Ukraine Junta attack
falters as civilians
confront troops:
Having received the green light from Washington on Sunday with the visit
of CIA director John Brennan and the European Union, the Kiev Junta regime
launched a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in eastern Ukraine
yesterday, threatening to provoke a full-blown civil war that could escalate
into a war between the Western powers and Russia.
Junta forces attacked and recaptured the Kramatorsk military airfield, which had been occupied by pro-Russian activists. Junta forces were supported by fighter jets and helicopters flying low over the area, which fired on the protests. Russian media reported that at least four occupiers were killed in the operation.
Junta forces attacked and recaptured the Kramatorsk military airfield, which had been occupied by pro-Russian activists. Junta forces were supported by fighter jets and helicopters flying low over the area, which fired on the protests. Russian media reported that at least four occupiers were killed in the operation.
The citizens of Kramatorsk, a city of 250,000 people, were outraged when
several groups of Ukrainian paratroopers entered the city's suburbs on armoured
vehicles on the morning of April 16. Believing that the army arrived to
violently suppress the protesters, the civilians blocked some 18 vehicles with
soldiers in two locations near Kramatorsk. The attackers were confronted with
resistance by the local population, most of whom are deeply hostile to the coup
regime in Kiev. Hundreds of local residents headed to the airfield in Kramatorsk
to blockade Ukrainian troops. A Reuters correspondent in Kramatorsk reported
that its inhabitants built barricades against arriving troops, shouting,
“Shame! Go back home!”
The civilians blocking the Ukrainian army in Kramatorsk don't believe in the presence of undercover Russian military forces in Ukraine's east.
The civilians blocking the Ukrainian army in Kramatorsk don't believe in the presence of undercover Russian military forces in Ukraine's east.
"Haven't seen any of them with my eyes, so I don't believe there are
any," Mykhailo, 39, one of the civilians blocking the vehicles near
Kramatorsk told Reuters.. Like most of the separatist supporters, he refuses to
give his last name or be filmed, afraid that he can be arrested and prosecuted
as a separatist. At the same time, the Kiev Junta keeps accusing the Kremlin of
backing the protests in eastern Ukraine, plotting to annex the region and
repeating the Crimea scenario.
April 16: The personnel of six armoured transport vehicles sent to the
eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk have switched sides and have joined the
pro-federalist activists, witnesses reported on Wednesday. Later scenes of
these vehicles joining the protesters appeared on Sky TV.
“We found them at a square near the railway station. A group of women
surrounded them, we started telling them we were peaceful residents who are
just fighting for their rights and that there are no terrorists here,” the
witness said, adding: “They won’t shoot us.” “The main armoured transport
vehicle had a Russian flag on it and they left together with our protesters
towards Slaviansk,” the witness said. The number of personnel from the
transport vehicles was not specified. Signs that the loyalty of the forces sent
by the Junta is shaky.
However, the Kiev Junta is sending tanks, armoured personnel carriers and
heavy artillery to prepare an assault on eastern Ukrainian cities that are
effectively under anti-government protesters’ control. These include Donetsk,
an industrial city of nearly 1 million, Mariupol, (population 460,000),
Lugansk, Makiyivka, Khartsyzk, Yevakiyeve, Horlivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and
Slaviansk.
The Junta regime is also mobilising the fascist forces that spearheaded
the February 22 coup against the elected president, Victor Yanukovych, to crush
anti-government protests. On Tuesday, Andriy Parubiy, head of Kiev’s National
Security and Defense Council, announced that a National Guard battalion
“comprised of volunteers from Maidan self-defense troops,” had left Kiev for
the Donetsk region. The “Maidan self-defense troops” that spearheaded the
right-wing, pro-European Union protests in Kiev were led by the fascist Right
Sector militia.
Washington is fully supporting this military operation backed by fascist
thugs, which threatens the lives of countless thousands of civilians in eastern
Ukraine. White House spokesman Jay Carney signalled Washington’s support for the
crackdown. After cynically declaring that the United States “agreed that the
use of force is not a preferred option,” he proceeded to endorse the violent
attack on protesters. “That said, the Ukrainian government has a
responsibility,” he declared, “to provide law and order, and these provocations
in eastern Ukraine are creating a situation in which the government has to
respond. Ukraine has proceeded with great caution, has for days now been
offering amnesty, dialogue and has been trying to resolve these conflicts
peacefully.”
Carney made clear that the operation was directly planned and is now
being carried out under the auspices of the Obama White House and the Central
Intelligence Agency, whose director, John Brennan, travelled to Kiev this past
weekend.
Asked what Brennan and other US officials told security forces in Kiev,
Carney replied bluntly: “We urged the Ukrainian government to move forward,
gradually, responsibly, and with all due caution, as it deals with this
situation caused by armed militants… Let’s be clear: the way to ensure that
violence does not occur is for these armed paramilitary groups, and these armed
so-called pro-Russian separatists, to vacate the buildings and to lay down
their arms.”
Carney’s praise of the Kiev regime’s “responsibility” and “due caution”
as helicopter gunships were firing on the population and tanks were massing
around major cities is a repulsive lie.
General Vasily Krutov—the first deputy head of the Ukrainian Security
Service (SBU), who is leading the operation—summed up the policy Brennan and
other US officials undoubtedly discussed with their stooges in Kiev. Krutov
threatened to “destroy” anti-government activists, stating: “They must be
warned; if they do not lay down their arms, they will be destroyed.” He denounced
protesters as “foreign invaders” and “Russian spies,” adding that another
ultimatum for those who had occupied government buildings would be “too
humanitarian.”
Krutov indicated that his operation would likely cause massive civilian
casualties. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we face a difficult situation because
those realizing their plan are hiding behind human shields. Some of them are
cynically working toward their own ends, but many are under the influence of
propaganda.” Krutov’s remarks recall the bloody massacres carried out by the
political predecessors of his Right Sector allies—the Ukrainian fascists who
collaborated with invading Nazi armies during World War II.
When Krutov appeared at the airport gates he was surrounded by a hostile
crowd of locals who knocked his hat off and he had to be rescued by his own men
and brought back inside the base. A taste of reality for this aggressive Washington
muppet.
The threats of an impending massacre in eastern Ukraine underscore the
utter hypocrisy of the Western powers. Washington and its European allies are
now supporting and organizing precisely what they accused Yanukovych of doing
just weeks ago—mounting a violent crack-down on anti-government protests.
US and European support for the crackdown makes clear that their
intervention in Ukraine is not motivated by concerns for Ukrainians’ democratic
rights. From the outset it has been aimed at inciting a civil war in Ukraine
and producing a confrontation with Russia. Having organized a fascist-led coup
in Kiev, Washington, Berlin and Brussels are now denouncing the inevitable
opposition of people in eastern Ukraine as a Russian plot, and using this lie
to escalate the violence.
Typical of the warmongering of the West was the demand by German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Russia distance itself “from the violent
and unlawful actions of pro-Russian demonstrators.”
Standing reality on its head, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen
provocatively called on Russia to “de-escalate the crisis, to pull back its
troops… to stop destabilising the situation and make clear it does not support
the violent actions of pro-Russian separatists.”
US and European officials have produced no evidence to back up their
claims that Russia is orchestrating the protests in eastern Ukraine. Asked by
reporters if he had evidence of Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine,
Rasmussen declared: “We never… comment on intelligence, but I think from what
is visible, it is very clear that Russia’s hand is deeply engaged in this.”
NATO is already deploying more ships and aircraft near Russia’s borders
and NATO ambassadors will reportedly discuss further measures today “to
reinforce the defenses of eastern allies through exercises and temporary
deployments of planes and ships sent by other allies.” In his meeting with the EU defence ministers, Rasmussen called for
greater cooperation between NATO and the EU. In a provocative move targeting
Russia, he proposed that the two organisations’ rapid reaction forces hold joint
exercises more regularly.
Russia, for its part, blamed the Western-backed regime in Kiev and warned
of the risk of civil war. “The country is on the brink of a civil war. It’s
very sad,” Russian Premier Medvedev
wrote on his Facebook page. He charged that the new authorities had unleashed a
wave of violence they could no longer control.
“The illegal rulers are trying to restore the order they cynically
trampled on when they participated in an armed uprising,” he wrote.
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