The outcome of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev will be felt in every corner of the globe, the top Russian senator, Valentina Matvienko, said on Saturday. The standoff has long surpassed the scale of a simple dispute between two neighbors and evolved into a “large-scale confrontation” with the “collective West,” she said in a statement on the second anniversary of the start of Russia’s military campaign.

“The fate of the future world order is being decided on the battlefields of the special military operation,” said the head of Russia’s Federation Council – the upper house of the national parliament. The struggle has made it clear that Washington and its allies seek global dominance, she said. The US and other Western nations want to “impose a new version of colonialism on the world” and build an international system based on the “rule of force,” the senator warned.

The West treats people as “dust,” Matvienko maintained, adding that the US and its allies care neither about the people of Donbass, who suffered persecution at the hands of Kiev for years, nor for Ukrainians themselves, who were blindly lured into a conflict with Russia by the West, she argued.

Russia had sought to resolve the conflict between Kiev and Donbass through peaceful means for eight years, the senator said, adding that the Ukrainian government responded to those efforts with “anti-Russian policies, sabotage of the Minsk Agreements and terror against the Donbass population.”

Moscow is still ready to reach a peaceful settlement and is open to dialogue if its national security and the safety of its people are guaranteed, Matvienko said. Russia does not expect “any honesty, [or] decency” from the West, she stated, adding that the Russian government would now focus on protecting the Russian people and the “Russian world.”

The two years of conflict have clearly demonstrated that “Ukraine, together with the West or any other coalition is unable to inflict a strategic defeat on [Russia] on the battlefield,” she maintained.

The crisis has sped up the establishment of a multipolar world, the senator believes. Over the past few years, the role of such international groups as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has significantly increased, she said.

“We call on the world, on all friendly nations, to remember their sovereignty and to not hesitate to defend their interests, because it is something that needs to be really fought for nowadays,” Matvienko added.

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

READ FROM TOP

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Originally published Feb. 24, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV address Thursday morning that the goal of Russia’s military operation was not to take control of Ukraine, but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” the country.  Moments after he spoke, explosions were heard in several Ukrainian cities.   

The Russian Defense Ministry said these were “precision” attacks against Ukrainian military installations and that civilians were not being targeted.  It said Ukraine’s air force on the ground and its air defenses had been destroyed.

The Ukrainian government, which declared a state of emergency and broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, said an invasion was underway and that Russia had landed forces at the port city of Odessa, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, as well as entering from Belarus in the north.  It said it had killed 50 Russian troops and shot down six Russian fighter jets, which Russia denied.

Putin said one of the operation’s aims was to arrest certain people in Ukraine, likely the neo-Nazis who burned dozens of unarmed people alive in a building in Odessa in 2014. In his speech Monday, Putin said  Moscow knows who they are.  Russia said it aims to destroy neo-Nazi brigades, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion.  

Putin said the aim was not to occupy Ukraine, but he gave no indication when Russia might leave. It could be over quickly if Russia’s objectives are met. But war has its own logic and often lays waste to military plans. 

The BBC reported that according to Ukrainian authorities 50 civilians have been killed so far. President Joe Biden is certain how this will turn out. 

“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” Biden said Wednesday night. “Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.”

Diminishing Russia

Biden is to make a televised address on Thursday after he coordinates a response to Russia’s military action in Ukraine with the G7 and NATO. Biden said he will announce a new package of economic sanctions against Russia, in addition to those imposed on Monday, but reiterated that U.S. and NATO forces would not become involved.  

According to TASS, Russia’s news agency, the EU said it intends to weaken “Russia’s economic base and the country’s capacity to modernize.” 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even hinted at British military involvement. “Our mission is clear,” he said. “Diplomatically, politically, economically and eventually militarily this hideous and barbaric venture of Vladimir Putin must end in failure.” 

In a White House readout after the last phone call between Biden and Putin this month, Biden said Russia would be “diminished” if it invades, a longstanding U.S. goal. 

In addition to the sanctions, Russia has faced widespread condemnation from most of the world, expressed at United Nations meetings this week, including an emergency session of the Security Council on Wednesday night.  Several nations spoke in melodramatic tones about the military operation changing global security. Many of those nations supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Putin said he would send Russian “peacekeepers” into Lugansk and Donetsk, which he recognized as states independent from Ukraine.  The West denounced it as an invasion, triggering the first round of sanctions against Russia.  

Putin said the Russian troops were sent in to protect ethnic Russians, many of whom have now fled for safety over the border to Russia.

Combat in Donbass

Fierce fighting was reported Thursday along the line of separation between Ukrainian forces and militias from Donetsk and Lugansk. It is not clear to what extent Russian forces are taking part in the Donbass battle and if the aim is to capture all of the two breakaway provinces.

Both had voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 after a coup overthrew the elected president Viktor Yanukovych.  The new Ukrainian government then launched a war against the provinces to crush their bid for independence, a war that is still going on eight years later at the cost of 14,000 lives.

Neo-Nazi groups, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, who revere the World War II Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, took part in the coup as well as in the ongoing war against Lugansk and Donetsk. 

A Matter of ‘Life or Death’ 

The Russian military action follows demands made in December by Russia to the U.S. and NATO in the form of treaty proposals that would require Ukraine and Georgia not to join NATO; U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed; and NATO deployments to Eastern Europe reversed.  

The U.S. and NATO rejected the proposals and instead sent more NATO forces to Eastern Europe and have been heavily arming Ukraine.

In his address on Thursday morning, Putin said the military operation he was launching was a “question of life or death” for Russia, referring to NATO’s expansion east since the late 1990s. He said:

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”

Detailed Explanation of Causes and Aims of Operation

In his 3,350-word speech, Putin laid out in full detail the reasons he decided to take military action and what he hopes it will achieve. The speech is a devastating critique of U.S. policy toward Russia over the past 30 years, which no doubt will fall on deaf ears in Washington. 

Western media is so far ignoring the speech or superficially dismissing it. But it has to be carefully studied if anyone is interested in understanding why Russia launched this military operation. Just calling Putin “Hitler,” as Nancy Pelosi did Wednesday night, won’t do.  

Hitler in fact features in Putin’s address. For instance, addressing the Ukrainian military, Putin said:

“Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.”

He linked the Nazis’ invasion of Russia to NATO’s threat today, saying this time there would be no appeasement:

“Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.

As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so.”

Putin said the existential threat from NATO’s expansion was the main reason for military action:  

“Our biggest concerns and worries, [are] the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.

Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?”

 Putin called the Americans “con-artists” for lying about NATO expansion. He referred to:

“promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics.”

Putin said Russia had long wanted to cooperate with the West. “Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way,” he said. 

Cold War Triumphalism & Its Consequences

Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union had led to a redivision of the world and a change to international law and norms.  New rules were needed but instead of achieving this

“professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states … we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves.”

Putin then said this “absolutism,” with the Soviet Union no longer as a barrier, led to unchecked U.S. aggression, starting with NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and U.S. involvement in Syria. Russia has been taking note of the destruction Washington has wrought, even as it seems whitewashed from American minds.

“First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law. 

Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.

A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.

But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq. 

It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism. 

Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism.”

Putin said over the past days “NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.”

Ukraine, he said, had essentially become a de-facto NATO member posing the greatest threat to Russia. 

“Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.”

A Parting Shot at European Vassals 

Putin also blasted America’s European allies for not having the strength of principle or the moral fiber to stand up to Washington. He said: 

“The United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same ’empire of lies.’”

[Read the full text of the speech.] [Kremlin and other Russian government websites are down after apparent cyber attack. The full text of the speech can be found on Bloomberg News here.]

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/24/why-putin-went-to-war/

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

READ FROM TOP

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

Italy plans to withdraw its SAMP/T surface-based air defense system from Slovakia, according to media reports on Saturday, citing Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The system in question was temporarily deployed to Slovakia last year to replace the US Patriot anti-aircraft system, which the country transferred to Ukraine.

“I received a notice from the Italian government that the Italian air defense system, which they lent us for a year, will be withdrawn from Slovakia, because they need it elsewhere,” Fico was cited as saying, without elaborating on where exactly the system will be transferred next. The prime minister expressed concerns regarding his country’s security once the system is removed, as Slovakia currently has no alternative to protect its air space.

“First, the previous government donated a functional massive Russian S-300 air defense system to Ukraine. Then we had American Patriots here for a while, they were also removed, and now the Italian [system] will also be taken away.”

The wisdom of Slovakia sending military aid to Ukraine at the expense of its own security was also recently questioned by the country’s newly-appointed defense minister, Robert Kalinak. In an interview with the newspaper Standard in January, the official accused the previous government of surrendering key military hardware to Ukraine without making plans to secure replacements, noting that it would likely take years to fix the damage done to national security.

Upon being elected in September last year, Fico, an outspoken critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, halted Slovakia’s military aid to Kiev. In a video statement on social media last month, he also pledged not to send Slovak troops to Ukraine, even if it costs him his premiership.

https://www.rt.com/news/593666-italy-air-defense-slovakia/

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

READ FROM TOP

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

On 25 July 1945, the new U.S. President Harry Truman decided to accept the advice from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and especially from Truman’s personal hero, General Dwight Eisenhower, that if the U.S. Government would not ultimately take over (create the world’s first global empire to include) the entire world, then the Soviet Union would do it; and, so, Truman reversed the foreign policies of his immediate predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had instead been planning, ever since August 1941 (even before Pearl Harbor), that if Hitler would become defeated, then a new democratic global federal democracy amongst nations must be created, a global federal republic of nations, which FDR named “the United Nations” (but which Truman ended up shaping). On that date, 25 July 1945, Truman told the Soviet Union’s leader Joseph Stalin that the U.S. Government would not recognize the legitimacy of its control over the countries that it had conquered from Hitler unless the U.S. Government is granted veto-power over the Soviet Union’s decisions regarding those Governments (both their internal and external affairs); and, in Truman’s letter that night to his wife, Bess, he even gloated over it, by saying:

Russia and Poland have gobbled up a big hunk of Germany and want Britain and us to agree. I have flatly refused. We have unalterably opposed the recognition of police governments in the Germany Axis countries. I told Stalin that until we had free access to those countries and our nationals had their property rights restored, so far as we were concerned there’d never be recognition. He seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer.

Suddenly,  the amicable relationship between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., which had prevailed throughout FDR’s three terms in office, and which had won WW2 for the Allies, and which FDR had been planning to continue afterward, ended in a crash of mutual hostility, because Stalin couldn’t accept Truman’s demand, any more than Truman would have accepted a similar demand from Stalin about the nations that America and its colonies such as the UK had conquered in Europe. Stalin (like FDR would have done if he had survived) made no such demand upon Truman or anyone else, and from that date forward Stalin recognized that unless he could change Truman’s mind on this (which never happened), the U.S. Government would be at war against the Soviet Government. It turned out to be (on the American side at least) a war not actually between capitalism versus communism (as Truman propagandized it to be) but instead between the U.S. against the entire world — to take all of it — as was made clear when U.S. President GHW Bush started, on 24 February 1990, secretly instructing his stooge leaders, such as Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, that their war against the soon-no-longer-communist Russia would secretly continue until it too becomes a part of the U.S. empire.

The current war inside Ukraine started with U.S. President Barack Obama’s coup there in 2014 but had been in preparation ever since the Truman Administration; and here is how that happened, as recounted, first, by the CIA’s historian, and then by a Canadian historian about his own country:

——

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240213140229/ Secret

Fitly Years of the CIA Central Intelligence Agency 1998 DECLASSIFIED AND RELEASED BY CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. SOURCES METHODS EXEMPTION3B2B NAZI WAR CRIMES DISCLOSURE ACT DATE 2004 /2008

“Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists” (S) [by] Kevin C [Conley] Ruffrer 

In April 1945, Adolf Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich faced imminent and catastrophic military defeat. From the west, Allied troops poured into Germany after securing a bridgehead over the Rhine at Remagen. From the east, the Red Army advanced toward Berlin. (U)

Millions of refugees fled before the advancing armies — especially in the east. Germans, Ukrainians, Poles, Balts, Hungarians, Rumanians, and countless others became displaced persons or DPs in military jargon. By the end of the war in May 1945. 13 million DPs were in the American-occupied zone of Germany alone: Allied occupation authorities organized the DPs into camps until they could he repatriated. Many, however, refused to return to their homes in countries the Red Army then controlled. (u) Contact with ethnic groups from the Soviet Union gave American intelligence officials the first direct knowledge of dissent within the USSR. Initially the United States recruited espionage agents from among the emigre groups, but soon expanded its effort to include recruitment In potential covert action and paramilitary operations. Recent wartime experience with resistance groups behind German lines heavily influenced American thinking about the emigres. Americans hoped that if war with the USSR broke out, Eastern and Southern Europeans would become resistance fighters like the French maquis. (II)  As relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated, the Central Intelligence Agency expanded its ties with these emigres. Using the Ukrainians as an example, this bonding illustrates the pitfalls and problems of enlisting disaffected ethnic minorities in an ideological struggle. (U) …

p.27:

Stefan Bandera was not a member of R-33, but was another personality — perhaps the personality of the Ukrainian emigre community — that had to be recognized. According to an OSS report of September 1945, Bandera had earned a fierce reputation for conducting a [pro-Nazi] “reign of terror” during World War II. He led the largest faction of OUN (which split when the war broke out), and Andrey Melnik led the smaller. Both factions participated in terrorist activities against Polish officials [and Jews, and communists, and liberals] before the war, and Ukrainian nationalists allied themselves with their Nazi “liberators” during the first days of Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

p.31:

The Soviets wanted Stefan Bandera [for his demanding that the Nazis grant independence to Ukraine]. American intelligence officials recognized that his arrest would have quick and adverse effects on the future of US operations with the Ukrainians.

p.33:

In December 1947 the National Security Council issued NSC 4-A, which had important consequences for CIA in general and the emigre programs in particular. NSC 4-A gave the DC1 responsibility for conducting covert psychological operations. This meant that CIA could now take the offensive in ways not possible previously. (u)

Before NSC 4-A the Central Intelligence Group tried unsuccessfully to use emigres to collect intelligence. With the NSC’s directive, the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency could move toward active cooperation with them in other areas of activity. The change resulted in part from CIA’s first attempts to penetrate the Iron Curtain and linked the fate of the Ukrainians (and other Eastern European emigre groups) with the CIA’s efforts. (C)

DCI Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter initially opposed the employment of emigre groups despite the pressure from other federal agencies, including the State Department and the Army. In early March 1948, Frank Wisner, a former OSS officer and a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, proposed that the State-Army-Navy-Air Force

Coordinating Committee (SANACC) form an ad hoc committee to explore the use of Soviet exiles. Under the authority of NSC 4-A, SANACC took up Wisner’s proposal and circulated his paper, “Utilization of Refugees from the Soviet Union in U.S. National Interest,” as SANACC 395 on 17 March 1948. Shortly afterwards, SANACC’s ad hoc committee, comprising members from State, Army, CIA, and other agencies, began considering the paper and its recommendations.’ (U)

Wisner proposed in SANACC 395 to “increase defections among the elite of the Soviet World and to utilize refugees from the Soviet World in the national interests of the U.S.”

p.41:

CIA’s reluctance to use East European and Soviet ethnic minorities as intelligence sources and operatives had waned considerably as the 1940s grew to a close. NSC 4A was one reason: another was the growing fear in Washington that World War III was imminent Although initial attempts to use emigres as sources of foreign intelligence failed. NSC 4A made it clear that CIA could use — and the NSC expected CIA to use — emigres as agents for covert psychological warfare behind the Iron Curtain. CIA reestablished and expanded its contacts with the Ukrainians and others fin- covert action against the Communists and as wartime assets to be used behind Red Army lines as guerrillas, saboteurs, and resistance leaders. CIA continued to cling to these groups long after their immediate utility expired out of the mistaken belief that they were a valuable wartime reserve. (s)

The sometimes brutal war record of many emigre groups became blurred as they became more critical to the CIA. … Hillenkoetter did not deny that many emigres had sided with the Nazis, but did so, he said, less out of “a pro-German or pro-Fascist orientation, but from a strong anti-Soviet bias. In many cases their motivation was primarily nationalistic and patriotic with their espousal of the German cause determined by the national interests.”41 (S)

CIA later informed the Immigration and Naturalization Service that it had concealed Stefan Bandera and other Ukrainians from the Soviets. “Luckily the [Soviet] attempt to locate these anti-Soviet Ukrainians was sabotaged by a few farsighted Americans who warned the persons concerned to go into hiding.” The Agency cited the Ukrainian resistance movement’s struggle against the Soviets and believed that “the main activities of the OUN in Ukraine cannot be considered detrimental to the United States.” By 1951, the Agency excused the illegal activities of OUN’s security branch in the name of Cold War necessity.” (C)

p.43:

CIA’s experience with Ukrainian emigres in the late 1940s illustrates the uncertainties of the Cold War. On the one hand. the Agency was reluctant to utilize these groups because of their own ideological coals and ensuing internal divisiveness. On the other hand. CIA was rightly concerned about Soviet ambitions in western Europe and the Agency expected the imminent outbreak of war. The Ukrainians, despite their  disadvantages. offered a tool to combat Soviet expansionism. (U)

——

——

That CIA account about “emigres” was actually about only pro-Nazi ones, because, as the following makes clear, the U.S., and British, and Canadian, Governments, were working ONLY with those, and actually suppressed the anti-Nazi ones (so, the following shows false the CIA’s pretense to have been backing “emigres” instead of “Nazi emigres” — such as Ruffrer’s allegation that the pro-Nazi “Stefan Bandera was not a member of R-33, but was another personality — perhaps the personality of the Ukrainian emigre community — that had to be recognized”):

“To Crush Left-Wing Organizing, Canada Embraced Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators”

21 December 2023, BY WILLIAM GILLIES

In September, Canada’s parliament ignited controversy when it celebrated Yaroslav Hunka, a ninety-eight-year-old World War II Nazi collaborator. The incident has brought renewed focus to the issue of war criminals who immigrated to the country after 1945. The primary source of outrage has rightly centered on how someone like Hunka, who voluntarily served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), gained entry into Canada, and why the government never deported or prosecuted suspected war criminals. Even a desultory 1980s investigation into the matter of Nazi immigrants is still mostly sealed from the public, despite identifying dozens of suspected war criminals living freely in Canada — most of whom are now likely all dead.

However, media coverage has largely failed to engage with the question of why Canada let people like Hunka immigrate, resulting in the current political controversy lacking essential historical context. There have been some exceptions, such as pieces in these pages that have pointed out that there is a troubling history that Canada must reckon with, and correctly suggested that this immigration of war criminals was tied to anti-communism. It is important to delve further into this history, as it reveals a deliberate effort by the Canadian state to dismantle political radicalism and tame labor militancy in the postwar period.

Immigrants like Hunka were granted entry specifically because their collaborationist pasts made them useful in crushing left-wing organizing in Ukrainian Canadian communities. Collaborators assumed control of community organizations, some of which were transferred to them by the federal government, having seized them from socialist groups during the war. The process was often quite violent, with mob violence intimidating leftists, fascists serving as strikebreakers in mining towns, and a Ukrainian labor temple being attacked with a bomb during a concert. All of these actions were condoned by the Canadian state in the name of anti-communism.

Ukrainian Labor Temples and “Hall Socialism”

Contrary to the present existence of Ukrainian Nazi collaborator monuments in Canada, there was once a robust Ukrainian Canadian left. Organized around the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), it played a pivotal role in various chapters of Canadian labor history, often adopting radical stances. The ULFTA operated hundreds of “labor temples” across the country that nurtured a political movement often called “hall socialism.” Labor temples hosted political rallies, contained lending libraries, published newspapers, supported Ukrainian immigrants, sponsored cultural activities, and provided a venue for collective socialization. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the finest still-existing labor temple was completed in 1919, just in time to serve as the headquarters of the city’s general strike that same year.

Between the world wars, the Canadian government feared Ukrainian Canadian radicalism and its connections to communist agitation. Ukrainians were enormously overrepresented in the Communist Party of Canada, which even had a Ukrainian language section. The ULFTA was formally affiliated with the party and helped organize Winnipeg’s large Ukrainian Canadian working class to elect communists like Bill Kardash from the 1930s to the 1950s. In contrast, Ukrainian nationalists in Canada were marginal. They expressed admiration for Hitler and denounced communist politicians as the triumph of the “Bolshevik-Jewish clique.” In 1934, they published a Ukrainian edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. …

[After WW2]

In 1945, the surrendered 14th SS Division was held at a POW camp in Rimini, Italy, while the Western Allies decided what to do with them. The Soviets wanted them repatriated to face consequences for collaboration, but the onset of the Cold War altered the political landscape. Former enemy collaborators, such as Ukrainians who had served in the 14th SS Division, were reconsidered [by the Governments in U.S., UK, and Canada] as potential allies against Soviet communism.

By June 1947, displaced persons registered as ethnic Ukrainian totaled 106,549. Initially, the Canadian government showed limited interest in admitting more Ukrainians, reflecting a long-standing bias against non-Western European immigrants. Furthermore, Canadian law prohibited the acceptance of former combatants who had voluntarily served in the German armed forces. However, much of the screening was conducted by British major Denis Hills, a self-described fascist who instructed collaborators on how to avoid investigation. The British exonerated the Galicia Division and transferred many of them to Britain to fill labor shortages in agriculture.

The UCC lobbied the Canadian government to accept Ukrainian displaced persons and emphasized their anti-communist potential. Against the backdrop of a booming labor market in Canada, these Ukrainians were portrayed as disciplined workers opposed to any sort of union radicalism. They were positively characterized as capable of filling vacancies in mining and forestry, where they could break up left-wing Ukrainian Canadian organizations.

Starting in 1947, this lobbying began to yield results, especially as the British government pressured Canada to accept them. In 1950, the immigration ban on Ukrainians who served in the SS was lifted, thanks to UCC advocacy that claimed they were simply soldiers who had fought against communism.

Many Ukrainian Canadians and Jewish groups opposed the admission of Nazi collaborators. The Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (AUUC), created in 1946 as the successor to the ULFTA, lobbied against the move. While supporting the immigration of Ukrainian refugees to Canada, they argued for thorough screening of their wartime activities. They were largely ignored.

By January 1952, official figures indicated that twenty-six thousand Ukrainian displaced persons had been accepted. However, later historical research suggests that official figures undercounted, and that the actual number could have been as high as fifty thousand, with half originating from western Ukraine, the heartland of the nationalist movement. Approximately 3 percent were veterans of the 14th SS Division, about 1,500 people, although some sources cite figures as high as two thousand. Additionally, there were other nationalists who collaborated in less formal ways than joining the SS, but were still active participants in the Holocaust.

Canada’s admittance of Ukrainian collaborators after 1945 was not a failure to properly screen immigrants, but an intentional policy decision. Canada did not care what many of these people were accused of doing in eastern Europe. The primary consideration was their usefulness in domestic anti-communism.

Expunging the Reds

On October 8, 1950, a bomb went off during a concert at the Central Ukrainian Labor Temple on Bathurst Street in Toronto. Eleven people were injured, and the explosion leveled part of the building. Authorities offered a $1,500 reward for information, but no one was ever caught. The long-standing suspicion is that Ukrainian nationalists were responsible, as this attack aligned with a pattern of violence directed against the Ukrainian Canadian left during the 1950s. Ukrainian labor temples and the broader labor movement were central to the postwar struggle between Ukrainian fascist emigres and the Ukrainian Canadian Left.

Soon after arriving in Canada in the late 1940s, Ukrainian nationalist immigrants organized to target labor temples and disrupt meetings. In December 1948 in Val-d’or, Quebec, a group of them attacked a temple hosting a speaker discussing the Soviet Union. Armed with sticks, stones, and bottles they invaded the event to attack the speaker but were repulsed and thrown out. Unable to kidnap the speaker, they split up into smaller groups to stake out the homes of suspected communists.

In the immediate postwar years, it became clear that an independent Ukraine was unlikely. Consequently, attacking leftists in the Ukrainian Canadian community became a sort of consolation prize. The Canadian state was to some extent pleased with this change of focus by the nationalists, and tacitly approved of such attacks.

Official anti-communist sentiment was coupled with the need for more workers in Canada’s booming postwar economy. Ukrainian displaced persons, as a condition for immigration, often entered into work contracts binding them to an employer, typically in resource extraction towns in the north of Ontario or Quebec. Mining company agents visited refugee camps in Europe, screening prospective employees for anti-communist beliefs, and then recruited them to relocate to Canada. They often arrived in places that had a preexisting Ukrainian Canadian left.

Initially the AUUC tried to organize the new immigrants, but this was ineffective. In December 1947, several dozen Ukrainian displaced persons took a train to Timmins, Ontario, to start work in a gold mine. Stopping in North Bay, Ontario (where Hunka currently resides), they were greeted by communist organizers at the station who sought to explain the importance of unionization. In response, the organizers were severely beaten and thrown off the train — an event celebrated by the local press.

As the work contracts for the first wave of nationalist emigres expired, they moved into urban areas, leading to an escalation in attacks on the AUUC. Simultaneously, a fresh wave of Ukrainian displaced persons were admitted into Canada in the early 1950s after the removal of the ban on the immigration of collaborators. In Winnipeg, Toronto, and Edmonton, nationalists would attend labor temple events with the intention of disrupting and attacking. This ranged from heckling to shut down a speaker to physical assaults on attendees and organizers, property vandalism, and even following attendees home.

Police investigations into the attacks were largely lackluster, often attributing blame to the AUUC for somehow instigating them. In Dec 1949, a crowd of two hundred nationalists surrounded a labor temple event in Timmins, Ontario. They were denied entry, but refused to leave, shouting and banging on the door. When the police arrived, they concluded that nothing criminal had occurred, and then drove off. Emboldened, the nationalists broke inside and started beating men, women, and children, sending several people to hospital in serious condition. The local police returned but simply stood and watched. Eventually, one nationalist was charged with assault, but the prosecution and the defense colluded to acquit him.

The October 1950 bombing of a Toronto labor temple brought broader public attention to the conflict within the Ukrainian Canadian community. The AUUC accused Galicia Division veterans of the attack and blamed the Canadian government for failing to screen them during immigration. The RCMP investigation into the bombing swiftly eliminated nationalists as suspects, even when lacking alibis and possessing obvious motive. Law enforcement also entertained nationalist claims that the bombing was a false-flag operation carried out by the communists to garner public sympathy.

The investigation failed to pursue many significant leads, and by early 1951, the case was closed without ever identifying a potential suspect. Instead, the RCMP invested its effort into creating lists of anyone who wrote to the government about the bombing and conducted surveillance on victims of the attack. While it is likely that the bombing was perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists, the intentionally poor investigation by the RCMP renders it impossible to establish with certainty.

Following the bombing, overt violence against Ukrainian Canadian leftists declined by the mid-1950s. This decline was, in large part, due to its effectiveness in intimidating AUUC supporters from attending events and organizing. Additionally, the far-right nationalists had become increasingly integrated into mainstream Ukrainian Canadian organizations by this point, affording them the legal means to expunge the reds in the community. This alignment with the broader Red Scare, which squashed left radicalism in Canada, further contributed to the decline of the AUUC.

In 1945 the AUUC welcomed 2,579 new members, but by 1969 that figure dwindled to eighty-four annually. The number of temples collapsed to forty-three by 1973. By the late 1960s, both the membership and leadership was aging, while young recruits were scarce.

Enduring Historical Revisionism

By the 1970s the nationalists had established domination over the Ukrainian Canadian experience. This framework excluded diverse points of view, such as labor radicalism, and replaced it with a monolithic identity built on a conservative nationalism. This era coincided with the fashioning of Canada’s official multiculturalism, in which both the federal and provincial governments aimed to celebrate diverse ethnic communities.

Under the fig leaf of celebrating ethnic heritage, statues of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, such as Roman Shukhevych in Edmonton, began to be erected at this time, often with government money. Having extensively researched postwar violence in the Ukrainian Canadian community, the historian Kassandra Luciuk argues that this was a deliberate project of the Canadian state, intended to marginalize leftists. It left no room for other ideas of “Ukrainianness” other than one tightly wound with anti-communist nationalism.

The presence of Nazi monuments in Canada is symptomatic of this hegemony, visibly illustrating the historical revisionism the Ukrainian nationalists have successfully imposed. These monuments not only celebrate individuals and organizations that took part in war crimes during World War II, but also represent a triumph over left-wing opposition in the Ukrainian Canadian community. This historical revisionism has become so prevalent that even a mainstream politician, such as federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland, regularly extols her Ukrainian grandfather, who happened to run a Nazi collaborationist newspaper recruiting for the 14th SS Division — the same division that Hunka joined.

This revisionism owes its existence to the Canadian state, which used the many tools at its disposal — from the immigration system to the police — to ensure an outcome that has persisted well after its anti-communist purpose faded. Ukrainian Canadian nationalists of course have been active in constructing this revisionism, but they flatter themselves if they believe they could have accomplished it alone.

Understanding the political context of the Hunka affair requires delving into this chapter of Canadian history. It sheds light on how a small minority of far-right immigrants, with state backing, gained substantial influence in Ukrainian Canadian communities, and shaped Canadian policy toward Ukraine. Hunka’s celebration was not a result of historical ignorance, but rather stemmed from active historical revisionism that has sought to recast collaborators as heroes and render invisible Ukrainian Canadian socialist movements.

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And this is how it came to be that the pro-Nazi Ukrainians in Canada have been organized and effectively represented while the others (the non-Nazi Ukrainians) were suppressed; and, above all, how it came to be the case that America’s armaments-manufacturers and their NATO have thrivedwhile coup-after-coup and invasion-after-invasion have continued to expand the U.S. empire up till the present moment.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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