Vladimir Putin Talks To Reporters About Ukraine

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37889.htm
"March 08, 2014 "Information Clearing House - March 04, 2014 - The President of Russia met with media representatives to answer a number of their questions, in particular with regard to the situation in Ukraine.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, colleagues,

How shall we do this? This is what I’d like to suggest: let’s have a conversation, rather than an interview. Therefore, I would ask you to begin by stating all your questions, I will jot them down and try to answer them, and then we will have a more detailed discussion of the specifics that interest you most.

Let’s begin.

"I would like to draw your attention to the fact that President Yanukovych, through the mediation of the Foreign Ministers of three European countries – Poland, Germany and France – and in the presence of my representative (this was the Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin) signed an agreement with the opposition on February 21. I would like to stress that under that agreement (I am not saying this was good or bad, just stating the fact) Mr Yanukovych actually handed over power. He agreed to all the opposition’s demands: he agreed to early parliamentary elections, to early presidential elections, and to return to the 2004 Constitution, as demanded by the opposition. He gave a positive response to our request, the request of western countries and, first of all, of the opposition not to use force. He did not issue a single illegal order to shoot at the poor demonstrators. Moreover, he issued orders to withdraw all police forces from the capital, and they complied. He went to Kharkov to attend an event, and as soon as he left, instead of releasing the occupied administrative buildings, they immediately occupied the President’s residence and the Government building – all that instead of acting on the agreement.

I ask myself, what was the purpose of all this? I want to understand why this was done. He had in fact given up his power already, and as I believe, as I told him, he had no chance of being re-elected. Everybody agrees on this, everyone I have been speaking to on the telephone these past few days. What was the purpose of all those illegal, unconstitutional actions, why did they have to create this chaos in the country? Armed and masked militants are still roaming the streets of Kiev. This is a question to which there is no answer. Did they wish to humiliate someone and show their power? I think these actions are absolutely foolish. The result is the absolute opposite of what they expected, because their actions have significantly destabilised the east and southeast of Ukraine."
"Only constitutional means should be used on the post-Soviet space, where political structures are still very fragile, and economies are still weak. Going beyond the constitutional field would always be a cardinal mistake in such a situation. Incidentally, I understand those people on Maidan, though I do not support this kind of turnover. I understand the people on Maidan who are calling for radical change rather than some cosmetic remodelling of power. Why are they demanding this? Because they have grown used to seeing one set of thieves being replaced by another. Moreover, the people in the regions do not even participate in forming their own regional governments. There was a period in this country when the President appointed regional leaders, but then the local legislative authorities had to approve them, while in Ukraine they are appointed directly. We have now moved on to elections, while they are nowhere near this. And they began appointing all sorts of oligarchs and billionaires to govern the eastern regions of the country. No wonder the people do not accept this, no wonder they think that as a result of dishonest privatisation (just as many people think here as well) people have become rich and now they also have been brought to power.

For example, Mr Kolomoisky was appointed Governor of Dnepropetrovsk. This is a unique crook. He even managed to cheat our oligarch Roman Abramovich two or three years ago. Scammed him, as our intellectuals like to say. They signed some deal, Abramovich transferred several billion dollars, while this guy never delivered and pocketed the money. When I asked him [Abramovich]: “Why did you do it?” he said: “I never thought this was possible.” I do not know, by the way, if he ever got his money back and if the deal was closed. But this really did happen a couple of years ago. And now this crook is appointed Governor of Dnepropetrovsk. No wonder the people are dissatisfied. They were dissatisfied and will remain so if those who refer to themselves as the legitimate authorities continue in the same fashion."
"VLADIMIR PUTIN: My dear colleague, look how well trained the people who operated in Kiev were. As we all know they were trained at special bases in neighbouring states: in Lithuania, Poland and in Ukraine itself too. They were trained by instructors for extended periods. They were divided into dozens and hundreds, their actions were coordinated, they had good communication systems. It was all like clockwork. Did you see them in action? They looked very professional, like special forces. Why do you think those in Crimea should be any worse?"
Who do you believe?
Putins is on the ground with a FSB view of goings on it Ukraine.

An addendum that is certainly food for thought.

The Ukrainian Pendulum
The Ukrainian Pendulum
////////"The American soldiers are “military advisors”, ostensibly members of Blackwater private army (renamed Academi); a few hundred of them patrol Kiev while others try to suppress the revolt in Donetsk. Officially, they were invited by the new West-installed regime. They are the spearhead of the US invasion attempting to prop up the regime and break down all resistance. They have already bloodied their hands in Donetsk."

"It is only the Russian presence which is described as an “invasion” by the Western media, while the American one is hardly mentioned. ”We have a moral duty to stick our nose in your business in your backyard a world away from our homeland. It’s for your own good”, wrote an ironic American blogger.

Moscow woke up to trouble in Ukraine after its preoccupation, nay obsession, with the Winter Olympic games had somewhat abated, — when people began to say that “Putin won the games and lost the Ukraine”. Indeed, while Putin watched sports in Sochi, the Brown Revolution succeeded in Ukraine. A great European country the size of France, the biggest republic of the former USSR (save Russia), was taken over by a coalition of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and (mainly Jewish) oligarchs. The legitimate president was forced to flee for his very life. Members of Parliament were manhandled, and in some cases their children were taken hostage to ensure their vote, as their houses were visited by gunmen. The putsch was completed. The West recognised the new government; Russia refused to recognise it, but continued to deal with it on a day -to-day basis. However the real story is now developing in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, a story of resistance to the pro-Western takeover.

The Putsch

The economic situation of Ukraine is dreadful. They are where Russia was in the 1990s, before Putin – in Ukraine the Nineties never ended. For years the country was ripped off by the oligarchs who siphoned off profits to Western banks, bringing it to the very edge of the abyss. To avoid default and collapse, the Ukraine was to receive a Russian loan of 15 billion euros without preconditions, but then came the coup. Now the junta’s prime minister will be happy to receive a mere one billion dollars from the US via IMF. (Europeans have promised more, but in a few years’ time…) He already accepted the conditions of the IMF, which will mean austerity, unemployment and debt bondage. Probably this was the raison d’être for the coup. IMF and US loans are a major source of profit for the financial community, and they are used to enslave debtor countries, as Perkins explained at length."

"Not empty words, these threats: The storm-troopers of the Right Sector, the leading fighting force of the New Order, went around the country terrorising officials, taking over government buildings, beating up citizens, destroying Lenin’s statues, smashing memorials of the Second World War and otherwise enforcing their rule A video showed a Right Sector fighter mistreating the city attorney while police looked other way. They began to hunt down riot policemen who supported the ex-president, and they burned down a synagogue or two. They tortured a governor, and lynched some technicians they found in the former ruling party’s headquarters. They started to take over the Orthodox churches of the Russian rite, intending to transfer them to their own Greek-Catholic Church.

The instructions of US State Dept.’s Victoria Nuland were followed through: the Ukraine had had the government she prescribed in the famous telephone conversation with the US Ambassador. Amazingly, while she notoriously gave “****” to the EU, she did not give a **** about the Russian view of Ukraine’s immediate future.

Russia was not involved in Ukrainian developments: Putin did not want to be accused of meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs, even when the US and EU envoys assisted and directed the rebels. The people of Russia would applaud him if he were to send his tanks to Kiev to regain the whole of Ukraine, as they consider it an integral part of Russia. But Putin is not a Russian nationalist, not a man of Imperial designs. Though he would like the Ukraine to be friendly to Russia, annexing it, in whole or in part, has never been his ambition. It would be too expensive even for wealthy Russia: the average income in the Ukraine is just half of the Russian one, and tits infrastructure is in a shambles. (Compare to the very costly West German takeover of the GDR.) It would not be easy, either, for every Ukrainian government in the past twenty years has drenched the people with anti-Russian sentiment. But involvement was forced upon Putin:"

This might be relevant DF. Do you think Reuters has been pretty much up on it?


The US military activities “are clearly meant to reassure our allies about the US commitment to NATO and to them,” says Paul Saunders, executive director of the Center for the National Interest, a Washington think tank with expertise in US-Russia relations. “It’s really an effort to demonstrate to the new NATO members in particular,” he adds, “that the US is standing with them.”

As Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington notes, there’s even a term for what the US is looking to accomplish with its ramped up NATO-area activity. “It’s really meant as ‘strategic reassurance’ as they say in NATO parlance,” says Ms. Conley, director of CSIS’s Europe Program.

The administration has a real credibility problem with Russia,” Saunders says.

That “credibility problem” afflicting President Obama extends beyond Russia to many US allies and partners, others say. Indeed the broader message of the US military steps in Eastern Europe may be that the US is an engaged and robust power that stands by its partners, the CSIS’s Conley says.....snip~

Ukraine crisis: What

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/187971-russia-warns-us-against-hasty-actions-ukraine-6.html

interesting

MMC said:

This might be relevant DF. Do you think Reuters has been pretty much up on it?


The US military activities “are clearly meant to reassure our allies about the US commitment to NATO and to them,” says Paul Saunders, executive director of the Center for the National Interest, a Washington think tank with expertise in US-Russia relations. “It’s really an effort to demonstrate to the new NATO members in particular,” he adds, “that the US is standing with them.”

As Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington notes, there’s even a term for what the US is looking to accomplish with its ramped up NATO-area activity. “It’s really meant as ‘strategic reassurance’ as they say in NATO parlance,” says Ms. Conley, director of CSIS’s Europe Program.

The administration has a real credibility problem with Russia,” Saunders says.

That “credibility problem” afflicting President Obama extends beyond Russia to many US allies and partners, others say. Indeed the broader message of the US military steps in Eastern Europe may be that the US is an engaged and robust power that stands by its partners, the CSIS’s Conley says.....snip~

Ukraine crisis: What

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/187971-russia-warns-us-against-hasty-actions-ukraine-6.html

Click to expand...

I think Reuters is wrong. This is an imperialistic misadventure to bring gas and oil control uder USA stewardship. We've sent advisors, money, diplomats, secretaries, ambassadors, and all the Media "Presstitutes" that money can buy to present this overthrow of a democratically elected government as a popular, spontaneous movement. The USA/CIA is actively fomenting insurrection and the USA Mainstream Media is covering it up. How do our "F*ck the EU (Victoria Nuland)" partners???? fit into the equation? Western Energy and Banking Corporations will profit handsomely, Ukrainians will suffer, Oligarchs will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, MIC will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, Adademi ( Blackwater ) will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, the NWO will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, and lo and behold, we have a recurring theme.

DaveFagan said:

I think Reuters is wrong. This is an imperialistic misadventure to bring gas and oil control uder USA stewardship. We've sent advisors, money, diplomats, secretaries, ambassadors, and all the Media "Presstitutes" that money can buy to present this overthrow of a democratically elected government as a popular, spontaneous movement. The USA/CIA is actively fomenting insurrection and the USA Mainstream Media is covering it up. How do our "F*ck the EU (Victoria Nuland)" partners???? fit into the equation? Western Energy and Banking Corporations will profit handsomely, Ukrainians will suffer, Oligarchs will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, MIC will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, Adademi ( Blackwater ) will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, the NWO will profit, Ukrainians will suffer, and lo and behold, we have a recurring theme.

Click to expand...

I would disagree with you there DF on Rueters.....they have been picking up quite a bit. Plus actually reporting it like it is for a change. Especially since the AP' was shut down and they had their equipment confiscated from them.


"The standoff in the Crimea is not worrying too many bankers working in London's equity capital markets, despite a heavy sell-off across the board in Europe.

Russia's incursion into the Crimea, which strategists say has re-activated East West tensions between the former Soviet Union nation and the US, has had a sharp impact on markets in early trading.

It comes as a raft of initial public offerings and other equity deals are being prepared in Europe.

ISS, a Danish outsourcing firm listing in Copenhagen, announced a price range for its IPO this morning, while UK discount retailer Poundland is also entering the final stages of a London flotation.

David Buik, markets commentator at Panmure Gordon, said: "My greatest worry for a prolonged diplomatic impasse is that it could wreck the pipeline of IPOs – so necessary to illustrate the improving economic conditions which have recently manifested itself in the UK."


ECM bankers calm on Crimea - Financial News

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/187296-ukrainian-crisis-2014-a-44.html