CALIBAN

This conflict is noteworthy for the concerted effort by the West to dominate the narrative and exclude everything the Russians have to say about it. One should always listen to both sides of any conflict if there is to be a fig-leaf of impartiality.



One of the first documents that should be read and confronted concerning the crisis in Ukraine is the following letter signed and published in 1997. It is testimony to the fact that notable diplomats and historians knew back then that NATO expansion would elicit a backlash from Russia, and that U.S. President Clinton's rush to push NATO eastwards would turn a once compliant and reformist Russia into an implacable enemy.:


As for the nature of the situation in Ukraine, the West has pushed back against accusations that there exist significant fascist elements in Ukraine, something which has been documented beyond a shadow of a doubt:

On 16 February 2020, the U.S. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism arrived in Ukraine.[1] The agenda was not announced. The hope is that he discussed at least some of the issues discussed in this report with his Ukrainian counterparts. Five years ago the threat of ultranationalist-neofascist Ukrainian terrorism (UNUT) should have been clear to all, but it was not.[2] Things have not gotten any better. The threat has grown, and there remains no acknowledgement of the UNUT threat. The threat remains one both to Ukraine as well as Europe, Russia and the United States and is part of a larger ultranationalist-neofascist international movement and terrorist threat. Identitarian violence and terrorism is deeply embedded in the nationalist, ultranationalist, and neofascist strand of Ukrainian political culture. Contemporary UNUT is inherited largely from Galicia and the Nazi-allied Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA) of World War II and thus is a near century-long tradition. Not only did the OUN assassinate officials, including Polish and perhaps more understandably Soviet officials and NKVD officers, OUN members also tried to assassinate US President Delano Roosevelt, according to archival documents.[3] The UNUT tradition is being carried forward by Ukraine’s ultranationalist and neofascist groups, such as Right Sector, the Svoboda Party, Right Sector, Azov, the National Corps (Natsional’nyi Korpus) or NatsKorpus, and C14. This is no coincidence as it these groups that have fostered a cult of personality surrounding Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, the OUN’s and UPA’s respective founders. in the nationalist, ultranationalist and neofascist subculture of Ukraine, helping to establish them as officially recognized national heroes.

Notice that even the Atlantic Council concurs!

As for the lead up to the 2022 Russian "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Monitoring Mission had documented a marked increase in Ukrainian armed forces shelling of the Donbass (Ukrainian territory where there is a predominance of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens) in February of 2022:

...the OSCE’s daily report of 18 February...That same report records numerous violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Ukrainian government in moving heavy weaponry in to menace separatist held areas and in keeping weaponry outside agreed storage facilities. It equally reports precisely the same kind of violations by separatist rebels. None of which balance has been recorded by the same western media which loves to give detailed accounts of troop movements within Russia.

If none of this suffices to convince you that the Russians have a point, then perhaps you should listen to former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official, and NATO advisor Jacques Baud:

Labels: Russia, US imperialism