Category: Aggregated

By all accounts, the ceasefire in southeast Ukraine, called for in the Feb. 12 Minsk agreement, came into force at midnight, local time, though not without violations charged to both sides. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a big deal of going on TV, dressed in the uniform of the national commander of the armed forces, to announce that he was issuing the order to the regime’s forces to cease fire, though he was still “alarmed” at the situation in Debaltsevo.

Vladislav Seleznev, spokesman for the Kiev regime’s special operations headquarters, told reporters that there had been no shelling registered since 3 AM, local time, and that the ceasefire had generally been holding. He said there was some shelling in the areas of Chernukhino and Zolotoye, but it was not systematic.

Eduard Basurin, military spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), generally agreed, adding that certain violations of the truce regime were seen near Debaltsevo. Earlier, officials of both of the breakaway republics said they had issued orders to their forces to stop operations at midnight. “In accordance with the Minsk agreements’ implementation measures, LPR stopped hostilities starting from 00:00 hours, Sunday, Kiev time,” head of the Luhansk People’s Republic Council of Ministers Gennady Tsyplakov said.

“The DPR militia forces, fulfilling the DPR head’s order, ceased fire at 00:00 hours, Kiev time, from all types of weapons,” Basurin said. “DPR militia forces, strictly fulfilling the DPR head’s order, shall comply with the silence regime throughout the zone of responsibility of DPR militia units.”

According to new reports, the guns largely fell silent all along the line of contact between the two sides, with the possible exception of Debaltsevo, where thousands of Ukrainian troops remain trapped by DPR forces, and where heavy fighting continued right up until the ceasefire deadline. DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko has been widely quoted in the press, particularly by the New York Times and by Reuters, saying that the DPR won’t stop fighting in Debaltsevo unless the Ukrainian troops trapped there surrender. “We will block all attempts to break out,” he said. “I have given the order.” The Times also reports, however, that residents of Donetsk and Mariupol reached by phone reported that there was silence. Meanwhile, Sputnik reports that a statement published by Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh, that two of his battalions were still fighting in Debaltsevo, disappeared from the National Guard website shortly after.

On the political/diplomatic/strategic level, the OSCE issued a statement, Saturday, reporting that the trilateral contact group had held video conferences involving the DPR/LPR representatives.

“Issues of the practical implementation of the ‘Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements,’ adopted in Minsk on 12 February 2015, were discussed during the consultations,” they said. “Particular emphasis was placed on full respect of provisions concerning the ceasefire, which should be strictly implemented from 15 February 2015 at 00.00 hours Kiev time, as well as the withdrawal of heavy weapons, as agreed in the Package of Measures. It was agreed that all actors will undertake all necessary measures aimed at achieving the above objectives and the speedy de-escalation of ongoing hostilities in the conflict zone, in particular in the vicinity of the towns of Debaltsevo and Mariupol, which have seen the heaviest fighting in recent days.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, Saturday, warning that the Kiev regime and the U.S. might distort the contents of the Minsk agreement.

In a telephone call with Poroshenko, Saturday, President Obama expressed his “deep concern about the ongoing violence, particularly in and around Debaltseve.” The White House said in a statement that the two leaders “emphasized the pressing need” for all parties to implement the ceasefire and agreed to remain in contact in the coming days. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said failure to maintain the peace would cost the region and the people of eastern Ukraine “a high price,” reports the London Independent.

“If we miss this opportunity, the chance to defuse the serious conflict in eastern Ukraine by way of negotiations will be gone for a long time,”

Steinmeier said. Poroshenko announced, Saturday, he was prepared to impose martial law on the entire country, should the ceasefire agreement collapse.

“Even before Minsk… I warned that we will have to, if there is no peace, take a very difficult but necessary decision to introduce martial law,” he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is still trying to sabotage the whole deal. Victoria Nuland’s partner in crime in installing the Nazi regime in Kiev, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, tweeted out a satellite image, Saturday, which he claimed showed Russian artillery—not DPR artillery—firing on the regime’s forces in the Debaltsevo area. The responses posted below Pyatt’s tweet suggest that such “evidence” provided by the U.S. has very little credibility. The U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE, Dan Baer, and the U.S. NATO mission also tweeted the image and two other images. “Russian military not separatist, RU military deployed [weapons] around Debaltseve where it is shelling [ukrainian] positions,” Baer wrote.

In discussion on Sunday evening, Lyndon LaRouche pointed to the Schiller Institute event in Manhattan on Saturday, February 14, as a complete success, and stressed that it is crucial that the material presented at the event, keynoted by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, be circulated fully in the U.S. and internationally.

Secondly, he stressed that too many people are too much in a dream state to be able to engage in serious thinking. People need to get out of bed and stop sleep-walking.

In the coming week, mankind is faced with two crises for which it is ill-prepared, by the very fact that too many people look at human beings as animals, rather than seeing human beings in the way that Johannes Kepler viewed mankind, as having the mission and capacity to develop the Solar System upon which mankind at the same time depends.

As of midnight, February 15, a ceasefire went into effect in Southeast Ukraine. If this ceasefire fails to hold, the world is precariously close to thermonuclear extinction. Despite Barack Obama and Victoria Nuland, whose Nazis — like the Right Sector and the Azov battalion — are pledged to violate the ceasefire, Hollande, Merkel, Putin, and Poroshenko spoke with each other on Sunday and plan to continue that discussion on Monday, because they know that the Minsk agreement may be humanity’s last chance.

Also, on Monday, the representatives of Greece will be meeting with the Eurogroup in Brussels. With the support of over 60% of the Greek population, they will stand firm against the continuation of the genocidal austerity policy imposed on the Greek population by the Troika of the EU, the ECB, and the IMF.

On Sunday night, more than 20,000 Greeks demonstrated in the streets of Athens outside the parliament under the theme: “The Greek people against austerity.”

These two crises are only the most immediate ones facing humanity. The crises threatening human existence continue to proliferate.

Lyndon LaRouche emphasized that we are at the end of this moment of history and that to fill in the last crack of that history is a mistake. What is needed is a new concept unfamiliar to most, because most human beings don’t know the difference between animals and human beings.

No animal could ever master the laws of the Solar System. No animal even has an idea that its existence depends on the Solar System or that it has a responsibility to develop the Solar System. Only man can have such an idea and has the capacity to exercise such a responsibility.

Looked at from that standpoint, how could any human being tolerate the arming of Nazis in Ukraine? How could any human being support the genocide being perpetrated by the Troika against Greece and elsewhere? How could any human being tolerate Victoria Nuland not being immediately fired for the crimes she has committed in Ukraine, not to mention Libya? How could any human being tolerate Barack Obama in the U.S. Presidency? How could any human being tolerate the money changers in the temple of Mammon on Wall Street?

Man is not an animal. He has a divine mission to build a mass movement for development, not only of this planet, but of the Solar System as a whole.

As LaRouche stressed on Sunday, we don’t have much time. Civilization may be on the verge of extinction. We have to inspire people to levels they have never touched before and it can be done.

In this light, LaRouche pointed out that the key, not only to mankind’s continued existence, but to the fulfillment of his nature and mission as man, and not as an animal, is Johannes Kepler’s understanding of the Solar System. The following remarks made by LaRouche on Tuesday, February 10, go directly to the point at hand: