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Time for the western media to send real journalists to Russia & Ukraine

By Bryan MacDonald | RT | August 3, 2015

The media’s use of young, inexperienced freelancers in Ukraine has long been a disaster waiting to happen. Last weekend’s obviously fabricated “dirty bomb” nonsense is further proof.

I’ve said it dozens of times. I’ll now repeat it. The western media needs to send qualified, experienced journalists to cover Russia and Ukraine. Especially at this particular moment, when civil war rages in the latter and the former is experiencing significant economic and foreign policy challenges.

The practice of using unskilled, amateur hacks in the region, no matter how noble their intentions, is unfair to readers and viewers. It’s also unjust to the wannabe journalists themselves. As non-staff members (many don’t even have contracts) they lack the usual protections afforded to media professionals on foreign postings. Many working in Eastern Ukraine have only rudimentary Russian-language skills and are unable to afford competent translators and security.

Newsdesks back home will always demand coverage be tailored to certain tastes. However, staff status supplies a safety blanket that empowers them to resist some of the more ludicrous suggestions – particularly those that may endanger them. Freelancers and short-term contract workers don’t have such luxuries. The former are usually paid by the article or appearance, which forces them to desperately hustle to be published. It sometimes encourages them to make up or exaggerate stories.

Decline in standards

Since Ukraine’s Maidan protests kicked off over a year and a half ago now, the western media has dipped in and out of events. Around the time of the 2014 Kiev coup and later following the MH17 disaster, most credible outlets did send competent reporters from their headquarters.

During these periods, coverage improved immeasurably. Sadly, the rest of the time they’ve used local stringers or inexperienced hacks who emerged from the Moscow and Kiev expat press. The standard of these publications is, frankly, laughable. Indeed, they’d compare most unfavorably to many local freesheet rags in the British Isles, let alone paid-for newspapers.

There are exceptions, notably the BBC, which, to be fair, has humongous resources. Indeed, the Beeb even sent their renowned foreign correspondent Fergal Keane to Donbass for an extended period. Nevertheless, the rest of the UK and American media has left the A-team at home. Instead, we are treated to the best efforts of low-paid beat hacks, many of whom are learning on the job.

Veterans of the late Soviet period and the Yeltsin years, a time when giants of journalism walked Moscow’s streets are, privately, aghast. Following a recent RT op-ed when I questioned the quality of contemporary reportage, I was amazed by how many former Moscow correspondents contacted me.

“Newspapers have no money for translators and drivers and the like. There’s a very small pool of people who can speak Russian and write reasonably well in English,” mused one former British great. An American legend observed: “They are now using the type of guys (sic) we used to use for illness and holiday cover to actually run the bureau. It’s mind-bogglingly silly. Russia is a delicate posting.”

The menace of unreality

Indeed it is. Yet, right now, Ukraine is even more sensitive. An inaccurate report from the country’s eastern war zone could cost lives or raise tensions. Or both. In February, a hoax report in the Washington Free Beacon encouraged US senators to urge the White House to act swiftly to counter a “Russian invasion” of Ukraine. There was a problem. The photographic evidence was years old and predated the Ukraine crisis. It later emerged that the photos had been supplied to Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma by a Ukrainian “delegation” to the US capital.

A US senator from an earlier age, Hiram Warren Johnson, is credited as first observing that “the first casualty when war comes is truth.” During the Ukrainian civil war, Johnson’s theory has been proven countless times, by both sides. Far too often, the western media accepts Ukrainian misinformation as genuine. From estimates of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers inside the country to, obviously inaccurate, death toll numbers. The Russian press is equally guilty of parroting hyperbolic statements from the rebel side. An infamous example was the allegation that a 10-year-old child had been crucified in Slavyansk last year.

While the various reports of Russian “invasions” can be laughed off, like this hilarious Daily Beast propaganda effort, sometimes the deliberate manipulation of facts is far more sinister. Incidentally, as an example of media negligence on Russia, the Daily Beast employs a “Russia expert” who has never lived in the country and can’t speak the language. Do the outlet’s management even countenance how insulting this is to their readers?

This weekend, in the pages of The Times of London and Newsweek, we saw exactly what happens when media concerns use greenhorn stringers in sensitive situations. Instead of sending an experienced staffer to Ukraine, both have recently collaborated with Maxim Tucker. Tucker, a former Amnesty International activist, who doesn’t hide his pro-Maidan credentials, published the same story in both. The Times version was headlined, “Ukraine rebels ‘building dirty bomb’ with Russian scientists.” Meanwhile, Newsweek went for “Ukraine Says Pro-Russia Rebels Are Building a Dirty Bomb.”

Incendiary stuff. If true, it could feasibly ignite a major diplomatic, perhaps even military, stand-off. Luckily, the story is fiction. This is blindingly obvious to anyone with even a minute comprehension of the region. Newsweek and The Times have embarrassed themselves. At the same time, Tucker has exposed himself as being seriously out his depth. Even his hack-pack colleagues are distancing themselves from this nonsense. Tucker, either knowingly or unwittingly, has fallen hook, line and sinker for Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) disinformation. Unsophisticated misinformation at that. In fact, typically Soviet in its execution, going for the big lie.

Allow me to explain why Tucker’s two, almost identical, pieces are total rubbish. Tucker himself, along with most western hacks in Ukraine, asserts that Russia is backing the east Ukrainian rebels. If this were true, why would the rebels need to “research” dirty bombs? Russia, currently uniquely, can send people into space – such a device would be child’s play to its scientists. Or is Tucker contradicting himself and now alleging that Russia is not arming the insurgents?

There are a few more blatantly obvious holes in the supposition. Tucker writes: “The SBU said it was not clear from those conversations whether the specialists were employees of the Russian state or private individuals. The transcripts of these conversations could not be provided.” Why could the transcripts not be provided? It’s abundantly clear that Tucker’s sole source is the SBU, an organization not noted for fealty to the truth.

Social media war

“The dossier includes three documents, written in Russian, that appear to be military orders from DPR leaders to subordinate commanders at the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry for Emergency Situations, and the Donetsk chemical factory. They were allegedly downloaded with hundreds of others when SBU agents took control of a rebel email address in the first week of July.”

Is Tucker seriously saying that the rebels discussed bombs by email? Why not VKontakte (Russia’s version of Facebook) or Twitter? In fact, if they were that stupid, perhaps they posted a few postcards on the topic too?

Tucker also claims: “The OSCE is believed to have raised the issue with the Kremlin at talks in Minsk on July 21, and is expected to bring in its own specialist to examine the bunker at the plant.” He doesn’t say who believes the OSCE has done this.

However, the biggest sign this article is a piece of low-grade fiction is contained in what Tucker omits. He fails to explain how the SBU believes the rebels would deliver the “bomb.” The Ukrainian rebels have no air force. Hence, the only feasible route would be by truck. If so, how would the vehicle bypass Ukraine’s line of control?

I am sure that Tucker is aware that in 2010 the US paid for the installation of Radiation Portal Monitors at all Ukrainian border posts to prevent the smuggling of radioactive material. As a result, the only places the rebels could use a “dirty bomb” are either inside Donbass or inside Russia. Unless their leadership has completely lost its marbles, this would make no sense.

Newsweek and The Times are among dozens of respectable media outlets who need to send proper, qualified journalists to Russia and Ukraine. Cutting corners insults their readers. Journalism is a serious craft. It mustn’t be left to amateurs, no matter how well intentioned their efforts.

~

Bryan MacDonald is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and teacher. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. Bryan also worked in Los Angeles. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT. Bryan is particularly interested in social equality, European geopolitics, sport and languages. He has lived in Berlin, Russia and the USA.

August 4, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media | , , | Leave a comment

60 Minutes Provides Platform for US Military to Hype Imaginary China and Russia Threat

By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | August 2, 2015

The CBS news program 60 Minutes on Sunday aired an extended segment titled “The Battle Above” that relayed the concerns of various US military personnel that China and Russia could pose a threat to the vast system of American satellites that are used for military purposes and for commercial use by banks, telecommunications companies, farmers and others.

“Top military and intelligence leaders are now worried those satellites are vulnerable to attack. They say China, in particular, has been actively testing anti-satellite weapons that could, in effect, knock out America’s eyes and ears,” said correspondent David Martin.

Gen. John Hyten, head of the 38,000-person Space Command unit of the US Air Force, tells all his troops that there is a “contested environment” in space with multiple countries not allied with the U.S. possessing capabilities that could potentially threaten American satellites. “It’s a competition that I wish wasn’t occurring, but it is. And if we’re threatened in space, we have the right to self-defense, and we’ll make sure we can execute that right,” Hyten says.

While the Pentagon admits spending $10 billion per year on space, 60 Minutes reports that when you add in other indirect costs the actual total reaches $25 billion. And Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James says the Pentagon plans to spend an additional $5 billion over the next 5 years on protecting its satellites.

Hyten describes the ambitions and activities of foreign actors in space as essentially an existential threat not just to the U.S. military but to the American economy. This is a useful narrative for an agency that is seeking billions of dollars to extend its current dominance.

Without a discernible threat, it would be difficult to justify such outlandish expenditures as the X-37B space plane. The plane is able to return to earth after voyaging for 20 months into space, allowing anything included in the payload to be later retrieved. The purpose of the plane is as yet undisclosed. But Hyten’s response when asked if it will one day be used as a weapons system – that he can’t answer – is revealing.

The military officials interviewed by 60 Minutes frame the issue as one in which the U.S. is acting purely in self-defense and within international law. Martin mentions that there is a 1967 U.N. treaty that calls for the peaceful use of space, but says in practice it does not resolve much. When he asks if this means it’s every country for himself, Lee James says, “Pretty much.”

60 Minutes makes much of anti-satellite weapons tests that China conducted in 2007, nearly a decade ago. China’s foreign ministry told the news program that it has not conducted any tests since and is “committed to the peaceful use of outer space.”

Are China’s declarations just empty rhetoric to conceal their true ambitions? And what threat do Russia and other countries like North Korea actually pose?

60 Minutes fails to mention that the United Nations has actively been dealing with the threat of weapons in space, and it is the United States itself – not China or Russia – that has been most forceful in rejecting limits on weapons programs and an arms race in space.

In its most recent session, the UN General Assembly passed two resolutions directly related to the use of weapons in space – one of which the U.S. government outright opposed and the other which it abstained from voting on.

UNGA resolution 69/31, “Prevention of an arms race in outer space” passed by a margin of 178-0 with 2 abstentions (the United States and Israel). The resolution affirmed that “the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be for peaceful purposes and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries” and recalled that all States must “observe the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations regarding the use or threat of use of force in their international relations, including in their space activities.”

The General Assembly also passed resolution 69/32, “No first placement of weapons in outer space,” passed by a margin of 126-4 with 26 abstentions. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran all voted in favor of this measure, while the United States, Israel and US allies Georgia and Ukraine were the only nations voting against it.

The resolution “urges an early start of substantive work based on the updated draft treaty on the prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space and of the threat or use of force against outer space” that was submitted at the Conference on Disarmament. The draft treaty was submitted by two states: China and Russia.

In their story, 60 Minutes serves the role of Pentagon PR mouthpiece, allowing US military officials to hype the threat of China and Russia by presenting a narrative based on little more than their own paranoia.

If they wanted to realistically assess the threat of an arms race in space and determine who is responsible, 60 Minutes would have examined the extensive actions and voting record of the United States, China, Russia, and other states in the diplomatic arena to deal with such a threat. This would demonstrate emphatically that the United States has stood virtually alone in the world in opposing peaceful cooperation and de-escalation of military action in space. But apparently 60 Minutes finds it easier to simply take the Pentagon’s arguments and analysis at face value.

The DoD’s scare tactics of creating an imaginary threat – in the form Washington’s familiar punching bags China and Russia – allow them to frame their space program as an imperative reaction to legitimate national security threats, rather than as a superfluous, aggressive expansion of their unchallenged hegemony that extends not just around the globe, but thousands of miles into the reaches of outer space.

August 3, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Creditors offer Ukraine 5% debt write-down – media

RT | July 31, 2015

After months of stalemate, Ukraine’s international private bondholders have proposed a 5 percent debt relief for Kiev as concerns over the country’s economy grow. Last month Ukraine asked the creditors for a 40-percent cut.

The proposal was made this week by Ukraine’s largest creditor Franklin Templeton Investments which holds about $8.9 billion in bonds, the Wall Street Journal cited two people close to the negotiations Thursday. It was agreed by other members from the committee of the country’s major bondholders.

“As long-term investors in Ukraine, the committee has led efforts to ensure a rapid, mutually acceptable and sustainable debt restructuring, while also retaining the country’s vital access to capital markets,” one person said.

Ukraine recently indicated it is ready to agree to a less severe ‘haircut’ than it has previously asked for, according to the second person familiar with the talks. The country had asked for a 40 percent haircut worth about $15 billion.

“The creditors have bitten the bullet,” Jakob Christensen, an analyst at Exotix Partners in London told Bloomberg. “It’s give and take from here, so a compromise is probably the most realistic. I don’t think the IMF and the government will be satisfied with a small principal haircut. They will need more like 25 percent.”

Kiev has been trying to persuade foreign private creditors to make concessions as the country has to meet the conditions for the next $2.5 billion tranche of the IMF’s $17.5 billion loan. The fund will release money only if it’s satisfied with the economy, budget and monetary reforms in the country. The IMF board of directors is holding a meeting to discuss the issue on July 31.

The country’s GDP is expected to shrink 9 percent this year, with annual inflation expected to jump to 46 percent, the IMF warned. The debt will hit 95 percent of GDP this year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Ukraine avoided a technical default earlier this month by making a $120million coupon payment on its Eurobonds. The next key bond payment of $500 million is due in September.

Payments on foreign debt should amount to $257 million this month. $98 million will be payments on official loans of $159 million from international financial institutions.

READ MORE:

Ukraine pays $120mn debt, avoids technical default – finance ministry

IMF aid package pushes Ukraine gas prices up 280%

August 1, 2015 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | July 30, 2015

The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

If you read the Post’s editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.

The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” – and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.

The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’

“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts. …

“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”

But there are several salient facts that the Post’s editors surely know but don’t want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in “regime change.”

The secret hand behind NED’s creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey – from the CIA – and Raymond – from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council – focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III – as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.”

NED Is Born

The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.

This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand.

The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president.

Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.”

Currently, Gershman’s NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects.

A second point left out of the Post’s editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin.

“Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia’s current government.

A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as “foreign agents” was modeled on a U.S. law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison.

If the Post’s editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post’s editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint – that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post’s headline, “power mad.”

Gershman’s Op-Ed

But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn’t. He simply portrayed Russia’s actions as despicable and desperate.

“Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:

“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”

The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed.

So would an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?

Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn’t find the space to include any balance in his op-ed – and the Post’s editors didn’t insist on any.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

July 31, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Armed US Soldiers Arrested in Vienna Airport on Their Way to Ukraine

Sputnik – 30.07.2015

The soldiers carried assault rifles in their luggage, but had no approval, Kurier reported.

A few days ago, a group of American soldiers caused a security alert at Vienna’s Schwechat airport. The men were stopped while trying to travel with army weapons to Ukraine without any necessary permits, the newspaper wrote.

The Austrian police had to intervene and remove the weapons. An investigation into the case was launched.

The nine US soldiers were on their way from Washington to Ukraine, where they were to be deployed.

“However, since there were problems with their connecting flight after a stopover in Schwechat, they had to rebook their flight and, therefore, leave the transit area,” Colonel Michael Bauer, Defense Ministry spokesman said.

M16 assault rifles and pistols were discovered in the luggage of the American soldiers at a security checkpoint. The incident caused huge shock, because the weapons were not declared and registered and, thus, carried illegally.

The soldiers had not obtained the required transit approval by Austria. In special cases, the stay or transit of foreign military forces may be officially allowed after completing the application procedure, but the US soldiers did not send any required requests.

The attempt by the American embassy to obtain the approval after the incident was rejected for legal reasons. Instead of going to Ukraine, the soldiers had to fly back home to Washington and were allowed to take the weapons with them, the newspaper reported.

July 30, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia to veto MH17 tribunal draft at UN Security Council

RT | July 29, 2015

Russia is expected veto a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an international tribunal to be formed to probe the downing of a Malaysian airliner last year. President Putin said he regretted that a compromise deal could not be worked out.

The Russian president explained to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte why Russia would not support the establishment of a tribunal into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in a phone call, the Kremlin said.

Moscow opposed the draft document submitted by Malaysia and supported by several nations, including The Netherlands and Ukraine, saying that its description of the tragedy as a threat to international security is a strained interpretation meant to subject it to the council’s authority.

“We believe it is not in the UN charter. The UN Security Council is not supposed to deal with issues like this,” Russian UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said, adding that Russia would veto the document.

The Security Council ordered creation of special tribunals to tackle several cases, including war crimes committed during the Balkan wars and the genocide in Rwanda. But Russia believes it would be wrong to treat the MH17 downing differently from other similar incidents with civilian aircraft, such as the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the US in 1988 or the downing of Korean Air Lines flight 007 by Soviet Union in 1983. The call for a tribunal is confrontational, Moscow believes.

An alternative draft resolution proposed by Russia and seen by RT called for more transparency in the ongoing investigation of the MH17 incident by the Dutch authorities. It also criticized UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a failure to appoint a special representative to tackle the case.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down on July 21 as it was flying over a war zone, where Ukrainian armed forces were fighting against rebels, who rejected the new government imposed by an armed coup in Kiev. The tragedy has been the subject of much speculation, with Kiev and its foreign sponsors accusing the rebels of taking down the plane with a Russia-supplied missile.

The rebels rejected the accusations and blamed the Ukrainian army for the downing. Moscow denied supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels and made public evidence of Ukrainian military activities in the area.

A preliminary report by the Dutch investigators in September 2014 confirmed that the Boeing airliner was taken down by an outside force, but did not indicate which side could have carried out such an attack even what kind of weapon was used. The final report is still being completed.

READ MORE: ‘A year without truth’: MH17 relatives, independent investigators want ‘facts not propaganda’

July 29, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

(Un)solving Ukraine’s conflict

What is exactly stopping a solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine?

By Mikhail Molchanov | Open Democracy | July 16 2015

By this time, it should be obvious that the west does not want a conflict in Ukraine to be resolved any time soon. If that were the case, it would apply pressure to both parties of the conflict: the government in Kiev and the separatists in Donbas. Instead, the west applies pressure to the third party: the Russian government, admittedly the separatists’ best friend and supplier, but not the one that has direct stakes in the conflict at hand.

Let us recount those stakes. For Kiev: territorial integrity, full sovereignty over Donbas, and the right to determine its foreign policies independently from external influences (or so the government spokespersons in Kiev say).

For Donbas: linguistic and cultural autonomy, elements of a robust home rule, the right to preserve a privileged relationship with the Russian Federation, and amnesty to the local separatist leaders and militiamen.

Does Russia have stakes separate from any of these? Not that I know of. Putin keeps repeating the separatists’ demands: an amnesty, local autonomy; full implementation of the Minsk agreements. In spite of what we hear so often in the west, there are no separate demands presumably infringing on Ukraine’s sovereignty; Russia says nothing about whether Ukraine should or should not join the EU, should or should not claim Donbas as its own, should or should not be friendly with Russia itself. Yes, the Kremlin would be extremely disappointed were Ukraine to join NATO. Even so, the Kremlin has more than once assured the world it did not claim to have a veto over Ukraine’s foreign policy choices.

All the same, demanding that Russia seal the border and stop the influx of volunteers into the conflict zone is extremely unrealistic. Putin staked his reputation on support of Russia’s so-called compatriots in the near abroad; his abandoning those compatriots to the gallows would sink his presidency.

What is, then, the solution and is it even possible?

It seems the solution is possible, and it has been clearly defined in the Minsk agreements. The problem is, Kiev does not want to implement them, and therefore protracts the conflict.

Firstly, the promised amnesty to the separatists has never been announced. Ukraine’s pundits are musing over who should be pardoned and who should not. Those with blood on their hands should not be pardoned, seems to be the common wisdom. Not a word about the blood of civilians in Donbas killed in the process of carrying out Kiev’s so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation. With such an attitude, the choice facing the Donbas militia leaders seems to be simple: continue fighting or face imprisonment (or worse) at the hand of the Ukrainian authorities. Why are we surprised they keep fighting?

Secondly, the Minsk agreements called for extensive home rule provisions for Donbas, and for a requisite change in the Constitution of Ukraine.

None of this seems to be in the works. The latest proposal on changes to the Constitution of Ukraine, dated July 1, 2015, has nothing about a special status for the affected regions of Donbas beyond a fuzzy promise – in the law, not in the Constitution itself – that the ‘special modalities of local governance in separate regions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti will be determined by a separate law’. This is not what the Government of Ukraine promised its partners when talking about the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

Thirdly, the Minsk Agreements call for the ‘linguistic self-definition’ of the affected regions or, in short, the right to continue using Russian as the language of daily communication and local governance. Official Kiev keeps quiet on the issue.

Finally, according to the Minsk agreements, Ukraine should support social and economic development of the affected regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In the meantime, since November 2014, no pensions have been paid to the retired Ukrainian citizens living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Although Kiev has not begun implementing even the first basic point of the Minsk agreements (the ‘immediate and comprehensive cease-fire’ in Donbas), the west seems to be fully okay with that. Well, the separatists fire on Ukraine’s positions, the Ukrainian army should return fire, so goes the conventional explanation.

What if the Ukrainian army didn’t return fire? Would it risk losing an inch more territory? The answer is far from obvious, yet the the regular army continues using heavy artillery in densely populated civilian areas in Donbas (and killing unarmed civilians in the process). This fact alone should have moved Ukraine’s western sponsors to an obvious course of action: press the Ukrainian government to stop abusing human rights of its own citizens in eastern Ukraine.

It is almost exactly a year since Human Rights Watch, in an open communication to President Poroshenko, lamented the actions of the Ukrainian army and the pro-government militias, in particular the shelling of a hospital in Krasny Liman and air strikes in the villages of Luhanskaya and Kondrashevka.

In January and February 2015, government forces (and the separatists) used widely banned cluster munitions to attack rebels; earlier, the use of incendiary weapons in densely populated areas was documented. By July 2015, more than 6,500 people have died as a result of the conflict; close to 3,500 of them civilians. More than 16,000 have been wounded; close to 1.4 million people internally displaced. At least 660,000 Ukrainian refugees came to Russia.

The civil war in Ukraine has generated a humanitarian catastrophe that can only be resolved with the joint efforts of all parties concerned, the USA and the EU included. It goes without saying, Kiev should be prepared to sit together at the same table with separatist leaders and offer them some concessions before any deal can be reached.

Instead, Kiev promises an amnesty after the elections, and a law on the status of territories after Ukraine’s full control over its eastern borders is restored. To many an observer inside and outside, this must look like deceiving one’s opponent and negotiating in bad faith. Yet western powers stand firm in their resolve to lay all the blame for the failure of the Minsk agreement at Russia’s feet.

Last month, at the G-7 meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, western powers agreed to keep sanctions against Russia in place until the Minsk agreements are implemented in full. The Canadian government went further than the rest of the G-7 nations, having decided not only to keep, but to expand the sanctions with the blacklisting of Gazprom, its oil subsidiary Gazprom Neft, Russia’s state-owned Transneft and a major oil producer Surgutneftegaz. In addition, Canada decided to sanction a conservative nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin and Eurasian Youth Union, a non-governmental organization known for its pro-Putin views.

All of this looks more than somewhat one-sided given a recent revelation that Canada’s embassy in Kiev was used as a base for anti-government protesters to re-group and re-cuperate during the Maidan uprising that toppled former president Viktor Yanukovych.

As for Canada’s big brother, the United States, it has publicly admitted spending $5.1 billion to support democracy-building programs in Ukraine since 1992. While western champions of democracy have proudly claimed their right to interfere in internal affairs of a sovereign country for the sake of a regime change when it suited their interests, they do surprisingly little to stop continuing human rights abuses committed by Ukraine government troops and far-right militias in the pro-Russian Donbas.

If the Minsk agreements are ever to be implemented in full, there is no other way but for all sides to follow the agreed-upon commitments.

This includes, first and foremost, the immediate cessation of artillery barrages targeting Donbas cities and villages; further, the unequivocal and unconditional declaration of an amnesty for the Donbas fighters; and finally, a provision for Donbas autonomy enshrined into the Constitution of Ukraine before – not after – any local elections will be allowed to happen.

Only such a range of measures will ensure full withdrawal of Russian volunteers from Donbas, and Russian regular forces from the Russo-Ukrainian borderlands.

Only such a gambit will restore peace and a hope of prosperity to the whole of Ukraine. It is not Moscow, or Donetsk, or Luhansk that should make a first move. It is fully up to Kiev to choose between war and peace in Ukraine’s south east.

July 26, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US expands training mission in Ukraine as part of long-term military partnership

RT | July 25, 2015

US military instructors are expanding their mission in Ukraine beyond the National Guard and will boost the army’s “defense capabilities” as part of a security partnership which has been going on for the “last 20 years,” the US State Department said.

“The United States intends to continue training Ukrainian security forces this fall in western Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner has announced. He labeled the training part of a long-running defense cooperation with Ukraine.

The US instructors are to focus on small unit training aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s “internal defense capabilities” as conflict in the Donbass region continues for over a year. The new program would increase Washington’s military assistance provided to Ukraine by more than $244 million.

“This is going be small unit training conducted by US Army Europe for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense personnel,” Toner told reporters Friday. “It’s similar quite frankly to our ongoing training of the National Guard which we announced last March.”

Some 300 US troops are already training the country’s National Guard, which is a semi-official Ukrainian military force hastily created in 2014 to legalize groups of volunteers, patriots and activists following the coup and protests on Maidan. Earlier this month, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said that US was considering the expansion of its military training to Ukrainian army soldiers.

“We have been providing this kind of assistance training program to Ukraine, over the last 20 years,” Toner stated, adding the new program is not unique and is in line with the US’ “ongoing partnership” with Ukraine.

Meanwhile Washington has stepped up military exercises in Eastern Europe to “reassure” NATO allies in the face of a perceived “Russian threat.” NATO’s Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015 military drills have been seeing almost 2,000 soldiers from 18 different countries displaying their military might this week near the city of Lvov in western Ukraine, inching further towards the Russian border.

The US-led drills are fueling “revanchist moods among the ‘party of war’ in Kiev, which jeopardizes the outlined progress in the peaceful settlement of a deep internal crisis in Ukraine,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement, earlier this week.

The ministry called the drills “a clear manifestation of NATO’s course of unconditional support for the current policy of the Kiev authorities in the south-east of Ukraine, which leads to civilians dying on a daily basis in the region.”

NATO drills will continue until the end of July, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has already called for more cooperation in the defense sector since meeting the Supreme Allied Commander Europe US General Philip Breedlove in Kiev.

“We’ve got an effective military and technical cooperation,” he said. “There are also good prospects for cooperation in terms of military exercises.”

Kiev is also pushing for Washington to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine, which the US has so far been reluctant to do.

“We expect to get additional support from the United States,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told AP, less than 10 days ago. “We do understand that some NATO allies are a little bit reluctant in the decision to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine. But this is not just about Ukraine. This is about the security of the world.”

Commenting on the possibility of sending non-lethal aid to Ukraine, Toner stated on Friday that he had nothing to announce, assuring that for now Washington’s focus is on providing non-lethal aid.

“There’s no plan to change that,” Toner said.

Nevertheless Washington said last month that more heavy equipment, including artillery and tanks, will be moved closer to the Russian borders and stationed on a rotating basis in a number of Eastern European NATO countries. Amid the “Russian threat” hysteria, NATO is also tripling the size of its Response Force, recently reinforced with a new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.

READ MORE: 1,800 troops from 18 states: NATO launches biggest ever drill in Ukraine

July 25, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Crimea’s 2014 Secession Referendum Was Legal – French Lawmaker

Sputnik – 25.07.2015

Residents of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea have a legal right to hold a secession referendum, including the 2014 vote that separated them from Ukraine and reunited them with Russia, French lawmaker Claude Goasguen, currently in Russia with the French delegation, said Saturday.

“They say that Crimean people had no legal right to hold a referendum. Of course they had! Why not? This is what saved the region from war,” Goasguen said at a press conference in Moscow.

A group of 10 French lawmakers, led by lower-house National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani, arrived in Russia for a three-day visit on Thursday. The delegation visited Crimea to see the Black Sea peninsula following its secession from Ukraine in March 2014.

Both the French and Ukrainian governments have condemned the trip, considering it a breach of international law.

The Crimean peninsula split from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014 after a referendum in which over 96 percent voted in favor of the secession.

Kiev and its Western allies labeled the vote an “annexation,” while Moscow pointed out that the actions of the local populace were within the international legal framework.

July 25, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

FBI to train new ‘anti-corruption’ police unit in Ukraine’s Odessa – Gov. Saakashvili

RT | July 24, 2015

The FBI will train a small police unit in Odessa, which is set to become a beacon of hope in a “swamp” of corruption, announced Mikhail Saakashvili, a fugitive former president of Georgia and recently appointed governor of the coastal Ukrainian region.

Saakashvili said on Thursday that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation will train policemen in Odessa, TASS news agency reported.

“Two days ago we arranged with the FBI that we will create a separate [police] unit which will be small – maybe 50 people – and the FBI will be training them,” he said during the session of the National Reform Council (NRC).

“They [the new unit] will be separated from the others, so that they will become a kind of dry patch in the midst of a swamp,” Saakashvili said, adding that they will “work for people, not organized crime.”

The new body would assemble every two to three days, or at least every week, to “solve the problems which remain unsolved for months,” he added.

Earlier this week, Mikhail Saakashvili and US Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield signed a memorandum according to which the US would finance police reforms in Odessa as part of its broader law enforcement overhaul project in Ukraine.

At the ceremony, during which the new Odessa patrol police – trained by California Highway Patrol officers – was officially presented, Brownfield said that the US has already invested some $15 million in reforming the Ukrainian police force since the beginning of 2015, with reforms including new staff recruitment, training and equipment.

“A special anti-corruption group will be formed in the Odessa region, while the US State Department will render assistance to its work via one of its agencies,” said Saakashvili. The US embassy confirmed earlier in July that it would be launching a “new anti-corruption grants program” to support Saakashvili’s team of “Ukrainian and international” anti-corruption experts.

Mikhail Saakashvili was personally appointed as governor of Odessa by President Poroshenko on May, 2015, a day after he had gained Ukrainian citizenship. He is a former Georgian president notorious for initiating a war with South Ossetia in 2008, and attempting to present it as Russian aggression. He left Georgia in autumn 2013, days before his presidential term expired, and has been living abroad ever since.

In 2014 Saakashvili was charged with embezzlement and abuse of power by a Tbilisi court and put on the international wanted list. In February 2015, Tbilisi issued an extradition request for Saakashvili, but Kiev authorities rejected it.

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

Normandy Four Calls for Pull-Back of Kiev Troops From Ukraine’s Shirokino

Sputnik – 24.07.2015

1094855MOSCOW – According to the Thursday release, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed during phone talks held earlier in the day “to find practical solutions, by August 3, for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops and the installation of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.”

According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the situation has been tense in the village of Shyrokyne (Shirokino), located in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Donetsk.

Shyrokyne was considered neutral territory in the internal armed conflict that started in Ukraine’s southeast in April, 2014, when Kiev launched a military operation against Donetsk and Lugansk independence supporters.

At the beginning of 2015 fighting in Ukraine’s southeast intensified, with the Donetsk Airport and Shyrokyne being some of the hotspots of violence.

At the start of February, Shyrokyne was seized by Kiev forces.

In mid-February, Kiev and the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Lugansk and Donetsk (LPR and DPR) signed a ceasefire agreement after Normandy Quartet talks in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. However, both sides have since repeatedly accused each other of violating the deal.

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Revelations in the Maidan Massacre trial in Ukraine go unreported in the west

By Ivan Katchanovski, on Facebook, July 22, 2015

A delayed trial of two Berkut police members in the Maidan Massacre case [1] have produced striking new revelations providing further confirmations of major findings of my Maidan “snipers’ massacre” study about Maidan snipers killing both police and protesters and subsequent cover up and falsification of the official investigation.[2] But these striking revelations have not been reported by the Ukrainian and Western media, even though the trial proceedings were open to the media, were streamed live over the Internet and their recordings were posted on YouTube.

Trial of two former Ukrainian 'Berkut' police in Kyiv in July 2015 (photo on Censor.net)On July 15, 2015, the prosecution made public in court for the first time its charges alleging that two arrested members of the Berkut special company massacred 39 out of 49 killed protesters on February 20, 2014.

However, the prosecution’s case unraveled on July 17 when the brother of one of the victims stated during his questioning by the prosecutors that Andrii Saienko was killed not from Berkut positions but from a top floor of the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina. He made this conclusion on the basis of his brother’s position as shown in a video at the moment of his killing and an entry wound location in upper right chest area and a steep wound channel to the backbone. The prosecutors and relatives of some of the victims reported during the trial that technical expert reports in the investigative file established that Saienko and at least 9 other protesters were killed from the same exact 7.62mm caliber weapon.

Trial of two former Ukrainian 'Berkut' police in Kyiv in July 2015 (photo on Censor.net)This revelation alone means that a significant proportion of the protesters were shot from this Maidan-controlled hotel, since this caliber bullets were extracted from bodies of 16 protesters. But the prosecution charged two Berkut members with their killings, even though Saienko’s brother and his lawyer officially handed to investigators the aforementioned video file in October 2014.

His brother identified the moment when Saienko was killed on Instytutska Street, at 9:08:34am in the video, which was initially filmed from the Hotel Ukraina by Radio Svoboda and then synchronized and time-stamped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IQkB0jZ39k. This video also shows the moment when Bohdan Solchanyk was killed at 9:08:16am, less than 20 seconds before Saienko in the same area, reportedly with a 7.62mm bullet. His apparent position, the blood on the right side of the neck, and louder and different sounds of several shots in rapid succession, compared to the AKMS shots fired by Berkut at the same time, indicate that Solchanyk was most likely shot dead from the Hotel Ukraina. At that time, the Berkut policemen were in front and somewhat to the left from Solchanyk and the other protesters; and a specific shot, which was presented in the video synchronization, made by his acquaintance, as the evidence of his killing by Berkut, was from a 12mm caliber Fort pump rifle.

In the same video, Ihor Zastavnyi is seen in a yellow helmet falling nearby several seconds after Solchanyk was killed. Zastavnyi said in various interviews that he fell to the ground after he was wounded there third time and his leg was severed. He stated that the prosecution informed him earlier this year that they lost a bullet extracted from his body: http://hromadskeradio.org/…/slidchi-prokuraturi-zagubili-ku….

The analysis of the content of the same video and photo compilation indicates that Maksym Shymko was killed in the same area at about the same time, since he was last seen alive at 9:07:15am and by 9:07:46am he was shot and his stick was on the pavement near a wooden shield. Although the exact moment of his killing is missing from the video, his mother in her court testimony confirmed this location and indicated that the investigation found that he was killed from the same weapon as 9 other protesters, including Saienko.

Another bullet, which was stuck in Shymko’s neck and which was publicized as evidence of government snipers, was not of 7.62mm caliber. His mother supported the prosecution charges that Berkut killed her son, but she stated that he was wounded in his neck with an exit wound below his shoulder blade. This indicates a sharp angle, which is consistent with the similar location of the Saienko’s killer and an announcement from the Maidan stage at 9:10am about two or three “snipers” on the pendulum floor of the Hotel Ukraina. This announcement relayed reports of Maidan protesters concerning the killings of Shymko, Solchanyk, and Saienko, since they were a part of the first group of the protesters that came under deadly live ammunition fire. One of the charged Berkut members indicated during the trial that the investigative file contained testimonies of protesters about Maidan “snipers” at the Hotel Ukraina.

The list of the 39 protesters whose killing the prosecution attributed to Berkut was only released nearly one and a half years after the massacre. The killings of the other 10 protesters were simply omitted from the charges, even though 8 of them were shot dead at the same time and place as these 39 protesters. The special Council of Europe investigative panel reported that the Ukrainian investigation had evidence that ten protesters were killed by “snipers” from top of the buildings, but that investigation did not found any evidence that these were snipers from the Security Service of Ukraine Alf unit and other government units. [See here for an April 2015 news report. And here is the 188-page report of the panel, dated March 31, 2015.]

The omitted list confirmed information that the investigation omitted the killings of Oleh Unshnevych, Evhen Kotliar, Ustym Holodniuk and Oleksander Kharchenko because of clear evidence they were killed from the Maidan-controlled locations, such as Hotel Ukraina. In addition, the prosecution charges also omitted the killings of Vasyl Aksenyn, Vladyslav Zubenko, Volodymyr Chaplynsky and Volodymyr Melnychuk. My study presents various evidence that these protesters were also killed from the Maidan-controlled buildings, mostly Hotel Ukraina, starting from about 9:18am till almost 5pm. For instance, the much publicized Zelenyi Front video shows at 10:26am (32:13) that Chaplynsky was shot dead when he was running away from the massacre area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFHNE8WxOA. A Spline TV recording of its live broadcast, which is now removed from a list of its videos on the Internet, shows sparks flying from the Hotel Ukraina when a loud gunshot killed this protestor. Zubenko was killed in the same area at 9:49am, reportedly with a 5.45 caliber bullet.

The prosecution charges confirmed earlier reports that the investigation did not find specific evidence linking specific Berkut members to specific killed protesters. But these charges also revealed that the prosecution did not specify the exact time of killing of specific protesters and policemen, although such information can be determined from live broadcasts and synchronized and time-stamped videos, and it is presented in my study. These charges deliberately omitted various evidence, including videos, interviews, and public admissions, of Maidan “shooters” of the police.

The prosecution case for the first time de facto admitted an absence of a specific top government order to massacre the protesters on February 20. The prosecution stated that after an unspecified escalation of the conflict around 8am on February 20, the Berkut commander himself ordered the commander of the special Berkut company to disperse the protesters on the Maidan and block them from advancing to the parliament and presidential administration. It would have been irrational for the Berkut commander to issue such an order on his own and use only about two dozen members of a special company. The prosecution itself stated that then-president Viktor Yanukovych and the Minister of Internal Affairs ordered to disperse the protesters on the Maidan by force close to midnight on February 18. The attempt to storm the parliament on February 18 was presented by the prosecution as a peaceful rally, and subsequent clashes, the killing of some 30 policemen and protesters and a computer technician at the office of the Party of Regions were omitted.

The charges stated that following the Berkut commander order, the Berkut special company commander ordered the use of AKMs and Fort 500 pump guns with lead pellets, although no evidence was presented as to why this elite police unit would start using hunting ammunition. Contrary to the prosecutor charges account, various evidence cited in my study and later confirmed by BBC and other sources show that the Maidan protesters forced Berkut and Internal troop units, which did not have then live ammunition, to flee from the Maidan around 8:50am by killing and wounding about 20 of them, specifically with pellets and 7.62mm bullets, from the Music Conservatory and Trade Union buildings. The Berkut special company was first filmed being deployed and shooting with live ammunition on Instytutska street at 9:05am and then briefly moving to Zhovtnevyi Palace to allow remaining policemen there to flee.

The prosecution claimed that around 9am on February 20, 2014, unidentified persons of unknown allegiance started to shoot at the police and that they killed from an unknown weapon one member of the Berkut special company and wounded another. In response to this, the accused from the Berkut company and unidentified members of this company and other law enforcement units became hostile to protesters and started to shoot in the direction of the unarmed protesters with AKMS and Fort 500 with lead pellets in order to kill them. This timeline is also deliberately misleading, because recordings of live broadcasts, time-stamped and synchronized videos, cited in my study, show that at least five protesters were killed starting at exactly 9:00 am before the member of the special Berkut company was shot dead with pellets at 9:16am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjEp1C4hzI.

The prosecution charged two Berkut members with being a part of an organized group that killed 39 protesters with 7.62mm caliber AKMS during the assault of the Maidan and from two barricades on Instytutska Street from 9am till 1pm. During the testimonies and cross-examination of relatives of six killed protesters, only one single direct witness of the killing of one of these protesters (Eduard Hrynevych) was identified. This witness now happens to serve in a paramilitary unit of the Right Sector, which was involved in the massacre. My study cited videos of protesters referring at 10:25am to the killing of Hrynevych by a shot to his head several meters from them and referring to “snipers” on the pendulum floor of the Hotel Ukraina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUingq7eyI. This and other videos show many protesters and journalists witnessing and recording shooting of these protesters.

Remarkably, a recently posted video, which shows “snipers” on the top floors of the Hotel Ukraina shooting at the Maidan protesters was referred to during the trial as evidence of the killing of Ihor Kostenko by Berkut. This video shows Kostenko seconds before and after (0:59) when he was shot at 9:29am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVXLbkJsX0. At least seven other protesters were killed within less than three minutes in the same area.

My study presents various evidence, such as videos and eyewitness testimonies, indicating that these and almost all other 39 protesters were also killed from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings, and that the Right Sector, Svoboda, and Fatherland parties were involved in the “snipers” massacre. There are a few protesters whose location and time of the killing are still publicly undisclosed.

A Google News search shows that none of these revelations during the Maidan Massacre trial have been reported by the media in Ukraine and the West. In contrast, there were numerous reports in the Ukrainian media about each of these protesters. Similarly, The New York Times, The Telegraph, and Associated Press previously published articles, respectively, about the killings of Solchanyk and Saienko and wounding of Zastavnyi. The ‘Maidan’ documentary film by Sergei Loznitsa, shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year, included the above-mentioned excerpts of the Radio Svoboda live Internet video stream showing the killings of Shymko, Solchanyk, and Saienko. In media reports and in this documentary, these and other killings of the protesters were typically directly or indirectly attributed to Berkut or government snipers.

In contrast, the Maidan stage announcements concerning the “snipers” at the Hotel Ukraina and other various evidence of the concealed Maidan shooters there and in other Maidan-controlled areas were omitted. The failure to report the striking new revelations from the ongoing trial suggests that the misrepresentation in Ukraine and the West of the Maidan mass killing is driven not by lack of information but by politics.

Notes:
[1] The two Berkut policemen currently on trial were arrested last year. Three other policemen were arrested on similar charges this year but their trial has not yet started.
[2] See: The “Snipers’ Massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine (revised and updated version), by Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D, published on Academia.edu, Feb. 20, 2015.

Read also:
Investigation of Snipers Massacre on Maidan Square: Interview in Danish newspaper with Ivan Katchanovski, June 19, 2015

View:
BBC reports on neo-Nazi rally in Kyiv on July 21. Its reporter fails to mention their role in the Sniper Massacre in Kyiv on February 20, 2014 and the Odessa Massacre (May 2, 2014). BBC News, ten minute video, July 22, 2015

July 23, 2015 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

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