Blood on the Maidan

Soul of the East
Mark Huckard

Ukraine is teetering on the verge of civil war, and as usual Western media haven’t been particularly helpful in shedding light on the unravelling situation. Aside from evocative photos of clashes between legion-like formations of Berkut riot police and their rough nationalist opponents on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), about all we can expect from the mainstream press corps is the following fanciful narrative:

• When corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped the country’s EU Association Agreement he had been set to sign in November 2013, “peaceful protests” were launched by pro-Western Kievans intent upon a European future.
• Popular anger only intensified after Yanukovych agreed to a wide-ranging economic cooperation treaty with Vladimir Putin’s Russia on December 17^th. Helpless, liberty-loving Ukraine was being sucked into Moscow’s dark orbit. Only the gallant protestors could halt this process.
• The battle for Kiev continues as the unsteady regime enacted draconian laws limiting freedom of assembly in an attempt to hold on to power. Ukraine is the new front line in the struggle for democracy, genetically engineered Big Macs, and psychological warfare via Disney and MTV.

Strategic realities, however, rarely fit the script of a made-for-TV morality tale. The story behind the scenes concerns a drive by the United States to short-circuit Russia’s resurgence where it truly matters: in Ukraine. US foreign policy commentators would rather divert focus from facts that discredit their preferred plotline; the first of these is Washington’s activation of an upgraded template for carrying out a coup d’état in Kiev. For over a decade now, the American public has been led to believe that successive waves of “people power” have risen up to overthrow oppressive rulers across Eurasia and the Middle East, all of whom just happened to contradict US interests. None of this was accidental; from Belgrade and Tbilisi to Minsk and Kishinev, the CIA and State Department have carried out plausible-deniability regime-change operations with varying degrees of success. Western darling Viktor Yushchenko’s 2004 “Orange Revolution” deflated ignominiously, but Ukraine’s valuable geographic position and its ethnic and cultural fissures have again made it the target of US covert action.

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