We all saw the pictures coming out of Mariupol today.  I won’t re-post them here.  Simple people trying to stop a gang of heavily armed thugs who fancy themselves as some kind of “special forces” but whose “specialty” seems to be in shooting unarmed – or very poorly armed – civilians.

It would be wrong to compare these Ukie thugs to the SS, as some have done.  For all their wrongs, the Waffen-SS fought well, and not only against defenseless civilians, but also in real combat.  But these Ukie “special units” still have not managed in taking over Slaviansk or Kramatorsk!  Yes, there even was a Victory Day parade in Slaviansk were Pavel Gubarev, the “people-elected governor” of the Donetsk region spoke at an official rally.  Same thing in Kramatorsk where a Victory Day celebration also took place.

Amazing, no?  We are, by Kiev’s official count, already in the second phase of the second anti-terrorist operation and the “special” forces have yet to capture a single town! 

Pavel Gubarev in Slaviansk

And then there is Mariupol.  What happened there is almost as disgusting as the massacre in Odessa.  The main difference is that at least in Odessa the junta did not use uniformed “special forces” but soccer hooligans and specially bused-in neo-Nazi thugs from Kiev.  In Mariupol civilians were shot by “official” unifomed personnel.  And for what purpose exactly?  How many *armed* “terrorists” have been captured or killed in Mariupol?

A single sniper in Slaviansk has “succeeded” in shooting a 12 year old kid in the chest.  Something the freaks in Kiev can be proud of, I suppose.  The local press is now reporting that the SBU is sending more reinforcements to Slaviansk.  It’s pathetic, really.

Also, did you know that he first batch of recalled Ukainian servimen had to be sent home after 45 days of “operations”.  It’s even worse then that: all those who did in some way participate in the “combat operations” against the people of the Donbass have been granted the official status of “war veterans” with all the privileges attached to this honor.  Truly,

Glory to the Ukraine!
To the heroes, glory!
(Ukie slogan)

This entire mini-civil war is constantly oscillating between being a farce and an abomination.  

Oleg Liashko hard at work

Yesterday I saw a video of Yulia Timoshenko warning Putin that the glorious Ukrainian people will topple his regime, I kid you not.  As for Nuland’s favorite Ukie – “Iats” – he was on the “frontlines” somewhere near Slaviansk “encouraging to troops”.

But my all time favorite is a guy called Oleg Liashko,  a flamboyant “pedo-cum-homo sexual” (now “married” to a Russian woman) who dresses in fashionable black “kind of combat” fatigues and then interrogates captured “terrorists” like TV producers or, more recently, an “ex minister of Defense” of the Donetsk Republic.  Then the videos are uploaded to YouTube, apparently in preparation for the upcoming Presidential election (to bolster Liashko’s macho credentials I suppose).

Liashko is just one particularly colorful specimen from a full gallery of freaks.  If you are interested, I can introduce you to some other rather amazing Ukie nationalists like the notorious Irina Farion (an ex-commie turned nationalist) or Valentin Nalivaichenko, probably the highest ranking CIA agent in the current junta.

Liashko in “combat training”

Several times I have referred to this regime as a “freak show” and I did not mean that as an insult, but as a statement of fact.  The folks which have seized power in Kiev are quite literally freaks and so far, they have not succeeded in doing anything at all.  Nothing.

I am beginning to suspect that they might even fail in disrupting the upcoming referendum scheduled for Sunday.  Frankly, I had – and still have – major doubts about the ability of the pro-Russian forces in the Donbass to organized such a referendum on such short notice and in the midst of a small but ugly mini-civil war, but then when I look at the freaks in Kiev and their “scorecard” so far I have even bigger doubts about their ability to disrupt the upcoming referendum, nevermind preventing it from taking place.

I have to tell you that my own record on predicting the events in the Ukraine has been rather terrible.  First, I did not even think that Crimea would join Russia.  It did.  Then I doubted that the folks in the Donbass would be able to stand up to the regime in Kiev.  They “kinda did”.  Not all, not too effectively.  But apparently effectively enough to bring the entire repressive machine of the neo-Nazi junta to a grinding halt.  Frankly, I do not credit Putin or Russia for that success.  They did not do nearly as much to destroy the Ukraine as a unitary state as the crazies in Kiev who are now scaring and enraging more and more people in Odessa and in Mariupol.  And things are only going to get worse from now on, at least for the junta.

First, Russia has announced that unless Kiev pre-pays for the gas scheduled for delivery in June Russia will turn off the spigot.  The junta, of course, refused and is demanding that Moscow reinstate all the previous discounts it had offered the Ukraine.

Second, while I will gladly admit that I have no idea what the outcome of the referendum will be, unless a majority votes against it (which is hard to imagine), I don’t really see how the junta intends to submit giant cities like Donetsk or Kharkov it it cannot event conquer Slaviansk or Kramatorsk.  By the way, I am aware of the Pew poll about public opinion in the Ukraine, but I cannot take it seriously as it contradicts everything I hear from local sources.  But, hey, if a majority of the people in the Donbass wants to say in a unitary Banderastan run by a junta of freaks – that is fine by me.  Who am I to tell them otherwise?  Still, I see no reason whatsoever to trust that poll.  None.

If we assume that a) the referendum will take place and b) that a majority of the people in the Donbass will vote to declare independence (and these appear to be reasonable assumptions), then I don’t see what the Ukies can do about it.

Third, the economic crisis will begin to bite really hard in June and it will not abate for the foreseeable future.  If the Donbass will probably survive with Russian money, the rump Banderastan will truly jump off the economic cliff over the course of the summer.  What in the world will the freaks do then to try to regain control of the situation?

Fourth, if the crisis hits as badly as it predicted to do by most experts, this will add a lot of fuel to the discontent in cities like Odessa which, in a sane world, should be rather prosperous.  Ditto for Nikolaev or Mariupol.  Even Kiev used to be a beautiful and prosperous city.

It would take a genius, assisted by a truly brilliant government having the support and trust of a strong majority of people to tackle such a multi-dimensional disaster as what is about to hit.  Instead, the Ukraine is run by a sad and ugly gang of clueless but nasty freaks.

There is simply no way that this will work.  Banderastan will implode and the only thing which these neo-Nazis will have the time to do before it all comes down is to turn against each other in a last fit of rage.

There is nothing at all the US/EU can do to prevent this outcome except one thing: to sit down and seriously negotiate with Russia with the full awareness that the US/EU are in an extremely weak negotiating position and that Moscow holds all the cards, including the crucial one: time.  If the US/EU really agreed to seriously negotiate with Russia, maybe some kind of “Ukraine” can still be salvaged, but it would have to be much smaller than it is today, it would have to be Nazi-free and it would have to be at the very least truly neutral.

Sadly, that only pragmatic solution would be too humiliating to the pompous clown in the US and EU.  For the US, that would be even a far worse humiliation than the disastrous failure of the US policy towards Syria.  With very few exceptions, almost all US/EU politicians have put their full political authority and weight behind the freak-parade in Kiev and now to admit that the “Emperor is naked”.  So, just as in the original tale,

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, “This procession has got to go on.” So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.

If that is really how this all will end, then the Empire’s days are truly counted and there ain’t much left of them.

It is hard to imagine, isn’t it?  If my logic tells me that this is almost inevitable, my gut tells me that somehow, somebody, somewhere will pull out a magic trick out of his/her hat and that, like a cat which falls from a tree branch, the Empire will land back on its paws.  Except that all Empires must come to an end and that this one has already outlived its shelf life by several decades at least.  Except that by putting its full authority behind a nasty gangs of neo-Nazi freaks the AngloZionists have totally discredited themselves.  How could any regime or any Empire survive such a shameful deed?

I honestly don’t know.

The Saker