generalspeaking

Misunderstood Russia

"The president said that the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of the vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian artillery at night."
Statement on website of President Petro Poroshenko

"What we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time."
NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen

While Moscow denies that it has been inciting ethnic Russian Ukrainians to secession and violence against Ukraine, and charges by both Ukraine and NATO that it has sent members of its military into Ukraine to lead the civil insurrection, and that it has provided the rebels with military equipment, including high-impact ballistic missiles which enabled them to shoot a Malaysian passenger jet out of the sky leading to the mass murder of 298 people, events seem to dictate otherwise.

The Netherlands remains in a state of shock over the number of its nationals who met their untimely death in such an unexpected, untimely and utterly unbelievable manner. They have undertaken the primary investigation into what they speak of as mass murder. It is an unlikely massacre that despite Russian denials, enough evidence exists to compel belief that it, along with the rebels they support, direct and arm, are responsible for.

And now, with the standoff between the Ukrainian military and the rebels, pushed out of Luhansk, and encircled in Donetsk, Russia remains poised on the brink of uncertainty; whether to push ahead with its assembled 20,000 troops and mechanized war machines across the border to aid the rebels in their bid to free the Donetsk region from Ukraine, or fall on their mortars and desist. The stalled aid convoy which a generous Moscow has directed on a humanitarian mission was seen to be trailed by military vehicles.

And as far as NATO and the government of Ukraine are concerned, Russian military vehicles crossed the border into Ukraine on Friday; destroyed, according to the Ukrainian president, by Ukrainian artillery, and denied by Moscow. Russian forces are merely deployed in patrolling the border, insists Russia. Which didn't stop Britain from summoning the Russian Ambassador to Britain to clarify those reports of an incursion.

Russia's word of honour leaves much to be desired. The latest is setting aside an earlier agreement to have its aid trucks cross at a Ukrainian controlled border area after having Ukrainian authorities inspect the convoy contents on Russian soil, then allowing the Red Cross to distribute the provisions in Luhansk, with no military escorts alongside the convoy, and one driver in each truck for additional assurances that no underhanded activities will accompany the mission.

Yet Moscow directed the aid trucks toward a border crossing that the ethnic Russian separatists remain in control of, bypassing Ukrainian or Red Cross inspection. Laurent Corbaz, director of operations in Europe for the International Committee of the Red Cross, spoke of a plan where the trucks could enter Ukraine with each Russian driver accompanied by a Red Cross worker, and no military escort in accordance with Red Cross policy.

Despite which, Russian military vehicles were observed at the aid convoy with the Russian acronym for "peacekeeping forces".

Labels: Aggression, Conflict, Humanitarian Aid, Russia, Secession, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, August 17, 2014