generalspeaking

Being Inconvenienced

"In the district of Torez an An-26 was just shot down. It crashed somewhere near the Progress mine. We warned them not to fly in our skies. Here is video confirmation of the latest 'fallen bird'. The bird landed outside the residential zone, no peaceful civilians were injured."
Igor Strelkov, pro-Russian separatist leader

Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, the military leader of the violent rebellion in the "Donetsk People's Republic" is a Russian national who worked for Russian military intelligence. Another Russian, Alexander Borodai, is the Donetsk Republic's 'president', and he worked at one time as an adviser to the new Russian Crimea regime.

Two weeks earlier pro-Russian fighters from the Donetsk People's Republic had boasted their capture of Buk missiles and launchers from a Ukrainian army garrison, posting a picture at the time on Twitter, of the vehicle-mounted missile system proudly in their possession. Ukrainian and American intelligence hold that it was just such a missile that brought down the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, killing all 298 on board.

This Wednesday, June 30, 2010, file photo shows the Buk M2 missile system at a military show at the international forum “Technologies in machine building 2010” in Zhukovsky, Russia, outside Moscow. There are several models of Buk Missile Systems used by multiple countries, including both the Russian and Ukrainian government military. Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Thursday, July 17, 2014, on his Facebook page that a Malaysia Airlines plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). MIKHAIL METZEL — AP Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/07/17/3306954/buk-missile-suspected-in-plane.html#storylink=cpy

Nowhere now. amazingly, to be seen is that photograph. And the rebels now deny they had ever been in possession of such a weapon. Vladimir Putin had denied, denied, denied that Russia had ever sent forces into Crimea. Some time later, he admitted without compunction that he had, after all ordered Russian troops into Crimea; simply a lapse of memory corrected.

How the rebels have possession of tanks and armoured personnel carriers is another mystery that Russia shrugs its shoulders at; how would they know, after all? Evidence, including night-time videos clearly point to Russia's involvement in arming the rebels. Arming them, inciting them, encouraging them to defy Ukraine and move closer to Russia. Not that Moscow wants to claim eastern Ukraine, since it's an economic basket case, with high unemployment, but casually accepting it into the federation as an self-autonomous unit would do.

With all this evidence of Russian connivance in destabilizing Ukraine, what have its Western Europe neighbours been up to? They haven't been concerning themselves over their own stability on the political sphere, but their economic stability, not wanting to upset the trade and access applecart beyond mild condemnations of naughty Russian interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation. Their craven surrender to acceptance of Russian imperialism, not wanting it to interfere with their own well-being is obvious.

The deaths of 154 Dutch nationals, Malaysians, Indonesians, Brits, Germans, Belgians, dozens of Americans, British and French citizens and one Canadian is hugely unfortunate. They were in the wrong plane in the wrong airspace at the wrong time. Punishing economic sanctions to inform Russia just how seriously destructive its actions have been doesn't seem to top the agenda for the European Union; it is simply too inconvenient.

But inconveniences abound, as it happens. In the east of Ukraine, Eurocontrol which co-ordinates European air traffic control, stated that Ukrainian authorities had now closed all routes so delays are expected as Eurocontrol said the closing of airspace would affect 300 flights daily on the busy routes with planes having to be diverted. Which should have been done before the tragedy but was not, because the airlines balked at having to spend time and money on alternate flight plans.

Malaysia Airlines flight #MH17 just before it disappeared over Ukraine. 11:35 AM - 17 Jul 2014

Labels: Aggression, Atrocity, Russia, Secession, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 19, 2014