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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Daniel Larison

Globalist warmongering degenerate Anne-Marie Slaughter
makes her rounds at the Fortune 500-funded Chatham House.
She is the author of the book "A New World Order" and be-
lieves foreign policy should be shifted into the unelected, un-
accountable hands of corporations, foundations, and NGOs.

Anne-Marie Slaughter reminds us why we’re glad that she doesn’t work in government anymore:

The solution to the crisis in Ukraine lies in part in Syria. It is time for US President Barack Obama to demonstrate that he can order the offensive use of force in circumstances other than secret drone attacks or covert operations. The result will change the strategic calculus not only in Damascus, but also in Moscow, not to mention Beijing and Tokyo.

It makes absolutely no sense to argue that bombing a Russian client in one place will change Russian behavior in another place for the better. Nothing would be more useful for Moscow as a matter of propaganda than to have the U.S. illegally attacking another country. The diversion of resources and attention required to start a war with Syria would make U.S. and allied warnings over Ukraine even less meaningful than they already are. Attacking Syria would distract the U.S. from the Ukraine crisis while wrecking whatever semblance of Western allied unity there is. It would potentially be political suicide for any European governments that went along with it, and it would needlessly open up a rift in NATO at the worst possible moment. Fortunately, it isn’t likely that the administration would be foolish enough to follow this advice, but if they did it would provoke a major backlash here at home. More to the point, while it would drag the U.S. directly into the war in Syria, it would have no beneficial effect on the Ukraine crisis, and would more likely cause Russian hostility to the U.S., our allies, and would-be clients in the region to spike even higher. I suppose it might influence how other governments see the U.S., but not at all in the way that Slaughter imagines. Treaty allies elsewhere in the world would be annoyed that the U.S. is wasting its resources on another unnecessary war in the Near East, and other major powers may conclude that our leaders are reckless and foolish.

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Nikolai Bobkin

Part 1: Washington’s Foreign Policy Tools or Biden Visits Kiev || Vice-President John Biden came to Kiev to see with his own eyes how the events unfold in the country. The second part of the article will be devoted to the results of the visit. Here it’s important to state the fact that Ukraine serves as an irritant for Moscow which may turn into its enemy and that’s the only thing Washington needs Ukraine for. The situation in the country has deteriorated to the point of bringing it to the brink of civil war, but Washington does not care. The main thing is to keep the puppet regime in power. Biden is an author of «color revolutions» policy and the person responsible for staging unrest in other countries, for him Ukraine is just another testing ground no different from North Africa…

Americans are not fantasy prone people, they always have a pattern to follow and they gauge all other nations with their own «democratic criterion» ignoring racial and religious specific features. The same thing is repeated in Kiev. The White House says that Biden will meet leaders of civil society to discuss their role in strengthening democratic institutions.

It’s not an occasion that NGOs are in the focus of his attention, billions of dollars are spent to keep them afloat and they are expected to produce the pre-programmed results. The Ukraine’s government has been using every occasion to stress its independence while it is quite docile and submissive towards all kinds of NGOs and foreign special agencies operatives acting on the Ukraine’s territory. No matter US NGOs always emphasize how open, democratic and transparent they are, in reality they act as close clubs with the criteria for personnel enlistment normally practiced by the CIA when it chooses the agents for the mission of strengthening American influence.

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