This is prelude said:
RUSSIAN OPPOSITION ACTIVIST LETTER: THE TRUTH ABOUT KIEV REGIME
A letter from one Russian liberal opposition activist (Alexey Sakhnin) to another (Alexey Gaskarov), who was arrested for inciting violence and causing harm to police officers during the riots of May 6, 2012 in Moscow, regarding his trip to Ukraine:
This is a grim picture. It turned out to be much worse and intense than I imagined.
“Alex, hello, buddy. You know, ever since I got your last letter, I took a trip to Ukraine. Spent there 9 days. And now I have a lot of live experience about how things are arranged over there. I’ll try to tell it without superfluous emotions, though it is difficult.
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Secondly, you know, the propaganda in Ukraine is even worse. After many years, when the country had relative pluralism, watching what is happening now is very bizzare. Well it is clear – all channels, newspapers and websites inciting a wild national patriotic hysteria. Well, let’s say it is a side effect of war. But what about facts? We visited the editorial office of one of the most moderate websites. The type of people from Lugansk working in Kiev, some former leftists out there involved. They claim to be against torture, kidnappings and so on. But on the wall hangs a large poster on which are written the aims and principles of editorial policy. The first among them “to create a conducive atmosphere for ATO ” (anti-terrorist operation). That means – fueling the war. Accordingly, the facts are selected for publication. All that is conducive for the “atmosphere” — is published without validation. Everything else is simply not published. Forget about the TV box. NTV and Lifenews could learn from them.
Well, propaganda is a military tool. Now about the occupation. I was not in the zone of ATO. Whether Russian troops are there, I don’t know. We were deep in the homefront. In Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov. Alex, I swear to you, what’s happening over there is a civil war. Without any intervention. The internal war. The worst — in Odessa.
7 out of 10 ‘ordinary people’, i.e., taxi drivers, pensioners who rent rooms for visitors, waitresses, passengers of public transport repeat the passwords: ‘junta’, ‘fascists’. I dont have any stats, and in this situation it would be impossible, but it feels like its a majority in the city. And you would not imagine the degree of tension. Typical words of one taxi driver: “We’re just looking forward to when it will be possible to take revenge.”
And, on the other hand, I gets more interesting. We were interviewing the Right Sector (I went there as a Swedish journalist). They are 18-year-old slacker enthusiasts. A complete copy of those who came to the LF in the 2011-2012. The same naive and inexperienced romantics. But they are reading not Kagarlitsky, but Yarosh. And their heroes are Mussolini and Franco. They say “those who don’t like the new Ukraine — suitcase, train station, Russia”. This is a no nonsense fascist organization, which is supplied with green youth in abundance. But it’s not the worst. The worst thing is the moderates.
I’m not saying names, but I have all the interviews. Picture this: a nice office in the centre of the city. At the gates is an armored car. In the courtyard – a bunch of meatheads with machine guns. And the map of Ukraine. They are the ‘community activists’. Collecting money from businesses for patriotic purposes [racketeering]. They have a great system. Enough money and ammunition and their own territorial defence battalion and a bunch of armed guys on call. Think about it — they’re nobody, they have no official status. But they have real power: money, weapons, organization. And no official authority can do anything against them. They are the moderates. “We hate Ukrainian nationalists, they are provocateurs.” But I asked them, “you have half the city of people who disagree, how will you live with them? And he says to me, verbatim: “For them we have a compromise. They sit quietly at home. If they want to talk about the ‘junta’, they say a whisper to the toilet bowl. If they go out on the streets, we will start shooting “.
You know, Alex, but it is real fascism. Without the clowns with swatsikas. And Odessa and other cities have sworms of these guys.
And the capacity of civil dialogue is limited to this: “We’ll shoot.” And they have weapons, money, organization. And it’s not empty threats. They already shot. In broad daylight.
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Alexey Sakhnin
September 18, 2014
Translated by Kristina Rus