World War VI: Statement made by A. Illarionov at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly

World War VI

Statement made at the assembly of the Committee for Economics and Security of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Vilnius, May 31st, 2014.

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“Chechenization” of Ukraine: what for?

Russia is already spreading the “experience” of occupied Chechnya to Donbas.

Obviously, sending Chechens to the far away and completely disconnected Ukraine was a decision made by the Russian Federation government also with the goal to bury the issue of Russia’ military crimes in Chechnya forever – bury it under the tag of the “bandit people,” which would like nothing more than “to go to war, no matter where and what for.”

The long trace of the unfinished Russian-Chechen War is becoming more and more obvious on the “soil” of Eastern Ukraine. The grievous crimes committed by the Russian military-political forces on Chechen land, which have gone unnoticed by the main international institutions, have “metastasised” first in the aggression against Georgia. And now, with even more rascality, they are being committed in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine. 

Crimean Children Sent to Russia while Chechens Arrive in Crimea,

Teenagers from the temporarily occupied Crimea are departing to spend part of their summer in a Russian military sports camp called “Gvardiya”, which is set up on a military units base in the Nizhegorod and Penza Oblasts in Russia.

The first 40 schoolchildren from the annexed Crimea have already left for the camp. These are students of the specialized boarding school in Kerch and the Crimean gymnasium for gifted children. The boys are going to be prepared for “stern tests of a soldier’s lifestyle,” writes the Commander in Chief, reports Censor.NET.

The First 600 Children from Chechnya Have Arrived to Spend Holidays in Crimea

May 31, 2014
Six hundred children from Chechnya have arrived to Crimea. The schoolboys were brought to the summer camp named “Mandarin” located in the vicinity of Bakhchysarai [the former capital of Crimea Khanate, conquered by Catherine II of Russia in late 1700s – ed].

This group of young kids will stay there for three weeks. Overall, Russia is planning to have 8 thousand of kids from Chechnya spend quality time in Crimea during the summer.  At the same time, the “Master of Chechnya” Ramzan Kadyrov claims that Ukraine does not have any Chechen armed forces – neither interior nor military.  However, he does not exclude that volunteers from Chechnya may have arrived in Donbas.  According to Kadyrov’s estimations, not more than 14 Chechen armed men are in Donbas. In meanwhile, the Chechen leader declared that should he be given an order to move military troops [into Ukraine], he will carry it out.

Dozens of dead bodies of men killed in Ukraine arrive in the Chechen Republic; residents state that some of them had served in security forces

Thirty-five to 45 Chechens who were killed in Donetsk Oblast during the fighting have been brought home; according to Chechnya residents, many of them had previously served in special forces battalions.

The security structures of the Chechen Republic have refused to comment on this information, writes the newspaper Kavkhazskiy Utel.

One Chechnya resident said, “I have a relative working in the security services. He said that several dozen dead bodies were delivered home from Ukraine; these were our boys who fought on the side of the militia.”

“Most of those who were killed came from the Gudermeskiy, Shalinskiy and Urus-Martanivskiy districts. It is alleged that six dead bodies were delivered to one district and four to another. But this information is purposefully not being spread because of an order issued by our officials. The bodies are being buried in local cemeteries,” he noted.

Putin ante portas

Thomas Theiner

Will Putin invade Eastern Ukraine? Difficult to tell. Many of us never expected him to invade Crimea, but he did. What next? Where to now? The flabby reaction of the EU and US to the faked poll in Crimea March 16 will certainly encourage Putin to continue raising the stakes. However, the number of troops deployed by Russia so far suggests that an invasion is implausible.

According to Ukrainian Defense Minister Tenyukh, 60,000 Russian troops have been deployed along Ukraine’s eastern border and another 22,000 in Crimea. While certainly able to invade Ukraine and occupy areas in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, 82,000 troops are hardly enough to conquer all of Ukraine or to garrison occupied areas.