It’s impossible to even begin to understand why Russia has invaded Ukraine without understanding the recent history of Ukraine and the Donbass republics.
April 5 and May 1, 2014 was the heart of the Ukrainian “Maidan” debacle. Elements of the junta, governors appointed from Kiev, moved southeast to the Donbass to take the profitable firms there to sell them off to the west to pay debts. A quickly organized revolt was labor’s answer and an armed uprising was the result. Russian volunteers, especially Cossacks, quickly came to the aid of the Donbass and reinforced their armed forces. On March 16, a referendum in Crimea overwhelmingly joined with Russia, as the population there had always been pro-Russian. Early May was the first failed Kievan attempt to retake the area. In response, a group of thugs burned alive more than 40 sympathizers in Odessa on the same day as the invasion failed.
While referendums were the norm in the Donbass and Crimea, in Kiev, no elections were ever held. The billionaire oligarch Poroshenko was appointed president by western bankers who held Ukraine’s debt. Russian gas chief Alexei miller said little had been paid on the Ukraine’s gas debt. Russia offered a loan to Ukraine to assist them since, by early April, Ukrainian economic production had come to a halt. Foreign aid was her only means of staying afloat.
As with the protests of 2004, all promises made by the leaders of the coup were immediately discarded and broken. In Kiev, the new government decreed 20-40% cost increases on public transportation. Prices went up by about 30% the first week. Most hospitals operated at 20-30% capacity. Volunteers were needed to staff what remained. Hot water and heat went up by 65%. Ministry of Finance of Ukraine admitted that drug prices increased by 60-70% in the country in the first week of the Junta. Over the past two months, Ukraine has not officially admitted 13.5 thousand. Russian citizens, 98 of them are denied entry into the country for long periods. The pharmacy chains in Kiev more than three-fold increased sales of antidepressants. Drug prices in Kiev have increased by 1.5 – 2 times, there is a shortage of essential drugs, including insulin. To cover for this, Ukrainian media continue fanning hysteria and intimidation. One headline from the online news agency “UNIAN” (owned by the Jewish oligarch Kolomoisky): “Russia instructed the separatists to kill 100-200 people” and that “Kievan s should construct bomb shelters” due to the alleged invasion of Ukraine.2
The governor of Dnepropetrovsk region, the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, promised $10,000 for each DNI soldier or sympathizer killed. Oleg Tsarev was the coordinator of the Southeast resistance in the Ukraine. The Coordination Center will be located in Donetsk. The oligarch Kolomoisky was paying mercenaries to attack the DNI, since most of the Ukrainian army fled or went over to the rebels. Kiev was promising Berkut members $100,000 and up to attack DNI positions. The general Staff in Kiev wrote themselves bonuses amounting to almost 10 million hyrvna.
About 5000 Ukrainians a day were applying for visas to move to Russia. Putin and Medvedev sought cooperation to rebuild the moribund Ukrainian economy. In Donetsk to help the defenders of the Donetsk region miners organized themselves into three battalions of 200 people each. Leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic announced the creation of a “people’s army” and the beginning of the preparation of the referendum to be held on 11 May.
Under Donetsk activists with St. George ribbons blocked, and deployed artillery brigade of the Ukrainian army. The authorities began the “anti-terrorist operation” in Slavyansk. The operation began after a confidential visit to Kiev by CIA Director John Brennan. He confirmed that 20 US citizens were lost in the attacks on the DNI from the Blackwater group.
To cover for Ukrainian defeats, the story of a “Russian invasion: was invented from whole cloth. It was covered and repeated without evidence and without question. Ukraine began plans to nationalize Russian assets. Public debt was now 60% of GDP, though the real figure is much higher. Much of Kiev saw regular power outages continually. The Rovno and other nuclear planet sere shut down for lack of personnel and money to operate. In the mining industry and metallurgy the decline in production was about 10.7%; the chemical industry, by 5.3%, in engineering, almost 20%. Gas prices went up 20% further in march.
The Kiev government began a round up and execution of its enemies. From January to February 2014, 5172 were executed in Kiev prisons. 10,000 were killed immediately after the coup and another 5,000 in March. Kiev cut off the canal supplying fresh water to Crimea’;s farmers, ruining the harvest. Strikes in industry and mines in western Ukraine turned pro-Russian….
One of the most bizarre developments in foreign policy in recent memory is the constant demand for war with China and Russia. No one is entirely sure what either nation has done.
Now they’ve got the war that they’ve been demanding, but apparently, not the sort of war they were expecting.
It’s evident that what currently passes for the Russo-Ukrainian war is not over Ukraine’s territory or its people, but rather, is aimed at the neocon-funded Orange Revolution that installed the current regime. The fact that the US, NATO, and EU are all willing to go to extremes to keep the illegitimate Zelensky in regime should suffice to show the delicate state of the neo-liberal world order, just as the fact that the Russians were willing to upset what was a stable and mutually profitable situation tends to indicate either a) something was developing in Ukraine that absolutely had to be stopped by force or b) this limited conflict is simply the first stage, and the initial front, of a much larger Sino-Russian challenge to the global satanists and their imperial disorder.
