1). “Genocide Joe's Not-So Red Lines: A Verdict-Interrupted Reflection on Amerika's Two-Faced, Single-Standard Imperialism”, May 31, 2024, Paul Street, The Paul Street Report, at < https://paulstreet.substack.
2). “Western arms supplies to Ukraine prevent peaceful solutions”, May 22, 2024, Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report, at < https://www.blackagendareport.
3). “Ukrainian Communist Dmitri Kovalevich: Ukraine Has Become a Private Mercenary Company of NATO to Fight Against Its Opponents (Interview)”, May 19, 2024, Anon Interview of Dmitri Kovalevich, Orinoco Tribune, at <https://orinocotribune.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: While the attention of much of the politically aware portion of the U.S. population has been focused on the Criminal Court in New York City the grim and ghastly work of Imperialism goes on unimpeded.
In Item 1)., “Genocide Joe's Not-So Red Lines: ….”, Paul Street points this out and notes what he (and I) consider to be a very important story that has been overshadowed. Namely that after much lobbying by Ukraine's Fascist Regime the U.S. and NATO have given Ukraine permission to use the various advanced weapons systems they have been supplied with against targets deep in Russia. As I pointed out on May 27th, here at The Ongoing Class Struggle, somebody working on the Ukrainian side of the Proxy war against Russia, launched drone attacks that severely damaged part of the Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. This already crosses the line that, Russia has made very clear, could cause them to launch some sort of nuclear attack. And since he was looking at both of the wars that the U.S. is supplying weaponry and armaments for Street also discusses the ongoing massacres, bombing raids, and other outrages in Israel against the Palestinian people there.
In Item 2)., “Western arms supplies to Ukraine ….”, Margaret Kimberley, a leading force at the indispensable Black Agenda Report: “was invited to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 20, 2024, as a civil society representative. The subject of the meeting was weapons supplies to Ukraine as a threat to peace and security.” Her remarks were succinct and cogent looking at the deprivation of civilian populations from both targeted societies and inside the U.S. itself. It is worth noting that Kimberley, who is largely ignored by the Corporate Controlled Media inside the U.S. is, in actuality, highly regarded by much of the world.
In Item 3)., “Ukrainian Communist Dmitri Kovalevich: ….”, Kovalevich explains in some detail the process by which the Russian Speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine moved from merely demanding autonomy within the Ukrainian State to deciding to join Russia. A pertinent example of his discussions is here (first the interviewer's question):
“Question no. 2.: The People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their independence/secession from Ukraine. You have said on different occasions that the people of these regions wanted autonomy, that they were not 'separatists.' What sort of autonomy did they want, and why did they finally secede?
“Answer: 10 years ago, referendums were held in the regions of Donbass as a result of the Maidan coup in Kiev two months earlier when Viktor Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine, who was originally from Donetsk, was overthrown. In Donbass there was an extremely negative reaction to this coup. Earlier during the Maidan period (2013-2014), there were clashes in Kiev between Maidan and Anti-Maidan participants (the latter were mostly residents of Donbass, Crimea, Odessa, and Kharkiv). This confrontation laid the foundations for further development of the conflict. ….
“ …. it was assumed that Donbass would return to Ukraine if Ukraine guaranteed its autonomy. However, the Ukrainian authorities were unwilling to do so for two reasons: (1) for Ukrainian nationalists, it was important to finally suppress the movements in Donbass by force in order to avenge the deaths of their nationalist friends; (2) for the West, which financed the new Ukrainian government, it was important to maintain constant tension on the border with the Russian Federation, and preferably a mass exodus of millions of people from Donbass to the Russian Federation to create a social crisis there.”
The endless wars continue. Israel is ruled by ruthless Zionists who want to push out all of the Palestinians (some 7 ½ million people). Ukraine is enmeshed in a disastrous war that can only end with Ukraine, stripped of some significant part of its Russian Speaking and Ethnically Russian areas, transformed into an ineffectual and totally impoverished Rump State. Millions of people, mostly young and including the best educated and most skilled, have fled from Ukraine and have no intention of ever returning. We are surely approaching the end of Ukraine's manpower pool. Some reports say that the average age of Ukrainian soldiers is in their mid-40s. This could all get very serious for the West if more attacks are launched against the Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. We certainly don't want to see nuclear weapons used.
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Genocide Joe's Not-So Red Lines
Dear readers: the essay below was ten minutes from being sent off to my favorite other outlet – CounterPunch – when I got a surprising message telling me that the New York jury in Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels-David Pecker-Michael Cohen “hush money” trial had just come in Guilty on All 34 Felony Counts. I missed the CounterPunch deadline as I went online to read about the verdict and reflect on what I rightly imagined would be some of the problematic responses to it: an exaggerated sense that “the system works after all” among liberals and flat denigration of the ruling, judge, and jury combined with the dangerous intensification of Republi-fascist madness, paranoia, and victimhood on the right.
Going to the New York Times website, I was knocked out when I saw a different and (to me) shocking report that would have been a far bigger story and topic of political discussion but for the Trump verdict blockbuster: the longtime imperialist warmonger Biden had just signed off on Ukraine attacking Russian territory with US-made weapons.
I will no doubt have to include a commentary on the verdict in my writing schedule next week: how can a longtime antifascist Trump chronicler, Trump critic, Trump analyst and (oh, yes) Trump-loather (“hater” is too weak) like me avoid doing that? (I may try though.)
For what it’s worth, here (before the aforementioned Biden essay) in chronological order are my veridct-induced comments on so-called social media yesterday late afternoon and evening and this morning:
· Holy F’ng sh*t. I am very happy to be wrong in my prediction. I didn't think prosecutors could get 12-0 on this. I am glad to have been wrong.
· Thirty-four felony convictions for the orange sack of fascist sh#t. Lock this sick mfer up and throw away the key.
· So we are about to find out just how fully cultified the Republikan base is. The orange-hued hunk of fascist shit is running for POTUS with 34 felony convictions on his Hitlerian ass! If this doesn't cost him significant points in the electorate/polling , we'll get yet another chilling sense of how deranged the Republikaner base is now.
· Btw, fascism will not be trumped with verdicts and elections.
· Judge Merchan has been insulted, demeaned, menaced, and mocked by Tangerine Assface throughout this trial. He needs to pay Tangerine Assface back with significant jail time... Trump even attacked Merchan's daughter, ffs.
· Christian fascist lowlife and US House Speaker Mike Johnson has denounced the verdict of 12 US citizens.
· In recent pre-verdict polling, Republicans were MORE LIKELY to vote for Trump if he was convicted!
· Looks like the Times sounded out some abject morons for quick and reactionary reactions: “The Trump Verdict: Americans React,” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/nyregion/trump-guilty-verdict-react.html?
· Loathsome Republi-fascists spewing shit out their mouths and fingertips: see David Moye, “MAGA Has Mega-Meltdown At Trump’s Verdict,” Huffington Post, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-verdict-maga-has-mega-meltdown_n_6658f967e4b08f9fa13ff7a3?
· The verdict helps liberals think the system works for justice. It doesn't. The verdict could help Trump actually. By the way, the January 6 cases, the real shit, are still pathetically delayed past the election the orange fascist malignancy may very well still win. So is the classified document case.
· In other news, Biden has insanely signed off on US weapons being used to attack Russia.
· Also in other news, temperature in India's capital just hit a record-breaking 52.3°C (126.1°F). Apparently the Trump verdict didn't end capitalism-imperialism's accelerating cancellation of livable ecology.
· How many Trumpist employers refuse to hire anyone with a felony record...they are ready to vote for a felon POTUS though!
· Hey Genocide Joe, How Many Charred Corpses in Ukraine and Gaza Before You Stop Funding and Equipping Mass Killing?
· Not having cable in Iowa City, I am assuming that the New York Trump verdict has pushed the US-backed genocide in Gaza/Rafah and the Biden decision to let Ukraine attack Russia with US-made weapons off the banner/headlines and discussion topics....
….Okay, now the essay I was writing and that would have gone to CounterPunch before I heard about Michael Cohen’s Revenge yesterday around 4 pm CST….
…Genocide Joe’s No-So Red Lines
Imagine Joe Biden After Being Visited by the Ghosts of Wars and Genocides Past and Present
Take a trip down Dickensian fantasy lane and imagine what would happen if Lie’n Joe Biden were visited in his sleep by the Ghosts of Wars and Genocides Past and Present and suddenly became a man of peace and honor.
He would wake up the next day and go on national television to apologize to the American people and the world for backing Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza and fueling mass slaughter in Ukraine.
It’s not for nothing that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has filed arrest warrants for Israel’s genocidal prime minister Bibi Netanyahu and Israeli War Cabinet member Yoav Gallant. These Judeo-fascist butchers in Tel Aviv have murdered 40,000 Palestinians over just eight months. They have devastated Gaza, burying families and hospital patients in rubble, and placed more than a million people at the risk of famine. They are epic war criminals and good candidates for hanging if Nuremburg principles held.
And they’ve done it largely with US-made weapons and under the military, political, and diplomatic protection of the American Empire.
How should we evaluate the culpability of “Genocide Joe” and the rest of the US imperialist ruling class in the infliction these horrific wrongs? Would the ICC like to investigate their central role in Israel’s crimes?
Despite his early friendly warnings to Israel about going overboard far after October 7 and regardless of his recent politically calculated grumblings over Israel’s “excessive”[ly] genocidal conduct, Biden has consistently approved US funding, equipping and military, political, and diplomatic protecting of Israel’s Holocaust against the people of Gaza.
Listening to His Own Imperialist Self
I spoke at an antiwar/anti-genocide rally recently where a local longtime activist said that this is because “Biden is listening to the wrong people.” What nonsense. Biden has been listening to himself. Since the latest and most gruesome Israeli assault ever on Gaza began last October, he has more than once repeated something he tellingly said as a US Senator in 1986: “the US would have to invent the [occupation and apartheid] state of Israel if didn't already exist.”
Translation: Israel is an indispensable US strategic imperial asset in the Middle East and around the world.
Killing Kids With Smaller Bombs
Biden recently said he was suspending the export of US-made 2000-pound bombs to Israel. Great. So what? The New York Times reports that:
“The bombs used in the Israeli strike that killed dozens of Palestinians in a camp for displaced people in Rafah [last] Sunday were made in the United States, according to weapons experts and visual evidence reviewed by The New York Times. Munition debris filmed at the strike location the next day was remnants from a GBU-39, a bomb designed and manufactured in the United States…U.S. officials have been pushing Israel to use more of this type of bomb, which they say can reduce civilian casualties… At least 45 people in Kuwaiti Al-Salam Camp 1, which was built in early January, were killed by the blast and subsequent fires, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. More than 240 were wounded…U.S. officials have been encouraging the Israeli military for months to increase the use of GBU-39 bombs in Gaza because they are generally more precise and better suited to urban environments than larger bombs, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that Israel routinely uses. President Biden said earlier this month that the United States was pausing a delivery of the larger bombs. Wes J. Bryant, a retired American Air Force master sergeant who served on a task force critical of Israel’s use of weapons in Gaza, told The Times that he had dropped many GBU-39 bombs during his military service and that this strike was problematic.’ It indicates continued targeting negligence — either an unwillingness or inability to effectively safeguard civilians,’ Mr. Bryant said. ‘When you use a weapon that’s intended as precision and low collateral damage in an area where civilians are saturated, it really negates that intended use’” (boldface emphasis added).
Two thousand bombs or GBU-39 bombs: either way the mad dog killers atop the Israeli Defense Forces use the weapons of mass destruction supplied to them by Uncle Sam’s current commander-in-chief to slaughter Palestinians en masse.
Hey Joe, How Many “Charred Corpses”?
Now we have the abject absurdity of the Biden administration claiming that Israel is not really crossing Joe’s supposed “red line” by undertaking a ground invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza city to which the US-Israel assault has sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. Look at this from NBC News:
“As Israeli forces pushed deeper into Rafah just days after an airstrike sparked a major fire that killed dozens of Palestinians, the White House said that its ally had not crossed the Biden administration’s ‘red line.’…Israeli tanks were seen entering central Rafah for the first time Tuesday, as global condemnation mounted over the deaths in a crowded tent camp for displaced civilians and as U.S. aid deliveries to Gaza by sea were suspended …But U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing that the U.S. was not turning a ‘blind eye’ to Israel’s operations in the southern Gaza city, from which around 1 million Palestinians have fled in recent weeks…He said the Biden administration did not believe Israel’s actions in Rafah so far represented a ‘major ground operation’ that would violate President Joe Biden’s warnings and trigger a change in U.S. policy, including a threatened halt to weapons shipments. ‘A major ground operation is, you know, thousands and thousands of troops moving in a maneuvered, concentrated, coordinated way against a variety of targets on the ground,’ he said…A U.S. official similarly told NBC News that while America believed the deadly strike was a ‘horrific incident,’ it appeared to be the result of an airstrike gone ‘horribly wrong’ and didn’t represent Israel ‘smashing into Rafah.’…Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer who resigned from the State Department last month in protest over Washington’s policy on Israel’s war in Gaza, said she felt the Biden administration was now trying to ‘wiggle their way out of this latest shift’ on what constitutes a red line. ‘The point of the president saying population centers were a *red line* is to avoid mass civilian casualties,’ she said in a phone interview with NBC News on Wednesday. ‘Whether they’re going in by tanks or it’s happening via bombs coming from the air, are we really trying to mince words?’ …The images from the strike have piled pressure on the U.S. to act. Asked during Tuesday’s White House briefing how many ‘charred corpses’ Biden needed to see before changing policy, Kirby said he took ‘offense’ to the question, saying: ‘We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken’” (boldface emphasis added).
Kirby “took offense” to being asked about “how many charred corpses” the US wants to create in Gaza before changing course. Is that so? Really? Ain’t that some shit!
Biden’s “red line” looks pink to non-existent!
That Other US-Fueled Slaughter
While apologizing to the world for backing genocide in Gaza, Biden might ask forgiveness for his role in leading support from the Democratic side of the US Senate for George W. Bush’s arch-criminal and mass murderous invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003.
Moving back to current events, Biden should apologize to humanity for his failure to save untold hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives by picking up a telephone and telling Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly promise that Ukraine would never become a US/NATO military outpost on a giant and repeatedly invaded stretch of Russia’s western border.
Do the venerable Chomsky exercise and invert the situation: how long would it take for the United States to militarily decimate a section/state/province of Mexico or Canada that was preparing to join an anti-US military alliance under the direction of and with weapons from China and/or Russia?! Let’s get real here.
Rather than preserve and protect lives in Eastern Europe, Joe “Every Last Ukrainian” Biden has instead fanned the flames of a miserable, prolonged, and dug-in war that has helped raised the threat of nuclear war to its highest level in decades. He refuses to meaningfully negotiate for peace as the bodies pile higher and higher in a war many top US military insiders know “the West” can’t win.
Good grief, think of all the lives and limbs that could have been preserved with five simple words: “Ukraine Will Never Join NATO.”
This critique doesn’t just come from Chomsky and others on the “radical left” like me. Longtime “US foreign policy” (he official term for US imperialism) elites and experts like George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, and (current CIA director) William Burns have long warned that Ukraine is a “red line” the US should not cross if it doesn’t wish to spark a potentially nuclear war.
[And yes, speaking of crossing “red lines,” Biden okaying the attack of Russia with US weapons would seem to be a glaring example!]
My imagined Dickensian charavter Ebeneezer Joe would also apologize (i) to righteous campus protesters for (like a true imeprialist bastard) calling their anti-genocide movement “antisemitic” and (ii) to the world for the transparent imperialist and racist hypocrisy inherent in the openly absurd moral contradiction between (a) his outrage over Russia’s war on Ukraine and (b) his embrace of Israel’s war on Gaza. As Chomsky has long said, it’s not about a “double standard”: it’s about the “single standard” of US imperialism. Behind the two faces — offically “worthy victims” in Ukraine and officially “unworthy victims” in Gaza — is a single imperialist mindset and policy. In the case of Ukraine, the victims are white Europeans and the invading power (Russia) is on the American Empire’s strategic enemy list. In the case of Gaza, the victims are brown-skinned Arabs and Muslims and the genocidal invader (Israel) is on the American Empire’s strategic ally and asset list.
Most of politically attentive and knowledgeable humanity sees though the US-led West’s putrid two-facedness. Good. It’s for some very good reasons that, as I wrote a few years back, “The World Will Not Mourn the Decline of US Hegemony.”
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Western Arms Supplies to Ukraine Prevent Peaceful Solutions | Black Agenda Report
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, was invited to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 20, 2024, as a civil society representative. The subject of the meeting was weapons supplies to Ukraine as a threat to peace and security.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you all for this opportunity to address the Security Council and to provide a briefing on the issue of peace as it relates to Ukraine and its connections with people in this country and all over the world.
As a journalist, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace and of the United National Antiwar Coalition, and as a citizen of the United States, the nation which has taken a lead role in continuing this crisis, I am very eager to speak to this issue. As of now, the U.S. government has allocated nearly $175 billion for the Ukrainian war effort and to support the workings of Ukraine’s civilian government.
For the last two years we have seen a terrible war which would end if this country and others would stop providing arms and instead seek peace. There were opportunities for that very thing to happen in March and April of 2022, when the government of Turkiye hosted peace talks between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The possibility of peace was lost when my country and others subverted these talks by promising the government of Ukraine that it would receive an endless supply of weapons with which to achieve a military victory. Not only has that victory been elusive, but thousands of Ukrainians, the people this country claims to care so much about, have lost their lives. And of course, many Russians have also perished in the fighting. The goal should be for the death toll to end for both nations.
We don’t have to guess why this huge sum of money has been spent. We need only recall what the president of the United States and his foreign policy team have said publicly. The Secretary of Defense famously said in a rare moment of candor, that the U.S. wanted to “see Russia weakened.” This is a dangerous goal for the United States to have at all. The world needs cooperation. It is the only way to avoid escalation and disastrous outcomes between the major powers. The U.S. shouldn’t be attempting to weaken any nation but should be continuously engaged in finding ways to prevent and to end conflicts.
Not only is the Secretary’s confession dangerous, but it has surely failed. President Biden himself said that U.S. imposed sanctions against Russia would “turn the ruble to rubble.” No such thing has happened, but other nations have suffered economically from the futile effort to keep Russian oil off of world markets. Global South nations in particular were most impacted by what turned out to be a failed effort against Russia. More developed nations, those in Europe, have been deprived of affordable gas supplies they reliably received from Russia for decades.
There have been other serious consequences and some of them have fallen on people in this country, the one most responsible for continuing the crisis. Project Ukraine as it is called is a bipartisan effort, with both Democrats and Republicans supporting the continued infusion of huge sums of money to the defense industry, the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and to dubious projects in Ukraine itself. This funding is not just spent on the military but is literally supplying many domestic government functions within that country. Most Americans are unaware that small businesses in Ukraine are being supported with their public funds. At least $25 billion in non-military aid has been spent.
It isn’t as if people in this country aren’t in need of help. Money for weapons continues thanks to consensus among the political class while needy people here are being removed from the Medicaid program which pays for health care for low-income people, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Students take on thousands of dollars in debt to attend universities. The same administration which is committed to spending money on weapons has never presented a plan to help the estimated 500,000 people in the U.S. who are unhoused. There are constantly calls to cut or end these programs altogether but the funding stream for war remains untouched. Democracy itself is in crisis because of these endless conflicts. War is not the only indicator of violence in the world and peace is not just the absence of conflict. War making leads to immiseration, which is antithetical to the concept of peace.
The U.S. public do not have the unanimity of opinion on Ukraine that one would expect considering that billions of dollars have been allocated. Even those who say they support this effort also say that they would like to see negotiations too. A recent poll indicated that 71% of people in this country would like to see a negotiated settlement instead of ongoing conflict.
But the millions of Americans who want an end to the conflict have been deprived of the representation we are supposed to have. Not only does the administration refuse to reconsider its position, but there are reports that President Biden wants to prevent future presidents from playing a different role. According to President Zelensky, he is working with the U.S. and other NATO nations on a ten-year plan to provide weapons. Joe Biden can only serve for a maximum of four and a half more years, meaning that he wants to make a commitment that a future president could not change. In so doing, he invalidates the concerns of voters in this country and of the people who are supposed to represent them.
As a citizen of the United States, I am frankly shocked by the lengths this country will go to in order to pursue a dangerous plan that is doomed to failure. The most recent tranche of U.S. weapons funding is dependent upon Ukraine mobilizing more men, approximately 500,000. Several million Ukrainians fled to nearby states in 2022 but now they are told they cannot renew their passports abroad. They must return to Ukraine where we see videos of men literally being press ganged into service, dragged off the street and forced to join the military. The freedom that is allegedly being fought for seems to require a lack of freedom for Ukrainians who face the risk of death on the battlefield. This corruption requires a steady stream of indoctrination and propaganda to keep the U.S. population from asking questions or actively opposing the war. I suppose that is why Secretary of State Antony Blinken thought it wise to perform with a Ukrainian band on his last visit to Kiev. Not only that, but neither the Secretary nor his handlers were aware that the song he performed, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” is a lament about poverty and hopelessness in a supposedly free world which isn’t truly free for millions of people. The administration is so divorced from reality that they thought it wise for Secretary Blinken to play this song as men are rounded up to be cannon fodder.
I want to add that this conflict didn’t begin in February 2022. It began years earlier with the U.S. plan to have Ukraine join NATO. In 2008 William Burns, then U.S. Ambassador to Russia, revealed in a cable known to us, because of the work of Wikileaks, that doing so would cross a Russian red line and potentially lead to “a major split, involving violence or at worst civil war.” As we all know Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange languishes in a UK prison, facing extradition to the country that has made an example of him because he has revealed secrets such as this cable.
I reiterate that there have been peace proposals in the past two years, with the most recent attempt being made by the People’s Republic of China, which has developed a comprehensive 12-point plan that could mean the end of destruction and suffering if it is given serious consideration.
Lastly, I would like to make a plea to the United Nations to use its power to investigate a catastrophic event that is tied to the Ukraine conflict. On September 26, 2022, the NordStream pipelines were destroyed in an explosion which also sent approximately 15 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming.
Investigations have been closed without conclusion and at least one internationally known investigative journalist has provided evidence of U.S. responsibility. Sadly, no one in a position to investigate in this country has demanded an investigation. It is imperative that the United Nations undertake an independent investigation of its own. This is only possible if fantasies about domination are finally and firmly rejected. Doing so would free nations to be honest with one another, to struggle over issues but to resolve them without death or expenditures of money that are better used for human needs.
I end by thanking you profusely for this opportunity and for the work of the Security Council in upholding the United Nations Charter on behalf of the people of the world. Thank you so much.
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Ukrainian communist Dmitri Kovalevich: Ukraine has become a private mercenary company of NATO to fight against its opponents (Interview) | MR Online
By Saheli Chowdhury (Posted May 20, 2024)
“Ukraine has become a private mercenary company of NATO which exists only to fight against NATO opponents,” said Ukrainian communist and journalist Dmitri Kovalevich in an interview with Orinoco Tribune.
Ukrainian MPs are saying that Ukrainian soldiers will later have to participate in other wars on the U.S. side for today’s U.S. assistance. Simply put, they will go wherever the Pentagon sends them to suppress rebellious countries of the Global South.
According to Kovalevich, the United States controls all decisions in Ukraine, not only military but also economic. “It is not the Ukrainian [military] command that decides where to advance, what to undermine, what to shell; Ukrainian soldiers are acting on the advice of Western instructors,” he said, referring to the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces.
“Militarily, the country is also completely dependent on arms supplies from NATO countries,” he continued. “Without them, the Ukrainian army would not last. In fact, the Russian Federation often emphasizes in the media that it is fighting a proxy NATO army,” Ukraine being only the face of it.
As for the Ukrainian economy, Kovalevich stated that it “is up to its neck in debt to the IMF and other Western creditors. The country will never be able to pay off these debts. The NATO secretary general [Jens Stoltenberg] recently said that if Ukraine does not win, there will be no point in rebuilding it.”
He also noted that due to draconian conscription laws, a large percentage of Ukrainian men do not hold regular jobs, as otherwise they would be drafted and sent to the front. “Many people survive thanks to unofficial work,” he said.
Moreover, many Ukrainians in the diaspora are making all possible efforts to get rid of Ukrainian citizenship and ties to the country “because the public consensus was forcibly broken in 2014 after the Euromaidan coup,” he commented.
The pro-U.S. concept of the new Ukrainian state is so unsustainable that it requires Ukrainians to constantly sacrifice their lives, health, [and] property but without offering anything in return and instead cutting social payments, closing hospitals, schools, and businesses as part of the neoliberal course.
Dmitri Kovalevich is a Ukrainian communist, resident of Kiev, and member of the Communist political organization Borotba, which has been banned in Ukraine since the Euromaidan coup of 2014. He is the special correspondent in Ukraine for the news outlet Al-Mayadeen English. In a recent interview with Orinoco Tribune, he discussed the rise of extreme nationalism in the country, the question of autonomy in Donbass and Crimea, NATO using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia, the socio-economic situation in Ukraine, and other issues. The full interview is presented below.
Saheli Chowdhury. How do you view the war in Ukraine? The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has called it a “civil war” considering the “historical relations” between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine that go beyond national borders. Is the war really so? What sort of historical relations exist among the peoples of the two countries, and how have they been impacted by the events since the Euromaidan coup of 2014?
Dmitri Kovalevich: To some extent, this is really a civil war because of the closeness of the two nations. In Ukraine, about half of the population is Russian or Russian-speaking Ukrainians. In Russia, Ukrainians are one of the most numerous nations after Russians. There are many ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian government. At the same time, there are many ethnic Russians among Ukrainian nationalists, including Oleksandr Turchynov, who started the war against Donbass in 2014, after a pro-US coup, which was the background for the start of the Russian operation in 2022.
Residents of Ukraine who move to Russia do not need to learn another language or another culture. The same is true for Russian residents who move to Ukraine. In both countries, millions of residents come from mixed families, and an emphasis on Ukrainian or Russian identification more often than not indicates only a political commitment to an ideology of nationalism.
Among the Russian generals who are now leading the offensive in Ukraine, many of them used to serve in the AFU, were born in Ukraine and are Ukrainians. At the same time, the AFU is led by General Alexander Syrsky, a native of Russia, where his parents, supporters of the Russian Federation, live. He still cannot speak Ukrainian language, just as most of Ukrainian leaders who sell nationalism to ordinary citizens. Back in the 1980s, General Syrsky marched in Moscow, in parades in the Red Square.
Traditionally, the events in Ukraine after the Revolution of 1917 have always been interpreted as the Civil War (1918-1920), in which Russian monarchists (“Whites”), Ukrainian and Russian revolutionary forces (Bolsheviks, anarchists, SRs) and Ukrainian nationalists took part.
In addition, ethnic self-identification in Ukraine began to be substituted for political identification after the Euromaidan, which further confuses ordinary residents. In our mass media, one can see such headlines: “Ukrainians stood up against Moscow popes.” It is about the attack of nationalists on Ukrainian Orthodox believers, most of whom are also Ukrainians. The so-called “anti-Ukrainian” position often consists in criticizing the current government. At the same time, Western mercenaries can be declared “honorary Ukrainians,” and pacifist ethnic Ukrainians unwilling to take up arms can be declared “anti-Ukrainians.”
At the same time, Ukraine does not give up its claim to the name Rus, which is related to Russia and Belarus; it just considers Kiev rather than Moscow to be the center of Rus, and Ukrainian nationalists consider Russia itself to be the “wrong” and “Asian” Russia, contrasting it with the “European” Russia, i.e., Ukraine.
SC: The People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their independence/secession from Ukraine. You have said on different occasions that the people of these regions wanted autonomy, that they were not “separatists.” What sort of autonomy did they want, and why did they finally secede?
DK: 10 years ago, referendums were held in the regions of Donbass as a result of the Maidan coup in Kiev two months earlier when Viktor Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine, who was originally from Donetsk, was overthrown. In Donbass there was an extremely negative reaction to this coup. Earlier during the Maidan period (2013-2014), there were clashes in Kiev between Maidan and Anti-Maidan participants (the latter were mostly residents of Donbass, Crimea, Odessa, and Kharkiv). This confrontation laid the foundations for further development of the conflict.
This video from March 13, 2014 shows the mass resistance of Donetsk residents against groups of Ukrainian nationalists (among them ultra soccer fans) who came to suppress pro-Soviet sentiments and demolish the Lenin monument in Donetsk, as they had done earlier in Kiev.
Since radical nationalists were the main striking force on the Maidan, it was clear to the residents of south-eastern Ukraine that they would be deprived of some rights due to a coup d’état (their linguistic, cultural, and economic rights).
That is why initially Donbass (short for Donetsk Basin) demanded only autonomy, self-government, the right to decide for themselves what language to speak and which heroes to honor. Rallies for autonomy in Donbass began near monuments to Vladimir Lenin, which nationalists rushed to savagely demolish during the Maidan. The round-the-clock guarding of the Lenin monuments later developed into people’s vigilante groups that fought back against the nationalists.
The autonomy of Donbass was prescribed even in the Minsk agreements, which were in force until February 2022. That is, it was assumed that Donbass would return to Ukraine if Ukraine guaranteed its autonomy. However, the Ukrainian authorities were unwilling to do so for two reasons: (1) for Ukrainian nationalists, it was important to finally suppress the movements in Donbass by force in order to avenge the deaths of their nationalist friends; (2) for the West, which financed the new Ukrainian government, it was important to maintain constant tension on the border with the Russian Federation, and preferably a mass exodus of millions of people from Donbass to the Russian Federation to create a social crisis there.
SC: In your latest monthly report on the Ukraine conflict, you mentioned that Crimea had an autonomous government since the 1990s, and that the Ukrainian government control was always weak there. We do not hear about these things nowadays. Could you describe what that autonomous governance meant for Crimea, and if that was an important factor for the peninsula to rejoin Russia in March 2014 through a referendum?
DK: Crimea was given to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 as a sign of friendship between the Ukrainian and Russian people on the 300th anniversary of the signing in 1654 of a treaty on the transfer of part of the territories of present-day Ukraine from the Polish kingdom to the kingdom of Russia (which was the result of a long peasant war and a religious war).
However, the transition to the Ukrainian SSR did not really mean anything for Crimea until 1991. After the collapse of the USSR, Crimea, where the Ukrainian population was always small, held a referendum on the creation of autonomy as a separate part of the USSR. Ukraine (still part of the USSR at the time) recognized its autonomous status. In this status, Crimea soon became part of Ukraine as well.
Until 2014, Ukraine’s power was indeed weak on the peninsula. On the other hand, Crimea received practically nothing from the center (Kiev), as a result of which the infrastructure and monuments there gradually fell into disrepair (as well as throughout Ukraine).
After 2014, the secession of Crimea and the Donbass republics, along with the migration of hundreds of thousands of people from other regions, shifted the political balance in Ukraine—in the remaining part, nationalists and supporters of NATO and the EU could claim at least half of the votes. Nationalists in Ukraine have since repeatedly said that they only want the territories, but not the people living on those territories. This attitude, expressed in the media, only strengthened the resistance of the inhabitants of these regions.
Regional divisions intensified in all former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union also as a result of deteriorating living standards and, consequently, increased internal competition.
SC: In regards to referendums, the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics joined the Russian Federation through a referendum in September 2022. However, according to residents of the Donbass, who spoke to the press during the vote, this was not the first referendum in the region. If so, when did the previous referendums take place, and what were they about: autonomy or secession?
DK: The first referendum in Donbas was held in 1994 simultaneously with parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The main question was about recognizing Ukraine as a federation, which implied a certain autonomy of the provinces (as in the Russian Federation, Germany, the USA, India, Brazil, etc.).
Residents of Donetsk and Lugansk regions then also spoke in favor of recognizing Russian as a second state language and strengthening economic ties with Russia (Russia was the main buyer of Donbass enterprises’ products). The overwhelming majority then favored federation, a second state language, and stronger ties with Russia.
In 2014, two referendums were held—in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The referendum included a single question in two languages (Russian and Ukrainian): “Do you support the act of state self-rule (‘samostoyatel’nost’) of the Donetsk/Lugansk People’s Republic?”. Two options were offered: “Yes” and “No.”
The term “samostoyatel’nost” used in the question can imply both full state sovereignty and autonomy/self-rule within a state entity. Russia then recommended postponing the referendum in order not to complicate the situation, but it was held.
The next referendum was held in 2022 and concerned joining the Russian Federation, but exactly as republics (DPR and LPR)—autonomous republics with all the attributes of republics preserved.
In other words, for the nationalist policy of Ukraine, federalization was equated long ago with “separatism,” demands for autonomy were suppressed for the sake of unification of the state, while the Russian Federation respectfully treats autonomies, republics within its composition with their national languages, cultural peculiarities, and economic ties.
The federal structure of Ukraine, with its linguistic and cultural diversity, would prevent Ukraine’s sharp turn after the coup toward NATO and the severing of ties with Russia, China, and Iran. Diversity and federal structure just complicate any sharp turn.
SC: This year is the 10th anniversary of the Euromaidan coup. How has this “milestone” been commemorated in Ukraine—both by the government and by the people?
DK: In Ukraine, during martial law, all mass meetings are banned because they are considered unsafe. Although radical nationalists periodically organize their marches, they are not touched, as they form the main pillar of the government. But there were no significant events these days. All attention in Ukraine is focused on the events on the front, mass conscription, and pleas to the U.S. and EU to give more money. The events of the Maidan have taken a back seat to this and the criminal cases of the Maidan period are bogged down in years-long legal proceedings.
Ukrainian media and officials try every day to excite the tired population with emotional appeals, hysterical proclamations that ordinary people are more likely to tune out, to stop perceiving the media and forget even about the events of a year ago, not to mention Euromaidan.
However, once Ukrainians manage to escape from their homeland, they usually stop being interested in it. A recent survey, for example, showed that half of the Ukrainians living in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic are not interested in events in Ukraine and have no plans to ever return there.
To some extent, it can be said that even getting rid of Ukrainian citizenship and ties to the current state of Ukraine has become an obsession for millions of its citizens. This is because the public consensus was forcibly broken in 2014 after the Euromaidan coup. Most Ukrainians wanted to just live, work, and be harassed less by the state. The pro-US concept of the new Ukrainian state (after Euromaidan) is so unsustainable that it requires Ukrainians to constantly sacrifice their lives, health, [and] property but without offering anything in return and instead cutting social payments, closing hospitals, schools, and businesses as part of the neoliberal course.
SC: May 2, 2024 completed 10 years of the Odessa Trade Union House massacre. What is the current situation in Odessa, which has a significant Russian population? Is there any pro-autonomy movement in Odessa and in other Russian-majority regions of Ukraine?
DK: Since 2014, many Odessa residents have migrated to the Russian Federation. In Donbass, they even formed the backbone of some armed formations of the republics. In general, people have been leaving Ukraine by the thousands in recent years for various reasons, both political and economic. Now in Odessa, as nowhere else in Ukraine, there is forced conscription—men are caught on the streets every day and forcibly sent to the front. Thousands of men are fleeing daily through the Odessa region to Moldova and Romania, so there are hundreds of cars abandoned along the border. Ukrainian authorities are now digging ditches along the border and putting up rows of fences with barbed wire to prevent men from fleeing, as there is almost no one left to fight in the country.
Russian and Ukrainian media periodically write about acts of sabotage on the railroads, which they attribute to Odessa partisans, but I cannot confirm this. During the years of repression and far-right terror, any opposition movement in Ukraine, if it exists, has been driven deep underground.
Ukrainian security services also periodically create “decoys”—fake resistance groups that are tasked with identifying disloyal citizens.
On the other hand, now, both in Russia and in the EU, there are millions in diasporas of Ukrainian citizens—residents of Odessa, Kiev, Kharkiv, Lviv—former drivers who leave the country for humanitarian supplies and never return, former police officers, defected military personnel, and ordinary farmers. If we do not take into account the elderly, who usually don’t like to migrate, there are now more Ukrainians outside Ukraine than inside.
SC: What is the situation of the people of Ukraine, how are they living their daily lives? What is the general view towards the government of the country, how much support does Zelensky still have?
DK: Any war always implies the presence of a small group of people who profit from it, from stealing humanitarian supplies, weapons, foreign aid. In this respect, a small part of Ukrainians, close to the elite, has enriched itself considerably. In no country in Europe can you see as many expensive cars in a day as in Kiev. For this category of the population, it is important that the war be eternal.
The population remaining in Ukraine is divided into those who are fighting and relatives of the dead and wounded on one side and those who have not been touched by the war. The authorities are skillfully manipulating, pitting one group against the other. This is presented under the guise of “justice.” According to the logic that the Ukrainian authorities instill in the population, if one part of the population has suffered, then all others should suffer as well. Such manipulations help them to divert dissatisfaction from themselves and their corruption, in particular.
Naturally, living standards in Ukraine have dropped significantly, although it was already the poorest country in the European continent, competing with neighboring Moldova for this title. Ukrainian internally displaced persons were recently paid $50 a month, but had to pay $40 for light and water in hostels for the displaced. This spring, that $50 was taken away from them as well. The authorities explain away the reduction of payments and the closure of hospitals and schools as military needs. On the other hand, the Ukrainian economy survives solely on external loans from Western countries, which are issued so that Kiev can partially repay previous loans.
Ukrainian men cannot go abroad now, but they cannot get a job legally either (if they do, they are immediately taken into the army). Many people survive thanks to unofficial work.
Attitudes towards Zelensky personally and Ukrainian politicians are difficult to trace, as people are afraid to answer questions. Social services in Ukraine cater exclusively to representatives of the authorities. Recently, for example, a poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are ready to accept an increase in electricity prices even though people already owe billions in electricity bills. This only shows that the polls are bogus. On the streets, people are afraid to discuss political and military issues, and Ukraine’s security services intimidate them even more by daily detaining even children who have expressed any kind of negative thoughts about Zelensky or NATO.
SC: Why do you think the Zelensky government is attacking civilians not only in the Donbass but also in the Russian border provinces of Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk, while the Ukrainian armed forces go on losing on the battlefield?
DK: The target of the entire operation of overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 and the subsequent war with Donbass is not Ukraine, but Russia. It is important for the West to provoke discontent, coup, or social tension inside the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian attacks have been suicidal, but it is not the Ukrainian command that decides where to advance, what to undermine, what to shell. Ukrainian soldiers are acting on the advice of Western instructors.
Ukrainian MPs are even saying that Ukrainian soldiers will later have to participate in other wars on the U.S. side for today’s U.S. assistance. Simply put, they will go wherever the Pentagon sends them to suppress rebel movements in the countries of the Global south.
In fact, Ukraine has become a private mercenary company of NATO which exists only to fight against NATO opponents.
SC: How much US/NATO influence is felt in Ukraine—in the war as well as in the economy and the political life of the country?
DK: The Ukrainian economy is ruined, and the country is up to its neck in debt to the IMF and other Western creditors. The country will never be able to pay off these debts. The NATO secretary general recently said that if Ukraine does not win, there will be no point in rebuilding it. Militarily, the country is also completely dependent on arms supplies from NATO countries. Without them, the Ukrainian army would not last. In turn, the Russian Federation also often emphasizes in the media that they are fighting a proxy NATO army, demilitarizing the NATO bloc itself. There are several thousand mercenaries from NATO countries fighting in Ukraine. There are also some mercenaries from Colombia fighting in the neo-Nazi battalion Carpathian Sich.
In addition, the Ukrainian authorities make all economic decisions, from the level of water tariffs to cutting benefits for the wounded, based on the recommendations of the embassies of Western countries (mainly the U.S. and Britain, the other NATO countries have no influence). Ukrainians are told that they are in no position to refuse. Simply put, if the United States gives them a loan, they will pay the salaries of Ukrainian teachers this month; if it does not, they will not give them salaries or advise them to quit.
SC: How do you envision the end of the war? Do you think Ukraine would lose more territory, in addition to the four provinces that already became part of Russia since September 2022? Is there a possibility that NATO might get fully involved in the war, and even the “nuclear option” may be invoked?
DK: Yes, I suppose Ukraine will lose more territory, though I think it will be preserved as a state with exorbitant foreign debts hanging over it. Putin recently talked about a cordon sanitaire to keep Russian territories safe from shelling and invasions, followed by a new offensive in Kharkov region in May 2024. I do not think NATO as a bloc will dare to go directly against a nuclear-armed country, but perhaps when they run out of Ukrainian troops, more troops from Eastern European countries and other U.S. satellites will be sent to Ukraine. What is at stake for the West, after all, is the preservation of its global hegemony and the ability to dictate terms to the countries of the Global South.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by Saheli Chowdhury
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