Merkel Fears Defeat Of The Ukrainian Army
By German Economic News
Translation by Eric Zuesse
[German Chancellor] Angela Merkel seems to anticipate the economic and military collapse of Ukraine. Berlin’s civil service is naturally working hard on a peace plan. To avert fiasco, Merkel must now discuss a truce with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. This war could end well for the rebels.
Merkel and [French President] Francois Hollande met on Thursday with [Ukraine’s Presiden] Petro Poroshenko. On Friday, their journey continues to Putin in Moscow.
The federal government has denied a newspaper report of a peace plan by Germany and France to Ukraine. “This is not true,” a government spokesman said on Thursday evening to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Friday edition).
The Journal had reported that Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande wanted to propose to Kiev’s President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday night an immediate ceasefire.
However, convinced by the denial to the contrary, the SZ writes that the new program had been already in preparation for some days, by high officials of the governments involved.
The trigger for the dynamics seems to be the combination of military gains by the separatists, and the U.S. debate on sending lethal weapons to Ukraine.
Poroshenko wants to make it clear that the last chance has come to save Ukraine against a dramatic military defeat and economic collapse. On Thursday, the Ukrainian central bank had its key interest rate rise by five percentage points to 19.5 per cent, and the local currency UAH fell by almost half of its value.
Therefore, it seems that Merkel and Hollande were now advised to speak immediately with Putin on a solution to the conflict.
In return for a ceasefire, separatists would be granted broad autonomy in eastern Ukraine, and covering a larger area that than previously planned. The demarcation line that is based on the Minsk Agreement will now be unsustainable.
According to the SZ, territorial gains by the separatists will necessitate adding up to 1500 square kilometers to the proposed autonomous region.
Sources were not disclosed, but the SZ is usually well informed in such matters.
However, even if the peace plan in the reported form should still be ready for signing by Angela Merkel, the military and economic collapse of Ukraine is apparently nonetheless expected.
Hollande and Merkel came together on Thursday in Kiev with Poroshenko to find a way out of the escalating situation.
On Friday they want to discuss in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin ending the conflict. In the background of the diplomatic thrust are the increasingly violent battles in Ukraine’s east.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier traveled to Latvia and Poland on Thursday to discuss there with his counterparts the crisis. Steinmeier warned of a “total loss of control” in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Moreover, ways should be explored “to calm the situation before the conflict gets out of control and is not amenable to solution by proposed policies.”
Both Human Rights Watch and the OSCE reported this week that remains were found of cluster bombs in Lugansk. There is evidence that these were fired by the Ukrainian army. The attack injured two civilians; two more were killed, and an unknown number of other civilians might also have been hit.
This article was originally published at German Economic News –
Translation by Eric Zuesse – Viahttp://fortruss.blogspot.com
NATO Already at War in Ukraine But Losing
In yet another sleight of hand, Western news media are this week spinning the notion that the US and NATO are «considering sending lethal military aid» in order «to defend» the Kiev regime from «Russian aggression».
That’s a pathetic joke. The real explanation is that NATO is losing its war in Ukraine and needs to send more military fuel in order to salvage the mounting losses.
First, the Western media slyly acknowledge that US-led NATO has so far «only dispatched non-lethal military equipment». That rhetorical ruse is used to pretend that non-lethal material is somehow not really military grade.
But whether non-lethal or lethal, military equipment is military equipment. So, let’s just dispense with that bunch of semantics. The US and its public-relations alter-ego, NATO, are already deeply involved militarily in Ukraine, supporting the Kiev regime whose 10-month offensive on eastern Ukraine has resulted in over 5,300 deaths.
Secondly, the notion that Washington is «reconsidering» whether to send «lethal aid», as reported in the New York Times on Monday, is another risible illusion. The US and its NATO allies are already sending lethal military equipment to the Ukraine.
US President Obama said this week that «pouring more weapons into Ukraine» will not resolve the conflict.
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel also vowed that Germany would not be supplying weapons to the Kiev regime, adding that the conflict cannot be solved by military means.
Both Obama and Merkel are either woefully deceptive or living in cloud-cuckoo land. Probably both.
Let’s cut to the chase. NATO is at war in Ukraine and has been so for the past year, if not covertly for the past two decades.
Wayne Madsen in his SCF column this week provides detailed evidence that a giant military transport plane, a Ukrainian Antonov AN124, has been tracked while flying weapons from the US and several NATO countries into Kiev for at least the past four months.
The transporter plane – the world’s biggest such aircraft – has been spotted carrying out cargo runs in the US, Norway, Italy and Romania on a secret mission to funnel heavy weapons to the Kiev regime.
Prior to that, the Russian government has claimed that US mercenaries, possibly belonging to Pentagon security contract firm, Blackwater/Academi, have been recorded operating inside Ukraine alongside Kiev’s military units, including the Nazi SS-styled National Guard.
This week, a senior spokesman for the self-declared Lugansk People’s Republic, Alexei Karyakin, said that NATO munitions have been recovered from various battle zones. «Fragments recovered from munitions bear NATO marks… Now NATO is killing our countrymen», said Karyakin.
Earlier this month, when pro-Russian self-defence militia retook the Donetsk International Airport from Kiev forces, who had been using the facility to shell Donetsk City for the past several months, it was reported that among the charred remains were NATO manuals in several European languages and other items identified as NATO-standard equipment.
At the end of last year, the US Congress passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, which mandates the supply of $350 million in lethal and non-lethal aid to the Kiev regime. The Obama administration maintains the fiction that it has not yet acted on the «non-lethal» provisions in the Act, but that is stretching credulity to breaking point.
The notion that Washington and its NATO allies, including Britain, the Baltic states and Poland, are now – only now – mulling the possibility of furnishing lethal material to the Kiev regime is simply laughable.
Indeed, according to reliable reports, the neo-Nazi paramilitary Right Sector shock-troops that were used to incite the lethal Maidan protests in November 2013, which eventually led to the coup against the Yanukovych government in February last year, had spent months in preparation at military camps in Poland, learning the techniques of subversion and terrorism.
NATO member Poland and the American CIA were thus instrumental in supplying the «dogs of war» that precipitated the regime-change crisis and the ongoing civil war.
Mercenaries from US Blackwater Worldwide …
We can go further back to the CIA-inspired «colour revolution» of 2004, or even as far back as 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US began infiltrating Ukraine with $5 billion to foment «civil society groups».
That is a euphemism for the USAID, CIA, George Soros umbrella of destabilising agents. We have knowledge of the $5 billion fund courtesy of the clumsy admission from neocon State Department siren Victoria Nuland, who actually bragged about the fact during the Maidan Square protests at the end of 2013.
This week, Nuland’s minion at the State Department Jan Psaki again disclosed to reporters that the US has long been involved in «working with the Ukrainian opposition» to ensure the country was «on track» for «transition».
The interesting question is the timing of the latest supposed musings about «lethal» support. The New York Times, cites top influential present and former officials who are now advocating the sending of such military equipment.
They include Secretary of State John Kerry, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove and his predecessor Admiral James Stravidis.
Other luminaries are members of the Brookings Institute and the Atlantic Council. These think-tanks recommend the White House supply $3 billion in military aid to the Kiev regime over the next three years – 10 times what the gung-ho Republican-controlled Congress mandates.
The CIA-linked Radio Free Europe news outlet «explains» that the debate on ramping up military aid to the Kiev regime has «intensified» because: «The Ukrainian government [Kiev regime] has suffered significant military setbacks in recent weeks as it has become increasingly clear that the ceasefire is not working».
In other words, the Western-backed junta is losing the war – in spite of already having NATO military support and in spite of the pseudo ceasefire to re-group offensive forces.
Also, the New York Times added a further factor for why Washington is now stepping up the military agenda, namely, that US and EU economic sanctions imposed on Russia «have not dissuaded» the government of President Vladimir Putin.
Or as US State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki would say, Russia has «not changed its behaviour» – that is, has not capitulated to Western demands to adopt a servile role to comply with Washington’s hegemonic global ambitions.
Washington and its European vassals are thus realising that their nefarious scheme for regime change in Ukraine is in danger of hitting a dead-end crash. Washington is therefore now trying to salvage its disastrous gambit to subjugate Ukraine, and by extension Russia, by escalating the military stakes.
But Washington can’t very well escalate its military involvement openly for invidious political reasons, both domestically and internationally. Washington has to be careful not to divulge too openly that it is already militarily involved in Ukraine, along with its NATO gang members.
Therefore, Washington is seeking to portray the situation as one of «defending» an EU-seeking, democracy-loving Kiev that is pitted against superior Russian-backed proxy insurgents. Hence the US officials and their trusty Western media mouthpieces are emphasising a faux ambivalence in «considering» supplying «lethal defensive military aid».
The tortuous language and reasoning reflects the systematic lies that Washington and NATO have been telling for months over the Ukraine conflict.
The plain truth is that US-led NATO is up to its eyes in fuelling the Ukraine war, and it is losing the war it launched in the first place. That’s why Washington is now desperately performing all sorts of rhetorical gymnastics to deceive the Western public into acquiescing to a major military escalation of its war under the guise of supplying «defensive lethal weapons».
By Finian Cunningham
© Strategic Culture Foundation