The United States and NATO are openly accusing Russia of sending combat forces into Ukraine as tensions continue to mount between the two countries following the coup in February that toppled Ukraine’s elected government. According to the United Nations, nearly 2600 people have been killed in Eastern Ukraine since April and fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels so pathetic to Russia. That figure does not include the 298 victims of the Malaysian airlines plane crash.
On Thursday, at least 15 civilians were killed when Ukrainian forces shelled the rebel-held city of Donetsk. Meanwhile, a new Human Rights Watch report accuses the rebels of arbitrarily detaining civilians and subjecting them to torture, degrading treatment, and forced labor. On Thursday, President Obama addressed the crisis after NATO released satellite images they say show Russian artillery, vehicles, and troops in and around Eastern Ukraine.
President Obama also announced Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would visit the United States next month. Poroshenko was elected in May to replace Viktor Yanukovych who was ousted in the February coup. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO countries and Ukraine are holding an emergency meeting today. At the United Nations, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused the Ukrainian government of waging war against its own people by attacking cities in Eastern Ukraine.
Jonathan Steele talking:
I think it is that Russia is trying to prevent Ukraine joining NATO, which is, of course, what some people in the West, particularly in the Baltic countries and Poland and sort of neocons in Washington, would like it to do. I think the situation could be genetically escalated it President Obama now and at the big NATO summit that’s going to be held in Britain next week would say that the U.S. respects the current strategic position of Ukraine, which is nonalignment, and would also say that there is no prospect of Ukraine joining NATO for the next at least 10 or 20 years. I think that would dramatically escalate the crisis. Putin would be immediately impressed and would be willing to make the concessions that are necessary.
I presume that Putin was very disappointed with Poroshenko’s line in the private meetings and he’s decided that he has to escalate the situation. You mentioned what Obama had said about Chancellor Merkel in his speech just a few hours ago. What he didn’t mention was that Merkel has said publicly just in the last few days that there has to be a cease-fire, there has to be a political, not a military, solution and that Russia’s interest cannot be ignored. This is very sensible stuff from Chancellor Merkel. Unfortunately, has not echoed publicly at least by President Obama and other NATO leaders. So, that’s what I say is really important is to push for cease-fire, which the Russians have constantly called for, and get political negotiations which would guarantee the nonalignment in the future of Ukraine.
I think it was interesting what Obama said about NATO. But, again, he missed the crucial point, which is that he should have said that he respects the nonalignment of Ukraine and sees no value in it joining NATO. Imagine what would happen if Canada or Mexico decided to join an anti-U.S. alliance? Obviously, the U.S. would be concerned. Russia has legitimate concerns about the expansion of NATO. We’ve already heard just in the other day the Secretary-General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen was saying that NATO is now going to preposition stocks in Eastern Europe, and bring equipment in and have bases there. It is only further provocation to Moscow. There’s a battle going on, clearly, within NATO between hawks and doves and Obama is sitting on the fence. He should come down the side of the doves and make his position clear, which is similar I think to what Merkel has done. But, even she has not dared yet publicly to come out and say she does not want Ukraine to join NATO.
U.N. has come out saying that the 2600 people, civilians, have been killed. That’s more than were killed in Gaza in the recently month-long Israeli offensive. It is a huge humanitarian disaster and crisis going on. It is hardly ever mentioned in the Western media. These are U.N. figures. the U.N. says the majority of those casualties are caused by the Ukrainian army against civilians because they are trying to capture huge cities Donetsk, Luhansk where there are hundreds of thousands of people. Many have fled, but there are still hundreds of thousands remaining. Russia tried to highlight that whole issue two or three weeks ago when it sent this humanitarian convoy from Russia into Ukraine. And what happened? The Ukrainians immediately said this is the pretext for an invasion, this is an invasion. Russians than allowed people to look into those convoys, the OSCE looked into it, the Ukrainian border guards looked into it, Western journalists looked into it. There is absolutely no sign of any military potential at all. It was simply humanitarian supplies. And eventually, it was allowed in — well, it wasn’t allowed in, the Russians drove it in because the Ukrainians refused to give the paperwork that was necessary even though it was in no way military. So, Russia was trying to highlight the civilian casualties, which is also why they keep pushing for cease-fire. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian authorities insist on winning a military victory. First, they thought they could do it by earlier this week, which is their Independence Day. They had said they were going to “liberate Donetsk before Independence Day.” But that hasn’t happened. They should now recognize they’re not going to win a military victory. Russia’s latest actions show that they’re going to make sure that the forces there, the rebel forces, are not defeated.
I think Samantha Power has some legitimacy in saying that the Russians are obfuscating and even telling lies. It would be much better if Russia came out clearly and said, we have to defend these people because they’re under attack, they have legitimate interests, but they’re being attacked by their own government in Ukraine and we have come to their defense. We’re not seeking to take over the whole of Ukraine, we’re not seeking to separate Western — Eastern Ukraine from Ukraine and join it on to Russia. That would be a more honest way of handling it. But, that is the Russian position. When the Eastern Ukrainian leadership had this referendum two or three month to go about joining Russia, Putin said they should not hold the referendum. When the referendum never-the-less took place against his statements, they did not recognize the results of the referendum. So there’s no evidence that Russia is seeking to, as it were, re-create the Soviet Union or the 19th century Russian Empire and seize this part of Ukraine. It is simply trying to defend people who have legitimate interests, who are worried about Kiev’s very anti-Russian, including anti-Russian language strategy, and seek to defend them. So, I think it would be better if Russia was more honest. On the question of the prisoners, that may well be true that those people strayed into Ukraine inadvertently. There have been Ukrainian troops on the Russian side and the Russians have returned them without making a big propaganda fuss about it when they’ve lost their way. On the question of the satellite pictures which you asked about, I’m no expert on that. They look potentially convincing, but you would have to get more independent expert opinion on that. We know how in the run-up to the invasion, Colin Powell on the Security Council — was all kinds of photographs and things which turned out to be fakes. So, one has to be cautious on this, but, they may well be true.
economic sanctions hasn’t been effective so far. So I don’t think there’s any reason to expect that more sanctions will be anymore effective. I mean, Russian policy has not changed, it hasn’t softened. So, sanctions are not working. And there is great doubt in Europe about the counterproductive element of it, of shooting oneself in the foot. The Eurozone economy is now predicted not to grow this year. They have to downgrade their forecasts. It won’t necessarily be negative growth, collapse in output, but it could be just a flat-line position, no growth. And there are many concerns, particularly in Germany, over that. Of course, Russia has retaliated by banning all food imports from the EU into Russia for at least the next year. That is having an effect on the European agricultural producers. So, it’s a very dangerous tit-for-tat thing, which both sides can suffer. But, I don’t think it is having any political effect, and therefore, should not be relied on.
— source democracynow.org
Jonathan Steele, journalist at the Guardian where he once served as the organization’s Moscow correspondent. He is the author of “Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and the Mirage of Democracy.”