Dugintalk: ‘Tanks on Kyiv!’ or the ‘Dismantlement of One Ukraine’

Watch a heart-to-heart discussion of Ukraine by a troika of Russian psychopundits, featuring Aleskandr Dugin.

The leader of the Eurasia Party, Dugin, shouts from the rooftops what Putin whispers between the sheets. He indulges in peripheral thinking, mangles sentence structure, and revels in imperial eschatology.

I translated the bloodiest portions of their lovely conversation on “Dva protiv odnogo” (“Two Against One”), a talk show hosted by Denis Litov.

Aleksandr Dugin, guest: After our success in Georgia, they [pro-Russian Ukrainians] will ever more consistently, with ever mor…more hope, choose our side. That’s why the battle of Ukraine — it’s certainly a completely different one from the battle of Georgia, but…uh…there’s something down there that we don’t have [in Georgia’s case]. Half the population of this country supports us. Those are our people. First of all, they are the same ethnically as the people living in Rostov oblast, in K...in Stavropol or in Krasnodar. It is the New-Russ...New...New-Russian ethnicity...subethnicity of the Russian people which consists of Cossacks, a very complex formation, one with a complex historical destiny. They’re all Orthodox people, definitely, having certain features that distinguish them both from western Ukrainians — mighty big ones — and from the Russians living in Orel oblast, for instance, up there in the North, especially up there in Yaroslavl oblast. That is, it’s a distinct pro...Eastern-Russian Orthodox people — those New Russians — and our Kubanians, what else, Rostovians and residents of Donetsk oblast or Dnepropetrovsk oblast or of the land of Kharkiv. Those are R-U-S-S-I-A-N-S. And this Russian half, the Russian half of Ukraine’s population — Russians in a broad sense, anti-NATO — this is the base for a categorical rejection of this ultra-Western sort of Saakashvilian-Yushchennnn-kite sss…scenario. Uh...in this regard, I think, well, Crimea is simply an exp...it’s a fuse, right? It’s a powder keg.

Denis Litov, host: As I was saying, it’s via Crimea that somehow we can pull it off, methinks.

Dugin: Via Crimea! Well, it’s just that things are getting hotter and rougher in Crimea, but, in fact, by raising this issue of Ukraine, we get a colossal tool for influencing the entire political system. Under a peaceful agenda, we couldn’t use it — via the Party of Regions, via Yanukovych — peacefully, electorally, what else, by way of bribery, parliamentary intrigues, government appointments, what else. This situation we d…haven’t been ab…haven’t finished for various reasons. It didn’t work. What’s left is the radical scenario. Now I think Ukraine will have four poles of power — we can already witness their formation. Four poles of force — force, not power yet, let’s put it that way. They are the “ultra-Americans,” who gather around NUNS and Yushchenko — it’s a kind of a Saakashvili scenario — and they will take this same path and will definitely sta...stage, in the near term, genocide of the Russian population, ethnic cleansing. They’ve come real close to it. They’ve formed Ukrainian Nazi groups such as the Patriot Ukrayiny movement. They’re providing them with special funding and are planting them into Crimea, for a purpose we all understand. That is, we’ll have to deal with this. [Video time: 4:02-6:22]

He then describes Yulia “Soft” Tymoshenko as the second pole. Moving on, he assigns Viktor “Neither Fish Nor Fowl” Yanukovych to the third pole. Finally, he hails the pro-Russian elements within the Party of Regions plus Vitrenko’s PSPU plus the Crimean Russian Bloc as the fourth pole.

Q: So Yushchenko will attack Crimea and follow Saakashvili into the political hell of having one’s country dismembered by Russia? Does that make any sense? Yushchenko is plotting genocide and ethnic cleansing in Crimea? How? What for?

Dugin: And here I think Russia will have to pass a real test — because the Americans, under the excuse of the capers we’re cutting in Georgia, at a time when our troops have yet to move in Ukraine, that’s where the speedy question of Kyiv’s speedy accession into MAP may arise. And should we fail to seize the moment to initiate, in effect, the DISMANTLING of one Ukraine — politically one — that is, unless we get to it right now — get to it WITHOUT DELAY — we may lose the time and considerably…and it may so happen that we...that they had sacrificed Georgia for us in order to get Ukraine. And Ukraine is a matter of principle. It’s more important than Georgia, much more important. Brzezinski wrote about this: that Ukraine is an opportunity for Russia to become a world empire again. If the Russians somehow make it in Ukraine, then we’ll actually… [incoherent]

Litov: What happens if we decide to move in with tanks there right now...
Dugin: Touché!
Litov: ...on their territory, as it was in Czechoslovakia…
Dugin: That’s right! Tanks on Kyiv!
Litov: ...and unabashedly tanks will go in…
Dugin: Yes.
Litov: ...tanks will simply roll by...
Dugin: Yes.
Litov: ...nobody will fight them...
Dugin: Nobody will.
Litov: So what? Russian tanks?
Dugin: With flowers.
Litov: With stars, with flowers they will greet us real nice.
Dugin: Yes.
Litov: Of course, some liberal journalists...
Dugin: ...will be a little stifled. [будут немножко удавлены?]
Litov: ...will, like, take pictures of some tearful granny who will be yelling in this Ukrainian language...
Dugin: I think SHE’S ALREADY...
Litov: “Okupinty!” [faux Ukrainian; the correct Ukrainian for occupiers is окупанти (okupanty)]
Dugin: SHE’S ALREADY BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED, this granny, in Hollywood!
Litov: Yes! “Okupinty!” You’re absolutely right!
Dugin: She’s probably already...they’re already showing her without us knowing about it.
Litov: That’s right! That’s right!
Dugin: ...because Western propaganda, it’s... [Video time: 8:45-10:00]

Dugin then launches into a diatribe against Western coverage of the Russian-Georgian war, a proxy war between Ukraine and Russia, he believes. Another guy weighs in. He suggests that the Pskov Airborne Division be dropped west of Kyiv, to cut the capital off from western Ukraine, the root of all evil in the USSR.

Hey guys, why don't you test the waters yourselves? You can bring your own flowers.

Well, most eastern Ukrainians indeed speak Russian or surzhyk and vote pro-Russian, having experienced the melting pot of Russification for generations. However, Russians remain a minority in all of Ukraine’s oblasts, except the Crimean Autonomous Republic.

In Ukraine, people who speak Russian do not always support Russian foreign policy. Suffice it to say that Kyiv, still largely a Russian-speaking city, voted overwhelmingly against Yanukovych, the pro-Russian candidate, in 2004.

I digress. So when do you guys start dismantling Ukraine? When should we expect your tanks? After Tymoshenko or Yanukovych gets elected?

At the end of the show, Dugin jokingly recollects walking in Moscow and bumping into a guy who asked him about the U.S. Embassy’s location. Dugin: “Do you want to blow it up?” Guy: “Yes! How did you know?”


P.S. As Obama and Medvedev meet for their first time Wednesday, it’s important that they don’t push any buttons before the U.S. Department of State learns Russian.

Video embedded from: http://video.oboz.ua/movie.php?aWQ9MjYxMDAmdnQ9MA
Original source: http://2-1.ru

Putin Jokingly Refers to Yushchenko as ‘Mazurik’

When President Yushchenko’s Lviv-bound jet experienced problems shortly after takeoff Thursday, the pilots decided to fly back to Kyiv for an emergency landing.

Meanwhile, Tymoshenko was about to fly off to Moscow for gas talks with Putin, her jet waiting on the runway.

Having landed, Yushchenko’s posse requisitioned Tymoshenko’s jet, forcing her to take a charter flight to Moscow. The story grabbed headlines and Putin picked it up in what was a rarely missed opportunity to get back at Yushchenko.

Referring to Yushchenko as mazurik (Rus. for pickpocket, corpse) became the opening joke in an otherwise emotionally charged press conference that featured Putin crying on Tymoshenko’s shoulder, bewailing Ukraine’s arms supplies to Georgia. Here’s the mazurik quote:

Putin: Some mazurk snatched the jet. Okay then…uh

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/98390.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Bicycle A Trophy for Russian Troops in Georgia

Watch this interesting footage showing a Russian infantry fighting vehicle carrying a bicycle on board.



After a Georgian reporter confronted them, the Russians, who initially claimed having brought the bicycle all the way from Russia, decided to dump their trophy.

The Russian top brass, who have vowed to crack down on looting, pride themselves on having arrested some of their soldiers caught in the act. But actions speak louder than words, don't they?

The chain of command appears to be just as bicephalic.

Major General Vyacheslav Borisov, deputy commander of the Russian airborne forces: Our commander, our big commander, ordered us to take control over the entire security zone that was mapped.

Reporter: Who gave you the order?
Major General Vyacheslav Borisov: The Commander-in-Chief did.

Reporter: Medvedev or Putin?
Major General Vyacheslav Borisov: Well, I’m not that big of a boss to know who gave the order.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/93699.html

Downed Russian Pilot Claims Innocence

Narrator: The highest-security residents of Gudushauri Hospital stay alone neither at night nor during the day. Colonel Zinov, a Russian pilot downed over Tskhinvali and captured, has already been charged with assassinating Georgian citizens. Unless the POW is exchanged, he faces 15 years’ imprisonment.

Colonel Igor Zinov: Unlike you, I’m always portrayed as some kind of, I don’t know, monster of sorts who wants to kill everyone. Let me tell you what I told them: Not a single bomb was dropped from this aircraft, and I’m clean before Georgia. [Learn more here.]

So, the fact that they dropped you before you would drop those bombs on them makes you clean? That’s a jaw-dropping confession to make!

Inter, Ukraine’s leading TV channel, has taken a somewhat pro-Russian stance on the Russo-Georgian conflict.

Some experts believe that control over the channel may have shifted to Dmytro Firtash, a co-owner of RosUkrEnergo and a friend of Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia has accused Ukraine of supplying Georgia with the Buk-M1-2 (“Grizzly”) surface-to-air missiles that it says shot down three Su-25 (“Frogfoot”) fighter jets and one Tu-22M (“Backfire”) bomber.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Forces flew over Kyiv today in their final rehearsal before the Independence Day parade that will be held on August 24.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/92640.html

Zhirinovsky Goes Ballistic Over Ukraine’s NATO Bid

Below is a fragment from a Channel 1+1 talk show “Я так думаю” (“That’s What I Think”).

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Vice Speaker of the Russian State Duma: What was told today in Bucharest to representatives of Ukraine and Georgia — it means a 100 percent denial of accession into the bloc of NATO for times immemorial — forever. Never will either Ukraine and Georgia make it to NATO. Let me explain why. If Ukraine and Georgia are accepted, major conflicts will begin, both in Georgia and on the borders of Ukraine. Does NATO need this? NATO needs countries that have no conflicts whatsoever: Italy, Germany, Norway, Denmark. That means quietude: getting together, drinking champagne. You will have your state falling apart completely because we will immediately set “NATO prices” for gas, oil and all the rest. We will immediately deport a million Ukrainian workers.

Hanna Bezulyk, host: Vladimir Volfovich…

Zhirinovsky: Your country and economy will collapse. And what will NATO do? Georgia: Immediately there will be war with Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia. That’s why NATO will never accept you, Ukraine and Georgia. And then there’s a more important scenario. Suppose everything is fine in Ukraine and Georgia. But we here think that it doesn’t benefit us. And never will NATO trade Russia for one hundred Ukraines and two hundred Georgias.

Well, Aleksandr Lukashenka here thinks otherwise.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/81027.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

Cheney Chews out Energy Empire

Vice President Dick Cheney grabbed the Russian bear by the balls, in what sounds like the most vicious and delicious diatribe ever from the Bush administration’s Russian cuisine. As a guest speaker at a geopolitical get-together in Vilnius, Lithuania, Cheney made headlines by dishing out hot potatoes on the Kremlin’s conduct of foreign policy. Describing Russia’s current state of affairs, he used the words backsliding and blackmail.

Cheney, who has a background in the energy sector, elaborated on Russia’s decreasing democracy coupled with its increasing role as a global energy supplier. That the vestiges of the evil empire keep protruding themselves in Russia’s self-proclaimed vision of an energy empire breaks no news. Many of the Black and Baltic Sea leaders who assembled in Vilnius had long solicited Washington’s concurrence on their diagnosis of Moscow’s condition. The forum attracted not-so-big countries with not-so-small problems. Indeed, counties like Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine seek prosperity through preserving the fruits of democracy from the fungi of Russian despotism.

Vice President Cheney became the third top-level conservative to speak openly against Russia’s blackmail-thy-neighbor behavior. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holds the lead for having vented her view on Moscow’s gasmanship. Senator John McCain has repeatedly reflected on the Russian issue and has urged President Bush to boycott the July G8 summit in St. Petersburg. Experts believe both Rice and McCain will run for the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

Dick Cheney, a controversial figure loathed by liberals, still deserves respect from a purely Ukrainian point of view. In the late 80s, then-Congressman Cheney visited Chernobyl. He avidly supported Ukraine’s independence when the USSR could no longer support itself. As Secretary of Defense in the Senior Bush administration and a major hawk, he helped a chicken Kiev gourmet Bush see the forest for the trees.

The Kremlin and the conservative camp seem all the more at odds. In the gung-ho days of the GOP’s rodeo on terror, Bush and Putin used to ride together. We all remember that Kodak moment when Dubya looked into Puttie’s eyes and got a sense of his soul. It was a wedding ceremony where Condi, a distinguished Sovietologist and then-NSC adviser, played the maid of honor. With the honeymoon in full swing, Moscow made no big fuss when Washington withdrew from the ABM treaty.

Being Bush’s staunch ally supplied Putin with the geopolitical currency needed to buy Washington’s silent stamp of approval on Moscow’s imperial designs in the near abroad. One version has it that, while the US went after the axis of evil, the Kremlin framed the Kuchma regime to put Ukraine into its wheel cart. Much to Putin’s gastronomic advantage, on the eve of Operation Shock and Awe, the Kolchuha scandal set off shock waves on both sides of the Atlantic, portraying Kuchma as Hussein’s accomplice and casting Ukraine into monthlong isolation.

Thanks to the relatively low US Army casualties, lack of trophy evidence of the Kolchuha transfer, and the dispatch of 1,600 Ukrainian troops to Iraq, Kuchma redeemed some of his political value. That didn’t help his successor strategy, though. The rest is history — and something Russia can’t reconcile with.

In addition to Ukraine, Russia’s hit list also includes Georgia and Moldova. Russia has banned wine imports from these countries, apparently trying to strangle their chief source of earnings. Meanwhile, Russia continues catering to the separatist enclaves in these countries. Georgia’s Abkhazia, Adzharia, and South Ossetia, as well as Moldova’s Transdniesteria, operate as Russia’s pet geopolitical subsidiaries.

Whether it’s American crusaders or Russian regionalists, the tug-of-war between Washington and Moscow has not ceased. The Bush administration is credited with record budget deficits and tax cuts for the rich. America often behaves like a bull in a China shop. Likewise, Cheney is no saint, but when it comes to Russia he calls a spade a spade. Ukraine stands to benefit from the balance-of-power effects that stem from the Cold War instincts of his cohort.

Babysitting fledgling democracies requires no troop deployments. As the West counters Russia’s predatory posture diplomatically, it will help Russia reinvent itself and become a reliable partner.