Demonstrators in Kharkov, north-east Ukraine, have appealed to Russia to pass to the UN their demands over a referendum on the federalization, while hundreds of protesters in Donetsk stormed a prosecutor’s office demanding to free a local “governor”.

Well, it seems that you are flat-out wrong here...

Hey, americano! Do you know Kuzkinu Mather? Russian Kizkinu Mother!
Here is it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2hvObzZt0g
Good luck! We are waiting you, americano. 

Ukraine’s parliament voted on Thursday with 260 MPs in favor - only 226 votes were needed to pass the law. The new article 22(1) added to the charter regulating service in the armed forces of Ukraine states that commanders “have the right to personally use physical force, special means, and weapons when in combat” against soldiers who commit “criminal acts.”

Under criminal acts the law lists “disobedience, resistance or threat to use force against the commander, voluntary abandonment of military positions and certain locations of military units in areas of combat missions.”

 

We know more about this story. I can't guarantee to remember correctly every detail, but it is possible to locate it in various articles.

Both parents are originally from Chechniya. The father and mother were divorced, both living in Norway. The father ran a business here. The father was/is married again, this time too to a Chechen woman, I think. They had two younger children.

The CPS took the two older children, two girls, and placed them in a foster home. When the CPS started their actions, the father's new wife and their children very wisely went back to Chechniya. The CPS were very angry about this, they had of course planned to take those children also. The father, with some help, got hold of the two older children and succeeded in bringing them to Russia / Chechniya, and he went there himself. The CPS tried to get the girls' mother to make trouble and demand they be taken back to Norway since she was here. A warrant was out for the father.

The father a little later made a statement that he would come back to Norway with the daughters if the CPS would give him a solemn promise never to do this - meaning take them away - again.

This is as naïve and stubborn as can be - he should have informed himself of realities and known better: The CPS can never make such a promise, by legislation they have no right to promise never to take a child. On the contrary, they are obliged by law to take a child if they 'suspect' or know that the child is in the need of …… (you know all the nice-sounding words - - -). And if the CPS in this case had said, in a sort of half-baked promise, that at the moment there was no occasion to take the girls again, that would not be binding, and at the same time there would be an uproar in CPS circles and the ministry and all sorts of places, because: how could a CPS office say that girls who were in their care and who were 'abducted' by their father (who had already been found to be unsuited/dangerous), were suddenly not in need of CPS care? That would be to admit that there was no need for the CPS at all.

In other words, the father spoke as if he believed that the local CPS office had done something a bit silly, which they would be suitably ashamed of, like naughty children, when he 'corrected' them.

Well, anyway, the CPS said nothing of the sort. The father meanwhile had financial trouble because he was not in Norway taking care of his business together with his business partner. So one day he returned to Norway in order to work, thinking that he could do it undisturbed. The girls were left in Chechniya, together with their younger siblings and their step-mother, I think.

And of course the father was arrested and put in jail pending trial as soon as he arrived.
I haven't gone after the story after that, so I don't know if there actually was a court case and, if so, what the outcome was. One gets quite exhausted at all these people (there have actually been many) who manage to save their children and then they think that they can come back after a while and nothing will happen? As if they have just had an innocent disagreement with the CPS, and the CPS would have simmered down now and realised that they had been overly dramatic and now they would be sensible and listen to the parents and let themselves be guided by the parents.

I admit I lost interest in the Chechen father. Many of these families even bring their children back with them. They think they can start afresh, after some months or a couple of years. Hah! I remember a parent or two who used to ring me up and sort of complain when I wouldn't tell them that of course they could come back now because it had all been just like a quarrel between two children, who made up and became friends again after a little while. These parents would get angry with me when I said "No, you must stay away, and you children must never set foot here until they are of age" (18 years old and their own masters). And preferably not even return then, because the CPS will be after them to take their own children if they have children in Norway, just to prove that they had bad parents so now they have become bad parents themselves. (Very primitive determinism, in other words.)

Most CPS victims who contact me and people like me, do not really want to hear the grim truth. They want me to say something they hope will be true.

But you were right, I think, Naine: it was a happy ending for the two girls, I think. Better to be in difficult Chechniya with relatives than in Norway with people obviously making money out of working as fosterers for the CPS, cut off from their own family altogether.  

Well, at least to foreigners in Norway:

Never talk with the CPS. Insist that everything has to be in writing.
At the first indication that they want a psychologist to talk with you or they want to visit your home or talk with your children:
Get out of the country!
Make do with whatever income you can make in your own country, or some other non-Western country.
It may be hard, but having the bonds to your children violated is harder.
Do not wait: Pack 3 plastic bags with only the basic necessities for the children. If you are seen about with ordinary luggage, the CPS will stop you and take the children on an emergency decision.
When the children have been placed in a safe country, you may return to pack up properly, or even better: get friends to do that.
Do not tell people that you will be going, there are many who may report you to the CPS.
Do not book airline tickets or boat tickets, nor should you go in your own car to Sweden. Go preferably by anonymous bus. Get yourselves to Oslo, for example, there are several buses running every hour from the bus terminal in Oslo.

Very important:
1) You must go before a case over transfer of care has been opened in the County Committee, and if you are after all caught in one, then certainly before such a case has been completed. After such a case, your child belongs to the Norwegian state.
2) Get a "moving" form (flyttemelding) from the National Census register (Folkeregisteret), which is managed by the taxation office, or better: get it from the internet, fill it in properly, and post it registered mail as soon as possible after you leave, so that it is officially registered that your children (and preferably yourself) have moved out of Norway. In that way the authorities cannot claim that you are just away on a holiday, in which case they could go ahead with a CPS case without you being there.
3) Do not be too optimistic - do not come back. The local CPS will not have forgotten you, and CPS offices all over the country are equally terrible - there might be a few odd exceptions in a few odd places for a while, but they are exceptions, and they will not be able to stand up against a report against you from another source.

Your statements are all true! Thank you for educating the naive people who blindly believe western media.

Question. Why are the presidents of France and Germany in such a hurry to reach a deal with Putin now?

Is it because of Kerry's visit to Kiev and the giving of heavy weapons to Kiev?

Maybe they sense war is in the air with Russia very soon?

What do you think?

I've stood by silently watching the demonization of Putin grow since it began in the early 2000s –– I pondered on computer my thoughts and concerns, hoping eventually to include them in a book (which was published in 2011). The book explains my observations more thoroughly than this article. Like others who have had direct experience with this little known man, I've tried to no avail to avoid being labeled a "Putin apologist".  If one is even neutral about him, they are considered "soft on Putin" by pundits, news hounds and average citizens who get their news from CNN, Fox and MSNBC.

I don't pretend to be an expert, just a program developer in the USSR and Russia for the past 30 years.  But during this time, I've have had far more direct, on-ground contact with Russians of all stripes across 11 time zones than any of the Western reporters or for that matter any of Washington's officials.

...

Four months later Putin called a meeting with the oligarchs and gave them his deal:  They could keep their  illegally-gained wealth-producing Soviet enterprises and they would not be nationalized ….  IF taxes were paid on their revenues and if they personally stayed out of politics. This was the first of Putin's "elegant solutions" to the near impossible challenges facing the new Russia.  But the deal also put Putin in crosshairs with US media and officials who then began to champion the oligarchs, particularly Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The latter became highly political, didn't pay taxes, and prior to being apprehended and jailed was in the process of selling a major portion of Russia's largest private oil company, Yukos Oil, to Exxon Mobil. Unfortunately, to U.S. media and governing structures, Khodorkovsky became a martyr (and remains so up to today).

I believe the US elites have never forgiven Putin for nixing at the last minute the Yukos deal. Putting Russian interests above those of US imperial interests was and remains unforgivable. The US will now try to lure him into a military conflict over Ukraine.

...

Now Russia has an Ukrainian problem, brought to Vladimir Putin courtesy of Washington.
Washington hoped that its grab of Ukraine would result in Russia being evicted from its naval base in Crimea, but this hope was frustrated by the Crimean people, who voted overwhelmingly to reunite with Mother Russia. This enabled Russia to retain its warm water port.

The Russian provinces of eastern and southern Ukraine made the same vote and request, but the Russian government refused the request. Possibly the Russian government was under too much pressure from the West.  Alternatively, perhaps the Russian government hoped to retain a Russian population within Ukraine in order to regain a political lever over Kiev. It is not in Russia’s or Ukraine’s interest for there to be conflict between the two.

...

In my opinion, the Russian government believed that Europe had more sense and more independence from Washington than it possesses. Russia thought that Europe would want to avoid the conflict that Washington was preparing for them and, therefore, would be reassured by the Russian government’s refusal of the break-away provinces’ requests and Russia’s lack of provocative action. Russia is not the problem, Putin kept telling the European vassals of Washington.

As it turned out, Europe is more firmly under Washington’s thumb than the Russian government realized.  European politicians are even willing to harm the interests of their own countries in order to serve Washington.

The Russian government now understands that Europe lacks political independence.  Putin has publicly acknowledged this fact. This improved understanding of the situation that Russia faces requires a rethinking of the situation in Ukraine.

...

Good luck with that

Total crap trying to assert fears about what Russia might do.  It has nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with Ukraine.  That's what's missing here.  Ukraine is sovereign.

A hospital in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was hit by artillery shelling, local authorities said. One person has been confirmed killed, with initial reports of over 15 feared dead.

“There are multiple casualties at the hospital. A preliminary count says more than 15 people were killed,” local emergency services told Interfax.

...

The midday barrage also damaged a residential building nearby and a high-voltage power line, the city council said. The entire neighborhood is without power.

RT correspondent Roman Kosarev was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene.

It's funny you talk about western propaganda while using language like this:


Amidst the other Russian propaganda in your post. You have no credibility to talk about propaganda when your own posts are so full of it.

"I have never heard Putin or Medvedev say that if you sign the agreement with the EU, then you will have another government and the president," Mykola Azarov told reporters

On the contrary, Russia and China had agreed to provide Ukraine with up to $42 billion in loans and investment. "Ukraine could have seen a significant economic recovery," Azarov said.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side was subjected to pressure on the part of the EU, he said.

The former premier Mykola Azarov also said he does not condemn Yanukovych for leaving Kiev and heading for the country’s east when his liquidation was reportedly being organized.

...

He said Yanukovych had the opportunity to "keep order in the country," prevent the February 2014 coup.

"When an operation to shoot dead people on Maidan [Independence Square in downtown Kiev, the symbol of Ukrainian protests] was organized, the entire world and Ukraine were frightened — it was for the first time in our history that over 130 people were cold-bloodedly [shot dead] on Maidan, 26 of them being law enforcement officers," Azarov said.

"In this context, Yanukovych lost his heart and the hands of those who plotted a coup were free. He was called a bloody tyrant and it was said he was subject to liquidation. Groups tasked with capturing him and implementing the Libyan variant were formed. He was to have died like Gaddafi," he said.

is in understanding why Venezuela's number one trading partner hasn't sent so much as an aspirin or a loaf of stale bread to alleviate any of the suffering there.

let's not start ww3 over a quarrel between far away peoples of which we know nothing, didn't we learn the last time

Steve and Strobe’s article (and the supporting report with several other prominent authors) rings with fury at Russian actions. And Russian actions are indeed outrageous. But moral indignation, no matter how righteous and satisfying, is not a strategy. A strategy needs to describe just how provision of American arms would make the situation better.

Rather than such a description, the article suggests that a just cause and the Ukrainian need and desire for weapons are enough to justify their provision. But it is hardly surprising that the Ukrainians want American arms in their war against Russia and Russian-backed separatists—they face the possibility of territorial dismemberment and would run any risk to preserve their state intact.

The Ukrainian calculus is one of immediate desperation. But the United States needs to think for the longer-term. And if U.S.-provided weapons fail to induce a Russian retreat in Ukraine and instead cause an escalation of the war, the net result will not be peace and compromise.