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By Alexey Albu
Message to “People Speak Out to Stop Racism, Poverty and World War III” at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, New York, on Jan. 13. Albu is a coordinator of the Ukrainian Marxist movement Borotba (Struggle) and a survivor of the Odessa massacre on May 2, 2014, when neo-Nazis killed 48 people. He was forced into exile and currently lives in Lugansk.
Thank you for the rally against the war with Russia and China, against imperialism and NATO. I am very grateful to you for continuing to tell the truth about what is happening in the Donbass. It is very important for us that the world will know what is happening here.
In the last two months, the shelling of Donetsk, in comparison with the summer, has intensified. The neo-Nazis want us to move our artillery. They want to force us to remove it from those areas where their defense became weak. Therefore, the neo-Nazis deliberately bomb civilians. The military actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are bordering on genocide.
But I am sure that everything will change soon. Good news is already coming that in some areas the defenses of the Ukrainian army have been breached. Our comrades are waiting for good news in the coming months.
Please thank all the participants of the rally from the people of Donbass, from all the anti-fascists of Ukraine, and from Borotba.
No pasarán!
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theculturedmarxist · 2 years
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This article is more than 8 years old.
Washington's role in Ukraine, and its backing for the regime's neo-Nazis, has huge implications for the rest of the world
W
hy do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a "brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis", as if the truth "never happened even while it was happening".
Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy" which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.
In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world's most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – "our" terrorism – are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the US state department noted that, following Nato's campaign in 2011, "Libya has become a terrorist safe haven".
The name of "our" enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory, or merely offering an alternative to US domination. The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification – think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.
Washington's role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the US is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last "buffer state" bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the US and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.
Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington's planned seizure of Russia's historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.
But Nato's military encirclement has accelerated, along with US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained "pariah" role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.
Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend's provocative referendum. These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine's population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither "separatists" nor "rebels", as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.
Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a CIA theme park – run personally by CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of "special units" from the CIA and FBI setting up a "security structure" that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.
A doctor described trying to rescue people, "but I was stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals. One of them pushed me away rudely, promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate. What occurred yesterday didn't even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent." [see footnote]
Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival. When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border, the Kiev junta's defence secretary, Andriy Parubiy – a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party – boasted that attacks on "insurgents" would continue. In Orwellian style, propaganda in the west has inverted this to Moscow "trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation", according to William Hague. His cynicism is matched by Obama's grotesque congratulations to the coup junta on its "remarkable restraint" after the Odessa massacre. The junta, says Obama, is "duly elected". As Henry Kissinger once said: "It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true."
In the US media the Odessa atrocity has been played down as "murky" and a "tragedy" in which "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) attacked "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal damned the victims – "Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says". Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia's "undeclared war". For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.
A popular truism is that "the world changed" following 9/11. But what has changed? According to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules. The Pentagon currently runs "special operations" – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state. Add the risk of nuclear war, and the question is: why do we tolerate this?
---
The following footnote was appended on 16 May 2014: The quotation from a doctor who says he was "stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals" was from an account on a Facebook page that has subsequently been removed.
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the-penandpaper · 2 years
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Stephen Bandera was a hero
The History of Nazism in Ukraine. Who is Stepan Bandera?
Most Americans do not know about Ukraine’s politics or its history.
The Father of Nazi Ideology in Ukraine: Stepan Bandera
His name was Stepan Bandera, considered a Ukrainian hero who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and who was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN/B), an extreme far-right organization.  Bandera was born to a Greek-Catholic family in Galicia which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but later in life he became a radical Ukrainian nationalist after his country of birth had collapsed thus becoming the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, but then it became part of Poland after the Polish-Ukrainian war of 1918-1919. In 1934, Bandera who was very angry with the new geopolitical development had organized the assassination of Poland’s Minister of the Interior, Bronislaw Pieracki.
Adolf Hitler as Ukraine’s “National Idea”
Bandera was arrested for the crime, found guilty and sentenced to death but his conviction was later commuted to a life sentence.
In 1939, following the German–Soviet invasion of Poland also known as the September Campaign divided the country under the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty.  Soon after, Bandera was released from prison and moved to Kraków, Poland which was already occupied by the Nazis.
Bandera was convinced that working with the Nazis would allow him to establish his own government in Ukraine leading to an independent nation that would be allied with the Nazis and free from Soviet occupation.  It was well-known that the Nazis, Bandera and his lieutenants from his organization blamed Jews for establishing communism in Ukraine as a statement from Bandera at the time read that
“The Jews of the Soviet Union are the most loyal supporters of the Bolshevik Regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine.”
Then in June 1941, the Nazis invaded the USSR and occupied the East Galician capital of Lvov and this was where the OUN/B and the National-Socialist Greater Germany under Adolf Hitler collaborated and launched ‘pogroms’ of genocide against jews and poles including men, women and children of all ages over the duration of the war.
Then the relationship between the Nazis and the Bandera faction got complicated.  During the war, a declaration of independence or what is known as the Act of Restoration of the Ukrainian State was announced in homage to Bandera by his own lieutenants.
At the same time, the declaration for an independent Ukraine became a serious concern for the Nazi regime since they wanted Ukraine under their sphere of influence.  So, the alliance between the Ukrainian nationalists and the Nazis became problematic.
On September 15th, 1941, the Gestapo began to arrest its leaders including Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko who was the prime minister of the Ukrainian National government for refusing to dismiss the Act of Renewal of Ukrainian statehood.
By January 1942, Bandera found himself in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for high-profile political prisoners.
In 1944, the Soviets and allied forces advanced on Nazi-occupied territories, so the Nazis recruited Bandera and Stetsko to create diversions to help destroy Soviet forces who were gaining ground.
Bandera who was still the leader of the OUN/B moved to West Germany with his family and continued to work with anti-communist organizations or we can say the fascists for many years to come such as the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
In 1959, Bandera was poisoned by cyanide gas and two years later, the German judiciary claimed that the KGB was behind his assassination.  In 2022, Bandera remains a hero to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.  The US and the European Union support Ukraine who happens to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world with proven human rights abuses that has strong ties to neo-Nazis who admire Adolf Hitler and Stepan Bandera, now if that is not hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.
In other words, these groups, especially the Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians and the Russians, are separated by different views of history, different languages, and different political representation. 
Article written by: Timothy Alexander Guzman, an independent researcher and writer with a focus on political, economic, media and historical spheres. He has been published in www.Globalresearch.ca, The Progressive Mind, European Union Examiner, News Beacon Ireland.
The CIA and the Nazis: A Match Made in Hell
According to author and journalist Wayne Madsen in 2016 entitled: ‘CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine Since 1953’
“the recent declassification of over 3800 documents by the Central Intelligence Agency provides detailed proof that since 1953 the CIA operated two major programs intent on not only destabilizing Ukraine but Nazifying it with followers of the World War II Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.”
Nazism has been in existence in Ukraine for a long-time under the CIA’s Project AERODYNAMIC which was “to provide for the exploitation and expansion of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance movement for cold war and hot war purposes” it included several groups including the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (UBVR) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Foreign. Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (ZPUHVR) in Western Europe and the United States, and other organizations such as OUN/B will be utilized.
We can say that for close to 70 years, the CIA’s operation of Nazifying Ukraine had been a success.
Burned alive: How the 2014 Odessa massacre became a turning point for Ukraine
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kneedeepincynade · 11 months
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Il massacro di Odessa non sarà ne perdonare ne dimenticare,i nazisti pagheranno per i loro crimini e i martiri saranno vendicati
Per chi non sapesse cosa è successo a Odessa:
Il 2 maggio del 2014 ad Odessa si verificò una terribile strage. La manifestazione fissa antimaidan della città, che aveva occupato il piazzale davanti la casa dei sindacati e che aveva contestato la presenza in città di gruppi di ultras neonazisti provenienti di Kiev per creare disordini, venne attaccata dai neonazisti e dagli ultranazionalisti.
Dopo alcuni scontri in strada i manifestanti antimaidan si rifugiarono all'interno del palazzo dei sindacati. I nazionalisti promaidan iniziarono allora a lanciare delle molotov contro il palazzo. Il risultato finale fu di più di 40 morti. Alcuni si lanciarono dalle finestre e vennero finiti a colpi di coltello e armi da fuoco dai neonazisti all'esterno. Molti degli attaccanti portavano simboli di Bandera e i colori dell'UPA.
The Odessa massacre will be neither forgive nor forget, the Nazis will pay for their crimes, and the martyrs will be avenged
For those who don't know what happened at Odessa:
On May 2, 2014, a terrible massacre took place in Odessa. The fixed anti-maidan demonstration in the city, which had occupied the square in front of the trade union house and which had contested the presence in the city of groups of neo-Nazi ultras from Kiev to create unrest, was attacked by neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists.
After some clashes in the street, the anti-Maidan demonstrators took refuge inside the union building. Pro maidan nationalists then began throwing Molotov cocktails at the palace. The end result was more than 40 dead. Some leaped from windows and were finished off with knives and gunfire by the neo-Nazis outside. Many of the attackers wore Bandera symbols and the colors of the UPA.
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bandiera--rossa · 2 years
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The Odessa massacre - the reasons for anger.
On May 2, 2014, a group of protesters opposing the Kiev Euromaidan, of Russian ethnicity, antifascist and Communist, was attacked by what appeared to be a football crowd, right-wing extremists, who arrived in the city for the Odessa-Kharkiv football match.
The opponents take refuge inside the House of Trade Unions, which is surrounded by the crowd. At this point real paramilitary groups come into action, blocking the entrance to the building and starting to set it on fire with a thick throw of Molotov cocktails. The planning of the massacre emerges from a series of details ranging from provocateurs who wore federalist insignia before the action, the so-called "false flag" tactic, to characters on the top of the building holding the keys to the iron grates. access to the roof.
Not to mention the trap of fleeing protesters as soon as they entered the building by squads stationed behind the doors, which reveals how they had been there before. Between being burned alive, dead from gas fumes and still others killed inside and outside the building with blows of clubs, axes, guns (two pregnant women, one strangled with a telephone wire, the other first raped in a group, then murdered), the official data speak of about forty deaths. In reality, the number of murdered people could be even over three hundred, in addition to an unspecified number of injured. In some reconstructions made by independent journalists and bloggers, there is even the hypothesis that in reality the fire was limited only to the lower part of the building and that assassin commandos had already stationed previously inside the building and on the roof, killing anti-Maidan opponents with bladed and firearms and then simulating death by stake, moving and burning many of the bodies.
The location of Kiev on these facts
The official version in Kiev spoke of provocations that resulted in excesses by opposing factions. In reality, the "faction" of Pravy Sektor did not suffer any minor injuries. There have been only farce investigations into this matter and nothing has been done by the Ukrainian government to seriously ascertain the facts. The statements of the various Ukrainian authorities even show a smug consensus for the massacre. Volodimmyr Nemirovsky, mayor of Odessa spoke about the massacre saying: "The Odessa counter-terrorism operation is legal." But even the former mayor Edward Gurvits was not far behind: "That of Odessa was an act of self-defense." In a post on Facebook after the massacre, Freedom Party MP Iryna Farion commented, "Good, Odessa. Pearl of the Ukrainian spirit. Let the devils burn in hell. Good." Finally, the Nazi Olesya Orobets, vice president of Svoboda declared: "It is a historic day for Ukraine, I am so happy that these annoying separatists in Odessa have finally been liquidated."
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wtiennest · 2 years
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Burned alive: How the 2014 Odessa massacre became a turning point for Ukraine
Eight years ago this Monday, something significant happened in Odessa, a historically important city in the southwest of Ukraine. Although the West didn’t see it as such, for Russia and the newly formed Donbass republics, what transpired there became a symbolic episode.
Provincial revolution
From late 2013 into early 2014, a conflict between the government of President Viktor Yanukovich and the pro-Western opposition was unfolding in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The series of events that would ensue were dubbed the ‘Euromaidan’. Meanwhile, Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea, was of course affected by these events too, albeit to a lesser extent.
Occasional clashes with police and scuffles between supporters of Euromaidan and those aligned with the government, which became known as the ‘Anti-Maidan’ movement, were nothing compared to the bloodshed in Kiev, where people were being killed.
Many Ukrainians didn’t welcome the Euromaidan, and they had their reasons. Lots of Odessa residents had strong ties with Russia, and still do. When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, a large number of ethnic Russians were living in Odessa and many had relatives in the old country. The city was built during the reign of Catherine the Great and has always been seen as an integral part of Russia’s history.
Thus, the aggressive nationalism of Euromaidan was largely unpopular there and plenty of locals were frightened by what seemed to be a passion for forming militant units. Euromaidan and Anti-Maidan in Odessa began to form parallel paramilitary organizations. Armed with a primitive array of sticks, biker helmets, and homemade weapons, these groups trained for street fighting. At first, nobody sought a fight to the death – the radicals hadn’t yet gained the leading role in either movement.
In Odessa, Anti-Maidan activists had begun gathering at Kulikovo Field, a square near Odessa’s House of Trade Unions in the city’s historical center. This became the site of an ongoing protest – it could also be described as a forum in the classical sense. People came to hang out, discuss the news, and even sing together. It was a very diverse crowd, from energetic youngsters to the elderly. Those who assembled there weren’t officially united by any specific ideology. One could run into Russian Orthodox activists, Cossacks, and a number of smaller groups.
The movement was led by local pro-Russian and leftist politicians, such as activist Anton Davidchenko and his brother Artyom. Their demands were very moderate – to protect the Russian language, grant the eastern regions economic autonomy, protect Russian and Soviet historical heritage, ensure monuments weren’t vandalized, let the East elect its own judges, etc. But Ukraine was in turmoil, and this program seemed extremely confrontational to the nationalists.
On the third of May 2014, after Yanukovich had already fled to Russia and Moscow had reabsorbed Crimea, Vladimir Nemirovsky, a nationalist politician, became head of the Odessa Region. He intended to harshly crack down on any form of protest. Dispersing the Kulikovo Field camp was a key point in his platform.
People hold up flares as thousands of Ukrainian nationalists, veterans and local residents march to commemorate the 2014 clashes between pro-Kyiv and Russia-backed groups on May 2, 2021 in Odessa, Ukraine. © Pierre Crom / Getty Images
Tensions had been gradually rising throughout March and April. After an armed uprising broke out in Donetsk and Lugansk, Euromaidan activists set up checkpoints on all roads leading to Odessa. Nobody knew who or what they were guarding, but about 500 people, not all of whom were even from Odessa, manned these very strange checkpoints. At the end of April, Nemirovsky announced that ‘Territorial Defense’ units, which are essentially military reserves, had been bussed into Odessa.
‘Territorial Defense’ buses were arriving in the region at that time. A lot of them. We tried to keep them away from Odessa whenever possible, but they went to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky and other places. They spread throughout the region. They were coming from the direction of Kiev. The police stayed away from them, the officers were demoralized.”
Even back then, these nationalist units were dangerous. They were arming themselves: we know of at least one case when a Euromaidan activist accidentally blew up a hand grenade. Molotov cocktails were also manufactured at these checkpoints.
Anti-Maidan found itself in a difficult situation. The initial excitement was winding down. There was a feeling that the struggle against the nationalists had been lost and nobody wanted to take a step toward violent conflict. In fact, the Kulikovo Field camp would have disappeared on its own in a few weeks. The Anti-Maidan leaders were already discussing the subject with the local authorities. They had even reached an agreement to shift it from the city center to the World War II memorial, which is in a less central location. The move was scheduled for May.
However, a less peaceful transition was also in the works. Though the police and governor didn’t want to get their hands dirty, there were enough ‘volunteers’ willing to take matters into their own hands. A football match against a team from Kharkov, a city in northeastern Ukraine, was scheduled for May 2, and Odessa was flooded with radical football fans. Rumors of potential violence began to circulate in April, and the Anti-Maidan activists had reason to be concerned about a possible raid on their camp. Some anticipated the future clashes with fear, others with excitement, but everybody knew that the Anti-Maidan camp would be destroyed. It was a perfect solution for everyone, except the activists themselves.
While rebels took over one city after another in the Donbass, and people in Crimea enthusiastically welcomed the Russian military, an easy victory for the nationalists in Odessa would give them the opportunity to demonstrate their strength. It would also allow the governor to show that he had the city under control. At this point, though, nobody was thinking that what was going to occur would take a lethal turn. A few Anti-Maidan activists wanted to remain in the central part of the city. Their idea was just to intimidate the nationalists.
On May 2, the football fans were to march through Odessa to the stadium under the slogan “for unity in Ukraine.” Euromaidan activists declared that this was to be a peaceful demonstration, but adherents of Anti-Maidan were convinced that the march would just be a cover for violent tactics.  
Early in the morning of May 2, Sergey Dolzhenkov, the leader of the Anti-Maidan security group and a former police officer, contacted a member of the local parliament to request that the march be canceled:
“People saw what happened in Kharkov, Kherson, and Donetsk. The football fans were out of control. We need to make sure there is no bloodshed. No march – no bloodshed,” he said.
“I was on Kulikovo Field on May 1, and Artyom Davidchenko {the leader of Anti-Maidan in Odessa} announced from the stage that Right Sector {an ultra-nationalist Ukrainian organization whose name has become synonymous with all Ukrainian nationalists} was coming to town, and they would destroy the Kulikovo Field camp. We have to fight them off,” remembers Maxim Firsov, an activist from the left-wing Borotba movement.
Dolzhenkov and his Anti-Maidan group had limited forces. Officially, there were a lot of people at the camp, but the majority were women and elderly, who would not be able to fight. In fact, they themselves needed to be protected. That’s why Dolzhenkov decided to accompany the march with some of his men, while keeping a distance. Not everybody in the Anti-Maidan camp liked this plan, but Dolzhenkov was a man of action and thought it was better to meet the opponent head on and block them if they decided to walk toward the Kulikovo Field camp.
The police and Ukraine’s Security Service knew what was afoot but had no plans to interfere. On May 2, Artyom Davidchenko met with both agencies and was informed that detentions and arrests would start only when there were dead bodies, and there “would definitely be bodies.”
On May 1, activists from both groups were anticipating a fight, but nobody expected what actually happened.
Fighting on Grecheskaya Street
On the morning of May 2, an off-schedule train took around 500 Kharkov football fans to Odessa. Along with them, there arrived Pro-Euromaidan groups having nothing to do with football but who were armed with street fighting equipment, including personal armor and weapons. In the afternoon, they began to gather on Cathedral Square in the center of Odessa.
An Anti-Maidan group 150-to-300-strong departed from Kulikovo Field, which is about a 30-minute walk away. Although vastly outnumbered by the 2,000-3,000 Euromaidan fighters and fans, Dolzhenkov guided it in the direction of Cathedral Square anyway.
The Odessa police refused to intervene in the events. Its main forces of around 700 officers guarded the stadium, while around 80 followed the Anti-Maidan activists and 60 kept watch over Kulikovo Field. High-ranking police officers had been summoned for a meeting and were ordered to turn off their phones.
A small police unit tried to block Dolzhenkov’s group, but it simply circumvented the officers.
Meanwhile, an excited crowd had already gathered on Cathedral Square armed with clubs, shields, helmets, Molotov cocktails, and rubber-bullet handguns.
At around 3 pm, the Anti-Maidan activists from Kulikovo reached Cathedral Square via the adjacent Grecheskaya Street. Many accounts describe the arrival of Dolzhenkov’s group as an all-out assault resulting in a breakthrough. This is often referred to as an Anti-Maidan attack on the ultras. At first glance, a group of 300 charging a mob ten times its size would appear to be folly. But if you scratch the surface, new details emerge.
Some football fans saw the Anti-Maidan activists approaching and engaged them. The actual fight was initiated by two small groups of Dolzhenkov’s men and a crowd of Euromaidan activists. The main contingents did nothing at first, keeping their distance, but this was enough to spark the conflict.
With a thin line of police officers between them, at first the sides threw stones at each other. But the numerical advantage of Euromaidan was overwhelming and Anti-Maidan was quickly put on the defensive. Most of the officers were facing the Euromaidan side, which was throwing bricks, stones, and Molotov cocktails. The police began firing air and rubber-bullet guns almost from the beginning.
For Euromaidan, the altercation on Grecheskaya Street was amusing but accomplished nothing, so some activists went to the parallel Deribasovskaya Street on a flanking maneuver. This is where the first real blood was spilled.
The fight was already on when the Anti-Maidan supporters began shooting their firearms. A Euromaidan activist and nationalist named Igor Ivanov was killed by a bullet. He was likely killed by Kulikovo activist Vitaly Budko (Boatswain), who had arrived at the scene quite late – around 4 pm – with a civilian rifle, and opened fire as soon as he joined his companions. Neither he nor his weapon was ever found in the aftermath, and information on the bullet that killed Ivanov disappeared from the police database. However, several videos and photos show him having been firing his weapon before himself being shot. Another Maidan activist was shot dead with an air gun.
Anti-Maidan protesters soon came under fire too, and some were wounded. The subsequent investigation was conducted so poorly that none of the guns involved in the shootout were identified afterwards. There is footage of at least one injured protester.
The fighting went on for several hours. Reinforcements periodically came to bolster the Euromaidan activists, and they soon blocked all approaches to Grecheskaya Street. The Kulikovo group found itself surrounded at the Athena shopping mall, while well-coordinated Euromaidan teams were cutting off any reinforcements or avenues for retreat. Around 4 pm, the Euromaidan side captured a fire engine and drove it into a small barricade the defenders had built. Around 5:30 pm, a group went out onto the balcony of a nearby building and opened fire on their adversaries. Bullets and pellets extracted from the bodies revealed that at least three guns were involved. Four men died instantly, and several more were wounded, including a journalist, a police colonel, and a couple of officers. The defense crumbled. Some retreated to the shopping mall, barricaded themselves inside, and eventually surrendered to the police. Among them was Sergey Dolzhenkov, who had suffered a bullet wound. It seemed as if everything was over.
Death by fire
The Maidan activists had essentially already won the battle. The Kulikovo Field activists were defeated. By this time, people were simply roaming around aimlessly. Some sports fans from the stadium had joined the commotion after the game ended. But events were about to take a completely different turn.
Mark Gordienko, one of the leaders of Odessa’s Euromaidan movement, was one of those who began shouting, ‘Kulikovo!’ encouraging the crowd to go to the site where the Anti-Maidan protesters had put up their camp. In March of 2014, he was known to have said that he “would shoot down all separatists.” That day, he had an opportunity to fulfill his promise. Later, he seemed to have conveniently forgotten that he had spearheaded the violence.
Gordienko and a number of others managed to reignite the cooling crowd. Later, a recording of a conversation between Odessa Deputy Mayor Igor Bolyansky and one of the Euromaidan commanders was leaked, during which Bolyansky not only suggested that the commanders lead the crowd on the 30-minute walk from Grecheskaya Street to Kulikovo, but even discussed the logistics of how this should be done. In other words, this wasn’t a case of a crowd spontaneously moving in a certain direction but of one being steered there by leaders who made sure it arrived at the destination.
Meanwhile, the people at Kulikovo were confused and disoriented. Most were civilians with no military training whatsoever, and they weren’t particularly keen on participating in any battles. There were many women among them. Artyom Davidchenko had already briefly told them what had just transpired, while some people who had managed to escape Grecheskaya Street returned to give them a run-down of events. Many who had been on the square had already gone home, yet a number of them returned when they heard a crowd was on its way to attack their camp and fellow protesters.
That’s why a sizable number of the protesters who ended up at Kulikovo knew an attack was coming. Someone suggested taking cover in the massive Trade Unions building on the square, and people began to move their belongings from the camp into the building. They set up an improvised first aid station there, brought in supplies and built a small barricade in front of the building. They also had a couple of hunting rifles and a few Molotov cocktails. Davidchenko then left the square. Aleksey Albu, a low-level local politician, stayed in the building. At the time, he was not the kind who would be eager to participate in any fighting. In fact, he had learned about the clashes from the news.
The Trade Unions House had around 300 people inside that evening.
At 7:20 pm, the angry Euromaidan crowd entered the square. They moved through the abandoned camp and started throwing Molotov cocktails at the barricade in front of the Trade Unions building. Those inside responded by lobbing a few Molotov cocktails back at the attackers from the roof. It was then that a reporter who was filming everything said, “Now, they’ll definitely kill them.”
The attackers kept throwing rocks and improvised bombs at the barricade, which mostly consisted of wooden furniture and crates, and finally set it on fire. The protesters behind it retreated into the hall of the building. Later, many reports exaggerated the scope of the resistance put up by those in the Trade Unions building. Available footage shows that the attackers freely moved around the square, not needing to duck or take cover because there was no fire coming back at them.
The barricade was in flames and the attackers had set fire to the tents on the square. The whole square was full of smoke and flames. The attackers continued to hurl cocktail bombs filled with a home-made napalm mixture consisting of gasoline, acetone, and Styrofoam at the building. The holed-up protesters called the fire brigade, but no one came. The few policemen on the scene did nothing to interfere and just watched as the events unfolded.
The attackers made sure the fire didn’t die out, throwing more and more cocktail bombs into it. They even tossed in a burning car tire, while firing at the windows with anti-riot guns.
Then tragedy struck.
Independent expert Vladislav Balisnsky explained that the fire raging at the building’s entrance ignited the paint and varnish on the hall’s walls and ceiling. The burning entrance door collapsed, and the window panes were broken one by one by gunfire, creating a powerful draft. The resulting chimney effect turned the central staircase into a huge incinerator, with temperatures at the center rising to 600–700 degrees Celsius. The fire spread nearly instantly and everything that could burn was consumed in the fire. The people in the vicinity were essentially burnt alive. Others tried to save themselves by taking refuge in rooms further from the blaze. The draft continued to pull large clouds of smoke down the building’s corridors, killing more and more people on its way.
That’s when people began to jump out of the windows, which seemed a better alternative than being burnt alive or suffocating.
But for some leaping turned out not to be the lesser of two evils. Those who jumped ended up injuring themselves badly, sometimes fatally. But surviving the hazardous jump did not mean the end of the suffering. One activist was captured on camera running up to a person who had jumped out of a window, injured by the fall but still alive and moving, in order to beat the victim with a baton. Later, local journalist Sergey Dibrov spent some time studying footage and images from the incident and concluded that the victim ultimately received medical assistance and survived.
It was at this point that some people in the mob started to feel remorse and tried to help those caught in the burning building. Some threw a rope to those on the upper floors. Others dragged scaffolding to the building to help those trapped inside escape. These acts helped quite a number of people get out of the building alive, although some emerged only to be beaten on the ground. The last cocktail bomb was thrown into the building at 8:08 pm. The police reinforcements finally arrived and pushed the most belligerent attackers back. The fire squad arrived at 8:15 – despite being stationed just 400 meters away, it took them 30 minutes to arrive on the scene – and started to rescue the last survivors.
As it turned out, quite a lot of people survived the fire. The havoc subsided, and the fire squad and police restored order. Some people had been rescued from the roof, while others were found in rooms untouched by fire or smoke. The last survivors, who had been hiding in the attic, left the building in the early hours of May 3.
Elena was among those from the Kulikovo Field camp who had helped set up the first aid station before the attack. Later, she told reporters that she had been harassed by the people outside after escaping the fire. They shouted insults at her and even roughed her up, while the police paid no attention at all. During the fire in the building, those on the winning side displayed quite contradictory behavior. Some made genuine attempts to save people from the conflagration they had just started, and even risked their lives to do so, while others were happy to take advantage of the opportunity to continue to assault and humiliate the survivors.
A total of 48 people died: two Maidan activists and 46 Kulikovo Field Anti-Maidan protesters – two on Grecheskaya Street, and 42 at Kulikovo Field Square. Eight people jumped from the building to their deaths, while others suffocated or died from burns. All were citizens of Ukraine. A total of 247 people requested medical help following the incident, of whom 27 had been wounded by gunfire.
Albu, the local politician and one of the leaders of the group, was among those who had taken cover in the building but survived. He later joined the LPR’s Prizrak Brigade in Donbass. Another leader, local MP Vyacheslav Markin, died the next morning from injuries sustained after jumping from the building to escape the fire.
Ashes
In the following years, not a single person responsible for the killings in Odessa was punished in any way. Many of the murderers acted openly, wearing no masks or disguises, and were very straightforward about their intentions. Only a handful even faced criminal investigation. But ultimately, not a single one was brought before the courts to answer for the crimes committed. Whatever hearings did manage to be scheduled were derailed by the so-called ‘patriots’. A number of judges were forced to recuse themselves from the cases after receiving threats from militants.
Meanwhile, high-ranking Ukrainian politicians were quick to identify the ‘culprits’. Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchinov said that the disturbances in Odessa “were coordinated from a single center located in Russia.” Sergey Pashinsky, acting head of the presidential administration, said that it was “an FSB provocation to divert attention from the [so-called] anti-terrorist operation [in the Donbass]”. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry declared that “the tragedy was a pre-planned and well-financed operation by the Russian special services.”
From the very beginning, the authorities in Odessa seemed to deliberately obstruct the investigation. By the morning of May 3, the area around Grecheskaya Street had been cleared by municipal workers, who quickly disposed of all the physical evidence. The Trade Unions building remained open to the public for the following month. Citizens could watch live streams from the smoldering ruins, with one cameraman referring to the corpses of a young pair as “Romeo and Juliet.” No attempt was made to preserve the crime scene. The weapons used to kill people were never found. And these are just a few examples of the investigation’s dismissive and negligent attitude toward the case. In September 2015, UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns acknowledged that the bulk of the evidence relating to the May 2 events was destroyed immediately after the crime.
Euromaidan activist Sergei Khodiyak, who fired at people with a hunting rifle, was released from custody, and the judge recused himself from the case under pressure from a group of Maidan activists led by Igor Mosiychuk, an MP from the nationalist Radical Party. Vsevolod Goncharevsky, who used a club to beat and finish off Kulikovo activists who had jumped out of the windows of the burning building, was released due to a “lack of evidence.”
Dolzhenkov and a number of other Anti-Maidan activists remained in custody. In 2017, after many delays, the court acquitted Dolzhenkov in connection with the case. But he was immediately arrested again on the trumped-up charge of chanting illegal slogans at a political rally that had taken place a month before the tragedy. In December 2017, the last pro-Russian activists were released from custody as part of an exchange of detainees and prisoners from the Donbass conflict.
Ukrainian society reacted to the events in Odessa in a very peculiar way. Naturally, the majority of the population sympathized with the victims. Flowers would be brought to the Trade Unions building every year on May 2. The public realm and the media, however, were dominated by nationalists. For a few months after the events, social media platforms were overflowing with ‘jokes’ about the ‘Odessa barbecue’, the ‘burning of vatniks’ (a typical Soviet-era wool-padded jacket that became used to refer to Ukrainians espousing pro-Russian views and to Russians themselves), as well as slogans eerily reminiscent of those employed by Nazis about the Jews that they murdered in World War Two. The Ukrainian internet was flooded with pictures of burnt corpses accompanied by derisive comments. Many of the people who took part in the Odessa event soon thereafter ended up in the Donbass, fighting in the volunteer battalions of the Ukrainian army. “All it takes is to kill fifty ‘vatniks’ in every city, and then we shall have peace, then the war will end,” remarked Maksim Mazur, a member of the Aidar Battalion – a statement that was eagerly endorsed by many of those who had attacked people in Odessa.
In fact, Ukrainian social media did exactly what is commonly attributed to Russian propaganda. The piles of burnt corpses evoked feelings of horror, but also of rage. May 2014 was a breaking point: volunteers from Russia started to arrive in the breakaway republics en masse and even some men from Western Europe came to fight on their side. Slogans about autonomous status and the need to engage in talks with Kiev gave way to an unwavering resolve and determination to stand and fight to the bitter end. Just a few days after May 2, a Donbass rebel wrote on a destroyed and burned-out Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicle: “This is for Odessa, you bastards.”
The voice of those who were horrified by the events from the very beginning and understood what had really happened was simply not heard. But they were probably worth listening to. Two years later, Artem Sushchevsky, from the Donbass town of Makeevka, wrote:
“I can repeat all I want that not everyone is crazy and that most Ukrainians are still the good and sensible people they always have been. I’m convinced this is true, and I’m not contradicting myself by saying this. But there’s one ‘but’: these good and sensible people can live peacefully with the events that transpired on May 2 in Odessa, already two years ago. And they also somehow live with the shelling of Donetsk. And in general, they have to put up with this shameful war, consoling themselves with fairy tales about a Russian invasion. But I can't live with those who can live with this. I don't care how I live – as long as it's not with you.”
Alexander Topilov, an Odessa musician and Euromaidan supporter, wrote a few days after the tragic events:
“…there were boys born in 1994. There were young girls, university professors, mechanics. I don’t know. Not all were quick enough to jump. Not all survived the landing. It’s not a victory, like hell it is! Don’t cheer us. I saw some exalted comments. Who the f*ck wants a victory like that? And who can even call it a victory? That’s a f*cking fiasco. It’s civil war. Odessa residents at each other’s throats. Who’s the winner here? I don’t need victories like that, the f*ck I do. Some people are like animals and some beasts are humane, that’s what I’m talking about. The line between ‘us’ and ‘them’. I lost mine on May 2. I don’t know where to draw it. I see people. And I see animals. Animals on my side, people against me. So, what do I do next? Damned if I know, boyo, as they say on the other side… And there are not less real people there than animals here…”
That desperate cry fell on deaf ears. On the same day that the Trade Unions building was burning, there was intense fighting in Slaviansk in the Donbass. The Ukrainian army was trying to enter the city. Soon, the militias armed with a motley assortment of hunting rifles, handguns stolen from police officers and Molotov cocktails were replaced by battalions and brigades equipped with artillery and tanks. Eastern Ukraine quaked with the blasts of howitzers and the rumbling of tanks.
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purpleyamninja · 11 months
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marieheiram · 11 months
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Cela fait maintenant 9 ans qu'une foule nazie a incendié un bâtiment syndical à Odessa et assassiné des dizaines de personnes devant la caméra : le 2 mai 2014 est le jour le plus noir à Odessa. Ses conséquences et la manière dont ce phare a été traité sont étroitement liées aux événements d'aujourd'hui en Ukraine.
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jacquelinemerritt · 10 years
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Battleship Potemkin
Originally posted August 24th, 2014
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Watch the video. Go on, it’s only a few minutes long, and the rest of this post won’t make any sense without it.
Now was that cool or what? I know I just threw you into the middle of an event that you (likely) know nothing about, but bear with me, and you’ll see why the context is unimportant. What you were able to glean from that clip alone was likely that there are a bunch of innocent people, and they are being slaughtered by their government. Now, based on that information alone, you are already rooting for the innocent people, since, you know, they aren’t killing anybody. So, given that we’re rooting for the innocent people, how exactly do the mechanics of film work to affect us emotionally?
The most obvious answer is that the music behind this scene is absolutely phenomenal. This version of the scene incorporates symphonies written by Dmitri Shostakovich as the score, and the mood that it sets is absolutely perfect. The music swells and feels grand in just the right places, and when the mother approaches the soldiers carrying her son, the music backs off and gives us a moment of peace before they kill her.
The music isn’t all that’s important to this scene however. Take this shot for example:
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This is one of the longest shots in this entire scene, and it works in conjunction with the music to give us a moment of reprieve from the intense slaughter by the government. This reprieve allows us to consider the actions of the mother, as she approaches the soldiers asking for help with her son.
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And then that happens. After she gets shot, the mood becomes frantic again, with the music swelling, and the cuts coming quicker and quicker. The rest of the scene then builds to one of the most iconic moments in film history: the baby carriage falling down the Odessa steps.
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If that looks familiar, it’s because Brian de Palma paid homage to that scene in The Untouchables. If it doesn’t look familiar, now you’ve seen the best rendition of this scene, and don’t have to sit through a boring, preachy gangster film to get to it. But, I digress.
So, you might be wondering what the point of all this is by now. And that would be justified, since I’ve pretty much been jumping around and talking about all the things I like about this scene. But that’s not all I’ve been doing! What I’ve secretly been doing is showing you Eisenstein’s use of editing, or montage, to set a specific mood in this film. These shots specifically draw on the use of “Metric Montage,” or using the timing of cuts in order to evoke an emotional reaction.
If you liked this, consider supporting me on Patreon, or donating to my Ko-Fi.
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mebwalker · 2 years
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The War in Ukraine: la petite Russie
The War in Ukraine: la petite Russie
Vladimir Putin —ooo— The Exodus Crises have led several generations of Russians to move away from Russia, and the war in Ukraine is yet another crisis. As soon as Vladimir Putin threatened to wage war in Ukraine, Russians left, and tens of thousands followed in their footsteps. It’s an exodus. Opponents of the war in Ukraine who have spoken publicly and have been imprisoned are also very…
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To honor Odessa anti-fascists, stop weapons to Ukraine!
Statement by John Parker, Socialist Unity Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California, at a memorial in Moscow for victims of the 2014 Odessa Massacre on May 2. Parker is on a fact-finding trip to uncover the truth about the U.S./NATO proxy war on Donbass and Russia. Now more than ever, we must raise the reality of the nature of the Ukrainian government, to alert our class to the danger of U.S.-led NATO expansion, the greatest danger to humanity today.
The massacre at the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, was a war crime by proxy, with Nazi and other fascist gangsters following the script written for them by U.S. imperialism before 2014.
But instead of being tried in the International Criminal Court – because they were doing the bidding of U.S. and European imperialists – they received the de facto immunity for war crimes enjoyed by all U.S. forces committing murder and genocide spread across the globe.
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psychologeek · 6 months
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Free!
"Leave our country alone!" they say "This isn't your land - go back to where you came from!"
And as my brother's being shoot, And my sister's being paraded naked - For their great sin of: living [Re'im, Israel, 2023]
As my great-grandfather was pushed down in the streets And his beard was brutally shaved As they raped and enslaved and murdered- [Birkenau, Poland, 1943]
[just like in 1941 Farhud, Iraq ; Jedwabne pogrom;  1945 Tripoli pogrom, the 1946 Kielce pogrom, and the 1947 Aleppo pogrom]
In 1934 there were pogroms against Jews in Turkey and Algeria.
Other parts of my family were lucky enough to survive the 1929 Hebron massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots. [Mandatory Palestine under British administration]
In 1919, soldiers marched into the center of town accompanied by a military band and engaged in atrocities under the slogan: "Kill the Jews, and save the Ukraine." They were ordered to save the ammunition in the process and use only lances and bayonets during the Proskurov pogrom.
[Proskurov, Ukraine, 1919]
[100 years, and nothing changed, huh?]
You know, my grandma's arab. I still remember sitting in class in high school, hearing about the 1840 Damascus affair, and thinking: hu.
I'll skip several years and countries, but:
Their grandparents were there to witness as the outbreak of violence against Jews (Hep-Hep riots) occurred at the beginning of the 19th century.
The 1821 Odessa pogroms marked the beginning of the 19th century pogroms in Tsarist Russia
That's  Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–1657 in present-day Ukraine.
So they said, during the attacks against Jews also took place in Barcelona and other Catalan cities during the massacre of 1391.
Their ancestors were cast away and murdered in Spain, 1492.
The same way we were banished and cast away from  Bern (1427) and Zürich (1436) for almost 400 years?
Let us not speak of  the alaughter on Holy Saturday of 1389, a pogrom began in Prague that led to the burning of the Jewish quarter, the killing of many Jews, and the suicide of many Jews trapped in the main synagogue; the number of dead was estimated at 400–500 men, women, and children.
Brussels massacre of 1370.
Or - do you want to hear about the 510 jewish communities that were destroyed? (1348-1350)  including in Toulon, Erfurt, Basel, Aragon, Flanders[16][17] and Strasbourg.[18]
Just like Rhineland massacres in 1096
Some of them made it to England, around 1060. It took less than 30 years for the first Podrom in 1189-90 in England, 
Oh, and let us not forget 1066 Granada massacre [again, in Spain].
Or the  Alexandria in the year 38 CE, followed by the more known riot of 66 CE.
The Jewish population of the land on the eve of the first major Jewish rebellion [66 CE] may have been as high as 2.2 million. The monumental architecture of this period indicates a high level of prosperity.
In 66 CE, the Jews of Judea rose in revolt against Rome, sparking the First Jewish–Roman War. The reverse seized control of Judea and named their new kingdom "Israel"
The revolt was crushed by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. The Romans destroyed much of the Temple in Jerusalem and took as punitive tribute the Menorah and other Temple artifacts back to Rome. Josephus writes that 1,100,000 Jews perished during the revolt, while a further 97,000 were taken captive. The Fiscus Judaicus was instituted by the Empire as part of reparations.
[And here we come to a full cycle of blood, land, and pain].
And those are only those I found out about. Only those we have a record of. Only those we know to this day. They were so massive, or left enough impact so we still remember.
[I could go on, this is just a short list.]
It seems like no matter what we do, we'll always be accused for
Let me know, please - where can I be a jew, and just
Live?
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thelostdreamsthings · 11 months
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The Anglo-American Hand Behind the Rise of Fascism Then and Now
"The Ukrainian government killed 14.000 Russians in the Donbass. If Mexico had done this to the Americans, we would have invaded in a second. So I think we should put ourselves in the place of our opponents" said US Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy
"All the decisions the US has made have been to prolong the war, to maximise the cruelty of the war and to be absolutely intransigent in the face of the many opportunities to actually settle the war. It is not Zelensky but the White House that wants war" Robert Kennedy said.
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This is Kiev, not after a missile strike by Russia but after an attack by violent Ukrainians. This people were funded to bring down the government and put neo Nazis in power. Ukraine will never change if nothing is done about it. Sadly the US funds this, not for love but hatred. February 2014
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On May 2, 2014, dozens of Odessites were burned alive by Ukrainian Nazis in the House of Trade Unions. Those responsible for this crime have not been punished, yet. It is one of the triggers for this war. In loving memory of the victims.
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The teenage nazi girls that made the molotov cocktails that were used in the Odessa massacre
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Aleksey Goncharenko, took part in the Odessa protests, where 22 people were burned alive. He was later elected to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. These are the so-called democrats supported by the West. See Angela von der Leyen smiling
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naturalrights-retard · 5 months
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I do not care about those claiming Ukraine is fighting for freedom. They had their freedom; they are denying that to the Donbas, where the Mink Agreement was to let them vote on their independence from Ukraine. Ukrainian Nazis were never prosecuted for their involvement BECAUSE they killed not just Jews and Polish, but also Russians. That is why the CIA protected the Ukrainian Nazis.
Back in 2013, I warned that Ukraine was the place where everything would begin. Our computer targeted Ukraine for where this would begin. From the outset, my position was that Ukraine should have been split according to language. Politicians have drawn borders, and this policy has given us so many problems over the years. It is language and culture that should define a national border. It is also wrong for the refugees to enter Sweden and then refuse to adopt the culture of that nation, demanding their own laws will apply in specific regions. This is not like colonizing the Moon.
The Ukrainians are fighting for the territory that was never theirs. They want Russia out, along with all other minorities they hate and do not trust. Make no mistake about it: if Russia loses, the Ukrainians will massacre all Russians in the Donbas territory. The West ignores the fact that the Ukrainians carried out a massacre of ethnic Russians who lived in Odessa as soon as their 2014 Revolution, and that is what started this entire civil war that the Western Press will not address. Merkel admitted that the West NEVER negotiated in good faith and conceded that the West wanted this Civil War to kill Russians and never intended to allow them to vote or have peace.
The 2014 Massacre of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Odessa, where they killed them grabbing them on the streets, was a Neo-Nazi event. That was the turning point. It revealed that the Donbas had to separate, for the Neo-Nazis wanted their death, not their submission. That began the civil war. They set fire to the building and burned all the Russian-speaking Ukrainians alive. For the first time in history, an organized massacre of civilians was carried out and even filmed by numerous people. This has been documented in extraordinary detail, and the Neo-Nazis did not even fear any negative consequences in world opinion.
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theculturedmarxist · 7 months
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This article was submitted to the WSWS by Maxim Goldarb, the head of the Union of Left Forces (For a New Socialism) party, which has been banned by the Zelensky government. The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally opposes and denounces the persecution of left-wing and oppositional tendencies in Ukraine by the NATO-backed Zelensky regime. We call on our readers to distribute the information about the state-backed repression of anti-war opposition in Ukraine as widely as possible.
Ukraine has long been proclaimed the freest country in the post-Soviet space. In the pro-NATO media, the country is even portrayed as a bulwark of democracy. But this is a lie. The right-wing oligarchic regime that came to power in the Western-backed coup in February 2014 has severely persecuted its opponents, using terrorist methods.
The most tragic example of not just persecution, but murder by the ruling regime in Kiev of its ideological opponents took place in Odessa on May 2, 2014, when far-right nationalists, with the full connivance of and open assistance from the authorities, blocked anti-fascist activists in the building of the House of Trade Unions and set fire to the building. To escape the burning building, many jumped out of windows to their death. Even on the ground, some of those who had survived were then murdered by neo-Nazis. In total, more than 40 people died, among whom were Vadim Papura, a member of the Komsomol (Communist youth union), as well as Andrei Brazhevsky, a member of the left-wing Borotba organization.
For this crime, no one was ever punished, even though those responsible were recorded in many photos and videos. One of the organizers of this massacre subsequently became the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, another one became a member of parliament on the lists of the party of former President Petro Poroshenko.
In the same way, the killers of a number of well-known opposition politicians and journalists who have died since 2014 have not been punished. This includes the ex-deputy of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Valentina Semenyuk-Samsonenko (her murder on August 27, 2014 was disguised as suicide); the ex-deputy and organizer of opposition actions Oleg Kalashnikov (he was killed on April 15, 2015); the popular writer and anti-fascist publicist Oles Buzina (killed on April 16, 2015), and many others.
The Communist Party of Ukraine, one of the largest parties in the country, was banned in 2015.
In addition, opposition-minded politicians, journalists and activists, many of whom are left-leaning, have been beaten, arrested and imprisoned in recent years on trumped-up charges of “high treason” and other overtly political charges. This happened, in particular, with journalists Vasily Muravitsky, Dmitry Vasilets and Pavel Volkov, as well as human rights activist Ruslan Kotsaba and others. It is telling that even in the courts, which are under heavy pressure from the authorities, the accusations of “high treason” as a rule fell apart and turned out to be completely untenable.
The situation has become more and more aggravated with each passing year, especially after Volodymyr Zelensky became the president of Ukraine. The formal reason for the complete elimination of the remnants of civil liberties and the start of open political repression was the military conflict in Ukraine that began in February 2022.
All opposition parties in Ukraine, most of which are left-wing parties, including the Union of Left Forces (For New Socialism) party, which I lead, were banned on fabricated, carbon-copy accusations of being “pro-Russian.”
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has also detained a number of opinion leaders and journalists who spoke to the media before the war, criticizing the government. All of them were accused of promoting a pro-Russian position, high treason, espionage, propaganda, etc.
In February-March 2022, a number of well-known bloggers and journalists were detained on charges of high treason and placed in pre-trial detention centers (SIZOs). Among them were Dmitry Dzhangirov (a supporter of leftist views, who worked with our party), Yan Taksyur (a supporter of leftist views), Dmitry Marunich, Mikhail Pogrebinsky, Yuri Tkachev, and others. The reason for their detention was not ephemeral treason at all, but the authorities’ fear of their public political position, which did not coincide with the official line of the government.
In March 2022, the historian Alexander Karevin, known for his political activities, disappeared without a trace after SBU officers visited his house. Karevin has repeatedly sharply criticized the actions of the Ukrainian authorities in the field of the humanities, language policy and the politics of historical memory.
In March 2022 in Kiev, Olena Berezhnaya, a lawyer and human rights activist, well known for her anti-fascist positions, was detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center under suspicion under Article 111 of the Criminal Code, i.e., for treason. Just a few months prior, in December 2021, she had spoken at the UN Security Council about the lawlessness in Ukraine.
On March 3, 2022, the SBU detained the left-wing activists and anti-fascist brothers Alexander and Mikhail Kononovich in Kiev on charges of violating Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“actions aimed at forcibly changing the constitutional order or seizing state power”). They were placed in a pre-trial detention center until the end of 2022, where they were beaten and tortured, and denied timely medical assistance.
In May 2022, in Dnipro, the SBU detained the brother of the former presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev, citizen of Ukraine Mikhail Tsarev, on charges of “destabilizing the socio-political situation in the region.” As a result, in December 2022, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of terrorism.
On March 7, 2022, six activists of the opposition organization Patriots for Life disappeared without a trace in Severodonetsk. In May 2022, one of the leaders of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, Maxim Zhorin, posted a photo of their dead bodies on the Internet, claiming that they “were executed,” and that their murder was connected to their political views and carried out by paramilitary structures.
On January 12, 2023, Sergei Titov, a resident of Belaya Tserkov, a half-blind and disabled person with a mental illness, was detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center. He was declared a 'saboteur.' On March 2, 2023, it was reported that he had died in the pre-trial detention center.
In February 2023, Dmitry Skvortsov, an Orthodox publicist and blogger, was detained in a monastery near Kiev and placed in a pre-trial detention center.
Since November 2022, Dmitry Shymko from Khmelnytsky has been in the dungeons for his political beliefs.
Hundreds of ordinary people have already been prosecuted in today’s Ukraine for distributing political content on the Internet that the authorities considered prohibited.
The authorities have taken under tight control the information space of Ukraine, including the Internet. Any personal publication of citizens about mistakes at the front, about corruption among the authorities and the military, and about the lies of officials are declared to be crimes. Such individuals, as well as bloggers and administrators of TG channels, are subject to harassment by the police and the Security Service.
By the spring of this year, according to the SBU, 26 Telegram channels were blocked—channels on which people had informed each other about the locations where military summons were being handed out. Six Telegram channel administrators were searched and charged with crimes. Thus, public pages were blocked in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherkasy, Vinnitsa, Chernivtsi, Kiev, Lviv and Odessa regions. These pages had more than 400,000 subscribers. The public administrators of these channels face 10 years in prison.
In March 2022, Article 436-2 (“Justification, recognition as lawful, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants”) was introduced into the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In reality, it is directed against any citizens of Ukraine who have views that differ from the official government line.
This new law is formulated in such a way that, in essence, it provides for punishment for “thought crimes”—words or phrases spoken not only publicly, but also in a private conversation, written in a private messenger or SMS message, or said over the phone. In fact, we are talking about an invasion of the privacy of citizens and of their thoughts. This, in fact, has been confirmed by the practice of law enforcement—conviction for likes, private phone calls, and so on. For simple conversations on the street and likes on the Internet under posts, as of March 2023 there have been 380 sentences, based on court records, including those sentenced to prison.
Thus, in June 2022, in Dnipro, a resident of Mariupol was sentenced to five years in prison, with a trial period of two years. In March 2022, the individual had claimed that shelling of the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in Mariupol was carried out by servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Another sentence, based on a telephone conversation in March 2023, was handed down against a resident of Odessa. That person was sentenced to two years on probation for “unpatriotic and anti-state” conversations on a mobile phone.
A resident of the village of Maly Bobrik in the Sumy region was convicted under Part 1 of Art. 436-2 of the Criminal Code in June 2022 and sentenced to a term of six months in prison because she had, in April 2022, near her yard and in the presence of three persons, expressed approval of the actions of the Russian authorities in relation to Ukraine, and later refused to admit her guilt.
At least 25 Ukrainians have been convicted of “anti-Ukrainian activities” on social media. Nineteen people were found by law enforcement officers in Odnoklassniki and held in the country. According to the investigation, these residents of Ukraine distributed “Z” symbols and Russian flags on their pages and called the invasion “liberation.”
Sentences were also handed down against those who did not distribute such publications, but only “liked” them (i.e., expressed a form of approval on social media). The texts of at least two sentences say that the so-called “likes” had the goal of “bringing the idea to a wide range of people of changing the borders of the territory of Ukraine,” and “justifying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation.” The investigators justified the prosecutions on the grounds that personal pages have open access, and liked publications can be seen by many people.
For instance, in May 2022, in Uman, a pensioner was sentenced to two years in prison with a probationary period of a year for “rejection of the current Ukrainian authorities... on the Odnoklassniki Internet network,” having put down “likes... to a number of publications that justify the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.”
In Kremenchug in May 2022, a citizen of Ukraine was convicted under article 436-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Using a pseudonym, this individual had spoken on the social media platform Odnoklassniki about the Nazis in Ukraine and the development of biological weapons funded by the Pentagon.
The repressive actions carried out by the current government to fight against those who disagree with it have turned Ukraine into the most repressive state in Europe, a state where any person who dares to oppose the authorities, the oligarchy, nationalism and neo-Nazism risks freedom and often even their life.
We ask you to disseminate this information as widely as possible, since in the current situation only wide international publicity about the facts presented in this article can help save thousands of people whose freedom and life are now under serious threat in Ukraine.
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