Eurovision's Going to be Awkward This Year.

Every year members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) gather to explore their cultural and political differences through the medium of pop music. A major theme of last year's Eurovision Song Contest was former Soviet states in eastern Europe relationships with Russia who were represented by homophobia and the European Union (EU) which was represented by tolerance for homosexuality. If this theme is going to be continued at the 2014 contest it is likely to be heavily overshadowed by events in Ukraine.

As I feel I've explained dozens of times before towards the end of 2013 US intelligence services massively increased their support from Ukrainian Neo-Nazi groups such as Right Sector and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) and encouraged them to wage war against Ukraine's government. The intention being to destabilise a nation along Russia's border in order to punish Russia for it's support for the Syrian government in the face of US backed aggression. In the middle of the 2014 Winter Olympics that were being held nearby in Sochi, Russia the Ukrainian government collapsed. This created legitimate fears that groups like Right Sector and the UIA would then use the apparatus of the Ukrainian state such as the police and army to purge eastern Ukraine of ethnically Russian Slavs. This forced Russia to mass troops within its own border to act as a deterrent and prompted the people of Crimea to hold a referendum and vote to break away from Ukraine.

Since then very little has changed. Sure certain more sensible voices within Ukrainian politics have suggested that Right Sector and the UIA have no place in main stream politics and Aleksandr Muzychko - one of Right Sectors more militant leaders - was recently killed by Ukrainian security forces. However being simply an ideology of violence and hate Ukraine's Neo-Nazis have been swift to silence any and all dissent.

For example last Tuesday (8/4/14) there was an outbreak of violence within the Parliamentary chamber in Kiev. In much of the western media this has largely been dismissed as a simple fight and something of a joke. However what actually happened is that Petro Symonenko - the head of the elected Communist Party - attempted to give a speech denouncing the Neo-Nazis who responded by beating him up and forcing him from the chamber. Although it was completely disregarded by the western media Right Sector followed up the attack on Symonenko by seizing the Head Quarters of his Communist Party in Kiev before burning the building to the ground on Wednesday (9/4/14) night. The western media also appear to have failed to notice an attack on Monday (7/4/14) night by Right Sector on a Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial in Odessa in which a number of graves were desecrated.

Under these circumstances it is no great surprise that Russian Slavs in eastern Donbass region have started to form self-defence militias that have recently started to seize control of government buildings and call for referendums allowing the region to leave Ukraine. The US has been quick to label these self-defence militias as "Russian Special Forces" but it seems much more likely that they are simply militias being bankrolled by wealthy Ukrainians from the Donbass region possibly even the Ukrainian President Vicktor Yanukovyvch.

The US' response to this has been inflammatory and reckless to the point of insanity. On Saturday (12/4/14) the director of the CIA John Brennan travelled in secret to Kiev. There he instructed Kiev's self-proclaimed National Security Council of which Right Sector's Dmitry Yarosh is deputy minister to send Ukraine's military into the Donbass region on the pre-text of staging an anti-terrorism operation. However the real reason was to put Ukraine's military in firing range of the Russian troops who are still within Russia. In the short term this was intended to act as a deterrent to Russia but as Russia's military dwarfs Ukraine's this deterrent effect is likely to be limited at best if needed at all. The US' longer term objective is to provoke a war between Ukraine and Russia in the hope of forcing EU and NATO forces to join that conflict on the side of the Ukrainians.

As such I think it is long past time for the EU to get tough with the US by making it clear that there will be no more support for the Kiev government or sanction of Russia until the US demonstrates that its objective is a safe and stable Ukraine which borders both the EU and Russia rather then simply using the situation as an excuse to attack Russia over Syria. As Drake was the stick with which the US has been beating the EU throughout this his future strikes me as a very good place to start.

10:50 on 15/4/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 10:50 on 16/4/14 (UK date) to add;

Using the anniversary of the Boston marathon bombings as cover the US plan for Ukraine yesterday went into motion. This involved Ukrainian troops backed by tanks and fighter jets moving south from the Kharkiv region into the Donetsk region in an effort to re-take the towns of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. The situation is still very much in flux although fortunately there have been few reports of any violence or deaths. However today defectors from the Ukrainian military having driven light tanks flying the Russian flags into Slaviansk which could be a precursor to a tank battle.

What I found interesting was that immediately as the operation began the Russians startted reporting that people had been killed although those reports have not been verified. Throughout the crisis the US been claiming that the whole thing has been one giant Russian conspiracy intended to provoke violence in order to allow Russia to invade under the pretext of protecting Russian Slavs. By announcing fatalities the Russians seemed to be making the point that they've now got the pre-text to invade but are not doing so because that has never been their intention.

Also yesterday Saudi Arabia effectively sacked Prince Bandar bin Sultan as the head of their intelligence service. Bandar was of course the mastermind behind the plot to launch terrorist attacks against the Sochi Winter Olympics in order to punish Russia over its support for the Syrian government. His dismissal seems to indicate a Saudi acceptance that the US' more subtle approach of starting a conflict in Ukraine and then sanctioning Russia over that conflict is a much more effective way of punishing them for attempting to uphold international law. This of course also highlights the challenge Russia faces over Ukraine because co-operate or not the US are going to be pushing for action to be taken against them anyway.

Of course the situation also highlights that clearly using troops, tanks and fighter jets against your own people is apparently perfectly acceptable but only when the US are telling you to do it.


(Originally Posted on 15/4/14)