Putin's 'maskirovka' strategy in eastern Ukraine, and the EU and Obama

Nataliya Vasilyeva (left) informs us that,

"On a recent spring morning, an important visitor watched Russian-backed rebels conduct infantry maneuvers in eastern Ukraine (right).

"The general is very pleased," rebel commander Ostap Cherny told his troops, referring to the figure in camouflage encircled by guards.

The man — almost certainly a Russian military officer — became alarmed when he saw two journalists approach. His entourage shielded him — forbidding photos — and the group sped off in a motorcade, the "general" safely inside a black Toyota SUV with no license plates." (AP [Associated Press] : Yahoo News : 3 April, 2015)

She goes on to report that,

"...there has been a tactical shift apparently aimed at minimizing Russia's military presence, part of an effort to persuade the West to lift economic sanctions." (ibid Nataliya Vasilyeva) (my emphasis)

But is this 'tactical' shift aimed at 'minimizing' Russia's military presence in eastern Ukraine? 

Or is it a deceptive 'maskirovka' strategy of Putin to intermingle Russian soldiers with rebel-forces so that he can now claim that there are 'no Russian soldiers' in eastern Ukraine.

Is it any wonder that Putin's Kremlin mouthpiece, Dmitry Peskov (right), last Tuesday yet again said that,

"Russia "firmly denies" reports of a Russian military presence in Ukraine." (ibid Nataliya Vasilyeva) (my emphasis)

This 'maskirovka' deception of Putin is squarely aimed at Western audiences, and we can expect to see RT and his 'Ministry of Truth' churn out a veritable avalanche of  propaganda pushing this deception upon an unsuspecting world.

Meanwhile, as reported by Nolan Peterson (left),

"Pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian Azov Regiment have been battling over the town of Shyrokyne for weeks.

The small town on the Sea of Azov is only about nine miles east of Mariupol, an industrial port city on the sea that is considered by some Ukrainian military officials to be the last obstacle before a separatist breakthrough that could advance all the way to Crimea." (Newsweek : 2 April, 2015) (my emphasis) 

Adding to the military pressure that Putin is exerting upon those defending Mariupol, RT informs us that,

"Russian Communists are preparing a bill that would ban state-owned corporations from any economic presence in Ukraine. The measure is being considered as a reply for Kiev’s planned nationalization of Russian property." (RT : April 03, 2015)
 
The absurdity of this call from communist MP's in the Russian Duma illustrates just how deep the nationalist fascistoid propaganda of Putin has seeped into the minds of the Russian public.

For how long the Russian public will be held captive to the imperialist ambitions of Putin remains to be seen. Putin may be infused with his KGB  Pavlovian conditioning to double down, fight his way out, turn up the pressure, never admit, never retreat, but the deteriorating economic situation in Russia will not disappear when his proxies and Russian soldiers attack Mariupol.

The Russian people will still experience rising inflation, rising food prices, a depreciating rouble, crippling bank interest rates and, most important of all, a steady flow of body-bags from eastern Ukraine.

Added to which, the Iranian nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, have come to an end, and Obama can no longer use these talks as an excuse to vacillate over supplying Ukraine with the necessary arms to counter Putin's continuous buildup of sophisticated weaponry into eastern Ukraine.

Putin's invasion of Mariupol is imminent.

What will be spurring him on to set up his forces for an imminent attack on Mariupol is the fact that,

"A summit between EU and Ukraine has been scheduled for April 27 in Kyiv. President Petro Poroshenko confirmed the meeting date on Saturday, after a conversation with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The deployment of European peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire agreement brokered in Belarus in mid-February is expected to make the agenda." (Ukraine Today : Mar. 29, 2015) (my emphasis)

What will be decided at this upcoming summit in Kiev, as well as the pressure that will now be put on Obama to start sending defensive weaponry to Ukraine, will be determining factors that will decide the fate of Ukraine.

Putin's cheerleaders in the EU, especially the 'fragrant' Mogherini, are no doubt deciding on their strategy to scupper any talk of increasing EU sanctions against Putin.

Putin's recent threat to use nuclear bombs should annexed Ukrainian Crimea be threatened will no doubt be a card that they will use.

But will the upturn in the German economy scupper their plans? As Martin Hüfner (left) reports,

"This year German metalworkers will see the largest real wage growth in a long time. The collective bargaining partners just agreed to raise wages by 3.4%. With some extra lump-sum benefits and close-to-zero inflation, this translates into a real wage increase of 3.5%.

While this does not apply to the economy as a whole, the metalworkers’ deal is clearly a bellwether for other industries. " ( The Globalist : March 30, 2015)


We can but wait and see.

(to be continued)

Putin's latest 'nuclear war' threat, and his "Ministry of Truth"

Many have been taking Putin's threats in the past about unleashing a nuclear war with a large pinch of salt. Until now, that is.

Rob Virtue (left) informs us today that,

"In a secret meeting with Washington officials, Russia said it was looking at a range of actions over the threat of the West supplying weapons to Ukraine.

They also threatened civil disturbance by Russian nationals in the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who are feeling increasingly threatened by their powerful neighbour.

A report of last month's meeting, seen by The Times newspaper, said attempts by Nato to return the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine would be met "forcefully including through the use of nuclear force".

And it said the supply of weapons to Kiev would be seen as "further encroachment by Nato to the Russian border". Putin's generals at the high-level gathering in Germany told the Americans they spoke with the approval of their president." (Express Newspapers: Thu, Apr 2, 2015) (my emphasis)

And whilst Putin is threatening to unleash a nuclear war upon the world, and continues to supply his proxies and Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine with heavy weaponry,  Dion Dassanayake tells us that,

 

"Vladimir Putin has splashed more than £100million on [lavish private jets] - despite Russia being in economic meltdown." (Express Newspapers: Wed, Mar 25, 2015) (my emphasis)

 

while the Moscow Times reports that,

 

"The cost of cabbage in Russia has risen 66 percent since the start of the year as food price inflation runs rampant on the back of currency devaluation and sanctions on Western imports, the Interfax news agency reported citing data from Russia's Agriculture Ministry." (Moscow Times : Mar. 30 2015) (my emphasis)

If this were not enough, Mstyslav Chernov reports that,

 

"Russia-backed rebel authorities in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday started paying pensions in Russian rubles." (AP (Yahoo News) : 2 April, 2015) (my emphasis)

 

This does not seem to have gone down too well with the pensioners in eastern Ukraine.

 

"The pensioners' reaction to the payments was mixed. One retiree, Viktor Medvedev, said while the payment had less value than his original pension in Ukrainian hryvnias, he was happy to have it. "It's certainly not much, but what we can do? I'm glad to have at least this."

Another pensioner, Elena Ivanovna, was disappointed with Wednesday's payment, saying it was smaller than she expected. "They told us we'll receive more," she said. "Can you survive with this money?" (ibid Mstyslav Chernov) (my emphasis)

And while,

"Yekaterina Matyushchenko, the finance minister in the Donetsk region's separatist government, said pension payments to retirees in the rebel-controlled areas will total 1.9 billion rubles in March" her colleague, Oksana Taran, "....denied that Russia had provided the money, claiming that the funds came from taxes paid by local businesses."(ibid Mstyslav Chernov) (my emphasis)

The beginning of the use of Russian currency in eastern Ukraine is the most obvious indicator that Putin is hell-bent on annexing eastern Ukraine into Russia, along the lines of what he did in Ukrainian Crimea.

This is the first "annexing" salvo that he is firing towards Mariupol. 

This salvo has been accompanied by,

".. pro-Russian rebel official Eduard Basurin, [who] made an early-morning phone call to journalists, instructing them: "We are going to the south, to show you something.

The ten-car convoy carrying reporters pulled up just before reaching Shyrokyne, a village divided between Ukrainian and rebel forces that is close to the strategic port of Mariupol, Kiev's largest remaining stronghold in the insurgency-hit east.

But only video journalists and photographers were allowed to make the final kilometre-long journey to see the wrecked vehicles." ( Beatrice Le Bohec : AFP (Yahoo News) : 2 April, 2015) (my emphasis)

What he had gone to show them was a civilian car and a rebel military truck lying by the side of the road, ostensibly hit by mortar from the Ukrainian forces.

The OSCE monitors queried why the truck was pointing towards the rebel-held city of Donetsk.  To which a rebel replied that it had been "rotated in order to tow it".

This reply, "[prompted] the OSCE monitor to query whether rebel fighters on the ground were communicating properly with their commanders." (ibid  Beatrice Le Bohec) (my emphasis)

This rather poor attempt on the part of the rebels to propagandise in favour of Putin is nothing as compared to the revelation by Levi Winchester that,

"Hundreds of professional internet 'trolls' are PAID to flood news and social media websites with pro-Vladimir Putin propaganda" (Daily Express : Sat, Mar 28, 2015) (my emphasis)

These 'internet trolls' are paid, "£500 a month to work exhausting 12-hour shifts, during which they must write at least 135 pro-Russian comments per day - or face immediate dismissal." (ibid Levi Winchester) (my emphasis)

"The authoritarian procedure was exposed by one former worker, who compared the unassuming four-storey modern headquarters where he toiled to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's book.
Asked if he agreed that it sounded like something from the classic novel, Marat Burkhard said: “Yes, that’s right, the Ministry of Truth.
"You work in the Ministry of Truth, which is the Ministry of Lies, and everyone kind of believes in this truth. Yes, you’re right, it’s Orwell."(ibid Levi Winchester) (my emphasis)

Putin's "TV Ministry of Truth"

How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today










(to be continued)

Putin's deadly 'hybrid' war ... Russian mothers burying their sons

Whilst, suddenly, Putin has decided,

".... that its state-owned gas giant Gazprom provide discounted gas to the struggling government in Ukraine", (Tomas Hirst : Business Insider UK : Mar. 31, 2015) (my emphasis)

he has also launched the next deadly phase of his 'hybrid' war against Ukraine.

As Maxim Tucker reports,

"Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, says Russia has entered into a new phase of its campaign to destabilise Ukraine, with the 22 February attack in Kharkiv just one of a series of bombings orchestrated by Russian spy services, the FSB and the GRU. “It starts with the FSB’s security centres 16 and 18, operating out of Skolkovo, Russia,” says Vitaliy Naida (left), head of the [Ukrainian] SBU department responsible for intercepting online traffic. “These centres are in charge of information warfare. They send out propaganda, false information via social media. Re-captioned images from Syria, war crimes from Serbia – they’re used to radicalise and then recruit Ukrainians.” (Newsweek : March 31, 2015) (my emphasis)

Putin's FSB and GRU are targeting,

“ ....  Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipropretovsk, and Odessa, and all along the potential land corridor [between Russia and] Crimea – Mariupol, Kherson and Mykolaiv. The separatists need these cities. They know there is no chance for them to survive without the land corridor.” (ibid Maxim Tucker) (my emphasis)

And just as Putin has recently admitted in a documentary that Russian soldiers did, indeed, invade Ukrainian Crimea, so too is the truth now bubbling to the surface that Russians soldiers and generals are controlling the war in eastern Ukraine.

As Alec Luhn reports,

"For the past year, the Kremlin has strenuously denied that its troops are supporting pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine — but fighters on the ground are apparently no longer bothering to keep up the farce.
........
St. Petersburg native Dmitry Sapozhnikov (right), who went to Ukraine in October to fight alongside the rebels, told the BBC Russian service in a candid interview from Donetsk that Russian military units have played a decisive role in rebel advances, including the operations in February that led to the capture of the transport hub of Debaltseve. Russian officers directly command large military operations in eastern Ukraine, he noted." (Vice News : March 31, 2015)(my emphasis)

Furthermore, as Anna Dolgov (left) informs us,

"A report being prepared by supporters of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov (right) claims that Moscow has started discharging its soldiers from the army before sending them to Ukraine and then denying compensation to the families of men who were killed in order to cover up Russia's involvement in the conflict.

The report, which Nemtsov was working on before he was shot and killed in Moscow on Feb. 27, will be completed and published next month by his allies, the politician's friend and associate Ilya Yashin wrote on his Facebook page Monday.

"We have managed to communicate with people who were Nemtsov's sources," Yashin said. "They were very much afraid to speak while he was alive. The murder of Boris, as you understand, did not give them new courage, so they were reluctant to get in contact." (Moscow Times : Mar. 31 2015) (my emphasis)

But how long can Putin's propaganda machine continue to deceive the Russian people, especially as the the effects of the disastrous downturn in the Russian economy now affects their very daily lives?

Surely there will come a point when this 'drip-feed' of the truth about Putin's war with Ukraine, Russia's collapsing economy being due to his desperately protecting his kleptocratic 'siloviki' and fawning oligarchs, and the growing number of body-bags containing Russian soldiers that have fallen in eastern Ukraine being surreptitiously returned to their loved ones in Russia; surely there will come a 'tipping point' when the Russian people themselves will say, "Enough is enough"?

Putin, and his 'siloviki' in particular, must be aware that in today's electronic age there are limits to concealing the truth. A simple SMS is all that is needed for an event in Vladivostok to immediately be known to someone in Moscow. The younger Russian generation of today can be exposed to just so much nationalistic propaganda before they, themselves, tire of this electronic onslaught on their minds.

Putin cannot control the 'entire' electronic ether. And it is for this reason that many in the West are rapidly gearing up towards confronting Putin's propaganda onslaught against his own people.

Is it any wonder that at his first 'foreign policy' speech for a month, 

"[h]e told a meeting of his internal intelligence service, the FSB, on Thursday (26 March), that “they [the West] are using their entire arsenal of means for the so-called deterrence of Russia: from attempts at political isolation and economic pressure, to large-scale information war and special services operations”. (Andrew Rettman : EU Observer : Brussels, 27. March 2015) (my emphasis)

This, however, is not a 'war on the West' but rather Putin's call for an 'information war' to control the minds of the Russian people themselves.

As stated in yesterday's blog-entry,

Oleg Kalugin (left) best  sums up this current strategy of Putin as follows;

"Nikolai Patrushev was my subordinate for years in Leningrad. One day he brought a report about one dissident in his district and said, We must take care of him, maybe arrest him. I said, Why? Give me the case. I read the file of this man, and it showed that he was honest about the lack of food, long lines you have to stand in for food, the bureaucracy of the Soviet party and government institutions. When Patrushev brought it, I said, Why do we have to put him in jail? What is this case? Patrushevs first desire was to put the guy in jail because he would spread his discontent and unhappiness among his friends and colleagues and that was dangerous."(Foreign Policy : July 25, 2007) my emphasis)

The current falling price of oil, the tumbling rouble, the rising food prices, rising inflation, and the horrendous interest rates on loans; these are the equivalent of the reasons of that honest man that Patrushev wanted to jail during Soviet times.

Today, however, that same honest dissident need not move out of his flat to inform his friends and colleagues of the corruption of the Putin regime that he may personally experience. Nor about the funerals of Russian soldiers who have fallen in eastern Ukraine that a neighbour may tell him about.   
Already Russian soldiers themselves are exposing the facts about their fallen comrades in eastern Ukraine. Thus how much longer can Putin lie to the Russian people, no matter how much he tries to wrap up such lies in the cloak of 'nationalist fervour' or modern techniques of propaganda.

Photo of cemetery near Rostov where, according to users of social networks, the Russian soldiers who were lost on Donbass are buried. Tens anonymous burials are designated by plates "Surgical waste".Photo: informator.su

(to be continued)