by Dmitry Orlov
Club Orlov (March 05 2014)
This is a guest post by Renee Parsons, who did a very good job of pulling
together the facts. Facts are important, you know, especially in light of the
rabidly anti-Russian press coverage in the US.
Wednesday updates:
* According to a leaked EU’s Ashton phone tape, the Kiev snipers, who shot both
protesters and police, were hired by Ukrainian opposition leaders, did not work
for overthrown Yanukovych
* It turns out that Russia has a legal right to maintain a military force of up
to 25 thousand troops in Crimea in accordance with an agreement signed by
Russia and Ukraine in 1997, which will remain in effect until 2043. Current
Russian troop strength in Crimea is well under the legal limit. The troops are
there to safeguard Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
* John Kerry has pledged $1 billion in aid to Ukraine. Ukraine’s natural gas
bill to Russia is going to be $2 billion.
*****
Listening to the US media, even the most diligent news junkie would find it difficult
to know that the US State Department played not only a vital role in the
violence and chaos underway in Ukraine but was also complicit in creating the
coup that ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanuyovch. Given the
Russian Parliament’s approval of Putin’s request for military troops to be
moved into Crimea, Americans uninformed about the history of that region might
also be persuaded that Russia is the aggressor and the sole perpetrator of the
violence.
Let’s be clear about what is at stake here: NATO missiles on the adjacent
Ukraine border aimed directly at Russia would make that country extremely
vulnerable to Western goals and destabilization efforts while threatening
Russia’s only water access to its naval fleet in Crimean peninsula, the
Balkans, the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East – and not the least of which
would allow world economic dominance by the US, the European Union, the IMF,
World Bank and international financiers all of whom had already brought
staggering suffering to millions around the globe.
The fact is that democracy was not a demand on the streets of Kiev. The current
record of events indicates that protests of civil dissatisfaction were
organized by reactionary neo-Nazi forces intent on fomenting a major domestic
crisis ousting Ukraine’s legitimate government. As events continue to spiral
out of control, here is the chronology of how the coup was engineered to
install a government more favorable to EU and US goals.
April 11 2011: A Kiev Post article entitled “Ukraine Hopes to Get $1.5
Billion from IMF in June” states that the loan is dependent on pension
cuts while “maintaining cooperation with the IMF, since it influences the
country’s interaction with other international financial institutions and
private investors” and further that the “attraction of $850 million
from the World Bank in 2011, depended on cooperation with the IMF”. Well,
that about says it all: if Ukraine played ball, then the loan money would pour
in.
November 21 2013: Fast forward to the EU summit in Lithuania when President
Yanuyovch embarrassed the European Union by rejecting its agreement in favor of
joining Russia’s Common Union with other Commonwealth Independent States.
November 27 2013: It was not until February 23 2014 when anonymous Ukraine
hackers released a series of emails from a Lithuanian government advisor to
opposition leader and former boxer Vitaly Klitschko regarding plans to
destabilize Ukraine; for example:
“Our American friends promise to pay a visit in the coming days, we may
even see Nuland or someone from the Congress”. (December 07 2013)
“Your colleague has arrived … his services may be required even after
the country is destabilized”. (December 14 2013)
“I think we’ve paved the way for more radical escalation of the situation.
Isn’t it time to proceed with more decisive action?” (January 09 2014)
November 29 2013: Well-orchestrated protestors were already in the streets of
Kiev as European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso announced that the EU
would “not accept Russia’s veto” of the agreement.
December 13 2013: As if intent on providing incontrovertible evidence of US
involvement in Ukraine, Assistant US Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia
Victoria Nuland proudly told a meeting of the International Business Conference
sponsored by the US-Ukrainian Foundation that the US had ‘invested’ more than
$5 billion and “five years worth of work and preparation” in
achieving what she called Ukraine’s “European aspirations”. Having
just returned from her third trip to Ukraine in five weeks, Nuland boasted of
her “coordinated high level diplomacy” and a more than two hour
“tough conversation” with Yanukovych. Already familiar with Nuland as
former Secretary Clinton’s spokesperson at State, one can imagine her discourteous
tone and manner when she says she made it “absolutely clear” to
Yanukovych that the US required “immediate steps” … to “get
back into conversation with Europe and the IMF”. W hile Western media have
portrayed Yanukovych as a “weak” leader, Nuland’s description of a “tough” meeting can only mean that he resisted her threats and
intimidations. In what must have been a touching moment, Nuland spoke about a
show of force by government police on demonstrators who “sang hymns and
prayed for peace”.
What Nuland did not reveal on December 13 was that her meetings with “key
Ukrainian stakeholders” included neo-Nazi Svoboda party leader Oleh
Tyahnybok and prime minister wannabe Arsenly Yatsenyuk of the Fatherland Party.
At about the same time Nuland was wooing fascist extremists, Senator John
McCain (Republican, Arizona) and Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat, Connecticut)
shared the stage in Kiev with Tyahnybok offering their support and opposition
to the sitting government. The Svoboda party which has roots with extreme
vigilante and antisemitic groups has since received at least three high level
cabinet posts in the interim government including deputy prime minister. There
is no doubt that the progenies of west Ukraine’s historic neo-fascist thugs
that fought alongside Hitler are now aligned with the US as represented by
Victoria Nuland.
January 24 2014: President Yanukoyvch identified foreign elements participating
in Kiev protests warning that armed radicals were a danger to peaceful
citizens. Independent news agencies also reported that “not all of Kiev’s
population backs opposition rule, which depends mainly on a group from the
former Polish town of Lvov, which holds sway over Kiev downtown – but not the
rest of the city”.
January 30 2014: The State Department’s website Media Note announced Nuland’s
upcoming travel plans that “In Kyiv, Assistant Secretary Nuland will meet
with government officials, opposition leaders, civil society and business
leaders to encourage agreement on a new government and plan of action”. In
other words, almost a month before President Yanukovych was ousted, the US was
planning to rid the world of another independently elected President.
February 04 2014: More evidence of Ms Nuland’s meddling with extremist factions
and the high level stakes of war and peace occurred in her taped conversation
with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt discussing their calculations of
who’s in and who’s out to replace Yanukovych. Note mention of Nazi leader Oleh
Tyahnybok. Here are some selected excerpts:
Nuland: “What do you think?”
Pyatt: “I think we’re in play … the [Vitali] Klitsch piece is obviously
the complicated electron here especially the announcement of him as deputy
prime minister. Your argument to him which you’ll need to make, I think the
next phone call we want to set up is exactly the one you made to Yats
[Yatsenyuk]. And I’m glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in
this scenario and I’m very glad he said what he said in response.”
Nuland: “I don’t think Klitsch should go into government. I don’t think
it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Pyatt: “yeah … I mean I guess. You think … what … in terms of him
not going into the government, just let him sort of stay out and do his
political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking in terms of the process moving
ahead, we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to
be Tyahnybok and his guys. I’m sure that’s what Yanukoyvch is calculating on
all this.”
Nuland: “I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the
governing experience. What he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside and
he needs to be talking to them four times a week you know … I think with
Klitsch going in at that level working for Yats, it’s not going to work.”
Nuland: “My understanding is that the big three [Yatsenyuk, Klitsch and
Tyahnybok] were going in to their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer
in that context a three plus one conversation with you”.
Pyatt: “That’s what he proposed but knowing the dynamic that’s been with
them where Klitsch has been top dog; he’s going to take a while to show up at a
meeting, he’s probably talking to his guys at this point so I think you
reaching out to him will help with the personality management among the three
and gives us a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it
before they all sit down and he explains why he doesn’t like it”.
Nuland: “… when I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning, he had a new name
for the UN guy … Robert Serry – he’s now gotten both Serry and Ban ki Moon to
agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday … so that would be great I
think to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it and you know fuck
the EU”.
Pyatt: “Exactly. I think we’ve got to do something to make it stick
together because you can be pretty sure the Russians will be working behind the
scenes … Let me work on Klitchko and I think we want to get somebody with an
international personality to come out here and help midwife this thing”.
Nuland: “… Sullivan’s come back to me saying you need Biden and I said
probably tomorrow for an ‘atta’ boy’ and get the deeds to stick so Biden’s
willing”.
February 20 2014: Foreign ministers from Poland, Germany and France visiting
Kiev secured President Yanukovych’s agreement that would commit the government
to an interim administration, constitutional reform and new parliamentary and
presidential elections. With “no clear sign that EU or US pressure has
achieved” the desired effect, opposition leaders rejected Yanukovych’s
compromise which would have ended the three month stand-off. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov called on the German, French and Polish foreign
ministers to step in and take responsibility for upholding the deal they helped
forge and not let “armed extremists” directly threaten Ukrainian
sovereignty.
February 21 2014: At a special summit in Brussels, European foreign ministers
agreed to adopt sanctions on Ukraine including visa bans and asset freezes. The
EU decision followed “immense pressure from the US for the European powers
to take punitive action against the Ukrainian regime”. Washington had
already imposed travel bans on twenty leading Ukrainians.
February 22 2014: An hour after refusing to resign, the Ukrainian Parliament
voted, according to Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an unconstitutional
action to oust President Yanukovych and that pro-EU forces staged a ‘coup’.
Yanukovych departed Kiev in fear for his life.
March 01 2014: During a conversation initiated by the vice president, Biden
delivered his ‘atta boy’ with a phone call to newly installed prime minister
Arseniy Yatsenyuk reaffirming US support for Ukraine’s “territorial
integrity”.
All of the above machinations expose an incoherent and corrupt American foreign
policy with a litany of US hypocrisy that might be hilarious if not for its
potentially grave global implications. The comment “you just don’t behave
by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext” might just
win Secretary of State John Kerry the Hypocrisy of the Year Award. Kerry, of
course, famously supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq seeking nonexistent
weapons of mass destruction.
But then again, the President’s own comments that “… countries have deep
concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling …” and that
“… as long as none of us are inside Ukraine trying to meddle and
intervene … with decisions that properly belong to Ukrainian people …”
while announcing $1 billion aid package to Ukraine (but not Detroit) would be a
close runner-up for the Award.
Links:
The original version of this article, at the URL below, contains numerous links
to further information not included here.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.jp/2014/03/chronology-of-ukrainian-coup.html
TRUTH TIME 
Leave a comment