Once war starts it never ends,,,

Every strict necessity is cut, typical NAZI warmongers!

papers.ssrn.com

The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: Revelations from Trials and Investigation

This study examines evidence revealed by the ongoing trial and government investigations concerning the Maidan massacre in Ukraine. The massacre of the proteste

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Abstract:

This study examines evidence revealed by the ongoing trial and government investigations concerning the Maidan massacre in Ukraine. The massacre of the protesters and the police during the “Euromaidan” mass protests in February 2014 contributed to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and ultimately to a start of the civil war in Donbas, Russian military interventions in Crimea and Donbas, the Russian annexation of Crimea and an international conflict between the West and Russia. The research question is as follows: What does evidence made public by the Maidan massacre trials and Ukrainian government investigations reveal about which of the parties of the conflict was involved in this mass killing? This paper analyzes several hundred hours of video recordings of the Maidan massacre trials and information concerning investigations of this massacre in over 2,500 court decisions from the official court decisions database in Ukraine. It examines trial and investigation testimonies of wounded protesters, relatives of the killed protesters, prosecution and defense witnesses, and top officials of the Yanukovych government. The study also analyzes results of forensic ballistic and medical examinations and investigative experiments, and videos and photos of the Maidan massacre made public during the trial. It includes several online video appendixes. They contain testimonies of wounded protesters and witnesses concerning snipers in Maidan-controlled locations and content analyses of synchronized segments of American, Belgian, Belarusian, British, Finish, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian TV videos, recordings of live online broadcasts, and social media videos of this crucial massacre.

The Maidan massacre trials and investigations have revealed various evidence that four killed and several dozen wounded policemen and at least the absolute majority of 49 killed and 157 wounded Maidan protesters were massacred on February 20, 2014 by snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings and areas. Such evidence includes testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded protesters, several dozens of prosecution witnesses, dozens of defense witnesses, and 14 self-admitted members of Maidan snipers groups. Videos presented at the trial showed that times of shooting of the absolute majority of protesters did not coincide with times of shooting by the Berkut policemen, who were charged with their massacre. Forensic medical examinations determined that the overwhelming majority of the protesters were shot from steep directions from the sides or the back. Initial ballistic examinations did not match bullets extracted from the bodies of killed and wounded protesters to the Berkut Kalashnikovs. Forensic examinations of the bullet holes by the government experts for the Maidan massacre trial suggested that Berkut policemen were shooting in the Hotel Ukraina snipers above the Maidan protesters and in trees and poles. The analysis shows cover-up and stonewalling of the investigations and trials by the Maidan governments and the far right. The prosecution denied that there were any snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings. Not a single person is convicted or under arrest for the massacre of the protesters and the police almost 8 years after one of the most documented mass killings in history.

the Guardian

We must end this war - saving Ukraine's democracy is just one reason to do so | Phyllis Bennis

What remains of Ukraine's fragile democracy may not survive, regardless of the final outcome of this bloody war

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War and democracy have always been more comfortable bedfellows than they should be. Our own history makes that perfectly clear.

During the second world war, the US sent Japanese Americans to internment camps. During Vietnam, the FBI surveilled and attacked anti-war and civil rights movements. And the “war on terror” led to a massive assault on civil liberties, especially of Muslim and Arab communities.

The longer wars continue, the harder it is to reclaim those lost liberties. More than 20 years after the US invasion of Afghanistan, the 2001 Patriot Act’s attacks on civil liberties remain and US police departments are more militarized than ever.

That reality is all the more true in an acknowledged fragile democracy like Ukraine.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s governments have often been marked by corruption and repression. And since Nato began its provocative eastward expansion, Ukrainians have also faced renewed Russian aggression, including the 2014 illegal seizure of Crimea and other parts of their territory.

The US, challenging Russian influence, has backed a set of political players in Ukraine including powerful far-right forces linked to neo-Nazi organizations, who were particularly influential within Ukraine’s military and to a lesser degree within its parliament.

The 2019 election reduced some of the influence of those rightwing extremists and brought to power a more democratic leadership headed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. But challenges remain.

In 2020 alone, Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information reported 229 free speech violations, including 171 physical attacks against journalists. In 2021 and 2022, Freedom House rated Ukraine at a low 39 on its democracy percentage for nations in transition. It noted that while “laws and strategies respecting civil society, ethnic minorities, and human rights” had been adopted, they were “accompanied by the imposition of sanctions on a record number of Ukrainian citizens, businesses, and media”.

Now things are much worse. Whatever democratic openings Zelenskiy’s election may have heralded, Ukraine’s democracy is clearly threatened – certainly by the Russian invasion, but also by the corrosive impact war has on all democratic structures.

Despite pre-war polls showing large numbers of Ukrainians willing to take up arms to defend their country against a Russian invasion, Moscow’s wager was not entirely implausible given the recentness of the shift and the persistence of family and other ties across the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Russia’s War in Ukraine:

Identity, History, and Conflict

April 22, 2022 Jeffrey Mankoff
Senior Associate (Non-Resident), Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes the biggest threat to peace and security in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

csis.org/analysis/ 

There were warnings about Putin bullying Ukraine, seen  all over Europe.... but no one thought it was going to these kind of invasion.

 Luke Harding on Ukraine, Russia, Putin and What Happens Next 
5x15 Stories  5 Jun 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USFzYkacJh8

Luke Harding returns to 5x15 to discuss Ukraine, Russia, Putin and what happens next. Luke is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief; the Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war. He is the author of Collusion, A Very Expensive Poison, The Snowden Files, and Mafia State, as well as the co-author of WikiLeaks and The Liar (nominated for the Orwell Prize). Two of Harding's books – The Fifth Estate and Snowden – have been made into films. 

I agree 100%.  At times things are very simply explained.

James

YouTube

Oskar Lafontaine

From Ukr_Leaks:https://t.me/ukr_leaks_eng/1078

Lafontaine poses the same question I've asked on several forums by now.    The U.S. has troops and missiles stationed on the borders of Russia.   Would Americans tolerate Russian troops and missiles in Canada or Mexico?

He also mentions Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the chief foreign policy advisors during the Clinton years.   Brzezinski was adamant even back then that the Ukraine must be absorbed into the West's empire.   I've said a many times by now and will probably say it many times again:  The number one reason that Hillary Clinton, the Democrats and party hacks of various affiliations, the State Dept., Washington bureaucrats, and the media were so furious with the election of Donald Trump and worked so hard to get rid of him and will continue do everything they can to thwart him, is that he wouldn't sign on to their long planned war with Russia.

One of Lafontaine's main themes is that the U.S. is clinging to the idea that must remain the only true World Power.   We talk about Russia invading Ukraine, but how many countries has the U.S. invaded?   We hear about deaths of Ukrainians (and sometimes about the Russians who get killed-- recently several were unceremoniously shot dead even after surrendering), but we don't hear about Yemen and a whole long list of other countries, including Afghanistan, which Americans have apparently already forgotten about.