Merkel coming to the aid of Putin

On Thursday (7 Jan. 2016) I wrote that,

"As in the case of the cyber attack on Estonia in 2007, Putin is once again hiding behind the skirts of "so-called" hackers, in the hope that the international community will not see him as the instigator of this cyber warfare against Ukraine.

Many commentators seem to be tip-toeing around pointing the finger directly at Putin." (blog)

Finally, yesterday Jim Finkle (right) reports that,

"U.S. cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners said on Thursday it has determined that a Russian hacking group known as Sandworm caused last month's unprecedented power outage in Ukraine.
"We believe that Sandworm was responsible," iSight's director of espionage analysis, John Hultquist, said in an interview.
.....

"It is a Russian actor operating with alignment to the interest of the state," Hultquist said. "Whether or not it's freelance, we don't know." (Reuters : Fri Jan 8, 2016) (my emphasis)




As Doug Bernard (right) also explains,

"Not surprisingly, Russia has figured as the principal suspect in planting the Ukrainian malware. Neither Russian or Ukrainian officials have spoken about the incident publicly, but in the past, government-linked Russian hackers have been tied to cyber-attacks in Estonia, Georgia and elsewhere." (VoA : January 07, 2016) (my emphasis)

Putin's 'maskirovka' mask is slipping very fast.

And whilst Putin's 'hackers' are busy 'cyber'-attacking the grid system of Ukraine, the Moscow Times reveals that,

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she believes there will be progress in the "Normandy format" negotiations on the Ukraine crisis over the next few months.

The "Normandy format" includes France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

"I believe that we will achieve progress in the Normandy negotiations between Russia and the Ukraine within the next months. I am optimistic," Merkel said at a Chamber of Industry and Commerce event in Magdeburg.." (Moscow Times : Jan. 08 2016) (my emphasis)

As I stated in my blog entry on 4 Jan. 2016,

"Now, however, events between Iran and Saudi Arabia has rather "thrown the cat amongst the pidgeons" of this 'hidden agenda' of Merkel and Hollande. (i.e. to have the economic sanctions against Russia lifted)

Putin cannot 'suddenly' withdraw his support for Assad.

More importantly, Hollande cannot be seen to stand alongside Putin, thus courting the extreme displeasure of Saudi Arabia and her friends.

Merkel, on the other hand, has given refuge to hundreds of thousands of  Syrian refugees.

Merkel can help Putin get off the Syrian hook on which he now dangles.

Will she now force Putin's hand over Ukraine" (blog)

As her current optimism indicates, it would seem that this is precisely what she is doing viz. forcing Putin's hand over Ukraine.

But will it work?

(to be continued)

Putin's cyber warfare against Ukraine will not help him.

In 2007,

"Estonia says the country's websites have been under heavy attack for the past three weeks, blaming Russia for playing a part in the cyber warfare.

Many of the attacks have come from Russia and are being hosted by Russian state computer servers, Tallinn says. Moscow denies any involvement." (BBC News : Thursday, 17 May 2007) (my emphasis)

And on December 23, 2015,

"Experts say they have established the world’s first known case of a cyber attack on a power grid, which cut power to more than 600,000 homes in Ukraine in late December. US intelligence agencies and cyber security experts are looking to Russia as the likely source of the attack.....
 .........
It’s a scenario that has long worried cyber security experts. “It’s a milestone because we’ve definitely seen targeted destructive events against energy before—oil firms, for instance—but never the event which causes the blackout,” John Hultquist, director of cyber espionage analysis at iSIGHT told Ars Technica." (Quartz : January 06, 2016) (my emphasis)

Robert Lipovsky and Anton Cherepanov give us a detailed insight into the nature of this cyber attack.

They explain that,

"... The BlackEnergy backdoor, as well as a recently discovered SSH backdoor, themselves provide attackers with remote access to infected systems. After having successfully infiltrated a critical system with either of these trojans, an attacker would, again theoretically, be perfectly capable of shutting it down. In such case, the planted KillDisk destructive trojan would act as a means of making recovery more difficult." (welivesecurity : 4 Jan 2016) (my emphasis)

As in the case of the cyber attack on Estonia in 2007, Putin is once again hiding behind the skirts of "so-called" hackers, in the hope that the international community will not see him as the instigator of this cyber warfare against Ukraine.

Many commentators seem to be tip-toeing around pointing the finger directly at Putin. 

Yet as recently as December 21,  Paul Baldwin  informed us that,

"Speaking on a documentary broadcast on Russian TV, Putin said he would not wield the "nuclear big stick".

But he threatened to liquidate Islamic State jihadis with nuclear warheads if conventional bombing raids fail to destroy the terror group.

The Russian president warned that his military's cruise missiles could be fitted with atomic weapons." (Daily Express : Mon, Dec 21, 2015)  (my emphasis)

If Putin is willing to use nuclear warheads against Daesh (Isis), are we to assume that he will be 'morally stricken' against using cyber warfare against the civilian population of Ukraine?

Let us not forget those aparment bombings in Moscow in September of 1999, that led to the deaths of  hundreds of innocent sleeping Russians.

"Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky, 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 in order 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)


Following on from his cyber attack on Ukraine's electricity grid; in Ukraine's Transcarpathian region,

"An explosion ripped through a natural gas pipeline in western Ukraine's Transcarpathian region on Friday, January 1st (2016)." (UT : Jan. 1, 2016) (my emphasis)

What signal can Putin be sending to Ukraine by blowing up a natural gas pipeline that sends the gas of Gazprom to the EU, where it earns much needed cash for a Russian economy that is nose-diving into a near complete collapse?

As Ted Meyer writes,

"While the continued free fall of oil prices has contributed in part to another year of growth for the United States economy, the picture is much less rosy in Russia. With an economy that is highly dependent on oil and gas exports, the shrinking oil prices have hit Russia hard...(http://zenrus.ru/)

..... in November the Russian GDP shrank after a few months of incremental growth. All of this bad news begs a question: is Russia’s economy headed for collapse in 2016?" (Investopedia : January 06, 2016)

Also, as Allister Heath of the Daily Telegraph (17 Dec 2014) explains in the video below: 

 
Putin, it would seem, has a political and economic timebomb ticking beneath him. Attacking the Ukrainian electricity grid will simply not stop that bomb ticking down.

(to be continued)

Putin's Syrian gambit has blown up in his face!

Putin's Syrian gambit has blown up in his face!

As Kristian Coates Ulrichsen reports,

 
" ..... the breakdown in diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran probably sounds the death-knell, at least for now, for regional efforts to end the wars in Yemen and Syria." (BBC News : 4 Jan. 2016)

Putin's hope that his intervention in Syria would deflect the eyes of the world away from his war with Ukraine, and propel him onto the international scene as the primary broker of peace in Syria,  has drastically backfired.

He backed the wrong horse! Bashar Al Assad!

Bashar Al Assad (left), the Alawite, an Islamic sect, centered in Syria, who follow a branch of the Twelver school of Shia Islam but with syncretistic elements, and who has the full backing of Iran, whose diplomatic relations with Sunni Islam Saudi Arabia has now been severed, has now become a millstone around the neck of Putin.. 

Putin's effort in continuing to de-stabilise Ukraine will now be concentrated on dragging it through the courts in London.

As Chris Papadopoullos (right) reports,

"The tense standoff between Ukraine and Russia over a $3bn loan will enter its next stages in London as we head into 2016.

......... The countries’ debt standoff goes back to 2013, when Russia offered the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych the loan. It was supposed to be the initial tranche of a $15bn package, designed to keep Ukraine closer to Russia than the EU.

But when Yanukovych was ousted in 2014, the new government began pushing for closer ties with the EU, signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement." (City A.M. : 4 January 2016) (my emphasis)

If Putin's failed Syrian gambit were not enough to give him his first New Year's headache, then the revelation that,

" .... Some 20 Russian soldiers - reportedly involved in downing flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 - have been identified. The suspects are revealed in a new report by Bellingcat, a team of investigative journalists. Dutch prosecutors say they are seriously examining the data to assess whether it can be used as evidence in the international criminal investigation." ( UT : Jan. 4, 2016) (my emphasis)

surely must.

So whilst Putin is dragging Ukraine into British courts to deny that his $3 billion loan to former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich was NOT a bribe to keep Ukraine away from a closer economic union with the EU, Dutch prosecutors are closer to dragging him into an International Court over the shooting down of MH17. 

Now recall  that,".. On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris and its northern suburb, Saint-Denis." (Wikipedia)

As a result, Franscoise Hollande, President of France, joined forces with Putin on Nov 27 2015 in a joint effort to fight against Daesh (ISIS). (NBC News : Nov 27 2015)

At this point in time, Putin was standing 'four square' behind Bashar Al Assad.

This relationship between Hollande and Putin no doubt 'coloured' Hollande's input during the recent Skype meeting between Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and Putin, regarding the full implementation of Minsk2.

Bear in mind also that Merkel opened the doors of Germany to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing from Assad's war against his people, even though she initially received much 'flak' from many political quarters in Germany. (Deborah Cole : AFP (Yahoo News): 15 December 2015)

As I stated in my last blog entry,

"From this [Skype Conference held on 30 December, 2015] one can only deduce that the hidden agenda of Merkel and Hollande is to get sanctions against Russia lifted!

 

Watch this hidden agenda unfold as the New Year progresses."

Now, however, events between Iran and Saudi Arabia has rather "thrown the cat amongst the pidgeons" of this 'hidden agenda' of Merkel and Hollande. 

Putin cannot 'suddenly' withdraw his support for Assad.

More importantly, Hollande cannot be seen to stand alongside Putin, thus courting the extreme displeasure of Saudi Arabia and her friends.

Merkel, on the other hand, has given refuge to hundreds of thousands of  Syrian refugees.

Merkel can help Putin get off the Syrian hook on which he now dangles.

Will she now force Putin's hand over Ukraine? 

(to be continued)

Putin, Merkel, and Hollande; selling out Ukraine in 2016

The New Year is upon us, and the DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement) between Ukraine and the EU has come into force.

And, true to form, Putin is spitting nails!

As reported by Letitia Peron and Oleksandr Savochenko of AFP,

" ..... Russia has taken retaliatory measures, suspending its free-trade agreement with Ukraine and banning the import of Ukrainian food starting on Friday." (Yahoo News (AFP) : January 1, 2016) (my emphasis)

To which Ukraine is responding by,

".... [s]tarting from Jan. 10, Ukraine will restrict imports to the country of 43 Russian products, including vodka, beer, cigarettes, meat, chocolates, dairy products, animal food and locomotives, according to a resolution taken at a government meeting on Dec. 30.

The government said it had approved the import restrictions as a response to a trade embargo of Ukrainian food Russia previously announced it would impose from Jan. 1." (KyivPost : Dec. 31, 2015) (my emphasis)

"Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko estimated the value of Ukrainian exports that Russia would ban at some $116.4 million, while the value of Russian imports Ukraine planned to ban was some $118.8 million." (ibid KyivPost) (my emphasis)

So what can Putin do now? Why, simply that,

"...the longer that separatists in the DPR and LPR keep creating problems for the Ukrainian central government in Kiev, the longer Moscow can rail against Kiev for not living up to ceasefire and election promises in the breakaway territories." (Ryan Faith : Vice News : 31 December, 2015) (my emphasis)

Which brings us to that Skype conference between Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko, and Putin last Wednesday. (30 December, 2015)

As reported by BBC News,

"In a statement released on Wednesday, the French government said: "Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko have reaffirmed their commitment to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and to a concerted pullout without delay of heavy weapons."

Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France - the so-called Normandy Four - also discussed preparations for local elections in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in early 2016." (BBC News : 30 December 2015) (my emphasis)

 If preparations for these 'local elections' in the rebel-held territories of eastern Ukraine were discussed, following these elections, WILL THE FULL conditions of Minsk2 be implemented?

As stated in my last blog entry,

"Like Steinmeier, Gryslov will be pushing, "to ensure that local elections [in the rebel-held areas] take place at the beginning of 2016", whilst Putin still maintains FULL control of the border between Ukraine and Russia in the rebel-held areas, even though the Minsk2 agreement states that,

"Restore full control over the state border by Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) by the end of 2015.." (Daily Telegraph : 12 Feb 2015) (my emphasis)

This link between local elections in the rebel-held areas and the restoring of Ukrainian control over its borders is what Gryslov will be determined to break, especially in light of the increasing pressure being put on Poroshenko to show that he is dealing effectively with the issue of rampant corruption in Ukraine."

This critical link between elections and the restoration of FULL border control in eastern Ukraine passing back to the Ukrainian military has now been broken by Hollande, Merkel, and Putin.

Putin simply cannot withdraw all his Russian forces, armaments, and rebel-proxies from eastern Ukraine since it would signal a complete failure on his part in the eyes of the Russian people.

In his 2016 New Year address, he explicitly states,


".... Today I would like to extend special greetings to those of our service members who are fighting international terrorism, defending Russia's national interest at distant frontiers showing their willpower, determination, and staunchness. These are the qualities we need all the time" (cf. video below for full address)

Since he regards the frontiers of the rebel-held teritories in eastern Ukraine (AND IN CRIMEA!) as part of the Russian frontier, will he be willing to fulfill both the letter and the spirit of Minsk"?

As Ryan Faith so succinctly puts it,

"A lot has been written about why Putin may have gotten involved in Ukraine's Donbass region following the Great Crimean Heist of 2014.

For starters, there's the slightly messianic vision of Putin as Protector of All Russians. He's been making increasingly louder noises about Moscow's responsibility to safeguard the various ethnic Russians scattered throughout the post-Soviet republics. (ibid Vice News) (my emphasis)

So, will Putin fulfill the letter and the spirit of Minsk2, the day after these elections are held in the rebel-held territories of eastern Ukraine?


As the old saying goes, "Pigs will fly!"


From this one can only deduce that the hidden agenda of Merkel and Hollande is to get sanctions against Russia lifted!

 

Watch this hidden agenda unfold as the New Year progresses.
 
(to be continued)

Putin's end-of-year message to Ukraine

There are two events of the last few days that signal a critical juncture in Putin's war with Ukraine.

The first concerns a Russian teenager, Vlad Kolesnikov (left), who, 

"...was found dead after taking overdose on Christmas Day, following a public backlash described by rights groups as 'hideous' over his criticism of Russian policy [in Ukraine].." (Allison Quinn (right): Daily Telegraph : 28 Dec 2015)

The second event concerns a resolution signed by Putin on the 26th December, a day after Kolesnikov's suicide,

" ...  appointing permanent member of the Security Council Boris Gryzlov (left)  the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian Federation in the Contact Group on Settling the Situation in Ukraine." (President of Russia : December 26, 2015) (my italics)

In the case of  Vlad Kolesnikov,

"[in] the weeks leading up to his death...... [he] had made it very clear that he had fallen victim to a harassment campaign for his outspoken political views, telling Ms Bigg that he was consistently beaten up and harassed and that the only way out he saw was suicide. 

[He] shot to fame last summer after wearing a “Return Crimea” T-shirt to his school in Podolsk, a move which prompted his school to expel him and the police to pay him a visit asking where he got the shirt, according to Radio Liberty. Later, he showed up to a military enlistment office playing Ukraine's national anthem on his phone, prompting enlistment officers to diagnose him with a “personality disorder”. (ibid Allison Quinn) (my emphasis)

Of Boris Gryslov, very little is know. As Alexander Mercouris (right) writes,

"What do we know of Gryzlov?  The short answer is surprisingly little, though it is possible to guess more.....

... Gryzlov continues to be a key figure in the Russian power structure.
This is shown by the fact that he remains a permanent member of Russia’s Security Council ... [which].. is in reality Russia’s key decision making body, where all major decisions are discussed and agreed.  The Security Council’s 13 permanent members are the most powerful people in Russia.  Gryzlov is one of them. 

With Putin feeling increasingly confident that Western interest in Ukraine is slackening, he has now brought a tough and reliable man onto the scene who can be relied upon to shape the situation in Russia's interests.  (Russia Insider : December 28, 2015) (my emphasis)

Can it therefore be a co-incidence that the Putinversteher, Walter Steinmeier, recently stated that,

"Nevertheless, many important questions remain unresolved. The ceasefire has turned increasingly fragile. Agreement has still not been reached on a special law on local elections in the parts of the Donbas currently under separatist control. The humanitarian situation in these areas has deteriorated sharply in recent months, causing further suffering to local people." (German Foreign Office : 29.12.2015) (my emphasis)

Let us, for a moment, cast our minds back to the Ukrainian 2004 presidential election results that sparked off the first Maidan revolution.

Even in 2004, Putin was telling the then president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, to crush the protestors on Maidan Square, who were protesting against the rigged presidential election results that stated that Putin's candidate, Yanukovich, had won, by using ANY means.

 

The EU convened a meeting to resolve the critical crisis over the rigged Ukrainian presidential elections in 2004.

And who did Putin send as his representative to this meeting? None other than ..... yes ... you guessed it ... Boris Gryslov!

And what did Gryslov have to say at this meeting?

"Yes, the Ukrainian elections were not ideal. ... But we have an announced result. And we should stick to that result." (Full documentary can be found here.)

 

40,000 miners were bussed to Kiev from the currently rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine, to crush the Maidan protestors who were protesting the rigged results of the 2004 presidential elections.

Back to the present, we now have Walter Steinmeier stating that,

"...  we must continue working to ensure that local elections [in the rebel-held areas] take place at the beginning of 2016 and that the Minsk package of measures be implemented in its entirety, including through the restoration of Ukraine’s complete control over its national borders." (ibid German Foreign Office),

whilst at the same time acknowledging that,

"The fact that the number of ceasefire violations increased again in eastern Ukraine over the Christmas period, rather than decreased, is a worrying development as the year ends." (ibid German Foreign Office).

As the OSCE report of 28 December 2015 also states,

"The SMM observed ceasefire violations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In Donetsk region, the SMM saw and heard the use of mortars. The SMM reached Kominternove several days in a row to follow up on reports about the presence of armed persons in the village and the situation of the residents, but its access was restricted*. The SMM encountered other restrictions to its freedom of movement and security incidents." (OSCE : 28 Dec. 2015)

Like Steinmeier, Gryslov will be pushing, "to ensure that local elections [in the rebel-held areas] take place at the beginning of 2016", whilst Putin still maintains FULL control of the border between Ukraine and Russia in the rebel-held areas, even though the Minsk2 agreement states that,

"Restore full control over the state border by Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) by the end of 2015.." (Daily Telegraph : 12 Feb 2015) (my emphasis)

This link between local elections in the rebel-held areas and the restoring of Ukrainian control over its borders is what Gryslov will be determined to break, especially in light of the increasing pressure being put on Poroshenko to show that he is dealing effectively with the issue of rampant corruption in Ukraine.

As US Vice-President Biden stated in his recent speech to the Ukrainian Rada,

"... it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption.  The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.  The judiciary should be overhauled." (White House : Office of the Vice President : December 09, 2015) (my emphasis)




Today, 30th December 2015,

"The leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia will discuss prolongating truce deal.

  

The leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia will hold a telephone conference call on December 30." (UT : Dec. 28, 2015)

Whether this will lead to any significant change in Putin really remains to be seen.

Judging, however, from the response of the Russian public, Putin's police, and Putin's military officials, to the political stand against Putin's war with Ukraine taken by Vlad Kolesnikov, that ultimately led this Russian teenager to take his own life, we should not hold our breath as to the outcome of this Normandy 4 Skype call. 

  

 (to be continued)

Putin has no Plan "B" to extricate himself from his war with Ukraine. He may also be on the brink of loosing the uncritical support of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Ihor Kozak (left) recently wrote that,

"Russian President Vladimir Putin likely realizes that his offensive in the Donbas has essentially stalled and that for now he cannot take more Ukrainian territory, not without sustaining heavy casualties among his regular military forces and triggering additional Western sanctions." (Atlantic Council : 21 Dec., 2015) (my emphasis)

Added to which,

"... retired US Army General Wesley Clark (right), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, who visited Ukraine seven times in 2015, "Ukraine is a work in progress by Putin. He has multiple channels to attack Ukraine, economically, politically, diplomatically, militarily." (ibid Ihor Kozak) (my emphasis)

This is why,

" ... "Russian special services are intensifying their activities in peaceful [Ukrainian] cities, trying to destabilize the situation and trying to show that Ukrainian law enforcement bodies and Ukrainian authorities are not able to protect their citizens." (ibid Ihor Kozak)

This realization by Putin that his offensive in eastern Ukraine is not quite working out as he expected when his war with Ukarine was launched is now coming on top of the fact that even Russian businessmen seem to have had enough of the fallout of Putin's war with Ukraine.

"Three [Russian] businessmen — Potapenko, his neighbor at the forum roundtable, farm boss Pavel Grudinin, and Crimean zoo director Oleg Zubkov (pictured from left to right) — together gathered more than 2 million hits on YouTube with videos of speeches lambasting the authorities. The three work in different branches of business, but are united in their complaints of red tape, corruption and the deaf ear of the political elite to demands for reform." (Eva Hartog (left) : Moscow Times : Dec. 18 2015) (my emphasis)

Potapenko and Grudinin

Sergei Alexashenko (left) further informs us that,

• Russia's economy is faring poorly as the New Year approaches. Gross domestic product has swung back to a level last seen in the first of 2008 and the economy has essentially stagnated over the last seven years.
• Even a rise in oil prices would not solve the economic problems that Russia is currently facing.
• of the 200,000 businesspeople against whom the authorities brought criminal charges in 2014, 83 percent lost their businesses. More proof of how dire the threat to property rights has become in Russia (Moscow Times : Dec. 10 2015) (my emphasis)

Sergei Alexashenko exposes merely the tip of the iceberg of reasons for the 'imploding' Russian economy.

Meanwhile, as reported by UNIAN,

"Russian proxies have mounted more than 35 armed attacks on the Ukrainian forces participating in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, on Friday, according to the ATO Headquarters' press service" (UNIAN ; 25 Dec. 2015) (my emphasis) (full size image here)

Even more troubling for Putin,

"Three Russian Orthodox priests arrived at the village church here one afternoon in October, packed gilded icons, censers and chandeliers into a moving van, and drove off.

Their departure marked a victory for Nadiya Myakshyna, a small, 58-year-old woman with an impish smile.

This fall, as Ukraine’s army battled Russia-backed separatists in the country’s far-off east, she had rallied neighbors to oust the visiting clergy [from the Moscow Patriarch] and replace them with a priest from a Ukraine-led church." (James Marson : Wall Street Journal : 25 Dec. 2015) (my emphasis)

This is further reflected by the fact that,

"A conservative priest who lost his high-level job at the Russian Orthodox Church assailed Russia's "immoral elites" Friday and predicted a national catastrophe if the country fails to allow free public discussion.

Father Vsevolod Chaplin (right), who headed the Moscow Patriarchate's department for cooperation between church and society, was relieved of his duties Thursday and his department was disbanded." (Vladimir Isachenkov : AP [Yahoo News] : 25 Dexc. 2015) (my emphasis)

Putin is on the verge of loosing the support of the Russian Orthodox Church.

"[Father Vsevolod] criticized Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill for failing to listen to critical voices and predicted that Kirill would be replaced soon" (ibid Vladimir Isachenkov) (my emphasis)

If this were to happen, Putin would be bereft of the unwaveruing and uncritical support he has received from Patriarch Kirill since he first became president of Russia. 

Patriarch Kirill has been the moral crutch that Putin has leaned upon to justify the actions that he has taken in both Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

 How will the Russian people respond to the dismissal of  Father Vsevolod Chaplin?

(to be continued)

Putin faces a bleak 2016. His 'maskirovka' mask is about to slip from his face.

As night follows day, it was to be expected that as January 1st draws near, Putin's Kremlin cronies have been working overtime to devise as many stumbling blocks for Ukraine as is possible, so that Ukraine will be hobbled as the full implementation of  the Ukraine-EU Trade Pact comes into force.

First we have Putin announcing that he will,

"... not abandon Russians living in southeast Ukraine to Ukrainian nationalists, the state-run RIA news agency quoted him as saying in a documentary due to be broadcast later on Sunday." (Vladimir Soldatkin : Reuters : Sun Dec 20, 2015) (my emphasis)

What this really means is that Minsk2 will never be fully implemented. 

Then we have Putin's glove puppet, the erstwhile Dmitry Medvedev.

"Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree on the introduction of a food embargo against Ukraine in response to the country joining anti-Russian sanctions, the Interfax news agency reported Monday.

“Starting Jan. 1, 2016, Russia will extend the economic measures for Ukraine in connection with it joining anti-Russian sanctions by the European Union and the United States,” Medvedev said at a meeting with deputy prime ministers on Monday." (Moscow Times : Dec. 21 2015) (my emphasis)

Notice the 'excuse', however. Instead of admitting that this action is a direct response to the upcoming implementation of the Trade Pact between the EU and Ukraine, that old chesnut about Ukraine joining anti-Russian sanctions if pulled out of the fire.

As Valentina Pop (left) reports,

"Moscow said it would go through with punitive tariffs on Ukrainian products in January after European efforts to head off Russian retaliation against a sweeping EU-Ukraine trade deal failed. " (Wall Street Journal : Dec. 21, 2015) (my emphasis)

As EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem (right) remarked,

“There wasn’t enough flexibility from the Russian side … this process is now over.” She said most of Russia’s concerns “aren’t real”. She also said if Ukraine had bowed to Russia’s demands “it would have made the entry into force of the DCFTA impossible.” (Andrew Rettman : EUobserver : 21. Dec. 2015) (my emphasis)

Rettman further reports that,

"EU capitals, also on Monday (20 Dec. 2015), by written procedure, extended the life of Russia economic sanctions by six months.

They did it because even sanctions critics, such as Italy, say it's not complying with the “Minsk” ceasefire accord on Ukraine." (ibid Andrew Rettman) ( my emphasis)

RT reports, however, that,

"Russia didn’t ditch negotiations with Europe over its free trade agreement with Ukraine, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. The EU left the negotiations with the words “game over,” which isn’t “very European and intolerant,” (RT : 22 Dec, 2015) (my emphasis)

Rettman also reports that,

"Klimkin said Putin “is in full control of Donbass [east Ukraine]. In every mercenary or other illegal unit there’s a regular Russian officer.” (ibid Andrew Rettman) ( my emphasis)

This was confirmed by,

"A 'friendly' shelling of one of the [rebel] units resulted in four soldiers killed and another six wounded.

"Another fact of the deaths of Russian soldiers has been established: two Russian staff officers were killed in an explosion in the village of Bezimenne (Novoazovskiy district). They acted as military advisers in the 9th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment (Novoazovsk) of the 1st army corps," (Ukraine Today : Dec. 21, 2015) (my emphasis)

And if this were not enough,

"Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday ordered his vice ministers to start preparing legal documents to sue Ukraine over the $3-billion loan Kiev has failed to repay to Moscow." (Sputnik : 21.12.2015) (my emphasis)

To which Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk responded that,

"...the [Ukrainian] government had introduced a moratorium on the payment of Ukraine's $3-billion loan to Russia and was ready to go to the court over the issue." (ibid Sputnik) (my emphasis)

Arseniy Yatsenyuk is also correct when he,

" .... called the debt - incurred in December 2013 - a "political bribe" from Moscow to former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was facing mass street protests at the time. Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014." (BBC News : 21 December 2015) (my emphasis)

It would therefore seem as though Putin's Syrian gambit has not quite succeeded as he wished.

• EU sanctions have been extended for another 7 months
• the Trade Pact between Ukraine and the EU will be going ahead
• Ukraine is willing to go to court over that $3 billion 'Yanukovivch bribe', and
• Russians will be denied cheap Ukrainian food imports.

The holiday season in Europe has begun, and European politicians are winding down and wending their way towards their homes and their families for the festive celebrations

Putin, however, faces a New Year of

• continuing sanctions, 
• an economy that will be driven further down the slopes of negative growth as the price of oil continues to fall, 
• the integration between Ukraine and the EU continuing to develop, as evidenced by the coming implementation of a visa-free regime between the EU Schengen group and Ukraine, and
• the further impoverishment of the Russian people.

What will he now do?

(to be continued)