Hollande-Merkel plan to stop the conflict in the south-eastern Ukraine

[quorthon]

Despite the economic sanctions the European Union agrees and wants to cooperate with Russia. So Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel are in Moscow today discussing the situation with Vladimir Putin. They offer both sides to "freeze" the conflict, and more precisely:

1) to cease fire, to end the shelling of New Russia cities, to retire heavy artillery from the line of contact;
2) to give a special "pending" status to DNR and LNR like Transnistria has where the republic actually ceases to be subject to Kiev but will be formally considered as a part of Ukraine;
3) to end the pressure on Russia on the Crimea annexation;
4) to guarantee the neutral status of Ukraine and not to allow Ukraine to join NATO;
5) to remove anti-Russian sanctions from the EU gradually.

But there are much more questions like which side will rebuild Donbas region. Or how to make people living in the adjacent residential area to stop confrontation.

 

[RandomVariable]

It looks to me that Russia will stop fighting when it decides to and that might not be until it takes the whole of Ukraine. Sanctions might have a very counter-productive effect on Russia. Putin's popularity was at 85% at the end of last year. With no money food is starting to be an issue from Russians. Rather than being forced into a peace deal Russia might just decide to speed things up a bit. NATO seems ready to counter. I don't think either side is going to blink. That's my guess anyway. We'll know in a day or two how the Hollande-Merkel plan is received.

 

[bendog]

It looks to me that Russia will stop fighting when it decides to and that might not be until it takes the whole of Ukraine. Sanctions might have a very counter-productive effect on Russia. Putin's popularity was at 85% at the end of last year. With no money food is starting to be an issue from Russians. Rather than being forced into a peace deal Russia might just decide to speed things up a bit. NATO seems ready to counter. I don't think either side is going to blink. That's my guess anyway. We'll know in a day or two how the Hollande-Merkel plan is received.

Well, Hollandale and Merkel didn't bring umbrellas with them. (Chamberlin joke)

 

[RandomVariable]

It looks to me that Russia will stop fighting when it decides to and that might not be until it takes the whole of Ukraine. Sanctions might have a very counter-productive effect on Russia. Putin's popularity was at 85% at the end of last year. With no money food is starting to be an issue from Russians. Rather than being forced into a peace deal Russia might just decide to speed things up a bit. NATO seems ready to counter. I don't think either side is going to blink. That's my guess anyway. We'll know in a day or two how the Hollande-Merkel plan is received.

Well, Hollandale and Merkel didn't bring umbrellas with them. (Chamberlin joke)

I would be lying if I did not say I had to look that up. You know your history. From the way I read it I do not think anyone is under any false impressions. This seems to be a last, "see we tried" knowing full well there is nothing in the plan that wasn't presented before and that there is nothing Russia is going to agree to, most definitely not something drawn up by Hollandale and Merkel and presented to him. Your umbrella reference is quite apt.

 

[LastProphet]

Blog vineyardsaker, known for exposing the nazi atrocities in eastern Ukraine, unfortunately also illustrates this:

Whoever fails to recognize treason has failed, no matter how much of the rest he did get.
vineyardsaker's list of what he didn't fail to get, starts with:
"Disgust with the total hypocrisy of standing in theory for one thing and in supporting its exact opposite."
Last Prophet replies:
What about your failure to recognize that agent "Putin"'s role is even more obvious than his nazi master, once you remove the smoke curtain "NATO vs Putin", propagated by ALL the media?

Reminder:
Ukraine gov - the basic facts
1. Ukraine gov was installed after a staged coup, and it immediately became the first openly nazi regime in Europe, from racial supremacy to terror (publicly burning "subhumans" in Odessa) and bombing civilians (started at Slavyansk).
Only difference to Hitler is an act of theater: an "election" where anyone deemed not nazi enough was terrorized and beaten in public, jailed and eventually executed.

2. Ukraine, EU and USA gov claim that Crimea is not part of Russia, despite a democratic referendum where 96% voted to join Russia.

3. Ukraine gov:
- vows to retake Crimea;
- is supported by the EU/USA.
- bombs ethnic russian civilians in the Donbass, along the border with Russia, for now 9 months;
- ethnically cleansed two millions;
- destroyed the infrastructure in a region that had a population of nearly five million.

What is your excuse to fail to state the facts about "Putin" and the rest of the traitors of the russian gov?
Forget about what "Putin" says and look at what "Putin" DOES:
1. Transfer of russian wealth to illuminati safes, starting with offering free gas to Ukraine and "sell" oil below production costs.
Reminder: average production cost per barrel in Russia, 2014: above $50; "Putin" continues to supply Kiev with gas, despite an official debt of billions.

2. Arm illuminati puppets from the puppet goverment installed by NATO in Iraq to Assad in Syria.
Reminder: war in Iraq and Syria now officially has in one side the iranian army in both Syria and Iraq, "iraq army" alias shia militias and US "advisers" on the ground in Iraq, iranian and syrian pilots flying MIGs supplied by "Putin", as well as NATO pilots.
These nazi shock troops do NOT fight ISIS, as the official story goes. They fight the REAL rebels.
ISIS, mostly turkish and saudi mercenaries, was created to fight and discredit the real rebels.
Other than deliberately targeting schools and hospitals, cities were razed to the ground by unguided barrel bombs, "elephant" bombs, splitter bombs, all meant to target civilians.
In other words: same as later in Ukraine, except for the massive use of chemical weapons.

3. Call ukrainian rebels to disarm, call for "ceasefire" each time the nazis face defeat.

4. Refuse to deliver weapons to the rebels, starting with fighter jets, while the nazis use the whole arsenal, from ballistic missiles to figher jets.

ALL notes
Vladimir Putin and family murdered and replaced by impostors Recognize traitor impersonating murdered Putin by his deeds

 

[RandomVariable]

Well that did not happen.
Moscow talks fail to produce a Ukraine peace deal - The Washington Post

 

[RandomVariable]

Peace talks continue. Merkel is determined to get a deal. Seems our government believes the answer lies in send in weapons. Of course it does. Our government is run by the military-industrial complex. This is one 'world crisis' America is better off out of.
Urgency increases from world leaders trying to broker Moscow-Ukraine cease-fire - The Washington Post

Edit: I think if American sends military equipment the American people have the right to know exactly who the manufacture of every last piece of hardware was and what their contributions to the last election were.

 

[quorthon]

Peace talks continue.
I think if American sends military equipment the American people have the right to know exactly who the manufacture of every last piece of hardware was and what their contributions to the last election were.

I guess they will talk about possibility of peaceful solution for several years ahead playing media wars and waging new proxy wars.
No, seriously, people usually don't have rights like that

 

[RandomVariable]

Peace talks continue.
I think if American sends military equipment the American people have the right to know exactly who the manufacture of every last piece of hardware was and what their contributions to the last election were.

I guess they will talk about possibility of peaceful solution for several years ahead playing media wars and waging new proxy wars.
No, seriously, people usually don't have rights like that

Actually this is still the United States of America and we do. Whether we can actually get what we have a right to is another story. (At least I think we are still the USA. The last corporate takeover might have changed the name.)

 

[RandomVariable]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...282-aeb7-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.htmlSen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who appeared on a panel, accused Merkel of making a big mistake by refusing to supply Kiev with better weapons.​

Sen. Graham's top two contributurs are an energy company and a company with a very large military hardware division. Sen. Graham gets all red in the face if anyone suggests extending unemployment benefits or any such 'government handout' stuff.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Campaign Finance Money - Top Donors - Senator 2014 OpenSecrets

 

[RandomVariable]

American has proven its willingness to meddle in Eastern Europe. The EU has applied sanctions of Russia and they have hurt Russia plenty. If Putin believes the EU can not keep the war hungry Americans at bay he will go for all of the Ukraine. Merkel and Putin are grown adults and should be able to work out a balance between sanctions and borders. It comes down to who Putin fears more, the EU (deal) or the Americans (war).

 

[RandomVariable]

I was going to state that I think the U.S. wants war in Ukraine. I thought about it and I do not think that is our first choice. I do not think we mind war as there are plenty of other people to pull triggers and arms sales would be huge. In the end hopefully we could redraw some lines and lock in some juicy energy agreements. War is not our first choice but if we do have to settle for the second we might as well make the most of it.

 

[RandomVariable]

I hate dominating my own thread but:

Rebels Ukraine govt forces jointly evacuate war-hit town Deseret News
On Friday, in a move not seen before in this war, the two sides briefly ceased hostilities to jointly evacuate the few residents still remaining. Dozens of buses traveled in convoys to Debaltseve from both rebel and government territory to ferry locals away from danger.

"We agreed with the Ukrainian authorities that this would be done jointly, to give people the right to choose to go to the Ukrainian side or to go to Donetsk," said Daria Morozova, a separatist official.
​

And I had thought all humanity had completely left this god-forsaken planet. (It is an expression, not a declaration.)

 

[RandomVariable]

I thought this a truism worth repeating.

Washington has made a bad habit of the proxy war The National
And then there’s another Afghanistan – and Syria – lesson: In protracted conflicts, the most extreme elements come to dominate on the militarily weaker side. Even today, most effective and dedicated fighters on the Ukrainian side are not EU-minded liberals, but hard-line ultranationalists. A long-term proxy conflict in Ukraine will probably expand their influence.
​

The rest of the article is worth reading. I am not advocating that the EU should just cave in and sign off. Sanctions have had a toll on Russia and if not lifted sanctions can extract a toll for a very long time. Both sides have something they can give on and both sides definitely have something to lose if they don't.

 

[Dæmon]

It looks to me that Russia will stop fighting when it decides to and that might not be until it takes the whole of Ukraine.

Russia doesn't need Ukraine. I think Russia is already big enough. Somebody just wants that Cold War again. It's a very big business.

 

[RandomVariable]

It looks to me that Russia will stop fighting when it decides to and that might not be until it takes the whole of Ukraine.

Russia doesn't need Ukraine. I think Russia is already big enough. Somebody just wants that Cold War again. It's a very big business.

Need is always a relative term. If the Ukraine were to join NATO it would put NATO on Russia's border. For a country that keeps getting invaded that would not make any Russian leader nervous. Not that Russia is any saint, they are the second largest conventional arms exporter (Wiki), so keeping the world an unstable place is a national interest for them too.

 

[bendog]

I think the US involvement is more or less a version of FUBAR. Yanukovych overreached badly in trying to undo the years of work that went into having trade ties to the EU, when he was overwhelming disliked outside the Eastern Ukraine provinces and was going to be voted out shortly. The US initially worked out a deal to ex-nay the Russian trade deal he tried to ramrod through, and allow him to serve out his term, and then revisit trade under a new govt. Ukraine in Nato was not even on the table.

That was when the Maiden tossed Yanukovych. I don't have any concrete links, but I certainly wouldn't deny any claim that the US neocons egged on the Maiden. They didn't like Putin before Snowden. What mystified me was why Dubya was showing Putin any positive comments. But the notion that all of the US policy is driven by neocons is naïve at best, and probably driven by anti-Americanism. Dubya was at least seduced by them, but they've been calling Obama everything including muslim since day one. The Clintons hardly fit the mode.

Putin used the Maiden as an excuse to "invade" to take both Crimea and the eastern Ukraine. Up until then, the official US position was more or less neutral, but trending to allowing the maj of Ukraines decide what they wanted. Which of course is with the West. I mean it's not a difficult question as to whether you'd want better trade ties to Russia or Germany/France. Putin could have gone to intl court to secure the money he'd loaned Ukraine. Merkel isn't interested in death camps in the Ukraine for pro-Russian Ukrainians. All this bs Stratford posts is just bs. Putin wanted Crimea and a buffer zone between him an a western oriented Ukraine, so he used his military to take them.

Obama says in his state of the union that the Russian econ is being punished and Belarus and even Hungary rethink their Russian ties. The next week Russian tanks are in Ukraine.

Ukraine doesn't add anything to the West. It's a basket case. With the exception of Poland, every former Soviet territory freed to pursue free markets has to be carried for awhile, that even includes the Czechs who had to separate from Slovakia. There's no way the US can pay the casualty and monetary cost of removing Putin from Ukraine, even if we wanted to, and we don't really give a fig about Ukraine. But, the irony of talks being in Munich is just tooooo ironic. Putin has Russian speaking minorities all over the place, and there's no denying he's paranoid to the near mentally ill side.

So, now we're in a position where even the NON-neocons are scratching their heads and saying, "well what the f do we do now? We've said, Vlad you can keep the territory, but we're gonna hurt your economy as a consequence." The Ukraine military was defeated months ago. All Putin need do is tell the separatists to stop shooting and sue for peace. Not happening.

As bad as it is, is there an option other than sending artillery and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine?

 

[RandomVariable]

FUBAR. Ah, yes. A fall-back strategy used a bit too often. Duyba seemed a happy, go-lucky kind of guy and only occasionally pissed off at the people running foreign policy behind his back, as I think most presidents are. I agree with the neocon image, an easy label for what people think they see. Snowden is an SOB and I hope they get him sooner or later. The people who got Snowden where he was were the criminals who did not want to be found out. Russia was not going to not have Crimea at just about any cost. It is of vital strategic importance to them. As far as which side the Ukrainian people want I do not think it is obviously the West. The common man gets screwed either way so factors other than international trade come into consideration. The official position of the U.S. might have been neutral but there is no such thing as too much power or too much money so the cold war machine has never stopped cranking out new schemes. Putin has good reason to be paranoid. We need to back off and back up Merkel. History does not repeat itself, we repeat it for it. Irony or disgust, either way. The Middle East is pretty much doomed at the moment. I think the Normandy Quartet can work this out though. I sure hope so. Maybe for the sake of 10 righteous. Throwing weapons into the Ukraine will at best prolong the fighting with Russia eventually taking all of the Ukraine, and those weapons will still be around for viva la resistance. At worst Ukraine could become a failed state with a smouldering fire of Russian separatists fighting neonationalists and the U.S. funding radical Muslims. One last comment (and you thought I would never quit), I think the outcome of the negotiations between the EU and Russia sets something of a precedence for the Middle East. If negotiations fail for the Ukraine I think parties in Middle East conflicts are going to be much less likely to enter into discussions. Stated painfully I think the Normandy Quartet is going to set the tune for the Middle East.

 

[bendog]

Well, Putin is repeating himself with Moldova and Georgia, and Putin already had Crimea with a virtually perpetual lease in exchange for gas. The question is what vital strategic reason requires him to bankrupt Russia over two provinces in Ukraine?

As for his paranoia, twice new US potuses have tried reengagement, and been rebuffed by excursions by the Russian military. At the heart, I think the simple fact is that Russia has never been, and possibly never will be, a free market economy. The Western Ukraine rejects mafia economics ... for good reason. Putin sees this as being "encircled" by economies hostile to Russia. Putin sees the ABM system as a threat, and it is. Nato is unconvinced that Putin would use the threat of nukes to achieve political advantage. I don't see how Nato's fear is misplaced.

If Ukraine is given weapons for defense, and if Putin's response is to send his tanks further into Ukraine, better to know it now.

 

[RandomVariable]

I do not think Putin felt the lease was a sufficient guarantee that he would have access to the sea long term. He is a fool if he did. Putin is not a fool. I do not think it was premeditated strategy as much as it was a cause and effect. The exact same cause and effect that would happen if weapons start flowing in from the west. I have not heard a single person say otherwise, or that Putin would not ultimately win that game.

I do not know how Putin sees neighbouring economies. Russia, China, and Iran all have trade agreements. That is partly because those are the people who will trade with each other without trying to stab the other in the back. I think there can be a balance between the NWO and international trade deals where the humans on this planet move forward. Unfortunately I think it is more likely it is the end of the world. And most unfortunately I am not kidding about that. The fact that Putin sees the ABM system as a threat is telling of just how primitive things still are. Think about it. For ballistic missiles to be flying across the Eastern European sky all hell would have had to have broken lose.