Category Archives: Ukraine

Europe Medieval or Europe Modern?

20 Monday May 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, France, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

DW, posted to YouTube May 20, 2019.

Europeans who may wish to see fewer “3rd world country people” in their neighborhoods would do well to address the state leaders who sent them: Putin, Assad, and Khamenie.

How?

By applying “Reflexive Control” in the manipulating of Islamic Terrorism and the shaping of their wars.

—

http://www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

Method #1: detect and amplify any present national, racial, or religious suspicion into self-righteous anger and resentment — and crank it up;

Method #2: develop and deploy appropriate agitprop and agent provocateur — and for the Devil’s sake, don’t worry about anything having to do with ethics, ideals, principles, or values: in fact, dispense with the possession of conscience altogether and reduce all complexities — also, all cultural richness and intercultural relations to two essential dimensions: will and survival.

Method #3: Prepare the violence to come: arm convinced militia and move the same toward perceiving slights or promoting provocations, for either will serve the dual purposes necessary for the inhabiting of a renewed medieval world governed by feudal arrangements in support of “absolute power” (to be shared between political criminals and similar life forms).

Method #4: In hybrid, highbrow, and lowest manner, infiltrate target organizations and states for purpose of abetting their destabilization, perpetuating disinformation, and for ultimately exploiting legitimate business and labor for gain leveraged by bribery or extortion / reward for cooperation and threat for independence in either thought or action.

Also accessed in the writing of this blog:

Hinnant, Lori. “French yellow vest movement dogged by intolerance, extremism.” Daily Herald (Chicago), January 29, 2019.

Oltermann, Phiip. “Austria’s ‘Ibiza scandal’: what happened and why does it matter?” The Guardian, May 20, 2019.

Centrist leaders across Europe hope the fallout from the “Ibiza scandal” will be felt beyond Austria in the European parliament elections this week, in which populist, nationalist and far-right parties have been forecast to make gains.

Strache’s apparent eagerness to embrace corruption is in stark contrast to the “drain the swamp” rhetoric populists routinely deploy in their attempts to portray politics as a battle by decent ordinary people against a venal elite. The FPÖ is a key member of an alliance of European nationalist parties led by Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/austria-ibiza-scandal-sting-operation-what-happened-why-does-it-matter

Sheldon, Michael. “The Small World of French Foreign Fighters.” Medium, February 4, 2019. Primary Source: Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Add to the title: “We want to be free.” Posted to YouTube on February 10, 2014.

BackChannels has embedded with many posts the key word or phrase, “medieval v modern”, and that has worked for the editor, but what has emerged in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and elsewhere also could be called a “Reactionary Conservatism” that fits with the anti-democratic and piratical renewal of feudal absolute power. Where such has succeeded, so far, the same has devolved into patently criminal cronyism.

Added 5/23/2019 —

BBC on Orban’s Hungary and its “Populism” — Posted to YouTube May 22, 2019.

–33–

Ukraine’s Portent: A Dying West or Continuous Resurgent and Robust Democratic Revolution?

04 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.

Screen capture LiveUA Map May 4, 2019.

Ukraine’s five-year-old “frozen conflict” has not been forgotten by EU / NATO, which methodically if slowly has focused on containing the irritating Bear now pummeling Mariupol and targets north by northwest along a line of embattled territory on the western edge of Donetsk Oblast. In addition to a vigorous round of military exercises conducted by NATO in 2018, typified perhaps by the 31+ nation Trident Juncture 18, the United States has continued training-related deployments to Ukraine in a “train-the-trainers ” effort to improve Ukraine’s defense against greater incursion by Russian forces.

Not to flack the rah-rah: Ukraine has been made to pay a near daily — or daily — price in injury and death for having become a Russian test bed (no different than Syria) for Moscow’s defense technologies and “hybrid warfare”.

Russia’s cynical “Passportization” program appears also under way with the only resistance to it to be found in Ukrainian disinterest.

The Russian propaganda mill plies a familiar routine with web videos: the most recent shelling appears to come from Ukrainian forces without cause (I’ll leave the look-up on such as “Donetsk, fighting” to the reader). However, as displayed on any given LiveUAmap, Russia’s military-integrated activity should seem clear enough.

Primary source for this section:

Chang, Felix K. “Are the Russians Coming?: Russia’s Military Buildup Near Ukraine.” Foreign Policy Research Institute, February 25, 2019.

Drawing from the above source, this is what BackChannels tallies for undeniable Russian military presence in proximity to Ukraine’s border:

12 Battalions
340 Helicopters
500 Tactical Aircraft

Derived from the same source but focusing on what has been observed in relation to Russia’s military presence on the Crimean Peninsula:

A-50 AWAC (1)
BMD-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
IL-76 Military Transport Aircraft
S-300 Air Defense Batteries (2)
S-400 Air Defense Batteries (5)

Analyst Felix K. Chang’s winter 2019 observation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

“Together with two other S-300 air defense batteries nearby, Russian land-based air defenses in the region could simultaneously launch as many as 192 surface-to-air missiles. Interestingly, their crews have been training to counter not only hostile aircraft, but also sea-launched cruise missiles, seemingly in preparation for a NATO intervention. Whatever the case, the airspace above Crimea and Donbas has quickly become among the most well-defended in the world.

For cruising through related offerings on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, the open source seems short of up-to-the-minute Ukrainian war reportage but for the Live UA Map, a conflict pin board, and reporting by Michael MacKay via Twitter and through his column in Radio Lemberg.

BackChannels has been seeing the numbers, finding Russian-side videos (in which the fire always comes from Ukraine, not the Russian-backed separatists that provoke it), and finding videos from when the conflict was all bloody new, shocking, and hot. Now it’s still bloody and plenty hot, but it has become a part of the daily fare in the world’s conflict-related horror show.

Perhaps a warning should be issued: once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.

MacKay’s tweet, much in line with thinking by America’s Democrats and possibly some Republican moderates, begs a few questions about Ukraine’s “frozen conflict” among others: how much “patience” has the west? How much destruction and how many lives lost is acceptable before jawing about Russian barbarism and kleptocracy and posturing about western defense support and strength lose their charm?

Russia has recently claimed victory in Syria. This is what that looks like:

Ruptly, January 20, 2016

With the winter-is-coming cloud of nuclear warfare hanging over east-west confrontation — and with the incredible billions of dollars laundered out of transnational criminal enterprise spiked into the bloodstreams of states — the way forward for the democratic attenuation of political power and the promotion of faith in rule of law may be difficult to see. While one may hope for hope in that regard, locking related conflicts into one place without limit seems itself dispiriting and on the side of evil.

For how long may Ukraine be expected to endure a Moscow-engineered “status quo”?

And for how long may EU / NATO — already somewhat compromised by Moscow’s use of Islamic Terrorism and Syrian mass migration to induce / “inspire” the western “New Nationalism” — abide Moscow’s favor for Feudal Political Absolutism (worldwide) and its concomitant eroding of the ideals, principles, and values associated with democracy and the still open societies of the west?

PBS NewsHour, May 2, 2019. For more information online:
Wilmont, Simon Lereng. The Distant Barking of Dogs.
VOA, April 9, 2019, prior to elections.
UATV English, April 30, 2019

Related on BackChannels:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

–33–

One, two, three + 1: Tired Phantoms of the Soviet

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Fast News Share, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

One, two, three — Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan — each dictatorship associated with Soviet / post-Soviet political methods. Yesterday, it was the great talk of communism and socialism that yielded so much power to so despicable a kind of peacock thug among leaders — Yanukovych, Chavez and Maduro, al-Bashir, leading their states not to greatness but into dependence on themselves, at best, and state practices that may be regarded as rule of the strong by way of brutality.

Ukraine

Ukraine challenges Russia’s veto right at Security Council. February 20, 2019. Related: https://www.unian.info/politics/10454169-poroshenko-time-to-deprive-russia-of-its-veto-right-at-un.html

The next headline from UNIAN: “33 European states call on UN members to consider non-recognition measures against Russia for Crimea” (February 20, 2019).

Venezuela

Two days earlier the 29-year-old was running through his neighbourhood with a wide grin, draped in a Venezuelan flag.
“Maduro get out, you son of a bitch,” he cried in the empty road outside his home in a defiant a video uploaded to social media.
Then the feared Special Action Forces (FAES) police unit came knocking. “The people who killed him were wearing uniforms and had ski masks,” a family member who didn’t want to be identified out of fear of more violence told The Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/20/nicolas-maduros-special-police-unit-keeping-working-class-neighbourhoods

Sudan


UC26E11 POETRY FOR SUDAN, Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Sudan-Related Online

Africa News. “Sudan protest hub: Sit-in by top private telecom employees.” February 21, 2019.

AP. “Sudan Government Arrests Opposition Leaders Ahead of Protest.” VOA, February 21, 2019.

Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.
Posted to YouTube February 21, 2019.

Bonus: Syria

If the world is able to look back on this period . . . it will be sick with its memories. Bashar al-Assad with the support of Vladimir Putin and Ali Khamenei managed to physically destroy half of his state while running about half of its population as well. Now that the he has regained some areas, the past has come knocking for the release of prisoners.

Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Scanning for news, rejiggering it, “scraping” as bloggers may call it — all takes time. Of late, BackChannels has been wondering what one has gotten back — or just created — from each days sail out into the sea of web-borne news. In the spirit of philosophy, one might enjoy the consolation of having seen and relayed a very small shard of time in the world.

This post has featured web artifacts dated February 20 and 21, 2019 having to do with four conflict-hot states: Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan, and Syria. Central to the historical narratives of each: autocratic and still medieval Russia, Imperial, Soviet, Post-Soviet. The bereft and hungry of the North established tribes in Kiev around the 9th Century and lived and ruled in the feudal manner by way of the standards of the age. Contracts, expansions, hardships exceeding in excessive suffering practically every possibility short of the Holocaust — I have in mind the Mongol Invasion — and here . . . at the end of two modern revolutions and three distinct experiments with government unable to escape a paternal (and these days criminal) paternalism, . . . well here comes perhaps a different end to empire: Moscow has invaded Ukraine and Kiev is fighting back, making the sacrifices every day it must for freedom through democracy.

Venezuela’s “mafia state” will never be able to return Moscow’s “investment” in post-Soviet support — another more responsible government is needed for that.

Sudan has only this day to lose an ageing despot whose control of his state has come down to “shadow brigades” and the muzzling of truth-telling journalists. He doesn’t like the way he looks in Sudan’s newspapers. I wonder how he’ll feel when he sees himself in history.

And al-Assad: behold his greatest near accomplishment across eight punishing years of the KGB theatrical, “Assad v The Terrorists”:

Posted to YouTube January 5, 2017

Similar: Aleppo; Damascus suburb; Raqqa.

–33–

Ukraine, Russia, CW Disinformation, Annex Consolidation, Massing

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

UA-Crimea-Krug-CDAA-181226-0200EST

Liveuamap indicates Russian “KRUG CDAA” circular radar arrays installed in Sevastopol as well as the beefing up of its air force (reported four days ago)  in Ukraine’s invaded and captured space.

Note from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wullenweber —

. . . . used by the military to triangulate radio signals for radio navigation, intelligence gathering and search and rescue. Because its huge circular reflecting screen looks like a circular fence, the antenna has been colloquially referred to as the elephant cage. The term wullenwever was the World War II German cover term used to identify their secret CDAA research and development program; its name is unrelated to any person involved in the program.

Regarding the deployment of Russian fighter jets to its base in Sevastopal:

Of late, Russia has been playing up what appears to BackChannels as a false-flag operation  — or perhaps just disinformation promoting an unsavory image — accusing Ukraine of chemical weapons preparation.  While Moscow’s disinformation / propaganda campaign moves along on Twitter, here’s background on the matter from UNIAN:

Moscow’s persistence in claiming that Ukraine is plotting a chemical attack in the occupied Donbas raises serious concerns, says Ukrainian MP Dmytro Tymchuk, who is also a coordinator of the Information Resistance OSINT group. Even more worrying is the timing of Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova revisiting the issue on the eve of the two major events that will take place in December this year – the holding of the Unification Council for the creation of the United Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine and consideration by the UN General Assembly of the draft resolution on militarization of the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as parts of the Black and Azov Seas, Tymchuk wrote on Facebook.

From RFERL as cited in caption earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lists the following Russian Federation assets in the region of the so-far annexed Crimea:

  • 80,000 troops
  • 1,400 artillery and multiple rocket launch systems
  • 900 tanks
  • 2,300 armored combat vehicles
  • Hundreds of aircraft

The news may be warmed over but none can miss the portent: having invaded and annexed Crimea, Ukraine, Russia has moved to tighten its grip on its prize while preparing for “expansion” through intimidation and force.  As is — and as visiting the liveuamap service tells, there have been no ceasefires in Ukraine: shelling, injury, and death have become part of daily life in what must be for Ukraine’s military a grinding lottery of evil.

For Russia, Crimea, Ukraine must also serve to leverage the west in the middle east, for what happens between Israel and the forces sponsored or supported by Moscow and Tehran may insult a degraded EU / NATO about to be pinched between the two fronts.  By “degraded”, BackChannels refers to the following: a Germany dependent on Russia for energy supply; a Hungary that becomes more each week the feudal estate of the Orban family; a France too easily given to the “Active Measures” encouragement of Right Wing Populism; and a Turkey that has become for all intents an anti-democratic and illiberal sultanate whose highest purpose would seem to be the cultural annihilation of the Kurdish Community and the eventual destruction of Israel — the “leadership” in Ankara has more in common with Moscow and Tehran (specifically, the penchant for feudal political absolutism laced with anti-Semitism) than with London, Paris, and Washington. It both loves Moscow’s power and political prowess, and it fears it.  It’s continued NATO status and (the latest Patriot Missile deal) has more to do with the latter than any set of heartily defended liberal ethics, principles, and values.

–33–

Ukraine: ‘Glasnost Gone’ on ‘Russian Firehosing’

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Posted to YouTube November 11, 2018

“Glasnost Gone” on Twitter

UKR-181120-0532EST-AzovSea

Liveuamap, Ukraine, Luhansk and Azov Sea regions, November 20, 2018 @ 5:35 a.m.

Russian “Active Measures” and “dezinformatsiya” frame Moscow’s targets with multiple libels, the most infamous its depiction of Ukraine as a hotbed of neo-Nazi hotheads.  In the false flag fashion of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings“, Russia has produced an image of Ukraine suited to its ambitions as an invader.

From The Guardian, March 20, 2014 (Luke Harding, “Ukraine nationalist attacks on Russia supporters – fact or Kremlin fairy tale?”):

According to civil rights groups, however, the Kremlin’s account of anti-Russian persecution is a dark fairytale – “entirely fictional”, as one put it. It is, they say, a made-up scenario scripted in Moscow for state TV, and now played out on the ground by pro-Russian activists and bussed-in professionals. Russian propaganda has been extremely effective, they add. Many trust Russian state TV rather than what they see on the streets, which are strikingly bereft of fascists.

“There’s no discrimination against Russian-speakers actually,” Yevgeny Zakharov, from Kharkiv’s human rights protection group, said earlier this week. Zakharov said support for the idea of Kharkiv following Crimea and joining Russia was low – 15% according to the latest survey. He believes last week’s bloody shoot-out was deliberately provoked. “This [Kremlin] campaign is being conducted very aggressively. The idea is to give the false impression that Russians are being humiliated and Kharkiv wants union with Russia,” he said.

Related Resources on the Web

“A Guide to Russian Propaganda”.

“Daily and spot reports from the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine”.

Euromaidan Press

Inform Napalm

Meduza

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Stop Fake

UAPosition: Focus on Ukraine

UATV English

Ukrop News 24

Posted by Glasnost Gone to YouTube November 2, 2018

Posted to YouTube by The New York Times, November 19 (above) and 20 (below), 2018.

Related on BackChannels:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/

–33–

FTAC: FEMEN, Lady Liberty, Modesty, and Civil Disobedience

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, France, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Kurdistan, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Inspiration: an image with FEMEN topless, of course, up top and below examples of accomplished female professionals and the charge was that FEMEN were not feminists but the workers were.

I like FEMEN.

The Atlantic ran a Pro-Con set on them in 2013:

Pro: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/topless-jihad-why-femen-is-right/275471/

Con: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/put-your-shirts-back-on-why-femen-is-wrong/275582/

Where women enjoy security beneath the umbrella of reasonable and sound laws, it should not make a difference how one or the other choose to bring attention to political or social issues that concern them.

Free to work; free to bare the breast (at times); free to choose: free.

***

The hidden principle and cultural value behind this discussion is “modesty”. In civil and day-to-day life, most may agree that modesty is a virtue.

Keep your clothes on.

🙂

However, in the liberal western democracies that adjust themselves with thought and thoughtfulness, there’s been ample room for peaceful civil disobedience and protest. It’s in that context that a passionate defense of persons against wrongdoing my be interpreted. Perhaps where attention is needed — perhaps we should discuss FEMEN’s causes more than its methods — attention is gotten.

The Eugene Delacroix painting is famous and here somewhat between camps because she is “Liberty” herself leading the charge against tyranny.

Le 28 Juillet. La Liberté guidant le peuple

Eugene Delacroix, “Le 28 Juillet. La Liberté guidant le peuple.” Source: Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives via artsy.net

–33–

 

On President Trump’s ‘Jerusalem Declaration’

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, North America, Palestinia, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

The prompt: opprobrium for much of President Trump’s other actions and utterances with glowing exception for announcing the moving of the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

Trump has to respond to internal personal as well as external political pressures. He has to make decisions with those two universes somewhat in balance.

The “Jerusalem Declaration” sense a message to (you know what I’m going to say 　 — fill it in), and the timing is right as Israel is somewhat surrounded by PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Russia (which has military stationed about eight miles from the Golan).

The West has symbolically re-planted its flag at the Israeli bridgehead with what used to be more predictable despotic “eastern” dictatorships or “politically absolute” governments (some of them, of course, plainly hideous).

Russo-Iranian imperial aggression in the middle east has pushed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia westward, and the same has focused the remaining liberal states of EU / NATO (so perhaps not Turkey or Hungary or Poland) on resistance to extremist and tyrannous politics). The President’s move in Jerusalem nudges the other side to back off or up its game. We hope that Moscow axis will “hold” where it is and reconsider its ambitions and the means now applied — including election meddling and real fake news — toward achieving them.

— 33 —

Also in Media: In Translation: “Russia’s thorny road to democracy – Parts I, II, and III: Interviews with Dissident Igor Sharapov” | Alina Nychyk, Editor and Translator | Hold the Trend | Series from April 14 to July 9, 2017 

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Sharapov was imprisoned for 10 years when Vladimir Putin came to power.

Prior to this, in 1993, President Yeltsin confessed to him and his teacher, Vladimir Gomelskyi, that he cannot remove communists even around him in the Kremlin.

Sharapov was an assistant to the deputy of the Commission the Legislative Assembly of the city, where Putin comes from (Saint Petersburg). He was one of the initiators of the procedure for liquidating the District Committee of the Communist Party in the city, and transferring the building to the House of Freedom. Together with Gomelskyi, he was an initiator of dismantling Lenin’s monument at the central station in St. Petersburg.

Starting from 1989 until his arrest in 2000, he was creating anti-communist trade unions without employers and their agents on the basis of the Charter of the Polish group “Solidarity”. These unions were members of the Association of Free Trade Unions “Justice”.

Sharapov won a number of court trials while protecting employee trade unions, but lost his own criminal trial. The court passed the verdict without the presence of a jury in a remote northern region of Russia, where prisoners were tortured. The court’s decision contained Sharapov’s accusation in killing of a previously convicted person with two blows into the stomach, however, the man was killed by the two policemen. In reality, the authorities could not forgive him for the organization of anti-communist trade unions independent of the government in the largest Russian port, on the main railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and in St. Petersburg’s subway, as well as for the organization of victorious workers’ strikes.

After his release, he was seen among the defenders of the Euromaidan barricades in Ukraine.

Links:

Russia’s thorny road to democracy – Part I – Hold the Trend

Russia’s thorny road to democracy – Part II – Hold the Trend

Russia’s thorny road to democracy – Part III – Hold the Trend

–33–