Ukraine: draft dodgers face jail as Kiev struggles to find new fighters

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: Guardian UK

Ruslan Kotsaba posted a video addressed to the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, last week in which he said he would rather go to prison for five years for draft-dodging than fight pro-Russia rebels in the country’s east. Now he faces 15 years in jail after being arrested for treason and obstructing the military.

His case is symptomatic of Kiev’s difficulties in mobilising a war-weary society to continue the fight against the rebels, who appear to have an unlimited supply of weapons and training from Russia. As the country nears bankruptcy and the reform programme demanded by the Maidan revolution last year is sidelined by the war effort, the drive to call up new recruits is floundering.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/ukraine-draft-dodgers-jail-kiev-struggle-new-fighters

[Jesus Malverde]

1. Ukraine crisis: UK 'cannot allow armed forces to collapse'

Profound suffering'
In a statement to the Commons, Mr Hammond said fighting in the eastern regions of Ukraine resembled a "small-scale conventional war".

He said Britain supplied non-lethal equipment - such as helmets, body armour and fuel - to the Ukrainian armed forces to help prevent causalities, and it was up to each country in the Nato alliance to decide whether to supply lethal aid.

"The UK is not planning to do so but we reserve the right to keep this position under review. Different members of the alliance take nuanced positions on this question and are entitled to do so," he said.

"However, we share a clear understanding that, while there is no military solution to this conflict, we could not allow the Ukrainian armed forces to collapse."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-31360841

[forest444]

5. Cameron can barely keep his own country's military from collapsing,

much less presume to keep Ukraine's from doing so.

If Poroshenko and his Svoboda neo-Nazis can't pay the troops, tell'em to try chocolate.

[Fred Sanders]

2. No one is going to prison for long for refusing to die for a shakey and illegitimate regime.

Why all this talk lately of a collapsing Ukraine government, Kiev is four hundred miles away from the fighting?

[Jesus Malverde]

6. The IMF loans are in jeopardy

IMF Has Broad Political Support for New Ukraine Bailout

ISTANBUL—The International Monetary Fund has broad political support to move ahead with a new emergency financing package for war-torn Ukraine, according to officials familiar with the matter.

An IMF team negotiating the budget belt-tightening and economic-policy overhauls needed for the fund to approve the package is expected to wrap up negotiations in Kiev in the next several days, the officials at the Group of 20 meetings said.

The growing political support comes after a flurry of shuttle diplomacy by the West to calm renewed tensions in eastern Ukraine and despite concerns about the costs of Kiev’s military campaign against the Russian-backed separatists.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/imf-has-broad-political-support-for-new-ukraine-bailout-package-1423577089

[forest444]

7. Hear, hear

The second you realize a Bush administration holdover (Vicky Nuland) has been behind the effort to drag us into this mess, you know it had to involve the worst possible people:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955

[Fred Sanders]

11. Nuland was and is predictably incompetent, which is why Obama left her in charge of advising Kiev.

Last edited Tue Feb 10, 2015, 11:06 PM - Edit history (3)

With predictable results for Kiev, their own citizens are fleeing from the incompetence.

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.ca




Novorossia (New Russia) forces are encircling the city of Debaltsevo, this is the triggering event to all this flurry of panic in Kiev, the attack on the port city of Mariupol appears to have been an feint to trap Kiev forces to the south.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11402656/Ukraine-crisis-both-sides-launch-offensives-to-seize-ground-ahead-of-Minsk-talks.html

[forest444]

13. Good call. Obama's smart:

Keep your friends close, and enemies closer.

The wench apparently has the backing of neocons - but not the clownish Robert Kagan types, I mean the ones that have God's unlisted phone number. So the president's letting her make a mess of herself. Give her enough rope, the reasoning goes, and she'll hang herself.

[Fred Sanders]

14. Knowing Nuland was in charge pleased the neo-cons, and now who do they blame, they had their

chosen neo-con in charge of the situation - even as liberals were busy being outraged as to why
Obama kept Nuland as the EU envoy and in charge of the Ukraine situation.

Nuland has proven to be a Useful Idiot.

Kerry probably relieved her of duties when he went to Kiev though, her usefulness is over. I expect her to be fired for.....incompetence.

The irony, it burns.

Brilliant!

P.S. If some folks think there was ever any love between Obama and Poroshenko and that ridiculous Kiev foreign minister, some folks are wrong.

[forest444]

18. The rope-a-dope doesn't always work.

But when it does, Bazinga!

[Fred Sanders]

20. The dopes in Kiev and the neo-con Bush era dope advising them - that was never going to end well.

[forest444]

22. Your words to God's ear.

[Jesus Malverde]

24. The New Years torchlight parade

If ever there was a wake up call.

[uhnope]

29. Truly disgusing post, sir

"Novorossia (New Russia) forces are encircling the city of Debaltsevo"--
There is no such place as "Novorossia"--this is extremely insulting, it's like a German in 1940 saying Paris is in Greater Germany. This whole post is sick, celebrating the fact that people are fleeing the war started by Russia, and obscenely blaming Kiev.

[Jesus Malverde]

15. One has to wonder what SOS Kerry was thinking

Leaving the PNAC cancer to fester at the state department. Those bush era holdovers should have been excised like cancerous tumors they are.

[forest444]

19. +1!

[newthinking]

27. Odd thing though: Hillary Clinton brought her in as spokesperson and Obama

nominated her for her current position.

[PADemD]

23. Vicktoria Nuland is married to Robert Kagan

In 1997 Kagan was listed as one of the co-founders of William Kristol's now-defunct Project for the New American Century.[1][3][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan

[forest444]

25. One big happy family aren't they.

[zeemike]

26. Probably more than we know.n/t

[Jesus Malverde]

3. 40 percent of men called up to serve in Kotsaba’s home region have left Ukraine

Kotsaba published a video on YouTube last month denouncing a new round of military call-ups by Kiev to boost its forces fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east.

“I would prefer to go to prison than to participate in this fratricidal war,” Kotsaba said in the footage, which was viewed more than 300,000 times.

“I refuse to be drafted and call on everyone who is called up to refuse,” he said.

After 10 months of conflict, opinion is split in war-weary Ukraine over the latest government plan to mobilize around 50,000 men.

A senior official has admitted that almost 40 percent of men called up to serve in Kotsaba’s home region have left Ukraine.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/09/world/ukraine-arrests-journalist-call-dodge-draft/#.VNq354bXerU

[Fred Sanders]

4. No wonder they are crying out for advanced offensive weapons, but there is no one wanting to use them

Why is this incompetence of Kiev regime not breaking news in the media, compounded as it is by their economic incompetence?

It's clear to me that the DNR/LNR's Russian advisors have again out maneuvered Kiev's U.S. and U.K. political and military advisors.

Or I could be wrong and the Western power's Kiev advisors were purposely incompetent.

[another_liberal]

8. The young man is smart . . .

Even a fifteen year prison sentence is better than dying because of the ineptitude of some fascistic amateur of a Ukrainian Army officer.

[bluestateguy]

9. The government can;t maake you fight

They can arrest you, put you in jail, fine you or take away your goodies, but they can't make anybody fight.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Kiev is fighting "rebel" folks defending and fighting for their homes - what are Kiev's folks fighting for?

[forest444]

12. Vicky Nuland

Probably the only time in her life she's had men fighting over her.

[Jesus Malverde]

16. DUZY!...nt

[Xithras]

17. So Kiev is now arresting journalists for voicing opinions. Shocking.

It's important to remember that Kotsaba isn't a draft dodger. He wasn't called up, and didn't refuse to fight. He's a journalist who voiced an opinion opposing the government after the new draft requirements were announced. For that, he's been arrested and faces 15 years in prison.

That puts Ukraine on par with North Korea and Iran when it comes to respecting freedom of speech and the press.

[Fred Sanders]

21. They are on par with far worse, not Iran, because that is what they are. The mask is slipping off fast.

[DeSwiss]

28. K&R

- Let the fat old men fight it. They ordered it.

[elias49]

30. I feel like I'm on supplemental oxygen!

Great thread!