WHO BEGAN THE CARNAGE IN UKRAINE?

You may say this is an easy question to answer, that clearly Russia began it with its invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February this year. However, if so I would ask you to hold that thought while we examine two historical and undisputed events.

The first is the carnage which took place on Kiev's Maidan Square through the winter period of 2013-14. This period was marked by extreme savagery and although it is very likely that the more psychopathic members of Ukraine's 'Berkut' special security force began it with unnecessary violence against the protesters of that time it soon developed into an all-out war where the preponderance of the violence was carried out by an influx of particularly violent extremists. At that point onward until the fall of both president and government anything that could be used as a weapon was, including the burning down of buildings, toxic sprays, heavy chains, clubs of all descriptions modified for maximum effect, Molotov Cocktails, hunting rifles and handguns.

While all this was going on various officials of the United States were on hand to lend support.

Ultimately, in a final outbreak of unconscionable violence a group from another nation arrived to effect a false flag event shooting down scores of protesters. This was the first instance of the violence which led us to where we are now in Ukraine.

The second outbreak followed soon after when the people of eastern Ukraine in the region known as the Donbass took matters into their own hands on seeing what had transpired in Kiev and began surrounding and taking over as many administration offices and functions as they could. You must understand that Ukraine is a nation divided in so many ways and almost literally in half, with one side speaking Ukrainian and looking west and the other speaking Russian and looking east. You may say this was a completely illegal thing to do. Those who did it would point to the recent events in Kiev and ask you if what happened there was legal? (The president and government who had been overthrown by a West-approved and supported insurrection/coup/example of people power - however you wish to name it, were both democratically elected.) At any rate, no one died during the takeover of all administrative functions in the Donetsk and Lugansk (Luhansk) regions of the Donbass.

So where does the violence which descended into carnage emerge from in this case? Previously we saw that the arrival of violent militias who took over from the earlier, relatively peaceful protesters did, so what happened to stimulate a violent confrontation leading to a great many more deaths this time?

It was a week or two later that the response came from Kiev to the appeals from those who had taken over in Donetsk and Lugansk for autonomy to run their own affairs. (The main areas of concern for them was to preserve their language (Russian), maintain their long-held affiliations and good relations with Russia (inter-marriage being very common among them) and to preserve also their entire culture which also included honouring the memory of the Soviet Red Army liberating the country from the Nazis. The extremist minority in western Ukraine, many of whom were and still are within the Ukrainian military held an opposing view, that Hitler and the Nazis had been beneficial to the Ukrainian nationalist cause. This prompted an extremely violent urge among many of them who considered their fellow Ukrainians in the east to be Russians, traitors to Ukraine and they gave them the pejorative, generalized name, 'Moskals'.

So, where did the violence emerge from? It emerged, as I say, about a week or two after the takeover of the administration of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Kiev sent a large military force, perhaps with the initial purpose to merely intimidate the leaders of the autonomy movement in the Donbass. However, with an incident or two of violence at the checkpoints they set up these sparks led to the fire of general violence which led to the mass shelling of the urban areas of Donetsk and Lugansk. The worst of this shelling took place in 2014 and 2015 when random mortar shells landed indiscriminately among the civilian population. Gradually what was termed a self-defence force formed, some of whom travelled from Russia and elsewhere around the world to deter the extremes of random violence they saw occurring.

Once the self-defence forces of Donetsk and Lugansk regions were fully formed and mounting a fierce resistance against the Ukrainian military and militias the heavy bombardments seen during 2014 and 2015 diminished greatly, though they have continued on a sporadic basis and continue to this day and presently to a greater extent somewhat mirroring the events of 2014/15.

So, in order to fairly judge who began the carnage in Ukraine I would ask you to bring into consideration these two earlier and linked events when attempting to answer the question of who began all this that we see occurring in Ukraine today.

Finally, there is the question of the threat of violence which was implicit in Kiev rejecting the Minsk Agreement peace and reconciliation process. Kiev essentially said Minsk was dead, that though it had promised to speak directly to the leaders of the two autonomy-seeking republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and though it had promised these regions would receive a special status where they would have a high degree of autonomy, it had decided it would not do either. The Ukrainian army had been added to consistently since the year before Russia's operation, military vehicles had been delivered in their hundreds and thousands to the borders of the two connected regions and official statements from Kiev gave ever indication that a military offensive against the two republics could not be far off. In addition Russian military intelligence caught wind of a definite plan to initiate such an offensive. Soon after Russia recognised the republics and soon after this mounted what it calls its 'special military offensive' on February 24th.

Scan back and forth from the winter of 2013, look into the kind of ultraviolence which took place on Kiev's Maidan, attempt to imagine how those in eastern Ukraine felt when those they had democratically elected to power were removed and think too of the manner of their removal. Consider what the people of eastern Ukraine were facing as they heard of a law to downgrade their language and replace it and all else they were hearing from those they knew very well meant them no good and only harm. Consider also if military force and violence was appropriate in dealing with a bloodless revolution to establish right of autonomy in these extraordinary circumstances.

After reading the above I hope you will be in a good position to finally decide who began the carnage in Ukraine.