Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Russia and the Clinton Foundation

Seems Russia gives money to the Clinton Foundation through Uranium One. They needed permission to do this, of course, which they received from Secretary of State Hilly Clinton.

Uranium One is, of course, the uranium firm that sent a “flow of cash” to the Clinton Foundation as the Russian government gained increasing ownership of the company; the State Department had to sign off on the Russians’ encroachment into the American uranium market. The Clinton Foundation did disclose its relationship with Uranium One in Hillary’s State Department disclosures. According to the Daily Caller, Uranium One “paid the Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service and the National Security Council for ‘international mining projects,’ according to a July 20, 2012 filing.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/01/clinton-guru-podesta-lobbied-for-scandal-ridden-uranium-one/

First ever protest in Transnistria

Today, the prospects of the unrecognized republic are even more vague than those of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories: the Kremlin has run out of money to help the pro-Russian “hotbeds of instability.”

The events of recent weeks in Ukraine and Russia completely overshadowed the protests of Transnistria’s state employees. A rally in the central park of Tiraspol in late February against rising rates and prices in the housing sector, medicine and education, initiated by social movement Popular Unity gathered nearly 700 protesters.
Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/politics/1054236-trouble-in-transnistria.html

http://www.unian.info/politics/1054236-trouble-in-transnistria.html

A Mayflower American finds home in Ukraine

Some years ago, I decided to start a new life. I wanted to get away from an America that had taught even my own children to despise our Mayflower heritage. In September 2007, I went to Kiev, in Ukraine, to study Russian for a month, and then went back to Kiev in November. The next spring I folded my US household, sold my cars, activated Social Security, and signed a long-term lease in Kiev. Over the next two years I continued learning Russian and making contacts. In September 2009 I met a Ukrainain woman whom I married in 2010. We had a son in 2011, and built a house in 2012.

http://www.amren.com/features/2015/03/ukraine-a-last-bastion-of-whiteness/

Latvian ‘rebel’ tells of banditry in the Donbas

He was from the “militia”?

No way! I’ll tell you more. I think that the Russian officers were brought in to the Donbas a year before it all started. There’s no regular Russian army there, there are Special Forces. Regular troops remain on their territory, doing laundry or whatnot. And in the Donbas there is another Russian army. For each group there is one specialist who gives you a map, a map of the infantryman, the scale of one to 2500, just on the battlefield. While they have other maps, GPS, UAVs, they have GRU [Russian military intelligence service] behind them. They have normal storages packed with uniforms, with everything. They’ve got stuff that you can’t find anywhere in Donetsk or Luhansk. Those who wear that Pixel-type camouflage, you can’t even go up to them and ask something. They are from the outside, they appear and then disappear. When the firefight begins – they disappear, leaving only the front-line people. There was a professional army, everyone knew what to do. I’m sure they were brought in beforehand.

All this “Givi” and “Motorola”, all that garbage. They are never at the front line. They work for the cameras. And mercenaries – both on the base, and over there, are people who had already been to war. In my platoon, there were those who had already gone through three wars, they were both in Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan, they are all scarred, it’s all just fun for them, “Hey, let’s beat that ‘ukrop’” [“ukrop” – is another derogatory term used by Russians for Ukrainian citizens].

What about the locals? Are they of any help?

Everything shown on Youtube is total garbage. There is no longer any support [from the locals]. Stones were thrown at our convoy as we passed. Even in Donetsk. I really felt bad then. They were just throwing stones. Nobody has jobs, everything is closed down. Patrols were organized to give away food to the locals, to show off, like they’re cool guys, and then at 0400, when everyone is asleep, they would be like “Let’s shell those houses with ‘Grads!” [‘Grad’ is a Russian-made rocket launcher]. Or they would drive off in their SUVs somewhere to Donetsk, Shakhtarsk, or Avdiyivka, turn around and open fire on their own men. And also they shell [Ukrainian territory] from Russia with “Smerch” [a Russian-made multiple rocket launch system]. I was near the border and I saw “Smerch” rockets flew over in the direction of Ukraine. I have no idea where they landed, maybe they hit civilians. What they say on the TV, that civilians bring them food, it’s all bullsh*t. Their food comes in convoys.

Is there a lot of staged filming in general?

There are lot of fakes. I saw these Lifenews [crews]. There were fake OSCE [mission members]. Well. There were real ones as well, but they would appear when there are TV crews and when everything is over. There are many fakes.

Are there supplies of alcohol and drugs to the fighters?

Chechens have their own drugs and syringes. They said that it was morphine, but I’ve seen people under morphine influence, so that was more likely heroin. After morphine people just lie on the ground, but after heroin they are still able to walk and shoot. These guys couldn’t care less – they just go and kill people.

Yes, there also were disciplinary battalions, [former] convicts consisting of 32 and 64 people. Those are just crazy. They are in overkill mode. We would spend 120 rounds of ammunition overnight, while they could easily spend 40,000.

When did you realize that you wanted to leave?

They would make people change clothes. The people who passed through the training base, I don’t know who they were. They were brought in the APCs, having being arrested. They would dress them up in Ukrainian uniform, with Ukrainian stripes and all that; they’d let them out somewhere, and then shoot them. Then comes the TV crew, when all is quiet, and they just show how many “ukropy” have been killed. I was disgusted. It’s the show for the whole world, it’s no political war. There are local rebels there, but these rebels sit in the cellars with their children while the whole other kind of people roams the streets. There are Special Forces of the Russian Federation there, I insist on this point. They are Special ops. As I had gained some authority, I told them, “Either I’m leaving, or just shoot me.” And I just disappeared via Rostov, again. They don’t let the others leave. Either you leave and die, or you stay. It’s like a prison camp.

What is your subjective evaluation of what you saw?

Just hold your territory, don’t go on offensive. There’s no help for the Russians there, no support – the locals hate them. Civilians have no jobs and no peace because of them. Everybody is dying from idleness and even from hunger. This is yet another Holodomor. Both in Luhansk and Donetsk. All this made me stutter for a couple of weeks. Now I’d like to fight for the other side. Against these people, not against the civilians. This is banditry, I can’t find no other name for it.

http://www.unian.info/war/1072016-latvian-rebel-tells-of-banditry-in-the-donbas.html

Report: DNR terrorists economize by killing mercenaries

The Donetsk terrorist gangs are using artillery to execute Russian mercenaries who are owed back pay for several months of “service,” reports Liga.net, citing the Russian TV journalist Timur Olevsky.

Terrorists at the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) are executing Russian mercenaries to avoid paying them back wages, the well-know Russian journalist Timur Olevsky, a correspondent for the independent Dozhd TV channel, reported on his Facebook page, February 26.

“In Pisky I saw a strange scene. For four hours the DNR artillery pounded a building near the airport where another DNR unit was located. I even did a news report on it. I could not understand what was happening. And the Ukrainian officers could not understand it. They only said that it happened quite often. First they fired on their own and then they opened fire on them,” Olevsky wrote.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/02/26/dnr-terrorists-economize-by-killing-mercenaries-journalist/

Why do Russian propagandists lie? Habit/Cynicism/No fear of reprisal

Why do Kremlin Propagandists lie?

– Habit
– Cynicism
– No fear of consequences in “weak” Western society.

This Further evidence of why, as +Curt Doolittle says, we need to PUNISH THE LIARS!

“Russia’santi-Ukrainian propagandist bear their share of responsibility for this.

Lying comes naturally to those of us who grew up in the Soviet Union. I was recently chatting with an employee of the Russian consulate in New York. I wanted to hear his views on the international situation, and I generally find it easier to draw people out if you agree with them rather than argue. So I played along, and soon discovered to my horror that I had no difficulty mouthing the official Russian line on U.S.-Russian relations. I was suddenly back in my school days during Leonid Brezhnev’s era, when I could earnestly declare one thing at the weekly political information class while thinking exactly the opposite.

And so it is with the Russian journalists. Toeing the party line comes naturally to them. I’m sure they don’t even consider it lying – in much the same way as taking stuff from a factory or an office was never considered stealing back in the days of the Soviet Union. It was just the Soviet way.

There is one other peculiarity of the latent Soviet-style newthink. When you live in Russia, you become convinced that nothing in that country ever changes. Every regime isforever. To be sure, deep down you know that the day will eventually arrivewhen all Soviet television channels start playing solemn music or broadcastingthe Swan Lake ballet over and over again, and then a grave-faced announcer will come on to inform the nation that it has suffered an irreparable loss and the current Josef Stalin, Brezhnev or Putin has passed away. But when that day does arrive, it is always a great surprise. The nation suddenly feels orphaned and lost.

The West, on the other hand, looks flimsy and vulnerable to the Russians. How can the United States be strong if every two years the entire House of Representatives has to be reelected and the sitting president has to submit to popular vote after just four years and leave office after eight? How can Europeans have any law and order if you hardly ever see cops on their streets? Pointing out the fact thatthe United States has had the same Constitution for nearly 250 years simply doesn’t work. Russians, who have lived under half-dozen different constitutions over the past century and who see their country jerk this way and that with every new ruler, are forever expecting the dollar to crumble and the United States to disintegrate.

In their hearts of hearts, all those solovyovs and kiselyovs simply don’t believe that the Putin regime will one day end and that they will have to answer for their actions. Even if they do, they’re convinced that in the weak-kneed democracies will give them no more than a slap on the wrist. After all, the freedom of speech is one of the basic democratic principles – and the one, incidentally, they’re going to use in Washington to avoid U.S. sanctions.”

www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/alexei-bayer-what-drives-russian-propagandists-387173.html

Low trust society / Russian mentality exemplified: Putin dismissive of western milk farmer who moved to Russia

The westerner is still broadcasting high trust.

Putin’s dismisses his honest concern, immediately suggesting, cynically that he came to Russia for the women — they can’t even fathom that someone isn’t conniving.

Putin says that if things were really bad, he’d already be out of business, and that the official reports stating the economy is healthy are accurate.

This is the low-trust society.

(From November) Looking for foreigners to work in Ukraine’s gov’t

Prague-based Pedersen & Partners and Korn Ferry, global head hunting firms, have found 185 potential employees, many of whom are members of Ukrainian community in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. . . .

The Renaissance Foundation, a global network of policy consulting centers launched by American billionaire George Soros, has sponsored the headhunting process. It paid as much as $82,200 to two companies involved in finding the capable employees for the government agencies.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/global-recruiting-agencies-found-24-foreigners-to-work-in-ukraines-government-373522.html

Wikipedia: The International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) (Ukrainian: Міжнародний фонд “Відродження”) is a Ukrainian NGO founded by George Soros.

Suspicious about that last part, because George Soros does not seem like a force for good in the world, though being close to the events in Ukraine, I think it’s okay. I think he is primarily concerned with the threat the Russia poses to Jews and to everyone else.

A footnote to Yalta – 7 minutes of footage tells the story of hundreds of thousand Soviet Refugees #repatriation #keelhaul

The Betrayed and Forgotten #SovietHell

It is the unedited footage taken by an American army camera unit at a prisoner of war camp in southern Germany in February 1946. A card, headed “Return of Russian Prisoners to Russia,” identifies the subject matter of the film and the location where it was taken. . . .

it recorded was a small part of a vast operation that was one of the most sensitive of the Second World War, the handing over to Stalin of large numbers of Russians who in varying circumstances found themselves under German control . . .

The fate of these Russians was one of the best kept secrets of the war. . . .

Many were executed on the spot. In some instances, Allied guards responsible for turning over their prisoners could see their bodies hanging in the forests where the exchange took place. Some were transferred on the same boat that had brought the British delegation to Yalta a few months previously. They were shot behind warehouses on the quay side with low flying Soviet planes circling overhead to help drown the noise of the rifle fire. Many returned prisoners were tortured before being shot. The remainder disappeared into prison camps for long sentences, receiving the worst treatment of all the Gulag’s inmates. Needless to say all were immediately stripped of the new winter clothing and personal equipment that had been generously issued to them by the British in response to the cynical demands of Soviet liasion officers. American and British officers were the appalled eyewitnesses to many desperate acts of suicide by Russian men and women who preferred their own death and that of their wives and children to falling into the hands of the Cheka/NKVD/GPU/KGB. . . .

The film in the National Archives is thus a unique visual document, an extraordinary witness to a dark episode in this century’s history. . . .

[After repatriating refugees] The Americans returned to Plattling visibly shamefaced. Before their departure from the rendezvous in the forest, many had seen rows of bodies already hanging from the branches of nearby trees. On their return, even the SS men in a neighbouring compound lined the wire fence and railed at them for their behaviour. The Americans were too ashamed to reply. . . .

A few days later, on March 6, a photograph was published in the American forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, showing this same Russian. It’s an identical pose to a frame in the film. The caption to the photograph reads:

HURT: Russian repatriate Constantine Gustonon grimaces with pain after he slashed himself on the chest some 17 times in a suicide attempt to avoid being returned to Russia. He is held by Capt. Kenny Gardner, of the 66th Inf. Regt.. Gustonon’s was the first case of attempted suicide among the deportees from Platting [sic] to Russia as PWs.

The photograph is reproduced in Bethel’s book, described as “rare.” It is rare indeed, carried in only one edition of Stars and Stripes and with no accompanying story . . .

Russians interned at Dachau, site of the notorious Nazi concentration camp and not far from Plattling, had resisted their repatriation with a ferocity that stunned American military police, resulting in at least ten suicides. . . .

With the exception of Constantine Gustonon, the man who stabbed himself in the chest, we know no one’s name; but here are individual human beings whose images have been saved from the turmoil of a terrible century. A few lined and weary faces are recognizable, they speak for all of humanity, and who cannot single out among them a son, a brother, a husband?

http://www.bu.edu/jeremymb/papers/paper-y1.htm

***

See also The statement of a British sailor about Kozaks being repatriated by UK and US forces:

“I took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Our soldiers felt very badly. I helped to fish out Germans from the sunken Bismarck, which received the greatest number of torpedoes in history. I saw the population of Malta sitting in the cellars for many weeks. I saw Malta being bombed incessantly and deafened by explosions of bombs and shells. They were exhausted from constant explosions and alarms. I lived through the sinking of my own ship. I know about jumping into the water at night, dark and without bottom, and the terrifying shouts for help of the drowning, and then the boat, and looking for the rescue ship. It was a nightmare. I drove German prisoners captured during the invasion of Normandy. They were almost dying from fear. But all that is nothing. The real, terrible, unspeakable fear I saw during the convoying and repatriation of people to Soviet Russia. They were becoming white, green and grey with the fear that took hold of them. When we arrived at the port and were handing them over to the Russians, the repatriates were fainting and losing their senses. And only now I know what a man’s fear is who lived through hell, and that it is nothing compared to the fear of a man who is returning to the Soviet hell. ”

Swedish and Finnish media report that the Finnish armed forces dropped warning bombs in response to an ‘unknown’ underwater craft

Swedish and Finnish media report that the Finnish armed forces dropped warning bombs in response to an ‘unknown’ underwater craft in Finnish waters….

https://translate.google.at/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.focus.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2Fvor-helsinki-finnland-bombardiert-verdaechtiges-u-boot_id_4644061.html&edit-text