Nationalism och geopolitik - en paradox.

We were founded in April 2006 by Kim Zigfeld, who is now the Russia correspondent for Pajamas Media and a columnist for Russia! magazine. Our blog has been linked-to by such powerful institutions of mainstream media as the Associated Press, the Moscow Times and the Washington Post [neoliberala, neokonservativa fnasktidningar], among many others.

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Richard has a longstanding interest in the Middle East and American politics, and he is a frequent speaker and writer on these subjects. He has spoken at many Jewish organization meetings, synagogues, and colleges on various topics: Israeli-Palestinian relations, the war in Lebanon, American politics and Israel, the future of Israel and the Middle East, and American political trends.

Richard was recently named a Visiting Fellow of the Jewish Policy Center, and he was a panelist for a Jewish Policy Center Forum along with Michael Medved, John Podhoretz, and David Horowitz. He has been a guest on many talk radio programs, including those of Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, and Milt Rosenberg. Richard also writes a commentary on the Middle East and American politics which is distributed by e-mail. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Kenyon College. He is married with two adult children.

INRIKES. Affischer som sätts upp i Sverige, med budskap om att stödja "frihetskampen i Ukraina", har pekats ut som ett led i en centralt organiserad rysk propagandakrigföring. Nu visar det sig att det är en liten grupp vänsterungdomar som ligger bakom den ryska "propagandakampanjen".

Under hösten och vintern har det börjat dyka upp affischer i framförallt Malmö med budskap om att bekämpa fascism och stödja "frihetskampen i Ukraina". Dessa affischer har fått både vänsterliberala Expressen och dess ideologiska systertidning Svenska dagbladets ledarsidor att reagera.

"Moskvas skugga når till Skåne", skriver Expressen i en ledare idag där skribenten Amanda Wollstad vill påminna om att "propagandan når ända till Sverige" – "en del i den propagandakampanj som Ryssland bedriver för att sätta sin bild av kriget mot Ukraina som anti-fascism", skrev istället SvD:s ledarskribent Claes Arvidsson, apropå affischeringen, i onsdags.

Nu visar det sig dock att det inte är den ryska staten utan en grupp vänsterungdomar, varav flera med rysk bakgrund, som ligger bakom den "ryska propagandan". Tidningen Nyheter idag har varit i kontakt med den grupp som satt upp affischerna på stan och de beskriver sig själva som "antifascister och socialister".

Ukrainian punitives went into Georgievka directly to the church and launched 2 packages of shells Grad.

Obviously, occupants are trying to provoke militiamen to open backfire at the side of the church.

The RIA News Agency has reported that the Patriarch delivered a speech during a meeting with learners of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the Christ the Savior Cathedral, in which he noted: “Currently there is a forceful opposition against our Church – three clergymen have been killed, over ten priests have been arrested, detained, and tortured, and many clerics have been expelled from the country. Approximately fifty of our churches are either completely destroyed or heavily damaged by precision strikes of the Ukrainian artillery.”

[...]

“Today there is no other peaceful force in Ukraine, but the one of the Russian Orthodox Church. Considering our historical experience, we do not identify ourselves with either of the sides of this civil conflict,” His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, pointed out.

Why are you here in Novorussia? What was your motive in coming to the edge of the world, about which we knew almost nothing until recently, in order to risk your life? How and because of what?

I’ve told why I’m in Novorussia many times already. So I’ll be brief right now. I came to help our Orthodox brothers and fight against the NATO criminals who bombed our land, just as more than anyone they have saber-rattled and threatened to attack Crimea. I had forgotten then the fact that NATO and the countries supporting this organization are the usual cowards. They can enter a conflict only where there’s the possibility of bombing from afar, if possible against 90% civilian targets to sow fear and panic. So they haven’t directly participated, but their influence is clearly visible here. And so several American officers were wounded here. They weren’t in battle – they’re located a bit further from the frontline and explain how important it is to destroy civilian targets. I’ve heard this from more than one Ukrainian POW, with a multitude repeating the same words.

[...]

It’s a widespread opinion that in war, snipers find themselves concealment and from there “calmly” shoot at moving targets by choice. What really is a sniper in war?

This opinion is mistaken. I’m a normal soldier, like others with automatic rifles. I became a sniper by force of circumstances. A sniper at the famous airport in Donetsk was killing two to three civilians a day. For four days they couldn’t get him. In four days that balance had reached twelve killed, and of them only one man – the rest were women and children. I grabbed a sniper rifle and went to wait for him. I studied where he was operating from and designated the point where I’d lie in wait for him. I was lucky that I had calculated correctly and saw him after his first shot. He wasn’t firing anymore after that. Then I was given an assignment to destroy snipers. And that, I suppose, is my main task. Or the hardest one, in any case. Sometimes I read comments in the press that some people see a sniper as murdering civilians. It’s painful to read such things, but as a smart man said, “it’s not important what is said, but who says it.” And so as before, I’m a sniper in a reconnaissance-sabotage brigade named Ryazan in honor of our commander. We were a recon-sabotage group with one armored carrier, and now it’s a brigade with three hundred combatants and solid hardware.

You are in Novorussia to defend the local population from fascism. You’re participating in the defense of Orthodox holy places and nations, and you’re not demanding money for it. How do you view this law?

Your question is relevant. I’ll express my opinion and relay what former soldiers of the criminal NATO army say.

Fighters who had served five years on contract in the French army arrived into our brigade three months ago. The man who was most respected in this group was a Frenchman of Serbian descent, Nicola. Now he’s the commander of an international group. We’re no longer together, but we maintain contact when possible. What is there worth saying anything about NATO after his words: “I was in this criminal army in Afghanistan and I’m ashamed of it. I came here to fight against fascism.”

What must happen with a man in order to leave a well-paid, well-organized army and come to fight in an army where they don’t pay? Concerning organization, there’s still much that needs to be done. When he arrived I told him they fight here, and he didn’t believe it. Some twenty days later, when he went to Donetsk, we met. With a smile he told me what he thought, that we scare him, but everything is precisely so. Perhaps many won’t understand why he did this, but I know. I saw him when he arrived and again recently. No one will drive him from here; his conscience has awakened.

And this conscience should awaken in Serbia. There are arriving ever more men who were in the armies of the NATO nations, and they finally want to struggle for a just cause.

Child soldiers appear to be playing a part on both sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. A boy as young as 15 has been shown training pro-Russian separatist recruits in how to handle weapons, while Ukrainian media have told the story of a 17-year-old volunteer sapper.

It is a development that particularly worries the UN children's agency, Unicef, which is investigating "anecdotal evidence that children have been recruited and may be directly involved in the fighting".

The fighting, which erupted in April, has claimed more than 4,300 lives and left some 10,000 people wounded.

"Armed groups should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities people under the age of 18 years," says the agency's Ukraine representative Giovanna Barberis.

Early in November, Russian state TV carried a report about two "underage soldiers" serving alongside separatists in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Both are called Andrey and are members of one of the most widely-known rebel units, the Vostok battalion. As is common among fighters in Ukraine, they have their own noms de guerre - Royce and Stark.

Royce leads a supply squad, while Stark is in charge of a munitions depot, official Rossiya 1 TV said. "Stark leaves his Kalashnikov behind only when he is on leave," it added.

The battalion's commanders were like fathers to the boys now, the report said. "We need more guys like them and we won't be afraid of enemies. They are the future generation," said one Vostok commander.

Battlefield training

Russian TV did not specify the boys' exact age, but in an earlier interview broadcast on Finnish YLE television this year Royce said he was 15. He was shown flanked by two young men wearing balaclavas, one of whom claimed to be 17.

Royce told YLE that he taught recruits how to handle weapons and move about on the battlefield. "I keep my eye on my trainees as if they were children," he said.

A fighter with another prominent rebel unit, led by a Russian nicknamed Motorola, said he was serving alongside children as young as 16, according to Ukrainian daily Segodnya. The unnamed rebel told the paper that children were normally sent to training camps and were kept back from frontline combat.

Under a UN definition, a child soldier is "any person below 18 years of age who is, or who has been, recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity", such as fighters, cooks, porters or spies. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits the recruitment of soldiers under the age of 15.