by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
This U.S. Government support for Ukraine to retake Crimea is part of a plan by U.S. President Barack Obama, in which he sidelined his Secretary of State John Kerry and backed Kerry’s subordinate Victoria Nuland when she promised the then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that he would continue to enjoy U.S. backing if he expanded his civil war against the breakaway (formerly Ukrainian) region of Donbass so as to invade also Crimea, which had broken away from Ukraine earlier — less than a month after the U.S. coup in Kiev occurred in February 2014. So, the U.S. Government’s now teasing Ukraine’s Government to invade Crimea can’t be understood without knowing its history:
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On 16 March 2014, Crimeans went to the polls in a plebiscite on whether Crimea should be restored to Russia, of which it was a part during 1783-1954 (Khrushchev arbitrarily switched it to Ukraine in 1954, which outraged most Crimeans), and the vote (in that 83.1%-turnout March 2014 Referendum) was 96.77% voting to “join the Russian Federation,” which then was promptly done.
The U.S. Government, in its extensive planning for the February 2014 coup that overthrew the democratically elected neutralist President of Ukraine and selected the rabidly anti-Russian Arseniy Yatsenyuk to replace him and to install a rabidly anti-Russian junta to ethnically cleanse the areas of Ukraine that had voted more than 70% for the elected Ukrainian President that Obama had just overthrown in February, so as to enable a ‘democratic’ election in Ukraine to retain the rabidly anti-Russian U.S.-installed regime to continue to remain in power ‘democratically’ without those voters still being able any longer to vote in Ukraine, had commissioned Gallup to poll Crimeans in 2013 in order to find out how receptive Crimeans would be to the coup which was then being planned and which would entail replacing Russia’s naval base in Crimea (since 1783) by a U.S. naval base there. This 2013 Gallup poll (which was reported to U.S. Government agencies but not to the public) had found that whereas only 15% considered themselves to be “Ukrainian,” 40% considered themselves to be “Russian”; and 24% said instead that they preferred as their self-identity “Crimean,” which meant favoring an independent nation of Crimea, a breakaway from Ukraine that wouldn’t necessarily be part of Russia. Asked to choose between Crimea being part of the U.S.-allied EU or part of the Russia-allied EurAsian Customs Union, 53% chose the latter, 17% chose the EU. Whereas 68% said that their feelings for Russia were “Warm,” and 5% said “Cold”; 6% said that their feelings for USA were “Warm,” and 24% said “Cold.” (The poll also asked many questions that were designed in order for the U.S. Government to plan a PR program targeted especially at the roughly 10% of Crimeans who self-identified as being “Tatars” in order to enable the U.S. operation to make them hate Russia and Russians — including pro-Russian Crimeans.)
The U.S. Government again Gallup-polled Crimeans in April 2014, just weeks after the 96.77% plebiscite-vote to rejoin Russia, in order to obtain any evidence that might become the basis for a U.S. accusation the plebiscite had been rigged by Russia — not genuinely democratic. This poll of 500 Crimeans was simultaneous with Gallup’s polling of also 1,400 (non-Crimean) Ukrainians in order to help the newly U.S.-installed Ukrainian regime to control the media and public opinion more effectively. The question, “Please tell me if you agree or disagree: No government outside of Ukraine has a right to be involved in decisions about the country’s future. [Asked of nonCrimeans only]” produced around 80% of (non-Crimean) Ukrainians in all regions of the country being in agreement with that viewpoint, so that the U.S. Government would need to keep secret as much as possible the total dependence of the new stooge-regime in Kiev upon its masters in Washington DC. The poll also showed that at least until April 2014, the U.S. operation to control Ukrainian public opinion was an outstanding success, because in response to “For each of the countries and organizations I mention, tell me whether you think it has played a mostly positive role or a mostly negative role in the crisis in Ukraine,” 66.4% in (non-Crimean) Ukraine said that Russia had played a “Mostly negative” role, whereas only 27.7% said America did. HOWEVER THE FINDINGS IN CRIMEA WERE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT: There, “Mostly negative” was 76.2% for U.S., and only 8.8% for Russia; and whereas “Mostly positive” was 71.3% for Russia, it was only 2.8% for U.S. Apparently, the vast majority of Crimeans were outraged at America’s (and its ‘allies’ or vassal-nations’) REJECTION of their 16 March 2014 plebiscite-results to (re)join Russia. And, finally, the question “Please tell me if you agree or disagree: The results of the referendum on Crimea’s status likely reflect the views of most people there/here.” produced: “Agree/Disagree” by 82.8%/6.7% in Crimea, and by 29.5%/48.2% in “Exclusive of Crimea.” Therefore, clearly already by the time of April 2014, Crimea and Ukraine were antipodally different demographic worlds.
Gallup also asked only outside Crimea, “Please tell me if you agree or disagree: Ukraine should return to the course of NATO integration.” and reported no nationwide percentage but only regional percentages, throughout non-Crimean Ukraine, in “South” “East” “Center” “North” and “West”; and ONLY in the West (west of Rivne in the northwest and Khmelnytsky in the southwest, or roughly the area within 200 miles of the Polish border) did more than 50% (53%) “Agree”: by contrast, only 10.3% in South did; only 13.1% in East did; only 32.1% in Center did; and only 37.7% in North (which includes Kyiv, the capital) did. On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded the most the regions that most OPPOSED joining in NATO. Only (and just barely), the West region favored to join NATO, and Russia’s invasion has invaded that region (the anti-Russian region) less than any of the others. This fact suggests that the Russian Government has no intention to include the West region as part of Russia in any final settlement of this war between the U.S. and Russia that is being waged in Ukraine’s battlefields, between Russian military forces and America’s Ukrainian and other military-forces — this proxy-war that Washington intends to start WW III.
That is the demographic background. Now for the historical background:
On 7 June 2015, I headlined “Obama Sidelines Kerry on Ukraine Policy” and reported that, whereas Secretary of State John Kerry had warned the then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko NOT to promise Ukrainians that Ukraine would retake both Crimea and Donbass by force if necessary, Kerry’s subordinate Victoria Nuland privately told Poroshenko to ignore Kerry’s warning — and Obama then nullified Kerry and backed Nuland on that. “Kerry now faces the decision as to whether to quit — which would force the EU’s hand regarding whether to continue with U.S. policy there [violating Obama’s will on that matter] — or else for Kerry to stay in office and be disrespected in all capitals for his staying on after having been so blatantly contradicted by his subordinate on a key issue of U.S. foreign policy.” He stayed in office; and, then, later, Obama did it yet again — overrode Kerry for his subordinate Nuland — but this time on Syria. Kerry had worked long and hard to get Obama to accept a Syria peace-deal that would enable the people of Syria, and not the USA, to decide Bashar al-Assad’s political future — for Obama to give up trying to overthrow Assad. On 16 December 2015, I headlined “U.S. Ends Its Opposition to Democracy in Syria” and reported that despite Victoria Nuland’s insistence upon overthrowing Assad, Kerry had managed to get Obama’s nominal acceptance of democracy in Syria. (You can see in the pictures there that Nuland scowls at that signing-ceremony.) Then, Kerry managed an agreement with Russia on 17 May 2016 regarding Syria-policy, in which Obama nominally gave up on America’s protecting Al-Qaeda in Syria (Russia refused to allow AlQaeda in Syria to be protected from Russia’s bombing, but Obama’s Syria-operation used mainly AQ Syria as its proxy to lead the other jihadist groups to overthrow Assad); and, so, the deal was that Russia could continue to bomb AQ Syria’s forces, and that America would stop bombing Syria’s army forces, and Russia would coordinate with America on eliminating ISIS in Syria. And, then, Kerry signed a Syrian ceasefire agreement on 9 September 2016, and barely a week later, on 17 September 2016, Obama violated that ceasefire agreement by (through his SecDef) bombing Syria’s army that were protecting Syria’s main oil field at Deir Ezzor. That’s when Putin learned not to trust ANYTHING from the U.S. regime. Whereas Hillary Clinton had been at least as neocon as was Obama himself, Kerry had done everything he could to prevent a nuclear war, but Obama (like Biden) was on that path — the path to nuclear war. Kerry didn’t really fit in. The Deep State was solid against him.
Now, in the continuation of the Obama Administration’s ceaseless determination for the U.S. to conquer Russia and to defeat any ally of Russia such as Syria, Obama’s V.P. and now President, Joe Biden, brings the world to the precipice of WW III against both Russia and (like Trump) China while refusing to back down from Trump’s wars against also both Venezuela and Iran. And Victoria Nuland is now #2 under Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is just as rabid a neocon as is she and as is Biden himself. And, just as Nuland had beaten Kerry by getting his achievements nullified by President Obama, she is apparently again receiving support from the top, to have the U.S. Government guiding Ukraine’s Government to invade Crimea. On 14 December 2022, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty bannered “In Satellite Images Of Russian-Occupied Crimea, Experts Point To Potential Targets For Ukraine” and reported that private U.S. military contractors are supplying Ukraine’s Government with detailed satellite images of Russia’s military defenses in Crimea for Ukraine’s missiles to target and take out. This would, in the view of Russians, be a Ukrainian invasion of Russia using U.S. intelligence and more, in order to do it, and, therefore direct war between America and Russia. It would be a dream for Victoria Nuland and the rest of the U.S. Deep State, including all of the billionaires who financed Joe Biden’s political career. Of course, the ‘opposition’ Party, the Republicans, are also almost 100% solid for the neocon agenda (U.S. global imperialism), right up to and including global nuclear conflict. Apparently, all of America’s (and allied) billionaires are for it — none has come out, really, against it. And, within the empire, the general public hardly even cares about it: the exit-polls show that international relations (“foreign policy”) was at the very bottom of American voters’ concerns. The whole world could be destroyed like that — as-if it didn’t even matter.
