Sunday, April 4, 2021

So-called ‘Russian military buildups’ seem to happen day and night all over the world-Moon of Alabama…(In 1993 US loved Yeltsin ordering Russian military tanks to attack Parliament to remove his political foes)

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But wait! In 1993 US loved “Russian military buildup," when Pres. Yeltsin ordered his military’s tanks to attack Parliament and remove his political opponents from the building. This resulted in a number of deaths, but US praised Yeltsin for “Superb Handling” of the military to remove foes.

Image: “Tanks firing at the Russian White House,” 10/1993, gwu  

“Russia” is a device used against the American people for the purpose of “drowning out important conversations that need to happen on a whole range of other political topics–problems-which therefore go unaddressed.…July 10, 1993, NY Times, Russian Parliament voted 166 to 0 to declare the Crimean port city of Sevastopol a “federal Russian city.”…Crimea had been part of Russia for 200 years until 1954, when it was gifted to the Soviet Republic of the Ukraine by the then Russian Premier, Nikita Khrushchev…to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the historic decision by Ukraine to unify with tsarist Russia. At that time, it would have been impossible to foresee that the Soviet Union would collapse and split into separate republics, that the borders would have to be renegotiated and that Ukraine would again be an independent country.”

Image, NATO gives $44 million to Ukraine Pres. Zelensky, 11/1/19…Among conditions of IMF loan was that Ukraine maintain violence near Russian border….But Ukraine has built only one tank in the past 10 years. Perhaps US military state could learn from Ukraine.…“After Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, the bulk of the western media abandoned any hint of even-handed coverage.” 4/30/2014, “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war,” UK Guardian, S. Milne, “The attempt to lever Kiev into the western camp by [US] ousting an elected leader made conflict. It could be a threat to us all.”…2021 US Defense budget: $740 billion, Russian defense budget, $42 billion

4/2/21, “The ‘Russian Military Build-Up‘,” Moon of Alabama

“There is some concern about a ‘Russian military buildup’ near Ukraine.

*NATO Says It Is Concerned About Russian Military Build-Up Near Ukraine – US News/Reuters, April 1, 2021

*US official says buildup of Russian forces near Ukraine is ‘concerning’ – NY Post, March 31, 2021

*Ukraine says Russian military buildup threatens its security – Reuters, March 30, 2021

But before we all panic we probably should take a look at previous similar headlines.

Since the 2014 U.S. led coup in the Ukraine the ‘Russian military buildup‘ has happened during spring, summer and winter each and every year.

It is not just near the Ukraine where a ‘Russian military buildup’ is happening. The same can be said about the Arctic.

It is also in Syria where a Russian military buildup happens and let’s not forget the Far East.

In fact, there is a ‘Russian military buildup’ wherever one looks and at all times.”

Posted by b on April 2, 2021 at 7:18 UTC | Permalink

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Among comments

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“Russia’s official position, as of today morning:

Kremlin says situation along engagement line in Donbass frightening

“Our rhetoric [over Donbass] is absolutely constructive,” Peskov said in reply to a question. “We do not indulge in wishful thinking. Regrettably, the realities along the engagement line are rather frightening. Provocations by the Ukrainian armed forces do take place. They are not casual. There have been many of them.”

Ukraine’s economy is collapsing. Even the IMF (USA) is getting tired of giving it free money:

The IMF is in a panic: Ukraine has been doing without its money for ten months.

“Prospects for Ukraine this year to receive even the second tranche of the IMF under the $ 5 billion credit line, which Kiev agreed with the Fund last June, remain vague. Although according to the schedule, Ukraine should have already mastered the second and third tranches for a total of $ 1.35 billion and is about to receive the fourth tranche in the amount of $ 0.55 billion, in fact, the first June tranche of 2.1 billion is still the only one.

Commenting on this situation on television, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko said this week: “The IMF does not give money, because, unfortunately, as a country, we have crumpled up some obligations and must renew them.” […]

So far, budget holes have been bridged by historically record borrowings in December last year (over $ 6 billion) and an increase in interest rates on domestic borrowings this year. But last year’s reserves and domestic borrowing are insufficient either to cover the $ 9 billion budget deficit or to service the external public debt, which will cost at least $ 8.1 billion this year (excluding the cost of securing new loans).”

The IMF, by the way, is not interested in getting its money back – they already knew the black hole they were entering into when the coup happened in 2014 – but in social engineering: the American Empire wants a brand new province:

“According to the aforementioned Sergei Marchenko, the IMF puts forward five main conditions for returning to consideration of the issue of allocating the second tranche of the loan.

First, the Fund requires the restoration of liability, including criminal liability, for the declaration of false information by officials and other persons for whom such is provided in the framework of anti-corruption procedures. This type of responsibility was actually abolished by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) in October last year [2020] as part of the recognition of a number of provisions of the anti-corruption law as unconstitutional. Although almost the entire so-called anti-corruption infrastructure in a format imposed by the West contradicts the Constitution, the judges are concerned about this problem mainly because of the infringement of their rights. Since then, Zelenskiy has effectively blocked the work of the KSU,making a number of decisions that clearly go beyond his constitutional powers. And last December, the Verkhovna Radaeven restored responsibility for declaring inaccurate data. But within the framework of the struggle for control over the anti-corruption infrastructure, the “seven-embassy” (the ambassadors of the G7 countries) did not even think that responsibility had been restored.

Secondly, we are talking about the restoration of the so-called independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), that is, the accountability of the body to Western curators, their actual appointment and accountability of the head of NABU, etc. and imply the legal consolidation of the full control of the West over the entire anti-corruption infrastructure, which in its essence is a parallel structure of government in the state. After amending the law on NABU and recognizing as unconstitutional the appointment of Artem Sytnik, a protege of the West, by the head of NABU Zelenskiy never dared to fire him. But even such a manifestation of loyalty to the “seven-embassy” seemed not enough.

Thirdly, the Fund demands urgently to “reform” the High Council of Justice, that is, to transfer the judicial branch of power under the control of the West – by analogy with anti-corruption bodies. In this issue, Ukraine is showing the greatest resistance so far. Moreover, it comes both from the judges themselves and from representatives of other branches of government. For obvious reasons: the surrender of the judicial system will destroy even the miserable remnants of sovereignty, and most importantly, it will carry serious risks both for judges and for various top-level officials.

Fourth and fifth – issues of the gas market and the electricity market. In the context of these markets, the Fund is interested in the abolition of tariffs [n.t. – probably it means here “subsidies”] for the population with a corresponding increase in prices. The Ukrainian, let’s say, elites just do not care about the problems of the population – that is why the refusal to regulate gas prices for the population last year became one of the first fulfilled requirements of the IMF. However, when winter came, gas prices skyrocketed and social protests broke out across the country , and gas price regulation had to be urgently returned. Of course, only for a while – first until April, now until May. But the Fund did not like this either: just the other day, the head of the IMF office in Ukraine, Jost Lyngman, called a return to gas price control in an ineffective way of subsidizing households. Exactly the same applies to electricity prices – the tariff for the population was raised in winter, but the Fund wants the regulated tariff to disappear altogether. The Ukrainian authorities are, of course, ready to meet the IMF halfway on these issues. But so that social protests do not completely reset her ratings.”

The article also mentions that Ukraine effectively cannot borrow elsewhere in the “free market” because its bonds are rated “junk" (this we already knew, since it’s been so for some years now) and that its “borrowing rates” (interest rates) are at 12% (bonds) and 6.5% (central bank’s). In other words, Ukraine will disappear as a sovereign country, one way (outright loss of the Eastern regions, reduction to a impoverished para-Polish rump state) or the other (become a proto-colony of the USA a la Puerto Rico). My guess is Zelensky is calculating an all-out war to reconquer the richer eastern regions, followed by a triumphal accession to NATO, to be the only way out for Ukraine as a nation-state.”

Posted by: vk | Apr 2 2021 15:19 utc | 30″

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Added: But wait! In 1993 U.S. Praised Yeltsin’s “Superb Handling” of Russian military buildup plus attacks and deaths it caused.

10/4/1993, President Yeltsin of democratic Russia dissolves Parliament, sends military and tanks, attacks Russian Parliament to remove his political opponents, Page One, NY Times:

Image caption: “Part of a column of 40 armored vehicles speeding early this morning into Moscow,” AP photo

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Added: 10/4/2018, “Yeltsin Shelled Russian Parliament 25 Years Ago [in 1993], U.S. Praised “Superb Handling”," National Security Archives, George Washington University, Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton, Washington, DC

Image, GWU archives

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Continuing, 10/4/1993, NY Times, Yeltsin orders Russian military to attack and remove his political foes:

“SHOWDOWN IN MOSCOW: The Overview; YELTSIN SENDS TROOPS TO OUST ARMED FOES FROM PARLIAMENT; FIERCE BATTLE RAGES IN CAPITAL,” NY Times, Serge Schmemann

“President Boris N. Yeltsin ordered tanks and armored personnel carriers early today to oust armed rebels from their heavily fortified Parliament center, and heavy gunfire echoed through the city as the final showdown opened between the President and his unyielding Communist and nationalist foes.

The attack followed a day of pitched battles in the Russian capital on Sunday between thousands of Communist and nationalist opponents of the President who broke the 11-day blockade of the Parliament and attempted to seize the Government broadcasting center. Mr. Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in the capital.

The fighting Sunday and this morning was worst civil strife in Moscow since the days of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.

Starting at 7:00 this morning, camouflage-painted T-72 tanks and other armored vehicles moved into position from all sides of the building, firing to disperse demonstrators and defenders in their way. The roar of their heavy guns quickly mingled with the rattle of automatic fire from inside. Heavy black smoke rose from vehicles set afire by the defenders, and police officers rushed to seal off all streets for about a mile around.

[Image: “Tanks firing at the Russian White House,” gwu archives]

The forces loyal to Mr. Yeltsin were reported to have taken the lower two stories of the Parliament building. Tanks opened fire on the defenders on higher floors.

Airborne Attack Possible

Russian television reported that crack airborne troops who had entered the capital through the night were preparing an airborne attack, but it was not immediately clear whether this meant an assault from the air or a commando attack on the ground.

Government troops were also reported to have moved into the Ostankino radio and television center.

The final assault on the Parliament this morning came after a day which rampaging bands of supporters of the legislators, wielding clubs, iron staves and sometimes Kalashnikov assault rifles and waving the red flag of the Soviet Union and the white, black and gold czarist flag of extreme nationalists, fought pitched battles across Moscow in which at least 25 people died and hundreds were wounded.

The heaviest fighting Sunday was around the Ostankino broadcasting center, where the rebels blasted down the entry door with a rocket-propelled grenade and fought a three-hour gun battle before they were expelled.

The violence Sunday shocked the capital on a beautiful fall day. It came on the 13th day of the standoff between Mr. Yeltsin, who is backed by those seeking political and economic changes in Russia and by Western nations, and the tough-minded Parliament leaders who have blocked many of his efforts.

According to reports from major cities across Russia, the situation in the provinces was tense Sunday but there was no violence, and radio broadcasts spoke of gathering support for the President.

But First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir F. Shumeiko reported that in four regions, local councils had raised red flags over Government buildings. He said Kostroma, in central Russia, was a special source of concern because officials there were trying to bring the local army garrison onto the side of the rebellious parliament.

All through the night, defenders of the [Moscow] White House with automatic weapons maintained a tense watch by candlelight. When fighting broke out, commanders inside reportedly ordered all unarmed people to take shelter inside the building.

Mr. Yeltsin, who flew into the Kremlin by helicopter early Sunday evening, proclaimed a state of emergency in Moscow, declaring, “We will triumph.”

There were reports from the Kremlin that some senior commanders were declaring neutrality in the struggle. But the Itar-Tass news agency said all military district commanders had declared their loyalty to Mr. Yeltsin and to Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev, who was reported preparing an appeal to all servicemen. Mr. Yeltsin’s spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, said over the radio that the “fascist putsch” would be suppressed.

After nightlong consultations with the Ministers of Defense, Interior and Security, Tass reported that Mr. Yeltsin signed a decree early today ordering the “power ministers,” as they are known, to recapture buildings held by the pro-Parliament forces and to disarm them.

Ultimatum From Government

The attack began after the Government issued a final ultimatum to defenders inside demanding that they surrender. Lieut. Gen. Aleksandr Kulikov, appointed commandant of Moscow for the state of emergency, warned the forces holding the White House, as the Parliament complex is called, that if they did not surrender their arms, “they will be eliminated,” Itar-Tass reported.

Two hours into the attack, as ever more tanks converged on the Parliament and commandos darted toward the building on the ground, Mr. Yeltsin went on national television to vow that “the armed fascist putsch in Moscow will be crushed.”

Speaking slowly and sternly, Mr. Yeltsin seemed almost apologetic for having thought he could negotiate with the conservative forces in the Parliament, who for two years fought his every program.

“This alarming and tragic night taught us much,” he said. “We did not prepare for war. We thought we could negotiate and save peace in the capital.” Those who launched Sunday’s violence, he said, were not individual bandits. “All that happened was an armed putsch planned in advance,” he said.

Mr. Yeltsin appealed to Russians to support the soldiers fighting at the White House. As for those who had launched the bloodshed, he said with an dramatic pause: “They miscalculated and the people will curse the criminals. For them and those who gave their orders, there is no forgiveness, because they raised their hand against peaceful people, against Moscow, against Russia, against children, women, old people.”

The night before the attack on Parliament, the United States Embassy, located across the street from the White House, evacuated most of those who live inside.

According to the head of military operations in the Kremlin, Gen. Konstantin Kobets, the Government had summoned about 1,500 airborne troops from three elite units, 27th Motorized Infantry Brigade and the Kantemir and Taman airborne divisions.

Bitterness of Conflict

The violence offered stark evidence of the passion with which Mr. Yeltsin’s opponents loathed his attempts to break Russia out of its history of authoritarian rule-which they accused him of reimposing in the name of democracy.…

The latest showdown began Sept. 21, when Mr. Yeltsin dissolved the Parliament and soon after ringed its headquarters with troops and barbed wire.

It was increasingly evident as the situation unfolded that the demonstrators included many hard-core “reds and browns” — Communists and extreme nationalists. But there are also many retired pensioners and war veterans who had been disaffected with Mr. Yeltsin’s economic program, which has brought capitalism to Russia, high inflation, and a loss of economic security for many….

In a huge, nuclear-armed nation that had come to dread the prospect of civil war after years of political struggles, the violence Sunday and today was a nightmare come true.

Automatic gunfire crackled through the clear autumn afternoon on city streets and at the Parliament building, known as the White House, and it broke into a full-scale battle Sunday evening when demonstrators assaulted the sprawling Ostankino television center. The attackers used a rocket-propelled grenade to blast through the barricaded door and opened a fierce firefight with police officers inside.

With communications in disarray and continuing chaos at the sites of clashes, there was no reliable means of gauging casualties. But there were confirmed reports of 25 deaths. Witnesses reported that many wounded were brought to hospitals, including children.

Photographer Is Wounded

Among those wounded was a New York Times photographer, Otto Pohl, 24, who was reported in fair condition after undergoing surgery for a bullet through his lung.

First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar, the leading champion of the shift to a market economy, went on television to urge supporters of the President to converge at the Moscow City Council building, near the Kremlin.

“If today we let into power those who are grasping for it, if we place the keys of government in their hands, they are capable of bringing a bloody brown curtain down over the country for decades,” he declared….

The onslaught began in the early afternoon Sunday, when a large gathering of anti-Yeltsin demonstrators under a statue of Lenin on October Square, about three miles from the White House, abruptly turned and began marching toward the center along the Garden Ring road.

At about that same time, representatives of both sides were meeting in talks brokered by the Russian Orthodox Church on ways to end the standoff.

Acting with evident organization, the marchers, about 5,000 strong at that point, according to some estimates, violently broke through several relatively sparse lines that the riot police tried to form along the ring road. The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, but the marchers responded with bursts of automatic weapons fire. Some officers fell.

The Parliament center was still ringed by a thick cordon of security forces, bumber-to-bumper trucks, armored personnel carriers and barbed wire. But the marchers, using a commandeered truck as a battering ram, breached the defenses at 3:35 P.M. Bursts of gunfire sounded repeatedly, and a pall of exhaust smoke filtered the clear sunshine.

Soon after, Vice President Aleksandr V. Rutskoi, who was declared Acting President by the defiant Parliament after Mr. Yeltsin dissolved the body, emerged on the balcony and called on the masses to storm the mayor’s office, the broadcasting center and the Kremlin.

‘Only Seconds to Change Sides’

To Government forces ringing the White House, he called out, “You have only seconds to change sides and defect to the people.”

After several starts, during which gunfire rattled continuously, the crowd burst into the Mayor’s offices. Before long, lines of soldiers were seen marching under rebel guard. Many others fled through broken windows or fled to higher floors.

At 6 P.M., the huge security cordon around the White House was entirely withdrawn, but electricity in the building was again turned off at nightfall.

Only a few uniformed policemen remained around the large United States Embassy compound, across the street from the White House. Diplomats inside said residents were hunkered down and forbidden even to peek across the tall brick wall ringing the compound. Windows in the compound facing the White House were covered. No incidents were reported there.

In the meantime, another force of Yeltsin foes moved in convoys of commandeered buses and army trucks toward the broadcasting center.

As the demonstrators gathered outside the complex, several armored personnel carriers stood at a cautious distance and Albert Makashov, a militantly anti-Yeltsin former general, went to negotiate with troops inside.

At 7:20 P.M., a rocket-propelled grenade was abruptly fired at the entrance and a blaze of gunfire erupted. On television at the time, an announcer was concluding a report on the day’s drama when he choked with emotion.

“This has been a heavy day,” he said. “It’s hard to talk, because the conflict between Russians has reached its limits….” At that, the telecast abruptly broke off.

Within a half hour, though, broadcasts resumed from another center in Moscow, this time with only an announcer.

The official news agency Itar-Tass reported at one point that rebel forces had entered its offices, but then issued a bulletin at 10:51 P.M.: “Tass freed by Interior special force, resumes work.” Independent and foreign radio stations continued to function, as did CNN.

EVENTS IN MOSCOW

2 P.M. Opponents of President Boris N. Yeltsin demonstrate at October Square. 2:30 The crowd moves toward the Parliament building, headquarters of Yeltsin’s foes. 3:35 The crowd breaks through police lines around the Parliament building. 5:00 Demonstrators storm the Mayoral Building. 5:45 Mr. Yeltsin declares a state of emergency. 7:15 Demonstrators break into the television headquarters. Troops open fire. Many people are shot. 11 P.M. An appeal from Mr. Yeltsin is read over the television. 4 A.M. Monday — Airborne and motorized infantry troops enter the capital. 7 A.M. AT Yeltsin’s orders, tanks and armored personel carriers surround the heavily fortified Parliament building, firing back at defenders."

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“A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 4, 1993, Section A, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: SHOWDOWN IN MOSCOW: The Overview; YELTSIN SENDS TROOPS TO OUST ARMED FOES FROM PARLIAMENT; FIERCE BATTLE RAGES IN CAPITAL”

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Added: “Atlanticism and its media machine have been dedicated to the economic underdevelopment of…the U.S."....ie, Putin isn't the target. Ordinary Americans are the target.
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