UPDATE: So far no good…*HEAVY ARTILLERY BLASTS HEARD IN UKRAINE’S MARIUPOL: RIA

While we had grown weary of trashed truces and snapped cease-fires in Israel, it appears, according to Interfax, that Ukraine and the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine (having gained notably over the army in recent days) have agreed a cease-fire:

Great news, especially for Merkel (and Hollande) who has already come out and noted that the cease-fire means EU could suspend sanctions (saving face and avoiding some further escalation). The question is – how much of Putin’s 7-point-peace-plan will Ukraine acquiesce to? If any?

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has confirmed the ceasefire agreement on its official Twitter account.

Extend the process with no further sanctions until the winter, then Russia is in charge and holds all the leverage… perhaps that’s why the market is not exuberantly rallying on this apparent de-escalation.

Grad shelling filmed outside Mariupol as ceasefire deadline closes

Russian General Calls for Preemptive Nuclear Strike Doctrine Against NATO

Is This Putin’s Ukraine Strategy?

“The West is afraid of a major war and Putin is exploiting that,” says one former Kremlin adviser, adding that “his end goal is a Ukraine that is a buffer state between Russia and the West.” After the recent rebel offensive, it’s now militarily possible to gain full control of Donetsk and Luhansk and to create a ‘land bridge’ to Crimea, and “without help, Russian troops can roll ever-deeper into Ukraine.” As Bloomberg reports, Vladimir Putin will continue his shadow war until he’s created quasi statelets in Ukraine’s easternmost regions with veto power over the country’s future, five current and former Russian officials and advisers said.

Last week, Putin warned against any “aggression” toward Russia, noting the country remains “one of the world’s biggest nuclear powers.”

However, both the U.S. and the EU have ruled out military intervention in the current conflict.

So that’s all very ominous for the West. However, there is a different side of this coin…

Jon Stewart Mocks Obama’s Ukraine Response, But Won’t Expose The Fake ‘Satellite Images’

‘Most convincing evidence’: Russian embassy trolls NATO with toy tanks

Some of Russia’s diplomats have joined a digital diplomacy row as they trolled NATO by “leaking” on Twitter the alliance’s “most convincing evidence” of Russian troops’ alleged presence in Ukraine.

The Twitter account @RussEmbassyUAE, which is the official Twitter of the Russian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates, posted a picture of tiny toy trucks, tanks and armored vehicles all lined up on the ground, with the words: “#NATO’s latest evidence of #Russian armor invading #Ukraine has been leaked! Seems to be the most convincing ever!”

Users on the social media network seem to have liked the “toy tweet” – the picture was retweeted over 1,000 times and nearly 500 people added it to their “favorites.”

This is evidently a response to NATO’s release of satellite images described as a “proof” of Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine.

The images were ridiculed by Russia’s Defense Ministry, while an alliance of seven former US intelligence officers – the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) – said it was on a par with the“same dubious, politically ‘fixed’ kind used 12 years ago to ‘justify’ the US-led attack on Iraq.”

A digital “war” of maps and pictures first started on Twitter between Canada and Russia on August 27, when @Canada at NATO tweeted a map showing two bordering states – one part was labeled “Russia” while another, Ukraine, was labeled as “not Russia.”

Their Russian counterparts, @Russians at NATO, have hit back with their own map, where they clearly marked the disputed Crimea region as Russian territory.

This recent trolling of NATO coincides with the military alliance’s meeting in Wales, where Russian troops’ alleged presence in Ukraine is one of the key topics.

President Obama’s Post-NATO, Putin-Punishing, ISIS-Igniting Press Conference – Live Feed

After two solid days of ‘discussions’ at a gold course in Wales, President Obama is ready to make some new comments this morning. With a cease-fire agreed in Ukraine, and no ISIS beheadings yet today, we wonder where his ire will be pointed (or perhaps it’s back to the Republicans’ fault we had such a weak jobs print?)…

Is The Ceasefire a Diversion So That NATO Can Build Up Forces To Attack Russia?

Russia Blasts NATO’s “Pre-Emptive Deployment” Plan For Undermining The Peace Process

ZeroHedge

As if like clockwork, on the heels of news from Russia of plans to shift their military doctrine towards pre-emptive reactions (and potential nuclear strikes), the NATO Summit has come out swinging with it’s own plan change:

*GEN. BRADSHAW, NATO’S DEPUTY SUPREME COMMANDER: NATO REACTION FORCE COULD BE DEPLOYED PREEMPTIVELY

Russia’s response – “not surprised” NATO is trying to dominate Europe, adding that “NATO plans undermine the Ukraine peace process.”

As Bloomberg reports,

U.K. General Adrian Bradshaw, NATO’s deputy supreme commander speaks to reporters at North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Newport, Wales.

NATO to assemble range of indicators and warnings that suggest when it’s time for some sort of preemptive deterrent deployment. It’s about making clear to potential adversaries “that engaging in offensive operations against NATO is not something they would wish to do”: Bradshaw

Bradshaw said not yet clear when spearhead force will be operational. “We would expect a force of this nature to be achieving initial operating capability within a matter of a number of months, maybe a year. But building the capability to its full spectrum of required capabilities would require a certain amount of time”

NATO added:

*BRADSHAW SAYS RUSSIAN FORCES STILL SUPPORTING UKRAINE REBELS
*BRADSHAW: NO CHANGE ON GROUND WITH RUSSIAN TROOPS IN UKRAINE

The Russian foreign ministry adds,

*RUSISA SAYS RESULTS OF WALES NATO SUMMIT AREN’T SURPRISING
*RUSSIA SAYS NATO TRYING TO DOMINATE IN EUROPE
*RUSSIA SAYS NATO IS SUPPORTING EXTREMISTS IN UKRAINE
*RUSSIA SAYS NATO PLANS UNDERMINE UKRAINE PEACE PROGRESS

Source

No sanctions rollback

BBC News

Meanwhile, the EU and US are expected to announced enhanced sanctions on Russia, targeting banking, energy and defence sectors.

US President Barack Obama said the ceasefire had been agreed because of sanctions imposed on Russia.

Measures against Russia would be reviewed in line with the implementation of the ceasefire, which he said would be a very long process.

Source

Russian General Demands Preemptive Nuclear Strike Doctrine Against NATO

While NATO is contemplating its existential purpose in a world where the Cold War has suddenly come back with a vengeance, and the military alliance has found itself woefully unprepared to deal with a Russia which no longer accepts the supremacy of the west (appropriately enough NATO is doing this on a golf course) Russia is also strategizing, only instead of issuing “sharply-worded catchphrases” and hashtags, a Russian general has called for Russia to revamp its military doctrine, last updated in 2010, to clearly identify the U.S. and its NATO allies as Moscow’s enemy number one. That in itself is not disturbing: we reported as much yesterday and is merely more rhetorical posturing. Where things, however, get very problematic is that the general demands that Russia spell out the conditions under which the country would launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the 28-member military alliance.

Moscow Times reports that Russia’s military doctrine, a strategy document through which the government interprets military threats and crafts possible responses, is being revised in light of threats connected to the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war and the conflict in Ukraine, the deputy chief of the Kremlin’s security council told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

That however is the soundbite for politically correct media purposes. Because within the Defense Ministry there are voices calling for different priorities.

“First and foremost, the likely enemy of Russia should be clearly identified in this strategic document, something absent from the 2010 military doctrine. In my view, our primary enemy is the U.S. and the North Atlantic bloc,” General Yury Yakubov, a senior Defense Ministry official, was quoted as saying by Interfax.

If this sounds like a statement taken right out of the (first) Cold War, one involving the whole nuclear arms race, is because it is. The 2010 doctrine defines NATO expansion as a threat to Russian national security and reaffirms its right to use nuclear weapons in a defensive posture, but stops far short of declaring NATO as Moscow’s primary adversary and laying preemptive nuclear strike scenarios on the table, a posture unmistakably reminiscent of the Cold War.

At the basis of this dramatic escalation is none other than Russia’s stated response to what it perceives as a clear expansionary NATO threat.

Yakubov said the information war being waged over the crisis in Ukraine — where the West accuses Russia of arming separatists fighting the government in Kiev — and NATO’s announcement that it would establish a permanent military presence in Eastern Europe have validated earlier fears that the alliance’s claims of non-aggression toward Russia were insincere.

And the punchline: the general added that special attention should be paid to integrating the functions of the newly created Air and Space Defense Forces with Russia’s land, sea and air based nuclear forces. “In addition, it is necessary to hash out the conditions under which Russia could carry out a preemptive strike with the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces,” he said.

One can be certain that this is precisely what Russia will do.

So what happens next?

Recall what former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said in November 2008 in his first presidential address to the Russian people: “Russia will deploy Iskander missile systems in its enclave in Kaliningrad to neutralize, if necessary, the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe.” An anti-ballistic missle system also known as NATO.

Which it did less than a year ago, long before the Ukraine civil war was headline news every day. This is what happened the last time Russia flexed its nuclear deterrence muscles, in November of 2013.

Russia has stationed missiles with a range of about 500 kilometers in its Kaliningrad enclave and along its border with the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Germany’s Bild-Zeitung reports, citing defense officials it didn’t identify. Satellite images show a “double-digit” amount of mobile units identified as SS-26 Stone in NATO code. Missiles were stationed within the past 12 months. SS-26 can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads.

This is merely Russia being true to its warning word. From April 2012:

Moscow reiterated on Tuesday it may deploy Iskander theater ballistic missiles in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad that will be capable of effectively engaging elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Poland.

NATO members agreed to create a missile shield over Europe to protect it against ballistic missiles launched by so-called rogue states, for example Iran and North Korea, at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2010.

The missile defense system in Poland does not jeopardize Russia’s nuclear forces, Army General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said.

“However, if it is modernized…it could affect our nuclear capability and in that case a political decision may be made to deploy Iskander systems in the Kaliningrad region,” he said in an interview with RT television.

“But that will be a political decision,” he stressed. “So far there is no such need.”

A little over two years later, there is a need.

Which means forget “little green men” in Ukraine. Think massive Russian Iskander ICBM systems planted on the border with Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics and all across Russia Western border, and the furious screamfest this would waterfall into.

We can’t wait to see how algos will spin such pre-emptive steps to a very mushroom cloudy World War III…

Source

Is This Why Obama Was “Noticeably Absent” During Yesterday’s NATO Meeting?

ZeroHedge

We are not exactly sure why Obama would be “noticeably absent” from the start of this week’s NATO-Ukraine commission (from The Hill):

President Obama was nowhere to be found during the beginning of a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine commission in Wales on Thursday.

Obama was “noticeably absent” from the start of the meeting, according to a White House pool report, although U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute was in attendance.

… but the following could provide some much needed clues (as we noted previously)…

First this: