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Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs), armed with non-factual information and an
anti-Russian agenda, might potentially add fuel to the fire and make the
already unsteady relations between Europe and Russia even worse.
Introduction: By any measure 2014 has been a truly historic year which saw huge, I would say, even tectonic developments. This year ends in very high instability, and the future looks hard to guess. I don't think that anybody can confidently predict what might happen next year. So what I propose to do today is something far more modest. I want to look into some of the key events of 2014 and think of them as vectors with a specific direction and magnitude. I want to look in which direction a number of key actors (countries) "moved" this year and with what degree of intensity. Then I want to see whether it is likely that they will change course or determination. Then adding up all the "vectors" of these key actors (countries) I want to make a calculation and see what resulting vector we will obtain for the next year. Considering the large number of "unknown unknowns" (to quote Rumsfeld) this exercise will not result in any kind of real prediction, but my hope is that it will prove a useful analytical reference.
QUESTION: Ukraine is becoming an American/NATO platform with no viable economy, a thoroughly corrupt junta-criminal government. It has lost most characteristics of a state. We know its economy is no longer functioning. It is on economic life-support. Q: What in history does this colonization most remind you and what does it present as a permanent platform for the projection of US hegemony right next to Russia? In the context of US cruise missiles into Poland and 100 US tanks into Latvia, also right on the Russian border, how do you interpret these developments?
“NATO is the enforcer of American financial and commercial power” globally, which is the primary reason for the bloc’s expansion, Adeyinka Makinde, a London-based legal lecturer specializing in intelligence and security matters, told Radio VR.
That explains why the US is so eager to co-opt Ukraine, the expert said, warning that Kiev’s fate will be grim. Contrary to what the current Ukrainian authorities think, once the United Stated gets into Ukraine, through NATO or the EU, the country “is going to be plundered and looted”, Makinde stated. As the EU financial package shows,
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Slovakia speaks against some sanctions against Russia, proposed by the European Union, according to the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico.
“We have addressed the EU, asking them to remove some clauses from the sanctions proposal. We want a number of products included in the list to be exempt from sanctions, so that we can continue exporting them to Russia,” Fico said during press conference after a special meeting dedicated to the discussion of new EU sanctions against Russia.
The ministers, who took part in a meeting, spoke against proposed export ban on goods that can have both military and civilian use, aimed for Russian private companies.
Francois Hollande said he does not want economic sanctions against Moscow to intensify, but stressed that Russia’s possible military presence in Ukraine is unacceptable and could trigger new restrictions, the French president said at a meeting of French ambassadors in Paris on Thursday.
“Europe will continue [to introduce sanctions], or it could even intensify them in case of an escalation [of the situation in Ukraine]. I do not want this, as this is not in the interest of France, the European Union, or Russia,” Hollande said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has urged the West to block all Russia’s financial assets and banking operations until it withdraws the troops it allegedly moved into Ukraine, the UNIAN news agency reported Thursday.
“The sanctions introduced have not brought any results. In this situation, one of the possible elements to deter Russian aggression must be considering imposing sanctions on freezing all Russian assets and suspending all Russian bank transactions in European Union member states, the United States and G7 countries,” Yatsenyuk said.
"The restrictions should be introduced until Russia withdraws its troops, hardware and agents from Ukraine," the prime minister added.
Russia’s one-year ban on food imports from the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway came into force Thursday after being published by the official government website.
Earlier on Thursday, Russia unveiled its list of banned imports of beef, pork, fish, poultry, fruits, vegetables, nuts, as well as cheese and other dairy products from the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway that have imposed sanctions against Russia.
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The European Union and Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia signed an Association Agreement in Brussels on Friday, June 27. Three documents carry the signatures of European Council President Herman van Rompuy, European Commission President Manuel Barroso and Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko, of Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca and Georgian Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili.
The 1,135-page agreement will now have to be signed by the leaders of the EU's 28 member countries.
After the signing the document, Ukrainian Presdient Petr Poroshenko expressed hopes of the rapid ratification of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement by all members of the European Union.
The health minister of the "Lugansk People's Republic" was killed by a bomb allegedly dropped on the regional administration headquarters by a Ukrainian government warplane on Monday, a spokesman for the unilaterally proclaimed republic said.
"Our minister of health, Natalya Arkhipova, was killed because of the bombing of the building of the regional administration by the air force," the spokesman told Interfax. "Apparently, she was standing on the front door porch speaking to another woman during the air raid."
Kyrill Koktysh, an associate professor of Moscow State Institute of International relations with Russia’s Foreign Ministry, in his interview with VoR said that the ‘authorities’ in Kiev have no resources or authority necessary to deal with the protests in Eastern Ukraine. Moreover, neither they nor the EU have any idea on how to deal with this crisis, which became a global problem.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said that Ukrainians must take up arms against Russians so that not even scorched earth will be left where Russia stands in phone call with with the former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, the representative of the Party of Regions, Nestor Shufrych. The tape was leaked online. In her microblog on Twitter Tymoshenko acknowledged that the telephone conversation took place indeed.
Record of a two-minute conversation appeared on the video sharing site YouTube, which was as well posted on the website of the TV channel RT.
The Western press and certain Russian liberals have been in hysterics over Russia’s reincorporation of Crimea. Hillary Clinton previously compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler and Andrei Zubov, a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), scandalously slurred grassroots Crimean attempts at integration as an "Anschluss".
The violent attack on a Ukrainian TV chief by far-right politicians has been condemned by Amnesty International and other high-profile politicians in the crisis-torn country.
Oleksandr Panteleymonov, the acting head of Ukraine's state television stations, had his office in Kiev invaded by members of the Svoboda Party(Nazi)—a nationalist party whose presence in the country's new government has been a source of great controversy—on Tuesday. They proceeded to assault him and force him to write a resignation letter. The men included Igor Miroshnichenko, an elected member of the Ukrainian parliament. The BBC said they were livid after Panteleymonov decided to broadcast a ceremony from the Kremlin.
The United States and European Union should have anticipated the consequences of their dubious decision to throw support behind the Ukrainian regime change, a French geopolitical analyst has told Russian media.
"What we are witnessing now is the easily predictable aftermath of the US and EU’s irresponsible decision to back the overthrow of a legally-elected Ukrainian president at the time when Russia was busy with the Sochi Olympic Games," Emerique Chopard said in an interview with Interfax.
The European Council President,
Herman Van Rompuy, has said in a live interview with the RTBF TV and
Radio Company that recent statements by the US Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, about the
European Union are unacceptable. Van Rompuy concedes that these comments
should be considered in the context of a private telephone
conversation, where they were actually made.
The EC President pointed out that the European Union
has been pursuing the correct policy on Ukraine. “I don’t think our US
colleagues should interfere in the EU policy”, he said.
The European Union should stop
speaking to Ukraine in the language of sanctions and use the language of
support and political dialogue, Russia’s ambassador to the EU Vladimir
Chizhov said at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, commenting
on statements by some EU officials about sanctions against Ukraine.
Earlier Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkjavicus tweeted:
"Unrolling
brutal scenario in Euromaidan calls for united reaction from EU. Calls
for dialogue ineffective, time for targeted sanctions," Linkjavicus
posted on his Twitter account.
It looks like the Europeans have
been seriously offended with Moscow’s assistance to Ukraine, which had
frozen the signing of the agreement on the associated membership in the
EU and had made a choice in favour of developing relations with its
Eastern neighbor. The upcoming 32th Russia-EU summit in Brussels on
January 28 will be held in a truncated format and without a traditional
dinner. Diplomats explain this by the need to concentrate on the most
important things and as soon as possible.
Not
two days, but only two hours are allocated now for the partners to
discuss the key issues of interactions between Russia and the European
Union. Moscow and Brussels have agreed that consideration of the details
of numerous joint projects could wait, and they needed to focus on the
issues of strategic partnership.
The
matter will, of course, concern the economy and more specifically –
energy, trade, international obligations and neighborly policy. It is
unlikely that the President of Russia and his European colleagues will
be able to avoid a conversation about the situation in Ukraine in the
light of the last months’ events. The matter is that the European Union
categorically rejects Moscow’s integration efforts in the Eurasian
region, expert of the Institute of Europe Vladislav Belov says.
The NSA’s ultimate goal along with
its UK partner, the GCHQ, is to eliminate individual privacy worldwide,
journalist Glenn Greenwald has told an EU inquiry.
Ex-Guardian journalist Greenwald testifies before EU Parliament over NSA
Glenn
Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist known for publishing Edward
Snowden’s leaks, is testifying before the European Parliament’s
Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs via video connection. He
is participating in an inquiry into the NSA’s surveillance on EU
citizens. Follow live updates here.
The inquiry was set up to discuss ratcheting up the security of the internet and telephone networks in the European Union.
Snowden is also expected to testify before the Civil Liberties Committee in January as part of the inquiry.