Russia - Putin

June 16, 2015

As the conflict in Ukraine continues, so too does Russian President Vladimir Putin's denial of any Russian involvement. But a recent report from think tank the Atlantic Council used open source information and social media to find evidence of Russian troops across the border. Using the Atlantic Council's methodology, VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky follows the digital and literal footprints of one Russian soldier, tracking him from eastern Ukraine to Siberia, to prove that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine.

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Jun. 16 2015

Latvia was first occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. After Germany occupied the country between 1941 and 1944, Latvia was occupied once again by the Soviet Union, and remained a Soviet republic until 1991. Two mass deportations of Latvians to Siberia were conducted during the Soviet era. The first was in 1941. Sunday marked its 74th anniversary. Black ribbons were attached to Latvian flags throughout Riga in honor of its victims. According to the Latvian Foreign Ministry, during the second mass deportation in 1949, more than 42,000 Latvians were sent to labor camps and administrative settlements constructed to house family members of "enemies of the people."

"It's not that we spend sleepless nights because of pathological fear," Andrejs Pildegovics, state secretary for Latvia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Moscow Times. "But when borders are changed in a matter of days, when mock referendums are staged, when obnoxious propaganda is fanning hate speech, those cases evoke a lot of negative memories from the mid-20th century. These are not Russophobic fears. These fears are about dictatorships and unilateral decisions taken with disregard for the integrity of states, borders and fundamental freedoms."

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Jun. 16 2015

A group of Russian lawyers filed a formal complaint with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in response to a presidential decree on military losses in peacetime, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday. The decree, signed earlier in May by President Vladimir Putin, introduced a series of amendments to the Russian law on state secrets, banning information on all casualties sustained during peacetime special operations. According to observers — including a group of legal and military experts interviewed by The Moscow Times earlier in May — it provides confirmation of Russia's direct involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, which the Russian government denies.

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June 16, 2015

A reporter with leading Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta has been detained and beaten in separatist, eastern Ukraine and deported to Russia, according to the paper. Reporter Pavel Kanygin was captured by rebel security agents in Donetsk, the rebel's stronghold in eastern Ukraine, and taken to a separatist-controlled village on the Russian border. Mr Kanygin was then detained and interrogated at the border by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) agents, and was told he would be collected shortly by members of the paper's staff. "Novaya Gazeta did not want to report this while Kanygin was [still] in Donetsk, but he was beaten during his detention," the paper said. "His eyebrow was split." The FSB is the domestic arm of what was once the Soviet-era KGB.

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June 15, 2015

Captured Russian soldier Sgt. Alexander Alexandrov - recovering from battlefield injuries in a Kyiv hospital

One of the two Russian soldiers detained in Ukraine's Luhansk region last month has not ruled out suing the Russian Ministry of Defence after it claimed he no longer worked for the military after he had been captured, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reports. Sergeant Alexander Alexandrov was captured along with his colleague Captain Evgeny Eroveev by government forces last month during a battle near the Luhansk town of Shastya. Subsequently, the Russian Ministry of Defence told state news agency Itar-Tass that the two men had received military training but were not currently acting servicemen of Russia's armed forces.

In an interview published today in Novaya Gazeta, Alexandrov reiterated that he was an acting servicemen and that he considers himself a prisoner of war and not a terrorist. Asked if he would object to Russian lawyers filing a civil case against the Ministry of Defence for firing him illegally, Alexandrov said "I would not object." "I do not think that it will be very laborious to prove that I am an active serviceman. You can send a request for them to deliver the documents that show that," he added.

In the interview Alexandrov attacks Russian news coverage of the Ukraine crisis and the lack of focus on Russian soldiers' sacrifices in the Russian state press. "Now I am on the other side of the conflict and I understand that not all is how it is shown in the main [Russian] channels, it is not even close. There are no reprisals for Russian speakers, just normal people," he said. "The Ukrainian side treats its dead and it's captured [officers] with dignity. Back home we are not even mentioned on the news. I don't know, of course it is possible, that [in Russia] they consider me a traitor but I did not betray my country. I have committed no crimes, except for illegally crossing the border."

Alexandrov noted that he wants his lawyer to persuade Ukraine's prosecution to switch the allegations of terrorism which he is accused of to a charge which acknowledges he is in Ukraine as military personnel. "I did not act as a terrorist, I was following orders. I am an acting serviceman and my contract has not officially expired," he added.

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JUN. 18, 2015

Having crossed the Ukrainian border, the convoy of more than 100 trucks split into two columns – one headed to Luhansk and the other one to Donetsk. The Russian Emergencies Ministry again announced that the vans will bring food, medicine and other essential items to the residents of east Ukraine's occupied regions.

It is not known what is actually in the vehicles because Russia does not allow inspections to be performed by Ukrainian border guards, members of the OSCE, or International Red Cross workers. Ukrainian security officials insist that the trucks are largely used to supply militant forces with weapons.

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June 17, 2015

Russia's nuclear "sabre-rattling" and refusal to abide by the terms of a ceasefire in Ukraine have dragged East-West relations to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Thursday. Rinkevics, who has a lead role in EU diplomacy, told Reuters in an interview in Sydney that Russian statements about its willingness to use nuclear weapons were alarming. "I think that what we are witnessing is unprecedented since 1962, since [the] Cuban missile crisis," he said.

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The Moscow Times
Jun. 18 2015

Ukrainian army pilot Nadezhda (Nadiya) Savchenko inside a defendants' cage at the Basmanny district court in Moscow

Britain's Minister for Europe David Lidington, in a letter made public on Wednesday, wrote to Savchenko telling her London was pressing Moscow for her release. "During 12 months of incarceration you have shown immense courage and resilience," Lidington wrote. "The British government calls on Russia to live up to all of its international commitments and to its commitments under the Russian constitution and to release you immediately."

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We pored over the little screen and there, sure enough, was my face, plastered with the label "Pathological Russophobe". I'd been added to a list of "undesirables" on a website whose extreme nationalist authors recommended my expulsion from Russia.

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22 June 2015

Moscow (AFP) - Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's security council said Monday it is impossible to stop Russians from going to fight in Ukraine because they are guided by "emotions." Nikolai Patrushev, the hawkish former chief of the federal security service (FSB) who currently sits at the helm of President Vladimir Putin's group of security advisers, said the conflict is fueled by US attempts to wipe out Russia.

"We don't call on people to go and we don't reward them. But really, it is impossible to prevent it," he said, once people hear about the "atrocities" happening across the border. "Emotions go into play, people head over there and fight," Patrushev said in a wide-ranging interview to Kommersant newspaper published Monday.

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Capital: Moscow
Population: 143.5 million
GNI/capita, PPP: US$24,280
Classification: Consolidated Authoritarian Regime

In 2014, Russia earned its largest ratings decline in a decade, reflecting the fact that Moscow’s aggression abroad is closely tied to the Putin regime’s domestic struggle for survival. As it sought to destabilize the new democratic government in Ukraine, the Kremlin stepped up its suppression of dissent at home, targeting online media, opposition figures, and civil society groups with legal bans on “extremism,” trumped-up criminal charges, and other restrictions. Throughout 2014, propaganda masquerading as news and disseminated through Russia’s state-controlled media worked to simultaneously obscure and legitimize the Kremlin’s aggression abroad.

President Vladimir Putin’s decisions in 2014 to seize Crimea, invade eastern Ukraine, and deepen political repression at home can all be attributed, at least in part, to his fear of losing power after 15 years as Russia’s paramount leader. The Kremlin needed to marshal public support while distracting attention from growing economic problems and preventing any emulation of Ukraine’s protest and reform movement.

Russia’s state-controlled media contributed to the effort by exploiting Russian memories of the Soviet Union’s World War II victory, smearing the new government in Ukraine as a “fascist junta,” and blaming the collapse of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych’s administration on meddling by the United States and other Western powers. To ensure that these assertions remained unchallenged, the authorities increased their harassment of Russia’s dwindling independent media outlets and began blocking access to some of the most critical internet sites.

The government also suppressed dissent through new or existing legislation. It once again rewrote the parliamentary electoral law and deployed regional vetting procedures so that all 30 gubernatorial elections held in 2014 went to the Kremlin’s handpicked candidates. Similarly, the authorities used the laws on “extremism” and “foreign agents” to harass and intimidate the country’s civil society sector. Separately, Putin pushed through a law that abolished Russia’s top commercial court, the country’s most respected judicial body, and merged its responsibilities into the Supreme Court, making it easier for politicians to use the judiciary to pursue their personal economic interests.

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Simpleχity;1064760865 said:

Russia rejects calls for UN tribunal to prosecute MH17 suspects

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