The Situation in the Ukraine. #9

Regular wrote:Well looks are nothing. Separatists got nice equipment at the begging of active conflict, but now it seems they are only getting surplus.

sepheronx wrote:As far as I am aware, Uky army is no better. In this situation, they are to out people in first to deal with these artillery units.

As well, they can evacuate the people. But I agree. Not so close to the population. Maybe under pressure strelkov may go back.

kvs wrote:Conclusion: Kiev regime is fully innocent in shelling civilians because a couple of examples were produced where there is an ambiguous "set up".

What freaking joke.   Let's see you experts show us how every neighbourhood shelled in Donetsk City (and elsewhere) had rebel artillery
and MLRS.    This especially applies to the courtyards of high rise blocks.  Since, you know, those are great artillery positions...if you want
to have shells landing on your own head.

So what exactly do the rebels achieve with their epic false flag operations if the western media gives them zero sympathy and
systematically ignores Kiev regime attacks on civilians?   Do they need to win sympathy from Russia?

You people are clutching at straws.

Regular wrote: Who is defending Kiev here?
Rebels should know that they it will provoke exact reaction by UA troops.
If You know You are dealing with criminals then why provoke them even further? You think people who are nearby are start to think better about separatists?
And I don't think it's false flag, I think they are fricking idiots without brains that's it. They could live in same blocks and just go outside to shoot. That's what happens when people who are not in military get guns. Arab spring showed that in comical way.

Regular wrote:Well here is quite new video. Not far away where Grad was firing.

I have no comments.

And etaepsilonk, I think You are right, like the time when two nonas were shelling Ukrainian artillery positions while they were next to the church. And then their commander said lets GTFO from here cause they will be working on us. And there where locals there, praying.
Priests at 4:12 and 11:10 the guys is talking about who are they shelling. They are shelling positions of Grads and Uragans and they are preparing to strike back.
12:14 May the god be with You. "...." Good now they will working on us.
Video here.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0a4_1404479856

But before that they were using higher ground to use artillery, but ukrainians quickly took all the heights.

Again, the rebel Grads are firing from the end of the "Maxim Kozyrya" street on the southern outskirts of Donetsk whereas the apartment complex that was shelled by UA forces is in the "Tekstilshchiki" neighborhood, about 5.2 kilometers (3.3 miles) to the (slightly north) west of it, in a far more urban area.

kvs wrote:
A couple of videos that require much more additional information to verify the situation.   How do we even know that the apartment blocks in the first video are occupied if they are on the outskirts of the city.   There have been over a million refugees from the war zone.

Vann7 wrote:As i said before.. Ukraine war is an economy war against Russia that have been planned for years against Russia by USA.

kvs wrote:The best approach is to let the Ukrainian economy collapse.  The idiots in the western part think their agrarian zone is the
backbone of Ukraine and that the Donbas is a welfare leach.   In fact, the opposite is true and this is why time is on Russia's
side.

kvs wrote:How do we even know that the apartment blocks in the
first video are occupied if they are on the outskirts of the city. There have been over a million refugees from the war zone.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Ukraine's Descent into Fascism and How the West Turns a Blind Eye

Ukrainian fascism is a rampaging reality. The West's refusal to acknowledge it may be setting the scene for genocide






Vladimir Golstein is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages at Brown University, an American Ivy League university.

We  have decided to publish this article in full, since it is by far the best description we know of the rise of fascism in Ukraine.  

The author, who is a top US scholar, shows that Ukrainian fascism is not the fringe phenomenon that western governments and media say it is, but that is central to Ukrainian politics and is the key to understanding Ukraine’s political crisis and the way that crisis is evolving as the situation in the country worsens.  

He shows by drawing on the latest academic scholarship that the fascism currently loose in Ukraine is fascism in its classic form, identical to the fascism of that existed in Europe in the 1930's and 1940's, and that like that fascism it disguises its racist and genocidal agenda behind slogans of anti-communism.   He describes how the racist hatred that drives Ukrainian fascism is focused on Russia and Russians and expresses itself  with the same genocidal language against Russians that fascists of the 1930s and 1940s used against Slavs and Jews.

The author shows that western governments and media, their judgement already clouded by their hostility to Russia, have allowed themselves to be beguiled by Ukrainian fascism’s anti-communist slogans and insincere “Europeanism” so that they turn a blind eye both to its reality and to its actions, with potentially disastrous results as the situation in Ukraine worsens.

How does one interpret recent marches of Ukrainian nationalists in two main Ukrainian cities, Kharkov and Kiev?

To an outsider, these marches look like Nazi bacchanalia intended to intimidate both local population and the government. Indeed, the marchers demanded the status of national heroes for the wartime Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) notorious for its violent extermination of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Yet, one would wait in vain for the N-word to be mentioned by Western press. BBC coyly reported that: “nationalists demanded that MPs pass a law to recognize a World War Two nationalist group which opposed Soviet forces.” UPA, the organization responsible for the murder of thousands is presented as “the opposition to Soviet forces.” The BBC’s squeamishness is very typical of western coverage of Ukrainian violence: as long as any group has challenged the evils of Stalin’s bolshevism , their Nazi collaboration is to be ignored. It is this privileging of anti-communism at the expense of anything else that enables the press to insist that “There are no Nazis in Ukraine-- it is all the invention of Kremlin propaganda.”

The western media, never squeamish about pointing a finger at Russian nationalism, or decry Russia’s covert and overt attempts to interfere in Ukraine, becomes surprisingly timid when describing Ukraine’s turmoil. Of course, it will admit the growing pains of Ukraine’s pro-Western democratic turn, including the activity of violent groups or parties, like Right Sector, that flaunt Nazi paraphernalia and expound bizarre and racist notions. But this acknowledgement is quickly modified by the insistence on the marginal nature of these groups. Rather than being marginal, these groups, however, constitute the tip of the ultra-nationalist iceberg that is going to crush the modern Ukraine.

The nature of this iceberg is simple: Ukraine is rushing headlong to create a modern day fascist society. It might try to disguise itself as pro-European liberal democracy, as the country eager to resist Russian control or Soviet legacy, but behind this double dose of Ukrainian spinning and western Cold War narrative, lays a very menacing reality. It includes pervasive rhetoric focusing on the myth of heroic Ukraine that must be restored, its champions honored, and its enemies vanquished. It also includes a forced imposition of such a myth upon the whole population of Ukraine resulting in the series of violent actions of genocidal character, be it the May 2 massacre in Odessa, or relentless shelling of civilians in the East of the country.

What remains hidden in the plain view of recent Ukrainian politics is a highly recognizable pattern shared by numerous fascist regimes.

A school of current historians of fascism (Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, George Mause, Stanley Payne, and Robert Paxton) has established generic features of the fascist phenomenon. Fascism for these scholars does not necessarily imply its Nazi variant with anti-Semitism, yellow stars, and concentration camps. It is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon, a “cultural revolution in nationalist key” (Comparative Fascist Studies, Routledge, 2010: 114) as the result of which society embarks on a new mythic course. It “sacralizes earthly entity --the nation” (Gentile in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 2004: 18); it re-imagines its past and articulates utopian future that remains out of reach only because some group serves as an obstacle. It also targets and utilizes the inexperience and alienation of youth by providing it with the sense of belonging, direction, and “destructive emotions against a hallucinatory enemy” (Griffin, Radical Right, 1999: 298). According to Payne’s A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, London, 1997: 487-95), in order for a country to embark on a fascist course, it has to exhibit a series of cultural, political, social, economic, and international elements. Majority of these elements are fully deployed in Ukraine: be it preexisting strong currents of nationalism; a comparatively new state; a political system that approximates liberal democracy but existed only for a single generation; economic crisis of dislocation or underdevelopment; politically neutralized military; fragmented or polarized party system, status humiliation (loss of Crimea) and the apparent danger from the left (cf. Self-proclaimed People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine).  

In other words, cultural, political, and social pre-conditions of fascism has already crystalized in Ukraine. In particular, it worth stressing the following: the political vision that drives violent youth organizations like Right Sector and that is being embraced by more and more Ukrainians, is the myth of a strong unified Ukraine located both in the past and in the future. It includes the embrace of mythic champions of that vision, such as UPA leaders, Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, who are supposed to inspire Ukraine toward its glorious future, while it is the enemy, Russians in particular, who preclude Ukraine from reaching its mythical paradise. During the last twenty years, the education in Ukraine, the teaching of history in particular, was organized as to drive home this simplistic mythology.

The civil war in the East, coupled with the loss of Crimea, only exaggerated Ukraine’s utopian thinking. The mythic enemy (Russia) has shown its claws, highlighting the urgent need for the unified force of so called “svidomye” –a new and important Ukrainian term, that describes the in-crowd, politically conscious nationalists.

It is these svidomye  who now constitute the backbone of Red Sector and other military organizations like voluntary National Guards, which are behind the most gruesome violence emanating from Ukraine. Condoned by the media, politicians, and the army, these svidomye encounter little resistance. Furthermore, just a few days ago, the leader of National Guard, Stepan Poltorak, was appointed as the Ukrainian minister of defense, signifying the fact that it is ultra-nationalists that are in control of the army, and not the other way around.  

The current Ukrainian ideologues are well aware that the West would hardly tolerate purely ethnic hatred, so they either deny the violence inflicted upon the population not willing to share their utopian visions, or –when it becomes impossible--do their best to obfuscate it. Kiev, in fact, found a very successful strategy of disguising its Russophobia as Sovietophobia, a brilliant move that guarantees the immediate support of Baltic and East Europeans countries, let alone the Cold Warriors of the West. Needless to say, practically all fascist movements of the twentieth century presented their genocidal violence as a political struggle against communism, bolshevism, or sovietism. The mainstream press, however, happy to detect rudiments of neo-Nazism in Russia, fails to recognize in Ukrainian rhetoric of anti-sovietism a camouflaged version of Nazi’s “Judeo-Bolshevism.”  

So while on the surface Ukrainian radicals attack Lenin sculptures, Stalin’s politics and left wing parties, what is seething underneath is hatred of all things Russian. (How else can one explain this ardor against Lenin or Stalin, whom nobody in Eastern Europe or Russia takes particularly seriously nowadays? Yet, equating Stalin’s brutal agrarian politics with the genocide against Ukrainians enables these ideologues to promote the myths of Ukrainian victimhood at the hands of its hated neighbor. Thus, we learn, as reported by Dmitri Kolesnik, that “Oleh Odnorozhenko, deputy commander of the Azov Battalion defines Ukrainian war as the conflict of ‘people with a European identity fighting with Sovietness.’” The very juxtaposition of such disparate concepts as ‘European’ and ‘Soviet,’ –skillfully implies that things Soviet are non-European and barbaric. Thus, the fight with Soviets becomes civilizational rather than genocidal project. Just a few days ago, a member of Ukrainian parliament, Tamara Farion, in the speech commemorating the heroism of UPA, declared that “the ideals of WWII Ukrainian nationalists who resisted Moscow should become universal for Ukraine… that everyone in Ukraine who lacks Ukrainian soul should be executed… and that Moscow has to be erased, for remaining irredeemable black hole European security.”

Relying on western publications and translations, the western public cannot perceive the depth of venom and hostility that pervades Ukrainian political discourse, be it through the mass media, blogs, FB postings, or YouTube videos. Aleksei Sakhnin, Russian political dissident arrested by Putin, and obviously, no fan of “Kremlin’s propaganda,”-- was shocked by what he saw during his recent visit to Ukraine. For him, the Ukrainian situation resembled a powder keg ready to explode. The animosity that emanates from Ukraine is so strong, that it even expanded abroad, as can be witness by the attack on the photograph exhibition at the Chelsea gallery in NYC.

The legitimating of fascism, its entering of the mainstream under the pretext of war with Stalinism and its Soviet legacy – became the main ideology in Ukraine, resulting in what Ukrainian journalist, Dmitro Manuilskii, called “legitimization of the fascist discourse.” In fact, such legitimization came into being, under the earlier Ukrainian president, Victor Yuschenko, with  his radical attempts to re-introduce nationalistic myths into Ukrainian psyche. This cultural shift generated a very articulate condemnation as early as 2008, when Ukrainian historians Georgii Kriuchkov and Dmitry Tabachnik published in Kharkov the collection of essays entitled Fascism in Ukraine: Threat or Reality. (Fascism v Ukraine: ugroza ili real’nost’.)

Whether Ukrainian mythic nationalism will result in some major genocide is unclear, but one can hardly doubt that the fascist discourse that took hold of Ukraine during the last twenty years will only get worse, fueled by depressed economy, destroyed industrial powerhouses in the east, and the local currency in the free fall.  Furthermore, the Ukrainian government is clearly dysfunctional; common people demand blood, there are fights in parliament, there are fights outside, there are lynching crowds who attack and beat up politicians. The interior minister, Arsen Avakov, has appealed to the crowd through Facebook post (Sept. 30) and asked them not to resort to lynching since it can ruin Ukrainian reputation “in Europe and even in America.” To which some members of his audience, replied that since Interior ministry proved to be ineffective in dealing with “pro-Russian” side, they have to resort to violence instead.  

Avakov should not worry about US reaction to Ukrainian lawlessness, however.   Beguiled by Ukrainian skillful spinning of their genocidal hatred in political terms, the American politicians prefer to concentrate on Russia and the need to challenge it. Thus, despite numerous reports of rising ethnic tensions, despite the evidence of disturbing invocations of Nazism (see the articles by Alec Luhn, Max Blumenthal, or Stephen Cohen), the White House refuses to modify its policy. In his recent speech at Harvard, Joe Biden insisted on the already familiar narrative that the events in Ukraine have to do with the US need to challenge Russia, while ignoring Ukrainian realities. For Biden’s Cold War mindset, sanctioning Russia into obedience appears to be the only goal: “But again, it was America’s leadership and the President of the United States insisting, oft times almost having to embarrass Europe to stand up and take economic hits to impose costs. And the results have been… the Russian economy teetering on the brink of recession... Putin has to make a choice. These asymmetrical advances on another country cannot be tolerated.” In short, Ukraine be damned, as long as we make Russia back off.

Biden demonstrates here a rather consistent pattern of American foreign policy: the fixation on a historical rival at the expense of the current mayhem. Think of Cambodia, for example. When the Vietnamese army decided to put an end to Khmer Rouge violence and invaded the country, US continued to condemn Vietnam and supported the Khmer Rouge regime. In the words of the historian Pierre Ryckmans, also known by his pen name of Simon Leys:

“After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Kissinger asked the foreign affairs minister of Thailand to convey to Pol Pot the friendly wishes of the American people, adding for his interlocutor’s benefit: ‘Of course, these people are murderous thugs, but this should not affect our good relations.’ The administration of Jimmy Carter – under the influence of Brzezinski, and notwithstanding the rhetorical emphasis which the president himself placed on human rights – pursued essentially the same line.”

This description of the myopic US policy aimed at containing an imaginary enemy while ignoring the unfolding genocide seems to apply to the current Ukrainian crisis as well. There is an improbably alliance created to contain the imaginary Russian threat; there is the American president, whose “rhetorical emphasis on human rights” brings him –as in the case of Jimmy Carter-- Nobel Peace Prize, and who disregards these very human rights in order to follow the pronouncements of the ubiquitous Brzezinski and other ideologues.

Of course, historical analogies hardly prove anything, so one hopes that Ukraine will fall short of genocidal record set by Cambodia. It is clear,  nevertheless, that Ukraine looks more and more like a country ready to devour itself, while its western cheerleaders, continue lecturing the world on the need to contain Russia, while ignoring the Ebola of fascism that has so thoroughly infected Ukraine.

Ukraine's Descent into Fascism and How the West Turns a Blind Eye

Kissinger to Obama: Back Away from Russia Confrontation


...This guy just won't shut up about how badly Obama has screwed up Russia policy

...When you're 91, this is one way to kill time

...The West won't really fight over eastern Ukraine, so why forsake Russia partnership on other matters over it?


Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke about global threats, the secession of Crimea and Ukraine’s NATO accession

Mr. Kissinger said that there currently is an urgent need for a new world order, but its coming into being will be long and complicated.

“There are no universally accepted rules,” said Mr. Kissinger in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.

“There is the Chinese view, the Islamic view, the Western view and, to some extent, the Russian view. And they really are not always compatible.”

Speaking of Crimea’s accession to Russia, he noted that this is a special case, as Ukraine and Russia were one country for a long time. In his view, the West must recognize its mistakes.

“Europe and America did not understand the impact of these events, starting with the negotiations about Ukraine’s economic relations with the European Union and culminating in the demonstrations in Kiev,” said Mr. Kissinger.

“All these, and their impact, should have been the subject of a dialogue with Russia.”

He is sure that Ukraine has always had a special significance for Russia. Failure to understand this was fatal, and the Ukrainian authorities can forget about the Crimean peninsula.

“Nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea,” said Mr. Kissinger.

“Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine.”

In his opinion, introducing anti-Russian sanctions was a mistake.

“We have to remember that Russia is an important part of the international system, and therefore useful in solving all sorts of other crises, for example in the agreement on nuclear proliferation with Iran or over Syria,” Mr. Kissinger said.

“This has to have preference over a tactical escalation in a specific case.”

He added that Ukraine should not hope to become a member of NATO in the foreseeable future, as the alliance will never vote unanimously for the accession of Ukraine.

Our advice to Mr. Kissinger – don’t take any private jet flights out of Moscow anytime soon.

Kissinger to Obama: Back Away from Russia Confrontation