{"id":176325,"date":"2015-08-28T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T00:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=176325"},"modified":"2015-08-28T03:57:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T03:57:13","slug":"obamas-ukrainian-forces-break-minsk-agreement-resume-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/obamas-ukrainian-forces-break-minsk-agreement-resume-invasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Ukrainian Forces Break Minsk Agreement: Resume Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S.-backed Ukrainian Armed Forces, on Wednesday August 26th, resumed their all-out war against the breakaway Donbass region, according to an announcement on August 27th by the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic (DPR) Deputy Commander, Eduard Basurin. Donetsk is the largest city in Donbass \u2013 the region that broke away from Ukraine after the February 2014 U.S. coup<\/span><\/a> in Kiev, which threw out the democratically elected Ukrainian President, for whom the residents of Donbass had voted over 90%<\/span><\/a>. If this apparent re-invasion of Donbass<\/span><\/a> by U.S.-backed forces is true, it would flagrantly violate the Minsk II Agreement<\/span><\/a> that Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel and France\u2019s Francois Hollande had achieved, and that the warring parties had signed, six months ago, on February 11th.<\/span><\/p>\n

As reported August 27th by the Fort Russ news site<\/span><\/a>, Mr. Basurin said:<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation in the DPR has drastically deteriorated. \u2026 From 5 P.M. [August 26th], punitive forces [that\u2019s to say, forces aiming to \u2018punish\u2019 Donbass for rejecting Obama\u2019s coup in Ukraine] began massively shelling positions of the DPR army and the civilian areas of Belaya Kamenka, Novolaspa, Staroslava, and Staroignatovka.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The fascists have used heavy artillery prohibited by the Minsk Agreements against the civilian areas of Aleksandrovka and Marinka. The outskirts of Donetsk have been struck.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The shelling has been carried out from the positions of the 72nd mechanized brigade under the command of the criminal Grishchenko, as well as the 19th infantry battalion. The enemy is using ACS howitzers of 152 and 122 mm, mortars of 120 and 80 mm, and tanks.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Basurin said that \u201cAccording to our estimate, the enemy is trying to provoke a response by our troops and with such activity convince the army command of the DPR to prepare for an offensive in this direction of the UAF<\/i>,\u201d so that DPR\u2019s strategy of \u2013 as much as possible \u2013 not initiating fire, but only responding to it, will be broken. That would then provide the U.S. side the opportunity to charge the DPR side with violating Minsk II.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basurin went on to say:<\/span><\/p>\n

the criminal fascist regime is purposefully trying to disrupt the Minsk Agreement. The bloodthirsty Kiev puppets are out to disrupt the establishment of peaceful life in the Republic, thereby showing the whole world their inability to conduct civilized negotiations. The paranoiacs in power are leading Ukraine into the abyss!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The President of Ukraine seeks to resume hostilities and lead a new escalation of tensions in Eastern Europe, and therefore, we appeal to the people and officers of Ukraine: sabotage the criminal orders of the UAF command, show acts of defiance, and demonstrate an absence of support for the aggressive plans of Poroshenko.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Basurin is urging the U.S.-backed forces to violate their instructions, which would be an extremely dangerous thing for those troops to do. However, a significant number of Ukrainian soldiers have, in fact, defected to the \u2018rebels.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

As I reported earlier<\/span><\/a>, a conflict within the Obama Administration broke out on May 15th, when Victoria Nuland<\/span><\/a>, the Assistant Secretary of State whom Obama had placed in charge of policy on Ukraine (and who had masterminded the coup<\/span><\/a> and selected the post-coup government<\/span><\/a>), contradicted her nominal superior, Secretary of State John Kerry, and said that, despite Kerry\u2019s warning to Ukraine\u2019s President Petro Poroshenko not to violate Minsk II, Poroshenko would have America\u2019s full backing if he were to follow through on his repeated threats to re-invade Donbass, regardless of what had been agreed to, and signed, at Minsk.<\/span><\/p>\n

From that time to this, the Obama Administration has been ambiguous about its intentions on the matter, but Mr. Kerry has never reiterated his warning to Poroshenko; while Ms. Nuland has continued to maintain that the U.S. will support the Ukrainian side no matter what; and so, Donbass has been on constant alert, expecting Poroshenko to resume the invasion<\/span><\/a> at any time.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the interim since the first of the two Minsk agreements, the U.S. Congress has endorsed Obama\u2019s policy and authorized funds for retraining Ukraine\u2019s troops and for resupplying them with weapons.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the decision has finally now been made in the White House to resume the war at full force. The next few days could make clear whether that is the case, or whether, instead, this is just yet another of the many relatively minor violations of Minsk, which both sides have engaged in during the past six months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse The U.S.-backed Ukrainian Armed Forces, on Wednesday August 26th, resumed their all-out war against the breakaway Donbass region, according to an announcement on August 27th by the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic (DPR) Deputy Commander, Eduard Basurin. Donetsk is the largest city in Donbass \u2013 the region that broke away from Ukraine after the February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":140633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,1622],"tags":[115,30,1036,96,1035,535,889,753,524,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-176325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-featured","10":"tag-barack-obama","11":"tag-big-brother","12":"tag-breaking-news","13":"tag-cover-up","14":"tag-daily-news","15":"tag-global-news","16":"tag-nuland","17":"tag-police-state","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-usa-news","21":"tag-warfare","22":"tag-white-house","23":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}