The Ukraine - Облик за Штампу
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The Ukraine - Захумље - 21-04-2014
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_20/Russia-to-take-steps-if-Ukraine-joins-NATO-Kremlin-spokesperson-3927/
Always felt the role of Poland has been understated in the whole process of the destabilisation of the Ukraine.
Not only does have history, it actually has a destabilisation policy!
There are also mutual neo Nazi groups in Poland!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/polands-role-in-destabilizing-ukraine-polish-military-trained-neo-nazi-militants-for-euromaidan-protests/5378129
http://www.globalresearch.ca/crimea-putins-triumph-now-the-confrontation-moves-east-to-new-russia/5374710
http://www.globalresearch.ca/local-anti-maidan-movement-declares-establishment-of-odessa-peoples-republic/5378008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraines-neo-nazi-imperative-the-mainstream-medias-one-sided-propaganda/5378470
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 21-04-2014
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukraine-crisis-head-mi6-warns-3434167
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/20/359353/obama-plans-to-paralyze-putin-report/
Right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper marches in lockstep with Washington. He's Obama's unctuous little sidekick. He dances to his tune. He partners in his dark side. No pun intended.
Canadian travel restrictions were imposed on senior Russian officials. Crimean ones were targeted. Economic sanctions followed. Last month, Harper announced them, saying:
"It's my strong belief we must keep the pressure on and we must continue to maintain sanctions and maintain putting in place strong steps to dissuade this behaviour."
"What the Putin regime has done cannot be tolerated and can never be accepted. The individuals targeted are responsible for undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and for facilitating Russian military action against Ukraine."
"Canada will not stand by while Russia violates Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity."
He condemned legitimate Crimean reunification. He twisted truth claiming otherwise. He supports Kiev putschists. His new friends are fascist extremists He promised additional ways to help.
In mid-April, he announced more travel bans and sanctions. Foreign Minister John Baird said Canada "cannot sit by while Russia illegally occupies Ukraine."
"Russia's continued provocative actions in Crimea and elsewhere are completely unacceptable."
"Canada and its allies are prepared to take additional steps that will further isolate Russia economically and politically."
He lied claiming Russian "aggression." Russia attacked no one. No Moscow threats exist. Putin deplores war.
He goes all-out for diplomatic solutions. Don't expect Harper or complicit Ottawa officials to explain.
Canadian lawlessness includes participation in US-led NATO's 1999 Yugoslavia raping. Ottawa is a US coalition of the willing partner. It was part of Washington's war on Afghanistan.
It helped America selectively against Iraq. It actively participated in Obama's Libyan aggression.
Harper ignores rule of law principles. He's mindless of democratic rights. He supports Obama's war on Syria.
He endorses lawless drone strikes. He's comfortable about Washington's globalized torture black sites. Police state laws don't trouble him.
He's in lockstep with the worst of Washington's imperial agenda. He's part of US-led NATO's anti-Russian alliance.
He supports illegitimate Kiev fascist putschists. He's in bed with some of the worst societal misfits. He calls them his new friends.
They include neo-Nazi extremists. They're ideologically over-the-top. They threaten regional peace. They risk open conflict.
Harper matches Obama's belligerence. He supports hardline measures. He wants Russia marginalized, weakened and isolated.
Last month, he said Putin has "no desire to be a partner." He supports "rivalry" instead, he claimed. He twisted truth saying so. He's part of Obama's plan to plunder Ukraine for profit.
He supports making it another Western colony. He wants it geopolitically annexed. He wants it economically looted.
He wants its people ruthlessly exploited. He wants Canadian business interests served. His predecessor Paul Martin supported Bush's Orange Revolution.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) was involved. Paul Grod serves as president. He accompanied Harper on his March 22 Kiev visit.
Neo-Nazis infest Ukraine's Svoboda Party. UCC members support them. Their predecessors massacred Jews. They partnered in some of Hitler's worst crimes.
Harper partners in Washington's imperial rampaging. He hopes Canadian interests benefit hugely. He wants Canada's oil displacing Russia's European exports.
He wants Keystone XL pipeline built. When completed, it'll run from Alberta to America's Gulf coast. It'll transport tar sands bitumen to US oil refineries.
Harper played Cold War geopolitics in Sochi. He skipped participation. He symbolically bashed Russia. He rained on Putin's parade. He acted during a disturbingly tense time.
He's in lockstep with Washington's war on humanity. He's a supportive junior partner. He opposes fundamental freedoms. He's geopolitically hardline.
He ludicrously calls America the "indispensable nation." He supports its "exceptionalism." Paul Craig Roberts is right saying its "corruption and mendacity" alone make it "exceptional."
It pressures, bullies and bribes other nations to go along. It eliminates independent foreign leader outliers. It wages one war after another. It does so worldwide.
"The Russians have a real leader," said Roberts. America has "two-bit punks." They masquerade as legitimate politicians. So does Stephen Harper.
He's polar opposite what Canadians deserve. He mocks legitimate leadership. He supports wealth, power and privilege.
He spurns social justice. He trashes rule of law principles. He's an unindicted war criminal. He belongs in prison, not high office.
He endorses "Fortress North America." He does so when Canada and America have no enemies except ones they invent.
He partners in Washington's wars of choice. Lawless aggression defines them.
He targets US enemies. Russia is in the eye of the storm. Harper may have bit off more than he can chew. Obama has a tiger by the tail.
Ukrainian crisis conditions just started. The worst may lie ahead. Thousands, perhaps millions, of Eastern Ukrainians aren't going quietly into the good night. Maybe their Western counterparts will join them.
Activists on the front lines for freedom. They're going all-out to achieve it. Obama thought he had as easy imperial trophy. If he can keep it, an earlier article said.
It may be slip-sliding away. It may launch greater conflict in the process. It may do what no responsible leader would dare.
It may cross the point of no return. The worst of all possible outcomes may follow. Allying with Washington against Russia makes Harper share responsibility for what happens.
He mocks legitimate leadership. He's deploying Canadian warplanes to Eastern Europe. Positioning more Canadian Armed Forces personnel at NATO headquarters is planned.
More sanctions may be imposed on Russian officials and business interests. He's in lockstep with potential global conflict. He hypes nonexistent Russian threats.
He claims Moscow "expansionism (and) militarism." He calls what doesn't exist "a longterm, serious threat to global peace and security."
He may partner with US-led NATO's Arctic presence. Doing so will involve him in Obama's new millennium resource wars.
They're ongoing. They're part of a modern-day great game. Resources are increasingly important. World supplies are finite.
Major powers scramble for as much as they can control. Oil is especially valued. No one's sure how much is left.
America, China, Russia and other major nations want control over as much as possible. They're going all out to get it.
Energy is a strategic source of world power. America's "imperial grand strategy" prioritizes controlling as much of the world's supply as possible.
The Arctic may become another global battleground. US wars have nothing to do with protecting national security. Claiming otherwise doesn't wash.
Harper boasts about supporting Kiev putschists. He turned truth on its head accusing Russia of "aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic" practices.
He ignores Canada's longstanding partnership in US imperial wars. He wants Canada's share of Ukrainian spoils.
In mid-April, Canadian media said he's quietly preparing for possible military involvement in Syria.
Censored documents allude to "the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Syria, its impact on neighbouring counties and…the importance of Middle East security."
Syria remains "defiant," they say. "(M)ost likely (and) worst case" outcomes are claimed. They include greater regional conflict.
A possible pretext for intervention assumes that Ottawa recognizes "a legitimate armed opposition group." Details aren't explained.
At the same time, separate documents show Canadian involvement in training anti-Assad elements.
Partnering in Obama's wars threatens world peace. Harper has much to answer for.
Scoundrel media propaganda suppresses his crimes of war and against humanity. Expect more ahead if he, Obama and rogue EU partners aren't stopped.
Mass public opposition is needed. It's time enough ordinary people stepped up to the plate and acted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-short-on-military-budget-starts-fundraising-drive/2014/04/19/0eba04d0-c7f6-11e3-8b9a-8e0977a24aeb_story.html
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 21-04-2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/western-powers-and-the-ukrainian-regime-call-for-military-buildup-against-russia/5378574
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dangerous-crossroads-us-nato-build-up-to-cold-war-2-0/5378520
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 21-04-2014
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_21/20-Kiev-spies-detained-in-Ukraines-Slavyansk-by-self-defense-forces-1558/
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-170414.html
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_21/US-must-realize-responsibility-for-Kiev-authorities-actions-Lavrov-4674/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_21/US-Vice-President-Biden-arrives-in-Ukraine-3465/
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/20/359390/ukraine-calls-for-us-military-support/
http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-crisis-us-imf-720/
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/04/21/five-weeks-away-from-world-war-iii/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 23-04-2014
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_22/British-intelligence-advised-Cameron-not-to-send-troops-to-Ukraine-media-0081/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 23-04-2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-crisis-300-german-intellectuals-support-putin-criticize-us-nato-influence-in-europe-and-mainstream-media-propaganda/5378823
http://rt.com/op-edge/154248-kiev-government-needs-berkut-help/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 24-04-2014
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/729337
hale Gas Fracking and America’s Proxy War against Russia: Joe Biden Promotes Fracking On Ukraine Trip
By Steve Horn
Global Research, April 24, 2014
desmogblog.com
Region: Russia and FSU, USA
Theme: Oil and Energy, US NATO War Agenda
http://www.globalresearch.ca/shale-gas-fracking-and-americas-proxy-war-against-russia-joe-biden-promotes-fracking-on-ukraine-trip/5378999
During his two-day visit this week to Kiev, Ukraine, Vice President Joe Biden unfurled President Barack Obama’s “U.S. Crisis Support Package for Ukraine.”
A key part of the package involves promoting the deployment of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Ukraine. Dean Neu, professor of accounting at York University in Toronto, describes this phenomenon in his book “Doing Missionary Work.” And in this case, it involves the U.S. acting as a modern-day missionary to spread the gospel of fracking to further its own interests.
With the ongoing Russian occupation of Crimea serving as the backdrop for the trip, Biden made Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its dominance of the global gas market one of the centerpieces of a key speech he gave while in Kiev.
“And as you attempt to pursue energy security, there’s no reason why you cannot be energy secure. I mean there isn’t. It will take time. It takes some difficult decisions, but it’s collectively within your power and the power of Europe and the United States,” Biden said.
“And we stand ready to assist you in reaching that. Imagine where you’d be today if you were able to tell Russia: Keep your gas. It would be a very different world you’d be facing today.”
The U.S. oil and gas industry has long lobbied to “weaponize” its fracking prowess to fend off Russian global gas market dominance. It’s done so primarily in two ways.
One way: by transforming the U.S. State Department into a global promoter of fracking via its Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program (formerly the Global Shale Gas Initiative), which is a key, albeit less talked about, part of President Obama’s “Climate Action Plan.”
The other way: by exporting U.S. fracked gas to the global market, namely EU countries currently heavily dependent on Russia’s gas spigot.
In this sense, the crisis in Ukraine — as Naomi Klein pointed out in a recent article — has merely served as a “shock doctrine” excuse to push through plans that were already long in the making. In other words, it’s “old wine in a new bottle.”
Gas “Support Package” Details
Within the energy security section of the aid package, the White House promises in “the coming weeks, expert teams from several U.S. government agencies will travel to the region to help Ukraine meet immediate and longer term energy needs.”
That section contains three main things the U.S. will do to ensure U.S. oil and gas companies continue to profit during this geopolitical stand-off.
1) Help with pipelines and securing access to gas at the midstream level of production.
“Today, a U.S. interagency expert team arrived in Kyiv to help Ukraine secure reverse flows of natural gas from its European neighbors,” the White House fact sheet explains. “Reverse flows of natural gas will provide Ukraine with additional immediate sources of energy.”
2) Technical assistance to help boost conventional gas production in Ukraine. That is, gas obtained not from fracking and horizontal drilling, but via traditional vertical drilling.
As the White House explains, “U.S. technical experts will join with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others in May to help Ukraine develop a public-private investment initiative to increase conventional gas production from existing fields to boost domestic energy supply.”
3) Shale gas missionary work.
“A technical team will also engage the government on measures that will help the Ukrainian government ensure swift and environmentally sustainable implementation of contracts signed in 2013 for shale gas development,” says the White House.
ExxonMobil Teaching Russia Fracking
Ironically, as the U.S. government teams up with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to teach Ukraine fracking in order to wean the country off of Russian gas, U.S.-based “private empire” ExxonMobil is doing the same work in Russia to help the country tap into its shale oil and gas bounty.
Among its myriad partnerships with the Russian oil and gas industry, ExxonMobil has signed a joint venture in December 2013 with state-owned company Rosneft to help it tap the massive Bazhenov Shale basin.
“The JV will implement a pilot work program in order to assess and determine the technical possibility of developing the…Bazhenov formation…in Western Siberia,” reads a Rosneft press release. “The plan is to perform the pilot work program within 2013-2015 timeframe.”
Forbes has reported the Bazhenov is roughly 80 times the size of the Bakken Shale, already the biggest field by a long shot in the U.S. and one visible from outer space.
Climate Change Taboo
Traditionally, missionaries do charity work in service to humanity. But the enormous climate impact of fracking — given the climate change math — calls those doing the Lord’s work in the shale gas sphere into question.
So in the case of the U.S. government and Ukraine, the concept of missionary work has been flipped on its head.
That is, the most profitable companies on the face of the planet — both in the U.S. and in Russia — are set to profit at the expense of everyone else, including the stability of earth’s climate system.
SHOP GLOBAL RESEARCH
Articles by: Steve Horn
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RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 24-04-2014
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-23/sergey-lavrov-if-russian-troops-or-people-attacked-well-retaliate
http://rt.com/news/154212-lavrov-russia-will-defend-itself/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSBREA3L11A20140423
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/moscow-orders-kiev-to-withdraw-troops/article18136411/?service=mobile
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140424/189342116/West-Tried-to-Stage-Another-Color-Revolution-in-Ukraine--Lavrov.htm
http://rt.com/news/154544-slavyansk-fighting-east-ukraine/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 25-04-2014
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_04_24/Ukrainian-territories-used-to-belong-to-Poland-turned-into-base-for-the-nationalistic-movement-7324/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_19/Polish-FM-Sikorski-to-start-diplomatic-mission-in-Ukraine-at-EU-request-5043/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 27-04-2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainian-national-resistance-against-the-neo-nazi-government/5379402
http://www.globalresearch.ca/detained-osce-monitors-in-eastern-ukraine-turn-out-to-be-nato-military-intelligence/5379400
What happening to the "ill" officer?
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 03-05-2014
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/02/16/350986/israel-exofficer-leads-ukraine-unrest/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-02/edge-war-latest-russian-and-ukraine-troop-movements'
http://rt.com/news/156552-kramatorsk-military-operation-resumed/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 03-05-2014
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter and Cyrus Vance in 1977. As Carter’s National Security Advisor, Brzezinski orchestrated a covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Photo: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Top level globalist and Rockefeller confidant Zbigniew Brzezinski has mounted the pages of Politico to call for more pointed U.S. involvement in Ukraine.
“It is more than a month since the Russians annexed Crimea, and recent events have only exacerbated the crisis, with pro-Russian rebels reportedly shooting down two Ukrainian helicopters in separatist-held Slaviansk on Friday. Yet the president still hasn’t laid out a comprehensive statement of what is really at stake,” writes the co-founder of the Trilateral Commission.
Indirectly calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug,” Brzezinski says “we have an obligation to help Ukraine.” He characterizes the crisis as “the most important challenge to the international system since the end of the Cold War” and tells Obama he desperately needs to issue “a comprehensive statement of what is really at stake” and address “the American people on this issue… He needs the support of the American people. Thus he has to convince them that this is important and that his stand deserves both national understanding and support.”
In late April, a Rasmussen Reports poll indicated nearly 60 percent of Americans believe the situation in Ukraine does not concern the United States. On April 28, a USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll found Americans overwhelmingly oppose the idea of sending arms or military supplies to Ukraine.
Despite this disapproval by the American people, Brzezinski writes “we should be more open to helping the Ukrainians defend themselves if they’re attacked. The Ukrainians will fight only if they think they will eventually get some help from the West, particularly in supplies of the kind of weaponry that will be necessary to wage a successful urban defense. They’re not going to beat the Russians out in the open field, where thousands of tanks move in. They can only beat them through prolonged urban resistance. Then the war’s economic costs would escalate dramatically for the Russians, and it would become futile politically. But to be able to defend a city, you have to have handheld anti-tank weaponry, handheld rockets and some organization.”
Arizona Senator John McCain has led the call in Congress to arm the junta in Ukraine.
Brzezinski, a notorious Russophobe, employed a similar tactic when he was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. He was instrumental using U.S. taxpayer money to covertly arm the Afghan Mujahideen to fight against the Soviet Union. Factions within the Mujahideen would eventually become the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
In 1998, he told Le Nouvel Observateur the CIA’s “secret operation was an excellent idea” and “had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap” and “giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”
Asked if he regretted lending a hand in the creation of radical and terrorist Islamic groups, the ever testy Brzezinski replied: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
The State Department’s less than covert installation of a gang of ultra-nationalists and fascists in Kyiv is evidence enough the “liberation of Central Europe” – apparently, for Brzezinski, Russia is Eastern Europe – is an ongoing project.
Now that Brzezinski has issued a public statement on Ukraine and called for arming Russophobes in that country — many who have long expressed their desire to ethnically cleanse and kill not only Russians, but Jews and Poles (Brzezinski is Polish) — we can conclude the global elite have decided to foster a civil war along Russia’s western border.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/brzezinski-calls-for-sending-weapons-to-regime-in-ukraine/5380304
NATO officials escalated their military build-up against Russia yesterday, as the pro-Western puppet regime in Kiev reinstated conscription in order to boost its crackdown on spreading pro-Russian protests in eastern Ukraine.
The news came as the position of the far-right regime in Kiev weakened, with more cities and government buildings in east Ukraine held by protesters and militias opposed to it. Protesters stormed the prosecutor’s office, disarming police, in the city of Donetsk, one of many cities in the region, including Luhansk, Slavyansk, and Kramatorsk, now outside of Kiev’s control.
A statement issued by the Kiev regime’s acting president Oleksandr Turchynov confirmed that the aim of the conscription order, for all able-bodied males between 18 and 25, was to boost the crackdown in predominately Russian-speaking areas. The order was issued “given the deteriorating situation in the east and the south [and] the rising force of armed pro-Russian units and the taking of public administration buildings,” the statement declared. It added that the protests “threaten the territorial integrity” of Ukraine.
Turchynov’s justification for the conscription order is a political fraud. His regime, the product of a Western-backed putsch, does not stand for Ukraine’s independence or its territorial integrity. The regime has launched crackdowns planned in discussions with top US officials such as CIA Director John Brennan and Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Kiev as successive waves of repression began.
The contempt of the Kiev regime and its imperialist backers for the Ukrainian population was further underscored by their agreement to a $17 billion bailout package dictated by the International Monetary Fund. It is conditioned on unpopular fuel price increases and mass layoffs in the public sector that have already provoked protests in several cities.
Turchynov has admitted that his regime’s security forces are “helpless” to stop the spread of pro-Russian seizures of cities and government buildings across east Ukraine. Some army and police units have refused orders to shoot protesters. The Kiev regime has turned to setting up private militias led by business oligarchs or fascist paramilitaries from the Right Sector to attack the protesters.
This crackdown has placed the world on the verge of war. Moscow has stated that it will use “all means” to protect ethnic Russians from Ukrainian forces, should the Kiev regime’s crackdown escalate into a large-scale massacre of the population of east Ukraine. In a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that all Ukrainian troops be withdrawn from eastern Ukraine.
The conscription order is a desperate attempt to bolster the tottering Kiev regime amid deepening political crisis and rising popular opposition. If obeyed in parts of the country still under Kiev’s control, it would provide back-up to the fascist forces spearheading the repression of the protests.
It would also place an army of over a million men, supported and equipped by NATO, directly on Russia’s southwestern border. In this, the Kiev regime is doing the bidding of its Western imperialist masters, who are recklessly denouncing Russia and mounting a military build-up across Eastern Europe laying the basis for a major war with Russia.
Yesterday, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow branded Russia an enemy. “Clearly the Russians have declared NATO as an adversary, so we have to begin to view Russia no longer as a partner, but as more of an adversary than a partner,” he said.
Vershbow said NATO could repudiate its 1997 pledge not to station nuclear weapons or large numbers of troops in Eastern Europe. Given Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and the east Ukraine protests, he said, “we would be within our rights” to scrap the deal and permanently station “significant” numbers of troops in Eastern Europe.
The Western powers are seizing upon the Ukraine crisis to try to carry out a major restructuring of European and world politics. Like the September 11, 2001 attacks, which US imperialism exploited to launch a series of unpopular Middle East wars, the Ukraine crisis is to provide the Western imperialist powers with a justification for a massive military escalation and the preparation of large-scale wars.
Such topics will doubtless be at the heart of discussions today between US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is visiting Washington, DC.
Claims that NATO’s reckless escalation is simply a response to Russian military aggression are lies. Protests in eastern Ukraine—previously the power base of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed by the February putsch—are not the product of Russian aggression, but of broad opposition to the oligarchs and fascists who lead the Kiev regime. They are a consequence of the reckless decision of the NATO powers, led by Washington and Berlin, to back the putsch and then stoke tensions with Moscow.
Since the Kiev putsch, Washington and its NATO allies have stationed fighter jets and ground forces in Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania. They have also stepped up naval deployments to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, while hypocritically denouncing Russia for stationing troops along its western border with Ukraine.
Vershbow said that NATO will deploy more forces, to be able to intervene rapidly in the Baltic states. “We want to be sure that we can come to the aid of these countries if there were any, even indirect, threat very quickly before any facts on the ground can be established,” he said.
Such a deployment would be wildly provocative. Were NATO forces to be stationed in the northernmost Baltic country, Estonia, they would be less than 100 miles from Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.
NATO officials also announced yesterday that they were examining ways to grant NATO membership status to the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, in the southern Caucasus.
Such a move also directly raises the risk of war between Russia and NATO. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in 2008, after Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers stationed in ethnic minority regions of Georgia along its border with Russia. Had Georgia been a NATO member state at the time, the other NATO powers could have invoked the Clause 5 mutual self-defense guarantee between NATO member states to justify intervening in the war on Georgia’s side.
NATO Special Representative for the Caucasus James Appathurai pledged that the organization would ignore Russian objections to Georgian membership in NATO.
“What Russia says or does will not influence our decision,” he said. “We will judge Georgia on Georgia’s merits and regardless of what’s happening elsewhere and regardless of comments from the Kremlin or elsewhere … We are now looking, of course, at next steps, at bringing Georgia even closer to NATO and to meeting its goals.”
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Twisting Putin’s Words on Ukraine
By Robert Parry
Global Research, May 03, 2014
Consortiumnews 2 May 2014
Region: Russia and FSU
Theme: Media Disinformation
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT
3 3 1 38
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivering a speech on the Ukraine crisis in Moscow on March 18, 2014. (Russian government photo)
Anti-Russian bias pervades the mainstream U.S. media in the Ukraine crisis, reflected in word choices – “pro-democracy” for U.S.-favored protesters in Kiev, “terrorists” for disfavored eastern Ukrainians – but also in how the narrative is shaped by false summaries.
Sometimes dealing with the waves of U.S. media propaganda on the Ukraine crisis feels like the proverbial Dutch boy putting his fingers in the dike. The flood of deeply prejudiced anti-Russian “group think” extends across the entire media waterfront – from left to right – and it often seems hopeless correcting each individual falsehood.
The problem is made worse by the fact that the New York Times, the traditional newspaper of record, has stood out as one of the most egregious offenders of the principles of journalism. Repeatedly, the Times has run anti-Russian stories that lack evidence or are just flat wrong.
Among the flat-wrong stories was the Times’ big front-page scoop on photos that purportedly showed Russian troops inside eastern Ukraine, but the story had to beretracted two days later when it turned out that a key photo – allegedly of several men “clearly” in Russia before they later turned up in Ukraine – was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the story’s premise.
The other type of Times’ propaganda – making assertions without evidence – appeared in another front-page story about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s phantom wealth ($40 billion to $70 billion, the Times speculated) without presenting a shred of hard evidence beyond what looked like a pricy watch on his wrist.
However, in some ways, the worst of the New York Times reporting has been its slanted and erroneous summations of the Ukraine narrative. For instance, immediately after the violent coup overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych (from Feb. 20-22), it was reported that among the 80 people killed were more than a dozen police officers.
But, as the pro-coup sympathies hardened inside the Times, the storyline changed to: “More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February.” [NYT, March 5]
Both the dead police and the murky circumstances surrounding the sniper fire that inflicted many of the casualties simply disappeared from the Times’ narrative. It became flat fact: evil “pro-Yanukovych” police gunned down innocent “pro-democracy” demonstrators. Also consigned to the memory hole was the key role played by well-organized neo-Nazi militias that led the final assaults on the police.
More recently, the Times’ Ukraine summary has challenged Putin’s denials that Russian special forces are operating in eastern Ukraine (the point that the bogus photo scoop was supposed to prove). So, now whenever Putin’s denial is noted, the Times contradicts him by claiming that he made the same denial about Crimea, that Russian troops weren’t involved, and then reversed himself later.
For instance, in Friday’s editions, the Times wrote: “Mr. Putin has said there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. He made similar claims during the annexation of Crimea, however, and then later acknowledged the existence of a Russian operation.”
But that simply isn’t true. The Russians never denied having troops in Crimea, since that’s where they maintain a major Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol and had a contractual agreement with Ukraine allowing the presence of up to 25,000 troops. At the time of the Feb. 22 coup, Russia had about 16,000 troops in Crimea and that was well known as Crimea began to break away from the post-coup regime in Kiev.
On March 4, the Associated Press reported that “the new Ukrainian leadership that deposed the pro-Russian Yanukovych … has accused Moscow of a military invasion in Crimea. The Kremlin, which does not recognize the new Ukrainian leadership, insists it made the move in order to protect Russian installations in Ukraine and its citizens living there.
“On Tuesday, Russian troops who had taken control of the Belbek air base in the hotly contest[ed] Crimea region fired warning shots into the air as around 300 Ukrainian soldiers, who previously manned the airfield, demanded their jobs back. …
“The shots reflected tensions running high in the Black Sea peninsula since Russian troops – estimated by Ukrainian authorities to be 16,000 strong -tightened their grip over the weekend on the Crimean peninsula, where Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet is based.
“Ukraine has accused Russia of violating a bilateral agreement on conditions of a Russian lease of a naval base in Crimea that restricts troop movements, but Russia has argued that it was acting within the limits set by the deal.
“Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said Monday [March 3] at the U.N. Security Council that Russia was entitled to deploy up to 25,000 troops in Crimea under the agreement. Churkin didn’t specify how many Russian troops are now stationed in Crimea, but said that ‘they are acting in a way they consider necessary to protect their facilities and prevent extremist actions.’”
Putin’s Comments
Also on March 4, Putin discussed another public confrontation in Crimea at a Moscow press conference. He said: “You should note that, thank God, not a single gunshot has been fired there; there are no casualties, except for that crush on the square about a week ago. What was going on there? People came, surrounded units of the [Ukrainian] armed forces and talked to them, convincing them to follow the demands and the will of the people living in that area. There was not a single armed conflict, not a single gunshot.
“Thus the tension in Crimea that was linked to the possibility of using our Armed Forces simply died down and there was no need to use them. The only thing we had to do, and we did it, was to enhance the defense of our military facilities because they were constantly receiving threats and we were aware of the armed nationalists moving in. We did this, it was the right thing to do and very timely.”
So, Putin did not deny that Russian troops were present in Crimea. He even acknowledged that they were operational and were prepared to take action in defense of Crimean citizens if necessary.
Arguably, Putin did dissemble on one point, though the precise circumstances were unclear. When a reporter asked him about a specific case of some people “wearing uniforms that strongly resembled the Russian Army uniform,” he demurred, claiming “those were local self-defense units.”
A Formal Speech
Two days after a hastily called referendum, which recorded a 96 percent vote in favor of seceding from Ukraine and rejoining Russia, Putin returned to the issue of Russian involvement in Crimea, a territory that first became part of Russia in the 1700s.
On March 18 in a formal speech to the Russian Federation, Putin justified Crimea’s desire to escape the control of the coup regime in Kiev, saying: “Those who opposed the [Feb. 22] coup were immediately threatened with repression. Naturally, the first in line here was Crimea, the Russian-speaking Crimea. In view of this, the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol turned to Russia for help in defending their rights and lives, in preventing the events that were unfolding and are still underway in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkov and other Ukrainian cities.
“Naturally, we could not leave this plea unheeded; we could not abandon Crimea and its residents in distress. This would have been betrayal on our part.”
Again, Putin was not claiming that the Russian government had no involvement in Crimea. He was, in contrast, confirming that it was involved. He continued:
“First, we had to help create conditions so that the residents of Crimea for the first time in history were able to peacefully express their free will regarding their own future. However, what do we hear from our colleagues in Western Europe and North America? They say we are violating norms of international law. Firstly, it’s a good thing that they at least remember that there exists such a thing as international law – better late than never.
“Secondly, and most importantly – what exactly are we violating? True, the President of the Russian Federation [Putin] received permission from the Upper House of Parliament to use the Armed Forces in Ukraine. However, strictly speaking, nobody has acted on this permission yet. Russia’s Armed Forces never entered Crimea; they were there already in line with an international agreement.
“True, we did enhance our forces there; however – this is something I would like everyone to hear and know – we did not exceed the personnel limit of our Armed Forces in Crimea, which is set at 25,000, because there was no need to do so.”
However, several weeks later, when Putin reiterated these same points, saying that Russian troops were in Crimea in support of the Crimean people’s right to have a referendum on secession from Ukraine, the New York Times and other U.S. publications began claiming that he had reversed himself and had previously hidden the Russian troop involvement in Crimea.
That was simply bad reporting, which now gets repeated whenever the Times mentions Putin’s denial of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Clearly, there is nothing “similar” between Putin’s previous statements about Crimea and his current ones about eastern Ukraine.
Beyond sloppy reporting, however, something arguably worse is playing out here, since this distortion fits with the pattern of anti-Russian bias and anti-Putin prejudice that has pervaded the “news” coverage at the Times and other major U.S. media outlets.
Rather than show some independence and professionalism, the Times and the rest of the MSM have marched in lock-step with the propaganda pronouncements emanating from the U.S. State Department.
The following text was published by Spiegel in November 2009.
It sheds light on the current crisis in Ukraine and on the history of Russia-Western relations in the immediate post-Cold era.
What it overlooks is that Gorbachev and Shevardnaze were tacitly serving Western interests. (Gr Editor, M. Ch.).
(Copyright Spiegel Online 2009)
By Uwe Klussmann, Matthias Schepp and Klaus Wiegrefe
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.
Part I
No one in Russia can vent his anger over NATO’s eastward expansion quite as vehemently as Viktor Baranez. The popular columnist with the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda (“Komsomol Truth”), which has a readership of millions, is fond of railing against the “insidious and reckless” Western military alliance. Russia, Baranez writes, must finally stop treating NATO as a partner.
Baranez, a retired colonel who was the Defense Ministry’s spokesman under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, asks why Russia should even consider joint maneuvers after being deceived by the West. NATO, he writes, “has pushed its way right up to our national borders with its guns.” He also argues that, in doing so, NATO has broken all the promises it made during the process of German reunification.
There is widespread agreement among all political parties in Moscow, from the Patriots of Russia to the Communists to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, that the West broke its word and short-changed Russia when it was weak.
In an interview with SPIEGEL at his residence outside Moscow in early November, President Dmitry Medvedev complained that when the Berlin Wall came down, it had “not been possible to redefine Russia’s place in Europe.” What did Russia get? “None of the things that we were assured, namely that NATO would not expand endlessly eastwards and our interests would be continuously taken into consideration,” Medvedev said.
Different Versions
The question of what Moscow was in fact promised in 1990 has sparked a historical dispute with far-reaching consequences for Russia’s future relationship with the West. But what exactly is the truth?
The various players involved have different versions of events. Of course there was a promise not to expand NATO “as much as a thumb’s width further to the East,” Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president at the time, says in Moscow today. However, Gorbachev’s former foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, speaking in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, says that there were no such assurances from the West. Even the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the Eastern military alliance, “was beyond our imagination,” he says.
For years former US Secretary of State James Baker, Shevardnadze’s American counterpart in 1990, has denied that there was any agreement between the two sides. But Jack Matlock, the US ambassador in Moscow at the time, has said in the past that Moscow was given a “clear commitment.” Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister in 1990, says this was precisely not the case.
After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia.
On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with Shevardnadze. According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher said: “We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.” And because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: “As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.”
Shevardnadze replied that he believed “everything the minister (Genscher) said.”
Not a Word
The year 1990 was one of major negotiations. Washington, Moscow, London, Bonn, Paris, Warsaw, East Berlin and many others were at odds over German unity, comprehensive European disarmament and a new charter of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Soviets insisted that everything be documented in writing, even when all that was at issue was the fate of Soviet military cemeteries in East Germany. However, the numerous agreements and treaties of the day contained not a single word about NATO expansion in Eastern Europe.
For this reason, the West argues, Moscow has no cause for complaint today. After all, the West did not sign anything regarding NATO expansion to the east. But is that tough stance fair?
At the beginning of 1990, the Soviet Union was still a world power with troops stationed at the Elbe River, and Hans Modrow, the former Dresden district chairman of the East German Communist Party, the SED, was in charge in East Berlin. But the collapse of the East German state was foreseeable.
Bonn’s allies in Paris, London and Washington were concerned about the question of whether a unified Germany could be a member of NATO or, as had already happened in the past, would pursue a seesaw policy between east and west.
Genscher wanted to put an end to this uncertainty, and he said as much in a major speech to the West on Jan. 31, 1990 in Tutzing, a town in Bavaria. This was the reason, he said, why a unified Germany should be a member of NATO.
Moving with Caution
But how could the Soviet leadership be persuaded to support this solution? “I wanted to help them over the hurdle,” Genscher told SPIEGEL. To that end, the German foreign minister promised, in his speech in Tutzing, that there would not be “an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.” East Germany was not to be brought into the military structures of NATO, and the door into the alliance was to remain closed to the countries of Eastern Europe.
Genscher remembered what had happened during the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Some of the insurgents had announced their intention to join the Western alliance, giving Moscow the excuse to intervene militarily. In 1990, Genscher was trying to send a signal to Gorbachev that he need not fear such a development in the Soviet bloc. The West, Genscher indicated, intended to cooperate with the Soviet Union in bringing about change, not act as its adversary.
The plan that was proclaimed in Tutzing had not been coordinated with the chancellor or West German allies, and Genscher spent the next few days vying for their support.
As Genscher’s chief of staff Frank Elbe later wrote, the German foreign minister had “moved with the caution of a giant insect that uses its many feelers to investigate its surroundings, prepared to recoil when it encounters resistance.”
US Secretary of State James Baker, a pragmatic Texan, apparently “warmed to the proposal immediately,” says Elbe today. On Feb. 2, the two diplomats sat down in front of the fireplace in Baker’s study in Washington, took off their jackets, put their feet up and discussed world events. They quickly agreed that there was to be no NATO expansion to the East. “It was completely clear,” Elbe comments.
Part 2: Calming Russian Fears
A short time later, then-British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd joined the German-American consensus. As a previously unknown document from the German Foreign Ministry shows, Genscher was uncharacteristically open with his relatively pro-German British counterpart when they met in Bonn on Feb. 6, 1990. Hungary was about to hold its first free elections, and Genscher declared that the Soviet Union needed “the certainty that Hungary will not become part of the Western alliance if there is a change of government.” The Kremlin, Genscher said, would have to be given assurances to that effect. Hurd agreed.
But were such assurances intended to be valid indefinitely? Apparently not. When the two colleagues discussed Poland, Genscher said, according to the British records, that if Poland ever left the Warsaw Pact, Moscow would need the certainty that Warsaw would “not join NATO the next day.” However, Genscher did not seem to rule out accession at a later date.
It stood to reason that Genscher would present his ideas in Moscow next. He was the longest-serving Western foreign minister, his relationship with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze was unusually strong, and it was his initiative. But Baker wanted to address the issue himself during his next trip to Moscow.
‘One Cannot Depend on American Politicians’
What the US secretary of state said on Feb. 9, 1990 in the magnificent St. Catherine’s Hall at the Kremlin is beyond dispute. There would be, in Baker’s words, “no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east,” provided the Soviets agreed to the NATO membership of a unified Germany. Moscow would think about it, Gorbachev said, but added: “any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.”
Now, 20 years later, Gorbachev is still outraged when he is asked about this episode. “One cannot depend on American politicians,” he told SPIEGEL. Baker, for his part, now offers a different interpretation of what he said in 1990, arguing that he was merely referring to East Germany, which was to be given a special status in the alliance — nothing more.
But Genscher, in a conversation with Shevardnadze just one day later, had expressly referred to Eastern Europe. In fact, talking about Eastern Europe, and not just East Germany, was consistent with the logic of the West’s position.
If East Germany was to be granted a special status within NATO, so as not to provoke the Soviet leadership, the promise not to expand the alliance to the east certainly had to include countries like Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, which directly bordered the Soviet Union.
When the Western politicians met once again a few weeks later, their conversation was more to the point, as a German Foreign Ministry document that has now been released indicates. According to the document, Baker said that it appeared “as if Central European countries wanted to join NATO.” That, Genscher replied, was an issue “we shouldn’t touch at this point.” Baker agreed.
Positive Light
The political leaders of the day are now elderly gentlemen who don’t necessarily always find it easy to remember exactly what happened back then. Besides, they are all eager to be portrayed in a positive light in the history books. Gorbachev doesn’t want to be the one who failed to tightly close the door to the eastward expansion of NATO. Genscher and Baker don’t want to be accused of having made deals with Moscow over the heads of the Poles, the Hungarians or the Czechs. And Shevardnadze came to the conclusion long ago that there is “nothing horrible” about NATO expansion — not surprisingly, given that his native Georgia now wants to join NATO.
Their interests were different back in 1990. Bonn and Washington wanted to expedite German reunification. A few days after the talks at the Kremlin, Genscher, Baker and Shevardnadze met again, this time all together and with all of the foreign ministers of the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries present, at a disarmament conference in a converted former train station in the Canadian capital Ottawa.
At the conference, the two German foreign ministers (the East German foreign minister at the time was Oskar Fischer, who had been close to the former East German leader Erich Honecker) came together in the corridors and conference rooms, met with the foreign ministers of the four victorious powers in World War II and, in various configurations, discussed the future course of Germany. By the end of the conference, it had been decided that the external aspects of German unity, such as the alliance issue and the size of the German military, were to be resolved in the so-called “two-plus-four” talks.
Sounding Out the Soviets
Genscher says today that all the key issues should have been addressed in this forum, and that during the talks there was never any mention of excluding the Eastern Europeans from NATO membership, which the participants all confirm.
But what about Genscher’s comments to Shevardnadze on Feb. 10, 1990?
Genscher says today that he was merely “sounding out” Shevardnadze prior to the actual negotiations to determine Moscow’s position on the alliance issue and to see whether there was any leeway.
This is the official position. But there are also other versions of the events.
A diplomat with the German Foreign Ministry says that there was, of course, a consensus between the two sides. Indeed, the Soviets would hardly have agreed to take part in the two-plus-four talks if they had known that NATO would later accept Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European countries as members.
The negotiations with Gorbachev were already difficult enough, with Western politicians repeatedly insisting that they were not going to derive — in the words of then-US President George H. W. Bush — any “unilateral advantage” from the situation, and that there would be “no shift in the balance of power” between the East and the West, as Genscher put it. Russia today is certainly somewhat justified in citing, at the very least, the spirit of the 1990 agreements.
Absurd Notion
In late May 1990, Gorbachev finally agreed to a unified Germany joining NATO. But why didn’t Gorbachev and Shevardnadze get the West’s commitments in writing at a time when they still held all the cards? “The Warsaw Pact still existed at the beginning of 1990,” Gorbachev says today. “Merely the notion that NATO might expand to include the countries in this alliance sounded completely absurd at the time.”
Some leading Western politicians were under the impression that the Kremlin leader and his foreign minister were ignoring reality and, as Baker said, were “in denial” about the demise of the Soviet Union as a major power.
On the other hand, the Baltic countries were still part of the Soviet Union, and NATO membership seemed light years away. And in some parts of Eastern Europe, peace-oriented dissidents were now in power, men like then-Czech President Vaclav Havel who, if he had had his way, would not only have dissolved the Warsaw Pact, but NATO along with it.
No Eastern European government was striving to join NATO in that early phase, and the Western alliance had absolutely no interest in taking on new members. It was too expensive, an unnecessary provocation of Moscow and, if worse came to worst, did the Western governments truly expect French, Italian or German soldiers to risk their lives for Poland and Hungary?
Then, in 1991, came the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the war in Bosnia, with its hundred thousand dead, raised fears of a Balkanization of Eastern Europe. And in the United States President Bill Clinton, following his inauguration in 1993, was searching for a new mission for the Western alliance.
Suddenly everyone wanted to join NATO, and soon NATO wanted to accept everyone.
The dispute over history was about to begin.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 04-05-2014
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/russias-buildup-on-the-ukraine-border/996/
RE: The Ukraine - Захумље - 05-05-2014
Report: CIA, FBI ‘Advising’ Ukraine Interim Govt
Agents 'Not Directly Involved' in Eastern Fighting
by Jason Ditz, May 04, 2014
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Adding to speculation about US involvement in calling the shots in post-regime change Ukraine, Germany’s Bild newspaper is reporting dozens of FBI and CIA agents on the ground in the capital of Kiev “advising” the government.
The move was initially presented as focusing on organized crime, with the FBI team sent specifically to track down ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s hidden accounts. Now, however, they are said to also be advising them on the ongoing offensive against eastern protesters.
That would explain why the Obama Administration has been so unabashedly supportive of the eastern offensive as a “law and order” measure, though the reports are quick to insist that the agents are not “directly involved” in the fighting.
These are not the first reports of US involvement in the Ukraine interim government, and rumors began circulating almost immediately after the takeover of Blackwater troops on the ground in Ukraine, while CIA head John Brennan’s high profile visit only added to the speculation.
Odessa: Ukraine’s Waco
Kiev fascists show their faces
by Justin Raimondo, May 05, 2014
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The murder of at least 38 people in the city of Odessa in the midst of Kiev’s "anti-terrorist" offensive last Friday revealed the true face of the fascist regime that has seized power in Kiev – and the Western media is doing everything it can to cover up the truth.
Most "mainstream" accounts of what happened there are filled with ambiguity: it’s "not clear" who’s responsible, they say. Everybody was supposedly throwing Molotov cocktails and so who’s to say who started which conflagration? And yet the truth is getting out there. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that "police said at least 31 people were dead after pro-Kiev demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails into a building where a pro-Russia contingent was holding out." The piece cites tweets from Howard Amos, a Guardian reporter on the scene, noting that the fire broke out on the main floor of the Trade Union building, where a pro-Kiev crowd had gathered and was storming the building – and where, as USA Today noted, "Witnesses and journalists reported that as the building burned with people inside, a crowd shouted, ‘Glory to Ukraine!” and ‘Death to enemies!’"
The USA Today headline read: "Fire Kills 31 in Odessa." But did the fire kill them – or was it the people who set the fire? And let’s go back to Howard Amos’ tweets to find out exactly who is fighting on the front lines on the pro-Kiev side: why it’s Right Sector! They’re leading the crowd, just as they did on Friday.
Right Sector is the violent neo-Nazi group that served as the Kiev coup leaders’ shock troops as they took over Ukraine’s capital city and drove Yanukovich and his supporters out. Their Fuehrer, Dymtro Yorash, is a fascist ideologue who recently announced he was moving the group’s headquarters to east Ukraine – the scene of recent fighting between pro-coup and pro-Russian factions.
By all accounts, the local police – under Kiev’s command – did nothing as the pro-Kiev crowd danced in the streets while the building burned. It took the fire department an hour to get to the scene.
Imagine if the roles had been reversed, with the pro-Russians outside the building and the pro-Kiev "activists" inside. John Kerry would be apoplectic with rage, threatening Russia with military force. Nicholas Kristof would be demanding the bombing of Moscow, and the neocons would be comparing it to China’s Tiananmen Square massacre.
Instead, what we hear from these folks is … nothing. Silence. Evasion. Ambiguity. Anything but the truth.
This is Kiev’s Waco – and a perfect analogy it is, indeed. Here we have a group of people – pro-Russian Ukrainians – who have been so demonized in the Western media that this mass murder is being framed as if the victims deserved it. They were executed by government officials in Kiev – imagine the Ukrainian version of Janet Reno – acting in concert with US officials in Washington, who no doubt gave the green light to the Ukrainian "anti-terrorist" operation in the first place. Like the Waco massacre, the Odessa mass murder was a political act designed to demonstrate the raw power of a State – and to serve as a warning to those who would defy its power.
On Twitter, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, a fervent supporter of the Kiev coup, cries crocodile tears for Odessa, averring that the perpetrators must be "brought to justice." Yet the perpetrators are the very government he and his NATO-crat friends have been telling us is the rebirth of "democracy" and "European values" in Ukraine. And, what’s more – he knows it. Meanwhile, the clueless Kiev "activists" being subsidized with American tax dollars posted to YouTube an utterly disgusting and almost unwatchable video of the incinerated bodies in Odessa under the headline: "Russian Terrorists Burnt Alive." The video was posted under an account called "EuromaidanPR." This is "public relations" in Ukraine – oh but it’s the Russians (or Russian-speaking Ukrainians, to be precise) who are the "terrorists."
As the European news media isn’t holding anything back in their reporting of the Odessa slaughter, Bildt perhaps feels obligated to address it. Our own officials are less forthcoming: the response of the US State Department is that force used in the Ukrainian "anti-terrorist" operation was "proportionate and reasonable" – even as the Odessa death toll climbs.
This is an absolute outrage. Usually Washington’s propaganda is more nuanced: even when they’re defending the most repressive regimes on earth (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bahrain, etc.) there’s an attempt to balance it out with "constructive" criticism. Not here: instead we are treated to the ridiculously obscene notion that burning down a building full of people is a "proportionate" response to a demand for … regional autonomy!
What’s wrong with these people? Is it stupidity – or something a bit more calculated?
The first phase of the US-bought-and-paid-for regime change in Ukraine involved the exercise of "soft power" – the mobilization of compliant local "activists" who would take the pro-EU anti-Russian cause to the streets. Millions were pumped into the Ukrainian opposition under the guise of "democracy promotion" – and when enough people were out in the streets the next phase, the militarization of the campaign, began.
That’s when Right Sector jumped into the fray, leading the charge against government buildings and breaking the truce mediated by the European Union that would’ve kept the elected government in power in return for reining in presidential authority. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wasn’t cursing out the Europeans for no good reason: they were getting in the way of Uncle Sam’s plans, which had yet to fully unfold.
First, "democracy promotion," then – terror.
The burning of the Trade Union building in Odessa was meant to send the east Ukrainians – and, standing behind them, the Russians – a message: we mean business. And it isn’t only the authorities in Kiev issuing this warning. Because standing behind them is the United States of America: there’s a reason why CIA chief John Brennan allowed himself to be located in Kiev just prior to the Odessa massacre.
No matter what contortions the Western media engages in to spin Odessa as a morally ambiguous "tragedy," the facts are coming out and they point to one inescapable conclusion: this was mass murder for which the Kiev coup leaders and their American puppet-masters are directly responsible. In short, this is a war crime.
And I would argue it is a new type of war crime, which, on one level, the perpetrators deny, and yet on another level they proudly proclaim their guilt to the skies. Why else is "EuromaidenPR" posting gruesome videos of charred bodies on YouTube? Why is the US State Department declaring the bloody Ukrainian "anti-terrorist" operation is "proportionate"?
In the beginning, I thought this whole Ukrainian regime change effort was just sheer stupidity on the part our clueless leaders in Washington, who had no idea what they were getting into or what dark forces they were unleashing. Over time, however, as the crisis escalated, and we actually had the State Department defending Svoboda – a major factor in the "interim" government – against fully justified charges that it is fascist, I began to wonder. Why would the US government act as a lawyer for a party that traces its ideological lineage back to Stepan Bandera, the WWII Nazi collaborator whose "insurgent army" slaughtered 6,000 Jews in Lvov? Why would they go out of their way to characterize the party as having "moderated" its views?
It’s always a mistake to underestimate Washington’s capacity for evil. In retrospect, it’s clear they always knew what and who they were unleashing. It’s not ignorance of the historically specific and – to most Americans – unimaginably virulent hatred given free rein by our machinations in Ukraine. Washington knows perfectly well what they’re doing – and they’re doing it anyway.
One final point: I’ve noted before that the Russian "invasion" of Crimea was bloodless: no casualties, no deaths, no significant damage to property. If this was an "invasion," then we’re looking at a new kind of "warfare" entirely. Now look at Kiev’s invasion of east Ukraine, which they are calling an "anti-terrorist" campaign: I don’t think anyone has totaled the casualty count quite yet, but surely it is in the hundreds by now.
And the perpetrators of the violence are mostly supporters of the Kiev coup. Of the actual military personnel sent into restive regions, a good half have gone over to the other side or otherwise dropped out of the fight. The real fighters on behalf of the regime are mobs organized by Right Sector, which has in fact become a semiofficial arm of the Ukrainian "self-defense" forces, kind of like our National Guard. The Rada – the Ukrainian parliament – ratified Right Sector fuehrer Yorash as the deputy chief of the National Security Council by majority vote, but he was vetoed by the executive branch. It wouldn’t have looked good. Yet anyone who doubts Yorash got the job anyway, at least unofficially, has only to look at videos of the confrontations in east Ukraine, and read the reportage coming out of there.
Phase three of Kiev’s terror campaign: attacks by Right Sector in Russia itself. Yes, and you can tell them you read it here first …