It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.
On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day."
German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.
The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg....................http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-concerned-about-aggressive-nato-stance-on-ukraine-a-1022193.html
6/3/15
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Related:
West shouldn't rule out military option in Ukraine (Philip Breedlove, NATO commander)
NATO Determined to Restore Contacts with Russian Military Top Brass
NATO to boost eastern defences after Russian 'aggression'
West must be ready for long standoff with Russia (NATO official)
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Ukraine ceasefire holding, says OSCE head...
ReplyDelete(Reuters) - The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is holding and overall hostilities have dropped, the head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on Friday.
"My assessment is that the ceasefire is, all in all, holding, but there are violations," Lamberto Zannier told Reuters in an interview, adding that violations were mainly small arms fire.
"In some cases it is mortars, but it's weapons with small calibres," Zannier said on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Riga. "So we don’t see violations in terms of use of large artillery systems, and we have seen those being moved."
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to double the number of OSCE observers to 1,000 from 500 to monitor the ceasefire agreed last month in Minsk, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday...............http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/06/us-ukraine-crisis-monitors-idUSKBN0M222Z20150306?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
6/3/15
OSCE confirms shelling of mission observers at Donetsk airport from Ukrainian side...
DeleteRepresentatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have confirmed that the mission's observers came under shelling at the Donetsk airport from an area controlled by Ukrainian military, the spokesman for the Defense Ministry of self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) told a briefing at the Donetsk news agency's press center on Friday.
"One episode of shelling of the Donetsk airport has been recorded by the OSCE mission observers who were there at that moment and confirmed that fire on a team of observers in a new terminal of the Donetsk airport was opened from the area controlled by Ukraine," Eduard Basurin said.
"I would specially underscore that the Ukrainian side knew that representatives of the international organization would arrive at the Donetsk airport," Basurin said. "It knew what sort of works we have been carrying out inside the Donetsk airport so as to return bodies of the killed Ukrainian servicemen to their relatives for burials."
http://tass.ru/en/world/781601
6/3/15
Berlin spielt Bericht über Vorwurf der NATO-Propaganda herunter
ReplyDeleteBundesaußenminister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hat einen „Spiegel“-Bericht heruntergespielt, nach dem die Bundesregierung der NATO in der Ukraine-Krise „gefährliche Propaganda“ unterstellt haben soll. Das meldete die Deutsche Presse-Agentur am Samstag.
Nach Steinmeiers Darstellung ließ er lediglich zweimal beim Verteidigungsbündnis nachfragen, woher bestimmte Informationen über russische Aktivitäten im Zusammenhang mit dem Ukraine-Konflikt gekommen seien. Hintergrund sei die Tatsache gewesen, dass Auskünfte eigener Quellen „nicht völlig“ mit Auskünften von NATO- oder US-Seite übereinstimmten.
Der „Spiegel“ hatte zuvor berichtet, dass dem Oberbefehlshaber der NATO-Truppen in Europa, US-General Philip Breedlove, unter anderem von deutscher Seite vorgeworfen werde, die militärische Rolle Russlands in der Ostukraine übertrieben dargestellt zu haben. Steinmeier habe deswegen persönlich bei Allianzchef Jens Stoltenberg interveniert. Im Kanzleramt sei sogar von „gefährlicher Propaganda“ die Rede gewesen.......................http://de.sputniknews.com/politik/20150307/301405228.html#ixzz3TiSojfM6
7/3/15
Breedlove said in an interview with the Ukrainian "1+1" TV channel that heavy artillery moving from both sides of the contact line can indeed be observed, but it is not known what happens to the weaponry after that, because observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) do not have sufficient access to the area...
ReplyDeleteAccording to NATO's top military commander, it could well be that the weaponry is returned to the previous locations afterward or could just be getting moved in preparation for future fighting.................http://sputniknews.com/military/20150309/1019235797.html
9/3/15