Historians will note the tremendous irony of the United States engaging in subversion and election meddling in Ukraine that surpasses anything attempted by Russia.
The ideological fissures that are growing in the United States are beginning to resemble the warring camps that characterize the Ukrainian political world. The divide in Ukraine pits groups who are described as "right wing" and many are ideological descendants of real Nazis and Nazi sympathizers against groups with a strong affinity to Russia. This kind of gap cannot be bridged through conventional negotiations.
Who is the United States government and media supporting? The Nazis. You think I'm joking. Here are the facts, but we must go back to World War II:
When World War II began a large part of western Ukraine welcomed the German soldiers as liberators from the recently enforced Soviet rule and openly collaborated with the Germans. IThe Soviet leader, Stalin, imposed policies that caused the deaths of almost 7 million Ukrainians in the 1930s--an era known as the Holomodor).
Ukrainian divisions, regiments and battalions were formed, such as SS Galizien, Nachtigal and Roland, and served under German leadership. In the first few weeks of the war, more than 80 thousand people from the Galizien region volunteered for the SS Galizien, which later known for its extreme cruelty towards Polish, Jewish and Russian people on the territory of Ukraine.
Members of these military groups came mostly from the organization of Ukrainian nationalists ka the OUN, which was founded in 1929. It’s leader was Stepan Bandera, known then and today for his extreme anti-semitic and anti-communist views.
CIA documents just recently declassified show strong ties between US intelligence and Ukrainian nationalists since 1946.
Jump ahead now to the February 2014 "uprising" of anti-Russian forces in the Ukraine (Maidan 2). The US was firmly on the side of the protesters, who ultimately succeeded in ousting the elected President. And who were helping lead this effort?
Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council is Andriy Parubiy. Parubiy was the founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a fascist party styled on Hitler’s Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.
The Social National Party would go on to become Svoboda, the far-right nationalist party whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok was one of the three most high profile leaders of the Euromaidan protests. . . .
Overseeing the armed forces alongside Parubiy as the Deputy Secretary of National Security is Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector – a group of hardline nationalist streetfighters, who previously boasted they were ready for armed struggle to free Ukraine.
The US support, both overt and covert, for Ukrainian politicians is grounded in an anti-Soviet (now anti-Russian) ideology. We have convinced ourselves that Russia is hell bent on world domination. Therefore we must do whatever is necessary to stop Russia, which includes uncritical, blind support for elements in Ukraine that also detest the Russians. But in doing so we have closed our eyes to the filthy underbelly of the virulent anti-Semitism that lurks in western Ukraine.
US meddling in the Ukraine is astonishing in its breadth. It ranges from the fact that the wife of former President Viktor Yuschenko was an American citizen and former senior official in the US State Department. Do you think there would be no complaints if Melania Trump was born in Russia and had served in the Russian Foreign Ministry? Yet, most Americans are happily ignorant of such facts.
But Viktor Yuschenko is not an American who speaks a foreign language. He is very much a Ukrainian nationalist and steeped in the anti-Semitism that dominates the ideology of western Ukraine. During the final months of his Presidency, Yuschenko made the following declaration:
In conclusion I would like to say something that is long awaited by the Ukrainian patriots for many years I have signed a decree for the unbroken spirit and standing for the idea of fighting for independent Ukraine. I declare Stepan Bandera a national hero of Ukraine.
Without hesitation or shame, Yuschenko endorsed the legacy of Bandera, who had happily aligned with the Nazis in pursuit of his own nationalist goals. Those goals, however, did not include Jews. And here is the ultimate irony--Bandera was born in Austria, not the Ukraine. So much for ideological consistency.
US interference was not confined to serendipitous relationships, such as the Yuschenko marriage. It also included the open and active funding of certain political groups and media outlets. The US State Department sent money through a variety of outlets. One of these was the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening aka CEPPS. This is:
a USAID program with other National Endowment for Democracy-affiliated groups: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. In 2010, the reported disbursement for CEPPS in Ukraine was nearly $5 million.
The program’s efforts are described on the USAID website as providing “training for political party activists and locally elected officials to improve communication with civic groups and citizens, and the development of NGO-led advocacy campaigns on electoral and political process issues.”
Anyone prepared to argue that it would be okay for Russia, through its Foreign Ministry, to contribute several million dollars for training party activists in the United States?
What we do not know is how much money was being spent on covert activities directed and managed by the CIA. During the political upheaval in April 2014 (Maidan 2), there was this news item:
Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan travelled to Kiev, nobody knows exactly why, but some speculate that he intends to open US intelligence resources to Ukrainian leaders about real-time Russian military maneuvers. The US has, thus far, refrained from sharing such knowledge because Moscow is believed to have penetrated much of Ukraine’s communications systems – and Washington isn’t about to hand over its surveillance secrets to the Russians.
Do you think Americans would be outraged if the head of Russia's version of the CIA, the SVR or FSB, traveled quietly to the United States to meet with Donald Trump prior to his election? I think that would qualify as meddling.
Count me as one of the people who is outraged by the hypocrisy and stupidity now on display in the United States. I am not talking about Trump. I am referring to the Republicans and Democrats and pundits and media mouthpieces who are fuming about Russian citizens writing on Facebook as one of the worst catastrophies since Pearl Harbor or 9-11.
There clearly is meddling going on in America's political landscape. But it ain't the Russian Government. No. There are foreign and domestic forces aligned who are keen on portraying Russia as a threat to world order that must be opposed by more defense spending and tougher sanctions. That is the propaganda that dominates the media in the United States these days. And that is truly dangerous to our nation's safety and freedom.
good points well made.
On the twitters, you would be accused of "whatabouttism" - which isthe crime of excusing Putin's diabolism by pointing out American interference with the internal politics an elections of other nations. A CIA guy reently said the US only interferes to 'promote democracy' - tell that to Australia, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Congo, Russia, Ukraine...it's a long long list.
An independent Ukraine was also a project of German foreign policy after the Brest-Litowsk Treaty (the equivalent of the Versailles Treaty, only aimed at Russia) SO I have o wonder how much of the enthusiasm for Vicky Nuland's Israel friendly Nazi state-let (oh what irony!) is a product of Germany wanting to reassert itself in the east, using NATO solidarity as a fig leaf. Maybe they will make Ukraine import a lot o Africans "refugees" so that Soros' project of creating a brown Europe will be advanced in the slavic sphere as well as the west.
Posted by: Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg | 23 February 2018 at 02:29 PM
It's not only the US. The EU borg are also meddling.
In my country we had a referendum about Ukraine. The population voted "Against" on the question: "Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union_Association_Agreement_referendum,_2016
This was the only referendum that was done since it was implemented in 2015. A second one is being organized on the Intelligence and Security Services which has controversial parts with regard to access to internet traffic.
This referendum will take place on March 21, 2018 and will probably be voted against because of the controversial elements (in part because there is still living memory of our Eastern neighbours in the second world war)
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_op_de_inlichtingen-_en_veiligheidsdiensten_2017
These 2 will probably be the last. Our house of representatives have voted yesterday to end the referendum law (with a majority vote of 76 out of 150 representatives!)
So much for democracy. The reason stated that the referendum was controversial (probably because they voted against the EU borg). Interesting is that the proposal was done by the party that wanted the referendum as a principal point. This will almost certainly ensure that the little respect left for traditional parties is gone and they will not be able to get a majority next elections.
The liberal party - who provides the prime-minister - EU leader Hans van Baalen and Belgian ex-prime minister Guy Verhostad held a controversial speech on the Maidan square in support of the protesters that the EU will support them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIL1FWCIlu8
Posted by: Adrestia | 23 February 2018 at 02:39 PM
I wouldn´t put to much stress on Bandera having been a bad guy. His enemies were no better. They just won the war and the victors write history. The deeper problem of Ukraine is the fact that in the East of the country (and maybe even the majority of the country) Bandera is indeed regarded as a villain. But in the West he is a hero to this day. Even in Soviet times people from Western Ukraine were regarded as "fascists" by much of the rest of the country. No wonder as there were anti soviet partisans until late in the fifties.
Even in the nineties anybody who travelled in Ukraine could feel the tension between East and West. The Russians were certainly aware of it and mindful not to rip the country apart they cut the Ukrainians an enormous amount of slack. Of course they supported "their" candidates and shoveled money into their insatiable throats. Only to be disappointed time and again. "Prorussian" Kutshma turned into a Ukrainian "patriot" (such is the logic of statehood) and the same thing happened with Yanukovich. People forget that he would have signed an association agreement with Europe had Europe not refused because he was insufficiently "democratic". Really the West should have been content with things as they were. But the West wanted it all. They wanted Ukraine firmly in the "Western" camp. Thereby they ripped the country apart. As a good friend of mine who has studied in Kiev in Soviet times remarked: to ask Ukraine to choose between East and West is like asking a child in divorce proceedings who it liked more: daddy or mummy?
Really the West (not only the US -the Eu is also guilty) is to blame. It is long past time to get down from the high horse and stop spreading chaos and mayhem in the name of democracy,
Posted by: Tom | 23 February 2018 at 03:22 PM
Publius,
An informative column.
The coup & later developments soured me on the MSMedia. I'm an initiate into modern Russian history: NATO in the Ukraine = WW3!
Some additional history:
A Ukrainian nation did not exist until after WW1; one piece was Russian, another Polish and another Austrian. The Holodomor is exaggerated for political purposes; the actual number dead from famine appears to be 'only' 2M. It wasn't Soviet bloody mindedness, it was Soviet agricultural mismanagement; collectivizing agriculture drops production. They did this right before the great drought of the 1930s - remember the dustbowl. There was a famine in Kazakestan at the same time; 1.5M died. The Nazis raised 5 SS divisions out of the Ukraine. As the Germans were pushed back they ran night drops of ordnance into the Ukraine as long as they could. The Soviets had to carry on divisional level counter insurgency until 1956. After the war, Gehlen, Nazi intelligence czar, kept himself out of jail by turning over his files, routes & agents to the US. He also stoked anti Soviet paranoia. The Brits ended up with a whole Ukr SS division that they didn't want, so they gave it to Canada. Which is why Canada has such cranky policy around the Ukraine!
Posted by: Jony Kanuck | 23 February 2018 at 03:27 PM
A very interesting conversation between Victoria Nulland and ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, caught at picking the future rulers of liberated Ukraine :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxZ8t3V_bk
This is not meddling. This is a defensive (preemptive?) action against Russian agression.
Posted by: bluetonga | 23 February 2018 at 03:28 PM
Tom,
I'm sure you'd like us to ignore Bandera. I bet he liked children and dogs. Just like Hitler. Bandera was a genuine bad guy. There is no rehabilitating that scourge on society. Nice try though.
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 23 February 2018 at 03:31 PM
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that your final comment is sarcasm. When you have two senior US Government officials who will and will not constitute a foreign government, you have gone beyond meddling. It is worse.
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 23 February 2018 at 03:36 PM
PT
The media is hysterical. Today, Putin’s Facebook Bot Collaborator contacted the Kremlin before his mercenaries attacked Americans in Syria. I've never seen such an intense barrage of propaganda before in my life. America is fracturing apart like Ukraine. This is no coincidence. In both countries, oligarchs have seized power, the rule of law abandoned and there is a rush of corruption. A World War is near. The realists are gone. The Moguls are pushing Donald Trump pull the trigger. Either in Syria with an assault to destroy Hezbollah (Iran) for good or American trainers going over the top of trenches in Donbass in a centennial attack of the dead.
Posted by: VietnamVet | 23 February 2018 at 03:57 PM
Publius Tacitus,
Hallelujah and jubilation! We're in full agreement on this subject. What we did to Ukraine is shameful in every way. A remember a video of a pallet of money being unloaded from a USG place at Kiev during Maidan 2. That's in addition to Nuland's bag of cookies. I always thought that one of the objectives of our meddling in Ukraine was to make Sevastopol into a NATO naval base. I would definitely want to see a full account of what support we provided to the nazi thugs of Svoboda and Pravy Sektor. We have a long history of meddling, at least twice as long as the Soviet Union/Russia. But that does not mean we should stop investigating the Russian interference in our 2016 election. Just stop hyperventilating over it. It no more deserves risking a war than our continuing mutual espionage.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 23 February 2018 at 03:59 PM
Our leaders are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. The Ukraine was almost evenly divided between pro-Western and pro-Russian sides. Our government, rather than waiting for an election, assisted an armed rebellion against the electrd pro-Russian government. Among the groups our government allied with in this endevor were out and out Nazis.
As a result of this rebellion, the Russian majority in Crimea overwhelming voted to leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, which they had been part of for over 150-years. While our government continues to provide military aid to Israel, which used force of arms take over the West Bank, it imposed sanctions against Russia when the people of Crimea voted to join their formet countrymen. Mind boggling.
Posted by: TimmyB | 23 February 2018 at 04:08 PM
This issue goes beyond double standards. The same kind of divisions that led to the Maidan coup in Ukraine are being used to promote similar levels of discord in the US.
In Ukraine, the protests which culminated into the civil war were initially fueled by media sensationalizing, and by activists protesting, police misconduct.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/02/ukraine-rape-police/2482593/
If this sounds familiar, it should. The circumstances above were somewhat similar to the protests that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri which gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and which inspired George Soros to donate funds in excess of $30 million to a variety of groups that either partook in the protests or emerged out of the protests.
How a death in Ferguson sparked a movement in America
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-black-lives-matter-movement-changed-america-one-year-later/
George Soros funds Ferguson protests, hopes to spur civil action
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/14/george-soros-funds-ferguson-protests-hopes-to-spur/
Posted by: Greco | 23 February 2018 at 04:26 PM
The real issue is not just what happened between 2014 and now. The real issue is what's happening now.
Trump has reneged on his campaign platform to not send lethal aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine is ramping up for another full-scale war in the east.
The Minsk 2.0 agreements are dead in the water.
Ukraine's economy continues to tank, with almost no assistance coming from the IMF.
I'll reiterate what I recommended before: Putin should invade Ukraine, wipe out the neo-Nazi battalions, disarm the Ukraine military, execute the oligarchs, install a puppet regime which will implement the Minsk accords - and then immediately go home.
Neither the US nor NATO could do anything about it except bitch and whine because it would be over in a week.
Posted by: Richardstevenhack | 23 February 2018 at 05:07 PM
I'll reiterate what I recommended before: Putin should invade Ukraine, wipe out the neo-Nazi battalions, disarm the Ukraine military, execute the oligarchs, install a puppet regime which will implement the Minsk accords - and then immediately go home.
Absolute, 146% NO! This is not how it works, plus, Ukrainian political nation did actualize itself. Donbas is already not Ukraine but Russia under NO conditions should shed a drop of Russian blood, nor clear the mess both the West and Ukraine created. Why should Russia, as an example, take large numbers of hostile population on the balance. EU, especially France and Germany are culpable in this chaos--let them pay for it and deal with it. The real "fun" only begins now.
Posted by: SmoothieX12 | 23 February 2018 at 05:29 PM
Ah, so much more that you didn't know about our s0-called 'allies', I'll wager. It would stand the hairs on your neck too, I'll wager.
Posted by: reality check | 23 February 2018 at 05:35 PM
...well the, by the same toke, Crimea was a defensive (preemptive) action against NATO evicting Russia from its naval base. See how that works?
Posted by: reality check | 23 February 2018 at 05:37 PM
I'm very glad to see this articulate and informed post. There's a mind boggling bambozzle going on that is most mind boogling in that it's effective at all.
I'm going to stop being nice to people blathering on about Russian aggression, meddling, influence peddling and all. I suspect much of it comes to personal grievance 'cause Putin's better endowed in every way than Barak and Hillary combined. The narcissistic froth calling itself Democratic leadership is bat shit crazy to the core.
Posted by: Covergirl | 23 February 2018 at 06:04 PM
Speaking of Nazis, Putin annexed invaded and annexed Crimea.
Nazis did the same thing to independent countries in WW II.
The author's affinity for this evil dictator is misplaced and puzzling.
Posted by: Dave | 23 February 2018 at 06:14 PM
It was sarcasm of course. My apology. I think this intercepted conversation is one of the most outrageous public evidence of foreign meddling ever. Here in Europe, the press focussed on one of Nulland's reply: F**k Europe. It conveniently ignored or at least understated the implications of the whole dialog. As it remains largerly silent about the confessions of putative maidan snipers who declare having received orders to shoot people from both sides (police and demonstrators).
http://theduran.com/shocking-new-evidence-maidan-snipers-confess-under-orders-coup-leaders-to-shoot-police-protesters/
I do not suggest that these confessions should be taken at face value just as they are. Yet, it seems to me they deserve at least some attention and further investigation. But doing so would definitely taint the narrative of a genuine spontaneous popular revolution and open the door to much speculation about the engineers behind the coup.
Posted by: bluetonga | 23 February 2018 at 06:33 PM
What can I say? Great minds think alike. So, you are less Twisted and more Genius. Right?
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 23 February 2018 at 06:45 PM
Dave,
You don't know history. The people who flooded the streets in Crimea wanted the Russians and feared the Nazi backed Ukrainians. You may not like that fact but it is a fact. Now, if you want to argue that the Russians sent in outside organizers to encourage the folks in Crimea to go out and protest against Ukraine, I do think that likely occurred.
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 23 February 2018 at 06:47 PM
Greco,
Very spot on.
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 23 February 2018 at 06:49 PM
Tyahnibok, Parubiy, Yarosh - funny guys.
Tyahnibok the smart and sophisticated doctor led the repainted SNPU to unprecedented political power - the first Maidanaut cabinet was stacked with Svoboda party men (Defence, education, agriculture, prosecutor's office). Then the Crimea operation kicked off and Tyahnibok's man in the defence ministry was out on his backside. One by one the Svoboda's party's people were shunted aside in favour of Yushchenko-era politicians, and now Tyahnibok's almost back where he started.
Parubiy meanwhile used the 2004 Maidan to ingratiate himself with Yushchenko's 'Our Ukraine' party, and when Our Ukraine's fortunes collapsed he shifted to the Fatherland party of Timoshenko. From there, Maidan commandant to National Security Council secretary to Speaker of Parliament, a job where he now hobnobs with Prime Ministers, foreign ministers and the like. Not a bad career for a man with a diagnosed mental handicap (if the leaked medical report is to be believed).
And Yarosh... if Parubiy is afflicted with aphasia Dmitry Yarosh is a bona fide imbecile - he has the mind of a child, and not a clever child either. Rather one whose breath reeks of crayons all the time and isn't allowed to play with scissors unsupervised. Ended up being deposed from his own organisation for being completely bloody useless.
All of which is to say that these characters are symptoms, not the disease itself. The Ukrainian elite is fully sympathetic to their ideas and has been since 2000 or so.
Posted by: Pavlo | 23 February 2018 at 07:43 PM
I was in Ukraine a couple of years before Maidan2. I travelled to Kiev, Odessa, and Lviv and talked to a fair number of Ukrainians. I wanted to understand the "orange vs blue" thing. My impression was that 25% of the country (in the west) hated the Russians, 40% loved the Russians, and the rest just wanted a decent life and wanted good relations with both East and West.
When I first reached Kiev the orange were in Maidan square. I turned on my TV and watched CNN and BBC give them constant coverage for two days straight. I like to hear both sides, so I looked for coverage on the Russians stations (I don't speak Russian but one can learn a lot from body language etc) - and there was none at all. I was flabergasted. I went to Warsaw and came back a couple of weeks later. Now the blues were in Maidan square, and the Russian TV was covering it non-stop. I flipped to CNN and BBC only to find - zero coverage. Zero. This was a big learning experience for me.
I left via a Kiev to Moscow overnight train. I found myself talking to a very likeable and intelligent Ukrainian from Western Ukraine. He spoke perfect English, had gone to George Brown College here in Toronto, and was the kind of Ukrainian we westerners get along very well with. I asked him about the "orange vs blue" thing and he gave me some complicated answer that I didn't understand. Then, to my surprise, he asked me "what do you think"? I said "I don't know - but to me it looks like a chessboard with Russia on one side and the US on the other".
He immediately became very animated and said "Yes! Yes!! That is exactly what we Ukrainians think. Ukraine is a chessboard, and we are the pawns."
Posted by: JamesT | 23 February 2018 at 08:02 PM
PT,
Don't forget Operation Paper Clip that infested our government to the hip, pairing U.S. Intelligence, State, and Science/University programs to the scurried out Nazis intelligence, political, and science apparatchiks whom our government thought would benefit the U.S. in negating the Former Soviet Union in a variety of fields.
We are still suffering the after effects of Paper Clip today.
Posted by: J | 23 February 2018 at 09:10 PM
Adrestia
Thank you for providing us insight into current Dutch politics and how little the major Dutch political parties trust democracy.
Yes, it seems that during the march to further "integration" that the EU apparatchiks have pushed so hard, whenever it was put to the people it was rejected many times. In each of those cases the commissars decided to ignore the vote or make the people vote again to achieve their desired result.
I am interested in the Italian elections but there is so little coverage of it here in the US. Nor is there coverage of the changes taking place in Hungary & Poland. And of course how far the center-left SPD has sunk in recent German polls, with the Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration, AfD continuing to gain support.
My sense is that beneath the surface there is a lot of political tension in Europe, that demagogues from all sides of the political spectrum will potentially exploit and exacerbate the divisions further.
Posted by: blue peacock | 23 February 2018 at 09:18 PM