“Today I am here with a clear message: The United States sees that the Ukrainian struggle for freedom, democracy and prosperity is a valiant one. Our commitment to support it will not waver,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday in Kyiv. Pompeo’s meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was the first such high-level meeting between the two countries since the impeachment inquiry began last fall – the US Secretary of State had to reschedule his trip to Ukraine after the American drone strike killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on 3 January.

During the joint news conference, Pompeo said that the US would continue to provide security assistance to Ukraine, which has received $1 billion in such aid since 2017. Despite the friendship between the two governments – last July President Trump called Zelensky to ask him to investigate Joe Biden and his son – an official invitation to Washington did not arrive from Pompeo. “There is no condition for President Zelensky to come to Washington. We’ll find the right time or find the appropriate opportunity. We want to make sure that it will happen at a time when substantial progress, things that we can deliver between the two of us [are done],” pointed out Pompeo.

On the contrary, Zelensky told journalists he is ready to meet Trump, and that a visit to the American capital would be good for both countries. The Ukrainian leader has expressed himself on the impeachment trial in which President Trump is involved, saying he doesn’t think the investigation has affected relations between the US and the Ukraine.

Another key focus for Zelensky in 2020 will be boosting trade and investment, hoping the Trump administration will cancel Ukraine’s 25% duty on steel imports, considering it a sensitive issue for Ukrainian metallurgical exports.

But what is really important for the US is the hybrid war Russia is fighting against Ukraine, Europe and the US. “Ukraine is a bulwark between freedom and authoritarianism,” commented Pompeo during the midday meeting with Zelensky, supporting the work of the Ukrainian President on its democratic path towards membership of NATO and the EU as well as in its war against Russia.

Pompeo’s visit to Kyiv comes after last week’s post-interview exchange with NPR radio host Mary Louise Kelly, when he asked the journalist: “Do the Americans actually care about Ukraine?” While Pompeo has not denied making the comment, the State Department has declined NPR journalist Michele Kelemen’s permission to fly with the Secretary of State on the official trip that includes Ukraine – Pompeo will also visit Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

Before seeing Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, the US will continue helping Ukraine, including reducing corruption in the country. “When we were talking about corruption, we talked about every element of corruption inside of Ukraine,” Pompeo commented earlier this week, adding he did not want to talk about particular corrupted individuals since it is not worth it and there’s a long list in the country.

L'articolo Pompeo and Zelensky: Why the US cares about Ukraine proviene da InsideOver.

Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, was in Washington last week for meetings with US President Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, his secretary of state. Lavrov’s visit at The White House came as the House of Representatives concluded its impeachment hearings primarily centered on evidence the American leader attempted to extort a political favor from Ukraine by holding up foreign aid. Considering the 2016 allegations of collusion, the pending impeachment vote, and the upcoming elections, Lavrov’s visit to the US raised eyebrows. The two nations understandably have other issues to discuss outside of US domestic politics, but if there was any concern of a Kremlin official meeting Trump, it was amplified when both sides recalled the subjects of their discussion.

Two Tales

Whereas Pompeo and The White House insisted Trump personally “warned against any Russian attempts to interfere” in the 2020 presidential election, Lavrov denied elections were discussed at all.

“I will leave to the White House to give the details of what is said. I never talk about what the President says in those private settings, but I can tell you that Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statement is not accurately a reflection of my recollection of that meeting,” Pompeo countered. “[T]here is no mistake that President Trump made clear in the meeting that he had with Foreign Minister Lavrov and the rest of the Russian team that was there that President Trump personally, and America, finds their meddling in our elections unacceptable in the very same way that I had said it earlier to Foreign Minister Lavrov.”

Lavrov not only denied the conversation took place, but also took umbrage with the notion that The Kremlin even interfered in the election. In denying this basic premise, he argued there are no facts to support the argument Russia meddled in the election, which was well-documented in Mueller’s 500-page report. Furthermore, Lavrov stated that because of the undue focus on the “alleged” interference, other work between Russia and the US has been inhibited. These topics include nuclear arms control and weapons shipments to Libya.

Unrestricted

In February, the Trump administration announced the US would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. The agreement was a landmark deal when it was signed at the end of 1987 as it heralded the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The INF forbid both nations from possessing land-based missiles and launchers with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres. Consequently, the two states drastically reduced their stockpiles.

Former US President Barack Obama negotiated the New START treaty, a followup to the 1991 START I agreement. Like the INF, New START placed limits on the nuclear programs, capping the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550. It also placed limits on missile launcher systems and heavy bombers.

Trump has signaled his intention not to renew the New START treaty, which expires in 2021. Complicating matters further, the treaty expires on Feb. 5, 2021, leaving no time for Trump’s successor to broker an extension or work a new deal, if Trump is defeated in the election. Since the American president has chosen not to renew the treaty or work toward a new one, it seems the US and Russia will be without an agreement for the first time in over three decades.

Although Russia is willing to extend it, Trump is refusing because he wants to see China added to the deal. China’s nuclear arsenal is comparatively small, but experts estimated it will double its stockpile over the next 10 years. China is not a member to any nuclear treaty and, as Lavrov declared, Beijing is uninterested.

Hinging a critical nuclear deal such as New START on a condition beyond Moscow’s control is unreasonable. Nuclear arms cannot be left to irrational demands especially when the other party is powerless to fulfill them.

Libya Embargo

On Libya, Pompeo called for a peaceful solution in coordination with The Kremlin to limit the weapon flow. Libya has been in a state of civil war since April when General Khalifa Haftar, a Gaddafi holdover, began a campaign to take control of the government. Washington has evidence Haftar’s Libyan National Army is supplied by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia.

“We want to work with the Russians to get to the negotiating table, have a series of conversations that ultimately lead to a disposition that creates what the UN has been trying to do,” Pompeo said. “Foreign Minister Lavrov told me directly yesterday he is prepared to be part of that, to continue it. I reminded him that there is a weapons embargo that is still in place in Libya, and that no nation ought to be providing incremental materiel inside of Libya.”

The US and Russia often find themselves on different sides when it comes to the Middle East and North Africa, particularly under Trump as the US has attempted to extricate itself from the regions. The US still looks to put its weight behind international affairs, however, and Trump has publicly called on Haftar to end his campaign. As in Yemen, when outside powers invest resources for war, conflict becomes difficult to stop. In the case of Russia, there are few options that will not risk an international incident except harsh words during an Oval Office visit.

L'articolo Lavrov Visits Trump and Pompeo but Contradicts Their Story proviene da InsideOver.

They say that in those instances your entire life flashes before your eyes. They say that time slows down, as if in slow motion, and that the moments become drawn out and filled with thoughts. They say that you are left with just a few seconds for one last prayer, that you have time to dedicate a thought to your loved ones or utter a last minute useless curse. In actual fact the truth is more lackluster: suddenly you hear a high-pitched whistle, your head turns to the sky ad you realize that everyone around you is screaming with terror. You don’t have time to realize anything because two seconds later the explosion knocks you over.

We spent a night in Spartak’s separatist trenches, in the northeastern outskirts of Donetsk, under the bombings of Ukrainian heavy artillery. We spent twelve hours filming the true entity of this forgotten war which Europe continues to ignore but which every day regurgitates death, horror, destruction.  We stared directly into the face of what nobody wants to see and we are here to recount it.

Donbass: The War continues. Why is no one talking about it?

Man has a great attribute: the ability to adapt to any situation – even war.   Spartak’s shack is constantly under the fire of kalashnikovs and automatic weapons, but after half an hour you beign to get used to it, whether you like it or not.  In this area artillery follows the logic of a table tennis match: one side shoots first, then after

a few minutes’ pause, the other side shoots back.  In the middle of the table, ground soldiers huddle up to their posts. Theirs is a rat’s life: their chow consists of a bowl of “kasha”, a tasteless buckwheat porridge. To relieve sleepiness and exhaustion soldiers often resort to amphetamines, while all alcohol is strictly prohibited. Going out on patrol, guard duty on the front line, sniping beyond the trenches, scrambling to shelter: this is the daily routine amongst the rubble in Spartak.  The commander confesses to us: “If it were up to me, I would assemble my men this very night and I would lead them to assault the Ukrainian trenches. I might die, but at least I would die like a man and not like a rat”.

Talking to the soldiers is no easy feat: we do what we can with the aid of a small pocket dictionary. None of them speak English and obviously we only know a few words of Russian.  One of them shows us a photo of his newly born son. His hands are blackened by earth and soot, as are those of all his comrades. The smell of gun powder hangs in the air, the awful stench drilling up your nostrils and into your brain. It is hot, all the men smoke nervously.  One of them tells us about two of his colleagues who died down here only a few nights ago. Miming an explosion with his hands we understand that the youngest had his belly wrenched open and bled to death, his guts splattered on his boots. “Apocalypse”, he smiles and pats us on the shoulder. Well, we certainly can’t say he’s wrong.

As night falls, the situation becomes even more tense. The table tennis match picks up rhythm: the snipers slowly return to their shelter. The heavy artillery steps in,

making the walls tremble, filling the air with shards and chewing up corpses till they are unrecognizable. Then comes the true exterminator: a gunshot is nothing compared to a 152 millimeter grenade. Suddenly a dialogue from an old Kubrick film, “Paths of Glory” comes to mind: “Tell me this,” one soldier asks another, “Aside from the bayonet what are you most afraid of?” “High explosives!” he replies. And the other, “Exactly! It’s the same with me! Because I know it can chew you up worse than anything else!”  Today finally we can grasp the full meaning of that line: it is before our own eyes.

At around nine in the evening, we put on our helmets and bullet proof vests to go out on patrol towards the remaining trenches. The route is very short. We walk in pitch black, tripping over the rubble, taking the dug-out path in single file. We hear the bullets whistling past our heads while the militiamen next to us repeatedly recite their litany. “No lights, sniper, no lights”. We reach a sort of observatory, on the first floor of a rundown building. The scene we are faced with is both wonderful and terrifying: the entire horizon before us is lit up to daylight by endless bursts of lightning. They look like fireworks but obviously they are something else: a blazing shower of bombs falling ceaselessly on the tragically torn area of Donbass .

When at war, the black of night is a strange travelling companion. Soldiers love darkness because it protects them from enemy eyes. But at the same time they fear it: anything can surface from obscurity, and in general it is nothing good.  The blackness was unexpectedly slashed open at fourteen minutes past ten at night, as we sat at the garrison desk, interviewing one of the militiamen. All of a sudden the air was pierced by an extremely powerful hiss. We saw the face of the boy opposite us distorted into an indescribable grimace of terror.  We jumped to our feet and lunged over the bunker threshold. As we toppled down the concrete stairs, an unimaginable blast pounded our ears. The air moved bringing with it a powerful shower of incandescent shrapnel.

It is absolutely impossible to describe the moments that followed. The bombing lasted a total of three hours,until half past one in the morning.  We saw some of the militiamen burst into tears. Others crouched on the floor, as if seeking protection in the most remote underground corners. Some screamed, while others more just stared into emptiness.

Fortunately our video camera remained on, allowing us to record the daily tragedy of thousands of young men like us, in the eternal trenches of Donbass. The following morning, as we finally surfaced into the sunlight we discovered that our stronghold had been showered by a barrage of 152 millimetre ammunition.  One of the shots had landed only ten metres from us carving out a hole at least two metres wide in the tarmac. We picked up the shards: some of them were as big as our fists

As we walked back home, ironically shrouded in the early morning light, we thought back to the famous words by Ernest Hemingway: “They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”. The young men of Spartak have probably never read “For whom the bell tolls.” But maybe they don’t need to.

Photos by Alfredo Bosco www.alfredobosco.com

L'articolo Under Ukrainian Bombings proviene da InsideOver.