#ukraine’s

Ukraine’s Borderline Disorder : How Ukraine’s Bizarre Internal Politics Created A European War | Peter Korotaev
▻https://arena.org.au/ukraines-borderline-disorder

Why was this politicised section of Ukrainian society so unhappy with #Minsk? Because Minsk would have inevitably taken ‘#Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions’ off the table. It would betray the aims of the Maidan revolution. If the industrial Donbass was given special economic rights, there could be none of the ‘brave liberal reforms’ (read: deindustrialisation) so important to the EU for admitting new, especially Eastern members. Giving constitutionally secured ‘special political rights’ to the Donbass would also allow for easy vetoing of any moves to join NATO or EU. The population of the Donbass had always been especially opposed to EU–NATO integration, especially after a year of bombardment by the new pro-NATO government. Furthermore, Minsk included political amnesty for leaders of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (L/DPR). This meant that a new centre of radically anti-Euro-Atlantic politicians would emerge. The worst part of Minsk was that it stipulated the holding of elections in the Donbass before the area was ‘secured’ by the Ukrainian army, meaning that it would be impossible to remove undesirable political figures.

[...]

This is why such a paradoxical situation emerged—‘nationalist’ Ukrainians refusing to allow the peaceful reintegration of lost territories. This is where a bit of class analysis is useful. The term ‘nationalists’ paints a somewhat misleading picture. The most important opponents of Minsk—the true winners of the Euromaidan revolution, to the chagrin of some nationalists, who felt they deserved the fruits of the revolution—were liberals, neoliberals, classical liberals, however one wants to call them. Their priority is trade liberalisation, privatisation, the eradication of state intervention in the economy. Hence their bitter animus against the industrial, working-class population concentrated in the Donbass, whom they generally call ‘bydlo’ (unthinking oxen), ‘sovki’ (Soviet rubbish) and so on. Hence their fear of the return of this population into Ukraine’s electoral politics. Hence various forms of denial of the right to vote for parts of the Donbass under Ukrainian control from 2014 onwards, often with reference to ‘security threats’, along with suspension of voting rights for over a million internally displaced people from the region.

[...]

Ever since 2014, radical economic liberals have been in charge of economic policy, and radical ethnocentrist nationalists given crucial positions in the police and army, along with the right to commit street violence against peace activists and other undesirable ‘separatists and antifascists’. This quite comfortable alliance agreed on the need to deny any possibility of implementing the Minsk Agreement.

Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/11/nordstream-bombing-ukraine-chervinsky

Roman Chervinsky, a decorated 48-year-old colonel who served in #Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the #Nord_Stream operation, people familiar with his role said, managing logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines. On Sept. 26, 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The attack left only one of the four gas links in the network intact as winter approached.

Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, according to the people familiar with his role, which has not been previously reported. The officer took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, said people familiar with how the operation was carried out. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details about the bombing, which has strained diplomatic relations with Ukraine and drawn objections from U.S. officials.

[...]

Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.

Hanushchak, who is no longer serving in the Special Operations Forces, has said publicly that the operation was approved by the Armed Forces, and declined to comment for this article.

Chervinsky has said he was not responsible for the Russian attack and that in trying to persuade the pilot to fly to Ukraine and hand over his aircraft, he was acting on orders. He calls his arrest and prosecution political retribution for his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration. Chervinsky has said publicly that he suspects Andriy Yermak, one of Zelensky’s closest advisers, of spying for Russia. He has also accused the Zelensky administration of failing to sufficiently prepare the country for Russia’s invasion.

[...]

Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream bombing contradicts Zelensky’s public denials that his country was involved. “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by The Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.

“Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.

But the Nord Stream operation was designed to keep Zelensky out of the loop, people familiar with the operation said.

“All of those involved in planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defense] Zaluzhnyy, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” according to intelligence reporting obtained by the CIA that was allegedly shared by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, on the Discord chat platform. Officials in multiple countries have said privately they were confident that Zelensky didn’t personally approve the Nord Stream attack.

▻https://archive.ph/sgzm8

Ukrainian spies with deep ties to CIA wage shadow war against Russia
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/23/ukraine-cia-shadow-war-russia

Many of #Ukraine’s clandestine operations have had clear military objectives and contributed to the country’s defense. The car bombing that killed Daria #Dugina, however, underscored Ukraine’s embrace of what officials in Kyiv refer to as “liquidations” as a weapon of war. Over the past 20 months, the SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials in occupied territories, alleged Ukrainian collaborators, military officers behind the front lines and prominent war supporters deep inside Russia. Those killed include a former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a militant blogger at a cafe in St. Petersburg, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.

Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations has complicated its collaboration with the CIA, raising concerns about agency complicity and creating unease among some officials in Kyiv and Washington.

Even those who see such lethal missions as defensible in wartime question the utility of certain strikes and decisions that led to the targeting of civilians including Dugina or her father, Alexander Dugin — who officials acknowledge was the intended mark — rather than Russians more directly linked to the war.

“We have too many enemies who are more important to neutralize,” said a high-ranking Ukraine security official. “People who launch missiles. People who committed atrocities in Bucha.” Killing the daughter of a pro-war firebrand is “very cynical,” the official said.

Others cited broader concerns about Ukraine’s cutthroat tactics that may seem justified now — especially against a country accused of widespread war atrocities — but could later prove difficult to rein in.

“We are seeing the birth of a set of intelligence services that are like Mossad in the 1970s,” said a former senior CIA official, referring to the Israeli spy service long accused of carrying out assassinations in other countries. Ukraine’s proficiency at such operations “has risks for Russia,” the official said, “but it carries broader risks as well.”

“If Ukraine’s intelligence operations become even bolder — targeting Russians in third countries, for example — you could imagine how that might cause rifts with partners and come into serious tension with Ukraine’s broader strategic goals,” the official said. Among those goals is membership in NATO and the European Union.

[...]

At the time, Ukraine vigorously denounced involvement in the attack. “Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with this, because we are not a criminal state like Russia, or a terrorist one at that,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky.

Officials acknowledged in recent interviews in Kyiv, however, that those denials were false. They confirmed that the SBU planned and executed the operation, and said that while Dugin may have been the principal target, his daughter — also a vocal supporter of the invasion — was no innocent victim.

“She is the daughter of the father of Russian propaganda,” a security official said. The car bombing and other operations inside Russia are “about narrative,” showing enemies of Ukraine that “punishment is imminent even for those who think they are untouchable.”

U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/05/ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations

The Biden administration is privately encouraging #Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.

White House sends Congress $33B request for Ukraine
▻https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/28/ukraine-funding-request-congress-biden-00028552

The Biden administration is asking Congress for a massive new $33 billion funding request to bolster #Ukraine’s military as its war with Russia enters its ninth week, ensuring that Washington, and Europe, remain all-in on beating back Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.

[...] “The president’s funding request is what we believe is needed to enable Ukraine’s success over the next five months of this war,” an administration official told reporters on a call Wednesday. “And we have every expectation that our partners and allies … will continue to provide comparable levels of assistance going forward.”

The latest request comes after Congress approved nearly $14 billion in emergency funding to help Ukraine last month, including billions to fund deployments of thousands more U.S. troops in Europe and to replenish depleted U.S. stocks of weapons shipped to Kyiv.

"One less traitor": Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition - The #Grayzone

While claiming to defend democracy, #Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country.

▻https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition

https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/pjimage-24.jpg

Strangling Russia’s Economy Won’t End Putin’s War — But Could Be Disastrous for Civilians [2 mars]
▻https://jacobinmag.com/2022/03/putin-ukraine-russia-sanctions-us-eu-economy

There is a reason #sanctions of this severity have never been levied against a major world power in the nuclear age: they are profoundly dangerous.

[...] The only way in which these sanctions, aimed squarely at the Russian populace, could be justified is if they were temporary and simply intended as a means of strengthening #Ukraine’s bargaining position in the ongoing negotiations with Russia at the Belarusian border. Yet there is no clear timeline, nor are there any criteria, for their removal.

[...] Any lessons learned in recent years seem to have been obliterated in the course of a weekend. But experience tells us that sanctions are never an alternative to war but rather a means of war; that they are not about behavioral change but long-term attrition and exhaustion of the enemy and its people; and that they do not affect military events in the short term.