Russia's Lavrov: West plotting to control Ukraine

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of plotting to control Ukraine and said the pro-Russian insurgents in the southeast would lay down their arms only if the Ukrainian government clears out the Maidan protest camp in the capital Kiev.

"The West wants - and this is how it all began - to seize control of Ukraine because of their own political ambitions, not in the interests of the Ukrainian people," Lavrov said on Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking to reporters in Seoul, South Korea, said he will call key European leaders later Friday to discuss what's happened since a deal was reached last week in Geneval to de-escalate the crisis.

Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement calling on all parties in the country to lay down arms and vacate public buildings. Pro-Russian militia have been occupying government buildings in more than 10 cities in eastern Ukraine while the nationalist Right Sector movement is still in control of two public buildings in Kiev.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-04-25-06-27-19

[newfie11]

1. For oil

It would not surprise me.

[joshcryer]

2. Separatists just blew up a helicopter...

Any other conflict they'd rightly be called terrorists.

[jakeXT]

3. Sometimes people call them 'carefully vetted rebels'

That could involve supplying missiles in very small quantities — perhaps one or a few at a time — to carefully vetted rebels who would present videotaped evidence of their use before resupply, an approach proposed by Saudi officials, who would likely be the conduit for any transfer of the U.S.-made weapons.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/101691465

[dipsydoodle]

4. Link to that here

First deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) - Head of the anti-terrorist center Vasyl Krutov has confirmed reports that a sniper fired at a helicopter that was standing at an airfield in Kramatorsk. The captain of the helicopter was injured in the resulting explosion.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/anti-terrorist-center-head-sniper-shoots-at-mi-8-helicopter-in-kramatorsk-its-captain-injured-345124.html

[Comrade Grumpy]

18. "Terrorist" and its variants should be stricken from the political discourse.

They are merely terms of propaganda, typically meaning someone using political violence of which we do not approve.

Those guys in eastern Ukraine could be called paramilitaries or armed civilians or guerrillas, or even Russian infiltrators.

[jakeXT]

5. Ukraine's.. very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia

“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37954.htm

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. I hope you aren't claiming this excuses Russian aggression towards Ukraine. nt

[jakeXT]

7. Maybe it explains the willingness to spend $5 billion /nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. And what of the vast majority of Ukrainians' desire to be free from Russian influence and control?

Do they matter to you at all?

Or do you seek a desire for Moscow to "regain control of Ukraine", as your piece states?

[jakeXT]

12. I think the majority wants relations with open borders, I doubt the US foreign policy strategists

care much about Ukrainians, staying top dog has priority.



http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/regional-polls-show-few-ukrainians-russians-want-a-united-single-state/

Key Sections of Pentagon Document on Post-Cold-War Strategy



Initial Draft (Feb. 18, 1992)

1) Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either

on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on

the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant

consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we

endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources

would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to general global power.



2) The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a

new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they

need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect

their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently

for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from

challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and

economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential

competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.

http://www.yale.edu/strattech/92dpg.html

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. What your article was proposing was that Moscow "regain control" over Ukraine.

And I'm telling you right now, Ukrainians are not going to take kindly to such a notion.

Hell, I don't have to tell you. Ukrainians can tell you themselves:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-ukraine-russia-intervention-poll-20140424,0,6952561.story?track=rss#axzz2zuKzjQbv

The vast majority of Ukrainian voters oppose Russian military intervention in their country, even in the east and south where large Russian minorities live, a U.S.-funded poll by a Gallup affiliate showed Thursday.

The April 3-12 survey of 1,200 randomly selected Ukrainians of voting age by Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization found a nationwide average of 85% against any Russian military intervention, the International Republican Institute said in a summary of the poll paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Opposition to Russian intervention was predictably strongest in the western and central areas of Ukraine, where much of the population supports the country's eventual alliance with the European Union. The poll results showed 97% of voters in the western provinces and 94% in the central region that includes Kiev, the capital, responded in the negative when asked, "Do you support the decision of the Russian Federation to send its army into Ukraine under the pretext of protecting Russian-speaking citizens?"

But even in the eastern regions that are the scene of armed clashes between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian troops attempting to recover territory seized by the militants, 69% expressed opposition to Russian troops intruding in Ukraine's affairs.

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-ukraine-russia-intervention-poll-20140424,0,6952561.story#ixzz2zuLQXypa

[jakeXT]

14. I think Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn't want them to regain any control, he used the word if. /nt

[The Magistrate]

9. That Works Out, Sir, To About Two Hundred Million A Year Over Nigh On A Quarter Century

Since the figure refers to total U.S. aid commencing with the independence of Ukraine, in 1991. Something no one citing that figure ever manages to point out....

[dipsydoodle]

11. Since you've used 1991

you'll find that since then Russia has ploughed over $200 billion into Ukraine for whatever reason.

By coincidence that's about the same as the amount foreseen to get Ukraine straight over a period of 10 years or so by way of repayable loans whatever - roughly equal to the entire bailout of Greece but without the write downs which occurred there.

[treestar]

10. Talk about pot calling kettle black

what nerve!

[Obnoxious_One]

15. UNELECTED governments that murders their own people are dictatorships.

why are we helping a dictatorship?

[jakeXT]

16. Is that a rhetorical question ?

[Arkana]

17. We're not the ones with troops there, Mr. Lavrov.