© Collage: Voice of Russia
Voice of Russia has the story:
Crimea and Kosovo have much in common: an autonomous status, military bases of other countries on their territories, and a longing for independence among the majority of the population. But there are distinctions, too, – different patrons.
Of late, many people compare the events in Crimea with the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999. And they interpret the events according to everyone’s liking. For example, former US Ambassador in Moscow, Michael McFaul, claimed on CNN that military intervention on the part of Russia was unacceptable, because there was a big difference between the situation in Crimea and in Kosovo in 1999.
“We should not compare Crimea and Ukraine with Kosovo and Serbia. Serbia threatened the Kosovars, and Ukraine does not threaten anyone.”
But can a state threaten a part of its own territory? Serbs, Albanians, Turks, and others nationalities live in the autonomous region of Kosovo. There is no such nation as “the Kosovars”. Whom did the US protect there? There is not a single American in Kosovo, and there are 1.5 million of Russians in Crimea. It makes a big difference. For the Western media, however, there is much in common between Crimea and Kosovo. Here is what Ian Traynor wrote in The Guardian:
“The tactics and methodology used by Milosevic during the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, are obvious. If Putin has decided to become a new Milosevic, the West will see a new split in Europe.”
Slobodan Milosevic wanted things to get better, but it turned out the wrong way. He had no strength to resist NATO’s expansion to the East. The US wanted to expand its forces from the West to the East of Europe and chose the Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija to create its strategic base. With this purpose they even used the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was included in the American list of terrorist organizations.
The anti-terrorist operation of the Serbian special ops units against the KLA in the village of Račak in January, 1999, was used as a pretext for the bombings of Yugoslavia without permission of the United Nations. Western media presented the operation in the village of Račak as a mass murder of civilian population and urged the US to act and protect innocent people. And ten years later, Helena Ranta, Finnish forensic doctor, wrote in her autobiography that she had written the report about this incident under pressure from the then head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, William Walker, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, and that there had been corpses of Albanian terrorists, and not civilians.
After the NATO forces entered Kosovo, the US built the second largest base in Europe there – Bondsteel. It allows US to control the area of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and also the routes to the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus as well as the energy transit from the Caspian region and Central Asia. According to them, stationing in Serbia is perfectly legitimate and it is also very profitable for them. Americans do not pay for the use of state lands in Kosovo. In contrast to the Americans in Kosovo, Russia pays for its base 100 million dollars a year. And it is for 230 years already that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is stationed in Crimea. “The Black Sea Fleet is not homeless. Its home is in Sevastopol,” – Vice-Premier of the RF Dmitry Rogozin said. 50 years ago, Crimea was a part of the USSR, whereas the US simply occupied a part of the Serbian territory by means of aggression and is doing everything in order to create its puppet state there.
Historical, economic and cultural relations with Ukraine give Russia the full right to interfere in order to protect its people. And what is the US doing in Serbia?
Milena Tsmilyanich
More here.
InSerbia: Crimea Crisis: Group of Serbs arrived in Sevastopol to support local self-defense units
Several volunteers from Serbia arrived in the city of Sevastopol, to help local self-defense units and Cossacks to ensure order at checkpoints around the city, ITAR-TASS reported.
Photo: Twitter / James Mates
This was announced at a press conference in Sevastopol, which was attended by the Serbs who have arrived.
“We represent ‘Chetnik Movement’ organization, you can compare them with the Cossacks in Russia. Our goal – to provide support on behalf of the Serbian people to the Russian people. Now you have the same thing as it was in Serbia. West and the EU give money to the opposition and tell them how people live well in Europe, but it’s all a lie,” said the leader of Serb volunteers Milutin Malishich.
“We came at the invitation of the Cossacks. During the civil war in Yugoslavia, many Russian volunteers came to support the Serbian people. We are a small nation and we can not send a large number of people, but we have a great love for the Russian people,” said Malishich.
According to the Cossacks, the Serbs will be serving on one of the checkpoints at the entrance to the city.
But wait, there’s more…
Saber-rattling Chuck Hagel confuses “Baltic” and “Balkan”…
…no one corrects him…
J. P. Maher comments:
Add this: our illustrious Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in briefing on March 5 referred to Poland and “the Baltic peninsula”… He confuses Baltic and Balkan… No one corrected him, if they even noticed… If they even knew the difference…
Chuck Hagel was one of the biggest shills for the Clinton Administration wars against the Serbs. Of course, Serbia is in the Balkan Peninsula.
ABC Australia: US begins military response to crisis in Ukraine
Updated Thu 6 Mar 2014, 1:36pm AEDT
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says he’s ordered an increase in NATO’s ‘air policing’ in the Baltic Peninsula [sic!] and in the training of Poland’s air force. Republican leaders are backing the president’s actions, but are calling for him to approve natural gas exports to Europe to reduce the EU’s reliance on Russian supplies.
Audio clip here.