By Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone, 9/6/23

Once denounced by Zelensky as a “criminal,” gun runner Serhiy Pashinksy has become the top private supplier of arms to Ukraine. Eyewitness testimony has fingered Pashinsky as the architect of a bloody false flag operation which propelled the 2014 Maidan coup and plunged the country into civil war.

Years before emerging as Kiev’s top private weapons trafficker, ex-legislator Serhiy Pashinsky played a key role in the 2014 US-backed coup which toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president and set the stage for a devastating civil war. Though the notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian parliamentarian was condemned by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “criminal” as recently as 2019, a lengthy exposé by the New York Times has now identified Pashinsky as the Ukrainian government’s “biggest private arms supplier.” 

Perhaps predictably, the report makes no mention of evidence implicating Pashinsky in the 2014 massacre of 70 anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square, an incident which pro-Western forces used to consummate their coup d’etat against then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

In an August 12 report on Ukraine’s new weapons-sourcing strategy, the New York Times alleged that “out of desperation,” Kiev had no option but to adopt increasingly amoral tactics. The shift, they say, has driven up prices of lethal imports at an exponential rate, “and added layer upon layer of profit-making” for the benefit of unscrupulous speculators like Pashinsky. 

According to the Times, the strategy is simple: Pashinksy “buys and sells grenades, artillery shells and rockets through a trans-European network of middlemen,” then “sells them, then buys them again and sells them once more”:

“With each transaction, prices rise – as do the profits of Mr. Pashinsky’s associates – until the final buyer, Ukraine’s military, pays the most,” the Times explained, adding that while using multiple brokers may technically be legal, “it is a time-tested way to inflate profits.”

As the seemingly endless supply of cash from Western taxpayers provides a bonanza for arms manufacturers such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, it similarly benefits war profiteers like Pashinsky. His company, Ukrainian Armored Technology, “reported its best year ever last year, with sales totaling more than $350 million” — a whopping 12,500% increase from its $2.8 million in sales the year before the war.

Pashinsky is not the only racketeer benefitting from the elimination of anti-corruption measures in wartime Ukraine. Several suppliers previously placed on an official blacklist after they “ripped off the military” are now free to sell again, according to the Times investigation. The outlet downplayed this as an unfortunate, but ultimately necessary measure.

“In the name of rushing weapons to the front line, leaders have resurrected figures from Ukraine’s rough-and-tumble past and undone, at least temporarily, years of anticorruption [sic] policies,” the Times asserted, describing “the re-emergence of figures like Mr. Pashinsky” as “one reason the American and British governments are buying ammunition for Ukraine rather than simply handing over money”:

“European and American officials are loath to discuss Mr. Pashinsky, for fear of playing into Russia’s narrative that Ukraine’s government is hopelessly corrupt and must be replaced.”

However, even the seemingly critical Times report overlooks a key aspect of Pashinsky’s unsavory biography. Conspicuously absent from the coverage was any explanation of his role in carrying out the infamous massacre of anti-government activists and police officers in Kiev’s Maidan Square in late February 2014.

A defining moment in the US-orchestrated overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government, the death of 70 at the hands of mysterious snipers triggered an avalanche of international outrage that led directly to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. Even today, these killings officially remain unsolved.

However, firsthand testimony by individuals who claimed to have helped carry out the false flag attack suggest Kiev’s most prolific gun runner was intimately involved in the grisly affair.

Maidan massacre organizer ‘takes no prisoners’

In November 2017, Italy’s Matrix TV channel published eyewitness accounts by three Georgians who say they were ordered to kill protesters by Mamuka Mamulashvili. Then the top-ranking military aide to Georgian president Mikhael Saakashvili, Mamulashvili later founded the infamous mercenary brigade known as the Georgian Legion, whose fighters were widely condemned after they published a gruesome video of themselves gleefully executing unarmed and bound Russian soldiers in April 2022.

The documentary, “Ukraine: The Hidden Truth,” features an Italian journalist’s interviews with three Georgian fighters allegedly sent to orchestrate the coup. All described Pashinsky as a key organizer and executor of the Maidan massacre, even alleging the corrupt arms dealers provided weapons and selected specific targets. The film also featured footage of him personally evacuating a shooter from the Square, after they had been caught with a rifle and a scope by protesters and surrounded.

One of the Georgian fighters recalled how he and his two associates arrived in Kiev in January, “to arrange provocations to push the police to charge the crowd.” For almost a month, however, “there were not many weapons around,” and “molotov [cocktails], shields and sticks were used to the maximum.”

This changed around mid-February, they said, when Mamualashvili personally visited them alongside a US soldier named Brian Christopher Boyenger, a former officer and sniper in the 101st Airborne Division, who personally gave them orders they “had to follow.”

Pashinky then personally moved them along with sniper rifles and ammunition to buildings overlooking Maidan Square, they alleged. At that point, Mamualashvili reportedly insisted that “we have to start shooting, so much, to sow some chaos.”

So it was that the Georgian fighters “started shooting two or three shots at a time” into the crowd below, having been ordered to “shoot the Berkut, the police, and the demonstrators, no matter what.” Once the killing was over, Boyenger moved to the Donbas front to fight in the ranks of the Georgian Legion, which Mamulashvili commands to this day.

In the meantime, Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Boiko, who headed the civic council of the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine after Maidan, has alleged that in order to obscure his role, Pashinsky personally hand-picked the figures leading the official investigation into the massacre, and even bribed the prosecutor who headed it.

Despite these shocking claims, Pashinsky’s involvement in the Maidan massacre has never been officially investigated, let alone punished, and his most recent experiences with the Ukrainian judicial system suggest it is unlikely to be heavily scrutinized by officials in Kiev. While a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, he was arrested for shooting and wounding a pedestrian in a traffic-related dispute, but was ultimately acquitted in 2021. 

When Israeli journalists confronted Pashinsky about his role in the Maidan massacre, the arms dealer warned that they would be tracked down in their home country, where his associates would “tear them apart.” They could be forgiven for believing it was not an idle threat; there is a troubling tendency for Pashinky’s detractors to end up viciously beaten or shot dead in the street.

By Marc Bennetts, The Times (UK), 9/18/23

Kyiv and Moscow will go up against each other today in the International Court of Justice in the Hague in a case that focuses on Russia’s claim that it invaded Ukraine to prevent “genocide”.

President Putin said last year that Kyiv’s “neo-Nazi” regime was guilty of genocide by deliberately targeting the Donbas region, a Russian-speaking area in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine accused Moscow of distorting the concept of genocide to justify its invasion and filed a case with the top court of the United Nations two days after Russian tanks crossed its borders in the early hours of February 24 last year.

“Russia has turned the Genocide Convention on its head, making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine,” Kyiv said.

The UN defines genocide as “the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part”.

Moscow is seeking to have Ukraine’s case thrown out and objects to the ICJ’s jurisdiction. The hearings will last until next Wednesday, September 27.

The case comes as China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, begins a four-day trip to Moscow ahead of a possible trip by Putin to Beijing in October. Putin has not travelled abroad since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Wang will meet senior Russian officials, including Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s national security council.

The allegation that Ukraine was guilty of the systematic destruction of ethnic Russians in the Donbas is central to how Moscow has sought to convince its citizens that the war was unavoidable. Critics have accused Putin of lying about the nature and the scale of the casualties to justify an attempt to destroy Ukraine as an independent country.

More than 14,000 people died in the Donbas in the eight years preceding Russia’s full-scale invasion. The fighting began in 2014 after the Kremlin provided military support to a tiny separatist movement in the coal-mining region, sending in troops, security service agents and military equipment.

About 3,400 of the fatalities were among civilians, according to UN data. The remaining deaths were among Ukrainian and Russian forces and the vast majority came between 2014 and 2015. A series of shaky ceasefires meant fatalities declined sharply in the following years.

In 2021, the year before Russia’s invasion, seven civilians died as a result of hostilities in the Kremlin-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, according to its own figures. It is believed that most of the deaths were because of landmines.

The ICJ ruled in Kyiv’s favour in a preliminary decision on the case shortly after Russia’s invasion and ordered Moscow to cease military actions in Ukraine immediately. Russia has ignored the order and the court has no way to enforce its decisions. However, legal experts say a final ruling in favour of Kyiv could be important for any eventual reparations claims.

“If the court finds there was no lawful justification under the Genocide Convention for Russia’s acts, the decision can set up a future claim for compensation,” said Juliette McIntyre, an expert on the ICJ.

Kyiv has also accused Moscow of genocide in eastern Ukraine, as well as the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia. The vast majority of the victims of the Kremlin’s invasion live in Russian-speaking towns and cities in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have become refugees and towns and cities have been flattened by Russian missiles since the start of the war. “What is Putin protecting us from? Our lives? Our homes?” a civilian in Ukraine’s Kherson region asked The Times recently.

Ukraine said on Monday that two people had been killed by Russian missile attacks in Kherson. It said its air forces had shot down 17 cruise missiles and 18 out of 24 attack drones in Moscow’s latest overnight bombardment.

Kyiv also said its forces had recaptured small areas in the south and east of the country, including near Bakhmut, the town that was destroyed by Russian forces.

Ukraine added that it was dismissing all six of its deputy defence ministers. It comes after President Zelensky named Rustem Umerov as his new defence minister. Umerov replaced Oleksii Reznikov, who has been tipped to become Ukraine’s next ambassador to Britain.

Brave New Europe, 8/27/23

The window for a negotiated end to the war is closing rapidly. This autumn could be diplomacy’s last chance to secure any kind of a settlement. If that doesn’t happen, Ukraine’s fate will be decided on the battlefield and when the guns go silent, the Ukrainian state may not exist in any meaningful sense.

Geoff Roberts is Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy

Cross-posted from Strumenti Politici in Italian

1) The Ukrainian counteroffensive is not going as good as the Western politicians and mainstream media would like it to. What do you think willhappen in the next weeks on the field? Will the result of the Ukrainian counteroffensive change the policy of the Bruxelles towards Kiev?

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed. Ukraine’s armed forces may be able to achieve some tactical gains but there is no prospect of any kind of strategic breakthrough. The material and human costs of the failed offensive have been huge and slowly but surely the military balance is shifting decisively in Russia’s favour. Notwithstanding massive Western assistance, Ukraine is clearly losing the war. It remains to be seen if that  reality prompts Western decisionmakers to embrace diplomacy and seek a negotiated end to the war that could safeguard Ukraine’s future. That depends on the strength of realist and pragmatic voices among Western elites. Because the West’s leaders have invested so much political capital in the defeat of Russia in Ukraine they will find it difficult to change course. I hope they do change direction but it may take a while and, in the meantime, Ukraine’s immense suffering will continue.

2) Should the West be afraid of an escalation with the Russian Federation? Do you think a local fight between Poland and Belarus, for example, is possible? Would it escalate to a continental or global dimension?

One of the most worrying things about the war has been the West’s lack of fear concerning escalation. The persistent pattern has been ever greater escalation of the West’s proxy war with Russia and of its material support for Ukraine. It is the West’s actions that have led to such a prolonged war. Had the EU and NATO restrained and curtailed its aid to Kiev, the war would have ended months ago and  Ukraine would have been saved from immense damage, including the lost lives of hundreds of thousands of its people. Yes, Ukraine would have lost territory and its statehood would have been curtailed. But it would have survived as a sovereign and independent state. The prolongation of the war has and will continue to lead to further Ukrainian territorial losses. If the war doesn’t end soon Ukraine’s fate will be that of a rump dysfunctional state completely dependent on a West that will be far less generous in its support once the fighting has stopped.

It is unlikely the war will escalate to an all-out conflict between Russian and the West  but it remains possible, including, as you suggest, as a result of a Polish-Belarus clash. Bear in mind, too, that there are extremists in the anti-Russia camp who relish such escalation and have been pushing for it since the war began. Western neocons and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists are convinced Russia is a paper-tiger that will fold if you confront it. Crazy thinking but they do really appear to believe such nonsense.

3) Is history history repeating itself in Ukraine? I refer to the German tanks rolling east again or even to a hypothetical great clash between the maritime “Anglo-American” empire and the Russian land empire.

At the moment, the German (and British) tanks are not rolling east. They are being destroyed by Russian artillery, airpower and anti-tank missiles. The same is true of all the other types of western armour that has been supplied to Ukraine. Sober elements among the Western military must have taken note and realise that Russia has the capacity to defeat the West in any direct, large-scale conventional encounter. The also realise that such a war would rapidly escalate to the nuclear level because that is the only way the United States would be able to defend Europe from a Russian onslaught. Fortunately, there is no evidence that Russia has any such intentions. Throughout the war Putin has sought to restrain Western escalationism by not over-reacting to provocations such as the supply of German Leopard tanks to Ukraine,

 4) Under an academic point of view, do you think this war was inevitable? And most importantly, is its result inevitable, already   determined by historical elements and being its manifestation just a matter of time, or can it be moulded by some specific choices of the politicians or the generals?

The Russo-Ukraine war is the most un-inevitable and avoidable war in history. It could have been prevented by NATO restraining its expansion to Russia’s borders and desisting from its military build-up of Ukraine. It could have been prevented by implementation of the Minsk agreements that would have returned rebel Donets and Lugansk to Ukrainian sovereignty whilst at the same time protecting the rights and autonomy pro-Russia elements in Ukraine. Minsk failed because Ukrainian ultra-nationalists sabotaged implementation of the agreements and the West let them get away with it. The war could have been averted by serious negotiations about European security that would have assuaged Russian fears and respected its interests in relation to the Ukraine.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was an illegal act of aggression but it was far from being unprovoked. Ukraine and the West share responsibility for the outbreak of war. Importantly, the war could have ended in weeks if the peace negotiations in Istanbul in spring 2022 had succeeded. Those negotiations failed because – with Western support – Ukraine walked away from a deal that would have limited the damage to its territoriality and sovereignty and stabilised its relations with Russia.

5) How do you explain the fact that Finland and Sweden have given up their traditional neutral position? Is Ireland or Austria going to follow the same path?

Finland and Sweden becoming members of NATO is not as radical a step as it might seem. For decades the two states have been closely aligned and in collaboration with NATO. The danger is that membership of NATO will lead to the establishment of US military bases on Swedish and Finnish territory. That would be seen as threating by Russia. For historical reasons, Austria’s relationship with NATO has always been more detached than that of Sweden and Finland and I don’t envisage that situation changing. Ireland’s practical collaboration with NATO has been developing for years and has increased considerably during the course of the present war, but public opinion remained wedded to the idea of Irish neutrality. All this is a great pity because a firm neutral bloc in Europe could have helped keep diplomacy alive and played a constructive role in efforts to achieve a ceasefire and a peace settlement. Neutral European states could also have allied themselves to the Global South’s growing campaign for negotiations to end the war.

6) Today, how difficult is for a University professor to express his opinions without fear of censorship or disdain from the media or the colleagues? Unfortunately, in Italy we have had some bad experience in this matter.

It’s not difficult for me because I am ‘retired’ and can say and do what I like, including travel to Russia for academic conferences. The pressure on colleagues in less favourable situations to conform to the Western ‘party line’ on the Ukraine war is enormous and helps explain their reticence about speaking out or even sharing their scholarly expertise, since all efforts at impartiality are censored or shouted down. Of course, academics in Ukraine are under far greater threat and pressure to conform. It is also perilous, if not impossible, for Russian academics to express critical  views  about the war.

7) Do you think that the EU will actually accept Ukraine as a member? Or will it delay the accession again and again, just like NATO is doing?

I think the EU’s encouragement of a war to the proverbial last Ukrainian means it has a moral obligation to admit Ukraine as a member. But for all the EU’s current fine words it will take years for Ukraine to become a member, if ever. Ironically, the country that will pose the most formidable obstacle to Ukraine’s membership of the EU will be the state that has been its staunchest supporter during the war – Poland. For all the common anti-Russian nationalist rhetoric, economically and politically, Poland and Ukraine’s interests clash in the EU context. Poland is the country that has the most to lose by Ukraine’s entry to the EU, and that may be the reason it won’t happen. 

I suppose a defeated, dysfunctional rump Ukrainian state could become a member of NATO at some time in the future but even that would require Russia’s acquiescence as well as the unanimity of all its members.

8) What can the EU do to help stop the war?

Abandon war-mongering and embrace diplomacy. Rediscover its identity as a pro-peace project. Use its formidable skills and experience at negotiation, compromise and fudge  to secure a ceasefire and a lasting peace settlement.

9) Next year the presidential elections will be held in the United States. Do you think that something can change for the better?

Biden could well lose the election because of the war. Presumably that will mean a win for Trump. The problem with Trump is that he talks a lot but delivers little. Now Trump seems to favour peace in Ukraine but it was his administration that accelerated NATO’s military build-up in Ukraine. Putin will be very wary of whoever becomes US President. Putin will only end the war on terms that guarantee Russia’s security and safeguard the interests of pro-Russian Ukrainians. If necessary, he will fight the war to the bitter end and then impose a highly punitive peace.

The window for a negotiated end to the war is closing rapidly. This autumn could be diplomacy’s last chance to secure any kind of a settlement. If that doesn’t happen, Ukraine’s fate will be decided on the battlefield and when the guns go silent, the Ukrainian state may not exist in any meaningful sense.

By Scott Pelley, CBS News, 9/17/23

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says world order is at stake in the Ukraine war.

“If Ukraine falls, what will happen in ten years? Just think about it. If [the Russians] reach Poland, what’s next? A Third World War?” Zelenskyy told Scott Pelley in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday. “We’re defending the values of the whole world. And these are Ukrainian people who are paying the highest price. We are truly fighting for our freedom, we are dying. We are not fiction, we are not a book. We are fighting for real with a nuclear state that threatens to destroy the world.”

Zelenskyy on U.S. funding for Ukraine against Russia

Citing the roughly $70 billion the United States has contributed to Ukraine’s war effort, Pelley asked Zelenskyy if he expected that level of support to continue.

“The United States of America [is] supporting Ukraine financially and I’m grateful for this,” Zelenskyy said. “I just think they’re not supporting only Ukraine. If Ukraine falls, Putin will surely go further. What will the United States of America do when Putin reaches the Baltic states? When he reaches the Polish border? He will. This is a lot of money. We have a lot of gratitude. What else must Ukraine do for everyone to measure our huge gratitude? We are dying in this war.”

“What will it take?” Pelley asked, “Another $70 billion?”

“I don’t have an answer,” Zelenskyy answered, “The whole world [has to] decide whether we want to stop Putin, or whether we want to start the beginning of a world war. We can’t change Putin. Russian society has [lost] the respect of the world. They elected him and re-elected him and raised a second Hitler. They did this. We cannot go back in time. But we can stop it here.”

Zelenskyy on threats of nuclear war, 2024 U.S. election

Zelenskyy says Putin will use the threat of nuclear war to stoke instability in the United States and Europe.

“I think that he’s going to continue threatening,” Zelenskyy said. “He is waiting for the United States to become less stable. He thinks that’s going to happen during the U.S. election. He will be looking for instability in Europe and the United States of America. He will use the risk of using nuclear weapons to fuel that [instability]. He will keep on threatening.”

Uncertainty surrounding the upcoming U.S. presidential election concerns Zelenskyy. Although he says he hasn’t received some military aide fast enough, he has been grateful for President Biden’s support. 

Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s slow counteroffensive, drone strikes in Russia

Zelenskyy admits progress has been slow in the counter-offensive, but says Ukrainian troops comprised mostly of draftees are moving forward. The 700-mile frontline has become an artillery duel with both Russians and Ukrainians firing 40,000 shells a day. Drone warfare has also slowed progress.

“It’s a difficult situation. I will be completely honest with you. We have the initiative. This is a plus,” Zelenskyy said. “We stopped the Russian offensive and we moved onto a counter-offensive. And despite that, it’s not very fast. It is important that we are moving forward every day and liberating territory.”

“We need to liberate our territory as much as possible and move forward, even if it’s less than [half a mile or] a hundred [yards] we must do it,” Zelenskyy continued. “We mustn’t give Putin a break.”

Zelenskyy also commented on the drone strikes against Russia, which Ukraine doesn’t officially acknowledge.

“You do know that we use our partners’ weapons on the territory of Ukraine only,” Zelenskyy said. “And this is true, but these are not punitive missions, such as they carry out killing civilians. Russia needs to know that wherever it is, whichever place they use for launching missiles to strike Ukraine, Ukraine has every moral right to attack those places. We are responding to them saying: ‘Your sky is not as well protected, as you think.'”

With reference to the numerous non-military targets Russia has attacked, Pelley asked Zelenskyy what he thought Putin was trying to accomplish by killing civilians.

“To break [us],” Zelenskyy said. “And by choosing civilian targets, Putin wanted to achieve exactly this – to break [us]. This person who has made his way with such bloody actions, with everything he has said, cannot be trusted. There is no trust in such a person because he has not been a human being for a long time.”

Zelenskyy is scheduled to travel to the U.S. this week to address the United Nations General Assembly and visit the White House and Congress.

By Simon Saradzhyan, Russia Matters, 9/7/23

The results of the Levada Center’s latest installment in its series of polls on Russians’ attitudes’ toward Russia’s war in Ukraine indicate that the share of peaceniks continues to exceed the share of war hawks among common Russians.

In fact, if adding the shares of those who definitely support and those who rather support the launch of peace negotiations (Option 1) with those who definitely support and those who rather support the continuation of the so-called special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine (Option 2), then total support for the launch of peace talks (Option 1) has exceeded total support for continued war (Option 2) in (almost) all monthly polls since September 2022,¹ except for May 2023 (see Graph 1).

Levada’s August poll shows that Russians’ support for peace talks decreases as their age increases, but peaceniks still outnumber war hawks even among those 55 and older. As many as 64% of those aged between 18 and 24 called for peace talks in August.² In comparison, of respondents aged 55 years and older, only 44% favored such talks in August (which is, however, still 1 percentage point more than the share of respondents in this age group who favored continuing the SVO), according to Levada.

That the overall majority of respondents consistently favors peace talks is particularly remarkable given that all Russian-state-controlled media outlets promote the Kremlin’s pro-war views, as well as the fact that in Russia, expressing a dissenting view on the war even privately (e.g., in a private chat on a messaging app) can land one in jail. 

It should be noted, however, that if one were to compare attitudes among those that have strong views, then staunch peaceniks have actually been outnumbered by staunch supporters of war for months, and August is no exception (23% versus 22%, see Graph 2). When comparing the shares of those who “definitely” favor the launch of peace talks (Option 1.A) and those who “definitely” favor continuing the SVO (Option 2.A), the share of those who favor Option 2.A exceeded the share of those who favor Option 1.A in all monthly polls, except for October 2022 (see Table 2). Perhaps this enduring trend is one argument that the dominant hawkish wing in the Russian elite invokes when arguing for the continuation of war.

Footnotes:

1. A simplified version of this poll in August 2022 asked respondents if they support continuing the war or launching peace negotiations. Between the two options, 48% of respondents chose continuing war, while 44% supported launching peace negotiations.
2. It should be noted that multiple Levada polls have revealed that younger Russians tend to take a less hardline stance on political issues.

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, unless otherwise stated. Photo by Mil.ru shared via a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Angelina Flood also contributed to this blog post.