Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Volunteers or paid fighters? The Vostok Battalion looms large in war with Kiev (Guardian)

Qui:
 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/06/the-vostok-battalion-shaping-the-eastern-ukraine-conflict
 
 
Dei veri gentiluomini che piacciono ai 'gentiluomini' di IPI, quelli che provengono per li rami dalle bande di Salo'.
 
Do' la fine dell'articolo. Si noti che il Guardian ha un corripondente sul posto. Qui non si ripete il pastone velenoso irradiato da Mosca, come fanno i nostri corrispondenti rurali da Canicatti'.
 
 
The battalion's Russian members include men who served in previous wars on its borderlands. Speculation began to swirl that the unit is connected to Russian intelligence after fighters from Chechnya were found to be fighting with it. Its name - which means "East" - suggests a Chechen unit run by Russia's military intelligence agency, which was active during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.
 
Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor who studies the Russian security services, argued that the two are probably linked and said the emergence of the Vostok Battalion could represent the Kremlin tightening its control on the situation in eastern Ukraine.
 
"Moscow needs an instrument," Galeotti said. "But also insofar that they're going to try to assert their authority through the Donetsk People's Republic hierarchy, they need to make sure those guys have credible force at their disposable, not just a collection of thugs."
 
Chechen fighters in Donetsk, one of whom said he served in the original Vostok Battalion, denied that the current Vostok had any connection with the disbanded Chechen unit. Other members said its name merely reflected its fight in eastern Ukraine.
 
Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defence analyst, raised questions about the unit's source of funding. "Someone's paying them; war without money doesn't happen," he said. "Most likely there's a lot of criminals involved doing different kinds of rackets, but that's not a means for an operation of such magnitude to buy weapons, pay bribes to get weapons in, for ammo."
 
While it is unlikely Vostok is being financed directly by the Kremlin, it could be supported by pro-Kremlin businessmen, as other separatists have been. Konstantin Malofeyev, an oligarch known for his support for Russian expansionism, reportedly financed Russian citizens promoting separatism in Crimea including Strelkov and Alexander Borodai, the recently declared prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic. Strelkov and Borodai have said they are friends and were both previously employed by Malofeyev in Moscow.
 
Borodai denied receiving funding from the Russian government and told the Guardian he didn't know if the people's republic had taken donations from Malofeyev or other Russian oligarchs.
 
Khodakovsky's connections and allegiances are unclear. According to Konstantin Mashovets, a Kiev-based defence analyst, he would have been appointed Alfa head by either Yanukovych or his security service chief. The former president was known to be closely allied with Rinat Akhmetov, the most powerful oligarch in eastern Ukraine, who has seemed to waver between Kiev and the east during the current uprising.
 
Khodakovsky has denied receiving financial backing from Akhmetov or having connections with the Kremlin, and Vostok commanders said they don't know of any rich sponsors.
 
Dmitry Durnev, a Donetsk journalist, said local rebel leaders have yet to form permanent alliances and are probably "taking money from everyone".
 
Meanwhile, the unit continues to grow in numbers and influence. One commander nicknamed "Lithuania," a coal miner who joined late last month, said he enlisted because Vostok was the rebel unit with the most discipline and "spirit and ability" to fight the "Kiev junta".
 
"The Vostok Battalion is actually engaging in military operations against this scum; it doesn't just sit in its base," he said. "We're hoping for Russian assistance, so our brothers will come to help us.
 

 
Dimenticavo la parte piu' interessante. Sara' difficile per Putin di richiudere il vaso di Pandora:
 
The Vostok Battalion does include Russian fighters, and the bodies of 31 members were sent back to Russia last week after a battle at Donetsk airport. But more than a dozen interviews over several visits by the Guardian suggested Vostok is largely comprised of Ukrainian volunteers with nicknames like "Forest Lord," "Psycho," "Wild Man" and "Beaver". Although its sources of funding and weapons are not entirely clear, it does not seem to enjoy large-scale Russian military support, with kit that ranges from sophisticated surface-to-air missiles to battered hunting rifles.
 
On a recent afternoon, members of the battalion's mechanical section were welding an anti-aircraft gun to the back of a lorry to create a vehicle straight out of Mad Max. "If we had Russian military hardware, you would see it," said "Mamai," a garrulous Vostok member from Russia's republic of North Ossetia. Vostok commanders said they had taken their weapons mostly from captured Ukrainian military facilities.
 
Some members of the battalion look like professional soldiers, but Mamai said he doesn't receive money to fight. Another Russian member named "Varan" ("Monitor Lizard") said he received $100 (£70) a week for living expenses but maintained that the men were volunteers, not mercenaries on Moscow's payroll. Yet Russian authorities have at least tacitly encouraged volunteers to go to Ukraine. Varan said a military enlistment office tipped him off about a group of fighters forming in Rostov-on-Don who then walked through a border crossing as civilians, receiving arms in Donetsk.
 
The Vostok Battalion has taken part in most of the heaviest fighting in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, including a checkpoint battle near Karlovka, the bloody attempt to seize the Donetsk airport and the continuing struggle to break the Ukrainian encirclement of Slavyansk. The unit truly asserted its dominance last week, however, when - after a tense standoff - Vostok fighters kicked other rebel groups out of the regional administration building, which was occupied by the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic in April. A Vostok commander said they were there primarily to bring looters to justice, and the unit has since assumed a quasi-law-enforcement function in place of the impotent police.
 
Alexander Sheremyet, a protester who was involved in the administration building occupation from the first days, said Vostok is now the most powerful force defending the Donetsk People's Republic, but denied they were controlling the fledgling government.
 
"They gathered experienced veterans, they have the most strength, but their tasks are only military," he said.