Check is on way!
Posted on 09/10/2015 1:24:48 PM PDT by Trumpinator
...snip...
However, it is important to understand why Russia chose this moment to move, when it could have done so at any time.
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With Mr. al-Assad now controlling only 17 per cent of the country, and fighting on an axis running from Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Latakia (oddly enough the centres of Alawite and Christian populations), the fear is that without any discernible moderate opposition the groups best positioned to take advantage of an Assad collapse are IS – the best organized – and any number of splinter Islamist groups such as the al-Nusra Front. IS was not spawned by the Syrian civil war but took advantage of it, flowing in from Iraq. The thought of a clear victory by IS or some other Sunni Islamist group is unimaginable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For Mr. Putin, Islamist success in Syria will reverberate in his own backyard in Chechnya..
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Often forgotten in the West is that the majority of Christians in Syria, the land of one of the oldest Patriarchates in Christendom (the Patriarchate of Antioch) – founded by Peter and Paul in 34 AD before Peter founded the Holy See in Rome – is resident in Damascus and has collegial relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Mr. Putin, who portrays himself as the “defender of the faith” of Orthodox values, has a close alliance with the Moscow Patriarchate and its Eastern Orthodox interpretation of history.
Russia has, however, recently made statements to the effect that it is not tied personally to Mr. al-Assad, hinting that power-sharing or elections could occur – a likely code to mean that Alawite and Christian minority rights would have to be respected and protected. Equally, any effort that abets the so-far anemic efforts to dismantle the Islamic State should be welcomed.
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(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.”
"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."
"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."
Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.
Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.
But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."
It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."
The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.
"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."
His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."
The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'
“UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.
Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.
Mr Litvinenko’s family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated.”
Hey Putinator, how is it that you replied to every one of my posts except 47?
_____________________________________
“Anyway, tell us, what do you think of Putin’s aggressive actions in the Ukraine and elsewhere in eastern Europe?”
“What do you think of the Iran (nuke) deal?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3335358/posts?page=47#47
So Putin is the defender of the faith and humanitarian good guy in the Middle East. But how will they get rid of him?
Ask the Indians: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3335644/posts
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/05/putin_condemned.html
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/mar/11/journalist-safety-vladimir-putin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/19/AR2009011902604.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11212072/Russian-actor-and-Putin-critic-found-dead-in-Moscow.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politkovskaya
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mi5-believe-vladimir-putin-behind-3897973
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/18/observer-editorial-putin-russia-journalists-murdered
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2014/07/16/open-letter-to-russias-putin-on-tenth-anniversary-of-forbes-editor-paul-klebnikovs-murder-why-havent-you-solved-this-case/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10728908/Billionaire-critic-of-Putin-may-have-been-murdered-rules-coroner.html http://www.amazon.com/Putins-Labyrinth-Spies-Murder-Russia/dp/0812978412
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/22/brits-investigate-the-assassination-of-the-spy-who-warned-us-about-putin.html#
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/malaysia-airlines-flight-father-letter_n_5607856.html
http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2014/07/13/19336.shtml
November 1998 - Less than four months after Putin takes over at the KGB, opposition Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, the most prominent pro-democracy Kremlin critic in the nation, is murdered at her apartment building in St. Petersburg.
April 2003 - Sergei Yushenkov, co-chairman of the Liberal Russia political party, is gunned down at the entrance of his Moscow apartment block. Yushenkov had been serving as the vice chair of the group known as the “Kovalev Commission” which was formed to informally investigate charges that Putin’s KGB had planted the Pechatniki and Kashirskoye apartment bombs
July 2003 - Yuri Shchekochikhin , a vocal opposition journalist and member of the Russian Dumaand the Kovalev Commission, suddenly contracts a mysterious illness. After his sudden death on July 3rd. The Russian authorities refused to allow an autopsy, his relatives “managed to send a specimen of his skin to London, where a tentative diagnosis was made of poisoning with thallium” (a poison commonly used by the KGB, at first suspected in the Litvinenko killing).
June 2004 - Nikolai Girenko, a prominent human rights defender, Professor of Ethnology and expert on racism and discrimination in the Russian Federation is shot dead in his home in St Petersburg.
July 2004 - Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition Forbes magazine, is shot and killed in Moscow.
September 2004 - Viktor Yushchenko, anti-Russian candidate for the presidency of the Ukraine, is poisoned by Dioxin. Yushchenko’s chief of staff OlegRibachuk suggests that the poison used was amycotoxin called T-2, also known as “Yellow Rain,” a Soviet-era substance which was reputedly used in Afghanistan as a chemical weapon. Miraculously, he survives the attack.
September 2006 - Andrei Kozlov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, who strove to stamp out money laundering the highest-ranking reformer in Russia, is shot and killed in Moscow.
October 2006 - Anna Politkovskaya, author of countless books and articles exposing Russian human rights violations in Chechnya and attacking Vladimir Putin as a dictator, is shot and killed at her home in Moscow.
November 2006 - Alexander Litvinenko, KGB defector and author of the book Blowing up Russia, which accuses the Kremlin of masterminding the and Pechatniki andKashirskoye bombings in order to blame Chechen terrorists and whip up support for an invasion of Chechnya (which shortly followed), is fatally poisoned by radioactive Polonium obtained from Russian sources.
On January 19, 2009, Russian human rights attorney Stanslav Markelov was shot in the back of the head with a silenced pistol as he left a press conference at which he announced his intention to sue the Russian government for its early release of the Col. Yuri Budanov, who murdered his 18-year-old client in Chechnya five years earlier. Also shot and killed was Anastasia Barburova, a young journalism student who was working for Novaya Gazeta and who had studied under Anna Politkovskaya, reporting on the Budanov proceedings.
On July 14, 2009, leading Russian human rights journalist and activist Natalia Estemirova , a single mother of a teenaged daughter, was abducted in front of her home in Grozny, Chechnya, spirited across the border into Ingushetia, shot and dumped in a roadside gutter.
http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/putinmurders/ Read more at http://www.liveleak.comview?i=3dd_1401997313#XRRREys6DwG6l1tA.99
Check is on way!
Russia is building a military base along the Ukrainian border, signaling its preparing for long-term support of the pro-Russian separatists fighting for Ukraine. The massive base - scheduled for completion in April - will house ammunition depots and barracks for several thousand soldiers, and will be used to train soldiers, reported Reuters. The Reuters reporter investigating the new base was temporarily detained and accused of being a Ukrainian spy. Russian officials didn't respond to Reuters questions about the purpose of the base and whether it's connected to the fight for Ukraine. ..."
Russian investigative journalists and bloggers have uncovered an army of internet trolls paid to pour invective on the Kremlin’s opponents and heap praise on President Putin.
Posing as job applicants, the reporters discovered the government hacks working at a small company called the St Petersburg Internet Research Agency. ...”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3891720.ece
Moscow will reportedly provide Russian troops in Syria with an advanced antiaircraft missile system as part of its military support for Syrian president Bashar Assad.
"This system is the advanced version used by Russia, and it's meant to be operated by Russians in Syria," a Western diplomat who is regularly briefed on US, Israeli, and other intelligence assessments told Reuters.
And as The Daily Beast's Michael Weiss points out, any antiaircraft missiles deployed by Russian troops in Syria won't be directed at ISIS, since ISIS has no air force.
In fact, none of the rebels do — only government forces have access to aircraft.
Russia has substantially increased its military presence in Syria over the past two weeks under the guise of helping the embattled Assad fight ISIS and other extremists.
And now that US and Russian fighter jets are flying side-by-side — the US has been launching airstrikes against ISIS since mid-2014, and Russian drones and fighter planes are reportedly surveilling non-ISIS rebels in the country's north — Moscow sees it as an opportunity to force Washington to come to the table.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Natasha Bertrand
Sept 10, 2015
Some of the Russian troops reportedly being sent to Syria are from the same brigade that helped annex Crimea, according to a lengthy investigation conducted by Ruslan Leviev, a specialist in social-media intelligence.
The Kremlin has declined to comment, but, if true, “the deployment of an elite unit from Crimea, which inaugurated Russia’s standoff with the West, is an intriguing choice,” writes The Daily Beast’s Michael Weiss.
“Moscow has spent enormous resources moving troops into Crimea and eastern Ukraine over the past year. Moving even some of them out of the area to a different conflict zone, particularly one outside of Europe, gives the lie that sanctions and diplomatic isolation have forced the Kremlin into compromise,” Weiss writes:.
“Rather, Russia appears ready and willing to take on multiple wars at once,” he adds.
Russia initially said that it had only deployed “military experts” to Syria to help government forces learn how to use Russian military equipment.
But the Israeli defense minister and Reuters have confirmed that the Russians are taking part in the fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad and building up their military presence in the western coastal province of Latakia.
Boris Zilberman, a Middle East and Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider by email that he thinks it makes logistical sense that Russia would deploy a brigade from Crimea to Syria, since the eastern Mediterranean is the responsibility of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
“It wouldn’t make sense to deploy these types of troops from Kamchatka [in far east Russia], for instance,” Zilberman said. “Also, seeing as how they’ve have recently participated in the annexation of Crimea, they are probably more combat-ready than others.”
An intelbrief released by The Soufan Group affirms that Putin’s latest incursion into Syria on the side of Bashar Assad is deliberate and aligned with Russian interests.
“While Russia has provided military assistance to Syria for decades, the recent apparent increase in support is noteworthy in both its timing and future implications,” the brief reads. “It is difficult to overstate Russian determination not to lose its influence in Syria via the Assad regime, which provides Russia with a Mediterranean and Middle Eastern base that cannot be replaced elsewhere.”
...”
More, plus terrific maps and charts, at:
September 11, 2015
Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson
FoxNews.com
As the Pentagon warily eyes a Russian military build-up in Syria, Western intelligence sources tell Fox News that the escalated Russian presence began just days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran’s Quds Force commander — their chief exporter of terror — and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. ...”
The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran’s proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ...”
Officials who have monitored the build-up say they’ve seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants — some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.
Suddenly? Uhhhhh, they’ve had a naval base at Tartus since 1971.
We just got the clearest sign yet that article is trying to cover and excuse the fact Obama has not really gone after ISIS as long as they were after Assad mostly.....
Oops, forgot that that guy is an online troll and responded.
Sometimes I don't know if the press is ignorant or trying to spin the story for whomever is in power.
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