Russian-Ukrainian crisis: there are not only the 46 killed in Odessa

(To David Rossi)
07/05/19

In giving mine placet, as responsible for Geopolitics, in a nice article (you see) of our analyst Andrea Gaspardo, I had promised myself to return to the subject, because it is a very strange country, Ukraine, and a war, the one in Donbass, very dirty, where the cleanest has mange ...

The reader, accustomed to reading the so-called print main stream but also that "alternative", he will object: Kiev has many nationalist volunteers committed to fighting on the front of the Donbass and these are "Russian-speaking neo-Nazis" like those of Odessa.

Yeah, too bad that the leader of the main "Nazi-Fascist" organization is Dmytro Yarosh, born and raised in a Russian-speaking family from the East of the country.

Oh well, but Ukrainian extremists are notoriously racist and anti-Semitic.

Bingo! Too bad, however, that Ukraine is the only country in the world - in addition to Israel - to have premier and president of Jewish origin and faith. And in the last elections he allowed a handful of pro-Russian candidates to stand as a candidate, without making a fuss.

Oh well, but the nationalists condition the government, which for this is a coup and undemocratic. He even tried to exploit the Azov sea crisis for electoral purposes!

If so, the move had no effect. The president at the end of his mandate, Petro Poroshenko, was beaten by the newly elected Volodymyr Zelensky in the second round of elections without fraud1 according to all international observers. Above all, let us ask ourselves a question: if, in other ex-Soviet countries, the leadership in power - made up of former second and third lines of the PCUS nomenklatura like Poroshenko himself - would have allowed a forty-year-old man active on TV and on new media to run for office , to act as a favorite and finally to win big, without denying him the candidacy with any excuse or without arresting him and trying to steal his child custody like he did elsewhere2.

Oh well, but also behind Zelensky there are the oligarchs.

Of course. Only they did not end up with the stocks for having challenged the highest poppies, as happened in other countries of the former USSR. And, then, what are the various Berlusconi, De Benedetti, Colaninno, smaller, Casaleggio, if not the Italian version of the oligarchs? Those with a lot of money have a lot of interest in making one win or losing the other.

Oh well, but Ukraine is economically on its knees and in a pitiful financial state, after the Euromaidan revolution.

Yes, compared to the 2014 and, even more, to the 2007, Kiev is worse, much worse: by tearing its hair. But think that even Italy has not returned to 2007 levels in terms of GDP: and we do not have the cost of a war, the blockade of the Kerch Strait and a torn province. However, in the last two years Ukrainian exports have grown at a "Chinese" pace: almost 10% on an annual basis, even 16%, 24% and 25% for food, timber and steel and metallurgical products , having the main customers in Europe and still a lot of growth in North America and Asia. The growth of incoming tourist flows is even spectacular: + 69% from 2016! Even with too low wages (from hunger in many regions ...), a terrible corruption and very much "black", the country has an unemployment rate at 9,2%, a sign that companies still work.

Oh well, but it remains the indelible crime of the 2014, the violent death of 46 activists, of which the government of the time, those who succeeded and the Ukrainian revolution are guilty.

If the massacres are to be highlighted, why not also the MH17 flight? For those with a short memory, we recall that it was a scheduled flight operated by Malaysia Airlines in service on 17 July 2014 between Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and that was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over the area Eastern Ukraine. All the 283 passengers and the 15 crew members were killed in what is the seventh plane "accident" in history for number of victims. We also remember that contacts with the air traffic control agencies around 50 km from the Ukrainian-Russian border ceased and fell near the villages of Hrabove, Rozsypne and Petropavlivka in the Donesk Oblast, in territory controlled by separatists at that time pro-Russian. The weapon used was the Beech (Russian: "Бук"), a surface-to-air missile system (photo) developed by the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation to attack cruise missiles, smart bombs, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and UAVs. On the responsibilities of the separatists, there is little doubt: their leader Igor Strelkov, caught by an internet raptus3, hastened to take it on his side, then cancel the post on VK when it became clear that he had not shot down a Kiev fighter. For the record, click here to see the post of this genius, who now has to face multimillion causes around the world. Until the "omelette" overturned, even the philosophical press celebrated "success"4.

Who has historical memory and remembers well as the sinking of the RMS Lusitania - with a tenth of the US victims - he formed casus belli for the entry of the United States of America into the First World War and how the assassination of only Leon Klinghoffer caused the American raids on Gaddafi's Libya, it immediately catches the eye, following the list of 298 victims, as none had an American passport : 193 Dutch, Malaysian 43, Australian 27, Indonesian 12, British 10 and other nationality 13.

No one from the US. For this5, as well as for an international protection network, those responsible will go unpunished as and as those of Odessa. Only here we are faced with an anti-missile system that was never delivered to international investigators because it was hastily taken out of Ukrainian territory and above all by the Donbass6, along with the staff from which it was managed in that 17 July of the 2014.

In short, as "the nationalist right has gained impunity because it has demonstrated on the ground that it knows how to fight and is willing to use even violence if it is a question of achieving its goals", so it also happened to the Donbass separatists. But even to those abroad have interfered with the peaceful exercise of sovereignty by the Ukrainian authorities to the point of bringing to death almost 300 innocent, third party to the conflict7 and citizens of countries that are too weak to demand justice8. And for this crime the stigma is greater in itself, even if the only condemnation for those responsible, who are not the maximum leaders but characters in any case sufficiently in sight to be protected, will take place when between 70 or 100 years historians will be able to access to the archives. Until then, even those who are supporters of the separatist Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, will only be able to thank Heaven that their relatives and friends were not on that damn MH17 flight.

1Oh well, apart from the drunken scrutineers in the first round in a mountain village ...

3It is not just the Italian ministers who overdo social media.

5If there had been only one American, probably the world would have had to face the most serious crisis since the blockade of Cuba ...

7Not even activists who know a little about risking their skin ...

8What then would be the right revenge ...

Photo: web