With a death toll of at least 50 over the weekend inflicted by the Western-backed unelected, fascist regime in Kiev, has the time come for Russian President Vladimir Putin to send his troops into eastern Ukraine?
The escalating violence committed by the Kiev junta under the Orwellian guise of “an anti-terror operation” strongly warrants that President Putin should give the go-ahead.
The stakes are high. Washington and its European allies, their puppet regime in Kiev and the Western mainstream media have for weeks been accusing Russia of covertly orchestrating protests in eastern and southern Ukraine. With no facts to support its claims, Washington alleges that Moscow is “building a pretext to invade and annex Ukrainian territory”.
If Russia intervenes now, there will be howls of Western assertions that Moscow’s “sneaky plot” is finally being executed. Already Washington is lining up more sanctions against Russia for alleged violation of Ukrainian sovereignty – again based on groundless assertions. And with NATO military forces assigned to Russia’s neighboring countries, a Russian invasion of Ukraine might risk a broader war.
But regardless of Western propaganda accusing Russia of malfeasance and in the face of Western threats of punitive response, Moscow should act with boldness based on the facts.
Despite Western claims, the facts show that the unrest and violence in Ukraine has stemmed from Western subversion in that country, beginning with the CIA-backed street agitation in Kiev last November that led to an illegal coup against the elected government of Victor Yanukovych in February. We could go further back to the CIA-sponsored Orange Revolution of 2004 and the $5 billion invested by Washington for regime change from the early 1990s onwards.
The neo-Nazi paramilitaries and their political leaders who usurped power in Kiev have gone on to unleash a campaign of terror against ethnic Russians in the east and south of the country, and anyone else who opposes the regime’s power grab.
The second “anti-terror” crackdown unleashed by the Kiev junta over the weekend was preceded by a similar operation last month following the visit of CIA boss John Brennan to Kiev on April 12-13. The latest more deadly crackdown has resulted in more than 50 dead. In the southern city of Odessa, more than 40 anti-Kiev protesters were killed when a building they were seeking refuge in was set ablaze by hundreds of neo-Nazi storm troopers acting on the tacit direction of the junta in Kiev and its Western state sponsors.
As Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors are “up to their elbows in blood” following the weekend deadly violence.
There were mealy-mouthed condemnations of “violence by all sides” from the US Secretary of State John Kerry; and there were attempts in the Western media, such as the BBC, New York Times and Voice of America, to downplay the criminality of the Kiev junta in the deaths, saying that victims in Odessa came after “clashes between two sides”. The BBC even gave prominence to the spin from the Kiev junta, which blamed the violence on police incompetence and “pro-Russian activists”.
The fact is that people were massacred – including several others in the eastern city of Slavyansk – by Western-backed Kiev forces. Eyewitnesses in Odessa say that when people jumped from windows to escape the blaze they were “finished off” by neo-Nazis on the ground who had minutes before set the building alight with petrol bombs.
These forces comprise remnants of the Ukrainian national army loyal to the fascist junta, as well as Right Sector neo-Nazi paramilitaries outfitted as a “national guard”, and very possibly the involvement of US-backed mercenaries and Special Forces.
Reports have emerged that the CIA is now officially collaborating with the regime in Kiev, although the US State Department uses Orwellian language to describe the liaison as “security consultation”.
Kerry’s disingenuous deploring of violence in Ukraine barely conceals the fact that Washington has given the green light to the lethal crackdown by the Kiev junta against its own citizens. President Barack Obama said while the crackdown was underway on Friday that “Ukraine has the right to restore order”.
By “Ukraine” Obama is referring to the unelected criminal regime that Washington railroaded into office in complete violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and on the back of murderous street violence, including the covert sniper massacre on February 20 that killed up to 100 people.
The Kiev junta is warning that the current “anti-terror operation” is to continue apace. We can expect more deaths in the coming days among ethnic Russian populations in the east and south of Ukraine – carried out with the full approval of Washington and with the assistance of its covert forces.
Russian President Putin has already received authorization from his parliament in March to send in troops to protect the millions of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. He has moral and legal right on his side. The only “impediment” is Western propaganda claims – claims that have been discredited – and threats of sanctions and military response from NATO.
But Putin should not be blackmailed by baseless lies when peoples’ lives are being threatened by a Western-backed fascist cabal and their murderous paramilitaries. Besides, more and more people around the world, including the US and European public, can see through the sordid tissue of lies that the Western governments and their pathetic news media have been peddling against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
The present situation resembles the previous covert US-led operation in South Ossetia in 2008 when NATO-backed Georgian troops tried to destabilize that country, a Russian ally. Russia acted decisively then, sent in its troops and routed the NATO plot. And Washington backed down.
Washington is at it again: subverting, lying, killing and threatening. But it’s a cowardly bluff that Putin should slap down immediately. The reality is much too serious to entertain these cynical Western games. Peoples’ lives are in real danger in Ukraine from the fascist paramilitaries and politician-gangsters that Washington installed in Kiev and which it is now giving full vent to. The bloody events this weekend are tragic testimony to the urgent threat.
If Putin takes action, he can be sure that world public opinion is on his side. Washington will find that it is a loser, and deserves it. It has nothing on its side but malign and negative forces.
Seventy years ago, Russia defeated fascism in Europe. It is time to deliver that honorable blow again.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is now located in East Africa as a freelance journalist, where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring, based on eyewitness experience working in the Persian Gulf as an editor of a business magazine and subsequently as a freelance news correspondent. The author was deported from Bahrain in June 2011 because of his critical journalism in which he highlighted systematic human rights violations by regime forces. He is now a columnist on international politics for Press TV and the Strategic Culture Foundation. More articles by Finian Cunningham
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