Oh jesus, your world picture is too complicated for me :D If they're not on duty, they are not working on Russian military. What you're talking about is called a proxy war in simplier terms, have a good dozen of precedents like Syrian civil war or any civil war for that matter to a certain extent. Actual figurants are rebels from the South-East and Kiev, actual actors are White House and Kremlin plus some secondary actors like EU. Is this really so hard to comprehend?

I don't have any info about people on the Russian military payroll over here, where does Zakharchenko get his supply along with whatever he pays to the militants I don't now, but have a clue or two. Even high-minded needs to be paid, but last time I've checked (from actual volunteers) it was purely symbolical fee that's enough to buy you a meal three time a day, iirc Strelkov has mentioned that he was about to create a contract army and pay everyone 8000UAH a month (that's 500-600 USD, even with UAH being devalued nearly twice in last six month, that's a lot by local standards).

What videogames? I'm sure these images aren't from videogames, or you are referring to an image of alleged Buk launch that has been circulated for a while over the internet that was indeed from a videogame? But that's ancient story, who cares anymore? BTW how that investigation of MH17 crash is going on? :D

21:55: "Olga Golovanova, Interfax agency, I have a question to Russian minister. Sergey Viktorovich, recently NATO has accused Russia of military invasion into Ukraine, citing new photo and video materials, reports about movement of thousands of troops. Last night there was a phone call between Obama and Merkel, in which they've supported an idea of new sactions against Russia. How would you comment this situation and what Russian reaction might be to the new wave of sactions? Thank you."

22:30: "Our reaction would be continuing our consecutive attempts to stop violance and begin real nation-wide dialogue and talks about future of Ukraine between all regions and all political parties -- that's what we have agreed on in Geneve in April and in Berlin in July -- and that's what tour Western partners are carefully trying to avoid now. As for accusations, that's not for the first time, basically from the beginning of the crisis we have been blamed for everything. So various conjectures aren't new to us, but we never have been presented with facts. Earlier there were reports about satellite images, which supposedely show Russian troops movement, that turned out to be images from videogames. Last accusations are more or less of the same kind. We haven't been presented with facts nor in regards to invasion, nor... I believe concealing facts is the main feature of the US position for the most part and certain European nations in regards to of everyhting happening in Ukraine, be it alleged Rusian troops movement, as I said it earlier, or direct involvement of American secret service into Ukrainian enforecement training, be it Malaysian Boeing crash investigation, or Maidan tragedy investigation, so called "snipers case", or tragedy in Odessa on May 2nd etc, etc..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8B29lNfaBw

So it wasn't RT responding to it, it was a quote from Lavrov Q&A after meeting with his collegue from Iran last Friday, in which he referred to previous images fake presented by SBU and taken from the game LockOn: Flaminig Cliffs 2, more here:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-mh17-supposed-satellite-video-of-missile-launch-fake.4025/

Granted Lavrov mistakenly identified those images as if "Russian troops movement" has been depicted on them, while it was really about Buk missile launch, whice excusable given how many fakes SBU produces. But all in all, this is exactly as I've said it. The episode about video game fake is from totally different story, namely MH17 crash. On top of all Lavrov was misquoted as if he was talking about these specific recently preseneted images, while he was referring to this ancient story.

The "complicated" comment was an irony, hope you're aware of that. Since you cannot present here smth I don't know already better than you're for obvious reasons, it'd certainly be more valuable to have your opinion on smth more core, related to realpolitik here, aside from these unneeded details that doesn't change much anyway (we all know it's a proxy war), and honestly doesn't worth an effort to discuss, research or debunk just like I did it above with this specific episode, just made an exception this time.

Ex-NSA Director, US Intelligence Veterans Write Open Letter To Merkel To Avoid All-Out Ukraine War

Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA's spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian "invasion."

Via AntiWar and ConsortiumNews, highlights ours

MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO

We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence.We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5.

You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Barack Obama tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as "a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift."

Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on "intelligence" that was dubious, at best.

Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO summit next week.

Experience With Untruth

Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his Parliament: "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know."

Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on August 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on February 5, 2003 that, likewise, proved nothing.

That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were "increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence" and told him flatly, "Powell’s presentation does not come close" to justifying war. We urged Mr. Bush to "widen the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

Consider Iraq today. Worse than catastrophic. Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can "shock and awe." In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

If the photos that NATO and the US have released represent the best available "proof" of an invasion from Russia, our suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for the NATO summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative. Caveat emptor is an expression with which you are no doubt familiar. Suffice it to add that one should be very cautious regarding what Mr. Rasmussen, or even Secretary of State John Kerry, are peddling.

We trust that your advisers have kept you informed regarding the crisis in Ukraine from the beginning of 2014, and how the possibility that Ukraine would become a member of NATO is anathema to the Kremlin. According to a February 1, 2008 cable (published by WikiLeaks) from the US embassy in Moscow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US Ambassador William Burns was called in by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who explained Russia’s strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Lavrov warned pointedly of "fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene." Burns gave his cable the unusual title, "NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES," and sent it off to Washington with IMMEDIATE precedence. Two months later, at their summit in Bucharest NATO leaders issued a formal declaration that "Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO."

Just yesterday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk used his Facebook page to claim that, with the approval of Parliament that he has requested, the path to NATO membership is open.Yatsenyuk, of course, was Washington’s favorite pick to become prime minister after the February 22 coup d’etat in Kiev. "Yats is the guy," said Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland a few weeks before the coup, in an intercepted telephone conversation with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. You may recall that this is the same conversation in which Nuland said, "Fuck the EU."

Timing of the Russian "Invasion"

The conventional wisdom promoted by Kiev just a few weeks ago was that Ukrainian forces had the upper hand in fighting the anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine, in what was largely portrayed as a mop-up operation. But that picture of the offensive originated almost solely from official government sources in Kiev. There were very few reports coming from the ground in southeastern Ukraine. There was one, however, quoting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that raised doubt about the reliability of the government’s portrayal.

According to the "press service of the President of Ukraine" on August 18, Poroshenko called for a "regrouping of Ukrainian military units involved in the operation of power in the East of the country. … Today we need to do the rearrangement of forces that will defend our territory and continued army offensives," said Poroshenko, adding, "we need to consider a new military operation in the new circumstances."

If the "new circumstances" meant successful advances by Ukrainian government forces, why would it be necessary to "regroup," to "rearrange" the forces? At about this time, sources on the ground began to report a string of successful attacks by the anti-coup federalists against government forces. According to these sources, it was the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership.

Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the "Russian invasion." That is precisely when the fuzzy photos were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon were set loose to spread the word that "the Russians are coming." (Michael Gordon was one of the most egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)

No Invasion – But Plenty Other Russian Support

The anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine enjoy considerable local support, partly as a result of government artillery strikes on major population centers. And we believe that Russian support probably has been pouring across the border and includes, significantly, excellent battlefield intelligence. But it is far from clear that this support includes tanks and artillery at this point – mostly because the federalists have been better led and surprisingly successful in pinning down government forces.

At the same time, we have little doubt that, if and when the federalists need them, the Russian tanks will come.

This is precisely why the situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire, which you know Kiev has so far been delaying. What is to be done at this point? In our view, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk need to be told flat-out that membership in NATO is not in the cards – and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia – and especially not in support of the ragtag army of Ukraine. Other members of NATO need to be told the same thing.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

•     William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
•     David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
•     Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
•     Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
•     Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
•     Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
•     Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-01/ex-nsa-director-us-intelligence-veterans-write-open-letter-merkel-avoid-all-out-ukra

Right Sector - Svoboda torchlight procession in Kiev

- succeed to the hero! (red-black banner with Bandera*)
- state's recognition to the OUN-UPA**!
- death to the enemies!
- one glory! one party! (Svoboda supporters I'm guessing)
- (the guy with the sabre to the crowd): *incomprehensibly*, (the crowd answering to the guy): ukrainians are the masters over here!
- heroes do not die // revenge the death of great knights (black banner with the kid holding the torch in front of it)
- hail to the heroes! hail to the ukraine!
- (the guy with the smartphone repeating after the crowd): hail to the nation! death to the enemies! ukraine above all!
- (smbd behind the scene with the baby in the carriage): hail to the heroes!

etc. 

* infamous Nazi collaborationist, one of the OUN leaders, killed by KGB agent in 1959 in Munich
** OUN = Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, UPA = Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Just adorbale. I got used to this in Lvov or Riga, now it's in Kiev and Odessa.

Mai, nobody cares! They already forgot what was happening 1 month ago, you want them to make a logical chain from things happening thru the year?

Boeing crash investigation is hidden in the sand by the West, but who cares really? Russia was to blame and to put economical sanctions against, for the plane shot down by Ukraines... This world is lost its common sence...

and obama isnt? He bombed lybia into a third world country making it Alquaeda heaven while russia took crimea without any casualty 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainian-government-no-russian-troops-are-fighting-against-us-sanctions-against-russia-based-on-falshoods/5428523

The Chief of Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying, in that news-report, which is dated on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries’ citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government’s side), who “are members of illegal armed groups,” meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just “individual citizens” (as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the “Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army.”

Will Russia get some compensations from West for a half of year of sanctions? Or at least some excuses?

Someone from his deputies has restated this already afair. Muzhenko was probably explained by now that his quote on the matter is not very well in line wih the the position of official authority :D They are permanently in the under the carpet struggle with the local "feudal", the Dnepropetrovsk governor and "fundraiser" of the neo-Nazi battalions that serve him as a personal army, so this "testimony" might be one of the blasts of the infowar between them.

On another note. Came across this today -- 93% of Crimenians support joining with Russia -- a survey made by GfK Ukraine, so I presume any bias excluded? Remembering how Kaz along with some other guys has been trying to call it a phoney referendum based on seeming discrepancy in numbers with the survery made by IRI a few years before (yeah, that's totally unbiased research, chaired by John McCain for those who's unaware). I countered mainly with excactly same numbers showed by survey made by CU-Boulder and subsequent referendum in similar situation in Transdnestria, so statistically both cases are beliveable. And here we go, a yet another survey.

I know, nobody cares, but when there'll be another chance to say: "I told you so, suckers" ;) But surely, the focus group was forced to lie under the barrel of the gun.

Mai, you don't need a survey to tell that Crimea is Russia. You just need to go there and speak to people. It was already Russian in 2001 and in 2006 and still Russian in 2015. So called 'Ukraine' was always a fiction there.