US/NATO War on Russia

[Lauren Johnson]

[Peter Lemkin]

It is a frightening and propaganda-ridden world we live in. The RT report above is, IMO, mostly true....but makes propaganda points of its own. I'm not surprised at the notion that MSF might have a few 'eyes and ears' inside it - but I'd doubt that it, as a institution, is anything other than dedicated doctors and nurses. On the other hand USAID is primarily covert work under the cover of 'aid'. Lumping them all together is unfair and for making political 'points'. I think Corbett recently did a brave and interesting show HERE, basically saying a plague on both/all of your houses - you all lie and make up untruths [plus run dirty operations] in service of furthering your power base and political agendas. Top-down hierarchies will almost always produce repression, control, suffering, and lies.

The only answer is to switch to a new paradigm of bottom-up organization and polity. It usually goes by the name of 'classical' Anarchy - but there is nothing anarchic about it. It goes by other names, as well from grass-roots-democracy through small-is-beautiful to community-based social/political structure, and more. The old paradigms have oppressed us for all time and led humanity and the rest of the living Planet to the abyss. We must now quickly choose another direction [and paradigm] or perish soon. IMHO.

[Magda Hassan]

Weekend Edition March 7-9, 2014



Two Invasions

The Ukrainian Pendulum

by ISRAEL SHAMIR
The stakes are high in the Ukraine: after the coup, as Crimea and Donbas asserted their right to self determination, American and Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory, both under cover.
The American soldiers are "military advisors", ostensibly members of Blackwater private army (renamed Academi); a few hundred of them patrol Kiev while others try to suppress the revolt in Donetsk. Officially, they were invited by the new West-installed regime. They are the spearhead of the US invasion attempting to prop up the regime and break down all resistance. They have already bloodied their hands in Donetsk.
Besides, the Pentagon has doubled the number of US fighter jets on a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltics; the US air carrier entered the Black Sea, some US Marines reportedly landed in Lvov "as a part of pre-planned manoeuvres".
The Russian soldiers ostensibly belong to the Russian Fleet, legally stationed in Crimea. They were in Crimea before the coup, in accordance with the Russian-Ukrainian treaty (like the US 5[SUP]th[/SUP] fleet in Kuwait), but their presence was probably beefed up. Additional Russian troops were invited in by deposed but legitimately elected President Yanukovych (compare this with the US landing on Haiti in support of the deposed President Aristide ). They help the local pro-Russian militia maintain order, and no one gets killed in the process. In addition, Russia brought its troops on alert and returned a few warships to the Black Sea.
It is only the Russian presence which is described as an "invasion" by the Western media, while the American one is hardly mentioned. "We have a moral duty to stick our nose in your business in your backyard a world away from our homeland. It's for your own good", wrote an ironic American blogger.
Moscow woke up to trouble in Ukraine after its preoccupation, nay obsession, with the Winter Olympic games had somewhat abated, when people began to say that "Putin won the games and lost the Ukraine". Indeed, while Putin watched sports in Sochi, the Brown Revolution succeeded in Ukraine. A great European country the size of France, the biggest republic of the former USSR (save Russia), was taken over by a coalition of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and (mainly Jewish) oligarchs. The legitimate president was forced to flee for his very life. Members of Parliament were manhandled, and in some cases their children were taken hostage to ensure their vote, as their houses were visited by gunmen. The putsch was completed. The West recognised the new government; Russia refused to recognise it, but continued to deal with it on a day -to-day basis. However the real story is now developing in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, a story of resistance to the pro-Western takeover.
The Putsch
The economic situation of Ukraine is dreadful. They are where Russia was in the 1990s, before Putin in Ukraine the Nineties never ended. For years the country was ripped off by the oligarchs who siphoned off profits to Western banks, bringing it to the very edge of the abyss. To avoid default and collapse, the Ukraine was to receive a Russian loan of 15 billion euros without preconditions, but then came the coup. Now the junta's prime minister will be happy to receive a mere one billion dollars from the US via IMF. (Europeans have promised more, but in a few years' time…) He already accepted the conditions of the IMF, which will mean austerity, unemployment and debt bondage. Probably this was the raison d'être for the coup. IMF and US loans are a major source of profit for the financial community, and they are used to enslave debtor countries, as Perkins explained at length.
The oligarchs who financed the Maidan operation divided the spoils: the most generous supporter, multi-billionaire Igor "Benya" Kolomoysky, received the great Russian-speaking city of Dnepropetrovsk in fief. He was not required to give up his Israeli passport. His brethren oligarchs took other Russian-speaking industrial cities, including Kharkov and Donetsk, the Ukrainian Chicago or Liverpool. Kolomoysky is not just an oligarch of Jewish origin': he is an active member of the Jewish community, a supporter of Israel and a donor of many synagogues, one of them the biggest in Europe. He had no problem supporting the neo-Nazis, even those whose entry to the US had been banned because of their declared antisemitism. That is why the appeals to Jewish consciousness against the Brown putsch demonstrably failed.
Now came the nationalists' crusade against Russian-speakers (ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians the distinction is moot), chiefly industrial workers of East and South of the country. The Kiev regime banned the Communist Party and the Regions' Party (the biggest party of the country, mainly supported by the Russian-speaking workers). The regime's first decree banned the Russian language from schools, radio and TV, and forbade all official use of Russian. The Minister of Culture called Russian-speakers "imbeciles" and proposed to jail them for using the banned tongue in public places. Another decree threatened every holder of dual Russian/Ukrainian nationality with a ten-years jail sentence, unless he gives up the Russian one right away.
Not empty words, these threats: The storm-troopers of the Right Sector, the leading fighting force of the New Order, went around the country terrorising officials, taking over government buildings, beating up citizens, destroying Lenin's statues, smashing memorials of the Second World War and otherwise enforcing their rule A video showed a Right Sector fighter mistreating the city attorney while police looked other way. They began to hunt down riot policemen who supported the ex-president, and they burned down a synagogue or two. They tortured a governor, and lynched some technicians they found in the former ruling party's headquarters. They started to take over the Orthodox churches of the Russian rite, intending to transfer them to their own Greek-Catholic Church.
The instructions of US State Dept.'s Victoria Nuland were followed through: the Ukraine had had the government she prescribed in the famous telephone conversation with the US Ambassador. Amazingly, while she notoriously gave "fuck" to the EU, she did not give a fuck about the Russian view of Ukraine's immediate future.
Russia was not involved in Ukrainian developments: Putin did not want to be accused of meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs, even when the US and EU envoys assisted and directed the rebels. The people of Russia would applaud him if he were to send his tanks to Kiev to regain the whole of Ukraine, as they consider it an integral part of Russia. But Putin is not a Russian nationalist, not a man of Imperial designs. Though he would like the Ukraine to be friendly to Russia, annexing it, in whole or in part, has never been his ambition. It would be too expensive even for wealthy Russia: the average income in the Ukraine is just half of the Russian one, and tits infrastructure is in a shambles. (Compare to the very costly West German takeover of the GDR.) It would not be easy, either, for every Ukrainian government in the past twenty years has drenched the people with anti-Russian sentiment. But involvement was forced upon Putin:
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians voted with their feet and fled to Russia, asking for asylum. Two hundred thousand refugees checked in during the weekend. The only free piece of land in the whole republic was the city of Sevastopol, the object of a French and British siege in 1852 and of a German siege in 1941, and the home base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. This heroic city did not surrender to the Kiev emissaries, though even here some local deputies were ready to submit. And at that last moment, the people began their resistance. The awful success of the putsch was the beginning of its undoing. The pendulum of Ukraine, forever swinging between East and West, began its return movement.
The Rising
The people of Crimea rose, dismissed their compromise-seeking officials and elected a new leader, Mr Sergey Aksyonov. The new leadership assumed power, took over Crimea and asked for Russian troops to save them from the impending attack by the Kiev storm troopers. It does not seem to have been necessary at this stage: there were plenty of Crimeans ready to defend their land from the Brown invaders, there were Cossack volunteers and there is the Russian Navy stationed in Crimea by treaty. Its Marines would probably be able to help the Crimeans in case of trouble. The Crimeans, with some Russian help, manned the road blocks on the narrow isthmus that connects Crimea to the mainland.
The parliament of Crimea voted to join Russia, but this vote should be confirmed by a poll on March 16 to determine Crimea's future whether it will revert to Russia or remain an autonomous republic within the Ukraine. From my conversation with locals, it seems that they would prefer to join the Russian Federation they left on Khrushchev's orders only a half century ago. Given the Russian-language issue and the consanguinity, this makes sense: Ukraine is broke, Russia is solvent and ready to assume its protection. Ukraine can't pay salaries and pensions, Russia had promised to do so. Kiev was taking away the lion's share of income generated in Crimea by Russian tourists; now the profits will remain in the peninsula and presumably help repair the rundown infrastructure. Real estate would likely rise drastically in price, optimistic natives surmise, and this view is shared by Russian businessmen. They already say that Crimea will beat out Sochi in a few years' time, as drab old stuff will be replaced by Russian Imperial chic.
Perhaps Putin would prefer the Crimea gain independence, like Kosovo, or even remain under a token Ukrainian sovereignty, as Taiwan is still nominally part of China. It could become a showcase pro-Russian Ukraine to allow other Ukrainians to see what they're missing, as West Berlin was for the East Germans during the Cold War. Regaining Crimea would be nice, but not at the price of having a consolidated and hostile Ukraine for a neighbour. Still Putin will probably have no choice but to accept the people's decision.
There was an attempt to play the Crimean Tatars against the Russians; apparently it failed. Though the majlis, their self-appointed organisation, supports Kiev, the elders spoke up for neutrality. There are persistent rumours that the colourful Chechen leader Mr Kadyrov, a staunch supporter of Mr Putin, had sent his squads to the Tatars to strong-arm them into dropping their objections to Crimea's switch to Russia. At the beginning, the Tatars supported Kiev, and even tried to prevent the pro-Russian takeover. But these wise people are born survivors, they know when to adjust their attitudes, and there is no doubt they will manage just fine.
Russian Nazis, as anti-Putin as Ukrainian Nazis, are divided: some support a "Russian Crimea" whilst others prefer pro-European Kiev. They are bad as enemies, but even worse as friends: the supportive Nazis try to wedge between Russians and Ukrainians and Tatars, and they hate to see that Kadyrov's Chechnya actually helps Russian plans, for they are anti-Chechen and try to convince people that Russia is better off without Chechens, a warlike Muslim tribe.
As Crimea defied orders from Kiev, it became a beacon for other regions of the Ukraine. Donbas, the coal and steel region, raised Russian banners and declared its desire for self-determination, "like Crimea". They do want to join a Russian-led Customs Union; it is not clear whether they would prefer independence, autonomy or something else, but they, too, scheduled a poll for March 30. There were big demonstrations against the Kiev regime in Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and other Russian-speaking cities. Practically everywhere, the deputies seek accommodation with Kiev and look for a way to make some profit, but the people do not agree. They are furious and do not accept the junta.
The Kiev regime does not accept their quest for freedom. A popularly-elected Mayor of Donetsk was kidnapped by the Ukrainian security forces and taken to Kiev. There are now violent demonstrations in the city.
The Ukrainian navy in the Black Sea switched its allegiance from Kiev to Crimea, and they were followed by some units of the air force with dozens of fighter jets and ground troops. Troops loyal to Kiev were blocked off by the Crimeans, but there was no violence in this peaceful transfer of power.
The junta appointed an oligarch to rule Donbas, Mr Sergey Taruta, but he had difficulty assuming power as the local people did not want him, and with good reason: Taruta had bought the major Polish port of Gdansk and brought it to bankruptcy. It seems he is better at siphoning capital away than in running serious business. Ominously, Mr Taruta brought with him some unidentified, heavily armed security personnel, reportedly guns-for-hire from Blackwater (a.k.a. Academi) fresh from Iraq and Afghanistan. He will need a lot more of them if he wants to take Donbas by force.
In Kharkov, the biggest Eastern city, erstwhile capital of Soviet Ukraine, local people ejected the raiding force of the Right Sector from government offices, but police joined with the oligarchs. While the fake revolution took place in Kiev under the tutelage of US and EC envoys, the real revolution is taking place now, and its future is far from certain.
The Ukraine hasn't got much of an army, as the oligarchs stole everything ever assigned to the military. The Kiev regime does not rely on its army anyway. Their attempt to draft able-bodied men failed immediately as hardly anybody answered the call. They still intend to squash the revolution. Another three hundred Blackwater mercenaries landed Wednesday in Kiev airport. The Kiev regime applied for NATO help and expressed its readiness to allow US missiles to be stationed in the Ukraine. Missiles in the Ukraine (as now stationed in Poland, also too close for Russian comfort) would probably cross Russia's red line, just as Russian missiles in Cuba crossed America's red line in 1962. Retired Israeli intelligence chief Yaakov Kedmi, an expert on Russia, said that in his view the Russians just can't allow that, at any price, even if this means all-out war.
Putin asked the upper house of the Russian parliament for permission to deploy Russian troops if needed, and the parliament unanimously approved his request. They will probably be deployed in order to defend the workers in case of attack by a Right Sector beefed up by Blackwater mercenaries. Humanitarian catastrophe, large-scale disturbances, the flow of refugees or the arrival of NATO troops could also force Putin's hand, even against his will.
The President in exile
President Yanukovych will be historically viewed as a weak, tragic figure, and he deserves a better pen with a more leisured pace than mine. He tried his best to avoid casualties, though he faced a full-scale revolt led by very violent Brown storm-troopers. And still he was blamed for killing some eighty people, protesters and policemen.
Some of the victims were killed by the Right Sector as they stormed the ruling party offices. The politicians left the building well in advance, but the secretarial staff remained behind many women, janitors and suchlike. An engineer named Vladimir Zakharov went to the besieging rebels and asked them to let the women out. They killed him on the spot with their bats. Another man was burned alive.
But the majority of casualties were victims of sniper fire, also blamed on Yanukovych. The Kiev regime even asked the Hague tribunal to indict the President as they had President Milosevic. But now, a telephone conversation between EC representative Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet reveals that the EC emissaries were aware that dozens of victims of sniper fire at the Maidan were killed by Maidan rebel supporters, and not by police or by President Yanukovych, as they claimed. Urmas Paet acknowledged the veracity of this conversation at a press conference, and called for an independent enquiry. It turned out that the rebel snipers shot and killed policemen and Maidan protesters alike, in order to shed blood and blame it on the President.
This appears to be a staple feature of the US-arranged revolutions. Snipers killing both protesters and police were reported in Moscow's 1991 and 1993 revolutions, as well as in many other cases. Some sources claim that famed Israeli snipers were employed on such occasions, which is plausible in view of Mr Kolomoysky's Israeli connection. A personal friend of Mr Kolomoysky, prominent member of the then-opposition, Parliamentarian and present head of administration Sergey Pashinsky was stopped by police as he removed a sniper's rifle with a silencer from the scene of murder. This discovery was briefly reported in the New York Times, but later removed. This revelation eliminates (or at least seriously undermines) the case against the President. Probably it will be disappear down the memory hole and be totally forgotten, as were the Seymour Hersh revelations about Syria's sarin attack.
Another revelation was made by President Putin at his press-conference of March 4, 2014. He said that he convinced (read: forced) President Yanukovych to sign his agreement of February 21, 2014 with the opposition, as Western ministers had demanded. By this agreement, or actually capitulation act, the Ukrainian President agreed to all the demands of the Brown rebels, including speedy elections for the Parliament and President. However, the agreement did not help: the rebels tried to kill Yanukovych that same night as he travelled to Kharkov.
Putin expressed amazement that they were not satisfied with the agreement and proceeded with the coup anyway. The reason was provided by Right Sector goons: they said that their gunmen will be stationed by every election booth and that they would count the vote. Naturally, the agreement did not allow for that, and the junta had every reason to doubt their ability to win honest elections.
It appears Yanukovych hoped to establish a new power base in Kharkov, where a large assembly of deputies from East and South of Ukraine was called in advance. The assembly, says Mr Kolomoysky, was asked to assume powers and support the President, but the deputies refused. That is why President Yanukovych, with great difficulty, escaped to Russia. His landing in Rostov made quite an impression on people as his plane was accompanied by fighter jets.
Yanukovych tried to contact President Putin, but the Russian president did not want to leave the impression that he wants to force Yanukovych on the people of Ukraine, and refused to meet or to speak with him directly. Perhaps Putin had no time to waste on such a weak figure, but he publicly recognised him anyway as the legitimate President of the Ukraine. This made sense, as President Yanukovych requested Russian troops to bring peace to his country. He still may make a comeback as the president of a Free Ukraine, if such should ever be formed in some part of the country, or as the protagonist of an opera.
[English language editing by Ken Freeland]
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/07/t...-pendulum/

[Paul Rigby]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178716/dar...ne-revolt#

Ben Aris, editor of Business News Europe, says, "Under the terms of the EU offer of last yearwhich virtually nobody in the Western media has seriously examinedthe EU was offering $160 million per year for the next five years, while just the bond payments to the IMF were greater than that."

Russia, on the other hand, "offered $15 billion in cash and immediately paid $3 billion.… Had Yanukovych accepted the EU deal, the country would have collapsed," says Aris.

Yes, those appallingly cruel Russians - what utter rotters they are!

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178716/dar...ne-revolt#

Ben Aris, editor of Business News Europe, says, "Under the terms of the EU offer of last yearwhich virtually nobody in the Western media has seriously examinedthe EU was offering $160 million per year for the next five years, while just the bond payments to the IMF were greater than that."

Russia, on the other hand, "offered $15 billion in cash and immediately paid $3 billion.… Had Yanukovych accepted the EU deal, the country would have collapsed," says Aris.

Yes, those appallingly cruel Russians - what utter rotters they are!

Hush your mouth Paul and stop spreading this commie propaganda. Next you'll be saying that the Rambouillet Agreement was just a pretext to invade. I'm sure the west was going to throw in some American jeans too.

[David Guyatt]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178716/dar...ne-revolt#

Ben Aris, editor of Business News Europe, says, "Under the terms of the EU offer of last yearwhich virtually nobody in the Western media has seriously examinedthe EU was offering $160 million per year for the next five years, while just the bond payments to the IMF were greater than that."

Russia, on the other hand, "offered $15 billion in cash and immediately paid $3 billion.… Had Yanukovych accepted the EU deal, the country would have collapsed," says Aris.

Yes, those appallingly cruel Russians - what utter rotters they are!

Hush your mouth Paul and stop spreading this commie propaganda. Next you'll be saying that the Rambouillet Agreement was just a pretext to invade. I'm sure the west was going to throw in some American jeans too.

Don't forget to include chewing gum too. No military grab & go bag is complete without it.

[Albert Doyle]

Don't forget Putin harbored Snowden so his borders being jiggered soon after is the MO of a certain western group.


I hope this airline crash wasn't arranged as a diversion.

[David Guyatt]

From BoilingFrogsPost

Ukraine names Oligarchs and Gangsters as Governors & Ministers

WILLIAM ENGDAHL | MARCH 11, 20141 COMMENT
Why would people in the US, allegedly promoters of democracy, not care about the gangsters & murderers their policies have brought into Kiev?The newly self-elected Ukrainian government is reorganizing all institutions of power, dissolving the special riot police, naming its cronies to key political posts. But perhaps the most indicative of the true character of the new regime is the naming last week of new Governors to head the major political divisions of regions of Ukraine. They include dual Israeli-Ukrainian nationals and notorious billionaire gangsters. This seems to be the "democracy" that US State Department Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, Victori Nuland had in mind when she rejected earlier EU compromise initiatives with the terse comment, "Fuck the EU."
Now, economic destruction
The non-elected or provisional Ukrainian government headed by 39-year old Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has made key regional appointments as Governors in the industrial pro-Russian eastern Ukraine.
The Prime Minister has named three billionaires, including Ukraine's richest, to head the key political regional or advisory posts.
Ihor Kolomoisky, a metals, banking and media baron worth between $3 and $6 billion, will be governor of his native region Dnipropetrovsk. He built his billions as a crony of convicted fraudster, ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko. He is an Ukrainian-Israeli business oligarch of Jewish descent with a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship although dual citizenship is not recognized by Ukraine. Until now he has controlled his business empire from Switzerland. He is the leading partner of the Privat Group. [i]
Serhiy Taruta, the country's 16th-richest man, was put in charge of the strategic coal mining region of Donetsk. Serhiy Taruta is a Ukrainian businessman, chairman of Industrial Union of Donbas, and President of FC Metalurh Donetsk.
According to Forbes magazine, he ranks among the 500 richest people in the world, with his estimated wealth being around 2 billion US dollars. [ii]
Most eyebrow-raising is the role of Ukraine's richest man, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, former money backer of Yanukovych. Akhmetov has pledged to "do everything possible to maintain the integrity of our country." Akhmetov, whose SCM Group controls nearly half of the country's coal, steel, ore and thermoelectricity sectors is listed as the 47th richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of US 15.4 billion. He allegedly won his billions through ties to organized crime in the 1990's. Akhmetov issued a statement on March 2: "I state with all due responsibility that SCM Group, which today employs 300,000 people and represents Ukraine from west to east and from north to south, will do everything possible to maintain the integrity of our country." [iii]
According to Wikipedia, Akhmetov was a former enforcer' and leader' of Akhat Bragin's Tatar' clan or mafia, responsible for the use of "mafia methods to push aside the red directors' of the Industrial Union of the Donbass." [iv]
Dicey Cabinet Too…
The new "interim" Cabinet of Arseniy Yatsenyuk fits into a similar pattern of oligarchs, gangsters and corruption. It includes Andriy V. Parubiy as new Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine. Parubiy led the anti-government riots. His mooted deputy at National Security is neo-nazi Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor) leader, Dmytro Yarosh. Pravi Sektor is estimated to number 5,000 and were inbvolved in the most extreme violence at Maidan Square and allegedly did the sniper killings of police and demonstrators that led to the coup on February 22. Among the members of the Pravi Sektor is the hard-core Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), reported tied to NATO and used for their "dirty wars" in Chechnya, Georgia and elsewhere since 1991. Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, reports that Right Sector distributed translations of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Maidan Square.[v]
In 1991 on Ukrainian independence from Russia, new National Security and Defense Council head Parubiy founded the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, who is now a People's Deputy in the new Ukrainian pariament. Yarosh also heads the neo-nazi Stepan Bandera Tryzub organization since 2005. On their website, Yarosh issued an appeal to Dokka Umarov, the Chechen terrorist guerrilla leader associated with Al-Qaeda, for support of Ukraine.[vi]
Svoboda is an extreme far-right party, basically fascist and anti-semitic. Its previous name, the Social-National Party of Ukraine says much. Svoboda Party has six major cabinet ministries in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Tyahinybok, its head, has given speeches in the past deriding "kikes" and in 2005 wrote a letter to the president calling for an investigation into "organised Jewry and criminality in Ukraine". Svoboda is part of an alliance of European neo-fascists, the Alliance of European National Movements, which includes France's National Front, the British National Party and Hungary's Jobbik. [vii]
Among the key posts, the Svoboda Party now controls the General Prosecutor's Office. Deputy Prime Minister, Oleksandr Sych, is from Svoboda and will have key economic responsibilities. As well Svoboda controls the Ecology Ministry and the important Agriculture Ministry. Ukraine's corn harvest is in danger because of the chaos. The country is the third largest corn exporter in the world. The Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, was accused of illegal privatization of land and abuse of power and was under criminal investigation by the previous government, which forced him to flee to Italy. [viii]
Rounding out a new circle of corruption, Yuriy Prodan is Energy Minister, a post that raised many eyebrows in Ukraine because he is tied to Privat Group of controversial billionaire Igor Kolomoisky. As well, Oleksandr Shlapak, new Finance Minister a former deputy head of Kolomoisky's PrivatBank, is also a representative of the Kolomoisky group. [ix]
This is the result of the US-engineered coup in Ukraine. Now with EU and US financial aid conditional on the new Ukraine government embracing severe IMF austerity and privatization as well as demand to end domestic gas price subsidies, the new government is clearly looking forward to the next rape of hapless Ukrainians and worse.
Why would people in the US, allegedly promoters of democracy, not care about the gangsters and murderers their policies have brought into Kiev? US-Polish security strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski stated it clearly back in 1997:
"Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine…would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who…would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the south…if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia."[x]

- See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/...ZAQsV.dpuf

.

[David Guyatt]

From VoltaireNet:

UKRAINIAN PHONE WRECKS

The Secret Agenda of Ashton and Nuland Revealed

by Wayne Madsen

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | WASHINGTON D.C. | 12 MARCH 2014 FRANÇAIS PORTUGUÊS ITALIANO

Two war-mongering women who represent the West's foreign policy apparatus, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and EU official and onetime British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activist Catherine Ashton, have seen their secret agenda for Ukraine revealed as a result of leaked phone conversations. Ashton, whose phone conversation with Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet was the second revealing phone call to be leaked, holds the lofty titles of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union and the quite feudalistic and meaningless Baroness Ashton of Upholland.Ashton's supporters have an exaggerated view of her accomplishments. As the EU's de facto foreign minister, Ashton was caught on video in 2012 at the EU's Brussels headquarters in a fluster because neither she nor her British envoy to the Balkans, Robert Cooper, knew what the president of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolic, looked like moments prior to their official welcoming ceremony for him in Brussels. Ashton is married to former British journalist Peter Kellner. Kellner is an executive of the British polling company YouGov, which feeds not only political polling numbers but also polls on favorites to win on such inane British television programs as Pop Idol andX-Factor to a panting infotainment media.In a February 26 phone call between Paet and Ashton, the Estonian foreign minister told her that Ukrainian protesters and policemen were shot by the same snipers [1]. Paet visited Kiev on February 25 during violent clashes said to be between protesters and government security forces on Maidan Square. It is now apparent that the violence was fueled by snipers and other provocateurs, including neo-Nazi gangs and foreign mercenaries, on the payroll of the Ukrainian political opposition.Paet told Ashton that a Ukrainian medical doctor who he also said was a leader of the Ukrainian "civil society," Dr. Olga Bogomolets, convinced the visiting Estonian official that the bullets that struck protesters and policemen all came from the same weapons and that the opposition was covering up for the snipers. Bogomolets is far from a cipher for the exiled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. She was the personal physician to the "Orange Revolution"-installed President Viktor Yushchenko and she received an award from the CIA- and George Soros-funded Radio Liberty. Moreover, Bogomolets urged her medical students to take part in the Euromaidan protests in Kiev.Bogomolets convinced Paet that the bullets that struck protesters and policemen, alike, on Maidan Square, were fired from the same guns and that the opposition was behind the attacks. It is also noteworthy that Bogomolets said she turned down an offer by opposition leaders to serve in the position of Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Humanitarian Affairs in the new government.According to the phone call, said to have been intercepted and transcribed by officers loyal to Yanukovych in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ashton feigns "shock" over the notion conveyed by Paet that the Ukrainian opposition likely killed over 70 of their own supporters as well as Ukrainian policemen. The sniper attacks amounted to a "false flag" operation by the Ukrainian opposition, along with their Western sponsors, to engender sympathy and support from the public.Paet: "All the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides. . . . Some photos that showed it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it is really disturbing that now the new coalition they don't want to investigate what exactly happened. So there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition."Ashton: "I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh."Paet: "It already discreditates [sic] this new coalition."Ashton, in response to Paet, begins to throw cold water on his and Bogomolets's information on the opposition being behind the shootings of protesters and policemen. Ashton defends the opposition members of the Ukrainian Rada, the parliament, against "doctors" and she said of the protest leaders, "I mean this is what they've got to be careful of, as well, but they need to demand great change but they've got to let the Rada function. If the Rada doesn't function then you'll have complete chaos. So, if you thought being an activist and a doctor is very, very important but you're not a politician and somehow they've got to come to a kind of accommodation for the next few weeks."Essentially, Ashton is telling Paet that Bogomolets, in her role as a civil society activist or doctor, had no business questioning the Machiavellian policies of the opposition in the Rada led by the troika of boxer Vitali Klitschko, World Bank veteran Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and neo-Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok. In other words, Ashton implied that a boxer, a World Bank technocrat, and a neo-Nazi street thug had more say in the future of Ukraine than a woman questioning the opposition's role in shooting to death their own "cannon fodder" street protesters as well as policemen trying to restore order.Immediately, the Western corporate media began questioning the authenticity of the Ashton-Pate transcript and tossed around the usual pejorative "conspiracy theory" label. However, the Estonian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the transcript was authentic in the following press release that stated the recording of:
"Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton uploaded to the Internet today, a phone call is authentic.
Paet and Ashton conversation took place on 26 February, following Estonia's Foreign Minister's visit to Ukraine, and immediately after the end of the street violence.
Foreign Minister Paet communicates what he had said about the meetings held in Kiev last day and expressed concern about the situation.
It is extremely regrettable that such an interception is occurring at all,' said Paet."It is clear that from the very beginning, the events in Ukraine were planned by professional provocateurs, agitators, and "themed revolution" specialists within the bureaucracies of the U.S. State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, British MI6, and the European Union.Ashton's agenda complements that of Nuland whose January phone call with U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt [2] revealed that the Obama administration was hand picking the future government of Ukraine even while Ashton, as well as Nuland's co-ideologue Jeffrey Feltman, the United Nations Undersecretary General for Political Affairs, were feigning interest in a negotiated solution with Yanukovych, the democratically-elected president of Ukraine. Nuland, who expressed support for Yatsenyuk to be the future leader of Ukraine, said "Fuck the EU" after she told Pyatt that the U.S. would achieve its political aims with the support of America's "bought-and-paid for" UN team of Feltman; his boss, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who was known to South Korean journalists as the "slippery eel" when he served as South Korean foreign minister; and the Special UN envoy to Ukraine, Dutch diplomat Robert Serry. Nuland expressed great confidence in the Calcutta-born Serry, a former Dutch ambassador to Ukraine with a very uncommon Dutch name. While serving as United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Serry said Israel "suffered" bias and discrimination at the UN. Such language would certainly ingratiate Nuland and Feltman to Serry, since both American diplomats are well-known dual loyalists who place Israel's interests on par with those of the United States.It is clear that neither the Ashton nor Nuland phone calls were meant to be overheard by the "unwashed masses." However, thanks to the intercept capabilities of loyal and proficient Ukrainian security agents, the world now understands the perfidy of two chattering women who are helping lead Europe and, possibly, the rest of the world, into a massive conflagration…

[Magda Hassan]

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's acting president said the country would not use its army to stop Crimea from seceding, the latest sign that a Russian annexation of the strategic peninsula may be imminent.

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Oleksandr Turchynov's comments came after the Crimean parliament voted for independence ahead of a Sunday referendum on joining Russia, while Washington and Moscow locked horns in one of their fiercest clashes since the Cold War.
The interim leader said intervening on the southeastern Black Sea peninsula, where Kremlin-backed forces have seized de facto control, would leave Ukraine exposed on its eastern border, close to Russia.
"We cannot launch a military operation in Crimea, as we would expose the eastern border and Ukraine would not be protected," Turchynov told AFP.
Describing the secession vote as a "sham", he said: "What they call the referendum will not happen in Crimea but in the offices of the Kremlin."
World powers have repeatedly called for Moscow and Kiev to come together to seek a solution to the escalating crisis in Crimea, but Turchynov said Russia's leaders were refusing any dialogue with their Ukrainian counterparts.
"Unfortunately, for now Russia is rejecting a diplomatic solution to the conflict," he said.
"They are refusing all contact at foreign ministry and top government level," he added, as Western powers, led by Germany, continued to push for the creation of a contact group to avert full-fledged war.
Turchynov and his government's hold on the separatist region loosened still further when pro-Kremlin gunmen seized the air traffic control tower at Crimea's main international airport Tuesday and cancelled all flights except those to and from Moscow.
[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/video/ukraines-crimea-seeks-become-independent-181912305.html"] Ukraine's Crimea Seeks to Become Independent Play video

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The latest escalation in the crisis also saw Moscow lash out at Washington for promising "illegal" financial assistance to Kiev's new leaders, who rose to power on the back of three months of deadly protests that toppled a Russia-friendly regime.
Undeterred, the European Union announced trade breaks worth 500 million euros ($690 million) Tuesday that could ease Ukraine's burden from restrictions that Russia has threatened in response to Kiev's tilt toward the West.
- Crimea independence -
Crimea has been a tinderbox since Moscow's forces grabbed control of the peninsula -- home to tsarist and Kremlin navies for nearly 250 years -- as part of President Vladimir Putin's broader vow to "protect" ethnic Russians living in the southeastern swathes of the culturally fractured ex-Soviet state.
The region's self-declared rulers are now recruiting volunteers to fight Ukrainian soldiers, while the Russian government sent lawmakers a draft bill that would simplify the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea after Sunday's vote.
The deep historic divide in the nation of 46 million became ever more apparent as Ukraine's political crisis unfolded following the ousted leadership's rejection in November of a historic EU pact in favour of better relations with the Kremlin.
But the first region to take the radical step of breaking away from Ukraine was Crimea -- a peninsula of two million people that had always enjoyed wide autonomy and was a part of Russia until being handed over as a symbolic "gift" to Kiev when it was still a part of the Soviet Union in 1954.
- Kerry snubs Russia-

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US Secretary of State John Kerry meanwhile turned down a visit to Russia and a possible meeting with Putin in a diplomatic rebuff of immense proportions that enraged Kremlin officials.
The threat of Ukraine's imminent breakup has made the tensions and mistrust that always seem to cloud Russia-US ties ever more explicit and potentially damaging for the two powers' long-term relationship.
The rifts were exposed yet again on Monday when Russian state television took the unusual step of airing details of a meeting between Putin and Sergei Lavrov in which the foreign minister complained of Kerry's rebuff.
The broadcast of the exchange appeared clearly aimed at putting the pressure back on Washington and painting US officials as unwilling to discuss their support for an interim team in Kiev that Putin says claimed power through "an illegitimate coup".
The US State Department did little to relieve the tension by reporting that Kerry held telephone talks with Lavrov on Tuesday in which the Russian diplomat "stated positions that we heard" before.
It added that Washington wanted to keep the dialogue with Moscow as a matter of principle.
But "the environment has to be right and the goal must be to protect the immunity and sovereignty of Ukraine," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The US Congress demanded Tuesday that Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine and urged US President Barack Obama to impose punitive economic sanctions on Moscow.
The Senate expressed its support for Ukraine by passing strongly worded resolutions, using tough language against Russia and urging it be suspended from the Group of 8 world powers.
The non-binding resolution, passed by unanimous consent, called for targeted economic sanctions to "compel President Vladimir Putin to remove his armed forces from Ukrainian territory and return that territory to full Ukrainian sovereign control."
The measure also called on world football's governing body FIFA to reconsider its decision to hold the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
- Obama hosts new PM -
The latest bitter and unusually public row came a day before Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk headed to the White House for a Wednesday meeting with Obama that should add credibility to his untested team.
Yatsenyuk will also use the chance to iron out the details of a $35 billion aid package he says his nation's teetering economy needs to stay afloat over the coming two years after being mismanaged by president Viktor Yanukovych -- now living in self-imposed exile in Russia.
The White House said Obama would discuss an economic support package that has already seen Washington pledge more than $1 billion and the European Union 11 billion euros over two years.
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