Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #1008 Alfa Males, Part 5: Lee Harvey Manafort, The Russia-Gate Psy-Op, and the Underground Reich (Habsburg Redux, Part 2)

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained HERE. The new dri­ve is a 32-giga­byte dri­ve that is cur­rent as of the pro­grams and arti­cles post­ed by the fall of 2017. The new dri­ve (avail­able for a tax-deductible con­tri­bu­tion of $65.00 or more.)

WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

You can sub­scribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.

You can sub­scribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.

You can sub­scribe to the com­ments made on pro­grams and posts–an excel­lent source of infor­ma­tion in, and of, itself HERE.

This broad­cast was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment

Intro­duc­tion: The title of the pro­gram ref­er­ences for­mer Trump cam­paign man­ag­er and for­mer Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovich’s advi­sor Paul Man­afort as “Lee Har­vey Man­afort.”

Far from being a “Russian/Putin/Kremlin agent,” Paul Man­afort is a U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cer, who was charged with the task of teas­ing Ukraine from the Russ­ian into the West­ern orbit. Heed­ing polls that found Ukraine’s cit­i­zens to oppose the coun­try’s inclu­sion into NATO and mid­wiv­ing a report that exon­er­at­ed then Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovich of crim­i­nal excess in the jail­ing of his pre­de­ces­sor and rival Yulia Tim­o­shenko, Man­afort under­took polit­i­cal activism on behalf of both caus­es in order to effect his goal of West­ern­iz­ing Ukraine.

When the com­bi­na­tion of pop­u­lar dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the aus­ter­i­ty-laden EU asso­ci­a­tion pro­pos­al and Russ­ian pres­sure led to Yanukovy­ch’s can­cel­la­tion of the deep­en­ing of Ukrainian/EU rela­tions, the Euro­maid­an coup sealed the fate of the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment. “Plan B” for the inte­gra­tion of Ukraine into the West­ern camp was the Euro­maid­an coup, which cul­mi­nat­ed in the sniper killings of numer­ous civil­ians. As dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 982 and 993, those sniper attacks may well have been a provo­ca­tion, effect­ed by Ukrain­ian fas­cist and OUN/B suc­ces­sor Andriy Paru­biy chris­tened “The Cap­tain of the Maid­an” and–very possibly–Manafort him­self.

Plan B, for  the maneu­ver­ing of Ukraine into the West­ern camp might be termed “Plan OUN/B.”

Manafort–like Lee Har­vey Oswald and Edwin Wil­son before him–has been “left out in the cold” by his spy­mas­ters, left to take the fall for an oper­a­tion he under­took on their behalf. Hence, our chris­ten­ing of Trump’s for­mer, unfor­tu­nate cam­paign man­ag­er as “Lee Har­vey Man­afort.”

A major fac­tor in the events high­light­ed in our last pro­gram, this broad­cast and the forth­com­ing pro­gram is the Hab­s­burg (also spelled “Haps­burg”) dynasty and relat­ed ele­ments. The Hab­s­burgs are the roy­al fam­i­ly that presided over the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire, which ruled Cen­tral and much of East­ern Europe for 600 years.

In addi­tion to the Hab­s­burg pow­er polit­i­cal forces, our analy­sis focus­es on the tiny, Hab­s­burg-affil­i­at­ed Euro­pean prin­ci­pal­i­ty of Liecht­en­stein. With a pop­u­la­tion of just 32.000, Liecht­en­stein is a ver­ti­cal­ly-inte­grat­ed lean, mean mon­ey-laun­der­ing machine.

Over­lap­ping the Liecht­en­stein con­nec­tion is the Alfa Group–a Russ­ian con­glom­er­ate, the most impor­tant com­po­nent of which is the Alfa Bank.

For pur­pos­es of clar­i­ty, we present syn­op­tic analy­sis of key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis in FTR #‘s 1007 and relat­ed pro­grams.

  1. The Alfa con­glom­er­ate main­tains the Alfa Fel­low­ship pro­gram, a sub­sidiary of the Carl Duis­berg Soci­ety’s new umbrel­la the Cul­tur­al Vis­tas orga­ni­za­tion.
  2. The Carl Duis­berg Soci­ety was the vehi­cle that shep­herd­ed 9/11 hijack­er Mohamed Atta around Ger­many and the U.S.
  3. Alfa sub­sidiary Crown Alfa had deal­ings with com­modi­ties Marc Rich, whose par­don was inves­ti­gat­ed by James Comey.
  4. In FTR #930, we not­ed that anoth­er Alfa asso­ciate Mikhail Frid­man did pur­chase Marc Rich assets.
  5. Also in FTR #930, we not­ed an Alfa Bank serv­er com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the Trump orga­ni­za­tion.
  6. in 2001, Crown Alfa asso­ciate Nor­bert Seeger’s Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty of Liecht­en­stein gave Prince Hans-Adam II of Liecht­en­stein unprece­dent­ed pow­er, mak­ing him, in effect, Europe’s only absolute monarch. Hans-Adam’s new pow­ers gave him con­trol over the courts and judi­cial sys­tem just as the 9/11 attacks and result­ing Oper­a­tion Green Quest inves­ti­ga­tions were mov­ing in the direc­tion of the Licht­en­stein-based Al-Taqwa nexus.
  7. An Al-Taqwa sub­sidiary, the Asat Trust had links to the House of Liechtenstein–the rul­ing fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein.
  8. Robert Mueller helped derail the Oper­a­tion Green Quest inves­ti­ga­tion while serv­ing as head of the FBI.
  9. The House of Liecht­en­stein is a sub­sidiary of the House of Hab­s­burg.

In this pro­gram, we set forth ele­ments over­lap­ping the dynam­ics pre­sent­ed above, includ­ing:

  1. Man­afort’s net­work­ing with the “Hab­s­burg Group” of Euro­pean politi­cians to effect Ukraine’s inte­gra­tion into the EU orbit: ” . . . . . . . . A sec­ond Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ing firm hired by Mr. Man­afort, the Podes­ta Group, also said last year that it had ‘arranged meet­ings and media oppor­tu­ni­ties’ for vis­it­ing Euro­pean lead­ers regard­ing Ukraine, start­ing in 2012, includ­ing for Mr. Gusen­bauer, Mr. Pro­di and two for­mer pres­i­dents, Alek­sander Kwas­niews­ki of Poland and Vik­tor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine. . . . The group of senior for­mer politi­cians, accord­ing to the indict­ment, was infor­mal­ly called the Haps­burg Group, after the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an dynasty, the Hab­s­burgs. . . .”
  2. Lee Har­vey Man­afort and the Hab­s­burg Group enlist­ed Alex van Der Zwaan, son-in-law of Ger­man Khan the (Kiev) Ukraine-born founder of Alfa Bank: ” . . . . Alex van der Zwaan was charged with lying to the FBI about his con­tacts with Rick Gates, who served as a top offi­cial on Pres­i­dent Trump’s cam­paign and a long­time busi­ness part­ner of for­mer cam­paign chair­man Paul Man­afort. Based in Lon­don, van der Zwaan worked for the law firm Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which worked with Man­afort and Gates when they served as polit­i­cal con­sul­tants in Ukraine. Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of Ger­man Khan, a bil­lion­aire and an own­er of Alfa Group, Russia’s largest finan­cial and indus­tri­al invest­ment group. . . . Like the Man­afort and Gates charges, van der Zwaan’s case is root­ed in Ukraine, where Man­afort worked as an inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal con­sul­tant start­ing in 2005. . . .”
  3. Mem­bers of the Hab­s­burg dynasty have been involved in the con­text in which Lee Har­vey Man­afort and the Hab­s­burg Group were oper­at­ing, in order to ease Ukraine into the West­ern, rather than the Russ­ian orbit. ” . . . .The most strik­ing exam­ple of the trend is the appoint­ment this week of Georg von Hab­s­burg, the 32-year-old-grand­son of Emper­or Karl I, to the posi­tion of Hungary’s ambas­sador for Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion. In neigh­bour­ing Aus­tria, the tra­di­tional heart of Hab­s­burg pow­er, Georg’s broth­er, Karl, 35, was recent­ly elect­ed to rep­re­sent the coun­try in the Euro­pean par­lia­ment. In addi­tion to this, he serves as the pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Pan-Euro­pean move­ment. . . . .”
  4. Jump­ing for­ward some 14 years from our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, we see that a Hab­s­burg princess was anoint­ed as Geor­gia’s ambas­sador to Ger­many. Note that [now for­mer] Geor­gian pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili endorsed her. Saakashvili became, for a time, the gov­er­nor of the Ukrain­ian province of Odessa! Note, also, the role of the Hab­s­burgs in the final phase of the Cold War: “. . . . The heirs to the Hab­s­burg emper­ors helped speed the down­fall of the Sovi­et empire, par­tic­u­larly by arrang­ing the cross-bor­der exo­dus from Hun­gary to Aus­tria in the sum­mer of 1989 that punched the first big hole in the iron cur­tain. . . .”
  5. Karl von Hab­s­burg has been active in Ukraine for some years before estab­lish­ing a radio sta­tion. Karl von Hab­s­burg is the head of the UNPO. Note the Ukrain­ian ori­en­ta­tion and influ­ence of Wil­helm von Hab­s­burg, in World War I through the World War II eras, as well as his anti-Sovi­et activism: ” . . . . A mil­i­tary offi­cer by train­ing, Wil­helm sup­ported Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence strug­gle dur­ing World War I. He fought with Ukrain­ian troops against the Rus­sians, and had schemed and cajoled a myr­iad of politi­cians to sup­port his monar­chial aspi­ra­tions. Almost until his death at the hands of the Sovi­ets in 1948 – he was snatched off the streets of Vien­na and trans­ported to a prison in Kyiv for work­ing as an agent against the Sovi­et Union – Wil­helm believed this slice of the family’s empire could be his. . . .”
  6. Fast-for­ward­ing again some five years from our pre­vi­ous two arti­cles and one year after the Euro­Maid­an coup we see that actions speak loud­er than words, and Karl’s new Ukrain­ian radio sta­tion says a lot: “Since 20 Jan­u­ary, a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion [Note this–D.E.] is broad­cast­ing in Ukraine, its main spon­sor, Karl-Hab­s­burg Lothrin­gen, told EurAc­tiv in an exclu­sive inter­view . . . . Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen is an Aus­trian politi­cian and head of the House of Hab­s­burg. Since 1986, he has served as Pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Paneu­ro­pean Union. . . .”
  7. As we not­ed, “Plan B” for Ukraine might be termed “Plan OUN/B.” Otto von Hab­s­burg formed the Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil with Jaroslav Stet­zko, the wartime head of the Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment that imple­ment­ed Third Reich eth­nic cleans­ing pro­grams in Ukraine. The EFC was close­ly aligned with the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations, head­ed by Stet­zko. The ABN, as we have seen in the past, is a re-nam­ing of the Com­mit­tee of Sub­ju­gat­ed Nations, a con­sor­tium of East­ern Euro­pean fas­cist groups formed by Hitler in 1943.. . . . The Haps­burg monar­chy helped guide the lead­er­ship in their for­mer pos­ses­sions. The Free­dom Coun­cil was formed by Otto von Haps­burg and Jaroslav Stet­zko at a con­fer­ence in Munich on June 30-July 2 1967, as a coor­di­nat­ing body for orga­ni­za­tions fight­ing com­mu­nism in Europe. EMP H.R.H. Otto von Haps­burg was hon­orary chair­man of the Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil, based in Munich, dur­ing the 1980s and allied to the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations (ABN). . . .”

An impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion in the con­text of his pro­gram is the career and posi­tion of Roman Zvarych. In addi­tion to being the spokesman for the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion, Zvarych was:

  1. Min­is­ter of Jus­tice under Vik­tor Yuschenko.
  2. Min­is­ter of Jus­tice under both Tymoshenko gov­ern­ments.
  3. An advis­er to Petro Poroshenko.
  4. In the 1980’s, the per­son­al sec­re­tary to Jaroslav Stet­zko, the wartime head of the Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment in Ukraine. Stet­zko imple­ment­ed Nazi eth­nic cleans­ing in Ukraine dur­ing World War II.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

  1. Ukraine’s sus­pen­sion of coop­er­a­tion with the Mueller probe, in order to avoid endan­ger­ing Trump’s arm­ing of Ukraine.
  2. Man­afort and the Hab­s­burg Group’s net­work­ing with Andrei Arte­menko, a Pravy Sek­tor affil­i­ate whose oper­a­tions with Felix Sater and Michael Cohen were described as part of a Russ­ian con­spir­a­cy but were, in fact, part of an anti-Russ­ian con­spir­a­cy. This is dis­cussed at length in FTR #967.
  3. Review of Felix Sater’s intel­li­gence back­ground. Sater is the point man for Trump’s deal­ings with Rus­sia. ” . . . . Sater report­ed back to intel­li­gence agen­cies on the results of coali­tion bomb­ings, kills on the bat­tle­field, the finan­cial net­works behind the 9/11 bombers and oth­er al-Qae­da mem­bers world­wide, and even the iden­ti­ty of a New Mex­i­co com­pa­ny believed to be laun­der­ing ter­ror funds in the US. . . .”

1a. Analy­sis begins with dis­cus­sion of the Hab­s­burg group, a group of Euro­pean politi­cians net­work­ing with Man­afort and Vik­tor Yanukovych in attempt­ing to tease Ukraine into the West­ern camp. Cen­tral to this was the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Yanukovy­ch’s arrest of pre­de­ces­sor Yulia Tim­o­shenko as law­ful and prop­er. (The Tim­o­shenko arrest was seen by the EU and its rep­re­sen­ta­tives as a major obsta­cle to the meld­ing of Yanukovy­ch’s Ukraine to the rest of Europe.)

Man­afort’s net­work­ing with the “Hab­s­burg Group” of Euro­pean politi­cians to effect Ukraine’s inte­gra­tion into the EU orbit: ” . . . . . . . . A sec­ond Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ing firm hired by Mr. Man­afort, the Podes­ta Group, also said last year that it had ‘arranged meet­ings and media oppor­tu­ni­ties’ for vis­it­ing Euro­pean lead­ers regard­ing Ukraine, start­ing in 2012, includ­ing for Mr. Gusen­bauer, Mr. Pro­di and two for­mer pres­i­dents, Alek­sander Kwas­niews­ki of Poland and Vik­tor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine. . . . The group of senior for­mer politi­cians, accord­ing to the indict­ment, was infor­mal­ly called the Haps­burg Group, after the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an dynasty, the Hab­s­burgs. . . .”

“Euro­pean Ex-Offi­cials Deny Being Paid by Man­afort to Lob­by for Ukraine” by Steven Erlanger and Jason Horowitz; The New York Times; 02/24/2018

For­mer Euro­pean lead­ers who tried to bring Ukraine clos­er to Europe before a 2014 upris­ing there react­ed with shock on Sat­ur­day after a fed­er­al indict­ment accused Paul Man­afort, Pres­i­dent Trump’s for­mer cam­paign chair­man,of secret­ly pay­ing for­mer Euro­pean offi­cials some two mil­lion euros in 2012 and 2013 to lob­by on the country’s behalf.

Ukraine at the time was led by Vik­tor F. Yanukovych, who first agreed to clos­er ties to Europe and then reneged under Russ­ian pres­sure and was top­pled in the upris­ing. . . .

. . . . A sec­ond Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ing firm hired by Mr. Man­afort, the Podes­ta Group, also said last year that it had “arranged meet­ings and media oppor­tu­ni­ties” for vis­it­ing Euro­pean lead­ers regard­ing Ukraine, start­ing in 2012, includ­ing for Mr. Gusen­bauer, Mr. Pro­di and two for­mer pres­i­dents, Alek­sander Kwas­niews­ki of Poland and Vik­tor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine.

Mr. Man­afort did not inform the Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ists with whom they worked that the Euro­pean politi­cians were being paid for their efforts, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the work done by the two firms, who said the lob­by­ists had pre­sent­ed the Euro­pean politi­cians as unbi­ased val­ida­tors of Mr. Yanukovych’s efforts.

The group of senior for­mer politi­cians, accord­ing to the indict­ment, was infor­mal­ly called the Haps­burg Group, after the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an dynasty, the Hab­s­burgs. The plan, accord­ing to the indict­ment, was for the group to “appear to be pro­vid­ing their inde­pen­dent assess­ments of Gov­ern­ment of Ukraine actions, when in fact they were paid lob­by­ists for Ukraine.”. . . .

1b. Lee Har­vey Man­afort and the Hab­s­burg Group enlist­ed Alex van Der Zwaan, son-in-law of Ger­man Khan the (Kiev) Ukraine-born founder of Alfa Bank: ” . . . . Alex van der Zwaan was charged with lying to the FBI about his con­tacts with Rick Gates, who served as a top offi­cial on Pres­i­dent Trump’s cam­paign and a long­time busi­ness part­ner of for­mer cam­paign chair­man Paul Man­afort. Based in Lon­don, van der Zwaan worked for the law firm Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which worked with Man­afort and Gates when they served as polit­i­cal con­sul­tants in Ukraine. Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of Ger­man Khan, a bil­lion­aire and an own­er of Alfa Group, Russia’s largest finan­cial and indus­tri­al invest­ment group. . . . Like the Man­afort and Gates charges, van der Zwaan’s case is root­ed in Ukraine, where Man­afort worked as an inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal con­sul­tant start­ing in 2005. . . .”

“In Mueller probe, son-in-law of Russ­ian busi­ness­man pleads guilty to false state­ments” by Spencer S. Hsu and Ros­alind S. Hel­der­man; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 02/20/2018.

The Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s wealth­i­est men plead­ed guilty Tues­day in fed­er­al court in Wash­ing­ton to mak­ing false state­ments in spe­cial coun­sel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Alex van der Zwaan was charged with lying to the FBI about his con­tacts with Rick Gates, who served as a top offi­cial on Pres­i­dent Trump’s cam­paign and a long­time busi­ness part­ner of for­mer cam­paign chair­man Paul Man­afort.

Based in Lon­don, van der Zwaan worked for the law firm Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which worked with Man­afort and Gates when they served as polit­i­cal con­sul­tants in Ukraine.

Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of Ger­man Khan, a bil­lion­aire and an own­er of Alfa Group, Russia’s largest finan­cial and indus­tri­al invest­ment group. . . .

. . . . Like the Man­afort and Gates charges, van der Zwaan’s case is root­ed in Ukraine, where Man­afort worked as an inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal con­sul­tant start­ing in 2005.

. . . . The sub­ject of the 2016 record­ed phone call, pros­e­cu­tors said, was a 2012 report pre­pared by van der Zwaan’s law firm about the jail­ing of for­mer Ukrain­ian prime min­is­ter Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovych had impris­oned Tymoshenko, a polit­i­cal rival, after a gas sup­ply con­tro­ver­sy in 2009 involv­ing Rus­sia.

The Skad­den report has been con­tro­ver­sial in Ukraine in part because its find­ings seemed to con­tra­dict the inter­na­tion­al community’s con­clu­sion that Tymoshenko had been unjust­ly jailed.

In addi­tion, the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment claimed to have paid only $12,000 for the report, an amount that put it just below the lim­it that would have required com­pet­i­tive bid­ding for the project under Ukrain­ian law.

Pros­e­cu­tors have alleged that Man­afort and Gates used an off­shore account to secret­ly pay $4 mil­lion for the report.

Weiss­mann said Tues­day that Man­afort and Gates hoped to get the Times to cov­er the report before its con­tents were revealed in Europe, poten­tial­ly to improve the rep­u­ta­tion of Yanukovych in the Unit­ed States, where his image had tak­en a hit after the jail­ing of Tymoshenko.

As part of that lob­by­ing effort, Weiss­mann said van der Zwaan had tak­en an advanced copy of the report in 2012 with­out autho­riza­tion and pro­vid­ed it to a pub­lic-rela­tions team, then pro­vid­ing Gates with talk­ing points about it. . . .

Khan, van der Zwaan’s father-in-law, is a native of Kiev, Ukraine. . . .

———-

1c. In March of 2014, Gallup found that Ukraini­ans still weren’t gen­er­al­ly inter­est­ed in join­ing NATO even after the col­lapse of the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the sniper attacks. So Manafort’s anti-NATO ‘genius’ advice was still Pol­i­tics 101 even in 2014.

It is impor­tant to note that Manafort’s anti-NATO advice was cou­pled with his pro-EU trade union advice. Atlantic Coun­cil mem­ber Dan Fried said that Man­afort was telling the US gov­ern­ment that Yanukovych was “the guy” who could move Ukraine clos­er to the West, at a pace Putin could stand. [The Atlantic Coun­cil is a right-wing “think tank” with strong ties to NATO, the OUN/B milieu–D.E.] Based on Fried’s pal­pa­ble sense of betray­al, it would seem that the US gov­ern­ment more or less accept­ed that assess­ment. It’s anoth­er rea­son why Manafort’s anti-NATO advice shouldn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be seen as an indi­ca­tion that Man­afort was some Krem­lin crony the whole time, in addi­tion to the gen­er­al unpop­u­lar­i­ty of the idea among Urkaine’s pop­u­lace.

It’s in that larg­er con­text that we now learn about the mys­te­ri­ous flight to Frank­furt on a pri­vate plane owned by the father of Andrii Arte­menko in the mid­dle of the “Haps­burg Group” lob­by­ing effort to get Ukraine into that trade union. Which rais­es an inter­est­ing ques­tion: Arte­menko entered the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment in 2014, and accord­ing to the parliament’s web­site Arte­menko was the deputy head of the Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion Com­mit­tee

Arte­men­tko was involved with diplo­ma­cy with the US while in par­lia­ment and this flight on Artemenko’s dad’s com­pa­ny plane in July of 2013 hap­pened right before he joined the par­lia­ment and right in the mid­dle of the big “Haps­burg Group” diplo­mat­ic push with the US. Was Arte­menko him­self part of the “Haps­burg Group” lob­by­ing effort too?

As we saw in FTR #967, Arte­menko was a mem­ber of the OUN/B suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tion Pravy Sek­tor and was involved with Felix Sater and Michael Cohen in an ANTI-RUSSIAN con­spir­a­cy.

“Exclu­sive: Man­afort flight records show deep­er Krem­lin ties than pre­vi­ous­ly known” by Peter Stone And Greg Gor­don; McClatchy DC; 11/27/2017

. . . .  “You can make a case that all along he …was either work­ing prin­ci­pal­ly for Moscow, or he was try­ing to play both sides against each oth­er just to max­i­mize his prof­its,” said Daniel Fried, a for­mer assis­tant sec­re­tary of state who com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Man­afort dur­ing Yanukovych’s reign in Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s sec­ond term.

“He’s at best got a con­flict of inter­est and at worst is real­ly doing Putin’s bid­ding,” said Fried, now a fel­low with the Atlantic Coun­cil. . . .

. . . . Anoth­er Man­afort trip that could inter­est inves­ti­ga­tors took place in July 2013 when Man­afort and Kil­imnik flew from east­ern Ukraine to Frank­furt on a pri­vate plane owned by Bel­bek Avia, accord­ing to the flight records. The air­craft company’s founders includ­ed the father of Andrey Arte­menko, a Ukrain­ian leg­is­la­tor.. . . .

. . . . Man­afort, 68, had claimed Yanukovych was the one Ukrain­ian who could lead his coun­try clos­er to the West at a pace Putin could stand, accord­ing to Dan Fried, a for­mer U.S. assis­tant sec­re­tary of state for the region which includes Ukraine. But that proved false.

“Manafort’s guy turned out to be not the guy Man­afort said he was,” Fried said. “Either Man­afort was unable to deliv­er the guy or he was spin­ning us and had no inten­tion of doing any­thing but col­lect­ing his very large fees.”

Jason Mal­oni, a Man­afort spokesman, denied that his work helped Rus­sia. He said, “Although Mr. Manafort’s focus was always domes­tic Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics, that work did make a dif­fer­ence and helped move the Ukraine towards a West­ern orbit and fur­ther from a Russ­ian orbit.” . . . .

. . . . The idea of work­ing in Ukraine first came to Man­afort in 2004 from Oleg Deri­pas­ka, a Russ­ian bil­lion­aire who con­trols alu­minum pro­duc­er Rusal, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion. Ukraine was in the throes of the Orange Revolution—protests over alle­ga­tions of elec­toral fraud in Yanukovych’s Novem­ber 2004 vic­to­ry. The Supreme Court ordered a new elec­tion. Manafort’s then-part­ner, Rick Davis, went to Kiev and con­clud­ed it was too late to help. Yanukovych’s pro-West­ern rival Vik­tor Yushchenko won. . . .

. . . .  Cru­cial to the strategy—and new to Ukraine—was research from focus groups and bet­ter polling to dri­ve mes­sag­ing. Among the issues: the rights of Russ­ian-speak­ers and oppo­si­tion to Ukraine’s join­ing NATO.

“He was going for vis­cer­al issues and an emo­tion­al reac­tion,” says Katery­na Yushchenko, the Amer­i­can-born wife of for­mer Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yushchenko and a one­time State Depart­ment and White House offi­cial. [and a top UCCA per­son­age. The UCCA is the top OUN/B front orga­ni­za­tion in the U.S.–D.E.] “When I con­front­ed his peo­ple about it, they said, ‘That’s pol­i­tics.’ I said this isn’t like gun rights or abor­tion. Here it could lead to war.” . . . .

In 2008, then-Pres­i­dent Yushchenko announced a cam­paign for even­tu­al Ukrain­ian mem­ber­ship in NATO. To exploit wide­spread oppo­si­tion to NATO, Manafort’s team brought a truck to the par­lia­ment filled with anti-NATO bal­loons and instruct­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to each take one into the cham­ber.

Ukraine’s hope of join­ing NATO end­ed with its 2010 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. With Man­afort guid­ing him, Yanukovych won nar­row­ly. . . .

. . . . With­in months of his vic­to­ry, Yanukovych ordered crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions into Tymoshenko, cul­mi­nat­ing in a sen­tence of sev­en years in jail. Con­demned around the world, her pros­e­cu­tion would become a flash­point in nego­ti­a­tions between Ukraine and the Euro­pean Union on an asso­ci­a­tion agree­ment.

Man­afort was close­ly involved in recruit­ing the firm of Skad­den Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLC on behalf of the Ukrain­ian Jus­tice Min­istry to write a lengthy report on Tymoshenko’s pros­e­cu­tion.. . .

. . . . Pros­e­cu­tors believe Man­afort drew up a six-page media strat­e­gy plan with FTI Con­sult­ing on how to use the Skad­den report, based on doc­u­ments they have exam­ined. The report, released at the end of 2012, crit­i­cized some aspects of the case but con­clud­ed that the evi­dence sup­port­ed her con­vic­tion and that her due process rights hadn’t been vio­lat­ed. . . . 

. . . . Man­afort advised Yanukovych to push ahead with an asso­ci­a­tion agree­ment with the EU. But the EU insist­ed he release Tymoshenko, while Putin pres­sured him to aban­don the deal. In Novem­ber 2013, Yanukovych ter­mi­nat­ed nego­ti­a­tions with the EU. The move trig­gered wide­spread protests.

Thou­sands camped out on Kiev’s Inde­pen­dence Square. More than 100 were killed in 2014 right before Yanukovych fled to Moscow. Ukrain­ian pros­e­cu­tors are inves­ti­gat­ing who’s respon­si­ble and have combed through hacked text mes­sages from Manafort’s daugh­ter, Andrea, about her father’s role in crack­ing down on the upris­ing. Her texts say their mon­ey is “blood mon­ey.” Andrea Man­afort didn’t respond to requests for com­ment.

2. Where­as most peo­ple see the U.S. as dom­i­nant in its rela­tion­ship with Ukraine, Ukaine’s recent deci­sion to sus­pend coop­er­a­tion with the Mueller probe indi­cates the degree of grav­i­tas that Ukraine has in this dynam­ic.

“Ukraine, Seek­ing U.S. Mis­siles, Halt­ed Coop­er­a­tion with Mueller Inves­ti­ga­tion” by Andrew E. Kramer; The New York Times; 5/2/2018.

In the Unit­ed States, Paul J. Man­afort is fac­ing pros­e­cu­tion on charges of mon­ey laun­der­ing and finan­cial fraud stem­ming from his decade of work
for a pro-Russ­ian polit­i­cal par­ty in Ukraine.

But in Ukraine, where offi­cials are wary of offend­ing Pres­i­dent Trump, four
mean­der­ing cas­es that involve Mr. Man­afort, Mr. Trump’s for­mer cam­paign
chair­man, have been effec­tive­ly frozen by Ukraine’s chief pros­e­cu­tor.

The cas­es are just too sen­si­tive for a gov­ern­ment deeply reliant on Unit­ed States
finan­cial and mil­i­tary aid, and keen­ly aware of Mr. Trump’s dis­taste for the
inves­ti­ga­tion by the spe­cial coun­sel, Robert S. Mueller III, into pos­si­ble col­lu­sion
between Rus­sia and his cam­paign, some law­mak­ers say.

The deci­sion to halt the inves­ti­ga­tions by an anti­cor­rup­tion pros­e­cu­tor was
hand­ed down at a del­i­cate moment for Ukraine, as the Trump admin­is­tra­tion was
final­iz­ing plans to sell the coun­try sophis­ti­cat­ed anti-tank mis­siles, called Javelins. . . .

. . . . Volodymyr Ariev, a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who is an ally of Pres­i­dent Petro O.
Poroshenko, read­i­ly acknowl­edged that the inten­tion in Kiev was to put
inves­ti­ga­tions into Mr. Manafort’s activ­i­ties “in the long-term box.”

“In every pos­si­ble way, we will avoid irri­tat­ing the top Amer­i­can offi­cials,” Mr.
Ariev said in an inter­view. “We shouldn’t spoil rela­tions with the admin­is­tra­tion.”

The Ukrain­ian inves­ti­ga­tors had been trac­ing mon­ey paid to Mr. Man­afort and a
New York law firm, Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, by fig­ures in the polit­i­cal
par­ty of Vik­tor F. Yanukovych, the Russ­ian-lean­ing Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent who was
oust­ed by street pro­test­ers and fled the coun­try in 2014.

Mr. Man­afort was a long­time advis­er to Mr. Yanukovych, work­ing with him to revamp his pub­lic image
and acquire a pro-West­ern pati­na that helped him win the pres­i­den­cy in 2010. . . .

3a. Before turn­ing to the Hab­s­burgs’ influ­ence and cur­rent activ­i­ties in Ukraine, we note the renascent Hab­s­burg pow­er in East­ern Europe. Note, for our pur­pos­es, Georg’s posi­tion, as well as that of his broth­er. “Euro­pean inte­gra­tion and the Pan-Euro­pean move­ment” entail the con­text in which Lee Har­vey Man­afort and the Hab­s­burg Group were oper­at­ing, in order to east Ukraine into the West­ern, rather than the Russ­ian orbit. ” . . . .The most strik­ing exam­ple of the trend is the appoint­ment this week of Georg von Hab­s­burg, the 32-year-old-grand­son of Emper­or Karl I, to the posi­tion of Hungary’s ambas­sador for Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion. In neigh­bour­ing Aus­tria, the tra­di­tional heart of Hab­s­burg pow­er, Georg’s broth­er, Karl, 35, was recent­ly elect­ed to rep­re­sent the coun­try in the Euro­pean par­lia­ment. In addi­tion to this, he serves as the pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Pan-Euro­pean move­ment. . . . .”

“Descen­dants of Last Hab­s­burg Emper­or Climb Lad­der to Pow­er: Hun­gary Looks to its Empire of the Past for a New Begin­ning” by Adri­an Bridge; The Inde­pen­dent; 12/23/1996.

In what must rank as one of the most unlike­ly polit­i­cal come­backs of the cen­tury, the descen­dants of the last Hab­s­burg emper­or are once again mak­ing their mark in the Cen­tral Euro­pean ter­ri­to­ries that their fam­ily ruled for hun­dreds of years.

Not sur­pris­ingly, the come­back revolves around the cities of Vien­na and Budapest, the twin cen­tres of pow­er in the lat­ter years of the Aus­tro– Hun­gar­ian empire, which at its peak stretched from the Adri­atic to what is now Ukraine.

The most strik­ing exam­ple of the trend is the appoint­ment this week of Georg von Hab­s­burg, the 32-year-old grand­son of Emper­or Karl I, to the posi­tion of Hungary’s ambas­sador for Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion.

In neigh­bour­ing Aus­tria, the tra­di­tional heart of Hab­s­burg pow­er, Georg’s broth­er, Karl, 35, was recent­ly elect­ed to rep­re­sent the coun­try in the Euro­pean par­lia­ment. In addi­tion to this, he serves as the pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Pan-Euro­pean move­ment. . . . .

. . . . Otto von Hab­s­burg, 83, him­self a keen advo­cate of the Hun­gar­ian cause, has long since renounced any claim to his father’s throne.

But the same is not true of all the mem­bers of the fam­ily. Before his elec­tion to the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Octo­ber, Georg von Habsburg’s old­er broth­er, Karl, refused to be drawn when he was quizzed on the issue.

When he was asked if he believed the Hab­s­burg monar­chy could return, his cir­cum­spect reply was: “Nev­er say nev­er again.”

3b. Jump­ing for­ward some 14 years from our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, we see that a Hab­s­burg princess was anoint­ed as Geor­gia’s ambas­sador to Ger­many. Note that [now for­mer] Geor­gian pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili endorsed her. Saakashvili became, for a time, the gov­er­nor of the Ukrain­ian province of Odessa! Note, also, the role of the Hab­s­burgs in the final phase of the Cold War: “. . . . The heirs to the Hab­s­burg emper­ors helped speed the down­fall of the Sovi­et empire, par­tic­u­larly by arrang­ing the cross-bor­der exo­dus from Hun­gary to Aus­tria in the sum­mer of 1989 that punched the first big hole in the iron cur­tain. . . .”

“The Princess and the Bear” ; The Econ­o­mist; 2/18/2010.

Geor­gia strug­gles to make its case in Ger­many, which sees trade ties with Rus­sia as vital and the ex-Sovi­et Cau­casian repub­lic as trou­ble­some. So who bet­ter to bur­nish Georgia’s image there than a Ger­man-edu­cat­ed Hab­s­burg? Georgia’s new ambas­sador to Berlin, once she presents her cre­den­tials to the pres­i­dent next month, will be Gabriela Maria Char­lotte Felic­i­tas Elis­a­beth Anto­nia von Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen, princess Impe­r­ial and Arch­duchess of Aus­tria, Princess Roy­al of Hun­gary and Bohemia. A name like that, says Georgia’s pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili, should open doors. . . .

. . . . The heirs to the Hab­s­burg emper­ors helped speed the down­fall of the Sovi­et empire, par­tic­u­larly by arrang­ing the cross-bor­der exo­dus from Hun­gary to Aus­tria in the sum­mer of 1989 that punched the first big hole in the iron cur­tain. Among Ms von Habsburg’s six sib­lings, her younger sis­ter Wal­burga is a lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cian in Swe­den; her broth­er Georg is an ambas­sador-at-large for Hun­gary. Anoth­er used to be in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. 

3c. Karl von Hab­s­burg has been active in Ukraine for some years before estab­lish­ing a radio sta­tion. Karl von Hab­s­burg is the head of the UNPO. Note the Ukrain­ian ori­en­ta­tion and influ­ence of Wil­helm von Hab­s­burg, in World War I through the World War II eras, as well as his anti-Sovi­et activism: ” . . . . A mil­i­tary offi­cer by train­ing, Wil­helm sup­ported Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence strug­gle dur­ing World War I. He fought with Ukrain­ian troops against the Rus­sians, and had schemed and cajoled a myr­iad of politi­cians to sup­port his monar­chial aspi­ra­tions. Almost until his death at the hands of the Sovi­ets in 1948 – he was snatched off the streets of Vien­na and trans­ported to a prison in Kyiv for work­ing as an agent against the Sovi­et Union – Wil­helm believed this slice of the family’s empire could be his. . . .”

“Karl von Hab­s­burg Keeps Ances­tors’ Pro­file Alive in Lviv” by Natalia A. Feduschak; Kyiv Post; 4/20/2010.

Karl von Hab­s­burg laughed hearti­ly when asked what it feels like to walk the streets of Lviv, a city that was once ruled by his ances­tors. “I look at it from an aca­d­e­mic point of view,” he said with a smile. “It had noth­ing to do with me.”

Despite his easy man­ner, how­ever, von Hab­s­burg evi­dently has no inten­tion of let­ting the past, par­tic­u­larly his ances­tors’ role, remain life­less in his­tory books. Near­ly a cen­tury after the Hab­s­burg monarchy’s rule end­ed in Europe, he is ded­i­cat­ing him­self to ensure its lega­cy lives on in west­ern Ukraine.

The 49-year-old von Hab­s­burg was in Lviv in March to announce the cre­ation of a foun­da­tion that car­ries his family’s name. Based in Ivano-Frankivsk, the Hab­s­burg Foun­da­tion will pro­mote and pre­serve the cul­tural lega­cy that for cen­turies shaped and gave Cen­tral and East­ern Europe its iden­ti­ty. . . .

. . . . “In this area, we need to do some­thing about keep­ing the her­itage alive, the his­tory and the intel­lec­tual his­tory. Authors came here because they got their inspi­ra­tion here,” he told the Kyiv Post in an inter­view. . . .

. . . . At the turn of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire – which gave Cen­tral and East­ern Europe much of its art, cul­ture and archi­tec­ture – spanned from Ukraine’s Carpathi­an Moun­tains, down to the Adri­atic Sea in the south. It encom­passed more that twelve Euro­pean peo­ples and its monar­chy, the Hab­s­burgs, had enjoyed over six cen­turies of unin­ter­rupted pow­er.

A recent book by renowned his­to­rian Tim­o­thy Sny­der chron­i­cles the life of Wil­helm von Hab­s­burg, the mem­ber of the Hab­s­burg fam­ily who was clos­est aligned with Ukraini­ans. Titled The Red Prince, it brought renewed atten­tion to the family’s con­nec­tions with the region. . . .

. . . . Wil­helm, how­ever, had his own goal: He want­ed to estab­lish a monar­chy on the ter­ri­tory of what is today’s west­ern Ukraine. Sny­der writes that the idea was well-received, par­tic­u­larly among some Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary lead­ers and the Church.

A mil­i­tary offi­cer by train­ing, Wil­helm sup­ported Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence strug­gle dur­ing World War I. He fought with Ukrain­ian troops against the Rus­sians, and had schemed and cajoled a myr­iad of politi­cians to sup­port his monar­chial aspi­ra­tions. Almost until his death at the hands of the Sovi­ets in 1948 – he was snatched off the streets of Vien­na and trans­ported to a prison in Kyiv for work­ing as an agent against the Sovi­et Union – Wil­helm believed this slice of the family’s empire could be his. . . .

. . . . The Hab­s­burg era has under­gone some­what of a renais­sance late­ly in west­ern Ukraine; the new foun­da­tion is just the lat­est in that trend. A con­fer­ence held late last year brought schol­ars from around the coun­try to Cher­nivtsi, which along with Lviv was con­sid­ered an impor­tant city in the region. . . .

3d.  It’s appar­ent that Ukraine is a top glob­al pri­or­ity for expand­ing the Habsburg’s influ­ence. Fast-for­ward­ing again some five years from our pre­vi­ous two arti­cles and one year after the Euro­Maid­an coup we see that actions speak loud­er than words, and Karl’s new Ukrain­ian radio sta­tion says a lot: “Since 20 Jan­u­ary, a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion is broad­cast­ing in Ukraine, its main spon­sor, Karl-Hab­s­burg Lothrin­gen, told EurAc­tiv in an exclu­sive inter­view . . . . Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen is an Aus­trian politi­cian and head of the House of Hab­s­burg. Since 1986, he has served as Pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Paneu­ro­pean Union. . . .”

“Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen: We Now Have a Tru­ly Euro­pean Radio Sta­tion in Ukraine” by Geor­gi Gotev ; Eurac­tiv; 1/22/2015.

Since 20 Jan­u­ary, a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion is broad­cast­ing in Ukraine, its main spon­sor, Karl-Hab­s­burg Lothrin­gen, told EurAc­tiv in an exclu­sive inter­view

Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen is an Aus­trian politi­cian and head of the House of Hab­s­burg. Since 1986, he has served as Pres­i­dent of the Aus­trian branch of the Paneu­ro­pean Union. Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen was an MEP between 1996 to 1999. He is Chair­man of Blue Shield, the organ­i­sa­tion for pro­tec­tion of cul­tural her­itage in armed con­flicts.

He spoke to Senior Edi­tor, Geor­gi Gotev.

You are behind a new radio sta­tion that was launched in Ukraine yes­ter­day (20 Jan­u­ary), a Euro­pean sta­tion, as it is called, broad­cast­ing on 100.00 FM. Can you describe it?

We now have a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion in Ukraine. There was already a radio sta­tion, but it was rebrand­ed in such a way that now it bears the name of the EU, it has the con­no­ta­tion; it is known as the Euro­pean sta­tion. And of course, what it real­ly has as a goal is to cre­ate a bit of the Euro­pean spir­it in Ukraine, which I think is quite impor­tant, because in com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Ukraine, a lot of things have gone bad­ly or wrong­ly late­ly, so I think it would be very good to have an out­let there that car­ries a strong Euro­pean mes­sage. . . .

And are you get­ting some sup­port from the EU or else­where? You should be trans­par­ent, or you will end up being brand­ed as an Amer­i­can out­let….

. . . . Cur­rently, the project is fund­ed entire­ly by indi­vid­u­als. There is no state involved, there are no insti­tu­tions involved. There is a group of real­ly inter­ested indi­vid­u­als that have brought it togeth­er, and we will def­i­nitely try to keep our inde­pen­dence, by all means.

Are you per­son­ally inter­ested in Ukraine?

I have a fam­ily link to Ukraine, because part of Ukraine was very close­ly linked to Aus­tria not that long ago. I think that radio is a very inter­est­ing media, with the pos­si­bil­ity to reach a lot of peo­ple in an imme­di­ate way. So it is of per­sonal inter­est to me that I have the chance to con­tinue being active in Ukraine. I was very active there when I was an MEP, on the ques­tion of EU enlarge­ment. I nev­er had this reduced view of Europe being just the EU. I think it is very impor­tant to say that we have a greater Europe

3e. As we not­ed, “Plan B” for Ukraine might be termed “Plan OUN/B.” Otto von Hab­s­burg formed the Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil with Jaroslav Stet­zko, the wartime head of the Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment that imple­ment­ed Third Reich eth­nic cleans­ing pro­grams in Ukraine. The EFC was close­ly aligned with the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations, head­ed by Stet­zko. The ABN, as we have seen in the past, is a re-nam­ing of the Com­mit­tee of Sub­ju­gat­ed Nations, a con­sor­tium of East­ern Euro­pean fas­cist groups formed by Hitler in 1943.

“Ukraine: Why Ban­dera Have the Largest Geo-Polit­i­cal Voice in EU” by George Elia­son; OpEd News; 8/1/2014.

. . . . The Haps­burg monar­chy helped guide the lead­er­ship in their for­mer pos­ses­sions. The Free­dom Coun­cil was formed by Otto von Haps­burg and Jaroslav Stet­zko at a con­fer­ence in Munich on June 30-July 2 1967, as a coor­di­nat­ing body for orga­ni­za­tions fight­ing com­mu­nism in Europe.

EMP H.R.H. Otto von Haps­burg was hon­orary chair­man of the Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil, based in Munich, dur­ing the 1980s and allied to the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations (ABN). The EFC was found­ed in 1967 and in 1987 cel­e­brat­ed its 20th anniver­sary. The Exec­u­tive Pres­i­dent at that time was British M.P Mr. John Wilkin­son, and one of two Vice-Pres­i­dents was Mrs. Sla­va Stet­zko, M.A. (ABN).

The Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil (EFC), which Jaroslav Stet­zko co-found­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ed in, oper­at­ed in close con­junc­tion with ABN. Annu­al con­fer­ences for the ABN and EFC were often held togeth­er, and the lead­er­ship of both orga­ni­za­tions knew each oth­er and cor­re­spond­ed reg­u­lar­ly. . . .

 

Discussion

3 comments for “FTR #1008 Alfa Males, Part 5: Lee Harvey Manafort, The Russia-Gate Psy-Op, and the Underground Reich (Habsburg Redux, Part 2)”

  1. This was the best of the best, Dave! I would like to add an impor­tant though com­mon­ly unknown stip­u­la­tion regard­ing the EU Asso­ci­a­tion Agree­ment. The EUAA requires that the sig­na­to­ries share a ‘com­mon secu­ri­ty and defense pol­i­cy’, aka, NATO. These are not mutu­al­ly exclusve, but a coop­er­a­tive man­date. Thus, Man­afort and Yanukovych knew full well! I know it may ‘appear’ that Man­afort was try­ing to help ease Ukraine into the West­’s orbit, minus NATO and that Yankovych was obliv­i­ous... I dont think so. Clear­ly they knew that NATO was an added hitch to sign­ing the EUAA and per­haps they agreed that a coup would be the only way to ful­fill that. The more I look into the details sur­round­ing Maid­an and the con­tra­dic­to­ry actions that Yankovych made,I believe he was just a pos­er and was onboard with what hap­pened. Strange and sad, but true.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union_Association_Agreement

    Posted by Susan Shpak | June 2, 2018, 11:18 pm
  2. Per­haps anoth­er inter­est­ing to the Haps­burg Revival is Hun­gary’s recent sug­ges­tions of annex­ing Tran­scarpathia Ukraine. I’ve been watch­ing this phe­nom­e­non care­ful­ly for over a year now.
    https://www.jobbik.com/another_provocation_by_ukraines_anti_hungarian_media_outlets_using_jobbik_as_pretext

    Posted by Susan Shpak | June 8, 2018, 2:36 am
  3. Anoth­er ref­er­ence to the Tran­scarpathi­an Hun­gar­i­ans push for suc­ces­sion from Ukraine.

    Tran­scarpathi­an Hun­gar­i­ans call to intro­duce OSCE mis­sion to the region: https://t.co/tcwOKA66Us via @En_EurasiaDaily

    Note: Transparpathi­an Ukraine is a very het­eroge­nous mix of peo­ples, includ­ing Slo­vaks, Mag­yars, Roma­ni­ans, Roma, ancient Celts & a unique eth­nic­i­ty called ‘the Rusyns’ for which my grand­par­en­t’s her­itage is derived. The Tran­scarpahi­an soci­ety dif­fered much from their north­ern Galych neigh­bors, in that the var­i­ous peo­ples lived quite har­mo­nious­ly among each oth­er & did­n’t sub­scribe to the nation­al­is­tic big­otry often found in West Ukraine. They were moun­tain peo­ple where inter­mar­riage was com­mon, and they tra­di­tion­al­ly gave refugue to many diverse peo­ple’s flee­ing injus­tice. A bizarre fact is that a spe­cif­ic gene-mark­er only found in Cen­tral Africa is preva­lent with­in the pop­u­la­tion in Tran­scarpathia! For many cen­turies, Tran­scarpathi­ans sought to free them­selves from Haps­burg rule, even many Hun­gar­i­ans! How­ev­er, in light of the fascis­tic revival in post-Maid­an Ukraine and the repres­sions foist­ed upon the eth­nic­i­ties in Tran­scarpathia, many are look­ing for suc­ces­sion again. At the same time, how­ev­er, it appears that Hun­gary is tak­ing advan­tage of this sit­u­a­tion for its own expan­sion & per­haps a Neo-Haps­bur­gian excroach­ment to reclaim that lost ter­ri­to­ry.

    Posted by Susan Shpak | June 8, 2018, 8:03 pm

Post a comment