The American Petroleum Institute (API) has launched a new advertising campaign in its ongoing push to oust the U.S. oil exports ban in place since 1975. One of the most recent ads, titled “Crude Oil Exports and National Security” on YouTube, starts off with ominous music and asks, “Who loves the ban on U.S.crude oil exports?” The answer, says API, is “Iran and Russia, not exactly our best friends.” Not mentioned: both countries currently maintain business ties with API's dues-paying members.
Satellite images released by NATO show Russian forces operating within the borders of Ukraine's sovereign territory. Dutch Brigadier General Nico Tak gave a sobering assessment of the escalating offensive in a press conference Thursday.
Two columns of tanks and military vehicles rolled into southeastern Ukraine from Russia on Thursday after Grad missiles were fired at a border post and Ukraine's overmatched border guards fled, a top Ukrainian official said. Echoing the comments by Ukraine's Col. Andriy Lysenko, a top NATO official said at least 1,000 Russian troops have poured into Ukraine with sophisticated equipment, leaving no doubt that the Russian military had invaded southeastern Ukraine.
Citing Russia's stalled growth rate and a flow of foreign capital out of Moscow, U.S. and European officials hope a new round of sanctions targeting energy and defense entities, as well as major banks, will deepen Russia's economic pain even further and force President Vladimir Putin to end provocations in Ukraine. Roughly 30 percent of Russia's banking sector assets are now constrained by U.S. sanctions, Obama administration officials said, shortly after announcing new penalties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President-Elect Petro Poroshenko met briefly Friday for what could be the beginnings of a tense truce between the two nations. Putin went so far as to praise Poroshenko for his commitment to peace in eastern Ukraine.
Russia on Monday granted Ukraine another week before it will start demanding prepayment for gas, without which it has threatened to cut off supplies. The announcement by Russia's state gas company Gazprom came at the outset of a second round of European Union-mediated talks aimed at resolving the two countries' dispute over gas prices and outstanding debt.
Ukraine and NATO condemned Vladimir Putin for gloating over Russia's annexation of the Crimea during the Russian President's first trip to the peninsula post-Russian takeover. Several eastern provinces are also voting to secede from the former Soviet province, backed by pro-Russian elements widely believed to members of Russian security forces.
Flyers distributed in the Ukrainian City of Donetsk require Jews to bring a $50 fee to cover the placement of a "religious nationality" mark in passports, and to register their property and possessions with local authorities. Jews who failed to comply would face deportation. This is not a a WWII history lesson, but an actual news story.
A recent surveycompared what Americans wanted to do about the situation in Ukraine with their ability to locate Ukraine on a map. Only one in six placed Ukraine properly in southeastern Europe. Respondents put Ukraine all over Africa and Asia, even in Canada and in the U.S. The average answer was about 1800 miles off. Partisan voters on both sides did poorly compared to independents. The survey’s authors concluded, “The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.”
NATO is strengthening its military footprint along its eastern border immediately in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, the alliance's chief said Wednesday. "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water and more readiness on the land," Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels, declining to give exact troop figures.
