Толстый и тонкий

[Kampokei]

Nista Konstantinopolj? [emoji57]

[Lord Protector]

To je ostavljeno za kraj i namerno nije ucrtano jer je Beowl tamo na specijalnom zadatku

Edited February 27, 2015 by slow

[Lord Protector]

 

 

Russia and Cyprus sign military deal for Mediterranean ports

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades signed an agreement on Wednesday that will allow Russian navy ships regular access to ports on the Mediterranean island nation.

 

 

Military Russia and Cyprus sign military deal for Mediterranean ports

Cyprus has agreed to a deal allowing Russian ships to use its ports. Cyprus is the next in a line of individual EU nations with which Russia has sought to forge stronger ties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades signed an agreement on Wednesday that will allow Russian navy ships regular access to ports on the Mediterranean island nation.

The move comes as ties between Russia and the West have soured over the Ukraine conflict. Putin told journalists that the ships that will dock at Cypriot ports would mostly be used in international anti-terrorism and piracy efforts.

"Our friendly ties aren't aimed against anyone," Putin said, adding, "I don't think it should cause worries anywhere."

Cyprus also hosts military bases for its former imperial ruler, Britain. The UK announced earlier in the week that it is planning on sending military trainers to Ukraine to assist government forces.

But Cyprus is also heavily dependent on Russian investment, and Anastasiades played down Wednesday's deal, explaining that Russia has always had access to its ports. Now, he said, Moscow just had a more solid legal basis for docking its ships in Cyprus. Earlier this week Russia restructured a 2.5 billion euro loan ($2.8 billion) to Cyprus from 2011, reducing the interest rate from 4.5 percent annually to 2.5 percent.

Russia cozies up to certain EU members

Russia has attempted to create stronger ties with individual members of the European Union, including Cyprus, Hungary and Greece, in the wake of the 28-nation bloc imposing cumulative sanctions on the Kremlin for its alleged role in stoking the Ukraine crisis. Moscow has offered financial assistance to Athens, and last week Putin received a warm welcome in Budapest.

The EU authorities in Brussels worry this policy is aimed at weakening resolve to pass a further tightening of sanctions.

The Cyprus deal solves a problem facing Russia since it lost its Syrian Mediterranean base to the conflict between rebels and the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russian news agency Tass reported that besides the navy deal, Putin and Anastasiades were also discussing the possibility of Russian planes using an air base near the town of Paphos for humanitarian relief missions.

es/gsw (AP, Reuters)

Edited February 27, 2015 by slow

[Roger Sanchez]

Počeli su ozbiljno ubijati.

[kobni zelaya]

Kažu - ubijen Boris Nemcov.

[Zaz_pi]

Da, desilo se ubistvo u centru Moksve

 

В МВД подтвердили факт убийства Немцова

Москва. 28 февраля. INTERFAX.RU - Пресс-центр МВД подтвердил факт убийства в Москве мужчины с документами на имя Бориса Ефимовича Немцова.

Ранее источник в правоохранительных органах сообщил "Интерфаксу" о том, что оппозиционный политик Борис Ефимович Немцов был убит в Москве четырьмя выстрелами.

 

Za one koji ne razumeju ruski:

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov killed in the center of Moscow

 

Mada kako rece Eraser, on nikada nije predstvaljao politicku pretnju Putinu, sustinski nebitan, svakako ovo moze da izvrsi odredjenu destabilizaciju Rusije.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Zaz_pi

[Zaz_pi]

Upucan je iz auta u pokretu, na mostu bas kod Kremlja, barem 7 hitaca. Sa njim je bila devojka rodom iz Kijeva, '91 godiste, koja je preizvela i u policiji je. Na tom mestu bi trebalo da ima puno kamera.

[Anduril]

Dok kod kuce ubijaju opozicionare na ulici, napolju se igraju velikih igara:

 

 

 

The Intersection of Three Crises

Geopolitical Weekly

February 24, 2015 | 08:57 GMT

By Reva Bhalla

Within the past two weeks, a temporary deal to keep Greece in the eurozone was reached in Brussels, a cease-fire roadmap was agreed to in Minsk and Iranian negotiators advanced a potential nuclear deal in Geneva. Squadrons of diplomats have forestalled one geopolitical crisis after another. Yet it would be premature, even reckless, to assume that the fault lines defining these issues are effectively stable. Understanding how these crises are inextricably linked is the first step toward assessing when and where the next flare-up is likely to occur.

Germany and the Eurozone Crisis

Germany has once again become the victim of its own power. As Europe's largest creditor, it has considerable political leverage over debtor nations such as Greece, whose entire livelihood now depends on whether German Chancellor Angela Merkel is willing to sign another bailout check. Lest we forget, Germany is exporting the equivalent of about half its GDP, and most of those exports are consumed within Europe. Thus, the institutions Germany relies on to protect its export markets are the very institutions Berlin must battle to protect Germany's national wealth.

Many have characterized the recent Brussels deal as a victory for Berlin over Athens as eurozone finance ministers, including the Portuguese, Spanish and French, stood behind Germany in refusing Greece the right to circumvent its debt obligations. But Merkel is also not about to gamble an unlimited amount of German taxpayer funds on flimsy Greek pledges to cut costs and impose structural reforms on a population that, for now, still views the ruling Syriza party as its savior from austerity. Within four months, Greece and Germany will be at loggerheads again, and Greece will likely still lack the austerity credentials that Berlin needs to convince its own Euroskeptics that it has the institutional heft and credibility to impose Germanic thriftiness on the rest of Europe. The more time Germany buys, the more inflexible the German and Greek negotiating positions become, and the more seriously traders, businessmen and politicians alike will have to take the threat of a so-called Grexit, the first in a chain of events that could shatter the eurozone.

The Role of the Crisis in Ukraine

In order to steer Germany through an escalating eurozone crisis, Merkel needs to calm her eastern front. It is no wonder, then, that she committed herself to multiple sleepless nights and an incessant travel schedule to put another Minsk agreement with Russia on paper. The deal was flawed from the start because it avoided recognizing the ongoing attempts by Russian-backed separatists to smooth out the demarcation line by bringing the pocket of Debaltseve under their zone of control. After several more days of scuffling, the Germans (again leveraging their creditor status — this time, against Ukraine) quietly pushed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to accept the battlefield reality and move along with the cease-fire agreement. But even if Germany on one side and Russia on the other were able to bring about a relative calm in eastern Ukraine, it would do little in the end to de-escalate the standoff between the United States and Russia.

The Connection Between Ukraine and Iran

Contrary to popular opinion in the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not driven by crazed territorial ambitions. He is looking at the map, just as his predecessors have for centuries, and grappling with the task of securing the Russian underbelly from a borderland state coming under the wing of a much more formidable military power in the West. As the United States has reminded Moscow repeatedly over the past several days, the White House retains the option to send lethal aid to Ukraine. With heavier equipment comes trainers, and with trainers come boots on the ground.

From his perspective, Putin can already see the United States stretching beyond NATO bounds to recruit and shore up allies along the Russian periphery. Even as short-term truces are struck in eastern Ukraine, there is nothing precluding a much deeper U.S. probe in the region. That is the assumption that will drive Russian actions in the coming months as Putin reviews his military options, which include establishing a land bridge to Crimea (a move that would still, in effect, leave Russia's border with Ukraine exposed), a more ambitious push westward to anchor at the Dnieper River and probing actions in the Baltic states to test NATO's credibility.

The United States does not have the luxury of precluding any one of these possibilities, so it must prepare accordingly. But focusing on the Eurasian theater entails first tying up loose ends in the Middle East, starting with Iran. And so we come to Geneva, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met again Feb. 22 to work out the remaining points of a nuclear deal before March 31, the date by which U.S. President Barack Obama is supposed to demonstrate enough progress in negotiations to hold Congress back from imposing additional sanctions on Iran. If the United States is to realistically game out scenarios in which U.S. military forces confront Russia in Europe, it needs to be able to rapidly redeploy forces that have spent the past dozen years putting out fires ignited by sprouting jihadist emirates and preparing for a potential conflict in the Persian Gulf. To lighten its load in the Middle East, the United States will look to regional powers with vested and often competing interests to shoulder more of the burden.

A U.S.-Iranian understanding goes well beyond agreeing on how much uranium Iran is allowed to enrich and stockpile and how much sanctions relief Iran gets for limiting its nuclear program. It will draw the regional contours of an Iranian sphere of influence and allow room for Washington and Tehran to cooperate in areas where their interests align. We can already see this in effect in Iraq and Syria, where the threat of the Islamic State has compelled the United States and Iran to coordinate efforts to contain jihadist ambitions. Though the United States will understandably be more cautious in its public statements while it tries to limit Israeli anxiety, U.S. officials have allegedly made positive remarks about Hezbollah's role in fighting terrorism when speaking privately with their Lebanese interlocutors in recent meetings. This may seem like a minor detail on the surface, but Iran sees a rapprochement with the United States as an opportunity to seek recognition for Hezbollah as a legitimate political actor.

A U.S.-Iranian rapprochement will not be complete by March, June or any other deadline Washington sets for this year. Framework agreements on the nuclear issue and sanctions relief will necessarily be implemented in phases to effectively extend the negotiations into 2016, when Congress could allow the core sanctions act against Iran to expire after several months of testing Iranian compliance and after Iran gets past its parliamentary elections. Arrestors could arise along the way, such as the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but they will not deter the White House from setting a course toward normalizing relations with Iran. The United States, regardless of which party is controlling the White House, will rank the threat of a growing Eurasian conflict well ahead of de-escalating the conflict with Iran. Even as a nuclear agreement establishes the foundation for a U.S.-Iranian understanding, Washington will rely on regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia to eat away at the edges of Iran's sphere of influence, encouraging the natural rivalries in the region to mold a relative balance of power over time.

Circling Back

Germany needs a deal with Russia to be able to manage an existential crisis for the eurozone; Russia needs a deal with the United States to limit U.S. encroachment on its sphere of influence; and the United States needs a deal with Iran to refocus its attention on Russia. No conflict is divorced from the other, though each may be of a different scale. Germany and Russia can find ways to settle their differences, as can Iran and the United States. But a prolonged eurozone crisis cannot be avoided, nor can a deep Russian mistrust of U.S. intentions for its periphery.

Both issues bring the United States back to Eurasia. A distracted Germany will compel the United States to go beyond NATO boundaries to encircle Russia. Rest assured, Russia — even under severe economic stress — will find the means to respond.

 

Videcemo dokle ce im potrajati lova...

[MancMellow]

 

 

Contrary to popular opinion in the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not driven by crazed territorial ambitions. He is looking at the map, just as his predecessors have for centuries, and grappling with the task of securing the Russian underbelly from a borderland state coming under the wing of a much more formidable military power in the West. 

From his perspective, Putin can already see the United States stretching beyond NATO bounds to recruit and shore up allies along the Russian periphery. Even as short-term truces are struck in eastern Ukraine, there is nothing precluding a much deeper U.S. probe in the region.

 

Naravno. Pisao sam o ovome ima bar mesec dana. 

[Anduril]

Pa sada je to vec self fulfilling prophecy - znaci totalan fail ako je to zaista bila primarna motivacija.

Pre godinu dana je Ukrajina jos mogla da balansira sa sve ustavom koji je garantovao neulazak u NATO. Plus Nemacka (uz citav niz prijateljskih zemalja) koja je takodje aktivno sprecavala ulazak.

Sada je ustav promenjen, politicki uticaj Kremlja na Kijev je prakticno unisten na duzi period, politicka elita jedva ceka americko naoruzavanje a razumevanje sa Nemackom je na nuli.

Ako su hteli da sprece veliki americki pivot, onda je Kremlj odigrao ocajno jednodimenzionalno i glupo.

I upravo u to ne verujem jer je motivacija mnogo kompleksnija od te proste reaktivne price.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Anduril

[MancMellow]

Da su mogli da odigraju pametnije u to nema nikakve sumnje. Ako pod kompleksijom motivacijom mislis na unutrasnje-politicku, svakako je bilo i toga. Ali cela ideja sa Ukrajinom u ruskoj politici poslednjih 25 godina je da se ne dozvoli da "pripadne" Zapadu, vec da bude u "najgorem" slucaju neutralna,. Sad je bar jasno da, u konacnici, Rusija EU smatra samo soft NATO-om, a da li je i koliko to tacno...i da li bi bilo tacno u slucaju Ukrajine, ne znamo, ne umem da procenim. U svakom slucaju, slazem se sa Stratforom ovde - nije rec o nikakvim ludacima, nego o ljudima koji imaju specificno gledanje na nacionalnu bezbednost. Specificno, u smislu da postoje samo tri drzave na svetu koje na to tako gledaju. Da li Rusija ima snage za tu igru - videcemo. Ali niko ne bi trebalo da potceni rusko vidjenje vaznosti Ukrajine za njenu (rusku) bezbednost. Ona u tom pogledu ima esencijalnu vaznost i moze da se desi da ce ici veooooma daleko u tome. A kljuc ce biti da li ce uspeti da nadju trzista i saveze koji ce im nadomestiti Zapad i ekonomski i diplomatski. Ali, pazi - Nord stream tece sve vreme. U svakom slucaju, kako god da se pise Rusiji, Ukrajini se pise jos mnogo gore. A ako primirije ne uspe i Srbija ce veoma ubrzo biti stavljena pred teske izbore, ali od kojih nece moci da se pobegne. 

Edited February 27, 2015 by MancMellow

[Zaz_pi]

Snimljeni, beli auto je od ubica

Edited February 27, 2015 by Zaz_pi

[Anduril]

Pa retko ko ozbiljan govori i da se radi o nekakvim ludacima u Kremlju.

Jednostavno imaju sasvim razlicit politicki pogled u odnosu na veci deo Evrope i stoga ce morati da se okrenu Aziji.

[MancMellow]

Od većine Evrope definitivno, ali nemaju toliko različit pogled na nacionalnu bezbednost od US recimo. 

[Roger Sanchez]