Debaltsevo fallout in Banderastan

An EU Coalition of the Willing?

When I first heard of Poroshenko's latest idea about sending peacekeepers to the Ukraine, I had figured that he was talking about UN peacekeepers, the only ones with any possible legality for such an operation.  Turns out I had "misunderestimated" Poroshenko.  His idea is even crazier: he wants *EU* "peacekeepers"!  This is what the official website of the President of the Ukraine says:

Ukraine considers the EU mission in the framework of the Common Security and Defense Policy the best option of peacekeeping operation in Donbas, as stated by President Petro Poroshenko at the meeting with Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn in Kyiv.

The Head of State has outlined clear position: "Russia, as country-aggressor, cannot and will not take part in the peacekeeping operation". "Ukraine will not agree to a peacekeeping format, which threatens to legalize thousands of Russian militaries – we already have enough such "peacekeepers"," Petro Poroshenko noted.
The President has informed on the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to appeal to the UN Security Council with a request for an international peacekeeping mission to ensure the preservation of peace in Donbas and control the Ukrainian-Russian border in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "The format of the European Union Police Mission is preferable," the President added.

Am I the only one who is detecting a distinctly American "handwriting" behind this latest idea?  Look again: the idea is this - first go to the UN and when the Russians and Chinese veto it, then turn to the EU and use EU states to make a "coalition of the willing".  Why?  Let me spell out the rationale here:

The prime goal of the USA was to get Russia to militarily intervene in the Donbass to trigger a continental war.  Now that this has clearly failed, they want the Europeans to enter the Donbass with exactly the same goal.  Once the EU peacekeepers are deployed, all it would take is a bloody false flag (an artillery strike, or a bomb) killing enough EU peacekeepers to raise the immediate need to protect them.  Except that the EU does not have any "EU armed forces" so can you guess who would be sent it?  Exactly - NATO.

Will the Europeans fall for that?  I doubt it.  Even the Eurocretins seemed to have lost their taste for crazy US Neocon schemes.  Besides, Russia is not Serbia and there is no way the EU will bypass the UNSC for a military operation, not without triggering a huge political crisis inside Europe.  To me this latest plans smacks of something McCain and Saakashvili could have cooked up and not something coming out of this White House.  God knows I have no sympathy for the Obama Administration or for the Eurocretins in Brussels, but this latest stunt is dumb even by their standards.

Poroshenko and his victorious troops celebrate their newest victory!

Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen! SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt. (The flag on high! The ranks tightly closed! The SA march with quiet, steady step. Horst Wessel Lied - Nazi anthem)

Looks like the Nazi death squads are on the march again, this time they are looking at Kiev.  Thirteen death-squad (aka "volunteer battalion") leaders have now declared that they are forming their own military command under the command of the notorious Semen Semenchenko. Officially, they are not in any way opposed to the current regime, so said Semenchenko, but in reality their rank and file members are pretty clear about what they want to do: organize a third Maidan and toss out Poroshenko.  What makes these 21st century version of the SA so dangerous for Poroshenko it that he, unlike Hitler, does not have a 21st century version of the SS to eliminate them all overnight.  In fact, according to many reports the entire southern part of the rump-Ukraine is now "Kolomoiski-land" fully under the control of the oligarch who finances these death-squads.  Add to this the fact that most of the Rada is composed of the very same battalion commanders and assorted Nazi freaks, and you will why Poroshenko is now very much in danger.

The next leaders of Banderastan?

Poroshenko can try to present the Debaltsevo disaster as a huge victory, but apparently everybody in the Ukraine knows the truth and that, in turn, designates Poroshenko as the ideal scape-goat and culprit for what happened.   The sad reality is that there is simply nobody in the Ukraine capable of disarming these so-called "volunteer battalions".  There are now thousands of uniformed Nazi freaks roaming around with guns who can now impose their law of the jungle on everybody.  It sure looks like the future of Banderastan will be something like a mix of Somalia and Mad Max - a failed state, a comprehensively destroyed economy, a collapsed social order and the law of armed gangs of thugs.

In a couple of days it will be one year since the US-backed Nazis took power in Kiev and when I think of what they have "achieved" in such a short period of time I wonder if the idiots who were jumping on the Maidan and screaming "he who does not jump is a Moskal" and "glory to the Ukraine! to the heroes glory!" had any idea that their actions would completely destroy the country which they wanted to bring into the EU.

The Saker

Oligarchs beat Nazis in Ukraine elections

According to exit polls, here are the (provisional) results of the elections in Banderastan:

Poroshenko: 23%
Iatseniuk: 21%
Self-Help: 13%
Opposition Block: 7%
Liashko: 6%
Tiagnibok: 5%
Timoshenko: 5%

Assuming this is more or less correct, this means that the various oligarch controlled parties (in blue above) have won a strong victory against the various Nazi parties (in red): 44% vs 16%.  Even if we add the Self-Help party to the Nazis, we still get 44% vs 29%.

I think we will have to wait for Wednesday for official and final results.

Kind regards, have a great week.

The Saker

What could the next Junta offensive against Novorussia look like?

Dear friends,

On July 1st of this year - just before an imminent Ukie attack - I made a short post entitled Novorussia - Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and settle for anything in the middle in which I was trying to prepare my readers for the possible consequences of a massive Ukrainian assault.

Разбор полетов - "after action report"

Looking back, I would say that what actually took place was neither the best, nor the worst, option, but an "in the middle" kind of outcome: initially, the Ukies almost severed Donetsk from Luganks, but they never had the capability to really enter these cities and execute urban offensive operations.  The junta forces did penetrated deeply in Novorussian territory, but they were soon surrounded and the famous "cauldrons" began to form.  The biggest loss for the Novorussians was the loss of Slaviansk and Kramotorsk which Strelkov attempted to hold as long as possible apparently in the hope of a Russian military intervention, even though he always knew that Slaviansk was indefensible.  When it became clear that the Russians would not come, Strelkov did the right thing and pulled his forces out of Slaviansk and into Donetsk.

All in all, the Novorussian Armed Forces (NAF) proved to be a force far superior to the Junta Repression Forces (JRF) which suffered from the following problems:

• Criminally incompetent top commanders in Kiev and at the operational headquarters.
• Terrible logistics
• Poor morale
• Poor training
• Poor coordination
• A hostile local population

The strong points of the JRF were:

• An overwhelming advantage in firepower
• An overwhelming advantage in armor
• An overwhelming advantage in numbers
• A monopoly on heavy weapons
• A total control of the skies
• The individual courage and resilience of the soldiers of the regular and, especially, special army units

The Novorussians negated these advantages by never presenting a lucrative target, by their high mobility and by their extremely successful air-defenses.

The weak points of the NAF were:

• A acute lack of firepower
• A acute lack of armor
• A acute lack of men (especially specialists)
• The total absence of heavy weapons
• The absence of a true central command

The strong points of the NAF were:

• The extremely high morale of the all the fighting men and woman
• Very competent commanders and experienced officers
• Very strong tactical skills
• An excellent knowledge and use of the terrain
• Excellent intelligence (no doubt with Russian GRU help)
• Extremely effective air-defenses (which imposed a no-fly zone on the Ukies)
• Strong support from the local population
• A remarkable network of highly skilled technicians capable of repairing, cannibalizing and even rebuilding weapons with old, damaged and abandoned Ukie hardware

All in all the Novorussians did a superb job negating all the advantages of the Ukies while maximizing on their own strong points.  There were ups and down, but I would say that the bottom line of the July-September offensive was a crushing and humiliating defeat for the Ukies and a superb victory for the Novorussians.

What if the Junta attacks again?

Bu now - Sunday morning - there is a quasi-consensus that the Junta is about to launch yet another massive offensive.  Assuming that this is true - and I personally think this is very likely - what are we likely to see?  Furthermore, since the same causes tend to produce the same effects, the key question is this: what have the Ukies learned from their defeat this summer and what could they do differently this time around?

Alas, I don't have access to any first hand information about how the Junta has been preparing itself for the new assault.  Here is what I have found out through the Russian and Ukrainian media:

Junta-controlled military factories have been working night and day to produce a large number of tanks, APCs, IFVs and artillery pieces.  The Ukrainians have been training their SU-25 and Mi-24 pilots.  New volunteer units have been created and regular army units have been re-organized.  The Ukies have built defensive lines along key sectors of the front (such apparently "defensive" preparations are actually crucial for any offensive plans since a highly prepared defensive sector can be held by a numerically smaller forces while preventing an counter-attack or envelopment from the other side).  We have to assume that more men have been mobilized and trained and that the next Ukie assault will again pit a very large Ukrainian force against a much smaller Novorussian one.  But will that be enough for the Ukies to prevail?

I don't think so.

What the Ukies are preparing is rather obvious.  They will pick several key axes of attack along which they will unleash a massive artillery attack.  This fire preparation will serve to prepare for a push by Ukrainian armored units (this time around we can expect the Ukrainian infantry to properly defend their tanks and not the other way around).  The Ukrainians will not push deep into Donetsk or Lugansk, but rather they will try to, again, cut-off and surround Donetsk in a pincer attack and then negotiate some kind of quasi-surrender by the Novorussians.  At most, they will try to enter a few important suburbs.  I don't expect much action around Luganks - Donetsk is far more exposed.

Now, if I am correct and this is what happens, then please understand and remember this: the correct Novorussian response to this plan is to begin by retreating.  It makes no sense whatsoever for the Novorussians to sit and fight from positions which are densely covered by Ukrainian artillery strikes.  During the first Ukrainian attack I was dismayed to see how many people clearly did not understand the importance retreats in warfare.  The "hurray-patriots" in particular were adamant that the initial Novorussian retreat was a clear sign that, as always, "Putin had betrayed Novorussia" (when the NAF went on a long and brilliant counter-offensive, these "hurray-patriots" fell silent for a while until the moment when Moscow stopped the NAF from seizing Mariupol, at which point they resumed chanting their mantra).  The fact is that retreating against a superior forces is the logical thing to do, especially if you have had the time to prepare for a two, possibly, three echelon defense.  While I do not know that for a fact, this is what I expect the Novorussians have been doing during all the length of the ceasefire: preparing a well-concealed and layered defense.

My hope and expectation is that once the JRF attacks the NAF will, again, carefully retreat, pull the JFR in, and then being to gradually degrade the attacking force. I particular hope that the Russians have finally send some much needed guided anti-tank weapons through the voentorg.

Second, the lack of political unity in Novorussia is not as big a military problem as it is a political one.  Most Novorussian commanders are clearly very gifted and at least as competent as Strelkov.  Folks like Bezler, Kononov, Zakharchenko, Mozgovoi, Khodakovskii, Motorola, Givi and many others do not need to be told what to do to do the right thing in their area of responsibility.  The weaker Cossack units have now apparently been reassigned to the Russian-Novorussian border and only combat proven units are facing the Ukie side.

I don't think that the Ukie air force will be of much use, if anything the Novorussian air defense probably got even better.  Mostly, I fear their long range artillery and their sheer numbers.  But even if we look at the worst case scenario (successful Ukie attack cutting off Donetsk) I don't think that the the JRF will prevail.  There is still no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if Novorussia is really threatened then Russia will intervene, overtly if needed.  From what all sources are reporting, the voentorg is working at full capacity and weapons are flowing in in very large numbers including sophisticated ones.  I think that Putin's plan is to try to keep the Nazis out of Novorussia only by means of voentorg.  But should that not be enough, I am confident that Russia will overtly move in.  There is no way that Russia can accept the fall of Novorussia to the Nazis.

The good news is that the Ukies most definitely don't have what it takes for a long, sustained effort.  They will risk it all on one powerful push.  If that push fails, we will see a flurry of US/EU/OSCE "diplomacy" to save the Ukies and come right back to the negotiating table.  At that point the conflict with be "frozen" again (on the Ukie side literally) and the focus will be on keeping the regime in power or replacing it with something else.  After that, the next attack can only come in the Spring on 2015.

Finally, there is also a more optimistic possibility: the real reason behind the chorus of warnings about a Ukie attack might be the Russian way of telling them "we know what you are up to and we are ready".  In theory that should deter a Ukie attack.  Alas, we need to remember that a) there is no real power in Kiev - all the decisions are taking by the USA and b) the goal of the next attack might not be to win, but to draw Russia into an overt intervention.   I personally believe that this was the plan all along and I have been saying that for months: the real goal of the AngloZionists is to force a Russian military intervention in Novorussia while the real goal of the Kremlin is to stay out and keep Novorussia alive by means of voentorg on one hand, and chaos in Banderastan on the other.  So far the Kremlin has prevailed.  We will probably soon find out if that strategy will work again.

The Saker

What is "Banderastan"?

I have coined the word "Banderastan" to refer to the rump-Ukraine currently controlled by the Nazi junta in Kiev.  The term, of course, is a reference to the Ukie "hero" Stepan Bandera combined with the Persian suffix "stan" which means "land of".  Of course, in reality, rump-Ukraine (that is the Ukraine as it was between 1991 and 2014 minus Crimea and minus the Donbass) is not controlled by the junta and its correct designation should really be "US/NATO occupied Ukraine".  But by calling it "Banderastan" I also refer to the uniquely Ukrainian ideological madness which gravitates around the cult of Stepan Bandera and the ideology of hate and self-worship which it conveys.  I have written enough about this rabid form of nationalism before, so today I want to illustrate less noticed aspect of this ideology: its sheer psychopathology.

Check out the following video.  It was jointly produced by the Creative agency Adventa LOWE, ADV Group Ukraine and the production studio LimeLite for the 23rd celebraton of the Ukraine's Independence Day.  The message at the end simply says "The Ukraine is hardened to pain".  And this is supposed to be a patriotic, inspiring, clip.  This is how the creators explained their goals:

The goal of the team is to encourage the (Ukrainian) people and show their love for their country. Because over the past 10 months, the Ukraine has experienced so much, that would be enough for ten years and ten states. Therefore, the authors would like to honor a difficult path that the country is facing today, and leave an optimistic message for all Ukrainians.

Please note that the design, the pattern, which you see the person shown in the movie stitching on himself is a typical Ukrainian decorative pattern usually seen on a traditional Ukrainian shirt called a vyshivanka. Now see the video for yourself:


The first scary thing in this video is that the pain is clearly and unambiguously self-inflicted.  Second, that this pain is clearly an integral part of the aesthetic appeal of the clip along with the music and the trance-like dance.  Far from showing it as something disgusting (like self-mutilation is), this clip glorifies as beautiful and noble self-inflicted pain.  Frankly, in a happy and hedonistic society which is bored out of its mind and seeks some extreme emotions form piercing, this would really be no big deal.  But in a country torn apart by a vicious and bloody civil war, this king of glorification of pain as some kind of part of the national ethos is scary.

And make no mistake.  Behind all the agencies which produced the clip stand the regime.  This is quite easy to show.  The actor in the clip, Mikhail Gavrilyuk, is well-known for his participation in junta-backed disinformation campaigns and this clip is the junta's idea of something like a "patriotic public service announcement".  Scary, scary shit...

No wonder the folks of Novorussia want absolutely nothing to do with these freaks and their Banderastani ideology.  Can you imagine what any mentally sane person would feel when these freaks show up in their village and declare that henceforth they are the "authorities"?

I would most definitely grab my AK and also join the Resistance.

The Saker

Background information on the situation in the Ukraine

Dear friends,

I am publishing the following map and videos "for your information", as background information about the current situation.

This map is current as of yesterday.  It is in Russian, but it is also rather self-explanatory.

Please click here for a very high resolution version of this map

I have to tell you honestly that I do not have the time or stomach the following videos which were sent to me by readers.  I can't vouch for the quality of these videos, but they look well made to me.

The following two part video deal with the Odessa massacre.





This video deals with the issues of human right violations in Banderastan:



HTH The Saker

The Ukrainian Banderastan - as ugly as it is pathetic

We all saw the pictures coming out of Mariupol today.  I won't re-post them here.  Simple people trying to stop a gang of heavily armed thugs who fancy themselves as some kind of "special forces" but whose "specialty" seems to be in shooting unarmed - or very poorly armed - civilians.

It would be wrong to compare these Ukie thugs to the SS, as some have done.  For all their wrongs, the Waffen-SS fought well, and not only against defenseless civilians, but also in real combat.  But these Ukie "special units" still have not managed in taking over Slaviansk or Kramatorsk!  Yes, there even was a Victory Day parade in Slaviansk were Pavel Gubarev, the "people-elected governor" of the Donetsk region spoke at an official rally.  Same thing in Kramatorsk where a Victory Day celebration also took place.

Amazing, no?  We are, by Kiev's official count, already in the second phase of the second anti-terrorist operation and the "special" forces have yet to capture a single town! 

Pavel Gubarev in Slaviansk

And then there is Mariupol.  What happened there is almost as disgusting as the massacre in Odessa.  The main difference is that at least in Odessa the junta did not use uniformed "special forces" but soccer hooligans and specially bused-in neo-Nazi thugs from Kiev.  In Mariupol civilians were shot by "official" unifomed personnel.  And for what purpose exactly?  How many *armed* "terrorists" have been captured or killed in Mariupol?

A single sniper in Slaviansk has "succeeded" in shooting a 12 year old kid in the chest.  Something the freaks in Kiev can be proud of, I suppose.  The local press is now reporting that the SBU is sending more reinforcements to Slaviansk.  It's pathetic, really.

Also, did you know that he first batch of recalled Ukainian servimen had to be sent home after 45 days of "operations".  It's even worse then that: all those who did in some way participate in the "combat operations" against the people of the Donbass have been granted the official status of "war veterans" with all the privileges attached to this honor.  Truly,

Glory to the Ukraine!
To the heroes, glory!
(Ukie slogan)

This entire mini-civil war is constantly oscillating between being a farce and an abomination.  

Oleg Liashko hard at work

Yesterday I saw a video of Yulia Timoshenko warning Putin that the glorious Ukrainian people will topple his regime, I kid you not.  As for Nuland's favorite Ukie - "Iats" - he was on the "frontlines" somewhere near Slaviansk "encouraging to troops".

But my all time favorite is a guy called Oleg Liashko,  a flamboyant "pedo-cum-homo sexual" (now "married" to a Russian woman) who dresses in fashionable black "kind of combat" fatigues and then interrogates captured "terrorists" like TV producers or, more recently, an "ex minister of Defense" of the Donetsk Republic.  Then the videos are uploaded to YouTube, apparently in preparation for the upcoming Presidential election (to bolster Liashko's macho credentials I suppose).

Liashko is just one particularly colorful specimen from a full gallery of freaks.  If you are interested, I can introduce you to some other rather amazing Ukie nationalists like the notorious Irina Farion (an ex-commie turned nationalist) or Valentin Nalivaichenko, probably the highest ranking CIA agent in the current junta.

Liashko in "combat training"

Several times I have referred to this regime as a "freak show" and I did not mean that as an insult, but as a statement of fact.  The folks which have seized power in Kiev are quite literally freaks and so far, they have not succeeded in doing anything at all.  Nothing.

I am beginning to suspect that they might even fail in disrupting the upcoming referendum scheduled for Sunday.  Frankly, I had - and still have - major doubts about the ability of the pro-Russian forces in the Donbass to organized such a referendum on such short notice and in the midst of a small but ugly mini-civil war, but then when I look at the freaks in Kiev and their "scorecard" so far I have even bigger doubts about their ability to disrupt the upcoming referendum, nevermind preventing it from taking place.

I have to tell you that my own record on predicting the events in the Ukraine has been rather terrible.  First, I did not even think that Crimea would join Russia.  It did.  Then I doubted that the folks in the Donbass would be able to stand up to the regime in Kiev.  They "kinda did".  Not all, not too effectively.  But apparently effectively enough to bring the entire repressive machine of the neo-Nazi junta to a grinding halt.  Frankly, I do not credit Putin or Russia for that success.  They did not do nearly as much to destroy the Ukraine as a unitary state as the crazies in Kiev who are now scaring and enraging more and more people in Odessa and in Mariupol.  And things are only going to get worse from now on, at least for the junta.

First, Russia has announced that unless Kiev pre-pays for the gas scheduled for delivery in June Russia will turn off the spigot.  The junta, of course, refused and is demanding that Moscow reinstate all the previous discounts it had offered the Ukraine.

Second, while I will gladly admit that I have no idea what the outcome of the referendum will be, unless a majority votes against it (which is hard to imagine), I don't really see how the junta intends to submit giant cities like Donetsk or Kharkov it it cannot event conquer Slaviansk or Kramatorsk.  By the way, I am aware of the Pew poll about public opinion in the Ukraine, but I cannot take it seriously as it contradicts everything I hear from local sources.  But, hey, if a majority of the people in the Donbass wants to say in a unitary Banderastan run by a junta of freaks - that is fine by me.  Who am I to tell them otherwise?  Still, I see no reason whatsoever to trust that poll.  None.

If we assume that a) the referendum will take place and b) that a majority of the people in the Donbass will vote to declare independence (and these appear to be reasonable assumptions), then I don't see what the Ukies can do about it.

Third, the economic crisis will begin to bite really hard in June and it will not abate for the foreseeable future.  If the Donbass will probably survive with Russian money, the rump Banderastan will truly jump off the economic cliff over the course of the summer.  What in the world will the freaks do then to try to regain control of the situation?

Fourth, if the crisis hits as badly as it predicted to do by most experts, this will add a lot of fuel to the discontent in cities like Odessa which, in a sane world, should be rather prosperous.  Ditto for Nikolaev or Mariupol.  Even Kiev used to be a beautiful and prosperous city.

It would take a genius, assisted by a truly brilliant government having the support and trust of a strong majority of people to tackle such a multi-dimensional disaster as what is about to hit.  Instead, the Ukraine is run by a sad and ugly gang of clueless but nasty freaks.

There is simply no way that this will work.  Banderastan will implode and the only thing which these neo-Nazis will have the time to do before it all comes down is to turn against each other in a last fit of rage.

There is nothing at all the US/EU can do to prevent this outcome except one thing: to sit down and seriously negotiate with Russia with the full awareness that the US/EU are in an extremely weak negotiating position and that Moscow holds all the cards, including the crucial one: time.  If the US/EU really agreed to seriously negotiate with Russia, maybe some kind of "Ukraine" can still be salvaged, but it would have to be much smaller than it is today, it would have to be Nazi-free and it would have to be at the very least truly neutral.

Sadly, that only pragmatic solution would be too humiliating to the pompous clown in the US and EU.  For the US, that would be even a far worse humiliation than the disastrous failure of the US policy towards Syria.  With very few exceptions, almost all US/EU politicians have put their full political authority and weight behind the freak-parade in Kiev and now to admit that the "Emperor is naked".  So, just as in the original tale,

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.

If that is really how this all will end, then the Empire's days are truly counted and there ain't much left of them.

It is hard to imagine, isn't it?  If my logic tells me that this is almost inevitable, my gut tells me that somehow, somebody, somewhere will pull out a magic trick out of his/her hat and that, like a cat which falls from a tree branch, the Empire will land back on its paws.  Except that all Empires must come to an end and that this one has already outlived its shelf life by several decades at least.  Except that by putting its full authority behind a nasty gangs of neo-Nazi freaks the AngloZionists have totally discredited themselves.  How could any regime or any Empire survive such a shameful deed?

I honestly don't know.

The Saker

Two CrossTalk shows about the future of the Ukraine

Yulia Tymoshenko wants to nuke 8 million Russians in the Ukraine

As I have mentioned before, Tymoshenko really appears to have suffered a great deal in Yanukovich's dungeon and now she is clearly "gone fishing".  The latest telephone leak (thanks SVR, and keep up the great work!) shows her actually suggesting that the Banderites *nuke* the 8 million Russians living in the Ukraine.  She also proposes to make Russia a scorched field.  Let me immediately reassure everybody - the Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons, never had them, never will have them.  You can take that to the bank.  To Tymoshenko's partial exculpation, she is clearly venting in a fit of frustrated rage and not actually giving orders to a (non existing) Ukrainian military.  Still, this is a very good illustration of how all these freedom loving, smiling, Ukrainian nationalists really think.  Keep in mind that Tymoshenko's party "Batkivshchyna" (or Fatherland) is by far the most "moderate" (to the extend that any of these Banderites can be considered moderate) and that Klichko's Udar party is worse, that Tiagnibok's Freedom Party (aka "Social Nationalist" party) is even worse, and that they all are comparatively sane and moderate when compared to Iarosh's "Right Sektor" who can only be compared to the Croatian Ustashe or the Hutu Interahamwe.  And its the Right Sektor which currently has all the guns (only small stuff, thanks God, stuff that is only useful to terrorize civilians, not something you could use against the "Polite Armed Men in Green").

But listen for yourself to that crazy conversation (in Russian, not in Ukrainian, I would add):

Daily life in Banderastan or what you don't see on TV

Here is some footage which you are unlikely to see on the Idiot-tube:

1) Thugs from the Nazi Svoboda Party (aka "Socialist-National" Party) beat up a TV channel director and force him to resign.  You can get more details about this incident here: http://rt.com/news/ukraine-forced-resignation-nationalism-674/




2) Brownshirts from the Right Sector attack a couple on the street:




3) Ukrainian demonstrators are trying to stop military units loyal to the insurgency from driving towards the east of the Ukraine:

How the US dream of world supremacy was buried in Crimea

written specially for the Asia Times

These are official results from the referendum in Crimea:

• 96.77% voted for Crimea to join Russia
• 02.51% voted for Crimea to remain a sovereign autonomous republic inside the Ukraine
• 00.72% of the votes were declared invalid
• 83.10% of the eligible voters participated in this referendum (thus:16.9% did not vote)

As a reminder, this is the official ethnic makeup of Crimea (in 2001):

• 58.32% Russians
• 24.32% Ukrainians
• 12.10% Crimean Tatars

Okay, so what does this mean?

First and foremost, the participation was massive and the 'yes' to Russia won by a landslide.

Second, this was not a vote along ethnic lines.  When we say that are 58.32% Russians in Crimea that does not mean that all of these are eligible voters as children are not allowed to vote.  So the real figure of eligible Russian voters in Crimea is probably well under 50%.  And yet the results show that 96.77% of the eligible voters voted to join Russia.  Where did the rest of the 43.77% (more or less) come from?  It had to be from Ukrainian and Tatar voters.  Even if we assume that 100% of the Russians in Crimea were eligible voters and that they all showed up to vote and all of them voted for the 'yes' to Russia, it still leaves 35.45% of the 'yes' vote to non-Russians.  Even 100% of the Ukrainians does not fill the gap.  In other words, the so-called "Tatar boycott" of this referendum is a complete fabrication of the western media.

Now, this begs the question: why would the Crimean Tatars, who were brutally repressed and massively deported under Stalin and many of whom were seen screaming Allahu Akbar! in clashes with pro-Russian demonstrators suddenly decide to vote for Russia?  Did they suddenly change their minds?  Did the "Polite Armed Green Men" come to their houses and force them to vote at gunpoint?  Of course not.  The explanation is much simpler: in 22 years of independence the Ukraine did exactly nothing to help the Crimean Tatar people, language or culture, nevermind compensating them for their suffering.  In contrast, Russia passed a law called "Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples"(here in Russian; here in a Bing machine translation) as early as 1991 which basically solves the problem for the Crimean Tatars who will get what they have always hoped for right along their brand new Russian passports.  Yes, of course, there are some Crimean-Tatars who would have preferred to remain under Ukrainian sovereignty because they believe that Russians are inherently capable of repeating the actions of Stalin at any time and that Russian nationalism is a threat to them.  I don't mean to suggest that they are smart - only that some of them do really believe that.  Some Muslim radicals want to either be part of Turkey or create their own Islamic state.  Fair enough - but they are a minority within a minority and thus, frankly, quite irrelevant.  The reality is that this entire "Crimean Tatar issue" is a canard cooked up in the West in the desperate hope to find some kind of "ethnic/religious fulcrum" to deny the legitimacy of this referendum and stir up more ethnic trouble.  The results show that this plan clearly failed.

So what is going to happen next?

The Ukraine is dead, long live Banderastan?

Some readers have objected to my use of the word "Banderastan" to describe the Ukraine.  Had they read with a little more attention they would have understood that I do not equate the Ukraine with Banderastan at all.  In fact, the Ukraine is the country which ended its existence in February 2014 and Banderastan is the new national project of the Right Sector and the Liberty Party (yes, the one whose original name was Socialist-National Party).  So what is Banderastan exactly?

Banderastan is the Ukraine which Dmitry Iarosh, Andrei Parubii or Oleg Tiagnibok want to create: a "socialist national" state whose founding principle would be "Бий жидів та москалів - Україна для українців" ("beat the Jews and the Russians - the Ukraine for the Ukrainians").  Simple and clear.  This state would have one language (Ukrainian), one ethnicity (Ukrainian), one leader (Iarosh) and one founding father (Bandera).  The long term political goal of this regime would be to "return" the "rest" of the "Ukrainian land" which now is under Polish or Russian "occupation" and to "punish" the "traitors to the Fatherland".

You can think of the "Banderites" are the Ukie version of the Taliban, but far more evil and infinitely more stupid.  Something like a Ukrainian version of the Interahamwe maybe?

One reader send me this great little video (thanks "JP"!) showing some of these Banderites and what they like to do:



Great stuff, no?

Of course, this project has exactly zero chance to succeed for a few basic reasons:

• After 22 years of oligarchic rule, the previously wealthy Ukraine is now broke. Banderastan is even in a much worse condition.
• Most Ukrainians are not "socialist-nationalists", not even in the western Ukraine.
• Every time the "Banderites" make a move, the reaction to their actions it is more and more determined.
• Many Russian-speakers and Jews are truly becoming terrified for their future (more about that later)
• The Banderites have no economic program at all.

The bottom line is simple: there is more to governning or, really, re-building a bankrupt and ruined country and nation than parading in wannabe Nazi uniforms, taking US money, fighting cops and screaming "Glory to the Ukraine!  Glory to the heroes!!".  For all practical purposes the entire Banderite project is now in free fall, regardless of the fact that western leaders stubbornly pretend not to see this.  As for western loans (US, EU, IMF) - they can only delay the inevitable.

So how did we ever get to this crazy situation?

US foreign policy is not run by diplomats, but by politicians.

The main thing to understand about the US foreign policy is that it is basically run by people who have no experience or even understanding of diplomacy and its purposes.  It's not only Mrs Nuland and her famous "fuck the EU!" - it's also Kerry and his constant lies and zig-zags, it is Mrs Rice with her arrogant and always bellicose threats towards Russia and many other countries, finally, it is also Obama himself who combines imperial hubris with a truly phenomenal level of hypocrisy.  The very notion of negotiating anything is profoundly foreign to these Imperial leaders who strongly believe that to truly negotiate is basically a sign of weakness.  For them, the only thing which can be negotiated is the other guy's acceptance of all US terms and conditions.  And if that does not happen, the the US will basically threaten to bomb the other side into submission.  Long gone are they days of George H.W. Bush and his brilliant Secretary of State James Baker who understood how much careful diplomacy and negotiations can achieve.  The Kerry/Rice generation basically believes that they can tell everybody else want they want, and if that does not work, then brute force (whether threatened or actual) will solve the problem anyway.  This is why the US never agreed to negotiate with Gaddafi or Assad and this is why all the offers made by the Russians to find a negotiated solution were systematically rejected.

Russia offered to negotiation as far back as last fall, when the first signs of an imminent crisis began to become apparent.  Lavrov made an offer to begin trilateral negotiations  between the EU, the Ukraine and Russia.  The EU, either under US orders of simply acting on its own delusion of grandeur, contemptuously rejected that option under the pretext that the Ukraine was a sovereign nation and that therefore Russia should have no more say in its future than Paraguay or Vanuatu.  Worse, the EU pretended to believe that the Ukrainian government would sign on to 1'500 pages long text where terms and conditions of the proposed association between the EU and the Ukraine would be spelled out with no second thought about what Russia might do.  Except, of course, that it eventually became gradually clear to Azarov and Yanukovich that Russia really would have no other choice than to shut down its current borders to protect the Russian economy from a deluge of EU products which would inevitably flood the Ukraine.  When, at the last second, Yanukovich announced his notorious reversal, Russia again offered to negotiate and again this offer what rejected.  Some EU bureaucrats apparently still believed that Yanukovich would cave in at the Vilnius summit.  But he did not simply because he could not, at least not without killing the entire Ukrainian economy.  This is when the Americans suddenly literally freaked out because they understood that a 'no' to the EU, even temporary, meant a 'yes' to Russia, and probably a permanent one.  So then Uncle Sam got personally involved.

The goal, strategy and tactics of US foreign policy worldwide and the Ukraine

The overall goal of the US foreign policy worldwide is really very simple: to remain the sole superpower on the planet.  The fact that there are more and more signs which clearly point to the fact that the US is no more a real global superpower only make the achievement of this goal a higher priority.

In this context, the USA has a equally simple strategy towards Russia: do whatever it takes to prevent Russia from becoming a "new Soviet Union" or any other type of challenger to the US worldwide domination.  In practical terms, this means one thing: to do whatever it takes to break away the Ukraine from Russia.  There is, indeed, this rather bizarre notion amongst US elites that with the Ukraine Russia would be a superpower while without it it would not.  This notion is both counter-factual (Russia is already a superpower as we have seen in Syria) and illogical - Russia doe neither need not want the Ukraine which is basically a failed and wholly artificial state, run by oligarchs, with no foreseeable prospects of contributing much, if anything, to the current Russian wealth.  Frankly, and in purely realpolitik terms, the Ukraine is a headache that nobody in Russia really needs.  But nevermind that - the US elites are acting not on the basis of facts or Russian perceptions, but on the basis of their own perceptions: the Ukraine must never be allowed to fall back under Russian "domination" least Russia become a superpower again.

In tactical terms, this strategy is implemented with two simple rules:

a) any anti-Russian force, no matter how ugly or insane, gets US support
b) it's a zero sum game: anything Russia loses the USA wins and vice-versa

The ultimate prize for the US would be to get the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and put US/NATO bases in the Ukraine, not because there would be much of a military advantage in doing so, but to prevent the Ukraine from ever becoming close to, or part of, Russia again.  Short of that, doing anything to keep an anti-Russian regime in power in Kiev is the next best option.  And if that regime comes to power in a armed insurrection - that's ok.  And if all the key positions in this regime are given to neo-Nazis, that is fine too.  None of that really matters as long as the Russians don't get the Ukraine back.

Of course, the world is much more complex that the primitive representation these ignorant and arrogant politicians have of it.  In fact, not only is the USA the sole party responsible for the current chaos in the Ukraine, it is is also solely responsible for achieving the exact polar result of what it set out to do.

How US incompetence resulted in a "patriotic domino effect" in Russia

As far back as in November of last year I wrote the following about the Russian-speaking population of the Ukraine:

They have no vision, no ideology, no identifiable future goal. All they can offer is a message which, in essence, says "we have no other choice than sell out to the rich Russians rather than to the poor European" or "all we can get from the EU is words, the Russians are offering money". True. But still extremely uninspiring, to say the least.

One month later, I added:

What are these 17 million Russians and several million of Russian oriented Ukrainians doing right now? It's their country which is driven directly over the cliff, and they are doing nothing at all. How many Russian flags did you see in the demonstrations in the eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, or in Sevastopol? That's right - zero! Even the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" are marching under the yellow-blue flags which are west Ukrainian, Galician colors. You speak of moral and spiritual issues at stake - have you ever heard the east Ukrainians raise such issues? Do they ever speak of the thousands of saints which lived in this hallowed land? Do they ever mention the millions of Russians who died freeing this land from the Poles, the Jesuits and the Jewish overseers which they imposed upon the Orthodox Christians? No, never. All the speak about is money, money and money: "we will be poor with the EU, with Russia our business will flourish" - that is their idea of spirituality. Pro-Russians in the Ukraine? Ha! Let me ask you this: when it became known that Ukrainian volunteers fought on the side of the Chechen Wahabis - did you see any protests in the Ukraine? Or when the Ukrainian government was arming Saakashvili to the teeth - did you see any protests in the Ukraine? No, never. Their version of "pro-Russian" means "we like Russian money". They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-Ruble!

What I wrong then?  Not at all: that was the sad reality then.  What really happened is that over the past few month these almost totally passive Russian population underwent a brutal "shock-therapy" which woke them up from their silent stupor induced by 22 years of Ukrainian nationalist propaganda combined and a deafening silence about them from Russia.  These previously "invisible" Russian speakers suddenly woke up.  How did that happen?

First, there was the Nazi freak show around the Maidan square in Kiev which soon escalated into an armed insurrection.  Then, when Yanukovich was finally overthrow, the new regime's very first decision was to pass a law banning the Russian language from official use and another one lifting the ban on Nazi propaganda.  Simultaneously, a string of violent attacks against "collaborators" of the Yanukovich regime soon turned into an anti-Russian terror campaign.  And for the first time the Russian-speakers really began to fear for their future: they began to rally and protest openly and vocally.

That, in turn, triggered a reassessment of the situation by many Russians in Russia who, up to this point, had accused their compatriots of passivity.  For example, on many talk shows Russian-speakers from the Ukraine who were complaining about their plight were told "we are not going to help you if you don't begin by helping yourself first; you have to speak up and take action against this new regime before we will do anything.  We cannot solve your problems for you - you have to act first.  Then we will help!".  And when the population in the East and South of the Ukraine finally took to the streets, this time not with Ukrainian flags but with Russian ones, the people in Russia took notice and began to change their outlook on the situation.

For a long list of objective reasons, Crimea was by far the most vocal part of this protest movement and it is of no surprise that the next big development took place there.  Russian intelligence services clearly detected some kind of coup about to take place and the Kremlin took the absolutely crucial decision to send in the so-called "Polite Armed Men in Green" (PAMG) normally called "Spetsnaz GRU".  What exactly the Russians detected is still unclear, but what is certain is that the manner in which the PAMGs were deployed into Crimea was not a the way a normal peacetime force is moved, but the way a special force is sent in in a wartime military operation: rapidly, under cover, with heavy fire support and on key objectives to be seized for a subsequent deployment of reinforcements.  That overnight deployment of PAMGs apparently did stop the planned coup as only a few clashes were very vaguely reported and soon forgotten.  The main effect of this move by Putin was to send a powerful message to Russian-speakers in the rest of the Ukraine: Russia will not let the new neo-Fascist regime attack and terrorize you.  What Putin had done was to extend a "psychological shield" over the Russian-speaking East and South of the Ukraine by letting the Banderites know that if they crossed the line they would be engaged and destroyed by the Russian military.  That had a huge effect and soon the protest crowd grew bigger and more determined.  As for the new regime, all it could do was to use the SBU forces to arrest some political leaders.  But beyond that, Kiev has not moved to suppress these regions by military force (at least until now).  Finally, upon seeing the sudden surge of Russian protests in the Ukraine, more and more Russians took to the streets in Russia to express their support for their compatriots in the Ukraine.  The end result of all this has been to wake up a previously semi-lethargic Russian national identity and a sense of patriotism which the Kremlin could never have even dreamed of inducing in the Russian people.

The western press is doing a truly remarkable job of trying not to notice all of this.  Western commentators and politicians are acting as if there was a way to somehow push the genie of Russian patriotism back into the bottle even though they themselves, and not the Kremlin, made him come out of the bottle in the first place.  Worse, the western propaganda still tries to represent the issue as being one about the future of the Ukraine.  It is not.  The Ukraine is now gone, dead, finished, forever relegated to the past.  The issue now is not the future of the Ukraine, but the future of the US Empire.

The tectonic faceplant of the US Empire and its policies

By its arrogance, ignorance and total intransigence the US and its EU colonies have completely redefined the terms of the issue for the Russian people.  In their immense majority when the Russian people look at what is taking place in Kiev they see a replay of the worst years of World War 2 and they are absolutely determined not to let that happen again.  When they see crowds of Ukrainian nationalists marching at night with torches and large photos of Stepan Bandera, Russians (in the Ukraine and Russia) see the rise of an evil which they had to beat down at the costs of millions killed and maimed. This is why I wrote on March 1st "make no mistake about that RUSSIA IS READY FOR WAR".  I meant that literally and I still think that this is true: the Russian people have suffered too much during WWII to let any neo-Nazi thugs terrorize their fellow Russian again.  The depth and intensity of this feeling is not something which can be understood in the EU, and even less so in the USA.  I suspect that the only place in which the vehemence of this determination could be understood is Israel.  In practical terms this means that Russia will not negotiate with any neo-Nazis which threaten the Russian speakers in the Ukraine nor will Russia yield to any western threats or sanctions.  Again, Russia, as a nation, is willing to pay the cost, whatever it might be, to choke and defeat the nasty "Banderastan" which is currently getting so much support from the US and EU.  If the Ukrainian crazies attack the Russians speakers in the East or South, Russia will intervene militarily - you can be sure of that.

There is even a more important consequence stemming from the current events.

In August of 2008, right after the Russian military defeated the US backed regime of Saakashvili during the 08.08.08 war I wrote a two-part article entitled "The real meaning of the South Ossetian war" (part one; part two) which included the following assessment:

The ugly attack by Washington's Georgian puppet on the Russian peacekeepers combined with the absolutely amazing hypocrisy of the Western media and politicians who all fully sided with the aggressor turned into something of a “last straw” for Russia. This seemingly marginal development, at least when assessed quantitatively (“what else is new?”) ended up making a huge qualitative difference: it brought up a new Russian resolve to deal with, to use a favorite Neocon expression, an existential threat represented by the Western Empire. It will take a long while for the West to realize what has really happened and the most obtuse of pundits and politicians will probably hang on to their usual self-righteous rhetoric forever, but historians will probably look back at the month of August 2008 as the moment when Russia decided to strike back at the Empire for the first time.

What has happened this Winter is very much a continuation of the 08.08.08 war: yet again Russia did not want that to happen, but the West gave it no other option than to be willing to go to war if needed to protect itself (in 08.08.08 the Kremlin fully understood that there was a risk of US/NATO involvement on the Georgian side and it had conveyed in no unclear terms to US/NATO commanders that any US/NATO force sent to the theater of operation would be attacked). Still, the chances of a UN/NATO intervention in the 08.08.08 war were relatively small, and the Empire could always pretend that it did not care.  This time around, however, Putin did not confront Saakashvili and his "operetta army", but the President of the United States and the combined power of US and NATO military forces.  For a few days, the situation appeared every bit as critical as during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the world began to fear that WWIII could begin (hence all the rumors about US/NATO military moves and the oblique or even overt threats of US politicians).  The crisis became so acute that The Independent felt that it had to write an editorial entitled "We don't want a war with Russia" which concluded with the following warning:

The Independent on Sunday is not opposed to all wars, regardless of fashionable talk of living in a “post-interventionist” world. We, like President Obama, are opposed to dumb wars. War with Russia would be a dumb war to end all dumb wars

Soon, however, it began to be clear that the US was not willing to go to war over Crimea or the Ukraine.  Predictably, in the confrontation between Barak Obama and Vladimir Putin Obama blinked first.  The referendum which the US tried so hard to prevent went ahead, and its results are an absolute disaster for the USA. There are now some pretty good signs that the USA is throwing in the towel (Moon of Alabama has two good pieces on that; see here and here) and that the West is seeking a way out.

This shows that Obama did much more than just "blink first".  This shows that when push comes to shove, Russia has enough military power and political determination to deny the US Empire one of it's most important strategic objectives: pretending to be the sole superpower.  If the collapse of the US policy on Syria was a painful embarrassment, what just took place in the Ukraine is something of an entirely different order of magnitude:  Russia slapped down the EU, NATO and the US and came on top of a confrontation in which down to the last minute the West tried to bluff its way to victory and instead only achieved a full-spectrum defeat.

Full spectrum dominance is a thing of the past, and everybody now knows it

Two things are certain now.  First, Crimea is now gone, back to Russia, and nothing will change that.  Second, the attempt to turn the Ukraine into a "Banderastan" will fail.  Though there are regular reports of Bandestastani military forces being moved towards the Donbass, I personally don't see how the regime in power in Kiev could crush the current protests in the East and South of the Ukraine. Besides, as soon as what is left on paper of the ex-Ukrainian economy officially collapses, the new regime will have much more pressing issues to deal with than protests.  At some point I expect that the USA and Russia will get together and agree to discreetly show the way out to the hardcore Bandera crazies currently in power.  Some kind of more or less civilized and neutral regime will replace the current one and some kind of more or less civilized and neutral "Ukrainian Confederation" will be created.  If the folks in power in Kiev persist and hang on to power, a good part of the east and south Ukraine will follow the example of Crimea and join Russia.  A temporary split of the Ukraine into two, like what happened in Cyprus, is also possible.  I honestly cannot imagine anybody crazy enough to provoke the Russian military to enter the eastern or southern Ukraine.  On the long term, it would be better for everybody that the Ukraine be allowed to split up into two or three different entities: one western, Latin and neo-Fascist one, one Russian one which would probably join the Eurasian Union or even become part of Russia, and possibly one independent one in the South.  But the dream of a large united Ukraine ruled by russophobic nationalists will not happen - that option is gone forever.

What is next for the AngoZionist Empire?

Externally, nothing much really.  It will be business as usual.  Neither Russia nor China will do anything reckless to provoke the USA which, just as the Russia of the 1990s, will remain a nuclear superpower and one of the major military powers on the planet with which no country will dare ignore.  But the myth of US omnipotence is now gone, forever.  Furthermore, Europe will have to bear the brunt of the consequences of having to manage the gradual transformation of Banderastan into something reasonable and non-threatening.  The EU will sink further in its economic and social crisis and some other crisis will replace the Ukraine in the news.  Externally, little will be change, but to paraphrase my conclusion about the 08.08.08 war, it will take a long while for the West to realize what has really happened and the most obtuse of pundits and politicians will probably hang on to their usual self-righteous rhetoric forever, but historians will probably look back at the month of February 2014 as the moment when Russia successfully beat back the combined power of the USA and Europe and prevailed.

The Saker

Don't listen to what they say - look at what they do

Try out this thought experiment.  Imagine for one minute that you are a fundementally decent and honest person who, by an ironic twist of history, has been put in power during an armed insurrection basically conducted by neo-Fascist thugs who do not represent the majority of the people of your country.  They are now making demands and they want to become part of your new government.  You, of course, being a decent and honest person, are uncomfortable with that situation, but things being as they are, you have to accept the facts on the ground and take a pragmatic decision: either include some of them in your newly formed government, or risk being overthrown.

What would you do?

Well, I suppose that you would have to give the neo-Fascists a certain number of ministerial positions.  Which ones would you give them?  I think that the logical approach would give them the ministries where they might to a halfway decent job and which would minimize the harm that these crazies could do to your country, right?  So, let's look at my personal choices would be:

1) Ministry of Sports and Youth (Nazis and Fascists are good at sports and health issues)
2) Ministry of Transportation (trains will run on time)
3) Ministry of Infrastructure (Hitler built good roads)
4) Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food (no food shortages even in 1945 Berlin)
5) Ministry of Environmental Affairs (pagans often worship nature)

One would imagine that Mr Iatseniuk would do something very similar, right?

Well, not quite.  Check out where he put his neo-Facists:

Vice Prime Minister Alexandr Sych (Freedom Party)
Minister of Defense Igor Teniukh  (Freedom Party)
Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov (officially member of the Fatherland Party but in reality an agent for the Right Sector)
Head of the National Security and Defense Council Andrei Paribii (Social-National Party of Ukraine)
Deputy Head of the National Security and Defense Council Dmitri Iarosh (Right Sector)

Amazing no?  The neo-Fascists are occupying all the positions of power, what is often referred to as "power structures".  Instead of putting them where they could do the least amount of harm, Iatseniuk put them right where they are the most dangerous.

[The reality is, of course, that they - the neo-Fascists - put Iatseniuk where he is today, and not the other way around, but if we want to believe in the "democratic' myth, that is not a notion we are allowed to contemplate.]

So what are we make of Mr Iatseniuk, Klichko and others?  That they are either spineless cowards or, in fact, willing accomplices of a neo-Fascist coup?

I think that it is absolutely impossible to deny the following facts:

1) the regime in power in Kiev was put there by an armed neo-Fascist insurrection.
2) the regime in power is still fully controlled by neo-Fascists.

This is whom the US and EU are supporting: real, bona fide, ugly violent and hateful neo-Fascists.

And, yet again, it is Russia which stands alone against them.

What else is new?

The Saker