Taken from the February 28, 2014 release of the World Affairs Brief
The sudden collapse of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government this week is a too-good-to-be-true win for the protesters. No one in either the mainstream or alternative media is questioning the glaring contradictions about what happened during the supposed “coup” this past weekend. Who gave the orders for all of the riot police to melt away and leave their posts? The almost totally disarmed opposition easily took control of the city and just walked up to the presidential villa. Who gave the orders to the pro-Russian Party of Regions, who wielded the majority in parliament, to suddenly switch their votes to join their political enemies in unanimously ousting President Yanukovych (who, knowing what was coming, had already left)? It certainly wasn’t the opposition. This all smacks of the same staged “collapse of communism” that supposedly toppled multiple soviet-controlled governments that still had fully functioning police, army and security forces.
Today, ousted PM Yanukovych gave a press conference in Russia claiming he left only because his life was threatened and that he was being shot at in his car all along his exit route as he left the country. Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. There aren’t but a handful of old hunting rifles in all of the opposition, so it’s hardly believable they could set up a running ambush on his escape that no one knew about. And, if his claims are real why doesn’t he tell us who was threatened his life?
He can’t because this coup was all fake. I’ve seen this done before. As I watched the phony collapse of Communism in 1989 I was shocked then too as the Western media blindly reported the superficial story and refused to point out or even question any of the numerous too-good-to-be-true happenings:
1) The suddenly incompetent KGB failed to capture Gorbachev in his undefended villa,
2) The supposed heads of the KGB, GRU and Defense Ministers (all second level bureaucrats who were elevated to those high positions just prior to the collapse) had to “flee for their lives” as the attempted coup failed. If they really were the heads of the security apparatus in Russia, who were they fleeing from?
3) We saw pictures of the phony opposition leader Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank in Red Square rallying for freedom while the Communist Party who was still in control of the television broadcasting system, let him go on without pulling the plug. Come on, think people!
Later admissions from deposed dictators like East Germany’s Erik Honeker surfaced that he had been “ordered by Moscow” to allow the Leipzig student protests to go uncontested and eventually to step down. The media ignored or downplayed these explosive revelations. The media even fooled conservatives into believing it all by giving credit to Reagan for bringing down the Soviet Union. Reagan was as shocked as anyone and had no idea it was coming.
One of the reasons why the mainstream media chooses not to expose this kind of political theater is that it serves globalist purposes to allow Communism to maneuver unopposed as it prepares for a future all-out war with the West. The globalists want this war too, so they are more than happy to play along with Russia’s deceptions without exposing them.
Fast forward to recent events in Ukraine where Western globalists are again covering for the hidden events to encourage the opposition—not because they really want Ukraine to be free but to give Russia room to manipulate events and give them the excuse to eventually intervene and begin the process of reclaiming former Soviet states like Ukraine before moving against Europe.
The problem for Russia is that the opposition in Ukraine rose too fast before the Russians were ready to reveal their military hand. Perhaps that was inevitable given the gross level of corruption that pervades all of these post-communist states. But the people have long grown used to this high level of socialism and control (which is always corrupt) and without arms, they really have no way to force change—especially when the Russians still create and control all of the largest of the opposition parties.
As I have long pointed out, Russia is still in the military rearmament phase and isn’t ready for a third world war yet—not until some time in the next decade. So, while it is highly probable that the West won’t do anything to stop Russia were she to send in troops to the Ukraine now, it would poison the public perception of Russia as an emerging “good guy” and almost certainly stop the West from pursuing another dangerous level of disarmament with the “continuing Soviets” (as Christopher Story used to call the Russians after the phony “fall of communism”).
So here’s what Putin gains by pulling another phony coup
1) It suckers the West into coming to Ukraine’s rescue financially and gets Russia off the hook for their promised $15B bailout—only $3B of which has been relinquished so far. Financial aid from the West was also a big part of why they pulled off the phony “fall of the Soviet Union.” Ukraine is bankrupt and can never dig itself out, as I will explain later.
2) After the phony coup, the pro-EU Western Ukrainians are portrayed as getting their way and now the Russians get to portray the pro-Russian majorities in Eastern Ukraine and in the Crimea as the beleaguered group. This is an open excuse for Russia to intervene in the future—in small ways now but more forcefully later at a time of their choosing that matches their rearmament. They have full control over the pro-Russian protestors and can manipulate them into riots at will. They don’t even have to be subtle about it.
What we are seeing in the news this week and will see in the near future is a lot of political theater—Russian agents ginning up the Russian workers in the Crimea to demand independence and the break-up of the Ukraine into smaller countries. Armed thugs have even taken control of the Crimean regional Parliament to make this possibility appear very serious.
It’s unlikely, however, that Russia wants Ukraine divided. If that were to happen, both the pro-EU Western Ukraine and the pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine would be relatively happy and there would be no basis for conflict or future intervention.
Russia is in no danger of losing its military bases on the Black Sea as even the Ukrainian opposition has never demanded that. Moreover, Putin’s sudden military exercise is more political theater, showing he has the military power, but giving him the opportunity to show restraint.
The real evidence that this is a contrived revolution is in the nature of the controlled opposition—not by Western globalists, as is commonly charged by strident and misinformed anti-globalists like Paul Craig Roberts, but by the Russians themselves. Look no further than the previous leader of the opposition, Yulie Tymoshenko, conveniently released from prison last Saturday to coincide with Yanukovych’s ouster. Here’s the New Republic on her background:
It was here [on the Maidan–Independence Square in Kiev], during the protests of 2004-2005, that Tymoshenko, newly reinvented as a Ukrainian-speaking Joan of Arc, a newly dyed blonde with a peasant braid ringing her head like a halo, promised to usher Ukraine into a new, more modern and European era. Last night, nearly a decade later, she took the stage here again, this time in a wheelchair. She had just been released nearly two years into a politically motivated seven-year prison sentence—Yanukovich, her rival in the 2010 presidential elections, jailed her for overstepping her authority and profiting from a gas deal with Russia—and Tymoshenko looked the worse for it. She was tired and aged, barely any blonde left in her long-undyed hair.
People in the crowd wept, men and women both [as she told them,.”You are heroes,” “You are Ukraine’s very best.”] Tymoshenko wept. It was an extraordinarily moving moment… “Under no circumstances can you leave this square, until you have accomplished all that you set out to accomplish,” she said…. No more secret agreements, no more couloirs [hallways], she said, a master of secret agreements in couloirs. “I want to say to you on behalf of everyone that, until now, politicians have not been worthy of you. And I want to do everything so that you see new politicians, new civil servants.”
And then the old Tymoshenko came out. “Starting today, I am getting back to work,” she said. “I will not a miss a moment to make sure that you feel happy in your own land.” And she promised that she would be Ukraine’s guarantor that the people are no longer duped by their politicians.”
Tymoshenko was playing hard to get, claiming that she was not intending to run for president, but this is more political theater. Her claims of acting as the guarantor of a new brand of politician is begging for them to draft her for president.
It sounded like the opening volley of a campaign, and there had already been rumors leaking from her camp that evening that Tymoshenko planned to run in the newly announced presidential elections in May. And the crowd wasn’t having any of it [and cried out for her to run for president].
But here is the sordid past of this corrupt former leader—and no one can participate in this level of corruption in a former Soviet state unless the communists who still control things under the table assent:
Kievans I spoke to were fed up with her ruthless political style. Moreover, they saw her as a main reason for the ultimate failure of the Orange Revolution [she betrayed true aspirations of liberty and did not reform any of the Soviet styled bureaucracies that continued to take advantage of people]. She was also of questionable moral caliber: her fortune, then numbering in the hundreds of millions, was stashed abroad in cash and gold bullion, her mansion guarded by an army of personal bodyguards. Her business partner and crony politician Pavlo Lazarenko was in federal prison in the U.S. for money laundering, wire fraud, and transporting illegal goods, and there were charges that he siphoned off over $20 billion of Ukraine’s public funds into personal accounts in the U.S.
Tymoshenko had herself been arrested for trying to smuggle out millions in cash. There were rumors that she even canceled a trip to New York, fearing arrest in connection with Lazarenko’s case. By the time she stepped out onto the Maidan, in 2004, she had become known as the “Gas Princess” for her iron fisted reign over Ukraine’s notoriously murky and corrupt gas sector. At one point, she controlled one third of it, or 20 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.
While in office as prime minister, from 2005 to 2010, she was as savage with her allies [phony conservative leaders, as in the US, always treat harshly those in the party who want real liberty] as she was with her opponents, coming down hard on party members for any perceived insubordination. After several contentious incidents with journalists, many questioned her commitment to press freedom. Vladimir Putin spoke warmly of her then as he does now, fondly recalling how well the two did business together. [Very telling]
“Yes, Tymoshenko was in jail illegally, and the trial was politically motivated,” wrote Ukrainian journalist Sergei Leschenko this morning. “There was no evidence of her personal enrichment from the gas contracts she signed with Putin [but she did get rich off local kickbacks]. “I have the same kinds of documentation of bribes paid to Yanukovich, which were found in Mezhigorie [his personal dacha], except that [in the documents I have] she is the one paying Lazarenko.
That’s more evidence of collusion between supposed political enemies. But despite all this evidence, I’m having trouble countering the wave of outrage from well-meaning but misinformed anti-globalists like Paul Craig Roberts and Joseph Paul Watson and others who keep insisting that the Ukrainian opposition members are paid puppets of the globalists. They are only appearing to be so, which helps eventually put the blame for future problems on the US and the EU.
Roberts this week even went so far as to call them all neo-Nazis, succumbing to the old tired Leftist jargon that portrays Nazis on the Right wing of the political spectrum—when they are always on the Left (more government authority). Of course, in reality, there are no real neo-Nazis today—only people hired by government agent provocateurs to play the role of skin heads and neo-Nazis in order to poison public perception of the Right. Robert’s rant begins with,
To the extent that government exists in post-coup Ukraine, it is laws dictated by gun and threat wielding thugs of the neo-Nazi, Russophobic, ultra-nationalist, right-wing parties… Read about the neo-nazis intimidating the Central Election Commission in order to secure rule and personnel changes in order to favor the ultra-right in the forthcoming elections. Thug Aleksandr Shevchenko informed the CEC that armed activists will remain in CEC offices in order to make certain that the election is not rigged against the neo-nazis. What he means, of course, is the armed thugs will make sure the neo-nazis win. If the neo-nazis don’t win, the chances are high that they will take power regardless.
But Roberts doesn’t dig deep enough into these accounts to see this is a setup. How did these opposition “thugs” suddenly get a quantity of weapons? And the Ukrainian police withdrew (upon someone’s orders) and are sitting in their barracks allowing all this to happen uncontested. Does he think the EU has that kind of power to command?
Members of President Yanukovich’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, have been shot, had arrest warrants issued for them, have experienced home invasions and physical threats, and are resigning in droves in hopes of saving the lives of themselves and their families. The prosecutor’s office in the Volyn region (western Ukraine) has been ordered by ultra-nationalists to resign en masse.
Once again, Roberts in cherry picking his facts. None of this so-called persecution and mass resignation of ruling Party of Regions (pro-Russian) members happened until AFTER they had all voted unanimously to oust Yanukovych. How does he explain that little piece of coercion? Someone within their own pro-Russian circle, speaking on behalf of Putin, had to give those orders. As I pointed out last week, it was probably Putin’s oligarch insider Vadim Novinsky—who recently traded in his Russian passport for Ukrainian in order to direct Putin’s agenda in the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament).
Actually, the resignation of many pro-Russian legislators is essential to maintain the illusion that the opposition is in power. Were the Party of Regions to maintain their majority status, people would get suspicious when they suddenly started voting with the opposition. By manufacturing threats and “forcing” mass resignations, the Parliament can be reconstituted by the less than genuine opposition.
That is exactly what happened this week as the newly constituted Ukrainian Parliament installed Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the new prime minister of the country. He’s a former banker and corrupt millionaire who previously served in the administration of Yulie Tymoshenko as minister of Economy, foreign minister and speaker of the Rada. He is a member of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party. This choice clearly points to the return of Tymoshenko’s leadership in Ukraine.
Here’s the way I think things are going to play out in the future. The Russian dominated areas will continue to engage in social unrest and lobbying for independence. Russia will settle for semi-autonomous regions which will keep Ukraine together as a nation but give increasing powers to each of the conflicting sectors. Although there will be relative peace for a while, the conflict can easily be rekindled in the future as necessary by the autonomous regions complaining that they are being oppressed by Western Ukraine. The Voice of America noted that this proposal for regional autonomy has already been floated before:
Russia does seem intent on promoting what it calls the “federalization” of Ukraine, a tactic that could increase its leverage against the central government and enable Moscow to throw up roadblocks to Ukraine’s further integration with the European Union by establishing deep economic relations with “autonomous” eastern regions.
Analyst Dmitri Trenin, who heads the Moscow Carnegie Center, argued in “The New York Times” on February 23, however, that “although federalization is seen in Kyiv and western Ukraine as a step toward ultimate partition, it could in fact help hold Ukraine together” since “more financial and cultural autonomy” could enable the different parts of the country to coexist more easily.
Sebastopol, where the Russian Naval Fleet is headquartered, has just installed a pro-Russia Mayor—one more step towards setting the stage for the call for autonomous regions.
But one of the things that will be a source of constant conflict will be the austerity measures more IMF (bailout) loans will require for Ukraine—plenty of fodder for benefit-dependent Ukrainians with which to justify violent protests. Reuters listed the austerity conditions that will be imposed for new loans:
The IMF has consistently said that Ukraine’s economic policies would create unsustainable large external and fiscal imbalances. It has called on Kiev to cut its large fiscal deficit, phase out energy subsidies, strengthen the banking sector, and allow the exchange rate to fall. A freely floating hryvnia currency and higher domestic gas prices are unpopular steps previously rejected by the Kiev government. Similar conditions are expected to be attached to any new IMF bailout.
While Ukraine, like Greece and other countries bailed out by the EU and the US, will implement some of these measures, they’ll never be able to get in the black again and all the bankers know it. But they also know that there are other global purposes in pushing loans in trade for economic controls—they always lead to pressure to join in increasingly autocratic global governing bodies.
Russian banks have to play the game as well, and have $28B of exposure in Ukrainian loans not counting the $3B Russia just added before halting its proposed $15B bailout. Putin did, however, claim that Russian money could start flowing again after a new government is formed. If it does, it’s more evidence that Russia secretly supports the controlled opposition. If it were Western controlled, he wouldn’t.
Russia is going to continue to use its control of natural gas supplies in Ukraine since that’s Russia’s major means of coercion. Russia’s main pipeline into Europe also passes through Ukraine—another reason why Russia will never let go. Ukrainians are used to special price cuts from Russia for their natural gas and the Ukrainian government absorbs even some of that cost as a subsidy to the people. “Even under the lower [gas] price they are telling us that they can’t pay. This really changes the situation,” Medvedev said.
Still it’s doubtful if Russia will cut off gas supplies—they’ll continue to use it as a club and that will help give the Russian-controlled opposition the excuse to compromise with Russia, as it did in the past for Tymoshenko.
Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev proposed that Russia postpone the loan until “we understand what sort of government there will be, who will be working in it, and what rules they will stick to”. Medvedev’s concern was mainly fueled by the country’s inability to make regular payments for natural gas.
Make no mistake, Ukraine’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse, but it won’t be allowed to collapse. The West will continue to bail out this bloated and corrupt Soviet state until it eventually is recaptured by Russia leading up to WWIII.