by MAX BLUMENTHAL & ESHA KRISHNASWAMY
While claiming to defend democracy, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has framed his country’s war against Russia as a battle for democracy itself. In a carefully choreographed address to US Congress on March 16, Zelensky stated, “Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy.”
US corporate media has responded by showering Zelensky with fawning press, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute to himself and the Ukrainian military during the 2022 Grammy awards ceremony on April 3.
Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia. Several mayors and other Ukrainian officials have been killed since the outbreak of war, many reportedly by Ukrainian state agents after engaging in de-escalation talks with Russia.
“There is one less traitor in Ukraine,” Internal Affairs Ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko stated in endorsement of the murder of a Ukrainian mayor accused of collaborating with Russia.
Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.
The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.
On the battlefield, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has engaged in a series of atrocities against captured Russian troops and proudly exhibited its sadistic acts on social media. Here too, the perpetrators of human rights abuses appear to have received approval from the upper echelons of Ukrainian leadership.
While Zelensky spouts bromides about the defense of democracy before worshipful Western audiences, he is using the war as a theater for enacting a blood-drenched purge of political rivals, dissidents and critics.
“The war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members who express themselves critical of the government,” a left-wing activist beaten and persecuted by Ukraine’s security services commented this April. “We must all fear for our freedom and our lives.”
Torture and enforced disappearances “common practices” of Ukraine’s SBU
When a US-backed government seized power in Kiev following the Euromaidan regime change operation of 2013-14, Ukraine’s government embarked on a nationwide purge of political elements deemed pro-Russian or insufficiently nationalistic. The passage of “decommunization” laws by the Ukrainian parliament further eased the persecution of leftist elements and the prosecution of activists for political speech.
The post-Maidan regime has focused its wrath on Ukrainians who have advocated a peace settlement with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east, those who have documented human rights abuses by the Ukrainian military, and members of communist organizations. Dissident elements have faced the constant threat of ultra-nationalist violence, imprisonment, and even murder.
The Ukrainian security service known as the SBU has served as the main enforcer of the post-Maidan government’s campaign of domestic political repression. Pro-Western monitors including the United Nations Office of the High Commission (UN OHCR) and Human Rights Watch have accused the SBU of systematically torturing political opponents and Ukrainian dissidents with near-total impunity.
The UN OHCR found in 2016 that “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of such conflict-related detainees were common practice of SBU… A former Kharkiv SBU officer explained, ‘For the SBU, the law virtually does not exist as everything that is illegal can be either classified or explained by referring to state necessity.”
Yevhen Karas, the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi C14 unit, has detailed the close relationship his gang and other extreme right factions have enjoyed with the SBU. The SBU “informs not only us, but also Azov, the Right Sector, and so on,” Karas boasted in a 2017 interview.
Kiev officially endorses assassinating Ukrainian mayors for negotiating with Russia
Since Russia launched its military operation inside Ukraine, the SBU has hunted down local officials that decided to accept humanitarian supplies from Russia or negotiated with Russian forces to arrange corridors for civilian evacuations.
On March 1, for example, Volodymyr Strok, the mayor of the eastern city of Kreminna in the Ukrainian-controlled side of Lugansk, was kidnapped by men in military uniform, according to his wife, and shot in the heart.
On March 3, pictures of Strok’s visibly tortured body appeared. A day before his murder, Struk had reportedly urged his Ukrainian colleagues to negotiate with pro-Russian officials.
Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrated the mayor’s murder, declaring on his Telegram page (see below): “There is one less traitor in Ukraine. The mayor of Kreminna in Luhansk region, former deputy of Luhansk parliament was found killed.”
According to Geraschenko, Strok had been judged by the “court of the people’s tribunal.”
Telegram post by Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrating the assassination of “traitor” and Kreminna Mayor Volodymyr Struk
The Ukrainian official therefore delivered a chilling message to anyone choosing to seek cooperation with Russia: do so and lose your life.
On March 7, the mayor of Gostomel, Yuri Prylipko, was found murdered. Prylipko had reportedly entered into negotiations with the Russian military to organize a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of his city’s residents – a red line for Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who had long been in conflict with the mayor’s office.
Next, on March 24, Gennady Matsegora, the mayor of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, released a video (below) appealing to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration for the release of his daughter, who had been held hostage by agents of the Ukrainian SBU intelligence agency.
Then there was the murder of Denis Kireev, a top member of the Ukrainian negotiating team, who was killed in broad daylight in Kiev after the first round of talks with Russia. Kireev was subsequently accused in local Ukrainian media of “treason.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that “there would be consequences for collaborators” indicates that these atrocities have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government.
As of today, eleven mayors from various towns in Ukraine are missing. Western media outlets have been following the Kiev line without exception, claiming that all mayors been arrested by the Russian military. The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the charge, however, and little evidence exists to corroborate Kiev’s line about the missing mayors.
Zelensky outlaws political opposition, authorizes arrest of rivals and war propaganda blitz
When war erupted with Russia this February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a series of decrees formalizing Kiev’s campaign against political opposition and dissident speech.
In a March 19 executive order, Zelensky invoked martial law to ban 11 opposition parties. The outlawed parties consisted of the entire left-wing, socialist or anti-NATO spectrum in Ukraine. They included the For Life Party, the Left Opposition, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Socialists, the Party of Shariy, Ours, State, Opposition Bloc and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.
Openly fascist and pro-Nazi parties like the Azov National Corps were left untouched by the presidential decree, however.
[the_ad id=”157875″]
“The activities of those politicians aimed at division or collusion will not succeed, but will receive a harsh response,” President Zelensky stated.
As he wiped out his opposition, Zelensky ordered an unprecedented domestic propaganda initiative to nationalize all television news broadcasting and combine all channels into a single 24 hour channel called “United News” to “tell the truth about war.”
Next, on April 12, Zelensky announced the arrest of his principal political rival, Viktor Medvedchuk, by Ukraine’s SBU security services.
Medvedchuk’s face is clearly bruised, apparently a result of beatings from Zelensky’s SBU goons. Don’t expect any questions about this image to appear in the pages of the NYT or in CNN’s 24 hour media circus. Can’t allow anything to undermine the pro-war narrative. pic.twitter.com/A0qhhmeaj8
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) April 12, 2022
The founder of the second largest party in Ukraine, the now-illegal Patriots for Life, Medvedchuk is the de facto representative of the country’s ethnic Russian population. Though Patriots for Life is regarded as “pro-Russia,” in part because of his close relations with Vladimir Putin, the new chairman of the party has condemned Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine.
Members of the state-sponsored neo-Nazi Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked Medvedchuk’s home in March 2019, accusing him of treason and demanding his arrest.
This is not our fight nor should we encourage escalation. The dumbass senator from Delaware said yesterday we should commit ground troops in Ukraine to fight with Ukraine against Russia. Whiskey tango foxtrot.
The Left’s Pro-Putin, Pro-WWIII stance is more evidence that mass hysteria is a thing, and the drones currently cheering on a needless war while ignoring a demonstrated pedophilia pretending to be president are now a threat to our country.
If you looking for lies that insult your intelligence, you come to the right place.
When you post, most certainly.
If you’re looking for lies that insult your intelligence, you’ve come to the right place.
When you post, most certainly.
What’s the latest propaganda they have you shitting over the internet today?
On your way to the Front in Ukraine yet, or are you just going to keep the new hysteria going about the new silly straw-man you idiots invented in a long string of “others”:
Qanon, Trumpers, Anti-vaxxers, and now….Putin Apologists.
Hmm…Forgive student debt (to get more bullshit votes this November, false promises as usual), Meadow’s texts, and a plea to end presidential debates so Dems won’t loss an election from their candidate shitting themself while they wear a hidden earpiece.
Anything else?
You’re a liar, just like Trump and Putin.
‘We need answers’: relatives seek Moskva warship’s missing crew
I was reading the headlines on CNN+ (failed and about be shut down as it is).
“You’re a liar” means you’re an algorithm.
I bet that’s Russian disinformation.
They’re all part of the same identifiable category, aren’t they? Their propaganda is increasingly easy to identify and attribute because it always turns up in the same places, and always has the same propaganda attributes.
Same category indeed: they don’t exist.
What you’re really trying to say is that you have a handy, made up, Juden-style name for any and all political opposition that dares to question your Party’s totalitarian conduct.
Good luck.
Greg you have been told, there is Q and there are Anons, there is no Qanon it doesnt exist. Your “sources’ are ignoramuses. What do you attribute to the catagories, the law, decency, constitution, rights ?
From the X-files https://www.bitchute.com/video/JfnRAnm9nYEP/
greg might eventually wake up and understand there is another “N-Word” for non-Leftists invented at will by Leftist Propaganda.
I’m not sure I can do this justice, but let me try:
I don’t condone any atrocities; I condemn them all. But, realize, the Ukrainians are in a fight for their lives. Faced with atrocities, they commit some. They are short on weapons and anyone that usurps their strength through treachery is punished.
They aren’t Americans. They don’t have our sense of fairness or benevolence. They also can afford very little of it, facing a more powerful enemy committing aggression upon their country. I ask myself, why would I do in a life or death fight for my own house? To the extent of my strength, there’s nothing I WOULDN’T do against my enemy.
The Russians are fighting exactly as they fought the Nazis in World War II; nothing is out of bounds, every act has a psychological effect. Ukrainians are not far removed from the Russians; they have the same heritage. But, as in World War II, we find ourselves having to lend support to someone with less than democratic character in order to stave off a more brutal aggressive dictator.
Russia launched an aggressive war of territorial conquest. This would bring out the worst of anyone.
04/18/22- Despite Putin’s claims that the West’s ‘economic blitzkrieg strategy didn’t work,’ Moscow’s mayor says the city is about to lose 200,000 jobs
I suppose Putin can put them all in uniforms and send them to Ukraine.
2.83 MILLION Americans lost their job in the U.S. in March.
Perhaps hyperinflation, Covid measures, and sanctioning Russia over a war started by our meddling and Biden’s corruption in Ukraine is costing our nation quite a bit more?
By the way, when you are you going to put on your Azov outfit and go fight for the noble Ukrainians?
We’re waiting.
Why can’t the Mayor of Moscow just pay up another 3 million to the Biden Crime Family for some favors?
It worked before…
The walls are closing in!
https://twitter.com/gbazov/status/1516241425091997702?t=p7QTUz-ESZ2_b6DZcNXflQ&s=19
Putin is winning this war, anyone’s opinion of Russia or Ukraine being meaningless.
This will end with Vladimir Putin either deposed or dead. That will be what “winning” looks like, because that is the situation he himself has created. In the meantime, the evil little bastard will continue his ‘Special Military Operation’ of rape, pillage, murder, and genocide, with the intention of depopulating and stealing somebody else’s homeland.
Today, in Mariupol, he’s targeting the final refuge of a thousand old people, women, and children, who are trapped with the city’s last defenders and have no avenue of escape from the incessant artillery bombardment.
Vladimir appreciates your support. In return, he will offload the cost of supporting millions of displaced Ukrainian refugees onto you.
My money is on zelensky getting whacked. The puppet of the globalists is a dirtbag
Given that Putin has a long history of murdering his enemies, you’d have to give odds. Putin is murderous scum. His known history supports that assertion.
Zelensky is defending his homeland from an invading tyrant who’s trying to burn it to the ground.
Look WE said Putin was a threat. WE said to watch out. Democrats made fun of that, and now Vlad is eating Biden’s lunch and doing what he wants on the world stage.
You’re a Putin supporter, in your actions and inaction.
Just own it and get your ass over there to save some Ukrainians.
Anything less than that means you don’t f*cking care, and you’re lying.
If anyone has supported Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, it’s you. Your ideals, your promotion of an installed puppet, and your hubris concerning a globalist power that was un-elected and has NO RIGHT to do anything on our behalf.
That’s on you.
Only a douche-bag or someone with inside information would say this. Do tell…
Again, enough with your silly and commissioned propaganda. It’s not playing well, and no one buys it. The “just kill or replace this ONE guy” rhetoric is asinine.
You people caused this war in Ukriane. Their blood is on YOUR hands.
Own it like an adult.
2.83 MILLION Americans lost their job in the U.S. in March.
We are borrowing billions to support a Nazi regime. Zelensky a ruthless MF that lets nothing stand in his way of puppet power, yes his ring links up with the IMF and WEF in a cartoonish way destroying all that do not back his genocide of Russian ethnics and Gypsies.
His election campaign promised closer ties to all neighbors peace and harmony end to corruption, he never slowed down his battle with eastern Ukraine, his “popularity” was down in the 20 percentile before he began poking the bear real hard.
This is pushed by DC, they so need a distraction from sending our oil reserves to Europe the planned food shortages and planning future covid lockdowns to force everyone on the planet to take a vaccine they lied about.
There is no vital National security interest in the eastern Russian speaking border of Ukraine. We are wasting American tax dollars on a fool’s errand.
The daily mail came out in support of sanctions against Germany because they continue to buy energy from Putin
America does have a National security interest at our southern border than jackass biden ignores.
The media is making hay out of the dead Soviet Union, today anyone can leave Russia anytime they want, pay a flat 15 % income tax, no longer stand in line for bread or shoes. Gun ownership is legal.
We have to protect them, cant have people living like that meme of the left rings quite hollow.
These Are the American Right-Wingers Covering for Putin as Russia Invades Ukraine
If you had an actual point, you wouldn’t have to lie about it.
Ukraine stands between Vladimir Putin and Putin’s domination of Europe. That would be a point.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1517218288488620033?t=ye8NV2OrjpFT44MCqs3FGw&s=19
Ukraine is a deep state/Euro/Globalist washing machine, at this point.
War gets that cash really, really clean.
The walls are closing in!!!!!
That’s not a point, at all.
So now Putin is invading all of Europe?
The walls are closing in!!!!
This is merely the left trying to save face. They have ignored Russia for two decades and defended Putin
Why does Putin have superfans among the US right wing?
Why does the left have to lie about everything? How is doubting the least credible regime in US history supporting Putin? In actual fact, using overt election fraud to install this dim witted puppet into the White House supported Putin immeasurably; he could not… WOULD not have invaded without idiot Biden being in office.
This is mindless propaganda and simply an admission that you’re shilling for the globalists who caused this war and not thinking about it critically.
Good luck with the superfans moniker though. That’s cute.
A full investigation by the doj into the bidens and other lawmakers who very plainly contributed to this war by laundering money and installing their family members and others into energy companies in Ukraine needs to be held
Home improvement tip.
The cars were flipped by blast pressure passing between the underside of the car and the pavement. The surge of pressure is lower in the open space above the vehicle than the confined space below it. It’s simple physics. You’ll see that any time a shell lands near vehicles.
Bullshit.
Its a car bomb lol
Sure Greg simple physics of bombs, they only attack cars.
Wait a minute let the VP explain space to Spaceforce lololol
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/04/20/kamala-harris-tries-to-explain-space-to-the-space-force-n2606114
greg is hilarious when he makes up “basic physics” on the spot.
What a clown.
It’s odd that you can’t figure out how the basic physics of blast pressure works, given that you believe you know everything.
Fold down the ends of a playing card, set it on a table, blow on it from the side, and see what happens. It will flip over. No mathematics is required. Common sense is helpful.
Question really is why you are a superfan of Nazis
Use your computer for something useful
So as usual, this silly article reduces to “agree with our narrative or we will call you white supremacists.”
The anti-Semitism is laughable, given the literal anti-semites are Ukrainian.
Azov.
Right now the people on the right represent those who value free speech, equality for all people of any race religion and Creed, and know that democracy is something that needs to be guarded and promoted.
The Left represent racists, rich white people, warmongers, in segregationists
What Putin brings: Kharkiv tragedy: Ukrainian man, 79, killed while out to buy bread
https://twitter.com/gbazov/status/1516780210120806405?t=GiMRlr4d69WCnCoYNkyi2Q&s=19
greg? Answer for this.
You WILL give us an answer for why Ukrainians are killing their own, and why any sane American should swallow the “it’s just Putin” garbage you keep pushing.
Answer me!
greg is pro-Nazi, and hates Jews.
So is Zelensky and Soros greg has 2 favorite answers on post it notes, one for the election fraud one for this proxy war, both say its Trumps fault.
It’s just as likely that man was killed by Ukrainian soldiers, so…what’s your point?
Carry on.
Putin is winning this war.