Ukraine – Who’s Zooming Who?
Ukraine has been the recipient of vast US and western military and economic aid, a condition that has turned it into a honeypot for some of Washington’s finest thieves (corporations and individuals). It appears that some influence peddling ensnared the, business as usual, Biden’s and co-oped the DNC in the 2016 US election. But when Trump “ask” President Volodymyr Zelensky “do me a favor” get to the bottom of this corruption, impeachment breaks-out.
At the Trump impeachment inquest, US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland made the narrative clear, “in July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression.” Ah-ha moment – its about Russia. However, if you listen closely its initiated by an out of control non-elected Foreign Service backed by the intelligence community to promote the Washington’s “business as usual” approach to regime change.
The Democrats have hitched their wagon to the Deep State masters. They have been dragging out of the NSC and State Department woodwork some very impressive bellicose “patriots”. Using fear as a weapon, the neocon recite their testimony about the Russkie threat and Ukrainian being the “front line.” This talk should have woken the American public to the absurdity of the entire Cold War 2.0 campaign. Fighting the Russkies in the Donbass rather than on the shores of New Jersey. Come on!
Washington and its compliant media continues to mislead Americans concerning the following: Russia; the Ukrainian Coup of 2014; Vladimir Putin; Crimea; Donbass and Malaysia’s Airlines’s Flight MH17. The fog that is being propagated by the impeachment trial has shielded the public from some scary facts. Henry Kissinger once said, “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.” This is so true when we peel back the layers of this onion.
Russia (Enemy #1?)
Russia, a kleptocratic state sitting atop an aging population with a third-rate economy and little capacity to project 21st century offensive military power beyond its own borders. Reality is that Russia is not a military threat to the US homeland. Russia is essentially a landlocked military shadow of the former Soviet Union war machine. The US, is the world’s only globe-spanning imperial power, with a massive conventional armada.
The notion that a cesspool of corruption in Ukraine is a strategic buffer against Russian aggression is just not logical and “plain idiocy.” So, what is it about Ukraine that makes it qualify for the case for America’s absurd $900 billion defense and national security budget.
The idea that that US is needs to defend any European country from Russia is also nonsense. Europe can take care of its own security and relationship with its neighbor on the Eurasian continent. After all, the GDP of NATO Europe is $18 trillion or 12X greater than that of Russia, and the current military budgets of European NATO members total about $280 billion or 4X more than that of Russia. Besides, the only tensions that exist in Europe exist because of the illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 promoted by US aggression.
The pre-Coup
In 2013, the European Union proposing an association agreement with Ukraine while U.S. neocons and other hawkish politicos and pundits envisioned using the Ukraine gambit as a way to undermine Putin inside Russia.
In late 2013 the Ukrainian leaders attempted to align itself economically and politically with its historic “daddy” in Moscow rather than the European Union and NATO. The democratically elected and constitutionally legitimate government of Ukraine then led by Viktor Yanukovych was leaning toward Russia’s offer because it was a better deal from Moscow than that being demanded by the fiscal torture artists of the IMF.
The EU’s proposal “required that Ukraine double prices for gas and electricity to industry and homes, eliminate a ban on private sale of Ukraine’s rich and fertile agricultural lands, cut state funds for children and the elderly to “balance the budget.” The infamous “association agreement that Yanukovich refused to sign was a military agreement that would have transformed Ukraine into a military base further completing the encirclement of Russia, and turning Ukraine into a puppet of Nato.” Carla Stae, Global Research
President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed these harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine’s economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych’s decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country’s western and more pro-European region.
The Ukraine Coup (For Freedom and Democracy?)
Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, took notice of Yanukovych move toward Russia. Nuland advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe. Strenuous for some indicates diplomatic strategies, Nuland became a bit over zealous.
Ms Nuland (aka The Maidan Cookie Monster) a U.S. State Department official, brazen and undiplomatic actions brought about a coup. Nuland’s successful efforts, have been haunting us now for over five years. Without Ms Nuland the Ukraine crisis might not exist, Trump impeachment might have actually focused on real impeachable offense and the Democrats might not have to lie or behave paranoiac when Ukraine is mentioned.
Nuland was a neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney. Nuland gained promotions under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and received backing, too, from ex-Secretary of State John Kerry. After all, promotions come easy when you have the right stuff, family connections. Victoria Nuland is the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan and is the sister-in-law of the Gates-Petraeus adviser Frederick Kagan.
In September 2013, Nuland undertook an extraordinary effort to promote “regime change” in Ukraine. She personally urged on business leaders and political activists to challenge elected President Viktor Yanukovych. She reminded corporate executives that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” and she literally passed out cookies to anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square
Working with other key neocons, including National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman and Sen. John McCain, Nuland made clear that the United States would back a “regime change” against Yanukovych even though neo-Nazi and other right-wing militias were pouring into Kiev. Never the less, these groups were the recipients of US support.
In early February 2014, Nuland discussed U.S.-desired changes with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, a veteran diplomat well seasoned in “regime change”. Nuland leaked telephone conversations reveals her proposing a new line-up of Ukrainian officials as if she were selecting her fantasy football team. “Yats is the guy,” she said of her favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to succeed the over-thrown Yanukovych.
Nuland, disparaged by the European Union less aggressive direction, uttered “Fuck the EU” and brainstormed how she would “glue this thing” as Pyatt pondered how to “mid-wife this thing.” Their unsecured phone call seamed to have indicated that Joe “Elmer’s” Biden had the stickiness to be Obama’s point man and besides he could be a good cheerleader to give “an attaboy” to the guys.
The coup against Yanukovych played out on Feb. 22, 2014, as the neo-Nazi militias and other violent extremists overran government buildings forcing the president and other officials to flee for their lives. Nuland’s State Department quickly declared the new regime “legitimate” and her guy “Yats” Yatsenyuk took over as prime minister.
Putin – (In the Cross-hairs?)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, was presiding over the Winter Olympics at Sochi, was caught off-guard by the coup. The coup, next door to Russia, held a crisis session to determine how to protect ethnic Russians and Russian interests. Those interests included Russia’s primary national security asset – the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea which had been the homeport of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for centuries under czars and commissars.
The the US State Department, peddled a propaganda theme that Putin had instigated the Ukraine crisis, the credulous U.S. mainstream news media used this lie to promote the made-up sort that Putin orchestrated the coup in Ukraine so he could begin invading Europe. After all, didn’t Secretary of State Clinton created that narrative when she compared Putin to Adolf Hitler.
Speaking of Hitler – Ukraine and Ghosts of WW2
Washington’s obtuseness to this history reflected pure imperial arrogance. Ukraine specifically, was not really a Warsaw Pact “captive nation” like Poland or the Czech Republic. It had actually been an integral component of the old Soviet Union, and before that a vassal and province of Czarist Russia.
A 1897 map indicates, that today’s Ukraine barely even existed as an independent state during the final centuries of the Czarist Russian Empire. Donbass, the Russian-speaking regions in what is today eastern Ukraine had been known as “New Russia” owing to the Czarist policy of settling Russians there to prevent encroachments by the Ottoman Turks.
In 1923, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, was incorporated by Moscow. During WW2 Western Ukraine had sided with the Nazi and Hitler’s Wehrmacht as it brutally made its way through Ukraine to the siege of Stalingrad. Eastern Ukraine had lined up with the Soviet Red Army during its equally bloody campaign of destruction and revenge as it chased the defeated Nazi army back to Berlin after 1943.
When Washington recruited modern-day political descendants of the WWII pro-Nazi brigades of the west to replace the Yanukovych government, ruffled the feathers of many ethnic Russians. As the violence in the streets of Kiev increased, instigated mostly from Washington and pro-Nazi backed factions, further drove a divide between Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians. In February 2014, the US funded and engineered putsch successfully overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine. Basically, the US regime change intervention was on the grounds that he was too friendly with Moscow.
Washington’s reaction to Nuland’s “success” was best summed up by Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, incidentally, funded by the U.S. Congress. President Carl Gershman called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and an important interim step toward eventually toppling Putin in Russia. Gershman, wrote: “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
Crimea (Russian Troop Invasion?)
When Washington helped to install a ultra-nationalist government, with its neo-Nazi vanguard, the mobs on the street of Kiev reopened deep national wounds. Ukraine’s bitter divide between Russian-speakers in the east and Ukrainian nationalists elsewhere dates back to Stalin’s brutal rein in Ukraine during the 1930s and Ukrainian collusion with Hitler’s Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and back during the 1940s.
It was the memory of the latter nightmare, in fact, which triggered the fear-driven outbreak of Russian separatism in the Crimea. In March 2014, Crimea held a referendum vote to determine its own future. They formally voted to re-affiliate with Mother Russia. Any familiarity with Russian history and geography one would conclude that Crimea had nothing at stake or saw any legitimacy in the US backed Ukraine coup results.
Crimean History
In 1954, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev donated Crimea to Ukraine without considering the wishes of the Crimean population, who strongly opposed their new arrangement because they overwhelmingly considered themselves to be Russians, not to be Ukrainians.
Crimea favors Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of “unity with Russia.”
In 2010, Russia and Ukraine had signed a 25-year extension on the lease that Russia had had on Russia’s Black-Sea-Fleet naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea ever since 1783, when Crimea first became a part of Russia. It has been reported that one of Obama’s objectives in taking over Ukraine in the 2014 coup was to cancel the remaining 21 years on Russia’s lease.
The March 16th plebiscite results to rejoin Russia or remain under the administration of an Ukraine’s illegal regime was a no brainer. The referendum of the voters in Crimea, produced a 96% vote to secede result. Some people, the Ukrainian Government’s officials in Crimea at the time opposed holding any such referendum and Army did issued a statement: “The Ukrainian army units remained loyal to Kyiv.” After all they had their jobs and future to consider
What Russian Troops Invaded?
The only thing that made Crimea’s departure possible was the presence of Russian army.” That too is true, just not relevant: because the Russian troops were already there as part of the lease agreement for protecting Russia’s naval base, at Sevastopol. If they were not in Crimea, the same situation that exists in Donbass today would be happening in Crimea.
Question: “Did the Crimean favor or oppose rejoining Russia?” The following results, from Gallop Polls clearly answers that question: Gallup polled 500 Crimean in May of 2013, and conducted another poll in April 2014:
- 15% considered themselves “Ukrainian.”
- 24% considered themselves “Crimean.”
- 40% considered themselves “Russian.”
2014 results
- 71.3% of Crimean viewed as “Mostly positive” the role of Russia there
- 4.0% viewed it as “Mostly negative”;
- 2.8% viewed the role of the United States there as “Mostly positive,”
- 76.2% viewed it as “Mostly negative.”
Gallop’s 2014 poll: Of the 500 people that were sampled in Crimea were asked, Please tell me if you agree or disagree: “The results of the referendum on Crimea’s status [to rejoin Russia] reflect the views of most people here.” 82.8% said ‘Agree.’ 6.7% said ‘Disagree.’” Crimea’s final voting results before the February 2014 coup were: 80% of Crimean had voted for the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
So, the President for whom they had overwhelmingly voted, the man that was overthrown in a bloody coup, the coup that had US fingerprints smudged all over it, voted to secede from Crimea. In the hearts of the local residents, Crimea was still Russian territory, after an involuntary hiatus of 60 years. The Russian Government accepted them back again, into Russia.
This is what the US Government and its mainstream media calls Russian Aggression and the Russian Invasion of Crimea. It one was to look abjectly they may conclude that it was not ‘Russia’s seizure of Crimea,’ but Russia’s protection of Crimean citizens, from the invasion of Ukraine by the resultants of a bloody coup.
Donbass (Russian Aggression?)
The new Kiev government, in the wake of their loss of Crimea, launched a brutal “anti-terrorism operation” to subdue an uprising among the large ethnic Russian populations of eastern and southern Ukraine. Nuland and other American neocons pushed for economic sanctions against Russia and demanded arms for the coup regime and her neocon cronies complied.
Washington “Releases the Hounds”
The White House confirmed that CIA director John Brennan arrived in Ukraine the weekend of April 13-14, under an assumed name, and held a “series of secret meetings” with Kiev’s “power bloc.” Immediately following CIA director Brennan’s “secret” visit to Kiev, the newly western installed and un-elected junta in Kiev launched lethal military attacks against unarmed Ukranian civilians in Kramatorsk.
Former Ukranian President Yanukovich accused the CIA of being responsibility for the decision to use military force against non-violent pro-Russia demonstrators. The Kiev regime turned on the ethnic Russian population in the east with the ferocity of ethnic cleansing. Deploying neo-Nazi militias, they bombed and laid to siege cities and towns.
They used mass starvation as a weapon, cutting off electricity, freezing bank accounts, stopping social security and pensions. More than a million refugees fled across the border into Russia. In the western media, they became misrepresented the exodus as escaping “the violence” caused by the “Russian invasion.” The Nato commander, General Breedlove even lied as he announced 40,000 Russian troops were “massing” even though forensic satellite evidence offered none.
Deadly military actions, in Odessa and at Kramatorsk airfield killed more than 50 civilians. In Odessa, Russians burned alive as police stood by and unarmed civilian were shot while in the American and British media, reported the a “tragedy” resulting from “clashes” between “nationalists” and “separatists. The Wall Street Journal referred to these deadly actions as: “Ukraine Uses Military Force for the first Time. Soldiers Fire on Pro-Russian separatists at Air Base; U.S. Supports Kiev Response.”
Most of the”separatists” were citizens that wanted to live securely in their homeland and oppose the power grab in Kiev. Their revolt and establishment of autonomous “states” were a reaction to Kiev’s attacks on them. Little of this has been explained to western audiences. These Russian-speaking and bilingual people of Ukraine sought a federation that reflected the country’s ethnic diversity autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow.
In May the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk voted for self-rule, 89%, and the neighboring Lukansk region voted 96% for independence. The pro-Russia separatists landslide victory, calling for the creation of a new, quasi-independent entities in eastern Ukraine, marked a new watershed in the country’s crisis.
The referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Putin, advised the separatist leaders to postpone was portrayed as a Putin scheme to take over eastern Ukraine. However, Putin rejected any proposals to annex these two provinces.
Separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, served warning that all Ukrainian troops on his territory would become illegal. “All military troops on our territory after the official announcement of referendum results will be considered illegal and declared occupiers,” Denis Pushilin said. “It is necessary to form state bodies and military authorities as soon as possible.”
Malaysia’s Flight MH17 (War Crime?)
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17)[ was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It was shot down on July 17, 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine’s airspace. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. The White House, almost immediately, blamed Russia for the shooting-down of the Malaysia’s airliner.
The White House and its Ukrainian regime used the fact that the separatists had already shot down several Ukrainian bombers and omitted the fact that the Ukraine bombers were flying at much lower altitudes and that the separates did not have the capability to shoot down aircraft at higher altitudes was ignored. The US’s premature accusation that Russian was directly or indirectly responsibility was the basis for another crucial hike in the economic sanctions against Russia.
As it turned out, the Ukrainian Government shot down the airliner. It was proven the the Malaysian plane carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members was downed by gunfire and missile-fire from Ukrainian fighter-plane(s).
Conclusion (Who Is Zooming Who?)
The Ukraine putsch was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation, a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world. A nation that has shared strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties, with Russia going back centuries.
US/Nato forces encouraged Kiev’s military onslaught, including war crimes in an attempt to provoke Russian President Putin into making a mistake. Instead, Putin confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon their referendums.
No Russian leader would survive politically, if he or she were to ignore Ukraine’s abduction from Russia’s sphere of influence. Ukraine had historically functioned as an integral part of Mother Russia, serving as its breadbasket and iron and steel crucible under czars and commissars alike. Given this history, the idea that Ukraine should be actively and aggressively induced to join NATO was not just plain nuts, its evil.
Ukraine has attracted the same old Russia-phoebes funding think tanks, NGOs, foreign policy experts, national security contractors and Warfare State agencies – from DOD through the State Department, AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Board for International Broadcasting and countless more – which ply their trade in the Imperial City.
Washington sidling up to Ukraine has generated events that has turned Ukraine into another Washington beltway goldmine. “Fighting Russian aggression” generates jobs, money and lucrative defense contracts. Cold War 2 may be a gravy train for the career minded government bureaucrats but its a disaster for US and Ukraine citizens. So, when the newly elected Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to solve its eastern border separatist situation and heal Russia relations, the red flag gets hoisted.
Nevertheless, the defense inappropriate military and economic aid to Ukraine and the corruption in both Washington and Kiev, is the real reason this posse of neocon stooges took exception to the Donald’s legitimate interest in investigating the Biden’s and the events of 2016. So, when US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland says, “the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression,” he is just repeating Washington’s narrative on Ukraine, keep the gravy train rolling.
Impeach Trump for legitimate reasons like his continuation and escalation of wars in Syria, Afghanistan or Yemen not for inappropriate diplomacy and his lame attempt to expose corruption.
Resources:
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/02/whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/
https://step-back.org/ukraine-timeline/
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/13/putin-ukraine-and-what-americans-know/
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/06/nyt-still-pretends-no-coup-in-ukraine/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/21/a-coming-russia-ukraine-war/
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/
russmac.org 