Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
My first contacts with the Russian language and people were in the late 60s but I first visited Russia in 2009, and have maintained a close interest ever since. The aim of this talk is to briefly look at the background to the present situation in Ukraine for which most of the mainstream media reporting is biased. This has drawn criticism from commentators on both left and right.
Peter Hitchens has called this ‘Elite hypocrisy on a massive scale.’ Jon Pilger said: ‘The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember.’ We thus need to look at several sources and integrate them, in order to arrive at a sufficient understanding to decide how to respond.
Wikipedia is a useful source of facts and figures; albeit occasionally biased, but the TV programmes Russia Today (RT) and Al-Jazeera are no more so than western media and Russ Fort and Novorossia today have some intriguing information. Even in the US, RT is widely viewed as a vital source of an alternative perspective, to the extreme annoyance of John Kerry, even though US state media spend is more than 3 times RT’s $220m.
The Background
The ceding of Crimea to Ukraine by Khruschev in 1954 was regarded as a mistake but did not matter too much at the time when there was no risk of its leaving the Union, and it was a semi-autonomous region. According to Valery Giscard d’Estang, Khruschev ‘invented’ the states of Ukraine and Belorussia in order to gain two extra seats at the UN. Against this background, the allegations of a hostile invasion make no sense.
The reintegration of Crimea into the Russian Federation was accomplished without violence and with huge popular approval. We now know that Vladimir Putin had prepared his ground well, having commissioned a secret opinion poll. He may have had advance notice of a possible ‘regime change’ which would have endangered the security of Russia’s southern fleet.
Ukraine is a country large enough to have different backgrounds and loyalties in different regions; the legacy of WW2 is still apparent. At the previous election, the 70 % in the east voted for Yanukovich. However, as Mikhail Gorbachev has noted in his autobiography, a referendum was held in March 1991 in which between 71 and 76% of the whole population, including Ukraine and Belorussia, were in favour of preserving the Soviet Union, but this result was disregarded by Yeltsin and his cronies.
An understanding had been reached between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that there would be no further eastward extension of NATO, and there was a great achievement, conventional arms limitation. The US has more recently tried to make recreate Georgia as a puppet state on Russia’s southern flank, though not altogether successfully as two regions, Abkhazia (with access to the Black Sea coast) and South Ossetia remain affiliated to Russia, and have recently agreed to further integration. Here the BBC tried to make it look as if, in 2008, Russia had attacked Georgia and not the other way round.
Western Interference
Western ‘cold war’ interference in Ukrainian politics has been going on since about 1949. More recent efforts have entailed the spending of an alleged $5bn since about 1990, much of this on creating NGOs and in interfering in public affairs. We need to look carefully at this situation. Mainstream press coverage of events since the ‘revolution’ or rather ‘putsch’ of last year, has been in thrall to a western agenda, parroting the US State Department’s line, and taking little or no account of the views of those on the ground. They were either marginalising or demonizing the people of East Ukraine, suggesting that they were ‘puppets’.
My impression was that the rising was a spontaneous working class movement, fully aware of the danger to their livelihoods of Kiev rejecting Yanukovich’s deal with Russia, which accounts for 70% of their economy. However, even the BBC admitted on its website that some of the Russian volunteers were genuine, like those in the Spanish Civil War. There is little or no evidence of large-scale Russian involvement apart from humanitarian support.
If you look closely at the footage of the Maidan riot, it’s obvious that there has been a great deal of outside and support and money behind it. At first, there were young, idealistic people protesting against the alleged corruption of the Yanukovich government, but they were soon joined by violent elements including overt fascists and freelance snipers firing on both demonstrators and police. The idealists are now thoroughly disillusioned as there is neither free speech nor democracy, just oligarchy and extreme nationalism.
There has been no real investigation of any of the crimes committed. Kiev continues to connive with western agencies to suppress information on the fate of flight MH17. Extremists with little electoral support such as Dimitri Yarosh of Right Sector have forced their way into power.
Is Ukraine a Failed State?
I did attend a solidarity meeting on behalf of the workers of the Donbass last year. RT correspondent Graham Philips, who was there, has recently said that no-one he has met here supports Ukraine. He now regards it as a failed state. However at the Farnborough Air Show, from which Russia was largely excluded, I met a Ukrainian nationalist at the Ukraine stand and a thick English Poroshenko fan taken in by the propaganda.
Kiev has never negotiated in good faith with the separatists and has inserted a ‘poison pill’ into the Minsk2 agreement, which effectively demands surrender before real negotiations can begin — a guarantee of continued conflict. Violations of the cease fire by Kiev continue, and there has recently been a spate of murders of members of the deposed government and of journalists.
* It is time to abandon the US State Department. and NATO mission and to stop sending arms and US and UK military advisers to assist not just the Ukrainian army but armed groups, who are not merely playing at being neo-nazis. (They are planning a celebration of last year’s Odessa massacre, and there is video footage of an opponent being crucified and set on fire.)
* Take note of OSCE cease-fire monitoring, and start serious negotiations on partition.
*Lift sanctions against Russia.
*Stop demonising Putin, who has shown remarkable forbearance to a stream of insults. This is unwise, as the West depends on technical cooperation with Russia, particularly in the aerospace field.
A group of Ukrainian WW2 veterans has sent an impassioned letter to Angela Merkel asking her to condemn the rise of fascism in Ukraine. The Simon Wiesenthal Institute has also expressed concern. Finally, I hope readers will keep track of the ongoing situation using alternative media sources.