Putin’s Civil War With His Ukrainian Allies: Clearing the Decks For Syria?

Note Moskovsky Komsomolets’s remarkable jabs, reversals, and admissions: The DNR is labeled a “self proclaimed” republic, suggesting it has no legal status outside Ukraine. The “those who watch television” remark belittles Russians and east Ukrainians, who falsely believe that ethnic Russians in east Ukraine harbor a deep hatred and fear of Ukrainians.  Why should they not? Russian television has broadcast horror stories of rape, crucifixion, and murder by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis nonstop for more than a year.  Now “those who watch television” are supposed to believe something else!

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Putin is Operating a Counterfeit, Propoganda TV Station in East Ukraine

BBC Ukraine reports that Ukrainian television broadcasts have disappeared from viewer screens in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk.

They have been replaced by Russian and by regional channels operated by separatists (or, should I say, by their Russian puppeteers). Ukrainian efforts to reach viewers in occupied territories via more powerful signals and equipment supplied by Poland have been stymied by the fact that two thirds of viewers in occupied territory watch cable or dish-TV, which can only be serviced locally.

The BBC report does not mention a more subversive form of information sabotage – the operation of a counterfeit station that pretends to be Ukraine’s popular 1+1 channel. 

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Kremlin Uses Semantics To Walk Back Recognition of Donbass Elections Before The G20 Summit

The Kremlin is attempting a shopworn gambit to avoid further sanctions and shield Putin from world opprobrium at the G20 conference. Putin declares he does not recognize the illegitimate Donetsk and Luhansk elections. Instead he respects them. What difference do such semantics make, and does he take the West for fools? What greater recognition is there than to supply troops, tanks, missiles, and other heavy weaponry to those so-called republics whose elections you “respect?”

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"Ebenezer Vlad" and the Empty Aid Trucks

What was supposed to be a PR bonanza is ending up as another black eye for Vladimir Putin, the heralded chess master of world politics. 

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Eyeball To Eyeball: Russian 'Humanitarian' Convoy Approached Unguarded Border With Ukrainian Tanks Moving To Meet Them

Mr. Putin’s humanitarian convoy is the equivalent of an arsonist who asks to be let through police lines carrying a bucket of water to douse the fire he set.

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Miles Apart And No Peace In Sight

Putin and Poroshenko start from negotiating positions that are miles apart. As a successful businessman operating in a tough business climate, Poroshenko is accustomed to tough negotiations with obstinate partners. Whether he can stand up to Putin remains to be seen. Much depends on the cards he holds. If the West gives him the means for Ukraine to defend itself, he might just pull it off. Without that, he stands little chance.

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Some Realistic Results for the May 11 Referendum in East Ukraine

Separatists opened four polling stations (all in schools) to service a population of some 330,000 eligible voters. (Each voting station would therefore have to be prepared to handle 82,000 voters (with a hundred percent turnout) or 2 voters a second! No wonder there were long lines. To handle these numbers, each station would have had to have a 30 mile-long line queuing in front.

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Why Hold Elections That Everyone Knows Are Sham: Ask Putin

Vladimir Putin must be following the sham referendum in east Ukraine with satisfaction and delight. He has outfoxed Barack Obama, John Kerry, Angela Merkel, and the European Union once again. Not only has he escaped sanctions with his “wink and a nod” instructions to the separatist rebels to postpone (not give up) the May 11 election. Putin’s “peace initiative” of May 7 gave his stock market and the rouble a little boost and his plea to the rebels received sympathetic play with the major news services (See, for example Reuters account). On the day of the election, CNN’sreporting went so far as to characterize the rebel’s decision to go ahead with the referendum as “defiance” of Putin.

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