Das Albtraumszenario für Macron könnte nun zu wochenlangem politischem Stillstand führen, da er und seine Verbündeten versuchen, Wahlbündnisse mit anderen Parteien zu schließen, um die für eine effektive Regierung erforderliche Arbeitsmehrheit zu erlangen.
Von Redaktion
In Frankreich drohen politischer Stillstand und Stagnation, nachdem die Wähler in der zweiten Runde der Parlamentswahlen der kürzlich wiedergewählten Partei von Präsident Macron die absolute Mehrheit verweigert haben. Erste Hochrechnungen deuten auf ein Parlament mit erheblichen Zugewinnen für Parteien sowohl auf der linken als auch auf der rechten Seite des politischen Spektrums hin.
Macrons Partei Ensemble wird weiterhin die größte Partei in der französischen Nationalversammlung bleiben und eine relative Mehrheit erlangen, aber der französische Präsident scheint die für eine Regierungsmehrheit erforderlichen 289 Sitze bei weitem nicht erreicht zu haben.
Nach den fast endgültigen Ergebnissen erhielt Macrons Koalition Ensemble 251 Sitze, während die linke NUPES-Koalition unter Führung des Linksextremisten Jean-Luc Mélenchon 135 Sitze erhielt und die nationalistische Rassemblement National (RN) von Marine Le Pen ihre Sitze im Parlament um 8 auf 88 Sitze erhöhte.
Es wäre das erste Mal seit den 1980er Jahren, dass ein französischer Präsident nicht über die erforderliche Regierungsmehrheit verfügt, um Gesetze mit Leichtigkeit durchzusetzen, was Macrons wichtigste Wahlkampfthemen wie seine umstrittenen Rentenreformen in Frage stellt.
Die Ergebnisse seien “weit von dem entfernt, was wir uns erhofft hatten”, sagte Haushaltsminister Gabriel Attal gegenüber TF1, während Justizminister Éric Dupond-Moretti im Nachrichtensender BFM sagte: “Wir sind an erster Stelle: “Wir sind auf dem ersten Platz, aber es ist ein erster Platz, der natürlich enttäuschend ist.”
“Diese Situation stellt angesichts der Herausforderungen, denen wir uns stellen müssen, ein Risiko für unser Land dar”, sagte die kürzlich ernannte französische Premierministerin Élisabeth Borne in einer im Fernsehen übertragenen Erklärung und fügte hinzu: “Wir werden ab morgen (Montag) daran arbeiten, eine funktionierende Mehrheit zu bilden.”
Die rechte Präsidentschaftskandidatin Marine Le Pen begrüßte das Wahlergebnis als “Sieg des französischen Volkes” und fügte hinzu: “Heute Abend haben sie ihr Schicksal selbst in die Hand genommen, indem sie Emmanuel Macron zum Präsidenten einer Minderheit gemacht haben. Dieser Sieg gehört euch!”
Der Linksaußen Jean-Luc Mélenchon lobte das noch junge Linksbündnis NUPES und bezeichnete das Wahlergebnis als “Niederlage” für Präsident Macron und seine Verbündeten. “Wir haben unser politisches Ziel erreicht … den Präsidenten zu stürzen, der so arrogant den Arm des Landes verdreht, der für wer weiß was gewählt wurde”, sagte er.
Das Alptraumszenario für Macron könnte nun zu einem wochenlangen politischen Stillstand führen, da er und seine Verbündeten versuchen, Wahlpakte mit anderen Parteien zu schließen, um die für eine effektive Regierung erforderliche Arbeitsmehrheit zu erlangen.
Die Europäische Zentralbank hat diese Woche ein Instrument eingeführt, um den südlichen Staaten mit steigenden Schulden zu helfen. Analysten bezweifeln einen Erfolg.
von Redaktion
Der neue Plan zur Wiederanlage von Anleihen, den die Europäische Zentralbank (EZB) Anfang der Woche eingeführt hat, um verschuldeten EU-Staaten zu helfen, wird wahrscheinlich nicht funktionieren, berichten verschiedene Medien unter Berufung auf Analysten.
Die EZB hat diesen Plan ausgearbeitet, um den südlichen EU-Ländern, den am stärksten verschuldeten Ländern der Union, bei ihren wachsenden Verpflichtungen zu helfen. Die Aufsichtsbehörde erklärte, sie werde aus den fällig werdenden Schulden im Rahmen des 1,7 Billionen Euro (1,8 Billionen Dollar) schweren Pandemieprogramms Barmittel an die höher verschuldeten Länder weiterleiten.
Während vor der Ankündigung der Ankauf von EZB-Anleihen durch die Staaten entsprechend den Investitionen jedes einzelnen Landes erfolgte, werden nun Länder mit hoher Verschuldung bevorzugt, wie z. B. Italien mit einer Bruttoverschuldung von rund 150 % des BIP.
Experten halten es jedoch für unwahrscheinlich, dass dieser Schritt zur Lösung der Schuldenkrise beiträgt. Olli Rehn, der finnische Zentralbankchef, erklärte gegenüber Reuters, dass die Maßnahme lediglich dazu beitragen werde, “ungerechtfertigte” Marktbewegungen zu verhindern und den Ländern im Falle wirklich großer Schuldenprobleme nicht helfen werde.
Markus Ferber, ein deutsches Mitglied des Europäischen Parlaments, merkte an, dass die EZB ihren Kompetenzbereich möglicherweise zu weit ausdehnt. “Die Aufgabe der EZB ist es, für Preisstabilität zu sorgen, nicht für günstige Finanzierungsbedingungen… Einige Länder bekommen jetzt einfach die Rechnung für eine jahrelange unverantwortliche Finanzpolitik”, sagte er der Nachrichtenagentur.
Nach Ansicht des Finanzanalysten Richard Cookson besteht das Hauptziel einer Zentralbank zwar darin, die Inflation niedrig zu halten, doch die europäische Regulierungsbehörde scheint ein anderes Ziel zu verfolgen – nämlich die schwächsten EU-Mitglieder davon abzuhalten, “die Währungsunion zu verlassen”. “Die EZB hat sich selbst in eine unmögliche Lage gebracht… In den letzten 10 Jahren wurde die Geldpolitik nicht auf die Inflation ausgerichtet, sondern darauf, die schwächsten Mitglieder davon abzuhalten, die Währungsunion zu verlassen. Offen gesagt, ist sie nicht länger eine Zentralbank mit Inflationszielen”, schrieb Cookson in einem Artikel in Bloomberg.
Er führte die steigende Inflation in den meisten EU-Staaten als Beispiel für die gescheiterte Politik der EZB an und sagte, dass selbst die kürzlich angekündigte Anhebung des Leitzinses um 0,25 %, die erste derartige Maßnahme seit 11 Jahren, kaum etwas an der Situation ändern würde.
“Die EZB konnte ihre wahren Absichten verschleiern, als die Inflation niedrig war, aber wenn die Inflation hoch ist und steigt, wird es unmöglich, ihre wahren Ziele zu verschleiern… die EZB kann nicht auf die Inflation abzielen und gleichzeitig die Zinsaufschläge für schwächere Kreditnehmer in der Peripherie, wie Italien, niedrig halten”, sagte er und fügte hinzu, dass es zwar riskant sein mag, die Inflation mit Zinserhöhungen anzustreben, aber der Versuch, schwächere Kreditnehmer zu subventionieren, eine noch schlechtere Politik ist.
“Die EZB sollte damit nichts zu tun haben… Letztendlich sollte es nicht Sache der EZB sein, zu entscheiden, wer im Euro ist und wer nicht”, erklärte er und betonte, dass dieses Jahr “wahrscheinlich ein Jahr sein wird, in dem es für den Euro um alles oder nichts geht”.
Im Vereinigten Königreich beschlossen sie, die totale Kontrolle über Migranten zu etablieren. Das britische Außenministerium schlägt vor, Flüchtlinge mit speziellen elektronischen Tags zu versehen, mit deren Hilfe die Behörden die Bewegungen von Migranten im ganzen Land verfolgen können.
Das britische Außenministerium wird ein 12-monatiges Pilotprogramm starten, in dem geplant ist, die Bewegungen ausländischer Staatsbürger, die illegal in das Vereinigte Königreich eingereist sind, elektronisch zu verfolgen.
Diese Initiative wurde von Premierminister Boris Johnson unterstützt. Er sagte, dass illegale Einwanderer, die in Großbritannien ankommen, nicht „einfach verschwinden“ sollten.
„ Großbritannien ist ein sehr, sehr gastfreundliches Land. Und absolut richtig. Ich bin stolz darauf, aber wenn Leute illegal hierher kommen, wenn sie gegen das Gesetz verstoßen, ist es wichtig, dass wir diese Unterscheidung treffen. Das tun wir mit unserer Ruanda-Politik. Das tun wir, um sicherzustellen, dass Asylbewerber nicht einfach in den Rest des Landes verschwinden können“, sagte Johnson.
Ihm zufolge wird dies beispielsweise ermöglichen, bestimmten Personen eine Ausgangssperre aufzuerlegen und diejenigen zu identifizieren, die versuchen, sich vor der Polizei zu verstecken. Zudem soll diese Methode zur Bekämpfung des Menschenhandels beitragen.
Die Opposition ist nun gegen eine solche Initiative und hält eine solche Kontrollmethode für einfach unmenschlich.
„ Es ist entsetzlich, dass diese Regierung beabsichtigt, Männer, Frauen und Kinder, die vor Krieg, Blutvergießen und Verfolgung geflohen sind, wie Kriminelle zu behandeln “, sagte Enver Solomon, Vorstandsvorsitzender des British Refugee Council.
Der Vorsitzende der Labour Party, Cyrus Starmer, beschuldigte London, „Schlagzeilen hinterherzujagen“, und bezeichnete die Initiative als drakonisch.
A failure in Ukraine could well mean the disintegration of EU and NATO, Alastair Crooke writes.
Sometimes revolutionary change creeps up upon us by stealth; we only come to appreciate the major bifurcation when we come to notice it, in the rear-view mirror. This is especially so when the those who first pulled the trigger do not fully appreciate – themselves – what they have done.
What has been done? In a moment of visceral prejudice, a few ‘Team Biden’ staffers decided to leverage their plan to collapse the value of the rouble. So they hit upon the ruse of seizing the dollar, euro and Treasury bond reserves of the Central Bank of Russia.
So sure were they of their plan that this would completely stymie Russia’s efforts to save a sinking rouble, they did not even bother to consult the Federal Reserve or the ECB. The latter said so publicly and disagreed with the action taken.
What followed was the inadvertent launching of the western financial system into its gradual demise. The Russo-phobic Washington ‘hawks’ stupidly picked a fight with the one country – Russia – that has the commodities needed to run the world, and to trigger the shift to a different monetary system.
Will this monetary event change the geo-political dynamic too? For sure – it has, already.
By seizing its reserves, Washington in effect was telling Moscow: Dollars are debarred to you; you can buy absolutely nothing with dollars. If that be so, what would be the point of holding dollars? The end to the American and EU move was inevitable: Russia would sell its gas for roubles.
But here was introduced a Machiavellian twist: By playing both sides of the equation: i.e. linking the rouble to gold, and then linking energy payments to the rouble, the Bank of Russia is fundamentally altering the entire working assumptions of the global trade system (i.e. by replacing nominal fiat dollars with a solid commodity-backed, currency).
But note, the Central Bank of Russia did two things of geo-strategic importance: It both added a pricing ‘floor’, and (less noticed), took another one away. The Bank added a floor to the price of gold – by promising to buy gold at a fixed rate.
However, by insisting on payment in its national currency, Russia began to remove the floor imposed by the U.S. in 1971 to the dollar price through the world having to sell their national currencies (thus weakening them) to buy dollars (to pay for energy). In short, though Russian spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Russia would proceed cautiously, the move punctures the structural excess-valuation accorded to the dollar.
Middle Eastern energy producers see clearly where this is going: Russia – by linking the rouble to gold, and energy to rouble payment – is starting a process ultimately of linking the oil price to a gold price. This constitutes the quiet revolution. Gold tentatively becomes the neutral reserve currency, pending the development of a broader one.
This then, is the third ‘taking away’: It starts the severance from U.S. ‘paper-led’, commodity exchanges which the West manipulates to keep a lid on commodity and gold prices. It gives potentially a completely new horizon to OPEC+, for example.
Here is the point: If Treasuries and dollars held at the NY Fed are being shunned, then what would become the natural store of value? Well commodities, of course. Why is this so revolutionary? Because in an era of supply-disruption, food disruption and war, the West no longer will have access to ‘cheap’ commodities.
Maybe, the Team Biden staffers should have taken the trouble to consult the Federal Reserve, for ironically, not only did they spook other foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries and reserve dollars when they seized Russian reserves, but they did it just at the moment when domestic U.S. inflation is spiking sharply, and bonds are being shunned anyway.
After a forty-year run, U.S. Treasuries are today viewed as ‘return-less risks’. (Risky because of fear that inflation will turn bond rates even more negative in real terms. Already the yield on 2-year Treasuries is exploding higher. But if the Fed seriously wants to combat inflation, interest rates must go a lot higher.)
As one might expect, the run to commodities (for all these reasons: threat of war, supply disruption, Russia sanctions) has sent commodity prices ‘shooting the moon’. Elevated commodity prices impact all other prices and impinge everywhere – but nowhere more so than the U.S., where a top-heavy financialised construct rests upon a tiny base of commodity collateral. And where the Administration is caught between the Scylla of fearful inflation and Charybdis of a market crash if interest rates are hiked high.
Can this trajectory of economic crisis and declining western relevance – presaged by the shifting global monetary order; of threatening hyper-inflation; of food shortages; empty shelves; inflation-led poverty; spiking heating and gasoline costs – all be reversed via ‘a U.S. win’ in the Ukraine conflict?
What ‘Bucha’ tells us is that the West is in ‘an all or nothing’ heated frenzy to prove it can win this war. A failure in Ukraine could well mean the disintegration of EU and NATO. The patch-work cohesion within these alliances will not survive the trauma of defeat. And ‘Bucha’ says to us that West is ready to go for a ‘win’ in an imaginary war, even at the expense of strategic loss on the ground in Ukraine.
The desperation in the West is revealed too, in Europe’s mimicking of the Ouroboros (the ancient symbol of a serpent devouring its own tail and eating itself alive): By deliberately eschewing cheaper Russian commodities, Brussels is courting an inflationary spiral running out of control, and of Europe’s relegation to an economic backwater as its manufacturing base is rendered wholly uncompetitive due to high energy costs.
The president of the U.S. Atlantic Council, an outspoken “ideologue of unipolarity”, Frederick Kempe, wrote last week, “a Ukrainian victory — with a strong, united West behind it — would force a rethink about U.S. commitment and competence and shift the trajectory of declining transatlantic influence and relevance … [T]he question is not what the new world order would be, but rather if the U.S. and its allies can, through Ukraine, reverse the erosion of the past century’s gains – as a first step toward establishing the first truly ‘global’ world order” [emphasis added].
The ultimate salience of Ukraine is that the world (beyond narrowly West Europe and the U.S.), is watching intently. For the most part, it pointedly resists joining in condemnations of Russia. One token of this political re-set is the cold shoulder given to Biden by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both have refused to welcome a Biden visit, or even take his phone calls, whilst also declining to stop working closely with Russia on oil production levels and pricing.
Somehow, the geo-political ‘plates’ are already shifted. One regional leader summed it up succinctly: In the wake of Russia’s rouble initiative, ‘We no longer fear sanctions; We’ve seen other countries survive’.
The birth of Ukrainian Nationalism as it is celebrated today has its origins in the 20th century. However, there are a few important historical highlights that should be known beforehand.
In part 1 of this series Fact Checking the Fact Checkers, the question was posed “why does Ukraine seem to have so many Nazis nowadays?” In that paper we were led to the further question “is the United States and possibly NATO involved in the funding, training and political support of neo-Nazism in Ukraine and if so, for what purpose?” It was concluded that in order to answer such questions fully, we would have to look at the historical root of Ukrainian nationalism and its relationship with U.S. Intelligence and NATO post-WWII. It is here that we will resume.
The Historical Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism
The birth of Ukrainian Nationalism as it is celebrated today has its origins in the 20th century. However, there are a few important historical highlights that should be known beforehand.
Kievan Rus’ was a federation in Eastern-Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century and was made up of a variety of peoples including East Slavic, Baltic and Finnic, and was ruled by the Rurik dynasty.
Above image: The principalities of the later Kievan Rus’ (after the death of Yaroslav I in 1054). Source Wikipedia.
Today’s Belarus, Russia and Ukraine all recognize the people of Kievan Rus’ as their cultural ancestors.
Kievan Rus’ would fall during the Mongol invasion of the 1240s, however, different branches of the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule parts of Rus’ under the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia (modern-day Ukraine and Belarus), the Novgorod Republic (overlapping with modern-day Finland and Russia) and Vladimir-Suzdal (regarded as the cradle of the Great Russian language and nationality which evolved into the Grand Duchy of Moscow).
The Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia was under the vassalage of the Golden Horde during the 14th century, which was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate originating as the northwestern section of the Mongol Empire.
After the poisoning of Yuri II Boleslav, King of Galicia-Volhynia in 1340, civil war ensued along with a power struggle for control over the region between Lithuania, Poland and its ally Hungary. Several wars would be fought from 1340-1392 known as the Galicia-Volhynia wars.
In 1349, the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia was conquered and incorporated into Poland.
In 1569 the Union of Lublin took place, joining the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which ruled as a large and major power for over 200 years.
From 1648-1657 the Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack-Polish War took place in the eastern territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine.
Under the command of Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local Ukrainian peasantry, fought against Polish domination and against the Commonwealth forces; which was followed by the massacre of Polish-Lithuanian townsfolk, the Roman Catholic clergy and the Jews.
Khmelnytsky to this day is a major heroic figure in the Ukrainian nationalist history.
By 1772, the once powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had too far declined to further govern itself and went through three partitions, conducted by the Habsburg Monarchy, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire.
From the first partition of Poland in 1772, the name “Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria” was granted to the Habsburg Monarchy (Austrian Empire, which later became the Austria-Hungarian Empire in 1867). Most of Volhynia would go to the Russian Empire in 1795.
Above image: Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (often referred to just as Poland) in 1772, 1793 and 1795.
By 1914, Europe would be dragged into WWI. In March 1918, after two months of negotiations with the Central Powers (the German, Austria-Hungary, Bulgarian, and Ottoman Empire), the new Bolshevik government of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ceding claims on Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as the condition for peace (Note: the Bolshevik Revolution began in March 1917). WWI would officially end on November 11th, 1918.
As a result of the treaty, eleven nations became “independent” in eastern Europe and western Asia, Ukraine was among these nations. In reality, what this meant was that they were to become vassal states to Germany with political and economic dependencies. However, when Germany lost the war, the treaty was annulled.
With Germany out of the picture and the dissolution of both the Austria-Hungary and Russian Empire; Poland and Ukraine found themselves in a position to establish their independence.
During the Habsburg’s rule, due to their leniency toward national minorities, both Polish and Ukrainian nationalist movements developed, and both were interested in claiming the territory of Galicia for their own. Western Galicia at that point, with the ancient capital of Kraków had a majority Polish population, whereas eastern Galicia made up the heartland of the ancient Galicia-Volhynia and had a majority Ukrainian population.
The Polish-Ukrainian war was fought from November 1918 to July 1919 between the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian forces (consisting of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic and Ukrainian People’s Republic). Poland won and re-occupied Galicia.
The Polish-Soviet war would be fought between February 1919 and March 1921. This coincided with a series of conflicts known as the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921) which fought to form a Ukrainian republic.
By 1922, Ukraine was divided between the Bolshevik Ukrainian SSR, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. The Second Polish Republic reclaimed Lviv, along with Galicia and most of Volhynia, the rest of Volhynia became part of the Ukrainian SSR.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded in 1929 in East Galicia (located in Poland at the time) and called for an independent and ethnically homogenous Ukraine.
From the beginning, the OUN had tensions between the young radical Galician students and the older military veteran leadership (who grew up in the more lenient Austria-Hungary Empire). The younger generation had only known oppression under the new Polish rule and underground warfare. As a result, the younger faction tended to be more impulsive, violent and ruthless.
During this period, Polish persecution of Ukrainians increased and many Ukrainians, especially the youth (who felt they had no future) lost faith in traditional legal approaches, in their elders and in western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine.
The OUN assassinated Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Pieracki in 1934. Among those tried and convicted in 1936 for Pieracki’s murder, were OUN’s Stefan Bandera and Mykola Lebed. Both escaped when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939.
Support for the OUN increased as Polish persecution of Ukrainians continued. By the beginning of WWII, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and many times that number in sympathizers in Galicia.
In 1940 the OUN would split into the OUN-M led by Andriy Melnyk, and OUN-B headed by Stefan Bandera which made up most of the membership in Galicia and consisted mainly of youth.
In August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the non-aggression pact known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing Poland. Eastern Galicia and Volhynia were reunified with Ukraine, under the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In June 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded western Ukraine, there were many western Ukrainians who welcomed the invading Nazis as their “liberators.” It should be noted here that this was not a sentiment predominantly shared by the rest of Ukraine, who fought in or alongside the Russian Red Army against the invading Nazis.
Both the OUN-M and OUN-B would spend much of the war collaborating closely with the Germans. They had no issues with the Nazi ideology for they too believed that a solution was found in returning to a “pure race.” In the case of Ukraine, this pure race consisted of a somewhat romanticised concept of “ethnic Ukrainian,” based on the golden age of Kievan Rus’.
The OUN believed that the “pure ethnic Ukrainian race” were the only true descendants of the royal bloodline of the Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus’. And rather than looking at Belarusians and the Russians as their brothers and sisters who shared the same ancestry, the OUN viewed them more so as “ethnic impostors” so to speak of this pure bloodline.
This can be seen today with Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups attacking Ukrainian ethnic Russians for the past 8 years in Ukraine. An issue that is almost entirely ignored in the West. See part 1 of this series.
It was believed that if the purity of the bloodline were returned, greatness would once again be bestowed on Ukraine (which had never really existed as a fully independent region).
It was for this reason that the OUN and the SS Galician division believed that exterminating tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and any other non-ethnic Ukrainian was justified. The SS Galician division (which had an overlapping membership with the OUN) were notorious for their extreme cruelty, including acts of torture and mutilation on par with Japan’s Unit 731.
To give an idea of the level of support in western Ukraine at the time for a “pure Ukrainian race,” the SS Galician division recruited 80,000 Galician volunteers in one and a half months.
The trident symbol, known also as tryzub, is an important symbol for Ukrainians, since it comes from the days of Kievan Rus’ and its earliest use was during the rule of Vladimir/Volodmyr the Great, about 1,000 years ago.
However, it is also most unfortunately why the OUN chose the tryzub for both their emblems and flag, to signify their desire to return to those glory days, which was thought could only be achieved through ethnic cleansing.
The above OUN-B flag (also used by their paramilitary unit UPA) is known as the “Blood and Soil” flag. The “Blood and Soil” nationalist slogan originated in Nazi Germany to express its ideal of a racially defined national body (blood) united with a settlement area (soil).
It is also why Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups that formed from 1991 onward (after Ukraine’s independence from the USSR), more often than not, also use the tryzub.
Image above shows flags of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine today. In the Azov flag shown above, there is a combination of the Wolfsangel and Black Sun, two symbols associated with the Wehrmacht and SS.
In 1998, the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), at the behest of Congress, launched what became the largest congressionally mandated, single-subject declassification effort in history. As a result, more than 8.5 million pages of records have been opened to the public under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (P.L. 105-246) and the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act (P.L. 106-567). These records include operational files of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA, the FBI and Army intelligence. IWG issued three reports to Congress between 1999 and 2007.
A research group was put together to compile and organise key elements of this massive newly declassified database, the result was the publication of “U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis” in 2005, and “Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War” in 2011, both published by the National Archives, and which will be used as a key reference for the rest of this paper.
Richard Breitman writes in “U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis” (1):
“What must be the earliest history (or mini-history) of the extermination of the Jews in Lvov [Lviv] was prepared on June 5, 1945. The ten-page document pointed out that, as soon as German troops took Lvov, Ukrainians in the city denounced Jews who had cooperated with Soviet authorities during the period of Soviet occupation, 1939-1941. Those Jews were arrested, gathered near the municipal building, and beaten by the Germans and local inhabitants. Later, local inhabitants, especially from the villages nearby, ravaged the Jewish quarter and beat Jews who stood in the way of their robbery. Starting on July 1, a pogrom was organized; German police, soldiers, and local Ukrainians all took part. Many of those arrested were tortured and killed… More than twelve thousand Jews were killed in the first weeks of the German occupation of Lvov.” [emphasis added]
Norman J.W. Goda writes in “U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis” (2):
“In its work to destabilize the Polish state, the OUN’s ties with Germany extended back to 1921. These ties intensified under the Nazi regime as war with Poland drew near. Galicia was allotted to the Soviets under the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, and the Germans welcomed anti-Polish Ukrainian activists into the German-occupied General Government. In 1940 and 1941, in preparation for what would become the eastern campaign, the Germans began to recruit Ukrainians, particularly from Bandera’s wing, as saboteurs, interpreters, and police, and trained them at a camp at Zakopane near Cracow [Kraków]. In the spring of 1941, the Wehrmacht also developed two Ukrainian battalions with the approval of the Banderists, one code named ‘Nightingale’ (Nachtigall) and the other code named ‘Roland’.”
What showcases the youth, and unfortunately ignorance, of the OUN-B, is that the “blood and soil” slogan originating with the Nazis, to which they chose for their own OUN-B flag, was also tied to the belief that the German people were to expand into Eastern Europe, conquering and enslaving the native Slavic and Baltic population via Generalplan Ost. Thus, these Ukrainian nationalists were never considered worthy of sharing in this vision of Nazi Germany but had been regarded as the ultimate slaves for the new German empire from the very beginning.
The OUN-B would learn this lesson the hard way. Eight days after Germany’s invasion of the USSR, on June 30th, 1941, OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of the Ukrainian State in the name of Bandera in Lviv and pledged loyalty to Hitler. In response, the OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned or killed outright by the Gestapo (approx. 1500 persons). The Germans had no intention of even allowing a semi-independent Ukraine to form. Stefan Bandera and his closest deputy Jaroslav Stetsko were initially kept under house arrest and then sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp (a comparatively comfortable confinement to the other concentration camps).
Mykola Lebed was able to slip through the German police net and became the de facto leader of the OUN-B leadership, also known as the Banderists.
On July 16th, 1941, the Germans absorbed Galicia into the General Government. In October 1941, the German Security Police issued a wanted poster with Lebed’s photograph.
The Germans transferred administrative and senior auxiliary police positions in western Ukraine to Melnyk’s group, OUN-M. (3) German security police formations were ordered to arrest and kill Bandera loyalists in western Ukraine for fear that they would rise against German rule, though this order was eventually revoked.
The following year Lebed would become the leader of the underground terror wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which continued in function until 1956.
Image to the left: Stefan Bandera. Image to the right: Mykola Lebed
Eastern Ukrainians later claimed that Mykola Lebed as leader of the OUN-B, took over the UPA by assassinating the original Ukrainian leaders. (4)
The OUN counted among its enemies those that had denied Ukrainian independence (including Poles and Soviets), those in the Ukraine who had failed to assimilate (Jews) and at times when it suited them the Germans. They also regarded the Jews as the primary support and “spreaders” of Bolshevism.
Breitman and Goda write (5):
“When the war turned against the Germans in early 1943, leaders of Bandera’s group believed that the Soviets and Germans would exhaust each other, leaving an independent Ukraine as in 1918. Lebed proposed in April to ‘cleanse the entire revolutionary territory of the Polish population,’ so that a resurgent Polish state would not claim the region as in 1918. Ukrainians serving as auxiliary policemen for the Germans now joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)… On a single day, July 11th, 1943, the UPA attacked some 80 localities killing… 10,000 Poles…The Banderists and UPA also resumed cooperation with the Germans.” [emphasis added]
This was all done under the command of Mykola Lebed.
By 1943, aware that their situation was becoming increasingly insecure, the OUN tried to re-centralise their forces. However, infighting occurred between the OUN-B against the OUN-M and the UPA unit of Taras Bulba-Borovets (of the exiled Ukrainian People’s Republic) who in a letter accused the OUN-B of among other things: banditry, of wanting to establish a one-party state, and of fighting not for the people but in order to rule the people.
In their struggle for dominance in Volhynia, the Banderists (OUN-B) would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for any link to the networks of Bulba-Borovets or Melnyk (OUN-M). (6)
By September 1944 German Army officers in northern Ukraine told their superiors in Foreign Armies East that the UPA was a “natural ally of Germany” and “a valuable aid for the German High Command,” and Himmler himself authorized intensified contacts with UPA. (7)
Norman J.W. Goda writes (8):
“Though UPA propaganda emphasized that organization’s independence from the Germans, the UPA also ordered some young Ukrainians to volunteer for the Ukrainian SS Division “Galicia,” and the rest to fight by guerilla methods. Lebed still hoped for recognition from the Germans.” [emphasis added]
The SS Galicia Division existed from April 1943 to April 15th, 1945. Germany surrendered on May 7th, 1945.
In September 1944, the Germans released Bandera and Stetsko from Sachsenhausen.
The Ukrainian Nationalist Movement Post-WWII: Bought and Paid for by the CIA and served à la Lebed
“[Lebed] is a well known sadist and collaborator of the Germans” (9)
– 1947 Report by The U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC)
In July 1944 Mykola Lebed helped form the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (UHVR), which would claim to represent the Ukrainian nation and served as an underground government in the Carpathian mountains, in opposition to the Ukrainian SSR. The dominant political party in UHVR was the Bandera group and the UPA, which from that point on served as the army of UHVR and continued to fight the Soviets until 1956.
A feud erupted in 1947 between Bandera and Stetsko on one side for an independent Ukraine under a single party led by Bandera himself vs. Lebed and Father Ivan Hrynioch (chief of the UHVR Political Section) who were against Bandera being head of state.
At an August 1948 Congress of the OUN Foreign Section, Bandera (who still controlled 80% of the UHVR) expelled the Hrynioch-Lebed group. He claimed exclusive authority on the Ukrainian national movement and continued terror tactics against anti-Banderist Ukrainian leaders in Western Europe and maneuvered for control of Ukrainian émigré organizations. (10) However, Lebed who had become close with the Americans at that point was recognized, along with Hrynioch as the official UHVR representation abroad.
With the war lost, Lebed adopted a strategy similar to that of Reinhard Gehlen – he contacted the Allies after escaping Rome in 1945 with a trove of names and contacts of anti-Soviets located in western Ukraine and in displaced persons camps in Germany. This made him attractive to the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) despite their above admission in their 1947 report.
In late 1947, Lebed who it was feared would be assassinated by the Soviets in Rome, was smuggled along with his family by the CIC to Munich, Germany in December 1947 for his safety.
Norman J.W. Goda writes (11):
“By late 1947, Lebed had thoroughly sanitized his prewar and wartime activities for American consumption. In his own rendition, he had been a victim of the Poles, the Soviets, and the Germans – he would carry the Gestapo “wanted” poster for the rest of his life to prove his anti-Nazi credentials…He also published a 126-page booklet on the UPA, which chronicled the heroic struggle of Ukrainians against both Nazis and Bolsheviks, while calling for an independent, greater Ukraine that would represent the human ideals of free speech and free faith. The UPA, according to the booklet, never collaborated with the Nazis, nor is there any mention of the slaughter of Galician Jews or Poles in the book. The CIC considered the booklet to be the ‘complete background on the subject.’ The CIC overlooked the fact that under its own watch an OUN Congress held in September 1947 had split, thanks to Lebed’s criticism of the creeping democratization of the OUN. This was overlooked by the CIA which began using Lebed extensively in 1948…In June 1949…the CIA smuggled him [Lebed] into the United States with his wife and daughter under the legal cover of the Displaced Persons Act.” [emphasis added]
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began investigating Lebed and in March 1950 reported to Washington that numerous Ukrainian informants spoke of Lebed’s leading role among the “Bandera terrorists” and that during the war the Bandersists were trained and armed by the Gestapo and responsible for “wholesale murders of Ukrainians, Poles and Jewish [sic]…In all these actions, Lebed was one of the most important leaders.” (12)
In 1951, top INS officials informed the CIA of its findings along with the comment that Lebed would likely face deportation. The CIA responded on October 3, 1951, that all of the charges were false and that the Gestapo “wanted” poster of Lebed proved that he “fought with equal zeal against the Nazis and Bolsheviks.” (13)
INS officials as a result suspended the investigation on Lebed.
In February 1952, the CIA pressed the INS to grant Lebed re-entry papers so that he could leave and re-enter the United States at will. Argyle Mackey, Commissioner of the INS, refused to grant this.
On May 5, 1952, Allen Dulles, then Assistant Director of the CIA wrote a letter to Mackey stating (14):
“In connection with future Agency operations of the first importance, it is urgently necessary that subject [Lebed] be able to travel in Western Europe. Before [he] undertakes such travel, however, this Agency must…assure his re-entry into the United States without investigation or incident which would attract undue attentions to his activities.”
Above image is the original document of the Dulles letter to Mackey on behalf of Mykola Lebed.
What was in West Germany? General Reinhard Gehlen, former chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence, who had been conveniently allowed to re-enter West Germany to establish his Gehlen Organisation which would later form the Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany) in 1956 .
Dulles also wanted Lebed’s legal status changed to that of “permanent resident,” under Section 8 of the CIA Act of 1949. The INS never investigated further after Dulles’ letter and Lebed became a naturalized U.S. citizen in March 1957.
Bandera would also be stationed in West Germany with his family after the war, where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations as well as with British Intelligence. (15) At this point Bandera had become too much of a liability and there were multiple attempts, by both the Americans and British starting in 1953, to get Bandera to step down and for Lebed to represent “the entire Ukrainian liberation movement in the homeland.” Bandera refused and went rogue.
It is said that Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by a KGB agent in Munich, however, one cannot help but note that it was excellent timing and extremely beneficial for the Americans that Bandera was taken out when he was, considering what they had planned for Ukraine’s future…
Among the declassified records are that of Hoover’s FBI, who had a small trove of captured German General Staff documents from 1943 and 1944, which revealed German appreciation of the UPA’s work while mentioning Lebed by name. (16) It appears this was never shared with any agency or institution, other than the CIA, despite requests from the INS during their investigation of Lebed.
Interestingly, Goda writes (17):
“The full extent of his [Lebed’s] activities as ‘Foreign Minister’ [of the UHVR] may never become known, but FBI surveillance of him gives some idea. Partly, Lebed lectured at prestigious universities such as Yale on such topics as biological warfare used by the Soviet government in the Ukraine.” [emphasis added]
The following is an indication as to what Dulles may have been referring to as the urgent need for Lebed’s re-entry into Western Europe.
Breitman and Goda write (18):
“By 1947 some 250,000 Ukrainians were living…in Germany, Austria, and Italy, many of them OUN activists or sympathizers. After 1947 UPA fighters began crossing into the U.S. zone, having reached the border on foot through Czechoslovakia.”
However, Lebed was not only urgently needed in Europe, but also within the United States. Once in the United States, Lebed was selected as the CIA’s chief contact/advisor for AERODYNAMIC.
Breitman and Goda write (19):
“AERODYNAMIC’s first phase involved infiltration into Ukraine and then exfiltration of CIA-trained Ukrainian agents. By January 1950 the CIA’s arm for the collection of secret intelligence (Office of Special Operations, OSO) and its arm for covert operations (Office of Policy Coordination, OPC) participated [author’s note: the Allen Dulles rogue faction of the CIA]…Washington was especially pleased with the high level of UPA training in the Ukraine and its potential for further guerilla actions, and with ‘the extraordinary news that…active resistance to the Soviet regime was spreading steadily eastward, out of the former Polish, Greek Catholic provinces… [However] By 1954 Lebed’s group lost all contact with UHVR. By that time the Soviets subdued both the UHVR and UPA, and the CIA ended the aggressive phase of AERODYNAMIC.
Beginning in 1953 AERODYNAMIC began to operate through a Ukrainian study group under Lebed’s leadership in New York under CIA auspices, which collected Ukrainian literature and history and produced Ukrainian nationalist newspapers, bulletins, radio programming, and books for distribution in the Ukraine. In 1956 this group was formally incorporated as the non-profit Prolog Research and Publishing Association. It allowed the CIA to funnel funds as ostensible private donations without taxable footprints. To avoid nosey New York State authorities, the CIA turned Prolog into a for-profit enterprise called Prolog Research Corporation, which ostensibly received private contracts. Under Hrinioch [Hrynioch], Prolog maintained a Munich office named the Ukrainische Geseelschaft fur Auslandsstudein, EV. Most publications were created here.
Prolog recruited and paid Ukrainian émigré writers who were generally unaware that they worked in a CIA-controlled operation. Only the six top members of the ZP/UHVR were witting agents. Beginning in 1955, leaflets were dropped over Ukraine by air[,] and radio broadcasts titled Nova Ukraina were aired in Athens for Ukrainian consumption. These activities gave way to systematic mailing campaigns to Ukraine through Ukrainian contacts in Poland and émigré contacts in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Spain, Sweden, and elsewhere. The newspaper Suchasna Ukrainia (Ukraine Today), information bulletins, a Ukrainian language journal for intellectuals called Suchasnist (The Present), and other publications were sent to libraries, cultural institutions, administrative offices and private individuals in Ukraine. These activities encouraged Ukrainian nationalism…” [emphasis added]
The CIA bought and paid for a brand of Ukrainian Nationalism à la Lebed. One of the most horrifying butchers of OUN/UPA was given reign to shape the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people around their nationalist identity, an identity as defined by the OUN. It is also shaped historical and cultural interpretation such as to further romanticise the concept of the great Ukrainian race of Volodomyr the Great, encouraging a further sense of superiority and further divide between themselves and Belarussians and Russians.
One CIA analyst judged that, “some form of nationalist feeling continues to exist [in the Ukraine] and…there is an obligation to support it as a cold war weapon.” (20)
Breitman and Goda continue:
“…Prolog [also] influenced [the next] Ukrainian generation…Prolog had become in the words of one senior CIA official, the sole ‘vehicle for CIA’s operations directed at the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and [its] forty million Ukrainian citizens.’
Lebed overtly distanced himself and the Ukrainian nationalist movement from the overt anti-Semitism of his Banderist days…More to protect the name of Ukrainian nationalism, he publicly condemned the ‘provocative libel’ and ‘slanderous statements’ against Jews, adding in a particularly forgetful note that, ‘the Ukrainian people…are opposed to all and any preaching of hatred for other people.’…Former Banderists…now attacked the Soviets for anti-Semitism rather than with it.
Lebed retired in 1975 but remained an adviser and consultant to Prolog and the ZP/UHVR…In the 1980s AERODYNAMIC’s name was changed to QRDYNAMIC and in the 1980s PDDYNAMIC and then QRPLUMB. In 1977 President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski helped to expand the program owing to what he called its ‘impressive dividends’ and the ‘impact on specific audiences in the target area.’ In the 1980s Prolog expanded its operation to reach other Soviet nationalities, and in a supreme irony, these included dissident Soviet Jews. With the USSR teetering on the brink of collapse in 1990, QRPLUMB was terminated with a final payout of $1.75 million. Prolog would continue its activities, but it was on its own financially.
In June 1985 the General Accounting Office mentioned Lebed’s name in a public report on Nazis and collaborators who settled in the United States with help from U.S. intelligence agencies. The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the Department of Justice began investigating Lebed that year. The CIA worried that public scrutiny of Lebed would compromise QRPLUMB and that failure to protect Lebed would trigger outrage in the Ukrainian émigré community. It thus shielded Lebed by denying any connection between Lebed and the Nazis and by arguing that he was a Ukrainian freedom fighter. The truth, of course, was more complicated. As late as 1991 the CIA tried to dissuade OSI from approaching the German, Polish, and Soviet governments for war-related records related to the OUN. OSI eventually gave up the case, unable to procure definitive documents on Lebed.” [emphasis added]
Mykola Lebed died in 1998 under the protection of the CIA in New Jersey at the age of 89. His papers are located at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
And there you have it, the true story of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement in its form today, bought and paid for by the CIA. Thus, it is no coincidence that the OUN ideology is inextricable from the western Ukrainian nationalist identity today, nor that several neo-Nazi groups have formed since 1991 (since Ukraine’s independence from the USSR) who all view the OUN and Stepan Bandera as the Father of their movement.
[Shortly to follow, Part 3 will discuss NATO and the Gehlen Organization and how this ties into the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement and neo-Nazism in Ukraine today.]
The author can be reached at cynthiachung.substack.com
(1) Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda et al. (2005) U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis. National Archives & Cambridge University Press: pg. 65 (2) Ibid. pg. 249 (3) Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda. (2011) Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives: pg. 74 (4) Ibid. pg. 74 (5) Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda. (2011) Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives: pg. 75-76 (6) Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pg. 164 (7) Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda et al. (2005) U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis. National Archives & Cambridge University Press: pg. 250 (8) Ibid pg. 250 (9) Ibid pg. 251 (10) Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda. (2011) Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives: pg. 78 (11) Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda et al. (2005) U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis. National Archives & Cambridge University Press: pg. 251 (12) Ibid. pg. 252 (13) Ibid. pg. 252 (14) Ibid. pg. 253 (15) Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda. (2011) Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives: pg. 81 (16) Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda et al. (2005) U.S. Intelligence and The Nazis. National Archives & Cambridge University Press: pg. 254 (17) Ibid. pg 254 (18) Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda. (2011) Hitler’s Shadow Nazi War Criminals, U. S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives: pg. 76 (19) Ibid. pg 87 (20) Ibid. pg. 89
Britain assisted Australia in setting up a team modelled on the UK’s notorious Information Research Department to run influence operations in the Asia-Pacific in the 1970s, recently declassified files reveal.
By John MCEVOY and Peter CRONAU
In the early 1970s, officials from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) visited Britain for propaganda training. This culminated in the creation of an Australian propaganda unit in 1971, whose operations were focussed on preserving Western power across Asia.
The unit was modelled on the Information Research Department (IRD), which was Britain’s covert Cold War propaganda arm between 1948 and 1977. It was also staffed with two former IRD officials.
The IRD covertly collected and disseminated material to the media to discredit human rights figures, undermine political opponents overseas, help overthrow governments, and promote UK influence and commercial interests around the world.
Details of Australia’s propaganda unit have remained secret until revealed in newly declassified UK Foreign Office files, and shine a renewed light on Anglo-Australian security co-operation during the Cold War.
‘Off with it like a racehorse’
In late 1970, UK Foreign Office official Norman Reddaway visited Canberra for a Four Power Information Meeting on defence and security strategy in the SE Asia, involving Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the US.
Reddaway was a seasoned British propagandist. After serving in the Second World War, he joined the Foreign Office and played a key role in setting up the IRD. In the 1960s, he was assigned as the “coordinator of political warfare” in Indonesia, where Britain was inciting massacres in its effort to overthrow President Sukarno.
By 1970, Reddaway was concerned about a “diminution of British interest” in Asia. Two years earlier, the Harold Wilson government had announced the withdrawal of British troops from major military bases in South East Asia, notably Singapore and Malaysia. Meanwhile, the IRD was undergoing a structural reorganisation, and facing funding and staff losses.
Reddaway thus wanted to plug a gap of declining Western influence in the Asia-Pacific, and recommended that Australia boost its propaganda effort in the region.
Recently declassified, this ‘Secret’ file revealed for the first time that Australia had set up a propaganda unit in the Foreign Affairs Department, modelled on UK’s Information Research Department, to run ‘information operations’ spoon-feeding journalists with material designed to influence events in the Western Pacific and SE Asian region. (File: UK National Archives)
In Canberra, Reddaway asked the Australian foreign affairs chief Keith Waller whether Australia “should contemplate doing some information policy work” of its own – ‘information policy’ being a gentleman’s euphemism for ‘covert propaganda’. He proposed that Australia “send someone to London to look at the work and functions” of the IRD.
In February 1971, the head of the information and cultural affairs branch of DFA, Michael Wilson, was dispatched from Canberra to the UK for two weeks. In London, he held “several long talks” with IRD officials about “setting up an IRD organisation for Australia”.
He was also given “a comprehensive picture of IRD’s present structure, the work of Asia and editorial sections, and IRD activities in SE Asia”.
Wilson was impressed by “the bipartisan nature of the support for IRD” in Britain, as well as “the lack of any political controversy surrounding it”. In Australia, however, he expressed fears that a similar propaganda unit would be used domestically by rival Australian politicians.
In early 1971, in the face of the disastrous Vietnam war and a resurgent Labor Party, head of the Treasury Billy McMahon and Defence Minister Malcolm Fraser were plotters in an internal party coup against their sitting Liberal Party Prime Minister John Gorton, with McMahon emerging as the new Prime Minister.
“If we let Billy loose with an outfit like this,” Wilson told British IRD official K.R. Crook, “he’d be off with it like a racehorse, using it against Fraser and Gorton”. Crook privately noted: “One has an awful fear that he could be right!”. (Indeed, the IRD was frequently used by the British government to produce propaganda against perceived domestic opponents).
Wilson returned home to Australia via Hong Kong, where he secretly met the UK Regional Information Officer and “held several long talks on… setting up an IRD organisation for Australia”. The files note that the senior Australian diplomat in Hong Kong, Roy Barcham, was “not, repeat, not conscious of the purpose of Wilson’s visit to London”.
Whitehall noted after Wilson’s return, that the Australians were expected to set up “a very modest research-and-output section in the DFA to provide a supporting arm for their political interests, and influences, in South East Asia”.
‘That thieves kitchen of CIA stringers and dubious characters’
In May 1971, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Keith Waller informed Whitehall that Australia would “embark on a limited amount of information policy activity” – or propaganda – and said he was “interested in the possibility of recruiting a small number of IRD research and journalist staff”.
The original Department of Foreign Affairs building in Canberra, now known as the John Gorton Building, was the home of Australia’s secret propaganda unit targeting Western Pacific and SE Asian nations. The secret unit was revealed for the first time following declassification of documents from the UK National Archive. (Photo: Dietmar Rabich)
By October 1971, DFA official Noel Ross Smith was selected to be the Principal Research Officer heading up the new secret propaganda unit. Ross Smith had been a journalist with the ABC and Sydney Morning Herald, before joining the Australian News and Information Bureau (ANIB) inside the Department of the Interior, and later served in several Australian embassies.
Ross Smith had been Information Attaché in the Australian embassy in Djakarta from 1962 to 1965, providing contacts and information to Australian reporters and media outlets. His time there had coincided with the period IRD was very active in Indonesia producing propaganda designed to undermine left-leaning President Sukarno.
In November 1971, Ross Smith visited the UK for a six-week attachment to the IRD, based in the Foreign Office at Whitehall in London. The purpose was for him “to learn as much as possible the detail of the [IRD] operations”, covering “projects, sources of information, contacts, production and distribution”.
Ross Smith was thus able to study “how IRD works as an all-purpose unattributable information arm”.
“As it is as much in our interest as in that of the Australians to get their organisation off the ground, we have given Ross Smith all the help we can”, wrote one IRD official, although details of some of the IRD’s covert operations were not handed over.
After his six-week attachment with the IRD, Ross Smith flew to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore for additional guidance on Britain’s propaganda operations across Asia. In Bangkok, he met with British embassy official David McBain, senior Hong Kong Government Information Service journalist Peter Moss, and Australian embassy press attaché Eric Sparke.
They met at the Foreign Correspondents Club at the Oriental Hotel, which McBain described in a file note as “that thieves kitchen of CIA stringers and other dubious characters”.
Australia’s own secret IRD
Australia’s propaganda unit commenced operations in late 1971, and was situated within the Political and Social Research Section (PSR) of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
In June 1973, IRD chief Thomas Barker wrote that “the Australians have for the last two years had a modest counterpart to IRD. Their organisation… was set up in 1971 on the basis of advice requested from, and provided by, IRD”. Its staff included “two former members of IRD”.
“There is an exchange of output, and consultation about this, between the two Departments,” Barker continued.
This document classified Secret, is a file note from the Information Research Department, outlining their understanding of the Australian counterpart. Note that a paragraph is redacted, still being kept secret after 49 years. (File: UK National Archives)
“The two efforts are largely complementary, as theirs concentrate on the South West Pacific area where our coverage is comparatively modest. The Australians are working up distribution of their material in South-East Asia, and beginning to cultivate potential recipients in the UK through Australia House, who have sought our advice”.
With the Australian propaganda unit modelled on the IRD, the “material” distributed would likely have been unattributed research briefs and articles written for newspapers and journals, and the “potential recipients” would have been cooperative journalists writing on the region.
According to Barker, ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and ASIS, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, “appeared to be aware of Mr Ross Smith’s activities…, and I believe [the unit] has access to classified material in the same way as IRD has; but I rather doubt if he yet gets the full range of Australian intelligence output”.
The familiar model
The unit was in operation for at least three years, and it remains unclear from the files when it was eventually shut down.
In October 1974, the British embassy in Canberra reported that Ross Smith had “left the Political and Social Research Section” to take up a position as Consul-General in Lae, Papua New Guinea, as the Australian territory prepared for independence in 1975.
Ross Smith later went on to serve as Australia’s High Commissioner to Nauru and Malta, and is now deceased.
After Ross Smith’s departure from the secret unit, the British embassy in Australia asked that future correspondence from the IRD be addressed to Australian DFA official, Richard Butler, who was at the time Acting Head of the PSR.
Butler told Declassified he had been appointed to the PSR section in 1974 by the department’s then Head of Public Affairs Richard Woolcott, who later served as Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia during its brutal invasion of East Timor in 1975.
Noel Ross Smith, head of the covert propaganda unit in the Dept of Foreign Affairs, from 1971-74; Richard Butler, head of the Political & Social Research Section from 1974-75 that held the propaganda unit; Richard Woolcott, head of the Public Affairs & Cultural Relations Branch, in the Dept of Foreign Affairs, from 1971-75. (Photos: Dept Foreign Affairs and Trade)
Butler said he had been briefed by Woolcott to prepare press materials explaining the government position on East Timor both for other diplomats and for the domestic public. Australia supported Jakarta’s invasion and occupation of East Timor, during which over 180,000 people were killed.
Woolcott, now aged 95, told Declassified he could not recall the unit nor any contact with IRD.
Butler said his work in the Political and Social Research Section (PSR) of Foreign Affairs was usual public information work, focussing on explaining Australian government policy to the public. While he knew of Ross Smith, he says he was unaware of his precise role and hadn’t known about an IRD counterpart in Australia.
While it seems the IRD and its Australian counterpart in the PSR are no more, the role of propaganda in persuading and massaging the public’s perceptions of foreign policy continues.
In Australia, the Defence Force’s psychological operations unit, and in the UK the army’s psychological warfare unit of the 77th Brigade, are just two of the propaganda outfits exposed in recent years running information operations on the domestic public.
The newly released UK files help fill in the gaps in our understanding of the growth of propaganda and disinformation. Australian files on IRD and the PSR unit remain classified.
Der EGMR kann sich nicht beruhigen Widerhallende Entscheidungen des EGMR sind für Russland zu leeren Hüllen geworden
Die letzten Tage waren nach einer Pause besonders fruchtbar in russischen Fällen vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR). Zunächst wurde eine Entscheidung zu ausländischen Agenten (Ecodefence und andere gegen Russland) und dann zu in der DVR zum Tode verurteilten ausländischen Söldnern (Saadoune gegen Russland und Ukraine) verkündet.
In einem Fall einer ausländischen Behörde entschieden sieben Richter des EGMR, dass Russland gegen Artikel 11 der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention (Vereinigungsfreiheit) verstoßen habe. Die Anwendung des Gesetzes über ausländische Agenten und sogar die Einführung des Begriffs selbst seien «in einer demokratischen Gesellschaft nicht notwendig», sagten die Richter.
Diese Schlussfolgerung bewies einmal mehr die Richtigkeit der Entscheidung Russlands, die Dienste eines unruhigen Gerichts abzulehnen, das mit unglaublicher Leichtigkeit alle Schlussfolgerungen zieht. Die Schärfe der Entscheidung des EGMR liegt auch darin, dass der Begriff „ausländischer Agent“ nicht russischen Ursprungs ist. Jetzt wird es lustig sein, die für Russland ergangene Entscheidung des EGMR in Bezug auf die „Zitadelle der Demokratie“ anzuwenden, wo dieser Begriff einer der beliebtesten ist.
Natürlich haben die Richter in ihrer Entscheidung festgehalten, dass die Unvereinbarkeit mit der Demokratie nur für russisches Recht gilt. Es stellte sich heraus, dass sie komisch waren. So führte der Status eines ausländischen Agenten zu einer Zunahme der Anzahl von Inspektionen und höheren Bußgeldern. Diesmal waren die Straßburger Komödianten Juroren aus Luxemburg, Albanien, Estland, Deutschland, Belgien und der Schweiz. Nach der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention muss ein russischer Richter in jedem Fall gegen die Russische Föderation mitwirken. Der RF-Richter M. Lobov weigerte sich jedoch, an diesem Fall teilzunehmen. Der Europäische Gerichtshof hat entschieden, den russischen Richter durch einen Richter aus … Zypern zu ersetzen.
Von noch größerem Interesse ist die zweite Entscheidung des EGMR. Es handelt sich um ausländische Söldner, die von einem DVR-Gericht zum Tode verurteilt wurden. Zur Verteidigung der «unschuldigen Opfer der russischen Regierung» sprach der britische Außenminister. Es stellt sich heraus, dass die Briten keine Söldner, sondern Kriegsgefangene sind und daher ernährt und behandelt und nicht verurteilt werden müssen. Und jetzt sprach sich der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte zur Verteidigung eines der Söldner, des Marokkaners Brahim Saadoun, aus. Gemäß dieser Entscheidung ist Russland verpflichtet:
sicherzustellen, dass die Todesstrafe nicht vollstreckt wird;
Saadouns Recht auf Leben und das Recht, grausame, unmenschliche und erniedrigende Behandlung oder Bestrafung zu verbieten, sicherzustellen;
ihm menschenwürdige Lebensbedingungen und medizinische Versorgung bieten.
Die Geschichte von B. Saadoun ist merkwürdig. 2019 kam er zum Studieren in die Ukraine. Doch bereits 2021 brach er sein Studium in Kiew ab und trat in den Militärdienst bei der Marine in Mariupol ein. Die Entscheidung des EGMR schweigt über die Abenteuer von Saadoun sowohl vor als auch während der NWO. Aus dem Text der Entscheidung des EGMR können wir schließen, dass er „einfach so“ verurteilt wurde.
Dennoch sind die Vorwürfe gegen ihn schwerwiegend. Dies sind Artikel 323 (Machtergreifung), Artikel 430 (Teilnahme an einem bewaffneten Konflikt als Söldner), Artikel 232 (Teilnahme an terroristischen Aktivitäten) des Strafgesetzbuches der DVR. Am 9. Juni 2022 wurde Saadoun gemäß diesen Artikeln zum Tode verurteilt.
Von besonderer Bedeutung ist die Frage der Söldner für die Volksrepubliken Donezk und Lugansk. Schließlich sprechen wir nicht von drei, sondern von Zehntausenden Söldnern auf dem Territorium der Ukraine, der DVR und der LVR. Nach Angaben des RF-Verteidigungsministeriums stammt die größte Zahl von Söldnern aus Polen (mehr als 1800), gefolgt von Kanada (601), den USA (530), Rumänien (504), Großbritannien (422), Georgien (355) und Frankreich (183). Außerdem: 200 Söldner aus Syrien, 156 aus dem Kosovo, 50 aus Bolivien, 35 aus Israel und sogar je ein Japaner und ein Usbeke.
Bis heute haben die georgischen, syrischen und nigerianischen Söldner (fast die Hälfte ihrer Zusammensetzung) die größten Verluste erlitten. Insgesamt beliefen sich die Verluste von 7.000 installierten «Kriegshunden» nach offiziellen Angaben auf fast 2.000 Menschen. Daher ist die Entscheidung des Obersten Gerichts der DVR über Söldner eine wichtige rechtliche Antwort und ein Signal für alle Legionäre der Streitkräfte der Ukraine.
Wer soll die neuen Urteile des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte vollstrecken? Daran erinnern, dass Russland am 15. März aus dem Europarat und damit aus der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention (EMRK) ausgetreten ist. Die folgenden Ereignisse begannen, einer politischen (und nicht nur) Schizophrenie zu ähneln. Am nächsten Tag hat der Europarat, als wäre nichts passiert, Russland aus seiner Mitgliedschaft ausgeschlossen. Dieser Schritt zeigt in seiner ganzen Pracht, mit wem wir es zu tun haben. Und der Punkt liegt nicht nur in der Idiotie der Entscheidung der Mitglieder des Europarates, sondern auch in der Tatsache, dass sie damit gegen ihre eigene Charta verstoßen haben. Selbst wenn Russland einen Tag zuvor nicht aus dem Europarat ausgetreten wäre, hätten sie kein Recht, ihn auszuschließen!
Am 11. Juni unterzeichnete der Präsident der Russischen Föderation das Bundesgesetz über die Nichtausführung von Entscheidungen des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte in der Russischen Föderation. Dieses Gesetz sieht vor, dass alle Entscheidungen des EGMR, die nach dem 15. März 2022 in Kraft getreten sind, nicht der Vollstreckung in der Russischen Föderation unterliegen. Es steht fest, dass die Entscheidungen der Gerichte der Russischen Föderation Vorrang vor den Entscheidungen des EGMR haben. Die russische Gesetzgebung (vor allem die Strafprozessordnung der Russischen Föderation) schließt Bestimmungen aus, nach denen Entscheidungen des EGMR als Gründe für die Aufhebung rechtskräftiger Entscheidungen russischer Gerichte sowie für die Wiederaufnahme des Strafverfahrens anerkannt wurden Verfahren als „neue“ oder „neu entdeckte Umstände“.
Damit sind beide hochkarätigen Entscheidungen des EGMR für Russland zu leeren Hüllen geworden. Russland wird der ersten Entscheidung gemäß dem neuen Bundesgesetz nicht nachkommen. Die zweite steht im Einklang mit internationalem Recht, weil Russland keine Rechtsgrundlage hat, um dem DVR-Gericht zu sagen, was mit den von ihm verurteilten Personen zu tun ist.
Interessanterweise reichte der Söldner B. Saadoun eine Klage beim EGMR gegen zwei Staaten gleichzeitig ein – die Ukraine und Russland. Allerdings gab der EGMR seine „wertvollen Anweisungen“ nur an Russland weiter. Der EGMR bezeichnet in seiner Entscheidung die Volksrepublik Donezk als „sogenannte“. Das Gericht sollte sich jedoch darüber im Klaren sein, dass es sich an die richtige Adresse und mit gebührendem Respekt wenden muss, wenn es seine Entscheidung anhören möchte. Die Volksrepublik Donezk ist weder die Ukraine noch Russland. Und deshalb muss er sich speziell an die DPR und ohne das Präfix „sogenannt“ wenden. Und auch ohne Anführungszeichen bei Bezugnahme auf die Gerichte der DVR, insbesondere den Obersten Gerichtshof der Republik. Dann kann die DPR nach Straßburg antworten und der Aussetzung der Strafvollstreckung zustimmen.
Wenn der EGMR seinen Ton nicht ändert, wird er nur daran erinnert, dass die DPR keine Partei des EMRK ist und nicht an die Entscheidungen des sogenannten Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte gebunden ist. Eine solche Antwort wäre rechtlich einwandfrei. Was Russland betrifft, hat es dem europäischen «Gericht» bereits geantwortet.
Obwohl die Vereinigten Staaten eine große Weltraummacht sind, können amerikanische Raketen ohne russische Triebwerke nicht richtig funktionieren. Diese Tatsache wurde von der chinesischen Ausgabe von Baijiahao geschrieben. PolitRussia präsentiert speziell für seine Leser eine exklusive Nacherzählung der Publikation.
Chinesische Beobachter machten auf den Vorfall vom 12. Juni aufmerksam. Dann war die amerikanische Raketenfirma Astra Space nicht in der Lage, NASA-Satelliten in die Umlaufbahn zu bringen. Die Rakete startete erfolgreich vom Weltraumbahnhof Cape Canaveral, aber die zweite Stufe wurde vorzeitig abgeschaltet. Infolgedessen gingen beide Satelliten verloren.
„Der Verlust von zwei meteorologischen Satelliten ist möglicherweise nicht zu kostspielig, und die Vereinigten Staaten können sich einen solchen Verlust leisten. Aber was für die USA viel beunruhigender ist, ist, dass der Raketenstart erneut misslungen ist“, beschreiben Baijiahao-Analysten die Situation.
Ihrer Meinung nach wird immer deutlicher, dass amerikanische Raketen ohne russische Motoren nicht funktionieren werden, obwohl die Vereinigten Staaten eine Weltraummacht sind. Die amerikanische Industrie in diesem Bereich hat eine ernsthafte Schwäche: den Mangel an Qualitätskraftwerken. Seit den 1990er Jahren kauft Washington RD-180-Motoren aus Russland und versucht, seine eigenen Gegenstücke zu entwickeln. Aber der Endeffekt ihrer Produkte war nicht ideal. Der Preis war viel höher als der des russischen RD-180, außerdem kam es häufig zu Unfällen.
Zuvor hatte auch das bemannte Boeing-Raumschiff während des Starts einen Kraftwerksausfall erlitten, und nur das Umschalten auf ein drittes Triebwerk half, den Absturz zu vermeiden. Obwohl Boeing keine russischen Triebwerke in seinen Flugzeugen verwendete, ist das Beispiel dennoch bedeutsam und spiegelt die aktuelle Situation mit Raketentriebwerken in den Vereinigten Staaten wider.
„Luft- und Raumfahrtexperten glauben, dass das RD-180-Triebwerk bei weitem das beste seiner Art auf der Welt ist und niemand mit ihm mithalten kann. In Bezug auf Qualität, Traktion, Zuverlässigkeit und andere Aspekte hat der RD-180 ähnliche Produkte in jeder Hinsicht übertroffen“, stellen chinesische Analysten fest.
Jetzt werden die legendären RD-180 nicht in die Vereinigten Staaten geliefert: Russland hat ein Verkaufsverbot für die Amerikaner angekündigt und darüber hinaus die Wartung der bereits von den Staaten gekauften Einheiten ausgesetzt. Jetzt hat Washington mehrere Dutzend russische Motoren in Reserve, aber sie werden die Situation nicht retten.
Was den gescheiterten Raketenstart von Astra Space betrifft, so ist der Verlust von zwei kleinen Satelliten für die USA nicht katastrophal. Wenn die Vereinigten Staaten jedoch keinen geeigneten Ersatz für die in Russland hergestellten Antriebssysteme finden, werden ihre Verluste viel größer sein als ein paar Satelliten.
Democracy is easily defined by most, but to America it means any country that subverts its own national interests to those of the U.S.
Henry Kissinger once famously said, “To be an enemy to America can be dangerous, but to be a friend can be lethal.” The aged but far from venerable Kissinger’s words have never been truer than they are today. America has a habit of redefining words to suit its own purposes. What the word “friend” means to America is interpreted differently by other nations. Of course friend is not the only word that means something different to America than it does to everyone else. Democracy is easily defined by most, but to America it means any country that subverts its own national interests to those of the U.S. The recent Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles hosted a number of notable Latin America statesmen. There were however many notable absentees, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the latter two are undeniably democracies but by virtue of their independent government policies they were not welcome at the American-hosted summit. According to America’s twisted version of democracy, only right-wing, neo-liberal, America-friendly countries can qualify as legitimate democratic governments, and by extension “friends.”
The days when America can dictate and bully Latin American nations are over. Though not as intended by the hosts, there was much unity and friendship in evidence at the Summit. The head of Mexico’s socialist Government Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to attend in protest at the exclusion of the three absent nations, a lower-level official was sent in his stead. The heads of state of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador also declined the invitation citing the same reason. This principled and courageous stance came with the understanding that they would be positioning themselves as American enemies, but they did it anyway. After two hundred years under the imperialist Monroe doctrine they will no longer tolerate being considered America’s backyard. The message from Latin America was clear, “we don’t need your version of friendship, and we will take our chances as your enemy.”
Although unstated, one of the main U.S. objectives at the Summit was to dissuade further Latin American engagement with China. The problem for America is that “south of the border” they prefer the Chinese version of friendship. That entails actually listening to the needs of their “friends”, something America is lamentably bad at. All the Latin countries are struggling with burdensome IMF debt and many are seriously close to default. They need investment in their economies and their infrastructure. China offers both without the internal interference in the nations’ domestic affairs. Respect for sovereignty and self-determination is what Latin Americans having been fighting for since the Spanish conquest more than 400 years ago. For the first time in centuries countries can see how that can now be achieved, and China is a big part of that scenario. America only offers co-operation on security, Latin America has security concerns but most of that concern is directed at America. The tone deaf empire needs to understand that Latin America has a new, much better friend.
The message the U.S. got from the Summit was a clear continent-wide rejection of American policies and its attempts to create an anti-China block. We can assume that American officials are getting used to such rejection by now. Attempts to create an anti-China alliance in Asia have also failed miserably, for many of the same reasons. No Asian country sees China as a threat, they see it as a regional leader whose economic miracle has concurrently raised the economies of its neighbours. The U.S. attempts to create security concerns where they don’t exist has gained zero traction among Southeast Asian nations. With the exception of the occupied nations of South Korea and Japan, China’s relationships with its Asian neighbours are excellent. “Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Jaakob said that “When Americans come to Asia they only want to talk about security, we have no pressing security concerns, when Asian nations get together we talk about trade, any problems can be resolved through negotiation and diplomacy”. The main security concern among Asian nations is the talk of the need for an Asian NATO. The recent U.S. attempts to place missiles aimed at China in six Asian countries unsurprisingly found no takers. If America was listening (doubtful), they would have heard that it is neither needed nor wanted in a region that just wants to do business. American friendship in Asia means making any enemy of China, and none consider that worth the price.
Another of America’s enemies, Russia has defied all attempts to destroy its economy and has rebounded to have the world’s strongest currency. The transparent motivations behind the Ukraine conflict have many nations quietly cheering Russia on in their fight against the common enemy, the Empire. The sanctions designed to destroy Russia found little support outside the usual suspects in the NATO clique. With the world facing catastrophic shortages of food, energy and capital it is increasingly Russia and China that countries are turning to for help.
While America’s enemies continue to enjoy much goodwill, how are America’s friends doing? Not so good. By joining in the absurd Anti-China Covid rhetoric spurred by Trump, Australia, Canada and Britain have committed economic suicide by alienating a valuable trade partner, just to please America. American friends in Europe will suffer through horrific food and energy shortages together with rapidly increasing inflation, all largely a result of the Ukraine provocation. Not forgetting the instigation of an unnecessary and dangerous war in their neighbourhood, a war that no one but America (NATO) wanted. And of course the Ukraine itself, goaded into a disastrous war against a much stronger foe, now finds itself facing defeat and destruction. All attempts by the hapless Zelensky at a negotiated peace are blocked by the West. Not while there are some Ukrainians still alive apparently. Despite the encouraging words of his American masters, the disposable Zelensky finds himself very much alone. The once prosperous post-Soviet Ukraine has turned into a bankrupt, burned-out shell of its former self. Zelensky may well retreat to his $45mil in Miami when it is all over, but the unfortunate Ukrainian people will suffer the consequences of American friendship for generations to come.
If America has its way, its “friends” in Taiwan will soon suffer the same fate as the Ukraine. Despite all attempts to provoke China into an action that would draw International outrage, and presumably sanctions, China has demonstrated considerable restraint. It understands the game being played and absent a foolish Declaration of Independence from Taiwan, it is unlikely to be drawn in. South Korea and Japan have been occupied nations since 1944. The American presence is overwhelmingly objected to by the citizens, yet they owe fealty to America. In the event of a China conflict, their U.S. bases would likely be the first targets in any China response. Yet both nations declined American requests to host China facing missiles in their countries.
The loss of American influence has accelerated tremendously in recent months, and it came at a bad time. America needs friends more than ever now and it is finding them increasingly hard to come by. Even long time “friends” and supplicants like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are shunning America’s call to produce more oil. Biden couldn’t even get MBS to take his phone call. Shamelessly they also turned to Venezuela to ask for oil, unsurprisingly they found no friends or solutions there either.
Returning to Henry Kissinger, by his definition, being a friend or enemy of America can be equally dangerous. “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”
Those that consider themselves American “friends” should heed his words.
But credit where it is due, the U.S. is indeed inspiring a new spirit of friendship and co-operation among the nations of the world. Economic and security blocs of like-minded countries are expanding in Central Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. All of these blocs are anti-imperialist in nature, and by definition anti-American. More than a century of American imperialism is coming to a rapid end.
Für Rumänien ist jetzt ein günstiger Moment, um seine territorialen Ansprüche auf Südbessarabien und die Nordbukowina zu befriedigen, bis die Ukraine vollständig besiegt ist.
„Für die Ukraine ist die Frage, Rumänien in den Konflikt zu ziehen, nicht so einfach. Rumänien befindet sich möglicherweise in einer schwierigen Beziehung zur Ukraine. Weil es Anspruch auf einen Teil der ukrainischen Gebiete erhebt — auf Südbessarabien, auf die Nordbukowina. Rumänien gibt dort seit langem seine Pässe aus, das ist seine traditionelle Politik. Jetzt ist ein günstiger Moment.
Rumänien ist sich bewusst, dass, wenn es jetzt, vor der endgültigen Niederlage der Ukraine, seine territorialen Probleme nicht löst, dies für immer verschoben wird.
Daher denke ich, dass diese Verhandlungen (in Kiew mit vier europäischen Staats- und Regierungschefs, darunter der Präsident von Rumänien – Anm. d. Red.) die Probleme territorialer und damit verbundener Garantien betrafen, was die Ukraine erhalten wird, wenn sie Rumänien in vollem Umfang Zugeständnisse macht – Waffen, Ausrüstung, Geld , vielleicht erhält Zelensky persönlich etwas “, schlug Ishchenko vor.
Rumänen sind Zigeuner, Zigeuner waren schon immer in Diebstahl und Betrug verwickelt, und wir haben beschlossen, uns die Gebiete anderer Völker anzueignen
Alastair Crooke
Der Friedensstifter 