This day. 2014, Donbass and the politics of provocation

By DMITRIY KOVALEVICH*

One of the most touching pictures from our civil war in Ukraine. ‘That’s mom’s birthday”, 2015, Donetsk. The boy’s eyes are quite telling.

On May 26, 2014  Alexander Turchinov – a leader of Euro-Maidan in Ukraine and interim president of the new coup government until the May 25 election – ordered the armed forces to launch air-strikes against rebellious cities in the Donbass.

On the frontlines: Red Army veteran Moritz Mebel talks about his battles against fascism

On the 75th anniversary of Victory Day, which commemorates the surrender of Hitler’s Germany in World War II, we bring you the recollections of Red Army veteran Moritz Mebel who took part in grueling campaigns against the Nazis from the gates of Moscow to the Czech RepublicMay 09, 2020 by Franziska Kleiner

Moritz Mebel (left) in Dresden in 1945.

Mebel and millions of his comrades from the Soviet Union were part of the longest and bloodiest struggles of World War II which ultimately caused the defeat of Hitler and fascism.

‘Heroes’ to be arrested for the Maidan massacre?

Dr IVAN KATCHANOVSKI

(March 27) – The Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine reportedly plans to arrest two prominent recent members of the parliament and far right activists on charges of their involvement in the Maidan massacre.

Political maneouvres and coronavirus threat in Ukraine

TSB analyst Dmitriy Kovalevich* examines the serious political crises facing Ukraine, its economic crisis and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Vladimir Zelensky meets US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Kiev, January 31, 2010 | Reuters

During the month of March, Ukraine has faced serious political crises, accompanied by economic troubles and the COVID-19 outbreak. The Cabinet of Ministers resigned in early March, under a barrage of harsh criticism for its ineptitude in dealing with the country’s economic problems.

Erdogan’s long-coming reality check

By GHASSAN KADI

TSB Middle East Analyst

(February 14) – It is hard to say if Erdogan is running out of choices, friends, time, or all of the above; and his stands on various issues and the contradictions he ploughs through are making his situation increasingly untenable.

Ukraine: Land privatization demanded by IMF, links to Biden graft scandal – engineered bankruptcy of national economy

On December 17th, protests took place in Kiev against the Ukrainian land reform.

By DMITRY KOVALEVICH

The government of Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine adopted in November so-called ‘land reform’, in accordance of the demands made by the IMF amongst other international financial organizations. The reform opens the way for the mass privatization of Ukraine’s agricultural lands. The IMF has been making these demands for many years but assorted Ukrainian presidents have tried to postpone such an unpopular decision. Recent polls show that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians of all political persuasions are opposed to land privatization, from far-right to far-left.

This Day. Seizure of Kiev, 1941

Battle for Kiev, a painting in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War – Jan Smith 2011

September 19, 1941 – German Nazi troops seized Kiev, the capital of socialist Ukraine, legendary city of golden domes on the banks of the Dnieper River and a cradle of ancient Russian civilisation. The siege of Kiev is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare (by number of troops). The operation ran from 7 August to 26 September 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. In Soviet military history, it is referred to as the Kiev Strategic Defensive Operation, with somewhat different dating of 7 July – 26 September 1941.

Disinformation about invasion of Poland

By HARDIAL BAINS

September 1 marks the anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Hitlerites in 1939. Instead of condemning the Nazis, reactionary forces such as the Harperites use disinformation to rehabilitate the reputation of Nazi war criminals and to cover up who were the victims of fascism in whose name the peoples of the world declared “Never Again!” At this time of year, they use the anniversary of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed on August 23, 1939 to claim that this was an act of appeasement, not a tactical move for the Soviet Union to buy time to arm itself for an inevitable confrontation with the Nazis. The disinformation is also used to suggest that it was the Soviets and not the Nazis who invaded Poland in September 1939 and started the war in Europe. This is to hide the fact that it was the European powers that actively appeased the Nazis and permitted the invasion of Poland, while the Soviets fought to defend that country and its people at every turn. Ultimately, this disinformation about the causes of World War II is to justify and commit similar crimes in the present.

Warsaw Uprising: Polish authorities’ political amnesia

By VALÉRY VRUBLEVSKY

People light flares as they observe a minute of silence to mark the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi German occupiers during World War II on August 1, 2019, in the Polish capital Warsaw | Janek Skarzynski/AFP

Poland is suffering political amnesia. The condition gets acute any time one mentions the mass crimes committed against Polish nationals. There is a plethora of examples to prove the case. The Volyn massacre is the most illustrative one. Ukrainian nationalists brutally tortured and killed dozens of thousands of old men, women and children. For all that, the Polish government supports the successors of Stepan Bandera who have seized power in Ukraine.

There is another example – the pogroms in Wola that took place during the Warsaw uprising (Wola – a district of western Warsaw). German fascists killed around 60,000 Poles in two days (August 5-6, 1944) – the largest single massacre in WWII.

2019 Ukraine presidential election: Results will sharpen internal contradictions

By DOUGAL MACDONALD with an update by TONY SEED

The 2019 Ukrainian presidential election was held on March 31 and April 21 using the two-round system. A surprising total of 39 candidates ran for president on the ballot. Since entry into the campaign costs a non-refundable $90,000, speculation was rampant that some candidates were nothing more than straw men put forward by various factions of the rich simply to drain votes away from their opponents.

Certain US embassies are large military-intelligence centres

American marines in Armenia…

fondsk.ru (October 21) – The embassy of any country in a foreign state works within the powers of defined bi- and multi- lateral interstate agreements, which includes, first of all, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. In particular, it clearly regulates the number of employees of embassies, especially those who are given diplomatic privileges and immunities. The total number of employees, as a rule, directly depends on the level of relations between states, the scale of the host country, etc. And the areas of ambassadorial premises are usually directly depend on the number of employees.

Former Ukrainian deputy describes how the US ambassador blackmails politicians

The American Embassy influenced the decisions of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, with the help of information about the bank accounts of key figures of parliament.

This was stated on the air of the TV program “An evening with Vladimir Solovyov” by the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the previous session, Spiridon Kilinkarov.

“I state with responsibly that in the Verkhovna Rada, when there were some difficult political affairs, the ambassador of the US always appeared on the balcony. He didn’t hit anyone with a stick, he didn’t shout, he just culturally sat down in a chair and observed voting in the parliament. If a vote wasn’t passed, in the evening key figures who make decisions are invited to the American Embassy. He doesn’t shout there either. He says: ‘You know, mister, here you have bank accounts, here, here, and here … I’ve been here since 2006, I remember that there were three or four of such votes…’,” said Kilinkarov.

With a file from Stalkerzone, September 21, 2018

TS note: Over one third of the members of the Rada have dual citizenships.

Living in wacko-land

By PAUL ROBINSON | Irrussianality

(September 25) – A chance encounter with a Twitter post got me following links on the internet today as I filled in time between classes. I know that there’s a lot of truly rotten stuff out there, and every now and again I write some piece denouncing some example or other. But on the whole, I try and stay clear of it. Still, immersing myself in all this was rather interesting, so I thought that I would share the results.

The Tweet which got me started was this one from Toronto-based Ukrainian-Canadian ‘political analyst’ Ariana Gic, who writes occasional columns for outlets like the Atlantic Council. I’m always rather sceptical of ‘independent analysts’ who seem to lack an institutional base, and am frankly amazed  that one can making a living that way, but apparently one can. 

Life in Crimea – a first person account

Sevastopol | copyright of photographer Yuriy Yuganson

By AUSLANDER

Well, we’ve got four years of fun under out belts now and to say it’s been interesting is like calling a 200 kilo rabbit mildly horizontally challenged.

Outrageous! Ukraine asks UEFA for permission to use Nazi SS symbols

These articles were originally published by this blog from amateursport.com on December 3, 2014 and are being republished on the occasion of EURO 2016 new underway in France, in which Ukraine is competing. Violent clashes took place on June 11 between English and Russian hooligans in Marseille. (On June 14, in a brazen political maneouvre, EUFA arbitrarily levied Russia with a suspended disqualification and €150,000 fine as French authorities set to deport up to 50 Russian fans. No action was taken against England.)

Photo shows “patriotic” Nazi SS Galician banner in in the Lviv Arena stadium in Ukraine

“We have yet to win back our symbols and to uphold them.” Condemn this growing fascism!

Oleksandr Hlyvynskyi, press attaché of Ukraine’s national football team, asked UEFA for permission to use “SS-Galicia” logos Hlyvynskyi said this during a roundtable discussion on the subject “The patriotic dimension of football: Fan culture.”

Why the rise of fascism is again the issue

Red Army doctor attends to Auschwitz prisoner after its liberation In January, 1945

By JOHN PILGER

The recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was a reminder of the great crime of fascism, whose Nazi iconography is embedded in our consciousness. Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.

Why Russia shut down US NGOs – fronts of the US state

The neocon-flagship Washington Post has fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), but left out key facts like NED’s US government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes ROBERT PERRY in Consortium News. The Harper government’s Dept. of Foreign Affairs has been covertly awarding millions of Canadian taxdollars to NED, and its subsidiaries, the National Democratic Institute (e.g., $374,206 on June 18, 2015; $426,054 on March 5, 2015; $698,227 on October 24, 2014) and the International Republican Institute (e.g., $6,000,000 on April 28, 2014 for “Strengthening Multiparty Democracy” in Ukraine and $1,000,620 and $1,125,390 on December 8, 2015). – TS

(July 30) – The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

A day in the life of ‘Ukrainian democracy’

(1) Further attacks on press freedom, (2) resistance to disarmament by well-armed neo-fascist volunteer battalions that will be the hammer of any future neo-fascist seizure of power in Ukraine, and (3) a high-ranking Ukrainian official’s praise for the suspects in the murder of a journalist

By GORDON M. HAHN* (Most photos and captions have been added by TS)

Activists in Kyiv dressed as zombies shred ‘Vesti’ newspaper at June 21, 2015 protest in front of the Security Service of Ukraine building demanding banning of the paper | Roman Pilipey, EPA

(June 21) – Samantha Power’s delusions notwithstanding, due to the inordinate presence of non-democratic elements and outside the Maidan government, ‘Ukrainian democracy’ remains a distant dream. We learned from the shortcomings of early ‘transitology’ in the 1990s that free and fair elections do not a democracy make.

1,000 people in Kyiv protest war in eastern Ukraine

Antiwar rally in Kyiv on July 1, 2015 | Ivan Sirko, ukraina.ru

One thousand people in Kyiv have gathered once again before the walls of the U.S. embassy in Kyiv demanding that the U.S. cease interfering in the affairs of Ukraine.

They chanted “USA! Away with your soldiers and weapons. Do not interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine! Shame! You are causing the war! Yankee, go home!”

Word. Vladimir Putin: ‘Publish a world map and mark all the US military bases on it. You will see the difference between Russia and the US.’

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a forum of independent regional and local mass media in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Vladimir Putin pulls no punches in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Luciano Fontana: I would like to start with a question concerning Russian-Italian relations. This relationship has always been close and privileged, both in the economic and political spheres. However, it has been somewhat marred by the crisis in Ukraine and the sanctions. Could the recent visit by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to Russia and your upcoming visit to Milan somehow change this trend, and if so, what is needed for that?

Word. Brief exchange on culpability for expanding war in Europe

Merchants of Death – Lithograph by Mabel Dwight

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, three prominent U.S. think tanks—the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs—issued a joint report urging the United States to provide Ukraine $3 billion in military assistance over the next three years. Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott co-wrote the report. He’s now president of Brookings.

Falsification of history: Auschwitz and its liberation – Heroic deed of the Red Army

Auschwitz prisoners liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

By YURIY RUBTSOV

If you ask the prisoners of Auschwitz or at least those who have ever visited the memorial and museum about what they felt — they will tell you that the place where hundreds of thousands died is cursed. One gets the impression that the deathly silence of the cemetery is still broken by cries and moans of inmates pushed into gas chambers… piles of shoes of all sizes, tooth brushes, glasses… all these objects still appear to preserve the warmth of the hands of the people they belonged to.

Auschwitz: Polish falsification of liberation, Polish collaboration with Nazis

Located 70 km from Krakow in occupied Poland, Auschwitz was the largest (around 40 square km) network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during WWII.

Oriental Review (Jan. 24) – The statement by Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, claiming that it was Ukrainians alone who allegedly liberated the prisoners from Auschwitz, needs no further comment. We’ll let that remark lie on its author’s conscience, as he seems to have “forgotten” about the thousands of his own countrymen who fought heroically against fascism as part of the Armia Ludowa.

Obama’s secret deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar: Behind lower gas prices and the bombing of Syria and Eastern Ukraine

By ERICH ZEUSSE*

The following report reconstructs U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, on the basis of what I have deemed to be reliable news accounts of his Administration’s actions, not of its mere words.

This reconstruction is grounded in the linked-to news-sources, all of which I have investigated and verified — and some of which I wrote. The ones that I wrote are themselves sourced to the links within those reports, all of which I have, likewise, personally checked and verified. Consequently, the chain of verifications back to this reconstruction’s primary sources is available to any online reader, and every reader is encouraged to track back to its ultimate source any allegation that might appear to be at all questionable to him or her in the present article.

Oil and the US empire

Discussion of oil prices | K.C. ADAMS

Oil has become a strategic resource in the modern world. Oil is necessary for industrial mass production, transportation and warfare.

A human-centred outlook towards oil regards the resource as necessary for mutual development of all peoples to a modern standard wherein all nations are regarded as equal without reference to size or development, where the rights of all peoples are affirmed and force is not used to settle conflicts amongst nations, and the short and long term consequences of the use of oil on the social and natural environments are important considerations in nation- building.

US ‘perception management’: CIA’s hidden hand in ‘democracy’ groups

Freedom House, New York City

Special Report: Documents from the Reagan presidential library reveal that two major institutions promoting “democracy” and “freedom” — Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy — worked hand-in-glove, behind-the-scenes, with a CIA propaganda expert in the 1980s, reports ROBERT PARRY*. Both these agencies operate inside Canada and are funded by the Harper government.

US ‘perception management’: Attempt to subvert the anti-war movement

Demonstrating the necessity of a consistent and principled anti-imperialist and anti-war stand, Haligonians rally against threats of war against Syria, September 7, 2013 as part of its action program of weekly pickets

Since the anti-war protests on Vietnam, the U.S. government has made “perception management” of the American people a high priority, feeding them a steady diet of propaganda about foreign crises, even getting U.S. and Canadian “peace groups” to buy into and actually sell “pro-democracy” wars, write MARGARET SARFEHJOOY and COLEEN ROWLEY*.

(Dec. 25) – “War is peace” double-speak has become commonplace these days. And, the more astute foreign policy journalists and commentators are beginning to realize the extent of how “liberal interventionists” work in sync with neocon warhawks to produce and sustain a perpetual state of U.S. war.

More and more “peace and social justice” groups are even being twisted into “democracy promotion,” U.S. militarism style.

US ‘perception management’: The ‘evil enemy’, from Reagan to Obama

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered “perception management” to get the American people to “kick the Vietnam Syndrome” and accept more U.S. interventionism, but that propaganda structure continues to this day getting the public to buy in to endless war, writes ROBERT PARRY*.

(Dec. 28) – To understand how the American people find themselves trapped in today’s Orwellian dystopia of endless warfare against an ever-shifting collection of “evil” enemies, you have to think back to the Vietnam War and the shock to the ruling elite caused by an unprecedented popular uprising against that war.

While on the surface Official Washington pretended that the mass protests didn’t change policy, a panicky reality existed behind the scenes, a recognition that a major investment in domestic propaganda would be needed to ensure that future imperial adventures would have the public’s eager support or at least its confused acquiescence.

Ukraine stops trains to Crimea

Crimean people celebrate being accepted as part of the Russian Federation in Simferopol, the Republic of Crimea, March 18, 2014.

Ukraine has stopped cargo and passenger train movements to Crimea, Crimean Railway head Andrei Karakulkin said on Saturday. “All Ukrainian trains have fully stopped traffic since today.”

“This is misunderstanding. People have to return tickets. Queues have formed at railway ticket offices. People are concerned over their families and relatives both in Crimea and Ukraine,” Karakulkin said.

Graphic details. US State Department’s imperialist geography

In the event of a Belarusian invasion of Ukraine, the 6th US Fleet will immediately be deployed to the shores of landlocked Belarus.

By TONY SEED

It is all too reminiscent of former prime minister Jean Chrétien trying to convince the Canadians in 2001 that the deployment of the Canadian navy to the Indian Ocean as part of the Anglo-American invasion of landlocked Afghanistan was done to fight the Taliban. And like current Canadian foreign affairs minister John Baird, who thinks the capital of Syria is Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Spokesperson Jen Psaki reveals a certain gap of knowledge of the countries targeted by US warmongering.