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FTR #817 features ONE SIDE of approximately 60 minutes, available HERE.
NB: This description contains information not contained in the original broadcast.
Introduction: In journalistic coverage of Ukraine, there is a tendency to differentiate between the “neo-Nazi” militia combatants and their associated political parties and “mainstream,” “centrist” and, therefore, somewhat more respectable elements. Recent events in that unfortunate country illustrate that such a dichotomy is essentially false.
Both parties like Svoboda and Pravy Sektor (and their associated combatant elements) and the so-called “conservative” parties such as those of President Poroshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk incorporate fascist heirs to the OUN/B Nazis of Stephan Bandera. Advised by Roman Svarych, OUN/B World War II leader Jaroslav Stetsko’s personal secretary, Poroshenko is also advised by Oleh Makhnitsky, the former Justice Minister from Svoboda.
In a signature gesture, Poroshenko advocated providing veterans’ entitlements to members of the UPA (UIA)–the combat wing of the OUN/B and a military ally of the Third Reich. The UPA continued its guerilla war against the Red Army until 1952, with the assistance of the OPC, a faction of the CIA.
Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front (or National Front) has incorporated members of the Nazi Azov Battalion, including Andriy Biletsky, its founder. Biletsky has weighed in that: “the historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival,” in “a crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
Hey, sure sounds moderate to us, no?!
As the smoke clears following the Ukrainian elections, not only have the parties of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk won seats in parliament, so has Svoboda. Dimitry Yarosh, leader of Pravy Sektor has also won a seat. The Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko also had a strong showing. (Lyashko helped form some of the fascist militia battalions, including.)
The recent combat in Eastern Ukraine has minimized electoral participation by the Russian ethnic minority, in effect, realizing an ethnic cleansing dynamic.
Illustrating the type of governance instituted by the OUN/B heirs, an investigation of the Maidan shootings earlier in the year has omitted any substantive investigation of the shooters of policemen, and focused on a former government security officer, Dmytro Sadovnyk, who–supposedly–was photographed holding a rifle. Supposedly, he was using the rifle in the sniper attacks on the Maidan demonstrators.
The problem with that analysis lies in the fundamental fact that Sadovnyk only has one hand, having lost the other to a grenade in a training accident!
This “evidence” was unearthed during the “investigation” presided over by the Justice Minister of the provisional government, Oleh Makhnitsky of the Svoboda party. Makhnitsky is now an adviser to Poroshenko.
Program Highlights Include: Discussion of Ukrainian fascist sabotage in the U.S. during World War II; American journalistic mockery of Putin’s accurate statement that the U.S. is supporting “neo-Nazis” and “Islamic radicals;” a Ukrainian militia fighter’s nickname of “Panzer;” the Ukrainian government’s use of cluster munitions against its own citizens; Svoboda’s participation in street demonstrations in support of establishing a Ukrainian holiday to commemorate the founding of the UPA; the role of Citizen Greenwald’s financial patron Pierre Omidyar in promoting fascist sympathizers within Poroshenko’s party; the appointment of the deputy commander of the Azov Battalion to be mayor of Kiev; Poroshenko’s comemoration of October 14–the anniversary of the founding of the OUN-UPA–as a national holiday.
1a. In a recent talk, President Putin got it right, when he charged that the U.S. was backing “neo-Nazis” and “Islamic radicals.”
Since the “New Cold War” began in Ukraine, with the Maidan Coup of 2014, things in the U.S. have disintegrated to such an extent that Puting or Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could say that 2 + 2 equald 4 and that would be dismissed by our main stream media as “typical Russian mathematical propaganda.”
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday unleashed perhaps his strongest diatribe against the United States yet, using an international meeting of Russia experts to sell Moscow’s view that American meddling has sparked most of the world’s recent crises, including those in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Instead of supporting democracy and sovereign states, Mr. Putin said during a three-hour appearance at the conference, the United States supports “dubious” groups ranging from “open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.”
“Why do they support such people,” he asked the annual gathering known as the Valdai Club, which met this year in the southern resort town of Sochi. “They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals, but then burn their fingers and recoil.” . . . .
. . . . . Mr. Putin, however, specifically denied trying to restore the Russian Empire. He argued Russia was compelled to intervene in Ukraine because that country was in the midst of a “civilized dialogue” over its political future when the West staged a coup to oust the president last February, pushing the country into chaos and civil war.
“We did not start this,” he said. “Statements that Russia is trying to reinstate some sort of empire, that it is encroaching on the sovereignty of its neighbors, are groundless.” . . . .
1b. Robert Parry nailed it, as well, noting the retreat from reality in the main stream media and Washington D.C.
“Treating Putin Like a Lunatic” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 10/25/2014.
. . . . Of course, all the “smart people” of Official Washington know how to react to such statements from Putin, with a snicker and a roll of the eyes. After all, they’ve been reading the narratives of these crises as fictionalized by the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc.
Rationality and realism seem to have lost any place in the workings of the mainstream U.S. news media. . . .
1c. A passing tidbit in a New York Times story about Ukraine caught our eye. The Gray Lady–predictably–didn’t expound on it. A fighter in one of the Ukrainian government’s “volunteer” battalions was opining about the Russian army and gave “only his nickname, Panzer.”
Funny nickname–“Panzer.” Wonder where he got it?
. . . . ‘The Russian Army is very good,” said a soldier in one of Ukraine’s volunteer battalions farther south, who gave only his nickname, Panzer. . . .
2. Ukrainian president Poroshenko is leaning toward giving government entitlements to veterans of the UPA–the Nazi collaborators comprising the military wing of the OUN/B.
The UPA overlapped the Waffen SS and Gestapo and was deeply involved with ethnic cleansing liquidations of Jewish and Polish citizens of Ukraine.
After V‑E Day, they comprised the core of the “fascist freedom fighter” program in Ukraine, supported by the OPC/CIA. (For more about this, see AFA #1, FTR #465, 777.)
As discussed in FTR #800, Poroshenko has basically reconstituted the old Yuschenko team, including Jaroslav Stetsko’s personal secretary, Roman Svarych. Yuschenko, in turn, manifested an OUN/B revisionist agenda, as discussed in FTR #781. Svarych was his Minister of Justice, as he was during both Tymoshenko governments.
“OUN-UPA Veterans Could Be Given Combatant Status—Poroshenko”; Interfax-Ukraine; 9/25/2014.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said it is worth considering assigning the status of combatant to veterans of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists — Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA).
“This is a very important issue and one that was raised in a very timely manner. Previously, this issue split the country and was not on the agenda... Now is the right time,” he told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
The president also added that he sees OUN-UPA fighters as examples of heroism.
3. Svoboda demonstrated outside the parliament in Kiev on behalf of the UPA (UIA).
“Ukraine’s Parliament in Kiev” by Peter Leonard [AP]; Yahoo News; 10/14/2014.
Clashes broke out Tuesday between demonstrators and police in front of Ukraine’s parliament in Kiev as deputies inside repeatedly voted down proposals to recognize a contentious World War II-era Ukrainian partisan group as national heroes.
Thousands of Svoboda nationalist party supporters rallied earlier in the capital in celebration of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose struggle for independence for Ukraine was tainted by its collaboration with the Nazis.
Later, masked men attacked and threw smoke grenades at lines of police outside parliament as lawmakers met inside. The Interior Ministry said 36 people were detained by police.
Meanwhile, at least 14 people, including seven civilians and seven servicemen, were killed in fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine. A cease-fire has been in place since early September but violations are reported daily.
Svoboda said its members were not responsible for the unrest in Kiev, which police said was orchestrated by a small group of people at the rally.
The unrest overshadowed the passage of laws the government hopes will contain the galloping corruption that has long hindered Ukraine’s sclerotic economy. President Petro Poroshenko urged lawmakers to keep up the fight against corruption, a problem that he equated with terrorism.
One law backed by 278 out of the 303 registered deputies creates an anti-corruption bureau to fight graft. Other approved provisions included laws to stem money-laundering and to increase corporate transparency.
Parliament also approved a new defense minister — former National Guard head Stepan Poltorak — a pressing priority considering the clashes with pro-Russian separatists in its industrial eastern regions.
...
4a. More about Swoboda and their allies pushing for comemorating the UPA:
“Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis Demand Respect” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 10/15/2014.
For months, the New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets have insisted that it’s just Russian propaganda to say that a significant neo-Nazi presence exists inside Ukraine, but thousands of these “non-existent” neo-Nazis battled police on Tuesday outside the parliament building in Kiev demanding recognition of their Hitler-collaborating forebears.
The parliament, aware of the obvious public relations fiasco that would follow if it bowed to far-right demands to honor members of the Nazi-affiliated Ukrainian Insurgent Army (or UIA), defeated the proposal. That touched off riots by an estimated 8,000 protesters led by Ukraine’s right-wing Svoboda party and the Right Sektor.
Historians blame the UIA and other Ukrainian fascist forces for the extermination of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II as these right-wing Ukrainian paramilitaries sided with the German Nazis in their fight against the Soviet Union’s Red Army. Svoboda and the Right Sektor have elevated UIA leader Stepan Bandera to the level of a Ukrainian national hero. . . . .
4b. Poroshenko made October 14 a national holiday, honoring the founding of the OUN-UPA.
5. In FTR #779. we noted the dominant presence of Svoboda and Pravy Sektor ministers in the interim government in Ukraine. This may well have affected the investigation of the sniper deaths that take place during the demonstrations that brought about the fall of Viktor Yanukovych.
Oleh Makhnitsky is from Svoboda and has been central to the “investigation” of the sniper attacks.
Evidence has been destroyed, investigators have made prejudicial public statements about the accused, the deaths of the policemen have not been investigated and at least one photograph of the accused has obviously been doctored.
For millions of Ukrainians, it was a crime against humanity. In February, more than 100 protesters were gunned down in the Maidan uprising that toppled the president, Viktor Yanukovich. The victims are now known as “the Heavenly Hundred.”
In April, prosecutors arrested three suspects, members of an elite unit within the “Berkut” riot police. Senior among them was Dmytro Sadovnyk, 38, a decorated commander, who was accused of ordering his men to fire on the crowds on the morning of Feb. 20. The three stand accused of massacring 39 unarmed protesters.
On Sept. 19, the case took a turn when a judge released Sadovnyk into house arrest – and, two weeks later, he went missing.
Maidan activists were outraged, convinced that a corrupt system had let a killer escape. The judge was placed under investigation. The prosecutor said in a statement: “D. Sadovnyk, suspected of committing an extremely grievous crime, aiming to avoid punishment, disappeared from his place of permanent residence.”
But in a country where justice often isn’t blind, there’s another possibility: Sadovnyk was being framed, and saw flight as his best option. In court last month, he called the case against him “a political lynching.” In the days before he vanished, his wife and his lawyer say, Sadovnyk and his family received death threats.
A Reuters examination of Ukraine’s probes into the Maidan shootings — based on interviews with prosecutors, defence attorneys, protesters, police officers and legal experts – has uncovered serious flaws in the case against Sadovnyk and the other two Berkut officers.
Among the evidence presented against Sadovnyk was a photograph. Prosecutors say it shows him near Kiev’s Independence Square on Feb. 20, wearing a mask and holding a rifle with two hands, his fingers clearly visible.
The problem: Sadovnyk doesn’t have two hands. His right hand, his wife told Reuters, was blown off by a grenade in a training accident six years ago. As prosecutors introduced the image at a hearing in April, said Yuliya Sadovnyk, her husband removed a glove and displayed his stump to the courtroom.
“He can’t really shoot,” said Serhiy Vilkov, Sadovnyk’s lawyer. “To blame him for the crime is a political game.”
The probes into the killings have been hindered by missing evidence. Many guns allegedly used to shoot protesters have vanished; many of the bullets fired were taken home as souvenirs. Barricades, bullet-pierced trees and other items of forensic evidence were removed, lawyers say.
A former Berkut commander told Reuters that Berkut officers destroyed documentary evidence that potentially could identify fellow officers. They did so, he said, because they feared the Berkut’s headquarters would be attacked by a mob of revenge-seeking protesters after Yanukovich fled to Russia.
The former president isn’t the only key figure missing. In an interview before Sadovnyk vanished, Ukraine’s general prosecutor, Vitaly Yarema, said investigators had identified 17 Berkut officers as alleged participants in the protester shootings, based on surveillance camera videos and mobile-phone location data. Of the 17, he said, 14 had fled to Russia or Crimea, including the Berkut’s top commander in Kiev. Sadovnyk and his two co-defendants were the only identified suspects who had remained behind.
MILESTONE
Independence Square was the rallying point in Kiev where the anti-Yanukovich revolution largely unfolded between November and February. (The word Maidan means “square” in Ukrainian.) The killings there quickly were recognised as a milestone in modern Ukrainian history, part of a chain of events that set off a separatist conflict and Russian incursions that have shaken the country to its core.
Videos and photographs appear to show how Berkut officers shot at protesters and beat them with sticks. In one video, the Berkut are seen making a man stand naked in the snow.
The public is demanding answers and justice. But the investigations are testing Ukraine’s ability to rise above the kinds of failings that have hobbled the country ever since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
In contrast to, say, Poland, Ukraine has never gelled into a robust state. Kiev has had two revolutions since independence. A host of endemic problems — political corruption, racketeering, a divide between speakers of Ukrainian and Russian — have left it feeble and fractious. Another of the state’s chief failings, outside observers say, is a broken justice system.
Under Yanukovich and his rivals before him, courts and cops were political instruments. Yulia Tymoshenko, runner-up to Yanukovich in the 2010 presidential election, later was jailed in a case widely criticised as political.
In its 2013 report on human rights, the U.S. State Department cited the Tymoshenko conviction in observing that Ukraine’s courts “remained vulnerable to political pressure and corruption, were inefficient, and lacked public confidence. In certain cases the outcome of trials appeared to be predetermined.”
The post-Yanukovich government acknowledged as much this July, in a report it prepared with the International Monetary Fund. “The tax administration, the police, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the State Enforcement Service, and the judiciary were noted as having traditionally been viewed as among the most corrupt public institutions,” the report found.
The past shows signs of repeating itself.
The two prosecutors and a government minister who have led the Maidan shooting probes all played roles in supporting the uprising. One of these officials told Reuters that the investigators gathering the evidence are completely independent.
Another gap in the prosecution: To date, no one has been apprehended in the shooting of policemen. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, between Feb. 18 and 20, 189 police officers suffered gunshot wounds. Thirteen died.
In addition, the former acting general prosecutor who oversaw the arrests of the three Berkut officers declared on television that they “have already been shown to be guilty.” That statement, said legal experts, could prejudice the cases. Ukraine is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“A public statement by a prosecutor that directly challenges that presumption is a denial of due process,” said Richard Harvey, a British barrister who specialises in international criminal law.
Even some of the bereaved families question the fairness of the proceedings. Serhiy Bondarchuk, a physics teacher, died of a gunshot wound to the back on the morning of Feb. 20. His son, Volodymyr Bondarchuk, said the killing is one of the 39 in which Sadovnyk and his two colleagues are suspected. Volodymyr said that based on his own inquiries, he doubts the three were responsible for his father’s death.
“They are trying to close the case because their bosses and the community just want to have someone to punish,” he said. “The investigation does not have enough evidence to prove the guilt of these three people.”
Volodymyr Bondarchuk recently helped organise an association of about 70 families of dead protesters. “The main aim for us,” he said, “is an objective and accurate investigation.”
GOLDEN EAGLES
February 20 was the bloodiest day of the Maidan uprising. Scores of protesters and police officers were shot and killed. A day later, opposition leaders signed a European Union-mediated peace pact.
Public pressure mounted to prosecute the perpetrators. Within a week, Yanukovich, by then a fugitive, was indicted for the mass murder of protesters. An interim government disbanded the Berkut, a force of several thousand whose name means “golden eagle.”
On April 3, Ukrainian authorities announced the arrests of several members of an elite special unit within the Berkut. One was Sadovnyk, the unit’s commander. A father of three, he first joined the Berkut in 1996 after serving in the Ukrainian army. He later won numerous commendations for his police service.
Also detained were two younger officers: Serhiy Zinchenko, 23, and Pavel Abroskin, 24.
An internal prosecution document, reviewed by Reuters, sketches out investigators’ version of events. It is a “Notice of Suspicion” for Zinchenko, dated April 3.
The document alleges that on Feb. 18, the Berkut’s top commander, Serhiy Kusiuk, gave an oral order to Sadovnyk to deliver automatic rifles to his unit. Kusiuk is among the Berkut officers who fled to Russia, prosecutors say. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
On the morning of Feb. 20, several members of Sadovnyk’s unit were shot. At around 9 a.m., the document alleges, Sadovnyk ordered his men to fire in the direction of unarmed protesters walking up Instytutska Street in downtown Kiev. The shooting lasted nearly two hours, and more than nine protesters were killed, the document states.
Sadovnyk’s order to shoot was an abuse of power, “given that there was no immediate threat to the lives of the police officers,” the document alleges.
Vilkov, Sadovnyk’s lawyer, disputes that account. Although the document indicates Sadovnyk was at the scene, Vilkov said his client was not on Instytutska Street when the protesters were killed the morning of Feb. 20. Vilkov declined to discuss Sadovnyk’s whereabouts.
In a telephone interview on Sept. 30, Sadovnyk told Reuters he was at a meeting on the morning of Feb. 20 at Kiev police headquarters. It began sometime between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., he said. The purpose, he said, was to deal with reports that many armed protesters would be arriving in Kiev after a call by protest leaders to mobilise.
Sadovnyk said about seven police officials and officers were present, and he named three of them. Reuters was unable to locate the three for comment.
At the meeting, Sadovnyk said, the attendees heard gunshots and screams over police radios. The radios carried reports of the death of a Berkut officer and of other police wounded on Instytutska Street.
Sadovnyk said at that point, he left and drove to the scene, taking about 15 minutes to get there. He said he does not remember what time he arrived, but that investigators could figure it out by tracking his mobile phone. He said he brought a gun and protective equipment.
When he arrived, he said, he found a nearly empty scene, with police officers running and the sound of ricocheting bullets. He said he neither received nor gave any order for his unit’s members to shoot at protesters, nor did he fire at anyone himself.
“I deny killing,” he said.
Vadim Ostanin, an attorney for the Berkut’s Kiev branch, gave a similar account to Reuters. He said there is a video showing that Sadovnyk attended the meeting at police headquarters. Ostanin said that when Sadovnyk arrived at the scene of the shooting, his unit’s men already were retreating.
“GUILTY”
The general prosecutor’s office declined to discuss the defence’s account. In a statement, the office said it has plenty of evidence against Sadovnyk. This includes videos of a protester being shot by a gunman. The office believes the gunman is Sadovnyk, based on the “special way” the shooter is holding the weapon. In a previous statement, the office said: “The question of guilt or, conversely, innocence of mentioned persons will be resolved by the court.”
Oleh Makhnitsky was Ukraine’s acting general prosecutor until June. In an interview, Reuters asked him about the purported photograph of a two-handed Sadovnyk, which was cited at a hearing in April.
The purpose of that hearing, Makhnitsky said, was not to judge the reliability of the evidence but to determine whether Sadovnyk was a flight risk. He said the evidence against Sadovnyk would be presented at a future trial.
Makhnitsky, now an adviser to President Petro Poroshenko, said he was a leader of a lawyers’ group that provided legal assistance to anti-Yanukovich protesters during the Maidan demonstrations. He said politics played no role in the prosecution of the three Berkut officers. . . .
6. The result of the ascent of Swoboda, Pravy Sektor and the other OUN/B‑related elements in Ukraine has had the effect of elminating much of the pro-Russian voting bloc in the Eastern part of the country.
Out will go the bodyguards and mistresses, in are likely to come the street activists and war veterans: Ukraine’s next parliament will be pro-Western and strongly nationalist, and it won’t be to Russia’s liking.
Candidate lists for the Oct. 26 elections show how personal favourites backed by old school powerbrokers in the outgoing parliament are set to make way for people who made their names in Kiev’s “Maidan” revolution last winter, or in resisting Russian encroachment in eastern Ukraine.
> Army pilot Nadia Savchenko is top candidate for one of Ukraine’s biggest parties – even though she is being held in a Moscow psychiatric clinic, accused of involvement in the deaths of Russian journalists.
> Airforce colonel Yuly Mamchur – who became an instant hero in March when he defied pro-Russian forces by refusing to leave his post in Crimea – is running for the bloc of President Petro Poroshenko and is set to win a seat on Sunday.
> The battered face of Tetyana Chornovil, an activist beaten by thugs of the ousted ruling elite, made her a Maidan icon. Already a war widow at 35, she is a candidate for Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk’s party.
With many outgoing deputies in the pay of business oligarchs, the old 450-seat parliament was a market place for deals to be cut rather than voters’ interests to be defended. This may be about to change.
“We shan’t be seeing any more bodyguards and mistresses in the new parliament. We will see people with a military background, though they will not have political and juridical knowledge,” said political analyst Mikhailo Pogrebinsky.
The make-up of the new assembly will reflect months of war and a confrontation with Russia that has created a Cold War-style crisis between Moscow and the West around Ukraine and redrawn its political landscape.
The Maidan revolution drove out Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich in February. Kremlin alarm at his ousting and the prospect of a pronounced shift westwards by Kiev led to Russia annexing Crimea in March and provoked pro-Moscow separatist rebellions in Ukraine’s east.
The loss of Crimea and prevention of normal voting in the east, where violence persists despite a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and the rebels, will mean the number of seats occupied in the new parliament will shrink to 424, according to central election authorities. The others – and Savchenko’s if as expected she is elected – will remain vacant.
Commentators expect a strong pro-Europe majority to emerge. “At least half of parliament, at the very least, will be changed now. There will be utterly different party structure in parliament,” said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think-tank. “The absolute majority will be with those political forces linked to European integration and the ‘Maidan’.”
Even in the new-look assembly, Poroshenko will have to work hard to win support for his plan to bring peace in the east as several other pro-Europe parties fear a sell-out to Russia and the separatists.
...
Pro-Western Poroshenko called the election to secure further legitimacy after the revolution, which Russia denounced as a fascist coup to justify its backing of the separatists.
But there is little sign of national reconciliation, with the rebels threatening to hold their own elections in early November, people still dying every day in the east despite the ceasefire and anti-Russian feeling high in the capital.
Ukrainians are also expressing increasing disenchantment with the slow pace of reforms to improve living standards.
“There is a risk of a protest mood springing up again if there is no reform. Time is not on Poroshenko’s side. I hope he understands this and will undertake steps towards reform,” said Mustafa Nayem, a journalist and Maidan activist who is running for the Poroshenko bloc.
THE MAIDAN VOTE
Pro-Russian forces, including Yanukovich’s Regions Party, are certain to go from the assembly. The Communists, who usually backed him, might lose all representation for the first time since independence in 1991.
All other parties are seeking the vote of the Maidan – the local name for Kiev’s Independence Square where tens of thousands protested against Yanukovich and which commands moral authority in political life.
With the parties enlisting war veterans, volunteer battalion leaders and heroes such as Savchenko, Chornovil, Mamchur, the new assembly is likely to be hostile to Moscow.
“There might be no opposition at all in this parliament. But there might be competition to see who can be the best nationalist and the biggest enemy of Russia,” Pogrebinsky said.
Poroshenko is hoping for a mandate to pursue the peace plan for the east which he reluctantly accepted after battlefield defeats in which hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers may have died.
But even with a strong pro-European majority, Poroshenko, a 49-year-old confectionery tycoon, may not find it easy to win support for his plan and his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Anti-Kremlin feeling runs high in the capital. On the Maidan, stalls are selling toilet paper printed with Putin’s image. At international football matches an obscene chant about Putin is now as much a fixture as the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem.
Some supporters of the old elite have come under attack while out campaigning. Several have been seized, pelted with eggs and dumped in rubbish bins.
POROSHENKO’S PLAN
Opinion polls suggest Poroshenko’s bloc, which includes the Udar party of retired heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko, could take up to 30 percent of the party list vote which decides 225 of parliament’s seats.
He is assured of the support of Prime Minister Yatseniuk’s People’s Front Party if the latter – a favourite of the West because of his role in negotiating a $17 billion bailout from the IMF – manages to reach the five percent threshold for representation in parliament.
But he could still find himself in need of support from two potentially crucial players – former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, an old adversary who heads the Fatherland party, and populist firebrand Oleh Lyashko who leads the Radical Party.
Both have sharply criticised parts of Poroshenko’s peace plan and say his proposal for giving limited self-rule to the separatists for a provisional period will only encourage the rebels to press ahead with plans to form a breakaway entity.
7. Dmitro Yarosh, leader of Pravy Sektor, is heading to parliament:
Over 75% of voters supported Ukraine’s ‘course towards Europe,’ says Poroshenko.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Sunday claimed a landlside victory for pro-western parties in the country’s key parliamentary elections.More than half of the votes went to pro-government parties, and “a constitutional majority” of more than 75 per cent of voters supported the country’s course towards Europe, Poroshenko said in a statement.
“The Ukrainian government won a compelling vote of confidence from the people,” he said, adding that he will speed up reforms in the crisis-hit country.
And exit poll released after polls closed on Sunday said that the President’s newly formed party, the Poroshenko Bloc, stands to get 23 per cent, followed by prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s National Front with 21.3 per cent. The pro-European Samopomich party, led by the mayor of the western city of Lviv, came in third with 13.2 per cent.
Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Pro-western Fatherland party managed to just meet the 5‑per-cent hurdle for staying in the legislature by getting 5.6 per cent, according to the national exit poll conducted by three polling institutes.
Yatsenyuk and many other prominent figures left the Fatherland party in August.
Also in parliament, according to the poll, are: the nationalist Svoboda party (6.3 per cent); the Radical Party of populist politician Oleh Lyashko (6.4 per cent); and the Russia-leaning Opposition Bloc party (7.6 per cent).Among those who failed to get in are the Communists with 2.9 per cent and the nationalist Right Sector party with 2.4 per cent. However, exit polls predict that Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh won a direct seat in his native Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Svyatoslav Oliynyk, a deputy regional governor.
The Ukrainian Election Commission said that the turnout stood at 52.9 per cent per cent, based on figures from 115 of the 198 voting districts, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.
A dominance of pro-Western groups in the 450-seat unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, means a sharp break with the previous Rada, elected for a five-year period in 2012, which was dominated by Russia-leaning forces.
Poroshenko has said he hopes that the snap election will bring more stability to the crisis-hit country, where more than 3,600 people have been killed in a conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the east.
“I voted for Ukraine — single, indivisible, European,” Poroshenko said on Twitter after casting his ballot in Kiev Sunday afternoon.
Earlier, the president showed up dressed in fatigues in a polling station in Kramatorsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region that was recaptured by government forces in July.
Poroshenko said that he aimed to protect the right to vote of the more than 10,000 soldiers serving in the region.
Observers doubt, however, that a new government — expected to be formed as early as next week — will be able to end the fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the east quickly.
Security was tight on Sunday, and some 84,000 police officers were on duty throughout Ukraine to ensure a peaceful vote, the Interior Ministry said.
Voting did not take place in the districts controlled by the separatists, whose leaders have vowed to ignore Sunday’s polls because they consider Ukraine a neighbouring state. They have set their own elections for November 2.
Turnout in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are partly rebel-held, was much lower than elsewhere — just 31 per cent in Donetsk and 27 per cent in Luhansk, according to official figures.
Some 1.83 million voters were registered in both regions — only a fraction of their combined peacetime population of almost 7 million.
Overall, 36 million Ukrainians are eligible to cast a ballot.
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8. More depth on the nature of the “new” political makeup of the Ukrainian government is provided by German-Foreign-Policy.com. Note that the “moderate” Yatsenyuk’s party has Andriy Biletsky, founder of the Azov Battalion as an adviser. Poroshenko has Svoboda member Oleg Makhnitsky as an adviser, as well as Roman Svarych, the personal secretary to Jaroslav Stetsko.
“Nationalist Upsurge”; german-foreign-policy.com; 10/24/2014.
The election campaign, ending this week in today’s pro-Western Ukraine, is characterized by extremist nationalism. According to opinion polls, the party of the politician, who had promoted himself using videos of his violations of the human rights of alleged pro-Russian separatists, is set to become second in Sunday’s elections. Considering the civil war’s nationalist upsurge, other parties have begun accepting militiamen into their ranks. The commander of the fascist Asov Battalion, for example, is a member of the “military council” of Prime Minister Arseniy Jazenjuk’s party. Last week, Asov Battalion militia members participated in the violent attacks on the Ukrainian parliament. During the election campaign, it was alleged that Kiev’s troops had used internationally banned cluster munitions in the Donetsk region. New social cuts are anticipated — regardless of the winner of the elections — to pay for the essential supplies of Russian gas. Berlin and the EU, whose hegemonic sphere Ukraine joined this year, are refusing to give Kiev additional material assistance. Aside from these issues, the former Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, admitted that he had completely invented the serious allegations he made against the Russian president. German media have widely reported on these allegations.
Summary Execution
The election campaign in today’s pro-Western Ukraine has been shaped, to a growing extent, by extremist nationalism. Opinion polls predict the victory of the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc,” whose top candidate, Vitali Klitschko, had been systematically groomed by the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation.[1] For months already, pollsters have been unanimously predicting that Oleh Lyashko’s “Radical Party” will come in second. With his violations of the human rights of alleged pro-Russian separatists, (german-foreign-policy.com reported [2]) Lyashko seems to attract a significant number of potentially fascist voters. Most recently, he aroused attention, when, in a TV talk show, he presented a prisoner — whom he claimed was a Russian soldier.[3] Lyashko also announced that, in the future, he will have captured separatists summarily executed. Polls give Lyashko more than ten percent of the vote. The Svoboda Party, which, up to now, had been the strongest force within the fascist spectrum, is expected to lose so many votes to Lyashko’s party that it will have to worry about whether it will achieve the 5% hurdle or have to depend on direct mandates. Svoboda may also lose votes to the “Right Sector,” which hardly has a chance of winning seats in the Verkhovna Rada.
“Crusade Against Untermenschen”
Beyond the spectrum of overtly fascist parties, particularly the “People’s Front” — the party of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had been put in power by the West — is campaigning with well-known rightwing extremists. Tetiana Chornovol, the former press secretary of the fascist UNA-UNSO organization, who, in the meantime has joined the Asov Battalion, is the second candidate on the ballot of the “People’s Front.” The “People’s Front” has also established a “Military Council” to profit from the country’s nationalist war frenzy. The “Military Council” also includes Asov Battalion commander Andriy Biletsky. Biletsky once declared, “the historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival,” in “a crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”[4] His Asov Battalion had participated in the violent attacks on the Ukrainian parliament. These attacks began October 14, when the majority of the deputies rejected the motion for declaring October 14 an official holiday. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which had also committed massacres on more then 90,000 Christian and Jewish Poles, was founded October 14, 1942.
Cluster Munitions
During the election campaign, there were also serious allegations raised against the government. According to recent reports — including those by western human rights organizations — Kiev government forces, particularly fascist militias, are committing serious human rights violations in the civil war in eastern Ukraine. It has also been reported that government units have used internationally banned cluster munitions in the Donetsk region. Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous to civilians. To date, 114 countries have signed the treaty banning cluster munitions. The Ukraine has not joined the treaty even after the pro-western coup in Kiev. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), there is strong evidence of Kiev’s government forces having used cluster munitions in attacks in early October — at the time, the ceasefire was already in effect. According to HRW, at least six people have been killed and dozens wounded by these internationally banned munitions. The real number of victims is probably higher, according to the human rights organization.[5]
Verge of Collapse
For the period following the elections, regardless of election results, there are already indications of new social cutbacks. Economically, Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. This year’s economic performance will shrink by up to ten percent, correspondents report. The budget could reach a deficit of more than seven percent of the gross domestic product. Since the beginning of the year, the Ukrainian currency, the hryvna, has lost well over half of its value vis à vis the US dollar, causing the price of imported goods to soar. In addition, the costs of energy have also been rising; inflation is running at around twelve percent. No one expects the US $17 billion in IMF bailouts — up to 2016 — to suffice.[6] Therefore, now that Kiev has joined the Western hegemonic sphere of influence, it is insisting on financial support from Berlin and the EU. The German government is only willing to participate in limited financing. At best, a limited share of the costs for Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine could be covered, according to the EU’s Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger’s entourage. The Ukrainian government must revise its budget. This implies wide-ranging social cuts. The fact that no final agreement has been reached with Russia on the supply of natural gas is advantageous to President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The absolutely essential agreement and, with it, also the debate on more cuts, are, therefore, postponed until after elections.
Lies
Recent German media reports have demonstrated to what extent the western “freedom” PR campaign, even beyond the Ukrainian election campaign, is resorting to obvious lies for their power struggle with Russia. Last weekend, Radoslaw Sikorski, until recently, as Poland’s Foreign Minister, one of the EU’s most involved politicians in the Ukrainian conflict, was quoted claiming that in February 2008, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, proposed to him and the Polish Prime Minister, at the time, Donald Tusk, that Ukraine be divided up between Poland and Russia. “Tusk, fortunately, did not answer. He knew that the room was bugged,” claimed Sikorski. By Wednesday, it was claimed that the “suspicion” of Russia currently pursuing “an old plan of conquest,” has now “been further reinforced” by Sikorski’s declaration.[7] However, by then, Sikorski already had had to admit that, contrary to his earlier allegations, he had not even been present at the said meeting. He had been told that “a similar” statement had been made. He has now also admitted that the meeting in question had not even taken place.[8] This incident is but one in a long line of absurdities being propagated by western political PR and media. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9])
Other reports and background information on Germany’s policy toward Ukraine can be found here: The Kiev Escalation Strategy, The Free World, A Fatal Taboo Violation, The Europeanization of Ukraine, Crisis of Legitimacy, “Fascist Freedom Fighters”, The Restoration of the Oligarchs (IV), Second-Class Stakeholders, Ukrainian Patriots, Ukrainian Maneuvers, A Lesson Learned and Under Tutelage.
[1] See Our Man in Kiev.
[2] See Radikalisierung im Parlament.
[3] Benjamin Bidder: Rechter Politiker Ljaschko: Der Mann, der die Ukraine aufhetzt. www.spiegel.de 22.10.2014.
[4] Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists. www.telegraph.co.uk 11.08.2014.
[5] Ukraine: Widespread Use of Cluster Munitions. www.hrw.org 20.10.2014.
[6] Matthias Benz: Ein Land im Stresszustand. www.nzz.de 22.10.2014.
[7] Konrad Schuller: Ein schlechter Scherz? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22.10.2014.
[8] Sikorski entschuldigt sich. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 23.10.2014.
[9] See “Moskaus Drang nach Westen”.
9. It turns out one of the key figures in the Poroshenko administration, who was also heavily backed by Pierre Omidyar’s pro-Maidan outfits, was the person in charge of pushing the lustration laws. (This story was not included in the original program.) Of particular significance is the fact that Svitlana Zalischuk, the recipient of Omidyar’s funding, was a key player in coordinating the activities of the so-called “respectable,” “moderate” pro-EU political cadre with the overtly fascist parties such as Svoboda and the Radical Party.
Ukraine just held its first post-revolution parliamentary elections, and amid all of the oligarchs, EU enthusiasts, neo-Nazis, nepotism babies, and death squad commanders, there is one newly-elected parliamentarian’s name that stands out for her connection to Silicon Valley: Svitlana Zalishchuk, from the billionaire president’s Poroshenko Bloc party.
Zalishchuk was given a choice spot on the president’s party list, at number 18, ensuring her a seat in the new Rada. And she owes her rise to power to another oligarch besides Ukraine’s president — Pierre Omidyar, whose funding with USAID helped topple the previous government. Zalishchuk’s pro-Maidan revolution outfits were directly funded by Omidyar.
Earlier this year, Pando exposed how eBay billionaire and Intercept publisher Pierre Omidyar co-funded with USAID Zalishchuk’s web of nongovernmental organizations — New Citizen, Chesno, Center UA. According to the Financial Times, New Citizen, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omidyar, “played a big role in getting the [Maidan] protest up and running” in November 2013. Omidyar Network’s website features Zalishchuk’s photograph on its page describing its investment in New Citizen. Zalishchuk was brought into the NGOs by her longtime mentor, Oleh Rybachuk, a former deputy prime minster who led the last failed effort to integrate Ukraine into the EU and NATO.
Zalishchuk’s photos also grace the Poroshenko Bloc’s website and twitter feed, as she emerged as one of the presidential party’s leading spokespersons. The Poroshenko Bloc is named after Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire with a lock on Ukraine’s confectionary industry, as well as owning a national TV station and other prized assets. He came to power this year thanks to the revolution originally organized by Zalishchuk’s Omidyar-funded NGOs, and has rewarded her with a seat in the Rada.
The president’s party tasked Zalushchik with publicly selling the highly controversial new “lustration law” — essentially a legalized witch-hunt law first proposed by the neo-fascist Svoboda Party earlier this year, and subsequently denounced by Ukraine’s prosecutor general and by Human Rights Watch, which described a draft of the law as “arbitrary and overly broad and fail(s) to respect human rights principles,” warning it “may set the stage for unlawful mass arbitrary political exclusion.”
The lustration law was passed under a wave of neo-Nazi violence, in which members of parliament and others set to be targeted for purges were forcibly thrown into trash dumps.
Zalishchuk, however, praised the lustration law, claiming that the legalized purges would “give Ukraine a chance at a new life.”
Shortly before the elections, on October 17, Zalishchuk used her Omidyar-funded outfit, “Chesno,”to organize a roundtable with leaders of pro-EU and neo-fascist parties. It was called “Parliament for Reform”and it brought together leaders from eight parties, including Zalishchuk’s “Poroshenko Bloc” (she served as both NGO organizer and as pro-Poroshenko party candidate), the prime minister’s “People’s Party” and leaders from two unabashedly neo-Nazi parties: Svoboda, and the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, who was denounced by Amnesty International for posting YouTube videos of himself interrogating naked and hooded pro-Russian separatist prisoners. Lyashko’s campaign posters featured him impaling a caricatured Jewish oligarch on a Ukrainian trident.
Meanwhile, Zalishchuk’s boss, President Petro Poroshenko, has led a bloody war against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country that left at least 3700 dead in a half year of fighting. Human Rights Watch recently accused Poroshenko’s forces of “indiscriminate” use of cluster bombs in heavily populated areas, that “may amount to war crimes.” Poroshenko’s forces include neo-Nazi death squads like the notorious Azov battalion.
Last month, Poroshenko further cemented his ties to the extreme right by hailing Ukraine’s wartime Nazi collaborators, the violently anti-Semitic UPA, as “heroes.” The fascist UPA participated in the Holocaust, and were responsible for killing tens of thousandsof Jews and ethnic Poles in their bid to create an ethnically pure Ukraine. Many UPA members filled the ranks of the Nazi SS “Galicia” Division. The neo-Nazi Right Sektor, which spearheaded the violent later stages of the Maidan revolution, sees itself as the UPA’s contemporary successors; Right Sektor’s leader, Dmitry Yarosh, believes that any “ethnic minority that prevents us from being masters in our own land” is an “enemy.” Yarosh was just elected to the new parliament.
This week, Omidyar Network’s “investment lead” for Ukraine, Stephen King, accepted an award for Omidyar Network’s role in a major new USAID-backed project, Global Impact Investing Network. . . .
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“Avakov Appointed Chief of Police of Kiev Region Zamkombata ‘Azov’ “; 10/31/2014.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov appointed chief of Research Affairs in Kyiv oblast party ATO, deputy battalion commander “Azov” Vadim Troyan.
He announced from the stage of the Center of Culture and Arts of Ukraine Ministry of Internal Affairs on Friday, Oct. 31, transmits “Ukrinform”.
“I have an order that has appointed Lieutenant Colonel Vadim Troyan departmental head of the Kiev region, and I hope that the patriots who proved his loyalty in battle countries that are competent, able, together with the old experts to form qualitatively new militia, which we expect,” — said the Minister.
Avakov added that Troyan is a graduate of the Police Academy, has experience, trust him, because he is well established in the ATO. “It frees Mariupol with” Azov “, fought under Ilovaiskaya, participated in the battles of Shirokino. We trust him. And today, the decision of the minister, he’s a police chief of Kiev region “- said the head of the Interior Ministry.
In reply, Vadim Troyan assured that the Ukrainians will not let such a responsible position. “When I was studying, I dreamed of changing the system and the fight against crime, to help the people of Ukraine. I think that this case is that God has given me — the battalion, the ministry and the people — I will not fail, “- he said.
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11. To gain a sense of how long the OUN/B milieu has been operating and building its support base in the U.S., we revisit a portion of FTR #26. (The program was recorded in December of 1995 and features an excerpt of the book Sabotage by Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn.)
Oh look, deputy commander of the Azov Battalion, Vadim Troyan, just become Kiev’s chief of police(Google translated):
It turns out one of the key figures in the Poroshenko administration, who was also heavily backed by Pierre Omidyar’s pro-Maidan outfits, was the person in charge of pushing the lustration laws:
The head of the Donbas Battalion threatened to overthrow Poroshenko if a single city is surrendered to the rebels:
With that permanent coup threat in mind, note that it doesn’t look like the Donbas Battalion will be feeling the need to carry out a coup any time soon: