20 Mar, 2022 14:29

Ukraine and Russia close to agreement on ‘critical’ issues – Turkey

Ankara is ‘hopeful of a ceasefire’ if both sides remain where they are on key details

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said Ukraine and Russia are nearing agreement on “critical” issues and that Ankara believes a ceasefire is possible provided neither side decides to backtrack.

In an interview with Istanbul daily Hurriyet, on Sunday, Cavusoglu – who traveled to Moscow and Kiev for meetings last week – indicated that there had been “rapprochement in the positions of both sides on important subjects, critical subjects.”

“We can say we are hopeful for a ceasefire if the sides do not take a step back from the current positions,” he added, without offering further details.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told Al Jazeera, however, that Moscow and Kiev were close on four main issues, citing Russia’s red line of Ukraine vowing not to join NATO, demilitarization and “denazification” of the country, and the protection of the Russian language.

Kalin said a permanent ceasefire would have to come through a direct meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Reuters reported. Ukrainian presidential aide Mikhail Podolyak said on Thursday that Zelensky could meet Putin “in the coming weeks” but only if a peace treaty was ready.

Several rounds of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Belarus have failed to produce breakthroughs, but have led to cooperation on organizing humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians.

Last week, the Financial Times reported that “significant” progress had been made in the talks and that a 15-point plan had been drafted. However, the report was refuted by both Moscow and Kiev.

https://www.rt.com/russia/552342-turkey-ukraine-russia-ceasefire/

20 Mar, 2022 14:43

Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing school where civilians were sheltering

Multiple people are trapped under rubble, local authorities believe

Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of hitting a school located in the besieged city of Mariupol. The facility was sheltering some 400 civilians, primarily women, children and the elderly, the city’s council alleged on Sunday in a Telegram post.

“Yesterday, the Russian occupiers dropped bombs on an art school No 12,” the council claimed. “It is known that the building was destroyed, and civilians are still under the rubble.”

The council did not estimate the number of potential casualties resulting from the alleged school bombing. No footage from the scene corroborating the claim has emerged either, while the Russian military has remained silent on the matter.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian authorities accused Moscow of bombing the Mariupol Drama Theater, initially claiming that over 1,000 civilians sheltering there had been killed. The Ukrainian account of the events, however, promptly changed as it turned out that over 200 civilians were rescued from the bomb shelter under the destroyed building, while no one was apparently killed in the incident.

The Russian military denied targeting the theater altogether, pinning the blame for the bombing on neo-Nazi fighters with the notorious Azov regiment. Russian military spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said that “reliable information” from locals indicated that the militants blew up the building themselves to frame Russia.

Mariupol became the site of intense urban warfare after the southeastern Ukrainian city was cut off and encircled by Russian regular troops and those of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

https://www.rt.com/russia/552334-ukraine-mariupol-school-bombing/

20 Mar, 2022 14:28

Berlin wants Trump-trashed trade deal back on table

Germany is calling for the resumption of talks on the transatlantic pact

Germany is calling for discussions about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US, which were halted by former US President Donald Trump, to be revived.

“We should resume negotiations on a transatlantic free trade agreement,” Christian Lindner, the finance minister of Europe’s number-one economy, told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

“Especially now in the crisis, it is becoming clear how important free trade is with partners around the world who share our values.”

Trump pulled the US out of discussions over the TTIP – which had been the subject of negotiations between Brussels and Washington since 2013, during the Obama administration – saying international trade agreements hurt US workers and damaged the country’s competitiveness.

In recent years, there have been calls from a number of officials to restart the stalled talks, but others have been more cautious.

The US Embassy in Berlin didn’t respond directly to Lindner’s proposal, but stated that the existing US-EU Trade and Technology Council ensured that coordinated policies supported broad-based growth.

“The current crisis shows the United States and Germany, and the European Union, are indispensable partners,” the statement reads.

https://www.rt.com/business/552331-germany-transatlantic-trade-deal/

20 Mar, 2022 11:14

Russia says it’s struck another mercenary base in Ukraine

More than 100 Ukrainian special ops troops and foreign soldiers of fortune were eliminated, according to Moscow

Russian forces hit a Ukrainian special forces training center early on Sunday, killing more than 100 local troops and foreign mercenaries, the Ministry of Defense has said.

A Ukrainian Special Operations Forces training center near the town of Ovruch in the northern Zhytomyr Region, which hosted the mercenaries, was targeted by “high-precision air-launched missiles,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing.

The airstrike has eliminated more than 100 Ukrainian special ops troops and foreign soldiers of fortune, he added.

A week ago, Russia destroyed another mercenary base at the Yavoriv range in the western Lviv region, saying that up to 180 foreign fighters were killed there.

Kiev disputed those numbers and put the death toll at 35 people. It also insisted that all those who died in the attack were Ukrainian.

However, after the strike, reports emerged of mercenaries fleeing to neighboring Poland in large numbers. Some would-be combatants have complained on social media and in interviews that the conflict turned out not to be what they expected.

Russia has warned that it was aware of all the locations of mercenaries on the territory of Ukraine and promised to continue targeting them “without mercy.”

“All further responsibility for the death of this category of foreign citizens in Ukraine rests solely with the leadership of these countries," who encourage its people to answer to Kiev’s repeated calls for help in the conflict, Konashenkov said last week.

Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine last month following a seven-year standoff over Kiev's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc.

Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it had been planning to retake the two republics by force.

https://www.rt.com/russia/552328-mercenary-base-strike-ukraine/

20 Mar, 2022 14:13

Сold War-style UK psyop unit targets Russians – media

The Government Information Cell is reportedly reaching Russian social media users to show the UK’s view of the conflict in Ukraine

Britain is utilizing its new so-called counter-disinformation unit to buy ads on Russian social media to disseminate London’s view on the conflict in Ukraine, the Telegraph claimed on Saturday. The Government Information Cell (GIC) is operated between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, the first such unit since the end of the Cold War. The social media platform mentioned in the article has refuted reports that it showed British government ads.

The unit’s “crucial audiences” are in Russia and Ukraine, the article highlights. After Moscow blocked Twitter and Facebook, the Telegraph reports, the GIC has turned to advertising agencies to“target” Russian users on sites such as VK, the country’s most popular domestic social media platform. The tech firm's press service has already refuted the claim, telling Russian news site RBC that “all ads go through verification and have to follow VK’s and Russia’s law.” The website rules in any case prohibit political ads.

The tactic is described as reaching the devices of people “who would never have thought to seek out the view of the British Government.” Some 35 full-time staff were reportedly pulled from numerous departments, including the Foreign Office, Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, and the Cabinet Office.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss revealed theunit’s creation in late February, days before Moscow attacked its neighbor. Back then she outlined in an interview with the Mail that the unit’s task is to expose and fight “false information.” Details of how the unit is countering supposed “Kremlin disinformation” were given in the Telegraph’s report.

The unit identifies so-called “Russian disinformation,” brands it as false and then creates “new content” to be spread online. It also apparently distributes reports to NATO and EU members, along with Australia and New Zealand. The unit further coordinates with embassies abroad to translate content around the world.

The article gave an example of the sort of content the unit disseminates. One of the videos from late February involves Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressing Russians in their own language saying that “I do not believe this war is in your name.” The unit claims that more than eight million people viewed this video, according to the Telegraph. VK’s audience is nearly 79.3 million as of October 2021.

An unnamed person dubbed an “ally of Ms Truss” told the newspaper that the Foreign Secretary believed that “ditching our Cold War anti-propaganda capability was a mistake,” and that this unit is a restoration of that.

In 1948 during the Cold War-era Foreign Office had a covert unit called the Information Research Department (IRD) created to spread anti-Soviet and anti-communist views. It was disbanded in 1977 by then-Foreign Secretary David Owen. The IRD is thought to have operated alongside MI6 and the BBC’s World Service. Among other controversial dimensions, according to declassified documents, the British propaganda campaign incited the mass slaughter of communists in Indonesia in the 1960s. The unit was also involved in undermining the Irish Republican Army during the war in Northern Ireland and in countering the ‘Black Power’ movement in the Caribbean.

https://www.rt.com/news/552336-uk-counter-disinformation-social-media/

https://twitter.com/mirandadevine/status/1504823551018291205?s=20&t=FYHuAnJVEb4XtaXauh-osw

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1504827354018889734?s=20&t=FYHuAnJVEb4XtaXauh-osw

https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1505235259012661249?s=20&t=gIWwSUROA7jEhXyvXyIMLw