U.S. Signals Putin Not to Move Against New NATO Members

[mick silver]

By Terry Atlas Apr 30, 2014 3:57 PM ET 565 Comments Email Print

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http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iNQ5VzYxDEQ4.jpgPhotographer: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesU.S. President Barack Obama.




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• U.S. Kerry Speaks About Ukraine, Russia, NATO

Unsure of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, the Obama administration is attempting to warn the Kremlin not to test the U.S. commitment to defend its allies in eastern and central Europe.
Jet fighters from the U.K., Denmark, France and Polandwill begin flying air patrols over the Baltic states tomorrow “as part of collective defense measures,” the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said in a statement today. Canadian jets are deploying to Romania “as part of NATO efforts to reassure allies” in Central and Eastern Europe, the alliance said.
Those measures and others, including deployments of U.S. troops for military exercises, are part of an effort to discourage any thoughts Putin may have about extending Russia’s reach beyond Ukraine.
The U.S. will defend its NATO allies “no ifs, ands or buts,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said today at an Atlantic Council conference inWashington.
Secretary of State John Kerry said at the conference yesterday that unlike Ukraine, which isn’t a NATO member and where alliance nations have ruled out war, a move against a treaty ally would have grave consequences.
“We have to make it absolutely clear to the Kremlin that NATO territory is inviolable,” Kerry said. “We will defend every single piece of it.”
The comments by Biden and Kerry are intended to reassure nations such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all former Soviet republics, and draw a red line for Russia.
Credibility Issues

There are reasons why Putin may doubt America’s resolve. PresidentBarack Obama backed away from a red line when he threatened military action if Syria used chemical weapons, then didn’t follow through. Diplomats say that’s hurt U.S. credibility internationally. Further, the crisis in Europe comes as polls show Americans want the U.S to play a reduced role overseas.
Historically, Americans have supported the defense commitment to NATO, the key alliance assembled after World War II to defend Western Europe against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. Under Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the U.S. and all other members would consider an armed attack on any one of them an attack on all.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has extended its membership to nations once dominated by the Soviet Union, including the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Slovenia.Georgia, a former Soviet republic that fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008 over breakaway regions, is seeking fast-track NATO membership as a result of the Ukraine crisis.
‘Shattering NATO’

The U.S. and its allies have presented NATO’s expansion as a measure to enhance European stability, while Russian leaders have considered it a threat.
Putin may have his eye on testing the U.S. and the major European powers, particularly if he gets away with actions against Ukraine, said Stephen Hadley, who was national security adviser to President George W. Bush.
“I think this is also about shattering NATO and potentially shattering the EU, because if he were to do something in the Baltics and we did not respond, that’s the end of Article 5, that’s the end of NATO,” Hadley said, addressing the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based group that promotes trans-Atlantic relations, shortly before Biden spoke.
“Potentially this is not just about reestablishing some kind of Russian empire,” Hadley said. “It’s also quite frankly an effort to see how far he can go to disrupt NATO and perhaps even disrupt” the European Union.
‘Solemn Commitments’

The former Soviet republics of Latvia and Estonia have large ethnic Russian minorities, and Russia has long complained about their treatment. The Estonians are “scared to death” that Putin will threaten them as he has the Ukrainians, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said this week.
“In response to Russian aggression, America is taking steps to make clear that our allies will honor the solemn commitments under Article 5 of the NATO treaty,” Biden said. “That is an absolute, ironclad guarantee.''
Biden invoked an ‘‘ironclad commitment’’ when he met yesterday with Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma, according to a statement issued by the White House.
While NATO has made symbolic military deployments, it’s unclear how the defensive alliance would respond to the kind of intimidation and destabilization campaign Russia used to annex Crimea and now is waging in eastern Ukraine.
American Opinion

A poll of Americans published today highlighted the public pressure on the Obama administration and Congress to limit the American role abroad. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 47 percent of respondents said the U.S. should take a less active role in world affairs, a larger share than in similar polls taken in 2001, 1997 and 1995.
Support for Obama’s handing of the Ukraine crisis dropped to 37 percent from 43 percent a month earlier, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, and Obama and his European counterparts have made it clear that the alliance won’t be drawn into a war with Russia over it.
‘‘We in Europe are very much in agreement that a military resolution of the problems cannot happen,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today in Aachen, Germany. “It’s not on the agenda. War is no solution, and so we have to find other ways.”
Merkel is scheduled to discuss Ukraine with Obama at the White House on May 2. Her visit comes as the U.S. and Germany are advancing economic sanctions against Russian individuals and companies and are threatening broader sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine.
Air Patrols

The U.S. today handed over responsibility for the Baltic air-defense patrols to the U.K., Denmark, France and Poland. An airborne infantry company with about 150 troops from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy, landed in Estonia on Apr. 28 for military exercises.
A total of about 600 soldiers from the brigade are deploying to Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Estonia, to train with local forces, the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany announced April 22.
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas said today his country seeks a permanent presence of NATO forces to increase deterrence.
To contact the reporter on this story: Terry Atlas in Washington at tatlas@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Larry Liebert

[mick silver]

Ukraine detains Russian military attaché for spying

http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editor...b5cec5193.jpeg By Natalia Zinets and Matt Robinson4 hours ago














http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/KW...S-DIPLOMAT.JPG.

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Members of Ukraine's State Security Administration (R) clash with members of the Euromaidan movement's …

By Natalia Zinets and Matt Robinson



KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Thursday it had detained Russia's military attaché to Kiev on suspicion of spying and ordered him to leave, as the ex-Soviet republic wrestles with an armed uprising it says is orchestrated by Moscow.
In a statement, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the unnamed diplomat was detained on Wednesday while undertaking "intelligence activities".
Ukraine accuses Russia of orchestrating the fall of towns and cities across its industrial east to pro-Russian separatists over the past month, spearheaded by well-organized gunmen in masks and military fatigues.
Russia denies having any part in the rebellion, but has warned it reserves the right to intervene to protect ethnic Russians - following its annexation of Crimea in late March - and has massed tens of thousands of troops on its western frontier with Ukraine.
"The military-naval attaché of the embassy of the Russian Federation in Ukraine is declared persona non grata in connection with his actions, which are not in accordance with his diplomatic status," the ministry said.
The diplomat was ordered to leave, though the statement mentioned no deadline. There was no immediate response from Moscow, which like Kiev is observing the May 1 holiday.
Ukraine's pro-Western leaders conceded on Wednesday they were "helpless" to counter the fall of government buildings and police stations to the separatists in the Donbass coal and steel belt of eastern Ukraine, source of around a third of the country's industrial output.
"PROVOCATIONS"
Having seized key buildings in the capital of the easternmost province, Luhansk, on Tuesday, gunmen took control at dawn on Wednesday in the nearby towns of Horlivka and Alchevsk.
In Donetsk, the biggest city to fall, mainly Russian-speaking separatists have declared a "People's Republic of Donetsk" and called a referendum on secession for May 11, threatening to undercut a planned presidential election in Ukraine two weeks later.
Ukraine hopes the presidential poll will help restore order after five months of civil turmoil that saw Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich toppled after street protests and gun battles in central Kiev, and Russia's subsequent annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Pro-Western authorities that took power with Yanukovich's ouster accuse Russia of planning to disrupt the presidential election, create instability and frustrate the new government's hopes of Western integration.
Overnight, the state security guard, responsible for securing key government sites and officials, carried out a small drill in central Kiev. Four armored personnel carriers trundled through the streets to parliament, where several dozen troops took position as if responding to a threat.
The guard's commander, Valery Galetey, said they were training for possible "provocations" during the May 25 election.
On Tuesday, Oleksander Turchinov, Ukraine's acting president, said the armed forces were on full alert for a Russian invasion.
That prompted a return volley from Moscow, where the Foreign Ministry demanded that Kiev "immediately ceases the bellicose rhetoric, which is aimed at intimidating its own population".
(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Will Waterman)

[keehah]

Programs and centers

The U.S. will defend its NATO allies “no ifs, ands or buts,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said today at an Atlantic Council conference in Washington. Secretary of State John Kerry said at the conference yesterday that unlike Ukraine, which isn’t a NATO member and where alliance nations have ruled out war, a move against a treaty ally would have grave consequences...

“I think this is also about shattering NATO and potentially shattering the EU, because if he were to do something in the Baltics and we did not respond, that’s the end of Article 5, that’s the end of NATO,” [Stephen] Hadley said, addressing the Atlantic Council,

The Atlantic Council is NATO's version of the WEF it seems.

substack.com: Atlantic Council Ukraine Connections

Pete Lincoln Apr 2

For those unfamiliar with the Atlantic Council it is described by critics as the unofficial lobby group of NATO. The council is a bipartisan rogues’ gallery of senior military leaders, neocons and ex-spies. Former heads of the CIA on its board include Michael Hayden, R. James Woolsey, Leon Panetta and Michael Morell, who was in line to be Hillary Clinton’s CIA chief.

The council is backed financially by weapons-makers like Raytheon, energy titans like Exxon-Mobil and banks like JPMorgan Chase. It also accepts funds from multiple foreign countries, some of them with less-than-sterling reputations for human rights and — notably — press freedoms.

The Atlantic Council was also given a six-figure donation by Ukrainian energy giant Burisma, which gave Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, a $50,000-per-month spot on its board.

Founded in 1961 as a NATO offshoot, the Atlantic Council has risen to become the pre-eminent foreign policy think tank.

Situated less than 700 yards from the White House, its board of directors is a who’s who of high state officials, including Condoleezza Rice and until recently the late Colin Powell as well as senior military commanders such as Wesley Clark, David Petraeus, H.R. McMaster and James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Also on the board of directors are no fewer than seven former CIA directors. As such, it could be said to represent the collective opinion of the national security state. This is why this incident is not simply a minor tiff, but a disagreement with potentially profound repercussions...

n a series of reports, the Council has gone so far as to claim that virtually every European party challenging the centrist establishment is secretly controlled by Vladimir Putin. From Labour and UKIP in the U.K. to Syriza and Golden Dawn in Greece and PODEMOS and Vox in Spain, all are actually the “Kremlin’s Trojan Horses” in the Council’s estimation.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/atlant...rticle/276120/

Lets take a peek at what they have been up to over the past decade

2010-On September 23rd, international luminaries gathered at the inaugural Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award Dinner, honoring Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of World Economic Forum, with its first Global Citizen Award

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/comm...-award-dinner/

2015, the think tank helped prepare a proposal for arming the Ukrainian military with offensive weaponry like Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Given that the Atlantic Council has been funded by the two manufacturers of the Javelin system, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, this created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. In fact, the think tank presented its Distinguished Business Leadership Award to Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson that same year.

2016-One of the senior fellows of the Atlantic Council is CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch. CrowdStrike is the company that supposedly concluded the Russians were behind the hack of the DNC in 2016 during the campaign. The FBI never had access to the server.

2017-On Jan. 19 — Burisma announced a major “cooperative agreement” with the Atlantic Council.

The deal was inked by the director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia program, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine named John Herbst.

Since then, Burisma helped bankroll Atlantic Council programming, including an energy security conference

At one such conference in Monaco, then-Burisma board member Hunter Biden declared, “One of the reasons that I am proud to be a member of the board at Burisma is that I believe we are trying to figure out the way to create a radical change in the way we look at energy.” (Hunter Biden left Burisma when his father launched his presidential campaign this year).

2018, the Atlantic Council announced that it was partnering with Facebook to help it decide what the mega-platform’s 2.7 billion users see in their news feeds. A senior council member also holds a directorship position at popular social media website Reddit.

The council claims that its digital forensics lab is uniquely placed to be able to distinguish between fake news and genuine information online. Yet much of the most questionable information on foreign affairs is emanating from the Atlantic Council itself...

https://con-alerts.com/watch-pfizer-...-with-fbi-cia/

“Speaking to the globalist Atlantic Council in a virtual meeting, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla admitted that his corporation is “getting briefings from the CIA and FBI” on the “spread of misinformation” relating to COVID-19 vaccines.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla strangely admitted that the major pharmaceutical corporation is getting briefed on “the spread of misinformation” of COVID-19 vaccines from “the CIA and FBI” while speaking to the globalist Atlantic Council...

Lets take a look at Ukrainian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk who is one of Atlantic Councils larger contributors

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation supports the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine in Europe Initiative, which is designed to galvanize international support for an independent Ukraine within secure borders whose people will determine their own future.

He is accused of paying for Zelensky and Biden’s Florida mansions (unsubstantiated)

He is a Jewish oligarch, who made most of his cash after marrying the daughter of former Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma.

He is very closely aligned with Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, and also works with George Soros – (the guy who paid for the EuroMaidan coup that got rid of the pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovychh)...

According to The Federalist, top Mitt Romney adviser Joseph Cofer Black, who publicly goes by “Cofer Black,” joined Burisma’s board of directors while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board.

Romney’s adviser, Cofer Black, trained for CIA covert operations and eventually became the director of the National Counterterrorism Center under George W. Bush.

In February 2017, shortly after Burisma Holdings announced its partnership with the Atlantic Council, Black joined the board. Black was to provide assistance with energy and security challenges for the fastest-growing natural gas company in the Ukraine. He served on the board alongside Hunter Biden from early 2017 until Biden’s resignation in April 2019. Black remains on the Board of the company to this day.

https://drrichswier.com/2019/10/12/p...inian-sandbox/...

Black continued in his role at the CIA after 9/11 and helped set the stage for the invasion of Afghanistan. He famously briefed the Russian government about the American invasion plans. The Russians, who had spent considerable blood and treasure in years prior in Afghanistan, had warned Black, “You’re really going to get the hell kicked out of you.” To which he replied, “We’re going to kill them – we’re going to put their heads on sticks.”...

A 2012 study of Burisma Holdings done in Ukraine by the AntiCorruption Action Centre (ANTAC), an investigative nonprofit co-funded by American billionaire George Soros and the U.S. State Department, found that the true owner of Burisma Holdings was none other than Ukrainian billionaire-oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky...

In other words, Cofer Black's boss and benefactor at Burisma Holdings is the same Ukrainian billionaire-oligarch who also claimed the position of boss and benefactor over Volodymyr Zelensky before he became Ukraine’s president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council

The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association....

The Atlantic Council was founded with the stated mission to encourage the continuation of cooperation between North America and Europe that began after World War II...

In February 2009, James L. Jones, then-chairman of the Atlantic Council, stepped down in order to serve as President Obama's new National Security Advisor...

The Atlantic Council has, since its inception, stated it is a nonpartisan institution, with members "from the moderate internationalist wings of both parties" in the United States. Despite its connections, the Council is by charter independent of the U.S. government and NATO, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization...

Programs and centers

The Young Atlanticist Network -- Launched at the 2008 Bucharest summit—brings together a community of emerging leaders who share a vision of closer Euro-Atlantic cooperation based on common values. Through online tools and regular events, the Young Atlanticist Network serves as a forum for open dialogue between young Atlanticists so they can exchange their views on a range of international issues. As a meeting place, the Network serves as a stage for global leaders to address the next generation and to share the perspective on current issues.

The Young Atlanticist Network also manages the Future Leaders program. The Council hosted the 2014 Future Leaders Summit on the side-lines of the NATO 2014 Wales summit. This Future Leaders Summit connected emerging leaders from NATO member countries with one another, the Alliance's current leaders, people from the international security sphere, and a global network of peers.