Puting fighting ISIS, whilst setting up terrorists groups in Ukraine

It was Winston Churchill who said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”

This is a lesson that Putin learnt in 1999, when he was prime minister under Boris Yeltsin.

The Moscow apartment "terror" bombings that took place in September of 1999, were blamed by Putin on Chechen muslim militants.

However,

"Yuri Felshtinsky, Litvinenko, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky, and the secessionist Chechen authorities claimed that the 1999 bombings were a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya, which boosted Prime Minister and former FSB Director Vladimir Putin's popularity, and brought the pro-war Unity Party to the State Duma and Putin to the presidency within a few months." (Wikipedia) (my emphasis)

True to form, Putin is now milking the tragic 'terrorist' events in Paris that killed more than 120 people and injured more than 200 people last Friday, as well as the downing of a Russian plane over Sinai on 31st October  that killed all 224 Russians on board, to once again strut on the world stage at the G20 summit in Turkey as the 'world leader' to rid the world of the scourge of ISIS.

To this end he is,

"...preparing to send 150,000 troops to Syria in a bid to wipe out the evil Islamic State once and for all as he hints at joining the West following the Paris attacks." (Scott Campbell : Express News : Thu, Nov 19, 2015) (my emphasis)

Just as in 1999 his 'macho' stance to bomb Chechnya into oblivion endeared the Russian people towards him, who then gave him the presidency of Russia; he is now, rather cynically, using these latest tragedies not only to shore up his power in Russia but, more importantly, to extract from the US and the EU a removal of the current sanctions against Russia that his war with Ukraine brought down upon his head.

Unfortunately for him, as Laurence Norman and Laura Mills (left) report,

"European Union officials say, however, that there is little appetite in key capitals, including Berlin, London and Paris, to win Russian help in Syria by abandoning Ukraine. One concrete sign is that the bloc is still heading toward extending economic sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis last year, EU officials and diplomats say." (Wall Street Journal : Nov. 18, 2015) (my emphasis) 

Even the fact that,

"Russia this week made a surprise proposal to restructure Ukraine’s debt coming due next month, offering a potential solution to a standoff that has threatened to complicate an international bailout of Ukraine." (ibid Norman and Mills) does not seem to have prevented an extension of these sanctions been agrred upon soon by EU members.

This proposal of Putin has, however, being somewhat overshadowed by the fact that, Russian proxies are been set up for a new offensive in eastern Ukraine.

As reported by Vadym Skybitsky, chief of the Main Directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry,

"We have recorded a few signs indicating that the offensive is being prepared by the militants. Moreover, Russian military commanders of various ranks are permanently there, for example, those from the General Staff, the 12th Command of the Russian Armed Forces' reserve. It is a permanent core," he said. (UT : Nov. 20, 2015) (my emphasis) (cf also: UNIAN)

It is no wonder that, "Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with Poland, are warning of Russian backsliding on implementing the Ukrainian ceasefire deal agreed in February."

  
Time is critically running out for the Minsk2 implementation, in particular, of the return to Ukraine of its border with Russia, together with the removal of Russian soldiers from eastern Ukraine.

Putin's generals are well aware that his rag-tag of rebels in eastern Ukraine simply cannot stand against a Ukrainian army that has held the Russian army in check.

Expect, therefore, to see a serious escalation of Putin employing 'terrorist' methods in Ukraine as a means of maintaining his strategy of destabilising the current Ukrainian regime.

As Aaron Korewa says,

 "Euromaidan Press recently published a list of the Kremlin's other separatist projects in Ukraine. One of the most active organizations is the Kharkiv Partisans, which operates in northeast Ukraine. The group has claimed responsibility for several IED attacks on both people and infrastructure in the area. Its leader, Oleg Sobchenko, lives in Russia and claims to be a Soviet Army veteran who served on the Afghan border.

In Odesa, a group known as the Odesa Underground states that it's behind a similar string of terrorist attacks there. And the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, claims to have foiled a terror attack on a recruitment center in Kyiv on October 14. The cell behind the attempted attack was allegedly controlled by Russian security services and led by Alexei Selivanov, a pro-Russian Ukrainian citizen from Odesa who was previously involved with pro-Russian Cossack groups." (Atlantic Council : November 11, 2015)

So whilst Putin is publicly taking a stand against the Islamic terrorist organization ISIS, he is cultivating his own brand of terrorists inside Ukraine.

(to be continued)