Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. The new drive is a 32-gigabyte drive that is current as of the programs and articles posted by 12/19/2014. The new drive (available for a tax-deductible contribution of $65.00 or more) contains FTR #827. (The previous flash drive was current through the end of May of 2012 and contained FTR #748.)
WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
You can subscribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself HERE.
This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment
Introduction: We note a report in Stars and Stripes that elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade are to begin training of Ukraine’s national guard battalions. Those battalions include the “punisher” battalions, including the Nazi Azov Battalion. Azov will be the recipient of training by the 173rd Airborne, beginning on April 20th [Hitler’s Birthday–D.E.], this according to the Ukrainian interior minister.
In addition, Dmytro Yarosh, head of Pravy Sektor (one of the Nazi OUN/B heirs in Ukrainian power structure and government) will be an assistant to the head of that country’s army, this to “control” the “punisher” battalions, including Azov. The precise definition of the term “control,” in this context, remains to be determined.
Yarosh and Pravy Sektor threatened a Kiev gay Rights parade, a threat on which they made good. In addition, Pravy Sektor has served as an enforcer element for Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a Ukrainian oligarch who has proved recalcitrant in his attitude toward regulatory measures exercised against him.
A startling move entailed the appointment of former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili to govern the Ukrainian province of Odessa. Saakashvili cannot return to his native country because of serious legal problems there.
Seen as a way to maintain the status quo in Odessa with regard to the primacy of Ihor Kolomoyskyi in that province, the Saakashvili appointment is a distraction.
Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and the American-born Natalie Jaresko have threatened to suspend payments to creditors to finance the war in the Eastern part of that country. Creditors suspect that Ukraine has the money and Yatsenyuk is suspected of having embezzled $325 million.
Their boss, president Petro Poroshenko has threatened to invade Crimea and the Donbass, which might very well lead to World War III.
Program Highlights Include:
- Svoboda’s ideological pundit–Yuri Michalchyshyn–is now working for the Ukrainian intelligence.
- A serious of suspicious deaths of opposition political figures and regime critics in Ukraine.
- The re-routing of data about nuclear weapons from the UK to Ukraine.
- The growing coordination of military hardware and operations between Ukraine and NATO.
- Business connections between Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Georgia under the newly appointed governor of Odessa, Mikhail Saakashvili.
- The U.S. House of Representatives recently declined to give weaponry to the Azov battalion, noting its openly Nazi character.
- The OSS’s recruitment of Stephan Bandera in 1946.
- It is impossible within the scope of this post to cover our voluminous coverage of the Ukraine crisis. Previous programs on the subject are: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 794, 800, 803, 804, 808, 811, 817, 818, 824, 826, 829, 832, 833, 837, 849. Listeners/readers are encouraged to examine these programs and/or their descriptions in detail, in order to flesh out their understanding.
1a. In FTR #777, we highlighted the adoption of Stephan Bandera’s OUN/B by elements of U.S. intelligence to use as combatants against the Soviet Union. Having staffed SS and Gestapo ranks and participated in war crimes against Poles, Jews, Russians and other “racial undesirables,” this Third Reich ally conducted guerilla warfare against the Soviets until the early 1950’s.
Transitioning from Nazi Germany to the Office of Policy Coordination (a CIA/State Department operation administered by Frank Wisner), the OUN/B combatants essentially switched uniforms from the Third Reich to American intelligence.
A declassified document from the Office of Strategic Services–America’s World War II intelligence agency and the forerunner of the CIA–discloses that Bandera and his organization were targeted for recruitment in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
The document features discussion of Yaroslav Stetsko, the wartime leader of Ukraine whose Nazi puppet regime fulfilled the Reich’s ethnic cleansing doctrine with brutal thoroughness. In understanding the Ukraine crisis, the unbroken line of political succession from Stetsko/Bandera to the present should be borne in mind, as should the synthesis of U.S. covert operations and the GOP, specifically the Crusade For Freedom.
An illegal domestic covert operation, the CFF brought Nazi allies such as the OUN/B, the Croatian Ustachi, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Bulgarian National Front and others into the United States in order to drive the political spectrum to the right.
As of 1952, the CFF became inextricably linked with the GOP, with Arthur Bliss Lane playing a key role in the GOP’s 1952 campaign, as well as being centrally involved in the CFF. The CFF spawned the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, which was able to deliver the swing vote in five key states in Presidential election years. It eventually became a permanent part of the GOP.
Conceived by Allen Dulles, the CFF was overseen by Richard Nixon. Its chief spokesperson was Ronald Reagan. The State Department official responsible for bringing “fascist freedom fighters” like the OUN/B into the United States was William Casey (Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager in the 1980 Presidential race and later Reagan’s CIA director.) The Nazi wing of the GOP was installed as a permanent branch of the Republican Part when George H.W. Bush was the head of the Republican National Committee.
The OUN/B was a key element of the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization. It is noteworthy that the organizations that were represented in the GOP subgroup were all affiliated with the SS during World War II. They were also inextricably linked with the Reinhard Gehlen organization.
Perhaps the most important effect of the Gehlen organization was to introduce “rollback” or “liberation theory” into American strategic thinking. Rollback was a political wafare and covert operation strategy which had its genesis in the Third Reich Ostministerium headed by Alfred Rosenberg. This strategy entailed enlisting the aid of dissident Soviet ethnic minorities to overthrow the Soviet Union. In return, these minorities and their respective republics were to be granted nominal independence while serving as satellite states of “Greater Germany.”
In its American incarnation, liberation theory called for “rolling back” communism out of Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union into its constituent ethnic Republics. Lip-service was given to initiating democracy in the “liberated” countries. Liberation theory was projected into mainstream American political consciousness through the Crusade for Freedom.
In FTR #778, we examined the projection of CFF Nazis into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The OUN/B was primary among those elements. Following the so-called “Orange Revolution,” Reagan’s Deputy Director of Public Liaison, Ykaterina Chumachenko married Viktor Yuschenko and became first lady of Ukraine. The UCCA is the key OUN/B front organization in the U.S.
The Yuschenko regime remade Ukrainian history in the ideological mold of the OUN/B. (see FTR #781.) Yaroslav Stetsko’s personal secretary in the early 1980s, Roman Svarych, was appointed minister of justice under Yuschenko and held the same post under both Timoshenko governments. (That is the Ukrainian equivalent of Attorney General.)
Svarych is an adviser to Poroshenko and, along with Stetsko’s widow Slava, founded the Ukrainian National Congress, an OUN/B‑influenced party in Ukraine.
Svarych is the embodiment of the political and historical continuity between the OUN/B of the Second World War era and that organization’s heirs in contemporary Ukraine.
1b. Andreas Umland has openly criticized the Kiev government for its embrace of the neo-Nazis, like this November 7, 2014 Facebook posting where Muland warns:
WARNING: The naivete of Ukrainian politicians and bureaucrats keeps surprising me. The appointments of two neo-Nazis, Vadym Troyan to the Ministry of Interior and Yuri Mikhalchyshyn to the Secret Service, will cost Ukraine a lot. Urgent advice: As these appointments will have to be reviewed sooner or later anyway, it is better to reverse these decisions before the enormous image damage that they can do to Ukraine across the globe is done. [Note that Yuri Michalchyshyn is the key ideological mentor for Svoboda, as discussed in FTR #781.]
2a. In a previous post, we noted that elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade are to begin training of Ukraine’s national guard battalions. Those battalions include the “punisher” battalions, including the Nazi Azov Battalion. Azov was, indeed, scheduled to be the recipient of training by the 173rd Airborne, beginning on April 20th [Hitler’s Birthday–D.E.].
“US Forces to Hold Exercises in Ukraine” [AP]; Stars and Stripes; 3/31/2015.
The United States plans to send soldiers to Ukraine in April for training exercises with units of the country’s national guard.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the units to be trained include the Azov Battalion, a volunteer force that has attracted criticism for its far-right sentiments including brandishing an emblem widely used in Nazi Germany.
Avakov said the training will begin April 20 [Hitler’s birthday–D.E.!] at a base in western Ukraine near the Polish border and would involve about 290 American paratroopers and some 900 Ukrainian guardsmen.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the troops would come from the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vicenza, Italy. . . .
2d. In a partial admission of the realities of what is going on in Ukraine, the U.S. House of Representatives voted against giving aid to the openly Nazi Azov Battalion.
“U.S. House Admits Openly Nazi Role in Ukraine” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 6/12/2015.
. . . . . When even the hawkish House of Representatives can’t stomach these Nazi storm troopers who have served as Kiev’s tip of the spear against the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine, what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable? . . . .
. . . . Yet, on June 10, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act – from Reps. John Conyers Jr., D‑Michigan, and Ted Yoho, R‑Florida – that would block U.S. training of the Azov battalion and would prevent transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fighters in Iraq and Ukraine.
“I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions,” said Conyers on Thursday.
He described Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a 1,000-man volunteer militia of the Ukrainian National Guard that Foreign Policy Magazine has characterized as “openly neo-Nazi” and “fascist.” And Azov is not some obscure force. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who oversees Ukraine’s armed militias, announced that Azov troops would be among the first units to be trained by the 300 U.S. military advisers who have been dispatched to Ukraine in a training mission codenamed “Fearless Guardian.” . . . .
2c. In addition, Dmytro Yarosh, head of Pravy Sektor (one of the Nazi OUN/B heirs in Ukrainian power structure and government) will be an assistant to the head of that country’s army, this to “control” the “punisher” battalions, including Azov.
The controversial leader of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor paramilitary group, which is fighting pro-Russian rebels alongside government troops, was made an army advisor Monday as Kiev seeks to tighten its control over volunteer fighters.
Coming on the anniversary of the start of fighting in Ukraine, the move marks a key step in government efforts to establish authority over the several private armies that share its goal of crushing pro-Russian separatists in the east, but do not necessarily operate under its control.
While some such militias answer to the interior ministry and receive funding, the powerful Pravy Sektor or “Right Sector” militia, which currently claims 10,000 members including reservists — but will not say how many are deployed at the front — had until now refused to register with the authorities.
Its posture is expected to change following Monday’s announcement by the defence ministry of the appointment of its leader, Dmytro Yarosh, a hate figure in Moscow who was elected to Ukraine’s parliament last year, as advisor to the army chief of staff Viktor Muzhenko.
“Dmytro Yarosh will act as a link between the volunteer battalions and the General Staff,” armed forces spokesman Oleksiy Mazepa told AFP.
“We want to achieve full unity in the struggle against the enemy, because now our aim is the cooperation and integration of volunteer battalions in the armed forces,” he added.
Asked whether the appointment might anger the West, political analyst Taras Beresovets said becoming army advisor “does not make him an influential person in the armed forces.”
“I do not remember hearing official criticism of Yarosh or the ‘Right Sector’ by any country except Russia,” he added. . . .
2d. Bet Pussy Riot won’t be protesting this one! Dmytro Yarosh, who in addition to being a member of parliament is also now a high-levelmilitary adviser, recently shared some thoughts on Facebook regarding the annual Kiev gay pride march:He has promised in a Facebook post that the group’s members will “put aside other business in order to prevent those who hate family, morality, and human nature, from executing their plans. We have other things to do, but we’ll have to deal with this evil too,” he wrote.
“Right Sector Threatens Kyiv Gay Pride March” by Johannes Wamberg Andersen; Kiev [Kyiv] Post; 6/6/2015.
Anti-gay groups in Ukraine, including the militant Right Sector, are threatening to stop a gay pride march planned for June 6.
Referring to the Old Testament in the Holy Bible, the Right Sector — which fields a battalion of soldiers to fight against Russia in eastern Ukraine — called gay people “perverts” who “need to be cured” and promised to “prevent this sodomist gathering.”
>“There will be thousands of us,” Right Sector spokesman Artem Skoropadskyi told the Kyiv Post.
The parade named Equality March will take place on June 6 in Kyiv.
The organizers keep time and place secret until the last moment for safety reasons.
On the morning of the day of the event, the details of the place and time will be sent out to the participants who registered online.
The annual gay prides are often haunted by ultra-conservatives.
In 2012, unknown men attacked and beat up gay rights activist Svyatoslav Sheremet on the day of a planned gay pride that was cancelled because of security reasons.
Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh has promised in a Facebook post that the group’s members will “put aside other business in order to prevent those who hate family, morality, and human nature, from executing their plans. We have other things to do, but we’ll have to deal with this evil too,” he wrote.
Yarosh then upped the stakes by connecting the parade to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
He said that the event would “spit on the graves of those who died and defended Ukraine.”
Echoing Russian rhetoric on the subject, Skoropadskyi said that “gay propaganda is destructive and doing harm to our Christian nation, we can’t allow that.”
President Petro Poroshenko gave his support to the Equality Rights march during a June 5 press conference.
He said citizens have a constitutional right to assembly and that law enforcement agencies would guarantee the safety.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko didn’t share the president’s confidence.
He asked the Kyiv lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender community to cancel the pride march to avoid “inflammation of hatred” and “not to provoke another confrontation in Kyiv.”
Activists said they would go forward with the march anyway.
Representatives from Germany, France and the European Union in Kyiv had engaged in a diplomatic effort to ensure that police would protect the manifestation, lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko said.
The Right Sector gained broad popularity in Ukraine playing an active role in the EuroMaidan Revolution. . . .
2e. Pravy Sektor followed through on its promise of violence, with multiple bands of militants ready to ambush fleeing protestors after they fled the violent attack on the march. The violent attack that included fireworks and a nail bomb that almost killed one of the police officers:
Protected by hundreds of police officers in Kyiv’s Obolon district, nearly 200 persons tried on June 6 to take part in the second gay pride parade in the last three years.
But violence, almost from the start, marred the event and sent people fleeing in chaos and panic. Police broke up the gathering quickly, telling participants to leave because they could not guarantee their safety after dozens of extremists attacked the crowd and police with fireworks, fists and nails.
Several police officers and participants were injured, including one officer who suffered serious wounds after being attacked with fireworks and nail bombs.
More than 20 extremists were arrested on suspicion of violence. Others escaped, including one man who shouted “they should die!” in reference to homosexuals.
Many attackers identified themselves as part of the militant Pravy (Right) Sector. Its leader, member of parliament Dmytro Yarosh, also fields a semi-autonomous battalion in the Ukrainian army. Yarosh, in a long Facebook post on June 5, condemned equal rights for gays and pledged to stop the gathering.
At least two other members of Parliament, Svitlana Zalishchuk and Serhiy Leshchenko, attended the march along with the Swedish ambassador to Ukraine, Andreas von Beckerath, and other Western diplomats.
Zalishchuk said that some of the extremists charged the crowd of marching activists, but were blocked by cordons of police that easily numbered several hundred officers to provide security. She praised the fast police response and witnessed some of the violence.
“One of policemen was almost killed,” Zalishchuk said. “He was wounded very severely in the neck.”
Zalishchuk said that the march and the accompanying violence show that Ukraine still has work to do in accepting gay rights.
While Ukraine has “made great progress in the path of tolerance, which is the core of our European path,” it’s clear to her that only a minority of Ukrainians support equal rights for homosexuals. “It’s definitely a minority, not a majority,” she said, based on public comments in social networks and in conversations.
She said that she has no plans to ask colleagues in Parliament to hold public hearings that would investigate, separately from the police criminal investigation, whether Right Sector instigated the violence.
“I don’t know whether they were all part of Praviy Sector,”Zalishchuk said. “They wrote that they were against it…I don’t know if the instigators themselves were from Pravy Sector.”
She said that the “consequences should be just” against those who committed violence and that, if Yarosh was behind the attacks, “this is unacceptable.”
The march got off to a peaceful start, but for security reasons, the location remained a secret until two hours before its scheduled 11 a.m. start.
“Ukraine is Europe! We are Europe!We share European values!” activists chanted as they marched along the Dnipro River in Kyiv’s Obolon District
Journalists had to gather in Kyiv’s Pechersk district, where they were picked up by a bus and transported to the march.
The extremists, however, were tipped off to the location. They were waiting near the scene and threatened violence from the start.
“It’s a shame to be gay. It’s not normal. They are perverse!” shouted two men in front of the nearby Kyiv Golf Club complex. Police blocked these men. But one attacker injured a police officer with a powerful firecracker. The wound left a puddle of blood on the ground.
“They should all die!” said a young man, his face covered in a balaclava. He didn’t want to explain why “all gays should die,” but constantly repeated that “it’s disgusting.”
Leshchenko, a member of parliament with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on Facebook that “the fate of Ukraine’s European integration will be determined this weekend during Kyiv’s gay pride parade.”
He also vowed to introduce legislation that would ban discrimination based on someone’s sexuality, a prerequisite for European Union integration.
“We are here not for a party. We’re here to show to the outside world that we’re human and don’t want to bescared of who we are,” said 20-year-old Maxim, a hair stylist, who attended the march with three of his friends. He was too afraid to give his full name as he claimed some provocateurs might hunt him down.
“It’s hard to be openly gay. My parents have known it for a few months, and with my father, I no longer have any contact. There is so much violence targeted at openly gays,” he explained the Kyiv Post. Quickly he pointed to the massive police force. “Is this normal? No, of course not! I hope there will be one day that Ukraine accepts Europe’smoral standards when it comes to LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) rights.”
The event was supposed to start at 11 a.m., but police demanded that participants leave as soon as possible under police escort because they couldn’t guarantee the activists’ safety if they stayed.
But even as the activists fled, anti-gay protesters gathered and clashed with police, some tackling police officers to the ground and beating them. Panic and chaos broke out, with people running through Obolon’s residential areas to find a safe way out.
“Don’t go to the metro stations!” yelled some police officers.
Anti-gay militants were waiting at Kyiv’s Minsk metro station, the closest station to the march, to confront gay activists.
A minivan of Pravy Sektor’s volunteer battalion Ukraine’s Volunteer Corps was spotted on the Heroiv Stalingrad Street, one of the main roads in the Obolon district leading to the Minsk metro station.
People ran across the streets to flee as police repelled the attacks with pepper spray that struck the eyes of two attackers, who fell to the ground. Paramedics quickly arrived. One of the injured men remained defiant.
“I’m a military officer in the east. It’s a shame that our country is allowing these perverts to walk the streets. It’s not okay!” he yelled. He was taken away by medics, while police arrested the other one.
...
Denis Panin, a board member of Fulcrum, one of the organizations involved in the Kyiv Pride event, is hopeful for the future, despite the violence.A gay pride parade in May 2012 was also called off because of violent threats while another march in December 2012 was also marred by attacks.
“Let’s hope that every year the pride gets better and safer, and let’s talk more openly about it. Ukraine is a closeted country, and it has to come out of that closet,” Panin said.
2e. Pravy Sektor has performed an “enforcer role” for one of Ukraine’s biggest oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Reform of his enterprises has proved elusive and is one of the thorns in the side of the Ukrainian government.
“Steinmeier and the Oligarchs;” german-foreign-policy.com; 6/01/2015.
. . . .Outpost Dnepropetrovsk
This has become even more complicated by the fact that — despite all its efforts - Kiev does not have control of the voluntary militia units fighting in eastern Ukraine. These militias are extremely nationalistic, some even openly fascist, who strictly reject the cease-fire and are repeatedly violating it. Therefore, Kiev cannot guarantee compliance with “Minsk II.” This is why German Foreign Minister Steinmeier went to Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk on Saturday, to use his personal influence. Following the February 2014 coup, Dnepropetrovsk was quickly and systematically turned into the pro-western government’s outpost in its struggle against the anti-Maidan opposition. Located relatively close to the Donbass region, Dnepropetrovsk became the scene of anti-Maidan protests in late 2013 and early 2014, and was therefore considered “at risk” by the new authorities in Kiev. On March 2, billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskyi was appointed governor of Dnepropetrovsk Oblast. Kolomoyskyi has the reputation of being one of Ukraine’s richest and most ruthless oligarchs. The ramifications of his reign over Dnepropetrovsk can still be seen today.
“Illegal but Effective”
Kolomoyskyi has actually succeeded in largely neutralizing the anti-Maidan opposition. “The regional political forces in and around Dnepropetrovsk” had “already very early decided to move against the separatist and pro-Russian movement,” retrospectively reports the German Green Party affiliated Heinrich Boell Foundation.[2] Already last year, critical observers had vividly described Kolomoyskyi’s “resolute line of action” against dissidents. His deputy was quoted saying, “we reached an agreement with some and instilled fear in the others.”[3] “The job was taken care of by the thugs of the Right Sector, as Kolomoyskyi had offered them Dnepropetrovsk as their field of operation, as well as financial backing,” reports the Ukraine expert Reinhard Lauterbach. In the Oblast’s administration, the methods of the Right Sector, which, in April 2014, had set up its headquarters in Dnepropetrovsk, are euphemistically described as “not always completely legal, but effective.”[4] Kolomoyskyi set a bounty for the dissidents (“saboteurs”), who were caught and he provided finances for the creation of a voluntary battalion of fascists. In last October’s parliamentary elections, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the “Right Sector,” was able to win a direct mandate to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian national parliament) in Dnepropetrovsk.
Maidan’s Main Beneficiary
Kolomoyskyi still wields an enormous amount of political influence in Dnepropetrovsk. Of the Ukrainian oligarchs, it was he, who has benefitted most from the February 2014 putsch, according to a study published by Warsaw’s “Centre for Eastern Studies” (OSW), early this year.[5] In fact, precisely because of his decisive influence on various voluntary battalions, Kolomoyskyi had become so powerful that, by the end of March, President Petro Poroshenko felt compelled to remove him from office in an unprecedented power struggle. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[6]) Although Kolomoyskyi no longer holds political office, he has lost none of his influence. Alongside his business dynasty, he controls numerous parliamentarians in various caucuses of the national parliament. Whoever wants to impose a cease-fire on the East Ukrainian militias, can achieve this quicker by going through Dnepropetrovsk than through Kiev. This is why Foreign Minister Steinmeier arrived there last Saturday. The Foreign Ministry stresses the fact that the minister did not meet personally with Kolomoyskyi, while politely mentioning that his successor in office, Valentyn Reznichenko, certainly “cannot oppose” the oligarch.[7] Saturday, Steinmeier had negotiations with Reznichenko. . . .
3. Although Ukraine is not yet a member of NATO, it is steadily solidifying its cooperation with the alliance.
“Moving West;” german-foreign-policy.com; 4/10/2015.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine has announced a new cooperation accord with NATO, under the terms of which Kiev will also intensify its cooperation with the transatlantic combat alliance in the domains of military intelligence and espionage. This announcement was made as NATO began initiating a large-scale deployment of military instructors in Ukraine. Ukraine is simultaneously transforming its arms industry production to meet NATO standards, which will permanently integrate that country into the structures of western arms producers. Experts are warning of exuberant corruption in Ukraine’s arms industry. A long-time notorious leader of fascist organizations has been appointed “advisor” to Ukraine’s Chiefs of Staff, just as the in part fascist-oriented volunteer battalions are being integrated into the ranks of the country’s regular armed forces. They too will benefit from NATO’s training and arming measures.
Military Cooperation
Ukraine is expanding its NATO cooperation. As Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced on Wednesday, the country would sign a memorandum with the western alliance to this effect. The memorandum will be signed within the framework of the “Partnership for Peace” program, reinforcing cooperation in advisory activities, military intelligence and espionage.[1] The new accord comes at a time when several NATO members are initiating large scale training measures for the Ukrainian armed forces. Already since last year, US and NATO military advisors are on duty in Ukraine. These include, according to media reports, an officer of the German Bundeswehr.[2] Washington plans, still in April, to dispatch 300 soldiers to nearby West Ukraine’s Lvov, where they will train three Ukrainian battalions. Great Britain is sending seventy-five military instructors, half of whom are already in Mykolaiv, in South Ukraine. According to media reports, Canada is also preparing to send military advisors. The German Bundeswehr has reported that its support goes beyond merely medical supplies and “medical treatment for seriously wounded soldiers;” it has also been “training” the Ukrainian army.[3]
Conform to NATO Standards
Running parallel to this training, the Ukrainian arms industry is converting its production to meet NATO standards. Already on the occasion of the “International Defense Industry Exhibition,” on September 3, 2014, which has been held annually in Kielce, Poland since 1993, a conference was convened under the auspices of NATO to discuss the future of Ukraine’s arms industry in the aftermath of Kiev’s pro-western coup d’état. Ukraine’s state-owned Ukroboronprom defense firm announced on March 4 that it was working with NATO’s codification and standardization teams to improve its industrial capabilities.[4] Ukroboronprom incorporates more than 130 arms companies. A “roadmap,” designating the path toward the Ukraine arms industry’s adaption of NATO’s standards by 2018, was established on March 31, at an international seminar of experts. Participating at the conference were experts from Poland and the Czech Republic, who had had the experience of making the identical transformations of their own arms industries, back in the 1990s. This standardization of their military products with those produced in the western combat alliance will mean that the Ukrainian arms industries are permanently shutting themselves off from the Russian companies, with which they had been closely cooperating up to 2013.
Remarkable Deals
Experts are warning of exuberant corruption in the Ukrainian arms industry, which is now definitely also infecting the Western camp. The Ukrinmash company, for example, which is part of the Ukroboronprom consortium, was “probably involved in illegal arms exports,” according to an expert at the Institute of International Relations of the University of Warsaw.[5] Ukrinmash became known, when Somali pirates seized a freighter carrying 33 Ukrainian tanks headed for South Sudan. Ukrinmash had also illegally delivered BM-21 “Grad” rocket launchers and anti-aircraft weapons to the secessionist regime in Juba — in violations of UN-sanctions — which, at the time, was still part of Sudan. The deal had been made in the interest of the West and in plain sight of military observers, including those from the Bundeswehr. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[6]) As the Warsaw expert notes, Ukrinmash is cooperating now also with the French Thales as well as British and US arms companies — resulting in lucrative deals. Ukrinmash has also imported outdated British armored personnel carriers, a deal bringing such high profits that the competent military authorities felt obliged to launch investigations. It remains a mystery, why Ukrinmash would provide Kiev’s fighting units in Eastern Ukraine — of all things — hunting rifles.
Parallel Military Structures
While NATO is intensifying its cooperation with Ukraine and its arms industry, fascist combat units are strengthening their influence within the country’s armed forces. In February, 17 volunteer — including openly fascist oriented — battalions fighting in Eastern Ukraine, united to form a “Joint Staff,” claiming they were an “alternative to the Chiefs of Staff of the regular armed forces.” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[7]) . . . .
4a. A telling move by Ukrainian president Poroshenko was described by Robert Parry: ” . . ..The latest political move by the U.S.-backed “pro-democracy” regime in Ukraine was to foist on the people of Odessa the autocratic Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neoconservative favorite and currently a fugitive from his own country which is seeking him on charges of human rights violations and embezzlement. . . .”
“Neocon Fugitive Given Ukrainian Province” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 6/2/2015.
The latest political move by the U.S.-backed “pro-democracy” regime in Ukraine was to foist on the people of Odessa the autocratic Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neoconservative favorite and currently a fugitive from his own country which is seeking him on charges of human rights violations and embezzlement.
New York Times correspondent David M. Herszenhorn justified this imposition of a newly minted Ukrainian citizen on the largely Russian-speaking population of Odessa by saying that “the Ukrainian public’s general willingness to accept the appointment of foreigners to high-level positions underscores the deep lack of trust in any government after nearly a quarter-century of mismanagement and corruption.”
But Herszenhorn made no apparent effort to gauge how willing the people of Odessa are to accept this choice of a controversial foreign politician to govern them. The pick was made by President Petro Poroshenko and is just the latest questionable appointment by the post-coup regime in Kiev.
For instance, shortly after the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the new U.S.-endorsed authorities in Kiev named thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine. Kolomoisky, regarded as one of Ukraine’s most corrupt billionaires, ruled the region as his personal fiefdom until he was ousted by Poroshenko earlier this year in a dispute over Kolomoisky’s use of strong-arm tactics to maintain control of Ukrainian energy companies. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Oligarchs Turn on Each Other.”]
Poroshenko also has granted overnight Ukrainian citizenship to other controversial foreigners to hold key positions in his government, including Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex‑U.S. State Department official whose qualifications included enriching herself through her management of a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Finance Minister’s ‘American Values’.”]
Beyond his recruitment of questionable outsiders, Poroshenko has made concessions to Ukraine’s far-right nationalists, including signing legislation to extend official recognition to Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews and Poles during World War II. In a bitter irony, the new law coincided with the world’s celebration in April of the 70thanniversary of Russian and U.S. troops bringing an end to the Holocaust. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Ukraine Commemorates the Holocaust.”]
Now Poroshenko has given Saakashvili his own province to govern, rescuing him from an obscure existence in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. According to a New York Times profile last September, Saakashvili was there “writing a memoir, delivering ‘very well-paid’ speeches, helping start up a Washington-based think tank and visiting old boosters like Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state.”
McCain and Nuland were key neocon backers of the coup that ousted Yanukovych and touched off the bloody civil war that has killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, while also reviving Cold War tensions between the West and Russia. Before the coup, McCain urged on right-wing protesters with promises of U.S. support and Nuland was overheard hand-picking Ukraine’s new leadership, saying “Yats is the guy,” a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became prime minister after the coup.
According to the Times profile, Saakashvili also “entertained David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” another neocon favorite who ran into legal trouble himself when the FBI discovered he had shared top-secret information with his biographer/lover and then lied about it to FBI agents. Petraeus, however, received only a suspended sentence and a fine in contrast to intelligence-community whistleblowers who have faced serious prison time.
Models, Nude Artist and Massage Therapist
While cooling his heels in Brooklyn, Saakashvili fumed over charges leveled against him by prosecutors in his home country of Georgia. According to the Times profile, Saakashvili was accused of “using public money to pay for, among other things, hotel expenses for a personal stylist, hotel and travel for two fashion models, Botox injections and hair removal, the rental of a yacht in Italy and the purchase of artwork by the London artist Meredith Ostrom, who makes imprints on canvases with her naked, painted body. …
“Mr. Saakashvili is also accused of using public money to fly his massage therapist, Dorothy Stein, into Georgia in 2009. Mr. Saakashvili said he received a massage from Ms. Stein on ‘one occasion only,’ but Ms. Stein said she received 2,000 euros to massage him multiple times, including delivering her trademark ‘bite massage.’ ‘He gave me a bunch of presents,’ said Ms. Stein, who splits her time between Berlin and Hoboken,” including a gold necklace.
The Georgian prosecutors also have charged Saakashvili with human rights violations for hisviolent crackdown on political protesters in 2007.
However, in Herszenhorn’s May 31 article about Saakashvili’s appointment as Odessa’s governor, the Times correspondent (who has behaved more like a pro-Kiev propagandistthan an objective reporter) wrote that the criminal charges against Saakashvili and other officials from his government are “widely perceived as a campaign of political retribution.”
Herszenhorn didn’t say where he had gained that perception, but it is true that Official Washington’s neoconservatives will broach no criticism of their longtime hero Saakashvili, who was a big booster of the Iraq War and even named a boulevard in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in honor of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Saakashvili apparently felt that his close ties to the Bush administration would protect him in summer 2008 when he provoked a border clash with Russian troops over the rebellious territory of South Ossetia. Georgia suffered a sharp military defeat and Saakashvili’s political star quickly faded among his countrymen, leading to his party’s rejection at the polls and his exile.
But Saakashvili’s love of the high life might find similar attitudes among some of the other “carpetbaggers” arriving in Ukraine to take Ukrainian citizenship and get top jobs in the post-coup government. Estonian Jaanika Merilo, an associate of Finance Minister Jaresko’s, was brought in to handle Ukraine’s foreign investments, but Merilo is best known on the Internet for her provocative party photos.
4b. It turns out that Saakashvili has long-standing business connections to the Kolomoyskyi interests in the region.
“Ukraine Update 5/30: Special Saakashvili Edition” by Brian Mefford; Brian Mefford; 5/30/2015.
. . . . In appointing Saakashvili as Odesa Governor, it would appear that Poroshenko has assigned a strong leader to govern a key region under pressure by the Russians. Faced with a tough decision among at least four Odesa political figures (Eduard Hurvits, Oleksiy Goncharenko, Ivan Plachkov and Volodymyr Kurennoy) that could potentially shift the balance of power amongst competing business interests in the region – Poroshenko opted for an outsider. It should be noted that another Odesa outsider and a leader with a record of fighting Russian influence, Serhiy Kunitsyn (the twice Prime Minister of Crimea and former Sevastopol Governor), was also on the short list of candidates for the post. However none of the short listed candidates have the international profile of Saakashvili. Perhaps more importantly, since it is oligarch Igor Kolomoyskyi who is losing his hand-picked Governor in the region, Saakashvili’s appointment gives Kolomoyskyi a “soft landing”. This is because the oligarch’s “Privat Group” of companies invested heavily in Georgia under Misha’s presidency and was pleased with the relationship. . . .
4c. Financial shenanigans appear to be dogging the Ukrainian government. U.S.-born Natalie Jaresko, an AID employee of Ukrainian extraction, is the Ukrainian finance minister. She is discussing suspending Ukraine’s debt payments as suggested by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in order to finance that country’s civil war.
Ukraine’s creditors are not pleased.
Ukraine’s premier warned Friday that Kiev will freeze its debt repayments if no immediate deal is found with private lenders because it has to fund its escalating campaign against pro-Russian fighters.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on his return from a visit to Washington that the International Monetary Fund had given his embattled government a few weeks’ reprieve to enact laws needed for the release of new loans.
But the Western-backed cabinet leader said the IMF had signalled its willingness to let Ukraine restructure debts at its own pace — and that interest payments to Western commercial lenders and Russia may stop as early as next week. . . .
. . . . Growing security concerns have been compounded by seemingly deadlocked talks with foreign creditors who soaked up Ukrainian Eurobonds in far more peaceful times.
Kiev is up against seasoned financial heavyweights such as US investment firm Franklin Templeton, who believe thatUkraine has the funds stashed away in its central bank to repay its debts in full.
Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko has firmly refused to do so — a position that has left the private lender increasingly anxious and Russia visibly irate.
“We are deeply concerned about the stance (Jaresko) is taking, which is not in the interests of Ukraine,” Kiev’s four biggest commercial lenders warned in a joint statement Thursday. . . .
4d. It is against this background that accusations of profound corruption against Yatsenyuk must be weighed.
. . . .The Parliament, in which pro-European parties control a huge majority, voted last month to create a special committee to investigate accusations that Mr. Yatsenyuk, a suave English speaker admired in the West, and his cabinet have presided over the embezzlement of more than $325 million from the state. . . .
5. There has been a series of suspicious deaths of opposition political figures and critics of the Poroshenko/Maidan regime in Ukraine. One wonders of the “European Union values” supposedly being manifested in Ukraine includes systematic political assassination of the opposition, a possibility that must be considered in this context. Recall that the deputy commander of the Azov Battalion is the chief of police in Kiev.
“Mysterious Deaths in Ukraine” by William Blum; Consortium News; 4/3/2015.
Following the murder of Russian opposition leader, and former Deputy Prime Minister, Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on Feb. 27, the West had a field day. Ranging from strong innuendo to outright accusation of a Kremlin-directed political murder, the Western media and politicians did not miss an opportunity to treat Russian President Vladimir Putin as a football practice dummy.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution urging an international investigation into Nemtsov’s death and suggested that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Council, and the United Nations could play a role in the probe.
U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham introduced a Senate Resolution condemning the Nemtsov murder. The Resolution also called on President Barack Obama and the international community to pursue an independent investigation into the murder and redouble efforts to advance free speech, human rights, and the rule of law in Russia.
In addition, it urged Obama to continue to sanction human rights violators in the Russian Federation and to increase U.S. support to human rights activists in Russia.
So it went … all over the West.
Meanwhile, in the same time period in Ukraine, outside of the pro-Russian area in the southeast, the following was reported:
–Jan. 29: Former Chairman of the local government of the Kharkov region, Alexey Kolesnik, hanged himself.
–Feb. 24: Stanislav Melnik, a member of the opposition party (Partia Regionov), shot himself.
–Feb. 25: The Mayor of Melitopol, Sergey Valter, hanged himself a few hours before his trial.
–Feb. 26: Alexander Bordiuga, deputy director of the Melitopol police, was found dead in his garage.
–Feb. 26: Alexander Peklushenko, former member of the Ukrainian parliament, and former mayor of Zaporizhi, was found shot to death.
–Feb. 28: Mikhail Chechetov, former member of parliament, member of the opposition party (Partia Regionov), “fell” from the window of his 17th floor apartment in Kiev.
–March 14: The 32-year-old prosecutor in Odessa, Sergey Melnichuk, “fell” to his death from the 9th floor.
The Partia Regionov directly accused the Ukrainian government in the deaths of their party members and appealed to the West to react to these events. “We appeal to the European Union, PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe], and European and international human rights organizations to immediately react to the situation in Ukraine, and give a legal assessment of the criminal actions of the Ukrainian government, which cynically murders its political opponents.”
We cannot conclude from the above that the Ukrainian government was responsible for all, or even any, of these deaths. But neither can we conclude that the Russian government was responsible for the death of Boris Nemtsov, the American media and politicians notwithstanding.
A search of the mammoth Nexus news database found no mention of any of the Ukrainian deceased except for the last one above, Sergey Melnichuk, but this clearly is not the same person. It thus appears that none of the deaths on the above list was ascribed to the Western-allied Ukrainian government.
Where are the demands for international investigations of any of the deaths? In the United States or in Europe? Where is Sen. McCain?
6. More about the suspicious deaths in Ukraine:
“How Ukraine Comemorates the Holocaust” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 4/17/2015.
. . . . Over the past several months, there have been about ten mysterious deaths of opposition figures– some that the government claimed to be suicides while others were clearly murders. It now appears that pro-government “death squads” are operating with impunity in Kiev.On Wednesday, Oleg Kalashnikov, a political leader of the opposition Party of Regions, was shot to death in his home. Kalashnikov had been campaigning for the right of Ukrainians to celebrate the Allied victory in World War II, a gesture that infuriated some western Ukrainian neo-Nazis who identify with Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich and who now feel they have the current government in their corner.
On Thursday, unidentified gunmen murdered Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzina, a regime critic who had protested censorship being imposed on news outlets that didn’t toe the government’s propaganda line. Buzina had been denounced by a pro-regime “journalistic” outfit which operated under the Orwellian name “Stop Censorship” and demanded that Buzina be banned from making media appearances because he was “an agent of the Kremlin.”
This week, another dissident journalist Serhiy Sukhobok was reportedly killed in Kiev, amid sketchy accounts that his assailants may have been caught although the Ukrainian government has withheld details.
These deaths are mostly ignored by the mainstream U.S. news media – or are mentioned only in briefs with the victims dismissed as “pro-Russian.” After all, these “death squad” activities, which have also been occurring in government-controlled sections of eastern Ukraine, conflict with the preferred State Department narrative of the Kiev regime busy implementing “democratic reforms.” . . . .
7. We are not in a position to say precisely if there is more to the suicide-crash of a Germanwings plane, apparently deliberately destroyed by the co-pilot. He had a history of psychological problems, however, in the age of mind control, the possibility that the co-pilot may have been subjected to such procedures is one to keep in mind.
Among the casualties in the crash was Yvonne Selke, an important employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We wonder if her death may have had something to do with the ginned-up satellite imagery being produced by DigitalGlobe to buttress claims of a “Russian invasion” of Ukraine?
. . . . Yvonne Selke was a contract employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which produces maps and interprets satellite imagery for U.S. intelligence operatives and special operations missions. It is the agency that produced models of Osama bin Laden’s house in Pakistan to help Navy SEALs in the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader.
“Every death is a tragedy, but seldom does a death affect us all so directly and unexpectedly,” NGA Director Robert Cardillo said in a statement. “All of us offer our deepest condolences and will keep her family and her colleagues in our thoughts.” . . .
8. EMail traffic of a British atomic weapons organization was re-routed to Ukraine. We wonder if the vow by Azov Battalion founder Andrei Biletsky to bring Ukraine into the nuclear club has anything to do with this?
It’s unclear how the Internet traffic for many British Telecom customers—including a defense contractor that helps make nuclear warheads —was diverted to servers in Ukraine before being passed along to its intended recipients.
The snag may have allowed adversaries to intercept or tamper with communications sent and received by the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment, one of the affected clients. Other organizations with redirected traffic include Lockheed Martin, Toronto Dominion Bank, Anglo-Italian helicopter company AgustaWestland, and the UK Department for Environment, according to a blog post by researchers at Dyn, an online infrastructure consultancy.
The affected traffic appears to include email and virtual private network connections. The circuitous path caused the data “to travel thousands of miles to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev before turning around, retracing that route, and being delivered to its normal hub in London,” Ars Technica reports.
Sending the data to Kiev may have made it possible for employees with network access to Ukrainian telecom provider Vega to eavesdrop or manipulate data that wasn’t encrypted. . . . .
. . . . This sort of rerouting – called a man-in-the-middle attack — is the result of the implicit trust placed in the border gateway protocol used to exchange data between large service providers and their customers, which include banks, governments, network service providers, aerospace companies, and other sensitive organizations.
9. Petro Poroshenko has been threatening to invade Crimea and the Donbass, which would violate Minsk II and, in all probability, start World War III. John Kerry rebuked him for this and was sidelined by Obama in favor of Victoria Nuland.
When Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on May 15th contradicted her boss John Kerry’s statement of three days earlier, in which Kerry had warned Ukraine’s President Petro Petroshenko not to violate the Minsk II agreement, and not to invade Crimea, and not to re-invade Donbass, the source of this reversal was actually U.S. President Barack Obama, and not Victoria Nuland, as the State Department had reported.
When I first noticed the contradiction as I reported on May 21st, Nuland’s statement on May 15th was being quoted by Ukraine’s Interfax News Agency, without any link to its U.S. source. I looked but didn’t right away find its U.S. source, but the official Ukrainian news agency would not quote a U.S. Government official falsely, and so I went with the story on that basis.
Now that I have found the U.S. source in the full May 15th U.S. State Department press briefing in Washington, there can be little doubt that Nuland had actually been instructed by the White House to be quoted there as issuing this reversal of Kerry’s statement. . . .
. . . . This likewise explains the reason why Ukraine’s President Poroshenko, as I reported on June 7th, said again, on June 5th, that Ukraine will retake both Crimea and Donbass. . . .
The Political Implications of the UFO Phenomenon and the "ET" Myth
Odessa’s new governor, Mikheil Saakashvili, just appointed a new chief of police for the Odessa region who happens to be Saakashvili’s former Georgian Deputy Interior Minister:
Well, at least Lortkipanidze is Saakashvili’s only “import from Georgia.” That would have just added to the creepiness factor if these was a new Saakashvili pal getting imported every month. The other Georgians working for the Kiev government must have been imported from someone else.
And let’s hope Lortkipanidze really is “characterized by complete moral honesty” given that the plans for him apparently involve wage a war on drugs on the Odessa police:
So a war on drugs is coming to Odessa, it’s going to be waged by the Georgian governor of Odessa, enforced by his former Deputy Interior Minister of Georgia, and the target of this effort apparently include the Odessa police themselves. That should go over well.
What’s next in Ukraine’s experiment in outsourcing its leadership? Will Tony Blair get appointed governor or Crimea?
No, nothing that silly. But he might become a Poroshenko advisor. He’s reportedly considering the offer:
That’s quite a foreign adviser resume:
Uh oh.
The Daily Beast has a fascinating investigation of the steps that are in place to assure that no neo-Nazis from are receiving US military training and equipment in Ukraine. A variety of officials from the different agencies involved the vetting process are interviewed, but a common answer emerges: no, there are no neo-Nazis are being trained because we have a vetting process to prevent that...although the vetting process doesn’t actually vet people for being neo-Nazis and no one really knows who the neo-Nazis are anyways:
So that could have been more reassuring. Especially this part:
Right Sector is engaged in an armed standoff with police in Western Ukraine. It’s a standoff that Right Sector claims was over police cigarette smuggling (others characterize it as a smuggling turf war) and it appears to include rocket launcher attacks on a police station and an unknown number of fighters that are now hiding out in the woods:
And, yes, Dmytro Yarosh is apparently negotiating with the government, and issuing demands:
How the standoff ends remains to be seen, but it’s worth noting that it isn’t going to end
without Right Sector forces kidnapping a six year old and holding him hostage:
Kidnapping a 6 year old on top of rocket attacks on the police. Those Right Sector members must really hate cigarette smuggling.
The tenuous truce that’s been in place since February appears to be collapsing: Residential areas of central Donetsk just experienced heavy shelling.
Not surprisingly, the rebels are accuse the Kiev government of putting civilians at risk. Somewhat more surpisingly (not really), the government is accusing the rebels of doing the same thing:
Dmytro Yarosh led a protest of hundreds of Right Sector members and supporters in Kiev on Tuesday. The list of demands could have probably been a bit more modest: in addition to calling for a referendum to impeach President Poroshenko, Yarosh wants official recognition of the volunteer battalions along with officials rights to carry weapons around the country. Also, martial law. And this is part of his response to an ongoing stand-off between Right Sector and the rest of the government.
So the leader of a group that is currently in a violent stand-off with the government and is calling for his group to become an officially armed part of the state security apparatus also demands that the government declare martial law. What could possibly go wrong?
“We are an organized revolutionary force that is opening the new phase of the Ukrainian revolution”
Th euobserver has a piece on the growing threat Right Sector’s showdown with Kiev presents to Ukraine and it contains this interesting aspect of the ever evolving clusterf#ck of a situation: One of the key demands of Right Sector and other volunteer battalions is that the government officially declare war on Russia, based, in part, on claims that they have been engaging with Russian troops in the East. But one (of the many) dangers associated with the Kiev government actually declaring war on Russia is that the IMF can’t make financial assistance packages (austerity “bailouts”) to countries at war. And since open war between Ukraine and Russia is a flirtation with WWIII, we might actually be seeing a situation where IMF might actually be preventing further catastrophe instead of causing it. That doesn’t normally happen. Strange times:
It looks like banning communism didn’t quite do the trick:
Note the missed potential here that could have enabled the populace to REALLY stick it to the oligarchs:
First, just imagine if, instead of 35 percent turnout, that 65 percent of the electorate that decided to send the the very unambiguous message of an obscenely marked up ballot instead of sending the completely ambiguous message of not voting at all (because who knows if it’s apathy, anger, or despair?). Two thirds of the vote would have been something along the lines of “F#ck You oligarchs!”, which would send a very different message than a 35 percent turnout. Ukraine is one of the nations with a “none of the above” options on its ballots which means not voting is basically a nonsense option if you want to protest the vote. So why not actually use the “none of the above” option and write obscene messages on your ballot too? If there’s one group of any electorate that you want to see voting it’s people that are so pissed off that they don’t even want to vote. That’s who should be voting the most!
Of course, a far more optimal solution would have been for the non-voting 65 percent to have somehow collaborated independently in order to create a consensus around some random local person that doesn’t appear to be part of any of the political machines, and then have that 65 percent of non-voters vote for the anti-machine candidate on election day as a write-in candidate. That solution might not actually be an option in Ukraine since the law doesn’t recognize write-in candidates, but given the common tactic by the machines of filling the ballot with dozens of “spoiler” candidates designed to siphon off votes from the other machine candidates, couldn’t the pissed off 65 percent of non-voters find a better representative from that pool? Or, better yet, get a candidate of their own on the ballot before the deadline? With only 35 percent voting amongst a slew of candidates, it isn’t all that outlandish that a non-machine candidate could actually win. Obscene gestures AND non-machine elected officials: voting could be fun again!
That said, there’s no guarantee that the anti-machine candidate will actually be an improvement. You just might accidentally elect Darth Vader(the ultimate machine candidate). Or, even worse, you might accidentally elect one his storm troopers. And you really don’t want a government run by storm troopers. Any variety of stormtroopers.
Gesture obscenely, but vote wisely, Ukrainian non-voters.
Here’s another article on the existential threat posed by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi volunteer battalions and it includes an interview of the leader of battalion that isn’t reported on very much: the Saint Mary Battalion. The leader of the battalion certainly isn’t lacking in ambition: In addition to asserting that the revolution that began with the Maidan had been interrupted, but would one day be completed, he doesn’t stop there, saying, “I would like Ukraine to lead the crusades...Our mission is not only to kick out the occupiers, but also revenge. Moscow must burn.”
It’s a reminder that if the volunteer battalions will really do collectively “march on Kiev” and overthrow the government in a violent coup, the marching doesn’t necessarily end in Kiev:
What an headline: “Ukraine struggles to control maverick battalions”. Yeah, they’re not a bunch of violent far-right ideologues intent on waging ethnic conflicts. They’re ‘maverick battalions’ that authorities struggle to control. Just like the A‑Team! Although the A‑Team was never really into leading crusades under the banner of a far-right revolution. And they probably wouldn’t be very welcoming towards someone of Mr. T’s ethnic background (their loss), so they aren’t really ‘A‑Team’ material which is very unfortunate for the people of Ukraine. Hiring the A‑Team is never an easy call. But no matter how bad the situation is, you never want to hire the B‑Team.
Oh look, Odessa’s imported governor, Mikheil Saakashvili, is getting investigated back in Georgia for plotting a coup with with his former national security adviser by triggering mass protests:
Well, ok, so a transcript was published, but Saakashvili’s accused co-plotter, Giga Bokeria, ridiculed it as “grotesque delirium”. And transcripts can indeed be made up.
Audio recordings of plans to ensure the protests become violent and “faces are smashed”, on the other hand, are a little harder to make up. Especially when Saakashvili and another co-plotter, the head of the top opposition TV station, both admit they’re real:
“The channel’s boss and Mr Saakashvili have both confirmed the authenticity of the leaked phone call, and accuse the Georgian government of illegal wiretapping.”
The “politics is like to professional wrestling” isn’t a new analogy, although this isn’t generally the context that such an analogy is used:
“Yatseniuk was defending his embattled government’s record when lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him, presenting him sarcastically with a bunch of red roses. Barna then grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and dragging him from the rostrum.”
Well, it’s not like a parliamentary scuffle is without precedent. Disturbing, yes. But not unprecedent. The disagreement over the new tax laws, on the other hand, might be unprecedented in the sense that the tax committee in parliament is actually proposing a tax-slashing reform package that’s quite possibly even more irresponsible than the flat tax put forward by Natalie Jaresko and the Finance Ministry (the Finance Ministry is proposing raising the income tax from 20 percent, whereas the tax committee’s plan would cut it to a much more oligarch-friendly 10 percent), which is rather amazing when you consider that Jaresko hired supply-side “guru” Art Laffer to help craft the Finance Ministry’s proposed reforms. When the IMF is like, “hey, you might be cutting income taxes a bit too much!” you’re probably doing exactly that.
At the same time, the tax committee’s plan also calls for cuting the VAT tax, which falls much more heavily on the poor, from 20 percent to 15 percent, and when the IMF is like, “hey, you might be cutting tax on the poor a bit too much!” you’re probably on the right track. Ra
So we’ll see if Ukraine manages to please the IMF enough with some sort of tax reform to get its $4 billion in international loans. But there’s another major shift in Ukraine’s governance that might also be on the way: If Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk does indeed lose his post in a no confidence vote, there’s the big question of who will replace him. And it’s a question that have a number of observers speculating the Mikhail Saakashvili feels that he is the answer:
“Some of the strongest accusations come from Mikheil Saakashvili, governor of Odesa Oblast and ex-Georgian president, and his ally Davit Sakvarelidze, chief prosecutor of the oblast and a deputy prosecutor general.”
Also not that Saakashvili was just stripped of his Georgian citizenship, not that he would have been returning there any time soon given the corruption charges Georgia leveled against him last year. It will be interesting to see if a future prime minister Saakashvili can avoid similar charges in Ukraine. If so, there’s always Williamsburg.
Here’s an interesting look at the zeitgeist in Ukraine: In the wake of the high-profile resignation of Ukraine’s Economy Minister, Aivaras Abromvicius, the long-time chief editor of the Kyiv Post, Brian Bonner(a US citizen), just wrote a scathing editorial regarding the how the Poroshenko administration has completely failed in terms of fulfilling the populist hopes of the EuroMaidan Revolution, hinting at the possibility of another revolution at the end of the piece.
The consolidation of political and economic influence by the current set of oligarchs running the country is one of the key complaints, along with relatively lackluster prosecution and asset-stripping of oligarchs associated with the now-deposed Viktor Yanukovych. Continuing to do business with Russia and allowing trade with Crimea and Abromavicius’s difficulties in the privatization of more than 1,500 state-owned industries are also cited.
So it’s possible that the resignation of Abromavicius could become a rallying cry for a Maidan 2.0. But at the same time, while stripping the oligarchs of power and influence is something average Ukrainians desired, keep in mind that Abromavicius also represented the larger neoliberal agenda being pushed on Ukraine, like mass privatizations, that aren’t necessarily going to have the same level of public support (polls indicate that public is overwhelmingly against mass privatizations).
And that suggest that we could be entering a period where both populist anger, coupled with frustrations over the slow pace of “reforms” felt by Ukraine’s international backers in the West, might push the mass psychology back towards a revolutionary mode, but the key driving forces behind that revolutionary fervor (populist anger and Western governments) may not be on the same page. Of course, that same tension was also the case with Maidan 1.0, and look where we are now. So if there is a Maidan 2.0, it’s going to be very interesting to see if recent history repeats itself :
“Poroshenko pledged to dismantle the oligarchy. He did not.”
Part of what makes the whole situation so alarming is that the expectation that Ukraine’s oligarchs dismantle themselves is basically not going to happen. Or at least is very unlikely.
So, given the if the West gives up hope that Ukraine’s oligarchs will ever make the “reforms” necessary to make the country the neoliberal dreamland so many in the international community have in mind, you have to wonder if the various neo-Nazi threats to march of Kiev might become seen as an acceptable alternative if it can be branded as a larger populist movement. Especially if the person to replace Poroshenko happens to be a darling of the West:
Might we see Mikhail Saakashvili help lead a Maidan 2.0 with international backing? Well, as laughable as the idea of Saakashvili leading an anti-corruption/anti-oligarch revolt should seem given his history, we definitely can’t rule it out:
“Mr. Saakashvili, a shrewd politician with a populist streak, has set about organizing rallies around Ukraine to build a grass-roots anti-oligarch movement called Cleaning Up Ukraine. And he started the movement, pointedly, here in Mr. Avakov’s hometown, Kharkiv, in January.”
Saakashvili leading an anti-oligarch movement. That would be a “LOL!” moment if it wasn’t so sad. And scary.
There’s a remarkable new angle being taken by the Republicans in the defense of President Trump’s Ukrainian shakedown effort — the Burisma/Biden/‘Ukrainian Crowdstrike’ fiasco led by Rudy Giuliani — that has suddenly made topical the GOP’s long history of courting the Ukrainian American vote through the GOP’s “Ethnic Outreach” organization:
Following the congressional testimony of Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a Ukrainian expert on the National Security Council who was present during the now-infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky when Trump made clear his desires to see an investigation opened up by Ukraine into Joe Biden’s role in the firing of former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin — and the revelation that Vindman was so disturbed by the content of that phone call that he reported it to his superiors. It’s a pretty devastating testimony for the GOP’s narrative given that a main plank of the GOP’s defense of Trump from the beginning of this scandal has been the fact that the initial CIA whistleblower hadn’t heard the call directly. So as we should expect, Vindman is now ‘enemy #1’ in the right-wing media and this has predictably resulted in accusations that Vindman is somehow driven by unpatriotic motives for making these characterizations of Trump’s phone call. It’s all quite predictable.
But what’s highly unusual is that the primary basis of the right-wing attacks on Vindman have centered around the fact that he was born in Ukraine, leading to suggestions that he’s was actually working on behalf of the Ukrainian government when he raised these concerns with the inference that therefore those concerns weren’t valid because they were driven by an “affinity” for his Ukrainian homeland. Note that Vindman came to the US when he was 3 years old and was award the Purple Heart for his service in Iraq.
So the GOP is basically making the charge that is often leveled against Jewish Americans but you don’t hear very often against immigrants from Europe: the accusation of a duel loyalty. And this is just getting started. Vindman could easily end up being a central villain in the GOP’s 2020 campaign to reelect Trump and that means this dual loyalty accusation against a Ukrainian American could be a central theme too. It’s a particularly remarkable dynamic given that Ukrainian Americans, like so many refugee communities from the former Soviet Union, have long been Republican leaning voters.
Then there’s the fact that when Vindman took his complaint to the NSC a second time, he was accompanied by his identical twin brother, Lt. Col Yevgeny Vindman, who is also working as an NSC lawyer for the White House. So we have identical twin Ukrainian American brothers both working for the NSC and both involved with this complaint, which is perfect fodder for the right-wing disinfotainment complex.
And don’t forget another Ukrainian American that is already in the GOP’s rhetorical cross-hairs: Alexandra Chalupa, the former DNC employee who reportedly worked with officials in the Ukraine’s embassy in DC in 2016 on digging up dirt on Paul Manafort. And unlike Vindman, it’s not going to be very hard to accuse Chalupa of having extremely strong ties to Ukraine and people in Ukraine’s government. That’s kind of her job and life mission. So it’s not hard to see how the GOP might find itself in a situation where slamming Ukrainian Americans as having dual loyalty is an irresistible rhetorical cudgel. And yet, as the GOP’s history of courting the Ukrainian American vote makes clear, the Ukrainian American community can be a vital constituency for the GOP precisely because they are concentrated in key midwestern swing states. The same midwestern swing states Trump’s 2016 victory was based on.
So the 2020 election is giving the GOP a darkly fascinating choice: use a ‘Ukrainian American dual loyalty’ charge to protect Trump at the risk of poisoning the GOP’s appeal to Ukrainian Americans or don’t do that and allow Vindman’s words to and testimony to destroy the current GOP rhetorical defenses they’ve already developed for GOP. Maybe something else will pop up about Vindman’s background that will allow the GOP to attack his character without turning it into a dual loyalty charge, but so far that hasn’t happened:
“His testimony added to the growing collection of evidence implicating Trump in an apparent quid pro quo linking military aid or a White House visit for Ukraine to political investigations. It also forced Republican lawmakers to decide whether they would embrace a dual-loyalty smear being pushed by some conservative pundits and right-wing figures seeking to undermine Vindman’s account.”
Yep, Vindman’s testimony is so damaging to the GOP’s prevailing defense of Trump — that the people making the complaints about the July 25 phone call didn’t hear it first hand — that the GOP is forced to consider a dual loyalty smear because his words are potentially that devastating. And whether or not GOP strategists think this is a good strategy is beside the point by now because the right-wing media complex, including ‘Alt Right’ figures like Jack Posobiec, is already embracing that meme. It’s gone viral:
The xenophobic genie is out of the bottle. The GOP probably can’t even stop this dual loyalty meme at this point if it wants to. What is this going to do to the traditional ties between the Ukrainian American community and the GOP? Or other European immigrants who aren’t traditionally the target of the GOP’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. As the following piece notes, Vindman was literally shown in the “Statue of Liberty” episode of Ken Burns’ 1985 “America” documentary series. It turns out he was sitting with his mom and twin brother Yevgeny in Brighton Beach when Ken Burns happened to be walking by and the three of them ended up in the film. So the Vindmand family’s immigration to the US has already been enshrined as a quintessentially America story in a classic documentary:
“Trump and his cronies espousing xenophobic dislike of all but the whitest, most western-European-est immigrants isn’t new. But it’s still startling to watch them attack one who, along with his Purple Heart, has a made-for-TV American story to his name.”
A made-for-TV American story. That’s the Vindman family’s story. And right now the GOP must find some way of discrediting the Vindmans and dual loyalty charges are the only weapon they have. So, again, we have to ask: what is this going to do to the Ukrainian American’s long-standing GOP leanings? Are we going to see an aggressive ‘ethnic outreach’ campaign by the GOP targeting Ukrainian Americans to counter the damage? If so, let’s hope the GOP doesn’t rely far right Nazi sympathizers for that propaganda work. Again.