The Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-speaking people of Donetsk and Lugansk continue despite the the promised ceasefire, yet a large number of Ukrainian troops are still surrounded by citizen soldiers of Domboss waiting for them to surrender.

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Ukrainian General Staff confirms Debaltsevo force collapse

Posted on Fort Russ, February 17, 2015

2/17/2017

Ukrainian General Staff Confirms Losing Control Over Debaltsevo Forces

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

Earlier today the Russian Spring reported that, according to the information from the relatives of UAF troops located in the vicinity of Debaltsevo, the chain of command has completely broken down and the troops were issued orders to break out of the cauldron on their own. However, several Ukrainian media immediately denied the reports, claiming it was panic-mongering.

However, only an hour ago the acting spokesperson for the Ukrainian General Staff Vladislav Seleznev confirmed this information during a live interview on the TV channel 112, saying that DPR units were assaulting the UAF base-camp at Debaltsevo, and that the headquarters for all UAF forces there has been destroyed.

Oddly enough, Seleznev would not confirm that the Ukrainian forces are in a cauldron. But he did not deny it either.

J.Hawk’s Comment:  So it’s coming to an end. It’s only a matter of how many troops make it out alive. But the loss of equipment, combined with earlier losses here and everywhere, put into question the UAF’s ability to conduct large-scale operations for a long time to come. The days of “Victory” have come to an end. The days of “Treason” are only beginning… Poroshenko and others were able to avoid reckoning for the earlier Ilovaysk debacle apparently only by promising a rematch. They seem to have lost that one too, and Round 3 does not seem in the cards. But Round 2 is the only thing that kept all the different factions of the very fragile “pro-European” junta together.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/ukrainian-general-staff-confirms.html

Once again my friend Michael Collins has researched the situation in Ukraine, exposing Obama's lies by digging out materials published in U.S. newspapers and journals. Russian President Putin has won, but not by use of military force. Rather he held back his troops while offering to negotiate, a gesture that Obama not only ignored but falsely asserted that Russian troops were attacking. In the meantime, the Russian speakers of the eastern provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk repelled the entire Ukrainian army following its vicious shelling of civilian homes, stores, and factories. So Obama has now quietly dropped his failed Ukraine adventure in favor of the pointless bombing of ISIS.

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OpEdNews Op Eds 9/28/2014 at 04:09:14   
It's Official! Resistance Defeats Kiev Junta in Ukraine
By Michael Collins (about the author)     Permalink

opednews.com                                                           Headlined H2 9/28/14

Flag of Peoples Republic of Lugansk
(image by WikiCommons)

Flag of Peoples Republic of Donetsk
(image by WikiCommons)

The results are in. The official tally is complete and the winner announced.

According to an opinion piece in in Bloomberg News (9/26), Russian President Vladimir Putin is the victor in the conflict in Ukraine (Bloomberg News, Ukraine Can't Hide Putin's Victory, Leonid Barshefky, 9/26),.

Clearly, Putin comes out ahead in this conflict but the real winners are the people of the eastern Ukraine and their resistance militia. Resistance forces fought brilliantly against much larger, better-equipped troops dispatched by the Kiev junta to assault people in cities and towns it declared terrorists. The terrorist acts consisted of political opposition to Ukraine's ruling neo Nazis and oligarchs along with an expressed desire for self-rule. The United States puppets in Kiev started the violence. The people of the east finished it, decisively.

The military tide turned at the end of August when the western politicians and media could no longer hide a string of stunning defeats suffered by Kiev forces. All of a sudden, Kiev's holy crusade against the east was replaced with a Russian brokered ceasefire, the Minsk protocol (9/5). This slowed the intensity of hostilities. The agreement also legitimized the resistance governments of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Their representatives signed the protocol along with the Ukraine government, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In an attempt to mask the extent of his nation's defeat, Ukraine oligarch and President Petro Poroshenko spoke to the United States Congress in mid September. The bought and sold politicians gave Poroshenko a dozen or so standing ovations for his warnings about the new Cold War. But, when he pleaded for weapons, he left empty handed. Congress sent Poroshenko off with a consolation prize of a few million dollars when he needs billions to avoid an economic meltdown.

The real action took place behind the scenes between Ukraine's leaders and Russia. Unlike the very public chest thumping defiance, Ukraine's rulers offered a three-year period of autonomy for the regions it sought to crush plus other concessions that reflect the nation's diminished support by the U.S. financial elite.

The Bloomberg piece is of special interest since it comes from the homeland of the U.S. financial elite. Aside from one factual lapse, the author sums things up clearly. The piece may become the epitaph for the failed conflict.

Here are the high points from the article.

The Magic Show

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is running a magic show. By pretending his country has a chance of joining the European Union or NATO, he is hoping to obscure Kiev's, and Europe's, gradual capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine Can't Hide Putin's Victory, Bloomberg, Sep 26

Poroshenko's address to the U.S. Congress was the peak of his magic show. Nothing of substance was gained but it helped divert attention from his capitulation to resistance and Russian demands

Poroshenko's recent concessions to Putin's demands

Just last week, the Ukrainian parliament passed a Poroshenko-approved law granting self-government and budgetary support to the areas of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels, and Kiev agreed not to lower trade barriers for European goods. In return, Russia apparently pulled out most of its troops from eastern Ukraine and facilitated some prisoner exchanges between the rebels and the Ukrainian military. Bloomberg, Sep 26

Self-government is another word for autonomy. The idea of a happy reunion between the breakaway regions and central government of Ukraine is inconceivable. They're likely gone for good. As for the author's claimed Russian troop presence in Ukraine (initially called an invasion), that falls in the same category as the accusation that the resistance shot down Malaysian flight MH17: a political convenience absent any supporting evidence.

NATO membership for Ukraine not likely

"Pragmatic" is the key word. There is no way the EU and NATO are going to admit Ukraine if it fails to settle its accounts with Russia. It would be too much of an economic burden as well as a constant military threat. Europeans realize there will have to be a lasting three-way deal, and have little desire to take full responsibility for a large, dangerously unbalanced nation. Bloomberg, Sep 26

When Bloomberg calls your country a dangerously unbalanced nation, you're in real trouble. NATO and the EU don't want an economic basket case. Apparently, the U.S. doesn't either.

Ukraine opened on the road but failed to make it on Broadway. It's too messy and too expensive. Its army can't win a battle, let alone a war. Then, there's the problem with all that Nazi regalia and those swastikas on the helmets of their soldiers. Say good night Petro. The show is over.

The neoconservatives never relent on their core policy of endless war, however. They just shifted it to ISIL and the Middle East as they await the installation of top neoconservative operative, Hillary Clinton, as the next president. After her nation destroying efforts in Libya and Syria, one can only imagine what she has up her sleeve.

Creative Commons 3.0


http://www.opednews.com/author/author3863.html
Researcher, writer DC Area

I am posting this for those of you who either read my 4th of July post without linking to the original work of Eric Zuesse or missed it entirely. This is what our government is doing to Russian speaking in Ukraine while claming falsely the Russia is the villain.

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The U.S. Elite Run a Ukrainian Genocide While American Public Are Ignorant of It

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Eric Zuesse.

Eric Zuesse

On Wednesday, July 2nd, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko resumed unlimited war against the residents of southeastern Ukraine, whom he calls “terrorists” for their wanting not to be killed by his troops. European leaders (especially Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, and Putin of Russia) urged him not to resume his bombing campaign against the southeast, but the U.S. (specifically President Obama) supports the bombings, and that’s enough for Poroshenko; so, he did it. As the U.S. State Department said, “he has a right to defend his country.” Reuters reports that Poroshenko gave as his reason for the resumption, “to rid Ukraine of ‘parasites’.”  Adolf Hitler had given the same reason for ethnically cleansing his country.

Here are videos and photos of the Obama Administration’s sponsored ethnic cleansing to reduce the population in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly “the wrong way” in Ukraine’s final nationwide election, in 2010:  the areas of Ukraine that overwhelmingly chose as Ukraine’s President the man whom Obama’s coup overthrew in February 2014. After this ethnic cleansing, maybe Ukraine can have another nationwide election, which will produce the type of outcome that the U.S. Government likes. But on 25 May 2014, we held in Ukraine an election where people voted only in the pro-American portion of Ukraine, and only leaders who were acceptable to the U.S. White House were allowed onto the ballot.

America’s “news” media are not reporting on America’s ethnic-cleansing program in Ukraine. It’s happening in the dark, as far as the American public are concerned: they don’t know about it. But, here it is: this, is what they are hiding from you.

Washington’s people do not call this ethnic cleansing operation what it is; they instead call it Ukraine’s “Anti Terrorist Operation,” or “ATO” for short. The people we’re massacring are “Terrorists.” What they actually  are is simply the residents in the parts of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly for Viktor Yanukovych on 7 February 2010 to become President, the final nationwide election in Ukraine. And here these millions of “Terrorists” are now, being bombed by us, and fleeing to refuge in Russia (you can see it, and hear it happening, right there: those “Terrorists,” fleeing our bombs) — it’s part of our ethnic-cleansing operation, not of any Anti Terrorist Operation, at all. Because it is we, the United States itself, that are terrorizing them, to flee. And “we” — our Government, as if they  really represented us (which they obviously do not) — are therefore mass-murdering them. This is what the U.S. “news” media have been hiding from us, by stenographically reporting Obama’s lies, as if those lies represented truths instead of lies — just like Bush’s lies about “Saddam’s WMD” did, and the U.S. media did, before we invaded Iraq on 19 March 2003.

And the Government that Obama put in place in Kiev, which is a government by Ukrainian oligarchs whom Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland selected and placed in control, is now advertising on the television stations that those oligarchs own, advertising that the people who live in Ukraine’s southeast are destroying the country and must therefore be destroyed by patriotic Ukrainians. The government’s Defense Minister announces publicly that concentration camps are being established in order to deal with any who don’t flee. The message to those “Terrorists” is clear: flee, or else die. The government has even announced that the military volunteers who go to the southeast to do the killing are patriots, whose reward will be that they will receive the properties of everyone they kill.

A google-search of “Ukraine” at a typical U.S. news site yields little — and nothing at all about this slaughter that our Government is financing and put into place there. For example, at Huffington Post, the search produces articles about supposed “aggression” by Russia for its accepting Crimea back into the Russian Federation after all public opinion polls and a public referendum in that region, which had been Russian until 1954, showed massive public support there for rejoining Russia. (And a recent Gallup poll of Crimeans confirmed that they craved to rejoin Russia and are now delighted that they did.) HuffPo has only news-wire reports about Ukraine, mainly AP and Reuters, and typical headlines there are like “Russia Resumes Military Buildup Near Ukraine Border,” and “Ukraine Vows To Punish Rebels Who Downed Plane.” There’s nothing about the genocide. For example, there’s no mention that this “plane” had been carrying 49 troops to murder civilians in the southeast where a genocide is taking place to clear the land and terrify the residents to flee into Russia. It’s a classic ethnic-cleansing campaign, and Obama put it into place. Americans don’t know.

One article is a March 3rd poll, which showed “Few Americans want the United States getting involved in policing the political turmoil in Ukraine.” The presumption there was that “we” shouldn’t fix “their” problems.” Who knew that “we,” our own President, is the mastermind behind that “turmoil,” and of this actual ethnic cleansing campaign?

Similarly, http://www.pollingreport.com/ukraine.htm has many such poll-results, all showing a widespread public assumption that Russia initiated the “turmoil” and that the U.S. are just nice guys regarding Ukraine.

To see what a lie that impression is — a deception of the U.S. public by not only the “news” media but by the U.S. Government that’s behind this “turmoil” — clickhere and here and here and here and here, because you will then learn a great deal about this made-in-America horror story, which will only grow as the years roll by, just as is already happening in Iraq.

Remember Iraq? This one will be vastly worse. You’ll see. Just click on those links. You’ll see.

Because, if the American public doesn’t start investigating this now, then the results for all of us will be far worse, especially because this one could end in a nuclear war. And here is a video exposing the lies of the Obama Administration and its stooge-regime in Kiev about the May 3rd massacre in Odessa that sparked Ukraine’s civil war — our ethnic cleansing of the people who live in Ukraine’s southeast.

Barack Obama’s Ukrainian gambit is the most evil and worst part of his entire Presidency, and you will be shocked to learn about it, and how evil it is. Because the American press hasn’t told you about it. But it’s not too late for you to find out. (If you already know about it, please pass this article along to any of your friends who might not, and otherwise get the word out, by distributing this article far and wide, so that maybe this horror can be stopped if enough people learn of it.)

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and served as chief of CIA's Soviet Foreign Policy Branch as well as preparer/briefer of the Presidents Daily Brief. If he were still in that position, President Obama would instruct him not to tell him any facts that disagree with the fictitious story that he wishes the public to buy.

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The Risk of a Ukraine Bloodbath

July 2, 2014

Exclusive: Pressured by neocons and the mainstream U.S. media, the Obama administration is charting a dangerous course by seeking a military solution to Ukraine’s political crisis and possibly provoking Moscow to intervene to protect ethnic Russians, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern warns.

By Ray McGovern

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko – by thumbing his nose at the leaders of Russia, Germany and France as they repeatedly appealed to him to renew the fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine – has left himself and his U.S. patrons isolated, though that’s not the version of the story that you’ll read in the mainstream U.S. press.

But the reality is that an unusual flurry of high-level conference calls last weekend from key European capitals failed to dissuade Poroshenko from launching major attacks on opposition forces in eastern Ukraine. Washington was alone in voicing support for Poroshenko’s decision, with a State Department spokeswoman saying “he has a right to defend his country.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit to
Austria on June 24, 2014. (Official Russian government photo)

As Ukrainian air and artillery strikes increased on Tuesday, so did diplomatic activity among the Europeans with the U.S. playing no discernible role in the peace efforts. There was no sign, for example, that Secretary of State John Kerry was invited to a hastily called meeting in Berlin on Wednesday involving the foreign ministers of Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier), France (Laurent Fabius), Russia (Sergey Lavrov), and newly appointed Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

This marginalization of the U.S. is a consequence of a well-founded suspicion that Poroshenko’s fateful decision to “attack” came with Washington’s encouragement. The continued provocative behavior of Secretary Kerry, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and other U.S. hardliners comes despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin still holds the high cards in this regional standoff.

Putin has at his disposal a range of alternatives short of sending in tanks to protect the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine, many of whom had voted for President Viktor Yanukovych who was ousted in February by violent protests. The uprising was led by western Ukrainians demanding closer ties to Europe but was turned into a “regime change” on Feb. 22 through a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias contemptuous of the ethnic Russians living in the east and south.

Yanukovych’s ouster was strongly encouraged by Nuland, who handpicked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the leader of the interim government, while at least four ministries were awarded to the neo-Nazis, including the office of national security, in recognition of their key role in the final attacks that forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.

Though hailed as “legitimate” by the U.S. State Department, the coup regime was rejected by many ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine. In Crimea, the population voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, a development that U.S. officials and the dutiful mainstream media characterized as a Russian “invasion.”

Similarly, in the east, in the so-called Donbass region, ethnic Russians rose up and asserted their independence from the Kiev regime, which then deemed them “terrorists” and launched an “antiterrorist” campaign that incorporated some of the neo-Nazi militias as National Guard units deployed as shock troops to crush the uprising. Several bloody massacres of ethnic Russians followed in Odessa and other cities.

In May, the election of Poroshenko – in balloting mostly conducted in western and central Ukraine – held out some hope for a negotiated settlement with guarantees to respect the ethnic Russian population and greater autonomy granted to the eastern regions. However, Poroshenko had trouble getting control of his hardliners and he refused to negotiate directly with the rebels, leading to the failure of a shaky ceasefire.

A Fateful Decision

While the focus over recent days has been on Poroshenko’s decision to end the ceasefire and go on the offensive, Putin has continued to rely on diplomacy as his primary tool, especially with European officials fearful of the economic consequences of a full-scale confrontation between Russia and the West. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has made considerable headway in getting at least Berlin and Paris to join Moscow in trying to restrain Washington in its apparent eagerness to stoke the fires in Ukraine.

Speaking on Russian TV on Saturday, Lavrov said, “Peace within the warring country [Ukraine] would be more likely if negotiations were left to Russia and Europe,” adding, “Our American colleagues … according to a lot of evidence, still favor pushing the Ukrainian leadership towards the path of confrontation.”

That evidence is increasingly evident to Europeans. What is new is their apparent willingness to slip softly out of their accustomed lockstep subservience to the U.S. in such matters.

Washington is losing support elsewhere in Europe as well. Last Thursday, Kerry declared it “critical for Russia to show in the next hours, literally, that it is moving to help disarm the separatists,” and on Friday the European Union leaders set a Monday deadline for Russia to take a series of steps to avoid further sanctions.

Alas, Monday showed the Europeans putting off any action for at least another week. This delay has driven the editors of the neocon flagship Washington Post to distraction; in Wednesday’s edition they pouted that such lack of resolve amounts to “craven surrender” to “Russian aggression.”

Putin, meanwhile, is maintaining a determined coolness in his public remarks. In a major speech on Tuesday, he noted, in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone:

“Unfortunately, President Poroshenko has resolved to resume military action, and we failed – when I say ‘we,’ I mean my colleagues in Europe and myself – we failed to convince him that the road to a secure, stable, and inviolable peace cannot lie through war. … Mr. Poroshenko had not been directly linked to the orders to begin military action, and only now did he take full responsibility, and not only military, but political as well, which is much more important.

“We also failed to agree to make public a statement approved by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine on the need to maintain peace and search for mutually acceptable solutions.”

Focus on Europe

Putin reminded his audience of Russian ambassadors that “Europe is our natural and most significant trade and economic partner.” Adding a gentle reminder about Europe’s dependence on natural gas from Russia, Putin noted that Moscow had developed a reputation as a “reliable supplier of energy resources.” He also explained why Russia has put Ukraine on a pre-payment system for the delivery of natural gas, noting that Kiev had not paid its bill for several months.

Putin also took a dig at economic “blackmail” in referring to “the pressure our American partners are putting on France to force it not to supply Mistrals [helicopter carrier ships] to Russia.”  Russia bought two Mistral-class ships from France for $1.6 billion in what was Moscow’s first major foreign arms purchase since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Appearing on French TV last month, Putin said, “We expect our French partners to fulfill their contractual obligations” and held out the prospect of future orders, an important enticement given France’s struggling economy.

Toward the end of his speech Putin also drew attention to the spread of “radical, neo-Nazi” elements not only in the fledgling states of the former USSR, “but also in Europe as a whole.”  He warned that “social contradictions … can be a breeding ground for … the growth of extremism.”

Putin added that even in seemingly stable countries ethnic and social contradictions can suddenly escalate and become ripe for external players “to seek illegitimate, non-democratic regime change, with all the ensuing negative consequences.”

Putin seems to be challenging the Germans and French, in particular, who have had direct experience living under fascism (and who now have their own home-bred fascists to deal with), to decide whether they really wish to acquiesce in the brutal suppression of southeastern Ukrainians with the help of admirers of the late Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian fascists who helped Hitler cleanse Ukraine of Jewish and Russian “vermin.”

There is serious question as to whether Poroshenko can now rein in these Frankenstein extremists even if he seriously tried to do so. The ultra-nationalists and other hardliners in western Ukraine have made it clear to Poroshenko that they expect him to fulfill his promises about rapidly crushing the eastern Ukrainian uprising.

Meanwhile, the neocon-dominated Western mainstream media has consistently downplayed the role of fascists and neo-Nazis in the Putsch of Feb. 22, in the subsequent violence in other key cities like Odessa, and now in southeastern Ukraine. Mentioning Ukraine’s “brown shirts” destroys the U.S. media’s preferred narrative of Washington-backed “white hats” vs. Moscow-backed “black hats.”

The Russians, of course, have their own violent history with fascists and seem intent on waking other Europeans to the dangers – with the coup in Kiev a very recent reminder. Professor Stephen F. Cohen of New York University provides an excellent wrap-up of the evidence on this issue in a new article, “The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev’s Atrocities.”

Taking the Ukrainian Army Seriously

Nastupat is a strong word in Ukrainian and Russian. It means “attack” – and Poroshenko hit the word hard in announcing he had ordered his forces to “attack and free our lands.” He seemed intent not only on snubbing his peace-seeking telephone partners from last weekend, but also on channeling John Kerry’s hawkish buddy John McCain.

There were even hints of Bandera’s old attitude about ethnically purifying Ukraine in Poroshenko’s warning that Kiev’s new attack would rid Ukraine of “parasites.” The Ukrainian defense ministry quickly announced the launching of attacks “from the air and land,” and the violence has escalated sharply.

It struck me, though, as I watched the short clip from Reuters that the Washington Post and Huffington Post ran before the footage of Poroshenko’s solemn “nastupat’” announcement, that the segment did nothing to burnish the image of the Ukrainian troops he is sending off to battle.

The clip shows a ragged line of soldiers applauding two comrades as each approaches the corpulent, fatigue-clad, Poroshenko for an award that looks like a small box of chocolates – presumably from Poroshenko’s own candy factory.

The choreography was not the best. Nor has been the performance of Ukrainian troops sent to the east so far. But it would be far too easy to underestimate the kinds of casualties that elite Ukrainian units are capable of inflicting on lightly armed opponents – not to mention the highly trained Right Sektor and other fascists. A bloodbath may be in the offing.

Will Good Sense Prevail?

In his speech on Tuesday, Putin expressed the hope that “pragmatism will eventually prevail.” He tucked in one short paragraph relating directly to Russia’s relations with the U.S., stating merely, “We are not going to shut down our relationship with the United States,” while conceding that relations “are not in good shape” and blaming Washington for ignoring Russia’s “legitimate interests.”

And there is some reason to hope that, as the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine gather in Berlin, they will be able to reinstate the ceasefire and move the conflict off the battlefield and onto the negotiating table.

If Poroshenko chooses the path of bloodshed, however, Putin will react strongly. Russia can be counted on to supply arms to those under air and artillery attack from the Ukrainian military. If this proves to be not enough support, Moscow may decide to do even more, possibly adopting a favorite American strategy of declaring a “no-fly zone” and shooting down attacking aircraft.

But any overt or even covert Russian government assistance to the rebels would, in turn, be sure to add fuel to the fiery hysteria in Official Washington about “Russian aggression.” There would be demands on President Barack Obama to retaliate. Who knows where this madness would end?

In the first part of his Tuesday speech, Putin was upfront about the possibility of a Russian intervention to stop any Ukrainian military slaughter of ethnic Russians. He said he “would like to make clear” to all that Moscow might feel compelled to protect “Russians and Russian-speaking citizens of the Ukraine. … I am referring to those people who consider themselves part of the broad Russian community; they may not necessarily be ethnic Russians, but they consider themselves Russian people.”

Putin said, “This country will continue to actively defend the rights of Russians, our compatriots abroad, using the entire range of available means – from political and economic to the right to self-defense envisaged by international humanitarian law.”

Putin’s reference to “international humanitarian law” sounds very much like the “Responsibility to Protect” so favored by some of President Obama’s foreign policy advisers, though apparently not when the people doing the killing are being supported by the U.S. government.

If an even more dangerous crisis is to be averted, the Russian leader’s words need to be taken seriously. To stanch bloodletting in eastern Ukraine and to protect those on the receiving end of Poroshenko-authorized attacks, I would not expect Putin to let himself be mouse-trapped into invading Ukraine – at least not until he had exhausted all other alternatives.

More likely, he would impose a no-fly zone in an attempt to shield the opposition in the east and save it from being decimated. But that itself could represent a dangerous escalation. Poroshenko and his supporters should realize that such matters can get quickly out of hand. Putin has his own tough-guy John McCains to deal with.

Someone might remind Poroshenko of the embarrassingly bloody nose that the Russians gave Georgia’s then-President Mikheil Saakashvili in August 2008 when he sent Georgian forces to attack the city of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia. Moscow justified its military retaliation as necessary to prevent the killing of Russians as well as the Ossetians in the area.

Ultimately, President George W. Bush and then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who had encouraged Saakashvili’s adventurism, were powerless to protect him.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. During his 27 years as a CIA analyst, he served as chief of CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch as well as preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief.  He is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Thanks to Wikileak cables we now know that Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko, has been working for the U.S. government since at least 2006 and they knew he was corrupt. Now the so-called "civil war" in Ukraine consists of Kiev attacking Russian speaking civilians in the southeast with vicious neo-nazi troops, artillery, and arial bombing at the pleasure of Washington, which claims that Russia is the aggressor, and the despicble mainstream media repeats this lie daily.

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Wikileak Cables: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Washington's Pocket Since 2006

It turns out that Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko, has been working for the U.S. government since at least 2006 and they knew he was corrupt. 

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There's not much point in staging a coup if you don't influence who is placed in power in the aftermath. Of course in order for a puppet government to be effective, they can't be perceived as such. You wouldn't want the natives to get restless would you?

The evidence that the U.S. was behind the toppling of the Ukrainian government early this year is so overwhelming at this point that the subject really isn't up for debate, however initially it was unclear how the election of Petro Poroshenko fit in. The ecstatic response by Washington when he was declared the winner, and their unbending support in spite of his ongoing military assault against civilians in the east, made it clear that he was the chosen one, but the paper trail wasn't immediately obvious.

As it turns out, the evidence that Poroshenko is in the pocket of the U.S. State Department has been available all this time, you just had to know where to find it. In a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 released by Wikileaks.org, U.S. officials refer to Poroshenko as "Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko".

A separate cable also released by Wikileaks makes it clear that the U.S. government was considered Poroshenko corrupt.

"Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations, but wielded significant influence within OU; Poroshenko's price had to be paid."

The U.S. government knew Poroshenko was dirty, but he was influential, and arguably their most dependable mole.

Perhaps the most interesting revelation comes from a 2009 cable where Poroshenko told then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton he supported "the opening of a U.S. diplomatic presence in Crimea" and "He emphasized the importance of Crimea, and said that having U.S. representation there would be useful for Ukraine." Poroshenko's role as an informant for the U.S. government continued in cables in 2010 as well.

Reading through the cables, I have to wonder if Poroshenko was actually breaking Ukrainian law by sharing the kind of strategic information that he did. Considering that this information was certainly used when planning the coup against Yanukovich, one could argue that he committed treason.

Poroshenko, however, isn't the only Ukrainian politician mentioned. For example, the cables mention the scandal surrounding Oleksandr Turchynov's destruction of SBU documents tying Julia Tymoshenko to organized crime, and note that the accusation that Tymoshenko wanted Turchynov get the Interior Minister position so that she could gather damaging information on her enemies. The cable refers to this accusation as "not farfetched". Turchynov went on to be installed as the acting president of Ukraine in the provisional government.

In order to grasp the extent of the U.S. government's tinkering in Ukraine it is worth reading the documents for yourself.