Ukraine's parliament votes to sell farm land

The Rada in action on November 13 as they voted to sell off Ukraine's rich farmland to international agri-business interests.  This was demanded by the IMF as a way to settle Ukraine's growing debt crisis.  The public hugely opposed the new law but no one cares what they think.

Ukraine's parliament (the Rada) bent over to accommodate the dictates of the IMF and international capital that wants to grab the one remaining asset in the country - the land.  The plan is to grow GMO crops there and to actually export the good farming soil to other countries.

You can see more about this horrid example of 'democracy' at this site which covers Ukraine issues about as well as anyone - just click here.

The big fight in Washington is about 'continuing' the Ukraine policy initiated by Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the rest of the elites from the Obama administration.  This land sale law is a by-product of that failed policy.

Rise up to survive

Home at last

After a long series of flights from Crimea to Moscow to New York City to Boston and then bus ride to Maine, Mary Beth picked me up at 7:00 pm last night in Portland and took me straight to an Italian restaurant for Eggplant Parmesan.  I needed it.

I have to say it is wonderful to be home - it was a great trip - but a month is a long time, especially when you are 67 years old.

The amazing thing is that MB never complained - not one word of criticism - as I went off for a month-long organizing trip.

I want to thank all those along the way on this journey to India, Nepal, Moscow, Lugansk, Donetsk, and Crimea who offered me hospitality and friendship.

Now I have a big stack of work to catch up on and as I sit at my desk and look out the window I see the snow and ice already accumulating - it is unusual in my experience in Maine to see this before Thanksgiving.  But it is beautiful and the sun was out for a bit this morning.

I am in my pajamas (and might just stay in them all day). It is good to be alive and after a cup of tea and some peanut butter toast (how I craved it for the last month) I am ready to get back to raising sand as they say down yonder south.

Thanks to all who have checked the blog during my trip to see how things were going.  I hope you found it at least interesting at times.  I made it my goal to try to post something each day when possible in order to give a small picture of my experiences or to keep up with the bigger happenings like this disgusting US directed coup in Bolivia.  America has no damn shame.

Bruce

Ukraine coming apart at the seams

While in Moscow two weeks ago I was invited to meet with Larisa Shesler, the Chairperson of the Union of  Immigrants & Political Prisoners from Ukraine.  Larisa is from Ukraine and had to escape for her life in 2014 following the US-backed coup in Kiev that was directed by the Obama administration.  While in Ukraine Larisa was a political activist and Deputy Chair of a left political party.  She was an elected member of the Area Council (equal to a state).  Several thousand former Ukrainians are members of the Union of Immigrants & Political Prisoners and now are living in Russia.  Here are some of her words from our meeting.

• Ukraine has become the center of world attention.

• Russian oligarchs do not want to lose connection to Ukraine's economy.

• It would have been a great geo-political defeat for Russia to allow US-NATO military bases in Ukraine. [Imagine the reverse if Russia or China put military bases in Mexico or Canada.  Washington would go ballistic.]

• Ukraine today depends on IMF and World Bank for financial help.

• It was absurd that Russia was involved in the 2016 US election.  Russia had no instrument of involvement.

• The current Ukraine situation could lead to global conflict between Russia and the west.

• There is a law in Ukraine against selling the nation's lands and soil, but the new President Zelensky wants to take it away. [Ukraine has some of the best farming soil on the planet.]

• Western [agri-business] companies want Ukraine out of the world food market - except for sunflowers and rapeseed (canola) oil.

• Ordinary people in Ukraine are absolutely against selling land - only five million people would be needed for farming, so many would lose their jobs, at least three times as many who would normally be working.  Vegetables, fruits and berries are now big crops - all could be lost.

• More than 80% of the Ukrainian people are opposed to sale of their lands. Monsanto today is the biggest company interested in Ukrainian lands.  [Monsanto wants to do GMO farming there.  Russia has banned GMO.] The IMF is demanding sale of lands in order to pay Ukrainian mounting debts - especially since 2014.

• When unemployment hits hard Ukraine will be the most dangerous country in Europe - that becomes a problem for Russia because of the instability on its border.

• Wise people in the west believe that Ukraine is best left in peaceful relationship with Russia - it's historic trading partner.

• China is about to stop tourism to Ukraine.  China has stopped issuing Visas for Ukrainians to travel to Hong Kong because some fascists from Ukraine have been helping to train protesters in Hong Kong. China thinks Ukraine is an instrument of western policy.

• Ukraine wants Chinese investments.

• Russia can't really do much to stop western sabotage of Ukraine.

• Russia has three million economic immigrants from Ukraine since 2014.  Two hundred thousand political immigrants have escaped to Russia from Ukraine since 2014.

• France and Germany want to bring Russia back into the fold.  Europe without Russian trade is a weak competitor with the USA.  That is why more EU states are pressuring President Zelensky to make peace with Russia.  Washington opposes this plan.

• The Kiev government is not safe from the Nazis.  It only took 2,000 trained Nazis to force the coup in 2014.  They have now 200,000 who have experienced war in the Donbass against the two republics (DPR & LPR) and they have no moral barriers. [Many of the Nazis have been trained by the US Army Special Forces from Ft. Carson, Colorado.  See here]

• Trump is not committed to the Ukraine war, western Europe is not either, but the Democrats still are.

• Russia won't let the DPR & LPR dissolve which would create even more instability inside Russia.  

• Neither side (DPR & LPR nor the Nazis) can advance beyond the current 'line of contact' in the Donbass unless Kiev is ready for great losses.  It is like the front lines of WW I.  

• Russia has given passports to about 70,000 Donbass citizens.

• President Zelensky has a short rope.  He hopes the west will push Russia to pressure the Donbass republics.  Ukraine wants to change the Minsk Agreements - Russia, LPR, and DPR say no.

• The US hopes Russia will bend like it did when NATO attacked and broke up Yugoslavia.

U.S. supported fascists take over Bolivia

(START AT 2:00, the discussion begins there. Pardon the technical issues.)

Pushback LIVE: Aaron Maté discusses the right-wing military coup in Bolivia with Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton.

Ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the US-headquartered Organization of American States of making a political decision in backing the right-wing opposition, saying the coup continues to wreak havoc after his exile.

Speaking from Mexico a day after he fled Bolivia, Morales said: "The OAS is in the service of the North American empire."

Morales said he “could not understand” how his military commanders could show such “disloyalty.”

“That confirms that my great crime is to be indigenous. It’s a class problem,” he said.

The exiled president said that after freeing itself from the International Monetary Fund, the Bolivian economy was doing better.

"We had big plans in the field of exports." Yet, the coup plotters “do not accept the nationalization of natural resources,” Morales said.

Built in Bath?

China is experiencing a breakthrough in high-speed rail. China Railway High-speed trains (HCR) close the 1,318 km distance from Beijing to Shanghai in just 4 hours and 18 minutes, reaching up to 350 km per hour. Since its high-speed rail program started in 2007, new lines have been sprouting up all over the country, which already boasts the largest high-speed network in the world by far.

A young journalist from Belarus travels for work with RTD on the new Fuxing, or Rejuvenation, train while a rural Chinese pensioner takes a much-anticipated pleasure trip on the previous generation Hexie or Harmony trains. RTD also visits a plant where the trains are built with one of its technicians and hears from a designer about the challenges involved in building a train for the 21st century.

Imagine if these were built in Bath, Maine at the current naval shipyard.  Instead of 'destroyers' we could build something useful that helps us get out of carbon spewing automobiles.

It's a fascinating video.

Coup in Bolivia directed by Washington

The Grayzone's Anya Parampil took over an Al Jazeera interview to provide a point-by-point rebuttal of major myths surrounding the coup in Bolivia and placed the ouster of Evo Morales in proper historical context.

You know this fascist coup was directed by Washington just like they have been trying to do in Venezuela - and like they did in Ukraine in 2014.

See a much more detailed video that digs further into the Bolivia coup here

NATO's foiled grab of Crimea

One of the people from Germany who attended the Crimea conference in recent days wrote me this morning the following note - asking me if I had heard this story.  I replied that I had but not in such detail.  Then I responded with an addition of my own that follows below. 

Two months ago I visited a friend of mine who lives with her family in Crimea all her life. At some point I found myself asking about the Crimean crisis [in 2014].

The father told me the following: his brother works on the airdrome of Sevastopol [location of Russian air force and naval bases that were under treaty with Ukraine since the fall of the former Soviet Union.  Russia paid big money to rent the facilities that allowed them to have 20,000 troops stationed there. Thus there was no Russian invasion of Crimea.] and in the most critical night of the crisis he got the message that within 10 minutes an attack helicopter of the NATO is about to land there. Within this 10 minutes Putin in person could mobilize a Russian helicopter that was able to arrive a few moments earlier on the field. According to him this was the most critical moment - if the NATO would have been able to land, there would have been war. Everyone was prepared they told me by the way, I even talked to house wives about this who said that they all organised themselves a weapon to protect their families...

Here was my response:

When I first came to Yalta one year ago my guide was taking me back to my hotel after a day trip to Sevastopol.  We passed by a huge apartment building, new, and all lit up.  I asked what it was.  She said, “It was supposed to be a NATO barracks after they took over Crimea.  But the referendum [to rejoin Russia] foiled their plan.  Now it is just apartments for regular people.” 

I asked her what would have happened if NATO had grabbed Crimea.

"We’d have war," she replied.

Maybe you can understand how proud the people of Crimea are that they quickly organized the referendum that overwhelming declared that the predominately Russian-ethnic population of Crimea wished to be reunited with mother Russia.  In doing so they also averted a war on their peninsula that today lives in peace and security.

It is at least obvious to me that the coup in Kiev, Ukraine (and the attempted NATO takeover of Crimea) was long in the works.  One should remember that it was during the presidency of Bill Clinton that the US promise to Russia (after the dissolution of the Soviet Union) not to expand NATO one centimeter eastward toward Moscow's border was violated.  (Interestingly there is a photo of Bill and Hillary on the wall in the lobby of the hotel I am staying in.)
  

Bruce

Sunday song

Yalta conference notes

The Fifth Anniversary International Conference: "Crimea in the Current International Context" began on November 7 inside the Livadia Palace, Yalta, Crimea.  In these same rooms Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in 1945 to discuss the post-WW II architecture.

More than 30 nations were represented (officially or unofficially) - I was able to catch this list: Austria, Cyprus, Poland, Norway, Germany, Japan, India, USA, Czech Republic, China, Greece, Israel, Belarus, Belgium, Tunisia, Palestine, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, Turkey, Armenia, and Abkhazia.

The place was packed with participants, observers and media.  Here are some of my many pages of notes from various speakers at the event. They are not posted in any particular order of relevance.

• We [Crimeans] don't need any proof of our rights.  People who think of themselves as the master of the world can't live with our choice [to return to Russia in the 2014 referendum].  Sanctions have a negative influence.  We are still not free to travel to Europe.  Every international delegation is a new friend of Crimea.  We seek peaceful non-violent changes.

• The US strategy is to dominate the world....fears the growth of China.  Some US analysts predict war with China.  They wish to break Russia apart before it becomes too strong.  Change of US president will not change their course.  Some Kissinger followers wish to neutralize Russia so that it would not support China.  Trump says our main enemy is China and that the US has to maintain good relations with Russia.

• The majority of Americans don't know where Ukraine is.

• The west tries not to recognize the violations of law during [the US orchestrated] 2014 Kiev coup d 'etat.

• The Crimean spring vote was legal and should be recognized.

• The US grab for Syria's oil is illegal.

• You should not look for enemies, but instead look for friends.

• Public diplomacy [a common topic during the event] should be used in order to circumvent the efforts of those who believe that a unipolar power should dominate the world.

• Public diplomacy is key to shaping public opinion.  Public tribunals were used during the Vietnam War to expose US war crimes and should be used again.

• Russia got religion through Crimea 1,000 years ago.

• When Russia is attacked it is usually through Crimea.  The fascists occupied Crimea during WW II.

• We are living in a transitional stage with the weakening of international law and international institutions like the United Nations.

• Russia is playing a very important role in the world today by encouraging international dialogue.

• US-NATO sanctions on Russia are having a boomerang effect on Italy's economy.  When market share with Russia is lost, it is difficult to get it back as Russia seeks new trading partners.  Why must a false economic restriction on Crimea imperil the future of Europe?

• Russia is a historical and valued partner of India.  We need to have dialogue.

• Crimea looked worse under Ukrainian control than it does today under Russia despite the sanctions.

• Railroad to Crimea from Russia will soon be opened lessening even further Crimea's isolation.

• Friends of Crimea in Germany think we are running out of time and we must work together to do environmental projects.  These kinds of exchange projects could lead to more bi-lateral environmental coordination.

• Commercial banks in Poland are beginning to question and threaten people who have traveled to Russia and Crimea.

• Many people in Bulgaria love Russian culture and language so we also care about Crimea.  Thousands of Bulgarians live in Crimea and they are local witnesses who understand the Crimean case.

• There seems to be a threat from the Anglo-Saxon world.

• I represent the Brotherhood of War Veterans - terrorism and breath of war we feel now - Lots of events are going on today to rehabilitate fascism, Bandera, etc. Russia should have its own veterans department in government because we might have more of them the way things are going today.

• We need a new Yalta meeting between Russia, China and the US.

• Where ever oil and gas is present the US military is there destabilizing things.  We don't want American missiles on our Serbian border.

• The US will lead the war by the hands of other countries.  If they want war with Russia, then they will use Ukraine.

• Sanctions on Crimea are well targeted genocide against two million people.  How do we meet this genocide?  Public diplomacy should be concentrated on.

• For us in Norway, the most important thing to do is to bring people to Crimea.

• As a lifelong Yalta resident, with family here for generations, there was never a doubt how I'd vote in the 2014 referendum to rejoin Russia.  While still under Ukraine's control they said we would no longer study Anton Pavlovich Chekhov in schools because he was a 'foreign' [Russian] writer. 

• We must reach out to environmental groups in different countries to share information and work together.

In the garden at Livadia Palace in Yalta

I had several good connections with people I met while at the conference.  Two in particular are of special note.
 
Costas Isychos from Greece was the former Alternate Minister of National Defence.  He was appointed by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in January 2015 but resigned six months later along with five other cabinet members.  Isychos told me that they resigned their posts because Tsipras betrayed the nation [he was elected as an opponent of neo-liberalism] when he agreed to an austerity package with the EU which further increased poverty in the country.  In addition Tsipras agreed to allow the US to dramatically expand its military bases in Greece that are aimed at Russia.

The other person that I formed a close bond with is Kimura Mitsuhiro from Tokyo.  He is a long-time activist and strong friend of Crimea.  We spent lots of time comparing notes about many foreign policy issues. 

As one might imagine I learned alot from being at this conference.  Taking in the collective experience and wisdom of those assembled from so many nations was a gift I will always treasure.

Bruce

BIW union calls for return of $45 million tax break for General Dynamics

The union at Bath Iron Works in Maine (builds destroyers for the Navy) refers in the video to the $45 million tax break the state gave General Dynamics a couple years ago.  At the time the union took a membership vote on the corporate welfare bill (which ultimately got cut from the original $60 million request to $45 million) and took no position because the vote was 50-50 for and against.

This is the bill that I did my hunger strike over and we had 100 letters to editor in papers across the state opposing the give-a-way.  It was a great campaign.

It's good to see that the opposition to the corporate tax cut is still growing.

Bruce

Talk at Livadia Palace in Yalta

My talk yesterday during the conference at historic Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea.  People from about 30 countries are represented at the event.  The conference continues today as we move to a university in Simferopol.

Note that the man introducing me is holding up our Space Alert newsletter.  They were very pleased to see our extensive coverage of our visit to Crimea in the last edition following our spring Russia Study Tour.  You can see it online here.

I took pages and pages of notes during the conference yesterday and will write them up ASAP.  I made some new friends and will be eager to follow-up on them.

Fazebook yesterday told me I had violated community standards for two of my posts and won't allow me to make posts there until November 14.  The two posts were about recent elections in Germany and a photo of US and Russian military vehicles passing one another in northern Syria.  So if you wouldn't mind sharing this video it would be a help since I can't do it.

Thanks to Regis Tremblay for making the video.

More soon.

Bruce

Still stranded in Ireland.....

My two VFP friends still stuck in Ireland and walking for peace.  Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers.

Day 5 of Boots on the ground for Freedom - Malahide to Balbriggan passing through Lusk and Donabate #IrishNeutrality; #US Hostages #Veterans for Peace.

For over 7 months the Irish state has been holding two US peace activists hostage in Ireland. Their crime? They dared to enter Shannon warport on St Patrick's Day to search a US warplane. In the grand scheme of things it is a minor offence, but due to the vindictiveness of the State Prosecution their passports were seized and they are not allowed to return home until their trial, which could be in 2 years time.

In order to raise their case and the continued breaches of Irish neutrality for the past 18 years via Shannon airport, they are now on the second leg of their walk around the Irish Republic. They are now walking from Dun Laoghaire to Dundalk. The first leg saw them journey from Limerick gaol, where they were imprisoned for 12 days, to Malin Head.

The authorities claim they are a "flight risk". These two members of US Veterans for Peace say they would be more accurately described as a "death risk": Ken Mayers is aged 82, while the younger fellah, Tarak Kauff, is a mere 77. And as for not returning for their trial that is nonsense. They want their day in court!

A "Let Them Go HOME for Christmas" postcard campaign directed at Minister for "Justice" Charlie Flanagan has been launched. If possible please send Flanagan one of these cards. Soon Uplift will go online with the same message to Flanagan. Watch out for it!!

Russia discovers Tulsi - thanks to Hillary......

On Monday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made a statement that was interpreted as saying that Russia was once again interfering with American elections. But Zuckerberg didn't present any evidence of interference in the American election, and actually, there were no alarming statements about interference in U.S. affairs in the deleted groups.

This segment mostly covers the following:

Thanks to Hillary Clinton's wild rant about Jill Stein and Tulsi Gabbard being Russia's picks to run for president in 2020 V,esti News (who knew little about Tulsi) decided to find out and shared her story with their TV viewers.

Views from Yalta in Crimea

This shot is along the promenade in Yalta.  I moved today to the hotel that conference participants will be staying in which is just beyond the boat restaurant in the background.  Yesterday while walking along the promenade there was an Orthodox service happening just outside the church in the foreground.  The singing and chanting were quite special to hear.  A large crowd formed.  I've been asking alot of people what the difference is between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.  The answer has repeatedly been that Rome is basically allied with western governments and their political agendas.  People say the Orthodox Church holds stronger to the original Jesus message.  There is no doubt that the Russian people are far more traditional than their western peers. (Click on photos for a better view)

I walked for several hours yesterday up and down the promenade where many shops, restaurants and hotels are located.  I also ventured off into some interesting side streets and saw many older houses and buildings.  The streets are very narrow and parking is a premium.  I noticed that most people were not shopping in the very trendy and expensive shops along the promenade.  The only two stores I noted that were crowded were selling cosmetics and jewelry.  I imagine that before western sanctions were slapped on Crimea, following their 2014 vote to return to Russia, most of these shops were filled with comparatively wealthy westerners arriving on the cruise ships which no longer dock here.  Now most of the tourists are from Russia.  Some still come from Ukraine (I need to learn more about that dynamic).

The view from my hotel room of the hills behind me is very similar to this photo.  This extraordinary view surely has to be a key reason for Yalta's charm.

On the right side of the Crimea part of the map you will find 'Kerch' which is where Putin built the bridge in record time that connects Russia with Crimea.  Construction began soon after the 2014 vote to reunify Crimea with Russia.  Now tourists by large numbers are driving from Russia onto the Crimean peninsula. That means traffic jams and not many places to park but visitors don't seem phased as they appear to be having a good time here.  In the gold upper part of the map you can see where I was previously in the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics that are continually under attack by the Nazis.  It is interesting to note that in Canada and the US (Chicago, Brooklyn, etc) there are large enclaves of 'nationalist' Ukrainians who today are very active in supporting the Nazis that are shelling the Donbass.  Lt. Col Alexander Vindman (a Democrat) who has been calling out Trump on the Ukraine phone call issue, comes from one of these anti-Russian exile families which indicates there are many deep layers in this current drama playing out in Washington surrounding the US-Ukraine-Russia story.  Don't just swallow the mainstream media line on this - dig into the bigger Ukraine corruption story. One good source is here.

This is the famous Swallows Nest that is just up the road from Yalta.  It's quite a dramatic view from there, right off the highway that leads to Sevastopol (where the Russian Black Sea navy base is located).  It was Sevastopol that was the real prize that the US-NATO sought when they orchestrated the coup in Kiev, Ukraine in 2014.  But the people in Crimea were watching the madness of the 'Maidan revolution' on TV that year and decided they wanted nothing to do with the Nazis who forced their way into power with the backing of the US (particularly V-P Joe Biden, Sen. John McCain, Asst Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and more).  Thus their vote to seek reunification with the Russian Federation.

Bruce

Stop genocide of Palestinian people

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli occupied territories, and has been hailed as an "heroic journalist".

Levy has said that his views on Israel's policies toward the Palestinians developed only after joining Haaretz. "When I first started covering the West Bank for Haaretz, I was young and brainwashed," he said in an interview. "I would see settlers cutting down olive trees and soldiers mistreating Palestinian women at the checkpoints, and I would think, 'These are exceptions, not part of government policy.' It took me a long time to see that these were not exceptions – they were the substance of government policy."

In an interview, he said he doubts that any other newspaper in Israel apart from Haaretz would give him the journalistic freedom to publish the kind of pieces he writes.

War$ are U.S.

They broke the glass ceiling with a Tomahawk first-strike attack cruise missile.....

Gun runners with a mother's touch.....

American oil arrogance: Illlegal & immoral

Olga Skabeeva, journalist: "What the American presidents have been doing over the last, excuse me, two decades, under the cover of the necessity to urgently liberate this or that nation from a dictator and to implant democracy there, is now being done by Trump in an open manner: he said, "The oil in Syria is ours, and we will shoot anyone who disagrees."



US forces began patrols at oilfields on Mount Qarachokh near Derik in northeastern Syria on Friday.

Kurdistan24 TV

Sunday song

Arrival in Crimea - pick the 'forbidden fruit'

Despite the western punitive sanctions against Crimea I arrived here Friday about 5:00 pm on a flight from Moscow.  It was snowing at the airport as I left Russia's capital city.  When I arrived in Simferopol, Crimea it was sunny but cold.

I spent the night in the Ukraina Hotel in Simferopol, the same hotel our Russia Study Tour group stayed in last May when we visited the city.  On Saturday morning I had a meeting with one of my hosts to review plans for my time in Crimea, and the conference I was invited to attend.  He told me he is also working to arrange for me to speak at a local university while I am here.

After the meeting I took a taxi to the famous Crimean city of Yalta, about a two-hour ride.  The traffic was quite heavy which indicated that the new bridge Putin had built from the mainland of Russia out to the Crimean peninsula was in fact bringing many tourists to the 'forbidden land'.

The west is now punishing Crimean citizens for their vote in 2014, by a super-majority of  95.7 percent, to rejoin Russia after the US sponsored coup in Kiev, Ukraine.  The US-NATO were licking their chops wishing to grab Crimea (and its Black Sea Russian naval base) after the coup.  But they were thwarted by the people of Crimea.  The US-NATO claimed that Russia annexed (stole) Crimea but that was just propaganda. The mostly Russian ethnic population in Crimea had also voted to rejoin the mother country in 1991 at the time of the Soviet Union's disintegration but they were ignored.

As a result the US and Europe threw severe sanctions on Crimea as punishment for exercising their democratic rights.  My credit card won't work here, Crimean students cannot go to European or US universities like they could in the past, and tourists who used to come here by the droves on cruise ships no longer dock in Yalta.

I've now been here three times, the first exactly one year ago when I came to prepare the way for our Russia Study Tour last spring.  This time I can see big changes.  The roads are much better, new homes and apartment building are being built all over, and many more people (mostly Russian tourists) are on the street here in Yalta. The 2nd largest Muslim Mosque in Russia (being built for the Crimean Tatars) looked to be nearly completed in Simferopol when my taxi drove by it on the way to Yalta.

For the next several nights in Yalta I am staying in the Tavrida Hotel (pictured above) just a few meters from the Black Sea along the promenade area of the city.  Cost of my room in this historic and beautiful hotel?  Came to $52 per night (includes a great breakfast) with a small washing machine in my room, so I did my laundry.  The hotel staff kindly provided the soap and turned the washer on for me.

Yalta is most famous for the 1945 summit conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin held at the Livadia Palace (summer residence of the Russian imperial family in the 1860s).  The aim of the big-three conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order but a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of post-Nazi Europe.  But due to western moves to isolate and demonize the Soviet Union in the post-war period, many of the hopes for the Yalta meeting quickly faded. The Cold War ushered in new tensions that allowed the US to build the permanent war economy and posture itself as the global policeman.  We all know how that turned out.

The conference I will be speaking at on November 7-8 will be held at Livadia Palace.  I will be addressing the topic of  'anti-war motivation, wish of the people to live in peace'.  I am looking forward to it.

Last night I was excited to meet fellow Mainer Regis Tremblay (also now in Yalta) and our friend Tanya Bukharina (our guide earlier this past May when we came to Crimea) for pizza.  They were also recently in the Donbass region doing some film projects so we compared notes about the experience.  Everyone is trying to predict what will happen next in Kiev when it comes to dealing with the two republics on the Russian border who are demanding their independence after being repeatedly attacked since 2014.  The key element in the equation is the US-NATO desire for war on the Russian border.

It's difficult to predict what Washington & Brussels will do.  Are they willing to risk WW III with Russia?  Will any sane thinking emerge in European capitals to help stop this march toward madness?  Will the American people wake up and learn that the Ukrainian 'adventure' is a corrupt and tragic mistake initiated by the Obama administration and now continued by Trump?

Only time will tell.  Meanwhile I will keep writing and posting about Ukraine in hopes that people will catch on to this great modern tragedy.

Bruce

The train from Moscow to the Donbass & back

Global Network Board of Advisers member Leonid Ilderkin escorted me from Moscow on the 24-hour night train to the Russian border with the Donbass and back.  Here are a few of my observations from the ride.

• Each sleeper compartment has four beds – two on the bottom and two on top.  A small table sits between the beds by the window.

• Each coach on the train has 1-2 staff who provide sheets, pillows, blankets, and towels.  They keep the toilets cleaned and vacuum the hallway and the compartments along the journey.

• The staff provides tea cups and spoons at the start of the journey and each coach has a large hot water boiler.  Passengers bring their own tea, sugar and food along for the trip.  Russians drink more tea than coffee.

• Most people in the compartment share food with one another and talk throughout the trip.  They stand in the hall way and look out the window and talk there as well.
• From the window I could view miles of green fields as the fall season is in full color.  I asked what was growing and was told it is 'winter wheat'.
• Also in each direction you see many coal mines - some still functioning and others not.  But everywhere around Lugansk there were big hills of coal mining residue from more than 150 years of mining - some of them appeared to be almost mountain like.  A few of the piles were so old that trees and other vegetation were growing on top of them.
• Labor leader Andrey Kochetov told a story about one of the mines.  On the very top of a tower is a big Red Star light from the Soviet days.  When a particular mine met its annual quota the light would flash.  It meant the workers had done a great job.  After the coup in Kiev in 2014 the Nazis came to Lugansk with tanks.  They had a day long contest to see which tank operator could hit the Red Star light.  The tower was riddled with holes from tank shells but they missed the target.  They did hit the homes of miners who lived in the nearby community and some of the miners and their families were killed.  The Nazis thought it was all great fun.
•  At home I take the Amtrak train to Boston, New York and Washington frequently from Maine and can testify that along America’s rail lines are huge amounts of garbage.  Not so along the Russian railway lines.  Like most other places I have seen in Russia there is little to no trash.  On our way to the Donbass one morning about 7:00 am we stopped at one station and I noticed women there sweeping up cigarette butts.

• On that same initial journey to the Donbass our fellow passenger in our compartment was a woman doctor from Irkutsk in the far eastern part of the country.  She was on her way to southern Russia for a warm holiday.  She offered to take my blood pressure and happily told me it was normal.

• We had a long talk about life in Irkutsk with Leonid translating.  She showed us photos of her home, grandchild and her garden on her phone.

• At one stop a hoard of local women were selling cooked food to passengers.  We bought a beautiful artistically decorated small loaf of bread with potato inside and a chicken/potato/cucumber dish.  Dinner for Leonid and I cost $4.

• On our return we left Lugansk on a bus at 5:00 pm which took us to the border control.  We were first in line to pass through Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) immigration but our two bus drivers disappeared for an hour.  I think they went for a vodka.  Once we passed through there, we then had to wait another hour to get into the Russian entry immigration process.  We got off the bus with our luggage and I was the first in line at the booth but the woman immigration officer could not find any proof in the computer that I had exited Russia just days before.  So, I was taken to an office, the same room where I had spent an hour previously on my way out of Russia going to Donbass where I had to fill out a long questionnaire.  The man in this office asked me a ton of questions about where I was going next in Russia (which is Crimea) and what I would be during there (speaking at a conference in Yalta.)  So, in all it took us three hours to get through both immigration services.

• We spent the night in a hostel just over the border inside Russia.  For two rooms in the very nice hostel it cost us Leonid and I $10 each.

• Then the next morning we took a cab to the train station for the return 24-hour ride back to Moscow. The cab cost just over $1.

Bruce

Ukraine is a failed state

Neo-Nazi Bandera followers march in western Ukraine

While in Lugansk in the Donbass we had the fortune to meet with famous writer Gleb Bobrov (Chief of the Writers Union and former Soviet soldier during their war in Afghanistan). In 2007 Bobrov wrote a popular novel called ‘Age of Death Born’ that foretold the coming wars by the Ukrainian government and the Russian speaking people living in the Donbass.  Here are some of his words.

    70% of the book came true – I had an understanding of the situation in the country.  The main ideology of Ukraine was nationalism.  They chose the most radical one.  Nationalism was integrated into all aspects of life.  No matter your ethnicity you had to be Ukrainian with only one language acceptable. 

    Bandera [the western Ukrainian nationalist who led his forces to join with Hitler’s Nazis when they swept through Ukraine during WW II and helped kill many Jews and Polish people] style fascism has taken over today with a full rewriting of history ignoring Soviet contributions and war heroes.

    1990’s ideology required all people to change their religion from Russian Orthodox to a western brand of the faith.

    Ukrainian diaspora, living in the west (particularly in the US and Canada), ran back to Ukraine following the collapse of the former Soviet Union along with George Soros money, grants from USAID and National Endowment for Democracy.  Their main objective was to begin the process to break ties with Russia.  This became the only ideology that matched the interests of the oligarchs.  Thus the ‘Color Revolution’ began many years before 2014.

    Prior the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Donbass nationality was not an issue.  In any country it seems strange to imagine asking people to change their religion, language, culture, etc.  The US-NATO understood they had to boil the frog slowly thus they created their color revolution plan.

    Bad economic conditions ensured people were just focused on survival and not paying attention to these behind the scenes plans.

    In the Donbass many factories were closed, including coal mines. By the time of the US directed coup d’ etat in 2014 there were no more military facilities open in the Donbass.  Army bases, barracks for soldiers, and military production facilities were all closed. [Thus, when the US installed puppet regime began attacking the Donbass in 2014, they had no existing military capability to utilize to protect themselves.]

    During WW I the nationalists based in western Ukraine cleaned out the Russian speaking people in their region.  During WW II they cleaned out the Jews.

    The US wants an unstable situation along the Russian border in order to divide and rule.  They want controlled chaos and to disrupt the independent sovereignty of the Russian speaking eastern part of Ukraine – the Donbass.

    Hong Kong today is another example of this strategy under way, this time to disrupt China.

    Ukraine will stop existing as a true nation.  It is becoming a failed state and will be further divided. The doctrine of Ukraine is self-destructive.  The core idea is to fight against Russia. Not able to be successful in their goal they will turn on each other inside the country.  Fascists are now fighting against themselves.

    The US pumped big money into Ukraine at the time of the Maidan (‘revolution’) in 2014.  [Hillary Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged during a speech before an oil corporation conference that the US spent $5 billion on the Ukraine operation.]