Press Digest: U.S. supply of arms to Kyiv is ‘just a matter of time’
U.S. ready to cross the red line in battle for Ukraine
The Vzglyad online
newspaper has published an opinion piece on the possibility of the U.S.
supplying arms to Ukraine. According to the author, the U.S. is currently
preparing public opinion for the supply of weapons to Kyiv. In a recent statement,
American President Barack Obama said that he would continue to adhere to a “bilateral”
course: putting more pressure on Russia and strengthening Ukraine. But how will
the European Union react to the possibility of arms being shipped to Kyiv?
“In
exchange for not supplying arms the U.S. will insist on increasing sanctions,
thinking that Europe will agree to a lesser evil,” Vzglyad writes.
“In a few days [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel will be in Washington and
it is very likely that there she will have to assume the role of the
“dove,” persuading Obama, who is surrounded by “hawks,” to
impose new sanctions on Russia instead of arming Ukraine.
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“But all
these games that the U.S. is playing with the EU in reality have little
meaning, because even if it bends Europe into introducing new sanctions against
Russia, Washington will still supply arms to Ukraine. It is just a matter of
time.”
Vzglyad
concludes that the consequences of this step will be catastrophic for Kyiv.
“Having decided to supply arms, the U.S. understands that it is crossing
the red line, the mark that distinguishes the war in Russian perception as a
civil war, in which one of the sides enjoys NATO’s political and moral support,
from a war in which there is international intervention.”
Ukraine cleansing its mass media of Russian influence
The Gazeta.ru internet
newspaper reports on the mass purchase of shares in the Ukrainian media that
belong to Russian companies. Recently, the Ukrainian company GDF bought a
29-percent share in the Ukrainian TV channel Inter from the Russian channel
Perviy Kanal. GDF’s management admitted that the deal had a compulsory nature.
“The thing is that Perviy Kanal had not participated in managing Inter and
did not have an influence on the channel,” said GDF’s managing director
Boris Krasnyansky. “We were forced to accelerate the deal and buy the
stake because of political pressure that individual representatives of the
government were putting on the media group.”
Gazeta.ru
also writes that in the near future the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna
Rada, will examine a bill concerning a ban on television and radio organizations
whose shares belong to Russian citizens or legal entities. At the end of
January, Viktoria Syumar, chairwoman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech,
said that she would do everything possible in order to ban Russian information
products as soon as possible.
“If
we look at what is happening from the Ukrainian viewpoint, then the measures
being carried out by the government are logical,” says a source close to
the management of several Russian media outlets. “A real information war
is being waged against Ukraine and local Ukrainian TV channels and legislative
organs are being forced to look for a commensurate response. That is why
Russian shareholders are being squeezed out of the Ukrainian mass media. This
is a result of the confrontation in the information sphere.”
Debaltsevo residents living in ‘besieged Leningrad or Stalingrad’
The business
daily Kommersant publishes
a special reportage from the government-held town of Debaltsevo in Ukraine’s
Donetsk Region, which for the last several days has been involved in a battle
and is now being shelled daily. The correspondent observed how the military has
been trying to evacuate the local residents, many of whom have long moved from
their apartments to the buildings’ basements.
“Each
day the shelling begins exactly at six in the morning, and the blasting
continues every hour, even though there are practically no soldiers left in the
town,” local residents say.
“There
is no gas, no water, no electricity,” continue other residents. “We
must take water from puddles for the toilet. Look at us – people are turning
into living ruins, we live as if we were in besieged Leningrad or
Stalingrad.”
Vodka just got cheaper for Russians
Debaltsevo’s
town hall had earlier housed a Russian-Ukrainian Center for the control and
coordination of the ceasefire and the establishment of the demarcation line.
But at the end of January the Russian officers moved to nearby Soledar (40 miles
from the town). Major General Alexander Rozmaznin, who heads the Ukrainian half
of the center, says that the move was motivated by security issues. “If
our Russian colleagues had remained where they were, no one would have dared to
shell Debaltseve,” says Rozmaznin. “But I believe that the potential
of our collaboration will not be exhausted, if the next round of negotiations
in Minsk ends successfully.”
The
Ukrainian officers have been using their Russian colleagues to make agreements
with representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics
about temporary suspensions of fire in order to evacuate civilians or other
humanitarian missions. Such an agreement was reached on Feb. 3, and for several
hours in the first half of the day the town was not shelled, even though shots
were heard a few miles away. In the neighborhood of Uglegorsk clashes continued
all day.
Read the previous Press Digest: Rebel leaders set demands, Russians abducted in Sudan and retail trade expected to fall
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