Ukraine Targets & Kills Civilians, Says Russia Did It; U.S.&EU Press Report the Lie (NOT the Truth)

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Written by Eric Zuesse

On April 9th, the blazingly brilliant military analyst who blogs anonymously as “Bernhard” at his “Moon of Alabama” site and whose headlines customarily understate what he actually proves, headlined “More Evidence That Ukraine Fired The Missile Which Killed Dozens In Kramatorsk”, and he or she supplied there not only ten screen-shots (plus links to many more of them) of the actual weapon that had been used in that bombing against Kramatorsk’s train station, but also explained how ridiculously unlikely is is that its trajectory, which he proved had come from an area that definitely was controlled by the Ukrainian government (NOT by Russian forces). However, what is to be provided here will be a historian’s take on this very question, which likewise displays manifestly the ridiculousness of the Ukrainian government’s accounts of this matter (that it had been an attack by Russia, not by Ukraine). When both the physical evidence and the clearly established historical narrative account of a given crime and of its motives fit together so perfectly, I believe that the legal case is proven true “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is the ordinary standard of proof that’s required in any criminal matter.

On the morning of April 8th, the U.S.&EU press widely reported such headlines as “Live Updates: Russia Strikes Train Station, Ukraine Says, as Thousands Flee From East”, and “Ukraine News Live: Russian Rocket Attack on Kramatorsk Train Station Kills Dozens—Ukraine”, and “Dozens killed in train station missile strike in eastern Ukraine as civilians try to flee Russian onslaught” — all obviously trying to communicate (like their headlines were doing) that this had been an invasion of Kramatorsk by Russia in order to conquer its residents and take it for Russia, which is the story-line or narrative that the U.S. Government and its allies are presenting about this entire war — alleging, in other words, that the present war in Ukraine is a war by Russia to conquer all of Ukraine, and not a war by Russia to free from the Ukrainian government’s control areas of Ukraine that had voted heavily for the democratically elected and decidedly neutralist President of Ukraine in 2010, the President (Viktor Yanukovych) who subsequently became overthrown by a violent U.S. coup in February 2014, which was falsely presented to the public as having instead been a ‘democratic revolution’ there.

Fragments of a Ukrainian missile ‘Tochka U’ outside the railway station in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, April 8, 2022

Kramatorsk, in fact, was — along with nearby Sloviansk — one of the two Ukrainian cities that the newly installed Ukrainian government (which had been installed by Victoria Nuland of Barack Obama’s Administration) invaded the earliest in all of Ukraine in order to conquer them so that they would be ruled by the newly installed (by Nuland) non-neutralist, but instead rabidly anti-Russian, regime.

In order for the public to be able to understand how the residents of that area in eastern Ukraine actually feel about this war that now is engulfing them, and how they view both the (now-invading) Russian forces and (ever since February 2014) the U.S.-installed regime there, a knowledge of the relevant recent history of that area is necessary; and, therefore, here are a few indisputable, solidly documented, relevant highlights of that recent relevant history:

16 April 2014, “A day of humiliation, as Ukrainian military offensive stalls, six armored vehicles seized”, as described by the pro-overthrow-of-Yanukovych Kyiv Post. Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are specifically mentioned there as having being the first Ukrainian cities that rebelled (on the prior day) against the new regime, and whose residents would therefore henceforth be officially labelled by the newly installed government as being targets of a just-announced “Anti-Terrorist Operation” or “ATO” to eliminate them. Anyone who would support the “rebels” would now officially be a “terrorist.”

5 May 2014, “Ukraine crisis: ‘Those fascists killed this girl and they will be in hell’”,  Britain’s pro-overthrow-of-Yanukovych Telegraph reports from Kramatorsk “the people engulfed in a climate of fear” of the then-invading Ukrainian forces:

“For good or ill, more than 80 per cent of them voted for Viktor Yanukovych, the fallen president, in the last election in 2010. After all, he was born in the region and had previously served as governor of Donetsk. Moreover, a large minority of the people in this area – almost 40 per cent – identify themselves as ethnic Russians.

When Mr Yanukovych was overthrown in the revolution in February, supporters in his home area did not see this as the richly deserved downfall of a corrupt, authoritarian leader. Some had indeed come to loathe him, particularly for the shameless theft that was the most striking feature of his rule, but even they tended to believe that the moment to get rid of him would arrive at the election in 2015.

So the consensus in Donetsk was that the revolution was a coup d’état. … Never mind that the revolution was actually a genuine popular movement, supported by huge numbers of ordinary Ukrainians, including some in the east.”

7 May 2014, pro-overthrow Kyiv Post: “Ukrainian military forces have gained ground in the flashpoint cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast over the past week, but government authorities in general have largely lost their grip in the tough industrial oblast … [due to] the lawlessness stoked by the Kremlin.” Notice there the attribution of blame to Russia and NOT to the United States, which had actually installed the new government and dictated its racist-fascist anti-Russian character and policies at the top.

17 May 2014, anti-coup International Observatory of Ukrainian Crisis: “Reporting that militants of neo-nazi “Right Sector” have murdered a group of soldiers (members of the Ukrainian army) near Kramatorkaya Starovavarke (Kramatorsk)”, saying that “The soldiers [of Ukraine’s invading army in Kramatorsk] didn’t want to kill civilians. Then at midnight a squad of neo-nazis have fallen on them and murdered the soldiers. This is how the USA-EU impose democracy in Ukraine!!! Killing their own soldiers! And just because they didn’t want to kill civilians!!!”

18 May 2014, “Mortar Shelling of Kramatorsk” by Ukraine’s army on 18 May 2014, as it was shown on youtube

14 June 2014, International Business Times: “Kiev’s Slovyansk ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ Kills 300 Pro-Russian Separatists”: “Ukrainian government forces are continuing with an ‘anti-terrorist operation’ which Kiev claims has eliminated 300 rebels and wounded 500 around the flashpoint city of Slovyansk. The Ukrainian forces used aircraft, helicopters and artillery to switch the balance of power [in Ukraine’s favor] in the strategic city which rebels have controlled since April. … US President Barack Obama has met with [America’s stooge-President of Ukraine at that time] Poroshenko in Poland, calling him a ‘wise selection’ to lead the country on its pro-European course. He said the country had the potential to become a thriving democracy.”

7 July 2014, U.S. State Department, Washington, DC:

[no headline nor current record on the Web, but archived by me here]

Daily Press Briefing Index

Monday, July 7, 2014

1:23 p.m. EDT

Briefer: Jen Psaki, Spokesperson …

MS. PSAKI:  Well, a few updates.  As you noted, over the weekend we all saw reports that the Ukrainian Government was able to expel Russian-supported separatists from the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.  The government immediately moved to begin restoring public services and to providing assistance to residents in need in those areas.

Fighting does continue in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the option of a ceasefire remains on the table.  But it takes two to participate in a ceasefire, and President Poroshenko had that ceasefire for 10 days and didn’t see reciprocal participation or engagement from the other side.  So there are still remaining steps that we have called on the Russian-backed separatists and the Russians to take.  Those remain on the table.

Jen Psaki

QUESTION:  You say that it’s two sides, but it would seem that all your discussion is three sides.

MS. PSAKI:  Well, I think the Russian-backed separatists and the Russians are on the same side.

QUESTION:  So they – so you equate the separatists with Russia?

MS. PSAKI:  I don’t think I’m equating, but in terms of —

QUESTION:  For the purposes of – for the purposes of this, you think that the – Russia saying yes to a ceasefire is the same thing as the separatists saying yes to a ceasefire?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, we’ve long felt that they have a strong influence with the actions of the Russian separatists, and there’s more they can do to influence.

QUESTION:  Right.  Right, but the thing is – is that they had said yes, had they not?  I mean, the Russians had supported it; Putin had supported it.  But you don’t think that that message – or that they did enough to rein in the separatists in fighting the Ukrainian Government, right?

MS. PSAKI:  Correct.

QUESTION:  Is that – so that would mean that it’s three sides to the ceasefire, because you need the separatists to go along with it, and you think that that won’t happen unless Moscow says “do it,” right?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, I still – my view is two sides.  We can disagree on the shape of the —

QUESTION:  I’m just – whether it’s a triangle or a line, I don’t know.

MS. PSAKI:  Triangle or a line, yes.

17 August 2014,  “Interrogation of a [Captured] Ukrainian POW conscript – ENG SUBS”, youtube, my excerpt here being from the Donetsk-Lugansk militia’s interview with a Ukrainian-army draftee, the 24-year-old Private Juri Petrowich Smyk, whose Battery of men got caught “in a tight cauldon,” and so were captured by the Donetsk-Lugansk (anti-coup) forces. “You mentioned prior to this recording that wounded soldiers were buried alive. Where did this occur? That was near Krasny Terrikon. They hired an old man, a local, who used an excavator to dig a dump. Afterwards, the wounded [Donetsk-Lugansk militiamen] were dropped in there. And they were buried, right? Yes. The dump was filled up, and a tank circled over it afterwards. Maybe to make sure they were buried deep.”

October 2014, “How Our People Do Their Extermination-Jobs In Ukraine”, an article by me based upon a then recently captured (22 October 2014) videocam recording which showed corpse-creation-and processing that was very much like what Private Smyk was describing, but of corpses of civilians instead of soldiers:

Below is a video of “our side” in the Ukrainian civil war carrying out part of the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Mikhail Koval’s, extermination plan, which was injudiciously announced and described by him right after a press conference.

On June 11th, an “Anti-Maidan” or anti-ethnic-cleansing, site, posted to youtube excerpts from previously unpublished press-conference Q&A-session statements by Koval, which had been made perhaps immediately following the Defense Minister’s private meeting on June 4th with top NATO officials, who endorsed his plan, which thus started. This youtube was titled “Secretary of Defense [Mikhailo Koval] About Concentration Camp for Eastern Ukraine People.”

He was shown there saying:

“There will be a thorough filtration of people. There will be special filtration measures put in place. We will filter out people, including women, who are linked to separatism, who were committing crimes on Ukrainian territory, crimes related to terrorist activities. We have a lot of information regarding this, and we have a formidable framework to combat this, and respective power structures will carry out this operation. Besides, this is a serious issue, related to the fact that people will be resettled to other regions.”

The people shown in the video below were not “resettled to other regions.” These were instead among the ones who were slated for immediate processing. They were forced into a ditch at night, and shot. Presumably, dirt was then immediately pushed over them (or over their corpses, for the ones that were dead).

Here is that video. The interesting background as to how this video came to be uploaded to the Web, instead of merely filed in an accounts-payables office of the Ukrainian military in order to verify that the perpetrators had done their jobs and needed to be paid the contracted amount for the people whom they had disposed of, and for the corpses that they had produced and presumably buried, for the Ukrainian Government, is well explained at the site linked-to below. It’ll be presented here, with full credit to them and to everyone who has enabled this information to become public at liveleak, youtube, and other sites, though those individuals are anonymous, for understandable reasons. Here, then, that is (with its typo uncorrected):

–-

“Ukrainian fascists execute locals that sympathize with Donetsk People’s Republic — video”

By Lviv | October 23, 2014

Car with a mounted video camera belonging to members of Ukrainian punitive nationalist battalion was caputred earlier this week by self-defense forces of Donetsk People’s Republic. Part of the video shows Ukrainian radicals taking several locals to a large hole in the ground in a wooded area, make locals get in the hole and then shot them.

–-

And here is that video at LiveLeak.com (the scene shown here being only a frame from it, which portrays the receiving team, guiding the truck-full of victims, toward the ditch):

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3f9_1413978229

That title is entirely correct: this outfit is called the “Donbass Punishers Battalion,” and the victims shown being thrown into the ditch are all dressed in civilian clothes, not dressed as soldiers are.

Here is the broader context in which this extermination-program can be understood.

February 2016, University of Sussex study: “Violence and political outcomes in Ukraine — Evidence from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk”:

In this paper, we study the effects of violence on political outcomes using a survey of respondents in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk – two cities that were affected heavily by the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. We show that experiencing physical damage goes together with lower turnout, a higher probability of considering elections irrelevant and a lower probability of knowing one’s local representatives. We also find that property damage is associated with greater support for pro-Western parties. … Of the 396 respondents in our final sample who named the party they voted for, 52.5% indicated they voted [in May 2014, the first ‘election’ that was held after the coup, and after perhaps around a million voters in Ukraine had either been killed or escaped into Russia, or were residents in Donbass or in Crimea who therefore no longer could vote in Ukrainian elections] for a pro-Russia party, while 47.5% voted for a pro-Western oriented party. Others either did not vote, didn’t remember whom they voted for or didn’t want to say whom they voted for. [Due to the paper’s “pro-Western” slant, the authors didn’t treat the interviewees who “didn’t want to say whom they voted for” as possibly being afraid of the invading post-coup regime’s forces and being afraid that the interviewers might somehow be agents of this new Ukrainian regime. The interviewers didn’t ask the interviewees whom they had voted for in the 2010 election, because the authors were pro-coup and didn’t want to know that information.]

In this paper, we investigate the effect of personally experiencing the consequences of violence on political participation, views and knowledge, using individual level data from the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. After the Maidan revolution that replaced the then-president, Victor Yanukovich, in February 2014, pro-Russian militants in the East of Ukraine started to take control of government buildings in several cities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during the first two weeks of April 2014. On15 April 2014, the Ukrainian government launched a counter-offensive [notice their use of that phrase “counter-offensive,” denoting that the military forces which had invaded Kramatorsk and Sloviansk from Kiev represented the interviewees instead of represented the interviewees’ enemies] deploying government troops in the East of Ukraine. Initially, this counter-offensive had limited success and the Ukrainian army only made major advances after separatist forces pulled out from the city of Sloviansk on 5 July 2014. [The authors simply assumed that it had been a “revolution” instead of a “coup”: the authors were suckers, or else liars, but in either case, to call them social “scientists” is to insult science and all authentic practitioners of science. Their study was instead an example of propaganda, not of any authentic science.]

Furthermore, Obama’s effort to get rid of enough pro-Russian voters so as to be able to ensure long-term continuance of the new anti-Russian Ukrainian government by ‘democratic’ (meaning here simply electoral) means, did, indeed, cause many residents there to flee into adjoining Russia.

So: considering that both Kramatorsk and Sloviansk were the first two Ukrainian cities to rebel against the Obama-installed regime, one might reasonably assume that Russia would have had zero motivation — indeed, negative motivation, motivation to OPPOSE — any bombing of Kramatorsk’s train station and killing of civilians there, but that Ukraine would have had much motivation to do it, in order to be able to fool the publics in U.S.-allied nations to support sending to Ukraine’s government even more weapons, and ultimately to expedite NATO’s expansion to include Ukraine, which now is being cast by the ‘news’media in those nations into the role of being a heroic defender of democracy.

Indeed, on April 8th, the Financial Times headlined “Nato states agree to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine”, and reported that UK’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss commented, after speaking with (unidentified) “western officials,” “’There was support for countries to supply new and heavier equipment to Ukraine, so that they can respond to these new threats from Russia,’ she said. ‘And we agreed to help Ukrainian forces move from their Soviet-era equipment to Nato standard equipment‘,” which would mean that ‘defense’ stocks, such as Lockheed Martin, which have been soaring ever since the 1991 termination of the Soviet Union in 1991, will now experience supercharged increases in sales and profits. While vastly more people will become destroyed and homeless, those investors will be “cleaning up.”

NOTE: America did the same thing in Syria (such as in the instance discussed here, here, and here), but using as its proxy-forces not nazis there, such as it does in Ukraine, but instead jihadists and separatist Kurdish forces.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• UPDATED: Ukrainian Tochka-U Hit Kramatorsk In Another Bloody Provocation. Dozens Of Civilians Killed (Photos 18+)
• U.S. Corporate Media is Complicit in Murder in Ukraine.
• War In Ukraine Day 44: Overview Of Military Developments On Donbass Front Lines (18+)

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