Hello. This is John
Robles, I'm speaking to Voice of Russia regular contributor Mr. Rick
Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international
mailing list
Robles: Hello Rick. I hope you had some happy holidays. How are you this evening?
Rozoff:I'm doing very good, John. Thanks again for having me on your show.
Robles: Thanks
a lot. I was wondering if we can get your views on what is going on in
Maidan or Independence Square in Ukraine. It seems like the level of
violence is escalating with … looks like no endin sight, I don't know.
What do you think?
Rozoff:No,
you are absolutely correct. Ukraine has become, you know, the center of
attention I think globally right now, you know the sinecure. People are
focused on it with good reason in a way it’s replaced Syria as the, how
would I put it, proxy conflict between the East and West with the West
once again on the offensive. That is in anattempt to do something,
nothing short of toppling an elected government of a nation that has
close state-to-state relationships with Russia.
And what
is happening is fluid of course, but it is also tense and it is also
fraught with not only dangerous but potentially catastrophic
consequences if the violence that exists in Kiev in and around
Independence Square and now by recent reports spreading into parts of
Western Ukraine where the hotbeds of nationalist and even fascistic
extremism are.
So I think what you are seeing is
well-coordinated series of activities that began in Kiev and may very
well spread to the Western part of Ukraine.
Robles: I
see. What are your views on who is behind all this, and the reasons for
it? Now at first they came up with that there was the EU integration,
then they were protesting the government, and then they were calling for
early elections, then they were protesting against Russia.
Now
one of the objects of the protesters' actions is something about some
students that were beat several weeks ago. It just seems like they are
finding any reason whatsoever to keep escalating and continuing their
violence.
During
the night there were negotiations and the opposition said they had
agreed to the conditions set by the government to stop their violent
activities, and then they went out and announced this to their
supporters. Their supporters weren’t happy about it and they went back
on their word, they said: 'No, we are not going to agree to any cease in
our violence'.
And
they are continuing with their violence which, they’re throwing Molotov
cocktails at Police. All of the Police and the security forces they are
suffering severe burns and the violence against the police is
escalating.
And
of we look at who the leaders are, it brings a lot of questions to my
mind – as who is actually running all of this? I mean they’ve got this
ex-boxer, he is promoting all this violence.
Can
you give us some comments on him and on the resolution by the Russian
State Duma yesterday, if you could, regarding the violence?
Rozoff:Yes,
the opposition, and again we have to keep in mind in a fluid situation
like this, and what we are looking at is really not only destabilization
but ultimately a regime change technique or scenario. But what we see
is the boxer, you know the heavy weight boxer Vitali Klichko, and two
other nationalists emerging as what is a typical color revolution
scenario where there is a triumvirate or triad of political leaders.
This
was true by the way during the Orange Revolution, so called, in 2004
and 2005. We had Viktor Yanukovich (Yushchenko?), Yulia Tymoshenko and
Alexander Moroz as being the triumvirate, modeled after that in Georgia
incidentally the preceding year in 2003.
So, the
question is begged of course, about whether the public or nominal
leadership is really anything more than figureheads, or are anything
more than figureheads, and whether in fact there is not something more
substantive behind it both internally and of course externally.
So
what we are looking at is a degree of violence against police officers
that would not be tolerated in any other European country, I can assure
you, certainly not in the West. But being cheered on and supported
unequivocally by western political leaders in the European Union, in the
United States, in NATO I might add.
Yesterday
Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Anders Fogh
Rasmussen said: 'Violence can never be used for political means'. You
know, a lightening bolt should come from the Heavens and strike anyone
making a statement like that when they’re the Head of NATO which has
used violence for political means uninterruptedly since 1995 in several
countries on three continents.
Robles: Well that’s their only tactic. How could you say that?
Rozoff:But
of course. But I mean, there is a difference between official use of
force by a government to maintain peace in a country, where there could
be abuses. There could be excessive use of that force, but at least it
is legally sanction, as opposed to people who are a little bit better
than gangsters at times hitting Police officers with hammers or throwing
petrol bombs at them.
You don't see much of it here in
the West but luckily with the Internet we can see a television
broadcast around the world. And we've seen the horrifying pictures of
the results of the use of so called Molotov cocktails in Kiev. Seeing
your young Police officers' heads and arms are on fire and so forth and
you can only imagine the degree of, third degree I'm sure, of burns that
they suffer as a result of gasoline bombs.
But I think rather than focusing on the mechanics of what is going on, which will be debated ad nauseam
in the Western press of course, what is important, to again come back
to you, and you and I have had occasion to talk about this before, John,
is the regional and ultimately the global context within which the
battle for Ukraine, and I would term it exactly that 'the battle for
Ukraine' is occurring.
One factor which is very
significant but didnot receive the attention it certainly warranted was
in the middle of last month, the middle of December, now former US
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, he had served in the US House of
Representatives for 8 terms, for 16 years. He is a native of my home
state of Ohio incidentally, wrote a very revealing article stating that
the so called European Union Association Agreement with – an initiative
rather - with Ukraine was simply NATO's Trojan Horse in Ukraine.
This
is precisely how former Congressman Kucinich put it. And what he did
indicate and he shows a fairly good degree of familiarity with all these
things are done that Ukraine would first to join NATO and then join the
European Union because traditionally that is how it has occurred, you
know, with the newer members, with the exception of tiny island nations
of Cyprus and Malta.
So that what we are looking at is
Ukraine is a geo-strategically pivotal nation, it clearly is that nation
that separates what geo politicians or strategists would talk about
from East to the West. It borders of course Poland and other nations
that are now considered to be in Central Europe for that matter and
Russia to its East which of course is in Eastern Europe and even in
Eurasia. I mean, in fact, the greater part of Russia being in Asia
itself.
What we are seeing is something almost
evocative of formal struggles and there is a history of Ukraine being
pivotal in that sense. Many of your listeners maybe acquainted either
with the 19th century novel TarasBulba, by the Russian novelist Nikolai
Gogol, who is from Ukraine or the movie adaptation at the end of the
last century, more people might know.
It is a fact that
Ukraine is a bone of contention between the westernized Slavic part of
Europe, if you will, you know, those who with the Latin alphabet and the
Roman-Catholic religion and those with the Cyrillic alphabet and the
Orthodox religion which Ukraine for the most part is. And that we've
seen similar situations after World War 1, during the World War 2.
In
World War 1 Germany, in the first instance, tried to wean Ukraine away
from Russia; in World War 2Stepan Bandera and other Nazi collaborators,
who were heroes incidentally to the modern nationalists in Ukraine, who
under the Yushchenko government rehabilitated, members of the Ukrainian
insurgent army and others who had collaborated with the Nazi Germany.
So
we are looking at very extremist elements, probably the most visible
and prominent of the so called Youth Activist or members of the so
called Svoboda or Freedom Party, which up until a few years ago had as
its logo a variant of a Nazi swastika. Well let's be very clear about
what we are dealing with. There are may be any number of innocent youth
who want, going out for a dare, much as Orange Revolution in 2004-2005,
but behind it there are some very hardcore nationalists, and
Russo-phobic extremists, who whether be known to themselves or not, are
serving the purpose of turning yet another country into a battle zone in
a renewed post-Cold War East-West conflict.
Robles: Can
you give us your views on the statement by the Crimean Parliament and
by the Russian Duma yesterday? The Russian Duma is calling for foreign
actors, foreign players -we know who we are talking about: the West, the
US - to refrain from interfering in Ukraine.
The
Crimean Parliament, they adopted a statement with a vote of 78-81
deputies in favor of it. The statement reads: 'The political crisis, the
formal pretext for which was a pause in Ukraine's European integration
has developed into armed resistance and street fights. Hundreds of
people have been hurt and, unfortunately, some people have been killed.
The price for the power ambitions of a bunch of political saboteurs -
Klichko, Yatsenyuk and Tyagnibok- is too high. They have crossed the
line by provoking bloodshed using the interests of the people of Ukraine
as cover and pretending to act on their own behalf.'
And
they finish up by saying:' The people of Crimea will never engage in
illegitimate elections, will never recognize their results. And will not
live in Bandera Ukraine.'- they say. So, can you comment on that and on
the Russian resolution, if you would?
Rozoff:First
of all I want to commend you, as of I think yesterday or perhaps today,
of compiling a list of I think significant statements by the Russian
State Duma, the Duma or the Parliament in Crimea and others and putting
them into a very condensed form that has been very useful to me.
A
couple of things: the trio of opposition figures is exactly the
triumvirate I alluded to earlier with Vitali Klichko playing what could
only be described as a sort of Rocky Balboa meets Rambo, Sylvester
Stallone compilation of pseudo populist, right wing, dangerous, and
ultimately violent sort of activity.
The Bandera
allusion we've talked about earlier, he was a leader during World War 2
of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and fought against the legitimate
political authorities and what was then Nazi occupied Soviet Union, but
often times in conjunction with the Third Reich with the Nazis. So they
are using the same language you and I had used.
*Now,
what we are talking about here in Crimea is of the upmost importance.
The US has for several years now been waging in conjunction with its
NATO allies, annual fairly large scale naval war games called Sea
Breeze, and they are conducted in the Crimea dangerously close to where
the Russian Black Sea fleet is stationed at Sevastopol. And even though a
public outcry led to, or resulted in,a Sea Breeze exercise I think
three years ago, perhaps four, being called off, they had been resumed
and what has happened over the last two or three years,this is very
significant, and I hope your listeners pick up on this – the US as a
matter of course has been sending missile cruisers into the Black Sea to
go to Crimea, to dock there.
These are what are called
the Ticonderoga-class guided - missile cruisers, of the sort that are
part of the US international missile, so called missile shield, that is
they are to be equipped with Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles,
and these ships are visiting Ukraine on a regular basis.
As
the US continues its military takeover of the Black Sea, they've
already done this with Bulgaria and Rumania, where they've acquired 8
major military basses in those two countries. Turkey of course is a NATO
ally and Ukraine then becomes a very significant factor in the US
military takeover of the Black Sea largely through NATO expansion. But
what is even I think of more concern – a WikiLeaks document of in the
last couple of years, revealed that in 2006 the then Head of the US
Missile Defense Agency, he’s now retired, General Henry (or “Trey”)
Obering met with Ukrainian officials, this was during the Yushchenko
agreement, to recruit Ukraine into the European missile shield.
And
in the subsequent year,2007, General Obering headed the Missile Defense
Agency visit to Ukraine during the Yushchenko years, their
Administration's years, and met with the Defense Minister and other key
officials in Ukraine in an effort to bring Ukraine into that. If Ukraine
were to join along with Poland, Romania, Turkey and other countries,
the beginning stages of the so called European Phased Adaptive Approach
for the interceptor missile system, this would be extremely dangerous.
This would be such an open provocation to Russia, that I don't see how
Russia could not take some fairly dramatic action in response to it.
So
when we talk about the factors that are involved we have to keep
several significant ones in mind. First of all Ukraine is strategically
vital, it is indispensable. In the energy wars that the US and its
European Union allies,we should say NATO allies, have been waging over
the past decade to try to curtail Russian exports of natural gas and oil
to Europe, ultimately perhaps to cut them off altogether in favor of
natural gas and oil projects bringing Caspian Sea energy into Europe via
the Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Georgia, but of course from there to
Ukraine, from Ukraine into the Western Europe. So Ukraine is significant
in that sense.
Ukraine is also one of four countries
that NATO has announced, four non-NATO countries that are to join the
NATO Response Force that is the international strike force that NATO has
developed. The other three are Georgia, Finland and Sweden. Of course
three of those four countries, all except Sweden, have lengthy borders
with Russia. And that Ukraine has been gradually, I think unbeknownst to
most people in Ukraine, and certainly outside, has been dragged into
the NATO net deeper and deeper and deeper.
Ukraine is,
and these are significant facts, so I hope you don't mind my emphasizing
them. Ukraine’s second to that became the first,and to date only,
non-NATO country to supply a naval vessel to what is now NATO's
permanent surveillance and interdiction naval operation in the
Mediterranean Sea - Operation Active Endeavor. Ukraine’s second to that
became the first, and to date only, non-NATO country to supply a ship to
NATO's Arabian Sea -Operation Ocean Shield. Ukraine, during the Kuchma
government, supplied 2,000 troops to the United States, NATO inIraq,
they have a small contingent of troops serving under NATO's
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
