Putin has "thrown caution to the wind"

The eleventh hour for the predicted and imminent invasion of Mariupol by Putin's proxies and his Russian soldiers is rapidly nearing.

We have been informed 8 hours ago (Current BST: 07:35) that,

"State department spokeswoman Marie Harf (left) said in a statement that "combined Russian-separatist forces" were violating the terms of the Minsk deal, keeping artillery and multiple rocket launchers in prohibited areas.

"The Russian military has deployed additional air defence systems into eastern Ukraine and moved several of these nearer the front lines," she said." (BBC News : April 23, 2015) (my emphasis)

At the same time,

"Amid a country in conflict, their industry is in crisis…and Ukraine’s miners are making themselves heard.
From the west and war-torn east, hundreds gathered in Kyiv – breaking through police lines in a protest near the president’s office and banging their helmets on the ground.” (Euronews : 22/04/2015)

We therefore have to ask ourselves,

"Why are miners also from the rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine suddenly converging on Kiev, demanding increases in salaries and the restoration of state subsidies?"

And finally, to top it all, that dyed-in-the-wool Soviet foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov,

"....during a two-hour marathon Q&A session with three Russian radio stations: Echo of Moscow, Moscow Speaks and Sputnik Radio....

[stated that]

The Ukrainian crisis is used by the US to derail Russia’s partnership with the EU and particularly Germany, Lavrov (left) stressed.

“An open partnership between Russia and Germany is necessary to rattle the European Union, to make the lane of pursuing national interests of [EU] member states prevailing, not to give up the EU policies to marginal politicians acting on orders from across the ocean,” Lavrov explained. (RT : April 22, 2015) (my emphasis)

 It is simply no co-incidence that these three events occured practically simultaneously viz.

(1) Russian military deploying additional air defence systems into eastern Ukraine 
(2) Ukraine's miners suddenly protesting in Kiev, AND
(3) Lavrov holding a two-hour marathon on Russian radio to blame the US for
     wanting to derail the cosy relationship that Putin has with the German
    "Putinversteher" political establishment and the German public

Putin is finally throwing caution to the wind.

The "Black Swan Event" abyss into which Putin has launched himself into, together with his close circle of kleptocratic 'siloviki',  signifies that he simply has "no exit strategy" from the tangled web of political deception that he has woven for himself.

  Fradkov          Shoigu             Patruschev        Kolokoltsev         Bortnikov

Lavrov has set the stage of preparing the Russian people for the "fallout" of what is to come from that which Putin has now set in motion.

Putin's propaganda machine is gearing itself up for this task.

Stephen Ennis gives us a short insight into what both the Russian people and the world at large can expect from Putin's propaganda machine.

"Russian TV's coverage of the fighting in and around the village of Shyrokyne in east Ukraine provides a useful case study of some of the tactics it uses to mislead viewers about the conflict there."

•  In its primetime news on 20 April, official channel Rossiya 1 said "violations" by the Ukrainian side were an "everyday occurrence". As the correspondent (left) uttered these words, viewers were shown pictures of wrecked buildings and also what looked like a corpse under a pink sheet. The corpse was then shown being carried away on a makeshift stretcher by four OSCE observers.

• Alongside blaming Ukrainian forces for ceasefire violations in Shyrokyne, Russian state TV has also accused them of deliberately targeting civilians....But the full version of the video (posted among other places on the Ukrainian website Censor.net) told a rather different story

• Immediately after the video excerpt of the mortar fire, Bilibov's report showed an elderly woman, one of the few dozen civilians still left in Shyrokyne. "Do they shoot at you?" Bilibov asked. The woman tearfully told him how she has been forced to take refuge from the fighting in a cellar.
  
  
  
  The woman is presented as yet another victim of the merciless "punishers", as Russian state TV likes to term Ukrainian troops.
  
  The views of a Shyrokyne resident are presented in different ways on different channels
  But although she may be suffering because of Ukrainian mortar fire, this woman's view of the conflict is very different from that presented on Russian TV.
  
  Just a few days earlier, she had featured in a video report by Vice News's Simon Ostrovsky, in which she was shown upbraiding separatist army spokesman Eduard Basurin.
  
  She said she felt intimidated by the armed men on the streets and pleaded with Basurin to leave her village in peace. "We want you to establish the borders and leave us in Ukraine," she told him. (BBC : 22 Apr 2015) (my emphasis)
  
  
  

The 17th EU-Ukraine summit is scheduled to take place on the 27th April in Kiev.

Included on the agenda will be,

" .....an opportunity to discuss:

• the implementation of the Association Agreement and the political and economic reforms in Ukraine including EU financial and other assistance
• the crisis in Eastern Ukraine and the application of the Minsk agreements, including the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) (European Council) (right: EU President Tusk and Poroshenko)

 Has Putin jumped into the "Black Swan Event" abyss in the hope that, as Lavrov has stated, "to rattle [and intimidate] the European Union with his political allies in the EU?

Some of Putin's EU "friends"

The 'fragrant'  Mogherini             (Italy)  Renzi                  (Greece) Tsipras          (Germany) Steinmeier

(to be continued)