Not necessarily very convincing:
In a post on his personal blog, Varoufakis said media had distorted the position of the new leftist-led government. The complaint made by Athens to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had been about a lack of consultation, not about the sanctions themselves, he added....
Varoufakis said Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias told cabinet colleagues on Tuesday that he had heard on news bulletins that the EU had unanimously approved sanctions against Russia.
"The problem was that he, and the new Greek government, were never asked!," Varoufakis wrote in a blog post. "So, clearly, the issue was not whether our new government agrees or not with fresh sanctions on Russia. The issue is whether our view can be taken for granted without even being told of what it is!"
A bunker at a commandeered gasoline station at Popasna, in Luhansk region.
Here's more on the furor around Stephen Cohen, a professor emeritus in the U.S. who is regarded by some as exceedingly pro-Putin (we have experienced our own Cohen furor, too):
Here's an excerpt of that Interpreter Mag piece:
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of New York University and Princeton University, appeared on the Thom Hartmann "progressive" radio show on January 26, falsely claiming that the US was training "extremely right-wing" fighters in the Ukrainian military and Americans were fighting alongside them.
Neither claim is true, but are based on Kremlin propaganda outlets such as RT.comwhich may have a small audience on television, but gain a wider circulation from an Internet site and YouTube channel disseminated through social media.
To understand why Cohen could be receptive to such claims, it's helpful to know that he has a long history of tilting toward the Kremlin in his critique of the American government, and in recent years has been openly supportive of President Vladimir Putin.
Cohen also believes that World War III is about to break out, as he told Thom Hartmann during the show:
Washington is determined to strike at Russia, short of militarily -- but maybe that, too -- as hard as possible. Europe is divided. About half of Europe wants the sanctions to end against Russia partly because they're having an economic blowback in Europe.
In fact, it's not really "half of Europe" but as even Russian propagandists are forced to concede, just seven countries highlighted in recent weeks which are believed to be advocating the lifting of sanctions, but which have not prevailed in internal EU debates. They include Austria, Hungary, Italy, Cyprus, Slovakia, France and the Czech Republic -- countries either heavily dependent on Russian gas, or who do significant business with Russia, or where right-wing governments have allied with Putin.
As we reported today, Greece has just joined this group with the election of a new government, an alliance between the far-left SYRIZA and the far-right ANEL parties, two pro-Putin parties now stalling the EU's effort to extend sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine.
Cohen spoke of an "Archduke Ferdinand" scenario where "the dominoes crash, and you end up with World War III." It starts, he says, because "oil glues the economies of these countries" in the European Union dependent on Russian gas and oil.
Cohen describes how fierce fighting was renewed in a large and important city last weekend (he means Mariupol) -- and says while Washington is blaming Russia for this escalation, "it's not clear." He then contends:
Now we get reports -- confirmed -- that an American general...Benjamin Hodges, has arrived in that area to train what they call the National Guard. This is in effect these battalions -- often extremely right-wing -- some would say neo-fascist -- I won't say that but there is that suspicion fighting against the Russian-backed rebels in the eastern Ukraine.
"The renewed fighting in the Ukraine might mean such a domino," he says, as a political dispute in Ukraine becomes a Ukrainian civil war. He claimed to have predicted that "the two sides would align with Russia and Washington, and would become a proxy war," and that now this "proxy war could lead us to a Cuban Missile crisis situation."
In fact, as Defense News explains, American soldiers will begin training four companies of the Ukrainian National Guard only in April, as Lt. Gen. Hodges, head of US Army in Europe said during his first visit to Kiev on January 21. There are no trainers in Mariupol now.
Russian war propaganda repeatedly ties the ultranationalist group Right Sector to the National Guard, but has not substantiated claims of atrocities.
And the companies that the US will be training are in the National Guard, not the volunteer battalions.
Don't forget to read the RT complaint at the bottom of the Interpreter post!