Showing posts with label neo-nazism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neo-nazism. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 July 2018

Fascism in the Ukraine

Here's some REAL fascism


Meanwhile in Ukraine….

 

Frank Lee
 
Mandatory Credit: Photo by East News/REX
13 July, 2018

In one of the largest, if not the largest, Neo-Nazi demonstration in Europe since WW2, 20,000 fascists and their supporters marched through the streets of the Ukrainian capital celebrating the birth of Stepan Bandera 01.01.1909 founder and leader of the ultra-nationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) commanded by Roman Shukhevych. This organization which along with the equally collaborationist outfit, the 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division Galicia 1, were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and Russians during the ethnic cleansing which began in Lviv with a pogrom of the city’s Jews a week after the German invasion in 1941, and in the western Ukraine between 1943-45.

Russian state media RT and Sputnik News featuring fascists throwing Nazi salutes and parading in their tens of thousands in a European capital apparently didn’t concern any of the major western news outlets, however, nor the EU for that matter, which is to be expected. Nothing reported on BBC, France24, CNN, New York Times, The Guardian…the silence of the media lambs when it comes to a growing fascist movement in Ukraine is deafening. Although it should be said The Times of Israel did report on 28th April 2018 on this event with the headline: 50 US Congress members call out Ukraine government for glorifying Nazis. Credit where it’s due perhaps.

But for the western MSM in general this reaction to a blatant display of out-and-out fascism is par for the course. It would not be stretching credulity to say that nearly 100% of the MSM reporting on the Ukraine is frankly, ignorant, made-up, fake and mendacious, and this applies particularly to the liberal media; to be even more specific to The Guardian team, of Luhn, Harding and Walker who seem to have made a career of Russophobia and fake news. Their ‘journalism’ of the courtesan in its essence is quite simple: What are my principles? What would you like them to be?

Searching for a more honest and objective appraisal outside of the usual suspects takes some effort and perseverance, but occasionally this yields dividends. One such gold nugget is the recent publication of the book Ukraine in the Crossfire (Clarity Press, Atlanta, 2017) by Chris Kaspar De Ploeg, a Dutch gentleman, freelance journalist and political analyst. The author doesn’t take sides overtly but tries to sift out the facts of the present conflict – a conflict buried under a sea of lies, and insinuations. For example: Whilst remaining critical of Russia and the Donbass rebellion he demonstrates that many of the recent disasters can be traced to the Ukrainian ultranationalists” (neo-Nazis), pro-western political elites” (Poroshenko, Kolomoisky, Tymoshenko) and their European and North-American backers.” (Cover blurb)

Much of the book is devoted to a re-telling of the events leading up to the Maidan coup of February 2014 which brought the present regime to power. All of these events have been extensively covered elsewhere and I don’t want to go over old ground here. But other events and developments which were not apparent at the time – e.g., the unstable relationship between the oligarchs and the neo-Nazis as well as the intra-oligarch struggles for prestige and power, and, perhaps even more importantly, the calamitous economic and social descent of Ukraine into almost third world status; all have been carefully brought to light by the author.
In political terms De Ploeg argues that Ukraine is not a classical neo-Nazi state, but one where the neo-Nazis and the oligarchs rule, if this is the right word, in a forced symbiotic relationship. The oligarchs control the government and state institutions whereas the ultranationalist stormtroopers control the streets.

(This is eerily comparable to Weimar Germany in the 1930s. At that time The Nazi stormtroopers – the SA – were running amok and clamouring for a national socialist revolution. Hitler was soon made to understand that the Junker class which officered the Wehrmacht, Navy, Civil Service as well as the Eastern agrarians were less than enamoured with the SA and its national socialism; they wanted order restored – pronto. Thus, after having been appointed to Chancellor by Hindenburg, Hitler lost no time in appropriating state power, passed the enabling acts, and arranged the disbanding of the SA which was duly enacted during the bloody Night of the Long Knives in 1934. This intra-Nazi coup was carried out by Hitler’s Pretorian Guard, the SS, involving the mass murder of the SA leadership, Ernst Roehm, Gregor and Otto Strasser et al. The SA had done their job and were now dispensable. One should never underestimate the radical opportunism of fascism.)

Historical comparisons aside, it remains an open question as to whether or not Ukraine’s delicate balance of parliamentary, semi-parliamentary and anti-parliamentary forces can continue to co-exist, and for how long. For one thing the armed ultra-nationalist militias – The Tornado Battalion, the Aidar Battalion, The Azov Battalion, Right Sector and Svoboda militias, all volunteers – are more reliable and politically motivated than the regular Ukrainian army and police force and have their own political objectives. This is one problem which confronts the Kiev oligarchy. However, in addition to keeping the ultra-nationalists on a tight lead, Poroshenko and his government also have to deal with the internal intra-oligarch struggles involving other political actors jockeying for position and preferment and seeking their own share of the spoils. Consequently, this unlikely coalition is very brittle and might easily fracture in any future political/military crisis, which means that the ‘government’ has to tread very carefully when trying to assert its authority.

Acceptance of the far-right and other dubious figures has not been universal. The commander of the Tornado Battalion for example was eventually arrested and is now facing prosecution. But such cases are rare and highly selective. In fact, is not clear that the state can control the ultranationalist militias at this point, multiple cases against far-right activists have been dismissed after there organizations threatened the concerned judges in court…there have also been a number of clashes between police including a shoot-out between Right-Sector and law enforcement officers in the west of the country leaving 7 wounded.[1]
The ultra-nationalists, therefore, although a significant force are not necessarily the dominant political power in Ukraine; per contra this does not preclude their considerable presence and influence on the policies of the Kiev Junta. The regime has to a significant degree trimmed its sails to the demands of the ultra-nationalists and allowed them to openly flaunt their guns on the streets; these same ultra-nationalists for their part have to accept that they can’t always have their own way. One of the ploys by the Kiev regime for dealing with the situation has been to assimilate some of the neo-Nazi militias into the regular army and police forces. But being part of the Ukrainian National Guard has not prevented the Azov Regiment threatening the state either.

Making common cause with the ultra-nationalists the Junta coalition has successfully blocked the implementation of the Minsk accords. From the outset the ultra-nationalists made it clear that the war in Donbass was going to go on. Furthermore, and contrary to the conventional wisdom, the regime never had any serious interest in ending the hostilities; rather they were brought to the bargaining table by the heavy defeats of the Ukrainian military during the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo in 2014/2015. Poroshenko was desperate to stop his army disintegrating and his presence in the peace process was merely a gambit to buy time for his battered army, he later admitted as much.

Regarding the war in the Eastern oblasts, De Ploeg makes two subsidiary points: firstly, that this is not an ordinary war but is a war of extermination, (ethnic cleansing if we are being polite), and this is not a view peculiar to the ultra-nationalists, it also permeates the whole of Ukraine west of the Dnieper. 

Secondly, it was also certainly the view of the Junta and is common fare among the educated middle class.

Descriptions of the ethnic Russian minority are endowed with such charming little epithets such as ‘filth’ ‘pests’ or a ‘plague.’ Donbass civilians had become the new Untermensch inhabiting the east and south of the country, which, according to Yulia Tymshenko, our braided heroine, answers: On a question of what to do with the 8 million Russians left inside the Ukraine she says:
They must be killed with nuclear weapons.”
(She later stated that what she said had been taken out of context – naturally!)
To repeat, such views were not the simply held by ultra-nationalists, they have become the received wisdom of the centre-right and right-wing politicians and journalists.
Keith Gessen writing for the London Review of Books that even moderate liberals were anxious to get rid of the Donbass residents who had thwarted their European aspirations for decades with their voting behaviour, he quoted an insightful source thus,”
All the enemies of progress in one place, all the losers and has beens; wouldn’t it be better just to solve the problem once and for all? Wouldn’t it just be a better long-term solution just to kill as many as you could and scare the shit out of the rest of them forever?’’ ‘This is what I heard from respectable people in Kiev. Not from the nationalists, but from liberals, professionals and journalists. All the bad people were in one place, why not just kill them all.’ [2]

No South African type reconciliation here then? Quite simply unabashed, naked genocide comparable with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Wow! With moderates like these who needs fascists!

Within the Ukrainian body politic the complete acceptance of ultra-nationalist ideas and personnel within the mainstream institutions has become a test of loyalty to the regime. There is a roll call of ultra-nationalists in Parliament, and in state institutions, as well as in the militias. The most prominent being such as Andriy Parubiy. Mr. Parubiy, MP now the speaker in the Ukrainian Parliament, has a biography littered with overt activity as one of the leading figures at the nexus of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist and outright neo-Nazi movements. Then comes Andriy Yevhenovych Biletsky MP, Lieutenant Colonel of police, former political prisoner and university instructor. He is a co-founder and former leader of the multi-organizational ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi movement “Social-National Assembly”.

The head of the Patriots of Ukraine group, whose statements could easily be mistaken for the rabid polemics of Nazis during WWII: Founder of the Azov Battalion:
Our National body should start with a racial cleansing of the Nation […] a healthy racial body will revive […] culture, language and everything else.”
We must pay attention to the question of the value of race. Ukrainians are a part (and one of the largest and the highest in quality) of the European White Race.”
The historical mission […] is to head and lead the White Peoples of the whole world in the last crusade for their existence. A crusade against Semite-led sub-humanity.”
This could have been straight out of Mein Kampf.

Turning to the economic and social ramifications of the 2014 coup it will be observed that the full weight of the neo-liberal economic policies has been foisted on the Ukraine, courtesy of the IMF. This was already apparent in the early 80s but the trend accelerated after the coup. The standard IMF/WTO Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) a package of ‘reforms’ and ‘fiscal consolidation’ (I just love these IMF euphemisms) consisted of cuts in government expenditure, accompanied by extensive liberalisation of product and labour markets, together with abandonment of exchange rate control and capital flows. These policies along with political instability have had, among other things, a disastrous effect on population growth. Ukraine’s population was 52 million in 1992 and the decline started in that year. By 2016, this figure had fallen to 42.5 million, its 1960 figure, and was accelerated since the coup of 2014. The current Fertility rate stands at 1.3. Any figure less than 2 will mean a shrinking population. The death rate has also increased, along with mass migration with some 2 million Ukrainian guest workers decamping to Russia and Poland in search of work. This is a slow-motion demographic calamity.

Although a certain Mr Anatoly Karlin writing in the Unz Review has a rather different, rose-tinted view of the Ukrainian economic recovery, the bald fact is that none of the indicators carry any hope of a long-term revival. The fact of economic disaster as measured in various statistics is, however, unmistakable: Debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed steadily to 85%, per capita income languishes at US$2,200 (compared to El Salvador US$4,200). Unemployment stands at (officially at least) 10%, and in terms of external trade the current account has not been positive since 2003, those glorious days which gave rise to the ‘Orange revolution’. Finally, there are the rating agencies who provide the following ratings for Ukraine’s sovereign bonds– S&P, B-minus, Moody’s, Caa, and Fitch, B-minus, which means below investment grade if we are being polite, junk bonds if we are not.[3] The currency – the hryvnia, exchange rate against the British pound is £1 = 35, hyrvinia. When I was last in Ukraine (2012) you would get only between 8 and 12 hyrvnia for a £. Welcome to the Sunflower Republic.

All of this in spite of the IMF’s loan and its unilateral debt forgiveness of the Ukraine’s outstanding debt to Russia which had become due. In doing this the IMF infringed its own constitution. As Michael Hudson explains:
The IMF broke four of its rules by lending to Ukraine:(i) Not to lend to a country that has no visible means to pay back the loan (the “No More Argentinas” rule, adopted after the IMF’s disastrous 2001 loan to that country).(ii) Not to lend to a country that repudiates its debt to official creditors (the rule originally intended to enforce payment to U.S.-based institutions).(iii) Not to lend to a country at war – and indeed, destroying its export capacity and hence its balance-of-payments ability to pay back the loan.
Finally 
(iv), not to lend to a country unlikely to impose the IMF’s austerity “conditionalities.” Ukraine did agree to override democratic opposition and cut back pensions, but its junta proved too unstable to impose the austerity terms on which the IMF insisted.

This was obviously a political decision made by an organization which is supposed to be politically neutral.

The monumental stupidity of a nation which subordinates economic common-sense to anti-Russian gestures and rhetorical bluster was visibly illustrated in the trade deal involving the import of European gas and South African coal to the exclusion of Russian gas and Donbass coal.
In both cases, however, Ukraine was simply buying the same goods from Donbass and Russia but resold at a significantly higher price by South Africa and Europe simply acting as middle-men at a huge cost to the Ukrainian tax-payer. [4]

All of which illustrates the intractable political and economic debacle unfolding and goes some way to explaining the present impasse of a backward movement into under-development. Ukraine is becoming deindustrialised – not unlike the fate of many post-soviet nations – its trade with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan severed. This was formerly a very large and important export-import market, imports consisting of energy commodities coming from the EEU, and exports to the EEU consisting of Ukraine’s advanced industries in the east situated in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhaporizyha and Nikolayev oblasts. These exports consisting of machinery, equipment, aircraft, vessels, nuclear reactors and boilers, railway, tramway rolling stocks and inorganic chemicals.
The machinery industry alone had an annual revenue of nearly US$20 billion and is responsible for employing 600,000 people in the southern and eastern oblasts. Not only would trade disruptions in the EEU devastate the southern and eastern economies, they would also lead to the deindustrialisation of the Ukraine, and this process has already started.” [5]

Apart from Moldova, Ukraine is now the poorest country in Europe. And once the process of deindustrialisation starts, charting a way back will be very difficult, even with the best will in the world and with the necessary manpower, skills and expertise to carry out such a transformation. Moreover, this imbecility is compounded by military expenditures including the costs of an army of 250,000 that is doing nothing other than getting drunk and occasionally shelling towns and villages – against International Law it might be added – on the front line in the Donbass. Ukraine’s defence expenditure stands at 3.7% of GDP compared with NATO’s 2% and most NATO countries don’t even reach 2%. For the pen-ultimate poorest country in Europe this is frankly bizarre. If you wanted to run a country and its economy into the ground this is the way to do it.

De Ploeg does not spare the EU which has a great deal to answer for this situation. In making promises which it had no intention of keeping Brussels, particularly in the shape the Eastern Partnership – brainchild of the unprepossessing Swedish/Polish neo-con axis of Carl Bildt and Radislow Sikorski – has served basically as an instrument of EU/US foreign policy aimed at detaching ex-soviet republics from Russia’s borders to weaken Russia. This along more directly with the US involvement as exemplified by the antics of Nuland and Pyatt, together with CIA-front outfits such as the National Endowment for Democracy, lavishly equipped with a mandate to wrest Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence. But there was never going to be a full economic integration of Ukraine into the EU, because, apart from sunflower seeds, Ukraine has little to offer Europe in return; and it has also been subject to import penetration by EU products to the extent that it runs what has become a permanent deficit on current account. What export industry existed in the Ukraine prior to the coup was fatally damaged by the 2014 split. According to the Vienna Institute of International Studies,
Rather than austerity Ukraine will need a huge ‘Marshall Plan’ to reconfigure Ukraine’s economic composition, requiring massive investment if it is to replace its post-Soviet industry – which seems especially now that the industry heartlands of the Donbass have been severed from the Ukraine. Currently, however, it seems that such financing would only come in the form of loans with conditions attached, which ensures a lack of investment for modern industries and rather optimize the continued export of unprocessed Ukrainian resources.”[6]

Unsurprisingly no-one is rushing to pick up the tab for this new ‘Marshall Plan’ Certainly not the EU, and even less so the Americans, who simply wanted yet another east European state (qua protectorate) to serve as a military base aimed at confronting Russia. It seems generally agreed that the current financial aid on offer will be totally insufficient for the massive reconstruction costs of Ukraine, and moreover, there will be additional ‘strings’ or ‘conditionalities’ in IMF-speak attached. This would almost certainly incur long-term debt peonage for Ukraine. So, this option would seem to be ruled out. However, such monies which have been forthcoming through loans to the Kiev regime, both private and public, have been sufficient to keep the war going and the regime afloat.
Therefore, these institutions are essentially financing a proxy war with Russia as well as severing Ukraine economically from its neighbour.”[7]
Ukraine also carries a great deal of political/ideological baggage considered to be incommensurate with the EUs putative democratic values. Those neo-Nazi torch-lit processions in Kiev – pure 1930s Nazi pastiche, redolent and worthy of Leni Riefenstahl – are a little difficult to square with the EUs professed liberal-democratic idealism.

In the final sections of the book the author moves on to discuss the broader geopolitical aspects and the degree which they impinged on the Ukrainian imbroglio. The coup itself was a long time in the making, and in a sense was a continuation of the Yuschenko/Tymoshenko Orange revolution of 2004 which soon became unpopular with its electorate. The collapse in living standards led to public resentment against reform and the beneficiaries of privati- sation. National opinion polls conducted in 2005, after the Orange evolution, revealed widespread social and political disillusionment: only 23 per cent of the population believed that they had the ‘ability to live under the new social conditions’, 51 per cent felt that their health care was ‘insufficient’ and 44 per cent were absolutely or somewhat dissatisfied with life in general. The Orange ‘revolution’ was to fizzle out in an acrimonious spat between Yuschenko and Tymoshenko; but this was just the trial run. From this point on Yanukovych, elected President in 2010 and his government, a coalition of the Party of the Regions and the Communists became the target of a colour revolution.

Nobody should be in any doubt about both the overt and covert role played by both US and EU officials in the formation of the future interim government. Throughout this period EU and high-ranking US officials openly engaged in Ukraine’s internal affairs. The US Ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland (wife of neo-con theorist Robert Kagan) were, during the disturbances, strolling around Independence square reassuring the protestors that America stood behind them. This action could never have taken place without being sanctioned at the highest level. Nuland was to later give a talk at the Washington Press Club in which she mentioned the 5 billion US$s funded by the various US/EU organizations and affiliates. Presumably five billion dollars is the going rate for colour revolutions, please apply to G. Soros, the Open Society.com. Bitcoin will be accepted. Moreover, CIA front organizations including the aforementioned National Endowment for Democracy, as well as USAID, and Human Rights Watch, were deeply involved in this process.

Somebody (I don’t know who) once said ‘Wars are a racket’. De Ploeg mentions this in a cursory reference. The bald fact is that the whole episode was in macro terms the expansion and enlargement of EU/NATO to the east and the military/political encirclement of Russia. The operation in Ukraine was engineered to move it out of its geo-strategic position and at the same time to embed it firmly into the EU-NATO bloc; this was part of this larger US grand strategy. It is still very much a Work in Progress, however, but things haven’t turned out in quite the way as the architects of the original plan envisaged.

EU status beyond the Association Agreement was never on the cards for the foreseeable future, but a possible de facto NATO membership is a possibility. The US Assistant Secretary of Defense for National Security Affairs, Elissa Slotkin, stated that the Ukrainian Army will be interoperable with NATO forces by 2020.’ [8]

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. US geopolitical strategy is predicated upon a hegemonic project to establish a system of dominance over the entire world. This desired outcome was nothing if not ambitious and is a common feature of all historically crackpot utopian schemes. This explains the US’s concurrent wars in the middle-east, the South China Sea, and in Europe – EUROCOM – with Ukraine as the spearhead. The object was initially to occupy western Europe through NATO and the EU, then spread this to eastern Europe, resulting in a de facto occupation and vassalisation of the European continent.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was supposed to end this east-west military confrontation. Surprisingly Gorbachov fell for this superficial patter and involuntarily gave the green light for the US and its allies to carry out their expansionist plans; the EU/NATO monolith was set in motion. The Warsaw Pact was disbanded but NATO grew bigger and moved eastwards. An excuse was needed to explain this apparent contradiction. It came with the Ukrainian crisis and the corollary of supposed ‘Russian aggression’.
the war in Ukraine serves to keep the EU in line with the wider US agenda. We have seen since the Ukraine crisis, the existence and expansion the NATO alliance has found new legitimation – which remains a pivotal organization for US influence over the EU … In addition, Germany and France have allowed NATO to deploy troops in the Baltic states and to continue EU membership invitations to post-soviet countries.”
The comment has been made that NATO’s continued existence serves to solve the problems it created [9]. When we look at the big picture everything drops into place. The Uni-polar moment hasn’t yet passed into history, but it is passing. A multi-front, multi-theatre war against a huge bloc of countries straddling Eurasia is becoming impossible, and as a matter of fact it always was. Internal, possibly intractable problems within the EU and USA are weakening both the capability and will of the empire to pursue what should now be considered a utopian aim. In his own stupid way, Trump, realises this, because he is not ideological. His opponents – the war party coalition, of Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, the entire media, both houses of Congress, the Neo-Cons ensconced if their various think-tanks, and institutions, the Democrat and Republican parties, clearly are solidly against any detente and will fight any movement towards it, however minimal.

So, this is where we are at the present time. Ukraine has become the catspaw in a wider struggle involving outside actors and in the short run is condemned to inexorable decline – according to the Bloomberg misery index Ukraine comes 7th on the list of miserable countries – and in the longer run to a possible break-up. Ukraine isn’t collapsing, it has simply collapsed – collapsed into a long-term economic depression (An economic depression is usually defined as a severe downturn followed by a weak recovery then a long period of sub-optimal growth) but Ukraine’s depression is also both cultural, social, economic and political. It is not merely the most concentrated areas of the Russian-speaking east – the Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk – where secession has become a virtual fait accompli, and large areas of these latter two oblasts are subject to a virtual occupation by the Ukrainian Army, and viewed as much, but there are also areas of the east – Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhe and Nikolayev, which whilst they did not secede are not the most enthusiastic supporters of the Kiev regime. 

Additionally, Hungarian and Romanian national minorities in Transcarpathia and Bessarabia may well become restive – of which there are signs already – given the majority monist view, from Kiev to Lviv, that Ukraine should have one language, one culture, one identity – a utopian nonsense forming the twisted idealism of Bandera and his latter-day followers. Such an undertaking was bound to fail in such a multi-cultural and multi-linguistic environment.

In the words of Edmund Burke:
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.”[10]

NOTES:
  • [1] The German publication Der Spiegel reported on the Tornado Battalion ‘’who had prisoners tutored by means of an object similar to a power generator. The prisoners were held in a basement, stripped naked, place on a concrete wall and doused with water. They were touched with live wires, such as at the temple, genitals and testicles … According to a statement of a former prisoner, ‘prisoners were force under the threat of death to rape another prisoner.’’ (Hahn, G.M. – 05 October 2015 – America’s Ukraine Policy and Maidan Ukraine’s War Crimes. http:/gordonhahn.com/2015/08/05/america’s-ukraine-policy-and-maidan-ukraine’s-war-crimes/#_finref3
  • [2] Gessen, K: Why not kill them all?
  • [4] G. Landesmann, and L.Podkaminer (2015) How to stabilise the Economy of the Ukraine – wiiw and United Europe, April, p.33
  • [6] Landesmann and Podkaminer, Ibid p20)
  • [7] De Ploeg – (ibid.p.111)
  • [8] De Ploeg –US to provide aid to Ukrainian armed forces to ensure NATO interoperability (06-11-2015) http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/302007.htm1
  • [9] See Richard Sakwa – Frontline Ukraine – passim. And before him by J.A.Schumpeter: He contended that in ancient Egypt ‘a class of professional soldiers’ formed in a war against a foreign tribe ‘the Hyksos’ persisted even when those wars were over. This military caste ‘created by wars that required it, now the organization created the wars it required.’ A pithy summary of NATO and the MIC perhaps.
  • [10] Edmund Burke – Reflections on the Revolution in France.


UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story. Full Documentary by Oliver Stone (Original English version)




UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story. Full Documentary by Oliver Stone (Original English version) from Robin Westenra on Vimeo.

Sunday, 29 June 2014

Neo-nazis in Moscow

What Russian fascists want for Russia

From a Russian friend - 

I enclose the video,which very graphically confirms my firm view that the "opposition" wants to turn Moscow into another Kiev and ultimately to another Damascus. They are trying every trick in the book. This is first swallow.
The banner reads: "Death to the Kremlin occupants."

So Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) is the only alternative indeed”.

And from the Saker


"Russia is barely standing up, still shaking and in many ways confused, but already it is resisting the capitalist rot which is corroding the western civilization and Russia is already (correctly) perceived as a threat by the western plutocracy....."

The following video was posted by a person or group called "yaebut", which, I imagine is a variation on the Russian word for "f...k".

The following one comments which I took from the page illustrates the sentiments of these monsters who want to bring to Russia the same as what the Right Sector brought to Kiev


yaebut 

ИУДА ПУТИН ВРАГ!!! Народ, когда вы выйдите на площадь, этот плешивый ублюдочный выродок отдаст своим снайперам стрелять в людей!!! Будьте готовы к этому, ВООРУЖАЙТЕСЬ ,он будет стрелять в вас!!! Но вы должны быть сильнее!!! Пора режиму путина выпустить кишки!!!

JUDAS PUTIN ENEMY!!! People, when you enter the square, this bald bastard geek give his snipers to shoot at people!!! Be ready for it, ARM ,he will shoot you!!! But you have to be stronger!!! It is time for the Putin regime to release his guts!!!

Monday, 19 May 2014

Analysis

The Ukraine in Turmoil 

by Israel Shamir 


18 May, 2014



It is not much fun to be in Kiev these days. The revolutionary excitement is over, and hopes for new faces, the end of corruption and economic improvement have withered. The Maidan street revolt and the subsequent coup just reshuffled the same marked deck of cards, forever rotating in power. 



The new acting President has been an acting prime minister, and a KGB (called “SBU” in Ukrainian) supremo. The new acting prime minister has been a foreign minister. The oligarch most likely to be “elected” President in a few days has been a foreign minister, the head of the state bank, and personal treasurer of two coups, in 2004 (installing Yushchenko) and in 2014 (installing himself). His main competitor, Mme Timoshenko, served as a prime minister for years, until electoral defeat in 2010. 



These people had brought Ukraine to its present abject state. In 1991, the Ukraine was richer than Russia, today it is three times poorer because of these people’s mismanagement and theft. Now they plan an old trick: to take loans in Ukraine’s name, pocket the cash and leave the country indebted. They sell state assets to Western companies and ask for NATO to come in and protect the investment. 



They play a hard game, brass knuckles and all. The Black Guard, a new SS-like armed force of the neo-nazi Right Sector, prowls the land. They arrest or kill dissidents, activists, journalists. Hundreds of American soldiers, belonging to the “private” company Academi (formerly Blackwater) are spread out in Novorossia, the pro-Russian provinces in the East and South-East. IMF–dictated reforms slashed pensions by half and doubled the housing rents. In the market, US Army rations took the place of local food. 



The new Kiev regime had dropped the last pretence of democracy by expelling the Communists from the parliament. This should endear them to the US even more. Expel Communists, apply for NATO, condemn Russia, arrange a gay parade and you may do anything at all, even fry dozens of citizens alive. And so they did. 



The harshest repressions were unleashed on industrial Novorossia, as its working class loathes the whole lot of oligarchs and ultra-nationalists. After the blazing inferno of Odessa and a wanton shooting on the streets of Melitopol the two rebellious provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms and declared their independence from the Kiev regime. They came under fire, but did not surrender. The other six Russian-speaking industrial provinces of Novorossia were quickly cowed. Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa were terrorised by personal army of Mr Kolomoysky; Kharkov was misled by its tricky governor. Russia did not interfere and did not support the rebellion, to the great distress of Russian nationalists in Ukraine and Russia who mutter about “betrayal”. So much for the warlike rhetoric of McCain and Brzezinski. 


Putin’s respect for others’ sovereignty is exasperating. I understand this sounds like a joke, -- you hear so much about Putin as a “new Hitler”. As a matter of fact, Putin had legal training before joining the Secret Service. He is a stickler for international law. His Russia has interfered with other states much less than France or England, let alone the US. I asked his senior adviser, Mr Alexei Pushkov, why Russia did not try to influence Ukrainian minds while Kiev buzzed with American and European officials. “We think it is wrong to interfere”, he replied like a good Sunday schoolboy. It is rather likely Putin’s advisors misjudged public sentiment. « The majority of Novorossia's population does not like the new Kiev regime, but being politically passive and conservative, will submit to its rule”, they estimated. “The rebels are a small bunch of firebrands without mass support, and they can’t be relied upon”, was their view. Accordingly, Putin advised the rebels to postpone the referendum indefinitely, a polite way of saying “drop it”. 



They disregarded his request with considerable sang froid and convincingly voted en masse for secession from a collapsing Ukraine. The turnout was much higher than expected, the support for the move near total. As I was told by a Kremlin insider, this development was not foreseen by Putin’s advisers. 



Perhaps the advisors had read it right, but three developments had changed the voters’ minds and had sent this placid people to the barricades and the voting booths: 



1. The first one was the fiery holocaust of Odessa, where the peaceful and carelessly unarmed demonstrating workers were suddenly attacked by regime’s thugs (the Ukrainian equivalent of Mubarak’s shabab) and corralled into the Trade Unions Headquarters. The building was set on fire, and the far-right pro-regime Black Guard positioned snipers to efficiently pick off would-be escapees. Some fifty, mainly elderly, Russian-speaking workers were burned alive or shot as they rushed for the windows and the doors. This dreadful event was turned into an occasion of merriment and joy by Ukrainian nationalists who referred to their slain compatriots as “fried beetles”. (It is being said that this auto-da-fé was organised by the shock troops of Jewish oligarch and strongman Kolomoysky, who coveted the port of Odessa. Despite his cuddly bear appearance, he is pugnacious and violent person, who offered ten thousand dollars for a captive Russian, dead or alive, and proposed a cool million dollars for the head of Mr Tsarev, a Member of Parliament from Donetsk.) 



2. The second was the Mariupol attack on May 9, 2014. This day is commemorated as V-day in Russia and Ukraine (while the West celebrates it on May 8). The Kiev regime forbade all V-day celebrations. In Mariupol, the Black Guard attacked the peaceful and weaponless town, burning down the police headquarters and killing local policemen who had refused to suppress the festive march. Afterwards, Black Guard thugs unleashed armoured vehicles on the streets, killing citizens and destroying property. 

The West did not voice any protest; Nuland and Merkel weren’t horrified by this mass murder, as they were by Yanukovich’s timid attempts to control crowds. The people of these two provinces felt abandoned; they understood that nobody was going to protect and save them but themselves, and went off to vote. 



3. The third development was, bizarrely, the Eurovision jury choice of Austrian transvestite Conchita Wurst for a winner of its song contest. The sound-minded Novorossians decided they want no part of such a Europe. 



Actually, the people of Europe do not want it either: it transpired that the majority of British viewers preferred a Polish duo, Donatan & Cleo, with its We Are Slavic. Donatan is half Russian, and has courted controversy in the past extolling the virtues of pan-Slavism and the achievements of the Red Army, says the Independent. The politically correct judges of the jury preferred to “celebrate tolerance”, the dominant paradigm imposed upon Europe. This is the second transvestite to win this very political contest; the first one was Israeli singer Dana International. Such obsession with re-gendering did not go down well with Russians and/or Ukrainians. 



The Russians have readjusted their sights, but they do not intend to bring their troops into the two rebel republics, unless dramatic developments should force them. 






Russian plans 

Imagine: you are dressed up for a night on Broadway, but your neighbours are involved in a vicious quarrel, and you have to gun up and deal with the trouble instead of enjoying a show, and a dinner, and perhaps a date. This was Putin’s position regarding the Ukrainian turmoil. 



A few months ago, Russia had made a huge effort to become, and to be seen as, a very civilised European state of the first magnitude. This was the message of the Sochi Olympic games: to re-brand, even re-invent Russia, just as Peter the Great once had, as part of the First World; an amazing country of strong European tradition, of Leo Tolstoy and Malevich, of Tchaikovsky and Diaghilev, the land of arts, of daring social reform, of technical achievements, of modernity and beyond -- the Russia of Natasha Rostova riding a Sikorsky ‘copter. Putin spent $60 b to broadcast this image. 



The old fox Henry Kissinger wisely said: 



Putin spent $60 billion on the Olympics. They had opening and closing ceremonies, trying to show Russia as a normal progressive state. So it isn't possible that he, three days later, would voluntarily start an assault on Ukraine. There is no doubt that… at all times he wanted Ukraine in a subordinate position. And at all times, every senior Russian that I've ever met, including dissidents like Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky, looked at Ukraine as part of the Russian heritage. But I don't think he had planned to bring it to a head now. 



However, Washington hawks decided to do whatever it takes to keep Russia out in the cold. They were afraid of this image of “a normal progressive state” as such Russia would render NATO irrelevant and undermine European dependence on the US. They were adamant about retaining their hegemony, shattered as it was by the Syrian confrontation. They attacked Russian positions in the Ukraine and arranged a violent coup, installing a viciously anti-Russian regime supported by football fans and neo-Nazis, paid for by Jewish oligarchs and American taxpayers. The victors banned the Russian language and prepared to void treaties with Russia regarding its Crimean naval base at Sebastopol on the Black Sea. This base was to become a great new NATO base, controlling the Black Sea and threatening Russia. 



Putin had to deal quickly and so he did, by accepting the Crimean people’s request to join Russian Federation. 

This dealt with the immediate problem of the base, but the problem of Ukraine remained. 

The Ukraine is not a foreign entity to Russians, it is the western half of Russia. It was artificially separated from the rest in 1991, at the collapse of the USSR. The people of the two parts are interconnected by family, culture and blood ties; their economies are intricately connected. While a separate viable Ukrainian state is a possibility, an “independent” Ukrainian state hostile to Russia is not viable and can’t be tolerated by any Russian ruler. And this for military as well as for cultural reasons: if Hitler had begun the war against Russia from its present border, he would have taken Stalingrad in two days and would have destroyed Russia in a week. 
 

A more pro-active Russian ruler would have sent troops to Kiev a long time ago. Thus did Czar Alexis when the Poles, Cossacks and Tatars argued for it in 17th century. So also did Czar Peter the Great, when the Swedes occupied it in the 18th century. So did Lenin, when the Germans set up the Protectorate of Ukraine (he called its establishment “the obscene peace”). So did Stalin, when the Germans occupied the Ukraine in 1941. 

Putin still hopes to settle the problem by peaceful means, relying upon the popular support of the Ukrainian people. Actually, before the Crimean takeover, the majority of Ukrainians (and near all Novorossians) overwhelmingly supported some sort of union with Russia. Otherwise, the Kiev coup would not have been necessary. The forced Crimean takeover seriously undermined Russian appeal. The people of Ukraine did not like it. This was foreseen by the Kremlin, but they had to accept Crimea for a few reasons. Firstly, a loss of Sevastopol naval base to NATO was a too horrible of an alternative to contemplate. Secondly, the Russian people would not understand if Putin were to refuse the suit of the Crimeans. 



The Washington hawks still hope to force Putin to intervene militarily, as it would give them the opportunity to isolate Russia, turn it into a monster pariah state, beef up defence spending and set Europe and Russia against each other. They do not care about Ukraine and Ukrainians, but use them as pretext to attain geopolitical goals. 



The Europeans would like to fleece Ukraine; to import its men as “illegal” workers and its women as prostitutes, to strip assets, to colonise. They did it with Moldova, a little sister of Ukraine, the most miserable ex-Soviet Republic. As for Russia, the EU would not mind taking it down a notch, so they would not act so grandly. But the EU is not fervent about it. Hence, the difference in attitudes. 



Putin would prefer to continue with his modernisation of Russia. The country needs it badly. The infrastructure lags twenty or thirty years behind the West. Tired by this backwardness, young Russians often prefer to move to the West, and this brain drain causes much damage to Russia while enriching the West. 

Even Google is a result of this brain drain, for Sergey Brin is a Russian immigrant as well. So are hundreds of thousands of Russian scientists and artists manning every Western lab, theatre and orchestra. Political liberalisation is not enough: the young people want good roads, good schools and a quality of life comparable to the West. This is what Putin intends to deliver. 



He is doing a fine job of it. Moscow now has free bikes and Wi-Fi in the parks like every Western European city. Trains have been upgraded. Hundreds of thousands of apartments are being built, even more than during the Soviet era. 

Salaries and pensions have increased seven-to-tenfold in the past decade. Russia is still shabby, but it is on the right track. Putin wants to continue this modernisation. 

As for the Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, Putin would prefer they retain their independence, be friendly and work at a leisurely pace towards integration a la the European Union. He does not dream of a new empire. He would reject such a proposal, as it would delay his modernisation plans. 



If the beastly neocons would not have forced his hand by expelling the legitimate president of Ukraine and installing their puppets, the world might have enjoyed a long spell of peace. But then the western military alliance under the US leadership would fall into abeyance, US military industries would lose out, and US hegemony would evaporate. Peace is not good for the US military and hegemony-creating media machine. So dreams of peace in our lifetime are likely to remain just dreams. 




What will Putin do?  

Putin will try to avoid sending in troops as long as possible. He will have to protect the two splinter provinces, but this can be done with remote support, the way the US supports the rebels in Syria, without ‘boots on the ground’. Unless serious bloodshed on a large scale should occur, Russian troops will just stand by, staring down the Black Guard and other pro-regime forces. 



Putin will try to find an arrangement with the West for sharing authority, influence and economic involvement in the failed state. This can be done through federalisation, or by means of coalition government, or even partition. The Russian-speaking provinces of Novorossia are those of Kharkov (industry), Nikolayev (ship-building), Odessa (harbour), Donetsk and Lugansk (mines and industry), Dnepropetrovsk (missiles and high-tech), Zaporozhe (steel), Kherson (water for Crimea and ship-building), all of them established, built and populated by Russians. They could secede from Ukraine and form an independent Novorossia, a mid-sized state, but still bigger than some neighbouring states. This state could join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and/or the Customs Union led by Russia. The rump Ukraine could manage as it sees fit until it decides whether or not to join its Slavic sisters in the East. Such a set up would produce two rather cohesive and homogeneous states. 



Another possibility (much less likely at this moment) is a three-way division of the failed Ukraine: Novorossia, Ukraine proper, and Galicia&Volyn. In such a case, Novorossia would be strongly pro-Russian, Ukraine would be neutral, and Galicia strongly pro-Western. 



The EU could accept this, but the US probably would not agree to any power-sharing in the Ukraine. In the ensuing tug-of-war, one of two winners will emerge. If Europe and the US drift apart, Russia wins. If Russia accepts a pro-Western positioning of practically all of Ukraine, the US wins. The tug-of-war could snap and cause all-out war, with many participants and a possible use of nuclear weapons. This is a game of chicken; the one with stronger nerves and less imagination will remain on the track. 



Pro and Contra 


It is too early to predict who will win in the forthcoming confrontation. For the Russian president, it is extremely tempting to take all of Ukraine or at least Novorossia, but it is not an easy task, and one likely to cause much hostility from the Western powers. 



With Ukraine incorporated, Russian recovery from 1991 would be completed, its strength doubled, its security ensured and a grave danger removed. Russia would become great again. People would venerate Putin as Gatherer of Russian Lands. 



However, Russian efforts to appear as a modern peaceful progressive state would have been wasted; it would be seen as an aggressor and expelled from international bodies. Sanctions will bite; high tech imports may be banned, as in the Soviet days. The Russian elites are reluctant to jeopardise their good life. The Russian military just recently began its modernisation and is not keen to fight yet, perhaps not for another ten years. But if they feel cornered, if NATO moves into Eastern Ukraine, they will fight all the same. 



Some Russian politicians and observers believe that Ukraine is a basket case; its problems would be too expensive to fix. This assessment has a ‘sour grapes’ aftertaste, but it is widespread. An interesting new voice on the web, The Saker, promotes this view. “Let the EU and the US provide for the Ukrainians, they will come back to Mother Russia when hungry”, he says. The problem is, they will not be allowed to reconsider. The junta did not seize power violently in order to lose it at the ballot box. 



Besides, Ukraine is not in such bad shape as some people claim. Yes, it would cost trillions to turn it into a Germany or France, but that's not necessary. Ukraine can reach the Russian level of development very quickly –- in union with Russia. Under the EC-IMF-NATO, Ukraine will become a basket case, if it's not already. The same is true for all East European ex-Soviet states: they can modestly prosper with Russia, as Belarus and Finland do, or suffer depopulation, unemployment, poverty with Europe and NATO and against Russia, vide Latvia, Hungary, Moldova, Georgia. It is in Ukrainian interests to join Russia in some framework; Ukrainians understand that; for this reason they will not be allowed to have democratic elections. 



Simmering Novorossia has a potential to change the game. If Russian troops don't come in, Novorossian rebels may beat off the Kiev offensive and embark on a counter-offensive to regain the whole of the country, despite Putin’s pacifying entreaties. Then, in a full-blown civil war, the Ukraine will hammer out its destiny. 




On a personal level, Putin faces a hard choice. Russian nationalists will not forgive him if he surrenders Ukraine without a fight. The US and EU threaten the very life of the Russian president, as their sanctions are hurting Putin’s close associates, encouraging them to get rid of or even assassinate the President and improve their relations with the mighty West. War may come at any time, as it came twice during the last century – though Russia tried to avoid it both times. Putin wants to postpone it, at the very least, but not at any price. 



His is not an easy choice. As Russia procrastinates, as the US doubles the risks, the world draws nearer to the nuclear abyss. Who will chicken out?