Ukraine Blocks 10,000 Websites, Confiscates a Newspaper

Eric Zuesse

As I reported yesterday, the Security Bureau of Ukraine, on April 7th, had seized and disappeared two Odessa bloggers, who were trying to get an independent investigation, and ultimate prosecution, of the individuals who participated in the 2 May 2014 massacre of regime opponents, and who burned, shot, and clubbed to death perhaps over 200 in the Odessa Trade Unions Building – the event that precipitated the breakaway of Donbass from the rest of the former Ukraine, the country’s civil war.

And I also reported that April 7th saw the official announcement that, “The security service of Ukraine … has discontinued operation of a number of Internet sites that were used to perpetrate information campaigns of aggression on the part of the Russian Federation aimed at violent change or overthrow of the constitutional order and territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine.”

The follow-up to that story is the news on April 9th, which was reported in the courageous independent Kiev newspaper, Vesti, that “SBU has blocked more than 10,000 websites.” It says that, “Law enforcers seized the servers,” and that one SBU official told the newspaper, “‘We have made the decision of the court and confiscated equipment.’ He promised to return the servers in two months.”

Another news report on April 9th in Vesti tells of seizures of that day’s edition of newspapers by far-right toughs at news stands throughout the city, and the story even shows a video of Right Sector toughs raiding and emptying a Vesti delivery van headed out for distribution. The report also said:

“On Thursday, April 9, machines [coin-operated distribution boxes] that were transporting part of the circulation of the Kiev edition of the newspaper ‘Vesti’ were attacked. The attacks occurred around the metro stations ‘Heroes of Dnepr’ and ‘Vasylkivska.’ In both cases, the scenario was the same: the circulation machine was blocked by two cars that emerged containing unidentified men wearing symbols of the ‘Right Sector’ who illegally seized the circulation. In the case near the metro station ‘Vasylkivska,’ a driver was beaten, and the attackers threatened to burn his car.”

On 11 September 2014, the Committee to Protect Journalists bannered, “Ukrainian Authorities Raid Newsroom,” and reported “today’s raid by Ukrainian security agents on the independent newspaper Vesti.” “The SBU conducted the search as part of a criminal investigation into the newspaper’s alleged violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The crime of violating territorial integrity carries punishment of up to five years in prison, according to Ukraine’s criminal code. In a statement, an SBU spokesman confirmed that the raid was conducted in connection to the investigation, but did not explain which actions by Vesti or its staffers are alleged to have violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Local journalists told CPJ that Vesti has a pro-Russian stance.”

Back on 5 July 2014, Vesti had headlined, “Masked men smashed and fired into ‘Vesti’: broke windows, spread tear gas.” A video accompanied that news report, too. The video showed a man outside the newspaper’s office, opening the door, being suddenly attacked by approximately a hundred men who rushed at him from hiding and beat him.

The accompanying news report from a witness said:

“I first heard several shots. Then stones and Molotov cocktails were hurled at windows on the first and second floors. After that, the room filled with tear gas, which quickly spread throughout the office, and it’s still very hard to breathe. One of the guards who tried to stop the thugs was beaten.”

The video shows all of this from the outside of the building.

There are accompanying photos of the ransacked office.

That video from the Ukraine Human Rights Commission showed “Kiev, Ukraine, 5.7.2014: Neonazis attacking newspaper Vesti,” the Right Sector’s attack on the newspaper on May 7th of 2014:

Screen Shot 2015-09-23 at 6.34.03 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyMNALYOzFU

That news report, in turn, linked to an earlier one, on 27 June 2014. That report had said: “Suddenly, four dozen masked strangers came, headed by the controversial deputy of Kyiv City Council, Igor Lutsenko.” These men “began to shout anti-Putin slogans, and then climbed onto the improvised stage” where there was to be presentation of a Constitution Day award. “Finally, radicals tried to throw bricks at our editors, but Maidan volunteers blocked that.”

The head of the Security Bureau of Ukraine, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, the man who closed 10,000 online sites on April 7th of 2015, was reported, a week earlier, on April 1st, (translation here) saying:

“SBU does not need to invent anything new. It is necessary only to build on the traditions and approaches that were set forth by the Security Service of the OUN-UPA in the 1930-1950 years. They battled against the aggressor [Russia] during the temporary occupation of the territory [Ukraine, which ’temporary’ period was already 350 years], had a patriotic education, military counterintelligence, and relied on the peaceful Ukrainian population, using its unprecedented support.”

This video recounts and shows the history of “OUN-UPA in the 1930-1950 years” and documents that it carried out most of Adolf Hitler’s extermination program in Ukraine during World War II – including 80% of the Babi Yar massacre of Jews, which the Russian poet Yevtushenko memorialized. To the people that the Obama Administration has placed in power in Ukraine, it was a heroic achievement. And yet, far-right Jews are part of it – ideological brothers-under-the-skin, and it also has the support of 98%+ of the U.S. Congress.

The head of the Security Bureau of Ukraine lied about the ‘temporary’ inclusion of Ukraine as part of Russia, and also about how ‘peaceful’ was the reign of Ukraine’s and Germany’s nazis over Ukraine during 1940-1944. But at least he was honest that he is returning to those “traditions and approaches.”

Barack Obama reigned over the entire process and installed these people into power over Ukraine. He has almost 100% congressional support for that within both the Republican and Democratic Parties, even though over two-thirds of Americans who have an opinion on the matter are opposed to his policy. America’s Establishment wants him to pursue this policy more aggressively. And the West’s newsmedia blame Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Here is a video of Ukraine’s troops shelling the Donbass village of Slavyansk and joking that they’ll turn it into a “crematorium.”

As I reported earlier, the founder of Right Sector, Dmitriy Yarosh, was the leader of the thugs who perpetrated the May 2nd massacre, and who also carried out the February 2014 coup that brought these people to power in Ukraine. Starting on April 20th (Hitler’s birthday), his men will be receiving military training and weapons from U.S. troops, whom Obama is sending in to help them and other executioners with their program of exterminating the residents in Donbass – the region that rejects the coup-imposed government. So, Yarosh helps Obama not only by terrorizing the few remaining independent news media in Ukraine, but also by installing Obama’s regime there, and now, increasingly, by fighting his war there. Yarosh is already the most powerful person in Ukraine, and yet his power is still increasing there. He’s a man to watch. He wants Putin dead, so Putin is probably watching him carefully. Obama meanwhile, is watching Putin’s ‘aggression.’

———-

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.