The Battle for Novorussiya

[David Guyatt]

I wonder what Merkel and Hollande think about it? It seems to be a unilateral - by which I mean the US said do it, so we have. Let's hope these troops don't get stuck in some sort of witch's cauldron.

Or will that be the point?

I wouldn't put that past Her Majesty's Young Boys Bottoms Fanciers Party in Power, to be perfectly honest. So much deception and double dealing is going on over Ukraine that anything is possible.

Witness the following report from today's Indy:

Russia's roadmap for annexing eastern Ukraine 'leaked from Vladimir Putin's office'



One of Russia's leading independent newspapers says it has received a bombshell document showing Putin's office put together a 'step-by-step' guide to taking Crimea and other eastern Ukrainian provinces more than a year ago

ADAM WITHNALL

Wednesday 25 February 2015

Moscow has been planning to annex parts of Ukraine for more than 12 months, according to sensational claims made in a Russian newspaper.

Vladimir Putin's office reportedly compiled a detailed roadmap of how a "pro-Russian drift" could allow it to seize Crimea and some eastern provinces, just a few weeks prior to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych and the start of the Ukrainian crisis.
According to a document allegedly leaked to the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Russia had identified Mr Yanukovych as "politically bankrupt", and outlined a plan by which a "coup" would set in motion events ultimately leading to Russian expansion.
The extraordinary claims made by the newspaper, which is one of the last independent media outlets in the country and was recently nominated for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for its investigations, could not be independently verified. The alleged document, translated into English by the Kyiv Post, was reportedly provided to Mr Putin's office for consideration between 4 and 12 February 2014 the same month that Mr Yanukovych was removed by the Ukrainian parliament.
Novaya Gazeta reported in its introduction that the events that have followed in the past year in Ukraine resemble with "a great deal of correlation" the "step-by-step [guide to] the basis, political and PR logistics of Russia's interference into Ukrainian affairs and estrangement from Ukraine of Crimea and eastern provinces".

Among the highlighted details of the plan are "a pejorative assessment of Yanukovych, whom Russia later presented as a victim of a coup and the only legitimate leader of Ukraine".
It details the eastern, cross-border regions of "Donbas" and "Dnepr", among others, as "euroregions" that are "legitimate from the point of view of the European Union".
"Using [this] instrument, Russia should achieve deals on cross-border cooperation and then establish direct interstate relations with the Ukrainian territories where stable pro-Russian electoral sentiments exist," the alleged document reads.
The document also suggests that Russia's support for such territories "will obviously be a burden for the budget in the current situation", but adds that "in geopolitical perspective it will give us a priceless gain our country will receive access to new demographic resources and highly-qualified personnel in the industrial and transport sphere".

One section of the document appears to lay out the need for the destabilisation of "events in western Ukraine". "To launch the process of the pro-Russian drift' of Crimean and Eastern Ukrainian territories, it's needed to create the events that would give this process political legitimacy and moral justification, beforehand," it reads.
In his most recent comments on the Ukrainian crisis during an interview with Russian state TV, Mr Putin repeated denials that his government was providing support to rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The Novaya Gazeta report, issued on Tuesday evening, came as a long-awaited truce appeared to be taking hold in eastern Ukraine with the start of the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line.
A truce agreed in Minsk by Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany was due begin on 15 February, and after a shaky start seemed on Wednesday to have halted most of the violence on the frontline.
The OSCE says it cannot yet verify the withdrawal because the sides have not said how many guns were in place before the truce. It reported some shelling and shooting at various locations, including near Shyrokyne, a coastal town on the road to Mariupol where Kiev has also reported fighting.
The Kiev military nevertheless said the number of ceasefire violations had "significantly decreased" for a second straight night, and its account of the past 24 hours was the calmest since the truce was agreed in the Belarusian capital.

This is an article that requires focused parsing and reading between the lines to uncover the reality. Firstly, we are told that these claims about Putin's roadmap plans were published by a Russian "independent" newspaper, the Novaya Gazeta which has long been critical of Putin. Good for them. But they appear to have paid heavily for their criticism, with a number of murders amongst their staff. The newspaper is 49% owned (along with Mikhail Gorbachev) by Alexander Lebedev, the Russian oligarch, who also partly owns the Independent newspaper which published the above story. Alexander's son, Evgeny is the Chairman of the Independent and the Evening Standard and is a British citizen. All very comfortable, one might argue. But Lebedev and Putin are arch enemies, so this story can hardly be described as "independent" by The Independent. If one wishes to be strictly accurate, the proper description would be "prejudiced".


The fact that Lebedev also is an owner of The Indy raises compelling questions about the integrity of this article. And this is recognized by them in their text when they admit that the claims made by Novaya Gazeta could not be independently claimed (they like the word independent, do The Independent), and elsewhere - after the initial sensational first couple of para's, they admit it is an "allegation." Not a fact, in other words.


But then things get a little strange, because the Indy goes on to say that the alleged underlying document was translated into English by Kyiv Post, a Ukrainian newspaper owned by fat cat metal billionaire Mohammed Zahoor, part Ukrainian and part Pakistanian. Interestingly though, Zahoor is also a British citizen. The Kviv Post endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko in the 2010 Ukrainian elections. Tymoshenko was a bitter rival to the now ousted Ukrainian prime minister Victor Yanukovych. She favoured Ukraine joining NATO and her release from prison where she was incarcerated on dodgy charges of exceeding her authority, was an EU pre-condition for allowing Ukraine to join a trade and partnership alliance with the EU. In the event, the then incumbent prime minster, Victor Yanukovych baulked at singing that agreement and turned to Russia for aid - a move that led to his removal from power; a US backed coup d'etat engineered by US diplomat, Victoria Nuland who was caught uttering the immortal words "fuck the EU" in a phone call discussing who would be permitted to take power in Ukraine.


So it's fairly easy to conclude that this is a noxious piece of biased western propaganda turned out by Putin enemies and bundled as an (that word again) "independent" story, but where all the real anti Putin puppet masters are kept carefully concealed in the shadows allowing them to pull the strings without easy detection.


Well done the Independent, another stake in the now barely beating heart of "independent" British journalism.

Edit = clean up and increased info input.