Five things Netflix’ documentary on Maidan doesn’t tell you about Ukraine

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by Pedro Marin from New Cold War.org

The following article was originally published by Revista Opera (Brazil) on October 10, 2015. Translation to English by New Cold War.org.

An historical video that was broadcast in Brazil some decades ago warned, “Lies can be told even when speaking truths.” Netflix’s new documentary film ‘Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom’ is a exquisite example. By ignoring fundamental details of Ukraine’s history and of the composition of the 2013-early 2014 political movement in Ukraine called ‘Maidan’ (or ‘Euromaidan’), the documentary’s half-truths pave the way to disconcerting lies. Here are some of those:

The Ukrainian people

Right at the documentary’s beginning, it is stated that “while the people of Ukraine were looking to the West, the leader [President Yanukovych] was looking to the East.”

The statement, at first innocent, ignores Ukraine’s history and the characteristics of its people. Ukraine is the result of…

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DPR: Out-of-control Ukrainian volunteer battalions deploy near disengagement line

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The Azov battalion held an homage in Mariupol to their war dead, on the eve of Ukrainian local elections which were cancelled in the region for alleged irregularities in the printing of the ballots.

Novorossia News reports:

Some 2,000 fighters of the Azov, Dnipro and Lviv volunteer battalions, deployed near the disengagement line between Kiev-led forces and militias in Donbas, have gotten out of control of the Ukrainian military command, Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the Defenсe Ministry of the DPR, said at a briefing on October 28.

“According to our intelligence data, a grouping of the enemy consisting of the Azov, Dnipro and Lviv units has been revealed between the inhabited localities of Novgorodskoye and Troitskoye. The grouping, which completely got out of control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has up to 2,000 people,” Basurin said.

He added that in violation of the Minsk Agreements, 50 items…

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Benghazi: Hillary Clinton and C.I.A. Crimes

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by David Pear, originally published in OpEdNews, October 27, 2015

Hillary Clinton has been pilloried by her critics for not providing adequate security for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three C.I.A. agents on the night of September 11, 2012. Her real crime was the project of regime change in Libya that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, the destruction of the country with over 5,800 bombing sorties and 309 cruise missiles fired, causing a once prosperous Libya to become a failed state that has resulted in misery for millions of Libyans.

Hillary Clinton is largely responsible for the planning of a similar regime change in Syria, using the same plot that was used in Libya. It has resulted in the destruction of Syria too, and the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of people and turned millions of people into refugees. She should…

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Video: Chomsky on electing the president of an empire

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At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Abby Martin interviews world-renowned philosopher and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky.

Prof. Chomsky comments on the presidential primary “extravaganza,” the movement for Bernie Sanders, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, modern-day libertarianism and the reality of “democracy” under capitalism.

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Elections in Ukraine

SLAVYANGRAD.org

Original: Colonel Cassad
Translated by Alexander Fedotov / Edited by @GBabeuf

On October 25 the next elections will be held in Ukraine. In general, it will be a classic choice of varieties of “the same”. In previous elections one at least could put a tick for the CPU [Communist Party of Ukraine ―ed.], but now even Symonenko’s Communists are not there. This is so sorrowful. There are only oligarchic parties and fascists—take your pick, my friend.

Of significance:

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How Kiev Silenced Ukraine’s Biggest Opposition Newspaper

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by Ukraine Comment via Russia Insider

A two pronged campaign of heavy-handed harrassment, obstruction, demonization and intimidation by government and radicals stretching over 15 months couldn’t silence the paper or its chief editor, Igor Guzhva, until a deal was struck with the oligarch owner of the paper to change course and get rid of Guzhva, who was hit with an avalanche of financial violations charges as revenge.

According to former editor-in-chief Igor Guzhva, in April 2014 the holding was approached by figures within the new government who proposed that Vesti hand over part of its shares, free of charge, as means to avoid conflict. This was refused, and in May began a series of investigations, searches and official denunciations of Vesti by high ranking officials.

First the paper’s offices were raided and trashed by uniformed men claiming to be tax authorities, although they did not present any identification. They seized…

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Russian MFA: Delivering Stingers to ISIS would mean siding with “terrorist international”

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Sputnik International reports:

If the terrorists in Syria obtain portable surface-to-air missiles Russia will view it as direct means of condoning terrorism and will bring the matter before the UN Security Council, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Saturday.

“Thus far we have registered no advanced MANPADS ending up in the hands of the terrorists, but we know about their attempts to obtain such Western weapons in neighboring countries,” Oleg Syromolotov said.
He stressed that delivery of shoulder-fired missiles to any of the terrorist groups active in Syria would mean that the supplying country had sided with the “terrorist international.”

“I want this to be viewed as a serious warning,” Syromolotov added.

According to the news agency REGNUM, Russia’s General Military Staff warned on Sunday that in the event of Islamic State terrorists obtaining US-made Stinger missiles, the issue of condoning terrorism would be submitted for consideration by the UN Security Council.

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American Democracy and Its Opinion Shapers

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by Vaska

In “Pundits Thought Clinton Beat Sanders—but Did Viewers?” Gunar Olsen analyzes the mainstream and right-wing Internet-based media reporting on Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate in the US. Olsen focuses on the New York Times, America’s newspaper of record, National Journal, Slate, New Yorker, Forbes, and Red State (an online opinion platform which describes itself as “the Conservative Blog & Conservative News Source for Right of Center Activists”). Without exception, all of the media outlets whose reporting Olson reviews in his piece for FAIR concur in declaring Hillary Clinton as the clear winner of the debate.

The problem with the view media “opinion shapers” have rushed to offer the American public is its remarkable disconnect from the way the voters themselves have judged the performance of the five participants, in particular that of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. As Olson points out,

What the Times…

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Who is Andriy Parubiy? Protest UK visit of Ukrainian politician with far right links

Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine

Andriy Parubiy, is the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and a politician with a far right record. He is due to visit the UK to meet with government officials to advocate military aid for Ukraine. Here’s why we will be protesting his visit:

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The Fakery of ‘The Free World’

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by Eric Zuesse

13 October 2015 is the release-date of the report from the fake investigation – by the governments of Ukraine, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and later Malaysia — into who and what and why caused the shoot-down of the Malaysian MH17 Boeing airliner over the conflict-zone in Ukraine on 17 July 2014. That’s the plane which, at the last moment, was inexplicably instructed by the Ukrainian Government’s Air Traffic Control to go off the normal course avoiding the Ukrainian civil war zone over the east, and to go instead right into the war-zone.

The airliner got shot down with all 298 aboard dead. Obama and his coup-installed Ukrainian Government blamed Russia immediately, and the European Union (which knew that he had actually taken Ukraine in a bloody February 2014 coup that was staged to look like a ‘revolution’) promptly caved to Obama’s demand to hike the anti-Russia sanctions…

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