Paul Rigby Wrote:Vladislav Surkov no longer in charge of the Donbass

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2454193.html

Quote:Zot'ev writes that Surkov has been removed from the Donbass. As we know from our own sources, the Kremlin decided to remove Vladislav Surkov from his role as informal mentor of the fledgling republics of the LC and DNR.

All of Surkov's people Surkov have been withdrawn from the territory of the Republic, and the "Fund for local associations of Donbass" structure, through which Vladislav Yurevich controlled not only the delivery of humanitarian assistance, but also the restoration of infrastructure of the Republic, dissolved, and will soon be eliminated.

The departure of Surkov connected with the changing priorities of the Government of the Russian Federation. In the near future of the republic is waiting for the reformatting of the administrations. The first public sign of such changes in the situation came with the arrest of high-ranking officials in the LC, suspected of having links with the Ukrainian oligarchs.

It was then that Surkov's network in Lugansk was attacked by the local security forces, employees of the MGB and MVD LC, who actually had a velvet revolution and strengthened their position, separate from the civil administration, and did it thanks to the support in the higher echelons of power in Russia. Most likely, with the departure of Surkov. the security forces in the DNI and LC will become dominant.

Alex Zot'ev http://cassad.net/vazhnoe/19958-vladisla v-surkov-bolshe-ne-kuriruet-donbass.html - zinc

PS. If so (practice management processes in Donbass repeatedly gave examples where decisions have changed in the short term to the contrary), then it is in my opinion a good sign. Not necessarily, but it is possible that changes in the mill process operators in the Donbas is effectively connected with the recent corruption scandal in the leadership of the LC, which of course is not only connected with the antics of Lyamina (arrested before the New Year) and Kurchenko (oligarch prohibited business activities in the DNI and LC), but also to the activities of a number of other persons who were patrons not only in the LC or Ukraine but also in Russia.

Not a guarantee that the Russian hammer is about to descend upon the CIA's Ukrainian thugs, but an essential prelude.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:

Paul Rigby Wrote:Vladislav Surkov no longer in charge of the Donbass

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2454193.html

Quote:Zot'ev writes that Surkov has been removed from the Donbass. As we know from our own sources, the Kremlin decided to remove Vladislav Surkov from his role as informal mentor of the fledgling republics of the LC and DNR.

All of Surkov's people Surkov have been withdrawn from the territory of the Republic, and the "Fund for local associations of Donbass" structure, through which Vladislav Yurevich controlled not only the delivery of humanitarian assistance, but also the restoration of infrastructure of the Republic, dissolved, and will soon be eliminated.

The departure of Surkov connected with the changing priorities of the Government of the Russian Federation. In the near future of the republic is waiting for the reformatting of the administrations. The first public sign of such changes in the situation came with the arrest of high-ranking officials in the LC, suspected of having links with the Ukrainian oligarchs.

It was then that Surkov's network in Lugansk was attacked by the local security forces, employees of the MGB and MVD LC, who actually had a velvet revolution and strengthened their position, separate from the civil administration, and did it thanks to the support in the higher echelons of power in Russia. Most likely, with the departure of Surkov. the security forces in the DNI and LC will become dominant.

Alex Zot'ev http://cassad.net/vazhnoe/19958-vladisla v-surkov-bolshe-ne-kuriruet-donbass.html - zinc

PS. If so (practice management processes in Donbass repeatedly gave examples where decisions have changed in the short term to the contrary), then it is in my opinion a good sign. Not necessarily, but it is possible that changes in the mill process operators in the Donbas is effectively connected with the recent corruption scandal in the leadership of the LC, which of course is not only connected with the antics of Lyamina (arrested before the New Year) and Kurchenko (oligarch prohibited business activities in the DNI and LC), but also to the activities of a number of other persons who were patrons not only in the LC or Ukraine but also in Russia.

Not a guarantee that the Russian hammer is about to descend upon the CIA's Ukrainian thugs, but an essential prelude.

Well, now ain't that interesting.

Quote:The disclosure last week of memoranda by US Government lawyers to President Barack Obama, justifying the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, confirms what is obvious in the war against Russia. "There was also a trump card," the New York Times reports. "While the lawyers believed that Mr. Obama was bound to obey domestic law, they also believed he could decide to violate international law when authorizing a covert action, officials said."

Force isn't the only violation of domestic US law that can be employed abroad. Bribery is an ancient tool of state strategy; it is certainly not a monopoly of the Kremlin, nor of the White House. The ancient Roman empire, and the Byzantine empire which followed it for three times as long, illustrate the obvious. Paying money to neutralize your enemies, or to persuade them to be friends, is far more cost-effective, predictable, and less risky than deploying large standing armies capable of putting down local rebellions, cross-border raids, or invasions. For an accounting of the cost to the US of the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, read this.

It is just as obvious that standing armies and their weaponry cannot defend borders or territories in depth without internal tax collection systems to pay the forces' bill. In the last years of the Soviet Union, the Politburo in Moscow unsuccessfully tried armed intervention in Lithuania, then Azerbaijan. But they swiftly gave up the force option, and abandoned the effort to enforce direct rule. They took longer to be persuaded to abandon the means to keep the rouble zone of the former Soviet states intact through a single central bank and a common system of rouble financing.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, instead of the military, administrative and financial controls of the old system, the Kremlin used (created) the Russian oligarchs to restore a significant measure of its previous influence. Not as directly nor as obviously potent as the Communist Party, KGB security, the Gosbank apparatus, and the Red Army commands had been before 1991; notwithstanding, the oligarchs were effective in restoring personal influence with the Central Asian governing elites, obtaining thereby unique means to anticipate and neutralize such threats to Russian state interests as may have been in contemplation. The Russians were able to do this by paying cash at a minuscule fraction of the old Soviet price.

James-GiffenThe US employed exactly the same means, both inside the Russian Federation, and inside the former Soviet Union. The case of the US Government's prosecution of James Giffen (right) [ATTACH=CONFIG]7659[/ATTACH] for bribing high officials in Kazakhstan is exemplary. Giffen's defence in a New York federal court against charges of foreign bribery and corruption was that he was acting on behalf of the CIA. The federal judge upheld the defence and dismissed the prosecution, saying: "Suffice it to say, Mr. Giffen was a significant source of information to the U.S. government and a conduit of secret information from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He undertook that effort as a volunteer and was one of the only Americans with sustained and reliable access to the highest levels of Soviet officialdom…These relationships, built up over a lifetime, were lost the day of his arrest. This ordeal must end. How does Mr. Giffen reclaim his reputation? This court begins by acknowledging his service."

In the Russian sphere of influence, the oligarch system (including the state energy corporations) has been successful in assuring the Kremlin's strategic interests in Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It has been less successful, though still positively supportive, in Belarus. It has been unsuccessful in Georgia and Ukraine.

In these countries, once the US opted to use force never mind whether this took hybrid or proxy forms the Kremlin was obliged to react with counter-force. The defeat of US force in Georgia in August 2008 led to the much greater use of US force in Ukraine in 2014. In Ukraine the substantial asset holdings, energy supply controls, and political clientelism which Russia, its state banks and the Russian oligarchs had established in Ukraine proved unguarded and impotent when the US used force to overthrow the regime of President Victor Yanukovich. Once that occurred, inside the Kremlin Putin lost the balancing effect of his "internationalist" and "business" factions, and was obliged to follow the course predicted and mapped out, not by the siloviki (as they were customarily understood), but by the General Staff and the intelligence services. The consequence has been a quiet revolution noone outside Russia has noticed.

The Russian oligarch system (aka Russian crony capitalism) was first designed to keep a weak, corrupt, American client, President Boris Yeltsin, in power. It then turned out to be well suited to the projection of Russian economic power abroad and to the expansion of Putin's domestic support after he had eliminated threats from the front rank of the oligarchs Vladimir Gusinsky, Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The system was volatile and competitive, but stable until the point when the US used force for regime change in Russia.

From then on it has become obvious the system lacks political clout in the countries and markets where the Russian oligarchs had tried convincing the Kremlin they were powerful. Mikhail Fridman had, continues to keep, valuable assets in Ukraine, but no political power when it came to the crunch last year. Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov are among the richest men living in the UK; they have proved impotent as British capital joined forces with the US to attack Putin. Alexander Lebedev owns two London newspapers and a television station, but his son Evgeny uses these media to bite the hand that has fed him. Mikhail Prokhorov, Alexander Abramov and Vagit Alekperov, the oligarchs with the largest capital commitments in the US, have failed to put up the resistance which their peers from other countries show, when the US Government or Congress turns hostile.

These oligarchs have proved they are maladapted for war-fighting. That's because they have been internationalizing their capital, and in so doing making themselves hostage to the instruments of US and European war-making. Three Russian political figures have understood this, and said so publicly the deputy prime minister for defence, Dmitry Rogozin (below, left); sometime presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev; and Colonel Igor Girkin (Strelkov, right)), proponent of the Novorussian war.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7657[/ATTACH]

All three are on the US-EU sanctions lists.

Through the collapse of the international commodity trade and the cutoff of their international financing, the indebtedness of the oligarchs has resulted in their virtual nationalization by the Russian state banks. Individually, oligarchs remain for as long as Putin and the security services judge them to be patriotic and loyal; and on condition they accept their new role as state trustees rather than entrepreneurial capitalists.

Rearguard resistance, like that of Igor Zyuzin of Mechel towards the takeover of his bankrupt coal-mining and steel group by Sberbank, is the exception proving the rule. More exemplary is Oleg Deripaska's recent conversion of Rusal, the aluminium monopoly, from global exporter of commodity metal to vertically integrated manufacturer for the domestic market of bauxite ore to aluminium window-frames; for the details, read this.

Then there is the case of Alexei Mordashov. The last time Putin called in the oligarchs for marching orders was over dinner at the Kremlin on December 19, 2014. Here's the guest list; Mordashov was seated alphabetically on Putin's right. A month later, on January 19, he met Putin (below) at the Kremlin for a more intimate discussion.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7658[/ATTACH]

The partial Kremlin transcript records Mordashov as telling Putin he is content to be focusing on Russia nowadays indeed, he said, he is making more profit because of it. "Last year, we increased our production volume slightly: steel production went up by about 2 percent. Overall, we achieved good indicators, you could say, the world's leading indicators in terms of such important factors as production profitability and net debt volume. At the same time, we did a great deal of work abroad, but came to the conclusion that our future lies primarily in Russia, in the Russian market, and our production here is most efficient. We sold the North American division and are focusing almost entirely on our Russian assets. This has led to a fairly high profit level." For an accounting of the several billion dollars Mordashov invested in the US, instead of Russia, and then lost, read this.

"We believe our future lies primarily in the Russian market," he went to say what he has no alternative but to acknowledge. "Right now, there is a lot of talk about the difficult times and so on. But I think that what is happening now, in spite of some serious difficulties, also represents good potential for growth. In other words, what is happening is a serious correction to the macroeconomic indicators, but on the other hand, these events are making national production more competitive."

Mordashov doesn't make these trips to Putin's office just to kowtow. He usually asks for permission to spend money abroad; for what happened after Putin granted his request in May 2006, click to read. On January 19 last, this appears to have been no exception. The Kremlin transcript breaks off with Putin saying: "Good. Thank you." Did Mordashov go on to say that he wants to spend more than a billion dollars buying shares in Tui, the London-listed, German-headquartered tourism group? Mordashov's spokesman in Moscow won't answer, but the evidence appearing in Germany suggests that Mordashov asked for permission, and Putin gave it.

According to the German reports, which have been repeated in the Moscow business media, in August Mordashov lodged an application with the German anti-trust regulator to buy 12% of the shares of Tui, to add to his existing stake of 13%. The German report appeared on August 21; the Russian report on September 4. Mordashov told the German government he is acting through a Cyprus company called Unifirm. The proposed purchase of 71 million Tui shares would cost Mordashov £859 million ($1.3 billion) at the current market price. Without revealing the cost, he also told a Moscow newspaper: "I can and I want to [increase my shareholding], I think. I think that I will not pass the threshold of 30%, after which I would be required to make an offer to shareholders. My desired package 20% to 25%, depending on the situation." This is the largest single investment by a Russian oligarch offshore, which Putin has personally authorized since he publicly announced he is forbidding it. What next?

The American war including the Ukraine front, the Syrian front, the North African front cannot be supportable for long in Europe because the costs are too great for country budgets to pay, and for domestic constituencies to tolerate. The refugee crisis demonstrates that the spillover of these American wars is breaking up every form of European accord and consensus decision-making, threatening thereby all the governing parties, and most of the opposition parties across Europe. The Putin system of governance is better adapted now than the European system of governance for protracted war, although the domestic costs are heavy.

Cronyism in US governance is also maladaptive in the present situation. This is because no American ruler can implement any undertaking he makes, either to friend or foe, so US war gambits cannot be agreed on with allies (as the Afghanistan, Iraq and Libyan wars once were). Nor can negotiated peace settlements with rivals or adversaries be stable

Quote: The Siege of Crimea (II)
2015/11/27


KIEV/MOSCOW/BERLIN
(Own report) - Leaders of the Crimean Tartars, who have been blocking the supply of electricity to Crimea for the past few days, have good contacts to the German political establishment. Years ago, Mustafa Jemilev and Refat Chubarov, who were involved in the sabotage action, had held talks on closer ties between Crimea and the West with officials of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the German government's Representative for ethnic German immigration to Germany. Just two and a half weeks ago, they discussed with the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Federica Mogherini, the "de-occupation of Crimea" and the necessary "peaceful actions, in particular with respect to power supply." The Crimean Tartars, who are currently cooperating with fascist organizations and ultra-rightwing battalions, have been elected to the Ukrainian parliament on the electoral list of President Petro Poroshenko's party. According to an expert, Poroshenko is "instrumentalizing" them for "his foreign policy" objectives. Jemilev also has good contacts to the US political establishment. Among the Crimean Tartars, he and Chubarov, who in Berlin enjoy exclusive recognition, are competing with Tartar Salafists - some of whom are currently fighting on the battlefields of Syria - and with Russia-oriented Tartar organizations.


Blockade with Fascists
Crimean Tartars are primarily responsible for the current blockade imposed on Crimea. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[1]) Already on September 20, they had begun autonomously to inspect traffic destined for the Crimea from the Ukrainian region of Kherson, to prohibit commodity transports onto the peninsula. They accepted the help of Ukrainians - euphemistically referred to as "activists" in the German media - who often are members of fascist organizations, such as the Right Sector or ultra-rightwing militias, such as the Aidar or the Donbass Battalions. October 13, fascist organizations honored the most prominent Crimean Tartar leader, Mustafa Jemilev with the "People's Hero of Ukraine" Award for his reliable cooperation. Already by the beginning of October, their joint blockade of Crimea had expanded to the first attempts to not only cut off Crimea from commodities, but from electrical power, as well.[2] At the end of last week, several electric pylons were blown up, shutting down the supply of electricity to the peninsula. Crimean Tartars then blocked access to the scenes of the crimes to prevent the damage from being repaired.

Instrument of Foreign Policy
As "Ukraine-Analysen," a publication of the University of Bremen, points out, actions such as the blockade of the Crimea, could not have been carried out without the "quiet acquiescence" of the administration in Kiev. In fact, already a year ago, President Petro Poroshenko - whose dockyard had been nationalized, when the Crimea was integrated into Russia - had "entered cooperation with the Crimean Tartar leaders." In the October 26, 2014, Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Jemilev and Chubarov, the two last chairs of the Mejlis, the executive council of the Crimean Tartars, were elected to parliament on President Poroshenko's party list. September 26 - with the blockade already in full swing - Poroshenko designated Jemilev to head the National Council for Anti-Corruption Policies, a presidential advisory commission. The Crimea blockade "clearly" demonstrates, writes the editor of the "Ukraine-Analysen," that "in the Ukraine, paramilitary organizations are unofficially engaged in penal functions, permitting President Poroshenko to instrumentalize the co-opted Crimean Tartar leaders for his foreign policy objectives."[3]

No Monolithic Entity
However, Jemilev and Chubarov are in no way representing the standpoint of the entire Crimean Tartar minority. Whereas the Mejlis is seen to be pro-western, and even favoring, to a certain extent, circles linked to the Orange Revolution, the Crimean Tartar Milli Firka ("People's Party"), founded in 2006, has been standing in clear opposition to the Mejlis from the very beginning. Whereas the Mejlis 2013 - 2014 supported the Maidan protests and the putsch, Milli Firka had always been clearly opposed - and in March 2014, had appealed for participation in the referendum on Crimea's status and to vote in favor of integration into Russia. The Mejlis called for a boycott of the referendum and declared Russian integration, illegitimate. Reliable information on the proportion of followers Mejlis and Milli Firka have among the peninsula's 250,000 Crimean Tartars is unavailable. It is clear, however, that a monolithic anti-Russian unity, usually suggested by German media of the Crimean Tartar minority, is non-existent. Whereas Moscow has recognized Crimean Tartar as the third official national language - Kiev has consistently refused - official Russian administrations are repressing anti-Russian circles affiliated with the Mejlis. Jemilev and Chubarov, for example, had been banned for several years from Crimea, which is why they live in Ukraine.

Against Russia
Jemilev's close cooperation with the West's foreign policy establishments, where he has made strong pleas against Crimea being integrated into Russia, may have been what caused Russian repression. A good example is Jemilev's trip to Washington in early April 2014, immediately following Crimea's integration into Russia. The Crimean Tartar leader also had an appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he responded to the question of a threat of radicalization on the Crimean peninsula saying that he may "not be able to control younger Tartars and Islamist factions."[4] One of the "Islamist factions" being referred to is the Tartar organization Hizb ut Tahrir, which has sent militia to fight in Syria. When the US press asked if he can imagine "a road back to Ukraine for Crimea," Jemilev ambiguously responded, "everyone talks about the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Where is it?"[5] Among his interventions, also spoke at an informal session of the UN Security Council - boycotted by Russia - and April 4, 2014, held talks with Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the US State Department. He recommended that relations to Crimean Tartars be intensified - for example with scholarships, but also with direct support. The exact nature of Jemilev's plea for "direct support" is unknown.

Partner for EU Rapprochement
Berlin, in particular, maintains close relations to leaders of pro-western Crimean Tartars. The Crimean Tartar's Mejlis, with Refat Chubarov as chair, is a member of the ethnicist organization Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN),[6] sponsored by the federal government, as well as various regional governments in Germany. Another ethnicist organization, the Society for threatened Peoples (SFTP), awarded its "Victor Gollancz Prize" to Mustafa Jemilev in 2005. Erika Steinbach (CDU) - at the time the chair of the German League of Expellees (BdV) - held the laudatory address. The SFTP was one of the organizers of the first "German - Crimean Tartar Dialogue," held in the summer of 2011 in Berlin. Mustafa Jemilev, chair, at the time, and his successor Refat Chubarov were among the Mejlis representatives, who traveled to Berlin for the occasion. Viktor Yanukovych had won the Ukrainian election eighteen months earlier. Berlin was searching for a means for keeping Kiev on its pro-western course. According to one report, the German - Crimean Tartar Dialogue had a double objective: on the one hand, to draw attention to the Crimean Tartars and their living conditions, and, on the other, to "search for partners ..., who, at an international forum ... would discuss the Crimean Tartar issue as an element ... of the rapprochement to the EU structures."[7]

High Level Contacts
In Berlin, numerous officials, including some in senior positions, participated in this debate. The Mejlis delegation held talks not only with parliamentarians of the Bundestag and the chairman of the Green Party, Cem Özdemir, it also met with "activists of half a dozen NGOs," it was reported.[8] The delegation was even received by representatives of the Turkish embassy. Ankara claims to be the "protective power" of Crimean Tartars. The Mejlis delegation also met with Christoph Bergner, at the time, Commissary for Ethnic German Immigrants and National Minorities, who was also responsible for cooperation with the FUEN. The delegation concluded with consultations with representatives of the Foreign Ministry.[9]

The De-Occupation of Crimea
Berlin's seasoned foreign policy contacts, Jemilev and Chubarov, are supportive of the past few days' blockade by the sabotage of electric pylons in Ukraine's Kherson region, and are making sure that electrical power will not be restored. Most recently, they both met with Federica Mogherini, High Representative for the EU's Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. They "discussed sincerely and frankly" with Mogherini about the issues of Crimea's "de-occupation," they subsequently reported. They spoke of the extension of sanctions against Russia, and "peaceful actions, in particular with respect to power supply."[10] At the time of these talks, the Crimean Tartars' autonomous trade blockade was already in full swing, blowing up the power pylons was soon to follow.

For more information on this theme read The Siege of Crimea (I).

[1] See The Siege of Crimea (I).
[2], [3] Katerina Bosko: "Es geht ums Geschäft": Die Krim-Blockade und die Realität der Wirtschaftsbeziehungen mit der Krim nach eineinhalb Jahren Annexion. In: Ukraine-Analysen Nr. 158, 28.10.2015, 5-9.
[4] After Annexation: Assessing Crimea's Future With Mustafa Dzhemilev. carnegieendowment.org 02.04.2014.
[5] Matthew Kaminski: A Crimean Tatar Comes to America. The Wall Street Journal 02.04.2014.
[6] See Hintergrundbericht: Die Föderalistische Union Europäischer Volksgruppen.
[7], [8], [9] Mieste Hotopp-Riecke: Der lange Schatten Stalins über den Stiefkindern Eurasiens. http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de 02.08.2011.
[10] Crimean Tatar leaders met with Federica Mogherini. qha.com.ua 09.11.2015.

Magda Hassan Wrote:Obvious double front is obvious. Ukraine and Syria. US doesn't have a legal leg to stand on but that's never stopped them in the past. Not sure the Ukrainian army or what passes for it after their 13th recruitment drive has it in them to really pull it off. The people in the area will suffer in any case. Hoping Syria bomb the US airfield which has appeared on Syrian territory under Kurdish control. Kurds have no legal rights to allow US there. Iraq of course can blow to smithereens any Turks and their tanks on Iraq soil. Just like the US did to Iraq when they went to Kuwait uninvited. Clearly NATO is planning to create a puppet state in this area, thanks to their ISIS proxies having done their work for the US, and connect these two regions under NATO control.

Then there is Venezuela.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:Erdogan has shown he is willing to shut off the Dardanelles. Russia can't respond short of a nuclear war -- other than sanctions. Erdogan expects to get the natural gas he was supposed to get from his Russian "partners" from a Qatar pipeline running up through Syria and or Iraq.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:Now Plotinsky of the LPR has announced that the humanitarian aid truck columns from Russia will be stopped -- in the beginning of Winter! ::

Lauren Johnson Wrote:One more thing, the Putin fans think that Putin did exactly the right thing in not occupying the Donbass in March, 2013. He knew full well that Ukraine couldn't pay its bills and would eventually realized that Russia was its real future. Well, Putin's Clever Plan just fell apart when the IMF decided to loan Ukraine $3 billion to pay off its Russian lenders. So much for the Clever Plan.

Putin, did you really expect them not to change the rules?

Quote:Reportedly, the main topic of discussions for John Kerry's coming visit to Moscow on December 15 is, besides more "genuine cooperation" with the US-led coalition and US plans in Syria, also the organization of the "elections" in the "unrecognized DPR and LPR" with participation of Ukrainian parties and under Kiev's rules as well as ways of how accomplish and sell to the public Kiev's takeover of the DPR and LPR borders with Russia.