No Justice for East Ukrainians | Vera Graziadei

A day after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Kailash Satyarthi, in an interview with RIA News, urged the Ukrainian government to protect Ukrainian citizens and especially children: “It is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to save their citizens, particularly children. Safety of children will be their utmost priority. I will appeal to the Ukrainian government so as to ensure that such incidents against children will not occur in future.”

According to the recent UN report as many as 3,660 people have been killed and over 8,756 have been wounded in Donbass since Kiev launched its military operation in April. Even though a ceasefire was announced on September 5th, more than 330 people have died since, including 20 children. UNICEF stated that at least 35 children have been killed in the Ukrainian conflict and 87 have been wounded.

Human Rights Watch already called on Ukraine’s international supporters to “urge the Ukrainian government to strictly adhere to international humanitarian law, including by ending all use of Grad rockets in populated areas by Ukraine’s army”. Amnesty International also urged the Ukrainian government to “stop abuses and war crimes by volunteer battalions operating alongside regular Ukrainian armed forces”, such as Aidar. All these appeals, urges and calls are likely to remain voices in the wilderness.

Firstly, Kiev repeatedly denies responsibility for war crimes, even when it’s proved by independent observers that the Ukrainian Army has carried out the atrocities, e.g. OSCE confirmed that on June 2nd the Ukrainian air force bombed a public building in Lugansk, killing 8 civilians – Kiev claimed separatists mishandled a portable anti-aircraft missile system.

Secondly, even though the government keeps blaming ‘the rebels’, they don’t seem to be that motivated when it comes to investigating these crimes. Moreover, even international organisations seem to not be that keen on uncovering any new atrocities. For example, the UN promised to investigate reports of mass graves in areas near Donetsk, which were controlled by the Ukrainian Army, but when the report came out the issue of mass graves was intentionally omitted.

Complete story at - No Justice for East Ukrainians | Vera Graziadei

From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves”

In transmitting President Richard Nixon's orders for a "massive" bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, "Anything that flies on everything that moves". As Barack Obama ignites his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger's murderous honesty.

As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery - including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields - I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today's Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of an American-made apocalypse, this time in Asia.

According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of "fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders". Once Nixon's and Kissinger's B52 bombers had gone to work as part of "Operation Menu", the west's ultimate demon could not believe his luck.

The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They levelled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left monstrous necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors "froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days. Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told... That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over."

A Finnish Government Commission of Enquiry estimated that 600,000 Cambodians died in the ensuing civil war and described the bombing as the "first stage in a decade of genocide". What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot, their beneficiary, completed. Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.

Complete story at - From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves”

Russian news: Organ Harvesting in Ukraine: Troubling Revelations - Russia Insider

It’s a story that won’t die.

Bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers found with their stomachs cut open and organs missing. Ukraine’s heroes, lauded in nearly every conversation in Kiev and western Ukraine – “Slava Ukraina, Geroyim Slava” – plundered of their hearts and kidneys and livers, for transplant into the living who can afford to pay.

Profits to be reaped from such trade, in the order of 10 times the investment even when the broker has to pay a poor donor who will sell a kidney to lift himself out of poverty.

From a generous crop of the newly-dead who cannot speak for themselves - lucrative indeed.

Mass graves are said to have been found in the Donetsk region, apparently of civilians with their hands bound behind them, shot in the head, the bodies showing evidence of torture before the coup de grace was administered. Some of them have been decapitated. Some of these, too, are said to be cut open and missing organs.

You will have to dig deep, though, to find any information on that, or at least that is my prediction. Because the U.S. State Department, in a move which would be outrageous if it were not so predictable, has turned the investigation of these allegations over to the very authority which was in all likelihood behind it – the Ukrainian government.

Complete story at - Russian news: Organ Harvesting in Ukraine: Troubling Revelations - Russia Insider

Ukraine Atrocity Scandal Heats Up - Lavrov: 400 Bodies, Clear Evidence of War Crimes - Russia Insider

MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that more than 400 bodies have been discovered in mass graves near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, in what he described as "horrific" evidence that pointed to a war crime.

“This is obviously a war crime. Already more than 400 bodies have been discovered in [mass] graves outside Donetsk and we hope that western capitals will not hush up these facts [because] they’re horrific,” Lavrov said, adding there was an apparent blackout of the incident in Western mass media.

Last week, several mass graves filled with bodies of massacred civilians and independence supporters, killed execution-style, were unearthed 35 kilometers northeast of Donetsk.

"I expect [to hear] a clear, unbiased and responsible response from international organizations. OSCE is already working at the scene. We will make the truth known and, of course, make sure that the justice is done," Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference.

Speaking at PACE's fall session in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Russian lawmaker Olga Kazakova called on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to keep an eye on the investigation into this horrendous massacre.

Complete story at - Ukraine Atrocity Scandal Heats Up - Lavrov: 400 Bodies, Clear Evidence of War Crimes - Russia Insider

The Vineyard of the Saker: On the Issue of Berezin's Account of the Ukrainian Rape and Murder in the Village of Saurovka

NoBC4U Note: This article is a follow-up to the previous post and will make more sense if you read that previous post first!

On the Issue of Berezin's Account of the Ukrainian Rape and Murder in the Village of Saurovka (and on the matter of the response by some readers of the Vineyard of the Saker Blog thereto)

by Gleb Bazov

First, apologies for the mayhem caused - it certainly was sufficient to provoke two response notes from you. And, for a good reason. My own initial reaction to Berezin's "essay" (damn the [reader] who called it that - the fact that the man is a published writer and can put two words together on paper (and so can his translator) should not count to his detriment or deter from his voice; on the contrary, the effect of an exploding bomb is caused precisely by the effectiveness of conveying such information in a compelling manner) was utter stupefaction.

I waited some time before publishing it. In the end I decided that I would not forgive myself for not publicizing his words simply because the story sounded too horrific (to be true? - no, not at all, too horrific not to be censored as false by a human mind, like mine, so used to self-censorship as a means of survival in a society that abhors non-mainstream accounts and points of view and denigrates (I am using that purposefully) them in order to silence dissent). I could go on for some time, with reference to post-modern, systems analysis and continentalist philosophers on the flaws of our social organization and expression models, but the point is self-evident without that kind of verboseness.

Let us put it this way: Berezin is Strelkov's deputy. He spent some time in Slavyansk, and it was there that Strelkov chose him to act in his stead in Donetsk, at the seat of the DPR government. Inasmuch as I know Strelkov and his character by now (his harsh, but fair, decision to execute two kidnappers among the militia, the type of men he has surrounded himself with, to wit, Motorola, and the impossible success of his rag-tag coalition of patriots in Slavyansk, all being prime reference sources for my opinion of Strelkov), I doubt sincerely that he would have chosen a man (I mean Berezin) who did not conform to the highest standards Strelkov expects of himself.

Strelkov may be wrong, he probably often is, but he is nothing if not a man of the highest calibre. He admits his errors freely, rejects platitudes and undeserved praise, and insists that his talents, which have been sufficient to hold off over 10,000 Ukrainian troops, not be aggrandized (see his earlier statement I translated). Above all, Strelkov is a military man, who understand the importance of building a winning cadre. And, as such, in choosing a man to act in his stead (and I must emphasize - his deputy, not a mere common soldier), Strelkov would likely have selected someone who also matches these characteristics.

Now, all that is supposition. Strelkov could well have made a mistake. And, I am sure, that, in many ways, he would have preferred Berezin to be more active and help Slavyansk beyond the meagre assistance they are currently receiving. But was he wrong about Berezin's moral qualities? Did he choose a man who would lie, and lie in a way that Strelkov would obviously never permit himself (do I need to refer to the body of tempered, measured reports, cautious and conservative, that we have to date received from Strelkov?).

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: On the Issue of Berezin's Account of the Ukrainian Rape and Murder in the Village of Saurovka

Bloodbath Follows Ukrainian Elections | New Eastern Outlook

What can only be described as “show elections” in Ukraine have been promptly followed by combined arms operations in the eastern region of the country. Warplanes, helicopter gunships, heavy armor and troops poured into eastern Ukraine in a blitzkrieg offensive aimed at overrunning the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Both provinces had carried out successful referendums declaring autonomy from what is perceived as many to be an illegitimate regime occupying Kiev.

The day after elections, over 100 people were reportedly killed, including a large number of civilians. Local media broadcast grisly images of dead self-defense forces as well as civilians clearly the victims of artillery and aerial ordnance. In Kiev, Petro Poroshenko, “president-elect,” compared eastern Ukrainians to “Somali pirates,” claiming they were terrorists and that “no civilized country negotiates with terrorists.” Claiming that his Ukraine was most certainly “civilized,” he swore not to negotiate with eastern Ukraine indicating that the brutality seen in Donetsk following elections may just be the beginning of a more widespread armed campaign against what seems to be regarded by Kiev as a separate, enemy state.

Indeed, the military operations being conducted by Kiev appear to be more comparable to an invasion or cross-border punitive operations regularly carried out by NATO members such as Turkey against Kurds in Iraq.

Complete story at - Bloodbath Follows Ukrainian Elections | New Eastern Outlook