Crisis in the Ukraine.

Throughout the Cold War western powers funded and co-ordinated anti-Communist pro-nationalist movements across the Soviet bloc such as the Solidarity movement in Poland. Equally the USSR funded and co-ordinated anti-Capitalist movements across the west such as the National Union of Miners (NUM) in the UK.

When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR the Soviet money flowing into the west obviously ended with it. However the west continued to support groups within the old Soviet bloc in order to limit the political power of loyalists to Russia and to contain Russia by encircling the nation first with an ever expanding NATO military alliance and then an ever expanding European Union (EU) political and economic alliance.

The most notable of these was the 2004/5 Orange Revolution in the Ukraine which set about to oust the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko. Almost immediately after seizing power in 2005 Yushchenko's government began to fall to pieces and was replaced by popular vote at the earliest opportunity in 2010. Unfortunately the Orange revolutionaries who are essentially made up of extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists/fascists led by Yuschenko's American wife continue to attempt to overthrow the Ukrainian government to this day taking the epically corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko as their unlikely heroine.

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of the Syria conflict has been a growing understanding in both the EU and Russia that this constant confrontation between the two regional powers does nobody any good. So in the run up to Ukraine signing a contentious economic co-operation deal with the EU the EU decided to make the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko a condition of the agreement. The EU did this knowing full well that the Ukrainian government simply could not release Tymoshenko if for no other reason then she was rightfully convicted and jailed for stealing some USD188million from both Russia and the Ukrainian people. This was done by forcing Naftogaz to sign a supply deal with Russian Gazprom that Naftogaz then failed to honour with the money instead going into Tymoshenko's pockets. The intention being that the failure of the EU trade deal would trigger a small wave of anti-Yanukovych protests that would quickly burn out as the Orange revolutionaries would be exposed as western stooges and finally realise the error of their ways.

The problem was that the Orange revolutionaries are still so caught up in their own hype that they failed to realise that the failure of the trade deal was the EU withdrawing its support of them. Also the Orange revolutionaries are still very heavily dependent on US intelligence for funding and support. The US has a vested interested in keeping both the EU and Russia weak by keeping them in conflict with each other. Due to the conflict in Syria the US is also under great pressure from the Gulf Monarchies to keep up the pressure on Russia. The US seems unable to resist this pressure from the Gulf so the protests in the Ukraine look set to stumble on into a third week.


(Originally Posted) 11:45 on 13/12/13 (UK date).