Alex Lantier

The far-right parliamentary coalition in Kiev collapsed yesterday, as the Western-backed regime met with visiting Dutch and Australian officials to prepare a foreign military intervention in war-torn east Ukraine, under cover of investigating the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Fatherland Party) announced his resignation after the withdrawal from the coalition of the fascist Svoboda Party and the UDAR (“Punch”) party of boxer Vitaly Klitshcko. Yatsenyuk will remain as prime minister until either a new coalition is formed or after elections sometime later this year.

Billionaire oligarch and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko supported the dissolution of the government, claiming it would permit a “full-scale reset” of the Ukrainian state that Ukrainian society desires. Porsoshenko, who assumed office last month, is hoping that new elections, which Poroshenko can call if a new coalition is not formed in 30 days, will be an opportunity to strengthen his own grip on power.

The collapse of the parliamentary coalition points to the weakness of the regime that emerged from the February 22 putsch. As it prepares to support a Western military intervention in the civil war it is waging in east Ukraine, posing the risk of an escalation into a clash between NATO and Russia, the Kiev regime is preparing austerity measures demanded by the EU that will have a devastating impact on broad sections of the population throughout the country.

Under these conditions, the government cannot tolerate any political opposition, even from such establishment forces as the Stalinist Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU). Explaining his party's decision to leave the government, Svoboda Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok denounced the presence of pro-Russian forces (the KPU) in the Ukrainian legislature: “We believe that in the current situation, such a parliament which protects state criminals, Moscow agents, which refuses to strip immunity from those people who are working for the Kremlin, should not exist.”

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Alex Lantier

Kiev's brutal military campaign in eastern Ukraine
creating humanitarian crisis (DriveByPlanet)

As the Western-backed regime in Kiev assaults pro-Russian militias in the major cities of eastern Ukraine, mass graves are coming to light in Slavyansk, the former opposition stronghold recently captured by Kiev. The government offensive is unfolding with the support of Washington and the European Union (EU), which yesterday imposed more sanctions to compel Moscow to abandon any support for opposition militias in Ukraine.

Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for the Kiev regime’s Defense and Security Council, said yesterday that “hundreds of bodies of rebel fighters” had been found in shallow graves. Lysenko claimed some of the graves “have been mined by the terrorists”—apparently implying that some of the dead were killed during the siege of Slavyansk and buried by fellow opposition fighters before Kiev’s forces captured the town. Lysenko refused to give further details.

While the Kiev regime’s bombardment of Slavyansk doubtless caused hundreds of casualties, its own accounts show that the far-right Ukrainian nationalist militias it has mobilized are carrying out a campaign of political terror and murder in Slavyansk. Upon capturing the city, they detained all men between the ages of 25 and 35 on suspicion of supporting or giving aid, including medical aid, to the opposition militias.

On Tuesday, Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko confirmed that two Slavyansk priests had been murdered for supporting opposition forces. “We found a grave of two priests from Slavyansk, who were tortured and killed by the Ukrainian nationalists,” Gerashchenko said. The bodies of two sons of one of the priests were discovered in the same grave as the priests’ mutilated remains.

The Odessa diocese confirmed that Ukrainian nationalists have threatened, beaten or kidnapped several Orthodox priests, many of whom they consider too close to Moscow. The Odessa diocese secretary, Archpriest Andrei Novikov, who has fled to Moscow fearing arrest by Ukrainian nationalist groups, said, “I’m sure if the government keeps its position, it will handle the physical liquidation of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.”

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Alex Lantier

Hundreds of US mercenaries are directing the repression of pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine by the fascist forces of the NATO puppet regime in Kiev, according to German media reports.

They are employed by the firm previously known as Blackwater, a massive private military contracting firm founded by former US Navy SEAL Erik Prince. The firm was renamed Xe in 2009 and then Academi in 2011, trying to evade the infamy attached to its original name due to its massacres of civilians in US-occupied Iraq.

They are now coordinating the attacks by the fascist Right Sector militia, the Kiev regime’s National Guard, and groups of football hooligans that have led to hundreds of casualties across east Ukraine.

This information was communicated to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top German officials on April 29. Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) said that 400 Blackwater troops are supporting Kiev’s security forces in eastern Ukraine, including in Slavyansk. Der Spiegel wrote, “This information reportedly comes from US intelligence services and was communicated during a so-called Intelligence Situation meeting, a regular discussion chaired by Chancellery Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier (CDU). The Presidents of the intelligence services and of the Federal Criminal Office and the intelligence coordinator of the Chancellery as well as high-ranking government officials attended the meeting.”

Though the BND apparently did not say who had hired the Blackwater mercenaries now fighting in Ukraine, they are undoubtedly working closely with US intelligence. Prince himself said last year that after the US invasion of Iraq, his firm “became a virtual extension of the CIA.”

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Alex Lantier

The Kiev regime faces immense pressure from Washington and the European imperialist powers, from the banks and from its own fascist supporters to retain control of Odessa at all costs.

In the wake of Friday’s fascist massacre of pro-Russian protesters at the Trade Unions House in Odessa, the US puppet regime in Kiev deployed National Guard units to the city yesterday. The sending of the National Guard, a force created by the Kiev regime after the fascist-led putsch in February that has worked closely with the neo-Nazi Right Sector militia to repress protests elsewhere in Ukraine, is a warning to the working class. The National Guard began street patrols yesterday, amid mounting popular outrage over the Friday massacre.

Yesterday, after Sunday’s mass protest to force the freeing of pro-Russian protesters detained by police, Odessa residents continued to bring flowers and pay their respects to the victims of the massacre outside the burned-out Odessa Trade Union building. “This is a tragedy for all of Ukraine,” teacher Nadezhda Yelenchuk told AP. “This is the result of a civil war that has already begun in Ukraine.” Everything points to the preparation by the Kiev regime and its US and European backers of another fascist atrocity to try to terrorize the city into submission.

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Alex Lantier

Fighting escalated across eastern Ukraine over the weekend after Friday’s massacre in Odessa, carried out by far-right supporters of the Western puppet regime in Kiev. Reports of the atrocity confirmed that it was an act of terror aimed at pro-Russian protesters and intended to inflame tensions throughout Ukraine and with Russia.

Some 1,000 well-armed football hooligans from Kharkiv and fascist thugs from the Right Sector militia attacked pro-Russian protesters, forced them into the city’s trade union hall, then besieged the building, shooting at it with small arms and torching it with Molotov cocktails. In all, 42 people died and 170 were wounded, making it Kiev’s single bloodiest act of repression against the protests. Odessa police allowed the assault to proceed, then jailed pro-Russian protesters who managed to survive both the flames and Right Sector thugs who attacked anyone they saw jumping from the building.

On Sunday, over 1,000 protesters in Odessa stormed police headquarters to force the release of the 67 detainees, shouting slogans such as “Odessa is a Russian city” and “One for all and all for one.” Once inside the building, they took down the Ukrainian flag and negotiated with police to free the detainees.

Thousands of people also gathered over the weekend in front of the trade union building to lay flowers at the site and pay their respects to those who had died.

On Saturday, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov declared that the regime’s military crackdown on pro-Russian protesters in the east would continue, saying, “We are not stopping.” He vowed that operations with “special units” would continue throughout eastern Ukraine.

The Odessa massacre is an indictment of the reactionary intervention of Washington and Berlin to install an unelected regime in Kiev in the fascist-led putsch of February 22. The neo-Nazi Right Sector was used by the Western imperialist powers as the shock troops for the coup.

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Alex Lantier

As the Obama administration and its allies in Europe escalate their threats against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, the American media plays its assigned role as propaganda mouthpiece.

Not a single critical voice can be found within the so-called mainstream media. The newspapers and television news programs are filled with lies, anti-Russian propaganda, and—preparing for the possibility that the crisis escalates out of control—apologetics for war.

The New York Times, the “newspaper of record,” sets the general tone for the media as a whole. The Times boasts of having 12 reporters in Ukraine, yet it provides no serious reporting on what is happening. This is all the more significant given the extraordinary implications of a major conflict between the United States and Russia that could quickly evolve into the first war between nuclear powers in world history.

Over the past two weeks, the Times has been caught in a series of fabrications. Last week, it ran a front-page lead story replete with photographs handed to it by the State Department and the US-backed Ukrainian government purporting to show that Russian Special Forces are directing the protests in eastern Ukraine.

The Times report was quickly exposed as a fraud, including by the WSWS. It took only a quick search on the Internet to expose the so-called evidence as either doctored or fabricated. Subsequent acknowledgements of the “controversy” over the photographs—exercises in damage control and cover-up—have been buried on the newspaper’s inside pages.

Far from being chastened by these exposures, the Times rapidly moved on to its next assignment from the State Department — a front-page article published yesterday alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin has a secret fortune of between $40 billion and $70 billion. The Times acknowledged in its own article that the allegations consist of “rumors and speculation” with “little if any hard evidence.” That did not prevent it from seeking to legitimize the gossip by elevating it to the status of a prominent “news” item.

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Alex Lantier

On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a lying brief for war aimed at justifying the crackdown by the Western-backed Kiev regime on pro-Russian protests in eastern Ukraine and possible military action against Russia. Declaring confrontation with Russia to be all but inevitable, he turned reality on its head, blaming the crisis entirely on Russia and clearing Kiev of all responsibility.

“The simple reality is you can’t resolve a crisis when only one side is willing to do what is necessary to avoid confrontation,” Kerry declared. Citing the April 17 truce talks in Geneva that halted the Kiev regime’s first attempted crackdown, he said: “One week later, it is clear that only one side, one country, is keeping its word. And for anyone who wants to create gray areas out of black, or find in the fine print crude ways to justify crude actions, let’s get real: the Geneva agreement is not open to interpretation.”

He continued: “The world has rightly judged that Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and the Government of Ukraine are working in good faith. And the world, sadly, has rightly judged that Russia has put its faith in distraction, deception, and destabilization.”

Let us, indeed, get real. These arguments have not a shred of credibility, and neither does Mr. Kerry.

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Alex Lantier

Pro-Russian demonstrators barricaded a checkpoint near one of
the entrances to the city of Slovyansk, Ukraine, on Sunday.

The Western-backed regime in Kiev and fascist militias allied to it launched a bloody crackdown against pro-Russian protests across eastern Ukraine yesterday. With the Kremlin massing forces on Russia’s border with Ukraine, threatening to intervene defend ethnic Russians, the situation is on the brink of a war between Russia and Ukraine, which could escalate into a direct clash between Russia and NATO.

Deadly fighting broke out in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk, held by pro-Russian protesters. Ukrainian armored personnel carriers reportedly assaulted several checkpoints set up by pro-Russian forces, though protesters continued to hold the city. Five protesters were reported killed amid contradictory reports. Several Ukrainian armored vehicles were reportedly set afire in the fighting, and protesters rebuilt the checkpoints later in the day.

Thirty thugs armed with baseball bats from the fascist Right Sector militia, which led the February 22 putsch that installed the current regime in Kiev, stormed buildings held by protesters in the nearby port city of Mariupol.

Responsibility for this bloodshed lies above all with the United States and its European allies, who have pressed Kiev to launch these assaults in a policy calculated to provoke Moscow. A first attempt to organize a crackdown a week ago with Ukrainian regular troops came after CIA director John Brennan’s visit to Kiev. It quickly ground down, however, amid popular opposition and refusals by Ukraine troops to fire on the population.

This bloody crackdown underscores the filthy hypocrisy of the Western intervention in Ukraine. During the February putsch, Western governments and media denounced the pro-Russian regime’s attempts to crack down on the fascist groups leading the protests and denounced moves to mobilize the army. Now, after a visit to Kiev by US Vice President Joe Biden, the unelected, far-right puppet regime in Kiev is unleashing a new military crackdown with Western support. Aware of the lack of support more broadly in the army, it is relying directly on the fascists.

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Alex Lantier

The New York Times has run a relentless campaign of lies and distortions backing US policy in Ukraine. This has included portraying the opposition in eastern Ukraine to the pro-Western regime in Kiev as proof of an aggressive Russian intervention threatening Ukraine, Eastern Europe and the world.

The newspaper’s article Monday, “Photos Link Masked Men in Eastern Ukraine to Russia,” purports to provide definitive proof that Russian spies are active in eastern Ukraine and manipulating events there.

The article begins: “For two weeks, the mysteriously well-armed, professional gunmen known as ‘green men’ have seized Ukrainian government sites in town after town, igniting a brush fire of separatist unrest across eastern Ukraine. Strenuous denials from the Kremlin have closely followed each accusation by Ukrainian officials that the world was witnessing a stealthy invasion by Russian forces.

“Now, photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration on Sunday suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces—equipped in the same fashion as Russian special operations troops involved in annexing the Crimea region in February.”

There may or may not be Russian agents in Ukraine, a question the World Socialist Web Site is not in a position to answer. However, even if the Times article proved its charge that Russian spies are active in Ukraine—which, as we will see, it does not—the reader would have a right to ask: So what?

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Alex Lantier

Amid the crackdown on pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine being carried out by his Western-backed regime, Ukraine’s acting prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, called for a military buildup against Russia in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” program Sunday. He advocated measures, including US military aid to his government, that pose the risk of a direct clash between nuclear-armed powers.

This aggressive and provocative policy, centered on the standoff in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian protesters and the military and fascist paramilitary forces of the unelected regime in Kiev, is inflaming tensions throughout Europe. Late Saturday and early Sunday, pro-regime forces attacked armed pro-Russian protesters who had set up roadblocks outside Slavyansk, killing at least one protester. A number of pro-regime fascists were also killed or wounded.

One of the pro-regime fighters killed in Slavyansk carried a badge of the fascist Right Sector militia, which led the February putsch that installed the current regime in Kiev. “The personal belongings of a militant killed in the skirmish included a Right Sector badge number 20,” said Vyachaslav Ponomarev, the leader of Slavyansk’s pro-Russian forces. “Badge number one is held by [Right Sector leader Dmytro] Yarosh.”

A week ago, Yarosh called for the “total mobilization” of the Right Sector fascists to crush opposition to the Kiev regime. The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “enraged” by the attack in Slavyansk. “It is surprising,” it wrote, “that the tragedy occurred after the signing on April 17 in Geneva of the final statement of the four-sided meeting of representatives of Russia, the USA, EU and Ukraine, which calls for refraining from any violent actions, intimidation, or provocations. The Russian side insists on the strict fulfillment by the Ukrainian side of its commitments concerning the de-escalation of the situation in southeast Ukraine.”

In fact—as the blank check given by the US-puppet regime in Kiev to the Right Sector makes clear—Kiev and its Western backers are ignoring the Geneva statement. Instead, they are pressing ahead with a reckless policy of militarily encircling Russia.

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