Monday, March 10, 2014

Russia moves more troops into Crimea



A convoy of hundreds of Russian soldiers in about 50 troop trucks drove into a base near Crimea's capital Simferopol. The convoy was accompanied by eight armoured vehicles, two ambulances, petrol tankers and other hardware. Russia says its only troops in Crimea are those normally stationed there with its Black Sea Fleet, an assertion Washington calls "(President Vladimir) Putin's fiction". Mr Lavrov has said the Ukrainian government was taking orders from extremists and denied Moscow had any direct role in the crisis in Crimea. "The interim government... is not independent. It depends, unfortunately, on radical nationalists who carried out an armed coup," he told a news conference in Moscow. The head of Russia's upper house of parliament, after meeting visiting Crimean politicians yesterday, said that Crimea had a right to self-determination, and ruled out any risk of war between "the two brotherly nations".
However, yesterday’s incident has led Poland to evacuate its consulate in Sevastopol, according to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Mr Sikorski said on Twitter: "Because of continuing disturbances by Russian forces there, we have reluctantly evacuated our consulate in Crimea, Ukraine." Senior Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko, freed from prison after Viktor Yanukovych's overthrow, met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dublin and appealed for immediate EU sanctions against Russia, warning that Crimea might otherwise slide into war. Brussels and Washington rushed to strengthen the new authorities in economically shattered Ukraine, announcing both political and financial assistance.
The regional director of the International Monetary Fund said talks with Kiev on a loan agreement were going well and praised the new government's openness to economic reform and transparency.


A Russian soldier patrols the small anti-submarine ship 'Muromets' in the port of Sevastopol
Read more at


Sunday, March 9, 2014

ARMOURED VEHICLES AND MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE BEING SENT FROM LVIV REGION



As it was reported by www.zahid.net some military vehicles including a few dozens of 8x8 wheeled armoured personnel carriers were loaded on special train in the railway station Sknyliv located close to Lviv. Photo was taken by Yurko Dyachyshyn on March 8, 2014.


Another big army convoy just left Lviv in unknown direction. The Ministry of Deffence is insisting that all armoured vehicle will be used during military field exercise without clarification where this exercise will taken place. You can see the video showing armoured personnel carriers leaving the place of their stationong at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-GYjkWlu-1I
 

Ukraine's 1+1 TV news channel taken off air in Crimea

Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 has been taken off the air in Crimea, on the day the peninsula's government voted to join Russia. Lidia Taran, a presenter at the channel, says the Crimean authorities have forbidden the channel from broadcasting. Crimean people will take part in a referendum on whether to leave Ukraine on 16 March

Read more at
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/07/ukraine-1-1-tv-news-channel-taken-off-air-crimea-video

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Ukraine may turn to UN General Assembly

March 8, 2014 (The Associated Press)  Ukraine may appeal to the U.N. General Assembly if the divided Security Council doesn't act on Russia's seizure of Crimea, the Ukrainian ambassador said Friday.
Russia holds veto power on the Security Council, and can be counted on to block the U.N.'s most powerful body from any action or criticism of its actions in Crimea. General Assembly votes are non-binding but can be influential, especially when a big majority of nations show they're united. Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press that Ukraine's government is waiting to see how the Security Council performs "in the next few days."
Sergeyev said the General Assembly could use a "Uniting for Peace" provision which allows the body to hold an emergency session on issues of peace and security if the council is deadlocked. The assembly occasionally holds votes on issues of great global significance when the council fails to act. But the last time the body passed a Uniting for Peace resolution was in 1981, declaring South Africa's occupation of Namibia to be illegal and urging U.N. members to support a guerrilla resistance group. South Africa's occupation did not end until 1990.

Russia warns heavier sanctions could backfire

March 8, 2014 WASHINGTON ( Underlying the talk about taking harsh punitive measures against Russia for its military incursion into Ukraine are economic complications and worries that sanctions levied against Moscow could, in the words of the Kremlin, "boomerang" back on the U.S. and Europe.
Heavier U.S. and European Union sanctions could sting Russia's already slow-growing economy and hurt its financial sector. But Moscow could retaliate and seize American and other foreign assets or cut exports of natural gas to Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russia for energy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday warned Secretary of State John Kerry that U.S. sanctions could "backfire," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. During a telephone call, Lavrov urged the U.S. not to take "hasty, poorly thought-out steps that could harm Russian-U.S. relations, especially concerning sanctions, which would unavoidably boomerang on the U.S. itself," the statement said. In a separate statement on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry also warned the European Union that any sanctions it imposed would not go unanswered and would harm "the interests of the EU itself and its member nations." Kerry underscored to Lavrov the importance of finding a constructive way to resolve the situation diplomatically, which would address the interests of the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the international community. Kerry and Lavrov agreed to continue to consult in the days ahead, according to the State Department.
The full article is available at
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/russia-warns-heavier-sanctions-could-backfire-011308212.html#0KoM73N

Friday, March 7, 2014

U.S. Satellites Detect Planes at Russian Nuclear Weapons Storage Facility

March 5, 2014 10:36 PM EST (TRN) U.S. Department of Defense satellite imagery has detected the arrival of more than thirty (30) Russian nuclear bombers to the airfield adjacent to Russia's Borisoglebsk national level nuclear weapons storage facility (Voronezh-45) and has observed numerous transfers from the storage facility to the aircraft, which are now standing-by along the two runways at the airport. As shown on the map below, the Borisoglebsk national level nuclear weapons storage facility is located at latitude 51°21'47"N Longitude 41°55'38"E near the cities of Peski, Uryupinsk, Balashov, about 590 miles east of Kiev, Ukraine.
According to sources from the National Reconnaissance Office, yesterday there were only two Bomber aircraft at the airport to the east of the storage facility. This is typical for this facility and those aircraft can even be seen on old images used by Google Earth
Early on March 5, U.S. satellites captured an image showing many bomber aircraft had arrived at the base. Later on March 5, a U.S. stealth surveillance drone, flown over the Russian base, showed more than thirty (30) such nuclear bomber aircraft had arrived at the airfield. Numerous transfers were observed by U.S. satellites, between the nuclear storage facility and the newly arrived aircraft. Those aircraft remain on the runway at the local airport at this hour, several with what appear to be Auxiliary Power Units (APU's) attached, indicating the aircraft are on 'stand-by" for immediate deployment.When challenged as to how a drone could fly over a Russian military base without being detected and shot down, TRN was told "not all of our drones are detectable by radar and besides, the people at that base are often drunk."

The picture taken by US drone on March 5, 2014

Clearly, Ukraine poses no threat whatsoever to Russia, which begs the question: What is Russia preparing for? They certainly are not going to bomb Ukraine with 30 nuclear bombs, so what other targets do they have in mind; western Europe?
Just days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear to the west that Russia would retaliate if the west imposes sanctions upon Russia, and in a cryptic message, Lavrov stated that such retaliation "would be asymmetric." The definition of "asymmetric" is: having parts that fail to correspond to one another in shape, size, or arrangement; lacking symmetry. Launching multiple nuclear attacks against multiple countries in western Europe would certainly be asymmetic. Perhaps this is why ham radio operators have been reporting a very unusual number of Emergency Action Messages (EAM's) being broadcast to U.S. Naval Vessels worldwide today, on frequency 8992.0 KHz. From the May 1995 "Monitoring Times" magazine, the "Utility World" column on Page 33, "Several issues ago (Dec 94) we talked about the U.S. military's Emergency Action Messages (EAM) broadcast. Here is an interesting explanation, taken from a U.S. Air Force manual, of what an EAM is: "Joint Chiefs of Staff Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) contain key instructions or information from high level authority and have predetermined formats (pro forma). Such messages are transmitted by various communications systems and normally carry FLASH precedence. They are vital messages of an extremely time-sensitive nature, and rapid processing is mandatory to obtain the fast reaction required by their content. Usage and handling procedures are of the highest classification and have been issued by the JCS only to those who have a need to know." (AFM-01-1-18, sub 3, amended 01 Jan 1990)." The EAM's are, of course, encrypted, so we do not know what Emergency Messages are being FLASHED to U.S. military around the world, but we now have a sense of what the subject matter may be and it is frightening. More details if they become available ...
Read more at
http://www.turnerradionetwork.com/news/347-pat


Cyberwar hits Ukraine

March 7, 2014 (CNN) Ukrainian security officials are complaining that unknown attackers are interfering with the mobile phone services of members of Ukraine's parliament, making difficult political decisions about what to do about Russia's incursion last week into Crimea that much harder.
The head of Ukraine's security service said on Tuesday, "I confirm that an IP-telephonic attack is underway on mobile phones of members of Ukrainian parliament for the second day in row."
This is reminiscent of the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on Georgia that preceded Russia's invasion of the country in August 2008. The attacks shut down several websites of Georgia's government including the president's. While the Kremlin denied any involvement, Georgian officials accused Russia of being behind the attacks.

This article was written by Peter Bergen who is CNN's national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden - From 9/11 to Abbottabad." Tim Maurer is a research fellow at New America focusing on cyberspace and international affairs.
The full version of the article is available at