[...]
There were MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) – a staple of US forces on combat missions, in the brown packets familiar to many of us from Iraq and Afghanistan, clearly marked Made in USA, issued by the Department of Defense.
Also there, lying amid blood stains, body parts and a body yet to be taken away, were Nato 5.56mm cartridges as used in the US military’s M16 rifles. “I am not saying the foreigners did the killings”, but they were here, insisted Mr Velovich, a 45-year-old farmer.
There are plausible explanations for the two items. Washington has announced that it is sending “non-lethal” aid to Ukrainian troops, and the “jambalaya with chicken and shrimps” may qualify in that category, although some who have tasted it may disagree.
The M16 is not standard issue for the country’s army, but the force which had assembled in this village included units of recently raised National Guard, and the assault rifles could have been obtained through a third party by the Kiev administration.
The “dark-skinned” fighters may be from former Soviet Republics in central Asia, bringing their bloody feud with the Kremlin to eastern Europe; but, against that, there has been no verifiable account of their presence in this conflict.
When it comes to British soldiers, there is absolutely no evidence that they are here. But it is a tale conveniently fitting in with all the others about “hidden forces” and “mercenaries” that both the separatists and the government are keen to propagate as the violence escalates.
This is not, after all, unusual in lands descending into civil war; there is a reluctance, perhaps natural, to accept that compatriots would be eager to inflict brutalities on each other and more comforting to blame outsiders; the raging conspiracy theories in such situations are ideal for disseminating such claims.
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It was later claimed that they were not from the US security contractor which had attracted notoriety in Iraq, but from Greystone, a Blackwater affiliate. The Russian foreign ministry maintained the operatives were from Greystone, something the company denied. The following day, a crowd, somewhat confused, had switched the chant to “Greywater! Greywater!”
The Kiev administration, in turn, has repeatedly charged that agents of the Russian intelligence service, FSB, played a key role in fomenting the upheavals and that members of Spetsnaz, Russian special forces, had been active on the frontline, a reprise of the “men in green” so active in Crimea as the territory was annexed by Vladimir Putin. These claims have been echoed in Washington, London and other Western capitals.
Ukraine’s acting government had pointed the finger at Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, who they say is a Russian military intelligence operative in his mid- to late 50s, as being one of the main players in this maskirovka, or disguised warfare.
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It is, however, very possible that former members of the Russian forces are serving in militant ranks. During a visit to the police headquarters in Slovyansk, now controlled by separatists, Aleksandr, a former Ukrainian soldier, complained, pointing to his combat clothing: “I’ve seen pictures of this type in the Western media, saying it’s Russian. But it’s actually different.” He asked his companions to go and fetch Nicolai and, when the man appeared, Aleksandr said: “Now look: that’s Russian kit.”
“What? Who’s he? Hang on,” I spluttered into my tea; but the two men smiled and left. So who was Nicolai? He could, of course, have been a former Russian soldier. But he could also have been someone else with a fancy for army surplus.
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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...omething-far-less-controversial-30244105.html
