Analyst: Ukraine’s economy is dead

OffGuardian

A beggar woman against the background of Saint Sophia’s Cathedral fresco paintings. Kiev, Ukraine, Eastern Europe. Photo Mstyslav Chernov.

Political analyst Aleksei Blyuminov is interviewed by Lug-Info:

[…] Lug-Info – In general, how do you assess the political situation in Ukraine?

– The political situation is absolutely unstable. There are no “fodder reserves” that could maintain stability. Roughly speaking, earlier, for example, under Yanukovych, this stability could be maintained by two things: the first – the legitimate state apparatus, and the second – the availability of some money. Now, both are missing. There are a lot of people who can toss grenades at the prosecutor’s office, and there is no money to cajole them.

Going back to the main problem – the regime is under external control, so all flames of instability are to be artificially extinguished. For example, there was a source of instability in the form Kolomoisky –…

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Putin on 60 Minutes: Twitter reacts

Daily Beast scrapes bottom of the barrel for anti-Russia coverage

Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning-CV-16 reported docking in Syria

Imperial Madness

SLAVYANGRAD.org

Preamble: While the various existing journalism codes of conduct vary, most share common foundations that include the principles of—truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability—as these apply to the attainment of newsworthy information and its ensuing dissemination to the public.

The modern-day reality is that the overwhelming majority of current Western main-stream media is deceitful, unfair and connected to a government purpose. The outcome is that a newscast viewed objectively by somebody, may in fact seem rational, and might pass muster simply because the person who took it mistakenly and in good faith believed it to be true. Such a conclusion places form above substance and undermines the entire ethics and standards of journalism. It has become nothing more than propaganda, a means to distribute bias.

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Author: Andrey Panevin / Editor: Tiago de Carvalho

Everyday Madness

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all…

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Russia to Add Its 203rd Air Force Base — Its First Outside Russia

OffGuardian

by Eric Zuesse

According to GlobalSecurity.org, Russia has 202 Air Force bases, all in Russia’s various “Military Districts”; but now there is to be a 203rd one, and it will be in Belarus. If this actually happens, it will be a historic expansion of Russia’s armed forces abroad — something that for the U.S. to do would be inconsequential since the U.S. already has 41 Air Force Bases in foreign countries, surrounding Russia, East West and South. (Belarus isn’t even anywhere near the U.S.; it’s instead bordering Russia itself.)

On September 19th at 112.international (and then on 20 September at the subscription-only Financial Times), was reported (as headlined at 112), “Russia to Establish Air Base in Belarus.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Friday the 18th had signed a document, “To intrust the Ministry of Defense with the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out the negotiations with the Belarusian side…

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On the Reorganisation of the Army of the DPR

SLAVYANGRAD.org

Original: Colonel Cassad
Translated by Alexander Fedotov / Edited by @GBabeuf

Matyushin discusses the final merger of the DPR Republican Guards into the Army Corps:

The Army of the Donetsk People’s Republic almost completed its reorganisation: Republican Guards merged with the Corps of the Ministry of Defence of the DPR.

This week, the former Defence Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Strelkov, reported in social networks that the DPR Republican Guard had ceased to exist, and half of its staff, he noted, had been scattered “to the four winds.”

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Everyday Madness

The Barricade

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate”

-Edward W. Said.

Perusing the daily headlines has become something akin to reading a prologue to global conflict penned by madmen. Everyday there is some grand new Russian plan to overrun Ukraine, take control of Syria or conduct programs of genocide. It seems that every western reporter has uncovered a conspiracy of their own that firmly pins the blame for the world’s troubles on Putin or the Russian people, the only problem being that all of their sources are ‘anonymous‘ and their stories cannot be confirmed. These constant and often contradictory reports fill social media streams and TV screens and have become the basis for buzzwords such as ‘Russian aggression’ and ‘western values’, of which a politician need only utter to convince…

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U.S. to Station New Nuclear Weapons in Germany Against Russia

OffGuardian

by Eric Zuesse

Germany’s ZDF public television network headlines on Tuesday September 22nd, “New U.S. Atomic Weapons to Be Stationed in Germany,” and reports that the U.S. will bring into Germany 20 new nuclear bombs, each being four times the destructive power of the one that was used on Hiroshima. Hans Kristensen, the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, says, “With the new bombs the boundaries blur between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.”

A former Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany’s Defense Ministry, Willy Wimmer, of Chancellor Merkel’s own conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, warns that these “new attack options against Russia” constitute “a conscious provocation of our Russian neighbors.”

German Economic News also reports on Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow these terror-weapons against Russia: “The Bundestag decided in 2009, expressing the will of most Germans, that the US should withdraw its nuclear weapons from Germany. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel…

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Guardian on Russia: None of the news that’s fit to print

OffGuardian

by CJCL

The Guardian’s coverage of Russia is, famously, rather petty these days. Petty and confusing and full of conflicting assertions from various people with differing sizes of axe to grind. On the one hand you have Luke Harding interviewing “entrepreneurial” oligarchs and believing every self-serving lie that comes out of their mouth, and on the other you have decreasing poverty statistics portrayed as (somehow) “a bad thing”.

And then you have this kind of thing. A non-story, writ large on the front page. Without merit, or analysis, or even sources (save the Guardian itself, you gotta love the way they do that).

Nobody really cares – save the half dozen lost souls who patrol BTL on Russia stories making jokes about vodka and polonium. But God fordbid you try and draw attention to the actual news, about Russia, Ukraine and the developments in the chaos out there. As…

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