By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 11/20/22

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Sweden’s parliament adopted a major espionage law expansion that will permit the country’s police to investigate journalists, publishers, and whistleblowers if they reveal secret information that “may damage Sweden’s relationship with another state or an international organization.”

Journalists, publishers, or whistleblowers found guilty of revealing such “damaging” information could be sentenced to up to four years in prison under the new law.

The expansion was aimed at ensuring the Swedish government has even more control over what the public learns about the country’s cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and the United Nations.

Specifically, the measure may help authorities ensure information about the war in Ukraine remains concealed and does not contribute to fatigue that has spread among the public. The measure also may reassure the United States military and security agencies that Sweden can be trusted as an ally to clamp down on leaks if information from their close partnership is exposed to scrutiny.

Two votes were required by the parliament to pass the measure, which was widely condemned by media organizations and press freedom groups in Sweden. The first vote occurred on April 16, 2022, and then after a parliamentary election, a second vote was held on November 16.

While the Left Party and Green Party recommended the second vote be delayed to next year, the right-wing Swedish Democrats, the Center Party, the Moderate Party, and the Liberal Party all believed that the bill granting the Swedish Security Agency more investigatory power was necessary.

As the Journalists Association in Sweden described, beginning on January 1, “Anyone who promotes, leaves or discloses information that is covered by the provision on foreign espionage can also be sentenced for unauthorized position with secret information. This means that the situations in which a journalist can be sentenced are expanded.”

“The provision on foreign espionage includes ‘secret information that occurs within the framework of a collaboration with another state or an international organization or in an international organization of which Sweden is a member.’ It is therefore not about all information about other states, but the decisive factor is whether they appear within the framework of a collaboration in which Sweden is included.”

Nils Funcke, a press freedom expert in Sweden, acknowledged that the measure has a small safety valve for media organizations. If publication was “justifiable,” outlets could escape penalties under the law. But Funcke noted that what is “justifiable” is up to the courts, which undoubtedly will be more inclined to see cases from the nationalistic perspective of security agents defending their prosecutions.

Officials, security agents, or military officers from outside Sweden, particularly the United States, could feasibly invoke the measure and pressure the Swedish government to bring a prosecution.

Consider this example from 2013: Sveriges Television (Swedish public TV) published details from documents disclosed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that showed Sweden was a “key partner” in helping the US spy on Russia.

Revelations about the close relationship came from a document dated April 18, 2013, which indicated that “Sweden’s National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) had “provided NSA…a unique collection on high-priority Russian targets, such as leadership, internal politics.”

Under the expanded law, quoting a secret US document—as Swedish public TV did—could be construed by authorities as damaging to Sweden’s relationship with the US or the country’s standing in NATO, especially as it relates to the government’s ability to covertly pursue objectives viewed as critical to fighting Russia in Ukraine.

If one goes back to 2005, such a law would have hampered the Swedish media’s ability to expose the role of their government in the CIA’s rendition and torture of detainees in the “Global War on Terrorism.”

Johanne Hildebrandt, a Swedish war correspondent, warned, “The change could make war reporting from the field impossible. If I’m following Swedish troops and see the USA bombing a village so that civilians die, my reporting could be criminalized because it damages Sweden’s relations with the USA.”

“It’s hard enough to report from war zones. The law would lead to decreased insight. Who decides what could damage Sweden’s relationships? Officers and soldiers will say no to journalists out of the fear of making a mistake,” Hildebrandt added.

Swedish security agents are given more authority to launch raids against media outlets and seize electronic devices for the purpose of identifying sources that provided information to journalists.

In 2016, United Nations whistleblower Anders Kompass exposed child sex abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. He condemned the UN for failing to hold anyone accountable and for retaliating at him.

“The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations. This makes it impossible for me to continue working there,” Kompass declared.

Advocates believe if Kompass, who is from Sweden, had come forward after the law was expanded he would have faced legal jeopardy. His resignation and comments dealt a blow to the image of the UN in Sweden, and as the law states, anyone who releases information that may “damage” Sweden’s relationship with an international organization could be targeted.

Arne Ruth Sigyn Meder, an advocate with the Julian Assange Support Committee in Sweden, highlighted the prosecution of Assange by the United States. His journalism exposed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet he is being targeted by the US Espionage Act.

“Foreign and Swedish media, including SVT and Dagens Nyheter, published the information from Wikileaks, but have later largely remained silent about the gross legal abuses he was subjected to, which have been extensively documented by Nils Melzer, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” according to Meder.

Publishing secret information like WikiLeaks did is the type of journalistic activity criminalized by Sweden through this law.

In fact, US Justice Department prosecutors have used the US Espionage Act to criminalize the disclosure of information that could cause “damage” to the US government’s relationship with another state or an international organization.” Even though the US military and government lacked clear evidence of damage, they charged Chelsea Manning, and now Assange, with Espionage Act offenses for releasing the US State Embassy cables.

Sweden’s expanded espionage law may not entirely discourage Swedish media from reporting on Swedish military and security operations, including the close relationship that Sweden has with the United States. Journalists, editors, and media producers could still publish secret information that furthers the agenda of the US, NATO, the EU, and the UN.

However, those in the press who act independently and dare to scrutinize the shared goals and objectives of Western security partnerships or military alliances would be vulnerable to repression—and that is the intention.

The expansion of security agency power is intended to make individuals, who are not blindly supportive of the US and NATO, think twice about exposing any alleged abuses, corruption, recklessness, or wrongdoing that would lead one to reconsider their support.

By Gordon Hahn, Russian and Eurasian Politics Blog, 11/22/22

The only way Ukrainians will see anything approximating a holiday season is if a ceasefire can be arranged by New Year’s Day, and it just might happen, regardless of President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s repeated assertions that there will be no negotiations with Russia until it withdraws all its troops from all occupied territories, including Crimea. There are several reasons for the possible ceasefire.

First, the Russian hammer is about to fall on Ukraine. The gloves are coming off; electric energy stations, bridges, and even ‘decision centers’ such as central Kiev’s government buildings are being targeted. Russia is one or two more massive bombing attacks on Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure from permanently disabling Ukraine’s electricity, water, and railroad systems. With ‘only’ 50 percent of Ukrainian electricity infrastructure knocked out by the first three widespread bombings of electricity grid components, demonstrations are already breaking out in Odessa and other places over the deteriorating humanitarian situation, with Zelenskiy sending the Ukrainian KGB, the SBU, in to break up the protests and banning coverage in the media. The Office of the President was reportedly recently informed by technicians that the electricity system has entered the stage of ‘arbitrary and uncontrolled imbalance,” and one official has urged Ukrainians to be prepared to leave the country in winter. What will the sociopolitical situation be like when these critical infrastructures are in complete collapse and temperatures are 20 degrees colder? Russia will be moving closer to the strategy of ‘shock and awe’, fully destroying all infrastructure – military or otherwise – as the US did in Serbia and Iraq and will likely take less care now to avoid civilian casualties.

After the infrastructures are completely destroyed or incapacitated, Russia’s reinforcements of 380,000 regular and newly mobilized troops will have been fully added into Russia’s forces across southeastern Ukraine. Even without these reinforcements, Russian forces continue to make small gains in Donbass around Ugledar, Bakhmut (Artemevsk), as withdrawals from and stabilization of the fronts in Kharkiv and Kherson have led to a redeployment and thus concentration of forces in Zaporozhe, Donetsk, and Luhansk. A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make substantial gains on those three fronts and multiply Ukrainian losses in personnel and materiel`, which are already high. This could lead easily to a collapse of Ukrainian forces on one or more front. 

Second, the West is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. NATO countries’ arms supplies have been depleted beyond what is tolerable, and social cohesion is collapsing in the face of double-digit inflation and economic recession. All this makes Russia the winner on the strategic level and is forcing Washington and Brussels to seek at least a breathing spell by way of a ceasefire. This is evidenced by the plethora of Western leaders calling on Zelenskiy to resume talks with Putin and the emergence of the ‘Sullivan plan’. Most recently, rumors have it that new British PM Rishi Sunak used a package of military and financial aid he announced during his recent trip to Kiev to cover up his message to Zelenskiy that London could no longer bear the burden of leading the European support for Kiev and that Kiev should reengage with Moscow.

Third, Ukraine’s greatest political asset – Zelenskiy himself – just got devalued, putting at even greater risk Ukraine’s political stability. The Ukrainian air defense strike on Poland (accidental or intentional) and the Ukrainian president’s insistence that it was a Russian air strike, despite the evidence and nearly unanimous opposing opinion among his Western backers, has hit Zelenskiy’s credibility hard. Zelenskiy’s insistence on the Russian origins of the missile and technical aspects of Ukrainian air defense suggests that the event may have been an intentional Ukrainian false flag strike on Polish/NATO territory designed to provoke NATO or Poland into entering the war. Some in the West are beginning to wake up to the dangers of Ukrainian ultranationalism and neofascism, not to mention the growing megalomania of Zelenskiy, who has appeared on ore than one occasion to be willing to risk the advent of a global nuclear winter in order to avoid sitting at the negotiating table across from Putin. Some may now come to understand that claims that Putin wants to seize all Ukraine and restore the USSR if not conquer Europe are yarns spun by Kiev to attract military and financial assistance and ultimately draw NATO forces into the war. There remains a danger that Kiev’s dream of a NATO intervention might come to fruition is the following temptation. NATO has declared that a defeat of Ukraine in the war is a defeat for NATO, and NATO cannot be allowed to lose a war to a Russia because that would accelerate the coming of the end to US hegemony. It cannot be excluded and may even be likely that should Kiev appear to be losing the war that Polish forces, NATO or some ‘coalition of the willing’ will move military forces into western Ukraine up to the Dnepr but do so without attacking Russian forces. This would force Russia to cease much of its military activity or risk attacking NATO forces and a larger European-wide war. This or something like it is probably already being considered in Washington.

For now, in order to keep the West on board, Zelenskiy is rumored to be pushing Ukrainian armed forces commander Viktor Zalyuzhniy to start a last pre-winter offensive in northern Donetsk (Svatovo and Severodonetsk) or Zaporozhe in order to put a stop to the West’s ceasefire murmurs and reboost support. At the same time there is talk of continuing Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions over the latter’s good press and star status in the West. Tensions first emerged over disagreements of previous offensives and Zalyuzhniy’s earlier entry on the Western media stage. On the background of the deteriorating battlefield and international strategic situation, such civil-military tensions are fraught with the potential for a coup. Much of Zelenskiy’s strategy and tactics is driven more by political than by military considerations. Not least among the former is Zelenskiy’s political survival, which any ceasefire or peace talks requiring Kiev to acquiesce in the loss of more territory certainly will doom. Neofascist, military, and much of public opinion will not brook the sacrifices made in blood and treasure bringing only additional ones in Ukrainian territory. Others will ask why was not all of this averted by way of agreeing to Ukrainian neutrality and fulfilling Minsk 2 could have avoided it all.

We may be reaching the watershed moment in the Ukrainian war. No electricity, no army, no society. But here, as with any Russian occupation of central or western Ukrainian lands (not planned but perhaps a necessity at some point down the road for Putin), a quagmire awaits the Kremlin. Russia can not allow complete societal breakdown and chaos to reign in Ukraine anymore than it could tolerate a NATO-member Ukraine with a large neofascist component next door. All of the above and the approaching presidential elections scheduled in Moscow, Kiev and Washington the year after next make this winter pivotal for all the war’s main parties.

By Matt Bivens, Substack, 11/17/22

A celebrated American journalist goes to Ukraine. He finds a woman whose home has been destroyed by Russian bombs. The woman recounts that before the building collapsed, she and her 5-year-old escaped, but her grandmother did not.

The journalist has this woman’s picture taken in front of her destroyed home — in front of the wreckage and rubble piled over her dead grandmother. And he asks her a question. For The New York Times, he wants her opinion of certain Americans who have let her down.

Does he ask her about the Americans who could have prevented the entire Russian invasion in the first place?

After all, the U.S. White House had for years quietly enmeshed Ukraine’s military-security establishment with our own. For years we had also fueled the Ukrainian civil war with hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons (back when that seemed like a lot of money). We also for years insisted Ukraine would someday join NATO, even though ordinary Ukrainians had consistently expressed different desires: for peace, for military neutrality, and for economic and travel access to both Europe and Russia. Moscow had repeatedly stated it would go to war before it would allow NATO to absorb Ukraine, but we publicly dismissed that — even as privately, our top foreign policy experts inside and outside of government confirmed that, yes, indeed that’s what will eventually happen.

In the weeks before the invasion, the Kremlin repeatedly came to Washington — both privately and publicly — seeking one last time for a new understanding. Washington declined to entertain any of Moscow’s ideas. The White House would rather see Ukraine wrecked. This was so even as the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had been elected on a peace platform, with a mandate to wind down the civil war in the Donbas. From the perspective of today, that war is forgotten, but even before the invasion it had lasted eight years and killed more than 13,000 people, and Ukrainians on both sides — the U.S.-backed and the Russian-backed — were tired of it. The White House could have worked with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky toward a diplomatic solution of all of this. Instead, again, we chose to see Ukraine wrecked. We then dedicated ourselves to fighting Russia down to the last Ukrainian, and congratulated ourselves on our noble spirit of self-sacrifice for the good of others.

But no. Our hero the journalist does not ask about any of this. This woman’s home is destroyed, her grandmother crushed to death, her life upended, it could have all been avoided with basic, commonsense diplomacy — but he does not mention this or ask her thoughts.

Does he ask her how she feels about Americans who actively sabotaged a tentatively-reached peace deal that could have ended the war seven months ago?

Seven months ago! Presumably her home could still be standing and her grandmother still alive if the U.S. government had not scuttled that peace process.

No. He does not ask her about this either. After all, there is a U.S. election happening back home. Control of Congress is at stake! People like “Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Republican” are threatening to derail the Ukraine gravy train! What does this woman think of those spineless, heartless, quisling politicians? That’s the story we’re chasing here.

The journalist recounts that the woman hopes her grandmother’s body can be dug out from the rubble and given a proper burial, and then writes:

   “Her voice cracked with emotion, but she held together until I asked what she thought of Americans who say it’s time to move on from supporting Ukraine.

   “’We’re people, you understand,’ she said, and she began weeping. ‘It doesn’t matter if we’re Ukrainian or American — such things should not happen.’ And then she was crying too hard to continue.”

Such things should not happen.

We’re people, you understand.

It’s a universal and emotionally moving statement. And it’s such an interesting answer to his question — in part because it’s an answer that actually speaks more to the questions he didn’t ask.

If “such things should not happen”, then why did our government embrace yet another avoidable war? Why did it seven months ago sabotage peace?

“Buck Up America!”, Caws the Crow

I’ve long been a mild fan of this journalist, Nicholas Kristof. He has made a career out of defending human rights. He’s a thoughtful and kind-seeming person. He can be a powerful writer and the Ukrainians he profiles in this article are indeed inspiring and admirable.

Yet I’m so disappointed at the cartoonish conclusions drawn.

Apparently if you oppose allocating billions of dollars more in weapons for Ukraine then you a) don’t care about human suffering, and b) are a weak and silly person, and c) are probably Republican.

We are not offered any alternative to pouring more weapons into this conflict.

For example, we are not offered the alternative of a massive international humanitarian aide package — and how striking to see this omission by Kristof, a self-identified progressive, and a journalist whose focus on humanitarian needs has, per The Washington Post, “reshaped the field of opinion journalism.”

Nor are we offered any information about, or advocacy for, peace.

This is in fact one of the most pro-war opinion columns I’ve seen in awhile. It’s mesmerizing, and manipulative. It demonizes Russia and Russians repeatedly with the sort of luridly detailed reporting that could have been aimed at an emotional appeal for peace — but instead is a masterfully choreographed emotional appeal for more war, up to and including the photo of an attractive young Ukrainian woman, a television personality-turned soldier who, Kristof tells us, wants to fight the Russians because they “killed the man I love,” and who

   “projected strength, wearing body armor and walking carefully to avoid land mines. ‘Follow in my footsteps,’ she advised.”

Follow in my footsteps, says a woman bent on revenge. She’s earned her right to walk that path. But are we going to scorch every hectare of Ukraine and wreck millions of lives more following her down it? By “we” I mean the American Crows and Russian Seagulls who have collaborated to murder the peace of Ukraine.

It’s not until the 32nd paragraph of his article that Kristof notes that “a prolonged war will claim lives of children starving in Somalia and elsewhere because of higher food prices” — this echo of the old Kristof is bittersweet for being so pathetic, a day late and one hundred billion dollars short. Weirdly, Kristof never mentions the suffering of Ukrainian children now as a reason to seek peace, but he is apparently moved by the thought of Somalian children suffering later, and so he continues: “It may be that at some point outsiders should encourage Zelensky to make concessions (as he offered early in the conflict).”

“It may be that at some point” might kick off the mealiest-mouthed passage in the history of writing.

“At some point?” Such as when? After the mid-terms? They’re over. Can we get on with it now? (Apparently not. First we need to vote another $37.7 billion through a lame-duck Congress. And then? Well, I guess then we’ll see how much money is left, and which way the winds are blowing.)

Also: What “concessions” are you talking about that we maybe, might, at some point, want to encourage Zelensky to make? So, you’ve skipped the entire peace process — skipped all negotiation and gone straight to the surrender? How about just encouraging a cease fire and peace talks?

Also: “Outsiders” might someday get involved? Meaning us, the people orchestrating the war from Day 2, and fueling it gleefully to a massive new scale that is truly demolishing Ukraine?

This part — the suggestion that some unspecified day soon, American “outsiders” oughta get involved, if only for the children of Somalia — this part might be the most mendacious moment in the entire unpleasant exercise. Here Kristof reinforces the White House fiction that we’re taking our lead from Zelenksy — when it’s well-documented that Zelensky is almost as helpless a bystander as you or I. He was elected on a peace platform; sought peace in the civil war but was stymied by (CIA-backed) Ukrainian nationalists; sought peace with Putin after the invasion but was stymied by Washington and London; and only gets traction with the rest of the world when he sues for weapons and not for peace.

So Zelensky has been just as managed and manipulated as has any reader of this Kristof article. The New York Times, our masterful paper of record, has never really delved into any of this.

Instead, we are offered a binary choice: Either escalate the conflict with more weapons, or “abandon” the Ukrainians entirely.

“While President Vladimir Putin of Russia seems unable to break the spirit of Ukrainians, he is already shattering the will of some Americans and Europeans. … Buck up, America and Europe!” Kristof exhorts us. “And take some inspiration from Ukrainians themselves. … Ukrainians aren’t wavering the way some Americans, French and Germans are.”

Buck up, America?

Don’t “waver”, like a bunch of French or German sissies?

Keep fueling this terrible conflict with enormous amounts of weapons — and then keep complaining when the Russian response is proportionally (or disproportionally!) enormous?

Then, go document the horrific results of that enormously destructive Russian response, snap some pics of the victims — and use their stories to advocate for enormous amounts of additional weapons?

That’s the message from one of our more notable humanitarian writers?

Yes. Well, that plus some of the kookiest, most wooly-headed foreign policy thoughts imaginable. Kristof states that in addition to the moral reasons for shipping weapons to Ukraine, “there’s also a practical reason to do so,” because Ukrainians “are offering themselves as a human shield in ways that benefit the West.” He then cites how much better protected Estonia is from hypothetical future Russian aggression, now that Russia has worn itself out.

Again, how incredibly jarring to hear a person steeped in human rights lingo speak so approvingly about people serving as human shields. (Did the grandmother crushed in her apartment building “offer herself” for that?) International human rights law condemns people being used as human shields; the very term itself calls to mind a cowardly or immoral behavior in which combatants hide behind civilians, including the elderly and children. Yet here, Kristof applauds the use of the entire Ukrainian people, including the elderly and children, who supposedly “are offering themselves” as a “human shield” for the convenience of entire other, distant nations, like Estonia and America.

He continues:

   “Ukraine’s resistance may also increase the possibility that Putin himself will be toppled. That might lead to the rise of aggressive militarists who would be more likely to use nuclear weapons, but it could also moderate Russia and lead to a safer world …

   “The most important way in which Ukraine is arguably making the world safer is farther to the east. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, China could take that as a warning and be less likely to move on Taiwan, reducing the risk of a cataclysmic war between the United States and China.”

That’s a lot of woulda-coulda mumbo jumbo. If we keep the pressure on, Putin might be toppled, which might lead to a nuclear war, or it might not, but if we ease up the pressure, China might be emboldened, which might lead to a cataclysmic war, or it might not.

So the only solution is: More war, which might or might not lead to more war.

C’mon Nick, what happened to you?

Once upon a time an American President, Teddy Roosevelt, won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to negotiate an end to a war between Russia and Japan. That was in a happier era, before we had nurtured and fed an enormous, malignant blob of military industry, a money-fattened blob that has oozed into 81 countries around the planet, a corrupting blob that has seeped everywhere into the American political system and has poisoned political thought itself.

Joe Biden could at any point rise above this blob. He could follow in Teddy Roosevelt’s footsteps, and could step forward with a bold peace initiative to bring the U.S.-Ukraine-Russia war to an end. He could do it tomorrow.

But he won’t. And why should he, when not even as renowned a humanitarian as Nick Kristof can be bothered to ask for this?

By Andrea Peters, World Socialist Website, 11/10/22

The Ukrainian government is intensifying its hunt for pro-Russian “collaborators,” lodging charges against hundreds, if not thousands, of its own citizens, particularly in regions that recently came back under the control of Kiev. The accused face prison sentences, in addition to heavy fines, seizure of property, and the loss of other rights. According to data recently released by the General Prosecutor’s office, the government has opened more than 18,000 cases related to “crimes against national security,” which include treason, sabotage, “assistance to the aggressor state,” and “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian government, hailed throughout the West as the embodiment of freedom and democracy, is waging a war not just against a foreign power, but against a section of its own population.

In late October, the director of a secondary school in Kharkiv was accused of collaborating with the enemy because he told instructors that they would reopen the institution, hold classes in Russian, use Russian textbooks, and employ Russian educational standards. A week earlier, another man from the region was charged with traitorous actions because, as the head of a municipal road repair shop in Balaklya, he made publicly-owned equipment available to Russian forces. Kharkiv was under occupation at the time.

In numerous instances, individuals are being targeted for nothing more than expressing some form of political support for Russia. Articles published in RBK-Ukraine between October 8 and 25 report that all of the following individuals are facing some form of collaboration-related charge: a resident of Yuzhnye who tried to convince acquaintances that the expansion of Russian sovereignty to Ukrainian territory was just; a woman who more than once discussed with a group of people her view that Ukraine’s independent existence was wrong; a resident of Kharkiv who repeated Russian “propaganda” that Moscow’s invasion was justified. A news anchor with Luhansk 24, a pro-Russian press service, has been notified that he is being investigated for collaborationism.

More prosecutions of this type are forthcoming. “Law enforcement is continuing its work to expose Ukrainian citizens who are supporters of Kremlin policy,” noted Ukr.net on October 15.

Accusations of “aiding the enemy” are also being leveled against people for, it would seem, attempting to keep their communities alive in times of war. A 32-year-old man also from Kharkiv is being prosecuted because he allegedly voluntarily agreed to guard a pharmacy and a depot holding humanitarian supplies while the city was under occupation. The head of the tiny village of Valenkove is facing charges because “acting on instructions from representatives of the Russian Federation, the woman collected data and applications from local residents to address organizational and humanitarian issues.”

Indictments that carry 15-year or more prison sentences—joining anti-Ukrainian partisan forces, telling the Russian military the location of Ukrainian forces, reporting on “patriotic” Ukrainians, and providing economic and other resources to the Russian side—are also being doled out. One detainee, captured on the charge that he was “employed” by a “people’s militia of the occupiers,” died because he allegedly sought to flee and blew himself up stepping on a Russian mine.

Areas of Ukraine that have large Russian populations are being singled out in the hunt for collaborators. According to Pressorg.25, most of the recently-created “investigative offices were opened in the Luhansk, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions.” In August, The New York Times published an article about the work of pro-Ukrainian militias working behind enemy lines. According to the newspaper, one of their missions, in addition to killing alleged collaborators, is to monitor educators believed to be promoting a pro-Russian line. “Partisans,” however, “will not attack teachers,” they write. Rather, they “have sought to humiliate them through leaflets they often post on utility poles with dark warnings for collaborators, as part of their psychological operations.”

Ukraine’s recently-passed laws on collaborationism are extremely broad. They include things such as “public denial of the implementation of armed aggression against Ukraine, establishment and approval of temporary occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine,” “public appeals to support the decisions and/or actions of the aggressor state, armed formations, occupation administration of the aggressor state,” “implementation of propaganda of the aggressor state in educational institutions,” “voluntary occupation of a non-leading position (not related to the performance of organizational, administrative or economic functions) in illegal authorities established in the temporarily occupied territory,” and “participation in” or “organization and conduct of events of a political nature, implementation of information activities in cooperation with the aggressor state and/or its occupation administration, aimed at supporting the aggressor state and/or evading its responsibility for the armed aggression against Ukraine.”

Particularly for those located in areas that have come under occupation, it is easy to fall afoul of laws that ban essentially any engagement with Russian military or political authorities, much less the expression of a political thought that contradicts the official line of the government in Kiev.

Punishments include stripping people of the right to hold various offices or other posts for up to 15 years, confiscation of property, arrest for up to six months, imprisonment from three to 15 years or for life, and sentencing to two years of correctional labor.

Charges, trials, and punishments are proceeding at a rapid pace. The Telegram channels of Ukraine’s General Prosecutor and other state offices are filled with near-daily photos of the newly-accused. Under conditions of martial law, the destruction of infrastructure, and the exodus of more than seven million people—including, no doubt, many attorneys—it is impossible that anyone caught in this maelstrom is receiving a fair trial. Guilty verdicts and sentences follow quickly on the heels of charges. Online images show that among the accused are the elderly and women, many of whom appear to be visibly poor.

The pictures of defendants released by the state are blurred but often still identifiable. The Ukrainian military is currently using US-provided facial-recognition-technology to both monitor its own population and torment the families of dead Russian soldiers by finding their social media accounts online, contacting their relatives, and sending them images of their dead bodies. In posting photos of those charged with collaboration on social media, state officials are creating conditions under which friends and family of the accused can be found and made subject to collective punishment.

At the same time, there are efforts underway to strip parliamentary representatives from opposition political parties, which were banned by President Zelensky in May, of their seats, on the grounds that they are sympathetic to Russia and, by virtue of that fact, collaborationists.

Last Thursday, a Dutch court reached a verdict on the 2014 MH17 airplane crash in the Donbass. Four men were on trial for the downing of the civilian flight which killed 298 people, including passengers and crew. Three out of the four men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison while the fourth – the only one of the defendants who was represented by counsel at the trial – was acquitted. According to Euronews:

Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were found responsible for the disaster, Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.

Another Russian national, Oleg Polatov, was acquitted of the charges.

The court declared that Girkin, Dubinskiy and Kharchenko must also compensate the relatives of the victims a total of €60 million. Prosecutors and the defendants have two weeks to file an appeal.

The quartet on trial were not present in the courtroom. All at large, they refused to attend the trial, which lasted two and a half years…

…The plane was struck by what the Dutch court established was a missile supplied by Moscow and broke up mid-air, scattering wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the trial and its verdict as RT reported:

The decision taken on Thursday by a Dutch court on the MH17 plane crash was absolutely political, the Russian Foreign Ministry has insisted in a statement. Earlier in the day, judges found three people guilty of downing the Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014….

Moscow has made it clear that, in accordance with the country’s constitution, it will not be extraditing its citizens.

The court’s decision was based on the conclusions of Dutch prosecutors, which, in turn, were built upon the accounts of anonymous witnesses and evidence presented by the Ukrainian Security Service, which is “an interested party” in the case, the ministry argued. Arguments presented by the Russian side, including data declassified by the Russian Defense Ministry were discarded, it added.

It’s easy to assume that Russia would deny guilt regardless of what actually happened. However, there is reason for skepticism about the investigation that the trial relied upon. First, there was reporting by the late Robert Parry of Consortium News whose investigation and sources revealed gaps and logical inconsistencies in the official narrative of how the ill-fated plane came down:

According to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which while “led” by the Dutch was guided by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service, the Russians delivered the Buk anti-missile battery at a border crossing about 30 miles southeast of Luhansk on the night of July 16-17, 2014. From that point, there would have been an easy and logical route to the JIT’s claimed firing site.

The convoy would have followed one of two roads west to H21 and then taken H21 southwest to the area around Snizhne before getting onto a back road to Pervomaiskyi where the JIT says the launch occurred.

Instead, according to the JIT account, the convoy took a strange and circuitous route, skirting south of Luhansk to Yenakiieve, a town that sits along highway E50, which incidentally offered another easy route south to Snizhne. Instead of going that way, according to the JIT, the convoy proceeded southwest to the city of Donetsk, stopping there before turning east on H21 passing through a number of towns on the way to Snizhne.

Not only does this route make no sense, especially given the extreme sensitivity of the Russians providing a powerful anti-aircraft missile battery to the rebels, an operation that would call for the utmost secrecy and care, but the eventual positioning of the Buk system in the remote town of Pervomaiskyi makes little military sense.

According to the JIT’s video narrative, the presumed purpose of the Russians taking such a huge risk of supplying a Buk system was to protect rebel troops from Ukrainian military aircraft firing from heights beyond the range of shoulder-fired MANPADs.

So why would the Russians position the Buk battery in the south far from the frontlines of the heaviest fighting which was occurring in the north and then have the crew shoot down a commercial airliner when, according to the JIT, there were no military aircraft in the area?

To accept the JIT’s narrative, you have to swallow a large dose of credulity, plus assume that the Russians are extremely incompetent, so incompetent that they would send a highly secret operation on a wild ride across the eastern Ukrainian countryside, ignoring easy routes to the target location (only about 70 miles from the Russian border) in favor of a route more than twice as long (about 150 miles) while passing through heavily populated areas where the convoy could be easily photographed.

Then, the Russians (or their rebel allies) would have placed the Buk system in a spot with marginal if any military value, misidentify a commercial airliner as some kind of military aircraft, and – with a sudden burst of efficiency and competence – shoot it down.

The JIT’s claim about the exfiltration of the remaining Buks has similar problems of logic. The JIT asserts that rather than take the most direct (and most discreet) route back to Russia by heading east, the missile battery supposedly traveled north to Luhansk before crossing back into Russia, a longer trip through more populous areas, another head-shaker.

Parry also stated that his sources in the intelligence community told him that it appeared rogue Ukrainian forces were responsible for the downing:

“I was also told that at least some CIA analysts shared the doubts about Russia’s guilt and came to believe that the MH-17 shoot-down was the work of a rogue and out-of-control Ukrainian team with the possible hope that the airliner was a Russian government plane returning President Vladimir Putin from South America.”

In addition, there had been eyewitness reports of at least one military fighter jet in close proximity to MH17 before it went down, which cast doubt on a BUK missile being the source of the plane’s demise.

Other investigative journalists have looked into the case and come up with evidence that casts doubt on many aspects of the Ukrainian-produced “evidence” accepted by the JIT investigators and used as the basis for the trial of the four men. The film below includes interviews with eyewitnesses to the crash and the moments leading up to it, the Malaysian Prime Minister, an officer from the Malaysian military who was originally tasked with collecting the black boxes, and the conclusions of outside experts who studied the aforementioned evidence provided by Ukraine.

Link here.