Encouraged by the covert and overt backing of the imperialists of US and Germany, the anti-government protestors led by the opposition parties in Ukraine have been trying to overthrow the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych by carrying out one provocation after the other.
Encouraged by the covert and overt backing of the imperialists of US and Germany, the anti-government protestors led by the opposition parties in Ukraine have been trying to overthrow the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych by carrying out one provocation after the other. In Kiev, the capital, as well as in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya and Odessa, protestors have been provoking clashes with the security forces.
In Kiev, antigovernment forces occupied the Justice Ministry headquarters on January 26, 2014, adding to the number of public buildings under their control. They have declared that they will step up their struggle regardless of President Yanukovych’s proposed concessions.
The President had offered to dismiss his government, install one opposition leader, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, as prime minister, and a second, Vitali Klitschko, as a deputy prime minister. He also proposed a rollback of constitutional changes which had earlier been made to strengthen the President’s powers. The opposition forces have rejected these offers, clearly showing that they will be satisfied with nothing less than regime change.
Anarchy and violence is being deliberately spread.
What lies behind this unleashing of anarchy and violence?
It must be noted that the anti government protests began in November 2013, when President Yanukovych refused to bow to the pressure of Germany to sign far reaching political and free trade agreements with the European Union. Instead, he secured $ 15 billion in aid from Russia.
The EU treaty, if signed, would have allowed European monopolies to grab Ukraine’s crucial energy markets. German companies are already supplying the country with natural gas via pipelines through Poland and Hungary and via Slovakian pipelines by next year, breaking Ukraine’s dependence on Russian gas.
Germany has been using the European Union to put pressure to integrate Ukraine into Berlin’s political and economic sphere. However Germany’s plans were thwarted at the EU’s eastern partnership summit in Vilnius. Only two countries, Georgia and Moldova, signed EU association agreements, while Belarus and Armenia preferred to join the Eurasian Customs Union with Russia.
Russia has itself been putting pressure on Ukraine, including trade sanctions and other threats in order to keep Ukraine out of Germany’s sphere of influence.
Germany has continued its efforts to break Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence. The EU has warned Ukraine that it faces a financial blockade if it continues to refuse to sign. The IMF has already suspended a credit line worth $15 billion in 2011 because Ukraine refused to stop subsidising household gas bills.
Ukraine is caught between German and Russian pressure.
German foreign policy group, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), openly discusses how association agreements must be implemented under “supervision” and calls for “stringent and very painful social adjustment measures.” The DGAP’s strategic plan is to eventually integrate even Russia into the EU treaty system, to establish the hegemony of Germany over not only Europe, but all the way upto the Pacific.
Ukraine’s refusal to sign the EU’s association agreement has spoiled German imperialism’s plans for the time being. This is why they are pushing hard through the “pro-democracy” opposition to overthrow the present Ukrainian government. Openly, the imperialist media describes these opposition forces as “pro European”, in other words, those who wish to bring Ukraine under German domination.
This “pro-democracy” opposition is an alliance of fascist and revanchist groups who hold as their role models, those in the Ukraine who collaborated with the Nazi fascist occupation forces during the 2nd world war, during the time, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, was under Germany occupation, and the communists and patriots were shedding their blood for the liberation of their country.
In 2004, the US and European imperialists organized an “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, to break it out of the Russian sphere of influence. However, Russia did not give up its contention with Germany over Ukraine. At the same time, the leaders of the “orange Revolution” soon disgraced themselves as corrupt, self-seeking politicians. This brought the current President to power.
The German Christian Democrat Union party (CDU) openly admits that its Konrad Adenauer Foundation “assigned” Klitschko the task of establishing a right-wing party in the Ukraine in order to create a permanent pro-EU majority in Kiev. Klitschko is a world heavyweight boxing champion and national hero who has put his name forward to stand in the 2015 presidential elections. It is this Klitschko who has been offered the post of Deputy Prime Minister by President Yanukovych.
A CDU leader explained why Germany was so interested in Ukraine. After all, it is “a country with great economic possibilities,” with “a well-educated population” and with “good agricultural prerequisites.” In the undivided Soviet Union, the Ukraine was the second biggest Republic after the Russia in terms of population, and was also known as the granary of the Soviet Union. Incorporation of Ukraine into the EU would expand its market enormously.
Ukraine in NATO’s plans
Getting Ukraine into the EU is part of the plan of US imperialism and Europe to get Ukraine into NATO and encircle Russia.
From the Arctic North, to the Black Sea, all across Russia’s European borders, US imperialism and its allies are trying to encircle Russia. In the Arctic region, where there have been discoveries of oil and gas, the US and its allies are trying to block Russia, which is the natural claimant of most of this region. There is pressure on Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Already, both these countries have been supplying troops to Afghanistan, even though they are not supposed to be members of NATO. Sweden supplied war planes for NATO’s war against Libya in 2011.
Now, Sweden is reported to be formally joining the NATO response force”, as are also Finland and Georgia.
The attempts to carry out regime change in Ukraine must be seen in this context. The present Ukrainian government came to power with the explicit goal of fostering good relations with Russia, with whom it shares a very long border of 1,400 Km. The pressure on Ukraine to sign the agreement with EU was being made at precisely the time Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhistan and Belarus were in the course of consolidating a Custom’s Union.
If Ukraine becomes part of NATO, then NATO forces will have a free hand in the Black Sea, where the Russians have their Black Sea fleet with which they can move into the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. At this time, outside of their Black Sea port, Russia has perhaps port facilities in Syria, which the US is trying to deprive it off, by carrying out regime change in that country. If the US and Germany succeed in regime change in Ukraine, they could force the Russian Black Sea fleet out of the Black Sea.
It is unlikely that Russia will take all this quietly. The stage is set for bigger confrontations between the US and European imperialists on one side, and Russia on the other, along the Eastern and South-Eastern borders of Russia. It is the peoples who will have to pay for the plans of the imperialists to re-divide the world. The crisis in Ukraine, the spread of anarchy and violence in that country by the opposition, must be seen in this light.