Historic Moment: Ramzan Kadyrov offers Putin his own *personal* volunteer Chechen special force

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Amazing video, thanks so much to all those who translated it in less then 24 hours!!  The video begins by showing the Chechen special forces equipped with Russian military and police special forces uniform.  Notice that the average age seems to be in the 30s.  You can tell that these are hard core, experienced fighters.  Will Putin actually use them and, if yes, how so?  It is hard to tell.  Probably not officially, but is obvious to me that these are ideal forces to send anywhere were "plausible deniability" is needed or to operate in a Muslim society (Lebanon? Xinjiang? Syria?).  What is certain is that they are already present in Novorussia.
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The US cannot start a major war in Ukraine

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By Nikolai Starikov 
Translated by Val from Osa 

http://www.vz.ru/opinions/2014/12/25/722171.html 

How long the West is willing to pay for the crumbling economy of Ukraine without guarantees of the beginning of its war with Russia? The Western strategy rule says: lost control over the territory - create the Antithesis. 

It is possible to understand what is happening in Ukraine, it is much more difficult to evaluate and forecast the development of events. Whatever the case, it is necessary to consistently follow one rule: set emotions aside. Blood, death and destruction are the most serious emotional blows, but if you follow your emotions, neither proper assessment nor correct forecast will result. 

2014 "End of Year" report and a look into what 2015 (WW3?) might bring - by Saker

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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.

MH17: Not BUK-M1: new video proof

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Check out this excellent report by Dutch journalist Max Vanderwerff who debunks the reports allegedly showing a  video of a Buk-M1 launch:

http://7mei.nl/not-buk-m1-new-video-proof/

There is no doubt my mind that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian SU-25, possibly one of several Su-25s patrolling the skies that day to intercept a civilian airliner the downing of which was to become the "surprise" Poroshenko promised and which Kolomoiskii probably organized.