Gray Lady's Ukraine Reporting Anchored By Junta Leader's Facebook Page

If you are a subscriber to the New York Times, and you have been following its reporting of the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine, you know that each day you can read what junta interior minister Arsen Avakov has written on his Facebook page. This is how the "newspaper of record" anchors its journalism, uncritically quoting a putsch leader's Facebook page. Today two of the Gray Lady's stories feature Avakov's Goebbelsian musings. First, from C.J. Chivers and Noah Sneider, "Deadly Clashes Erupt in Ukraine as Troops Push Toward a Rebel-Held City":

With the three-day period of mourning declared by the city ending Tuesday, Mr. Avakov, the interior minister, said he had sent a newly formed police unit called Kiev-1 from the capital to Odessa, in case fighting erupts again. 

In a Facebook post, Mr. Avakov held police officials in Odessa responsible for failing to prevent a pro-Russian mob from attacking a pro-Ukrainian rally, a confrontation that touched off the violence on Friday. 

The new police unit was drawn from the street activists who helped topple Ukraine’s government in February after months of demonstrations on a central plaza in Kiev in favor of closer economic ties with Europe and against corruption. 

Mr. Avakov said he had fired the entire leadership of the Odessa police. 

Tensions remained high in Odessa, with the sense that the street fighting of last week was not so much over as in abeyance.

With a little unbiased reporting, Chivers and Sneider could have noted that the "pro-Ukrainian rally" that the "pro-Russian mob" allegedly attacked was actually much larger -- numbering in the thousands compared to hundreds for the federalists -- and composed of soccer hooligans, and that it was the "Occupy"-like encampment of the federalist protesters that was attacked and set ablaze by the Ukrainian nationalist hooligans, prefiguring the blazing massacre at the trade union building. But Chivers and Sneider are not interested in unbiased reporting; Chivers and Sneider are interested in elevating a fascist-led junta in violently suppressing a popular uprising. This is what the Gray Lady stands for in Ukraine.

The next story that spotlights Arsen Avakov's Facebook page is this morning's "Authorities Block Flights Into Eastern Ukraine" by David Herszenhorn:

In a posting on Facebook, the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, accused the pro-Russian separatists of using civilians as human shields. “The Ukrainian military can’t fire on civilians,” Mr. Avakov said. “That is how they are restricted. And this restriction is used by our enemies. The enemy hides behind people and fires from there.”

Have you picked up the pattern here? When the Gray Lady needs to bend reality, say by blaming the victims of the Odessa massacre for their own deaths, or, in the case above, blaming the courageous federalists in Slovyansk for civilian deaths caused by the military junta using armor against its own population, it turns to putsch interior minister Avakov's Facebook page. It repeats without balance or questioning the lies it finds there and publishes them for millions around the globe to read. It is stupendously cynical, crass and pathetic that these are the depths the "newspaper of record" has to burrow to maintain its Americentrism.

Speaking of Americentrism, check out Peter Baker's "Obama Aides Tell Executives to Skip Forum":

The White House said American government officials will not attend the St. Petersburg forum this year. “Obviously, companies will have to make their own decisions, but we believe that the most senior business executives traveling to Russia to make high-profile appearances with Russian government officials at events such as this would send an inappropriate message,” said Laura Lucas Magnuson, a White House spokeswoman. 

The situation has left many corporate executives anxious. At a closed meeting in Moscow of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia last week, representatives of United States firms expressed aggravation at being penalized either way. “The understanding is that those that choose to go will be on the Obama administration’s dog list,” concluded a participant’s summary of the session. “One U.S. executive at today’s meeting warned that Putin/Kremlin will closely watch which U.S. C.E.O.’s cancel and their Russia business will be impacted.” 

The situation reflects a turnaround from a year ago, when the Obama administration encouraged participation to strengthen trade ties. The chief executives of General Electric, Deere & Company, Citigroup, MetLife, Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Visa, Chevron, Hill & Knowlton Strategies and Cisco Systems attended last year. 

Few, if any, of them will be there this month. Ryan Lance, chief executive of ConocoPhillips, has decided to skip the event, according to the company. Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive of Alcoa and chairman of the United States-Russia Business Council, canceled plans to attend on Friday, citing “the U.S. government’s requirements.” 

Boeing, which depends on Russia for much of its titanium, has registered Dennis A. Muilenburg, the chief operating officer, but a spokesman, John Dern, said, “We are certainly watching developments day by day.” ExxonMobil and Chevron would not say Monday whether their chief executives plan to return this year.

Either Obama believes that somehow Russia can be brought to heel with these types of cosmetic sleights and made to accept an illegal, neo-Nazi state on its border, or Obama is seriously trying to reconstruct the bipolar global order of the Cold War. The problem with the former is that it is obvious that Russia will not accept the permanence of putschists in power next door, and the issue with the latter is that international communism no longer exists. It is all capitalism now, baby. And capitalism -- how could we ever forget? -- is based on competition. Those business opportunities passed up by Boeing and ConocoPhillips will be grabbed by Airbus and Total. The only way to prevent this from happening is total war. Which at this point is all that the United States seems to be offering the world.

The Coming Collapse of U.S. Hegemony

Events seem to be moving in the direction of a big battle for control of Slovyansk city center. The junta military has established checkpoints surrounding the city, according to putschist interior minister Arsen Avakov. Since Avakov does a great job impersonating Joseph Goebbels, it is difficult to assess how strong these roadblocks are and how likely it is that junta troops will storm Slovyansk. But if they do, there is no doubt that the conflict in Ukraine will graduate to another level of violence.

Based on a reading of the blogs -- Moon of Alabama, The Vineyard of the Saker -- over the weekend, the sense out there is that Russia is being provoked by the United States to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to block European integration east with the Russia and China. A Russian invasion would force Europe to side with its North Atlantic partner in building up NATO military forces on Russia's border as well as severing trade ties with the Russian Federation. At this point, barring mass slaughter of civilians by the putsch government, it doesn't look like Russia is going to take the bait.

Energy supply is the obvious vulnerability in any plan to sever Europe from Russia. Andrew Higgins explores the current U.S.-generated fantasy of how Ukraine can achieve independence from Gazprom in "Kiev Struggles to Break Russia’s Grip on Gas Flow." The idea is that Slovakia has the pipeline capacity to reverse flow natural gas to Ukraine. But for some reason -- Higgins sees the baleful, corrupting influence of Vlad Putin at work -- the Slovak government has been slow to embrace the scheme. It is a long story. One has to read to the end to get to the obvious. Reverse flows depend on the agreement of all parties, meaning that Gazprom would have to sign off in it. Why would they do that?

Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom’s export arm, said he had no problem in principle with reverse-flow supplies to Ukraine but said such arrangements “require the agreement of all parties involved,” including Gazprom. 

“Normally, you can’t arrange a physical reverse flow without a new pipeline,” he added, indicating Gazprom’s opposition to the use of existing Slovak pipelines.

The main event over the weekend was the Friday massacre in Odessa. Federalist, pro-Russian protesters were attacked by Ukrainian nationalist soccer hooligans, chased into a building and the building was set on fire. Forty people died. Putsch prime minister Yatsenyuk in a gross perversion of common decency immediately blamed Russian provocation and police ineptitude. The Gray Lady dutifully echoed his words, even though video evidence and crime-scene reporting established that the slaughter was caused by Ukrainian nationalist mobs. Robert Parry, whose Consortium News web site does an excellent job keeping the February Ukrainian coup in proper perspective, asks, "Will Ukraine Be NYT's Waterloo?"

Andrew Kramer brings the Gray Lady back closer to what really happened in Odessa over the weekend with his "Ukraine’s Reins Weaken as Chaos Spreads":

Yanus Milteynus, a 42-year-old construction worker and pro-Russian activist, said he watched from the roof as the pro-Ukrainian crowd threw firebombs into the building’s lower windows, while those inside feared being beaten to death by the crowd if they tried to flee. 

“Some people jumped or tried to run away, but they chased them and beat them,” he said. Videos of the inferno, however, also show pro-Ukrainian activists trying to move scaffolding from a stage to the building, to rescue those inside. 

Only when the police managed to form a cordon to escort out those rescued by firefighters was he able to leave. If the roof caught fire before then, he said, “I would have stayed and sizzled like a sausage in a frying pan.” 

The conflict is hardening hearts on both sides. As the building burned, Ukrainian activists sang the Ukrainian national anthem, witnesses on both sides said. They also hurled a new taunt: “Colorado” for the Colorado potato beetle, striped red and black like the pro-Russian ribbons. Those outside chanted “burn Colorado, burn,” witnesses said. Swastikalike symbols were spray painted on the building, along with graffiti reading “Galician SS,” though it was unclear when it had appeared, or who had painted it. 

“The biggest thing they ever did to make me hate this country was sing the anthem,” Mr. Milteynus said. “I was going to die, and they sang the anthem. I hate them deeply.”

The United States will pay a large price for fomenting this coup in Ukraine. This is no Kosovo. In what increasingly looks like a desperate, reckless attempt to maintain its global hegemony, the USG is paving the way for its collapse. Democrats cannot win as a pro-war party. This means that Republicans will reap the reward. GOP national leadership will further fracture and discredit the country. Get ready. This is what is in store.