There’s been much in the western media made of this speech from 3/25/22, characterizing what is said as stepping back from the original game plan of the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Here is the link to the remarks by Putin when he met with the airline stewardesses shortly after the start of the operation in which he provided an explanation of the goals and reasons for the operation. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether this actually represents any significant change in the game plan. – Natylie

Sergei Rudskoy, 3/25/22

The main goals of the military operation

In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief since February 24 this year. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are conducting a special military operation.

Its main goal is to provide assistance to the people of the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, who have been subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for the last 8 years.

It was impossible to achieve this goal by political means. Kiev has publicly refused to implement the Minsk agreements. The Ukrainian leadership twice in 2014 and 2015 tried to solve the so-called Donbass problem by military means, was defeated, but did not change its plans on resolving conflict by force in the East of the country. According to reliable data, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were completing the preparation of a military operation to take control of the territory of the People’s Republics.

In these conditions, it was possible to help the Donetsk and Lugansk republics only by providing them with military assistance. Which Russia has done.

There were two possible courses of action.

The first is to limit the territory to only the DPR and the LPR within the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which is enshrined in the constitutions of the republics. But then we would be faced with constant feeding by the Ukrainian authorities of the grouping involved in the so-called joint force operation.

Therefore, the second option was chosen, which provides for actions throughout the territory of Ukraine with the implementation of measures for its demilitarization and denazification.

The course of the operation confirmed the validity of this decision. It is conducted by the General Staff in strict accordance with the approved plan. The tasks are carried out taking into account minimizing losses among personnel and minimizing damage to civilians. With the beginning of a special military operation, air supremacy was won during the first two days.

Offensive actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are carried out in various directions.

As a result, Russian troops blocked Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, Sumy and Nikolaev. Kherson and most of the Zaporozhye region are under full control. The public and individual experts are wondering what we are doing in the area of blocked Ukrainian cities.

These actions are carried out with the aim of causing such damage to military infrastructure, equipment, personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the results of which allow not only to shackle their forces and do not give them the opportunity to strengthen their grouping in the Donbass, but also will not allow them to do so until the Russian army completely liberates the territories of the DPR and LPR.

Initially, we did not plan to storm them in order to prevent destruction and minimize losses among personnel and civilians.

And although we do not rule out such a possibility, however, as individual groups complete their tasks, and they are being solved successfully, our forces and means will concentrate on the main thing — the complete liberation of Donbass. Significant territories of the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics have also been liberated. The people’s militia has taken control of 276 settlements that were previously under the control of the Ukrainian army and the national battalions.

Demilitarization of Ukraine

Demilitarization of Ukraine is achieved both by high-precision strikes on military infrastructure facilities, locations of formations and military units, airfields, control points, arsenals and warehouses of weapons and military equipment, and by the actions of troops to defeat opposing enemy groupings.

Currently, the Ukrainian air forces and the air defence system have been almost completely destroyed. The naval forces of the country ceased to exist.

16 main military airfields were defeated, from which combat sorties of the AFU aviation were carried out. 39 storage bases and arsenals were destroyed, which contained up to 70% of all stocks of military equipment, materiel and fuel, as well as more than 1 million 54 thousand tons of ammunition.

All 24 formations of the Land Forces that existed before the start of the operation suffered significant losses. Ukraine has no organized reserves left.

Losses are replenished at the expense of mobilized persons and personnel of the territorial defence forces who do not have the necessary training, which increases the risk of large losses.

At the time of the start of the special military operation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the National Guard, numbered 260 thousand 200 servicemen. During the month of hostilities, their losses amounted to about 30 thousand people, including more than 14 thousand — irretrievable and about 16 thousand — sanitary.

Of the 2,416 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles that were in combat on February 24th, 1,587 units were destroyed; 636 units out of 1,509 field artillery guns and mortars; 163 out of 535 MLRS; 112 out of 152 aircraft, 75 out of 149 helicopters; 36 Bayraktar TB-2 and UAVs — 35; 180 out of 148 S-300 and Buk M1 air defence systems; 300 out of 117 radars for various purposes.

The AFU continue to use high-powered weapons indiscriminately against towns in Donbass. An example of this is the strikes by the Tochka-U missile system on the civilian population of Donetsk and Makeyevka.
In this regard, they are the primary targets.

As of today, 7 Tochka-U launchers have been destroyed, and 85% of missiles are in arsenals and in the air. This significantly limited Ukraine’s capabilities for their combat use.

Since the beginning of hostilities, the Western countries have supplied the Kiev regime with 109 field artillery guns, 3,800 anti-tank weapons, including Javelin, Milan, Konkurs, NLAW ATGM, M-72, Panzerfaust-3, 897 Stinger and Igla MANPADS.

Supply weapons to Kiev is the vast mistake made by Western countries

We consider it a vast mistake for Western countries to supply weapons to Kiev. This delays the conflict, increases the number of victims and will not be able to influence the outcome of the operation.

The real purpose of such supplies is not to support Ukraine, but to drag it into a long-term military conflict «to the last Ukrainian.»

We are closely monitoring the statements of the military and political leadership of individual countries about their intention to supply aircraft and air defence systems to Ukraine. In case of implementation— we will not leave it without attention.

We also hear assurances from NATO leaders about non-interference in the conflict. At the same time, some member states of the North Atlantic Alliance propose to close the airspace over Ukraine. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will immediately respond accordingly to such attempts.

In order to prevent the restoration of weapons and military equipment of the AFU that have received combat damage, the Russian Armed Forces are disabling repair enterprises, arsenals, storage bases, logistics warehouses with high-precision weapons.

At the moment, 30 key enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex have been hit by cruise missiles X-101, Kalibr, Iskander, and the Kinzhal aviation complex, which carried out repairs of 68% of weapons and equipment disabled during combat operations.

Russian modern weaponry has proven to be highly accurate, reliable and capable of operational use.

I would like to emphasize that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation do not strike at civilian infrastructure facilities, including the destruction of bridges across rivers.

127 bridges were destroyed in the area of military operations. All of them were blown up by Ukrainian nationalists in order to deter the advance of our troops. Another example of recklessness is the mining of approaches to the ports of Odessa, Ochakov, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, where over 400 anchor mines of obsolete types are installed. At least 10 mines have broken anchor and are drifting in the western part of the Black Sea, which poses a real threat to warships and civilian vessels.

The rampant crime, looting and marauding and civilian deaths have been caused by the Ukrainian regime’s massive uncontrolled distribution of tens of thousands of small arms to the civilian population, including to criminals released from prisons. The situation will only get worse in the future.

The course of hostilities, the testimonies of civilians who left the blockaded settlements and captured Ukrainian servicemen show that today the AFU’s ability to resist is based on fear of reprisals by neo-Nazis. Their representatives are embedded in all military units.

De-Nazification of Ukraine

The mainstay of the Kiev regime are nationalist formations such as Azov, Aidar, Right Sector and others recognized in Russia as terrorist organizations. In Mariupol alone, they include more than 7 thousand militants who are fighting under the guise of civilians, using them as a «human shield».

The militants of the Azov battalion drive women and children out of the basements, threatening them with weapons, and send them towards the advancing units of the DPR in order to hinder the advance of the people’s militia. This has become a common practice for them.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, on the contrary, seek to avoid unnecessary losses. Before the start of the offensive, the AFU units are invited to leave the combat area and move along with equipment and weapons to the point of permanent deployment. Not to resist when the offensive begins and those who lay down their arms are guaranteed safety.

Civilians caught in a war zone are always advised to stay in their homes.

Humanitarian corridors

Humanitarian corridors are being organized in all cities to get the population out of the area of hostilities, and their security is also maintained. Humanitarian corridors are being created in all towns to allow people to leave the area where the fighting is taking place, and their security is being maintained.

In addition, at the initiative of the Ukrainian leadership, the country has become a home to 6,595 foreign mercenaries and terrorists from 62 states.They are not subject to the rules of war and will be ruthlessly destroyed.

Today, the number of foreign mercenaries is declining. This was facilitated by high-precision strikes on their bases and training camps. On March 13, more than 200 militants were killed and more than 400 wounded in Starichi and at the Yavorovskii training ground alone.

I note that not a single foreign mercenary has arrived in Ukraine in the last seven days. On the contrary, there has been an outflow. Within a week, 285 fighters escaped into Poland, Hungary and Romania, I hope without Stingers and Javelins.

Previous experience has shown that man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) and ATGMs are spreading out fairly quickly, along with the mercenaries who return home.

In general, the main objectives of the first phase of the operation have been achieved. The combat capabilities of Ukraine’s Armed Forces have been significantly reduced, which allows us, once again, to concentrate our main efforts on achieving the main goal — the liberation of Donbass.

In eight years, in the area of the so-called «joint forces operation», a defence belt has been prepared that is deeply echeloned and well-fortified in engineering terms, consisting of a system of monolithic, long-term concrete structures.

In this regard, in order to minimize casualties among the troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, the conduct of offensive operations is preceded by a heavy fire attack on the enemy’s strongholds and their reserves.

At the beginning of the special military operation, the LPR and DPR people’s militias were confronted by a group of 59,300 people comprising the most combat-ready units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the National Guard and nationalist formations.

As a result, Ukraine’s security forces in the OOS zone lost about 16,000 people, or 26% of their total strength as of 24 February this year.

More than 7,000 of them were irrecoverable losses.

Replacing losses is prevented by isolating the Ukrainian grouping of troops in Donbass, taking control of railway stations and key road routes with firepower.

The supply of missiles and ammunition, fuel and food to Ukrainian forces has been almost completely halted.

The field depots of missile and artillery weapons and ammunition, as well as fuel located directly in the area of the Joint Forces Operation are being hit. To date, 32 facilities have been destroyed, or 61% of the total.

Liberation of Donbass

All weapons and military equipment, including foreign-made, seized by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the special military operation are handed over to the People’s Republics. Already 113 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 138 Javelin and 67 NLAW grenade launchers and other trophy weapons have been handed over.

Units of the People’s Militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic have liberated 93% of the republic’s territory.

Fighting is currently taking place on the outskirts of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

The People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic controls 54% of the territory. The liberation of Mariupol continues.

Units of the Russian Armed Forces together with the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic are conducting an offensive to liberate settlements to the west of Donetsk.

Unfortunately, there are casualties among our comrades-in-arms during the special military operation. As of today, 1,351 servicemen have been killed and 3,825 wounded.

All family support solutions will be taken over by the state, raising children up to higher education, full repayment of loans, housing solutions.

We receive a large number of appeals from Russian citizens wishing to take part in the special military operation to liberate Ukraine from Nazism. In addition, more than 23,000 foreigners from 37 countries have expressed their willingness to fight on the side of the People’s Republics. We offered the leadership of the LPR and DPR to accept this assistance, but they said they would defend their land themselves.They have enough power and resources.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will continue to conduct a planned special military operation until the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief have been completed.

Lancaster has been reporting from the Donbas since 2014. This video from 3/25/22 was recorded in a Greek village called Sartana, which is 11 kilometers from Mariupol. Villagers describe how a church and a school were targeted by Ukrainian forces and Azov militias targeted civilians.

Dmitry Steshin is a journalist with the Russian news outlet, Komsomolskaya Pravda. He is currently embedded with Russian forces in Mariupol. This report is from 3/24/22. I used Google Translate so it is a bit disjointed but the reader can still get the general idea of the horror and tragedy that he is conveying. His Telegram channel is https://t.me/DmitriySteshin – Natylie

By Dmitry Steshin, Komsomolskaya Pravda, 3/24/22

KP special correspondent Dmitry Steshin visited a hospital covered by Ukrainian Grads. The hospital is “working”, although there are battles on the neighboring streets

The main reservoir of refugees from Mariupol is 20 kilometers from the city, in the village of Volodarskoye. It was “decommunized”, so on half of the maps and navigators it is Nikolsky, which adds confusion to the chaos around.

Life, so to speak, in Volodarsky-Nikolsky is “improving”. Volunteers appeared, began to draw up lists for evacuation. The other day, thugs from the national battalion “Azov” tried to leave the city through the airport, the counterattack was repulsed, but it was not possible to completely clean up the breakouts …

“I’M AFRAID OF SOUNDS”

The main reservoir of refugees from Mariupol is in the village of Volodarskoye. On the wall are notes from relatives.

Vika comes up to me softly, inaudibly: she is in socks – on the icy pavement. I can’t determine the age, maybe she graduated from high school. Knocked down in a tangle of hair, a dirty jacket. Her hands are shaking, she can’t seem to find a place for them. The girl has no things, madness splashes in her huge eyes:

• Talk to me, no one talks to me, but I’m afraid. Explosions, I’m afraid of people with weapons!

I understand that the girl needs to be switched. I take out a handful of candies from my pocket:

• Let’s have some candy and we’ll talk. What is your name?

The girl puts the candy in the pocket of her jacket, I give another one, also hides it, painfully trying to remember who she is:

• I am Victoria. Dyachenko!
• Vika, where did you live in Mariupol?
• I lived in Mariupol, there is also a bombing, I will tell you everything.

But Vika cannot remember the address. Shows me his leg. I saw this – the shock wave just separates the meat from the bones, but there are still small fragments. From above, while it has healed, it does not fester. I ask Vika:

• Feed you?
• I want tea, hot, it’s cold.
• Stand here!

Vika can’t even remember her address. Hands are shaking, there are no things with you.

Vika nods, points to her feet: they say, I’m standing. I push my way into the school cafeteria, the refugees are let in fifteen people at a time. They pour tea for me, I pick up half an apple from the tray. Vika takes tea, doesn’t thank me, doesn’t notice the apple, immediately starts drinking and immediately forgets about my existence. One of my fellow militiamen, a paramedic, says that Vika needs to be taken to the hospital, where they are turned off with relaxants, and his leg is treated. Then treat the psyche, treat for a long time. But where to take it? In Mariupol in the regional intensive care?

For some reason I had confidence that they would help us with something. I was wrong. And we did the right thing by leaving Vika in the storage, in the evening she was already in Rostov …

IN THE POISONOUS MIST

There was no wind that day in Mariupol, so the whole city was covered with gray muslin, such a smelly, nasty fog that torn the lungs. The factories and the port are burning, the grass is burning in the fields… We are going to the hospital. A brand new multi-storey complex, the facade is torn off by fragments, there are no glasses. A week ago, when our troops finally occupied the quarter near the hospital, the Ukrainians launched a package of Gradov on it, the square said goodbye like that. I heard it myself, falling at that moment under the car and sticking my head under the engine.

Now, to the left and right of the hospital, very close, across the street, there is a shooting battle, and behind the facade the artillery continues to pile on, so that the earth trembles.

In the hospital square, people sit on the ground, lie, crowd at the entrance. The bus with the inscription “National Guard” rinses with curtains through broken windows, everything inside is bloodied.

An elderly woman rushes to us, sobbing, asking:

• Lord, at least someone would call my daughter and say that I’m alive. Daughter in Norilsk, teacher.
• Do you have a number?
• Yes, there is!

With trembling hands, the woman unzips her bag, where all her belongings are. In a small saucepan, in a plastic bag, a notebook with half a palm. A friend dials a number … there is no connection, and where does she come from? The woman is crying again.

• What is your name? In the evening we will get out to a place where there is a connection, I will immediately dial your daughter, I promise!

I take off my hat and cross myself, probably the only form of promise that works here. In the evening we called our daughter Natasha in Norilsk, she was about to leave for her mother to take her to Russia.

LIVING AND DEAD

The lobby of the hospital is knee-deep in dirt. Some volunteers or orderlies smear it with mops, realizing the pointlessness of this occupation. People draw water from a blue tank, it is an eerie dark brown color, technical, but there is no other water in the city. The walls are covered with messages: “Tanya, we left. Belosaraika” or “We are on the 1st floor.” Room “Children”.

We find the head physician of the hospital, Olga Petrovna Golubchenko. She refuses to be interviewed, saying that everything is fine in the hospital, everything is there: staff, medicines, food. He does not look into the eyes and generally speaks with poorly restrained anger. We are trying to explain that we have the opportunity to organize help … As a result, we simply turn around without saying goodbye and leave for the main building.

Dark endless corridors, the smell of rotting flesh. Those who have cigarettes smoke, because there is no point in talking about some kind of hospital sterility. In front of us, right in the corridor, a nurse cleans a festering wound to some woman, she grinds her teeth.

The hospital is shaken by explosions. Here the mortar “Cornflower” has earned, but the “Cornflower” flew in response. Bullets whistle along the facade. A grenade launcher fired, it was supported by anti-aircraft guns, life in Mariupol goes on as usual. If you can call it life.

THE SKY PROMISES NOTHING

Same thing on the next floor. A stinking twilight, broken windows boarded up with pieces of cardboard.

A man in a wheelchair describes how he was wounded:

• I just left the entrance, and then it flew in. Sunday the 13th. I went back to the entrance, and the neighbors – three corpses at once, went out to smoke.

Are you bandaged?

Haven’t seen anyone since last Thursday. The fragment remained, they cannot find it, the X-ray does not work. Well, nothing, I will now ring on the frames at the checkpoint, – Mikhail jokes sadly.

Did you offer evacuation?

• Yes, in what I will go, at least there are clothes at home.
• Is the apartment complete?

Michael waves his hand

• There are no glasses, all the furniture lies in a pile. But there is a place to live!

Sasha lies on a stretcher by the wall. He says, “it hurt, as usual, – he went for firewood.”

We are looking for the Department of Surgery and we find … The corridors are blocked by walls made of sandbags. The same walls on the windows, but with loopholes. The Ukrainian National Guard was going to fight here, but changed its mind.

A broken coffee machine, a smashed X-ray, in general, everything that can be broken, even tables. But this is not the worst. There are corpses in the wards, neatly packed in curtains, blankets or simply in bulk, with IV tubes, tires, Ilizarov apparatus … Quiet here, of course, if you subtract artillery. Just tapping the blinds in the broken windows. The crowd of people at the entrance to the hospital is silent, where they do not treat, but simply put them to die. People listen to the ongoing battle, trying to separate the moment in order to lie down right away. And everyone is waiting for something: evacuation or humanitarian aid.

I’m waiting for peace, – the girl Dasha, strewn with freckles, told me, – but I won’t go to the evacuation with a four-year-old child!

Are they firing less already?

Yes, also…

Dasha, like all of us, looked at the sky, but the sky did not promise anything good for the next few days.

Читайте на WWW.KP.RU: https://www.kp.ru/daily/27370/4562844/

This article was published by the Atlantic Council – which is basically NATO’s think tank – in June of 2018. Keep this in mind when media and commentators today try to bend over backwards to deny or downplay this. – Natylie

By Josh Cohen, Atlantic Council, 6/20/18

It sounds like the stuff of Kremlin propaganda, but it’s not. Last week Hromadske Radio revealed that Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports is funding the neo-Nazi group C14 to promote “national patriotic education projects” in the country. On June 8, the Ministry announced that it will award C14 a little less than $17,000 for a children’s camp. It also awarded funds to Holosiyiv Hideout and Educational Assembly, both of which have links to the far-right. The revelation represents a dangerous example of law enforcement tacitly accepting or even encouraging the increasing lawlessness of far-right groups willing to use violence against those they don’t like.

Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women’s Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they even arrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators.

International human rights groups have sounded the alarm. After the March 8 attacks, Amnesty International warned that “Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions.” Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and Front Line Defenders warned in a letter that radical groups acting under “a veneer of patriotism” and “traditional values” were allowed to operate under an “atmosphere of near total impunity that cannot but embolden these groups to commit more attacks.”

To be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in Ukraine’s polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of “red herring.” It’s not extremists’ electoral prospects that should concern Ukraine’s friends, but rather the state’s unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity. Whether this is due to a continuing sense of indebtedness to some of these groups for fighting the Russians or fear they might turn on the state itself, it’s a real problem and we do no service to Ukraine by sweeping it under the rug.

The anti-democratic ideology these groups espouse runs counter the values of the Euromaidan. Ukrainians took to the streets to confront former President Yanukovych because they wanted to live in a democratic state where everyone is held accountable. Honoring the values of Euromaidan therefore requires Kyiv to protect all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality, or political views.

Far-right impunity also represents a dangerous threat to Ukraine’s statehood. It’s been long understood in Western political and legal philosophy that the state must have a monopoly on violence in order to be a legitimate state, and when a state loses this monopoly, society starts to break down. Ukraine’s certainly nowhere near this point, but it shouldn’t take any chances either.

Kyiv should understand that turning a blind eye toward all of this activity risks damaging Ukraine’s international reputation. The Kremlin won’t hesitate to cynically use the far right’s activities to push its false claim that Ukraine is a hornet’s nest of fascists, while Kyiv could also lose support in the West for its inaction.

Luckily, the authorities still have time to nip things in the bud if they act now. President Petro Poroshenko could start by enacting a “zero-tolerance” policy on unsanctioned vigilantism and direct authorities to cleanse law enforcement agencies of far-right sympathizers such as Sergei Korotkykh, who heads the National Police’s head of security for sites of strategic importance. 

Government agencies at all levels should also stop cooperating with far-right groups. In addition to the Youth Ministry’s problematic funding, C14 and a Kyiv city district recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a “municipal guard” to patrol the streets; three such militia-run guard forces are already registered in Kyiv, and twenty-one operate in other cities as well. And C14’s dangerous leader Yevhen Karas even boasts openly about cooperating with the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU). All this needs to end and state officials found to be cooperating with extremists must be removed.

Finally, it’s important that Poroshenko and other senior government officials publicly condemn extreme organizations like C14 and speak out in support of marginalized groups. As three straight years of incident-free Kyiv Pride events demonstrate, the state certainly possesses the capability to deter far-right vigilantism if it wants to. However, the authorities are clearly aware of Kyiv Pride’s international visibility and the real test will come once the bright lights disappear. 

It won’t be easy to end far-right impunity, but the government must summon the will to do so now.

By Natylie Baldwin, Antiwar.com, 3/24/22

Vladimir Putin is responsible for his decision to illegally invade Ukraine. But that doesn’t make it any easier to watch western governments and their mainstream media outlets with their self-righteous displays of concern about Ukraine. After virtue signaling an implied commitment to allowing Ukraine into the EU, it is now being made clear that it will not be admitting Ukraine any time soon. Neither Washington nor Europe is using its power and influence to conduct diplomacy with Russia to facilitate a settlement to the conflict. Indeed it appears that all the US-led West is willing to do is throw a lot of weapons at Ukraine, which will keep the war going, maximize death and destruction for Ukrainians that will never lead to a victory over Russia, and create blowback risks to the West.

This all puts the lie to the West “standing with Ukraine.” It is, however, consistent with how the US and EU have dealt with Ukraine since 2013 as they sought to present that divided country with an ultimatum that could only threaten its fragile stability and hobble its society.

As Jack Matlock explained in his book Superpower Illusions, the greatest threat to post-Soviet Ukraine was not Russian imperialism but the country’s own internal divisions. As a result, the newly independent country needed to embrace a pluralistic approach to governing the state that was based on a civic rather than an ethnic identity to ensure the social cohesion necessary for long term peace and stability.

Ukraine: A Divided Country

Ukraine, along with Russia, had constituted a “loose federation of East Slavic tribes” known as warrior-traders that were ruled by the Rurik dynasty from the 9th to 13th century in what is historically referred to as Kievan Rus. Ties were cemented by the Orthodox Church when Prince Vladimir chose that religion for his people in the 10th century. By the time of the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, the area had degenerated into rivalries among various princes who’d lorded over a dozen or so independent areas. When the Mongol massacre killed about two-thirds of the population, some of the survivors managed to flee closer to what is modern-day Moscow and those who remained were forced into subjugation, rupturing Slavic bonds. Those from the southern part of the Kieven Rus region later became known as Ukrainians and were cut off and later ruled over by Poles and Lithuanians.

In the mid-17th century, the Treaty of Pereyaslavl united Ukraine to Russia as an autonomous region. This led to a 13-year war between Russia and Poland which resulted in the division of Ukraine between the two countries. From then on, the Ukrainian-speaking parts of Poland-Lithuania were progressively conquered by the Russian Empire, leading many Orthodox Ukrainians to strongly identify with Russia. From the late 18th century on, Russians referred to Ukraine territory as Malorussia or “Little Russia,” viewing Ukraine and the Ukrainian language as having derived from the greater Russian history and culture and later sought to standardize it to Russian.

The Western parts of modern-day Ukraine had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries while the southeastern portion was part of the Russian Empire. An independent Ukrainian state emerged very briefly in the years of the Russian Revolution and early civil war period, but the project failed in 1919. From then until WWII, parts of Ukraine were ruled by Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Russia, with the latter becoming a Soviet Republic ruled by the Communist Party. Russian/Soviet rule of Ukraine in the 19th and 20th centuries created complex patterns of migration with significant parts of southern Ukraine settled by Russians, including those who came to work in the mines and factories of the Donbas region, bringing the Russian language with them.

In 1991, Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Based on the history outlined above, Ukraine found itself with ethnic, cultural, and linguistic divisions within the country. According to British scholar Richard Sakwa in Frontline Ukraine, there emerged two different and irreconcilable views of how to organize the Ukrainian state.

The first is the monist approach. This is the belief that Ukraine is a single cultural and political entity. The political philosophy underpinning this view is heavily influenced by the Galician ethnonationalist identity of Ukraine rather than a civic or pluralistic one. It advocates for the Ukrianization of society including a unitary state with one language. It partly draws on the thinking of those who were trying to create the independent state that failed in 1919. That failure was subsequently blamed on democracy, liberalism and a lack of will, paving the way for fascist sympathies. In the early 1930’s Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, led by Stepan Bandera, violently resisted Polish rule in Galicia. In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union made Galicia part of the Soviet Union – a region that had never been under Russian imperial rule and today remains the most strongly nationalist and anti-Russian part of Ukraine.

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Ukrainian ultranationalists supported Germans thinking they would assist in the creation of an independent Ukraine. The Ukrainian ultranationalist army – who were supporters of Bandera – massacred 70,000 Poles in Volyn in 1943 and is estimated to have killed 130,000 in Eastern Galicia by 1945. Statues of Bandera have been erected throughout western Ukraine starting in October of 2007. Streets have also been named after him and a giant portrait of Bandera was displayed on stage at the Maidan protests in 2014.

The alternative view of how to organize the state is based on pluralism and acknowledges that Ukraine has a common ancestry with Kievan Rus and emphasizes a civic Ukrainian identity rather than an ethnonationalist one. The pluralist approach says that cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity must be acknowledged and respected. It calls for a degree of decentralization. However, support for this is complicated by the fact that centralization benefits certain financial as well as political interests, namely oligarchs.

For its first two decades of independence, Ukraine was engaged in a clumsy balancing act between the nationalist west, the Russophile east and the relatively moderate central part of the country. Many Ukrainians no doubt wanted to enjoy the perceived benefits of the West, but there was no significant call to sever Ukraine’s economic relationship with the country it had the most familial and social ties with and constituted its biggest trading partner, Russia. There was not majority support for NATO membership either but rather continuing support for non-alignment.

That changed in 2013 when the West provided an ultimatum to Ukraine in the form of an EU Association Agreement. This agreement actually called for Ukraine to implement deeply unpopular austerity measures, give up its trade with Russia – though, unlike the EU, Russia accepted many Ukrainian exports – and synchronize its security with NATO. Russia had requested three-way talks with the EU and Ukraine to negotiate a deal that would accommodate all three parties, but the EU rejected out of hand any attempt at such a compromise. The EU, led by Germany, was effectively forcing Ukraine to choose between the West and Russia. Viktor Yanukovich, who was the Ukrainian president at the time, decided to reject the agreement in favor of a deal from Russia consisting of a $15 billion loan and reduced gas prices.

The protests on the Maidan started out peacefully in the late autumn of 2013 and expressed a desire for reform and closer ties with the EU. However, on February 4, 2014, a leaked telephone conversation between State Department official Victoria Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt revealed the two discussing what appears to be a plan to use the protests to facilitate an illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine.

Nuland and Pyatt discuss who should become Ukraine’s new prime minister – the man who would, in fact, weeks later become the prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk – and to have the UN “glue” the plan to “midwife” a change of government. That change in government, as we shall see later, would conveniently result in leaders who would support the Washington agenda. It should be noted that Nuland mentioned then-Vice President Joe Biden as the American official who would be needed to approve the action.

In the interim, the Maidan movement was hijacked by the ultranationalist forces who utilized violence, beginning on February 18, 2014, with the march down Institutskaya Street in Kiev. This event was initially billed as a “peaceful offensive” on the Ukrainian parliament (Rada). But there was an inability or unwillingness of the rest of the Maidan movement to keep the protests peaceful. Over the coming days a massacre, initially blamed on Yanukovich’s forces, of police and protesters on the Maidan was carried out by the ultranationalists.

Those same violent extremists rejected a February 21st agreement negotiated by representatives from France, Germany, and Poland with the Yanukovich government. That agreement provided for the peaceful resolution of the months-long standoff on the Maidan with early elections and a devolution of power that would have resulted in Yanukovich leaving office before his original term expired.

After the installation of the pro-Western coup government, laws were proposed to ban the Russian language (later rescinded) and ultranationalists were given cabinet posts in the Interior and Education departments. Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister and the EU Agreement was signed.

Donbas Residents Targeted in Anti-Terrorist Operation, Civil War Begins

Residents in parts of Ukraine that had ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties to Russia, including the Donbas, were extremely alarmed by the illegal change of government as well as the violence and anti-Russian rhetoric associated with it.

Professor Serhiy Kudelia of Baylor University states in his in-depth study on the Maidan protests that the new Kiev government did make an attempt to negotiate with the rebels. However, one is left to wonder how seriously this was supposed to be taken by the rebels when one of the two men that Kiev sent for this purpose was neo-Nazi activist Andriy Parubiy, who participated in the violence of the Maidan (the other was Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema). This attempt at negotiation occurred only after the Donbas cities of Donetsk and Luhansk had successfully held a referendum calling for self-determination, which was viewed as a bargaining chip to gain as much autonomy as possible.

These negotiations failed, and the newly installed Kiev government decided to use force against the Donbas rebels, declaring an “anti-terrorist operation” against the region. Moreover, the rebellion originally called for federalization, with only a minority calling for an independent state known as Novorossiya. These calls would understandably increase later on, after months of Kiev’s anti-terrorist operation against the Donbas, which included shelling civilian neighborhoods and unleashing vicious neo-Nazi battalions to compensate for many Ukrainian army conscripts’ lack of stomach at the time for attacking their fellow Ukrainians. These attacks continued, albeit at a lower rate than in 2014-2015, after the Minsk Agreement of February 2015.

According to UN statistics, around 14,000 Ukrainians have died in the Donbas since the start of Kiev’s anti-terrorist operation against them, with about 80 percent of those victims on the rebel side. It is interesting to note the contrast of how these victims of war – many women and children blown apart – were treated by the Western media. No howls of outrage, crocodile tears, or calls to “do something” – even risking WWIII – to stop it. There was barely a peep out of Western media or officials when Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko declared in October of 2014 about his fellow Ukrainians in the Donbas in reference to the Kiev government’s revoking pension payments and forcing them to hide from shelling:

“We will have jobs – they will not. We will have pensions – they will not. [….] Our children will go to schools and kindergartens – theirs will hide in the basements.”

The Poroshenko government made it clear soon after signing onto the Minsk II Agreement in 2015 – which called for dialogue with the rebels on elections, passing of a law in Kiev to grant special status to the rebel regions, amnesty, and resumption of economic and social services – that it would not implement it. The ultranationalists, who have power out of proportion to their percentage of the population due to their willingness to use violence, made it clear that any moves to make what they perceived to be concessions to the Donbas or Russia would be gravely dangerous.

Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor and comedian with no political experience, defeated Poroshenko by a huge margin in the 2019 election by running as a peace candidate. It didn’t take long for Zelensky to also realize that the ultranationalists would derail any attempts he made for peace, which would require disarming them. This was illustrated when Zelensky traveled to Zolote situated on the line of contact in the Donbas to admonish the ultranationalist militias, led by the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, to disengage. The militias refused and Zelensky was forced to back down as other armed extremists threatened to descend on the area if Zelensky pushed the idea.

This rendered the Minsk process effectively dead in practical terms and Zelensky soon began cooperating with the ultranationalists, who’d been integrated into the Ukrainian military. He also allowed the Interior Ministry to deploy the ultranationalists’ vigilante brigades throughout Ukraine. He has even presented ultranationalist fighters with state awards.

It should be noted that both Zelensky and the Azov Battalion, along with other ultranationalist militias have a common financial benefactor in the form of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. The Azov Battalion currently controls the city of Mariupol in the southeast of Ukraine in which heavy civilian casualties are being reported.

De Facto NATO Membership

Since the western-backed coup in Ukraine, there have been numerous actions that could be perceived as moving Ukraine closer to de facto membership. In just the last three years alone, the Ukrainian constitution was changed to codify the aspiration for NATO membership rather than neutrality, over $1 billion worth of weapons were poured into Ukraine since spring of 2021, the U.S. and other countries trained the Ukrainian military to work directly with NATO, more US/UK/NATO exercises were held in the region and US warships increased their time spent in the Black Sea by 150% between 2020 and 2021. There was also concern that missile systems similar to those stationed in Romania and Poland – that are believed by the Russian government to have offensive capability with a change in software – could be installed in Ukraine.

While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon, it wasn’t exactly insane from Russia’s perspective to think that de facto NATO membership was an ever-increasing reality.

As reported by the Associated Press on November 30, 2021, Putin told the audience at an online investment forum that he was worried about this very thing:

Speaking to participants of an online investment forum the Russian president said that NATO’s eastward expansion has threatened Moscow’s core security interests. He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.

“The emergence of such threats represents a ‘red line’ for us,” Putin said. “I hope that common sense and responsibility for their own countries and the global community will eventually prevail.”

Putin expressed similar concerns a month later in a speech to his military leaders:

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….

In fact, Putin tried to explain, in a visibly frustrated tone, to a group of Western journalists during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2016 that US/NATO was engaging in provocative behaviors that threatened Russia’s security and that he would eventually be forced to act:

“I must remind you, though you already know this, that major global conflicts have been avoided in the past few decades due to the geostrategic balance of power, which used to exist. So the Iranian threat does not exist. But missile defense systems are continuing to be built. That means we were right when we said they are lying to us. I don’t know how this is all going to end. What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves. And I even know how they will package this: “Russian aggression” again. But this is simply our response to your actions. Is it not obvious that I must guarantee the safety of our people? And not only that, but we must attempt to retain the necessary strategic balance of power, which is the point that I began with…It was precisely this balance of power that guaranteed the safety of humanity from major global conflict over the past 70 years. It was a blessing rooted in a mutual threat, but this mutual threat is what guaranteed mutual peace, on a global scale. How they could so easily tear it down, I simply don’t know. I think this is gravely dangerous. I not only think that, I’m assured of it. (Source – 55-minute mark)

Russia’s Warnings About Red Lines

The tragic turn of events that followed the 2014 coup and the increased push to get Ukraine aligned with NATO was predicted by Russian officials, including Putin himself, on more than one occasion. The first was during a 2006 meeting with then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in which Putin tried to impress upon Rice that efforts to bring Ukraine into NATO would be disastrous all the way around. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was present: “Putin explained what Ukraine was – at least a third of the population are ethnic Russians – and the negative consequences that could arise, not only for us but for all of Europe if Ukraine and Georgia were dragged into NATO.”

American ambassador Bill Burns, who was with Rice at the meeting, stated that Rice responded by declaring that each sovereign nation had the right to decide for itself which institutions or alliances it wanted to join. Putin reportedly replied: “You do not understand what you are doing. You are playing with fire.”

In February 2008, Ambassador Burns sent a classified cable back to Washington, summing up another meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov about Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan as “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines.” The Russians had reiterated again that Ukraine in NATO was unacceptable, citing among other concerns that the issue could precipitate division in the country, perhaps leading to civil war, which would put Russia in the difficult position of having to choose whether to intervene or not – a decision it was stressed that Russia did not want to be faced with.

In the midst of NATO expansion, the Bush II administration had also decided to unilaterally pull out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, which was seen as potentially jeopardizing the nuclear balance of power by leaving the U.S./NATO free to pursue a first-strike capability with implementation of an anti-ballistic missile shield. This has allowed the placement of the US/NATO missiles in Romania and Poland that has the Kremlin worried about similar future placement in Ukraine.

In addition to warnings straight from the horse’s mouth, several experts over the years predicted the dangers of the US/NATO using Ukraine as a cudgel against Russia, including George Kennan, Stephen Cohen, and John Mearsheimer. It cannot be said this was done out of ignorance by the West of the potential consequences.

Conclusion

Ultranationalists were weaponized in Washington’s agenda to snatch Ukraine into an exclusive Western camp that included implementation of neoliberal economic policies and either official or de facto NATO membership. This is a familiar Washington playbook similar to how violent extremists were weaponized against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and against the Assad government in Syria.

The bottom line is that if the West had really cared about what’s in the best interests of Ukraine and its people in the long term, they would not have exploited its divisions for geopolitical advantage over Russia in its own backyard. They would have instead ensured that Ukraine was neutral and could not be used by either the West or Russia to further any geopolitical agenda, that it would have the ability to conduct economic relations with both, and it would have encouraged a pluralistic approach to governing which could have provided space for Ukraine to develop its democracy. As it stands, the West seems intent on fanning the flames as Ukraine gets burned. With friends like the West, Ukraine doesn’t need enemies.