Russia: We're Sending Relief Convoy Into Eastern Ukraine
Source: USA TODAY
Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY 12:12 p.m. EDT August 11, 2014
Moscow and Kiev purportedly agreed Monday on a humanitarian mission by Russian convoy to the besieged areas of eastern Ukraine under the authority of the Red Cross, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
There was no immediate confirmation from Kiev, which has objected to any such humanitarian convoy out of fear that it could be used a a cover for an invasion by Russian troops.
The plan was first outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday in a phone call to Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, ITAR-TASS reported.
"With careful optimism, I can now say that, I think, all possible and impossible pretexts have been dismissed. I hope that in the very nearest future this humanitarian action will take place under the authority of the Red Cross," Lavrov said.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/08/11/ukraine-donetsk-surrounded-flee-russian-separatists/13887869/
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Russia And Ukraine Agree On Humanitarian Operation - Lavrov
Moscow and Kiev have agreed on a humanitarian mission under the authority of the Red Cross, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated.
“With careful optimism, I can now say that, I think, all possible and impossible pretexts have been dismissed. I hope that in the very nearest future this humanitarian action will take place under the authority of the Red Cross,” Lavrov said.
“We’ve agreed on all details with the Ukrainian leadership,” the Foreign Minister declared.
He also expressed hope that “Western partners won’t put a spoke in the wheel and will think about the people who are badly in need of water and electricity,” Lavrov said.
Russia, together with the International Red Cross Committee, is sending a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, according to the president’s press service.
more...
http://rt.com/news/179496-lavrov-humanitarian-corridor-agreed/
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TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)cosmicone
(11,014 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Our actions in northern Iraq give Putin an excuse to act.
Unfortunately.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)We're trying to rescue people caught behind the IS/ISIS/ISIL lines, and I don't object to that at all. We're also trying to keep ISIS out of Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, for humanitarian reasons and to keep our military and intelligence operations running in that city.
Putin says that Russia will conduct a humanitarian effort to relieve civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk who have run out of food and medicine because they are caught in cities under siege by the Ukrainian forces. Putin also wants to keep the separatists going to further his military and political policies.
joshcryer
(62,268 posts)The US knows what's up, the US has been using humanitarian aid to help rebel factions for decades. Lugansk has been brutally slammed (by both sides, mind you), there are no doubt thousands of citizens there who would welcome Russian aid with open arms.
There will be a problem, however, if the Lugansk rumors are true that there are special forces there who took out dozens of tanks and that there's a sniper who has killed tens of rebels...
Igel
(35,274 posts)He's also said things like the "anti-terrorist operation has driving Russians out of the Donbas" as its goal. And he claimed last week that the convoy, with armor and soldiers, was agreed to by the ICRC. Wait for the ICRC to bless it. They specifically didn't bless it before. Openly refuted Lavrov. Somehow, that didn't really get reported very well in Russian.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry continues to say the same thing it always has: An international aid mission, unarmed, that includes Russia, OSCE countries, the EU and US and is done under the auspices and with the cooperation/participation of the Red Cross is fine. But a unilateral mission isn't.
Lavrov continued to insist, at least as of earlier today, that the aid be specifically Russian, which makes sense on two counts: (1) Russia has already smuggled in a fair amount of military hardware, with "humanitarian supplies" found in rebel warehouses including uniforms, small arms, bullets, and artillery shells, and most even the food that's gone in stays in the hands of fighters and not pensioners and children. (2) Russia has the perpetual mantra that this is a war waged by the West against Russia and Russians and that they're actually heroically fighting all of Europe, the US, and NATO. You can't say "they want to starve you and drive you out" if, at the same time, they're feeding you. Russia must be the Savior, nobody else, so that everybody else can continue to be vilified as the Devil. Orthodoxy doesn't allow for multiple Christs. I don't consider this to be very speculative.
I haven't seen speculation as to why it's so urgent, apart from "Ukraine is winning" and "think of the children"--a humanitarian crisis that could be averted easily just by simple withdrawal of rebel forces, to be sure. However, NATO, Ukraine, most people near the border, agree that there's still a rather large buildup of troops, armor, trucks, artillery near the border. Not just along the border that the rebels have, or even just the border that the rebels had. Estimates are from 20-40k, 160 tanks, etc. Any impediment to what's billed as a humanitarian mission would be met with invasion. Making matters more ticklish, if Russia moves its humanitarian mission in during a gap, between claiming "we have full support of the international community" and the announcement by the "international community" that it doesn't and never had its full support, they won't pull out. That would be humiliation and would be termed a "provocation."
However, in the last few days--pretty much since the time that Russia announced it would be sending in an armed peacekeeping/humanitarian mission, social media/stringers on the ground in both the north of rebel held territory and in the south have reported seeing trucks that have crossed the border. But they stand out and they usually arrive on a schedule--how long it takes that vehicle to get from the border to where it's observed. Usually the men that are "volunteers" are a rather motley crew; the different groups of fighters have different patches, different uniforms from different sources and with different degrees of wear, they're not of uniform age, ethnicity, or even hairstyle. These new "recruits" are all the same age--late teens, very early 20s--they have the same haircuts (close cropped, same cut), the same uniforms that have little wear. They're also fairly uniform, ethnically--Caucasian or Slavic, according to reports.
Speculation in the media is that Russian's run out of easy "volunteers" and are now forced to send in actual troops that aren't just there to infiltrate or advise. However, I don't think Russia can t let anything much happen to them for long because if they do there's a serious PR problem. If they show up dead, their relatives might pitch a fit. How is it that on-duty servicemen stationed in Saratov or Groznyi or Barnaul are showing up dead? A "new Afghanistan" peace movement could quickly happen when "voluntolds" are cargo 200.
So if there are already active-duty Russian soldiers that are waiting to be shipped home as cargo then it's really, really urgent to provide cover--send in "humitarian troops" and any number of Russian dead soldiers is explainable. Even--especially--if Ukraine has a complete ceasefire and is entirely hands-off the "humanitarian troops", they can say, "Hey, look--here are Russian humanitarian troops killed by Ukrainians, the fascists!" They can retroactively make a covert invasion into breaking a ceasefire that justifies overt invasion, and it's not like Russia has any obligation to call in OSCE forensics folk to validate what the Russian Army says about their own men.
(Other reports: Strelkov-Girkin has said that if Russia doesn't provide help very soon, he's going to surrender Antratsit, a key town between the MH17 crash site and the border, and flee Ukraine.
(The DNR "politicians" seem unperturbed by being surrounded and running out of territory. They're busy working on textbooks, school calendars, a national hymn, national flag, approving the national gerb ... crap, the state seal. They have faith that something will keep them in power. Then again, Antyufeev is the guy running the show, and he got the Transnistria "thing" up, running, and made sure that the Russian minority of the population controls the unruly "locals".
(It's feared that Putin will do what Russia often does--take something the West does, change a few key circumstances, and claim to do the same thing: US is bombing the IS to help the Yezidis, Russia can bomb the Ukrainians to help the Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Both are intentional genocide born of religious and ethnic hatred, nothing more, right?
(The village of Stepanivka's supposedly in ruins. An attachment of Ukr troops was near it, not in it. But the claim is that rebel troops weren't near it, either. Like the shelling of Melove last night, a checkpoint 30 miles from the front lines in the north, it was Russian Grad fire.
(First assault of Ilovaisk failed, the Ukrainian armed forces spokeman says. The rebels haven't confirmed it, and Russian media doesn't trust the Ukrainians to even report their own defeats properly.
(And I'd point out that if the Ukrainians don't act soon, it will be too late. Pretty much every night the rebels get a couple of tank platoons plus armored fighting vehicles or APCs and Grads or other artillery, with anywhere from 100-300 additional fighters and supplies. Wait 10 days and you have to deal with 80-100 tanks, maybe 60 fighting vehicles, 80 APCs, 20 Grads, a pile of artillery, and a couple thousand fighters. Reports are that there's a build up in Rovenky--whether for a last defense, whether to stage an assault to push through to Donetsk, whether it's to reclaim access to the Russian border in the south ... It's looking more and more like Putin wants another Abkhazia or Transnistria so he can claim victory, and for that he needs a stalemate.)
joshcryer
(62,268 posts)Hell, the US might even drop some high quality satellite photos.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)So, Russia launches a humanitarian effort. But have they ever called for peace-negotiations?
Did I simply miss out on this one?
Has oh-so-glorious-and-rightful Russia ever called on Kiev and the rebels to sort it out without killing each other?
No?
Why not?
Could it be that a call for peace wouldn't sell well with the Russians and the rebels after Kiev was demonized as child-killing neo-Nazi-puppets of the imperialist West?
reorg
(3,317 posts)http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-proposes-time-and-place-for-talks-1404482095
NealK
(1,851 posts)I guess that Russia will need some humanitarian relief convoys themselves in the very near futur.
abovesobelow
(73 posts)Uh no we don't KGB MURDERING THUG
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)The story has zig-zagged all day.
DONETSK, Ukraine — The prospect of a Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine appeared to rise sharply on Monday, threatening to take to new lows what is already the sharpest East-West confrontation of the post-Cold War era.
As the Kremlin announced it had sent a convoy of humanitarian aid to Ukraine under the auspices of the International Red Cross, the secretary-general of NATO said there was a “high probability” of a Russian attack and Ukraine raised its estimate of Russian troop strength on the border.
With increasing urgency, Western governments have condemned in advance any Russian aid missions, which they fear could serve as a pretext for a military incursion to support hard-pressed pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian Army in the country’s southeast.
“We see the Russians developing the narrative and the pretext for such an operation under the guise of a humanitarian operation, and we see a military buildup that could be used to conduct such illegal military operations in Ukraine,” the NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told Reuters in an interview Monday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/world/europe/russian-intervention-in-ukraine-is-likely-nato-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Ukraine, the Europeans and the US will accept an international Red Cross humanitarian mission, but not a unilateral Russian action. So far, there is no indication of a Russian convoy crossing the border into Ukraine, but Ukraine has stated that there is a large Russian military presence on its border.
reorg
(3,317 posts)lanlady
(7,133 posts)--bearing Chechen "aid workers" and a few "humanitarian" missile launchers, I bet.