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Page added on April 4, 2015
Russia to train rebels in Ukraine
Russia’s natural gas will continue to flow to Ukraine, following a new deal. The deal comes despite ongoing tensions between the two neighbors over the conflict in eastern Ukraine where Russian military trainers have arrived to support pro-Russian rebels.
While a shaky ceasefire takes hold in more areas, news media report Russia is reducing its troops and shifting its presence towards military training.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
Independent observers and the NATO military alliance say Russia has hundreds of military trainers in eastern Ukraine to support pro-Russian separatists.
However, the West has been active in government-controlled areas. Nearly 300 United States paratroopers are expected to arrive in Ukraine by April 20 to train government forces.
Moscow has consistently denied its military role in the conflict, saying those present are “Russian volunteers.”
STANDOFF CONTINUES
Despite the stand-off, Kiev and Moscow have managed to agree on a key short-term natural gas deal: Ukraine will pay $248 dollars/1,000 cubic meters over the next three months, down from $329 it was paying in the first quarter of this year.
Both sides will have to continue to find a permanent solution to the long-running pricing dispute.
Kiev has accused Moscow of using natural gas as a political tool, with Moscow forcing the country to pay in advance for any future deliveries. But in remarks on the wider tensions with Russia, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko warned his nation would not be blackmailed.
“First of all we do not accept any ultimatum,” he said in a recent interview with Euronews television. “Second, the way of development of our country will be decided by the Ukrainian people. Third, we are now, together with our European, American and the world partners (committed) to defending freedom, democracy and the independence of my state – and we do not allow anybody to blackmail us.”
Europe is closely monitoring the situation as it imports 40 per cent of its natural gas from Russia, half of it through war-torn Ukraine.
The conflict that killed more than 6,000 people, followed the overthrow of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and the annexation by Russia of Crimea, where this week one of the last independent television stations of the Tatar minority was forced off the air.
4 Comments on "Russia to train rebels in Ukraine"
Plantagenet on Sat, 4th Apr 2015 5:25 pm
Russia has been training and arming the “rebels” all along. Some of the “rebels” are officers and special forces from the Russian Army—Putin himself admitted he sent in the Russia army to seize Crimea, and he continues the same policy now.
Davy on Sat, 4th Apr 2015 5:45 pm
Planter if the Russians didn’t have troops there I would call them incompetent. This is Realpolitik not paddy cakes. This is serious business and a great cold war in action. Let us hope for everyone’s sake the US and Russia can somehow bury the hatchet and become blood brothers in the Native American tradition before we blow each other up.
dissident on Sat, 4th Apr 2015 6:39 pm
The usual Pavlovian language of the western media. Pro-Russian rebels. LOL. They are Russians so of course they are pro-Russian. Funny how NATO and its media concocted a whole new ethnicity in the case of Kosovo: Kosovars. They never called them pro-Albanian rebels and they were ethnic Albanians. But in the case of the Donbas the language is explicitly selected to deny the rights of the local indigenous population (by any reasonable standard, if you want to go back thousands of years then no people are indigenous). If NATO’s politicians and media want to have any credibility, they need to apply the same standards to the same cases.
Makati1 on Sat, 4th Apr 2015 7:53 pm
Dissident, you are correct. As if the Vatican is a reliable source of info…lol. Think about the lies they already promote … like the Easter event. Or the fact that they sided with Hitler in Nazi Germany. Or the ongoing child molesting by their ‘clergy’. Or…
If say, the Chinese or Russians had promoted and paid for a coup of the Canadian government and were building a network of missile bases just north of the border, would the UFSA just ignore them? Think Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest we have come to nuclear war up until now. We were saved by a Russian* who disobeyed orders that time. Will we be so lucky this time?
I think Russia has been very patient with the UFSA, but maybe that patience is wearing thin? I once read an account of Russia being forced into a corner and then deciding on a nuclear first strike on the UFSA. I think we are edging closer to that every day.
*http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war