Exclusive: The U.S. news media has failed the American people often in recent years by not challenging U.S. government falsehoods, as with Iraq’s WMD. But the most dangerous violation of journalistic principles has occurred in the Ukraine crisis, which has the potential of a nuclear war, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
A basic rule of journalism is that there are almost always two sides to a story and that journalists should try to reflect that reality, a principle that is especially important when lives are at stake amid war fevers. Yet, American journalism has failed miserably in this regard during the Ukraine crisis.
With very few exceptions, the mainstream U.S. media has simply regurgitated the propaganda from the U.S. State Department and other entities favoring western Ukrainians. There has been little effort to view the worsening crisis through the eyes of ethnic Russian Ukrainians living in the east or the Russians witnessing a political and humanitarian crisis on their border.
Frankly, I cannot recall any previous situation in which the U.S. media has been more biased across the board than on Ukraine. Not even the “group think” around Iraq’s non-existent WMDs was as single-minded as this, with the U.S. media perspective on Ukraine almost always from the point of view of the western Ukrainians who led the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose political base was in the east.
So, what might appear to an objective observer as a civil war between western Ukrainians, including the neo-Nazis who spearheaded last year’s coup against Yanukovych, and eastern Ukrainians, who refused to accept the anti-Yanukovych order that followed the coup, has been transformed by the U.S. news media into a confrontation between the forces of good (the western Ukrainians) and the forces of evil (the eastern Ukrainians) with an overlay of “Russian aggression” as Russian President Vladimir Putin is depicted as a new Hitler.
Though the horrific bloodshed more than 5,000 dead has been inflicted overwhelmingly on the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the forces from western Ukraine, the killing is routinely blamed on either the eastern Ukrainian rebels or Putin for allegedly fomenting the trouble in the first place (though there is no evidence that he did, as even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has acknowledged.)
I realize that anyone who doesn’t accept the Official Washington “group think” on Ukraine is denounced as a “Putin apologist” just as anyone who questioned the conventional wisdom about Saddam Hussein giving his WMDs to al-Qaeda was a “Saddam apologist” but step back for a minute and look at the crisis through the eyes of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
A year ago, they saw what looked to them like a U.S.-organized coup, relying on both propaganda and violence to overthrow their constitutionally elected government. They also detected a strong anti-ethnic-Russian bias in the new regime with its efforts to strip away Russian as an official language. And they witnessed brutal killings of ethnic Russians at the hands of neo-Nazis in Odessa and elsewhere.
Their economic interests, too, were threatened since they worked at companies that did substantial business with Russia. If those historic ties to Russia were cut in favor of special economic relations with the European Union, the eastern Ukrainians would be among the worst losers.
Remember, that before backing away from the proposed association agreement with the EU in November 2013, Yanukovych received a report from economic experts in Kiev that Ukraine stood to lose $160 billion if it broke with Russia, as Der Spiegel reported. Much of that economic pain would have fallen on eastern Ukraine.
Economic Worries
On the rare occasions when American journalists have actually talked with eastern Ukrainians, this fear of the economic consequences has been a core concern, along with worries about the harsh austerity plan that the International Monetary Fund prescribed as a prerequisite for access to Western loans.
For instance, in April 2014, Washington Post correspondent Anthony Faiola reported from Donetsk that many of the eastern Ukrainians whom he interviewed said their resistance to the new Kiev regime was driven by fear over “economic hardship” and the IMF austerity plan that will make their lives even harder.
“At a most dangerous and delicate time, just as it battles Moscow for hearts and minds across the east, the pro-Western government is set to initiate a shock therapy of economic measures to meet the demands of an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund,” Faiola reported.
In other words, Faiola encountered reasonable concerns among eastern Ukrainians about what was happening in Kiev. Many eastern Ukrainians felt disenfranchised by the overthrow of their elected leader and they worried about their future in a U.S.-dominated Ukraine. You can disagree with their point of view but it is an understandable perspective.
When some eastern Ukrainians mounted protests and occupied buildings similar to what the western Ukrainians had done in Kiev before the coup these protesters were denounced by the coup regime as “terrorists” and became the target of a punitive military campaign involving some of the same neo-Nazi militias that spearheaded the Feb. 22 coup against Yanukovych.
Nearly all the 5,000 or more people who have died in the civil war have been killed in eastern Ukraine with ethnic Russian civilians bearing the brunt of those fatalities, many killed by artillery barrages from the Ukrainian army firing into populated centers and using cluster-bomb munitions.
Even Human Rights Watch, which is largely financed by pro-coup billionaire George Soros, reported that “Ukrainian government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city” despite the fact that “the use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon and may amount to war crimes.”
Neo-Nazi and other “volunteer” brigades, dispatch by the Kiev regime, have also engaged in human rights violations, including death squad operations pulling people from their homes and executing them. Amnesty International, another human rights group that Soros helps fund and that has generally promoted Western interests in Eastern Europe, issued a report noting abuses committed by the pro-Kiev Aidar militia.
“Members of the Aidar territorial defence battalion, operating in the north Luhansk region, have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions,” the Amnesty International report said.
The Aidar battalion commander told an Amnesty International researcher: “There is a war here. The law has changed, procedures have been simplified. If I choose to, I can have you arrested right now, put a bag over your head and lock you up in a cellar for 30 days on suspicion of aiding separatists.”
Amnesty International wrote: “Some of the abuses committed by members of the Aidar battalion amount to war crimes, for which both the perpetrators and, possibly, the commanders would bear responsibility under national and international law.”
Neo-Nazi Battalions
And the Aidar battalion is not even the worst of the so-called “volunteer” brigades. Others carry Nazi banners and espouse racist contempt for the ethnic Russians who have become the target of something close to “ethnic cleansing” in the areas under control of the Kiev regime. Many eastern Ukrainians fear falling into the hands of these militia members who have been witnessed leading captives to open graves and executing them.
As the conservative London Telegraph described in an article last August by correspondent Tom Parfitt: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’ should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.
“Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”
Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.
Andriy Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]
So, the current wave of U.S. propaganda condemning a rebel offensive for violating a shaky cease-fire might look different if seen through the eyes of a population under siege, being cut off from banking services, left to starve and facing “death squad” purges by out-of-control neo-Nazis.
Through those eyes, it would make sense to reclaim territory currently occupied by the Kiev forces, to protect fellow ethnic Russians from depredations, and to establish borders for what you might hope to make into a sustainable autonomous zone.
And, if you put yourself in the Russian position, you might feel empathy for people who were your fellow citizens less than a quarter century ago and who saw their elected leader ousted in a U.S.-backed coup. You also might be alarmed at the presence of Nazi storm troopers (considering the history of Hitler’s invasion) and the prospects of NATO moving up to your border with a possible deployment of nuclear weapons. You might even recall how agitated Americans got over nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Granted, some of these Russian fears may be overwrought, but the Kremlin has to worry about threats to Russia’s national security just like any other country does. If you were in Putin’s shoes, what would you do? Would you turn your back on the plight of the eastern Ukrainians? Would you let a hostile military alliance push up against your borders with a potential nuclear threat, especially given the extra-legal means used to remove Ukraine’s constitutionally elected president?
Even if the U.S. press corps fulfilled its obligation to tell both sides of the story, many Americans would still condemn Putin’s acceptance of Crimea’s pleas for reentry into Russia and his assistance to the embattled eastern Ukrainians. They would accept the U.S. government’s relentless presentation of the Ukraine crisis as “Russian aggression.”
And, they might still buy the story that we’re endlessly sold about the Ukraine crisis being a premeditated move by Putin in a Hitlerian strategy to conquer the Baltic States. Even though there’s zero evidence that Putin ever had that in mind, some Americans might still choose to believe it.
But my point is that American journalists should not be U.S. government propagandists. Their job is not to herd the American people into some “group think” corral. A good journalist would want to present the positions of both sides with some evenhandedness.
Yet, that is not what we have witnessed from the U.S. news media on the Ukraine crisis. It has been nearly all propaganda nearly all of the time. That is not only a disservice to the American people and to the democratic precept about an informed electorate. It is a reckless violation of professional principles that has helped lurch the world toward a potential nuclear conflagration.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Justin Raimondo writes a good piece in Antiwar.com. Justin is always so thorough, even those meticulously, tediously, embedded little links in his piece are so good.
Kiev’s Bloody War Is Backfiring
And the War Party is pushing to prop up their Ukrainian sock puppets.
The Obama administration is under considerable pressure from within the President’s own party to start arming the Ukrainian army, but America’s European allies are reluctant to let this war go on much longer, especially now that their sock puppet Poroshenko is increasingly unpopular. With protests erupting all over western Ukraine, Germany’s Angela Merkel is openly opposing escalation of the war. She made that clear at a recent conference in Munich, where Merkel spoke after returning from talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande.
McCain Saudi finance Iraq
McCain in the Ukraine
Meanwhile, on the sidelines, McCain was telling reporters:
“If we had provided Ukraine with weapons they wouldn’t have had to use cluster bombs.â€
They don’t call him “Mad John†for nothing.
Continue reading: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2015/02/10/515341kievs-bloody-war-is-backfiring/
This content is very impotent for us, in this article by reading we are know very impotent news about US Journalism in Ukraine. Its a very learn full article.
By order of the President of Russia in the Russian money of Russian weapons Russian mercenaries and Russian soldiers are killing Ukrainian citizens in the Ukrainian Land …
Do You know it ?
Do You underatand it ?
Are You OK ???
By order of the US government in the US money Ukrainian citizens are killing another Ukrainian citizens in the Ukrainian Land…
Are You OK with THIS???
No – You are wrong. Look at the Donbass. On the Ukrainian part of the Donbass all residents have equel rights and responsibilities before the State Ukraine – as citizens of Lviv, Kiev, Odessa, Chernigov, Kharkov… Not all residents of Ukrainian Donbass know state Ukrainian language – but it goes a peaceful quet life, and no one is hurts and kills. In the occupied part of the Russian of Ukrainian Donbass shoot and kill of Russian weapons impostors, mercenaries, soldiers from the Russian and Ukrainian traitors. Lugansk, Donetsk, Volnovakha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk …
Where is the US government here ?
There are only Vova Putin as terrorist and a main sponsor of Terrorism in Ukraine – it is KGB USSR = FSB RF.
Be objektive and fair !!!!!!!!!!!
Or You are agent of KGB-FSB ???
Brilliant… Your last 2 sentences sum it up: (1) be fair , (2) you’re a KGB agent. Logic is not your strong side, just go bomb Donetsk.
Of course I am! Like everyone who doesn’t agree with you. Including Mr.Parry.
Every situation has more then one side. So take your own advice – “be objective and fair”. And maybe you’ll see where exactly are the US’s “pure and incorrupt angels of democracy”.
Demon of Democracy of the USA has much better than Angel ofDemocracy of Russia. Ukraine wants to become a full member of the EU but Russia is trying to prevent it ! How Come ?????
Thanks for this lucid summary of an important viewpoint in this whole situation. I hope many mainstream reporters read this.
Their bosses, of course, may have other ideas about what is permissible to publish.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/08/wpost-is-lost-in-neocon-fantasyland/
Please excuse me for my bad English.
We, in Russia, read your press, we watch releases of your news. And all this time, we can’t understand – for whom they tell it? It is so much lie, half-words and substitutions of concepts! To us it becomes terrible that if you trust all this and you support the state, support those who “allegedly” wants will be secured against our aggression.
I don’t try to convince you of that we good and you don’t. Simply you remember that any crisis copes and if interestingly who started it – ask whom it was favorable and to whom isn’t present. Only then you will understand where bad and where the good.
I want to add that we not vindictive, any who will respects us becomes the welcome guest.
American workers, especially coal miners, deserve to know that Ukraine has a lot to do with them.
The Donbas is a world-famous coal mining region, as rich as any oil field in the Middle East. The rebel soldiers we see on TV are coal miners. Off-duty soldiers who volunteered to join them were probably born and raised in the coalfields of Russia.
Coal miners, who face the same dangers the world over, should stick together.
In this spirit, Rich Trumka, former head of the United Mine Workers and now head of the AFL-CIO, should go to the Ukraine. The reasoning is simple: The coal miners of Ukraine could use some real solidarity from miners around the world. The UMWA and AFL-CIO are getting nowhere fast. In southern West Virginia, the coal operators have broken the union. In the U.S., union membership is down to what? 8% in private industry?
A Trumka visit to Ukraine could put a sprag in the wheels of both situations.
The journalistic groupthink was just as bad for the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The Serbs were always evil, the non-Serbs always good. (That’s why when the non-Serbs fought each other, such as the Croats versus the Bosnian Muslims, or the Bosnian Government Muslims versus the Fikret Abdic Muslims, it had to be swept under the rug.)
INQUIRY AS TREASON
The facts and their consideration are considered by most in Government and the
West as treasonous. As Parry has shown here and elsewhere to examine the
facts about Russia and the Ukraine is on the same level as “The Russians are Coming” campaigns of the Truman Administration. Then it was cynically that only anti-communism would wrest additional funds from Congress with the approval of
the public. All this while hiding not only the real facts of the Ukrainian situation
but what war may mean for the US. All belligerents market their wars assuming
a short duration, easy victory for their side and almost no mention of any loss for
either side.
The verbiage about Russia and international from John Kerry and President Obama
are absurd when compared to the massive state terror of Israel against Palestinians.
I for one do not expect Valdimir Putin is an altruistic peacenik. I do indeed
expect that any nation will not hesitate to defendi itself.
It would be interesting to examine in more detail NATO as the US’s armed force
fighting the US’s wars for it. In the past there have been bribes (financial
threats by a more discrete name) of EU nations and NATO nations who are
reluctant to follow US orders and execute US policies. There are no concrete details
in this case, but the squirming of major European nations may give a clue.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA USA
Another great article but also the previous comments plus links give me a better idea what people want to hear and read and that is both sides. The one-sided MSM propaganda initiated and paid for by western governments but mostly by CIA offices overseas is similar to the propaganda used by Hitler in WW II.
Supposedly Ukraine wants to be part of Europe but now it has become a bankrupt nation lead by Neo-Nazis in Kiev who honor West Ukrainian SS friend Bandera who murdered 500.000 fellow countrymen and 32.000 jews at Babi Yar outside of Kiev. And now have build statues of Bandera, holding demonstrations with Hakenkreuz flags, murdering/torturing Russian speaking citizens and burning 160 women and children alive in Odessa. And guess what ALL with approval of Western Governments but most of all financed US money and enforced by CIA/Blackwater snipers.
As long as you have NeoCons in US Congress like Senator McCain and Putin basher George Soros financing this anti-Russia propaganda the American people are brainwashed and don’t know what Washington does with hard earned tax dollars.
And, finally my question what gives Washington the right to interfere in a European problem, 6000 miles away from USA. Europe/EU is NOT a colony of USA although it has stationed 7,000 troops and has 120 nuclear war heads in Europe. Europe is known for its ancient history – so does Russia – and civilization we believe in solving disputes in a ‘CIVILIZED’ manner and not the USA way of get your gun and shoot them. Mr. America ‘John Wayne’ died a long time ago but apparently the ‘Wild West’ is still alive and well in the USA showing that USA has not reached a mature civilization yet.
But please America start next WW III on American territory and not in Europe, I, like many other Europeans including Russians remember the suffering and destructions of WW II. WE don’t want a war, we want PEACE. Russia needs Europe and Europe needs Russia so Obama, Biden and Kerry stay home and solve your own problems on American streets and invest in your infra-structure instead of arms supporting the rich and lobbyists. Instead of promoting ‘The American Sniper’ invest in American poverty and the environment, this would be civilized.
Washington may believe that they are controlling the world but the present development in Europe, Middle East and Ukraine show clearly that bombing and snipering innocent women and children has isolated USA and destabilizes world peace on this Planet. It also isolates the USA as is proven by the ANTI-American movement in Europe, Middle East and even South East Asia and China. President Putin’s followship is increasing worldwide.
About the French press
The violation of journalistic principles about the situation in Ukraine is happening everyday here in France. It applies to the French mainstream medias, like Le Monde and TV channels.
History and events are permanently distorted or ignored.
Putin is usually called “le maître du kremlin”, i.e. sort of a dictator. Calling Obama or Hollande “maître de la Maison Blanche ” or “maître de l’Elysée” would not occur to anybody. Putin is compared to a “new czar” (which is rather kind), to Stalin, to Goebbels and to Hitler (not so kind). I must admit, that the level of insult attained by Hillary Clinton calling Putin “a tough guy with a thin skin” remains a challenge for French journalists.
As for the Russian minister of foreign affairs Mr. Lavrov, he is tagged as a “new Gromyko”, the so-called “Mr. Niet”. In fact it is rather a compliment, because political leaders, free-minded and brave enough to refuse war propaganda and policy decided only by and in favor of America, is precisely what we mostly need today. Unfortunately Hollande is not able to be Mr. Niet, even for a short moment of lucidity.
The standard casualty number of 5,000 has been disputed by a German intelligence leak to a national newspaper. Loose translation from combining online outputs:
Based on information from German security circles the Frankfurt general Sunday newspaper expects that up to 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians could have died up to now in the fighting in the East of the country. That’s almost ten times as many as was last officially stated. The official figures are clearly too low and not credible, said sources from the security agencies. So, single-digit numbers of victims would often be reported after heavy battles, even though there must have been dozens of dead in reality.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/ukraine-sicherheitskreise-bis-zu-50-000-tote-13416132.html
Recently the White House has publicized some BS about Mentally Ill Putin.
xxxx://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/05/putin-aspergers-obama-white-house-briefing/22935981/
While looking for that story I discovered that Hillary had compared Putin to Hitler. It’s from 2014, but I don’t recall seeing it.
xxxx://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/hillary-clinton-says-vladimir-putins-crimea-occupation-echoes-hitler
By the bye, the thought of that woman becoming President gives me the chills. The prominent Republicans are dreadful, but so far as I can tell she’s even worse.
I’m guessing that Angela Merkel is beginning to get the willies about a prospective European war. She’s right about that, but has nobody to blame but herself for allowing matters to get to this point.
Something I posted in the comments to the previous article on this subject. It’s an episode called ‘Putin’s New Year’s Resolution’ on the International Focus programme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvsEIG-6HOA. Leaves out much of what has been described here on Consortiumnews, but it does provide a lot of what I thought was good information about Russia in 2015.
I did several posts some years ago under the title “Chaos is the Plan.”
It’s easy to write off all the conflict in the world as U.S. bungling. But I think we need to seriously consider the possibility that the chaos that exists is deliberate. The people who run things are so rich that they don’t need money. What they need is some means to control the population. Endless wars, climate crisis, the real problems of society left unaddressed– we are all looking over our shoulders worrying about when we will get ours, rather than paying attention to the massive corruption, waste, and criminality at high levels.
It’s increasingly difficult for me to see the chaos as the result of incompetence.
John Mearsheimer has a good piece in Foreign Policy that’s accessible online. He doesn’t say anything that will be a surprise to anyone who reads Consortium News. He is, however, a well-respected academic. And Foreign Policy is a place where his opinion cannot simply be ignored.
Lisa has a point that the UK press has been quite vicious, and stupidly so. Putin is easy to hate, and things like the Litvinenko case and the murder of Anna Politkovskaya impacted the UK harder than they did the US. But still. The Russians are willing to fight to prevent Ukraine from entering NATO, and we are not. For the West to keep raising the ante in a hand it can’t win is simply stupid.
If Putin were really smart, he’d tell the West, sure, you can have Ukraine if you actually pay its bills. Trying to keep that mess afloat would bring down the western financial system.
In my in depth research on behalf of a book I co-authored on Russia and the Ukraine crisis, I have found so much of what the Western media says about Putin to be just plain wrong from constantly taking things he says out of context to make them sound like he’s saying something he’s not to just plain lies and innuendo that is spread — much of which has actually been debunked or discredited by serious journalists and scholars. But those serious scholars are simply drowned out or not approached by the MSM media. i recently countered most of the propaganda that was offered on Frontline’s “Putin’s Way” in which Karen Dawisha (author of the recently released book, “Putin’s Kleptocracy”) was given free reign to present her mishmash of unverified claims, innuendo and discredited conspiracy theories. The article is here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Frontline-Slings-Mud-at-Pu-by-Natylie-Baldwin-International_Other_Propaganda_Putin-150205-114.html
As for the allegations that Putin was behind Litvinenko and Poloskavaya’s murders, Wikileaks cables from 2006 show that US diplomats reported that there was no actual evidence that Putin was behind either of these murders. BBC correspondent Angus Roxburgh reported in his book, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia, that Martin Sixsmith, who was charged with leading an investigation into Litvinenko’s death in Britain, concluded that Putin was not behind it. Tellingly, London has to this day refused to publicize Litvinenko’s autopsy report. Poloskavaya’s employers believe that it was Chechen leaders who were behind her death, not the Russian government.
“If Putin were really smart, he’d tell the West, sure, you can have Ukraine if you actually pay its bills.”
Would you let your family get slaughtered if you were paid enough?
I hope the answer is no, but you tell me… What is happening in Ukraine is beyond money and beyond Putin. The rebels in the East fight for their land, freedom and truth, however cheesy that may sound to you. The East will never be an integral part of Ukraine after all the atrocities committed by the Kiev troops.
Finally, Putin IS very smart and he’ll not let hostile NATO bases be built on Russia’s borders, nor will he allow genocide. Russia would never forgive him if he did. And he IS smart enough to know that.
You have to look at the UK press for some real anti-Putin stuff, the abuse is endless.
Not just the usual Daily Telegraph (of the right) but the Independent (middle) and the Guardian (supposidly ‘left’).
Have a look at this the abuse is endless:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/a-meeting-of-minds-in-cairo-billiondollar-arms-deal-on-table-as-putin-and-abdel-fattah-alsisi-seek-closer-trade-links-and-alliance-against-terror-10034972.html
Snippets:
“Egyptian Opera House performance of extracts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Verdi’s Aida, a combination of Tsarist bourgeois fantasy and ancient Egyptian myth that might reflect the characters of both men.:
“…After crushing Muslim fighters in Chechnya, Mr Putin supports Bashar al-Assad’s ferocious war against the “Islamic State” …”
“Even the old Soviet Union could never quite achieve this.”
““Putin, hero of this eraâ€, ran the grovelling headline – which might have welcomed Khruschev when he visited in 1964. In true politburo fashion, the Sisi government swamped central Cairo streets with posters of their Russian guest, each carrying “Welcome†in Arabic, Russian and English. But the world should not imagine Egyptians to be as lickspittle as the posters or the Al-Ahram headline imply.”
“The Russian president oversaw the bloody occupation of parts of eastern Ukraine a year later. ”
It just goes on and on and on. I have never seen such endless abuse piled on a national leader before, even against Hussain or any of the old Soviet leaders.
This is why I am convinced that there is going to be war between US/NATO and Russa, rhetorically they have backed themselves into a corner with no way out now. How can you make a deal with this ‘monster’ you have shouted about for so long? Whatever you do it makes you seem as though you are surrendering.
Here beats the drums of war.
Right on observation. I’ve been amazed at the British Press take down of Putin. Even the BBC has joined the fun. Ukraine is just a side show for the primary goal of regime change in Russia. This is now a struggle for world domination. The West will do whatever it takes, up to and including all out war, to achieve this objective. Stay tuned for all dissenters to be labeled enemies of the state.
By now, KGB-Colonel Putin’s remarkable “restraint” is starting to look like outright cowardice. Remember, his idol Stalin was happy to make a deal with Hitler, giving him Poland in exchange for western-belarussia and the balts. Putin looks like he’s about to make a similar deal with the Western backers of the neofascist regime in Kiev. But what the hell–Stalin’s deal started a world war and Puytin’s will at least bring some sort of peace to novorussia–at the expense, of course, of the Ukrainian people. But what Stalinist ever cared about them?
Yeh. This is a typical statement for the stupid American.
Stalin is Putin’s idol? Another invention. You should learn something tangible and objective about Russia and Putin before yapping.
As for the approaching deal: the borders of DNR-LNR will be larger; w/o Crimea and with DNR-LNR regions NOBODY is going to take Ukraine into NATO. The ultra-nationalist regime has taken the country back 20 years in finance and industry. With only$6.4 billion reserves left, and facing at least $11 bn in foreign payments this year, plus gas debt and gas payments, the regime that allegedly represents Ukraine needs at least $15 bn just to be nearly broke.