If Russian troops are actually found inside Ukraine CNN will have to interrupt their missing Malaysia airline coverage to report it.
Posted on 05/04/2014 12:47:44 PM PDT by tcrlaf
The rebel leader spread a topographic map in front of a closed grocery store here as a Ukrainian military helicopter flew past a nearby hill. Ukrainian troops had just seized positions along a river, about a mile and a half away. The commander thought they might advance.
He issued orders with the authority of a man who had seen many battles. “Go down to the bridge and set up the snipers,” the leader, who gave only a first name, Yuri, said to a former Ukrainian paratrooper, who jogged away.
Yuri commands the 12th Company, part of the self-proclaimed People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a previously unknown and often masked rebel force that since early April has seized government buildings in eastern Ukraine and, until Saturday, held prisoner a team of European military observers it accused of being NATO spies.
SNIP-
Yuri, who appears to be in his mid-50s, is in many ways an ordinary eastern Ukrainian of his generation. A military veteran, he survived the Soviet collapse to own a small construction business in Druzhkovka, about 15 miles south of here.
But his rebel stature has a particular root: He is also a former Soviet special forces commander who served in Afghanistan, a background that could make him both authentically local and a capable Kremlin proxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Locals, many with military backgrounds, organized by former military officers. Not a "Green Man" to be seen anywhere.
Would it be any different here? How many 40-50 year old vets would stand up in the same kind of situation? Remember, we are already on this administration's list of people who must be closely watched.
CJ Chivers has been doing actual Journalism during this event, though much of it isn't making the Times, and only appears on Twitter.
Except for the ones that Putin admitted he sent (to Crimea).
Does that have ANYTHING to do with the story??? NO....
Prior behavior can be used to predict future behavior. Unless something is posted by you, in which case everything must be set aside and the discussion held on your terms.
If Russian troops are actually found inside Ukraine CNN will have to interrupt their missing Malaysia airline coverage to report it.
Sorry that THE TRUTH cuts right through your EuroMaidan BS.
Or is the New York Times now a “Paid Putinista Propaganda” source?
THE TRUTH (noting your use of allcaps) is that Putin admitted that he sent Russian troops to Crimea himself. Now, you are to have me believe that he would never, ever, send troops elsewhere in Ukraine.
These rebels sure are well armed aren’t they.
An amazing supply of AKs, Dragonovs, ammo and uniforms. And no 2A.
A skeptical person might wonder how that all came together so fast.
I’m sure Russia has operatives in Ukraine, but as the article states, clearly most of these people are disgruntled locals. 48% of the voters voted for Yanukovych in the last election. Many of them won’t accept that their candidate was chased out of office in a coup, just like many people in America wouldn’t.
There is nothing here that disproves Russian GRU presence in Eastern Ukraine, which has already been well established with communication interceptions, people arrested carrying money and communications equipment coming into Ukraine, numerous photos of well armed troops in uniform, even seen in Crimea and later in East Ukraine, coordinating assaults before leaving things to the astro-turf.
At this point, it appears FRs Putinistas are getting desperate.
There was no coup. The interim government in Ukraine is the Ukrainian Rada that was democratically elected in 2012. Yanukovych did not run on a Pro-annexation, Anti-EU platform, and his party turned on him. 65 to 75 percent in multiple polls in the East and South show an overwhelming majority oppose annexation and separatism, including polls taken as recently as this month.
If the GRU, CIA, MI6 and other covert agencies weren't inside Ukraine I would be amazed. As for the communications intercepts, I don't think the GRU would be that sloppy.
“A skeptical person might wonder how that all came together so fast.”
Slovyansk sits on top of the largest cache of Soviet-Era infantry weapons in the old Soviet Union, the Volodarsky salt mine, that the rebels have had control of since March.
The area was supposed to be a rally point for Several Soviet Third_Wave Infantry Divisions, if the balloon ever went up.
You fail to grasp that there is a position in between outright successionism and support for the coup regime.
You say Po-Ta-To, the rest of the world says potato.
It was a coup. To say anything else is just ridiculous spin.
“As for the communications intercepts, I don’t think the GRU would be that sloppy”
The rebels are using CB’s and Ham Radios to communicate with each other.
if FSB/GRU were there, they would be using encrypted equipment that only the NSA could read.
They don’t like or trust the Western Ukrainians who now run Kiev.
People in the East want to be allowed to run their own lives. But the Maidan regime seems to be doing everything to push them into Russia’s arms.
The Party Of Regions doesn’t see its demands being addressed. Both ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in the East want a federal state. If they don’t get it, the country will break up.
So far they have heard nothing from Kiev but vague promises. People want change and that demand is not coming not Moscow or being orchestrated by it.
You're changing the meaning of the word coup.
Power wasn't seized by FORCE. Yanukovich signed off on early elections and then he left the country.
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