US Reassures Allies As Tensions Mount on Russian Bordersby webdesk@voanews.com (Henry Ridgwell)
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden held talks in Poland on Tuesday aimed at reassuring eastern European allies that they have the support of the United States. His visit took place as Moscow signed a treaty to make the Ukrainian region of Crimea part of the Russian Federation. The tensions and military build-up are unnerving the region. Standing alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Biden condemned Moscow’s move to make Crimea part of Russia. “Russia has offered a variety of...
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As President Putin announces the annexation of Crimea, a look at the geopolitical costs and how China is closely watching the situation. Subscribe on YouTube...
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From: The New York Times
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If History Is a Guide, Crimea’s Enthusiasm Might Not Lastby By OLESYA VARTANYAN and ELLEN BARRY
Giorgi Karapetovi, right, at home with Gela Gelashvili, a neighbor. Mr. Karapetovi lost some of his farm land after Russia reinforced the administrative border of South Ossetia with a fence.
 Daily Mail |
Chechen warlord who threatened Sochi reported dead
STLtoday.com MOSCOW (AP) — An Islamic militant group in Russia's North Caucasus is reporting the death of its leader, who had threatened to attack Sochi Olympics and was one of Russia's most wanted men. The death of Chechen warlord Doku Umarov has been ... 'Russian bin Laden' Doku Umarov killed, report saysWashington Times Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov 'dead'BBC News all 44 news articles » |
Darko Saric, described as running a drug ring that stretched from Latin American to Europe, agreed to turn himself in, officials said.
Ukraine’s Ghosts Rise Again by Massimo Calabresi
Ukraine is haunted by history. The most powerful ghosts tormenting its relationship with Russia are certainly those of the estimated 7 million who died in the genocidal famine unleashed against Ukrainian peasants by Stalin from 1932-33. And looming behind the counterclaims of fascism leveled by western-oriented Ukrainians and the separatists who have seized control of Crimea are, among others, the estimated 100,000 victims–most of them Jewish, many of them women, children and the elderly–who were killed at Babi Yar outside Kiev by the Nazis and their local collaborators in 1941.
But it seems even humanitarianism can haunt Ukraine. In 1999, then-President Bill Clinton launched a 78-day air war against Serb forces controlling the largely ethnic Albanian province of Serbia called Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia. Clinton justified the intervention because he and his NATO allies suspected the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was beginning a new round of genocidal ethnic cleansing like the one he had unleashed elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia eight years earlier. Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally, opposed the intervention, blocking any potential UN authorization of it. In hindsight, even the war’s supporters now admit it violated the UN charter and was illegal under international law.
Following Kosovo’s early-2008 declaration of independence, the United States formally recognized the province as a sovereign state. In an attempt to limit the example the war and Kosovo’s subsequent secession might set elsewhere, the State Department declared, “The United States considers Kosovo to be a special case that should not be seen as a precedent for other situations.”
Predictably enough, however, Russia is using the Kosovo war as a pretext for its annexation of Crimea. As Harvard’s inimitable Jack Goldsmith relates:
Russia is now invoking Kosovo—both the 1999 intervention, and Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence—in support of Crimea’s independence movement. Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proclaimed (at just before the 10-minute mark): ‘If Kosovo is a special case then Crimea is a special case; it’s just equally special.’
In fact, there is little moral equivalence between the two cases. Milosevic had unleashed the worst violence targeting an ethnic or religious group on the European continent since the Holocaust. In 1999 his forces were killing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. And the NATO intervention was driven primarily by humanitarian concerns. All of which has led the West to declare that the war was “illegal but legitimate”.
By contrast, there is no recent history of anti-Russian genocidal violence in Ukraine. There is no credible evidence that ethnic Russians have been targeted by the government of Ukraine in the recent months of unrest there. And one only need review the public comments out of Moscow to see that Russia’s intervention is primarily strategic and nationalistic, not humanitarian.
Unfortunately, moral legitimacy doesn’t carry as much weight as it might in international affairs. And there are plenty of ancillary facts that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government can use to muddy the waters.
For example, in an interesting 2008 debate with Jeremy Scahill, then of The Nation, the current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power admitted with trademark frankness that in Kosovo the West was also partially driven by the strategic goal of bolstering NATO’s credibility, which was in question after its sluggish response to the wars in the Balkans and its ill-defined rationale for expansion. And while the West may point to the questionable backgrounds and legitimacy of the pro-Russian Crimeans who have taken power using dubious parliamentary procedures, many of the ethnic Albanians the U.S. backed in Kosovo were thugs—some were eventually charged and convicted of war crimes.
Now pro-Russian forces are unleashing mob-violence against Ukranians–one chilling report tells of a mob burning Ukranian language accounts of Stalin’s genocidal famine. With Russia using the Kosovo war as a pretext for its violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, it is ironic that some who argued for the Kosovo intervention saw it as an opportunity to establish the international doctrine of humanitarian intervention (Power and current National Security Advisor Susan Rice were among the proponents of the idea, which also had the support of some neo-conservatives).
It is also ironic that the West’s strategic interest of bolstering NATO’s credibility through intervention in Kosovo may also be undermined by the events in Ukraine. In Washington it is hard to imagine the unrest in Ukraine could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. But it may be much easier to imagine in one of the six NATO capitals that directly border Ukraine or Russia.
For those countries, the ghosts now haunting Ukraine raise another specter from the past: whether the West would abandon a treaty committing it to the defense of countries in central and eastern Europe in the face of a resurgent regional power. Fortunately, there seems to be little chance of NATO being put to that test now. But Putin’s moves in Crimea, and his use of Kosovo to justify them, certainly weaken NATO’s credibility. The long-suffering people of central and eastern Europe may well worry how many old ghosts Putin plans to raise, and whether he intends to add to them.
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Joe Biden says US exploring sending ground troops to Baltic region to try to prevent further territorial aggression by Russia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told his American counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, that sanctions on Russia over the annexation of Crimea are "unacceptable" and "will not remain without consequences."Lavrov and Kerry spoke by telephone Tuesday, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty designating Ukraine's Crimean peninsula as part of Russia, against the wishes of Kyiv and the West. Earlier in the day, U.S. Vice President...
JOCHEN BITTNER
Is Crimea the Next Yugoslavia?
Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Chetniks. Cossacks. Fascists. Jihadis. Was this part of Putin's plan to enlarge his empire?
It might be time for another change in direction.
Published on Mar 18, 2014
One of the most wanted men in the Balkans has been arrested after an international manhunt. Darko Saric faces charges including trafficking 5.7 tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe.He earned his 'wanted' status, when about three tonnes of cocaine, which he planned to smuggle to an ocean liner to Western Europe from Uruguay where intercepted five years ago. Saric has given himself up to Serbian police after an operation involving US intelligence agency the CIA in South America.Al Jazeera's Phil Lavelle reports.
Published on Mar 18, 2014
El primer ministro de Ucrania, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, aseguró en mensaje a la nación que su país no tiene intenciones de unirse a la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN), y que ante las acciones transgresoras de Rusia en Crimea, su gobierno trabajará para establecer lazos de amistad. "Eso en aras de mantener la unidad en Ucrania", dijo. teleSUR http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/web/t...
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Crimeans remove Ukrainian insignia from the parliament AFP news agency 0:54 
Full video: Putin's address on Crimea joining Russia, signing ceremony euronews (in English) 1:01:20 
Putin signs treaty to incorporate Crimea into Russian federation euronews (in English)1:22 
Raw: Vice-President Biden in Poland AssociatedPress 0:36 
Secretary Kerry Delivers Remarks to the Press on the Situation in Ukraine U.S. Department of State 20:03 
Putin Gets Standing Ovation in Russian Parliament WSJDigitalNetwork 1:02 
За что их наказали? Девять самых заметных фигурантов черных списков США и Европы tvrainru 5:41 
Malaysia Airlines missing flight MH370: Latest investigation report - March 17 euronews (in English) 10:01 
Национальная гвардия Украины учится воевать BBC Russian 1:59 
17.03.2014 Геофактор: Запад ввел санкции против российских чиновников DW (Russian) 10:04 
Speculation swirls around Malaysian airliner mystery as victims' families demand answerseuronews (in English) 1:13 
Сколько Россия заплатит за Крым? Ложь путинского режима 4:27 
Venezuelan troops hold plaza Reuters 1:02 
Earthquake Rattles Southern California Residents AssociatedPress 0:59 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Andante poloshia 5:52 
Crimea Declares its Independence VOAvideo 2:06 
Putin signs decree recognizing Crimea as sovereign state RT 1:57 
Barack Obama desconoce referendo de Crimea y dice que infringe la ley teleSUR tv0:38 
President Obama Speaks on Ukraine The White House 4:30 
Crimea vote could "create new conflicts in Europe" - German FM Reuters 1:52 
US Announces New Sanctions After Crimea Vote AssociatedPress 1:32 
Sanctions for Russia, Obama says Reuters 1:13 
Times Minute 3/17/14 | New Sanctions for Russia | The New York Times The New York Times 0:58 
LCACs to the Beach U.S. Navy 1:47 
Obama imposes sanctions against Russia CNN 1:53 
Obama: Diplomacy possible in Ukraine CNN 1:08 
Missing plane: Investigators consider suicide in the cockpit of flight MH370 euronews (in English) 1:26 
Guinness Ends NYC St. Pat's Parade Sponsorship AssociatedPress 0:55 
Winter Is Back: Snow Hits East Coast AssociatedPress 1:04 
Libya rebel tanker seized Reuters 0:48 
US Lags While Drones Take Off Around the Globe AssociatedPress 2:08 
Pro-Russian separatists: Crimea is just the beginning The Guardian 8:03 
Crimea vive el referéndum separatista como un día de fiesta AGENCIA EFE 0:48 
Crimean Tartars boycott referendum vote CNN 2:10 
Video: Masked soldiers in Crimea queue up for sausages at grocery store euronews (in English) 0:54 
How the Crimean Vote Could Affect Energy Markets WSJDigitalNetwork 4:53 
Kiev vows 'earth to burn' under separatists' feet, seeks for defense budget boost RT2:24 
Russia TV host: Russia could turn USA into radioactive ashes ITN 1:45 
Crimea Wakes Up to Referendum Hangover WSJDigitalNetwork 1:15 
AP Top Stories for March 17 A AssociatedPress 0:58 
Итоги референдума в Крыму. Кризис на Украине BBC Russian 57:01 
Measles outbreak sparks fear of resurgent diseases PBS NewsHour 4:46 
Full Episode | March 16, 2014 PBS NewsHour 22:12 
Times Minute 3/14/14 | High Tension in Crimea | The New York Times The New York Times 1:10 
Mexico City bullring transformed into stunt playground for Red Bull's 2014 X-Fighters Series ITN 1:29 
U.S. Navy raid and seize hijacked oil tanker CNN 1:15 
Syrian forces retake Yabroud Reuters 0:44 
It's a girl! Baby gorilla born via c-section at San Diego Zoo euronews (in English) 1:35 
Finding Flight 370 CNN 2:45 
Did plane drop 5,000 ft. to avoid radar? CNN 4:41 
Inside Politics: Few Options for U.S. on Ukraine CNN 3:31 
Crimea celebra la reunificación con Rusia después del referéndum AGENCIA EFE 0:52 
North Korea: Kim Jong-un launches missile into sea and watches shooting contest ITN1:06 
'I Expect An Excellent Life' - Crimeans Discuss Accession To Russia Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 1:49 
RFERL Video Roundup - March 14, 2014 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 3:12 
Кто помогал Крыму сделать выбор SvobodaRadio 55:07 
Сенат - ЦРУ. Полемика продолжается Голос Америки 3:07 
Пресс-конференция Виталия Кличко (прямой эфир в записи) euronews (на русском)16:46 
Путин во вторник обратится к Федеральному собранию по ситуации вокруг Крымаtvrainru 5:39 
Эштон: я призываю Россию вступить в прямой диалог с Украиной euronews (на русском) 1:16
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Солдат российской армии / REUTERS
Как сообщили УНИАН в пресс-службе Службы внешней разведки Украины, по свидетельствам очевидцев, похищение было совершено около 17.00 у подъезда дома, где проживает Лосников. Он возвращался со службы домой, где его ждали жена и двое детей. На полковника напали на улице, когда он выходил из собственного автомобиля, затолкали в Мерседес-VITO черного цвета с номерным знаком 7776 и вывезли в неизвестном направлении.Читайте такжеПо украинским военным в Крыму стрелял русский спецназ
Полковник Лосников является командиром воинской части СВР Украины, которая дислоцируется вблизи Алушты и которая несколько дней назад была захвачена вооруженными лицами.
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