First trucks with Russian aid reach Lugansk, E. Ukraine – reports
RT | August 22, 2014
Trucks of a Russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine, August, 22, 2014 (RIA Novosti / Maksim Blinov)
The first Russian trucks carrying humanitarian aid have reportedly reached the east Ukrainian city of Lugansk. Moscow ordered the convoy to proceed, without waiting for further permission from Kiev.
The first trucks in the Russian humanitarian convoy have arrived in Lugansk, leaders of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Lugansk confirmed to RIA Novosti.
Earlier, the LifeNews TV channel and Interfax agency also reported that several Russian vehicles carrying aid to the conflict zone made it to their final destination.
On Friday morning, several dozen Russian trucks crossed the Ukrainian border and started moving towards Lugansk, after Moscow ordered the convoy to proceed, without waiting for further permission from Kiev.
By 10:30 GMT on Friday, 145 vehicles from the 280-truck Russian aid convoy had crossed into Ukraine, reported RIA Novosti, citing the Ukrainian border guard service.
Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately holding up the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, according to the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“Our convoy with humanitarian aid is starting to move in the direction of Lugansk,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement reads. “We are of course ready for it to be accompanied by Red Cross representatives and for their participation in the aid’s distribution.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is not escorting the convoy.
“That’s because of the problems with security,” Galina Balzamova of the ICRC told RT. “Lugansk was shelled all night long. We believe we did not get sufficient guarantees of safety from all the parties to the conflict to start escorting the convoy.”
The head of the Russian Red Cross, Raisa Lukutsova, has said the organization supported the decision to get the humanitarian convoy moving.
“The fact that the humanitarian mission has started – this has probably been the right decision,” Lukutsova said. “For how long do we have to put up with this mockery? They put forward one demand after another. All of them unrealistic.”
She added the Russian Red Cross is ready to escort the humanitarian convoy and has appealed to the ICRC for permission to do so.
ICRC, meanwhile, confirms that people in areas affected by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine are in “urgent need for essentials like food and medical supplies.”
The crisis is particularly acute in Lugansk, where people have gone for weeks without water and electricity and have to queue every day for whatever scarce food supplies are brought to the city.
RT’s Maria Finoshina has spoken to Lugansk residents, who fear hunger is the reality they are about to face.
Ukraine’s intelligence (SBU) chief, Valentyn Nalivaychenko, has described the convoy crossing the Russian border as a “direct invasion.”
“We call it a direct invasion,” Nalivaichenko told journalists. “Under the cynical cover of the Red Cross these are military vehicles with documents to cover them up.”
The Ukrainian Border Service has said that by ordering the convoy to proceed Moscow has “ignored the agreements reached on registering the humanitarian load.”
“The trucks started moving through Ukraine, after a group of Ukrainian border customs’ officers had been blocked at the Russian check-point ‘Donetsk’,” a statement by the Ukrainian Border Service reads.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has accused Moscow of “smuggling humanitarian aid to Ukraine” and said it had to allow the convoy to pass.
“To avoid provocations we have given all the necessary orders to let the convoy pass safely,” the ministry’s statement says.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the “excuses” for delaying the aid from entering Ukraine have been “exhausted”.
Ukraine agreed to let the convoy pass during an August 20 phone call between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers. That gave a start to customs procedures for checking and registering the contents of the trucks comprising the convoy.
The next day the process was stopped by Ukraine, citing intensified shelling of Lugansk.
“In other words Ukrainian authorities are bombing the place of the aid’s point of destination and cite this as a reason for banning delivery of the aid,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
A convoy of 280 Kamaz trucks carrying food, medicines and other essentials for Lugansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine left the Moscow region on August 12.
It has been stuck at the border with Ukraine for more than a week.
“There’s a feeling that the current Ukrainian authorities have been consciously putting the humanitarian aid delivery on hold to arrive at a situation where there’ll be just no one left to get it,” the Ministry’s statement reads.
See also: Russian Red Cross volunteers ready to escort aid convoy to Lugansk, E. Ukraine
Latvia urges Europe to stop ‘war of sanctions’ before it ruins world economies
RT | August 19, 2014
The “right steps” politicians in the West and Russia are now taking against each other are very similar to what was happening before World War I, Latvian MEP Andrejs Mamikinsh warned EC President Jose Manuel Barroso in a letter Tuesday.
It’s crucial to stop reciprocal sanctions before they throw people into poverty and ruin the economies altogether, the European Parliament member wrote.
“In 2014 exactly 100 years have passed since the beginning of World War I that killed millions of people and left Europe in ruins. On the eve of that war similar processes occurred when countries took “the right” steps against each other and eventually were not able to stop. It is doubtful that in the end of that war anyone remembered for what good intentions it had started,” Mamikinsh wrote in his letter.
These would be ordinary people, not politicians, who’ll be hit first and hardest by a so called “risky poker” played by politicians in the West and Russia, the Latvian MEP, added.
Latvia is expected to suffer the most from the tit for tat sanctions imposed by the West and Russia, Mamikinsh said.
Further escalation of a “sanctions war” would erode about 10 percent of Latvian GDP, which means thousands of people could be left out of work with shrinking living standards.
Bulgaria halts South Stream gas pipeline project for second time
RT | August 18, 2014
All operations on Russia’s Gazprom-led project South Stream have been suspended, as they do not meet the requirements of the European Commission, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Economy and Energy said on its website.
“Minister of Economy and Energy Vasil Shtonov has ordered Bulgaria’s Energy Holding to halt any actions in regards of the project,” the ministry said. This specifically means entering into new contracts.
There has been mounting pressure from the EU to put the project on hold, and now the European Commission will be consulted each step of the way to make sure it complies with EU law.
European ‘anti-monopoly’ laws prohibits the same company to both own and operate the pipeline. However, Gazprom and Bulgaria had previously struck a bilateral agreement regarding that aspect of the project.
This is the second time Bulgaria has called for a suspension of the South Stream project. In early June, the country’s Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski ordered the initial halt.
Bulgaria is the first country traversed by the pipeline on land, after a section that runs beneath the Black Sea from Russia. The branch that begins in Bulgaria is planned to continue through Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria.
Other participating countries have confirmed their commitment to the South Stream’s construction.
Gazprom’s $45 billion South Stream project, slated to open in 2018 and deliver 64 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe, is a strategy by Russia meant to bypass politically unstable Ukraine as a transit country, and help ensure the reliability of gas supplies to Europe.
No ammunition moved through Russia-Ukraine border – OSCE monitors
RT | August 19, 2014
OSCE observers stationed at two Russian border checkpoints, the Ukrainian counterparts of which are controlled by the Ukrainian military, have not witnessed any movements of weapons across the border.
The monitors did witness young people “dressed in military style” moving across the border into Ukraine, Paul Picard, acting chief observer of the OSCE Mission, told journalists. However, all of them were unarmed.
There were also no instances of military vehicles crossing the border in some two weeks which the observers spent at Gukovo and Donetsk checkpoints, he added.
He added that the OSCE did its part in assisting the international effort to check a Russian humanitarian aid convoy before it would be allowed into Ukraine, but said the organization has little impact here, because the progress with the convoy depends on Russian and Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The presence of the observers on the Russian side of the border was part of an agreement aimed at deescalating the conflict in eastern Ukraine. They were invited amid Kiev’s claims that Russia supplies arms and military vehicles to the armed militia fighting against the Ukrainian troops in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.
The monitors were supposed to be deployed after a ceasefire by Kiev, but Moscow agreed to host them unconditionally as a gesture of goodwill.
Kiev must publish record of MH17 communications with traffic control – Russia
RT | August 19, 2014
Kiev should make public the records of communications between the Ukrainian air traffic control and the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in the hours before it was shot down over Ukraine’s turbulent east, Russia’s UN envoy said.
The issue was among several Russia raised at a UN Security Council meeting, which was called by Russia to discuss the progress of the investigation into the tragic incident, which killed 298 people in July, Vitaly Churkin said. Moscow sees the shortage of proper evidence known to the public so far as wrong.
“As far as we know, [UN’s civil aviation watchdog] ICAO is being kept on the sidelines of the investigation, which has been conducted for some time,” Churkin said.
Churkin added that Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, who is to visit Kiev soon, would ask the Ukrainian government about the communications records between air traffic controllers and the plane.
“We have agreed that he would vent this issue among others,” Churkin said. “How are the Ukrainians playing their part in the international investigation? What comes to mind: they must provide the records of communications of their air traffic controllers so that we could understand why they directed the Malaysian plane into the conflict zone.”
A preliminary report into the downing of MH17 is expected later this month. According to Britain’s envoy to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, the report would not be classified. After its publication some two months would be given to all parties interested to make their comments on the document.
The investigation into the downing of the Malaysian Boeing-777 plane was hampered by continued hostilities in the area of the crash site, as Ukrainian troops and rebel forces failed to provide a lasting ceasefire there. Both sides blamed each other for this, with either side accusing the other of trying to cover-up the crime.
West has more influence than Kiev on oligarchs’ armies in Ukraine – Lavrov
RT | August 18, 2014
Moscow believes the West has more influence on various paramilitary forces in Ukraine – sponsored by local oligarchs – than Kiev does, Russian FM Lavrov said citing the latest bickering between Right Sector and the Interior Ministry.
“The authorities in Kiev are not in control of the numerous paramilitary forces, including Right Sector, which, we estimate, comprises a large portion of the National Guard. The demarche of Right Sector towards the Ukrainian Interior Minister speaks for itself,” Sergey Lavrov said, adding that existence of armed groups sponsored by Ukrainian oligarchs, such as the Azov and Dnepr battalions, poses a great security threat.
“We work with our Western partners in Europe and the United States who can really influence those paramilitary units that don’t answer to the central government in Kiev. We know the West has such influence,” he added.
Lavrov was referring to the weekend ultimatum of the far-right group, which threatened to pull out its troops from eastern Ukraine and march on Kiev unless President Petro Poroshenko fires several police officials, including a deputy interior minister. The group later reduced its demands, saying that the release of its activists previously arrested by the police was sufficient.
The comments from the top Russian diplomat came as he reported on the progress achieved during the Sunday meeting with his counterparts from Ukraine, Germany and France. The roundtable produced no concrete agreements, but the parties involved said some progress was made on the issues of humanitarian aid and border control.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Lavrov said Moscow would welcome the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deploying drones to control the Russian-Ukrainian border from the Ukrainian side.
Lavrov said Russia is working with the OSCE on giving more transparency in the border region, which is important, considering how often Kiev voices false reports on alleged violation of the border from the Russian side. He cited the latest claim by Kiev on Friday, when the Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a column of Russian armor after an incursion into Ukraine.
“What really happened was a Ukrainian column moved in the Lugansk Region, obviously to intercept the route of a potential humanitarian aid delivery. That column was destroyed by the militia,” he said. “If such episodes are presented as glorious successes of the Ukrainian army, then please don’t accuse us of anything.”
Russia has sent a convoy of humanitarian aid meant for war-torn eastern Ukraine. The trucks have not been allowed entry by the Ukrainian side, which voiced suspicions about the nature of the cargo and demanded that the delivery be conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Lavrov noted that the media hype over the mission, which was apparent in the West in its early days, evaporated as soon as it became clear that the column actually carries humanitarian aid and is not some kind of a trick used by Russia to invade Ukraine, as Kiev initially claimed.
The minister also criticized Kiev’s request for NATO’s aid against the militia in eastern Ukraine, saying that it “goes against all the agreements we had reached on stopping the hostilities and initiating negotiations.”
“As long as the authorities in Kiev bet on the use of force and consider a military victory over their own people a necessary condition for keeping themselves in power, I don’t think any good will come from what we are trying to achieve,” he said.
No green light to Red Cross: Russian aid convoy stuck at Ukraine border waiting for Kiev’s nod
RT | August 16, 2014
The Red Cross has sent a formal request to Kiev to allow the Russian humanitarian aid to enter eastern Ukraine but has so far received no answer and the convoy has remained stuck on the border of the war-torn zone since August 14.
On Saturday, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation arrived in Russia’s southern Rostov region to help to iron out the difficulties of the delivery of the Russian humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine.
Russia sent 280 trucks with medical supplies, food, including baby food, sleeping bags and other basic necessities to southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday. But the cargo still has not reached the residents of the regions badly hit by the conflict as the Kiev government has yet to formally approval for the convoy to cross into Ukraine.
The sides – including Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officials – spent several hours in talks trying to reach a compromise over the issue.
They “made quite some progress,” Red Cross official Pascal Cuttat told the media after the meeting.
For now the procedures of the cargo customs clearing and the inspection of all the trucks by the ICRC at the border have been agreed upon. It was also agreed that every Russian vehicle delivering the aid will be accompanied by a Red Cross employee once the convoy gets on Ukrainian soil.
However, it is not clear when exactly ICRC will be able to inspect the trucks.
“The ICRC has sent a paper to Kiev formally requesting that this convoy can be processed. We are waiting for the answer to this request,” the organization’s official said.
However, the key element for the convoy to proceed remains security on its way to the regions that have been at the epicenter of fierce fighting between the Ukrainian army and local self-defense troops.
“There remains one, of course, major challenge: we absolutely need security guarantees from all parties concerned before we can start moving,” Cuttat said.
That issue, he added, will have to be sorted once Kiev allows the delivery of the cargo.
Earlier on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Kiev is trying to review the agreements on Russian humanitarian aid.
“We categorically deny the ill-meaning manipulation of facts that has been recently done by representatives of some of Ukraine’s government bodies. In particular, according to media reports, the representatives of the Ukraine’s Security Council state that the Russian side refused to deliver the humanitarian aid via the border posts controlled by Ukraine. Wild guesses circulate that we allegedly didn’t provide the information on the contents of the humanitarian aid. Both allegations are contrary to the facts,” the ministry said in a statement.
Russia voices concern over increased US and NATO military activity near Russian border
In a telephone conversation with his U.S. colleague Chuck Hagel, Shoigu also called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine
ITAR-TASS | August 15, 2014
MOSCOW – Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday voiced serious concern over increased U.S. and NATO military activities near the Russian border.
In a telephone conversation with his U.S. colleague Chuck Hagel, Shoigu also called for an immediate ceasefire and safe corridors to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate civilians from the combat area in eastern Ukraine.
He gave a detailed assessment of Ukrainian troops’ actions in the combat area. Shoigu said it was unacceptable to use combat aviation, heavy weapons, including rockets, artillery and missiles, against civilians and the region’s civilian infrastructure.
Shoigu described the situation in the area as “a humanitarian catastrophe”.
He also told Hagel about the efforts being taken to deliver humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine and problems with the movement of the humanitarian convoy.
The Russian Defence Ministry described the conversation as “business-like and constructive” and said Shoigu and Hagel had agreed to continue contacts.
Russia launches China UnionPay credit card
RT | August 15, 2014
Forget Visa and MasterCard. After the two American credit system payment companies froze accounts without notice in March, Russia has been looking for an alternative in China UnionPay.
China UnionPay plans to have 2 million cards in Russia in the next three years.
Instead of seeing the small Visa and MasterCard logo on credits cards, ATMs, and retail outlets, Russians will start to see the three words “China. Union. Pay.”
China UnionPay first emerged in 2002 on the domestic Chinese market as an alternative to Visa and MasterCard, but quickly expanded internationally, and now is already number one in terms of quantity of cards in the world.
Russia’s biggest banks – VTB- Gazprombank, Promsvyazbank, Alfa Bank, MTS, and Rosbank- are already making technical preparations, running tests on Union Bank cards.
“VTB24 already serves China UnionPay cards in its ATM network and now the bank is in negotiations with this payment system to start acquiring retail merchants,” VTB24’s press office said in a statement.
Most banks just began their relationship with China by offering clients corresponding services- none of the bankers imagined that they would be issuing Chinese credit cards.
In March, both Visa and MasterCard blocked the accounts of cardholders at BankRossiya and SMF Bank, both which were sanctioned by the US over Russia’s involvement in Crimea.
Russian financiers who used to keep their assets in dollars and euros were shocked by the event, and moved their capital back to Russia out of fear one day all their assets would be blocked by politicians in Washington DC.
“Visa and MasterCard have 100 percent trust, but right now, there is no trust in the system, and many, even our clients, have shifted their transactions from American dollar and Euro to Yuan. They are eager to receive this card- we already have a big list of people waiting to get this card instead of MasterCard and Visa,” Denis Fonov, Deputy Chairman at LightBank, a small Moscow-based bank, told RT.
LightBank was working with UnionPay long before it knew the cards would be coming to the Russian market – and ordered 10,000 cards pre-emptively as a side service for clients.
As a result of the freeze, Visa and MasterCard will now have to pay a security deposit to Russia’s Central Bank, which is estimated to be billions for each company. Similarly, once UnionPay begins operating in Russia, it will also put down a security deposit with Russia’s Central Bank, about $3-4 billion, Fonov said.
$5.3 trillion in payments
There are already 20,000 cards in circulation in Russia, and a second order of 100,000 cards is planned for September. In Russia many banks accept UnionPay cards, but not merchants, that’s the next step.
By the beginning of 2014, the payment system had already issued 4.2 billion cards, mostly in China.
In terms of total world trade turnover, China UnionPay is the leader in debt cards, with over $5.3 trillion in payments, or about 47 percent of the market share, whereas Visa has 40.6 percent, and MasterCard only 12.2 percent, according to the Nilson Report.
In overall transactions, Visa is still the leader with $4.6 trillion, and China UnionPay comes in second with $2.5 trillion in transactions in the first half of last year.
UnionPay already successfully operates in Australia and Canada, with their deposits tied to both the local currency and the yuan. In total, UnionPay operates in 142 countries.
China’s UnionPay will be a temporary solution for Russia to detach from the West while it prepares to launch its own payment system, which officially isn’t slated to begin operating for another 16 months, and according to sources in the industry, it could even be 2-3 years out.
No Russian troops crossed into Ukraine – FSB
RT | August 15, 2014
Russia’s Defense Ministry has denied Kiev’s report that it “destroyed the Russian military column” which allegedly crossed into Ukraine, saying that no such column ever existed.
Earlier on Friday Russia’s Security Service (FSB) also denied the reports. Border guards have been deployed to provide security near the frontier, but they operate only on the Russian side, the FSB said.
The mobile military teams “operate strictly within the territory of the Russian Federation,” a spokesperson for the FSB Border Guard Service in Rostov region told RT on Friday.
Russia has stepped up security measures on its border with Ukraine as local residents are under constant threat because of “regular cross-border shelling” and an increased number of “mass border crossings” by the Ukrainian military, he explained. For that reason, FSB mobile border guards’ teams have been created.
“When residents report about cross-border shooting and fighting in the frontier zone, these teams are immediately deployed to such areas to provide the safety of the Russian state border and Russian citizens, and also to prevent armed people from crossing into the territory of the Russian Federation,” Sinitsyn said.
Earlier, several foreign news agencies caused quite a stir, reporting that a convoy of Russian military vehicles had crossed into Ukraine overnight.
The reports triggered criticism from NATO and some European states.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen referred to the alleged incident as to “a Russian incursion” that they “saw.”
“Last night we saw a Russian incursion, a crossing of the Ukrainian border,” he said Friday, adding that “it is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine.”
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was “very alarmed by the reports.”
“Of course the humanitarian convoy itself is a separate issue, but if there any Russian military personnel or vehicles in eastern Ukraine they need to be withdrawn immediately or the consequences could be very serious,” he told reporters in Brussels, where European Union foreign ministers had gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss crises in Ukraine and Iraq.
In an article published by The Guardian, reporter Shaun Walker said he “saw a column of 23 armored personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, traveling [toward] the border near the Russian town of Donetsk.” Late on Thursday the convoy “crossed into Ukrainian territory,” he said. However, no photographic or video evidence of the incident was presented either in his article or in his Twitter feed. The photograph published with the text was taken on Russian territory.
The Telegraph also reported that “at least 23” Russian vehicles had crossed into Ukraine. The report is accompanied by a video also filmed on Russian territory.
EU sanctions ‘shooting oneself in the foot’ – Hungary PM
RT | August 15, 2014
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has urged a rethink of the European Union’s sanctions policy towards Russia, saying the measures are like “shooting oneself in the foot.”
“The sanctions policy pursued by the West, that is, ourselves, a necessary consequence of which, has been what the Russians are doing, causes more harm to us than to Russia,” Reuters quotes Orban talking on radio, he added “in politics, this is called shooting oneself in the foot.”
Russia is Hungary’s largest trade partner outside of the EU, with exports worth $3.4 billion in 2013. Also it is highly dependent on Russian energy. Earlier this year Hungary agreed a $13 billion deal with Russian power company Rosatom to expand the country’s only nuclear power plant.
“The EU should not only compensate producers somehow, be they Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Greek, who now have to suffer losses, but the entire sanctions policy should be reconsidered,” the Hungarian Prime Minister said, saying he is already looking for support to force through changes.
Despite the negative sentiment on Tuesday, Hungary’s Agriculture Ministry stressed the Russian embargo won’t significantly affect the Hungarian economy as the banned products account for less than a third of Hungarian agricultural exports to Russia, being only one percent of total national farming exports.
Despite weak growth in the eastern countries of the EU, Hungary, together with Slovakia and Bulgaria have shown better than expected figures, with 0.8 percent quarterly expansion according to Thursday’s preliminary GDP estimates.
On Thursday, Matteo Salvini the leader of Italy’s Northern League party called on Brussels to immediately repeal the sanctions against Russia.
“Only fools, Brussels and Rome, could decide to impose economic sanctions against Russia, which now sends us back tons of Italian agricultural products worth more than €1 billion,” Salvini wrote on his Facebook page “Who will pay our farmers? Renzi? Merkel?”
The politician claims that in order to please US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has “ruined the economy” of the country.
Ukraine’s Parliament adopts law allowing sanctions against Russia
RT | August 14, 2014
Ukraine’s parliament adopted Thursday legislation allowing more than 20 sanctions to be applied against Russia, including a halt to energy transit through the country.
The new law on international sanctions was supported by 244 members of parliament, with 226 votes needed for a majority.
The adoption of the legislation doesn’t mean the special economic restrictions will be applied automatically; it just creates the legal basis for applying them.
The law provides the option to introduce more than 25 types of sanctions on other countries, foreign legal entities and individuals, which according to Kiev are involved in financing terrorism and support the separation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The sanction options include blocking and freezing assets, a ban on business activity in Ukraine, barring participation in privatizations, halting the use of licenses and all transit through its territory. Special economic measures also involve a ban on financial transactions, as well as a ban on entry and movement across the country.
The legislation says sanctions could be applied if, “the activity of a foreign state, a foreign legal entity or individual, other entities that create real and potential threats to national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, its economic independence and/or violate the rights and freedoms of its citizen, the interests of society and the state, leading to the occupation of the territory, expropriation or restriction of property rights, property damage, creating obstacles to sustainable economic development or the fulfillment by Ukrainian citizens of their rights and freedoms.”
According to the law, sanctions must be approved by the National Security Council and are introduced by presidential decree. This applies to all of them, except those sanctions related to international treaties. Those decisions will be made by the country’s parliament, the Rada.
On Tuesday the parliament adopted the first reading of sanctions against Russia as members disagreed on a number of issues and needed further debate.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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