In Politico, veteran political trickster Jamie Kirchick expands upon my reader's theory that Right Sector in Kiev is a Russian false flag operation:
And it is this reciprocal relationship with Russia that has many Ukrainians suspecting a shadowy dirty tricks campaign by the Kremlin. Almost every Ukrainian I spoke with speculated that Moscow is secretly supporting Right Sector in an attempt to both destabilize the weak government in Kiev and provide a pretext for further meddling – the tried and true tactic of provokatsiya, or provocation, which Moscow has been using since the early Bolshevik period to deceive its adversaries and earn sympathy among credulous Westerners.
There are many peculiar things about Right Sector that lend some credibility to this theory. Why, for instance, did Yarosh allegedly meet with Yanukoyvch for half an hour on the very day that special forces, the much-loathed “Berkut,” opened fire on protestors? How was it that not a single member of Right Sector was among the “Heavenly Hundred,” as the casualties of the Maidan protests are now consecrated (a particularly curious omission given the group’s much-vaunted role as the armed vanguard of the revolution)? How does the organization afford an entire floor of rooms at the four-star Dnipro Hotel, the Right Sector headquarters in downtown Kiev, where a red and black flag hangs prominently in the lobby? Talking with Right Sector members protesting outside the parliament, I never received a coherent answer as to why they were not lining up to join the country’s army. The greatest threat to Ukraine right now is a potential Russian invasion; yet here were these so-called patriots trying to bring down an already weak Ukrainian government. One Ukrainian who took part in the Maidan protests told me that she heard several Right Sector members speaking with Russian accents. That the group would be part of a Kremlin black PR campaign, she said, is “not a crazy idea.”
My brain can't really process whom to trust least.
That part of the world tends toward Byzantine conspiracies, so perhaps a prudent response would be to suggest that us dumb Americans might not want to get ourselves in too deep in a place we clearly don't understand well.
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Yeah but only the wrong kind of Americans are dumb
Of course the EU/US and EU/US backed elements in Ukraine would also now have a vested interest in smearing anti-EU/US Ukrainean Nationalists, to ensure Ukraine emerged as pro-Western/pro-Globalist. I would think the obvious source of funding, aside from Ukrainean expatriates, for Right Sector would be the US/EU, having funded them to overthrow Yanukovich. Such EU/US funding will now presumably have ceased.
The Heavenly Hundred claim might be made up, it would be interesting to see some evidence. I would imagine Right Sector would like to take power before empowering the Ukrainean army, not that the Ukrainean army would be able to resist a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, or seems to have any intent to do so. And Russia seems to not want to invade eastern Ukraine; although if intra-Ukrainean civil war breaks out that might change.
From Putin's NYT Op Ed:
"From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.
It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”
I guess that week he had Obama's international lawyer.
Also ...
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the actions of Russian military forces in the Ukrainian region of Crimea have demonstrated the "high level of preparedness" in the Russian armed forces.
"Recent events in Crimea constituted a serious test [for the Russian military]. They demonstrated new qualitative abilities of our armed forces as well as high morale of the personnel," Putin said."
If that was a SERIOUS TEST, then what if they actually had to fire weapons?
Current theory: All Putin wanted was the easy layup of Crimea. He actually has no intention of going into Ukraine -- but every one has now conceded Crimea. And is likely to throw in a couple more concessions to close out the 'crisis'.
Like that backwater sliver of Moldova -- Trans-Dienster.
Putin took the military back to half way decent from the disaster he inherited. At that time, Russia was losing more soldiers annually than the US, which was fighting two [stupidi] wars.
read this first and see if kirchick is telling the truth
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
"Current theory: All Putin wanted was the easy layup of Crimea. He actually has no intention of going into Ukraine -- but every one has now conceded Crimea. And is likely to throw in a couple more concessions to close out the 'crisis'. "
That's what I figured as well. He probably needed a consolation prize to make up for having 'lost' Ukraine.
He's a gay, liberal, Jewish neocon, so we know he must be right.
The problem with the idea of Right Sector being agents provocateurs is that Right Sector is a merger of many different nationalist groups who have existed for a long time. And have been anti-russian for a long time.
To believe Right Sector were a bunch of agents provocateurs, you have to believe that a guy who killed 20 Russians in Chechnya and whom the new government killed during arrest couldn't figure it out he was working for the Russians.
I'll take the Eli Lakes and Kirchicks seriously when they can explain why snipers from the Hotel Ukraine which was controlled by the Maiden were firing on both protesters and police.
Kirchick writes: Talking with Right Sector members protesting outside the parliament, I never received a coherent answer as to why they were not lining up to join the country’s army. The greatest threat to Ukraine right now is a potential Russian invasion; yet here were these so-called patriots trying to bring down an already weak Ukrainian government.
Hunsdon ends the sentence: an already weak Ukrainian government that had just put a hit on Pravii Sector's Sashko Biliy.
Kirchick is preparing the ground to rehabilitate the neocons and neolibs.
The Ukraine is going to follow the standard course. It will blow apart in a few months from the IMF/EU/US austerity/impoverishment. .
The revolutionary coalitions will shatter, much as they did in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Putin, a master politician, will seek an accommodation with Right Sector and others for (relative) peace.
At which point the Kirchick thesis will be rolled out:
"Poor Vicky thought she was helping the "true' forces of Democracy in the Ukraine! Little did she know that the Nefarious Russian was behind it all!"
Instead of being an idiot who started a war in the Ukraine that she lost, she will be a victim of an Evil Russian Plan to enslave the Ukrainian people.
They are preparing a sales pitch to turn Right Sector into Castro and Putin into Khrushchev.
Any revolutionist who resists IMF rule in the Ukraine will become an enemy and a secret ally of Russia all along. {Who could have guessed?!?)
If Putin wants Ukraine, he needs to invade now while Kiev is still sufficiently disorganized and demoralized. The longer he waits, the harder it will get.
I personally think it's a terrible idea for Russia not to take Ukraine (and Belarus and Moldova). NATO is practically begging to let Ukraine join, and they'll probably fast track membership once the elections are over. Does Russia really want NATO in Ukraine?
But it was the Right Sector who provided the main push to overthrow the former who Ukrainian president...who favored ties with Russia.
Russian natural gas exports.
Subsidized to Ukrainian customers.
Market price to Western Europe, Ukraine takes a cut for trans-shipping it.
Gazprom jacks and lowers the price to Ukraine at the Kremlin's behest. But corrupt, broke Ukraine is billions in arrears, anyway.
Today the axe fell (again), as Gazprom raised the price to Ukraine for non-payment.
The sums involved make the boyish Kerry's pledge of $1b in aid sound like Dr. Evil's One Million Dollars! quip.
Very meta: most of that EU/US "support" is going to end up with Gazprom. Less the usual percentages that will make their way to the usual accounts.
Kirchick wouldn't be the go to person for information or analysis as he's in business of spinning and lying. Perhaps he's laying the groundwork for a crackdown on stubborn rightists by claiming they're Moscow's agents; they may have outlived their usefulness. Who is he to talk about "so-called patriots"? Where'd he ever do his fighting, in a gay bathhouse? He would like to see some violence break out between Russians and Ukrainians as a way of embittering them and deepening rifts that would make future cooperation more difficult. Other people's lives mean nothing to him; they're expendable. Other shoes may drop later as the coup installed Yatsenyuk proceeds to cut pensions and energy costs go up, driving the already low standard of living down, not conceivably something people thought they were signing up for. But who knows, with the virulently anti-Russian Biliy now out of the way as an impediment there could be some cooperation between the rightists and Moscow; they've all shown flexibility in the past in their ability to make alliances.
I'd be a little more careful drinking tea if I'd be Kirchick in the future.
Steve, given your previous comments about Obama's background maybe one of those Byzantine places America might not want to get involved with is the USA.
Thank you Steve!
My theory has been gaining more and more currency in mainstream outlets. Kyivpost also mentioned it, and Russia Today (!) has been openly stating people are calling them Kremlin spies.
"Q: The members of the Right Sector were recently called Kremlin spies, presumably because only enemy spies can damage the country’s reputation to such an extent"
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-crimea-ukraine-west-181/
Sergei Lavrov has also clearly and publicly put the blame for the sniper shootings on them. That would seem like a pretty extreme position for the Foreign Minister of a major power to take in multiple public interviews unless he knew what he was talking about. The entire Lavrov interview on Russia Today is well worth reading.
The problem with the idea of Right Sector being agents provocateurs is that Right Sector is a merger of many different nationalist groups who have existed for a long time. And have been anti-russian for a long time.
Its not a problem at all. Someone has been funding these groups for years to perform para-military training and organizing, nurturing their existence for the opportune moment. You don't really believe the fairy tale that it is little old Ukrainian grannies in Canada and the US sending $10 checks to Yarosh every month do you?
You are confusing funding and using for your own ends actual support of the aims of the people being funded. Many distasteful groups are funded by governments because they are convenient.
And really, what is a rabble of a few thousand against the organized might of the internal security forces of a country of 46 million, or the Russian Army? But what is such a rabble vs. thousands of unarmed demonstrators?
There are five current theories about who the snipers worked for.
1) Official Ukrainian Internal Security forces acting at the behest of Yanukovich.
2) Blackwater type operatives funded by the EUSUK
3) Blackwater type operatives funded by the Russian FSB
4) Maidan Self Defence shooting their own and polic to escalate the situation
5) Right Sektor, same motives
They can't all be right.
Or perhaps Russia is run by a bunch of old KGB agents who have a lot of experience at this kind of thing?
Why am I getting the giggles at the thought, and the image, of Jamie Kirchik chatting up Right Sector street fighters?
Before getting deeper into conspiracies, has anyone figured out who (if anyone) paid to transport protesters to the Maidan and feed them etc. while they were camped out? It's said that 30% of the shooting victims were from Galicia and only 15% from Kiev itself. In a country as broke as Ukraine, are we to assume all these thousands could spare the cash for a bus trip of several hundred miles. We're told that citizens of Kiev spontaneously supplied the protesters, but if they loved them so much, why did they join them in such (relatively) small numbers. I saw no signs of the place turning into a Woodstock-like unsanitary squalor... so, I'd like a clear account of what actually happened, and how.
Andrew quoted RT: "Q: The members of the Right Sector were recently called Kremlin spies, presumably because only enemy spies can damage the country’s reputation to such an extent"
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-crimea-ukraine-west-181/
Hunsdon said: Of a piece with the following two jokes circulating in Russia:
Putin is watching TV. Calls up his Chief of Intelligence: “Give Tyagnibok a medal for banning the use of Russian in Ukraine. What do you mean he isn't one of ours? Ok, give Yarosh a medal for the idea of blowing up Ukrainian gas transit lines. What do you mean, that's his own doing? How about that cretin Lyashko? How about those cretins from Svoboda—Miroshnichenko and others? So, DO WE HAVE ANY AGENTS ON THE GROUND IN UKRAINE AT ALL?! Where the hell are they? What the hell do you mean they bought a dump-truck of pop-corn and a tanker truck of beer and are watching it like a movie?!!!” Hangs up in disgust. Calls again: “How could you let Muzychko get killed?”
and
Israeli President Peres asks the Russian President: -Vladimir, are you of Jewish ancestry? -Putin: What makes you think so, Shimon? -Peres: You made the US pay five billion dollars to deliver Crimea to Russia. Even for a Jew, that is audacious!
This is baseless speculating and hinges on the belief that any conflict expresses itself in a binary way.
Right Sector neither supports the West nor does it condones the East. It propagates an independent route, in line with other Third Positionist movements across Europe.
Fact of the matter is that Maidan wasn´t comprised of a singular movement/ideology, rather it was a mix of very different groups and interests that united for the single purpose of toppling Yanukovich.
How very convenient for the liberals in both the US and the EU to try and paint Right Sector as some sort of fifth column, after the efforts made by them in the frontlines not so long ago. Have they forgotten that a prime figure of Right Sector (Muzychko) was murdered by Ukrainian government forces, or doesn't it fit well with this new narrative?
If we don't provide protection to Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Baltics, hardly the sites of Byzantine conspiracies Steve ...
They'll simply nuke up FAST themselves.
And after all, what could wrong there? I mean is not a massively increased risk of nuclear war WORTH THE MORAL PREENING that Isolationism brings from icky awful entanglements?
After all, is not the track record of isolationism and appeasement with Hitler and Tojo just sterling? Why, Peace in Our Time is a byword for success?
Ukraine is likely a place too far and not in the core interest of the US. But Poland? The Czech Republic? Oil producing Norway? On the way places like Sweden and Finland?
Besides which, either we provide the protection or they get their own launch on warning nuclear ones.
Hmmm .... which would I prefer as an American?
Somewhere in his public statement, every conservative spokesman always includes a knee-jerk demand for more uniforms, more soldiers, more sailors. If a bunch of men start making loud comments about how they love a guy in uniform, you have to look carefully to see whether they are on a San Francisco street corner or a conservative convention.
-- Bob Whitaker
If Right Section bears any resemblance to Ernst Rohm's SA, Kirchick may have enjoyed a fine old night in Kiev.
Occam's razor. Right Sector really are some ludicrously complex Moscow-controlled honey trap set up to make an already murky political situation even murkier. Or they really are right-wing Ukrainian nationalists and the new Cold Warriors in America are so embarrassed about having supported them that they try to shift blame by claiming Right Sector and C14 are Russian controlled groups trying to make Obama look bad.
Smart journalists know there is nothing better at distracting the internet than conspiracy theories.
You don't really believe the fairy tale that it is little old Ukrainian grannies in Canada and the US sending $10 checks to Yarosh every month do you?
Why not?
Irish-Americans funded the IRA for years and I bet a US Dollar has always gone a lot further in the Ukraine than either Britain or Ireland.
Maybe Ukrainian-Americans and Ukrainians-Canadians are relatively invisible coz they don't drink green beer or have other cute habits or have a sob story everyone's heard of.
Actually the Ukrainians do have an excellent sob story. Should be one of the best sob story in the world. But for some reason hardly anyone's ever heard of it.
And really, what is a rabble of a few thousand against the organized might of the internal security forces of a country of 46 million, or the Russian Army?
You don't need many people to be a major pain in the arse. Once again, consider the IRA.
Everything in the quoted paras is just as consistent with Right Sector being run by CIA assets as it is with Right Sector being run by FSB assets. So, Right Sector knew about the snipers. Big deal. That only means, at most, that Right Sector and the snipers were on the same side (or were being run by the same side). It doesn't mean they were both on Russia's side. Besides, it's not even news that Right Sector and the snipers were on the same side. Such has been the most likely interpretation for a while. Finally, it appears that the CIA has been running these guys since WWII.
Right Sector's behavior is odd right now. They are letting the Kiev junta deal them defeat after defeat without putting up any real fight. Why is that?
Apparently, the West has turned against them (and this is likely the real import of Kirchick's conspiracy theory and the various other rumblings against them in the West's propaganda machine). But, so what? Why does that mean they have to not fight? *Someone* is deciding that they withdraw in an orderly fashion rather than fight.
Soros and the neocons started funding protests against Yanukovich when he backed out of a deal with the EU. If he wasn't signing with the EU, who was he going to sign with instead? Putin's Eurasian Union. The neocons don't want a stronger Russia with its own economic block, so they were against that. And you've got to give them credit - they have actually prevented 98% of the Ukraine from joining the Eurasian Union. For now.
When the neocons wanted Yanukovich gone, they were funding everyone who was against him. That included west Ukrainian nationalists. Yanukovich had mostly been supported by the southeast of the Ukraine. Of course the neocons hate all white Christian nationalists, including west Ukrainian ones. They were always going to discard the Right Sector as soon as they got what they wanted. So they're discarding it now, throwing it under the bus.
As someone here already stated, Muzychko, Yarosh and others have a long history of anti-Russian activism. So has Tyahnibok and his Freedom Party, who are surely going to be thrown under the same bus soon. Some of these guys' involvement in politics predates Putin's.
While the protests were still going on and Yanukovich was still in power I remember saying in the comments of this blog, as well as on other blogs, that the neocons would turn against their Banderite tools as soon as these tools stop being useful to them. And many others here and elsewhere said the same thing. This was easily predictable.
Ukraine has a presidential election on May 25, and recent polls indicate that the Right Sector candidate can expect about 1% of the vote. This suggests that Russia's obsession with the Right Sector is hysterical.
The bottom line is that Russia wants Ukraine as its' vassal. If Russia can't have that, then it wants to break off eastern and southern Ukraine from the rest the country through autonomy or outright annexation. The majority of Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainins aren't inclined to want to join Russia in normal circumstances. (They could easily emigrate to Russia if they wanted to). This is where Russia's Big Lie comes in about the "right-wing fascists" eager to commit genocide of Russian speakers, and therefore Russian speakers should understand they need Russia's protection. Russian/Putin apologists are also doing their part in the West.
Steve you write for Taki. And I believe due to the controversy over his articles on Jews and Israel, was told not to write about those topics for the magazine he had worked for. The same should apply to Jamie Kirchick and anything he has to say about Russia. Recently he was asked why he went on Russia Today (RT).
While taking off his microphone and talking to a person off-camera in the Stockholm remote link-up studio, Kirchick also said he only came on the station to "f**k with the Russians"
Kirchick is probably more anti-Russian than Taki was ever anti-semitic. Thus, people should take what he has to say about Russia in that light. He is not an honest broker on Russia.
Do Electric Jews Dream of Android Shiksa?
Of course the EU/US and EU/US backed elements in Ukraine would also now have a vested interest in smearing anti-EU/US Ukrainean Nationalists, to ensure Ukraine emerged as pro-Western/pro-Globalist. I would think the obvious source of funding, aside from Ukrainean expatriates, for Right Sector would be the US/EU, having funded them to overthrow Yanukovich. Such EU/US funding will now presumably have ceased.
Not only has the funding ceased, but they've turned on them and have started targeting and executing the militant nationalists and trying to get them to disarm.
I think that they were Nuland's agents provacateur, and now that they've done their job they are being swept up.
David Frum is another political activist who has been downplaying the anti-Semitism of the rebels while accusing Putin and Russia of being the real anti-Semites. See his Twitter.
I suspect Frum, Kirchik et al do believe that there is anti-Semitism on the rebel side, but that the more anti-Semitic elements will manage to be suppressed in the current chaos and by the new regime, and that the new regime will be more amenable to Jewish interests than Putin and Russia currently are. Hence the rebels are effectively less anti-Semitic in their calculus.
Didn't $5 billion USD get funneled to the Ukraine from the Democracy Warriors of the US? I'm sure that can buy a block of rooms at a Ukrainian hotel.
"Of course the EU/US and EU/US backed elements in Ukraine would also now have a vested interest in smearing anti-EU/US Ukrainean Nationalists, to ensure Ukraine emerged as pro-Western/pro-Globalist. I would think the obvious source of funding, aside from Ukrainean expatriates, for Right Sector would be the US/EU, having funded them to overthrow Yanukovich."
Any secret EU backing would require that there would be some secret EU agency that could actually secretly back anything, though, and you have to be pretty deeply into NWO conspiracy theories to believe that EU states could actually agree on a secret agenda.
Of course, some EU states have their own intelligence agencies but most likely they spend most of their time spying on other EU countries... there is no way the EU can maintain any coherent secret plot.
This talkingpoint/speculation (Right Sector is controlled by Russian intelligence) was earlier circulated by John Schindler, the former NSA counterintelligence officer who on Twitter has led the attack on Edward Snowden. On his blog, Schindler has also talked about the dark Russian art of provokatsiya, argued that Russia is spoiling for an excuse to invade the rest of Ukraine, etc. To see Kirchick, who stage-managed Liz Wahl's resignation from RT, saying similar things, should be no surprise, but it only strengthens the malign suspicion that it's these people who are the provocateurs spoiling for war, not Russia.
"Someone has been funding these groups for years to perform para-military training and organizing, nurturing their existence for the opportune moment. You don't really believe the fairy tale that it is little old Ukrainian grannies in Canada and the US sending $10 checks to Yarosh every month do you?"
There's the black market for stuff that was looted from the military in the post communist chaos and then there's the fact that it's probably not all that hard to bribe a sympathizer to let you grab something from a military armory even today. It's not surprising that there are well armed people around in Ukraine.
The type of men who would be the first to join a paramilitary are also the type of men who would join a regular military and Ukraine even had conscription until recently. It has always been the strategy of independence movements and revolutionaries to have some of their faithful volunteer for military service in the hopes of gaining people with military training as the core of a future army. It's doubtful that these guys needed any more military training, they probably just got together and started holding drills.
I really don't see the need for conspiracy here. I mean, if I had been Ukrainian for the past few decades, I'd have made pretty sure that
a) that I have weapons
b) that everyone thinks that I'm a dangerous nut with weapons
c) that I also have hidden weapons that no one knows about (especially not the government)
d) that I have friends with weapons
If I had been Ukrainian for the past few decades, the question wouldn't be whether I'd be in a militia, the question would be whether I'd be with these guys or some others...
"Perhaps he's laying the groundwork for a crackdown on stubborn rightists by claiming they're Moscow's agents; they may have outlived their usefulness"
Sounds quite reasonable. It could well be that Right Sector hate Russia AND hate EUSA, even if one or other has funded them.
I'd say it's possible that Kirchick is telling the truth (stopped clocks) but my default assumption is he's lying and that RS are about to find they're disposable.
Trust no one. But be sure that the Russians are always several steps ahead in the propaganda war. If there's a false flag operation, the Russians have a hand in.
Bandera got a bad rap. He's no worse than Mannerheim in Finland.
The various Ukrainian natty alliances are very real and very Ukrainian. They are not a tool of Moscow. Just tragic.
Agents provocateurs work freelance, much like terrorists and spies, and as such can get paid alternatively by one party or the other. Right Sector could well have been funded by both the US and Russia.
What I found interesting is that the two main politicians in trouble for trying to bring Eastern Ukraine into Russia are both Jewish... Mikhail Dobkin and Hennadiy Kernes.
"Ukraine has a presidential election on May 25, and recent polls indicate that the Right Sector candidate can expect about 1% of the vote. This suggests that Russia's obsession with the Right Sector is hysterical.
...
This is where Russia's Big Lie comes in about the "right-wing fascists" eager to commit genocide of Russian speakers, and therefore Russian speakers should understand they need Russia's protection.
"
Right Sector isn't the only thing the Russians point to... there's the matter of the Svoboda(WolfsAngel) party which had almost all the top security posts in the interim government... a Svoboda party member was appointed prosecutor general which prompted the cutie prosecutor from Crimea to resign and she was eventually appointed chief prosecutor there. One of the Svoboda members of the Rada attacked a tv executive and forced him to sign an apology note for showing Putin's speech.
"This talkingpoint/speculation (Right Sector is controlled by Russian intelligence) was earlier circulated by John Schindler.."
"In the run-up to OIF, 2002-03, I headed an interagency intelligence task force which looked at the Iraqi military and we, too, were fooled. All evidence seemed to point in the direction of Iraq having WMDs".
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Intel&month=1209&week=b&msg=ZKFn4EBysaxJkhfShpMHMQ
I know Schindler browses Sailer-sphere, but but he reminds me way too much of this guy for me to take seriously.
if Soros is behind this, why doesn't Putin make his life 'interesting'? If he began with his progeny, Soros might become uncomfortable about his machinations.
Whiskey said: After all, is not the track record of isolationism and appeasement with Hitler and Tojo just sterling? Why, Peace in Our Time is a byword for success?
Hunsdon said: By GOD, sir, you are CORRECT. I just don't want Vladimir Vladimirovich to take your advice and decide to adopt a forward policy. He's been isolationist (staying home in Russia) and appeasing, but as you point out, isolationism and the appeasement of the aggressive is just a recipe for doom doom DOOM.
Dan said: The various Ukrainian natty alliances are very real and very Ukrainian. They are not a tool of Moscow. Just tragic.
Hunsdon said: So much this. Screwed by the Soviets headed West, screwed by the Nazis headed East, screwed again by the Soviets headed West (again).
This is where Russia's Big Lie comes in about the "right-wing fascists" eager to commit genocide of Russian speakers
Its not a big lie when the former PM of the country, Yulia Timoshenko is taped on the phone saying it AND she acknowledges the tape was genuine on her own Twitter account.
Putin had the annexation of the Crimea already up his sleeve and he felt this was the time to play it. The only question was and is, will he move into the rest of the Ukraine. This could be his end game, to grab as much land as he possibly can before Ukraine finally falls out of Russia's orbit. One of your readers got it right, it will get progressively harder to pull off. Western Ukraine and Kiev would end up being a very large Chechnya. Belarus will probably go back to Russia eventually. We should not be surprised or bothered.
Working Class Englishmen:
Why not? Irish-Americans funded the IRA for years and I bet a US Dollar has always gone a lot further in the Ukraine than either Britain or Ireland. Maybe Ukrainian-Americans and Ukrainians-Canadians are relatively invisible coz
I've explained this before.
The IRA fundraisers were very well known. Gerry Adams came to my little borough and held one at the Irish Club up the street from me. The IRA generated results, month by month and year by year so the donors knew what they were getting. They had a story to sell. And the big money still came from places like th Soviet Union and Libya.
Yarosh and Co. don't have a story to sell. They were invisible until a few months ago, but spent 23 years living as "activists" as a full time job supporting a family. There are 20 times fewer Ukrainians in the diaspora as Irish to draw support from, and they are generally poorer. I like to think I hang out a bit with the Ukrainians of this sort in the US - I go to their Greek Catholic Churches for Mass, my daughters dance ballet in thier club building, and am on good terms with their community leaders. I'm well aware of their proclivities and sympathies towards the Nazi times as one of liberation for themselves. Yet, there was never a word breathed of an opportunity to fund people like this back in Galicia.
If you look into the history of these folks going back to the 1800's, they were always a tool of one of the large states in the area (Austria-Hungary, Poland, Germany, Russia, US), either as agents and assets, or as double agents, and constantly involved in elaborate intrigues that ended up going nowhere (except usually with one of their leaders dead or off to prison), but that provided quite a bit of benefit to the outside powers.
It could well be that Right Sector hate Russia AND hate EUSA, even if one or other has funded them.
You are making the wild assumption that Right Sector is smart enough to realize that those providing the bulk of its funding are probably a foreign intelligence service. The best games of these sort are those where the asset does not realize they are being controlled and is acting in an honest manner. When they get caught and are put through the 3rd degree, it will never be apparent that the CIA or FSB or whoever was sending them money, because they themselves weren't aware of it. Plausible deniability.
The various Ukrainian natty alliances are very real and very Ukrainian. They are not a tool of Moscow.
Yeah sure. Ever heard of General Prince Anton Vasilievich Turkul? The Red Orchestra?
Are you unaware that the Tsarist Secret Police perfected the art of using agents provacteurs and moles long before the Cheka, KGB and FSB to disrupt potential nationalist organizations?
What would be surprising about all of these groups would be that one of them was actually an independent, homegrown group and rabble rousers with no outside support and no outside penetration.
This talkingpoint/speculation (Right Sector is controlled by Russian intelligence) was earlier circulated by John Schindler, the former NSA counterintelligence officer
I am both pleased to have thought about it independently myself and dropped it in a line to Steve, and self-validated that so many from all sides are attempting to pin these folks on the other side (or using revelationf ot he method type shows saying that they themselves did it, as Russia Today did) such that it is clear there is something going on.
No one just goes and does things like this on their own.
After all, is not the track record of isolationism and appeasement with Hitler and Tojo just sterling? Why, Peace in Our Time is a byword for success?
What is the track record for intervention? World War I intervention set the stage for the bloody 20th century that still continues to this day.
What did intervention do for Serbia?
What did it do for Iraq?
What has it done for Egypt, Libya and Syria?
Thanks to interventionists, Iran is now a regional power.
I'd put the track record of non-interventionists up against interventionists any day. The overwhelming majority of calls for intervention today are to fix things from prior interventions. What do these guys have to do to prove themselves wrong?
Andrew, if your theory is correct then Muzychko himself is a Russian agent. That sounds appealing when you look at his starring videos on RT, but not so much when you realise he's been fighting Russians for 20 years and used to gouge their eyes out in Chechnya. If anyone was Right Sector, he was Right Sector. And he's obviously no Russian agent. And if he were wouldn't the Russians have done a better job in keeping their number one "provocateur" at the time alive? Your whole theory makes no sense unless the Russians themselves wanted to depose Yanukovych. All parties agreed to the 21 Feb deal which would have kept Yanukovych in power and the Party of Regions intact until elections--except Right Sector. It was Right Sector that goaded Maidan into rejecting the deal and then supplied the muscle to complete the coup on 22 Feb. You think Russia was happy with that result? I could imagine scenarios in which Russia is funding one or two of the small groups within Right Sector to keep tabs on them (or to take videos and post them online). But to think that Russia supported what they actually accomplished--the overthrow of the government--is to miss the larger plot. Now Yanukovych is gone, the Party of Regions is decimated without time to regroup, and no Russia-friendly candidate stands a chance in the elections. Ukraine is rushing to the embrace of the EU, IMF and possibly even NATO. All this is an easily predictable result of what Right Sector did on 22 Feb. It makes no sense to think that Russia could botch things up so badly with such an operation, especially when you consider how savvy they were with Crimea. As for funding, a little cash goes a long way in Ukraine. They were living in tents and then squatting in a building; they probably stole some weapons and in any event Molotov cocktails aren't very expensive. Their ragtag operations required no grand funding scheme; they were only successful in the midst of the rather lavishly funded (by the West) Maidan operation. But Maidan's goals were initially not violent overthrow but something like the 21 Feb agreement--which was far more acceptable to Russia than the events of 22 Feb. Maidan as a whole accepted the violence of Right Sector only after the sniper shootings. So Right Sector was in the right place at the right time to supply the crucial violence to accomplish the coup--the very opposite of what Russia wanted.
Andrew said: I am both pleased to have thought about it independently myself and dropped it in a line to Steve, and self-validated that so many from all sides are attempting to pin these folks on the other side (or using revelationf ot he method type shows saying that they themselves did it, as Russia Today did) such that it is clear there is something going on.
Hunsdon said: Andrew, it is a valid theory. (I'm not saying it's correct, but it is a valid theory.) However, your reliance on the Russia Today interview with Lavrov as your sole piece of supporting evidence does your cause no great help.
The Russians are laughing at this. In my opinion (and this is as much a theory as yours is) they are surprised and probably appalled, at a professional level, by the ham-handed farce that is the Nuland coup (judged from the standpoint of a professional intelligence operative).
Check out this youtube clip. It was broadcast on RT, but the subtitles were provided and the clip was reposted to youtube, by the blog Vineyard of the Saker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ikb6roqMg
Putin says that Timchenko, Kovalchuk, Rotenberg, are typical "Moskali" and were in fact the polite armed men in green who helped liberate Crimea. (Timchenko and Kovalchuk are Ukrainian names.)
This is, as I mentioned above, of a piece with the jokes about awarding medals to Tyaginbok, or about Putin being Jewish.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
And yes, I know, sometimes history is full of revolutionary organs whose main membership component is undercover operatives of the state apparatus----we've had Klan and Black Panther cells like that right here in CONUS.
It was Right Sector that goaded Maidan into rejecting the [Feb 21] deal and then supplied the muscle to complete the coup on 22 Feb. You think Russia was happy with that result?
Yes, that's how the conspiracy theory goes. Putin wanted chaos in Ukraine either so that he could grab Crimea or so that he could distract domestic attention from corruption in Sochi or the bad Russian economy or whatever. It's a dumb conspiracy theory, but that is how it goes.
Everyone was Putin's puppet and the whole shebang was a puppet show put on by Putin. That kind theory has now been floated in many neocon outlets and by some pretty high status types. So, it's possible that this is going to settle in to be a standard neocon propaganda line, kinda like "Russia invaded Georgia" is a standard neocon propaganda line. The fact that their propaganda is stupid, delusional, and ever-shifting doesn't seem to decrease its effectiveness much.
I had a comment, honestly! Apparently it was, ahem, beyond the pale . . . .
Anon:
I am not saying that Muzycho was a Russian Agent. Its far easier if he were not. (I have suggested Yaorsh may be. Notice Yarosh has not gotten himself killed.)
The way an operation of this sort works is that the organization is an honest group with sincere actors, but that it is penetrated by double agents, preferrably in higher up positions, who goad members into actions that are detrimental to their goals. We see this method of entrapment constantly with the FBI catching mad bombers who were taught how to make bombs and goaded into action by FBI Agents.
This was also the method of the Cheka in dealing with the Ukrainian Nationalists (and Russian Emigre groups) around WWII that was employed by Anton Turkul and the Red Orchestra to disable and discredit these groups in WWII and afterwards. It must be kept clearly in mind that Right Sector is an out growth of groups like UNA-UNSO and the like which derived from the compromised and penetrated Bandera groups and Galizien SS.
Right Sector as a group discredits and destabilizes the legitimate opposition to Russia's preferred rulers in Ukraine. It also is capable of creating political situations in Ukraine which Russia can take advantage of. The seizure of Crimea is one such result.
You ask how Russia benefits from the overthrow of Yanukovich. Here is how. Russia has the support of about 2/3-4/5 of Southern and Eastern Ukraine, and about 1/2 of Central Ukraine and Transcarpathia. Russia benefits from having a pro-Russian politician in power based on the political support of these people. However, Russia also benefits by alienating its own supporters from the Ukrainian government and electoral process, because that causes irredentist sentiment where SE Ukrainians give up on the Ukrainian state and turn to reunion with Russia.
Consider the situation of Yanukovich and the Party of Regions. This group won the 2004 election and was overthrown in a Judicial coup by the Orange Revolution. The same folks then won the 2010 election and are overthrown again via armed violence in Maidan. Think of this from the perspective of the average SE Ukrainian. You put your efforts into supporting someone int he electoral process who claims to back you and your values and identity, and he is tossed from power twice via undemocratic means. By the time the second coup occurs, you are probably totally disillusioned in the Democratic process, as it is clear your political opponents in Western Ukraine will never accept the legitimacy of your bloc winning an election and enacting your policies. Thus the strong sentiment in "Novorossiya" for secession and annexation right now.
Its not hard to picture this from our perspective. Imagine the outrage among American Democrats if following up the judicial interference in the 2000 election denying Al Gore the presidency, the Tea Party protests against Obama had grown to such an extent that an armed revolt occurred on the Mall in Washington DC in 2010-2011, with Tea Party groups seizing arms from Fort Bragg and making noises about bringing them to DC, resulting in Obama's flight to Canada and the appointment of John Boehner as President. Do you think there might be serious talk in New England or the Pacific Northwest joining Canada? That is the situation in Ukraine right now.
How and why might Russia activate Right Sector in November of 2013? With the start of the Maidan protests, it was becoming clear that the Yanukovich regime was living on borrowed time. Its majority in parliament rested on the disunity of the opposition to permit it to win extra seats. The Party of Regions and Communists lost the 2012 election in popular vote but still governed. Maidan was a clear sign of the opposition uniting against Yanukovich, which would end his reign. The Party of Regions was gradually losing electorall support as the Ukrainization policy of the central government under previous president took its toll on their pro-Russian stance among the people. With Ukraine slipping further and further away from Russia (even the Party of Regions supports EU integration), the time was ripe for provocative acts which would allow Russia to get what it still could of value.
Right Sector itself was a new unity of several different Nationalist groups. Such a fusion is an ideal time to worm double agents in one group into control of a much larger clique, and also an ideal moment for outsiders to join in an be accepted. To this effect, Right Sector supporters on facist wesbsites in Europe (see IronMarch for example) are very clear that they are being helped by Russian nationalists from Russia and Kaliningrad at Maidan. It strains credulity that nationalist groups in Russia itself with an official program of overthrowing the Putin government are not throughly compromised with moles and agents.
So this group of Ukrainian Nationalists and Russian Nationalists show up on Maidan ready for a fight. Unlike the other protestors, they are well organized, well funded, armed, and itching for confrontation with police. The groups include combat veterans and men who served in the Soviet Army, so they are capable of tactical thought and organized movements necessary to come out victorious in a street confrontation with riot police. The goal of Right Sector itself and its members as an honest orgnization is the overthrow of Yanukovich, the Parliament, and other major government figures, and the seizure of power by themselves. Right Sector proceeds to engage in a variety of actions which inflame the situation, lead to mass violence, and result in the overthrow of Yanukovich and the substitution of a mainstream western Ukrainian government. Their very presence inflames passions among the typical Russian and SE Ukrainian, for whom their Nazi/Fascist rhetoric is anathema. Instead of SE Ukraine becoming disgusted with Yanukovich, they clearly become disgusted with the mainstream western Ukrainians, who are seen as allied with Nazis.
Not content with having overthrown Yanukovich, Right Sector proceeds to continue to destablize the sitution in Kiev and western Ukraine with threats and violence against legitimate authorities and private citizens, as well as sending thugs to SE Ukraine to beat up and kill pro-Russian demonstrators through further provocations. Their inflammatory actions send Crimea into open defiance and provide cover for Russia to seize the peninsula. At the same time, Lukhansk, Donetsk, Kharkov, and Odessa are also in an uproar, helped along both by Russian agents helping organize the pro-Russian demonstrations, and by Right Sector promoting fear and violence. All the actions of Right Sector, as well intentioned and sincere as they might be, serve the interests of Russia. A better opposition could not be bought with all the Gold Rubles in Moscow. Now, instead of all of Ukraine slipping away to the EU and NATO, and the SE Ukraine and even Crimea gradually being compromised, the situation has been exploited to deliver Crimea to Russia and potentially the entire territory from Transistria and Odessa to Lukhansk and Kharkov. Instead of any sort of gradual reconciliation of Western/Central and Southern/Eastern Ukrainians, sectarian passion has been inflamed to the point where it is difficult to see the two sides working out an amicable future together in one country.
You still think Russia has not benefitted from the unfolding of this situation? Again, its not that Russia needed to instigate Maidan, and its not that all Right Sector members are Russian agents. Its that Maidan provided an opportunity that could be exploited by Russia, and Right Sector provided themselves as willing tools to do the dirty work Russia needed to do.
Bill:
Yes, that's how the conspiracy theory goes. Putin wanted chaos in Ukraine either so that he could grab Crimea or so that he could distract domestic attention from corruption in Sochi or the bad Russian economy or whatever. It's a dumb conspiracy theory, but that is how it goes
No, its not how it goes. Putin didn't want or need chaos or a distraction. He wasn't looking to seize Crimea.
What Putin did was take advantage of a situation that was presented to him. How he did it, and whether my theory that certain actors in Right Sector were double agents is irrelevant to the basic thesis, which was that Putin took advantage of the violence in Maidan to obtain a prize that was suddenly placed before him.
While the West focused on ovethrowing the Ukrainian government and ignored Putin in Sochi, Putin looked at the chaos of the Maidan situation and figured out a way to obtain what was important to him that would simultaneously permanently weaken and discredit the new pro-western government. Not only did he get Crimea and 2 million new citizens, but he got a chunk of the Ukrainian Navy and Air Force, and a good number of the few active professional military personnel of Ukraine were induced to defect to the Russian Army. And he made the US and NATO look like impotent fools. They spent $5 billion, and ended up handing Crimea over to Putin without a shot being fired. Putin also exposed the Ukrainians as being utterly unwilling to fight their brother Russians, which means they will be totally useless as a member of NATO. What is the point of a NATO state if its personnel don't cre enough about their own state to fight for its sovereignty?
Being a deep cover agent must be the second most brain scrambling job in the world; being a counterintelligence agent, tasked with rooting out deep cover agents, perhaps the foremost.
James Jesus Angleton was a sharp cookie, but he spent so long in the "wilderness of mirrors" that he probably went mad, confirming Nietzche's warning that he who looks deep into the abyss, the abyss looks deep into him.
Most of the few, real Ukrainians I've spoken with claim that they're "against the revolution." There's one guy who is very anti-Russian, against the defection of the Crimea, but he's from a western city.
Here's a cool video about exporting democracy: http://youtu.be/lxZr5Pfdd24
Andrew: Your theory is conceivable but I find it far fetched. It seems pretty obvious to me that Putin's preferred solution would have been to keep Ukraine as a buffer zone, and that this remained a viable scenario obtainable through political means in Nov 2013 and even in Feb 2014. He had recently negotiated an extension of a lease in Crimea to 2042. And he would have preferred Crimea in Ukraine because its votes gave Russia-friendly national candidates a fighting chance in elections. To court destabilization through Right Sector was to risk exactly what might happen now: loss of Ukraine as a buffer zone, and NATO extending to Russian borders, whether those borders are drawn as now or somewhat further West. I can imagine Putin feeling forced to invade Eastern Ukraine in an extreme last resort, but to think that active irredentism was part of an affirmative plan he was cooking up back in Nov 2013 seems implausible. So I guess that's where we differ. If you think he wanted to depose Yanukovych in a violent coup then it makes sense to think Right Sector was his agents. I think this was about the worst possible result for him. I could grant you that Putin has a few double agents in Right Sector to keep tabs and goad them into actions that Russia could use for good publicity purposes. However, it was Muzychko that supplied the best videos for that purpose, and you're not claiming he was a Russian agent.
Me:
"Of course the EU/US and EU/US backed elements in Ukraine would also now have a vested interest in smearing anti-EU/US Ukrainean Nationalists, to ensure Ukraine emerged as pro-Western/pro-Globalist. I would think the obvious source of funding, aside from Ukrainean expatriates, for Right Sector would be the US/EU, having funded them to overthrow Yanukovich."
jaakkeli said...
>>Any secret EU backing would require that there would be some secret EU agency that could actually secretly back anything, though, and you have to be pretty deeply into NWO conspiracy theories to believe that EU states could actually agree on a secret agenda.
Of course, some EU states have their own intelligence agencies but most likely they spend most of their time spying on other EU countries... there is no way the EU can maintain any coherent secret plot.<<
I agree 100%. The US - CIA, Soros et al - is by far the most likely source of secret funding for the revolution. The US absolutely loves trashing other people's countries.
>>Anonymous said...
Andrew: Your theory is conceivable but I find it far fetched. It seems pretty obvious to me that Putin's preferred solution would have been to keep Ukraine as a buffer zone<<
Yep - the default Russian position & aim was control of *all* Ukraine. That's what Russia sees as its legitimate sphere of control. Not a tiny piece of eastern Ukraine that used to be in Russia and is ethnic-Russian. Crimea was a consolation prize for failure, not the result of some brilliant Machiavellian coup!
Andrew said...
Bill:
"Yes, that's how the conspiracy theory goes. Putin wanted chaos in Ukraine either so that he could grab Crimea or so that he could distract domestic attention from corruption in Sochi or the bad Russian economy or whatever. It's a dumb conspiracy theory, but that is how it goes"
No, its not how it goes. Putin didn't want or need chaos or a distraction. He wasn't looking to seize Crimea.
You said it explicitly and more than once in your 4/2, 4:34pm post.
Furthermore, and as I said, several neocons are retailing variants of this theory. Anne Appelbaum, for one. Here, for the umpteenth time in the last couple of weeks is another one of them. It is exactly as I said---the neocons are congealing around some lunacy in which Putin planned it all in order to X. What X is currently has several variants. We'll see eventually which X they settle on.
In any event, noticing that Right Sector is being run by someone is not the same as noticing that they are being run by Russia. It is more plausible that they are being run by the US. They are acting like our puppets, and we are acting like their puppeteers.
Bill:
It is more plausible that they are being run by the US.
It is entirely plausible that Right Sector is an active and primary American CIA asset. That does not mean that at the same time it cannot be infested by Russian moles who use it for their own end. The Bandera groups spent their days funded by the CIA and penetrated and comprimised by the KGB. It would be quite fitting for their intellecutual heirs to end up the same way.
Again, I refer you to General Prince Anton Turkul and his Red Orchestra.
I found the entire article hilarious. Could have been condensed into one phrase: Go Obambi, go.
And this "deceive its adversaries and earn sympathy among credulous Westerners" in Politico of all places is ironic beyond belief.
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