theDrahos

During an extensive press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a somewhat detailed briefing on the ongoing sabotage of the Minsk Accords, in the course of answering questions.

First, he noted that

(transcript from Russian Foreign Ministry).

Later, he described how the Kiev authorities are also denying that military objectives are substantially being met, and were sabotaging the Minsk agreement, which all the Western powers claim they want to see fully implemented.

First, Kiev said they had no obligations to grant “an amnesty to the participants in the events in southeastern Ukraine, nor had they assumed any political or legal obligations to take Donetsk and Lugansk’s positions into consideration in carrying out constitutional reform.”

Second, he noted that the Rada had issued a statement saying it would not cooperate with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics to hold local elections—an item in the agreement.

Third, Kiev has refused to honor the agreement to establish working subgroups within the Contact Group on the constitutional process, humanitarian and economic issues, the holding of elections, and so on.

To Lavrov’s listing one might add the specific statement of Vladislav Deinego, the Lugansk republic representative on the Contact Group, who both complained of ongoing shelling by Kiev, and also noted that the Rada had only 4 days left to meet the deadline set in the Minsk accords for adopting a decree on granting special status to Donbas.

Lavrov concluded his discussion as follows:

Speaking at a special session of the Greek parliament March 10, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras backed the establishment of a committee to seek war reparations from Germany for crimes committed in the Nazi era.

According to the publication To Vima, which claims to have seen an April 2013 report by a parliamentary investigatory committee, the amount of money in question—which would deal with destruction to infrastructure and a forced loan—would amount to EU162 billion.

In his parliamentary speech, Tsipras said that the issue was a sensitive one, and would have to be negotiated, but that there was a moral issue involved. He then linked that moral issue to the question of the demands being made against Greece, to pay its unpayable debt.

He noted that Germany got support for an enormous write-down of its debts at the London Debt Agreement conference of 1953, despite the crimes of the Nazi era. In an obvious reference to current demands by Germans like Finance Minister Schäuble that it was Greece’s [moral] obligation to pay every penny by savaging its population, Tsipras then added: “We are not giving morality lessons, but we will not accept morality lessons either.”

During the debate, the Justice Minister indicated that he might approve an order to confiscate property, particularly in the case of a massacre which occurred in the small village of Distomo.

A spokesperson for Chancellor Merkel has already rejected the Greek demand.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced yesterday that it had approved a four-year, $17.5 billion bailout package for Ukraine, the first $5 billion tranche of which will be made available immediately. The $17.5 billion is supposedly part of a larger $40 billion loan and aid program, designed, as the Wall Street Journal put it, to “keep the country afloat.”

Not to keep the population alive—it will be subjected to murderous austerity conditionalities—but to allow Ukraine to continue its war against Russia. Notably, $1.5 billion of the $5 billion for Ukraine will be extorted in debt payments “due” Friday and Monday from Greece, which refuses to join the assault on Russia.

The program’s anti-Russia bent is clear. As Ukrainian President Poroshenko tweeted ecstatically “today’s IMF decision proves the civilized world believes in and supports Ukraine,” the Journal reported, adding its own comment that many economists and analysts see the bailout as part of a “broader political decision to back the fledgling pro-Western government in Kiev. The U.S. and Europe are trying to help the former Soviet republic leave its decades-long political and economic orbit around the Kremlin.” David Lipton, the IMF’s No. 2 official, underscored that Ukraine’s crisis “proves an opportunity for the government to make a decisive break from the past.”

The idea that this program will “stabilize” Ukraine is fantasy. Conditionalities including much higher energy tariffs, privatizations, dismantling of any social safety net (already underway) will push existing political tensions to the breaking point. Virtually every commentator points to the “enormous risks” inherent in the program.

Built into the bailout program is the demand that Ukraine also come up with $15.4 billion in “savings” through negotiations with creditors, debt restructuring, or an outright debt moratorium. Reuters claims today that “some players” think a creditor “haircut” of 70% is possible. On Friday, Finance Minister and U.S. citizen Natalie Jaresko will hold a videoconference with creditors to outline plans for negotiations with holders of sovereign debt.

According to the terms of the agreement, release of the next tranche of the funding package, due in three months, is contingent on ramming through a “successful” debt restructuring with high creditor participation, David Lipton warned. Contrast this to the Troika fascists’ approach to Greece’s proposal for debt restructuring and write-down.