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The good word has it that Timoshenko junta “Prime Minister” Arseny Yatsenyuk secretly took Scythian gold to the USA. Pavel Zarifullin, Director of Moscow’s Lev Gumilev Centre, circulated this sensational news through social networks. Zarifullin is convinced that during his recent visit to the US, Yatsenyuk took along 20 billion USD worth of national cultural treasures. Referring to unnamed sources, Zarifullin wrote that the artefacts might become collateral for an IMF loan. To check the authenticity of this information, historians are urging the junta to draw up an open inventory of the Kiev museums’ holdings. The Scythian gold isn’t so much valued as a precious metal as it’s a historical relic.
Editor:
Betcha that if Natsy Yats did take the gold to the USA, he’s gonna demand it back… so as to have deniability. Hmm… but are the greedster Amerikantsy going to cover his back? That remains to be seen…
BMD
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On Saturday, Sergei Aksyonov, Chairman of the Government of the Republic of the Crimea (RK), said that the Russian Rouble and the Ukrainian Gryvnia might circulate jointly during a transitional period that could start as early as 18 or 19 March, if the RK decided to join the Russian Federation as a federal subject. An all-Crimea referendum today is due to decide that question. Aksyonov also said that RK residents could keep their passports, even if they acquire Russian citizenship upon accession to the RF, saying, “Dual citizenship isn’t prohibited in Russia”.
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On Saturday, NATO official spokesman Oana Lungescu reported on her Twitter account that severe hacker DDoS attacks affected several NATO websites. She claimed that this didn’t affect the alliance’s operations. Now, she said that experts are restoring the websites’ normal functioning. On Friday, internet resources of Russian government institutions, including those of the President of the RF, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central Bank of Russia, became targets for DDoS attacks.
Editor:
This means that NATO operations were FUBAR for a while, and still are fucked up to some degree. “Spin” is a pathetic thing, isn’t it? It’s why everyone HATES PR flacks…
BMD
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Today, people in Crimea get a chance to decide on their future… whether to remain in the Ukraine with MORE autonomy than at present or whether they’d become a federal subject of the Russian Federation. According to polls of 600 residents taken Thursday and Friday ahead of the all-Crimea referendum, 70 percent said that they’d vote to become part of Russia, whilst 11 percent said that they’d vote to stay in the Ukraine. According to AFP, the first voters already entered polling stations in the RK capital of Simferopol. Reporters also saw a score of people coming out to vote in Bakhchysaray, the centre of the Muslim Crimean Tatar community. The polling stations at 27 regional RK election commissions are going to be open all day long, starting at 08.00 until 20.00 (23.00 Saturday 15 March-11.00 PDT. 02.00-14.00 EDT. 06.00-18.00 UTC. 10.00-22.00 MSK. 17.00-05.00 Monday 17 March AEST). Up to 1.5 million… the number of ballots printed for the referendum… RK citizens shall cast their votes in favour of independence or against it. Moreover, RK authorities stated that 135 registered international observers from 23 EU countries came to watch the elections themselves. Members of the EU and national European parliaments, international law experts, and human rights activists together with 1,240 local observers watch the voting at ballot stations. To cover the voting, 623 accredited journalists from 169 international media outlets are in the Crimea. Besides this, more than 10,000 members of the RK Opolochenie (People’s Militia) and over 5,000 police are ensuring that the referendum goes smoothly.
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In an interview on Russian TV, 33-year-old Natalia Poklonskaya, the new RK Genprokurator, described the Euromaidan revolt as an “anti-constitutional coup”. This statement infuriated the self-proclaimed junta in Kiev. She said, “What happened in Kiev was, first and foremost, an anti-constitutional coup and an armed seizure of power. That’s what my feeling has always been, and I wasn’t afraid to voice that opinion [whilst still working] at the Ukrainian Genprokuratura”. Poklonskaya bluntly said that the people who now hold the offices of President of the Ukraine and Genprokurator Ukrainy are illegitimate. Her outspoken criticism already created many enemies in the pro-junta Ukrainian media, with pro-junta journalists describing some of her leaked photos as “frivolous”. Apparently, the junta put a price on the young Crimean prosecutor’s head; they accused her of holding her office illegally and stripped her of “justice counsellor” status. Poklonskaya said, “I tell the truth and I’m not afraid of this truth. I’m no criminal; I don’t propagate Nazism, unlike certain régime functionaries in Kiev. Let them bring legal cases against me. I believe that justice will be done”. As RK Genprokurator, Poklonskaya said that she’d enforce both Ukrainian and international laws in the region. She said that her office received petitions from the Berkut police officers brutalised during the recent Ukrainian revolt and putsch. Poklonskaya also added prosecutors were bracing for the referendum. However, she added, whatever the will of the people, a Crimean Euromaidan wouldn’t happen.
Editor:
If I had to choose between an amoral corporate media journalistic whore like Sophia Kishkovsky who obsequiously does the bidding of the Establishment, or a gutsy gal like Nataliya Poklonskaya standing up to vicious fascists, there’s no contest, is there? Yes, Virginia, there’s still CHARACTER left in this world… but NOT in the ranks of the Western corporate media. They all pimp for the political hussies who carry out the oligarchs’ wishes (that’s as true of CNN as it is of Fox). I know where I stand, what about you?
BMD
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The bear in the air… the last time that the Amerikantsy faced the bear in Korea, they got mauled… this looks like a repeat, kids…
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NATO said that Ukrainian hackers targeted several of its websites in what it claimed was a “significant” cyber-attack on Saturday. This was the latest bout of virtual warfare linked to the Ukrainian crisis. NATO spokesman Oana Lungescu said on Twitter that the websites were hit by “a significant DDoS (denial of service) attack”, but that it had had “no operational impact” {liar, liar, pants on fire: editor}. In DDoS attacks, hackers hijack multiple computers to send a flood of data to the target, crippling its computer system. Lungescu said experts were working to restore normal function but the websites remained down for hours and they still couldn’t access them at around 04.30 UTC (01.30 PDT. 04.30 EDT. 08.30 MSK.15.30 AEST) on Sunday {“no operational impact”, indeed!: editor}.
Lungescu didn’t say who was responsible for the attack, but a Ukrainian patriot hacker group called Cyber Berkut, the name of the MVDU spetsnaz who bravely stood against the brutal Euromaidan rioters in Kiev, claimed responsibility. In a statement on its website www.cyber-berkut.org, the group said it targeted three NATO websites over what it claimed was NATO’s interference in the Ukraine and its support of the “Kiev junta”. They said, “We won’t allow the presence of NATO in our homeland”. The electronic attack is the latest of several that saw the crisis in the Ukraine hit cyberspace. On 8 March, British-based BAE Systems said that an aggressive new cyber weapon called Snake infected dozens of computer networks in the Ukraine, which experts said was most likely the work of Russian cyberwar specialists.
Editor:
The war HAS begun… in cyberspace. Russia’s winning… otherwise, NATO wouldn’t be issuing denials. The USA hasn’t faced a peer opponent since Korea… when the VVS waxed the USAF (the VVS would’ve won air superiority over ROK airspace as well as ruling the skies over the DPRK as the MiG-15 was superior in all respects to all USAF aircraft (especially, in firepower and manoeuvrability), but a Kremlin directive kept them north of the 38th Parallel). The US forces are lazy and arrogant… now, they face an equal… not only technically equal, but determined and motivated to defend the motherland from rape by the Amerikantsy. It’s clear that Russia’s won the cyberwar, degrading American/NATO capabilities considerably. Does this mean that it may deter the American oligarchs and their political running dogs from launching a shooting war? God willing, yes!
BMD
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Mikhail Malyshev, chairman of the commission in charge of the all-Crimea referendum, said that all 1,205 polling stations are open in Crimea, telling a press conference in Simferopol on Sunday morning, “We’ve received information that all 1,205 polling stations are open and are now working”. Malyshev said there are some problems caused by weather conditions in Chernomorsky Raion, where land phone lines are temporarily down, and two polling stations in Belogorsky Raion (Districts 54 and 55) have no power supply, but Krymenergo repair crews are already on their way there. He also said one station in Belogorsky Raion opened late, but it’s now working. Malyshev said, “People actively come to cast their votes in the referendum. Monitors left for the polling stations and territories where they planned to go and had no obstacles”.
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On Sunday, voters in Crimea’s historic naval city of Sevastopol went to the polls in a referendum on joining Russia that most expect to go in Moscow’s favour. Sevastopol, a picturesque coastal city of 350,000 people, is strongly pro-Russian and many cars, buses, houses, and buildings flew the Russian flag. The city is home to the Black Sea Fleet, founded 230 years ago. Kiev leases its bases to Moscow for 100 million USD (72 million euros) a year and a reduction of 30 percent in the price of Russian gas in an agreement through to 2042. Crimea was an autonomous republic of the Ukraine, but most expect it to vote for closer ties with Russia in the referendum, announced at the end of last month after the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. Voting started before 08.00 local time (0600 GMT) at one polling station AFP visited in a business and cultural centre in the city. An AFP reporter saw that around 65 voters arrived to cast votes in the half-hour before the official opening, presenting their passports to officials before they received a ballot paper. One voter, Aleftina Klimova, 80, said she was born in Russia and wanted to rejoin it, saying, “I expect that the USA, France, and all of them would act in a negative way. You see, I was afraid for Putin. I wondered what he’d do to resist… However, he managed to resist. I haven’t slept all night, I waited for this moment, and everything is going as I wanted”. Another woman carried a small Russian flag into the polling station and waved it excitedly as she left. A detachment of police, Cossacks, and Opolochenie secured the safety of the polling station.
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A statement by Tsin Gan, an official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, posted on the ministry’s website on Sunday, said, “The People’s Republic of China always adhered to an impartial and objective position” concerning the situation in the Ukraine. The statement noted that China would continue to try its best to persuade the conflicting sides in Ukraine to start a dialogue. Mr Tsin said, “China always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every country. These principles always determined China’s diplomatic relations with other countries. We believe that the current political crisis in the Ukraine has a deeply rooted historical background, and we should solve it with well-thought-out measures. China doesn’t approve the use of violence and hostility in solving political conflicts”.
Mr Tsin also believed that if the UN Security Council approved the resolution condemning the all-Crimea referendum, but vetoed by Russia, this would’ve most likely only aggravated the situation in and around the Ukraine. Such a resolution wouldn’t have met the interests both of the Ukrainian people and the entire world community, adding, “China calls on the conflicting sides to show reason and restraint”. He said that China already put forward suggestions on how to solve the Ukrainian crisis. The world community should join its efforts to create an international mechanism that would harmonise the situation. Mr Tsin insisted that we create such a mechanism as soon as possible. China’s Permanent Envoy in the UN Liu Jieyi thinks that the contending sides in Ukraine should negotiate their differerences. Mr Liu believed that the coup in the Ukraine came about through support from foreign parties.
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One of the international observers at the referendum now under way at the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, Enrique Ravello from Spain, noted that the voter turnout is “incredibly high”. This referendum is to decide whether Crimea should remain a part of the Ukraine or separate from it. Sr Ravello said, “I visited three polling stations, and I saw that, as a rule, voting goes on quite normally. In a radical departure from what some Western media sources say, nobody’s putting pressure on anyone about how they should vote. Nobody’s creating obstacles to anyone from the point of view of the freedom of movement. By all appearances, people feel themselves quite free. They have all the necessary conditions to freely express their will. Some Italian media sources say that the airport of Simferopol, the capital of the Crimea, is allegedly controlled by Russian troops, but I didn’t see even a single Russian serviceman. However, I was detained by the Ukrainian police for 3 hours, and they detained another observer, from Belgium for 6 hours.”
Ravello is a representative of Catalonia in the Spanish Cortes. He said, “On 9 November, Catalonia is also planning to hold a referendum on whether to remain a part of Spain or not”. “However, the Spanish government is trying not to let Catalonians hold such a referendum. Nevertheless, many people in Catalonia are still going to hold it. It looks like there’s more freedom in the Crimea than in Catalonia. The example of the Crimea will inspire the Catalonians who want to freely express their will”.
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IT safety experts discovered an American hand in hacking attacks on the website of the Crimean plebiscite. This comes after Crimea reported a massive wave of hacker attacks on the websites linked to the present referendum. A new report said, “A new wave of a massive D-Dos attack hit our site at 01.00 last night. Our IT safety experts managed to find out where those attacks came from. It’s the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The most powerful scanning of servers before the attack was carried out exactly from there”. It is significant that Urbana-Champaign, with a population of 37,000, has the highest number of subnets with IP addresses. Let’s take for example subnet 192.17.0.0 – 192.17. 255.255, whose range makes it possible to offer about 500 IP to each citizen, and there are at least five such subnets in the city. In other words, the technological and technical capabilities of this city exceed by thousands of times the needs of its residents. Besides, there are three airports in Urbana. There’s no official information about the location of military bases nearby, but there are signs that a large National Security Agency facility is situated there.
Editor:
This is why the referendum uses paper ballots… and why many Western jurisdictions have gone back to them. Paper ballots are immune to cyberhacking. April fool, you pack of mofos! Why don’t you help NATO get back online instead of doing this? Note well that the Russians gave considerably more information on their cyber-adversaries than NATO did… hmm… could it be that NATO is LESS capable than the Russians are… mirabile dictu! Who woulda thunk it…
BMD
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The Sevastopol Gorsoviet said that as many as half of those eligible in Sevastopol voted in the all-Crimea referendum by midday. Earlier, Valery Medvedev, the head of Sevastopol’s election committee, said that at least 50 percent of eligible voters must turn out for the referendum to be legally valid.
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Mikhail Malyshev, the head of the voting committee, said that commanding are compelling Ukrainian soldiers who want to vote in the all-Crimea referendum to stay on their bases. Today, Malyshev held a press conference where he told reporters that Ukrainian soldiers contacted the referendum authority, saying that they were kept on base forcibly, they wanted to vote, but couldn’t do so. He said that they received 12 such phone calls.
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Hundreds of men at the Olkhovaya railway station near Lugansk in the Eastern Ukraine blocked a train carrying military hardware to the Ukrainian-Russian border. Some three hundred men barricaded the railway with metal junk and formed a live shield to prevent the train from moving further eastward in a vehement show of defiance against the policy pursued by the junta in Kiev. The junta attempted to rush trainloads of military hardware towards the Russian border on Sunday as Crimea voted on its future status. The RK called the referendum after the anti-government coup in Kiev.LiveNews obtained footage of one such train crossing Lugansk Oblast, which borders on Russia’s Belgorod and Voronezh Oblasts in the east and Rostov Oblast in the south.
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The voting committee told the local Kryminform news agency that turnout at the crucial all-Crimean referendum on independence from the Ukraine exceeded half of all registered voters and now stands at 54 percent, saying, “As of 14.00 (1.00 UTC), the turnout reached 54 percent”.
16 March 2014
Voice of Russia World Service
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Yatsenyuk-takes-Scythian-gold-to-US-as-money-back-guarantee-8858/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Russian-rouble-may-start-circulating-in-Crimea-March-18-19-PM-Aksyonov-4064/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Several-NATO-websites-exposed-to-severe-hacker-attack-4919/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Crimean-independence-referendum-begins-today-0424/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Newly-elected-Crimea-prosecutor-condemns-Ukrainian-coup-8190/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Ukrainian-Cyber-Berkut-group-attacks-NATO-website-3606/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/People-actively-vote-around-Crimea-head-of-referendum-organizing-commission-8992/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Recognizing-Crimean-referendum-as-illegitimate-at-UN-would-only-aggravate-situation-China-9569/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/No-infringements-of-freedoms-and-incredibly-high-turnout-at-Crimean-referendum-observers-8417/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/US-hackers-target-Crimean-referendum-website-2229/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/50-of-Sevastopol-residents-vote-in-Crimea-referendum-1885/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Ukraine-troops-willing-to-vote-in-referendum-trapped-inside-bases-by-their-command-2124/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Lugansk-residents-block-train-carrying-military-hardware-to-Ukrainian-Russian-border-6025/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/54-of-Crimeans-vote-in-referendum-as-of-12-00-GMT-8032/
Voices from Russia 
Crimea to Choose Future Today… NATO Fucked Over in DDoS Attack… Did Yatsenyuk Nick Cultural Treasures and Take Them to the USA to Use as “Collateral” for Loan?
Tags: Crimea, cyberspace, Denial-of-service attack, Internet security, Kiev, NATO, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Twitter, Ukraine, United States, USA
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The good word has it that Timoshenko junta “Prime Minister” Arseny Yatsenyuk secretly took Scythian gold to the USA. Pavel Zarifullin, Director of Moscow’s Lev Gumilev Centre, circulated this sensational news through social networks. Zarifullin is convinced that during his recent visit to the US, Yatsenyuk took along 20 billion USD worth of national cultural treasures. Referring to unnamed sources, Zarifullin wrote that the artefacts might become collateral for an IMF loan. To check the authenticity of this information, historians are urging the junta to draw up an open inventory of the Kiev museums’ holdings. The Scythian gold isn’t so much valued as a precious metal as it’s a historical relic.
Editor:
Betcha that if Natsy Yats did take the gold to the USA, he’s gonna demand it back… so as to have deniability. Hmm… but are the greedster Amerikantsy going to cover his back? That remains to be seen…
BMD
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On Saturday, Sergei Aksyonov, Chairman of the Government of the Republic of the Crimea (RK), said that the Russian Rouble and the Ukrainian Gryvnia might circulate jointly during a transitional period that could start as early as 18 or 19 March, if the RK decided to join the Russian Federation as a federal subject. An all-Crimea referendum today is due to decide that question. Aksyonov also said that RK residents could keep their passports, even if they acquire Russian citizenship upon accession to the RF, saying, “Dual citizenship isn’t prohibited in Russia”.
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On Saturday, NATO official spokesman Oana Lungescu reported on her Twitter account that severe hacker DDoS attacks affected several NATO websites. She claimed that this didn’t affect the alliance’s operations. Now, she said that experts are restoring the websites’ normal functioning. On Friday, internet resources of Russian government institutions, including those of the President of the RF, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central Bank of Russia, became targets for DDoS attacks.
Editor:
This means that NATO operations were FUBAR for a while, and still are fucked up to some degree. “Spin” is a pathetic thing, isn’t it? It’s why everyone HATES PR flacks…
BMD
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Today, people in Crimea get a chance to decide on their future… whether to remain in the Ukraine with MORE autonomy than at present or whether they’d become a federal subject of the Russian Federation. According to polls of 600 residents taken Thursday and Friday ahead of the all-Crimea referendum, 70 percent said that they’d vote to become part of Russia, whilst 11 percent said that they’d vote to stay in the Ukraine. According to AFP, the first voters already entered polling stations in the RK capital of Simferopol. Reporters also saw a score of people coming out to vote in Bakhchysaray, the centre of the Muslim Crimean Tatar community. The polling stations at 27 regional RK election commissions are going to be open all day long, starting at 08.00 until 20.00 (23.00 Saturday 15 March-11.00 PDT. 02.00-14.00 EDT. 06.00-18.00 UTC. 10.00-22.00 MSK. 17.00-05.00 Monday 17 March AEST). Up to 1.5 million… the number of ballots printed for the referendum… RK citizens shall cast their votes in favour of independence or against it. Moreover, RK authorities stated that 135 registered international observers from 23 EU countries came to watch the elections themselves. Members of the EU and national European parliaments, international law experts, and human rights activists together with 1,240 local observers watch the voting at ballot stations. To cover the voting, 623 accredited journalists from 169 international media outlets are in the Crimea. Besides this, more than 10,000 members of the RK Opolochenie (People’s Militia) and over 5,000 police are ensuring that the referendum goes smoothly.
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In an interview on Russian TV, 33-year-old Natalia Poklonskaya, the new RK Genprokurator, described the Euromaidan revolt as an “anti-constitutional coup”. This statement infuriated the self-proclaimed junta in Kiev. She said, “What happened in Kiev was, first and foremost, an anti-constitutional coup and an armed seizure of power. That’s what my feeling has always been, and I wasn’t afraid to voice that opinion [whilst still working] at the Ukrainian Genprokuratura”. Poklonskaya bluntly said that the people who now hold the offices of President of the Ukraine and Genprokurator Ukrainy are illegitimate. Her outspoken criticism already created many enemies in the pro-junta Ukrainian media, with pro-junta journalists describing some of her leaked photos as “frivolous”. Apparently, the junta put a price on the young Crimean prosecutor’s head; they accused her of holding her office illegally and stripped her of “justice counsellor” status. Poklonskaya said, “I tell the truth and I’m not afraid of this truth. I’m no criminal; I don’t propagate Nazism, unlike certain régime functionaries in Kiev. Let them bring legal cases against me. I believe that justice will be done”. As RK Genprokurator, Poklonskaya said that she’d enforce both Ukrainian and international laws in the region. She said that her office received petitions from the Berkut police officers brutalised during the recent Ukrainian revolt and putsch. Poklonskaya also added prosecutors were bracing for the referendum. However, she added, whatever the will of the people, a Crimean Euromaidan wouldn’t happen.
Editor:
If I had to choose between an amoral corporate media journalistic whore like Sophia Kishkovsky who obsequiously does the bidding of the Establishment, or a gutsy gal like Nataliya Poklonskaya standing up to vicious fascists, there’s no contest, is there? Yes, Virginia, there’s still CHARACTER left in this world… but NOT in the ranks of the Western corporate media. They all pimp for the political hussies who carry out the oligarchs’ wishes (that’s as true of CNN as it is of Fox). I know where I stand, what about you?
BMD
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The bear in the air… the last time that the Amerikantsy faced the bear in Korea, they got mauled… this looks like a repeat, kids…
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NATO said that Ukrainian hackers targeted several of its websites in what it claimed was a “significant” cyber-attack on Saturday. This was the latest bout of virtual warfare linked to the Ukrainian crisis. NATO spokesman Oana Lungescu said on Twitter that the websites were hit by “a significant DDoS (denial of service) attack”, but that it had had “no operational impact” {liar, liar, pants on fire: editor}. In DDoS attacks, hackers hijack multiple computers to send a flood of data to the target, crippling its computer system. Lungescu said experts were working to restore normal function but the websites remained down for hours and they still couldn’t access them at around 04.30 UTC (01.30 PDT. 04.30 EDT. 08.30 MSK.15.30 AEST) on Sunday {“no operational impact”, indeed!: editor}.
Lungescu didn’t say who was responsible for the attack, but a Ukrainian patriot hacker group called Cyber Berkut, the name of the MVDU spetsnaz who bravely stood against the brutal Euromaidan rioters in Kiev, claimed responsibility. In a statement on its website www.cyber-berkut.org, the group said it targeted three NATO websites over what it claimed was NATO’s interference in the Ukraine and its support of the “Kiev junta”. They said, “We won’t allow the presence of NATO in our homeland”. The electronic attack is the latest of several that saw the crisis in the Ukraine hit cyberspace. On 8 March, British-based BAE Systems said that an aggressive new cyber weapon called Snake infected dozens of computer networks in the Ukraine, which experts said was most likely the work of Russian cyberwar specialists.
Editor:
The war HAS begun… in cyberspace. Russia’s winning… otherwise, NATO wouldn’t be issuing denials. The USA hasn’t faced a peer opponent since Korea… when the VVS waxed the USAF (the VVS would’ve won air superiority over ROK airspace as well as ruling the skies over the DPRK as the MiG-15 was superior in all respects to all USAF aircraft (especially, in firepower and manoeuvrability), but a Kremlin directive kept them north of the 38th Parallel). The US forces are lazy and arrogant… now, they face an equal… not only technically equal, but determined and motivated to defend the motherland from rape by the Amerikantsy. It’s clear that Russia’s won the cyberwar, degrading American/NATO capabilities considerably. Does this mean that it may deter the American oligarchs and their political running dogs from launching a shooting war? God willing, yes!
BMD
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Mikhail Malyshev, chairman of the commission in charge of the all-Crimea referendum, said that all 1,205 polling stations are open in Crimea, telling a press conference in Simferopol on Sunday morning, “We’ve received information that all 1,205 polling stations are open and are now working”. Malyshev said there are some problems caused by weather conditions in Chernomorsky Raion, where land phone lines are temporarily down, and two polling stations in Belogorsky Raion (Districts 54 and 55) have no power supply, but Krymenergo repair crews are already on their way there. He also said one station in Belogorsky Raion opened late, but it’s now working. Malyshev said, “People actively come to cast their votes in the referendum. Monitors left for the polling stations and territories where they planned to go and had no obstacles”.
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On Sunday, voters in Crimea’s historic naval city of Sevastopol went to the polls in a referendum on joining Russia that most expect to go in Moscow’s favour. Sevastopol, a picturesque coastal city of 350,000 people, is strongly pro-Russian and many cars, buses, houses, and buildings flew the Russian flag. The city is home to the Black Sea Fleet, founded 230 years ago. Kiev leases its bases to Moscow for 100 million USD (72 million euros) a year and a reduction of 30 percent in the price of Russian gas in an agreement through to 2042. Crimea was an autonomous republic of the Ukraine, but most expect it to vote for closer ties with Russia in the referendum, announced at the end of last month after the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. Voting started before 08.00 local time (0600 GMT) at one polling station AFP visited in a business and cultural centre in the city. An AFP reporter saw that around 65 voters arrived to cast votes in the half-hour before the official opening, presenting their passports to officials before they received a ballot paper. One voter, Aleftina Klimova, 80, said she was born in Russia and wanted to rejoin it, saying, “I expect that the USA, France, and all of them would act in a negative way. You see, I was afraid for Putin. I wondered what he’d do to resist… However, he managed to resist. I haven’t slept all night, I waited for this moment, and everything is going as I wanted”. Another woman carried a small Russian flag into the polling station and waved it excitedly as she left. A detachment of police, Cossacks, and Opolochenie secured the safety of the polling station.
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A statement by Tsin Gan, an official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, posted on the ministry’s website on Sunday, said, “The People’s Republic of China always adhered to an impartial and objective position” concerning the situation in the Ukraine. The statement noted that China would continue to try its best to persuade the conflicting sides in Ukraine to start a dialogue. Mr Tsin said, “China always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every country. These principles always determined China’s diplomatic relations with other countries. We believe that the current political crisis in the Ukraine has a deeply rooted historical background, and we should solve it with well-thought-out measures. China doesn’t approve the use of violence and hostility in solving political conflicts”.
Mr Tsin also believed that if the UN Security Council approved the resolution condemning the all-Crimea referendum, but vetoed by Russia, this would’ve most likely only aggravated the situation in and around the Ukraine. Such a resolution wouldn’t have met the interests both of the Ukrainian people and the entire world community, adding, “China calls on the conflicting sides to show reason and restraint”. He said that China already put forward suggestions on how to solve the Ukrainian crisis. The world community should join its efforts to create an international mechanism that would harmonise the situation. Mr Tsin insisted that we create such a mechanism as soon as possible. China’s Permanent Envoy in the UN Liu Jieyi thinks that the contending sides in Ukraine should negotiate their differerences. Mr Liu believed that the coup in the Ukraine came about through support from foreign parties.
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One of the international observers at the referendum now under way at the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, Enrique Ravello from Spain, noted that the voter turnout is “incredibly high”. This referendum is to decide whether Crimea should remain a part of the Ukraine or separate from it. Sr Ravello said, “I visited three polling stations, and I saw that, as a rule, voting goes on quite normally. In a radical departure from what some Western media sources say, nobody’s putting pressure on anyone about how they should vote. Nobody’s creating obstacles to anyone from the point of view of the freedom of movement. By all appearances, people feel themselves quite free. They have all the necessary conditions to freely express their will. Some Italian media sources say that the airport of Simferopol, the capital of the Crimea, is allegedly controlled by Russian troops, but I didn’t see even a single Russian serviceman. However, I was detained by the Ukrainian police for 3 hours, and they detained another observer, from Belgium for 6 hours.”
Ravello is a representative of Catalonia in the Spanish Cortes. He said, “On 9 November, Catalonia is also planning to hold a referendum on whether to remain a part of Spain or not”. “However, the Spanish government is trying not to let Catalonians hold such a referendum. Nevertheless, many people in Catalonia are still going to hold it. It looks like there’s more freedom in the Crimea than in Catalonia. The example of the Crimea will inspire the Catalonians who want to freely express their will”.
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IT safety experts discovered an American hand in hacking attacks on the website of the Crimean plebiscite. This comes after Crimea reported a massive wave of hacker attacks on the websites linked to the present referendum. A new report said, “A new wave of a massive D-Dos attack hit our site at 01.00 last night. Our IT safety experts managed to find out where those attacks came from. It’s the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The most powerful scanning of servers before the attack was carried out exactly from there”. It is significant that Urbana-Champaign, with a population of 37,000, has the highest number of subnets with IP addresses. Let’s take for example subnet 192.17.0.0 – 192.17. 255.255, whose range makes it possible to offer about 500 IP to each citizen, and there are at least five such subnets in the city. In other words, the technological and technical capabilities of this city exceed by thousands of times the needs of its residents. Besides, there are three airports in Urbana. There’s no official information about the location of military bases nearby, but there are signs that a large National Security Agency facility is situated there.
Editor:
This is why the referendum uses paper ballots… and why many Western jurisdictions have gone back to them. Paper ballots are immune to cyberhacking. April fool, you pack of mofos! Why don’t you help NATO get back online instead of doing this? Note well that the Russians gave considerably more information on their cyber-adversaries than NATO did… hmm… could it be that NATO is LESS capable than the Russians are… mirabile dictu! Who woulda thunk it…
BMD
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The Sevastopol Gorsoviet said that as many as half of those eligible in Sevastopol voted in the all-Crimea referendum by midday. Earlier, Valery Medvedev, the head of Sevastopol’s election committee, said that at least 50 percent of eligible voters must turn out for the referendum to be legally valid.
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Mikhail Malyshev, the head of the voting committee, said that commanding are compelling Ukrainian soldiers who want to vote in the all-Crimea referendum to stay on their bases. Today, Malyshev held a press conference where he told reporters that Ukrainian soldiers contacted the referendum authority, saying that they were kept on base forcibly, they wanted to vote, but couldn’t do so. He said that they received 12 such phone calls.
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Hundreds of men at the Olkhovaya railway station near Lugansk in the Eastern Ukraine blocked a train carrying military hardware to the Ukrainian-Russian border. Some three hundred men barricaded the railway with metal junk and formed a live shield to prevent the train from moving further eastward in a vehement show of defiance against the policy pursued by the junta in Kiev. The junta attempted to rush trainloads of military hardware towards the Russian border on Sunday as Crimea voted on its future status. The RK called the referendum after the anti-government coup in Kiev.LiveNews obtained footage of one such train crossing Lugansk Oblast, which borders on Russia’s Belgorod and Voronezh Oblasts in the east and Rostov Oblast in the south.
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The voting committee told the local Kryminform news agency that turnout at the crucial all-Crimean referendum on independence from the Ukraine exceeded half of all registered voters and now stands at 54 percent, saying, “As of 14.00 (1.00 UTC), the turnout reached 54 percent”.
16 March 2014
Voice of Russia World Service
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Yatsenyuk-takes-Scythian-gold-to-US-as-money-back-guarantee-8858/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Russian-rouble-may-start-circulating-in-Crimea-March-18-19-PM-Aksyonov-4064/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Several-NATO-websites-exposed-to-severe-hacker-attack-4919/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Crimean-independence-referendum-begins-today-0424/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Newly-elected-Crimea-prosecutor-condemns-Ukrainian-coup-8190/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Ukrainian-Cyber-Berkut-group-attacks-NATO-website-3606/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/People-actively-vote-around-Crimea-head-of-referendum-organizing-commission-8992/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Recognizing-Crimean-referendum-as-illegitimate-at-UN-would-only-aggravate-situation-China-9569/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/No-infringements-of-freedoms-and-incredibly-high-turnout-at-Crimean-referendum-observers-8417/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/US-hackers-target-Crimean-referendum-website-2229/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/50-of-Sevastopol-residents-vote-in-Crimea-referendum-1885/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Ukraine-troops-willing-to-vote-in-referendum-trapped-inside-bases-by-their-command-2124/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/Lugansk-residents-block-train-carrying-military-hardware-to-Ukrainian-Russian-border-6025/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_16/54-of-Crimeans-vote-in-referendum-as-of-12-00-GMT-8032/