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Russian and Ukrainian leaders have concluded their first official face-to-face meeting in Minsk during which they discussed Ukraine's Association Agreement with EU and the crisis and humanitarian disaster in the east of the country.
Russia will do everything to facilitate a peace process in Ukraine, President Putin told the press following the 2-hour talks, which he described as "positive."
However, Russia did not and had never set forth conditions for settling Ukraine's internal conflict, Putin added, so a ceasefire agreement was not discussed during the talks in the absence of peace suggestions from Ukrainian leadership.
"We, Russia, cannot talk about any ceasefire conditions whatsoever, or possible agreements between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk," Putin stated.
"We can only facilitate the creation of an environment of trust in the course of this possible and much needed, in my opinion, negotiation process. This is what we talked about," Putin added.
Comment: As Robert Parry, who covered the Iran-Contra story in the '80s, writes below, it's difficult to fathom the fact that so many Americans can believe the audacious lies spouted by their government and media. It's a two-pronged problem: On the one hand we have the psychopaths in power who simply tell bald-faced lies, completely manufactured out of thin air -- the "Big Lie" -- and those in on the game who repeat the lie because it supports their interests, like the presstitute media. (E.g., "Russia invades Ukraine!") On the other, we have the people, who can't fathom that anyone could tell such a lie. "They must have some justification for believing that. They wouldn't say it otherwise!" That's exactly with the PTB are counting on. Facts and evidence be damned.
On Monday, Krugman's New York Times column accepts the storyline that Russia's President Vladimir Putin instigated the Ukraine crisis and extrapolates from that "fact" the conclusion that perhaps the nefarious Putin did so to engineer a cheap land grab or to distract Russians from their economic problems.
"Delusions of easy winnings still happen," Krugman wrote. "It's only a guess, but it seems likely that Vladimir Putin thought that he could overthrow Ukraine's government, or at least seize a large chunk of its territory, on the cheap - a bit of deniable aid to the rebels, and it would fall into his lap. ...Or you could look at the actual facts of how the Ukraine crisis began and realize that it was the West, not Russia, that instigated this crisis. Putin's response has been reactive to what he perceives as threats posed by the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and the imposition of a new Western-oriented regime hostile to Moscow and Ukraine's ethnic Russians.
"Recently Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review suggested that the roots of the Ukraine crisis may lie in the faltering performance of the Russian economy. As he noted, Mr. Putin's hold on power partly reflects a long run of rapid economic growth. But Russian growth has been sputtering - and you could argue that the Putin regime needed a distraction."
Comment: Dmitry Orlov, a Russian-American engineer, offers you the tools to navigate through the Western propaganda without becoming hostages to lies. Because there is a genocide going on and by believing and spreading lies, we become accomplices.
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With regard to the goings-on in Ukraine, I have heard quite a few European and American voices piping in, saying that, yes, Washington and Kiev are fabricating an entirely fictional version of events for propaganda purposes, but then so are the Russians. They appear to assume that if their corporate media is infested with mendacious, incompetent buffoons who are only too happy to repeat the party line, then the Russians must be same or worse.
The reality is quite different. While there is a virtual news blackout with regard to Ukraine in the West, with little being shown beyond pictures of talking heads in Washington and Kiev, the media coverage in Russia is relentless, with daily bulletins describing troop movements, up-to-date maps of the conflict zones, and lots of eye-witness testimony, commentary and analysis. There is also a lively rumor mill on Russian and international social networks, which I tend to disregard because it's mostly just that: rumor. In this environment, those who would attempt to fabricate a fictional narrative, as the officials in Washington and Kiev attempt to do, do not survive very long.
There is a great deal to say on the subject, but here I want to limit myself to rectifying some really, really basic misconceptions that Washington has attempted to impose on you via its various corporate media mouthpieces.
How do we know that this is a lie? Is it because we have heard nothing but lies about Russia from NATO, from US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, from assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, from Obama and his entire regime of pathological liars, and from the British, German, and French governments along with the BBC and the entirety of the Western media?
This, of course, is a good reason for knowing that the latest Western propaganda is a lie. Those who are pathological liars don't suddenly start telling the truth.
But there are even better reasons for understanding that Russia has not invaded Ukraine with 1,000 troops.
One reason is that Putin has invested heavily in diplomacy backed by unprovocative behavior. He would not risk his bet on diplomacy by sending in troops too few in number to have a decisive effect on the outcome.
© AFP Photo / Kirill KudryavtsevEU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger (R) attends a meeting with Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak (L) on August 29, 2014 in Moscow.
The gas situation is 'critical' Russia's Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said after meeting with EU energy chief Gunther Oettinger in Moscow on Friday. The minister expressed concern about Ukraine's preparations for the winter months as gas supplies dwindle, and warned Kiev might siphon off Europe-bound deliveries.
Russia said they will resume gas deliveries to Ukraine if they pay $1.45 billion of their gas debt, Aleksey Miller, CEO of Gazprom, said. Naftogaz, Ukraine's national oil and gas company, has a total debt of $5.3 billion.
Comment: Check out the article "Tilting at pipelines: Geopolitical madness at the end of empire" for a wider perspective of this messy situation:
Behind the 2009 crisis, a similar one in 2006 and the one happening right now, we find what can only be described as squabbling Ukrainian oligarchs vying for control over the profits from Russian gas that transits through and is sold in Ukraine. In addition, there is the ubiquitous presence of the USA as it pursues its decades-long 'strategic interest' in attempting to weaken the Russian-EU energy partnership.
© RIA Novosti / Sergey KuznecovArmy servicemen of the 31st Individual Assault Brigade at the joint exercises of the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force at the Spassk proving ground in Kazakhstan's Karaganda Region on August 18, 2014.
No facts about Russian military being present on the territory of Ukraine have ever been presented, Sergey Lavrov pointed out, while speculation on the issue has been voiced repeatedly, he stressed.
"It's not the first time we've heard wild guesses, though facts have never been presented so far," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.
Comment: For months the press have been stating that "Russia invaded Ukraine" and again and again it is revealed that they are just the lying, sniveling accomplices of war criminals:
War crimes here: Kiev drops white phosphorus on citizens of Slavyansk
Kievs genocidal turkey shoot: 478 civilians dead in E. Ukraine
Conservative death toll in Ukraine doubles in two weeks
Comment: The following commentary by Steven MacMillan for NEO highlights the involvement of Western NGOs in the co-called 'color revolutions', i.e. covert coups d'etat. Putin made the right choice in expelling USAID from Russia, among other steps to hamstring the operation of foreign operatives intent on destabilizing Russia and bringing it under the control of Western financial and political interests.
Colour revolutions are based upon a fusion of the Rand Corporation's "swarming" technique invented in the 1960's and Professor Gene Sharp's guide to nonviolent struggle in the 1990's. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act as an extension of western intelligence agencies to create artificial revolutionary movements in countries that oppose Anglo-American hegemony through the use of social networks and text messaging, resulting in the overthrow of unfavorable regimes. They always appear as organic demonstrations by a people against a corrupt ruling class, which is reinforced and sometimes manufactured by the mainstream corporate media, but in reality they are organised by foreign NGOs - like in the case of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), a U.S supported Serbian based "revolution consultancy" group, which was operating in Ukraine during 2013-14. The 2000 coup in Serbia, the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine are some of the most notorious coups where this technique has been used.
Comment: For a better idea on why the West hates Putin so much, see: 2007: Vladimir Putin exposes the NWO, post speech Q&A
See also: Russian Maidan in St. Petersburg in September
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CrossTalking with Joshua Tartakovsky, Dmitry Babich and Jim Dean.
Comment: As is mentioned in the show, when all the schemes of the West fails, whether it be regime change in Syria or in Ukraine, then blame the Russians. The ones that is going to pay for this mess in Ukraine is going to be the West, apart from the Ukrainians, who were led astray by their wishful thinking and of course the Western/Ukrainian media onslaught.
Comment: It needs to be said: the UK has a culture of paedophilia in high places. And it's not the only country. While news of this latest scandal makes the headlines, the high-profile investigation into paedo MPs continues. As Tony Gosling writes for RT, the problem is systemic and inquiries are set up to fail. The child abusers run free. Make no mistake, these are the same sorts of people running western civilization into the ground, fomenting chaos in the Middle East, and demonizing Putin in order to make the way clear for criminal oligarchy and psychopathic license.
© Ross ParryRoger Stone, leader of Rotherham council, who has stepped down from his position.
Children in the town were systematically identified by gangs as vulnerable, seduced with drugs and drink, brainwashed into believing they were in a relationship with an adult and then used for sex, often raped before sometimes being trafficked to nearby cities to work as prostitutes.
The brutal violence that surrounded this depraved process was shocking. Children who refused to acquiesce to ever more macabre demands were doused in petrol, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and told they would be next if they told anyone.
While some of this will be familiar to a British public which has been appalled by the revelations tumbling out of high-profile child abuse cases since 2010, Jay's report lays bare a mephitic hole in Yorkshire.
Over 16 years, she says, a "conservative estimate" is that 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town. Girls as young as 11 were gang-raped by men.
This level of abuse appears to make Rotherham the nation's child sex exploitation capital. If the town's experience was replicated across the country, England would have 19,000 children criminally abused by gangs every year. The children's commissioner thinks that at the moment the figure is about 2,000.
Comment: A small sample of world-wide terrorism sponsored and financed by the American government and paid with the precious tax payer's money!
While the US government still claims it is fighting a "War on Terror", it is often forgotten that the US government has a friendly relationship with many terrorist groups around the world. This relationship is not merely historical, but current.
The US government often supports terrorists who are fighting against government which oppose the United States. Many terrorists, who commit all kinds of violent crimes against humanity, are being directly supported by the US government at this time.
Here are ten examples of US government supported terrorists from around the world.
Comment: See also: Washington's anti-Russian narrative is pure propaganda: Six big lies about Ukraine