Official Washington’s neocons and liberal hawks are ratcheting up tensions again over Ukraine with the goal of humiliating and even destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia – and there’s no modern-day JFK to tamp down the enthusiasm, an existential risk that ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk examines.
Analysis
After the ISIS War, a US-Russia Collision? (Patrick Buchanan)
Sunday, a Navy F-18 Hornet shot down a Syrian air force jet, an act of war against a nation with which Congress has never declared or authorized a war.
Ukraine’s government bears more responsibility for ongoing conflict than the far-right
…During war violence can become trivialised, particularly when it is far from home – and far from Kiev. However, the war takes on new meaning when an angry and armed veterans come back, feeling betrayed by the government.
It is the current government that bears more responsibility for the ongoing conflict than the Ukrainian far-right and its armed groups. It is the current government who are responsible for new repressions, censorship and discriminatory measures.
How Do America and Russia Avoid a War over Syria? (Nikolas K. Gvosdev)
The United States needs to think soberly about its next steps—and not stumble into a clash with Russia that it neither foresees nor desires.
Trump Continues to Bring Neocons Into Administration (BuzzFeed)
Wess Mitchell, a Russia hawk and president of the Center for European Policy Analysis is a top candidate to be nominated to the post of assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Mitchell, a vocal Putin critic, also worked on Europe issues at the John Hay Initiative, a neoconservative-leaning policy shop….
The Daily Ignorance: ‘Bestial’ Distortions of Jihadism in Russia
In a recent piece of blissful, indeed bestial ignorance…Michael Weiss plies his ‘journalistic’ hand to Russia – in particular, its opaque North Caucasus and mujahedin – with less than sterling results….Weiss is the editor of The Daily Beast – a very fitting title for a venue featuring such work.
Russia to treat US jets in Syria as ‘targets’ after America guns down first regime warplane (The Independent)
Communication channel between Washington and Moscow to be suspended immediately.
What you need to know about the dangerous new phase in the Ukraine crisis
The slightly fetid “phony war” in Ukraine—the unsettling stagnation noted in this space a month ago—is emphatically over. Suddenly there is movement on several fronts, and some of it is promising. But this is a dangerous moment, too, chiefly because Washington’s bet on the post-coup government in Kiev, bad from the outset, is on the brink of producing a result so ugly and shameful its consequences all around cannot now be calculated.
Bernie Sanders Is a Russian Agent, and Other Things I Learned This Week (George Zornick)
How did people jump to this conclusion that Bernie Sanders, by opposing Democrats, must ipso facto be working at the behest of Russia? It wasn’t entirely organic. And it points to how fake news can infect some of our brethren on the left.
Why Is Every Story About Macron And Putin Exactly The Same? (Kenneth Rapoza)
Whether it’s Reuters or the anti-Putin tabloid The Daily Beast, every headline today about the meeting between newly elected French president Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, reads the same…
Berlin and Paris Versus Kiev: A Conversation with Stephen F. Cohen
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new cold war. This installment focuses on different but related recent developments. According to Cohen, by summoning Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President François Hollande made clear that the US-backed government in Kiev, not Moscow, is blocking implementation of their Minsk plan for negotiating an end to the Ukrainian civil war.
Donald Trump is a victim of Washington’s anti-Russia bias (Mary Dejevesky)
It is not clear whether Trump’s enemies really believe that his Russia policy is a risk to US national security or whether Russia – because it can still inspire such fear in American minds – is being used as an emotive stick to beat him with.
PODCAST: Dr. Ellendea Proffer Teasley discusses her new book “Brodsky Among Us”
Host and scholar Pietro Shakarian talks with Proffer Teasley about her late husband Carl Proffer, the founding of Ardis Publishers, the origin of the Ardis name, and her personal experiences with Russian literary giants Joseph Brodsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Elena Bulgakova, and Lily Brik, among others.
Why Waiting for Russia to Collapse Is a Terrible Ukraine Policy
Two months ago, a number of senior U.S. national-security officials insisted that the Russian Federation has reemerged as the premier existential threat to American interests. Today, as energy prices continue to tumble and China’s economy falters, a new narrative has emerged: the pending collapse of Russia itself, or at least the prospects that the government of Vladimir Putin is entering into its last days.
The continuous oscillation in views—Russia as a powerful threat, Russia as an imploding basket case—does not permit a cool, rational assessment of Russia’s actual strengths and weaknesses.
Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul Buck Party Consensus on Russia and Iran Sanctions (The Real News)
Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal explains that these sanctions punish Russia and Iran unnecessarily intensifies the conflict between the US and these countries.
Oliver Stone: ‘Shocked’ by Intelligence Agencies’ Hostility Toward Trump (Fox)
Oliver Stone joined Tucker Carlson to discuss his new four-hour documentary on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election, and intelligence agencies’ “hostility” toward President Donald Trump.
KYIV BLOG: Ukraine not out of the woods yet
The $3.6bn debt deal announced on August 27 by Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance, where private bondholders agreed to take a 20% writedown on the face value of $18bn in government debt, is very good news. Yet it’s not a done deal and the final sum that will be restructured will almost certainly be less than the headline figure.
Right wing, anti-decentralization protest in Kyiv kills three policemen, injures dozens more
Excellent media round up of the unrest roiling Kiev by the website NewColdWar.org which trenchantly examines “two news reports from Western media sources on the clash. The reports come with typical, misleading Western media phrasing describing as “separatists” the people of eastern Ukraine who are resisting the civil war launched by the governing regime in Kyiv in April 2014.
Yasha Levine Reports From St. Petersburg (LBO)
Yasha Levine, author of the forthcoming Surveillance Valley, talks to radio host Doug Henwood about Russia, anti-Russia hysteria, and the latest NSA leak.
Ukraine Has Reached a Debt Deal. Now What?
While most analysts agree that the deal buys time for the authorities in Kiev, the terms of the deal seems to favor the lenders over the Ukrainian government. Goldman Sachs noted that the likelihood that bondholders would vote against the bond restructuring was small “given the attractiveness of the offer relative to market expectations.”
In return for a four-year extension on payments of the remaining debt, Ukraine agreed to a higher coupon (interest rate) of 7.75 percent, up from 7.25 percent. Further, after the four-year period expires in 2019, Ukraine will be obliged to spend 40 percent of any GDP growth over 4 percent on debt repayment.