Moon of Alabama

Without Russian Intervention And German Support, the U.S. Campaign Is Stuck

Two days ago a mob, supported by the fascists Right Sektor, killed over 30 federalist Ukrainians in Odessa by pushing them from their camp into a building and then setting fire to it. Those who escaped the massacre, not the perpetrators, were rounded up by police. Today pro-federalism people besieged the police headquarter in Odessa until the police released those it had earlier arrested.

In the east some military and National Guard units under government control were in sporadic fights with federalists but right now the government forces seem to be again in retreat. There were attacks on private bank outlets in the east because the owner of the bank, a well known oligarch, is suspected of financing the fascist Right Sektor paramilitaries.

The U.S. plan for Ukraine seems to be to bait Russia into an occupation. This would destroy EU-Russia relations, embolden NATO and help the U.S. to keep the EU as a secondary partner under its control. There would be lots of economic upsides for the U.S. in such a situation. Selling more arms and increasing energy market shares are only the starters.

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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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