bhramos
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Analysts argue that the defeat at Debaltseve shows the General Staff's incompetence. There have been calls for the resignation of its head Viktor Muzhenko, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and other military leaders.
After Debaltseve Defeat, What Next?: Debaltseve retreat exposes weaknesses in nation's strategy, military strength"There were all the necessary conditions to defeat these militants." The military leadership's decision not to pull its troops back from unimportant locations nearby and concentrate them in Debaltseve was another failure, he adds.
Searching through the rubble strewn throughout the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve, a separatist picked out the ammunition left by fleeing government troops before pro-Russian rebels captured the town this week.
BBC News - Ukraine: UK and EU 'badly misread' RussiaUkraine: UK and EU 'badly misread' Russia - BBC
The UK and the EU have been accused of a "catastrophic misreading" of the mood in the Kremlin in the run-up to the crisis in Ukraine.
The House of Lords EU committee claimed Europe "sleepwalked" into the crisis.
The EU had not realised the depth of Russian hostility to its plans for closer relations with Ukraine, it said.
It comes as French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke about the crisis at a joint news conference in Paris.
Prime Minister David Cameron said blame for what had happened in Ukraine "lies absolutely squarely with Vladimir Putin and Russia".
Ill-equipped
The committee's report said Britain had not been "active or visible enough" in dealing with the situation in Ukraine.
It blamed Foreign Office cuts, which it said led to fewer Russian experts working there, and less emphasis on analysis.
A similar decline in EU foreign ministries had left them ill-equipped to formulate an "authoritative response" to the crisis, it said.
The report claimed that for too long the EU's relationship with Moscow had been based on the "optimistic premise" that Russia was on a trajectory to becoming a democratic country.
The result, it said, was a failure to appreciate the depth of Russian hostility when the EU opened talks aimed at establishing an "association agreement" with Ukraine in 2013.
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+127
Comment number 31. Icarus
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:01
I find it hard to believe that the EU managed to "misread" the Russian reaction to the Ukraine forming a closer association with the EU. There must have been many ambassadors to Moscow warning them that they were playing wth fire. Unfortunately, the EU seems hell-bent on achieving all its goals in the lifetimes of those running it and doesn't understand how counter-productive this is.
+125
Comment number 7. SomeBlokeFromCambridge
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:56
What did they expect?
The EU offers an "association agreement" with military cooperation to Ukraine, then encourages a coup when a newly elected president rejects the deal in favor of Russia.
Putin is not a good or nice man – but it is the EU, & the appalling ex- "High Representative" Cathy Ashton – crass, incompetent, vainglorious fools - that have caused this appalling mess and loss of life.
+109
Comment number 6. Brontus_Horace
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:55
No surprise here. Much misreading of international situations previously too, for example Iraq, Syria, Israel/Palestinian Territories, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and it goes on and on.
+96
Comment number 30. Bill
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:01
Oh. So our leaders didn't realise that dragging Ukraine into NATO/EU influence, and actively fomenting regime change in Kiev, would cause Russia some legitimate concern?
LOL.
+93
Comment number 20. Phil Dawson
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:58
I agree British foreign policy appears entirely absent from dealing with the Ukraine crisis, leaving it to the other "great powers" in Europe, France & Germany, to find a settlement. Instead we have an idiot defence secretary stoking things still further with his comments on the Baltic & claiming Putin to be as big a threat as IS. We need Russia in the fight against Islamist fascists like IS
+91
Comment number 219. Martin
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:39
Is there anything that has not been "badly misread"?
Iraq - disaster
Afghanistan - disaster
Ukraine - disaster
Syria - disaster
Libya - disaster
Quite a roll call of failure.
+90
Comment number 75. Furious Blueberry
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:11
Oh the irony, the EU was founded originally to prevent another war in Europe but the EU's encouragement of Ukraine to seek membership has provoked Russia into creating this conflict.
+72
Comment number 32. laughingdevil
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:02
It's not hard for the west to badly misread Russia. And they've been doing it for a long time.
Because Western leaders and western society are all about money. And they try and guess what Russia would do based on how things (like sanctions) affect their prosperity. They are simply incapable of understanding countries who put other things - such as national pride - first.
+71
Comment number 106. James
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:18
62.milvusvestal
"I fail to understand why these unelected peers think that the UK is still an influential world power"
Probably because we're a top 5 economy in the developed world and top 3 for military spending in the west, battle-tempered in several recent wars. We've lost some teeth, but we've got more left than most.
+68
Comment number 12. Daniel Bunbury
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:57
Putin is no darling, but a few significant causes of this problem are NATO's expansionist tendencies, Bush's trying to place a missile defence shield in Poland (if you view someone as a threat, they tend to become one), and Ukraine which is playing the West like a violin. If you keep poking a bear with a sharp stick, don't be surprised if it comes out of its corner.
+57
Comment number 273. Impedimental
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:51
The only course of action now is to send that well respected and highly successful peace envoy Mr Anthony Blair to the region to cool things down.
After all he's done wonders for the middle east
+53
Comment number 114. phill
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:19
Can you imagine if the SNP had any say on Britain's defence strategy.
+51
Comment number 33. The real prophet
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:02
Anyone else not surprised at this revelation?
+49
Comment number 28. OrnellaTheWitch
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:01
Much as I loathe Putin, you can hear the media ratcheting up the rhetoric at the moment.....a manufactured conflict with Russia is just what the politicians want, in order to distract us from what the banks are up to, TTIP etc.
+37
Comment number 29. Mark
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:01
Recently listened to a radio 4 interview with a Ukrainian protester who admitted he was given a gun and told to shoot at the police during the troubles.
If you look hard enough, you can see the outside interference that caused all this mess and the culprits are from the West.
+36
Comment number 22. archduke_arthur
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:58
@3.OrwellWasProphet
Thankfully these days we have RT so we can cut through all the propaganda the bbc dishes out to us.
====
Well at lease RT is allowed to broadcast in the UK via Freeview. Don't think there's an alternative view allowed on Moscow television.
+32
Comment number 2. chiptheduck
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:53
If politicians had any intelligence they wouldn't be politicians.
+32
Comment number 74. Calum McKay
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:11
Russia's interference in Ukraine is despicable!
But is it worse or more inflammatory than US / uk involvement in Iraq, Syria or Libya?
What would US do if Russia started encroaching on its territory, look no further than Cuba Crisis - took us all to the brink!
It is the West that is expanding East, Russia is saying no further!
If the West had listened earlier....
C McK
+30
Comment number 18. roger
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 11:58
i think the problem is not Russia, its the USA and the UK thinking they can tell the rest of the world what to do, looks to me like Russia and china are kicking back and saying we wont listen to you. The world is not controlled by the yanks or us and the sooner we understand that the better it will be
+23
Comment number 232. ichabod
20TH FEBRUARY 2015 - 12:42
If it wasn't for the leaders, I suspect the peoples of Russia and the West could get on pretty well.
Lucian Kim: Debaltseve debacle puts Ukraine's leader in jeopardy. That suits Vladimir Putin just fineUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko has suffered another crushing defeat. Less than a week after negotiating the renewal of the so-called Minsk ceasefire agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his soldiers have come limping out of Debaltseve, a road and rail hub in eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian rebels were besieging even as the talks dragged through the night
This is from BBCThe loss of Debaltseve is so huge only because Kiev turned it into a symbolic redoubt, said Gustav Gressel, a specialist on Eastern European defense policy and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. Poroshenko's biggest mistake was not to withdraw earlier, according to Gressel. The battle for Debaltseve is reminiscent of the futile struggle for the Donetsk airport, which Ukrainian forces finally gave up in January after months of bitter fighting.
President Petro Poroshenko is portraying the retreat of thousands of Ukrainian government forces as an "orderly" tactical withdrawal. However, initial reports indicate it may have been just the opposite.
A recent poll showed his approval rating had decreased from 57% to 45%, with 46% saying he was doing a bad job. The "don't knows" were 9%."I have seen this with my own eyes, on the battlefield and in the army headquarters, how military action is planned and executed," Semyon Semenchenko, commander of the volunteer Donbass battalion, told the BBC.
"I can assure you that we lost Debaltseve not because of the Russian military advantage, but because our generals refuse to take responsibility," he said.
I somehow feel sorry for you. I think that you always see some outside influence in everything, you cannot think independently. That is sad, but understandable. I guess living in 1,3bn people country it is like that.This newspaper is clearly an American propaganda organ and you are clearly an American propagandist.
India has higher press freedom compared to Finland. For your information, I have no link with Indian government and I frequently criticise Indian government. However nobody has said anything to me so far.
Poroshenko is an American stooge whose job is to speak what Americans tell him. Ordinary Ukrainian have lost faith in Poroshenko completely. I can bet Poroshenko will lose the polls if held today.
Population of Finland is 5.4 million and has an average population density of 17 inhabitants per square kilometre. This makes it the third most sparsely populated country in Europe, after Iceland and Norway.I somehow feel sorry for you. I think that you always see some outside influence in everything, you cannot think independently. That is sad, but understandable. I guess living in 1,3bn people country it is like that.
Reporters Without Borders
Here is press freedom, Finland #1, India #140
Excuses, excuses...Population of Finland is 5.4 million and has an average population density of 17 inhabitants per square kilometre. This makes it the third most sparsely populated country in Europe, after Iceland and Norway.
Less population is easy to govern.
What earthshaking news can be there?
No news and no views being good news, what shackling of press freedom can be there and that too in a country with 17 inhabitants per square kilometre where one has to use a satellite to find out who is the neighbour and if he is dead or alive since even a normal binocular would not do.
As far as the statistics or poll put up by Western agencies, they are agenda driven and total codswallop.
Are you aware of the human rights abuses that is done in the West and yet are not a talking point for Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or Greenpeace?
Just for starters how much of the Western world has gone on campaigns regarding the Guantanamo captives, who have been incarcerated for decade and still are denied legal recourse. How is the US better than China which is roundly criticised for human rights abuse in the Laogai?
Or Europe and its Human Rights for that matter.
Since you control the media and since a large majority of the world knows English, you seize their minds with your patent falsehood with
homilies and Christian compassion and love for humanity (as in Ukraine and elsewhere).
Come on, old bean, quit pontificating from a population denied wasteland.
He is mind boggling.
You are right about US, they are at 46 with Romania and Haiti, does it make India any better, no. Press freedom and corruption go hand in hand. For your information Finland had all the problems with human rights etc at the thirties, then it was made a decision by government to develop the country to a equal place to all, where is no place for corruption etc to grow and root. That has worked, it has nothing to do with size or population.Truth, facts and reality!
Refute it, if you can.
Has any Indian stated that India is a perfect Paradise?You are right about US, they are at 46 with Romania and Haiti, does it make India any better, no. Press freedom and corruption go hand in hand. For your information Finland had all the problems with human rights etc at the thirties, then it was made a decision by government to develop the country to a equal place to all, where is no place for corruption etc to grow and root. That has worked, it has nothing to do with size or population.
John 8:721st Century King James Version (KJ21)
So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."