Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Razgovory]

and here comes the next step.

Hey, at least we were calling it.

[Syt]

Meanwhile in Crimea ...

http://www.rferl.org/content/crimea-tatars/26595092.html

Crimean Tatar Scholar Attacked, Library Shut As Pressure Mounts

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea -- A Crimean Tatar scholar says masked assailants dragged him from his car and took his passport in an attack meant to prevent him from attending a UN conference in New York.

The attack on Nadir Bekir late on September 18 came hours after Russian authorities moved to seize the Crimean Tatar assembly, the Mejlis, piling pressure on the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority group that largely opposed Moscow's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.

On September 19, the main Crimean Tatar library in the regional capital, Simferopol, announced that it is being shut down in accordance with an August government resolution to replace libraries on the peninsula with Russian state entities.

Bekir, an expert on indigenous peoples, told RFE/RL he was attacked on his way from Simferopol to the city of Dzhankoi, where he planned to board a train for Kyiv and then fly to New York.

He said a white minibus abruptly blocked his car on the highway. Four masked men emerged, pulled him from his car, forced him to the ground, and took his Ukrainian passport and mobile phone. He said one of the attackers opened his passport and told the others: "Yes, that 's him!"

Without his passport, Bekir said he cannot leave Crimea. He believes the attack was meant to prevent him from participating in the September 22-23 UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, part of the UN General Assembly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that the rights of Crimean Tatars would be protected after Moscow annexed the region in March, a move opposed by most Crimean Tatars and denounced as illegitimate by Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States.

But tension quickly mounted and pressure on the Crimean Tatars intensified after most members of the Turkic-speaking minority group, which makes up about 12 percent of the peninsula's population, boycotted local elections on September 14.

Houses and apartments of leading members of the Crimean Tatar community, as well as the Mejlis offices, were searched by police and unidentified masked, armed men on September 16-17. 

In the Mejlis, police confiscated records of the Crimean Tatar self-governing body's sessions as well as religious books, computers, and personal belongings of longtime Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Dzhemilev is a well-known Soviet-era human rights activist who served six sentences in Soviet prison camps from 1966 to 1986.

Earlier this year, Russian authorities barred Dzhemilev and the chairman of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov, from entering Crimea, saying their activities "incite interethnic hatred."

The pressure on Crimean Tatars is a source of particular bitterness because the community was deported en masse to Central Asia in 1944 by the authorities under Josef Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany.

Many of the 200,000 deportees died on their way into exile.

Many Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea in the years before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and there have been frequent disputes over land and property on the peninsula, which are aggravated by ethnic differences between the Crimean Tatars and the Slavic population.

After Russia annexed Crimea, Putin publicly said that the rights of Crimean Tatars will be fully protected by Russian laws and signed a decree on the rehabilitation of peoples deported from Crimea in the 1940s.

But in May, the United Nations voiced concern about what it called the "serious problems" of harassment and persecution of Crimean Tatars since the annexation.

The leader of Crimea, Aksyonov, has meanwhile said that the Mejlis had failed to properly register itself with the new authorities and that it therefore doesn't exist for him.

[Tamas]

Ok, if they start putting pressure on the Baltic States while Ukrainian ashes are still hot, then Putin is really off his medicine and we can start worrying because he is operating on some pretty tight timetable.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

"After Russia annexed Crimea, Putin publicly said that the rights of Crimean Tatars will be fully protected by Russian laws "

->Given that Russian laws are worth less than the paper they're supposedly written on one should not be surprised that this is happening.

[jimmy olsen]

Really starting to look more and more unbalanced.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-renames-police-unit-after-bloody-secret-police-founder/507588.html

Putin Renames Police Unit After Bloody Cheka Founder Dzerzhinsky

    The Moscow Times
    Sep. 23 2014 12:49
    Last edited 12:49



President Vladimir Putin signed a decree restoring the title "Dzerzhinsky Division" to an elite police unit that was previously named after the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Interior Ministry's internal troops press service said Monday.

Felix Dzerzhinsky founded the Cheka, a security apparatus notorious for orchestrating mass summary executions during the Russian Civil War and the Red Terror. Established in 1924, the unit bore his name from 1926 until 1994, when its name was changed to the Independent Operational Purpose Division, the press service said. The Dzerzhinsky Division ensured security at the Potsdam Conference of 1945 and the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. It was also dispatched to the restive regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, North Ossetia and Chechnya upon the demise of the Soviet Union.

Today the unit is tasked with maintaining public order in Moscow and the surrounding region, as well as in the North Caucasus.

Dzerzhinsky's name and image have become a highly contentious issue in modern Russia.

Earlier this month, members of the Communist Party erected a plaster monument to Dzerzhinsky in front of the FSB's headquarters — the infamous Lubyanka — in downtown Moscow to mark the 137th anniversary of his birth.

A 15-ton sculpture of Dzerzhinsky stood in front of Lubyanka from 1958 until 1991, when it was toppled by protesters. There are periodically calls for the statue of the controversial figure to be returned, though so far they have not been successful.

[DGuller]

Sure, there were some excesses, but you can't just turn away from the golden age of your country's history.

[Syt]

Maybe Germany will follow suit and bring back Leibstandarte Angela Merkel.

[CountDeMoney]

Sure, there were some excesses, but you can't just turn away from the golden age of your country's history.

Felix rocked. 

[Ed Anger]

Sure, there were some excesses, but you can't just turn away from the golden age of your country's history.

DG feels pride again!

[Zanza]

Germany committed to send six fighter jets to the Baltic countries to police their airspace against Russia, but...

German fighter jets unable to fly and mechanics forced to borrow spare parts, claims magazine
A report in Spiegel magazine says German air force is weaker than previously thought and a funding crisis means scores of aircraft are not operational

The German air force is facing such a severe funding shortage that many of its aircraft are unable to fly, mechanics are forced to cannibalise parts from existing planes and only eight of the country's 109 Eurofighters are fully operational, [...]

It says as few as seven of Germany's 67 CH-53 transport helicopters are fully operational, including those currently deployed in Afghanistan, and only five of its 33 NH-80 helicopters.
Of the 56 C-160 aircraft which carry relief supplies to northern Iraq, only 21 are operational, it claims.

[...]

Under a Nato agreement, members are supposed to spend at least two per cent of their GDP on defence, but Germany spends only 1.3 per cent and is planning further cuts.

[...]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11057330/German-fighter-jets-unable-to-fly-and-mechanics-forced-to-borrow-spare-parts-claims-magazine.html

[derspiess]

FFS.  Maybe some museums over here can lend some Fw 190s back to Germany.

[Syt]

NATO reports that Russian troops are withdrawing from Ukraine.

[Syt]

A report in Spiegel magazine says German air force is weaker than previously thought and a funding crisis means scores of aircraft are not operational

"Bedingt abwehrbereit"

[Razgovory]

FFS.  Maybe some museums over here can lend some Fw 190s back to Germany.

Or just some old F-104s.  SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED!

[Tonitrus]

FFS.  Maybe some museums over here can lend some Fw 190s back to Germany.

If only Germany had this defense spending policy in the 20th century.