Ukraine’s “pro-democracy” president has outlawed his opposition, ordered rivals arrested and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents, Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy report.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing U.S. Congress on March 16. (C-Span still)
By Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy
The Grayzone
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has framed his country’s war against Russia as a battle for democracy itself. In a carefully choreographed address to U.S. Congress on March 16, Zelensky stated,
“Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy.”
U.S. corporate media has responded by showering Zelensky with fawning press, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute to himself and the Ukrainian military during the 2022 Grammy awards ceremony on April 3.
Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia.
Several mayors and other Ukrainian officials have been killed since the outbreak of war, many reportedly by Ukrainian state agents after engaging in de-escalation talks with Russia.
“There is one less traitor in Ukraine,” Internal Affairs Ministry adviser Anton Geraschenko stated in an endorsement of the murder of a Ukrainian mayor accused of collaborating with Russia.
Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.
The Ukrainian SBU security services have served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the C.I.A. and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.
On the battlefield, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has engaged in a series of atrocities against captured Russian troops and proudly exhibited its sadistic acts on social media. Here too, the perpetrators of human rights abuses appear to have received approval from the upper echelons of Ukrainian leadership.
While Zelensky spouts bromides about the defense of democracy before worshipful Western audiences, he is using the war as a theater for enacting a blood-drenched purge of political rivals, dissidents and critics.
“The war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members who express themselves critical of the government,” a left-wing activist beaten and persecuted by Ukraine’s security services commented this April. “We must all fear for our freedom and our lives.”
Torture & Enforced Disappearances
When a U.S.-backed government seized power in Kiev following the Euromaidan regime-change operation of 2013-14, Ukraine’s government embarked on a nationwide purge of political elements deemed pro-Russian or insufficiently nationalistic.
The passage of “decommunization” laws by the Ukrainian parliament further eased the persecution of leftist elements and the prosecution of activists for political speech.
The post-Maidan regime has focused its wrath on Ukrainians who have advocated a peace settlement with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east, those who have documented human rights abuses by the Ukrainian military and members of communist organizations. Dissident elements have faced the constant threat of ultra-nationalist violence, imprisonment and even murder.
The Ukrainian security service known as the SBU has served as the main enforcer of the post-Maidan government’s campaign of domestic political repression. Pro-Western monitors including the United Nations Office of the High Commission (UN OHCR) and Human Rights Watch have accused the SBU of systematically torturing political opponents and Ukrainian dissidents with near-total impunity.
The UN OHCR found in 2016 that
“arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of such conflict-related detainees were common practice of SBU… A former Kharkiv SBU officer explained, ‘For the SBU, the law virtually does not exist as everything that is illegal can be either classified or explained by referring to state necessity.’ ”
Yevhen Karas, the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi C14 unit, has detailed the close relationship his gang and other extreme right factions have enjoyed with the SBU. The SBU “informs not only us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on,” Karas boasted in a 2017 interview.
Kiev Endorses Wartime Assassinations
Since Russia launched its military operation inside Ukraine, the SBU has hunted down local officials who decided to accept humanitarian supplies from Russia or negotiated with Russian forces to arrange corridors for civilian evacuations.
On March 1, for example, Volodymyr Strok, the mayor of the eastern city of Kreminna in the Ukrainian-controlled side of Lugansk, was kidnapped by men in military uniform, according to his wife, and shot in the heart.
On March 3, pictures of Strok’s visibly tortured body appeared. A day before his murder, Struk had reportedly urged his Ukrainian colleagues to negotiate with pro-Russian officials.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrated the mayor’s murder, declaring on his Telegram page (see below):
“There is one less traitor in Ukraine. The mayor of Kreminna in Luhansk region, former deputy of Luhansk parliament was found killed.”
Telegram post by Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrating the assassination of “traitor” and Kreminna Mayor Volodymyr Struk.
According to Geraschenko, Strok had been judged by the “court of the people’s tribunal.”
The Ukrainian official therefore delivered a chilling message to anyone choosing to seek cooperation with Russia: do so and lose your life.
On March 7, the mayor of Gostomel, Yuri Prylipko, was found murdered. Prylipko had reportedly entered into negotiations with the Russian military to organize a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of his city’s residents – a red line for Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who had long been in conflict with the mayor’s office.
Next, on March 24, Gennady Matsegora, the mayor of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, released a video (below) appealing to Zelensky and his administration for the release of his daughter, who had been held hostage by agents of the Ukrainian SBU intelligence agency.
Then there was the murder of Denis Kireev, a top member of the Ukrainian negotiating team, who was killed in broad daylight in Kiev after the first round of talks with Russia. Kireev was subsequently accused in local Ukrainian media of “treason.”
Zelensky’s statement that “there would be consequences for collaborators” indicates that these atrocities have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government.
As of today, 11 mayors from various towns in Ukraine are missing. Western media outlets have been following the Kiev line without exception, claiming that all mayors been arrested by the Russian military.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the charge, however, and little evidence exists to corroborate Kiev’s line about the missing mayors.
Arrest of Rivals, War Propaganda Blitz
When war erupted with Russia this February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a series of decrees formalizing Kiev’s campaign against political opposition and dissident speech.
In a March 19 executive order, Zelensky invoked martial law to ban 11 opposition parties. The outlawed parties consisted of the entire left-wing, socialist or anti-NATO spectrum in Ukraine.
They included the For Life Party, the Left Opposition, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Socialists, the Party of Shariy, Ours, State, Opposition Bloc and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.
Openly fascist and pro-Nazi parties like the Azov National Corps were left untouched by the presidential decree, however.
“The activities of those politicians aimed at division or collusion will not succeed, but will receive a harsh response,” Zelensky stated.
As he wiped out his opposition, Zelensky ordered an unprecedented domestic propaganda initiative to nationalize all television news broadcasting and combine all channels into a single 24-hour channel called “United News” to “tell the truth about war.”
Next, on April 12, Zelensky announced the arrest of his principal political rival, Viktor Medvedchuk, by Ukraine’s SBU security services.
Many on Telegram channels are speculating that the SBU has held Medvedchuk in a prison basement for weeks, and published the photos now to distract from Ukraine’s losses on the battlefield. No way to know, but it can’t be ruled out.
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) April 12, 2022
The founder of the second largest party in Ukraine, the now-illegal Patriots for Life, Medvedchuk is the de facto representative of the country’s ethnic Russian population. Though Patriots for Life is regarded as “pro-Russia,” in part because of his close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the new chairman of the party has condemned Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine.
Members of the state-sponsored neo-Nazi Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked Medvedchuk’s home in March 2019, accusing him of treason and demanding his arrest.
In August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus carrying representatives of Medvedchuk’s party, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Zelensky’s administration escalated the assault on his top opponent in February 2021 when he shuttered several media outlets controlled by Medvedchuk. The U.S. State Department openly endorsed the president’s move, declaring that the United States “supports Ukrainian efforts to counter Russia’s malign influence…”
Three months later, Kiev jailed Medvedchuk and charged him with treason. Zelensky justified locking away his leading rival on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”
Medvedchuk escaped house arrest at the onset of the war between Russia and Ukraine, but is a captive once again, and may be used as collateral for a post-war prisoner swap with Russia.
Under Zelensky’s Watch
Since Russian troops entered Ukraine on Feb. 24, Ukraine’s SBU security service had been on a rampage against any and all iterations of internal political opposition. Leftist Ukrainian activists have faced particularly harsh treatment, including kidnapping and torture.
This March 3 in the city of Dnipro, SBU officers accompanied by Azov ultra-nationalists raided the home of activists with the Livizja (Left) organization, which has organized against social spending cuts and right-wing media propaganda. While one activist said the Azov member “cut my hair off with a knife,” the state security agents proceeded to torture her husband, Alexander Matjuschenko, pressing a gun barrel to his head and forcing him to repeatedly belt out the nationalist salute, “Slava Ukraini!”
“Then they put bags over our heads, tied our hands with tape and took us to the SBU building in a car. There they continued to interrogate us and threatened to cut off our ears,” Matjuschenko’s wife told the leftist German publication Junge Welt.
The Azov members and SBU agents recorded the torture session and published images of Matjuschenko’s bloodied face online.
The torture of left-wing activist Alexander Matjuschenko on March 3 in Dnipro, recorded by Azov members and posted on Telegram by the city of Dnipro.
Matjuschenko was jailed on the grounds that he was “conducting an aggressive war or military operation,” and now faces 10-to-15 years in prison. Despite enduring several broken ribs from the beating by state-backed ultra-nationalists, he has been denied bail. Meanwhile, dozens of other leftists have been jailed on similar charges in Dnipro.
Among those targeted by the SBU were Mikhail and Aleksander Kononovich, members of the outlawed Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine. Both were arrested and jailed on March 6 and accused of “spreading pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views.”
In the following days, the SBU arrested broadcast journalist Yan Taksyur and charged him with treason; human rights activist Elena Berezhnaya; Elena Viacheslavova, a human rights advocate whose father, Mikhail, was burned to death during the May 2, 2014, ultra-nationalist mob attack on anti-Maidan protesters outside the Odessa House of Trade Unions; independent journalist Yuri Tkachev, who was charged with treason, and an untold number of others; disabled rights activist Oleg Novikov, who was jailed for three years this April on the grounds that he supported “separatism.”
The list of those imprisoned by Ukraine’s security services since the outbreak of war grows by the day, and is too extensive to reproduce here.
Oleg Novikov—opposition activist from my city, Kharkov, persecuted in the past by the Zelensky regime—was kidnapped 5/04/22 at 6am by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and taken to an unknown place. Oleg is disabled and has 3 young children. (Pic is from a previous arrest) pic.twitter.com/KSeHYC7DWJ
— Gonzalo Lira (@realGonzaloLira) April 9, 2022
Perhaps the most ghastly incident of repression took place when neo-Nazis backed by the Ukrainian government kidnapped Maxim Ryndovskiy, a professional MMA fighter, and brutally tortured him for the crime of training with Russian fighters at a gym in Chechnya. Ryndovskiy also happened to be Jewish, with a Star of David tattooed on his leg, and had spoken out on social media against the war in eastern Ukraine.
In Kyiv, local [I don’t know to fucking call them] extremists caught and brutally torture a famous Ukrainian athlete, MMA fighter, Maxim Ryndovsky. All his fault is that he trained with the Chechen club "Akhmat". pic.twitter.com/og1Psly7SE
— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) March 5, 2022
Ukraine’s SBU has even hunted opposition figures outside the country’s borders. As journalist Dan Cohen reported, Anatoly Shariy of the recently banned Party of Shariy said he was the target of a recent SBU assassination attempt. Shariy has been an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-backed Maidan regime, and has been forced to flee into exile after enduring years of harassment from nationalists.
This March, the libertarian politician and online pundit received an email from a friend, “Igor,” seeking to arrange a meeting. He subsequently learned that Igor was held by the SBU at the time and being used to bait Shariy into disclosing his location.
For his part, Shariy has been placed on the notorious Myrotvorets public blacklist of “enemies of the state” founded by Anton Geraschenko – the Ministry of Internal Affairs advisor who endorsed the assassination of Ukrainian lawmakers accused of Russian sympathies. Several journalists and Ukrainian dissidents, including the prominent columnist Oles Buzina, were murdered by state-backed death squads after their names appeared on the list.
Common Ukrainian citizens have also been subjected to torture since the start of the war this February. Seemingly countless videos have appeared on social media showing civilians tied to lamp posts, often with their genitals exposed or their faces painted green. Carried out by Territorial Defense volunteers tasked with enforcing law and order during wartime, these acts of humiliation and torture have targeted everyone from accused Russian sympathizers to Roma people to alleged thieves.
Roma people (“gypsies”) left Kiev as refugees and went to border town, Lviv, where they are facing discrimination by Ukrainians. Like here, tied to poles. A popular Ukrainian Telegram channel celebrates this action and mocks the victims.#Kyiv #Ukraine #Russia #Nazi pic.twitter.com/3cWZ9a78uA
— Global Politics (@Geopol2030) March 21, 2022
This is the human rights that Zelensky brought to Ukrainian civilians#Mariupol #StandWithUkraine #RussiaUkraineWar pic.twitter.com/EWFC048M2q
— UN voice of Justice (@TheUN_voice) April 3, 2022
Ex-SBU Officer’s Disclosures About CIA
Vassily Prozorov, a former SBU officer who defected to Russia following the Euromaidan coup, detailed the post-Maidan security services’ systemic reliance on torture to crush political opposition and intimidate citizens accused of Russian sympathies.
According to Prozorov, the ex-SBU officer, the Ukrainian security services have been directly advised by the CIA since 2014.
“CIA employees have been present in Kiev since 2014. They are residing in clandestine apartments and suburban houses,” he said. “However, they frequently come to the SBU’s central office for holding, for example, specific meetings or plotting secret operations.”
Below, Russia’s RIA Novosti profiled Prozorov and covered his disclosures in a 2019 special.
Journalist Dan Cohen interviewed a Ukrainian businessman named Igor who was arrested by the SBU for his financial ties with Russian companies and detained this March in the security service’s notorious headquarters in downtown Kiev. Igor said he overheard Russian POWs being beaten with pipes by Territorial Defense volunteers being coached by SBU officers. Pummeled to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, the Russian prisoners were brutalized until they confessed their hatred for Putin.
Then came Igor’s turn. “They used a lighter to heat up a needle, then put it under my fingernails,” he told Cohen. “The worst was when they put a plastic bag over my head and suffocated me and when they held the muzzle of a Kalashnikov rifle to my head and forced me to answer their questions.”
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the first head of the SBU after the Euromaidan regime change operation of 2013-14, nurtured close ties to Washington when he served as general consul to the Ukrainian embassy to the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration. During that time, Nalyvaichenko was recruited by the CIA, according to his predecessor at the SBU, Alexander Yakimenko, who served under the Russian-oriented government of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych.
In 2021, Zelensky appointed one of Ukraine’s most notorious intelligence figures, Oleksander Poklad, to lead SBU’s counterintelligence division. Poklad is nicknamed “The Strangler,” a reference to his reputation for using torture and assorted dirty tricks to set-up his bosses’ political rivals on treason charges.
This April, a vivid illustration of the SBU’s brutality emerged in the form of video (below) showing its agents pummeling a group of men accused of Russian sympathies in the city of Dnipro.
Ukrainian SBU is arresting civilians in Dnipropetrovsk.
— Vera Van Horne (@VeraVanHorne) April 5, 2022
Flaunting War Crimes
While the Western media has focused squarely on alleged Russian human rights abuses since the outbreak of war, Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Ukrainian social media accounts have proudly exhibited sadistic war crimes, from field executions to the torture of captive soldiers.
This March, a pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel called White Lives Matter released a video of a Ukrainian soldier calling the fiancee of a Russian prisoner of war, seen below, and taunting her with promises to castrate the captive.
Ukrainian soldiers’ use of the cellphones of dead Russian soldiers to mock and hector their relatives appears to be a common practice. In fact, the Ukrainian government has begun using notoriously invasive facial recognition technology from Clearview AI, a U.S. tech company, to identify Russian casualties and taunt their relatives on social media.
#ukraine soldiers calling family of deceased to mock and swear at them. Knowing modern phones – the soldier in question must’ve been alive before they unlocked his device. That’s another POW #warCrime to their repertoire. pic.twitter.com/D55T6Hu0se
— Lukasz Raczylo ? ? (@raczylo) March 27, 2022
This April, a pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel called fckrussia2022 posted a video depicting a Russian soldier with one of his eyes bandaged, suggesting it had been gouged during torture, and mocked him as a “one-eyed” pig.
Perhaps the most gruesome image to have appeared on social media in recent weeks is the photo of a tortured Russian soldier who had one of his eyes gouged before he was killed. The accompanying post was captioned, “looking for Nazis.”
Photos distributed by pro-Ukraine Telegram channels showing captured, tortured and executed Russian soldiers.
Video has also emerged this April showing Ukrainian soldiers shooting defenseless Russian POWs in the legs outside the city of Kharkov. A separate video published by Ukrainian and U.S.-backed Georgian Legion soldiers showed the fighters carrying out field executions of wounded Russian captives near a village outside Kiev.
Ukrainian and Georgian Legion fighters celebrate after executing captive Russian soldiers on video.
It is likely that these soldiers had been emboldened by their superiors’ blessings. Mamula Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion, which participated in the field executions of wounded Russian POW’s, boasted this April that his unit freely engages in war crimes:
“Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner.”
Similarly, Gennadiy Druzenko, the head of the Ukrainian military medical service, stated in an interview with Ukraine 24 that he “issued an order to castrate all Russian men because they were subhuman and worse than cockroaches.”
Woman Tortured & Killed
While Western media homes in on Russian human rights violations at home and inside Ukraine, the Ukrainian government has authorized a propaganda campaign known as “Total War” that includes the planting of bogus images and false stories to further implicate Russia.
In one especially cynical example of the strategy, Ukraine 24 – a TV channel where guests have called for the genocidal extermination of Russian children – published a photo this April depicting a female corpse branded with a bloody swastika on her stomach. Ukraine 24 claimed that it found this woman in Gostumel, one of the regions in the Kiev Oblast that the Russians vacated on March 29.
Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, and Oleksiy Arestovych, the top adviser to Zelensky, published the photo of the defiled female corpse on social media. While Vasylenko left the photo online, Arestovych deleted it eight hours after posting when confronted with the fact that he had published a fake.
In fact, the image was pulled from footage originally recorded by Patrick Lancaster, a Donetsk-based U.S. journalist who had filmed the corpse of a woman tortured and murdered by members of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion in a Mariupol school basement they had converted into a base.
At 2:31 in Lancaster’s video, the woman’s corpse can be seen clearly.
Ukrainian political operative @lesiavasylenko is spreading an especially cynical fake:
The original image was captured by @PLnewstoday and showed the corpse of a woman tortured and murdered in a Mariupol school basement by Ukrainian Nazis – the allies of Vasylenko. pic.twitter.com/gRnURAAaQ9
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 4, 2022
As weapons pour into Ukraine from NATO states and the war intensifies, the atrocities are almost certain to pile up – and with the blessing of leadership in Kiev.
As Zelensky proclaimed during a visit to the city of Bucha this April, “if we do not find a civilized way out, you know our people – they will find an uncivilized way out.”
The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
Esha Krishnaswamy is the host of the historicly podcast. She has also written for FAIR, critiquing corporate media’s coverage of international events.
This article is from The Grayzone.
Thanks a lot to both of you for your comments about Counterpunch news site. Indeed, Counterpunch used to be socialist, or at least social-democrat, but like you said they have become a front, a little bit to the left of The Democratic Party’s ideology. They still include some anti-US Imperialism’s articles, anti-racism but they also let pro-US Imperialism’s writers to write articles in their site.
And to think that Zelensky is being worshipped & glorified by the masses. He is nothing but a CIA and NeoNazi stooge who was elected on a peace mandate until publicly humiliated by the NeoNazis in 2019 (CN has an excellent article on this event complete with backed-up references).
Right from the beginning it was obvious, something was going on, that Boris Johnson wanted to be part of!
He will have the same information, that we have here and if not, MI5 and 6 are not doing their job, or, Boris is
so far into his love affair with Zelenksy, that he continues to spout the pro Ukranian propaganda!
Why are the Military not briefing Boris the dreadful truth and suffering, at the hands of Zekensky s NeoNazi
murderers? Will this continue to be a cover up and will any European country, dare to tell the truth!
Zelinsky, caught on camera, helping Israel, with its bombing of Gaza last year, was never on BBC of course and why aren t refugees, begging for help, to get rid of this man?
I have a question, not totally related to this article, but still it is related to the Russia vs Ukraine conflict. The question is that I would like to know what did the Russian government and Putin did to the website Counterpunch of Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey Sinclair, because lately I have noticed lots of news articles in Counterpunch offending, insulting, Putin, calling him names and even going so far to claim that there was no fascism and no nazism in Ukraine, and that the nazism and fascism was just a pretext that Putin used to destroy and mass murder millions of Ukrainian citizens. Not even the mainstream media has been so harsh against Putin like Counterpunch and many other social-democrat progressive liberal alternative news sources, like commondreams, David Packman, and many other websites of the pro-war imperialist middle class reformist left
PS: I think Counterpunch is a bit nationalist, americanist, like Eric Draitser (A counterpunch writer) who says that USA is still powerful nation and that Russia is a weak nation that has no possibility of becoming a world power.
PS2: I love USA and I would like USA at least to have a social-democratic or better a workers state, with all large corporations nalitionalized under workers control so that all workers, and their families become the real owners of the USA because they are the producers of wealth of USA, which would turn USA into a paradise like the book “Imagine living in a socialist USA” and “Toward a Soviet America” but without putting down other countries, because I am internationalist
.
I stopped following Counterpunch several years ago because their politics seemed to be deteriorating into rigid partisanship and too often aligning with U.S. foreign policy goals. In my recollection it was very different before Alexander Cockburn’s death. It sounds like the deterioration has continued.
Counterpunch started going downhill during the discredited Russiagate “scandal.” Some weird thing happened with the FBI, and they quickly began to toe the line regarding Democratic Party narratives about almost everything. They are less than useful for information or opinion as they basically have the same narrative and lack evidence for their narrative as the NYT and WaPo.
Yeah you are very right, I think they had a problem with the FBI authorities, maybe that’s how they began to go downhill. That’s why the philosopher Nietzsche said that life is a war and free humans should be fighters, warriors. And a revolutionary leftist, an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist should be a fighter, a warrior, if he is not a warrior he won’t be able to be a revolutionary radical far-leftist.
The author Douglas Valentine who wrote “The CIA as Organized Crime” says that the CIA has used Ukraine since end of WWII, when Nazi Reinhard Gellen was put in charge of Eastern Europe by Allen Dulles with Operation Paperclip. The USSR had to be an “implacable enemy” and NATO has been used to “protect”. The CIA never could act honorably toward Ukraine or any other country because their purpose is purely to benefit US interests and US multinationals. They are behind the US government’s 2014 coup in Ukraine and paramilitary Nazi troops there, and the neoconservative use their nastiness. Hunter Biden was installed as Burisma gas board official in 2014 and Joe Biden has been put in place to keep the Ukraine cover sealed. The fact that Biden is more obsessed with Ukraine than the US border crisis shows he has a lot to lose if Ukraine loses this war. In fact, the whole of NATO, US business, and US political hegemony has a lot of corrupt chicanery riding on not exposing the lynchpin of Ukraine corruption, including US biolabs. The Ukrainian people have been used for several generations, apparently. The CIA cares nothing for the innocents, wants power completely as does the US government. NATO does the same and distorts that Russia is not the old USSR. If the US could even act honorably toward Russia instead as “the enemy”, what a different world we would see.
Well said! This is a huge web of lies, from all European Leaders, to finally bring down Putin! I doubt
Boris Johnson could ever cope, with a country the size of Russia, as, lets face it, he can t cope here!
From the very start, Zelinskey, had our whole Parliament, on their feet, cheering a man, they knew nothing
about! It was depressing to watch the false and sad clapping, for a man nobody knew!
Boris, even made a private trip to Ukraine, to enjoy a walk, with his new best friend!
As he faces losing his job, I hope the revelations of what is really going on in Ukraine and what horrendous
crimes, his mate has condoned, are added to the list, of actions, there should be a Law against private meetings with any other world Leader..the Public must be informed!
I am so scared og this Matrix. I am a Soviet expat (mostly being seen and now seeing mysef as Russian), living in the West.
I lost literally all my Anarchist “leftwing” friends and my partner over this.
Are the Anarchists supporting the illusion of Ukrainian democracy?!
Some Anarchists are, some aren’t, some are somewhere in between. Everyone is susceptible to propaganda and indoctrination.
It is so easy to feel pressure in the present atmosphere because of a connection with Russia, and, sadly, some people may act badly only because of that. Whatever happens, though, Russians remain a great people with a great culture! Shame on your friends and partner for acting on your fine heritage!
And on those that create the atmosphere
Journalist Gonzalo Lira Lopez, who criticized the Ukrainian authorities and the West, disappeared in Kharkiv
Additionally, several weeks before his disappearance, he published a list of other activists (from a range of the political spectrum) which were kidnapped by the SBU:
Vladimir Struk
Denis Kirev
Mikhail and Alexander Kononovich
Nestor Shufrych
Yan Taksyur
Dmitry Djangirov
Elena Berezhnaya
All this suggests that Ukraine is moving towards the development of democracy, or has it slipped to the highest stage of Nazism?
The shining city on a hill, the U.S.A., has now been shamefully reduced to nothing more than Zelensky’s sugar daddy. It’s so sad how far we’ve fallen, this is a new low. There ain’t much left of this country, and what little there is, is being enthusiastically handed over to some guy committing atrocities and collaborating with Nazis.
“Thought that I hit bottom but I ain’t there yet
‘Cause you’d be surprised at how low a man can get
I watched stolen dreams slip through my hands..”
– Ain’t much left of me – Blackberry Smoke
How sad…But then all the nefarious actions the US has carried out all over the world for decades – there is a price to pay.
Who is Zelensky working for?
It could be a game-changer if the Ukrainian people decided they were suckered by an elaborate election psy-op.
Zelenski has done exactly the opposite of what he promised to do during his election campaign. He promised to work for peace, and instead has worked relentlessly for war.
In addition to sabotaging the existing Minsk peace process, he opened the jails freeing even violent criminals, and passing out weapons indiscriminately. This is reminiscent of the chaos sowed in the Middle East during the Iraq war, by flooding it with weapons and loose militias. It is a operation that creates a highly dangerous chaos.
Zelensky was sold to the Ukrainian public as the star of a TV show that directly addressed Ukraine’s corruption problem, and in which he portrayed a hero who solved that problem.
It’s well-known that audiences often mix up an actor with the role he plays. This factor helped Ronald Reagan get elected president of the US, and Arnold Schwarzenegger get elected governor of California. Schwarzenegger’s campaign strategist later said on a panel discussion that their strategy was to portray Schwarzenegger as a hero coming to the rescue rather than focus on specific policies. This strategy directly drew upon his movie roles as a hero.
It was perhaps not a spontaneous coincidence that Zelensky’s election as actual president exactly mirrored his election as president in the TV show. The TV show may have been deliberately planned to plant Zelensky in the public’s mind as precisely the hero they needed.
“It is noteworthy that [Ukraine oligarch Igor Kolomoysky] owns the 1+1 TV channel, which aired Zelensky’s comedy show, and then backed his presidential campaign.” Exiled Oligarch Behind President-Elect Volodymyr” Zelensky Returns To Ukraine
hxxps://newcoldwar.org/exiled-oligarch-behind-president-elect-volodymyr-zelensky-returns-to-ukraine/
From the same article we learn that Kolomoysky left Ukraine in 2017, and moved to Israel in 2018. From the same article, “He would only return to Ukraine if Volodymyr Zelensky won the elections, then he said that he would return when he was inaugurated.”
….
“Even prior to returning Kolomoisky expressed his view on how the Ukrainian government should be set up after Zelensky assumes the presidential seat”
….
“Kolomoisky supported the policy of the post-Maidan Kiev – he financed the volunteer battalions, built the hierarchy of power.”
….
“Russian Vladimir Putin responded to Kolomoisky’s attacks only once. He simply said, regarding Kolomoisky: ‘What we have here is a unique kind of thug.’”
According to Wikipedia Kolomoisky is the 2nd or 3rd richest peron in Ukraine. Also, he is a citizen of Israel as well as Ukraine.
hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Kolomoyskyi
Wikipedia further recounts his shady dealings.
“In April 2019 it was reported that the FBI is investigating Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky over alleged financial crimes involving Bogolyubov [a partner], the Krivyi Rih businessman Vadim Shulman and Mordechai ‘Motti’ Korf of Florida along with Kolomoyski’s steel holdings in West Virginia and northern Ohio in the United States and his mining interests in Ghana and Australia. Legal filings from American prosecutors last year detailed how Kolomoisky allegedly used his control of Ukraine’s largest retail bank, PrivatBank, to loot staggering sums from Ukrainian depositors, and then used a series of shell companies and offshore accounts to whisk the money out of the country and into the U.S.”
….
“In November 2019, the New York Times reported that Kolomoisky was behind plans to build a controversial ski resort in Svydovets, Ukraine. In the article, a professor at a local university is quoted describing Kolomoisky as ‘a leech who sucks our blood here and puts it in Switzerland'”.
….
“In 2015 Victor Pinchuk brought a $2 billion civil action against Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov in the High Court of Justice in London over the 2004 purchase of a Ukrainian mining company. Allegations made include murder and bribery In January 2016 an undisclosed out of court settlement was reached just before the trial was due to start”
Thus, Kolomoiskyi is the kind of financial thug who could easily be involved in the plans to create wars for profit. He could be working with war profiteering banksters in the City of London, Wall Street, and Tel Aviv. Zelensky also has direct ties to Israel. Thus he could easily have been in on such a scheme from the start.
These banksters (FDR’s term) already control the US and Western Europe, politicians and press, and now plausibly covet Russia. The same neocon cheerleaders for the regime change wars in the Middle East are now the cheerleading for a regime change in Russia.
Zelensky as president could be the next season of the same fictional show. This picture, with its additional layer of players, would clarify some of the apparent confusions in the current Ukraine situation.
Thanks so much for the explanation, via good information on this subject.
For anyone paying attention. Do not tell me you are surprised by the slaughter in Ukraine it was obvious all along what would happen should Putin attack.
Once again the MIC scores a big profit by flooding the region with arms.
Nothing to see here that hasn’t happened several times already around the world.
Thanks CN
And, yes, Made in the USA:
“It was like a small Guantanamo”
Another explication of Ukranian government’s repression:
hxxps://www.mintpressnews.com/volodymyr-zelensky-secret-police-hunted-down-opposition-anatoly-shariy/280200/
I now see that Consortium News is a stooge platform for the Kremlin. FUCK YOU you treasonous communists!
What a caricature of outrage.
When presented with facts, evidence and history the neocon left has nothing to add but name calling!
Max didn’t write what I want to read. He is a commie!
Yes, facts that go against the Ukraine narrative must be from the Kremlin. Azov are really wonderful, peaceful people. Definitely not Nazis.
10 out of 10 times, I’d literally pick any side over a Nazi. Sadly, you wouldn’t say the same. Our grandfathers fought against them, and you seem to be defending them – do you know what a traitor really is?
FYI, the Kremlin is no longer communist.
Upon considering your comment further, I don’t believe you are as ignorant and unintelligent as you appear. More likely you are a stooge for the oligarchy who is trying to censor freedom of speech in America. As such, you are directly attacking the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. If you are doing this on behalf of a foreign government, that would technically make you a traitor.
Ukrane wil be de-Nazified.
The memory of Banderites’ horrific crimes civilians against in Volhynia, Poland, will be refreshed, including a list of tortures that Banderites used on women and children.
The Banderites crimes in Ukraine are now known. You and your friends Banderites maybe hope for protection from American Ziocons, but don’t keep your breath.
Another victim of Mr. Zelensky: hxxps://t.me/intelslava/26133
More terror and Killings. This time by underground Ukrainian Territorial Defense thugs who assassinated popular Ukrainian blogger accused of collaboration with Russians in Kherson.
“On April 20, pro-Russian blogger Vladimir Kuleshov was killed in Kherson. One of the main Ukrainian nationalist propagandists Anton Gerashchenko confirmed the murder of the blogger. Citing anonymous sources, he claimed that the victim aided Russian forces.”
18+
xxhttps://southfront.org/kherson-region-in-the-south-of-ukraine-on-its-way-to-peace/
So apparently, Willie Wilken, you perceive Free Speech and Freedom of the Press as somehow “treasonous” and “communist”.
That being the case, I suspect you’d fit right in with Ukraine’s Nazis, who share those beliefs wholeheartedly.
Truth isn’t always pleasant, is it? Check out your history book and see how many treasons the US has committed against so-called ‘friends’.
All this evidence needs to be duplicated and hand-delivered to every American senator and congressperson, and signed for at their offices, so it can be used at their trials when the day comes when they have to defend themselves against the war crimes THEY are perpetrating by supporting, with money, weaponry, training and propaganda, their proxy war criminals in Ukraine in what is clearly a multifaceted war of aggression intended to destroy the Russian state and Russian society.
This is quite obviously yet another intentional war of aggression by the United States against yet another victimised country that clearly falls within the rubrics of such an illegal war of aggression under every legal code that speaks on the matter, including the Nuremberg conventions and the United Nations constitution. This war (and all the others like it) are clearly crimes against humanity, and the entire American federal government including both the executive and legislative branches are as guilty as sin in the matter. All of these individuals KNOW damned well what they are perpetrating, and it is NOT protecting freedom and democracy. Mountains of evidence such as this article and all its attachments proves this point.
When all of America’s efforts to actually stifle freedom and democracy around the globe, but most provocatively in Russia and Ukraine, all come to nothing in spite of their boundless law-breaking, all of these pseudo-democrats (including both Dems and GOPers), elected to office under false pretenses and committed to violating their oaths of office, come to nothing because of the resilience of truly free people dedicated to their own independence from the would-be American hegemon, must be put on trial along with the traitorous puppets like Zelensky whom they’ve used as their proxies. They knew, they approved, they must be punished like the war criminals that they are. They must be held accountable for helping to create and prop up this “4th Reich,” whose members proudly admit their allegiance to the values and standards of Hitler and Bandera. The US congress is just as much a pack of Banderites as the entire gang of Nazis in Ukraine and I am sick of what they are foisting upon the world in the name of all Americans. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and all the rest of you crypto-Nazis will have your day of accounting for the many war crimes you have perpetrated and are actively committing.
Why are Russian soldiers more often tortured and mistreated like that, not just in Ukraine? The American government must have known when Zelensky received a standing ovation in Congress.
The guilt and shame all of us must feel. Our government must know and sanctions it and funds it.
Of course they know. They don’t care. They always support ultra-right violent regimes. Look at Chile. Look at Guatemala. Look at Iran. Hell, look as far back as Vietnam and the Congo.
The American Jewish Community has been supporting Zelinsky despite his use of the self-proclaimed Nazi paramilitaries against the Ukrainian and Russian people. There is also dead silence about Mr. Kolomojsky (an Israeli/Ukrainian citizen) who has founded and funded the Nazi death squads Azov, Aidar, Dnipro I, and Dnipro II.
The formation of the Nazi battalion and the atrocities against pro-federalists in eastern Ukraine began immediately after the regime change in Kiev in 2014, which was run by Mrs. Nuland, a member of the warmongering Kagans’ clan.
Where is the voice of the Jewish Community at large to condemn the atrocities that have been committed, since 2014, by Ukrainian Nazis?
And so many ‘allies’ going deaf, dumb and blind…infected with ‘Americanitis’.
Unfortunately, the United States is to blame for everything that happens in Ukraine. The goal is to tear Ukraine away from Russia at any cost. The leaders of the Kiev regime are proteges, they are US puppets. They are guided by the ideology of bestial nationalism of the Nazi persuasion, nurtured by Ukrainians who fought on the side of Hitler. After 2014, they, not considering the norms of law and morality, destroyed and threw into prison a huge number of people who disagree with their course of intransigence with Russia. The population was intimidated by gangs of Nazi nationalists. The youth of Ukraine, among whom there are those who consider themselves Russian, have been brainwashed so that they have no doubt that their main enemy is Putin and Russia. Mass processions, marches are constantly arranged, shouting slogans: “Russians to knives, hang Russians, kill Russians!” Now the soldiers of the Kiev regime, the armed forces of Ukraine are deliberately installing heavy artillery in densely populated urban areas, often in schools, hospitals, public buildings, taking civilians hostage, preventing them from leaving the place of active hostilities, hiding behind civilians, including children, as a shield during the course of hostilities. At the same time, all their crimes are passed off as the crimes of the Russian military, who, on the contrary, are doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. The Kyiv regime and their patrons are criminals!
You are right. They are criminal barbarians and the U.S. is sending them weapons and the U.S. media is lying about them every day.
yes, and our war criminals in Washington Biden, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, and all the rest including congress are in bed with them.
Birds of a feather flock together.
This article seems to ignore that Russia invaded Ukraine and has been butchering, bombing and killing many thousands of Ukrainians. Collaboration with Russian forces or politicians or interests in this context is indeed treason, which is rightly punishable by death. This article and the few comments here before me show than an anti-American prejudice is at the root of these myopic ways of thinking.
Read some history: hxxps://blackagendareport.com/ukraine-crisis-cant-save-biden
“Anti-American”? Don’t you mean “anti-white”? (don’t bother answering if you haven’t read the above link.)
You need to read a paper or two about the Minsk agreements which were violated by the Ukrainian side, Mr. Zelensky in particular. He was elected on a promise to implement the Minsk agreements. Zelensky betrayed the electorate and sided with the self-proclaimed Nazis (Banderites). The followers of Bandera have been known since WWII as the most brutal torturers and barbaric murderers.
You need to take a look at the provided pictures before accusing decent people of anti-Americanism. It is Zelensky and his boss Kolomojsky who have been betraying democracy and promoting the Nazification of Ukraine. They are the enemy of freedom and democracy.
Before the Minsk Agreement came the Budapest Agreement, signed by Russia on December 5, 1994. Ukraine gives up its nuclear weapons, Russia promises to never attack Ukraine.
Your comment ignores the atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces as early as spring 2015 against the ethnically Russian Ukrainian citizens in the Donbass region. Ukrainian forces (Right Sector-affiliated nazis) have bragged about and made videos of torture as early as spring 2015 – the milder of which include chopping off the index fingers of those who resisted the unconstitutional NATO-backed coup in Donbass. Here is a link to one of these documented episodes – which even Right Sector acknowledges as authentic – scroll down for photos they are GRAPHIC: hxxps://ura.news/news/1052211014?ysclid=l287cs0isx
There is more, this is just a drop in the ocean (IGCP is a group investigating these atrocities committed before 2022). This is why SBU (Ukrainian KGB who control/protect Zelensky) wears SS Galicia patches openly – systematic cruelty to their opponents is ok with them because Ukraine is uber alles and those who resist are subhumans and cockroaches, they say it explicitly. Remember, they shot their own negotiator on March 5, 2022 whom they suspected of trying to reach peace with Russia. For Azov etc. Ukraine should be their ethno-space or uninhabitable. They are not looking for peace as in coexistence.
In term of international law there was no Russian invasion in Ukraine.
What we face here is not unprovoked Russian aggression but instead justified by international law intervention if we consider facts on the ground.
Russian intervention happened while 8 years old war on LDPR in Donbas already started to flare up. War did not start when Russians came in on February 24th but on February 18th when AFU began massive artillery attack on LDPR including crossing Donbas frontlines in few critical points which forced massive evacuation of about 100,000 people to Russia.
LDPR defended itself for almost a week before RF military intervened on LDPR side.
Factually there was no unprovoked attack by Russians on Ukraine. Ukraine as a country was not a primary target of this intervention. Security of threatened independent states of LDPR was the target as Putin stated on February 24, 2022.
It was February 18,, military escalation, increasing ten fold shelling of free Donbas territory by AFU, from 100 shells a day in January to up to 2000 a day after February 18, Such shelling constituted double the shelling rate of what was 2014 war worst day and likely (as found docs indicate) it was preparation for full invasion of free Donbas by 130,000 strong AFU already amassed at Donbas frontlines locked and loaded.
And on February 18 they attacked LDPR.
It is AFU escalation that directly started this chapter of long Donbas war.
Such unprovoked attack of AFU on LDPR territory was nothing but open declaration of war against LDPR after Minsk II was openly rejected by Zelensky who promised to take Donbas back with force if necessary in 2021.
Russia responded legally according to UN charter to fulfill its military obligations to LDPR ally under ongoing AFU attack. After that Russia informed UNSC as UN charter calls for, and opened up negotiations with Kiev to end hostilities as required by UN charter and international law. Kiev rejected Moscow peace proposals and cease fire and hence hostilities according to international law continue legally.
Unfortunately many People do not understand international law and that Attacking country that is attacking your ally is not only legal but it is a founding principle of NATO and US promise to defend Western Europe and was a legal foundation of US incursion/intervention in Iraq by US forces during operation “Desert a Storm” in 1991. I
US Intervention in Iraq required no UNSC resolution to support it and appropriate UNSC resolution correctly did not cover it.
So there was no aggression (no supreme war crime) or invasion in Ukraine but military intervention in order to fulfill a treaty obligation to defend LDPR from eight years of Ukrainian assaults. The military assaults, shelling and bombardment on Donetsk, Lugansk never stopped even today and local cease fire to stop shelling of these cities was rejected by Ukrainian military that continues senseless massacre of civilians in Donbas with no possible military purpose but terrorism against people. Ukrainians made no effort in reaching any cease fire on any front which is a violation of international law.
If you believe that Russians are butchering thousands of Ukrainians UN and Pentagon strongly disagree with you as they estimated so far only 1500 civilians (mostly because their were prohibited to evacuate from combat zones used as human shields by AFU and Azov ) and about 23,000 of Ukrainian soldiers were killed. All that while Pentagon insists that they do not see so far any signs of Russian troops committing genocide.
The retired US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter characterized Russian intervention as kid glove approach with unprecedented effort to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties unheard of in US military campaigns in the past, recently in Raqqa or Mosul.
But what do they know, you heard it on Radio Kiev and hence it must be true.
Not so fast. Recently on CNN unidentified US intelligence official said that “it is very hard to get clear military picture of this conflict as information we obtain from Kiev leadership is .. least to say, unreliable backed by no evidences..”and continued “it is because everything that coming out from Kiev in public or in classified form serves not to inform and asses but to conduct total psychological warfare against Russia. He added that most reliable information is from Americans on the ground in Ukraine meaning that many US mercenaries are not fighting Russians but in fact are US intelligence officers. That’s why panic and numerous failed attempts evacuated 400 foreigners holed up in Asovstal nuclear bunker.
It would desirable if emotionally moved by pain and suffering of war people like yourself stop believing in black or white and good or evil world that does not exists and look at hard facts within legal framework of war.
To intervene the self-defense article 51, or under Responsibility to Protect, or for any other reason reason requires a UN Security Council resolution, which Russia did not get as the US didn’t in Iraq, Kosovo and numerous other American interventions.
What extraordinarily dangerous times we’re currently living in with the Washington empire on a virtual weekly basis funneling massive amounts of armaments and military equipment to the Ukrainian forces and the far right Ukrainian Russophobic militias. The giant parasitic defense [sic] contractors are feeding at the public trough like never before in recent history.
To add to this perilous situation, we have the Western corporate-militarist media running an odious and relentless psy-op campaign against Putin and everything and anything Russian. One can do nothing but stand back in awe at this incessant vilification operation that is brainwashing most of the American people to view Moscow as a threat. Most disturbingly, these media lapdogs in New York and Washington are not questioning or giving anywhere near enough emphasis to this ugly and risky proxy war the Western powers are waging to the last Ukrainian, in fact, they’re essentially encouraging it.
It’s crucial to understand it’s not the Kremlin that wants to extend a Warsaw Pact type alliance to southern Canada or northern Mexico complete with nuclear weapons minutes away from major American cities, it’s the Washington imperialists – NATO – who insist on ostensibly this exact provocative move against the Russian people. With the militarist ruling class in the West presently courting Sweden and Finland to join NATO this all would’ve reached the point of comical absurdity if it weren’t putting the world on the brink of destruction.
One can only conclude that our war crazed lunatic elite who are fervently intent on preserving global supremacy and the quickly fading post-Cold War unipolar world order have calculated that Moscow will ultimately back down when things escalate to a showdown between two nuclear armed superpowers. This is a horrifying gamble no rational world should have to consider.
Thank you. You describe the situation very well. Unfortunately, far too many people in the U.S. believe every lie the mainstream corporate media puts out. Even people who should know better.
Drew I have a thought on this subject.
I read Pepe Escobar’s On the Dawn of a New Global Financial System, I still go back and check certain statements of revelation. Now I come to this piece by Max and Esha on Zelensky’s blood letting and the comments. See one CNfan’s comment 4-20-22 18:55 hers above.
Who is Zelenski working for? The author states the Zelensky has worked for war in spite of his stated premise of working for peace, or something similar, at this point who the hell knows.
Regardless the author then lays out who Zelensky seems to be working for and it makes perfect sense to me. At this point Zelenskly could be hopelessly screwed, death warrants out for him, likely contracts for his head on a plate what ever. But this is all about money, some refer to currency as “Power coupons “, I like it because this is exactly what I figure is going on. Sure appears so!
My take is this the gig is up for IMF and all that goes with it, but I doubt Zelensky sees it that way, poor guy.
You hit it on the nose our “war crazed lunatic elite ” , trigger in on hand an the religious book of choice in the other, you so beautifully describe have lost their the monopoly on the weaponization of money, i.e. credit and the good and bad that come with it.
The time lapse involved in the intricate machinations is the wheel house of groups like think tanks, the Council on foreign Affairs comes to mind and political organizations but the average person doesn’t seem to get it because it is not in the purview of things they feel is important in their life, time is not on their side. But ideologies and such, those think tank folks, well time is on their side it seems.
Pepe’s take on a new global financial system I feel is 100% on target. It’s coming like it or not. The US Deep State and the remainder of the international “Shadow Deep State” have themselves in such a convoluted mess they have no way out. Over extended to the max with no “good days ” in sight I figure those, the so called opposition , in the mood for a new game have an unique opportunity and for Zelensky there is only one way out. He has had to pick a side. I guess we will see how it works out for him.
So this nuclear war thing I figure will come to a head in the not so distant future and the bad guys might very well turn out to be the imperial religious zealots who might try to buy a key heaven by taking everyone else out.
I hope I’m wrong but I do not trust the guys at the top currently. I have no reason to.
It’s something to think about, other than the pornography of brutal death by war.
This all amounts to not much more than a Psy-Ops war on humanity by crazed super wealthy elitist who know they might be in very deep do-do should they loose control. So be it!
Thanks CN , I’ve come to be very fond of this hide-away I’ve found!
The U.S. corporate media dare not report these atrocities. It would destroy the establishment war narrative.
Typical murderous CIA installed puppet regime. The playbook never changes and the domestic audience falls for the same propaganda yet again. Why change what works every time? People never learn. May this be the empire’s last stand before it gets its comeuppance for humanity’s sake.
Hear, hear.
Necessary and disturbing article! First and foremost “man’s inhumanity to man” displayed, especially during war, which is obviously why we shouldn’t be treating war as a casual action, as too often occurs lately in this country (because it’s all happening ‘over there’, and we can just change the channel when the coverage gets tedious or boring, and see what those wacky Kardashians are up-to) and a substitute for diplomacy. Secondly, the frustration of knowing that my country, the US, is the primary instigator and enabler of virtually all of this horror in Ukraine (and many other countries throughout the world, notably South & Central America and the Middle East), a portion of my taxes are funding this crap, and with the MSM fully behind this, there’s virtually nothing significant I can do about it. Now Biden is sending another $800M of weapons to Ukraine — I can’t help but wonder how the US liberals would react if China, Russia, Iran, etc sent $800M to the radical Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol in DC on 1/6/21, under the guise of ‘supporting democratic efforts’??
It’s good to know that the shining city on the hill can show the rest of the world how civilized our city is…..
No different than the rest of the crooks! And if Zelensky believes all the military help Ukraine is getting is for free…he better think again. And don’t rely on the promised billions from the EU – all of Europe entering very stormy waters with huge financial losses for everyone. Too late now but…do business with the Yanx and you end up with burnt fingers.
“No different than the rest of the crooks! And if Zelensky believes all the military help..”
Perhaps Mr. Zelensky is not as naive as you are?
Perhaps he understands he will not grow old and consider what you deem to be of significance?
“do business with the Yanx and you end up with burnt fingers.”
Perhaps burnt fingers is not the most extreme option?
Going back to WW 2 – all the war equipment that the US loaned/rented to Russia…It wasn’t for free and Russia just finished paying this ‘rent’ some 4-5 years ago.
If in fact you are left with any fingers at all.
“If in fact you are left with any fingers at all.”
Perhaps that is immaterial if you are dead?
It would indeed be suitably ironic if the CIA decided that Zelensky had out-lived his usefulness and they could wring out one last contribution from him by making him a martyr
“It would indeed be suitably ironic”
and not unknown whilst preferance remains for a role in facilitation of the implementation by others, as in the case of
Mr. Bandera according to Mr. Sudoplatov (which may upset Banderistas in addition to Mr. Zelensky ordering the Azov brigade to never surrender)
or Mr. Diem
or Mr. Hammarskjold (presently being assigned to French intelligence – after an unaccountable silence for almost 60 years – for naughtiness in Tunisia when France had an Empire)
or Mr. Lumumba, etc, etc.