Thread: A Forgotten Treaty Could Mean WWIII

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By Starkman | March 5, 2014

With the president’s troops poised on the Ukrainian border, the country’s parliament has unearthed the Budapest Memorandum which can plunge everyone into WWIII.

As each day passes and war is not declared, the world breaths just a little easier, but all that changed with Kiev activating the all but forgotten memorandum. With the two super powers unable to say no to a request from the Ukrainian government, it seems that it now it is now Russia’s move.

A Forgotten Treaty Could Mean WWIII

The world is closely watching in worried fascination, as an old forgotten treaty has just been recently activated. This could mean the start of WWIII, if Russia does not immediately withdraw from the Ukraine and the small bordering country of Crimea.

While Russian president Vladimir Putin still insists that there are not Russian troops in Crimea, and that it is only war games going on in Ukraine, the world’s leaders are still nervous. Now adding to the tensions, Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk is not only taking jabs at the Russian president, the eighty old, former president is also vowing to take up arms in defense of his country.

The feisty ex-president even went so far as to imply Putin was schizophrenic, with his denials that there is even one military official by the Ukrainian border. Kravchuk is also warning Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan to watching their borders.

The Treaty Putin Forgot

The worry in Eastern Europe began with Russia’s supposed war games in the Ukraine, and the recent unrest in Crimea. With the president’s troops poised on the Ukrainian border, the country’s parliament has unearthed the Budapest Memorandum which can plunge everyone into WWIII.

In essence, this treaty not only defines Ukraine’s rights as a country, it also calls for military action from foreign allies in case of attack. These allies include the world’s powerhouses Great Britain, and the United States. The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994 after the fall of the Soviet Union, respectively by the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and the Ukraine.


The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1991 by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine. It promises to protect Ukraine’s borders, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons – dailymail.co.uk


The treaty recognized the borders established by the former Soviet republics and calls for protective measures to be taken if these borders are ever threatened. With Russia poised to invade, it seems that the U.S. and U.K. are finding it extremely difficult to not declare war on Putin if the worse happens. This news unfortunately comes as reports of armed Russian men were surrounding a Ukrainian border patrol post, and tensions continued to rise.

The Treaty Has Been Confirmed

Former British Ambassador Sir Tony Brenton already publicly confirmed the world’s fears that the treaty could make it necessary to formally declare war on Russia. The treaty’s only condition called for Kiev to give up all its nuclear weapons, in exchange for the assurances that their borders would be protected. The Ukraine has now put the treaty into action.

former British Ambassador to Moscow Sir Tony Brenton, who served as British Ambassador from 2004 to 2008, said in an interview that war could be an option ‘if we do conclude the [Budapest] Memorandum is legally binding.’ – dailymail.co.uk


President Obama is worried. Quoted in an earlier news statement, the U.S. president called the terms of the agreement disturbing and worrisome and if Ukraine’s claim that the Russians are beginning to invade is proved true, the United States may have no other choice than to plunge the world into a devastating WWIII.

The Stage is Being Set

Crimea’s former president has fled to Russia after being ousted for his pro-Russian government support and has been vocally protesting Ukraine’s involvement in Crimea. While he does not support any military action, he is pledging to support all Russian speaking Crimean citizens. Russia is also pledging to protect its military base in Crimea, while the western countries are insisting that Russia stay away. This is only adding to the unrest in the region, and prompting more international fears.

It is mainly the timing that is making Russia’s scheduling of war games at this moment time slightly unbelievable. It is also reminiscent of the Cold War games the Soviets used to enjoy playing. While they do have legitimate military bases in China and Crimea, there is no reason for the unexplained military groups wandering near the Ukraine borders. With Russia still remaining silent, all the world can do is wait.

The World Holds its Breath

As of last reports, the U.S. and Great Britain are placing calls to Putin demanding that he refrain from crossing Ukraine’s borders, but the world is not holding its breath that he will reply. Already Russian troops are poised to strike, and there are a reportedly 2,000 additional Russian troops being sent by the Kremlin. New threats are now looming with Switzerland threatening to bring money laundering charges against the former Crimean president and possibly charges concerning crimes against humanity as well.


Armed men in military fatigues block access to Ukrainian military barracks in the small Crimean city of Bakhchisaray. Photograph: theGuardian.com – Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty

Whether Putin will use these new charges to justify sending additional troops into Crimean remains to be seen, but he has never made it a secret that he wants to bring the Ukraine closer to Russia. As the second largest European country and once considered the crown jewel by Catherine the Great, it is not likely that Russia will simply walk away.

As each day passes and war is not declared, the world breaths just a little easier, but all that changed with Kiev activating the all but forgotten memorandum. With the two super powers unable to say no to a request from the Ukrainian government, it seems that it now it is now Russia’s move.

Sources:
The forgotten treaty which could drag the US and UK into WAR with Russia if Putin’s troops intervene in Ukraine
Ukraine pleads for Britain and US to come to its rescue as Russia accused of ‘invasion’

http://topinfopost.com/2014/03/05/a-...uld-mean-wwiii

Ukraine pleads for Britain and US to come to its rescue as Russia accused of 'invasion'

Ukraine has called for Britain and the United States to intervene in its rapidly-escalating conflict, as the interior minister accuses Russian forces of staging an "armed invasion" in Crimea


Russian President Boris Yeltsin, left, American President Bill Clinton, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and British Prime Minister John Major, extreme right, sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty during the CSCE summit in Budapest, Hungary Photo: AP

Deeply worried politicians inside Ukraine's parliament have pleaded with Britain and the United States to come to their rescue, after Russia was accused of launching a series of raids in the Crimea region.

The two Western powers signed an agreement with Ukraine in 1994, which Kiev's parliament wants enforcing now. The Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine – promises to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

Article one reads: "The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine ... to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine."

And Kiev is now claiming that their country's borders are not being respected.


Oleksandr Turchynov, the interim president, also told agitated MPs on Friday morning that he was convening the country's security and defence chiefs for an emergency meeting over the unfolding crisis.

Arsen Avakov, who was named interior minister on Thursday, said that the international airport in Sebastopol had been blocked by Russian forces. Sebastopol has for the past 230 years been home to Russia's Black Sea fleet – a key strategic hub for Moscow, as ships and submarines based there are just north of Turkey and can reach the Mediterranean to influence the Middle East and the Balkans.

Mr Avakov said Russia's actions amounted to "a military invasion and occupation".

He wrote on Facebook: "It is a direct provocation of armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign State."

A day earlier, pro-Russian gunmen had seized control of Crimea's regional parliament and government building, and Crimea's regional assembly voted to hold a referendum on May 25 to expand the region's autonomy from Kiev and replaced the local government with a pro-Moscow official.

Crimea has for centuries been a prize much sought-after by competing empires. The Greeks, Ottomans, Venetians and Mongols have all controlled the territory throughout its history.

It was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, and was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.

It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia – a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.
This week the age-old tug of war between East and West resurfaced again, with rival demonstrators chanting "Crimea is Russia" and "Crimea is not Russia" back and forth at each other.

Moscow has not commented on the accusations that it is fomenting the rising tensions in Crimea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-invasion.html

Russia Warns: Sanctions Over Ukraine 'Will Hit US Like a Boomerang'

Friday, 07 Mar 2014 05:06 PM

Russia said any U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine will boomerang back on the United States and that Crimea has the right to self-determination as armed men tried to seize another Ukrainian military base on the peninsula.

In a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned against "hasty and reckless steps" that could harm Russian-American relations, the foreign ministry said on Friday.
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"Sanctions...would inevitably hit the United States like a boomerang," it added.

It was the second tense, high-level exchange between the former Cold War foes in 24 hours over the pro-Russian takeover of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said after an hour-long call with U.S. President Barack Obama that their positions on the former Soviet republic were still far apart. Obama announced the first sanctions against Russia on Thursday.

Putin, who later opened the Paralympic Games in Sochi which have been boycotted by a string of Western dignitaries, said Ukraine's new, pro-Western authorities had acted illegitimately over the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.

"Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law," he said.

Serhiy Astakhov, an aide to the Ukrainian border guards' commander, said 30,000 Russian soldiers were now in Crimea, compared to the 11,000 permanently based with the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol before the crisis.

On Friday evening armed men drove a truck into a Ukrainian missile defence post in Sevastopol, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene. But no shots were fired and Crimea's pro-Russian premier said later the standoff was over.

Putin denies the forces with no national insignia that are surrounding Ukrainian troops in their bases are under Moscow's command, although their vehicles have Russian military plates. The West has ridiculed his assertion.

The most serious East-West confrontation since the end of the Cold War - resulting from the overthrow last month of President Viktor Yanukovich after protests in Kiev that led to violence - escalated on Thursday when Crimea's parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, voted to join Russia.

The region's government set a referendum for March 16 - in just nine days' time.

JETS, DESTROYER

Turkey scrambled jets after a Russian surveillance plane flew along its Black Sea coast and a U.S. warship passed through Turkey's Bosphorus straits on its way to the Black Sea, although the U.S. military said it was a routine deployment.

European Union leaders and Obama said the referendum plan was illegitimate and would violate Ukraine's constitution.

The head of Russia's upper house of parliament said after meeting visiting Crimean lawmakers on Friday that Crimea had a right to self-determination, and ruled out any risk of war between "the two brotherly nations".

Obama ordered visa bans and asset freezes on Thursday against so far unidentified people deemed responsible for threatening Ukraine's sovereignty. Earlier in the week, a Kremlin aide said Moscow might refuse to pay off any loans to U.S. banks, the top four of which have around $24 billion in exposure to Russia.

Japan endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia constitute "a threat to international peace and security", after Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the U.N. Security Council, was more cautious, saying economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the Crimean referendum.

The EU, Russia's biggest economic partner and energy customer, adopted a three-stage plan to try to force a negotiated solution but stopped short of immediate sanctions.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded angrily on Friday, calling the EU decision to freeze talks on visa-free travel and on a broad new pact governing Russia-EU ties "extremely unconstructive". It pledged to retaliate.

"GUERRILLA WAR?"

Senior Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko, freed from prison after Yanukovich's overthrow, met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dublin and appealed for immediate EU sanctions against Russia, warning that Crimea might otherwise slide into a guerrilla war.

Brussels and Washington rushed to strengthen the new authorities in economically shattered Ukraine, announcing both political and financial assistance. The regional director of the International Monetary Fund said talks with Kiev on a loan agreement were going well and praised the new government's openness to economic reform and transparency.

The European Commission has said Ukraine could receive up to 11 billion euros ($15 billion) in the next couple of years provided it reaches agreement with the IMF, which requires painful economic reforms like ending gas subsidies.

Promises of billions of dollars in Western aid for the Kiev government, and the perception that Russian troops are not likely to go beyond Crimea into other parts of Ukraine, have helped reverse a rout in the local hryvnia currency.

In the past two days it has traded above 9.0 to the dollar for the first time since the Crimea crisis began last week. Local dealers said emergency currency restrictions imposed last week were also supporting the hryvnia.

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said Ukraine had not paid its $440 million gas bill for February, bringing its arrears to $1.89 billion and hinted it could turn off the taps as it did in 2009, when a halt in Russian deliveries to Ukraine reduced supplies to Europe during a cold snap.

In Moscow, a huge crowd gathered near the Kremlin at a government-sanctioned rally and concert billed as being "in support of the Crimean people". Pop stars took to the stage and demonstrators held signs with slogans such as "Crimea is Russian land", and "We believe in Putin".

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said no one in the civilised world would recognise the result of the "so-called referendum" in Crimea.

He repeated Kiev's willingness to negotiate with Russia if Moscow pulls its additional troops out of Crimea and said he had requested a telephone call with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

But Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov ridiculed calls for Russia to join an international "contact group" with Ukraine proposed by the West, saying they "make us smile".

Demonstrators encamped in Kiev's central Independence Square to defend the revolution that ousted Yanukovich said they did not believe Crimea would be allowed to secede.

Alexander Zaporozhets, 40, from central Ukraine's Kirovograd region, put his faith in international pressure.

"I don't think the Russians will be allowed to take Crimea from us: you can't behave like that to an independent state. We have the support of the whole world. But I think we are losing time. While the Russians are preparing, we are just talking."

Unarmed military observers from the pan-European Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were blocked from entering Crimea for a second day in a row on Friday, the OSCE said on Twitter.

The United Nations said it had sent its assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, to Kiev to conduct a preliminary humans rights assessment.

Ukrainian television has been replaced with Russian state channels in Crimea and the streets largely belong to people who support Moscow's rule, some of whom have harassed journalists and occasional pro-Kiev protesters.

Part of the Crimea's 2 million population opposes Moscow's rule, including members of the region's ethnic Russian majority. The last time Crimeans were asked, in 1991, they voted narrowly for independence along with the rest of Ukraine.

"With all these soldiers here, it is like we are living in a zoo," Tatyana, 41, an ethnic Russian. "Everyone fully understands this is an occupation."

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Ru...n=widgetphase1

Putin Could Win World War III Without Firing a Shot

Sixty six percent of exported Russian natural gas and oil run through Ukraine. When Ukraine is firmly in the hands of Russia, Putin will hold the trump card over a large portion of European energy needs.

If Putin does refuse to accept the dollar as payment from Europe for its gas, what effect will that have on the NATO alliance? Will France, Italy and Germany succumb to Putin’s coming blackmail and will the Europeans chose economic solvency over military alliances? I would strongly suggest that the Europeans will choose economic solvency. As a result, NATO will be permanently fractured.