Jackson Tennessee Central Labor Council Supports HR 676
| February 20, 2015 | 8:34 pm | Economy, Health Care, Labor, National, political struggle | Comments closed

 

On January 5, 2015, the Jackson Central Labor Council meeting in regular session “voted unanimously to endorse and support HR 676, the National Single Payer Legislation,” reports Joe Coleman, President of the CLC.  Art Sutherland III, MD, of Physicians for a National Health Program and Terry Hash of PAX Chrisiti in Memphis spoke at an earlier meeting and urged the CLC to endorse this legislation.

The CLC resolution states, “Unions have battled to achieve the highest standards of health care for members and their families, and those gains have lifted up health benefits for all workers, even those who have no union.  All of these achievements are now under constant attack as costs rise and employers seek to shift those costs to workers.”

“HR 676 will save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and by using our purshasing power to rein in the drug companies,” the resolution continues.

“By standing up for all working people and leading the effort to win healthcare for all, we will affirm labor’s rightful role as a leader in the fight for social justice.  Bold action by our unions can rally the nation to pass HR 676,” the resolution concludes.

CLC President Coleman said “The Jackson Central Labor Council is grateful for the dedication and perseverance of all who work tirelessly to forge the support that keeps this vital legislation at the forefront of organized labor,”

Working with Physicians for a National Health Program, Unions for Single Payer will provide speakers to unions and other labor organizations interested in learning more about single payer health care.  Just contact us using the information below.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S.  Patients will choose their own physicians and hospitals.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments.  HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 47 co-sponsors in addition to Congressman Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 617 union organizations including 149 Central Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 44 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV, MA, RI, NH, ID & NM).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org

https://www.facebook.com/unionsforsinglepayer 

02/16/2015

H.R. 676, Single Payer, Reintroduced into Current (114th) Congress
| February 20, 2015 | 8:30 pm | Action, Health Care, National, political struggle | Comments closed

Washington, DC.    On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) reintroduced HR 676, his single payer Improved Medicare for All  legislation, in the current 114th session of Congress.  The bill was introduced with 44 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers. 

Calls to congressional offices by supporters of single payer healthcare have already increased the number of co-sponsors to 46.

“Under H.R. 676, every resident of the United States would receive a card at birth that would guarantee access to a full range of medically-necessary services that include primary care, dental, prescription drugs, mental health and long term care,” said Conyers.  The bill assures to all patients free choice of physician or health care provider.

Kay Tillow, coordinator of the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Healthcare HR 676, urged everyone to call their congressperson or email them asking that they sign on as a co-sponsor of HR 676.

You can call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your representative by name. If you cannot speak to the representative, leave a message and request a response.

You can look up representatives by zip code here:  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ 

A complete list of co-sponsors of HR 676 can be found here. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/676/cosponsors?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22HR+676%22%5D%7D  

The Physicians for a National Health Program news release is here.

Doctors group hails reintroduction of Medicare-for-all bill

Single-payer health program would cover all 42 million uninsured, upgrade everyone’s benefits and save $400 billion annually on bureaucracy, physicians say

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 4, 2015

 

Contact:
Mark Almberg, PNHP communications director, mark@pnhp.org

 

A national physicians group today hailed the reintroduction of a federal bill that would upgrade the Medicare program and swiftly expand it to cover the entire population.

 

The “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” H.R. 676, introduced last night by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., with 44 other House members, would replace today’s welter of private health insurance companies with a single, streamlined public agency that would pay all medical claims, much like Medicare works for seniors today. The full text of the bill is available here.

 

Proponents say a Medicare-for-all system, also known as a single-payer system, would vastly simplify how the nation pays for care, improve patient health, restore free choice of physician, eliminate copays and deductibles, and yield substantial savings for individuals, families and the national economy.

 

“The global evidence is very clear: single-payer financing systems are the most equitable and cost-effective way to assure that everyone, without exception, gets high-quality care,” said Dr. Robert Zarr, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit research and educational group of 19,000 doctors nationwide.

 

“Medicare is a good model to build on, and what better way to observe Medicare’s 50th anniversary year than to improve and extend the program and its benefits to people of all ages?”

 

Zarr, a Washington, D.C.-based pediatrician, continued: “An expanded and improved Medicare-for-All program would assure truly universal coverage, cover all necessary services, and knock down the growing financial barriers to care – high premiums, co-pays, deductibles and coinsurance – that our nation’s patients and their families are increasingly running up against, often with calamitous results.

 

“Such a plan would save over $400 billion a year currently wasted on private-insurance-related bureaucracy, paperwork and marketing. That’s enough money to provide first-dollar coverage for everyone in the country – without increasing U.S. health spending by a single penny.

 

“Such a program would also have the financial clout to negotiate with drug and medical equipment suppliers for lower prices, and would further save money through lump-sum budgeting for hospitals.

 

“In short,” Zarr said, “the enactment of Rep. Conyers’ bill would take us much further down the road to a humane, just and sustainable health care system than the 2010 health law, which, despite its modest benefits, will not be able to control costs and will still leave 31 million people uninsured in 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Millions more will be inadequately insured, with skimpy coverage.”

 

Zarr pointed out that the Census Bureau reports there were 5.9 million uninsured children in 2013.

 

“Surveys have repeatedly shown that about two-thirds of the public supports a Medicare-for-all approach,” he said, “and recent surveys show physician support is also strong and growing. Hundreds of labor, civic and faith-based organizations have endorsed this model of deep-going reform.

 

“As a doctor who sees the children of hard-pressed parents every day, I can tell you that the need for fundamental health care reform has never been greater,” he said. “It’s time to stop putting the interests of private insurance companies and Big Pharma over patient needs. It’s time to adopt a single-payer, improved-Medicare-for-all program in the United States.”

 

A summary of the basic provisions of H.R. 676 is available here.

 

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2015/february/doctors-group-hails-reintroduction-of-medicare-for-all-bill

Issued by:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com 
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org

https://www.facebook.com/unionsforsinglepayer

02/09/2015

Update on “Rally against Rebublicans, Who are Hurting Us”
| February 20, 2015 | 8:24 pm | Economy, Immigrants' Rights, political struggle | 1 Comment

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

This is a reminder that you are invited to participate in the “Rally against Republicans, Who are Hurting Us!” on Saturday, February 28, at 2 pm, on the sidewalks at the intersection of Harrisburg and Macario Garcia (Hwy 90) in Houston.

As our previous email noted, the purpose of the Rally is to expose the Republicans and the Far Right for their increasingly dangerous attacks on workers, people of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, and the masses as a whole—and to help develop the kind of independent working class political action which will be required to stop these dangerous attacks. Of course, we will also have something to say about reformist politicians whose real loyalty is to the wealthy few, not the people.

So if you’re opposed to further militarization and racist militias on the border; repealing in-state tuition, DACA, and executive relief for undocumented people; openly racist attacks on people of color, Muslims, and other minorities; the attacks on women’s rights; the refusal to expand Medicaid and attempts to cut Social Security and Medicare; the refusal to adequately fund public schools, services for the disabled, and veterans care; widespread unemployment and poverty wages; the constantly growing legal and economic privileges and rights of the very rich; calls for new wars in Iraq, Syria, and Iran; giving Latin American governments taxpayer money to repress their people under the guise of fighting the drug trade; and more…You should join us on February 28!

This event is being organized by the Houston Socialist Movement. We are a new organization of long-time activists who are resolutely opposed to the Republicans and the Far Right–and their reformist counterparts–harming the working class and the masses of people. We are committed to helping workers and democratic-minded people of all nationalities understand that these problems are rooted in the capitalist system and that socialism here in the United States and around the world is the answer to these problems.

The February 28 Rally will feature short speeches, chants, music, the distribution of flyers, and an open microphone. We hope to see you there. If you would like more information, please contact us at movimientosocialistahouston@gmail.com or (832) 692-2306.

In Solidarity,

Houston Socialist Movement

Warfare in the self-proclaimed DPR has practically ended — defense ministry
| February 20, 2015 | 8:07 pm | International, political struggle, Russia, Ukraine | Comments closed

 

Units of DPR’s armed forces strictly abide by a ceasefire and don’t fall for sporadic provocations from Ukrainian troops, the local defense ministry spokesman says

ITAR-TASS News Agency, February 19, 2015, 21:59 UTC+3 
http://tass.ru/en/world/778801

MOSCOW, February 19, 2015./TASS/. Combat operations in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have practically ended, republic’s defense ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin told a briefing on Thursday.
“On the whole, the situation along the contact line is gradually stabilizing,” he said. “Units of DPR’s armed forces strictly abide by a ceasefire and don’t fall for sporadic provocations from Ukrainian troops,” Basurin said.
Militias have liberated all settlements around the Debaltsevo pocket, he said.
They continued blocking isolated subversive groups of the enemy remaining on the outskirts of the town, Basurin added.

Freedom Rider: An Angry White Man Kills Again
| February 20, 2015 | 8:03 pm | Analysis, National, political struggle, Struggle for African American equality, Texas "Open Carry" | Comments closed
http://blackagendareport.com/node/14678
by Margaret Kimberley on Wed, 02/18/2015 – 15:17

Freedom Rider: An Angry White Man Kills Again

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The stand your ground and open carry laws are a return to the days when white supremacy was openly expressed through conquest of the native population, slavery, and lynch law terror.”

Craig Hicks was a human time bomb [5] in his Chapel Hill, North Carolina neighborhood. He was constantly spoiling for a fight, about noise or parking or anything else that he found irritating. Hicks was always armed, a resident of an “open carry” state which allowed him to wear a holstered gun anywhere at any time. On February 10, 2015, Hicks turned himself in to the police and confessed to murdering three people that day.

The victims were identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha. Hicks had argued with the family about parking spaces but it seems any reason to pull the trigger would have been good enough.

Hicks motive for the killing is murky. Some of his political views could be called liberal and others conservative. But more than anything Hicks was serious about being a white man. He loved his guns and he asserted his right to be armed at all times. It is likely that he had mental health issues, but the sickness did not emerge solely from this particular individual.

Where Hicks fell on the political spectrum is really beside the point. He expressed support for the right to bear arms, marriage equality and abortion rights but more than anything he supported his right to be violent. Because of their passivity everyone around him did as well.

His neighbors are now telling the media about his constant arguments and confrontations while being armed but there are no reports of anyone ever calling the police about his behavior. The Barakats told relatives they feared Hicks but ultimately decided not to call the police either. Hicks’ neighbors discussed their concerns among themselves but took no other action. The complicity led to unintentional enabling and that made the killings inevitable.

“Open carry laws are obviously reserved for white people only.”

The inaction stands in stark contrast to the treatment meted out to black people who are at risk of being killed even when they don’t threaten anyone. North Carolina allows open carry of firearms but so does the state of Ohio. That fact didn’t keep John Crawford or Tamir Rice from being shot down in Dayton and Cleveland respectively. They had toy guns and weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet both of them are now on the long list of black people killed by the police. Open carry laws are obviously reserved for white people only.

It is important to ask if the Hicks murders were a hate crime but there are questions which must be explored and they may be harder to deal with than legal definitions. The most fundamental questions is this. Why are white people seen as benign and their behavior as normative, no matter what they do?

Try to imagine a black man picking fights with his neighbors while armed. Then try to imagine that no one ever calls the police in this hypothetical scenario. In Tampa, Florida a black man named Clarence Daniels [6] was legally carrying a gun when he walked into a Walmart. A white man took it upon himself to confront and assault Daniels. The white assailant was arrested but as a black man Daniels was lucky not to have ended up dead.

Hicks got the kid glove treatment despite the obvious risk he posed to other people. Fealty to whiteness trumps all else including the desire for safety. In 2014 a Nevada rancher named Cliven Bundy [7] sparked a white power movement which threatened the lives of federal marshals. Bundy owed the government thousands of dollars in payment for his cattle grazing on federal land. He didn’t just refuse to pay. He gathered a group of armed followers. Two of them, Jerad and Amanda Miller, went on to kill two police officers [8].

“Fealty to whiteness trumps all else including the desire for safety.”

At least one person knew that the Millers were armed and dangerous. She saw their arsenal of weapons and heard them say they were going to start a revolution. “I should have called the cops,” was the lame admission. That much is obvious but the expression of regret doesn’t explain very much.

The stand your ground and open carry laws are a return to the days when white supremacy was openly expressed through conquest of the native population, slavery, and lynch law terror. Those acts should not be seen as events of long ago history. They became part of this country’s DNA and give angry, unstable white people a pass to do what they want. They aren’t thought of as potential killers or terrorists as they should be. Bystanders aren’t sufficiently concerned because they too give white people the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it.

Hicks strongly believed in the right to bear arms and had four handguns, two shotguns and six rifles in his home at the time of the killings. No one knows what twisted thoughts finally sparked the violence but the sickness of this country’s history helped him to carry it out. There are thousands of dangerous people like him who call themselves patriots or sovereign citizens or doomsday preppers. But mostly they just believe in being white.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com [9]. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
Guardian Corrects Anti-Russian Story Based on ‘Research’ of Own Reporter
| February 19, 2015 | 10:08 pm | Russia, Ukraine | Comments closed

The Guardian was forced to correct an article by Eliot Higgins, a self-styled “citizen journalist”, who claimed Russian military units fired on the Ukrainian Army from inside the Russian border on the basis of his jointly authored research with the Guardian’s Diplomatic Editor.

SputnikNews.com, 23:50 19.02.2015
http://sputniknews.com/military/20150219/1018504330.html

 

EDINBURGH (Sputnik), Mark Hirst — The Guardian was forced to correct an article claiming Russian military units fired on the Ukrainian Army from inside the Russian border after Sputnik news agency learned the newspaper’s reporter had himself jointly authored the research on which the story was based.

 

On Tuesday Eliot Higgins, a self-styled “citizen journalist” wrote a joint news article with the Guardian’s Diplomatic Editor, Julian Borger, based on a study published by the so-called “Bellingcat investigative group”. Under the headline “Russia shelled Ukrainians from within its own territory, says study” Higgins and Borger detail the claims made by the group based on “self-taught” analysis of satellite maps freely available on the internet. N. B.!

 

Unusually, The Guardian article was reproduced by the newspaper in the English, German and Russian languages.

 

But Sputnik News learned Thursday that Higgins was one of the co-authors of the study on which the apparent news story was based and was in fact responsible for founding the Bellingcat group.

 

“Eliot Higgins is the founder of the Bellingcat investigative journalism network and lead author of the report Origins of Artillery Attacks on Ukrainian Military Positions in Eastern Ukraine Between 14 July 2014 and 8 August 2014,” said the footnote added to the article Thursday.

 

Responding to Sputnik an official spokesman for The Guardian newspaper, who declined to be named said, “The article in question should have made clear that Eliot Higgins was lead author of the report and the founder of the Bellingcat investigative journalism network. N. B.!  We have now footnoted the article to reflect this and amended Eliot Higgins’ byline profile.”

 

The article had remained published online for more than two days and had attracted 1658 online comments before the changes were made.

 

Sputnik also learned Thursday that Higgins is a research fellow with the UK based security and intelligence organization CENTRIC, based at Sheffield University. N. B.!  CENTRIC’s website boasts the organization has “close collaboration in security research and activity started between Sheffield Hallam University and Law Enforcement Agencies” and whose board comprises of individuals from UK policing and the British intelligence community. N. B.!  

 

Responding to questions from Sputnik, Higgins said, “If anyone has any questions about the validity of the work we produce we provide enough detail for them to check our methodology and conclusions. CENTRIC has had zero influence or involvement on the cross border artillery attack report, so any perception they did would be deeply flawed.”

 

Asked about the central claims made in the study that his group of unpaid [N. B.!] “citizen journalists” had found evidence of direct Russian military attacks on the Ukrainian army when NATO and the Western powers [also the OSCE and the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Viktor Mazhenko—MJS] had been unable to produce a single piece of credible evidence to support that [or admitting there was no such evidence—MJS], Higgins replied, “Maybe they have, and weren’t sharing it, but I couldn’t really speak on behalf of the intelligence services in that regard.”  N. B.!

 

Higgins added he played no part in the editorial decision that should have made clear he was both the author of the news report and also co-author of the study on which the article was published.

 

“The Guardian editorial team is best placed to explain their decision making process,” Higgins told Sputnik.

 

When challenged directly on whether he and his Bellingcat group had any links to the well-documented CIA-front organization, the National Endowment for Democracy, Higgins said, “We’ve no direct links and I’m unaware of any indirect links.”

 

One former senior CIA officer told Sputnik there were questions over how much reliance anyone could place on “intelligence” gathered purely from freely available online satellite images.

 

“To truly figure out what’s happening inside Ukraine and Russia you’d need human sources,” Robert Baer, who spent 21 years working with the CIA, told Sputnik Thursday. N. B.!


“[Human sources] are something American intelligence decided wasn’t necessary when the [Berlin] Wall came down. Has it changed since I left? I don’t know. But ex-colleagues tell me it hasn’t,” Baer told Sputnik.

Baer previously told Sputnik that in intelligence terms the US and the West were “blind” in the Donbass. N. B.!

 

In an interview with another UK newspaper, The Independent, in January 2015 Higgins admitted he had been approached to work for an undisclosed “commercial intelligence organisation”, but told the newspaper he was persuaded to turn down the offer by his social media “followers” who, the newspaper reported, “persuaded him to use crowd-funding to set up Bellingcat.”

 

Records held by Companies House reveal that Higgins’ business, “Brown Moses Ltd”, which owns the Bellingcat website, was established in December 2013, just months before the Kiev coup took place in February 2014.

 

Despite these facts, the Guardian article by Higgins and Borger on Russia’s alleged shelling of Ukrainians was apparently taken at face value by UK diplomatic services. On Tuesday the article was retweeted by the UK Delegation to NATO, @UKNATO.

 

On Wednesday, the UK delegation to NATO and the UK embassy in Ukraine almost simultaneously published a slide by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office titled “Further proof [sic] of Russian military involvement in Ukraine” with photographs which allegedly show Russian military equipment on Ukrainian territory.

 

@UKNATO said tweeting the instruction by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, on “How to Recognise Russia’s Pantsir-S-1 (or SA-22) which is not operated by Ukrainian forces.”


However, the data on the pictures posted by UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK delegation to NATO and UK embassy in Ukraine, regarding the time and place they were taken, does not coincide with the information on the very same photographs, published on other websites, including armamentresearch.com and Bellingcat earlier. There is also no visual proof that the equipment belongs to Russia or that the photographs were made in Ukraine. N. B.!

Russia shelled Ukrainians from within its own territory, says study

Satellite images, digital detective work and social media provide strongest evidence yet of Russian crossborder shelling, according to investigation
Julian Borger and Eliot Higgins
The Guardian, Tuesday 17 February 2015 09.00 EST

[Related Videos Accessible Only at the URL for this Article]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/17/russia-shelled-ukrainians-from-within-its-own-territory-says-study
When Ukrainian forces came under withering attack in the east of the country last summer, soldiers were surprised as much as scared by the ferocity of the attack. The separatists they were up against had proven fierce and organised. But this was something else.
Now a group of British investigative journalists using digital detection techniques, satellite imagery and social media has provided near conclusive proof that the shelling came from across the border in Russia.
The work by the Bellingcat investigative journalism group highlights a murky [sic] aspect of the war in Ukraine, which continues to sputter despite last week’s attempt in Minsk to draw up a ceasefire, with reports of heavy fighting around the railway hub of Debaltseve on Tuesday.
Russia has long been accused of funnelling soldiers, munitions and military vehicles into eastern Ukraine to help separatists take on the Ukrainian army. But until now, little [virually nothing—MJS] has been written about Russian military units shelling across the border into Ukraine. N. B.!
The Bellingcat team analysed crater patterns from satellite photos of three battlefields where the Ukrainian army came under particularly savage attack last summer and traced the estimated trajectories back to likely firing positions, where it identified scorch marks and tyre tracks on satellite images consistent with Russian rocket-launchers.
With a single exception, the identified firing positions were on Russian soil. Furthermore, the tracks to and from the firing positions led further inside Russia, further evidence that they were Russian units, not separatist fighters who had strayed across the border. Images of the same terrain just before the attacks show no track marks or scorched earth.
An independent military forensics expert warned that the accuracy of crater analysis in determining direction of fire on the basis of satellite photography was scientifically unproven, but said that the images of firing positions on the Russian side of the border were compelling and raised questions of what they were doing there.
The incidents happened last summer, during an intensive period of fighting in which the Ukrainian army began to gain the upper hand against separatists and Russia began to supply more overt aid to ensure the rebels were not defeated. In mid-August the Guardian saw a column of Russian armour cross the border, and Kiev claims that thousands [9,000 to be exact—MJS] of regular Russian troops effectively invaded. A ceasefire was signed in Minsk in September, though it broke down almost immediately.
In early February, the governor of Luhansk [sic], Gennady Moskal, made new allegations that Russian forces were shelling Ukrainian territory from inside Russia, as part of the battles that raged before the signing of the new Minsk accords last week.
Russia has repeatedly denied the involvement of its troops in eastern Ukraine, insisting the war against government forces there is being fought by local insurgents. Vladimir Putin has described them as “volunteers”. “We’re not attacking anyone; we’re not warmongers,” he declared in December. 
The families of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine have been put under pressure not to talk publicly about it, and have reportedly been threatened with a withdrawal of state death benefits if they do, but some have begun to speak out. [Evidence?]
In an earlier investigation, Bellingcat – a group of investigative journalists specialising in image analysis – tracked the movement of the Buk, which was photographed by members of the public near the crash site on the day MH17 was shot down, and the photographs were posted online. Bellingcat showed that the same launcher was part of a Russian unit. 
 
It has also published research on the use of munitions, including chemical weapons, in the Syrian civil war.
In its new investigation of artillery use in Ukraine, Bellingcat focused on three battles in July as pro-Moscow separatists pushed back a Ukrainian government offensive that had regained a large section of the Russian-Ukrainian border. The separatist counter-offensive was supported by heavy artillery, which proved decisive in driving the Ukrainian army out of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Bellingcat used publicly available satellite imagery of the battlegrounds and adapted established procedures for analysing craters on the ground for determining the trajectory of artillery fire, applying them to the photographs. It looked at two main types of crater: low angle, which produce a distinctive diagonal spray of soil from the central crater, and high angle, which make a triangular shaped crater. Both can show the direction of fire.
The first battle studied was near the town of Amvrosiivka, where there was a crater field showing 330 separate impacts from an artillery attack on Ukrainian army positions on 14 July.
From the shape of the craters, an average trajectory was worked out. The Bellingcat team traced that line back through satellite photographs of the area until they found a potential firing position, identified by burn marks on the agricultural land, of the sort caused by multiple rocket launcher systems (MLRS). This was nine miles away, across the border and near the Russian village of Seleznev. Scrutiny of the imagery showed a pattern of tyre tracks at the suspected firing position, suggesting a number of vehicles parked in a line at the site.
The report said: “The visible tracks that lead to the site come from further inside Russian territory. This leads us to believe that there was no crossborder (Ukraine to Russia) movement of military equipment for this particular location.”
A second site analysed in the report was in the region of Chervonopartyzansk, where Ukrainian units came under heavy artillery barrages between 14 July and 8 August, forcing a Ukrainian retreat. Looking at a field of 813 craters, it appeared there were six separate attacks from five different directions. Using the same methods, the Bellingcat team found five separate firing positions, four of which were in Russia. In each of those cases, “all the observable tracks near the firing sites were exclusively within the territory of Russia”.
One of the identified firing positions was near the Russian town of Gukovo. Six videos uploaded by local residents to YouTube, and another social media video site, VK, showed MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) salvos being fired on 16 July, throwing up large plumes of smoke. By working out the direction from which the videos were shot using visible geographical features, the team estimated two firing positions near Gukovo – where satellite photos showed telltale burn marks and tyre tracks.
The video footage taken by members of the public in Gukovo showed rockets leaving the launchers, so the investigative team could measure the angle of elevation at which they were fired. In each case, that was found to be 20 degrees. Using a firing table for a 122mm rocket fired from a BM-21 Grad launcher, the most likely system used, that suggested a range of between 15 and 16 km. The actual distance between the estimated firing positions and the crater fields over the border in Ukraine was 9.5 miles.
The investigation made similar findings on a third artillery barrage, on 25 July, south of Sverdlovsk, where Ukrainian forces came under heavy fire – an attack Russian media attributed to the separatist Luhansk People’s Militia. Trajectories calculated from a crater field, however, led to two firing positions in Russia, one at a military base near Pavlovka, just across the border.
Stephen Johnson, a weapons expert at the Cranfield Forensic Institute, part of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, said that the application of crater analysis techniques to satellite imagery was “highly experimental and prone to inaccuracy”.  N. B.!
“This does not mean there is no value to the method, but that any results must be considered with caution and require corroboration,” Johnson said in an email after reviewing the Bellingcat report. N. B.!  He added that “the most significant part of the report” was the discovery of the apparent firing positions on the border.
The ground markings do not seem to be consistent with agricultural machinery, Johnson said. “They indicate an orientation of vehicles that would not be unusual for artillery vehicles, and there does appear to be some ‘scorch’ damage that is not a wheel or track.”
Read the full Bellingcat report in English, German or Russian

 This footnote was added on 19 February 2015. Eliot Higgins is the founder of the Bellingcat investigative journalism network and lead author of the report Origins of Artillery Attacks on Ukrainian Military Positions in Eastern Ukraine Between 14 July 2014 and 8 August 2014.
 

‘Stick to Minsk deal’: Russia slams Ukraine idea for EU peacekeepers
| February 19, 2015 | 10:06 pm | Russia, Ukraine | Comments closed

 

RT.com: Published February 18, 2015 20:21; Edited February 19, 2015 13:59
http://rt.com/news/233579-poroshenko-peacekeepers-ukraine-eu/
Moscow criticized Kiev’s plan to invite an EU police force under the EU’s aegis for a peacekeeping mission in war-torn eastern Ukraine, saying the move would undermine the Minsk ceasefire agreement.
Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council said it will call on the UN and EU to deploy a peacekeeping mission as requested by President Petro Poroshenko. Moscow believes Kiev is trying to sideline the OSCE mission, which was tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Minsk ceasefire agreement.
“I think it’s a little bit disturbing, because they just signed the Minsk agreements on February 12. And the Minsk agreements provide for the role of the OSCE, There is nothing about the UN or European Union,”Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told RT.
“So for them to start talking immediately about something else… I think instead of coming up with new ideas they should really work harder on implementing what they agreed on,” Churkin told RT.
On Thursday, the EU said it was waiting for Kiev to provide concrete terms of the proposed peacekeeping mandate before making further comments.
Poroshenko’s announcement of an EU policing mission comes as a surprise, after a major stumbling block that stood in the way of the implementation of Minsk peace agreements – the encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Debaltsevo, which Kiev denied – was partially resolved.
Earlier on Wednesday Poroshenko confirmed in a video statement that troops have been withdrawing from Debaltsevo.
Fight for border control
Poroshenko asked his security body to call in European peacekeepers on Wednesday, saying that an“EU police mission” would be the best format for an international presence in Ukraine.
“The best format for us is a policing mission from the European Union. We are convinced that this will be the most effective and optimal solution in a situation when promises of peace have not been kept,” said Poroshenko.
The council’s head Aleksandr Turchinov said the peacekeepers should be stationed not only along the disengagement line separating Kiev’s troops and the anti-government forces, but also along the part of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which is now controlled by the self-proclaimed republics. Such deployment will help “observe, and most importantly, to localize the violations, and provide real steps for the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine,” he said.
The Minsk agreement was negotiated in the Belarusian capital last week by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine and endorsed on Tuesday by a UN Security Council resolution. It states that Kiev would gain control over the border between Russia and its dissenting regions only after implementing far-reaching constitutional reform and giving wide autonomy to those regions.
The rebels called Kiev’s proposal to place peacekeepers along the border “premature,” saying that OSCE monitors are already there. Russia invited observers to its border checkpoints in response to numerous accusations from Ukraine and its foreign sponsors of sending regular troops and weapons to the rebels.
Ceasefire holding despite Debaltsevo retreat
Despite sporadic flares of confrontation and the fight for Debaltsevo, the international community mostly agrees that the Ukrainian ceasefire is holding. According to the 13-point Minsk plan, a ceasefire went into effect on Saturday, and heavy weapons withdrawal is scheduled to be completed before March 1.
The OSCE, which is monitoring the ceasefire, confirmed the pullback of heavy weapons from the disengagement line by Lugansk militia, the Russian Ambassador to the OSCE, Andrey Kelin, told TASS.
“The OSCE is receiving reports on an ongoing pullback of armaments by the [self-proclaimed] Lugansk republic,” he said, adding that in Donetsk the organization placed about 20 patrol teams along the front line.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the ceasefire in Ukraine is “being observed along practically the entire frontline and in a few regions there is a readiness – at least the militia announced it publicly – to withdraw heavy weapons.”
At the same time, Lavrov noted that the US might still try to use the Debaltsevo events as a pretext for further anti-Russia moves, as its latest rhetoric corresponds with Washington’s “unconstructive” line on Ukraine.
Washington admitted the ceasefire in Ukraine is holding, with US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki saying on Wednesday that the State Department doesn’t consider it to be “dead.”
Citing OSCE reports, Psaki admitted clashes are continuing but the “quantity and intensity has decreased,” and both sides have withdrawn heavy weapons in certain areas as outlined by the Minsk peace plan. “We remain focused on supporting the implementation of this agreement,” she said.
The Obama administration is still deciding whether to provide “defensive lethal weapons” to Kiev, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest. He said that both the rebels and Moscow have failed to comply with the ceasefire terms and “their failure to do so does put them at risk of greater costs.”

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