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

For The Record  

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

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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 982993,  1004, 1023we 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 982993, 10041023we 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

17 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. 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 aboutwhen 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

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