Kiev Regime Discredits Itself for All Time

[JackRiddler]

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Wow, just keep learning more ugly shit about this. A dark portal to the online-offline future that may await all of us as societies descend further into state authoritarianism, total surveillance, factionalism and nationalism, and permanent war. PropOrNot, also traced to Ukrainian-American nationalists, was the spore of this in the U.S.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/08 ... n-ukraine/

- www.counterpunch.org
The ‘Peacekeeper’ Vigilante Website and Freedom of Speech in Ukraine

Posted By Halyna Mokrushyna On February 8, 2019 @ 1:57 am

The 2013-2014 pro-European Union protest movement in Ukraine known as the ‘Euromaidan’ is officially celebrated in Ukraine and is largely recognized in the West as a pro-democratic, peaceful, popular revolution against the ‘corrupt autocratic regime’ (according to the mainstream Western and Ukrainian media) of president Victor Yanukovych. Ukrainians should now breathe more freely, live better and enjoy the rule of law and freedom of speech. And yet today, under the supposedly democratic, post-Euromaidan government, there is much less freedom in Ukraine and much more political violence.

Examples abound. They include the official banning of Russian social networks, movies, books and other cultural products; persecutions and imprisonment of citizens holding dissenting opinion; searches of the offices of media outlets that dare to criticize the new Ukrainian power holders; attacks by ultra-right nationalists against journalists and media offices with the connivance of the state; cyber-bullying of journalists and bloggers who hold alternative opinions, carried out by so-called porokhoboty – bloggers and opinion leaders who propagate the ‘official’ truth with the informal support by the administration of President Petro Poroshenko; increasing state control of television channels through the oligarchic owners of these channels. And the list goes on and on. (For a detailed and well-researched analysis on freedom of speech and opinion in Ukraine, I refer the reader to the recent report presented to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by the Ukrainian human rights platform Uspishna Varta in September 2018.)

One of the new forms of intimidation of journalists and citizens who do not agree with the ‘official’ version of what is happening is Ukraine is the public exposure of their personal data by anonymous denunciators using the snitch Ukrainian website with the telling name ‘Myrotvorets‘, which translates as ‘Peacekeeper’ from Ukrainian. The website lists the names of journalists, Ukrainian citizens and foreign citizens accused of holding anti-Ukrainian and ‘pro-Russian’ views, foreigners who joined the military forces of the non-recognized ‘peoples republics’ of Donetsk and Lugansk, names of Russian volunteers assisting the republics or fighting on their side, and people who have entered Crimea through the territory of Russia instead of Ukraine. The Myrotvorets vigilantes cast their net really large: even a reposting from a Facebook group supporting the Anti-Maidan resistance movement in Ukraine is grounds for accusation of “treason”. The listing of persons on the website includes his/her profile on social media, home address and phone number, and personal data of relatives.

The Myrotvorets website formally calls itself the ‘Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity and International Law’. Its self-described role is to provide information to law enforcement authorities and security services about “pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers”, as it is stated on the home page of this ‘research center’. The information is obtained through illegal means, such as hacking and phishing of computers or searching through open sources.

Myrotvorets is curated by the security and intelligence services of Ukraine. A group of ‘volunteers’ began collecting data on “terrorists and separatists” in the summer of 2014. This group was led by Georgy Tuka, a Ukrainian politician and ‘activist-patriot’. In December of 2014, Anton Herashchenko, a deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) and an advisor to the Minister of Interior of Ukraine, officially announced the Myrotvoretsproject. He called upon “conscious citizens” to use the website to denounce “terrorists” of the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk republics and their sympathizers in Ukraine and abroad, helping thus the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Interior to identify ‘enemies’ of the state.

By April 13, 2015, the Myrotvorets database had grown to contain over 30,000 records, including the names, phone numbers and home addresses of the journalist and writer Oles Buzyna and the former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Oleg Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov was an active participant in the Anti-Maidan protests in Kyiv in December 2013 – February 2014 and one of the organizers of the Victory Day celebration in Kyiv on May 9, 2015.

Oles Buzyna was a well-known historian, journalist, and writer. He saw Ukraine and Ukrainian culture as part of a common Russian civilization. He criticized the ultra-nationalist, violent groups of the Euromaidan protests and took an active Anti-Maidan position. He was a target of many public and hidden threats from the Ukrainian extreme right militants. Like Kalashnikov, he was shot dead close to his home, in broad daylight, on April 16, 2015. The criminal investigations into these two cases have been dragging on for three years now with no prospect of being solved.

On May 7, 2016, Myrotvorets published names, phone numbers, and addresses of over 4,000 Ukrainian and foreign journalists from leading Western media that were accredited in the Donetsk People’s Republic. It stated that journalists who were risking their lives covering both sides of the conflict “collaborated with terrorists”. Anton Heraschenko explained that Myrotvorets obtained these data by hacking the accreditation lists of the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the last two years. Besides the journalists from international news agencies, such as BBC, AFP, CNN, Deutsche Welle and New York Times, these lists contained also the names of employees of NGO-s.

The publication of that data provoked an international scandal. The Head of the European Union Delegation to Ukraine, Jan Tombinski, called upon the Ukrainian authorities to take the names of journalists out of the public domain because disclosure of personal data violates international norms and Ukrainian legislation. However, his appeal was ignored. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic expressed concern about published personal information of journalists on Myrotvorets and called it an ‘a very alarming development’. In July of 2017, following a continuing international pressure, the National Police of Ukraine opened a criminal investigation into Myrotvorets‘ activities. However, the website continues to operate, while courts, the SBU, the State Border Service and other departments continue to use the data against Ukrainian citizens.

The lawyers of the Ukrainian human rights platform Uspishna Varta have established that in the last four years, data from Myrotvorets has been used as evidence in 28 court cases in all stages – from pre-trial inquiries to adjudication of the culpability. Ukrainian courts rely on these non-verified data to grant access to a person’s confidential banking data, phone conversations and e-mails; to identify suspects; to arrest and detain people; to extend periods of detention; and to start in-absentia pre-trial investigations. Myrotvorets website data is used not only in criminal cases but also in civil offenses as well, such as revocation of parental rights or permission for a child to travel abroad without a father’s permission.

From the legal point of view, publishing personal data without a person’s consent violates personal security and the right for the protection of personal data. It also violates Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees the right to a fair trial for all.

And yet in spite of appeal of many international organizations to shut down its illegal activities, Myrotvorets remains up and running. By failing to intervene, the Ukrainian state silently approves it. Moreover, it is impossible to sue anyone associated with the website because all of the denunciations on it are anonymous. Myrotvorets claims to be an NGO, however it is not registered as such. The domain and the host of the website are outside of Ukraine – one is located in the US and another is registered to the name of a citizen of Thailand. Hence, in strictly legalist terms, Ukraine does not have juridical power over it. Nevertheless, Ukrainian authorities use its data for repression against its own citizens.

My name is on the Myrotvorets website, too. In April of 2015, I went on a media fact-finding tour to the war-affected city of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine with the purpose of witnessing how the residents of Donetsk and the broader Donbass region are coping in the difficult circumstances of Ukraine’s armed attacks against them. The press tour was organized by the German-Russian NGO ‘Europa-Objektiv’. The personal data of journalists participating in the tour were published on the Myrotvorets website. Under my name, it is written that I consciously violated the state border of Ukraine and that I “manipulated socially important information”. The webpage contains a facsimile of the main page of my Canadian passport with all its personal data.

Stating that I illegally crossed the Ukrainian-Russian border is a lie. Our delegation traveled from Rostov, Russia to Donetsk by bus and, indeed, crossed the border on the Ukrainian side. The border was under the control of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). There is no law in Ukraine that qualifies such crossing as illegal. And the claim that I manipulated socially important information is ridiculous for a country that declares itself democratic and free. In a free, democratic country, no one should denounce and threaten another person for merely expressing a different point of view or presenting information that contradicts the ‘official’ or mainstream version of facts.

The publication of my Canadian passport data on the Internet is a violation of international norms on the protection of privacy. It is an attempt to intimidate journalists and to silence those who seek to understand both sides of the armed conflict in Ukraine and inform the international community about it. People behind the snitch website Myrotvorets published my personal data in the hope that the Security Service of Ukraine will use the information to harass or prosecute me. As a proof that data of Myrotvorets is used by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), I have an official letter by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine declaring that, following a request from the SBU, they put me under an official ban from entering the territory of Ukraine for three years.

I have sought to draw the attention of Canadian government authorities to this dirty practice of the state organs of Ukraine which Canada so proudly supports. For one year and a half, I have e-mailed and phoned my Member of Parliament requesting a meeting to discuss the matter, but without success. I also consulted a Canadian lawyer who said that, essentially, Canada has no duty but does have the right to take action against Ukraine on my behalf. However, given complex legal issues involved in the process, Canada would most likely rely on Ukraine to intervene. I also know that with the unconditional support to the current Kyiv regime by the Canadian political leadership, no Canadian politician will publicly condemn actions of the Ukrainian state organs. So I am left with no choice but to draw as much attention as I can to the inacceptable, illegal practices of the Myrotvorets website and the people behind it.

Western countries are reluctant to acknowledge that the Euromaidan, which they so eloquently supported, did not bring more freedom to Ukraine. On the contrary, it brought tighter control of the media by the state and its proxy oligarchs; political repression against people with dissenting views, including imprisonment, searches, and interrogations; and acts of aggression by ultra-right, vigilante groups against opponents of the current political regime in Kyiv while police stand by without intervening.

Ukraine is suffocating. To breathe, it needs freedom – journalistic freedom to report what is happening on the ground, personal freedom to speak up and not be afraid of repression by the state apparatus, public freedom to conduct open and honest discussions about the present crisis and the common future, inclusive of all citizens of Ukraine. I hope that this article will contribute to public awareness of the dire situation with the freedom of speech in Ukraine, although I am very skeptical that it will lead to any response from Canadian or Ukrainian authorities.

[JackRiddler]

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Very weird development in the Ukraine election. Unexpectedly, Tymoshenko went nowhere, she is out of the runoff. Poroshenko made it. BUT BUT BUT he was 14 points behind a TV comedian who ran an anti-nationalist campaign and who promises to meet with Putin to end the stupid war.

This guy, Zelensky, has never been a politician and has no party, but has his own political TV show. He rose up from zero in the polls, following the celebrity-to-frontrunner formula previously seen in Beppe Grillo and, um, that guy in the States whose name I forget. Beyond challenging the current extreme nationalist stranglehold on Ukrainian society, as far as I can tell Zelensky is bereft of politics other than being young and an outsider (soon we will also be told this is program enough for Peto O'Buttjudge and/or Beet Rocker) and presenting some neoliberal-type "common sense" and a faith in tech. But the fuckers in power, responsible for the coup and the war and the country's destruction in general, were apparently vulnerable enough.

The runoff is on April 21, and this is how Poroshenko is now campaigning (poster on a billboard).

_Poroshenko-Poster-April2019.jpg

[JackRiddler]

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Very interesting report from Kiev, even if the publication is right-wing and Christianist (not relevant here) and gives the usual Western propaganda version of the Ukrainian conflict.

Story shows the comedian is successfully selling himself both ways -- as an anti-nationalist and as a hardliner. Also, stylistically, everything about this is Professional Wrestling. Zelensky challenged the president to debate him in a stadium but only after taking a drug test. Poroshenko had his bloods drawn for that, which is fucking bizarre. Prepare for a lot of ridiculous shit...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/04/08/ ... r-stadium/

www.dailysignal.com
Ukraine’s 2 Finalists for President Head for Showdown in Soccer Stadium

KYIV, Ukraine—The final two contenders are getting ready to rumble.

In a March 31 election, voters narrowed the field of Ukraine’s presidential contenders from 37 candidates to two.

In one corner, comedian and political dark horse Volodymyr Zelensky. In the other, incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.

The first round went to Zelensky, who rolled up about 30% of the vote. Poroshenko took second place, claiming roughly 16%.

Since no candidate won a majority, the election for Ukraine’s presidency moves to a second-round runoff April 21.

The final three weeks of campaigning were bound to be intense and spirited. Even so, the extent of last week’s political peacocking caught many off guard.

In a video released Wednesday on Facebook (complete with an electric guitar riff rocking in the background) Zelensky struts onto the turf of Kyiv’s 70,500-seat Olympiyskiy stadium.

https://www.facebook.com/ze2019official ... 196187785/

Looking into the camera as he walks—with a few slow-motion cutaways for effect—Zelensky challenges Poroshenko to a one-on-one prime-time debate in the soccer arena. The front-running challenger also calls for a drug and alcohol test prior to the contest.

“I am waiting for you here, at [National Sports Complex] Olympiyskiy,” Zelensky says in the video. “The debate will take place before the people of Ukraine. All channels will have the right to broadcast live; all journalists will have the right to be present.”

Zelensky then gives Poroshenko 24 hours to accept the challenge.

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Poroshenko released his own video, agreeing to the debate.

Poroshenko’s video retort is subdued by comparison, although some orchestral music plays in the background. The incumbent president wears a suit without a tie and stands in one still-frame, nighttime shot for several minutes with Ukraine’s presidential administration building as backdrop.

Poroshenko mostly steers away from personal taunts in the video and underscores his own accomplishments. Looking forward, he says Ukraine needs a steady hand in the country’s top office to stay the course with anti-corruption reforms and by deepening the country’s Euro-Atlantic partnerships.

Both candidates had submitted blood tests by Friday for analysis. Neither tested positive for illicit substances, Ukrainian media outlets reported.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine announced Thursday that it was prepared to provide security for the stadium debate.

Go the Distance

The sparring videos presented a case study in the diverging political personalities of Ukraine’s top two presidential candidates.

There’s Poroshenko—who made a fortune with his chocolate company and other businesses, and rose to power in Ukraine’s freewheeling post-Soviet years.

And then there’s Zelensky—a political newcomer and TV producer whose fame is based largely on playing the role of Ukrainian president in a popular TV comedy show.

“A Zelensky presidency would be not only a political but also a historical aberration in post-Soviet Ukraine,” said Andreas Umland, senior nonresident fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.

“The obvious explanation for Zelensky’s advance is the deep disappointment of Ukrainians with their governing class,” Umland said.

For his part, Zelensky has shied away from substantive media interviews. However, his political positions are clear: He wants to shake things up in Kyiv to get rid of corruption, and he pledges a hard line against Moscow.

The front-runner’s campaign released an anti-corruption plan over the weekend, proposing to abolish parliamentary immunity, digitize more of the government’s bureaucracy, rein in the power of law enforcement agencies, and increase punishments for corrupt government officials.

The plan also suggested that Western law enforcement agencies would be used to help prosecute Ukrainian officials in corruption cases. [!!!] [MAYBE THEY CAN HIRE MUELLER?]

“We emphasize there is no need to reinvent the wheel in this area. It has long been known what should be done,” the Zelensky campaign wrote on its channel on Telegram, a popular instant messenger service, adding that “there has never been the political will” to pursue such an aggressive anti-corruption program.

Skepticism

Despite his stated anti-corruption convictions, Zelensky’s political inexperience has some Western leaders and political experts concerned. With an ongoing war and the economy in trouble, Zelensky won’t have much time or room for error in learning the ropes once in office, Umland said. [AS OPPOSED TO A CHOCOLATE BILLIONAIRE, BY DEFINITION A ROPES GENIUS]

“In peaceful times and under stable conditions, Zelensky’s assumption of power would, perhaps, be an experiment worth trying,” Umland said.

“Yet, as Ukraine’s current geopolitical situation is extremely complicated, the Zelensky presidency is a chancy development,” Umland said. “In times of war, Ukraine does not have the luxury of political experimentation and governmental dilettantism at the top.”

However, Zelensky’s supporters say his nebulous policy positions and inexperience ultimately could benefit the country.

“Zelensky is a blank sheet,” said Gennadiy Druzenko, a former Ukrainian government official who now runs a volunteer field hospital program for Ukrainian troops. [NO, REALLY?!]

“People just believe that with him in office, the government will create far less obstacles and problems. In fact, the weaker the leader, the better for ordinary people,” Druzenko said.

Tough Times

In the weeks following Ukraine’s pro-European revolution in 2014, Russia invaded and seized the nation’s Crimean Peninsula. That April, Russian forces engineered a war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Within months, the Kremlin had deployed thousands of its soldiers to the conflict.

After more than five years of constant combat, the ongoing war is frozen along a static, 250-mile-long front line. So far, the conflict has killed more than 13,000 Ukrainians. And with 1.7 million people who fled their homes due to the violence, Europe’s only ongoing land war is also the Continent’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

The war also has been a body blow to Ukraine’s economy.

The country’s gross domestic product topped out at $183 billion in 2013—the year before the revolution and war. By 2015, it had dropped by about half that number. At the same time, the national currency plummeted in value and inflation correspondingly spiked.

Voters elected Poroshenko as president in May 2014. After almost five years in office, Ukraine’s GDP is on the rebound, topping $126 billion in 2018. Still, many Ukrainians haven’t felt the impact of the turnaround and remain worried about the economy.

A poll in March by the International Republican Institute, a U.S. think tank, found that inflation was the top personal concern for Ukrainian voters by a wide margin—62% said it was their No. 1 issue, while 20% named the war.

When it comes to issues most important for the country at large, Ukrainians singled out the war and corruption as their top two concerns.

Umland said Russia’s military campaign was to blame for most of Ukraine’s post-2014 economic downturn. However, he said Poroshenko was still taking the lion’s share of the blame for a bad economy. [GOLLY, WHATEVER RELATION COULD THERE BE BETWEEN THE TWO?]

“At least in the Ukrainian population’s perception, the slow recovery from the shock of 2014 and many other continuing problems are largely due to Poroshenko and company’s various failures as reformers … rather than only results of Kremlin meddling,” Umland said.

Too Slow, Too Steady

On Poroshenko’s watch, Ukrainians gained visa-free travel to the European Union, and Ukraine’s newly unified, national Orthodox church achieved independence from Russian control for the first time since the 17th century.

Yet life remains tough for many Ukrainians. There’s a war on, for one, and their country remains the second-poorest in Europe, behind Moldova.

A recent corruption scandal involving Ukraine’s national military-industrial conglomerate, Ukroboronprom, also shed a negative light on Poroshenko in the waning days of his re-election campaign.

Amid that discontent, Zelensky has tapped into a widespread desire for new faces in government among Ukrainians who are frustrated with the current pace of progress.

“The Zelensky phenomenon is not pro-Zelensky or even anti-Poroshenko, but anti all of the Ukrainian politicians who have led Ukraine until now,” Taras Kuzio, a political science professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, wrote in a recent Facebook post.

Frustration with the slow pace of change in Ukraine may have led to Zelensky’s anti-establishment appeal, Kurt Volker, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine and former ambassador to NATO, told “PBS NewsHour” in a Thursday interview.

Striking a note of support for Poroshenko, Volker summarized Ukrainians’ choice at the ballot box April 21.

“Do they want someone who is just going against the establishment, promising massive reform?” Volker said. “Or do they want someone who maybe has been disappointing to them in some respects, but has done more on reform than anyone else has in Ukraine for the past 20 years and stood up to Putin?” ["OUR BRAND IS CRISIS"]

Some experts say another factor potentially is at play, too. Zelensky’s charismatic, media-savvy campaign is a novelty in Ukrainian presidential politics.

“Other outsiders have advanced into Ukraine’s parliament and to high ministerial posts before,” Umland said. “Yet never has a total political novice come as close to occupying Ukraine’s highest public office as Zelensky.”

Druzenko, the former Ukrainian government official, attributed much of Zelensky’s success to his use of social media, along with an effective messaging strategy that understood the national mood.

“[Zelensky’s] campaign was innovative, creative, and allowed everybody to construct its own image of Zelensky,” Druzenko told The Daily Signal. “His popularity is drawn by the thirst for changes.”

Round and Round

In another video Thursday, Zelensky suggests that the moderator of the Olympiyskiy stadium debate should be Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister, who came in third behind Poroshenko in the March 31 election.

“In order to avoid bribery, provocations, and administrative pressure, we propose to appoint an independent debate moderator,” Zelensky says in the video, asking for Tymoshenko’s participation.

Again, Zelensky gave Poroshenko 24 hours to accept.

Tymoshenko subsequently turned down the offer, and Poroshenko jabbed back by video Friday.

“Throughout my life, I have repeatedly faced challenges, not only from political opponents, but from strong adversaries,” the Ukrainian president says. “I looked into their eyes and didn’t look away. I didn’t look for reasons, put forward conditions, or hide behind anyone’s back. That’s ugly. Be a man. Come to the debate. If it’s the stadium, let it be the stadium.”

Poroshenko said Sunday that he wanted to schedule the soccer stadium debate for April 14. Zelensky replied Monday in a new video, saying he wants the debate to be held April 19.

As of this article’s publication, Poroshenko had not replied.

[JackRiddler]

Absolutely crazy example of how bad the Maidan Regime was, pointed out to me for the first time in a piece by Douglas Valentine. I had no idea, or else somehow forgot completely about this. An American citizen born in the U.S., a State Department official formerly managing financial relations with Kiev, was offered the finance minister job in the Maidan government - and took it. She was given Ukrainian citizenship on the day of her appointment. She promptly made the agreements that ran their foreign debt to IMF-EU up by another 40 billion dollars. Who owns your country, baby? And here's the kicker: After two years she got to call mission accomplished on that mess, and took the job as the chief of PROMESA, the Puerto Rico debt junta! They really don't bother to disguise anything and they don't have to, never had, and never will, because the miseducation system, the culture of political apathy, and the corporate media make sure almost no one hears these stories or learn the contexts and histories and reasons why they matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko

Natalie Ann Jaresko (Ukrainian: Наталія Енн Яресько; born 24 April 1965) is an American-born Ukrainian investment banker who served as Ukraine's Minister of Finance from December 2014 until April 2016.[1] In 20 March 2017, she was appointed as Executive Director of the Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico.

[Born to Soviet immigrant parents, grew up in Illinois, went to DePaul and JFK policy school at Harvard...]

Jaresko lived in Ukraine from 1992 to 2000, and returned in 2004.[9][10] She received Ukrainian citizenship on 2 December 2014, the day of her appointment as Minister of Finance of Ukraine.[11][12] She remains a U.S. citizen.[13] Although the U.S. does not prohibit dual citizenship, Ukrainian law states that she would have to renounce her non-Ukrainian citizenship(s) within two years.[14]

Jaresko held several economics-related positions at the US Department of State in Washington, D.C., and eventually coordinated activities of the State Department, the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, the United States Trade Representative, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) in their economic relations with the Soviet Union and its successors.[15] As part of her work she interacted with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Later from 1992 to 1995, she was the first Chief of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, responsible for strengthening economic cooperation between the two countries.[9] She has been a governor of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.[15] In 2003 she was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Princess Olga for her contributions to the Ukrainian economy.[16][17]

Jaresko also held several key positions in the private business sector. In February 2001 she became President and Chief Executive Officer of Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which had been disbursing United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds to small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine and Moldova since 1995.[18][19]

In 2006, she co-founded Horizon Capital, where she served as a Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer, which took over the management of WNISEF.[18] In those positions she established and strengthened economic ties with Ukraine and Moldova.[16][17] Horizon Capital managed two funds, the Emerging Europe Growth Fund aimed at institutional and individual investors in the west, and the USAID funded Western NIS Enterprise Fund which preceded Horizon Capital.[19] After the divorce of Jaresko and Ihor Figlus, who was a limited partner in Horizon Capital, Horizon Capital litigated to maintain the confidentiality of its internal financial arrangements.[20] When Jaresko left Horizon Capital in December 2014, it had about $600 million of Ukrainian investments under management.[4]

Between 2005 and 2010 Jaresko was a member of President Viktor Yushchenko's Foreign Investors Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Center for Promotion of Foreign Investment under the auspices of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.[16][17]

Ukrainian Minister of Finance
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2016)
Further information: Economy of Ukraine § 2014 to present day
Nine months after the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Jaresko was approached by headhunters for the new Ukrainian government, and within days offered the post of Minister of Finance.[21]

Early in Jaresko's term she made an outline agreement for a $40 billion four-year loan from the International Monetary Fund and Western countries.[18][22]

In August 2015 Jaresko was instrumental to restructuring Ukraine's debts, including a partial write-off with a 20% haircut on Ukraine's $18 billion privately-held government debt.[23]

On 24 March 2016, shortly before she left office, she argued that the economy had to be depoliticized and Ukraine needed a technocratic government,[24] and that she was willing to lead such a technocratic government.[25] The Ukraine Today and Financial Times had reported speculation that Jaresko could become Ukraine's new Prime Minister, which was also suggested by former United States Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.[26][27][28] The Ukrainian Weekly reported that Jaresko had started forming a provisional technocratic Cabinet of Ministers the previous month.[29]

Jaresko was rejected as a prime ministerial candidate by the governing coalition.[30] When speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, was elected as Ukraine's new Prime Minister on 14 April 2016, he did not retain Jaresko in his new Cabinet.[30]

After she left office, Jaresko said she believed the Ukraine macroeconomic situation had stabilized,[31] and that Ukraine needed a further $25 billion of investment beyond the agreed IMF loans to "win over the hearts and minds of Ukrainian society" as the "immediate effects [of reform] on the population have been painful."[32]

Later career
In May 2016, Jaresko became chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute unit in Kiev, a U.S. headquartered educational and policy studies NGO.[33][34]

In 20 March 2017, Jaresko became the executive director of the Financial Oversight Board of Puerto Rico,[35] as part of the PROMESA bill.[36] It has been reported in the media that Jaresko will make $625,000 a year, and her traveling, moving and security costs will be covered as part of her work.[37]

Other activities
Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity (TCEI), Member (since 2018)[38]
Aspen Institute Kyiv, Chair of the Board of Trustees (since 2016)[39]
Aspen Institute, Member of the Board of Trustees[39]

Wonder where the operative CIA (by whatever name it may call itself) migrated after the 1970s embarrassments? The "private" sector, of course, with the most famous operation aptly called The Enterprise, and Top Secret America. But the most controlled activity driven by a geopolitical agenda of any coherence shifted into the State Department. Formerly they were Siamese twins (literally run by brothers in the original golden age of covert ops). Now State is more like the Terminator's shell of flesh.

From my book The CIA as Organized Crime re: Biden's son, the Ukraine, and Pierre Omidyar's Centre UA:

"The Centre UA’s stated purpose was to pull Ukraine out of the Russian orbit and deliver it to Western corporations. And that’s what happened, along with the obligatory political payoffs. Indeed, a few short years after Centre UA was established, Vice President Joe Biden’s son joined the board of directors of the largest Ukraine gas producer Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden heads Burisma’s legal department and liaises with international organizations.

The book Flashpoint in Ukraine provides ample evidence that
the Obama regime and its privateering corporate partners overthrew the pro-Russian Ukraine government and installed government packed with neo-Nazis and American elites. They did this for their own enrichment, and yet the US media never made it an issue. It’s business as usual.

The average Ukrainian citizen doesn’t benefit; just the “super-predator” American elite who organized the coup. It’s amazing to behold. Biden’s smash and grab operation occurred in 2014. In 2016, another super-predator, Natalie Jaresko, took control of Datagroup, the company that controls Ukraine’s telecom market. Jaresko at one time held a top job at the State Department coordinating the trade and commerce agencies that dealt with the former Soviet Union, including the
Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Check her out on Wikipedia.

She’s a part of the global elite: the IMF/World Bank /European Bank for Reconstruction and Development network. In the Clinton Administration she served as Chief of the Economics Section of the US Embassy in Ukraine, and helped paved the way for the coup d’état that occurred there 20 years later.

These coups take years to organize. Many more are planned. Jaresko acquired Ukrainian citizenship on the same day as her appointment as Minister of Finance of Ukraine in 2014. Next she squeezed her competitor, the owner of Datagroup, out of business using the kind of foreign currency loan debt scam favored by Mafia hoods and economic hitmen. That’s how freewheeling capitalists work: they overload targeted nations and business people with debt and then clean them out. Again, not a word of protest from the mainstream media: it’s “free trade” in action.

The CIA plays a central role in these schemes, doing the illegal but plausibly deniable things that require high tech espionage and underworld assets – reaching into police files or using private investigators to get dirt on people, then setting them up and blackmailing them. These kinds of subversion operations can’t be done publicly by the likes of Biden or Jaresko or their PR people. Foreign shakedowns have to be done secretly through the criminal underworld, and that’s where the CIA comes into play.

Other times the media plays the central role. In the US, for example, people win elections through negative campaigning. The Democratic Party hires investigators to get dirt on Republican candidates. Republicans do the same thing. The truth doesn’t matter because events are happening instantaneously. Hyperbole becomes fact before anyone can respond. Senator Elizabeth Warren reportedly claimed to be part Native American in her application to Harvard, and once she started campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump called her “Pocahontas” every chance he got. There are all sorts of ways, within the eternal present of spectacular domination, of influencing events through manufactured
scandals and misrepresentations without it being illegal or secret. It just requires celebrity status, a Twitter account, and the attention of the networks of information control.

As Guy Debord said long before the internet in his book Comments on The Society of the Spectacle, “One aspect of the disappearance of all objective historical knowledge can be seen in the way that individual reputations have become malleable and alterable at will by those who control all information: information which is gathered and also an entirely different matter – information which is broadcast. Their ability to falsify is thus unlimited.”

Anyone can be smeared, and apart from the unknown Protected Few in the CIA and National Security Establishment, there’s no defense. Overseas, the CIA is perpetually collecting information on adversaries like Vladimir Putin and passing it along to the Western media, which rejoices in spinning it a million different ways.

What is less well known is the CIA is engaged in tipping the
balance in the domestic as well as international contests. That’s why it’s secret, and why all the privateers protect it. They share the same business ideology. CIA officers, PR people, journalists, politicians, and academics who get paid to give “expert” testimony on Fox or MSNBC, are knowingly manipulating social and political movements here in the US, just like they do for the Ukrainian opposition or the Venezuelan opposition.

The CIA sets up Twitter accounts and Facebook pages and social websites to move people into mass organizations to achieve its secret ends. In May 2016 Twitter “cut off U.S. intelligence agencies from a service that sifts through the entire output of Twitter’s social media postings.”5 The guilty party was the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise, which contracted with a private contractor, Dataminr, through the CIA’s ubiquitous venture capital fund In-Q-Tel, to spy on American citizens. Such super-secret “intelligence” operations are frequently used as cover for highly illegal “offensive counterintelligence” operations.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Mr. Valentine must be mistaken. It's the foreign actors, you see.

Never mind that the CIA acts as 'foreign interference' overseas. And here, domestically.

This is not the narrative that's been force fed.


Smarm aside, this is good stuff. Thanks for sharing here.

[Elvis]

And again I heard on NPR the other day something about how Russia should "give back" Crimea.

I guess they forgot the inconvenient fact that the people there voted 80% in two referenda to stay with Russia.

In Table Talk, transcriptions of Hitler's evening chitchats with staff, Hitler's favorite topic was Ukraine. He had big plans for it.

[JackRiddler]

The good news, for now, is that Kiev has agreed to a peace roadmap brokered by France and Germany, which may lead to elections in Donbass and Donetsk and the summit with Putin that Zelensky promised, and with which he earned his landslide election against the chocolate billionaire and his Nazi shock-troops. The Nazi shock-troops unfortunately remain in the field. Zelensky, assuming he is really more serious than his ultra-nationalist fan service at the UN, faces a daunting task dealing with the "opposition" the peace moves will engender among the Nazi networks esconced in the military, police, and cultural institutions. But, for now, there's the good news of the peace deal.

The bad news is that despite having a dozen much stronger options, the Democratic leadership have chosen the Trump-Zelensky call as their main impeachment object. This may as well have been designed to LOSE: to lose the Senate hearing, to lose the 2020 election. It's a replay of the #Russiagate strategy, and it's more clear than ever that the Democrats are run by donors who want to prevent any period of open debate about the party's direction. Everything must remain focused, not on the entirety of Trumpian regime actions and crimes, but on a permanent, personalized Trump crisis, until Trump is safely reelected. At the same time, this highlights the routinely legal corruption in which literally their own offspring enrich themselves from their policy decisions (as was the case for Biden, Kerry and Pelosi's offspring, all in post-Maidan Ukraine). So these high-level factotums are willing to slash their own throats rather than displease the funders or allow an opening to the left. That's loyalty! What do they care? Retirement will be cushy.

But most of all, this U.S. domestic insanity may serve to derail the Ukraine peace process.

Anyway, the State Department drones, including their useful idiots or human-bots on this board, are going to tell you this multi-year attempt by France and Germany to find a peace formula for Ukraine in the four-way talks with Russia just resulted in its long-intended first deal solely because the uninvolved Trump is serving Putin. The only thing Trump has "contributed" to this process was to open up arms sales to Ukraine, which Obama had not allowed, thus helping to stoke the conflict.

https://www.ft.com/content/982fc92c-e50 ... 5a370481bc

www.ft.com
Ukraine and Russia reach deal for elections in contested regions
Max Seddon in Moscow and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev October 2 2019
5-7 minutes
Ukraine has agreed a process for elections in two regions controlled by Russian-backed separatists, paving the way for the first direct talks between President Vladimir Putin and his recently elected counterpart in Kiev to try to end the five-year conflict.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said on Wednesday that Mr Putin was prepared to meet Volodymyr Zelensky alongside French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel, after Moscow and Kiev reached a deal aimed at reviving the long-stalled Minsk peace process.

As part of the agreement reached in the Belarusian capital on Tuesday, Ukrainian negotiators agreed to a mechanism for elections in Donetsk and Lugansk and to confer autonomy on these areas once the polls are certified as free and fair.

The idea of fast-forwarding elections is to break the deadlock between Moscow and Kiev and open the way to full peace talks.

There can be no elections at the barrel of machine guns. [ . . .] There will be no capitulation

But Mr Zelensky insisted that Ukraine regain control of its border and that all militants are removed from the two eastern regions before the elections take place, suggesting Kiev is still demanding Russian concessions.

Four-way meetings between Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany — the “Normandy format” countries that brokered the Minsk agreement — have stalled since 2016 as both sides accused each other of not fulfilling their obligations.

This year, Mr Zelensky’s election on a pro-peace platform and Mr Macron’s desire to bring Russia in from the cold have given the talks new life.

French President Emmanuel Macron (C) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L) welcome Russia's President Vladimir Putin, at the French President's summer retreat of the Bregancon fortress on the Mediterranean coast, near the village of Bormes-les-Mimosas, southern France, on August 19, 2019. Gerard Julien/Pool via REUTERS

Vladimir Putin (R) prepared to meet Volodymyr Zelensky alongside French president Emmanuel Macron L) and German chancellor Angela Merkel © Reuters
Mr Zelensky, a former Ukrainian TV star, has spoken to Mr Putin three times since taking office in May and secured the return of dozens of prisoners in an exchange last month.

Mr Peskov said on Wednesday that the new development “was a positive fact and certainly an important step to implementing previously reached agreements”, according to Interfax. Russia “hopes to have clarity” on a meeting “in the near future,” he said.

Vladislav Surkov, Mr Putin’s special envoy on Ukraine, told Tass a date would be agreed after the sides withdrew troops from the conflict hotspots of Petrivske and Zolote, which he said would take two weeks “if events go all right”.

The new agreement mandates Ukraine to hold elections in Donetsk and Lugansk then award the regions special status after the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe certifies the validity of the voting.

Known as the “Steinmeier formula” after Germany’s then-foreign minister devised it in 2015, the move is intended to kick-start the peace process by supplementing vague wording within the Minsk accords on how temporary self-rule would be granted and fully phased in for breakaway regions once they hold elections under Ukrainian law.

This does not now mean peace . . . for that we need a ceasefire. Work starts now, and is far from being completed

Ukraine’s previous president, Petro Poroshenko, rejected the “formula”, arguing the impetus was on Russia to withdraw its troops and restore Kiev’s control of its border.

Many Ukrainians see Moscow’s demand that the largely Russian-speaking territories be given permanent autonomy through “special status” as a way to secure a veto over Kiev’s geopolitical future.

Thomas Greminger, secretary-general of the OSCE, which brokered the deal talks, said the agreement was “politically, very important” but only a first step.

“This does not now mean peace . . . for that we need a ceasefire,” he said. “Work starts now, and is far from being completed.”

Mr Zelensky won power in Ukraine in April largely thanks to his promise to end the war, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives. His opponents claim his willingness to broker a full ceasefire is pushing him to make compromises threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty.

On Tuesday, Mr Zelensky said accepting the “formula” had been Russia’s precondition for talks, but said Ukraine would not hold the elections until Moscow fulfilled its security obligations including a further, larger prisoner exchange and full withdrawal of troops.

“There can be no elections at the barrel of machine guns. [ . . .] There will be no capitulation,” he told reporters.

An EU spokesperson said the contact group outcome “could hopefully lead to further efforts towards the full implementation of the Minsk agreements by all parties” and a “lasting peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.”

“The EU remains steadfast in fully supporting the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” the spokesperson said.

The German government hailed the deal as a success. “We particularly welcome the involvement of Ukrainian president Zelensky, who has been very constructive in trying to find a peaceful solution to the conflict,” said a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Additional reporting by Henry Foy in Warsaw, Guy Chazan in Berlin, and Michael Peel in Brussels

[JackRiddler]

I remembered the Jaresko story today thanks to the Vindland testimony. Without impeaching his character, here's yet another Ukrainian-American falsely equating support for the Maidan coup government (sorry, the "Revolution of Dignity," oi) with US "national security" interest. That's wrong, and I don't care what a great guy Vindland may be otherwise. It's irrelevant. Anyway, he also reported that a Maidan government official repeatedly offered him the post of Defense Minister, which he reported to his chain of command.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FybdZFulJ5w

The uniform corporate media line on this, repeated in the Youtube intro text, is that it was "comical," a joke. You think anyone even knows to point out that picking up American officials to put in the Kiev cabinet was actually a thing for Nuland's hand-picked Maidan coup government, that they had already lifted the long-time State Department financial liaison to Ukraine and made her finance minister of Ukraine and an instant citizen? Of course not.

Otherwise, what I keep learning is it's okay to think Hunter's job with Burisma is very bad for Biden family appearances, but saying that it's improper or should be intolerable regardless of legality is already over the line to CONSPIRACY THEORY! Ack!

And it's totally established FACT that Ukraine never meddled in US politics and Russia always did, questioning this is CONSPIRACY THEORY!

[JackRiddler]

... but this thread now appears as an archive of the GOOD TIMES.

[stickdog99]

Way back in those halcyon days when "progressives" could actually agree that negotiation was preferable WWIII.