieves. The scorn against Yanukovych has been so vitriolic since then that the Verkhovna Rada was forced to formally retract his questionably obtained title of President of Ukraine.

The new, promising pro-Ukrainian leadership, beginning with President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, who everyday demonstrate a high dose of patriotism and scrupulousness in running Ukraine, is not fulfilling its mandate of transparency beginning with themselves thus angering the people. It’s become a public secret that Poroshenko has not divested himself of his candy factory in Russia and ship building yard in occupied Crimea.

My airborne friend from Lviv confirmed this contempt by youth, saying draft-aged men from rural districts are not inclined to enlist when the President’s 26-year-old son is serving in parliament rather than on the frontlines of the war.

“Why is the recruit provided with clothes, footwear, equipment, flak jackets, helmet, sleeping bag, etc., by his family and village (and even the diaspora – TC)? Why are children of parliamentarians, prosecutors, judges and cops continuing to go to restaurants and drive around in jeeps costing 50-100,000 bucks?” he rhetorically asked.

Indeed, residents of one community not far from Ternopil has been sending weekly to the front lines a truck filled with food and supplies for their native sons.

Is petty and grand larceny, corruption and vice irreversibly ingrained in the Ukrainian mentality? Ukrainians continue to live by the adage why buy something when you can steal it – favors, positions, placement, laws and regulations, permits, academic grades, diplomas and draft exemptions – just like their parents and grandparents did in Soviet times.

And almost simultaneously England’s The Guardian published an article “Welcome to Ukraine, the Most Corrupt Nation in Europe.”

Its editors questioned: “While the conflict with Russia heats up in the east, life for most Ukrainians is marred by corruption so endemic that even hospitals appear to be infected. Can anyone clean the country up?”

The newspaper further observed: “Kyiv has a grand opera house, cathedrals, chain stores, sweeping central avenues, a metro, everything required to make a place look European. But it resembles a modern European capital city only in the way the Cancer Institute resembles a hospital. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide – rates Ukraine 142nd in the world, alongside Uganda. In the latest ranking, it fell behind Nigeria.

“Since 1991 (the year Ukraine declared its independence from the USSR), officials, members of parliament and businessmen have created complex and highly lucrative schemes to plunder the state budget. The theft has crippled Ukraine. The economy was as large as Poland’s at independence, now it is a third of the size. Ordinary Ukrainians have seen their living standards stagnate, while a handful of oligarchs have become billionaires.”

Sadly, a high level of corruption still exists in Ukraine despite three government ministers who participated in the Maidan revolution and another three who came from outside Ukraine, including one from the United States. One must believe that the government’s efforts to save Ukraine from drowning in a cesspool of vice are continuing at a hectic pace, but unfortunately they seem inadequate due to the depth of poisonous sludge that has stigmatized the people and country. And now this toxic condition threatens Ukraine’s ability to fight an already unequal war with its archenemy, Russia.

“What is most important, in my opinion, is that not one reform has been initiated, no one has been brought to justice for the crimes on Maidan, the destruction of the army, judges on the take, and so on. So a third Maidan is brewing and it will be more fearsome and cruel. The people are tolerant because of the war but at any moment this cup can overflow,” my friend observed.

He said Poroshenko and Yatseniuk must stay in Ukraine, actively pursuing reforms rather than showing off their English-language skills during jaunts to Europe and the USA.

“There are good people who continue to travel abroad for work to earn money for their families. And you can’t deny that there are enough of others who continue to undermine the army but then there were enough of them at all times,” he said.

Ukraine’s corruption crisis does not exonerate the draft dodgers or relieve them of their military obligation especially with Russia waging a war against their country; and the diaspora should not be handing out white feathers to all young men from Ukraine encountered outside of churches in the USA or Canada.

Ukraine should not be viewed through rose-colored glasses, but at the same time this internal catastrophe should not discourage Ukrainians in Ukraine and diaspora as well as the USA and other countries from supporting Ukraine’s war effort. Americans should still urge the White House and Congress to provide Ukraine with essential lethal military aid to subdue and repel Russia from Ukraine.

But needless to say, Ukrainians themselves must do more to overcome the disease of corruption. And the lion’s share of the responsibility of eliminating dishonesty rests solely with the government leaders of Ukraine, President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatseniuk, generally regarded as saviors of Ukraine. They must do everything possible to rid Ukraine of this blight and be worthy of the blood Ukrainians are shedding in battle with Russian terrorists.

The alternative is Maidan 3.

Will Russia Live Down Dishonor of War? –

Will the Free World Forget Its Epithets about Russia?

After more than 11 months of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it seems as if the world is getting tired of Moscow’s belligerence and defiance. Despite sanctions and condemnations, Russia is escalating its war with Ukraine, moving regular soldiers and mercenaries into the eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine, and spreading acts of wanton terrorism westward to Kyiv.

Global leaders’ commitment to support Ukraine and sanction Russia is waning and EU partners are breaking ranks and balking at intensifying sanctions against Moscow for its latest heinous attacks against civilian sites in Mariupol and Volnovakha.

Even Ukrainians in Ukraine are apparently belittling the Russian threat against their country and forsaking the military draft. These draft dodgers, many of them from western Ukraine, have families in the free world and are seeking their assistance with exit visas.

Ukraine is left to fend for itself, without adequate lethal military aid while the United States and other countries ponder how to subdue or destroy ISIS and other similar terrorist threats. The threat that Ukraine faces today at the hands of Russia is equal to the danger that ISIS poses. The difference being that ISIS is part of a movement that has for many decades inflicted death, pain and suffering while Russia, once a partner with the free world in defeating Nazi Germany, and recently a quasi-accepted global power worthy of a seat at the G-8 table, has only now shown its diabolic, imperial self. The free world was only caught off guard by this invasion but not the former captive nations who had been expecting this since the end of World War II.

Despite regional and global efforts to reach a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia and the adoption of the Minsk protocol, Russia continues to violate the truce agreements while blaming Ukraine for escalating the fighting. Russia has not lived up to even one of the subsequent ceasefire agreements, while continuously attacking, killing Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, and sending numerous convoys filled with dubious cargo into Ukraine.

One day, Russia’s war in Ukraine will come to an end, like all wars do eventually, and the free world will begin lining up to shake Russian leaders’ hands, invite them to the table and otherwise partner with Moscow in a host of international initiatives. NATO has said that it wants to restore good relations with Russia even before the blood dries on its hands.

However, the record stands and the free world’s greater and lesser condemnations have been preserved for all generations to read or hear thanks to digital technology and the Internet. Future generations will be able to witness at a distance what Russia did in 2014 and beyond, who denounced it, and who stood by ambivalently.

The United Nations Security Council has been the forum for such discussions about Russian aggression and Russian Permanent Representative Igor Churkin’s ludicrous denials and equally absurd accusations that the war has been Ukraine’s fault. The UN was also the venue for passionate expressions of support for Ukraine by its allies and friends.

Here are a few excerpts of support for Ukraine:

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev, January 21:

It is almost a year when in February-March of 2014 the Russian Federation manipulated with the UN basic principles – the right for self-determination and the right to protect – in order to create a fake legal pretext to invade Ukraine.

As a result the Russian Federation occupied and then annexed a part of the sovereign territory of Ukraine - the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol.

Sooner or later the Russian Federation will be taken to justice for this particular crime of aggression against Ukraine.

As of today the Russian Federation continues its military aggression in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine by sending military units to our territory, delivering heavy armaments to the local terrorist groupings, training, equipping and financing mercenaries, waging information war.

So-called “DNR” and “LNR” under direct supervision and control of the Russian Federation consciously and deliberately conduct terrorist attacks on the territory of Ukraine, aimed at the intimidation, manslaughter and severe injuries to the civil population, capture of hostages and state administrative buildings, fuelling of military conflict.

This joint Russia - “DNR”- “LNR” aggression against Ukraine is aimed at forcing my Government to change the constitutional and territorial order, undermining territorial integrity and political sovereignty of Ukraine.

Basically, this is exactly what the aggressor aspires to.

To stop the reforms.

To prevent Ukraine from transforming into a modern European democratic state.

Each day over the past year has been a trauma for the Ukrainian people. On the June 8, militants of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic tortured and killed 8 priests and parishioners of the Protestant Church in the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk. On July 17, a Russian missile brought down Malaysian MH17 flight aircraft in the sky over Donbas, killing 298 innocent people from 17 countries. On January 13, terrorists fired at a passenger bus near the Ukrainian town of Volnovakha despite the declared ceasefire, killing 13 and wounding 15 Ukrainian civilians.

Ongoing investigation of this tragic terrorist attack against civilians near Volnovakha and relevant conclusions of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission prove that the shelling was carried out from the north-north-eastern areas currently occupied by the illegal armed groups.

Let me express Ukraine’s appreciation of this Council’s strong condemnation of the terrorist act near Volnovakha.

My country wages a war against terrorism. It fights at the forefront for the universal values such as freedom, sovereignty and democracy.

Since signing of the Minsk agreements in September 2014 the Russian side has significantly mounted its military presence in Donbas (over 8,000 Russian regulars, 180 tanks, 570 APC, over 140 artillery systems, over 70 GRAD systems etc.) and filled the region with most sophisticated heavy weapons (including deadly TOS-1 Buratino systems).

What is this distinguished members of the Security Council if not an aggression?

We draw again the attention of the Security Council to the fact that the illegal armed groups intensify their attacks and shelling after receiving reinforcements from the territory of the Russian Federation, including in the form of the Russian so-called “humanitarian convoys”.

We denounce provocative statements by Russian officials, who tried to shift responsibility for violations onto Ukraine including those Russian delegation brought today to the Security Council.

 

Even despite intensification of foreign aggression Ukraine remains fully committed to peaceful settlement of the crisis, which should be based on the Minsk agreements and full respect of territorial integrity, sovereignty and political unity of Ukraine. We have twice initiated the ceasefire and unilaterally adhered to it.

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev, January 23:

70 years ago the Auschwitz – a major site of the Nazi so called “Final Solution to the Jewish question” – was liberated. However recent incidents have highlighted the fact that the scourge of anti-Semitism is on the rise today. We must unite our efforts to put an end to the intolerance and hatred instilling fear among Jews and members of other minorities around the world.

Ukraine does not and will never tolerate anti-Semitism, xenophobia and intolerance on the basis of race, descent, national or ethnic origin. The Government is doing its utmost to combat discrimination and intolerance in all its forms and manifestations. Ukraine’s law enforcement authorities promptly and adequately react to any manifestation of anti-Semitism. In recent years, a number of important steps have been taken to foster our efforts in this sphere:

•         the Security Service of Ukraine established a special Department for combating xenophobia and anti-Semitism; a similar unit was established at the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine;

•         the Law of Ukraine on the Principles of Combating and Preventing Discrimination adopted in accordance with the international obligations of Ukraine is being fully implemented by the Government of Ukraine. The Law provides for legal instruments of preventing and combating any form of discrimination with a view to guaranteeing to the citizens of Ukraine equal terms for exercising their basic human rights and freedoms;

According to the recent statistics, the number of manifestations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine continues to decline. Occasional acts of violence toward Jews are very rare, thoroughly investigated and, as a rule, have no correlation with the ethnicity of individuals involved.

We are proud that Jews were standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians during the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv in 2013-2014 defending their dignity, rights and freedoms.

Today Jews are widely represented in the Government of Ukraine and regional authorities.

I am proud that 2459 of my compatriots were recognized as the Righteous among the Nations for saving Jews during Holocaust. Many of them - posthumously. Among them are outstanding personalities of the Ukrainian Greek - Catholic Church: Climent and Andriy Sheptyskiy.

Permanent Representative of the United States, Ambassador Samantha Power, January 21:

While this is the Council’s first session on Ukraine in 2015, it is our 28th meeting on the crisis in the last 11 months, far more than on any other situation during the same period. We keep meeting on Ukraine because, despite countless commitments made to the international community to de-escalate – here in the Council, at Geneva, Minsk, Berlin, Normandy, and elsewhere – Russia continues to choose the path of escalation and obfuscation.

In addition to occupying Crimea, Russia continues to train, equip, and fight alongside separatists in eastern Ukraine. Indeed, Russia has so consistently broken its commitments and violated its obligations not to lop off part of another country, that some here may begin to accept Russia’s behavior as an unfortunate but inevitable reality – a new normal that would be dangerous for Ukraine and dangerous for international peace and security, because complacency would reward aggression and threaten the basic rules on which our collective security rests.

The current situation is dangerous. It is dangerous because Russia continues to train and equip separatists with heavy weapons and fight by their side, in flagrant violation of the September Minsk agreement, Ukrainian sovereignty, and international law. Even as we sit here today, the separatists – trained, supplied, and supported by Russia - are launching a full-scale attack on the strategic city of Debaltseve, inside Ukrainian-controlled territory, in blatant violation of the September 19th Minsk ceasefire lines, in an attempt to gain control of a significant rail juncture. The OSCE reported yesterday that at least 30 Grad rockets hit the city on January 19th, killing three civilians and wounding twelve. The OSCE confirmed that these rockets came from the direction of the separatist-controlled city of Horlivka. And yesterday, independent media reports that separatists blew up a rail-bridge connecting the port city of Mariupol to the rest of Ukraine. Thankfully there were no casualties, but now the city must rely on northern access via Donetsk, effectively isolating it and leaving it vulnerable to separatist attacks. These moves appear calculated and strategic in nature.

Since President Poroshenko announced the unilateral “silence regime” on December 9th that brought a brief respite from the violence, separatists and the Russians who back them have carried out more than 1,000 attacks against Ukrainian positions. Since late December, Russia has transferred at least a hundred additional pieces of Russian military equipment and material to separatists. These latest transfers come atop previous transfers of hundreds of pieces of Russian military equipment to separatists since September, including tanks, APCs, heavy artillery pieces, and other military vehicles.

The current situation is dangerous. It is dangerous because Russia continues to break commitments it has made to de-escalate. Ukraine and the international community have launched several serious efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to this conflict – including through the Trilateral Contact Group, the Minsk agreement, the Normandy group, and other negotiating fora. We continue to believe that there can be no military solution, and that political negotiations are key. Yet time and again, Russia’s words promise peace while Russia’s actions make war. Time and again, President Putin has extended an olive branch in one hand while passing out Grad missiles and tanks with the other.

The current situation is dangerous. It is dangerous because Russia’s actions are directly contributing to a humanitarian crisis. With each passing day, more civilians are killed and maimed.

For every attack on civilians that makes headlines, there are dozens more – no less deadly – that go unreported. Since the conflict began, more than 10,000 people have been injured in the conflict. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed; approximately 800 of them since November, when the Council last met to discuss the Ukraine crisis. One of the attacks that did not make news occurred on January 11th. According to the SMM, mortars struck two houses in the government-held town of Hran, wounding a girl. She died of her injuries before she reached the hospital. She was three years old.

These are some of the reasons why the Russians’ most recent efforts to blame Ukraine ring so hollow. On Thursday, President Putin issued a last-minute invitation to President Poroshenko to discuss a new Russian-conceived so-called “peace plan” – a plan that would free Russia from the commitment it made in Minsk to withdraw its fighters and return control over the international border to Ukraine. The plan would seek to legitimize territorial gains made by separatists since September, as well as Russian personnel and military equipment on the territory of Ukraine.

We need to implement the peace plans we already have, peace plans Russia has signed and broken. If Russia is serious about peace, it should follow through on Minsk, which it agreed to more than four months ago. If Russia wants to end this conflict, the steps they must take are the same as they were on September 5, 2014: remove all military equipment and personnel from Ukraine; stop backing the separatists; allow unimpeded OSCE monitoring and return control of Ukraine’s international border to the Ukrainian government; and release all hostages, including those being held in Russia, such as Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko. We understand Ms. Savchenko has been on a hunger strike for nearly a month to protest her detention, and is suffering serious health problems. Yet Russia has taken none of the steps set out in Minsk.

In contrast to Russia, Ukraine has consistently taken steps to de-escalate the crisis, demonstrating measurable progress on several key commitments at Minsk and passing key reforms to reduce corruption and grant greater authority to its regions.

There is a broader reason it would be dangerous to accept Russia’s actions as the new normal. We have seen this playbook before. Before eastern Ukraine, we saw it in Crimea. And before Crimea, we saw it in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Before Georgia, in Transnistria. The endgame in all of these Moscow-manufactured crises has been identical: to gobble up parts of neighboring countries and to create frozen conflicts. And Russia is consistently working to put these frozen conflicts under a deeper freeze. In recent weeks, for example, at the same time as Russia was flouting its Minsk agreements, President Putin was putting the finishing touches on another set of agreements – the so-called “treaties of alliance” – with de facto authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These treaties will compound years of violations to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

What is frozen in these conflicts? Instability is frozen. Violations of sovereignty are frozen. Militarization is frozen. In sum, all the problems that the United Nations, and the Security Council in particular, were created to address, are frozen. If Russia succeeds in achieving its aims, if we allow this behavior to become the new normal, this will not be the last time Russia uses this well-worn playbook.

Permanent Representative of Lithuania, Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaitė, January 21:

Mr. President, I believe no one in this room has any doubts that a country under attack would do its utmost to protect itself.  In the face of aggression, it is the inherent right of each and every state to defend its soil and its people. It is exactly what Ukraine is doing: defending itself in the face of the ongoing attacks against its unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.  

In spite of the many calls by the international community to close its borders to the illegal flows of arms and foreign fighters, Russia’s borders remain wide open to the flow of deadly weaponry and soldiers of fortune.

Here’s a typical  excerpt from the January 16 report by OSCE SMM: "The SMM saw three unmarked trucks towing three D-30 122mm Howitzers on the southern edge of Donetsk city travelling west past a “DPR”-controlled checkpoint. Two unmarked T-80 battle tanks were seen by the SMM travelling south - east in Makiyivka (5km east of Donetsk, “DPR”-controlled). The SMM observed a convoy of 21 military-style Ural and KAMAZ trucks, also unmarked, heading south on a highway near Starobesheve (45km south of Donetsk, “DPR”-controlled). Four of the trucks carried what appeared to be communication equipment, while the remaining trucks were covered.”

And where on earth - but for Russia’s continued support- can a rag tag bunch of militants get the millions needed to buy all that heavy weaponry and machinery? Especially in an area where local inhabitants are said to starve and local hospitals can't even buy bread for their patients?

So much for Russia’s claims it is not a party to this conflict. The war in eastern Ukraine is not a civil war - but a calculated and systematic attempt to destabilize Ukraine, a foreign-sponsored war.

Backed by sophisticated weaponry including Grads, artillery systems, modern tanks, armored personnel carriers, and an influx of foreign mercenaries, the militants continue their barrage of deadly attacks.

While every defensive move by Ukraine is blasted by the Russian propaganda as ceasefire violations, Russia has never even once condemned or disowned the illegal and lawless separatist militants.

On the contrary.  Russia’s intentions to rewrite the Minsk agreements in a way that would legitimize and accept the territorial gains achieved by the militants speaks to Kremlin’s wholehearted support for those criminals.

Lithuania rejects all calls to renegotiate the terms of the ceasefire. The agreed parameters of the ceasefire already exist and must be respected.  We urge all sides, in particular Russia, to engage and fully implement Minsk agreements in their entirety and without any further delay.

My delegation firmly supports Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea. We urge the Minsk signatories to spare no effort in seeking a peaceful solution to this crisis. We urge Russia in particular to embrace the fundamental principles enshrined in the UN Charter and put an end to its destabilizing, expansionist and revanchist policies in the region, including Ukraine, Moldova, and South Caucasus, where, contrary to Russia's commitments under the 2008 August and September Agreements, it is pursuing the annexation of Georgia’s Abkhaz and Tskinvali regions under the guise of the so-called treaties on alliance and strategic partnership with.

Permanent Representative of Lithuania, Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaitė, January 26:

The bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Balkan wars is taking place even as we speak. Last Wednesday in this hall the Security Council members once again expressed concern and urged all parties to the conflict, including Russia, to return to the Minsk agreements and ensure their prompt and full implementation in order to prevent even more destruction and bloodshed.

Alas what we saw over the weekend was more deadly shelling, more destruction, more human tragedy caused by the Kremlin’s unbridled mercenaries, including the deadly attack against Mariupol which this Council failed to condemn because Russia put protecting the militants above condemning the perpetrators.

After 29 open briefings and no progress on the ground it is hard not to sound repetitive. More than five thousand dead, some 11000 injured and about 1.5 million displaced, - such is the cost of Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine.  Almost 50 000 fled their homes since 14 January this year. At least 262 people were killed between 13 and 21 January alone.  Last week again 75 to 115 shelling attacks against the Ukrainian positions took place every day. 

The Donetsk airport which the Kremlin-sponsored militants captured last week, was pounded to rubble by months of attacks, causing destruction seen only in the worst of wars. 550 square kilometers of land have been captured by the illegal militants since the beginning of the ceasefire. Such are the realities of what we continue to call a ceasefire.

Just like the breaches of the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the 1997 Agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the 1997 Treaty on friendship, good-neighborliness and cooperation between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, the Geneva statement, and the Berlin joint declaration, the Minsk agreements are just another casualty of Russia’s aggression against neighboring Ukraine. 

Last Saturday Ukraine suffered the second deadliest single incident on its soil since the downing of MH17 in July 2014. Some 30 people killed and about 90 wounded during the shelling of the city of Mariupol. In the preceding days, the self-proclaimed boss of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” Zahkarchenko had repeatedly stated his disdain for the ceasefire: "There is no ceasefire. We will fight. I promise." "There will be no more ceasefires and rotations, he said.

And yet, in spite of the obvious, Russia continues to blame Ukraine for ceasefire violations, including the Mariupol attack. Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is not abating. Last week in this hall we heard the long debunked myths of "the junta", "the coup", "fascist Ukraine", and "oppression of Russian speakers" being once again resuscitated and put into use. For a year now, aggressive anti-Ukrainian propaganda has been used to brainwash, confuse, distract and obfuscate.

The international community should not, must not give in to these obfuscations.  Therefore let me ask once again. How can a bunch of illegal militants expand their offensive, continue capturing territory, and threaten carrying out attacks on three fronts? How can  a bunch of illegal militants without external trade ties, without income or budget,  amass hundreds of  armored combat vehicles, artillery systems, and rocket launchers, all those Tochka-Us, Grads, Uragans, and Buratinos?  How can they afford modern tanks, each of which costs at least 4 million dollars? How can they claim their own air fleet? How can hundreds of Russian soldiers be dying on Ukraine's soil if they are not even there?

How come hundreds of Russian mothers receive the dead bodies of their sons in Cargo 200 from a conflict to which Russia claims it is not a party? How come that in spite of the devastating lawlessness and countless crimes committed by the separatist militants and registered in the reports by OHCHR, Russia has not even once, not even mildly condemned the perpetrators?

Life in eastern Ukraine may have been far from perfect due to long years of neglect by the successive governments. And yet the local inhabitants, many of them Russian speakers had homes to return to after work, had their daily lives and their daily bread. Thanks to the Kremlin's decision to "protect" them, they now have no homes, no jobs, no income, may have lost their dear ones- or may be dead themselves. Russia's war, Russia's proxies and the abysmal lawlessness they imposed that brought destruction, displacement, and deaths to the region.

The onus is on Russia to put an end to this senseless war by ending support to illegal armed groups operating in the east of Ukraine, accepting  international monitoring of the Ukrainian-Russian border, withdrawing its troops and weaponry from eastern Ukraine, ensuring the release by the illegal militants of all illegally detained persons, including Nadia Savchenko, ending manipulations of humanitarian assistance, and reaffirming its respect for Ukraine's sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity. The international observers, including the UN and OSCE monitoring missions must be provided full and unconditional access to the whole territory of Ukraine, including Crimea. Their reporting is indispensable to get the facts straight.

TC: Today the world knows the true image of Russia and its penchant for re-subjugating the former captive nations and perhaps the world because of its very visible war against Ukraine. The world knows but how long will it remember; when will it forget; and when will the first national leader shake his or her Russian counterpart’s hand.

After the Holocaust, Jews burned into their souls a commandment for future generations: “Never Forget; Never Forgive.” Russia deserves no less than Nazi Germany.