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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: On the 17th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we continue with analysis of the Maidan shootings–an apparent “false flag” operation–and muse about the implications of that for the conflict in Syria, as well as Russian and American political life.
In the first part of the program, we finish reading the poster presentation that professor Ivan Katchanovski, PhD of the University of Ottawa presented at The 2018 Conference of American Political Science Associates.
Katchanovski has done a deep, detailed forensic study of the evidence in the Maidan sniper attacks. He has a rigorous, succinct digital multimedia ‘poster’ (an ‘iPoster’) for his finding that the Maidan sniper attacks were a false flag operation. That poster was presented during the 2018 American Political Science Association conference in Boston. It gives a high level overview of his research and is heavily embedded with substantive, documentary videos. Here are the contents of the poster. Be sure to check out the numerous images and videos included in the actual iPoster online.
He concludes his presentation with: “ . . . . The puzzling misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre, its investigation, and the trial by Western media and governments require further research concerning reasons for such misrepresentation . . . . ”
In addition to the systematic manipulation of evidence to support the “Berkut/Yanukovych did it” hypothesis, the cover-up of contrary findings and the Western media silence about the realities of the Maidan killings are significant.
Note: Since FTR #1023 was recorded professor Katchanovski has posted a 59-minute-long video of the Maidan shootings. The video features TV footage from that day, with many clips clearly showing snipers operating from Maidan-controlled buildings. It also includes English subtitles and forensic descriptions of scenes. The footage includes a number of people being shot and killed–a grizzly 59-minutes, but absolutely invaluable in terms of establishing what actually happened.
The presentation of professor Katchanovski’s research in this program begins with the section titled “Cover-Up and Stonewalling.”
Additional perspective on the apparent non-investigation of the Maidan sniper shootings is provided by Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s Deputy Prosecutor and Chief Military Prosecutor:
Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, gave an extensive interview where he said that Jews are behind all wars and want to “drown ethnic Slavs in blood.”
Also recall the cryptic statement Matios made back in 2016 about the identity of the people involved with the 2014 sniper attacks: “When public learns who is involved in this, people will be very surprised.” In FTR #‘s 982, 993, 1004, 1023, we examined evidence that Ukrainian fascists may well have executed those sniper attacks. It is ominous that the chief military prosecutor who is involved in that investigation is a neo-Nazi. ” . . . . In an extensive interview with the Ukrainian news outlet Insider, Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in which he implied that Jews want to drown ethnic Slavs in blood. . . .”
Returning to professor Katchanovski’s thought-provoking conclusion to his online poster: “ . . . . The puzzling misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre, its investigation, and the trial by Western media and governments require further research concerning reasons for such misrepresentation . . . . ”
With the Syrian government apparently commencing an offensive to vanquish Al-Qaeda jihadis in Idlib province (with Russian military support), the stage is set for a possible Russian‑U.S./Western military conflict.
Against the background of the Maidan sniping as a probable false flag provocation, the impending Syrian offensive to re-capture the last territorial enclave of the Islamists in Syria should be viewed with apprehension. As noted in the article we present, the so-called “rebels” are Al-Qaeda offshoots. Ominously, they have apparently successfully executed false-flag chemical weapons attacks before, including in Idlib province.
Russia has warned that such a provocation is in the wings–an unremarkable deduction in light of past history. In turn, the West has warned of retaliatory action if such actions are undertaken.
The stage appears set for an Islamist/Al-Qaeda chemical weapons false flag/provocation, upon which U.S., British and French military intervention will be predicated.
In this context, one should not lose sight of the fact that Chechnyan Islamist veterans of the Syrian war have already made their appearance in the combat in Eastern Ukraine, partnering with Pravy Sektor in their deployments. (The Chechen/Right Sector/Islamist link is discussed in FTR #‘s 857, 862, 863, 872, 878, 893, 911.)
We note possible outcomes of U.S./Western Russian combat:
- 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.
- 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.”
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 fakeResearch 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, 2014Qualitative 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 mediaContent 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 purposesRevelations 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 ArmeniaThe 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 18The 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 evidenceNo 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 areasInvestigation 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 straightLocations & 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 trialForensic 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 investigatedFailure 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 trialThe 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 investigationThe 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 20No 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.” . . . .
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko says that the man who helped so-called “black hundred” of police task force Berkut, who had been shooting at protesters during the Revolution of Dignity, flee Kyiv and deliberately drowned their weapons to conceal evidence, was himself one of the participants of the Maidan protests.
“With the help of military counterintelligence, we have found weapons of the “black hundred,” including a sniper rifle, which the entire country saw on footage showing the shooting at the protesters from outside the October Palace,” he told the 112 Ukraine TV channel.
“We found it with a large number of automatic rifles on the bottom of one of Kiev’s lakes. They were cut and drowned in one batch by a single group, whose leader is one of the targets of our investigation. Unfortunately, this man who, according to our version, upon the orders of [former Interior Minister Vitaliy] Zakharchenko helped the “black hundred” flee Kyiv, destroyed and drowned their weapons, he, himself, was with us on the Maidan,” Lutsenko said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office July 14 conducted searches at the houses of persons involved in assisting the troops from Berkut police special forces’ “black hundred” in fleeing Kyiv after the bloody killings of the Maidan activists and subsequent destruction of their weapons.
Earlier, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said: “When public learns who is involved in this, people will be very surprised.” According to him, information to be published may cause rejection, “but the truth is the truth.” . . . .
2b. Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, gave an extensive interview where he said that Jews are behind all wars and want to “drown ethnic Slavs in blood.”
Also recall the cryptic statement Matios made back in 2016 about the identity of the people involved with the 2014 sniper attacks: “When public learns who is involved in this, people will be very surprised.” In FTR #‘s 982, 993, 1004, 1023, we examined evidence that Ukrainian fascists may well have executed those sniper attacks. It is ominous that the chief military prosecutor who is involved in that investigation is a neo-Nazi.
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. . . .
Uncle Sam and The Swastika
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:
“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:
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:
““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”:
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.
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:
“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”:
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:
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:
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:
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.
@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
@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:
“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:
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’:
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:
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:
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.
https://www.academia.edu/37448481/Maidan_Massacre_Trial_and_Investigation_Testimonies_by_43_Wounded_Maidan_Protesters_about_Snipers_in_Maidan-Controlled_Locations_Video_Appendix_D
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:
“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:
A UAE scholar also declares it not a terrorist attack at all but a legitimate attack:
And then ISIS claims responsibility. But those claims have problems:
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.”:
“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:
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:
“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:
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:
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.
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’:
“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”:
And Saakashvili is declaring that “Georgia’s future is being born on this square today” and they will ‘removed the oligarch from power’:
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”:
“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:
““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:
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.
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:
““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:
“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:
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:
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:
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:
“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:
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.”:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
““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.
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:
“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:
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:
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.
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:
““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:
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:
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:
“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.
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:
“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?
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?
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:
“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:
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:
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.
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?:
“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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
@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
@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:
“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:
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:
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.
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 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:
And as Sachs also makes clear, the fantasies and convenient fictions that have driven much of the US’s foreign policy towards Russia goes back over a quarter century at this point. Starting with the convenient fiction that NATO can be expanded to include countries like Ukraine and Georgia without provoking a seriously provoking WWIII. It’s a fiction that drove the expansion of NATO starting in the 90s, but it was 2008 — when talk of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO really picked up steam at the NATO summit in Bucharest — that the stage was solidly set for the current conflict in Ukraine. Because that’s when the ‘to join NATO or not join NATO’ issue was thoroughly injected into Ukraine’s politics. This is a good time to recall how, while Paul Manafort’s work as a consultant for Viktor Yanukovych was overwhelmingly working to push Ukraine towards Europe — which is what the ‘Hapsburg Group’ fiasco was all about — when Manafort counseled Yanukovych to oppose NATO expansion, this was in response to polling showing NATO expansion was generally not popular with the Ukrainian electorate. This was reflective even in polls in the lead up to the Maidan revolt in 2014. That’s a key part of the context here: the push to get Ukraine into NATO wasn’t actually popular in Ukraine. It’s taken a decade of civil war to cultivate those overall pro-NATO sentiments:
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:
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.”:
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:
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.
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:
“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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
Democracy is in peril globally. That’s an easy call. What to do about that peril isn’t so easy. But if there’s one thing that’s more or less universally useful and near universally lacking in our modern modern it’s context. Meaningful context needed to wrap our heads around the challenges we’re facing. So with that perpetual challenge in mind as the world teeters on the brink of WWIII as the long-term consequences of the 2014 regime change operation in Ukraine continues to play out, here’s an excerpt from a massive piece in Covert Action Magazine providing some of that much needed context. Specifically, the context of 20th and 21st century regime-change methodologies. Methodologies — Including false flag sniper attacks — that have been wildly successful whether applied against authoritarian regimes or democratic societies. Over and over: Syria 1982, Romania 1989, Venezuela 2002, Thailand 2010, Syria 2011, Yemen 2011, Nicaragua 2018. It’s all part of the context of our march to WWIII:
“Reviewing the above cases, some patterns emerge. Lots of effort, time and money is needed both to nurture the network of dissidents and opposition prior to a push for regime change and to ensure the media coverage is controlled during and after the event. The imperial strategy for regime-change insurgency (“revolution,” if you believe them) is essentially the same as the strategy for counterinsurgency, i.e., it centers on soft-power networks, political training, propaganda and control of media, galvanized by a strategy of tension precipitated by provocateurs and paramilitary guerrilla tactics such as random snipers. We can call them the strategies of insurgent and counterinsurgent tension.”
Regime-change operation vs counter-insurgency strategies: two sides of the same coin. A coin that preps a population for civil war through a spectrum of forces ranging from soft-power networks and trained opposition, to violent force and false flag provocations. A coin that’s been repeated spent throughout the Cold War and after. Importantly, it was after the 1970s congressional investigations that exposed much of the intelligence community’s out of control activities that we saw the further fleshing out of ‘soft power’ covers for these operations. Operations that remained focused on one key objective: maximizing corporate power and minimizing local opposition to that agenda. It’s an agenda where democracy isn’t simply an after thought. Democracy is a primary obstacle. The kind of obstacle that has a tried and true solution: violent covert destabilization campaigns.
But as this review piece describes, the violence is just one element of a playbook that includes soft power entities, economic warfare, and copious propaganda pumped out by a compliant media. It’s a full spectrum playbook that’s been repeatedly refined:
It is indeed a methodology that involves a number of strange bedfellows. NGOs working alongside genuine activists working in parallel with fascists and other violent extremists. It’s strange. But it’s effective. In part because violence is an inherently powerful political weapon. And in part because it’s been refined over and over. Ukraine is just one example and not the even latest one.
Will it ever end? Sure, but only after all opposition to the unchecked power of the global cartel system has been quelled and what’s left of democracy has been thoroughly tamed. Or WWIII. Whichever comes first.