The US is the Major Instigator of the Ukraine Conflict
In the midst of turmoil and controversy, it is useful to review the most important preceding events and analyze how did this happen. Following are some key events and historical facts leading to the current crisis in Ukraine [...]
In the midst of turmoil and controversy, it is useful to review the most important preceding events and analyze how did this happen. Following are some key events and historical facts leading to the current crisis in Ukraine.
Fact 1. In February 2014, a coup overthrew the Ukrainian government which came to power in an election certified by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation). The president, Viktor Yanukovich, was forced to flee for his life.
This situation was presciently analyzed at the time by Seumas Milne who wrote, “The attempt to lever Kiev into the western camp by ousting an elected leader made conflict certain. It could be a threat to us all.”
Fact 2. The coup was promoted by United States officials. Neo-conservatives such as Victoria Nuland and John McCain actively supported the protests. As confirmed in a secretly recorded phone call, Nuland determined the post-coup composition weeks in advance. Later, Nuland bragged they spent $5 billion in this campaign over two decades. Before the coup was “midwifed”, Nuland forcefully rejected a likely European compromise agreement which would have led to a compromise government. “F*** the EU!”, she said. Nuland managed the coup but Vice President Biden was overall in charge. As Nuland says in the phone call, Biden would give the ultimate “atta boy” to the coup leaders. Subsequently, Joe Biden’s son personally benefited from the coup. Victoria Nuland has even more power now as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Secret US forces such as the Central Intelligence Agency must also be involved.
Fact 3. The coup government immediately acted with hostility toward its Russian speaking citizens. Approximately 30% of Ukrainian citizens have Russian as their first language, yet on the first day in power, the coup regime acted to make Russian no longer an official state language. This was followed by more actions of hostility. As documented in the video “Crimes of the Euromaidan Nazis”, a convoy of buses going back to Crimea was attacked. In Odessa, over thirty opponents of the coup government died when they were attacked and the trade union hall set afire.
Fact 4. During World War 2, there were some Nazi sympathizers in western Ukraine when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. This element continues today in the form of Svoboda and other far right nationalist parties. The Ukrainian government has even passed legislation heroizing Nazi collaborators while removing statues honoring anti-Nazi patriots. The situation was described three years ago in an article “Neo-nazis and the far right are on the march in Ukraine”. The author questioned why the US is supporting this. Under President Poroshenko (2014 to 2019) nationalism surged and even the Orthodox Church split apart.
Fact 5. The secession of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are a direct result of the 2014 coup. In Crimea, a referendum vote was rapidly organized. With 83% turnout and 97% voting in favor, Crimeans decided to secede from Ukraine and re-unify with Russia. Crimea was part of Russia since 1783. When the administration of Crimea was transferred to the Ukraine in 1954. they were all part of the Soviet Union. This was done without consulting the population.
Author’s note: I visited Crimea in 2017 and talked with diverse people including the popularly elected city council officials. There is no doubt about the overwhelming support for re-unification with Russia.
In the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on the border with Russia, the majority of the population speaks Russian and had no hostility to Russia. The Kiev coup regime was hostile and enacting policies they vehemently disagreed with. In spring 2014, the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics declared their independence from the Kiev regime.
Fact 6. The Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015 were signed by Ukraine, Ukrainian rebels, Russia and other European authorities. They were designed to stop the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine and retain the territorial integrity of Ukraine while granting a measure of autonomy to Luhansk and Donetsk. This is not abnormal; there are 17 autonomous zones in Europe. These agreements were later rebuffed by the Kiev government and Washington. This led to the decision by Russia on 21 February 2022 to recognize the Peoples Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR).
But isn’t secession illegal under international law? The US and NATO have little credibility to oppose secession since they promoted the breakup of Yugoslavia, secession of Kosovo from Serbia, secession of South Sudan from Sudan, and Kurdish secessionist efforts in Iraq and Syria, etc.. The secession of Crimea is justified by its unique history and overwhelming popular support. The secession of Luhansk and Donetsk may be justified by the illegal 2014 Kiev coup.
US intervention, both open and secret, has been a major driver of the events in Ukraine. The US has been the major instigator of the conflict.
Originally published on 25-02-2022
About the author: Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
After the first decade after the Cold War, it became obvious that an idea of global governance is going to be impossible primarily due to an aggressive US foreign policy as Washington intended to become the world hegemon and global policeman. A turning point in the post-Cold War IR became the Kosovo War of 1998−1999, which resulted in the NATO’s occupation of the south-western region of Serbia based on an idea of „Just War“,[1] but in practice for the creation of the mafia state of the Kosovar Muslim Albanians.[2] As a direct consequence of the NATO’s aggression on Serbia and ...
The United States and its NATO allies launched a military intervention in 1999 that helped the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) win its secessionist campaign against Serbia. U.S. officials justified that intervention on the grounds that Serbian security forces were committing pervasive war crimes against the Kosovar insurgents. American supporters of the KLA also asserted that the secessionists were staunch Western‐style democrats mounting a noble resistance against Slobodan Milosevic’s corrupt, brutal regime, and that America had a moral obligation to support them. Speaking at a pro‐Kosovo march in Washington D. C., Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) stated that the “United States of America and the Kosovo ...
In December last year [2015], NATO officially invited Montenegro to become the 29th member state of the most powerful military organisation of our times, if not, in fact, of all time. The country’s Prime Minister, Milo Đukanović, assured the NATO secretary-general that “you can count on us at any time.” It is always nice to hear that someone has your back. But in Montenegro’s case, it means that they have our back with an entire active-duty military force of only two thousand personnel. It is not quite clear how the tiny nation of less than 700,000 people enhances U.S. security ...
“Russia suspected of election scheme. U.S. probes plan to sow voter distrust.”That’s the Washington Post page-one lead headline of September 6. Think about it. The election that Americans are suffering through, cringing in embarrassment, making them think of moving abroad, renouncing their citizenship; an election causing the Founding Fathers to throw up as they turn in their graves … this is because the Russian Devils are sowing voter distrust! Who knew?But of course, that’s the way Commies are – Oh wait, I forgot, they’re no longer Commies. So what are they? Ah yes, they still have that awful old hangup so worthy ...
We, the undersigned, are Russians living and working in the USA. We have been watching with increasing anxiety as the current US and NATO policies have set us on an extremely dangerous collision course with the Russian Federation, as well as with China. Many respected, patriotic Americans, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern and many others have been issuing warnings of a looming a Third World War. But their voices have been all but lost among the din of a mass media that is full of deceptive and inaccurate stories that characterize the Russian economy ...
The words “possible criminal actions” by CIA employees are used in the report.The terms unethical and immoral are mentioned. The criminality of those who ordered these actions at the highest levels of government, however, is not acknowledged.The actions directed against alleged jihadists are categorized as ineffective in the process of revealing intelligence. This in itself is a red herring. The objective of torture was not to reveal intelligence.What of course is not acknowledged is that the alleged terrorists who were tortured were framed by the CIA.Known and documented the Al Qaeda network is a creation of US intelligence.The jihadists are ...
The Harper government’s Bill C-51, or Anti-Terrorism Act, has been in the public domain for over a month. Long enough for us to know that it subverts basic principles of constitutional law, assaults rights of free speech and free assembly, and is viciously anti-democratic.An unprecedented torrent of criticism has been directed against this bill as the government rushes it through Parliament. This has included stern or at least sceptical editorials in all the major newspapers; an open letter, signed by four former Prime Ministers and five former Supreme Court judges, denouncing the bill for exposing Canadians to major violations of ...
The escalation of tensions between the United States, Britain and France, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, should not surprise anyone. In the last few years, the US leadership and mainstream British media have presented Russia as a major threat to global peace and the international order. Russian president Vladimir Putin in particular has been demonised as a ‘war-monger,’ an ‘aggressor,’ an ‘unscrupulous politician’ hell-bent on restoring Russia’s past glory’ at whatever cost.This projection of Russia as a threat to world peace has intensified in recent days partly because of Putin’s unveiling of Russia’s cutting edge military ...
The crimes committed by the US against the people of Korea in the course of the Korean War but also in its aftermath are unprecedented in modern history.“We Killed Off – What – Twenty Percent of the Population. We Burned Down every Town in North Korea…”The above quotation is from General Curtis Lemay, who coordinated the bombing campaign (1950-53)Who is a Threat to Global Security? The US or the DPRK?The public perception of the entire population of North Korea is that the US is a threat to their national security.During the Korean War, the DPRK lost more than 25% of ...
My work documenting how the law was lost began about a quarter of a century ago. A close friend and distinguished attorney, Dean Booth, first brought to my attention the erosion of the legal principles on which rests the rule of law in the United States. My columns on the subject got the attention of an educational institution that invited me to give a lecture on the subject. Subsequently, I was invited to give a lecture on “How The Law Was Lost” at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York City.The work coalesced into a book, The Tyranny Of ...
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2014.On Monday [October 13 2014], America’s government offices, businesses, and banks all grind to a halt in order to commemorate Columbus Day. In schools up and down the country, little children are taught that a heroic Italian explorer discovered America, and various events and parades are held to celebrate the occasion.It has now become common knowledge amongst academics that Christopher Columbus clearly did not discover America, not least because is it impossible to discover a people and a continent that was already there and thriving with culture. One can only wonder how ...
ISIS has new turf, this time in Europe. The German magazine Der Spiegel reports that there are now remote villages in the mountains of northern Bosnia where where the ISIS flag flies, and residents live under Sharia law. Roughly half of Bosnians are Muslim, and the radical ultra-devout make up a very small percentage. But it appears that percentage is growing — and growing violent — as extremists are gaining a foothold in rural Bosnian society.There are between 200 and 300 Bosnians fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, more than from any other European nation besides Belgium. The Der ...
The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.Since March 2015, a ‘coalition’ of Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and supported by the US, Britain and France, has been dropping bombs on neighbouring Yemen. The scale of the bombing is indicated in a recent article by Felicity Arbuthnot – in one year, 330,000 homes, 648 mosques, 630 schools and institutes, and 250 health facilities were destroyed or damaged. The stated aim of ...
“I believe the perception caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous enemies we face.”– U.S. General Stanley A. McCrystal in his inaugural speech as ISAF Commander in June 2009.The dust had hardly settled on Russian airstrikes on ISIS positions in Syria before Western media reports claimed that ‘civilians’ had been killed “including women and children”.Leaving aside the dubious nature of these allegations – the first of which was made before Russian airstrikes had even begun, according to Putin – Western propaganda outlets and the politicians they serve are in no position to point the finger at Russia ...
A year ago, at a closed-doors meeting between the USA and EU officials and the leaders of the four major parties of FYROM in Strasbourg, a route map for the resolution of the protracted political crisis was agreed on (or rather imposed). The roots of this political crisis are to be found outside FYROM: it is actually more a confrontation by proxy between “the West”, which supports the opposition, and Russia, which is trying to maintain its influence in the region. In conjunction with the public discontent at government policies and the escalating corruption, the negotiations have contributed to sharpening ...
Peter M. Tase (PMT): Cuales son algunos proyectos de gran importancia para la región que usted ha facilitado durante vuestra trayectoria como representante de la CAF (Development Bank of Latin America)?Dr. Rubén Ramírez Lezcano (RRL): Conozco en profundidad a la organización desde distintas perspectivas habiendo sido Viceministro de Economía y Canciller Nacional del Paraguay y, luego, funcionario de la CAF (Development Bank of Latin America) por muchos años, en los cuales tuve la oportunidad de desempeñarme como Asesor del Presidente primero, posteriormente como Director – Representante de CAF en la oficina de Panamá, con responsabilidades para Centroamérica, El Caribe y México, y ...
PrefaceIt is the 30th anniversary of the first post-WWII democratic elections in Serbia and the rest of the ex-Yugoslavia.My aim in this article is to elaborate on the feature of the multi-party elections in Serbia in 1990 and to give an answer to the crucial question why did Slobodan Miloshevic with his SPS party win? After the investigation of the case we found that critical reasons for Miloshevic’s/SPS absolute electoral parliamentary and presidential victory in 1990 have been: 1) The countryside and small urban settlements voted for SPS due to the informative blockade; 2) Old population voted for SPS; 3) ...
Ukraine matters. It’s territory is Europe’s largest after Russia’s. It borders seven countries in Europe’s heartland – Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Russia.It shares a strategically important 1,500-long land and sea border with the Russian Federation.The country is resource rich. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said:“without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”Separately, he said if Russia reunites with Ukraine, it’ll be a Eurasian powerhouse. If Ukraine allies with Western Europe, Moscow will be significantly weakened geopolitically.The Obama regime’s February 2014 coup d’etat replaced democratic governance in Kiev ...
The eastern portion of Europe and the end of WWI The end of WWI resulted in significant changes concerning the political boundaries of Central, East, and South-East Europe. For the reason of the extent of these changes and the newly born regional wars over the land distribution that erupted in several mini-regions in the eastern portion of Europe, it was to take around five to six years before new borders between the states were finally established and stabilized at least up to 1938.The political transformation of the eastern portion of Europe after 1918 was a direct result of the collapsing ...
