[Sixstrings]

Russian "state run" TV channel (Channel 1) discussion involving a Poroshenko bloc Ukrainian politician, Alexey Goncharenko, other Ukrainians and also a NATO official from Poland.

Putin is being bashed up and down, in and out and side to side. The whole NATO narrative on Ukraine is being drilled into the minds of the Russian "slaves" at full pressure.

So it's a NATO plot the rare time Putin gets criticized on Russian TV?

Hmmm. There are no examples of such a debate on any NATO TV channel, private or public. All that the "free" NATO citizens hear is the NATO narrative. Any Russian response is basically censored, at best it is presented with lots of spin and forced contextualizing to make sure that the media consumer does not get confused.

People do not AGREE with the Russian argument.

There is no "equal opportunity / equal time", if people have already listened to Putin and simply do not agree with him.

Russia can't bully everyone into agreeing with them. What may work in Russia internally does not work on the rest of the world community. Russia needs to try making friends, maybe honey could catch flies better than machismo.

And I don't even know what Russia wants to convince everyone of. If it's that Russia can annex any more land, then no, nobody is ever going to be convinced of that. No, it is not okay. No, it is never going to be okay.

P.S. your linked video is in Russian, and only you and Radon speak Russian far as I know. What's the guy with the Ukrainian tshirt arguing about, at the 19 minute mark? Looks like an interesting program but no english, no subtitles, I don't know what they are saying much less if it's a NATO plot on Russian tv.

[Keith_McClary]

So it's a NATO plot the rare time Putin gets criticized on Russian TV?

You need to get your sarcasm detectors checked.

His point is, you would never see a discussion like that on US TV - all you get is "think tank" "security experts", US generals, RepubliCon politicians and Ukrainian junta bosses.

[AgentR11]

Hmmm. There are no examples of such a debate on any NATO TV channel, private or public. All that the "free" NATO citizens hear is the NATO narrative. Any Russian response is basically censored, at best it is presented with lots of spin and forced contextualizing to make sure that the media consumer does not get confused.

That's too complicated for us. You have to always remember the purpose of US/EU media. It has one, and only one goal.

To sell soap.

[dissident]

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la- ... tml#page=1

A year ago, Luda Nesterenko didn't give much thought to her nationality. With a Ukrainian mother and a Russian father, Nesterenko, like so many in this region of the former Soviet Union, is a mix of two Slavic cultures so close that she hardly felt the need to differentiate between them.But that was before protesters gathered in the streets of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, last November to demonstrate against a Kremlin-friendly president she didn't particularly like but was willing to live with for stability's sake. It was before those mass demonstrations ended in the ousting of that president, and Russia annexed Crimea. And it was before the war between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russia separatist fighters came to her city.

On a recent day, Nesterenko, 47, wiped away tears as she stood next to the crater left by the artillery shell that ripped through the roof of her house on the corner of Komsomolsk and Transport streets. In a split second in mid-August, the shelling reduced her life savings down to its foundation.

"Who's going to answer for this now? Which government?" she asked as she pointed to the rubble of the home where she and her two teenagers once lived. "We're simple, hard-working people here. We never fought with anyone, but suddenly we are the enemy and it looks like [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko just wants to kill us off."
While the talk in Kiev is about defeating the pro-Russia separatists and reuniting the country, many here in eastern Ukraine say the central government has little chance of ever winning back their support. For eastern Ukrainians such as Nesterenko, communication from Kiev comes only in the form of artillery shells, and civilians are left to pick up the pieces the war leaves behind.

Frustration with Kiev deteriorated further when Poroshenko announced recently that he would completely cut off budget payments, state agencies and banking services in separatist-held territories.

The United Nations estimates that more than 1 million Ukrainians have left the conflict areas in the east. But more than 3 million remain in the areas controlled by the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. Some of them say they stayed in their homes because they supported the separatists. Many others say they remained because they were too sick or too poor to depart, or couldn't leave elderly relatives behind.

Today, in cities across the eastern regions, residents say the prevailing sense is that Kiev will no longer help Ukrainian citizens who have stayed because they had nowhere else to go.

"By my passport, I'm still a citizen of Ukraine, but Kiev seems to have completely forgotten about us," Nesterenko said.

LA Times, like the rest of the western media is a day late and a dollar short. Facts on the ground cannot be determined by western media propaganda and lying through omission.

[Keith_McClary]

Russian Government Ready To Shut Off Gas Supplies To Ukraine

Russia’s government is getting anxious. The Energy Minister said Gazprom will stop delivering natural gas to nearly bankrupted Ukraine if it fails to pay the firm the $1.6 billion it owes in arrears, scheduled to be paid for in January.

Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement in October that gave Kiev roughly three months to pay nearly $5.3 billion in overdue gas bills in order to lock in a low rate. The two countries have locked horns on natural gas deliveries for years, with Russia often shutting off supplies due to Ukraine’s penchant for not paying its bills.

“Under the agreement, there will be no supplies in January if the debt remains unsettled,” the minister was quoted saying by the newest government news agency Sputnik International.

The agreement between is dependent on Ukraine paying at least $3.1 billion of the $5.3-billion it owes to Russian natural gas companies, namely Gazprom. Ukraine’s Naftogaz repaid $1.45 billion of its gas debt to Gazprom two weeks ago and set aside $378 million as prepayment for future supplies.

Ukraine has become a major problem for Gazprom.

[dissident]

You know what this means? It means war. NATO will not stand for Russia cutting off a welfare leach for non payment. That goes against the precious western values that NATO stands for.

[Sixstrings]

You know what this means? It means war.

War, war, war. This thing's been going on over a year now. If Russia really is building an empire, at this rate it'll take another two hundred years.

Random Ukraine update:

Ukraine Briefly Cuts Power to Crimea Amid Feud With Russia Over NATO

MOSCOW — Ukraine on Wednesday briefly severed electricity to the Crimean Peninsula, nine months after it was annexed by Russia, in a pointed reminder of the territory’s reliance on Ukrainian energy sources.

The electricity shut-off came as Moscow threatened a greater rift with the West if Ukraine tried to make good on its intention to join NATO.

The Russian deputy defense minister, Anatoly I. Antonov, condemned the decision on Tuesday by the Ukrainian Parliament to abandon Ukraine’s nonaligned status and declared that NATO was trying to use Ukraine as a “forward line for confronting Russia.”

Ukraine’s ambitions to join the Western military alliance have been presented as a direct military threat to Russia by President Vladimir V. Putin and top security officials.

“Under the slogan of a Russian threat, NATO is expanding its military potential in the Baltics, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania,” Mr. Antonov said in remarks carried by the Russian news agency Interfax.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/world/europe/ukraine-briefly-cuts-power-to-crimea-amid-dispute-with-russia-over-nato.html?_r=0

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

[radon1]

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

Till a power plant in Crimea is built.

[Keith_McClary]

If Russia really is building an empire.

What's this heresy ??? Of course they are building an empire. All your leaders and corporate media say so.

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

Funny, this equivalence did nor occur to the NYT. They do not even mention gas, although they do say:

Ukraine is confronting an energy crisis as supplies of coal from the belligerent Donetsk and Luhansk regions have been disrupted by the conflict there

.

[Donetsk]

You know what this means? It means war.

War, war, war. This thing's been going on over a year now. If Russia really is building an empire, at this rate it'll take another two hundred years.

Random Ukraine update:

Ukraine Briefly Cuts Power to Crimea Amid Feud With Russia Over NATO

MOSCOW — Ukraine on Wednesday briefly severed electricity to the Crimean Peninsula, nine months after it was annexed by Russia, in a pointed reminder of the territory’s reliance on Ukrainian energy sources.

The electricity shut-off came as Moscow threatened a greater rift with the West if Ukraine tried to make good on its intention to join NATO.

The Russian deputy defense minister, Anatoly I. Antonov, condemned the decision on Tuesday by the Ukrainian Parliament to abandon Ukraine’s nonaligned status and declared that NATO was trying to use Ukraine as a “forward line for confronting Russia.”

Ukraine’s ambitions to join the Western military alliance have been presented as a direct military threat to Russia by President Vladimir V. Putin and top security officials.

“Under the slogan of a Russian threat, NATO is expanding its military potential in the Baltics, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania,” Mr. Antonov said in remarks carried by the Russian news agency Interfax.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/world/europe/ukraine-briefly-cuts-power-to-crimea-amid-dispute-with-russia-over-nato.html?_r=0

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

You didn't know that? Crimea relies on Ukraine for everything, except for NG in the last few years.Why do you think it was given to Kiev to rebuild in 1954. Logistics. Good luck supplying a million retirees and a million of public servants and hotel workers by the ferry.

[Donetsk]

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

Till a power plant in Crimea is built.

When will they start building it? I bet locals and leftovers of the tourists will be thrilled by the prospects of a nuclear reactor by the beach , in a seismic active area.

[radon1]

Why nuclear? Gas-powered, diesel, coal, even wind/solar farms. At the end, they can export electricity from Russia - it is presumably much easier to lay a power line across the seabed than build a bridge across. A territory of the size of Belgium can obviously pick up a suitable place for a power plant.

[Tanada]

Interesting -- so Crimea relies on Ukraine for electricity? So I guess that means Russia never can cut the gas, or Ukraine can just cut the power to Crimea?

Till a power plant in Crimea is built.

Or the Bridge is completed. Adding high tension power lines to a bridge is relatively simple compared to building new power plants.

The first Kerch Straight Bridge was constructed in 1944, during World War II, by Russian forces, but was destroyed within six months. Talks of building another one have been on the table since the fall of the Soviet Union, but a formal building plan was never executed.

According to earlier reports by TASS, Russia's Minister of Transport, Maxim Sokolov, told Putin that the construction had already commenced in August, and will continue with the support of Defense Ministry specialists.

The bridge is expected to be approximately 12 miles (19 kilometers) and is expected to include a section for a railway and links to both land masses.

Initially, Russian officials said the building of the Kerch Straight Bridge would take three and a half years, with a cost of at least US$1.4 billion. However, the government released documents at the beginning of September which revealed that the project would cost US$8.4 billion. The government has since said that the price tag on the bridge may change.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Russia-Wants-Bridge-to-Crimea-Built-by-End-of-2018-20141008-0071.html

[AgentR11]

When will they start building it? I bet locals and leftovers of the tourists will be thrilled by the prospects of a nuclear reactor by the beach , in a seismic active area.

Reading Kerch.biz some... experts quoted did not feel Crimea has useable sites for a nuclear plant; they were much more interested in coal/gas and laying seabed and elevated high tension lines for export from the Russian side which has substantial excess capacity. Solar/Wind were also described as being economically unviable ( I don't think Russia competes in the wind turbine business ). I suspect they'll do a combination of generation and cabling, as well as continue to import electricity from Ukraine. However, Sevastopol specifically really needs to be completely self sufficient with regard to electricity.

If Ukraine had any sense they'd give up the stupid effort of trying to make their neighbor suffer, and figure out how to turn their neighbor into a paying customer. That's what any good mercantilist of the EU should do. Instead of threatening power reliability, they should be proving how reliably they can export electricity, and charge a premium rate to Crimea, just as Russia manages to charge a premium rate to Germany because they really are very reliable suppliers. However, I've long suspected they don't have the economic chops to do it; they think the freedom of the West is what makes prosperity, when in reality its the combination of ruthless financial and ruthless mercantile behaviors coupled to an unlimited resource input. Prosperous freedom follows from this, it is not the cause.

[Keith_McClary]

NYT finds it necessary to publish "investigative reporting" proving there was not a violent coup in Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/world ... .html?_r=0

A critique:

The article purports to present a granular analysis based on interviews with former police officials and others who deserted Yanukovych, presenting this as proof that Yanukovych was “not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies.”
This narrative reduces Washington and its Western European allies to befuddled onlookers, whose role consisted of brokering a truce between the Yanukovych government and the violent demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan square, which quickly broke down amid violence.
It cynically excludes the extensive evidence that the overthrow of Yanukovych was the outcome of a plan worked out by the US government to install a pro-NATO regime in Kiev and thereby weaken Russia and further Washington’s drive for hegemony in Eurasia.
Thus, the piece makes no mention of the infamous leaked telephone conversation between Washington’s point person on Ukraine, high-ranking State Department official Victoria Nuland, and the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, in which Nuland spelled out the US role in preparing Yanukovych’s downfall. She even dictated the parts to be played by individual opposition figures in a successor government, naming “Yats” (her pet name for Arseniy Yatsenyuk) as prime minister, the post he assumed post-coup.
...
Again, what Times readers are not told is more revealing than what they are. Parubiy was the founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine, an organization that modeled itself—down to its name, its use of the Wolfsangel logo and its extreme-anti-communist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideology—on Hitler’s Nazi party. The party later reorganized itself as Svoboda (All-Ukrainian Union), whose members were appointed to three ministries and three governorships in the regime that assumed power following Yanukovych’s ouster.
...
The main “evidence” provided by the Times that the overthrow of Yanukovych was not a coup consists of the testimony of former police commanders whose units disintegrated on the eve of his downfall. One said that “16 of his men had already been shot on Feb. 18 and that he was terrified by rumors of an armory of semi-automatic weapons on its way from Lviv.”
The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, who was among those brokering the abortive truce deal, reported that “the police were without the power to shoot, so they were afraid of Maidan, so they left.”
As for Yanukovych himself, the Ukrainian president, conscious that his American counterpart, Barack Obama, had taken out a contract on him, and not wanting to suffer the same fate as Libya’s Gaddafi, fled Kiev.
If this is not a coup, then what is? The success or failure of the illegal and violent overthrow of any government is determined largely by which forces within the regime remain loyal and which ones support regime-change. The corrupt politicians in Kiev, the criminal oligarchs they represent and the security forces themselves came to believe that the violent neo-fascists in the Maidan, backed by US and Western European imperialism, would win, and they abandoned Yanukovych, allowing the coup to succeed.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01 ... e-j06.html

[AgentR11]

I saw pictures of Kiev after Maidan had finished with them... peaceful is not the word I would use.