The US has staged operations with extremists from Ukraine to undermine Russia for nearly 8 decades. It鈥檚 led us to the doorstep of nuclear annihilation, writes Joe Laurea
The United States has for nearly 80 years seen Ukraine as the staging ground for its once covert and increasingly overt war with Russia.
After years of warnings, and after talk since 2008 of Ukraine joining NATO, Russia fought back two years ago. With neither side backing down, Ukraine is increasingly becoming a flashpoint that could lead to nuclear war.
The west thinks Russia is bluffing.
But its doctrine states that if Russia feels its existence is threatened it could resort to nuclear arms. Instead of taking these warnings seriously, NATO is recklessly opening corridors for a ground war against Russia in Ukraine; France says it鈥檚 putting together a coalition of nations to enter the war, despite Russia saying French or any other NATO force would be fair game.
In Paris the other day Joe Biden said Russia wants to conquer all of Europe but can鈥檛 even take Khariv. It is this kind of inflammatory nonsense, combined with allowing Ukraine to fire NATO weapons into Russian territory, that is imperilling us all.
The danger started building up many years ago but it is now reaching a climax.
The US relationship with Ukraine, and its extremists, to undermine Russia began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles.
Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the CIA after the war, according to a 2010 study by the US National Archives.
Lebed was the 鈥榝oreign minister鈥� of a Banderite government in exile, but he later broke with Bandera for acting as a dictator. The US Army Counterintelligence Corps termed Bandera 鈥榚xtremely dangerous鈥� yet said he was 鈥榣ooked upon as the spiritual and national hero of all Ukrainians鈥�.鈥�
Instead of Bandera, the CIA was interested in Lebed, despite his fascist background. They set him up in an office in New York City from which he directed sabotage and propaganda operations on the agency鈥檚 behalf inside Ukraine against the Soviet Union.
The U.S. government study says:
鈥楥IA operations with these Ukrainians began in 1948 under the cryptonym CARTEL, soon changed to AERODYNAMIC鈥�.
鈥楲ebed relocated to New York and acquired permanent resident status, then US citizenship. It kept him safe from assassination, allowed him to speak to Ukrainian 茅migr茅 groups, and permitted him to return to the United States after operational trips to Europe.
鈥極nce in the United States, Lebed was the CIA鈥檚 chief contact for AERODYNAMIC. CIA handlers pointed to his 鈥渃unning character,鈥� his 鈥渞elations with the Gestapo and鈥� Gestapo training,鈥� [and] the fact that he was 鈥渁 very ruthless operator.鈥欌��
The C.I.A. worked with Lebed on sabotage and pro-Ukrainian nationalist propaganda operations inside Ukraine until Ukraine鈥檚 independence in 1991.
鈥淢ykola Lebed鈥檚 relationship with the CIA lasted the entire length of the Cold War,鈥� the study says. 鈥淲hile most CIA operations involving wartime perpetrators backfired, Lebed鈥檚 operations augmented the fundamental instability of the Soviet Union.鈥濃��
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Continued Until and beyond Ukrainian independence
The U..thus covertly kept Ukrainian fascist ideas alive inside Ukraine until at least Ukrainian independence was achieved.
Mykola Lebed, Bandera鈥檚 wartime chief in Ukraine, died in 1998.
He is buried in New Jersey, and his papers are located at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the US National Archives study says.
The successor organization to the OUN-B in the United States did not die with him, however. It had been renamed the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, according to IBT.
鈥楤y the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members. Reagan personally welcomed [Yaroslav] Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7,000 Jews in Lviv, in the White House in 1983鈥�, IBT reported. 鈥楩ollowing the demise of [Viktor] Yanukovich鈥檚 regime [in 2014], the UCCA helped organise rallies in cities across the US in support of the EuroMaidan protests鈥�, it reported.
That is a direct link between the US-backed 2014 Maidan coup against a democratically-elected Ukrainian government and WWII-era Ukrainian fascism.
Since 2014, the US pushed for an attack on the Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who had rejected the coup, and NATO began training and equipping Ukrainian troops. Combined with talk since 2008 of Ukraine joining NATO, Russia reacted after years of warning.
More than two years after Russia鈥檚 intervention, with Ukraine clearly losing the war, Western leaders will do just about anything to save their political skins, as they鈥檝e staked too much on winning in Ukraine. Don鈥檛 listen to them. They need a west in denial of the dangers facing us.
As president John F Kennedy said in his 1963 American University speech:
鈥楢bove all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy鈥搊r of a collective death-wish for the world.鈥�
The world may wake up when it鈥檚 too late 鈥� after nuclear missiles have already started flying.
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Consortiumnews.com, June 10. Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London abd a financial reporter for Bloomberg News
