After announcing the cutoff of official diplomacy with Russia regarding Syria, major media reported Washington insiders as stating that several options were being considered in response to the continued advances by the Syrian Arab Army, with Russian air support, to liberate eastern Aleppo from the Al Nusra and Al Nusra-affiliated terrorists who currently occupy it.   These options, as reported last week by RT, partly based on a Washington Post report, included covert military strikes against the SAA:

Top Washington officials are set to discuss striking positions of the Syrian military without a UN Security Council resolution. Bombing air force runways with missiles fired from coalition planes and ships is being considered, according to a report.

Following yesterday’s Russian warning that Russia stood ready to shoot down US aircraft or missiles attacking Syria, the US has confirmed all plans for military action against Syria have been dropped.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed this speaking to reporters on Thursday 6th October 2016.

“The president has discussed in some details why military action against the Assad regime to try to address the situation in Aleppo is unlikely to accomplish the goals that many envisioned now in terms of reducing the violence there.  It is much more likely to lead to a bunch of unintended consequences that are clearly not in our national interest.”

The US will never admit that it was the Russian warning that deterred it from carrying out air and missile strikes, and it is still pretending that the option of military strikes is still on the table.  In Josh Earnest’s words

“I’m not going to take any options off the table. I am not going to be in a position [we’re] taking options off the table for the commander-in-chief.”

However these are face-saving words. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNAPeEDujwE&list=TLBeYHZZGsYUQwOTEwMjAxNg

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski)

There has been talk among some geopolitical analysts over the past few months about the latest article by former National Security Adviser (under President Carter), Zbigniew Brzezinski.  As some readers may recall from my past writings on Zbig, he was supposed to be the Democratic Party’s answer to Henry Kissinger – i.e. a psychopath who added a pseudo-intellectual veneer to his imperial war crimes by writing books and journal articles in which he pontificated on grand chessboards and other clever literary devices used to render the deaths of millions and the destruction of whole societies resulting from his policies as mere abstractions.  The human effects were deserving of little thought as he shuttled among writing sessions, high powered meetings in which lives were rearranged, and conferences where he got feted by various Washington sycophants.

The article is called “Toward a Global Realignment” and was published this past April in The American Interest.  Zbig sets the tone in his opening paragraph by declaring:

Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signalling the coming of a new global realignment.

First of all, Zbig uses an interesting choice of words.  Verities.  The dictionary definition of this high-falutin term is:

The state or quality of being true; accordance with fact or reality.  

I shall return to the irony inherent in Zbig’s use of this term in a moment.

According to Zbig’s article, Verity #1 is that the U.S. is still the most powerful “entity” in the world politically, economically and militarily.  But he acknowledges it is no longer the global imperial power – or the lone superpower.  However, no other major power (here he implicitly acknowledges that there exist a few others) is a global imperial or lone superpower either.

This is, indeed, a significant admission by Zbig – one that implies a more chastened outlook with respect to the U.S.’s penchant for acting like a bull in a China shop in the rest of the world since 1945 and, particularly, since the end of the Cold War when Zbig’s ambitions for American hegemony seemed to be fueled by the equivalent of an eternal supply of cocaine and Viagra.

Verity #3 acknowledges China’s steady rise on its way to being a “co-equal” and a potential rival with the U.S.:

…for the time being it [China] is careful not to pose an outright challenge to America.  Militarily, it seems to be seeking a breakthrough in a new generation of weapons while patiently enhancing its still very limited naval power.

Fair enough.  But its Verities #2, 4, and 5 that are problematic and reveal Zbig’s deep-rooted prejudices and analytical blind spots.

Verity #2 postulates that Russia is in the final “convulsive” phase of its imperial devolution.  It’s unclear what this even means as the imperial devolution was pretty much completed when Gorbachev voluntarily withdrew Soviet forces from Eastern Europe and allowed the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.  Subsequently, Russia was plundered by a handful of elite bureaucrats who became the original oligarchs – as the blueprints for that plunder were largely provided by the ivy league “advisers” from the U.S., as detailed by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine and Janine Wedel in The Nation magazine.  Russia was on the verge of being a failed state when Vladimir Putin took over the presidency in 2000.

Russia is always portrayed by Zbig as a menacing threat that is uniquely evil and malicious, such as when it manages to get back onto its feet and dust itself off as it has done gradually under Putin’s leadership, or as a potential one as Zbig feared in The Grand Chessboard , his ode to American imperialism published in 1997, when Russia was on its back and down for the count.

Zbig seems to be incapable of trying to understand Russia on its own terms – what the world, shaped by its unique geography and history, may look like to Russians and how that may contribute rationally to their actions and policy preferences.  An analyst doesn’t have to like or agree with the Russian mindset or policy, but a competent geopolitical analyst who specializes in Eurasia (much less one who fancies himself a great one as Zbig does) should be able to do this as it would add valuable insight and provide for more accurate predictions of Russia’s behavior.

Other than grasping that Eurasia is an important area of the world in terms of geography and resources, Zbig has done a rather poor job of predicting the dynamics that appear to be playing out in the past few years in the region.  His tired misrepresentations of Russia’s actions in relation to its neighbors over the past 8 years makes one wonder if Zbig has ceased to simply be a purveyor of propaganda on behalf of his own agenda, and has actually started to believe his own hogwash.   As a case in point, Zbig states the following in his second verity:

…currently it [Russia] is pointlessly alienating some of its former subjects in the Islamic southwest of its once extensive empire, as well as Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, not to mention the Baltic States.

I’ve written extensively on Zbig’s lies and misrepresentations with respect to both the Ukraine crisis and the Russia-Georgia war of 2008.  Zbig doesn’t explain how Russia is alienating Belarus.  And it’s also unclear what credible designs Russia could have on the Baltic states, which – no offense to anyone living in the Baltic states – are suffering from poor economic performance, high rates of youth unemployment, significant emigration and have no real resources to speak of.

Later in the article, Zbig makes another nonsensical statement with respect to Russia and Putin:

A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision.  It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia (probably post-Putin) that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe.

First of all, Putin has stated that Russia is a European nation.  He has also made many attempts to reach a diplomatic accommodation with Europe in connection with both security and economic issues. It is Europe, often under pressure from Washington, that effectively tells Putin to talk to the hand.   If it wasn’t for Washington’s strong-arming the EU into the sanctions in retaliation for an understandable response to a provocative coup in Ukraine, Russia’s economic relations with Europe would have continued apace and its pivot to Asia would not have been as quick or robust.

Furthermore, given Zbig’s notorious Russophobia and his Grand Chessboard theory, it is implausible that he wants to see a Russia integrated with Europe in any substantive way because it would represent an independent entity that would be too competitive with the U.S.

Zbig also repeats a belief often heard among mainstream analysts that China and Russia will not be able to have any effective partnership in the long run due to China’s potential future designs on Russian territory:

Russia’s own future depends on its ability to become a major and influential nation-state that is part of a unifying Europe.  Not to do so could have dramatically negative consequences for Russia’s ability to withstand growing territorial-demographic pressure from China, which is increasingly inclined as its power grows to recall the “unequal” treaties Moscow imposed on Beijing in times past.

There is no substantive evidence that China would do anything of the sort in connection with Russia – a nuclear superpower and, as Obama begrudgingly admitted recently, the world’s second most powerful military.  There is simply no reason to believe that China’s leadership is that stupid or crazy.

Of course, Russia and China (and also India) want a prominent role in their own backyard.  I see no reason to believe that there may not be bumps in the road in sorting out the regional balance of power in the future.  However, just because Washington sees foreign relations as a zero-sum game, does not mean that other countries and their leadership see it the same way.

As journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar has written about extensively, China has an ambitious plan known as “One Belt, One Road” which envisions a new silk road by land and sea, connecting Asia with Europe in a mutually beneficial program of trade and travel.   Several corridors of this project are in progress.  It has been announced this year that the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, aka EEU) will work cooperatively with the New Silk Road project.

Currently, the relationship between Russia and China is not an all-out alliance but it is a strategic partnership that is growing in terms of economics, military and even intelligence sharing.

Oil also features prominently in the increasingly symbiotic dynamics between the two countries.  As Tao Wang explained recently at the East Asia Forum:

The catalyst for better relations was the crisis in Ukraine, which estranged Russia from the West. Moscow faced substantial capital outflows and uncertainty around its energy exports to the European Union. China became the only option. Moscow has since opened up to energy investment from China, removing a number of key restrictions on investing in oil and gas resources on Russian soil.

Increasing oil imports from Russia seems to make good sense to the Chinese leadership now that their territorial dispute with multiple countries in the South China Sea is intensifying.

….China and Russia are still complementary economies. One is rich in resources and high military technology, while the other is good at mass manufacturing and rich in cash. This complementarity is well demonstrated by their partnership in Central Asia, where China provides investment in resource-rich yet unpredictable countries while Russia ensures the stability of ruling regimes. Facing increasing pressure from both east and west, it is unlikely that either China or Russia will seek to change this partnership any time soon, though the countries’ willingness and ability may not always match.

….Energy ties between China and Russia reflect mutual demands for cooperation in political, security and economic dimensions. They cannot be viewed as driven by only one of them.

While China will likely do what it can diplomatically to avoid outright provocation or confrontation with Washington, it is unlikely it will trust Washington enough to believe there is any chance for a meaningful partnership as the Chinese leadership have, no doubt, taken note of Washington’s unwillingness to abide by its agreements (see the Native Americans, Russia, and Qaddafi as a few examples).  Zbig’s idea that Washington could somehow implement a divide-and-conquer strategy with China against Russia is a pipe dream. The train has left the station in terms of Eurasia largely controlling its own destiny in the future and Zbig seems to be in denial.

Moving on to Verity #4.  This states that Europe is “not now and is not likely to become a global power.  But it can play a constructive role in taking the lead in regard to transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human survival.  Additionally, Europe is politically and culturally aligned with and supportive of core U.S. interests in the Middle East, and European steadfastness within NATO is essential to an eventually constructive resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”

In other words, Europe can continue to follow Washington’s orders whether those orders are really in Europe’s long-term interests or not.  And it is not at all clear that they are.  Europe has too often gone along with, or not put up enough resistance to, Washington’s militarist foreign policy since the 1990’s.  Today it is dealing with the worst refugee crisis since WWII – a refugee crisis that is largely the result of people fleeing Washington’s wars and regime change operations.  A recent Pew survey found that most Europeans do not view Russia as a threat, but instead view the immigration crisis and economic problems as major threats.

If it wasn’t for EU leaders who kowtow to Washington policy and mainstream European media that largely follows the lead of the American corporate media, average Europeans may very well recognize that they have more in common culturally, historically and geographically with their next door neighbor to the east than they have with the descendants of the Puritan misfits half a world away.   Indeed, in order to prevent an independent Europe that might decide that its rational interests were not always identical to Washington’s, the EU project was supported and encouraged by the CIA and the Euro was the brainchild of academic Robert Mundell who created it, not to help Europe, but to serve as a foil on government regulation of business and independent monetary or fiscal policy.

In order to understand where one is going, it’s important to understand where one has been and how it got to where it is presently.  Needless to say, the reader doesn’t get any of this contextual background from Zbig on why Europe’s prospects for becoming an independent global power don’t look too impressive at the moment.

Verity #5 states that the current strain of Islamic terrorism by Wahhabi whackjobs represents a “political awakening” – albeit violent – in reaction to historical brutal repressions by the western powers.  Again, some history is in order here.  Zbig has always had a soft spot for violent Islamic fundamentalists as he famously bragged in a 1998 interview about using them to provoke the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 so he could “give them their own Vietnam” quagmire.

Zbig also landed by helicopter in Afghanistan that year to give the jihadists a pep talk in their war against the Soviet Union – a war that led to the deaths of approximately a million Afghan civilians and turned a nation that had rights for women and little religious fanaticism into a Taliban stronghold.

All in a day’s work for Zbig who will then write articles feigning concern for Muslims and their genuine historical grievances when he really just sees them as pawns on The Chessboard to use to further American empire or to maintain what is left of it – and all the more gratifying if they can be used to stick it to Russia in some way.

Given Zbig’s continued vilification of Russia and self-serving dishonesty, weariness is in order on his latest effort.

Reuters reported last week that, in response to the Syrian Arab Army’s momentum (with the assistance of Russian air support) toward retaking eastern Aleppo from the “rebels,” Turkey and Saudi Arabia may consider supplying the “rebels” with MANPADS with which to shoot down aircraft.

One consequence of the latest diplomatic failure may be that Gulf Arab states or Turkey could step up arms supplies to rebel factions, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, something the United States has largely prevented until now.

One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss American policy, said Washington has kept large numbers of such man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, out of Syria by uniting Western and Arab allies behind channeling training and infantry weapons to moderate opposition groups while it pursued talks with Moscow.

But frustration with Washington has intensified, raising the possibility that Gulf allies or Turkey will no longer continue to follow the U.S. lead or will turn a blind eye to wealthy individuals looking to supply MANPADS to opposition groups.

Some commentators are wondering if that sentence “something the United States has largely prevented until now” represents a veiled threat by Washington to tacitly allow such a move, thereby encouraging an escalation.

Military analyst, The Saker, explains that even this move would ultimately have only a nominal effect on the success of operations by the Syrian army and Russian military:

The effect of that will be marginal. Russian fixed-wing aircraft fly at over 5,000m where they are out of reach from MANPADs. They are currently the main provider of firepower support for the Syrians. Russian combat helicopters, while probably not immune to MANPADs, are still very resistant to such attacks due to three factors—survivability, weapons range and tactics: Mi-28s and Ka-52 have missiles with a maximum range of 10km and the way they are typically engaged is in a kind of ‘rotation’ where one helicopters flies to acquire the target, fires, immediately turns back and is replaced by the next one. In this matter they all protect each other while presenting a very difficult target to hit. Russian transport helicopters would, however, be at a much higher risk of being shot down by a US MANPAD. So, yes, if the US floods the Syrian theater with MANPADS, Syrian aircraft and Russian transport helicopters will be put at risk, but that will not be enough to significantly affect Russian or Syrian operations.

Alexander Mercouris has an excellent summary of the latest developments in Syria and how it is basically inevitable that all of Aleppo will soon be under government control again, but this would not represent full victory yet over the jihadist forces.

However, a reckless move by Washington hardliners cannot be completely ruled out as the Russian foreign ministry’s words at a press conference over the weekend are being viewed by a group of retired U.S. intelligence officers as a warning.

Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity (VIPS) has sent an urgent memo to President Obama urging him to take control of his subordinates in the Pentagon and State Dept. and actively de-escalate rising tensions with Russia in Syria.

We are hoping that your President’s Daily Brief tomorrow will give appropriate attention to Saturday’s warning by Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova: “If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.”

Speaking on Russian TV, she warned of those whose “logic is ‘why do we need diplomacy’ … when there is power … and methods of resolving a problem by power. We already know this logic; there is nothing new about it. It usually ends with one thing – full-scale war.” [Zakharova is likely making reference to the leaked recording of Kerry speaking to Syrian activists reported on by the NYT in which he admits he has actively encouraged the administration behind the scenes to take more military action in Syria – NB]

We are also hoping that this is not the first you have heard of this – no doubt officially approved – statement. If on Sundays you rely on the “mainstream” press, you may well have missed it. In the Washington Post, an abridged report of Zakharova’s remarks (nothing about “full-scare war”) was buried in the last paragraph of an 11-paragraph article titled “Hospital in Aleppo is hit again by bombs.” Sunday’s New York Times totally ignored the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statements.

In our view, it would be a huge mistake to allow your national security advisers to follow the example of the Post and Times in minimizing the importance of Zakharova’s remarks.

Events over the past several weeks have led Russian officials to distrust Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who parses his words carefully, has publicly expressed that distrust. Some Russian officials suspect that Kerry has been playing a double game; others believe that, however much he may strive for progress through diplomacy, he cannot deliver on his commitments because the Pentagon undercuts him every time. We believe that this lack of trust is a challenge that must be overcome and that, at this point, only you can accomplish this.

It should not be attributed to paranoia on the Russians’ part that they suspect the Sept. 17 U.S. and Australian air attacks on Syrian army troops that killed 62 and wounded 100 was no “mistake,” but rather a deliberate attempt to scuttle the partial cease-fire Kerry and Lavrov had agreed on – with your approval and that of President Putin – that took effect just five days earlier.

In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov has told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26:

“My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin), apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.”

Lavrov’s words are not mere rhetoric. He also criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, “after the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …”

Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria. We suggest you get hold of a new book to be released this week titled The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by master historian H. W. Brands. It includes testimony, earlier redacted, that sheds light on why President Truman dismissed WWII hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur from command of U.N. forces in Korea in April 1951. One early reviewer notes that “Brands’s narrative makes us wonder about challenges of military versus civilian leadership we still face today.” You may find this new book more relevant at this point in time than the Team of Rivals.

The door to further negotiations remains ajar. In recent days, officials of the Russian foreign and defense ministries, as well as President Putin’s spokesman, have carefully avoided shutting that door, and we find it a good sign that Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And the Russians have also emphasized Moscow’s continued willingness to honor previous agreements on Syria.

In the Kremlin’s view, Russia has far more skin in the game than the U.S. does. Thousands of Russian dissident terrorists have found their way to Syria, where they obtain weapons, funding, and practical experience in waging violent insurgency. There is understandable worry on Moscow’s part over the threat they will pose when they come back home. In addition, President Putin can be assumed to be under the same kind of pressure you face from the military to order it to try to clean out the mess in Syria “once and for all,” regardless how dim the prospects for a military solution are for either side in Syria.

We are aware that many in Congress and the “mainstream” media are now calling on you to up the ante and respond – overtly or covertly or both – with more violence in Syria. Shades of the “Washington Playbook,” about which you spoke derisively in interviews with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this year. We take some encouragement in your acknowledgment to Goldberg that the “playbook” can be “a trap that can lead to bad decisions” – not to mention doing “stupid stuff.”

Goldberg wrote that you felt the Pentagon had “jammed” you on the troop surge for Afghanistan seven years ago and that the same thing almost happened three years ago on Syria, before President Putin persuaded Syria to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction. It seems that the kind of approach that worked then should be tried now, as well – particularly if you are starting to feel jammed once again.

Incidentally, it would be helpful toward that end if you had one of your staffers tell the “mainstream” media to tone down it puerile, nasty – and for the most part unjustified and certainly unhelpful – personal vilification of President Putin.

Renewing direct dialogue with President Putin might well offer the best chance to ensure an end, finally, to unwanted “jamming.” We believe John Kerry is correct in emphasizing how frightfully complicated the disarray in Syria is amid the various vying interests and factions. At the same time, he has already done much of the necessary spadework and has found Lavrov for the most part, a helpful partner.

Still, in view of lingering Russian – and not only Russian – skepticism regarding the strength of your support for your secretary of state, we believe that discussions at the highest level would be the best way to prevent hotheads on either side from risking the kind of armed confrontation that nobody should want.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that you invite President Putin to meet with you in a mutually convenient place, in order to try to sort things out and prevent still worse for the people of Syria.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle is reporting that the Assad government has demanded that the “rebels” lay down their arms and surrender. They have been promised safe passage out of the combat zone if they agree.

In a statement published by the official SANA news agency, the Syrian army promised “a safe exit and access to the necessary assistance” for rebels, guaranteed by the commands of both the Syrian and Russian armies, if rebels left the besieged city of Aleppo.

The departure of the rebels was necessary for civilians “to live a normal life,” the statement added.

There was no comment from the rebel ranks.

….Syrian regime forces advanced against opposition rebels in Aleppo, state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The SANA news agency said forces loyal to President Bashar al Assad had recaptured al-Kindi Hospital and strategic hills on the northern outskirts of Aleppo.

“This advance is significant because it enables the regime to tighten the noose on opposition fighters in the city and distract their combat efforts,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

“The Russians have been instrumental in this advance with their intense air raids in support of the regime forces in Aleppo,” he told news agencies, adding that rebels had incurred “heavy” casualties.

According to the Russian TASS News Agency, Russian Foreign Ministesr, Sergey Lavrov, said the following after another round of phone calls with Secretary of State John Kerry:

“The agreements are now in limbo due to ambiguity on how Washington perceives the approaches of a whole number of opposition groups, militants and political opposition to the Assad regime who are rejecting or refusing to accept the Russian-U.S. deal,” Lavrov said.

As a signal of how frustrated the Russian government has become with this “ambiguity” –  and suspicions of bad faith on the part of Washington – Putin has signed a decree suspending an agreement between the U.S. and Russia over plutonium disposal.   RT reports the following:

Russia has suspended a post-Cold War deal with the US on disposal of plutonium from decommissioned nuclear warheads. The decision was explained by “the hostile actions of the US” against Russia and may be reversed, if such actions are stopped.

(Sputnik, Mikhail Palinchak)

After a recent speech by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko before the U.S. Congress, the House has voted in support of a bill that would provide lethal weapons to Kiev, which could provide the Ukrainian government with the means and motive to ditch the ceasefire in the Donbass and reignite fighting.  According to Sputnik:

On Thursday, Poroshenko’s wish came one step closer to becoming a reality. The draft bill of the US House-approved Stability and Democracy for Ukraine Act provides for ‘endless sanctions’ against Russia, calling for the “full implementation of the Minsk agreements” (to which Russia is not even a party) and the “restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea.” Most significantly for Kiev, the bill also approves granting the provision of ‘lethal defensive weapons’ to Ukraine.

If approved by the Senate, the bill would land on President Barack Obama’s desk for signature. Accordingly, Russian experts are asking whether the White House would really be irresponsible enough to take such a step, which could reignite the deadly civil war that has ravaged eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions over the past two years.

…Fortunately, [Russian geo-political analyst Sergei] Markov suggested, President Obama is unlikely to sign the bill, “because he does not want to leave the Oval Office as a war president. Secondly, I think he is well aware of the ultimate futility of the adventurism of the coup in Ukraine. It was not his initiative to begin with – Vice President Joe Biden and the CIA were behind everything. Obama has long been trying to divorce himself from the subject of Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, Russia is close to completing its new military base in the Rostov region of southwest Russia, close to the Ukrainian border. Euronews reports the following:

The base consisting of three military facilities is the latest in a chain of new military sites, part of what the Kremlin sees as an important counterpoint to NATO.

Up to 10,000 service personnel are expected to be deployed at the site which will reportedly house a motorised rifle division.

And British Russia expert, Paul Robinson, discusses the relatively poor leadership of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) – after an attempted coup there – compared to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and the possible implications for the future of the Donbass region.

This week there was a failed coup in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), and one of the alleged coup leaders has committed suicide in a Lugansk jail. As I have said before, a key issue in determining the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine will be the extent to which the governments in Kiev and the rebel republics are able to turn the areas they control into models of good governance and prosperity. With the events in Lugansk in mind, how are they are getting on?

….How about the situation on the rebel side?

Of the two rebel republics, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has always seemed like the better governed, and its leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, has a charisma that the LPR’s leader, Igor Plotnitsky, entirely lacks. Recent reports from Donetsk suggest that the DPR is doing about as well as could realistically be expected for a small region in which the state entirely disintegrated two years ago, and which is cut off from the most of the world and forced to spend its limited resources on fighting a war. In a recent report for Meduza, a media outlet not by inclination favourable to the Donbass rebels, journalist Nigina Boroeva wrote the following about a trip she made to Donetsk:

The streets are quiet, cozy, and clean: the locals say the city has never been so well-kept, not even before the war. … The main boulevard is packed with glamorous coffee shops. … A private entrepreneur named Roman … says that some residents have even regained their cars, which were seized two years ago. ‘The courts are overloaded with cases, but rulings are being made and implemented,’ Roman says. … The businessman complains, however, that a stronger presence of the law has a downside, too: ‘In Russia, if you break the rules, you bribe the traffic cop and drive on. As for our inspectors, they are afraid to take bribes now.’

By contrast, the LPR appears to be bedevilled by corruption and political scandals. In 2014, self-styled Cossacks (some local, others from Russia), played an important part in the rebellion in the LPR. The regions under their control became notorious for banditry, and the Cossack leaders zealously defended their autonomy against any attempts to centralize power. The result was a series of violent power struggles, which resulted in the assassination of several prominent rebel leaders. Eventually, with Moscow’s support, Plotnitsky got the upper hand, but it would appear that attempts to concentrate power in the hands of the state authorities have been much less successful in Lugansk than in Donetsk.

*****************

Russia has achieved their goal of placing a Eurobond worth a total of $3 billion in 2 installments, the latter achieved more successfully due to Russian bank VTB’s newfound confidence and experience after the first round earlier in the year.  As Alexander Mercouris explains:

Today what VTB – the Russian bank that is now in charge of placing bonds internationally for the Russian government – said would happen in May, is actually taking place.  The Russians have offered more bonds to the value of $1.25 billion, bringing the total of bonds they have offered this year up to the amount of $3 billion they said they would offer at the start of the year.

Moreover with the question of the provision of depository services by Euroclear and presumably Clearview now resolved in Russia’s favour, there should be no further difficulties with this bond.  Even Timothy Ashe – never an analyst to take an unduly positive view of events concerning Russia – is admitting that “Euroclear’s acceptance should make the latest issue easier”.

As it happens reports are circulating that just a few hours after it was placed the bond had already attracted bids worth $3 billion i.e. it is already more than twice over-subscribed.

As to why the Russians chose to raise $3 billion this year through two offerings of $1.75 billion and $1.25 billion rather than one, the answer as I said in May is almost certainly the inexperience of VTB and its sales team.  Here is what I said about that in May

“Placing a government bond is a massively complex operation.  It is the job of the banks that manage the sale to place the bonds most advantageously on the market.  That requires deep knowledge of the market in order to achieve the most effective outreach to potential buyers.  There are also immense technical challenges in receiving and processing the bids, in deciding amongst them if the issue is oversubscribed, and in transferring the bonds to the buyers.

A small number of Western banks have the necessary expertise to carry out such operations and do so with great efficiency.  By contrast Russian banks like Sberbank and VTB have little such experience since by comparison with Western banks they are relatively small and have far shorter trading histories.

The reason the decision was taken to offer bonds worth only $1.75 billion for sale instead of the full $3 billion talked about was almost certainly VTB’s inexperience in managing such a sale, not worries about a lack of buyers.  The same was almost certainly true of the decision to conduct the sale over 2 days rather than one.  The total bids on the first day apparently came to $5 billion so it cannot have been worries about lack of buyers on the first day that lay behind these decisions. However limiting the offering to $1.75 billion instead of $3 billion and holding the sale over 2 days rather than one is precisely the sort of step that is sensibly taken in order to reduce the pressure on an inexperienced bank and its sales team so as to avoid mistakes.”

The fact the latest bond was offered with no advance publicity – in sharp contrast to what happened with the previous issue earlier this year – shows that VTB is gaining in experience and confidence.

Russia is also enjoying a healthy tourism industry, as originally reported in the Russian daily, Izvestia:

The increase was mostly due to tourists from Asia and Southern Europe, the Federal Tourism Agency told Izvestia, with Russia considered the safest destination.

According to estimates by the Deputy Head of the Federal Tourism Agency Sergei Korneev, Russia  is among the top ten most visited countries. In 2015, almost 27 million foreign tourists visited Russia, and it is expected that about 1.5 million people will come for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Indeed, Russia’s medical tourism is also on the rise as more westerners become aware of quality health care available for a lower price.  All of this, of course, brings in revenue to the country. Russia Beyond the Headlines reports:

The number of foreigners coming to the country as medical tourists is on the rise, and has brought the state billions of rubles in extra revenue, according to Igor Lanskoi, advisor to the Russian health minister, who spoke about the phenomenon in an interview with the business daily Kommersant.

He noted that last year such travelers added from 7 to 10 billion rubles ($108-154 million) to the state budget. Earlier, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that in 2015 the number of foreigners who underwent treatment in Russia increased fourfold in respect to 2014.

Before, only citizens from the ex-Soviet republics would come to Russia to improve their health but now Americans are also becoming more and more interested in Russian treatments, according to David Melik-Guseinov, director of the Federal Research Institute for Health Organization.

….Experts surveyed by Kommersant FM underline that foreign demand for Russian medicine is growing because of the weak ruble. Treatment and the accompanying services in the country are now four times as cheap as they are in the West, said Yakov Margolin, general director of the Clinical Hospital in Yauza.

“When someone wants to undergo treatment in his own country but his insurance doesn’t cover it, he gets angry and chooses to come to Russia since here he can receive the same medical services at a much lower price, especially outside Moscow. We have unique services for which people come to us, services in reproductive medicine, in which for relatively little money we solve serious problems, helping people have children,” explained Margolin.

(http://www.euronews.com/2016/09/21/syria-ceasefire-is-not-dead-insists-kerry-despite-attack-on-aid-convoy)

A deadly attack on a UN aid relief convoy near Aleppo, on September 19th, was initially reported as an airstrike and blamed by Washington, particularly Secretary of State John Kerry, on Syria and/or Russia.  However, the UN was later forced to admit that it could not confirm if, in fact, an airstrike was responsible for the attack.   The Duran provided the following details, including the response from the Russian Defense Ministry:

Russia has laid out its evidence that the Russian air force (and by extension the Syrian air force) could not have taken part in the attack on the UN convoy.

The UN has since retracted from saying the convoy was attacked from the air, which reinforces the narrative that the convoy may have been a false flag operation orchestrated by US backed “moderate rebels” from the ground.

….The Russian Defense Ministry has released data showing that a US coalition drone was in the vicinity of the humanitarian convoy when it was attacked outside Aleppo.

The Russian military has revealed that the unmanned aircraft was a Predator drone, equipped with hellfire missiles.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov laid out the evidence…

“On the evening of September 19, in that specific region, a drone belonging to the international condition, which had taken off from the Incirlik air base in Turkey, was flying at a height of 3,600 meters and traveling at around 200 kilometers per hour.”

“The object was in the area around the town of Urm Al-Kubra, where the convoy was a few minutes before it caught fire.”

“It left after about 30 minutes.”

“Only the owners know what exactly the drone was doing at this particular area at that exact time.”

The owners being the USA…which will now need to explain why its drone was over the UN convoy when it was attacked.

Did it do the attacking with hellfire missiles? Did it provide intelligence to “moderate rebels” who did the attacking? We have many questions that need answering, which only American intelligence can answer.

Military analyst and blogger, Moon of Alabama, has written about which of the parties in Syria had a more credible motive for attacking the convoy:

Why would the Syrian Air Force attack the Syrian Red Crescent with which it has good relations and which also works in all government held areas? Why would the Syrian or Russian forces attack a convoy which earlier had passed through government held areas and checkpoints and was thereby not carrying contraband? I find no plausible reason or motive for such an attack. Nor has anyone else come forward with such.

A few days ago the “rebels” had accused the UN, which had goods on the convoy, of partisanship and said they would boycott it. “Rebels” in east Aleppo had demonstrated against UN provided help and said they would reject it. There was a general rejection of the ceasefire by the “rebels” and they were eager to push for a wider and bigger war against Syria and its allies. Al-Qaeda in Syria even made a video against the ceasefire. A part of the ceasefire deal is to commonly fight al-Qaeda. They naturally want the deal to end. The attack on the aid convoy seems to help their case.

The motive argument makes an attack by the “rebels” plausible and an attack by Syria and its allies implausible.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, at a UN Security Council meeting last week, called for an impartial and independent investigation into the attack on the aid convoy.  To further let Washington know that Moscow is on to its skulduggery in Syria, Lavrov also stated that Russia would no longer make concessions unless Washington demonstrated concretely that it was separating “moderate rebels” from terrorist organizations like Al-Nusra and its myriad aliases.

Russia will “no longer take seriously” requests that its own or Syrian forces make unilateral concessions regarding the ceasefire, without the Western coalition providing proof it’s trying to separate moderates from terrorists, the foreign minister said.

Robert Parry at Consortium News pointed out that Kerry’s shoot-from-the-hip pronouncements about Syrian or Russian responsibility for war crimes prior to any meaningful investigation is a disturbing pattern:

Eager to go on the propaganda offensive – especially after a U.S. military airstrike last Saturday killed scores of Syrian soldiers who were battling the Islamic State in eastern Syria – Kerry pounced on an initial report that the attack on the convoy on Monday was an airstrike and then insisted that the Russians must have been responsible because one of their jets was supposedly in the area.

Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (U.N. photo)

But the United Nations – and I’m told CIA analysts – have not ruled out the possibility that the convoy was instead hit by a surface-to-surface missile. On Friday, a source briefed by U.S. intelligence said one fear is that the jihadist group, Ahrar al-Sham, which has fought alongside Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front but is deemed to be part of the “moderate” opposition, may have used a U.S.-supplied TOW missile in the attack.

Ahrar al-Sham, like some other jihadist groups seeking to overthrow the Syrian government, has objected to limited cease-fires arranged by the Russians and the Americans, which still allowed attacks on its ally, the recently rebranded Nusra Front. Ahrar al-Sham thus had a motive for destroying the aid convoy, an act which indeed has upended efforts to negotiate an end to the five-year-old conflict and led to bloody new attacks inside the embattled city of Aleppo on Friday.

Another possibility was that a Syrian government warplane was targeting a rebel artillery piece traveling alongside the convoy and struck the convoy by accident. But the assignment of blame required additional investigation, as other international officials acknowledged.

On Tuesday, a day before Kerry’s outburst, the U.N. revised its initial statement citing an airstrike, with Jens Laerke, a humanitarian affairs representative for the U.N., saying: “We are not in a position to determine whether these were in fact airstrikes. We are in a position to say that the convoy was attacked.” He called the earlier reference to an airstrike a drafting error.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Kerry made his high-profile denunciation of the Russians at the U.N. Security Council, the same venue where Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2003 presented a false case against Iraq for possessing hidden stockpiles of WMD. In fiery comments, Kerry accused Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of living “in a parallel universe” in denying Russian responsibility.

“The eyewitnesses will tell you what happened,” Kerry said. “The place turned into hell and fighter jets were in the sky.”

Yet, the two points don’t necessarily connect. Just because there are jets in the sky doesn’t mean they fired the rocket that struck the convoy. They might have, but to determine that – and if so, who was flying the jet that fired the missile – requires more thorough study.

Kerry also sought to excuse the U.S. airstrike near Deir ez-Zor last Saturday that killed some 62 Syrian soldiers, saying: “We did it, a terrible accident. And within moments of it happening, we acknowledged it. … But I got to tell you, people running around with guns on the ground, from the air, is a very different thing from trucks in a convoy with big U.N. markings all over them.”

But what Kerry ignored was the fact that the United States has no legal authority to be conducting military operations inside Syria, attacks supposedly targeting the terrorist Islamic State but lacking the approval of the Syrian government. In other words, under international law, any such U.S. attacks are acts of aggression and thus war crimes.

….Kerry also has a history of jumping ahead of a story and then going silent when further information is developed.

Read the full article here.