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FTR #1024 Ukrainian Fascism, Maidan Snipers and Implications for the Syrian War, Part 2

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ September 11, 2018Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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This broad­cast was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: On the 17th anniver­sary of the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks, we con­tin­ue with analy­sis of the Maid­an shootings–an appar­ent “false flag” operation–and muse about the impli­ca­tions of that for the con­flict in Syr­ia, as well as Russ­ian and Amer­i­can polit­i­cal life.

In the first part of the pro­gram, we fin­ish read­ing the poster pre­sen­ta­tion that pro­fes­sor Ivan Katchanovs­ki, PhD of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa pre­sent­ed at The 2018 Con­fer­ence of Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Asso­ciates.

Katchanovs­ki has done a deep, detailed foren­sic study of the evi­dence in the Maid­an sniper attacks. He has a rig­or­ous, suc­cinct dig­i­tal mul­ti­me­dia ‘poster’ (an ‘iPoster’) for his find­ing that the Maid­an sniper attacks were a false flag oper­a­tion. That poster was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2018 Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence in Boston. It gives a high lev­el overview of his research and is heav­i­ly embed­ded with sub­stan­tive, doc­u­men­tary videos. Here are the con­tents of the poster. Be sure to check out the numer­ous images and videos includ­ed in the actu­al iPoster online.

He con­cludes his pre­sen­ta­tion with: “ . . . . The puz­zling mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Maid­an mas­sacre, its inves­ti­ga­tion, and the tri­al by West­ern media and gov­ern­ments require fur­ther research con­cern­ing rea­sons for such mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion . . . . ”

In addi­tion to the sys­tem­at­ic manip­u­la­tion of evi­dence to sup­port the “Berkut/Yanukovych did it” hypoth­e­sis, the cov­er-up of con­trary find­ings and the West­ern media silence about the real­i­ties of the Maid­an killings are sig­nif­i­cant.

Note: Since FTR #1023 was record­ed pro­fes­sor Katchanovs­ki has post­ed a 59-minute-long video of the Maid­an shoot­ings. The video fea­tures TV footage from that day, with many clips clear­ly show­ing snipers oper­at­ing from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings. It also includes Eng­lish sub­ti­tles and foren­sic descrip­tions of scenes. The footage includes a num­ber of peo­ple being shot and killed–a griz­zly 59-min­utes, but absolute­ly invalu­able in terms of estab­lish­ing what actu­al­ly hap­pened.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s research in this pro­gram begins with the sec­tion titled “Cov­er-Up and Stonewalling.”

Addi­tion­al per­spec­tive on the appar­ent non-inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an sniper shoot­ings is pro­vid­ed by Ana­toliy Matios, Ukraine’s Deputy Pros­e­cu­tor and Chief Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor:

Matios, Ukraine’s chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor, gave an exten­sive inter­view where he said that Jews are behind all wars and want to “drown eth­nic Slavs in blood.”

Also recall the cryp­tic state­ment Matios made back in 2016 about the iden­ti­ty of the peo­ple involved with the 2014 sniper attacks: “When pub­lic learns who is involved in this, peo­ple will be very sur­prised.” In FTR #‘s 982, 993,  1004, 1023, we exam­ined evi­dence that Ukrain­ian fas­cists may well have exe­cut­ed those sniper attacks. It is omi­nous that the chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor who is involved in that inves­ti­ga­tion is a neo-Nazi. ” . . . . In an exten­sive inter­view with the Ukrain­ian news out­let Insid­er, Ana­toliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor, espoused anti-Semit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries in which he implied that Jews want to drown eth­nic Slavs in blood. . . .”

Return­ing to pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s thought-pro­vok­ing con­clu­sion to his online poster: “ . . . . The puz­zling mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Maid­an mas­sacre, its inves­ti­ga­tion, and the tri­al by West­ern media and gov­ern­ments require fur­ther research con­cern­ing rea­sons for such mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion . . . . ”

With the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment appar­ent­ly com­menc­ing an offen­sive to van­quish Al-Qae­da jihadis in Idlib province (with Russ­ian mil­i­tary sup­port), the stage is set for a pos­si­ble Russian‑U.S./Western mil­i­tary con­flict.

Against the back­ground of the Maid­an snip­ing as a prob­a­ble false flag provo­ca­tion, the impend­ing Syr­i­an offen­sive to re-cap­ture the last ter­ri­to­r­i­al enclave of the Islamists in Syr­ia should be viewed with appre­hen­sion. As not­ed in the arti­cle we present, the so-called “rebels” are Al-Qae­da off­shoots. Omi­nous­ly, they have appar­ent­ly suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cut­ed false-flag chem­i­cal weapons attacks before, includ­ing in Idlib province.

Rus­sia has warned that such a provo­ca­tion is in the wings–an unre­mark­able deduc­tion in light of past his­to­ry. In turn, the West has warned of retal­ia­to­ry action if such actions are under­tak­en.

The stage appears set for an Islamist/Al-Qae­da chem­i­cal weapons false flag/provocation, upon which U.S., British and French mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion will be pred­i­cat­ed.

In this con­text, one should not lose sight of the fact that Chech­nyan Islamist vet­er­ans of the Syr­i­an war have already made their appear­ance in the com­bat in East­ern Ukraine, part­ner­ing with Pravy Sek­tor in their deploy­ments. (The Chechen/Right Sector/Islamist link is dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 857, 862, 863, 872, 878, 893, 911.)

We note pos­si­ble out­comes of U.S./Western Russ­ian com­bat:

  1. If the Western/U.S. forces are vic­to­ri­ous, this will cov­er Trump’s rump  with regard to the “Rus­sia-Gate” so-called inves­ti­ga­tion and bol­ster the GOP’s posi­tion in upcom­ing 2018 midterm elec­tions.
  2. If the Western/U.S. forces pre­vail, it will weak­en Putin polit­i­cal­ly, which is a goal of the West.

The last part of the pro­gram con­sists of a par­tial read­ing of an arti­cle by CFR mem­ber Bruce Hoff­man. Not­ing Al Qaeda’s resur­gence and Al Qaeda’s empha­sis on the Syr­i­an con­flict, Hoff­man cites the so-called “Arab Spring” as the key event in Al Qaeda’s resur­gence. ” . . . . The thou­sands of hard­ened al-Qae­da fight­ers freed from Egypt­ian pris­ons in 2012–2013 by Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mor­si gal­va­nized the move­ment at a crit­i­cal moment, when insta­bil­i­ty reigned and a hand­ful of men well-versed in ter­ror­ism and sub­ver­sion could plunge a coun­try or a region into chaos. Whether in Libya, Turkey, Syr­ia, or Yemen, their arrival was prov­i­den­tial in terms of advanc­ing al-Qaeda’s inter­ests or increas­ing its influ­ence. . . . It was Syr­ia where al-Qaeda’s inter­ven­tion proved most con­se­quen­tial. One of Zawahiri’s first offi­cial acts after suc­ceed­ing bin Laden as emir was to order a Syr­i­an vet­er­an of the Iraqi insur­gency named Abu Moham­mad al-Julani to return home and estab­lish the al-Qae­da fran­chise that would even­tu­al­ly become Jab­hat al-Nus­ra. . . .”

In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we pre­sent­ed our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intel­li­gence oper­a­tion, aimed at plac­ing the Broth­er­hood in pow­er in Mus­lim coun­tries dom­i­nat­ed either by a sec­u­lar dic­ta­tor or absolute monar­chy.

It is our view that the Broth­er­hood was seen as use­ful because of its mil­i­tary off­shoots (Al-Qae­da in par­tic­u­lar) were use­ful proxy war­riors in places like the Cau­ca­sus and the Balka­ns and because the Broth­er­hood’s cor­po­ratist, neo-lib­er­al eco­nom­ic doc­trine was in keep­ing with the desires and goals of the trans-nation­al cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty.

In FTR #787, we solid­i­fied our analy­sis with defin­i­tive con­fir­ma­tion of our work­ing hypoth­e­sis pre­sent­ed years ear­li­er.

About the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s eco­nom­ic doc­trine: ” . . . . The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood hails 14th cen­tury philoso­pher Ibn Khal­dun as its eco­nomic guide. Antic­i­pat­ing sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics, Khal­dun argued that cut­ting tax­es rais­es pro­duc­tion and tax rev­enues, and that state con­trol should be lim­ited to pro­vid­ing water, fire and free graz­ing land, the util­i­ties of the ancient world. The World Bank has called Ibn Khal­dun the first advo­cate of pri­va­ti­za­tion. [Empha­sis added.] His found­ing influ­ence is a sign of mod­er­a­tion. If Islamists in pow­er ever do clash with the West, it won’t be over com­merce. . . .”

Stephen Glain’s cita­tion of Ibn Khal­dun res­onates with Ronald Rea­gan’s pre­sen­ta­tion of “sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics.” ” . . . . Respond­ing to a ques­tion about the effects of tax and spend­ing cuts that began tak­ing effect yes­ter­day, Mr. Rea­gan said the sup­ply-side prin­ci­ple dat­ed at least as far back as Ibn Khal­dun, who is gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as the great­est Arab his­to­ri­an to emerge from the high­ly devel­oped Ara­bic cul­ture of the Mid­dle Ages. . . .”

1. Cana­di­an aca­d­e­m­ic Ivan Katchanovs­ki has done a deep, detailed foren­sic study of the evi­dence in the Maid­an sniper attacks. He has a rig­or­ous, suc­cinct dig­i­tal mul­ti­me­dia ‘poster’ (an ‘iPoster’) for his find­ing that the Maid­an sniper attacks were a false flag oper­a­tion. That poster was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2018 Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence in Boston. It gives a high lev­el overview of his research and is heav­i­ly embed­ded with sub­stan­tive, doc­u­men­tary videos. Here are the con­tents of the poster. Be sure to check out the numer­ous images and videos includ­ed in the actu­al iPoster online.

“ . . . . Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tion evi­dence have revealed var­i­ous evi­dence that at least the absolute major­i­ty of 49 killed and 157 wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 were mas­sa­cred by snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings. Such evi­dence includes tes­ti­monies of the major­i­ty of wound­ed pro­test­ers and many wit­ness­es, foren­sic med­ical and bal­lisitic exam­i­na­tions, and inves­ti­ga­tion own find­ing that about half of Maid­an pro­test­ers were wound­ed from oth­er loca­tions than the Berkut police. Var­i­ous indi­ca­tions of stonewalling of the Maid­an mas­sacre inves­ti­ga­tions and the tri­als by the Maid­an gov­ern­ment offi­cials and by far right orga­ni­za­tions. Var­i­ous indi­ca­tions of the cov­er-up of much of the key evi­dence of the mas­sacre. Such rev­e­la­tions from the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­als and inves­ti­ga­tions cor­rob­o­rate pre­vi­ous stud­ies find­ings that this mas­sacre was a false flag mass killing with involve­ment of ele­ments of Maid­an lead­er­ship and the far right and that it includ­ed the mas­sacre of the police. The puz­zling mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Maid­an mas­sacre, its inves­ti­ga­tion, and the tri­al by West­ern media and gov­ern­ments require fur­ther research con­cern­ing rea­sons for such mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion . . . . ”

Note: Since FTR #1023 was record­ed pro­fes­sor Katchanovs­ki has post­ed a 59-minute-long video of the Maid­an shoot­ings. The video fea­tures TV footage from that day, with many clips clear­ly show­ing snipers oper­at­ing from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings. It also includes Eng­lish sub­ti­tles and foren­sic descrip­tions of scenes. The footage includes a num­ber of peo­ple being shot and killed–a griz­zly 59-min­utes, but absolute­ly invalu­able in terms of estab­lish­ing what actu­al­ly hap­pened.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s research in this pro­gram begins with the sec­tion titled “Cov­er-Up and Stonewalling.”

“Ivan Katchanovs­ki, PhD. The Maid­an Mas­sacre in Ukraine: Rev­e­la­tions from Tri­als and Inves­ti­ga­tions.” Poster pre­sent­ed at: 2018 Con­fer­ence of the Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Stud­ies Asso­ciates; 2018 Aug 30-Sept 1; Boston, MA

Pre­vi­ous Stud­ies

The Maid­an mas­sacre in Ukraine in Feb­ru­ary 2014 led to or con­tributed to

* Vio­lent over­throw of the semi-demo­c­ra­t­ic pro-Russ­ian gov­ern­ment
* Russ­ian annex­a­tion of Crimea
* Civ­il war in Don­bas
* Russ­ian covert mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Don­bas in sup­port of sep­a­ratists
* Con­flict between the West and Rus­sia

(See Black and Johns, 2016; Hahn, 2017; Katchanovs­ki, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a, 2016b, 2017; Kudelia, 2016, 2018)

Only a few pre­vi­ous schol­ar­ly stud­ies of this cru­cial case of polit­i­cal vio­lence

* All by polit­i­cal sci­en­tists

Most pre­vi­ous stud­ies find that this was a false flag mass killing involv­ing sec­tions of Maid­an lead­er­ship and far right and involved the mas­sacre of the police (Hahn, 2017; Katchanovs­ki, 2015, 2016)

Kudelia (2018) argues that the vio­lence was ini­ti­at­ed by the Maid­an pro­test­ers, who killed and wound­ed many police­men and that the Berkut police then mas­sa­cred unarmed pro­test­ers in turn

* But the pre­vi­ous stud­ies did not exam­ine sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly evi­dence revealed by Maid­an mas­sacre tri­als and inves­ti­ga­tions
* Many schol­ars uncrit­i­cal­ly cit­ed Maid­an politi­cians, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, and the media con­cern­ing this mas­sacre with­out exam­in­ing evi­dence, includ­ing from tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tions, for exam­ple, mis­at­tribut­ing the mas­sacre to gov­ern­ment snipers (See, for exam­ple, Marples and Mills, 2015; Wil­son, 2014).

Ukrain­ian and West­ern gov­ern­ments and media dom­i­nant nar­ra­tives

* Gov­ern­ment snipers and/or a Berkut anti-riot police unit mas­sa­cred peace­ful Maid­an pro­test­ers on a Yanukovych order
* Killed pro­test­ers com­mem­o­rat­ed by the gov­ern­ment and media in Ukraine as nation­al heroes
* Lim­it­ed media report­ing and offi­cial state­ments about the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al even though this is the tri­al of the cen­tu­ry in Ukraine
* Charges against Yanukovych, his inter­nal affairs and secu­ri­ty min­is­ters, and a spe­cial Berkut unit are gen­er­al­ly tak­en at face val­ue
* With some lim­it­ed excep­tions, no media report­ing or offi­cials state­ments about rev­e­la­tions of evi­dence at the tri­al regard­ing snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled loca­tions or such evi­dence is dis­missed as a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry or fake

Research Ques­tion & Data

Research Ques­tion

* What does evi­dence made pub­lic by the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­als and Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tions reveal about which of the par­ties of the con­flict was involved in this mass killing?

Data and Method­ol­o­gy

* Sev­er­al hun­dred hours of online video record­ings of Maid­an mas­sacre tri­als
* Over 2,000 court deci­sions con­cern­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of the mas­sacre from the offi­cial court deci­sions data­base in Ukraine
* Focus on the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al of 5 Berkut police­men charged with the mas­sacre on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014

Qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive inter­views analy­sis

* Exam­ines tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tion tes­ti­monies of more than 100 wound­ed pro­test­ers and rel­a­tives of the killed pro­test­ers, Yanukovych, and his Inter­nal Troops com­man­der
* Tes­ti­monies by wit­ness­es at the tri­al, inves­ti­ga­tion, media, and social media

Con­tent analy­sis

* Analy­sis and syn­chro­niza­tion of videos, audio record­ings, and pho­tos of the Maid­an mas­sacre shown dur­ing the tri­al, in the media, and social media
* Com­par­isons of the tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tion data with oth­er evi­dence, such as syn­chro­nised videos of the mas­sacre and tes­ti­monies of wit­ness­es in the media and social media
* Com­par­i­son with results of foren­sic bal­lis­tic and med­ical exam­i­na­tions and inves­tiga­tive exper­i­ments made pub­lic at the tri­al
* Online video appen­dix­es with Eng­lish-lan­guage sub­ti­tles con­tain rel­e­vant video seg­ments from the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al, the media, and social media for analy­sis and repli­ca­tion pur­pos­es

Rev­e­la­tions about Snipers
The Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al & inves­ti­ga­tion revealed var­i­ous evi­dence that Maid­an pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 20 were mas­sa­cred by snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings

* At least 25 out of 66 wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers, with whose shoot­ing Berkut police­men are charged, tes­ti­fied at the tri­al & inves­ti­ga­tion that they were shot from Maid­an-con­trolled buildings/ areas & 29 tes­ti­fied that they wit­nessed snipers there or were told about them by oth­er pro­test­ers (See Video Appen­dix D)
[see video]
* Many wit­ness tes­ti­monies at the tri­al & inves­ti­ga­tion about snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings (Video Appen­dix E)
[see video]

Such tes­ti­monies are con­sis­tent with some 200 wit­ness tes­ti­monies in media and social media about snipers in Maid­an areas, includ­ing over 70 video tes­ti­monies.

* Six Maid­an politi­cians and activists pub­licly tes­ti­fied that they wit­nessed involve­ment of spe­cif­ic top Maid­an lead­ers in the mas­sacre, such as their deploy­ment of snipers and evac­u­a­tion of snipers who were cap­tured by Maid­an-pro­test­ers
* An ex-spon­sor of the Right Sec­tor to tes­ti­fy at the tri­al

(See Video Appen­dix B).
[see video]

They are also gen­er­al­ly con­sis­tent with tes­ti­monies of 5 Geor­gian ex-mil­i­tary in Ital­ian, Israeli, Mace­don­ian, & Russ­ian media and their depo­si­tions pro­vid­ed to Berkut lawyers for the tri­al. They tes­ti­fied that their groups received weapons, pay­ments, & orders to mas­sacre both police and pro­test­ers from spe­cif­ic Maid­an and Geor­gian politi­cians & instruc­tions from a far-right linked ex-US Army sniper and then saw Geor­gian, Baltic States, and spe­cif­ic far right Right Sec­tor-linked Ukrain­ian snipers shoot­ing from spe­cif­ic Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings (see Ital­ian & Israeli TV doc­u­men­taries (Eng­lish lan­guage ver­sions))
[see video]
[see video]
[see video]

These Geor­gians revealed in the media their names, pass­port num­bers & bor­der stamps, copies of plane tick­ets, videos and pho­tos in Ukraine or Geor­gian mil­i­tary, and oth­er evi­dence in sup­port of their tes­ti­monies

* Iden­ti­ties, pres­ence in Ukraine, and Geor­gian mil­i­tary ser­vice of some of them cor­rob­o­rat­ed by evi­dence & oth­er sources
* Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al deci­sion autho­rised two of them tes­ti­fy at the tri­al via video link from Arme­nia

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office inves­ti­ga­tion revealed in Octo­ber 2016 that one of the lead­ers of far right Svo­bo­da and its mem­ber of the par­lia­ment occu­pied a Hotel Ukraina room from which a sniper in report­ed Maid­an style green hel­met was filmed shoot­ing by BBC and ICTV in the direc­tion of the Maid­an pro­test­ers and the BBC jour­nal­ists. (See Video Appen­dix A)

Three Maid­an snipers admit­ted in BBC and Ukrain­ian media inter­views that the mas­sacre on Feb­ru­ary 20 start­ed with them and oth­er Maid­an snipers shoot­ing at the police from the Music Con­ser­va­to­ry and forc­ing the police units to flee the Maid­an square which they besieged (see BBC report and Katchanovs­ki, 2015b)
[see video]

* Inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined that one of them killed two police­men dur­ing the mas­sacre from a hunt­ing ver­sion of Kalash­nikov assault rifle
* Kyiv court deci­sions revealed that the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office of Ukraine inves­ti­gat­ed lead­ers and mem­bers of the far right Right Sec­tor, neo-Nazi “War­riors of Nar­nia,” Sok­il, a youth affil­i­ate of far right Svo­bo­da par­ty, far right Brat­st­vo and oth­er uniden­ti­fied Maid­an activists for their sus­pect­ed involve­ment in the killing and wound­ing of the Inte­ri­or Troops ser­vice­men and the Berkut police on Feb­ru­ary 18–20 (see, for exam­ple, Ukhvala, 2016a).
* Right Sec­tor mem­bers match killers of two Inte­ri­or Troops mem­bers on Feb­ru­ary 18

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office of Ukraine inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined based on their tes­ti­monies and inves­tiga­tive exper­i­ments that almost half of pro­test­ers (77 out of 157) were wound­ed on Feb­ru­ary 20 from oth­er sec­tors than the Berkut police and did not charge Berkut with their shoot­ing

* Since the inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined that gov­ern­ment snipers did not mas­sacre the Maid­an pro­test­ers this sug­gests that these pro­test­ers were wound­ed from the Maid­an-con­trolled buildings/areas
* E,g., a female #Maid­an medic, whose wound­ing on Maid­an was wide­ly blamed by West­ern & Ukrain­ian media and politi­cians on gov­ern­ment snipers
[see video]

No such tes­ti­monies admit­ting involve­ment in the mas­sacre or knowl­edge of such involve­ment by the Berkut police­men, ex-police and secu­ri­ty ser­vices com­man­ders, and ex-Yanukovych gov­ern­ment offi­cials

* This includes both those charged with the mas­sacre and those not charged and serv­ing the new Maid­an gov­ern­ment or remain­ing in Ukraine
* Charged Berkut police­men denied that they mas­sa­cred pro­test­ers
Their lawyers argue at the tri­al that both pro­test­ers and police were mas­sa­cred by snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings
* Yanukovych and his com­man­der of Inter­nal Troops tes­ti­fied at the tri­al as wit­ness­es via video link from Rus­sia the same and that they did not give orders to mas­sacre pro­test­ers.
* They were only charged in 2017 in absen­tia with order­ing the mas­sacre
* Such tes­ti­monies of police­men and senior ex-gov­ern­ment offi­cials pub­licly accused or charged with the mass killing are in line with their per­son­al, polit­i­cal, and mon­e­tary incen­tives but they are gen­er­al­ly con­sis­tent with var­i­ous oth­er evi­dence

No spe­cif­ic evi­dence of orders by then pres­i­dent Yanukovych, his inter­nal affairs and secu­ri­ty ser­vice min­is­ters, or police and secu­ri­ty ser­vice com­man­ders to mas­sacre unarmed pro­test­ers has been revealed at the tri­als or made pub­lic by the pros­e­cu­tion or oth­er sources

A minor­i­ty of wound­ed pro­test­ers tes­ti­fied at the tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tion that they were shot by gov­ern­ment snipers or Berkut police

* Most of these tes­ti­monies are not con­sis­tent with foren­sic med­ical exam­i­na­tions, in par­tic­u­lar, about their steep/slope wound direc­tions and their posi­tions in videos, inves­ti­ga­tion find­ing that pro­test­ers were not mas­sa­cred by gov­ern­ment snipers
* There is lack of such foren­sic exam­i­na­tions, videos, and wit­ness tes­ti­monies is a many of these cas­es or the evi­dence is con­tra­dic­to­ry
* Such tes­ti­monies by wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers are much more like­ly to be biased because of per­son­al, mon­e­tary and polit­i­cal incen­tives to cor­rob­o­rate the dom­i­nant gov­ern­ment, media and pros­e­cu­tion nar­ra­tive of the mas­sacre com­pared to oppo­site incen­tive of tes­ti­monies by wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers about snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings and areas

Inves­ti­ga­tion by the Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor Office in Lviv found that the Maid­an pro­test­ers in Khmel­nyt­skyi were killed and wound­ed by uniden­ti­fied Maid­an shoot­er from the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine region­al head­quar­ters porch that was occu­pied by Maid­an pro­test­ers. This is con­sis­tent with the con­tent analy­sis of videos of this mas­sacre (see Video Appen­dix C).

Foren­sic Exam­i­na­tions

Offi­cial foren­sic med­ical exam­i­na­tions

* Absolute major­i­ty of pro­test­ers shot on Feb­ru­ary 20 from side & back direc­tions
* 40 out of 48 killed pro­test­ers, with whose mur­der Berkut police­men are charged, had slope wounds & 1 even
* 36 with slope wounds were killed when police was on sim­i­lar lev­el on the ground
* E.g. 3 pro­test­ers in US archi­tec­ture com­pa­ny 3‑D mod­el for Maid­an lawyers but their wounds made near­ly straight

Loca­tions & direc­tions of Dmytriv wounds in foren­sic med­ical reports (Report, 2015a) & Krovavyi (2014) & Tri­al (2016) videos & their & bul­let direc­tion mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions by SITU (2018), New York Times (2018), BBC (2014) & pros­e­cu­tion
[see image]
They are con­sis­tent with bul­let tra­jec­to­ries in videos & pho­tos (see Video Appen­dix C)
[see video]

Foren­sic exam­i­na­tions and a video of his shoot­ing sug­gest that one pro­test­er shot in his side at near­ly even lev­el was killed from a Maid­an direc­tion

Out of 7 killed pro­test­ers with no foren­sic infor­ma­tion about their wounds direc­tion made pub­lic:

* Three were shot by hunt­ing pel­lets before the Berkut spe­cial com­pa­ny appeared in the Maid­an area
* One was shot by an expand­ing hunt­ing bul­let of a US cal­iber which does not match cal­iber of gov­ern­ment units firearms
* One was killed, inter alia, by a hand­gun bul­let behind a wall that made it phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble to shoot him from Berkut posi­tions
* Two oth­er were killed at the same time and place as the many oth­er pro­test­ers

(See Video Appen­dix A)

Sim­i­lar­ly, 48 out of 51 wound­ed pro­test­ers, whose wound direc­tions were revealed at the tri­al and with whose shoot­ing on Feb­ru­ary 20th Berkut police­men were charged, had wounds at sig­nif­i­cant slopes.

* Com­mon sense and foren­sic text­books sug­gest that this is con­sis­tent with shoot­ing by snipers in/on build­ings.

Side­ways and back loca­tions and direc­tions of their wounds in the absolute major­i­ty of cas­es also point to shoot­ing from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings locat­ed on both sides and in the back of advanc­ing pro­test­ers and not from their front by the Berkut police (see Map).

* One does not need to be a foren­sic expert to deter­mine whether over­all loca­tions and direc­tions of wounds at the times and spots iden­ti­fied at the tri­al and in syn­chro­nized videos of the mas­sacre point to the Berkut posi­tions on the ground in front of the pro­test­ers or to Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings on the pro­test­ers’ left and right sides and in the back of the pro­test­ers

Foren­sic bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tions

* Report­ed that 19 pro­test­ers were killed on Feb­ru­ary 20 by 7.62x39mm cal­iber bul­lets
* Stat­ed that they could not deter­mine if the bul­lets were fired from Kalash­nikov assault rifles of this cal­iber, hunt­ing ver­sions of Kalash­nikov assault rifles, or oth­er weapons of this cal­iber, such as Simonov car­bine (SKS)
* They indi­cat­ed that one pro­test­er was killed from Vepr car­bine, a hunt­ing ver­sion of Kalash­nikov machine gun
* Three oth­er pro­test­ers were killed by pel­lets used in hunt­ing.
* Two pro­test­ers were killed by expand­ing hunt­ing bul­lets. Their cal­iber did not match cal­ibers of weapons used by the spe­cial Berkut com­pa­ny, whose mem­bers were charged with killing them.
* A foren­sic bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tion con­duct­ed by gov­ern­ment insti­tute experts on the pros­e­cu­tion request with use of an auto­mat­ic com­put­er based IBIS-TAIS sys­tem in Jan­u­ary 2015 found that bul­lets extract­ed from killed pro­test­ers, trees, and the Hotel Ukraina rooms did not match police data­base of bul­let sam­ples from any 7.62×39 cal­iber Kalash­nikov assault rifles of mem­bers of the entire Kyiv Berkut reg­i­ment, includ­ing the spe­cial Berkut com­pa­ny charged with the mas­sacre of the pro­test­ers
* Find­ings of this com­put­er-based bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tion and results of some 40 oth­er bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tions were reversed in a cou­ple of bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tions con­duct­ed man­u­al­ly in the very end of the inves­ti­ga­tion
* This sug­gests that these rever­sals are unre­li­able, and bal­lis­tic experts could not explain them at the tri­al

Foren­sic exam­i­na­tions along with tes­ti­monies of wound­ed pro­test­ers & wit­ness­es, loca­tions & posi­tions of the killed & wound­ed pro­test­ers in videos & pho­tos, & Google Earth map of the mas­sacre site sug­gest that at least absolute major­i­ty of pro­test­ers, includ­ing Dmytriv, were shot by snipers in the Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings (See map and Video Appen­dix A)

[see Map of the Maid­an mas­sacre on Feb­ru­ary 20]

Killing and wound­ing of a small minor­i­ty of pro­test­ers by the Berkut police, in par­tic­u­lar, by ric­o­chets or in cross-fire with snipers in the Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings, can­not be exclud­ed because of lack of data or con­tra­dic­to­ry data

* But their killing and wound­ing in the same loca­tions and at the same time as oth­er pro­test­ers sug­gest that most of them were also like­ly shot by the Maid­an snipers.

Gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined that most of pro­test­ers killed on Feb­ru­ary 18–19 were shot with hunt­ing pel­lets and smooth­bore rifles used in hunt­ing

The gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that the absolute major­i­ty of 11 police­men killed on Feb­ru­ary 18–19, and all 4 police­men killed on Feb­ru­ary 20 were shot from sim­i­lar types and cal­ibers of hunt­ing pel­lets and bul­lets, hand­gun bul­lets, and 7,62×39 bul­lets as the pro­test­ers

Court rul­ings revealed that the weapons used by two wound­ed Right Sec­tor activists in a sep­a­ratist check­point attack in April 2014 were the same weapons from which two Inter­nal Troops ser­vice­men were killed and three oth­er police­men wound­ed on the Maid­an on Feb­ru­ary 18 (Ukhvala, 2016b).

Cov­er-up & Stonewalling NB–We began this week’s pre­sen­ta­tion with a read­ing of Pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s pre­sen­ta­tion from this point.

* Inves­ti­ga­tion denies that there were snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings & not inves­ti­gates them in spite of over­whelm­ing evi­dence revealed by inves­ti­ga­tion & tri­al & pub­licly avail­able evi­dence, such as tes­ti­monies by over 100 wound­ed pro­test­ers & over 200 wit­ness­es, & videos, pho­tos & audio of snipers in/on these build­ings, includ­ing their shoot­ing at pro­test­ers & police (Video Appen­dix A).
[see video]

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine, who was one of the top Maid­an politi­cians, declared that the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an mas­sacre is de fac­to com­plet­ed

* Pub­lic state­ments by 6 Maid­an politi­cians and activists and 5 Geor­gians about involve­ment of snipers and Maid­an lead­ers in the mas­sacre and its cov­er-up have not been inves­ti­gat­ed
* Ex-pres­i­dent of Geor­gia hasti­ly detained and expelled from Ukraine a day before his tes­ti­mo­ny con­cern­ing “Geor­gian snipers” at the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al
* Sim­i­lar­ly, a pub­lic state­ment by a Maid­an mem­ber of the par­lia­ment that one of titusky lead­ers, who was involved in killing of a jour­nal­ist on Feb­ru­ary 19, worked for a busi­ness of lead­ing Maid­an activists and that they knew about the mas­sacar in advance also has not been inves­ti­gat­ed

Fail­ure by the inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine bul­let tra­jec­to­ries with help of foren­sic bal­lis­tic experts even after the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al ordered such exam­i­na­tions, specif­i­cal­ly to deter­mine if these tra­jec­to­ries were from the Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings

* The inves­ti­ga­tion instead of bal­lis­tic experts used com­plex foren­sic exam­i­na­tions by medics to deter­mine sec­tors of fire with­out on-site vis­its and any mea­sure­ments and expla­na­tions pro­vid­ed
* At least sev­er­al dozens of such exam­i­na­tions were con­duct­ed by the same three med­ical experts dur­ing the last weeks of the inves­ti­ga­tion
* Not bal­lis­tic experts but archi­tects from a US archi­tec­ture com­pa­ny were hired by Maid­an vic­tims lawyers with involve­ment of the pros­e­cu­tion to deter­mine bul­let tra­jec­to­ries of 3 select­ed killed pro­test­ers out of 49 killed and 157 wound­ed pro­test­ers for the tri­al con­cern­ing Feb­ru­ary 20th Maid­an mas­sacre
* Both these com­plex med­ical exam­i­na­tions and the 3‑D mod­el by New York archi­tec­ture com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed prac­ti­cal­ly iden­ti­cal bul­let trajectories/sectors of fire from Berkut bar­ri­cades on the ground in cas­es of these 3 killed pro­test­ers.
* But wounds loca­tions and steep slopes of the entry and exit wounds in foren­sic med­ical exam­i­na­tions used both by the med­ical and archi­tec­tur­al experts in deter­min­ing these bal­lis­tic tra­jec­to­ries dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly from their loca­tions and near­ly hor­i­zon­tal lev­els in the 3‑D mod­el by SITU Research
* This con­cerns not only Dmytriv wounds but also Dyh­dalovych and Parashchuk wounds
(See images con­cern­ing Dmyriv above and Dyh­dalovych below, Report (2015a, 2015b); SITU (2018)).
[see image of Dyh­dalovych wounds loca­tions and direc­tions and their mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion in SITU mod­el]

Bul­let wounds loca­tions and their steep slopes along with bul­let holes appear­ing in shields right after their killings in the same spot with­in 2 min­utes and a tes­ti­mo­ny of a pro­test­er who was in the same spot that he saw Dyh­dalovych shot by a sniper on the Bank Arka­da point to the top of this build­ing as a loca­tion of snipers who killed both Dyh­dalovych and Dmytriv.

(See Map, Video Appen­dix A).

* These bul­let holes and the tes­ti­monies of two pro­test­ers, who wit­nessed their killings, about snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings shoot­ing Dyh­dalovych and Dmytriv were not men­tioned at the tri­al
* Similarly,videos and audio record­ings of snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings and pub­licly avail­able tes­ti­monies of numer­ous oth­er Maid­an pro­test­ers about such snipers were not men­tioned by the inves­ti­ga­tion and at the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al

The land­scape, the street, & trees on the site of the mas­sacre would be almost com­plete­ly changed into a park and a new Maid­an mas­sacre muse­um by Feb­ru­ary 2019 and it would be phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble to con­duct on-site inves­tiga­tive exper­i­ments to deter­mine bul­let tra­jec­to­ries.

A new bal­lis­tic expert exam­i­na­tions of bul­lets that was ordered by the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al has not start­ed for more than 1 year after the court deci­sion.

No foren­sic video and audio exam­i­na­tions were con­duct­ed by the inves­ti­ga­tion.

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office reversed with­out any expla­na­tions their own pre­vi­ous inves­ti­ga­tion find­ings.

* Admis­sions that pro­test­ers were mas­sa­cred by snipers from the Hotel Ukraina from SKS car­bines and that at least 3 pro­test­ers were killed from this hotel and 10 oth­ers were also killed from sig­nif­i­cant heights
* Inves­ti­ga­tions of the mas­sacres of the police and the pro­test­ers were sep­a­rat­ed even though they hap­pened on the same days and in the same places
* No foren­sic exam­i­na­tions com­par­isons of bul­lets extract­ed from bod­ies of the police and the pro­test­ers in spite of var­i­ous evi­dence that they were shot by same groups of snipers
* Sim­i­lar unex­plained rever­sals of foren­sic exam­i­na­tions of bul­lets and direc­tions of wounds of pro­test­ers a few weeks before the inves­ti­ga­tion sub­mit­ted the case to a court for tri­al
* Sim­i­lar unex­plained rever­sals at the tri­al tes­ti­monies of many wound­ed pro­test­ers pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed to the inves­ti­ga­tion

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office has been head­ed by Maid­an politi­cians or close allies of the cur­rent pres­i­dent of Ukraine and the inves­ti­ga­tion of the mas­sacre has been under con­trol of Maid­an gov­ern­ment lead­ers from the start.

Two fac­tions of main rul­ing Maid­an par­ties blocked cre­ation of a par­lia­men­tary com­mis­sion con­cern­ing Maid­an mas­sacre inves­ti­ga­tion.

Key pieces of foren­sic evi­dence of the mas­sacre on Feb­ru­ary 20 dis­ap­peared when it was under the Maid­an oppo­si­tion or Maid­an gov­ern­ment con­trol or when it was in the pos­ses­sion of the Maid­an gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tion with­out any­one respon­si­ble iden­ti­fied and pros­e­cut­ed.

* Almost all shields and hel­mets of killed and wound­ed pro­test­ers since bul­let holes in them or their absence could iden­ti­fy loca­tions of the shoot­ers
* Many bul­lets extract­ed from bod­ies of the pro­test­ers and the police, trees, soil, a flower box, and the Maid­an build­ings
* Some trees with bul­lets and/or bul­let holes were cut soon after the mas­sacre, and the pros­e­cu­tion admit­ted this three years after­wards
* Record­ings of live online streams and oth­er videos from the time of shoot­ing at the police from the Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings in the ear­ly morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 20
* Secu­ri­ty cam­eras record­ings from the Hotel Ukraina, the Bank Arka­da, and oth­er Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings at the time when snipers were locat­ed there
* Bul­lets extract­ed from bod­ies of pro­test­ers in Khmel­nyt­skyi
* A leader of a Maid­an orga­ni­za­tion and its mem­bers were revealed and inves­ti­gat­ed by the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office for evac­u­at­ing and hid­ing firearms of the spe­cial Berkut com­pa­ny charged with the mas­sacre of the pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 20

No one was charged with killing and wound­ing the major­i­ty of Maid­an pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 18–19.

* Berkut police­men charged with killing the first 3 pro­test­ers and wound­ing 33 pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 18 were released by the courts and allowed by the law enforce­ment to flee Ukraine
* The same con­cerns a Berkut com­man­der whose com­pa­ny was charged with killing of 48 pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 20
* Foren­sic evi­dence in killings pro­test­ers and the police on Feb­ru­ary 18–19 has not been made pub­lic
* A pro­test­er who killed anoth­er pro­test­er by dri­ving him over in a seized truck and was tried was released under an amnesty law for crimes com­mit­ted by Maid­an pro­test­ers dur­ing the “Euro­maid­an”

Nobody is charged with killing of a Geor­gian pro­test­er on Feb­ru­ary 20 and cir­cum­stances of his killing and its inves­ti­ga­tion are not made pub­lic.

Nobody is charged and tried for killing and wound­ing police­men on Feb­ru­ary 18–20.

* Charges of killing two police­men against one Maid­an sniper who pub­licly admit­ted in the Ukrain­ian media this were dropped and replaced by milder charges by the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine

The Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al was restart­ed from the begin­ning, has not com­plet­ed tes­ti­monies of rel­a­tives of killed and wound­ed pro­test­ers, and it would not pro­duce a ver­dict before the 2019 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions

Sev­er­al attacks by the neo-Nazi C14 and oth­er far right groups dis­rupt­ed and threat­ened the tri­al.

* C14 took refuge in the Cana­di­an Embassy short­ly before the Maid­an mas­sacre, and one of its ex-lead­ers stat­ed that the C14 knew about the mas­sacre in advance.

No such evi­dence of sys­tem­at­ic cov­er-up by the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment lead­ers and Berkut mem­bers.

* Yanukovych trea­son tri­al revealed var­i­ous evi­dence that he fled Ukraine fol­low­ing sev­er­al assas­si­na­tion attempts by Maid­an forces, includ­ing far right.
* He, his min­is­ters and Inter­nal Troops ex-com­man­der vol­un­teered to tes­ti­fy via video links about the mas­sacre at the tri­als.
* Absolute major­i­ty of Berkut mem­bers, who were charged with the mas­sacre did not flee Ukraine until they were to be charged with the mas­sacre or after they were charged.

Not a sin­gle per­son is con­vict­ed for killing and wound­ing some 100 pro­test­ers and the police on Feb­ru­ary 18–20, 2014.

Con­clu­sion

Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al and inves­ti­ga­tion evi­dence have revealed var­i­ous evi­dence that at least the absolute major­i­ty of 49 killed and 157 wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 were mas­sa­cred by snipers in Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings.

* Such evi­dence includes tes­ti­monies of the major­i­ty of wound­ed pro­test­ers and many wit­ness­es, foren­sic med­ical and bal­lisitic exam­i­na­tions, and inves­ti­ga­tion own find­ing that about half of Maid­an pro­test­ers were wound­ed from oth­er loca­tions than the Berkut police.

Var­i­ous indi­ca­tions of stonewalling of the Maid­an mas­sacre inves­ti­ga­tions and the tri­als by the Maid­an gov­ern­ment offi­cials and by far right orga­ni­za­tions.

Var­i­ous indi­ca­tions of the cov­er-up of much of the key evi­dence of the mas­sacre.

Such rev­e­la­tions from the Maid­an mas­sacre tri­als and inves­ti­ga­tions cor­rob­o­rate pre­vi­ous stud­ies find­ings that this mas­sacre was a false flag mass killing with involve­ment of ele­ments of Maid­an lead­er­ship and the far right and that it includ­ed the mas­sacre of the police.

The puz­zling mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Maid­an mas­sacre, its inves­ti­ga­tion, and the tri­al by West­ern media and gov­ern­ments require fur­ther research con­cern­ing rea­sons for such mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

2a. Of sig­nif­i­cance for our pur­pos­es is the cryp­tic state­ment of Chief Mil­i­tary Pro­s­ec­tu­tor Ana­toliy Matios: ” . . . . Ear­li­er, Deputy Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine, Chief Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor Ana­toliy Matios said: ‘When pub­lic learns who is involved in this, peo­ple will be very sur­prised.’ Accord­ing to him, infor­ma­tion to be pub­lished may cause rejec­tion, ‘but the truth is the truth.” . . . .

“Pros­e­cu­tors say pub­lic to face unpleas­ant sur­prise in Maid­an killings probe”; Unian.info; 07/24/2016

Ukraine’s Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko says that the man who helped so-called “black hun­dred” of police task force Berkut, who had been shoot­ing at pro­test­ers dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty, flee Kyiv and delib­er­ate­ly drowned their weapons to con­ceal evi­dence, was him­self one of the par­tic­i­pants of the Maid­an protests.

“With the help of mil­i­tary coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence, we have found weapons of the “black hun­dred,” includ­ing a sniper rifle, which the entire coun­try saw on footage show­ing the shoot­ing at the pro­test­ers from out­side the Octo­ber Palace,” he told the 112 Ukraine TV chan­nel.

“We found it with a large num­ber of auto­mat­ic rifles on the bot­tom of one of Kiev’s lakes. They were cut and drowned in one batch by a sin­gle group, whose leader is one of the tar­gets of our inves­ti­ga­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this man who, accord­ing to our ver­sion, upon the orders of [for­mer Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Vitaliy] Zakharchenko helped the “black hun­dred” flee Kyiv, destroyed and drowned their weapons, he, him­self, was with us on the Maid­an,” Lut­senko said.

As UNIAN report­ed ear­li­er, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office July 14 con­duct­ed search­es at the hous­es of per­sons involved in assist­ing the troops from Berkut police spe­cial forces’ “black hun­dred” in flee­ing Kyiv after the bloody killings of the Maid­an activists and sub­se­quent destruc­tion of their weapons.

Ear­li­er, Deputy Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine, Chief Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor Ana­toliy Matios said: “When pub­lic learns who is involved in this, peo­ple will be very sur­prised.” Accord­ing to him, infor­ma­tion to be pub­lished may cause rejec­tion, “but the truth is the truth.” . . . .

2b. Ana­toliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor, gave an exten­sive inter­view where he said that Jews are behind all wars and want to “drown eth­nic Slavs in blood.”

Also recall the cryp­tic state­ment Matios made back in 2016 about the iden­ti­ty of the peo­ple involved with the 2014 sniper attacks: “When pub­lic learns who is involved in this, peo­ple will be very sur­prised.” In FTR #‘s 982, 993, 1004, 1023, we exam­ined evi­dence that Ukrain­ian fas­cists may well have exe­cut­ed those sniper attacks. It is omi­nous that the chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor who is involved in that inves­ti­ga­tion is a neo-Nazi.

“Jews Want to Drown Ukraine in Blood, Ukraine’s Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor Says Amid Wave of Racist and Anti-Semit­ic Attacks” by Cristi­na Maza; Newsweek; 06/27/2018

In an exten­sive inter­view with the Ukrain­ian news out­let Insid­er, Ana­toliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor, espoused anti-Semit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries in which he implied that Jews want to drown eth­nic Slavs in blood.

Refer­ring to Alexan­der Parvus, a Belaruss­ian-born Marx­ist the­o­reti­cian who was active in Germany’s Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in the late 19th cen­tu­ry, and who also hap­pened to be Jew­ish, Matios claimed that Jews can be found financ­ing all great con­flicts.

“In each war, there is always a Parvus, who brought Lenin mon­ey for a rev­o­lu­tion which flood­ed Slavs with blood for decades. Parvus was also Jew­ish. In this case, they want to do the same to Ukraine,” Matios told the Insid­er. . . .

3. Note that the Azov’s num­ber two man–Ihor Mosiychuk–was sen­tenced to prison for a planned bomb­ing in Jan­u­ary 2014. His sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed on his behalf on the Maid­an, help­ing to cre­ate the tur­moil that led to Yanukovich’s over­throw.

” . . . [On] Jan­u­ary 10, 2014, Mosiy­chuk and two oth­er fas­cists had been found guilty and sen­tenced to sev­er­al years in prison for a planned August 2011 bomb­ing attack. On the evening of Jan­u­ary 10, ultra-right-wingers staged demon­stra­tions protest­ing the sen­tence. The demon­stra­tions degen­er­at­ed into vio­lent con­fronta­tions with the police. These con­fronta­tions, in turn, were then used by Berlin, Brus­sels and Wash­ing­ton to accuse Yanukovych of exces­sive use of force on the ‘move­ment fight­ing for democ­ra­cy.’ . . .”  

“Ukrain­ian Patri­ots”; german-foreign-policy.com; 7/30/2014.

. . . .He [Oleh Lyashko] is also co-founder and sup­port­er of the Azov Bat­tal­ion, a mili­tia of over one hun­dred — main­ly fas­cist — com­bat­ants, includ­ing a Swedish Neo-Nazi sniper. He has report­ed that oth­er snipers had already been in action for the oppo­si­tion dur­ing the Maid­an protests.It has nev­er been revealed, who fired the fatal shots on Feb­ru­ary 20. In this high­ly charged atmos­phere, the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment is tak­ing steps that indi­cate a polit­i­cal cul­tur­al devel­op­ment even fur­ther to the right. It is plan­ning to cen­sure films and books from Rus­sia or to restrict their sales. . . .

. . . .  The Swedish neo-Nazi Mikael Skillt is a mem­ber of the Azov Bat­tal­ion. Skillt, a mem­ber of the fas­cist Sven­skar­nas Par­ti (Par­ty of the Swedes), says that he has “at least” three pur­pos­es in the unit: com­man­der of “a small recon­nais­sance unit,” a “sniper” and some­times he works “as a spe­cial coor­di­na­tor for clear­ing hous­es and going into civil­ian areas.” The per­son, who is rumored to have been cap­tured by East Ukrain­ian insur­gents, had been a sniper for six years in the Swedish mil­i­tary. He says, he has only been engaged in the Ukrain­ian con­flict since March. He admits, how­ev­er, to hav­ing spo­ken to at least two snipers, who, dur­ing the Maid­an protests had shot at police from the Trade Union House in Kiev — at the time, the head­quar­ters of the pro­tes­tors. “Their mis­sion was to take out Berkut’s snipers,” explained Skillt.[7] The dead­ly shots from the Maid­an, which in West­ern pro­pa­gan­da had been used to legit­imize the over­throw of Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych, have nev­er been inves­ti­gat­ed by the putsch regime, and Berlin has nev­er applied pres­sure for an inves­ti­ga­tion.

Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers

The Azov Bat­tal­ion has close ties to Oleh Lyashko, whose “Rad­i­cal Par­ty,” would cur­rent­ly be able to poll a fourth of the votes if elec­tions were held. Lyashko is con­sid­ered to be one of the Azov’s founders. For inter­net videos, he allows him­self to be filmed at joint actions with Asov com­bat­ants. The Azov Bat­tal­ion’s sec­ond in com­mand, Ihor Mosiy­chuk, had been elect­ed to Kiev’s Munic­i­pal Coun­cil on the elec­toral list of Lyashko’s Rad­i­cal Par­ty. This was not the first time Lyashko had inter­vened on his behalf. Jan­u­ary 10, 2014, Mosiy­chuk and two oth­er fas­cists had been found guilty and sen­tenced to sev­er­al years in prison for a planned August 2011 bomb­ing attack. On the evening of Jan­u­ary 10, ultra-right-wingers staged demon­stra­tions protest­ing the sen­tence. The demon­stra­tions degen­er­at­ed into vio­lent con­fronta­tions with the police. These con­fronta­tions, in turn, were then used by Berlin, Brus­sels and Wash­ing­ton to accuse Yanukovych of exces­sive use of force on the “move­ment fight­ing for democ­ra­cy.” The protests were unsuc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, imme­di­ate­ly after the Kiev coup, Mosiy­chuk and his accom­plices prof­it­ed from the amnesty, the pro-west­ern Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment grant­ed on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2014 to “polit­i­cal pris­on­ers”. Due to Lyashko’s deci­sive engage­ment, Mosiy­chuk prof­it­ed from the amnesty, was lib­er­at­ed from prison and could par­tic­i­pate in the orga­ni­za­tion the Azov Bat­tal­ion. . . .

. . . . . [1] Jakov Dev­cic: Jazen­juks Rück­trittsver­such. www.kas.de 29.07.2014.
[2] Ukraine will rus­sis­che Kul­tur zurück­drän­gen. www.n‑tv.de 29.07.2014.
[3] S. dazu Ter­min beim Botschafter.
[4] Dina New­man: Ukraine con­flict: “White pow­er” war­rior from Swe­den. www.bbc.co.uk 16.07.2014.
[5] Daniel McLaugh­lin: For­eign­ers join far-right mili­tias in Ukraine’s fight against rebels. www.irishtimes.com 17.07.2014.
[6] Hal Fos­ter: A spe­cial-forces unit, start­ed from scratch, wins a key bat­tle in Ukraine. en.tengrinews.kz 21.06.2014.

[7] Swede Patrols Ukraine’s Streets with Right-wing Para­mil­i­taries. www.friatider.se 26.03.2014.

4. Against the back­ground of the Maid­an snip­ing as a prob­a­ble false flag provo­ca­tion, the impend­ing Syr­i­an offen­sive to re-cap­ture the last ter­ri­to­r­i­al enclave of the Islamists in Syr­ia should be viewed with appre­hen­sion. As not­ed in the arti­cle below, the so-called “rebels” are Al-Qae­da off­shoots. Omi­nous­ly, they have appar­ent­ly suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cut­ed false-flag chem­i­cal weapons attacks before, includ­ing in Idlib province.

Rus­sia has warned that such a provo­ca­tion is in the wings–an unre­mark­able deduc­tion in light of past his­to­ry. In turn, the West has warned of retal­ia­to­ry action if such actions are under­tak­en.

The stage appears set for an Islamist/Al-Qae­da chem­i­cal weapons false flag/provocation, upon which U.S., British and French mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion will be pred­i­cat­ed.

In this con­text, one should not lose sight of the fact that Chech­nyan Islamist vet­er­ans of the Syr­i­an war have already made their appear­ance in the com­bat in East­ern Ukraine, part­ner­ing with Pravy Sek­tor in their deploy­ments. (The Chechen/Right Sector/Islamist link is dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 857, 862, 863, 872, 878, 893, 911.)

“Rebels;” Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy; 9/03/2018.

Berlin and the EU are inten­si­fy­ing pres­sure on Dam­as­cus in view of the Syr­i­an troops’ pre­sumed immi­nent offen­sive in Idlib against the jiha­di mili­tias, includ­ing al-Qaeda’s Syr­i­an off­shoot. Accord­ing to a Ger­man gov­ern­ment spokesper­son, it is “antic­i­pat­ed” that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment will “restrain the Syr­i­an regime’s esca­la­tion.” Wash­ing­ton is threat­en­ing with an unspec­i­fied inter­ven­tion, should chem­i­cals weapons be used. Syr­i­an jihadists have used chem­i­cal weapons in the past, and would be in a posi­tion to pro­voke this US inter­ven­tion. Since last sum­mer, the Syr­i­an al-Qae­da off­shoot Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham is in con­trol of Idlib Province, with some 30,000 com­bat­ants. Addi­tion­al small­er, most­ly salafist jiha­di mili­tias are also ready to bat­tle the Syr­i­an army. By refer­ring to them as “rebels,” politi­cians and media are down­play­ing the jihadists — includ­ing al-Qae­da — as the 17th Anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks approach­es.

The Jiha­di Emi­rate Idlib

Already in the sum­mer of 2017, the Syr­i­an off­shoot of al-Qae­da, Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham (for­mer­ly al-Nus­ra) had pre­vailed over rival insur­gent mili­tias in fierce bat­tles in Idlib Province. Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham was tol­er­at­ing some oth­er armed cliques — as long as they were essen­tial­ly sub­mit­ting to its rule. “But there is no longer any ques­tion, who is ulti­mate­ly in charge” in Idlib Province, the Syr­i­an expert Aron Lund wrote in August 2017, call­ing Idlib a de fac­to “jiha­di emirate.”[1] At the time experts on the region assessed that the west­ern pow­ers could have no inter­est in defend­ing the al-Qae­da regime. Al-Qae­da is tem­porar­i­ly refrain­ing from large-scale ter­ror­ism in the West, because it pri­or­i­tizes the sta­bi­liza­tion of its struc­tures, the US Amer­i­can Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions wrote in March. The ter­ror attack against the French satir­i­cal mag­a­zine Char­lie Heb­do and the St. Peters­burg Metro bomb­ing — both being ascribed to al-Qae­da — prove that the orga­ni­za­tion has not giv­en up its old strategy.[2] The Syr­i­an expert Sam Heller, who, today, is work­ing for the Inter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group, spec­u­lat­ed in Mai 2017 that “some­one” will most like­ly put an end to those activ­i­ties in Idlib soon. It could be either the West or the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment with sup­port from Moscow because for both “a big jihadist safe haven is intolerable.”[3]

Under al-Qae­da Con­trol

Slight­ly more than a year lat­er, it is unclear whether this assess­ment still holds true. The sit­u­a­tion in Idlib has not fun­da­men­tal­ly changed, in spite of some shifts in pow­er while the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to recap­ture the province, with Russ­ian sup­port. The al-Qae­da off­shoot Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham suf­fered minor set­backs for two rea­sons. On the one hand, small frac­tions have split off because of inter­nal dis­sention. After invad­ing parts of Idlib, Ankara, on the oth­er hand, has begun to strength­en mili­tias, which had been mar­gin­al­ized by Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham and merge them into a new alliance. Its mem­bers are, to a large part — such as Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al Ahrar — salafist jiha­di ori­ent­ed like the Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham’s split-offs. Mili­tias who are ori­ent­ed oth­er­wise — such as those close to the Mus­lim Broth­ers — are in the minority.[4] Experts report that the al-Qae­da off­shoot now con­trols near­ly 60 per­cent of Idlib province and con­sists of about 30,000 fight­ers, accord­ing to the Lon­don based Syr­i­an Obser­va­to­ry for Human Rights , which west­ern media and gov­ern­ment agen­cies often quote as their source of infor­ma­tion on Syria.[5] Thus, al-Qae­da has about one per­cent of Idlib’s cur­rent pop­u­la­tion under arms — short­ly before the 17th anniver­sary of the attacks on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.

“Very Wor­ried”

And yet, cur­rent­ly west­ern politi­cians and media are against Syr­ia and Rus­sia much more than al-Qae­da. Thus, al-Qae­da-pre­dom­i­nat­ed jiha­di mili­tias in Idlib are reg­u­lar­ly euphem­ized as “rebels,” and the province, itself, as a “rebel strong­hold.” If one goes along with this ter­mi­nol­o­gy — which comes quite close to the way the jihadis see them­selves — then al-Qae­da leader Ayman al Zawahiri and his pre­de­ces­sor Osama bin Laden must be “rebel lead­ers,” and the ter­ror­ists of Paris and St. Peters­burg would have been act­ing in the name of a “rebel orga­ni­za­tion.” Oth­er­wise, this pat­tern of argu­men­ta­tion resem­bles that dur­ing the com­bat waged by the Syr­i­an army against Salafist and jihadis for East Allep­po, for East Ghou­ta and more recent­ly for Daraa. Warn­ings of mas­sacres at the hands of Syr­i­an troops and the sup­port­ing Russ­ian mil­i­tary are already being prop­a­gat­ed in advance. Accord­ing to a Ger­man gov­ern­ment spokesper­son, who expressed that the gov­ern­ment is “very wor­ried about the esca­la­tion of the sit­u­a­tion in north­west Syr­ia” and “antic­i­pates” that Moscow “will restrain the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment from an esca­la­tion there­by avert­ing a human­i­tar­i­an catastrophe.”[6] “We must pre­vent mil­i­tary engage­ments in Idlib that could lead to a human­i­tar­i­an cat­a­stro­phe,” announced Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni, EU High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty.

“Worse than Auschwitz”

Fur­ther esca­la­tion of this argu­men­ta­tion is eas­i­ly pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, in Ger­man media, it was claimed dur­ing the bat­tle over East Alep­po that the Syr­i­an mil­i­tary was com­mit­ting “geno­cide” in the city. What was hap­pen­ing there was “worse than Auschwitz.” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[7]) On the oth­er hand, Ger­man politi­cians and media, have had no crit­i­cism of the bloody bat­tles waged for Fal­lu­ja, Mossul, and Raqqa, which had been car­ried out by west­ern mil­i­tary forces. Aside from regrets at the loss of civil­ian lives, these bat­tles are still today being cel­e­brat­ed as hero­ic vic­to­ries over jihadis. But in fact, the bat­tles waged by the West have dif­fered lit­tle from those waged by Syr­ia and Rus­sia, in terms of the num­ber of deaths and the extent of destruc­tion. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[8]) A team of the UN High Com­mis­sion for Refugees (UNHCR) even declared in the spring, that the extent of destruc­tion in Raqqa had “exceed­ed any­thing” they had “ever seen before.”[9] Raqqa had not been dev­as­tat­ed by Syr­i­ans and Rus­sians in the course of the war against the IS but rather by west­ern air strikes using recon­nais­sance data pro­vid­ed by the Bun­deswehr in col­lab­o­ra­tion with pro-west­ern troops on the ground.

Ready for Inter­ven­tion

Whether this will sim­ply remain a case of neg­a­tive cov­er­age of the upcom­ing bat­tle for Idlib or whether indi­vid­ual west­ern pow­ers will inter­vene, remains uncer­tain. A few days ago, the USA, Great Britain and France pub­lished a state­ment, where­in they expressed their “seri­ous con­cern over reports,” accord­ing to which, “the Syr­i­an regime is prepar­ing a mil­i­tary offen­sive against civil­ians and the civil­ian infra­struc­ture in Idlib.” They are also “wor­ried” that the Syr­i­an mil­i­tary forces will prob­a­bly use chem­i­cal weapons. If this hap­pens, the three coun­tries are “deter­mined to take action.”[10] Sub­se­quent­ly, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor, John Bolton affirmed that the USA would react “very strong­ly” should there be a chem­i­cal weapons attack.[11] In fact, the west­ern pow­ers are giv­ing jiha­di mili­tias in Idlib an option: should they not be able to van­quish the Syr­i­an mil­i­tary, they can feign a chem­i­cal weapons attack and the West will inter­vene on their side. That Syr­i­an jihadis have already used chem­i­cal weapons and, there­fore, know how to do it, is well known. A west­ern attack against Syr­i­an forces in or around Idlib would, in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, help the Syr­i­an off­shoot of al-Qae­da.

[1] Aron Lund: New order on the bor­der: Can for­eign aid get past Syr­i­a’s jihadis? irinnews.org 15.08.2018.

[2] Bruce Hoff­man: Al Qaeda’s Res­ur­rec­tion. cfr.org 06.03.2018.

[3] twitter.com/AbuJamajem/status/864575114511253504

[4] Bruce Hoff­man: Al Qaeda’s Res­ur­rec­tion. cfr.org 06.03.2018.

[5] Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham: Syr­ia Regime’s Tough­est Foe in Idlib. military.com 01.09.2018.

[6] EU warnt vor Katas­tro­phe in Idlib. handelsblatt.com 31.08.2018.

[7] See also Die Schlacht um Mossul (IV).

[8] See also Dou­ble Stan­dards and Die präzisen Luftan­griffe des West­ens.

[9] Zitiert nach: Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al: “War of Anni­hi­la­tion”. Dev­as­tat­ing Toll on Civil­ians, Raqqa — Syr­ia. Lon­don 2018.

[10] US, UK, France state­ment on the chem­i­cal weapons attack in Syr­ia. reliefweb.int 21.08.2018.

[11] Som­mer Brokaw: Bolton: U.S. will act ‘strong­ly’ if Syr­ia uses chem­i­cal weapons again. upi.com 22.08.2018.

5. The last part of the pro­gram con­sists of a par­tial read­ing of an arti­cle by CFR mem­ber Bruce Hoff­man. Not­ing Al Qaeda’s resur­gence and Al Qaeda’s empha­sis on the Syr­i­an con­flict, Hoff­man cites the so-called “Arab Spring” as the key event in Al Qaeda’s resur­gence. ” . . . . The thou­sands of hard­ened al-Qae­da fight­ers freed from Egypt­ian pris­ons in 2012–2013 by Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mor­si gal­va­nized the move­ment at a crit­i­cal moment, when insta­bil­i­ty reigned and a hand­ful of men well-versed in ter­ror­ism and sub­ver­sion could plunge a coun­try or a region into chaos. Whether in Libya, Turkey, Syr­ia, or Yemen, their arrival was prov­i­den­tial in terms of advanc­ing al-Qaeda’s inter­ests or increas­ing its influ­ence. . . . It was Syr­ia where al-Qaeda’s inter­ven­tion proved most con­se­quen­tial. One of Zawahiri’s first offi­cial acts after suc­ceed­ing bin Laden as emir was to order a Syr­i­an vet­er­an of the Iraqi insur­gency named Abu Moham­mad al-Julani to return home and estab­lish the al-Qae­da fran­chise that would even­tu­al­ly become Jab­hat al-Nus­ra. . . .”

In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we pre­sent­ed our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intel­li­gence oper­a­tion, aimed at plac­ing the Broth­er­hood in pow­er in Mus­lim coun­tries dom­i­nat­ed either by a sec­u­lar dic­ta­tor or absolute monar­chy.

It is our view that the Broth­er­hood was seen as use­ful because of its mil­i­tary off­shoots (Al-Qae­da in par­tic­u­lar) were use­ful proxy war­riors in places like the Cau­ca­sus and the Balka­ns and because the Broth­er­hood’s cor­po­ratist, neo-lib­er­al eco­nom­ic doc­trine was in keep­ing with the desires and goals of the trans-nation­al cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty.

In FTR #787, we solid­i­fied our analy­sis with defin­i­tive con­fir­ma­tion of our work­ing hypoth­e­sis pre­sent­ed years ear­li­er.

“Al Qaeda’s Res­ur­rec­tion” by Bruce Hoff­man; Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions; 3/6/2018.

While the self-pro­claimed Islam­ic State has dom­i­nat­ed the head­lines and pre­oc­cu­pied nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials for the past four years, al-Qae­da has been qui­et­ly rebuild­ing. Its announce­ment last sum­mer of anoth­er affiliate—this one ded­i­cat­ed to the lib­er­a­tion of Kashmir—coupled with the res­ur­rec­tion of its pres­ence in Afghanistan and the solid­i­fi­ca­tion of its influ­ence in Syr­ia, Yemen, and Soma­lia, under­scores the resilien­cy and con­tin­ued vital­i­ty of the Unit­ed States’ pre­em­i­nent ter­ror­ist ene­my.

Although al-Qaeda’s rebuild­ing and reor­ga­ni­za­tion pre­dates the 2011 Arab Spring, the upheaval that fol­lowed helped the move­ment revive itself. At the time, an unbri­dled opti­mism among local and region­al rights activists and West­ern gov­ern­ments held that a com­bi­na­tion of pop­u­lar protest, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, and social media had ren­dered ter­ror­ism an irrel­e­vant anachro­nism. The long­ing for democ­ra­cy and eco­nom­ic reform, it was argued, had deci­sive­ly trumped repres­sion and vio­lence. How­ev­er, where the opti­mists saw irre­versible pos­i­tive change, al-Qae­da dis­cerned new and invit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.

The suc­ces­sive killings in 2011 and 2012 of Osama bin Laden; Anwar al-Awla­ki, the movement’s chief pro­pa­gan­dist; and Abu Yahya al-Libi, its sec­ond-in-com­mand, lent new weight to the opti­mists’ pre­dic­tions that al-Qae­da was a spent force. In ret­ro­spect, how­ev­er, it appears that al-Qae­da was among the region­al forces that ben­e­fit­ed most from the Arab Spring’s tumult. Sev­en years lat­er, Ayman al-Zawahiri has emerged as a pow­er­ful leader, with a strate­gic vision that he has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly imple­ment­ed. Forces loy­al to al-Qae­da and its affil­i­ates now num­ber in the tens of thou­sands, with a capac­i­ty to dis­rupt local and region­al sta­bil­i­ty, as well as launch attacks against their declared ene­mies in the Mid­dle East, Africa, South Asia, South­east Asia, Europe, and Rus­sia. Indeed, from north­west­ern Africa to South Asia, al-Qae­da has knit togeth­er a glob­al move­ment of more than two dozen fran­chis­es.* In Syr­ia alone, al-Qae­da now has upwards of twen­ty thou­sand men under arms, and it has per­haps anoth­er four thou­sand in Yemen and about sev­en thou­sand in Soma­lia.

The Arab Spring’s Big Win­ner

The thou­sands of hard­ened al-Qae­da fight­ers freed from Egypt­ian pris­ons in 2012–2013 by Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mor­si gal­va­nized the move­ment at a crit­i­cal moment, when insta­bil­i­ty reigned and a hand­ful of men well-versed in ter­ror­ism and sub­ver­sion could plunge a coun­try or a region into chaos. Whether in Libya, Turkey, Syr­ia, or Yemen, their arrival was prov­i­den­tial in terms of advanc­ing al-Qaeda’s inter­ests or increas­ing its influ­ence. The mil­i­tary coup that sub­se­quent­ly top­pled Mor­si val­i­dat­ed Zawahiri’s repeat­ed warn­ings not to believe West­ern promis­es about either the fruits of democ­ra­cy or the sanc­ti­ty of free and fair elec­tions.

It was Syr­ia where al-Qaeda’s inter­ven­tion proved most con­se­quen­tial. One of Zawahiri’s first offi­cial acts after suc­ceed­ing bin Laden as emir was to order a Syr­i­an vet­er­an of the Iraqi insur­gency named Abu Moham­mad al-Julani to return home and estab­lish the al-Qae­da fran­chise that would even­tu­al­ly become Jab­hat al-Nus­ra.

Al-Qaeda’s bla­tant­ly sec­tar­i­an mes­sag­ing over social media fur­ther sharp­ened the his­tor­i­cal fric­tions between Sun­nis and Shias and gave the move­ment the entrée into inter­nal Syr­i­an pol­i­tics that it need­ed to solid­i­fy its pres­ence in that coun­try. Al-Qaeda’s cho­sen instru­ment was Jab­hat al-Nus­ra, the prod­uct of a joint ini­tia­tive with al-Qaeda’s Iraqi branch, which had rebrand­ed itself as the Islam­ic State of Iraq (ISI). But as Nus­ra grew in both strength and impact, a dis­pute erupt­ed between ISI and al-Qae­da over con­trol of the group. In a bold pow­er grab, ISI’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Bagh­da­di, announced the forcible amal­ga­ma­tion of al-Nus­ra with ISI in a new orga­ni­za­tion to be called the Islam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS). Julani refused to accede to the uni­lat­er­al merg­er and appealed to Zawahiri. The quar­rel inten­si­fied, and after Zawahiri’s attempts to medi­ate it col­lapsed, he expelled ISIS from the al-Qae­da net­work.

Although ISIS—which has since rebrand­ed itself the Islam­ic State—has com­mand­ed the world’s atten­tion since then, al-Qae­da has been qui­et­ly rebuild­ing and for­ti­fy­ing its var­i­ous branch­es. Al-Qae­da has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly imple­ment­ed an ambi­tious strat­e­gy designed to pro­tect its remain­ing senior lead­er­ship and dis­creet­ly con­sol­i­date its influ­ence wher­ev­er the move­ment has a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence. Accord­ing­ly, its lead­ers have been dis­persed to Syr­ia, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and Yemen, with only a hard-core rem­nant of top com­man­ders still in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. Advances in com­mer­cial dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools, along­side suc­ces­sive pub­lic rev­e­la­tions of U.S. and allied intel­li­gence ser­vices’ eaves­drop­ping capa­bil­i­ties, have enabled al-Qaeda’s lead­ers and com­man­ders to main­tain con­tact via secure end-to-end encryp­tion tech­nol­o­gy.

The Importance of Syria

The num­ber of top al-Qae­da lead­ers sent to Syr­ia over the past half-dozen years under­scores the high pri­or­i­ty that the move­ment attach­es to that coun­try. Among them was Muhsin al-Fadhli, a bin Laden inti­mate who, until his death in a 2015 U.S. air strike, com­mand­ed the movement’s elite for­ward-based oper­a­tional arm in that coun­try, known as the Kho­rasan Group. He also func­tioned as Zawahiri’s local emis­sary, charged with attempt­ing to heal the rift between al-Qae­da and ISIS. Hay­dar Kirkan, a Turk­ish nation­al and long-stand­ing senior oper­a­tive, was sent by bin Laden him­self to Turkey in 2010 to lay the ground­work for the movement’s expan­sion into the Lev­ant, before the Arab Spring cre­at­ed pre­cise­ly that oppor­tu­ni­ty. Kirkan was also respon­si­ble for facil­i­tat­ing the move­ment of oth­er senior al-Qae­da per­son­nel from Pak­istan to Syr­ia to escape the esca­lat­ing drone strike cam­paign ordered by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. He was killed in 2016 in a U.S. bomb­ing raid.

The pre­vi­ous fall marked the arrival of Saif al-Adl, who is arguably the move­men­t’s most bat­tle-hard­ened com­man­der. Adl is a for­mer Egypt­ian Army com­man­do whose ter­ror­ist pedi­gree, dat­ing to the late 1970s, includes assas­si­na­tion plots against Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Anwar al-Sadat, the 1998 bomb­ings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tan­za­nia, and al-Qaeda’s post‑9/11 ter­ror­ist cam­paigns in Sau­di Ara­bia and South Asia. He also served as men­tor to bin Laden’s pre­sump­tive heir, his son Hamza, after both Adl and the boy sought sanc­tu­ary in Iran fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of U.S. and coali­tion mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in Afghanistan  in late 2001. The younger bin Laden’s own report­ed appear­ance in Syr­ia this past sum­mer pro­vides fresh evi­dence of the movement’s fix­a­tion with a coun­try that has become the most pop­u­lar venue to wage holy war since the sem­i­nal Afghan jihad of the 1980s.

Indeed, al-Qaeda’s pres­ence in Syr­ia is far more per­ni­cious than that of ISIS. Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the lat­est name adopt­ed by al-Qaeda’s local affil­i­ate, is now the largest rebel group in the coun­try, hav­ing extend­ed its con­trol last year over all of Idlib Province, along the Syr­i­an-Turk­ish bor­der. This is the cul­mi­na­tion of a process al-Qae­da began more than three years ago to anni­hi­late the Free Syr­i­an Army and any oth­er group that chal­lenges al-Qaeda’s region­al aspi­ra­tions.

Filling the ISIS Vacuum

ISIS can no longer com­pete with al-Qae­da in terms of influ­ence, reach, man­pow­er, or cohe­sion. In only two domains is ISIS cur­rent­ly stronger than its rival: the pow­er of its brand and its pre­sumed abil­i­ty to mount spec­tac­u­lar ter­ror­ist strikes in Europe. But the lat­ter is a prod­uct of Zawahiri’s strate­gic deci­sion to pro­hib­it exter­nal oper­a­tions in the West so that al-Qaeda’s rebuild­ing can con­tin­ue with­out inter­fer­ence. The hand­ful of excep­tions to this policy—such as the 2015 Char­lie Heb­do attacks in Paris and the 2017 St. Peters­burg Metro bomb­ing in Russia—provide com­pelling evi­dence that al-Qaeda’s exter­nal oper­a­tions capa­bil­i­ties can eas­i­ly be rean­i­mat­ed. Yemen-based al-Qae­da in the Ara­bi­an Peninsula’s capac­i­ty to com­mit acts of inter­na­tion­al terrorism—especially the tar­get­ing of com­mer­cial aviation—was recent­ly the sub­ject of a reveal­ing New York Times sto­ry.

Al-Qaeda’s suc­cess in res­ur­rect­ing its glob­al net­work is the result of three strate­gic moves made by Zawahiri. The first was to strength­en the decen­tral­ized fran­chise approach that has facil­i­tat­ed the movement’s sur­vival. Over the years, the lead­ers and deputies of al-Qaeda’s far-flung fran­chis­es have been inte­grat­ed into the movement’s delib­er­a­tive and con­sul­ta­tive process­es. Today, al-Qae­da is tru­ly “glo­cal,” hav­ing effec­tive­ly incor­po­rat­ed local griev­ances and con­cerns into a glob­al nar­ra­tive that forms the foun­da­tion of an all-encom­pass­ing grand strat­e­gy.

The sec­ond major move was the order issued by Zawahiri in 2013 to avoid mass casu­al­ty oper­a­tions, espe­cial­ly those that might kill Mus­lim civil­ians. Al-Qae­da has thus been able to present itself through social media, para­dox­i­cal­ly, as “mod­er­ate extrem­ists,” osten­si­bly more palat­able than ISIS.

This devel­op­ment reflects Zawahiri’s third strate­gic deci­sion, let­ting ISIS absorb all the blows from the coali­tion arrayed against it while al-Qae­da unob­tru­sive­ly rebuilds its mil­i­tary strength. Any­one inclined to be tak­en in by this ruse would do well to heed the admo­ni­tion of Theo Pad­nos (née Peter Theo Cur­tis), the Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist who spent two years in Syr­ia as a Nus­ra hostage. Pad­nos relat­ed in 2014 how the group’s senior com­man­ders “were invit­ing West­ern­ers to the jihad in Syr­ia not so much because they need­ed more foot soldiers—they didn’t—but because they want to teach the West­ern­ers to take the strug­gle into every neigh­bor­hood and sub­way sta­tion back home.”

A par­al­lel thus exists between the U.S. direc­tor of nation­al intelligence’s depic­tion of the al-Qae­da threat today [PDF] as main­ly lim­it­ed to its affil­i­ates and the so-called Phoney War in west­ern Europe between Sep­tem­ber 1939 and May 1940, when there was a strange lull in seri­ous fight­ing fol­low­ing the Ger­man inva­sion of Poland and the British and French dec­la­ra­tions of war against Ger­many. Prime Min­is­ter Neville Cham­ber­lain vis­it­ed British forces arrayed along the Fran­co-Bel­gian bor­der that Christ­mas. “I don’t think the Ger­mans have any inten­tion of attack­ing us, do you?” he asked Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Bernard Law Mont­gomery, the com­man­der of an infantry divi­sion defend­ing the front. The Ger­mans would attack when it suit­ed them, Mont­gomery brusque­ly replied. It is a point worth keep­ing in mind as al-Qae­da busi­ly rebuilds and mar­shals its forces to con­tin­ue the war against the Unit­ed States it declared twen­ty-two years ago.

6. About the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s eco­nom­ic doc­trine:

“Islam in Office” by Stephen Glain; Newsweek; 7/3–10/2006.

Judeo-Chris­t­ian scrip­ture offers lit­tle eco­nomic instruc­tion. The Book of Deuteron­omy, for exam­ple, is loaded with edicts on how the faith­ful should pray, eat, bequeath, keep the holy fes­ti­vals and treat slaves and spous­es, but it is silent on trade and com­merce. In Matthew, when Christ admon­ishes his fol­low­ers to ‘give to the emper­or the things that are the emperor’s,’ he is effec­tively con­ced­ing fis­cal and mon­e­tary author­ity to pagan Rome. Islam is dif­fer­ent. The prophet Muhammad—himself a trader—preached mer­chant hon­or, the only reg­u­la­tion that the bor­der­less Lev­an­tine mar­ket knew. . . .

. . . In Mus­lim litur­gy, the deals cut in the souk become a metaphor for the con­tract between God and the faith­ful. And the busi­ness mod­el Muham­mad pre­scribed, accord­ing to Mus­lim schol­ars and econ­o­mists, is very much in the lais­sez-faire tra­di­tion lat­er embraced by the West. Prices were to be set by God alone—anticipating by more than a mil­len­nium Adam Smith’s ref­er­ence to the ‘invis­i­ble hand’ of mar­ket-based pric­ing. Mer­chants were not to cut deals out­side the souk, an ear­ly attempt to thwart insid­er trad­ing. . . . In the days of the caliphate, Islam devel­oped the most sophis­ti­cated mon­e­tary sys­tem the world had yet known. Today, some econ­o­mists cite Islam­ic bank­ing as fur­ther evi­dence of an intrin­sic Islam­ic prag­ma­tism. Though still guid­ed by a Qur’anic ban on riba, or inter­est, Islam­ic bank­ing has adapt­ed to the needs of a boom­ing oil region for liq­uid­ity. In recent years, some 500 Islam­ic banks and invest­ment firms hold­ing $2 tril­lion in assets have emerged in the Gulf States, with more in Islam­ic com­mu­ni­ties of the West.

British Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer Gor­don Brown wants to make Lon­don a glob­al cen­ter for Islam­ic finance—and elic­its no howl of protest from fun­da­men­tal­ists. How Islamists might run a cen­tral bank is more prob­lem­atic: schol­ars say they would manip­u­late cur­rency reserves, not inter­est rates.

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood hails 14th cen­tury philoso­pher Ibn Khal­dun as its eco­nomic guide. Antic­i­pat­ing sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics, Khal­dun argued that cut­ting tax­es rais­es pro­duc­tion and tax rev­enues, and that state con­trol should be lim­ited to pro­vid­ing water, fire and free graz­ing land, the util­i­ties of the ancient world. The World Bank has called Ibn Khal­dun the first advo­cate of pri­va­ti­za­tion. [Empha­sis added.] His found­ing influ­ence is a sign of mod­er­a­tion. If Islamists in pow­er ever do clash with the West, it won’t be over com­merce. . . .

7. Stephen Glain’s cita­tion of Ibn Khal­dun res­onates with Ronald Rea­gan’s pre­sen­ta­tion of “sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics.” ” . . . . Respond­ing to a ques­tion about the effects of tax and spend­ing cuts that began tak­ing effect yes­ter­day, Mr. Rea­gan said the sup­ply-side prin­ci­ple dat­ed at least as far back as Ibn Khal­dun, who is gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as the great­est Arab his­to­ri­an to emerge from the high­ly devel­oped Ara­bic cul­ture of the Mid­dle Ages. . . .”

“Rea­gan Cites Islam­ic Schol­ar” by Robert D. McFad­den; The New York Times; 10/02/1981

Pres­i­dent Rea­gan, in his news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, cit­ed a 14thcentury Islam­ic schol­ar as an ear­ly expo­nent of the ”sup­ply-side” eco­nom­ic the­o­ry on which his Admin­is­tra­tion bases many of its poli­cies. An author­i­ty on the schol­ar lat­er said that the ref­er­ence seemed accu­rate.

Sup­ply-side the­o­ry, among oth­er things, holds that a cut in tax rates will stim­u­late the econ­o­my and thus gen­er­ate even greater tax rev­enues.

Respond­ing to a ques­tion about the effects of tax and spend­ing cuts that began tak­ing effect yes­ter­day, Mr. Rea­gan said the sup­ply-side prin­ci­ple dat­ed at least as far back as Ibn Khal­dun, who is gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as the great­est Arab his­to­ri­an to emerge from the high­ly devel­oped Ara­bic cul­ture of the Mid­dle Ages. . . .

Discussion

18 comments for “FTR #1024 Ukrainian Fascism, Maidan Snipers and Implications for the Syrian War, Part 2”

  1. Here’s some­thing to keep in mind regard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of staged chem­i­cal weapons attack by the rebels in Idlib and a much deep­er US involve­ment in Syr­ia: Accord­ing to the fol­low­ing Politi­co report, Pres­i­dent Trump has soured on Sec­re­tary of Defense James Mat­tis over the last few months and is look­ing to replace him after the mid-terms. Why? Because Trump has con­clud­ed that Mat­tis’s polit­i­cal views are too mod­er­ate. He’s even appar­ent­ly start­ed call­ing him “Mod­er­ate Mat­tis”, a play of Mat­tis’s “Mad Dog Mat­tis” nick­name. So as insane as this sounds, Mad Dog Mat­tis isn’t mad enough for Trump and he’s look­ing for a Mad­der Dog to replace him soon:

    Politi­co

    GOP sen­a­tors: No Ses­sions replace­ment could get con­firmed

    The pos­si­ble axing of Jeff Ses­sions is giv­ing Repub­li­can sen­a­tors a migraine.

    By BURGESS EVERETT and ELIANA JOHNSON

    09/12/2018 07:11 PM EDT

    Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are in a jam when it comes to Jeff Ses­sions.

    While resigned to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump fir­ing the attor­ney gen­er­al after the midterm elec­tions, they sus­pect that per­haps only a sit­ting sen­a­tor could win con­fir­ma­tion as Ses­sions’ suc­ces­sor — that is, some­one they could trust not to inter­fere with spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion. But no one from their ranks seems to want the job.

    Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham (R‑S.C.) said any new nom­i­nee must pledge to pro­tect the Mueller inves­ti­ga­tion, and that it would help if that per­son were “some­body from the body or some­one who has had expe­ri­ence … or some­body you know per­son­al­ly, you know what you’re get­ting.” But he said it’s not going to be him, despite pri­vate belief among his col­leagues he’s eye­ing the job.

    “No. I like being a sen­a­tor. There are plen­ty of more qual­i­fied peo­ple than me. Bunch­es of them, thou­sands,” Gra­ham said Wednes­day.

    Asked about Major­i­ty Whip John Cornyn of Texas, a fel­low Sen­ate lawyer who was con­sid­ered as FBI direc­tor, Gra­ham said: “He’d be great if he want­ed to do it.”

    No dice, said Cornyn.

    “We already have an attor­ney gen­er­al,” said Cornyn, who some col­leagues think could be con­firmed to suc­ceed Ses­sions. “I love my job.”

    And Mike Lee (R‑Utah), who some Repub­li­cans think might be inter­est­ed in the job, is “very hap­py” in his cur­rent role as sen­a­tor, a spokesman said.

    With few obvi­ous poten­tial appli­cants for a job that seems to come with built-in clash­es with the pres­i­dent, some sen­a­tors even sug­gest Trump might have to nom­i­nate a Demo­c­rat to have any hope of get­ting a new attor­ney gen­er­al con­firmed.

    “Trump may very well want a change,” said retir­ing Sen. Orrin Hatch (R‑Utah). “If I was the pres­i­dent, I’d even con­sid­er pick­ing a Demo­c­rat if I thought I couldn’t get any­body else through.”

    The pres­i­dent, how­ev­er, is look­ing for a staunch defend­er like Eric Hold­er was to Barack Oba­ma, or a “guy look­ing out for his own inter­ests,” said a Repub­li­can close to the White House. This per­son said that per­haps a sen­a­tor could be per­suad­ed to take the job, but was unsure any­one could meet Trump’s cri­te­ria of loy­al­ty.

    “I’m not sure that there’s any­body in the Sen­ate besides maybe Lind­sey Gra­ham that Trump would want and even Lind­sey, he real­ly likes Lind­sey, but I don’t know if he trusts him,” this per­son said. “I don’t know that there’s any­body in the Sen­ate he feels that way about or that they feel that way about him.”

    One Repub­li­can sen­a­tor said a sen­a­tor nom­i­nat­ed as attor­ney gen­er­al would have to have a squeaky clean record of praise for Trump and esti­mat­ed that per­haps only four mem­bers of the Sen­ate would qual­i­fy, call­ing it a “pret­ty small uni­verse” of can­di­dates.

    The prob­lem is acute enough that Repub­li­cans are pes­simistic about a con­fir­ma­tion in the lame duck, when there will be lit­tle polit­i­cal imper­a­tive for red-state Democ­rats to go along with a new attor­ney gen­er­al. And if Repub­li­cans lose the Sen­ate major­i­ty, an attor­ney gen­er­al con­fir­ma­tion becomes even more dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble.

    It’s a prob­lem com­pound­ed by the fact that some Repub­li­can sen­a­tors, like Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka, have already said it would be “real­ly dif­fi­cult” for them to sup­port a suc­ces­sor should Trump fire Ses­sions. Asked this month whether he was con­fi­dent he could con­firm a Ses­sions suc­ces­sor, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell instead defend­ed the attor­ney gen­er­al and said he hopes he sticks around.

    “Assum­ing that the Democ­rats vot­ed togeth­er against the nom­i­nee, I think you would have some Repub­li­cans who may well vote against the new nom­i­na­tion,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R‑La.).

    The most opti­mistic Repub­li­cans say that the cloud may lift after the elec­tion, espe­cial­ly if Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion con­cludes. Many Repub­li­cans are wor­ried about the pol­i­tics of con­firm­ing a new attor­ney gen­er­al amid the sen­si­tive probe.

    One out could be if Ses­sions leaves his job vol­un­tar­i­ly. Fir­ing Ses­sions seems to be a red line for some in the GOP.

    Sasse “finds it dif­fi­cult to envi­sion a cir­cum­stance where he would con­firm a suc­ces­sor to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ses­sions if he is fired for faith­ful­ly exe­cut­ing his job. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ses­sions has allowed Mr. Mueller to do his work, and Sen. Sasse believes that’s the way it should be,” said James Weg­mann, a Sasse spokesman.

    The prob­lem for the White House extends beyond fill­ing the top job at the Jus­tice Depart­ment. Trump has for months been mulling the prospect of replac­ing Defense Sec­re­tary Jim Mat­tis, who is now expect­ed to be dis­missed or to resign after the midterm elec­tions, too. Once enam­ored of the retired Marine gen­er­al and his nick­name, “Mad Dog,” the pres­i­dent bragged to donors, “The guy nev­er los­es a bat­tle, nev­er los­es.” But Trump has slow­ly come to real­ize that Mat­tis’ polit­i­cal views are more mod­er­ate than his sobri­quet sug­gests, and the pres­i­dent has tak­en to refer­ring to him behind closed doors as “Mod­er­ate Dog.”

    The White House’s short-list of prospec­tive replace­ments for Mat­tis includes two Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who have sig­naled they aren’t inter­est­ed in the job, Tom Cot­ton of Arkansas and Gra­ham, both of whom are up for re-elec­tion in 2020, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter. And Cot­ton has already announced his cam­paign for reelec­tion.

    Sen. Jim Inhofe (R‑Okla.), the new­ly installed Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee chair­man, said he’s advo­cat­ing for Mat­tis to stay and that whether he stays may “depend on whether I have any­thing or not to say about it.”

    “He does a great job,” said Sen. John Bar­ras­so (R‑Wyo.). Mat­tis should “absolute­ly” stay on, he said.

    ...

    ———-

    “GOP sen­a­tors: No Ses­sions replace­ment could get con­firmed” by BURGESS EVERETT and ELIANA JOHNSON; Politi­co; 09/12/2018

    “The prob­lem for the White House extends beyond fill­ing the top job at the Jus­tice Depart­ment. Trump has for months been mulling the prospect of replac­ing Defense Sec­re­tary Jim Mat­tis, who is now expect­ed to be dis­missed or to resign after the midterm elec­tions, too. Once enam­ored of the retired Marine gen­er­al and his nick­name, “Mad Dog,” the pres­i­dent bragged to donors, “The guy nev­er los­es a bat­tle, nev­er los­es.” But Trump has slow­ly come to real­ize that Mat­tis’ polit­i­cal views are more mod­er­ate than his sobri­quet sug­gests, and the pres­i­dent has tak­en to refer­ring to him behind closed doors as “Mod­er­ate Dog.””

    Also note how there’s no obvi­ous replace­ment for Mat­tis that would fit the cri­te­ria of being ‘mad­der’ than Mat­tis but still able to get a Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion. So who is replace­ment might be remains a large­ly a mys­tery. A very scary mys­tery:

    ...
    The White House’s short-list of prospec­tive replace­ments for Mat­tis includes two Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who have sig­naled they aren’t inter­est­ed in the job, Tom Cot­ton of Arkansas and Gra­ham, both of whom are up for re-elec­tion in 2020, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter. And Cot­ton has already announced his cam­paign for reelec­tion.
    ...

    So Trump has appar­ent­ly been mulling replac­ing Mat­tis “for months”, which would sug­gest his change in atti­tude towards Mat­tis was­n’t just in response to the recent Bob Wood­ward book, Fear. We don’t know who that might be, we just know that it will be some­one who will pre­sum­ably be less inclined to act as a check on Trump’s cra­zier impuls­es. Impuls­es like assas­si­nat­ing Bashar al-Assad in response to the last alleged Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment chem­i­cal weapons attack:

    Vox

    5 stun­ning Trump for­eign pol­i­cy moments from Bob Woodward’s new book
    The book excerpts from Fear show Trump is not han­dling for­eign pol­i­cy all that well.

    By Alex Ward
    Updat­ed Sep 4, 2018, 6:35pm EDT

    Near­ly can­cel­ing America’s involve­ment in a cru­cial trade deal. Believ­ing diplo­ma­cy with North Korea comes down to his per­son­al rela­tion­ship with Kim Jong Un. Want­i­ng to kill a for­eign leader for using chem­i­cal weapons.

    Those are just some of the sur­pris­ing details about Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in Bob Woodward’s antic­i­pat­ed book Fear. Excerpts have start­ed to leak in mul­ti­ple out­lets, and they show how tumul­tuous — and poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous — Trump’s for­eign pol­i­cy has been.

    The book comes out next week, which means the fol­low­ing accounts are still incom­plete and devoid of full con­text. Still, the excerpts show how US for­eign pol­i­cy under Trump’s has near­ly turned into a full-blown dis­as­ter on numer­ous occa­sions.

    Below are just some of the major for­eign pol­i­cy and nation­al secu­ri­ty tid­bits from the new­ly released excerpts of Woodward’s book.

    1) Trump want­ed to assas­si­nate Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad

    In April 2017, the US launched a cruise mis­sile strike against a Syr­i­an regime air­base air­base — the first inten­tion­al US strike on Bashar al-Assad’s forces since the Syr­i­an war began in 2011. The strike was in direct response to a chem­i­cal weapon attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed at least 85 civil­ians.

    But Wood­ward reports that Trump want­ed the strikes to be a lot more puni­tive.

    “Let’s fuc king kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fuc king lot of them,” Trump told Sec­re­tary of Defense Jim Mat­tis, refer­ring to Assad and his forces. After hang­ing up with Trump, accord­ing to Wood­ward, the sec­re­tary told one of his senior staffers: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more mea­sured.”

    Mattis’s more restrained response is what Trump ulti­mate­ly autho­rized. But it’s com­plete­ly pos­si­ble that with­out Mattis’s inter­ven­tion, the US would’ve launched a larg­er-scale strike to try to kill Assad. That would cer­tain­ly have angered Assad’s main backer, Rus­sia, and may have led to a broad­er Wash­ing­ton-Moscow con­fronta­tion.

    So Trump is appar­ent­ly fine with assas­si­nat­ing for­eign lead­ers — at least in the­o­ry. That’s quite an insight into how Trump wants to use his mil­i­tary.

    Per­haps that should be expect­ed: In 2011, Trump said that for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma should kill then-Libyan leader Muam­mar Qaddafi.

    “Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick,” Trump said in a video blog. “We should do on a human­i­tar­i­an basis, imme­di­ate­ly go into Libya, knock this guy out ... and save the lives.”

    ...

    3) Trump tried to with­draw the US from a trade deal with South Korea

    America’s strong rela­tion­ship with South Korea boils down to two main com­po­nents: defense and trade.

    The great­est exam­ple of that sec­ond com­po­nent is the US-Korea Free Trade Agree­ment, under which both coun­tries trade around $145 bil­lion in goods and ser­vices a year most­ly tar­iff-free. That deal helps the US keep its ally’s econ­o­my thriv­ing, and main­tains a key friend in the region — all while stim­u­lat­ing the US econ­o­my back home.

    Yet it appears Trump was very close to remov­ing the US from that agree­ment. Accord­ing to Wood­ward, Trump had a let­ter on his desk that — had he signed it — would’ve with­drawn the US from the free-trade deal. Trump has pre­vi­ous­ly expressed a desire to leave that accord.

    Gary Cohn, then Trump’s top eco­nom­ic advis­er, was so fear­ful Trump might sign it that he removed the let­ter from the pres­i­dent desk.

    “I stole it off his desk,” Cohn told some­one close to him. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s nev­er going to see that doc­u­ment. Got to pro­tect the coun­try.”

    Steal­ing doc­u­ments, Wood­ward notes, is some­thing Trump staffers repeat­ed­ly do to keep the pres­i­dent from harm­ing US nation­al secu­ri­ty. Wood­ward described the tac­tic as “no less than an admin­is­tra­tive coup d’état.”

    There may have been seri­ous reper­cus­sions had Trump signed the let­ter.

    For one, the US would’ve lost a staunch ally and an impor­tant part­ner in talks with North Korea. Sec­ond, Seoul may have kicked out America’s rough­ly 28,500 troops from the coun­try. And third, it like­ly may have hurt a secret US pro­gram to detect a North Kore­an mis­sile launch with­in sev­en sec­onds.

    Trump could still decide to with­draw from the deal in the future. If that’s the case, his staffers will sure­ly have to give him a let­ter to sign.

    ...

    5) Mat­tis thinks Trump acts like “a fifth- or sixth-grad­er”

    Mat­tis almost nev­er crit­i­cizes the pres­i­dent in pub­lic. In pri­vate, though, it seems to be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

    Wood­ward recounts that after a testy meet­ing on South Korea — in which Trump ques­tioned why the US backs it finan­cial­ly and mil­i­tar­i­ly — Mat­tis told asso­ciates that the pres­i­dent act­ed and under­stood things like “a fifth- or sixth-grad­er.”

    “Sec­re­taries of defense don’t always get to choose the pres­i­dent they work for,” Mat­tis report­ed­ly joked to friends in anoth­er instance.

    The Sec­re­tary denied mak­ing these state­ments. “The con­temp­tu­ous words about the Pres­i­dent attrib­uted to me in Woodward’s book were nev­er uttered by me or in my pres­ence,” Mat­tis said in a Tues­day state­ment.

    The sec­re­tary has so far avoid­ed Trump’s anger, in part because he keeps out of the spot­light by not mak­ing com­ments like that. But Woodward’s book threat­ens to put Mat­tis in Trump’s crosshairs — and there­fore pos­si­bly out of the Pen­ta­gon soon.

    ———-

    “5 stun­ning Trump for­eign pol­i­cy moments from Bob Woodward’s new book” by Alex Ward; Vox; 09/04/2018

    ““Let’s fuc king kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fuc king lot of them,” Trump told Sec­re­tary of Defense Jim Mat­tis, refer­ring to Assad and his forces. After hang­ing up with Trump, accord­ing to Wood­ward, the sec­re­tary told one of his senior staffers: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more mea­sured.””

    So Trump told Mat­tis to assas­si­nate Assad, and Mat­tis basi­cal­ly just ignored him. Might that be one of the inci­dents that led Trump to con­clude that Mat­tis isn’t mad enough? It seems like a like­ly can­di­date.

    And, of course, after the pub­li­ca­tion of Wood­ward’s book Trump is prob­a­bly going to want to get rid of Mat­tis sim­ply as a response to Wood­ward’s claims that Mat­tis thinks Trump acts like “a fifth- or sixth-grad­er”:

    ...
    5) Mat­tis thinks Trump acts like “a fifth- or sixth-grad­er”

    Mat­tis almost nev­er crit­i­cizes the pres­i­dent in pub­lic. In pri­vate, though, it seems to be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

    Wood­ward recounts that after a testy meet­ing on South Korea — in which Trump ques­tioned why the US backs it finan­cial­ly and mil­i­tar­i­ly — Mat­tis told asso­ciates that the pres­i­dent act­ed and under­stood things like “a fifth- or sixth-grad­er.”

    “Sec­re­taries of defense don’t always get to choose the pres­i­dent they work for,” Mat­tis report­ed­ly joked to friends in anoth­er instance.

    The Sec­re­tary denied mak­ing these state­ments. “The con­temp­tu­ous words about the Pres­i­dent attrib­uted to me in Woodward’s book were nev­er uttered by me or in my pres­ence,” Mat­tis said in a Tues­day state­ment.

    The sec­re­tary has so far avoid­ed Trump’s anger, in part because he keeps out of the spot­light by not mak­ing com­ments like that. But Woodward’s book threat­ens to put Mat­tis in Trump’s crosshairs — and there­fore pos­si­bly out of the Pen­ta­gon soon.
    ...

    That’s all some­thing to fac­tor into the bat­tle over Idlib and the poten­tial for a staged chem­i­cal weapons attack by the al Qae­da or one of its affil­i­ates for the pur­pose of draw­ing the US into the war on their side. And you have to won­der if the rebels are fac­tor­ing this in too. Because if they are con­sid­er­ing stag­ing such an attack, doing it after Trump has replaced Mat­tis seems like the bet­ter tim­ing on their part. But they don’t know when, or if, Mat­tis’s replace­ment will actu­al­ly take place. It sounds like it could be a cou­ple months away if it does take place after the mid-terms, but who knows. Maybe it will take much longer to find a ‘mad­der’ replace­ment, the rebels may not have the lux­u­ry of wait­ing.

    So that’s one of more insane aspects of this incred­i­bly dan­ger­ous peri­od: it would prob­a­bly be a lot more insane by now if it was­n’t for the rel­a­tive san­i­ty of “Mad Dog” and from Trump’s per­spec­tive that’s a prob­lem that needs fix­ing.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 13, 2018, 1:34 pm

  2. Like a slow-motion hur­ri­cane, we have anoth­er twist in the #TrumpRus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion: Paul Man­afort flipped! Except maybe not very much. It’s unclear at this point.

    Yes, just days before his sec­ond tri­al was set to start, Man­afort stuck a plea deal with the Mueller team. So the tri­al of his role in for­eign lob­by­ing and the “Haps­burg Group” won’t actu­al­ly hap­pen, thus ensur­ing that the exten­sive evi­dence that Man­afort was work­ing to move Ukraine clos­er to the EU won’t be argued in court. That said, the Mueller team did just release a 76 page doc­u­ment detail­ing their charges regard­ing the Haps­burg Group and oth­er actions by Man­afort dur­ing his time con­sult­ing the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment. But any sort of court­room moments where Man­afort’s team point out they were try­ing to move Ukraine close to the EU aren’t going to hap­pen.

    The plea deal requires Man­afort’s coop­er­a­tion, but it’s ambigu­ous in terms of what kind of coop­er­a­tion will be required. The deal drops the 10 charges from Man­afort’s pre­vi­ous tri­al that the jury did­n’t con­vict him on (due to the one hold­out juror), but it says these charges will only be dropped after “suc­cess­ful coop­er­a­tion” with Mueller’s probe. And a source close to Man­afort’s defense team told Politi­co that “the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment does not involve the Trump cam­paign. ... There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.”

    And while this might seem like bad news for Trump, the arti­cle also notes that this turn of events could even be like a last favor to Trump. Why? Because it’s going to avoid this messy tri­al right before the mid-terms less than two months away. Plus, the Trump team appears to have already voiced qua­si-approval of the move. Rudy Giu­liani told Politi­co, “We can see a rea­son why he might want to do that. What’s the need for anoth­er trial?...They’ve got enough to put him in jail. His lawyer is going to argue they shouldn’t. The judge should decide this. Not Mueller. I think it’s pret­ty clear if they were going to get any­thing from him, they’d have got­ten it already....From our per­spec­tive, we want him to do the right thing for him­self.” So Man­afort appears to have some­how pleased almost all sides with this move:

    Politi­co

    The Man­afort plea deal: Your ques­tions answered

    The pact has sur­prised some, giv­en Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s effu­sive praise of Manafort’s will­ing­ness to fight spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller in court.

    By JOSH GERSTEIN and DARREN SAMUELSOHN

    09/14/2018 10:11 AM EDT

    Updat­ed 09/14/2018 12:39 PM EDT

    Paul Man­afort, the for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man, had struck a plea deal with spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller.

    The agree­ment comes just days before Man­afort is set to face for­eign-lob­by­ing and mon­ey-laun­der­ing charges in a Wash­ing­ton, D.C., court room. The pact has sur­prised some, giv­en Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s effu­sive praise of Manafort’s will­ing­ness to fight Mueller in court.

    Last month, Man­fort was found guilty in a Vir­ginia tri­al on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, while the judge declared a mis­tri­al on 10 oth­er charges after the jury couldn’t reach a unan­i­mous ver­dict.

    After the deci­sion, Trump called Man­afort “a brave man” on Twit­ter.

    Manafort’s charges came out of Mueller’s probe into Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion and whether the Trump cam­paign coor­di­nat­ed with the Krem­lin on its efforts. Trump has reg­u­lar­ly decried the inves­ti­ga­tion as a “witch hunt.”

    ...

    What’s in Manafort’s poten­tial plea deal?

    The deal dis­miss­es dead­locked charges against Man­afort from an ear­li­er tri­al, but only after “suc­cess­ful coop­er­a­tion” with Mueller’s probe into Russ­ian elec­tion inter­fer­ence and whether the Trump cam­paign coor­di­nat­ed with Moscow on its efforts. Mueller pros­e­cu­tor Andrew Weiss­mann did not imme­di­ate­ly expand on what coop­er­a­tion is required under the deal.

    How­ev­er, a source close to the defense told POLITICO, “the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment does not involve the Trump cam­paign. ... There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.”

    Sep­a­rate­ly, the agree­ment calls for a 10-year cap on how long Man­afort will be sent to prison, and for Man­afort to serve time from his sep­a­rate Vir­ginia and Wash­ing­ton cas­es con­cur­rent­ly. The deal also calls for Man­afort to for­feit four prop­er­ties.

    But it will not release Man­afort from jail, where he has been held since Mueller’s team added wit­ness tam­per­ing charges dur­ing the run-up to Man­afort’s tri­al.

    Why would Man­afort plead guilty?

    The out­come of the Vir­ginia case might have actu­al­ly made a plea deal for Man­afort more attrac­tive, since he already faces sub­stan­tial prison time — per­haps on the order of eight to 10 years — on his con­vic­tions there. That sen­tence could amount to life for a 69-year-old.

    And pri­or to any plea deal, lawyers said, Man­afort was exposed to anoth­er sen­tence of a decade or more if con­vict­ed on the Wash­ing­ton charges, which include con­spir­a­cy against the Unit­ed States, fail­ing to reg­is­ter as a for­eign agent, mon­ey laun­der­ing and wit­ness tam­per­ing. It would be up to the sec­ond judge who sen­tenced Man­afort to decide whether the sen­tences would run con­cur­rent­ly or con­sec­u­tive­ly.

    Also, a plea deal lim­its Man­afort’s legal bills.

    “Man­afort might be say­ing, ‘Enough is enough. I spent $1 mil­lion, or $500,000 on legal fees and got eight con­vic­tions,’ ” said Ford­ham law pro­fes­sor Jed Shuger­man. “This is some­one who seems to have cared a lot about mon­ey, and he may now be try­ing to shield some amount of mon­ey for his fam­i­ly.”

    If Man­afort pleads guilty, does that mean he will help Mueller?

    While the dis­missal of the ear­li­er charges against Man­afort is con­di­tion­al on his coop­er­a­tion with Mueller, it was unclear what that coop­er­a­tion would entail.

    Usu­al­ly, plea deals require a defen­dant to share infor­ma­tion use­ful to pros­e­cu­tors, but pros­e­cu­tors will typ­i­cal­ly give some con­ces­sions to some­one who won’t coop­er­ate but is will­ing to plead guilty to some of the charges they face.

    When Rick Gates, Manafort’s busi­ness part­ner and co-defen­dant, agreed in Feb­ru­ary to plead guilty to two felony charges and coop­er­ate with inves­ti­ga­tors, Man­afort pro­fessed to be mys­ti­fied by the devel­op­ment. Gates went on to serve as the star wit­ness at Manafort’s tri­al.

    “I con­tin­ue to main­tain my inno­cence,” Man­afort wrote. “I had hoped and expect­ed my busi­ness col­league would have had the strength to con­tin­ue the bat­tle to prove our inno­cence. For rea­sons yet to sur­face, he chose to do oth­er­wise. This does not alter my com­mit­ment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges con­tained in the indict­ments against me.”

    Why would Mueller accept a plea deal if Man­afort does­n’t have use­ful infor­ma­tion?

    Mueller’s team has shown a desire to put its find­ings on the pub­lic record even if it has lit­tle or no chance of get­ting the defen­dants in a court­room. For instance, the spe­cial counsel’s team filed exhaus­tive indict­ments detail­ing Russia’s online dis­in­for­ma­tion and hack­ing schemes dur­ing the elec­tion, even though legal experts say the indi­vid­u­als named in the doc­u­ments will nev­er stand tri­al in the U.S.

    Giv­en that back­ground, it might seem con­fus­ing why Mueller would allow Man­afort to plead guilty if he’s not will­ing to offer worth­while infor­ma­tion in the spe­cial counsel’s Rus­sia probe.

    But legal experts note that the gov­ern­ment can ben­e­fit from avoid­ing the has­sle of Manafort’s Wash­ing­ton tri­al, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing it already obtained guilty pleas in the Vir­ginia case.

    “Even if there’s not a coop­er­a­tion agree­ment, it’s always to the gov­ern­men­t’s ben­e­fit to nego­ti­ate a plea to avoid the time and resources nec­es­sary to do a tri­al and to get the cer­tain­ty of a con­vic­tion. Every tri­al is to some extent a crap­shoot,” said for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Elia­son. “I expect they would con­sid­er let­ting him plead guilty to some counts in exchange for drop­ping some charges.”

    Still, won’t this anger Trump?

    It could, but scut­tling Man­afort’s upcom­ing tri­al is also advan­ta­geous for Trump, lawyers close to the case say.

    Trump will avoid a dis­tract­ing, high-pro­file polit­i­cal spec­ta­cle just weeks before midterm elec­tions in which GOP loss­es could severe­ly crimp his pow­er and might lead to his impeach­ment.

    “It’s a big win for Trump to get this tri­al off the cal­en­dar in late Sep­tem­ber or ear­ly Octo­ber with­out coop­er­a­tion,” Jed Shuger­man said. “Man­afort might just be doing one last sol­id for Trump.”

    So what does the plea deal mean for Manafort’s chance at a pres­i­den­tial par­don?

    We’ll see. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giu­liani has indi­cat­ed he under­stands Manafort’s impulse to plead guilty.

    “We can see a rea­son why he might want to do that. What’s the need for anoth­er tri­al?” he told POLITICO on Wednes­day. “They’ve got enough to put him in jail. His lawyer is going to argue they shouldn’t. The judge should decide this. Not Mueller. I think it’s pret­ty clear if they were going to get any­thing from him, they’d have got­ten it already.”

    Giu­liani added that, “From our per­spec­tive, we want him to do the right thing for him­self.”

    But after a plea deal, could Man­afort be forced to tes­ti­fy against the pres­i­dent?

    The for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man might now be in a spot where he can more eas­i­ly be com­pelled to tes­ti­fy about the Trump cam­paign’s Rus­sia con­tacts, includ­ing the now infa­mous Trump Tow­er meet­ing with Rus­sians that Man­afort attend­ed in June 2016.

    Lawyers have said a deal could expose the for­mer Trump cam­paign chief to more ques­tion­ing, although the same issue could have come up even if Man­afort had been con­vict­ed at a sec­ond tri­al and Trump grant­ed a par­don. Mueller could grant Man­afort immu­ni­ty and force him in front of a grand jury.

    “A par­don would remove any Fifth Amend­ment priv­i­lege against self-incrim­i­na­tion,” said Phil Laco­vara, who served on the Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tion team. “Accord­ing­ly, Man­afort could be ordered to tes­ti­fy about what he knows con­cern­ing the president‘s knowl­edge of any active coop­er­a­tion between his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and Russ­ian agents. Any lies dur­ing that tes­ti­mo­ny would expose him to new pros­e­cu­tions for per­jury or mak­ing false state­ments.”

    ———-

    “The Man­afort plea deal: Your ques­tions answered” by JOSH GERSTEIN and DARREN SAMUELSOHN; Politi­co; 09/14/2018

    “The agree­ment comes just days before Man­afort is set to face for­eign-lob­by­ing and mon­ey-laun­der­ing charges in a Wash­ing­ton, D.C., court room. The pact has sur­prised some, giv­en Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s effu­sive praise of Manafort’s will­ing­ness to fight Mueller in court.”

    Yes, one of the biggest ‘WTF’ aspects of this entire saga — Man­afort’s role in try­ing to move Ukraine close to the EU and away from Rus­sia — isn’t going to get the big court­room hear­ing that was sched­uled for just days from now. That’s undoubt­ed­ly going to please many sides.

    Mak­ing it all the more remark­able is that while Man­afort has to coop­er­ate in order to get the dead­locked charges from the pre­vi­ous tri­al dropped, it does­n’t sound like that coop­er­a­tion actu­al­ly involves the Trump cam­paign. As Man­afort’s side put it to Politi­co, “there was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia”:

    ...
    What’s in Manafort’s poten­tial plea deal?

    The deal dis­miss­es dead­locked charges against Man­afort from an ear­li­er tri­al, but only after “suc­cess­ful coop­er­a­tion” with Mueller’s probe into Russ­ian elec­tion inter­fer­ence and whether the Trump cam­paign coor­di­nat­ed with Moscow on its efforts. Mueller pros­e­cu­tor Andrew Weiss­mann did not imme­di­ate­ly expand on what coop­er­a­tion is required under the deal.

    How­ev­er, a source close to the defense told POLITICO, “the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment does not involve the Trump cam­paign. ... There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.”

    Sep­a­rate­ly, the agree­ment calls for a 10-year cap on how long Man­afort will be sent to prison, and for Man­afort to serve time from his sep­a­rate Vir­ginia and Wash­ing­ton cas­es con­cur­rent­ly. The deal also calls for Man­afort to for­feit four prop­er­ties.

    But it will not release Man­afort from jail, where he has been held since Mueller’s team added wit­ness tam­per­ing charges dur­ing the run-up to Man­afort’s tri­al.

    ...

    If Man­afort pleads guilty, does that mean he will help Mueller?

    While the dis­missal of the ear­li­er charges against Man­afort is con­di­tion­al on his coop­er­a­tion with Mueller, it was unclear what that coop­er­a­tion would entail.

    Usu­al­ly, plea deals require a defen­dant to share infor­ma­tion use­ful to pros­e­cu­tors, but pros­e­cu­tors will typ­i­cal­ly give some con­ces­sions to some­one who won’t coop­er­ate but is will­ing to plead guilty to some of the charges they face.

    When Rick Gates, Manafort’s busi­ness part­ner and co-defen­dant, agreed in Feb­ru­ary to plead guilty to two felony charges and coop­er­ate with inves­ti­ga­tors, Man­afort pro­fessed to be mys­ti­fied by the devel­op­ment. Gates went on to serve as the star wit­ness at Manafort’s tri­al.

    “I con­tin­ue to main­tain my inno­cence,” Man­afort wrote. “I had hoped and expect­ed my busi­ness col­league would have had the strength to con­tin­ue the bat­tle to prove our inno­cence. For rea­sons yet to sur­face, he chose to do oth­er­wise. This does not alter my com­mit­ment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges con­tained in the indict­ments against me.”
    ...

    So why might Mueller accept a plea deal if Man­afort does­n’t have use­ful infor­ma­tion? The exam­ple rea­sons list­ed in the arti­cle is that it will free up resources. What isn’t list­ed in the obvi­ous ben­e­fit of not hav­ing the nature of that Haps­burg Group ini­tia­tive debat­ed in the court­room. What would pros­e­cu­tors have said if Man­afort’s defense team point­ed out that he was basi­cal­ly work­ing in US and EU inter­ests dur­ing that saga? We’ll nev­er know:

    ...
    Why would Mueller accept a plea deal if Man­afort does­n’t have use­ful infor­ma­tion?

    Mueller’s team has shown a desire to put its find­ings on the pub­lic record even if it has lit­tle or no chance of get­ting the defen­dants in a court­room. For instance, the spe­cial counsel’s team filed exhaus­tive indict­ments detail­ing Russia’s online dis­in­for­ma­tion and hack­ing schemes dur­ing the elec­tion, even though legal experts say the indi­vid­u­als named in the doc­u­ments will nev­er stand tri­al in the U.S.

    Giv­en that back­ground, it might seem con­fus­ing why Mueller would allow Man­afort to plead guilty if he’s not will­ing to offer worth­while infor­ma­tion in the spe­cial counsel’s Rus­sia probe.

    But legal experts note that the gov­ern­ment can ben­e­fit from avoid­ing the has­sle of Manafort’s Wash­ing­ton tri­al, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing it already obtained guilty pleas in the Vir­ginia case.

    “Even if there’s not a coop­er­a­tion agree­ment, it’s always to the gov­ern­men­t’s ben­e­fit to nego­ti­ate a plea to avoid the time and resources nec­es­sary to do a tri­al and to get the cer­tain­ty of a con­vic­tion. Every tri­al is to some extent a crap­shoot,” said for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Elia­son. “I expect they would con­sid­er let­ting him plead guilty to some counts in exchange for drop­ping some charges.”
    ...

    And as was point out, this could end up help­ing Trump (and the rest of the GOP) too by get­ting this high-pro­file tri­al out of the head­lines. As one per­son put it, “Man­afort might just be doing one last sol­id for Trump.” And even Rudy Giu­liani, Trump’s lawyer, basi­cal­ly gave his bless­ing to Man­afort plead­ing guilty on Wednes­day. Now, it’s pos­si­ble that the Trump team was expect­ing a guilty plea but not an agree­ment to coop­er­ate and per­haps they’re stunned today with that coop­er­a­tion agree­ment. But as we saw, that coop­er­a­tion appar­ent­ly does­n’t involve the Trump cam­paign, so maybe the Trump team is quite pleased today:

    ...
    Still, won’t this anger Trump?

    It could, but scut­tling Man­afort’s upcom­ing tri­al is also advan­ta­geous for Trump, lawyers close to the case say.

    Trump will avoid a dis­tract­ing, high-pro­file polit­i­cal spec­ta­cle just weeks before midterm elec­tions in which GOP loss­es could severe­ly crimp his pow­er and might lead to his impeach­ment.

    “It’s a big win for Trump to get this tri­al off the cal­en­dar in late Sep­tem­ber or ear­ly Octo­ber with­out coop­er­a­tion,” Jed Shuger­man said. “Man­afort might just be doing one last sol­id for Trump.”

    So what does the plea deal mean for Manafort’s chance at a pres­i­den­tial par­don?

    We’ll see. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giu­liani has indi­cat­ed he under­stands Manafort’s impulse to plead guilty.

    “We can see a rea­son why he might want to do that. What’s the need for anoth­er tri­al?” he told POLITICO on Wednes­day. “They’ve got enough to put him in jail. His lawyer is going to argue they shouldn’t. The judge should decide this. Not Mueller. I think it’s pret­ty clear if they were going to get any­thing from him, they’d have got­ten it already.”

    Giu­liani added that, “From our per­spec­tive, we want him to do the right thing for him­self.”
    ...

    At the same time, it sounds like this plea deal still means Man­afort could be forced to tes­ti­fy against Trump whether or not there’s an even­tu­al par­don:

    ...
    But after a plea deal, could Man­afort be forced to tes­ti­fy against the pres­i­dent?

    The for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man might now be in a spot where he can more eas­i­ly be com­pelled to tes­ti­fy about the Trump cam­paign’s Rus­sia con­tacts, includ­ing the now infa­mous Trump Tow­er meet­ing with Rus­sians that Man­afort attend­ed in June 2016.

    Lawyers have said a deal could expose the for­mer Trump cam­paign chief to more ques­tion­ing, although the same issue could have come up even if Man­afort had been con­vict­ed at a sec­ond tri­al and Trump grant­ed a par­don. Mueller could grant Man­afort immu­ni­ty and force him in front of a grand jury.

    “A par­don would remove any Fifth Amend­ment priv­i­lege against self-incrim­i­na­tion,” said Phil Laco­vara, who served on the Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tion team. “Accord­ing­ly, Man­afort could be ordered to tes­ti­fy about what he knows con­cern­ing the president‘s knowl­edge of any active coop­er­a­tion between his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and Russ­ian agents. Any lies dur­ing that tes­ti­mo­ny would expose him to new pros­e­cu­tions for per­jury or mak­ing false state­ments.”
    ...

    So those are all some of the rea­sons Man­afort may have been will­ing to plead guilty and agree to coop­er­ate. It’s a move that poten­tial­ly pleas­es every­one, although it sounds like how much it pleas­es the inter­est­ed par­ties in the long-run will depend heav­i­ly on the nature of his coop­er­a­tion.

    And then there’s the fact that if Man­afort was indeed involved with orches­trat­ing the ini­tial crack­down on Maid­an pro­test­ers and/or the sub­se­quent sniper attacks, a legal strat­e­gy based on the argu­ment that he was actu­al­ly try­ing to move Ukraine out of Rus­si­a’s orbit and into the arms of the EU might have been rather risky.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 14, 2018, 1:32 pm

  3. @Pterrafractyl–

    Bear in mind that Man­afort, like the late Edwin Wil­son, is a spook, jailed by the author­i­ties for per­form­ing the task he was ordered to do.

    “Rolling over” on the part of Man­afort is to be expected–otherwise (if he is lucky and does­n’t die of “appar­ent­ly nat­ur­al caus­es” or a “prison suicide”)he fig­ures to spend the rest of his life in prison.

    In addi­tion, he has a fam­i­ly who might be endan­gered if he does not coop­er­ate.

    Last­ly, don’t for­get that Man­afort has the exam­ple of Lee Har­vey Oswald, anoth­er spook who was doing what he was ordered to do and was framed for a crime and jailed–ever so briefly–for it.

    At times, I actu­al­ly feel sor­ry for Man­afort. That most “spe­cial” of prosecutors–Robert “Pan Am 103, BCCI, Oper­a­tion Green Quest” Mueller has him by the short hairs.

    THAT is the ulti­mate “short leash.”

    Keep up the great work!

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | September 14, 2018, 2:51 pm

  4. @Dave: Note that it also sounds like the state­ments to Politi­co from a source close to Man­afort’s defense team that “the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment does not involve the Trump cam­paign. … There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia,” is just false. That same claim has been pushed by Rudy Giu­liani repeat­ed over the last day. Inter­est­ing­ly, just two days ago we got reports that Man­afort’s and Trump’s defense teams were coop­er­at­ing with each oth­er via a joint-defense agree­ment that allows them to share infor­ma­tion. So you have to won­der if that source to to Man­afort’s defense team was in fact a mem­ber of Trump’s defense team just putting a pos­i­tive spin on the sit­u­a­tion.

    If that was­n’t a Trump team per­son putting out that meme, it’s pret­ty remark­able that Man­afort’s defense team is con­tin­u­ing to send out ‘don’t wor­ry, Trump’ mes­sages even at that this point. As Josh Mar­shall not­ed, one of the most remark­able things about this plea agree­ment was that all of the news lead­ing up to actu­al announce­ment sug­gest­ed that it was going to be a plea agree­ment with­out coop­er­a­tion. So it’s almost as if Man­afort’s team was putting out dis­in­for­ma­tion tar­get­ing Trump in the days lead­ing up to the guilty plea. And that ‘don’t wor­ry, Trump’ mes­sag­ing is still ema­nat­ing from the some­one close to Man­afort’s defense team. It’s a con­fus­ing set of sig­nals.

    Giu­liani has actu­al­ly tak­en that mes­sage some­what fur­ther, telling reporters the Man­afort is only going to coop­er­ate in rela­tion to the issues involved in this indict­ment (i.e. Haps­burg Group stuff) and not about the Trump cam­paign or Trump. As Giu­liani told Busi­ness Insid­er below, “Paul Man­afort is not going to talk to [the spe­cial coun­sel] Robert Mueller about Trump or the Trump cam­paign...His coop­er­a­tion deal does not include an agree­ment to do that. He’s only coop­er­at­ing on mat­ters relat­ed to the two indict­ments against him and oth­ers named in those indict­ments.”

    But accord­ing to the legal experts in the fol­low­ing arti­cle, the actu­al lan­guage of the plea agree­ment in no way sug­gests that it does­n’t involve the Trump cam­paign. Accord­ing to Jef­frey Cramer, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, while Giu­lian­i’s state­ment could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be true, it’s unlike­ly that Mueller would agree to a coop­er­a­tion deal with Man­afort if it did­n’t “help him snag a big­ger fish”. Of course, not pub­licly inves­ti­gat­ing the pro-EU nature of the Haps­burg Group lob­by­ing effort could itself be a pret­ty big “fish to fry”. And that’s going to make it extra inter­est­ing if it turns out in the end that Man­afort does­n’t actu­al­ly give inves­ti­ga­tors any infor­ma­tion regard­ing Trump-Rus­sia col­lu­sion, or much of any­thing else that leads to a “big­ger fish” get­ting ensared.

    As the arti­cle also notes, there’s one oth­er area where Man­afort could pro­vide infor­ma­tion that ‘snags’ Trump that does­n’t haven’t to do with the Trump cam­paign activ­i­ty: infor­ma­tion about Trump dan­gling par­dons in front of Man­afort and Michael Fly­nn, which could be used for obstruc­tion of jus­tice charges against Trump. And there’s absolute­ly no rea­son to believe at this point that Trump did­n’t dan­gle par­dons to Man­afort and Fly­nn at this point. There are already reports about Trump talk­ing to his lawyers about par­don­ing Man­afort and Giu­liani him­self com­ment­ed, “The real con­cern, is whether Mueller would turn any par­don into an obstruc­tion charge.”

    Anoth­er fac­tor in all this is that Mueller’s team pre­sum­ably already knows what it was that Man­afort could tell them before they reached this coop­er­a­tion agree­ment. So we have a sit­u­a­tion where it’s pre­sumed that Mueller would only reach such an agree­ment with Man­afort if Man­afort did indeed have very use­ful infor­ma­tion. And while that’s being wide­ly inter­pret­ed as sug­gest­ing that Man­afort has lots of infor­ma­tion about Russ­ian col­lu­sion, it’s going to be worth keep­ing in mind that Man­afort is cur­rent­ly well posi­tioned to impli­cate Trump in poten­tial obstruc­tion of jus­tice charges with­out ver­i­fy­ing any­thing about Russ­ian col­lu­sion. And in that sense, it’s entire­ly pos­si­ble that the source close to Man­afort’s defense team, claim­ing the coop­er­a­tion isn’t going to involve the Trump cam­paign, is pos­si­ble if Man­afort has already agreed to impli­cate Trump on obstruc­tion of jus­tice but noth­ing else.

    And that rais­es an intrigu­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty: did Mueller’s team reach an agree­ment with Man­afort where Man­afort is going to coop­er­ate on obstruc­tion of jus­tice but not coop­er­a­tion on what tran­spired dur­ing the 2016 cam­paign? Because such an arrange­ment would still ‘snag’ Trump, just not for col­lu­sion. Would Mueller be will­ing to take such a deal? If so, that’s per­haps that one sce­nario might explain that odd mes­sage from the source close to Man­afort’s defense team that does­n’t assume it was just dis­in­for­ma­tion:

    Busi­ness Insid­er

    ‘It’s not even a close call’: Giu­liani is push­ing a dubi­ous the­o­ry about Paul Man­afort’s plea deal that experts say is bogus

    Son­am Sheth
    09/15/2018

    * Rudy Giu­liani told Busi­ness Insid­er that Paul Man­afort’s coop­er­a­tion deal with the spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller does not include an agree­ment to share infor­ma­tion about Pres­i­dent Trump or the Trump cam­paign.
    * Man­afort’s plea agree­ment does not include an excep­tion for top­ics relat­ed to Trump or his cam­paign.
    * A pros­e­cu­tor on Mueller’s team also told a fed­er­al judge that Man­afort will coop­er­ate “in any and all mat­ters as to which the gov­ern­ment deems the coop­er­a­tion rel­e­vant,” includ­ing “tes­ti­fy­ing ful­ly, com­plete­ly” before a grand jury.
    * Jus­tice Depart­ment vet­er­ans cast addi­tion­al doubt on Giu­lian­i’s claims, say­ing that Mueller would not have agreed to a coop­er­a­tion deal with the for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man if he did­n’t think it could snag him a big­ger fish.

    Fol­low­ing news on Fri­day that Paul Man­afort had struck a plea deal with pros­e­cu­tors and agreed to coop­er­ate with the Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s per­son­al defense attor­ney said he was­n’t wor­ried about the pres­i­den­t’s poten­tial legal expo­sure.

    “Paul Man­afort is not going to talk to [the spe­cial coun­sel] Robert Mueller about Trump or the Trump cam­paign,” Rudy Giu­liani told Busi­ness Insid­er in a phone inter­view Fri­day evening. “His coop­er­a­tion deal does not include an agree­ment to do that. He’s only coop­er­at­ing on mat­ters relat­ed to the two indict­ments against him and oth­ers named in those indict­ments.”

    The New York­er’s Adam David­son point­ed out that Giu­liani and White House press sec­re­tary Sarah Huck­abee Sanders made the same claim to NPR and Politi­co.

    Giu­liani dou­bled down on his state­ment Sat­ur­day morn­ing, tweet­ing, “Accord­ing to sources close to Man­afort defense: ‘The cooo­er­a­tion [sic] agree does not involve the Trump campaign....There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.’ Anoth­er road trav­elled by Mueller. Same con­clu­sion: no evi­dence of col­lu­sion Pres­i­dent did noth­ing wrong.”

    Jef­frey Cramer, a long­time for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who spent 12 years at the Jus­tice Depart­ment, said that while Giu­lian­i’s state­ment could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be true, it’s unlike­ly that Mueller would agree to a coop­er­a­tion deal with the for­mer chair­man of the Trump cam­paign if it did­n’t help him snag a big­ger fish.

    “If you’re Mueller, the rea­son you pur­sue this against Man­afort, and appro­pri­ate­ly so, is to squeeze him,” Cramer said.

    Cru­cial­ly, Man­afort’s plea agree­ment with Mueller’s office does not include an excep­tion for infor­ma­tion relat­ed to his time on the Trump cam­paign.

    And Andrew Weiss­mann, a pros­e­cu­tor work­ing for Mueller, told US Dis­trict Judge Amy Berman Jack­son that Man­afort will coop­er­ate “in any and all mat­ters as to which the gov­ern­ment deems the coop­er­a­tion rel­e­vant,” includ­ing “tes­ti­fy­ing ful­ly, com­plete­ly” before a grand jury.

    “Take Weiss­man­n’s sen­tence and jux­ta­pose that with what Giu­liani said,” Cramer said. “As a gen­er­al rule, you go with the peo­ple argu­ing before a judge in court, and who have the evi­dence to back up their claims.”

    Weiss­mann head­ed up the Enron Task Force between 2002 and 2005, for which he over­saw the pros­e­cu­tions of 34 peo­ple con­nect­ed to the col­lapsed ener­gy com­pa­ny. He also spent 15 years as a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in the east­ern dis­trict of New York, where he spe­cial­ized in pros­e­cut­ing mafia mem­bers and boss­es from the Colom­bo, Gam­bi­no, and Gen­ovese fam­i­lies.

    “Weiss­mann is a respect­ed pros­e­cu­tor who has worked some mas­sive cas­es,” Cramer said. “And he’s not going to make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion in court if it’s isn’t 100 per­cent true. Between what he said and what Giu­liani said, it’s not even a close call.”

    ‘The way it works with fed­er­al coop­er­a­tion is it’s all or noth­ing’

    In addi­tion to giv­ing Mueller more infor­ma­tion about his own case, Man­afort could also help him con­nect the dots on sev­er­al piv­otal events that occurred while he was spear­head­ing the Trump cam­paign and even after.

    Those include Rus­si­a’s hack of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee; his offer of “pri­vate brief­in­gs” about the cam­paign to a Russ­ian oli­garch; and for­mer Trump lawyer John Dowd’s report­ed efforts to dan­gle par­dons for him and for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Michael Fly­nn last sum­mer if they stayed mum dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Most impor­tant­ly, he can give Mueller a first­hand account of a June 2016 meet­ing at Trump Tow­er between top cam­paign offi­cials and two Russ­ian lob­by­ists.

    Man­afort attend­ed the meet­ing along with Don­ald Trump Jr. and senior advis­er Jared Kush­n­er. Trump Jr. ini­tial­ly released a state­ment say­ing the meet­ing was a non-event and unre­lat­ed to cam­paign busi­ness.

    He had to amend the state­ment sev­er­al times as new details about the meet­ing spilled out in pub­lic view. Even­tu­al­ly, it emerged that Trump Jr. agreed to the meet­ing after he was offered kom­pro­mat on Hillary Clin­ton as “part of Rus­sia and its gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port” for Trump’s can­di­da­cy.

    The pres­i­dent and his lawyers said at first that they had no knowl­edge of the meet­ing until The New York Times first report­ed it last July. But The Wash­ing­ton Post lat­er report­ed that Trump “dic­tat­ed” the ini­tial state­ment his son put out about the meet­ing.

    ...

    Elie Honig, a for­mer Jus­tice Depart­ment lawyer who pros­e­cut­ed hun­dreds of orga­nized crime cas­es, said there was no doubt that Man­afort would talk to Mueller about the cam­paign meet­ing.

    “The way it works with fed­er­al coop­er­a­tion is it’s all or noth­ing,” he said. “The coop­er­a­tor does­n’t just talk about select peo­ple or cat­e­gories. They have to talk about every­thing they’ve ever done, all the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty they knew about, every crime they’ve com­mit­ted.”

    Cir­cling back to Giu­lian­i’s claim, Cramer said, “One of two things is true here. Either Rudy is wrong, or Mueller does­n’t think the meet­ing with Rus­sians and Trump offi­cials dur­ing the cam­paign is rel­e­vant. I’m going with, Rudy is wrong.”

    ———-

    “ ‘It’s not even a close call’: Giu­liani is push­ing a dubi­ous the­o­ry about Paul Man­afort’s plea deal that experts say is bogus” by Son­am Sheth; Busi­ness Insid­er; 09/15/2018

    “Paul Man­afort is not going to talk to [the spe­cial coun­sel] Robert Mueller about Trump or the Trump campaign...His coop­er­a­tion deal does not include an agree­ment to do that. He’s only coop­er­at­ing on mat­ters relat­ed to the two indict­ments against him and oth­ers named in those indict­ments.”

    That was Rudy Giu­lian­i’s mes­sage and he’s appar­ent­ly stick­ing with it: the coop­er­a­tion deal does not include an agree­ment to talk about Trump or the Trump cam­paign at all. Which goes fur­ther than the state­ment to Politi­co made by the source close to Man­afort’s defense team, which sim­ply stat­ed “the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment does not involve the Trump cam­paign. … There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.” Only the Trump cam­paign would be exclud­ed from the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment, not top­ics involv­ing Trump him­self, accord­ing the source close to Man­afort defense.

    So Giu­lian­i’s state­ment actu­al­ly goes much fur­ther than that defense team source. And it’s worth not­ing that Giu­liani just cit­ed that source in tweet, so he appears to have based his claims on that source’s claims, sug­gest­ing that Giu­lian­i’s state­ment was just an exag­ger­at­ed (and inac­cu­rate) ver­sion of that source’s state­ment:

    ...
    The New York­er’s Adam David­son point­ed out that Giu­liani and White House press sec­re­tary Sarah Huck­abee Sanders made the same claim to NPR and Politi­co.

    Giu­liani dou­bled down on his state­ment Sat­ur­day morn­ing, tweet­ing, “Accord­ing to sources close to Man­afort defense: ‘The cooo­er­a­tion [sic] agree does not involve the Trump campaign....There was no col­lu­sion with Rus­sia.’ Anoth­er road trav­elled by Mueller. Same con­clu­sion: no evi­dence of col­lu­sion Pres­i­dent did noth­ing wrong.”
    ...

    And as for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Jef­frey Cramer puts it, while it’s the­o­ret­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble that Giu­lian­i’s asser­tions are true, it’s high­ly unlike­ly that Mueller would agree to a coop­er­at­ing agree­ment if it does­n’t some­how help him ‘snag a big­ger fish’:

    ...
    Jef­frey Cramer, a long­time for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who spent 12 years at the Jus­tice Depart­ment, said that while Giu­lian­i’s state­ment could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be true, it’s unlike­ly that Mueller would agree to a coop­er­a­tion deal with the for­mer chair­man of the Trump cam­paign if it did­n’t help him snag a big­ger fish.

    “If you’re Mueller, the rea­son you pur­sue this against Man­afort, and appro­pri­ate­ly so, is to squeeze him,” Cramer said.
    ...

    As Cramer not­ed, the actu­al state­ments from the pros­e­cu­tors in court was that Man­afort for coop­er­ate “in any and all mat­ters as to which the gov­ern­ment deems the coop­er­a­tion rel­e­vant,” includ­ing “tes­ti­fy­ing ful­ly, com­plete­ly” before a grand jury:

    ...
    Cru­cial­ly, Man­afort’s plea agree­ment with Mueller’s office does not include an excep­tion for infor­ma­tion relat­ed to his time on the Trump cam­paign.

    And Andrew Weiss­mann, a pros­e­cu­tor work­ing for Mueller, told US Dis­trict Judge Amy Berman Jack­son that Man­afort will coop­er­ate “in any and all mat­ters as to which the gov­ern­ment deems the coop­er­a­tion rel­e­vant,” includ­ing “tes­ti­fy­ing ful­ly, com­plete­ly” before a grand jury.

    “Take Weiss­man­n’s sen­tence and jux­ta­pose that with what Giu­liani said,” Cramer said. “As a gen­er­al rule, you go with the peo­ple argu­ing before a judge in court, and who have the evi­dence to back up their claims.”

    Weiss­mann head­ed up the Enron Task Force between 2002 and 2005, for which he over­saw the pros­e­cu­tions of 34 peo­ple con­nect­ed to the col­lapsed ener­gy com­pa­ny. He also spent 15 years as a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in the east­ern dis­trict of New York, where he spe­cial­ized in pros­e­cut­ing mafia mem­bers and boss­es from the Colom­bo, Gam­bi­no, and Gen­ovese fam­i­lies.

    “Weiss­mann is a respect­ed pros­e­cu­tor who has worked some mas­sive cas­es,” Cramer said. “And he’s not going to make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion in court if it’s isn’t 100 per­cent true. Between what he said and what Giu­liani said, it’s not even a close call.”
    ...

    And while Man­afort could pos­si­bly pro­vide all sorts of tan­ta­liz­ing infor­ma­tion regard­ing top­ics like what tran­spired dur­ing the infa­mous June 9th, 2016, Trump Tow­er meet­ing, as the arti­cle also notes, there’s also the top­ic of Trump dan­gling par­dons to Man­afort and Michael Fly­nn, some­thing that hap­pened after the Trump cam­paign:

    ...
    ‘The way it works with fed­er­al coop­er­a­tion is it’s all or noth­ing’

    In addi­tion to giv­ing Mueller more infor­ma­tion about his own case, Man­afort could also help him con­nect the dots on sev­er­al piv­otal events that occurred while he was spear­head­ing the Trump cam­paign and even after.

    Those include Rus­si­a’s hack of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee; his offer of “pri­vate brief­in­gs” about the cam­paign to a Russ­ian oli­garch; and for­mer Trump lawyer John Dowd’s report­ed efforts to dan­gle par­dons for him and for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Michael Fly­nn last sum­mer if they stayed mum dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Most impor­tant­ly, he can give Mueller a first­hand account of a June 2016 meet­ing at Trump Tow­er between top cam­paign offi­cials and two Russ­ian lob­by­ists.

    Man­afort attend­ed the meet­ing along with Don­ald Trump Jr. and senior advis­er Jared Kush­n­er. Trump Jr. ini­tial­ly released a state­ment say­ing the meet­ing was a non-event and unre­lat­ed to cam­paign busi­ness.
    ...

    And it’s that poten­tial for Man­afort to impli­cate Trump on obstruc­tion of jus­tice that took place after the cam­paign is per­haps the one sce­nario where that mys­te­ri­ous state­ment from the Man­afort defense source could turn out to be accu­rate.

    Also keep in mind that what­ev­er shenani­gans Trump’s cam­paign was involved in — whether it involved Russ­ian col­lu­sion, inde­pen­dent hack­ing-relat­ed efforts (like the Peter Smith team that includ­ed Fly­nn and Steve Ban­non), Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca dirty-tricks, or right-wing shenani­gans at the FBI (includ­ing Rudy Giu­lian­i’s claims of insid­er FBI knowl­edge) — those shenani­gans don’t just impli­cate Trump. We have no idea how deep this goes, but there have been plen­ty of hints that it goes well beyond the Trump cam­paign. Even if Rus­sia was inter­fer­ing in the US cam­paign there’s no rea­son to assume that did­n’t over­lap with plen­ty of oth­er GOP dirty-tricks that could come out. Or dirty tricks from oth­er actors, includ­ing oth­er for­eign coun­tries. Don’t for­get that Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca was orig­i­nal­ly work­ing for the Cruz cam­paign in 2016 and the Robert Mer­cer pro­mot­ing Repub­li­cans in the 2014 midterms. Then there’s the whole ‘Sey­chelles backchan­nel’ draw­ing in Eric Prince, the UAE, and the Saud­is. And the Ukrain­ian ‘peace plan’/nuclear-power gam­bit involv­ing Michael Cohen and Felix Sater. Let’s also not for­get about Michael Fly­n­n’s ‘Nuclear Mar­shall Plan for the Mid­dle East’ scheme. Or the UAE/Saudi/Israeli ear­ly August 2016 meet­ing in Tow­er Tow­er where the Trump team was offered for­eign assis­tance in some sort of social media cam­paign. All of these scan­dals could impli­cate peo­ple far beyond Trump and his inner cir­cle.

    And then there’s the whole ‘maybe Man­afort did actu­al­ly arrange for Maid­an sniper attacks/protester crack­downs’ issue that would obvi­ous­ly be high­ly explo­sive if true.

    So if Man­afort can effec­tive­ly give Mueller what he wants in a man­ner that does­n’t help Mueller explore all these var­i­ous oth­er threads, that might be a high­ly prefer­able sit­u­a­tion for a whole lot of pow­er­ful enti­ties, both with­in the US estab­lish­ment and in gov­ern­ments around the world.

    Let’s also keep in mind that, whether or not the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment was actu­al­ly active­ly col­lud­ing with the Trump team on things like the hacked doc­u­ments, it’s pret­ty unam­bigu­ous that the Trump team was will­ing to col­lude. At least Don Jr. cer­tain­ly sound­ed open to the idea based on the emails cor­re­spon­dences with Rob Gold­stone in the lead up to the Trump Tow­er meet­ing. In oth­er words, while Man­afort’s coop­er­a­tion could in the­o­ry be very use­ful for estab­lish­ing some sort of Russ­ian col­lu­sion, it’s not like his coop­er­a­tion is nec­es­sar­i­ly for the Mueller team to paint a pic­ture that makes it clear that the Trump cam­paign tried to col­lude. There’s plen­ty of cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that could be be used to inti­mate there was col­lu­sion even if they don’t get actu­al evi­dence. And per­haps that cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, com­bined with Man­afort’s and/or Fly­n­n’s coop­er­a­tion on obstruc­tion of jus­tice, will be seen as an ade­quate case. A case against Trump that would appear to con­clu­sive­ly back up the larg­er nar­ra­tive (mas­sive Russ­ian inter­fer­ence and Trump cam­paign col­lu­sion) with­out actu­al­ly detail­ing what went on with all of these oth­er threads that could impli­cate par­ties that go far beyond the Trump team.

    In oth­er words, as long as Trump at least gets con­clu­sive­ly nailed on obstruc­tion of jus­tice it’s pos­si­ble the broad­er Amer­i­can pub­lic will be sat­is­fied with that with­out ever real­ly learn­ing about all of these oth­er sub-plots. And Man­afort could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly pro­vide what is need­ed for Mueller pull that off with­out ever coop­er­at­ing on the Trump cam­paign activ­i­ties (or coop­er­at­ing but not giv­ing any sort of ‘smok­ing gun’ evi­dence).

    And that’s all why Don­ald Trump might want to be extra scared about Man­afort’s coop­er­a­tion: it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly that Man­afort will blow the lid off of some sort of Russ­ian col­lu­sion. It’s also pos­si­ble that Man­afort will pro­vide Mueller with what he needs to keep the lid on what was actu­al­ly going on while still nail­ing Trump. We’ll see.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 15, 2018, 3:12 pm

  5. https://www.academia.edu/37448481/Maidan_Massacre_Trial_and_Investigation_Testimonies_by_43_Wounded_Maidan_Protesters_about_Snipers_in_Maidan-Controlled_Locations_Video_Appendix_D

    Posted by Susan Shpak | September 21, 2018, 10:06 pm

  6. Here’s a set of arti­cles hint­ing at a ramp­ing up of regime-change oper­a­tions against Iran worth keep­ing in mind in the con­text of the US poten­tial­ly get­ting drawn fur­ther into Syr­ia:
    First, it looks like there are a num­ber of prob­lems in the attempt by ISIS to claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for the recent ter­ror attack against a mil­i­tary parade in Iran. Anoth­er group, Ahvaz Nation­al Resis­tance which is believed to be financed by Iran’s Gulf rivals, also claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty, so at this point there’s still a big ques­tion over who car­ried out the attack:

    The Inde­pen­dent

    Iran mourns ter­ror attack vic­tims, as con­fu­sion swirls over Isis’s claim of respon­si­bil­i­ty

    The men in the Isis video, speak­ing Ara­bic and Per­sian, nev­er men­tion Isis or make a reli­gious­ly valid oath loy­al­ty to the group

    Bor­zou Dara­gahi Istan­bul
    Mon­day 24 Sep­tem­ber 2018 16:45

    Isis released a video pur­port­ing to show the mil­i­tants who staged the dead­ly 22 Sep­tem­ber attack on a mil­i­tary parade in the Iran­ian city of Ahvaz, adding to con­fu­sion about respon­si­bil­i­ty for an attack which left 29 peo­ple dead and 53 injured.

    Iran offi­cials have called for ret­ri­bu­tion for the attack, as its ram­i­fi­ca­tions rever­ber­at­ed through­out the coun­try and the region. “Revenge Time,” blared the head­line on the front page of the con­ser­v­a­tive dai­ly paper, Siyasat‑e Ruz.

    Iran’s state tele­vi­sion broad­cast footage of the vic­tims’ funer­als and declared Mon­day a nation­wide day of mourn­ing.

    “All peo­ple across the coun­try are upset and wor­ried about this attack,” Mah­di Khalil, a reformist politi­cian and ana­lyst based in Tehran, told The Inde­pen­dent.

    “The whole nation is in mourn­ing and con­demns this attack.”

    Iran’s pres­i­dent, Has­san Rouhani, en route to New York for the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly gath­er­ing, was quot­ed as say­ing the attack was “Amer­i­cans’ work.” Oth­er Iran­ian polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary offi­cials blamed Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

    The Iran­ian for­eign min­istry sum­moned UAE diplo­mats to berate them over com­ments by a polit­i­cal schol­ar that appeared to jus­ti­fy the attack by insist­ing the tar­get was legit­i­mate. “An attack on a mil­i­tary tar­get is not a ter­ror­ist act,” wrote Abdul Khaleq Abdul­lah. “Mov­ing the bat­tle to deep inside Iran is an option that has been pub­licly declared and will increase in the com­ing phase.”

    An Arab Iran­ian sep­a­ratist group, Ahvaz Nation­al Resis­tance, believed to receive sup­port from Tehran’s Per­sian Gulf rivals, orig­i­nal­ly claimed to have been behind the attack.

    Among the vic­tims were chil­dren, a jour­nal­ist, and at least 10 mem­bers of Iran’s Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC), a par­al­lel branch of the armed forces.

    The three men in the Isis video, speak­ing Ara­bic and Per­sian, nev­er men­tion Isis or make a reli­gious­ly valid oath loy­al­ty to the group, which ter­ror­ism experts con­sid­er unusu­al.

    Though the video car­ried the impri­matur of Isis’s Amaq news plat­form and was dis­trib­uted through its nor­mal chan­nels on the Telegram mes­sag­ing app, some Ira­ni­ans on social media said pho­tos of the corpses did not match the fig­ures on the video.

    The attack was the most sig­nif­i­cant act of ter­ror inside the coun­try since last year, when Isis mil­i­tants killed 17 peo­ple at the par­lia­ment and at the shrine of Aya­tol­lah Ruhol­lah Khome­i­ni, founder of Iran’s Islam­ic sys­tem, in Tehran.

    Iran’s min­is­ter of intel­li­gence said Mon­day a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als tied to the attack had been round­ed up, while the per­pe­tra­tors were dead.

    ...

    Iran very like­ly will not direct­ly retal­i­ate for the attack. But the wide­spread per­cep­tion in Iran that the US and its allies were upping sup­port for mil­i­tant groups along its bor­ders adds to exist­ing pres­sure on Tehran to chal­lenge Washington’s aims in oth­er venues, includ­ing Iraq, Syr­ia, and Afghanistan.

    “Iran may now strength­en the Tal­iban, and con­se­quent­ly the war in Afghanistan will fur­ther inten­si­fy,” mil­i­tary expert Atiqol­lah Amarkhel, told the Sham­sad news chan­nel in Kab­ul on Sun­day.

    For now Mr Khalil said the Iran­ian lead­er­ship would pur­sue diplo­mat­ic means of pres­sure, with Mr Rouhani like­ly speak­ing about the attack at the Gen­er­al Assem­bly this week.

    The sec­re­tary of Iran’s pow­er­ful Expe­di­en­cy Coun­cil, Mohsen Reza­ee, called on Mr Rouhani’s gov­ern­ment to demand that Den­mark, Nether­lands and the UK hand over “ter­ror­ists” with­in their bor­ders affil­i­at­ed with the organ­i­sa­tion.

    The UK hosts a Per­sian-lan­guage Iran­ian exile satel­lite tele­vi­sion sta­tion that broad­cast an inter­view with a leader of the sep­a­ratist group short­ly fol­low­ing the attack.

    ———–

    “Iran mourns ter­ror attack vic­tims, as con­fu­sion swirls over Isis’s claim of respon­si­bil­i­ty” by Bor­zou Dara­gahi; The Inde­pen­dent; 09/24/2018

    “Iran’s pres­i­dent, Has­san Rouhani, en route to New York for the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly gath­er­ing, was quot­ed as say­ing the attack was “Amer­i­cans’ work.” Oth­er Iran­ian polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary offi­cials blamed Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.”

    So right off the bat we have Iran’s pres­i­dent exclaim­ing the attack was “Amer­i­cans’ work”, while oth­er Iran­ian offi­cials point­ed towards Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE. And an Iran­ian sep­a­ratist group thought to receive sup­port from Iran’s Gulf adver­saries, Ahvaz Nation­al Resis­tance which based in the town where the attack took place, also claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty:

    ...
    An Arab Iran­ian sep­a­ratist group, Ahvaz Nation­al Resis­tance, believed to receive sup­port from Tehran’s Per­sian Gulf rivals, orig­i­nal­ly claimed to have been behind the attack.
    ...

    A UAE schol­ar also declares it not a ter­ror­ist attack at all but a legit­i­mate attack:

    ...
    The Iran­ian for­eign min­istry sum­moned UAE diplo­mats to berate them over com­ments by a polit­i­cal schol­ar that appeared to jus­ti­fy the attack by insist­ing the tar­get was legit­i­mate. “An attack on a mil­i­tary tar­get is not a ter­ror­ist act,” wrote Abdul Khaleq Abdul­lah. “Mov­ing the bat­tle to deep inside Iran is an option that has been pub­licly declared and will increase in the com­ing phase.”
    ...

    And then ISIS claims respon­si­bil­i­ty. But those claims have prob­lems:

    ...
    The three men in the Isis video, speak­ing Ara­bic and Per­sian, nev­er men­tion Isis or make a reli­gious­ly valid oath loy­al­ty to the group, which ter­ror­ism experts con­sid­er unusu­al.

    Though the video car­ried the impri­matur of Isis’s Amaq news plat­form and was dis­trib­uted through its nor­mal chan­nels on the Telegram mes­sag­ing app, some Ira­ni­ans on social media said pho­tos of the corpses did not match the fig­ures on the video.
    ...

    So at that point what we can say with con­fi­dence is that there’s no short­age of sus­pects for the attack.

    And then Rudolph Giu­liani, cur­rent Pres­i­dent Trump’s lawyer, gave a speech the next day to mem­bers and sup­port­ers of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran, which is basi­cal­ly the polit­i­cal wing of the People’s Muja­hedin of Iran, or MEK. It was the kind of speech that isn’t going to do any­thing to dis­suade peo­ple from assum­ing the US played a role in the attack because Giu­liani basi­cal­ly declared that Iran was going to expe­ri­ence a rev­o­lu­tion soon, telling the group, “You are a threat. It is a real­i­ty. The protests are get­ting worse. I don’t know when we’re going to over­throw them. It could be in a few days, months, a cou­ple of years. But it’s going to hap­pen. They’re going to be over­thrown.”:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    Trump attor­ney blasts Iran’s ‘out­laws and mur­der­ers,’ Promis­es Rev­o­lu­tion

    By VERENA DOBNIK
    Sep­tem­ber 23, 2018 9:25 am

    NEW YORK (AP) — Don­ald Trump’s attor­ney, Rudolph Giu­liani, told mem­bers of Iran’s self-declared gov­ern­ment in exile on Sat­ur­day that the U.S. sym­pa­thizes with their efforts to over­throw that country’s offi­cial gov­ern­ment.

    The for­mer New York may­or spoke to mem­bers and sup­port­ers of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran, the biggest oppo­si­tion group to Iran’s Islam­ic regime. Two U.S.-based mem­bers who joined the gath­er­ing have been tar­get­ed for assas­si­na­tion by alleged Iran­ian agents named last month in crim­i­nal com­plaints issued by the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia.

    “So I say to the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment, you must tru­ly be afraid of being over­thrown,” Giu­liani said. “We will not for­get that you want­ed to com­mit mur­der on our soil.”

    ...

    Giu­liani said the Paris-based oppo­si­tion orga­ni­za­tion is the demo­c­ra­t­ic answer to an Iran­ian regime he called “a group of out­laws and mur­der­ers and peo­ple who pre­tend to be reli­gious peo­ple and then have so much blood on their hands it’s almost unthink­able.”

    Instead, Giu­liani said, “Iran is enti­tled to free­dom and democ­ra­cy.”

    At one point in his remarks, Giu­liani told his audi­ence: “You are a threat. It is a real­i­ty. The protests are get­ting worse. I don’t know when we’re going to over­throw them. It could be in a few days, months, a cou­ple of years. But it’s going to hap­pen. They’re going to be over­thrown.”

    Sev­er­al months ago, Trump with­drew from a nuclear deal with Iran put in place by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and sanc­tions were rein­stat­ed.

    The Nation­al Coun­cil comes to New York annu­al­ly dur­ing the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly, stag­ing protests out­side the world body against Iran’s lead­ers who are in town.

    The U.S. gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered the People’s Muja­hedin of Iran, linked polit­i­cal­ly to the coun­cil, to be a ter­ror­ist group the U.S. State Depart­ment removed from its list of such orga­ni­za­tions in 2012.

    Since the begin­ning of the year, Ira­ni­ans have kept protest­ing and march­ing against the cler­i­cal regime, and the nation­al cur­ren­cy has lost about two-thirds of its val­ue, said Maryam Rajavi, leader of the People’s Muja­hedin of Iran, or MEK, and the declared pres­i­dent-elect in exile of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran.

    Speak­ing via video, she said: “The regime is sur­round­ed, polit­i­cal­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, and in eco­nom­ic terms it is on the brink of col­lapse.”

    The new Iran, she said, would be based on free elec­tions result­ing in the sep­a­ra­tion of reli­gion and state, human rights includ­ing equal par­tic­i­pa­tion of women in pol­i­tics and the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty.

    ———-

    “Trump attor­ney blasts Iran’s ‘out­laws and mur­der­ers’” by VERENA DOBNIK; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 09/23/2018

    “At one point in his remarks, Giu­liani told his audi­ence: “You are a threat. It is a real­i­ty. The protests are get­ting worse. I don’t know when we’re going to over­throw them. It could be in a few days, months, a cou­ple of years. But it’s going to hap­pen. They’re going to be over­thrown.””

    That was Rudy’s mes­sage to the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran, the polit­i­cal wing of the MEK. And note how Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the MEK, is the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran’s declared pres­i­dent-elect in exile:

    ...
    The U.S. gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered the People’s Muja­hedin of Iran, linked polit­i­cal­ly to the coun­cil, to be a ter­ror­ist group the U.S. State Depart­ment removed from its list of such orga­ni­za­tions in 2012.

    Since the begin­ning of the year, Ira­ni­ans have kept protest­ing and march­ing against the cler­i­cal regime, and the nation­al cur­ren­cy has lost about two-thirds of its val­ue, said Maryam Rajavi, leader of the People’s Muja­hedin of Iran, or MEK, and the declared pres­i­dent-elect in exile of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Resis­tance of Iran.
    ...

    So a day after this ter­ror attack we have Giu­liani giv­ing a speech to the MEK’s polit­i­cal wing where he declares that this group is going to over­throw the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment “in a few days, months, a cou­ple of years.”

    And while state­ments from Giu­liani, cur­rent­ly act­ing as Trump’s lawyer, can’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be inter­pret­ed as the posi­tion of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, we have to keep in mind that every­thing Giu­liani expressed dur­ing that speech would prob­a­bly be echoed by Trump’s nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor John Bolton who is one of the biggest MEK-boost­ers in the world:

    The Wash­ing­ton Post

    John Bolton wants regime change in Iran, and so does the cult that paid him

    By Jason Reza­ian
    Glob­al Opin­ions writer
    March 24, 2018

    Pres­i­dent Trump’s appoint­ment of John Bolton as his new nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er has cre­at­ed a stir among for­eign pol­i­cy experts. He is known for express­ing extreme skep­ti­cism about inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions (includ­ing the Unit­ed Nations, where he served as U.S. ambas­sador in the George W. Bush admin­is­tra­tion). He has advo­cat­ed a pre­emp­tive strike against North Korea. And he has also repeat­ed­ly pro­posed “regime change” (mean­ing “war”) in Tehran.

    Since the lat­ter issue is one of the trick­i­est fac­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, it’s worth tak­ing a clos­er look.

    Bolton’s hawk­ish views on Iran mir­ror those of Israel, Sau­di Ara­bia and one of his key ide­o­log­i­cal part­ners, the Mujahideen‑e Khalq (MEK).

    Today the MEK bears lit­tle resem­blance to the high­ly orga­nized, influ­en­tial and mil­i­tant oppo­si­tion force that it was in Iran while seek­ing to top­ple the shah dur­ing the 1979 rev­o­lu­tion. Ini­tial­ly it worked in coop­er­a­tion with the cler­i­cal gov­ern­ment. In fact, chil­dren of sev­er­al top offi­cials in the Islam­ic Repub­lic joined the MEK.

    When it became clear that the MEK could no longer coex­ist with the rul­ing Islam­ic Repub­lic Par­ty, some MEK mem­bers with­drew from the group, while oth­ers were impris­oned. They either recant­ed and returned to soci­ety or were exe­cut­ed.

    Those who were left fled to Iraq, where Sad­dam Hus­sein, who invad­ed Iran in 1980, gave them a haven. Many took up arms and fought against their Iran­ian coun­try­men, earn­ing the group the unof­fi­cial nick­name mon­afegheen, or the “hyp­ocrites.” That title has stuck, and most Ira­ni­ans inside the coun­try, regard­less of their polit­i­cal ten­den­cies, refer to them as such.

    The group is loathed by most Ira­ni­ans, main­ly for the trai­tor­ous act of fight­ing along­side the ene­my.

    But it is the group’s activ­i­ties in the decades since that have cement­ed its rep­u­ta­tion as a deranged cult. For decades its com­mand cen­ter was a com­pound in Iraq’s Diyala province, where more than 3,000 mem­bers lived in vir­tu­al cap­tiv­i­ty. The few who were able to escape told of being cut off from their loved ones, forced into arranged mar­riages, brain­washed, sex­u­al­ly abused and tor­tured.

    All this was car­ried out under the super­vi­sion of the group’s lead­ers, Mas­soud and Maryam Rajavi, the hus­band and wife at the top of the organization’s pyra­mid. He has been miss­ing since the U.S. inva­sion in 2003 and is pre­sumed dead. She now runs the group and makes reg­u­lar pub­lic appear­ances with her pow­er­ful friends from the West — such as Bolton.

    The group was long a fix­ture on the State Department’s list of ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions for hav­ing killed Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. Bolton and oth­ers suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied to have the des­ig­na­tion removed in 2012. That did lit­tle to change how aver­age Ira­ni­ans think of the orga­ni­za­tion.

    In the sev­en years I lived in Iran, many peo­ple expressed crit­i­cism of the rul­ing estab­lish­ment — at great poten­tial risk to them­selves. Some hoped for regime change by mil­i­tary force, oth­ers dreamed of a return of the monar­chy and many more want­ed to see a peace­ful tran­si­tion to a sec­u­lar alter­na­tive to cler­i­cal rule. In all that time, though, I nev­er met a per­son who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alter­na­tive.

    But appar­ent­ly that doesn’t mat­ter to its sup­port­ers in Wash­ing­ton.

    Of course they were paid for their loy­al­ty. “Very few for­mer U.S. gov­ern­ment offi­cials shilled pro bono for the MEK,” said a for­mer State Depart­ment offi­cial who worked on Iran. Among the long bipar­ti­san list of peo­ple who have tak­en mon­ey from the group in exchange for speak­ing at its events are for­mer New York may­or Rudy Giu­liani and for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee chair­man Howard Dean. Bolton, the for­mer offi­cial told me, was also paid.

    Their many efforts failed to the block the nuclear deal with Iran. Despite the long list of nefar­i­ous acts still car­ried out by Tehran, the biggest threat that Iran posed to inter­na­tion­al secu­ri­ty — the issue that our allies and oth­er world pow­ers all agreed need­ed to be resolved — has been resolved.

    Based on U.S. assess­ments and those of the Inter­na­tion­al Atom­ic Ener­gy Agency, Iran appears to be com­ply­ing with the nuclear deal.

    To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn’t work­ing, regime change remains the only solu­tion. For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be tak­en at face val­ue, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been pre­pared to do what­ev­er it takes to see that hap­pen, includ­ing pre­sent­ing fake intel­li­gence about Iran’s nuclear pro­gram.

    ...

    The MEK is the type of fringe group that sets up camp across the street from 1600 Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue and hands out fliers filled with unsub­stan­ti­at­ed claims. This is Amer­i­ca — we let crazy peo­ple talk. That’s their right, and I would nev­er sug­gest that they be pro­hib­it­ed from doing that. But giv­ing the MEK a voice in the White House is a ter­ri­ble idea.

    In John Bolton they have some­one who will do it for them.

    ———-

    “John Bolton wants regime change in Iran, and so does the cult that paid him” by Jason Reza­ian; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 03/24/2018

    “Bolton’s hawk­ish views on Iran mir­ror those of Israel, Sau­di Ara­bia and one of his key ide­o­log­i­cal part­ners, the Mujahideen‑e Khalq (MEK).”

    Yep, John Bolton isn’t just chan­nel­ing the desires of Sau­di Ara­bia and Israel when he advo­cates for regime change in Iran. He’s chan­nel­ing one of his key ide­o­log­i­cal part­ners, the MEK cult. A cult accused of forced arranged mar­riages, brain­wash­ing, sex­u­al abuse, and tor­ture. And it’s long been run by Maryam Rajavi — the cur­rent pres­i­dent in exile by this orga­ni­za­tion — after her hus­band dis­ap­peared in 2003:

    ...
    The group is loathed by most Ira­ni­ans, main­ly for the trai­tor­ous act of fight­ing along­side the ene­my.

    But it is the group’s activ­i­ties in the decades since that have cement­ed its rep­u­ta­tion as a deranged cult. For decades its com­mand cen­ter was a com­pound in Iraq’s Diyala province, where more than 3,000 mem­bers lived in vir­tu­al cap­tiv­i­ty. The few who were able to escape told of being cut off from their loved ones, forced into arranged mar­riages, brain­washed, sex­u­al­ly abused and tor­tured.

    All this was car­ried out under the super­vi­sion of the group’s lead­ers, Mas­soud and Maryam Rajavi, the hus­band and wife at the top of the organization’s pyra­mid. He has been miss­ing since the U.S. inva­sion in 2003 and is pre­sumed dead. She now runs the group and makes reg­u­lar pub­lic appear­ances with her pow­er­ful friends from the West — such as Bolton.

    The group was long a fix­ture on the State Department’s list of ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions for hav­ing killed Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. Bolton and oth­ers suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied to have the des­ig­na­tion removed in 2012. That did lit­tle to change how aver­age Ira­ni­ans think of the orga­ni­za­tion.
    ...

    And now that the Iran nuclear deal has been shred­ded by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, the only solu­tion left is regime change from the per­spec­tive of the MEK, a view Bolton appears to whole­heart­ed­ly agree with:

    ...
    To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn’t work­ing, regime change remains the only solu­tion. For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be tak­en at face val­ue, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been pre­pared to do what­ev­er it takes to see that hap­pen, includ­ing pre­sent­ing fake intel­li­gence about Iran’s nuclear pro­gram.
    ...

    And that’s all part of the rea­son Iran­ian fin­gers almost imme­di­ate­ly start­ed point­ed into the US’s direc­tion fol­low­ing the ter­ror attacks. A crazy cult ded­i­cat­ed to over­throw­ing the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment hap­pens to have sub­stan­tial back­ing in the US at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment.

    Still, for all we know this real­ly was an ISIS attack. Either way, if some sort of seri­ous regime change oper­a­tion that relies on mil­i­tary force does get under­way in Iran it seems like­ly that the US, and prob­a­bly much of the West­ern com­mu­ni­ty, will be push­ing for MEK to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in any sort of new gov­ern­ment, which seems like a gen­er­al strat­e­gy for send­ing the coun­try into a civ­il war giv­en how loathed the MEK appears to be by Ira­ni­ans.

    And the back­ing of a group like MEK — which might voice pro-democ­ra­cy slo­gans but in real­i­ty appears to be an author­i­tar­i­an cult — rais­es an inter­est­ing ques­tion: While it’s not incon­ceiv­able that the US or Israel would be fine with a gen­uine­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic rev­o­lu­tion in Iran, you have to won­der how author­i­tar­i­an theo­crat­ic monar­chies like Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE would feel about such a turn of events if some sort of ‘Per­sian Spring’ real­ly too place. If Iran became a become of democ­ra­cy in the Mid­dle East, what would that do to the stand­ing of the Saud­is and their Gulf part­ners? Would­n’t that make them look much, much worse in com­par­i­son? Because right now we have the insane­ly bru­tal Sau­di theoc­ra­cy monar­chy jux­ta­posed to with an author­i­tar­i­an theo­crat­ic qua­si-democ­ra­cy in Iran. The Sau­di mod­el of gov­ern­ment looks some­what less bad as long as it’s in a neigh­bor­hood where author­i­tar­i­an mod­els are the norm. But what hap­pens to the per­ceived legit­i­ma­cy of that bru­tal Sau­di theoc­ra­cy if it sud­den­ly gets jux­ta­posed to a post-theo­crat­ic Iran­ian democ­ra­cy?

    It would obvi­ous­ly be great to see anoth­er author­i­tar­i­an theoc­ra­cy be replaced, but as is always the case with these kinds of sit­u­a­tions, the ques­tion of what it would be replaced with looms large and yet is rarely pub­licly dis­cussed until after some sort of con­flict is already under­way. But the gov­ern­ments of the regime advo­cat­ing regime change clear­ly have a pre­ferred type of replace­ment gov­ern­ment in mind. So we have to ask, just how much do the advo­cates of regime change want to ensure that there’s regime change in Iran but not the kind of regime change that results in a mod­ern sec­u­lar democ­ra­cy? Giv­en the out­ra­geous nature of groups like the MEK that seems like a ques­tion worth ask­ing. Espe­cial­ly now that it’s look­ing like some sort of regime change oper­a­tion could be get­ting under­way.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 25, 2018, 3:00 pm

  7. Here’s a chill­ing sto­ry from a cou­ple of days ago with strong echos of the Maid­an sniper attacks, espe­cial­ly the alle­ga­tions that a Geor­gian sniper team may have been involved:

    Six Ukraini­ans and one Geor­gian were just detained in Geor­gia for ille­gal pos­ses­sion and pro­cure­ment of arms, ammu­ni­tion and explo­sives. Even more chill­ing as that a sev­enth man got away. Semen Semenchenko, the Ukrain­ian MP who used to lead the Don­bas Vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion. Recall how Semenchenko jus­ti­fied civil­ian casu­al­ties back in 2014 when he was lead­ing the Don­bas vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, claim­ing that unarmed peo­ple in the crowds were paid to be there as cov­er for the sep­a­ratists and call­ing them “pigs”. Also recall how Semenchenko had a role in lob­by­ing the US gov­ern­ment over the con­flict in Ukraine and was respon­si­ble for giv­ing US Sen­a­tors faked pho­tos that pur­port­ed­ly showed the Russ­ian mil­i­tary invad­ing Ukraine. The pho­tos were debunked. So Semenchenko has a track record of jus­ti­fy­ing the slaugh­ter of civil­ians and psy-op dirty tricks for geostrate­gic pur­pos­es, which has obvi­ous echos of the Maid­an sniper attacks that appear to have been a far right provo­ca­tion.

    And then there’s the evi­dence, as described by Pro­fes­sor Katchanovs­ki, of five Geor­gians who tes­ti­fied that they received weapons, pay­ments, and orders to mas­sacre both police and pro­test­ers. Those orders came from spe­cif­ic Maid­an and Geor­gian politi­cians and instruc­tions from a far-right linked ex-US Army sniper. They also tes­ti­fied that they Geor­gian, Baltic States, and Right Sec­tor-linked Ukrain­ian snipers shoot­ing from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings.

    But it’s the con­text of this that makes it extra chill­ing: George just had elec­tions, the oppo­si­tion lost, and they are cry­ing foul and demand­ing the results be annulled. This is the oppo­si­tion led by for­mer Pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili. The elec­tion was seen as a test of Geor­gia’s demo­c­ra­t­ic cre­den­tials as the coun­try tries to get admit­ted into the EU and NATO and inter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors have observed some irreg­u­lar­i­ties.

    So the sit­u­a­tion is look­ing A LOT like the sit­u­a­tion lead­ing up to the Maid­an sniper attacks. Saakashvili is even declar­ing that “Geor­gia’s future is being born on this square today.” Might Semenchenko’s armed squad have been attempt­ing some sort of Geor­gian ‘Maid­an’ attack designed to trig­ger pub­lic upheaval? It sure looks like it.

    First, here’s an arti­cle describ­ing how the coun­try of Geor­gia is in the mid­dle of pub­lic protests fol­low­ing the Novem­ber 28 elec­tion and charges of elec­tion fraud. Saakashvili is tak­ing part in the protests remote­ly from the Nether­lands, pledg­ing to ‘fight to the end end and remove the oli­garch from pow­er’:

    Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty

    Thou­sands In Geor­gia Protest Alleged Elec­tion Fraud

    Last Updat­ed: Decem­ber 02, 2018 18:04 GMT

    By RFE/RL’s Geor­gian Ser­vice

    TBILISI — Thou­sands of peo­ple have protest­ed in the Geor­gian cap­i­tal against the elec­tion of the rul­ing par­ty-backed can­di­date Salome Zura­bishvili to the pres­i­den­cy, claim­ing fraud in last week’s runoff vote.

    Hold­ing nation­al and EU flags, the pro­test­ers gath­ered on Decem­ber 2 in front of the par­lia­ment build­ing in the cen­ter of Tbil­isi, call­ing for ear­ly par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and a new elec­tion law.

    French-born Zura­bishvili, who had the back­ing of bil­lion­aire for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bidz­i­na Ivanishvili’s rul­ing Geor­gian Dream par­ty, won 59.5 per­cent of the vote in the Novem­ber 28 runoff, accord­ing to elec­tion author­i­ties.

    Grigol Vashadze, the can­di­date of oppo­si­tion groups led by the Unit­ed Nation­al Move­ment, which was found­ed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili, had 40.5 per­cent.

    Vashadze told the pro­test­ers in Tbil­isi that the “stolen elec­tion” should be annulled and snap gen­er­al elec­tions held.

    “Our lawyers are prepar­ing a law­suit, which we will sub­mit to court. We will demand that the results of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion be annulled. Also, an inves­ti­ga­tion needs to be car­ried out,” he said.

    Vashadze also said that the author­i­ties had to over­haul Geor­gia’s elec­toral sys­tem and by Decem­ber 16 estab­lish a work­ing group to hold talks with the oppo­si­tion.

    Saakashvili Speaks

    Speak­ing to the crowd from the Nether­lands, where he lives in self-imposed exile, Saakashvili said that “Geor­gia’s future is being born on this square today.”

    “We will fight peace­ful­ly, but we will nev­er give up,” Saakashvili said via video link.

    “The fight will end with our vic­to­ry and remov­ing the oli­garch from pow­er,” he added.

    Both Zura­bishvili and Vashadze are for­mer for­eign min­is­ters of the South Cau­ca­sus coun­try, which has warm ties with the Unit­ed States and the Euro­pean Union.

    The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was seen as a tri­al run for the con­test between Geor­gian Dream and the oppo­si­tion in par­lia­men­tary polls sched­uled for 2020, as well as a test of Geor­gia’s demo­c­ra­t­ic cre­den­tials as it seeks EU and NATO mem­ber­ship.

    A day after the runoff, inter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors said the vote was “com­pet­i­tive,” but Zura­bishvili “enjoyed an undue advan­tage,” cit­ing the mis­use of admin­is­tra­tive resources that “blurred the line between par­ty and state.”

    ...

    ———-

    “Thou­sands In Geor­gia Protest Alleged Elec­tion Fraud” by RFE/RL’s Geor­gian Ser­vice; Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty; 12/02/2018

    “The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was seen as a tri­al run for the con­test between Geor­gian Dream and the oppo­si­tion in par­lia­men­tary polls sched­uled for 2020, as well as a test of Geor­gia’s demo­c­ra­t­ic cre­den­tials as it seeks EU and NATO mem­ber­ship.”

    An elec­tion seen as a test of the coun­try’s demo­c­ra­t­ic cre­den­tials as it seeks EU and NATO mem­ber­ship. Sound famil­iar?

    The los­ing oppo­si­tion can­di­date, Grigol Vashadze, is call­ing it an out­right “stolen elec­tion” that needs to be annulled. Inter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors are tak­ing far less strong lan­guage, say­ing the vote was “com­pet­i­tive, but the win­ning can­di­date “enjoyed an undue advan­tage,” cit­ing the mis­use of admin­is­tra­tive resources that “blurred the line between par­ty and state”:

    ...
    Vashadze told the pro­test­ers in Tbil­isi that the “stolen elec­tion” should be annulled and snap gen­er­al elec­tions held.

    “Our lawyers are prepar­ing a law­suit, which we will sub­mit to court. We will demand that the results of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion be annulled. Also, an inves­ti­ga­tion needs to be car­ried out,” he said.

    Vashadze also said that the author­i­ties had to over­haul Geor­gia’s elec­toral sys­tem and by Decem­ber 16 estab­lish a work­ing group to hold talks with the oppo­si­tion.

    ...

    A day after the runoff, inter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors said the vote was “com­pet­i­tive,” but Zura­bishvili “enjoyed an undue advan­tage,” cit­ing the mis­use of admin­is­tra­tive resources that “blurred the line between par­ty and state.”
    ...

    And Saakashvili is declar­ing that “Geor­gia’s future is being born on this square today” and they will ‘removed the oli­garch from pow­er’:

    ...
    Saakashvili Speaks

    Speak­ing to the crowd from the Nether­lands, where he lives in self-imposed exile, Saakashvili said that “Geor­gia’s future is being born on this square today.”

    “We will fight peace­ful­ly, but we will nev­er give up,” Saakashvili said via video link.

    “The fight will end with our vic­to­ry and remov­ing the oli­garch from pow­er,” he added.
    ...

    So that’s the con­text of the dis­cov­ery of this armed Ukrain­ian group. Now here’s an arti­cle talk­ing about the arrest of those six Ukraini­ans and one Geor­gian. Semenchenko was detained too but man­aged to flee using is diplo­mat­ic pass­port. Semenchenko calls the charges “fake”, but note that he con­firms that he was indeed in Tblisi on Novem­ber 28 as an elec­tion observ­er. He also acknowl­edges that the men were armed, but excus­es it by point­ing out that they were mem­bers of Ukraine’s vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions and that the one arrest­ed Geor­gian pre­vi­ous­ly fought with the vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions, sug­gest­ing that they mere­ly trav­eled to Geor­gia to meet their “fel­low­men”:

    Hro­madske Inter­na­tion­al

    6 Ukraini­ans Detained in Geor­gia for Ille­gal Arms Pos­ses­sion

    3 Decem­ber, 2018

    Six Ukraini­ans and one Geor­gian were arrest­ed in the Geor­gian cap­i­tal Tbil­isi on Decem­ber 2 fol­low­ing a spe­cial oper­a­tion con­duct­ed by the Geor­gian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, the Head of Ukrain­ian For­eign Ministry’s Depart­ment of Con­sular Sup­port Vasyl Kyry­lych con­firmed to Hro­madske. The sev­en men were detained for ille­gal pos­ses­sion and pro­cure­ment of arms, ammu­ni­tion and explo­sives.

    Accord­ing to the Tbil­isi police, the men have been appoint­ed lawyers and have not expe­ri­enced any rights vio­la­tions.

    The advi­sor to the Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent and Defense Min­istry Yuriy Biryukov ear­li­er alleged that Ukrain­ian MP from the Samopomich par­ty Semen Semenchenko was among the detainees but had man­aged to flee.

    “I have… dif­fer­ent kinds of con­tacts, they have con­firmed the infor­ma­tion that Sem­chenko is in Tbil­isi, that Sem­chenko has embroiled us in a diplo­mat­ic scan­dal, that Sem­chenko aban­doned ‘his’ peo­ple at the last moment and left,” Biryukov wrote on Face­book on Decem­ber 2.

    This was cor­rob­o­rat­ed by jour­nal­ist Andriy Dzindzia, who added that the Samopomich MP was able to evade deten­tion thanks to his diplo­mat­ic pass­port.

    “I have just received con­fir­ma­tion that the MP Semen Sem­chenko was among the Ukraini­ans detained in Geor­gia. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he man­aged to evade deten­tion because he had his diplo­mat­ic pass­port with him. Sources in Geor­gia say that Semenchenko fled, leav­ing his asso­ciates behind,” he wrote.

    How­ev­er, Semenchenko denied both of these facts on Face­book call­ing them “fake.” Lat­er on Decem­ber 3, he also post­ed a video nam­ing the sev­en men and stat­ing that he arrived in Tbil­isi on Novem­ber 28 with his wife as an elec­tion observ­er and stayed in a hotel.

    Semenchenko – a for­mer com­man­der from the Don­bas vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, which is now under the con­trol of the Ukrain­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry – also states that some of the men arrest­ed for arms pos­ses­sion are “vol­un­teers from the Don­bas bat­tal­ion, some of them were Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens, some of them were Geor­gian cit­i­zens,” adding that they had trav­elled to Geor­gia to meet with their “fel­low­men.”

    The Geor­gian man detained along with the Ukraini­ans has been iden­ti­fied as Luka Chkhetia, who had also fought in the war in east­ern Ukraine with the Don­bas Bat­tal­ion.

    The arrests coin­cid­ed with mass protests orga­nized by the Geor­gian oppo­si­tion par­ty Unit­ed Nation­al Move­ment, which is led by for­mer Geor­gian Pres­i­dent and Gov­er­nor of Ukraine’s Ode­sa region Mikheil Saakashvili. The pro­test­ers were con­test­ing the results of the sec­ond round of the country’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tions which took place on Novem­ber 28 and saw in Georgia’s first female pres­i­dent Salome Zoura­bichvili. The pro­test­ers were demand­ing ear­ly par­lia­men­tary elec­tions.

    ...

    ———-

    “6 Ukraini­ans Detained in Geor­gia for Ille­gal Arms Pos­ses­sion”; Hro­madske Inter­na­tion­al; 12/03/2018

    “Six Ukraini­ans and one Geor­gian were arrest­ed in the Geor­gian cap­i­tal Tbil­isi on Decem­ber 2 fol­low­ing a spe­cial oper­a­tion con­duct­ed by the Geor­gian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, the Head of Ukrain­ian For­eign Ministry’s Depart­ment of Con­sular Sup­port Vasyl Kyry­lych con­firmed to Hro­madske. The sev­en men were detained for ille­gal pos­ses­sion and pro­cure­ment of arms, ammu­ni­tion and explo­sives.”

    Ille­gal pos­ses­sion and pro­cure­ment of arms, ammu­ni­tion and explo­sives. That’s some pret­ty intense elec­tion observ­ing.

    And it’s none oth­er then Semen Semenchenko who was lead­ing this group. But he some­how got away using his diplo­mat­ic pass­port. That’s based on the advi­sor to the Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent and Defense Min­istry Yuriy Biryukov:

    ...
    Accord­ing to the Tbil­isi police, the men have been appoint­ed lawyers and have not expe­ri­enced any rights vio­la­tions.

    The advi­sor to the Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent and Defense Min­istry Yuriy Biryukov ear­li­er alleged that Ukrain­ian MP from the Samopomich par­ty Semen Semenchenko was among the detainees but had man­aged to flee.

    “I have… dif­fer­ent kinds of con­tacts, they have con­firmed the infor­ma­tion that Sem­chenko is in Tbil­isi, that Sem­chenko has embroiled us in a diplo­mat­ic scan­dal, that Sem­chenko aban­doned ‘his’ peo­ple at the last moment and left,” Biryukov wrote on Face­book on Decem­ber 2.

    This was cor­rob­o­rat­ed by jour­nal­ist Andriy Dzindzia, who added that the Samopomich MP was able to evade deten­tion thanks to his diplo­mat­ic pass­port.

    “I have just received con­fir­ma­tion that the MP Semen Sem­chenko was among the Ukraini­ans detained in Geor­gia. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he man­aged to evade deten­tion because he had his diplo­mat­ic pass­port with him. Sources in Geor­gia say that Semenchenko fled, leav­ing his asso­ciates behind,” he wrote.
    ...

    ““I have… dif­fer­ent kinds of con­tacts, they have con­firmed the infor­ma­tion that Sem­chenko is in Tbil­isi, that Sem­chenko has embroiled us in a diplo­mat­ic scan­dal, that Sem­chenko aban­doned ‘his’ peo­ple at the last moment and left,” Biryukov wrote on Face­book on Decem­ber 2.”

    So the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment appears to be more or less admit­ting that Semenchenko “embroiled us in a diplo­mat­ic scan­dal.”

    Semenchenko asserts that he was just there as an elec­tion observ­er. But note how he admits that some of these men were armed, excus­ing it by point­ing out that they were “vol­un­teers from the Don­bas bat­tal­ion, some of them were Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens, some of them were Geor­gian cit­i­zens.” The one arrest­ed Geor­gian fought with Semen­chanko’s Don­bas Bat­tal­ion:

    ...
    How­ev­er, Semenchenko denied both of these facts on Face­book call­ing them “fake.” Lat­er on Decem­ber 3, he also post­ed a video nam­ing the sev­en men and stat­ing that he arrived in Tbil­isi on Novem­ber 28 with his wife as an elec­tion observ­er and stayed in a hotel.

    Semenchenko – a for­mer com­man­der from the Don­bas vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, which is now under the con­trol of the Ukrain­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry – also states that some of the men arrest­ed for arms pos­ses­sion are “vol­un­teers from the Don­bas bat­tal­ion, some of them were Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens, some of them were Geor­gian cit­i­zens,” adding that they had trav­elled to Geor­gia to meet with their “fel­low­men.”

    The Geor­gian man detained along with the Ukraini­ans has been iden­ti­fied as Luka Chkhetia, who had also fought in the war in east­ern Ukraine with the Don­bas Bat­tal­ion.
    ...

    So there were arms and explo­sives found. It rais­es the ques­tion: were there any sniper rifles? Of course, if explo­sions were part of the plan snip­ing may not have been on the agen­da.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 5, 2018, 4:34 pm

  8. There’s been a string of news reports out of Ukraine regard­ing the still-unre­solved inves­ti­ga­tions in the Maid­an sniper mas­sacre of 2014. The sto­ries raise a lot of ques­tions, but also might pro­vide some sig­nif­i­cant answers about which par­tic­u­lar Maid­an lead­ers were involved with the sniper attacks.

    First, here’s a report from Feb­ru­ary 1, 2019, about Yuri Lut­senko announc­ing that the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office of Ukraine has com­plet­ed the pre-tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an dead­ly shoot­ings of 2014 and is ready to take the case to court. Lut­senko went on to declare that, “we have all the evi­dence to take the case to court, includ­ing a sci­en­tif­ic inde­pen­dent exam­i­na­tion say­ing that the Yanukovych team, SBU head Yaky­menko, Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or Zakharchenko, and their sub­or­di­nates’ actions led to the exe­cu­tion of civil­ians at the Maid­an.” So Lut­senko is mak­ing it clear that his office is going to find the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for the sniper attacks.

    Recall the 2016 report about Lut­senko warn­ing that the pub­lic was going to be in for an unpleas­ant sur­prise when the respon­si­ble par­ties are revealed. Specif­i­cal­ly, he warned, “We found it with a large num­ber of auto­mat­ic rifles on the bot­tom of one of Kiev’s lakes. They were cut and drowned in one batch by a sin­gle group, whose leader is one of the tar­gets of our inves­ti­ga­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this man who, accord­ing to our ver­sion, upon the orders of [for­mer Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Vitaliy] Zakharchenko helped the “black hun­dred” flee Kyiv, destroyed and drowned their weapons, he, him­self, was with us on the Maid­an.”

    That’s what Lut­senko warned over two years ago. But based on his recent announce­ment about the end­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion it remains very unclear as to whether or not Ukrain­ian pros­e­cu­tors are still plan­ning on reveal­ing that unpleas­ant sur­prise of the iden­ti­ty of the Maid­an leader who was involved with lead­ing the “black hun­dred” berkut out of Kiev and the destruc­tion of the weapons found at the bot­tom of Ukrain­ian lakes and sounds more like they’re going to focus exclu­sive­ly on the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment:

    Unian.info

    Ukraine pros­e­cu­tors com­plete inves­ti­ga­tion of Maid­an shoot­ings: sus­pects face life in prison

    Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko said that the pros­e­cu­tor’s office is ready to take the case to court.

    23:15, 01 Feb­ru­ary 2019

    The Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office of Ukraine has com­plet­ed the pre-tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an dead­ly shoot­ings of 2014 and is ready to take the case to court, Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko says.

    “We com­plet­ed a pre-tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion against those respon­si­ble for the exe­cu­tions at the Maid­an,” Lut­senko told Pryamyi TV chan­nel.

    “We have all the evi­dence to take the case to court, includ­ing a sci­en­tif­ic inde­pen­dent exam­i­na­tion say­ing that the Yanukovych team, SBU head Yaky­menko, Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or Zakharchenko, and their sub­or­di­nates’ actions led to the exe­cu­tion of civil­ians at the Maid­an,” said Lut­senko.

    ...

    “In addi­tion to the 150 law enforcers now tried for vio­lence at the Maid­an, anoth­er fif­teen peo­ple will be tried in absen­tia – those led by and includ­ing Yanukovych – heads of secu­ri­ty forces who are respon­si­ble for giv­ing a crim­i­nal order,” explained Lut­senko.

    As UNIAN report­ed, Lut­senko said that the inves­ti­ga­tion and inde­pen­dent experts see the con­nec­tion between the actions of the run­away pres­i­dent Yanukovych, then Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Zakharchenko and “a num­ber of oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cials”, but it is dif­fi­cult to restore the full pic­ture.

    How­ev­er, the inves­ti­ga­tion gath­ered all the doc­u­ments that will help announce sus­pi­cion notices to those involved in the exe­cu­tions of peo­ple at the Maid­an in 2014.

    ———–

    “Ukraine pros­e­cu­tors com­plete inves­ti­ga­tion of Maid­an shoot­ings: sus­pects face life in prison”; Unian.info; 02/01/2019

    ““We have all the evi­dence to take the case to court, includ­ing a sci­en­tif­ic inde­pen­dent exam­i­na­tion say­ing that the Yanukovych team, SBU head Yaky­menko, Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or Zakharchenko, and their sub­or­di­nates’ actions led to the exe­cu­tion of civil­ians at the Maid­an,” said Lut­senko.”

    So that’s what Lut­senko announced on Feb­ru­ary 1. But just two days lat­er, Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk, the Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine, pub­licly declared that Lut­senko was mis­tak­en and the inves­ti­ga­tion is not over. Accord­ing to Hor­batiuk, it is a pros­e­cu­tor who is con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion rather than the chief pros­e­cu­tor who should decide on the end of the inves­ti­ga­tion:

    Unian.info

    Spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tor Hor­batiuk says pre­tri­al probe into Maid­an killings not over
    Ear­li­er, Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko said that the PGO had com­plet­ed the pre­tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion.

    20:59, 03 Feb­ru­ary 2019

    Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk says a state­ment made by Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko that a pre­tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion into killings on the Maid­an Neza­lezh­nos­ti in Kyiv dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty is untrue.

    “The inves­ti­ga­tion is not over,” he said, accord­ing to the Ukrain­ian news out­let Hro­madske.

    Accord­ing to him, it is a pros­e­cu­tor who is con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion rather than the chief pros­e­cu­tor who should decide on the end of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Ear­li­er, Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko said that the PGO had com­plet­ed the pre­tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion against those respon­si­ble for killings on the Maid­an.

    ...

    ———-

    “Spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tor Hor­batiuk says pre­tri­al probe into Maid­an killings not over”; Unian.info; 02/03/2019

    “Accord­ing to him, it is a pros­e­cu­tor who is con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion rather than the chief pros­e­cu­tor who should decide on the end of the inves­ti­ga­tion.”

    We’ll see if this divide between Hor­batiuk and Lut­senko is sim­ply a divide in the prop­er process for end­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion or if it reflects a real divide in their con­clu­sions. So that was some of the news com­ing out of the offi­cial pros­e­cu­tors’ office.

    Then there’s the jour­nal­is­tic bomb­shell that just hit Ukrain­ian a few days ago. This was flagged by pro­fes­sor Ivan Katchanovs­ki, the Ukrain­ian-Can­da­di­an pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence who has done some of the only aca­d­e­m­ic analy­sis of the sniper mas­sacre and con­clud­ed that the bulk of the shots against both the police and pro­tes­tors were done by peo­ple in build­ings con­trolled by the pro­tes­tors. Note that Pro­fes­sor Katchanovsky recent­ly did a great inter­view on Radio War Nerd about his Maid­an mas­sacre analy­sis. You have to pay to access the inter­view but it’s well worth the price.

    The par­ti­cle arti­cle Katchanovs­ki flagged was an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Russ­ian lan­guage Ukrain­ian media out­let Vesti-Ukr. It’s worth not­ing that the Kiev offices of of Vesti-Ukr’s par­ent com­pa­ny was raid­ed by the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment a year ago after com­ing under scruti­ny by Ukrain­ian author­i­ties for tak­ing was they describe as a pro-Russ­ian edi­to­r­i­al line. So this is an out­let that the cur­rent gov­ern­ment in Kiev real­ly does­n’t like.

    The Vesti-Ukr report is an inves­ti­ga­tion into a large­ly ignored mur­der of two Ukrain­ian traf­fic police that took place on one of the nights of Maid­an vio­lence. A third traf­fic cop was shot but mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived. He refus­es to talk to jour­nal­ists. Vesti-Ukr’s inves­ti­ga­tion dis­cov­ered that pros­e­cu­tors have evi­dence that the killers of these traf­fic police were among the Maid­an snipers and made a phone call with mem­bers of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment that were part of the pro-Maid­an fac­tion.

    Here’s Pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s tweets about it:

    Anoth­er #Maid­an mas­sacre bomb­shell in #Ukraine: #Ukrain­ian media reveals that Kyiv pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­ga­tion found that killers of 2 traf­fic police­men were among Maid­an snipers & received phone calls from par­lia­ment deputies of Maid­an par­ty after killing https://t.co/gG4RgagrF7— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) Feb­ru­ary 11, 2019

    Next, Katchanovk­si notes that the inves­ti­ga­tion into these killings was trans­ferred to Ukrain­ian police con­trolled by the same par­ty as these Maid­an mem­bers who received the phone calls and the inves­ti­ga­tion just stalled at that point:

    The inves­ti­ga­tion of police killings after these find­ings was trans­ferred to Ukrain­ian police con­trolled by the same par­ty & com­plete­ly stalled. Two two killed police­men were includ­ed in ‘Heav­en­ly Hun­dred’ of killed Maid­an pro­test­ers & their killing was attrib­uted to ‘titush­ki.’— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) Feb­ru­ary 11, 2019

    Final­ly, Katchanovs­ki notes that a female Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment deputy descrip­tion (pre­sum­ably one of the peo­ple on the phone with the cop killers) mactes the descrip­tion of a for­mer far right activist who was cast as Maid­an hero and involved in dead­ly attack of Par­ty of Regions head­quar­ters. And her patron match­es the descrip­tion of the Maid­an leader who was filmed evac­u­at­ing peo­ple with rifles dur­ing mas­sacre, which sure sounds A LOT like what Yuri Lut­senko was warn­ing the pub­lic about in 2016 as the unpleas­ant sur­prise wait­ing for every­one in this inves­ti­ga­tion:

    Female par­lia­ment deputy descrip­tion match­es ex-far right activist, who was cast as Maid­an hero & vic­tim & was involved in dead­ly attack of Par­ty of Regions head­quar­ters. Her patron descrip­tion match­es Maid­an leader who was filmed evac­u­at­ing per­son with rifle dur­ing mas­sacre.— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) Feb­ru­ary 11, 2019

    Final­ly, here’s a Google trans­la­tion of the Vesti-Ukr report. It’s an auto-trans­la­tion so it’s kind of con­fus­ing at some points. For instance, at one point the trans­la­tion says, “As Vesti man­aged to find out, inves­ti­gat­ing an armed attack on the traf­fic police offi­cers, detec­tives of the Moscow pros­e­cu­tor’s office built a chain that could lead to a direct link between the killers and the orga­niz­ers of the protests on Euro­maid­an,” when this is cler­aly an arti­cle about the Kiev pros­e­cu­tor’s office, not the Moscow pros­e­cu­tor’s office. But despite these trans­la­tion issues, the auto-trans­lat­ed arti­cle does give us a much bet­ter idea of this Ukrain­ian bomb­shell that has yet to be report­ed in Eng­lish:

    vesti-ukr.com

    The fir­ing squad. How mur­ders in the days of Maid­an are con­nect­ed with peo­ple’s deputies

    Dmit­ry Egorov
    Feb­ru­ary 7, 2019, 07:15

    Feb­ru­ary 18–19 marks five years of the most sig­nif­i­cant moment of the Maid­an — its cli­max, mass exe­cu­tion on the Maid­an. How­ev­er, few peo­ple note that on the same night, unknown per­sons shot the traf­fic police on the Simirenko street. Five years lat­er, the killer of the police is still not installed. “Vesti” man­aged to get exclu­sive infor­ma­tion on the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion of the crim­i­nal case and find out that the for­mer lead­ers of the Maid­an can cov­er the crim­i­nals.

    Why is the sur­vivor silent

    The night of Feb­ru­ary 18–19, 2014 was one of the hottest in the his­to­ry of Euro­maid­an. In the after­noon, the pro­test­ers seized the cen­tral office of the Par­ty of Regions on Lip­ki, and in the evening a fire broke out in the House of Trade Unions dur­ing an attempt to storm it.

    At this time, far from the main events, on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal Borschagov­ka, a tragedy occurred: two unknown per­sons shot the crew of the traf­fic police. Ensign Peter Sav­it­sky and Senior Lieu­tenant Vladimir Yev­tushok died on the spot. The third patrol­man, ensign Roman Chep­ovsky, mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived.

    Lat­er, the two dead police­men were called the vic­tims of the “titush­ki” and added to the lists of the Heav­en­ly Hun­dreds. Chep­ovsky left Kiev and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly refus­es to talk with jour­nal­ists.

    Why is he silent? As Vesti man­aged to find out, inves­ti­gat­ing an armed attack on the traf­fic police offi­cers, detec­tives of the Moscow pros­e­cu­tor’s office built a chain that could lead to a direct link between the killers and the orga­niz­ers of the protests on Euro­maid­an. Today, these peo­ple are not with­out rea­son con­sid­ered the “pil­lars” of the new Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, and it is pos­si­ble that they sim­ply try to hush up the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    ...

    Up to the out­skirts

    The shoot­ing of the crew in Svy­atoshin­sky dis­trict occurred far from the epi­cen­ter of the events of Feb­ru­ary 2014, but fits into the gen­er­al con­text of the events in Kiev. Feb­ru­ary 18, pro­test­ers of the Maid­an went on the next assault on gov­ern­ment agen­cies. At this point, the main stand­off for more than a month was con­cen­trat­ed at the entrance to the Dynamo sta­di­um on Gru­shevsko­go street. At the same time, the tac­tics of the oppo­si­tion­ists changed — they by all means tried to approach the walls of the Verk­hov­na Rada. Events took an uncon­trolled turn.

    On the same day, a large-scale mas­sacre took place in the Mari­in­sky Park with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of “Euro­maid­anovt­sy”, sup­port­ers of Anti-Maid­an and law enforce­ment offi­cers. As a result, the pro­test­ers seized the man­sion of the Par­ty of Regions. As a result of the bout, two peo­ple died, dozens were shot and wound­ed.

    The same evening, the secu­ri­ty forces received a com­mand to sweep the Maid­an: armored per­son­nel car­ri­ers appeared in the cen­ter of the city, the sub­way stopped work­ing. The impres­sion that the pro­test­ers are about to dozh­mut. But peo­ple in uni­form unex­pect­ed­ly retreat­ed to their for­mer posi­tions.

    Post fac­tum will be aware of the num­ber of vic­tims on both sides. Doc­tors have wit­nessed the death of two dozen peo­ple. Just at this moment, the crew of the Solomen­skiy traf­fic police, who was unsus­pect­ing about a grand bat­tle in the cen­ter of the cap­i­tal, took over duty. Star­ley Yev­tushok, and with him pra­por Stavit­sky and Chep­ovsky habit­u­al­ly got into the ser­vice Dae­woo Lanos.

    “Now we will kill you, bitch­es”

    Accord­ing to the offi­cial ver­sion of the devel­op­ment of events, already on Feb­ru­ary 19, at about 00:40 o’clock, on the Otrad­ny prospect of the cap­i­tal “Gayt­sy” noticed a Mit­subishi Pajero Wag­on with state num­ber AA 2291 IA. Fur­ther exam­i­na­tion will show that the num­bers on this machine were “left”. But the crew did not know about it and, rely­ing only on pro­fes­sion­al flair, asked the car to stop through the loud­speak­er.

    On the walkie-talkie, traf­fic cops report­ed that Mit­subishi had ignored their request. The pur­suit of a poten­tial intrud­er began, which last­ed about half an hour. The end occurred at 01:04 on Simirenko Street, where the SUV braked sharply. Twen­ty meters behind him, the traf­fic police stopped.

    Fur­ther events were cap­tured by the Dae­woo Lanos DVR. A man in a sheep­skin coat, who was in the rear pas­sen­ger seat, came out of Mit­subishi and fired in the direc­tion of the auto law enforce­ment offi­cers, more­over, apt­ly.

    The very first bul­let land­ed right in the head Yev­tush­ka, who a sec­ond before that jumped out of the cab­in. The attack­er made a series of new shots and struck down to death Sav­it­sky, who was sit­ting behind the wheel. Then the killer heads to the police car, where Chep­ovsky tried to avoid shots in the back­seat.

    The killer took away a stand­ing weapon from Chep­ovsky and sent a bar­rel to his head. Accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, the sur­vivor lat­er said that at that moment he heard someone’s com­mand: “Stop it!” And on the air through the includ­ed police radio from the street, anoth­er phrase slipped: “Now we will kill you, bitch!”

    At the moment of the shot, Chep­ovsky cov­ered his head with his arms crossed, which saved him. The bul­let stuck in the palms, but the killer in a hur­ry decid­ed that the ensign was shot, and ran away. After the inci­dent, the car Mit­subishi Pajero Wag­on left Kiev.

    Elite evi­dence

    The next day, the ori­en­ta­tion on the auto killers were in all the oper­a­tional reports of the coun­try’s pow­er struc­tures. But to find a for­eign car and its pas­sen­gers failed. And soon in Ukraine the pow­er was changed. The inves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of traf­fic cops ini­tial­ly stood at the fore­front of the pros­e­cu­tor’s office of the cap­i­tal, and detec­tives dug up a num­ber of icon­ic details.

    First, accord­ing to the source “Vesti” in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office in Kiev, they found out that the offend­er shot from a smooth-bore weapon. Despite the fact that in such cas­es it is almost impos­si­ble to estab­lish its exact char­ac­ter­is­tics, foren­sic experts have iden­ti­fied some of the ele­ments of the released ammu­ni­tion: a car­tridge case, a bul­let and a car­tridge.

    In par­tic­u­lar, we are talk­ing about the Ital­ian-made pool Gua­lan­di. This ammu­ni­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by increased accu­ra­cy and destruc­tive pow­er, is very expen­sive and is used only by wealthy own­ers of elite hunt­ing rifles. So it could hard­ly be used in protest actions by ordi­nary ral­ly par­tic­i­pants.

    By the way, accord­ing to Vesti, in oth­er cas­es of crimes on Euro­maid­an, inves­ti­ga­tors have nev­er encoun­tered the use of this bul­let — the demon­stra­tors were treat­ed with an ordi­nary can­is­ter.

    Sec­ond­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tors man­aged to swin­dle a mobile phone that “rolled” in a for­eign car of crim­i­nals. Thanks to what they found out: around mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 18, Mit­subishi left the ter­ri­to­ry of Maid­an Neza­lezh­nos­ti. And after the mas­sacre of the police he went to Odessa and Transnis­tria. More­over, a lit­tle lat­er, it became known about who the attack­ers who shot the patrol were talk­ing to.

    This prob­a­bly explains the fact that, despite the oppo­si­tion of the new gov­ern­ment with the secu­ri­ty forces on Euro Maid­an, the dead traf­fic cops became almost the only among law enforce­ment offi­cers who were giv­en a mem­o­rable sign in May 2014 as vic­tims of Maid­an and were posthu­mous­ly assigned new ranks. Rel­a­tives of the patrol offi­cers received finan­cial assis­tance. For exam­ple, the Rinat Akhme­tov Foun­da­tion paid the Sav­it­sky fam­i­ly a reward of 200 thou­sand UAH.

    Why did peo­ple who at that time were on guard of the “evil Vla­dy” deserve such hon­ors? Per­haps some­one thus con­vinced the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims and Roman Chep­ovsky to for­get about what had hap­pened, not to push for the end of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the pun­ish­ment of the guilty.

    Sub­scriber unavail­able

    Indi­rect­ly, this ver­sion is con­firmed by the decryp­tion of tele­phone con­ver­sa­tions, which were record­ed by the secu­ri­ty forces by billing the tube, which was locat­ed in the Mit­subishi salon. Accord­ing to this doc­u­ment, short­ly after the exe­cu­tion of the cops, this num­ber was dialed by at least two sig­nif­i­cant sub­scribers.

    At first, they talked about some­thing with a for­mer jour­nal­ist, and now an influ­en­tial peo­ple’s deputy from the Pop­u­lar Front. The sec­ond con­ver­sa­tion was with the par­lia­men­tar­i­an, who is con­sid­ered the patron of this jour­nal­ist in the “Pop­u­lar Front”. Imme­di­ate­ly after Euro­maid­an, he became one of the top offi­cials of the state, and today he heads a sta­tus par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee.

    Vesti does not give the names and sur­names of these peo­ple, because, despite numer­ous attempts, it was not pos­si­ble to get their com­ments to the pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, in this sto­ry there is anoth­er influ­en­tial and not less sig­nif­i­cant fig­ure for the destruc­tive work — the ex-advis­er to the head of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs, par­lia­men­tar­i­an from the Pop­u­lar Front, Anton Gerashchenko.

    The unspo­ken inves­tiga­tive actions, the nuances of which became known to Vesti, showed: after talk­ing with the Mit­subishi crim­i­nals, the “well-known sub­scribers” called Gerashchenko and asked for help to get out of the scan­dalous sto­ry. But Gerashchenko him­self does not con­firm this infor­ma­tion.

    “ I know about this case only from the media ‚” he told “Vesti.” — On Feb­ru­ary 19, 2014, I was not an advis­er to Arsen Avakov and could not be aware of the ques­tion. Let those who talk about this, at least call the num­ber that I used it then. It’s some kind of provo­ca­tion or a fake. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t remem­ber all the crimes on Maid­an . ”

    Crime with­out pun­ish­ment

    Inves­ti­ga­tors of the pros­e­cu­tor’s office of Kiev, in whose hands until the spring of 2014 the case of the shoot­ing of the traf­fic police crew, argued: it was at that moment that they revealed the like­ly “spike” of the lead­ers of the Maid­an with the pas­sen­gers of the car, from which the traf­fic cops were shot, demand­ed by the high­er author­i­ties. His fate is a mys­tery.

    Vesti con­tact­ed the head of the Depart­ment of Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions of the GPU, Sergey Gor­batyuk, but he said: the case of the mur­der of Sav­it­sky and Yev­tushk had nev­er been sub­mit­ted to his unit.

    “ At first, we were solemn­ly tried to con­vince us that, in par­al­lel with this car, anoth­er per­son was alleged­ly being car­ried a wound­ed man from Maid­an, and there is noth­ing more than a coin­ci­dence in geolo­ca­tion ‚” a source in the cap­i­tal’s prosecutor’s office, famil­iar with the case mate­ri­als, tells “Vesti”. “This ver­sion is not con­firmed. At the same time, we had oper­a­tional infor­ma­tion that in fact on this Mit­subishi drove a brigade of killers from Maid­an. Those who, accord­ing to our data, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the clash­es dur­ing the storm­ing of the office of the Par­ty of Regions and in arson Hous­es trade unions. It is pos­si­ble that these crim­i­nals fled to Transnis­tria in the future. Since it was the city where the traf­fic cop killer went through Odessa. We tracked his move­ments. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, we were not allowed to con­tin­ue inves­ti­gat­ing this case . ”

    Now the Nation­al Police is inves­ti­gat­ing the case of the police­men. The press ser­vice of this depart­ment on the request of “Vesti” to com­ment on the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion answered very briefly: ” The inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues. Cur­rent­ly, any of the defen­dants on the sus­pi­cion was not announced .” The ques­tion of who of the defen­dants to whom and when he called remained unan­swered.

    In total, dur­ing the hottest phase of the Maid­an, from Jan­u­ary 24 to Feb­ru­ary 21, 2014, 16 law enforce­ment offi­cers were killed in Kiev dur­ing exe­cu­tion. In none of these cas­es, the per­pe­tra­tors of the death of the police were nev­er brought to jus­tice, experts under­line.

    On these inves­ti­ga­tions, the new lead­er­ship of the GPU and the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs delib­er­ate­ly placed a cross, accord­ing to for­mer high-rank­ing secu­ri­ty offi­cials polled by Vesti. For exam­ple, Max­im Mogilnit­sky, the for­mer deputy pros­e­cu­tor of Kiev, who held this post at the time of Euro­maid­an.

    ” I will not ana­lyze the numer­ous pre­ten­tious tirades of high-rank­ing talk­ers, for there is no truth, no more sin­cer­i­ty, and they can­not be sin­cere ‚” he sums up. ” I can only agree. If the mur­ders of pro­test­ers are inves­ti­gat­ed, let the results instead of answers, there are more and more new ques­tions, — there is no progress at all in inves­ti­ga­tions into the killings of police­men . ”

    ———–

    “The fir­ing squad. How mur­ders in the days of Maid­an are con­nect­ed with peo­ple’s deputies” by Dmit­ry Egorov; vesti-ukr.com; 02/07/2019

    “Feb­ru­ary 18–19 marks five years of the most sig­nif­i­cant moment of the Maid­an — its cli­max, mass exe­cu­tion on the Maid­an. How­ev­er, few peo­ple note that on the same night, unknown per­sons shot the traf­fic police on the Simirenko street. Five years lat­er, the killer of the police is still not installed. “Vesti” man­aged to get exclu­sive infor­ma­tion on the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion of the crim­i­nal case and find out that the for­mer lead­ers of the Maid­an can cov­er the crim­i­nals.”

    Five years lat­er, and like so much of the events of that peri­od the inves­ti­ga­tion of the killing of the traf­fic police remains unre­solved. But it sounds like Vesti-Ukr has some exclu­sive inside infor­ma­tion on that inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Inter­est­ing­ly, the sole sur­viv­ing traf­fic police crew mem­ber, Roman Chep­ovsky, left Kiev and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly refus­es to talk to jour­nal­ists:

    ...
    Why is the sur­vivor silent

    The night of Feb­ru­ary 18–19, 2014 was one of the hottest in the his­to­ry of Euro­maid­an. In the after­noon, the pro­test­ers seized the cen­tral office of the Par­ty of Regions on Lip­ki, and in the evening a fire broke out in the House of Trade Unions dur­ing an attempt to storm it.

    At this time, far from the main events, on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal Borschagov­ka, a tragedy occurred: two unknown per­sons shot the crew of the traf­fic police. Ensign Peter Sav­it­sky and Senior Lieu­tenant Vladimir Yev­tushok died on the spot. The third patrol­man, ensign Roman Chep­ovsky, mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived.

    Lat­er, the two dead police­men were called the vic­tims of the “titush­ki” and added to the lists of the Heav­en­ly Hun­dreds. Chep­ovsky left Kiev and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly refus­es to talk with jour­nal­ists.

    Why is he silent? As Vesti man­aged to find out, inves­ti­gat­ing an armed attack on the traf­fic police offi­cers, detec­tives of the Moscow pros­e­cu­tor’s office built a chain that could lead to a direct link between the killers and the orga­niz­ers of the protests on Euro­maid­an. Today, these peo­ple are not with­out rea­son con­sid­ered the “pil­lars” of the new Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, and it is pos­si­ble that they sim­ply try to hush up the inves­ti­ga­tion.
    ...

    And while the shoot­ing took place far from the Maid­an square, the tim­ing of the shoot­ing is quite sus­pi­cious in rela­tions to the evens that were tak­ing place dur­ing that time. ON Feb­ru­ary 18, in response to the sniper attacks against the pro­tes­tors, a group of pro­tes­tors seized the man­sion of the Par­ty of Regions, result­ing in mul­ti­ple shoot­ings and deaths. Recall Pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s third tweet: “Female par­lia­ment deputy descrip­tion match­es ex-far right activist, who was cast as Maid­an hero & vic­tim & was involved in dead­ly attack of Par­ty of Regions head­quar­ters. Her patron descrip­tion match­es Maid­an leader who was filmed evac­u­at­ing per­son with rifle dur­ing mas­sacre.”:

    ...
    Up to the out­skirts

    The shoot­ing of the crew in Svy­atoshin­sky dis­trict occurred far from the epi­cen­ter of the events of Feb­ru­ary 2014, but fits into the gen­er­al con­text of the events in Kiev. Feb­ru­ary 18, pro­test­ers of the Maid­an went on the next assault on gov­ern­ment agen­cies. At this point, the main stand­off for more than a month was con­cen­trat­ed at the entrance to the Dynamo sta­di­um on Gru­shevsko­go street. At the same time, the tac­tics of the oppo­si­tion­ists changed — they by all means tried to approach the walls of the Verk­hov­na Rada. Events took an uncon­trolled turn.

    On the same day, a large-scale mas­sacre took place in the Mari­in­sky Park with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of “Euro­maid­anovt­sy”, sup­port­ers of Anti-Maid­an and law enforce­ment offi­cers. As a result, the pro­test­ers seized the man­sion of the Par­ty of Regions. As a result of the bout, two peo­ple died, dozens were shot and wound­ed.

    The same evening, the secu­ri­ty forces received a com­mand to sweep the Maid­an: armored per­son­nel car­ri­ers appeared in the cen­ter of the city, the sub­way stopped work­ing. The impres­sion that the pro­test­ers are about to dozh­mut. But peo­ple in uni­form unex­pect­ed­ly retreat­ed to their for­mer posi­tions.

    Post fac­tum will be aware of the num­ber of vic­tims on both sides. Doc­tors have wit­nessed the death of two dozen peo­ple. Just at this moment, the crew of the Solomen­skiy traf­fic police, who was unsus­pect­ing about a grand bat­tle in the cen­ter of the cap­i­tal, took over duty. Star­ley Yev­tushok, and with him pra­por Stavit­sky and Chep­ovsky habit­u­al­ly got into the ser­vice Dae­woo Lanos.
    ...

    So at about 12:40 am on Feb 19th, the three traf­fic police tried to pull over a Mit­subishi Pajero Wag­on. The Mit­subishi did­n’t stop and a chase ensued that last about half hour. Then the Mit­subishi sud­den­ly stops at 1:04 AM and the result­ing events are caught on the police car’s video record­ing. A man gets out of the Mit­subishi and shoots and kills two of the offi­cers. The shoot­er than dis­arms Chep­ovsky in the back of police car, Chep­ovsky cov­ers his head with his arms, and the shoot­er shoots him, hit­ting him in the palms, and leav­ing him for dead. But Chep­ovsky sur­vives:

    ...
    “Now we will kill you, bitch­es”

    Accord­ing to the offi­cial ver­sion of the devel­op­ment of events, already on Feb­ru­ary 19, at about 00:40 o’clock, on the Otrad­ny prospect of the cap­i­tal “Gayt­sy” noticed a Mit­subishi Pajero Wag­on with state num­ber AA 2291 IA. Fur­ther exam­i­na­tion will show that the num­bers on this machine were “left”. But the crew did not know about it and, rely­ing only on pro­fes­sion­al flair, asked the car to stop through the loud­speak­er.

    On the walkie-talkie, traf­fic cops report­ed that Mit­subishi had ignored their request. The pur­suit of a poten­tial intrud­er began, which last­ed about half an hour. The end occurred at 01:04 on Simirenko Street, where the SUV braked sharply. Twen­ty meters behind him, the traf­fic police stopped.

    Fur­ther events were cap­tured by the Dae­woo Lanos DVR. A man in a sheep­skin coat, who was in the rear pas­sen­ger seat, came out of Mit­subishi and fired in the direc­tion of the auto law enforce­ment offi­cers, more­over, apt­ly.

    The very first bul­let land­ed right in the head Yev­tush­ka, who a sec­ond before that jumped out of the cab­in. The attack­er made a series of new shots and struck down to death Sav­it­sky, who was sit­ting behind the wheel. Then the killer heads to the police car, where Chep­ovsky tried to avoid shots in the back­seat.

    The killer took away a stand­ing weapon from Chep­ovsky and sent a bar­rel to his head. Accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, the sur­vivor lat­er said that at that moment he heard someone’s com­mand: “Stop it!” And on the air through the includ­ed police radio from the street, anoth­er phrase slipped: “Now we will kill you, bitch!”

    At the moment of the shot, Chep­ovsky cov­ered his head with his arms crossed, which saved him. The bul­let stuck in the palms, but the killer in a hur­ry decid­ed that the ensign was shot, and ran away. After the inci­dent, the car Mit­subishi Pajero Wag­on left Kiev.
    ...

    Inter­est­ing­ly, evi­dence at the scene points towards the shoot­er using an Ital­ian-made rifle known for its accu­ra­cy and destruc­tive pow­er which is very expen­sive and used only be wealthy own­ers of elite hunt­ing rifles. In oth­er words, it sounds like a great rifle to use for a covert sniper attack:

    ...
    Elite evi­dence

    The next day, the ori­en­ta­tion on the auto killers were in all the oper­a­tional reports of the coun­try’s pow­er struc­tures. But to find a for­eign car and its pas­sen­gers failed. And soon in Ukraine the pow­er was changed. The inves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of traf­fic cops ini­tial­ly stood at the fore­front of the pros­e­cu­tor’s office of the cap­i­tal, and detec­tives dug up a num­ber of icon­ic details.

    First, accord­ing to the source “Vesti” in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office in Kiev, they found out that the offend­er shot from a smooth-bore weapon. Despite the fact that in such cas­es it is almost impos­si­ble to estab­lish its exact char­ac­ter­is­tics, foren­sic experts have iden­ti­fied some of the ele­ments of the released ammu­ni­tion: a car­tridge case, a bul­let and a car­tridge.

    In par­tic­u­lar, we are talk­ing about the Ital­ian-made pool Gua­lan­di. This ammu­ni­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by increased accu­ra­cy and destruc­tive pow­er, is very expen­sive and is used only by wealthy own­ers of elite hunt­ing rifles. So it could hard­ly be used in protest actions by ordi­nary ral­ly par­tic­i­pants.

    By the way, accord­ing to Vesti, in oth­er cas­es of crimes on Euro­maid­an, inves­ti­ga­tors have nev­er encoun­tered the use of this bul­let — the demon­stra­tors were treat­ed with an ordi­nary can­is­ter.
    ...

    Then there’s the evi­dence col­lect­ed based on cell­phone data. It’s unclear from the trans­la­tion how exact­ly this data was col­lect­ed, but it sounds like the data pro­vid­ed inves­ti­ga­tors with knowl­edge of who the attack­ers were talk­ing to on the phone. Short­ly after the killing of the police, the num­ber for the mobile phone that was iden­ti­fied as being in the Mit­subishi was dialed by two sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures with the Maid­an oppo­si­tion. And decrypt­ed record­ed con­ver­sa­tions indi­cate that they they talked about some­thing with a for­mer jour­nal­ist who is now an influ­en­tial peo­ple’s deputy from the Pop­u­lar Front par­ty:

    ...
    Sec­ond­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tors man­aged to swin­dle a mobile phone that “rolled” in a for­eign car of crim­i­nals. Thanks to what they found out: around mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 18, Mit­subishi left the ter­ri­to­ry of Maid­an Neza­lezh­nos­ti. And after the mas­sacre of the police he went to Odessa and Transnis­tria. More­over, a lit­tle lat­er, it became known about who the attack­ers who shot the patrol were talk­ing to.

    This prob­a­bly explains the fact that, despite the oppo­si­tion of the new gov­ern­ment with the secu­ri­ty forces on Euro Maid­an, the dead traf­fic cops became almost the only among law enforce­ment offi­cers who were giv­en a mem­o­rable sign in May 2014 as vic­tims of Maid­an and were posthu­mous­ly assigned new ranks. Rel­a­tives of the patrol offi­cers received finan­cial assis­tance. For exam­ple, the Rinat Akhme­tov Foun­da­tion paid the Sav­it­sky fam­i­ly a reward of 200 thou­sand UAH.

    Why did peo­ple who at that time were on guard of the “evil Vla­dy” deserve such hon­ors? Per­haps some­one thus con­vinced the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims and Roman Chep­ovsky to for­get about what had hap­pened, not to push for the end of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the pun­ish­ment of the guilty.

    Sub­scriber unavail­able

    Indi­rect­ly, this ver­sion is con­firmed by the decryp­tion of tele­phone con­ver­sa­tions, which were record­ed by the secu­ri­ty forces by billing the tube, which was locat­ed in the Mit­subishi salon. Accord­ing to this doc­u­ment, short­ly after the exe­cu­tion of the cops, this num­ber was dialed by at least two sig­nif­i­cant sub­scribers.

    At first, they talked about some­thing with a for­mer jour­nal­ist, and now an influ­en­tial peo­ple’s deputy from the Pop­u­lar Front. The sec­ond con­ver­sa­tion was with the par­lia­men­tar­i­an, who is con­sid­ered the patron of this jour­nal­ist in the “Pop­u­lar Front”. Imme­di­ate­ly after Euro­maid­an, he became one of the top offi­cials of the state, and today he heads a sta­tus par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee.
    ...

    Keep in mind that “Pop­u­lar Front” is like­ly a ref­er­ence to the Peo­ple’s Front par­ty, which had found­ing mem­bers that includ­ed a num­ber of far right fig­ures like Andriy Paru­biy and Arsen Avakov. And that makes the for­mer jour­nal­ist-turned par­lia­ment mem­ber like­ly Iry­na Herashchenko, who ran as a Peo­ple’s Front can­di­date in 2014. But that’s spec­u­la­tion at this point since Vesti-Ukr unfor­tu­nate­ly won’t give the names of the peo­ple they iden­ti­fied in their inves­ti­ga­tion because they could­n’t get these indi­vid­u­als to pro­vide a com­ment before pub­li­ca­tion. So hope­ful­ly there’s a fol­low report on that. But they did name far right par­lia­men­tar­i­an Anton Gerashchenko as some­one who the two “sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures” called ask­ing for help regard­ing to how to get out of this sit­u­a­tion with the killing of the traf­fic cops:

    ...
    Vesti does not give the names and sur­names of these peo­ple, because, despite numer­ous attempts, it was not pos­si­ble to get their com­ments to the pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, in this sto­ry there is anoth­er influ­en­tial and not less sig­nif­i­cant fig­ure for the destruc­tive work — the ex-advis­er to the head of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs, par­lia­men­tar­i­an from the Pop­u­lar Front, Anton Gerashchenko.

    The unspo­ken inves­tiga­tive actions, the nuances of which became known to Vesti, showed: after talk­ing with the Mit­subishi crim­i­nals, the “well-known sub­scribers” called Gerashchenko and asked for help to get out of the scan­dalous sto­ry. But Gerashchenko him­self does not con­firm this infor­ma­tion.

    “ I know about this case only from the media ‚” he told “Vesti.” — On Feb­ru­ary 19, 2014, I was not an advis­er to Arsen Avakov and could not be aware of the ques­tion. Let those who talk about this, at least call the num­ber that I used it then. It’s some kind of provo­ca­tion or a fake. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t remem­ber all the crimes on Maid­an . ”
    ...

    Notably, accord­ing to a source in the Kiev pros­e­cu­tor’s office famil­iar with the case mate­ri­als, “we had oper­a­tional infor­ma­tion that in fact on this Mit­subishi drove a brigade of killers from Maid­an.” And they tied these fig­ures to the peo­ple involved in the ran­sack­ing of the Par­ty of Regions man­sion. But they were not allowed to con­tin­ue inves­ti­gat­ing the case:

    ...
    Crime with­out pun­ish­ment

    Inves­ti­ga­tors of the pros­e­cu­tor’s office of Kiev, in whose hands until the spring of 2014 the case of the shoot­ing of the traf­fic police crew, argued: it was at that moment that they revealed the like­ly “spike” of the lead­ers of the Maid­an with the pas­sen­gers of the car, from which the traf­fic cops were shot, demand­ed by the high­er author­i­ties. His fate is a mys­tery.

    Vesti con­tact­ed the head of the Depart­ment of Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions of the GPU, Sergey Gor­batyuk, but he said: the case of the mur­der of Sav­it­sky and Yev­tushk had nev­er been sub­mit­ted to his unit.

    “ At first, we were solemn­ly tried to con­vince us that, in par­al­lel with this car, anoth­er per­son was alleged­ly being car­ried a wound­ed man from Maid­an, and there is noth­ing more than a coin­ci­dence in geolo­ca­tion ‚” a source in the cap­i­tal’s prosecutor’s office, famil­iar with the case mate­ri­als, tells “Vesti”. “This ver­sion is not con­firmed. At the same time, we had oper­a­tional infor­ma­tion that in fact on this Mit­subishi drove a brigade of killers from Maid­an. Those who, accord­ing to our data, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the clash­es dur­ing the storm­ing of the office of the Par­ty of Regions and in arson Hous­es trade unions. It is pos­si­ble that these crim­i­nals fled to Transnis­tria in the future. Since it was the city where the traf­fic cop killer went through Odessa. We tracked his move­ments. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, we were not allowed to con­tin­ue inves­ti­gat­ing this case . ”
    ...

    Instead, it’s the Nation­al Police who are inves­ti­gat­ing the case of the mur­dered traf­fic cops. Accord­ing to them, the inves­ti­gaiton con­tin­ues and no sus­pects have been announced. Recall that this was what Katchanovski’s sec­ond above tweet was describ­ing:

    ...
    Now the Nation­al Police is inves­ti­gat­ing the case of the police­men. The press ser­vice of this depart­ment on the request of “Vesti” to com­ment on the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion answered very briefly: ” The inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues. Cur­rent­ly, any of the defen­dants on the sus­pi­cion was not announced .” The ques­tion of who of the defen­dants to whom and when he called remained unan­swered.
    ...

    So it sure sounds like some­one in the Kiev pros­e­cu­tor’s office want­ed to expose how the inves­ti­ga­tion of this case — which points towards lead­ers of the Maid­an being involved with the sniper attacks and being respon­si­ble for the bru­tal mur­der of two traf­fic cops and the attempt­ed mur­der of a third cop — is being sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly sup­pressed by inves­ti­ga­tors. And that’s all part of the con­text of the strange dec­la­ra­tion by Yuri Lut­senko about end­ing of offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion which was con­tra­dict­ed only a cou­ple days lat­er by the Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment. A con­text that hints at a num­ber of divi­sions with­in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office, which prob­a­bly isn’t very sur­pris­ing giv­en that the office appear to be about to pull off a mas­sive cov­er-up.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 12, 2019, 4:42 pm

  9. Here’s an inter­est­ing new detail relat­ed to the Maid­an protests that Andriy Paru­biy — co-founder of Ukraine’s Nazi par­ty who is now chair­man of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment — revealed in an inter­view back in Octo­ber that should be kept in mind regard­ing the grow­ing evi­dence that the sniper attacks were exe­cut­ed by far right forces: Paru­biy, who led the Maid­an pro­test­ers’ armed forces, acknowl­edged that there was a “Plan B” if the Maid­an protests were suc­cess­ful­ly quelled: relo­cate to Lviv and set up a resis­tance head­quar­ters there. As Paru­biy put it, “Since all coun­cils and local admin­is­tra­tions in West­ern Ukraine were under our con­trol, we were to orga­nize resis­tance there, in Lviv.”

    So while the cur­rent out­break of sep­a­ratism and civ­il war in East­ern Ukraine was direct result of the col­lapse of the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment and its replace­ment with a vir­u­lent­ly anti-eth­nic Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, it sounds like there still would have been civ­il war if the Maid­an protests had­n’t suc­ceed­ed, but it would have been a Lviv-led sep­a­ratist state based in West­ern Ukraine:

    Unian.info

    Paru­biy reveals some Maid­an lead­ers had Plan B
    The back­up plan was to set up pop­u­lar resis­tance in West­ern Ukraine’s Lviv.

    15:00, 02 Octo­ber 2018

    Chair­man of the Verk­hov­na Rada Andriy Paru­biy, who at the time of the Euro­maid­an led the pro­test­ers’ self-defense forces, says the activists had a back­up plan in case they failed to hold their ground at Kyiv’s cen­tral square..

    “When the shoot­ing began, there were no dis­cus­sions any­more – there was fight­ing. The first deaths were some­thing incred­i­bly hard. Many wound­ed, many killed.... It was a great tragedy, but our goal was to hold our ground at the Maid­an. Nobody knows this but I’ll say this for the first time: there was a back­up plan – to move to West­ern Ukraine if the Maid­an fails to hold on,” Paru­biy said in an inter­view with Ukrayin­s­ka Prav­da.

    Accord­ing to the Rada Speak­er, the back­up plan was to set up pop­u­lar resis­tance in Lviv.

    “Since all coun­cils and local admin­is­tra­tions in West­ern Ukraine were under our con­trol, we were to orga­nize resis­tance there, in Lviv. When I was admit­ted to a hos­pi­tal after being wound­ed and gas-poi­soned late Feb­ru­ary 18, I received a mes­sage: ‘Andriy, don’t return to the Maid­an, imme­di­ate­ly head to Lviv and set up head­quar­ters there,’ ” Paru­biy said.

    He refused to tell the pub­li­ca­tion who was the one who wrote the mes­sage, only assur­ing that he decid­ed not to give up the fight in Kyiv.

    “I will not call out the name. I said: ‘This is my Maid­an, I won’t go any­where.’ I got off the drop­pers and returned to the Maid­an. All our efforts were aimed at hold­ing ground,” Paru­biy said.

    “The idea of mov­ing to Lviv was spun in a very nar­row cir­cle. And I don’t even know if I’m being polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect enough when I talk about this. Had we been crushed by tanks back then, we should have retreat­ed. But we could­n’t just go away,” he added.

    ...

    ———–

    “Paru­biy reveals some Maid­an lead­ers had Plan B”; Unian.info; 10/02/2018

    ““Since all coun­cils and local admin­is­tra­tions in West­ern Ukraine were under our con­trol, we were to orga­nize resis­tance there, in Lviv. When I was admit­ted to a hos­pi­tal after being wound­ed and gas-poi­soned late Feb­ru­ary 18, I received a mes­sage: ‘Andriy, don’t return to the Maid­an, imme­di­ate­ly head to Lviv and set up head­quar­ters there,’ ” Paru­biy said.”

    The back­up plan was to set up pop­u­lar resis­tance in Lviv. And giv­en that Paru­biy was the head of the armed resis­tance for the Maid­an pro­tes­tors it’s hard to imag­ine that the pop­u­lar resis­tance in Lviv woudl­n’t have been armed resis­tance.

    It’s also worth not­ing how Paru­biy’s account of being injured in the hos­pi­tal and gas-poi­soned in late Feb­ru­ary 18, 2014, and receiv­ing a mes­sage from an unnamed indi­vid­ual telling him to not return to the Maid­an and instead head to Lviv and set up a resis­tance head­quar­ters there might relate to the emerg­ing sto­ry from Vesti-Ukr about the killing of two traf­fic police just after mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 19th and how evi­dence sug­gests the killers were involved with the sniper attacks and in phone con­tact with two impor­tant Maid­an fig­ures.

    First, recall how Vesti-Ukr revealed that two phone num­bers called the cell­phone believed to be in the killer’s vehi­cle short­ly after the killing of the police. The con­ver­sa­tions includ­ed “a for­mer jour­nal­ist, and now an influ­en­tial people’s deputy from the Pop­u­lar Front,” and that appears to fit the descrip­tion of Iry­na Herashchenko.

    The sec­ond per­son who called the killer’s cell­phone was described as a “par­lia­men­tar­i­an, who is con­sid­ered the patron of this jour­nal­ist in the “Pop­u­lar Front”. Imme­di­ate­ly after Euro­maid­an, he became one of the top offi­cials of the state, and today he heads a sta­tus par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee.” And that sounds a lot like a descrip­tion of Paru­biy! Also note that Herashchenko is the first deputy chair­woman of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment, so she pre­sum­ably works pret­ty close­ly with Paru­biy, the cur­rent chair­man.

    So that’s all some­thing to keep in mind regard­ing the Maid­an sniper attacks: based on the avail­able evi­dence, Paru­biy was like­ly in con­tact with the traf­fic cop killers and he already had a “Plan B” of turn­ing Lviv into a hub of resis­tance.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 13, 2019, 12:29 pm

  10. Petro Poroshenko was just sum­moned to the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office in rela­tion to the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the Maid­an sniper attacks. He is sup­posed to show up on May 7th, although it’s not known if Poroshenko will actu­al­ly show up. Inter­est­ing­ly, if he does show he’s not just going to be answer­ing ques­tions as a wit­ness to the attacks. He’s also going to be belat­ed­ly sign­ing the doc­u­ments from an inter­ro­ga­tion report that he gave in 2016 about the case. The Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment of the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine, Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk, explains that Poroshenko’s 2016 inter­ro­ga­tion was record­ed on vieo, and lat­er tran­scribed, but inves­ti­ga­tors nev­er man­aged to sub­se­quent­ly meet with Poroshenko so he could sign the pro­to­col with the tran­scribed inter­view.

    Keep in mind this is all hap­pen­ing not long after Poroshenko lost the recent elec­tions in a land­slide, so there’s the ques­tion of whether or not there’s an attempt to com­plete this ques­tion­ing of Poroshenko while he’s still in office but also the ques­tion of whether or not this inves­ti­ga­tion is going to become part of some sort of pow­er strug­gle. After all, giv­en the explo­sive nature of this case it could be incred­i­bly use­ful for deal­ing with polit­i­cal oppo­nents if your oppo­nents hap­pen to have been impli­cat­ed in the sniper attacks. So this is going to be a case to watch, whether or not Poroshenko shows up for the actu­al ques­tion­ing:

    UNIAN

    Spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tor Hor­batiuk: Poroshenko sum­moned for inter­ro­ga­tion on May 7 16:07, 06 May 2019

    Poroshenko must come to the PGO’s Main Inves­ti­ga­tion Depart­ment on Borysohlib­s­ka Street in Kyiv at 10:00 on May 7.

    16:07, 06 May 2019

    Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment of the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk has said incum­bent Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko was sum­moned to the PGO for inter­ro­ga­tion as a wit­ness in the Maid­an case.

    Accord­ing to him, Poroshenko must come to the PGO’s Main Inves­ti­ga­tion Depart­ment on Borysohlib­s­ka Street in Kyiv at 10:00 on May 7.

    Poroshenko must sign an inter­ro­ga­tion report of 2016, as well as answer a num­ber of ques­tions relat­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es about crimes against par­tic­i­pants in the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty, Hor­batiuk said.

    Hor­batiuk explained why the inter­ro­ga­tion report of 2016 had not been signed yet. Accord­ing to him, the inter­ro­ga­tion was record­ed on video then, and lat­er it was tran­scribed, but since 2016, the inves­ti­ga­tors have not man­aged to meet with Poroshenko so that he could sign the pro­to­col with the tran­scribed inter­view.

    The pros­e­cu­tor also said he did not know whether Poroshenko would come tomor­row or not.

    ———-

    “Spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tor Hor­batiuk: Poroshenko sum­moned for inter­ro­ga­tion on May 7 16:07, 06 May 2019”; UNIAN; 05/06/2019

    “Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment of the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk has said incum­bent Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko was sum­moned to the PGO for inter­ro­ga­tion as a wit­ness in the Maid­an case.”

    Yep, Poroshenko is being sum­moned as a wit­ness. More than five years lat­er. But he’s also going to be sign­ing an ear­li­er inter­ro­ga­tion report from 2016 that was­n’t signed for some mys­te­ri­ous rea­son:

    ...
    Poroshenko must sign an inter­ro­ga­tion report of 2016, as well as answer a num­ber of ques­tions relat­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es about crimes against par­tic­i­pants in the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty, Hor­batiuk said.

    Hor­batiuk explained why the inter­ro­ga­tion report of 2016 had not been signed yet. Accord­ing to him, the inter­ro­ga­tion was record­ed on video then, and lat­er it was tran­scribed, but since 2016, the inves­ti­ga­tors have not man­aged to meet with Poroshenko so that he could sign the pro­to­col with the tran­scribed inter­view.
    ...

    And that’s pret­ty much every­thing we know at that point about Poroshenko get­ting sum­moned. The fact that the Maid­an sniper inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing and has died a qui­et bureau­crat­ic death is, in itself, kind of big news giv­en how lit­tle we hear about it.

    But as pro­fes­sor Ivan Katchanovs­ki points out in tweet storm, there’s a lot more known about Poroshenko’s ties to the sniper attacks that has come out over the course of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the var­i­ous tes­ti­monies. Most of the sources he links to in his tweets are in Russ­ian or Ukrain­ian, but the tweets give us a gist of what’s been claimed. Here’s what Katchanovs­ki had to say on Twit­ter in response to the news of Poroshenko’s sum­mon­ing:

    Poroshenko is sum­moned by #Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office of #Ukraine to tes­ti­fy con­cern­ing #Maid­an mas­sacre. Sev­er­al #Maid­an activists stat­ed that he was involved in Maid­an mas­sacre, in par­tic­u­lar, evac­u­a­tion of some of snipers cap­tured by Maid­an pro­test­ers. https://t.co/UnOJfM5BIT— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    Head of spe­cial divi­sion of Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office of #Ukraine reveals that Poroshenko refused to sign pro­to­col of his first inter­ro­ga­tion in 2016 con­cern­ing #Maid­an mas­sacre in spite of 7 requests. https://t.co/wnHjGfHq4x— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    Ex leader of Right Sec­tor in Kyiv dis­trict pub­licly stat­ed that Right Sec­tor leader & Poroshenko evac­u­at­ed cap­tured snipers fol­low­ing #Maid­an mas­sacre. https://t.co/jgAuujYU3J (1:04:13)— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    He said that his Zahra­va unit of the Right Sec­tor was giv­en an order to pro­tect the evac­u­at­ed snipers from the pro­test­ers. https://t.co/R7bfFD8VQE (8:45).— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    Head of Patri­ot of Ukraine in Kyiv stat­ed on Face­book that snipers cap­tured by pro­test­ers, in par­tic­u­lar one cap­tured with his involve­ment in Svo­bo­da-booked room in Hotel Ukraina, were evac­u­at­ed by Poroshenko along with cap­tured Inter­nal Troops. (p. 57) https://t.co/4HVM9U1I1V— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    A Maid­an Self-Defense activist stat­ed sep­a­rate­ly that he along with oth­er pro­test­ers con­front­ed Poroshenko and tried to stop this evac­u­a­tion of snipers who were cap­tured in the Hotel Ukraina and oth­er loca­tions. https://t.co/hZAb772ipM— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    Videos show a con­fronta­tion between the pro­test­ers and the Maid­an lead­ers, such as Yarosh, Paru­biy, Svo­bo­da deputies, Poroshenko, Pashyn­sky, who pro­tect­ed and tried to evac­u­ate around 2:00 am on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2014 a few dozen of men. https://t.co/URzg7oYNja— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    All of these evac­u­at­ed men, includ­ing cap­tured Inter­nal Troops sol­diers and offi­cers, were dressed in civil­ian clothes, and some of them had hair­cuts that were dif­fer­ent from mil­i­tary-style short hair­cuts of cap­tured Inter­nal Troops sol­diers and offi­cers. https://t.co/xWsyY3JSUu— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    As of now, this pub­li­ca­tion by #Ukrain­ian news agency is the only Eng­lish-lan­guage media report on sum­mon­ing of Poroshenko to tes­ti­fy in the #Maid­an mas­sacre case by Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Office of #Ukraine. https://t.co/54atFRtDak— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    A Geor­gian ex-mil­i­tary tes­ti­fied in Israeli TV doc­u­men­tary that Poroshenko was sup­posed to pay him & oth­er Geor­gian snipers for the Maid­an mas­sacre in #Ukraine. https://t.co/Z5n7q6PK8y— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    A Geor­gian ex-mil­i­tary tes­ti­fied in Israeli TV doc­u­men­tary that Poroshenko was sup­posed to pay him & oth­er Geor­gian snipers for the Maid­an mas­sacre in #Ukraine. https://t.co/Z5n7q6PK8y— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) May 6, 2019

    So based on Pro­fes­sor Katchanovski’s tweet storm, it sounds like there’s quite a bit under this rock. Like Poroshenko pay­ing off Geor­gian snipers and assist­ing in their evac­u­a­tions.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 6, 2019, 2:00 pm

  11. Here’s an update on the sum­mon­ing of Petro Poroshenko to the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office for ques­tion­ing regard­ing the Maid­an sniper attacks: Poroshenko was a no show this morn­ing. And he has­n’t been in touch with inves­ti­ga­tors to either inform them that he would­n’t be com­ing or to resched­ule the ques­tion­ing. But as the head of the spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tions depart­ment, Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk, point­ed out, as long as Poroshenko is pres­i­dent he has no legal oblig­a­tion to respond to this sum­mon­ing. Once he’s out of office, how­ev­er, he can be com­pelled to do so. And that’s what the pros­e­cu­tors are plan­ning on doing at this point: wait­ing until Poroshenko is out of office and then apply to the court for com­pul­so­ry atten­dance:

    Inter­fax Ukraine

    Poroshenko fails to appear for ques­tion­ing in Maid­an case

    11:56 07.05.2019

    Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko has not appeared at the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office (PGO) on Tues­day for ques­tion­ing in the Maid­an case, head of the PGO’s spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tions depart­ment Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk said.

    “Two weeks ago Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko was invit­ed for ques­tion­ing as a wit­ness at 10:00 today. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, as you see, he has not arrived for ques­tion­ing. No one was in touch with inves­ti­ga­tors to inform them he would not be com­ing or to ask to resched­ule ques­tion­ing,” Hor­batiuk said, not­ing that Poroshenko was sum­moned to the PGO in order for inves­ti­ga­tors to ask “addi­tion­al ques­tions about the events of Feb­ru­ary 18–19 [2014] and Decem­ber 1 [2013].”

    Hor­batiuk said in Novem­ber 2016 Poroshenko gave addi­tion­al evi­dence that he did not give dur­ing the first inter­ro­ga­tion.

    “For two years he did not sign the pro­to­col of the first inter­ro­ga­tion ... He was in a hur­ry and did not sign. He promised that he would sign the next day. We remind­ed him more than once, but he nev­er appeared. We will con­tin­ue sum­mon­ing him,” he said.

    Accord­ing to Hor­batiuk, they can­not make Poroshenko appear for sum­mon­ing because of pres­i­den­tial sta­tus.” If he repeat­ed­ly fails to appear, we’ll go to court to fine [him]. But until he has pres­i­den­tial sta­tus, com­pul­so­ry atten­dance is not applic­a­ble. When [his] pres­i­den­cy expires, we’ll apply to the court for com­pul­so­ry atten­dance,” he added.

    ...

    ———-

    “Poroshenko fails to appear for ques­tion­ing in Maid­an case”; Inter­fax Ukraine; 05/07/2019

    ““Two weeks ago Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko was invit­ed for ques­tion­ing as a wit­ness at 10:00 today. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, as you see, he has not arrived for ques­tion­ing. No one was in touch with inves­ti­ga­tors to inform them he would not be com­ing or to ask to resched­ule ques­tion­ing,” Hor­batiuk said, not­ing that Poroshenko was sum­moned to the PGO in order for inves­ti­ga­tors to ask “addi­tion­al ques­tions about the events of Feb­ru­ary 18–19 [2014] and Decem­ber 1 [2013].””

    It sure seems like Poroshenko is kind of a hos­tile wit­ness at this point. Is it that he does­n’t want to answer more ques­tions or does he real­ly not want to sign off on the answers he already gave in 2016? At this point we have no idea.

    And note how Poroshenko was going to be asked ques­tions about the events of Feb­ru­ary 18–19, 2014, and Decem­ber 1, 2013. That sug­gests inves­ti­ga­tors are still look­ing into the events that trig­gered the ini­tial Decem­ber 1 crack­down on pro­test­ers that trig­gered the larg­er protests. Recall how cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence points towards Paul Man­afort and Sergei Lovochkin play­ing a role in foment­ing and exploit­ing that crack­down, so it’s going to be inter­est­ing to see what addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion might come out about those events

    It’s also note­wor­thy that Poroshenko appar­ent­ly gave addi­tion­al evi­dence in 2016 that he did­n’t ini­tial­ly give. And it’s that 2016 inter­ro­ga­tion ses­sion that Poroshenko mys­te­ri­ous­ly has­n’t signed off on:

    ...
    Hor­batiuk said in Novem­ber 2016 Poroshenko gave addi­tion­al evi­dence that he did not give dur­ing the first inter­ro­ga­tion.

    “For two years he did not sign the pro­to­col of the first inter­ro­ga­tion ... He was in a hur­ry and did not sign. He promised that he would sign the next day. We remind­ed him more than once, but he nev­er appeared. We will con­tin­ue sum­mon­ing him,” he said.
    ...

    Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Poroshenko does­n’t have to actu­al­ly attend these inter­ro­ga­tions even when sum­moned, but only as long as he remains pres­i­dent. And pros­e­cu­tors are plan­ning on com­pelling his atten­dance once he’s no longer pres­i­dent. Keep in mind that Poroshenko’s term expires at the end of May:

    ...
    Accord­ing to Hor­batiuk, they can­not make Poroshenko appear for sum­mon­ing because of pres­i­den­tial sta­tus.” If he repeat­ed­ly fails to appear, we’ll go to court to fine [him]. But until he has pres­i­den­tial sta­tus, com­pul­so­ry atten­dance is not applic­a­ble. When [his] pres­i­den­cy expires, we’ll apply to the court for com­pul­so­ry atten­dance,” he added.
    ...

    That’s quite a show­down that we’re see­ing devel­op here.

    So it prob­a­bly should­n’t come as a sur­prise that, as hint­ed at in the fol­low­ing arti­cle from a few weeks ago, it turns out that Poroshenko does­n’t have a very good rela­tion­ship with head of the spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tions depart­ment Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk. Specif­i­cal­ly, Poroshenko was pub­licly blam­ing Hor­batiuk for the lack of progress on the inves­ti­ga­tion:

    UNIAN

    Poroshenko says progress in Maid­an killings probe dis­ap­point­ing

    In turn, chief of the inves­ti­ga­tion team Hor­batiuk said he had repeat­ed­ly stat­ed press­ing prob­lems in the case over the past years.

    12:20, 16 April 2019

    Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko says the rea­son for the delay in the probe into the killings of pro­test­ers at Kyiv’s Maid­an Neza­lezh­nos­ti Square dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty is the inef­fec­tive work of Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment at the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine, Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk.

    “I’m dis­sat­is­fied with the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of the ‘Heav­en­ly Hun­dred’ heroes. I am empha­siz­ing this in pub­lic. And I know who is inves­ti­gat­ing [the case]. I am sure­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the qual­i­ty of the probe. And I empha­size the name of this pros­e­cu­tor, it’s Mr. Hor­batiuk,” he said on Ukraine’s ICTV chan­nel on April 15.

    In turn, Hor­batiuk told the Ukrain­ian news out­let Hro­madske that he had addressed the prob­lems in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an cas­es over the past years.

    “I have been talk­ing about the prob­lems with the inves­ti­ga­tion for all these years, includ­ing about the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the head of state. And every­one whom I men­tioned had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help in this process. But the pres­i­dent voiced the prob­lems and the per­sons respon­si­ble only dur­ing the elec­tion race. That’s the dif­fer­ence – who and when is con­cerned about the Maid­an case being inves­ti­gat­ed,” he said.

    Note­wor­thy, Hor­batiuk on Feb­ru­ary 19 said that the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office had report­ed sus­pi­cion notices to 66 per­sons accused of com­plic­i­ty in the Maid­an killings.

    ———-

    “Poroshenko says progress in Maid­an killings probe dis­ap­point­ing”; UNIAN; 04/16/2019

    “Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko says the rea­son for the delay in the probe into the killings of pro­test­ers at Kyiv’s Maid­an Neza­lezh­nos­ti Square dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty is the inef­fec­tive work of Chief of the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions Depart­ment at the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine, Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk.”

    So Poroshenko placed the blame for the delay in the res­o­lu­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion square­ly on Ser­hiy Hor­batiuk, and specif­i­cal­ly cit­ed the qual­i­ty of the probe for the delay. Then, about a week lat­er, Poroshenko gets sum­moned to the pros­e­cu­tors office in two weeks to answer more ques­tions and final­ly sign off on the inter­ro­ga­tion he gave in 2016. His sum­mon­ing is sched­uled for today but he’s a no show and does­n’t con­tact that pros­e­cu­tors office at all. Final­ly, we learn that pros­e­cu­tors are plan­ning on com­pelling him to show up and answer ques­tions once his term in office ends and that terms ends at the end of this month. Again, it’s quite a show­down devel­op­ing here. A show­down over the gath­er­ing evi­dence from one of the key wit­ness­es and key ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the vio­lence at the Maid­an.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 7, 2019, 2:27 pm

  12. The ‘false flag hall of mir­rors’ cri­sis in Ukraine just took anoth­er dark turn fol­low­ing the shelling of a kinder­garten filled with chil­dren on Thurs­day. The kind of dark turn that car­ries an eerie echo of the still unsolved false flag sniper attacks at the heart of the Feb 2014 Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion:

    The sep­a­ratist republics of Donet­sk and Luhan­sk are mass evac­u­at­ing civil­ians to Rus­sia. Women, chil­dren, and the elder­ly are going first. Then, hours after the evac­u­a­tion announce­ment, a jeep explod­ed out­side a rebel gov­ern­ment build­ing in Donet­sk. The head of the sep­a­ratists’ forces, Denis Sinenkov, claimed the car was his. So it was an appar­ent assas­si­na­tion attempt on the sep­a­ratists’ leader.

    We’re also told that the shelling of the region con­tin­ued for a sec­ond day and increased, includ­ing the shelling of a UN human­i­tar­i­an con­voy. Both sides blamed each oth­er for the attack. A source described as “a diplo­mat­ic source with years of expe­ri­ence of the con­flict” told Reuters that Fri­day’s shelling in east Ukraine is the most intense since major com­bat there end­ed with a 2015 cease­fire. “They are shoot­ing — every­one and every­thing,” said the source. The US con­tin­ues to warn of an immi­nent inva­sion, with Pres­i­dent Biden updat­ing the offi­cial US warn­ings this after­noon to a con­clu­sion that an immi­nent inva­sion of Kiev is cur­rent­ly planned. That warn­ing was jux­ta­posed with Denis Pushilin, head of the Donet­sk sep­a­ratist gov­ern­ment, who alleged in a video state­ment that Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy was going to order an immi­nent offen­sive in the area.

    So it appears that all hell is break­ing loose in the sep­a­ratist republics includ­ing high vol­ume shelling. Shelling each side claims the oth­er is respon­si­ble for as part of a false flag oper­a­tion. And yet there’s still no actu­al con­fir­ma­tion of who is doing the fir­ing. There’s high vol­ume shelling and no one can appar­ent­ly deter­mine where the shelling is com­ing from:

    Rebels announce evac­u­a­tion from east Ukraine

    By Anton Zverev, Pavel Poli­tyuk and Poli­na Nikol­skaya
    Feb­ru­ary 18, 2022 9:16 PM UTC Updat­ed

    Sum­ma­ry

    * East Ukraine sees most intense shelling since 2015
    * West says it fears Rus­sia is prepar­ing pre­text to invade
    * ‘Dad is send­ing us away’: evac­uees pack bus­es out
    * Putin meet­ing Belarus leader to dis­cuss Russ­ian troops there

    MOSCOW/KYIV/DONETSK, Feb 18 (Reuters) — Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratists packed civil­ians onto bus­es out of break­away regions in east­ern Ukraine on Fri­day, a shock turn in a con­flict the West fears is part of a plan by Moscow to cre­ate a pre­text for an attack on its neigh­bour.

    Warn­ing sirens blared in Donet­sk after it and the oth­er self-pro­claimed “Peo­ple’s Repub­lic”, Luhan­sk, announced the evac­u­a­tion of hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple to Rus­sia, with women, chil­dren and the elder­ly going first.

    With­out pro­vid­ing evi­dence, Denis Pushilin, the sep­a­ratist leader in Donet­sk, accused Ukraine of prepar­ing to attack the two regions soon — an accu­sa­tion Kyiv said was false.

    “There are no orders to lib­er­ate our ter­ri­to­ries by force,” said Ukraine’s top secu­ri­ty offi­cial, Olek­siy Danilov.

    Hours after the evac­u­a­tion announce­ment, a jeep explod­ed out­side a rebel gov­ern­ment build­ing in the city of Donet­sk, cap­i­tal of the region of the same name. Reuters jour­nal­ists saw the vehi­cle sur­round­ed by shrap­nel, a wheel thrown away by the blast.

    Russ­ian media said it belonged to a sep­a­ratist offi­cial.

    Most of the sev­er­al mil­lion civil­ians in the two rebel-held areas are Russ­ian speak­ers, many already grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship by Moscow.

    With­in hours of the announce­ment, fam­i­lies assem­bled to board bus­es at an evac­u­a­tion point in Donet­sk, where author­i­ties said 700,000 peo­ple would leave.

    One weep­ing woman embraced her teenage chil­dren.

    Iri­na Lysano­va, 22, just back from a trip to Rus­sia, said she was pack­ing to return with her pen­sion­er moth­er: “Mama is a pan­ick­er,” she said. “Dad is send­ing us away.”

    Her father, Kon­stan­tin, 62, was not going.

    “This is my moth­er­land and the land is ours. I will stay and put out the fires,” he said.

    The evac­u­a­tion start­ed after the sim­mer­ing east­ern Ukraine con­flict zone saw what sources described as the most intense artillery bom­bard­ment for years on Fri­day.

    Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment and the sep­a­ratists trad­ed blame.

    West­ern coun­tries have said they think the shelling, which began on Thurs­day and inten­si­fied in its sec­ond day, could be part of an attempt by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a pre­text to jus­ti­fy an attack on Ukraine.

    Rus­sia says it has no such inten­tion and accus­es the West of irre­spon­si­ble fear-mon­ger­ing.

    There were no signs of pan­ic on Fri­day evening in Donet­sk.

    “I think every­thing will blow over in a few days,” said one man Ilya, in his 20s, wait­ing in line to with­draw cash from an ATM.

    ...

    WAR FEARS SHAKE MARKETS

    With war fears spook­ing mar­kets and Europe engulfed in a diplo­mat­ic cri­sis, Rus­sia said this week it had start­ed with­draw­ing troops from the bor­der near Ukraine after huge mil­i­tary drills. read more

    But the Unit­ed States said it had instead ramped up the force, men­ac­ing its neigh­bour, to between 169,000–190,000 troops, from 100,000 at the end of Jan­u­ary.

    “We see addi­tion­al forces going to the bor­der includ­ing lead­ing edge forces,” U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken told the Munich Secu­ri­ty Con­fer­ence.

    The Krem­lin has tens of thou­sands of troops stag­ing exer­cis­es in Belarus, north of Ukraine, that are due to end on Sun­day. Belarus’ Russ­ian-backed leader, Alexan­der Lukashenko, met Putin on Fri­day, say­ing before­hand the sol­diers could stay as long as need­ed.

    West­ern coun­tries fear a con­flict on a scale unseen in Europe at least since the Yugoslav and Chechen wars of the 1990s, which killed hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple and forced mil­lions to flee.

    “This is the most sig­nif­i­cant mil­i­tary mobil­i­sa­tion in Europe since the Sec­ond World War,” U.S. ambas­sador Michael Car­pen­ter told a meet­ing at the Vien­na-based Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe.

    ‘SHOOTING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING’

    A diplo­mat­ic source with years of expe­ri­ence of the con­flict described Fri­day’s shelling in east Ukraine as the most intense since major com­bat there end­ed with a 2015 cease­fire. “They are shoot­ing — every­one and every­thing,” said the source.

    The evac­u­a­tion piled fur­ther pres­sure on Rus­si­a’s rou­ble cur­ren­cy and oth­er assets.

    Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter Annale­na Baer­bock said she did not think a ful­ly-fledged inva­sion was the most like­ly sce­nario but that Rus­sia could car­ry out a coup in Ukraine, attack crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture or insti­gate vio­lence it would blame on Kyiv.

    The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment also said a full-scale inva­sion was unlike­ly.

    Putin, whose nation has been under sanc­tions since 2014, said West­ern coun­tries would prob­a­bly find a rea­son to impose more what­ev­er Rus­sia did.

    Moscow is mak­ing secu­ri­ty demands that include a promise to bar Ukraine from join­ing the U.S.-European mil­i­tary alliance NATO. Since top­pling a pro-Russ­ian pres­i­dent in 2014, Ukraine has become clos­er polit­i­cal­ly to the West, staged joint mil­i­tary exer­cis­es with NATO and tak­en deliv­ery of weapons includ­ing U.S. Javelin anti-tank mis­siles and Turk­ish drones.

    Putin says Ukraine’s grow­ing ties with the alliance could make it a launch­pad for mis­siles tar­get­ing Rus­sia.

    ———–

    “Rebels announce evac­u­a­tion from east Ukraine” by Anton Zverev, Pavel Poli­tyuk and Poli­na Nikol­skaya; Reuters; 02/18/2022

    “A diplo­mat­ic source with years of expe­ri­ence of the con­flict described Fri­day’s shelling in east Ukraine as the most intense since major com­bat there end­ed with a 2015 cease­fire. “They are shoot­ing — every­one and every­thing,” said the source.”

    “They” are shoot­ing every­one and every­thing, accord­ing to this anony­mous diplo­mat­ic source. Who are “they”? Well, that remark­ably remains a com­plete mys­tery, but West­ern gov­ern­ments are sug­gest­ing its Rus­sia doing to the shelling. Again, can’t some­one deter­mine rough­ly which direc­tion these shells are being fired from?

    ...
    West­ern coun­tries have said they think the shelling, which began on Thurs­day and inten­si­fied in its sec­ond day, could be part of an attempt by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a pre­text to jus­ti­fy an attack on Ukraine.

    Rus­sia says it has no such inten­tion and accus­es the West of irre­spon­si­ble fear-mon­ger­ing.
    ...

    So how real is the account from this diplo­mat­ic source of some force shoot­ing every­one and every­thing in east­ern Ukraine? Well, the fact that the sep­a­ratist gov­ern­ments announced a mass evac­u­a­tion of women, chil­dren, and the elder­ly fol­lowed by an explo­sion of a sep­a­ratist gov­ern­ment offi­cial’s jeep would be con­sis­tent with diplo­mat’s descrip­tion. Still, who is doing the shoot­ing?

    ...
    Warn­ing sirens blared in Donet­sk after it and the oth­er self-pro­claimed “Peo­ple’s Repub­lic”, Luhan­sk, announced the evac­u­a­tion of hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple to Rus­sia, with women, chil­dren and the elder­ly going first.

    ...

    Hours after the evac­u­a­tion announce­ment, a jeep explod­ed out­side a rebel gov­ern­ment build­ing in the city of Donet­sk, cap­i­tal of the region of the same name. Reuters jour­nal­ists saw the vehi­cle sur­round­ed by shrap­nel, a wheel thrown away by the blast.

    Russ­ian media said it belonged to a sep­a­ratist offi­cial.

    Most of the sev­er­al mil­lion civil­ians in the two rebel-held areas are Russ­ian speak­ers, many already grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship by Moscow.

    With­in hours of the announce­ment, fam­i­lies assem­bled to board bus­es at an evac­u­a­tion point in Donet­sk, where author­i­ties said 700,000 peo­ple would leave.
    ...

    So we have a con­flict that appears to be aimed at throw­ing the sep­a­ratist republics into a state of chaos, cre­at­ed by what appears to be a mys­tery mil­i­tary force shoot­ing and shelling peo­ple that no one has actu­al­ly spot­ted or filmed. And this is all hap­pen­ing at the same time the US is insist­ing a full scale Russ­ian inva­sion that will include an occu­pa­tion of Kiev is just around the cor­ner:

    The Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    Biden is ‘con­vinced’ Putin has decid­ed to invade Ukraine

    By Vladimir Isachenkov, Yuras Kar­manau, Aamer Mad­hani and Zeke Miller
    Feb 18, 2022 at 5:57 p.m. EST

    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said Fri­day that he is “con­vinced” Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin has decid­ed to invade Ukraine, includ­ing an assault on the cap­i­tal, Kyiv, as ten­sions spiked along the mil­i­ta­rized bor­der with attacks that the West called “false-flag” oper­a­tions meant to estab­lish a pre­text for inva­sion.

    In Ukraine, a human­i­tar­i­an con­voy was hit by shelling, and pro-Russ­ian rebels evac­u­at­ed civil­ians from the con­flict zone. A car bomb­ing hit the east­ern city of Donet­sk, but no casu­al­ties were report­ed.

    After weeks of say­ing the U.S. wasn’t sure if Putin had made the final deci­sion to invade, Biden said that assess­ment had changed, cit­ing Amer­i­can intel­li­gence.

    “As of this moment I’m con­vinced he’s made the deci­sion,” Biden said. “We have rea­son to believe that.” He reit­er­at­ed that the assault could occur in the “com­ing days.”

    Mean­while, the Krem­lin announced mas­sive nuclear drills to flex its mil­i­tary mus­cle, and Putin pledged to pro­tect Russia’s nation­al inter­ests against what it sees as encroach­ing West­ern threats.

    Biden reit­er­at­ed his threat of mas­sive eco­nom­ic and diplo­mat­ic sanc­tions against Rus­sia if it does invade, and pressed Putin to rethink his course of action. He said the U.S. and its West­ern allies were more unit­ed than ever to ensure Rus­sia pays a price for the inva­sion.

    With an esti­mat­ed 150,000 Russ­ian troops post­ed around Ukraine’s bor­ders, U.S. and Euro­pean offi­cials warn that the long-sim­mer­ing sep­a­ratist con­flict in east­ern Ukraine could pro­vide the spark for a broad­er attack.

    As fur­ther indi­ca­tion that the Rus­sians are prepar­ing for a poten­tial inva­sion, a U.S. defense offi­cial said an esti­mat­ed 40% to 50% of the ground forces deployed in the vicin­i­ty of the Ukrain­ian bor­der have moved into attack posi­tions near­er the bor­der. That shift has been under way for about a week, oth­er offi­cials have said, and does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean Putin has decid­ed to begin an inva­sion. The defense offi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss inter­nal U.S. mil­i­tary assess­ments.

    The offi­cial also said the num­ber of Russ­ian ground units known as bat­tal­ion tac­ti­cal groups deployed in the bor­der area had grown to as many as 125, up from 83 two weeks ago. Each bat­tal­ion tac­ti­cal group has 750 to 1,000 sol­diers.

    Lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion remain open: The U.S. and Russ­ian defense chiefs spoke Fri­day, and U.S. Defense Sec­re­tary Lloyd Austin called for de-esca­la­tion, the return of Russ­ian forces sur­round­ing Ukraine to their home bases, and a diplo­mat­ic res­o­lu­tion, accord­ing to the Pen­ta­gon. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken and Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov agreed to meet next week.

    Imme­di­ate wor­ries focused on east­ern Ukraine, where Ukrain­ian forces have been fight­ing pro-Rus­sia rebels since 2014 in a con­flict that has killed some 14,000 peo­ple.

    A bomb­ing struck a car out­side the main gov­ern­ment build­ing in the major east­ern city of Donet­sk, accord­ing to an Asso­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist there. The head of the sep­a­ratists’ forces, Denis Sinenkov, said the car was his, the Inter­fax news agency report­ed.

    There were no reports of casu­al­ties and no inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the blast. Uni­formed men inspect­ed the burned-out car. Bro­ken glass lit­tered the area,

    Shelling and shoot­ing are com­mon along the line that sep­a­rates Ukrain­ian forces and the rebels, but tar­get­ed vio­lence is unusu­al in rebel-held cities like Donet­sk.

    How­ev­er, the explo­sion and the announced evac­u­a­tions were in line with U.S. warn­ings of so-called false-flag attacks that Rus­sia would use to jus­ti­fy an inva­sion.

    Sep­a­ratists in the Luhan­sk and Donet­sk regions that form Ukraine’s indus­tri­al heart­land known as the Don­bas said they are evac­u­at­ing civil­ians to Rus­sia. The announce­ment appeared to be part of Moscow’s efforts to counter West­ern warn­ings of a Russ­ian inva­sion and to paint Ukraine as the aggres­sor instead.

    Denis Pushilin, head of the Donet­sk rebel gov­ern­ment, said women, chil­dren and the elder­ly would go first, and that Rus­sia has pre­pared facil­i­ties for them. Pushilin alleged in a video state­ment that Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy was going to order an immi­nent offen­sive in the area.

    Meta­da­ta from two videos post­ed by the sep­a­ratists announc­ing the evac­u­a­tion show that the files were cre­at­ed two days ago, The Asso­ci­at­ed Press con­firmed. U.S. author­i­ties have alleged that Krem­lin plans includ­ed pre­re­cord­ed videos as part of a dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign.

    Author­i­ties began mov­ing chil­dren from an orphan­age in Donet­sk, and oth­er res­i­dents board­ed bus­es for Rus­sia. Long lines formed at gas sta­tions as more peo­ple pre­pared to leave on their own.

    Putin ordered his emer­gen­cies min­is­ter to fly to the Ros­tov region bor­der­ing Ukraine to help orga­nize the exo­dus and ordered the gov­ern­ment to offer a pay­ment of 10,000 rubles (about $130) to each evac­uee, equiv­a­lent to about half of an aver­age month­ly salary in the war-rav­aged Don­bas.

    ...

    Around the volatile line of con­tact, a Unit­ed Nations human­i­tar­i­an con­voy came under rebel shelling in the Luhan­sk region, Ukraine’s mil­i­tary chief said. No casu­al­ties were report­ed. Rebels denied involve­ment and accused Ukraine of stag­ing a provo­ca­tion.

    Sep­a­ratist author­i­ties report­ed more shelling by Ukrain­ian forces along the line. Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov said the sit­u­a­tion is “poten­tial­ly very dan­ger­ous.” A surge of shelling Thurs­day tore through the walls of a kinder­garten, injur­ing two, and basic com­mu­ni­ca­tions were dis­rupt­ed. Both sides accused each oth­er of open­ing fire.

    U.S. and Euro­pean offi­cials have been on high alert for any Russ­ian attempts at a so-called false-flag oper­a­tion. A West­ern offi­cial famil­iar with intel­li­gence find­ings said Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials shared intel­li­gence that sug­gest­ed the Rus­sians might try to shell the areas in the Luhan­sk region con­trolled by sep­a­ratists, as part of an effort to cre­ate a false rea­son to take mil­i­tary action. The offi­cial was not autho­rized to com­ment pub­licly.

    ...

    ———–

    “Biden is ‘con­vinced’ Putin has decid­ed to invade Ukraine” by Vladimir Isachenkov, Yuras Kar­manau, Aamer Mad­hani and Zeke Miller; The Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 02/18/2022

    “U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said Fri­day that he is “con­vinced” Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin has decid­ed to invade Ukraine, includ­ing an assault on the cap­i­tal, Kyiv, as ten­sions spiked along the mil­i­ta­rized bor­der with attacks that the West called “false-flag” oper­a­tions meant to estab­lish a pre­text for inva­sion.”

    A full inva­sion of Kyiv is just around the cor­ner. That’s the updat­ed assess­ment com­ing out of the US fol­low­ing this lat­est wave of vio­lence. The update comes at the same time Denis Pushilin, head of the Donet­sk sep­a­ratist gov­ern­ment, warned the pop­u­lace that Ukraine was going to order an immi­nent offen­sive in the area:

    ...
    After weeks of say­ing the U.S. wasn’t sure if Putin had made the final deci­sion to invade, Biden said that assess­ment had changed, cit­ing Amer­i­can intel­li­gence.

    “As of this moment I’m con­vinced he’s made the deci­sion,” Biden said. “We have rea­son to believe that.” He reit­er­at­ed that the assault could occur in the “com­ing days.”

    ...

    Sep­a­ratists in the Luhan­sk and Donet­sk regions that form Ukraine’s indus­tri­al heart­land known as the Don­bas said they are evac­u­at­ing civil­ians to Rus­sia. The announce­ment appeared to be part of Moscow’s efforts to counter West­ern warn­ings of a Russ­ian inva­sion and to paint Ukraine as the aggres­sor instead.

    Denis Pushilin, head of the Donet­sk rebel gov­ern­ment, said women, chil­dren and the elder­ly would go first, and that Rus­sia has pre­pared facil­i­ties for them. Pushilin alleged in a video state­ment that Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy was going to order an immi­nent offen­sive in the area.

    ...

    Putin ordered his emer­gen­cies min­is­ter to fly to the Ros­tov region bor­der­ing Ukraine to help orga­nize the exo­dus and ordered the gov­ern­ment to offer a pay­ment of 10,000 rubles (about $130) to each evac­uee, equiv­a­lent to about half of an aver­age month­ly salary in the war-rav­aged Don­bas.
    ...

    And note how we are told the car bomb­ing of Denis Sinenkov’s jeep was high­ly unusu­al, but the shoot­ing and shelling are com­mon along the line that sep­a­rates Ukraine from the rebel forces. It was around that line of con­tact where a UN human­i­tar­i­an con­voy was attacked, with each side claim­ing the oth­er side was respon­si­ble. And we have a West­ern offi­cial anony­mous­ly telling the press that they expect the Rus­sians to shell Luhan­sk as part of a false flag oper­a­tion:

    ...
    A bomb­ing struck a car out­side the main gov­ern­ment build­ing in the major east­ern city of Donet­sk, accord­ing to an Asso­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist there. The head of the sep­a­ratists’ forces, Denis Sinenkov, said the car was his, the Inter­fax news agency report­ed.

    There were no reports of casu­al­ties and no inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the blast. Uni­formed men inspect­ed the burned-out car. Bro­ken glass lit­tered the area,

    Shelling and shoot­ing are com­mon along the line that sep­a­rates Ukrain­ian forces and the rebels, but tar­get­ed vio­lence is unusu­al in rebel-held cities like Donet­sk.

    How­ev­er, the explo­sion and the announced evac­u­a­tions were in line with U.S. warn­ings of so-called false-flag attacks that Rus­sia would use to jus­ti­fy an inva­sion.

    ...

    Around the volatile line of con­tact, a Unit­ed Nations human­i­tar­i­an con­voy came under rebel shelling in the Luhan­sk region, Ukraine’s mil­i­tary chief said. No casu­al­ties were report­ed. Rebels denied involve­ment and accused Ukraine of stag­ing a provo­ca­tion.

    Sep­a­ratist author­i­ties report­ed more shelling by Ukrain­ian forces along the line. Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov said the sit­u­a­tion is “poten­tial­ly very dan­ger­ous.” A surge of shelling Thurs­day tore through the walls of a kinder­garten, injur­ing two, and basic com­mu­ni­ca­tions were dis­rupt­ed. Both sides accused each oth­er of open­ing fire.

    U.S. and Euro­pean offi­cials have been on high alert for any Russ­ian attempts at a so-called false-flag oper­a­tion. A West­ern offi­cial famil­iar with intel­li­gence find­ings said Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials shared intel­li­gence that sug­gest­ed the Rus­sians might try to shell the areas in the Luhan­sk region con­trolled by sep­a­ratists, as part of an effort to cre­ate a false rea­son to take mil­i­tary action. The offi­cial was not autho­rized to com­ment pub­licly.
    ...

    It again rais­es the ques­tion that looms over this entire shelling hall of mir­rors: Isn’t it pos­si­ble to rough­ly infer the direc­tion the shelling came from? Or is the bat­tle space such that any side can effec­tive­ly mim­ic a shelling attack as if it came from the oth­er side? Are we look­ing at a sit­u­a­tion where each side is func­tion­al­ly capa­ble of mim­ic­k­ing shelling attacks from the oth­er side? Let’s hope not, but the fog of war in this con­flict seems to be a lot fog­gi­er than usu­al for a con­flict with so many inter­na­tion­al observers. It’s hard to know what to expect in a fog­gy hall of mir­rors like this.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 18, 2022, 4:11 pm

  13. And it actu­al­ly hap­pened. Most­ly. Vladimir Putin real­ly did launch a full scale mil­i­tary attack on Ukraine, rough­ly as pre­dict­ed by the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. It remains to be seen whether or not this coun­try-wide inva­sion is going to trans­late into a coun­try-wide occu­pa­tion. An occu­pa­tion that extends beyond the bor­ders of self-declared sep­a­ratist repub­lic of Donet­sk and Luhan­sk. So with the prospect of some of Russ­ian occu­pa­tion in unwel­com­ing parts of Ukraine very real, it’s going to be increas­ing­ly impor­tant to keep in mind that a Russ­ian occu­pa­tion of parts of Ukraine isn’t just a pow­er­ful ral­ly­ing cry for unit­ing Ukraini­ans. It’s also poten­tial­ly a potent excuse to wage exact­ly the kind of far right rev­o­lu­tion Ukraine’s nation­al­ists have been open­ly pin­ing for ever since 2014. The worse this con­flict gets for Ukraine mil­i­tar­i­ly, the bet­ter the prospects for a far right coup. That’s the grim real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion.

    Don’t for­get: the far right is open­ly gloat­ing about the oppor­tu­ni­ty this con­flict gives them to final­ly seize pow­er. And why not gloat? This real­ly is their dream sce­nario play­ing out. It points to one of the grand ironies of the sit­u­a­tion: while Vladimir Putin is using the de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ukraine as a pre­text for this inva­sion, the prospects of a full-blown Nazi takeover of Ukraine are prob­a­bly high­er than ever right now in direct response to the inva­sion.

    So with that in mind, it’s worth recall­ing the oth­er high­ly alarm­ing sto­ry we were get­ting out of Ukraine last Novem­ber, right around the same time we were first get­ting warn­ings about an immi­nent Russ­ian inva­sion: the pub­lic warn­ings by Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy that a group of Ukrain­ian oli­garchs were plot­ting a coup against him. A Krem­lin backed coup. And lead­ing this coup plot was Rinat Akhme­tov, the wealth­i­est man in Ukraine. It was a shock­ing alle­ga­tion, in large part because Akhme­tov is a fig­ure with long his­to­ry work­ing with the West and does­n’t have the pro­file of just being a Krem­lin stooge.

    And that brings us to the fol­low­ing fas­ci­nat­ing piece by Leonid Ragozin in bne IntelliNews from a few weeks ago that delves fur­ther into the fig­ures alleged­ly involved with this coup plot. As we’re going to see, the more we learn about the peo­ple involved, the more it looks like a plot against Zelen­skiy by Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists. At least that’s assum­ing the meet­ing that took place in Vil­nius four days before Zelen­skiy made is pub­lic alle­ga­tions was a meet­ing of the coup plot­ters. The meet­ing was osten­si­bly to cel­e­brate the birth­day of a TV pre­sen­ter. Join­ing Akhme­tov at this meet­ing was Volodymyr Klitschko, the broth­er of the may­or of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko. Also in atten­dance was Volodymr Groys­man, the for­mer speak­er of the Ukarain­ian par­lia­ment and a for­mer pro­tege of Petro Poroshenko. Recall how Groys­man has the curi­ous back­ground of being Jew­ish while get­ting his law degree from MAUP Uni­ver­si­ty, one of the epi­cen­ters of anti-Semi­tism that even had on its David Duke. But per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant fig­ure to attend the Vil­nius meet­ing was for­mer Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov, who over­saw the induc­tion of numer­ous far right ‘vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions’ into Ukraine’s mil­i­tary struc­ture.

    This meet­ing in Vil­nius was kind of a per­fect storm of Ukrain­ian nation­al­ism bub­bling up and threat­en­ing Zelen­skiy. And this is all hap­pen­ing right when both the US and Ukraine was appar­ent­ly get­ting intel­li­gence point­ing towards a poten­tial loom­ing Russ­ian inva­sion. So now that the Russ­ian inva­sion has start­ed, does Zelen­skiy no longer have to wor­ry about this group of oli­garchs, or wor­ry more than ever?:

    bne Intellinews

    RAGOZIN: What is Zelen­skiy afraid of?

    By Leonid Ragozin in Riga
    Feb­ru­ary 8, 2022

    Despite hav­ing more than 100,000 Russ­ian troops massed near its bor­der since last April, Ukraine’s per­cep­tion of the Russ­ian threat has been notably diverg­ing from that of the US ever since the White House start­ed ring­ing the alarm about the “immi­nent Russ­ian inva­sion” last autumn. Ukraine’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil chief Olek­siy Danilov even con­ced­ed in a recent inter­view that he had tried to argue with the Wash­ing­ton Post, after its arti­cle trig­gered the inva­sion scare on Octo­ber 30.

    While down­play­ing the risk of a Russ­ian offen­sive and even rep­ri­mand­ing the West for sow­ing pan­ic, the Ukrain­ian lead­er­ship appears pre­oc­cu­pied with a dif­fer­ent threat – that of a coup. Ukrain­ian offi­cials have spo­ken about it on numer­ous occa­sions, start­ing with Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s mem­o­rable press con­fer­ence at the end of Novem­ber, when the Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent star­tled West­ern allies by large­ly ignor­ing the inva­sion scare and instead talk­ing about the per­ceived threat emerg­ing from with­in Ukraine.

    The West­ern reac­tion to his claims at the time was a mix­ture of scep­ti­cism and dis­dain, espe­cial­ly as it under­mined the Biden administration’s vocal cam­paign to con­vince the world that Putin was about to occu­py Ukraine.

    Lat­er though, the US and Britain found a way of back­ing up Zelenskiy’s fear of a coup by releas­ing intel­li­gence data alleg­ing that Rus­sia was plot­ting to over­throw the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment with the help of its local prox­ies.

    ...

    Post-Maid­an Ukraine is rid­den with well-armed and murky para­mil­i­tary groups free­lanc­ing for the oli­garchs and close­ly linked to var­i­ous fac­tions in secu­ri­ty bod­ies. It is con­trol over one or sev­er­al of these groups, char­ac­terised as vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions or nation­al­ist move­ments, which defines the abil­i­ty of an oli­garch or a polit­i­cal leader to stage a coup framed as anoth­er Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion.

    THE OFFICER

    The lat­est per­son named as an alleged con­spir­a­tor is Police Colonel Yury Gol­uban, who was arrest­ed on Jan­u­ary 30. Ukraine’s Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Denys Monastyrsky claimed that he was plot­ting to stage a vio­lent protest out­side the pres­i­den­tial office in Kyiv. He alleged Gol­uban may be linked to Don­bas sep­a­ratists and Rus­sia.

    Gol­uban is more than just a police­man. His life sto­ry has many fea­tures that make him sim­i­lar to secu­ri­ty agents who fea­ture in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. A ver­sion of Goluban’s biog­ra­phy – post­ed on the inte­ri­or ministry’s web­site in 2017 when he won an award for hero­ism in the Don­bas con­flict – says that pri­or to the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, he served in the elite anti-ter­ror­ist units of var­i­ous Ukrain­ian secu­ri­ty agen­cies, includ­ing the Spe­cial Group Alpha of Ukraine’s State Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (SBU).

    At the begin­ning of the war with Rus­sia, he joined a vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion called Kyiv‑1, head­ed by Yevhen Deydey – a gang­ster from the Odessa region, who pri­or to Maid­an was con­vict­ed of armed rob­bery. The bat­tal­ion emerged under the aus­pices of the then inte­ri­or min­is­ter Arsen Avakov, whose son briefly joined its ranks.

    But Olek­san­dr Kho­dakovsky, a promi­nent Don­bas sep­a­ratist com­man­der, claimed that Gol­uban used to be one of his sub­or­di­nates dur­ing the pro-Russ­ian takeover of Donet­sk. Kho­dakovsky is the for­mer com­man­der of Alpha in Donet­sk.

    Giv­en how few details the Ukrain­ian law-enforce­ment bod­ies have released about Goluban’s alleged plot, it is impos­si­ble to ver­i­fy accu­sa­tions brought against him. Oth­er than the minister’s claims, no evi­dence has been pre­sent­ed prov­ing that the vio­lent protest had real­ly been planned.

    The author­i­ties also didn’t link Gol­uban to any of the promi­nent fig­ures who fea­tured as coup organ­is­ers in the pre­vi­ous alle­ga­tions.

    THE POLITICIAN

    One of these fig­ures is for­mer MP and Nash TV chan­nel own­er Yevhen Murayev, who was accused by the British for­eign min­istry on Jan­u­ary 23 of lead­ing a pro-Russ­ian coup con­spir­a­cy. British offi­cials lat­er con­ced­ed that this infor­ma­tion was passed to them by US intel­li­gence. This sto­ry was received with a great deal of scep­ti­cism by region­al observers, not least because Ukraine didn’t move to pros­e­cute Murayev, despite the British alle­ga­tions.

    Murayev reject­ed the accu­sa­tions by say­ing that Moscow already had its cho­sen leader for Ukraine. He was talk­ing about Putin’s long-time ally and fam­i­ly friend Vik­tor Medved­chuk. The lat­ter is indeed a fre­quent guest in Moscow and in the Krem­lin – unlike Murayev, who also hap­pens to be on Ukraine’s Russ­ian sanc­tions list.

    The two men are clear­ly of a dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal cal­i­bre. Medvedchuk’s Oppo­si­tion Bloc/For Life came sec­ond in the 2019 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. It briefly became the country’s most pop­u­lar par­ty, accord­ing to opin­ion polls, at the end of 2020, just before Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy unleashed an attack on Medved­chuk, putting him also on the sanc­tions list, togeth­er with three TV chan­nels he was alleged to con­trol via a proxy.

    Murayev led the Oppo­si­tion Bloc, a Rus­sia-friend­ly par­ty with a name very sim­i­lar to Medvedchuk’s. In the 2019 elec­tion, it failed to enter par­lia­ment. Observers regard­ed it as a spoil­er that effec­tive­ly stole 3% of the vote from Medved­chuk.

    It is dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend why Rus­sia would bet its stake on a fair­ly unpop­u­lar politi­cian, when it has an ally who pre­sides over a gen­uine­ly potent polit­i­cal force.

    Curi­ous­ly, no-one is cur­rent­ly nam­ing Medved­chuk as a poten­tial coup organ­is­er, per­haps because he was effec­tive­ly neu­tralised by Zelen­skiy. On top of being slapped with extra-judi­cial sanc­tions, he is cur­rent­ly under house arrest on charges of trea­son and “aid­ing ter­ror­ists” in a case relat­ed to the smug­gling of coal from Don­bas.

    A para­mil­i­tary force he was try­ing to build with the help of a splin­ter fac­tion of the far-right Azov move­ment has also been destroyed by the com­bined forces of rival para­mil­i­taries and law-enforce­ment bod­ies. It is safe to say that there is cur­rent­ly no potent para­mil­i­tary force on the pro-Russ­ian flank of Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics.

    THE OLIGARCH

    The most promi­nent per­son­al­i­ty fea­tur­ing on the list of poten­tial con­spir­a­tors is Ukraine’s rich­est busi­ness­man Rinat Akhme­tov. It was Zelen­skiy him­self who men­tioned his name in con­nec­tion with an alleged coup threat dur­ing his press con­fer­ence in Novem­ber.

    The pres­i­dent didn’t direct­ly accuse the oli­garch of plot­ting a coup, but he claimed that some Russ­ian agents had been try­ing to get him on board. Ukraine’s law enforce­ment bod­ies then released more details that were meant to back up the alle­ga­tions. It turned out that they were based on tapped con­ver­sa­tions between mid­dle-rank­ing Russ­ian secu­ri­ty agents. These details didn’t make the sto­ry any more plau­si­ble. Akhme­tov expressed out­rage at the pres­i­dent link­ing him to this alleged plot.

    But Zelen­skiy had oth­er rea­sons to sus­pect Akhme­tov of plan­ning to dis­lodge him, albeit by demo­c­ra­t­ic means, rather than in a coup. Four days before Zelenskiy’s press con­fer­ence, Akhme­tov met with a group of major politi­cians and media per­son­al­i­ties in Vil­nius, osten­si­bly to cel­e­brate the birth­day of TV pre­sen­ter Savik Shus­ter.

    Apart from Ukraine’s rich­est man, guests at the par­ty includ­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Volodymyr Groys­man, Kyiv mayor’s broth­er Volodymyr Klitschko and – per­haps most notably – for­mer inte­ri­or min­is­ter Arsen Avakov, a polit­i­cal vet­er­an who played an impor­tant role in set­ting up vol­un­teer units at the start of the war in Don­bas.

    Apart from Goluban’s Kyiv‑1, these units include Azov – a Nation­al Guard reg­i­ment which strong­ly over­laps with the name­sake far-right move­ment, com­prised of ultra-nation­al­ists and out­right neo-Nazis, includ­ing a few dozen fugi­tives from Rus­sia.

    Avakov is pret­ty unpop­u­lar in Ukraine, but his asso­ci­a­tion with far-right para­mil­i­taries makes him one of the most pow­er­ful fig­ures in a coun­try where polit­i­cal out­comes are some­times decid­ed in street bat­tles and rev­o­lu­tions.

    One of the country’s most promi­nent news out­lets Ukrayin­s­ka Prav­da report­ed, quot­ing anony­mous sources, that the Vil­nius meet­ing was focused on work­ing out a joint strat­e­gy for the next par­lia­men­tary and pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, due in 2023 and 2024 respec­tive­ly. A pow­er­ful coali­tion like that could effec­tive­ly chal­lenge Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy and his par­ty, Ser­vant of the Peo­ple.

    In the fol­low­ing weeks, Ukrain­ian law-enforce­ment bod­ies raid­ed Akhme­tov offices in what may even­tu­al­ly grow into a crim­i­nal case against the oli­garch. Nat­u­ral­ly, Akhme­tov claims that this attack is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.

    THE NATIONALISTS

    At the same press con­fer­ence in Novem­ber where Zelen­skiy made his obscure alle­ga­tions, the pres­i­dent also claimed he knew the date of the sched­uled coup attempt – Decem­ber 1 and 2.

    There was indeed one protest sched­uled dur­ing these dates, which did take place, but it led to no clash­es or vio­lence. It was organ­ised by the Capit­u­la­tion Resis­tance Move­ment, a rad­i­cal street force ded­i­cat­ed to top­pling Zelen­skiy. Led by Andriy Levus, a for­mer deputy chief of Ukraine’s Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (SBU), it is the rein­car­na­tion of anoth­er move­ment, the Free Peo­ple, which itself stems from Ukraine’s Youth Nation­al­ist Con­gress, an organ­i­sa­tion set by the suc­ces­sors of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors who found refuge in North Amer­i­ca after World War II.

    Com­prised of the mem­bers of Maidan’s self-defence and war vet­er­ans, the Capit­u­la­tion Resis­tance Move­ment is a para­mil­i­tary force asso­ci­at­ed with the nation­al­ist oppo­si­tion that coa­lesced around for­mer pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko after he was sound­ly defeat­ed by Zelen­skiy in the 2019 elec­tion.

    ‘Capit­u­la­tion’ stands for any form of com­pro­mise with Rus­sia – be it over the peace set­tle­ment in Don­bas or the eth­no-nation­al­ist leg­is­la­tion, dis­crim­i­nat­ing against Russ­ian-speak­ers, which was hasti­ly adopt­ed in the last months of Poroshenko’s pres­i­den­cy.

    Levus was a promi­nent com­man­der of Maid­an Self Defence, which pro­tect­ed the pro­test­ers dur­ing the 2014 Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty. Dur­ing his SBU stint at the start of the war in Don­bas, he helped form vol­un­teer units and sab­o­tage groups. His polit­i­cal con­vic­tions are strong­ly influ­enced by the Ukrain­ian far-right Ban­derovite tra­di­tion, which is based on the con­vic­tion that his­to­ry is made by ruth­less indi­vid­u­als, not the sta­t­ic mass­es. When Zelen­skiy defeat­ed Poroshenko by a land­slide in 2019, Levus wrote a post to the effect that the major­i­ty is inher­ent­ly inca­pable of mak­ing cor­rect polit­i­cal deci­sions and it is up to strong-willed indi­vid­u­als to fix its mis­takes.

    Levus’ force large­ly over­laps with the mil­i­tant core of the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, but it is also close to the rad­i­cal part of Ukraine’s secu­ri­ty milieu, which attempt­ed to impeach Zelen­skiy in the so-called Wag­n­er­gate affair. With the head of Ukraine’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, Vasyl Bur­ba, on their side, they accused Zelen­skiy of trea­son for can­celling an insane­ly auda­cious plan to cap­ture a group of Russ­ian mer­ce­nar­ies by force-land­ing a civil­ian Turk­ish air­lin­er as it flew over Ukraine. The impeach­ment attempt failed and Zelen­skiy fired Bur­ba in Sep­tem­ber last year.

    The clam­p­down con­tin­ued in Decem­ber, when Poroshenko was offi­cial­ly accused of trea­son in the same case as Putin’s ally Medved­chuk, for alleged involve­ment in the smug­gling of coal from the part of Don­bas con­trolled by Russ­ian-backed forces. Poroshenko left Ukraine, but returned in Jan­u­ary despite the threat of arrest. The Cana­di­an dai­ly Globe & Mail report­ed that the arrest was avert­ed by an inter­ven­tion from Cana­di­an For­eign Min­is­ter Christya Free­land.

    If all the above sounds con­fus­ing to you, then you can imag­ine how con­fused Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy might be try­ing to fig­ure out who is friend and who is foe in the Byzan­tine land­scape of Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics.

    Since Rus­sia is the aggres­sor, the nat­ur­al instinct of all Ukrain­ian politi­cians is to try and label their rival as Russ­ian stooges, as when Poroshenko – despite all of his nation­al­ist cre­den­tials – is tied to Putin’s ally Medved­chuk.

    But that doesn’t mean that Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy nec­es­sar­i­ly sees the threat as emerg­ing from Rus­sia, espe­cial­ly now that Medved­chuk is neu­tralised. The fact that his gov­ern­men­t’s line is now rad­i­cal­ly diverg­ing from the White House’s “immi­nent inva­sion” nar­ra­tive may reflect the doubts he might har­bour about Amer­i­can inten­tions with regards to Ukraine and him­self specif­i­cal­ly.

    Zelen­skiy was clear­ly not America’s pre­ferred choice in the 2019 elec­tion. His polit­i­cal rivals from Poroshenko’s camp remain the dar­lings of the DC blob. Mean­while Akhme­tov is one of the main spon­sors of the Atlantic Coun­cil, the hawk­ish think-tank, which appears to have the great­est influ­ence on Joe Biden’s Ukrain­ian pol­i­cy. Ultra-nation­al­ist para­mil­i­tary groups, which con­trol the street in Ukrain­ian cities, enjoy a warm rela­tion­ship with far-right Ukrain­ian dias­po­ra organ­i­sa­tions, which were nur­tured by the CIA dur­ing the Cold War.

    The part of Ukraine’s secu­ri­ty com­mu­ni­ty that tried to oust Zelen­skiy in the Wag­n­er­gate affair also hap­pens to be the country’s par­ty of war. At the Novem­ber press con­fer­ence, Zelen­skiy direct­ly accused the main pro­po­nent of the Wag­n­er­gate affair, mil­i­tary com­men­ta­tor Vyach­eslav Butusov, of try­ing to trig­ger hos­til­i­ties in Don­bas.

    It was the ultra­na­tion­al­ist para­mil­i­taries who effec­tive­ly derailed the first attempt by Zelen­skiy to reach a com­pro­mise with Putin in 2019, when they demon­strat­ed their abil­i­ty to sab­o­tage truce agree­ments achieved by the pres­i­dent, thus under­min­ing Putin’s trust in Zelen­skiy as a nego­ti­at­ing part­ner.

    As Zelen­skiy embarks on anoth­er attempt to nego­ti­ate peace with Rus­sia, he is well aware that no mat­ter what kind of com­pro­mise he might reach, his rivals will make an attempt at oust­ing him in a Maid­an-like event. He has rea­sons to doubt whether Amer­i­ca will stand by him at that moment.

    ————

    “RAGOZIN: What is Zelen­skiy afraid of?” by Leonid Ragozin; bne Intellinews; 02/08/2022

    “Post-Maid­an Ukraine is rid­den with well-armed and murky para­mil­i­tary groups free­lanc­ing for the oli­garchs and close­ly linked to var­i­ous fac­tions in secu­ri­ty bod­ies. It is con­trol over one or sev­er­al of these groups, char­ac­terised as vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions or nation­al­ist move­ments, which defines the abil­i­ty of an oli­garch or a polit­i­cal leader to stage a coup framed as anoth­er Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion.”

    Which oli­garch-spon­sored ‘vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions’ is going to foment a coup? That’s one of the big ques­tions raised by those pub­lic alarms issued by Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy back in Novem­ber that Rinat Akhme­tov was plot­ting a Russ­ian-backed coup. But as Ragoz­in’s piece makes clear, a big part of what make the alle­ga­tions against Akhme­tov so dis­turb­ing is the alleged involve­ment of fig­ures like Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s for­mer inte­ri­or min­is­ter with close ties to a num­ber of extrem­ist bat­tal­ions. If Akhme­tov and Avakov did secret­ly hold a meet­ing with fig­ures like Volodymyr Groys­man, Volodymyr Klitschko that real­ly is poten­tial cause for seri­ous con­cern. But not con­cern about a Moscow-backed coup. These are Ukrain­ian estab­lish­ment fig­ures, not sep­a­ratist rad­i­cals, which makes the threat of a suc­cess­ful coup all the more seri­ous:

    ...
    The most promi­nent per­son­al­i­ty fea­tur­ing on the list of poten­tial con­spir­a­tors is Ukraine’s rich­est busi­ness­man Rinat Akhme­tov. It was Zelen­skiy him­self who men­tioned his name in con­nec­tion with an alleged coup threat dur­ing his press con­fer­ence in Novem­ber.

    ...

    But Zelen­skiy had oth­er rea­sons to sus­pect Akhme­tov of plan­ning to dis­lodge him, albeit by demo­c­ra­t­ic means, rather than in a coup. Four days before Zelenskiy’s press con­fer­ence, Akhme­tov met with a group of major politi­cians and media per­son­al­i­ties in Vil­nius, osten­si­bly to cel­e­brate the birth­day of TV pre­sen­ter Savik Shus­ter.

    Apart from Ukraine’s rich­est man, guests at the par­ty includ­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Volodymyr Groys­man, Kyiv mayor’s broth­er Volodymyr Klitschko and – per­haps most notably – for­mer inte­ri­or min­is­ter Arsen Avakov, a polit­i­cal vet­er­an who played an impor­tant role in set­ting up vol­un­teer units at the start of the war in Don­bas.

    Apart from Goluban’s Kyiv‑1, these units include Azov – a Nation­al Guard reg­i­ment which strong­ly over­laps with the name­sake far-right move­ment, com­prised of ultra-nation­al­ists and out­right neo-Nazis, includ­ing a few dozen fugi­tives from Rus­sia.

    Avakov is pret­ty unpop­u­lar in Ukraine, but his asso­ci­a­tion with far-right para­mil­i­taries makes him one of the most pow­er­ful fig­ures in a coun­try where polit­i­cal out­comes are some­times decid­ed in street bat­tles and rev­o­lu­tions.

    ...

    Zelen­skiy was clear­ly not America’s pre­ferred choice in the 2019 elec­tion. His polit­i­cal rivals from Poroshenko’s camp remain the dar­lings of the DC blob. Mean­while Akhme­tov is one of the main spon­sors of the Atlantic Coun­cil, the hawk­ish think-tank, which appears to have the great­est influ­ence on Joe Biden’s Ukrain­ian pol­i­cy. Ultra-nation­al­ist para­mil­i­tary groups, which con­trol the street in Ukrain­ian cities, enjoy a warm rela­tion­ship with far-right Ukrain­ian dias­po­ra organ­i­sa­tions, which were nur­tured by the CIA dur­ing the Cold War.

    The part of Ukraine’s secu­ri­ty com­mu­ni­ty that tried to oust Zelen­skiy in the Wag­n­er­gate affair also hap­pens to be the country’s par­ty of war. At the Novem­ber press con­fer­ence, Zelen­skiy direct­ly accused the main pro­po­nent of the Wag­n­er­gate affair, mil­i­tary com­men­ta­tor Vyach­eslav Butusov, of try­ing to trig­ger hos­til­i­ties in Don­bas.

    It was the ultra­na­tion­al­ist para­mil­i­taries who effec­tive­ly derailed the first attempt by Zelen­skiy to reach a com­pro­mise with Putin in 2019, when they demon­strat­ed their abil­i­ty to sab­o­tage truce agree­ments achieved by the pres­i­dent, thus under­min­ing Putin’s trust in Zelen­skiy as a nego­ti­at­ing part­ner.
    ...

    Adding to the intrigue around the alleged coup plot is the fact that there was indeed a protest against Zelen­skiy sched­uled for Decem­ber 1 and 2, the dates of the alleged coup plot. Those protests were orga­nized by the Capit­u­la­tion Resis­tance Move­ment, a street fight­ing force ded­i­cat­ed to top­pling Zelen­skiy com­prised of war vet­er­ans and mem­bers of the Maid­an self-defence groups. The move­ment id described as a para­mil­i­tary force asso­ci­at­ed with the nation­al­ist oppo­si­tion that coa­lesced around for­mer pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko after he lost to Zelen­skiy in 2019. So, again, we have plau­si­ble sus­pect that rough­ly fit the plot Zelen­skiy was warn­ing about, but they don’t appear to have been work­ing for the Krem­lin. Quite the oppo­site. If there was a real coup plot here, it was a coup plot cen­tered around Ukrain­ian nation­al­ism:

    ...
    At the same press con­fer­ence in Novem­ber where Zelen­skiy made his obscure alle­ga­tions, the pres­i­dent also claimed he knew the date of the sched­uled coup attempt – Decem­ber 1 and 2.

    There was indeed one protest sched­uled dur­ing these dates, which did take place, but it led to no clash­es or vio­lence. It was organ­ised by the Capit­u­la­tion Resis­tance Move­ment, a rad­i­cal street force ded­i­cat­ed to top­pling Zelen­skiy. Led by Andriy Levus, a for­mer deputy chief of Ukraine’s Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (SBU), it is the rein­car­na­tion of anoth­er move­ment, the Free Peo­ple, which itself stems from Ukraine’s Youth Nation­al­ist Con­gress, an organ­i­sa­tion set by the suc­ces­sors of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors who found refuge in North Amer­i­ca after World War II.

    Com­prised of the mem­bers of Maidan’s self-defence and war vet­er­ans, the Capit­u­la­tion Resis­tance Move­ment is a para­mil­i­tary force asso­ci­at­ed with the nation­al­ist oppo­si­tion that coa­lesced around for­mer pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko after he was sound­ly defeat­ed by Zelen­skiy in the 2019 elec­tion.

    ‘Capit­u­la­tion’ stands for any form of com­pro­mise with Rus­sia – be it over the peace set­tle­ment in Don­bas or the eth­no-nation­al­ist leg­is­la­tion, dis­crim­i­nat­ing against Russ­ian-speak­ers, which was hasti­ly adopt­ed in the last months of Poroshenko’s pres­i­den­cy.

    Levus was a promi­nent com­man­der of Maid­an Self Defence, which pro­tect­ed the pro­test­ers dur­ing the 2014 Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty. Dur­ing his SBU stint at the start of the war in Don­bas, he helped form vol­un­teer units and sab­o­tage groups. His polit­i­cal con­vic­tions are strong­ly influ­enced by the Ukrain­ian far-right Ban­derovite tra­di­tion, which is based on the con­vic­tion that his­to­ry is made by ruth­less indi­vid­u­als, not the sta­t­ic mass­es. When Zelen­skiy defeat­ed Poroshenko by a land­slide in 2019, Levus wrote a post to the effect that the major­i­ty is inher­ent­ly inca­pable of mak­ing cor­rect polit­i­cal deci­sions and it is up to strong-willed indi­vid­u­als to fix its mis­takes.

    Levus’ force large­ly over­laps with the mil­i­tant core of the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, but it is also close to the rad­i­cal part of Ukraine’s secu­ri­ty milieu, which attempt­ed to impeach Zelen­skiy in the so-called Wag­n­er­gate affair. With the head of Ukraine’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, Vasyl Bur­ba, on their side, they accused Zelen­skiy of trea­son for can­celling an insane­ly auda­cious plan to cap­ture a group of Russ­ian mer­ce­nar­ies by force-land­ing a civil­ian Turk­ish air­lin­er as it flew over Ukraine. The impeach­ment attempt failed and Zelen­skiy fired Bur­ba in Sep­tem­ber last year.
    ...

    Anoth­er fig­ure accused of plan­ning this coup plot, on behalf of the Krem­lin, was for­mer MP Yevhen Murayev. Inter­est­ing­ly, Murayev respond­ed to these charges by assert­ing that the Krem­lin already had a pre­ferred next leader of Ukraine: Vik­tor Medved­chuk. Medved­chuk’s par­ty, Oppo­si­tion Bloc/For Life, was even the most pop­u­lar par­ty briefly in 2019. Curi­ous­ly, when we look at Murayev’s polit­i­cal track record, he appears to have ran as a spoil­er can­di­date in a fringe par­ty, Oppo­si­tion Bloc, that exists to siphon off votes from Medved­chuk’s par­ty. IF Medved­chuk real­ly is the Krem­lin’s pre­ferred can­di­date, siphon­ing votes from his par­ty for your own fringe par­ty would be kind of an odd thing for Murayev to do if he was also work­ing on behalf of the Krem­lin:

    ...
    One of these fig­ures is for­mer MP and Nash TV chan­nel own­er Yevhen Murayev, who was accused by the British for­eign min­istry on Jan­u­ary 23 of lead­ing a pro-Russ­ian coup con­spir­a­cy. British offi­cials lat­er con­ced­ed that this infor­ma­tion was passed to them by US intel­li­gence. This sto­ry was received with a great deal of scep­ti­cism by region­al observers, not least because Ukraine didn’t move to pros­e­cute Murayev, despite the British alle­ga­tions.

    Murayev reject­ed the accu­sa­tions by say­ing that Moscow already had its cho­sen leader for Ukraine. He was talk­ing about Putin’s long-time ally and fam­i­ly friend Vik­tor Medved­chuk. The lat­ter is indeed a fre­quent guest in Moscow and in the Krem­lin – unlike Murayev, who also hap­pens to be on Ukraine’s Russ­ian sanc­tions list.

    The two men are clear­ly of a dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal cal­i­bre. Medvedchuk’s Oppo­si­tion Bloc/For Life came sec­ond in the 2019 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. It briefly became the country’s most pop­u­lar par­ty, accord­ing to opin­ion polls, at the end of 2020, just before Pres­i­dent Zelen­skiy unleashed an attack on Medved­chuk, putting him also on the sanc­tions list, togeth­er with three TV chan­nels he was alleged to con­trol via a proxy.

    Murayev led the Oppo­si­tion Bloc, a Rus­sia-friend­ly par­ty with a name very sim­i­lar to Medvedchuk’s. In the 2019 elec­tion, it failed to enter par­lia­ment. Observers regard­ed it as a spoil­er that effec­tive­ly stole 3% of the vote from Medved­chuk.
    ...

    Final­ly, we get the lat­est per­son name as an alleged con­spir­a­tor: Police Colonel Yury Gol­uban. Gol­uban hap­pens to have a his­to­ry with the Kyiv‑1 vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion. Not only did this bat­tal­ion oper­ate under Arsen Avakov, but Avakov’s own son briefly joined its ranks. At the same, a Don­bas sep­a­ratist com­man­der claim Gol­uban used to be one of his sub­or­di­nates dur­ing the takeover of Donet­sk. That makes Gol­uban the one per­son fin­gered in this coup plot who might have actu­al ties to the Krem­lin, although evi­dence for that is based on the word of a sep­a­ratist who has obvi­ous incen­tives to sow dis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­cord:

    ...
    The lat­est per­son named as an alleged con­spir­a­tor is Police Colonel Yury Gol­uban, who was arrest­ed on Jan­u­ary 30. Ukraine’s Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Denys Monastyrsky claimed that he was plot­ting to stage a vio­lent protest out­side the pres­i­den­tial office in Kyiv. He alleged Gol­uban may be linked to Don­bas sep­a­ratists and Rus­sia.

    Gol­uban is more than just a police­man. His life sto­ry has many fea­tures that make him sim­i­lar to secu­ri­ty agents who fea­ture in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. A ver­sion of Goluban’s biog­ra­phy – post­ed on the inte­ri­or ministry’s web­site in 2017 when he won an award for hero­ism in the Don­bas con­flict – says that pri­or to the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, he served in the elite anti-ter­ror­ist units of var­i­ous Ukrain­ian secu­ri­ty agen­cies, includ­ing the Spe­cial Group Alpha of Ukraine’s State Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (SBU).

    At the begin­ning of the war with Rus­sia, he joined a vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion called Kyiv‑1, head­ed by Yevhen Deydey – a gang­ster from the Odessa region, who pri­or to Maid­an was con­vict­ed of armed rob­bery. The bat­tal­ion emerged under the aus­pices of the then inte­ri­or min­is­ter Arsen Avakov, whose son briefly joined its ranks.

    But Olek­san­dr Kho­dakovsky, a promi­nent Don­bas sep­a­ratist com­man­der, claimed that Gol­uban used to be one of his sub­or­di­nates dur­ing the pro-Russ­ian takeover of Donet­sk. Kho­dakovsky is the for­mer com­man­der of Alpha in Donet­sk.
    ...

    In ret­ro­spect, giv­en the immense pow­er rep­re­sent­ed by this net­work of peo­ple poten­tial­ly work­ing togeth­er to top­ple Zelen­skiy, it’s not all that sur­pris­ing Zelen­skiy felt the urgency to warn the pub­lic of the plot. These are incred­i­bly pow­er­ful peo­ple. Pow­er­ful not just in terms of finan­cial and media resources but gen­uine fas­cist mus­cle on the streets. And the pow­er and allure of these far right groups is only going to grow the worse the mil­i­tary sit­u­a­tion for Ukraine, espe­cial­ly should Rus­sia end up occu­py­ing unwel­com­ing parts of the coun­try.

    So let’s hope we don’t get any more alarm­ing state­ments from Zelen­skiy about impend­ing coups as this con­flict plays out. And if we do get such warn­ings, don’t be sur­prised if we see an actu­al coup. We’ve been warned pret­ty exten­sive­ly by now. But also don’t be sur­prised if the new coup gov­ern­ment ends up call­ing for the end of democ­ra­cy as opposed to the end of the war.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 24, 2022, 4:50 pm

  14. @Pterrafractyl–

    Excel­lent work!

    I was not expect­ing an inva­sion, unless the Zelen­sky gov­ern­ment attempt­ed to re-con­quer the break­away provinces by force, which may well have been loom­ing, as you have doc­u­ment­ed.

    It is MOST inter­est­ing that Putin has stat­ed that “de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion” of Ukraine is a major goal of the action.

    We will see what hap­pens.

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | February 24, 2022, 5:03 pm

  15. @Dave: Here’s a copy of Putin’s full speech he gave on the evening of the launch of the inva­sion. The speech essen­tial­ly tries to lay down both the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the mil­i­tary action and, vague­ly, the end goals of the oper­a­tion. It’s filled with his­toric griev­ances going back to the dis­so­lu­tion of the Sovi­et Union and the bro­ken promis­es made by the West, in par­tic­u­lar promis­es regard­ing NATO’s expan­sion. The speech acts as a gen­er­al indict­ment against the West for hav­ing act­ed in bad faith over the past four decades. Bad faith not just against Rus­sia but against the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem of rules devel­oped in the Cold War peri­od, cit­ing the inva­sion of Iraq, bomb­ing of Libya and Bel­grade as exam­ples.

    But while that bad faith argu­ment per­vades Putin’s speech, its the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Ukraine as rep­re­sent­ing a grow­ing exis­ten­tial threat to Rus­sia that gives us a bet­ter idea of what the under­ly­ing goal is for this oper­a­tion. As Putin describes, Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment is effec­tive­ly a pawn of the West, filled with neo-Nazis, and being pumped full of advanced mil­i­tary hard­ware with the end goal of weaponiz­ing those anti-Russ­ian Nazi sen­ti­ments against Rus­sia. And now with Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment talk­ing about reac­quir­ing nuclear weapons a line has been crossed. Ukraine, under its cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry, rep­re­sents an exis­ten­tial threat to Rus­sia. It’s just a mat­ter of time, as Putin sees it. But beyond that, the US and its allies are using Ukraine as a tool for a long-term strat­e­gy of con­tain­ment against Rus­sia. A strat­e­gy that rep­re­sents an exis­ten­tial threat to the sov­er­eign­ty of the Russ­ian state. As such, this mil­i­tary oper­a­tion is effec­tive­ly a pre­emp­tive war to ward off a larg­er, dead­lier con­flict in the future.

    Putin also cites the lack of any inter­est from Ukraine’s side in actu­al­ly attempt­ing to imple­ment the Min­sk agree­ments. That’s the gist of Putin’s speech, which at this point is the best roadmap we have for what to expect in this con­flict, at least from Rus­si­a’s side.

    Inter­est­ing­ly, Putin states that Rus­sia has no intent on occu­py­ing Ukraine for forc­ing any gov­ern­ment on the Ukrain­ian peo­ple. At the same time, it’s con­duct­ing a de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ukraine. So it appears that Rus­sia is going to attempt to impose elec­tions that ban politi­cians from anti-Russ­ian par­ties, a feat that would have been tricky before this inva­sion and seems effec­tive­ly impos­si­ble at this point. It’s worth recall­ing that we saw Ukraine effec­tive­ly attempt the inverse of this back in 2015 with the wave of lus­tra­tion laws, passed osten­si­bly to com­bat cor­rup­tion but in real­i­ty served to throw Russ­ian-friend­ly politi­cians out of office across the coun­try.

    It’s an exam­ple of what a com­pli­cat­ed moral mess this is. Vir­tu­al­ly all of the griev­ances Putin’s cit­ed have more than just a grain of truth to them. The West real­ly did break pledges not to expand NATO. There’s doubt the US has long had a strat­e­gy of con­tain­ing Rus­sia. It’s not a secret­ly. There real­ly has been a wave of vir­u­lent ultra-nation­al­ist anti-Russ­ian move­ments play­ing a pro­found and grow­ing influ­ence in Ukrain­ian soci­ety since the events of 2014. And those ultra-nation­al­ists real­ly do fre­quent­ly have a Nazi pedi­gree, up to an includ­ing the for­mer Speak­er of the Par­lia­ment, Andriy Paru­biy. Ukraine’s nation­al­ists real­ly have blocked any mean­ing­ful attempts to imple­ment the Min­sk agree­ments. The West real­ly has been build­ing up Ukraine’s mil­i­tary and all signs real­ly were point­ing towards a far more mil­i­tar­i­ly capa­ble Ukraine going for­ward. It’s hard to hon­est­ly argue with the over­all assess­ment that Ukraine, on its cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry, was poised to become a far great mil­i­tary and secu­ri­ty headache in the future. In that sense, we can view the cur­rent inva­sion as a kind of pre­emp­tive war some­what in line with the US inva­sion of Iraq, done under the pre­tense of pre­vent­ing Sad­dam Hus­sein from acquir­ing nuclear weapons and wag­ing a larg­er con­flict in the future. It points towards one of the more jad­ed aspects of Putin’s speech: the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this pre­emp­tive inva­sion of Ukraine is root­ed, in part, in a con­dem­na­tion of the US’s pre­emp­tive inva­sion of Iraq. There’s both an ele­ment of ‘we have to do this to pro­tect our­selves’ and ‘your chick­ens are com­ing home to roost’ with this move.

    The key ele­ment of Putin’s speech is its capit­u­la­tion to the inevitabil­i­ty of a major con­flict between Rus­sia and a West­ern-ori­ent­ed Ukraine, with the appar­ent con­clu­sion that a move now is prefer­able to wait­ing for a larg­er con­flict lat­er. And yet it’s hard to imag­ine how this inva­sion actu­al­ly suc­ceeds in some­how per­ma­nent­ly pre­vent­ing a future con­flict and the deep rad­i­cal­iza­tion of the Ukrain­ian pub­lic. It points towards the grim log­ic that appears to be part of Putin’s cal­cu­lus: some sort of per­ma­nent con­flict between Russ­ian and Ukraine is already under­way. The per­ma­nent con­flict start­ed in 2014 and has no end in sight. As such, it’s a mat­ter of choos­ing when and on what terms that per­ma­nent con­flict is fought.

    If that is indeed what Putin is think­ing he appears to have com­mit­ted Rus­sia to a semi-per­ma­nent patri­ar­chal role over Ukraine for the fore­see­able future. And it’s that semi-per­ma­nent role, as a guardian against the Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ukraine, that makes the imme­di­ate goal of de-Naz­i­fy­ing Ukraine such a intrigu­ing stat­ed objec­tive for this oper­a­tion. How on earth is the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment going to achieve this, bar­ring a long-term occu­pa­tion of the coun­try and impos­ing a per­ma­nent check on Ukraine’s demo­c­ra­t­ic choic­es? Because the sad real­i­ty is that the ultra-nation­al­ists are already scar­i­ly pop­u­lar in Ukraine and only going to become more pop­u­lar as a result of all this. The spir­it of Ukrain­ian Nazism is poised to grow for the fore­see­able future, arguably more than ever. It’s the kind of conun­drum that makes spec­u­la­tion of Krem­lin plans for an East-West par­ti­tion of the coun­try sound a lot more plau­si­ble as a long-run res­o­lu­tion:

    The Spec­ta­tor

    Full text: Putin’s dec­la­ra­tion of war on Ukraine

    WRITTEN BY
    The Spec­ta­tor
    24 Feb­ru­ary 2022, 2:36am

    Dear cit­i­zens of Rus­sia! Dear friends!

    Today, I again con­sid­er it nec­es­sary to return to the trag­ic events tak­ing place in the Don­bass and the key issues of ensur­ing the secu­ri­ty of Rus­sia itself.

    Let me start with what I said in my address of 21 Feb­ru­ary this year. We are talk­ing about what caus­es us par­tic­u­lar con­cern and anx­i­ety, about those fun­da­men­tal threats that year after year, step by step, are rude­ly and uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly cre­at­ed by irre­spon­si­ble politi­cians in the West in rela­tion to our coun­try. I mean the expan­sion of the Nato bloc to the east, bring­ing its mil­i­tary infra­struc­ture clos­er to Russ­ian bor­ders.

    It is well known that for 30 years we have per­sis­tent­ly and patient­ly tried to reach an agree­ment with the lead­ing Nato coun­tries on the prin­ci­ples of equal and indi­vis­i­ble secu­ri­ty in Europe. In response to our pro­pos­als, we con­stant­ly faced either cyn­i­cal decep­tion and lies, or attempts to pres­sure and black­mail, while the North Atlantic Alliance, in the mean­time, despite all our protests and con­cerns, is steadi­ly expand­ing. The mil­i­tary machine is mov­ing and, I repeat, is com­ing close to our bor­ders.

    Why is all this hap­pen­ing? Where does this impu­dent man­ner of speak­ing from the posi­tion of one’s own exclu­siv­i­ty, infal­li­bil­i­ty and per­mis­sive­ness come from? Where does the dis­dain­ful, dis­dain­ful atti­tude towards our inter­ests and absolute­ly legit­i­mate demands come from?

    The answer is clear, every­thing is clear and obvi­ous. The Sovi­et Union in the late 80s of the last cen­tu­ry weak­ened, and then com­plete­ly col­lapsed. The whole course of events that took place then is a good les­son for us today as well; it con­vinc­ing­ly showed that the paral­y­sis of pow­er and will is the first step towards com­plete degra­da­tion and obliv­ion. As soon as we lost con­fi­dence in our­selves for some time, and that’s it, the bal­ance of pow­er in the world turned out to be dis­turbed.

    This has led to the fact that the pre­vi­ous treaties and agree­ments are no longer in effect. Per­sua­sion and requests do not help. Every­thing that does not suit the hege­mon, those in pow­er, is declared archa­ic, obso­lete, unnec­es­sary. And vice ver­sa: every­thing that seems ben­e­fi­cial to them is pre­sent­ed as the ulti­mate truth, pushed through at any cost, boor­ish­ly, by all means. Dis­senters are bro­ken through the knee.

    What I am talk­ing about now con­cerns not only Rus­sia and not only us. This applies to the entire sys­tem of inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, and some­times even to the US allies them­selves. After the col­lapse of the USSR, the redi­vi­sion of the world actu­al­ly began, and the norms of inter­na­tion­al law that had devel­oped by that time – and the key, basic ones were adopt­ed at the end of the Sec­ond World War and large­ly con­sol­i­dat­ed its results – began to inter­fere with those who declared them­selves the win­ner in the Cold War .

    Of course, in prac­ti­cal life, in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, in the rules for their reg­u­la­tion, it was nec­es­sary to take into account changes in the sit­u­a­tion in the world and the bal­ance of pow­er itself. How­ev­er, this should have been done pro­fes­sion­al­ly, smooth­ly, patient­ly, tak­ing into account and respect­ing the inter­ests of all coun­tries and under­stand­ing our respon­si­bil­i­ty. But no: a state of eupho­ria from absolute supe­ri­or­i­ty, a kind of mod­ern form of abso­lutism, and even against the back­ground of a low lev­el of gen­er­al cul­ture and arro­gance of those who pre­pared, adopt­ed and pushed through deci­sions that were ben­e­fi­cial only for them­selves. The sit­u­a­tion began to devel­op accord­ing to a dif­fer­ent sce­nario.

    You don’t have to look far for exam­ples. First, with­out any sanc­tion from the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, they car­ried out a bloody mil­i­tary oper­a­tion against Bel­grade, using air­craft and mis­siles right in the very cen­tre of Europe. Sev­er­al weeks of con­tin­u­ous bomb­ing of civil­ian cities, on life-sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture. We have to remind these facts, oth­er­wise some West­ern col­leagues do not like to remem­ber those events, and when we talk about it, they pre­fer to point not to the norms of inter­na­tion­al law, but to the cir­cum­stances that they inter­pret as they see fit.

    Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya, Syr­ia. The ille­git­i­mate use of mil­i­tary force against Libya, the per­ver­sion of all deci­sions of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil on the Libyan issue led to the com­plete destruc­tion of the state, to the emer­gence of a huge hotbed of inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism, to the fact that the coun­try plunged into a human­i­tar­i­an cat­a­stro­phe that has not stopped for many years. civ­il war. The tragedy, which doomed hun­dreds of thou­sands, mil­lions of peo­ple not only in Libya, but through­out this region, gave rise to a mas­sive migra­tion exo­dus from North Africa and the Mid­dle East to Europe.

    A sim­i­lar fate was pre­pared for Syr­ia. The fight­ing of the West­ern coali­tion on the ter­ri­to­ry of this coun­try with­out the con­sent of the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment and the sanc­tion of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil is noth­ing but aggres­sion, inter­ven­tion.

    How­ev­er, a spe­cial place in this series is occu­pied, of course, by the inva­sion of Iraq, also with­out any legal grounds. As a pre­text, they chose reli­able infor­ma­tion alleged­ly avail­able to the Unit­ed States about the pres­ence of weapons of mass destruc­tion in Iraq. As proof of this, pub­licly, in front of the eyes of the whole world, the US Sec­re­tary of State shook some kind of test tube with white pow­der, assur­ing every­one that this is the chem­i­cal weapon being devel­oped in Iraq. And then it turned out that all this was a hoax, a bluff: there are no chem­i­cal weapons in Iraq. Unbe­liev­able, sur­pris­ing, but the fact remains. There were lies at the high­est state lev­el and from the high ros­trum of the UN. And as a result: huge casu­al­ties, destruc­tion, an incred­i­ble surge of ter­ror­ism.

    In gen­er­al, one gets the impres­sion that prac­ti­cal­ly every­where, in many regions of the world, where the West comes to estab­lish its own order, the result is bloody, unhealed wounds, ulcers of inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism and extrem­ism. All that I have said is the most egre­gious, but by no means the only exam­ples of dis­re­gard for inter­na­tion­al law.

    In this series, and promis­es to our coun­try not to expand Nato by one inch to the east. I repeat: they deceived me, but in pop­u­lar terms, they sim­ply threw it away. Yes, you can often hear that pol­i­tics is a dirty busi­ness. Per­haps, but not to the same extent, not to the same extent. After all, such cheat­ing behav­iour con­tra­dicts not only the prin­ci­ples of inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, but above all the gen­er­al­ly recog­nised norms of moral­i­ty and moral­i­ty. Where is jus­tice and truth here? Just a bunch of lies and hypocrisy.

    By the way, Amer­i­can politi­cians, polit­i­cal sci­en­tists and jour­nal­ists them­selves write and talk about the fact that a real ’empire of lies’ has been cre­at­ed inside the Unit­ed States in recent years. It’s hard to dis­agree with that; it’s true. But do not be mod­est: the Unit­ed States is still a great coun­try, a sys­tem-form­ing pow­er. All her satel­lites not only resigned­ly and duti­ful­ly assent, sing along to her for any rea­son, but also copy her behav­iour, enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly accept the rules he pro­pos­es. There­fore, with good rea­son, we can con­fi­dent­ly say that the entire so-called West­ern bloc, formed by the Unit­ed States in its own image and like­ness, all of it is the very ’empire of lies’.

    As for our coun­try, after the col­lapse of the USSR, with all the unprece­dent­ed open­ness of the new mod­ern Rus­sia, the readi­ness to work hon­est­ly with the Unit­ed States and oth­er West­ern part­ners, and in the con­di­tions of vir­tu­al­ly uni­lat­er­al dis­ar­ma­ment, they imme­di­ate­ly tried to squeeze us, fin­ish off and destroy us com­plete­ly. This is exact­ly what hap­pened in the 90s, in the ear­ly 2000s, when the so-called col­lec­tive West most active­ly sup­port­ed sep­a­ratism and mer­ce­nary gangs in south­ern Rus­sia. What sac­ri­fices, what loss­es did all this cost us then, what tri­als did we have to go through before we final­ly broke the back of inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism in the Cau­ca­sus. We remem­ber this and will nev­er for­get.

    Yes, in fact, until recent­ly, attempts have not stopped to use us in their own inter­ests, destroy our tra­di­tion­al val­ues ??and impose on us their pseu­do-val­ues ??that would cor­rode us, our peo­ple from the inside, those atti­tudes that they are already aggres­sive­ly plant­i­ng in their coun­tries and which direct­ly lead to degra­da­tion and degen­er­a­tion, because they con­tra­dict the very nature of man. It won’t hap­pen, no one has ever done it. It won’t work now either.

    Despite every­thing, in Decem­ber 2021, we nev­er­the­less once again made an attempt to agree with the Unit­ed States and its allies on the prin­ci­ples of ensur­ing secu­ri­ty in Europe and on the non-expan­sion of Nato. Every­thing is in vain. The US posi­tion does not change. They do not con­sid­er it nec­es­sary to nego­ti­ate with Rus­sia on this key issue for us, pur­su­ing their own goals, they neglect our inter­ests.

    And of course, in this sit­u­a­tion, we have a ques­tion: what to do next, what to expect? We know well from his­to­ry how in the 1940s and ear­ly 1941s the Sovi­et Union tried in every pos­si­ble way to pre­vent or at least delay the out­break of war. To this end, among oth­er things, he tried lit­er­al­ly to the last not to pro­voke a poten­tial aggres­sor, did not car­ry out or post­poned the most nec­es­sary, obvi­ous actions to pre­pare for repelling an inevitable attack. And those steps that were nev­er­the­less tak­en in the end were cat­a­stroph­i­cal­ly belat­ed.

    As a result, the coun­try was not ready to ful­ly meet the inva­sion of Nazi Ger­many, which attacked our Moth­er­land on 22 June 1941 with­out declar­ing war. The ene­my was stopped and then crushed, but at a colos­sal cost. An attempt to appease the aggres­sor on the eve of the Great Patri­ot­ic War turned out to be a mis­take that cost our peo­ple dear­ly. In the very first months of hos­til­i­ties, we lost huge, strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant ter­ri­to­ries and mil­lions of peo­ple. The sec­ond time we will not allow such a mis­take, we have no right.

    Those who claim world dom­i­na­tion, pub­licly, with impuni­ty and, I empha­sise, with­out any rea­son, declare us, Rus­sia, their ene­my. Indeed, today they have great finan­cial, sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties. We are aware of this and objec­tive­ly assess the threats con­stant­ly being addressed to us in the eco­nom­ic sphere, as well as our abil­i­ty to resist this impu­dent and per­ma­nent black­mail. I repeat, we eval­u­ate them with­out illu­sions, extreme­ly real­is­ti­cal­ly.

    As for the mil­i­tary sphere, mod­ern Rus­sia, even after the col­lapse of the USSR and the loss of a sig­nif­i­cant part of its poten­tial, is today one of the most pow­er­ful nuclear pow­ers in the world and, more­over, has cer­tain advan­tages in a num­ber of the lat­est types of weapons. In this regard, no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our coun­try will lead to defeat and dire con­se­quences for any poten­tial aggres­sor.

    At the same time, tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing defence tech­nolo­gies, are chang­ing rapid­ly. Lead­er­ship in this area is pass­ing and will con­tin­ue to change hands, but the mil­i­tary devel­op­ment of the ter­ri­to­ries adja­cent to our bor­ders, if we allow it, will remain for decades to come, and maybe for­ev­er, and will cre­ate an ever-grow­ing, absolute­ly unac­cept­able threat for Rus­sia. .

    Even now, as Nato expands to the east, the sit­u­a­tion for our coun­try is get­ting worse and more dan­ger­ous every year. More­over, in recent days, the lead­er­ship of Nato has been open­ly talk­ing about the need to accel­er­ate, speed up the advance­ment of the Alliance’s infra­struc­ture to the bor­ders of Rus­sia. In oth­er words, they are hard­en­ing their posi­tion. We can no longer just con­tin­ue to observe what is hap­pen­ing. It would be absolute­ly irre­spon­si­ble on our part.

    Fur­ther expan­sion of the infra­struc­ture of the North Atlantic Alliance, the mil­i­tary devel­op­ment of the ter­ri­to­ries of Ukraine that has begun is unac­cept­able for us. The point, of course, is not the Nato organ­i­sa­tion itself – it is only an instru­ment of US for­eign pol­i­cy. The prob­lem is that in the ter­ri­to­ries adja­cent to us, I will note, in our own his­tor­i­cal ter­ri­to­ries, an ‘anti-Rus­sia’ hos­tile to us is being cre­at­ed, which has been placed under com­plete exter­nal con­trol, is inten­sive­ly set­tled by the armed forces of Nato coun­tries and is pumped up with the most mod­ern weapons.

    For the Unit­ed States and its allies, this is the so-called pol­i­cy of con­tain­ment of Rus­sia, obvi­ous geopo­lit­i­cal div­i­dends. And for our coun­try, this is ulti­mate­ly a mat­ter of life and death, a mat­ter of our his­tor­i­cal future as a peo­ple. And this is not an exag­ger­a­tion: it is true. This is a real threat not just to our inter­ests, but to the very exis­tence of our state, its sov­er­eign­ty. This is the very red line that has been talked about many times. They passed her.

    In this regard, and about the sit­u­a­tion in the Don­bass. We see that the forces that car­ried out a coup d’e­tat in Ukraine in 2014, seized pow­er and are hold­ing it with the help of, in fact, dec­o­ra­tive elec­toral pro­ce­dures, have final­ly aban­doned the peace­ful set­tle­ment of the con­flict. For eight years, end­less­ly long eight years, we have done every­thing pos­si­ble to resolve the sit­u­a­tion by peace­ful, polit­i­cal means. All in vain.

    As I said in my pre­vi­ous address, one can­not look at what is hap­pen­ing there with­out com­pas­sion. It was sim­ply impos­si­ble to endure all this. It was nec­es­sary to imme­di­ate­ly stop this night­mare: the geno­cide against the mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing there, who rely only on Rus­sia, hope only on us. It was these aspi­ra­tions, feel­ings, pain of peo­ple that were for us the main motive for mak­ing a deci­sion to recog­nise the peo­ple’s republics of Don­bass.

    What I think is impor­tant to empha­sise fur­ther. The lead­ing Nato coun­tries, in order to achieve their own goals, sup­port extreme nation­al­ists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine in every­thing, who, in turn, will nev­er for­give the Crimeans and Sev­astopol res­i­dents for their free choice: reuni­fi­ca­tion with Rus­sia.

    They, of course, will climb into the Crimea, and just like in the Don­bass, with a war, in order to kill, as pun­ish­ers from the gangs of Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists, Hitler’s accom­plices, killed defence­less peo­ple dur­ing the Great Patri­ot­ic War. They open­ly declare that they lay claim to a num­ber of oth­er Russ­ian ter­ri­to­ries.

    The entire course of events and analy­sis of incom­ing infor­ma­tion shows that Rus­si­a’s clash with these forces is inevitable. It is only a mat­ter of time: they are get­ting ready, they are wait­ing for the right time. Now they also claim to pos­sess nuclear weapons. We will not allow this to be done.

    As I said ear­li­er, after the col­lapse of the USSR, Rus­sia accept­ed new geopo­lit­i­cal real­i­ties. We respect and will con­tin­ue to treat all the new­ly formed coun­tries in the post-Sovi­et space with respect. We respect and will con­tin­ue to respect their sov­er­eign­ty, and an exam­ple of this is the assis­tance we pro­vid­ed to Kaza­khstan, which faced trag­ic events, with a chal­lenge to its state­hood and integri­ty. But Rus­sia can­not feel safe, devel­op, exist with a con­stant threat ema­nat­ing from the ter­ri­to­ry of mod­ern Ukraine.

    Let me remind you that in 2000–2005 we gave a mil­i­tary rebuff to ter­ror­ists in the Cau­ca­sus, defend­ed the integri­ty of our state, saved Rus­sia. In 2014, they sup­port­ed the Crimeans and Sev­astopol res­i­dents. In 2015, the Armed Forces used to put a reli­able bar­ri­er to the pen­e­tra­tion of ter­ror­ists from Syr­ia into Rus­sia. We had no oth­er way to pro­tect our­selves.

    The same thing is hap­pen­ing now. You and I sim­ply have not been left with any oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect Rus­sia, our peo­ple, except for the one that we will be forced to use today. Cir­cum­stances require us to take deci­sive and imme­di­ate action. The peo­ple’s republics of Don­bass turned to Rus­sia with a request for help.

    In this regard, in accor­dance with Arti­cle 51 of Part 7 of the UN Char­ter, with the sanc­tion of the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil of Rus­sia and in pur­suance of the treaties of friend­ship and mutu­al assis­tance rat­i­fied by the Fed­er­al Assem­bly on 22 Feb­ru­ary this year with the Donet­sk Peo­ple’s Repub­lic and the Luhan­sk Peo­ple’s Repub­lic, I decid­ed to con­duct a spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion.

    Its goal is to pro­tect peo­ple who have been sub­ject­ed to bul­ly­ing and geno­cide by the Kiev regime for eight years. And for this we will strive for the demil­i­tari­sa­tion and denaz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ukraine, as well as bring­ing to jus­tice those who com­mit­ted numer­ous, bloody crimes against civil­ians, includ­ing cit­i­zens of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.

    At the same time, our plans do not include the occu­pa­tion of Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ries. We are not going to impose any­thing on any­one by force. At the same time, we hear that recent­ly in the West there are more and more words that the doc­u­ments signed by the Sovi­et total­i­tar­i­an regime, which con­sol­i­date the results of the Sec­ond World War, should no longer be car­ried out. Well, what is the answer to this?

    The results of the Sec­ond World War, as well as the sac­ri­fices made by our peo­ple on the altar of vic­to­ry over Nazism, are sacred. But this does not con­tra­dict the high val­ues of human rights and free­doms, based on the real­i­ties that have devel­oped today over all the post-war decades. It also does not can­cel the right of nations to self-deter­mi­na­tion, enshrined in Arti­cle 1 of the UN Char­ter.

    Let me remind you that nei­ther dur­ing the cre­ation of the USSR, nor after the Sec­ond World War, peo­ple liv­ing in cer­tain ter­ri­to­ries that are part of mod­ern Ukraine, no one ever asked how they them­selves want to arrange their lives. Our pol­i­cy is based on free­dom, the free­dom of choice for every­one to inde­pen­dent­ly deter­mine their own future and the future of their chil­dren. And we con­sid­er it impor­tant that this right – the right to choose – could be used by all the peo­ples liv­ing on the ter­ri­to­ry of today’s Ukraine, by every­one who wants it.

    In this regard, I appeal to the cit­i­zens of Ukraine. In 2014, Rus­sia was oblig­ed to pro­tect the inhab­i­tants of Crimea and Sev­astopol from those whom you your­self call ‘Nazis’. Crimeans and Sev­astopol res­i­dents made their choice to be with their his­tor­i­cal home­land, with Rus­sia, and we sup­port­ed this. I repeat, they sim­ply could not do oth­er­wise.

    Today’s events are not con­nect­ed with the desire to infringe on the inter­ests of Ukraine and the Ukrain­ian peo­ple. They are con­nect­ed with the pro­tec­tion of Rus­sia itself from those who took Ukraine hostage and are try­ing to use it against our coun­try and its peo­ple.

    I repeat, our actions are self-defence against the threats posed to us and from an even greater dis­as­ter than what is hap­pen­ing today. No mat­ter how dif­fi­cult it may be, I ask you to under­stand this and call for coop­er­a­tion in order to turn this trag­ic page as soon as pos­si­ble and move for­ward togeth­er, not to allow any­one to inter­fere in our affairs, in our rela­tions, but to build them on our own, so that it cre­ates the nec­es­sary con­di­tions for over­com­ing all prob­lems and, despite the pres­ence of state bor­ders, would strength­en us from the inside as a whole. I believe in this; in this is our future.

    I should also appeal to the mil­i­tary per­son­nel of the armed forces of Ukraine.

    Dear com­rades! Your fathers, grand­fa­thers, great-grand­fa­thers did not fight the Nazis, defend­ing our com­mon Moth­er­land, so that today’s neo-Nazis seized pow­er in Ukraine. You took an oath of alle­giance to the Ukrain­ian peo­ple, and not to the anti-peo­ple jun­ta that plun­ders Ukraine and mocks these same peo­ple.

    Don’t fol­low her crim­i­nal orders. I urge you to lay down your weapons imme­di­ate­ly and go home. Let me explain: all ser­vice­men of the Ukrain­ian army who ful­fil this require­ment will be able to freely leave the com­bat zone and return to their fam­i­lies.

    Once again, I insis­tent­ly empha­sise: all respon­si­bil­i­ty for pos­si­ble blood­shed will be entire­ly on the con­science of the regime rul­ing on the ter­ri­to­ry of Ukraine.

    Now a few impor­tant, very impor­tant words for those who may be tempt­ed to inter­vene in ongo­ing events. Who­ev­er tries to hin­der us, and even more so to cre­ate threats for our coun­try, for our peo­ple, should know that Rus­si­a’s response will be imme­di­ate and will lead you to such con­se­quences that you have nev­er expe­ri­enced in your his­to­ry. We are ready for any devel­op­ment of events. All nec­es­sary deci­sions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.

    Well-being, the very exis­tence of entire states and peo­ples, their suc­cess and via­bil­i­ty always orig­i­nate in the pow­er­ful root sys­tem of their cul­ture and val­ues, expe­ri­ence and tra­di­tions of their ances­tors and, of course, direct­ly depend on the abil­i­ty to quick­ly adapt to a con­stant­ly chang­ing life, on the cohe­sion of soci­ety, its readi­ness to con­sol­i­date, to gath­er togeth­er all the forces in order to move for­ward.

    Forces are need­ed always – always, but strength can be of dif­fer­ent qual­i­ty. The pol­i­cy of the ’empire of lies’, which I spoke about at the begin­ning of my speech, is based pri­mar­i­ly on brute, straight­for­ward force. In such cas­es, we say: ‘There is pow­er, mind is not need­ed.’

    And you and I know that real strength lies in jus­tice and truth, which is on our side. And if this is so, then it is dif­fi­cult to dis­agree with the fact that it is the strength and readi­ness to fight that under­lie inde­pen­dence and sov­er­eign­ty, are the nec­es­sary foun­da­tion on which you can only reli­ably build your future, build your home, your fam­i­ly, your home­land. .

    Dear com­pa­tri­ots!

    I am con­fi­dent that the sol­diers and offi­cers of the Russ­ian Armed Forces devot­ed to their coun­try will pro­fes­sion­al­ly and coura­geous­ly ful­fil their duty. I have no doubt that all lev­els of gov­ern­ment, spe­cial­ists respon­si­ble for the sta­bil­i­ty of our econ­o­my, finan­cial sys­tem, social sphere, heads of our com­pa­nies and all Russ­ian busi­ness will act in a coor­di­nat­ed and effi­cient man­ner. I count on a con­sol­i­dat­ed, patri­ot­ic posi­tion of all par­lia­men­tary par­ties and pub­lic forces.

    Ulti­mate­ly, as it has always been in his­to­ry, the fate of Rus­sia is in the reli­able hands of our multi­na­tion­al peo­ple. And this means that the deci­sions made will be imple­ment­ed, the goals set will be achieved, the secu­ri­ty of our Moth­er­land will be reli­ably guar­an­teed.

    I believe in your sup­port, in that invin­ci­ble strength that our love for the Father­land gives us.

    ————

    “Full text: Putin’s dec­la­ra­tion of war on Ukraine”; The Spec­ta­tor; 02/24/2022

    “Fur­ther expan­sion of the infra­struc­ture of the North Atlantic Alliance, the mil­i­tary devel­op­ment of the ter­ri­to­ries of Ukraine that has begun is unac­cept­able for us. The point, of course, is not the Nato organ­i­sa­tion itself – it is only an instru­ment of US for­eign pol­i­cy. The prob­lem is that in the ter­ri­to­ries adja­cent to us, I will note, in our own his­tor­i­cal ter­ri­to­ries, an ‘anti-Rus­sia’ hos­tile to us is being cre­at­ed, which has been placed under com­plete exter­nal con­trol, is inten­sive­ly set­tled by the armed forces of Nato coun­tries and is pumped up with the most mod­ern weapons.”

    Ukraine is inevitably being turned into the front­lines of NATO strat­e­gy of Russ­ian con­tain­ment. That’s the ‘red line’ Putin cit­ed in his speech. And all of the events in Ukraine since 2014, includ­ing the lack of an mean­ing­ful attempts to imple­ment the Min­sk agree­ments, are part of that con­tain­ment strat­e­gy. That’s the under­ly­ing frame­work for Putin’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this inva­sion:

    ...
    For the Unit­ed States and its allies, this is the so-called pol­i­cy of con­tain­ment of Rus­sia, obvi­ous geopo­lit­i­cal div­i­dends. And for our coun­try, this is ulti­mate­ly a mat­ter of life and death, a mat­ter of our his­tor­i­cal future as a peo­ple. And this is not an exag­ger­a­tion: it is true. This is a real threat not just to our inter­ests, but to the very exis­tence of our state, its sov­er­eign­ty. This is the very red line that has been talked about many times. They passed her.

    In this regard, and about the sit­u­a­tion in the Don­bass. We see that the forces that car­ried out a coup d’e­tat in Ukraine in 2014, seized pow­er and are hold­ing it with the help of, in fact, dec­o­ra­tive elec­toral pro­ce­dures, have final­ly aban­doned the peace­ful set­tle­ment of the con­flict. For eight years, end­less­ly long eight years, we have done every­thing pos­si­ble to resolve the sit­u­a­tion by peace­ful, polit­i­cal means. All in vain.
    ...

    But it’s the pre­text for get­ting out of Ukraine that at this point is most inter­est­ing: the demil­i­ta­riza­tion and denaz­i­fi­ca­tion of the coun­try. It’s the kind of goal that’s so ambi­tious and neb­u­lous — and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive giv­en the surge in nation­al­ism that’s going to result from this — it rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not there’s any plans on leav­ing at all:

    ...
    In this regard, in accor­dance with Arti­cle 51 of Part 7 of the UN Char­ter, with the sanc­tion of the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil of Rus­sia and in pur­suance of the treaties of friend­ship and mutu­al assis­tance rat­i­fied by the Fed­er­al Assem­bly on 22 Feb­ru­ary this year with the Donet­sk Peo­ple’s Repub­lic and the Luhan­sk Peo­ple’s Repub­lic, I decid­ed to con­duct a spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion.

    Its goal is to pro­tect peo­ple who have been sub­ject­ed to bul­ly­ing and geno­cide by the Kiev regime for eight years. And for this we will strive for the demil­i­tari­sa­tion and denaz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ukraine, as well as bring­ing to jus­tice those who com­mit­ted numer­ous, bloody crimes against civil­ians, includ­ing cit­i­zens of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.

    At the same time, our plans do not include the occu­pa­tion of Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ries. We are not going to impose any­thing on any­one by force. At the same time, we hear that recent­ly in the West there are more and more words that the doc­u­ments signed by the Sovi­et total­i­tar­i­an regime, which con­sol­i­date the results of the Sec­ond World War, should no longer be car­ried out. Well, what is the answer to this?
    ...

    But, again, that’s why it’s increas­ing­ly feel­ing like a par­ti­tion of Ukraine is in the works. A par­ti­tion that includes a large dis­place­ment of mil­lions of Ukraini­ans as they choose which side to go with. It would be a trag­ic end to the con­flict that broke out in 2014. And pre­sum­ably not an actu­al end since it’s unclear the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty would rec­og­nize a bro­ken Ukraine. But if the end goal of this mil­i­tary oper­a­tion real­ly is to some­how pre­vent an anti-Russ­ian gov­ern­ment from com­ing into pow­er there, it’s hard to see any sort of long-term solu­tion that does­n’t entail either split­ting the coun­try up between the pro and anti-Russ­ian ele­ments of the pop­u­lace or a per­ma­nent Russ­ian occu­pa­tion. And it’s hard to imag­ine a per­ma­nent Russ­ian occu­pa­tion that does­n’t fuel a surge in Ukrain­ian Nazism.

    It’s also worth not­ing anoth­er some­what iron­ic pos­si­bil­i­ty for how this con­flict is end­ed, at least tem­porar­i­ly: first, a new pro-Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is installed. That gov­ern­ment then allows West­ern Ukraine to hold a ref­er­en­dum on sep­a­rat­ing from the rest of the coun­try. Is this a pos­si­bil­i­ty? Would Rus­sia allow the for­ma­tion of a new ‘West Ukraine’ filled with the exact ultra-nation­al­ist extrem­ists Rus­sia is using a pre­text for this inva­sion? Espe­cial­ly a ‘West Ukraine’ with the free­dom to join NATO? We’ll see, but there don’t appear to be any good options here, for Putin or any­one else. We’re pre­sum­ably see­ing what Putin views as the ‘least worst option’ play­ing out. The big ques­tion now is what does Putin view as the least worst path out of it.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 25, 2022, 4:10 pm

  16. Lies and half-truths run the world. And just might end it. That’s the meta-mes­sage deliv­ered to West­ern audi­ences in the fol­low­ing inter­view of Jef­frey Sachs pub­lished last week in the New York­er. An inter­view focused on the war in Ukraine and the roots of that cri­sis. Sachs as been on a bit of a roll late­ly when it comes to say­ing things that aren’t sup­posed to be said in polite com­pa­ny. Like the real­i­ty that com­pelling evi­dence exists that SARS-CoV­‑2 could have been cre­at­ed in a US lab, or that the US was like­ly behind the Nord Stream bomb­ings.

    And while Sachs makes a num­ber of impor­tant points and cor­rec­tions in his dis­cus­sion — like point­ing out how the 2014 Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion was effec­tive­ly a coup that replaced a pro-Neu­tral­i­ty gov­ern­ment with a pro-NATO gov­ern­ment five year after NATO made clear at the NATO Bucharest sum­mit in 2008 that Ukraine and Geor­gia were even­tu­al­ly going to be invit­ed — it’s real­ly that meta-mes­sage of the pro­found ‘up-is-down black-is-white’ nature of our pro­found mis­un­der­stand­ing of con­tem­po­rary his­to­ry that is at the core of Sach’s mes­sage. As he puts it at one point near the end of the inter­view after being seem­ing­ly exas­per­at­ed with the warped main­stream nar­ra­tives dom­i­nat­ing our dis­course, “Let me describe what I’m say­ing about Amer­i­can pol­i­cy, what I would like the read­ers of The New York­er to real­ly appre­ci­ate for a vari­ety of rea­sons, because I’ve been an advis­er eco­nom­i­cal­ly all over the world, and I know lead­ers all over the world and have known lead­ers all over the world for many decades. I’ve seen a lot, and what I’m try­ing to con­vey is some­thing very basic about Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, and that is that it is dev­as­tat­ing­ly based on lies and covert actions, and I see those lies all the time.” Covert action and lies. That’s what’s run­ning the world and ruin­ing our minds:

    The New York­er

    Jef­frey Sachs’s Great-Pow­er Pol­i­tics
    The econ­o­mist dis­cuss­es what the U.S. gets wrong about Putin and the war in Ukraine.

    By Isaac Chotin­er
    Feb­ru­ary 27, 2023

    Last week, Jef­frey Sachs, the econ­o­mist and pro­fes­sor at Colum­bia known for his work in the fields of pover­ty alle­vi­a­tion and for­eign aid, deliv­ered remarks to the Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil about the destruc­tion of the Nord Stream pipeline. Sachs, who was invit­ed to speak by Russia—but who told The New York­er that it was “impor­tant to note” that he was there on his own behalf—called for an inves­ti­ga­tion of the inci­dent. He has pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed that the Unit­ed States was respon­si­ble; so far, no evi­dence link­ing the U.S., Rus­sia, or any oth­er nation to the attack has emerged. These were notable remarks for an econ­o­mist to make, and high­light the degree to which, in recent years, Sachs has become out­spo­ken on a broad sweep of geopo­lit­i­cal top­ics, from the war in Ukraine (he wants the West to nego­ti­ate a solu­tion imme­di­ate­ly) to China’s repres­sion of the Uyghur pop­u­la­tion (he thinks the use of the term “geno­cide” is mis­tak­en). He has also blamed Antho­ny Fau­ci for the role played by the U.S. pub­lic-health appa­ra­tus in fund­ing research abroad, in part because he thinks COVID-19 orig­i­nat­ed in “U.S. lab biotech­nol­o­gy.”

    It’s an inter­est­ing chap­ter for a man who was best known, for many years, as a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can estab­lish­ment. (Thir­ty years ago, the Times called him “prob­a­bly the most impor­tant econ­o­mist in the world,” for his role in push­ing post-Sovi­et Rus­sia to adopt “shock ther­a­py.”) Since then, Sachs has advised mul­ti­ple U.N. Sec­re­taries-Gen­er­al and writ­ten mul­ti­ple books; he has trav­elled with Bono, and worked with gov­ern­ments with con­tro­ver­sial records on human rights, such as the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. He is cur­rent­ly the pres­i­dent of the U.N. Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Solu­tions Net­work. In 2020, short­ly after COVID began spread­ing across the world, I talked to him for The New York­er about the pandemic’s eco­nom­ic impact and how Trump was han­dling the emer­gency; more recent­ly, he appeared as a guest on the pod­cast of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has become one of the most promi­nent anti-vac­cine activists and con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists in the coun­try.

    I recent­ly spoke by phone again with Sachs. I want­ed to talk with him about his evolv­ing views, and some of his recent trav­els, such as a vis­it with Vik­tor Orbán in Hun­gary. Our con­ver­sa­tion, which has been edit­ed for length and clar­i­ty, is below.

    How did you get inter­est­ed in want­i­ng to end the war in Ukraine?

    The war is hor­ri­bly destruc­tive and hor­ri­bly dan­ger­ous, and it should nev­er have hap­pened. Not just in the sim­ple sense that wars are tragedies but in the spe­cif­ic sense that this was an utter­ly avoid­able war. I think that the more one knows about the back­ground to this war, the more it is clear how it could have been avoid­ed, and also how it can end.

    What specif­i­cal­ly about the back­ground?

    This is a war that reflects ris­ing ten­sions between the Unit­ed States and Rus­sia now for a quar­ter cen­tu­ry. There have been many points on that path that were tru­ly ill-advised.

    Tell me what you think some of the missed oppor­tu­ni­ties were.

    The key to this, which is now well dis­cussed, but still not well under­stood, is the post-1991 vision of strate­gic lead­ers in the Unit­ed States: that we are now in a unipo­lar world, and that the Unit­ed States can do pret­ty much what­ev­er it wants, and that includes bas­ing the mil­i­tary where it wants and when it wants, enter­ing and exit­ing treaties when it wants and where it wants, with­out seri­ous con­se­quence. In the mid-nineties, there was a quite fero­cious debate over even the first phase of NATO enlarge­ment, where many wise peo­ple, includ­ing Bill Per­ry, our Defense Sec­re­tary at the time under Clin­ton, thought that this was a dread­ful mis­take; many oth­ers did, too. And George Ken­nan, whom I regard as the essence of wis­dom, thought that it would lead to a new Cold War.

    Clin­ton chose to move ahead with NATO enlarge­ment. Because that first phase was in Cen­tral Europe, I don’t think it was deci­sive, although it def­i­nite­ly made the sit­u­a­tion more dif­fi­cult. And then came the war over Ser­bia and the bomb­ing of Ser­bia by NATO forces. This was, in my opin­ion, a dread­ful mis­take. And there’s lots that we don’t know pub­licly about this. I’ve been told many, many things by insid­ers. I don’t know whether they’re true or not, because I don’t see the archives, but I believe that this was a dread­ful mis­take. Then came 9/11. Pres­i­dent Putin offered sup­port for the U.S. efforts at the begin­ning, but the Iraq war was clear­ly a major, major blow.

    Bush con­tin­ued with sev­en more NATO enlarge­ments, get­ting close and hot under the col­lar, because they involved the three Baltic states, along with Roma­nia, Bul­gar­ia, Slove­nia, and Slo­va­kia, and the push­back was very, very hard. In 2008 came the absolute­ly dread­ful deci­sion by Bush to push for NATO enlarge­ment to Ukraine and to Geor­gia. That was, in essence, what set us not just on a path of absolute­ly hard­en­ing rela­tions but on a path to this war.

    The war began, how­ev­er, nine years ago, with the U.S. par­tic­i­pa­tion in the over­throw of Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych, in Feb­ru­ary, 2014—the very active U.S. role in that. We’ll only per­haps know the full extent of it when the archives are opened, decades from now. We know enough that this was why the war actu­al­ly occurred.

    I’m a lit­tle con­fused when you talk about 2008, because the full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine didn’t start until 2022, four­teen years lat­er, and Ukraine was no clos­er to get­ting into NATO.

    In 2008, at the NATO sum­mit in Bucharest, NATO said that it would enlarge to include Ukraine and Geor­gia. The deci­sion was made by NATO. It was a very con­tentious meet­ing, because most of the Euro­peans object­ed, but the Unit­ed States pushed it through. And this led, in my view, to the war in Geor­gia very soon after­ward. I think that was Russia’s mes­sage to Geor­gia: you’re not going to join NATO. And that was a mes­sage for Ukraine as well.

    Ukraine was already in a bat­tle in which the Unit­ed States was heav­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing, between a divid­ed coun­try, east and west divi­sions, pro- and anti-NATO divi­sions, and so forth. In 2005, Vik­tor Yushchenko became Pres­i­dent; he [lat­er] called for Ukraine to join NATO. This cre­at­ed the big ten­sions that led to 2008. And then Yushchenko was defeat­ed and Yanukovych came in say­ing we should have neu­tral­i­ty. And that, I believe, was viewed as an affront to the U.S. pol­i­cy­mak­ers who were intent on NATO enlarge­ment. In late 2013, when protests against Yanukovych broke out, the U.S. took the occa­sion to play extreme­ly active­ly in this and in ways that were rather direct, let us say—paying a lot of mon­ey to those who were lead­ing this so-called move­ment and help­ing to finance what became a coup.

    So you think what hap­pened in 2014 was a coup?

    It was a coup, of course. It was an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al seizure of pow­er when very vio­lent groups, well armed, stormed the gov­ern­ment build­ings in Feb­ru­ary, 2014. [Pro­test­ers, angered by Yanukovych’s rejec­tion of a trade agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union, were killed by secu­ri­ty forces after try­ing to occu­py parts of Kyiv; after­ward, Yanukovych was iso­lat­ed polit­i­cal­ly and fled to Rus­sia with the assis­tance of the Krem­lin. I asked Sachs over e‑mail for a source for his claim about the role played by the U.S. He respond­ed, “It is pub­lic knowl­edge that the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy and US NGOs spent heav­i­ly in Ukraine to sup­port the Maid­an. I have first-hand knowl­edge of that spend­ing.” The N.E.D. told The New York­er that it pro­vides fund­ing to civ­il-soci­ety groups but “does not pro­vide fund­ing to sup­port protests.”]

    Let me just go back to 2008. I under­stand what hap­pened at the Bucharest sum­mit. My point is that four­teen years lat­er Ukraine was no clos­er to actu­al­ly join­ing NATO.

    That’s not cor­rect. That’s not cor­rect, Isaac. At all. The fact of the mat­ter is that, after the over­throw of Yanukovych, a series of gov­ern­ments in both Ukraine and the U.S. have heav­i­ly armed Ukraine, heav­i­ly mod­ern­ized Ukraine’s Army, poured in many bil­lions of dol­lars of arma­ments, and this is what made it pos­si­ble for Ukraine to resist the Russ­ian inva­sion in Feb­ru­ary, 2022.

    You’re say­ing once the coun­try was invad­ed?

    No, no, no, no. Start­ing in 2014. This is impor­tant.

    Once Crimea had been invad­ed, you are say­ing?

    This is per­haps one of the things that needs more inves­ti­ga­tion by the likes of you and your col­leagues, to look into the events around the Maid­an. This was an over­throw of a gov­ern­ment that replaced a gov­ern­ment that was call­ing for neu­tral­i­ty—

    Neu­tral­i­ty?

    Yes, the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment. [Yanukovych want­ed a clos­er alliance with Rus­sia; it was recent­ly report­ed that Putin planned to use Yanukovych to help install a pup­pet regime after the 2022 inva­sion.]

    I see.

    And this is the deci­sive event. We are told every day that this is the first anniver­sary of the war. But even the sec­re­tary-gen­er­al of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who was one of the biggest hard-lin­ers on this war, says this is the ninth year of the war. That is the fact. This war start­ed in Feb­ru­ary, 2014. He says it start­ed with Russia’s seizure of Crimea. I think you have to dial the clock back about a month, at least. It start­ed with the over­throw of Vik­tor Yanukovych, in which the Unit­ed States played a very active role.

    You said that Putin offered to help the U.S. after 9/11, and the U.S. kind of shrugged it off.

    [They did not] quite shrug it off in Afghanistan. What turned things was the neo­con project to invade Iraq and over­throw Sad­dam. That was inci­den­tal to 9/11, I’d say.

    Of course. In a dif­fer­ent con­text, Putin could be seen as a dic­ta­tor who had been bru­tal with Mus­lims in Chech­nya and was lat­er bru­tal with Mus­lims in Syr­ia, and the last thing that Amer­i­ca should want is to ally with such a per­son. But you seem to be crit­i­ciz­ing the Unit­ed States for not want­i­ng to ally with Putin in the glob­al war on ter­ror, of which you your­self have been a very elo­quent crit­ic.

    You kind of mis­un­der­stood. My point was that Rus­sia was sup­port­ive of the U.S. in the after­math of 9/11—it under­stood that this was a major shock and want­ed to try to address this. I know many Euro­pean lead­ers who have dealt with Putin exten­sive­ly over the years, and it’s impor­tant to under­stand that, even after the Ser­bian NATO bomb­ing, which I regard as rather out­ra­geous, and even after the NATO enlarge­ment, which I regard as provoca­tive, Putin was pro-Euro­pean in the ear­ly two-thou­sands, was deal­ing close­ly with many Euro­pean lead­ers, and was not the mad­man that is por­trayed today in our media.

    What I’m sug­gest­ing is that this was not an antag­o­nis­tic rela­tion­ship, or a lost rela­tion­ship, even though, in my opin­ion, the U.S. had already begun a series of provoca­tive steps that I oppose, which became worse over time. Inci­den­tal­ly, in 2011, the Unit­ed States decid­ed to over­throw Bashar al-Assad, in Syr­ia, and some­time around 2012—we don’t know the exact dates—President Oba­ma signed Oper­a­tion Tim­ber Sycamore, which assigned the C.I.A. the task of work­ing with the oth­er pow­ers in the Mid­dle East to over­throw Assad.

    Assad was an ally of Rus­sia. We often say, ridicu­lous­ly, in our media that Putin entered Syr­ia, because peo­ple don’t under­stand that Oba­ma tasked the C.I.A. with over­throw­ing Assad, and the U.S. blocked the peace attempts that were very close to com­ing to fruition in 2012 in Syr­ia. I know this, also.

    You’re some­one who has cared about pover­ty and less-for­tu­nate peo­ple in the world for a very long time. Putin dropped bombs on hos­pi­tals and schools in Syr­ia, and you’re blam­ing the Unit­ed States for try­ing to desta­bi­lize a dic­ta­tor who killed hun­dreds of thou­sands of his own peo­ple. I real­ly think if you would lis­ten to your­self—

    Isaac, Isaac, you should seri­ous­ly under­stand the tim­ing and the facts, because you don’t. With all respect, I would be delight­ed if you learned some­thing about that and looked into it care­ful­ly. Because it real­ly is just anoth­er case where the U.S. secret­ly desta­bi­lized a coun­try and walked away after­ward. It’s not quite “walked away,” but basi­cal­ly walked away, after many years of destruc­tion. This is rel­e­vant because it entailed desta­bi­liz­ing an ally of Rus­sia. That’s one rea­son that it’s per­ti­nent for our cur­rent dis­cus­sion. Anoth­er rea­son is that it’s anoth­er case of covert oper­a­tions by the Unit­ed States.

    Maybe I should phrase the ques­tion in a dif­fer­ent way. In the past, when I’ve read your writ­ing on the sins of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, the glob­al war on ter­ror, our role in desta­bi­liz­ing coun­tries all over the world with coups dur­ing the Cold War and the war in Iraq, and the dev­as­ta­tion that this has caused abroad, you speak with real pas­sion. Maybe it’s because you’re an Amer­i­can, and it’s good that you’re so crit­i­cal of our coun­try. Now, when you’re talk­ing about civil­ians being killed in Syr­ia or in East­ern Europe, you have this almost clin­i­cal lack of pas­sion, and every­thing seems to just trace back to the Unit­ed States being the secret pow­er caus­ing it. There’s no sense of these people’s wish­es or desires, there’s no sense of East­ern Euro­peans want­i­ng to join NATO and why they might want that. There’s no sense of the human-rights issues involved. Do you think that’s a fair cri­tique? And how do you respond to it?

    I don’t think it’s a fair cri­tique at all, and I think maybe you’re miss­ing my point com­plete­ly, which is that I find it hor­ren­dous how many inno­cent peo­ple are dying and suf­fer­ing. I wor­ry about it every day. It’s a hor­ri­ble thing. It weighs very heav­i­ly on me per­son­al­ly, but I believe that under­stand­ing these events so that the fight­ing can stop is of para­mount impor­tance.

    Let me just say a word about Syr­ia. The Unit­ed States desta­bi­lized Syr­ia and, in ear­ly 2012, there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a peace agree­ment. One coun­try stood in the way of the peace agree­ment. That was the Unit­ed States.

    Wait, sor­ry, Bashar al-Assad was will­ing to make peace, but the U.S. would not let him, essen­tial­ly?

    The U.S. insist­ed that Bashar al-Assad must go for there to be peace. The oth­er par­tic­i­pants in the nego­ti­a­tion said that a polit­i­cal process could end this, but not start­ing on the first day with U.S.-backed regime change. [When asked in an e‑mail whether he had a source for the claim that the U.S. was the lone coun­try oppos­ing a peace agree­ment, Sachs told The New York­er, “I have first-hand knowl­edge of the US block­ing the peace agree­ment in Syr­ia from the high­est inter­na­tion­al sources.”]

    When it comes to Ukraine, what is so hor­ri­fy­ing for me is that this war, even con­sid­er­ing the mul­ti­ple facts I’ve laid out that were the pred­i­cate to this war, could have been avoid­ed at the end of 2021. Pres­i­dent Putin put on the table three demands: no NATO enlarge­ment, Crimea remain­ing part of Rus­sia, and the Min­sk II agree­ments being imple­ment­ed. The Unit­ed States refused.

    Do you still think, in hind­sight, that Putin was being sin­cere here?

    I think that one could have cre­at­ed an enforce­able agree­ment around those points. Sin­cer­i­ty is a strange idea in this. It’s not a mat­ter of sin­cer­i­ty; it’s a mat­ter of find­ing an agree­ment and then the modal­i­ties to enforce the agree­ment, includ­ing, of course, with­draw­al of forces from bor­ders, demil­i­ta­riza­tion, peace­keep­ing oper­a­tions, mon­i­tors, oth­er steps. So, as Ronald Rea­gan used to wise­ly say, “Trust, but ver­i­fy.” This isn’t a mat­ter of sin­cer­i­ty. This is a mat­ter of under­stand­ing the nature of this con­flict and how it could have been avoid­ed. I tried at the end of 2021 to say to whomev­er would lis­ten in the White House and in the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion that NATO enlarge­ment was a ter­ri­ble idea. And, if they respond­ed to me, “Well, Jeff, it’s not going to hap­pen,” I said, “If that’s your view, make it explic­it and pub­lic and there­by avoid the war.” But they didn’t.

    What have you made of Putin’s rhetoric in the last year that he’s the new Peter the Great, that Ukraine is part of a Greater Rus­sia, the Russ­ian impe­r­i­al per­spec­tive that he’s put for­ward as one cause of the war, one of the dri­ving forces of it for him, in his own words?

    Yeah, I think your inter­view with John Mearsheimer cov­ers that well, so I’ll just leave it there. I think it’s accu­rate­ly described there.

    You mean Mearsheimer’s view is accu­rate?

    That was not the cause of the war. This is not the moti­va­tion of the war, and you’re basi­cal­ly—

    What do you make of Putin say­ing these things explic­it­ly, then?

    I don’t like when he says these things, but I don’t think this is the point of what’s hap­pen­ing right now. Any­body that has watched this carefully—day in, day out—for twen­ty-five years knows that the num­ber of times NATO enlarge­ment has been dis­cussed is in the hun­dreds or the thou­sands, and in all sorts of doc­u­ments and in all sorts of con­texts. So I think it’s a lit­tle bit of a game of the West­ern media.

    To quote Putin is a game?

    No. The job should be to help peo­ple under­stand what’s hap­pen­ing.

    I was read­ing a long arti­cle in the Finan­cial Times this morn­ing, and the piece was essen­tial­ly report­ing that, among the Russ­ian mil­i­tary, busi­ness, and polit­i­cal élite, Putin was pret­ty alone in want­i­ng this war. Does that sug­gest that maybe struc­tur­al rea­sons, such as NATO enlarge­ment, were less causal—if all these oth­er actors in Rus­sia would not have actu­al­ly car­ried out the war? I agree that Amer­i­can pol­i­cy toward Rus­sia after the Cold War is absolute­ly a legit­i­mate point of inquiry, with many errors. But, if Putin is drop­ping bombs and try­ing to invade a coun­try when most of the oth­er élites in Rus­sia don’t want that, maybe it’s more about Putin him­self, no?

    I think that this is the West­ern trope, and I must say I think that the Finan­cial Times’ cov­er­age has been very poor on this. We should under­stand the British media. The British media have been Rus­so­pho­bic since well before the first Crimean war, which was 1853 to 1856. The Finan­cial Times is play­ing its role, as is the rest of the British media. It’s very famil­iar, it’s very typ­i­cal, it’s very rhetor­i­cal, and I would urge peo­ple not to so per­son­al­ize this. I see it in The New York­er, too: this is viewed almost as a war of one per­son. This is real­ly a seri­ous mis­un­der­stand­ing, and it also can lead to very strange ideas. Well, if he goes, then the war’s over. Many strange and sim­plis­tic ideas. This is not a war of one per­son. This is a war that has rea­sons and, like von Clause­witz said, it is a con­tin­u­a­tion of pol­i­tics by oth­er means, and we should under­stand that as clear­ly as pos­si­ble, so that we can end the war now, as fast as pos­si­ble, because peo­ple are suf­fer­ing every day.

    I also just read some­thing today that said, “It’s fine. Ukraine’s going to win. We just need to hold on. Yes, there will be a few hun­dred thou­sand more deaths, but in the end it will be a great tri­umph.” That tru­ly makes me shud­der. I think the naïveté and cru­el­ty of that argu­ment are extra­or­di­nary, and the absolute­ly sub­stan­tial and real risk of nuclear esca­la­tion is pro­found­ly over­looked.

    What would con­vince you that you were wrong?

    Well, if the war ends quick­ly.

    About the moti­va­tion for the war, I mean.

    It’s not so inter­est­ing, in my view. What I believe to be the point is that we should try nego­ti­at­ing. That’s my point. We should try nego­ti­at­ing.

    You recent­ly wrote, “The basis for peace is clear. Ukraine would be a neu­tral non-Nato coun­try. Crimea would remain home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, as it has been since 1783. A prac­ti­cal solu­tion would be found for the Don­bas, such as a ter­ri­to­r­i­al divi­sion, auton­o­my, or an armistice line.” Again, I agree that nego­ti­a­tion is absolute­ly nec­es­sary, but to say that “the basis for peace is clear” and then to say that Ukraini­ans who may want to join NATO should not be able to, and that chunks of their coun­try should now belong to Russia—again, the way you write sug­gests to me a cer­tain lack of inter­est or emo­tion about a coun­try being annexed and invad­ed. I under­stand that there are also larg­er geopo­lit­i­cal issues, but do you not see the point I’m mak­ing? Or does that seem unfair to you?

    Let me put it this way. First, stop­ping NATO enlarge­ment is not a con­ces­sion. It’s both a neces­si­ty and a mat­ter of pru­dence for the Unit­ed States. It was a ter­ri­ble idea, peri­od, for the U.S.

    Why do you think coun­tries in East­ern Europe want to be part of NATO?

    I can under­stand why they would want to be part of NATO, but I can­not under­stand why the Unit­ed States would think it’s safe and pru­dent to push NATO into Ukraine, into Geor­gia. It’s com­plete­ly reck­less. The ques­tions of Crimea and the Don­bas arose after the U.S. par­tic­i­pa­tion in the coup against Yanukovych, because before that Rus­sia wasn’t tak­ing Crimea. What Yanukovych was nego­ti­at­ing with Rus­sia was a long-term lease so that the Russ­ian naval base would be in Sev­astopol, and it would be there until at least 2042, with options for renew­al. In the Don­bas, there was an ongo­ing twen­ty-year heavy debate about auton­o­my and about lan­guages, but there was noth­ing like war.

    You’ve been a very elo­quent crit­ic of some of the worst aspects of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. Let’s take the Iraq War as one exam­ple. You’ve described every­thing Rus­sia has done dur­ing the past twelve years—bombing civil­ians in Syr­ia, bomb­ing civil­ians in Ukraine, annex­ing Crimea, sup­port­ing sep­a­ratists in east­ern Ukraine—as essen­tial­ly forced on them. If peo­ple described the Iraq War that way, by remov­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty from the Unit­ed States, it would make me cringe. Every Russ­ian action you’ve men­tioned is just described as the result of Amer­i­can behav­ior.

    Again, I think you’re real­ly mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­char­ac­ter­iz­ing me. Let me describe what I’m say­ing about Amer­i­can pol­i­cy, what I would like the read­ers of The New York­er to real­ly appre­ci­ate for a vari­ety of rea­sons, because I’ve been an advis­er eco­nom­i­cal­ly all over the world, and I know lead­ers all over the world and have known lead­ers all over the world for many decades. I’ve seen a lot, and what I’m try­ing to con­vey is some­thing very basic about Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, and that is that it is dev­as­tat­ing­ly based on lies and covert actions, and I see those lies all the time.

    I hap­pened to be on a talk show the night that Col­in Pow­ell pre­sent­ed the U.N. tes­ti­mo­ny. There were six pan­elists. They went around the table, and they final­ly came to me. I said, “It’s lies. It’s clear­ly lies,” which it was. It wasn’t just wrong intel­li­gence; it was lies cooked up to jus­ti­fy a war. Then I hap­pened to know about the lies of the U.S. in Syr­ia. You keep talk­ing about Putin bomb­ing peo­ple in Syr­ia; the Unit­ed States both pro­voked the dis­as­ter and stopped it from end­ing. I know that.

    O.K. The idea that peo­ple—

    Quite the con­trary, I am telling peo­ple that the nar­ra­tive that we have is lead­ing to an esca­la­tion of deaths, and it’s putting us on a path to nuclear dev­as­ta­tion.

    I know, but you’re also talk­ing about peo­ple being “pro­voked” into slaugh­ter­ing civil­ians.

    The Unit­ed States armed the oppo­si­tion to Assad with the instruc­tion to over­throw Assad. That’s a war.

    He was a dic­ta­tor who was slaugh­ter­ing his own peo­ple. Are you aware of that?

    No.

    No?

    I’m aware of a lot more than you are aware of about Syr­ia, because I know a great deal about the day-to-day events from the spring of 2011 onward, and I urge you to look at that, Isaac, seri­ous­ly.

    O.K. Let’s move on to your meet­ing with Vik­tor Orbán, a hap­pi­er sub­ject. What did you guys dis­cuss?

    We dis­cussed the Ukraine War.

    Why did you go see him?

    I was invit­ed to the Nation­al Bank of Hun­gary to give a talk, and I paid a cour­tesy call on the Pres­i­dent.

    As one does.

    You do if you have known him since 1989. Yes.

    What do you make of his cur­rent rule?

    We dis­cussed the war in Ukraine, and I believe that he has the right point that this war should end with nego­ti­a­tions.

    ...

    You men­tioned in an e‑mail to me that you thought Chi­na could play an impor­tant role in maybe bring­ing an end to this war. How would that func­tion?

    Chi­na, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indone­sia, and a num­ber of oth­er major coun­tries that are not par­ty to this war and have nor­mal rela­tions with Ukraine, with Rus­sia, and with oth­er coun­tries are say­ing that there should be an end to this war through nego­ti­a­tion. This is impor­tant, in my view. These coun­tries con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant part of human­i­ty and a sig­nif­i­cant part of the glob­al scene. What Chi­na has said all along, that the secu­ri­ty inter­ests of all par­ties should be respect­ed, in my view, is a basis for say­ing that Ukraine’s sov­er­eign­ty and secu­ri­ty need to be pro­tect­ed. And, at the same time, NATO should not enlarge, because that threat­ens the secu­ri­ty of Rus­sia. That, to my mind, is under­stand­ing prop­er­ly the struc­tur­al chal­lenge that we face in reach­ing peace.

    You’ve been crit­i­cized for some of the things that you’ve said or writ­ten about Chi­na a cou­ple of years ago. You said, “The Chi­nese crack­down in Xin­jiang [had] essen­tial­ly the same moti­va­tion as America’s for­ay to the Mid­dle East and Cen­tral Asia after the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 attacks: to stop the ter­ror­ism of mil­i­tant Islam­ic groups.” Do you still feel that’s the pur­pose of Chi­na hav­ing con­cen­tra­tion camps?

    What a ridicu­lous phras­ing of a ques­tion. The arti­cle was about one thing: was there a geno­cide in Xin­jiang? I point­ed out that the U.S. gov­ern­ment had pro­vid­ed no evi­dence for that.

    I am just curi­ous if you think—

    And that there should be a U.N. inves­ti­ga­tion, but I think we prob­a­bly reached the end of the time, because this is about Ukraine, and I think we should keep the focus on that. This is the key issue that the world faces. I think there’s more to say about that, and if you had ques­tions about that, I’d be hap­py to answer them.

    We’ve been talk­ing about it for forty-five min­utes. I just want­ed to ask you that.

    No, no, no. If we’re at the end, it’s fine. It’s fine.

    I would just end with one final ques­tion. Do you feel that you’ve changed in any way? I was lis­ten­ing to you on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,’s pod­cast talk­ing about how excit­ed you were to read his book, and I thought, Is this the same Jeff Sachs I’ve been read­ing for twen­ty years?

    I’ll say the fol­low­ing: Thir­ty-four years ago, I was inspired by Pres­i­dent Gorbachev’s vision of a peace­ful world and of a com­mon Euro­pean home. I still believe that is our goal. I believe it is what we should be work­ing toward. I believe that we could still achieve that goal, and the first step to achiev­ing that goal would be end­ing this war at the nego­ti­at­ing table imme­di­ate­ly. And I believe the basis for that would be pru­dence by the Unit­ed States and with­draw­al of troops by Rus­sia with the agree­ment that NATO will not expand to Ukraine. This is the crux of the mat­ter, and I believe that the vision of a com­mon Euro­pean home is still vital for our well-being and our sur­vival, and, in this sense, I’ve been inspired by that idea for more than three decades.

    ———–

    “Jef­frey Sachs’s Great-Pow­er Pol­i­tics” by Isaac Chotin­er; The New York­er; 02/27/2023

    “The war is hor­ri­bly destruc­tive and hor­ri­bly dan­ger­ous, and it should nev­er have hap­pened. Not just in the sim­ple sense that wars are tragedies but in the spe­cif­ic sense that this was an utter­ly avoid­able war. I think that the more one knows about the back­ground to this war, the more it is clear how it could have been avoid­ed, and also how it can end.”

    The paths out of our col­lec­tive crises start with an accu­rate knowl­edge of the his­to­ry lead­ing up to those crises. That was the core of Jef­frey Sach’s mes­sage in his New York­er inter­view last week. That, along with the mes­sage that our col­lec­tive under­stand­ing of these crises is basi­cal­ly garbage. Or as Sachs put it, “I’ve seen a lot, and what I’m try­ing to con­vey is some­thing very basic about Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, and that is that it is dev­as­tat­ing­ly based on lies and covert actions, and I see those lies all the time.” Lies and covert actions that com­pound on top of each oth­er, year after year, to the point where vir­tu­al­ly all of the main­stream analy­sis of major glob­al events are immersed with so half-truths, con­ve­nient fic­tions, and lies to omis­sion that we can’t make sense of what’s actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. Nor can we extri­cate our­selves from these crises. We are trapped in an intel­lec­tu­al quag­mire of our col­lec­tive fic­tions, whether we’re talk­ing about Ukraine, Syr­ia, or vir­tu­al­ly any oth­er major ele­ment of US for­eign. Areas where the stakes are appar­ent­ly too high to let the truth get in the way:

    ...
    You’ve been a very elo­quent crit­ic of some of the worst aspects of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. Let’s take the Iraq War as one exam­ple. You’ve described every­thing Rus­sia has done dur­ing the past twelve years—bombing civil­ians in Syr­ia, bomb­ing civil­ians in Ukraine, annex­ing Crimea, sup­port­ing sep­a­ratists in east­ern Ukraine—as essen­tial­ly forced on them. If peo­ple described the Iraq War that way, by remov­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty from the Unit­ed States, it would make me cringe. Every Russ­ian action you’ve men­tioned is just described as the result of Amer­i­can behav­ior.

    Again, I think you’re real­ly mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­char­ac­ter­iz­ing me. Let me describe what I’m say­ing about Amer­i­can pol­i­cy, what I would like the read­ers of The New York­er to real­ly appre­ci­ate for a vari­ety of rea­sons, because I’ve been an advis­er eco­nom­i­cal­ly all over the world, and I know lead­ers all over the world and have known lead­ers all over the world for many decades. I’ve seen a lot, and what I’m try­ing to con­vey is some­thing very basic about Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, and that is that it is dev­as­tat­ing­ly based on lies and covert actions, and I see those lies all the time.

    I hap­pened to be on a talk show the night that Col­in Pow­ell pre­sent­ed the U.N. tes­ti­mo­ny. There were six pan­elists. They went around the table, and they final­ly came to me. I said, “It’s lies. It’s clear­ly lies,” which it was. It wasn’t just wrong intel­li­gence; it was lies cooked up to jus­ti­fy a war. Then I hap­pened to know about the lies of the U.S. in Syr­ia. You keep talk­ing about Putin bomb­ing peo­ple in Syr­ia; the Unit­ed States both pro­voked the dis­as­ter and stopped it from end­ing. I know that.

    O.K. The idea that peo­ple—

    Quite the con­trary, I am telling peo­ple that the nar­ra­tive that we have is lead­ing to an esca­la­tion of deaths, and it’s putting us on a path to nuclear dev­as­ta­tion.
    ...

    And as Sachs also makes clear, the fan­tasies and con­ve­nient fic­tions that have dri­ven much of the US’s for­eign pol­i­cy towards Rus­sia goes back over a quar­ter cen­tu­ry at this point. Start­ing with the con­ve­nient fic­tion that NATO can be expand­ed to include coun­tries like Ukraine and Geor­gia with­out pro­vok­ing a seri­ous­ly pro­vok­ing WWIII. It’s a fic­tion that drove the expan­sion of NATO start­ing in the 90s, but it was 2008 — when talk of Ukraine and Geor­gia join­ing NATO real­ly picked up steam at the NATO sum­mit in Bucharest — that the stage was solid­ly set for the cur­rent con­flict in Ukraine. Because that’s when the ‘to join NATO or not join NATO’ issue was thor­ough­ly inject­ed into Ukraine’s pol­i­tics. This is a good time to recall how, while Paul Man­afort’s work as a con­sul­tant for Vik­tor Yanukovych was over­whelm­ing­ly work­ing to push Ukraine towards Europe — which is what the ‘Haps­burg Group’ fias­co was all about — when Man­afort coun­seled Yanukovych to oppose NATO expan­sion, this was in response to polling show­ing NATO expan­sion was gen­er­al­ly not pop­u­lar with the Ukrain­ian elec­torate. This was reflec­tive even in polls in the lead up to the Maid­an revolt in 2014. That’s a key part of the con­text here: the push to get Ukraine into NATO was­n’t actu­al­ly pop­u­lar in Ukraine. It’s tak­en a decade of civ­il war to cul­ti­vate those over­all pro-NATO sen­ti­ments:

    ...
    What specif­i­cal­ly about the back­ground?

    This is a war that reflects ris­ing ten­sions between the Unit­ed States and Rus­sia now for a quar­ter cen­tu­ry. There have been many points on that path that were tru­ly ill-advised.

    Tell me what you think some of the missed oppor­tu­ni­ties were.

    The key to this, which is now well dis­cussed, but still not well under­stood, is the post-1991 vision of strate­gic lead­ers in the Unit­ed States: that we are now in a unipo­lar world, and that the Unit­ed States can do pret­ty much what­ev­er it wants, and that includes bas­ing the mil­i­tary where it wants and when it wants, enter­ing and exit­ing treaties when it wants and where it wants, with­out seri­ous con­se­quence. In the mid-nineties, there was a quite fero­cious debate over even the first phase of NATO enlarge­ment, where many wise peo­ple, includ­ing Bill Per­ry, our Defense Sec­re­tary at the time under Clin­ton, thought that this was a dread­ful mis­take; many oth­ers did, too. And George Ken­nan, whom I regard as the essence of wis­dom, thought that it would lead to a new Cold War.

    Clin­ton chose to move ahead with NATO enlarge­ment. Because that first phase was in Cen­tral Europe, I don’t think it was deci­sive, although it def­i­nite­ly made the sit­u­a­tion more dif­fi­cult. And then came the war over Ser­bia and the bomb­ing of Ser­bia by NATO forces. This was, in my opin­ion, a dread­ful mis­take. And there’s lots that we don’t know pub­licly about this. I’ve been told many, many things by insid­ers. I don’t know whether they’re true or not, because I don’t see the archives, but I believe that this was a dread­ful mis­take. Then came 9/11. Pres­i­dent Putin offered sup­port for the U.S. efforts at the begin­ning, but the Iraq war was clear­ly a major, major blow.

    Bush con­tin­ued with sev­en more NATO enlarge­ments, get­ting close and hot under the col­lar, because they involved the three Baltic states, along with Roma­nia, Bul­gar­ia, Slove­nia, and Slo­va­kia, and the push­back was very, very hard. In 2008 came the absolute­ly dread­ful deci­sion by Bush to push for NATO enlarge­ment to Ukraine and to Geor­gia. That was, in essence, what set us not just on a path of absolute­ly hard­en­ing rela­tions but on a path to this war.

    The war began, how­ev­er, nine years ago, with the U.S. par­tic­i­pa­tion in the over­throw of Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych, in Feb­ru­ary, 2014—the very active U.S. role in that. We’ll only per­haps know the full extent of it when the archives are opened, decades from now. We know enough that this was why the war actu­al­ly occurred.

    I’m a lit­tle con­fused when you talk about 2008, because the full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine didn’t start until 2022, four­teen years lat­er, and Ukraine was no clos­er to get­ting into NATO.

    In 2008, at the NATO sum­mit in Bucharest, NATO said that it would enlarge to include Ukraine and Geor­gia. The deci­sion was made by NATO. It was a very con­tentious meet­ing, because most of the Euro­peans object­ed, but the Unit­ed States pushed it through. And this led, in my view, to the war in Geor­gia very soon after­ward. I think that was Russia’s mes­sage to Geor­gia: you’re not going to join NATO. And that was a mes­sage for Ukraine as well.

    Ukraine was already in a bat­tle in which the Unit­ed States was heav­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing, between a divid­ed coun­try, east and west divi­sions, pro- and anti-NATO divi­sions, and so forth. In 2005, Vik­tor Yushchenko became Pres­i­dent; he [lat­er] called for Ukraine to join NATO. This cre­at­ed the big ten­sions that led to 2008. And then Yushchenko was defeat­ed and Yanukovych came in say­ing we should have neu­tral­i­ty. And that, I believe, was viewed as an affront to the U.S. pol­i­cy­mak­ers who were intent on NATO enlarge­ment. In late 2013, when protests against Yanukovych broke out, the U.S. took the occa­sion to play extreme­ly active­ly in this and in ways that were rather direct, let us say—paying a lot of mon­ey to those who were lead­ing this so-called move­ment and help­ing to finance what became a coup.
    ...

    And note this inter­est­ing tid­bit from Sachs regard­ing the ques­tion of whether or not the Maid­an events of 2014 con­sti­tut­ed a coup: “It is pub­lic knowl­edge that the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy and US NGOs spent heav­i­ly in Ukraine to sup­port the Maid­an. I have first-hand knowl­edge of that spend­ing,” accord­ing to Sachs, which is some­thing the NED appar­ent­ly denies:

    ...
    So you think what hap­pened in 2014 was a coup?

    It was a coup, of course. It was an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al seizure of pow­er when very vio­lent groups, well armed, stormed the gov­ern­ment build­ings in Feb­ru­ary, 2014. [Pro­test­ers, angered by Yanukovych’s rejec­tion of a trade agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union, were killed by secu­ri­ty forces after try­ing to occu­py parts of Kyiv; after­ward, Yanukovych was iso­lat­ed polit­i­cal­ly and fled to Rus­sia with the assis­tance of the Krem­lin. I asked Sachs over e‑mail for a source for his claim about the role played by the U.S. He respond­ed, “It is pub­lic knowl­edge that the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy and US NGOs spent heav­i­ly in Ukraine to sup­port the Maid­an. I have first-hand knowl­edge of that spend­ing.” The N.E.D. told The New York­er that it pro­vides fund­ing to civ­il-soci­ety groups but “does not pro­vide fund­ing to sup­port protests.”]
    ...

    And then we get this oth­er very inter­est­ing claim from Sachs regard­ing the US pol­i­cy towards Syr­ia: The US was the sole coun­try oppos­ing a polit­i­cal peace process in 2012, before the Syr­i­an civ­il war over­whelmed the coun­try. Accord­ing to Sachs, “I have first-hand knowl­edge of the US block­ing the peace agree­ment in Syr­ia from the high­est inter­na­tion­al sources.”:

    ...
    You’re some­one who has cared about pover­ty and less-for­tu­nate peo­ple in the world for a very long time. Putin dropped bombs on hos­pi­tals and schools in Syr­ia, and you’re blam­ing the Unit­ed States for try­ing to desta­bi­lize a dic­ta­tor who killed hun­dreds of thou­sands of his own peo­ple. I real­ly think if you would lis­ten to your­self—

    Isaac, Isaac, you should seri­ous­ly under­stand the tim­ing and the facts, because you don’t. With all respect, I would be delight­ed if you learned some­thing about that and looked into it care­ful­ly. Because it real­ly is just anoth­er case where the U.S. secret­ly desta­bi­lized a coun­try and walked away after­ward. It’s not quite “walked away,” but basi­cal­ly walked away, after many years of destruc­tion. This is rel­e­vant because it entailed desta­bi­liz­ing an ally of Rus­sia. That’s one rea­son that it’s per­ti­nent for our cur­rent dis­cus­sion. Anoth­er rea­son is that it’s anoth­er case of covert oper­a­tions by the Unit­ed States.

    Maybe I should phrase the ques­tion in a dif­fer­ent way. In the past, when I’ve read your writ­ing on the sins of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy, the glob­al war on ter­ror, our role in desta­bi­liz­ing coun­tries all over the world with coups dur­ing the Cold War and the war in Iraq, and the dev­as­ta­tion that this has caused abroad, you speak with real pas­sion. Maybe it’s because you’re an Amer­i­can, and it’s good that you’re so crit­i­cal of our coun­try. Now, when you’re talk­ing about civil­ians being killed in Syr­ia or in East­ern Europe, you have this almost clin­i­cal lack of pas­sion, and every­thing seems to just trace back to the Unit­ed States being the secret pow­er caus­ing it. There’s no sense of these people’s wish­es or desires, there’s no sense of East­ern Euro­peans want­i­ng to join NATO and why they might want that. There’s no sense of the human-rights issues involved. Do you think that’s a fair cri­tique? And how do you respond to it?

    I don’t think it’s a fair cri­tique at all, and I think maybe you’re miss­ing my point com­plete­ly, which is that I find it hor­ren­dous how many inno­cent peo­ple are dying and suf­fer­ing. I wor­ry about it every day. It’s a hor­ri­ble thing. It weighs very heav­i­ly on me per­son­al­ly, but I believe that under­stand­ing these events so that the fight­ing can stop is of para­mount impor­tance.

    Let me just say a word about Syr­ia. The Unit­ed States desta­bi­lized Syr­ia and, in ear­ly 2012, there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a peace agree­ment. One coun­try stood in the way of the peace agree­ment. That was the Unit­ed States.

    Wait, sor­ry, Bashar al-Assad was will­ing to make peace, but the U.S. would not let him, essen­tial­ly?

    The U.S. insist­ed that Bashar al-Assad must go for there to be peace. The oth­er par­tic­i­pants in the nego­ti­a­tion said that a polit­i­cal process could end this, but not start­ing on the first day with U.S.-backed regime change. [When asked in an e‑mail whether he had a source for the claim that the U.S. was the lone coun­try oppos­ing a peace agree­ment, Sachs told The New York­er, “I have first-hand knowl­edge of the US block­ing the peace agree­ment in Syr­ia from the high­est inter­na­tion­al sources.”]

    When it comes to Ukraine, what is so hor­ri­fy­ing for me is that this war, even con­sid­er­ing the mul­ti­ple facts I’ve laid out that were the pred­i­cate to this war, could have been avoid­ed at the end of 2021. Pres­i­dent Putin put on the table three demands: no NATO enlarge­ment, Crimea remain­ing part of Rus­sia, and the Min­sk II agree­ments being imple­ment­ed. The Unit­ed States refused.
    ...

    And that brings us to Sach’s advice for how to put Ukraine and Rus­sia on a path towards peace: nego­ti­a­tions that include an end to NATO enlarge­ment. As Sachs describes, it’s NATO enlarge­ment that has been the crux of the con­flict between Rus­sia and the West for a quar­ter cen­tu­ry now. And yet one of the biggest lies through omis­sion in the West­ern press’s nar­ra­tives about the roots of this con­flict has been the sys­tem­at­ic refusal to rec­og­nize the role NATO enlarge­ment has played in this. It returns us to the core dilem­ma push­ing the world to the brink: con­tem­po­rary for­eign pol­i­cy is root­ed on a bed of covert action and lies. The stakes are just too high to let the truth to get in the way:

    ...
    You recent­ly wrote, “The basis for peace is clear. Ukraine would be a neu­tral non-Nato coun­try. Crimea would remain home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, as it has been since 1783. A prac­ti­cal solu­tion would be found for the Don­bas, such as a ter­ri­to­r­i­al divi­sion, auton­o­my, or an armistice line.” Again, I agree that nego­ti­a­tion is absolute­ly nec­es­sary, but to say that “the basis for peace is clear” and then to say that Ukraini­ans who may want to join NATO should not be able to, and that chunks of their coun­try should now belong to Russia—again, the way you write sug­gests to me a cer­tain lack of inter­est or emo­tion about a coun­try being annexed and invad­ed. I under­stand that there are also larg­er geopo­lit­i­cal issues, but do you not see the point I’m mak­ing? Or does that seem unfair to you?

    Let me put it this way. First, stop­ping NATO enlarge­ment is not a con­ces­sion. It’s both a neces­si­ty and a mat­ter of pru­dence for the Unit­ed States. It was a ter­ri­ble idea, peri­od, for the U.S.

    Why do you think coun­tries in East­ern Europe want to be part of NATO?

    I can under­stand why they would want to be part of NATO, but I can­not under­stand why the Unit­ed States would think it’s safe and pru­dent to push NATO into Ukraine, into Geor­gia. It’s com­plete­ly reck­less. The ques­tions of Crimea and the Don­bas arose after the U.S. par­tic­i­pa­tion in the coup against Yanukovych, because before that Rus­sia wasn’t tak­ing Crimea. What Yanukovych was nego­ti­at­ing with Rus­sia was a long-term lease so that the Russ­ian naval base would be in Sev­astopol, and it would be there until at least 2042, with options for renew­al. In the Don­bas, there was an ongo­ing twen­ty-year heavy debate about auton­o­my and about lan­guages, but there was noth­ing like war.
    ...

    Will Sach’s peace pro­pos­al fall on deaf ears in DC? Of course. It would be nice to imag­ine that a par­a­digm of lies and covert action could be con­front­ed and over­turned by talk­ing about it, but that’s not how the world works. Lies win. Covert action wins. That’s how our world oper­ates. For now. There’s no guar­an­tee things will con­tin­ue oper­at­ing in this man­ner for­ev­er.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | March 6, 2023, 5:42 pm

  17. There’s no mass street protests yet. Nor any arrests. But with the arrest and indict­ment of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump appar­ent­ly pos­si­ble any day now, prepa­ra­tions are under­way for the poten­tial fall­out as fears of what Trump and his sup­port­ers might do in response con­tin­ues to fes­ter in the wake of Trump’s high­ly inflam­ma­to­ry state­ments over the week­end that seemed to call for civ­il unrest. And while the mem­o­ry of the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion serves as a pow­er­ful reminder of the very real poten­tial for mass polit­i­cal vio­lence in con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­ca, there’s anoth­er mod­ern day act of mass polit­i­cal vio­lence that should prob­a­bly serve as a more salient warn­ing: the Maid­an sniper mas­sacre of 2014. Attacks that, as we’ve seen, were car­ried out by far right actors in a high­ly suc­cess­ful false flag oper­a­tion that result­ing in the down­fall of the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment with­in days. A high­ly suc­cess­ful false flag oper­a­tion that remains utter­ly unmen­tion­able in ‘polite com­pa­ny’ to this day. It worked. It worked in the short run at top­pling the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, and it worked in the long run in remain­ing cov­ered up.

    So with the US enter­ing a peri­od with ele­vat­ed risks of mass polit­i­cal vio­lence, we have to ask: What are the odds that Trump’s most fer­vent sup­port­ers haven’t learned the lessons of the Maid­an mas­sacre? It’s hard to imag­ine event has­n’t been thor­ough­ly stud­ied by inter­est­ed par­ties, espe­cial­ly after the fail­ure of Jan 6. And let’s not for­get that the Jan 6 plan­ners had a ‘Quick Reac­tion Force’ of heavy arms in place in the DC, just wait­ing for the order to deliv­er them to the riot­ers. Mass polit­i­cal vio­lence is very much ‘in the air’ right now and it’s hard to imag­ine that polit­i­cal cli­mate isn’t going to get more desta­bi­lized the clos­er we get to the 2024 elec­tions.

    So with all that in mind, it’s worth not­ing that a major aca­d­e­m­ic scan­dal has qui­et­ly errupt­ed regard­ing an aca­d­e­m­ic analy­sis of the 2014 sniper attacks. Or at least it should be a major aca­d­e­m­ic scan­dal. Thus far, the scan­dal is lim­it­ed to an arti­cle in The Gray­zone. And that’s like­ly where it will remain. Because that’s the nature of this scan­dal. It’s a scan­dal of cen­sor­ship. Specif­i­cal­ly, the cen­sor­ship of the lat­est exhaus­tive study car­ried out by Ukrain­ian-Cana­di­an research Ivan Katchanovs­ki. A study that, as we’ll see, was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly accept­ed by an unnamed top-tie social sci­ences aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal with min­i­mal revi­sions. Some­one spiked the paper. Some­one above the edi­tor. In fact, it appears that the edi­tor of this jour­nal only dis­cov­ered the spik­ing of the paper after Katchanovs­ki tweet­ed about it. It’s a scan­dal.

    But it’s not an iso­lat­ed scan­dal. As we’re also going to see, Katchanovk­si also got a paper on the Odessa mas­sacre of 2014 reject­ed twice recent­ly. In both cas­es, the edi­tors appeared to reject to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the eight years of con­flict pre­ced­ing the 2022 Russ­ian inva­sion as a “civ­il war” or a con­flict that is “civ­il, with Russ­ian mil­i­tary inter­ven­tions.” Again, this is scan­dalous. Except it isn’t. No one is talk­ing about this sto­ry of bla­tant aca­d­e­m­ic cen­sor­ship. Because of course.

    So as the US braces for acts of mass polit­i­cal vio­lence as the 2024 elec­tion cycle plays out, it’s going to be worth keep­ing in mind that there is an ongo­ing scan­dal of silence and cen­sor­ship that is ensur­ing the Maid­an sniper false flag mas­sacre of 2014 remains cov­ered up for­ev­er:

    The Gray­zone

    ‘Rig­or­ous’ Maid­an mas­sacre exposé sup­pressed by top aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal

    Kit Klaren­berg
    March 12, 2023

    A peer-reviewed paper ini­tial­ly approved and praised by a pres­ti­gious aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal was sud­den­ly rescind­ed with­out expla­na­tion. Its author, one of the world’s top schol­ars on Ukraine-relat­ed issues, had mar­shaled over­whelm­ing evi­dence to con­clude Maid­an pro­test­ers were killed by pro-coup snipers.

    The mas­sacre by snipers of anti-gov­ern­ment activists and police offi­cers in Kiev’s Maid­an Square in late Feb­ru­ary 2014 was a defin­ing moment in the US-orches­trat­ed over­throw of Ukraine’s elect­ed gov­ern­ment. The death of 70 pro­test­ers trig­gered an avalanche of inter­na­tion­al out­rage that made Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych’s down­fall a fait accom­pli. Yet today these killings remain unsolved.

    Enter Ivan Katchanovs­ki, a Ukrain­ian-Cana­di­an polit­i­cal sci­en­tist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa. For years, he mar­shaled over­whelm­ing evi­dence demon­strat­ing that the snipers were not affil­i­at­ed with Yanukovych’s gov­ern­ment, but pro-Maid­an oper­a­tives fir­ing from pro­test­er-occu­pied build­ings.

    Though Katchanovski’s ground­break­ing work has been stu­dious­ly ignored by the main­stream media, a scrupu­lous study he pre­sent­ed on the slaugh­ter in Sep­tem­ber 2015 and August 2021 and pub­lished in 2016 and in 2020 has been cit­ed on over 100 occa­sions by schol­ars and experts. As a result of this paper and oth­er pieces of research, he was among the world’s most-ref­er­enced polit­i­cal sci­en­tists spe­cial­iz­ing in Ukrain­ian mat­ters.

    In the final months of 2022, Katchanovs­ki sub­mit­ted a new inves­ti­ga­tion on the Maid­an mas­sacre to a promi­nent social sci­ences jour­nal. Ini­tial­ly accept­ed with minor revi­sions after exten­sive peer review, the publication’s edi­tor effu­sive­ly praised the work in a lengthy pri­vate note. They said the paper was “excep­tion­al in many ways,” and offered “sol­id” evi­dence in sup­port of its con­clu­sions. The review­ers con­curred with this judg­ment.

    How­ev­er, the paper was not pub­lished, a deci­sion Katchanovs­ki firm­ly believes to have been “polit­i­cal.” He filed an appeal, but to no avail.

    My appeal to jour­nal has been reject­ed even after let­ter of sup­port from world-renowned social sci­en­tist who con­tact­ed me because of my research con­cern­ing Maid­an mas­sacre & #UkraineRus­si­aWar. 4/ pic.twitter.com/DCE4uYmp9g— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) Jan­u­ary 6, 2023

    Among those fer­vent­ly sup­port­ing Katchanovski’s appeal was renowned US aca­d­e­m­ic Jef­frey Sachs. “You have writ­ten a very impor­tant, rig­or­ous, and sub­stan­tial arti­cle. It is thor­ough­ly doc­u­ment­ed. It is on a top­ic of great sig­nif­i­cance,” Sachs wrote to the schol­ar. “Your paper should be pub­lished for rea­sons of its excellence…The jour­nal will only ben­e­fit from pub­lish­ing such a work of impor­tance and excel­lence, which will fur­ther the schol­ar­ly under­stand­ing and debate regard­ing a very impor­tant moment of mod­ern his­to­ry.”

    Aca­d­e­m­ic con­spir­a­cy of silence

    Katchanovs­ki declined to name the jour­nal in ques­tion, but described it as “top-tier” in the field of social sci­ences. He believes its refusal to pub­lish his study is “extra­or­di­nary,” but nonethe­less emblem­at­ic of a “far big­ger prob­lem in aca­d­e­m­ic pub­lish­ing and acad­e­mia.”

    “The edi­tor who accept­ed my arti­cle only learned it would not be pub­lished from my tweets on the sub­ject. This rever­sal was high­ly irreg­u­lar and polit­i­cal. There is grow­ing polit­i­cal cen­sor­ship con­cern­ing Ukraine in acad­e­mia, and also self-cen­sor­ship,” Katchanovs­ki told The Gray­zone. “Many schol­ars are afraid to con­duct evi­dence-based research that runs con­trary to estab­lished West­ern nar­ra­tives on Maid­an, the Rus­sia-Ukraine war, and oth­er issues relat­ed to the con­flicts in Ukraine Kiev fol­low­ing the 2014 coup.”

    By con­trast, the schol­ar said, those will­ing to “bla­tant­ly and uncrit­i­cal­ly par­rot West­ern nar­ra­tives,” even when their fables run “con­trary to evi­dence,” are reward­ed, and encounter no resis­tance to pub­lish­ing their work. Katchanovs­ki is well-posi­tioned to com­ment on aca­d­e­m­ic cen­sor­ship relat­ed to Ukraine: three oth­er jour­nals that accept­ed his papers after suc­cess­ful “expert” peer-review process­es also ulti­mate­ly refused to pub­lish.

    In Jan­u­ary 2023, for exam­ple, anoth­er aca­d­e­m­ic pub­li­ca­tion reject­ed a paper authored by Katchanovs­ki “for sim­i­lar polit­i­cal rea­sons.” The work exam­ined far-right involve­ment in the Don­bas civ­il war, and the May 2014 Odessa mas­sacre in which ultra-nation­al­ists forced pro-fed­er­al­ist, Rus­so­phone activists into the city’s Trade Unions House and set the build­ing on fire, killing dozens and wound­ing many more. As with the Maid­an sniper killings, no one has ever been brought to jus­tice for these heinous acts.

    Katchanovs­ki claims the journal’s edi­tor offered an assort­ment of excus­es for not mov­ing for­ward post-peer review. As pub­li­ca­tion approached, he said the edi­tor false­ly claimed the study was iden­ti­cal to his pre­vi­ous Maid­an mas­sacre oeu­vre. Yet an Ourig­i­nal soft­ware check con­firms the paper Katchanovs­ki sub­mit­ted bore no sim­i­lar­i­ty to his Maid­an study. The edi­tor also com­plained that he clas­si­fied the eight-year-long con­flict in Don­bas as a “civ­il war” which was ini­tial­ly pro­voked by Ukraine’s far-right.

    That same paper had been reject­ed by yet anoth­er jour­nal months ear­li­er, sim­i­lar­ly because Katchanovs­ki dared to describe the war in Don­bas as “civ­il, with Russ­ian mil­i­tary inter­ven­tions.” This char­ac­ter­i­za­tion is com­mon in the “major­i­ty of schol­ar­ly stud­ies” on the con­flict, he told The Gray­zone.

    That vio­lent far-right ele­ments were cen­tral­ly involved in the Ode­sa mas­sacre is con­firmed by copi­ous video footage and hard­ly con­tro­ver­sial. Why recog­ni­tion of this indis­putable fact was con­sid­ered over­ly con­tentious by an aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal remains unclear, but the ratio­nale behind the sup­pres­sion of Katchanovski’s Maid­an mas­sacre inves­ti­ga­tions is self-evi­dent.

    “This is done for polit­i­cal rea­sons. The main­stream media fol­lows their gov­ern­ments, not the facts. West­ern jour­nal­ists gross­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the Maid­an mas­sacre,” the schol­ar said. “With a few excep­tions, jour­nal­ists did not report videos of Maid­an-sup­port­ing snipers and their con­fes­sions, and tes­ti­monies of the wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers and sev­er­al hun­dred wit­ness­es con­cern­ing such snipers.”

    Far-right ele­ments dis­cuss vic­tim tal­ly with US offi­cials

    The open source evi­dence col­lect­ed by Katchanovs­ki per­sua­sive­ly sup­ports his con­clu­sion that the Maid­an mas­sacre “was a suc­cess­ful false flag oper­a­tion orga­nized and con­duct­ed by ele­ments of the Maid­an lead­er­ship and con­cealed groups of snipers in order to over­throw the gov­ern­ment and seize pow­er in Ukraine.”

    Among the trove are 14 videos depict­ing snipers nest­ing in Maid­an pro­test­er-con­trolled build­ings, 10 of which unam­bigu­ous­ly show shoot­ers tied to far-right groups ensconced in Hotel Ukraina, aim­ing at crowds of demon­stra­tors below, and shoot­ing at gov­ern­ment-aligned law enforce­ment offi­cials.

    Mean­while, syn­chro­nized videos demon­strate shots fired by the gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty forces ini­tial­ly charged with the mas­sacre do not coin­cide with the killing of pro­test­ers. Instead, the police offi­cers fired warn­ing shots at inan­i­mate objects such as lamp­posts, trees, and the ground in order to set­tle vio­lent crowds. They also fired into walls and win­dows where snipers in the Maid­an-con­trolled Hotel Ukraina were locat­ed, tar­get­ing the snipers nest­ed there.

    The Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al is expect­ed to issue its final ver­dict this autumn. Hun­dreds of wit­ness­es, includ­ing 51 pro­test­ers injured dur­ing the shoot­ing, have tes­ti­fied that they were shot at from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings or areas. Some said they wit­nessed snipers inside the build­ing. This nar­ra­tive is sup­port­ed by the inves­ti­ga­tions of gov­ern­ment bal­lis­tics experts. In all, 14 self-admit­ted mem­bers of the Maid­an sniper groups have have impli­cat­ed spe­cif­ic Maid­an snipers and lead­ers in the mas­sacre.

    Despite the groundswell of evi­dence point­ing toward a false-flag oper­a­tion, Katchanovs­ki has no faith the tri­al will get to the truth, or that its ver­dict will be based on the high­ly incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence amassed over pro­ceed­ings:

    “The pros­e­cu­tion sim­ply denied there were such snipers and did not inves­ti­gate them. Ukrain­ian courts lack inde­pen­dence and often base their deci­sions, espe­cial­ly in such high-pro­file and high­ly politi­cized cas­es, on direc­tives from the Pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion. It’s a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion for the judges and jury. There are threats from the far-right to not acquit police mem­bers.”

    There are oth­er rea­sons to sus­pect the ver­dict will be a white­wash. For one, the risk that the truth behind the events could impli­cate US offi­cials direct­ly in the killings, and more gen­er­al­ly the Maid­an coup, is con­sid­er­able. It is an axiomat­ic arti­cle of faith in the West­ern main­stream that Wash­ing­ton was in no way involved in the upheaval, despite moun­tains of hard proof to the con­trary.

    High-rank­ing mem­bers of the far-right Svo­bo­da par­ty, includ­ing its long­time leader Oleg Tyag­ni­bok, and his deputy Rus­lan Koshulin­skyi, have alleged that the Maid­an sniper slaugh­ter was close­ly coor­di­nat­ed with the US. Tyag­ni­bok has sworn that after the first four pro­test­ers were killed, he was shocked by the lack of inter­na­tion­al out­cry.

    “Why is there no reac­tion? This is not enough,” he claims to have lament­ed at the time.

    ...

    ———–

    “‘Rig­or­ous’ Maid­an mas­sacre exposé sup­pressed by top aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal” by Kit Klaren­berg; The Gray­zone; 03/12/2023

    “Katchanovs­ki declined to name the jour­nal in ques­tion, but described it as “top-tier” in the field of social sci­ences. He believes its refusal to pub­lish his study is “extra­or­di­nary,” but nonethe­less emblem­at­ic of a “far big­ger prob­lem in aca­d­e­m­ic pub­lish­ing and acad­e­mia.” ”

    This isn’t a sto­ry about a top tier aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal sim­ply turn­ing down a sub­mit­ted paper. If it was, there would­n’t real­ly be much of a sto­ry. No, this is as sto­ry about a promi­nent social sci­ences jour­nal ini­tial­ly accept­ing Ivan Katchanovski’s paper with minor revi­sions, along with effu­sive praise from the edi­tor, who described the study as “excep­tion­al in many ways” with “sol­id” evi­dence in sup­port of its con­clu­sions. Praise shared by the review­ers. Beyond that, the edi­tor was appar­ent­ly alert­ed to the spik­ing of the paper from Katchanovski’s own tweets on the mat­ter. In oth­er words, it was­n’t the edi­tor who made that at deci­sion to spike the paper. That’s the sto­ry here. It’s an aca­d­e­m­ic scan­dal. Or at least should be:

    ...
    In the final months of 2022, Katchanovs­ki sub­mit­ted a new inves­ti­ga­tion on the Maid­an mas­sacre to a promi­nent social sci­ences jour­nal. Ini­tial­ly accept­ed with minor revi­sions after exten­sive peer review, the publication’s edi­tor effu­sive­ly praised the work in a lengthy pri­vate note. They said the paper was “excep­tion­al in many ways,” and offered “sol­id” evi­dence in sup­port of its con­clu­sions. The review­ers con­curred with this judg­ment.

    How­ev­er, the paper was not pub­lished, a deci­sion Katchanovs­ki firm­ly believes to have been “polit­i­cal.” He filed an appeal, but to no avail.

    My appeal to jour­nal has been reject­ed even after let­ter of sup­port from world-renowned social sci­en­tist who con­tact­ed me because of my research con­cern­ing Maid­an mas­sacre & #UkraineRus­si­aWar. 4/ pic.twitter.com/DCE4uYmp9g— Ivan Katchanovs­ki (@I_Katchanovski) Jan­u­ary 6, 2023

    ...

    “The edi­tor who accept­ed my arti­cle only learned it would not be pub­lished from my tweets on the sub­ject. This rever­sal was high­ly irreg­u­lar and polit­i­cal. There is grow­ing polit­i­cal cen­sor­ship con­cern­ing Ukraine in acad­e­mia, and also self-cen­sor­ship,” Katchanovs­ki told The Gray­zone. “Many schol­ars are afraid to con­duct evi­dence-based research that runs con­trary to estab­lished West­ern nar­ra­tives on Maid­an, the Rus­sia-Ukraine war, and oth­er issues relat­ed to the con­flicts in Ukraine Kiev fol­low­ing the 2014 coup.”
    ...

    And it’s an aca­d­e­m­ic scan­dal that isn’t lim­it­ed to this unnamed top-tier jour­nal. Anoth­er Katchanovs­ki paper on the 2014 Odessa mas­sacre was sim­i­lar­ly spiked in Jan­u­ary. Except, in that case, the edi­tor actu­al­ly did the reject­ing them­selves, giv­ing rea­sons that ranged from claim­ing the paper was too sim­i­lar to Katchanovski’s pre­vi­ous work on the Maid­an sniper attacks (a non­sense claim) to com­plain­ing about Katchanovski’s accu­rate char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the eight-year-long con­flict in Don­bas as a “civ­il war”. Anoth­er pub­li­ca­tion reject­ed that same paper months ear­li­er for refer­ring to the con­flict as “civ­il, with Russ­ian mil­i­tary inter­ven­tions”. It’s a reflec­tion of how deeply cor­rupt­ed research on this area has become. We can’t even call a civ­il war a civ­il war. That’s the case through­out the aca­d­e­m­ic field, appar­ent­ly. It’s tru­ly Orwellian:

    ...
    By con­trast, the schol­ar said, those will­ing to “bla­tant­ly and uncrit­i­cal­ly par­rot West­ern nar­ra­tives,” even when their fables run “con­trary to evi­dence,” are reward­ed, and encounter no resis­tance to pub­lish­ing their work. Katchanovs­ki is well-posi­tioned to com­ment on aca­d­e­m­ic cen­sor­ship relat­ed to Ukraine: three oth­er jour­nals that accept­ed his papers after suc­cess­ful “expert” peer-review process­es also ulti­mate­ly refused to pub­lish.

    In Jan­u­ary 2023, for exam­ple, anoth­er aca­d­e­m­ic pub­li­ca­tion reject­ed a paper authored by Katchanovs­ki “for sim­i­lar polit­i­cal rea­sons.” The work exam­ined far-right involve­ment in the Don­bas civ­il war, and the May 2014 Odessa mas­sacre in which ultra-nation­al­ists forced pro-fed­er­al­ist, Rus­so­phone activists into the city’s Trade Unions House and set the build­ing on fire, killing dozens and wound­ing many more. As with the Maid­an sniper killings, no one has ever been brought to jus­tice for these heinous acts.

    Katchanovs­ki claims the journal’s edi­tor offered an assort­ment of excus­es for not mov­ing for­ward post-peer review. As pub­li­ca­tion approached, he said the edi­tor false­ly claimed the study was iden­ti­cal to his pre­vi­ous Maid­an mas­sacre oeu­vre. Yet an Ourig­i­nal soft­ware check con­firms the paper Katchanovs­ki sub­mit­ted bore no sim­i­lar­i­ty to his Maid­an study. The edi­tor also com­plained that he clas­si­fied the eight-year-long con­flict in Don­bas as a “civ­il war” which was ini­tial­ly pro­voked by Ukraine’s far-right.

    That same paper had been reject­ed by yet anoth­er jour­nal months ear­li­er, sim­i­lar­ly because Katchanovs­ki dared to describe the war in Don­bas as “civ­il, with Russ­ian mil­i­tary inter­ven­tions.” This char­ac­ter­i­za­tion is com­mon in the “major­i­ty of schol­ar­ly stud­ies” on the con­flict, he told The Gray­zone.

    That vio­lent far-right ele­ments were cen­tral­ly involved in the Ode­sa mas­sacre is con­firmed by copi­ous video footage and hard­ly con­tro­ver­sial. Why recog­ni­tion of this indis­putable fact was con­sid­ered over­ly con­tentious by an aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nal remains unclear, but the ratio­nale behind the sup­pres­sion of Katchanovski’s Maid­an mas­sacre inves­ti­ga­tions is self-evi­dent.

    “This is done for polit­i­cal rea­sons. The main­stream media fol­lows their gov­ern­ments, not the facts. West­ern jour­nal­ists gross­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the Maid­an mas­sacre,” the schol­ar said. “With a few excep­tions, jour­nal­ists did not report videos of Maid­an-sup­port­ing snipers and their con­fes­sions, and tes­ti­monies of the wound­ed Maid­an pro­test­ers and sev­er­al hun­dred wit­ness­es con­cern­ing such snipers.”
    ...

    Adding to the Orwellian nature of the sit­u­a­tion is the fact that so much of the evi­dence Katchanovs­ki relies on is open source evi­dence, like video footage of far right snipers aim­ing at crowds of demon­stra­tors below. It’s irrefutable. Hence the cen­sor­ship:

    ...
    The open source evi­dence col­lect­ed by Katchanovs­ki per­sua­sive­ly sup­ports his con­clu­sion that the Maid­an mas­sacre “was a suc­cess­ful false flag oper­a­tion orga­nized and con­duct­ed by ele­ments of the Maid­an lead­er­ship and con­cealed groups of snipers in order to over­throw the gov­ern­ment and seize pow­er in Ukraine.”

    Among the trove are 14 videos depict­ing snipers nest­ing in Maid­an pro­test­er-con­trolled build­ings, 10 of which unam­bigu­ous­ly show shoot­ers tied to far-right groups ensconced in Hotel Ukraina, aim­ing at crowds of demon­stra­tors below, and shoot­ing at gov­ern­ment-aligned law enforce­ment offi­cials.

    Mean­while, syn­chro­nized videos demon­strate shots fired by the gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty forces ini­tial­ly charged with the mas­sacre do not coin­cide with the killing of pro­test­ers. Instead, the police offi­cers fired warn­ing shots at inan­i­mate objects such as lamp­posts, trees, and the ground in order to set­tle vio­lent crowds. They also fired into walls and win­dows where snipers in the Maid­an-con­trolled Hotel Ukraina were locat­ed, tar­get­ing the snipers nest­ed there.
    ...

    Inter­est­ing­ly, Jef­frey Sachs is repris­ing his role as an elite crit­ic of US pol­i­cy. This is along­side his com­ments on the Nord Stream bomb­ing and the ori­gins of COVID. Sachs is on quite a roll of late:

    ...
    Among those fer­vent­ly sup­port­ing Katchanovski’s appeal was renowned US aca­d­e­m­ic Jef­frey Sachs. “You have writ­ten a very impor­tant, rig­or­ous, and sub­stan­tial arti­cle. It is thor­ough­ly doc­u­ment­ed. It is on a top­ic of great sig­nif­i­cance,” Sachs wrote to the schol­ar. “Your paper should be pub­lished for rea­sons of its excellence…The jour­nal will only ben­e­fit from pub­lish­ing such a work of impor­tance and excel­lence, which will fur­ther the schol­ar­ly under­stand­ing and debate regard­ing a very impor­tant moment of mod­ern his­to­ry.”
    ...

    Final­ly, note how Katchanovs­ki pre­dicts that the Maid­an sniper mas­sacre tri­al is expect­ed to issue its final ver­dict this autumn, over nine years lat­er. This is a good time to recall those omi­nous remarks by Ukraine’s then-Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al Yuriy Lut­senko back in 2016, when he warned the pub­lic that the man who assist­ed the “black hun­dred” was him­self part of the Maid­an protests. The com­ments echoed ear­li­er com­ments by Deputy Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine, Chief Mil­i­tary Pros­e­cu­tor Ana­toliy Matios said: “When pub­lic learns who is involved in this, peo­ple will be very sur­prised.” Accord­ing to him, infor­ma­tion to be pub­lished may cause rejec­tion, “but the truth is the truth.” We’ve been get­ting warn­ings from Ukrain­ian pub­lic offi­cials for years now that a big ‘sur­prise’ await­ed the pub­lic in this inves­ti­ga­tion. That’s part the con­text of the Katchanovk­si’s skep­ti­cism about a fair tri­al. There is sim­ply no way the truth will be allowed to come out in the mid­dle of this war:

    ...
    The Maid­an mas­sacre tri­al is expect­ed to issue its final ver­dict this autumn. Hun­dreds of wit­ness­es, includ­ing 51 pro­test­ers injured dur­ing the shoot­ing, have tes­ti­fied that they were shot at from Maid­an-con­trolled build­ings or areas. Some said they wit­nessed snipers inside the build­ing. This nar­ra­tive is sup­port­ed by the inves­ti­ga­tions of gov­ern­ment bal­lis­tics experts. In all, 14 self-admit­ted mem­bers of the Maid­an sniper groups have have impli­cat­ed spe­cif­ic Maid­an snipers and lead­ers in the mas­sacre.

    Despite the groundswell of evi­dence point­ing toward a false-flag oper­a­tion, Katchanovs­ki has no faith the tri­al will get to the truth, or that its ver­dict will be based on the high­ly incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence amassed over pro­ceed­ings:

    “The pros­e­cu­tion sim­ply denied there were such snipers and did not inves­ti­gate them. Ukrain­ian courts lack inde­pen­dence and often base their deci­sions, espe­cial­ly in such high-pro­file and high­ly politi­cized cas­es, on direc­tives from the Pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion. It’s a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion for the judges and jury. There are threats from the far-right to not acquit police mem­bers.”
    ...

    Who will ulti­mate­ly be blamed for the sniper attacks in the final ver­dict? We’ll find out. But note one of the fac­tors in place that is going to help ensure the truth is nev­er revealed: far right threats against the courts. Yes, the far right sniper mas­sacres of 2014 are poised to remain cov­ered up in 2023 thanks, in part, to the far right threats against judges and juries that can be issued with impuni­ty in con­tem­po­rary Ukraine. Coups have con­se­quences. It would be nice if we were allowed to learn them.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | March 21, 2023, 3:30 pm

  18. Democ­ra­cy is in per­il glob­al­ly. That’s an easy call. What to do about that per­il isn’t so easy. But if there’s one thing that’s more or less uni­ver­sal­ly use­ful and near uni­ver­sal­ly lack­ing in our mod­ern mod­ern it’s con­text. Mean­ing­ful con­text need­ed to wrap our heads around the chal­lenges we’re fac­ing. So with that per­pet­u­al chal­lenge in mind as the world teeters on the brink of WWIII as the long-term con­se­quences of the 2014 regime change oper­a­tion in Ukraine con­tin­ues to play out, here’s an excerpt from a mas­sive piece in Covert Action Mag­a­zine pro­vid­ing some of that much need­ed con­text. Specif­i­cal­ly, the con­text of 20th and 21st cen­tu­ry regime-change method­olo­gies. Method­olo­gies — Includ­ing false flag sniper attacks — that have been wild­ly suc­cess­ful whether applied against author­i­tar­i­an regimes or demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties. Over and over: Syr­ia 1982, Roma­nia 1989, Venezuela 2002, Thai­land 2010, Syr­ia 2011, Yemen 2011, Nicaragua 2018. It’s all part of the con­text of our march to WWIII:

    Covert Action Mag­a­zine

    Ukraine 2014: The Tip­ping Point of Ter­ror

    By Jim Cole -
    April 2, 2023

    Part I of a CAM inves­ti­ga­tion into the ori­gins of the Ukraine War: U.S. and NATO involve­ment in the Feb­ru­ary 2014 Coup and Maid­an Mas­sacre, and their his­tor­i­cal antecedents

    As I write, the world is on the edge of nuclear and human­i­tar­i­an crises after a year of the Ukraine “proxy” war with Rus­sia. No sin­gle event can be seen as the sole cause, but the most dra­mat­ic lurch in the sto­ry was the “Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty” in Ukraine in Novem­ber 2013 to Feb­ru­ary 2014, notably the hor­rif­ic mas­sacre of pro­test­ers and police in Maid­an (Inde­pen­dence) Square on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014.

    With­out dis­miss­ing the large sec­tors of Ukrain­ian soci­ety with legit­i­mate griev­ances against cor­rup­tion and stag­na­tion, this was a bloody coup d’état, engi­neered large­ly by the U.S. over years with parts played by NATO pup­pets and local prox­ies. Vik­tor Yanukovych was elect­ed in inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized fair elec­tions, and new elec­tions were planned to occur with­in a year. But pow­er­ful inter­ests and a large sec­tion of the pub­lic believed it could not wait as he could not be trust­ed. And he was chased out of the coun­try like a hunt­ed ani­mal.

    And, like all “col­or rev­o­lu­tions,” despite the under­ly­ing legit­i­mate griev­ances, it was no true upheaval or rev­o­lu­tion at all, it was sim­ply local elites of the same class switch­ing their alle­giances to anoth­er exter­nal pow­er. As Ukrain­ian polit­i­cal researcher Volodymyr Ishchenko describes, four groups gained pow­er after the vio­lent 2014 coup: “the oli­garchic oppo­si­tion, the NGOs, the far right and Wash­ing­ton-Brus­sels.”[1]

    Many pro­test­ers con­gre­gat­ed in Maid­an Square from late Novem­ber to Feb­ru­ary, sparked by the gov­ern­ments ret­i­cence to agree to the EU asso­ci­a­tion agree­ment and its claus­es on eco­nom­ic reform. Ini­tial­ly peace­ful, the protests expe­ri­enced peri­od­ic esca­la­tions in vio­lence, often pre­cip­i­tat­ed when things were set­tling down.

    But it was the sniper attack of Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014, that was the cru­cial event that pushed things over the edge and led to the vio­lent over­throw of the gov­ern­ment, the con­sol­i­da­tion of ele­ments of fas­cist pow­er in the gov­ern­ment, and snow­balled into the annex­a­tion of Crimea, a civ­il (and proxy) war in Don­bas and the 2022 Russ­ian “inva­sion” or “Spe­cial Oper­a­tion Z,” depend­ing on which side of the prism one is. The offi­cial and West­ern-implied view is that it was Yanukovych, or per­haps Russ­ian-backed snipers, behind the mas­sacre, yet those events received bare­ly any cov­er­age and no con­clu­sive inves­ti­ga­tion or tri­al has occurred.

    Who were the snipers? Who trained them? Who paid them? Who planned it? Who ordered it? Who ben­e­fit­ed? Who cov­ered it up and why?

    The Lib­er­al-Fas­cist Alliance: Impe­r­i­al Ter­ror­ism

    Before we look at the influ­ence of U.S. soft pow­er on events, it is essen­tial to con­sid­er the his­to­ry of U.S. sup­port of fas­cist and nation­al­ist groups dur­ing the Cold War, includ­ing the recruit­ment of hun­dreds of Nazis in the Rein­hardt Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion to devel­op the Ger­man Bun­desnachrich­t­en­di­enst (BND)[2] and the use of dias­po­ra Croa­t­ian and Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists-fas­cists as spies and covert actors.[3]

    ...

    When your modus operan­di is anti-com­mu­nism, fas­cists are your best friends. In fact, the rabid anti-com­mu­nism was and is itself a front for cor­po­rate impe­ri­al­ism, and its true aim was and is to crush any resis­tance, whether it is indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty or an unco­op­er­a­tive local elite.

    In the recent post-war U.S. con­text, in par­al­lel to the “left-hand” overt and covert sup­port of cen­ter-left polit­i­cal actors—a sort of “democ­ra­cy washing”—there were simul­ta­ne­ous “right-hand” covert recruit­ments of fas­cist mili­tias across the world. In Europe (and Turkey), for exam­ple, there were (are?) the Oper­a­tion Glad­io-type mil­i­tary-intel­li­gence “stay-behind oper­a­tions” that also appar­ent­ly prac­ticed a “strat­e­gy of ten­sion” ter­ror­ism under U.S.-NATO con­trol.[6]

    Sim­i­lar impe­r­i­al ter­ror strate­gies of sab­o­tage, death squads, tor­ture and pro­pa­gan­da were also used in Asia (e.g., the CIA’s Edward Lansdale/General Thé’s ter­ror­ist bomb­ing cam­paign in Saigon 1952–53,[7] Oper­a­tion Phoenix in Viet­nam and sim­i­lar oper­a­tions ear­li­er in the Philip­pines and Indone­sia), Latin Amer­i­ca (e.g., fund­ing, train­ing and intel­li­gence sup­port for police, mil­i­tary and para­mil­i­taries in Oper­a­tion Con­dor coun­terin­sur­gency in the South­ern Cone and death squads in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Sal­vador) and the Mid­dle East, such as Shah-era SAVAK tor­ture and assas­si­na­tion and the use of so-called Muja­hadeen, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, al-Qae­da and ISIS-ISIL mer­ce­nary-ter­ror­ist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syr­ia.[8]

    Lest we for­get, the Home­land is no excep­tion to impe­r­i­al aggres­sion, and coun­terin­sur­gency (includ­ing provo­ca­teurism and ter­ror) was and is rife; the FBI’s COINTELPRO was the ene­my of any group even hint­ing at chal­leng­ing the pow­er struc­ture and would not hes­i­tate to intim­i­date, incar­cer­ate or assas­si­nate (most often in overzeal­ous police raids as in Fred Hampton’s case), espe­cial­ly when their tar­gets got geopo­lit­i­cal­ly wise; its PATCON agents (includ­ing a Ger­man BND agent)[9] rid­dled and pro­voked the right-wing mili­tia move­ment in the 1990s; the CIA’s Oper­a­tion CHAOS along with Army intel­li­gence mon­i­tored hun­dreds of thou­sands of anti-war activists and infil­trat­ed, rat­tled and incit­ed thou­sands of orga­ni­za­tions; and the FBI’s GOON squads ter­ror­ized and neu­tral­ized the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment.[10] Once one under­stands that the pri­or­i­ty is counterinsurgency—elite pow­er pro­tect­ing itself—and not pub­lic or nation­al safe­ty, the vio­lence and ille­gal­i­ty of these oper­a­tions are inde­fen­si­ble. And this is per­haps only the tip of a vast and dis­turb­ing ice­berg, not to men­tion the links almost always found, when one takes the time to dig, between intel­li­gence agents and ter­ror­ist acts on even cur­so­ry research of an event.

    Back to for­eign pol­i­cy: in the end, to win a client-state against the inter­ests of the major­i­ty of its cit­i­zens, a final push of ter­ror, shock and vio­lence is often need­ed for both regime change and—once a state is a client—to pro­tect the regime with coun­terin­sur­gency oper­a­tions. Once the mass­es are ter­ror­ized and trau­ma­tized or dis­en­fran­chised, it is much eas­i­er to main­tain the sta­tus quo, and the elites might con­sid­er the coun­try “sta­bi­lized.”

    But the goons and dra­goons that do the dirty work of empire are large­ly only pawns, rad­i­cal­ized with weaponized nation­al­ism to face killing and death with­out squint­ing in the ser­vice of empire. Mean­while, safe­ly a few steps detached and hid­den behind the façade of lib­er­al­ism or feigned benev­o­lence and end­less trails of front orga­ni­za­tions, the pow­er play­ers keep their hands clean and faces out of sight. These psy­chot­ic pup­peteers use their psy­chot­ic pup­pets as agents of chaos, divi­sion and ter­ror against the mass­es and their ene­mies.

    In Ukraine, you do not have to look far to see an 80-year his­to­ry of U.S. med­dling with fas­cist groups for their own ends. The old­est is the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN) which was formed in the 1920s, made up the 14th Waf­fen SS Divi­sion dur­ing World War II, and its Ban­dera OUN‑B branch. After OUN head Stepan Ban­dera was killed in 1959, Yaroslav Stet­sko became its leader and, like many fas­cist-nation­al­ist lead­ers across East­ern Europe, was cho­sen by U.S. intelligence—initially mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, lat­er the CIA—as their man to fight com­mu­nism by any means nec­es­sary and, ulti­mate­ly, like all of these brain­washed psy­chos, as a tool of U.S. impe­ri­al­ism.[11]

    More recent groups are the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Assembly—Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), found­ed in the 1990; its 2013 off­shoot, Right (Pravy) Sec­tor, found­ed by Dmytro Yarosh; and Svo­bo­da, formed from the OUN.

    All of these ultra-nation­al­ist groups and more were sup­port­ed by U.S. politi­cians and agen­cies before the coup, were present at Maid­an, and formed the lead­er­ship and major­i­ty of the “Maid­an self-defense.” Svoboda—supported by the U.S.—had already gained 10% of the vote by 2012, no doubt thanks to a savvy polit­i­cal groom­ing of their leader and vio­lent anti-Semi­te Oleh Tyah­ny­bok.[12] After the coup, Svo­bo­da and Right Sec­tor lead­er­ship gained promi­nent posi­tions in Poroshenko’s post-coup gov­ern­ment. Svoboda’s new politi­cians, for exam­ple, includ­ed Olek­san­dr Sych as Vice Pre­mier for Eco­nom­ic Affairs, co-founder Andriy Paru­biy as Sec­re­tary of the Secu­ri­ty and Nation­al Defense Com­mit­tee, as well as min­is­ters for edu­ca­tion, agri­cul­ture, and the envi­ron­ment.[13]

    One can also see “Gladio‑B” par­al­lels in the use of jihadists, muja­hadeen and “mod­er­ate rebels” in the 1980s to the present, and some con­sid­er the train­ing, fund­ing and arm­ing of neo-fas­cists more recent­ly as a “Gladio‑C.” (As a report by the Counter Extrem­ism Project stat­ed in an April 2020 report on Ukraine: “In 2019, right-wing extrem­ism effec­tive­ly replaced jiha­di ter­ror­ism as the num­ber one threat to internal/homeland secu­ri­ty of the coun­tries of the broad­er West.”)[14]

    In many of these projects there have been accu­sa­tions of assas­si­na­tion and ter­ror­ism, includ­ing “false-flag” oper­a­tions that blame an atroc­i­ty or out­rage on the tar­get in order to increase state author­i­ty, desta­bi­lize and weak­en ene­mies, pre­cip­i­tate inva­sion or inter­ven­tion, dri­ve the per­ma­nent war econ­o­my and mar­gin­al­ize left-wing (or more cor­rect­ly, “non-aligned”) pol­i­tics.

    As Ital­ian fas­cist and con­vict­ed bomber Vin­cen­zo Vin­ciguer­ra said in 1992 of CIA-NATO Oper­a­tion Gladio’s strat­e­gy of ten­sion that killed hun­dreds in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s: “You were sup­posed to attack civil­ians, women children…innocent peo­ple out­side of the polit­i­cal are­na for one sim­ple rea­son: To force the Ital­ian pub­lic to turn to the state…turn to the regime and ask for greater secu­ri­ty.”[15] It is the elite’s covert use of mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence, police and para­mil­i­tary fas­cist might to main­tain con­trol in so-called lib­er­al democ­ra­cies.

    As well as state ter­ror­ism, these sleep­er cell “stay-behind net­works” also per­form sab­o­tage oper­a­tions, and there is no doubt that equiv­a­lent forces are still active and under CIA-DIA-NATO direc­tion in most ene­my states, includ­ing Rus­sia and Belarus.[16] And it seems such cells were acti­vat­ed there before the Russ­ian attack of Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022.

    Main­stream media, par­tic­u­lar­ly recent­ly, claim Ukraine as a legit­i­mate democ­ra­cy, with the defense that the par­lia­men­tary vote is less right wing than oth­er Euro­pean nations. How­ev­er, the con­tin­ued co-opt­ing of fas­cists into state pow­er by oth­er means, and rev­er­ence for fas­cist heroes such as Stepan Ban­dera, speaks of deep­er roots. For exam­ple, in the ear­ly 1990s, offi­cials from the Ukraine Defense Min­istry attend­ed an SS Gali­cian Divi­sion reunion in Kyiv, whilst a sim­i­lar reunion occurred in Lviv, endorsed by the city coun­cil and cel­e­brat­ed with the renam­ing of a street after Stepan Ban­dera, one that iron­i­cal­ly had been called Peace Street.[17]

    More recent­ly, as part of a tsuna­mi-lev­el neo-lib­er­al PR cam­paign, the fas­cist brown is lib­er­al­ly white­washed by both inter­nal play­ers seek­ing polit­i­cal pow­er and the exter­nal U.S. and EU pow­er-bro­kers not want­i­ng their pawns weak­ened. It is impor­tant to look for blips in this white­wash­ing to see behind the pro­pa­gan­da to the true pow­er of fas­cists in Ukraine. When you rule by fear, you do not need to be large in num­ber, only in the right posi­tions to cre­ate, val­i­date and use that fear.

    The fact that Zelen­sky is Jew­ish is often men­tioned by the naïve or decep­tive as an obvi­ous sign that “Ukraine can’t be that fas­cist.” But this ignores the strange bed­fel­lows of mon­ey and pow­er pol­i­tics, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a region that has been pumped full of aid, gas mon­ey, cor­rupt­ed invest­ment and pro­pa­gan­da for decades, and has long been a bat­tle­ground between the U.S. and Rus­sia as well as between a large minor­i­ty of Ukraini­ans and Rus­sia.

    Behind Zelen­sky and many of the noto­ri­ous nation­al­ist-fas­cist mili­tias in the Don­bas war, such as the Azov Bat­tal­ion, is Ihor Kolo­moisky, the Pri­vat­Bank and Buris­ma-linked bil­lion­aire.

    Not only is he accused by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice of mil­lions in fraud and embez­zle­ment, but Fed­er­al Court records show a far greater lev­el of embez­zle­ment that trig­gered a reces­sion in Ukraine: “Between 2006 and 2015, more than $4.45 bil­lion was trans­ferred with­out any appar­ent effort by the banks or the gov­ern­ment to stem the move­ment of dol­lars as the oli­garch and his part­ners acquired an enor­mous [U.S.] real estate port­fo­lio.”[18] Yet, for the most part, the gov­ern­ment, Deutsche Bank and main­stream media con­tin­ue to look the oth­er way. “He might be a total­ly cor­rupt oli­garch with no morals, but he’s our guy!”

    Apart from the shared source of income, Ukrain­ian politi­cians have had very real threats of assas­si­na­tion from the neo-fas­cists, and I believe they con­tin­ue to take them seri­ous­ly.

    Like oth­er post-Sovi­et coun­tries, Ukrain­ian civic activists, large­ly work­ing for or influ­enced by U.S. and EU-fund­ed NGOs, can hold what can seem a para­dox­i­cal com­bi­na­tion of nation­al­ist, neo-lib­er­al and pro-EU views.[19] For exam­ple, dur­ing the 2013–14 protests, the Euro­Maid­an press—a George Soros-fund­ed media cen­tral to the move­ment—pub­lished a piece defend­ing even clear­ly hard-line fas­cists such as Dmytro Yarosh and their vio­lence as a nec­es­sary force for change. Para­dox­i­cal views, like cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance, are a sign that you are being manip­u­lat­ed.

    A sort of “my bul­ly is the good bul­ly” moral ambi­gu­i­ty, and a recipe for esca­la­tion and dis­as­ter. This will­ing­ness to co-opt extrem­ism (or be co-opt­ed by extrem­ists) even extends to ISIS-trained Jiha­di fight­ers of the Sheikh Mansur Brigade, who came fresh from Syr­ia and were man­aged by the Right Sec­tor in the war in Don­bas.

    Even more broad­ly, lib­er­als seem not to grasp nor have mem­o­ry of basic geopol­i­tics, the “offen­sive real­ist” or realpoli­tik view as open­ly decreed by many prophets of U.S. impe­r­i­al pol­i­cy like Zbig­niew Brzezin­s­ki, George Ken­nan, Robert Gates, Alexan­der Haig and the neo­cons of the Project for a New Amer­i­can Cen­tu­ry (PNAC)—let alone the covert action, soft pow­er and slick PR that hides realpoli­tik behind a façade of a sur­re­al Dis­ney-on-the-Death­star show.

    They are trapped by their own priv­i­lege, a fram­ing by cor­po­rate media, and in the naïve belief that their lead­ers prac­tice what they preach as their bil­lion-dol­lar PR cam­paigns turn dark­ness into light. I call it the “pro­pa­gan­das­cope.”

    In this insane view, com­plete acqui­es­cence to U.S./NATO/West/North—whatever you want to call the neo-lib­er­al empire—is called “neu­tral­i­ty”; there are no oth­er ways of liv­ing; his­to­ry is over and resis­tance is futile. And because of its right­eous­ness, its pro­fessed lib­er­al values—its true sole val­ue being elite prof­it motive—it is an inevitable and man­i­fest des­tiny, as the unprece­dent­ed power­bro­kers of the first Amer­i­can cen­tu­ry, like the Dulles broth­ers and Hen­ry Luce—all sons of Pres­by­ter­ian ministers—believed. Amer­i­ca, god and the free mar­ket.

    Soft-Pow­er Impe­ri­al­ism

    “In a coun­terin­sur­gency sit­u­a­tion the pri­ma­ry sources of insur­gent strength are not a strong mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion and its tech­no­log­i­cal indus­tri­al sup­port, but the sources of dis­con­tent of the peo­ple with­in the nation, and thus, the peo­ple them­selves.” — Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Research Office, 1962 [20]

    The great­est trick of empire is to hide in plain sight; the main aims of empire are to pro­tect itself, neu­tral­ize its threats and to grow. Its main weapon for all of this is psychology—the appeal of virtue on one side, the threat of fear and anger on the other—and the most pow­er­ful form of this is the polit­i­cal use of atroc­i­ty to con­trol the pop­u­la­tion.

    After the expo­sures of clan­des­tine impe­ri­al­ism of the CIA, et al., in the 1970s’ con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tions, and relat­ed whistle­blow­ing from greats like Philip Agee (who inci­den­tal­ly offers an excel­lent, con­cise descrip­tion of soft pow­er in this 2005 inter­view), John Stock­well and Ralph McGe­hee, the CIA’s polit­i­cal action meth­ods of impe­ri­al­ism evolved to overt soft pow­er meth­ods of NGOs, as neo-lib­er­al­ism and spin took hold after the 1970s scan­dals and Viet­nam fail­ure.

    The New Cold War start­ed as the last one was end­ing, with a U.S. dri­ve for glob­al unipo­lar “benev­o­lent” hege­mo­ny, lat­er termed “full-spec­trum dom­i­nance.” USAID began Ukraine projects in 1991 and recent­ly described its inter­ven­tions there as a 30-year part­ner­ship that “helped estab­lish a vibrant and inde­pen­dent media, an active civ­il soci­ety, and a broad­er entre­pre­neur­ial class.”

    This ground­work and astro­turf­ing ensures that devel­op­ment is toward the Amer­i­can bea­con and sphere of influ­ence in terms of pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, mil­i­tary, nation­al secu­ri­ty, civ­il soci­ety, labor, acad­e­mia, cul­ture and media; most impor­tant­ly, it is intend­ed that mar­kets and resources (such as gas) are opened for U.S. and Euro­pean multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate exploita­tion.

    As more and more soft-pow­er influ­ence has devel­oped through count­less and ever-mul­ti­ply­ing USAID, State Depart­ment, Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy (NED) as well as Euro­pean and the “phil­an­thropic” projects of George Soros [whose Inter­na­tion­al Renais­sance Foun­da­tion (IRF) has been in Ukraine since 1989] and Pierre Omid­yar, events in Ukraine esca­lat­ed under Oba­ma and through State Depart­ment ‑eocons such as Vic­to­ria Nuland and their Mil­i­tary-Indus­tri­al con­nec­tions.

    Nuland is the ex-CEO of war hawk Demo­c­ra­t­ic think tank Cen­ter for a New Amer­i­can Secu­ri­ty (CNAS) and wife of PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan. Might as well call them all Republocrats or Demubli­cans, espe­cial­ly when it comes to impe­r­i­al for­eign pol­i­cy.

    Soft pow­er includes polit­i­cal, diplo­mat­ic, cul­tur­al and media influ­ence to co-opt civic and polit­i­cal lead­ers and cap­ture the hearts and minds of the peo­ple. The dark­er side of this is sanc­tions, weaponiz­ing aid (includ­ing IMF aid) as lever­age as well as covert actions such as sab­o­tage, provo­ca­teurism, assas­si­na­tions and oth­er “desta­bi­liza­tions” to cre­ate a soci­ety rot­ten-ripe for regime change. We will dis­cuss the soft pow­er appa­ra­tus devel­oped in Ukraine in more detail in part II

    Regime Change

    Regime change requires an infil­tra­tion of soci­ety by the flow of (large­ly U.S. tax­pay­er) mon­ey to build infra­struc­ture and cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal influ­ence in a tar­get state over years. In cur­rent USAID Orwellian par­lance, these soft-pow­er projects are called “sta­bi­liza­tion and tran­si­tion,” i.e., desta­bi­liza­tion and regime change.

    The local effect of each dol­lar and each project ampli­fies and is ampli­fied by the lev­el of pub­lic dis­con­tent, the weak­ness of local gov­ern­ment and the lev­el of oppo­si­tion con­trol of local and inter­na­tion­al media. Although col­or rev­o­lu­tions are large­ly an infor­ma­tion war of hearts and minds, where the gov­ern­ment is legit­i­mate and has sig­nif­i­cant local sup­port, bru­tal tac­tics of insur­gency are ulti­mate­ly need­ed for regime change.

    The main strate­gies of regime change are:

    1. Soft pow­er: Pro­vide weaponized aid, devel­op­ment, human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance and media to win pub­lic opin­ion, ide­ol­o­gy and cul­ture.
    2. Polit­i­cal co-opt­ing: Co-opt and unite oppo­si­tion, ide­al­ly includ­ing mil­i­tary lead­ers.
    3. Polit­i­cal groom­ing: Train and fund a new gen­er­a­tion of overt agents of change, the future polit­i­cal lead­ers (e.g., the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s “Young Glob­al Lead­ers” pro­gram).
    4. Covert Action/Black oper­a­tions: Train and fund covert agents of change (often fas­cist or extrem­ist) to do the dirty work of insur­gency and coun­terin­sur­gency.
    5. Nar­ra­tive con­trol: Devel­op a sym­pa­thet­ic media.
    6. Eco­nom­ic war­fare: Diplo­mat­ic iso­la­tion, sanc­tions and sab­o­tage to “make the econ­o­my scream.”[21]
    7. Mobi­liza­tion: Orga­nize mass protests and PR with media con­trol, while also warn­ing that “there will be blood.”
    8. Provo­ca­teurism: Goons and dra­goons of pow­er engi­neer provo­ca­tion, con­fronta­tion, out­rage and chaos and the soft arm con­trols the media analy­sis through imme­di­ate (social media), short (main­stream news) and long term (NGO reports and books).
    9. Assas­si­na­tion of key polit­i­cal leader or false flag tar­get­ing oppo­si­tion leader or pub­lic cit­i­zens.
    10. Denial and cov­er-up via cen­sor­ship, pro­pa­gan­da and nar­ra­tive bias. It helps if you built the whole medi­a­s­phere.

    Dominique Fon­vielle, who spent 15 years as an ana­lyst with France’s for­eign secret ser­vice, Direc­tion Générale de la Sécu­rité Extérieure (DGSE), described the fol­low­ing steps of regime change to Ger­man film­mak­er Susanne Brand­staet­ter in 2003:[22]

    1. Iden­ti­fy oppo­si­tion forces to desta­bi­lize rul­ing regime (need to be cred­i­ble and influ­en­tial)
    2. Effec­tive pro­pa­gan­da to smear the rul­ing regime
    3. Pre­pare (con­vinc­ing) future head of state and staff
    4. Cre­ate rev­o­lu­tion­ary milieu
    5. Spark a revolution/coup.

    The meth­ods of covert action for tak­ing pow­er with insur­gency or secur­ing pow­er with coun­terin­sur­gency are ulti­mate­ly the same: tar­get­ing a group of peo­ple to neu­tral­ize them by get­ting infor­ma­tion, ruin­ing their rep­u­ta­tion and dis­rupt­ing their func­tion.

    The U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy machin­ery is entire­ly geared to grind down coun­tries that resist its dri­ve for polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion. Coups are planned well in advance and cost a lot of mon­ey.

    A key mid-lev­el oper­a­tor of the Ukraine 2014 coup, Vic­to­ria Nuland, esti­mat­ed that the U.S. had spent $5 bil­lon on civic, polit­i­cal and media projects in Ukraine from 1991 to the end of 2013, and I pre­sume this does not include astro­nom­i­cal bud­gets for mil­i­tary, para­mil­i­tary or covert actions; pri­vate oli­garch NGOs like those of Soros, Omid­yar, Gates and Thiel; nor does it include behind-the-scenes deals or the car­rot-and-stick use of IMF and World Bank loans and diplo­mat­ic pres­sure on NATO allies that, regard­less, aim to dri­ve neo-lib­er­al eco­nom­ic reform and the loot­ing of pub­lic resources and infra­struc­ture.

    Nuland announced her fig­ure proud­ly at a U.S.-Ukraine Foun­da­tion meet­ing in 2013, with a large Chevron sign next to her. Did Ukraini­ans on the street not see this? Or did they not see it for what it was?

    The Amer­i­cans have more­over com­plete­ly deceived the Ukrain­ian peo­ple and the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment with regard to the com­plete­ly unre­al­is­tic vic­to­ry of Ukraine in this war, in my opin­ion, because in any case the big los­er in this war is Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion itself and also as a con­se­quence Europe with all the cri­sis in which it was engulfed by the will of the politi­cians.

    — Pierre de Gaulle, grand­son of Charles de Gaulle, Decem­ber 2022[23]

    Like most regime-change oper­a­tions, the 2014 coup involved a two-edged (Glad­io) sword approach: one side soft, neo-lib­er­al, polit­i­cal and “diplo­mat­ic”; the oth­er side hard, dirty, bloody and fas­cist. The for­mer co-opts the public’s gen­uine lib­er­al aims and griev­ances against eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, author­i­tar­i­an ten­den­cies and cor­rup­tion. The lat­ter is covert action; gen­er­al­ly out­sourced to local extrem­ists and non-local pri­vate mer­ce­nar­ies, train­ing and hir­ing extrem­ists to do the dirty work when need­ed.

    In Ukraine’s case, it is clear fas­cist extrem­ists were involved by the promi­nent posi­tion as “Maid­an secu­ri­ty” pro­vok­ing vio­lence and in the post-coup gov­ern­ment posi­tions they were reward­ed with after the coup. The far-right Svo­bo­da (orig­i­nal­ly the “Social­ist-Nation­al­ist Par­ty”), Right Sec­tor, Azov Bat­tal­ion and C14. The Azov Bat­tal­ion, dis­missed by NATO media as a minor aber­ra­tion, post-coup became an offi­cial branch of the Ukraine Army num­ber­ing tens of thou­sands.

    It is also clear fas­cists were involved in esca­lat­ing the vio­lence, and are proud of the mus­cle they flexed—C14 head Yevhen Karas recent­ly pro­claimed that the 2014 “Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instru­men­tal role of neo-Nazis. The mod­er­ates and many lib­er­al-pro­gres­sive activists con­sid­ered groups like Svo­bo­da as the only par­ty of action, mak­ing a deal with the dev­il, and some insist­ed at the time, such as the Euro­Maid­an Press (fund­ed by Soros’s IRF) that the Nation­al­ist fas­cists such as Dmytro Yarosh are need­ed to pro­tect cit­i­zens from the state vio­lence of lead­ers like Yanukovych; “Some­one who is ready to risk his life so I can live in free­dom and peace—can‘t be a bad guy. It’s that sim­ple.”[24]

    Strange bed­fel­lows (and trag­ic naïveté), indeed.

    ...

    Protest provo­ca­tion can be used by or against a host gov­ern­ment, i.e., for coun­terin­sur­gency or insur­gency, respec­tive­ly. Regime-change (i.e., insur­gent) protests are increased by soft-pow­er means and PR, but ugli­er meth­ods of agent provo­ca­teurs and para­mil­i­taries are used to bring seri­ous con­flict, out­rage and a sense of chaos and ille­git­i­ma­cy of the tar­get gov­ern­ment that can only be quenched by a volte-face or mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion. How­ev­er, to frame the atroc­i­ty in favor of insurgency/the oppo­si­tion, the (major­i­ty) media must be under con­trol, to fan the flames of jus­tice or revenge and to man­age a cov­er-up. This requires co-ordi­na­tion of social media cam­paigns, local news net­works and amiable/compliant inter­na­tion­al media, NGOs, com­men­ta­tors, for­eign gov­ern­ments and acad­e­mia to form a pro­pa­gan­da mul­ti­pli­er, which takes years of invest­ment and devel­op­ment by the impe­r­i­al gov­ern­ment. We will dis­cuss the Ukraine impe­r­i­al medi­a­s­phere lat­er.

    But let’s first look at some his­tor­i­cal events with sim­i­lar­i­ties to what hap­pened in Feb­ru­ary 2014 in Kyiv: para­mil­i­taries, ter­ror­ists or mer­ce­nar­ies ran­dom­ly fir­ing on crowds to pro­voke insur­gency.

    Syr­ia 1982

    Hama upris­ing, Feb­ru­ary 3, 1982: After years of ter­ror cam­paigns and bru­tal reprisals, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood snipers ambushed a gov­ern­ment soldier’s patrol and their com­man­der, Abu Bakr (Umar Jawwad), declared Jihad against the Ba’athist Assad regime. The Defense Intel­li­gence Agency (DIA) esti­mat­ed a few months lat­er that 2,000 died over the three-week bat­tle, includ­ing sol­diers, jihadists and civil­ians. [29] Many sub­se­quent­ly sug­gest much high­er num­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly of civil­ians. The jihadists, desir­ing an Islam­ic state, were well-fund­ed and well-armed, with U.S. weapons, com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment and the back­ing of U.S.-allied Jor­da­ni­ans, Chris­t­ian Lebanese and Iraqis. [30]

    Although not fir­ing on a protest and not obvi­ous­ly a false flag, it was a for­eign-fund­ed insur­rec­tion, and the for­eign media blamed the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment almost exclu­sive­ly for the blood­shed, ignor­ing the oppo­si­tion vio­lence (a com­mon theme). As the Defense Intel­li­gence Agency (DIA; if you haven’t heard of them, the largest of intel­li­gence agen­cies, it is because they are bet­ter at their job than the oth­ers) report stat­ed in 1982: “Even if the plan were not suc­cess­ful the Hama rebel­lion could become a sym­bol­ic ral­ly­ing point for future anti-gov­ern­ment activ­i­ties.” As in many oth­er inter­ven­tions before and since, extrem­ists are used as a “bat­ter­ing ram” or “chaos agents” to foment regime change, and the asso­ci­a­tion is either denied or white­washed by the con­trol of the media.

    Roma­nia 1989

    Pos­si­bly along with the use of snipers in Moscow in 1993, Romania—December 1989—appears to be a rare exam­ple of a co‑U.S. and Sovi­et black oper­a­tion involv­ing “unknown snipers” to get rid of Nico­lae Ceau?escu’s regime block­ing Euro­pean reuni­fi­ca­tion. Remem­ber this was when team USA was nego­ti­at­ing “fix­ing” the Sovi­et econ­o­my and both sides viewed Ceau?escu as the main bar­ri­er to progress. It is telling that this was the most vio­lent of the ini­tial post-com­mu­nist tran­si­tions.

    More than 1,000 peo­ple died around late Decem­ber 1989, most by ran­dom shoot­ings includ­ing those by snipers, across the coun­try, the vast major­i­ty after the Ceau?escus were arrest­ed on Decem­ber 22, 1989. The mur­der­ous chaos dis­tract­ed from the coup itself and led to a des­per­ate desire for sta­bil­i­ty and author­i­ty and quick inter­na­tion­al val­i­da­tion of and, iron­i­cal­ly, sym­pa­thy for Ion Iliescu’s new Nation­al Sal­va­tion Front gov­ern­ment.

    The snipers were called “unknown ter­ror­ists” for years but the repeat­ed recent pros­e­cu­tions against the Con­sil­i­ul Fron­tu­lui Sal­varii Na?ionale (Coun­cil of the Nation­al Sal­va­tion Front, CFSN) regime that took pow­er after the Roman­ian coup of 1989 indi­cate the local coup plot­ters had sub­stan­tial sup­port from Moscow, Budapest and Wash­ing­ton. Ion Ili­es­cu (who became pres­i­dent), Gelu Voican Voicules­cu, Iosif Rus and Emil (Cico) Dumitres­cu have been repeat­ed­ly indict­ed for crimes against human­i­ty for pro­vok­ing the “psy­chosis” that led to the killings—a strange­ly eva­sive and medieval way to describe inten­tion­al mas­sacre.[31]

    A more accu­rate charge would be com­plic­i­ty (along with the U.S., Hun­gary and Sovi­ets) in being psy­chos that ordered mass ran­dom assas­si­na­tions, dis­trib­uted weapons to any­one with a trig­ger fin­ger and pumped the coun­try full of fear-induc­ing pro­pa­gan­da in order to pro­voke more psy­chosis, i.e., false-flag state ter­ror­ism.

    ...

    Susanne Brandstaetter’s excel­lent 2003 doc­u­men­tary, Check­mate: Strat­e­gy of a Rev­o­lu­tion, expos­es West­ern intel­li­gence and U.S. State Depart­ment involve­ment in Roma­nia 1989, with direct inter­views with pro­test­ers, CIA agents, Roman­ian intel­li­gence, CIA and French DGSE offi­cers, as well as a reveal­ing inter­view with Mik­lós Németh, Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter at the time. No won­der many Roma­ni­ans have always sus­pect­ed large for­eign com­plic­i­ty.[36]

    In it, Dominique Fon­vielle says that para­mil­i­taries were trained in Hun­gary and Ger­many, and were smug­gled into the coun­try in small groups to be ready for provo­ca­tion of protests and “para­mil­i­tary actions” (pre­sum­ably includ­ing sniper attacks).[37] There were also reports of Russ­ian “tourists” enter­ing in larg­er num­bers in the days before the protests.[38]

    Also in the film, Németh—somewhat coy and sheep­ish, yet also clear­ly enjoy­ing the rem­i­nisc­ing and sala­cious topic—confirms there were para­mil­i­tary train­ing camps with U.S. per­son­nel in Aus­tria, Ger­many and Hun­gary. More pre­cise­ly, the ex-head of domes­tic Secu­ri­tate, Ghe­o­rghe Ratiu states that they were U.S.-led camps pro­vid­ing train­ing in provo­ca­teurism and guer­ril­la oper­a­tions in Traiskirchen, Aus­tria; Zirn­dorf, Ger­many [pre­sum­ably the Pin­der Bar­racks]; and Bicske and Budapest, Hun­gary. Most like­ly there were oth­ers.

    Ratiu also claims in Check­mate that, from ear­ly in the protests in Bucharest, a fac­tion of the army sim­ply start­ed hand­ing out weapons to the gen­er­al pub­lic, lead­ing to many fear-induced shoot­ings and killings between civil­ians, the army and Secu­ri­tate. As with snipers, the pur­pose was to main­tain fear and inse­cu­ri­ty until the new author­i­ty of Ion Iliescu’s new US- and NATO-approved Nation­al Sal­va­tion Front gov­ern­ment was in place. Push­ing chaos on the pub­lic cre­ates a push­back for author­i­ty. Although this chaos is often blamed on a “pow­er vac­u­um,” this is a myth as Ili­es­cu picked up the reins imme­di­ate­ly after Ceau?escu was deposed, accord­ing to his co-con­spir­a­tor and army chief (who, con­ve­nient­ly for his Hun­gar­i­an han­dlers, spoke Hun­gar­i­an), Gen­er­al Vic­tor Stan­cules­cu.

    ...

    Venezuela 2002

    Cara­cas April 11, 2002. Nine­teen killed and scores injured, with a key part played by snipers (and some police loy­al to Cara­cas may­or and U.S. pup­pet Alfre­do Peña) fir­ing at pro-gov­ern­ment and oppo­si­tion pro­test­ers as well as, at some points, police. This was a plan in the failed coup of mil­i­tary lead­ers, sup­port­ed by the U.S., Venezue­lan elite and anti-Chávez media [see Angel Palacio’s 2004 doc­u­men­tary Lla­guno Bridge: Keys to a Mas­sacre for more].[44]

    That the vio­lence was planned is appar­ent­ly evi­denced by the prac­tice run record­ing for CNN’s Otto Neustaldt, where the gen­er­als denounced the vio­lence that was yet to occur. Lat­er that month, Venezue­lan Con­gress­man Roger Ron­don accused Ambas­sador Charles Shapiro and two U.S. mil­i­tary attachés of involve­ment and stat­ed that two for­eign gun­men, one Amer­i­can and the oth­er Sal­vadore­an, were detained by secu­ri­ty police but were “giv­en some kind of safe con­duct” and dis­ap­peared.[45]

    Many oth­er sus­pects were released dur­ing the short reign of the de fac­to gov­ern­ment, includ­ing sev­en sus­pect­ed snipers arrest­ed in the Hotel Auso­nia – and more than 60 pro-Chávez sup­port­ers were killed in the protests for his release, which received very lit­tle out­cry in the main­stream and for­eign press.

    Thai­land 2010

    April 10, 2010: “Red shirt”/United Front for Democ­ra­cy Against Dic­ta­tor­ship pro­test­ers, sup­port­ers of Dubai-based, U.S.-backed bil­lion­aire ex-prime min­is­ter Thaksin Shi­nawa­tra, con­vened at Bangkok’s “Democ­ra­cy Mon­u­ment.” Mys­te­ri­ous gun­men embed­ded with the pro­test­ers used sniper fire and grenades to cre­ate chaos and kill six sol­diers and a colonel. Thai troops returned fire: 25 died and 840 were injured.

    CNN ini­tial­ly did not report that pro­test­ers were armed, then con­ced­ed two months lat­er that there were “men in black fir­ing auto­mat­ic weapons on April 10.”[46] The inter­na­tion­al spokesman for the red­shirts admit­ted in a Reuters inter­view about the recent “vibrant”(!) protests, that the men armed with AK47s and M16s in black were ”a secret unit with­in the army that dis­agrees with what’s going on.”[47]

    And he con­tin­ues, appar­ent­ly with­out irony, “With­out them, the black-clad men, there would have been a whole lot more deaths and injuries.” Although these vio­lent and soft “change agents” appear local, the insur­gent oppo­si­tion move­ment is U.S.-backed as Thai­land is too close to Chi­na for Washington’s lik­ing. It will take a leak to dis­cov­er exact­ly how but there are count­less exam­ples from which to extrap­o­late.

    Syr­ia 2011

    March 17–18, 2011: The vio­lence in Syr­ia start­ed in a small town near the Jor­dan­ian bor­der, Daraa, with a series of demon­stra­tions and reports of snipers killing both demon­stra­tors and secu­ri­ty forces. The vast major­i­ty of West­ern media (CNN, NYT, Al Jazeera, AP, etc.) ignored the police/security force deaths and report­ed most all deaths as civil­ian. In fact, as report­ed by Israeli, Lebanese and Indi­an news sites, most of the ini­tial deaths were police, and mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ment build­ings and the Syr­i­a­Tel phone com­pa­ny build­ing were also torched.

    This bias set the tone for the rest of the report­ing on Syr­ia that fol­lowed, con­tin­u­ing to deny that there was an Islamist armed insur­rec­tion, let alone that they were sup­port­ing it with the aim of weak­en­ing Assad [48] and instead blam­ing provo­ca­teurism on “secret police” try­ing to foment a reac­tion to allow a larg­er crack­down. Sim­i­lar events fol­lowed over the next month, with snipers fir­ing on crowds “in the coastal cities of Banias, Jabla and Lat­takia, in the cen­tral indus­tri­al city of Homs and in towns close to Dam­as­cus, Haras­ta, Daraya and Duma.” The effect described by one wit­ness was that “Anger is ris­ing, the street is boil­ing.”

    An Al Jazeera cor­re­spon­dent report­ed at one inci­dent in Douma in April 2011 that “it was an incred­i­bly chaot­ic scene, and it seems as though pret­ty much every­one down here in the south­ern part of the coun­try is now car­ry­ing weapons. It is unclear who was fir­ing at whom, that’s part of the con­fu­sion.[49] Yet no media were acknowl­edg­ing that there was an armed insur­rec­tion occur­ring, who they were, where the weapons came from or where their bul­lets were going.

    Was it for­eign-backed armed ter­ror­ists or “gov­ern­ment snipers” killing sol­diers and civil­ians? Or both? The fact that the DIA stat­ed in a 2012 Depart­ment of Defense Infor­ma­tion Report that their intent was to desta­bi­lize Syr­ia and install an Islam­ic state in east­ern Syria—and hence why they con­tin­ue to fund, arm and train Islamist extrem­ists to this day—suggests the snipers were most like­ly a U.S. strat­e­gy of regime change, esca­lat­ing the ongo­ing con­flict that has so far caused half a mil­lion deaths, mil­lions injured and more than six mil­lion refugees.

    Yemen 2011

    March 18, 2011 (the same day as the vio­lence in Daraa, Syr­ia), 53 pro­test­ers were killed in Sanaa, Yemen, and hun­dreds injured, by rooftop snipers.[50] Did Pres­i­dent Saleh al-Ahmar think his U.S.-Saudi back­ing would allow him to get away with such an insane “crack­down” on protests? Or were these insur­rec­tion­ist snipers? Why such a com­plete non-reac­tion from the U.S. and West, when the same month they declared war on Libya, to “pro­tect [Libyan] civil­ians and meet their basic needs”? Such is the dif­fer­ence between a client and non-client state. It is always telling where the media projects its amnesic news­feed gaze.

    One “West­ern offi­cial” quot­ed in the UK’s Tele­graph in 2011 said, “It is not in the West’s best inter­ests to see this degen­er­ate into a Libya-style con­flict that would play into the hands of Islamist mil­i­tants, which is why it would be bet­ter for Saleh to go soon­er rather than lat­er.” Well, Saleh indeed soon went, but the degen­er­a­tion occurred regard­less, to cause a war and a human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter as the Houthis rose to pow­er.

    Nicaragua 2018

    Nicaragua has been a focus of U.S. ire ever since the San­din­istas came to pow­er in 1979. The U.S. tried to push things again in 2018, in an extreme­ly volent but failed coup attempt, also backed by the Catholic Church and local elite trade groups, focus­ing on youth groups, social media and the “pro­pa­gan­da mul­ti­pli­er” and some provoca­tive protest­ing, sab­o­tage and ter­ror involv­ing paid delin­quents. There are also accu­sa­tions of police vio­lence and San­din­ista thug­gery, though it seems the deaths were near equal in terms of pro- and anti-gov­ern­ment mem­bers of the pub­lic and at least 20 police were killed in 2018.

    Oppo­si­tion groups, for exam­ple, used crim­i­nal goons to man the hun­dreds of tranque check­points that besieged towns, abduct­ed, tor­tured and mur­dered San­din­istas, set large fires, attempt­ed to blow up stolen fuel tank trucks in towns and—like the CIA-orga­nized truck­er strike in Chile in the ear­ly 1970s that “made the econ­o­my scream”[51]—cut off trade for months.

    Rid­ing a wave of soft-pow­er for­eign-fund­ed NGOs and anti-gov­ern­ment media, the vio­lence esca­lat­ed quick­ly, start­ing with stu­dent protests on April 18th sparked—somewhat obscurely—by changes in social secu­ri­ty reforms: “a 1% rise in work­er con­tri­bu­tions, the 3.5% rise in employ­er con­tri­bu­tions (over time) and a 5% cut in the ben­e­fit which was also a trade-off for expand­ed med­ical cov­er­age.”[52]

    Snipers were cer­tain­ly involved. As lleana Lacayo told Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al: “Most of the deaths that occurred in the country…are care­ful­ly aimed shots, a sin­gle shot fired with pre­ci­sion at the head or jugu­lar or chest, they are shots that aim to kill and they are fired by pro­fes­sion­als.”[53]

    The Nicaraguan Cen­ter for Human Rights (CENIDH) report­ed in May that 36 peo­ple died of gun­shot wounds between April 19 and May 2, and 22 of these were by head, neck or chest shots. Oppo­si­tion media report­ed that, between April 19 and July 3, there were 309 deaths, and 127 (41.5%) of these deaths were due to direct, sin­gle shots to the head, neck and chest.[54] And, as Bar­bara Moore states in the LA Pro­gres­sive:

    Spe­cif­ic, eye-wit­ness accounts of sniper use by the oppo­si­tion have been shared with me and accord­ing to the same source even the gov­ern­ment has with­held some infor­ma­tion for the sake of rela­tions with neigh­bor­ing coun­tries [name­ly, El Sal­vador]. That transna­tion­al gang mem­bers were involved in the attempt to desta­bi­lize the coun­try was con­firmed in June, but the extent to which that was the case is not yet known.[55]

    There are oth­er reports of snipers tar­get­ing police. For exam­ple, on July 8, two police officers—Faber López Vivas and Hilario de Jesús Ortiz Zavala—were killed and two oth­ers wound­ed by sniper fire in Jinote­pe. [56] A U.S. res­i­dent report­ed to Bar­bara Lar­com of the Alliance for Glob­al Jus­tice:

    Our neigh­bor here…,whom we have known for years, is a mem­ber of the antiri­ot police. He told us that the day the roadblocks/barricades were removed … he was one of [a num­ber] who were the first to step out­side the police sta­tion. There was only one way out. When they stepped out, there was a sniper on top of [named] build­ing who was wait­ing for them and began pick­ing them off, one by one. He was the only one who wasn’t shot and had to try and drag his friends out of harm’s way. One was killed, and the oth­ers luck­i­ly sur­vived but with major injuries…. After the fight­ing they were able to cap­ture sev­er­al peo­ple. He said many of them were for­eign gang mem­bers, most­ly from El Salvador.….He also said that ear­ly on in the protest­ing they would be receiv­ing fire from pro­test­ers and mean­while, they could see some­one fir­ing on the pro­test­ers from behind.[57]

    The vast major­i­ty of the vio­lence by local and main­stream inter­na­tion­al media was blamed on Nicaraguan police, claim­ing they fired indis­crim­i­nate­ly into crowds and that they armed pro-gov­ern­ment mobs. Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al claimed in its May 2018 report that the gov­ern­ment had “a strat­e­gy of indis­crim­i­nate repres­sion with intent to kill not only in order to com­plete­ly smash the protests, but also to pun­ish those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in them.”[58] Yet there is ample evi­dence of extreme vio­lence and mur­der com­mit­ted by the pro­test­ers that was ignored by even “pro­gres­sive” inter­na­tion­al media.

    A key event, very sim­i­lar to the events in Venezuela in 2002, was the pro- and anti-gov­ern­ment march­es with sep­a­rate routes in Man­agua on Mother’s Day, May 30. Before the march­es, as in Cara­cas 2002, oppo­si­tion lead­ers repeat­ed­ly stat­ed in the media that vio­lence and deaths would occur. Only after the march­es, when a group of oppo­si­tion pro­test­ers ven­tured off route toward the San­din­ista post-march con­cert, did vio­lence occur. Set­ting up a road­block near Den­nis Martínez Nation­al Sta­di­um, they encoun­tered police and gun­fire began. Eight died, includ­ing two San­din­istas.

    One report on this day by a col­lab­o­ra­tion among the Argen­tine Foren­sic Anthro­pol­o­gy Team (EAAF), the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Group of Inde­pen­dent Experts (GIEI), and the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) involved a mod­el with foren­sic and acoustic analy­sis of social media by the spooky New York Times-friend­ly SITU Research consultancy—whose involve­ment in offi­cial nar­ra­tive Maid­an mas­sacre research we will dis­cuss in Part III.

    In tan­dem with many NGOs and “inde­pen­dent experts”—if you are bored, try a game where you search each expert in this report and see if you can find one with­out a direct link to USGOs or NGOs—SITU con­clud­ed, despite the lack of evi­dence iden­ti­fy­ing the shooters,[59] that police snipers were respon­si­ble for the death of three of the pro­test­ers dur­ing the clash­es and that this was “part of the sys­tem­at­ic repres­sion of civil­ian demon­stra­tions.”[60]

    This analy­sis omit­ted any media incrim­i­nat­ing oppo­si­tion pro­test­ers, despite the mass of such media and oth­er evi­dence of pro­test­er vio­lence. It also ignores shoot­ing at San­din­istas and the well-report­ed pres­ence of oppo­si­tion pro­test­er weapons and guns as well as the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a false flag as in Cara­cas 2002.

    One has to dig into the mid­dle of the full (500-page) GIEI report to read, “Last­ly, these scenes show the pres­ence of four armed indi­vid­u­als among the pro­test­ers, but the Nation­al Police and the pro-gov­ern­ment media did not report any attacks per­pe­trat­ed by pro­test­ers dur­ing these ini­tial moments.”[61] It is worth not­ing that the report, which dis­cuss­es vio­lence from April 18 to May 30, 2018, men­tions mul­ti­ple instances of wit­ness­es report­ing uniden­ti­fied snipers.

    ...

    Review­ing the above cas­es, some pat­terns emerge. Lots of effort, time and mon­ey is need­ed both to nur­ture the net­work of dis­si­dents and oppo­si­tion pri­or to a push for regime change and to ensure the media cov­er­age is con­trolled dur­ing and after the event. The impe­r­i­al strat­e­gy for regime-change insur­gency (“rev­o­lu­tion,” if you believe them) is essen­tial­ly the same as the strat­e­gy for coun­terin­sur­gency, i.e., it cen­ters on soft-pow­er net­works, polit­i­cal train­ing, pro­pa­gan­da and con­trol of media, gal­va­nized by a strat­e­gy of ten­sion pre­cip­i­tat­ed by provo­ca­teurs and para­mil­i­tary guer­ril­la tac­tics such as ran­dom snipers. We can call them the strate­gies of insur­gent and coun­terin­sur­gent ten­sion.

    Inside the client-states of the empire, atrocity—including tor­ture, assas­si­na­tion and ran­dom ter­ror and fear—is used for coun­terin­sur­gency and con­trol. This has been well doc­u­ment­ed in the U.S.-installed, trained and con­trolled Latin Amer­i­can and Asian mil­i­tary regimes as well as in the client-states of Europe since the Sec­ond World War. Italy’s “years of lead” of the 1970s and 1980s have been well-doc­u­ment­ed as a part of U.S.-controlled coun­terin­sur­gency via NATO-CIA’s Oper­a­tion Glad­io, also involv­ing ele­ments of oth­er elite supra­na­tion­al net­works such as Le Cer­cle and local elite net­works like the Mason­ic Pro­pa­gan­da 2 group.[65]

    ...

    The ulti­mate dark lessons of the above exam­ples are that state ter­ror­ism is a real and pow­er­ful tool of impe­r­i­al insur­gency and coun­terin­sur­gency; it has been used in many coun­tries (includ­ing inside the U.S.) for many years; and, although the empire has supra­na­tion­al ele­ments, even wealthy client-states of the U.S. have ulti­mate­ly been at the behest of their Atlantic mas­ter, large­ly via net­works of the mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence. Regime change and strat­e­gy of ten­sion coun­terin­sur­gency oper­a­tions involve count­less exam­ples of well-doc­u­ment­ed state ter­ror­ism.

    They require atroc­i­ty, the ulti­mate psy­op of con­trol; provo­ca­tion to des­per­ate pleas for exter­nal or inter­nal jus­tice and pro­tec­tion from or by author­i­ty depend­ing on who the per­ceived threat is.

    Whether or not an atroc­i­ty is a false-flag provo­ca­teurist covert action, the cause and details, as far as much of the pub­lic is con­cerned, are effec­tive­ly irrel­e­vant next to the con­trol of the media by those in pow­er, who pre­scribe or sanc­tion the accept­able analy­sis.

    As this is ampli­fied in the emo­tive moments after an atroc­i­ty, and forges in the public’s psy­chic frame­work, it then enters lega­cy and is lost to impe­ri­al­ist amne­sia, even where vague lin­ger­ing doubt remains. Any sub­se­quent crit­i­cal analy­sis is then fight­ing against fixed or dis­ap­pear­ing neur­al (and dig­i­tal) net­works and suf­fo­cat­ing in the mount­ing lay­ers of silt from the dirty, rich and cease­less riv­er of pro­pa­gan­da.

    ...

    ———-

    “Review­ing the above cas­es, some pat­terns emerge. Lots of effort, time and mon­ey is need­ed both to nur­ture the net­work of dis­si­dents and oppo­si­tion pri­or to a push for regime change and to ensure the media cov­er­age is con­trolled dur­ing and after the event. The impe­r­i­al strat­e­gy for regime-change insur­gency (“rev­o­lu­tion,” if you believe them) is essen­tial­ly the same as the strat­e­gy for coun­terin­sur­gency, i.e., it cen­ters on soft-pow­er net­works, polit­i­cal train­ing, pro­pa­gan­da and con­trol of media, gal­va­nized by a strat­e­gy of ten­sion pre­cip­i­tat­ed by provo­ca­teurs and para­mil­i­tary guer­ril­la tac­tics such as ran­dom snipers. We can call them the strate­gies of insur­gent and coun­terin­sur­gent ten­sion.”

    Regime-change oper­a­tion vs counter-insur­gency strate­gies: two sides of the same coin. A coin that preps a pop­u­la­tion for civ­il war through a spec­trum of forces rang­ing from soft-pow­er net­works and trained oppo­si­tion, to vio­lent force and false flag provo­ca­tions. A coin that’s been repeat­ed spent through­out the Cold War and after. Impor­tant­ly, it was after the 1970s con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tions that exposed much of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s out of con­trol activ­i­ties that we saw the fur­ther flesh­ing out of ‘soft pow­er’ cov­ers for these oper­a­tions. Oper­a­tions that remained focused on one key objec­tive: max­i­miz­ing cor­po­rate pow­er and min­i­miz­ing local oppo­si­tion to that agen­da. It’s an agen­da where democ­ra­cy isn’t sim­ply an after thought. Democ­ra­cy is a pri­ma­ry obsta­cle. The kind of obsta­cle that has a tried and true solu­tion: vio­lent covert desta­bi­liza­tion cam­paigns.

    But as this review piece describes, the vio­lence is just one ele­ment of a play­book that includes soft pow­er enti­ties, eco­nom­ic war­fare, and copi­ous pro­pa­gan­da pumped out by a com­pli­ant media. It’s a full spec­trum play­book that’s been repeat­ed­ly refined:

    ...
    Before we look at the influ­ence of U.S. soft pow­er on events, it is essen­tial to con­sid­er the his­to­ry of U.S. sup­port of fas­cist and nation­al­ist groups dur­ing the Cold War, includ­ing the recruit­ment of hun­dreds of Nazis in the Rein­hardt Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion to devel­op the Ger­man Bun­desnachrich­t­en­di­enst (BND)[2] and the use of dias­po­ra Croa­t­ian and Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists-fas­cists as spies and covert actors.[3]

    ...

    In many of these projects there have been accu­sa­tions of assas­si­na­tion and ter­ror­ism, includ­ing “false-flag” oper­a­tions that blame an atroc­i­ty or out­rage on the tar­get in order to increase state author­i­ty, desta­bi­lize and weak­en ene­mies, pre­cip­i­tate inva­sion or inter­ven­tion, dri­ve the per­ma­nent war econ­o­my and mar­gin­al­ize left-wing (or more cor­rect­ly, “non-aligned”) pol­i­tics.

    As Ital­ian fas­cist and con­vict­ed bomber Vin­cen­zo Vin­ciguer­ra said in 1992 of CIA-NATO Oper­a­tion Gladio’s strat­e­gy of ten­sion that killed hun­dreds in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s: “You were sup­posed to attack civil­ians, women children…innocent peo­ple out­side of the polit­i­cal are­na for one sim­ple rea­son: To force the Ital­ian pub­lic to turn to the state…turn to the regime and ask for greater secu­ri­ty.”[15] It is the elite’s covert use of mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence, police and para­mil­i­tary fas­cist might to main­tain con­trol in so-called lib­er­al democ­ra­cies.

    ...

    After the expo­sures of clan­des­tine impe­ri­al­ism of the CIA, et al., in the 1970s’ con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tions, and relat­ed whistle­blow­ing from greats like Philip Agee (who inci­den­tal­ly offers an excel­lent, con­cise descrip­tion of soft pow­er in this 2005 inter­view), John Stock­well and Ralph McGe­hee, the CIA’s polit­i­cal action meth­ods of impe­ri­al­ism evolved to overt soft pow­er meth­ods of NGOs, as neo-lib­er­al­ism and spin took hold after the 1970s scan­dals and Viet­nam fail­ure.

    ...

    Regime change requires an infil­tra­tion of soci­ety by the flow of (large­ly U.S. tax­pay­er) mon­ey to build infra­struc­ture and cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal influ­ence in a tar­get state over years. In cur­rent USAID Orwellian par­lance, these soft-pow­er projects are called “sta­bi­liza­tion and tran­si­tion,” i.e., desta­bi­liza­tion and regime change.

    The local effect of each dol­lar and each project ampli­fies and is ampli­fied by the lev­el of pub­lic dis­con­tent, the weak­ness of local gov­ern­ment and the lev­el of oppo­si­tion con­trol of local and inter­na­tion­al media. Although col­or rev­o­lu­tions are large­ly an infor­ma­tion war of hearts and minds, where the gov­ern­ment is legit­i­mate and has sig­nif­i­cant local sup­port, bru­tal tac­tics of insur­gency are ulti­mate­ly need­ed for regime change.

    The main strate­gies of regime change are:

    1. Soft pow­er: Pro­vide weaponized aid, devel­op­ment, human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance and media to win pub­lic opin­ion, ide­ol­o­gy and cul­ture.
    2. Polit­i­cal co-opt­ing: Co-opt and unite oppo­si­tion, ide­al­ly includ­ing mil­i­tary lead­ers.
    3. Polit­i­cal groom­ing: Train and fund a new gen­er­a­tion of overt agents of change, the future polit­i­cal lead­ers (e.g., the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s “Young Glob­al Lead­ers” pro­gram).
    4. Covert Action/Black oper­a­tions: Train and fund covert agents of change (often fas­cist or extrem­ist) to do the dirty work of insur­gency and coun­terin­sur­gency.
    5. Nar­ra­tive con­trol: Devel­op a sym­pa­thet­ic media.
    6. Eco­nom­ic war­fare: Diplo­mat­ic iso­la­tion, sanc­tions and sab­o­tage to “make the econ­o­my scream.”[21]
    7. Mobi­liza­tion: Orga­nize mass protests and PR with media con­trol, while also warn­ing that “there will be blood.”
    8. Provo­ca­teurism: Goons and dra­goons of pow­er engi­neer provo­ca­tion, con­fronta­tion, out­rage and chaos and the soft arm con­trols the media analy­sis through imme­di­ate (social media), short (main­stream news) and long term (NGO reports and books).
    9. Assas­si­na­tion of key polit­i­cal leader or false flag tar­get­ing oppo­si­tion leader or pub­lic cit­i­zens.
    10. Denial and cov­er-up via cen­sor­ship, pro­pa­gan­da and nar­ra­tive bias. It helps if you built the whole medi­a­s­phere.

    Dominique Fon­vielle, who spent 15 years as an ana­lyst with France’s for­eign secret ser­vice, Direc­tion Générale de la Sécu­rité Extérieure (DGSE), described the fol­low­ing steps of regime change to Ger­man film­mak­er Susanne Brand­staet­ter in 2003:[22]

    1. Iden­ti­fy oppo­si­tion forces to desta­bi­lize rul­ing regime (need to be cred­i­ble and influ­en­tial)
    2. Effec­tive pro­pa­gan­da to smear the rul­ing regime
    3. Pre­pare (con­vinc­ing) future head of state and staff
    4. Cre­ate rev­o­lu­tion­ary milieu
    5. Spark a revolution/coup.

    ...

    In Ukraine’s case, it is clear fas­cist extrem­ists were involved by the promi­nent posi­tion as “Maid­an secu­ri­ty” pro­vok­ing vio­lence and in the post-coup gov­ern­ment posi­tions they were reward­ed with after the coup. The far-right Svo­bo­da (orig­i­nal­ly the “Social­ist-Nation­al­ist Par­ty”), Right Sec­tor, Azov Bat­tal­ion and C14. The Azov Bat­tal­ion, dis­missed by NATO media as a minor aber­ra­tion, post-coup became an offi­cial branch of the Ukraine Army num­ber­ing tens of thou­sands.

    It is also clear fas­cists were involved in esca­lat­ing the vio­lence, and are proud of the mus­cle they flexed—C14 head Yevhen Karas recent­ly pro­claimed that the 2014 “Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instru­men­tal role of neo-Nazis. The mod­er­ates and many lib­er­al-pro­gres­sive activists con­sid­ered groups like Svo­bo­da as the only par­ty of action, mak­ing a deal with the dev­il, and some insist­ed at the time, such as the Euro­Maid­an Press (fund­ed by Soros’s IRF) that the Nation­al­ist fas­cists such as Dmytro Yarosh are need­ed to pro­tect cit­i­zens from the state vio­lence of lead­ers like Yanukovych; “Some­one who is ready to risk his life so I can live in free­dom and peace—can‘t be a bad guy. It’s that sim­ple.”[24]

    Strange bed­fel­lows (and trag­ic naïveté), indeed.
    ...

    It is indeed a method­ol­o­gy that involves a num­ber of strange bed­fel­lows. NGOs work­ing along­side gen­uine activists work­ing in par­al­lel with fas­cists and oth­er vio­lent extrem­ists. It’s strange. But it’s effec­tive. In part because vio­lence is an inher­ent­ly pow­er­ful polit­i­cal weapon. And in part because it’s been refined over and over. Ukraine is just one exam­ple and not the even lat­est one.

    Will it ever end? Sure, but only after all oppo­si­tion to the unchecked pow­er of the glob­al car­tel sys­tem has been quelled and what’s left of democ­ra­cy has been thor­ough­ly tamed. Or WWIII. Whichev­er comes first.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 8, 2023, 4:05 pm

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