Comment regarding audio evidence on #Glazev orchestrating 2014 “#RussianSpring” in Donbas @UaPosition

Regarding these audio documents: http://uaposition.com/analysis-opinion/english-translation-audio-evidence-putins-adviser-glazyev-russian-politicians-involvement-war-ukraine/

(For another English-language summary, see: Ukraine publishes video proving Kremlin directed separatism in eastern Ukraine and Crimea at: http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/08/23/ukraine-publishes-video-proving-kremlin-directed-separatism-in-ukraine/ . For further details, see: Кто есть кто в прослушке переговоров Сергея Глазьев at: https://citeam.org/glazyev-whoiswho/ )

The most important aspect of these conversations are the dates on which they were reportedly recorded, i.e. in late February and early March 2014. They imply that not only the so-called “civil war” in Ukraine was triggered by Russia. The social conflict that preceded the use of guns had also already been secretly orchestrated, guided and financed from Moscow, as I suspected in my September 2014 comment “In Defense of Conspirology” for PONARS Eurasia. See: http://www.ponarseurasia.org/node/7274

Most Ukrainian presentations of these audio documents miss the fine distinction between Moscow’s “help” to the instigators of the “civil war” starting in April 2014, and Moscow’s earlier “help” in organizing and financing the “Russian Spring” of February-March 2014 that preceded the actual war. For the Western public, that is an important difference as it concerns the nature and origins of the entire conflict.

There were various earlier signs like the many revealing statements by Igor Girkin or the reports on Russia’s military activities in Eastern Ukraine by the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, The Interpreter Magazine, Bellingcat or Boris Nemtsov. The earliest most important scholarly paper already indicating the above was published in 2015 by Nikolay Mitrokhin and can be downloaded here: “Infiltration, Instruction, Invasion: Russia’s War in the Donbass” http://spps-jspps.autorenbetreuung.de/files/07-mitrokhin.pdf

Even Andrew Wilson may have to revise his recent argument in “Europe-Asia Studies” about Russia’s relative role in the escalation of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.  See: The Donbas in 2014: Explaining Civil Conflict Perhaps, but not Civil War http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668136.2016.1176994

PS: Facebook comment by Anton Shekhovtsov:

I also noticed two very important aspects that I’m afraid I underestimated before:

(1) Moscow’s urgent need for massive _local_ insurgency – no matter whether those locals would be ideologically mobilised or simply bought, Moscow needed them to present a picture of a native uprising and justify the military invasion “in defence of the people”.

(2) Moscow explicitly referred to the “Crimean case” and the permission to use Russian armed forces outside the country stressing that insurgent Ukrainian regions would be joined to Russia. At the moment, it is impossible to determine whether Moscow lied or didn’t lie about the intention to join those regions; however, it is very important that such a promise (“we will help, as we helped in Crimea”) was intended to radicalise the locals and mobilise them to fight against the “Banderites” to their last breath.

 

PPS: A follow up discussion with various journalists about the reporting of this issue, in Western mass media, may be found on Facebook: All Quiet on the Eastern Front? A Sensation Missed at:  https://www.facebook.com/andreas.umland.1/posts/10208609738334392?pnref=story

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My answer to the Kyiv Post‘s 26 August 2016 question why the Glazyev Tapes have been largely ignored by the international press:

A major problem of the GPU-provided tapes is that they have been carefully cut and framed by the GPU while the original tapes remain unpublished. There are also mistakes in the transcript. For instance, the name Knyrik is wrongly transcribed as “Kmyrik” with the GPU apparently not knowing who the Crimea-born activist Константин Сергеевич Кнырик is.
The GPU’s material is not what journalists are looking for. Serious investigators want original documents or tapes, and not some previously prepared documentary of an official state organ. Western reporters do not like being the extended arm of the Ukrainian Procuracy or Kyiv government. As the original tapes are unavailable, there is a suspicion that the published tapes were tampered with.
The Western journalists’ cautiousness is a direct result of the GPU’s attempt to engage in information war, rather than transparent communication. Ukrainians cannot expect Western journalists to blindly pick up whatever Ukraine’s leadership likes to feed into the international news cycle. As happened before during the last 25 years, Ukrainian dilettantism defeats Ukrainian patriotism.

http://uaposition.com/analysis-opinion/english-translation-audio-evidence-putins-adviser-glazyev-russian-politicians-involvement-war-ukraine/

 

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