Violence escalated in eastern Ukraine as Kiev’s troops launched a massive assault on militia-held areas Sunday morning. The army was ordered to start massive shelling of all rebel positions, a presidential aide said.

The order to launch the offensive was issued early approximately at 6:00 am, according to Yury Biryukov, an aide to President Petro Poroshenko.

“Today we will show HOW good we are at jabbing in the teeth,” he wrote on his Facebook page, a mode of conveying information favored by many Ukrainian officials.

In a later post he said: “They are now striking a dot. Uuu…” in a reference to Tochka-U (‘tochka’ means ‘dot’ in Russian), a tactical ballistic missile, one of the most powerful weapons Ukraine so far deployed against rebel forces.

“That wasn’t a dot but ellipsis. Strong booms,” he added.

The list I referred to above:
An incomplete list of reasons given by the child protection services (CPS) of the Nordic countries for depriving children of their parents
is not one of only "first causes" of CPS involvement, but it may still go some way towards providing an answer to koshgel's question.

(16)  The mother is very small. When the daughter grows to become a teenager, the mother will not be able to tackle her.

Everyone has something to say about Russia, but nobody has a clue about Russian society!!

Maybe because he has been seen as the "bad guy" by the west. so he needed a good excuse for getting rid of any non Christian symbols from the public which Russia has been doing.

Oh, and "freedom of speech" there is a reason freedom is put in that phrase. If you cant handle someone pointing out flaws in your views and you deem that as insulting then life is going to be hard for you.

The French killed thousands of Muslims in the East, do not respect the feelings of Muslims and the French are surprised that the journalists are killed? Since they put freedom of speech above freedom of religion, it was clear that terrorist attacks will continue.
In Russia Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews live peacefully. Western countries need to learn Russian tolerance.

I don't think this is Putin caving in because he doesn't want ethnic minority's in Russia anyway. it is more likely he was going to do this anyway to get rid of any non Christian symbol from Russian public view and this just gave him a good excuse.

There is as much circumstantial evidence that the CIA and French Intelligence are responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shootings as there is that the shootings were carried out by the two brothers whose ID was conveniently found in the alleged get-away car. As the French made certain that the brothers were killed before they could talk, we will never know what they had to say about the plot.

The only evidence we have that the brothers are guilty is the claim by the security forces. Every time I hear government claims without real evidence, I remember Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” and Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.” If a US National Security Advisor can conjure up out of thin air “mushroom clouds over an American city,” Cherif and Said Kouachi can be turned into killers. After all, they are dead and cannot protest.

We seem to be coming back a little bit from the crisis even if the relationship between Russia and Ukrain are still very bad and Ukrain's government is still bombing its people.

If Putin step down, then it possible.

Recent events, in which Ukraine and certain EU countries acted strangely, to say the least, apparently were the last drop, reinforcing Russia’s intentions. The events I am referring to were: Ukraine PM Yatsenyuk giving multiple interviews and speeches in Germany accusing Russia of attacking the Nazi Germany and Ukraine, while Merkel stood by him, failing to react to the outright lie.

The recent Volnovakha, Donbass tragedy in which 10 people died and scores were wounded when a bus with Donetsk pensioners was hit by a bomb or a mine on the Ukraine side. This incident was immediately blamed on the Donbass self-defence. Ukraine tried to get EU to recognize LNR and DNR as terrorist organizations, while designating Russia as the state aiding terrorism, followed by a new round of sanctions. While the resolution failed, another resolution to adopt a new round of anti-Russian sanctions may pass (I don’t have the latest on that).

Meanwhile, per reports, US, France and Poland, among others, have agreed to supply advanced arms to Ukraine. In addition, two ships, one from Australia and one from Canada docked in the Odessa port in the past week to two. Each was full of winter uniforms for the Ukraine army. Poroshenko went to Paris to participate in the Unity March together with Merkel and Hollande, as I wrote here, to express solidarity with the victims of the French terrorist acts, while hundreds and thousands were dying at home unnoticed by anyone. Poroshenko’s trip strangely coincided with Yatsenyuk trying to promote Russia as aggressor in Germany and the Volnovakha bus tragedy.

Right after returning from France Poroshenko announced three new waves of mobilization to recruit over 200,000 soldiers – we now know that when they re-start the war with Donbass, they’ll be able to kill more efficiently thanks to all those Australian and Canadian uniforms keeping them nice and warm. In the meantime, the bombings of Donbass have intensified by 10-20 times. For the past week or so the number of dead and wounded from Ukraine’s shelling is greater than for the past 3-4 months combined – exact numbers are not known yet, but the preliminary number is 52 dead during the past few days.

As a result of Poroshenko’s visit to Paris and the killing of 10 civilians in Volnovakha, the Astana, Kazakhstan peace conference planned for today, January 15, was cancelled. To wrap up the vicious cycle of events, the man who was instrumental in organizing the Astana peace conference was The French president, Hollande.

This is a bombshell that was dropped by Russia earlier today.

It has been officially confirmed! The head of Gazprom Alexei Miller announced that Russia would discontinue the Ukrainian route for Russian gas transit to the EU. I expected this announcement ever since I broke the news of the Turkey/Russia deal on 12/2/14, but I did expect it in a year or two: read here and here. Looks like the time is getting compressed and the pressure for change is intensifying.

I understand at this time the flow of gas through Ukraine has been restricted to 2/5th of the usual volume. However, it appears it will soon be stopped completely.

...

2. It seems Miller and Gazprom are very confident that EU has no alternative to the Russian gas at this time. For the longest time EU and Ukraine had been able to blackmail Russia every year, taking advantage of the fact that the EU was Russia’s largest customer and Ukraine – the largest transit artery.

Russia was customarily accused of various transgressions, the blame was yearly shifted to Russia for any gas flow disruptions due to Ukraine’s stealing of Russian gas; the expense for Ukraine’s theft was also placed on Russia’s shoulders alone, while EU denied any responsibility, always siding with Ukraine. It appears Russia/Gazprom feel that enough is enough and that it’s time to cut the Gordian Knot. The fact that Russia now has strategic agreements with Turkey and China helps Russia’s leverage.

3. This is where the economy and geopolitics mix. Russia warned a long time ago that should EU’s behavior not change, there would eventually be more return sanctions. It appears Russia wasn’t kidding!

for readers who need a history lesson, Imagine the situation... A mere year ago.. Ukraine was a calm and peaceful nation, it had extremly good gas deals with Russia, buying the cheapest gas in Europe, it was about to get a 19 billion dollar loan and it was going to join the Eurasian economic zone.. All was well..

But then the democratically elected president dared to oppose the will of USA.. And within months he was overthrown by a violent antidemocratic coup that installed pro-USA nazists and oligarchs as the new junta government, the people of Crimea toke their chance and seceded while the unconstitutional pro-USA junta was still new in power.. And the Donbas region toke the chance and vote for more self-rule.. At which the pro-USA coup government responded to by sending armed nazi battalions and forced conscripts.. Starting the Ukrainian civil war.

Now the Ukranian economy is ruined.
20 000+ Ukraninian soldiers are dead.
Ukraine pays normal gas prices.
Ukraine is moments away from default.
Ukraine relationship with its brother Russia is ruined.
The Donbas region is in revolt and Crimea is lost forever.
Even if Donbas was taken back with military violence there would be partisan warfare there forever due to all the acts of terror and genocide comitted by the pro-USA forces(Starvation, clusterbombing, terror)
And now Ukraine is about to loose its biggest source of income, the oil/gas pipelines to Europe.

Ukraine situation has gone from positive to hell in a mere couple of months. Just like the situation in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, where USA meddled as well.

If Russia's any sense they'll keep that one, the EU passed a vote to allow EU states to grow GM crops a few days ago:
http://inhabitat.com/eu-vote-clears-the-way-for-gm-crops-in-europe/
And the Zionist media's spin on it:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/13/us-eu-crops-idUSKBN0KM1IC20150113

...

Honest Europeans don’t want war and animosity. It’s natural for people to want to live in peace and cooperation. As Europe again starts doubting the wisdom of sanctions and of alienating Russia, THE NEW REMINDER is necessary. Enter #CharlieHebdo massacre and other French false flags.

It is clear to me that #Poroshenko’s real goal in Paris was to meet with Hollande and Merkel in order to obtain EU’s green light for the massive new attack on Donbass, to begin around mid-January. As of the beginning of January 2015, based on the mood of their people, it appeared that EU leaders wouldn’t easily acquiesce to this new attack, nor would the EU people close their eyes to it. That mood was changed by the French false flags. The French false flag game changer was especially necessary in order to convince Hollande, who was wavering the most based on the feelings of his electorate.

...

Those readers who wrote to me that diplomacy is dead, think again. If not for Putin and Lavrov’s diplomacy last year, the world may have been tipped into the hot war already. Think of diplomacy as a way of resolving any crisis with much less blood and much cheaper than without it.

The worst case scenario will be avoided yet again. However, the festering wound that is Ukraine will remain until the people there are awakened sufficiently and until they take their power back. Unfortunately, this won’t happen for another year or two – at different times in each part of Ukraine. See Predictions for more.

The uprising leading to change has to mature internally. There is no other way. The people have started rising in key cities, such as Odessa, Zaporozhie, and especially, Kharkov. The Kharkov underground has made an announcement that they would be beginning an active stage this year, but that they also want to avoid the bloodshed and mistakes of Donbass. The new mass mobilization and plans to squash Donbass are undoubtedly related to this announcement and the most recent Odessa explosions.

...
If you watched the “Unity March” in Paris in response to the Charlie Hebdo and other attacks, you have noticed that Ukraine’s Poroshenko marched in the first row next to the French president Hollande and German chancellor Merkel. You would have also noticed Israel’s Netanyahu as well, one of the world’s biggest neocons and NWO pointmen. It is rumored that Hollande asked Netanyahu not to come, but Bibi came nevertheless. Video here.

Poroshenko, the head of the illegal Kiev junta government, whose hands are up to his elbows in blood of the Donbass and Odessa people, came to show his solidarity with what exactly in Paris? And Netanyahu?

The timing of the whole thing is very, very suspect yet again. Let’s recall that last July, when the EU bulked at the new round of sanctions against Russia, the #MH17 catastrophe promptly happened. This was immediately, despite all indications to the contrary, blamed on Russia and Donbass, which caused the ‘indignant’ EU to adopt a new harmful round of anti-Russian sanctions. Read: Ukraine’s Snowden: Whistleblower confirms MH17 was shot down by Ukraine, and my other articles on the issue, links to which you will find inside this link.

...

4. Since direct false flags involving Russia or Donbass won’t work any more as the majority of the world’s population is already on to them, this roundabout false flag is so much more useful! Here is how it works: create an image of a potential terrorist in the minds of Europeans, then superimpose this image onto several million of the Donbass people, and especially the Donetsk and Lugansk self-defence. Make them all look like terrorists. Make them seem similar to those who committed murder of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and other false flags.

Except, call them Russian terrorists. Tell Europeans that Russian terrorists, together with Chechen terrorists (remember the “Chechen terrorists” Boston bombing false flag?), invaded Donbass. Also, twist history and tell Europeans that it were Russians who invaded them in 1944…

This was the plan designed for Poroshenko by his handlers and successfully accomplished:

Twitter hashtag #JeSuisDonbass

https://twitter.com/hashtag/JeSuisDonbass?src=hash

Twelve people were killed and 17 wounded when a rocket exploded close to a bus near the city of Volnovakha on January 13