Category: UKRAINE - The Greanville Post

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 03, 2014
Region: Europe, Russia and FSU |||
Neo-Nazi Militia

Under the title “In Kiev, an Israeli army vet led a street-fighting unit”, the Jewish News Agency JTA confirms that soldiers from the IDF were involved in the EuroMaidan protest movement under the direct command of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party. The Svoboda Party follows in the footsteps of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

The leader of the “Blue Helmets of Maidan” is Delta “the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution”. Delta is a Veteran of the notorious Givati infantry brigade, which was involved in numerous operations directed against Gaza including Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.

The Givati brigade was responsible for the massacres in the Tel el-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza. Delta, the leader of the EuroMaidan IDF unit acknowledges that he acquired his urban combat skills in the Shu’alei Shimshon reconnaissance battalion of the Givati brigade.

Delta, the nom de guerre of the Jewish commander of a Ukrainian street-fighting unit, is pictured in Kiev earlier this month. (Courtesy of ‘Delta’)

According to the JTA report, Delta was in command of a force of 40 men and women including several former IDF veterans. In the EuroMaidan, Delta was routinely applying his skills of urban warfare which he had used against the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Maidan “Street fighting unit” under Delta’s command was involved in confronting government forces. It is unclear from the reports whether the EuroMaidan combat unit was in liaison with IDF command headquarters in Israel:

The Blue Helmets comprise 35 men and women who are not Jewish, and who are led by five ex-IDF soldiers, says Delta, an Orthodox Jew in his late 30s

Delta, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, moved back to Ukraine several years ago … He says he joined the protest movement as a volunteer on Nov. 30, after witnessing violence by government forces against student protesters.

“I saw unarmed civilians with no military background being ground by a well-oiled military machine, and it made my blood boil,” Delta told JTA in Hebrew laced with military jargon. “I joined them then and there, and I started fighting back the way I learned how, through urban warfare maneuvers. People followed, and I found myself heading a platoon of young men. Kids, really.”

The other ex-IDF infantrymen joined the Blue Helmets later after hearing it was led by a fellow vet, Delta said.

In a bitter irony, Delta, the commander of the IDF militia unit was taking his orders directly from the Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda:

As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist [Neo-Nazi] party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.

“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,’” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”

Neither the Tel Aviv government nor the Israeli media have expressed concern regarding the fact that the EuroMaidan protests were led by Neo-Nazis.

With the formation of a new government composed of NeoNazis, the Jewish community in Kiev is threatened. This community is described as “one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and institutions”. A significant part of this community is made up of family members of holocaust survivors. “Three million Ukrainians were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of Ukraine, including 900,000 Jews.” (indybay.org, January 29, 2014).

“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests”

In a bitter twist, the Blue Helmet IDF unit in the EuroMaidan has been the object of praise by the Israeli media. According to Ariel Cohen of the Washington based Heritage Foundation: “The commanding position of Svoboda in the revolution is no secret”. The participation of Israeli soldiers under Neo-Nazi Svoboda command does not seem to be an object of concern:

On Wednesday, Russian State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow was concerned about anti-Semitic declarations by radical groups in Ukraine.But Delta says the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.

“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” he said.

See Svoboda and Right Sector militants honoring Stepan Bandera(image below)

Bandera was a Nazi collaborator involved in the Third Reich’s Einsatzgruppen (Task Groups or Deployment Groups) . These “task forces” were paramilitary death squads deployed throughout the Ukraine.

Reuters / Gleb Garanich

Neo-Nazis Honoring Stepan Bandera

The JTA article can be consulted at www.jta.org/2014/02/28/news-opinion/world/in-kiev-an-israeli-militia-commander-fights-in-the-streets-and-saves-lives#ixzz2uvYcMBEl

by Stephen Lendman

Russian navy personnel milling around a Ukrainian military installation. They have not been ordered to attack but to maintain a non hostile standoff.

Russian navy personnel from regional bases milling around a Ukrainian military installation in Crimea. They have not been ordered to attack but to maintain a non hostile standoff. Note they are not in heavy combat gear. or even in riot police uniform.

Scoundrel media editors find new ways to embarrass themselves. They mock legitimate news and opinion. They suppress it. They violate fundamental journalistic standards doing so. They suck up to power. They support monied interests. They deplore popular ones. They endorse Western aggression. They do it repeatedly.They blame victims for horrific US crimes committed against them. They condemn Putin for responsibly defending the safety and security of endangered Russian nationals.

Thank heavens he’s around. He’s the one world leader challenging the damn fool in the White House responsibly. He’s our best hope for world peace. He deserves worldwide support. His best efforts may not be enough. Neocons infest Washington. They threaten everyone. The damn fool in the White House risks starting WW III.

His damn fool Secretary of State John Kerry said “we’re now discussing all of the options.” He outrageously accused Russia of “aggression.” No nation commits it more often against more nonbelligerent nations than America. It wages one lawless war after another. It ravages and destroys countries doing so. Kerry is an unindicted war criminal. So is the damn fool in the White House.

They threaten world peace. They risk potential armageddon. Media scoundrels cheerlead what demands condemnation. They denounce what demands praise. When America goes to war or plans one, they march in lockstep. They do it disgracefully.

New York Times editors stand out. They masquerade as legitimate journalists. They feature managed news misinformation rubbish. They endorsed Ukrainian putschists. They ousted a democratically elected government. They did so with well-planned US help. Stop NATO’s Rick Rozoff called their coup the most overt one since Mussolini’s 1922 march on Rome. It’s no exaggeration. Nothing in recent memory matches their brazenness.

Times editors are mindless of mob rule governance. Fanatical putschists run things. They scare hell out of everyone paying attention. Times editors turn a blind eye. Journalism the way it’s supposed to be is verboten. On March 2, they headlined “Russia’s Aggression.”

They outrageously accused Putin of “exploit(ing) the Ukrainian crisis to seize control of Crimea (as well as) any other power grab he may be hatching.” They ludicrously claimed “an immediate threat to Ukrainian Russians is empty.” Crimean self-defense volunteers already put down an attempt by Kiev infiltrators to seize government buildings. Times editors ignore what refutes their arguments. They lied claiming Ukrainians in Crimea are endangered.

They have nothing to fear from responsible governance. Democrats in charge prioritize public safety. Times editors wrongfully accused ousted President Viktor Yanukovych of coup plotter killings. They murdered civilians in cold blood. They gunned down Kiev security forces. They did so in Independence Square. Neo-Nazi snipers fired from rooftops. They operated from windows in nearby buildings. Everything that happened was well choreographed in advance.

Washington’s dirty hands manipulated things. Obama bears full responsibility. He partnered with fascist thugs. He’s got another imperial trophy. Keeping it is another matter entirely. Ukrainians nationwide won’t likely tolerate what’s planned for them. Perhaps real revolutionary fervor will erupt. Times editors are consistent. They’re on the wrong side of history. They ignore facts. They bury them.

They make stuff up. They lie for power. They do it to defend the indefensible. They lied claiming Putin wants “control over Crimea.” He wants to “humiliate Ukraine,” they said. They want Obama, NATO and EU leaders challenging Putin “if (he) escalates his intervention in Ukraine.”

He supports its sovereign independence. He opposes Washington’s direct role in replacing democratic Ukrainian governance with mob rule fascists. Don’t expect Times editors to explain. Neocon Washington Post editors want more direct US intervention. They support ousting Syria’s Assad forcibly. They endorse fascists usurping power in Ukraine.

They headlined “President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy.” They bashed Assad, China’s Xi Jinping and Putin. They want Obama confronting them more aggressively. If he “doesn’t make the case for global engagement, no one else” will for him, they said. They claimed “the tide of democracy in the world” is “retrenching.” They ignored Washington’s direct role in subverting it at home and abroad.

WAPO’s Ignatius: One more verminous, warmongering neocon given a platform by the plutocrats that own the media. No REAL alternative voices need apply. Thus is the American mind denied access to the truth.

In previous editorials, they barely stopped short of urging direct US intervention. They support Ukrainian fascists retaining power. David Ignatius is one of many WaPo neocon columnists. He has longstanding close US intelligence ties. He’s no journalist. He’s a propagandist. He openly favors arming anti-Assad death squads. He reports what Washington bullies want stressed.

Inconvenient facts are dismissed. Lies, damn lies and misinformation substitute. On March 2, he headlined “Putin’s error in Ukraine is the kind that leads to catastrophe.”

He lied claiming he “invad(ed) Crimea.” He did no such thing. He’ll deploy military forces to protect Russian nationals if needed. Any responsible leader would do the same thing. Ignatius turned facts on their head. He claimed “former Soviet satellites” are “prosperous” EU members. He ignored deepening poverty, unemployment and deprivation throughout its member states. He ludicrously claimed countries making up the former Yugoslavia “emerged as strong democracies.” Pro-Western puppet governments run them.

He blamed Yanukovych for fascist street thug crimes. They “courageous(ly) braved the cold and police brutality to protest,” he said. They committed cold-blooded murder. They ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected government. They rule by brutal force. Don’t expect Ignatius to explain. He ludicrously envisions “a cascading chain of error that brings Russian troops deeper into Ukraine and sets the stage for civil war.”

Putin wants it avoided. He’s going all-out for stability and security. Fascist coup plotters will bear full responsibility if internal conflict erupts. Ignatius is militantly hawkish. Obama “would be wise to seek to deter Russian aggression without specifying too clearly what the US ladder of escalation might be,” he urged. His commentary excluded what’s most important for readers to know. Truth was systematically suppressed.

Wall Street Journal editors match the worst of outrageous opinion writers. Rupert Murdoch rules apply. On March 2, they headlined “Putin Declares War.” They lied saying he “seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula by force (and) now has his sights on the rest of his Slavic neighbor.”

“(B)razen aggression,” they screamed. War threatens Europe’s heartland “for the first time since the end of the Cold War,” they claimed. Post-WW II, it never once did until now. Washington’s orchestrated coup ups the stakes. Obama threatens world peace. Putin is the world’s best chance to preserve it. Whether he’s able deter possible US aggression remains to be seen. Journal editors turned truth on its head. It’s hard imagining more convoluted rubbish. They accused Putin of “moving to carve up Ukraine!” (In fact, if Ukraine is to be split up into separate parts it is the result of Western meddling and encouragement of rightwing putschists elements and liberals listening to the siren song of Western imperialism.)

They claim “a popular democratic uprising” toppled Yanukovych. They ignored a US-orchestrated fascist coup d’etat. They called Russia’s parliament “rubber-stamp.” They lied accusing its members of “approv(ing) military intervention anywhere in Ukraine, which is nothing less than a declaration of war.” They called Obama’s full responsibility for crisis conditions in Ukraine “made entirely in Moscow.” Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are world class diplomats. They’re democrats. They’re polar opposite [of] Western fascists.

They’re worthy Nobel Peace Prize nominees. They’re more deserving than any other world leaders. Nobel Committee members have their own system. They honor war criminals. Peacemakers needn’t apply. They honored Obama—need we say more?

Journal editors write what responsible ones wouldn’t touch. They claimed Putin seeks “entrench(ed) authoritarianism in client states.” He wants them “prevent(ed) from joining free Europe,” they said. Freedoms in Western dominated areas are fast disappearing. Neoliberal harshness is official policy. Ordinary people are ruthlessly exploited. Don’t expect Journal editors to explain. They lied claiming Russia’s upper house Federation Council “approved (a) declaration of war.” They lied again calling Kiev’s coup d’etat parliament democratic. They quoted Obama lying. He called Moscow’s legitimate defense of Russian nationals a “breach of international law.”

Journal editors urge aggressive anti-Russian measures. They want their officials targeted. They want Sixth Fleet warships patrolling Black waters close to Crimea. Imagine their howls if Russian naval vessels entered the Gulf of Mexico. Imagine likely Washington countermeasures. They want other NATO countries confronting Moscow. “Mr. Obama and the West must act,” they said. They must do more “than merely threaten…”

They absurdly called Ukraine “a casualty of Mr. Obama’s failure to enforce his ‘red line’ on Syria. Ukrainians can’t be left alone to face Russia, and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea can’t be allowed to stand,” they said.

They called Putin “the leading edge of what could quickly become a new world disorder.” Journal editors and commentators specialize in reinventing history. Their rubbish doesn’t wash. They consistently turn truth on its head. They suppress what readers most need to know. They disgrace themselves in the process.

One of my previous articles quoted former Chicago columnist Mike Royko (1932 – 1997) saying: “No respectable fish would (want to) be wrapped in” a Murdoch paper. It’s more than ever true now. Ongoing crisis conditions persist. War winds threaten to become gale force. Potential East/West conflict is real. Obama bears full responsibility if it erupts. Bellowing scoundrel media liars share it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

R. Staggenborg

Citizen activist Rick Staggenborg, Founder of Soldiers For Peace International, Founder and President at Take Back America for the People and Volunteer at Freeing Humanity, is circulating the following appeal to his fellow Americans. We support his message and are happy to help him amplify his reach. PLEASE SHARE as widely as you can.

Ukraine is proving to be a valuable lesson for all of us laboring for justice and peace in the world. The global elite have revealed their entire bag of tricks for overthrowing governments that resist submitting to the Empire.

Having exhausted Americans patience for sacrificing their children to corporate empire, they resorted to using the same enemies in Libya and Syria that they ostensibly died to defeat. Perhaps sensing that Americans were catching on to their plans when they resoundingly spoke against a direct attack on Syria, they have revived the gambit of supporting “democratic revolutions” even when they are led by fascists.

The Kiev-based insurrection (Maidan) was organized and fueled stealthily by Western agents and funds, with many of the most intransigent rioters trained in Poland and other countries outside Ukraine. The fact that a sizable segment was clearly fascistic and anti-semitic made no difference to the handlers in the West.

The Kiev-based insurrection (Maidan) lionized by the American media was largely organized and fueled stealthily by Western agents and funds, with many of the most intransigent rioters trained in Poland and other countries outside Ukraine. The fact that a sizable segment was clearly fascistic and anti-semitic made no difference to the handlers in the West.

Americans have to recognize that each of them is responsible for the devastation American aggression has left in its wake on its march to conquer the world on behalf ot the puppetmasters who have taken over all Westen governments. If we truly value the ideal of liberty and justice for all, everyone in the world who recognizes the threat to freedom everywhere will study what has happened in the US. If Americans do not awaken to their moral responsibility to take back their government on behalf of the Peoples of the world, there will be no one left to stand for them when the Empire comes to enslave them.

Please join us on SFPI Radio on Saturday, February 28 at 9 AM PST/ 12 PM EST when Ukrainian economist Eva Bolton joins us for a first hand report from the latest conquest of the Empire. She will be joined by political and economic analyst Karl Eysenbach from Mexico.

We must understand the facts and sound the alarm to waken the sleeping giant that is the American people if any of us are to be free.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sfpiradio/2014/03/01/ukraine-in-the-cross-hairs-with-eva-bolton
(Note: Rick advises us that unfortunately this program transmission was damaged by factors that to this moment remain unexplained.)

Rick Staggenborg resides in Oregon.

By Alex Lantier

The absence of a massive antiwar response inside the US itself points to the degrading effect Obama has had on liberal constituencies across the board. —Eds

ukra-CrimeaPeninsula

In the most serious military crisis in Europe since the end of World War II, the Western-backed Ukrainian regime that took power in Kiev in a fascist-led putsch a week ago put its military on high alert yesterday. It also began calling up its reserve forces, totaling around 1 million men, threatening war with Russia.

The day before, the upper house of the Russian parliament had unanimously passed a bill authorizing the deployment of Russian forces to Ukraine, a majority Russian-speaking region of Ukraine where Russia has a major naval base at Sevastopol. Officials in Kiev charged that over the weekend, Russia sent up to 6,000 troops to Crimea to bolster local authorities against Kiev.

The tensions between Moscow and Kiev directly raise the risk of a clash between Russia and the NATO powers backing Kiev. While Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed yesterday in a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to keep open “bilateral and multilateral” communications, Russian exchanges with Washington were very tense.

US President Barack Obama made a 90-minute phone call to Putin to discuss Ukraine on Saturday. Obama demanded that Russian troops return to their bases in the Crimea, denounced Russian policy as a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty” and a “breach of international law,” and threatened severe consequences for US-Russian relations.

Ukraine's new PM, Nuland's "Yats", poses for history with UK's FM Wiliam Hague, a rabid interventionist and water carrier for US imperialist adventures (right).

Ukraine’s new PM, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, “Yats”, poses for history with UK’s FM Wiliam Hague, a rabid interventionist and loyal sidekick in US imperialist adventures (right).

Putin brushed aside Obama’s demands, calling the Ukraine situation “extraordinary.” He pointed out that far-right elements backed by Kiev and the Western powers threaten “the lives and health of Russian citizens and their many compatriots” in Ukraine.

Moscow may intervene not only in Crimea, but also in other majority-Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine hostile to the right-wing regime in Kiev. The Kremlin issued a statement that declared: “In the case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas.”

Russian troops, Cossacks, pro-Russian local inhabitants, and Putin’s “Night Wolves” biker gang are reportedly working together to fortify the land bridge between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine and hold it against potential offensives by the Ukrainian military.

Russian officials bluntly dismissed US criticisms as hypocritical, noting that Washington has violated countries’ sovereignty by invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Ministry sources responded to US National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s comment that Russia was committing a “grave mistake” in sending troops to Ukraine by advising the United States itself not to use force.

They said, “We have seen the expert evaluations of Susan Rice, which are based on repeated US military interventions in multiple places around the world, especially where the US administration is of the opinion that the norms of Western democracy are in danger or ruling regimes begin too clearly ‘to get out of hand.’ We consider that the current presidential adviser will give this kind of advice about the error of using force to the US leadership, in the event of a decision about a new intervention.”

The Kremlin, also influenced by corrupt billionaires, cannot offer any lasting solution to the escalating tensions in Ukraine, which can only be halted by a political mobilization of the working class against imperialism and the post-Soviet capitalist oligarchies inside the ex-USSR. However, it is the [US-led] imperialist powers that bear central responsibility for the military escalation in Ukraine and the country’s accelerating downward spiral towards war.

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is the inevitable outcome of the reckless decision by Washington and the European Union (EU) to back a fascist putsch in Kiev. The Kiev regime came to power on a program of strategically orienting to the West and imposing deep austerity measures on the working class, including pension cuts and massive energy price increases, a strategy so unpopular that Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk compared himself to a “political kamikaze.”

Driven by social contradictions for which it has no solution, Kiev is stoking confrontations with Russia and ethnic Russians in order to mobilize its tiny social base—fascists like the Svoboda party or the Right Sector militia who praise the Holocaust and, identifying the USSR with Russia, combine hysterical anti-communism with anti-Russian hatred.

These developments point to the disastrous impact of the dissolution of the USSR. Under conditions where the working class has been shut out of political life, the vilest fascist forces have come to the fore, throwing the entire region open to imperialist intrigue and war.

The Kiev regime has prepared laws to strip Russian of its status as an official language and sent thugs to beat up officials in pro-Russian areas it fears may break away from Ukraine.

Leading Svoboda members are infamous for bloodthirsty denunciations of Russians. Iryna Farion called Russian speakers “degenerates” who should be imprisoned, and a top Svoboda official believed to be party leader Oleh Tyahnybok proposed on Svoboda forums to “physically liquidate all Russian-speaking intellectuals and all Ukrainophobes … registering Ukrainophobes can be done here by any member of Svoboda.”

US and European imperialism, having backed a putsch by far-right forces, are watching as the authority of its far-right proxy regime over large swathes of Ukraine begins to disintegrate.

Protests of tens of thousands of people took place this weekend across Ukraine’s eastern and southern industrial heartlands, which, like the Crimean Peninsula, include a greater number of Russian speakers. In Kharkov 20,000 protesters demonstrated, carrying Russian flags and storming local government offices, throwing out officials sent by Kiev.

In Donetsk—the capital of the Donbass region, where a referendum on independence from Kiev is now scheduled, as in the Crimea—10,000 protesters rallied and distributed leaflets calling on citizens to defy Kiev. Another 20,000 anti-Kiev protesters marched in Odessa, and smaller demonstrations took place in Mariupol, Melitopol, and Yevpatoria.

Only days after being appointed to head the Ukrainian navy, Admiral Dennis Berezovsky turned against the Kiev authorities and went over to pro-Russian authorities in Crimea, together with the flagship of the Ukrainian fleet, the frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy.

The main danger under these conditions is that the imperialist powers will escalate the crisis into a major war, either by stoking conflict inside Ukraine or by directly intervening themselves.

Writing in the Guardian, Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank pointed to the danger of a great-power war. Noting that “direct confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces will draw in the United States one way or another,” he compared a likely conflict today to the 2008 war in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia in the South Caucasus—in which Moscow beat off an assault on Russian peacekeepers by US-backed Georgian forces.

He wrote, “So far, there has been no military confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces, but if they clash, this will not be a repeat of the five-day war in the South Caucasus, as in 2008. The conflict will be longer and bloodier, with security in Europe put at its highest risk in a quarter century.”

Alex Lantier writes for wsws.org, an information organ of the Social Equality Party.

Below we reproduce excerpts from a WSWS.org (Fourth International) editorial on the situation in Ukraine.
3 March 2014

Russian armored vehicle in Crimea. The world faces a crisis that should have never happened, and which reflects the failure of the working class to take the reins of their national governments in all the major powers.

The crisis that has erupted in Ukraine following the right-wing coup engineered by the United States and Germany and the intervention of Russia into Crimea has created the most dangerous international confrontation since the end of World War II. Almost overnight, in a manner not seen since the 1930s, ultimatums are being issued and military forces are being placed on high alert in Europe.

All of the claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union signaled the end of the 20th century era of wars and revolutions have been blown to pieces by the events of the past several days. The 20th century was the “unfinished century,” whose unresolved economic, social and political contradictions underlie the explosive tensions of the present century. One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and 75 years since the beginning of World War II, mankind is again facing the dangers of world war and fascism.

The principal responsibility for the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine rests with the United States and Germany. Both countries, along with their European Union allies, systematically intervened to channel popular dissatisfaction with the corrupt regime of President Viktor Yanukovych behind ultra-right nationalist and fascist forces. Their aim all along was to topple the elected government and install a regime aligned with Western imperialism and willing to participate in its well-advanced plans for the geopolitical isolation and carve-up of Russia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with leaders of the right-wing opposition. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, financially supported the Udar party of former boxer Vitali Klitschko. Top European Union officials marched with the Svoboda party fascists and Right Sector armed gangs in Kiev’s central square.

US Undersecretary of State for Europe and Asia Victoria Nuland made at least four trips to Kiev, joining the neo-fascist “protesters” and meeting with opposition figures Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk and the notoriously anti-Semitic Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok. She acknowledged in December that the US had poured $5 billion into Ukraine since the 1990s to build up US proxy forces in the country.

Nuland’s leaked telephone conversation with Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, in which they discussed installing Yatsenyuk after toppling Yanukovich, exposed the degree to which Washington was manipulating events in the country.

There is no question but that Russia is confronted with an existential threat. The integration of Ukraine into the expanding anti-Moscow alliance would render Russia more vulnerable to imperialist aggression and destabilization. Future operations will unfold not only on the periphery of Russia, but within its borders. The United States and the European imperialist powers will have no difficulty finding new “human rights” causes to encourage, finance and arm.

However, the dangers confronting Russia—which threaten its dismemberment and reduction to semi-colonial status—cannot be lessened, let alone overcome, by the Putin regime’s resort to military force. No support can be given to the actions of Putin. His response to the aggressive actions of US and German imperialism is bereft of any progressive content.

Putin represents oligarchs who enriched themselves by plundering state industry following the dissolution of the USSR. His regime is incapable of making any appeal to the Ukrainian working class or to progressive sentiment within the country. Instead, he seeks to whip up chauvinism both in Russia and eastern Ukraine, adding to the dangers of civil and sectarian warfare stoked up by the Ukrainian fascists and their American and German backers.

The statements of US spokesmen such as Secretary of State John Kerry on the crisis reek of hypocrisy and deceit. Over the weekend, Kerry condemned Russia’s “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity” as being in contravention of the United Nations Charter and “a threat to the peace and security of Ukraine, and the wider region.”

Kerry: One of the greatest traitors to democracy and peace in recent history. Of such criminals is the American government constituted.

John Kerry: One of the biggest and most repugnant traitors to democracy and peace in recent history. Of such criminals is the corporate-dominated American government constituted.

Kerry, who voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to invade Iraq on the basis of lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, declared, “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on [a] completely trumped up pretext.” The fact that such statements can be made without any challenge from the “mainstream” media only underscores the complete integration of the corporate-controlled media with the American intelligence and military apparatus and its role as a purveyor of state propaganda.

But the record of Washington speaks for itself. Just over the past 25 years, the United States has invaded, bombed or overthrown governments in Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. It has carried out assassinations and cyber attacks against Iran and is intervening massively to overthrow the government of Syria.

The United States does not accept any nation’s right to sovereignty or territorial integrity. Once a country runs afoul of the predatory interests of US imperialism around the world, it is targeted for attack and regime-change.

Nor is there the slightest democratic content to the fascist-dominated protest movement in Kiev and western Ukraine. The extreme nationalist forces dominating these protests trace their political lineage back to the Ukrainian fascists who allied themselves with the Nazi invaders in World War II, who murdered millions of Ukrainians. The predecessors of Svoboda and the Right Sector aided in the annihilation of the country’s Jewish population. Since the installation of the new far-right government, reports have proliferated of fascist attacks on Jews in Kiev.

Washington and Berlin, in utilizing these forces to install a puppet regime and gain effective control over Ukraine, are stoking an explosion of tensions between various ethnic and religious groups that threatens to dwarf the bloodbath that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, which was likewise instigated with US and German support.

Germany’s role is particularly sinister. In making a renewed thrust into Ukraine, it is reviving the legacy of German imperialism in World War I and World War II, both of which saw German troops invade Ukraine and carry out mass atrocities. Its intervention in Ukraine coincides with public declarations by German officials calling for a revival of German militarism and apologias by leading academics for Hitler and the Nazis.

The US-German regime-change operation in Ukraine is part of a broader drive ongoing since the breakup of the Soviet Union to integrate former Soviet republics in Europe and Asia into US imperialist-dominated military, economic and political structures such as NATO. This has included the Western-orchestrated “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine.

The coup in Ukraine represents a major milestone in this campaign. Effective US control of Ukraine opens up the possibility of US or US-linked troops being stationed directly on Russia’s western border. It threatens Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea, which is Moscow’s only water route into the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Middle East. It will be used as well to push Georgia into NATO and fuel separatist and secessionist agitation by a wide variety of ethnic and religious minorities within Russia.

This does not alter the fact that Russia’s intervention into Crimea is politically bankrupt. The Putin regime is an organ of capitalist restoration and the product of the degeneration and overthrow at the hands of Stalinism of the economic and social foundations of the workers’ state established by the 1917 October Revolution. It is a comprador regime with no real independence from imperialism.

It cannot make an appeal to the working class in Ukraine under conditions where it is imposing brutal austerity measures on Russian workers, repressing political dissent, and whipping up Russian chauvinism in an attempt to divert social opposition at home.

In the Ukraine events, the world is witnessing the catastrophic consequences both within Russia and internationally of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. These consequences are the ultimate outcome of the nationalist policies pursued by the Stalinist regime that usurped political power from the Soviet working class and repudiated the program of world socialist revolution upon which the October Revolution was based.

One of the issues that propelled the 1917 revolution was the struggle against imperialist domination of Russia. But this could be successfully fought only through the revolutionary mobilization of the working class based on a socialist and internationalist program. If nationalism could not protect Russia from imperialist predations in World War I, then all the more reactionary and impotent are attempts to invoke it today.

It is worth recalling Trotsky’s warnings that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would result in Russia’s descent to a semi-colonial status. Trotsky in the 1930s, under conditions of the Stalinist regime and its reign of terror against all socialist elements in the country, raised the slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine, insisting that independence on a bourgeois basis could have only the most reactionary implications. A bourgeois Ukraine, moreover, could be nothing other than a plaything of the various imperialist powers. So it was then, so it remains today.

The ICFI denounces all those liberal and pseudo-left political organizations and publications that have promoted the Kiev protests as a genuinely democratic and even revolutionary movement. They have deliberately concealed the fact that it is not a working class movement. They have sought to hide the links of the leaders to forces who collaborated with the Nazis and the Holocaust in World War II.

The answer to the imperialist plans to carve up Russia and gain direct control over vast territories and resources cannot be found in the promotion of Russian nationalism, no more than the grievances of the long-suffering Ukrainian masses can be resolved by the promotion of Ukrainian nationalism. The crisis that has erupted in Ukraine poses with the greatest urgency the need for the working class to assert its own interests on the basis of its own independent program. It is the absence of a revolutionary leadership fighting to mobilize the working class on the basis of such a program that has enabled fascistic forces, financed and backed by US and German imperialism, to gain the upper hand.

The answer to this crisis is the unification of the Ukrainian and Russian working class on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. Ukraine has a powerful revolutionary history. In the 19th century, Ukrainian-born Marxists rejected the program of nationalism and instead championed the program of working class internationalism.

—International Committee of the Fourth International

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