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Germany's 'secret deal with Russia
deptfordbaker
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Mail wrote:
Germany's 'secret deal with Russia to end violence in Ukraine which would see Crimea officially annexed in exchange for $1billion'
*Angela Merkel 'dealing directly with Vladimir Putin to thrash out pact'
*'Would call on Russia not to meddle with Ukraine's trade with the EU'
*'Moscow would also have to offer Kiev long-term gas supply contract'
*Eastern Ukraine would be given some devolved powers, it is claimed
*Ukrainian President would also 'abandon any attempts to join Nato'
Germany and Russia are working on a secret peace deal to end the conflict in Ukraine that would see Moscow's controversial annexation of Crimea officially recognised in exchange for a $1billion compensation package, it was claimed today.
Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin have reportedly been locked in talks that will primarily seek to ensure the Kremlin withdraws its support for rebels fighting for independence in eastern Ukraine.
Putin would also have to agree not to interfere with Ukraine's new trade relations with the European Union and offer Kiev a long-term contract for future gas supplies with Russian firm Gazprom.
In return, parts of eastern Ukraine would be granted some devolved powers and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would abandon attempts to join Nato, a source close to the negotiations told Margareta Pagano from The Independent.
A far more contentious bargaining chip would also see the international community formally acknowledging Crimea's annexation to Russia, which may prove a hard sell to some members of the United Nations, the paper reports.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2711739/Germanys-secret-deal-Russia-end-violence-Ukraine-Crimea-officially-annexed-exchange-1billion.html#ixzz393USLNLF
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So basically Ukraine can join the EU but not NATO. Russia stops supporting rebels and gives Ukraine a billion dollars and a long term cheap gas deal. The rebels get some devolution. Russia gets world recognition that Crimea is part of Russia. The new cold war is put on hold. I assume economic sanctions get dropped too.
No wonder Mrs Merkel has been so quiet. Now we know she has been secretly negotiating a deal with Russia. Its on hold for now because of the shooting down of the plane, but I think we do need a negotiated settlement.
To be honest, considering practically no one in Crimea wants to be part of Ukraine and it was only given to them in 1954 by Khrushchev completely undemocratically, so really should have been returned when the Soviet Union broke up, is this a bad deal?
It would mean we would not have to listen to any more embarrassing hot air from western leaders, especially from the UK. Nice to see Mrs Merkel is not just all talk and is actually doing something practical and constructive.
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I am not so sure. Whilst the deal has its merits I think what is going on here is Merkel who promised at the last election to stand down before the end of the Parliamentary term is looking to secure her place in history. Putin needs to be careful as, as Cameron found out her word cannot always be relied on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Connected?
Will this be the new main Ukraine thread? I suppose it will be if any negotiations between Russia and Germany continue and improve. I will limit my comments on the matter today as there is clearly some process taking place but at this stage the detail that has been published is mainly speculative. There is definitely a strong element of news management currently because the entire matter has very much been relegated on the BBC news website.
I do, though, have a few points. First, I am sure that I saw this morning on the rolling news part of the BBC site that a news conference about the black boxes was imminent. It isn't clear to me that it ever took place. Secondly, the fact that the investigation team was able to access the crash site as soon as the Ukraine authorities ceased attacks on East Ukraine is absolute proof of what Jan Tuider said - and indeed I have been saying - which is that they were the main barrier to that access. Thirdly, that cessation today was officially in response to a request from the UN and any direct UN involvement is welcome. Let us hope these things mean progress while accepting it will be slow.
Fourthly, there is no doubt at all that separatist elements are operating independently to the extent that they are currently beyond international influence and authority. Only time will tell if that is capable of significant - and speedy - change. And fifthly, I think we do do have to look at the role of Mr Yatsenyuk as an individual. We might ask ourselves what precisely are the levers on him from the relevant international parties which then enable him to have internal leverage. That today's cessation occurred on the very day that the Ukraine Parliament refused to accept his resignation is surely no coincidence. Furthermore, that resignation did for one "convenient" reason or another mean that aspects of the crash investigation could be delayed along with information to the relatives of the victims. If I were in their position, I would want to know in the longer term precisely what was going on there - and all voters should ask why in the vacuum our leaders spoke of WW3. It was not acceptable - and never would be.
Two further points for now. One, a week ago new parliamentary elections were announced in connection with the resignation of Yatsenyuk. There is no indication today as to whether or not they will now be taking place. And, two, on the alleged negotiations between Merkel and Putin, the one point that stands out to me is not, in fact, about the Russians keeping Crimea - or indeed Ukraine not joining NATO, a gas pipeline deal or "some" devolved powers for East Ukraine, all of which are cautiously welcome. It is the point that "Russia is not to meddle with Ukraine's trade with the EU". For it is a question of what is meddling - doubts about which were how and where this all kicked off.
If the new arrangements prohibit fair competition, it's dictatorial and not in line with the values the west purports to espouse. Western credibility is nothing without democracy and competitive principle. So unless voters go out of their way to explicitly express trading exclusivity, any Association Agreement with EU should not require a huge trading disparity for the Russians. Rather the arrangements should enable Ukraine to have sufficient trading flexibility even if the entirety of Ukraine is not to become a part of the Russian Customs Union. There may - should? -ultimately be scope for some greater formal trading ties with Russia in the East but only when any peace is restored there. And to the degree that there is asymmetry nationally, all EU citizens must have an absolute right to demand in parallel a dramatic improvement in Ukraine's adherence to democratic values and human rights.
Or does she do as she pleases for Germany's best interest ?
The Poles will be non too pleased
Her entire attitude over Russia has been atrocious Germany relies heavily on Russian Gas/Oil and they export a fair amount but this Pix n Mix nature she uses drives me nuts. Why bother embracing former Soviet countries when everyone knew sooner or later Russia would start feeling deeply uneasy about all these countries first in the EU then NATO.
I actually don't agree with Ukraine joining either NATO or the EU because they rejected with huge Majority a few years ago Joining NATO. As for the EU yep that's just what they need another clapped out country in Dire economic circumstances.
She apparently has a good relationship with Putin if she hasn't been able to resolve this issue Obama never stood a chance.
'Practically no-one' being the 40% of Crimeans who aren't ethnic Russians, least of all the 11% who are Tatars who managed to finally get back to Crimea after the Soviets expelled them all?
Let the EU take them all in.
That's not true, Germany gets all its gas from wind farms.:p:D
That is not to suggest the publication of the analysis had not been planned for yesterday. Had it happened then, everyone who was convinced that MH17 had been brought down by either Russians or Russian separatists may have needed to prepare for the most unexpected of conclusions. For it could appear that it was the very notion that the truth could have been announced so soon which encouraged the Parliament rapidly to recall Mr Yatsenyuk. Much as I personally dislike the man from what I know of him as a politician, I accept that his hands were never on any BUK but what of his ex Coalition partners? They may well know things the victims relatives' still don't know.
It was the Svoboda party which had broken the Coalition and prompted Yatsenyuk's resignation. Something very significant was required to bring that party back to the table. Interestingly, it was as recently as 16 June that Andriy Parubiy was made Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council. In that role, he has the responsibility for overseeing the "anti–terrorist" operation against the separatists. While officially he is an Independent, he has in the past been a candidate for Fatherland and Our Ukraine. Earlier, he founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine with Oleh Tyahnybok who leads Svoboda. In many ways, that party's formation back in 1991 helps to explain the resurrection of the far right in Ukraine. It combined so-called radical nationalism and some neo-Nazi features, by its name and the "Wolfsangel" like sign, and it also sought to make a big hero out of the notorious Stepan Bandera.
In early 2014, and at age 43, Parubiy was a, quote, commandant of Euromaidan and coordinator of the volunteer security corps for the mainstream protesters so he has lost little of his revolutionary zeal. How far his current responsibilities for National Security and Defence extend can only be surmised but no doubt that there is an element of ensuring that the skies above Ukraine are safe. Clearly something went terribly wrong on the day that a passenger jet descended. In the leaked tape, Nuland had said to Pyatt that Yatsenyuk was favoured and that Svoboda's Tyahnybok, along with Klitschko, should be kept on the "outside". And yet the very person with whom Tyahnybok formed a political party 23 years ago is very much inside Ukraine's initiative against the separatists.
Obviously it is Svoboda - with their past and present friends - who are most keen to attack the separatists with as much force as is humanly possible. The number of civilian casualties in East Ukraine is huge - the suffering in places has been on a par with Gaza - but very little has been said about those in western papers. Yatsenyuk is hardly for restraint in that regard himself and it is a sign of just how attacking the others are that they would bring the Coalition down on what they regard as his softness. While much is being made of the fact that international investigators were successful in accessing the crash site, it is noted that the assurances given of a 24 hour cessation of Ukrainian attacks were not adhered to and, in fact, a town in the Donetsk region was recaptured.
While average Europeans have looked at the Americans' willingness to cosy up to the far right, along with other rag bag elements, aghast, the early 1990s influence of Parubiy and Tyahnybok can be overestimated. That is to say that while the gathering in the Maidan of what the British might call National Front types could be traced back to the origins of their Social-National Party of Ukraine, the turning of young citizens into neo-Nazis may have begun with more significant influence. It is suggested in another place that Katherine Chumachenko, the wife of ex President Victor Yushchenko went to great lengths to defend Yaroslav Stetsko, then President of the Pro-Nazi Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, and to turn the culture of Ukrainian youth into one of extreme nationalist ideology. She was not only the Director of the Ukrainian National Information Service but also a Reagan White House aide.
If the words of Nuland to Pyatt in the leaked tape are anything to go by, the Americans in 2014 are less than enthusiastic about the far right. They are prepared to accommodate them where they are deemed to have uses to them and will be dropped like a stone as soon as they are not. Currently they may have little choice in accepting that Svoboda have enough representatives in the Parliament to be influential and that Parubiy is the man who has been chosen to oversee the campaign in East Ukraine. But if there is to be an election around the end of August or shortly afterwards, then any terrible mistakes that the far right might have made will be useful to bring out when the campaigning is underway. And if there has been anything diabolical of a deliberate nature that could really put an end to any hopes Svoboda and their friends, then so much the better for them, especially while a mere threat of publicising those conclusions now could be enough to ensure that the current Parliament works "as required".