Plus ca change, plus ce le meme chose?

We all need to look truth in the eye and knowledge of our shared history, without distortions and embellishment, is simply vital. Repeating Soviet lies and pushing an image of Ukrainians as Nazi-supporters, anti-Semites and the like, are hardly ways of seeking the truth. It is to be hoped that Michael Prazan did not recognize the familiar odour of the information he churned out. As far as his source of information is concerned, coming only a month after an attempt by Russian-language media outlets and one Polish journalist to fabricate a "pogrom" in Lviv and just a few months after a number of western media outlets were obliged to issue apologies for lies about a "Hitler doll" supposedly produced and popular in Ukraine, it is increasingly difficult to believe that this suddenly spurt of interest and total distortion of another country`s history and present situation was entirely spontaneous.

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Source: UNIAN

Q&A: Yushchenko balances Russian, EU relations

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko arrives in the U.S. Monday to participate in the 63rd session of the U.N. General Assembly. This is a partial transcript of an interview with reporter Natalia A. Feduschak conducted prior to his departure:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is to arrive in the U.S. on Monday for the U.N. General Assembly.

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Source: Washington Times

Rice Says Georgian War Leaves Russia Isolated

Dialogue between Washington and Moscow since the war in Georgia broke out six weeks ago has been harsh, and Rice's speech on September 18 elevated the level of rhetoric. The secretary at no point raised her voice, but her words were stern, and at one point even sarcastic.

Rice called Russia's move into Georgia "premeditated," and noted that after hostilities ended in Georgia, the world rushed to help rebuild the country's infrastructure that had been damaged by the presence of Russian troops.

Meanwhile, she said, Russia had to be satisfied with encouragement from only the most trivial of backers -- from Nicaragua and the Palestinian group Hamas, which she described as "not a diplomatic triumph."

And Rice said Russia failed to reap any lasting benefits from the war in Georgia. It proved the obvious, she said, namely that it could easily defeat a small neighbor. But she noted that Georgia's democracy remains intact, its economy will soon thrive again, and with the help of its allies, its independence will be guaranteed.

Russia, meanwhile, will have gained nothing. "Russia's invasion of Georgia has achieved -- and will achieve -- no enduring strategic objective," she said. "And our strategic goal now is to make clear to Russia's leaders that their choices could put Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance."

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Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Bitter Medicine for Little Volodya Putin, aka Lilyput Putin

Russia was supposed to be the harbinger of the “new economy” that would dissolve U.S. hegemony by relying on Russia’s vast stores of fossile fuels and their hyper-inflated value. But as Boris Nemstov has shown, in fact Russia is rapidly running out of natural gas because it has to sell so much abroad in order to subsidize the remainder of its economy, which is a total and abject failure. How could it be otherwise, when it is run by a proud KGB spy with no more knowledge of how to build a real market than of how to run a real election.

So now little Volodya Putin is frowning and screaming and bitterly resenting having to swallow so much distasteful reality. How the mighty have fallen! It seems like only yesterday that Putin was strutting and preening and being called “person of the year.” How utterly vacuous and stupid those fawning statements now seem, in the light of Russia’s barbaric military action in Georgia — which totally failed to unseat Georgia’s hated president — and in light of the stock market’s humiliating implosion and the neo-Soviet manner in which Putin has helplessly, impotently responded to it.

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Source: La Russaphobe

President thinks BYuT, PR and communists coalition has minimal chances

Making comments to journalists on possibility of parliamentary coalition between Byut, Party of Regions and communists, in Luhansk, President Yushchenko said that there are minimal chances such an alliance can exist.

He also added that such a coalition may be created but some forces would be forced to resign from a number of priorities they had declared before. In case with Byut these would be promises to aim for Ukraine gaining NATO MAP.

Beside that, according to President Yushchenko the electorate of ByuT and PR would not accept the alliance between these two political parties.

Speaking about contacts between these political forces President Yushchenko stressed that he welcomes any political dialogue because the parliamentarians have their right for it. “If final agreement is reached on these alliance, as the President I will accept them. I will not try to reverse that agreement by any attempts to create a coalition in the Parliament ... Howewer if political partners don't say their word, than the President will say his”, - he added

Source: Official Website of President of Ukraine

Ukraine's Ruling Coalition Collapses

Ukraine's pro-Western coalition government formally collapsed, deepening a political crisis that has clouded the country's prospects of joining the NATO military alliance.

President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko worked together in an "Orange" coalition for nine fractious months, but their alliance gradually unraveled, not for the first time, faltering on serious policy and personality differences.

Their failure to patch up differences after a 10-day cooling-off period came as Mr. Yushchenko -- whose supporters have charged Ms. Tymoshenko with collaborating with Moscow -- accused Russia of trying to destabilize Ukraine.

Associated Press

Policy and personality differences led Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko, right, with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, and Viktor Yushchenko to end their coalition.

"For some of our partners, instability in Ukraine is like bread and butter," he said in an Associated Press interview, suggesting Moscow was stirring up separatists on the volatile Crimean Peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based.

He said Ukraine wouldn't allow itself to be drawn into a war in the way he said Georgia had last month when Russian troops responded to a Georgian attack on South Ossetia by occupying large swaths of its territory.

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Source: Wall Street Journal

Russia eyes Mediterranean as alternative to Sevastopol naval base

Russia has accused Kiev of 'unfriendly' policies toward the Black Sea Fleet base.

Yushchenko has called for the Russian navy's early pullout, tougher deployment requirements and higher fees, demands that have not been backed by his former coalition ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Russia-Ukraine tensions heightened after several Black Sea Fleet warships dropped anchor off the Georgian coast during and after the armed conflict with Tbilisi over breakaway South Ossetia last month.

Russia's naval base in the Crimea currently has 50 warships and patrol boats, along with around 80 aircraft, and employs coastal defense troops.

Would we really miss Russian fleet?

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Source: Ria Novosti

Ukraine Prez: Russia Wants To Destabilize Ukraine

Many fear Moscow could lay claim to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that once belonged to Russia and is now home to Russia's Black Sea fleet. More than half its residents are ethnic Russians.

Yushchenko said Russia was interested in causing "internal instability" in parts of Ukraine.

"Without a doubt, such scenarios exist," he said.

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Source: Yahoo News

Shots in the back half a century later Do the communist leaders have the right to accuse the OUN and the UPA of treason?

The communists have always accused their political adversaries of “shooting them in the back.” This accusation has been applied at various times to the so-called treacherous peoples of the USSR, Poland’s Armia Krajowa, the Baltic “forest brothers,” and generally to all those whom Stalin could not control.

But the communists maintained a discreet silence about the fact that the USSR concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and was supplying Germany with material resources in the heat of Hitler’s offensive in Europe, and that the West’s Lend-Lease program, although it did not play a decisive role in the victory, came to the USSR during the most critical days of the war, when it was desperately needed.

As for “shooting in the back” of the Soviet Army, this was the handiwork not of the mythical “UPA bandits” but the communists themselves. Recall the notorious Order no. 227 of July 28, 1942, authorizing the formation of penal battalions and barrier troops in which 427,910 men saw service. Most of them were killed in action or became disabled (see, the statistical reference book Russia and the USSR in 20th-Century Wars edited by Col.-Gen. G. Krivosheev, Moscow, OLMA-Press, 2001).

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Source The Day

After The Georgian Crisis, The Breaking Of Europe

Has the EU allowed Russia to get away with breaching international law?

The EU is nearly paralyzed by a fragmentation of the will, a condition which was in ample evidence at the EU-Ukraine summit in Paris on September 9. On that occasion, in a feat of extreme verbal contortionism, the EU promised Ukraine everything but a guaranteed prospect of membership. Most EU member states fear Ukraine may already face a real threat from Russia, yet the bloc's strategic interests were nowhere in sight at the ambassadorial meetings in Brussels preceding the summit, where the Netherlands and other member states skeptical of enlargement argued that giving Ukraine a binding pledge of membership would be too unpopular back home.

Neither has the EU done anything to match the U.S. diplomatic "surge" in which top State Department officials have visited Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, not to mention Georgia. Again, the bloc's 27 member states have conspicuously failed to marshal the requisite collective resolve.

Seems like they (EU) are castrated. Especially the French and Germans. Click here to read full article.

Source: RFERL

Diplomat: Russia stalling over Georgia observers

Talks with Russia on sending additional international monitors to keep tabs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia collapsed Friday, a senior Western diplomat said, warning that Moscow's hard-line stance had thrown into question its pledge to withdraw troops.

Russian soldiers stand at a checkpoint in Karaleti district, northwest of Gori.

The official, who has been intimately involved in three weeks of negotiations, accused Russia of stalling for time in an effort to keep observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe out of the two breakaway regions.
"It has become clear that Russia doesn't want any agreement. I think they're afraid of what the observers will see," the diplomat told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the talks.

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Source: CNN

Russian aggression could pull U.S. into war: Palin

Here is a strong statement issued by the Republican V.P. Sarah Palin. The US always stood strong and supported Ukraine, not by their fear of Russia as is being evidenced by the woosey French and Germans and other annonomys coutries from the European Union.

Ms. Palin said she "definitely" supports a U. S. strategic alliance with Ukraine and Georgia because "the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO."

The United States needs to strengthen NATO because it "is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today," she said.

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Source: The National Post

Ukraine: Cheney IOU against Russia

Sept. 4, 2008 Cheney and Yushchenko shake on U.S. guarantees against Russia

Another pre-emptive threat by Washington
Last week as McCain made his speech to the Republican faithful, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Ukraine and unconditionally pledged America's support against any attempt by Moscow to corrupt, much less invade, that giant.
This is hardly popular stuff in a war-embattled America where billions are spent each month in an unnecessary occupation of Iraq.
But another entanglement may loom. The United States (under Clinton) signed an iron-clad agreement in 1994 with Ukraine, Britain (under John Major) and Russia (Boris Yeltsin). The Ukrainians back then got these three to guarantee its sovereignty as the quid pro quo for Ukraine's agreement to dismantle and hand over its entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles to Russia.

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Source: The National Post

Ukraine comes to the forefront

THE first priority for Europe after Russia’s short August war with Georgia was to secure a ceasefire and a genuine pullback of Russian forces (see article). The second was to start fretting about Russia’s other neighbours. And the most significant of these by far is Ukraine. Ukraine could not have ignored the war even if it had wanted to. Sebastopol, on the Crimean peninsula, is home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, some of whose warships dropped anchor off the Georgian coast during and after the fighting. Evidence of Ukraine’s proximity to the conflict is also on show at Moscow’s military museum, where visitors can gawp at war booty: Georgian T-72 battle tanks that were modernised in Ukraine. This, say the Russians, shows Kiev’s support for what it sees as a “criminal regime”. Indeed, Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president (pictured above) flew to Tbilisi to support his counterpart and friend, Mikheil Saakashvili.

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Source: The Economist

Cracks in Putin's kingdom

An even bigger problem, perhaps, is that Putin is looking backward.

He can best be characterized by the term "sovok," one of those many-layered pieces of word play in which Russians delight. In this case, it can be summarized as someone who embodies the dark and circumscribed world view of the Soviet man in the street, suspicious of the outside world, resentful, who holds a grudge and remembers a slight. Putin speaks passionately about the "tragedy" of the Soviet Union's collapse, a personally scarring time when he found himself unemployed.

He trusts very few people. Aides say he makes policy on key issues – Georgia, Ukraine, NATO – himself, along with a small circle, and tends to improvise. He shows little interest in the Russian stock market, which has taken a battering since the outbreak of the Georgia crisis, while most of the mega-rich, many of them close associates, have attained their fortune by obeying one rule: Do exactly what Putin says.

In the past, everybody obeyed this rule, and many in the ruling elite were genuinely convinced that he was the right leader for these times. Now, doubts are creeping in, and people are bracing themselves for tense years. The strong man has started to show his weaknesses.

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Source: Yahoo News.

U.S. accuses Russia of waffling on cease-fire

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States on Wednesday criticized Russia for failing to live up to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia and for refusing to remove its military forces.

U.S State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says the Russians "need to get out of Georgia."

"Look, these guys are trying to, at every turn, trying to wiggle out of a commitment that they made and that their president put his name to," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at his morning briefing. "We've seen it since August and it continues. They need to get out of Georgia and they need to stop finding excuses to do that."

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Source: CNN

EU offers reassurance to Ukraine

Mr Sarkozy's reassurance comes after rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine over its Crimea region.

Ukraine has also been offered an association agreement with the EU, to be signed next year.

The accord represents cautious support for possible eventual EU membership for Ukraine.

"In the eyes of Europe, [territorial integrity] is absolutely non-negotiable," Mr Sarkozy said in a response to a question from reporters in Paris.

He underlined that the accord left the path for future membership of the 27-member state bloc open, saying: "This association accord does not close any avenues."

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Source BBC On-line

Dmitry Medvedevi a 'political corpse' or a puppet?

President Medvedev said Russia did not fear calls for its isolation

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described his Georgian counterpart as a "political corpse", saying Moscow does not recognise him as president.

Same can be said about this clown of a president, who in reality is a puppet to Lilyput Putin, and has the nerve to come out with such absurd statement.

US gives $1bn to rebuild Georgia

Bravo to the US and hopefully more EU countries will be brave to join on board in helping to rebuild and re-arm Georgia. (we know the wussy French and Germans will not be in the formula), but time will tell.
Meanwhile, another country, Nicaragua, whose leftist government fiercely opposes the US, now appears to have become the second nation to recognise the independence of the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Adrug wielding puppet from Nicaragua and a Alexander Lukashenko, the last dictator in Europe at the head of an outpost of tyranny. We are really impressed now Lillyput Putin. Are there any more takers out there?
Click here to read the following interesting article in BBC on line.

Source: BBC

Georgia's Human Chain Stronger than Russian Tanks

On Monday, Georgia came to a halt or, rather, it came to life. A massive human chain gripped the avenues of Tbilisi, the streets of Russian-besieged Poti, the squares of every city, the lanes of every village and the country roads that connect them. Maybe Russian Czar Vladimir Putin watched on television the human chain that will defeat his tanks. This is no maudlin deviation from this column's traditional realist analysis. It is a sober argument that Georgia's human chain represents the march of history from which Putin has kept his country.

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Source: American Thinker