Nemtsov report claims hundreds of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine

[Blue_Tires]

Source: AFP via Yahoo

Moscow (AFP) - Allies of murdered Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Tuesday unveiled a report based on research he compiled that they claimed proved large-scale Russian military involvement in Ukraine.

The report -- based on media reports and information from families of Russian soldiers allegedly killed in Ukraine -- repeats widespread allegations of Russian military involvement in Ukraine that Moscow has consistently denied.

Nemtsov -- a former deputy prime minister who became a fierce Kremlin critic -- had started work on the report before he was gunned down just yards from the Kremlin in late February.

The 64-page report said the Russian army made two major incursions into Ukrainian territory in the summer of 2014 and in the winter of 2015. Both turned the tables in the fighting and came ahead of negotiations on the conflict.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/nemtsov-report-proves-russian-army-presence-ukraine-opposition-100248294.html

---

Interesting that Greenwald/Assange/Snowden haven't had anything to say about this...Snowden especially, since he is certain to have heard the shots in his apartment...

[randome]

1. I'll wait to see what RT.com has to say about it.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Putin is Kim Jong Un's father.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[jakeXT]

2. link

The report alleges that at least 150 Russian soldiers were killed in eastern Ukraine in August 2014. A further 70, the report claims, died in the violent fighting in January and February 2015 near the town of Debaltsevo in the Donetsk Region.

The paper, available at the Open Russia advocacy website, was compiled from open sources, as well as the information Nemtsov said he obtained from the killed soldiers' relatives.

The Russian authorities have not yet seen the report. "I am not familiar with that report, so I cannot comment on it yet," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media.

Russia has been accused of sending its soldiers and military hardware to assist the anti-government fighters in eastern Ukraine almost since the start of the conflict. The repeated accusations came from Kiev, Washington and their European allies, but were not backed by any solid proof.

http://rt.com/news/257813-nemtsov-ukraine-report-kremlin/

[Blue_Tires]

3. LOL at that!

RT is such a pathetic joke...No wonder Greenwald loves them...

[DetlefK]

4. Read the comments below the article.

"Victoria Nuland tried to overthrow Putin and install Nemtsov..."
"If this were true, why wasn't this report released earlier?"
"Let's see how the western press spins this."

[jakeXT]

5. They need a lot of tin coffins a la Afghanistan to come back to Russia for a color revolution /nt

[DetlefK]

7. No color revolution. Russians long for the good old times of soviet dictatorship.

Well, most Russians do.

I think, it's similar to muslim extremism: You have the best religion in the world, Islam, and yet there is poverty and corruption everywhere while the godless heathens have all the high standards of living and peace and prosperity. The nation-states have failed us, the only alternative left for a better life is giving religion a try.
All those evil people holding us down will pay.

Russia went from being the head of the Soviet Union, de facto an empire with colonies, to being a single nation. And even though Russia couldn't offer much politically or economically, the Russians still felt that Russia was owed a role as a global player. But somehow this global influence never materialized: Eastern Europe looked towards the West instead of the East. The EU and NATO expanded into territory that was reserved for Russia's expansion, the re-establishment of its former glory that would happen any minute now, any minute now.
(There is no way those countries would deliberately prefer the West over Russia, because they once belonged to Russia and they are supposed to belong to Russia again. There must scheming and secret aggression on part of the West. => Ukraine)

Combine that with the chaos after the break-down of the Soviet Union: The embarassing drunken mess that was Boris Yeltzin and the pillaging of the russian economy that created the russian billionnaire-class, the oligarchs.
Russians want the good old days back, the days when things were better, when Russia was powerful and there were no oligarchs, when Russia was a global power. Putin gives them this pride they are longing for and the Russians are willing to grant him leeway on everything else for that.

I remember reading an article of an old russian woman. She bemoaned that the Russians have never been able to shed the soviet mindset: sacrifize and endurance for the greater good. She bemoaned that the Russians nowadays still unquestioningly accept hardships as a natural part of life instead of treating them as a sign that something is wrong.

[jakeXT]

9. Russia doesn't know her place according to the Neocons

WASHINGTON, March 7 – In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.

A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be “convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”

The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.

Rejecting Collective Approach

To perpetuate this role, the United States “must sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order,” the document states.

http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm

[DetlefK]

10. First: As if Russia and China don't have similar strategies. Second: ...

The problem isn't that "Russia hasn't been put in its place" or something like that. The problems is that Russia demands special treatment from other countries, and especially former members of the soviet Union, without having the diplomatic or political or economic influence that would lead to this kind of special treatment in the first place.
What can Russia offer? What? The ONLY reason why Russia is still considered a global power are its nuclear weapons. It wields no significant cultural, economic or diplomatic influence. (Unless you count being best buddies with Assad...)

Russia thinks that the independence of formerly soviet nations is temporary until they come to their senses and decide to rejoin some kind of russian empire. That's why Russia was so pissed when Ukraine negotiated about entering NATO and EU: In the eyes of Russia, Ukraine is property of Russia. And you don't mess with someone else's property.





"Come back to me, honey! I love you! You know I do! I am so sorry I punched you! I won't do it again! We are meant to be together!"

[Cha]

21. Mahalo, Detlef.. "Germany finally seeing Vladimir Putin for who he really is".. I don't know if you

have seen this..

snip//

Russia’s unilateral redrawing of Ukraine’s borders has refocused minds in Germany. Putin’s annexation of Crimea, his lies that Russian troops were not involved, and his covert war in eastern Ukraine have eroded trust in the Kremlin. Germany’s political elite — unlike the isolationist, latently anti-American population at large —has no illusions that Putin’s actions are posing the greatest danger to European security since the Cold War.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hails from the traditionally Russophile Social Democrats, is the starkest example of this evolution. Steinmeier, together with his French and Polish counterparts, tried to negotiate a settlement between Viktor Yanukovych, then Ukraine’s president, and anti-government protesters in February 2014. Later, Steinmeier spearheaded Merkel’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the spiraling conflict through the revival of the so-called Minsk agreement. In the process, he suffered the same Kremlin lies that Secretary of State John Kerry complained about last month.

More..
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/03/09/germany-finally-seeing-vladimir-putin-for-who-he-really-is/

[freshwest]

18. Pictorial evidence to support this post!

[Cha]

22. Wow, amazing how the rw asshole putin has supporters on a Dem board! Or is it?

Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America

Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s message on the comments section of top American websites.

Plans attached to emails leaked by a mysterious Russian hacker collective show IT managers reporting on a new ideological front against the West in the comments sections of Fox News, Huffington Post, The Blaze, Politico, and WorldNetDaily.

The bizarre hive of social media activity appears to be part of a two-pronged Kremlin campaign to claim control over the internet, launching a million-dollar army of trolls to mold American public opinion as it cracks down on internet freedom at home.

MOre..
http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america#.rjxANxXDQ

FFin' Hypocrites.

[MattSh]

6. Stop editorializing about something you have no clue about...

That's over 550 miles for the metrically challenged.

[DetlefK]

8. I bet, he was talking about the murder of Nemtsov.

[newthinking]

12. "Most Russians do"

The editorializing by people who obviously have little experience or understanding of the complexity of our multicultural world (other than the spoon fed MSM narrative of "US" vs "Them&quot .

Like every other large culture one can't define them (Russians) and attempt to stereotype them nor can one understand other cultures well through the veil of our culture, particulartly through the false veil of "American cultural Exceptional-ism" (and with our own cultural paradoxes).

Reminds me of Americans who travel to Europe for two weeks and then think they know the culture they visited.

It is even worse when they make such stereotyped claims that it expose bigotry.

[BainsBane]

16. Cut the crap

You're the one who couldn't tell Moscow from St. Petersburg.

This report is released by the Russian leftist opposition, not Westerners and not social media. It proves the crap you have been spewing has been false. You need to address that fact instead of turning to your ridiculous efforts to distract from the evidence in front of you.

A few on DU have been repeating false propaganda in order to justify war and Russian takeover of the Ukraine. Not only did the leaked documents published in Novaya Gazeta a couple of months ago demonstrate that the takeover was planned in the Kremlin before the fall of the govt in Kiev, but now you have a formal report from the leftist Russian oppositions showing $1 Billion in military spending on the war in the Ukraine. They also have testimony from the families of Russian soldiers whose loved ones died in the conflict, and a whole array of other evidence.


Are you going to admit you've been wrong? Or do you simply not care? Is the cause of promoting Russian war on the Ukraine so important that truth is inconsequential?

The irony of your remark about multiculturalism is that you and others here have been repeating racist propaganda that paints Russian speakers as inherently superior to Ukrainians. People have relied on the discourse of imperialism to justify a bloody war and thousands of deaths. One admitted to willingly engaging in disinformation in order to justify the reconstitution of the Russian empire in order to challenge US hegemony. His excuse was that is would supposedly undermine the US MIC, which is of course ridiculous since the MIC emerged out of the Cold War. The fact is it is simply a position that promotes empire and war.

[BainsBane]

15. This report proves you have been wrong all along

Russia is engaged in military operations to destabilize and annex the Ukraine. Their own public records show they have spent $1 Billion on military operations, training and arming of Russian militias sent into the Ukraine, and arming of pro-Russian Ukranians. It is an invasion and effort to reconquer the Ukraine and all the shit the anti-Ukrainian folks on DU have been spewing is nothing more than Russian propaganda designed to legitimate war. People have been actively warmongering for Russia, and it is reprehensible.

Now, for people who agree with Putin that Ukranians are ethnically inferior and unfit to rule themselves, because they don't like the people or the government they chose, they will justify any among of bloodshed. That racist propaganda put out by Russia is accompanied by a homophobic and misogynistic propaganda that justifies depriving Ukrainians of self rule because they are essentially gay and like women, not real men like the great Russia people, led by a "real man" like Putin.

So we have here people who align themselves with an eplicity racist, misogynistic, and homophobic campaign in order to justify the reconstitution of the Russia empire No amount of evidence matters. I think it's clear they know what is up. One actually came out and admitted it, after many months of smokescreen. They don't care because they simply want to see Russia takeover Eastern Europe, and will justify any amount of bloodshed to pursue that goal. The irony is they then cynically accuse people who oppose that military intervention of being pro-war. For them, pro-war is the absence of dead bodies and peace is defined by Russian military conqeust. Anyone who dares to suggest that imperial military takeover is wrong, or even annoyingly points to evidence, is accused of being pro-war. It is that kind of blatant dishonesty that is particularly reprehensible.


The fact is, regardless of what the West knows, Russia will continue to carry out war on the Ukraine, dead bodies will continue to pile up, and Russia will eventually gain direct control of the Eastern Ukraine, if not all of it. No need to fret. There is no danger that this report will actually lead to an end to Russian imperial incursion or the sparing of the lives of the inferior Ukrainian people. They will still die. Russia will continue to reconstitute it's empire, and there is absolutely no danger of peace breaking out, or the cease fire holding because Putin has a clear plan that he will not see thwarted. The war you have worked so hard to promote and justify will happen anyway. Despite opposition from the Russian left, war will continue because knowledge and truth cannot begin to eclipse Putin's brute force and violent and lethal suppression of dissent.

[freshwest]

17. Oh, now you did it! *sound of microwave popcorn*

[Cha]

24. "Germany finally seeing Vladimir Putin for who he really is".. Wanted you to see this, too, fresh..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1093209

[freshwest]

25. Oh boy. The spamming at that site resembles the Infowars crowd everywhere. Pathetic. n/t

[Cha]

20. They have so much invested in protecting putin at all costs.. to the point of making themselves

silly.

I really appreciate your deconstructing their propaganda piece by piece, BB.

I hate the homophobic and internet/journalist suppressing, putin, and the people who apologize for him. they say they're on the "left" in America.. but, protect the rt wing wanker, putin, in Russia.

[Sunlei]

11. not many russian roads lead to Ukraine and they're old roads. Was really easy to see even with

google street view every tree along the road (in Russia) had been marked with fresh white paint ring around the trunk. Many miles of farmed fields on both sides of the only road, melons, pumpkins, potatoes. At several points along, right at the side of the road about 50 miles from border- stacks of produce and large potato sacks. No people around, crops waiting for the Russian invaders to pick up.

It's true what they say, "An army marches on its stomach."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. The paint is against insects, borers. Has nothing to do with invasions.

Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a crude use of force, but boring insects are not evidence of that.

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/tgen/painting-tree-trunks-white.htm

[newthinking]

14. Perfect example of social media theory gone awry.

Social media is only useful when corrolated with a secondary source such as first hand reports. It gets even sloppier when countries all have war "marketing" (re: propaganda) in place.

[Sunlei]

19. only the trees directly ajacent to the road, any cross road/ split road not a marked tree in sight.

[Cha]

23. Good.. some facts seeping out of Russia.. Good for the Left in Russia trying to bring the truth

to fore.. in spite of so many getting assassinated by.. ? No, putin, asshole, wouldn't do that, would he?

Mahalo BT