Kiev suicide, syria crimes, arctic route

Kiev has been on suicide watch for a long time. It shoots itself in the foot every chance it gets. It is on its way to another fiasco / In Syria, an obscure Arabic language report provides more sordid details on the US "responsibility to protect." / The Arctic Ocean provides a straight route to the Pacific -- it's best if you happen to have an icebreaker.

​Kiev's latest self-inflicted wound. Our translation of an excerpt from a Russian-language article in vesti.ru.
You may recall that the Maidan coup began over the issue of whether Ukraine could join the EU, which deceptively gave many Ukrainians the false hope that as members of the EU, they would be eligible for loans that would solve their debt crisis. Meanwhile, thanks to incompetent Western-supported leadership, the country is now deeper in debt than ever and embroiled in a civil war, with little hope of ever pulling out of debt. The irony of it all is that there are millions of Ukrainian citizens whose income depends on their jobs in Russia, the country that is treated like a pariah by its government. The upper house of the Kiev government, oblivious to the economic dependence of these millions of citizens on Russia, is actually taking steps that would effectively reduce the GDP even more. Our partial translation follows:
http://www.vesti.ru/m/doc.html?id=2892950
Author: Dmitry Kiselyov
The Verkhovna Rada (Upper House of Ukrainian government) has again started a discussion on visas with Russia. The Kremlin has already said that Russia will respond to this issue on the basis of reciprocity [making it harder for Ukrainians to get to their jobs in Russia]. This issue is extremely thorny for Ukraine. In a country where the bulk of pensioners live on $50 a month, and the average salary is about $250, for many families, working in Russia is the only hope.
According to estimates of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, there are 4 million Ukrainian citizens earning wages in Russia.
And if Kiev still cancels the visa-free travel with Russia, then for many it will mean an existential catastrophe, because it is by no means a fact that the EU is waiting for everyone with open arms and will pay them as they do in Russia. [the fact is, the EU is rapidly losing interest in the originally offered accession of Ukraine to the organization].

Elsewhere in the news:
An article published in the Arabic language in RT Arabic under the title
“The United Nations after the American strike on Syria: The most important thing is to prevent escalation”
Published: 19.05.2017
provides details on the UN’s reaction to the US strike near al-Tenf on a Syrian convoy and on the strike itself.
Nuggets of this story that you will be very lucky to find reported in the West (which is why you should join our fast-growing group of New Silk Strategies regular readers) are as quoted in our translation below (emphasis added by NSS):

• “A Syrian army source told SANA [Syrian Arab News Agency] that, at 16:30 on Thursday, the international coalition struck one of the army points on the road to Al-Tenf in the Syrian desert, which led to a number of deaths in addition to some material losses.”

Did you get that? It was an existing army point that had for some time been under the control of the legitimate armed forces tasked with protecting the Syrian people. Yet Western officials would have us believe that the Syrians, who actually live there and are defending themselves form ISIS, were dangerous interlopers.

• “For its part, the group "Revolutionary Commandos" of the Syrian opposition, armed and supported by the United States, said that the [US-led] coalition aircraft struck, at the request of this faction, a convoy of the Syrian army with an armed faction supported by Iran, which was headed towards a base in al-Tanf in southern Syria near the border with Jordan, Where units of US special forces are stationed.”

The Revolutionary Commandos is a rebranding of the New Syrian Army, which is now famous for having beheaded a boy (video is linked as follows, but please do not watch as it can harm the soul: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=244_1344796488). Until this video was released, the US had been graciously supporting this group of vicious killers. At that point, in order to continue receiving juicy US support, they decided to rebrand themselves as the “Revolutionary Commandos.” Only the name changed. Thus it was this group of heartless terrorists that was working hand in hand with the US coalition and they were the ones who asked the coalition to strike the Syrian convoy. The fact that there were said to be Iranians in the group is supposed to justify the murder of these soldiers (2 of whom were later revealed to be Russian advisers). After all, Donald Trump and other Neocons keep saying that “Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terror.” The trouble with this assertion is that the Iranian people and Iranian government are essentially all SHIITES while 100% of the fighters of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and allied groups are SUNNI Wahhabists, the theological and philosophical antithesis of the Shiites. Thus there are essentially no Iranians in these main terror groups. Nor can anyone recall, amidst the growing number of terror attacks in Europe, of a single Iranian or other Shiite involved in a terror plot against the West. Yet no one ever seems to challenge the absurd allegation that Iran supports terror.
Indeed, neither the Western press nor the Russian msm ever mention the facts of the case. The Russians are justifiably leery of sullying their own Muslims, some of whom are Wahhabists (who for the most part have not been radicalized), while the US is bound by the secretive petrodollar agreement to the Saudis, who wish to have vital facts about the Iranians (Shiites) and the real terrorists (Sunnis and especially their Wahhabist sect) suppressed so that anti-Iranian hate will just continue unabated. In return, the Saudis keep charging US dollars for their oil, with a view to bolstering a currency which has little else to recommend it.
There is also another, overarching, aspect, namely, the fact that the vast majority of Sunnis – and even of the Wahhabist sect – are peaceful. But this does nothing to change the fact that all members of the main 3 terrorist groups threatening civilization itself are Sunni Wahhabists.
The almost universal ignorance of this fact makes it easy for the Neocons to wage war on any Muslim group, even though the maligned and assailed Muslim countries are never ruled by strict Muslim leaders loyal to the US-Saudi alliance. Thus the notion that the eternal conflicts in the Muslim world are the fault of Islam and not the deceptive and clandestine interference of US agencies like the CIA and the Western media is perpetuated. US Christians are not averse to the flattering assertion that Islam per se is the cause of all our ills.

And this from Izvestia. NSS translation of excerpts.
There is no alternative to the Northern Sea Route
The Northern Sea Route is the main sea route of the country and the shortest waterway from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. In the very near future, the NSR, part of the [Russian] internal "highway," can become one of the most significant international transport corridors
2 June 2017, 08:04
by Nikolai Surkov Kirill Kudrin
To understand why Russia needs the Northern Sea Route (NSR), one need only look at the map of the world. Firstly, it is the shortest water route from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region. For comparison: the distance from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok is about 14 thousand km via the NSR, but more than 23 thousand km via the Suez Canal. Secondly, this is a direct way to the markets in question.
to edit.