.
.
.
Pirouetting Poroshenko and the Kiev Nutcracker
Suite
And Information Clearing House .
Well, admittedly, Kiev’s president Petro Poroshenko, the former Candy King, is carrying a bit of excess bodyweight, but nevertheless his swivelling statements and actions of late show that his ability for pirouetting is as agile as the finest ballet dancer.
.
It’s a
talent that the entire Western-backed coup
regime in Kiev shares too. This troupe of
demagogues and rogues is more than capable of
executing the most outlandish claims and
swirling contradictions, plus explosive
spontaneous movements that can take the
observer’s breath away.
.
.
The
regime, together with its chief patron in
Washington, claims to be committed to a full
ceasefire in the eastern Donbass regions, yet
this week again saw more civilian deaths from
the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas
in the city of Donetsk. One of the targets was a
shopping centre.
.
.
On Monday,
a self-defence militia spokesman for the
breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic said: «The
situation has not seen a substantial change and
continues to remain intense. The ceasefire has
been violated 17 times by the Ukrainian side [in
one 24-hour period]. The neighbourhoods of
Zaichenko and Oktyabr came under fire. Four
residential buildings and a shop have been
destroyed. Three people have died, with seven
civilians being injured».
.
.
There were
other reports of up to eight civilians killed
from Kiev military shelling over the past
weekend. That amounts to war crimes by the
Western-backed regime, but neither Western
governments or their media seem to have trouble
on their consciences over those crimes.
.
.
The
pirouetting Poroshenko doesn’t seem to have made
his mind up on whether his military forces are
at peace or at war, with Donbass separatists or
with Moscow. Last weekend he made a televised
national address in which he declared that he
expected a full ceasefire «within days». This
was after telling lawmakers in Washington last
month that his country was fending off «Russian
aggression» and needed more military equipment.
.
.
Recall,
too, that Poroshenko promised to end the
violence in eastern Ukraine «within a week» in
his inauguration speech in June this year after
his dubious presidential election.
.
.
His
erratic behaviour and words raise questions
about his integrity, if not his sanity. It was
after all Poroshenko who personally appealed to
Russian President Vladimir Putin to help broker
a ceasefire at the beginning of last month. That
truce officially came into effect on September 5
in a deal cut in Minsk, Belarus, under the
auspices of the Contact Group and the
Organisation of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE).
.
.
Apart from
Kiev’s ragtag military forces of regular troops
and fascist paramilitary battalions not
implementing the ceasefire, it also does not
bode well that Poroshenko appeared to snub a
top-level meeting last weekend of the
Commonwealth of Independent States in Minsk.
Nine heads of states were present at the summit,
including Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It would have
been an opportune occasion to shake hands in
order to bolster the ceasefire in Ukraine, and
even to give gratitude to Putin for his peace
efforts, but Poroshenko declined.
.
.
Meanwhile,
the Kiev regime is this week seeking a
replacement for its retiring defence minister
Valeriy Heletei. Heletei is the third such
defence minister to have lost his job since the
Western-backed coup took place in Kiev on
February 22. Last month, Heletei made the
outlandish and reckless claim that Russia was
planning to strike Ukraine with tactical nuclear
weapons. Heletei’s abrupt departure no doubt
marks the level of confusion among senior
members in the Kiev regime about how to proceed
with its Orwellian-named «anti-terror operation»
in the Donbass regions, which it launched in
April and which has since caused more than 3,700
deaths, mainly among civilians.
.
.
Russia’s
Investigative Committee has filed charges of war
crimes against Heletei, among other regime
figures, for his role in overseeing
indiscriminate violence against the Russian
ethnic populations of Donetsk and Luhansk. Maybe
he is hoping that his retirement will dissuade
future prosecution.
.
.
Speaking
of pirouettes, the CIA-installed Prime Minister
in Kiev Arseniy Yatsenyuk is also a dab-hand at
spinning with dizzying speed in tight circles.
The former investment banker, whose
pro-capitalist ideology is driving Ukraine
towards IMF indenture, this week says that he
expects his country to be salvaged by the
European Bank of Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD). Thanks to the Kiev regime’s relentless,
criminal warmongering against the civilians of
Donbass, Ukraine is teetering on bankruptcy and
default. But that’s no problem for Yatsenyuk,
whose supposed market principles, don’t prevent
him from subsidising his country’s war-making
with EBRD loans.
.
.
One of the
outstanding problems with Kiev’s bankruptcy,
caused in part by its belligerence towards
Russia, is the impasse over its long overdue
payment of gas bills to Russia. Talk about
spinning on your toes.
.
.
In another
pirouetting movement, this week Kiev’s energy
minister Yuriy Prodan announced that his regime
is not going to make any prepayments for gas
deliveries. On September 26, the trilateral
group of Russia, European Union and Kiev
appeared to strike an agreement that Russia
would resume supplies of natural gas to Ukraine
on condition that the latter paid up $3.1
billion of its total $5.3 billion gas debt to
Russia’s state-owned Gazprom by the end of this
year.
.
.
Russia and
the EU also agreed a payment rate of $385 per
1,000 cubic metres of gas, which is the European
average price. All would seem reasonable to any
neutral observer.
.
.
However,
ahead of the next round of trilateral talks
scheduled for October 21, the Kiev regime is
suddenly saying that no prepayments will be made
after all. «Prepayment contradicts the
contract,» asserted Kiev minister Prodan. To
which somebody should remind him that chronic
nonpayment of $5.3 billion for already delivered
gas is an even greater and more urgent
contradiction of the contract.
.
.
Alexei
Pushkov, chairman of Russia’s lower
parliamentary house’s foreign affairs committee,
described Kiev’s latest twist over the gas
debacle as «absurd». He said: «Kiev is setting
absurd conditions on gas [debt repayment] to us
by demanding deliveries without advanced
payment. No advanced payment means no payment.
We’ve learned it well».
.
.
Which
makes one wonder where is this arrogant,
delusional regime getting its lead from? As
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov noted
this week, the European Union has continually
indulged «the war party» in Kiev with diplomatic
and economic pandering ever since it seized
power illegally against the elected Ukrainian
government in February.
.
.
And, of
course, Washington is arguably the main
indulgent patron encouraging the worst in Kiev’s
irrationality and fecklessness.
.
.
Last week,
US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland
was visiting Kiev, in effect reassuring the
regime of Washington’s protection no matter what
provocative conduct it embarks on.
.
.
According
to the US State Department, Nuland discussed
«the economic prosperity of Ukraine, and issues
like their access to gas, and their need to be
well-supplied for the winter».
.
.
Note that
the US is not reminding Kiev of its legal
obligation to settle its outrageous gas debts
with Russia. Oh no, the emphasis is on «access
to gas» and the need «to be well-supplied for
winter».
.
.
With this
kind of fawning, the reactionary Kiev regime can
only but continue to be more and more truculent
in defiance of international norms and Russian
diplomacy.
.
.
A rude
awakening is indeed needed for pirouetting
Poroshenko and his regime troupe of Nutcracker
Suite.
.
© Strategic Culture Foundation
.
