BBC Newsnight's Gabriel Gatehouse investigates the links between the new Ukrainian government and Neo-nazis.

Oriental Review: The Ukraine: Neo-Nazi criminal state looming in the centre of Europe What happened to the Ukraine on February 21, 2014 is essentially a criminal coup committed by the radical armed anarchists and Ukrainian Nazis who have been enjoying a comprehensive financial, military, diplomatic and even religious support and instigation from the Western power groups for the last two decades. Many of the Ukraine’s cities are now falling into the chaos of lootings, unprovoked violence, lynch law and political repressions. The first signs of upcoming chaos were clearly seen as the Ukrainian authorities wavered at the three-month siege of the centre of Kiev by the radical guerrilla elements from Galicia and local criminal gangs. They watched silently when furious fanatics were burning unarmed riot police Berkut officers alive, lynching them and pulling out their eyes. They did nothing to stop frantic “freedom fighters” from storming regional administrations, humiliating the officials and looting police and military arsenals in the West Ukraine. They were paralyzed when unidentified snipers were cool-bloodily killing militia personnel, protesters and casual passers-by from the roofs of Kiev’s buildings. They even declared amnesty (twice!) to those guilty of the brutal crimes against policemen and public order. Thus Yanukovych’s regime itself paved the way for a sinister ghost of the war-torn Libya to come to Ukraine. Is the guerrilla side a self-organized and self-indoctrinated popular movement tired of a corrupt and inefficient state? That is hardly the case.

Tony Cartalucci: BBC Now Admits: Armed Nazis Led “Revolution” in Kiev, Ukraine
Jason Ditz: Ukraine Interim Govt Courts Oligarchs, Neo-Fascists

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the US State Department of double standards and low-level propaganda after it published a list of President Vladimir Putin’s “false claims” about the events in Ukraine. ● “The State Department is trying to play on a shamelessly one-sided interpretation of the events,” ministry spokesperson Aleksandr Lukashevich said on Thursday. “Surely, Washington cannot admit that they were nurturing Maidan [protests], encouraging the violent overthrow of the legitimate government, and thus clearing the way for those who are now pretending to be a legitimate power in Kiev.” On Wednesday, one day after the Russian president's media conference on the events in Ukraine, the US State Department accused him of lying and published a “fact sheet” of Putin's 10 “false claims” surrounding the crisis. Moscow said that it will not respond to such “low-level propaganda.” “We will only say, yet again, that we are dealing with unacceptable arrogance and a pretense of having a monopoly on the truth,” Lukashevich said in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website.

The Moscow Times: Ukraine Invites NATO to Hold Meeting in Kiev
Putin to Obama: Russian-American relations shouldn’t be sacrificed for differences over intl problems

A Common Tactic to Discredit Opponents Or to Create Momentum for “Regime Change”. The powers-that-be often use agent provocateurs to disrupt protests and paint protesters as violent and unlikeable. For example, violent provocateurs were deployed:

◾At the North American leader’s summit in Quebec
◾At the G20 protests in London
◾In the Palestinian village of Bil’in
◾In Cairo
◾At the Occupy protests
◾In Burma
◾And in many other places

Paul Carr ■ Last night brought an amusing (on the face of it) and horrifying (when you think about it) twist in Pando’s ongoing coverage of Pierre Omidyar’s $250m First Look journalism project. For those coming to the party late: last week, Mark Ames wrote about how eBay founder Omidyar had co-invested with the US government in several of the opposition groups involved in the Ukraine revolution, a geopolitical closeness with Uncle Sam about which none of his reporters seemed aware. The piece prompted a fierce, and lengthy, response from First Look staffer Glenn Greenwald. The thrust being that, despite him being an active presence in the company’s virtual newsroom, Omidyar’s wealth and political opinions couldn’t possibly impact First Look’s reporting. In fact, Greenwald argued, the accusation barely even warrants a response.

The Israeli regime has reportedly cut off the water supply to some 45,000 Palestinians residing in the areas around East al-Quds (Jerusalem), local sources say. ● Residents of Shuafat refugee camp said on Wednesday that their water had been cut off for nearly three days, while a number of other Palestinian suburbs near al-Quds had also been without water for 20 days. According to the residents, the Israeli water authority started to gradually reduce the water supplies about two weeks ago until it completely stopped. However, the Israeli water company, Gihon, has denied the water shut-off to the Arab areas. Khaled al-Khalidi, a member of the Shuafat’s popular committee, said the Tel Aviv regime had gone back on a UN-brokered agreement to provide water service to the Palestinian refugees.