THE CONTINUAL TWISTING OF THE FACTS ON UKRAINE BY THE WEST

The political and media elites of the western world have consistently twisted the facts about what has happened in Ukraine since the winter of 2013-14.

Only one side of the story has been repeatedly communicated, published and broadcast from that time to this by every elite western individual, organisation, broadcaster and publisher.

If all the various factors involved are inspected with any degree of neutrality this fact becomes patently obvious.

In the first place, no consideration at all has been given by these elites to the undemocratic means used to oust the democratically-elected president and government of Ukraine in 2013-14. Because it suited the western powers to do so they supported the violent means used then and have continued to support, even applaud them, ever since.

No western government would have tolerated the scenes witnessed on Kiev’s Maidan Square. The use of arson and violence using every form of improvised weapon possible plus handguns and hunting rifles would have been condemned as insurrection and put down by all the force of the law. The recent acts of a few hundred in Washington forcing their way into the Capitol Building and the condemnation which followed demonstrates this precisely.

From those initial events on Kiev’s Maidan the western political elites in concert with their mainstream media peers have continually dodged the greater reality of events in Ukraine with the cynical motivation to twist all facts to suit one agenda and one agenda alone, the reinforcement of western elite power in that nation.

There has been zero focus from the West on how the people of Crimea and the Donbass in south-east Ukraine viewed the situation in Kiev or how historical events colour the way east and west Ukraine regard the present. Ukraine, being a nation divided down the middle in so many ways, was hardly touched upon by western reporters or politicians. Any graph of Ukraine’s general or presidential elections prior to the events of 2013-14 will show clearly that it was the eastern half of Ukraine that voted for the party represented by those ejected by use of force.

The clear fact that the democratic will of the people of Crimea and southeast Ukraine was being made null and void from that time onward by the non-democratic undermining of the president and government then in power was never granted a mention by western news outlets. A wholly negative view was taken regarding the actions taken in Crimea to resolve the democratic deficit thrust upon them by the events on the Maidan. No attempt to discover or communicate the reasons for the fear of the people of Crimea was made and every line of every published article merely emphasized a negative take, especially so when it came to the appeal of those on Crimea to Russia for help.

That Maidan extremists had ambushed a convoy of buses coming back to Crimea from a demonstration in favour of autonomy for the south-east of Ukraine and the occupants of that convoy were forced to crawl, eat the glass of the broken bus windows and shout “Slava Ukraine!” or be beaten to death, never received a mention.

The entire cry for help by the people of Crimea in the face of such thugs as those who had perpetrated such daily and nightly violence in Kiev was totally ignored. It was ignored in favour of spreading the one-sided narrative that if it had succeeded in its mission would have brought virtual slavery to the people of Crimea under the illegal, coup-government’s heel.

The same agenda was used by western political and media elites when it came to the response of the majority pro-Russian majority in the Donbass. No account was taken of the way the democratic rights of those there were taken from them nor of their natural reaction to this fact. In Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the Donbass a plea for federalisation and autonomy was heard. Government offices and administrative buildings were taken over without the violence seen on Maidan.

If for the West the ultra-violent tactics to bring down a president and government were acceptable then why not the largely non-violent takeover in the south-east. This is exactly what many in the Donbass said at the time. But what was the response of Kiev, backed by the West at that time? It was to send the Ukrainian military to the Donbass to initiate a campaign of violence against those asking for a restoration of their democratic right to continue their pro-Russian culture and continue also to ensure respect for the legacy of the second world war and all they owed to Russia from that time.

No sympathy or understanding was afforded to the majority population in southeast Ukraine. Their reaction was reduced to some form of Russian plot and subsequently was framed as a Russian invasion of Ukraine. So many lies have been told surrounding these facts. No effort whatsoever has been expended by western mainstream media to tell the story from the other side in the conflict in the Donbass since the Spring of 2014. The people there have been abandoned to their fate and cast negatively and pejoratively as ‘separatists’ and ‘rebels’. News articles have been biased wholly in favour of the views expressed by the elites of the Kiev regime and western elites. The Donbass was left as a virtual killing field for west Ukrainian neo-Nazis, mercenaries and illegal militias. This is how cynical the western press, media and politicians have been regarding this conflict.

Hardly any focus is given to the long history of the division seen emphasised so clearly in these years of conflict. No analysis of the forces and loyalties at play can be regarded as at all accurate until the years of World War II in Ukraine are taken into consideration.

The histories of east and west Ukraine during WWII emphasise the divide between them that exists to this day. Battalions of west Ukrainian nationalists were formed within the forces of the Nazis and their delight in killing Russian peasants was well known. Even the sadistic Nazis feared these battalions. Ukrainians of the east by contrast respected their Russian neighbours and intermarriage was common. They considered Russians as brothers and sisters as they do to this day.

The people of the Donbass could countenance their western countrymen and women having their eyes directed westward to the EU with equanimity, but not the tearing down of the democratically elected officials they had helped elect, not the ending of their right to have the cultures and loyalties that meant so much to them on looking east to their close and beloved neighbour, Russia. But none of this was of interest to those reporting or commenting upon the ongoing conflict to resolve the massive divide between either side of Ukraine. The only aspect they were willing to provide commentary upon was that which suited the overall agenda of the western powers who had helped the insurrection along in Kiev.

Now, all these years on from those dark days of winter 2013-14 absolutely nothing has changed. The one-sided story is still being told, all narratives are framed to support and assist the same agenda of western powers. And of course as ever Russia is being portrayed as the villain always waiting in the wings to perpetrate some terrible deed. The determination of western elite entities to portray what is in fact their own aggression as that of Russia simply serves to amplify once again how bare-faced and arrogant they are in their continual, their perpetual twisting of the facts on Ukraine.