Trump Would Consider Recognizing Crimea as Russian Territory

Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would look into recognizing Crimea as a Russian territory should he be elected president in November.

Trump responded to a question about Crimea and Russia at a news conference Wednesday, saying that he “would be looking into” recognizing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula as a Russian territory and lifting sanctions on Russian entities resulting from the country’s military intervention in Ukraine in 2014, Politico reported.

Trump Adviser’s Ties Raise Security Questions

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“An intelligence classification vetting nightmare scenario.”

With Donald Trump on the brink of receiving classified security briefings from the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. foreign policy figures of both parties are raising concerns about a close Trump aide’s ties to allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s top adviser, Paul Manafort, has spent much of his recent career working for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, and doing complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to Putin. And while a Democratic senator has already charged Trump is not responsible enough to receive secret information, Manafort’s deep relationships with top pro-Russian figures raise special concerns.

The Siege of Crimea (II)

KIEV/MOSCOW/BERLIN (Own report) – Leaders of the Crimean Tartars, who have been blocking the supply of electricity to Crimea for the past few days, have good contacts to the German political establishment. Years ago, Mustafa Jemilev and Refat Chubarov, who were involved in the sabotage action, had held talks on closer ties between Crimea and the West with officials of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the German government’s Representative for ethnic German immigration to Germany. Just two and a half weeks ago, they discussed with the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Federica Mogherini, the “de-occupation of Crimea” and the necessary “peaceful actions, in particular with respect to power supply.” The Crimean Tartars, who are currently cooperating with fascist organizations and ultra-rightwing battalions, have been elected to the Ukrainian parliament on the electoral list of President Petro Poroshenko’s party. According to an expert, Poroshenko is “instrumentalizing” them for “his foreign policy” objectives. Jemilev also has good contacts to the US political establishment. Among the Crimean Tartars, he and Chubarov, who in Berlin enjoy exclusive recognition, are competing with Tartar Salafists – some of whom are currently fighting on the battlefields of Syria – and with Russia-oriented Tartar organizations.

U.S. is Destroying Europe

In Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and other countries at the periphery or edges of Europe, U.S. President Barack Obama has been pursuing a policy of destabilization, and even of bombings and other military assistance, that drives millions of refugees out of those peripheral areas and into Europe, thereby adding fuel to the far-rightwing fires of anti-immigrant rejectionism, and of resultant political destabilization, throughout Europe, not only on its peripheries, but even as far away as in northern Europe.

Shamus Cooke at Off-Guardian headlines on 3 August 2015, “Obama’s ‘Safe Zone’ in Syria Intended to Turn It into New Libya,” and he reports that Obama has approved U.S. air support for Turkey’s previously unenfoceable no-fly zone over Syria. The U.S. will now shoot down all of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s planes that are targeting the extremist-Muslim groups, including ISIS, that have taken over huge swaths of Syrian territory.

Vladimir Putin says Russia was preparing to use nuclear weapons ‘if necessary’ and blames US for Ukraine crisis in Crimea documentary

While this ‘news’ hits the press one has to question the timing. He’s been gone since March 5th and the Kremlin needs some Russian propaganda to remind people he (or someone/something) is still in control.

 

Vladimir Putin has said Russia was so fearful of attack at the height of the Ukraine crisis that it was preparing to arm its nuclear weapons, in extraordinary claims aired on state TV on Sunday night.

Amid ongoing Russian media speculation that the President was watching the Crimea documentary from his sickbed, Mr Putin’s full interview with Rossiya One provided new insight into his country’s involvement in the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.

From Račak to Maidan

KIEV/BELGRADE/BERLIN (Own report) – A year after Berlin helped instigate the putsch in Ukraine, new information is coming to light about the February 20, 2014 Kiev Massacre. That bloodbath, of more than 50 people killed, accelerated the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and was also used – even in Germany – to justify the putsch. As has now been confirmed by witnesses, armed demonstrators were the first to open fire on police, and only then, did repressive forces return fire, when they were caught in a hail of bullets while retreating. If this proves to be true, it could not have been a government-planned massacre. Furthermore, evidence indicates that also the snipers, who had shot to kill, were on the side of the government’s opponents. Today, the responsibility for that bloodbath is as unsolved as that for the deaths of more than 40 Kosovo Albanians in Račak in mid-January 1999, which the West labeled a mass execution – in spite of all contradicting evidence. Račak served as a decisive justification for the military aggression on Yugoslavia. The political and media establishments’ other forgeries and lies preceding and during the war on Yugoslavia demonstrate that manipulations, such as the ones we are currently seeing in the Ukraine conflict, are nothing new. They are rather consistent props in the German establishment’s standard repertoire for escalating conflicts.

Obama Admits US Role in 2014 Ukraine Coup

MOSCOW, February 1 (Sputnik)– The United States took part in the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, which installed pro-Western authorities, US President Obama told CNN Sunday.

West’s agri-giants snap up Ukraine

OAKLAND, United States – At the same time as the United States, Canada and the European Union announced a set of new sanctions against Russia in mid-December last year, Ukraine received US$350 million in US military aid, coming on top of a $1 billion aid package approved by the US Congress in March 2014.

Western governments’ further involvement in the Ukraine conflict signals their confidence in the cabinet appointed by the new government earlier in December 2014. This new government is unique given that three of its most important ministries were granted to foreign-born individuals who received Ukrainian citizenship just hours before their appointment.

Ten more countries that may default on debt after Argentina

Ecuador, Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, Belize, Cuba, Cyprus, Greece, Jamaica and Ukraine are all on the verge of a default, according to Moody’s ratings.

Argentina defaulted for the second time in 12 years after hopes for a midnight deal with holdout creditors were dashed, setting up stock and bond prices for declines on Thursday and raising chances a recession could worsen this year.

After a long legal battle with hedge funds that rejected Argentina’s debt restructuring following its 2002 default, Latin America’s third-biggest economy failed to strike a deal in time to meet a midnight deadline for a coupon payment on exchange bonds.

Beijing set to seal Russian natural gas deal amid Ukraine crisis

Beijing’s refusal to stand against Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine could result in a lucrative natural gas deal with Russia next month, reports the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao.

Following more than a decade of false starts, sources say Chinese president Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will make a final decision next month on the multibillion dollar deal that will see Russia supply pipeline gas to China for 30 years. The deal is expected to come into effect by the end of the year.

Official Government Vocative

BERLIN/KIEV (Own report) – A prominent German jurist has sharply criticized the German government’s anti-Russian declarations concerning the Crimea Crisis. As Reinhard Merkel, a law professor at the University of Hamburg, explains, the allegation of Russia having “annexed” the Crimea or having made a “land grab” must be unambiguously refuted. These allegations are not only false, from the standpoint of international law; they are also extremely dangerous, because annexation usually engenders war as a response. Merkel explicitly advocates being very skeptical of “official government vocatives insisted on from Berlin to Washington” concerning the Crimea Crisis. Simultaneously, the situation in Ukraine has further escalated. The government that illegally seized power has begun a “lustration” (“purge”), with the objective of removing all supporters of the party of the overthrown President Yanukovych from public office. This is said to affect “thousands.” At the same time, Ukrainian oligarchs, against whose methods of reign the earlier Maidan demonstrations had been protesting, are being given new posts. The ex-boxer Vitaly Klitschko’s, “Made in Germany,” UDAR party has chosen a billionaire as its presidential candidate, rather than its hopeless leader. Fascist forces are positioning themselves to move against the increasingly marginalized pro-Russian segments of the population. The Berlin-supported Maidan opposition had effectively used the fascists’ potential for violence to overthrow Yanukovych.

Obama Says Putin Must Pull Back on Crimea Annexation

Another day, another ‘line’ drawn in the sand.

President Barack Obama today imposed sanctions on seven top Russian government officials and four others from Ukraine and warned Russia will face more penalties if it doesn’t pull back from Crimea.

“Continued Russian military intervention in Ukraine will only deepen Russia’s diplomatic isolation and exact a greater toll on the Russian economy,” Obama said at the White House. The U.S. can “calibrate our response” based on whether Russia chooses “to escalate or to de-escalate the situation.”

Ukraine in near state of war, foreign minister says

Moscow ratchets up pressure on Kyiv, claiming that Russian-leaning eastern regions have plunged into lawlessness.

KYIV, UKRAINE—Ukraine’s foreign minister said Monday that his country was practically in a state of war with Russia, as Moscow further ratcheted up pressure on Kyiv, claiming that Russian-leaning eastern regions have plunged into lawlessness.

Russian forces have effectively taken control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in what has turned into Europe’s greatest geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War. On Sunday the region is to hold a referendum on whether to split off and become part of Russia, which the West says it will not recognize.

Putin: Not Russian – but local forces took control of Crimea. DEBKAfile: They are Russian special forces

Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing reporters for the first time Tuesday, March 4, said that the forces which have taken control of the Crimean Peninsula are not Russian but self-defense locals in Russian uniforms which, he said, “anyone can buy.” debkafile’s military sources challenge this statement. They have identified one unit as members of Russia’s Rapid Intervention Brigade 22, which is based in the southern Russian town of Rostov on-Don, along with air units. It was from Rostov that deposed Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych broke his silence to the media on March 1, a week after he fled Kiev.

He has since dropped out of sight again.

Putin’s comments Tuesday were rambling and often self-contradictory.

Russia warns could ‘reduce to zero’ economic dependency on US

A grave mistake is to think that this can’t happen or won’t happen, or that the Russians don’t have the capability. China and Russia have both publicly expressed their unity against the USA and the EU after engineering the chaos running through the Ukraine at this moment. Previously they’ve always been united behind scenes, but as they both grow and advance militarily, economically and politically they can be out in the open about it — especially now that they have been given cause.

China has also previously threatened the ‘nuclear option’ on the US Dollar. For additional information, read the following article: China threatens ‘nuclear option’ of dollar sales

The USA, which is drunk off its own power, becoming more corrupt daily and rotting from within might have to face a grave and sobering reality — and sooner rather than later. America is not untouchable.

Europe also faces the same fate as the Heizung can be turned off at any given moment. You’ll also likely see a united Europe like never before as a result, unlike America where its current administration keeps drawing a new line in the sand each time it back-peddles.

Moscow (AFP) – Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on the United States if Washington agreed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said on Tuesday, warning that the American financial system faced a “crash” if this happened.

“We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves,” said Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev.

He told the RIA Novosti news agency Russia could stop using dollars for international transactions and create its own payment system using its “wonderful trade and economic relations with our partners in the East and South.”

Russian firms and banks would also not return loans from American financial institutions, he said.

“An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system,” he added.