The Minsk II agreement (like the previous Minsk I), according to the terminology acceptable to the politically motivated media spokesmen, was meant as if to resolve a so-called crisis rather than to stop a war. The adopted cease-crisis measure was a parody of what is needed to end the ongoing real war in the Donbass.
What was actually needed in Minsk talks was a ceasefire agreement. But it could not be done, because the real issue — Russia’s aggression — was shamefully sugar-coated.
Long live the double-speak! It had saved faces in many places and has been the essence of diplomacy throughout history. When carried to an extreme, as in Vlad Putin’s denial of sending Russian troops into Ukraine, it only encourages some western media sources to indulge in misleading vocabulary, bordering on dishonesty.
The motivation is usually to minimize the importance of Russia’s war on Ukraine, and to downplay the consequences it carries for the West if Russia prevails.
The emphasis is sometimes centered on allegations of “a smattering of right-wing neo-Nazi groups in the Maidan revolution on the Ukrainian side, providing for Moscow potent cudgels with which to undermine Ukraine” (“Cracks appearing in US – Ukraine relationship”, by Josh Cohen, The Moscow Times, May 6, 2015 ). Fabrication of these “cudgels” in Moscow itself is not mentioned.
A subtle hint seems to be that the fault for the recent Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory rests partly with Ukraine’s “nationalist roots of organizations involved in the post-Maidan government”. It is as if the jingoist roots of Russian imperialism have nothing to do with the Kremlin’s most recent aggression — or with its domination in Ukraine in most of the last 300 years.
Yes, this long history is not pretty. Disparaging the ongoing Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression with barbs on “the infamous Azov battalion” — one of many volunteer units for which Ukraine can be proud – is nothing less than disingenuous.
The multidirectional anti-Ukraine syndrome is rooted in the centuries of a power triad consisting of an expanding Moscow principality, Poland and Turkey, and colliding in Ukraine. The territory they did not control was “the borderland”, in which marginal freedom existed under protection of the Zaporozhian Kosaks with their fortress, the Sich, not far from today’s Dnipropetrovsk, until its destruction by Russia’s Catherine II in 1775.
Interestingly, that date was not far from the time freedom was born in North America (for Josh Cohen’s attention). It was also the time of the beginning of the end of Poland on the map of Europe for a long period – a direct result of Russia’s conquest of Ukraine. Wondering why Poland and the Baltic states are today among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine’s freedom from Moscow’s yoke?
A trip into past centuries needs no apology. It is always a source of Ukraine’s national consciousness. At times it could be melancholic, like a sad song (in a rough translation): “Pity the seagull that gave birth to its chicks on a highway”. But as long as Ukraine has defenders like the Azov battalion, no sympathy is needed — and much less the “neo-Nazi” scam.
Lots of disparaging of the Azov battalion can be found on Yahoo, all of the same cut. All point finger at Azov commander Andriy Biletsky, quoting his remarks that can be described as racist. The mysterious part is how such remarks qualify the Azov battalion as a neo-Nazi unit. Via a “focus factor”, as cheap smear, that’s how.
Racism is also a matter of opinion, especially in political exchange. Also, if all racists in a country were neo-Nazis, the remaining folks would have to emigrate.
As for the Wolfsangel, the emblem used in Azov symbolism, it goes back into the Middle Ages throughout Europe as a sign of military prowess.
The most ridiculous raving and ranting accusation of Biletsky, found in a recent article, is that the chosen subject of his dissertation was the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (supposedly guilty of ethnic cleansing).
Occasionally, Russia’s aggression is called “destabilization of eastern Ukraine which has deeply undermined European security”, as in “The nexus between the conflicts in the Mideast and Ukraine” (The Kyiv Post, June 6). But if this aggression puts Europe’s security at risk, strange is the concluding advice: “European policy makers should focus on 1. Chechnya and the North Caucasus, and 2. Iran nuclear deal”.
Important as Iran’s nuclear deal may be in the Mideast equation, one way or another it is almost irrelevant in comparison with the threat to Europe from Russia.
As for Chechnya, amazingly, the expressed concern is that “it may undermine Russia”. How dangerous would that be for Europe? It looks like another way to deflect attention from what really matters.
Karl Marx, whose knowledge of history was second to none, wrote this about Russia: “Russia, having no relation to (Kiev) Rus, and having received (more exactly stolen) its present name, nonetheless at least since the 18th century — is arrogantly claiming the historic succession to Rus that was formed 800 years earlier. Nonetheless Moscow’s history is a history of the Horde — sawn to the history of Rus with white thread and falsified (Karl Marx, “The Unmasking of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century”).
It would be good read for the present “horde” in the Kremlin, and also for some in Western academia. And here is what Maxim Gorky, the most favored writer of the Soviet era wrote: “The most important feature of the disposition of the Russian people is their sadistic cruelty”. The Germans would probably agree — when Berlin was “liberated” in April 1945.
For anyone interested in Winston Churchill’s opinion, here is a prophetic one: “When Russia becomes a fascist state, fascism in Russia will be named “a peculiar Russian spirituality”.
I could also quote some remarks about the United States. In my book, the most damning but truthful comments would be about Wall Street practices that led the country into the Great Depression of the 1930s and then again into the Great Recession starting in 2008.
The good news comes from the G7 meeting this month in Germany. Sanctions on Russia will stand. US President Obama calls Russia’s aggression in Ukraine by name.
