Senior security official: Anti-terror operation suspended as Russian troops amass on border

Kyiv Post ^ | April 24, 2014, 4:18 p.m. | Kyiv Post

[WhiskeyX]

Video: Russian tanks, APCs, trucks mobilizing 10 kilometers from eastern border

4:15 – Citizen journalists purportedly located in Novoshakhtinsk, a Russian city 10 kilometers from Ukraine's eastern border in Rostov Oblast, shot footage of Russian military mobilizing. Columns of armored personnel carriers, artillery weapons, tanks and trucks, presumably transporting Russian soldiers are seen driving in the city's main highway. – Mark Rachkevych

[Video] Anti-terror operation temporarily halted, government reformulating plan

SBU releases Russian military chatter over killing of Horlivka lawmaker (VIDEO)

2:30 p.m. – Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has released a YouTube video it says implicates high-ranking Russian Military Intelligence officers in the April 17 abduction and subsequent killing of Horlivka City Councilman Volodymyr Rybak.

Rybak that day tried raising the Ukrainian national flag atop the local legislature building. His dead body was found in a river near Sloviansk – 65 kilometers from Horlivka – on April 19, along with an unidentified corpse. An Interior Ministry criminal investigator said his body had signs of torture and his belly was ripped open.

The first part of the video allegedly shows a recording of Russian Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Igor Bezlier ordering a subordinate to abduct Rybak, tie his hands and blindfold him while driving him away to a remote place so that he could rendezvous with the captors.

In the second part of the recording, Russian Military Intelligence Colonel Igor Strelkov – who the SBU says is coordinating the Kremlin-backed separatist movement in eastern Ukraine – calls Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk, “to come and pick up (Rybak’s) body because it is starting to stink.”

In response, Ponomaryov complies, and says he will come to take and “bury the punk.” – Mark Rachkevych

[WhiskeyX]

As the Ukrainian military forces capture Russian special forces, intelligence agents, and spies, Russia mobilizes its Army for a larger invasoin of Ukraine following further threats of intervention from the Russian Foreign Minister.

[grobdriver]

Russian Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Igor Bezlier
Russian Military Intelligence Colonel Igor Strelkov

That's two too many Russian Military Intelligence Igors in the Ukraine.

[tm61]

not long now.

with a bit of luck, maybe they will capture Biden.

[lodi90]

Invasion is the only card left for Putin. There is no wide public support for his band of al Qaeda in E. Ukraine. If there really was a genuine uprising by the people the weak Ukrainian govt would have been quickly ejected from the region. As time goes on there is less and less public support for this astroturfed independent Donbas fairy tale.

[grania]

So what are you saying? That the people of eastern Ukraine should start a shooting war instead of planning a vote?

It's looking more and more like Kiev does not want a national vote to choose leadership to replace the coup government.

[McGruff]

Meanwhile President Obama is teeing up even more sanctions.

[WhiskeyX]

“with a bit of luck, maybe they will capture Biden.”

It’s more likely Foreign Minister Lavrov will suffer the same fate as Foreign Minister Ribbentrop.

[lodi90]

So what are you saying? That the people of eastern Ukraine should start a shooting war instead of planning a vote?

---

The “people” don’t need to shoot anybody to get the weak Ukrainian central govt out of E. Ukraine if they really wanted to. A real popular revolt would be over in a day.

Very few folks want to live under gangster government. The Russians give guns to bus station drunks. Everybody can see how the Russians and their hired stooges are behaving. Kidnapping journalists and parading hostages on TV. Murdering a politician. It’s revolting.

There is no wide popular support for this type of peoples “government” in E. Ukraine. Putin would lose a free vote after all this astroturfed mayhem. His only card left is invasion.

[grania]

So why not plan the vote, instead of sending troops into eastern Ukraine to turn these protests into a shooting war?

[lodi90]

So why not plan the vote, instead of sending troops into eastern Ukraine to turn these protests into a shooting war?

---

There is a vote in Ukraine on May 25. The plan for that hasn’t changed.

You seem confused by some basic facts. Bus station drunks armed with assault rifles who kidnap and kill are not “protesters”. They working for Team KGB and don’t get to make their own laws in Ukraine.

[edpc]

Russian Military Intelligence Colonel Igor Strelkov

A distant relative of his, perhaps?

[Rashputin]

Then why call “Bus station drunks” who helped the protesters in Kiev patriots since by the same standard they had to be working for team EU?

[laotzu]

[mcshot]

Now that is mind blowing.