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.

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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?