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Canada accuses Russia of provocation during Black Sea exercise

Canada accuses Russia of provocation during Black Sea exercise

9 September 2014

Russian military jets flew over the Canadian military ship Toronto during the NATO Sea Breeze 2014 exercises, said a statement by the Canadian Defense Ministry on Sept. 8. “Although Russian military aviation, which conducted circular test flights above the Toronto didn’t in any way pose a threat to the Canadian ship, such actions were unjustifiably provocative and created a risk of escalating tensions,” said the statement, as reported by the UNIAN news agency.

 

The U.S. and Ukrainian militaries began their annual Sea Breeze joint military exercises on Sept. 8 in the northwest part of the Black Sea, reported Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. The aim of the three-day exercise is to conduct “international operations to establish and ensure a safe maritime zone in a crisis region.” The exercises involve monitoring civilian maritime activity, identifying violating ships, and offering aid to damaged ships. The exercises also involve ships from Spain, Canada, Romania and Turkey.

 

NATO has confirmed the mobilization of Russian Armed Forces in the Donbas war, said on Sept. 8 NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, as reported by the UNIAN news agency. “In recent days, we have become witness to more and more direct involvement of Russian armed forces for actions in Ukraine,” he said. Russia is not acting as a concerned neighbor, but a state that is trying to actively undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, he said. NATO won’t be providing arms to Ukraine, but its member-states will, he said.

 

Pro-Russian forces ordered on Sept. 8 the evacuation of a village outside of the Donetsk city of Debaltseve (population 25,500) in preparation for an assault on that target, said Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. The fighters also have been forcing poor residents in the Luhansk region to join their ranks and are arming them, he said.

 

Pro-Russian forces are continuing to flagrantly violate the ceasefire conditions, shooting the positions of Ukrainian armies, including the use of artillery, reported on Sept. 9 Dmytro Tymchuk, the head of the Center for Military-Political Research. Ukrainian units at the Donetsk airport were shot at four times, twice from mortars and twice from Grad multiple rocket launchers.

 

Didier Burkhalter, the head of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe, said on Sept. 8 that he’s pessimistic on the prospects of the truce in Ukraine, as reported by the Reuters news agency. Ceasing military action is not enough, he said. Both sides are supposed to reach a political decision. “I look at this absolutely without optimism. I wasn’t an optimist from the very start,” he said, adding “A truce can work under the conditions of the presence of will. Various subjects are supposed to add pressure in order for a breakthrough to occur.”

 

The NATO summit in Wales didn’t reach an agreement for NATO to supply arms to Ukraine, but the Ukrainian government is able to purchase weapons directly from member-states, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told Polish television on Sept. 9. At the summit, NATO declared its financial and technical support, he said. Poland is willing to sell arms to Ukraine, he said. “If Ukraine expresses its readiness, then our defense industry is probably ready to fulfill these orders,” he said. “It won’t be simple because these contracts aren’t reached within a few days.”

 

Zenon Zawada: The Russian government is readying for a larger fight over Ukraine, and the evidence mounts daily that it will not stop with its current occupied territories. That was most recently confirmed by Elmar Brok, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament, who said that Putin has a “strategic plan that involves access to the Black Sea through Odesa.”

 

Meanwhile, Yuriy Lutsenko, a close advisor to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, clearly wanted to provoke controversy with his comment that four NATO member-states agreed to supply the Ukrainian government with arms at the NATO summit on Sept. 4-5. All four countries have denied such an arrangement was made. Lutsenko wanted to draw greater public attention for the lack of arms support. Yet even with arms available for purchase, we don’t know how the Ukrainian government intends to buy a significant amount given its very constrained fiscal condition. It seems that it will take an expanded Russian invasion to get the West to donate weapons.

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